#its romance hours. but feral

[spectra-bear]

Trainwreckshipping my beloved (derogatory)

#submas #never wanted a pair to just beat the shit out of each other #no romance involved i just want them to go apeshit #God thisnis killing me #the punch is the strength of a thousand trains in one #FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!! #im probably feral bcz its late hours again #favorite white boy vs my most beloathed white boy #emmet #subway boss emmet #subway boss kudari #volo legends arceus #volo #pla #pkmn #pokemon #pokemon legends arceus #i am once again clarifying that idk shit abt pokemon lore #animatic #shitpost #my art

[brokebonewritings]

Never Before, Never Again

Astarion x Fem! Reader

Tags/ Warnings: 18+, Angst, Abuse, Death, Mentions of Blood, Smut

Summary: It’s been six month since settling down in Baldur’s Gate with Astarion. After killing Cazador, you notice his aggressive nature taking over. How long will it take for you to be truly done with his wrath.

Word Count: 2.6K

A/N: I want to start off by apologizing but I felt so inspired after the new romance scenes in Patch 6. I also want to say that I will be writing a good ole, fluff fic with Astarion just to make up for this.

Navigation || Masterlist

You paced down the corridor of the palace you now shared with Astarion. It had been 6 months since that fateful night. The killing of Cazador had been eventful so to say and shortly after you had accepted his invitation to be his. Forever.

It wasn't the same. You started noticing it little by little. His attitude towards you had become increasingly aggressive. Feral even.

You couldn't shake off the feeling of unease that lingered in the air whenever Astarion was around. His once charming demeanor had turned into something darker. As you walked through the palace corridors, you couldn't help but feel a sense of foreboding creeping up your spine.

Reaching the library, you decided to throw yourself into your research. You were a scholarly warlock, after all. And work you did. For hours you studied magic texts, and the histories behind them.

As you sat in the dimly lit library, Astarion entered the room with a predatory glint in his eyes. His movements were slow and deliberate, like a predator stalking its prey. When you turned, you tried to shake off the feeling of fear that gripped your chest as he approached you.

"Darling, is this where you've been all day?" His voice was low and dangerous, sending a shiver down your spine. "I've missed you and your delicious body."

The room turned cold as his words sank in. Something had changed in him, something dark and possessive. 

You swallowed hard, trying to maintain your composure in the face of his unsettling presence. "I've been busy with my studies," you replied, keeping your tone neutral despite the growing sense of dread in your heart.

The dread whenever he was around had only appeared in the most recent weeks. You tried to focus on the book in front of you, but his proximity was suffocating.

Astarion's hand suddenly shot out and slammed the book shut, causing you to jump in your seat. His grip on the tome was tight, his knuckles turning white as he leaned in close enough for you to feel his cold breath on your skin.

"Studies can wait," he whispered, his voice sending a chill down your spine. "I have other ways for us to spend our time together."

You had to play along. It was the only way to appease him. The only way you could escape.

"How is that, my love?" You say as you rise from your seat, taking his outstretched hand gently.

In a swift motion he pulls you in close to his chest. As he held you tightly against him, his grip almost bruising, you couldn't help but feel a surge of fear mingled with a strange sense of thrill.

His lips brushed against your ear, sending a shiver down your spine as he whispered, "I want to show you a new side of pleasure, my dear. A side that only I can unlock for you." His words were laced with seduction.

As he guided you out of the library and down the dimly lit corridors of the palace, you couldn't shake off the feeling of being led into the unknown. 

You found yourself in a room you were very familiar with. The air was heavy with the scent of ancient magic, and as Astarion's eyes gleamed with an otherworldly light, you realized truly you were not in the presence of the man you one knew.

"Darling, did you bring me in here to ravish me?" You say as you begin to remove your silk dress.

Watching his eyes darken with hunger, his lips curled into a sinister smile. He circled around you like a predator assessing its prey, his fingertips trailing lightly along your skin, leaving a trail of fire in their wake.

He finally stops behind you and reaches around your neck to grip your jaw. His touch was both possessive and delicate, a stark contrast that sent a wave of conflicting emotions through you. As he tilted your head back to expose your vulnerable throat, you could feel the weight of his gaze burning into your skin.

Astarion's voice was a low murmur against your ear, promising whispered secrets and forbidden desires. "Oh, my sweet little morsel," he murmured, "I am going to make sure there is not a single place on your skinned that is untouched."

His mouth finds the pressure point in your neck and you moan as he gives it a gentle bite. You know he can feel you tremble beneath his hand. He trails his kisses lower until he is able to fully sink his teeth in.

You begin to gasp and writhe under his touch, the intensity of his grip and the sharp sting of his bite both arousing and terrifying. And then, as suddenly as it began, Astarion pulls away, leaving you breathless and exposed.

"Astarion!" You shout, hand covering the bite marks on your neck. "I told you to ask before doing that!"

"I do not need to ask permission! You are mine! I own you!" He grabs your arm pulling you towards him.

That did not stop the tears from beginning to drip down your cheeks. Everything he did not want to become, he was. After countless promises that he was the same rogue you had met that fateful day.

"Oh darling, do you see what you have made me do?" He whispers. "You know I don't like to shout at you." 

Astarion's features softened as he saw the tears on my face, though his eyes remained distant and cold. He slowly released my arm and stepped back.

You take a deep breath, trying to calm the tremors in your body. "You need to control yourself, Astarion. You are beginning to change into someone I don't know."

"Of course I am changing. I am the most powerful being in this world." He walks over to the chair by his desk. "Are you doubting me now?"

Shaking your head, you couldn't help but to submit to the question. "No, no. Of course not, love."

He motions with his finger for you to come to him and you obey. When you approach him, he motions for you to kneel before him. Once again you obey his command.

"Here is what we are going to do, pet." He begins "You are going to be a good girl, and do as I say. Understand?"

You nod. "Yes I understand."

"Such a good girl, aren't you?"

He stands and steps forward grabbing hold of your chin and bringing you in for a searing kiss. Once he was satisfied, he pushes against your cheek causing you to fall back roughly. You try to catch your breath as you sit there, staring up at him.

"Get undressed, and sit on the bed for me, darling."

You stand and finally fully undress. You sit on the edge of the bed, feeling the silk sheets beneath you. You didn't know how to react at this point.

He stepped closer until he was looming over you, his shadow engulfing you in its darkness. Then, he reached down and began to trace the outline of your body with his fingers, starting at your neck and moving down to your chest.

"Spread your legs for me," he commands, his voice low and seductive.

You hesitate for a moment, but then you find yourself doing as he says, unable to resist his authority. He takes a moment to enjoy the sight before him, his gaze lingering on each part of your body that he intends to claim.

Finally, he leans down and kisses your inner thigh, his lips barely brushing against your skin. You tremble as he slowly makes his way up, his tongue tracing a path along the delicate flesh. Each touch of his lips and tongue sends shockwaves of pleasure coursing through you.

As his lips reach your most intimate place, you arch your back, your breath coming in short gasps. You feel him tease you, his tongue flicking against you, driving you mad with desire.

Astarion smiles, a wicked smile, as he notices the effect he's having on you. He pulls back slightly, giving you a moment to catch your breath before he begins to devour you. His tongue plunges inside you, sending waves of pleasure through you that threaten to consume you.

You can't help but cry out in pleasure, your hands gripping the sheets beneath you as his tongue moves inside you. You are completely at his mercy, your body arching and writhing as he takes you to heights you never thought possible. Finally, he pulls back, his eyes gleaming with triumph. He leans down and kisses you, allowing you to taste yourself on his lips. 

"Now," he says, his voice low and commanding, "It's time for you to learn what it means to truly be mine."

You nod, still reeling from the intensity of the experience. With one swift motion, he grabs your hips as he flips you over. You lay there a moment, listening to the ties of his pants coming undone.

He lifts you up and positions you at the edge of the bed, spreading your legs wide to reveal your vulnerability. His powerful hands grip your hips, and he begins to enter you slowly, his movements deliberate, almost intimate. 

You gasp in pain, then pleasure, as the feeling of fullness envelops you, overwhelming your senses. He moves harder, faster, and you can't help but arch your back to meet his thrusts, moaning his name over and over.

He continues to dominate you, his voice a low rumble in your ear, promising you more pleasure than you ever thought possible. Your body responds, writhing beneath him, your hands clutching the sheets, your moans echoing through the dimly lit room.

"That's it, my love," he growls, his voice low and filled with lust. "Take it all."

His thrusts became more erratic, his breath ragged, and you felt his grip on your hips tighten. Astarion's eyes lock on yours, and you see the intensity of his desire reflected in them. With one final thrust, he groans your name, and you feel him spill inside you.

When you feel him slip out of you, you can't help but turn yourself around to face him. You were met with the unpleasant feeling of a sharp dagger being pressed against your chest.

"Astarion?"

"I know exactly what you are planning to do to me, Darling."

The dagger you had hidden in the pocket of your dress was the exact one that was being held against you.

"Please Astarion, it doesn't have to be like this!" You begin to cry. The man you once knew and loved had been left in that chamber.

"Oh, but it does have to be like this." He presses the dagger a little harder causing you to wince in pain. "You were the last person I expected to betray me." 

"Betray you?" You choke out, swallowing the lump in your throat. "I... I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, Darling." Astarion's voice is cold and murderous, and you can see it in his eyes. "We both know that's a lie."

He steps closer, the dagger still pressed against your chest. You can feel the cold metal prick you, causing you to jolt in pain.

"Tell me," he demands, his voice barely above a whisper. "What did you plan to do to me?"

"You are becoming exactly like Cazador, Astar-"

"Don't ever mutter his name in here again!" His voice seized with venom. "I am more than he ever was! Smarter, Powerful."

His grip tightened around the dagger, its edge digging deeper into your flesh, drawing a thin line of blood. Your heart raced with fear, but you couldn't help but retort, "And yet, you still lack control."

As he raises the dagger back to plunge it into your chest, you quickly maneuver and shove him into the bed without second thought. The knife falls from his hand and slides onto the floor near your feet.

You take a moment to catch your breath and gather your thoughts. This situation has escalated far beyond what you had anticipated, and now you need to act quickly to save yourself.

Staring into Astarion's eyes, his murderous intent shining back at you. With a surge of adrenaline, you push yourself off the bed and lunge for the dagger on the floor. You manage to grab it just as he jumps to his feet, ready to pounce.

With the dagger in hand, you cautiously back away from him, trying to keep your distance. "Listen to me, Astarion," you say, trying to keep your voice steady despite the trembling in your body. "You have hurt me beyond words can explain! I have had enough!"

"I have given you everything you have ever wanted!"

"And yet you have taken everything I needed!"

Astarion's eyes narrowed at your words, and he took a step towards you, menace radiating from him. You raised the dagger in front of you, preparing to defend yourself if necessary.

"You betrayed me, Darling. You lied to me, and now you want to take my life?"

You shook your head, tears streaming down your face. "I never wanted this! I just wanted.. I just wanted you to be the person you were before, but you've become someone else. Someone I don't recognize."

"I was always this person!" He shouts, you see his hands shaking with anger. "You could not change that even if you tried."

Astarion took a deep breath, his fists clenching and unclenching. You knew he was about to do something that would change the course of both of your lives.

"I'm tired of being your spawn, Astarion."

With that, Astarion lunged at you. The dagger that was held tightly in your hand was raised as you plunged it into his heart. His eyes widen in shock, his breath catching in his throat as the cold steel and wood pierce his chest.

Blood spills from his mouth before he speaks. "I thought you loved me."

"I did love you." You sob, "But I knew for a while that you truly didn't love me."

You watch as his body convulses for a moment before going limp. You step back, staring at the lifeless form before you. The room is silent, only the sound of your ragged breathing filling the space.

Taking a deep breath, the shock of the moment is still fresh in your mind. You never thought it would come to this.

You sink to your knees beside his body, the weight of what you've done heavy on your chest. The blood is still warm as you reach down to touch it, a single tear falling onto his skin.

"I'm so sorry, Astarion," you whisper. "But I had to do it. I had to save you from yourself."

Slowly, you rise to your feet, your legs shaking with the realization of what you've done. You take in the scene before you, the remnants of your love now tainted with blood and death.

Taking a deep breath, you wipe away the blood from your hands, leaving behind a red smudge on the wall. You grab armor from the wardrobe before finally leaving the palace. When you reached the door and opened it, the cool day air felt cool against your skin.

Looking back one final time, you realize just how trapped you had been. Now free, you felt the weight of sadness as you set out on your own once again. You would never let this happen again.

Taglist: @fruityrituals @guacam011y

join my taglist!

#astarion x reader #astarion x tav #astarion x you #astarion #bg3 astarion #baldurs gate astarion #bg3 #bg3 fic #bg3 fanfiction #astarion fanfic #baldurs gate 3 fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfiction writer #astarion smut

[wufflesvetinari]

having now gotten to lae’zel’s act 3 romance: holy shit she busts out the most gorgeous lines and I need her in a poetry-off with wyll

maybe it can be a wyllstarion/shadowzel double date. wyll realizes how fucking choice some of lae’s lines are and—in good fun—tells her they need to have a contest, NOT REALIZING that there’s an ancient form of poetry competition in githyanki culture (since they insist they are also better at the arts than everyone else, PLUS the killing). he has accidentally thrown down an ancient gauntlet. now, for his honor, he has to embarrass astarion very much

the rest of camp serve as judges and they do a…poor job of giving this sweet-talking contest beautiful ancient cultural ritual the solemnity it deserves. they’re heckling constantly. gale is critiquing meter. karlach is wolf whistling at every line. shadowheart and astarion do not want to be here

astarion at first puts on a show of enjoying wyll flattering him loudly for an hour in front of literally all of his friends but he. can’t. the lines are all Peak Wyll, he has been compared to twenty-five celestial bodies, its too much even for him. shadowheart is standing in a corner with her hands over her face. they have never been so in synch

for a tiebreaker karlach says now they have to switch and say sweet nothings to each other’s partner, which is. actually not a problem for wyll and his gonzo charisma score (astarion is SO excited to hear him rizz up shadowheart) but it absolutely IS a problem for lae’zel, who is actually fundamentally just speaking from her feral passionate heart whenever she says sweet things to shadowheart and can’t do it on purpose. this is not a game to her, dammit, the point was to demonstrate that her bond with shadowheart is indomitable!!!

lae’zel is like. awkwardly trying to romantically compliment astarion on. anything at all. she says his teeth are “pointy as a row of dependable nails” then suddenly remembers she hates poetry and storms off in an embarrassed rage. wyll realizes the gallant thing to do would be to throw the competition. he does not do this. astarion immediately gets over his embarrassment to gloat about “them” winning

shadowheart meanwhile is just like “oh thank gods” and grabs a cheese wheel and a bottle of wine to have a quiet picnic with lae’zel somewhere like the gods intended. she WILL tease her for losing but only after lae’zel has said fifteen new extremely fucking romantic things to her in private and she’s done losing her mind about it

#bg3 #wyllstarion #shadowzel #shadowheart and astarion both secretly pretty pleased but also like. it is SO embarrassing

[lovlive]

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ ‘concert going’ - l.hc

SYNOPSIS - you and your boyfriend haechan finally get tickets to a concert and see the artist you love

PAIRING - lee haechan x reader

GENRE - fluff, established relationship

WARNINGS - i guess you could say that the reader is short (😭), reader is called ‘baby’, lmk if i missed something.

notes: i am so down bad for hyuck rn. like why is he so fine?! anyways, i used a random prompt generator to write this since my brain is dead from school and i got “get on my shoulders, you’ll see better.” hope you guys like it :3

both you and haechan have been obsessed with a new musical artist you’ve recently discovered. you’d both often find yourselves sharing headphones on the bus like in those romance anime movies listening to that one artist, or having their songs quietly play in the background while you complete your homework or some type of work you have due. so when haechan surprised you with tickets to one of their concerts, you nearly jumped out of your shoes with excitement (like literally, you were jumping up and down for the following 5 minutes and hugging (squeezing) the hell out of your poor boyfriend)

the day of the concert eventually comes and you wake up with a huge dumb smile on your face. you stayed up quite late last night trying to clear out as much unwanted things on your phone to make storage for the new photos and videos yoy were going to take, but nonetheless you felt as if you had slept atleast 12 hours with how energised you felt. you jumped up out of bed, giggling to yourself as you reached for your pre-planned concert outfit. you manage to change into it as you hear your boyfriend groan groggily, complaining that its too early for you to be getting up yet. you ignore his mumbling and drag him out of bed as you both head to the kitchen and have a breakfast. you let haechan get ready, and before you know it both of you are out of the house and driving to your destination.

you get to the venue, the smile from the morning still plastered on your face. it feels as if its stuck on your face, like you’d have to physically wipe it off with a tissue for it to be gone. you stand in line together, hands intertwined as you babble on about how excited you are to haechan. he teases you about your enthusiasm and how cute you are, squeezing your hand every now and again. eventually you get past all the security and other obstacles, reaching the hall. you get lost a couple of times trying to reach your seats because you cant read signs to save your life, leading to haechan snatching the phone out of your hand and leading you to your correct assigned area. the venue becomes more full by the second and your heart begins to thump in your chest as you wait for the artist to appear.

eventually the artist appears and you start screaming like a feral dog, haechan laughing at you hard. as the booming bass and electrifying guitar riffs filled the air, you found yourselves caught in the midst of the pulsating crowd at the concert. standing far from the stage, you struggled to catch a glimpse of the stage over the sea of heads. "man, I can barely see anything," you exclaimed, craning your neck to catch a glimpse of the performers.

haechan grinned mischievously. "i’ve got an idea. get on my shoulders, you'll see better!" you hesitated for a moment, unsure about the idea. but the infectious energy of the crowd and the excitement of the music convinced you to give it a try. with a laugh, you climbed onto haechan’s broad shoulders, feeling a rush of adrenaline as you rose above the crowd.

suddenly, everything changed. from your new vantage point, you could see the stage perfectly. the vibrant lights danced across the performers' faces, and you could feel the music reverberating through your bones.

as you swayed to the rhythm of the music, you both became lost in the moment. for a brief, exhilarating moment, it was just the two of you and the music. as the concert reached its climax, you couldn't wipe the smile from your face. you felt alive, invigorated by the experience of being lifted above the crowd and immersed in the magic of the music. when the final notes faded away and the crowd began to disperse, you climbed down from haechan’s shoulders, feeling a sense of gratitude for your boyfriend's spontaneous idea. "thanks for the lift," you said, grinning at haechan. "anytime, baby, your as light as a feather to me." he replied, his own smile matching yours as you giggled at his response.

⊹˚₊‧───────────‧₊˚⊹

you finally get home, both of you still giggling and yapping to eachother about your favourite moments of the concert. haechan decides to go take a shower as you decide to get in your pajamas and get cozy. you hold a bag of concert merch, excited to display it in your room and start wearing it on a daily basis. but before you do any of that, you want to express your gratitude to your boyfriend, of course. without him you wouldnt of even went to the concert since he was the one who bought the tickets for you both. you notice haechan walking out of the bathroom, hair dripping onto the fresh t-shirt that he’s wearing. you cant help to think about how handsome he is. he stands over the kitchen counter, supposedly turning the kettle on to make a tea as you creep up behind him. you stand on your tippy toes as you wrap your arms around his shoulders from the back, head turning to the side kiss his cheek. you take notice the immediate smile that appears on his face as he notices your actions. “whats up with you?” he teases as he spins around, now facing you and wrapping his arms back around your waist. “just wanted to say thank you for today.” you say, noticing his face leaning utterly close to yours. he chuckles at your response, feeling his hand tighten around you. “of course. you know id do anything to make you happy.” he smiled, closing the gap between you both and pressing a soft kiss onto your lips. you gently run one of your hands through his damp hair, enjoying the feeling of his warm lips against yours. the kiss breaks eventually, and you hear him mumble something out. “i love you.” the smile that has been on your face since this morning somehow grows even bigger as you respond. “i love you too.”

#kpop #drabble #kpop imagines #new kpop blog #one shot #x reader #fanfic #oneshot #lee haechan #haechan #haechan x reader #haechan x you #haechan x y/n #hyuck #lee dong hyuck #yn #imagine #nct imagines #nct 127 #nct 127 imagines #nct dream #nct dream imagines #haechan imagines

[blog-name-idk]

The Plot Twist | 02

Written by @blog-name-idk and @eserethriddle

Summary: Once upon a time you would have jumped at the chance to live the idol girlfriend life. The cameras, the action, the whirlwind romance. But what was once a dream has now become your worst nightmare, and you fully intend to fight the universe as it repeatedly conspires to set you up with your seven perfectly good soulmates from Bangtan Sonyeondan.

In which we punt Y/N into all the fanfiction tropes and you do your feral best to subvert the love story.

Because nani the fuck, you are The Plot Twist.

Pairing: OT7 X Fem!Reader

Genre: Soulmate!AU, crack, humor, idol!AU, light angst, slow burn, romantic comedy, just a fun silly old time

Rating: 18+

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

Chapter 2: "Ahjussi, go back to MapleStory."

Life is truly unremarkable as a soulmate-less bachelorette.

Thankfully, none of the symptoms Junior Liaison Officer Choi Mijin mentioned to you have occurred – no bodily anomalies, no universal conspirations – and, on the way home from your parents’ place, you chide your anxious self for letting a thirty-minute phone call upturn the joyous revelries of turning twenty-five.

Though of course, even someone like you can see the grandeur behind it. The potential.

Soulmate. Not half of one’s heart, not ‘mi media naranja,’ but soulmate. Someone utmost, born from the same fabric of life – possibly indelicate, and not without flaws – but beautiful, blameless, and immaterially yours.

It’s great. Really great. But it’s daunting, too. There’s unprecedented pressure in that kind of ordeal, and… you like unremarkable. It’s safe. If you were ever going to be remarkable, it would be in ways you can directly control – like getting to the last floor of skull caverns or politely tearing incompetent coworkers to shreds when they challenge you.

But real life? Real personal relationships, with people that matter? That becomes a polynomial. There are too many variables outside of your ability to dictate, too much that could go wrong for you to spend too long mourning the absence of any soulmate symptoms. And anyway, your singularity isn’t your sob story – it’s your defense. Your most effective one.

You get back to your apartment at half past nine the following morning, heavy tupperwares of side dishes prepared by your mother hoisted in tow. At ease, you whistle a cheery tune as you get settled around your kitchenette, arranging each fully packed box amongst refrigerator shelves with care. You help yourself to an enticing pinch of putbaechu and decide to place its tupperware farther down the back.

