#I tell her I’m allergic to tea and can only drink water

[daydadahlias]

xoxo

#OKAY #MY DIRECTOR SAID ‘drink the bourbon on stage instead of the beer’ #the beer bottles are filled with water and the bourbon is sweet tea #I tell her I’m allergic to tea and can only drink water #also mind you I currently have a sinus infection and both look and sound like shit #my voice is comprised of just pained squeaks and croaks #and she tells me ‘just don’t drink that much of it’ #QUEEN??? I SAID IM ALLERGIC #DID YOU EHAR ME #ALLERGIC #I ALREADY HAVE. A SINUS INFECTION #ARE YOU TRYING TO PUT ME IN THE HOSPITAL??? #IS THIS A DAMN HOMICIDE ATTEMPT ?? #cornflower #anyway thank you this play is going to be the death of me literally

[genshin-impact-imagines]

✨How they wake you up in the morning✨

Featuring: Diluc, Kaeya, Zhongli, Xiao, Childe/Tartaglia & Beidou!! (Basically my favs)

Diluc

Normally: Diluc gets up early in the mornings, but never wakes you up until you need to be. Mornings with him would be gentle, since Diluc doesn’t show affection in public he’s always extra affectionate when you’re alone. Diluc would give you kisses on your face, neck and shoulder to wake you, while he’s holding you tight.

To be sweet: Morning cuddles!! Diluc would stay in bed rather than get up, he’d allow himself to relax with you in his embrace. When you two get up, he’d cook you breakfast while you hug him from behind. Mornings like this are his favourite.

In a emergency: Diluc throws your blanket on the floor and proceeds to tickle you. It’s a win-win for him, not only do you snap awake, but he gets to hear you laughing early morning.

To be a pain: Look, Diluc hates being mean to you. But when you’re not getting out of bed and you're both getting late and he’s at his wits end, he’ll go and grab water to spray at you. Don’t even try to get mad at him, he did warn you multiple times.

Kaeya

Normally: Also gets up early in the morning. Kaeya is a busy person but he always makes the time to wake you up every morning without fail. He’d be sweet, gently waking you up. Kaeya savours these soft moments in the morning, but he’d also tease you a lot because of your sleepy face. (He finds it adorable)

To be sweet: Gets you flowers/snacks, cooks you breakfast and snuggles you all morning. He goes all out, since he can’t do this often for you he always wants to make sure you know how much he loves you. Also very, very affectionate.

In a emergency: Kaeya turns the lights on and if you try to block out the light he’d grab your hands so you can’t. You’re forced to wake up in the worst way possible, and honestly he can’t help but chuckle at your face.

To be a pain: Makes loud noises. I can picture him singing really loud and banging pans together. He’d also be chanting “Get up y/n” over and over again until you get up.

Zhongli

Normally: Aaaa Zhongli is so sweet when he wakes you up in the morning. He’d gently shake you awake while whispering your name, giving you soft kisses once you stir awake. Mornings with him would be very relaxing, Zhongli would always have tea and breakfast ready for you. Overall 1000/10 he can wake me up any day.

To be sweet: This man is always sweet, he drinks his respect juice. But on those days where he’s feeling extra affectionate, he would hold you close to him, letting you sleep in a little more. He’d stare so lovingly at you, thinking how grateful he is to have you in his life.

In an emergency: Listen, Zhongli is a calm and collected man, but when it comes to an emergency and you’re not waking up.. bet he’d just pick you up and sling you over his shoulder. His head is empty, must get you safe first. Honestly he wouldn’t even think twice about it too.

To be a pain: Never. He’d never be a pain to you, especially in the mornings, even if you absolutely refuse to get up.

Xiao

Normally: Xiao would whisper your name repeatedly and if that doesn’t work then he’d start shaking you. Mornings with Xiao are quiet, but he’d always ask you how you slept and if you needed anything. Cuddles in the morning are not common at the beginning of your relationship, but as time goes on Xiao learns to love morning snuggles.

To be sweet: Xiao would get your favourite flowers for you. (If you’re allergic to flowers then he’d get your favourite snack). He’d still wake you up like he usually would, but Xiao would show more affection. Also when you realise he got your favourite flowers/snacks he blushes profusely.

In a emergency: Doesn’t even hesitate to pick you up and get you to safety first. He’d set you down gently before going off to deal with the problem that was caused. Don’t worry tho, he’d always come back to you quickly.

To be a pain: Believe it or not, Xiao is gentle with his s/o because he’s scared to hurt them. The most he would do is just drag you off the bed, everytime by your ankles. Good luck if you have ticklish feet, he won’t spare you.

Childe/Tartaglia

Normally: Childe would tell you to get up while he’s still half asleep cuddling next to you, gently shaking you while mumbling “Get up.” Honestly neither of you would ever get up this way, so that’s why y’all brought alarm clocks. (Good luck fighting with him about who’s going to turn it off, you placed it at the other end of the room so you’re forced to get up).

To be sweet: Ugh he’d be so sweet. Childe would actually get out of bed first to attempt to cook your favourite meal and drink. When he walks back into the bedroom he’d be happily humming proud of himself, while you eat he'll hold you close and occasionally steal some bites.

In a emergency: Hits his pillow at you. He’d do it gently because obviously he doesn’t want to hurt you but he does use some force. Instead of you two leaving for the emergency you sometimes end up having a pillow fight.

To be a pain: Please tell why I feel like this man would just flip the mattress over. Like, he’s had enough and just *flips* you over. He’d help you up after and make sure you’re ok, but he’ll be laughing at you.

Beidou

Normally: Beidou is up early every morning, like Diluc she won’t wake you up until you need to wake up. She definitely whispers sweet nothings into your ear to wake you, she always enjoys the small smile you have on your face every morning. Pls Beiodu wake me up every morning.

To be sweet: Ugh this queen would cuddle you in her strong arms, while kissing your head. Beiodu doesn’t mind how much time she spends holding you, and when you’re awake she loves asking you about your plans for the day. She prefers cooking breakfast together one these sweet mornings, enjoying all the time you spend together.

In a emergency: Beidou definitely scares you awake. I can imagine her making a loud noise or tickling your feet. If that fails then she’s picking you up or dragging you to safety. She cares so much for you that she would always keep you safe.

To be a pain: Throws you overboard her ship. I’m joking, she’d definitely splash water on you. Unlike Diluc who’d spray it somewhat gently, Beiodu would just get a bucket and soak you. (She’ll dry you up tho bc she may have felt bad seeing your pouty face

My requests are open!

Taglist: @senkuwu-chan

#genshin impact #genshin headcanons #genshin impact x you #genshin scenarios #diluc scenarios #diluc imagines #diluc #diluc fluff #genshin diluc #diluc headcanons #diluc x reader #kaeya fluff #kaeya x reader #kaeya imagines #kaeya #kaeya headcanons #genshin kaeya #kaeyagenshinimpact #genshin impact kaeya #zhongli headcanons #zhongli fluff #zhongli x reader #zhongli #xiao #genshin impact xiao #genshin xiao #xiao x reader #xiao fluff #genshin childe #genshin tartagalia

[miekasa]

any spare levi headcanons tonight????? 😁😁😁😁

Sure, why not, he is the love of my life after all. These are pretty random, and fit in some sort of generalized modern boyfriend au. Hopelessly domestic, as that is the nature of nearly everything I write for Levi, anyway. Also still terribly obsessed with the idea of him with a motorcycle, so there’s that.

He owns at least six black blazers. They’re nearly identical; slight differences in texture and cut, one with lapels, one that’s boldly all leather that you swear you’ve never seen him wear. They’re kind of his go-to staple, other than a sweater.

That being said, he doesn’t exclusively wear all black. His closet leans towards more neutrals, sure, but he’s not allergic to color. You might not catch him wearing neon orange on the average day, but he’s not averse to a nice shade of green, any shade of purple that suits his mood, even a softer pink.

He has towels and rags he sets aside especially for you when he comes over. He always washes them and put them back in place when you leave so that they’re ready to go for next time.

Claims to not have any attachment to the shows/dramas you watch, but he’s totally backseat watching. Halfway into every single series, he starts sitting down when you turn it on, and scoffs at dumb decisions the characters make.

He splurged on one of those frame TVs that look like a painting when they’re idle. It was a good investment in his opinion.

He doesn’t hate Starbucks drinks—there’s worse things out there in terms of quality of tea. What he despises about the establishment is the way they call out names for you to pick up your order. He’s learned that mobile order ahead is the way to go.

Has slippers for around the house, so consequently, you have slippers for walking around his house. He keeps both pairs (and a few extra for friends and guests) tucked neatly beside the door for easy access; yours always go next to his.

Does not understand the purpose of a robe. Buy him one tho and he will suddenly find an excuse to wear it: making breakfast, lounging around watching TV, doing some light cleaning and dusting. It’s comfy, alright, he can admit that much.

The little puppy you got him that he swore he was not going to warm up to now gets the royal treatment. The best doggie goods and treats, top rated shampoos, cutest drying towels, even a miniature couch he constructed just for the pup. They’re best friends, there’s no breaking that bond now.

Speaking of the puppy, affectionately named Captain, Levi can be found walking him every day shortly after work. They have a few different routes, but they always pass by the local vendors/market, who enthusiastically anticipate their appearance every day. Some of the older ladies running stands have even taken to bringing a few treats with them for Captain—after bundling up some goods for Levi, too, of course.

Captain also has a special doggy backpack Levi uses for when he’s on his motorcycle. If you follow anybody on TikTok in his area, you’re bound to see at least one video of the pup while Levi’s out riding. He’s become viral on social media without even knowing it.

(When you show him a video someone posted of him and Captain with well over 100k likes, and a million views, he only rolled his eyes. But remembers that particularly day; remembers the folks had a kid who politely asked to pet the dog, so he let him. He also maybe asks you to send the link to him).

On the subject of the motorcycle, there was a good few weeks he wouldn’t let you on it. Always found an excuse, a smart reply that was punctuated with gentle push on your forehead and calling you too clumsy for it. Later, you found out it’s because he’d ordered you a helmet; didn’t want to risk you riding without one.

He always keeps it in the storage compartment should he make a stop to pick you up while he’s riding; and he usually wears at least two layers to have a spare to wrap you in before you get on.

When he cooks, he always makes sure there’s enough for leftovers and/or to give you some later. He also bakes frequently, and at least once a week, he stops by with some kind of treat for you—“Trying out a new recipe, let me know if you think it’s missing anything.”

On the subject of food, he won’t police what you eat to annoying extent; he knows that not everybody has the time or will to make pasta from scratch like he does. But, he will smack your wrist if you consider ordering fast food when you’re over at this place. Give him 30 minutes and a single pan, he’ll make something much better than whatever you can find on Uber Eats.

Really, though, he doesn’t mean to obnoxious about the homemade food thing, it’s more habit for him. Growing up, he had to learn to be resourceful, so buying fast-food isn’t ever at the forefront of his mind. Cooking for you also turns out to be something somewhat intimate that he enjoys, so just let him.

Once bought an Apple Watch because he liked the look of them, it wasn’t insanely expensive like other high end watches, and it could connect to his other devices, so why not? A week later he returned it, the ping of his notifications were in one too many places for his liking.

You tried to convince him to keep it—“At least for when you’re jogging! It can track your activity and calories!”—but he clicks his teeth. He’ll survive without keeping track of them.

He learned the hard way that jogging with Captain is no good. His legs are too tiny and Levi ended up carrying the puppy the entire time. Captain is more of a walk dog… or ride on the back of his bike dog.

If you changed anything in his phone settings—like the ringtone for you contact, or the sound his keyboard makes—he wouldn’t go back in and try to figure out how to reset it. Unless it was something obnoxious, like adding an autocorrect shortcut to say something lewd.

He doesn’t really listen to music when he’s just walking. When he’s on a run, that’s fine, but he somewhat prefers to just… hear the environment around him when he’s on a stroll or a break from work. The only reason he’d have headphones on in public is to take a phone call, but even then, he’d prefer to wait until he’s somewhere more private.

He likes having you over at his apartment and has contemplated asking you to move in. He doesn’t want to rush anything, though, so he’s content with your sleepovers for now. (Though he really cannot fathom that you call them “sleepovers” like you’re 14. Please).

He speaks to his mother at least once a week, and she always asks about you. Levi tells her that you’re fine, gives her small updates about you, but Kuchel really just wants to know when the wedding is. He pretends to be busy whenever she starts asking and conveniently ends the call.

Occasionally, he’ll stop by and take you out for lunch. Depends on how much time he has during the day for himself, but he always enjoys sharing a meal with you.

Whenever you’re out with your friends drinking, Levi will pick you up. Even if you already told him that you’d Uber home; as soon as you text him that you’re going to leave soon, he’s already on his way.

He makes pretty good cocktails himself. Teases you for running his alcohol supply dry when the truth is he has more of your favorites in his cabinet than his own. He secretly likes the way you flirt with him when you’re tipsy.

You don’t always cuddle on top of each other when you sleep together. You can just lay by each other and that’s enough; but sometimes, you catch Levi turning towards you in his sleep, reaching for your hand. His body seems to search for yours subconsciously, and you swear there’s a hint of a smile on his sleeping face when you put your hand within reach.

Do not try to pay for dinner when you’re out with him. He’ll pull the “I’m going to use the restroom” move and pay the bill behind your back if he needs to. Open your own doors, maybe; pull out your own chairs, sure if you want; but not this.

He flosses very diligently every night. Mostly because he fucking hates the dentist, so if he takes the extra steps and is extra careful with his teeth, he doesn’t have to go as often, right?—Wrong, it’s the one time the roles are reversed, and you and Hange have to wrestle him into the doctor’s office.

On the flip side, if there are any doctors you routinely avoid and/or forget to schedule check ups for, fear not, because Levi will do it for you. He’ll drive you there, too—the only caveat being, that he usually doesn’t tell you where you’re going until you’re almost there. You think he’s doing the mysterious man surprise date thing and then boom, he’s pulling up to the ophthalmologist. Good luck.

He’s purchased a physical, paper copy of the news on every one of your anniversaries, birthdays, and other special occasions. He keeps them all neatly tucked away in a drawer. Sometimes, he looks back on them—sees what was happening in the world around you on that day. Maybe someday he’ll cut them up and bind them together in a book for you.

He doesn’t like having headphones in when you’re home with him, and preferred if you didn’t either—unless it was for work or school. He welcomes you to use his speakers and play your music aloud; he likes listening to what you listen to. If you look closely, you can catch him humming along or tapping his foot when he really likes a song.

Saves pictures you send him in an album in his camera roll. Occasionally can be found scrolling through them—particularly if you’ve been away on a trip, or he hasn’t gotten the chance to see you because of conflicting schedules.

He takes relatively short showers and doesn’t have a strong preference for the water temperature, so he lets you shower first. Unless you want him to join you, of course.

It’s not hard to tell when Levi wants you. He becomes noticeably more touchy, even if that margin isn’t too wide by anyone else’s standards; and he rarely tries to hide it. It only happens in the privacy of your apartments; but he’ll come on to you—leaning a bit further into conversations, a hand on your knee, a kind of cloudy look in his eyes.

Sometimes he forgoes the attempts at being subtle, just kisses you out the blue, carefully backs you up against the wall, puts his hands on your hips. He can be awfully direct when given the opportunity.

#anonymous #[dreamy sight] levi where art thou levi.......... i am yearning deeply #levi x reader #aot x reader #levi smut #levi fluff #snk x reader #aot imagines

[tatiana-petrovna]

Come Away To the Water. Book VII

(read book I here) (book II here) (book III here) (book IV here) & (book V here) & (book VI here)

Come away little light, come away to the darkness To the ones appointed to see it through In the shade of the night we’ll come looking for you Come away little lamb come away to the water Come away little lamb come away to the slaughter Give yourself so we might live anew

fandom: midnight mass pairing: Father Paul x 2nd person OFC (Helena Belleforest) summary: “That’s my job. To know the people in my community.” “You mean the sheep in your flock.” “Especially the little black ones that like to wander off.” His voice is so tender. You wonder if Jesus spoke with this same tenderness. You think, if he did, you would’ve defied Rome for him too. warning: nsft (18+ interaction only)

(playlist) a/n: hey I posted some sheriff smut you should go read it :P taglist: @shannon-posts @seraphiiii @witchy–owl @allergic-to-reality @viatenebrosa @lucie-pevensie @wolfieellsworld @midnight-mess @plainlo-inthemorning @goingtoraisins (if I missed anyone just lmk I’m so sorry if I did!)

“You know you’re describing a vampire, right?” The shock has worn off and you’re just now starting to feel rational thought burgeoning in your mind again. Sitting next to Paul in a little kebab joint in Queens, you reach for the fountain root beer you’d ordered and take a sip. You’d desperately needed to get off the island, if only to come up for air. Thankfully, Paul had been so grateful you were still beside him after his secret had come out, he’d been happy to grant you any request.

Beside you in the booth seat, he chuckles softly and sips his mint tea.

“How familiar are you with vampire lore?”

“Very.” You respond, confident with your knowledge in this arena. Your bookshelves are overflowing with mythology from every corner of the globe. But vampires are kind of your thing. The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice became your favorite book at age 12 and you’ve been obsessed with anything lacking a pulse ever since.

“So, you can tell me about the first vampire legend in recorded history?” He seems a little too amused and you have to wonder what’s up his sleeve. Still, you bite.

“Sekhmet. Badass warrior.” The grin on your face practically glows in your eyes. “She was said to drink the blood of those she slayed in battle. She was worshipped as a goddess because, as the story goes, her blood could heal those she gave it to. Even the fallen soldiers who fought under her command. Like them, she would always rise again after she was slain.”

He gives you a nod of approval, a twinge of pride in his smirk.

“Are there things you don’t know?”

“I mean don’t ask me to like… divide.”

You shrug, laughing softly at your inability to perform even basic math. “I dunno, we’re always discussing religion and mythology and stuff. That’s me. That’s who I am. If we talked about… how to change a flat tire or build a good stock portfolio, I promise I'd sound a lot less nerdy.”

“You’re not nerdy.” Swaying into you, his shoulder bumps your own gently.

“I am.” You snort, “But so are you so I don’t cry about it to my therapist anymore.”

Paul rolls his eyes, then steals a piece of chicken off your plate.

“Sekhmet.” He drags you out of your ADD and back to the conversation at hand. You think, he’d make a very good university professor with his ability to guide conversations. But maybe that’s just you enjoying the thought of getting him alone during office hours. “Do you remember where that myth originated?”

“Egypt.” You shrug. Too easy.

“And her lineage?”

“Uh…” It takes a moment for you to remember this particular detail. Then, suddenly, it occurs to you why. Because she had claimed none. At least not a mortal lineage. “She said her father sent her, the…”

Realization dawns on your face and Paul nods somberly.

“The sun god, Ra. King of the Egyptian pantheon. Father of all creation. He sent her to earth to cleanse it of those who offended him with sin. But he could not bring himself to look upon these horrors with his own eyes. So he allowed Sekhmet to walk only at night.”

“So you think she was an angel too?”

“You don’t?”

It's tough to argue his logic when he’s got you resolving your own questions and finding his answers lying at the bottom of each rabbit hole. “So we… met angels. But we didn’t realize they were angels. And we called them vampires? Thinking we were classifying a species of monster. When in reality…”

“In reality, these were messengers of God.”

“Hmm…” Tugging off the plastic cover of your cup, you shake a piece of ice free and pop it into your mouth. Turn it over with your tongue while your thoughts swirl around.

“It’s a lot, I know.” He offers, sensing the weight of everything you thought you knew being rearranged. His hand finds your upper spine and flattens there, rubbing in slow circles to comfort you. “If you think about it though… it makes some sense. Take this, all of you, and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me. You know the Consecration as well as I do, I’m sure, I mean… it sounds pretty self explanatory.”

“I’m sorry,” Turning to him wide eyed, it takes some effort not to choke on your ice. “Now you’re saying Jesus was a vampire?”

Paul’s head tips to the side, eyeing you almost as if disappointed. But his voice remains as gentle and patient as ever.

“And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?”

Sighing sharply, you shift enough to lean against his side. You like the way his arm wraps across your shoulders like he was carved to fit around you. The way his long fingers play gently through your curls.

“Fine, Jesus was a vampire.” You concede, rubbing at your tired eyes. A deep yawn quickly follows and you decide you’re ready to clock out of theology class for the night. As if he can feel your fatigue himself, Paul gives in to a yawn of his own and drops a soft kiss to your head.

“We’ve probably missed the Belle, you know.”

“Well, we’ll just have to sleep in this booth then.” You close your eyes as if you’re truly resolved. But you’re forced to open them as his body shakes with a deep chuckle before he moves to stand.

“Not a chance.” Moving to toss his paper plate out and yours, Paul offers you his hand a moment later. “I may not have the body of an eighty-year old man any longer, but I still don’t think my back could take that.”

Smirking softly, you pull your coat on and clasp his hand firmly with yours.

"Is that an invitation to test out what your new, younger back can take?"

He eyes you dangerously and you giggle, knowing you're being bad and enjoying every second of it. You like even more the way this feels. Just walking around the city hand in hand with him. No priestly collar tonight, just a t shirt and a hoodie over slim fit jeans to cover his tall frame. No nosy islanders, just the lights of NYC and the pools of shadow in between. Almost like you're both normal. Almost like this could be yours. Like really yours. It makes a favorite song of yours surface in your mind.

I will not ask you where you came from I will not ask and neither should you

Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips We should just kiss like real people do

“Alright, alright. Let’s do something fun though.” Your big eyes sparkle as the possibilities run through your mind. “Wanna get a room at the Waldorf and sneak into the pool?”

“Um...The archdiocese doesn’t really pay in that tax bracket, so...” He reminds you with a pointed look.

“Okay,” You roll your eyes at his adorable but antiquated assumption that he’s expected to pay. “Well, I don’t like to throw this around on the Island of Lost Toys, but daddy did alright for himself on Wall Street after he escaped Crockett, so. If I wanna stay at the Waldorf, that’s what I’m gunna do.”

Brows lifting, he looks you over. Amusement twitching at the corners of his mouth, he shakes his head more at himself than at you, knowing he’s resolved to follow anywhere you lead.

“Spoiled little princess.”

“And here I was ready to invite you along with me.” Flashing him a cheeky smile over your shoulder, you lean into the street and hail for a cab.

“I’m still coming with you. Even if you make me sleep in the bathtub. I’m not letting you wander around New York City alone at night.”

