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rubysunnday · 9 months

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take my hand

summary: as much as y/n appreciates anthony's matchmaking efforts, it's hard to accept them when he's the only man she wants. luckily for her, a fall in the lake allows her to voice her feelings in more ways than one

a/n: 4.4k of pure angst/fluff and, yes, smut

Promenading was probably one of the most pointless endeavours the ton insisted on participating in. Miss Y/N Moore loved going on walks around the city. But when she was surrounded by the ton and their watching eyes and gossiping mouths, it was hard to enjoy anything.

"Stop glowering," her mother hissed, elbowing her in the side. "Smile."

Y/N sighed. But she raised her chin and smiled politely as they walked past the Featherington family.

There was only one reason why her mother had forced her out of the house: the Earl of Newburgh.

He'd been courting Y/N since the second week of the season. They'd danced together at almost every ball, gone to museum visits together and he'd had dinner at her house. Twice.

They were practically engaged in the eyes of the ton.

Yet Y/N wasn't happy. She liked the earl, there was nothing wrong with him. He was a lovely man. But there was no spark between them. Their relationship just felt like a good friendship.

She had never confessed it to her mother, however. If she did, Y/N was certain her mother would swoon.

"I do not see the earl anywhere," her mother muttered, rising up on to her tiptoes.

Y/N tugged on her arm and forced her back down. "He might not be here yet, mama."

"He did invite you to promenade with him, yes?"

"Yes -"

"Then why is he not here?"

Y/N kept quiet. Sometimes, when her mother got annoyed, she talked to herself, grumbling about anything and everything. It was easier to let her talk aloud and not acknowledge anything - otherwise they'd end up in a fight and Y/N knew how they always ended.

As her mother kept rattling on, Y/N gazed across the crowd gathered down by the lake. There were awnings pitched up along the edge of the clearing, providing shade to the families sitting under them. It was a beautiful day and the lake had numerous boats upon it, gently gliding over the water.

Y/N's roving gaze moved past and then came back to an awning nearest the lake. It, and the carriage, were both light blue. The carriage door boasted the Bridgerton family crest and Y/N's heart stuttered.

It was as if he knew she was looking.

Viscount Anthony Bridgerton looked up. He was sat on a blanket, his youngest sister Hyacinth sat by him, tucked into his side. They were making a daisy chain together. It snaked down Anthony's legs, growing longer as Hyacinth added to it.

It was as if the world stopped for a moment, blurring everything out except Anthony.

"Y/N, darling!"

Y/N jumped slightly. She turned and saw the Earl of Newburgh walking towards her, her mother practically hanging off his arm.

"I found him!"

Y/N tried not to cringe. She kept her composure and smiled at the earl, curtseying as he approached. "My Lord."

"Would you care to promenade with me, Miss Moore?" He asked, smiling at her as he offered her his arm.

"I would love to," she replied, threading her arm through his.

Her mother giggled. Giggled. Y/N tried not to sigh but her composure must've slipped as the Earl patted her hand sympathetically.

They walked down the grass, past the families and toward the water. Y/N could feel guilt eating at her every time she glanced at the earl. She didn't want to inconvience him or hurt his feelings. But she also didn't want to trap him in a marriage that was one sided.

"Miss Moore -"

"My lord -"

They both stopped abruptly, hearing the other speak. The earl laughed, shaking his head.

"Please, go first, Miss Moore."

Y/N sighed. "My lord, I apologise but I... I would rather we remain friends than take this any further. I value you and our friendship," she added quickly, "but I just do not feel any..."

"Spark?"

Y/N smiled and nodded. "I know I am running out of time," she said quietly. "And any other woman would accept your suit and gladly become a countess. But I yearn for a love match, as foolish as that might seem. I want what so many of the ton have and I am not quite ready to give up on that idea yet."

"I do not think you should either," the earl replied. He took her hand in his. "We all deserve a chance at true love, Miss Moore. I can only hope you find it."

"As do I, my lord." She curtseyed. "I hope to see you around."

It was as if her mother knew what had just happened. As the earl walked away, Y/N turned, glancing over at her. She could see the fury on her face even from this far away. Y/N swallowed as she began to walk back to her mother, bracing herself for the fallout.

"Miss Moore!"

She stilled. The voice as achingly familiar. She could smell him and it filled her with a weird warmth.

Y/N turned. Anthony Bridgerton was standing there, hands clasped behind his back, wearing a dark blue jacket.

"Lord Bridgerton," Y/N said, curtseying.

Anthony smiled. "I was Anthony last week," he said, moving closer.

"My mother is watching," Y/N replied softly. She risked a glance over her shoulder. "I just ended things with the Earl of Newburgh."

"Why?"

Y/N turned back to face him. She shrugged. "There was no spark."

Anthony nodded once. He glanced over her shoulder. "Well, would you like to come out onto the lake with me?" He asked, extending his hand out. "To escape your mother for a moment?"

Y/N looked at his bare hand. Slowly, she placed her own bare hand in his, letting him guide her hand to the crook of his elbow. She could feel the warmth of his body even through the dark blue wool of his jacket.

They began to walk towards the dock set up on the edge of the lake. The sun emerged from behind the clouds, sparkling off the water for a moment before disappearing again.

Anthony held her hand as she stepped into the boat. He kept her steady as it rocked, not letting go until she did. Y/N sat down on the chair built into the boat. Anthony sat down opposite her, grabbing the oars.

One of the workers untied them from the dock and gave them a gentle push out onto the lake. Anthony began to row, the oars splashing in and out of the water. Y/N sighed, relaxing back against the cushions, grateful to have escaped her mother's wrath for a moment.

Anthony was quiet for a while. He rowed them away from the dock, weaving through the other boats on the lake.

"What made you deny the earl?" Anthony asked, breaking the silence that had fallen over them.

Y/N exhaled softly, letting her hand trail through the water. "There was no spark," she replied. "I felt nothing but friendship towards him."

"What is it you look for?"

"A love match," Y/N replied, taking her hand out the water and shaking the droplets off. "Despite how foolish it may seem, I yearn for a love match. One that matches the stories I read when I was younger. Whilst I know it will probably never happen, younger me isn't quite ready to give up on the idea yet."

"I do not think it foolish," Anthony said softly. He slowed the oars, holding them loosely in his hands. "Nor do I think you should give up on it."

Y/N found his gaze. The intensity of it almost took her breath away.

"I must admit, however, that I do not think the earl would have made a good match."

His words snatched her out of her dream. Y/N stared at him, affronted.

"Whatever does that mean?" She asked.

"Well, he lives in Scotland -"

"Do you have some personal vendetta against Scotland?"

"Other than the bagpies and the tartan and the constant rain?"

"Anthony, have you ever been to Scotland in your life?"

"Colin has."

Y/N sighed. "Your brother does not count." She paused. "Is Scotland the only reason?"

"Oh, I have a whole list."

"Oh for goodness sake."

Y/N knew Anthony had a soft spot for her. They'd been friends since she'd come out two years previously. He'd been a desired match despite his whining about not wanting a wife. Her mother had forced them to dance together numerous times and soon a friendship had formed.

Even if that friendship sometimes comprised of a very judgy viscount who seemed to make who Y/N was courting his business.

"Anthony, when will you realise that you cannot control who I court?" Y/N asked softly.

Anthony began rowing them back to the dock. "I do not claim to try to."

"But you do."

"If you want me to stop, you need only ask."

"Anthony, that's not what..." Y/N sighed heavily. "I do not get a lot of choice in this world, please stop trying to control the one thing I do get to choose."

"I was not aware I was," Anthony replied, brow furrowing.

Y/N didn't want to say it. But she knew she had to.

"Well, you are," she replied gently. "I appreciate the concern but... I do not have long left to find my true love. And you, Viscount Bridgerton, are not helping things."

She knew it was a low blow. All Anthony wanted to do was protect her. But he kept scaring off countless suitors - sometimes before Y/N could even speak to them. It was a miracle the earl had managed to bypass Anthony at all.

The boat hit the dock. Y/N looked at Anthony and could see the muscles in his jaw clenching. He cleared his throat and stood up, pulling his jacket down.

Anthony climbed out the boat and crouched down, tying the rope back to the dock. He said nothing. Y/N hated the silence. She'd upset him, she knew that.

But she could not allow him to keep matchmaking for her when the only one she wanted was him. It hurt to see him try to marry her off to another man. All she wanted to do was be with him.

She'd denied it for months. The feelings that had begun to blossom inside her. They had become uncontrollable now, taking over her entire being whenever she saw him.

She was in love with Anthony Bridgerton.

The man who was against love, against marriage, against happy ever afters. He had made his intentions clear and Y/N knew he was not going to back down on them for her.

Her heart belonged to him and he didn't even know it.

Anthony held out his hand to her. "Miss Moore."

"Lord Bridgerton." She placed her hand in his.

Y/N stepped out of the boat and onto the dock. As she did so, she glanced down at their hands, fingers still holding on to one another.

Neither one of them wanted to let go. Even as the seconds ticked by. Anthony ran his thumb along her knuckles, hovering over the ring she wore on her middle finger.

Then, as if struck by lighting, they pulled apart. Y/N and Anthony both took a step back together, not realising another couple were directly behind them.

There was a yelp of surprise. It was a tangle of limbs and ropes and suddenly, Y/N found herself hitting the water. For a moment, she was blinded, but then she found her way upright and surfaced.

She turned her head, catching the splash as Anthony awkwardly surfaced from the depths of the lake, arms wheeling. The other man they'd knocked into the water was glowering at them but Y/N didn't care.

In fact, she was finding the entire situation highly amusing.

A crowd had gathered at the edge of the dock, her mother among them. Anthony was angrily shedding his jacket and cravat, slinging them into the water.

Y/N made the mistake of looking over.

His white shirt was near see through thanks to the water. It clung to his torso, highlighting the muscles and giving her a near clear view of everything.

Her cheeks began to burn and Y/N turned away quickly.

"Anthony, are you okay?"

Y/N looked up at the dock. Daphne Bridgerton, Anthony's sister, was stood at the edge, looking down at them, his brother Benedict next to them.

Benedict looked as amused as Y/N did at the whole situation.

"No," he grunted. "This idiot decided to tie his boat where there was no space!"

"You walked into me, my lord!"

Y/N rolled her eyes as the two man began to bicker. She half swam, half waded away back to the dock. The crowd moved back as she put her hands on the edge and pushed herself up onto it, gratefully accepting Benedict's help as he pulled her back onto dry land.

She knew she looked a mess. Her dress was covered in grime from the lake and there was a stray twig stuck in her hair. Yet she didn't seem to care.

Y/N shook her head, pulling the twig out. She looked up as Benedict straightened, giving her a smile. He held out his hand and pulled her to her feet

Y/N watched as Benedict crouched back down and offered a hand to his brother. Anthony slapped it aside, glowering at Benedict as he laughed at his brother's misfortune.

Anthony clambered back up onto the dock and snatched a towel from one of the workers hovering hesitantly nearby. He marched off, giving Y/N a tilt of the head as he passed by.

Y/N watched him leave. A shiver danced through her body and she wrapped her arms around herself. A warm jacket landed around her shoulders.

"So you have a reason to come by," Benedict whispered in her ear as he stepped back.

Y/N smiled up at him, pulling the jacket tight around her.

She knocked on the front door of Bridgerton house, Benedict's freshly laundered jacket in her hand. It wasn't long before the butler opened the door and ushered her inside, taking her calling card.

Y/N waited in the foyer for a moment, admiring the paintings and the walls. Then, the butler appeared again and guided her up the stairs to the drawing room.

"Y/N!"

She'd barely taken one step inside the room before Hyacinth came barreling at her, wrapping her arms around her waist.

"Hyacinth," Violet admonished, hurrying over. "Please do not ambush Miss Moore."

Hyacinth beamed up at Y/N before skipping away, back to her marbles.

"Miss Moore - Y/N," Violet corrected, seeing Y/N open her mouth to do so, "what do we owe the pleasure?"

Y/N held up the jacket. "I believe this is your son's." She paused. "The artistic one."

Violet chuckled, taking the jacket from Y/N. "Thank you," she replied. "I do apologise for what -"

"Oh, it was not anyone's fault," Y/N said, shrugging. "A funny accident was all it was."

Violet sighed. "I wish Anthony saw it that way. He is still rather angry at being pushed into the lake."

Y/N knew that, whilst he probably was angry at that, it wasn't the only thing. Yet, she did not say so aloud.

"I apologise for the lack of people here," Violet continued. "All of them are out. Bar Anthony, he's in his office."

"Not to worry, I only came to drop the jacket off," Y/N replied. She paused, hesitating to ask her next question.

"What is it, Y/N?" Violet asked, her mother's instinct isntantly reading the heistation on Y/N's face.

"I may have said some things to your son that upset him," she admitted softly. "I should not have done so but..." She sighed. "I cannot explain it myself, to be honest."

Violet nodded, eyes full of understanding. "You do not need to. Your relationship with Anthony is a special one. I do hope that this does not ruin it." Violet smiled. "I always think it best to be honest with someone, Y/N. Even if it's scary. It almost always helps things."

Y/N nodded. "Thank you."

As she turned to go, Violet called her name, halting her.

"His office is behind the stairs," Violet said.

Y/N smiled at the older woman. She turned and made her way down the stairs. As she got to the bottom, she turned to the right instead of heading for the front door.

It was easy to spot Anthony's office. The door was slightly ajar and she could see his jacket, abandoned on a chair by the fireplace.

Y/N knocked gently on the door.

"Just a moment, Hy," Anthony called.

Y/N stepped in, peering round the door, holding on to the edge. "Should I be flattered that you assumed I was Hyacinth?"

Anthony looked up sharply, his quill scratching along the parchment in one, thick, ink heavy line. "Miss Moore."

"I believe it was Y/N the other day," she replied, throwing his own words back at him, hoping to lighten the tension.

It didn't work.

"Why are you here?" Anthony asked, gripping his quill tightly.

"I came to return Benedict's jacket," she replied.

His reaction was obvious, despite how hard he tried to hide it. His shoulders slumped and his demeanour changed.

"Ah," Anthony replied, turning back to his papers. "Did you get lost?"

"I came to see you as well," Y/N replied. She was still hiding behind the door. "But only if you'll hear me out."

"I might."

"And if you stop being so rude."

At that, Anthony looked up again. He stood up, pushing back his chair. "What do you want, Y/N?" He asked, walking over to a cabinet and opening the doors.

"To apologise for what I said," Y/N replied, edging further into the room. "I was stressed amongst many other things and I took it out on you. Of course I value your opinion and I appreciate your assistance."

"You did not seem to the other day."

"Well, I was having conflicting feelings."

Anthony scoffed. Y/N watched him pour out a glass of whiskey and drink it in one.

Y/N sighed softly. She walked further into the room, pushing the door shut behind her. "The truth is, Anthony, that... as much as I appreciate your matchmaking skills and your assistance with this whole thing I..." Y/N trailed off.

She could still change her mind. She could still lie to him, claim innocence.

But she didn't want to.

Now was her chance to tell him. To let it all out. It would hurt. The denial would sting. But she would get over it. And then maybe, she could find another match.

"I cannot have the man I love trying to marry me off to other men when the only one I want is him."

Anthony's glass clinked against the bottle he was holding. He went very still, frozen mid-pour. Y/N let the confession settle, the silence grow. She moved closer to him, the heels of her shoes against the wooden floor the loudest sound she'd ever heard.

"I can’t get you out of my head," she admitted softly. "You haunt my dreams at night and in the day. I find myself searching for you where ever I go, yearning just to hear your voice, to feel your hand in mine… your lips against my skin.

"You torment my very being. Whenever I see you, whenever I hear you there’s a spark inside me that demands to be let out. A spark that doesn’t exist with anyone but you, Anthony."

Anthony set the bottle down and turned to face her. Y/N didn't know how she expected him to react but the tears brimming in his eyes was not high on the list.

"I know that this might not be what you wish to happen," she added quickly, stepping even closer, "and if that is the case, I will walk away right now and forget this ever happened." She paused, breathing deeply. "But I think there is something, deep down inside, that yearns for this too."

That god awful silence fell again. The clock chimed from the mantle place, indicating that it was inching close to six o'clock. Anthony stared at her. Y/N stared at him. She let her fingers grip her skirt tightly.

"I will admit," Anthony said softly, his voice hoarse, "that I have felt something too. For a long time I have denied it." He swallowed. "I loved my father deeply and his loss aches even today. I fear to love anyone else as much or to allow anyone to love me as much because I do not wish to inflict that ache on anyone else.

"But what I have discovered since meeting you, Y/N Moore, is that the ache means that the love was so great, it cannot be put into words. We know what happens in the end, yet we love anyway. It has taken me a long time to accept that. To accept that falling in love will only mean more pain, more heart ache. But for you, I am willing to accept that. For you, I am willing to love again."

Y/N couldn't breathe. At some point during Anthony's confession, her breath had been stolen away by his words.

Here they were, baring their open and broken souls to one another. It shouldn't have felt this good. It shouldn't have brought her the relief it was.

Anthony stepped closer. Y/N followed his gaze, never breaking away. He lowered his lips to hers. It was slow and delicate yet the desire was there, the need for more was there. He pressed hard, pushing her lips apart slightly, wanting even more.

Then, they broke apart. Anthony took a step back. Y/N looked at him, breathing heavily. Anthony looked at her, his dark eyes burning into her soul.

There was a moment of stillness. A moment of calm.

Then Anthony surged forward, as did Y/N. They collide. His hands wrapped around her waist as he captured her lips again. They were desperate to devour one another, to know each others bodies, to feel one another after denying their feelings for so long.

Anthony lifted Y/N up and she wrapped her legs around his waist, never once breaking their kiss. He walked back and sat her on the desk, knocking over trinkets and piles of papers. His hands were frantic, desperately undoing the hooks at the back of her dress as she undid his waistcoat.

Desire coursed through them. The need to hold one another overwhelming them both. Y/N's dress fell down from her shoulders and ended up on the floor, forgotten.

As Anthony stepped back, Y/N jumped off the desk and pulled Anthony forward by his cravat. She smiled, licking her swollen lips as she pushed him down until he was kneeling in front of her.

Anthony chuckled, his hands reaching up and pulling down her stockings from around her thighs. Her drawers followed next. Anthony's hands danced over her hips and upper thighs as he guided the material down.

Y/N's hands caressed his face and combed through his hair with her fingers as he undressed her and Anthony tried not to moan in delight. He paused as her hands came around his throat, undoing the cravat and then drifting down to his shirt.

Teasingly, Y/N pulled the edge up, letting her nail lightly drag across his skin. A tremor went through his body, desire flaring between his legs. The shirt landed on the floor next to her dress.

Anthony paused, looking at her. “I will stop if you want me to,” he said softly.

"Please don’t.”

Anthony realised just how much he liked her begging.

Y/N lowered herself to her knees, looking Anthony in the eye. He recognised the look in her eyes and he slowly lowered himself down to the floor, the rug brushing his bare back.

She knelt over him, fingers dancing over his chest. Her hands moved down, brushing between his legs. He nearly came undone there and then. Y/N undid his trousers, sliding the fabric down his legs until they were both exposed.

Y/N lowered herself onto him, a sweetness growing between her legs as she did so. She yearned to reach down and relieve it. Instead, she straightened up, resting on top of Anthony. He tilted his head back, a groan burning in his throat. He let her warm to him, to his touch, and then he arched up slightly, encouraging her movements. Y/N moved with him, their limbs becoming one, entangling with the other.

Anthony reached the horizon of his desire, feeling it's release all over. Y/N rested a hand on his chest, breathing hard. She leant down, kissing his lips, the space behind his ear, his collarbone. She brushed her hand along the side of his face, taking in every mole, every detail.

Anthony took her face in his hands. He gently guided her up, until they were both kneeling again. Then, he pushed her backwards, letting her lower herself onto the floor. Y/N laid on the rug, looking up at Anthony, her eyes caught in his gaze. He knelt over her, his knees either side of her waist, his knee brushing her bare skin.

He smirked as slowly lowered himself downward, caressing every part of her body as he went. His hands ran over her covered breasts, hovering for a moment, before moving down to her stomach. He paused at her thighs and then, when he heard her whimper, went down further, to the sweet spot that yearned to be touched.

Y/N splayed her hands out against the rug as the sweetness between her thighs was eased by hands that knew exactly what to do and a tongue that knew just where to touch.

She didn't even hear the noises she made, so absorbed in the feeling of Anthony's fingers inside her. Her hips bucked up and he pushed them back to the floor, resting his other hand against her abdomen.

Needing something to grasp onto, Y/N reached for his hand. Anthony found it and gripped it tightly, riding with her as each surge of breath came in quick succession.

Y/N arched up, her head tilted back, exposing her throat, as she crested the wave of her release. Anthony finished off as she fell back against the rug, her skin glowing with sweat.

He laid down next to her, his hand coming to lie against her chest. He could feel her heart beating through the corset she still wore.

Neither one spoke - they didn’t need to. Y/N closed her eyes and turned her head, nestling into Anthony’s neck and breathing in deeply. His cologne was stronger there, evidently where he’d rolled it on that morning. Anthony’s thumb rubbed back and forth along her back.

In stark contrast from the hunger and desire that had gripped them moments earlier, they were both settled now. Anthony’s kiss was soft on her cheek, his hands gentle as he caressed her bare skin. Y/N found herself drawing circles on his bare back, following imaginary lines along the divot of his spine.

She sighed softly and relaxed further into his embrace, closing her eyes as she listened to Anthony’s heart beating in time with hers.

She awoke hours later. The candles had burnt down and the sky was dark outside the window. She was still in Anthony’s embrace, his hand lazily flung across her stomach, fingers on her thigh. She turned her head to look at him and he blinked at her sleepily, his hair mussed.

“I suspect I might have to marry you now,” Anthony whispered, tucking her hair behind her ear. He pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“I suspect you might, Lord Bridgerton” Y/N replied, smiling back. She brushed her hand through his hair. “Luckily for you, I’m all yours.”

“Lucky for me indeed,” Anthony murmured, pressing his lips to hers once more. Slowly. Deliberately.