Yes, that batch probably needed more time to ferment. After all, it’s impossible for napa cabbage kimchi to taste as sweet as cake.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

In his black-and-white checkered pajamas, Jeon Jungkook happily devours the two-tier caramel-frosted cake for breakfast. Furthermore, because he is a considerate maknae, he leaves the vegan, calorie-measured miniature cake for the rest of his hyungs to share when they wake.

They really don't appreciate him enough.

An early riser, also still in pajamas, Kim Seokjin spots him and tuts. “Jungkook, that isn’t healthy.” When Jungkook suddenly spits out the forkful he’d just shoved into his mouth, the eldest grimaces and admonishes, “Yah! I taught you better than that! That is disgusting behavior.”

“You know what’s disgusting?” Jungkook retorts with a revolted scowl, pushing the offensive dessert box far away from his person, lest it insult him yet again. “Surprise vegan cake. I’m going to sleep, hyung. Good night.”

“You mean ‘good morning.’” Seokjin corrects, reaching for the coffee pot with a sigh. “Brat.”

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

During your afternoon gaming hours, your phone screen lights up with a notification. Your extended arm worms through sofa pillows to swipe and unlock it, and you instantly growl at the e-mail that greets you.

From: [email protected] Recipients: [email protected], [email protected] Subject: Executive Meeting on Tuesday

Dear Associates,

We hope this e-mail finds you well.

In preparation for the upcoming work week, we would like to advise your stations re: the exploratory meeting with CEO Son Hyunsuk scheduled for this Thursday at 15:00 (KST) on external company collaborations.

We appreciate your confirmation upon receipt of this notice and bid you a happy weekend.

Regards, Samsong Executive Scheduling

“Jesus Kim Christ, it is a Sunday. This should be illegal,” you swear, placing down the handheld gaming console on the couch next to you and getting up to refill your glass of water instead. Unfortunately, on your return from your hydration quest, you bang your ankle on the leg of the coffee table.

"MotherFUCKER!" you curse, collapsing onto your sofa and cradling your leg for a full minute. After recovering, you pick your console back up.

Idly hovering on the gaming screen, Tom Nook stares up at you with a deadpan glare. You’d think his heavy-lidded, judgmental look was a reaction to your use of offensive language, but you roll your eyes at the prospect.

Tom Nook, the island racoon? A landlord. He can judge all he wants. He’s as evil as company capitalists come.

With somehow even less of a conscience.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

“Ah one, ah two, ah five, six, seven, eight!”

Jung Hoseok snaps his fingers as he moves to the beat, flawlessly demonstrating the first few steps of the dance routine. Kim Taehyung watches him, crouched in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirrors like a religious student, except he’s also thinking, That is not how arithmetics works. This is why we are performers and not math teachers.

Hoseok seems to catch the faraway look in Taehyung’s expression, because his limbs freeze, dropping to a sudden stop, brown gaze slanting sharp and deadly. The other boys, sensing blood in the water, subtly shift away and try to look as focused as possible.

“What? Would you rather practice cartwheels with Jimin again?” Hoseok rumbles, hand on hip.

Yes…Taehyung laughs nervously. “No.”

Jimin shoots him a knowing look.

“You know,” Hoseok says, pointedly, brandishing his left leg, “I woke up with more bruises from you again. I couldn’t pair my tie-dye top with my denim shorts so now I’m stuck here practicing in my joggers with you instead of walking around Yongsan.”

You’re welcome, Yongsan, Taehyung thinks. Personally, he believes Hoseok’s fashion sense is something of a moving target.

Hit or miss. Miss a lot.

Oh well. Time to bring out the puppy eyes. “Hobi-hyung, can we start from the chorus instead?” He pouts, for cuteness excess.

“Fine!” the dance leader snaps, trying to mask the way the irritation ebbs out of his voice.

Taehyung suppresses a satisfied grin.

Yup. Works every time.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

By the middle of the work week, Min Yoongi has barely scraped by to meet a hard production deadline. Gears still turning in his mind, day lapses into night, unnoticed in the dark haven of his studio. He leisurely strums his guitar for an hour, puts it down, and reaches to compose an accompanying melody with the use of the nearest piano.

Eventually, Yoongi turns off all his music equipment. In his mind, there’s an echo of a tune he can’t shake away. He can barely hear it himself – soft, feminine, slumberous – and he lays back with his eyes closed to savor the ghost of it instead.

He wants to commit it to memory. It’s something he’s never heard before.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

Miles away, you feel pleasantly adrift. It's been months since you moved in, and you hadn’t been aware that your neighbors played music. In fact, the walls between apartment units are assuredly thick enough for all kinds of noises to filter through – a blessing when you get sniped by yet another rune bear.

You're also not really one to enjoy ambient noise outside of your control, but to your surprise, you don't mind this music at all.

It’s nice.

You tuck your knees to your chest and rest your body against the headboard of your bed, closing your eyes to listen. But it seems that the mysterious musician has gone to sleep for the night. Instead, the old made-up lullaby your mother used to sing to you when you were a child filters into your brain unbidden, and you smile at the memory. Within minutes, lightly humming to yourself, you let the notes overtake your thoughts and fall sound asleep.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

Tonight, your dream plays like an old movie. Most of your dreams are like this, but here you feel like you exist in snippets – that you’re a passenger in someone else's skin. Like you’re standing at a different height, taller than reality. The colors seem to cling to the edges of your vision like haloed light through fogged glass when you move, leaving you half-sentient, fighting to see through the haze of your subconscious mind. Like you’re not you.

You wonder where you are. Who.

I want to do more, you hear yourself think in your dream. I want to be more.

You see your feet take you away from backrooms with white walls. Your heart’s near bursting and telling you how much of this it missed, telling you you're finally back where you belong.

This: before your very eyes, an ocean of twinkling violet.

There’s an overwhelming rush of love in your chest as a chant fills the air, expanding throughout your body until it's spilling from your eyes. You can feel the skin of your lips stretch into a smile.

Everything feels like a dream come true.

“I’m your hope!” you tell the roaring crowd.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

Jung Hoseok bolts upright at exactly 6:15 AM.

Letting out a groan, he drops his face into his hands and croaks out, “What the fuck.”

“You okay, hyung?” Jungkook asks, getting ready to turn in for bed himself. It’s his fourth nocturnal day in a row.

Hoseok usually admonishes Jungkook for this kind of misbehavior, but right now he can’t muster enough indignation. It’s just–

“I had a dream. I was a MapleStory livestreamer and – I was really into it. But really? In this economy?” Hoseok continues to complain in his rough morning voice, “I don’t even game.”

Jungkook sniggers, hogging the blankets to himself. “That’s true. Maybe you traded dreams with Jin-hyung?”

Hoseok rubs the spot between his brows. Frowns. It's possible, Jin does love MapleStory. Though lately he's been on a weird arcade game kick despite Namjoon scolding him for being careless in public.

Appeased, he finds the spark to be a proper hyung to their precious maknae. “Don’t sleep at this time tomorrow, JK. If I catch you again, you’re dead at practice. Capisce?”

Jungkook nods a hundred times and buries himself under the sheets. Hobi might lack the broadness and mustache of the stereotypical Italian mobster, but he manages to exude a menacing aura all the same.

“Capeesh, hyung.”

Because he is not a MapleStory livestreamer, Jung Hoseok climbs out of bed at 6:30 in the morning. Because he has a bunch of back-breaking schedules to get to. It’s another Thursday.

No matter what, he’s going to survive. In this economy.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

Thursday meetings are like Monday meetings but from the nine circles of hell combined.

You shuffle into the arcade with a slump in your shoulders but a fire in your heart. The last time you had a day this bad at work was the last time you had come here, to let out your inner rage on tiny dots and cute little ghosts.

You hadn't even realized it was an arcade at first – you had just found your feet moving automatically towards the storefront, as if inexplicably drawn. And as soon as you set foot inside, even before the odd smell of metal tokens that lingers even in arcades with balance cards, an immediate sense of peace washed over you. That this place was safe. That you could enter and put your everyday life and problems on pause for a short, sweet amount of time.

That feeling has remained with each visit, only growing stronger with your increasing familiarity with both the arcade and the elderly owner Lee-ssi, a friendly man who reminds you of your own grandfather.

You're sure that the worn down sight of you in your white blouse and black pencil skirt amidst the backdrop of the rowdy neon arcade is strange, but you figure if your colleagues can release their frustrations by throwing down in public establishments, so can you. In your own way.

The first and last time you went out with your coworkers, the guy from marketing tried to get you to come home with him. So you made up a liver disease to avoid being expected to drink with them again, and are now letting out your frustrations in a much healthier way: against some cocky kid who calls themselves "the Pacman God."

They are pretty good, you will admit.

Just not as good as you.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

There are a few things that never fail to brighten Lee Seungwon's day. Getting to see the half-toothed smile on his baby grandson's face, making his son-in-law uncomfortable when his daughter isn't around, and –

"WHO. DID. THIS?!" Kim Seokjin demands, furiously pointing at the arcade machine standing innocently in the corner, taunting him.

Resisting the urge to laugh, Seungwon only sighs and crosses his arms, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else. Which is truly a front, because despite all the annoyances that come with running an arcade, he truly loves his job. He loves providing a space where kids can be kids, and the rare adult can relive the worry-free days of their youth.

"We respect the privacy of our clients, sir," he says politely, lips twitching at Seokjin's dramatic shriek of outrage. Seungwon has especially been looking forward to this particular adult's reaction upon finding his high score beaten by one of the newer regulars.

"Don't you remember who I am?!" the handsome man questions, and the storekeeper looks him up and down, once again unimpressed. Seokjin remembers he's ensconced in a bright pink hoodie and pink sweatpants, then gives a mental shrug.

Whatever. He looks good in everything.

"Yes. ‘Jin the Pacman God.’ Currently… number two in that game," the shopkeeper sneers as he insults the most handsome man in Korea – possibly the world. "Second to GoDsLaYeR_69." he adds, for good measure.

Seokjin gapes at the audacity of this mortal, his gamer rage only further activated by the offensive words that come out of Seungwon’s mouth next.

"Maybe you should go back," the shopkeeper suggests, inspecting his cuticles, "to MapleStory." After a pause, he puts the final nail in the coffin currently housing Seokjin's pride: "Ahjussi."

The Kim Seokjin, being called ahjussi by a man who looks older than Yoongi's soul?

That's it. That's fucking it.

With gurgling, unintelligible squawks of indignation, Seokjin pulls out his wallet and slaps his arcade card on the counter, followed by his black credit card.

"Load this up with 2,000,000W. Right now."

Lee Seungwon hides a smirk as he obeys.

It's just too easy.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

It had been a rare occasion in which all of the boys’ evenings (and following mornings) had been free simultaneously, and Hoseok decided to celebrate this in a way so rarely possible for them to do together anymore: to find a noraebang and get absolutely wasted.

"How did I let you guys persuade me into doing this again?" Namjoon asks, blinking in a mixture of joy and consternation at the freshly inked, slightly inflamed 7 on his skin. He flexes the side of his leg and watches the clear bandage wrinkle and smooth at the motion.

"Friendship!" Taehyung announces happily, eyes alight as he sways ever so slightly in his chair. Jungkook and Jimin are fully knocked out on each of Taehyung’s shoulders, their demonic sides hidden by the angelic expressions on their sleeping faces.

"No," Yoongi corrects, revealing a bottle of Suntory whisky from god-knows-where. "This."

"Ah, yes!” Eyes bright with satisfaction, Namjoon’s dimples deepen, and Seokjin laughs at how childish Namjoon looks in his glee as he receives his prize and cradles it to his chest with utmost and deliberate regard. With his vision blurred from all of the alcohol, it almost looks like it's disappearing into the leader's ample bosom. “Sunny, my frieeeend!"

Yoongi nods at him, ten times too much, then glances at Taehyung as he narrowly avoids falling off his chair for the umpteenth time. “The infants are fading,” he mutters, “Let’s get them home.”

Twenty minutes later, Hoseok emerges behind a curtain with a brand new tattoo, ready to show it off and receive compliments for being brave and only screaming once.

Except he’s all alone in the waiting room.

He waits a single beat before looking around in confusion.

“Guys?”

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

You stumble through your doorway, confused by your body's decision to stop functioning properly. It had begun at the arcade, your normal precision and flawless execution apparently deciding to take its own mental health day and leaving you with slowing reflexes and sloppy reactions.

Finally, you decided to leave after realizing you'd been growling at the machine for the better part of an hour.

Well actually, Lee-ssi had kindly given you a bottle of water and suggested you take a break because you were scaring the kids. You decided to go home lest your happy place become tainted by the miasma of your god-slaying alter ego.

On the train, you nodded off and almost missed your stop – something that never happens. You tripped on your way off the train, and you had initially blamed it on being drowsy, but the trek from the station to your apartment did nothing to dispel your clumsiness.

If you didn't know any better, you would have thought you had gone drinking with your coworkers and were now stumbling home in a drunken haze. But you've been at the arcade since you left work, so that's impossible.

Maybe you're getting sick. That would explain the fogginess in your head, the sluggishness of your limbs.

Feeling under the weather, you spend the night in the dark of your bedroom. But then intense, prickling feelings bug you all over. Instead of the rest you hoped for, the hours are filled with tossing and turning, needle-points on your skin that fall just shy of being painful.

When you wake up, you find your skin tattooed seven different times with the number seven in seven different places.

Um.

What the fuck?

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

Masterlist | Next

#bts fanfiction #bts fanfic #bts ot7 x reader #ot7 x reader #bts soulmate au #soulmate au #eserethriddle #reveri #fruit party 🥭🍒

[flowersandbigteeth]

Your drider boyfriend takes you on a walk

I promise imma get back to romance, I just had this in my head tho

Drider X GN reader

General Plot: Your drider boyfriend takes you on a walk

W: restraints

Word Count: 500

Fluff Masterpost

Tip Jar

You kicked your legs trying to get the blood runnning back through them. The creature had had you hanging there for hours in the inky blackness. The silk cocoon he had you in was soft enough, but after hours and hours you couldn’t help but be stiff. 

You heard the scrabbling noise you’d come to recognize as the driders approach and held your breath. His eerie red eyes appeared in the darkness. 

“Shall we go on a little walk, pet?” his raspy voice cooed. 

You nodded against the gag he kept in your mouth. Apparently his ears were sensitive and he didn’t like the horrified noises you made when he startled you. 

A sharp claw sliced through the silk winding around you and he caught you as you started to fall to the ground. Your stomach dropped with the gravity and you had to swallow to keep your lunch down. His fingers danced over your throat as he fashioned a silk collar for you and a leash. You couldn’t help tug at it with your fingers, but he swatted them away. His silk was much too strong for you to break with your soft nails anyway. 

“Be good,” he said, dragging his claws through your hair. 

He gathered you up in his arms and descended the frightening height to the ground. Around you other driders went about their evenings. Your drider put you on your feet. 

“Go on,” he nudged you forward. 

You looked up in awe at the massive driders moving around you. You hadn’t been able to tell from your previous spot, but you were at the center of an entire colony of them. There were obviously nests made of silk meant for business and infrastructure to facilitate commerce. You cowered behind your drider as another smiled down at you with large teeth. 

“Cute pet,” it said, waving its clawed fingers at you, “aren’t you a good little human? Can I pet it?”

Your drider scooped you up in its arms and stroked your head. 

“They’re not used to being pet,” he said, holding you close, “I’ve only just rescued them.”  

The drider leaned on its back legs, smirking and winking at you. 

“Ooh it’s so good of you to adopt a feral one instead of breeding, what’s its name?” it asked. 

The drider looked at you thoughtfully. 

“You know, I haven’t named it, yet,” he realized.  

The other drider looked at you with an appraising eye. 

“What about puddles?” it asked and your drider shook his head. 

“Tic tac?” he offered, then, “Winky? Porkchop? Dumpling?”

What kinds of names were these?

The drider grinned. 

“I like dumpling!” he said, beaming down at you. 

You shook your head vigorously. You already had a name! 

He grabbed your cheeks between his thumb and forefinger and pinched your face.

“Cute little dumpling!” he cooed, before setting you on your feet. 

You yelled into your gag, but it was no use, all that came out was “mghhh! Nfghhj!” 

“Ugh, it’s noisy!” the other drider commented, stepping away. 

“Sorry, we’re working on that,” your drider grumbled, hustling you past him, but he looked a little relieved.

“You’re such a good human, dumpling,” your drider scratched your head as you strolled down the street, “you can vocalize at the riff raff all you want.”

#monster lover #monster x girl #monster oc #monster boyfriend #monster romance #human x monster #monster x human #monster x you #yandere fluff #yandere headcanons #male yandere

[sotwk]

Transformed (Gelir Thranduilion x femReader )

Fanfic Request from the @fellowshipofthefics's AU-gust Mashup Event

Prompt: Gelir, son of Thranduil (SotWK OC) + Mythical creatures + “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Summary: A Mirkwood huntress is attacked by a mythical beast and begins a slow and gradual transformation into a monster herself. Prince Gelir helps her through the frightening ordeal by overseeing her care.

Requested by and Dedicated to: @laneynoir I am so thrilled (and relieved) that I was finally able to complete one of your requests! Thank you for being so patient with me, and for giving me a chance to finally write an insert starring one of my OC Thranduilions. (How self-indulgent and exciting!) Love you, darling!

Word count: 2.4k

Content: AU, werewolf lore, romance, angst, mild gore, hidden feelings, oblivious to love

Rating: T (Teens and up)

Warnings: Mild sensuality, mention of blood and mild horror/violence

To Read on AO3: Link

Transformed

Third Age 1554

Mirkwood

Legends had people believing that werewolves could shift from human to lupine form within a matter of minutes at the strike of the full moon. But legends, merely stories passed down across generations by word of mouth, often got certain details wrong. 

As was the case with you. 

The long iron chains that connected the shackles around your wrists to the wall clinked softly as you raised your loosely bound hands to your face. You brushed your fingers over the coarse hair that covered your neck, its growth making the slow, tedious crawl upward to your jawline, where a soft fuzz had developed overnight. By tomorrow, you would likely wake with your cheeks entirely covered in fur…perhaps among other worse changes. 

Heightened senses had manifested first, long before the physical changes began to show, and so the distinctly heady scents of warm rain and spring grass identified your visitor before he ever stepped through the door. But there was also the fact that hardly anyone else had dared to step foot into the same room as you, ever since your condition was identified. Despite folklore attesting that the mysterious affliction could only be transmitted by a creature’s bite, all the other elves were behaving as though merely breathing in the same air would get them infected. 

You were grateful that Gelir had never behaved very much like all the others. Still, the carefree boldness you had always admired in him now worried you.

“You really must stop coming here,” you mumbled, just barely raising your gaze towards him. He was a Prince of Eryn Galen, yes, and the leader of your company besides. But you had known each other for far too long to put on pretenses with each other. "I could lose control of myself any moment now and hurt you."

"You could try to hurt me," he countered with a smirk. "You would not succeed." He folded his arms over his chest and ran his gaze all over you, his unfailingly keen eyes assessing the physical changes that had occurred since his last visit merely a few hours ago. 

You turned away in a futile attempt to escape his stare. Gelir meant well, and was the only one whose concern for you overrode any instinct for self-preservation, the latter of which he never possessed much of, anyway. But even in your weary sadness and pit of despair you were embarrassed about being seen like this, especially by him. Your childhood friend who had always sauntered around oblivious to how annoyingly, stupidly, breathtakingly handsome he was. 

"I am serious," you said sharply, vaguely conscious of the feral rush of anger in your gut, rising into what sounded like a rumbling snarl in your throat. "I will not be responsible for inflicting this curse on the King's son."

"If hurting me is your main concern when you are the one suffering through all this…" Gelir shook his head, his face suddenly and uncharacteristically somber. "Then you are still very much like yourself and I have nothing to worry about."

You sighed and slumped back down on the edge of the bed. King Thranduil had decided you would be kept comfortable in a palace room instead of the safer and more practical choice of a dungeon cell. The cells are for prisoners, he said sternly, and would abide no more of your protests. 

A month into the ordeal and they were still tending to you like a guest, changing your bed linens like clockwork, bringing you water and fresh towels to clean yourself with, dropping off three meals a day along with stacks of books and paper and quills to help you pass the time. 

“You have not eaten all day.” Gelir gestured at the untouched dinner tray on the low table. "Nor did you yesterday. Or the day before that."

“I feel no hunger.”

“You must eat,” he said firmly. “Whatever appeals to you, tell me and I will send for it."

"What point is there? Perhaps starving myself is the best and cleanest way to end this mess."

"The point is I will not have you losing hope while the rest of us hold fast. The healers have not ceased tearing into the creature's corpse for answers. Must I remind you that both Arvellas and my mother are leading the efforts to find a cure?"

Tears sprang to the corners of your eyes. Knowing the royal family was devoting their time to helping you really was what kept you going through the moments of despair and self-pity. But it was hard not to question what made you worthy of such attention, even though the King and Queen were well-known for regarding every subject in their kingdom as family. 

The subtle shift of the firm mattress under his weight drew your thoughts to the fact that he had sat down next to you. On impulse, you shrank away to take back the distance that safely separated you from the elf-prince.

Gelir frowned, and you immediately held up both your hands to remind him of how they had gruesomely mutated over the past week. When you first noticed your fingers begin to stiffen at the joints and curl inward to your palms, until it pained you to fully stretch them, that was the first time you broke down sobbing over your condition. The ugly hair that sprouted at unsightly places all over your body to suffocate your skin had bothered you much less. But your hands-- lithe and strong and skilled with bow and knife and craft--those were your treasures. Now they were malformed and good for nothing except perhaps wanton slaughter, the only possible use for the razor-sharp claws that still continued to grow out of each fingertip. 

"I dare not have you within reach of these, your Highness,” you whispered, steeling your face against the threat of another breakdown. “Please."

Unsurprisingly, Gelir defied your plea. He reached out, and before you could resist--yet did you even attempt to?--one of his strong hands closed around your wrist, and he guided the deformed monstrosity to rest against his open palm. You flinched as the points of the claws touched the prince’s skin. 

"I am no delicate flower," Gelir said loudly. He pushed one of the sharp tips into the flesh of his palm, where it found resistance as hard as stone: a warrior’s hand inherited from his great forebears and strengthened by centuries of  training and battle. "And I can protect myself, even from you, no matter what form you take."