“Don’t be silly, Paul. We both know you would never fit in a hotel bathtub. Not even at the Waldorf.”

~~~

“This is a bad idea.” He glances around nervously, holding a towel from the room in his hands.

You want to call him out for thinking he has the right to adjourn over what is and isn’t a bad idea after bringing a demon-angel back to Crockett Island from the Holy Land. But you decide to let it go for now.

“It was a $300 cash tip, Paul. The security guy is not gunna fuck us over. Relax, sweetheart.” Leaning up on your toes, you brush a kiss to his jawline and flash him a smile.

Mike, the security guy you’d bribed to give you after hours pool access stands at the end of the fitness center's empty hallway.

“Only an hour or two. I’m off at 1am, so I need this back in time to wipe the drive.”

“Sir, yes sir.” You give Mike your best salute and he hands you the key card in exchange. “See you in an hour, captain.”

“Have fun.” He eyes Paul up as if he’s a bit jealous this is being wasted on a man who looks like he’s got a prescription medication for his allergy to fun. But that’s kind of the point. You can’t imagine your… - okay boyfriend seems not the right word… and you can’t call him your lover...well, whatever he is - you can’t imagine the last time he had some proper breaking and entering fun. If ever. It's not like any girls on Crockett are trouble in the way that you always have been.

The harsh fluorescent lights inside the pool room are off and you leave them that way. The kinder, golden lights embedded inside the pool walls seem more than enough.

Shedding your sweater and boots slowly, you let your eyes brush across the room to Paul. It occurs to you only in this moment why he’s really nervous about this entire thing. Sure, you’ve cuddled and you’ve kissed. But you’ve never undressed for each other. His hoodie falls to a nearby lounge chair. Then his t shirt. You don’t even try to hide your eyes caressing every inch of his smooth, pale skin.

His shoulders are even broader than you’d realized. Arms and ribs defined in more a way than they have any right to be. You brush your jeans down and kick them away, eyes never leaving his body. Slowly padding backwards towards the pool, you can’t help but pause by the railing, still drinking him in.

“You’re really fucking beautiful…” The words are a whisper on your lips, and barely that.

Brows rising in surprise, you watch him chuckle as if you’re telling a bad joke. Carefully, he pads over to you, the growing bulge in his briefs impossible to hide. Caressing his fingertips along your cheek, then your neck, he stays quiet, waiting for the follow up. For the boot to drop. When you stay silent, he shakes his head a bit and his chest caves slightly like he’s reeling from the effort it takes to let your words sink in.

“That can’t be all you have to say right now.” Wetting his lips, the back of his fingertips grazes slowly along your collarbone, like ice skates on a winter pond. “Please say something else.”

“Like what…?” You try not to laugh, but it’s impossible. Slowly, you step backwards down into the pool. Thankfully, Mike had turned the heat on and the water is blissfully warm against the cool skin of your legs. Taking his hand, you pull gently, refusing to move unless he follows.

He bites his lip hard, glancing over your shoulder like he’s searching for his resolve in the deep end.

“Helena…”

Pulling him down into a kiss, you lose your balance as his weight falls against yours. For a few long moments the whole world is nothing but hot water and his creamy skin and your mouths moving together. Around you, your hair floats like a halo and his legs brush your own as you both roll, kicking to the surface. If there is a heaven, you refuse to believe it could be better than this.

Before he can say much, you’re swimming forward. Standing in the shallows feels anything but romantic when he’s as tall as he is.

“You know we don’t have to, love.” You call back to him as you surface by one of the lights in the deep end. Soaking wet, your skin and hair glow in the golden halo of it. Thinking he’s several yards behind, you focus on brushing the hair out of your face. “We can just”-

Suddenly he’s got a grip on your arm and turns you around to face him. With the water only 6’ deep, he’s able to stand here easily and pin you to the wall while his mouth catches your own.

Whimpering softly, your body trembles in surprise and it takes a second before you’ve recovered enough to react. Snaking your legs around his waist, you wrap one arm securely around his neck and cling like he’s a liferaft. Your mouth tips to the side, deepening the kiss. Fingers brushing up into his wet hair.

Tongue caressing yours, Paul lets his hands wander. Feels along the smooth skin of your thighs. Traces his thumbs across the crest of your ribs, smoothing over each one as if counting to make sure each is accounted for.

The adrenaline hits you all at once as you feel him lift you and the rush of it makes you giggle softly, breathlessly. His own chuckle follows and, as you’re sat on the edge of the pool wall, he pulls you down into another soft kiss. Without a word, your panties are tugged down. Tossed aside, unnecessary.

For a moment, he just looks up at you. All big brown eyes brimming with wanting. A sort of silent understanding passes between you. That he’s never actually done this before. That he’ll need you to guide him. Nodding slowly, you shift your weight enough to rest one hand back against the cement. The other brushes into his hair, fisting gently as you slide a thigh over one of his broad shoulders.

The heat of his mouth finds your folds with ease and your stomach hitches in surprise. Head falling back, you let go of a soft groan, rolling your hips to meet his tongue as it explores through your folds. He catches the squeak of pleasure in your throat easily when he finds your clit. Savors the way you shudder as he tests the spot again.

“Mmmm...right there, baby… mmhmm… that’s so good…” Fingers tightening gently in his hair, you hold him in place so he’s sure of what you want.

Feeling the little bud spasm against the lashing of his tongue, he groans deep in his chest. His hands tighten around your thigh and your hip.

“Can you...put your mouth around it and just…ohhh…” Your eyes roll back hard as he sucks your clit between his lips as if on instinct, as if he knows your needs like his own. As if he can feel your body like you can feel his. Nails dragging firmly between his shoulder blades, you grind your hips lightly, desperate.

“So fucking good, baby...you’re so fucking good...yes…”

A growl rumbles in his throat from all your praise and you swear you can feel his toes curling against the pool floor. You’re so sure you can feel the blood rushing through his body, making him ache for you until it hurts.

Panting softly, you grip his shoulder hard as he brings you right to the edge. You have to cover your own mouth to muffle the scream as you shake hard in his hands. Everything bursts into dizzying spirals, like a thousand stars combusting inside of you. Across the whole universe. Maybe both all at once.

“Ohhhh…” Paul’s tongue laps eagerly through your cum, like a kitten tasting milk for the first time and it makes your aftershocks nearly ramp up into another full blown orgasm. Legs trembling, you gently nudge him back. Lean down to kiss him with a grin on your pretty mouth. “Hmm...good job, baby...thank you.”

Slowly you slide down into the pool again and wrap yourself around his body all over again. Curiously, you can no longer feel him hard against you.

“Did you…” Pulling back to find his eyes, you search him out. You’ve never met a man you could finish without even touching him. Granted… it’s very likely been decades for him. Gods, and then decades on top of that. As long as you’d imagined he’d been waiting, you realize now as the ‘restored by the blood of angels’ thing comes back to you, he’s actually been left lonely so much longer than that. A whole god damn lifetime.

Dark pink in his cheeks, he nods and dips his head to nudge your cheek with his nose.

“It’s the blood… I fed you some that night after you fainted. To heal you. But… it allows us to…”

“Feel each other?”

He nods again, almost sheepishly. Suddenly, a thought occurs to you and you can’t help the wicked grin it draws out.

“So if I were to stay up all night… thinking of you… touching myself…”

Head tipping back, Paul drags in a deep breath. Your nose wrinkles as you giggle in amusement.

“I imagine I would...be able to feel that too. Yes.” Kissing your forehead, you feel the tip of his nose nuzzling your skin as he shakes his head in disbelief at how relentless you are in your torture. “Thank you for putting that very sinful thought in my mind.”

“Yeah, but technically that’s not a sin. Right? Technically.”

“Technically, it’s a sin for me to even… think about you that way.”

“Oh. So, no confessing to my local priest about how good you are with your tongue then?” You give him an innocently questioning glance and it earns you a gentle swat to your backside.

“Don’t you dare come into my confessional, little girl.” Despite his words, Paul is laughing heartily at the thought. If you had any intention of behaving yourself, his attitude on the matter might be different. But you both know that you’d never walk into his church with holy intentions.

“Yes, father.” You tease him with a sigh across his neck, nipping the smooth skin there with your teeth. He has such a beautiful neck, it always takes every fiber of restraint in your body to ignore the constant impulse screaming at you to ravage the skin there with your tongue and teeth and lips.

“Good girl.” Groaning softly in response, Paul pushes away from the wall so he can just float with you. As he buries his nose in your skin. And you lose yourself in a daydream. A fantasy where things are completely different.

Where the pool is a Roman bath and the hotel is a palace and you're a princess who doesn't have to answer to anyone. Least of all, the islanders of a small fishing village. It's so easy to imagine, so clear in your mind... it almost feels like a past life.

#father paul x reader #father paul imagine #midnight mass fanfiction #happy smut sunday babes #helena x paul #c: helena belleforest #my writing #story: come away to the water

[missymurphy1985]

The Medic (Part 2)

Warning - injury / accident / bit of flirtiness

Authors Note - I'm not medically trained in the slightest - forgive me for any inaccuracies!!

Taglist @queenshelby @margoo0 @being-worthy @peakyscillian @peakyciills @janelongxox @elenavampire21 @ysmmsy @cloudofdisney @lauren-raines-x @namelesslosers @misscarolineshelby @screemqueen @cilleveryone @peaky-cillian @misselsbells06 @datewithgianni @heidimoreton

You looked round, hoping to see him standing to the side, but no. He must've been under that rubble.. and the rigging...

You shouted for everyone to stay back to reduce the risk of any further collapse and slowly stepped onto the set, checking above you to make sure no more debris was going to drop. Once you were sure it was clear, you slowly edged onto the rubble, stepping where you could see the floor, careful not to dislodge anything.

"Cillian?! Cillian, can you hear me?" You called, hearing no response as your heart skipped a beat. You composed yourself and stood as still as possible, looking through the debris. You spotted his hand, sticking out from between the rigging.

You could just about make out his body, he wasn't moving. You could see his chest rising and falling, but the motion of it massively concerned you.

"Anto, call an ambulance - his breathing isn't right! Someone come help me move this stuff off him, slowly!" You called, not taking your eyes off him. His chest was moving up and down irregularly - all your years in A&E, you recognised a punctured lung when you saw one.

Three of the crew came over and following your strict instructions, they lifted each piece of ceiling off the pile, revealing more of Cillian's body. The movement and noise roused him, you saw his eyes flutter open.

"Cillian, do not move! Stay completely still until I've checked you over, say YES if you understand?"

"Y-yes...." He groaned, clearly in pain. Each item lifted caused him to cry out.

"Do not move..." You warned, making your way to him now a path had been cleared. Anto had brought your bag over and placed it at your side as you moved into Cillian's line of sight.

"An ambulance is on its way - you're fine, okay? I need you to tell me where it hurts."

"Chest... Right side..." He coughed and winced. You knew there was a small piece of rigging resting on his ribs and now you were closer you could see it had clearly broken his lower ribs.

"Breathing?"

"Can't.. get.. air..." He was struggling. Really struggling. You didn't have time to wait for the ambulance, he'd lose too much oxygen. Taking a deep breath, you took out a scalpel and plastic tube, along with bandages, a syringe and antiseptic spray.

"Cillian, I need to reinflate your lung. If I don't do it now, you'll suffocate. Paul, can you hold him still please?" Paul came over and you put his arms across Cillian's upper body.

"The... Fuck?" He gasped, seeing the scalpel in your hand.

"I need to do this. If I don't, you won't be able to breathe in around 2 minutes time... Trust me. I've done thousands of these.." You didn't give him time to argue. You injected a numbing agent into his side, and immediately sliced into the skin. He tried to scream but the sound didn't leave his lips, too breathless to make any noise. He struggled against Paul, and Anto came over to help pin him down. You ignored his whimpers as you inserted the tube, immediately feeling the rush of air escaping it. You inserted a syringe into the top of the tube and slowly pulled to release the air into it, closely monitoring how much came out so as not to pull too much.

Within minutes he took deeper breaths, his skin losing the blue tinge you'd noticed moments after arriving at his side. You removed the syringe but kept the tube in place, bandaging tightly around it. Your fingers moved to the back of his neck as you checked his spine.

"I need you to tell me if you feel any pain, or if you feel nothing. Okay?"

"Okay.."

You fingers moved down his neck, he confirmed he could feel it but no pain. You moved to his legs, the same response. At that moment, paramedics arrived.

You handed over to them, explaining what you'd done, and they took over as you stepped back. Your hands started to shake.

"Drink this..." Kate was next to you suddenly, handing you a cup of sweet tea. She wrapped her arm over you to comfort you as your whole body shook. "You're in shock, drink that. You'll be fine."

"I can't believe I just did that... I've never done one before!"

"I thought you said -"

"I lied, I didn't want to scare him.. I've only seen other doctors do them.. what if I've fucked it up?"

"y/n, he's breathing. You didn't fuck it up, I think you just saved his life! Shit me, y/n, have you seen your leg?" You looked down and saw blood - you must've caught your shin on a stray piece of rigging, a huge gash ran across it. Kate got to work checking it out, confirming you definitely needed stitches and let the paramedics know. They said you could jump in Cillian's ambulance.

Once you'd been stitched up, you asked the nurse about Cillian. She had left around ten minutes ago, promising to find out for you. Instead of the nurse coming back, it was a doctor. A doctor you knew from medical school, he'd been your teacher.

"Dr. Taylor?"

"I knew it was you when the paramedics told me! Y/n, you saved that man's life - he would have suffocated if you hadn't intervened when you did!" The relief flooded through you.

"I was so scared I'd done more damage... Is he going to be okay?"

"He's discharged himself - he just needs monitoring in fairness. Broken rib that will heal in time is the worst of it. He said you were the onset medic - can you take it from here?"

"Yes of course. I'll make sure he heals properly. Do you have any supplies?" He nodded and handed you a bag containing antibiotics, bandages and antiseptic lotions and creams.

"He's waiting outside for you. As soon as he found out you were here he refused to leave until you did." You smiled at his gesture. He must've been dying to get back to his hotel.

Heading into the family room, he was waiting. He looked exhausted, blood on his white shirt. Standing gently, he pulled you into a hug.

"Thank you. For what you did. Wouldn't be standing here with you now if you hadn't."

"Just doing my job."

"Don't be so modest. I owe you.."

"Well you can pay me back by taking this medication, resting for a few days and let me take care of you without giving me another death stare?" You smirked.

"Yeah.. it's not every day someone stabs you in the ribs!"

"All in the name of saving your ass Murphy!"

You got back to the hotel and followed Cillian to his room. He had to pause every so often to catch his breath and wince from the pain of his broken rib, to the point where you eased yourself under his arm and helped him across the hallway.

"Are you sure you should have left the hospital?"

"I hate hospitals, and I kinda hoped you'd take the reins."

"That's what I'm here for. Give me your room key." You took the key from him and opened the door, easing him through gently and sitting him slowly on the sofa.

"When can I get back to work?"

"You'll need a couple of days before your lung inflates back to full capacity, and your rib won't heal fully for weeks yet. I know you're on a tight schedule but I won't clear you for work for three days minimum Cillian." He rolled his eyes on frustration, slowly lying down on the sofa.

"Fuck..."

"I know, I'm sorry.. listen my room is just down the hall. Here's my mobile number. If you need me, just call okay?"

"You're going already?"

"You've taken your meds, all you need to do is rest now. Get some sleep if you can?"

"Fat chance of that, my ribs are on fire. They gave me paracetamol, like that's gonna do anything..."

"You allergic to anything?" He confirmed no, and you promised him you'd be back, quickly running to your room.

"Tramadol," you smiled, handing him one of the pills and a glass of water when you got back. "Only take one - it'll help you sleep. Come on, you need to be in bed."

He took the pill, and once it had kicked in a few minutes later he let you pull him up and lead him to his bed. His feet unsteady underneath him as the drug entered his system, you had to help him undress, chuckling slightly watching him attempt it himself.

"You look like a drunk old man!" You laughed, taking over from him and unbuttoning his trousers. Pushing them to the floor, his crotch in your immediate eyeline, you tried to remain professional - the temptation to look was too much though and you couldn't stop yourself stealing a small glance.

"Like what you see y/n?" He smirked, noticing your eyes widen and your cheeks flush. He wasn't even hard, but the outline was clear as day through his boxers - if he was that big soft, Jesus...

"What? Oh no, I uh..."

"No? Hmm. Might wanna tell your face." You looked away quickly, standing up to unbutton his shirt. Slowly easing it over his bruised shoulder, you couldn't help looking at his toned, hairless chest, the ripped muscles in his arms. You cleared your throat, and involuntarily bit your lip, you could feel your core throbbing and mentally scolded yourself.

"Look at me," he lifted your chin and your eyes met his.

"Once I'm healed, and able to move - I'll make it up to you my own way. Deal?"

"Your own way?" His hand caressed your cheek softly, eyes never leaving yours, as he gently leaned in to kiss you. As much as you tried to fight it, you couldn't, and you returned his kiss. You could tell he wanted to ignite things further, but the tramadol you'd given him was coursing through him, making his legs unsteady. You pulled away, easing him down into bed and pulled the covers over him. Quickly grabbing his mobile phone and putting it on his bedside table, along with the note with your phone number, you noticed he was out cold. You pressed your finger to your lips, a slight jump in your heartbeat at what had just happened, but remembering quickly that he was high as a kite on painkillers and wouldn't remember a thing come morning.

"But I'll remember, and that's enough for me," you thought out loud, smiled and headed out into the lounge area. You called Anto and updated him on what had happened.

"I'm gonna stay until he wakes up - Tramadol can have weird side effects, I'm going to keep my eye on him, if that's okay?" You asked, not wanting to annoy your boss on your first day.

"Y/n please - you're needed there more than here right now. Stay with him until he's healed up, we can film everything else while he's resting. Three days you say?"

"At least. I need to know his lung is back to normal before I can clear him for work again."

"Not a problem. His health comes first. Thank you for taking care of him y/n."

"Anytime. I'll keep you in the loop."

You hung up, and immediately heard him groaning. Knowing what was coming, you grabbed the washing up bowl and ran into his room just in time for him to throw up into it.

"Looks like I'm staying here until the Tramadol wears off at least..."

#cillian murphy #cillian smut #cillian x fem!reader #cillian fanfic #cillian x smut #cillian murphy x smut

[haechanokeh]

I’m right for you [pt. 3]

[teaser] [ Chapter 1 ] [ Chapter 2 ]

(you can play Die For You by The Weeknd while reading this 😌)

pairing: popular college! mark x average! reader

genre: romance, smut, angst, series.

warning: corruption, oral sex (both receiving and giving), cream pie, rough sex, mention of religion, rough sex, self-esteem, psychology, public sex, sub! reader, sex toys. possessive mark two-faced mark

I think I’m right for you, babe. You know what I’m thinking, see it in your eyes. You hate that you want me, hate it when you cry. It ain’t workin’ ‘cause you’re perfect and I know that you’re worth it I can’t walk away. (Die for you by The Weeknd)

today is you case presentation with mark. you were deeply affected of what happened in the cubicle but mark seemed unbothered because he was greeting you as usual. it wasn’t weird, he always greets everyone but what was really weird was your classmates. they were looking at you and it made you felt conscious, they were not saying anything but sometimes you catch them glancing at you but you brushed it off and focus on your brainstorming with mark.

yes you do dislike mark but you thank god that he's your partner. he never missed a question from your professor during case study on the other hand you're just standing beside him dumbly. you only understand the question AND the answer once mark responded. well, mark a very kind person he was, despite of answering it alone he made sure that you're included in the case saying base in y/n and my research, even lied that some are from my own research but of course not. plus, for some odd reason, your classmates' eyes were literally made you uncomfortable to the point you were having a hard time to breathe or your social anxiety attacking you. however, at the very moment, you want to give mark a tight hug for making your life easy.

the whole presentation ended. you were putting your things back to your back while standing while mark scrolling in his phone because his dad texted him asking if he could buy him some new pen. you gasped when an arm was on your shoulder, and that caught mark's attention but he hid his annoyance. 

"hey, y/n, i heard you like someone ha?" his brows were playfully raising. it was lucas, he gave mark a meaningful glance but mark smiled confusingly.

"what?" you didn't have any idea what he's telling you. 

"i heard someone saw-"

"mark!" mina suddenly appeared calling mark's name a little too loud which made lucas stop from talking. "we're going to a milk tea house, do you want to come with us?"

“y/n, come with us.” lucas pulled you closer to his body. mark was taring at lucas arm around your shoulder. you weren’t aware of mark’s expression because your mind was thinking ways to breakthrough from lucas. 

“no!” mina exclaimed. he caught everyone’s attention, and she became flustered. “i mean, we will only make her feel uncomfortable and lucas please remove your arms to y/n, she doesn’t look comfortable.” she mumbled. lucas did remove his arms from you. 

“milk tea? can we also come with you?” then the people started to surround mark. it became noisy, knowing you who’s allergic to people and noise sneaked out from the circle and left the room.

mark turned his head to look at you but you’re nowhere to be found. he sighed and forced himself to interact with his classmates.

your mother texted you that he will be away for one week because of their excursion. she left you an allowance good for one week including your meals for the whole day and transportation. you already had your dinner outside. right now you were just laying down on your favorite long sofa in your living room, watching NCT 2020 funny moments. suddenly, mark's name popped. mark is your class representative, he has access to class contacts and it wasn't that mark called you because you're always late in the class so for almost past 3 years he's the one you always contact just to inform the class that you're just late. 

wait, did i miss an announcement? you quickly left the class maybe something came up.

"hello, was there an announcement?" you directly asked

"none, just checking you. we haven't had a proper conversation awhile ago unless it's case related." 

you heart melted, he's very kind and sweet... that scares you.

"ah okay." you simply answered. it wasn't because you want to talk to him, well you really don't want to talk to him but it wasn't that he's annoying or anything- it was just you hate phone calls. you hate talking with someone in general unless it's your mom. 

"well, have you eaten yet?" he tried to save the conversation, he wanted to hear your voice longer.

"yes." it was a one-word reply. 

mark was slightly shattered because you don't seem to want to talk to him. he just thought that maybe you were tired.

"okay, goodnight."

"yeah." then you hang up. 

you returned watching youtube until you drifted into your dreamland... no it wasn't your dreamland.

you gasped and sat up as you woke from another perverted dream with mark. your chest was rising aggressively and you look down as you felt the wetness between your thighs. you raked your hands over your hair as you felt frustration and guilt. this was your second time that you dreamt of mark doing erotic things. you looked at the digital clock it was already 2 am. you groaned and stood up, you want to wash your body because the stickiness just made you feel more guilty if it stays there longer.

you entered your room and stripped, walking directly into your bathroom. you opened a warm shower and as the water trickled on your body, hands unconsciously trailing to the south. your dream was so hot, you can't lie about that. it was in the same cubicle but instead of his digits, it was his dick inside you. 