For they had all the time in the world now.

#bridgerton #anthony bridgerton #bridgerton imagine #bridgerton x reader #anthony bridgerton imagine #anthony bridgerton x reader #anthony bridgerton imagines #bridgerton imagines

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heart-of-the-morningstar · 30 days

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✨ Behind (Not So) Closed Doors✨

As promised, here’s a little story of the one prompt I got a little bit ago! Literally no one voted ‘no’ on the poll for this story and I think that’s hysterical, bunch of thirsty mfs (affectionate 💖)

Lucifer x f!sinner reader

Summary: You catch Lucifer acting out on his most carnal desires…

Warnings: 18+, smut, masturbation, voyeurism, fingering, hand job, (oral m & f receiving), p in v

You remember first meeting the King of Hell on the day you checked yourself into the Hazbin Hotel. And you remember thinking that Lucifer looked nothing like you had pictured. Of course he was beautiful, that wasn’t shocking, but he was so…unimposing. Not only that, but he was also kind, albeit a bit dorky as well. Not that it was off putting to you, it was endearing if anything!

Although, you hadn’t spoken to him all that much since the time you’d moved in. Lucifer seemed so nonchalant and relaxed with everyone else in the hotel, save for Alastor, who you noticed always managed to get under the fallen angel’s skin one way or another. Even you knew the radio demon was playing with fire; probably wasn’t the smartest idea to piss off the most powerful being in Hell. Regardless, how he acted around you was a little odd to say the least. It seemed like Lucifer was always trying to avoid you for some unknown reason. Did he not like you?

When you had first spoken to him all those months ago, you could tell he was tense. He rambled, a lot. And he somehow managed to fumble every other word that left his mouth. He quickly left after your initial meeting, and ever since then it had been nearly impossible to get in more than five words at a time. He had an impossibly perfect disappearing act, what with his portaging abilities. One time you greeted him from across the lobby and his only response was “O-Oh! H-Hey you! Uhh, I just, umm…welp, gotta run!” and took off before you could even say goodbye. Truly bizarre.

You eventually went to Charlie, telling her that her dad was seemingly very distant towards you. “Oh, don’t worry about that!” Charlie explained. “He’s a pretty busy guy, so he’s usually popping in and out of here pretty frequently. And he’s told me on multiple occasions that he’s glad you joined the hotel! He can come off as a bit scatterbrained, but rest assured he’s more than happy to have you here! And so am I!”

You smiled and thanked her. From the few months that you’ve known her, Charlie was never one to lie, so you decided to take her words at face value. For now, at least. For some reason, you still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was up with Lucifer. You needed to find out.

A few nights had passed and you found yourself wandering through the lobby. The black nightgown you typically wore to bed didn't provide nearly enough heat, but you didn't want to change back into your normal day clothes either. So, you threw on your favorite pink robe before you left your room, it was more than enough to keep you comfortable. It was late, way later than you should have been awake. Even Husk was asleep, the bar sat devoid of any life. It was difficult to sleep most nights, you were still grappling with the fact that you were, in fact, in Hell. You thought you were a decent person in life. Never religious but you tried your best to while you were alive. But that didn’t seem to matter. Perhaps you should have attended church with your family more often, or donated to more charities, or not cut that one person off at that traffic light. Lying awake in your bed didn’t help these thoughts but getting up and walking around usually helped just a tad.

You glanced over to the fireplace, noticing the flames dancing against the walls. That was strange, considering no one ever used the fireplace, or at least not that you’ve seen. But then you noticed one of the large chairs in front of it wasn’t empty. A white sleeve laid across the arm rest. You walked over out of pure curiosity, just to see who was awake at this ungodly hour like you. You craned your neck to see Lucifer sitting there frozen, his head down and eyes closed with his free hand pinching the bridge of his nose. He looked troubled. Before you could speak up, you heard him mumble under his breath.

“What the hell am I going to do…”

Worried, you outstretched your hand, but stopped short of touching his arm. “Sir?”

Lucifer’s eyes shot open instantly, turning his head to see you towering over him. He leapt from his chair completely startled and began stumbling backwards towards the fire pit.

“Watch out!” you warned, gripping his hand, and pulling him towards you. Lucifer held his breath, trying to process what had just happened. His head ended up flush against your chest, your face now feeling as hot as the flames in the pit. You let go of his hand and stepped away from him as fast as you could. Lucifer remained motionless. “I-I’m so sorry, your majesty! I didn’t mean for you to…I’m sorry!”

You finally heard Lucifer exhale. He stood up straight and fixed his wrinkled jacket, making every effort to not look you in the eyes.

“It’s alright, m-my dear,” he spoke softly, “no harm done. A-And please, call me Lucifer.”

“Okay. Lucifer,” you started, “I didn’t mean to startle you. I saw you over here and I heard what you said and…is everything alright?”

Lucifer was tense again. You noticed him clench his fists. “How much did you hear?”

“Not much,” you admitted. “you just sounded worried about something.”

The king let out a sigh, letting his hands relax. “Thank you for your concern, I-I appreciate it. It’s nothing…nothing that you need to trouble yourself with. It’ll be fine.” Lucifer waved his hand, a portal now swirling open behind him, leading to his bedroom. “I think we should both get some sleep now. And t-thank you for catching me. Although, fire can’t harm me…b-but I appreciate the rescue nonetheless!” He was about to step through the portal when you caught his hand once more.

“Wait,” you said quietly. Lucifer looked down at the ground, still refusing to meet your gaze. You frowned. “Sir-I mean Lucifer…I wanted to ask you something. I need to know.” You felt his hand squeeze yours; he was tense again. “I-I’ve been feeling like I’m not welcome here by you.” Lucifer finally lifted his head, his eyes almost piercing your soul. He looked distraught at your words. You never noticed how beautiful his eyes truly were, the soft yellow complimented his pure white skin nicely. You blushed slightly but shook your head and tried to remember what you were saying. “I-I just mean, you seem to avoid me every time I’m near. If I’ve done something to upset you, I’m very sorry. And if you’d rather I’d not stay here, then…”

“NO!” he shouted, now gripping your hand with both of his. “I-I mean, no. You haven’t done anything wrong! Please…Please don’t leave. I should be the one apologizing if that’s truly how you’ve been feeling. I never want you to feel unwelcome here, especially not from me. It…It’s just that…I…” Before he could finish his explanation, his eyes dropped for just a split second before returning to yours. His gaze had somehow shifted into a more panicked expression. He let go of your hands immediately and stepped through his portal in a hurry. “I-I have to go, I’m sorry!” You couldn’t get another word out before his portal disappeared from view.

You stood alone in the parlor, alone and confused. The fire had died out, and you felt a shiver down your spine at the realization of how cold it had gotten without it. But you couldn’t let the conversation end there. You needed to know what was going on with him. You wouldn’t sleep until you did. Luckily, Lucifer’s room at the hotel was very easy to find.

You made your way up to his tower, replaying the scene in the lobby over and over in your head. Things were going well, weren’t they? He seemed so apologetic when you told him how you felt. And then he just…disappeared like he always does. You really didn’t mean to push the issue, but maybe you came on a little strong. Plus, your rescue of him was a little more than awkward. Not that you minded the closeness, even if it was fleeting. The picture of his head resting against your chest flashed in your mind repeatedly. You could feel the heat rise to your cheeks once more now that you were now mere steps from Lucifer’s door.

Focus, you mentally scolded yourself, can’t think about that. It was an accident! It won’t happen again so just…focus. No wonder he ran!

You stood in front of his door now, your knees somehow weaker than they were a moment ago. Those mental images really didn’t help at all. With a deep inhale, you went to knock, but you stopped short when you heard something from beyond the door. You heard your name.

What?, you thought, How…How did he know I was here? Lucifer didn’t sound angry fortunately, but the inflection in his voice made him sound almost sad. And…breathless? You cracked open the door slowly, a little embarrassed at being caught. You went to open your mouth to apologize for the intrusion, but not even a whisper left your lips. Because what you saw in that room left you completely and utterly frozen where you stood.

Lucifer, the great ruler of Hell, was propped up against the obscene amount of pillows on his bed with his pants pooled at his ankles, his very much erect dick in his hand. His eyes were shut, he hadn’t seen you catch him in this extremely vulnerable state.

Run, run, run, RUN! your mind screamed. Everything in your brain was telling you to shut that door and get out of there as fast as you could. But your body refused to react, you remained motionless. You were completely entranced by the scene before you. You watched as Lucifer stroked his cock, mumbling a number of curse words with your name leaving his lips like a prayer.

“Hnng, G-God damn it-ffffuuuccckk….” Lucifer mumbled, his hand gradually picking up the pace as he stroked his shaft.

You tried to wrap your head around what you were seeing, but you were coming up blank. You couldn't believe this. He’s…He’s touching himself…to me?!? How is this…? Why would he…? Your brain was a jumbled mess at this point. It was really beyond your comprehension. You felt tension pool in your stomach at the sight of him becoming undone at the mere thought of you. The sinful sounds he was making went straight between your thighs, to the point where it became uncomfortable that you weren’t giving yourself any attention. The tiniest bit of you wanted to push open that door and give him what he really desired. But before you even begin to think about acting on your carnal instincts, you watched Lucifer's hips bucked up as he came all over his hand. It took every fiber of your being to hold in a whimper that threatened to escape your throat.

Lucifer’s breathing was labored, you watched him toss his arm over his eyes and throw his head back on the pillows. "What the hell is wrong with me?!" you heard him ask. "Why am I doing this?! It’s been months now and I’ve barely had a normal conversation with her! And of course, the only time I’ve really talked to her was after my damn head was forced against her…her…s-shit.” He waved his hand, a tissue appearing between his fingers. You watched as he cleaned himself up, thankful that he still hadn’t looked towards his door. Lucifer kicked himself out of his pant and swung his legs over the side of the bed, his head hanging low. “And what an absolutely fantastic exit I made! “Sorry, gotta go! My dick is hard as a rock right now because of you!” Great job, Lucifer! No wonder she thinks I don’t want her here!” He sighed heavily. “I can’t do this anymore. This isn’t right. I need to stop being a coward and just tell her how she makes me feel…”

A small gasp escaped your lips.

Fuck.

Lucifer's head shot up immediately, his panicked eyes fixating on the door. You didn't even close it behind you as you took off sprinting down the hall, praying to anyone who could hear you that he didn't see you. You didn’t stop running until you made it back to your room, slamming the door behind you. Your knees gave out from under you as you dropped to the floor. In that second, it all clicked for you. Why Lucifer avoided you at every turn, why he tripped over his words when he spoke to you, and why he practically begged you not to leave the hotel.

Lucifer liked you. Lucifer really liked you. That thought alone could have made you scream if you weren’t trying desperately to hold yourself together. And it’s not like you didn’t have passing thoughts about him. He was gorgeous after all. But not only that, you saw how he acted with the others at the hotel. He was sweet, and silly, and fun, even though you never got to experience it firsthand. Now you knew where Charlie had gotten it from.

But of course, those thoughts never stayed. He didn’t like you, right? So instead of wallowing in what could never be, you thought it best not to dwell. But now…now those thoughts were coming back in full force. The aching between your legs only grew as the very fresh images of Lucifer naked and moaning in his bed flooded your mind.

There was a knock at the door.

“H-Hey,” you heard Lucifer’s voice on the other side, “it’s me. Can we talk?”

You didn’t dare move. You hid your head in your lap, pleading silently that he would give up and go away.

You heard him sigh. “I can see your shadow, you know.”

God damn it…

Slowly you rose from the floor, your trembling hand latching onto the doorknob. But your brain wouldn’t let you turn it no matter how hard you tried. How could you possibly face him after what you saw?

“Please?…”

The way he sounded so desperate; it was impossible not to give in. With a heavy sigh, the doorknob turned and you cracked open the door just enough to see Lucifer standing just outside, his glassy eyes looking into yours. You looked away immediately.

“Hi…” you whispered staring down at the ground.

He lowered himself in an attempt to get you to look at him again. “Can I come in?”

You nodded, opening the door inch by inch until he was able to step inside. You shut the door behind him, folding your arms over your body. You still hadn’t looked at him. The silence between you two was deafening, but you knew he wasn’t going to leave until you talked.

“I’m so sorry!” you both shouted simultaneously. “Wait, what?”

"Hold on now!" Lucifer interjected, "You have nothing to apologize for!"

"Of course I do!" you retorted. "I invaded your privacy when I watched...uhh, n-never mind." When you glanced in his direction, his entire face almost matched the pink circles on his cheeks. You couldn't bring yourself to look at him any longer. "I-It was an accident! I came up to apologize for scaring you off again. But...I heard you call my name a-and I just assumed you already knew I was outside, so I opened the door and...I'm so sorry, I should have knocked, and I should have left immediately…I-"

You didn't notice Lucifer make his way towards you, throwing his hands onto your shoulders and snapping you out of your spiral. "Hey, no more of that," he soothed. "I'm not angry, and I didn't come here to scold you. This is all on me."

You felt tears begin to well up in your eyes. "B-But..."

"My dear, this is my fault, not yours," Lucifer cut you off, bringing his thumb up to cheek to wipe a tear that had fallen. He realized how close he'd gotten to you in his attempt to calm you down. Flustered, he stepped back, folding his arms over his chest. You already missed the closeness. "If you'd let me, I'd like to apologize and, you know, at least attempt to explain myself. Not that what happened was excusable. But if you'd rather I leave now, I'd more than understand. And I don't expect your forgiveness. I...just thought it best to apologize to you directly instead of continuing to avoid you and pretending like nothing happened. I'm deeply and truly sorry for everything."

You felt the sincerity in his words, and you saw the pain in his face thinking he had hurt you. You couldn't let him leave. Not yet.

"Stay...please..." you managed to respond. You made your way over to your bed and gestured for him to follow. You sat down crossed legged near the edge of the bed, Lucifer mirroring your actions. You took a deep breath before speaking once more. "I'm not angry with you either, you know."

A strange mixture shock and confusion flashed across Lucifer's face. "Y-You're not?"

You smiled wearily. "No, I promise. I mean, I'm a little taken aback..." Lucifer winced. "...but not in a bad way! If anything, I feel...flattered, you know?" Your face burned at your own candor. A quick glance at him showed he felt the same heat in his own cheeks.

"R-Regardless," Lucifer cleared his throat, "it was still wrong of me. I could try to give excuses about...my ex-wife being gone for more than 7 years now, or tell you that watching you from afar just sparked something in me that I hadn't felt in God know how long, or..."

"You've been watching me?" you teased, flashing him a small grin.

"Shhhhit, well, I uhh...only sometimes!" Lucifer tried to reason. "A-And not for very long! I just, umm, I just noticed how kind you are with everyone you come into contact with, and you're extremely helpful when it comes to the hotel! And your smile...I MEAN, uhh, C-Charlie absolutely adores you with the way she goes on and on about your progress! We both wonder how you even ended up down here in the first place. And well, you...you're," he gulped, "you're the most beautiful creature I've ever laid my eyes on..."

You sat there frozen, your body trembling slightly. Your mind raced a million miles a minute. You tried to get your mouth so form any sort of words, but nothing. Lucifer started to panic.

"I-I'm sorry! That was really forward of me! I shouldn't have-I uhh...God, this is the worst fucking apology imaginable!" Lucifer brought his hands to his face, covering his eyes and lowering his head. "Maybe it would be best if I just g-MMPH!"

You don't know what came over you, but somehow your lips crashed into Lucifer's. His hands flew from his face, now gripping the bed sheets beneath him. He sat perfectly still, but only for a moment. He couldn't help but give into you, letting his eyelids flutter closed and melting under the kiss. You pulled away after only a few seconds, Lucifer leaning his head forward slightly, still needing more. His crimson irises had grown into saucers, his face hot as the sun. Having the literal King of Hell flustered beyond belief from a single kiss was a sight you absolutely wanted to see more of.

"If you think I'm beautiful, then you are someone who is beyond beauty, your majesty," you cooed. You weren't completely sure where this sudden burst of boldness had sprung from, but you liked it. And from what you were witnessing, all signs pointed to Lucifer being completely enamored with it as well.

You went back to your seated position, but now Lucifer was on all fours, crawling ever so slowly towards you. "P-Please..." he begged, "I-I need more..." His face was now mere inches away. He rested his forehead on yours, waiting for your lips to touch his again. The faint smell of apples that hugged his skin was intoxicating.

"You want me to kiss you again?" you asked playfully. "Then you need to tell me something, darling."

Lucifer's breathing had picked up at the sound the pet name you'd given him, his eyes screwed shut. "A-Anything!"

"Tell me then," you said as you began to stroke his soft blond hair, "what were you thinking about when you were touching yourself to me?"

Lucifer whimpered against you. "Anything but that! Please! I-I can't..."

You pulled your forehead away from his, still patting his hair. "I think it's a little too late to be shy now, my king."

A low moan escaped Lucifer's throat as he inched towards you once again. "I...I was thinking...about how wonderful you would taste on my tongue...." He pressed a kiss to your forehead. "I was thinking about how...how pretty your lips would look around my cock." A kiss to your left cheek. "I was thinking about watching you...fuck...watching you ride my cock until I have nothing left in me." A kiss to your right cheek. "But mostly...I was thinking about how badly I want you to be mine..."

Your lips met once more, and with even more vigor than before. His devilish tongue swiped against your bottom lip, begging to delve in further. When your lips parted, your tongues had clashed with such voracity that it had knocked you down onto you bed, Lucifer now completely overtaking you. His hand found the back of your head and pulled you closer into the kiss which you didn't even think possible. With his body completely flat on top of you and even through your robe, it didn't take long for you to notice a certain bulge pressing against your stomach. You chuckled lightly, causing Lucifer to pull away, knowing exactly what you had felt.

"Ha...sorry...my uhh, my body has a mind of its own," he laughed nervously. "If this is too much for you, w-we can slow down. Or just stop completely! It's...It's been a while for me a-and I don't want you to be uncomfortable..."

You placed your hand on his shoulder and gently guided him off of you, putting him on his knees. In an instant, you tossed your robe to the side, revealing your cute black nightgown that left very little to the imagination. Lucifer sucked in a breath as he frantically started shedding his own clothes as well, removing his jacket and dress shirt in a manner that really emphasized his desperation for you. You couldn't help but stare at his bare chest and how it almost glistened in the faint lighting of your room.

"Do you think you're the only one who's body is reacting to this?" You shoved him down gently onto his back, his head now resting against your pillows. "But instead of just telling you, why don't you see for yourself?" You crawled up his body, dragging yourself against home until you straddled his chest.

"Oh, fuck me..." Lucifer almost inaudibly. He snaked his hands up the skirt of your nightgown until his hands reached them hem of your panties. He looked up at you expectantly, and with a final nod from you, you felt him tug your underwear down your legs. He pulled them down slowly, lifting one leg out first and kicking them off with the other. You gazed at him seductively, your glistening entrance now mere inches away from waiting lips. Lucifer's hands grazed up your thighs before stopping just before where you needed him most. Lucifer's breath hitched.

"It's alright," you reassured him. "Touch me. Please, Lucifer..."

"Ahh, wait!" Lucifer stopped his movements entirely. With a quick snap of his fingers, you heard your door lock itself. "We don't want another incident now, do we?"

You couldn't help but roll your eyes at his theatrics, but it made you giggle, nonetheless. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you're stalling!"

Lucifer laughed. "My sweet angel, if you've learned anything about me in last few minutes, it's that I couldn't wait another second longer for you even if I tried."

With those words, you felt his fingers finally find their way to your folds. It was like an electric shock had coursed through your entire body when he touched you. He'd barely begun and you were already soaking wet. His thumb found your clit instantly as he began to rub small circles around it, sending wave after wave of pleasure. You lifted your hips slightly so his figures could push their way inside of you. Words couldn't begin to describe how good he felt. He told you himself that it had been some time since he'd been with anyone, but there was no indication of this being the case as his two digits pumped in and out of you at a steady pace. He knew exactly what he was doing. You whimpered when you felt him pull his fingers out of you, only to watch him dip them into his mouth, cleaning off your slick entirely. "God, you're more delectable than I could have ever imagined! Please, let me taste you, all of you..."You blushed hard and nodded. You scooted yourself up further, hovering directly over his lips. "Still too far..." you heard him say before his hands latched onto your hips and forced you down so you were seated firmly on his face.

"L-Lucifer!" you cried weakly, trying to pull yourself up. You knew it was futile though. Damn him and his angelic strength.

"You won't hurt me, darling, I promise," he said with a wink. "Besides, breathing is overrated..." You felt his forked tongue immediately dart in and out of your drenched pussy. Your broken moans filled the room as he ate you out like it was his last meal. Lucifer switched between tongue fucking you and sucking on your sensitive nub at a relentless pace. That coil in your stomach was tightening with each movement he made.

"Lu-Luci-fer, o-oh my God, f-fuck, I-I can't." You tripped over every other word that left your lips. Your body started to tremble and your thighs shook violently as you felt your impending orgasm. "I-I'm gonna c-cum, gonna cum, oh SSHHHIIIIITTT-FUCKFUCKFUCK C-CUMMING!" You cried out helplessly as you felt your walls clench around nothing, your juices spilling out onto Lucifer's more than eager tongue. He rode you through your orgasm, lapping you up and not wanting to waste a single drop. You felt him release his hold on your hips so you could at last move back down to his chest. You stared at him wide eyed as he looked back at you with the biggest smile you've ever seen. You felt the heat rise up your neck and cheeks as you watched him lick up the rest of your release that hung on his chin.

"W-Wow, that was...fuck, that was amazing," Lucifer sighed. "Are you alright?"

"I-I'm fine," you breathed, "more than fine. You...really know how to use that tongue of yours." Lucifer flashed you a toothy grin like he had just told you the worst joke imaginable. You wanted to hide your face but damn it, he was too adorable when he looked at you like that!

"Well, you got your first wish. Allow me to grant your next one..." You shimmied down his body until your face lingered above the very obvious strain in his pants. "Let's make you more comfortable shall we?" You unhooked his belt in mere seconds, his pants following soon behind, leaving him in nothing but his briefs that already had a large wet spot in the front.

