#i love drawing his long pretty eyelashes which is why i draw him half lidded alot <33

[cela-astral-projection]

Once again she steals away. Then she reaches out to kiss me. And how she takes my breath away. Pretending that she won't miss me. Oh, I would bleed to love her.

"He busted his fucking head in..."

"Oh, yeah. Scourge is a vicious son of a bitch. But, that motherfucker sure did a number on him. I thought I saw his guts spilling out..."

"Get them out, Captain." Celeste bit out at Aedan, looking over her shoulder. Her jaw was tense, and her eyes were narrowed. He gave a curt nod and stepped out of the cell.

"Hey, clear out!  Scourge needs some space," he called down the hall at the other guards. "We need hot, clean water and some cloths. Towels...something. Go get it sorted."

Celeste's visage fell back on Muriel, and it was pure compassion.  He was gripping the sides of the bed, unquestionably in agony, knuckles white. She brought her hand to his cheek, and he flinched away with a roar, snapping his eyes shut.

Celeste recoiled a bit. Not out of fear, but out of respect. It also wouldn't be the first time she had been accidentally struck by an injured patient, lashing out in pain.  "I'm sorry. I should have warned you. You have to let me touch you, though. It will help with the pain."

Celeste could hear the grinding of his teeth. See the way his body was tensed, slick with sweat and carnage.  She wasn't sure if he could even hear her in his distress.

"Muriel, I'm going to touch your face. Stay with me, okay?" she said, her voice calm but firm.

She rested her hand gently on his cheek and closed her eyes. As the magic radiated into him, she could feel him relax. His tension ebbing away.

"There we go," she whispered, stroking her thumb over his cheekbone comfortingly. She felt his hand fall from the bed, limp. He gave a whimper, and Celeste opened her eyes. He was looking up at her, eyes heavy-lidded. She could see the confusion. "It's okay. You're going to go to sleep, and you'll feel much better when you wake up. I'm going to take care of you."

Before she could even finish, his eyes fell shut. Her hand lingered at his cheek.

Should she be afraid of him? She knew how he had become wounded. She knew what he was doing. She knew that this was not only Muriel’s blood that stained him. 

That there would be no helping the other contender.

He was doing his job. Just like Aric. Just like her.

She shook her head to dismiss the thoughts that raced, reaching down to her bag. She pulled a small metal tray and a bottle of antiseptic fluid. She rinsed her hands and arms up to the elbow.

She lifted the cloth that had been stanching the bleeding. The skin was flayed, and the wound was long and deep.

"Captain, do you know if the Count has cleared out?"  she called back, and Aedan stepped back into the cell.

"Why are you asking?"

"It's...a bad wound. I need to know what I should and...shouldn't do."

How much magic is too much magic?

"I don't think he's gone. He likes to come down and prod...fix what you can internally so he doesn't bleed out and stitch the rest."

She scrutinized the wound. "How long before Lucio has got him back out in the arena?"

Aedan shook his head. "We don't have anyone else in custody. It could be days or weeks. It depends on Lucio's mood."

Celeste sighed, somewhat panicked. "I can't stitch him. They won't hold. It'll be six weeks before he's healed enough. If he's lucky. It's in the muscle. He needs surgery, and I'm not set up for that."

"Then...do your thing, and we'll deal with the consequences later." Aedan countered, not sure what to do. 

She shook her head, staring at the wound. There was no good answer. She couldn’t do the right thing. "Lucio knows how wounds heal. You've seen that arm. And you can't tell me nobody else ever landed a blow on him." she said, mostly to herself, running the mental acrobatics in her head.

"Should I get the Magician? What about Red?" Aedan asked.

"No...Asra wouldn't be able to keep a clear head. Muriel needs help now. It'd take Julian too long to get here." she muttered.

She bit her lip, considering when she heard voices from up the corridor.

"Incoming," Aedan whispered before going to attention.

Celeste made a quick wave over the wound, concentrating on healing the vessels and tissues that were most affected. She could feel them stitch and reassemble under her palm. It wasn't perfect, but she didn't have time for perfection. It would serve for now.

Lucio was laughing. Probably half-drunk, if not totally soused. He was flanked by Valerius and Vulgora. The Countess trailed behind with a group of diplomats.

"How is our Champ--" Lucio started, sweeping in. "Aw, fuck. Is he dead?" His face looked equal parts confused and disappointed.

Celeste looked over her shoulder, not moving from her crouched position. "Another inch or so and he might have been." She measured her tone, though she was certain her face spoke volumes. "He's drugged, for the pain."

"Can't 'cha wake him up? I brought guests! I wanna show him off."

"He took an ax to his stomach, My Lord." Aedan offered. "I think perhaps we should let him rest. He's not exactly his beautiful self right at the moment."

Lucio went up on tiptoe, catching the still mostly-opened wound and the viscera that coated him, which seemed to sober him a bit. "You sure he ain't dead? Looks pretty dead."

"My Lord..." she said, forcing the words. "He's going to need to convalesce at the Palace once I get him stable. I need him close to hand in case Quaestor Valdemar, or Doctor Devorak needs to intervene."

"No!" Vulgora bellowed, shrill and harsh, pushing forward past Lucio. "He's too hard to restrain! It's not safe to take him out of his cell! You can treat him here, or not at all."

Celeste flinched at the voice but steeled herself. "That's fine, Pontifex. Would you like me to start digging his grave? Because if we leave him here with an open wound of this size, it's going to fester. It's not safe to stitch. It's going to need to be packed and dressed so it can heal. And, more to the point, He's going to need surgery. He needs to be monitored and in a more sterile environment. He won't live if this gets infected. And it will." She gestured vaguely to the filth that surrounded them. "He's your Gladiator. He deserves better than a slow, painful death in a dank cell, rotting from the outside in. Do you know what gut wounds look like when they fester and go putrid? What they smell like?"

The Diplomats, Nadia, and Valerius, and Aedan had all gone a shade of green. Lucio was wide-eyed. Vulgora was unmoved.  

Nadia, after taking a sharp inhale of breath to compose herself, stepped forward. "Darling, she has a point. A dead gladiator does not have quite the...drawing power. You've put so much work into the Coliseum. I don't think you'll find another Scourge." She offered, looking past him to Celeste, with a silent sympathetic glance.

Celeste bowed her head, thankful for the assist. Her gaze then fell back on Lucio, but her expression softened somewhat, imploring him.

Lucio looked torn. He clearly had not planned on having to make these types of decisions today.

Valerius, clearly disgusted by the whole display, and growing bored, rolled his eyes. "The fiscal implications of losing the Asset would be...notable." he volunteered, "And he is well-liked, for whatever reason. Should he pass from a flesh wound, I dare say there would be quite an upheaval." His measured tone turned wicked. "If we're going to exterminate him, we should sell tickets."

Aedan, thoroughly shocked at his sister's boldness, and the Consul's cruelty, decided to intercede, if for no other reason than to redirect some of the backlash. "If it would appease Pontifex Vulgora and satisfy his Lordship, I will personally oversee security in the interim...should he be permitted to convalesce in the palace." His gaze fixed straight ahead. But he felt Vulgora's lizard-like eyes burning holes in him, and he couldn't help but pull a face, bracing for impact.

Lucio groaned. "Fine! Fine. I don't have all day to stand around debating. Get him ready for transport. I want him on his feet before the week is out."

Celeste opened her mouth to protest, but Aedan shot her a look and mouthed, "Shut the fuck up." Aedan knew this was the best possible outcome, and it wasn't wise to push for more out of Lucio, especially flanked by the Consul and Pontifex.

Celeste pressed her lips into a firm line and stood, straightening herself. She took a deep breath and inclined her head to Lucio with all the faux gratitude she could muster. "Thank you, My Lord. Most charitable."

Lucio's eyes flashed at her tone, and Aedan's rolled back in his head.

Lucio made to step towards her, his fists, alchemical and flesh, clenched. Jaw set. But, Nadia caught his arm.

"Oh, Darling. We shouldn't keep our guests waiting any longer. And, our Champion needs to be taken into care. Let's go home. I'm sure dinner will be waiting." Nadia said, her tone pleading and loving.

Lucio turned to her, and Nadia batted her eyelashes at him. Anyone who knew their dynamic knew that it was performative. She was threatening him, like a mother redirecting her wayward child. Gentle but intimidating.

Lucio huffed, defeated. He turned his eyes back on Celeste. "One week." He repeated, his tone seething.

Celeste nodded, giving her assent.  "One week."

Lucio swept out with his party, all but Vulgora, trailing.

Vulgora lingered for a moment longer, fixing Celeste with a look that made her intestines writhe. She set her jaw, trying not to let her fear creep into her features. Aedan moved to her side.

"Pontifex?" he implored cautiously, eyebrow raised, hand at the hilt of his sword.

Their eyes narrowed, and they bared their teeth.

Then, the tension was cut by a whistle. Lucio, calling out for them to follow. Vulgora growled, irritated, then whirled out, spinning on their heel, sprinting away.

The twins deflated simultaneously.

"By the Gods, Linn. When did you grow such a shiny spine?" Aedan asked. His tone was not precisely respectful. "You're lucky you have the executioner incapacitated. You might have been the last thing on his to-do list before they put you both in the ground."

"One of us has to maintain our backbone." she hissed, shaking her head. "Come on, we're burning daylight. I'm going to try to pack the wound, you get me a carriage. A fucking wagon. Anything. And enough men to move him carefully."

"How many do you think that is?" Aedan asked, genuinely curious.

"He's almost seven feet tall, and he's got to be hovering around 300 pounds of pure muscle. And it's all dead weight. Do the mental math, Brother," she said, back on her knees, digging in her bag for gauze and saline.

Aedan's eyes were darting back and forth, genuinely trying to run the numbers in his head.

"Aric Axel," Celeste spat out, "just go. I don't have time."

"Going, going." He said, jolted from his stupor.  

--

Muriel woke in unfamiliar surroundings. It smelled...clean. Cedar and antisceptic. It was dim, but the candlelight was bright enough to burn his eyes when they flickered open, and he winced, squinting against the light.

He tried to move but felt constricted at the waist. He brought his hand down and found rough fabric binding his core.  

Every movement hurt. Intense tension and a dull throbbing. His head felt foggy. He thought he heard...singing. Footsteps. Water sloshing. He let his head fall back, already exhausted. Softness below him. A pillow. He hadn't had a pillow in...years. A mattress. A blanket.

He winced a bit when he heard the thud of something being placed at the bedside.

He felt the bindings at his waist loosen as hands undid fastenings. And, the pain intensified as the restriction slackened. He gave a loud groan, his head lolling to the side, trying to catch his breath.

"Muriel?"

He cracked an eye open, though he didn't need to. He knew that voice. He knew it from the song she sang. The smell of her perfume.

Celeste.

Asra's Celeste.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," she said, her tone sweet. "How bad is the pain?"

He opened his mouth to speak, but found his tongue dry. He huffed a bit, but the expansion of his chest and abdomen from drawing a deep breath sent a wave of pain through him. And the contraction of his body only amplified it more.

Celeste grabbed his hand firmly between hers squeezing. "I've got you," she said, and he could feel tendrils of energy flowing up through his veins. The pain subsiding as it entered his chest and spilled into his stomach. Effervescent, like bubbles under his skin.

He felt like he could breathe again, and took another tentative breath.

"Be careful, it's just pain relief. You can still strain yourself and tear something. Doctor did a pretty good patch job, but...you're going to be down for a bit."

Celeste's hands were small and warm in his, but her grip was firm.

Once he had relaxed, she laid his hand back down on the mattress and reached for a cup of water. "Here, wet your lips. Little sips." She brought the cup to his lips.

He couldn't entirely open his eyes for any length of time, so he allowed her to administer the fluids. There were a few trickles that escaped him, but she was quick with a clean cloth, dabbing away the excess.

"Is that better?" she asked, laying the cup aside.

"Mm," Muriel grunted. "How long...was I asleep? Where am I?" His voice was still raspy.

"About a day. You're in the palace. In a servant's room."

"Why?" he said, his tone abrupt, but perplexed.

"I had to get you out of there. You needed surgery."

"Or what? I would have...bled out?"

Celeste raised an eyebrow. "That's one possibility."

"Delaying the inevitable."

Celeste made a noise in the back of her throat, the nursing part of her provoked by his lack of self-preservation. Muriel, for what little he allowed her to know of him, had always been a defeatist. She wasn't exactly caught off guard. "Perhaps. But, I try not to let patients and friends die on my watch. Die on someone else's time."