your eyes closed as you rubbed your bead slow while recalling your dream. you squeezed your left breast and imagining it was mark's squeezing it. you want something to fill your womanhood so you inserted your two fingers and thrust it. your lungs felt like being suppressed by pressure, your thrust became furious. 

"oh my- mark fuck." you moaned his name and you have never been so ashamed. it was so wrong but the feeling was so good that you weren't able to stop yourself from moaning. you felt the tension in your thighs. you knelt down and the hand that squeezing your breast was now on your clit rubbing it furiously. 

"mark! fuck right there." you felt the tension in your abdomen and your legs started to shake. your body just gave in, bending down, cheek shoved against the wet tiles while the warm water splashed on your body.

you screamed erotically, eyes rolling and lashes flickering. your legs were shaking as you reached your high.

 mark hasn't slept yet, it's okay for him because there are no classes. he was staring at the ceiling and mind preoccupied by you.

he was trying to understand why do you keep pushing him away even though you clearly wanted him too. mark did remember where you say he's very different from you, and so? what's wrong with it? what he didn't like is the thought of changing just for a single person but...

"shall i?" he chuckled bitterly. he was really close to his insanity. he feared that this affection will grow into something that is uncontrollable- like an obsession.  

he checked the time through his phone. it's 5 in the morning. he decided to jog outside, so, he took a quick shower and wore his tracksuit and running shoes. maybe if tiredness hits him, he will feel sleepy. mark already went to your house and he didn't tell you that his house is just a few blocks away from you, instead of going to his normal route, he changed it, jogging in your house direction.

when he was closed to your street, he was surprised to see you outside. he stood and admire your naturalness from afar. your hair was disheveled, your eyes weren't completely closed yet, and your face was a little puffy but it doesn't take away your beauty. plus, your cute teddy bear pajamas made him smile. he sends his gratitude to god because he created a masterpiece. 

yeah, mark is deeply in love and he thinks there's no way out of this feeling. 

you were actually waiting for your breakfast, your pancakes from mcdonalds and a warm chocolate drink. when the delivery arrived, you paid and gave him a tip for being quick. you were about to go back inside when you heard a VERY familiar voice which was owned by the person who sleep deprived you 

"Y/N!" his voice was loud, it even cracked. 

"what are you doing here?" you asked.

"morning jog, and good morning to you." he replied and greeted at the same time.

"jog.." you paused and gasped. "from your condo to here?!" you exclaimed in disbelief. mark laughed at your reaction. of course it'll shock you because you already been in his condo and if he jogged it from there to here, he was supposed to be passing out right now.

"no, my family house is actually a few blocks away from here."  he said.

WHAT?! this is not good. you thought. the more he gets closer the more he has access to your mind and body. you masked your displeased face and just nodded.

"okay, ahm. i'm heading back now. bye." you pointed at your house door and awkwardly turned your back walking towards your door.

you expected him to do something because he always do that but to your disappointment he didn't. you looked back to check if he was stil there but he was no longer standing there but you saw him jogging away from your direction. you sighed in disappoinment that made you mentally slap yourself for feeling very contradicting .

you ate miserably your affordable and favorite pancake.

mark took a bathe and go down to eat breakfast together with his parents. they prayed before eating. the cooked food by his mom made him question why your ordered delivery food for breakfast.

"how's school?" mark's dad asked him.

"good, still the same." he replied.

"your father will lead a service, you can invite your classmates. oh mina, you can invite her, she's very sweet girl." his mom said but she doesn't have any motive. she knew mark have not interest in romantic relationship as of the moment, her child was so focus in maintaining his grades and scholarship. at least, that's what he though.. if she only knew.

"i'll try." he forced a smile but behind it was growing tiredness. he knew that his classmates doesn't really want to praise but because they were so fond of mark and they just love to hang out. it defeated the purpose of going to church.

after the breakfast, mark's parent left for their work. he washed the dishes and went up stairs and stayed in his room with his music and guitar. it helped to detach his mind from thinking of you, but it was just temporary as he saw you name appeared in his phone. he almost threw his guitar just to answer your call very quick.

"y/n? why?" he sound so excited.

"ahm, mark... well.. perhaps, do you ahm, have notes from yesterdays discussion? i mean in all cases, not just ours?" you were very stuttering because of shyness. your class have long test about the cases but you're notes are everywhere and you can't understand your writings.

"yes." he said. he knew where this is going. he quickly get out from his bed and go straight to his closet, choosing shirt to wear. "do you need it? i can bring it to you."

"no, no. ahm, you do digital notes right? mind if you could send it through gdrive?" you really don't want to bother him... nah lies. you're just preventing things from happening.

mark paused for a moment and was a little hurt, he understood your statement as if you don't want to see him. but mark will not having any of that.

"it was handwritten though." he faked sorry. he hoped you didn't notice what he did there, hoping that you received it as if it was literally handwritten like directly to paper since he sounded apologetic.

"oh... i see. well, ahm, can you drop by in the house?"

mark still not satisfied by just dropping by.

"how about we study together? we can review together."

you translated it like 'the smartest in your class can help you'and that's very tempting. you can't easily study 8 cases and you need him. you used his diuretics notes in lecture, you almost aced it. now, your lab needs him.

"then, pizza is okay for you?" you whisoered from the other end.

mark secretly fist pump and grinned in triumph.

"yes."

you spayed air freshener in your living room and changed your shirt to another shirt? you only have tees just in different colors, you changed your short into black sweatpants. you made sure that your hair was far different from the hair he saw this morning. you already ordered the pizza.

the doorbell rang. your quickly opened the door for him. mark was standing, carrying his ipad and his other hand holding a two milk teas in a cup holder. he's wearing dark blue t-shirt and gray sweatpants. you smiled awkwardly and let him in. you scanned his body, looking for paper or at least a piece of paper but you didn't see any of it. mark was looking down at you, watching you observing him.

"where's your notes?" you curiously asked.

"here." he lifted his ipad. your jaw dropped.

"i thought you did not do digital notes?"

"i don't recalling telling you i didn't, i just said it was handwritten and when i saif that handwritten in my ipad." he reasoned. taht made you think later realizing that he was right and that made you dumb.

you sighed in defeat.

"by the way, bought you milk tea since you missed it yesterday." he said, you acually don't care if you missed it or not.

you walked towards the single couch and patted it.

"you can seat here." you said.

he quickly sat down and put the milk teas on top of your living room's table. he confusingly watched you when you sat on the long couch and it was the end of it. you were too far from him.

you noticed his sulking face.

"mr. mark lee, what's with your long face?" you chuckled teasingly.

"why are you too far from me?" he pouted.

"damage control." you replied shortly and get your case 3 notes which is very illegible to read. "can i borrow your case 3?"

"why? what did i do?" mark asked was clueless. he did not pay attention to your question

"mark, being alone with you is not healthy anymore." you directly answered him.

"orgasm is healthy, what do you mean?" mark didn't get your.

"mark, that's not what i mean. we're like horny teenagers doing unappropriate things."

"we're already passed in that phase in life, we're both adults." he rebutted.

you mentally face palmed yourself in frustration. why is he so smart and dumb at the same time.

"mark, that's not why i mean. we're being to touchy, every time we are left alone the next thing we knew we're touching each other. do you know how scary was that to me? it only happened twice but i am already longing for more! when i don't feel your touches i go craaazy! i even touched myself for freaking 2-" you froze when you realize what you were telling him you stared blankly at him.

on the other hand, mark was very pleased hearing you exploded from frustration as you became honest for the first time.

"you touched yourself? what 2?" he smirked and lifted his brows.

you cleared your throat.

"can i borrow your ipad? i need your case 3." you murmured and look anywhere but him your face heat up. you want to be swallowed by your favorite sofa.

"then get it."

you look at his ipad sitting on his manly wide spread apart thighs. your eyes stared at the mark that makes your knees weak and wet pussy. his fiery eyes looking directly toyou while he was sitting comfortably on the couch and arms are both in each side of the armrest.

"mark lee, i need it." you tried to use your stern voice but failed because your voice was too small.

"i told you, you can get it.. here." he glanced at his ipad.

you gulped and the living room's air became thick. your submissive self switched on and you just found yourself walking towards him. your hands felt cold as you reached for his ipad. when you lifted it, his bulge forming in his gray sweatpants made you almost drool. you were reminded how fucking hot it was.

you want to touch it and do anything you can possibly could but your single rational braincells keeping you in the light.

"you don't seem sure of what you really wanted to do." he snapped you from overthinking. "should i make you choices?"

"what?" you asked confusingly but your voice was shaking.

"you bring that ipad with you and go back to where you were sitting, or..." he looked up to you with his dark eyes, leaning a little forward you trace the side of your hips with his palm..

"put the ipad on the table and sit in my lap."

mark knew that you can never say no at this state. if you could only see how your body shivered and how defeated your face was, he knew you already gave in.

and his was right.

the original draft was deleted because of my stupidity 😭 idk think this is good as the original draft.

hello, some of you asked me if i have a tag list, i will be creating one.

✨if you want to be added in I'm Right For You Tag List, you can DM or Ask me so i can add you ✨

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Tag List:

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anyways, i would like to say thank you for supporting this story. i did not expect some of you will like it. i also want to thanks people who leaving message through dms and ask praising this story. also to those nctzens hearting it 🥺🤗

#mark lee #nct mark #mark lee smut #mark lee fanfic #mark lee nct #mark lee imagines #mark lee scenarios #mark #nct 127 #mark lee angst #nct #mark lee imagine #nct dream #nct 127 smut #mark lee scenario #mark smut

[boltwrites]

Warm Hands, Warm Heart

Fandom: The Legend of Korra Pairing: Bolin / Reader (feminine firebender) Rating: T Tags: Massage, Pre-relationship

fakelavish requested: first of all, i speak for all of the Bolin Lovers when i say we ✨live✨ for your account and writing, our mans deserves sm, THANK YOU! 🥺 i have a request for when you have the time for our 1# Himbo, something maybe borderline nwsf but really tender for a female reader who’s a firebender and gives really nice massages? 👉👈 like, heated hands w/ massage oils? anyways, our King needs to relax, he’s carrying the whole ass show on his shoulders 😌 just have fun with it, can’t wait for more content!

A/N: this was very fun to write! I decided to make Bolin a pro-bending personal trainer and reader a masseur that works at the arena sometimes! I hope you enjoy!

A/N 2: I saw this post get removed from the tag with my own eyes, so I’m posting again :/ tumblr! why!!!

You stretched, taking a deep breath as you loosened the muscles in your shoulders.

As a massage therapist, you traveled all across the city for different clients. However, your rotations at the pro bending arena were always eventful. Usually you were tasked with relieving factory workers of their pain – Future Industries treated their workers well, enlisting your services to assist with their work. But you also saw your fair share of rich families and hard working professionals, all whom carried stress in different ways.

But the arena was a different beast entirely. The patients you saw there were always stressed, and more than that, sometimes they needed serious physical therapy and extensive healing that their hectic schedule didn’t allow for. Your coworkers at the arena in particular all had their own horror stories – Raye, specifically. She was a water healer you coordinated with often, and whenever you saw her, she looked exhausted.

However, not all your coworkers at the arena were such downers. There was a specific personal trainer who always had a smile on his face, even when he referred patients to you. He would guide them into your workspace with a hand on their shoulder, giving them a hearty pat before telling them how you were the best that Republic City had to offer, and that you’d get them fixed up in no time.

You shook your head, trying not to blush as you thought of Bolin. You knew that catching feelings for a coworker wasn’t the smartest thing in the world, but he was just so charming. Whenever he passed by your small massage room and you weren’t with a client he would poke his head in and ask if you needed anything, sometimes bringing you an extra cup of tea from the concessions stand that he “ordered on accident” for you. He always greeted you with a beaming smile, and you had to admit, his work certainly kept him in shape.

You slapped both of your cheeks, shaking your head. You were here to work! You didn’t have time to be worrying about-

“Hey, Y/n!”

You jumped at the sudden introduction, clutching at your heart as you turned, only to be faced with the object of your desires. Your cheeks flushed, but luckily, you could explain it away through shock.

“Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you,” Bolin apologized, shuffling his feet as he stood in the doorway. He held a small bag in his hands, still in the loose clothing he wore to train his clients.

“It’s alright, I just wasn’t expecting you,” you assured him, crossing your arms and holding them close to your chest. Bolin only smiled, a small, gentle smile that made your heart skip. You wondered if he knew how handsome he was, especially when he directed all of his attention at one person in particular. He made you feel like the center of the world when he smiled at you like that.

“I just wanted to stop by and give you this,” Bolin placed the bag on the high table near the door, and you picked it up, peeking inside. “Haru – you know, from the concession stand – said he made extra, and I didn’t think I saw you get dinner tonight…”

The bag was filled with at least four dumplings, and you knew they weren’t the cheapest thing at the concessions stand, especially tonight, when there had been a double-header match. It was why you hadn’t gotten dinner – you didn’t feel comfortable spending that much money on yourself. But Bolin had gone out of his way to get you something nice.

You blushed, closing the bag and shaking your head at him in wonder.

“Oh – is that OK? Are you allergic? Aw, I should have known-“

You giggled, and Bolin’s eyes widened at the noise.

“I’m not allergic,” you laughed, covering your mouth with your hand, “I just feel like such a burden – you bring me tea, and dumplings, and water, and I haven’t done anything for you.”

Bolin waved his hands back and forth, denying your insinuation. “Oh, don’t worry about it! I just get worried about you all the way over here, since you’re so far away from all the other stuff. You don’t have to do anything for me, I swear.”

“I know I don’t have to,” you replied, tucking a stand of your hair behind your ear. Your cheeks reddened and you looked downwards. “I want to. What about this – I’ll take your dumplings, which I know weren’t just extra, by the way, if you’ll let me give you a massage.”

When you looked at him again, Bolin was as red as a beet, shaking his head as he wrung his hands.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t – “

“You spend all day training others, lifting weights, and trying to coach pro benders, and you’ve never once asked for my services,” you continued, frowning at him. “You’re probably just as tense as any patient you’ve referred to me – if not more. You need to take care of yourself!”

“I do take care of myself! I floss every day!” Bolin countered, and you had to stifle a laugh. What a dork.

“I’m sure you try your best, Bolin, but we all need some help every now and then. Let me help you,” you offered, gesturing to the massage table.

Bolin swallowed, tugging at the neck of his undershirt, unsure of the whole situation. You wondered if the reason why he had never asked for a massage was because of this – because he was so embarrassed at the thought of you touching him. The concept warmed you as you unpacked a few of the oils you thought he would benefit from, laying a blanket across your table. Bolin still stood in the doorway, pressing the tips of his fingers together.

“Uh, do I have to do that thing where I take all my clothes off and you put a towel over my butt? Because I don’t know if I’m comfortable with butt towel stuff-”

You snorted, shaking your head at him.

“No, don’t worry. I usually don’t ask patients to undress fully unless they need specific work – like a pulled muscle in the thigh,” you explained, rolling your sleeves up. You lit a stick of incense with the tips of your fingers, because the routine of it helped calm you as you worked, even as the thought of touching Bolin sent shivers through you.

“You’ll only need to remove your shirt. Please,” you gestured to the table again, and this time Bolin took a step forwards, undoing the clasps of his outer tunic.

“Once you’re ready, please lay face down on the table,” you instructed, as you turned back to your oils. It was typical procedure for you not to watch your patients as they undressed for you, but you made a conscious effort not to look as Bolin shed his tunic and undershirt. You needed to at least remain professional until he was on the table, then he wouldn’t be able to see your blush as you worked over his body.

You truly did just want him to take some time to unwind for himself. He was always so concerned about the young men and women he trained, so kind to you and the rest of the staff he worked with. He spent so much time thinking of others that you knew he didn’t take care of himself. The other trainers had stopped by your room before, had taken advantage of your service, even if they didn’t refer as many of their trainees to you. But Bolin had never graced your door except to give you food or drink, or refer a patient to you. It was actually a bit concerning, considering the amount of work he did. He was always in the arena, always helping someone, or training – he needed to take a moment to relax. And if you could get your hands on his broad shoulders while you helped him with that, well, that was just a nice bonus for you.

You rifled through your collection of oils before you found one that you thought would be soothing, and picked up the bottle, turning to the table. You took a deep breath before you finally looked up.

Bolin was laying face down on the table, his head snug in the headrest. You had to bite your lip when your eyes grazed over his shoulders and back – you knew he had to be muscular, what with his job, but you had never seen the source of his strength up close.

“Have you ever seen a firebending masseur before?” you asked, trying to start a pleasant conversation. Hopefully it would help Bolin calm down if he realized this was normal, for people to get massages.

“No, I’ve never had any kind of massage before,” he admitted, his voice a little muffled by the headrest. You smiled at that. Then he was in for a treat.

“The benefit of a firebending masseur, is that we can heat our hands,” you continued, rubbing the oil between your palms. “A trained firebender can regulate their own body heat, and that adds an extra layer of healing to our treatments. So, don’t be shocked.”

You took a breath, and placed your hands on Bolin’s shoulders, near his neck. You knew this was where a lot of men carried stress, especially those that did a lot of weight lifting. As you pressed your hands into the muscle there, Bolin gasped at your touch, tensing for a split second before you saw all the nerves seep out of his frame.

“Oh, that’s – that is nice,” he hummed. You grinned at him, working your fingers slow and gentle to loosen the tense muscle there. You were right – he was very tight here, and you would need to spend some time there to help him relax.

“Feels even better than water healing,” Bolin mumbled, wiggling a little as he relaxed into the table. You quirked a brow at him.

“Oh, you’ve been healed before?”

“Yeah,” Bolin groaned as you pressed your thumb into a particularly sensitive area, but continued, his voice only shaking a little bit. “I messed up my shoulder pretty bad in a match once.”

“It’s a completely difference experience when you’re not injured,” you agreed with him, taking a detour to work at his shoulder muscles, digging your fingers into the thick muscle there. He was built like a tank, but when you pressed into the muscle, he purred like a kitten, the tension leaving him in waves.

“Maybe you’re just good with your hands,” Bolin offered in rebuttal, and you were very, very happy that he couldn’t see your face as you pressed your fingers into his back. It was also a good thing that you could regulate your temperature under pressure, or else you were sure you would have burned him on accident.

“That’s very sweet,” you replied instead, your voice soft. He was very sweet, in general. But, at your words, he tensed again, his shoulder blades stiff and pressed closer together.

“I- unless that’s a rude thing to say!” You giggled at him, pinching at the back of his neck in jest. He was such a sweetheart.

“No, it really is sweet,” you assured him. “You’re too nice, Bolin, you know that?”

His skin felt hotter under your fingers as you worked down his back, over his ribs and to his waist. He was so strong – his muscles were firm under your hands, his chest broad and solid. His breath hitched in a few places where he was tense and sore, but other than that, you two settled into a comfortable silence.

It was awkward, in a way, because now you were alone with your thoughts. The only thing within your field of vision was an expanse of smooth skin, and you wondered what you would be able to do if you and Bolin were dating and you were to give him a massage. Would he let you press kisses between his shoulder blades, would he let your hands dip below his waistband?

Your cheeks flushed as your massage reached said waistband, fingers digging in above his hips.

Bolin moaned, his hips twitching at the attention, and you gasped, stilling. You both froze, before Bolin spoke up, trying to explain himself.

“Sorry! I- uh- I’m ticklish!”

The explanation was an obvious lie, and you could tell even if Bolin’s head didn’t thwack back into the headrest with such force. You turned away, doing your best not to laugh.

“It’s alright,” you assured him, chuckling a little. You lowered your voice, almost to a whisper, as you pressed your fingers against his hips again, this time softer, deliberate in a different manner. “You’re allowed to enjoy yourself.”

Bolin’s breath hitched, and you bit your lip, paying special attention to the muscles just above his hips. He shivered as you kneaded his sore muscles, and you grinned. Usually you wouldn’t focus so much on such a spot, but you had to admit that teasing Bolin was very fun. He was such a sweet boy – you wished he would stop by more often.

“That should just about do it,” you stated, wiping your hands on a small towel you kept tucked into your waistband. Bolin’s back shone with oil in the low light, and he had all but sunk completely into the table, completely relaxed. He tilted his head to the side to look at you, a little bashful.

“I feel like I should have bought you dinner first,” he admitted, with a dorky laugh. You replied with your own giggle, covering your mouth.

“You did, remember?” you gestured to the dumplings still sitting on the high table, and Bolin shook his head, sitting up, rolling his neck as he adjusted to his loosened muscles.

“No, I mean, like, properly,” he elaborated, scratching the back of his head. You smiled, looking up at him shyly.

“You mean, like a date?” you pressed. You wanted him to ask you out – you wanted to get to know him.

“If you’d want?” he replied, shrugging. You smiled bright at him, nodding.

“I would like that, very much.”

#bolin x reader #bolin x you #lok bolin #bolin #mine

[digitalstowaway]

Yes to the mia & miles AU sick fic pLease 🥺

This was longer than I thought it was going to be I'm Sorry. here's the og post that this fic is about. Sometimes...... Diego cares about Miles enough to not let him die. Sorry if you're emetophobic!!

--

Diego didn’t hate Miles. Hate was a strong word, his mother always told him. And once Diego realized that Miles was an awkward, tired kid who had probably been abused for over ten years, he couldn’t bring himself to actually hate him. He felt bad for him. He could understand why Mia was falling for him more and more, taking extra steps to make sure he was safe and just okay.

And when Miles was dreadfully ill, Diego supposed that it wouldn’t hurt to go so far as to show him a little kindness.

He knocked on the bathroom door. “Kid, can I come in?”

“Yes.”

Diego had been the one to volunteer to follow Miles to the bathroom after the poor kid took off from the kitchen, the salad Lana made him half-eaten. He had looked over the plate and asked Lana if she had put pine nuts in it. And then asked, with a grimace, if she knew that Miles was allergic to pine nuts.

She had stood there, frozen and spluttering, and while Mia comforted her, telling her she couldn’t have known, Diego rushed after Miles to check to see if his windpipe had closed up yet.

But Miles was just over the toilet, heaving and sweating. His neck was blotchy with painful-looking hives that spread up towards his face.

“Your won’t stop breathing on us, will you?” Diego asked.

