#partially depends on how you count the body count

[ghostinthegallery]

Yenekh is a shining ray of hope and light, unimpeachable, babygirl, also has the highest body count of any named necron character by a damn high margin.

#yenekh #necrons #twice dead king #partially depends on how you count the body count #in terms of on-page deaths yenekh takes it #and implied death since he was a front line fighter during the war in heaven #the most war to ever war #if it is deaths *caused* then it gets trickier #but if you want murders with own hands... #babygirl covered in blood

[cemeterything]

Hey I know this is out of the blue and feel free to ignore, but I was wondering something about your angelverse story, for the domains/concepts an angel or demon can embody, and how broader the concept the stronger they can be. Is a domain always a concept/idea or can it be representing something physical as well? Like a certain action or place or item? Sorry if this doesn’t make much sense.

domains in angelverse can absolutely represent an object, action, or place, but it's more of a byproduct of their nature than their definition in and of itself. for example, my oc fen is the angel of tides, which embodies both the literal tidal patterns of bodies of water, and the concept of a "tide". for another example, you could have an angel of the tower, and that would cover both The Tower - perhaps even a specific one - as an object, and the idea of "the tower". or, say, an angel of the second hand (of a clock) would embody both the literal timekeeping mechanism for counting seconds, and the idea of that mechanism - a "second hand" can be interpreted in multiple ways, for example a helping hand/support, or a reserve to fall back on if your first "hand" (as in a game of chance, usually involving cards) fails. if that's a little hard to follow or visualise, that's intentional, as angels aren't meant to be perfectly comprehensible to humans, and the limits of an angel's domain are partially dependent on how creatively they're willing to think.

#angelverse #thank you for asking me about domains theyre so much fun to work with

[savnofilter]

Text Me Back | Katsuki Bakugo

      Pro Hero!Katsuki Bakugo x [FEM]Reader

CONTENT WARNING(S): sexual content, sexting, sending nudes, crude jokes, mention of myspace™, p.o.v switches, established relationship.

WORD COUNT: 4k words [15 mins].

READ MORE: masterlist + [student masterlist].

A/N: gosh i wish i couldve done more with this but... i'll figure it out later. may revamp or do a part 2 but it depends on how motivated. anyways, enjoy. 🥹 also i just realized that reader did nothing the whole day LMAOOOO so ignore that pls omg. thank you, anon!

As spring rolled around, the air had a certain chill to it. 

It was a crisp scent with sharp edges, the smell of growing plants clinging onto the molecules within the vicinity. As a result of the coolness in your room, you probably should turn on the heater in your apartment. Usually, you wouldn't have to worry about doing it yourself, but due to maintenance delaying another day later to fix the issue, you now find yourself in an internal battle to get up out of your bed for your comfort. 

Of course, you didn't hate the spring atmosphere. You liked it. The nostalgic and tender feel it gave your body and mind gave a fake sense of comfort that you desired. But you would desperately love it more if you could bask in such ideals while in the comfort of your lukewarm sheets, temperature heightened by the air of the room. 

You groan in disdain at the fact you had to get out of your bed. You begrudgingly roll onto your side and feel around for your phone on your nightstand. Once finding your device you click the button on the side to partially unlock it to see what you have missed from being asleep. Of course, regular things like Twitter notifications were present, Snapchat, Instagram, MySpace, etc… until a message stuck out the most amid your roll call. 

Bakugo 🤭💕

Light schedule today, museum date?

I know you will wake up late, so I'll decide for you. Pick-up is at 7 p.m.

[✓] Sent 8:42 A.M.

You immediately perk up at the notification, a goofy smile spreading onto your lips.

Bakugo has been your boyfriend for about three years now. You had originally met years prior when you both were in school. Him being an intern for superhero-ing and you were an intern for hands-on training within the superhero management world. You were a little shit and he was an even more of a little shit… and that's what made you two click. Even with his calloused way of showing his emotions, he had still been pretty evident about his feelings towards you when you two were merely friends. In the same way, you two could work and piss each other off to no end, there was a great sense of duality showcased by empathy, love, and compassion toward each other. When you needed someone or something, you could always count on your boyfriend, Katsuki.

You chewed the inside of your lip as your brain racked your head at the things you needed to do today. Today was Friday so you were sure you wouldn't have anything on your schedule. But because you tended to let things slip your head, you still had to double-check to make sure. You light up once again as you realize today was only a busy day for yourself—chores, errands, and minimum job-related things you could finish at home. Nothing dire; just adulting.

You

and what if I said no????

how'd y'know i'd wake up late lol

[✓] 13:01 P.M.

After quickly adjusting your noise settings from silent to vibrate, you bring your phone back down onto the nightstand and properly sit up to avoid your back from aching at an uncomfortable angle. You stretch in delight, arms brought over your head and your eyes shut exerting all of the drowsiness within you. You coil back into yourself once the cold air you had forgotten about hits your skin as a rude reminder. You glare at the thermostat before swiftly throwing your covers off and trudge your way to the small dial and fix the dilemma yourself.

While fiddling with the switch, you hear your buzz behind you. Your brows scrunch in frustration as you can feel yourself start to get agitated at how it's acting, finally getting the stupid little compartment to work before walking off. You nearly trip on your way back to bed in an effort to get back to the warmth of your bed.

Bakugo 🤭💕

You always wake up in the evening, dumbass.

& you have a free schedule today.

[✓] Sent 13:08 P.M.

You scoff.

Your chat bubbles float up on the screen on his end as you try to think of something more annoying to combat him with. You fall short.

You

Damn.

[✓] Sent 13:11 P.M.

You think to yourself before pausing and sending another text.

You

shouldn't you be at work? why are you texting me

a kid is probably drowning rn bc Lord Explosion Murder Dynamight is sexting his girlfriend instead of doing his job.

did you change your name to your hero name AGAIN???

[✓] Sent 13:15 P.M.

If loving this kind of banter was something that you enjoyed, may the devil take you away. You couldn't help the grin mischievously as you waited for his correspondence. You were practically on the edge of your bed waiting for his reply.

A few minutes go by and he hasn't replied. There's a pang of hurt following your spiraling thoughts. Who cared if a kid was really drowning-

Bakugo 🤭💕

↳{replied to your text: shouldn't you be at work? why are you texting me}

Is work in the room with us?

[✓] Sent 13:25 P.M.

You're almost quick to reply before seeing his speech bubbles pop up again, eyes watching in interest. You can't help but feel nervicited seeing it disappear and reappear, proud to have stunned him. What you didn't know is what he was fixing himself to say.

Bakugo 🤭💕

↳{replied and highlighted: … Dynamight is SEXTING HIS GIRLFRIEND instead of doing his job.}

No pic, no proof

[✓] Sent 13:27 P.M.

You squint at your phone and pause. Did he just quote the way you talk AND send you a musty and memefied reply all in one go? You huff at his bravery, rolling your eyes but feeling a deep blush creep up on your cheeks. Your phone vibrates.

Bakugo 🤭💕

Don't tell me you folded that fast, babe.

[✓] Sent 13:31 P.M.

Oh, but you did. You weren't expecting him to fire back at you like this. Often when you made an innuendo of some sort he'd whine and brush it off as if he hasn't beaten your doonies down multiple times—sometimes all in one night. But you refused to let him win this. You need to think fast.

Again, the cool air caresses your exposed hand, the stroke of the uncomfortable chill making you hiss. You position yourself on your back where you can safely cover the backs of your hands as you held your phone. A few more minutes had passed than you had noticed, your screen growing dim as you were forced to look at your newly awakened and chilled state.

That's when it hit you.

No pic, no proof, right?

As you shiver feeling a stroke of air pass over again, a sign that the temperature in the room is actively changing, you look down at your chest. In your defense, they looked at you first. Your nipples are profoundly erect and poking at your shirt begging for attention. You purse your lips before looking back at your screen, contemplating your next moves. Sucking in a small breath you quickly awaken your phone and swipe your screen over to take a photo of yourself.

You angle the electronic to show your chest, your other hand dragging up some of your shirt to show little skin of your stomach. Your nipples were still very much the prominent part of the image. After realistically struggling a bit, you snap the picture and quickly hum in surprise at how good it is. If you were in any other state than your current one, you would've retaken it but you couldn't feel yourself to care knowing he's an ass anyway.

You decide to say something after the image as you bring up the chat and send in the picture.

You

(IMAGE)

is this proof?

[✓] Sent 13:40 P.M.

After setting your phone down and interlocking your fingers together, you stare up at the sky: now that you think about it, what possessed you to send such a scandalous picture all of a sudden? The hormone monster? When was the last time you sent him a proper nude? You rub your face and groan as you now really think about it.

No matter how many times you have sent spicy images, it was the mock post nut clarity after sending it off. Debating if the pic was good enough or hoping that it somehow didn't change sender at the last second. The vulnerable feeling starts to claw its way into your body… and yet you refuse to let it get to you. Just like how everything with Bakugo is, all the nervous feelings always filled you with excitement. You couldn't wait to see his response because you knew damn well he was your munch.

You hear your phone buzz once before turning your head to see it fade to black again. Deciding to not look at it straight away, you get up for the second time today. Fortunately, your room was starting to warm up which meant it was the perfect time to start your day (yes, nearing the second hour of the evening). Your phone buzzes again and you choose to ignore it.

Running through your routine is clockwork. Use the bathroom, brush your teeth, shower, facial, and the last part you hadn't reached yet was to get dressed. You had honestly forgotten about teasing your long-term boyfriend as you freshened up for the day. Typically, you did this as a way to relieve stress and rejuvenate yourself. You hum as you lotion up yourself, welcoming back the feelings of giddiness back to your body. There was no need to rush this; it was almost as though the teasing was for your enjoyment more than his. Again you wrap yourself in your robe and finally sit on your bed to go on your phone. His message reads:

Bakugo 🤭💕

↳Loved your message.

Fuck.

Is this how we're playing today?

[✓] Sent 13:41 P.M.

You bite the inside of your lip before a smirk pulls at the corners of your mouth as you type up a reply.

You

you don't want more? okay… ;( 💔

[✓] Sent 14:39 P.M.

He immediately opens your message and his speech bubbles become afloat.

Bakugo 🤭💕

You know damn well that's not what I meant, brat.

Another form of confirmation would be suitable.

[✓] Sent 14:39 P.M.

There's a pause before he sends his next text.

Bakugo 🤭💕

Please.

[✓] Sent 14:39 P.M.

You

I guess you can since you asked nicely…

[✓] Sent 14:41

He was a good boy you had to admit. When he wanted you, he certainly knew how to play the rules until he could be on top. You admired that about him.

You slightly turn your head to the mirror of your bed. You were currently out of sight in the reflection but had an idea of how you could use it. You scooch up to the edge of your bed, sitting with your legs on each side of the corner closest to the body mirror. Before you could even think about sending off a photo you pull your hair back and neaten it up whether it was with a bonnet or messy bun. Regardless you knew he wouldn't give a fuck but this surge in arousal made you want to look sexy in your most natural state. Skin glowing and thriving, you felt like a goddess.

Blessed that the room is warm enough for you to be naked, you partially undress; eyes watch your irresistible figure come to reveal itself. Of course, even with how much you loved yourself, you couldn't show all of yourself just yet. You pull your robe open enough to expose your chest, a small huff of discontent leaving as the air hits your naked skin again. A hum leaves your chest as you admire yourself a bit more, before positioning the camera in a way to show off your chest. You knew this would drive him insane. After a few awkward angles and shots, you deemed your favorite one and opened back up the messages app once again.

You waste no time uploading the pictures but grow a bit hesitant as you can’t help but feel nervous. You’d think after doing this with a trusted partner it’d be a breeze at this stage. You fidget on the edge of the bed as you type up, delete, then retype, decide to delete and then the process continues. ‘Why was this so hard?? Just send the damn pic!’ You sigh and type up your final draft, ready to send the first proper nude for the evening.

With a final decision, you decide to go with something simple.

You

how’s this?

(IMAGE)

[✓] Sent 14:57

You immediately close out the app once you send it off and fall back onto your bed. There’s a giddy smile on your face as you could only imagine what his reaction would be to see the photo. That was the whole exciting thing about this: the teasing that transpires and the adrenaline rush you receive from it. You don’t bother to check if he’s seen it yet as you think it would be best to let your heart rest. Luckily, it’s not long before you need to wait as your phone buzzes beside you.

After a few moments of waiting you sit up on your side to look at the message, your eyes immediately going for Bakugo’s text. You freeze upon seeing two messages in the same format as yours, a regular text followed by a photo to compliment the exchange. You raise your eyebrows as you prop yourself up on your hand now, tapping his notification and swiping up to look at what he has sent you.

You softly gasp as you open the image, something you were not expecting but will gladly accept. “More than perfect.” You read aloud and scrolled further down to look at the whole image. You grin upon seeing a picture of him palming his hard-on through his pants. It appeared by his scenery and clothing that he truly wasn’t out on patrol today, instead probably filming content to build his likability with his fanbase. Not only that, he was in a dressing room, by himself. He had more than enough time to do what he pleases.

Bakugo was more than ready to up the ante and your slow correspondence was killing him. He knew that this was a frequent way that you liked to tease and play dirty with him. He had been up since 5 a.m. and he was basically waiting impatiently for you to wake up.

It had been about a week or so since you two have seen each other and he was missing you badly. Your dumb jokes, your antics, the “arguments” and especially your touch. Apparently, the pre-planned date for tonight was the type of outing you needed as well. Bakugo sucks his teeth as he starts to feel a blush arise on his cheeks as he can’t help but think about you. And you weren’t making it better with how willing you are to toy with him.

Now it was the blonde-haired male's turn to be nervous awaiting your reply. He watched in expectancy to see your response, sitting up from his slouched position on the couch in his dressing room to read your reply.

#1 Brat

not too bad yourself, honey~

[✓] Sent 15:21

Katsuki is quick to start typing again, pausing when he sees your chat bubbles pop up on his phone.

#1 Brat

mind sending another one more… revealing?

(IMAGE)

[✓] Sent 15:23

He chuckles at your proposition. The laugh subsides as he takes in the new image, revealing more of your body in your lying down position practically mimicking the first photo you had sent for the day. The robe artfully covers but also shows your body and he can’t but groan as he longs to touch you. Your breasts, legs, and tummy are so fucking attractive to him. The fact that you have a pretty face tops it all off makes him feel as though he’s won the jackpot being in love with you. But there was one part that he was longing to see as well, the piece of heaven between your legs. The blonde-haired hero grunts as he starts to type up his message.

Bakugo 🤭💕

I could ask the same from you, beautiful.

[✓] Sent 15:26

You

ah-ah, you first!

[✓] Sent 15:27

“This…” Katsuki mumbles to himself but doesn’t stop from unbuckling his pants anyways. With how hard his length appeared in the earlier photo, it is no surprise at how confined it was pressing against his underwear. With a simple tug, he releases his cock from his briefs, a soft groan leaving his lips as he strokes his cock. The warmth of his hand certainly did not compare to yours at all.

He imagines your hot hands caressing every bit of his skin, your warm mouth that’s skilled with playing with his sweet spots, your plush thighs that wrap around his waist or squish his face. The way he could watch how your chest jiggle with each thrust, the way that your pussy never fails to take him in like it was made for him. Everything about you was cursing him and he needed you badly.

Bakugo tilts his head back against the top of the couch as he starts to speed up his thrusts, now fully getting into the thought of what he’d do to you if you were right next to him right now. How he could easily pick you up and pin you onto the couch as he pounds into you like no tomorrow, not giving a fuck if your moans were too loud and anyone passing by could hear the lewd noises coming from within the room. The way he could watch your face contort into the most erotic expressions all because of him, his touch, his mouth, and his dick most importantly. The moment his hips buck to meet his own stroking hand makes him realize he had distracted himself from his main task.

He fumbles around for his phone before setting it up the way you like the most when watching his videos. The angle is perfectly angled to showcase his impressive length, not tew much balls but enough to show the goodies. He made sure to be vocal as well, letting the camera show his stroking and his thumb rubbing his tip every so often to increase the pleasure. A few times you could hear his soft grunts of your name or an exploitive to release the building-up tension from his masturbation session.

He breathes out as he speeds up his strokes. It seems as though with his jerking that he's getting closer and closer to his climax, the only thing clouding his mind is only you. He softly pants and starts to collect perspiration of sweat on his forehead as he works up to his orgasm. He clenches his jaw as he finally finishes and continues to stroke, showing how much cum he can milk from himself. He hums in mere satisfaction and ends the video to clean up. Unfortunately, that in itself did not rid himself of the boner; a new one was already starting to grow once again.

When he processes the video through the messaging app, there is no cheeky remark or commentary. He is officially worked up and cannot wait any longer.

Bzzz Bzzz

Your eyes widen as you finally get your reply back. You tilt your head in curiosity and feel your heart skip a beat. It is a video. Katsuki sent a fucking video. You bite your lower lip and open the message. There was no other text to accompany it but you already knew what you were in for.

Your breath hitches as the video is straight to the point. You watched his perfectly manicured and clean nails skillfully play with his cock, his large hand almost struggling to wrap around his own length. You hear a small moan and you quickly raise the volume, your heart skipping a beat as you realize that you can hear the erotic noises come from him.

Your hand immediately shoots down to untie your robe, slick already starting to increase and your clit pulsing. You shamelessly moan as your deft fingers stroke at your vulva, your mouth in the shape of an, “o” as you use your fluid to play with your bundle of nerves.

“Shit!” You close your eyes with the image of him stroking his cock deeply ingrained in your mind. The noises he made were enough for you to get off on your own. Your middle finger rubs heavy circles into your clit while your other hand busies itself playing with your nipple, the feeling making you lightly shiver. The sounds of his heavy breathing and the silkiness of his hand rubbing his shaft were driving you crazy, and soon enough your petting wasn’t doing the job. You opt for fingering yourself instead, huffing out a whimper as your fingers barely fill your cunt but make up for it by finding your g-spot at the roof of your pussy.

You weakly open your eyes to watch the screen, your breath growing short and light as you meet your fingering with Katsuki’s stroking hand. Another buzz from your phone makes you sit up a little. Your confused and dazed attention span manages to catch the notification that rolls at the top of the screen.

Bakugo 🤭💕 — 15:45

You better not be finishing yourself off without . . .

You groan in annoyance as you remember why you were even diddling yourself in the first place. You slow your strokes down to properly set up your phone, hastily trying to find a proper angle that shows off your body in its entirety (which wasn’t that hard to do as you were in your bed). You spread your legs for the camera and look into the front camera lens as you insert both fingers into your cunt once again. You tilt your head to the side as you look down at your fingers and work a third finger into yourself.

You moan out his name as you work your right hand's fingers into you, building up to the same pace that you had before with the extra digit inside. “Need you so bad, baby--” You groan, looking back up at the screen. Your left-hand comes up to play with your tits again, the robe that still adorned you slipping off your shoulder as you got closer to your climax.

You whimper, finishing off with your fingers, your eyes looking at your cunt taking in your fingers before glancing back at the camera in lust. You repeated, “fuck” as if in a mantra, your eyes closing and your hips bucking to ride yourself to release. You smile as you slowly take out your fingers, your slick sticking to your fingers and your cunt glistening in juices. Your cunt was puffy and warm with arousal pumping through it and it was clear that you wanted him as bad as he wanted you. You scoot a bit closer to show off your sticky fingers, spreading them for him. You hit stop recording with your clean hand after your finished, wasting no time uploading it into the messenger app.

You

of course not, only for you~

(VIDEO)

[✓] Sent 15:55

As soon as you send it in, a text from him follows. You hop up from your bed as you read, heading back to your bathroom to clean yourself up even though the inevitable would have you in the same state as before.

Bakugo 🤭💕

000-0000 Tokyo-to

Be here in 10 minutes.

[✓] Sent 15:56

Hopefully, your newly scheduled meeting won’t delay his filming.

    all rights reserved © do NOT steal, alter or copy this work.