"Friends?" he scoffed.

"Mmhm. Like it or not." Celeste retorted. Though, it stung. They had spent many hours together. Long nights, with Asra. Occasionally on her own.

She liked Muriel. To put it mildly. Though, her feelings were anything but mild.

She wondered when she would be able to stop coaxing him like a stray cat with cream. No matter what she tried, he always seemed to be indifferent.

Celeste had never been all that concerned with who liked or disliked her. It was of little consequence. But, with Muriel...it mattered.

Of course, practically, she knew he was well within his rights to be morose. She would be, too, were she in his place.

"I have to change your dressings. That's why I was taking the binding off. Let me know if you need any more pain relief."

Muriel felt her hands, and the supremely unsettling sensation of fabric being moistened then pulled from the open wound in his stomach. He hissed, though there was no pain.

Celeste examined the removed dressings. She was satisfied with their color. A bit of blood, but nothing too concerning. The wound itself was clean. A few strategically placed internal stitches. Julian had done an excellent job. She could have healed it to near perfection if she'd been able to use her magic, but...it just wasn't safe.

"It will scar. But...scars give character." She offered as she carefully cleaned the site.

Muriel was squirming a bit, the sensation astonishingly unfamiliar. It bothered him. Even in his unease, he was able to bite out a "Fuck character."

Celeste gave a weak chuckle as she repacked the wound with dry gauze, making quick work of it. She placed some fresh cloths over the site and rebound his abdomen. Tight enough to pull the injury together to promote closure.

"When's the last time you ate?" She asked.

"I...I'm not sure," Muriel answered, searching his memory.

"What do you think you can eat? I'd like to try to load you up while I have you, but I'm afraid to force too much and make you sick."

"Don't worry about me."

Celeste patted his cheek. "Don't argue with the Nurse. You're mine for the next six days. Like it or not. There are guards all over, and you are in no condition to run."

"Six days?" he asked, skeptical, and a bit dismayed.

"Yes, Sir," she answered, with almost a lilt in her tone. "Why? Do you want to go back to the dungeon?"

Muriel sighed. "I'm not sure which is worse. Being in Lucio's dungeon or being in his palace."

"I haven't been on your side of things, fortunately. I'd say that a palace is a superior option, all told." she offered, diplomatically. "But, I get the spirit of what you're saying...and I agree. Proximity can certainly breed contempt. And he is...contemptuous, to begin with."

Celeste reached her hand up and stroked an errant hair from his face, fingers lingering at his temple. "Do you want to try to eat? You look tired, still."

"I'll...try," he said, his tone quiet.

"I'll be back in a moment." She smoothed his hair back, then stood. She had just started to move away when Muriel caught her wrist.

"Can I... have that bread? That Asra brings? He asked, eyes half open and voice unsure.

Celeste smiled down at him and nodded. "I'm sure that can be arranged."

"If it's not...too much trouble," he added.

"Don't backpedal when the wish is granted, sweetheart." She slid her hand up into his and gave it an affectionate squeeze. "In fact, you've inspired me."

--

Muriel had lapsed back into sleep by the time Aedan arrived, escorting the baker. He fixed Celeste with an exasperated look. "Your...' baker. '"

Celeste grinned broadly. "I trust you didn't run into any trouble, Captain? Selasi?"

Aedan closed the door as they stepped into the room, eyes narrowed. "You are pushing your luck." 

Celeste rolled her eyes. "That will be all, Captain," she said, waving her hand to dismiss him.

He made a noise of annoyance as he backed out of the room, shutting the door loudly behind him. He then reopened the door and apologized before slinking back out. Muriel stirred for a moment, then stilled, the sound of his snoring echoing off the walls.

When they were alone, Selasi crossed the room to Celeste, a bundle in his hands. He laid the bread on a bedside table and drew a ragged breath. Celeste extended her arms to him, and he stepped into the circle of her embrace. Celeste stared up at him.

Purple eyes.

"Thank you for coming, Love."

Asra bent and rested his forehead against Celeste's. It felt...odd. She was significantly shorter than him, but in this body, the effect was amplified. He was broader, rounder, taller.

"Should I take the glamour off? I think It might worry Muriel...But I don't want to give myself away, either."

Celeste nodded. "It's been quiet, so far. The Captain is...aware of our situation."

"And you trust him?"

"With my life."

"I assume there's a story there."

"Long one, yeah."

"Want to share?"

"Not today."

Asra gave her an incredulous look. Getting her to open up about her past was like...pulling teeth. All the same, he knew, generally, when he was being lied to. He never got that sense from her.

Someday she would open up.  

His visage shifted, and he seemed to melt, like snow flooding into water. And then, Asra was restored to her.

"How...is he?"

Celeste shrugged. "He's as well as can be expected. Resting. You can wake his cranky ass up if you'd like. I got some chicken broth and rice down him before he went to sleep."

Asra looked concerned. "Cranky because of the wound or..."

"...Because he's Muriel. I'm sure the gaping wound doesn't help."

Asra rolled his eyes but nodded. "Sounds about right. You know he's all bark and no bite, don't you?"

Celeste shook her head. "Sure feels like a bite. He still doesn't think I'm his friend. It's been...what? Two years?"

Asra sighed and looked her in the eye. "He knows you're his friend. He's just...It's always only been us. You changed our dynamic. For the better, of course. But, he's terrible at accepting changes. Truly the worst."

Celeste shrugged, feigning indifference. "I'm not everyone's cup of tea."

Asra's tone shifted. "Celeste, you got him out of the dungeon and into the palace. You probably saved his life. I'm sure he'll come around. He just needs time..." he drew a breath, and continued, exasperated "...so, so very much time."

The snoring stopped, and Celeste looked past Asra. "He's waking up."

Asra turned and parted from Celeste, crossing the room to Muriel.

"Hey," Asra said, his voice cautious and tender. He sat on the chair next to the bed,

Muriel blinked the sleep from his eyes, then lifted a hand to rub his face. "Asra?" He asked, unsure of what he was seeing in his half-sleep, magically-induced daze. "You...shouldn't be here," he mumbled.

"Celeste snuck me in. It's safe enough." Asra said, reaching his hand out to touch Muriel's forehead, stroking his hair. "I was so worried, Muriel."

"She fixed me," Muriel murmured.

"Oh, she did?" Asra said, turning his eyes on Celeste with a half-smile. "She's good like that. Did you say thank you?"

Celeste bit her lip and hung back, watching the exchange.

Muriel, coming around a bit more, shook his head. "You really shouldn't be here. Lucio...wants you."

"And as far as anyone of consequence knows, Selasi is here to deliver pumpkin bread. Selasi walked in, and Selasi will walk out." Asra said. "Don't worry. We've got that under control. I won't stay long. I just needed to see you."

Muriel sighed and then winced. "Pain...is coming back."

Asra looked at Celeste. "I can close it."

She shook her head. "Between Julian and Valdemar, someone will figure out if magic gets used to close the wound. I can't think of any scene where that ends well or doesn't get back to Lucio. Either they figure out I've done it, or they assume Muriel has some sort of healing ability...or, worst-case scenario, they link it back to you." Celeste shrugged. "You're the last piece that Lucio hasn't managed to ensnare in this disaster, yet."

Asra turned back to Muriel, shaking his head, unsure of what to say.

Celeste crossed over to them and took Muriel's hand. He could feel her magic flowing into him again, and the pain easing. He closed his eyes for a moment, then turned his face to Asra.

"I don't know how much longer I can do this." Muriel's voice was sorrowful. "I don't want to do this anymore, Asra."

Celeste winced, and Asra's face fell.

"Muriel...I need you. I don't want to lose you." He said, almost pleading.

"You are losing me...I'm losing myself, in there."

Asra looked up at Celeste, and she could see the tears welling in his eyes.

She drew a breath. "If...I may, Muriel. I didn't have the luxury of knowing you before this. But, I have known cruel men. Men with bloodlust in their hearts." She squeezed his hand. "You are not like them. You are doing a job. A monstrous, wretched job that nobody should be subjected to. I have seen you after every match...and I know the remorse you feel."

Muriel was looking up at her now, brow furrowed, but attentive.

"If you had changed, you wouldn't feel this way. We aren't losing you. You're still Muriel." She gave him a compassionate look. "I wouldn't put up with your cranky ass if I thought you were a lost cause."

Asra sniffed but gave a slight chuckle, bringing a hand up to wipe his eyes. He mouthed a "thank you," and Celeste nodded.

"I love both of you...I know what it's like to lose those closest to you. I'll do what I can to keep you together."

Muriel blinked slowly up at her, train of thought thoroughly derailed. "I'm sorry...you...love us?"

Asra's face mirrored Muriels, though he looked much more amused. "You love us?" He asked with a lilt in his voice.

Celeste rolled her eyes. "Of course, I love you. There's...many kinds of love. Don't be children."

Asra clapped Muriel's shoulder. "Our wife loves us." He teased, his words sing-songy.

Muriel's face was not quite so amused. Shocked.

Celeste shook her head, feeling her face flushing red. She made to move away, but Muriel gripped her hand, eyes imploring.

"You don't mean it," he said disbelievingly.

Asra's amusement abated, looking between the two of them. The intensity on Muriel's face, the sorrow in Celeste's eyes.

Of course, he had known. He'd known from the first night Celeste had smuggled him into the dungeons to see Muriel after Lucio had brought him in.

 He never questioned the love between himself and Celeste. But she looked on Muriel with the same affection that they shared. Initially, he'd been confused by it. Not quite sure how to process.

But, as their relationship grew, even such as it was, it gave him hope. The two most influential people in his life. The three of them working as a unit. The fact that she would go to Muriel of her own volition, even when he pushed her away.

It was love.

"Of course I mean it," Celeste answered.

Muriel shook his head, "I--" he looked to Asra, who nodded enthusiastically, trying to suppress a grin. "...Thank you?"

Asra's grin fell, and he groaned loudly, dropping his head to his chest. 

Celeste gave Muriel’s hand one last squeeze and a laugh. “Asra...feed the man his bread. I..need a moment.” She said, as she stepped away, laughing to herself. 

Muriel looked at Asra, eyes wide. Asra fixed him with a disapproving look. 

“What?” Muriel asked, bewildered. 

“You are...hopeless. Completely hopeless.” Asra shook his head, and reached up to grab the wrapped loaf of bread. “You’re so lucky I love you.” 

#fanfiction #fanfic #asra alnazar #asra the magician #asra the arcana #muriel #muriel the hermit #scourge of the south #fan apprentice #apprentice x asra x muriel #oc #mc #oc apprentice #apprentice celeste #arcana apprentice #asra x muriel #asra x celeste #muriel x celeste #the arcana game #the arcana #arcana #the arcana muriel #the arcana asra #precanon

[granddaughterogg]

Azrael is a Kinkster, part 3

Azrael looked almost pained. His fingers still caressed your cheek.   „I need you to understand this: there is no point in loving me because I could never love you back. Not like…he does.” 