Miles shook his head.

It was a rare occasion that Diego actually wanted to help the kid. He couldn’t imagine the pain he was in nor the embarrassment he felt while being sick in Lana’s home.

He helped Miles out of his jacket and then his waistcoat and tie. For some reason, Miles allowed it. Maybe the kid was feeling so poorly that he was glad that someone was around to undress him. Maybe he knew he was in for a long battle and didn’t have the energy to put up any arguments with Diego.

“Is this all that’s going to happen?” Diego asked. “Because if we need to take you to a hospital, we should know now.”

“I’ll be fine. I can go home in a moment—”

“I don’t think that’s such a great idea. Lana probably won’t let you leave.” Diego undid the top buttons of Miles’ shirt, revealing that the hives were spread across his chest. “She has to finish you off. Poisoning you wasn’t enough to get the job done.”

“It’s not funny!” Lana’s voice from the other side of the door cried.

“Is she out there?” Miles asked, curling over the toilet again.

“Seems so.”

Diego had only met Lana a handful of times, but it was enough to know that she adored Miles. She coddled him, making him meals and defending him against Diego’s jabs. It was obnoxious to see Miles peek behind her back and smile as she told Diego to find someone “his own size” to pick on.

But Diego had to admit that Lana was good for him. For as many times as she scolded Diego, she reminded Miles to be mannerly and polite. And he was slowly behaving better when she wasn’t around. He didn’t have so many snarky comments or dirty glares to toss around. They were replaced with quiet “please” and “thank yous.”

He was physically changing as well. His hollow cheeks were filling out. He wasn’t so pale and distant-looking all the time, showing that Lana’s meals were letting him catch up from whatever neglect his body had been through.

There was another knock on the door. Miles wrapped an arm around his stomach, moaning.

“Miles?” Lana cracked open the door just wide enough to poke her head through. “I’ll let you get back to your privacy in a second, but take the spare bed when you’re feeling better, okay? You can stay here for the night.”

Miles responded with a whimper. Diego nodded on his behalf.

“I’ll make sure he gets there.”

Lana’s head disappeared. Her arm followed with a small stack of towels she laid on the sink.

“Miles?” she said, her face reappearing. “I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need to be,” Miles choked out.

“I should have known you were allergic to pine nuts.”

“There was no way for you to have known.” His face scrunched up. He bared his teeth. “Get out. Please.”

“Let me know if you need anything. I’m really sorry!”

Miles retched. The door closed.

Diego didn’t know what to do. Miles looked to be in pain, his body spasming and tensing up. Anything Diego could think about giving him—antihistamines, tea—would surely be brought back up in a matter of seconds.

Diego looked away from the yellow bile Miles spit up and turned to the towels Lana had laid out. There was an impressive variety. A few small clothes and various sizes of hand towels. Diego grabbed a smaller washcloth and wet it in cold water.

Miles shook on the floor. He whimpered again. It was odd to see the kid so vulnerable.

“When I said get out,” he said through labored breaths, “I meant you, too.”

“Too bad, brat. You’re stuck with me. I know you probably really want to be alone right now, and I can’t blame you, but I think someone should stay here. So it’s either me, Lana, or Mia. And Mia is a sympathy puker.”

“And Lana would probably cry.”

“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll sit here in silence if you let me make sure you’re not going to keel over.”

Miles was retching again, and Diego felt terrible as he saw tears begin to collect with the sweat on his face. Miles sounded like he was choking, fighting against what his body wished to do.

“Just bring it up,” Diego said.

He laid the cloth on the back of Miles’ neck and then moved it to his forehead. Miles jerked. A little more yellow bile came up. And he fell against Diego’s chest, face worryingly pale where the hives hadn’t taken hold.

“Miles?”

Diego grabbed his shoulder, making sure he didn’t slide head-first into porcelain. He pressed the cloth to Miles’ cheek. And for once, Miles actually looked like the kid he was. He looked small and fragile, and Diego worried that he would break if he held him too tight.

“Why are you being kind to me?” Miles asked.

“Because if I leave you to die on this bathroom floor, Mia will be upset with me.”

“I won’t die.”

“I don’t know. You look halfway there.” Diego ran the cloth to Miles’ neck. “Has this happened before?”

“Obviously. Otherwise, I wouldn’t know I’m allergic.”

“I mean recently.”

Miles sighed. He pushed himself up and dropped his head over the toilet again. Diego steadied him.

“Not since I was a teenager,” he said.

“Oh, yeah, because that was so long ago.”

“A young teenager.”

Diego tried imagining Miles even younger than he was. He had trouble taking a few inches off his height (and Miles was already not that tall) and a little sharpness from his jaw. And where was Miles? With his mentor/adoptive father—or whatever fucked up relationship they had.

He had imagined, judging from the pictures Diego saw when he was being nosy, that Manfred von Karma lived in a gothic mansion with stone walls and long corridors lined with candles. He couldn’t imagine anyone there with anymore fondness for Miles than Diego had for him. No Lanas or Mias.

Miles cried out, his hand grabbing a fistful of his shirt. Diego didn’t say anything but laid his hand on his back.

—

It was hours later, after alternating between dozing and retching, when Miles was ready to pull himself off the bathroom floor. Diego hovered and when Miles’ face turned a dramatic shade of white, he quickly threw Miles over his shoulder.

“Put me down!”

There were weak punches at his back. Diego ignored them as he carried Miles to the guest room.

“This is indecent!”

“Calm down. You wouldn’t have made it here by yourself.”

Diego threw him on the bed. He pulled Miles’ collar open, looking at his chest. The blotchiness had died down. It didn’t look so intense. The angry welts were gone, replaced with a splotchy rash that looked like clouds.

Miles didn’t put up any more of a fight. He crawled to the top of the bed and laid down. His brow was still furrowed in pain—or maybe only discomfort at that point. He closed his eyes, curling into himself.

“Want me to tuck you in?” Diego asked.

“Please don’t touch me.”

“I think I’ve touched you enough today to last us the rest of our lives.”

Diego’s shirt was wet from the cold towels he laid on Miles and the sweat the boy had rubbed onto him whenever he swooned. He felt a touch gross, but he could only imagine how much worse Miles felt. Diego hoped for his sake that he would be well enough to drive himself home by the morning to shower and change into fresh clothes he could relax in.

Miles fell asleep within minutes. His face finally relaxed. His body was no longer so tense. And Diego was able to collapse into the stuffed chair in the corner of the room. He liked the kid the best when he was quiet.

And resting.

Maybe Diego had earned himself immunity from biting insults. Or at least a break.

Lana poked her head inside the room. “I heard you two moving around,” she whispered. “Is he sleeping?”

Diego nodded. “I think he’s over it.”

“Good.” She stepped into the room. She carried a glass of water. “I can look after him tonight if you and Mia want to head home.”

Home sounded nice no matter if it was his or Mia’s apartment they ended up crashing at that night. But he was still worried about leaving the kid.

Lana sat at Miles’ side. She brushed his hair back from his face and stroked his brow, gently calling his name. He woke slowly, his swollen eyes not wanting to open.

“You need to drink a little water. Sit up for me.”

He did so the best as he could. Diego was shocked to see him allow Lana to support his head and help him hold the glass to his lips. He fell right back asleep with Lana pulling a quilt over him.

“How do you do that?” Diego asked.

“Hmm?”

“Get him to act like that.”

“It’s all about getting him to trust you.” Lana stroked his hair one last time. “Go home. I’ll make sure he’s alright. This is my fault, anyway.”

Diego stood and stretched. “Don’t beat yourself up over it. If he had any self-preservation skills, he would have told the person who cooks for him every week that he’s seriously allergic to pine nuts.”

Lana smiled. “Maybe.”

Diego left the room and found Mia waiting for him, ready to leave. She asked how Miles was and offered to drive them back to her apartment for drinks. She was sure that he needed it after being locked in a room with Miles. How they both came out alive was beyond her, she said.

Diego touched the wet patch on his shirt where Miles’ head repeatedly fell onto his chest and said nothing.

#tw emetophobia #ace attorney #mia & miles au #diego caaaaaares

[thatringboy]

Behold: my fourth Genshin OC; George the Fontaine Fashionista who may or may not be running a mafia as a side hustle…👀

Steel Cold Style

”Finding one’s personal style should be a primary goal in life! If you have no confidence in your appearance, then how can you hope to have confidence in your abilities?”

An entrepreneur in the Fontaine Fashion Industry who’s cold, hard and carefully crafted exterior is only challenged by their equally ornate and austere heart.

General Information

Name: George Glacfleur

Age: 24

Affiliation: Glacfleur Fashion House

Birthdate: October 31

Starsign: Scorpio

Constellation: Flos Glacies

Weapon: Catalyst

Vision: Cryo

Voice Claims

CVA: Din Mukhammed Kudaibergen

JVA: Suwabe Junichi

EVA: Yagami Yato’s deep voice that can make a grown ass hetero man quiver you know I had to have at least one OC with this VA claim

Voice Lines

Good Morning: Good day, Traveler, how shall I dress you today?

Good Afternoon: *Yawn* Is it tea time yet?

Good Evening: If you really want to stay out later, then we can stop by this one great bakery I know

Good Night: Sweet dreams… I hope you dream about me

When It Rains: Huh… it’s a good thing my shoes are waterproof

When It Snows: Quickly! Snap a photo with your kamera! The lighting is just perfect!

When It’s Sunny: Oh dear… look, if I get any dust on my clothing, then you’ll understand why I break down into tears

Favorite Food: Not to be crude but I become a completely different and more… loose person when I drink. To counter this, I always have my wine with the finest cheese and chocolates I can get my hands on!

Least Favorite Food: I’m highly allergic to all types of nuts. Almonds are the worst of them all!

About: Vision: Oh, this little trinket? I found it at a Flea market a few years ago. The old bloke selling it said that it appeared for him, but never awakened. I thought to myself: “eh what the heck” and purchased it. Voila! It awakened just like that! And that’s the day I discovered that blue is really my color!

About: Interests: My special interest is going from shop to shop in Fontaine and recycling my Mora back into our wonderful economy! Yes… I partake heavily in shopping, but not just for personal reasons! I hand pick all of the fabrics and materials used in the Fashion House myself! And why can’t a person just enjoy shopping without getting judged?

About Kaeya: Kaeya Alberich and I have met once during a trip I made to Mondstat… we were so much alike that we haven’t met since out of respect for our companions’ sanity

About Lyney & Lynette: The twins? I’m afraid I don’t know much about them besides whispers from my father’s colleagues, which often contradict each other. All I can say for sure is watch your back around them. I may not be able to help you if you fall into their traps and schemes

About Xinyan: She’s that rockstar from Liyue, right? I went to a few of her shows the last time I was in the Harbor and I am still so impressed how she took a Fontaine music genre and completely made it her own! She’s got major potential and I love her style

About: Family: My family… we’re not close for a few reasons that I won’t bore you with the details of. Lots of “he said”, “she said”, “they said”, you know how families are! Mine happen to be more conservative than most, which is fine, but their ideas of how I should live clash with my personal ideologies and it just became one large mess. *Sigh* I just wish that they would stop wanting me to follow in my father’s footsteps. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great guy and is one of the top legal advisers in Fontaine, but my calling has always been fashion. Is that so hard for my family to understand? I could never take part in a legal system that actively oppresses the little people and for some reason that’s even worse than simply wanting to leave the family business behind. Oh well…

About: Cryo: I once heard a tale that the Tsaritsa of Sneznhaya was the god of love at one point and that Cryo Visions represent that in some way. To me, there is no greater type of love than self love and confidence in one’s body. The message that all people are beautiful when they love themselves is one I wish that a younger version of myself was exposed to, so it is my duty to share it with everyone I meet. Of course, there are those who seek to snuff out certain types of beauty they don’t agree with and to that, I have a large icicle and I know exactly where I want to shove it

About: Hydro: The element of justice and the element that corresponds with our reigning Archon. You know what would be justice? Not taxing the life out of the people and shoving the Mora into the pockets of the rich! You know what would be justice? A legal system that doesn’t keep “criminals” awaiting a fair and public trial when the mood strikes our “Divine Judge”! You know what would be justice? Not making bail so high for the incarcerated that it becomes impossible for them to ever be set free! She is wasting her life away in a prison awaiting a trial that will most certainly be unfair for a crime she did not commit and there’s no way in the legal system for me to help her! Who is she? … someone who I couldn’t save. Iris, my closest companion, got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time and I wasn’t available to be her alibi before she was taken away in shackles. Our benevolent Archon talks long and hard about how water can carve canyons and reshape the earth through erosion, but all I’m seeing from her is the tranquility of a small creek and the laziness of waves licking the shore

About: Fontaine Legal System: If you thought the legal systems in Liyue and Inazuma were ridged then… phew you have a LOT to learn about Fontaine! That’s why I dedicate a lot of my free time to helping those who get swept up in the chaos! However… some small businesses have started paying my employees to keep watch over them when our wonderful Archon’s police come knocking and then one thing led to another and now I have an entire underground establishment that works against the legal system and is fighting for reform. Look, I didn’t mean to start all of this, but it’s what I work with now

About: Lochfolk: Ocianid… oh you mean the Lochfolk! I’ve never seen one before, I thought they all left Fontaine. You’ve met a few? I’m impressed, it seems you truly are as well traveled as you claim to be

About: Glacfleur Fashion House: That’s my boutique! Built it from the ground up! We cater to all patrons from all walks of life! We have fashion from Inazuma, Sneznhaya, Liyue, Sumeru; you name it, we have it! And if not, we also make clothing and jewelry to order! To know everything we sell is authentic, look for the Iris Emblem embroidered or engraved on all of our pieces

About: Technology: The best part of Fontaine besides the culture has to be the technology! We’re no where nearly as advanced as Sneznhaya, but we have plumping, lights, refrigerators, kameras, music boxes… it makes life so much easier! Just waiting for the rest of Teyvat to catch up…

About: Scars: You want to know how I got these scars? It was a bad run-in with some bandits during one of my first ever deliveries to the countryside. Ended up with an explosive bottle to the face that shattered on impact and almost took off my entire cheek. I’m glad I have such an attractive face, otherwise I might have never recovered! That experience is also why I wear glasses… I’m lucky to not have gone blind from the shards of glass that ended up in my eyes

About: The Steambird: I have a subscription to that paper. I’m very interested in the astrology column they published and often the Glacfleur Fashion House makes an appearance in a few articles concerning the culture and fashion of Fontaine! I’m glad my work is being recognized

About: “Iris”: I already told you that the emblem of the Glacfleur Fashion House is an iris blossom, what else did you want to know? … You’ve been seeing the symbol scratched onto certain walls and alleys? Well… hehehe… sometimes I do more work than just running the boutique. N-Nothing illegal if that’s what you’re thinking! I just… uh… promise not to tell anyone? Okay… recently, the court system of Fontaine has started cracking down with more taxes for the people and as such, the Glacfleur Fashion House has been graciously supporting small businesses and giving protection to people in less than fortunate financial circumstances. It’s not a mafia!!! Why does everyone keep saying that?!

#they/them for George please in case that wasn’t clear #Yes I specifically picked Suwabe Junichi as his JVA claim just because of Sukuna and “gambare gambare” #George: “IT’S NOT A DAMN MAFIA!!!” #me: “are you sure about that” #oops my hand slipped and they accidentally became a mafia boss oh well #Genshin impact #Genshin Impact OC #George Glacfleur #Cryo OC

[sometimesiwrite]

Sick of This

 A/N: Modern AU inspired by a random piece of dialogue from TW2 (Roche’s Path) in Vergen when Geralt and Zoltan speak with Yarpen and Burdon (I think). We hear a story about how Geralt took care of Triss while they were travelling together and she had a horrendous illness. I’m working with hybrids of these characters, but primarily drawing on game dynamics with a bit of book influence for Yennefer and some Netflix influence for Triss. 

Summary: Geralt and Yennefer are in town for a an important political dinner when Geralt learns that their friend, Triss is down for the count with a terrible stomach flu. With some time to spare, he visits her, intending to stay a short while, but her condition worsens to the point where Geralt feels he can’t leave. Internal and inter-personal conflict arises as Geralt vies to skip dinner in favour of caring for a friend in need. tl;dr: Going through a relationship rough-patch (again) and realizing you might have feelings for a close friend makes for a difficult night.

Characters/pairings: Geralt x Triss; Geralt x Yennefer; Yennefer x Istrid; Jaskier

Warnings: Infidelity, verbal abuse/toxic partnership, detailed descriptions of vomiting/severe nausea/stomach pain.

MASTERLIST

Triss looked down at the illuminated screen of her phone: “In town for a few days,” the text read. “Long story. Yen has a work thing. Anyway, let me know if you want to grab a drink.” The number didn’t belong to a name in her contacts—but then again, Geralt’s number never did. Every few months, he’d get a new pay-as-you-go so that old clients wouldn’t try to contract him under the table. It only took two calls from the same tight-assed, penny-pinching hypocrites who’d tried to low-ball him on his first case to make him realize an ever-changing phone number was a good idea. So: burner phones. As a nice added bonus, it made it harder for the Redanian Secret Service to keep tabs on him which meant a little more… investigative freedom when push came to shove. The few people he ever contacted regularly—Triss, Yennefer, Eskel, Lambert, Jaskier (Vesemir didn’t text)—never bothered putting his number in their contacts. By the time they got around to updating his number, he was changing it within a few weeks anyway. Besides, he insisted it was safer for all of them if they didn’t have his name in their phones in the first place. By now, everyone knew that if they got a text from an unknown number, there was a 99.9% chance it was Geralt. 

The toilet gurgled as Triss returned to the sofa with a groan, scrunching her knees up against the pain in her stomach. She checked her phone again: “Only if you’re free, I know Foltest keeps you pretty busy…” She rolled her eyes and replied, “Thanks, Ger. Ordinarily, I could use one right about now, but I’m feeling pretty sick. Think I should stay home </3” She smiled weakly as the text fwiipped its way up the screen. Too bad she was laid up. Would’ve been nice to see him. Her friends always said he was too grumpy and moody to be any fun, but Triss always thought of him as being quite mellow and calming to be around. He never imposed expectations on their time together, unlike her other friends who were always scheming, gossiping, or bitching about their bosses. Just easy conversation and a few good laughs as they caught up on the past few months or years or however long it had been since they last saw each other. 

She checked her phone again and fired off a few brief “not today, babes, sorry, I’m just so sick” texts before her mouth started watering again and she headed into the bathroom: a routine by this point. A few girlfriends had offered to keep her company with rom coms and ginger tea, but she was already feeling so exhausted and it was only 1pm. Besides, Triss wasn’t sure she was prepared for anyone other than her cat (who was hiding under the bed) to see her like this: tawny cheeks flushed with fever, tight brown curls haphazardly bunned on top of her head in a pragmatic attempt to keep them out of the toilet and away from her face, frizzy ringlets falling loose down the back of her neck… and she was acutely aware that she smelled of sickness. Her body’s best attempt to rebalance itself meant that her underarms would overpower even her best deodorant. IF, that is, she cared enough to put any on which she Did Not. She was also, like any sensible woman in her current state, not wearing a bra. 

Nope. Today was a day of horrendousness. Her phone pinged. “You need anything?” 

“A new body might be nice. If you happen to see one that would suit me… 😝” 

The fwoop! came in before her screen went dark: “LOL, I’ll see what I can find. Any preferences?” 

Triss smiled despite the pain in her stomach. “Hmmm I did always want to be a physiotherapist. Oooh! Or a gymnast!” Fwiip!

Fwoop! “Still at your same place? I can send it by courrier. Should get there before 3:00”

Triss was trying hard to come up with a witty enough comeback, but her head was starting to ache. Hmmm. Yes, body, I would love to hydrate you, but you keep rejecting everything I put inside you. “Ugh,” she groaned again and made her way to the toilet. When she got back a few fruitless minutes later, she checked her phone again. Nothing. She just replied, “Thanks, Ger. BRB, going to go die now. When the courier gets here, just tell him to transfer my soul into the new body. I’ll leave it under the Welcome mat.” The TV flipped on as its owner began the endless Netflix Scroll of Indecision. She finally settled on Blue Planet for the 50th time hoping that slow-moving sea blobs would be soothing in some way. 

It didn’t. Another excruciating hour of bathroom visits every ten-to-fifteen-minutes had her googling ‘pressure points to relieve nausea’ by 2:30. She had just pinched a spot on her wrist between her thumb and forefinger when she heard a soft knock on her door. “Ugh, no, GO AWAY! LEAVE ME TO DIE IN PEACE!” she called out from her nest on the sofa. It was too late. The she heard the door brush against the spongy beige carpet as someone poked their head inside, “Triss?” It was Geralt.  

“Oh gods, no, Geralt, stay back, save yourself!”

He gave a low chuckle and Triss already felt a little better. How does he always manage to do that?  “I don’t have a new body for you, but I might have the next best thing. Permission to enter?” 

Triss let out a rueful groan, “Alright, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She heard him step in quietly and toe off his shoes as the door closed. A second later, he came around the corner with a Rexall bag in hand. He’d been to a barber recently, and his silvery hair was looking more stylish than usual—cut shorter on the sides and stylishly swept back from his face. Paired with his dark-teal flannel shirt and grey denim jeans, Triss thought he looked unusually striking. 

Geralt tilted his head sympathetically at the sight before him. Triss was bundled on the sofa in an oversized sleep shirt and sweatpants, fuzzy socks bunched around her ankles, and what looked like any and all home remedies gathered around her: hot water bottle, cold pack, three mugs of tea (ginger, peppermint, and chamomile by the smell of them), a glass of ice water, a barely-touched bowl of chicken broth, a mangled bag of oyster crackers, and a thermometer. 

“You’re really down for the count, huh? Got a fever?” before she could object, the back of Geralt’s hand was on her forehead. It felt cool and refreshing against the dry heat of her face as he assessed her condition. “Meh. Could be better, could be worse.”

“I could’ve told you that,” Triss retorted with a halfhearted smile. “Ugh… sorry, um, I have to…” she pointed towards the bathroom and Geralt raised his hands (‘say no more’) as his friend scuttled exhaustedly around the corner. He busied himself with watching manta rays gliding through the open ocean until he heard the toilet flush and Triss emerged again, looking ragged and a little sheepish. “Sorry,” she said, pouring herself back onto her nest of blankets and stuffed animals. 

Geralt shrugged, “No need to be, you’re sick. Here,” he reached into the pharmacy bag and brought out a box of ginger Gravol tablets and a medium-sized bottle of Cherry Punch Pedialyte—she was allergic to most over-the-counter cold and flu medication.

“Geralt, you didn’t have to do all this for me. How did you even know I had the stomach flu?”

He looked over her shoulder at her laptop which was still open to the page of various nausea-relieving pressure points, “Hm. You should have this stuff around anyway,” he paused as Triss swallowed heavily and went to the bathroom again. It wasn’t that she didn’t know how to take care of herself, her mother had been a nurse practitioner for heaven’s sake. Still, Geralt was never one to leave a friend in need if there was something he could do about it. A particularly visceral sound drew him from where he was perched on the arm of the sofa. Triss was crouched on the bathroom floor, shivering with her forehead resting on her elbows over the toilet bowl. She spat. Geralt sat on the edge of the bathtub. “How long has it been like this?”

“Since about... 10am,” she managed to get out before her entire body heaved. Geralt instinctively reached out to place a hand on her back. She didn’t object. She never objected to these little shows of affection from Geralt. There was always something reassuring about them, and it felt particularly nice to be reminded that she wasn’t alone just now.