Lucifer managed to prop himself up on his forearms, his blush spreading to his entire face. "Sweetheart, y-you don't have to do that, I'm fiii-iiiiii-oooh fffffuck..." Lucifer's protest were cut short when you had brought your hand up to palm his very apparent erection through his shorts.

"Now that's hardly fair, Luci," you scolded him, "I think I deserve my fill too, don't you?" Before Lucifer could choke out an answer, you hooked your fingers along his waistband and pulled his briefs all the way down his legs, freeing his painfully hard cock at last. You stopped for a moment to marvel at his length, having to stop yourself from drooling. "O-oh wow, that's umm...that's big..."

Lucifer chuckled nervously above you. "Y-Yeah, sorry about that. I think? Like I said, y-you don't have to-GAAHHH!" Without warning, you delicately gripped Lucifer's shaft, stroking it lethargically. Even though you were moving as slow as possible, the king was already a moaning mess. "S-Shit, you-fuck...feels so good..."

"Is this what you imagined, your highness?" you cooed, now rubbing your cheek against his cock in tandem with your hand. "I wanted to help you out earlier, you know that? When I saw you stroking yourself, I almost pushed opened that door so I could give you what you really wanted. But hey, better late than never!" You chuckled lightly as you licked up his shaft to the very sensitive head of his cock. The taste of his precum was addicting, you craved more. Lucifer writhed under your touch as his whimpers became music to your ears. You circled your tongue around the tip, earning a guttural moan from the man beneath you. You glanced up and noticed Lucifer's eyes were squeezed tight, with his claws digging into your sheets.

"Look at me," you ordered him while you continued to pump his cock. His chest rose and fell faster and faster as he forced his eyes open. "Good boy. I want you to keep your eyes on me." You smiled at him wickedly as you parted your lips and sunk down on his shaft.

"A-AHHH, OOOH FUCK!," Lucifer yelped as he fought against throwing his head back in pure bliss. Your warm mouth enveloped him, the taste of him was nothing short of divine. Your head continue you bob up and down, taking as much of him as you could. Lucifer was a blabbering mess, only able to make incoherent noises. His ability to think had all but disappeared. All he could focus on was the immense pleasure your sinful tongue was providing. His breaths became shallow as your mouth lingered on his cock, refusing to move.

"I-I ca-FUCK...H-HOLY SHIT," Lucifer nearly screamed, his hips now bucking up uncontrollably, forcing you to take more and more of him. "CU-CUMMING, CUMMING...MMPH OHFUCKME!" With one final thrust, you felt his cock twitch, his hot seed filling your mouth. You sucked him off through his orgasm, taking in and swallowing every bit of cum he had. Once he'd finished, you finally let go with a small *pop*. You made your way up his body once more and hovered over his face with a giant grin. You opened your mouth to show him some cum you still had on your tongue before swallowing it down gleefully.

Lucifer's hands flew to his face immediately upon watching you. "I can't believe you just did that! How am I ever going to recover?!"

You laughed as you pulled his hands away from his face, leaning down to kiss him tenderly. He happily returned your kiss, his thumbs rubbing circles on your hips under your nightgown. Lucifer leaned his head back on the pillows and tugged at the hem. "May I?"

"Of course," you nodded. He helped raise your nightgown, lifting it up and easily tossing it over your head and onto the floor. You sat up straight, straddling his stomach and giving him a very nice view of your breasts. "I know you've already felt them once tonight, but I'll let you touch them again if you ask nicely."

"Oh, ha ha," Lucifer mocked playfully, "very funny. That was technically your fault! I didn't just lay on your chest for fun, you forced me there when you pulled me away from the fire!"

You smirked and took ahold of his wrists. "Do you want to touch my tits or not?"

"...Yes, please..."

Smiling, you brought his hands to your breasts. A soft hum emitted from both of you as Lucifer began to knead at your soft mounds, his thumbs running over your sensitive nipples. Suddenly, he started to roll them between his thumb and index fingers, causing you to squeak in surprise. He sat up quickly, pushing you back so that you were now kneeling on the bed and hovering over his thighs. He took one nipple into his mouth as he continued his ministrations on the other. You moaned at the sensation, taking your hand and holding the back of his head for support. He switched sides, making sure your other nipple got the same amount of attention. The feeling of his teeth grazing you nipple sent shivers down your spine.

"Luci," you whispered into his ear. "you had one more fantasy you told me about, did you not?" Lucifer pulled away from your breasts, his eyes wide and full of anxiety. You could feel his heartbeat racing as he buried his face in the crook of your neck.

"O-Only if you want to," his muffled voice reverberated off your skin.

"Yes, I do." You pushed Lucifer back down gently, noticing his cock was already hard again even without any further stimulation. "My, my, eager are we?"

"Very much so, yes," Lucifer whined.

"You're adorable, you know that?" you praised. Lucifer blushed hard and tried to cover his face once more before you pinned his hands above his head. "Don't you dare hide that pretty face from me, sweetheart. I want to see every single little cute expression you make once you're inside me." A small whimper left his mouth as you released your grip on his hands. You shifted yourself in order to line up your entrance with the tip of his cock, slowly rubbing it between your slick folds. "Are you ready?"

Lucifer gasped and threw his head back in response. "Y-Yes, please...need you...need to feel you..."

You began to sink down on his length, feeling him stretch you out beyond what you ever felt before. A beautiful mix of pain and pleasure coursed through you as you finally bottomed out on his cock, both of your moans echoing off the walls. Tears pricked your eyes as he filled you completely, as if you felt whole, now connected as one. You shifted your hips ever so slightly, but it was enough for Lucifer sit himself upwards and wrap his arms around you in a tight embrace.

"You really f-feel like heaven," Lucifer breathed. "P-Please...please say you'll be mine..."

A single tear drifted down your face, and your heart was threatening to burst out of your chest at any moment. You eagerly returned his embrace, wrapping your arms around him and bringing him as close to you as you possibly could. “I’m yours, Lucifer.” You cupped his face in your hands and brough your lips to his, sealing your promise. Feeling him twitch inside of you, you lifted your body off of him and gently sank back down. You swallowed Lucifer's moans as you continued your pace, bucking your hips and taking all of him with each sharp thrust. Lucifer's hands flew to your hips as he helped you up and down his aching cock.

"F-Fuck, y-you're killing me here, darling, I-HNNG...I'm close..." Lucifer sobbed was your pace became relentless. His hips were now rutting into you as he slammed you down onto him. Your eyes had crossed and drool began to pour down the side of your lips. You were absolutely and unashamedly cock drunk. The tightening in your stomach became almost unbearable, your release was fast approaching and so was his. "FFFFUUUUCCKK, g-gonna cum, g-gonna-ACK, c-can I?..."

"Inside L-Luci," you pleaded, "inside...fill me n-now-GAH F-FUCK, C-CUMMING!" Your walls clenched around his thick cock, pulsating relentlessly as Lucifer continued to pound into you making your vision blur. Your cries mixed with his as you felt him empty inside of you. The grip you had on him loosened as his wings suddenly sprouted out from behind him, catching you by surprise. Lucifer didn't seem to notice, too overtaken by his orgasm. He bit down on your shoulder harshly to keep himself from screaming while his hot seed continued to pour into you. Your muscles finally relaxed as you both came down from your highs. Lucifer's tongue lapped at the mark he had left on you, soothing the sore spot. But now that he'd given you your first mark, all you wanted to do was beg for more.

"S-Sorry about that," he smiled sheepishly. "I didn't mean to bite you so hard." He turned his head, finally noticing his ruffled wings. "O-Oh! Well...that's new."

You chuckled. "Your wings are beautiful, Lucifer." You ran your fingers over a few of his scarlet feathers; they were the softest things you've ever felt. His wing folded towards your touch, now almost fully engulfing the two of you. "Wait, are you apologizing for marking me? I'm yours, am I not? Now I have proof!"

Lucifer buried his face in your chest. "L-Love, you can't say things like that! You're gonna drive me insane!"

"Love?" you repeated.

He shot his head up in a panic. "I-uhh...is that okay?"

You kissed his lips tenderly. "It's more than okay, love."

You watched his wings puff up at your words, his smile wider than you've ever seen before. You then carefully pulled yourself from his lap and laid down ever so gently on his one set of wings while the other set wrapped around your body. Lucifer wrapped his arms around you once again, now feeling a double layer of protection and comfort.

"Thank you," he murmured against your ear.

"No, thank you," you whispered back. "It was wonderful, truly. And at least now I can stop worrying about whether or not you hate me!"

You heard a small hum leave Lucifer's lips. "That couldn't be further from the truth, my dearest." A placed a small peck to your forehead. "Do you...mind if I stay here tonight?"

You shook your head. "I wouldn't let you leave even if you wanted to," you teased. "You're mine now too." Fatigue flooded your body as you yawned and felt your eyelids fall. You snuggled your head against Lucifer's chest before unconsciousness had taken over.