The mere thought of attacking him sickened you, and brought your mind back to that dark cave where you had recklessly given chase to an already dying orc. You had been so focused on revenge, on seeking payment for what the filth had done to your comrade, that you did not detect the more dangerous beast lurking in the deep tunnel until it leapt out at you.

Your struggle with the creature lasted a mere few seconds before an arrowhead burst through its eye, forcing its jaws to release your bloodied forearm. Gelir’s enraged scream echoed dreadfully through the cave as he threw the monster off you and ended it with a single swing of his longknife, nearly cleaving its midsection in half. 

Those images sent a shiver down your entire body. You pulled your hands away to wrap your arms around yourself, and stood up to pace alongside the bed. After a moment of Gelir just sitting there quietly watching you wrestle your anxiety, you stopped to face him and blurt out: 

"And when I become too much of a threat, how will you deal with it then? Will you kill me too?"

“Do you feel an urge to attack me?” Gelir rose slowly, keen green eyes searching your face. “Right now, at this moment? Are you overcome by a desire to rip my throat out?”

You stared at him, so handsome and flawless and immaculate a figure, the dream of many an elf in the kingdom. Such beauty and light was so loathed by the Darkness, that any evil festering within you would surely rise to try and destroy him.

But as you stood within arm’s reach of your friend, close enough to inflict serious damage if violent impulses demand it, all you could feel was the same thing you had felt for him since the day he first made you laugh. When you thought you would never laugh again after the raiding orcs claimed your family’s lives. 

“No,” you finally mumbled. “Not at this moment.”  

“Until then, I forbid you from even imagining me harming a hair on your body.” He caught your gaze and smiled. “Even though you certainly have more of it now than you did before.”

Laughter rang clear from your mouth, and went on so heartily and for so long that it blurred your vision and emptied your lungs. By the time you regained your composure, you noticed that Gelir had remained oddly silent the whole time, and returned to staring at you.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because I need to.” He exhaled softly, as an archer might to reduce tension in their body before loosing an arrow. “To remind me of why I must speak up now, and delay no longer.” 

The softness with which Gelir spoke your name was so abruptly different from the more common noises of his boisterous shouting and laughter. As noticeably different as a midday summer blaze was from a dawn’s early rays. 

Suddenly you realized how badly your heart was racing, and how loud it must sound to his ears. 

"This ordeal has changed nothing in the way I view you. This… this accident…” The bitterness  of self-hate, a self-blame that you have repeatedly failed to talk him out of, cut through his words. “This threat to you, has only forced me to stare down a truth that I have ignored for too long. Before I do this, I wish to make that clear.”

Your speeding heart came to a sudden halt, as did the world around you. "Before you do what?"

The moment his hands cupped the sides of your face, his fingers threading into your hair, you were trapped. All hesitation, all fears and worries, extinguished like a wavering candle against a sudden gale as his mouth descended on yours. Valar, his lips were so soft. They moved tenderly against yours, confident in their conquest yet pleading for requital. 

And answer it you did. The wild joy and thrill and desire that had long been locked up in a cage of denial within you now broke free, and you kissed your Captain and Prince. You felt the slight tremble of his jaw and heard the faintest of moans from his throat as you deepened the kiss, tasting sweet mead from the sweep of his tongue. 

More. More. You craved more, and a fierce hunger for him exploded from your chest past your torn defenses. 

And suddenly you tasted blood.

With a wail of shock and despair, you withdrew and lurched away from Gelir, watching in horror as he touched the bleeding cut at the center of his lower lip, where you had bitten him.

“Eru what have I done?! I am so sorry, Gelir, I--”

“Stop. It’s all right…” He tried to say, but his calmness in the situation aggravated you. How could it be all right? How could you be so careless with the one you loved?! You tried to withdraw to a corner of the room, to get as far away from him as you could, but the limits of your iron shackles prevented it. 

“I swore I would not let this evil touch you and now I--” You could barely find your words, you were breathing so hard, so infuriated with yourself. 

“And I swore that I would never let anything happen to you,” Gelir cut in heatedly. “Even though it was a vow I made only to myself, I swore. Yet I failed, and this is how I choose to right that wrong.”

He called out to you repeatedly, your name like a hymn on his lips with the warm timbre of his singer’s voice, and it soothed you enough that you allowed him to come near, to take your hands in his again. "When I assured you that you would not face this alone, I meant it." 

"B-but the King… the Queen…" It broke you to think that you had failed them as well, after everything they had done for you your entire life. 

"...knew exactly what they were risking by permitting me to come here." He brushed the heel of his palm over your cheek, his thumb catching a stricken tear before it could fall. “They have known far longer than I have, longer than either of us, that my heart has been yours for years. Meleth nin…”

He placed your grotesque, beastly hand on his chest, and you marveled at the strong, steady beat of his heart underneath your misshapen fingers, which did not hurt nearly as much anymore.

“Whatever this disease or curse may be, it shall take neither of us, or both of us. But it will not take you from me.” 

On the other side of the chamber doors, out in the hall, Elvenqueen Maereth gave her lord husband’s arm a squeeze. “Let us allow them their privacy; they waited so long for this moment,” she whispered. “An hour perhaps, to sort through these revelations.”

Thranduil smiled wryly. “Nothing opens a fool’s blind heart like the terror of loss.” He reached out to wrap an arm around his own beloved. “You are overspent, Endanya. Take your rest. I will send Arvellas to deliver the news to them later.”

Knowing it was fruitless to argue, Maereth allowed her husband to lead her in the direction of their rooms. “Gelir will likely insist on us testing the cure on him first, but it will be more effectively done on her, with her symptoms being so much further along…”

“He will do as he is told,” said Thranduil flatly, giving an impatient shake of his head. “It should be enough to satisfy him that their fates are now surely tied.” He paused, revealing the smallest of cracks in his nonchalance. “Are there concerns of the process being dangerous or painful?”

“It will certainly not be easy. But she is strong,” Maereth said with a faint smile. “And they will be strong for each other.”

“But the cure will work.”

“It may take time, but I have faith it will.” The Queen laced her fingers through Thranduil’s, seeking the comfort she always found in his hands. “If we have learned nothing else these past centuries, aran nin, it is that the Darkness can never prevail against light such as this.”

SotWK Fancast: Sam Claflin (Daisy Jones and The Six) as Prince Gelir Thranduilion

Elves Tag list: @quickslvxrr @laneynoir @auttumnsayshi @achromaticerebus @tamryniel @friendofthefellowshipsnerdblog @blueberryrock @aduialel @scyllas-revenge @glassgulls @ladyweaslette @tamurilofrivendell @guardianofrivendell @asianbutnotjapanese @ratsys @conversacomsmaug @lemonivall @lathalea @heilith @absentmindeduniverse @heranintomyknife23times @entishramblings @stormchaser819 @a-world-of-whimsy-5 @freshalmondpandadonut @beekieboo @elan-ho-detto-elan-15 @talkdifferently6

For more of my stories, please see My Masterlist.

If you would like to be added to my tag list, please sign up here: Tag List Sign-Up.

#sotwk fanfiction #fanfic request #gelir thranduilion #sotwk oc #gelir x reader #thranduil #thranduil headcanon #legolas #mirkwood #mirkwood elves #lotr #the hobbit

[afreakingdork]

Weak Spot - Chapter 44

RotTMNT Donatello x Reader

Okay yeah, I'm looking at this week’s chapter art by @garbagemilkshake

Warnings: Aged-up Turtles, Romance, Meet Cute, Villain Donatello, Cussing, Crushes, Xenophobia, Fear, Intimidation, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Hurt/Comfort, Love, AFAB Reader, Vaginal Sex, Sex Rough, Sex, Penis In Vagina Sex, Creampie, Teasing, Scent Kink, Sexual Tension, Breeding Kink, Multiple Orgasms, Cunnilingus, Fellatio, Marathon Sex, Somnophilia, Bondage, Feral Behavior, Feral Donatello, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Public Sex, Dom Donnie, Human/Turtle Relationships, Turtle Noises

Synopsis:  A love story of villainous proportions! Though it hadn’t come easily, as these things rarely do, you found yourself in a whirlwind romance with a handsome and mysterious mutant. His idiosyncrasies had been easy to ignore as attraction grew into something more. However, will love endure when the unknowns about him end up being far darker than you ever considered?

Also available on Ao3

First 💜 Previous

You were awake and mobile, which, given the hour, might have been a triumph in and of itself. Sadly, the reason for which had been you royally screwing up your sleep schedule. Since working the two shifts, your body had seemingly given up its fight to keep you in line. Now, you simply woke up at whatever hour your alarm clock went off. The trade-off came, as these things usually did, in that whatever exhaustion you were meant to feel would carry on like a candle at the very end of its wick.

Still burning, but with flickers that said it would perish at the slightest gust.

Thankfully not feeling quite that unstable, you slunk along with a rhythmic thump at your hip. Street lamps lit your way as you moved closer to your destination. As you closed in, a few blocks away, you caught those dressed similarly to you. There was a man, just up ahead, who turned out from a side street with perfect posture. His antithesis happened to be across the street and lagging behind. Regardless of their state, both earned their own merits for simply being here just as you were sure they granted you the same.  

Otherwise, why would anyone go out this early?

Moving with a lack of coordination as you imagined came with a variety of aged zombies, you clutched the strap of your duffle. Not out of fear, but as a lifeline, you were holding the pressure to make it bounce with each step. As if to further birth the cacophony, it abysmally failed at keeping time with the sound of your sneakers hitting the pavement. It was a form of communication that could only be interpreted by these two men, in this exact moment before the sun rose.  

Approaching the glowing beacon on the otherwise dark street, you watched the first man slip right in through double doors. Your little merry band immediately dispersed, you felt a moment of slight as he let the door close right behind him. Suffering the sort of wound reserved for wordless comrades, the second man continued to counteract the first by being far too kind. Hitting the entrance at nearly the same time as him, you both did the awkward polite shuffle of who would grab the door.

Eventually moving first to relieve him of civil duty, you waved him through before following with a squint. Fluorescence too bright and music too loud, you let the stale air of the gym wash over you. A specific scent that seemed a mix of sweat-dried mats and day-old rubber, it was the same one that had taken over your gym bag. No matter how many washes, it clung to the interior where you knew your water bottle and a few other objects to be.

Passing a teen guard who probably worked this shift before school, she didn’t even look up as she tacked away on her phone. Knowing that this was all an act and if you tried to get by her without scanning in then she’d be animated like an awaiting animatronic, you dutifully swung your phone up to the awaiting red light. A beep said you were good and you hushed your phone to enter the space.

The hour meant there was no need to bother with a locker. There would in no way be too many people to trip over your belongings and that was one of the few benefits of the time. Another was a near open floor plan to execute your routine. One created as a mish-mash between your gym-obsessed friend's recommendation and videos you had seen online, you were meant to focus on chest and arms today.

Standing at the jungle gym of a functional trainer, you spied the first man already doing cable chest presses. He was yanking with a sort of rhythm that trailed you up his arm. Finding buds in his ears, you mentally excused his earlier rude behavior and instead applauded his foresight. For the change in your schedule, you had not been near as omnipotent and were now at the mercy of whatever amalgamation setlist was crafted in an attempt to please all gym goers.

Switching out handles, you set yourself up for downward cable flyes and didn’t bother counting. A warm up after the stretching you’d already done before the walk over, you’d become accustomed to this routine. After moving into apartment six, you’d found this gym as a little oasis. Walkable in a comfortable sense, it acted as both preparation and cool down each time you made the trek.

Switching arms at the first sign of fatigue, you worked your non-dominant hand. More of a struggle, you kept more of a time with this one as you ruminated, once again, over the owner. Whoever they were, you always pictured them as some yoked-up elderly person. That figment not only had the vision to own a gym, but open it up to all manner of beings. The layman’s way of saying this business was yokai and mutant friendly, the owner also charged a fair price considering the city. Adding to the narrative, you imagined they had had some luck in stocks back in the day. Set for life, they made it their aged altruistic mission to help others in wellness.

That’s what kept you entertained through a grueling cover of an 80s song at least.

Moving to lat pull downs, you felt pride as, after the first tug, you then needed to up the weight. Things were becoming easier as time went on in a way that enforced the age old sayings about practice. Consistency had been your mission above all else and that had been an odd key to your success. After that it was strength and stamina. Cardio was still lacking in the latter category, but your boudoir romps were something you jokingly said made up for it. In practice, going up stairs said that wasn’t the case, but you were a work in progress.

Having moved a needle, a pride surged in your chest as the bar came close to it. The next song on was one you sort of enjoyed and you resisted humming along as you did your set. Alternating with a few rests and drinking in an opportunity to sit, you finished up and moved to work with dumbbells. It meant moving over to the mirror and confronting its second surface. The panes didn’t quite match up and the first man you’d seen was currently doing reps in one front of one panel. Thankful for the space, it meant you weren’t stuck on the barrier between them and had an obscured view in the second. Checking your form, you started with some external rotations.

Feeling it in your rotor cuff, you glanced up at the clock to get an estimate of how long to be at each station. You’d be here for about an hour and a half before heading off to grab breakfast with your phone obsessed friend, Eugene, who had been tracking some burrito truck around the city. If all went well, you’d be back just in time for the real reason you’d planned today out just so: couple’s yoga with Donnie.

As silly as the whole thing seemed, when you’d gotten the notification about the new class, you’d passed the information on to your partner who had taken it with surprising gravity. Signing up immediately at his interest, you’d snuck glances at him studying up on the activity. Though you hadn’t actually seen his shopping cart, you just knew he bought clothes and you could only imagine what the internet had told him was appropriate. Based on his lake day attire, it was bound to be something functional, while also skirting the line of comical.

Giggling to yourself at the thought, you switched to bicep curls at nearly the exact moment someone behind you slammed their weights. Hearing the then approving grunt, you glanced into the reflection over your shoulder. Lifting out of a hack squat machine, you saw green elbows flex akimbo from a blue shell. Loosening your grip momentarily, you white knuckled the dumbbells as the figure then turned with a swish of a tank top barely holding on from where it’d been torn to near uselessness.

Passing a glance in the mirror as he turned, Leo froze while rolling his neck.

His face warped into one of sheer horror.

You met it with the dullest stare you could muster as you moved to preemptively re-rack your weights.

“No!” He shouted clear across the gym for all to hear.

You sighed as you turned to face him.

“No! No! No!” Leo repeated with each stomp as he pointed an accusatory finger at you.

“Leo.” You gave a flaccid greeting.  

“Get out!” His jaw wound around the ‘T.’

“No.”

“This is my gym!”

You had to cover your stomach bottoming out. “My… membership begs to differ.”

“I’ve never seen you here in my life!”

He couldn’t be the owner.

“If you just joined, cancel!”

He would have seen your name.

“Go somewhere else!”

You had to be flagged.

“I’ll cover your month!”

There’s no way he would have let you join.

“Just go!”

That was an expression.

He closed in with his looming height as if to intimidate you.

You’d had more than enough of that.

“Shoo!” When he realized towering wouldn’t work, he limped his fingers and swung them to usher you away. “Go on now, git!” 

“Would you-?!” You pinched the bridge of your nose.

“Would I what?!” His hackles went up in an obvious way because he was barely wearing anything.

It was the same with his supposed hero suit.

“Well!?”

He would be some gym bro. “You don’t own the place!”

It was a chance.

It was more of a wish.

You were manifesting.

The way he inhaled said you were correct.

It was an offense to his very being, but you hadn’t been wrong.

He didn’t own the place.

You had a one win notched on your belt.

It felt reductive as you’d been set at least 30 paces back by running into him in the first place.

Washed cold yet again, you berated yourself for feeling secure enough in Splinter’s deal.

Why wouldn’t Leo find some way to break it?

Some way to continue his obsessive stalking.

Why would he?

Stuck on many presumptions and with little basis, you took him in.

Patched cutoff sweats hung from a tight knot at his waist and the silly tank top bowed around the same area. Past his face’s obvious layer of impatience then came one of disgrace. It held a shame as if you’d marched into a sacred dojo with muddy shoes on. Staring further into his furrowed brow ridge, you caught a sullen fear beneath it. Something more intangible, the faded sweat on his chartreuse skin didn’t all look as though it was from the same workout.

He was nervous.

He was also still irritating as hell. “I’ve been going here for months!”

His snout scrunched up with confusion. “Yeah, right! I’m here every day! I would have seen you!”

“What time!?” You quacked and saw the first man, the one you’d logged as some kind of safety buffer, leave as he continued his routine.

Leo similarly glanced at the guy before returning his ire to you. “Now! Obviously!”

“Then that’s it!” You flicked a wrist at him before moving toward the weights. If you couldn’t take comfort from another being privy, you’d at least grab a weapon. “I don’t usually come at the crack ass of dawn!”

“Then go back to your time slot! I can’t deal with this.” He rounded you to stand in the way. “This is my sanctuary! Mi casa! My me time! Mi tiempo! Mine!”

“Then go! Go back to your machismo weight slamming bullshit! I’m not stopping you!” You glowered up at him.

“You can go anywhere! Anytime!” He threw his head back as he began to pace. “Do you know how many mutant-friendly gyms there are in the city!? 10! For the whole city!!!”

“Leo.” Ruffled from the exchange, you waited as he moved right and cut through before he could head back.

When he turned to make the next round, he jumped away from you like a cat surprised by a cucumber.

Even if he wasn’t exploiting some loophole around his dad, he was at least clearly afraid of leaving a scent trail.

You could work with that.

“I’ve got seniority! I’ve been going here for years! If they had platinum members I’d be one! Guild my app because I’ve got diamond status!!” He roared up to the ceiling panels.

Ignoring his rant, you grabbed a dumbbell.

He was white noise, same as the music.

Adjusting your posture, you carefully rolled the weight over your shoulders to do tricep extensions.

Doing your first rep, he curiously stopped.

Glancing at his face, you watched his eye twitch.

“You really think I’m just going to stand aside and let you do that?” He grumbled, stepping closer.

“Leo, I’m not above ratting you out to the front desk kid.”

“It’s your form! It sucks!”

“My-!?” The weight slid awkwardly and he shot forward.

Wincing at the speed, you waited for contact, but nothing came.

Cracking an eye open, you found him supporting the dumbbell with an open palm. “Why don’t you have a spotter?”

“Schedules don’t line up. Let go.”

“Fix your grip.”

“You’re holding it!”

“I’m keeping it steady so you don’t sprain your damn wrist!”

“I can feel you-!”

Making a noise of pure irritation, his other hand covered yours.

Ready to spit in his face, he was lightning fast as he moved all your fingers into a new position before shooting away as if he knew your intent.

Elbow still bent behind your head, you begrudgingly felt this new grip was more secure. Scowling all the more for it, you did an extension and felt how it moved the proper muscle groups.

“Lean back, you’re hunching forward…” He folded his arms and took a stance from the safe distance of several feet away.

Sending him another daggered look, you reluctantly squared your shoulders. Another immediate fix, you continued through the set under his watchful eye before you rolled the weight off to the side. “Had enough?”

“What’s next?”

“Leo!”

“Don’t ‘Leo’ me! Look at you! It’s sad! If this is how you do one simple exercise, how do all the others go!? I can’t just leave you like that! You make us all look bad!”

“It’s not your job!” You took a threatening stomp towards him, but he clearly felt secure in his safety bubble. Giving a bitter exhale, you put your dumbbell up before stomping over to a Smith machine.

You didn’t even have to look over your shoulder to know he’d trailed behind you.

“It’s gonna be like this, huh?”

“I just want to see your form.” He appeared in your periphery, still a distance out.

You were torn.

Part of you wanted to just grab the bar and go into your upright rows.

Another said that you were about to be painfully scrutinized if you did.

Usually not giving a shit, especially from the current party, you just knew it was going to make you all sorts of nervous.

Even if you did it perfectly you were going to second guess yourself.

He was going to humiliate you either way.

You grabbed the bar which had been left level with your chest and leaned your body into it before turning towards him. “What’s the plan here?”

“Make sure you don’t hurt yourself or badger you until I can work out in peace.”

Your head raised as you hadn’t expected such straight honesty. “Okay…”

His eyes were glued to the bar.

“So there’s no chance you’re going to leave me alone?”

“Nope.”

Could you beat him at his own game?

You glanced over the machine and assumed a stance.

No, in that way he was like Donnie.

As much as you hated to admit it, he was like Donnie in a lot of ways.

Stubborn, self righteous, astute, and trapped in his own toxic headspace.

It just so happened that with Leo, none of those comorbidities happened to align with your interest.

Bobbing to attention, you looked over your shoulder.

“What?” He did the same, trying to trace your gaze.

Just like Donnie.

You had to play your own way.

“I left my bag.”

He perked up and you watched him hone in on where it was over by the racks.

His shoulders then dropped as he was caught.

Civility said he should go and grab it, but the thought of touching your possessions gave him the willies.

“Wonder what you’ll do?” You gave him a knowing glance as you stepped away from the machine to go grab it.

Watching the sliver of him reflected in the mirror, he waffled.

Taking your time, when you reached your duffle, you laid out the straps just so before lifting. Coming up in a rotation, you pivoted to find Leo standing at frustrated attention next to the Smith.

He’d held your spot. 

You very much wanted to laugh, but you had something else planned.

He looked away with creased lips.

You set your bag off to the side and knelt down to ruffle through it.

The action caught his attention and you could see him trying not to obviously look in your periphery. Shaking your head at it, you unearthed your phone and walked it over to him as you navigated your apps. “Hey, Leo, question?”

“Hm?” You had his wary interest.

You tapped your screen. “You said you weren’t going to leave me alone?”

“Not until you leave.”

“So no.”

“No!” His head lolled to the side.

“Good.” You nodded.

You sensed him puff up with irritation.

You swiped your finger a few times before hitting play and holding the phone out to him where the recorded conversation played.

He gave a sharp exhale before glowering at you. “What the fuck!?”

“There’s your bug.” You waved your phone and then pulled it out of reach at nearly the same time he tried to swipe it. “Only he’s almost 7 feet and green with gaudy stripes.”

“Gaudy my ass!” He nearly snarled and you stepped away as he attempted to take your phone again.

“So you’re saying yes, you are a bug?!” You teased, ducking under the bar to put it between you.

He fisted the thing like it had caged him. “Are you still recording?!”

“I need evidence, don’t I?”

“I’m not doing anything! You encroached on my space!”

“How about a trade?”

He didn’t drop his anger so much as he traded it for severe attention. “Figures.”