#bnha x reader #mha x reader #bnha smut #mha smut #bakugo katsuki x reader #bakugo x reader #katsuki x reader #pro hero!bakugo katsuki x reader #pro hero!bakugo x reader #bnha oneshots #bnha imagines #bnha scenarios #mha oneshots #mha imagines #mha scenarios #n/sfw #sav's saucin'

[dontbeunraisonable]

Reward - Lucifer x GN!Reader

Prompt: You offer to give them a reward in exchange for them doing something.

Word Count: 0.8k words

Warnings: none

Lucifer

Now, Lucifer doesn’t usually need a “carrot-and-stick” ploy to get him to do something. He usually listens to reason or exchanges of favors. And is generally responsible.

But tonight he was in a particularly sour mood. So sour that throwing himself into paperwork was just making him feel worse. The music was off, his wine glass had been abandoned across the room. He was just stewing.

The House of Lamentation was unusually quiet. His brothers could smell the negative energy wafting from Lucifer’s study and were all hiding from him. They told you to hide, too, but you figured that leaving him to marinate in his own bad vibes would just make him more mad.

You politely knocked on the door, careful not to be too loud.

“Lucifer?”

When you didn’t hear him tell you to go away, or the sound of furniture being thrown at the door, you went ahead inside. He was sitting at his desk surrounded by papers and folders. When he saw you, he gave you a small smile and put his pen to the side to rub his temples.

“Hello, my darling.” He sounded tired.

“Evening. Heard you’re in a bad mood.”

He frowned. He never appreciated finding that his brothers had been talking about him. Especially to others. Especially to the exchange students. And especially to you. But you were saying it gently and crossing the room to stand next to him. His frown softened as he leaned into your touch, carding fingers through his hair and pressing his head into your chest.

“You feeling stressed, baby?” you whispered, kissing the top of his head. “Anything I can do to help?”

His eyes fluttered shut. “Mm. No. This is enough.”

“How much of this do you need to get done tonight? Can you just go to bed and do it with a fresh mind tomorrow.”

He sighed and hugged you tightly. “I need to keep working.”

“Just a bit more. Then bed. You won’t be doing your best work when you’re tired and in a bad mood.”

He grumbled something but he was melting under your touch and knew he would cave soon. Time for a secret weapon.

“Finish this file and I’ll give you a reward, okay? Then I’ll let you get back to work.”

He perked up. “Reward?”

“Mhm.”

He waited for you to tell him what the reward was, then figured from your smile that you weren’t going to.

“Fine. Sit over there with your secret and I’ll finish this.”

It didn’t take him too long, but he kept glancing up at you from your spot on the couch. You didn’t even pretend to not be staring at him. Chin on the heel of your hand. Smiling.

He looked so handsome when focused, and was looking prettier and prettier as his frown faded. Tousled black hair. Loosened tie and partially unbuttoned shirt. Gloves discarded. Shapely eyebrows slowly returned to a resting position, and no longer pressed together and made a wrinkle on his forehead. Not that he was any less cute with it, but you would much rather see your sweet demon smiling over pouting (or sulking, depending on how much you valued your life).

You were so enamoured that you almost missed it when he finished the file. Almost. He dropped his pen and threw everything back in the folder. With a flourish, he moved it to the “completed” box and stood. Grabbed his coat. Stalked towards you.

“I’ve finished the file, darling.” He settles the coat on the back of the couch and leans down. One knee settles next to yours and his face is close as purrs, “Now, what’s this about a reward.”

You slip between his arms and stand, gently guiding him to stand straight before you. He does so, but his body still leans in and almost coils around you. It reminds you of ivy on a house, or a snake on its favorite zookeeper. 

Gentle hands hold his face still and you press a kiss to his lips.

Dark eyelashes flutter closed and he inhales deeply. Both of you hold onto each other tightly, his arms roaming up and down your back, while yours are stationary, one gripping his upper back and the other his lower.

Before it can deepen, you pull back. He lets out a huff. He was a real baby about teasing, but that was not the point. 

You kiss him again, chastely pressing your lips over his, then the corners of his mouth, his chin, his cheek, his eyelids, his forehead. Gentle pecks, leaving the warmth of you all over his face. He couldn’t help but smile.

He could almost forget what (or more accurately, who) had put him in such a mood. Almost. But revenge was best served cold. And he would much rather kiss you and sleep comfortably in your embrace than plot and scheme. He was a softy like that.

Posted: 2023 December 8

#obey me x reader #lucifer x reader #obey me lucifer x reader #obey me fluff #obey me lucifer fluff #lucifer fluff

[leviismybby]

ERWIN SMUT HC?!? SHED SOME LIGHT

Hehehe not me writing for Erwin...

Erwin Smith x fem!reader

Nsfw 18, mdni, hrjejdndnsjd some Commander Erwin appreciation :))

Erwin has two sides, he is either really gentle or really rough. It really depends on what kind of a day he had really. You know as soon as you see him after a long day what kind of mood he is in.

If gentle, he will worship your body head to toe, every single part of your skin has had his lips on it. His hands caress your skin as if you would break if he touched you any harder. His thrusts are deep but slow and passionate, he would whisper how good and pretty you are for him as you cum.

If rough, oh boy. No walking for you, at least for a week. He prefers doggy so that he can hold your hands behind your back, thrust harshly into you and spank you. You're his only outlet and he will use you as a stress relief.

I've said this before, I will say it again. Huge breeding kink. The man wants to have a family with you and enjoys the sight of his cum dripping out of your pussy. "Look at that darling, think I got you knocked up this time?"

OFFICE SEX I can not stress this enough, he is working 99% of the time, so office sex isn't anything unusual. He would fuck your brains out in his desk, he doesn't care if anyone hears it. Who would call him out in it? He is the commander...

Speaking of commander, this man has a huge authority kink. You accidentally call him by his name? He will not let it slide. His big hand would wrap around your neck. "What was that darling? How dare you disobey me?" He takes your hips in his hands, fucking you roughly on his cock.

Erwin likes to eat you out, he enjoys it thoughtfully. Even when in bad mood, he takes his time with you when his head is buried between your thighs. His tongue gently breaks you down, teasing your pussy until your legs shake. He always makes you squirt, always.

Blowjobs under his desk? His absolute favorite. He would be working on paperwork pretending like nothing is happening while your mouth is struggling to take his cock. His hand pull harshly on your hair and he makes you gag on him. "Just like that, gag for me pretty girl." He smiles as he sees tears run down your pretty face. And you better swallow his cum, he excepts nothing less.

He isn't a jealous man, or so he seems because if he notices that someone's eyes linger on you a little bit too long for his liking, he will fuck the jealousy out on you. "Tell me you're mine." His cock pounds deeply into you, you can't even speak anymore, he has fucking you for hours. "What can't speak? Too bad my dear.."

Isn't too much into bondage because he loves to have your hands touch him and your eyes look at him. However, he makes an exception if you behave badly. He would tie you to his headboard and tease you until your begging for him. "Want my cock? Then why were you acting like that earlier?" He would slap your pussy making you yelp.

Has a thing for multiple crampies, he has a breeding kink after all...You always end up full of his cum afterwards, he sometimes gets really pussydrunk so he loses count on how times he filled you up to the brim.

Likes when your nails scratch down his back, he isn't the biggest fan of marking due to his job because he doesn't want unnecessary gossip to spread but he lets you dig your fingers down his back when his cock is deep in you. "Darling, don't hold back. It doesn't hurt me when you do it."

Cockwarming? Cockwarming especially when he has to work overtime in his office. He has you seated on his cock for hours, your walls clenching around his cock, partially begging him to move but he doesn't budge. "Hush now. I have work to do. Be a good little soldier and handle it. You're a big girl."

Aftercare king, he is aware that good aftercare is important. He would hold you close and cuddle you, asking if you're feeling okay and if he hurt you. In case you can't walk due to your wobbly legs, he carries you to the bathroom and runs a shower to relax your body. Would kiss your forehead as you lay on his strong chest.

Jdjdkekekjd I am not into Erwin all that much but damn.

#erwin smith x you #erwin smut #erwin x reader #erwin smith #Erwin x reader smut #erwin smith x reader #Erwin smith x reader smut #snk erwin #aot x y/n #aot x reader #aot smut #Attack on titan

[tizeline]

Asking some writers/artists I follow:

Is there anything in your fic/comic that you as the author know about, but won't end up in the actual story?

So I have a rather uh disorganized way of telling the story of the TSAU, I jump back and forth in the timeline quite a bit depending on what part of the story I wanna tell. Overall I improvise quite a bit, and because of that I can't be 100% sure what will be depicted in the story and what wont. But I might as well share some little tidbits of lore that are probably not gonna be mentioned in the main story (though they still might who knows lol)

So uh. April and Kendra are exes. Kinda. They were pretty close friends when they were younger and decided to become a couple when they were like 9 or something. This lasted for a grand total of.... 2 days, maybe? Then they had a huge fight about something silly like, I dunno, Kendra hacked April's tamagotchi as a prank and she got mad so they broke up and they've had major beef ever since.

Draxum made Mikey wear some type of artifact or gear that supressed his mystic powers as a kid for his own safety. Mikey started showing an incredible talent for the mystic arts at a very young age. Draxum was excited about this for all of 5 seconds before realizing that Mikey is a VERY small child with NO impulse control and he's definetily gonna turn himself and the rest of the family into glitter unless Draxum finds a way prevent that from happening until Mikey has the chance to develop an understanding of consequences. (He's learned to control his powers well enough to not need them by the time of the main-story, so he no longer wears the supressors)

Donnie's whole villain-act he puts on is partially a coping mechanism. He grew up never knowing anyone like himself (unless you count Splinter, I suppose) so the only times he saw himself represented in anything was characters in comics and shows and such. There were plenty of anthropomorphic reptile characters in the media he consumed, and Donnie clunged to anyone or anything that he could at least somewhat relate to. Problem is, a lot of these anthro reptiles were like.... y'know... villains. It's pretty common for super heroes and stuff to fight evil mutant reptile creatures, and even stories with only anthro characters reptiles tend to be charactarized as more villainous. Granted, turtles specifically usually don't get this treatment, but it still had quite an effect on Donnie as a little kid that most characters similar to him would be viewed as evil, which caused him to internalize that mindset. So turtle tot Donnie basically went like "Yes! This is what I am! A villain in someone else's story! It all makes sense now! This is a healthy mindset to have!" and just kinda embraced the role that human society had given to him because he didn't really know how else to deal. (Things changed after meeting April and he found out that there might actually be humans out there who might treat him like a person and not just a freak of nature! He still plays into the villain-persona, partially for fun and partially as a coping thing, but he doesn't have nearly as a negative view of himself now as he did as a tot)

And last, but certainly not least................ Draxum owns a Lou Jitsu body pillow (PURELY for research-purposes, NO other reason!)

#Tiz Sep AU #tizel talk #rottmnt #tmnt #rottmnt au

[cosmicluka]

i know st patrick’s day is long gone but could you do a part 2 for pinch? like after the case where reader shows spencer her bra (maybe more)

Pinch (pt 2)

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader (Criminal Minds)

Summary: You finally have the chance to prove your Saint Patrick's Day protection weeks after the holiday. Spencer was only slightly more ready than the first time you brought it up (spoiler alert: that's still not a lot)

Genre: Fluff, friends to lovers

Warnings: Suggestive, AFAB reader, partial nudity, one? bad word, not proofread

Word Count: 1K

A/N: This is so late... Uni has been horrid lately. I wasn't sure how spicy you wanted, but if you want NSFW, I can do a part 3 to this!

Part 1

It was supposed to be a simple case. The bodies of two women had been found in an open lot almost an hour from headquarters and two more women had been reported missing a few days prior to the discovery of the corpses. In theory, it should not have been difficult. Talk to a few people, gather the evidence, arrest whatever twisted individual responsible, rush through some paperwork, and make it home in time to come up with a new Saint Patrick’s Day tradition with your favorite genius. Preferably one that involved a lot more time and a lot less clothes.

But your green bra didn’t carry enough luck in it. Within the hour, there had been reports of a double homicide just a few miles past the border of North Carolina that matched the M.O. your suspect perfectly, meaning the team had to split up in hopes of finding the one crucial piece of missing information that would bring this case to a close. That left you with Prentiss, Hotch, and Morgan on the jet while Reid stayed behind with J.J, Garcia, and Rossi to work the case where it had all originated. 

You had tried to convince Hotch to let you stay behind, but he was adamant that you go with them, which put you in the one situation that you were trying to avoid like your life depended on it. 

“So,” Prentiss slid into the seat next to you with a grin that promised no good. “You and the genius, huh?” 

“Yeah, I, for one, would love to hear more about that new development that you showed earlier today.” Morgan was quick to butt in from his spot on the couch. You couldn’t trust your tongue not to trip over any words that could come out of your mouth, so you just looked to Hotch to silently plea for his help. “It’s not against any guidelines to fraternize with coworkers, but you should still be careful. Don’t let it affect your work.” That was all he said as he looked away from you to thumb through the file he held. A groan escaped you as Morgan and Prentiss turned their attention back on you, impatiently waiting to respond to their interrogation. If you were the one who found the unsub after you landed, they probably would be going to jail with a few extra bruises than necessary as reprimands for putting you in this situation. 

-

It had been a little over two weeks since that particular suspect was apprehended and the case was closed. Since then, you and Spencer’s schedules just hadn’t cleared up. Case after case hit almost all at the same time, leaving you both exhausted even on the days that you didn’t have to take the jet anywhere. But that didn’t mean that you were waiting patiently and neither was he. It was obvious in the ways that you would let your hand linger on his arm when you walked past him or running your fingers through his hair under the guise of getting it out of his face when you were sure no one was around. It was obvious in the way that he would hover closer than necessary when he leaned over your shoulder to peak at the files you had in front of you or the way that he would sit next to you whenever he could and bump your knee with his. 

The others had noticed as well. It was no secret to you or Spencer when they had started placing bets as to when you two would finally get together. He had found it humorous while you were halfway to convincing yourself to place a bet of your own. Best outcome: you get extra money and a fantastic night with a fantastic man. Worst outcome: you lose some money, but you still get Spencer in your bed. Honestly, what could go wrong? 

You were ready to have Morgan deal you in that afternoon, but the case of the day had been resolved and you were free to leave and rest up before the next case inevitably slid across your desk to whisk you away to some other gory reality. By the time that you had packed all of your things up for the day, Morgan was nowhere to be found. A certain doctor was, however. He stood beside his desk as his slender hands shoved papers into the brown satchel that he always carried as his unruly hair flopped over in his face, making him look disheveled and much more casual than when he had come in the office that morning.

You started walking towards him with your own bag clutched in your hands to try and quell the anxiety that was slowly starting to build as you took in his lean frame. You knew your crush on the man was known to everyone, even him at this point, but that did nothing to stop the nervous onset of nausea that took over your stomach every time you stepped out of your comfort zone. “So, genius,” You had started when you got close enough to him. Spencer paused in his process of packing his things to stare at you with those big, brown eyes that drove you incredibly insane. “You have any plans for the day since we were set free early?” 

He shook his head in response. “No, not unless you count flipping through another book of Leo Tolstoy’s again.” He paused as he shoved the last paper in his bag before closing it and putting all of his attention on you. “Did you, I mean… would you…” He stumbled over his words, suddenly not having the courage to meet your eye. His question had come out in a whisper and if you hadn’t been straining not to miss a single word, you wouldn’t have heard it. 

“Want to get dinner?” You should have felt bad, at least a tiny bit. The way his face grew bright red all the way to the tip of his ears and down his neck should have persuaded you against teasing him. But you wanted to see if you could bring out the same Spencer Reid that had so boldly asked to see you naked in front of your coworkers. “Dinner sounds lovely. After that, we can go back to my place. After all, I did promise to show you my Saint Patrick’s Day protection that I just so happen to be wearing again.” You felt your own face heat up a bit with the way his eyes flitted from your face to your chest as if he could confirm the bra you were wearing through the shirt you had on as his own blush seemed to deepen. 

“Yeah-” His voice broke in a high pitched squeak before he cleared his throat, hand coming up to his collar to pull the offensive fabric away from his neck as he looked away. “I mean, yes. If you’re comfortable with it, that is. I would be fine if you just wanted to get dinner, but if you really want to-” 

“Hey, pretty boy?” His wide eyes snapped to you as the words died on his lips, mouth opening and closing much like a fish. You had to stifle a giggle at how the pet name affected the man in front of you. “Just stop talking. How about we skip dinner and go straight to dessert?” Your gaze landed on the bobbing of Spencer’s adam’s apple as he swallowed nervously at your teasing and you shifted your feet as you became increasingly aware of the heat settling in your stomach.

You reached out for his hand but stopped just before you could make contact. “I know, I know. Shaking hands transfers more pathogens than kissing, but-” He interrupted your own ramble with a trembling voice. “It’ll be pointless to worry about that after tonight.” You nearly choked with the way your heart leapt up to your throat as Spencer met you halfway and grabbed your outstretched hand. His skin was warm and a bit clammy from the nerves, but electricity still shot up from where you were touching through your entire body. As he started walking to the exit, pulling you along with him, you couldn’t help but wonder if you’d be able to survive the rest of the night if this was the effect his simple touch had on you. 

-

Despite your teasing, you still ended up at a local diner for quick meal. It had felt like you were a teenager again. You shared nervous glances from over your plates and stole subtle touches as if it was against the rules with giggles each time you made contact. The nerves had visibly melted away from Spencer’s frame as he relaxed in your company again. But not even you could bat away the anxiety coming in waves when Spencer stood in the middle of your living room with his eyes combing every inch of the room except for the space you occupied. You couldn’t believe that you actually had him in your home. After months of pining after the genius and the last few weeks of torture and anticipation, he was so close to your reach. 

“Your walls are blue. Did you know that people with blue rooms are known to be more productive?” 

“I did not know that.” 

“Yeah, color theory actually stems back from the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, and Chinese. All of the colors have an affect that can be used for healing or-”

“What did they say about this color?” You took a deep breath to reassure yourself as you pulled your shirt over your head, leaving yourself bare in front of Spencer who finally turned around to face you right as the clothing hit the ground. You heard his breath hitch in his throat as he struggled and failed to keep his eyes off of your breasts that sat supported in your emerald green bra. You felt lightheaded under his gaze as he wet his lips with his tongue and took a step closer to you. “Well?” You found the courage to quip as you hid your shaking hands behind your back. “I- I don’t…Uh, I don’t know,” Spencer had started with his voice strained, eyes flitting from yours back down to your exposed chest. 

“I honestly don’t give a damn about them right now.” His whispered words were enough to have you abandoning any shame or embarrassment and you grabbed his face between his hands and pulled him closer. You gave him a moment to pull away if he wanted, but he just leaned closer to finally connect you with a passionate kiss. The way one of his hands found its way to your waist while the other tangled itself in your hair surprised you and as he began to guide you back to the open door of your bedroom without ever separating from you, you wondered what other surprises Spencer would show you tonight.

#spencer reid x reader #reid x reader #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds #spencer reid #derek morgan #penelope garcia #jennifer jareau #david rossi #aaron hotchner #x reader #afab reader #part 2 #st patricks day #tv show #drabble

[sungbeam]

BIRD HUNT — one

nonidol!choi line x f!reader

gotham city is a gutter running rampant with the ill, corrupt, and the insane. at times, justice and vengeance must be served by one's own hand... no matter the lengths one must go to do so.

▷ genre, au, etc. bat family au, dc comics inspired, dark, vigilantes au, slow burn, ceo/billionaire au, cat woman!reader, murder mystery au, action, suspense, angst, slow burn-ish?, love square??; choi line inspired by dick grayson (csb), jason todd (cyj), and tim drake (cbg), including bruce wayne for choi minho and damian wayne for nishimura riki, inspired by 2022's The Batman

▷ chapter warnings. swearing, mentions of insomnia, bank robbery, mentions of assault/violence, mentions of weaponry, depictions of death and blood, dead body

▷ word count. 3.8k // taglist. open

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FILE_01 : a thing for strays

gotham city.