"Forever," was the last thing you heard before drifting off to sleep in Lucifer's arms.

~~~

WHY THIS ENDED UP BEING SO LONG IS BEYOND ME, HOPE YOU LIKE IT ANYWAYS!

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ckret2 · 10 months

Text

At long last, we get to see: this moment.

Chapter 11 of Human Bill Being The Mystery Shack's Hella Depressed Prisoner, featuring: Mabel giving Bill a ✨beautiful makeover✨—and Stan and Ford almost dying from laughter. And thus begins Bill & Mabel's inevitable befriending. Previous chapters here!

####

Every time Mabel had to use the stairs, she paused to look at Bill sitting in his window.

He never seemed to move.

A few days ago, it was creepy. Now, it was just kind of sad.

Last year, after Mabel and Dipper's parents had heard the whole story about their summer, they'd immediately packed the twins off to therapy—which Mabel didn't think was necessary, but whatever, if it made their parents feel better. (It had taken them some time to find a therapist who would engage with their barely-averted-apocalypse story at face value rather than search for the root of these "delusions.") At their current therapist's office, before each appointment, Dipper and Mabel had to fill out checklists that they gathered were to measure whether they'd come down with a case of depression—Please read the following statements and circle the word that shows how often they happen to you. Never, sometimes, often, always.

She'd filled out these things so many times that she could practically recite the list of statements by memory. Nothing feels very fun anymore. I have problems with my appetite. I have trouble sleeping. I have no energy for things. I feel like I don't want to move. Far be it from her to try to diagnose an evil demon monster space triangle who'd tried to murder everybody she knew, but. Well. You know. Sitting curled up in a window seat, day after night after day, barely moving, barely talking, barely eating... Yikes. She could only guess how he'd answer statements like I feel empty and sad or I feel worthless.

In Mabel's mind, there was a piece of paper. On that piece of paper were the faces of everyone currently living in the shack. Herself, Dipper, Waddles, Grunkle Stan, Grunkle Ford, Soos, Abuelita, and Melody as an honorary part-time resident. Next to each of their faces, there was a sticker, reflecting their current overall mood. Right now, everyone had either a happy face or a flat-mouthed neutral face—not bad, but could be better.

As she looked at Bill, she mentally promoted him at last from "entity haunting the attic" to "temporary resident." She added his face to her imaginary paper. And she slapped a big blue crying sticker next to it.

She wouldn't stand for that. Not even from him. Not under her roof.

####

Today, Bill wasn't even in the window. He'd elected to curl up in a corner of the attic, hiding in the shadows with his stolen blanket. The window was probably too hot. Mabel typically used acrylic yarn, and she knew from experience how quickly Sweater Town could turn into Sweaty Town.

For the first time, Mabel sauntered, quite casually, across the invisible barrier separating the rest of the attic from Bill's nest. She offered her winningest smile and her cheerfullest, "Hey, Bill!"

The Thing Beneath The Blanket gave her a look that, she suspected, could probably be described as deeply suspicious. "Shooting Star."

"Yup! Haha! That's—that's me all right! You got me." Mabel laughed. (This was going great so far. This was very natural.) "So, anyway!" She grabbed one of the couch cushions Bill had been using as a bed, dragged it a little closer to the corner, and plopped down. "This is such a weird coincidence, but one time, I got gum stuck in my hair and had to shave it off! I mean, crazy, right?"

"Uh huh." Bill didn't sound impressed. "Second grade." (And Mabel was uncomfortably reminded of the first time she'd ever seen Bill. I know lots of things.) "Hey, since you brought it up, can I ask you something about that little incident?"

"Uh..." This was what you signed up for, Mabel. You volunteered for a conversation with Bill. You've gotta converse. "Sure, I guess."

He leaned forward, triangle face looming above her. "Did getting gum in your hair change your species? Did you still look like yourself when you shaved it off?" The face bobbed as he pantomiming looking her up and down. "You still look human to me! So what's your point."

Okay, so he'd immediately recognized she was trying to establish common ground, aaand he was throwing it in her face. Great start. "Jeez, don't be so mean! I'm trying to tell you I get it. Not... the species part, but the other part. I wanna help!"

Bill scoffed. "Sure you do."

"Really!"

"Why?"

"Because you're all sad and it's making me sad."

Bill, o wise and ancient being that he was, had heard of "empathy" in a conceptual sense. He was aware that it was a thing that happened to some people. He even knew that it was common among humans. But on some level he kinda sorta felt like it only really happened to mindreaders that didn't know how to establish proper psychic boundaries. He laughed in Mabel's face. "No, seriously! What are you getting out of this."

Mabel decided she had no interest in explaining compassion to an alien mass murderer. "Okay, I want Soos's blanket back. I gave it to him, not you."

"Fine. If you want his blanket back, make me one."

"What? No! Those are our Team Zodiac-That-Defeated-You blankets, you don't get one."

"Didn't you make one for everybody else on the wheel? I'm on the wheel, aren't I?" He pointed at his face. "Bam! There I am, right in the middle! Star of the show! If everyone else deserves a blanket, so do I."

"Why do you even want one? It's a symbol to kill you."

"It's got my face on it! It's not that deep." He crossed his legs and propped his chin in his hand, getting more comfortable. "So do I get to pick the colors? I'll take yellow if that's all you got, but if you get me metallic gold I think I can swing you a favor."

"I'm not making you a blanket," Mable said. "I was thinking maybe a wig?"

Bill shuddered. "Pass."

"Aw, come on! I bet I could find you a really cute wig. Summerween's coming up, I could go to the costume store—"

"Don't even think about it." Bill leaned away from Mabel, back into his corner. She was losing him. "Listen. Kid. Do you think I did this by accident?" He pointed vaguely toward his scalp. "Being stuck in a human body? Disgusting. Being a human and secreting fifteen miles of hair out of a hundred thousand of pores? Infinitely worse."

"Wait, wait, fifteen miles?" Mabel had never considered how long a full head of hair laid out end-to-end would be. "How much hair do I have?"

"Huh." Bill tilted his head consideringly. "How dense is your hair?"

"Super dense. I've broken multiple brushes."

"Could be up to fifty miles."

Mabel's eyes widened. "Whoa."

"And you've got fifty thousand miles of blood vessels," Bill added cheerfully. "Anyway, if you want this blanket back? You won't get it with a wig. All I want is to look..." he formed his fingers into a triangle, thumb to thumb and forefinger to forefinger, and held it over the face on the blanket, "... like this. Now, if you're offering to help me get my real body back—"

"Never in a million years."

"Didn't think so!" Bill retreated fully into his corner again, knees pulled back up under the blanket, like an eel hiding in a hole to await its next prey. "But hey, if you've got an offer that's a step up from the blanket, I'm willing to negotiate."

"Huh." Mabel frowned thoughtfully. Something triangly. Something triangly that was better than a blanket, without helping Bill return to full power.

She got to her feet. "Let's put a pin in this conversation and circle back to it later. I'll come back with some proposals for you to review."

Bill laughed. "Okay, business girl! Have your people call my people. You know where to find me."

Mabel leaped down the stairs three at a time, ideas already forming in her head.

####

"Hey, Grunkle Ford!"

Ford was sitting at the former controls of the interdimensional portal, studying some radar readings; but he glanced up with a smile when Mabel ran out of the elevator. "Mabel. What brings you down here?"

She dragged an office chair up beside Ford, plopped down in it, and spun a couple of times. "I need to ask some questions about Bill!"

Ford's smile faltered. "Ah."

"Last summer, when we were burning all your art of him—"

(Ford winced in embarrassment.)

"—you said he could do some kind of magic with pictures of his face? What's all that about?" She stopped spinning. "Do they give him more power? Can he fire lasers out of them, or...?"

"No, nothing like that, thank goodness. Depictions of his face granted him a different kind of power: the power of knowledge. When he was trapped in the Nightmare Realm, he could tap into our world's collective mindscape and see through drawings of himself as if they were cameras. Ironically, plastering images of his face everywhere to symbolically represent an 'all-seeing eye' is what made him so all-seeing in the first place."

Mabel nodded thoughtfully. "Did you know you talk like one of those experts they hire to explain things in history documentaries?" she asked. "You should be on TV. You'd be good at it."

Ford gave her a confused smile. "Er—thank you."

"So, if Bill's already here, making new pictures of his face doesn't do anything?"

He supposed she was wondering about the zodiac blankets she'd spread around town. "Probably not. At a minimum, he'd have to be in the mindscape to be at the right 'angle' to see through the eyes. As he is now, trapped in a human form?" Ford let out a slow, thoughtful sigh. "It's hard to say for sure, without knowing how he got to be this way or what kinds of powers he's still hiding... but based on everything I've seen so far, I doubt they do anything for him."

"And if somebody put a picture of him on his face, it wouldn't do anything at all! Because that's like, his face. He already has eyes there."

Ford chuckled. "I suppose that's true. It would be like he'd grown a third eyeball, that's all." He paused. Put a picture of him on his face? "Why do you ask?"

Too late; she was halfway to the elevator. "Thanks, Grunkle Ford! I'll see you at dinner!" And she was gone.

####

"What's all this?" Bartholomew asked.

Mabel was dumping a bag of costume makeup and cheap convenience store makeup palettes onto her bed. They sparkled in varying hues of tacky gold glitter. "Art project!" She scooped Bartholomew out of his cradle by Dipper's bed, climbed the rickety ladder to the storage loft over their bedroom, and set him down leaning against a box. "You're on guard duty. Stay quiet and if anything goes wrong, get Dipper."

"How do you expect me to get Dipper? I'm a doll. I can't move."

"Come on, Mew-Mew. You think we haven't noticed that you teleport when nobody's looking?"

Bartholomew paused. "Touché."

Mabel rummaged through her art supplies; put tape, glue, and a couple of flattened cardboard boxes on the bed; added all the yellow crayons, markers, and paints she could find; and finally, satisfied, she ran out of the room. "Bill!"

"Still here."

"I've got the perfect solution. I'm giving you..." Mabel posed, hands on her hips. "A makeover!"

Bill waited for the follow up. There was no follow up. "Heh."

"Laugh now, but before I'm finished, I'm gonna make you more beautiful than your wildest dreams!"

"Kid, with all due respect, your idea of 'wild' taps out where my dreams are just getting started."

"Then I'll just have to up my game, won't I?" Mabel held out her hand. "Just give me that blanket, show me that weird bald head of yours, and let me make it into a canvas for high art! Trust me!"

Bill contemplated her extended hand. Did he trust her? In most situations, he considered trust irrelevant. He expected most people to do whatever they thought would benefit themselves the most; sometimes that meant keeping their word, and sometimes it didn't.

On the other hand. Was he really curious to find out where she was going with this? Yes. And the worst thing she could possibly do to him was make him very slightly more ugly than he already was. And playing along would fill his empty afternoon.

"Okay, kid." He reluctantly handed the blanket over. "You haven't given me a bad makeover so far." (He hadn't actually seen her marker mask, but it never hurt to flatter the person about to paint all over you.) He stood and stretched. "Show me what you've got. But if I don't like it, you owe me a blanket."

"Yes!" She grabbed his hand—his whole arm immediately went stiff—and dragged him toward the bedroom. "Welcome to my salon!"

####

Sure enough, just like Ford had said—when Stan checked Bill's attic nest, there was no sign of him.

Stan didn't like that one bit. Where the hell had their prisoner gotten off to?

As Stan approached the attic bedroom, he could hear Mabel talking: "More glitter?! That's crazay! Okay, here goes! I bet you could pull off such a glam rock look." (That explained where the kids were. He'd been starting to wonder.) "Hold still, I'm gonna try something I saw on a Russian supermodel—"

"Kids," Stan called, "do you know where the demon went?" He opened the door. "Poindexter says he can't find him anywhere, and—"

Mabel was kneeling on the floor, surrounded by the widest variety of makeup brushes and palettes Stan had ever seen. Her fingers and sleeve cuffs were coated in gold glitter and paint.

Kneeling in front of her, with his legs splayed awkwardly and his hands on the floor like he wasn't sure how to lower this body down to Mabel's height, was Bill. His face was liberally coated in acrylic gold paint and amateurishly contoured with a mix of craft glitter and golden eyeshadow. One eye was shut—the eyelashes delicately dusted with more gold eyeshadow to help it blend in—while the other was coated in a layer of mascara so thick it was a miracle his lashes didn't glue shut when he blinked.

And to cap off the gilded absurdity, his face was sticking through a hole in the middle of a cardboard triangle helmet, painted sunflower yellow with bricks shakily traced on in marker. Bill looked like the poor kid assigned the part of "the pyramid" in a fourth grade class play about ancient Egypt.

Mabel and Bill stared at Stan.

Stan stared back.

He covered a snort with a cough. "I'll—I'll tell Ford you've got it handled." He slammed the door.

He let out a bellow of laughter.

Mabel put a hand on Bill's shoulder. "He doesn't understand avant-garde fashion. You look like a million dollars."

"I know," Bill said. "All the same—maybe a hat would class things up a little?"

Mabel reached for a sheet of black construction paper. "You're so right."

####

"Well?" Mabel leaned around Bill, trying to see what he looked like in the full-length mirror. "What do you think?"

Bill stared in the mirror. A horrific abomination of flaking paint, cakey makeup, and taped-up cardboard stared back.

He grinned so wide it cracked his face paint. "I think that's the hottest human being in history."

"Yes!" Mabel pumped a fist into the air.

####

Ford said, "Stanley, what is it?"

Stan wheezed until his lungs ran out of air.

Concerned, Ford leaned across the kitchen table, lacing his hands together. "Did you find Bill?"

"M—Mhmm."

"He hasn't hurt Mabel, has he?" Ford asked, flashing back to their conversation earlier. "Or—or Dipper? Anyone?"

Stan bit his lip and shook his head. Tears of laughter pricked the corners of his eyes.

"Did he... put some kind of laughing curse on you?"

Stan shook his head more emphatically. "H—" He couldn't get one syllable out before he had to choke back his laughter again. He pounded on the table.

Grasping at straws and defaulting to the first worst case scenario he could think of, Ford said, "He hasn't found a way back to his true form, has he?"

Stan let out a noise like a balloon that had been untied and unleashed to fly around the room. "I MEAN—"

"Gooood afternoon, gentlemen!" Beaming brightly enough to rival the sun, twirling an umbrella like a cane, Bill strutted in.

Ford clapped one hand on Stan's shoulder, clapped the other over his mouth, and turned away, shoulders shaking. Stan smacked Ford's arm in sympathetic hysteria.

"I see we're all in high spirits today!" With the brazen confidence of an illegitimate prince marching into a throne room to demand his crown, Bill strolled through the kitchen, barely sparing the Stan twins a glance. Mabel followed behind him, grinning from ear to ear. "I wouldn't mind some spirits, myself." He paused in front of the fridge. "Could someone—?"

As the closest person to the fridge, Ford pulled it open, then turned to watch so he could make sure Bill didn't do anything he shouldn't with the food. This required him to look in Bill's direction. He curled his lips into his mouth and bit down. His eyes watered.

"Finally." Bill hungrily surveyed the inner contents of the fridge, grabbed an armload of condiments, a jar of pickles, and a tub of leftover chicken nuggets, and dumped them on the nearest counter. He tried to reach for a bottle of spoiled corn syrup toward the back of the fridge, banged the sides of his cardboard helmet on the fridge's doorframe, and quickly backed off and felt the corners to make sure they weren't too damaged. He had to turn sideways to reach the bottle without hitting the edges of the fridge. One corner of his mask tipped over a bottle of apple juice. Watching this performance very nearly killed the Stans.

"There." Bill triumphantly set the bottle on the counter, grabbed a can of alphabet spaghetti off an open shelf, and asked, "Where do you have the bowls hidden?" He rapped on one of the cabinet doors with his umbrella.

The sight of the umbrella knocked Ford out of some of his hysteria. "Where did you—?" He snatched the umbrella out of Bill's hands. "No weapons."

Bill gave Ford a withering one-eyed look (Ford suspected his other eye was glued shut with paint), then elected to ignore him. "Shooting Star?"

"They're down here!" Mabel opened one of the base cabinets. Bill retrieved a bowl and started filled it with his condiment haul.

"Okay," Stan said, voice strained with suppressed laughter. "Okay, what—what are we looking at?"

"A masterpiece of cosmetic art," Bill said. Mabel's grin widened.

Ford elbowed Stan across the table. "Do you remember the 'living statue' performers on the Glass Shard Beach boardwalk?" he asked. "The ones who'd paint all their skin and clothes gold—?"

"Oh yeah!" Stan let out a bark of laughter. "That's exactly what he looks like!"

In his bowl, Bill had layered mayonnaise, Tabasco sauce, mustard, sour cream, and maple syrup, and carefully stuck in as many chicken nuggets as he could without the mix slopping over the edges. He got Mabel's help to stick it in the microwave, then turned toward the Stans with a smug grin. "So you agree that I look like a work of art."

"No," Stan said, "they looked like idiots, and so do you."

Bill scoffed. "You don't know anything! You look at a human body, and all you see is a human with things stuck on it. I can look at a human body and see a canvas. I've stripped this vessel of its association with humanity and transformed it into an idol of myself."

Mabel loudly cleared her throat.

"Okay, she did most of the work."

Ford seriously considered the artistic merit of Bill's proposed "human body sans humanity as art material" paradigm. After a moment of deliberation, he said, "You have cardboard taped to your face."

Stan slapped the table. "HA!"

Bill opened a can of alphabet spaghetti, slopped half into a glass, filled the rest with incredibly spoiled corn syrup, and then filled the can with corn syrup as well. The mixes bubbled threateningly. The absolute picture of good cheer, Bill announced, "I'm the most beautiful thing any of you have ever seen. It's just too bad your closed little minds can't enjoy the marvel in front of you." He stirred his toxic alphabet spaghetti concoction with a pickle spear.

Stan watched Bill mix his drink in mild alarm. "What in the world are you making?"

Bill held his wrist over the glass and a knife to his wrist. "A Bloody Mary."

Stan's alarm increased. "No you aren't."

"That's your opinion."

"Where did you get—!" Ford leaned over to snatch the knife out of Bill's hand.

"It was in the fridge, it was sticking out of the leftover casserole!" Bill rolled his eye. "Re-lax! I wasn't pointing it at you." He lifted his drink, nearly poured it into his eye, caught himself at Mabel's shout of alarm, took a sip through the correct hole, then inspected the thick gold lip stain left on the rim. "Huh." He looked at Mabel.

She shrugged. "I could have set the makeup with baby powder, but I thought it might dim some of the sparkle."

"You chose form over function. I respect that." He sipped his drink more carefully.

The microwave went off, Mabel opened the door, and Bill scooped up his condiment-and-nugget stew and both alleged Bloody Marys. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go be handsome somewhere else—"

The corner of his cardboard helmet banged into the kitchen doorway. He dropped one of his drinks, stumbled against the wall, and looked in dismay at his syrup-and-spaghetti-sauce-soaked skirt. He turned to Mabel. "How's my head?"

She grimaced. "We... can fix that with tape."

Bill sighed. "Come on, let's do it before my nuggets get cold."

"Now hold on!" Ford stood up. "Are you going to clean this mess up?"

"No!" Bill was out of the room. Ford could already hear him tripping on the stairs. "You don't trust me with a mop!"

Well. It was true, they didn't trust him with a mop. Sighing, Ford trudged across the room. "I'll get it."

Stan said, "You know, I think I'm glad he looks like an idiot. He's been so mopey the last couple of days, I was almost starting to feel bad for him."

"Thank goodness, you too," Ford muttered. "I was afraid I was going soft."

"Nah, he really was that pathetic," Stan said. "Like a sad show poodle that doesn't understand why it's been shaved in weird shapes."

Ford barked a laugh.

Once the floor was clean, Ford confessed, "I've—actually really worried about that. Going soft, I mean. I'm... afraid that Bill could find a way back into my head."

"Literally or emotionally?"

"Emotionally." Ford paused. "Both, actually—but this time I mean emotionally. The night he burned his hair off, I..." He winced at himself; but he needed to tell Stan. There was no one else he trusted to give him a reality check. Maybe Fiddleford, but... Ford hadn't figured out how to approach him about all this yet.

He put back the mop, to have an excuse to pause and gather his words. "I... brought him something to eat," Ford mumbled. "And, told him I knew what it was like to be trapped in an alien universe, and—that he should take better care of himself, for his own sake—and I don't know why I said that, anything good he does for himself just makes things harder for us, it's not as though I forgot that, but—What? Stanley, why is this funny."

Stan had started laughing; but he cut it off a cough. "Sorry. It's just—do you remember how Mom would go 'Well, I can tell you two are related' any time we did something particularly—you know—twinnish?"

"Don't tell me you've been making sandwiches for Bill."

"Ha! No, but I've given my arch nemesis a pep talk when he was having a mental breakdown. I felt bad for him!"

Ford chuckled. "Really?" He dropped back into his seat. "I didn't know you have an arch nemesis, who's that?"

Stan considered Ford's reaction if he admitted that his nemesis was that ten-year-old with a crush on Mabel, and said, "Ah, he's been out of my hair for ages. So what, is that all you talked about?"

"Somehow it turned into him trying to convince me he'd been planning a welcome party when I fell through the portal."

"Ha! And did you believe him?"

"Absolutely not." Ford paused thoughtfully. "But—part of me wonders whether he believes it himself."

"He seems like the kind of guy to buy his own bull." Stan shrugged. "I don't think you have to worry about him getting in your head. Just don't let him fast-talk you into any decisions and don't buy anything he's selling without telling him you'll think it over for twenty-four hours. And the more he says decide now, the harder you say no. That's how the pros get you, they don't give you room to breathe, let alone think."

Ford was pretty sure Stan was just describing the Mystery Shack's souvenir sales strategy; but he nodded slowly. "I know exactly what you're talking about. When I gave him permission to pilot my body, between the first time he mentioned it was an option and the moment I agreed to it... well, I was asleep at the time, so I can't be sure how long it took—but I'd guess it was less than fifteen minutes. In retrospect, I couldn't believe that I'd agreed so thoughtlessly. But I suppose that's exactly what he wanted." No room to breathe was a good way to describe it. Never mind being nose-to-nose with somebody trying to pressure you into a sale—how do you take a step back to get a little space from somebody who's already inside your head?

"Did he make it sound like a limited-time-only deal? You know—'buy now while the price is low, you'll regret missing this offer'? But with more mystical woo-woo phrasing, I mean."

"Not exactly, but..." Ford tried to remember back that far, grasping for the details of the conversation—the real conversation, not the heady, excited version he'd summarized in his journal. "At the time, I'd been worried about falling behind schedule on the portal's construction. He wouldn't have had to introduce an element of tension—it was already there. All he had to do was exploit it." He shook his head. Falling behind schedule. What schedule—the one he, himself had made? He was sure Bill had encouraged him to finish as fast as possible, too.

"There, you see? You got swindled by a professional swindler," Stan said. "What's important is that you know what he is now, and you know his tricks. He won't get you the same way twice. I'm not worried about you."

There were a couple of odd thuds from upstairs, accompanied by a yelp from Bill. That wasn't odd; he'd proven to be remarkably clumsy in a human body. At any given time it was possible to tell where he was by the random bangs, and if he hadn't made a noise in the last five minutes it meant he was curled up safely in his window seat.

What was odd was hearing Mabel's voice: "Careful, careful—! Augh. ... I'll get another sheet of cardboard, we'll replace that!"

Stan and Ford looked warily toward the stairs. Stan muttered, "Mabel, on the other hand..."

Ford nodded. "I'll keep an eye on her."

####

(If you've read this far, I'd really appreciate hearing from you! Things you liked, things you're looking forward to, jokes, thoughts, even typo corrections. Thanks!)

#mabel pines #grunkle stan #(for the art)#bill cipher #human bill cipher #(for the fic)#gravity falls #gravity falls fanart #gravity falls fic #my writing #my art #bill goldilocks cipher

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gavisuntiedboot · 1 year

Text

Soft glow (Gavi x reader)

28 day writing prompt challenge - prompts are here

Day 1: Taking off your makeup for you

"Amor you'll never believed what happened on the flight back!"

You groaned from where you laid on the couch. Gavi had gone to England to play a league match against Manchester United. You were by no means a clingy person. You valued your space, and tried to develop a relationship with Pablo where you were comfortable not being attached at the hip. But this time you missed him. Everything in your life felt different for the week he was gone. Coffee tasted a little too bitter. The weather was always a little too cold. The sun always set a little too early. You felt weirdly lonely despite constantly being around people. For the first time, you started to count the hours until Gavi came home.

You wanted it to be special. You wanted to greet him with all the love and adoration that made his absence painful. You washed yourself with his favorite scents, taking extra time to enjoy the feeling of the hot water on your skin. You did you hair and makeup, making you more confident, and inviting you to check yourself out in every reflective surface in the house. You slipped into a long black dress and decided to lounge around just being your gorgeous self until he got home.

But nothing good goes unpunished - the world could not let you feel beautiful without consequence, and half an hour before he got home, you started feeling a splitting headache. The pain was in your temples and behind your eyes, sending a wave of nausea through your body. You turned the lights off and laid across the couch, praying that you wouldn't throw up.

Gavi was never one to do anything softly or quietly. Passion and fire were injected into everything he did: from the way he called your name, the way he embraced you after a long day, to his entrance into your shared home after his week away. He could not wait to have you in his arms and bed lol after seeing you only through sporadic facetime calls. But as he entered the dark living room and saw you splayed across the couch, a chill went through his body. Throwing his bags to the ground, he kneeled by your body and shook your shoulder.

"Are you okay? What happened? Why are you sitting in the dark?"