Geralt rubbed slow circles across her back as he coaxed her through retching and dry heaves. “You know you could've just asked.”

“I know but—”

“Stubborn?”

“Uh-huh,” Triss admitted, sitting back on her heels and flushing the mostly-empty toilet. “Besides, the last thing you need is to be taking care of a gross friend right before getting ready for a fancy business gala.

“You clearly don’t know just how little I’m looking forward to this evening,” Geralt grumbled, passing Triss a cool glass of water to rinse with. 

“Not looking forward to talking the talk, Mr. Slick P.I.?” Triss’s eyes gave a twinkle as her freckled cheeks pulled into a cheeky smirk.

Even when she’s a mess she still finds a way to light up. Geralt furrowed his brow at his own thoughts. Where did that come from? “You know how it is, all this high-society stuff, rubbing elbows, laughing at tasteless jokes. It’s just not me. But Yen—well…” he sighed heavily, “I dunno. She’s right in that it’s a good way to get the information we need, stay visible to the right people but… I shouldn’t be talking to you about this. I know she’s your friend.”

Triss raised an eyebrow, “Oh, go on. Trust me, there’s nothing you can say about Yennefer of Vengerberg that will surprise me. Besides, you’re my friend, too.” 

“Hm.” Geralt stared down and fiddled with his crossed thumbs. “Lately I can’t get anything right. I’m always asking the wrong questions, or I’ll try and talk to her about something I want us to work on and it’s never worded the right way and then it just turns into a fight which is what I want to stop doing in the first place. And then I’m either too sensitive or not sensitive enough and… it’s like she has a set of rules inside her head she won’t tell me about. Feels like it’s harder than it should be. But who am I to know?”

“I’m sorry, Geralt. Yennefer can be so unfair sometimes. I don’t think she understands how much she can push against the people she cares about. It’s one thing to be a friend, at least I can take a breather every now and then if I need to. But it’s different for you. You don’t like taking time apart.” Triss offered an apologetic smile before groaning and leaning back over the toilet and Geralt’s hand took up its place on her back again as he worked her through another round. 

Geralt’s phone rang as Triss flushed the toilet. “Sorry, it’s Yen. I should take this. Be right back. Yen? Yeah, I’m with Triss, got a stomach thing, I stopped by to bring her some...” his voice disappeared around the corner as he went into the bedroom. Triss couldn’t make out their whole conversation, but it sounded tense. The phrase, “...just trust me to dress myself, I’m not a—,” came through the drywall. Triss sighed sympathetically. It certainly hadn’t been smooth sailing for the two of them. Geralt had his own flaws and foibles in the romance department—he could be callous and insensitive in favour of honesty at times, and never shied away from pushing buttons—but Yennefer was mercurial, brazen, rash, and brutal; all excellent qualities for a powerful and influential chief advisor. But as much as Geralt was his own handful, she’d never known him to willfully hurt someone he cared about, and was quick to apologize when he did. 

When Geralt came back, Triss was trying to push herself to standing. He caught her as she swayed on her unsteady legs. “Whoa, whoa, Triss, easy. Here, sit back down, wait here for a second.” Triss did as she was told and settled miserably back onto the bathroom floor. Geralt immediately returned with two blankets before disappearing again. A few minutes later, he returned once more with a tea tray on which was balanced Triss’s laptop, a small glass of Pedialyte on the rocks, the pack of gravol, and the box of oyster crackers. 

Triss let out a soft giggle, “What is this?”

“You need to try and get something in you. Might not be pretty at first, but if you don’t get some fluids soon, you’re going to be in bigger trouble.”

“Really. I had no idea. I can take care of myself, you know… sorry that was,” Triss sighed. “It’s been a long day

Geralt hunkered down next to her on the floor on top of a throw pillow, “Hey, I get it. But that’s not why I’m here. Just because you can doesn’t mean you have to. So take this, with a sip of this,” he handed her a blister pack of the Gravol and the glass of Pedialyte, “and let’s see if you can keep it down.” 

“Cherry Punch. How did you know this was my favourite?” Triss could no longer hide the fondness that was welling up despite her unrelenting discomfort and growing exhaustion. Geralt gave a muted smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “How’s Yennefer?”

The lines on Geralt’s face became more pronounced, “She’s… fine.” Triss tilted her head (‘really?’) and Geralt relented, “There’s a chance Istrid will be there tonight.”

“The head of the Archeological Association? I don’t get it, what’s he got to do with you and Yennefer?”

Triss could guess the answer from Geralt’s pause. His words merely confirmed it, “They have history.” 

“You don’t think that Yennefer will—I mean, she wouldn’t—”

“She has. She doesn’t know that I know, but…” Triss’s heart sank. “I don’t know why I’m waiting for her to tell me. Guess I don’t want her to feel like I went out of my way to find her at fault—which I didn’t, by the way. I found out by accident.” 

“I’m sorry, Ger.” The weight of Triss’s head against his shoulder brought Geralt out of his daze and he looked down at the messy updo of mahogany hair. He smiled again, a delicate, private, unconscious thing that sparked from an unconscious uplifting somewhere in the middle of him and pulled the corners of his eyes. He thought about ignoring it, not wanting to have to go digging inside himself for what it meant. Instead he wrapped an arm around Triss’s shoulder and pecked a chaste kiss to the top of her head. 

“How’re you feeling?”

The answer to that question proved complicated. Triss’s spirits were a bit better thanks to Geralt’s stubborn-yet-easygoing caretaking. But the introduction of contents into her contrary stomach was yielding less-than-desirable consequences. Painful cramps persisted between more frequent bouts of vomiting—which by this point was mostly dry-heaves followed by the occasional expulsion of bile. Meanwhile it was 5:30 and Geralt’s phone beeped a notification. He checkecked the screen with one hand while he soothed Triss with the other: Where are you??? Yen. Who else could it be? He’d have to call her.

“Geralt, go! Really, I’ll be fine I promise. You’ve got to rub elbows and laugh at bad jokes, remember?” Triss propped herself up on wobbly elbows over the toilet bowl, not trusting the wave to be over. 

Geralt was already dialling. Triss heard the faint echo of her friend’s voice on the other line as she answered with, ‘Where the HELL are you?’ 

“I’m still with Triss, Yen. Things aren’t looking good here, she’s just gotten worse. If I can’t—Yen, listen if she doesn’t—if she doesn’t get any fluids in her I’ll need to take her to the hospital.” Geralt pulled an apologetic face and Triss gave him a reassuring wave that she’d be fine if he stepped out for a minute. “Yen, please, I thought we talked about this, please don’t use that tone, it makes me feel…” The conversation continued, though this time in the living room: “I know this is an important night for us to both be there, Yen, you’ve been reminding me for the last month, but I can’t just leave until… what’s that supposed to mean? That’s not—no, hang on, that’s not fair, Yen… Well if you already don’t believe me I don’t—Okay, then you tell me what I’m supposed to say! I’m tired of this, Yennefer, I am so. Exhausted trying to figure out exactly what to say in order for you to not react like this every time I… can I finish?...”

Geralt was pacing back-and-forth now, and Triss could tell from the tone on the other end of the line that Yennefer wasn’t backing down anytime soon, “Geralt, if you don’t leave Triss’s apartment and come back here and get dressed this instant, I swear I will—”

Geralt paused outside the bathroom door for Triss to flash a wilted thumbs-up as she tried to drink more Cherry Punch Pedialyte, “Or you’ll what, Yen? Count to ten and then chuck me in the coi pond? I—you know what?” he moved back into the living room, “No, you know what? How ‘bout this: I’m staying here with our friend who needs help, and you can go to this big event, embarrassment free, and do what you do best without the big idiot holding you back. Whatever needs to get done at this dinner tonight, I bet you’ll do better on your own than worrying about me screwing something up.” 

Triss heard his phone flip shut followed by a heavy sigh before his sock feet padded back into the bathroom. Unfortunately, just then, her suspicions about not being finished proved correct as her mouth, once again, began to water. Thankfully Cherry punch wasn’t nearly as bad coming back up as other flavors were known to be. In less than a second, Geralt was there with a warm hand and a blanket around her shoulders. They didn’t talk much over the next little while as Geralt continued his attempts to soothe Triss’s stomach enough to hold something down. After an hour, Triss finally was able to rest a little, albeit still in quite a bit of pain. But with the toilet no longer an ongoing necessity, the sofa once again became a viable option. Geralt scooped up the blanketed bundle and carried her back into the living room to continue their journey under the sea, complete with cold compress and bendy straw.

By 7:30 Triss hadn’t needed the toilet at all in the last hour, and some of her stomach pain was starting to diminish. However, she was still shivering and achy, and not interested in food. She kept insisting that Geralt had time to meet Yennefer at the gala, that she would be perfectly fine on her own, but Geralt wasn’t convinced. Showing up now would not only put Yennefer in the awkward position of having to save face by not murdering him in cold blood in front of a dozen or more foreign dignitaries, but it would also mean having to face Istrid who, if he wasn’t already, would doubtlessly be very interested to hear Yennefer’s thoughts on a great number of things before the night was over. Geralt didn’t trust himself not to do something he’d regret—or at least that Yennefer would regret.

Another hour in and Triss was starting to perk up: minimal stomach pain, and she was making a decent dent in her Cherry Punch. Geralt decided it was time for a little chicken soup. He made a freezer pizza for himself and cracked a beer while he warmed up a can of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle, ladelling out all the broth into a mug for Triss so she wouldn’t be tempted to eat more than she could handle. Geralt had only one goal for her tonight: keep everything down. If she could do that, then he had at least been able to do something for her. If not… Geralt tried very hard not to listen to the voice that said, ‘then you’re no use for anyone’ in the back of his mind. Thankfully, Triss finished her broth without concern and he didn’t have to worry about that voice for the time being. Instead, he settled a little deeper into the sofa cushions as Triss resumed a comfortable spot against his shoulder. 

After another little while, a miracle happened: Triss started to have fun. That characteristic sparkle came back to her eyes, and the two friends quickly began to actively enjoy their evening. They watched The Fellowship of the Ring and took a drink of beer or Pedialyte every time Frodo had a dramatic closeup, was stabbed, or rolled his eyes for dramatic effect. Geralt microwaved a bag of popcorn, and Triss cautiously had a few oyster crackers as they laughed and caught up. Finally. It may not have been the original vision for what drinks and casual hangs would look like, but it was good. It was nice. Relaxed, and pleasant. Easy. Geralt’s mind wandered as the Fellowship fled the Balrog, and he didn’t notice the little line his thumb was leaving on Triss’s blanket as it traced up and down her shoulder. He also didn’t think twice when she shifted, half-asleep, to lie her head in his lap and his hand moved to the curve of her waist. It wasn’t until he looked down in the direction of soft snoring that he was reminded exactly who was lying in his lap. 

His initial thought was, ‘shit,’ as he slowly removed his hand from her waist, not wanting to wake her, but also not knowing what to do. It was suddenly all so intimate, though he didn’t quite know why. As he watched her, peacefully asleep in his lap, he realized he didn’t want to break away. Didn’t want to wake her to adjust to a more ‘appropriate’ orientation. He touched her shoulder again. That was nice. That felt… nice. She stirred, and Geralt wondered if she was comfortable as he brushed a tight ringlet behind her ear. She smiled in semi-consciousness and his heart sang. This was bad. This was very very bad. He reached for the remote and flicked the tv off. It was after midnight, and high time everyone went to bed. Alone. 

That was the only option. Right? In theory, no. There was another option, and a significant part of Geralt wanted to go with that one, stay in this soft warm place where everything felt easier… where he felt happy. But a louder part of him knew that wasn’t right, wasn’t fair; that even if he was unhappy—even if Yennefer had spent the night with Istrid (Geralt tried not to think about that). The bottom line was Triss felt well enough that he no longer needed to stay with her to make sure she was alright. That was why he’d come. If he stayed for other reasons, it wouldn’t be fair to anyone. End of discussion.

“Triss,” Geralt murmured, rousing her as gently as he could. 

“Hmm?” Her eyes fluttered open to see Geralt staring down at her. She didn’t remember lying down in his lap, but she must have just before she fell asleep. “Did I fall asleep on you?” 

Geralt’s eyes crinkled, “Hm. Yeah. You were pretty out of it.”

“Ah, shit, I’m so sorry!”

“You needed the rest. Wouldn’t be the first time someone’s passed out on me, and you’re significantly easier to deal with than Lambert.”

Triss bunched her blankets around her shoulders and shivered sleepily, “You should go. Yennefer’s probably waiting for you.”

“Hm. Yeah, probably,” Geralt heaved himself off the sofa as Triss released her hair and gathered her nest to head to the bedroom. Geralt waited until she was bundled in bed. “All set?”

A little smile peeked over the tops of the covers, “Mmmhmm, thanks.”

“Need anything else?”

“No, I’m good. Goodnight, Ger.”

“Goodnight, Triss,” Geralt flicked off the light. In the entranceway, he paused with his hand on the doorknob, took a deep breath, and left, locking the door behind him and putting the key back in its usual hiding place. Enough now. Done. He was determined that whatever he had felt, whatever warm, unexpected thing had bubbled to the surface, would forever exist behind that locked door, frozen in time. A blip. The important thing was nothing was acted on. Not really. At worst, they wandered into a grey area by accident. These things happen. The key now was not to dwell on it, to move forward. 

Geralt’s stomach soured as he slid his keycard into the slot of room 622. The lock clicked open as the little light on top flashed green and Geralt turned the handle, closing the door behind him as quietly as he could. He toggled the dimmer switch next to the door; the lowest setting would give him enough light to get changed without waking up—Yen? The bed was empty, still freshly turned-down, with his pre-approved evening attire laid out as he had suspected. He fucking hated that tie. He put the suit back in the garment bag from whence it came and checked his phone. Nothing. No texts, no missed calls. Might still be out. It wasn’t unusual for these events to turn into afterparties which was where most of the juicy information was gathered. He hit speed-dial. 

“Hi, Jaskier? It’s—yeah, hi. Listen. Are things still going over there? I just—hm? Yeah, she’s doing okay now. Took awhile for me to get anything in her, but no hospital visit so… yeah, she finally got to sleep just as I was heading out, made sure she was hydrated and had a little something… I’m sure she’d appreciate that… Actually, that’s why I’m calling, I just got back and she’s not in, I was wondering if you knew where she…When?…Okay…No, archeology… Mmm no, they’re very different fields. Nevermind, thanks, Jas…Yeah, no it’s, um, I just wanted to make sure that she was okay. Didn’t want to bug her in case she was in the middle of—something. Yeah… Well don’t let me interrupt that. Okay, all the best. Go get ‘em tiger. ‘Night.” 

Geralt tossed his phone on the bed and flopped heavily on top of the duvet and rubbed a hand over his face.

“Goddamnit, Yen.”

__________________

@the-space-between-heartbeats 

@just-a-sad-donut 

@oxenfurt-archives 

@thirstyforred 

@titaniafire 

@belalugosisdead 

@lonelygayz 

@awkward-turtles-world 

@iloveyouyen 

@criminaly-supernatural

@friendlybelladonna

@enkelikauneus 

#geralt x triss #witcher au #Modern AU Witcher #Takin' care of Triss-ness #morethangeraskier #rarepairs #off-canon #tw partner abuse #tw2 #tw3 wild hunt

[tundrainafrica]

Title: Trials and Tributes (3/5)

Summary:  

“There were witches who lived among them. Or so that’s what Levi was told. He just could not believe for the life of him that she’d be one of them.”

Levi is a soldier who interrogates witches before they are put on trial and Hange might just be a witch.

Levihan Secret Santa Gift for @cleacourgette

Link to cross-postings: AO3

Link to other chapters: 1 2 3 4 5

They were working late that night. So unusually late that at first, Levi had taken Erwin’s closing the windows as a sign that they should finish for the night. He had started to empty his own desk of paperwork when Erwin spoke up.

“How were the trials?”

“Routine.”

Erwin raised one eyebrow. “The trials for someone so important to you volunteered to facilitate it?”

“Yes, they concluded she was a witch and we’re moving on to the swimming test. It’s in two days.” Levi said as mechanically as possible, not wanting his true emotions to leak out.

“Do you really believe she was the one responsible for the plague in your village? The plague which took your mother I mean?” Erwin did not need to clarify it. Yet, he did and that clarification only made Levi's chest tighten.

“Who else? She murdered a child then she disappeared.”

“I visited Hange after her last trial, had a small chat with her.”

“Of course she wouldn’t admit it.”

“That wasn’t what I asked about. I wanted to understand for myself what happened with that incident back she was a child, when she was accused of murder.”

“She said herself, she didn’t know what happened to him.”

Erwin shook his head. “She didn’t know. But the other people from the town did.”

Levi’s eyes widened in surprise. Suddenly he was self conscious of his disconnect from the happenings of the town as a child. Although he was considered one of the townspeople then. Having had to take care of his sick mother, he never had the chance to go out and meet many people nor discuss what had been happening around the town.

“I checked the reports in the capital library. Tobias’ mother reported that she had found red welts on her son’s back when he got home from playing with the kids then his body started to swell. Within an hour, he started to have a hard time breathing. His throat closed and with no means of breathing, he passed away quickly.”

The circumstances of his death were strange. Strange enough that the townspeople had come together to organize a witch hunt.

“They also recorded the accounts of the witnesses who were playing with Hange and Tobias that day. And when I checked them, they aligned well with the story Hange had given me. She pushed Tobias into a grassy patch. One of the boys who had been left there when Tobi and Hange both went home mentioned that they might have landed on a fire ant mound which explains the itchy red welts on Tobi’s back.”

Levi had been bitten enough times to know ant bites were painful. “But ant bites aren’t fatal.”

“This is where I did some extra research and talked to some more apothecary's and doctors. Apparently it is not completely implausible to infer that Tobias died from something called an allergic reaction. The swelling of his face, the difficulty breathing from an insect bite. It lines up so well with some of the other writings from doctors."

“Then how do you explain the plague?” Levi asked.

Erwin sighed. “I don’t think there’s any better way to tell you this but, I don’t believe the plague that killed your mother was caused by a witch. In fact, I don't believe witches actually exist.

                                     Trials and Tributes

“Levi, I have a theory.”

“You always have theories Hange,” Levi said, not looking up from the book he was reading.

“Humor me! That’s my book so I can get it back from you anytime I want.” Hange put her hand on the page he was reading so suddenly and so rudely that Levi had to resist the urge to slam the book closed on her hands then and there.

“Okay. I’m humoring you," Levi said.

“So, lately I’ve been noticing something about my herb garden. There is a small area where plants tended to die at a faster rate.”

“Uhuh.”

“So I pulled out the dying plants and I noticed something common about all of them. They had these white spots all over the stems and the leaves. They were like spider webs but there were more webs then spiders and you know the plants closest to them started to have those white spots too.”

“Oh, okay so a little discoloration on leaves,” Levi said matter-of-factly.

“So what if those white things are diseases, and being closer to one another, they spread more easily. What if people stuck together in close quarters just end up getting sick with the same disease? Maybe there are these invisible particles that fly through the air and when they get into people, people get sick. Maybe there are special particles which can swim too and when people drink the water they get sick?

Levi went back to the reading as Hange continued to ramble on. Somehow her theory had become too far fetched, not worth the time of day to even listen to anymore

“Didn’t your mother die in a plague? What if those particles are what causes plagues? ”

                                      Trials and Tributes

Levi had to admit that at the moment Erwin had suggested that witches might not exist, he did not feel adamant at all or even indignant at that claim. A wave of relief had rushed through him and he found himself settling back down on the chair in shock, his plans to clear his desk forgotten.

“Hange traced the origin of the dysentery problem to the well at the center of town…” Levi said, mostly too himself. Suddenly the ramblings and the theories Hange had made years ago over tea and book readings were suddenly starting to make more sense. “Erwin, you might be right.”

Erwin and Levi found themselves making their way to the prison cell where Hange was being held to satisfy their own curiosity.

The guard was quick to leave as soon as Erwin and Levi entered. Levi stood by the door, keeping an ear open for any footsteps that might be coming too near, and might possibly hear their conversations.

It was his first time visiting her cell in days but he couldn’t help but notice she had lost weight since he last saw her. He made a mental note to sneak more food next time he came over.

“Hange, sorry to bother you but we have something we wanted to confirm with you,” Erwin started as he settled himself on a chair in front of her cell.

“Ask away. It’s not like I have anything better to do here.”

It’s not like I have anything better to do here. Hange had repeated that line so many times back in the cabin in the woods. The way she had said it then though was softer and alarmingly toneless. Levi snuck a glance at her face or at least what he could make out from his angle. She had bent her head down, not bothering to look up at both him and Erwin. From what he could make out though, her eyes were downcast and the glint was nothing more than a flicker of what it used to be. At that moment, she looked completely disconsolate.

“How did you trace the diseases back to the well?” It was Erwin who spoke up. In that few seconds of silence, it was probably only Erwin who would have had the strength to start the conversation.

“The dysentery problem?” Hange asked.

Erwin nodded. “Yes. The one they discussed in your trial.” An unnecessary clarification but somehow, Levi felt it was needed, to fill the silence in the room and hopefully to get Hange to talk.

“I did my research,” Hange answered. “I was getting more than a dozen patients a day. I asked them where they lived… What they ate…” Hange trailed off.

Once again, the three all waited in silence. As they sat, Levi stood. And as Levi stood, he continued to entertain thoughts in his head. His mind was racing and it felt like it was only getting faster.

Maybe there are these invisible particles that fly through the air and when they get into people, people get sick. Maybe there are special particles which can swim too and when people drink the water they get sick?

“Hange, you told me long ago that you think there are these invisible particles in the air that can swim. And when people accidentally eat them they get sick. Is that what made you think that it could have come from the well in the center of town?”

Hange nodded.

“Do you think that the plague that happened when we were eight was from those same invisible particles?” Levi pressed.

She nodded again.

Erwin looked up at Levi in surprise. Levi remembered then that he never did tell Erwin that Hange was not an enemy but in fact, a childhood friend. Erwin was sharp though and within seconds that look of surprise had shifted to one of understanding. Levi did not need to explain anything.

“Levi, do you believe I’m a witch?”

That was the moment the survivor instinct inside of him decided to make itself known. Witches can compel their victims. Witches can bewitch. It was a battle between that part of him that resisted the urge to believe her and the part of him that wanted to accept her, to trust her.

Hell. We’ve known each other for years. She hadn’t done anything then to break his trust. Actually, he was the one who had broken his promise years ago.

“I don’t know.” was all Levi could let out. Those two sides of him had settled for that as a compromise.

“I for one don’t believe in witchcraft,” Erwin admitted before Levi and Hange could react beyond Levi’s admittance of neutrality. “And I will do what I need to do to make these lynchings end. If I come across anything of interest, anything which can help your case, I’ll pass it on to you. Thank you for your cooperation Hange.”

With that, Erwin stood up and exited the room leaving Levi scrambling to pick up the pieces.

“Levi, let me ask you something.” Hange asked. “If I really were a witch, if I did have malevolent intentions, don’t you think I would have done something a long time ago already?”

What if she did it all to manipulate me. What if she needs me for some end goal.