[beomgyu & yn are 15, soobin is 16, yeonjun is 17.]

The incessant, distinct cry of meowing drew 15-year-old Choi Beomgyu from his warm covers and his state of sleep. (Technically speaking, it was only partial unconsciousness, but this wasn't about his insomnia.) He had long accepted the fact that good night's rests were rare in this world and with his condition, so there was less irritation and more plain curiosity in his mind. In other words, he cared very much about how a cat could meow so loud over the city’s infinite soundtrack more than sleeping.

He dragged his palms over his eyes, scrubbing away the stinging in his irises due to sleep deprivation. The dull buzz at the back of his head kept him awake constantly anyway. As he made his way toward the window, his eyelids fluttered like the shutter of a camera lens, actively adjusting to the warm glow of a light radiating from the apartment across the alleyway from him and streaming into the darkness of his.

Beomgyu peered out of the window, hand idly scratching his chest while the other leaned on the sill. It wasn't completely uncommon to see at least one person wandering the streets late at night in Gotham City. No sane person would be out, but whoever said Gotham residents were sane in the first place?

In the alleyway below, he could make out a shadowy form crouched by a dingy cardboard box at the foot of a dumpster. You knelt there before the box; Beomgyu quietly lifted his window open to hear what you were saying. You didn't look much older than he was, and you were bundled in a straight trench coat that left much to the imagination. A pair of slippers peeked out from beneath you, however, where you braced yourself against the grainy gravel ground.

"I'm not gonna — yah! I'm trying to help you, you st—" You huffed, hands raised in the air. "Sorry, that's mean of me to say."

A small laugh fell from his lips.

Your head perked up at the sound, and he mentally praised your alertness. That was a critical skill to wield here. Your head whipped around, eyes searching the alleyway, before meeting his eyes. You narrowed your own. "Have you just been there watching me this whole time?"

"Depends; how long have you been out here?" He drawled back, his upper body leaning out of the window and his elbows bracing against the window sill.

You rolled your eyes and turned back to the cat in the box. "Creep."

"Weirdo."

That got you whirling around for him again, and this time, he stared at the way the amber streetlight posted just at the mouth of the alleyway illuminated your features and the feisty gleam in your eyes. There was a feline likeness to your eyes and tendencies—your posture and crouch stance, narrow-eyed cynicism, alertness and awareness. "The fuck d'you just call me?"

He shrugged with a smirk pulling at the corners of his lips. "You called me a creep first."

You scoffed at his teasing. This was much more fun than tossing and turning for sleep that would never come.

"Are you not afraid of catching something from the animals out here?" Beomgyu queried, now leaning his chin in the palm of his hand. He was Juliet leaning out of her window to lament her dramatic soliloquy, unaware of Romeo's presence below. His father would scoff at such a romanticized view of life, but it was all said with an undertone of cynicism anyway. "I mean, have you seen what crawls out of the gutters? Ngh," he shivered.

There was something he couldn't place in your features as you suddenly scooped the mewling cat into your arms and stood facing him. Beomgyu watched in awe as the cat began to purr and nuzzle into the warmth that your body provided. Your hand gently smoothed over its fur, even if the feline was matted with dirt and grime.

"I have a thing for strays," you said simply. On the surface, it was a quote of defiance, but beneath it all, he sensed there was something else to it.

Beomgyu's heart stuttered when you had said that and looked him right in the eyes.

As if on cue, a pair of black and white cats padded their way out of the shadows toward you. From where, he had no clue. But they circled your legs, rubbing against your sweatpants adoringly. He guessed these were yours, but he shouldn't assume simply based on their cleaner and maintained coats. (Sarcasm—that was sarcasm. He was definitely going to guess based on that.)

The apartment across the alleyway opened up at ground level and more of its warm light streamed out into the alley. A woman stood at the doorway with one hand on her cocked hip. "Yn, you know we can't…"

"Oh, but mama," you pleaded. You lifted the purring mass of fur in your arms as if it would plead your case for you. It was kind of cute, really. "Look at her."

The woman's eyes twinkled. "Ah, all right. Let me see if we have more—" Her words died upon her tongue when she caught Beomgyu's frame at his window.

He marked the spark of recognition in her eyes. He wasn't completely surprised.

"You're—You're one of the Choi kids, aren't you?" She asked. Perhaps it was less of a question than a statement, because Beomgyu had no doubt she didn't need confirmation. He and his brothers' and his father's faces had been plastered all over the society columns since birth. "Beomgyu, isn't it?"

"Yes ma'am," he said. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."

Her head tilted to the side, and he saw the curiosity in your features, as well. It seemed you hadn't recognized him though. "You're quite polite for…" She shook her head, dismissing her previous thought. "What're you doing on this side of the city?"

Ah, and that was yet another mystery, wasn't it? Besides the mystery of his entire family, it was the fact that the Choi kids, despite hardly being adult aged, did not live at Choi Manor all of the time. Eventually, Beomgyu figured they'd all amass there once more and dwell there more frequently, but for now, he liked his dingy, crumby, little apartment in this specific Gotham gutter. Folks usually didn't expect the child of a multimillionaire to pick this dump to have his own apartment in.

But that was the strategy, wasn't it? Not only to prove people's judgements wrong, but to also let himself live and breathe and learn from his own mistakes.

Oh, and learn to deal with his insomnia on his own. So far, the only solutions he'd found were copious doses of melatonin or just caffeine. But even those things were hit or miss.

"Got kicked out," he joked.

And then he regretted it immediately afterward when he realized how real that felt. It was sticky and metallic in his mouth, like blood, and it felt too real.

You and your mother were surprisingly sympathetic and neither of you made any brash comments concerning his status, his money, his family and being "kicked out." He expected something like "spoiled brat got an apartment to himself when he got kicked out of daddy's mansion," but nothing of the sort came forth.

I have a thing for strays, your words echoed in his mind.

The doorway to your apartment seemed to open just a little wider. "How about you come over for a little hot chocolate?"

Despite it being the beginning of summer, hot chocolate sounded nice. (Hot chocolate and company sounded nice.)

Beomgyu's eyes subtly flickered over to you, expecting some kind of catty objection, but even you stayed quiet, your eyes peering up at him. Waiting. I have a thing for strays.

"Okay," he swallowed. "I couldn't sleep anyway."

[3 years later.]

"You're a little young, don't you think?"

Nineteen-year old-Choi Soobin's head perked up at the question posed toward the current interviewee. Your name was Ln Yn, according to the manilla file folder of your records, application, and supplementary materials—all of which were quite good for someone of your age. When you presented yourself before the panel of interviewers for the opening of a job here at Choi Enterprises, you had done so with perfect posture and a professional vocabulary. You acted a lot older than your age, which was why Soobin thought that question was so goddamn absurd.

You didn't even fidget, all to your credit. You didn't shrink once under the stares of the interview panel, plus Soobin. He was just there to observe and learn, but he was given permission beforehand to step in if he felt any desire to. "Pardon?"

The man who had posed the question was one of Soobin's least favorite people here. Along with a balding head, he had a balding personality. Balding of what? Balding of humanity. He elaborated, "You've only just graduated from high school, you have yet to even begin a college degree. Do you not believe that you could learn and experience a little more?"

You cleared your throat. "With all due respect, sir, the hiring page said that this was an entry level job."

Yeah, Soobin thought to himself, that's what they always say. You must have been surprised by the extensive hiring process for said "entry level job." He really needed to have a talk with the people in Hiring and Recruitment; he picked up the pen tucked behind his ear to note it down in his little notebook to remind himself later.

"And yet, we also prefaced the description with a college degree requirement," added another member. Soobin begrudgingly admitted that that was true.

"I don't believe a college degree is particularly necessary for secretarial work, especially when most of the duties will be taught to me on site."

That is also true, he thought. Professional, calm… blank. You'd fit in great here.

"It would be difficult for partners and businesses to take a girl like you seriously—"

Soobin leaned forward and sent a look down toward the idiot who decided to open his mouth again. He sounded like he had a stick up his ass; Soobin wouldn't be surprised if he did. His posture said otherwise, but his attitude? Jesus fucking Christ. He cut in, "Excuse me."

As his father had told him time and time again: Sometimes you have to do things yourself.

The room shifted its attention to him. He poked the inside of his cheek with his tongue, his hand raised slightly with his pen, gesturing vaguely. "Your age is not really the main concern, Miss Ln. Not for me, at least." Your eyes had narrowed slightly on him, and he straightened in his chair. "The concern is that, while your résumé and references are good, your experience is lacking. This would be your first corporate job and we're looking for someone who could reliably carry out what we have outlined their duties to be."

That was how it should have been worded. That was how his father would have worded it.

"Then based off my references, Mr. Choi, would it not be safe to say that I am a reliable person?" It was definitely safe to say that you knew your way around words and requirements. There was a defiance about you that he couldn't deny, something rare that prodded at the back of his mind. It told him that if he didn't snatch you up now, someone else would.

When the interview ended, Soobin tucked the pen behind his ear once more. It was customary for interviewers to wait until the interviewee had left the room before they could leave, as well. They would think over their notes tonight before coming to a decision on all of the candidates tomorrow morning.

That feeling pricked at the back of Soobin's mind as he stood from his seat and hustled over to the elevator. He went down to the lobby, where he spotted you just pushing out the main glass doors.

"Miss Ln!"

Your head perked up at the sound of your name being shouted over the hustle and bustle of the Gotham City streets. Strands of your hair, windswept under the forever-overcast sky, blew across your face and you reached up to brush them out of your eyesight as you marked the young Choi heir making his way over to you. He was tall—perhaps around six foot or taller—with a crisp suit and that blue ballpoint pen behind one ear. The dark circles rimming his dark eyes were charming like his black bangs swept up by the breeze.

You didn't know what to say to him, really, but here you were—stopping and awaiting his thoughts. Soobin was grateful you did. There was something irking him about you, something he couldn't put his finger on. Anyone else would have stopped him, begged him for the position. He was younger, impressionable, a Choi.

You waited.

"I just wanted to say," he said, nodding, "good luck." He choked out the words, not because they tasted bitter on his tongue, but because he hadn't even known why he had chased you down in the first place.

Your eyes glanced at him up and down, but you were nodding back at him. You suddenly looked so uncomfortable in that formal wear. "Thank you."

Soobin heard the distant cries of his name from down the street—aw fuck. Just as he ducked back into the building, you had disappeared into the crowd. He hoped he might see you again.

[1 year later.]

"H-he has a young woman in ther—"

"Sick," twenty-one-year-old Choi Yeonjun said, patting the man on the head. The bank teller quivered like a leaf in the wind in the presence of Gotham's Red Hood. "Thanks, man."

As Yeonjun stepped over the fallen bodies of his victims—they didn't even deserve the label of "victim" when they had been the ones robbing this joint—he replaced the cartridge of his pistols. They were twins, pearl handles with just a touch of gold that he loved to twirl around in his hands. His father always rolled his old man eyes when he showboated, but Yeonjun never thought of it as showboating, rather an art. There were moments where he preferred the heft and damage of an AK-47, but his babies were always there for him, too.

He adjusted the crimson mask seated securely over his entire face; the metal was warm with his breathing, but he had gotten used to the suffocating feeling.

His old man would murder him if his face was seen while he was "serving justice" or whatever.

It was a shame that this last dude had taken a hostage though. That meant traumatized victim, a much more careful shot needed, and a whole lot of—

"Fuck you!"

He stopped clean at the threshold of the main vault at the back of the Gotham Bank (yes, the so-called "joint") as he watched the young woman in question, you, twist your captor's arm behind his back and pin him to the ground beneath the sole of your three-inch heel. He had gone red in the face, him and his bald ass head.

What a view. Yeonjun whistled lowly before he could stop himself.

Both heads looked up to watch him walk in. He caught the way your shoulders tensed at the sight of him, and he opened three of his fingers in each hand and showed his palms like his own way of raising his hands. "Hey, darlin', we're on the same side."

Your hair fell in disarray around your head and face, and your mascara had smudged around your eyes, but it didn't discount the sharp narrowing of them. "What took you so long? Aren't you supposed to be the hero or something?"

"Okay, first of all, I'm not a hero—" he blinked and sent a bullet through the robber's upper thigh. You shrieked, leaping away from him and Yeonjun, who suspected that you now thought of him as a maniac. Good. "—I'm just the dude who's trying to serve justice or something."

Yeonjun holstered his two baby pistols into the holsters on either side of his belt. "And second, that was—"

The sharp cry of sirens pierced the air, and he could hear the caws of incoming cops and their thundering footsteps heading right toward his and your location. Yeonjun swore under his breath, his instincts kicking in.

"Well, that's my cue to leave." He whirled on his heel and saluted you. "See ya!"

He ducked into the shadows of the hallway just outside the vault, and waited for the police to run past him with their blaring walkie talkies. They would find you in the carnage, no gun in sight, but with a wounded bad guy at your feet and a bullet hole in his thigh.

Yeonjun's head thumped back against the wall; he bit his lip beneath the mask. Fuck it, you were gonna be fine.

He had thought that, and yet, here he now sat, lounging in the passenger seat of your car in the alleyway by the bank, biding his time. His mask and dark brown leather jacket laid discarded at his booted feet, his aching arms given breathing room through his white muscle tee. He stretched out the kinks in his neck, hand running through his damp, black hair.

He was waiting.

Literally waited an hour and a half. Or maybe it was just half an hour. Sue him, he was hungry.

Finally, you rounded the corner to the symphony of your car unlocking. It gave a delightfully loud chirp and it knocked the drowsiness right out of his brain. Thank god there was still some light out or else you might have screamed. Instead, you stopped right outside your car, in front of the windshield with your eyes wide. (Actually, you didn't feel like the "scream in fright" type. It was more like "inhale sharply.")

Yeonjun didn't know what he was doing, to be honest. Then again, he never knew what he was doing. He smiled lazily at you and gave a small wave.

You must have had some kind of death wish, because you approached the car with him still in it, and he hadn't even introduced himself yet. Or maybe, he didn't have to introduce himself.

Your eyes narrowed again for the second time he had seen you. Was that your tell? Your thing?

Carefully, you tugged the driver's door open, but remained behind it and did not get in with him. Smart girl. "What the hell do you want and how the fuck did you get in here?"

"You kiss your mama with that mouth, darlin’?" He teased before he could stop himself. What could he say? He was a "shoot first, ask questions later" type of guy. His father hated that about him.

"Why are you in my car?"

He shook his head and let out a noise akin to feigned exasperation. "Just tryin' to make sure they didn't give you shit."

"I didn't see you in the bank, Choi Yeonjun."

Bingo. He smiled. "I like to be noticed when I wanna be noticed."

Your head cocked to the side. "I guess I believe you." You gestured to him vaguely with a lazy hand. "D'you mind?"

He sat up in the passenger seat and gestured his hand back toward you and the driver's seat. Maybe if his smile had widened, your eye would have twitched. There was something so amusing about him gradually frustrating you. "No, not at all."

Your pretty eyes rolled; he laughed.

"Okay, okay. Got the message." He briefly raised his hands in mock surrender, then leaned down to collect his red mask in the fabric of his brown leather jacket. He hadn't even bothered to remove or hide his pearl-handled pistols from his side holsters as he removed himself from your car.

A smirk flickered to his lips—out of your sight, of course—when he heard you sputter, "Wait—"

"Later, darlin'!" And then he was gone, out of your sight, as if he had been only a shadow from your memory.

You wondered if this day could get even weirder or even worse than it already was.

Exhaustion coursed through your veins as you slipped into the driver's seat and pulled out onto the main street. First, it was the strange email you'd received about a problem with your bank account. Then, it was whatever that interaction was. Choi Yeonjun as the Red Hood? Or perhaps only covering for one of the city’s resident vigilantes? But then, for what reason? If not for all of the trouble, you would have been home already; your joints loosened at the thought of coming home to your mom, pets, and something warm for dinner.

Brain muddied like a Gotham gutter during the wet season, the last thing that you wanted to worry about right now was how a Choi heir was connected to a vigilante.

When you arrived on your street, you pulled into the alley beside your complex and pushed back out into the grainy, Gotham evening.

Your head cocked to the side at the sound of loud meowing. As you approached the door, you could hear scratching from the other side.

Strange. Your cats usually knew to not scratch the doors anymore, and why wasn't your mom getting them to stop?

With a reprimand on your lips, you pushed your way in. “Guys, who is…”

A scream was left caught in your throat.

You felt yourself stumble forward into your home, the floorboards patterned in bloody paw prints, multicolored fur swarming your legs and meowing at you in distress.

Out—had they been trying to get out?

“Mom?” Your voice sounded strangled. “Mama?”

Bile crawled up your throat and your palm slammed against the side wall to keep yourself upright. You couldn’t get your eyes off of your mother’s taut and ashen skin, lifeless eyes staring up at the ceiling, a bullet hole through her temple. Blood seeped into the floorboards to stain the wood beneath her limp body, and you were choking, hacking at the metal filling up your lungs.

You stumbled toward her body and blood oozed into the material of your pants as you knelt by her body to feel for her pulse.

Dead. Deaddeaddeaddead.

Your hands stained with your mother’s crimson life force stained your hands and trembled as you searched your body for your phone. You—what were—what was the number? Who did this? This couldn’t be real.

Blood rushed into your ears; you couldn’t hear the sirens, couldn’t hear the voice on the other end of the phone.

Your mind had gone blank, mouth dry, and you sat down on the ground next to your mother’s body, your tears slipping down the slopes of your cheeks to land on her own face.

Dead, how could she be dead? How was this real?

A mass of fur appeared in the corners of your vision and you followed their gaze back toward the front door. And for a chilling moment, you were stone-cold sober. There was a note staked into the doorframe: A Debt Repaid.

a/n: pls remember to comment and reblog!

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[gasolinerainbowpuddles]

Cinnamon and Sugar ║ ⓞⓝⓔ๏ⓞⓕⓕⓢ

𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙿𝚎𝚍𝚛𝚘 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝚂𝚎𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚝 𝚂𝚊𝚗𝚝𝚊 𝚏𝚒𝚌 𝚎𝚡𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚎

| CINNAMON AND SUGAR | main masterlist | PAIRING(s): Joel Miller x reader

| RATING: explicit material | 18+ | WORD COUNT:  4.2k | CONTENT: age gap, Joel being the main caretaker for Sarah's dog while she's away at college, intimation of situation involving assault/SA with no graphic or descriptive language/discussion, smut, dog being cute, Joel being a reluctant grumpy dog grandpa

| SYNOPSIS: Joel needs a better solution for dog care, and you're the perfect fit. When Joel in turn becomes the perfect fit for what you need, the lines between professional and personal start to blur.

Sarah had more than surprised Joel when she came home with Cinnamon. He hadn’t even realized she’d be scouring the internet for listings and traveling to meet with owners, breeders, and shelters in search of the perfect companion. Joel’s stomach turned when he realized how many potentially dangerous meet-ups she’d gone to without his knowledge, all in search of a stupid dog. Of course it was partially his fault that she kept it a sworn secret; he wouldn’t have been open to the idea. He never had been. All  the time, patience, and money needed for a family pet never came into alignment when Sarah was growing up. He’d almost given in to a cat once since they didn’t require as much work, but he managed to steer Sarah into a fake robot puppy gift instead.

But now with Sarah heading into another semester at college, Joel was left with the task of finding care arrangements until she came home. Depending on what projects or planning he had going on, Joel could be out of the house 12 plus hours a day for three weeks straight and then the next couple of weeks would be just here and there type management on building sites where he could take Cinnamon along for the ride. He hadn’t always been fond of Cinnamon, but having a travel companion was nice. And, if he was being honest with himself, having her around while Sarah was away meant he wasn’t left with a silent, empty house. The guys would poke fun at him for carting around a Corgi, but he really didn’t give two shits about having a “girly dog” or whatever the fuck they were on about.