The whole shebang can be comfortably read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17956949/chapters/42410612

Your climax came and went, crashing over like a wave. You thought that Azrael is being crassly inconsiderate. You expected him to be the classy type. Someone who stops dead in his tracks and celebrates his lover’s bliss. Instead, he went at it – went at you – like a beautiful, ruthless machine. Moving back and forth in your swollen, tender insides. It was the weirdest sensation. One part pleasure, two parts increasing annoyance.   You almost told him to cut it out. But didn't you let this epitome of class tie you up and have his way with you as he announced?  Rough treatment did not diminish your desire for Azrael. If anything, it made you want him more. You got a little moist every time those narrow lips uttered the word „fuck”. A word you’d never suspect someone as refined as the archangel even knows. What you felt towards him was...complicated. You were complicated. Then something else roused in you. You couldn’t pinpoint an exact moment, but in a few more thrusts the pain melted away. Pleasure came back with a vengeance. Suddenly you were again soft, oh, so soft, pliable and hungry for more.   A surprised, breathless yelp escaped you.   Azrael leaned even closer. That glorious mane of his now dishevelled, falling all over his face in messy, sweaty strands. His ferocious smile almost brushed your lips. „That’s it” he gasped.  "The second time is always better, little girl. Now come for me.” As dazed as you were, your mind somersaulted at those words. The gall of this dude!... „You...holy bastard!...” you gasped back, knowing well that it doesn’t sound very condemning. You were already on the verge again.   And he didn’t make you wait. It was harder this time. Longer. Sweeter. Your whole body arched into a violent spasm. The bounds that held you crackled all over. You dug your heels into the mattress and came, drawing out his name in a prolonged sob. Once, twice. The second time your breath hitched and your voice broke. Your own cry sounded as if coming from afar. There was only his pulsating presence within you. Only pleasure, like he requested. The feeling of submission. The sweetest defeat. The moment you caught your breath, Azrael covered your mouth with a violent kiss. Then he let go, threw his head back and shuddered all over. His wings stretched fervently to their whole impressive wingspan. It was so bizarre - yet so beautiful - that you couldn’t look away. It took you a second or two to understand that he, too has reached his peak. How do angels climax? Pretty much like people do. At that moment you saw him relinquish all self-control. No more Mr Smug Guy. His white eyes half-lidded, face flushed, lips parted ever so slightly. A hoarse moan escaped them.   He looked as if he was praying. You felt him throb inside you. Indwell you with hot liquid. And then his long, slender body went limp. The angel sighed softly, buried his face in your breasts - and stayed that way for a while. He was glistening from sweat. You would love nothing more than to caress his hair. But then again, your hands were tied. A minute passed. You counted his slow breaths. „Please tell me that you’re not asleep” you muttered. Azrael snorted. His laughter reverberated in your solar plexus. „I might be old, but I am not THAT old.” „Why, you’re positively ancient!” you chuckled. He lifted his head and shot you an impish smile.   „Apparently you like your lovers that way”. „Yeah!” No way in Hell (or Heaven) you were gonna feel ashamed about your preferences. „What did you just call me, by the way? A little girl?” His eyes glinted. „And what did you call me? Born out of wedlock? My mother would be so perplexed.” You felt awkward. „Sorry about that. People tend to say weird things in the heat of the moment.” He cocked an eyebrow. You decided to sweep this one under the rug. „Wait. Azrael. How come that you even remember your mother? Wasn’t that, you know, at the beginning of times?” He went serious all of a sudden. „You see,” he said in a low voice „being an angel means that I remember everything.” You looked into those ageless eyes. Registered deep, bluish circles under them for the second time. „So there’s no reprieve from any stupid thing you ever do or say. It’s gonna haunt you like forever.” „That’s exactly how it works” he gave you a weary smile. Your heart twitched. Either you were being skillfully manipulated, or he just let you at what’s actually going on under these glossy locks. Either way, you started to care for Azrael. Like, more than before.   You flexed your fingers, which apparently fell asleep. „Could you please untie me now? I really need to use the toilet.” „Of course.” He supported himself on one elbow and made a quick, elegant gesture. The elaborate ties fell off your limbs, rustling softly.   You looked at your own wrists in amazement. „That was angel magic, right?” you asked him with a grin. „If it’s so easy for you, why not tie me up magically in the first place?” Azrael’s lips curled upward. „Because that, my dear, wouldn’t be half as fun.” You tried to get up - and found out that you cannot. Your eyes widened in faint surprise. A moment later Azrael was right beside you, one long arm curled protectively around your back, another holding your hand. He gently lifted you to a sitting position. „Too much?” He asked, watching your face from up close. „Thanks, Az. Not at all, I’m just a little...light in the head...” you whispered, resting your burning cheek on his forearm. Then you giggled and added: „After all, that was one hell of a double orgasm.” Azrael brushed a damp streak of hair away from your face. „That’s an interesting way to put it, but yes.” His smile was almost cat-like. „And I savoured your cries of delight.” What the hell were you crying again? Azrael. „Uh, the pleasure is mine” you muttered, suddenly hot under the collar. If you were wearing any collar, that is. You stood up – slowly. Something wet and sticky dripped down your naked thighs. You dipped a finger in the wetness and put it in your mouth. „Hey, you’re not gonna believe this.” You shot him the widest, stupidest happy grin. „Angel cum tastes like coconut!” He stretched gracefully and lied on his back. Those glorious wings covered the bedsheets. „And why do you assume that I don’t know?..” You flushed a little. Which he noticed. „Shoo!” chuckled the angel. „Away with you for now. The bathroom” – he gestured with one long arm -  „is that way.” Sometimes you wondered if residents of Heaven have to pee. Azrael’s posh restroom threw that doubts over the window. Apparently they did. Or maybe your angelic companion conjured this room up just for you.   The place was as huge and spotless white as the bedroom. The sheer diameter of the tub made you rethink what little you knew about feathered creatures and baths. But then again, Azrael wasn’t a bird; no matter how shockingly birdlike some of his reflexes. He was… ...he was something else. You emerged from there properly refreshed. You had to strut through this whole ginormous, mostly empty room to reach the bed. Azrael lied on his stomach this time. His wings relaxed, sharp chin resting on entwined fingers, eyes glued to your exposed body while you walked. Instead of being shy, you decided to bask in his approval. Take it all in. Just like his seed. „You’re beautiful,” he said quietly. Then he rolled over – the feathers whispered – and sat up. „Hey, you’re not that hard on the eyes either” you quipped, getting on the bed and nesting yourself between his legs. Post-coital Azrael was indeed the sexier you’ve ever seen him. He seemed younger, rejuvenated. The once immaculate hair a wild mess, his fine features relaxed, a faint blush still gracing those pale, protruding cheeks. Which you were seriously transfixed with. „May I…?” Your fingers almost brushed this incredibly fine, silvery fuzz that covered his jawbone. Azrael smiled and nodded, fixing you with a calm gaze. You traced the curves of his face, holding your breath as if you’ve been allowed to touch a priceless artefact. You tipped his forehead, went along those mysterious white markings, along the sharp line of his nose - and lower. Your fingers brushed over the curve of his lips. Only now you realised how parched they were. Like a mortal’s. You wanted to fix this. You wanted to fix him. To cure him of whatever he endured by living way too long within that brilliant, perverted mind of his. Maybe to love him, even. It didn’t make much sense. You didn’t recognise your wants anymore.   „You unhinge me...” you murmured and went in for a kiss. His eyes flicked with surprise, but then he closed them – what long, silver eyelashes he had! - put one hand on the back of your neck and pulled you in. This time the way your lips met was almost solemn. Soft, sweet. Tender. He enticed you only a little, his knowing tongue fluttering around yours like a candle flame. You moaned.   One thing was certain: The Archangel of Death sure knew how to kiss. You probably weren’t neither the hundredth nor the thousandth human that he kissed. There must have been legions graced with his attention. They probably loved him, too; who could’ve resisted such overwhelming charm? They all withered and died of old age, while he remained the same. Poised, elegant. Unsullied by their fleeting humanity. In control. Always in control. It was a chilling thought. You broke contact, breathing deeply through the nose and trying not to lose your mind. „I like you unhinged” his lips brushed the skin of your neck. You got goosebumps. „But I can see what’s going on in your head right now. Please don’t do this to yourself.” You winced. „Are you reading my thoughts, Azrael?!” The angel let out a resigned sigh. „I would never do such a thing.”   „Then what do you mean?...” He cupped your face and looked you straight in the eye. His expression was part tender, part worried and a bit of something you couldn’t decipher. „I am a scholar. It is my job to know things.”   You covered those slender fingers with your own. „So you had me all figured up?...” You murmured, relishing the caress. His skin was cool and smooth. The archangel’s lips tilted upward in a strange un-smile. „More or less. I observed you with great care. I listened thoroughly. You are a kind person. And you’re prone to having that...saviour complex.” „Seriously, Azrael, what the fuck.” Your hand fell off. His remained firmly where it was. He sighed again. „Respectable as such intentions may be, they shouldn’t be applied indiscriminately. I’m sure that Death deserves all your compassion, as tormented as he is...but I don’t.” Suddenly all the words left you. You could only stare at him, wide-eyed, numb. „No, I really don’t.” Azrael looked almost pained. His fingers still caressed your cheek.   „I need you to understand this: there is no point in loving me because I could never love you back. Not like...he does.”   Was it your imagination or did his breath just hitched? „You seem awfully sure of that...” you said slowly. „You can’t save me. It wouldn’t be fair to make you waste your time and try.” You felt lightheaded again. Although it was not from bliss. „Are you’re saying that you don’t have a heart? Like Howl of the Moving Castle?” A weak-ass, desperate attempt at a joke. But hey, at this point it was either wisecracking or crying. Azrael shut his eyes for a while, inhaled deeply and opened them again. „Heaven help me,” he said with a steady voice. „For I don’t.” You went silent for a long while. Azrael looked at you with calm determination and simply waited. In a way he just subjected himself to your judgement. An all-powerful heavenly being. Waiting for a human to collect her thoughts. Being a human doesn’t mean that I’m insignificant! cried a tiny voice inside you. My feelings are important. I am important. I am my own person. Whether Azrael wants me or not doesn’t define my worth. The dense fog that clouded your head started to disperse. You just gave a little too hard into your afterglow. That’s all it was. Being railed like this will jack your mind up. And he obviously did want you – unless an angelic body can lie. He wanted you so very much. Just not as his loved one. But you didn’t even need him in such a way. You had Death. „You know what”, you said, putting a fresh smile on your face and your small hand on his, still resting on your cheek. „I appreciate your candour. Although no one has ever been so cruel to me...while being so kind.” Azrael’s relief was palpable. „That’s what I specialise in.” That impish grin of his came back as if it never left. What a player, you thought to yourself. But a decent player. A rare kind; a fuckboy with some integrity. An honest lothario. They don’t make them like that on planet Earth. „So you’re, as they put it, emotionally unavailable” you muttered. You traced his collarbone and then leaned in to plant a quick kiss there.   „Yes. But I’m very much fuck-available” he stated, a smile lacing his words. „Any time you want me.” „Good. That’s a solid base for friendship.”   „It is.” You kissed him again. Azrael gave out a small sigh of pleasure. „Real questions time. Azrael, do you even shave?” He threw his head back and laughed - again, a string of silver travelling through your ears. „And here I thought you’d let me off the hook.” „Seriously. I want to know!” „I do. Once in a millennium.” He smirked. „I mean, I call for a trusted friend. I’d probably cut my own throat from lack of practice. Last time it was actually Abaddon who shaved me.” „You let Abaddon press a blade to your face?” „Why not? He had way more experience with pointy instruments of bloodshed than I ever will.” You gave out a piercing laugh, straddled his hips, pressed both palms to his chest - and pushed. He chuckled and obediently landed on his back, on those rustling feathers. Now you had him where you wanted him. He was all taut and angular, as slender and supple as an eighteen-year-old boy. Covered with this incredibly fine, silverish fuzz, which tickled the skin on your forearms. It formed a narrow path on his flat, milky white stomach and all the way down to party town.   He was as unlike Death in the corporal department as possible. As they say: variety is the spice of life. And you savoured your spices.   Your hands wandered lower and lower, taking in every curve of this pretty body. It seemed so fragile, so delightfully human. It sure could be aroused as one.   You started innocently enough; with a kiss to his lower abdomen. And then another. And another. Azrael closed his eyes and gave out a pleased hum. Your sneaky fingers closed tightly on his half-asleep manhood and got to work. He gasped.   „What...” that’s all he was able to say before you went in with your mouth. Smiling with you face full of dick is no small feat, especially when said dick expands in a hasty manner. But you managed a grin. You looked your angel dead in the eyes – now wild and wide - and sucked on him. Slowly, pensively even. From time to time you would break the pace to caress every wet, pulsating curve of his shaft’s head with your tongue. You were very thorough with that. He tried to fight back a moan, Creator bless him. You just sucked harder. Azrael gave out a series of undignified „a-a-ahs.” It was music to your ears. Soon enough his narrow, boyish hips worked in unison with your mouth, rhythmically arching upwards so that you would take him all in by every slide. You could feel his arousal, bordering on painfully hard. He was getting close. „No.”  You were surprised how firm and level „no” it was. „Hmm? Buh whye?”   „Stop that.” Azrael reached out and caressed your ruffled hair. „Don’t get me wrong, I love what you’re doing...but that’s enough of you coddling me. It is high time I coddled you instead.” You let his stiff cock of your mouth and wiped your face. „You sure? Because we could be done here in a moment or two...” „I don’t want to be done in a moment. Or two” said Azrael with conviction. You had to admire the man’s backbone. (And his dick. Seriously, it wasn’t the most impressive you’ve seen yet, but it was shapely.) „Fine. Have it your way.” Your smile soon morphed into a surprised yelp, because he suddenly sat up, got a hold of you and flipped you on your stomach. All in one swift motion. He might’ve been thin as a toothpick, but he was anything but weak. It was your turn to give out a disoriented „What?...”   Azrael sat astride you and leaned in so closely that your upper bodies were touching all the way. His hot breath rustled those little hairs on the nape on your neck. You trembled. „I think it’s time for some whipping” he whispered into your ear. You felt as if a tiny electric shock went through your nether regions. „Yeah! I thought you’d forgot about this by now.” „Didn’t I tell you that I never forget anything?” There was a playful edge to his words. „Real questions time. How’s your pain tolerance?” „Uh...I was, um, treated with a leather belt, then a leather flogger...and with a standard horse whip? I think...” „You think?”   You gave out a breathless laugh. „At that point of the evening I seriously couldn’t say. I was dead drunk.” „Drunk shenanigans with a whip.” Azrael uttered under his breath. „How wonderful.” „Hey, we all had that one or two experiences which we are not exactly proud of. So easy there with the moral assessment, Metatron.” „First: what did you just call me? And second: I am by no means assessing you. I am assessing the whip-bearer.” You snorted into the bedsheets. „You know what, I’m just going to use my cognitive powers here. Does this – he slapped you on the buttcheek with the palm of his hand – hurt?” „It tickles.” „Oh really. How about now?” He slapped harder. You felt a pleasant sensation reverberating through your butt. And nether regions. „Still within the boundaries of Tickle Town.” „And now?” Something stiff and leathery met the skin of your backside, producing a juicy splat. The ants that apparently lived in your ladyparts really got to work. „That...almost hurt”, you murmured. „You’re good with this kind of hurting?” „No! I mean, it’s okay, but give me more!..” Azrael chuckled. His slender hand caressed your (still almost intact) ass. „Don’t feel like you have to strain yourself for me”, he said. „I can have my fun no matter how hard I'm hitting you.” „That’s so considerable” you mumbled into the bedsheets. „I am a sadist, not some depraved monster.” That laughter of his was like a sunbeam. Azrael conjured a few other toys – you thought „conjured”, because he put them out of thin air, apparently – to meet and greet your buttcheeks. Some of them were flat and rigid, while other more snake-like and resilient. You received a hit after hit, one always a bit stronger than the last one. He was a methodical man. Angel. Person.   Your ass must’ve been nicely flushed by the time he was done. In the meantime, your sinful insides went tender and moist, yearning for a more substantial treatment. You were getting aroused, but not really in pain. Which was nice. But also kinda sucked. „That’s the last one for today,” he said in a low voice, tracing your inflamed buttocks with something cool, narrow and leathery. You felt all the little hairs on your body stand up. „Oh, that’s it, isn’t it?” „Yes, that’s the riding crop” said Azrael matter-of-factly and used it. You almost choked on your breath. A flash of acute pain tore through the comfortable daze which enveloped you. You couldn’t help but give a small elated groan. „Huh. I guess we’re finally getting results here” he said with the most level, scientific-like tone of voice. „More?” „Yes, please” you gasped. Another slap, another flash of red behind your firmly shut eyelids. This time you actually cried out in pain. „You’re good? Or should I do it again?” „Again!...” „Again what?” Oh, seriously, fuck this smug bastard. „Please hit me again, Azrael”, you gasped. He did.   The thing about the riding crop is how surprisingly quickly the pain accumulates. You might think: Phew, that wasn’t so bad, and get brought to ugly tears the very next minute. It’s like wasabi for the outer flesh.   That’s exactly what happened to you. The fourth slap made your eyes water and your whole body tremble. It really fucking hurt. The older marks, left by various blunt instruments got ignited by the cruel kisses of the whip. Your ass started to ache all over. Azrael’s handiwork must have left some permanent bruises. You couldn’t see much. So you imagined the archangel - what with his intelligent, sensitive face, his all-around venerable demeanour, standing over you with a horse whip in his hands. His lips upturned with a cruel twirl, those pale eyes half-lidded with pleasure… and sleek, sticky wetness covered your inner thights. „You're dripping ”, observed Azrael in a casual tone of voice. „One more for the road, or have you had enough?” You didn’t answer. „Well?” „I... don’t know...” you whimpered. „I honestly don’t know...” ‘Don’t know’ counts as ’yes, please’ informed Azrael and smacked you again. You screamed. It was an ugly sound; half a sob, half a piercing wail. You hurt so much. Your battered backside was pricking, pinching and dully aching at the same time. You couldn’t take it anymore. On the other side – you didn’t want the spell to break. Azrael had you lying here, shamelessly presenting your ass to the stars, completely helpless and despondent and yearning. And you relished every minute. „Seriously though, my dear. You can just tell me to stop and I will stop” assured your angel in a friendly manner. „But if you don’t...” he traced the curvature of your upper thighs with his tool of choice. „No, not there! Definitely not there!” you cried out in panic. What a lovely laugh this man had. „Should I stop then?” You were in a daze. Tears of pain and arousal covered your face, staining the pristine bedsheets. You ass was in hell and your insides all soft, tender and in a dire need of a dick. You had to spell it out. „Take me, Azrael” you whispered. „Just...fuck me now. Okay?” „You forgot the magic word.” Fucking brute. „Please fuck me. I need you. I beg of you.” He lied on top of you, pressed his supple body to yours. You felt his firm arousal prodding at the small of your back and gasped a little. God, he was hard.   One of his long arms closed you in a tender embrace. He leaned even closer and wiped the salty wetness from your cheek. „You are so brave and resilient and I adore you”, he whispered straight into your ear. His other hand caressed your inner folds. Two nimble fingers zeroed in on your wet entrance and started to play with it. You moaned. „There, there. It won’t be long now, I promise.” His cock slid in without much resistance. You were so ready, after all. You felt his firm length filling you to the brim. A guttural groan escaped your lips. „Sing away, love.” There was warmth in his voice. And what did he just call you? Back and forth you went, back and forth, the oldest dance move of them all. He swayed you like a ship on friendly waters, slowly, without any rush – that is, until you started to arch your hips and beg him to go harder. Then harder he went. Sweet darkness swelled over and covered your eyes until there was nothing else in the whole world - only him. He was a considerate man. Angel. Person. Azrael.