You groaned and rolled over. It still felt like you were being stabbed in the skull, and you were still ready to throw up the dinner you had not eaten. "I'm ok Pablito. I have a really terrible headache right now, so I'm pretty sensitive to light... and loud noises." You added. He quickly removed his arm from your shoulder. All of his features softened, and his honey eyes widened.

“Ay, perdón bébé. I had no idea.”

His voice was now just above a whisper. He looked over your form, taking in how you looked draped over the couch. The dress you wore hugged every curve of your body. The one lamp still on draped you in an ethereal light.

“You look gorgeous. You got dressed up for me?”

You lifted your head, nodding slowly with sleepy eyes.

“Come with me bébé. Let’s go to bed.”

You groaned, not wanting to move and make your headache worse. You felt Gavi slip his hand under your back and legs, and suddenly you were off the couch. He lifted you bridal style and carried you to your chafed bedroom, placing you softly on the bed. He caresses your back softly, reaching for the zipper of your dress.

“What’re you doing Pablo?”

“Helping you get ready for bed.”

“It’s ok, I’ll do it in a second. I have to take my makeup off anyways.”

“I can do that for you.”

Before you could reply, you heard Pablo’s footsteps rush off to the bathroom. He emerged once again with micellar water and cotton.

“How did you-“

“We’ve been living together for 7 months. I noticed what you use to take your makeup off.”

You let out a breathy laugh as he soaked the cotton and began gently wiping your face, starting with your eyes and then moving around. Once he had gotten all the makeup off, he helped you slip out of your dress. He rummaged through the drawers before finding a large band t-shirt you often wore to bed, helping you slip it on.

You opened your eye slightly to watch Pablo as he walked to the other side of the room to get changed. He peeled off the shirt and sweats he wore on the plane.

“You’re so sweet Pablo. Thank you for taking care of me.”

“Bébé, if I’m not going to take care of you, then who on the world am I going to care for? I love you.”

He joined you in bed, a pair of pajama pants hanging low on his waist and his chest bare. Gavi kissed your forehead and brought you close to his chest, the rhythmic beat of his heart lulling you to sleep.

“Get some sleep so you feel better.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: basing this off of my own headache today. Thanks for reading day 1 of @hayleysprompts ‘s 30 day writing prompts!! (Post linked at the top). Hope y’all enjoy and can’t wait to write tomorrow’s as well.

Edit: I forgot to put a title on it the first time 😭 who let me write smh

#gavi #gavi x reader #pablo gavi #pablo gavi x reader #fc barca #gavi x you #pablo gavi imagine #barca #footballer imagine #gavi imagine #gavi fanfic #gavi fluff

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maddheaven · 1 year

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My Interpretation of Yandere Dick Grayson/Nightwing - also a ramble post, kinda.

It’s been awhile since I’ve found time to write something. I was gonna write a short ramble post about my version of Yandere Dick Grayson but I had work to do.

Otherwise here it is:

So most versions of Yandere Dick I’ve read of him being extremely dark and sadistic towards his darling. Personally, I think this portrayal of Yandere Dick is interesting, and a little fun to write, because you don’t have to follow his optimistic values and traits, and just go crazy with it. Over time though - and now that I finally found time to read some comics and stuff, getting my inspiration juices flowing - it kinda got old and overused for me. While I do like the take on it, there are some parts of it that I would do differently or change completely like him having a full-blown freak-out and accusing his darling of cheating, ya know, screaming, shouting, punching things and all. I also like the soft yandere version of Dick, and incorporate some parts of that as well based on the few that I've read.

So with some inspirations from headcanons, and a bit of daydreaming, here is what I came up with:

Even before his parents' death. Grayson felt this deep, subconscious need for normalcy; for some semblance of ordinary.

He grew up moving around a lot, being in a circus act and all, and therefore, never had a real home.

Dick wanted the white picket fence, he wanted the typical suburban house, and he dreamed of being married to the love of his life with a bunch of kids, and maybe, a pet or two running around.

When his parents died, the only affection he ever had was ripped away from him leaving a dark void in his heart.

Despite being adopted by Bruce, and getting acquainted in his new home, that empty spot in his chest never went away.

He went through a couple of partners, Kori and Barbara included, had a few heartbreaks, but that empty feeling stayed.

Something was missing, he wasn’t sure what it was.

He cared for his previous partners, stayed loyal to them the whole way, yet there wasn’t a ‘click.’

There are multiple ways he could’ve come across you.

Either you were a civilian he saved from danger as Nightwing, helping you out as an officer, or maybe you met during a walk out in Bludhaven or Gotham.

However he met you, there was an instant click.

There was something, something about you, that was different.

His obsession comes in waves.

First: He’s interested, and starts watching out for you - not to the point of stalking yet.

He'll try to strike up a conversation, start building some sort of friendship or acquaintance with you, anything to get to know you.

Second: Then that interest becomes intrigue, and now he’s following you wherever you go, wanting to learn more about you.

That need he felt for all of his life grows, and grows.

He can’t get you out of his head, he can’t stop thinking about you.

He could be taking on as many cases as a police officer, he could be fighting criminals in some alley.

Yet, no matter how hard he tries, his mind always wanders back to you.

It's conflicting for him; he knows he shouldn't be this obsessed with you yet.. nothing seems to get you off his mind!

But that all comes to a head, when he either sees you in danger or hanging around someone.

Then something snaps inside him.

He doesn’t like it, he doesn’t like it at all - he hates it.

Dick can’t deny his feelings anymore.

He needs to protect you.

He needs to be there for you.

He needs you.

Then comes the third wave:

He's around you more, he's taking every chance he can to spend time with you.

Sometimes, it can come off as clingy. But if you're the kind who doesn't notice subtle cues very well (like me), then he may just come off as someone who wants to be your friend.

And given his charismatic, and almost up-beat attitude, it wouldn't be surprising if you thought that.

However, there are some things with Dick that seem.. off.

He becomes eerily silent when that one friend, who you haven't seen in months, is talking to you.

Sometimes he'll tug at your wrist, force a smile whilst trying to make some excuse that you guys are in a hurry.

And as you guys get to know each other more, he gets more 'touchy.' More than what would be considered as 'friendly.'

Swinging an arm around you, resting his chin on your head, and one time, he put an arm around your waist while you guys were walking around the park.

But if there ever is a situation where someone is getting handsy with you, friendly or not, he steps in.

Hates when people touch you, but doesn't have any problem when it's only him, of course.

The man is more touch-starved than Jason.

As your relationship grows closer - or rather, he believes you and him are growing closer - then his tolerance would start to go down.

As for meeting him for the first time, Dick comes across as extroverted and friendly!

Very much a people person, so it isn’t hard to warm up to him.

If you aren’t the social type however, then he may come off as abrasive.

If he notices your slight discomfort, then he’ll ease up a bit.

He doesn’t like it if he sees you tense up or show any signs of discomfort around him - leaves a strange ache in his chest.

Though, he’ll admit, sometimes he likes to tease you because he finds some of your reactions adorable.

Dick is also patient to an extent.

If he sees that you’re avoiding him or making it obvious you aren’t interested, he’ll either eliminate all competition.

Anyone he thinks is getting in the way of him and your relationship, or would have a hand in getting anyone to avoid you.

Dick will make sure he is all you have.

If it's him, he'll either try to ‘fix’ his behavior around you or talk it out with you.

If neither works then.. well.. he'll be tempted to just take you.

With all the general stuff aside, there is one thing that I want to get into which is his temper.

Most headcanons I read are Dick having full-blown freak-outs - shouting, yelling, punching, throwing things ect.

I don't think he would do that, if anything, I think it would be much worse:

Let's say he kidnaps you and you aren't cooperating at all.

No matter what he does, all he gets is insults, profanity thrown at him, struggling - the whole shabang.

His patience isn't one to be tested, so as soon as you start acting out his demeanor changes in a snap.

His eyebrows would furrow, the usual ‘picture-perfect’ smile drops, and those shining blue eyes go cold.

His voice would drop low, he'll get real close to your face.

If you're struggling, he'll grab your wrist and squeeze it hard.

Every word he says, he not only wants you to hear, but to listen, ingrain it into your head.

The sudden shift in the air is too obvious to ignore, and that low voice is just.. too terrifying to tune out.

There’s a threatening undertone; a warning.

It’s incredibly eerie and tense.

The man is capable of anything - he was raised by Batman for god sakes! - and if he kidnapped you, god knows what the hell he’ll do to you.

To sum it up, Dick can be the most affectionate, loving boyfriend/husband you could ever have or he can be your absolute worst nightmare...

#yandere dick grayson #Yandere Richard Grayson #yandere nightwing #Yandere ramble post #Yandere batman #yandere dc #Yandere dick grayson headcanons #yandere dc headcanons #yandere batman headcanons #yandere headcanons #yandere nightwing headcanons #gonna try and keep tags within the yandere section to avoid cross-tagging

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literaila · 1 year

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contacts

summary

"what do you think would happen if i tried?" he asks. "with my reflexes? i'd blink fifteen times before they even handed me the contact. i'd run out the door as soon as they got the solution out."

warnings: eye doctor, peter is stupid, guilty reader, fluff

if you are hiding under the blankets when peter gets home, well, nobody needs to know.

if there are dried tears in your eyes, smudges on your glasses resting on the bedside table, and a somewhat mauled heart in your hands, well--that's why you're hiding.

unfortunately, your apartment is only so big.

"hey, bub," peter says, walking through the bedroom door, definitely kicking his shoes off and hitting the wall, and throwing his bag on the ground in a place that you'd typically yell at him about.

today though, you're not quite feeling up to it.

"i didn't think you'd be home till later," there's some movement on the bed, a sinking feeling in your chest to match. "i thought you had that doctor's appointment today?"

he doesn't even ask about the makeshift cave you've made. it's cold enough outside that this is normal. that this cocoon you've made for yourself is only lonely without peter.

"i did," you say, under the covers, unsure if he can hear you.

"yeah? how'd it go? i thought it would take longer, but i guess--" peter moves the blanket off of the top of your head, his hands unexpected and unwelcome. "hi," he whispers. and then frowns at your face. "are you hiding?"

instead of answering, you steal the blanket from his hands, covering yourself again.

but peter's not playing this game--which was precisely why you'd started it in the first place. you hadn't wanted him to see your face or the mess that you knew you were.

not that peter's ever really followed your carefully laid out expectations.

"hey," he says, soft pout and furrowed brows. "what's going on? have you been crying?"

"i watched titanic again."

peter's lip twitches. "you haven't even watched it once."

"cause it's sad. i was just thinking about it. my bad."

"baby," he says, fingertips brushing across your eyebrow, face concerned. "c'mon, you don't have to hide. or lie, i guess."

"i'm not lying--" you swear, but peter shakes his head, interrupting you.

"did something happen at your appointment?"

and at that, despite all of your carefully valued wills, your eyes fill with tears at the reminder.

peter immediately moves closer, cooing in your ear and sliding to your side. he doesn't hesitate to move the blanket even further off of you--submitting you to the cold air of the apartment--and gathering you in his arms.

you weigh practically nothing to him and feel like nothing in his arms.

except for maybe a failure. a ridiculous child, needing to be coddled.

"please don't cry," peter says, as you continue to do so. "i'm sorry," he whispers, in your ear, hand rubbing circles on your back. "i didn't mean to make you upset."

you shake your head against him, trying for a moment to catch your breath. to move away from him.

you manage to do neither.

you want to hide some more. you want to avoid his care and bias. you want to be invisible.

"do you want to talk about it?" peter asks. "you don't have to, but you know that i'm here to listen. or whatever else you need."

you look at him, staring into worried, slightly blurry eyes. and the crinkles next to his eyes, burdening his face.

and you don't want to talk about it, really. you'd rather not re-live the past couple of hours. you'd rather crawl back under the covers and fall asleep until nothing else seems to matter.

you'd rather be alone, living in the misery you've put yourself in.

but when peter looks at you, you know that he's not going to let this go--even if he claims to.

and you know that despite what you might want, isolation isn't going to solve this problem.

so, you take another breath in, looking away and staring into the cotton of his shirt. "i freaked out," you say, into him.

peter hums, the vibration of his chest a welcome sensation. his thumb clears the dribbling tears from your cheek. the other hand toying with the skin at your waist that your shirt isn't covering. he doesn't say anything, merely continues to comfort you with his hands.

so you continue. "i was supposed to try out the contacts today--see about the size and shape and everything, i guess--but every time i tried to get them in they would fold, and i kept dropping them and drying them out and--" you shake your head, hands moving to cover your eyes.

to keep yourself away from the judgemental stare that peter's probably giving you. away from the shame and embarrassment.

and then you sigh out, frustrated. "i just kept blinking. and then i started to cry because my appointment was only thirty minutes long and there were a lot of people and i just-- i couldn't get them in. and after i started crying there was no point anyway."

"you left without them?" peter asks, softly.

you nod, blinking more tears from your eyes. "i got my new prescription," you point towards the table, where your glasses rest, unwanted and dirty. "but the doctor said i would have to make a new appointment for the contacts, and by then i was already panicking so i didn't make one when i left and now i'll have to call and tell them that--" as your voice gets more high pitched, and the tears cease to continues, peter gently shushes you. "i just--" you blubber out, angry and disappointed.

"i know," peter whispers. "it's okay, shh."

he rocks you back and forth, wiping away the tears as they come even though there's no point.

"you'll get another appointment," he tells you. "i can call if you want. or sit with you, and hold your hand."

it's sweet and a welcome solution, but it does nothing to cease the guilt from crawling up your chest, laughing at you as you continue to cry because of your own faults.

you can't say anything else--have no control over the anxiety in your stomach.

so he sits with you in silence, just listening and letting you get snot all over his shirt. he doesn't say much, except for the occasional "i'm here," or some humming in your ear.

and then, when your tears have died down, and your breathing has almost matched yours, peter moves back just a little bit.

"hey," he says, trying to get you to look up at him. you refuse. "it sounds like a stressful situation. i mean, no one likes going to the doctor's office, anyway."

you groan into his chest.

"and," peter adds, "anything touching your eyes is disgusting. i mean--it's all slimy, and it hurts, and the contacts are kinda curved so when you're looking right at them and trying to put them onto your eyes--"

"peter," you say, slightly grossed out.

"sorry," he chuckles, still rocking you. "it's just that--you were nervous about the appointment already, right?"

"yeah."

"so it makes sense that you were already anxious before you tried to prove yourself to a bunch of experts, and in such a short amount of time. i would be nervous too."

you breathe out, meeting his eyes.

there's a soft smile on his face--like he's trying to pass it onto you--and his eyes are far too understanding.

"it's just embarrassing," you say to him. "lots of people wear contacts and i can't even get them in."

peter raises a brow. "what do you think would happen if i tried?" he asks. "with my reflexes?"

your brows furrow.

"i'd blink fifteen times before they even handed me the contact. i'd run out the door as soon as they got the solution out."

you laugh, short and small.

"besides," he continues. "fast reflexes are considered a good thing anywhere else. all the people who don't blink are just slow."

you look away from him, playing with the edge of his shirt. "i don't think that's how it works."

"maybe not. but still."

you're silent for a moment, listening to peter's heartbeat. his slow breathing.

"you'll make another appointment," he whispers, "and try again."

"i'll just be even more anxious."

peter shrugs against you. "that's okay. if you can't get them in, so what? contacts aren't for everyone."

you frown.

there's a hint of a smile on his face. "i mean, i happen to like your glasses," he says.

"peter," you whine.

"or you can use mine," he takes them off, handing them to you. "i don't really need 'em."

"i'm not stealing those."

"it's not stealing if i'm giving them to you," he points out.

"we don't even have the same prescription."

"oh," peter says, folding his glasses. "true. i guess you'll just have to wear your own."

he leans over, past you, grabbing them off of the table. "here."

he tries to slide them on your face, frowning when he looks closer. "why are these so smudged? what are you doing with them?"

peter uses the hem of his shirt to clean them off while you laugh. then, with a small smile on his face, he puts them on you. nodding in success. "good?"

somewhat pleased, you nod at him. then frown. "i still want contacts."

"like i said, you'll try again. i'm just saying that i personally wouldn't mind if you didn't have them," peter looks at you, a bit suggestively, waving his eyebrows.

you glower. "i would."

"lord knows why."

you throw your head back, rolling your eyes. "peter, c'mon."

"no, you c'mon," he argues, glaring back. "you look great. you don't need contacts."

"it's not about that," you say. "it's more convenient."

peter raises a brow.

you stare back at him dryly.

"okay," peter smiles, laughing a bit. "but it's okay if you can't get them in, you know? say you know."

"i know."

"good. and if you want me to come to your next appointment, i will."

"you don't have to do that."

peter shakes his head, acting like you're ridiculous for the first time tonight. "anything for you."

and then he leans in, rubbing his nose against yours to make you laugh.

and when he kisses you, any leftover anxiety ebbs and flows. it leaves you almost altogether. and the smile on his face passes to yours.

and then peter leans back. "you know, it would be easier to kiss you with contacts, though."

you pinch his side, laughing when he yelps.

my masterlist here.

tags:@moonlarking-blog @v1ci0us @preciousbabypeter @alexxavicry @directioner5life @inthegetawaycarwithtaylah @localrockstargf @thestudiouswanderer @take-my-hand-time-boy @thoughtsofagodlovingsunflower @nyomjoon @moo-b1tch @raindropstearsandtea @rqmanoff @hollandweather @wetcoldnoodle @urlocalavenderhazestan @valvlry @imthatcoolmom @spideysimpossiblegirl @ invisibletrolleyson-jeremy @sharkswaters

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pedropascalsblog · 3 months

Text

My savior Raider!Joel

Warnings:Raider!Joel, Mentions of abuse and death

A/n: I can’t believe I got a request! It means so much to me, especially being a new writer! I’m sorry if this isn’t as good as you were expecting but I hope you enjoy it!

@josephquinnswhore thank you so much for the idea 🙏🏻

I never thought I would survive the outbreak of cordyceps. But here I am, 2 years later, traveling with my boyfriend, Max, through the abandoned and desolate streets. We've been surviving the best way we can, scavenging for food and shelter, constantly on the move to avoid the infected.  Max is a tough guy, or at least he tries to be. He's always been mean to me, but in this new world, his cruelty has escalated. I've lost count of how many times he's hit me and left me bruised and bleeding. But I can't leave him, he's all I have left. Or so I thought.  We stumble upon a small camp, with a few tents and a fire pit. Max immediately starts rummaging through the supplies, looking for anything of value. I try to help, but he pushes me away, telling me I'm useless. I sigh, keeping a look out by the fire, trying to keep warm.  That's when I see him. He's been watching us from the shadows, his hard and stoic expression never changing. He's a raider too, we are considered to be the most dangerous and unpredictable people who roam the streets, taking whatever they want by force.  I can't help but feel drawn to him, even though I know he's dangerous. There's something about him that intrigues me, something that makes me feel safe. I watch as he moves closer, his eyes never leaving mine. I can feel Max's anger rising, but he knows better than to mess with another raider.  “You two seem to be doing pretty well for yourselves,”The man says, his voice low and gravelly.  “We've been surviving,”I reply, trying to sound tough like Max.  The man chuckles, but there's no humor in his eyes. “Well, I'm afraid I'll have to take some of your supplies. It's nothing personal, just business.”  I watch closely as Him and Max negotiate, but I can see the tension between them. Max is trying to be tough, but he's no match for him. In the end, he takes some of our supplies and leaves, but not before giving me a lingering look.  After the other raider leaves max finishes picking the last tent, but I can't stop thinking about him, about the raider. I know he's dangerous, but I can't help but feel drawn to him. Max, on the other hand, is fuming. As we are walking down the streets he starts taking his anger out on me, hitting me harder than he ever has before. Pushing my shoulder causing me to fall and bust my knee on the road. Max walks past me shoving back down, walking ahead. I let him get a few feet ahead of me before standing up again following him like a lost, beaten, puppy home.   A few days later, we come across another camp. Max immediately starts to raid it, as I keep a look out. I could see a tall broad shadow in the distance, watching us. Could it be him? I move closer to it. Slowly making my steps as quiet as I could. I know what he wants, I could see it in his eyes that day we first came across him, and I can't deny that I want it too. As Max was busy loading up our supplies, I made eye contact with the raider and he motions for me to follow him.   We sneak away from the camp and find a secluded spot. Once he made sure no one is around he gestures me to sit. He pulls out a bandage and wraps my knee up. He is surprisingly gentle with me, and for the first time in a long time, I feel safe and cared for. “What happened?” He asked, finishing wrapping my knee and moving to my busted lip. “I tripped” I lied. “We both know that’s a lie” he huffed, rolling his eyes. “What’s your name?” I quickly asked changing the subject. “Don’t have one” he says. “We both know that’s a lie” I mimicked his words from earlier. “Joel” he says helping me up. we heard branches crunching from the way we came. Joel pulled me behind the tree, when we saw Max walking in our direction and calling out my name.  Joel lays his index finger over my lips signaling me to stay quiet, and I listen to his command. Joel slips away from the tree following max until they are out of sight. I knew deep down what was going to happen. This is the world now. I should feel scared, but I feel relieved. I'm finally free from Max's abuse.

After a few minutes Joel walks back to the tree a cut on his lip and a few gashes on his knuckles. “I-is he dead?” I asked quietly. Joel grabs the backpack off the ground. “You coming?” I nodded my head following him. 

“Thank you” I say walking a bit faster to catch up with Joel. “What?” Joel turns a little to his right. “I was just saying thank you, you really saved my ass back there.” I smiled Joel lets out a small grunt. “You’re like my savior” I joked, causing Joel’a face to scrunch up. “Far from that, you just got lucky I was here to save your ass.” Joel mumbled back. We stay silent walking back to where he’s been sheltered up.

 It’s been two weeks since Joel took me in, and for the first time since the outbreak, I feel like I have a chance at survival. He has become my protector, my savior. And even though he's a dangerous raider, I can't help but see him as my big hero. Because in this new world, sometimes it takes a hardened and stoic man to show you what love and protection really mean.

#joel miller #pedro is daddy #pedro pascal #joel miller the last of us #joel x reader #pedro x reader #hbo joel miller #joel miller loves big girls #joel tlou #raider!joel

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dotemakesthings · 10 months

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forgotten but not gone

(please be gentle, y’all, this is the first public fic I’ve posted since basically… ever)

inspired by/remix of the cursed light by datfearlessfangirl

okay, so.

the first Split was relatively harmless, believe it or not. it separated out Remus and Roman, sure, but the sides all still lived together and cared about each other.

as a teen/young adult, the sides were in cutesy little pairs.

Janus and Roman, the theater gays.

Virgil and Logan, the couple that considers sitting silently in a room together with headphones on a romantic activity.

and Remus and Patton, the chaotic powerhouses who love nothing more than making messes in the kitchen and screaming I-love-you’s from across the house.

but then

the second split.

it was a crisis of morality and identity on Thomas’s part

so intense that it ripped the mindscape in two

the “acceptable” sides simply got their memories wiped, starting from scratch

while the dark sides were locked away and hurt.

now, neither side knew about the others and the effect it had on them

so when the light sides saw a closet oozing with Bad Feelings, they felt it best to investigate for the good of Thomas

and they were greeted with monsters.

Remus, screaming out horrific imagery and banging his head raw and bloody against the wall

Virgil, spiraling into such a bad panic attack that the shadows around him were lashing out without him realizing

and Janus, fangs and all six arms out, who uncontrollably lied about how they were useless here, how they weren’t wanted, they needed to get out, ssssstupid little sides

the lights screamed

and ran out

the darks chased them

because, here’s the thing

imagine you have known someone all your life. you know their tics, what makes them happy

and you’re not afraid of what they’re like when they’re in distress, because you know what to expect. and you know you’re safe with them.

now. imagine meeting someone for the first time on your absolute worst day.

that’s what happened to the darks.

the Patton of before would have rushed to Remus, gently guiding him away from the wall and crooning soothing nonsense to drown out his babble about death and gore and being alone alone alone

the Roman of before would have nodded and taken none of what Janus was saying at face value, cradling Janus’s hands in his own and humming a quiet tune

and the Logan of before would have tapped out a slow, calm rhythm next to Virgil until he could breathe and handle touch again

but they didn’t know any of that anymore.

all they saw were monsters.

and all the dark sides saw were their friends, family, lovers there when they needed help.

the light sides fled back to the upper mindscape

and the darks slammed into the barrier

screaming and clawing at the invisible wall

for someone to help

for their family to look at them

for someone to explain what was going on

and the light sides closed and locked the door with a sigh of shaky relief.