“Don’t get me wrong Hange. I feel compelled to help you and I probably will anyway,” Levi answered. “I just can’t discount the fact that this could be manipulation on your end.”

Hange looked up at him and for the first time that night, Levi saw her face for what it was. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were red and the lines under her eyes were only more defined than they were before. He only had a split second though to take in those features before they oriented themselves into a familiar expression he had come to know so well.

A simple, maybe even naive smile. “If you believe you’re being manipulated, then I give you permission not to bend over back for me. I’m ready to die.”

That could have easily been interpreted as manipulation. As Hange said that, Levi only felt more determined to find a way to save her. He couldn’t help but note though the Hange he knew was straightforward and not at all manipulative. She had always said what she meant or so that was what he had believed.

Levi found himself questioning those voices in his head instead. Those voices that doubted Hange. Maybe they were the ones manipulating me.

Levi gripped at the bars tightly and leaned closer towards her or as close as he could get at least when they were separated by prison bars “I don't know if this is all a game. If it is, you’re doing good because either way, I’m going to do what I can so you can make it out of this alive."

"Right after saying you believe I'm a witch?"

"You were my best friend. I owe you my younger years." Levi answered. " And as your best friend, I'll find a way out of this for you. And if I need to, I’ll take you out of this country, I’ll bring you down south."

                              Trials and Tributes

It was a very cold night. So cold that Levi wished he could have put it off to another night. Given that Hange would be taking the swimming test the day after tomorrow, he knew he only had that night to test his plan for himself.

As soon as the bible tests were over, Levi had been assigned to find a place to execute the swimming test. Even before he had visited Hange in the dungeon that night with Erwin, the gears in his mind had already been moving to keep Hange alive.

He had done his research from talking to the townspeople about bodies of water, geography and nearby hiding places for criminals. For research. He had said then. Nobody did ask too much of it. He was a soldier after all who kept the peace of their kingdom.

The time he had spent collecting information had given him options. The cost benefit analysis he did given those options was what led him to decide on one particular cliff that overlooked the sea only a thirty minute carriage ride from her prison. The locals had mentioned that it was a good area for cliff diving, the water was of a fair depth that it would be safe to dive.

And that’s what I have to see for myself. It was going to be his job to push Hange into the water in less than 24 hours, the least he could do is try it himself.

It was a risky move. Especially when his cheeks were already turning numb from the cold. Levi had to admit he was probably risking his own life at that moment. As he removed his overcoat and the shirt underneath with the intention of diving into the water head first, Levi had to take multiple breaks. His body was protesting the action and the protest manifested itself as a light shudder every time the cool night breeze brushed passed him.

You’re bewitched. Those voices reminded him. Levi did not need to listen though. Before he could even allow himself a second thought about his decision, before his body and his survival instincts could push him back, Levi jumped headfirst into the black sea below him.

It would be his sense of touch leading him from then on.

From the moment he hit the water and dove deeper, he allowed himself a few minutes with his hands behind his back to simulate what Hange would be going through. He counted thirty seconds and by then, his lungs were starting to ache. He reached his hands out in front of him, relying on his recall of his last view illuminated by the moonlight to guide him where he needed to go.

He turned behind him. The cliff side should be here. He kept his hands in front of him as he swam in the direction where the cliffside should be located. Within seconds he felt it. And with it came a glimmer of hope.

That hope was what he needed badly. His lungs were crying and he knew he would need air soon. He could have easily gone up and breathed it himself. He was constantly reminded though that Hange would not have that same luxury and he pressed on. Holding on to the side of the cliff, he continued to swim.

It should be around here. His lungs were starting to scream and Levi knew he might not last any long. He started to scramble and move quicker. A generally bad idea when his oxygen and his time conscious was limited.

At that moment though, Levi had luck on his side. That empty space in between the cliffside was what he was looking for. Finding that gave him the second wind he needed. Levi only pushed further into the cavern. The path was narrow and consequently, quick and easy to feel his way through.

By the time Levi’s lungs were screaming once again, the energy from his second wind almost completely depleted, Levi had already made it into an open space and with his last burst of strength he shot his hand out above him.

It was as if a weight was lifted off of his shoulders both literally and figuratively. The air was much lighter on his body, especially on his lungs. Levi opened his eyes to see the moon above him.

The cave was generally closed, save for an opening on the roof that illuminated the cave enough for Levi to see where the sky and the walls of the cave meet. As Levi lay on the ground of the cave, he took in the view and focused on watching how the view shifted slightly with the rise and the fall of his chest.

The moon was beautiful. So beautiful that Levi almost considered spending the night in the cave despite the biting cold. Biting? That wasn’t the right word. Numbing maybe.

Numbing. That reminder of his own mortality and the possibility of death was what had Levi sit up and rush out of the cave, despite his subdued sense of touch.

He had to get out of there. He had to stay alive. He still had a job to finish.

                                        Trials and Tributes

The water shall refuse to receive in her bosom those who have shaken off the sacred water of baptism.

In the easiest of words, if Hange were to be proven innocent and completely human, she had to drown. That was how they had explained it to the multiple witch suspects that have died similarly.

“If you do drown, your place in heaven is guaranteed.” The bishop had said, as he explained the history of that trial to the crowd who had gathered by the cliff. Levi kept himself looking only towards Hange who stood next to him while the priest prattled on about their ‘guaranteed heaven.’ Those were the same people who had sold indulgences and places in heaven to the nobility long before.

He had never seen heaven. He had seen scams in action though and somehow that and his own generally negative opinion of the clergymen was all he needed to feel such a distaste for their actions.

Hange was in light garments despite the cool breeze that came with early spring. Levi wore something similar in the form of a cotton shirt and dress pants, a subtle gesture of solidarity on his end.

Hange Zoe. He only found himself looking back at the crowd and at the person in question when her name was mentioned. What followed the announcement of her names were cheers. But Levi knew it wasn’t anything to celebrate for him.

The crowd wanted to see blood. A potato sack was placed on the ground next to Hange and Levi felt his stomach drop as he started to comprehend the risk that came with his plan. Although he had simulated that same escape the night before, Hange would be faced with the extra challenge of cutting through the ropes and the sack before being able to dive and escape to the cave.

To balance it out at least, he had fed her as much information as he possibly could.

When you feel the wall in front of you, keep going left.

Dive when you feel the cliff turn rougher.

You’re going to have to dive down deep to find it.

Levi had racked his head for as much detail as he could as he oriented Hange to the location of the sea cave.

I’ll meet you there at night when it gets dark. I’ll send food. Then just stay in the cave until I can fix your papers and find you a way out of here.

While he helped Hange into the potato sack, he searched for an opening to dig his small dagger in between the tightly woven ropes, in preparation for their plan. As soon as he did, Hange touched the dull part of the blade with her fingers and tapped the side of his finger, a small gesture that she had understood what needed to do. The quick tap was somehow reassuring.

Good luck. Stay alive. He mouthed. She wouldn’t have heard it but he had not wanted to risk anything louder than that. Even with the deafening cheers of the crowd. Levi pulled the sack over her with the help of one of the guards. He had no time to even allow himself one last look at the knife digging into the ropes. He could not risk anyone finding it.

The other guard had offered to help Levi throw the sack over the cliff but Levi declined. He didn’t even trust himself to throw over the cliff. How could he trust anyone else?  Hange wasn’t heavy though. In fact, Levi was sure he had carried weapons much heavier and had shot arrows with draw weights much heavier than her.

Yet, her weight was crushing him  and Levi felt his arms going numb underneath him as he carried the sack towards the edge of the cliff.

The sack was warm, a little too warm. The contents of the sack reacted to every moment. As much as Levi had wanted to pretend that it was just a sack of potatoes or maybe even a dead body. He couldn’t. He closed his eyes for a second and had somehow felt a heartbeat beneath that potato sack. It was a little too fast and maybe even deafening.

Hange. That’s Hange. I’m holding Hange in my arms.

At that rate, Levi could not even tell if it was his own heart or hers. Will this work out? Will this be the last time I hear that heartbeat?

There was no turning back.

“Heave…” Levi pulled the sack behind him to gather some moment.

The heartbeat evolved from a canter to a gallop as he felt the strength quickly spread through his arms. He remembered then, he had an obligation to moderate his strength as well. He didn’t want her landing too far from the cliff either or worse, get seriously hurt on impact.

“Ho!” Levi threw the sack forward, slowing down as he did. All he needed to do was make sure the sack covered enough distance that she wouldn’t hit the cliffside prematurely

It was as if time slowed down when Levi found himself in a good position to let go of the sack. He had found himself peeling his hand from the sack, finger by finger. The heartbeat he had felt in the sack, the warmth were like the threads of a spider web, sticking to him so tenaciously, so desperately.

He didn’t want to let go.

                                    Trials and Tributes

“Wow! I didn’t think there would be this many types of knives. I’ve only ever played with a letter opener.”

“Don’t you have knives around here? How do you do research without them?” Levi asked half heartedly as he continued to polish his saxe knife.

“Well, I make my own. You don’t really need anything too sharp to be able to cut up leaves. Sometimes you can just do it like this.” Hange tore one of the oregano leaves a little more roughly to make her point.

“Well, fighting gets a little complicated apparently.” Levi positioned his knife in front of the window of the cabin and watched as the silver glistened under the sunlight that streamed through the window. “Uncle said this knife is strong enough to parry the blow of a sword. If you can control it…” Just imagining a sword coming down on a knife only a quarter of the size of a sword had Levi shuddering. One miscalculated movement and he could find himself three less fingers.

“Learning to use weapons takes time. And I doubt your uncle is gonna make you fight a swordsman just yet.”

“My uncle said he’ll teach the technique. I just have to do the drills he gives me everyday.”

Hange clumsily spun Levi’s throwing knife in her hand only to end up dropping it on the floor. She let out a disappointed sigh. “Hey Levi, after your uncle teaches you, can you teach me? I wanna learn how to handle a knife too.”

                                   Trials and Tributes

The sack they had pulled out of the water was stained red. And that blood stain covered half the sack.

While the clergymen and the guards were panicking at the missing body. Levi was alarmed for other reasons. Was she alive? Did she make it out safely?

He had hope for the luxury of letting out a tear, or rushing to the side of the cliff, kneeling down and looking closely at the water to maybe search for signs of life like a mad man. It would only be unwise to do such. The most he could allow himself was a catatonic state and maybe a twinge of envy at the clergymen who had the luxury to babble curses at the guard who had probably so incompetently left a hole in the sack to punch through.

Fortunately, no one was blaming him just yet. He didn’t want to give them the opening either. The matter at hand was time sensitive. If Hange wasn’t dead, she might still be flickering between life and death at the moment. He had to get to where she was soon.

He murmured a few words at the guard about wanting to check something and about them being able to go ahead and slowly walked away. Levi couldn’t run just yet, not when he was still within their field of view. To compensate though, his heart and his mind were racing. As he turned the corner and into the path which led to the cove and eventually to the sea cave, he was more quickly able to adjust to a sprint.

Levi had mentally readied himself to dive into the water even before he entered the cave. He had started to unbutton his own cotton shirt as he sprinted in, not wanting to waste any more time.

The rush and the panic that was only consuming him made him clumsy and a little awkward as he moved. The moment his plans and his expectations were subverted by the sight of a very wet and bloodied Hange kneeling on the ground next to the water, Levi ended up losing his balance and tripping on the floor right in front of her.

“You made it here alive… I was worried.” Levi managed to say as he pulled himself back up into a kneeling position. His knees and palms were starting to hurt and Levi was sure he would need to treat his own wounds a little later on.

“Yeah, I ended up cutting my wrist when I cut through the ropes...It bled out a lot but I never really was as coordinated as you are with knives... Sorry for putting that training you gave me to waste.” Hange was only rambling aimlessly. As Levi made eye contact with her, he noticed her eyes were still a little too wide and her smile too unnatural. Levi could not help but think that she had felt the same way he did when he had first arrived in that same cave a few nights before. Her face had shown it all. She was just as surprised to be alive as he was.

But she is alive. That’s all that mattered. Levi would have wanted to hug her then but at the same time he did not want to lose sight of her. He settled for putting his hand on her arm and gripped hard. “At this point Hange, I don’t care if you’re a fucking witch or not. If you are, save yourself. Run away. Go save some other kids. Go discover a plague before it happens. You don't deserve this. Nobody deserves the shit they put you through. I’ll get you out of here if I need to.”

Hange returned his strong grip on her arm by gripping his wrist. For a second, her face was unreadable. Then soon after something took over and that face had morphed into something wild and even primitive. It was as if Hange was possessed. Suddenly she was squeezing his wrist much harder than Levi had ever expected from her. He let out a groan of pain as he recoiled at the sudden attack.

Hange threw his hand back at him and snarled. "Don’t touch me!"

And just like that, it was as if he was talking to a completely different person. Or a completely different creature.

#levihan #levi ackerman #hange zoe #levi x hange #fanfic

[singingmice]

energy & how water moves,

[I’ve not done much I’ve loved too little And I’m tired of running] - Frank O’Hara, from ‘Lines Across the United States’, Poems Retrieved Tin, It's past midday, Energy has been low for a while and I tell myself, is it just - to go more slowly, or is that - death shows its shadow and shows us what it is not to live? I try to go deep, but energy dictates everything. One wants to run down the mountain but moves like a sloth, turning the pages of a rain drenched book, an old rusted train unused for centuries. Then I think: spirit wants me back. Nature calls for me. It's there one must go rather than the endless productivity that dictates our times. Perhaps it is not the time for finishing writing, instead to clear through...to open up after this last year and a half of constraints, of collective fear and hesitation. I remember how water calms. I've been spending time recently with those who struggle to notice or appreciate poetry. Os spends most of her time inside or at work and there she is content. I cannot name where our attraction to each other came from, but feel a little foolish for it now. Perhaps loneliness accumulates. Perhaps one sometimes goes exactly in the direction where one is not heading in order, for the millionth time, to know what it is that one needs. I don't understand her at all, or perhaps I do, and this worries me more. The mechanisms of comfort, of predictability - ways to ward off the chaos that attacks us from all angles. And in that ruin, I find strength, and in it - she cleans and scrubs and tidies away that which can creep in unexpectedly. I led a yoga session yesterday and she said, "I feel nothing" and my heart sank. "Mr Duffy lived a short distance away from his body..." - James Joyce But I had missed / being held. And I've been with C in the north of Catalonia, who's living beside a large lake. At least with him we've been heading out to nature, having emotional talks at night. But I confess I miss literature. I miss the challenge to intellect. There is so much safety, routine...soon, I tell myself. Soon all of that will disappear and for the next month slow travels will await. Hiking, meeting some friends. You, snorkelling. How is it to live so close to such a vibrant sea? Have you noticed differences over the years of the life that can be found there? I went to the sea last week with C. Speedboats everywhere. Back on the island where I've been living since April it's much better for wilderness areas, but even then - boats everywhere. I long for a sea too rough for sailing, or too cold, too unpredictable. What happened with your March? We have much to catch up on... I often make Kombucha just with like it is, but sometimes add things like mint. I find it interesting to experiment with the kinds of tea... Fear. There is so much of it everywhere. I will have to go far, far from the city to get away from it. Here in Barcelona I feel it immediately. It's far different from the lake where C lives. I suppose it's my first direct confrontation with it. Fear attacks the immune system, the health inside, all the good we carry. Survival instinct kicks in, but when it never has an off button, because it's constant - exhaustion comes. I've been doing a lot of breath work the last months. It's helped a lot, though I have to be careful to keep up with it while travelling, as it's easy to resist all kinds of routine when away from it. Sometimes I just focus on releasing all the poison from the body and mind with the outbreath. The longer I can go the better. But I feel time also slipping away, as if all this period of inactivity...events to separate the days - brings time into a collective soup of which is there is little escape routes. The lentils cling to us and then there is no way out. The spontaneous is more important than ever but can that be forgotten, or is there some secret stash of the wild left in all beings? Those monitoring lizards are crafty...here it's bats, instead. The stories that best serve us... Perhaps it is just those that go towards

understanding, wisdom. But how to select them? I'm reading a book of a man's walk across Afghanistan currently. I found it in the garage of C of books travellers had left. I walk in the streets of Barcelona and see donkeys and deserts. Perhaps there is little worthwhile news stories, and what has worth is the personal, the way back to our origins, to the nests of where we belong. And breath, the body, the wind, gleaming eyes, animals. The rest - media seems to be stronger and stronger and leaves me weak. Little by little, disentangling, giving it up... My heart would be full of underground passages, some accessible, some not so much. C told me that I'm so much more open about my past than we last met seven years ago, on the way down to Morocco in his camper van. That I speak of my childhood without hesitation, of my father and the darkness there that envelopes. I keep reminding myself of gratitude. It helps a lot. My brother is becoming an ordained Hindu monk next week. It's like getting married / only to an elephant god (amongst others) rather than to another person. Been doing a lot of ancestral work recently, of the past - but I'm somewhat allergic to people romanticising the ancestors. For some of it - this is where trauma gets passed down - all the unresolved - the conflicts, the turned away from, that which is repelled. I for one am not particularly proud of my blood...but it's good to imagine some that are. I prefer, when offering a drink to the land, for it to be pachamama and not my ancestors, who likely had enough alcohol in life and don't need it in death too. You're in rain season now? On the island there are continuous floods even in summer. The lands are changing and people refuse to believe it. For years it brought me great despair to witness the extinctions, the loss of habitat. Somehow now, though the sadness and despair still remains - it almost rejoices, for perhaps now people finally realise. And we will not be forever. And some beings can take our place, and perhaps they will take better care... Well, a hug. One last day in the city, and more and more it makes less sense. Jass

#letters #Frank O’Hara #loss of poetry #climate collapse #Barcelona #summer #floods

[alarawriting]

52 Project #28 / Writeober 2020 #8 Haunting: The Court of the Lion King

I returned to the apartment building where Daro and Anzali and I had lived before we went down to the sea. It had not changed in the way buildings change-- its paint was the same color, it seemed no more or less weatherbeaten than before.  The railing on the 3rd floor balcony still sagged.  But it had changed in the way homes change, because it wasn't home any more. Because different people lived there now, filling it with their strange scents, and because I had changed.  The scent of the sea was still in my nostrils. I would never smell the comforts of home again.

Renting the third floor apartment did not present difficulties.  I walked through the silence of the apartment, marveling at its emptiness.  The furniture was still there, the faded rug, the great sagging bed, the tired appliances. But all the personality was gone. Anzali's bright prints had been taken off the walls, which themselves had been whitewashed again to remove our cheery yellow paint.  White is a disturbing color, the color of bones and of drowned skin, pink human and green farla alike.  Even the humans of other colors became gray, in death by water. If I needed to be here long, the white walls would glare in my eyes and drive me mad.  

There was a knock at the door, startling me, and I almost fled.  But it wouldn't be the Lion King, not here, not yet.  He wouldn't know I was back.  I opened the door.

A human greeted me. "Hi there, new neighbor.  I'm Rachael from the second floor apartment. Just thought I'd come say hi. Need help moving in?"

Rachael was chubby – not just by farla standards, but by human – with short brown hair and a squeaky tenor voice. She had pale skin, which she covered with more makeup than most humans, and her chin and brow seemed unusually defined for a female human. "Hello,"  I said distantly.  "I'm Ashmi.  No, I don't need help moving in.  Thanks for asking."

"Oh.  Well, sorry to bother you.  You want to come downstairs for a cup of tea or something? I like to get to know my neighbors.  It cuts down on the insecurity, you know.  Living in a place like this-- well, this isn't the best of neighborhoods, you know?"

"I know,"  I said bitterly, and wondered if this androgynous human knew the Lion King.  I also wondered if I could still drink tea.  I was afraid of my bone-white apartment, and loneliness.  "I'll come downstairs if you want, but I don't know if I'll be able to take tea.  I tend to be allergic to nearly everything."

"Well, come on down. You don't have to have tea if you don't want it.  You're a farla, aren't you?"

I stepped out of my apartment and followed Rachael downstairs.  "You can't tell?"

"You're a bit pale, aren't you? I never saw a farla so white.  I thought you guys were all green.  Not that I think it looks bad, I think you look gorgeous.  At least, I don't know, by human standards or something, but maybe you don't feel good?"

"It's the color we turn when we're away from our Mother,"  I said.  "The Sun.  It is not a well color, and I thank you for your concern, but really, don't worry about me."

Rachael's apartment smelled like cats.  Unsurprisingly, three came to greet Rachael, and another one sat on a moth-eaten armchair and glowered at me.  The cats seemed unsure of me.  Farla generally get along well with cats, sometimes better than with the humans who brought them, and I had always liked them.  These, however, avoided me, and I avoided them.  Rachael noticed.  "Don't you like cats?"

There is one Cat that I despise.  But I wouldn't say so.  These cats were nothing of the Lion King.  "They're all right.  These don't seem to like me."

"That's funny.  Normally they're all over strangers.  What's wrong, guys? You being little bitches today?"  Rachael turned to me apologetically.  "They get like this sometimes."

"I don't blame them."  I took a deep breath of cat-scented air.  It was not quite enough to drown out the scent of the sea.  "Forgive me for my ignorance.  I'm not very experienced with humans, but...  you are a woman, aren’t you?”

Rachael laughed. "Already? That’s great!"

"I don’t understand."

"I’ve been trying."  The human went into the kitchen to put on tea.  "Just managed to get on hormones two weeks ago. This place, well. Not a lot of doctors, and the mail’s not too reliable."

"What do doctors and the mail have to do with your – no. This is none of my concern, I’m being very rude."