#darksiders #darksiders lemon #darksiders azrael #azrael/reader #lemon fic #lemons #grapefruits #azrael angst #angst in general #azrael x reader

[imnotinclinedtomaturity]

Love Yourself (Chapter 23)

title: Love Yourself summary: A lot of things about Dan’s life are pretty great. He gets to make the music he wants, he’s got a great fanbase, and his manager is his best friend. A few things about his life suck a bit more. He’s currently lacking inspiration, he’s rather lonely, and he’s stuck in a rut. Dan’s been going to the same coffee shop for years. It’s quiet, it’s quaint, it’s near his home. Most importantly: none of the employees give a shit that’s he a world-famous singer. Things change when he meets the new barista. chapter words: 7.3k story words: 183.6k (so far) chapter: 23/? rating: m warnings: language, alcohol, sex mentions, some bi/homophobia, eventual explicit smut genre: singer!dan, coffee shop au, barista!phil, slow burn [[ao3]] [[first chapter]] [[previous chapter]]

a/n: @auroraphilealis is an amazing cheerleader and there are definitely a few bits of this chapter that i would have pushed a bit less if it weren’t for her comments of “PLEASE. PLEASEEEEE. KATTTTTTT.” lol. and also she’s a great friend and i’m glad y’all knew who to turn to when my blog randomly disappeared 

It was half past six when Dan finally made it to Louise’s doorstep, two bags tucked precariously under his arms, his hands shoved in his pockets to protect them from the unexpectedly freezing March air. He was half an hour late and, all things considered, it could have been a lot worse.

Just as Phil had suggested, they’d spent the majority of the day in bed. And by mid afternoon, not only did they need another washing, but the guest bedroom duvet was so thoroughly defiled that Dan was pretty sure he was better off just ordering a new one. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to let his family — or Darcy — sleep under it again without blushing and feeling horrendously guilty.

And fuck, getting out of bed, untangling himself from Phil and forcing himself to be a proper adult tonight had been nearly impossible. They’d had to shower again, and Dan felt like he deserved a bloody award for not blowing Phil again. He just looked fucking gorgeous wet and soapy and — fuck.

Dan cut off his own train of thought before he could get carried away. If his standing dinner date with Louise and Darcy wasn’t such a high priority in his life, if he wasn’t so determined to never be the person that got a partner and bailed on their friends… well. He would have taken a bath with Phil, instead.

Refocusing, Dan awkwardly kicked at the bottom of the door in lieu of knocking. It was too cold to draw his hands out of his pockets and, plus, he was convinced he’d drop something if he tried.

It didn’t take more than a few seconds after Dan had knocked for the door to fly open, and it was accompanied by a reprimand of Daniel James Howell, where have you been?

Louise’s eyes were narrowed and she was smirking slightly as she stared at Dan. As her eyes scanned slowly up and down Dan’s body, he couldn’t help ducking his chin a little further into his bulky knit scarf. The bags under Dan’s arms shifted precariously, threatening to topple to the ground.

Before he could drop everything — including their dinner — Louise caught the bags. She peered inside, first looking at the massive bag of food, then the smaller gift bag from the toy store.

“Is this for Darcy?” Louise asked suspiciously as she stood firmly in the doorway, looking like she wasn’t planning to let him in unless he explained himself.

Dan scrunched his shoulders even farther up and nodded, sidestepping around her and weaseling his way into her home. He shot Louise a triumphant smile, to which she merely rolled her eyes.

“You’re going to spoil her rotten, you know,” she said, shaking her head fondly and closing the door with her bum.

“Too late.” Dan shrugged, unzipping his jacket and hanging it on the coat rack. “Besides, the gift is as much for you as it is for her.” Dan glanced up through his eyelashes, waiting for the reaction he knew was coming.

Brows furrowed, Louise examined the boutique toy store bag more closely. “How exactly?”

“Well,” Dan started cryptically, barely biting back a wide smirk. “I’m anticipating you wanting a way to keep her busy for awhile after dinner, and I figured a new toy would do nicely.”

Louise’s head cocked, her forehead wrinkling up in confusion. “Wha…?”

Dan unwrapped his scarf with a cheeky grin and a pointed stare. For a second, Louise didn’t respond — not until her eyes drifted from Dan’s face to his neck, anyway.

“Oh my god!” she gasped, voice high and squeaky. “What happened?”

Dan instinctively trailed his fingers over his neck, the light pressure aggravating the deep purple bruises on the tender skin ever so slightly.

“I’ll give you one guess.” Dan answered with a cheeky wink, his tongue pushing at his bottom him.

“Was it Phil?” Louise gasped, sounding hopeful. “Please tell me it was Phil.”

“You’ll have to wait until after dinner to find out!” Dan teased. He grabbed the bag of food from Louise and made to turn around.

“I swear to god, I will book your next interview for seven in the morning if you don’t tell me this second,” Louise threatened before he could take so much as two steps away.

Dan laughed loudly, his dimples surely showing. “Of course it was Phil, you buffoon.” Without waiting to see Louise’s reaction, Dan headed down the hallway to the kitchen. “Details after dinner. I’m starved, barely eaten all day.”

Groaning, Louise hurried to follow behind him.

“You’re such a saucy tease,” she complained when she caught up to him.

“You love me anyway,” Dan teased back with a smirk.

In the kitchen, Dan sat the bag of food down on the counter. “I got everything ready since you were late,” Louise scolded playfully.

Sure enough, there was already a stack of plates and silverware on the counter, so Dan set about unpacking the food and lining the containers up in neat row. He left the frankly ridiculous amount of dips in the bag — they’d be easier to transport to the table that way.

“Darcy!” Dan called in a high, singsong voice. He was surprised that she wasn’t already around; she usually followed Louise to the door.

The pitter-patter of socked feet running down the hallway was Dan’s only warning before Darcy was suddenly sliding into him and hugging onto his thighs.

“You’re late, Uncle Dan!” she scolded cutely.

Jesus, like mother like daughter.

“Sorry, Darce,” Dan apologized. “Look, I brought you a present, though!”

“Ooooooh!” Darcy quickly withdrew from Dan and raised up on her tiptoes to try to get the bag off the counter.

“Ah ah ha!” Dan pushed the present back, out of the reach of her tiny hands. “You can have it after dinner,” he promised.

Louise narrowed her eyes, but Dan could see her lips itching to quirk up into a smile. “You’re enjoying making us both suffer, aren’t you?”

“Maybe a little.” Dan flashed her a smug smile. “I had to wait months for this to happen, you can wait to hear about it until we’ve eaten.”