He wished he could do better by Cinnamon than an erratic schedule with kennels and doggy daycares one week and being able to ride in his truck with him for hours on end the next week. It was probably confusing for a dog, but there wasn’t much other option - until you came along. You were around Sarah’s age, that much he could tell when he answered the door that fateful day. You didn’t really have the same spitfire confidence he’d somehow instilled in Sarah, though. You had enough courage to knock on a random stranger’s door and offer dog walking and sitting services, sure, but there was something distinctly small and unsure in the way you carried yourself.

Still, you had a warmth about you that was undeniable. Joel’s instincts told him you were good people. Cinnamon took to you immediately, which was all the confirmation Joel needed to decide what could it hurt to have a more prominent, steady figure in the dog care mix. It was a hell of a lot cheaper than what the kennels and daycares were charging. It didn’t hurt that you were absolutely stunning. He felt like a creep whenever he snuck glances at you, but it was hard to ignore the delightful curves and valleys of your body. It was even worse when you gave him a genuine smile - bright and consuming, making it feel like the air was ten times thicker when he tried to pull in a normal breath.

As awful as it sounded and as awful as it was to think, he sometimes wished that you’d take more than just the one semester off from school. He was banking on you not taking up a summer semester, but that only bought him around 6 months of you being around. Every time he saw you, he became greedier. He wanted to see more of you. He wanted to explore more of you. He wanted to know more about you. He wanted you to know more about him. It was wrong to find himself so deeply engrossed with someone only a few years older than his own daughter, but he couldn’t help it. He’d tried - god had he tried - to keep it professional, to keep his distance. 

But you didn’t make it easy. It wasn’t anything you were consciously doing. He might lose his mind entirely if you were to ever intentionally pursue him. He wouldn’t be able to take much of a concentrated effort on your end before completely succumbing to every dirty, greedy thought he’d ever had about you. He hoped he wasn’t too obvious about his fixation on you. He didn’t want to be the stereotypical old pervert trying to poach some young skirt he had no business chasing.

He kept that safe, polite buffer between the two of you - until he just couldn’t bear it any longer.

You knew you should’ve kept your distance - kept it professional. Well, as professional as “I just needed to make some money since I took an entire semester off after a breakdown, so I’m going to do the first thing that lands in my lap which just so happens to be dog walking and sitting for random people in the neighborhood” is. But as you sit here scratching behind Cinnamon’s ears, you knew it would’ve been pointless to avoid the inevitable of finding your favorite dog and favorite owner - or maybe longterm caretaker would be the more appropriate term.

Joel was something special. You’d never met someone like him before, never met a man like him before. Someone dedicated to his family. Someone focused on his work and successful because of it. Someone who was equally charming and goofy. Someone who actually listened to you when you spoke and didn’t try to insert their own take on what you “should’ve done” or condescendingly explain to you how and where it all went wrong.

He was the first person you’d talked to about the real reason you’d abruptly taken a semester off school. You hadn’t even told your parents about the party you never should’ve gone to, the drinks you never should’ve taken, and the friend you were too drunk to take care of. No one but Joel knew about the ongoing investigation and the severed friendship, all because you’d ignored your gut and didn’t put up enough of an argument with your friend about steering clear of that particular fraternity with the notorious reputation.

You’d even admitted to Joel that you felt guilty for coming out of the situation with nothing more than some mental and emotional damage while your friend had been through something no amount of time would ever make right. It should’ve been me and I feel like it’s all my fault were always met with an understanding, comforting touch and word from Joel. His reassurances were the first time you’d actually believed it when someone told you it wasn’t your fault and you experienced something awful, too. 

You’d justified spilling your innermost workings to him since he had Sarah to think about. He could warn her about things like this so she didn’t experience it, too. The idea that ripping yourself open and divulging the hardest, darkest thing you’ve ever been through would help someone else avoid the same experience took one straw off the camel’s back. It wasn’t much, but at least it was something. At least it was a good thing coming from something so wretched and vile.

But then your phone rings, and your fingertips freeze where they scratch Cinnamon’s ears. The number flashes on the screen, and it’s the school. You’d already given numerous interviews and statements over the past three months. They had been waiting for the police investigation to conclude before they made their own determination about the situation.

Your heart drops when the woman on the other end says “no criminal charges” and “insufficient evidence to support the claims.” It feels like a hollow victory when she says the two fraternity members in question would be allowed to finish this semester but are not welcome to complete their degrees at the institution. The indefinite waiver for your academic furlough would expire at the end of this semester.

Cinnamon’s anxious whining breaks your stupor, and you head out on a walk with her to clear your mind.

The house is dark when Joel drives up. Your car was still here, which made the apparent empty house all the more odd. He didn’t realize how accustomed he’d become to coming home to you most nights. Maybe it was just the downpour that was making it hard to tell if a light was still on somewhere in the house. Joel darts from his truck to the front door and lets himself in.

The house is quiet, especially in contrast to the cracks of thunder punctuating the silence every so often. He calls out for you and then Cinnamon but hears nothing. He calls your phone. No answer. Just when he’s beginning to panic about where the hell you could possibly be, the front door opens.

If it weren’t for the downcast expression etched into your features, the sight of you bundling Cinnamon underneath your shirt would’ve been hilarious. You were soaked from head to toe, but Cinnamon’s head popping out of the shared collar of your t-shirt had miraculously stayed mostly dry. Joel helped lower Cinnamon out from your shirt and set her on the ground before straightening back up to inspect you.

“You’re soaked.” He sounds almost impressed with how drenched you’d managed to get.

“I didn’t realize it was about to rain, sorry,” you mumble. “I know Cinnamon hates thunder. I feel like an asshole.”

Joel glances down to a business as usual Cinnamon and back to you. “I think she’ll be alright. I’m more worried about you. Was startin’ to get outta sorts when the house was dark and empty but your car’s in the drive.”

“I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry,” you apologize, shaking your head.

“Hey, come on. It’s alright. Stay there while I get you a towel, okay?” Without waiting for an answer, Joel lopes to the laundry area to retrieve several large, faded pool towels and unfolds them for you. You whisper a thanks and gingerly wrap one around your shivering body. Now that you were back inside the dry, warm house, you realize just how chilly the rain had made you.

“You’re shaking, honey,” Joel observes. His hand hovers open nearby like he wants to reach out and warm you but is hesitant of the possibility of a negative reception. “Let’s get you—”

“The school called,” you interject. Joel visibly tenses for a moment. “The police said there wasn’t enough proof of anything to press any charges, but the school said they’re allowed to finish out the semester but aren’t welcome back after that. My hiatus expires at the end of the semester. So. Yeah.” A rigid lift and drop of your shoulders doesn’t quite sell the false indifference to the situation you’re attempting to convey.

Cinnamon meanders over to your feet and starts pawing at you and whining. “What is it, Cin? It’s alright. Everything’s okay,” you assure her - lie to her to prevent upset. When you look back to Joel, he’s pinning you with a heavy expression that you can’t quite discern. “What?”

Joel shrugs in an unconvincing manner just as you had. “Just wants to make sure you’re alright. Me ‘n her both.”

You deflate a little, letting your guard down a touch. “I’m okay. I just– I dunno sometimes. It’s a better outcome than what I had expected, but I still feel disappointed.”

“That’s because it’s a fucked up situation, honey,” he soothes. He takes a tentative step towards you and softens when your body relaxes the closer he gets. 

You’re tired of keeping up a front of being okay. You’re tired of pretending that you don’t want to wrap yourself up in the comfort of Joel. When his fingertips skim your forearm and wrap around your elbow, something inside of you snaps. You have to let go of the guilt from things that were completely out of your control. You had to stop telling yourself the story that you didn’t deserve to feel safe and happy after what your friend had gone through. You had to stop letting yourself and the bad things that had happened to you control your life.

Joel’s brows knit together, his eyes searching yours for some clue of where the wash of emotions would drift to next so he could be there before you were swept up in the swell of it. “You’re gonna be okay. I promise. I promise you, you’re not alone,” he vows. Cinnamon noses at your legs and huffs out a bark as if in agreement.

A chill rips through you with the towel draped around you now a sopping wet mess as well. You shiver at the contrasting warmth of Joel’s large hand delicately gripping your arm. He tuts and guides you upstairs to the bathroom in the hallway while he starts rummaging around Sarah’s room for what you assume are some dry clothes.

After a couple of minutes he rushes out looking flushed and nervous, only mumbling something about it being “safer” to go through his own wardrobe. You imagine he must’ve found something very normal for a college aged woman to have but not necessarily something she might want a parent to stumble upon.

Joel is back quickly with a bundle of clothing, and your chest feels tighter at the thought of being shrouded in his things, the smell of him surrounding and blanketing you. You accept the dry clothes and set them aside on the countertop.

“Do you, um– would it be alright if I got a shower? To warm up a little bit?” you ask through chattering teeth.

“Of course, of course,” he replies quickly.

“Okay good. Thanks. I’m pretty sure I’ve got a full chest of hair stuck to me from stuffing Cinnamon inside my shirt,” you snort.

Joel laughs under his breath at the mental image. “The, uh, the shower is– Sarah’s shower is sort of tricky. Haven’t fixed the lever yet,” he half mutters to himself. His eyes settle back on you, unsure of himself, before you fill in the blank for him.

“Oh, if it’s too much of a hassle, I don’t have to,” you counter. “I mean, unless there’s– if there’s some other shower?”

Joel visibly swallows hard at the meandering shift of tension towards something more intimate. “Yeah, come on, you can just use mine.”

He grabs the clothes from the counter and guides you quickly down the hallway through his bedroom. He gives you a quick look over before saying he’ll “be around if you need anything.” Your eyes burn into the back of the bathroom door where Joel’s retreating, broad back had just been. You undress and slip inside the shower, and you think Joel must’ve renovated it himself. It’s a spacious but cozy masculine alcove that is fairly clean. You turn the knob and relax into the heavy stream of water that quickly warms you.

The slip of water takes the chill of your body with it down the drain, and now your body can register the other prominent feeling surging through it. Your hand lathered in Joel’s body wash brushes over your hardening nipples, and you bite back a gasp. You know before your hand even travels further down that you’re going to be wet. Everything in the bathroom looks, feels, and smells like Joel. The ache of him not actually being in here with you is too much to go without. You don’t even bother to finish washing up and decide to turn the shower off.

You slap a towel around you and swing the door open. The room is empty. You walk out of the bathroom, dripping all over the carpeted bedroom floor, and turn when you hear the sound of heavy footfall ascending the stairs. Joel’s head is down as he runs his hands through his hair like he’s trying to shake something loose, and he’s in the doorway before it pops up. He stills the moment he drinks in your half-naked form. You can see him wavering on whether or not to act on the tension in the room when you don’t make a move to cover yourself or slip back into the bathroom for privacy.

“Joel.” It’s a choked whisper of a plea. His eyes flutter shut at the sound of it leaving your lips. You both know the unsaid thing trapped in the utterance of it.

“We can’t,” he protests weakly. He clenches his fists by his sides as he braves to meet your eye. You can see his resolve waning with every quick blink. You track the snake of his gaze down your dripping wet body.

“I’m tired of telling myself I don’t deserve to feel good.”

His eyes tear to yours at that. There’s a simmering turned blazing in it that makes your tummy do a flip. “I want for you to make me feel good. I want to make you feel good, too.” His jaw goes a little slack with your steady, firm admission. He feels it. He can’t deny it. You let the towel fall to the floor and walk towards him, and he leans into your outstretched arms. He doesn’t resist when you guide his mouth to your neck and chest. His tongue swipes and licks across you like he’s chasing the beads of water down your body.

A needy moan rips through you, and the last bit of resolve shatters. You work Joel’s shirt over his head as he yanks his belt and pants off. You stumble backward together onto his bed and feverishly grope and fondle every available inch of skin. You groan in unison when you drag his fingertips down and through the drooling entrance of your pussy. He tests two fingers inched inside you and plunges them to the knuckle of his fist when you roll your hips onto them, searching for that fullness.

Your eyes roll to the back of your head as he works his thick digits slowly back and forth. The damp heat of his mouth on your perked nipples feels like there’s a circuit of arousal between them and your clit where Joel’s thumb rubs in agonizingly precise, low circles.

“So pretty,” he breathes out before grazing a delicate bite of his teeth on a nipple. Your back arches off the bed at the sensation. Your fingers grip through his hair as you frantically push his head down, begging all the while please please your mouth please. A wicked grin curves the line of his mouth at your uninhibited plea for more.

“Yeah? You want me to taste you, honey?” he teases.

You’re practically in tears from the build up and the want and all of this charged energy between you two for the past few months finally coming to a head. You start to plead again, anything to feel his lips and tongue on your pussy, but it shifts to a sobbing whine when he lays a wide, lapping tongue down your slit. Your legs snap together at the sudden influx of sensation, and Joel is quick to drag your thighs onto his shoulders to keep you open for him. An arm over your lower stomach pins you into the fluttering lick of his tongue, and you’re gone the moment he sinks two fingers into you again.

The slap of rain against the window is a white noise much like the whirling silence in your mind as your climax grips you. You’re practically clawing at him to press his weight against you. He lets out a delightful hiss of pleasure when you grip the base of his cock. When you attempt to line him up with your entrance, he stops you.

“We really shouldn’t– I don’t have anything—” He’s faltering, stumbling over his words as he tries to come up with something to talk himself out of burying his entire length into you, to fuck you raw and hard and ignore all sane thought.

“I wanna feel you, Joel, so bad. Please,” you whimper. You know you shouldn’t. You know it’s not responsible. You can’t bring yourself to care when his stiff cock is weeping precum, ready to split you open.

Any and all restraint Joel can muster is no match for your soft whine for him. “S’that how you want it, honey? You wanna feel all’uh me?” he grunts. He presses himself against your folds and drags himself slowly through the pooling slick. Your hands cradle his face and draw him closer. 

“I need you,” you choke out.

“I’m right here, I’m right here, honey. I’ve got you,” he pants. 

He rests his thick tip right at your entrance and holds your gaze as he pushes into you. Your mouth falls open at the heavy split of him inside you. “Fuck,” he hisses. “Feel so fuckin’ good. Fuckin’ tight–goddamn.” You dig your heels into his ass to pull him closer. You’re nearly trembling with bliss when he bottoms out. Your body is a limp wreck when he starts moving in earnest.

“This what ya needed? Needed to be stretched out around me, huh?” he pants. You respond in a series of garbled, high-pitched moans. Joel’s eyebrows knit together with renewed concentration like if he didn’t keep focus he’d come right then and there. “Goddamn, been wantin’ this for so long,” he gasps, hammering his hips into the cradle of your thighs. His hand engulfs the back of your head so that he can prop it up and see in full the state he’s reduced you to, pliant and taking everything he can give you.

Your head lolls side to side gently in his grip, but you manage to lock eyes. It’s a fervid, reverential expression that you can’t quite understand being on the receiving end of, especially from a man as good as this. “That’s it–yeah, that’s it, honey. Right here. Tell me what I’m doin’ to you, huh?” he groans.

“You feel s-so good,” you croak. He rests his forehead against yours and lifts your hips up higher onto him. The slight adjustment has the entire heft and length of him kissing the mouth of your womb with each stroke. You let out an almost hysterical sound at the unyielding command of your body at his touch. The new angle gifts you with Joel’s expression of brows pulled together in pleasure, jaw loose, mouth hanging open and letting out a strangled whimper.

Like an animated corpse sparked to life with splintered lightning, your entire body jolts into an arc of ecstasy as your second orgasm crackles and slices through every nerve ending in your body. Joel fucks you through it for as long as he can before hastily pulling out and spurting all over your stomach with a deep growl reverberating through his chest. You entangle yourselves in each other as you come down from your collective highs.

“So good,” is all you can whisper like a chant. You rake your fingers through his dampened curls and feel as though your body has undergone a factory reset of sorts. Joel slumped over your form feels like a shroud of adoration and protection. You wish you could keep this moment suspended in time, able to visit it whenever and however long you pleased.

Joel’s breath fanning against your ear begins to slow and comes to a steady rhythm before he speaks. “You’re gonna be okay. We’re gonna figure all this out.”

Your school situation. The reality of having to go back there, a place that will never feel safe like it once had. A place where you’d made and now lost one of the closest friends you’d ever had. A place where you’d be expected to pick back up where you left off like everything was normal.

“What if it’s not? What if it’s not okay?” You hate yourself for popping the bubble of euphoria you and Joel had just created, but you can’t keep it in any longer. You can’t keep yourself closed off from Joel anymore, having finally let those gates break down and allowed the engulfing wave of want and need swallow you up. There was no going back on this, whatever this had been. Whatever it was.

Joel pulls back slightly to study your face. His jaw sets with determination even when his eyes stay so soft and gentle for you. “I promise. You ain’t alone. I’m here for you now if you– if that’s somethin’ you want, I mean.”

A lazy smile spreads across your face. “I think I’d like that a lot,” you whisper.

He grins down at you before capturing your mouth in a soft, commanding kiss. One that’s claiming and soothing. You’re getting lost in each other again when you hear the impatient scratch of Cinnamon from the floor. You both reluctantly tear away from each other and look towards the interruption. Cinnamon’s face says I’ve let you have your fun, now somebody get your ass up and feed me. Joel cracks first, erupting into a half-heartedly annoyed round of low laughter. You follow with your own fit of giggles.

He reluctantly extricates himself from the bed and helps clean you up with the towel you’d dropped onto the floor earlier. You’re both somewhat dressed as you head downstairs to tend to Cinnamon. Watching Joel indulge her and give her nuzzle scratches just how she likes fills you with a warm sense of confidence: with somebody like Joel by your side, looking after you and supporting you, things might just really end up okay.

This was written for the @pedrostories Secret Santa Exchange, and it is for my lovely giftee @thirtysevenodddogs! I hope you enjoyed it!

Special thanks to @xdaddysprincessxx for helping me choose the dog breed and name.

Merry Christmas, ♥Puddles♥

#fic event #pedrostories #pedrostoriesgift23 #joel miller x reader

[sleepingdeath-light]

relationship hcs ; james

requested by ; anonymous (21/05/23)

fandom(s) ; pokémon

fandom masterlist(s) ; here

character(s) ; james

outline ; “OH MY GOD IVE BEEN WAITING FOR SOMEONE WILLING TO WRITE FOR TEAM ROCKET IM SO EXCITED

ok ok so uh may I request general dating hcs for both jessie and james please ? (maybe someone who has a good living since both are homeless 🥹) THANK YOU !!”

warning(s) ; none, just fluff!

despite his work as a member of team rocket, james is an incredibly sweet and attentive partner — the type who has a keen memory for everything you love and who will do anything he can to boost your confidence and make you smile whenever you’re together (he’s your #1 cheerleader even if he isn’t the most confident in himself most of the time — but he’s working on improving that with your help)

he doesn’t talk about his family, or his past in general, all that often but he when he does he always has something positive to say about his grandparents (his parents and ex fiancée less so, he loves his parents but they aren’t on the best terms at the moment and jessiebelle is, well, jessiebelle and enough is said about that) — and when you finally met ‘nanny’ and ‘pop pop’, they absolutely adored you (both as your own person and because of how happy you make their sweet little grandson)

if you wear makeup then he’s more than happy to help you put it on or perfect a look — he has a keen eye and a steady hand that comes in handy if you struggle with symmetry — and on a similar note he’s also happy to let you put makeup on him or to do his makeup alongside yours (he’s far from opposed to dressing up, cross-dressing, or wearing costumes with you, after all)

james loves using terms of endearment with you, to the extent that you’ll rarely even hear him say your first name unless it’s a necessary formality (like a first introduction or for a dinner booking), and they range from cutesy to traditional depending on his mood — for example, when he’s feeling dejected and clingy after being scolded by giovanni then he’ll curl up on your lap and call you ‘hun’ and ‘sweetie’ as he vents his woes to you, but when he’s in a more flirty mood then he might dip you in his arms and call you ‘darling’ or ‘sweetheart’ (context matters more than anything here, but he has been known to use just about any pet name in any situation)

he’s a complete gentleman and will go the full nine yards to woo you even after you’ve been officially together for what feels like forever — partially down to his upbringing and the expectations pushed upon him by it, and partially because he’s just that sweet — which includes him doing things like: bending down and kissing the back of your hands/each of your knuckles, opening car doors for you and helping you step out, holding doors open for you in whatever building you’re in, buying you flowers whenever he can scrape together the funds to do so (he may have been born wealthy but nowadays, not so much), offering you his coat whenever you mention being cold, and other things along those lines

jessie has caught him staring at you, or staring into nothingness whilst clearly thinking about you, more times than she’d ever care to count and this eternal puppy-love state has caused the trio to mess up on missions because james is just too distracted to stick to the plan — it would be adorable in any other situation but it usually frustrates her to the point of anger because that mistake was so avoidable, why can’t you just be normal about them for ten minutes?

when it comes to sleeping, james isn’t too bothered about what position you drift off in as long as the two of you are cuddling — he can fall asleep wherever he is, and being in a proper bed for the first time in weeks helps, but he sleeps most peacefully when he can hear your breathing and can feel your weight and body heat right up against him when he’s with you

whenever his team fails a mission, or he’s scolded by someone, you’re the first person he gets in contact with — either finding a phone to call you or stumbling sadly through your door and collapsing in your arms and just… staying like that for a while as he briefly lets himself forget what had left him feeling so low (you’re his rock, really, and he’d do the same for you if you needed it, but for now all he needs is to hear your voice and know that you still love and accept him as he is — despite all of his mistakes and failures)

#sleepingdeath #fluff #fluff hcs #gender neutral reader #pokemon fluff #pokemon x reader #pokemon james fluff #pokemon james x reader #team rocket james x reader #team rocket james fluff

[milkywaybottles]

Hi! Could I request a swiss x gn!reader oneshot where he misses them when he is on tour and the reader surprises him at a show?