now, the light sides develop something of an ingrained bad reaction to the darks due to this colossally bad first impression.

Patton: disgust, fear, thin veneer of trying to be polite while getting them to leave the vicinity as soon as possible

Logan: coldness, indifference. not cruelty but no warmth or allowances

Roman: fear masked by anger and intense protectiveness.

and the dark sides all deal with the upheaval, betrayal, and pain in different ways.

Virgil: depressed, afraid, tends to lash out at the slightest provocation. goes from snarky to mean.

Janus: gives up and pretends everything is fine. sees no point in hurting himself to get something back that can't be replaced or repaired. covers heartbreak with snark. can't quite stop himself from flirting with Roman but pretends it's just manipulation. focuses just on Thomas and what's best for him, ignoring all else.

Remus: wears his rotting heart on his sleeve. tries the hardest to get Patton back and is the least equipped to do so. isn't exactly trying to keep the others' spirits up, but more just doesn't lose hope that they can somehow fix this.

the dark sides can only come to the main mindscape at all at night at first.

the barrier stops them any other time

it’s Remus who finds out first, mindlessly banging his head against the barrier to pass the time only to fall flat on his face when it fizzles out

and they all slowly start sneaking in at night to see the home that they were thrown out of

and slowly, the lights start having odd little incidents

nothing in person, at first.

Roman: he finds something in progress and abandoned at the border between the imagination halves that he and Remus both worked on. he can't figure out why it looks so recent even though he can’t remember ever getting along with his brother this well.

Patton: he's having a Sad Night. he thinks he's hiding it well, but someone (Virgil) notices and leaves him cookies that are one of his favorites. not a secret recipe, just ones he likes. there's a little note saying that sometimes it's okay to have a second cookie. Patton can't figure out who would know him this well.

Logan: he’s dealing with an absolute menace of a meeting. he gets back to his room, seething all the way, to see a plain porcelain plate with an unsigned note saying “break me all you want, nerd! I’ll put myself back together!”. he experimentally drops it from a few feet up. it shatters with a very satisfying crack and then, a few seconds later, reassembles itself in his hand. he has a grand old time shattering the plate against the wall again and again until his rage has subsided to a manageable level. he can’t figure out who would come up with an idea like this.

and then there start being little middle-of-the-night interactions. because for some reason, the light sides have a much harder time falling asleep nowadays.

Virgil looks over Roman’s shoulder as he watches a Disney movie in the living room at three AM to try and fall asleep. Anxiety offers a teasing insult to the protagonist. Roman jumps out of his skin, at first threatening to stab him, but then lets him tentatively settle in on the counter behind him. they roast the movie together, gradually picking up steam until Roman actually laughs at something Anxiety says. they both freeze and stare at each other for a heartbeat until Roman sinks out without a word.

Patton finds himself tucked into bed after a too-long day sorting through Thomas' emotional responses. when he wakes up, there's a somehow still steaming cup of sweet herbal tea that tastes like a snickerdoodle. he vaguely remembers a soft voice hissing at him that he needs to pay more attention to his own needs.

Logan is reading philosophy textbooks and muttering to himself out loud. Janus offers a quiet critique. they have a heartbeat of wonderful discussion before Logan "remembers" himself and shuts it down.

eventually, through all this, their memories start coming back. it’s triggered slowly through their platonic interactions with their friends, and then all at once by their romantic partners.

(because the love of friends is just as impactful and important as the love of a partner)

Patton:

Patton is sad and frustrated, muttering to himself and pacing in the kitchen.

someone walks in and he immediately stops and snaps into happy pappy Patton mode. “Oh hey, kiddo-“

it's Remus, who just cocks his head and says "you know you don't have to do that with me, right?"

and after some protesting on Morality’s part

he ends up goading Patton into a very cathartic expression of anger, fear, and frustration, and helps him sort it out.

at some point, Remus has shifted to holding Patton in a loose embrace as Patton waves his hands and rants and sobs.

Patton doesn’t realize that he burrows deeper into Remus’ arms every time he wiggles.

to the point that he’s turned sideways in Remus’ lap, with one arm curled around him and the other one free to gesture.

and then when it’s all over, they’re talked out, and it’s almost sunrise, Remus reluctantly starts to tear himself away.

and Patton, who quite suddenly cannot bear the thought of Remus letting him go, holds on

Logan:

panic attacks? Logan? certainly not. he doesn’t get those.

so when he finds himself gasping for air, feeling like his chest is on fire, and locked into his worst thoughts, he doesn’t know what to do

because he knows how to treat panic attacks

but this isn’t one. definitely

and even if it was, for some reason all his knowledge on how to treat them is slipping from his mind no matter how hard he tries to reach from it

you have to breathe? somehow? but he can’t breathe, can’t think

and somehow through it, he hears a raspy voice

counting steadily and quietly

and he realizes that there’s a stim toy placed in his hands that he’s wringing.

and it looks familiar, but he knows he’s never seen it before

and there’s soft, flowy music playing from a Bluetooth speaker next to him

and that feels familiar too

and without quite knowing why, only having a bone-deep certainty that it’ll help, he slumps over into the person sitting next to him

smells lavender and laundry detergent

feels soft fabric under his cheek

and suddenly everything snaps into place

of course

why does he feel so safe? because he’s with the safest person in the world.

Roman:

okay so

Roman alternates between being scared of Deceit and feeling extremely attracted to him

this, naturally, freaks Roman out

and he expresses this by getting more and more aggressive towards Janus

at some point, he panics and attacks Deceit

Deceit freezes with Roman’s sword to his throat. they stare at each other

before Janus sinks out

a day or so later, he comes back

all six hands up, ungloved, and open to show that he means no harm

“You win.”

“… What?” says Roman.

“You. Win. I’m tired of fighting you. Grant me one last request and you’ll never have to see me again.”

some buried part of Roman is conflicted. but his conscious self jumps at the opportunity. “What do you want, snake?”

“Dance with me.”

“… What.”

“Grant me the honor of one dance, my prince, and I’ll leave. You’ll never have to deal with my presence again.”

And Roman, wary of some trap but eager to be rid of the beautiful confusing disgusting snake, agrees.

They rise up in an elegantly decorated ballroom

dressed in a fancy suit (Roman) and an elegant ballgown (Deceit)

and they dance

at first, stilted and formal

keeping to the steps and no more

but then Janus seems to come to some internal conclusion

and folds himself in close to Roman

before spinning outwards, skirt swirling, and coming back in

and somehow, without Roman quite knowing why, they’re dancing.

flourishes, leaning into each other, Roman even lifting Deceit into the air at one point

and his heart keeps pinging strangely

aching

(familiar, this is familiar, you’ve done this before)

but eventually, the dance has to end

and they both come to a stop as the song finishes, panting heavily

Janus is smiling through his heavy breaths

and Roman finds he is too

but Janus’ smile cracks and falls and he steps back.

“Well,” he says. “That was the deal.”

and he lifts Roman’s hand, which somehow has his sword in it although it didn’t a second before, so that the blade is at his throat

just like the night before

“One quick cut ought to do it.”

Self Preservation exposes his throat to his beloved.

because he doesn't want to hurt Roman.

because this dance was his last selfish act before he gives up

one last moment to remember his prince by

and Roman pauses with his sword at Janus’ throat.

because Roman can't figure out why Janus, the evil self serving snake, wouldn't take an opportunity to hurt him to save himself

why he asked for this dance at all

why his arms around him felt like home

and all of a sudden

the memories he’s been denying all this time hit him like a truck

and he remembers

(after all that, Roman congratulates Janus on his idea to bring his memories back by dancing together)

(Janus smiles at him and changes the subject)

the barrier weakens the more that the lights feel comfortable around the darks.

the more that Thomas feels comfortable around them.

by the time everyone’s memory is back, it’s like it was never there at all.

#sanders sides #analogical #roceit #intruality #dote writes things #moduke #sanders sides fic #tss fanfic #roman sanders #remus sanders #janus sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders

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anna1306 · 1 year

Note

I read your poly!lost boys x reader from addams family while I was watching addams family values and that got me thinking how would the boys react to Pubert (the baby) and Wensday and Pugsley trying to kill him to?

It's slowly turning into series 😅

Poly!Lost boys x Addams!Reader

Part 4

Part 3 is here

It should have been a simple visit to Addams residence. Normal, ordinary, usual. The family and the boys were used already to you coming from time to time to the Addams house. It was your first visit in nearly a year, as you were busy with your things in Santa-Carla. But you, of course, should have meet your new little brother. And the boys had to meet him too, they were practically Addams at this point.

Even if they were a bit taken aback by his... Unusual looks right from the birth. But they were getting used to it in this family. Still they weren't accustomed to lots of other things...

"What in the actual hell?!" Marko exclaimed, floating in the air, while holding baby Pubert in his hands, who, even being upside down, giggled nonchalantly. The vampire didn't expect to walk out from their room to a baby, literally flying off the railings of the long staircase. Only his reaction, sharpened by all those years with high Paul, let him catch the baby in time.

"A game." Wednesday answered calmly, only her eyes held a glint of disappointment.

"HE WENT FLYING THROUGH THE GODDAMN AIR STRAIGHT TO THE WINDOW!" Screamed Marko. Other boys went out to investigate the commotion, noticing kids on the second floor, standing near the stairs.

"We miscalculated." Pugsley shrugged almost calmly, like his sister, but lowered his head under attentive gaze of Dwayne.

"What's with the noise?" You showed up to the scene next, looking around. "Oh, you are playing!" You smiled, looking up to Marko with the baby in his hands.

"Your siblings sent little one flying across the room. I am not sure that this is safe for him." Marko lowered himself on the floor. You shook your head slightly, taking Pubert in your hands.

"No, it's not safe at all, love." You bounced your little brother in your hands. "He would probably die from the fall."

"Then why the hell you are so calm about it?.." Marko furrowed his brows, not understanding the situation at all.

"Don't get the wrong idea. It's not normal to play this way with babies. But I get where they are coming from. I was jealous when Pugsley showed his face in this world too." You admitted in hushed tone, though your whole family knew of it. You smiled, looking at Pubert in your hands. "More so, old traditions are very strong in our family. When there is another baby, one of the elder ones must die."

"You tried to kill your own brother?" Scoffed Paul, looking at you, clearly not believing you. Others were more surprised at the fact of such tradition existing in your family, but didn't have the time to ask you about that.

"And sister." You added, raising your gaze at one of your boyfriends. "I almost feel nostalgic..."

"But they both managed to survive."

"They were very persistent little spawns of darkness." You giggled. "Besides, mother had very convincing and strict talk with me. It is nothing but a phase, it will pass."

"But they can kill him in this phase!" Marko exclaimed nervously, obviously stressed about this topic.

"We, Addams, are made from tough material, darling. You can't simply kill us." You kissed him on the cheek, in attempt to calm him down. "But we need to inform mother and father about it and keep an eye on the situation." You nodded in agreement. The boys looked between each other with heavy sigh.

And keep an eye on the situation they did exactly. Even if it didn't seem like it, one of the boys constantly were listening in to the baby or even watching him if they could. In daytime they trusted you or your parents to keep the situation in bay. In nighttime they all helped one way or another.

David could somehow distinguish normal bottle with baby food from the poisonous one. Dwayne, on several occasions, managed to grab arrows or daggers thrown in the direction of the baby. Marko almost got used to catching Pubert in middle air. And Paul screamed like a banshee every time he saw your little brother in the guillotine.

Of course, Morticia and Gomez instigated the talk with your siblings. It helped little, as Wednesday calmly continued doing the same, just more secretly, and Pugsley always were very leading by nature and he trusted her fully.

The boys joined the talk, but only inserted some short phrases. Paul was the only one who stood more to the side, not knowing what to say exactly.

"I know you both won't tell us anything about your reasons. And I know you will agree to anything so you will get out of this situation as soon as possible." David scoffed, knowing it from him and his brothers all to well, in regards to their relations with Max. "But if this is about jealousy, there is no reason. Your parents, I am sure of it, love all of you equally."

"But of course!" Gomez exclaimed, jumping from his seat. "You are all my little monsters, whom I love!"

"We still loved your sibling, Y/N, and decided to have you." Calmly added Morticia, holding Pubert in her hands. "If this is the reason behind your behaviour, it is illogical."

"We heard you." Wednesday's face didn't change one bit. Pugsley, though, looked down during the whole conversation, not daring to look up. You had a feeling that he was more scared of your or Dwayne's reaction than his parents'.

"Whom will you kill then?" He asked, glancing at your parents. "One Addams to come, one Addams to go, right?"

"Oh, my monster, this tradition is old. Look at your uncle and your father. They are both only on the way to their eternal sleep." Morticia smiled at your brother.

"Oh, but how funny our games were!" Uncle Fester laughed excitedly. "I locked him up in the crypt for a week before he was thin enough to get out through the window. And how Gomez electrocuted me... My head was lighting, like a bulb!" Gomez smiled fondly at the memories.

"Then consider it sibling game. Or rivalry." Wednesday came up with the solution. "They try to kill each other every night practically." She threw glance in the boys direction.

"Pffft, we can't die from the fall." Scoffed Marko, almost insulted by this.

"Yes, we are pretty much immortal. But still we wouldn't harm each other that hard or put one of us in gravely danger." Dwayne nodded, glancing at Paul. "Even if someone is asking for it."

"Hey!" He almost jumped at the brunette, but you quickly stood in front of him, placing your hand on his shoulder.

"Enough is enough, mon chèr." You looked at him sternly. Paul pouted, but didn't dare to make another attempt to attack. You were reminding him of Morticia sometimes, he was... A little afraid of that. You kissed him on the cheek to lift a bit tension from him and turned to your siblings. "There is nothing wrong with playing once in a while or healthy competition, battle, rivalry. But be more aware of the fact that he can't fully play with you yet. There is no reason for you to follow such an old tradition that even our father had abandoned. Deal?"

"Deal." Wednesday answered. Pugsley nodded silently. "Can we finish this humiliation here?"

Of course they continued their attempts even after that talk. Just in more secretive way. Marko even mumbled to himself that it was easier to turn the baby at this point. Easier and safer.

But you were right in the end This went on only for some time. After a while Wednesday and Pugsley settled in and all of the attempts to get rid of Pubert turned into more playful ones. They were Addams games, nonetheless, but the level of danger got significantly lower.

The boys were still pretty hesitant to go back to Santa-Carla though.

"You sure it's okay?" You smiled at nervous Paul. If you weren't the one driving, you could swear he would turn around in an instant.

"It's all going to be alright, love. Parents are more than capable of dealing with this on their own."

"They tried to set him on fire yesterday." Dwayne noticed, looking out of the rear window, your house and family standing in front of it, waving to you.

"Ah, the game of Inquisition. Classic. I taught Wednesday how to play this." You smiled and turned from the road to look at your boys. "I am touched that you care so much for my little brother and for my family. But I assure you, that the most dangerous times are over. Now they can deal with it themselves. Besides, I heard parents discussed hiring a nanny, so..."

"Kitten, a tree!" David grabbed the steering wheel, sharply turning it and the car back to the road. You whimpered a bit, hearing a crash from the back of the hearse. Apparently, Marko got thrown into the wall by the sharp turn and was cursing now to himself. "Please, watch the road, you are not immortal yet."

"David, I will love you even in death. Even from the other side." You smiled at him, but returned your attention to the road.

"We know this. But let's not get you killed before you get to turn, alright?" He asked, sitting on the passenger seat next to you. "I don't think you have the luck of this non-killable baby."

"Oh, mon cœur, but this is Addams's family trait." You simply laughed at this, completely and utterly sure that you had chosen your loved ones right.

The Lost Boys Taglist: @minafromasgard @starmullet @iloveslasher @twistedharper @ichorixm @promptsforstuff @collieflower215 @henhouse-horrors @smenny @id-rather-be-in-middle-earth @the-faceless-bride

#tlb #thelostboys #thelostboys1987 #tlb1987 #david tlb #marko tlb #paul tlb #tlb dwayne #addams family #the lost boys imagine #tlb imagine #poly lost boys #poly lost boys x reader #reader insert #x reader #gender neutral

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beewolfwrites · 1 year

Text

The Oar in the Sand - Chapter Thirty: Crossroads

I’m sure some of you have been waiting patiently for this. I hope I’ve done this chapter justice. Let me know what you think :)

As always, enjoy!

AO3 Link because I always forget.

_____________________________________________________

The sky blurry, a chaos of cloud. Overgrown grass is creeping through the pavement slabs, three blimps humming over the skyline. Playing cards rippling like kites in the wind. Hey? Can you hear me? Grass brushes my knees, the stems glittering with blood. Wet bone crunch beneath my feet. I think she might be dead. Have you even checked her pulse? The sky bleeds amber, now crimson. It wells from the horizon, light speckling the grass. Beads of rain under a blood sky. The moon has a headache. Careful with her. Just put her here. Clouds swell over concrete skyscrapers. The storm screams across the sun, shutters of thunder. What do we do now? Talk us through it. It hungers, bulges, breathes sparks into the city. The labyrinth unfurls once more.

‘You’re awake.’

I opened my eyes, squinting under the patter of rain. It took a couple of seconds to work out where I was. I was still in Shibuya, the crossing just barely recognisable beneath the grass and foliage. Except, my body ached all over. My shin in particular was throbbing, and I didn’t dare move it. I was lying on the tarmac with my head resting against Chishiya’s leg. He was propped up against a car, now bleeding from a second bullet wound to the chest.

‘What happened?’ I tried to ask, as a sharp pain reverberated through my lungs. There was a tight heaviness in my chest, and it was difficult to breathe.

‘Don’t talk. You’ll make it worse.’

Wincing, I cleared my throat and tried again. My voice was strained. ‘You’re…’

‘Ah, about that,’ Chishiya said. ‘Usagi appeared right after Niragi shot you. Naturally he tried to do the same to her.’

You took the bullet?

No, that couldn’t be right. It was so unlike him. For as long as I had known him, I could count on one hand the number of times Chishiya had risked his life for another person.

As if reading my thoughts, Chishiya explained, ‘I wanted to do something uncharacteristic. I guess I paid the ultimate price.’

‘But why?’

‘Kuzuryu was the King of Diamonds. At first, I thought he was trying to determine the value of a life. But it turned out he just couldn’t bring himself to decide how much a life is worth.’ Chishiya paused, as if he was still unsure of what had happened. ‘He sacrificed his own life because he couldn’t bring himself to kill me. Apparently it went against his ideals.’

I had known all along that Chishiya would be the one to clear the King of Diamonds - and likely the Jack too. But it didn’t surprise me to hear that the Beach’s very own second-in-command was also a civilian here in the Borderlands. Nothing surprised me anymore. Even if the King of Spades blimp suddenly appeared in Shibuya, it wouldn’t be unexpected.

‘I thought maybe I should try to do something different.’ Chishiya said. ‘Because of Kuzuryu and Arisu, their ideals. And you. I thought you were dead.’

Dead? Was I dead?

I looked down, finally noticing the blood staining my shirt. With one hand, I slowly lifted the fabric, revealing the bullet hole between my ribs. A square of clear plastic - like the cover of a dressing - had been taped over it on three sides. Every time I inhaled, the plastic would stick to the wound, and whenever I exhaled, the free corner of the square lifted slightly.

A one-way valve…

Now that I was aware of the sensation, I could feel the stickiness of tape on my back. There must have been another square of plastic there too. There was no way Chishiya could have treated me in his condition. He didn’t say anything, but I had a feeling it was Arisu and Usagi who patched me up while Chishiya talked them through the process. They must have raided a convenience store for dressings and tape.

‘You’ve got a traumatic pneumothorax,’ Chishiya said. ‘After Niragi shot you, the bullet went straight through your lung. You’re lucky you’re alive, though you’re on thin ice right now. If you move too much, you’ll bleed more and the plastic will stick to your skin. And if those two don’t clear the Queen of Hearts soon, you’ll die without treatment.’

By ‘those two’, he must have meant Arisu and Usagi. If what he said was correct, that meant every other game had been cleared and there was just the Queen of Hearts remaining. We were almost home, and this was just the final hurdle. Chishiya himself looked weary. His face was pallid and there were bags under his eyes.

‘You’ll die too.’

He hummed in agreement. ‘Looks like we’re in the same boat.’

I closed my eyes, feeling the cold rain against my skin. Although it couldn’t numb the pain in my fractured leg or the ache in my chest, the cool sensation was refreshing, and it helped to wash away the worries of this world. But as I lay there with my head against Chishiya’s leg, listening to his steady breathing, a thought struck me.

‘Kuina… where is she?’

‘Who knows? The last I heard she completed the Jack of Spades.’

So she’s alive.

But alive or not, she wasn’t here. The last time I had seen her was right before the Jack of Hearts, when she had hugged me so tightly and demanded that Chishiya look after me. Was that really the last time we would see one another? There was no way I could reach her now.

‘I never got to see her again.’

Kuina had been by my side no matter what hell this world threw at me. It broke my heart knowing that I might die before I ever saw her again. However, Chishiya didn’t seem as troubled as I was.

‘You will,’ he said simply, ‘when we get back.’

He sounded so sure of himself, but I just wasn’t convinced. ‘What if Usagi and Arisu… don’t finish their game?’

‘You have such unwavering faith in them,’ Chishiya said dryly.

‘They’re up against Mira,’ I told him. ‘She’s the Queen of Hearts.’

‘How did you find that out?’

‘From the King.’

There was a moment of pause. ‘So you were in the King of Hearts. That explains a lot.’

It didn’t explain anything. Unless Chishiya had been looking for me, or he’d heard differently from another player.

Seeing my confusion, he added, ‘I waited at the furniture store.’

You waited for me…

The news felt like a punch to the gut. He must have been waiting after his games, having figured that I would come back eventually. And when I did return to the store, it was likely that I had just missed him. If only I had been there earlier, or if I’d never ventured into the King of Hearts game at all, we could have avoided all of this mess.

But then I never would have met the King.

‘Chishiya…’ I struggled to find the right words to explain everything I had learned about this world and the last. And when I spoke, I had to stop every few seconds just to breathe. ‘So many times my dad used to say that… he was in his right to command respect… and that we had to respect him at all times…’

Chishiya scoffed. ‘Just like a tyrant.’

‘A lot like a tyrant… He would say the same thing over and over… but I don’t think he realised… the moment you command respect is the same moment that you lose it… I know that now.’

There was a silence, and I knew that Chishiya was listening to every word.

‘I did the same thing as he did,’ I said. ‘I just expected you to stay by my side… and let the others deal with the games… I didn’t think about how you were feeling… And even when we joined the Jack of Hearts… I still expected you to stay with me and leave everything to everyone else—’ I coughed suddenly, and Chishiya warned me again to be careful. ‘I’m sorry… I realise now, communication works both ways… This whole time, I should have asked you what you wanted to do.’

Once again, he was silent. I could feel the tension between us, and wincing a little I angled my head back to look at him. He was staring at the ground, his expression empty.

‘It’s okay if you don’t see yourself as having any value… or if you don’t have any will to live,’ I whispered. ‘Because I’ve got enough for the both of us.’

Despite the blood on our hands and the agony we were in, I knew I had to tell him how I felt. He could fight against it all he wanted, but he needed to know that I refused to let him self-destruct. And just as the rain cooled our skin and cleaned our wounds, the tension disappeared in an instant.

‘I thought I would know,’ Chishiya said suddenly. ‘After completing the King of Diamonds, I thought I would understand the value of my life. I wondered why I’m even here in this world, what my purpose is, why I’m even surviving at all. But I just felt empty. I realised this whole time, I’ve just been an empty shell of a person.’

‘You’re not empty.’

‘Yes, I am. I once threw away a letter from a patient containing his dying wishes, just because I couldn’t be bothered giving it to his family.’

I didn’t know what to say. It was such an awful thing to reveal about himself, and so unnecessarily cruel at that. But that was the Chishiya from the past. Would he do the same thing now? Somehow, I didn’t think so.

‘Maybe you did… but you’re also the same person… who saved my life so many times… and you gave me those books to help me learn Japanese… you treated my arm in the pharmacy too…’

‘That was only because I wanted to use you.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘But it was the start… of us.’

Chishiya didn’t reply. I felt the softness of his breathing and nothing more. He didn’t seem particularly annoyed, but I could sense that he was thinking deeply as he always did. I wondered if this was enough. If we died here in the rain, entangled with one another like this, would we have said enough to put all of our skeletons to rest? Or would there still be parts of ourselves left unburied?

And then Chishiya muttered something under his breath. ‘別の実現があった.’ I realised something else too.

He shifted a little as he reached into his pocket. Then I felt his fingers around my wrist, and he pulled my hand up towards his lap. He fumbled a little, slipping something onto my finger - my ring. In awe, I held my hand up so that I could see it better. The bright green stone and the tiny silverwork sun glinted even in the grey daylight.

You had it all along.

And then I realised that something was amiss. ‘Chishiya… it’s on the wrong finger.’