Louise grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like you suck beneath her breath, but nonetheless turned her attention to fixing up their plates for dinner. Using the plastic spoons that had come with the take out, Louise scooped bits from each container onto their plates.

For his part, Dan took the dips to the table, taking them out of the bag and organizing them into a line in the middle for ease of access..

Doing her best to be helpful, Darcy trailed after Dan, knelt on a chair, and started prying the lids off the sauces as Dan put them down. Twice, she nearly spilled the entire container of dip, either by bumping one or wrestling with the lid too fiercely, but each time Dan was able to right the container before it could spill all over Louise’s pink tablecloth. And despite Dan’s attempts to keep the dips in neat order, Darcy was dropping them back onto the table randomly once she’d gotten the lids off. There was no point in fixing them, though; they’d probably just get out of line again.

Dan and Darcy had only just finished up, with Dan settling Darcy properly into her seat, when Louise walked over.

“I’ve got our food, but can you grab Darcy’s?” Two plates piled high with food, and the water pitcher were already precariously balanced in her hands.

“No problem.” Turning around, Dan headed back into the kitchen to grab the last plate and the silverware, before returning to Darcy and Louise’s sides.

“Mummy do I have to wait until after dinner for Uncle Dan’s present?” Darcy pouted, her fork and spoon still steadfastly on the table.

Louise flashed Dan a quick glare. “Unfortunately, sweetie. Uncle Dan is being a meanie tonight, but maybe if you eat quickly you can have it sooner.”

Louise settled in her chair and immediately picked up her spoon, digging into the Indian food in front of her. Darcy followed suit, saying absolutely nothing but taking far too big of a bite for her small mouth to handle. Evidently they were both eager to get through the eating portion of the evening. Normally, their dinners were chatty and long, but neither of them seemed inclined to make conversation tonight.

Sure, Dan got why they were so anxious to finish their food, and okay, it was kind of his fault. But their weekly dinners were his time to catch up with Louise with absolutely no work talk, and when he was bound to hear all of Darcy’s six year old gossip. When he’d loomed presents and a hot story over their heads, he hadn’t exactly expected them to stop talking entirely.

“So,” Dan started when it became evident that neither Louise nor Darcy were going to talk. “Adaline said to tell you both hello and that she was sad she didn’t get a chance to see you.”

“That’s nice of her, she’ll have to stay longer next time.��� Louise took another bite, speaking through her food. “How’d she like Germany?”

“She loved it. I’d never had the chance to travel with just her, like, without our parents, so we got to hang out in a different way. I feel like I got to see a different side of her.”

Louise glanced up between bites. “That’s fantastic. What did you two do?”

“I let her decide, for the most part. On Sunday, we got completely—” Dan’s eyes flickered to Darcy, who was staring curiously at Dan. “Um, we went to a biergarden.”

“Ooooh,” Louise cooed around a mouthful of rice. “How was that?”

“Great! We both had one of those pretzels, you know the ones that —”

“Uncle Dan?” Darcy cut in. “What happened to your throat?”

Oh fuck.

Dan felt his heart come to a crashing halt, and his hand flew up to cover his neck, even though it was clearly too late. The damage was done.

“Uh, nothing Darcy. It’s fine.” Dan tried to keep his voice neutral, but he sounded shaky even to his own ears.

“Nuh uhhh,” Darcy whined in protest. “You’ve got brwuises. How did you get hurt there?” Darcy stood up on her chair, dramatically poking Dan’s neck.

“I, uh...” Desperately, Dan looked to Louise for help, but she was smirking at Dan, her expression filled with mirth.

“Yeah, Dan. Tell us, how did you get hurt, hmm?” Louise teased. In any other situation, Louise would be scolding Darcy, would be ordering her to put her bum back on the chair, but no. Not tonight. Tonight, Louise was taking no mercy on Dan.

Dan shot Louise a look that he hoped said fuck you.

“I, um, burned myself with my straightener.”

“But your hair is curly,” Darcy pointed out, looking confused.

“And you haven’t straightened your hair in years,” Louise supplied unhelpfully.

Dan felt himself sinking further and further into his seat, wishing the ground would just open up and swallow him whole. Why the hell had he used that as his excuse?

“Well, I, um, thought it would be fun to do for, uh, old time’s sake.” The grave was just getting deeper and deeper, and the words were coming out of Dan’s mouth before he fully had time to process what he was saying. “I stopped when I burnt myself though. Figured it was best to not risk it.” Dan awkwardly chuckled, hoping Darcy would drop it.

She didn’t.

“But why did you burn both sides of your neck?” Darcy pushed.

Fucking hell, this child…

There was no getting out of this gracefully, Dan was certain of that. Better to just abort.

“Why don’t you eat so you can have your present sooner, yeah?” Dan took a pointed, massive bite of his food and refused to look up at either of them.

He heard a grumbled fine, and the soft rustling of Darcy settling down. When he glanced back up, Darcy was seated again and was studiously chewing her food. A quick look at Louise proved that she was just as fixated on her meal as her daughter.

With a sigh, Dan gave in. Apparently tonight just wasn’t going to be a talkative dinner.

They ate in silence, both Darcy and Louise cleared their plates much faster than Dan.

“I’m finished!” Darcy said the moment she’d finished her food, and primly sat her napkin on the table before looking at Dan expectantly.

“Okay, okay,” he relented. It’s not like they were getting anything out of sitting around the table tonight, anyway. Dan dropped his fork onto his half-full plate and tipped his chair backward. He just managed to swipe the present off the counter and right his chair, gravity very nearly pulling him all the way to the floor. “Here you go,” Dan said with a smile when his chair was righted again.

“Yayyy!” Darcy crawled up on her chair and sat on her knees in excitement, making small grabby hands at Dan.

Dan chuckled and passed her the bag.

Darcy didn’t waste any time; the second the bag was in front of her, she was pulling the tissue paper out and diving in, pulling out the box inside.

“Makeup!” Darcy cried excitedly as she inspected the products displayed in the box. Smiling fondly, Dan watched as her tiny fingers ran across the plastic holding the makeup in, her face awestruck. “Can I do your makeup, Uncle Dan? Please please please please please?”

Dan’s gaze flickered to Louise. He could tell she was impatient to talk about Phil — and, undoubtedly, what the marks on his neck meant — but Darcy was too cute, too eager, to deny.

“Of course,” Dan agreed. He pushed his unfinished plate of food away; he could eat the rest later. “Let’s go do it in the loo.”

A small huff from Louise caught Dan’s attention, and he looked up to find her opening and closing her mouth aimlessly. She looked like she was torn between wanting to interrupt them, and letting Dan have time with Darcy.

“Wait!” Louise interrupted. “You can only do his makeup if you promise to play by yourself for a while afterwards so Mummy can talk to Uncle Dan,” she finally said, giving in.

“Okay!” Darcy grabbed Dan’s hand immediately, her small fingers barely wrapping around his palm. With all the force that her six-year-old body was capable of, Darcy dragged Dan into the bathroom and pushed him down on the edge of the tub.

She thrust the box of makeup into his hands. “Can you open it, please?”

“No problem.” Dan set about opening the children’s makeup kit, taking the various eyeshadows, blushes, and lipsticks from the plastic and placing them on the ground next to them. “What color are you going to give me for my eyes?”

“Hmmm…” Darcy studied the powders before picking up a hot pink product that Dan was fairly certain was actually blush. “This one!”

“That looks great, I love it.” Dan smiled, quietly proud of Darcy for not picking out the bright blue shadow because it was a boy’s color.

“Close your eyes,” Darcy ordered as she rubbed one of the brushes — a brush far too big for eyeshadow — in the powder.

Dan obediently closed his eyes, just seconds before the brush made contact with his eyelid. Darcy’s hands were clumsy and her fine motor skills were still kind of shit. If the feeling was anything to go by, Dan’s entire eyelids — and probably his eyebrows — were going to be bright pink.

The soft sweeping of the brush stopped. “Okay, open.”

Dan’s eyes fluttered open, and he could feel some of the loose powder falling off his eyes and land on his cheeks. Oh well, there was probably going to be plenty more color on his face by the time Darcy was done; a bit of hot pink dust wasn’t going to matter.

“Are you going to put something on my cheeks?” Dan asked, looking at the other blush options.

“Yes!” Much to Dan’s amusement, she didn’t go for of the blushes, though. Instead, she picked up an eyeshadow.

A bright purple eyeshadow.

That was going to look great on his cheeks.

Whatever, she was doing what she wanted to do, and besides, rules were stupid and arbitrary. If she wanted to use purple powder that was technically meant for eyes on his cheeks, what did it matter?

Darcy squished the same brush into the purple powder, absolutely covering the brush in the stuff, and brought it up to Dan’s cheeks. Just like his eyes, she completely failed to contain the product to the appropriate region. The brush swept all over Dan’s cheeks, all the way from his cheek bones down to his mouth. Lovely.

“Lipstick!” Darcy exclaimed, dropping the brush onto the ledge and fumbling with the different lipstick options. She settled on a bright, pumpkin orange option. “Go like this,” she commanded before scrunching her lips up into a kissy pout.

Dan mimicked her, loosening his lips a little like Louise has made him do when she’s put lipstick on him in the past. Hand shaking slightly, Darcy brought the lipstick up to Dan’s mouth and smeared it on, definitely getting a lot of it around Dan’s mouth, in addition to on it.

“You’re done!” Darcy dropped the lipstick and grabbed Dan’s hand, pulling him over to the mirror so he could see her work. “Do you like it, Uncle Dan?”

Frankly, it was a complete mess. Dan could tell while she was putting it on that it was probably all over his face, but, if anything, he’d underestimated just how much of a mess it was. His eyebrows were completely caked in the hot pink powder, and his cheeks had messy, massive purple circles. And his mouth, jesus, his mouth was absolutely covered in the orange lipstick. It didn’t help that the makeup kit was designed for kids — meaning that the colors were all much brighter than adult makeup.

“I love it, Darce,” Dan gushed loudly. And, really, despite how ridiculous he looked, Dan really did love it. In the past, he’d really only messed around with concealer and mascara, but having so much makeup on his face kind of made Dan want to explore it properly. To see what blush and eyeshadow and lipstick would all look like if they were applied neatly.

And spending time with Darcy had been good too; it’d been too long since they’d had quality time together and they’d both had fun doing it.

“Come on, come on, let’s go show Mummy!” Darcy ran out of the bathroom, running ahead of Dan to the lounge. Dan chuckled, remembering when he’d once had that much energy. Like one time. Back when he was eight.

“Mummy, Mummy! Look at Dan! He looks like a princess!” Darcy was shouting. As Dan turned the corner, he found that she was tugging on Louise’s arm. Louise twisted around on the sofa to turn her attention to Dan, who was hovering impishly in the doorway. Louise’s eyes grew wide, and she was smiling with her lips clamped together; Dan knew her well enough to know that she was just barely biting back laughter — years of friendship filled with awkward and embarrassing moments had taught him to recognize that face.

“He looks beautiful!” Laughter was bubbling up, threatening to completely disrupt Louise’s sentence. Luckily, Darcy didn’t seem to notice her mum’s amusement.

“I wanna do mine now!” Darcy cheered, already running back towards the door. “When I’m done, can I do yours, Mummy?”

“Um, Mummy has to…” Louise started, trailing off. Dan could see the reluctance on Louise’s face — she undoubtedly didn’t want to have to halt her conversation with Dan so that Darcy could spend half an hour making her look like Dan.

Louise glanced at the clock and shifted tactics. “After you’re done with yours, I think it will be reading time before bed. You can do mine tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay!” Darcy agreed as she scampered off back to the loo, brushing passed Dan on her way out of the lounge.

When Darcy was out of earshot, Louise turned to Dan, repressed laughter finally bubbling out. “Let me get you a makeup wipe. There’s no way I can take you seriously looking like that.”

Dan glanced behind him towards where Darcy had run off to, a frown pulling at his lips. “Darcy will be sad if she comes back in here and I’ve taken it off,” he said, concerned that he might hurt Darcy’s feelings. “I’ll take it off when she’s gone to bed.” Dan crossed the room, solidifying his resolve to leave the outrageous makeup on for a while.

Louise sighed and shook her head, but she scooched over on the sofa to make room for Dan anyway. “You’re too good of an uncle sometimes. It’s bloody annoying.”

“You love it and you know it.” Dan plopped down on the couch, immediately curling up. He eyed the coffee table and was surprised to see nothing on it. “I was hoping you’d pour us some wine. Hot gossip demands wine, you know.”