“If that’s a backhanded comment about Donnie, I’m already withdrawing.”

“Just a backhanded comment about you.” He gave a grin that had far too many teeth.

“You are such a bitch!” You mistakenly pointed with your phone.

He yanked it out of your hand.

“Leo, you fuck-!” You caught the bar the same time he let go and were about to slingshot yourself when the attendant appeared right behind Leo.

Not seeing her, he could do nothing as she picked your device out of his hand. “Alright you two, that’s enough.”

If she had gum, you thought this was the perfect time for her to pop a bubble.

Leo shrank down at the sight of her. “Ingrid!”

She didn’t glare at him so much as she flicked her dead gaze up. “Three people now have come to say you two were fighting over the equipment.”

“Fighting?!” Leo spoke too loud and tried to blow the volume away with a raspberry. “You know me! I would never!”

“Why are you stealing phones then, Mr. Hamato?” She waved the device.

“I wasn’t-”

“Right out of my hands!” You spoke, finally clearing the bar.

Ingrid continued her stare down.

“Please don’t report me again!” He dropped down to his knees and begged her with an offered conjoined fist.

“Ugh, you look extra old when you do that.” She sneered with the most emotion you had seen yet.

At the word ‘old’ Leo looked as though he’d been stabbed through the heart and fell back.

“Here.” She held out your phone and you snatched it.

“Thanks!”

“Don’t thank me yet.” She barbed, not letting go.

Stuck with it strung between you, you stared at her with wide eyes.

“You have a guest coming and a scheduled class.” Ingrid responded calmly.

Your eyes widened as you realized she hadn’t been ignoring the complaints, but instead gathering ammo to come unload on you both.

“We reserve the right here and I will cancel both.”

“Yes’m.” You lowered your head.

“Guest?” You heard a wisp of Leo even though he was still on the ground.

“What’ll it be?” Ingrid let go of your phone.

You pulled it into your chest with a little too much force.

Leo dragged himself upright.

She watched the both of you with disinterest.

“Not another word.”

“It won’t be a problem.”

She continued her lengthy stare until both of you were absolutely sweating. She then sighed and turned away, heading back to the desk. “One peep and you’re out!”

You both watched until she got all the way back to her destination before wilting.

“Kids these days are scary!” Leo threw his head back.

You could only nod.

Quiet resumed and you gave your phone a calculated toss back into your bag.

You listened as Leo gave a grunt, getting back on his feet.

He then stood there with his weight awkwardly off-center. “Why didn’t you rat me out?”

“I told her you took my phone.” You turned, just drained enough to start back up your exercise.

“We both know that wasn’t the bigger of my threats.”

You shrugged as both a response and to adjust your shoulders as you grabbed the bar. “Only 10 gyms sucks.”

Leo quieted further as you started doing upright rows.

“Where’s the next closest?” You asked without any real thought.

You heard Leo’s stare before he gave his answer. “35 minutes from here.”

“Sewer 35 or ground floor?”

He gave the faintest puff of laughter. “Up top.”

You felt your form slipping and racked the bar to adjust.

“Good.” He murmured more to himself.

“Do you instruct?” Why were you asking?

His lips flapped around a sudden exhale. “Yeah right.” Why would he respond?

You gave him a glance before finishing up your set.

He shuffled his weight to either foot in case you were going to leave.

You rounded the machine to grab a weight.

He blinked to attention and grabbed the same for the opposite. “You were warming up.”

“I’m not the newbie you were making me out to be.”

His gaze lowered as he held the plate.

You were slow to walk back to the bar.

“I’m sorry.” He spoke without bringing his eyes up.

“Not enough to leave me be.”

With his head lowered, he shot you a look against his lids. “You pay attention to all the wrong things.”

“Beg to differ.” With the bar now weighed down, you approached and made sure your grip was firm before you eased it off its safety latch.

“If you really wanted me to leave you alone, you would have told Ingrid what was up.”

You sighed which messed up your breathing, but you refused to let it affect your stride. “You’re on a first name basis with the staff, Leo. What do you want? If you keep badgering me, I’ll reconsider.”

“It just doesn’t make sense.”

“And it’s not my job to teach you!” You dropped your voice to a harsh whisper to keep from shouting.

Your chest throbbed with familiarity.

You really hated that.  

As if that was the first time anyone had ever uttered those words to him, Leo stalled out.

You got through another set before you stepped back.

As if needing to fill the void you watched Leo add a plate.

Ready to stop him as you weren’t quite up to that, he rounded you wordlessly. Tracking him found him headed to the otherside where he equally distributed the weight. Sensing what was coming, you stepped off to where he had originally been standing so he could take the bar. He moved to it and did your same exercise with a furrowed brow ridge.

He moved the weight easily and, at almost the same time he hooked the bar back onto its latch, he stepped back and did a heel turn. There, he stomped a few steps out before returning with flapping hands. You watched the display with open curiosity as he then returned to the bar with a different heft bringing his brow down. With a flick of his hands, he freed the bar and did methodical reps.

Counting down for him, he then racked and gave a self-soothing exhale.

“You do this to release stress.”

His eyes widened and he turned as if he’d forgotten you were there. “Uh… yeah.” His gaze turned away. “Guess… I do.” 

You shouldn’t.

Not after everything.

Not after what an insufferable ass he’d been.

Not after he twisted every good thing that was offered into something decidedly not.

That, however, was just the thing.

It struck you to your core.

It was self sabotage.

It was borderline immolation.

In the name of all that was good, he was going to take down everything with him.

A raging inferno, he wanted to keep everyone else at arm’s length.

Concocting a lonely contradiction, he thought he was doing it for their own good.

While that was a problem in and of itself, it had also gone on too long.

Those people he’d kept at a distance had strayed.

They weren’t going to keep waiting.

They used their freedom to work on themselves.

Meanwhile his charred carcass continued to burn as he held back a now non-existence threat away from empty space.

You hadn’t realized you neared him until the tips of your fingers just brushed his bicep.

It was all too familiar.

All too real.

He flinched, barely racking the bar to look at you with fear.

Over a foot shorter than him and he was terrified of you.

“Leo…?”

“Yeah?” His eyes were squarely on where your digits just hit the curve of a yellow marking.

“Are you like… okay?” You looked up at him with all the honesty you could muster.

It was like no one had ever asked him before.

Not without a sense of judgment.

Not in a moment of weakness.

Not when he was truly being himself.

It broke him.

You had to rally yourself to not fill the air.

Above you, you imagined the frame of his features split like a shattered mirror.

The image stuck, the pieces fell one by one to give way to an original scene transition.

Only this wasn’t a movie and what painted his skin was slack.

No tears, just a slow descent of his inflated person.

A single laugh ripped from it.

You felt like it tore his insides and the internal bleeding should have leaked blood from the corner of his mouth though it stayed dry.

He then gave another until he had to cup half his face.

The shards you imagined were real to him as he had to hold them in place.

His mask in disrepair.

This was his gym.

It was also more than that.

This was where he could turn off.

Let himself go for however long he would allow.

How long the workout dictated.

You moved until your palm flattered against his arm.

“I’m… so… fucking… tired…” He wheezed out between hiccups of laughter.

You felt it.

Albeit, small, you felt bad for him.

In no way a competition, he was just as broken as Donnie had been.

Nearly the same, but completely different.  

Something Splinter said slid through your mind.

I have only ever wanted to… see you have a break… from your hardships.

It was time.

For all of them.

You stiffened your upper lip and went to where the plates were waiting. You could feel Leo’s weak gaze follow as you heaved one up and added it to the bar. Circling him on only a few strides, you hit the other and added its twin. Looking down three plates at his worn face, his eyes held heavy exhaustion while his lips were quirked into an odd smile.

“Add the 15s.” There was a comedy in his voice, but not for anything you’d done.

Giving a studious nod, you found one 15lb plate immediately, but another was scarce. You had to track back across the gym to get one, but running back felt like those fibers of cardio were teasing your heels. Hopping around the sensation, you added the weight and stepped back. “Should we clip it?”

“Nah.” There was more vigor in his voice as he did a side to side, getting into position. He then heaved the bar in a smooth inhale and exhale before he started to do reps.

You watched with bated breath until something small slipped out. It was something you hadn’t heard in years, but the moment begged it. You weren’t even sure what it meant, but it felt applicable. “You got this, come on. Si se puede.”

He fumbled the bar.

You waffled beside him, trying to remember how to best intervene in case he got crushed.

The anxiety of the moment made you forget the Smith had built-in safety and Leo latched it a few rungs further down than he probably wanted. There he bent over the secure bar, slamming the plastron around the waist with a clunk before giving another laugh. Different then the last, it still had that raw edge, but he sent it towards you as an offering. “What was that!?”

“I don’t know?!” You brought your hands up to prove your innocence.

“Si se puede. Si se puede!” Shedding the final layers, he then gave a bark of bright laughter.

You watched as he shook his head, mumbling something to himself as he went back to doing reps.

Whatever he whispered to himself was the length of a novel before he finally surfaced enough to look at you with crow’s feet peeking through his mask. "¿Quién crees que eres?”

Tilting your head, you knew he was talking about you, but not in what way. “You look better.”

“I don’t want to hear it.” He snuffed you with closed eyes and slow enunciation. “You think I’m ugly.”

It was your turn to laugh.

“My markings!” He clicked his tongue and stepped away from the bar. “I can’t help that I’m a red-eared slider!”

You laughed a little more as he shooed you to grab the plates. Circling to the other side of the machine, you watched him remove two with both his hands before setting them aside with ease.

Blinking off a moment of confusion, you moved to do the same.

Done, you waited for him to jump back on, but he instead waved for you. You’d almost forgotten you’d only got a couple of sets in and stepped up to do another.

“I can’t ask to start again.”

“I’ve already started.” You shot him a smarmy look, flexing your fingers as you slid the bar down its track.

He gave you a bored stare that was tinted with amusement. “I’ve got problems-”

“Everyone does.”

“Could you-!? For one second!? I’m really trying here!”

“I meant literally.” You slipped the safety onto its hook and held to look at him. “I mean yeah, everyone does, but I meant specifically you all.”

“And how many is that exactly?”

“More than I know about.” You began to turn the bar when he grabbed the end of it to stop the rotation.

He threw on the 15s in a few steps and waited for you to continue. As soon as you did, he spoke again. “I bet.”

He needed the safety of the workout.

For wherever he was now, it was the only way to keep his sanity at the same time as the honesty.

“Keep going,” you puffed out.

He chuffed and leaned back against the bar holding the awaiting weights with a smile. “Think we can get through it?”

“Temporary truce for the duration of the workout.”

“Minor jabs, but nothing below the belt.”

“I didn’t sign up for boxing.” You gave him a dry look.

His teeth showed in his smile. “A perfect example.”

“Then call it.”

“Truce.”

“Like I said.” Your arms fatigued and you stepped back to roll your shoulders.

“I’m not Mikey. I’m not Raph. I don’t want to be your friend, but tell me I’m not crazy that the markers for it are there.”

“You just sabotage it every time we start to become civil.” Needing your break, you went to rack up his amount of weights.

He mirrored you. “It’s not just you.”

You wondered if he was letting these things slip out on purpose. It almost felt like this place was where he redid his bandages. In the momentary exposure, his wounds could air themselves. 

He did a rep. “I’m so sick of my own shit.”

Up, down.

“I just keep performing.”

Lift.

“I don’t think I even know how to stop anymore.”

Lower.

“The lines were blurred and they pulled the curtain, but I got in front of it. My tight five has been going on for decades.” From where he was smoothly moving, he suddenly clanged the bar. “I can’t do this. Let’s go to the landmine.” Without waiting for you, he scooped up your bag as he headed for a corner.

Unable to match his strides, you reached him just as he slapped two plates on the bar. He then got into a squat position and you drained some of your water as you watched him wheeze through several reps too fast. “Leo-”

“Slow down.” He dropped the bar with a clang that made you jump. “No, you go.”

You made a face to the floor.

He didn’t seem to notice as he walked a short distance away with his carapace to you.

It wasn’t that you had a problem with landmine exercises, it was more a technical failing on your part.

No matter how strong you got, you had difficulty in raising the bar and pulling the plates off at the same time.

Now faced with two of them, you locked your feet into place to do the exchange.

The first came off with surprising ease and you let it roll away instead of properly setting it down in fear of messing up the next.

Just to scold you for improper gym etiquette, the second refused to come and you grunted as you tried to lift and tug at the same time.    

Leo immediately turned at the sound and the moment you waited for his barb felt like an eternity.

One that left you in stasis because he simply walked over and lifted the bar for you.

You yanked the plate right off and sent him genuine thanks.

He nodded, not meeting it and instead mumbling, “It’s about timing.”

You copied his ready position as you moved to the head of the bar.

“Look, no bullshit. I can’t… stand what you represent, but it’s not… you.”

Grabbing metal, you adjusted your grip over and over as not one felt right.

“I’m using you. No, I’ve been using you. You’re… the only chance I’ve got.”

“To understand.” You wheezed and heaved the bar high to do a thruster instead.

He was quiet and seemed to examine your form as you went through reps.

Lowering and hating how this particular corner had a drop ceiling which caused the fluorescent lights to bake the space, you set the bar down to get more water.

He picked it back up and did his own thrusters with one hand. “To understand.”

You lowered your bottle with a satisfied sigh.

“Which… isn’t your fault, but what the hell else was I supposed to do?” He switched to the other arm which turned him an angle away. “You think I can just pin down and interrogate Egregious Eggplant!?”

You snorted as you wiped your lip with the back of your hand.

He set the bar down and walked the same few paces. “You were an easy in.”

Your stomach tightened, but you buried its constriction into your core as you took your place at the bar. “A weak spot.”

There was a beat of silence where you lifted the bar before Leo turned with wide eyes. “Exactly! Oh, that’s great. The perfect name for it!”

He had no idea.

“Feet wider.”

You shimmied to keep the weight up and adjusted.

“I was so focused on that. On finally getting some answers, that I… forgot you were a person too.”

It took all your mental fortitude not to overextend.

“Look Todd is full of shit and I’m me.” He gave you the floor.

You lowered the bar to the ground in a squat before looking up at him. “A shit head.”

He gave a bow before coming up.

You’d give him his little injection of comedy. He was being so forthcoming you weren’t even sure how to handle it.

“I can’t offer anything that I won’t go back on. It’s like part of my DNA. I’m never going to let this go. Why should I? Why does he get off that easy? Why do I have to be the ‘better person?’ There’s no better here! I need to bring it up. I need everyone to remember it happened. Why should he get off scot free after everything he did? Why-!?” Leo outright snarled before slapping his hands to his face.

You scurried around and lined three plates up at the bar, only feeling bad you couldn’t put them on.

Leo didn’t seem to mind as he kicked them into a better position before applying them himself. He then threw himself into the reps, starting too fast again before his increased heart rate rushed a much needed blood supply throughout his body. As if getting a jolt off the body’s natural system, he slowed until he was moving at a more sensible speed. He then lifted straight out of a squat into a rotating single-arm press. Sweat worked on his brow and dotted darker blue on his mask.

“It’s enough.” You offered, feeling it was time.

Leo didn’t nod and there was no exact point, but there was a change in his demeanor as he switched arms. “I have a problem.”

“I can’t tell if you want to talk about it or not.”

“I don’t and that’s kind of the thing? I’m stuck because I don’t want to talk about it. I haven’t really talked to anyone about it. I definitely don’t want to talk to you about it and yet the whole reason I keep blabbing is because I am talking about it!” He slid right back into a squat and his leg muscles rippled around his knee brace before he stalled. He gave a small grunt and set the bar down with the most care you had seen yet.

You thought quietly.

He fell back onto his ass and moved to adjust his brace.

You were passively watching all this occur.

Was that the right move?

You weren’t sure.

Part of you still hated this situation.

You didn’t want to understand Leo better.

You wanted to keep on hating him.

That was easier.

It also wasn’t quite honest.

You didn’t hate him.

Not really.

He brought on a rolling stomach and nine out of every ten things that came out of his mouth was garbage so foul you wanted to hurl, but even then you couldn’t bring yourself to hate him.

Knowing what they’d done to Donnie and what Donnie had done to them felt like a moot point.

None of it fair, none of it right.

You didn’t know.

He didn’t know.

The only thing you could do was change that.

“Questions.”

He looked up at you, his expression worn.

“Let’s go back and forth. Ask each other questions. Whatever is happening right now, it’s not… right. I can’t explain it, but you know what I’m sick of?”

“Is that the first question?” He pulled his good knee up to his body and laid an arm on it.

You shot him a dry look. That was the best you were going to get. “Not knowing. We both don’t know what this is, right?”

“That’s question two.” He held up his two fingers.

You stepped forward and kicked his hip lightly with your sneaker. “We’re not friends. I guess we should be enemies. We don’t technically have a relation, but we are something to each other.”

Leo openly thought your words over.

With another kick he got the message that he should move.

He also did so in the worst way possible by crab walking to the side.

You threw a hand up in confusion and he chuckled before falling onto the mat below. “Can I go twice?”

“Sure.” You stared down at the bar and its three weights.

“You got this, come on. Si se puede.” He rolled onto his side and held his head up with a craned arm.

You got down on your knees and began the arduous task of removing the plates. “Ah, the thing you said earlier was something like ‘what’s wrong with you?’”

“More like ‘who do you think you are?’”

You had to debate asking because it would tip the scales further, but you also needed to know. “Is that an accusation?”

“Are you my tio when I try to sneak into the kitchen and steal some mozzarella?” He chuckled.

You rolled your eyes, finally getting one plate off. “Obviously not.”

“Then you’re good.” You felt his grin more than saw it. “The guest is him isn’t it?”

“Donnie? Yeah.” You wiggled the second plate, making some progress, but inevitably set yourself back every few centimeters. “We’re doing couple’s yoga.”

Leo blew a raspberry that broke into laughter and almost knocked his head off his perch. “What does that even look like?!”

“I don’t know, but I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity.” You smiled to yourself, gaining several long inches.

“You still get thrown off by him?”

That marked three, he was keeping track, which was very much him. “Of course. I feel like I could know him my whole life and he’ll still surprise me.”

Leo made a little noise that didn’t quite hit curiosity, but was spoken of something of interest.

“Was today really not a set-up?” The second plate was nearing the end of the bar.

“Here?! No!” Leo fell back onto his shell and stared up at the ceiling panels. “This is my sanctuary. I still feel violated. I’d never do that to this place.”

You studied the expression on his face. It was a disproportionate amount of dishonor tinged with serenity.

“Do you hate Mikey?”

You bobbed, the plate falling off with a loud thump.

Staring down at it, you felt Leo look over in wait.

“No.” You set the bar down and used one hand to slowly push the second plate away. “I’m still mad in a way, but he made the right move when you all kidnapped me.”

“A step in the right direction.” Leo posited.

“Kinda…” You got the weight far enough away before turning back toward your mortal enemy: the last plate. “You know, I’m sort of operating on a very, very minor scale like you guys; all the bad blood.”

Leo gave a disagreeing snort, but his following silence said you weren’t completely wrong.

Giving a small note of irritation, you began work on getting the late plate off.

“By like a million degrees of separation less! You’re talking heroes versus villains versus you versus.. us! I guess…” He sighed. “I see what you mean? All the interactions so far have been bad, so why expect anything else? Something like that?”

“Yeah…”

“How do you go from there?” Leo asked the air.

“Doing this, apparently.” You were losing steam and sat back to tug your bag over. Taking a swig from your water bottle, you lowered it and watched a bead of escaped liquid slide down the side. “Do you come alone because this place makes you vulnerable?”

“You…! Can’t do that! What’s wrong with you!? Talk about going zero to hundred!” His arms and legs shot out. “You can’t just go from ‘what’s your favorite color?’ to ‘how do you think humanity will fair in the inevitable heat death of the universe!?’”

You could only shrug against your hopeless smile.

His lower lip ate up his upper one and his eyes looked manic for a moment before he went slack. “Yes! Alright! Yes, fine! This is the one place I can be me and I don’t like others seeing me like that! The lipsticks off the pig!”

“The-what?” You laughed.

“I don’t know! I’m still upset that you think I’m ugly!”

“I never said that!”

“You said gaudy!”

“I said your stripes were!”

“They’re part of my skin! That’s like making fun of someone’s freckles!”

You puffed up with offense.

“See!” He pointed at you. “I bet you were a kid bully! That’s where you get the evil to stay with him!”

“I was not! I wouldn’t do that!”

“Bully, bully!”

“Ugh!” You yanked the plate halfway down the bar and marveled at the work.

“You’re welcome.”

“You were not faking all that just to get me mad enough to move this!”

“You’ll never know!” He faked a cackle and let his arm fall onto the ground. “Do you hate Raph?”

You looked at him with a tilt of your head. “No.”

Leo watched you, obviously hoping for more.

You curled your fingers into a hole in the plate. “He’s been the nicest so far. He’s like a victim of circumstance.”

“You’re not wrong.” Leo’s shell created an awkward curvature to his body, but he still sank back until his head hit the mat. “You asked me if I trained earlier. Not me. Future me, maybe, but not this me. That’s Raph. Doesn’t even matter what age. He’s good with kids. He’s good with the scary teens. He doesn’t even dodge the adults that always wanted to when they were young but never got the chance. He’s the sensei.”

There was way more there than you knew about. You were having trouble keeping track of your questions. “Were you faking?”

He pursed his lips. It was clear he had hoped that the bits he dangled in front of you would have thrown you off. “No.” He gave a loud sigh. “It does hurt my feelings, but not as much as I’m playing up.” His head rolled away from you.

You gave a small smile. “I’m sorry. For real. They’re bright, and along with your outfit, it’s all loud like your personality.”

He chuffed and you could sense his grin. “When you say it like that I kinda like it.”

“Your ego is enormous considering it’s apparently a put on.”

“’Fake it till you make it!’” He gave a big stretch that sat him upright. “Honestly satisfied with how I look overall. I lost track of the gimmick at some point.”

“Surprised you aren’t in booty shorts.”

He threw his head back with a chuckle. “I have some of those little athletic pinstripe ones. I was one of those hot 80s dudes for Halloween one year. I even had Mikey draw on a little bunch of chest hairs.” Leo reached up and traced curly q’s on his plastron.

You bit down on a raspberry.

“I’ll send you pics-” Leo started off handedly before he seemed to realize himself. His gaze scanned towards his body where he pulled his legs up, self conscious. “It’s your turn.”

“Is your next question going to be if I hate you?”