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Of course, love! Thank you sm for the Swiss request! I've been waiting for the chance to write for him <3

Enjoy xx

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Longing - Swiss x Reader Oneshot

Word count: 2.2k

Loving Swiss was like loving the moon, for all its beauty, knowing that by the time the sun comes up, he has to disappear. But he knew you and how you yearned to be held or laugh in his presence. For the latest Impera-tour, he had comprised a large kit consisting of many personal items.

The bag, which in itself was one of his duffel bags, consisted of two fluffy blankets that you used to cuddle with, three of his hoodies that had been covered in cologne, a handful of Polaroids, your favourite vinyls, emergency snacks and some beautiful handwritten letters, some of which had broken wax seals and others hadn’t.

You had also assembled a similar bag for him.

Nevertheless, he had ensured you were well prepared for the month period where you were very much on opposite sides of the Earth. Even the prospect caused you to ache.

Ever since Swiss bashfully asked you out at one of the rituals for the first time, you quickly learnt that touring would become the biggest challenge for any couple. As soon as you left that ritual with the biggest smile plastered on your face, the realisation hit you like a truck that he would not be joining you on the tiring flight home, nor would any of your companions.

The ritual cycle was gruelling, leaving you a dishevelled mess by the end.

So, this time around, when the ritual cycle arrived promptly on your doorstep, you knew exactly what to expect. Though, admittedly this could never take away from the raw and stinging pain you felt without him, especially when some Sister of Sin would go prodding with your heart to stir up drama. After supper, you would retreat to Swiss’ room and dive under the blanket of his four-poster bed, searching for relief.

This emotional toll was not only taken on you, but on Swiss as well.

He hadn’t recalled it as being torturous, but as he stood on stage, he decided promptly that it was inhumane to keep you from him. Every single night his eyes would sift through the crowd of faceless bodies, hoping and praying to make out yours amongst the sea. But he never did.

You always took your seat in the corner of the dining hall, preferring to keep your distance with the other Siblings of Sin. Eventually, while sitting in one of the various wooden rows for supper one stormy night, giggles had reached your ears about your dependency on Swiss. Your mouth soured, eyes set dead centre on your partially empty plate with a scroll across your lips.

“I heard they sleep in his room at night-” one Sister gossiped, holding her pale hands over her mouth as she spoke.

Another cackled, “Haven’t you seen them wear his clothes? Talk about desperate”

The words stuck to your mind, reverberating through your pounding skull. Between the booming thunder outside and the lowly chatter inside the hall, the warmth of your robe was all too comforting as you shrunk backwards into it. Their insults seemed to dissipate as you retreated into your mind, only to be broken with a startled jump.

“Ladies, don’t you have prayer duty to attend to?” Angie hissed, placing her dinner plate firmly down beside yours. At the familiar voice, your head snapped in her direction, a warm smile overtaking your mouth. “They’re just jealous” she assured, taking her seat beside you.

No matter how many times you saw her, you were constantly surprised by her beauty. Her eyes were the same colour as the bark of a tree, always sound and inviting. On occasion, a stray strand of ebony hair would fall out from underneath her coif, framing her round face.

But most importantly, Angie was your friend. She knew you better than anyone else.

“Thank you, Ange. I can normally handle one, but..” you trailed off, evidently throwing your arm up and gesturing to table that the Sisters were sitting at. Angie modestly shrugged, beginning to spoon the contents of her dinner into her mouth.

You both sat in comfortable silence for a moment, prompting you to play with the broken hem of your clothing. Angie was eager to break the silence, “Y’know, why don’t you just go surprise him? Like fly out to their venue and go from there?”. Your attention craned to her once again, your lips pressing together in thought. You shook your head twice,

"I dunno.."

But Angie's smile was wicked, and you knew you had lost.

-

The airport could best be described as an 'attack on the senses', leaving you baffled in its labyrinth of sounds and smells. The last thing you remembered was waving anxiously to your friend at the boarding gate as you disappeared down the hallway with a single luggage bag trailing behind you. The rest of the trip had merged into a fast-paced blur, a cloud of fuzzy disorientation that you found best not to dwell on.

With a single ticket in hand, you filed into the ritual venue with elated excitement, practically skipping your way to the barriers with urgency. The venue had yet to be filled to the brim with people, leaving vast gaps of empty space in the middle of the pit. If you had been to drop a coin, the sound would have bounced off the walls and returned back to you just as loudly. A draft swept through the venue. causing you to shiver.

When people began to fill the empty spaces, you looked down at your appearance and back up at them with a rosy face. You quickly realised that many people were dressed in a similar way to you, if not almost identical, meaning that it would make it almost impossible to spot you in a crowd of a few thousand. Feeling your face heat up in embarrassment, you turned back to the barrier and slicked your hair back, the nerves beginning to bubble in your stomach.

Before you knew it, a guitar solo from Imperium began to blare through the stadium as the lights dulled. You hummed with giddy excitement as the tune morphed into Kaisarion, and in a flash, a silhouette was projected onto the curtain. The stadium erupted in enthralled cheers and screams, practically begging to get the first sight of the ghoul.

As the curtain dropped, the crowd screamed again.

Finally, their eyes had been blessed with Aether, fire spewing behind him in a marvellous display. For the first time that evening, the stage had been lit in a milky yellow light, smoke bursting from the corner pillars. Despite the number of shows you had attended, you were always captivated by the sheer quality and creativity of it all.

Dew, Rain and Aether lined up at the front of the stage, their skills on display as they all played smoothly. You smiled at the friendly familiarity of it all. Aether and his little quirks when playing, such as the occasional extra flick of his wrist or the gesturing to the crowd. Dew and his aggressive head banging. Or Rain, rocking back and forth excessively like a rockstar.

Oh how you had missed them.

“Kaisarion!”

Your smile became even wider as you mouthed the lyrics, staring up at Papa with wonder-filled eyes. Marvelling at the brand new outfits, your eyes drifted to the back left of the stage, scanning for any sight of your ghoul.

Heart squeezing, your eyes were planted firmly on Swiss. You felt as though you were about to explode, cheeks red with excitement. His leg bounced at a quickening pace, hand secured on the microphone stand. Your ears perked at the sound of the backing vocals, and before long, it melded into a beautiful harmony of Swiss and the ghoulettes.

-

The show was pulling to a close and yet it hadn’t managed to slow at all. The crowd was still electrified and the performers just as lively as they continued with their final songs.

You had to admit that while you were completely understanding as to why, you couldn’t help but be disappointed that Swiss had yet to spot you. Being at the back, he was at a disadvantage. Rarely moving from his podium, you assured yourself that even if he didn’t spot you, you would see him later so it didn’t really matter.

With your eyes glued to your partner, you were hastily caught by surprise as you saw him leap off his podium and begin to approach the stage. Many hands were extended towards his shiny black boots as they neared the edge. Your heart must have skipped a beat when he was only a handful of metres away. You could almost feel his reassuring embrace, or his tender kisses.

Feeling the chance pass by you, you abrasively held out your arm towards him and screamed, “Swiss!”. The strumming of his guitar never halted, but he paused and his head was held high as if to smell a strong scent. Then, he spun around at the speed of light as his eyes landed squarely on you. His face was beaming with excitement as you waved furiously.

Although in an attempt not to distract from the show, he skipped over to Aether and they conversed for a moment. Despite the words not being audible over the music, you could assume what they were saying based on the fact that Aether also turned in your direction as Swiss pointed.

You were elated, truly.

Unable to wipe the content look off his face, Swiss focused back on the performance, knowing that if they just finished up, you both could be reunited once and for all.

And that’s what they did.

They carried on persistently until the curtain closed, and even that couldn't dull the roaring of the crowd. Soon, a burly security guard came to collect you and took you through the winding hallways of the venue. As you pushed through the door into the dressing room, you almost leapt towards the first ghoul you saw with desperation.

There was a certain homesickness you had been consumed by, not one which made you miss your physical home, but one which made you miss the people that made you think of home. And of course, your family made you think of home.

"(Y/N)!" a chorus of ghouls cheered. Before you could process what was happening, a pile of ghouls came tumbling towards you with speed. You winced as your body was overtaken by countless limbs, embracing you as tight as they could until your face turned purple. With one eye pried open, you could barely make out the bodies, Dew, Cirrus, Aether, Mountain, Cumulus, Rain and Sunshine.

"I'm happy to see you guys too!" you laughed.

But there was one ghoul that was missing.

Your eyes scanned over the room, the leather couch, the vanity, and even the cacti in the corner of the large room to no avail. Frowning, you turned back to the ghouls, doing your best to hide your disappointment with a content smile.

"(Y/N)...?"

Your mind snapped.

You knew that voice anywhere.

Your heart almost leapt from your throat as you spun to the voice, which had just emerged from the other door. You gave him no time to react as you jumped at him, hugging your ghoul in your arms. The scent of musk and bourbon lingered under your nose, prompting your hold to become stronger. You felt his hand press to your hair, pulse thumping under his chest as you were pushed towards it.

An 'aww' was shared between the ghoulettes.

At last, your head dragged away from the comforting fabric of Swiss's chest to meet his sparkling eyes, filled with the softness of love. "I saw you in the crowd" he mumbled against the crown of your head, "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to surprise you"

He grinned, canines flashing, "Well this certainly is a surprise" and placed a quick kiss on your lips.

One of his many forms of affection, while mostly gentle with you, was to pull you towards him or to stroke his tail spade up and down your calves. And it was no different that time around. As if his tail had a mind of its own, it began to drift upwards.

You smirked and shuddered, leaning into his arms to savour the moment.

Everything felt right, like puzzle pieces finally fitting together. The way your body curved perfectly around his strong stature, or the way his hand fell into yours comfortably.

“Get a room, guys” Aether called, looking up from the couch with a playful dismay.

Swiss shot deadly daggers towards his brethren, breaking away from your gaze. Like that of a snake, his tongue flicked outwards from the underneath of his helmet. “Trust me, we would if we could”. Although fiery, his tone was dripping with a smugness

Face now flushed, you left your hand on his arm assertively. He leant forwards, eliminating the gap between your lips as he caught you in a passionate tangle.

“You should surprise me more often” he remarked.

“I’ll take notes” you replied wittily.

And of course you both weren’t going to miss out on the opportunity to make up for lost time.

The prospect of returning home was far from your mind. All that remained was a deep longing for your partner.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

#Swiss #Swiss Ghoul #multi ghoul #Swiss x reader #Swiss Ghoul x reader #Multi Ghoul x reader #the band ghost #the band ghost x reader #gn!reader #gn!s/o #oneshot #answering requests #fluff

[ikemenomegas]

Anchor (up to me love)

Eleven days late, but this is my first entry for Mermay (can we call it June-aid then?) Thank you all so much for your patience. This is the longest one-shot I have written to date and while I'm not completely satisfied with it, I'm proud enough of finishing it. Of course the title references the song by Novo Amor

pairing: Mermaid!Uchiha Sasuke x Reader

word count: 10,014

cw: mentions of drowning, description of wounds, an attempt made at transformation body horror, mentions of death of parents but I couldn't kill Sasuke's entire family again... seemed too cruel to put him in a universe where that happens every single time.

Ao3 link for those who prefer reading there

You heard the thrashing sound first, like an animal caught in a trap, and then you heard the voice, which was far more human.

You knew better than to approach a beast, but on the shores of your own kingdom, you couldn’t in good conscience leave someone to fend for themselves. Especially if they were too injured to drag themselves inland.

The shoreline was studded with sharp stones, broken long ago from cliffs that had since retreated from the sea. They concealed the figure until you were nearly upon him. He was partially submerged, but you could smell the blood, see its thick wash in the water. It turned the foam churned up around him a rusty, raspberry tea color. He groaned, pressing a handful of some shredded fiber to the wound on his chest.

You gasped, involuntary, and he turned, whipped around with teeth bared.

That’s how you saw them: the sharp incisors and all the sharp teeth after that. Inhuman, made to tear. You almost couldn’t believe it, even when you looked below the syrupy, red water and saw the tail, the diaphanous fins drawing in close so it was nearly whip-like, flicking a warning.

You froze, spreading your fingers wide on the stone to show that you carried no weapon in your hands.

“Let me help,” you breathed, unsure whether to retreat, but afraid to appear threatening.

The mer flinched back. There was a ruddy tint to his eyes, which was more apparent depending on the subtle angling of his head. He looked scared, pain flashing across his expression when he moved wrong.

“Why?” he hissed back after a tense pause, strained. His voice was faintly accented, but not really different from the tones of the northernmost islands in the archipelago kingdom to which you belonged.

There wasn’t a good reason, except that something magic and nearly relegated to legend was in front of you and you did not want to see it die, not at the hands of hungry predators. If he had been a man you would have helped him to shore, ran for a doctor, but you didn’t think the creature in front of you would tolerate more human hands.

You tore a strip off the long linen wrapping over your arms and body in a kind of tunic. You poured water from a skin on your hip over the makeshift compress and then passed it to the stranger as a gesture of goodwill. Freshwater drew poison from wounds of the sea.

The mer looked blearily at your outstretched hand and took the cloth. He hissed when it pressed against part of the wound but did not let go, pressing harder until the compress was half stained with his blood.

He eyed you warily. He made another pained noise as he pulled the compress from his torn flesh. It made a horrible wet sound as it pealed away. He held it out for you to pour more water upon it. You did and tore another strip from your clothing for another field dressing.

“There is danger in remaining in the open sea while you heal,” you said softly. 

He had bound his wound best he could with pieces of your clothing and the bleeding had eased some, although not much.

He narrowed his eyes as though measuring your intention.

“There's a cove, not far from here. I can show you,” you offered

“Where?” he was demanding but you could hear the uncertainty in his voice.

You sidled carefully around him, angling towards the water.

“We have to swim to get there.”

He nodded, tense but for now acquiescing to the logic in your words.

  You carefully tied what was left of your clothing so that no trailing ends risked snagging as you swam and waded deeper into the water. It was warm, but you still shivered at the faint chill against your skin and the mer’s proximity as you slipped into the ocean.

You moved slowly, aware of the mermaid's injuries. It was not a long way to go to the hidden entrance to a place you had discovered years before. You hesitated only for a moment, and then dipped underwater. This put you firmly in the mermaid’s natural habitat. It was, in a way, a show of trust. You dived deeper and deeper, ignoring the pressure in your ears and your chest.  The sounds of the mermaid swimming behind you were somewhat unnerving. They were the sounds of a creature both larger and stronger than you in the water, and he was following you. You shook the thought away, moving water with your hands to propel yourself down to the underwater tunnel burrowing between stone and coral and two the protected lagoon beyond.

You pulled yourself through carefully, flicking your feet in small precise motions to avoid drifting into the rough, salt pocked stone. The place you were taking the mer was safe precisely because it was a place difficult to reach both by land and by sea. On land, this bit of coast belonged to the royal family alone; by sea, the pathways through these closely sentried rocks twisted and turned, making a treacherous labyrinth below and a shielding wall above.

You took careful stock of your air. Even though you had been underwater for more than a minute already, this blessing of your noble blood would not last forever. You followed the signs placed long ago to guide swimmers who knew where they wanted to go, and within another handful of minutes emerged into the wide clear waters of an ardent bay.

The slow speed of your only human limbs was perhaps a good thing. The mer following you was visibly exhausted even after what should have been a short journey for him. You led him close to the edge of the water where shallow scoops filled with soft sand and colorful corals and waving fronds of seaweed made comfortable little environments. Too deep for a human to rest in, but it seemed perfect for an injured sea creature.

You pulled yourself up onto the smooth stone bordering the little cove. 

“I’ll be back,” you promised. 

The mer looked up at you, lines of exhaustion on his face. After a moment, you untied a bracelet from your wrist, made from woven threads of golden sea-silk and three beads, green and red and black strung along it. You offered it to the mer.

“I don’t wish for you to feel trapped here. If at any time you wish to leave, find this color in the wall.” You pointed to the red veined stone. You moved your finger to the black stone and then the green. “Follow the tunnel marked in this order. To return, follow the reverse pattern.”

He reached out for the bracelet, plucking it from your palm without touching your skin.

“I'll come back,” you said once again.

The mer just swished his tail and said nothing to your promise.

  You slipped back into the castle, feet bare, hair and clothes dripping.

A strong, musical voice called your name. “How many times have I told you not to track water inside,” Mei said, exasperated.

“I’ll clean it up.”

She sighed. “Aren’t there better things to do with your time?”

You looked blankly back at the trail of droplets and footprints, but your mind was already racing ahead to the things you needed, what you could leave at the lagoon in case it was difficult to return or the mer wanted space while he healed, what kind of books could be in the library, what kind of medicines could work on –

Your sister called your name again. “Are you listening?”

You turned her, half startled.

She sighed again and waved you onward. “Go on.”

She gave you a soft look when you all but beamed at her and continued on your way.

  The mermaid’s injury was severe. You spent the next few weeks going down to the lagoon as often as you could. You brought amphorae of fresh water, pots of fresh and salt preserved food - as much fish as you could bring until the mermaid expressed his frustration at the lack of variety and you tried bringing him things from the land, which he seemed to enjoy and eat easily enough - bandages and medicines, sea plants that he instructed you to fetch with imperious expectation, and whatever new knowledge you could scrounge up from the palace library. And what you got in turn was a name.

Sasuke.

It was a beautiful name, you thought, sibilant as the shushing sea, with a bite at the end like cold spray thrown up by a crashing wave. The more days you spent with him, the more obvious his beauty became to you. It was not only a physical attraction, although he made you wish that your skills in the visual arts could properly capture him. If you could paint, you thought you could spend years creating echoes of the way his fins rippled as he moved, a language all their own. After that, you could spend years imitating the gleaming flash of his eyes, as multifaceted as any expert cut stone, dark like lacquer or ink, then lit from within like garnets or rubies.

  He was prickly as a lionfish and as curious as a kitten. He never seemed overly delighted when you visited, but if you were gone for more than a day or two, he demanded to know where you had been.

“I have duties to attend to in the castle,” you explained one day. You and Sasuke were taking refuge in the shadow of a cliff as you helped smear a strong, green scented paste on new linen strips with which to bind Sasuke’s freshly washed wound. It still bled sluggishly when exposed, deep as it had been, but it did not seem to be infected.