Louise’s gaze followed Dan’s, and her eyes light up with recognition. “Oops, I knew I was forgetting something. Hang on, I’ll be just a tick.” Louise stood up and made her way to the kitchen.

While Dan was waiting for Louise to come back, he took a quick selfie to send to Phil. Well, he took more like eight selfies, each one featuring a slightly different pout and angle. Quickly scanning the options, Dan picked the best one and attached it to a message to Phil.

Dan [7:49PM]: would you still take me on a nice date if you showed up and i looked like this

Phil’s response came faster than Dan had been anticipating — before Louise got back with the wine even. Three messages came in rapid succession, new ones appearing before Dan could even get chance to start typing.

Phil [7:51PM]: Oh my god you look hilarious

Phil [7:51PM]: What happened? Darcy?

Phil [7:52PM]: And of course I’d still take you on a date, but I don’t know if Hutong would appreciate it.

Dan’s jaw dropped at the mention of Hutong. When Phil had said he would take Dan somewhere nice, Dan hadn’t exactly anticipated having a date at the bloody Shard. From what he’d seen of pictures online, Dan knew the restaurant was beautiful, and had a stunning view. He’d seen reviews, too — he knew the food was supposed to be phenomenal, but pricey as all hell.

Whatever he’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that. He hadn’t expected Phil to go all fucking out for their first date. Jesus on a fucking tricycle. Dan took a few steadying breaths and typed what he hoped counted as a calm response.

Dan [7:54PM]: hutong? fancy fancy. i guess i’ll skip the bright purple cheeks then

Louise came back with two overfilled glasses of red wine, as well as the rest of the bottle, before Dan could explain why he looked like this to Phil. Passing Dan one of the glasses, Louise sat on the opposite end of the couch and faced Dan.

“Okay, spill,” she demanded.

Lips pulling into a wide smile, Dan found himself lost for what to say. There weren’t enough words in the english language to describe how fucking happy he was, how amazing last night — and this morning — had been. Absentmindedly, Dan spun the stemless wine glass between his palms while he searched for words, careful not to actually spill on Louise’s white sofa. “I don’t even know where to start,” he eventually admitted.

Louise smiled sympathetically, seeming to realize that Dan wasn’t just trying to make her wait longer. Taking mercy on him, Louise prompted Dan with something specific to talk about. “You said you were going to go to B ‘n G last night. Start there.”

“Alright,” Dan took a sip of his wine, stalling for time so he could figure out what to say. He felt his phone vibrate against his leg, but he knew Louise would probably throw it out the window if he dared to look at it right now. “Uhm, so last night. I went to B ‘n G right after I dropped Adaline off at the train station. And — fuck. I got there and he was working, right? And there were a bunch of fucking uni students there, too.” Dan rolled his eyes and took a drink. “There was so much bloody sexual tension. Like, we both knew that this thing between us was really going to happen, but... we were in public and there were people around. It’s not like we could exactly jump each other right then, so…”

“So what happened? You obviously did something afterwards,” Louise prompted with a waggle of her eyebrows.

“Well, yeah.” Dan took another sip of wine in preparation for the next part of the story. “There’s kind of an important bit of drama before that though.”

Louise’s eyebrows shot up and a look of concern clouded her face. “What?”

“Guess who showed up at the coffee shop?” Dan couldn’t stop his tone from coming out harsher, darker.

“Oh dear, who?” Louise stared at Dan imploringly. “I’m guessing it wasn’t good.”

“Not at all,” Dan agreed with a resigned shake of his head. He took a drink — a much needed drink — before answering. “Isabella.”

Louise’s jaw dropped and she was speechless for nearly a full minute. “Why?”

Dan shook his head, lost at how to communicate just how much of a shitshow it had been.

Wine. Wine might help.

Holding up a finger to make Louise wait, Dan swallowed the rest of his wine in three large gulps. His actions must have spoken volumes, because Louise drained her wine as well and promptly poured them each another glass.

Dan accepted it graciously, staring into it for comfort.

“She wanted to get back together,” Dan explained hallowly. “And apparently shout a bunch of really shitty stuff at me and Phil — well, mainly Phil.”

Louise looked just as outraged as Dan had felt when Isabella made her demands. In the eighteen years that Dan had known her, he’d never seen that expression on Louise’s face. Every ounce of niceness, of warmth, was gone and was replaced with sheer disgust. “She what?”

“I don’t really want to get into, tbh.” Taking another long drink of his wine, Dan shrugged and rolled his eyes. “It was shit. It was so obvious that she just missed the media attention, and there was more of her same bi-erasure crap, and she accused Phil of turning me gay, whatever that means. Plus, she tried to accuse me of cheating on her with Phil, which was some first class bullshit.”

Louise’s eyes were growing wider and wider as Dan relayed the story. It was clear that she was desperate to interrupt him, but Dan kept going, raising a hand to silently tell her to just hold on a second.

Because fuck knows he was nowhere near done with this story.

“Oh it gets worse,” Dan continued. “She tried to kiss me — well, I guess technically she did kiss me, but I pushed her away.”

Louise gasped loudly, but didn’t interject. Dan laughed humorlessly, his eyes rolling in distaste. “I thought Phil was going to have a heart attack. Isabella lost her fucking shit, though, and swore to the high heavens that I’d regret it. Like fuck will I regret not getting back together with her.”

“Oh my god,” Louise gasped. “Do you think she’ll do something to get revenge somehow?”

Dan cocked his head. He hadn’t really considered that.

“I assumed she just meant that I’d miss her. Which I won’t. Obviously.”

“I’m not sure that’s what she meant, Dan,” Louise warned warily.

“Really?” Dan’s brows furrowed. “I don’t think she’s so crazy that she’d try to get revenge.”

Louise shot him a skeptical look. “We’ve already discovered that she’s absolutely batshit, I wouldn’t underestimate her if I were you.”

Dan shrugged and took a long drink of wine. “Whatever. I’m so fucking done with her, and I’m so happy that I can’t imagine anything she could do to really hurt me.”

“I don’t know about —” Louise started, but Dan was sick of the topic already.

“Look, can we drop it please?” Dan’s voice was terse and it didn’t particularly come out like a question. The two minutes that he’d dedicated to talking about Isabella already felt like too much, and he could feel a raging headache coming on if he had to stomach the conversation for another half second.

Besides, that’s not what tonight, what this conversation, was supposed to be focused on.

“Fine, fine,” Louise acquiesced, but it was evident she didn’t want to move on from the topic yet. “Just be careful okay?”

Rolling his eyes, Dan drained the rest of his wine and refilled his glass again, topping Louise’s off as well.

“Finish the story, then. You said you were happy?” Louise smirked knowingly and glanced down at Dan’s neck again.

“Yeah, yeah I am.” Dan giggled, a reverent smile taking over his face. The memories of last night came washing back and, for a moment, he got lost in them. The way it had felt when Phil had touched him, the sight of his mouth trailing over Dan’s skin...

“Because…” Louise prompted.

Shifting to sit more upright, Dan continued, “After all that shit with Isabella, Phil offered to take me out for a drink, to calm down or whatever, so I told him to meet me at my flat when he was done closing up.”

“Awe,” Louise cooed. “What a gentleman.”

“I got back home, though, and I realized that I really, really didn’t want to go back in public with him. Like, the whole fucking evening we had to toe line of what was okay for being in public and I didn’t want that anymore.”

Louise winked, a smirk on her face. She’d known Dan plenty long — she knew how Dan could be once he had that on the mind.

“So I made us a pitcher of drinks, you know, to derail the whole going out plan.”

“Daniel James Howell!” Louise scolded, the smile falling from her face. “Did you do this drunk?”

“No, we barely had more than one drink each,” Dan defended. Him and Louise had gone over his intentions with Phil — and his determination to be in a clear mind when anything happened — and he was almost a little offended that she’d thought he would just throw that away.

Almost. Not entirely though, given his track record of hookups.

“Anyway, at first we just talked. I told him everything — and I mean everything — about Isabella and why we broke up. And he listened and said he wanted to be different and just, cared — wait.” Dan cut himself off. “He actually said something really important during all of that. And I’m going to use it as my album title."

Louise blinked rapidly, clearly thrown by the sudden shift in conversation. “What did he say?”

“He was talking about Isabella and he made a comment about how she is better off loving herself, and it just hit me. Love yourself.”

Louise smiled widely, her face softening. “It’s perfect,” she whispered. She’d heard Dan ramble about the album more than anyone, and if she thought it was fitting, too, then that meant it was definitely the right title. She wiggled around in her seat, and nudged Dan’s wine glass pointedly. “Tell me more about that later, though. Get back to Phil.”

“Well, I kind of told him that I did break up with Isabella because I had feelings for him — at least partially.” Dan’s cheeks flushed as he got closer to the part of the story he knew Louise was waiting for. “And I don’t know, one thing led to another and we kissed,” Dan said, trying to brush over the juicier bits.

“Dan,” Louise said, quirking a brow in amusement. Her tone was almost condescending as she needlessly reminded him, “You don’t get hickeys just from kissing.”

“Fine, fine,” Dan relented. “We did more than kiss, happy?”

“No!” Louise exclaimed indignantly. “Tell me more! I want details.”

Dan felt his cheeks grow even warmer. The last twenty four hours with Phil had been so fucking hot, and he couldn’t stop his mind from drifting back and replaying the details. Every single time they’d touched had felt electric, and Dan couldn’t shake the image of Phil kissing his way down his chest, down his stomach, up his thighs, and…

“No sex but, uh, plenty else,” Dan confessed awkwardly.

Dumbfounded, Louise’s jaw dropped and she nearly dribbled out the sip of wine she’d just taken. “No sex?! Why?”

“Last night we were too eager to get farther than, um, sloppy handjobs.” Dan blushed deeply, his gaze dropping to his wine glass momentarily. “I mean, we’d basically had months of foreplay and just couldn’t wait any longer.”

Dan awkwardly cleared his throat, and looked back up at Louise. “And then this morning we were in the shower, so sex, um, wasn’t really an option.” From his neck to his ears, Dan was certain that his entire face was on fire by this point. “And this afternoon we just got carried away again and didn’t, um, last long enough for that.”

Louise didn’t bother to stifle her giggles, but she did set her wine down on the table so she could laughly freely without spilling it. Dan knew whatever she had to say was probably only going to further his humiliation.

“Are you fourteen again?” she sputtered through her laughter.

Dan buried his face in his hands but didn’t try to defend himself — he had come unbelievably fast every time they’d done anything so far. Hell, he’d basically come just from blowing Phil. There was no point in denying how young they’d acted.

“Shuddup, it was new and exciting.” Dan dropped his hands and took a drink from his wine glass. “Beside, I um, kinda want sex to be…” Dan trailed off bashfully, turning his attention down to the hole in his jeans and fiddling with the loose strings.

“To be what?” Louise asked, head tilted and lips pursed. Much to Dan’s disappointment, she looked genuinely baffled. He’d kind of hoped that she would just get what he meant without him having to actually say anything.

“Promise you won’t laugh?” Dan mumbled without looking up from his trousers.

“I’ll do my best,” Louise promised. Her foot reached out and nudged Dan’s leg, drawing Dan’s attention back up to her face.

“I just kind of want that to be special,” Dan admitted sheepishly. “Like, Phil’s special, so it feels like maybe the sex should be, too. It’s never been, like, a thing with anyone before.”

“Mmm,” Louise hummed as she took a sip of her wine. “Sex hasn’t meant anything to you before, but it will with Phil?”

“Yeah,” Dan looked back down at his exposed knee and traced his fingers along the rip of his jeans. “Suddenly it feels like it’s… I dunno. More than just sex, I guess.”

Louise poked her foot into his thigh again, and he looked up. “Dan, I think that’s great. That’s a real sign of growth, and honestly, I never expected to hear you talk about sex that way. You’ve always talked about how sex makes you happy, so you seek it out. I guess I just assumed that… it wouldn’t ever be an important step in a relationship for you. But I’m really happy for you. I’m proud of this whole new outlook you seem to have on relationships.”

“It’s not really relationships,” Dan corrected. “It’s Phil.”

“So, Phil is different from everyone else. More meaningful?” Louise smiled softly.

“Yeah, he is,” Dan agreed, his eyes trained on his knee again. At least that way he had a chance of hiding his bright red cheeks from Louise.