"From a farla, I’m okay with it,"  Rachael said, coming out with the tea. “I’m a woman, but I only figured it out for certain a year ago, and it’s taken me this long to get the hormones I need.”

“I didn’t know humans could have an ambiguous gender," I said.

“Yeah, sometimes we’re born with the wrong genitals and hormones, and it can be hard to figure out what we really ought to be. I’m thirty-five. I don’t know if farlae age like humans do, but that’s, like, more than a third of a human’s maximum average lifespan, more than half of how long we usually do live when we grow up in neighborhoods like this. I didn’t grow up here, though, but just a few cities over, not so close to the water, but other than that it’s just like this. So that’s a long time to not know, but I know it now. Gonna start growing my hair out now that I have my shots.”

I doubted the other city was really just like this. This city was different from any I had known. "I see,"  I said, though I didn't really understand most of what she was talking about.  I tried to smell the tea, but I could only smell salt water.

"Do you want something? Some water? I feel bad that you're allergic to tea and all."

What I needed, Rachael could not give me.  Or at the least, I would not take from her.  "That's fine.  I'm all right."  I had not been all right since we went to the sea.  I no longer even knew how many years it had been.  "How long have you been living here?"

"Oh, a year and a half or so.  It's a bad neighborhood, but it's cheap.  You know how it is.  Hard to get work nowadays."

I didn't know how it was, but I nodded politely.  "Yes."

"Now that I’m out, a lot of humans won’t hire me. This is the kind of neighborhood where they’ve got really old, traditional attitudes, you know? And I guess you've got it worse.  Not many farlae here."

"This was a farla neighborhood once,"  I said. "An artists' community.  It was poor, but it had a soul."

"Well, it hasn't got one now,"  Rachael said, with an edge of bitterness in her voice.  "That's just like us humans.  We wreck everything."

"You feel too much guilt.  This may be a human neighborhood now, but its soullessness is not human doing." Panic choked me like seaweed as I realized I'd said too much.  I had lost my old instincts-- I had no way to know if Rachael was the Lion's or not.

"You talk like you've been here before."

"I must go." I got up, hastily.  "I'm sorry."

"Uh, okay. Health problems or something? Or was it something I said?"

"Health problems," I lied.  "Perhaps we'll talk again.  I'm sorry."

***

I locked the door of my apartment behind me.  It wasn't necessary; what I feared could come through walls, and there were no mundane threats I did fear anymore.  But it would disturb me if Rachael came upstairs and came inside while I wasn't watching.  I wanted to be careful of what she might see.  

I thought she was a sweet, harmless soul, if a bit strange.  I would wish to befriend her, another time, perhaps, but not here.  Not where anything might warp under the paw of the Lion.  I could see the signs she'd spoken of now.  This place no longer had a soul.

Once Daro had argued that humans could be rendered soulless, could be enslaved, far more easily than the farlae.  Farlae, he argued, had been created as slaves, and would die free rather than live that way again.  Humans, freely evolved, knew no better.  Slavery was a sporadic thing in their history and was performed by groups of them on other groups, never something their race as a whole had suffered.  So they did not notice being enslaved.  They couldn't see the loss of their souls until after the precious stuff was gone.

At the time I had called Daro racist, but secretly suspected some part of his theory to be true.  Now I knew better.  Farlae had fled this neighborhood because they'd heard of our fate, I thought.  And humans moved in simply by the laws of diffusion, there being more of them on this world than us.  Unaware of the danger until it was too late.  Farlae would notice an absence of farlae, and stay away, feeling unwelcome. Humans, the majority, had no such warning system.

And farlae could be enslaved, stripped of will or soul.  Sometimes the choice was not between slavery or death.  Sometimes it was between two forms of slavery.

I thought I could sleep. But the bed would not touch me. When I closed my eyes and lay down, I felt myself in my ocean bed once more, curled like a child in the womb, the green water penetrating me and washing my thoughts away.  It didn't matter.  I didn't need sleep anyway.

I left my apartment and went to explore the neighborhood by night.  It had changed physically after all.  No one I'd known would have allowed their apartments to become so run-down, let so much trash collect in the streets, or left broken, melted vehicles like mountains of plastic on the sides of the roads.  Aside from me, no woman walked abroad, and I was invisible if I chose. Gangs of young male humans lounged about, predators waiting for prey.  Empty drug vials and used-up dermal patches littered the sidewalks and the paths between the buildings.  

The Lion King's place alone had grown in splendor.  His nightclub, Heaven, looked positively palatial, glittering with light and music. He sat in the center of the neighborhood, with a vast spiderweb thrown in the air about him of parking for aircars. There were no longer any grounded streets leading to his court, and all the buildings that used to stand around Heaven had been swallowed by the glittering fibers of the parking web. From the ground, only someone light as a wraith could climb the web to reach the cars, as I did; the human children down below could see fat, juicy prey overhead, but had no way to reach it. They were driven sullen, reminded of what they didn't have and could never get, made impotent by the Lion. And so in impotent fury they raged against those that had no more than they-- which was why no one walked alone on the night streets, and no women walked at all.

This was what I saw when the Lion King first arrived.  But then it was only a vision in a dream-clouded farla's mind.  I didn't truly know what the Lion King truly was until the day he summoned me to his court.  None of us knew.  I tried to tell myself that, to remind myself that Daro and Anzali's fate was not my fault. I didn't believe my own reassurances at all.

The club itself was the last place I went, that night.  Invisible to almost all, I wandered the two dance floors, peered in some of the upstairs bedrooms and slipped back out again.  Heaven had grown more openly decadent since last I was here, with more bedrooms for the transactions of perversion and vice.  They were no longer hidden away on the top floor, available only to members of the Lion's court.  I saw businessmen cavorting in swimming pools with women who were no more than animated shells, the vivacity that seemed to pour from them as artificial as the sunlamp light that glittered off the pool.  I saw humans and farlae both drugged out of their minds, performing obscene rituals of life and death for an appreciative audience of both races. I saw other humans and farlae voluntarily drinking down hells'brews, filling their bodies with a greater variety and concentration of drugs than even the poor victim-slaves had been poisoned with.  And none of them saw me.  I didn't expect humans to see me, but the fact that I was invisible even to farlae said that the farlae in this establishment were all spiritually dead.

None of this surprised me. It filled me with hate, but hate gave me strength.  I remembered what had been done to me, what had happened to my husband and wife, and why I was here.  I decided to risk finding the Lion King.

***

The topmost floor of Heaven was the Lion King's court.  One could not get in without an invitation, but in a sense the Lion had tendered me an invitation all those years ago.  In any case, only the Lion himself could have kept me out, and he didn't man his own doors.

I saw him on his throne, with four scantily-clad women serving him.  Two were human, one was farla, and one was as he was, part cat. The humans once manufactured other humans with the blood of animals mingled with their own.  Normally cat-humans manifested only with cat-shaped eyes and bodies far more graceful than a typical human body.  The Lion King himself was thought a mutant or a throwback, or else something entirely inhuman, with his features subtly shaped to seem more cat than human, and his curly golden hair almost a mane.  He was feeding from one of the human women as he held her in his lap.  The others were massaging him or stroking his hair, oblivious to the bloody fate of their companion.  Favored courtiers, men and unattractive women, competed for his attention, praising him and giving him information on his business.

He could not speak as he drank, but eventually he released the woman he was feeding from.  She dropped to the floor in a heap, and I shuddered.  In my time, his habits were not quite so open.  I turned and left as I heard his voice.  It was deep and mellifluous, no different than I remembered it, and I feared that my hate would choke me and I'd do something rash.  I hadn't come all this way to throw away my best chance.

***

In the morning, I went to visit Rachael.  My sight of the Lion King had fortified me, and I no longer cared if she was his creature or not.  I needed information.

"Hey, Ashmi!" she said cheerfully, answering my knock in a bathrobe.  "Want to come in and get some breakfast?"

"I'd like to come in, in any case,"  I said, "though I've already eaten."

"Oh.  Well, if you don't mind watching me eat, come on in. I was kind of hoping you'd come in."  She stared at me as I entered the cat-full apartment and seated myself.  "God, you're gorgeous.  I'd give anything to look like you."

"If you would give what I have given, you're a fool,"  I said softly.

"What?"

"Beauty is only a danger, in a place like this.  I need information, Rachael; about the Lion King.  What do you know?"

She swallowed. "Um.  I don't think it's safe to talk about him..."

"It's safe.  No one is listening, I am not an informant, and if you are I don't care.  Tell me what you know about the Lion King."

"I don't think--"

I stood up again, and stared into her eyes.  I let her see a small fraction of what I truly was.  "Tell me."

"Oh, God." She stared at me with fear, not envy, now.  "You're-- you're not--"

"I am not. Yes.  I won't hurt you, Rachael, not unless you keep information from me."

"No wonder you didn't want to eat."  She swallowed again.  "All right.  I don't know much-- I'm too ugly for the Lion and too poor to go to his club.  But I know what everyone in the neighborhood knows. He's not human, for starters.  I mean, more than the way you're-- uh, maybe the way you're not.  Um.  I mean, he isn't natural.  He isn't just a catperson, he's something else. Something else totally."

"Yes.  Something that can strip away a will, or a soul."

"And pretty girls have got to go to him, if he wants them.  He doesn't take them all.  And most of the ones he takes come back, though they don't remember much about what happened, and they're usually not so pretty anymore.  Some of them, though-- some of them don't come back at all."

"How do the girls go to him? How are they chosen?"

"Anytime someone new moves in, his people check to see if there's a pretty girl in with them. They'll probably come to take you tonight.  If there are any remotely pretty girls, they go with the Lion King's men, and they get presented to him in his court.  And if he likes them, they stay there."

"Yes.  It was not the same in my time, but it was similar." A fierce pain beat at me from within. "What of those who won't submit?"

"The Lion King's bullyboys don't give you a choice.  You have to go with them."

I smiled bitterly and looked hard at Rachael.  "You wanted to be my friend.  Yet you made no attempt to warn me-- though you thought I was beautiful, and that must have meant you knew the Lion King's men would come for me."

"I was scared," Rachael whispered, looking down. "If I'd warned you, and you'd run away...  and he found out..."

"You might find yourself walking to the ocean,"  I agreed.  "No, I suppose it doesn't matter."

"Ah--" Rachael looked up.  "Did it happen to you? Did you..."

"When the Lion King first came,"  I said, "I lived in the apartment I live in now, with my husband and my wife, Daro and Anzali."

"Your wife?" Rachael sounded startled, and then nodded.  "Oh, right.  Farlae live with two women and a man, don't they? I'd forgot."

"The Lion King summoned me.  He had less power in those days, but he was less well known as well.  I thought he would be a patron for my art, so I went willingly enough."  I lost myself in memory a moment.  

We had such bright happy lives then, and knew nothing of it.  We had problems with bills, lovers' quarrels, emotional intrigues with the rest of the farla community, and we thought those were troubles.  I was a naive innocent when I went to see the Lion King, thinking he had heard of my art.  But what he wanted was not what I had created.  What he wanted...  was what I was.

The demand was for my body. I knew it went deeper than that. Farlae tend to be more sensitive to such things than humans; it was my soul he wanted, and I knew it.  I refused.  He threatened to kill me, to kill my husband and wife.  I told him that all of us would rather die free than live as soulless slaves.

I looked up, shaking myself free of memory.  "I was a naive fool,"  I said harshly.  "But the Lion King has no more power over me."  I stood up.  "Rachael, I forgive you for not warning me.  But if you tell the Lion King of his danger, or give him or anyone else any information concerning me, I will kill you slowly.  Do you understand me?"

She nodded, shivering. She knew what I was capable of.

***

They came for me that night.

I feigned sleep, lying on the sagging mattress in the semblance of a nightgown, waiting for them. They unlocked my door and shook me, roughly, thinking they were waking me.  "Get up.  You've been summoned to the palace of the Lion King."

So even he called it a palace now.  I looked at them with dazed eyes.  "Do I have time to get into some clothes?"

One of them snickered. "Why bother? You'll just be taking them off again anyway."  They all laughed.

I went with them in my nightgown and my artfully disheveled hair, out to their aircar and from there to Heaven.  They brought me to the top floor, to the court of the Lion King.  And I stood before the creature who'd destroyed my life, and felt the hatred surging in me, giving me strength.  On the outside, I showed frightened, sleep-bewildered eyes, the face of a beautiful innocent.

"What is your name, girl?"  he asked me. His voice was beautiful, rich and deep as the sea.  

"Ashmi,"  I whispered, letting myself tremble.  I looked down at my feet, at the enamel floor, and forced myself to see a reflection.

"Ashmi,"  he said reflectively.  "I knew a farla named Ashmi once.  Years ago...  She looked much like you, but not as pale.  And she gave me trouble.  You won't give me trouble, girl, will you?"

"You should know what happens to those who resist the Lion King,"  one of his courtiers hissed.

"Disrobe," he ordered.

I stripped, letting the nightgown pool around my feet, and turned around for him like a bird on a spit as he ordered me to.  Finally he smiled, showing sharp teeth.  "She'll do.  Take her to my chambers and have her wait."

I scooped up the nightgown and slipped back into it.  Once I was in his chambers, alone, I let it disperse into mist.  I sat on his bed, naked, and remembered our journey to the sea.

He had demanded me, body and soul.  I'd refused, and he'd laughed.  "You have spirit, don't you,"  he said. "Go home then.  Go on back to your husband and wife.  I have no shortage of beautiful women, that I need to trouble myself with you."

And gods help me, I thought I was free.  I ran back to Daro and Anzali, to tell them what had happened, to seek their comfort. I ran up the stairs to the apartment, and into Daro's spotless kitchen, where the two of them had stayed up late, waiting for me.

But as I met their eyes, a compulsion struck, consuming the three of us.  I explained nothing-- I couldn't speak.  All I knew was that I had to go down to the sea and die, and that my loves felt the same way.

We left the apartment, holding hands, and began to walk.  We felt as if we were in a dream, inexplicably shared.  The empathic bond between us had twined around us all, dragging us down together.  Perhaps this was intended to be my private nightmare, and the bond I had with my loves, the linkage between our minds, pulled them down with me.  Or perhaps the Lion King had always intended to send us all. Throughout the night we walked, slowly, in a daze.  The sea was normally half an hour's journey by aircar.  On foot, holding hands and walking with dreamlike slowness, it took us all of the night and most of the next day.  We were exhausted, but there was never any question of stopping.  The sea pulled us with some strange gravity. Hydrotropic, we flowed down the path of least resistance, through the city and out, until we came to a cliff over the ocean.

I felt their love for me, and mine for them.  I felt an overwhelming despair and exhaustion, a hunger for the ocean's balm. We looked at each other and nodded. Then we released one another, and separately we leapt into the sea.

Daro and Anzali were dashed against the rocks at the bottom, immediately.  I fell into a deeper part, cushioned by water, and curled up in green darkness to sleep my despair away.

***

The Lion entered the room, awakening me from my reverie.  "Good.  You've got your clothes off."  He smiled at me ferally.  On him, it was more of a baring of teeth than a smile, and spoke of hunger.  "Lie down."

He removed his own clothes and came to touch me, to cover me with his lightly furred body.  "Gods of hell, you're cold, woman.  What have you been doing, standing on the balcony with your clothes off?"  

"It's a cold night,"  I whispered.

"I'll warm you, then."  His hands had articulated digits, but furred fingers and pads on his palms.  With these paws, he explored my body, finding no body heat anywhere.  Alarmed, he licked at my neck, and when he found the reassuring taste of salt there bit in, drinking what ran through my veins.

What he needed was blood. All I had was seawater.

The Lion King jerked away, spluttering, and stared down at me.  I smiled at him, the same baring of teeth he'd shown me.  

"You knew me," I said.  "Many years ago.  And I gave you trouble."

He tried to back away then. But I grabbed him and pulled him down to the bed, pinning him under my weight, the weight of the ocean.  I opened my jaws wide and let the semblance of normalcy fall from me, showing myself as I truly was-- a skeleton animated by seawater, a demon driven by hate.  He screamed. I dove upon his throat and tore at it, drinking his hot blood as my claws dug into other parts of his body, tearing flesh away.

The Lion's life force was strong, fed by the blood of innocence and whatever demons he served. But my hate was stronger.  He fought me, digging his teeth into my neck once more.  All he drank was seawater.  He tried to drink that, hoping to weaken me, but he might as well have tried to drink the ocean dry.  I drank his blood and it was finite, though fortified with the blood of many victims. I ate bits of his flesh, torn away. As his struggles weakened, I released his neck and burrowed my face into his belly, chewing through the flesh. Drenched in blood, I reached my bony hand into the opening I'd made and clawed through his liver and lungs. Finally I tore out his heart and showed it to him.  He died then.

The air was filled with a rustling noise.  The souls he had stolen from young women, from men, from the neighborhood itself, fled from the punctured hole in his body.  Some were partially consumed, and would never be strong again.  The sight renewed my hatred, though my enemy was dead and his soul bound to the darkness.

For this moment alone I had the power.  I had stolen the life force of the Lion King, and I had within me the strength of the sea and the energy of my hate.  I could have called a tidal wave to destroy Heaven and all the tormentors within. The tormented would die as well, but that would be only a blessing, I felt.  The neighborhood would be destroyed, but there was nothing in this blasted ruin of a hometown worth keeping anymore, was there? Destroy it all and let the survivors rebuild.  Yes.  I felt the charge build within me, and almost gave myself over to it.

But then Rachael would die as well.  And she was an innocent, who had kept her soul, though the paw of the Lion had undoubtedly started to warp her.  She had not warned me, but she'd tried to befriend me, as best she could with her fear of the Lion King.  If I killed her with a tidal wave, I was no better than the Lion King, killing as it suited me.

There would be no tidal wave.  I let the energy fade away.  Let someone else save the city; I had done my part.  I was so tired.

It was time to return to my ocean bed, and to my loves.  I faded away, and let myself turn into mist, carried back to the sea.

#52 project #spooky 5 #writeober 2020 #tw: death #tw: implied rape #farla #galconfed universe #tw: mind control

[snezfics-n-shit]

Whumptober Day 31: Halloween

Fandom: Ace Attorney 

Characters: [2001 Half] Gregory Edgeworth, Raymond Shields / [2021 Half] Phoenix Wright, Miles Edgeworth, Trucy Wright

Notes: Two Halloweens, Two Defense Attorneys, Two Decades Apart. Last day so we’re going to town. Two whumps for the price of one! In the first half, you’ll find some Gregory content. For the second, you’ll see everyone’s favorite disbarred hobo dad. It really is Real DILF Hours this fine Halloween.

                                                   --October 31, 2001--

“Thank you again, Mrs. Wright. You kids have fun!” Gregory watched the group of trick-or-treaters go on their way. It felt almost like a dream to know his son was in that group, trick-or-treating with real friends. For past Halloweens, Gregory and Miles would stay in and read something together until deciding to watch It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown together before usually falling asleep on the couch. While he was more than proud of his son making friends, Gregory felt a little sad when his son told him he would be out. 

It was only when Gregory woke up the morning before with a persistent tickle in his throat that he was actually grateful to be the only one at home for the holiday, for at least a few hours. For a moment, he assumed it was simply the doing of Fall allergies, and perhaps some of it was, but the steadily rising feeling of malaise started to tip him off. By the time he was seeing his son off with his group of friends, he was more than ready to turn in for the night at 6:30PM.

Gregory closed the door slowly so he could triple check that the group was traveling safely. Despite having kept a close eye out on his surroundings, he failed to notice a familiar face approaching his home. He thought he could easily resign himself to some cold medicine and an early night until he heard the turning of a doorknob. 

“Miles? Is that you?” He called as far as his hoarse voice could reach.

“No, it’s me, Mr. Edgeworth!” Ray twirled a keychain around and bit into a chocolate bar. “You gave me your spare key, remember? When I helped you bring in that big bag of dog food? Or was it when you had shingles? I forget.”

“Neither.” Gregory shook his head. “I gave you the spare key that time you watched Miles when I had that date.”

“O-Oh, right. How did that go, by the way?”

“Not great. The movie was awful and she demanded a refund after it was over. I don’t think I’ll be going out with anyone on the PTA again.” Gregory coughed a few times in his elbow before noticing what Ray was eating. “Where did you get that?”

“From your candy bowl.” 

“Did you take just one like the sign said?”

Ray shrugged as he pulled about four more chocolate bars from his coat pockets. 

“You should really be handing out the candy to prevent this kind of miscommunication.”

“I’m coming down with a cold, so I think I’ll pass.” Gregory took Ray’s coat to hang on the coat rack, if only to prevent more candy smuggling. “I’m surprised you’re not trick-or-treating.”

“I wanted to spend time with you, Mr. Edgeworth. You said you’ll be staying inside alone this year.” Ray helped himself to the living room couch, pleased to greet the pomeranian lounging there. “Hey, Missile!” He made kissing faces at the pup. “I guess not too alone.”

“Don’t let him lick your face while you have chocolate all over.” Gregory called the dog over to him. “You can rinse your face in the bathroom, and could you bring me the cold medicine from the cabinet?”

“Of course, Mr. Edgeworth!”

“Thank you.” Gregory stole Ray’s spot on the couch and let Missile hop on his lap. Just sitting down was more rest than Gregory had let himself have all day. He looked up to watch Ray return from the bathroom, somehow having gotten his hands on a lollipop.

“How come you’re not using Coldkiller X?” Ray tossed the requested medicine into Gregory’s lap. “It’s been flying off the shelves since it came out; it’s a real hit.” 

“I prefer my usual NyQuil. I’d rather sleep through my colds.”

“You do look like you could use some sleep, Mr. Edgeworth.” Ray wiggled the lollipop stick around in his mouth. “Also, I think it’s really cool you put candy all around your house for Halloween.”

“What do you mean?” Gregory furrowed his brow. 

“These lollipops in your bathroom.” He pulled out the stick to reveal a purple teddy bear pop. “It kinda makes my mouth feel funny, though. I think I’m allergic to something in it.”

“Raymond, that’s--,” Gregory sighed and put his head in his hands, “medicated. It has an anesthetic in it.”

“Oh, huh.” Ray stared at the lollipop before offering it to Gregory. “Do you want it?”

“No, thank you.” Gregory found the offer to be both amusing and repulsive. “I think I’ll be fine just having some tea.” He ushered Missile to direct some affection towards Ray so he could stand up. “Do you want any?”

“Just water is fine.” Ray rubbed his tongue against his front teeth. “I don’t think anything else would taste good right now.”

“At least that means you won’t be stealing any more candy.” Gregory chuckled as he proceeded to start the stove under the kettle. “I also shouldn’t have to tell you that you shouldn’t be eating things from a medicine cabinet.” 

“Got it. ‘Don’t eat candy from the medicine cabinet.’” Ray read aloud from his notepad before eating the page he just wrote on. 

“I feel like I should be concerned that you needed to write that down.” To say nothing of Ray’s paper eating habit, which Gregory stopped questioning after six months into Ray working part-time at the firm. He wanted to say Ray had matured since he had hired him, but it was likely more familiarity with his antics than anything. “Do you want any ice in your water?” Gregory opened the refrigerator door and leaned forward, reaching for the pitcher of water.

“No, that’s fine.” Ray answered, not looking away from Missile, who was staring at him with wide eyes. “Who’s a good boy?”