“You’re not stealing all this stuff, are you?”

You snorted an inelegant laugh. “No.”

He let you help him tie the bandages. Sasuke flicked his tail in such precise movements to stay in place. You didn’t know of anyone who had been this close to a mermaid in decades. The dreamy tales told by sailors carried a wishful magic all their own, but were not likely factual unless there was a mermaid or several sitting clear as day on every spit of land and jut of rock from here to the Land of Whirlpools. All the recorded accounts you had found so far were recollections from those who sailed, who watched at the boundaries of day and night, who weren’t sure what they saw.

“The queen of this country-” you tied the last bandage in a knot that could still be released even once the cloth was swollen with water - “she’s my elder sister. It means I got to grow up in the palace, without everyone paying attention to what I was doing.”

Sasuke went very quiet.

“I know a lot of secret ways in and out.” You glanced up to where the curving roofs of the tallest buildings were barely visible from the cliff upon which it was perched. “And I get to learn anything I want.” There were lots of things you could do that Mei couldn’t, or wasn’t allowed. It wasn’t a bad life. You had always known this. It was just a little lonely.

“Do you need anything else?” you asked the mer.

He propped himself up on the rocks. You could count the faint lines of the gills still left uncovered by bandages on his ribs. They sealed themselves when he was above the waterline for any significant amount of time, which was one of the many fascinating things about him. He looked for all intents and purposes to be ignoring you as he basked on the sun, but his head was tilted towards you.

You pulled a book from within your clothes, flipped back a few pages and then settled against a rock to begin reading out loud. 

The next day, you spotted the bracelet you had given him fastened around his wrist.

  It had been almost a month when you finally asked Sasuke where his injuries came from. There was no pattern to the wound before, the flesh too torn for you to guess at what had caused it. You had also grown to know Sasuke better in the hours and hours you spent at the site of his convalescence. He carried with him a deep vortex of sadness and anger. It went far deeper than the visible wound.

“I don’t want to explain,” he growled as you mixed a different poultice in a silver dipped mortar. Behind that growl was that vortex, its screaming, all consuming noise.

You had never met someone like this, who had that much hurt inside. It was frightening. You had no idea what it would do to him to touch those memories, but something inside of you told you that you had to know. That not to know would be to miss some vital part of who Sasuke was.

Your fingers stilled on the mortar. “You don’t have to.”

Yet he did not leave. You did not begin to mix the medicine again.

As a child, you had been lost once in one of the terrible typhoons that struck the coast of this kingdom. It had come on suddenly, darkening the sky and obscuring both the path ahead and behind. A strange sound had joined in with the howling winds, almost like singing. Without anything else to give you direction, you had followed the sound until you came to the edge of the sea. The storm had churned the water gray and foamy white and cold, forbidding blue so dark it was nearly black. You had tucked yourself into a cluster of stones and brush, your knees pulled up to your chest. The storm had screamed around you, you were soaked through. Who knew how long you had been out there, but it was long enough that you were convinced that all there would ever be was the shrieking sound of the typhoon and the sideways driven rain. The reprieve of the eye had come on with a sudden silence.

You only realized that you were humming through the memory when the odd look Sasuke was giving you cut through your blank recollections. There were half crushed purple flowers and the variegated green mush of herbs under your hands, their scent in the air, salt on your lips, the soft lap of waves interrupted by Sasuke’s agitated movements, his eyes before you, touched red like the day you’d met him.

He moved forward, warrier than he’d been even on the day you found him. Closer.

And then some spell was broken and with a flick of his tail he vanished. The water barely rippled. A set of perfect concentric rings faded from the point he had been hardly a second before. For the first time, it was overtly apparent that Sasuke had all the marks of a deadly predator, of a monster from the deep. It did not scare you as much as it should have.

  All of the books in the palace library said that mermaids were magical creatures, that they had  an inborn resilience, speed and strength greater than a human, could breath both air and water, and could sing to charm men off the rocks. But despite all of Sasuke’s strength, he had come to you with a terrible wound that pulled skin and muscle as it healed, and went nearly to the bone. Your own little spells helped the healing process along. You believed that it had likely kept him from dying. It didn’t stop the slow, painful experience from taking over three months before the wound was intact enough to be without bandages for long, for Sasuke to swim with only a small wince as he turned.

You were removing the last of the linen wraps when Sasuke spoke in a low voice. “What do you know of my world? The world beneath the surface.”

You sat back, coiling the length of cloth neatly on the pile beside you.

There were very old accounts among all of the old documents you combed through in the dead of night as the sea shushed outside the windows. They spoke with an authority that indicated either brilliant enough imagination to include the utterly mundane aspects of formal proceedings, or a realism only gained by being present to witness the comings and goings of powers that were beyond the Land of Water’s borders.

Since Sasuke’s sudden arrival, you had imagined them often, wondered what role he might play. He had a proud bearing that was familiar from interacting with nobility, a precise grace that made you wonder if fighting was a regular occurrence for him, and a casual entitlement that said he was used to getting what he wanted one way or another. But you had seen these things among common folk as well. There were warriors at court from the inland farms or outlying islands who had fought their way through prejudices and more difficult circumstances who had earned every ounce of their pride and poise.

“If it is even a little like what I have read about, it is as complex or more so than the world above, but all our information is very old.” 

You could not quite figure out why it stopped. There was a season of the usual terrible storms, and then slowly, nothing but supposed myths.

“But in my world, I have seen assassinations, and diplomatic disasters, and houses nearly wiped from the map.” The last words nearly broke on your tongue. All of these things had happened to your family, but you and Mei had survived it.

Sasuke carefully rotated his shoulder, looking thoughtful while he prodded at the new skin on the edges of the wound.

“You’ve fought for your life, before,” he said.

“Yes.” It was all you could say. Sasuke wasn’t asking. You didn’t know how he knew. Even Mei kept the details of your survival quiet. Not exactly secret, but the information was no longer shared frequently and few people would even think to ask. The Queen was the center of your scattered island nation. But your sister was the most important person in your life, the only family you had left. You would do anything for her, even though she could not do everything she might want to for you.

“Tell me,” he demanded.

You told him the memories that had sprang to mind and others – of those terrifying nights with the handle of a knife clutched in your fist, picking out paths by starlight, first with your father, and then with guards, and then alone until Mei, barely sixteen herself, had found you.

Sasuke drifted out of arm’s reach as you told the story that you had never told anyone. There had never been any need. The only one who knew almost every detail had lived through it with you, and neither of you spoke of it, even when the burden of ruling weighed heavily on her shoulders. You would sit side by side with a pot of tea cooling between you, and the question What would our parents do? hovered between you, unspoken.

He watched you narrowly, like some kind of magistrate, weighing every word. If you were younger, it would have filled your blood with ice cold fury. Who was anyone else to judge the impact of your experience?

Now, the words poured from your like water from a spring. You weren’t sure why, except that you knew that in order to know someone, sometimes you had to be known. And Sasuke would not stay in this tiny lagoon forever. He was restless in his healing. You already suspected that he was roaming beyond the bounds of the lagoon, following the secret pathways and tunnels carved through the rocks and going invisibly along the coast where you had found him.

Mei’s rise to her position had not been a triumphant, immediate affair. As little as three years ago, there had been assassins in your room, then blood on your hands, dripping to your wrists. You had left a trail of lopsided, tacky footprints as you had run, silent and with a denying scream in your chest, disguised as a low and continuous, thundering growl, to Mei’s wing, only to find her in a similar state, hair disarrayed, wearing only the web-worked armor she almost never took off and her most trusted student, Chojuro, with a freshly headless corpse at his feet.

Sasuke’s delicately webbed hands periodically flexed closed, betraying his feelings. The bony ridges on the knuckles stuck out only barely, and his quick growing claws were tucked away, but it made the protective feature on his hands more noticeable. Maybe because even with the translucent membrane halfway up his fingers, his hands were no less dextrous than yours. It was easy to forget the ways in which he was built to defend himself.

So, it was no short, victorious tale. This was not the version sung by performers across the archipelago, of the powerful queen in her castle by the sea who weeded out the violence sowed by the fallen kings of the last two generations, who raised islands from the ocean itself.

You left this part out, but there are never any songs about you. You are always and only the last princeps iuventutis, by the side of the queen. You were content enough, being a player at her side, but it had made you realize more than once that no one realized that you had also lived through what it had taken to restore Mei to the throne.

The shadows had shortened significantly by the time you finally trailed into silence. Sasuke seemed… it was difficult to tell through the haze of your own emotions. You felt dizzy from the telling, stunned.

When Sasuke began speaking, it was as though every word was torn from him, his discomfort palpable. You wondered if his story was also unused to being told.

He told you a story that ended roughly where yours had began, and it made you wince at the way it was like your first taste of loneliness, but echoed and repeated until it was magnified. Humans did not form pods, but they were similar to families, although apparently more central to survival below the waves. They were often related units, but they hunted together, fought together, played together. They were units of power in the few great cities jutting out from the unseen crust of the earth or drifting along among the currents.

Some of them were bound by more, by a strength of affection you might have had a hard time understanding if you did not have Mei and only Mei, and understand what it meant to lose everyone else, to lose all bonds of loyalty and love and never feel safe to make new ones. Mei despaired over your alone-ness. She had Chojuro and old Ao and Kirimi. You haven’t been able to find anyone like that.

Sasuke painted broad strokes first, and then filled in the details, as though he was distracted by the details of his own memories. He talked about the billowing clouds of crimson, like a bloody dawn, in the twisting corals when he returned from his evening studies - he would have been some underwater equivalent of a scholar warrior, his own brother’s confidant and blade, had slaughter not come to his city-kingdom.

The attackers, whoever they were, had set both city and survivors adrift. His brother refused to tell him who the culprits were. He refused to show Sasuke how to return home, driving him back to the open waters in the name of safety each time he came close. And he has come so close.

The part of you that knew intimately how even coming home is never coming home after something like the razing of a city, the killing of all the little things that made a family, understood even though your heart hurt for him. Sasuke had a sharp tongue, thorns, but like those plants with thorns, his barbs guarded something delicate and precious. He had a heart that loved so fiercely and truly that you yourself wanted to receive even a little of that emotion, as though it might spark back to life the cold ash of your own heart.

Sasuke’s brother would not let Sasuke use the skill he developed for tracking to take back that home that was first taken from him. So, he has done the one thing Itachi was not there to stop him from doing, which was to find an answer to the other half of the equation. What had attacked the drifting City of Leaves.

That was where the wounds came from.

The city of Sasuke’s birth followed new currents now, settled into a new and still unpredictable course. Forbidden from it and not knowing who still lived within, Sasuke hunted alone.

He tried to hide it with pride, but you saw that hollowness in him. Even though you understood his brother’s desire to preserve Sasuke’s childhood recollections, to keep him away from the dangers of what you guessed was the ongoing conflict within that hidden city-kingdom, it seemed cruel to condemn him to years of not knowing, of trying to deny him vengeance.

And so he was here.

Victorious, which made you somehow proud of him, but also hurt, which made you hurt for him in a way that was unfamiliar. Sasuke had defeated a mer that could cause water to boil, enabling him to do things like create mud that burned, as well as acid, and made interacting with him a deadly endeavor. It was a testament to his skill that he had survived as far as he had already.

It was not Sasuke’s absent brother’s fault that he could not be in two places at once. So perhaps…

The answer came to you with sudden clarity, over Sasuke’s drifting silence. His gaze had wandered away from you, and now he looked down at the ripples of water as the tiny waves in the hidden cove broke themselves upon him.

“Be with me.”

He looked up at you, sharp and quick and a certain shiver went through him that was utterly inhuman.

A slightly abashed heat rushed through your body at your own sudden boldness. You couldn’t take it back though. You had never been more certain of anything in your life.

  Sasuke answered with a sardonic smile. It made you wonder who – if – there were others who had offered themselves as companions. He had a beautiful face by human standards. You didn’t know if it was the same among the mer, but you imagined that his skill and the sheer strength of his will would be valued anywhere. He smiled with sharp teeth and when it felt as though some silent laughter at your expense was finished, he had found the words to cut through whatever small fantasy you had been concocting. 

“Will you offer me a life on land where each step is like knives? Where I will never meet one of my own kind again?”

You winced back because you had seen these old stories too. They were not what you thought of in that moment, but they were also not not what you thought of. And the way he said it, you knew if he truly believed there was nothing left, he would leave behind the sea no question and walk on knives the rest of his life to be with you. But you would never want him in real pain. It was why you went towards instead of away from him when you first laid eyes on him.

And you would never ask him to trade one loneliness for another.

“Be as you are-” your voice was shaking “-with me.”

It was as though every star you had followed on those moonless nights as a child were aligning, making out a path for you to follow. They led here.

“Why?” Sasuke asked, demanded. His voice was rough. You had surprised him.

Here you knew to tread carefully, but you were dizzy too with the feeling of finding a way out of a place you had never realized that maybe you could leave.

“I told you what made me this way,” you said. Your voice was rough too. The telling had lodged against some old hurt deep in your spirit and that place which you had once thought a well healed scar seemed much closer to the surface than before he had demanded the explanation.

“I want to hear you say it,” Sasuke said. Your skin prickled in sympathetic fear, because no matter how angry he tried to sound, the truth of his emotion was what you heard.

“I don’t feel at home here anymore,” you admitted, terrified.

“You’ve never lived below the water,” Sasuke replied, harsh but in the sort of way that meant it was the only way he knew to keep his voice from breaking.

“You’ve never lived on land,” you countered. “And besides, we have both survived worse. I would find a way.” For you, you did not say.

He gazed at you, frustrated, unsatisfied, and you knew that you had not yet provided an answer. 

You swallowed. The strip of linen was wound tight between your hands, striping your fingers with marks, but you hardly noticed. The truth would tear your heart wide open. But maybe that was what was needed. Wound for wound.

“These months I’ve spent with you… when I’m with you, I don’t feel alone.” What was love after all, but knowing that somewhere in the world, you were not alone?

Sasuke’s throat bobbed, the gill slits between his ribs fluttered as he drew in water, faster, like a land dweller breathing hard.

“It would take magic beyond either of us now to transform.”

But he didn’t deny, did not refuse.

“I’ll find a way.” Your gaze burned into his with the force of your vow.

The faint furrow of Sasuke’s brow smoothed out. 

“You can try. I’d help but–” he gestured down at himself, at the raw, spidering wound starring from the center of his chest and bursting again at points across his back.

You shook your head. “Don’t go anywhere,” you entreated. “Not yet.”

He nodded easily. He was well on his way to healing but still not as strong as he had been before battling the gold-tailed heat-creating mer.

“What would you do?” you asked after a moment, habitually inquisitive. There were questions a princeps could ask that a queen could not, but you were also just a tiny bit nosy about things you were curious about.

Sasuke smirked a bit, one corner of his mouth turning up. “We go find a witch.” He put a sound behind the word “witch”, the language of his people, and it sent a warning prickle up your spine.

“Oh,” you agreed quietly. “Don’t do that.”

Sasuke snorted in a pale acknowledgement of the humor remaining in the situation and then went quiet.

  It took you five feverish weeks. Five weeks of pouring over manuscripts deeper and deeper in the palace archives, of searching for the faintest scrap of a hint of the kind of magic that would let one of your kind stay underwater for a change you knew would be maybe once in a lifetime. A less focussed part of your mind reworked through what you read to see if any of it could bring Sasuke on land with you, without pain, and not forever, but long enough to give him an unexpected advantage over his still numerous and yet unknown enemies. The second thing did not yield anything that you could use.

Not on land at least. There were holes once you dug deep enough, crawled far enough through the records, where maybe this old magic existed somewhere else and a chance at love did not come with so steep a price.

You had five weeks to realize what you would be giving up. Nothing felt like home, but someone did, and you would be leaving her.

The day you finally found the door to your answer, you crawled into Mei’s bed once nightfall came. You had not done this since you were very small, since before the palace walls were stained with ash and blood. Ash and blood – two of the oldest conduits for great magic.

She hummed, stroked a hand down your back. You could feel her palm through the silk of your pajamas.

“You’ve been busy lately.” She was imitating a song your parents used to use to get the two of you to rest, even when so excited you were fairly swimming through your bedding like a pair of fingerlings.

It was only now, after spending so much time with Sasuke, so much time trying to find every fact you could about something that was supposed to be purely mythical, that you suspected it was the same song, almost exactly. That was another of the gifts a remnant of blood-from-the-sea gave its children.

“There is much of the world to know,” you said.

“Yes,” Mei replied, “There is. Our kingdom is such a small part of it.” She said this thoughtfully, as though recalling all the months and years of struggle to get to this place, to a semblance of peace. “– of the earth and the sea.”

Practice and familiarity kept you from stiffening with suspicion and surprise. Mei’s fingers similarly did not pause in their gentle pass up and down your spine.

She must know. She was the queen and she made it her job to know everything so the betrayal that stole your family would never happen again. It would make things easier. Loving your sister did not always make it easy to tell her what was in the halls of your heart.

“What would you do,” you asked her without change in inflection, “to give me a chance at happiness?”

After a pause, she said: “Anything, last blood of mine.” She pressed a kiss to your brow and then blew out the lights with a blink and flick of her fingers. “Almost anything.”

  You went down to the lagoon the next day, at dawn. Sasuke was used to impatience, anticipation. He only looked at you curiously, did not ask if you had discovered the magic you would need. You turned a roll in your hands.

There were things that Sasuke had found he very much enjoyed from the world above. Fruits and vegetables were different, brighter. Bread, which he had never really had before. You brought them all often, trying to show him as many wonders from the surface as possible. He had been well enough to hunt on his own for some time now so it was all you brought unless he wanted something from deep waters, too far away to catch and return within a day.

“I think I found it.”

Five weeks has been long enough to realize that there were things you were going to miss about the land too. Besides Mei. You pinched a corner off the roll and let it melt - butter and yeast - on your tongue.

Sasuke stilled. Or the majority of his body did, the rest of him still drifted and moved like seaweed or the wide fans of coral. “You think?”

“It will be difficult.” Of course it would. This was asking much, and there was always a price for magic. “You’re right. We can’t do it.”

The fins of the left side of his tail dragged, listing deeper into the water before he righted them, showing his otherwise silent dismay. It was still fascinating that his body language – which should be alien and strange – has become easier to read, and so quickly.

“But my sister is the queen of this nation. She has enough magic.”

“Would she do it?” For you, for the both of you, would she change you from a creature of the land to the sea?

You didn’t know. She had said “almost anything”. Would she let you go down to the unknown, into the depths of the sea with only a companion and no promises to bring you home?

Sasuke had edged closer, letting the gentle waves push him to the rocky shore where you leaned down. Your fingers dangled in the water.

He called your name. His voice shook.

“Are you going to break your promise?”

It was at that moment that you realized how much your words had meant to Sasuke. You had been thinking of this as a gamble. Sasuke could get tired of you, he could leave you, he could decide that without any titles or family in the ocean, you were worthless to him. You had slowly made peace with all of this.

As his voice broke on the word break, your resolve became honed to a blade.

“No.” You reached for his face. Your hands cupped his cheeks. You pressed your forehead to his.

“Even my brother–” he choked, on the grief, on the anger, on the long years of being left alone of being told no, Sasuke. I need to do this alone. 

Something small, lighter than a pebble but heavier than a drop of water rolled over your fingers and knuckles.

The realization that, yet again, he didn’t have to be alone for most of his life had broken something open inside of him at the threat of abandonment. Again. Sasuke clutched your wrists, not to pull away, but to keep you close. His claws faintly indented against your skin.

You nuzzled against him, closer than you had ever been. He smelled of salt and the sea, and something almost electric, like the air under a thunderstorm.

His tears slowed but did not stop.

You hadn’t found the entirety of the spell, but you knew how to hunt it down, to solve the puzzle of hints and documents until you had the whole picture. One piece of information from the multitudes you had consumed came to you:

The tears of a mer are pearls, used in the magic of transformation, from land to sea. 