In search of a distraction, or a change in subject, Dan cast a look around the room. His phone was still face down on the sofa between them and — shit, right. He’d been in the middle of a conversation with Phil, and his phone had vibrated a while back. Eager to shift the conversation from his embarrassing confession, Dan dug his phone out from where it had slid under his bum and unlocked it.

Just as he’d expected, there was an unread message from Phil.

It took Dan a few seconds to process what Phil had said, but when the meaning of Phil’s message finally registered, Dan’s jaw dropped.

Phil [8:04PM]: I’m not going to lie, though. The thought of you in proper lipstick is kind of hot.

“What?” Louise demanded, clearly noticing Dan’s shocked expression.

“I, um, I…” Dan couldn’t manage to string together a coherent thought. Images were flooding his mind — images he didn’t particularly want to be thinking about in front of Louise. “It’s maybe a little kinky,” he choked out.

“Oh my god, tell me right now, Daniel Howell.”

“I sent him a picture of this.” Dan waved his hand around his face, hyper aware of how silly he must have looked to Louise during this whole conversation. “And we joked about it and whatever. But then he sent, uh, another message.”

Louise’s face contorted into a look of disbelief and confusion. “Dan, I love you to bits, but there is nothing sexy about how you look right now. Half of your face is purple.”

“Not this, specifically.” Dan pointed at his face with a pointed glare. “Just, like, the concept.”

“Ooooh,” Louise hummed scandalously. “Is he into that?”

Dan didn’t drop his glare but he could feel the blush on his cheeks deepen even more. “Just the, uh, lipstick.”

“You can take any of mine you want,” she offered eagerly.

Dan shifted his gaze to his lap nervously. “Not tonight. I feel like we should have sex first.” Dan glanced up shyly. “But maybe we can go shopping at some point?”

Before Louise could answer, Darcy ran back in the room and jumped onto the sofa between them.

“Mummy, mummy! Look at my makeup!”

Dan bit back a laugh, smiling at Darcy’s makeup. Just like when she’d done his face, she’d paid no regards to rules about where makeup was supposed to go, and what product was meant for which parts. From the looks of it, she’d tried to make the lipstick into a crude attempt at eyeliner, and had bright red rings around her eyes. Like Dan, her cheeks were sporting eyeshadow instead of blush — although hers were a bright blue color.

“It looks lovely, sweetie!” Louise cooed.

“Uncle Dan and I match now!” Excited, Darcy bounced on her knees. Dan felt a smidgen bad about giving her a present that had apparently riled her up so close to bedtime.

“You do,” Louise agreed. “You both look beautiful.”

“Will you take our picture, Mummy?” Darcy crawled into Dan’s lap without waiting for an answer, and flashed Louise a pair of big puppy-dog eyes — a look she’d learned from Dan.

“I’d love to.” Louise swiped Dan’s phone off of the sofa and aimed the camera at them. “Say cheese!”

Cheeks pressed close together, they both smiled widely at Louise.

“Cheeeeeeese!” Darcy squealed.

Giggling, Dan pulled Darcy in a little closer. “Cheese!”

Louise took several photos, and Dan turned to press a sloppy kiss on Darcy’s cheek in the last one. When he pulled back, there was a mess of orange lipstick overtop of the blue powder on her cheeks.

Louise passed Dan back his phone and he swiped through the pictures. They were all adorable, and if it weren’t for the hickeys that were prominently showing on his neck, Dan would have considered tweeting one of them.

“Alright, lovely. It’s time for your bedtime.”

“I want Uncle Dan to tuck me in!”

“Let’s go brush your teeth and wash your face and then he can put you to bed.”

“But I like my makeup,” Darcy pouted, crossing her arms in front her chest and stomping.

“You don’t want to get your sheets all mucked up, though.” Louise scooped Darcy up and stood. “If you’re good, maybe Uncle Dan will even read you a book.”

“Really!?” Darcy looked excitedly to Dan.

“Any book you want,” Dan promised.

“Okay! Let’s go, Mummy!”

Louise giggled and carried Darcy to the loo. “We’ll be back in a minute to get you, Daniel!”

Taking advantage of the moment alone, Dan opened his conversation with phone and typed a quick response.

Dan [8:19PM]: noted.

Phil must not be busy tonight, because his response came quickly.

Phil [8:20PM]: Maybe just not bright orange

Dan [8:21PM]: not sexually attracted to pumpkins? im hurt phil

Phil [8:22PM]: No but I am ridiculously sexually attracted to you.

Even from across London, Phil was making Dan blush. Dan stared at Phil’s message, savoring the fact that not only was Phil ridiculously attracted to him, but also the fact that that was something they were allowed to say, now. Dan sort of wanted that message framed and hung on his wall so he could see it every day.

Dan [8:24PM]: i can tell. you made a right mess of me today

Dan [8:25PM]: what color would you be interested in

Dan [8:25PM]: theoretically.

Biting his lip — and probably getting orange all over his teeth in the process — Dan stared anxiously at his phone while waited for a response.

Phil [8:26PM]: Theoretically? Dark red.

Phil [8:26PM]: And theoretically, I imagine it’d go well with stockings.

Fuck fuck fuck.

The image of himself in dark red lipstick and black stockings, with Phil kissing up his leg… fuck.

Dan could not get a boner right now.

Dan [8:27PM]: abort

Dan realized that his message probably made it sound like he wasn’t into what Phil was suggesting, rather than that he was too into it. He quickly typed out a second message.

Dan [8:27PM]: i have to read darcy a story in like .2 seconds and i can’t do that if you get me worked up again

Phil [8:28PM]: Oops

Phil [8:28PM]: When do I get to see you again?

Dan tabbed over to his calendar, and grimaced at the fact that the next four days were blocked off from morning ‘til evening, all just with the description STUDIO.

And sure, he had a whole fuckton more direction and inspiration than he had twenty four hours ago. And sure, he already had a chorus of lyrics rattling about his head.

But fuck he didn’t want to be a responsible adult. He just wanted to see Phil.

Dan [8:30PM]: i have to work during the day all week, but i can do dinner any night

Phil [8:31PM]: Tomorrow night then. I’ll make a reservation and pick you up. 7 okay?

Dan [8:32PM]: perfect. come over a little earlier? i wanna be with you alone before we have to go out in public

Phil [8:32PM]: I’ll be there at 6 xx

Dan [8:33PM]: fine. but make the reservation for 8 then xx

#phan #phanfic #phanfiction #ly #love yourself #phan au #coffee shop au #barista!phil #singer!dan #slowburn #iminclinedtowriting #mine

[kiruuuuu]

Blitz/Rook oneshot in which Blitz would like their relationship to stay secret and Rook... doesn’t. - for @magehir and her adorable second hand embarrassment ❤ :) (Rating T, fluff/humour, ~2.2k words)

.

“Oh I’m sorry, what was the question?”, Rook asks, a sickly sweet smile on his face and voice raised to make sure everyone in his close vicinity can hear him – though it’s painfully obvious he’s doing it for the benefit of one special someone who shows no outward reaction but struggles not to draw his brows together or even roll his eyes.

Ash grants the Frenchman a weird look and repeats herself at a normal volume: “I was just wondering whether you’re seeing anyone at the moment. You seem so chipper lately.”

“Sadly, no. There’s no one like that in my life right now, though I wish there was. Someone with whom I could hold hands in public, you know?” Ash nods sympathetically and opens her mouth to reply but Rook isn’t done, not by a long shot. “I bet he’d make me ridiculously happy just by being there when I wake up or by being the last thing I see before I sleep and I’d want to shout out to the whole world just how glad I am to have him.” The redhead is looking increasingly confused now at all the unnecessary detail yet is clearly too polite to interrupt. “Believe me, if there was someone, I’d want everyone to see how disgustingly happy we are and to listen to me gushing endlessly about how wonderful he is and -”

“Sorry to interrupt, Rook, but do you have a minute?”, Blitz chimes in after turning towards him with a fake smile. “I’d like you to take a look at my pistol, I feel like its accuracy is going down but have no idea why.”

Rook mirrors his vaguely pained expression perfectly and chirps: “I’m sure your gun is working fine, Elias.” They stare at each other wordlessly, neither of them willing to back down, while Ash just judges them silently. “We were just speaking of relationships. How would you show your significant other how much you love them?”

He’s ready for this one. “By respecting their boundaries and accepting compromises without complaints should it come to a clash in personal values”, he replies evenly.

The boyish face before him darkens considerably. “The accuracy is getting worse, you said?”, Rook grits out and grabs his sleeve, proceeds to drag him away from an entirely bemused Ash and down the nearest corridor, into the closest room that’s unoccupied. It’s resembling a typical interrogation room, the only furniture being two chairs, a cheap table and a large mirror on the wall – and isn’t it ironic that they’re going to have this conversation in a place like this. Blitz doesn’t miss how Rook purposefully positions himself with his back to the mirror so he doesn’t have to see his own angry expression.

“You’re being too obvious”, he states and it was undoubtedly the wrong thing to start with since Rook’s temper flares.

“Oh yeah? First you explicitly forbid me to talk to you, now I’m not allowed to talk about you? It was implicit, she didn’t have any idea what I was on about -”

“Which is exactly my point, she’s going to wonder until she looks more closely at what you said, maybe mentions it to Jordan whom you told that your ‘ideal type’ is someone your height with dirty blonde hair and an accent and oh, who could that be?”

“You’re being paranoid. They have better things to do than to gossip, do you genuinely think they compare notes or something? Why the hell do you even care that much whether they know or not? Jäger is gayer than the two of us combined and no one talks shit about him. Except for Bandit, but he badmouths everyone.”

Blitz heaves a sigh and rubs his forehead in an attempt to tidy his thoughts. It’s far from the first time they’re talking about this yet it always seems to drain him, leaves him weary and oddly exposed. “I’m not ashamed of you”, he says quietly and breathes a little more freely when Rook’s annoyance softens, “really, I’m not. You’re great, I’m insanely lucky to have you and I don’t tell you this often enough. But I just need some time. Alright? Just a bit more. Please.”

The young man seems appeased but it doesn’t mean much, he appeared satisfied the last time they had this argument. “How long? You keep postponing it, every time I ask it’s just ‘a little longer’. What if it’s ‘a little longer’ for a year? Give me something, mon cœur, just so I know you mean it.”

“I promised you I’d work on it, right?” A nod – of course Rook remembers. “It wasn’t empty: I told Seamus earlier.”

At this, the Frenchman’s eyes light up. “Did you really?”

“Yes. He was very supportive, promised not to pass it on and wished us all the best. I couldn’t have asked for – why are you looking at me like that?”

Rook is suddenly beaming at him full force, all traces of his earlier ire vanished into thin air and he’s almost bouncing with joy. “That’s – thank you. Why didn’t you tell me right away? Oh, I thought -”

He cuts off abruptly and Blitz can guess effortlessly what’s going on in his pretty head: “Seriously? You thought I’d never tell anyone and dump you without anyone ever knowing we’re together? Julien, please. Come here.” He pulls him into a tight hug that’s reciprocated just as eagerly and strokes his back reassuringly. Even though he knows his lover can go overboard with his emotional responses, the fact that Blitz must’ve given him reason to worry makes him feel guilty regardless. “I’m sorry”, he murmurs against Rook’s cheek, “I shouldn’t have waited so long. You’re worth so much more than my pride.”

The man in his arms draws a shaky breath but manages to pull himself together and when they separate again, there’s a genuine smile illuminating the sparse room. “Thank you. And I’m sorry for pressuring you. I really should respect your boundaries.”

“It’s alright.” Blitz strokes over Rook’s cheek on an impulse, relishes the soft skin under his fingertips. “If you want, we can tell Emmanuelle next, maybe even today. You said you’d like her to know and she’d also not tell anyone.”

“Yeah. That’d be nice. Let’s do it together.” And just like that, Blitz’ heart is singing again. Relief and fondness are making him light-headed, making him cherish how they seem to have overcome an obstacle in their way and only grown closer in doing so. He leans in and Rook’s eyelashes fanning out as his lids fall shut are the last thing he sees just before their lips touch. It’s simple and short at first, nothing more than a brush, only then Blitz realises he’s far from done and repeats it, catches Rook’s top lip between his own, tilts his head the other direction and then they’re kissing properly.

Almost chastely, their mouths slide together, work against each other, up to the point where Rook’s tongue darts out, politely asks for entry that Blitz grants generously and it morphs into something more than just an affectionate gesture. It’s addicting and lovely, still sugary sweet and slow but now it kindles a fire in Blitz to taste his lover more, more deeply and more intimately. He pulls their bodies flush, starts toying with Rook’s tongue in earnest and wonders when trading spit with someone, with another man became this desirable, this all-out attractive to him. He can probably accredit it to Rook and Rook alone, he kisses like a young god and is always patient enough to adapt to Blitz’ pace.