“No, I was going to ask who approached who first.”

You blinked. “Were you going to ask eventually?”

“No.”

The nonchalance there bit you. “Should I… answer yours?”

“I’ll let you rephrase.”

“Why do you think you’re less than them?”

You watched the question physically strike him and he had to get to his feet. “Outside the game, what were you working out? I thought you were doing arms and back, but then you threw in some legs.”

“I wasn’t planning on doing this.” You gestured to the landmine.

“Ah…” He grimaced. “What was next?”

“Lat pulldowns.”

“Let’s go. I need to move.”

You gathered your bag and looked back on the fallen weights.

“Leave ‘em.”

“You are a menace.” You followed as he led over to the machines.

“I’m gonna be here awhile. I do rounds and pick everything up when I’m done. I have a whole system.”

Your lips fell as you should have figured.

He gestured to a pair of machines and took one.

You sat at the other and pinned an appropriate weight while he went straight down the stack for something that seemed absurd.

He was a brick wall in his own right.

Grabbing the bar, he pulled down with perfect form a few times before responding just as the bar headed towards a stationary position. “I’m nothing without my family.”

Where you were just about to pull down, you had to whip your head and gawk at him.

“Too honest?” He arched his brow ridge and continued to do reps.

“Kinda.”

“I’m not ashamed. I’m the face man. I’m the leader. I live for them. I don’t think I’m less for it.”

“Leo…”

“Whatever you’ll say is just going to be what I’ve heard someone else yak about a million times. I’ve dismantled them all. Might as well not bother.” 

You frowned and let the bar go up with the weight.

“’That’s not healthy.’ ‘You can’t think like that.’ ‘What about your life?’ ‘You can’t be happy that way.’ ‘It’s not sustainable.’ Round and round.”

You pulled, feeling the tension.

“I can rest when they’re safe. They’ll never really be so I keep going. There are moments. No one can really go 24/7 so yeah, that isn’t sustainable. That’s why I do 2-3 hours of this every morning at the crack of dawn. Gets my mind right or should I say shuts it up.”

You widened your hold to make the reps more difficult.

“Ugh I’m breaking my own rule. I always figured if I said it aloud, I’d break the spell.”

“Cinderella does wear blue.”

That got a smile. “The first time I did this, I was fresh off a night of hell. Probably had tetanus after a long fight at the junkyard. Was walking home separate from the guys because we’d gotten into it. I looked like hell and this buff old man approached me like I’m not 3 times his height and asks if I want to try his gym out for some promotion.”

You tried not to interrupt, but relished in the validation.

Leo passed you a single curious glance, but continued on. “I tried to argue with him. ‘I’ve got a home gym with weight limits your whole place couldn’t fill.’”

You imagined Raph lifted what had to be several tons as a warm-up.

“But how could I say no…?” Leo took on a faraway smile. “Within 30 minutes it stuck. It had to be here. I signed up and worked out for like 5 straight hours. Had some of the best sleep of my life. Missed my next patrol because I overtaxed my muscles. It was a whole thing!”

You took a rest and held your bottle instead of sipping from it.

Leo shrugged. “Go, go, I’m rambling.”

“It was me.”

“You in a limbo contest?”

You shot him a look of confusion.

“Getting laid is not about how low you can go.”

You chucked your bottle at him.

He caught it, laughed and kept his weights from slamming all at the same time. “Gross, though. Actually.”

“You asked!”

“Still trying to weasel out some answers.” With his long reach, he set the bottle by your side. “It’s my nature.”

“I love him.”

“If I’m Cinderella, which for the record is not my preferred Disney royalty, you’re Ariel.” His lids lowered as he stared at you without amusement. As soon as he saw he had your attention, he clasped his hands and fluttered his lashes. “’Daddy, I love him!’”

“I’m not 16 and trust me, we’ve been through it!”

Leo’s brow ridge shot high. “Do tell.”

“Hell no, you’ll use it as fodder.”

“Yeah, but, think, it may also get me off your back.”

“This.” You gestured between you. “Is not going to be a thing.”

“That’s for sure!” He shouted, eyes going a calculated sort of wild.

You scowled.

He bit down on a sigh and looked northward before returning with an open passivity. “You convinced Dad and Raph, so hit me with the pitch.”

“You’re not going to listen.”

“I’ve bared my soul! What more do you want?” He hid his expression in more reps, but his bulky arms could only cover so much. Each time his bicep lowered, you saw a blink of worry in his lips.

You watched until he seemed to calm down before you began. “It’s a pretty classic format with a twist. We meet, and then we meet again, and again, because we want to. He says he was just indulging me at first, but I wonder sometimes.” You looked up at your forlorn bar. “Not really love at first sight, but I think we both sensed there was something there. We keep seeing each other and… it’s tough. He’s an enigma. He won’t tell me things. I blindly accept it because puppy love is all consuming.” You dropped your gaze to your water and tapped it with your shoe. “We both mess up. We both hurt each other. We both try again. We want to. There’s more there and we cultivate it. By the time the while truth comes out, I’m ready to dump him and he knows it. He knows how badly he screwed up and yet he…” You glanced up at Leo.

The other turtle had stopped and was watching you with parted lips that he closed on contact.

“He tells me everything and plans to just let me go. Actually, full stop. No tricks and presumably he was going to retreat back into his shell, no matter how terrible of a metaphor that is.” You sighed and turned all the way in the little uncomfortable seat to face him. “And I find I don’t want to. I still want to be with him and maybe that’s stupid, but for every bad there’s been, there’s been a hundred rights and each time we get stronger and it’s scary. It’s a terrifying kind of love because you’re aware of how dumb it makes you. Of how much you’re willing to put up with. Of how much you shouldn’t but…” You have to look away as your throat tightens and your chest thumps with your heart. “And he smiles, open and free and it means everything and I know it wasn’t me, but in a way it was and I would chase that high a thousand times. Push the proverbial boulder up the hill even if I don’t get anywhere, just to see it again.”

Leo’s weights didn’t slam as much as they exploded.

Nearly falling out of your seat from the frightful jump, you watched as he stood up and stormed away.

Staring after his form, you then rotated back into position before reaching for the bar. Pulling down, you figured that this was the only way it could have gone. Leo was the most unreasonable of the bunch. No matter how cunning he was, he was capped by prejudice.

He also was completely right in having it.

His family was the definition of contradictions and you hated how it always seemed to surprise you. It was never clear progress and when it appeared to be, it was simply another con. They’d been tricking themselves for so long, they could no longer pick out what was real. It was exactly as Leo had said.

Your muscles burned as you just kept doing rep after rep.

You couldn’t fix them. As often as you said it wasn’t your job, it was also just a simple fact of the universe. You were only one person. You didn’t have the correct training to deal with this type of trauma. It was as unethical as it was unwarranted. Trying to pull them out of their individual abysses would be like them kidnapping you. You’d be fixing them for what was essentially your gain. You didn’t know what was best for them. You didn’t know anything about them.

You only knew how not to fall into their patterns.

“You know why I’ll never let it go?”

You stiffened, having not felt an ounce of malice until it towered behind you.

Turning slowly, you found Leo with a poised expression even though everything about his voice said he was falling apart.

Your fingers slipped and the weights slammed.

“We’re all we have.” He was right behind you, but still took a step closer. “Isolated for years. Sneaking up onto the surface to see our one, single solitary friend. We made the best of it. We had each other. Dad did what he could. To let us be kids when we weren’t supposed to. To keep us from the damned destiny that ended up repeating. Doomed to repeat! Sure, it fucking hurt that he’d mix us up. It felt like shit to be reduced to a color. I hated blue for years, but it was also all I had!”

You were trapped in a never ending slow turn.

“And yet he was so fucking different, wasn’t he? He had it so much worse! It wasn’t a contest! No one ever once compared our stories! No one!! Not even Mikey and he just says shit without thinking all the time! No one blabbed. No one even said the phrase ‘we understand.’ We didn’t understand him! We didn’t know anything other than he was fucking mean and he was supposed to be one of us! He was purple! He had our names! What else were we supposed to think!?”

Leo broke for a bleeding expression before slamming the mask right back into place.

“All we ever did was reach out! For years! In spite of everything! The death! The decay! I didn’t want that! The injuries! He hurt us and Mikey would lay there sobbing, holding onto me like I was the one standing in the way, begging me to try again. ‘He didn’t mean it.’ ‘He doesn’t know.’ ‘Look at Casey.’ ‘Look at Drax!’ It took years, years for them to unlearn their upbringings. Casey was literally raised in a cult, but woe is Donatello, right?!”

In a drop that you thought might be a full collapse, Leo slammed down to his knees.

It put him at an agonizing eye level.

You could almost see the youthful versions of them acting out his story in darkened pupils. 

“And he made his point clear! He lashed out until we gave up! He kept going after that to make sure we were good and done with him and then you…” Leo seized up. “You show up and that’s it? Everything’s different? You mess up and he doesn’t punish you? It’s not a fucking contest? When he always made it one? You don’t have to jump through any hoops? You’re good enough right away? You’re not perfect. You’re no angel. You’re a person! And just like that he’s over it? Good and well! All done! Peachy keen!”

Your lip quivered and you felt as though Leo might smack a hand over it, but he stayed in place.

“Love.” He spat acid.

Your eyes fell with your heart.

“There’s different kinds, but none of them are less.”

How did it go the last time he spoke about this?

“In case it isn’t obvious, you should know by now which is most important to me.”

It hadn’t been ‘we.’ 

“It was easy when he was just evil. I could write it off. Tax exempt, CPA certified. He’s unsalvageable. Call your dealer and put the lemon law into effect. That’s it.”

He’d put redemption on the others when he had held the same hope. 

“But it’s not. That’s why you… drive me nuts. Insane. I don’t get it. Because if love was enough…” You could hear him move.

Opening your eyes from where you hadn’t meant to close them, you found his hand inches from your face.

“If you were enough, then any of us could have been.”

Already collapsed, your expression plummeted.

“But we weren’t.” His finger retracted as if you ran hot.

That’s not true!

You wanted to scream it in his face.

You wanted to grab his shoulders and shake him.

You felt the same way.

You had for the entirety of your time with Donnie.

It was just a little different. 

Like everything else between the other turtles and you. 

You were a fluke.

You weren’t worthy.

Not anymore than them.

Not any less.

Leo had to know.

There were cracks in his story.

If they just knew both sides, then-

You didn’t know Donnie’s position.

Not really.

You knew white hot hatred and resentment.

You knew the mere mention of any of them would set Donnie off.

You knew the Donnie who openly spoke of their demise giving him closure.

He’d also stayed for Splinter to finish his coffee.

He always paid the check.

He’d learned his native tongue.

That hadn’t been for you.

That predated you.

He’d also called it weakness.

Your eyes widened.

“Leo.” Your voice was hoarse.

His head hung loose.

“Leo.”

“Sorry.” He mumbled so quietly it was nearly swallowed up by an agonizing pop medley playing on the speakers.

“Leo!”

It took a great labor and a deep breath for him to marginally bring his head up.

“I… can’t fix this.”

Shooting straight through antipathy, Leo gave warped confusion that begged you to explain why you’d wasted his attention.

“I-I I know what I said.” You couldn’t maintain eye contact. “I can’t promise anything, but things are already changing. They-”

“I won’t forget.”

“I’m not asking you to! I’m not saying it’ll be better. I’m not…!” You choked on saliva and turned your head away. “I don’t know what I’m saying, but things are happening.”

“You think I don’t know that!? What do you think I’ve been trying to do all this time!? I’ve been hell bent on figuring it out!”

“I know!” You returned to him. “I know… and I know you went about it the wrong way and it’s not the same, but!” You threw your head back and gave a frustrated yell. “I’ve had the same crisis. ‘Why me?’ I don’t know, but I don’t think it was me.”

This time the offense took precedent in his baffled features.

“Listen!” You snapped at him. “It was when!”

He held strong.

“I’m not saying I’m not worth something. I know I am now. I’ve gone through it and I’ll keep going through it and reminding myself of what’s real, but if I had met Donnie, I don’t know, even a day earlier, I don’t think it would have been the same. It had to happen at that moment, it had to-”

“Are you talking about fate?! These things don’t happen for a reason!” His teeth bared, sharp, in your face. “He made these decisions! He chose!”

“And he’s choosing again! And you can all choose! You always have a choice! One pick doesn’t have to live a lifetime!” You reached out and pushed both hands against his plastron. “As long as you’re alive you have an option! You can live!!!”

Instead of a physical blow, it was like the feather light tip of an arrow pierced Leo’s jugular. His Adam’s apple rolled around it, unable to swallow down the arrowhead as he fell back onto his ass and stared up at you.

“I can’t speak for him, but I know what he believed when we met. He thought of himself in exactly the way you see him. Written off! Evil! Unchanging! But he was wrong!” You didn’t chase him so much as you stood up. “He continues to be wrong about himself every, single, day! He hates it!” Happiness and tears collided for a grab-bag on your face. “That among a million other things is what keeps me guessing. No one knows what the future holds! Sure, a choice leads to many others, but that doesn’t mean the choices stop. They just…”

“… Keep… going…” Leo whispered and then broke away.

You watched as he curled up into himself, nearly becoming only his shell as he folded his limbs up against his body with his arms over his head. He yanked himself down into that position and rocked to self-soothe.

Feeling limp in comparison, you sank down, numb, into the machine’s chair.

Across the room, you could see Ingrid staring at the display with uncharacteristically wide eyes.

There was no way she was going to interrupt this. 

No one would.

Dropping your gaze to Leo, found him still shaking.

You opened your mouth to speak, but something came out of his tangle of limbs first.

“This is my gym.”

You almost laughed, but held back because that would have surely sprouted tears. “It is and I’m sorry I ruined our work outs.”

He gave a hollow huff that said his ducts were in a similar place before his arms dragged down his form. It revealed his head, where reddened eyes refuse to give any more away. “Don’t think this changes anything.”

“Hold onto it. You’re not wrong.”

“Couldn’t you have started with that?!” He gave a dry heave.

“I did!” You sounded similar.

“Fuck!” With his arms now free, he flapped his hands like he had earlier. “This is not the kind of catharsis you want at 7am on a Saturday.”

“Seven!?” You quacked and spun around to look at a big red digital clock.

“What are you worried about?” You could hear his legs fall to the ground. “Classes don’t start till 8.”

“I was supposed to meet a friend for breakfast!” You dove for your bag and fumbled for your device.

“Better be a light one. You do not want to do yoga on a burrito stomach. I would know!”

You shot him an incredulous look as you found at least a dozen messages from Eugene. “Ahhh!”

“You grab something quick-serve.” Leo’s gym clothes rustled, and when you glanced over, you found him standing. “I’m gonna go… climb the Empire State Building or something. Want to feel like King Kong. That’ll fix me. Temporarily at least.”

“Go and cry at the top of the world?” You managed a disgusted parting of your lips.

“Cry over this? When have I ever given you the impression that I’m some kind of mop?  I’m a man! My tears are reserved for breaks in toxic masculinity only!” He put his hands on his cocked hips. “That includes getting flamin’ hot cheese dust in my eyes and watching kid’s movies that send me into trauma spirals!”

“Go to therapy!!” You shouted to the ceiling.

Leo flip-flopped a limp hand that said he was fifty fifty on the matter. 

You rolled your eyes at him as you shouldered your duffle. Tacking out a short response to Eugene that should at least quell some of their concerns, you held your device to your chest to address Leo fully. “Text me the stupid Halloween costume.”

Leo’s brow ridge took his mask so high it almost covered his head. “You know I’m part of that, right? You think after one mind-breaking speech we’re gonna be all buddy-buddy?”

“Then don’t! I literally don’t care!” You moved past him, heading out. “Who says I’ll reply, asshole? Maybe I just want to roast you with all my friends or have a better pic the next time we play pin the tail on the jackass?!”

You heard him whip around. “You did what?!”

You didn’t turn and threw a dismissive hand up as you left his line of sight.

Hitting the chill autumnal air, you pulled your phone back up and silently apologized as you closed Eugene’s latest message barrage. They’d dropped a pin of their location and it was where you were about to head, but you needed to send a different message first. 

You: Forewarning, I’m going to smell like Leo

You: Wait

You: That sounds terrible!!!

You: Not like that

You: Never like that!

You: Excuse me gagging! Unsend!

You: Ew ew ew

You: Whatever focus okay

You: Ngl A LOT happened

You: It wasn’t bad and it wasn’t good, but I swear to you it’s not a cause for concern

You: You’re already worrying 

You: Go up two messages and read that one like 50 times

You: Oh and this next one

You: You don’t need to worry.

You: I will tell you absolutely everything

You: During yoga if you can’t wait

You: That’s totally fine

You: Right now I’m going to destroy myself with a burrito 

You: I really really ❤️ you, Donnie

You: Even more if you’re relatively cool about this

You: Which if you aren’t, again, yeah I WOULDN’T BE EITHER

You: I just…

You: No

You: No wait! 

You: No stipulations on my feelings for you!

You: Not my best message

You: My brains fried 

You: Ahhhhhh sorry so much adrenaline! 

You: This morning was insane!! 

You were ready to type another ten messages out when his response bubble appeared. Fully stopping at the sight of it, you stood in the morning air and waited to see what he would say.

Booty Shaker: I’m here for you, always. Whatever you may need. I’m on standby and await a lengthy debrief. Until then, you’re making it difficult for me to do your assigned reading amongst the message spam.

Your heart surged, but you could only think that you really needed to stop giving him stupid contact names.

NEXT

Even though they are so busy, my betas still make time for me so send them some love! @tmntxthings and @thepinkpanther83

#weakspotfic #rottmnt #rottmnt donnie x reader #rise of the tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt x reader #donatello hamato #Leonardo Hamato #donnie x reader #rise donnie #rise leo #rise donnie x reader #rottmnt donatello #rottmnt donnie #me #fanfiction #my fanfiction

[desafinado]

ooh if you’re taking requests I would love to ask for something kaveh related,, I love him and his recent appearances have me going feral

I was thinking maybe something with an artist s/o?? with his whole arts and romance thing I think it would be so cute 😭 sketching out his building ideas and such together..I just crave kaveh content tbh

✎, ੈ♡ kaveh with an artistic s/o

°｡⋆ kaveh x reader 

°｡⋆ artsy stuff, sickening fluff (yk the drill), love, beloved, dear

note: reader is described to be an appreciator of all art in general (visual arts and writing specifically)  just take what resonates lol, but yeah ^^ also ahh i wrote a song sorta similar to this concept before called “art museum” so i took inspo from that skjfsdf

if you think about it, everything you see has its own artistry, its own beauty; beauty is in the eye of the beholder after all. among all the things and people, however, you found kaveh to be the most beautiful thing of them all.

his creations were just as beautiful, of course. you couldn’t help but adore the details, the aesthetics, the everything. he was clearly someone who created with his heart on his sleeve, and it was why you admired him so dearly.

and while you had this respectful and deep admiration for him, he would only praise you for giving him such inspiration in the first place, whether it be the art you create or the love you give him.

he’d watch in awe, seeing you create visuals that make him swoon, and write words that almost bring him to tears.

if he wasn’t dating you, he’d still definitely be your number one fan.

that being said, you are dating, so expect that you do the most nerdy art things together; going to art museums, painting and wine dates, simply sitting in the living room and reading each other poetry (or even making some).

“hmm, and you were there, a heavenly body, a star, whose presence i had been blessed with.” “k-kaveh! you don’t need to read every poem… haven’t you flustered me enough, today?” “i wasn’t reading that time, beloved.”

everything reminds you of each other; when you both get home, you spend the first 30 minutes telling each other of everything you saw today that reminded you of each other.

more so, when it’s art. you both could go on for hours.

“i saw a newly installed statue today, i think it was a representation of spring, blooming and such?” “hmm… sounds lovely, i’d love to see it and interpret it for myself.” “well, for me, it only ever reminded me of you.”

helping each other with your arts; i mean, art is a form of expression and you think kaveh brings out the best in you vice-versa.

he’ll ask for your opinion on sketches, how he can improve and get his feelings across better. he’ll often feign naivety and ask you to help him draw it, just so he can get you to hold him closer.

“dear… i truly haven’t a clue what you mean. could you maybe guide my hand and help me understand?”

you know what he’s doing, of course, but you’re not complaining. you’ll even tease him and whisper softly into his ear; he asked for it after all.

when you’re writing, painting, sketching or doing anything at all really, you can expect him to be watching. he’ll hum in agreement or gently speak some words of affirmation.

when he notices you being a bit stuck, a bit uninspired and frustrated, or simply overworked, he’ll be quick to coax you into bed to cuddle.

he knows how easily you might get into your head, overthinking your work, critiquing every small detail, so he’ll simply get you to stop thinking period.

he’ll stroke your head, caress your cheeks, and mindlessly draw circles on your neck, while reading you your favorite poetry.

if all else fails, he takes you out to see the sunset/sunrise (whichever is more convenient). underneath the dance of colors, the borders between day and night, he reminds you how beautiful the world is. without over complicating everything, the world simply creates all its wonders as they are.

he won’t let go of you until you get a well deserved night’s rest, and you can always expect to be right there when you wake up.

and you wake up to see that lazy smile of his, slightly squinted eyes and groggy morning voice; there’s a tenderness as he greets you a “good morning, beautiful.” and you know feel all your worries melt away.

you think he’s a being way beyond any piece of art, because he gives you reasons to face the next day, and have the courage to express yourself.

that and you can kiss him silly until you can only say each other’s names.

requests are open!! please do not repost on other sites.

#kaveh #genshin impact #kaveh x reader #genshin x reader #genshin fluff #gn!reader #genshin imagines

[babygirlgh0st]

Modern Leper

Summary; Despite living with Simon Riley for several months now, the intricacies of his mind still find ways to surprise you; Tonight is nothing new for either of you.  Word count; 2,245 A/N; This is the first fic I’ve actually finished and decided to post for CoD! I rarely ever post my writing, so forgive me if it isn’t the best. I just really love Ghost, and my fiance deals with night terrors and I saw an outlet and decided to run it into the ground with this. The relationship dynamic for them is something I cherish and is loosely inspired by this song. I could write a three hour power-point on all the trauma this man struggles with, but for now y’all gotta deal with my drabbling instead lmao. No beta we die like men. 

I’m also open to taking requests, if you have anything to offer me :>  Warnings; Vague mentions of past trauma/gore/death, night terrors, ambiguous and complex situationships, minor physical harm (unintentional), hurt/comfort. 