You cupped his cheek, and caught the fall of his sorrows. You understood what it was to have an elder sibling who could not love you more than her duty but who would try to give you everything regardless, and for it still not to be enough. You knew what it was to be profoundly lonely, to have lost everything and still have that place like a hole through your lungs.

“Wait for me,” you begged. “Wait here and when I have convinced her highness the queen, when I have convinced my sister, I will come to you. And if I cannot, I will go with you anyways and find a way out to sea. As a pirate or a humble sailor, I will find you. For your love I would drown.”

“I do not want you to drown,” Sasuke said, dark eyes fierce and wild and afraid, shimmering in mother of pearl colors with a thin film of tears, but did not otherwise deny you.

You swiped the last few pearls from the corners of his eyes and his cheeks, the water of his tears crystallized to salt and carbonate the moment they hit air. “Three days or five or seven,” you said, “no more, no less.”

He pressed his cheek into your palm. You cupped the pearls in your hands like water until you reached the base of the secret path to the lagoon. Then you folded them into a square of fabric and tucked them into a pouch at your hip.

You clambered up the walls of his sanctuary, elegant as a climbing vine, and were gone.

  Mei was sitting upon her throne when you threw yourself at her feet. The stone and wood pattern of the floor was alternating warm and cool beneath your knees and palms. After all of your research, it finally occurred to you to wonder whether that was another subtle nod to the history of the relationship between the beings of the land and the water, between your family and others on the mainland and the clans beneath the waves.

The queen looked down from her seat for a few long, heartstopping moments. You kept your face turned to the floor.

“Go.” She made the soft command and everyone she gave it to sprang to obey. The room rustled with the sounds of their retreat.

“Approach.”

You rose and came closer, tilting your head up slowly, afraid to see her expression. 

It was kind, which was as much as you could have hoped for.

You looked around briefly, moving only your eyes while your head was tipped to the floor. The only people left in the throne room besides the two of you were a single minister who seemed to be taking the minutes of the day.

“What is it you have to ask me?” she asked gently.

Suddenly, the enormity of your request stole the air from your lungs.

Your sister gave you several long moments that did not return your ability to form words appropriate to a petition from the court.

“Or –” her voice was harder, more of the queen in it, “– would you like to explain what you’ve been up to for the last six months.”

That was easier, and harder. It was likely the mer lived beyond humans, concealing themselves and their own internal conflicts with relative ease, but you worried about exposing them nonetheless.

Mei called your name with a near sigh, only concealed because this was an official meeting and her irritations with you didn’t need to go on record. “You have to start somewhere.”

“It’s not my right,” you finally got out, thinking of the whole unknown world you were ready to dive into.

“Then tell me what is.”

You struggled for words and then eventually said, “Has anyone in our family ever encountered something from the ocean? Something difficult to explain.”

Mei leaned back against the carved scenery of the throne. Birds and fish and the long-tailed lemurs from the mountains soared and wound and climbed their way through the wood.

After a pause she offered, “Did you find something near-human, perhaps, in the genealogies?”

A heavy weight fell from your chest, and a wonder took its place.

“You know?”

She did not shrug but the emotion was there as she said, “I am the queen. It is my job to know. Many of the newer family registries were burned during the coup. It was easier when we returned to access some very old ones, which had not been touched in some time.”

“So we did once mix blood with the sea,” you said, half to yourself.

Mei looked at you, and something heavy and sad entered her eyes. You met that gaze, heart in your throat. Then she shook herself, and that emotion passed.

“Ask your question,” she said once again.

“Would you let our line join blood to blood with the water again?”

Mei’s green eyes were fathomless as the sea.

  Sasuke waited, three days and then five and then seven and on the first dawn hour of the seventh day, a slow entourage of elegantly dressed people made their way carefully down to the lagoon.

First came a tall woman in a blue gown and red herringboned hair with a look about her that said she had survived much. With her was a dark robed man with heavy beads around his neck, a woman carefully juggling a portfolio of papers, and another man with a broad, heavy sword in his hands. And amidst them all was you, dressed as simply as a sailor in a billowing cotton shirt and loose, tied breaches. 

A wreath of silver kelp blades was woven in the red haired woman’s hair so Sasuke assumed she must be the queen you spoke of, your sister.

She knelt down by the water and arranged her skirts as carefully as any selkie. Over her legs, between the slits in the fabric, glimmered a network of silver armor.

“It has been a long time since one of our people returned to the sea,” she said. “And now you wish to take the most beloved of my few remaining companions away.”

Sasuke lifted his chin. “I take nothing, as the sea takes nothing.”

“No,” the queen murmured, “things are seldom so deliberate, but you are a living, thinking creature, the same as I.”

She held out a hand and drew you down beside her when you placed your hand in hers. She drew you forward until your fingertips touched the water and then let you go.

She beckoned forward the woman with her folio of papers and they were laid out, weighted with polished stones and the leftover parts of dead things from the water, their spines and smooth curved outlines as familiar to Sasuke as their names.

The queen drew her fingers across words which Sasuke was faintly surprised to recognize. The queen noticed because a queen must notice everything.

“Our kingdoms share blood,” she explained slowly, every word precisely dictated. The woman who had spread out the papers slid a brush across a blank sheet, marking the conversation.

“We share language and words and music, although they have grown different from one another over generations.

“I will give you the last golden piece of my heart,” she continued. “But each year you must return, and show to me all is well, with both of you.” Her clever green eyes darted between you and Sasuke. “That is the price of my magic.”

He nodded, once, tight and sharp, and the queen seemed to relax, settling back on the rocks as easy as if they were her own great chair up in the castle with its wing-shaped roofs.

The queen turned to you and called your name so softly, like waking a child from sleep. “This is the first such alliance in more than a century. It will be your responsibility to learn the ways of the water. You will return each year so you do not forget the ways of the land.”

“I understand,” you said.

The queen cupped your cheek and pressed her brow to yours.

She pricked her thumb, scarred from pricking, against one tooth and pressed a bloody thumbprint to the laid out papers with their tiny, perfect letters, and the one still glistening with fresh ink. Sasuke followed her mark, and you after, and then you pulled away from her and lifted the loose shirt over your head.

The loose pants fell in a dark puddle around your feet, and bare, you eased yourself into the water, hands holding the rocks while your feet turned little eddies that hummed against the sensitive scales of his tail.

The man in dark robes pulled an empty wooden bowl from his sleeve. The queen pulled a black lacquered container from hers. The lid came off with a subtle click and inside was barely an inch of shimmering white powder. With a start, Sasuke realized that these were what remained of the tears you had taken with you.

A pinch of the gleaming powder fell from the queen’s fine fingers. She dipped her head and caught her own tear, her own whisper of loneliness into the wooden bowl. She held it out for you and you pressed your thumb and forefinger together until one perfectly mixed drop of blood and salt water fell in the mixture.

The man in dark robes dipped a stick of something that looked like dark polished wood into the bowl and stirred three tines and passed the bowl back to the queen.

She dipped a finger inside and smeared your lips red and the drops fell between your lips like rubies.

Then she moved back on the rocks, eyes both excited and sad, like all those who knew true magic.

Sasuke looked at you, lips red with your own blood and the sheen of his fallen tears and whetted with a queen’s permission.

Between one breath and the next, your eyes went wide and silently, you fell beneath the waves like a spear thrown into the water.

Sasuke dove down immediately, but even with his eyes, you were lost to him in the dark. It should have been impossible. The sandy bottom of the lagoon, though deep and cool and still let in a little bit of light.

With the dawn, even the water shone like it was filling with blood.

  You fell alone through streaks of red light, diluting slowly with gold. It was like drowning, like suffocating. The blood on your lips and the tears in your mouth put the savor of grief, the tang of loneliness, the suggestion of life that comes from leaving one place for another on your tongue.

Your ribs ached and your throat ached, like being strangled with a great hand. That hand squeezed and now your legs could only thrash together as one, no more kicking toward an imaginary surface.

The thrum of water - how vast the sea was, how easy to pour yourself into it and let it take you - but no! you must keep your own form, even caught in a fist - it pressed against you like a hundred holy mantras, like the prayers that rose on the day your sister the queen was crowned.

You fought against the weight, struggling against the instinct to hold all air in your lungs. It went quickly stale as your body shifted and twisted, becoming one with the water, the stab of bones realigning. Silvery bubbles escaped your mouth as you writhed, looking for Sasuke, looking for Mei, looking for the surface.

You were sinking slowly, drowning. But as the oxygen seeped from the little air left in your lungs, panic left with it. One could not fight the might of the sea.The salt taste of blood and tears lingered on your tongue. A rippling sensation passed over your skin. You could let it take you, to pull all of you through the endless tide and currents. There would be no leaving, no loneliness, no goodbyes. You would be with Sasuke always, as constant as the sea itself.

Sasuke. Mei.

It was their tears on your tongue. It was they who would have only the formless ocean left to whisper its fathomless stories in their ears.

There was no way to swim far and fast enough to taste air again, but if you did not try, their grief would be wasted.

You fought, trails of bubbles like tiny jellyfish trailing from your nose and the corner of your blood painted mouth. Your ribs ached, but you reached upward towards the slanting sunlight. If you were crying too, you would not know, for your cheeks were wet already, but you felt heat behind your eyes. You thrashed with legs held tight together, felt the catch of the ocean over your skin.

This was it, barely any change to the light and you were out of air but still you struggled. And still you lost as your mouth opened and the last of the bubbles pushing water out of your nose drifted further and faster in the direction you wanted to go, and you breathed in.

It burned like drowning. It is said that the ocean was alike to the blood of living things. It burned like you had swallowed flame, but you still thrashed, kicking your aching, unfamiliar bones together, toward the surface

The ocean tried to swallow you whole because it was a great thing and you were so very small and it had no care for your sorrows or anyone else's. But you did. You cared. You took another gulp of saltwater, pulling toward the surface. Maybe it was growing closer, maybe the water was growing less red.

You clawed and reached and swam, and at some point you realized that you were not drowning, that although your lungs were filled with the heaviness of water, your vision stayed clear to the edges, too clear for underwater, and your kicks were no longer kicks but the thrusts of a mighty tail, and you were indeed seeing the approaching refraction of the sun.

You breached with a leap, your momentum nearly carrying you up and out of the water until you managed to curve back downward in an arc. You sensed rather than saw his surprised backstroke, the way he was swimming near the bottom of the lagoon and surged up to meet you.

He stopped, perfect, with long lashes like a deer’s, dark eyes almost liquid themselves, skin milky as jade. You’d never noticed before the ever so faint patterning of scales, palest purple, that ran along his arms and ribs, even though you’d felt them. He flicked his tail in restless back and forth motion, holding in front of you, not touching.

The magnificent blue and violet of his fins was tucked close to his body, which you knew meant he was unsure.

You looked down at yourself. You had your own tail now, strongly muscled, stronger than human legs to cut through the water to the depths of the sea. It had spines and fins, fluttered like the voluminous silk of a dress, drifted with each adjustment and motion you made.

“I am with you,” you said to Sasuke, breathed, your words new and different, but shaped by the instinct of a creature of the sea.

You felt like you were drowning, still. The weight of water in your newly changed lungs reminded you that you were no longer above the water.

But oh. It slid into place as you looked into Sasuke’s eyes. There was a faint ring of black patterning in them that had been invisible to your fully human eyes. The dawn-red flash was more obvious now with every turn of his head. He swam around you slowly, taking in the fullness of your new form.

There were so many new senses it was almost blinding. You could feel the movement of water, the currents brushing against your skin and scales, the electric vibration of Sasuke circling around. Mei was a spot of warmth stronger than Sasuke somewhere above. Was that her magic? You did not know.

But Sasuke, he sang to you, his very presence hummed in your new bones. He felt tethered to you with the warmth of a sun warmed current. You knew instinctually that his inspection was nothing predatory, not curiosity exactly, but more like interest, more like … your instincts spoke to you of the slow movements of a courting display. Experimentally, you fanned the wide train of your tail, flexing muscles you hadn’t had minutes before, moving slowly so it rippled and showed off the tracery of vein-like patterns drawn by your scales. It pleased you that it was reminiscent of leaves, a reminder of the land you came from.

If this focus, this sense of belonging was half of what Sasuke had felt while you were only human, you understood even better the strength of emotion that had led him to shed tears.

Sasuke spiraled closer, the slow humming sounds in his throat translating into comprehensible description, concepts rather than words. Warm sand between skin and scales, the change from shallow to deep water, colored stones that guide in different sequences. It was both what he saw, and the feeling those things evoked in him – a comfort that never faded, the impression of moving from one place to somewhere very different, the bracelet you had given him. He wanted to go, to swim with you.

You wanted to go with him. You found yourself stirring your tail, clumsily and Sasuke’s affectionate consternation, almost a laugh, vibrating through the water. Something stopped you. There was something important. Another warm tether. You blinked. Mei. You had forgotten her so quickly. Or not forgotten, rather that she had drifted to another corner of your mind. Sasuke’s presence had been so strong and immediate, pulled your focus like a magnet.

The sound you made was unpracticed and in frustration you had to switch to gestures. Sasuke blinked and made a soothing sound almost like a very low echo that vibrated in your chest. He looked up to where a rippling image in red and blue sat by the water.

You breached the surface for the first time since the changes to your flesh. Air burned through your throat and nose, so light you felt like you might drift away. It was disorienting.

Mei’s eyes met yours, wide as though surprised. Maybe because the spell had worked so well, or because you had come back at all. She looked at you. You looked the same but so profoundly and obviously different.

Slowly, feeling the strength and speed in your limbs, you reached up and wiped away the tear that fell from her eye – clear and warm against your fingers.

“Go.” She whispered. That warm thread thrummed strong and malleable in your new senses.

You lifted yourself from the water to press your lips to her brow. She smelled like anemone flowers, which is something you had never realized before. It would be something to remember her by. Even though they weren’t the same, each time you saw one underwater, you would think of her.

“I love you Mei-oneesan.”

You could sense that Sasuke had popped his head above water, eager for the goodbye, to show you the open sea. A low, slow vibration found you, tingled up the new spines lining your tail like an overt extension of your spine, a reminder that he was here - comfort, but also excitement.

“I’m not going away,” you said to Mei. You slipped back so that the fishlike half of your body was submerged, looked back at the mer looking with expectant dark eyes at you. “I’m just going to love him.”

Mei’s hand found your cheek. Her fingers traced across the faint flash of new scale so fine and soft it blended with your skin. “Love him well,” she said. Whatever that meant for his people, she did not know, but she knew you would do your best to figure it out, she had every confidence in your abilities to adapt, and more importantly, to build a new life.

“I will,” you whispered, suddenly elated.

You spared a glance back, but you would return. Sasuke gave an adorably impatient little jerk of his head. Ready?

A sharp sound came readily from your throat, although from a place lower than the human voice box. You knew it to be some kind of affirmative, but that was going to take some getting used to. Everything would be new. A thrilled shiver went through your body as Sasuke dived below the waves. You followed close behind through the tunnels carved from the protective rocky wall, stones red and then black and then green marking your way.

The ocean opened up ahead. The water you drew over your new gills was like a breath of fresh air despite its aching heaviness. Sasuke waited, watching as you took it all in with eyes that saw much better in the depths, but there was still a point in every direction where you could no longer discern more than color. You focussed back on him, eyes wide. You beat your tail a few times to catch up, stopping just within reach for your more decorative fins to brush against Sasuke’s.

He reached out with seeking fingers and you reached back. Then he opened his mouth as though to taste the water. You imitated him, which seemed to amuse him. There was a burst of something taken in like flavor, but more like scent over your palate. Sasuke turned towards whatever sign he had found pointing him to what he was looking for. You followed into the blue expanse.

#mermay 2023 #mermay fic #uchiha sasuke #uchiha sasuke x reader #sasuke x reader #mermaid!sasuke #little mermaid au #but it's in reverse #long post #i think i'll cross post this one to ao3 as well #link will be up eventually for anyone who prefers reading there

[sunshinebingo]

This has been my attempt at beating writer’s block after following a few advices. Thank you so much @littlefishbigsea and @secret-third-thing for the help 🙏. And thank you @lulling-night-sky for listening to my whining 😅

Summary: When his mate barged into his office claiming to be sick, Lucien had to find out what she had and how to take care of her.

Word Count: 2k

Warning: NSFW

Read on Ao3 or below the cut

Lucien’s eyes burned from reading these damn papers for so long. He had been working for hours. But he could not stop until after he had gone through all of them or they would add up to the work he would have the next day. Assuming that it was probably close to dinner time, Lucien set to work again, hoping to finish it all before he could join his mate.

The thought of spending time with Elain after made him even more determined to complete the task at hand. Since he had been busy the whole day and afternoon, Lucien intended to devote all his time and attention to her alone. But he had to be done with his work first. He grabbed a scattered piece of leather near his stack of papers and tied his loose hair up in a bun. For now, he needed to put all distracting thoughts aside.

The door to his office burst open before he could focus back on the paper before him. “I need a healer,” Elain loudly exclaimed.

“What!?” Lucien pulled his chair back in a panicked state. Was she sick? What was –

“Help!” She interrupted his thoughts as she quickly approached his desk. The back of her hand was pressed to her forehead and she wore a strange expression on her face. Elain reached him before he could stand and oh so gently dropped herself on his lap with a breathless, “Help! I’m fainting.”

One of her hands reached around his neck and the other came to rest on his chest. Lucien raised his eyebrows at the realisation of the act. Then, all his blood started rushing down to his cock when he really looked at her from head to toe.

His sweet mate was wearing a thin lavender nightgown with only her long loose hair to conceal her breast beneath the sheer fabric. Was it already time for bed? Lucien feared that he had again lost track of time. A glimpse at the partially covered window behind him confirmed that the sun was just starting to set. Then why –

“I need help,” Elain pleaded again.

“How can I help you my dear lady in distress?” Lucien asked, bringing a hand to inspect her beautiful face. His other hand wrapped around her waist to support her better.

“I feel…” Her wide doe eyes bore into his like her life truly depended on him. “I feel very hot.”

Lucien pursed his lips to stop a smirk. “Can you tell me more about your symptoms?” he asked as seriously as he could. Elain nodded and pulled his hand away from her face. She dragged his hand slowly down her body, starting from her neck, to the valley of her breast, going down and down until she stopped right between her legs.

“I’m feeling very hot down here,” she said innocently, still looking into his eyes. Lucien kept staring at her as he dragged his hand lower until he reached the hem of her nightgown at her thigh. He slipped his hand under the fabric and went straight to where his lady needed him most.

Lucien took a deep breath in at the first contact of his fingers against her centre. When he felt how wet she was, he decided that his work would kindly have to fuck off for the day because he had much more urgent matters to tend to.

Lucien inserted two fingers inside her and watched as Elain shifted on his lap with a whimper. He slowly slid his fingers in and out of her a few times before he removed his hand completely.

“I see now,” he said, ignoring the disappointed look on Elain’s face. For now. “I know exactly what you have.”

Lucien lowered his face to her ear. “You are horny. And you need to be fucked.” He bit the tip of her pointed ear slightly, then whispered, “Hard.”

Elain’s face flushed and she pulled on his shirt to make him face her again. “Where do you think I can find someone to fuck me?” She asked, using that voice that was filled with sweet honey.

This time, Lucien did not hide his wicked grin. Elain let out a yelp when he suddenly stood up while still holding her. He quickly swiped away all the papers from his desk before placing her down before it. He would deal with the mess later.

Lucien grabbed her by the waist and pressed himself against her, caging the top of her body between his arms and making her feel how hard he was for her. “No one else but me can fuck you, my lady.”

A second later, Lucien’s pants were down, Elain’s nightgown was gathered at her waist and his cock was sliding inside her wet centre. It started very slow. She let out a moan as his cock went deeper until he was fully in. He remained like that for a moment and just savoured the feeling of being inside her. It still amazed him, even after being this intimate with her for over a year, how easily and quickly Elain could make him this hard and make him empty his thoughts of everything else but her.