When they break apart again, both of them are smiling at their shared secret that would persist even if everyone else knew they care about each other – because no one could possibly understand how much. Blitz’ hand is in the nape of Rook’s neck and though one of his rules was that nothing would ever happen at work, he still pulls him back in and invades his mouth nonetheless, allows the strong legs to walk him backwards until he hits a wall. They fuse together, hips moving against each other more out of habit than need yet Blitz feels himself grow hard; Rook smells delicious and the way he nips at Blitz’ lip is nothing short of magical. The atmosphere has shifted completely, turned into something warm, playful, intimate.

“I bet this isn’t the gun Ash thinks I’m inspecting right now”, Rook murmurs and drags his fingers over the bulge in Blitz’ jeans, both of them grinning good-naturedly.

“We can take care of this when we’re done with work, hm?”

“Yeah. You said you wanted to get out more, right? We can take Mark’s car, I’ve got his keys, just drive out into the countryside somewhere and make love on the back seat.”

“I’d rather not soil his upholstery”, Blitz responds with a chuckle and grimaces while trying to adjust his crotch without actually using his hands. Rook notices what he’s doing and simply reaches into his trousers and underwear, grabs the half-hard shaft and pulls it into a non-incriminatory position, not without giving it a few light tugs for good measure.

“There you go, you’re decent now. Don’t talk to Bandit though, he’s probably the only one who’d both stare at your crotch creepily and unnecessarily and comment on it.”

Blitz just agrees with him and, with a final kiss and a quick squeeze to Rook’s buttocks, they step away from each other and out of the room. “What would I do without you?”, he asks rhetorically, gets a bright grin in return and then moves to walk back just as Jäger rounds the corner with what looks like a bowl of popcorn in his hands. As soon as he spots the two, his eyes widen comically and he seems to fight the urge to run away immediately.

“Oh! Uh, hi”, he greets them awkwardly. “I was just – do you want some popcorn?”

His teammate just stares at him, uncomprehending, until a terrible thought crosses his mind. He looks back at the door from which they’ve just emerged, then at the door next to it, thinks of the large mirror and the interrogation theme of the furniture and dear God please no. He prays for the adjacent room to be empty but the way Jäger involuntarily twitches as soon as he grabs the handle already tells him unambiguously it’s not going to be.

Blitz is greeted with entirely too many pairs of eyes who stare at him decidedly too entertained – the small chamber is cramped with people, he sees Bandit, the entirety of the SAS, Ash and even two of the Russians. Past them, he has an unobstructed view of the room he and Rook have just left and it’s not hard to imagine what in the world happened. As if on commando, at least five pieces of paper jump up, all of them labelled with a number and it takes Blitz a mere second to understand they’re fucking rating him as if he’d just ice skated competitively.

“Oh my fucking God”, he says because there’s literally nothing else he could say.

“You missed the crotch grab”, Bandit addresses Jäger over Blitz’ shoulder with a gleeful glint in his eyes, “don’t shake Rook’s hand unless you want to get a handful of a different German cock for once.”

“Beautiful”, Kapkan adds and pretends to wipe away a tear with his note that reads a solid 9.5. “You two are ready for the stage, it had everything: conflict, reconciliation, passion and romance.”

Blitz can’t believe it. He’s just standing there, thunderstruck, and gapes at the audacity. “How long -”

“Originally, Marius and I wanted to fuck in here”, Bandit explains helpfully and with a shit eating grin, “but then you two came in and I figured others might appreciate the show as well, so I gathered an audience.”

“I’m revoking your rights to my car, by the way”, Mute butts in and holds out his hand. “For obvious reasons.”

Rook seems surprisingly fine with the whole situation, quite the opposite to Blitz whose face must’ve adopted the colour of a tomato by now. He steps inside and drops the keys in question into Mute’s palm. “That’s fair enough. But why the fuck do we only get a 3?”

Bandit looks at the number he wrote and shrugs. “Neither of you moaned like a bitch, so it can’t have been that good. Or is that not normal? Is that just something Marius does?”

“Kill me”, Jäger mumbles and expertly expresses Blitz’ mood in those two words alone.

“I, for one, think you two make an adorable couple”, Smoke raises his voice and earns unanimous and very vocal agreement, especially from Thatcher who’s holding an impressive 10. “And there’s nothing you need to worry about, especially because you’re both so embarrassingly obvious that most of us knew already anyway.”

Ash just snorts at that. “Yeah. Gun inspection. Really?”

And when Rook starts arguing with Glaz about the fact that he awarded them a measly 7, Blitz’ mortification coupled with an increasingly strong death wish take over and he shuts the door once more, locking out the incessant voices and at least some of the teasing. He turns to Jäger who’s watching him with a sympathetic expression and says: “You know, I suddenly feel like getting very, very drunk.”

His teammate looks down at the popcorn he’s still carrying and nods slowly. “Yeah. Sounds good. The first round is on me, mate.”

#rainbow six siege #blitz #rook #blitz/rook #fanfic #oneshot #magehir you only have yourself to blame #this is what happens if we binge brooklyn 99

[magnoliasandbeardedtooth]

thoughts/criticism of httyd3 (spoilers)

Just wanted to get my major thoughts together, since it's doesn't quite feel right to just pour them onto someone else's post

Lemme preface this by saying that httyd is my favorite movie series. There are other movies that get very close, but httyd is one of the most heartfelt, humorous, and beautiful movie series I've ever seen, and it will remain my favorite for the foreseeable future

that said, httyd3 is definitely more Hiccup's movie than it is Hiccup and Toothless's movie

The conclusion is very conclusive, and I can't say it's not satisfying. It's delightful to see a little snapshot of the future and know that eventually Hiccup and Toothless interact again and they both still love each other

It's also just as emotional as advertised, I cried multiple times

however, as emotional and solidly conclusive as it was, I feel like the middle lacks some serious characterization

Most of the humans get WONDERFUL characterization, it's very funny and entertaining. The only human I have a question about is Valka, I would have loved to see more motherly moments between her and her newly reunited son, but most moments where they could have interacted, she encourages Astrid to talk with Hiccup instead. And while I adore all the time Hiccup and Astrid spend together compared to httyd2, most of Valka's screen time is getting creeped on by Snotlout. I do really miss seeing Valka be enthusiastic about dragons and her family, and I think just like, one moment of each would have really solidified her in the movie

But really my biggest issue is, of course,  with the dragons

Before getting into the Two Big Dragon Characters, I wanna mention the minor characters

I miss Stormfly!!! the closest thing to characterization we get is when they say goodbye!!! And even then, she and all the other dragons of Berk hardly react when they're all about to leave. The humans are all in tears, and the dragons just kinda, look at them. and then leave

And like, we get the big purple dragon and the baby gronckle, and they're very cute, but I think they could have really used just a couple background moments to solidify their relationship. Honestly, I kept forgetting they existed until they came up on screen for like 3 seconds

And then, there's the major dragons

With Toothless, there was a weirdly small number of characterizing moments with Hiccup before things go to shit. There was the leg fetch scene, which was great, and the moment where he looks back with his new tail, but I can't really think of any other moments where he and Hiccup were able to just, be friends

Even when Toothless carries Hiccup out of the Hidden World, a moment that should be where he becomes torn between the two worlds important to him, he's very flat the entire time. When he sees Hiccup in the hidden world, he orders most of the dragons back and shoves the rest out of the way, but we don't see any worry or frantics from him. He just kind of notices something and then does it

Especially on the way back, he has very little expression. He's not angry, he's not looking back, he's just sort of, flying. This lack of a reaction for either side puts very little stakes in his decision. He's not conflicted about whether to go with the lightfury or to stay with Hiccup, he's just kind of going with the plot.

And speaking of just kind of going with the plot, I really would have liked to see some more interaction between Toothless and the lightfury before they fell in love and such. Of course, there are multiple scenes before they form a solid connection, where they try to understand each other, but the whole reason they keep interacting is because they're already into each other. Like, Toothless finds her in a field, she sees a strange dragon approaching her, and BOOM they're crazy for each other. even then, all those scenes where they try to bond end awkwardly with so little progress

I really would have liked, in the first meeting scene, just a couple little moments where they display character to each other, like at all. Or even better, something a la httyd1, where toothless tries to get her to trust him, to draw some parallels between his relationships with her and Hiccup. I get that that's what the Mating Dance scene was supposed to be, but it comes off less as heartfelt discovery and bonding, and more just, awkward. and it ends badly anyway

In general, the emotional conflict is entirely dependent on the fact that we watched the first 2 movies. If we hadn't, there isn't nearly enough characterization to care about anyone other than Hiccup and most of the human supporting cast. Even Stoic gets more characterization than ALL of the dragons, and all he's dead with 2 flashback scenes

And the last character, the biggest question mark in the whole movie, the Lightfury

Weirdly? Somehow, with as little character as she has, she has more characterizing moments than any of the other dragons.

She's got a total of 3 major traits:

Scared of humans

Horny for Toothless

a Mother now

(the whole, "oh I'm a Mother now, look as I pose graceful and regal and then look knowingly over at my Children, who are only just now visible, for now I am a Mother" trope is so wildly annoying and has been for as long as I can remember, just once I want the character to just be the character and then they get BOWLED over by some kids)

And despite the fact that these are her only main characteristics, we still get more moments to solidify these traits than most of the other dragons get to solidify ANY traits

The lighfury plays a major role in the film, which is supposed to be to teach Toothless how to be a wild dragon again, but like. Where is any of that??

She has no real characteristics for Toothless to fall in love with, and most of the teaching she does is off screen. Both of these issues could be solved in one 3-5 minute scene, where she tries to bond with him by doing Wild Dragon stuff, but they find that he's forgotten how to do them, or that he never got the chance to learn them in the first place. And while she's doing that stuff, she's showing off some character, showing off what she finds fun, and that's when Toothless falls for her, and he has to work to get her to like him more.

Literally just, any character at all would be great

The only other traits she displays, even weakly, is that she doesn't like to get bossed around, and that she cares for strangers enough to not get them trapped, but even warding toothless from the human trap is just another example of the fact that she doesn't like humans

Another big major thing that made her character suffer for me specifically, is that I didn't know if she was trustworthy for like, most of the movie. This is entirely because of her connection to the villain

of course, she’s not connected to the villain, but he’s definitely connected to her. Why did he up and let her go? Why was he so sure she and toothless would like each other? Why was he so sure that she would KEEP trying to approach him? Why DID she keep approaching him when every time she does, it goes bad?

In hindsight, it’s definitely because he’s just that confident in his ability to hunt her down again, and that she just really likes Toothless and wants to teach him how to be wild again, but the fact that this wasn’t obvious from the start really damaged my image of her. Without knowing these things, it made it seem like there was something keeping her tied to the villain, that somehow, interacting with the lightfury would directly lead to a trap, rather than just keep him distracted so he would be easier to get to.

And then of course, there’s her design

Many, many people have talked about this before, both for and against her design. I saw a post that had photos of the artbook, where they discussed the reasoning behind her design. And most of it I have no issue with. The one thing they mentioned that I have a problem with, is the notion that “females are hard to design,” that every element needs to be carefully considered, that a single stray angle could ruin the whole design

and like

no more than any other character design?????

Thing is, I have 0 issue with the fact that she’s femenine, what I take issue with is that she’s Female. I quite like her fish elements, and the fact that she walks like a cat, and that she’s pretty in general. It’s just, she’s So Pretty, every single element to her design is meant to be Pretty. That paired with the fact that she has so little character is a real problem.

This series as a whole has done a good job with their female characters, making them pretty but imperfect, why is this character, one of the most important in the movie, the ONLY ONE that looks like the cover of a magazine???? she looks like a makeup commercial, she looks like a model whose entire portfolio is laying down and looking half-lidded at the camera, she’s a lizard character from a fantasy movie, whose design was carefully deliberated for years, WHY does she look like she was drawn by someone trying to make a lizard SEXY, the only things she’s missing are eyelashes and boobs

she has so much POTENTIAL and they made her Hot and Horny I’m so upset

but, uh, yeah that’s it, thems my thoughts on the finale of my favorite movie series

I’m not opposed to seeing extra content from fanon, but I’m sad that I feel like I need to do so in the first place. I just really wish the dragons got more characterization

#speaks #I didn't proof read this #sentences are messed up