It had taken you months to finally convince Simon to move in with you, just like it had taken nearly a year for him to admit to your not-quite relationship. It was based on understanding more than love or romance; The common knowledge that you shared the same weight as the other, that your weird quirks were complimentary despite their usually volatile state. 

You both understood each other's needs, traumas, the baggage you both carried within yourselves that you’d yet to find the space to put down. He needed space and quiet, a silent companion who never seemed to judge him for whatever ailed him at any moment, and you had a supernatural ability to read him like a book and offer what you could when he needed it without a word being exchanged. It was an invaluable bond you two shared, not quite love, but not quite friendship. You just knew each other like you were one and the same, and found safety in that fact. He had grown to trust you, and you found solace with him, and you were relieved when he relented to moving into your sad one bedroom apartment. Filling some empty void that always seemed to follow you in life. 

You had been having such a nice dream, something warm and soft and honey sweet for once, when the yelling started. It dredged you from the depths of sleep, like ripping off a band-aid or throwing ice water down your shirt, and you blearily shot up in bed in surprise as you blinked into the dark of your shared bedroom, seeking its source.

Simon had warned you about his night terrors, but you hadn’t fully comprehended just how bad they could get sometimes. Yelling, screaming, pained moans and thrashing like he was an animal caged, feral and in desperate need to escape himself. He’d told you that there wasn’t much to do about them, and apologized when he said to just let him be until they were over. He’d even insisted on sleeping on the couch for several months upon moving in under the concern that he’d hurt you or cost you sleep, or god forbid traumatize you even further than your shared line of work already had. 

It took you a few moments to process that it was happening again, blinking the sleep out of your eyes as you watched Simon jerk in his sleep across the bed, sheets twisted around his limbs in a way that you found both angelic and heartbreaking in the moonlight from the window. You were sure there wasn’t a single way he could appear to you that you wouldn’t find beautiful, though you knew better than to voice those thoughts out loud. 

He remembered everything if he was woken up in the middle of a night terror, though waking him up while in one of his fits was a feat of its own. You had relented to leave him be and fight his demons in his dreams undisturbed, until the neighbors started to complain about the noise. It killed you to see the haunted, distant look he would always get the following morning if he didn’t sleep through it, but he understood that it couldn’t continue, not in your subpar apartment. After a few too many noise complaints, things had to change. 

“Simon?” You called softly, voice heavy with sleep as you shifted to face him, watching him for a few moments. You knew that pinched expression, visible even through his balaclava that his face was an image of agony. You’d never learned what he had been through- never anticipated you’d get to know- but it still made you question the poor man’s past as you watched him squirm and groan in pain in your sheets. 

“Simon,” you call his name more loudly this time, shifting closer to him on the bed as you did. 

You had never let go of the hope that maybe one day, you’d be able to soothe away his nightmares with just your voice. That your presence alone could banish the horrors that he hid inside of himself, the things he fought back during the day that he couldn’t run from at night. You prayed for a day when you could simply whisper sweet nothings to him, and ease his pain without having to wake him. 

It had yet to work despite your insistent efforts, and after a couple more minutes of soft crooning and attempts to console him with no changes in his behavior, you relented to the one trick you and Ghost had found to wake him up; Sternum rubs. 

“I’m so sorry,” you said as you always did, before shifting to get out of bed and walk around to his side of the mattress. He’d attempted to grab or punch you the few times you’d had to resort to this specific method in the past, and you couldn’t blame him for it; it was an agonizing sensation to experience, and he had always been adverse to physical contact regardless of whether or not he had just suffered a night terror. You couldn’t fault him for lashing out when you woke him from painful dreams in an equally as painful way, even if it cost you a few bruises. At least if you were standing, you had a better chance of moving out of reach when he did come to. With a sharp breath in, you lowered your knuckles down onto the solid muscle and bone of his sternum and pressed, dragging your fist across his chest.

It didn’t take long for him to let out a shuddering gasp, a choked yell of “Get the fuck off me!” following after. It left you flinching, startled by the outburst despite this situation not being a new one. His eyes flew open in shock as his hand locked tight, too tight around your wrist in a grip that brought a squeal to your lips. You knew by now it would leave bruises, the skin tight and twisted under his calloused palm as he ripped your hand off of him.  

“G-ghost! It’s me, it’s me,” you chanted, fear evident in your words as you tried to not struggle against his grip. You had never been able to get used to the violence in his awakenings, the way he would shudder and heave like he’d been shot. His eyes were frantic, manic as he stared at the room around him, at himself, at you as if he had never seen you before in his life, your words foreign in his ears. 

“Simon… It’s okay. You’re okay, you’re at ho-”

“Shut up.” 

He panted heavily, releasing your wrist from his ironclad grip as he shifted to sit up in the bed. His eyes were squeezed tight, hands reaching to cover his face as he tried to reorient himself to the waking world. His body shuddered and rattled as if still stuck inside of his dream, somewhere else, experiencing who knows what. You stood silently beside the bed as you watched him, letting him calm down in his own time.

It felt like a century before he spoke, but his words were much softer despite the way his hands trembled against himself. 

“...I’m sorry, love,” he mumbled, fingers rubbing at his eyes as he forced everything in his mind down into the trenches of himself. Hiding away from your concerned eyes as you watched him like a hawk. His scars throbbed, his skin still clinging to the feeling of blood and dirt and rot as if he had never showered since everything had happened to him. 

“It’s okay, Si,” you said quietly, finally letting yourself move, breathe, as you made your way back to your side of the bed and settled back into the sheets there. 

“You… Can I get you anything?” You offered, always trying to be helpful after an episode. Always supportive and gentle and quiet in his presence as he struggled to hold everything down like bile in the back of his throat, threatening to spill out. A mug of tea, an ear, a shoulder, a warm bath, it was always the same with you despite him always pushing you away every time. He usually settled for silence and nothing more, and this time didn’t seem any different. 

Simon finally pulled his hands from his face, blue eyes exhausted as he stared down at your red wrist with a look of heartbreaking guilt. You knew he was staring; he always did when he’d hurt you after this happened, guilty and pained as he struggled to chew and swallow the reality of once again doing the one thing he always told himself he wouldn’t. 

“I’ll get you some ice,” he offered, no room for argument in his words as he shifted out of bed with a groan and disappeared from the bedroom. Your hand cradled your inflamed wrist, and as you looked down at it you could already see the angry, finger-shaped signs of a bruise forming under your skin. 

He’d always shown his care through action, insisting he was bad with words and worse with touch, so he settled on the little things to try and bring his affections across to you. Grabbing things that were too high for you to reach, doing the extra steps to make whatever task you had at hand that much easier, bringing you small souvenirs when he went on an assignment that you couldn’t follow him on. 

He returns with a deep rooted sadness in his eyes, silently asking for your injured hand as he goes to wrap a bag of frozen peas around it like you were made of glass; something so fragile, so delicate. It felt wrong to feel you in his hands, no matter how careful he swore to be with you, the feeling of staining or breaking you never leaving the back of his mind as he iced the wound he’d caused.

“Really, it’s okay,” you reassured him a second time, offering him a gentle smile as you let him ice your wrist for you. It felt like he was licking a wound like a dog, trying to erase the accidental damage he caused like he always tried with himself. He only offers you a curt nod at your words, and once he’s decided your wrist is sufficiently encased in the frozen peas does he let you go and return to his spot in the bed. 

“It was the coffin, this time,” he says in a low voice, rough from yelling and the cigarettes he tended to chain-smoke every second he was off base and out of your shared home. 

You turn to stare at him in surprise, not expecting him to be open about what happened as your mind reeled from just that one sentence. He stares down at his hands in his lap as he speaks, but you can tell his eyes are looking at something beyond your gaze. 

“It… Isn’t the worst one, but it’s still not great.” Simon laughs bitterly, shaking his head to try and rid his mind of the memories. Some part of him still felt like he was stuck down there trying to claw himself out, nothing but the rotten bones of someone else to help him along. 

You aren’t sure what to say in response. A part of you wants to pry, to take the mile he’s offered with the inch given and see what horrible things seem to follow him like a shadow, but you can’t bring yourself to respond. Instead, you open your arms to him, head cocked to the side in question. 

A hug. Simple, easy, comforting- For you at least. He looks up at you quietly for a few moments, the air easy and calmer in the space between you both as he considers your offer. His eyes are raw and wet when he finally relents, folding himself easily into your arms. 

You make a point of ignoring the way his shoulders silently shake as he presses himself against you, his own arms going to loop around your waist with that same fragile care he’s always given to just you. An olive branch in the distance he always held between you, for his safety or your own you weren’t sure. You accept it all the same though, hands light and gentle as they go to rest against the back of his head, his shoulders, his spine; petting him like a wounded dog, some poor pet dying on the side of the road. 

“You’re safe now, love,” You whisper in hesitance, body wound tight like a live wire as you wait to do something you shouldn't, cross some unspoken boundary you weren’t able to pick up on in this uncharted territory; But the moment never comes. His shoulders still shake, his face finding refuge in the pulse point between shoulder and throat, and you both act like your skin isn’t damp as you let him hide inside of you. 

You don’t think you’ll ever find the right word for what you two have. It felt like something too delicate, too raw and wounded to be love, but it felt like it went deeper than just simple understanding. Beyond the realms of your minds or bodies, beyond the atrocities the two of you had both committed and been subjected to. 

All that really matters to you though is that he trusts you, and you trust him, and you decide that that is all that matters. 

#simon ghost riley #ghost cod #simon riley #ghost x reader #simon riley x reader #simon ghost x reader #simon ghost riley x you #ghost x soap #ghost/reader #simon riley/reader #call of duty #simon riley cod #ghost call of duty #my writing

[kendo413]

Wenclair prompt: the cat curse

Enid finds an aged stray (borderline feral) cat and tries to keep it hidden in her dorm through the schoolyear. It's a very intelligent cat, and it adjusts very well to indoor life. For all the jokes she makes with Yoko about her "difficult roomie" Enid adores Willa.

Enid's heart breaks when she returns from an unusually late study session to find Willa curled up on her pillow, apparently having passed away hours before while waiting for Enid like usual.

Enid and Yoko bury Willa in her favorite spot in the woods, right where Enid found her months before.

When Enid returns after winter break, there is a strange (cute) girl sleeping (maybe dead, its hard to tell from the doorway) on the spare bed (formerly Willa's) in her dorm, wearing Enid's darkest clothes, covered in dirt.

Aka, Wednesday had been cursed to spend 9 lives as a cat before returning to her human form, and since so much has changed in the world, she returns to the (first and) last place she felt secure since the curse began decades ago. She will figure out who cast the curse and try to help Enid with her romance problems as repayment for all the tuna that had been provided.

It's icing on the cake to use cat memories of Enid's blog to convince the school that she has literally been here since the school year began, she just has bangs now and people notice her finally.

#fanfiction prompt #wednesday and enid #wednesday #wenclair

[annelaurant]

ANNE'S ART ATRIUM: COMMISSION SHEET 2024

► NEWS

Slots for February: 0/4

SINGLE CHARACTER COMMISSIONS are 50% OFF until June 2024 or until further notice!

► ABOUT ME

Hi, I'm Anne! I'm a writer and artist from the Philippines. I love fashion, fantasy, and bright colors in my art, and if you fancy my style, please consider me for your next commission!

► MY SERVICES

Please check back here once in a while to check if other types of services are available!

Palette Busts

This is a style wherein I only color-pick from a limited range of palettes to create a character bust. You may specify your preference of colors, symbols, and motifs to include in the piece. (You may request for cell shade, soft shade, or both.) Turnaround time is around 2-5 hours or 1-2 business days.

$25 - A palette bust with one character.

Character Art

This is a regular piece of character art for your OC, your faves, or both. Turnaround time is around 2-8 hours or 1-3 business days.

$30 - Bust

$45 - Half body

$60 - Full body

Character Outfits

I love fashion, so let me help you give more wardrobe options to your character! This will come as a full body option. Turnaround time is around 5-8 hours or 2-3 business days.

$45 - A single character outfit. Comes with the character in sketch and the outfit in clean sketch. Flat colors will be applied to the piece.

+ 50% - Alt versions that come in the same style.

Custom Character

Want a quick ref for your character? Need your mind blorbo to finally have a portrait? Customs are the way to go! Here I will assist you through the process of creating a character! Turnaround time is 1 month real time.

$ 75 - Front view

+ $30 - Back view

+ $15 - Expressions

+ $15 - Extra details

Add-Ons

Want some extra options? Here are the add-ons I can offer:

+ 30% extra character - All prices listed above are based on only one character. Not applicable for outfits or customs.

+ 50% clean lineart - I will add a clean lineart like my avatar in the comm sheet above.

+ $5 simple background - It will be as simple as the ones you see on my comm sheet.

+ 50% detailed background - While I do not have samples on hand, these backgrounds will be referenced and hand-drawn like your character. Not applicable for outfits or customs.

- 50% sketch - For half the price, I will give you a clean sketch.

???% complexity fee - Depending on how detailed your piece will be, I will add to or subtract from your total cost.

Nope List

This includes things I will outright refuse to draw. The short of why is confidence, faster turnaround time, prevention of burnout, and a wish to show my folks my work.

Feral and mecha

Background only

Romance and sexual

Semi and full nudity

Gore and body horror

Hate and political art

Select fan content

► COMMISSION PROCESS

If you are interested in a commission, please DM me! You may provide as many or as little references as you got, since I can work with or without them. I will also give you an estimate final price and due date.

Once I agree to take the commission, your piece will go through 4 phases:

Sketch - You will have 2 or 3 rough sketches to give you an idea of what I will draw. Pick from the sketches for me to render, or suggest one (1) completely new posing idea.

Blocking Render - The sketch you choose will be cleaned and its pose/s fixed.

Color Render - The lineart will now have colors, highlights, and shadows.

Final Render - A final few layers of effects will be added to the piece.

My turnaround time for a piece is about 3-8 business hours (2-3 days) from the time you approve a sketch.

During the blocking and color render stage, I will provide an update during which to let you know how far along I am. You may request up to 3 major revisions during which. Major revisions include:

Pose

Hairstyle

Outfit

Composition

However, once your piece reaches the final render stage, I will only entertain minor revisions. Minor revisions include:

Color corrections

Brightness/contrast

Basically anything you can do on your first photo editor software

During the commission process, please feel free to bump your message, reach out for concerns, or chat a bit if you'd like! You will be informed of estimated dates of completion, delays, and other concerns.

However, harassment over my work speed, art style, and terms of service will not be tolerated and result in your piece getting deprioritized, put on hold, or cancelled without a refund. The same applies for when you cease communication with me within one month without prior notice.

While I draw during nighttime, I have my DMs open during the day. I officially take Sundays and Mondays off, so inquiries during this period will be ignored until Tuesdays.

► PAYMENT

My payment channels are through Paypal (international) and GCash (Philippines) only. My prices already cover Paypal and other fees, so the price I charge is the money you pay.

I will expect 50% payment from the time of acceptance until the sketch stage. Please note that until I get the initial payment, your commission will be put on hold.

I will expect the other 50% when I give the final render. Tips are not mandatory, but they are appreciated. Failure to pay the other 50% will result in a ban.

Special Prices:

You can pay 200% of the price upfront for a priority order, provided that you inform me of a reasonable due date.

You can avail a kababayan discount if you pay with GCash.

Refund Policy

You are eligible for refunds provided that:

We had a conversation

I agreed to the commission

You already paid

You are not harassing me, and

A desire to cancel from either you (prior to being given sketches) or me (at any given point in time).

► USAGE TERMS

The act of commissioning me means that you have read and agreed to my usage terms.

I retain the rights to publish commissioned pieces on my social media and portfolios, unless discussed beforehand. I also reserve the right to decline a commission for any reason.

Commissioned pieces may be posted on your social media and other online galleries. For credits, please use "AnneLaurant" or "annelaurant.tumblr.com". Credits are appreciated but not mandatory.

Commissioned pieces and in-progress previews will be hosted on my end up until 1 month from the time I finish a piece. By agreeing to this, it will be assumed that I can delete these works from my storage and you have retrieved and hosted your commissioned piece on your storage.

Commissioned pieces can be requested to be put under an NDA. You must state this prior to the sketch stage. Failure to state this intent means that you agree to have your commissioned piece automatically published on my socials.

Commissioned pieces by default is assumed to be for personal use only and therefore will come with my watermark. You may not remove this watermark in any form of image editing, e.g. cropping, erasing, superimposition, photomanipulation, etc.

Commissioned pieces without my watermark can be requested. Failure to state this intent means that you agree to have your commissioned piece automatically published with my watermark.

Art commissions for commercial use is subject to discussion and a commercial use fee of additional 100-200% of the original price.

Use of commissioned pieces as your "own work" will result in a ban.

Use of commissioned pieces for resale, NFTs and crypto, and data asset training will result in a ban.

Use of commissioned pieces to promote hateful and inappropriate behavior will result in a ban.

If you received a ban, your commissioned pieces may be subject to removal from my socials and portfolios.

If you have commissioned me prior to an update of the usage terms, the new terms will still apply - with very rare and limited exceptions.

#commission #commissions open #commission sheet #art commissions #open commissions #annelaurant art

[therealmintedmango]

Cerberus - Part Three

Genre: Werewolf/ Shifter AU; Medieval AU; Strangers-To-Lovers AU; Heavy Angst; Soulmate AU; Eventual romance/ smut

Rating: NC 18+, Explicit

Words: 7,396

Pairings: (Eventually) ot7 BTS x Human Female Reader

Warnings: Dark themes; Yandere Vibes; Death; Gore; Murder/ Killing; Dark Dreams; Wolf Centric Chapter

Tag List: (Please notify me if you wish to be added/ no longer want to be apart of the tag list!) @openup-yourmind, @deeepvibes, @xxsunny-side-upxx, @heoniebaby

Cerberus Playlist — Apple Music (Let me know if you have a good song to add to the playlist and I’ll chuck it in there!)

——————-

The hunt is on,

For it is night.

I lurk in the shadows

Under the pale moonlight.

All creatures tucked away in their beds,

Slumber taking its hold and pressing

Down, down, down.

Either a fairytale or a nightmare,

I get to decide,

For you cannot run and

you cannot hide.

Though she does not see me nor sense me,

I can see her sweat and shake,

A virgin so pure and fragile,

I dare not defile.

Not until she is heady and ready,

Shivering in my claws — it’s not too late.

For she is mine.

…Mine…

Mine…!

MINE!

I wake with a fright, my heart is beating viscously, thumping clean out of my soggy skin. I sit up, the bed frame creaking under my movements as I push the heavy sheets to the side. My body glistens, dripping in a hot-cold sweat under the moonlight that baths my room in her silver, pale glow. My nightgown is soaked, covered in my perspiration, the cream-colored silk clings to me for dear life. The hairs around my neck are plastered in place. My breaths come out in heaves, my hands shake with terror.

Shuddering at the nightmare I just had, I stare at the princes’ family portrait as my eyes adjust. There are no teeth here, nor claws—no looming figures that stalk me in the throes of the velvet night. Just seven sets of rust-colored eyes staring down at me. I tear my eyes away and stare at the tree branches outside, there is a heavy fog relaxing among the wood in an eerie cloak, blanketing the night.

I’m awake. I tell myself as I rub my face in my hands, feeling a cold night sweat occur. I am awake and I am alive and that is all that matters. I gulp, trying to regain some composure.

That nightmare was truly hellish.

Twigs snap under my bare feet, branches slice the skin on my face and arms as I race as fast as I can muster. A giant wolf or dog was chasing me deeper and deeper into the bog, the thicket of trees and vines so tall, there was no room for escape as my path came to a dead end. Its eyes a light golden color, its fur shrouded in the night as it hunted me, stalked me like I was pretty prey. The creature snarls, bearing its blinding white teeth, claws like sharp knives ready to pierce my skin raised above me as it let out this feral, ghoulish howl from the depths of its belly. It sounded like it was almost gleeful, a chorus of wailing howls surrounded me, forming a circle of terror with their sunset eyes, fangs, and ferocious sounds. I called for help, for someone to save me, but there was little to be done. Within the next instance, a whole pack of wolves smiled at me as the moon fell from the sky…then they descended upon me.

Then I awoke.

I shudder once more, a ripple of uncomfortable remembering races through my body.

My eyes sweep a glance at the fireplace, the stone hearth is dead, as it is well into the early hours of the morn, not even a peep of the sun shimmering gold and reds on the horizon. No autumn birds sing outside in their nests. All is still in the house and in the wood. I take some deep breaths and try to compose myself, still sitting in the guest room the princes’ have allowed me to reside in.

Why they are so kind and gentle to me, I shall never understand.

My tongue is dry and I long for a glass of water. I have a bell next to my bedside to call upon the staff if I need something, however I like to do things myself, much to the princes’ dismay. Besides, it is far too early to call upon someone at this hour. I shall go to the water pump outside beside the kitchen and fetch myself a glass of water. An easy feat, I tell myself as I slink out of bed.

I quickly light the long eggshell-colored candle in the holder next to my bedside, feeling the cool of the floor under my feet gives some relief to my anxious body. As quiet and gingerly as I can, I open my door and make haste for the stairs. I have been residing in this home for around a month or so and I have gotten to know these halls a fair bit. There is still an air of mystery and glamor to this house, the grounds, and the people inside the walls.

The princes’ all delight in doing various activities with me throughout the week such as poetry reading with Seokjin after breakfast on the days he isn’t taking care of his royal duties. I have noticed his voice and his demeanor change when he reads about romance, which he does not do often…he almost appears wistful. Yoongi likes to play the piano in the study with me, though he is much better than I at the instrument. It is mesmerizing to observe him play such intricate melodies.

Hoseok is particularly active. He delights in taking me for strolls any time of the day and has promised to take me hunting once the ball has come to pass. Namjoon and I discuss various books in the study's library. He has so many first editions to such classic tales—I enjoy his vast knowledge of the world. Maybe one day I will make it out there. Jimin has asked for my opinions on the gardens, though he says they are not fully ready to view and walk through yet. He brings a brand new bouquet to have in my room every fortnight which is incredibly thoughtful.

Taehyung is so fascinating to be around. He is neither too loud nor too quiet, he is neither too sharp, nor too soft. He is so many things and I believe that’s why he paints and creates many things. Jungkook is the biggest enigma out of the family. He does all the things his brothers do, but he is the most secretive by far. I suppose being one of fourteen myself, I understand you are a combination of all good things your siblings are.