Lucien gathered all of her hair over her shoulder, leaving the other and her neck exposed so that he could trace his lips and tongue there. One of his hands went up her front until he could grab her breast through her nightgown and torture her even more. Elain reached behind her and tangle a hand in his hair. Lucien sucked hard right between her neck and shoulder when she pulled on his hair. The little vixen was getting impatient. And he had gotten painfully hard at this point. Lucien grabbed both of her hands and pinned them on his desk.

Then, as promised, Lucien started to fuck her. Hard. He showed her no mercy as he started pounding into her, going as deep as their position allowed him to. His office was soon filled by her loud moans and his groans mixed the sound of their bodies slapping against each other. The paper-thin fabric she was wearing was probably doing nothing to stop her from being marked where her skin was pressed against the wooden desk. But it would just give him another excuse to take care of her later. That did not seem to be bothering her anyway if Lucien had to judge by the lewd sounds she was making.

When he felt that she was close, Lucien fucked her faster. He leaned down on her and started kissing and sucking wherever he could reach her skin on her neck and shoulders. The strap of nightgown fell off one of her shoulders and down her arm. Elain held onto his hands tightly as her orgasm hit her.

Lucien kept moving until Elain’s body collapsed and she pressed her forehead to the desk. With the delightful view that she now offered him, Lucien released her hands to grab her ass instead. He gave her a few moments to catch her breath before he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her head back. Her cheeks and nose were flushed, her eyes closed and her lips parted as she breathed through her mouth.

His other hand trailed from her ass to her front. Lucien started rubbing slow circles on her clit. His cock twitched inside her when he went lower and touched her where their bodies were still joined.

‘’Are you feeling better, love?’’ he purred in her ear.

Lucien slowly slid his cock out and went back in. He gathered the wetness at her entrance and brought his hand back to her clit. He teased her there as slowly and he moved his cock in and out of her. He smirked when a delicious whimper left her.

When he started to move back again, Elain chased him by pushing her ass against him. She turned her head to the side. Lucien could not resist the temptation of her lips when she brought her mouth close to his. He kissed her, tasting her tongue and lips as she started moaning again from what his hand and his cock were still doing to her.

‘’More,’’ she said when she pulled her face away.

Lucien pulled back until his cock was almost completely out. He gave her a final peck on the cheek and thrusted back inside her so hard that the desk creaked beneath them. And he started fucking her again. He stood up behind her and felt himself going even deeper than before.

She was so warm and wet around his cock that everything ceased to make any sense. Lucien got closer to the edge the more he listened to her cries of pleasure. He cursed when she tightened again around him. He pressed his hand harder on her clit, the other holding tight to her waist. A few more thrust and Lucien lost all control of his body. He came inside her with a loud groan. Elain followed as soon as he spilled himself in her. Her body tensed and her legs slightly trembled. She threw her head back and came on a silent gasp.

Elain’s dropped her head onto the desk again with a sigh. Lucien stayed as close to her as he could and rested his forearms at her sides. ‘’So,’’ he asked with his head on her shoulder, ‘’Better?’’ He was unable to gather more words than that. Elain did not respond but the giggle she let out was answer enough for him. This female would cause his death someday and he would still be grateful for it.

Lucien straightened up when Elain’s body started sliding down from under him due her weakened legs. Both of their clothes were sticking to their bodies from the sweat. Their hair were in no better state. He removed the leather that had almost completely loosened and let his own hair fall down his back.

He lifted Elain up to make her sit on his desk. She immediately wrapped her arms around him, pulled him close and rested her head on his chest. Lucien kissed the top of her head and held her close to him. It was not the first time that they were cuddling in his office half naked. Knowing his mate, it would definitely not be the last time that his work would be interrupted like this. Not that Lucien would ever complain.

A distant ding brought their attention to the door. ‘’Oh,’’ Elain exclaimed excitedly, pulling back from his embrace, ‘’Dinner is ready.’’

She hopped down and adjusted her nightgown and her hair like she was about to walk into a room full of people when they were the only ones in their home. Lucien took the opportunity to pull his pants back on. Elain took him by the hand when they were both presentable enough for the furniture and plants of the empty house.

‘’Come on,’’ she started walking towards the door. ‘’Let’s have a nice meal together. Then maybe I’ll get sick again by dessert.’’

Lucien snorted behind her. ‘’Will you be wearing this the whole time?’’ he gestured with his free hand at the nightgown that could barely be considered as clothing.

Elain turned to him while she kept walking down the hall. ‘’I can take it off if you don’t like it.’’ Lucien knew exactly what she meant from her saccharine voice and the mischief in her eyes. Damn him if that did not start to make him hard again.

‘’Maybe I will be the one getting sick next time from the torture you put me through.’’

Elain stopped. Her eyes travelled to his pants, a smile gracing her lips when she looked up at his face again. She stood on her tip-toes to kiss him on the cheek. ‘’Don’t worry,’’ she said, surprisingly energetic again, ‘’I will take good care of you.’’ Then she turned and pulled on his hand again as she continued walking.

#elucien #elucien smut #and fluff #It's elucien of course there's fluff #This fic is my version of dancing around the fire and praying for the rain to come #Except i'm praying for my writer's block to go #I don't claim that it is good #I just claim that it is smut #elain archeron #lucien vanserra

[wanderingmausoleum]

My latest Shadow of the Erdtree theory:

Could Messmer the Impaler have been partially inspired by Cú Chulainn and his spear, the Gáe Bulg, from Irish mythology?

This will be a long post with a lot of heavy speculation so buckle up!

According to the Táin Bó Cúailnge via Wikipedia (which I apologize for using as a source; I don't know much about this topic and other results seemed untrustworthy or were behind paywalls), the spear Gáe Bulg was made from a sea monster's bone, and it "entered a man's body with a single wound, like a javelin, then opened into thirty barbs. Only by cutting away the flesh could it be taken from that man's body."

Which brings me to this iconic moment in the trailer:

Although the thing impaling this person doesn't look like Messmer's spear, it looks like it may have impaled them similarly to how the Gáe Bulg is described: spear-style, with extra barbs erupting out of it afterwards. I'm not sure how the living corpse in the trailer would have kept their head and body somewhat intact unless the barbs extended from the central spike after the impaling happened. Although it doesn't look like this was done with Messmer's spear, this gruesome injury's similarity to what the Gáe Bulg was said to do makes me think it's worth mentioning.

In some versions of the legend, the Gáe Bulg had seven heads with seven barbs each. Thus it may be worth noting that Messmer's spear has 6-7 metal barbs (depending on the angle and whether you count the spear point as one) formed by its fire design:

And, right after the trailer's scene of the impaled corpse, Messmer is shown to have an attack where he stabs the floor with his spear and a bunch of identical spears erupt from the ground around it, which is another slight similarity to the Gáe Bulg's multiplicity.

Now onto the even more speculative part of this theory...

Messmer and Shadows

We know Empyreans in Elden Ring are given guard dog-like Shadows to be their guardians: Ranni has Blaidd, and Marika has Maliketh. However, Malenia and Miquella are both Empyreans, and we are given no information about their Shadow(s), a significant absence in the lore and a topic which has been given much discussion in Elden Ring spaces I've participated in.

There has also been extensive theorizing about Messmer's place in the lore, with his red hair and M initial leading many to believe he may be another of Marika and Radagon's children, alongside Malenia and Miquella.

While learning about the Gáe Bulg spear, I learned its owner, the mythical warrior hero Cú Chulainn, "gained his better-known name as a child, after killing Culann's fierce guard dog in self defence and offering to take its place until a replacement could be reared," after which he obtained his well-known spear (Wikipedia).

With this and my prior speculation about Messmer's spear and lineage in mind, this makes me wonder: did Messmer kill Malenia and Miquella's Shadow(s), and possibly become their replacement himself (whether he later defected from that position or not)?

It may be notable to mention again here that the DLC's title is "Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree" and Messmer features prominently on its cover. Considering Shadow characters are an important part of Elden Ring's lore, with Blaidd being crucial to the game's most popular ending and Maliketh being necessary to defeat to complete the game, I wouldn't put it past the Elden Ring team to give the word a double meaning here: shadows meaning literal darkness as shown in the trailer, and Shadow meaning an Empyrean's guardian.

On the other hand, of course, Messmer with all his various heretical symbolism (fire, snakes, etc.) seems to exist in opposition to the Erdtree, so if the DLC title is referring to him, him being called the Shadow of the Erdtree doesn't make much sense lore-wise.

In conclusion:

There are no conclusions yet, really! Everything I'm theorizing here is based on a lot of speculation and vague connections. There are contradictions in the Gáe Bulg's lore itself, too (such as how it "had to be made ready for use on a stream and cast from the fork of the toes" [Wikipedia], something Messmer is definitely not doing in the trailer—although, since Fromsoft decided to give so many of their character models toe articulation and Messmer's toes are out, this could be a very funny way to make use of that). On the other hand, since Fromsoft very rarely takes inspiration 1:1 from existing mythology, I still think it's possible Messmer was influenced by it even if it doesn't fit his known lore with 100% accuracy.

I welcome thoughts/theories expanding on or contradicting this, especially from anyone who knows more about Irish mythology than me! I do not know too much about Cú Chulainn's story or this mythos in general, so I'm sure there's a lot of notable information I missed.

#elden ring #shadow of the erdtree #messmer the impaler #elden ring lore #elden ring theory #elden ring dlc #messmer #there are other VAGUE connections i could mention such as the mythical spear being made from a sea monster bone vs-- #godwyn and death being themed after the deep ocean #but that seems like a stretch even for me ajhgsdhjad #i simply enjoy thinking about this. i saw one post mentioning the Gáe Bulg earlier and went on a 2-hour theorizing rampage immediately #oops #speaketh

[suvidrache]

A Marriage Proposal

age in bio when interacting. minors do not interact.

Word Count: 723 / Read it on AO3 / Wattpad | Event List

Dante and Vergil are drastically different. Dante wants to show you off and do anything and everything to win you over, even though the both of you were already together. You had no intention of leaving him, but still, he wanted to surprise you. Shower you with love, affection, and gifts. He went above and beyond for things. Dates could be anything from pizza at home, to a rooftop with fireworks going off in the shape of a heart, the words "I love you" or sometimes even your name.

Remember the times when he had a flower in his mouth and clapped his hands and the flaming heart turned to smoke? Or the time when he moved his hands and a sparkling heart was behind him? Yeah, he likes doing things above and beyond, things to keep you on your toes, never being able to guess what the next date might be or what you'll be doing. The both of you had been together for several months now.

Dante sat in his office chair. As usual, his legs were kicked up on the desk and he had a magazine in hand. He flipped the page and lowered his legs. He went to grab his coffee until his legs had knocked it off. He sighed, swore, and sat his magazine down, leaving it open to the last page he was on. He rose and went to the kitchen to grab some paper towels and the broom and dustpan. He mopped up the coffee and then swept up the broken glass. Checking a few times to make sure that there were no further glass pieces or liquid left. When he was done, he checked the time.

He went upstairs, showered, and got ready for the day. He was wearing a nice black shirt, some jeans, and some nice shoes. He owned some sort of nice things, but it wasn't much. He didn't care to get dressed up much, but after he met you, he did try to do better. He walked down the stairs as you walked through the door. He smiled and greeted you.

"Hey babe! How was work?"

You smiled as you made your way to him. You wrapped your arms around him and he hugged you back.

"It was boring, but fine. Thank you. How was your day?"

"Bet I can spice things up for you. No calls so far."

You giggled at Dante's comment and gently swatted at him.

"No, no, it's okay. Thank you."

"You sure? Cause I could definitely do something…"

"No, I'm sure it's okay. I'll be fine. I promise if I need assistance, I will let you know." You said as you pat his shoulder gently.

"Alright. Hey, by the way, I have something planned. You should probably wear something nice."

You smiled as he winked and you hurried up the stairs. You didn't want to keep him waiting. You washed, changed, and hurried back downstairs.

Dante's eyes slowly traveled up and down your body. He smirked as he spoke.

"Damn, you look amazing, babe."

You felt your cheeks warm up. "Thank you."

"Of course." He said as he reached his hand to you. You took his hand and his fingers intertwined with yours.

He walked slowly through the city, keeping watch as he went. There shouldn't be any monsters or demons running around, but one couldn't be too careless. The city still remained in partial ruins, depending on where you were at. The city had been attacked, repaired, and attacked again. Many people lost their lives, and many others went into hiding and left the city. Dante remained and helped the people out whenever there was a monster that needed to be dealt with.

When you arrived at the nicest place that there was. You smiled. It wasn't much, but there was never much in the abandoned city. It was a small land of grass, some flowers, and a tree that had seen far better days.

Dante had knelt, a ring box in his hand, and a smile on his face.

"Y/N, will you marry me?"

It wasn't very romantic, but he wasn't sure how else to have asked that. How else to express the deepest feelings that you made him feel? He was better at actions than words.

You smiled, "Yes, Dante, I will."

© SUVIDRACHE — do not copy, translate, modify, or plagiarize my work. reblogs are appreciated!

Tag List: @sunmoongoddess / To join my tag list apply here!

#dante headcanons #dante imagine #dante x y/n #dante #dante x you #dante x reader #dante sparda imagine #dante sparda x reader #dante sparda #LuminousDrache 100 Followers #devil may cry headcanons #devil may cry imagine #devil may cry x reader #devil may cry #devil may cry x you #devil may cry dante #dmc headcanons #dmc imagines #dmc x reader #dmc x you #dmc dante

[ddarker-dreams]

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Bruno x F Reader x Fugo

Word count: 1.3k. Note: i finally dusted off this draft thanks to gorgeous art drawn by @nanabrainrot​ depicting a preview i posted a while back ... it immediately whipped up my inspiration to finish things off 😌

[Scarlet Ribbons description]

There is very little that escapes Pannacotta Fugo’s notice.

He’s a man obsessed with details, down to the most minute. While this has aided him in his studies and other educational endeavors, it can at times be more of a bane than a boon, depending. This would be a prime example of the latter. Though he contented himself by admiring the passing scenery during the drive back to Napoli, he couldn’t shake the uncanny feeling of being watched. It wasn’t malicious, so much as it was something else, smoldering yet otherwise unidentifiable aside from that lone detail.

While Fugo had a guess about where this stare was coming from, he didn’t rush to confirm it. Ignorance is bliss, or so they say. He’s curious how the idiom would adjust for partial ignorance.

It wasn’t until a ways into the drive that he worked up the courage to confirm his suspicions. Just as he predicted, a pair of cobalt eyes belonging to Bruno Bucciarati greet him upon glancing in the rearview mirror. They lock gazes and hold it unblinkingly. All is silent, save for the hum of the rental air conditioner, and cars passing them by on the highway.

That is, until you pipe up in a half-intelligible voice. “First position… no… fifth…. position…”

Both of their attention redirects to you.

Presently, you’re helping yourself by using Fugo’s shoulder as a makeshift pillow. You’ve been out like a light since you plopped into the backseat. Alarm was Fugo’s initial reaction — who could expect him to think straight when you were so close? Closer than you’ve ever been. The warmth your body radiates only pales in comparison to the flush holding his cheeks hostage. Fugo thought it would fade away with time, and it did, up to the point you mumbled a cute little message while in the land of dreams.

In a way only you could, the tension threatening to build in the air momentarily dissipates. It’s like you’re looking out for him even in your sleep.

Quietly as he can, he clears his throat, not trusting his voice to have the strength necessary for the conversation ahead. “You don’t think there’s someone following us, do you Bucciarati?”

“No, I don’t,” Bruno replies without missing a beat. He must’ve been anticipating the question. “Why do you ask?”

If one applies pressure to a wound in the wrong manner, they can do more harm than good when it comes to stopping the bleeding. This concept is what bounces around in Fugo’s mind unceasingly. He wouldn’t mind if almost anyone else in this world bled. But this is Bruno, a man he admires more than his own parentage, to the point he’d follow any order received without question. Maybe it’d be best if Fugo dropped it. They both know where this could head otherwise, an unspoken yet mutually understood truth nonetheless.

This could potentially be the point of no return.

Yet, if there was ever a time Fugo would cross the line, it would be because you stand on the other side waiting.

“I just happened to notice you were looking back here a lot, is all.”

The atmosphere shifts to something colder without the actual temperature changing.

While not an outright challenge, it’s an undoubtedly bold move on Fugo’s part. Bruno is back to looking at the road ahead. Fugo notes the tension he’s holding in his shoulders, how his lips have been pressed into a firm line. He must be giving this plenty of thought like Fugo is, if not more so. His fingers are tight on the steering wheel.

It’s simple, really, Fugo reasons. Bruno’s behavior could be explained even by someone who wasn’t a genius like himself. At first, Fugo thought Bruno found you attractive and nothing else. Not a farfetched theory by any means. You’re a looker, even he could admit that when he first met you and wondered what good your addition would bring to the team. It wasn’t until recently that Fugo came to terms that it might go beyond that, into something more intimate.

Bruno almost always had a smile on his face when you were present. He hung on your every word, setting aside whatever he was doing previously to give you his undivided attention. While he took to Fugo’s advice for legal and financial matters, you were his top pick for jobs that required interacting with or winning over people. Bruno saw potential in you before Fugo even gave you the time of day.

Only a fool would chalk that up to simple physical attraction. Unfortunately, a fool is the furthest thing Fugo was from being.

“This was the longest job she’s had since joining Passione,” Bruno finally speaks up, his voice low so as not to disturb you. “Polpo will be expecting a full account from me. He had his reservations on sending her with us, I hope this will prevent any reservations in the future.”

The grace with which Bruno redirected the conversation was enough to earn Fugo’s admiration. He was being truthful by saying all this, though there were details he purposefully omitted. Treating you like his responsibility is a smart play. Fugo knows a brick wall when he sees one and decides not to press his luck further.

The topic could’ve been dropped altogether for propriety’s sake. However, much to Fugo’s disbelief, it’s Bruno who removes the spotlight from himself and shines it blindingly toward his younger teammate.

“What about you, Fugo? You were worrying over her plenty yourself.”

“That’s…” Fugo trails off, wetting his lips. “How could I not? Any mistakes she made would reflect poorly on Passione, and by extension, us. I was looking out for all of our best interests.”

“Mhm,” Bruno gives the most disbelieving affirmation.

Fugo, while frustrated, can’t bring himself to feel offended over the humbling he just received. Other men in Passione have had limbs refused when challenging their leader for less. Bruno was a compassionate and forgiving man when compared to that, or any other person, for that matter. He huffs and sinks back into his seat. Meanwhile, you keep snoozing away, entirely oblivious to the verbal battlefield with arrows whirring in every which way around you.

“... How do you think she did?” Bruno inquires. He wonders if Bruno knew how tender his voice became when you were the conversation topic.

“I thought that elderly couple wouldn’t ever give [First] back to us,” Fugo can’t help but joke.

You did well, he feels that goes without saying. The job was as such — some old money with connections to Passione that went way back where to stay in their Posillipo summer villa for a time. Neither Fugo nor Bruno knew anything about them aside from the fact the older gentleman recently retired from his business in Chicago, or as much as a mobster for life could ‘retire’. He cherished his wife dearly and wanted nothing but the best protection during their stay.

The Signora was especially taken with you. She found your company a delight, to the point she asked you to join her for breakfast every morning. Her interests in the arts aligned well with yours.

“I wouldn’t have let them keep her,” Bruno replies with a smile. Fugo doesn’t doubt it either.

No, they both have to share you enough as is. This team that Bruno is starting to build can already feel confining at times when either of them wants your attention — and it’s just the three of you for now. Apparently, Bruno has some ideas for new members he wishes to invite. Fugo may not be a religious man, yet he still prays whoever comes next doesn’t find themselves wrapped around your finger as well. That’d be pure misery for him.

Though when he looks at your sleepy face, and your soft, glossy lips that are almost always curled into the sweetest smile, he can’t help but have his doubts.

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