“I’d like to think I am.” Gregory laughed before standing upright again. Having his head at any angle outside of a very specific range when he had a cold always gave him a head-rush. “AE’SSHHOOUH! Eh’KXNT...chooh” He stifled the second one so Ray wouldn’t say anything about trying to scare him. With it being Halloween, the potential for comments like that was abundant.

“Bless you, Mr. Edgeworth.” In truth, Ray was hardly paying enough attention to really say anything; he was too busy scratching behind Missile’s ears. “You’re such a cool dad, keeping this cutie.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been called ‘cool’ before, at least not sincerely.” Gregory tugged a tissue from the box on the kitchen counter and gently held it under his nose. 

“R-Really? Not even about all your Star Wars stuff?”

“That stuff is exactly--,” Gregory used the tissue to muffle some coughs, “exactly what made me not cool. I only had one friend in high school, and that was Miles’s mother.” He always felt some pain in his chest bringing her up, but he was too caught up in the memory to stop himself. “She was homeschooled before she transferred, so she didn’t really care if I was ‘cool’ or not.” He dropped the tissue into the trash bin before he opened a cupboard and grabbed two plain blue mugs. Cold water in a mug wasn’t a faux pas, was it?

“Are you feverish enough to finally tell me about her?” 

“This cold’s only just started, so no.” Gregory shut off the stove once he saw the steam leaving the kettle. As nice as it would be to have savored that, he didn’t want to keep Ray waiting for his water. “But I guess I can’t avoid talking about Marie forever.” He coated his own mug’s base with honey before topping it with a tea bag. He had no idea exactly what kind of tea it was; he only bought the types his son wrote on the grocery list in skillful handwriting absolutely not inherited from Gregory.

Naturally, when Gregory returned to the living room with both beverages, Ray had reclaimed the seat he had rightfully stolen.  He set Ray’s drink on the coffee table in front of the sofa before finding himself a new seat next to him.

“So, what was she like?” Ray took a long sip of his water, hoping to wash out the anesthetic. 

“Well, for starters, she was my best friend for over ten years.” Gregory moved the tea bag up and down by the string. “She transferred to my high school just after her parents separated. She moved with her dad all the way from the middle of nowhere, so we were both in the same ‘no friends’ boat.”

“Did you two realize the one you loved was right in front of you? Like in a movie?”

“Ah,” Gregory didn’t look up from his mug, “just one of us did. She didn’t feel the same way about me.”

“B-But you guys had a kid together! There had to be something there.” Ray’s jaw dropped when he saw Gregory shake his head. 

“I only realized I loved her after we, uh,” Gregory coughed awkwardly, “you know. I told her and that just ruined everything we had. The last time I saw her before she died was the day she dropped off Miles.”

“Oh, huh.” Ray felt himself tearing up. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not that much of a tearjerker, I promise. I have a son I couldn’t be more proud of. I wouldn’t trade him for the world, even if it meant having Marie in my life for a few extra years.”

“Wha?’ Ray wiped some tears from his eyes. “I’m not that sad. I just, uh, lost an eyelash. Let me find it so I can make a wish.” He grabbed a tissue from the box on the coffee table to pretend he was searching for that ‘eyelash.’

“Hey, it’s definitely not the time to waste those.” Gregory scolded in jest before taking his own tissue for actual use. “E’kXTT… chuh.” That particular stifle made his head pound.

“It’s Halloween, Mr. Edgeworth. It’s okay if you startle me.” Of course. Why did Gregory think he could get away so easily? “I don’t know how you can hold those in. It was pretty impressive when you did ten of those last month.”

“I wasd’t about to let you bake jokes for the rest of your shift.” Gregory blew his nose forcefully, displeased at the amount of time it took to really feel any benefit. 

“To think I just called you cool.” Ray teased. “I still think you’re cool, though. You made your son’s costume, didn’t you? Signal Red?”

“Indeed I did.” Gregory nodded. He figured his drink had cooled enough to chase down the cold medicine Ray retrieved earlier. “I stayed up all night making it.” He cleared his throat and made a face in reaction to the unfavorable taste of the medicated liquid. “Two nights, actually.”

“No wonder you’re sick. You work too hard and never sleep.” So was that why Ray seemed immune to colds? 

“Once this kicks in, I’ll be sleeping like the dead.” Gregory leaned back. “You can watch TV if you want. Take the remote or a VHS.”

“Woah, really?” Ray made himself at home in front of the VHS shelves with Missile following behind him. “You wanna help me pick out a movie, boy?”

“Just not any movies about a dog. Otherwise, he’ll bark at the screen.”

“Aw, that’s cute! Let’s watch Air Bud, then.”

Thank god for NyQuil.

                                                           -------------

                                                    --October 31, 2021--

      Phoenix was woken up by the sound of footsteps on the entryway’s tile floor accompanied by the excited listing of various candies. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes to take a look at the wall clock. 9:30PM. Miles and Trucy returned an hour late, but it sounded like they had a good time.

“Daddy! We got so much candy! Are you feeling better? Papa Miles said you should eat something healthy, but I won’t tell!” It was as if Trucy didn’t even need to stop to breathe while speaking. 

“Trucy, your father needs to rest.” Miles, who had at least stopped to leave his coat on the rack, needed to catch his breath. “Sorry to wake you, love. I hope you got some sleep since we left.”

“I slept great, yeah. Did you two have a good tibe?” Phoenix looked up at Miles with glassy eyes and a tired smile. 

“We had a wonderful time, but we missed you. It’s a shame you were too sick to come with us.” Miles glanced at the empty bowl and mug on the coffee table. “So you finally ate something?”

“Does that mean Daddy can have some of our candy now?” Trucy lifted her heavy pumpkin shaped basket. “He ate something healthy!”

“Not tonight, I don’t think. Why don’t you change into your pajamas and get ready for bed?” Miles pointed at his watch. “We already came home late.”

“Aw, okay.” Trucy pouted and dragged her feet walking to her bedroom.

Phoenix watched her leave and then frowned at Miles.

“What’s that look for?” 

“You’re doh fud.” Phoenix sniffled. 

“You were the one who wanted me to be more authoritative with her.” Miles was right; every time Trucy wanted something, she would go straight to him if she thought Phoenix would say no. Phoenix found it funny at first, but it got out of hand when Miles rented some ponies for Trucy’s previous birthday, ponies that needed to be cleaned up after. “It’s a school night.”

“I dod’t thigk she’d be up too late just shari’g a couple chocolates.” Phoenix reasoned. The couch made a squeak as he turned on his side.

“Do you think you could even taste them with you being that congested?” Miles peered into the tissue box on the coffee table, finding it empty. He wasn’t pleased to hear Phoenix blowing his nose into a tissue he had definitely used before. 

“Aa’SCHOOUuh! HT’TCHUUUh! Ah, dabbit.” Phoenix cursed at his effort to clear his nose being undone so quickly. “I guess I should just go to sleep.”

“That’s a good idea.” Miles kissed Phoenix’s warm cheek. “Are you coming to bed or staying on the couch for the night?”

“It’s probably a better idea to sleep here.” Phoenix blew his nose again in the crumpled tissue that left the skin it touched sore and red. “You have a trial this week, right? I don’t want you to get sick.” 

“I’ve already accepted that as inevitable.” Miles picked up the living room waste basket to dispose of the tissues that had accumulated on the couch while he was out. “Though I can’t blame you for staying here if you intend on sleeping under more used tissues.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve been out since about an hour after you and Trucy left for trick-or-treating.”

Miles winced as he pictured just how many times his boyfriend had reused tissues while he was gone. No wonder his nose was so red Miles could think of a few costumes it would enhance. 

“I’ll take another box from the hall closet for you. Do you want something to drink? I could heat up some apple cider so you can feel festive.”

“That would be great.” 

Miles gave Phoenix another light kiss before heading to the kitchen. He took mental notes of what counters would need cleaning in the morning, particularly where it was undeniable that Phoenix tried refilling his own tea but was too out of it to keep the mug steady. As much as Miles wanted to spend the rest of the night personalizing Phoenix’s cider, it was getting late and Phoenix had no objections to just heating a mug in the microwave. 

While the microwave was doing its job, Miles made a trip to the hall closet to deliver a fresh tissue box to Phoenix. 

“I hope this lasts until morning.” Miles tore off the cardboard covering the opening. “Maybe you could take something so you can sleep easier and use less of these?”

“Yes, please.” Phoenix coughed with his fist pressing against his mouth.

The microwave beeped just as Miles went to retrieve the mug. On his way back, he made a stop at the bathroom to pick up a pack of NyQuil capsules. He blew lightly over the steaming mug to cool it off a little before he brought the drink and medicine to his boyfriend. 

“Here you go, love. Let me know if it’s too hot or not hot enough.”

Phoenix popped out two capsules and washed them down with a large drink of cider. It burned his throat a little, making him tear up, but at least that part was done and over with. It was better than taking the medicine as a liquid, that was for sure.

“Thanks so much, hon. I can’t wait to get some sleep.”

“I’m looking forward to you getting some sleep as well.” Miles picked up the empty bowl and mug from the coffee table so there was only the mug of cider to worry about. “Goodnight, sweetheart.”

“G’night.”

Miles washed the dishes thoroughly but quickly enough for him to turn in at a reasonable time. He kept silent as he stopped to watch Phoenix finding a comfortable position to sleep in and stayed still for a while in case Phoenix needed anything. 

With a quiet yawn, Miles began his trip through the hall, only to stop suddenly with a hitch of his breath.

“Hh’sshhooh!” He sniffed. “Oh, of course.”

#whumptober #whumptober 2020 #sickfic whumptober alt #sneezing #snez #snz #sneeze kink #snez attorney #thanks for putting up with me this month

[fairytail-multishipper]

100 Headcanon Challenge: Natsu Dragneel

Zeref named Natsu. His parents didn’t have a name for Natsu when he was born, but Zeref said his name should be Natsu, because his pink hair reminded him of the summer.

Natsu was born on November 24

Natsu was a totally mama’s boy

Natsu actually behaviors a lot like his mother when she was younger

Natsu wasn’t in school when his village was destroyed, but Zeref was. Everyday his mother would send Natsu to the school to bring Zeref his lunch.

Natsu had trouble pronouncing words when he was young, so he didn’t really talk. He didn’t need too anyway, Zeref was always there to do the talking for him.

Natsu is eight (8) years younger than Zeref

When the dragon destroyed his village, and when he died sorry, Natsu was four (4)

The Tartaros demons were actually created to keep END (Natsu) safe, they were basically his babysitters

Natsu was actually taken from Zeref against his will, Natsu

Igneel thought it was the only way to defeat Acnologia, but when Natsu wouldn’t stop crying for Zeref, he used a spell to erase Natsu’s memory

Igneel did his best to teach Natsu how to read and write in the modern language, but Natsu didn’t really understand

Igneel celebrated Natsu’s birthday on January 1, because he didn’t know Natsu’s birthday

Igneel was a good, patient, father towards Natsu

Natsu knows how to hunt and get clean water, so he actually survived on his own for a while before joining Fairy Tail

After Natsu joined Fairy Tail he came out of his shell a bit

He had to be re-taught how to use a fork

He once cried because Mira hammered him so hard about how dragons were extinct and Igneel wasn’t real-It’s one of her biggest regrets

Natsu got very upset when people asked him about his birth parents, so people eventually stopped asking

It was very hard for Natsu to start calling Fairy Tail his family, but he did after he got hurt on one of his missions and was relieved when he woke up in the infirmary

Natsu’s ears are pierced because Mirajane used a piercing gun while he was in the infirmary

Natsu loved making flower crowns with Levy, and they once teamed up with Cana and Lisanna to make a flower banner for Makarov on his birthday-Makarov kept the banner until the flowers died

Natsu made Happy’s middle name “Dragon”

Natsu and Happy went to tea parties with Levy for a long time

Natsu used to take singing lessons for Mirajane. Meaning that he would sing songs with Lisanna and Elfman and then Mira would demand that he pay her

Natsu is actually an incredible singer though

Gray found out the hard way that Natsu should not be tickled

Natsu also started learning how to cook for himself after Happy hatched

Natsu is pretty good at grilling and cooking with spices, but Happy likes to eat fish raw, so he mostly cooks for himself

Natsu and Lisanna loved going to the hill they raised Happy’s egg on, even after his hatch

After Lisanna’s “death”, Natsu stopped going to the guild all together for a few months

Mirajane and Elfman felt that he blamed them for her being gone, so he finally talked to them and told them he didn’t blame them

Given his forgiveness, Mirajane began to put on a nicer persona because she wanted to keep a part of Lisanna alive

Natsu doesn’t normally drink coffee, but when he does, he only drinks pure black coffee

Natsu hoards candy like a dragon hoards jewels, especially on Halloween 

He refuses to share candy with anybody, not even Happy

Natsu has freckles

In his END form, Natsu’s hair bleaches white because of the lack of nutrients

Natsu is very protective of Wendy, and calls himself her big brother

Natsu has ADD and Aspergers Syndrome

Natsu can, and has, picked up his entire team at once

Natsu almost always falls asleep when he takes a bath, so he has to take showers

Even then, Happy has found him asleep in the shower a multitude of times-Natsu calls himself and the other Dragonslayers “the Dragonfam”-They all actually like it, no one but Wendy and Sting will admit it

Natsu had a crush on Laxus, you can NOT convince me otherwise

Natsu is overprotective of people he loves because he’s terrified of losing someone the same way he was forced to watch Igneel get killed by Acnologia

Once the heater in the guild broke, which resulted everyone fighting over who gets to snuggle next to Natsu because of his naturally high body temperature

Gender is an abstract concept to dragons, so Natsu doesn’t have a strong sense of gender roles

Dragon Force is unique to each dragon slayer, and each time their power triples, the slayer gets more dragon-like characteristics

When Natsu first discovered Dragon Force, during the ToH arc, his face and arms had scales, but other than that he was the same

As Natsu grows more powerful, he develops sharper fangs, his pupils turn to slits, which allow him to see heat signatures, his hair turns a darker pink, almost red, as do his scales (see his transformation in the Dragon Cry movie)

Natsu got tables thrown at him while the guild watched Titanic because he yelled “Get to the sinking boat!” at the screen

Levy taught Natsu about space, and ever since, he’s been obsessed with it

Natsu is allergic to bees

Give Natsu a bunch of sugar and he can’t calm down until he gets knocked out

Lucy really loves Natsu’s cooking, even though it gets really spicy

Most people like Natsu’s cooking, even if it’s extremely spicy

Natsu enjoys missions that envolve finding/taking care of animals

Natsu’s nails grow really fast, and he has to clip them almost every other day

His hair grows really fast too

Natsu enjoys doctor visits because he always gets a lollipop afterwards

Natsu has gone with Erza to get a manicure before, and he liked it

Given the chance, Natsu loves lazy days spent napping and fishing

Natsu has been arrested multiple times

Sorcerer Weekly has constantly asked Natsu which Fairy Tail Lady he’d like to date, but he’s never given a clear answer

Natsu is definitely MLM

Natsu loves memes, okay

Legends say that if Gray Fullbuster says the word iced, shell, or death in the same sentence Natsu Dragneel will appear and proceed to beat him up

Team Natsu has had to share a bed before, a single bed

I’m 100% sure that Natsu has dimples when he smiles

Natsu definitely eats cereal for dinner when he doesn’t want to cook

Natsu prefers baths over showers, but he really enjoys long, hot, bubble baths

Natsu has fangs, regularly

Look, Natsu is a chaotic dumbass, but he means well

Natsu can’t drink straight, black coffee, it has to be sweet

Natsu definitely needed to get an artificial arm after the war with Zeref, okay? His arm was literally showing the muscle underneath

Natsu looks really good with long hair, and he’d keep it, but he doesn’t like it in his face and is too lazy to learn how to tie it back

Let’s be honest, Natsu probably has a dragon tattoo on his back in memory of Igneel

If fusion magic is/was a thing in the FT universe, the first person Natsu would want to try to fuse with would be Gray - You can’t tell me otherwise

Natsu with an eyebrow piercing, not a head canon, but think about it

Look, Natsu is definitely a contortionist, okay, he is super fucking flexible

One time, someone threw a chair at him and he bent backwards to dodge it, and everyone thought he broke his back

Natsu is a cuddler, and when he wants cuddles he will pounce - Luckily for him, a lot of girls in the guild (like Mira) think its cute so they cuddle with him

Natsu is very likely to go to the hospital for a stupid reason when its not caused from a mission gone south

Natsu got very frustrated as a kid, because he always melted the snowman he was trying to build

Natsu doesn’t really like gum, because his fangs always get in the way, which means he often bites his tongue

Natsu flirts, but he normally doesn’t realize he’s flirting, which means sometimes he comes off as oblivious

Natsu can’t flirt on purpose, for the life of him

Natsu hates being called a “monster” because deep down he thinks of himself as one

Natsu would be a VERY good dad

Natsu probably has eaten dirt at some point

Lucy once ate pizza with a fork and a knife, and Natsu nearly cried while watching it

Dragonslayers’s eyes can glow in the dark, so Natsu is constantly scaring the shit out of his teammates

When first shown deodorant, Natsu thought it was food

Natsu was once dared to wear one of Erza’s bras for a day - and he did - even stuffed it with toilet paper

One time when Natsu went to Sabertooth, he ate their bonfire and then was chased by anger Sabertooth members who wanted smores

Natsu loves kids, okay? And he’s really good with them!

Natsu has gotten very upset because he couldn’t remember his parents’s names

It took a while for Natsu to work up the courage to tell Fairy Tail that Zeref was his brother

Natsu is kind of insecure about his height

Natsu watched all of Twilight with Lucy, but got super pissed that the end battle wasn’t actually a thing - He may have broken the TV

I did it!

#natsu dragneel #zeref dragneel #igneel the dragon #acnologia #etherious natsu dragneel #e.n.d. #mirajane strauss #cana alberona #lisanna strauss #levy mcgarden #makarov dreyar #happy the exceed #gore tw #100 headcanon challange

[rinnnyxr]

Have You Ever…

-

I’m listening to music right now. A friend came over to my house today. My mom is going back to school to get a degree. I’m going to see a movie this weekend. My high school has (had) a lot of pep rallies. I hate it when glue-sticks get all gross and goopy. I would love to be on the game show “Jeopardy!” I have seen and loved the movie “Pineapple Express.” My parents aren’t going to be home tonight. In one of my classes today, I got a pop quiz. Going to sporting events bores me. I love South Park. I have seen a play or musical on broadway. I know what “mugging it” means. The last thing I had to drink was water. I worked out today. I use shower gel to clean myself in the shower. I know someone who can speak/write in Japanese. I have taken a college class. Something embarrassing happened to me in a game of truth or dare. I know what “IHOP” stands for. I need to charge my cell. I am/was in the marching band. I’m wearing long sleeves right now. I’ve seen the movie “Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny.” It irritates me when people use incorrect spelling/grammar. I listen to Britney Spears. Currently, someone is avoiding me. I think Nair is the worst thing ever. I love Indian cuisine. My favorite flavor of Mentos is strawberry. It’s snowing outside. I get a ride from my parents to school. I absolutely hate where I live. My favorite band has a “the” in front of it. My fingers and toes get really cold all the time. I have an odd sense of humor. Breakfast cereal is the shit. When I was a kid, I took fruity vitamins every day. I ate a cookie today. I love ridiculously large purses/bags. It’s so annoying when people don’t text back. I wasn’t born in the same place that I live now. Someone in my family is in the military. I just want to throw my computer out the window. I’ve purchased something today. I count birds sitting on power lines. I should be doing something else right now. I’ve stayed in a hospital overnight before.

-

Words I say a lot umm | like | dude | okay | alrighty | awesome | amazing | man | aww | great

Things I do a lot drink caffeine | talk | take surveys | make surveys | eat | forget things | move around/fidget | listen to music | procrastinate

Things I rarely or never do have sleepovers | party | talk on the phone | watch TV and movies | stay up really late | take boring surveys | end relationships

Things I plan on doing today Playing piano | eating more food | babysitting | hanging out with my boyfriend/best friend | going for a walk | trying to have a good day | relaxing

Foods/beverages I love pasta | meats | Arizona tea | coffee | caffeine, in general, | mashed potatoes | cheese | pickles | crackers | fruit juice

Things that sound fun to me target practice | long walks | eating out with friends | longboarding | concerts/shows | amusement parks | having people over for dinner | camping for a whole weekend

Things that don’t sound fun to me staying at home and watching TV all day | laying on the beach tanning | going shopping for a full day | going to school all day long | sleeping half the day away | walking across town

Things I love wearing band t-shirts | dresses | Converse | plain skate shoes | shorts | jeans | cute underwear, bras, and socks | bracelets | t-shirts with random designs

Some bands I listen to Metallica | Megadeth | Children of Bodom | The Misfits | Motionless In White | Slipknot | Avenged Sevenfold | Bullet For My Valentine | Exodus | Guns N’ Roses | Mastodon | A Day To Remember | The Devil Wears Prada | The Word Alive | Attila | Dethklok | Escape The Fate | Five Finger Death Punch | Fear Factory | Kataklysm | Lamb of God | Pantera | Marilyn Manson | Opeth | Pink Floyd | Van Halen | Motley Crue | Aerosmith | AC/DC | Led Zeppelin

Other random facts about me I have shot a real gun more than once before | I could talk about music for hours on end | I have a hard time sitting still, but enjoy being energetic | I am extremely impatient | I get very emotional | Music doesn’t stop me from crying because I am so emotionally attached to it that it makes me want to cry more | I have serious trouble picking favorites | I hate lying | I find beauty in things not many others around me can see | I think gargoyles are awesome

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There are 4+ people in my house right now. I countdown to exciting events. I can’t live without my iPod. I go to the mall for more than twice a month. I have a photo album. I take random pictures 24/7 to put on my Myspace. I’m ¼ black. I have more than 5 pets. I don’t care what anyone thinks of me. I’m always confused. I can never wear all black. People say I look like my mom. I have big eyes. I have many different hairstyles. I’m not a morning person. I know at least one person with the name John. I download ringtones on my phone constantly. I sit in the back of all my classes. I live in NJ and have never been to the Jersey Shore. Big sunglasses are sexy. I’m definitely not a cat person. I have no life. I go to school with someone from my family. One of my friends looks like one of my cousins. I’m using a laptop. ^ I didn’t buy it myself; it was a gift. My most recent ex is single. I tend to overthink things a lot of the time. I’ve never cheated on anyone. I know a few people my age who have children. ^I’m not ready for children yet. My current hair color is my natural color. I’m feeling kind of guilty about something right now. One of my best friends is gay. I sometimes get messages from random people on Tumblr, telling me that I’m beautiful. ^I don’t really agree. I like the underwear I’m wearing; it’s pretty. Sometimes if I get too upset or stressed out, I start to feel ill. Someone of the opposite sex is on my mind. It took me months to get over my ex. I always use conditioner when I wash my hair. I’m blood-related to the last person I talked to. One of my best friends is engaged. If my ex phoned me now, I would be quite surprised. ^But I’d answer. I used to love “The Wizard of Oz”. I like 90s music. The last person I kissed has told me that they love me. ^But I don’t think they meant it. I haven’t been out drinking for ages. I had a really weird dream last night. My birthday is less than a month away. I really want cuddles; I wish someone would hug me. I want to see someone. ^But the person I want to see is too busy. I have lots of friends on Facebook that I don’t really talk to. I was sad when Whitney Houston died; I like her songs. I don’t really regret anything; there’s no point. I never drink milk. I hugged someone of the opposite sex last night. I hardly ever use Skype/video chat. When I checked Facebook this morning, I had some unread messages. I have a crush on the last person that Facebook messaged me. People say I look like my dad. I’ve had a panic attack before. People can always tell when I’m upset, even though I try not to show it. My sleeping patterns are kind of messed up. I’m currently wearing something black. I think Rihanna is pretty. Only a few of my friends use Tumblr. I don’t think I would ever go back to my ex. ^I’d still like to be friends though. My last beverage was hot. Today was a bit boring; I hope tomorrow is better.