Getting to know these princes’ is a touch overwhelming, but it certainly leaves me craving more from our interactions. Those amber eyes they all share bore deep into my skull at times, speaking to me in a language I can’t quite understand.

The wolf decor in the hallway to the dining room catches my eyes and I almost freeze in my tracks, the candle flame flickers as I suck in a tight breath. In my haste to procure some water and my wandering ,rabid thoughts, I have failed a few things: I do not have on the proper attire to be roaming around late at night, I don’t exactly know how to get to the water pump outside, and I haven’t realized just how eerie the castle looks shrouded in the blackness of night. I tear my eyes away from the stone wolf heads and their hollow eyes as I slink through the dining room quickly. The only sound I can hear is the slight crackling of the flame and the soft padding of my feet across the lush carpets and wooden floors.

At last I have reached the kitchens and I know the pump for the water is not far. Dawning on me, I have not seen the space where my food comes from. There are several large hearths for cooking, brick ovens, a pantry that is as long and wide as my room upstairs, cupboards filled with intricate plates and dishes that are in mint condition though they look centuries old. Dried herbs hang along the walls and the counters are so clean, I think to myself as I glide my fingertips across the cool, smooth stone surfaces. It smells of faint spices from last night’s roasted pheasant and slightly sweet from the cranberry pie that was served for dessert.

Mice are maybe quieter than I, but I secure a glass out of the cupboard—one that looks neither too fancy nor too breakable. I am a clumsy fool most of the right time. Never saying the right words or feet tripping over invisible laces.

There is a small door in the corner of the kitchen and a slim hallway one leading to a staircase upstairs to where the staff live, I assume. I gingerly press the wooden door open, fearing I have stumbled onto someone’s living chambers. The wood groans slightly as I push the latch free from its metal confines and I have come this far to give up on my conquest for water. I suck in a breath and close one eye in anticipation, mustering strength up to thrust the door open.

I feel it before I see it. The cold of the dead of night.

Before I go and do anything else brash, I quickly scan the ground around me. I see a singular brick on the ground outside and I place it between the threshold of the door, so I will not be locked out of the castle.

The darkness outside is thick, palpable. The fog is like cold, faint whispers of ghosts floating around my body. A breeze whips up and I clutch my candle close, fearing the yellow flame would be whisked away. I look for the water pump close to the house, wandering along the side of the brick and marble stone. The night air sends a wave of shivers down my spine. It turns my nipples to hard pebbles under my nightclothes. The fog is dense and the night is dark and the little hairs on the back of my neck start to raise in warning. I am determined to find some water, even though I am inching further and further away from the only door I know will grant me entrance into the house.

My body is telling me to run, run far away! Dash away like a mad person! Dash away like you did all those many moons ago!

However, the need for this water to survive is all that is keeping me stitched together at this moment.

To calm my nerves, I hum a tune I have not heard nor sung in years. A lullaby my mother used to sing to me. It’s a relaxing melody, the notes light and sweet. It usually coaxes tears to my eyes, though I cannot be swayed to dwell too much on her memory. The wind and my lullaby are the only things that my ears pick up on.

The little light from my candle finally catches the gleam from the metal pump, glimmering in the tiny glow. I have to make haste I think as I work quickly. I work in a flurry, setting the candle on the edge of the pump and placing the glass right where the water will flow out. I wish not to be out and about on this night any further. The metal groans and sputters awake, cutting the eerie silence wrapped up in the fog of the early morn with a knife. The noise sends a shutter down my spine as I continue to rouse the liquid from the mouth of the water pump. My throat is metaphorically in the middle of a barren desert, sticking to the roof of my mouth, tongue shriveling away placed behind my parched lips.

Something underfoot snaps in the wood close to me as soon as the water springs to life, filling my glass up.

The liquid spurts out, spilling everywhere, dribbling over my cold feet, my dry throat stiff and useless as I cannot even utter a simple whimper. I stop pumping, the groan of the metal pump clunking back into place with a thud. My heart is beating clean out of my chest, a black figure seems to emerge from the shadows; my nightmare is still very prevalent, swimming around in my brain as I nearly pass out from the fright of something lumbering toward me in the throes of the foggy, velvet night. My mind is doing spins, searching for the right thing to do. Do I run? Scream? Do nothing and pretend I don’t exist? Play like I am deceased? My stomach is empty, falling into pits on the frigid ground, my heart pumping blood into my ears.

It looks like a bear? It is very large and lingering, a snarl protruding out of the creature's jaws. No, a dog? I wish to vomit. The thing is stalking the tree line like a wolf—

“Y/N?”

I spin around, nearly tripping over myself, eyes blown out in shock as Taehyung's deep baritone fills the night with its earthy tone and rich timbre. He is in his night clothes, a quizzical expression on his face as he looks down upon me. The second youngest brother’s eyes flit to mine, the water pump and the tree line of the somber wood. Taehyung’s candle is raised to illuminate his strikingly handsome face in the soft golden flickering glow.

“What are you doing out here?” His amber eyes look down at my feet as a smirk dawns his lips. “You have a penchant for being barefoot, I see.”

“Prince Taehyung…” I whisper, my heart still beating rapidly, buried within my chest cavity. A blush blooms over my face. I am now acutely aware he can see straight through my silks, the cool, night air making my chest perky.

After a moment of awkward silence, the dog-creature nearly forgotten, Taehyung says, “I needed a midnight snack and there was a draft in the kitchen. I saw someone propped the kitchen door open and I heard the water being pumped so I came to investigate.” The sixth eldest prince smiles as he regales his discovery of me outside. “Let's get you inside, little bird.” He says softly, picking up my now mostly full water glass. “Hold my night clothes so I shan’t lose you in this thick fog.”

With haste, I do as he commands. Taehyung leads me back through the door of the kitchens and off to bed with a cold glass of water finally.

I miss his expression when we are outside: the way his thick brows are knitted together, eyes wild and unhinged, teeth are bared, gleaming in the glow of the candle and moonlight. This was his way of sending a silent warning to the creature hiding in the fog and tree line.

She is MINE. STAY AWAY.

-

The early morning hours, where breakfast is served and everyone is flurrying about, are some of my favorite hours here in the Bangtan brother’s castle. I enjoy watching the brothers and staff mingle and mix, the princes’ keeping each other up to date with their lives and what they are going to accomplish each day. It inspired me to rise with them, not only to dine with all seven of them, but to hear what they are working on. It reminds me of my brother’s back home. My chest aches at the thought of them, sadness and misery clutch the edges of my mind and the morning sun rays permeate the curtains in my room.

The ball they hold for their kingdom on the night of the pregnant harvest moon is fast approaching. Not only are the staff deep into preparing, but the princes are as well. Each brother is doing something exquisite and unique which I am looking forward to seeing. Seokjin and Namjoon are splitting the duties of organizing the ball, though Seokjin is focusing on the food mostly and Namjoon is strengthening ties with other kingdoms as each of the neighboring states have been invited as well. Yoongi is taking care of the music; he is out with the Royal Bangtan Orchestra most afternoons, though he always has time to sit in front of the piano with me. Hoseok is handling entertainment like jugglers, fire eaters, and palm readers, which sounds fascinating to me as I’ve never experienced anything like that. Jimin is in charge of the gardens as well as adding impressive bouquets at every table and ropes of bright flowers that line every threshold. Taehyung is taking care of displaying Bangtan’s most eloquent and opulent paintings and statues on display. He is also very concerned about the fashion choices for the ball as wigs are all the rage right now and he wants to impress the crowd with his stylish, yet sensible choices. Jungkook has a surprise happening in the evening when cocktails and dessert is presented and though I press him for information, he holds tight to his secrets, smiling like a smug dog who has just buried a giant bone in the wood for safe keeping.

I’m grateful to them. Amidst the planning and preparation for this ball, they have still kept me in the loop and connected them, nor have they cast me out of their lives. If anything, I feel more entwined with them than at the beginning of my stay. A pang of sour guilt eats at my heart as I dress for the day in a simple, yet chic light blue gown. I hope that my brothers have received an invite and are coming so I can see them again and they will take me home. It’s not that I do not enjoy the company of the princes of Bangtan. Nay. It is the loss of my own thirteen brothers that consumes me, dread prickling my senses, the thought of torture or death backing me into a corner. I feel like a rabid dog, bothering the staff about anyone calling upon me or any letters received in my name. Nothing has turned up, no matter how much I write…or worry…It seems like I am at a stalemate, losing one family and being taken in by another…

I shake my head as I reach the end of the stairs, my stomach growling desperately for food as I try to shake a bad feeling from my mind.

Although I have made it my mission to rise and not waste the precious hours of the day, due to my roaming around before dawn even set in, I overslept. Taehyung gratefully escorted me back to my room last night with my water in hand, though he looked as if he had seen a ghost and barely said anything when we were back inside the castle. I am greeted by a few lingering staff leaving the dining hall in a flurry, concern painting their expressions. It smells of bacon, eggs, mapel, and tension hanging in the air. Wrapped up in my own thoughts, I have missed the angry dialogue protruding through the air. Like a silly moth to a brilliant flame, I am entranced; I wander closer as everyone scurries away from the ruckus.

“WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE ME DO? LET THESE DEMONS WIN?! LET THEM DESTROY EVERYTHING WE HAVE BUILT UP?! IT IS UNACCEPTABLE TO LET SOMEONE DIE LIKE THAT, NAMJOON!”

I almost gasp as my fingertips ghost the door to the hall. I have never heard Seokjin speak so angrily to anyone, let alone his brother.

There is a wicked snarl and something is shattered in the room. I recoil with the noise, the shouting and glass breaking reminding me of my father. Since no one else will, I should try and stop their bickering at once I think as I push open the door. I am greeted by Namjoon’s back to me, his large body and posture was menacing. Seokjin’s hair is standing on end, lips pulled back to reveal a set of pearly white teeth. Seokjin deflates when he sees me silently walk into the room, amber eyes that were narrowed and wild locking onto mine, turning into solem orbs at the sight of me.

“WE SHOULD NOT HAVE TAKEN HER IN! SHE IS GOING TO BRING NOTHING BUT MISFORTUNE AND DEMONS INTO THIS HOUSE!” Namjoon shouts. He then turns once Seokjin looks away shamefully, nodding to me frozen behind Namjoon.

They are talking about me.

Tears well in my ducts instantly, I bite my bottom lip to keep from crying in front of the princes. My heart dies and falls into my stomach, my throat feels tight, and I desperately wish I was anywhere but here. I wish I were millions of miles away from this place and all the gloom I carry around with me.

Namjoon sags, looking terribly remorseful, lifting his hands to reach out to me. “Y/N…”

I flinch away from his outstretched hands.

“I apologize, dear princes.” I whisper the words out as I turn to leave, throat going hoarse. “I-I never realized what a burden I was here. I-I-I will leave at once!”

“No!” Seokjin and Namjoon both yell, but it was too late.

I fled out of the dining hall and into the grand entrance of the building, running outside. I let my feet guide me as salt tears blurred my vision, the bottom of my gown was ruined as it was getting stained by the mud my boots were kicking up. Me. They were arguing about me. I choked on a sob, strangling my throat. I didn’t realize I was such a burden. Of course I am. I am doing nothing but pestering them, eating their food, and staying in their home for nothing in exchange. I ran into the hedge maze winding round and round until I was so utterly lost and exhausted, I took rest at the closest gazebo I found.

Stupid! I chastise myself. Stupid girl! Of course you are a burden! Your whole life you have been a burden! You make messes and hope that someone will come along and clean it up for you!

More tears and cries fill the space in the garden as I replay the short portion of conversation I heard between the two brothers. My heart is breaking. I should have never been so reckless with their kindness. They have done more than enough for me and I should never have overstayed like I have. Though I am feeling more comfortable everyday in the Bangtan castle, this is not my home.

I watch a monarch butterfly flit and flounce through the air once my tears have ceased. The autumnal butterfly’s wings beat like it is trying to get away from something, moving frantically up and down, then side to side. It carries itself past me, turning to me briefly as if to say RUN and I have an unnerving feeling looking at the beautiful creature.

A sinister feeling crawls up my spine…The same eerie and odd one I got last night…As if I was being watched…My eyes blow wide as I quietly scan the spot I am sitting upon. There is no movement in the hedges, no autumn breeze or sway of the foliage, the garden is silent. No movement is heard from any discretion, but I feel like I am being stalked. I am isolated out here in the garden; who will save me if I am in danger? I shake my head slightly. I am no one else’s burden. I have to save myself. All the baby hairs on my body stand though I cannot bring myself to stand. I am tired physically and frozen to the spot on the shaded gazebo spot in terror. My heart is beating when I hear a slight rustle coming from behind me. Do I dare look?

A head pops out from behind a tall, lush hedge and I nearly scream. The fifth eldest amber eyes lock on to my wide orbs at his sudden appearance. Jimin is like an air elemental, I never hear him coming; he is silent, cunniling deadly, or fragrant and sweet, but he can be boisterous and whipped up into a tornado if provoked unfathomably. I have only seen him act that way to Jungkook though when they spar in a wrestling match.

“Y/N?” Jimin smiles as he sees me sitting under the gazebo. “What are you doing out here?” His golden, amber eyes really drink me in as he approaches, seeing the sorry state I find myself currently in. His eyes flick to something behind me as he takes my hand in his suddenly, pulling me promptly up, his puffy lips moving into a tight-lipped frown. Jimin’s presence calms me down immediately, though his worry still makes me slightly concerned. “Come now, you have somewhere to be soon, though it is a surprise.” He says in his feather-soft voice as he leads me away.

I give a chaste look over my shoulder to find the butterfly floating down and landing in the spot I was just in.

—

“It is a marvelous day to go to town, wouldn’t you say so, Y/N?” Seokjin says as we step out into the busy and boisterous town in the middle of the afternoon. He takes my gloved hand as I step from the royal carriage.

“It is, yes, your majesty.” I say, gingerly avoiding puddles of water or urine on the cobblestone pavement. I could not discern what was what.

Seokjin apologized profusely for the outburst I witnessed from earlier in the day. He was extremely sorry (I thought I caught a glimpse of a tear swimming in his golden eyes) and he vowed to repay me by taking me to a surprise. On the way here, I knew we were headed to the dressmaker as she lives in the south-east side of Bangtan. I easily accepted his apology for I knew how remorseful and ashamed he was for his behavior and words. Seokjin explained how they all voted to have me stay at the castle and Namjoon was really the only one against it. He was worried I would bring a kingdom of angry citizens and an army of guards to them. It was nothing more than worry and concern coloring his view of me and a potential situation I’ve put them all in. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Still, I felt more like a burden to them now more than ever.

During my stay in the Bangtan castle, I told them about some of my past and only that I’ve run from an abusive and oppressive kingdom. No lies, but not half truths. I am not ready to admit to any person that I am a murderer. That I’ve killed my own father at that…

“Paisley, will you escort Y/N inside, please? And give Madam Hwasa this to settle the payments.” Seokjin handed her a fat velvet bag full of jingling gold coins. Paisley, one of the staff I have become closer over the weeks with, has come along as our chaperone. Though, I suspect part of the reason she is here because she fancies Jongbak, the footman.

“Yes, your majesty.” She says softly as she ushers me into the dressmaker.

Madam Hwasa barely says a word as we enter. She is older than me, I gather, but not by much. She has a face that is ethereal and otherworldly, dazzling to look at, though she always seems so sad. It is as if she is waiting for a lover to return to her forlorn heart and she speaks in a meak manner. The princes have taken me to her twice now as they did not have too many spare clothes lying about fit for a woman. They say she only apprenticed for only a year before she took over for the master dress designer because she was so talented. They say her silks and fabrics have magic in them.

Paisley hands her the sack of cash and I am once again whisked away behind the dressing room curtains. She undresses me in a flash, the garments protecting me from the autumn cold are stripped from my body—my undergarments stay as I await Madam Hwasa to return. She works quickly and quietly, her small fingers working with haste in an expert fashion.

A slight chill runs down my spine down into my stockings. I feel like I am being watched again, but Paisley has stepped out of the enclosed curtain room. It’s just me, my garments, a chair, and a half-circle of mirrors. The little hairs on my neck stand at attention, the eerie, aching chill blooms throughout my body making me shiver. Jeonghan had told me that spine shivers are caused by people in the future stepping on your grave. I wrinkle my nose in disgust. What a terrible thing to think about.

I fold my arms across my chest in a protective stance, my senses are on high alert since last night. Dreams were the windows into your soul, were they not? Why was I dreaming about dogs or wolves or beasts? What about the creature last night, out in the fog, stalking the tree line? And what about those teeth, those claws….and those golden eyes—

“You have the mark of a demon.”

“Pardon me?” I turn around in shock as Madam Hwasa floats into the room behind me silently. I hadn’t even heard the curtains flutter or the floorboards. She has a cream colored garment with gold and silver gemstones in a dazzling display which swirl and cascade down the luxurious fabric. Since I’ve been here before, she knows my measurements and with her skill I doubt she’ll need any adjusting as she is excellent with her craft.

“The mark of a demon is there,” she raises a beautiful, long finger to the middle of my back, “in between your shoulder blades.”

I look down sheepishly. This is the bane of my existence, this off-colored mark that stains my skin. My mother had it too. She said it was good fortune —in the shape of tiny bird wings. Yet another thing of my skin that isn’t mine but, in fact, belongs to someone else. “Tis’ only but a birthmark, ma'am.” I mumble.

“I never noticed before.” She almost snickers. “And your clothes are filthy! You smell like those mutts!” She snaps her fingers and I place my arms straight above my head.

“Pardon me, ma’am?” I stammer as she wastes no time throwing the heavy ballgown over your shoulders. It had no sleeves and showed off my whole collarbone and the top of my chest. My eyes pop open. This was quite a daring garment, but it was beautiful, with the crystals placed so delicately and perfectly, it hugged my torso until the middle of my rib cage, fanning out in lush plumes of fabric—I looked like a fallen star. “Madam, I am sorry? I do not touch the hunting dogs per the princes’ requests—“

“You are a foolish girl if you cannot figure out what your dreams are and what I am telling you.” She snides as she ties me into the dress. Dreams? Demons? That’s twice today each has been mentioned. My tongue runs dry.

I was not only astonished by how I looked but by how Madam Hwasa was speaking to me.

Madam Hwasa clicks her tongue as she stalks me in a circle, eyes running up and down my body. “Watch out for those wolf boys. They are going to gobble you up.” Her eyes narrow, her stare catching mine like blazing fire. I am not sure she approves of what she is seeing though her fixation gives me a sense that she is challenging me.

“Madam, you are frightening me.” I whisper as I notice I was trembling. Was it anger or terror? Mortification or loathing? I wasn’t quite sure. Another woman had never spoken to me in such a manner, so direct, so merciless. “I need to go.” I look at myself in the mirror and my ducts are pricked with tears, my arms limp at my sides.

“My apologies Lady Y/N.” She clicks her tongue once more and pulls her long gaze away from mine. “You are going to be a beautiful, dangerous creature when you bloom into your full potential.”

I haven’t a clue what she means and my face twists in shock.

She calls Paisley in and they reformat me back in my original frocks and skirts. Under Madam Hwasa’s cold stare and long fingers, I feel more exposed now than when I was in that dress or standing in my undergarments. Madam Hwasa packs my ballgown and hands it to Paisley who share the unit exchange of fingers slinging over one another and long eyelashes fluttering and mouths curling up in shy smiles in the afternoon sun.

Maybe I am a demon for I don’t believe anything like that will ever happen to me. I am a burden and an annoyance. To my mother, my father, my brothers, and now the princes I live with.

Prince Seokjin steps out of the carriage and escorts Paisley and I back inside as we are whisked away from the dressmakers shop. She waves as we drive off, I see her as I am facing backwards. A cat-like grin spreads across her lips and I swear her sad eyes suddenly flash a brilliant green-yellow color.

“How did you like your outfit for the ball? Was it to your liking?” The princes asks like an eager puppy would, wide eyed and excited.

“It was very marvelous, indeed. Thank you for such a lovely dress, your majesty.” I replied in earnest because I truly felt that way.

“Nothing but the best for our little bird.” I flush at his words and Paisley looks at me out of the corner of her eye and I try not to be smitten lava with his nickname for me.

I have an uneasy feeling as Seokjin prompts Jongbak to stop for a stroll at the park in the middle of town. The park is massive and reminds me of paintings and books as it looks like it shouldn’t belong in the middle of town. There is a crystal clear river that runs through, with exquisite bridges, intimate gazebos, and lush gardens to boot.

The eldest prince sticks out his elbow for me to take as we meander through the gardens. I take it and he carries me through the park. Paisley and Jongbak stay by the carriage, no chaperone needed in such a large, populated space.

I still feel like my stomach is in knots and I am having trouble finding the words, but Seokjin’s presence is calming me down. It is hard to feel unnerved with such a fine gentleman with me though. Prince Seokjin is tall, handsome, a great conversationalist, compassionate yet he has a wit and hilarity to him that makes him all the more charming. He was the full package and I would have loved to see him when he was but a young lad. Men bow and ladies curtsy when they see him; they light up like fireflies in June under a full moon when they come upon him. He greets everyone yet keeps conversation with me, smiling. His amber orbs sparkle when he tells a tasteful joke about a gentleman caravan and I give him my full laugh from my belly, though it is undignified for me to make such a noise.

“Pardon me, your highness!” I say breathlessly, still laughing at his nonsensical story as we come to the edge of a gorgeous bridge across the river. “My apologies for producing such boisterous noise!”

“Do not fret.” He simpers down at me, the shadow from his top hat blocking the brilliant sun. “Little bird, my favorite part of my day is when I get to see you smile. You are unraveling more and more every day.”

Immediately my cheeks blaze at his words and his stare.

I remember the look Paisley and Jongbak share and for one fleeting moment, I could have sworn he looked at me with half-lidded bedroom eyes.

“Your majesty, good afternoon.” Voices like silk and honey call behind us.

I turn, breaking the hold I had on Seokjin as the prince almost stands in front of me. “Good day, ladies of Twiceland.” Nine beautiful goddess-like women in brilliant colored dresses simper, glowering down at us as they make their descent on the bridge.

“Where is your pack?” A tall one questions in blue. “Your wild and untamed brothers?”

“What brings you to our kingdom?” Seokjin ignores her being as polite as he can, though his tone is short and curt.

“Is this your ward?” One with doe-eyes and a bright pink smock coos at me. They snicker as I introduce myself much to Prince Seokjin’s dismay.