The left ring finger is only for…

I tried to wiggle it off so that I could put it on the right finger, only for Chishiya to stop me.

‘Leave it.’

‘But, that means—’

‘I was thinking about what you said, before I left.’ His voice lowered and I could scarcely hear him over the rainfall. ‘I don’t just want to be near you.’

I stared at the ring on my finger until tears threatened to spill down my cheeks. The first time he gave this to me, we had been standing on the soft riverbank as the Beach burned behind us. He was so certain that it was simply a piece of metal. Proof and nothing more.

It rained back then too.

‘You don’t have to cry every time I give you something.’

I sniffled, wiping my face with my sleeve. ‘Yeah, well, I still hate you… Shuntarou.’

‘Ah, it seems I’ve finally been upgraded to first-name basis.’ He closed his eyes, sinking back against that car door. ‘It took you long enough.’

‘I didn’t know… which name you preferred,’ I protested. ‘In the past you would have killed me… for calling you by your first name.’

‘That’s a slight exaggeration.’

‘Anyway,’ I gestured to the ring. ‘I thought you didn’t care… about this stuff.’

‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘But you do.’

I smiled, glad that his eyes were shut and he couldn’t see my face at that moment. I was probably blushing with the embarrassment of how well he knew me. Especially the dream I had told him about all that time ago in the jewellery store.

You remembered everything.

‘What will you do… after all this is over?’ I asked.

‘You mean if we survive?’ He hummed, unfazed by the idea of our uncertain deaths. ‘I’m not sure. In the past I was never really living. I just existed and got by however I could.’ There was a brief hesitation. His eyes cracked open. ‘And then I met you.’

He didn’t explain what he meant by that statement, nor did he seem to want to.

‘I imagine things will be different if I go back,’ he said. ‘But I don’t know what I’ll do yet.’

I could understand his hesitation. The normal world would take some getting used to, and after everything we had been through and everything we had seen, was it even possible to continue with our normal lives? Perhaps not. I couldn’t unsee the blood, the bodies draped and dangling. All I knew was that I needed find my brother and somehow sever ties with my father. It wasn’t something I was exactly looking forward to, but it had to be done. I had to be stronger now.

And of course, I had to find Kuina in the real world too. Maybe after all of this, we could sit down and have a drink together.

Time passed in silence, and although the sun was setting the Queen of Hearts blimp still lurked over the skyline. Part of me wondered whether Arisu and Usagi failed the game, but that way of thinking would get me nowhere. I had to have faith in them. They were our only hope now.

Eventually the rain drizzled to a stop. Chishiya’s breathing was more haggard than before. His leg was cold beneath my head, and when I looked up at him his eyes were closed. If not for the rise and fall of his chest, I would have thought he was dead.

‘Shuntaro,’ I whispered, as a cough rattled my chest. I tasted blood on my tongue, and I knew that I was running out of time too. ‘Hang on a little longer.’

His hand brushed against my hair as he picked up a strand and played with the ends. ‘Worry more about your own injuries.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘I heard that cough. There’s no point in lying.’

‘Stop deflecting—’

A new voice interrupted me. It was a voice that I had heard so many times before, and if I was honest with myself, I had hoped never to hear it again.

‘You two never shut up, you know that,’

Oh god no.

‘Niragi?’ I tried to pinpoint where his voice was coming from. It sounded like he was somewhere behind Chishiya, perhaps near one of the other cars ‘How are you even alive? Why are you alive?’

Wherever he was, he scoffed. ‘Bitch. I could say the same thing about you.’

Really?

Niragi was unbelievable. Even if I couldn’t see him, his presence alone had ruined everything. ‘I should have strangled you… when I had the chance.’

‘I should have shot you in the fucking head. My mistake.’

Chishiya snickered, but it quickly turned into a cough. Beneath his wry expression, it was clear that his injuries were getting to him, although he would never admit to it. I felt awful using his leg as a pillow like this, but it would be far too painful to sit up.

‘Try not to goad him on,’ he said. ‘If you move too much, your lung could rupture even further and fill with blood. If that happened, I wouldn’t be able to do anything for you.’

‘Fine,’ I muttered. ‘I just wish he didn’t exist… He’s a waste of cells.’

‘Oi!’ The response was instant. ‘I heard that.’

I didn’t reward him with a response, and instead diverted my attention to the sunset. The sun was sinking slowly over the concrete buildings, staining the sky a warm pink and lilac. As the light faded, stars began to appear. I wanted to trace them with my fingertips, but I no longer had the energy. I could barely move my arms, and the pain in my leg and chest was quickly becoming unbearable.

It would have been so easy, so gentle, to close my eyes and sink into sleep. In a world like this, sleep was a luxury — one I would never take for granted again. I only realised that I was slipping away when Chishiya’s voice roused me.

‘Stay here.’

His voice dragged me back from the darkness, back to this awful world. It took a conceited effort just to keep my eyes focused and avoid drifting away again.

I’ll stay with you.

It was only after an incredible length of time that a familiar screech of metal sounded in the distance. My eyes shot wide open.

I know that sound!

The Queen of Hearts blimp exploded against the stars. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, because at that moment I knew we had won.

‘Shuntaro?’ My voice was gravelly with blood. ‘They did it… We can go home now.’

Chishiya gave a distinct hum. ‘So they did.’

Somewhere in the dark, I heard Niragi complain. ‘Fucking finally.’

The moment the blimp crashed to the ground, fireworks in every colour lit up the night sky like chrysanthemums, bursting and fizzling into dust. Who had set them off if all the civilians were dead? It was one of the mysteries of this world. Either way, I couldn’t stop myself from smiling at the sight. Beside me, Chishiya was lazily watching the fireworks with a satisfied smile.

A voice boomed across the city like an intercom.

‘ALL SURVIVING PLAYERS WILL BE PRESENTED WITH TWO CHOICES. PLAYERS MUST NOW ALL DECIDE WHETHER TO ACCEPT PERMANENT RESIDENCY IN THIS COUNTRY, OR DECLINE IT.’

Two choices. To remain or to leave? The Queen of Diamonds had hinted as this very moment right before her life came to an end.

‘Like you, I was inquisitive for knowledge. I also wanted to find out more about this place, and so I chose to stay.’

My brother was waiting for me back in the real world. He could be hurt, or worse. However, here I could live life without restrictions or limits. I was free.

But would I be living or surviving?

I looked back at Chishiya. He appeared uncertain, or at least unconvinced by the options. ‘What do you want to do?’

‘I was going to ask you the same thing,’ he said. ‘Either way, it doesn’t matter to me.’

I smiled, knowing deep down that even though I was free in this world, there was only one true choice for me.

‘I’m declining it. 手にしない.’

Chishiya looked away, his face half-buried by darkness, half-lit by fireworks. I could see him thinking carefully, measuring his life. Finally, he spoke.

‘I’ll decline it, I think.’

I reached back and slid my fingers around his. For once he didn’t fight me away or pull away. Instead, he turned to his right and spoke into the shadows.

‘What do you think you’ll do?’

There was a pause, then Niragi replied with, ‘I don’t want it.’

After all that, you too…

It felt monumental. Everything we had fought for had come down to this very moment. I continued watching the fireworks light up the night sky, listening to Chishiya’s steady breathing, our cold fingers touching.

One by one, I noticed the windows of the buildings becoming brighter. At first, it seemed like the light of the fireworks reflecting in the glass. But they continued to glow in the dark, the light from each window blurring into one another like torches. Suddenly, there was a tugging sensation, a drag of unreality pulling me away from this place.

It’s time…

And with that thought, the labyrinth erupted in a blinding white light.

#alice in borderland #aib #chishiya #chishiya shuntaro #Imawa no Kuni no Arisu #chishiya x oc #Chishiya x reader

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l223m0nade · 11 months

Text

Quiet Bucky Who Doesn’t Live With Steve bc he’s still a little feral and WS-y sickfic

Steve didn’t like bad guys messing with New Yorkers, but he did like being able to protect his city. And for the last few months, there had been another reason to enjoy hometown missions.

“Tell our mystery pal thanks for the assist,” Sam said dryly as he finished his sweep to confirm everything was contained, which it was, in part thanks to perfectly aimed shots winging the two jerks at separate control stations directing the big insectlike robots. Clint hadn’t been available for last-minute sniper support, but Steve had said “I might know someone,” and everyone had sort of nodded in vague acceptance and ignored his possibly over-eager tone. The Winter Soldier was still officially at large, whereabouts unknown. Unofficially the search had petered out.

“Thanks for the help,” he murmured into his earpiece— set to an encrypted channel. “Specially on short notice like this.”

After a short pause the reply came, soft, “…You had ‘em on the ropes.” Steve barked a surprised laugh, unable to stop himself from scanning nearby rooftops though he knew he’d see nothing. “Was in the neighborhood anyhow.”

“Feel like sticking around?” Steve tried for casual. “Got nothing going on after this myself. It’s soup weather.” It was freezing, and drizzling in a way that looked light from indoors but soaked you if you were out in it for more than a few minutes. He bit back the words where do you stay, is it warm and dry enough there, just come home with me, but he thought them loudly.

A longer pause this time, but then, “It is, huh. Yeah. Yeah, alright Rogers,” and Steve couldn’t help the grin stretching across his face. Wherever Bucky was hidden, he was clearly in his sights, because he heard a husky chuckle. “Sap,” came the parting shot. “See you there.”

“Roger that,” Steve said, mock-serious, and won the sound of another laugh starting before the commlink cut out. He was allowed to be a little happy, he thought as he hopped on his bike and headed to his Brooklyn apartment. He hadn’t seen Bucky in over two weeks. Trauma and justified paranoia and unfairly dubious legal status combined to mean that Bucky couldn’t yet handle anyone knowing where he slept. For a long time Steve’s only contact with him consisted of mysterious sniper shots obliterating enemies about to get the drop on Steve and Sam as they hunted Hydra remnants down, but over the summer by tacit agreement they had both settled —for a given value of the word— back in New York. And now they talked on the phone, and sometimes Bucky provided don’t-ask-don’t-tell overwatch on missions, and sometimes he came by Steve’s place for meals and company. Steve worried about him constantly, and missed his steady physical presence as he had since before the ice, but Bucky was getting by the best way he had, and he would respect that, no matter what.

If Bucky hadn’t picked up his call or agreed to come over he probably would have spent the night staring at the cold rain out the window, but that was nobody’s business but his own. He opened the door to his apartment, nudged the thermostat, and began pulling out the ingredients for simple chicken soup, feeling warm inside and out.

Before long there was a soft breath of chilly air, the sound of a window closing, and a quiet throat-clear. He turned and there Bucky was, in the corner of the living room, looking a little tense and sheepish as water dripped from his coat. The sight of him in his apartment gave Steve the immediate sense of all being right in his world. “Hey, pal.”

Bucky gave a small smile in reply. “Sorry, I—” he cleared his throat again, “drippin on your nice floor.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it,” said Steve, hearing his accent come out stronger as it always did around his oldest friend. “I got plenty of towels. I’ll get you some.”

He came back with and armload of fluffy towels as Bucky shrugged out of his coat. “Warm in here,” he murmured, with a little shiver as his body adjusted to the cozy temperature Steve had set.

“Sometimes I’m still surprised at how I can just make my place any temperature I want,” Steve chuckled, “I sure coulda used that back in the day.” Bucky just nodded, a hint of wonder in his face as he took the towel Steve offered. “I pulled some clothes out for you, you may as well let your things dry out while you’re here.” Wet clothes had been one of Bucky’s favorite fussing subjects back in the day, he couldn’t begrudge Steve this.

He did go to change after only a moment’s hesitation. Steve went back to the kitchen area but just hovered there. He wasn’t eavesdropping, he just had super hearing. There was another throat-clear, a sniff, and a husky cough as Bucky changed behind the closed door. He came out a moment later, rubbing his nose absently, wearing the crew neck sweater and thick soft black pants Steve had left out, and quirked an eyebrow. Steve blushed as he realized he’d been staring at the door waiting for it to open.

“I missed you, sue me,” he muttered as he moved toward him. He looked so soft, and still cold. Steve telegraphed before going in for a hug, but Bucky just moved into it with a little sigh, pressing his face into Steve’s shoulder and rubbing a little. He seemed tired. Steve wrapped his arms around him with his own sigh. He was so glad he was here.

Suddenly the shoulders he embraced tensed up with a quiet but sharp inhale, and before either of them could react, a silent “mmp!” of a stifled sneeze was pressed into Steve’s shoulder. Bucky pulled back but only had time to blink once in surprise before his nose visibly twitched. “Dish!” This sneeze, tiny and only a little less held-back, went more or less into Steve’s left pec.

They stared for a second, arms still loosely wrapped around each other. Bucky sniffled, rubbed his nose, muttering “Jesus, sorry” at the same time Steve said “bless you” with a little nonplussed smile. Steve’s cheeks felt warm and Bucky was blushing. His nose was also a faint pink, and he looked pale, with a particular tiredness around his eyes. Steve tucked his damp hair behind his ear to see more clearly, and Bucky shifted under his scrutiny, clearing his throat again with a rasp.

“You sound like— are you sick?”

Bucky started to roll his eyes at Steve, but he had to sniffle, and then his breath caught and his expression changed from exasperation to mild surprise as he stepped back and lifted his bent arm to muffle a soft strong sneeze. “EHh-tschuhh!”

“Aw, Buck,” Steve tutted, sounding like his mother.

“snfff, It’s nothing,” Bucky tried for a casual brush-off, but after a moment under what Sam called his Piercing Earnest Puppy-Dog Gaze he deflated, rubbing his nose on his wrist like it still tickled. “It’s been cold and wet for a week,” he groused in explanation, “sff, guess it got to me.”

“And you were out on that rooftop for hours,” Steve clucked, moving to the kitchen instead of wrapping Bucky up again and not letting go, “siddown. Lucky for you I was already making chicken soup.”

Bucky sat at the counter to watch Steve finish throwing ingredients into the pot. “Ooh, the one meal Steve Rogers can cook? Lucky me is right.”

“I can make breakfast!” Steve replied indignantly. Bucky scoffed, which turned into a little cough and sniffle. “Fine, well, I can make oatmeal. And meatloaf!” He said in triumph.

“Sez y-you...heh,” Steve glanced over to see him blinking up at the kitchen light and scrunching his nose ticklishly, but the sneeze abandoned him at the last minute and he buried his nose in his sleeve to rub itchily with a little growl. It was all fairly adorable.

They kept up the banter as Steve set everything simmering and cleaned up. Bucky kept having to sniffle and rub his nose, which was turning completely pink, and he had to pause with hitching breaths a few times. Steve remembered the war and all the years before— you could always tell when Bucky had a cold and not just a tickle in his nose because he’d spend the first few hours being mercilessly teased by sneezes that refused to manifest and left him blinking pinkly and sniffling like mad.

Eventually Steve took pity on him and rooted around a drawer until he found his small stash of clean folded handkerchiefs. Bucky glanced at what he was being offered with plaintive eyes, trying to get the sneeze to finally come, head tilted up and his metal hand pressing gently on the bridge of his poor nose, taking big, hitching inhales, building up torturously, “ehhHehh…hehhhh…hehh—HEH—…...HEHdjtcschOOoo!”

He’d been unable to focus on anything but the sneeze, so it just got aimed at his wrist and ended up sort of everywhere. He snatched the handkerchief in the second he had before another tickly spraying sneeze overcame him, and caught this one in the soft cloth. “HIHHDtsschuhh! Ohhh, mby god.” He groaned dramatically and blew his nose with relief. Once he’d gotten cleaned up he slumped down to the counter.

“Alright fidne, I’mb sick,” he sighed. Steve felt sorry for him, but he was caught up in warm nostalgia as well. Bucky never held out long with the tough-guy act before getting a bit pitiful. His mom and sisters had loved to fuss over him the rare times he was poorly, and after token resistance Bucky had lapped it up. When he and Steve lived together the dynamic was always Bucky mother-henning him, but Steve had reveled in the few times their roles had reversed. Bucky acting pitiful and Steve coddling him in his sharp bossy way had been one of the ways they flirted when neither really understood what they felt.

Bucky sniffled and Steve could hear the building congestion. He continued grumbling, “ya happy ndow?”

“Well, not that you got a cold, but yeah, Buck, I’m real happy you’re here. No point in a swanky heated apartment if I can’t put you up once in a while.”

“Hmmb.”

“Now cmon, blow your nose again and eat some soup. It’s not Ma’s but it’s as close as I can get it.”

Bucky picked up the crumpled hankie, grimaced, chuckled, then quietly gasped into a smaller sneeze, “hhh-hhh-hHMptshh, ugh, this ain’t gonna last much longer.” He blew his nose thoroughly and it left him alone while they ate their soup, side by side at the counter, elbows and knees nudging.

#AAAAA YAY I WROTE IT DOWN #this has been in my head forever and ever i thought i was gonna write it MONTHS ago and then the sprites abandoned me #i really want to keep going i have more but i also just want to post it before i have to go do stuff today #cuz with my writing motivation who the fuck knows #anyway i hope you like it plz let me know what you think!!!!!!!!!!!#snzfic #snz kink fic #cute sick bucky #steve rogers #bucky barnes #soft sickfic #understated stucky but it's def there #stucky #soft boys #lol i'm so stoked to be able to post something yall

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seraphinitegames · 2 years

Note

Hi. A few years back i left a message here, stating my gratefulness- TWC has helped me come to terms with my gender identity. You may not remember it, but your response has made me incredibly validated and helped me accept myself.

Ive been having a hard time lately, and because nothing was helping, i tried to think back to things that brought me comfort before. I remembered your books. The past month i spent doing different routes, sometimes even redoing ones ive already gone through (specifically Adam's, because gotta love a good slowburn) and it feels like home. Like im supposed to be there.

I admire you so much. Your work is one of the greatest things Ive come across, and im not even exaggerating. Ive followed your social media for quite a while, and Would see your posts occasionally, and honestly... Your dedication to this book is inspirational. The Way you love your work so much makes reading ten- no, a hundred times better, because you know that the author put care into every single Word.

Its something that made me feel immense respect, your motivation, dedication and Discipline are, by my estimation, insane (In the Best Way possible.)

Im so sorry for any spelling/grammar/punctuation mistakes, im writing this on a tiny, laggy Phone, but i really felt i needed to share my feelings.

I genuinely wish you all the Best. The Wayhaven Chronicles has brought me, and many others, im sure, the warmth nothing else Could provide at the worst moments, and im grateful for every scene, for all the moments i got to live through while reading.

I love your work and i love you, as an author. I wish you all the time and patience in the world. Thank you for every thing.

Wayhaven was always meant to be an escape. A safe haven for people to enjoy and just immerse themselves in to be somewhere else with characters who care for as long as they need.

Myself included!

One of the reasons I want the characters to be so reactive to personality and choices and things is because I want people to be able to play as themselves if they want! Why play as someone else when you’re already so awesome?

But there is always the option of exploring different characters too and seeing how that goes. I have soooo many MCs just because I am addicted to seeing how different personality and skills interact, hehe! :D

Wayhaven is my life and my love. I pour my entire soul and being into this series. But knowing there are people who value that and appreciate that brings even more meaning to it.

This is such an incredible message, thank you so much for taking the time to stick with me throughout all this time as well as getting in contact again. It really does mean the world to me, even though I can't express it anywhere near enough in mere words! <3

#the wayhaven chronicles #interactive fiction #asks #personal

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ihasafandom · 4 months

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Carnage re-write

I'll add these all together into a single post and probably put it onto a03 and my artblog when I'm done with all of these, but for now we're going with this format.

Part 2/??

Previous / Next

So for Eddie’s arc let’s have him learn that he needs to open up and allow himself to listen to and rely on other people. He can’t go around behind other peoples’ backs, and he can’t lie to the people in his inner circle. This will connect back to his flaws in the first film, where he tried to do everything himself his own way without considering how other people would feel about/react to that or reaching out to any of his contacts or allies for help or anything like that.

Venom meanwhile got hints of it in the first film, but we need to double down on it learning the value and meaning of community and friends and allies and all that. In theory Eddie has some of that, but he also tends to throw them away so if we can have Venom glom on and stick that’ll be good for them both in the long run (not a necessity for a good story, but I like when partners fill eachothers’ weak spots.

As for the relationship, we need them both to go on a journey where they realize that/why they care about eachother, and come to value that enough to compromise and work to find their balance.

They also both need to temper their impulses and instinctive responses to be able to think thing through and not just rush in guns blazing, though that might be a series arc and not just for the one movie.

Probably makes the main thrust of this movie something along the lines of: People and relationships are important and irreplaceable, but also hard work and compromise. They are well worth the effort of doing things right.

Which gives us some nice points to invert for our villain trio.

And speaking of villains, the villains and side-characters need arcs too.

In the film, Cletus wants to tell his story, wants to escape, wants to find his girlfriend, wants to get married, and wants to wreak havoc and kill people.

Scream wants to escape, wants to find her boyfriend, wants to get married, and wants to wreak havoc and kill people.

That’s all perfect for what the film wants to do (I have not read the comics and know nothing about scream, don’t at me. But also do, maybe you’ve got some ways to sell all of this better) 100%, no notes.

Where this breaks down is when it comes to Carnage itself. We get very little of its motivations, and we don’t get much between the symbiote and Casady, and even less between it and Scream. And what we do get isn’t compelling. It seems clear to me that they were trying to do a parallel to Eddie and Venom here, but it lacks the clarity and follow-through to really work.

Also AFAIK Carnage symbiote is supposed to be she/her and it’s a bummer that it’s not in the movie though I am always gonna be a “symbiotes are it/its first and anything else second” truther.

So to fix it:

Carnage is newly born straight off of the “we should be able to do what we want with no morals/consequences/limits” argument that Eddie & Venom were having and bases its initial personality off of that. Its motivation is that it wants to murder-party its way across the Earth. It sees Cletus as a good time and it is covetous of him as a host. It wants a match at least as good as Venom’s, and it wants its host to have things that make them feel hedonistically good, but it does not respect Cletus and it doesn’t care about Scream herself.

Cletus loves Scream. And he appreciates the abilities and possibilities that Carnage brings to the table and the way that their goals and desires align, but nothing more than that. People are a means to an end, to be used as he sees fit. To be manipulated and lied to without a thought. He doesn’t care to tell Scream about Carnage being its own being, all the better to bask in the glory of saving her and being powered up all by himself. He doesn’t care to explain to Carnage how the world works, or to reel it in, preferring to ramp it up for the carnage and chaos and pretend that it was all his idea.

Scream loves Cletus, but she is jealous and suspicious. She acts up whenever Cletus seems to have anyone else important in his life, and is even more dismissive of the people around them as little more than backdressing and playthings at best. She has skills and knowledge, and tries to use them to plan their future, but gets ignored by Cletus overruling her opinions and choices unless he is in a “yes, anything for you, everything you say will be done” mood. When she finds out about Carnage she is HECKIN jealous. How dare he have someone even closer to him than she is?

The marriage going from the two of them to the three of them is a peace offering without solving the underlying issues. And when Cletus ignores one of Scream’s choices – the officiant or somethign and Scream gets mad and Carnage slaps her for ruining their big day and then Cletus fights with Carnage for hurting his love, that is the crack that weakens them enough for Eddie and Venom (with backup) to eventually win the day. Their bond is stronger, they have put in the work, they have laid out a support network and talked about their needs, and in the end they will prevail because they have a healthier relationship for it.

This is of course diametrically opposed to how the actual movie played it, where Eddie and V got back together with no actual changes and out of desperation but the movie still kind of tried to imply that they won because their bond was better? Nah, you gotta earn that, on both sides, and we’d seen more problems on the protagonist side than the antagonists’ by far at that point.

Part 2/??

Previous / Next

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forest-hashira · 7 months

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Yuji Rescue

ok. so. before i pass tf out, i decided to post a lil scene for you guys!!! i let @ghost-1-y pick lol SO here's part of Yuji's rescue! @peachdues you can pick the next snipped once i have more scenes fleshed out aaahhhhh

Note: Rye is the name of Nanami's dragon, Takara is the name of Reader's dragon

“Kento, I don’t think there’s anyone here.” You glanced over at your friend then, though his gaze was still locked on the torched landscape beneath you. “We’re too late. They got away, we need to move on.”

The blonde was silent for a few moments longer, guiding Rye to circle around the remnants of the village once again. He seemed even more focused than usual, his brows pinched as he scanned the scorched settlement. “I’m going down to check it out. I feel like we’d be missing something if we left now.” Without giving you a moment to argue or ask what he meant, he took off down towards the ground, Rye’s wings tucked against her sides to speed her descent.

“Kento—!” you exclaimed, urging Takara to follow after the pair, once your brain had caught up to what was happening. With Takara’s size and speed, you landed less than a second after your friend, about fifteen feet of space between you. “Why did we land?” you asked, dismounting Takara once she had settled enough for you to do so safely.