“Yes, indeed. She is a guest of Clan Bangtan and will be treated as such.” Prince Seokjin is seeming to lose his cool with these vibrant women and I can see why. They are relentless. “If you will excuse us, we were just leaving; on our way home for dinner.”

“Careful, Lady Y/N.” One with a square jaw and short hair giggles as Seokjin takes my arm as lightly as possible, ushering me away from these strange women with haste. “Be wary of beasts such as canines!” They cackle as we rush away, returning to the carriage in a strained silence that has not happened to me since my arrival in this kingdom.

My head is dizzy and my breath is coming out in short bursts. I look at Prince Seokjin and he looks like he is absolutely seething. His aura is dark, nasty hornets shaken and enclosed in a glass container.

As we make our way home, the sun setting, casting the land in a luscious orange and yellow. The castle is far from the town, rich, thick wood surrounds the grounds, encasing the large mansion in its own halo of trees and thickets. glow I hear the call of a lonesome wolf. Fear pricks at my heart and I clutch my skirts. “Everyone keeps mentioning dogs and wolves to me, your majesty. It is frightening to me.” I open once more to the prince who looks startled across from me.

I know I can trust him, I feel it in my marrow and sinew. With my whole beating heart and fizzing brain I know I can trust Seokjin.

“Little bird.” Concern colors his tone as he gingerly places his large, warm hand over mine. “Canines, specifically wolves, is our family animal.” He taps the metal wolf on his chest. “It is our crest. Canines have been intertwined for thousands of years with the family members of Bangtan. If someone says something about dogs or wolves, they are referring to us as a form of insult.”

I nod my head. That does make sense I suppose.

“Nothing will ever harm you.” He gently squeezes my hand. “I promise you. All seven of us will do everything in our power to keep you safe.”

I say nothing but give him a wry smile in which he returns with a beautiful smile that makes my heart throb, trapped in my chest.

——-

I did not go to dinner. I need to apologize to her earnestly. My outburst was childish and uncalled for. Hoseok and Yoongi reprimanded me, sparing in wolf form. Though I am the bigger out of the two, they always win. Pinning my neck just so. I shall be licking my wounds, physically and emotionally, for a long while. It wasn’t right. I let my emotions win like the terror I am. I am more calm than this. I chastise myself as I emerge from the wood. But still….I cannot help the way I feel!

My mind wanders to her lashes, her voice, the way she is soft, yet powerful. She is full of potential, a most excellent queen if she only opened her eyes a little more. Does she see that we hang on her every whim? Her every desire? If only she just picks one of us…What we wouldn’t do for her…

I find her in my study an hour after dinner should have dispersed. She has fallen asleep reading a book about wolves in my favorite red velvet armchair. I give a soft snort as I stalk closer to her quietly as not to disturb her. Her chest softly rises and falls, her cheeks flushed with sleep.

Stooping down, I inhale her scent from the top of her head. Fresh elderberry and sunflower. How badly I want to mark her. How badly I want to rub my face against her neck, tilting her head back, watching her gasp, swallowing saliva down her throat, and scent her vulnerable jugular. My amber eyes lock into her flesh as her head was tilted to the side, exposing her veins. What would it feel like? To run my lips across her flesh, feeling her pulse throb, the sharp inhale of her nostrils, the moan that escapes her breathless lips…

What would it feel like to sink his sharp wolf fangs into her, feeling the life drain from her? The blood ooze from the puncture wounds, her organs fail trapped inside her withering, frail body? To see the light leave her eyes?

Enough with these thoughts.

I scoop her up swiftly as if she was but a babe or a rag-doll and take her to her room, calling upon the maid named Paisley to undress her and prepare her for slumber.

His ears prick as she stirs. “Thank you, Namjoon.” She mumbles quietly. I don’t say a word. I shed my human form once I get to the edge of the wood. I give a cry to let the others know I will not be back this eve and only Jungkook responds.

Hyung, be safe.

It is not him the brothers should be worried about. The thing they need to worry about is safe in the castle—for the night.

———-

In my dreams that night, I am led by seven different colored wolves to a brightly colored carousel. The wolves are all friendly, large, and each smelt rather different from each other. Their fur is soft and exquisite, I run my hands across the canines as they rub their heads against mine. In my wonder, I wish to ride them, but I refrain. Their amber eyes glow with knowledge behind them and they grin wolffish, cunning smiles, revealing their sparkling, pearly fangs. They whine and pant and yip as they lead me up to the shimmering, merry fair ride in the middle of the wood.

They each jump on the slow moving platform, following some pattern, transforming into seven men in waist jackets, complete with top hats and masquerade masks upon their faces. I can’t help but feel like I know them. They call you with their howls, beckoning me with items in their hands: books, foods, flowers, sheet music, paintings, dancing shoes, and gloves. Do I know them like this? Do I want to?

Everything echoes in this space. I suddenly feel like I am suffocating, it is hard to breathe as they try to pull me onto the platform, but I pull away. I made a mistake and I need to flee. I am in danger.

I turn to go. The wolf men growl in warning and I freeze. My blood is ice, my pulse is in my ears, and I feel the seven sets of eyes upon me like they are going to gobble me up. I am prey!

WE WILL KEEP YOU SAFE. YOU ARE OURS. YOU ARE MINE! They cry in unison, an awful noise like they are wounded, shot animals.

The wolf-men lunge at me, their bodies piling on top of me, covering me as they growl and whine and snarl. Gnashing teeth and hungry claws tear me limb from limb as they pull me apart, ripping the pink muscles away under my flesh. My blood is pooling around me as I lie paralyzed in my own sticky, red mess or hair and skin, and organs.

A scream rips through my throat.

Two large, amber eyes glimmer at me from the end of my bed as a giant black wolf lays near my feet, its head slightly cocked to the side, its ears perked at attention. I faint from the frightening sight and my mind plummets back into darkness once more.

———

Part Two And A Half l Part Four

#mintedmango #therealmintedmango #bts #min yoongi #jung hoseok #kim seokjin #park jimin #cerberus #jeon jungkook #kim namjoon #kim taehyung #werewolf bts #bts werewolf au #bts hybrid #bts werewolf #bts fanfiction #bts werewolves #bts x reader #bts ot7 x reader #bts cerberus #part three #bts cerberus part three #cerberus part three

[ceeridwen99]

BG3 Companion Endings !!Rant!!

Hello there.

I...I just need to get some things off my chest, and this seems like as good of a place to do it as I will get.

So, exactly 100 hours of documented time into my campaign, and I'm about to start a fresh game because I don't want to finish act 3.

Let me explain. Also !!!!*SPOILERS*!!!!!

This may be a bit of an unpopular opinion, but the conclusions to a lot of the questlines, once we reach BG, are either unsatisfying or utter trash. My main gripe comes from the choices--or lack there fucking of--when it comes to the conclusion of certain companion questlines.

(Note: This is NOT a post about whatever companion ending one thinks is "good" vs "evil". I honestly don't give a shit about what endings people choose for their games. My issues come from the endings themselves.)

This stems from my main group setup, Shadowheart, Karlach, and, of course, Astarion (also my romance). I played a bard!Tav. It goes without saying that I love all the companions, even the ones that I didn't mainly use. They're all beautifully layered and I love that they are actually influenced by your playthrough...for the most part.

We'll get there in a moment.

My point is, after spending a good 100 hours with these characters, you end up caring a great deal about them. I really looked forward to seeing how their arcs were going to come to a head when we finally reached BG...

Act 1: Phenomenal.

Act 2: Fucking Fantastic.

Act 3: What the hell was that!

Never mind the complete and utter lack of pacing in the third act compared to the first two, what the hell are those questline endings?! I've never been so fucking disappointed and furious in my life. Again, this isn't a post about "good" vs "evil", but my irritation that NONE of the endings are good, or in my case, satisfying.

For a game that really stresses choices mattering (and for the most part they do to a certain point), it really suffers from Telltale syndrome in its final act, where none of the choices actually end up mattering, but in truth, you're pigeon-holed into two, and if you're lucky three endings.

Shadowheart's ending (in the Selune path) is either losing her parents but freeing her from Shar's control. Or gaining her parents but being tortured for the rest of her life. I don't even want to go into the Shar ending.

Karlach's ending is just fucking sad no matter which choice you make, and even the patched ending--supposedly giving us a better conclusion--is just bittersweet.

ASTARION'S FUCKING ENDING! Oh my god, his fucking ending is either selling his soul and the souls of seven thousand innocent people to not get a fucking sunburn. OR being banished back into the shadows and releasing seven thousand feral spawn into the world-- because yeah that sounds like a fucking good idea. Even if you don't release them, you have a choice between leaving them behind to rot or fucking killing them, but in this instance, their lives really would have been for nothing. By the end of this questline (and it is beautifully acted I'll give it that) I just sat there with a pit in my stomach feeling like I fucked up somehow no matter what ending I chose. To top it off, I learned that we don't even get any information at the end about how our choices affect the world after! What the hell!

Even Wyll's quest! Why the fuck an "I" of all people making this choice for him?! Where the fuck is the option to make him choose, or even ask him what he thinks/wants. In fact, where is the option to make anyone choose for themselves? Only Shadowheart (I found) really has one during her quest.

I find it really hard to believe that one could write such complex characters with strong, differing, opinions--so strong that they will leave the party if they dislike your actions too much--but then make them rely on the PC to make the most important decisions in their fucking lives. This is such fucking lazy writing and a cop-out. All of the conversations, all of the growth, really is just boiled down to "What do you as the player want for them?" *feral scream*

More than this, why the hell are there only two (maybe three at the max) options in the first place? You give us dozens of ways to resolve quests in acts 1 and 2, and yet, here is where you want to pull the "Life isn't all sunshine and rainbows, everyone has to lose something to gain something in return" bullshit? What the hell, Larian!

Don't get me wrong. I'm a writer. I get that narrative. But not here. Not in a game like this. In a game like this, these "choices" feel like a slap in the face. This is DND, there are always more than two to three ways to solve something.

I know there are limitations. I know this doesn't have a DM who can make adjustments to the story on the fly to give an ending based purely on your choices. Even so, it is still highly disappointing (even more so for someone who plays DND and is a DM). I was so mad after these questline conclusions that it soured my playthrough. I don't want to finish this campaign because what's the point when I know the people I've spent 100 hours with, are going to get the short end of the stick no matter what I choose.

I went and looked at spoilers for the main story ending after this, and that just pissed me off more. Two or three endings and a piss-poor epilogue are what we get. Not even credit slides to let us know how our choices actually affected the world in the end. Why. Why. I don't even want to mention how dirty they did Astarion. That wasn't funny. Just fucking sad.

This game is overall a 10/10 for me when it comes to acts 1 and 2. It's fantastic. But Act 3 is a solid 2/10 for me, I'm sorry. There isn't enough content to fill the third act out either. I don't know if my game is bugged, but I can barely find any quests outside of what's picked up in Acts 1 and 2 and it's making running around the city seem aimless.

In conclusion, I'm mad and sad. At this point, I'm just going to replay acts 1 and 2 until this supposed Definitive Edition Larian is apparently good at putting out for their games irons out these inconsistencies, hopefully. (This post is just about companions, I also have many issues with the main story. *sigh*)

At least there is plenty of content in the first two acts to keep one busy, and even with 100 hours, I know I haven't seen everything. I'm also curious to know if my perspective of the third act will change with the Dark Urge, as I've heard good things about them being closer connected to the plot.

Who knows, we'll see.

Lol, this isn't how I expected to come back to this blog. If you've made it this far, thank you for listening to my rant.

Final disclaimer: Please remember this isn't about "good" vs "evil" endings. Also, if this is not at all how you felt, I'm glad you had a better experience than I did lol.

Alright, time to go write AU/homebrew fanfiction.

Stay tuned. ;)

#bg3 #bg3 spoilers #baldur's gate #bg3 astarion #bg3 shadowheart #bg3 karlach #bg3 wyll #bg3 gale #bg3 tav #bg3 ending #rant post #sorry for the rant #bg3 companions

[zirawrites]

I had a random thought while scrolling through your old posts, and I was thinking about it and built a little on it, so I wanna know how Romanced Companions (with Gage) may react to running into a bunch of feral ghouls with Sole only for them to freeze up when they face the last standing ghoul, who's garbling something at Sole. When they get closer they can hear it garbling what sounded like a nickname (Maybe something like little cub/bear? Cause that's what my older siblings call me). If they try to shoot it sole stops them, and they go up to the ghoul, have some sort of emotional interaction before taking something from the ghoul (a trinket or necklace) and after they let the ghoul go they ask and learn that the ghoul was Sole's sibling from prewar?

Sole should have known from their clicking Pip Boy that the area was too irradiated -- and expected the dangers that always follow a trembling geiger counter. But they led their companion through the short-cut anyways, and both quickly found themselves surrounded. It was a bloody battle of glowing limbs torn from weathered sockets and inhuman howling from the feral ghouls, but both survivors managed to clear the path. Then Sole recognized the dog tags around the last ghoul’s neck, that familiar name they had shouted in games of tag and harmless arguments over the holidays. Their sibling. Maybe that was why the ghoul lingered for a moment, its glazed eyes flashing the briefest recognition before turning away and shambling down the hill.

Cait: Cait’s finger had never left her pistol’s trigger, even when Sole took a hesitant step towards the wayward ghoul. She swore the two mumbled something between themselves -- but no, that was impossible. Sole was eccentric -- and maybe a little crazy -- but not insane enough to chat with a feral. When Sole turned back to her, their eyes welled with tears. Cait lowered her gun and forced a hesitant smile. “Whatever ya think you saw, I think we can chock it up to radiation poisoning, love.” She slung her muscled arm around Sole’s shoulders and gently squeezed. “Lets get you some Radaway and sleep this off.”

Curie: Curie had read almost everything about radiation. She listened to hours of holotapes explaining how a ghoul could turn feral. It was their genetics, or too many rads absorbed at once, or just horrific luck. But a feral who could communicate? Curie wouldn’t have believed Sole if she hadn’t seen the two mumble something, and then watched the ghoul wander away without a fight. Curie knew prodding Sole about her hypothesis was callous, so instead she placed a gentle hand on their cheek. “I have many questions, but they do not need to be answered right now.” Then she paused, softly smiling. “Instead, please let me know if you need to talk.”

Danse: Danse was horrified Sole had lowered their gun in the presence of a feral, but his shock turned to disgust when the two shared soft whispers barely audible over the irradiated wind. When the ghoul turned to leave, Danse clicked his own gun off safety. Sole’s shoulders flinched to their ears, knowing they were helpless to stop him and trying to quickly drown the sound out. That was when Danse knew Sole had a connection to the feral. And no matter how much that sickened him, he loved Sole too much to upset them. “We’ll talk about this back at camp,” he said coolly. Surprisingly, they did not. Danse didn’t want to know any details.

Deacon: “Did you know that guy?” Deacon meant it as a joke, but his words were rough with unease. Sole turned to bury their face in the crook of his neck. He used one hand to stroke the back of their head, and the other to grip his pistol. Just because Sole had a connection to the feral didn’t mean Deacon would share the same sentiment. Anyone -- or anything -- who upset Sole wasn’t to be trusted.

Gage: Out of the many horrors Gage had seen in the Commonwealth -- Super Mutants pulling raiders out of their armor by their heads, settlers stabbing each other over a single box of Cram, drifters shooting up sludge they collected from irradiated gutters -- he’d never experienced a talking feral. Sole tried to explain it was their sibling, and he wanted to care. Truly, he did. But there was something so... wrong about the ghoul that he couldn’t hide his disgust. “Any other relatives I need to know about? Maybe you’ve got a half-Deathclaw uncle.” Sole snorted despite themselves, and Gage kissed their temple. “You’re always full of surprises, babe.”

Hancock: Hancock almost quipped that he didn’t know Sole had another ghoulfriend in their life, but the joke caught in his throat when Sole buried their face in their hands. He quickly pulled them to his chest and watched the feral ghoul wander into the shadows that stippled the Commonwealth like black lace. “Easy there, sweetheart. I speak ghoul, and that one really seemed to like you a lot.” He let Sole cry until they spent their tears, and then both walked hand-in-hand back to Goodneighbor.

MacCready: Nope, no way. MacCready was not letting another feral take the love of his life. He was a second from shooting its head clean off when Sole mumbled something to the ghoul, and it ducked away into the Wastes. “Did you just talk to that thing?” Sole explained it wore their sibling’s dog tags. Whether that meant they were related was left to be said; the feral’s face was beyond recognition from years of radiation. MacCready didn’t want to think about the exchange any longer. He tried to support Sole with kind words, but they fell flat on his tongue. He just hated ferals that much.

Preston: “I can’t believe it!” Preston stood with his hip touching Sole’s as they both watched the feral wander away. “Did that feral just speak to you? What’d they say?” Sole explained they believed it was their sibling. They had the same name. And -- in a bizarre way -- their eyes. “Oh, that’s unsettling.” Preston squeezed Sole’s arm. “If you need to talk about it, I’m here, babe.”

Piper: “Did that thing just talk?” A chill ripped up Piper’s spine. Sole had done some freaky stuff, but chat with a feral ghoul? Now she’d truly seen her partner do it all. “You sure that’s not a new invention from the Institute? They could be psyching you out. I mean, I’m sure they have your file from Vault-Tec...” She was utterly unhelpful, and more concerned about looking into the prospect of synth ghouls. Regardless, the two talked more about Sole’s sibling that night over a bottle of wine.

Nick: If Nick had the facial structure to scrunch his nose, his synthetic face would be one tight knot. He didn’t like hearing intelligible words coming from a feral ghoul, but it was better than the thing attacking Sole. When they explained it was their sibling, Nick’s heart dropped into his stomach. “Gosh, I’m real sorry to hear that. But if it helps, I think they recognized you.”

X6-88: X6 didn’t believe that was a real ghoul. If ferals could speak, the Institute would know about it. Regardless, he consoled Sole the best he could when they began crying over their long-lost sibling. “I’m so sorry for your loss.” He rubbed their back while his eyes scanned the horizon, anxious to see if the feral would return. “It isn’t safe to stay in a place this irradiated. But if you come back to camp, we can talk more about it.”

#fallout 4 #fallout 4 reactions #fallout 4 react #maccready #fallout 4 gage #fallout 4 piper #nick valentine #fallout 4 deacon #fallout 4 preston #im so tired of typing tags #also first gage react in 3 years hope i did ok #preston hopes that ghoul is off to help a settlement #do people even read my tags????

[taralen]

(*σᴗσ)

The next "Ask" response might take a day or two because I want it to be as *ahem* honestly drawn as possible. What does that mean? Oh.

You'll see.

Some people might think I'm being "crazy" as an "act" or putting on a "character."

Lmfao

W̶̢̪̏͋ͯ́͠h̷̬ͤ̿͢͜͝y̢̛̛̘͑̉ͬ́̕ ͧ͏̛̝͘͠t̴̵̺ͨ̊̑͜͡hͨͭͣ̈҉̵̷̝͟e̡̛̯̿́͟ ͯ͞҉̵̻͞f̵̴̢̥̌͐̆̑͟u͉ͩ͗ͤ̀͜͢͞c̈́̉ͥ̓͏͏̛҉͉k̲͋̇ͤͩ́͟͟͞ ̸̷̵̢̦͆̏w̢̢̤͒͑̾̀͝ơ̢̧̟͋͜ü̸̷̲͘͠l̵̤͗͌́͘̕d̢̨̹͂͘͢ ̴̛͍̒͌͡͡Ḭ̸̢̿͝͠ ͧͧͧ҉̴͙͘͜e̛͚͊́̆́̕͠v̨̡̛̙ͤ͆̊ͯ͞e̵̴̫ͭ͌́͘r̶ͥ͗͋̃͢͢͏̻ ̷̧̘ͨ̍́͘p͂͐̽͏̴̢̛͉ŕ̴̢͕ͥ̀͘͟e͔͑̈̓̀̕̕͠t̷͂͆͆ͪ͢͏̶̰e̸̡̼̒ͭ̌̕͞n̷̡͚͆͂̿͘͜d̴̵̓ͩ́̄͞҉̰ ̐̓͗͏̧͉͟͡t̵̷̸̢͎̾̊̾o̸̡̯ͪ̋̈̏͢͟ ̧͉̆̀͟͞b̡̢̲ͧ͘͜e̛͂͊͜͡҉̩ ̿ͨ͗҉҉̛̮͡t̵ͭ͗҉̨̧̙h͖͊͘͜͡͡i̵̧̻͋͟͞ś̀͞͏̶̘͡ ̸̴̢̄҉̺ẃ͗͏̷͚̀͟a͌ͪ̆̀̚͘͏̬͞y̸̢͚̾̈́͜͞?̢̯̋ͥ̔̀͟͝

( •_•)

( •_•)>⌐■-■

(⌐■_■)

Please.

I ain't a kid (sponge). I have memories from the 90s.

Anyway why am I typing this? Oh right

because I ran out of my meds and I haven't taken it in over 24 hours and my hands keep shaking and I'm DEFINITELY OKAY THOUGH i am definitely ok

You know how I know I am definitely 100% ok? Because I was drawing despite shaking and I ¦¦¦▓▓▒▒▒░░

[[ĪF ᗰY S❤ƱĿ ѠᗩS ᗩ Ƈ❤Ŀ❤Ŕ ĪƬ Ѡ❤ƱĿD ßƐ ṖĪᑎ��]]

I was tripping [[balls]] in my crib while in this same damn room. Those diamond patterns really @$%^ing pissed me off!

]]I may end up somewhere far away, and at first, I was happy, but now... I'm wondering if it's worth it. I hate the community here. The place I loved no longer exists. Everything changes too fast for me... I never got to appreciate the city to its full extent because I am not wealthy, but even then... Why would I stay living in a city? Why would I do this? Why am I second-guessing myself? I don't want to stay here for the reasons I should. I just want to bring the kitty from outside with me. Is that possible? Can I bring him with me? I love him so much, and the thought of someone hurting him when I'm no longer here makes me sick to my stomach. But he is a "feral" cat to anyone but me. Yet, I can't take him inside. What am I going to do? He is the one thing I don't want to leave behind...[[

[[Pink: The color of Compassion, Romance, and Nurture.]]

[[Does that color even represent me?]]

#musings #manic thoughts #manic vent #anxiety #I have a cat cage but I don't know if he will go in it... He did before but then he escaped #How will I catch him? I can't leave him. I can't...