Kento dismounted Rye easily, one of his hands coming up to rest on her neck as he looked over at you. “I think there’s something here that we need to find.”

“Like what?” you frowned, casting your gaze around you. There was very little that was still actively burning, but there were patches here and there that were smoldering, and the air was thick with smoke. “There’s nothing here that’s still alive, and anything of value was likely looted before we arrived.”

“I don’t know what,” he replied tersely. “But I would appreciate it if you could humor me, just this once.”

You turned back to him, taking in his expression: his face was tinged with frustration at your questioning, but the rest of his body language pointed towards worry and uneasiness. Your brows furrowed a bit more, but you slowly nodded. “Sure, Kento. Should we split up and look around?”

“That would be quickest, yes,” your friend agreed, and you could see a bit of the tension in his shoulders bleed out at your words.

You nodded, turning away from him and walking towards what appeared to have been a collection of buildings, though what those buildings were you could only guess; everything looked the same now that it had all burned down. Your steps were careful, and you picked up and moved what pieces of debris you could without burning yourself, making every effort to find anything that could have wound up buried in the wreckage of the village.

Just as you were about to give up, to urge your friend to move on once again, something caught your eye; a small flash of pale pink in the middle of all the black, though it was covered in smoke again immediately when the wind changed directions. But you had seen it, and whatever it was, you needed to get to it right away; maybe this is what Kento had been talking about.

Your pace was hurried, and you nearly tripped several times, but eventually you reached the place where you’d seen the pink spot. Now up close, it looked like hair, and your heart began to hammer against your rib cage. Is this a person? you thought frantically, looking for something to grab, some debris small enough for you to move on your own, but you quickly realized it was pointless. A sharp whistle to summon Takara came from your lips, then a call to your friend.

“Kento!”

“What did you find?” the blonde called back, already making his way over to you.

“I’m not sure, but it looks like a person. They don’t look burned, we need to get them out.”

Though you weren’t looking at him, you could hear how his pace quickened across the ground, your words having had the desired effect. Within moments, your friend and both of your respective dragons were at your side as you tried to figure out the best way to pull this person from the rubble.

“If you and Rye can take care of those pieces,” you said, gesturing at a few slightly smaller pieces of charred wood – what had likely been the walls of whatever building this used to be – “I’ll have Takara take care of the beam, and then I can go in and pull them out. I’m the smallest, it’ll be easiest for me to fit,” you added, when the blonde seemed to want to argue.

He frowned for a moment, not overly fond of the idea of you being the one to put yourself in a potentially dangerous situation, but he also knew there wasn’t any time to waste if the two of you were going to help this person. After a beat, he nodded, making his way to the debris he and his dragon would be responsible for lifting, while your own dragon sank her teeth into the pillar that had the person pinned.

On your count, all three of them pulled the debris out of the way as much as they could, and as soon as there was a space big enough, you dropped to your knees, getting in close and grabbing the person’s shirt and pulling.

“Shit, Kento, it’s a kid,” you told him, the realization hitting you when the person was much easier to pull out of the wreckage than expected, the small form and round face of a little boy greeting you when you’d gotten a safe distance from the rubble.

The blonde swore under his breath, dropping the rubble as soon as you were clear and rounding on you, dropping to his knees to look the kid over. He didn’t seem to be hurt too badly – just a few little cuts on his face – which was good, but there was no telling what kind of internal injuries he might have sustained during the siege.

“We need to get him back to Shoko.” The woman was the best healer your settlement had seen in generations, her knack for knowing what was hurting someone and how to fix it bordering on magical; if anyone could help this boy, it would be her.

Nanami nodded in agreement. “We should try to wake him first,” he murmured. “The last thing any of us needs is for him to wake up while we’re in the air, panic, and start free falling.”

“Fair point,” you sighed, then began to shake the boy lightly. “Come on, bud, wake up for us,” you murmured, feeling a little foolish; you didn’t have much experience with children, and you didn’t even know if this boy could hear you, but you tried your best to come across as soothing.

Thankfully, the sounds of voices seemed to be enough to wake the boy, and his eyes slowly fluttered open. The sight of two unfamiliar faces hovering so close to him seemed to spook him, though, and he pushed away from you, staggering a couple steps away as he stared between you and Nanami. “Wh-who are you?” he stammered, clearly trying to put on a brave face.

You held your hands up placatingly, not wanting to spook the boy any further as you introduced yourself. “And this is my friend, Nanami,” you added gently. “Can you tell us your name?”

The boy hesitated, as if unsure whether he should share that information with people he just met, but eventually he seemed to decide it was okay. “Yuji,” he said, though his voice was so soft you had to ask him to repeat himself. “My name is Yuji.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Yuji,” Nanami told the boy gently. “It looks like you have some cuts on your face, but are you hurt anywhere else? We have a friend who can patch you up, good as new, we just need to know where you’re hurt so we can tell her.”

At the blonde’s words, Yuji’s little hands came up to touch his face, and he winced a bit when his fingers touched the worst of the scrapes on his face, one under each eye. He dropped his hands then, looking down at himself, seemingly taking stock of his body before he answered the question. “My head hurts,” he said eventually, “and right here.” He placed his little hands over his rib cage, a grimace tugging at his lips at the feeling.

“Does it hurt to breathe?” you asked, hoping for the kid’s sake he didn’t have any broken ribs; you knew from experience they were a bitch to recover from.

Yuji frowned and shook his head, lifting his gaze back to yours. “No. Hurts like…to touch it. Hurts like I fell down.” He was clearly struggling to describe the feeling, but even his vague attempt was enough. If none of his ribs were broken, that was really what was most important at the moment.

“Our friend will help with that,” you promised, trying to offer the boy a reassuring smile, though you were unsure of its effectiveness.

The boy was looking around now, having apparently noticed the landscape around him. His expression was almost entirely blank, which was surprising to you, but you chalked it up to either him being in shock, or not knowing what any of this meant.

“Anything else hurting you?”

Ignoring your question, Yuji’s gaze slowly returned to the pair of you, darting back and forth between you as he spoke. “Everybody’s dead, aren’t they?”

The words hit you hard in the chest like a stone, the weight of them sinking into your gut and leaving you feeling heavy. You shared a glance with Kento, not sure how to respond to the boy. He was right, of course, everyone else here had died, but how could explain the magnitude of that to a child?

“Yes,” Nanami said after a moment, turning back to meet Yuji’s big brown eyes. “I’m very sorry, Yuji. We didn’t find anybody else here but you.”

At first, all Yuji did was nod, but after a few seconds the words really seemed to click in his brain, and tears filled his eyes in less time than it took him to blink. He wiped the tears away as quickly as he was able, but they fell so fast he just couldn’t keep up, and they began dripping down his chin, some landing on his shirt, others landing in the ashes by his bare feet. “I want to go home,” he sobbed, the words so soft and sad you felt your heart shatter in your chest.

“I know, Yuji,” your friend said softly, and with a tenderness you’d never seen from him before, he reached out for the boy, gently pulling him closer. “We’re going to take you with us, okay? You’ll have a new home.”

The boy didn’t protest as Nanami pulled him close, even going so far as to bury his face in the man’s chest as he continued to cry. “Okay,” he whispered after a few moments. “Thank you, Nanami-san.”

The two of you shared a look, expressions serious, and after a moment, you gestured to indicate that the two of you – well, three, now – needed to get going and head back home. Yuji needed to see Shoko, and you and Kento needed to speak with Satoru, Suguru, and the higher ups to determine a course of action.

“Yuji,” Nanami spoke, voice gentle as he tried to get the boy’s attention. “We need to leave now. Are you ready to ride with us?” he asked, once wide, red-rimmed eyes were looking up at him again.

Yuji considered for a moment, sniffling softly and rubbing his eyes again. After a few moments, he nodded slightly. “I want to ride with you,” he said, turning his head to look at Rye, who was hovering just behind the blonde man. “Your dragon looks nicer.”

The words caused a slight smile to tug at the blonde’s lips. “Yeah, I think she’s pretty nice. How about you say hi before we take off?”

As Nanami introduced the little boy to his dragon, you took the opportunity to stand upright once again, dusting the ash from the knees of your pants before making your way over to Takara. You stroked her nose lightly for a moment, smiling as the touch caused her to settle down low enough for you to mount her, just like you had intended. With practiced ease, you swung up onto her back, settling comfortably into the saddle as you watched Kento get Yuji settled on Rye with him. The sight of the little boy seated in front of your friend, his little hands gripping onto the leather loops the older man had indicated, his face covered in soot and visible tear tracks, made your chest tighten; he was too young to have lived through something like this. You could only hope he would be able to find a good home in the settlement, with a family who would love him the way he deserved.

“Ready?” Kento called over to you, once he was confident Yuji was secure.

“Ready,” you called back. Grabbing the handles attached to the saddle, you pulled upwards, encouraging Takara back to her feet. With a quiet command of tobu, the two of you were in the air again, the dragon setting a course for home without need for further instruction. Kento and Yuji were only seconds behind you, and as you glanced over at them, you were thankful that the settlement wasn’t too far.

“Don’t worry, Yuji,” you heard Kento say to the boy, leaning down to be a bit closer to him so he could hear his words clearly. “We’ll get to our settlement soon enough, then we’ll take you to the healer, and you can get some rest.”

#dragon rider au #this is not the full scene btw!!! just what i was comfortable sharing lol #also this is not proofread so sorry for any mistakes kfhgkjd #also also this is like. Very Much subject to change bc all the scenes i'm writing have so far been super out of order sooooo. yeah.#snippets

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draguta · 1 year

Text

.a court of ash and smoke | twenty-four.

pairing: lucien vanserra x fem!reader

summary: five years before feyre archeron ever stepped foot in prythian, another human girl found herself in the spring court. but the trials and tribulations of her time under the mountain left her with nothing but a certain red-headed high fae emissary, who had once resented her entire presence, to help and guide her.

chapter warnings: smut, 18+, minors dni, oral (f receiving)

chapter word count: 3133

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The Bench

Jasmine tea, as Alis said rather determinedly, cures all ills. This one, however, you weren’t sure could be cured by a simple cup of tea.

The pain subsided almost as quickly as it had come, only after you told it to stop, to leave.

Leave me alone, I don’t want you here. Leave me alone, I don’t want you here. Leave me alone, I don’t want you here.

You repeated it over and over, even after that ache had dissipated from your chest and the nausea had all-but left your stomach. But you could still feel its power, feel its draw in the very pits of your soul, hiding beneath your skin. Pushing you toward it, telling you to embrace it.

Let me give you power. Let me help you. Embrace me. Touch me. Touch me. Touch me.

“What can I do?” Alis asked, concern written across her wood-like features. You hadn’t left the fireside since they’d dressed you, nursing that tea in shaking hands, that woollen blanket still wrapped around your shoulders. “Do you want me to go and find Master Lucien? Or Lord Tamlin?”

“No!” You said, perhaps a little too quickly, catching her off-guard. “Sorry, I think-I think I just need some food.”

Alis narrowed her eyes and opened her mouth to speak, but Carla got there faster. “Breakfast will be ready by now. You should go down and get a plate.”

You glanced at her in surprise; she hadn’t said even one word to you since before your trip to the Day Court, no doubt terrified of the power that you wielded. You didn’t blame her - you were rather terrified of it too.

Alis helped you descend the stairs, and for a moment you were thrown back to your very first day in the Spring Court. To your first meal with Tamlin and Lucien, to Alis helping you down the stairs, your form shaking and aching. Who knew that five years later you would come full circle.

The dining room was empty besides Lucien sitting in his usual seat. He looked up as Alis and you approached, and as soon as you saw him you let go of Alis’ hand, leaning against the wood of the tabletop instead, hoping to play off your fragile frame as tiredness. You hobbled along toward him, and one glance over your shoulder told you that Alis had already disappeared through the door and back upstairs, likely to clean the floor of your washroom now that she knew you were in good hands.

When you found yourself beside him, about to perch in the seat next to him, his hands wrapped around your waist and pulled you down so that you were sitting in his lap. You tried to ignore the ache that it brought to your weak limbs, not wanting to worry him.

“Where are Tamlin and Feyre?” You asked quietly, voice a little croaky, although Lucien didn’t seem to notice. “Surely it’s not a good idea to be so open around them?”

“They’ll be down shortly I’m sure,” he said around a smirk. “But they’re not here yet.”

“Yes, but-”

“I don’t see them,” he said, humourlessly glancing around the room as if searching for the couple that he could not see. “Do you?”

Even with your hazy head, you couldn’t help but chuckle, and Lucien laughed loudly, pulling you closer to him. You let him, relishing in the feeling of being so close to him, of feeling so safe despite everything. You nuzzled close to him, your face fitting perfectly into the crook of his neck, inhaling that scent, the one that you never wanted to forget.

Your mate.

Not that he seemed to know that yet. You wouldn’t tell him though, not yet. If it was meant to be - if he really had been made by the Cauldron just for you - then he would work it out himself. And he deserved, as much as you did, to feel that bond snap into place when it was ready.

He reached forward, plucking a strawberry from a plate on the table. “Open up,” he said quietly, and you did without question, allowing him to plop the strawberry into your mouth. It burst between your teeth, coating your tongue in sugary sweetness. He watched you with a smirk, but that smirk fell quickly as he studied your face, saw the paleness of your skin, the slight sweat on your forehead, the rings under your eyes from the strain of the morning. “Are you ok?”

You shuffled in his lap so that you were sitting upright, looking at him. “I’m ok,” you said softly - a lie. You weren’t ok, not even a little bit, but he didn’t need to know that. You had seen the worry on Alis’ face that morning, had seen the twinge of fear from Carla when she had told you about breakfast. You couldn’t see that from Lucien too. Not from him. “I’m just not feeling so well this morning.”

His brows furrowed in concern. “What’s wrong?” He asked, eyes flashing with a moment of anxiety. Perhaps of something else. Something akin to panic. “Was it…Was it because of last night?”

Your eyes widened. “No,” you assured quickly. “No, not at all. This is something else. I’m sure it’ll go after I’ve had some food.”

“Are you sure?” He asked again, and you nodded slowly. “Well in that case, maybe I can make you feel better myself.”

He smirked again, leaning in and pressing his lips against your own. Every worry that you had vanished in that second - every thought of those terrifying powers was dulled as his lips, soft and sweet, moved against your own. The taste of breakfast tea mingled with that of his usual flavour, and you couldn’t help but moan into the kiss, giving him everything that you had.

You both pulled away for a breath, and Lucien moved to lean in once more, but a pair of hurried footsteps began to sound on the stairs, and both of your heads snapped to the door. In an instant he was pushing you off his lap, and you were brushing your dress down with your shaking hands, just as Tamlin and Feyre appeared in the door, making their way to their seats.

Tamlin’s emerald gaze glanced to you first - at your flushed cheeks against pale skin, and your rumpled skirts - and then snapped to Lucien, narrowing tightly. But if he suspected anything had happened, he didn’t say anything. There seemed to be something else on his mind, anger seemingly radiating from him.

“Tamlin, I don’t think we’ve finished talking about this,” Feyre said sternly.

“We have,” Tamlin replied, throwing himself into the high-backed wooden chair at the head of the table. Feyre huffed, taking her seat at his right.

“I only want to go to the village and see if there is anything I can do to help,” she breathed out, clearly frustrated, if the way she clenched at her cutlery until her knuckles were white was anything to go by. “I don’t see why it’s such an issue.”

“It’s an issue,” Tamlin grounded out, “because I already said no. Drop it, Feyre, please.”

Neither Lucien nor you stepped in to say anything. You knew that Feyre had wanted to leave the grounds - she wasn’t the only one. Weeks had passed since you had both been put on house arrest, and it was clear that it was taking its toll on Feyre. She looked…broken, almost. The colour had slowly seeped from her face, and those glowing smiles that she used to give were few and far inbetween these days.

She craved her freedom. So did you.

Instead, you slunk down into your chair, trying to blink away the fogginess in your brain, to command your hands to stop their trembling enough that you might be able to eat. You were scared, but at least you had Lucien, there beside you. He was there, and he always would be.

You all ate in almost silence, Feyre and Tamlin clearly mid-way through an argument, whilst Lucien allowed you space to deal with your growing sickness, although you had to admit that the food did seem to help. If only he knew exactly what the reason was behind it - but you couldn’t. You couldn’t tell your friends, your love, your brother, what was happening to you. If Tamlin found out he would likely have you ordered to bed rest, or worse, to be chaperoned at all times.

And Lucien would be so worried…

No, you’d keep it to yourself for the time being, and if you really needed something, you could go to Alis. She would help you as best she could.

The thought occurred to you that perhaps you should contact Rhysand again, but you knew exactly what he would say. He would tell you that you had to go to the Night Court, and you couldn’t bear the thought of that, to leave Lucien behind and go to a place that even the thought of terrified you so much. You wouldn’t do that unless you were really desperate.

“Well, I should be off,” Lucien declared as the plates were cleared from the table, rising to his feet, a hand falling to the sword on his hip. “Border patrol today.”

Tamlin lowered his head in a dismissing nod, and Lucien turned, throwing you a small and fast wink before leaving the room. It wasn’t long until you too left, citing a headache as the reasoning, dipping out of the dining room and turning to head back up the stairs. But as you stepped up onto the first step, a warm hand wrapped around your wrist, yanking you to the side. You yelped, loud enough that had Tamlin and Feyre not begun arguing again in your absence, they might have heard you and come looking.

But as you glanced up and found who it was that had grabbed you, his hair golden orange in the morning sunrays that danced their way through the open window, you were thankful that your brother hadn’t heard.

He leaned down, tasting your lips once more, this time more fervently, more adventurously than he had in the dining room, without the looming chance of being caught hanging over you. And when he pulled back, there was a glint in his eye, one that you could almost be forgiven for being so sure you had seen reflected in his golden eye too.

“Run with me,” he whispered. You frowned, and opened your mouth to question him, but his hand slipped into yours, and he said again, “Just run with me.”

And then he was off, trailing through the halls of the Spring Court manor, shoes hitting the tiles with a sharp ‘smack’ at each footfall, trailing you behind him. And despite the aching of your body, despite the splitting headache that radiated through your skull, you couldn’t help but laugh.

Your skirts floated around you as you ran, and your hair bounced against your back, and you couldn’t help but smile, laughing aloud as he pulled you down hall after hall, skidding around corners. He glanced over his shoulder every now and then, hair whipping around his face as he beamed back at you.

This right here. This was pure happiness.

Lucien seemed to know exactly where he was headed, and you didn’t question him. You didn’t stop until you were stood outside a large wooden door in a darkened hall, one in a part of the manor that you had never stepped foot in before then. You almost crashed into him when he came to a stop, and your lungs wheezed desperate breaths as you slowed to a halt.

“This, my love, is my favourite place in this entire court,” he whispered quietly, looking down at you with such a soft smile that it almost melted your heart. One push at the door had it swinging open, and you found myself stepping into what could only be described as the most beautiful room you had ever been in. The walls and ceiling were entirely glass, and across the stone-tiled floor were flower beds, filled with every plant and flower that you could imagine. Even trees grew upward toward the glass roof, their very tips seemingly brushing at the sky beyond.

“What is this place?” You asked, whirling around to Lucien, eyes wide. He leaned against the wall by the door, arms crossed over his chest, and a smug smile plastered on his lips.

“I told you, this is my favourite place in the entire court,” he chuckled. “It was built by Tamlin’s mother, I believe, as a place for her to be alone with nature, to have a minute to herself. I found it in my first month here. I don’t even think Tamlin has ever stepped foot inside.”

“B-But the plants, they’re so green,” you said. “How could he not come here to tend to them? Is it the gardeners?”

“It’s the magic,” Lucien said, his voice smooth and soft as he pushed himself off the wall and came to stand behind you. He wrapped his arms around your waist, leaning his chin on the top of your head and drawing in a deep breath. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s beautiful,” you said quietly, looking around in awe. Even the smells of the flowers, lingering in the compacted air of the indoor garden, was enough to overwhelm you, to forget about everything that had happened that morning and simply be.

“Just like you,” he whispered into your hair, planting a fleeting kiss to the top of your head. “Didn’t I tell you I would make you feel better?”

He rounded to your side, holding out an arm for you. You gladly linked your own through his, and you began a slow stroll through the gardens. With each flower bed that you passed, you allowed your fingertips to trail over those fern and juniper green leaves, over the velvety petals of the flowers, sighing contently.

“I thought you had border patrol this morning?” You asked as you came to a stop at a little wooden bench in the very heart of the gardens.

“Oh, I do,” he said, pulling you toward him. “But I can spare an hour first to spend with you.”

Your cheeks flushed, and you couldn’t deny that you already felt much better, just from being there, with him. You reached up on your tiptoes, arms snaking their way around his neck and pulling him down to you, savouring his unique flavour, the way his hands came to rest on your hips, the feeling of his silky hair between your fingers.

“Y/N,” he groaned, and you could already feel his length hardening in his trousers against you. “You are insatiable.”

“Me?” You choked out through a giggle, pulling away from him and turning to the bench, your finger still curled around one of his, pulling him along with you. You glanced at him over your shoulder, batting your eyelashes, causing him to smirk. “I don’t think it’s me. I do believe that’s you, Lucien.”

“Is that so?” He asked, cocking an eyebrow and tilting his head to one side as you lowered yourself onto the bench. “Well, you see the thing is that when I’m around you, I simply cannot help myself.”

Slowly, and with enough intent to make your heart pound within my chest to the point that you worried it might burst through your very ribcage, he lowered himself to his knees before you. His hands came to land on your thighs, rubbing up and down once, before carefully pushing them open. They slid down, past your knees, over your calves, until they reached the hem of your skirts, and in a second they were bunched up to your waist, revealing your underwear to him. He shot you a satisfied smile, fingers brushing at your navel and eliciting a small gasp as he hooked his fingers around the waistline and slowly - at a frustrating space - pulled them down.

“I think it’s time I finally have a taste, don’t you?” He said, voice so low and gravelly that it almost made your heart stop then and there on the stop. The anticipation was almost too much, and as he reached forward, running a finger through your folds, you couldn’t stop your body from arching against the bench. “So wet for me already. Do you like having me on my knees for you, my love?”

That finger dipped inside you unexpectedly, and you cried out his name.

“So sensitive,” he chuckled, but you knew that he was enjoying every second of it. Especially, when you felt the strands of his hair tickling at your inner thighs, as he leant in, head secured between your legs, and licked one strip through your folds. You gasped, fingers wrapping tightly into the roots of his hair. He let out an appreciative grunt.

He lapped at you as if you were his last meal, as if he hadn’t just had breakfast, as if he had never tasted anything as delicious in his entire life. Long, languid licks from your entrance up to that bundle of nerves to begin with, before he began to move his finger, pushing it in and out of you, curling it and hitting that spot inside you that had your toes curling.

The tip of his tongue began to nudge at your clit, teasing it with every stroke, and when you were a mewling mess above him, he finally took it into his mouth and sucked, the flat of his tongue lapping and massaging it. You were sure you could see stars.

He looked up, eyes locked with yours, and he smirked against you as he added another finger. And you knew, as soon as your eyes met his, that you were done for. Your entire body convulsed, and a stream of curses mixed with his name slipped from your lips as you reached your peak. Lucien lapped up everything that you gave him, and when your body collapsed against the bench, he sat upright on his heels, chin glistening with your wetness and grinning happily.

“Sweeter than I had even imagined,” he said, crawling forward slightly to lean against the bench. His hand reached up, brushing sweat-coated hair from your face. “Still with me, my love?”

Your eyes fluttered open, and you let out a loose breath. Your hand found its way to his face, cupping his cheek, thumb brushing across his cheekbone. “You’re incredible.”

“You wouldn’t be the first to say that,” he chuckled, running his finger along your jawline, coming to a stop to grip at your chin gently. “I adore you.”

“I adore you, too.”

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