#these scenes are very Specific to me they are so specifically about hurt/comfort to me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

halcyone-of-the-sea · 11 months

Note

You're my favorite writer, and König is my favorite aussie man, so OF COURSE im making you write for him, hal, BEAR W ME !

Alright, what do you think about König with the “You’re here late.” prompt? The reader is part of KorTac and always worked alongside König, since they both entered about the same time, because of the readers personality, they are always fighting, one of these fights are specifically bad, leading the reader to go on a mission with another KorTac member, to help out somewhere else and take their mind off things, when the reader face a problem on the mission and ends up arriving late, König is furious.

Moths Hit the Window

PAIRING: König x F!Reader

SYNOPSIS: Fights with König were always loud, but this time his comments went a bit too far.

WORD COUNT: 5.9k

WARNINGS: Verbal fighting, angst, high tension, blood & stitches, wounds, canon typical violence, guns/weapons, death, suggestive near the end, fluff, hurt/comfort, etc.

A/N: Huge thanks to @idocarealot for the German translations!! Also, König's wearing the arachnid skin in this because I love it sm - enjoy, Anon!

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

You seethe. If eyes could turn red yous would be a beautiful shade of crimson—bloody knives ripping out of the cornea to strike whoever happened to get too close. It was as if the very air boiled with the force of a raging tsunami as you stomped down the local military base’s hallways, covered in blood and guts. Never had you reconsidered working for KorTac more than at this very moment.

Maybe I should just become a mercenary, you rip at the torn-apart gloves over your hands and jerk your arm out. Passerbyers quickly avert their eyes as you shove them into a garbage can and continue on with a growl. No shitty rules, no regulations—no fucking partners.

If people happened to slide past without noticing the steam coming out of your ears, they would have immediately locked eyes on the pure elephant of a man trailing fast behind. König’s eyes were goring into the back of your neck, gray and tan garb swaying as the packs and flash grenades on his combat vest bounced with every step. Accents of red do nothing in comparison to his visible flesh—the section of his eyes uncovered by his mask and head rig alight around his obsidian gaze.

König was muttering to himself far under his breath, curses and harsh comments all in German that he wouldn’t say to your face. At least not right now in view of others.

“I can hear you, you dimwit,” you hiss over your shoulder, grinding your teeth as you both make your way to the armory, “curse me out quieter!”

“You are making a scene!” The beast grunts, that heavily accented English striking your eardrums with its harsh dialect.

“Oh, jeez!” You raise your voice even higher, turning back forward and clenching your hands into fists as blood and guts drip off your gear—none of it yours. “I’m just so damn embarrassed, König! I’m making such a large and obnoxious display. Whatever will I do?!” Sarcasm like a valuable drug is injected into the waves of your voice. People from open doorways look out with shock, brows pulled up.

Everyone quickly darts back away when you snap your head in their direction and send them a scathing glare.

No one was surprised to find you and the Austrian going at it again but knew well enough to stay out of the crossfire. Lest someone get roped into it.

“Fuck off!” You spit the last curse into the burning air and shove past a soldier ahead of you.

König’s dark eyes flash dangerously, lips under his mask twisting into a sneer. The man’s shoulders seem to dig in even farther, spine curling over as if a brooding child.

This had all started the second you’d joined up with KorTac. Fresh out of the military and eager to get back into the game after a good vacation the PMC group had been at the top of your list. But if you’d known you’d be paired up with this damn mountain every chance there was just because he’d got into the game at nearly the same time as you, you’d have put in your luck with SpecGru.

“I do not see how this is appropriate behavior,” König follows as you place your palms on the black metal of the armory door, pressing with your shoulders. “I did what I was tasked to do—”

The masked man is cut off as you whirl on your heels, the door slamming shut as his body is shoved into it with strong arms. Dark eyes go wide in surprise, feeling the dig of your nails on his abdomen as your form presses into him and the chill of the door on his spine. You feel his skin bunch under his thick shirt and even if you want to stare him down that’s just not an option. Your warm figures shuffle together with panting breaths and dangerous glints in your eyes.

“Bull,” you drag out the word, growling it right up into his neck; sniper hood caressing your chin. König’s breath hitches with shakes of swirling emotions. “Shit.”

Shoving once more so he gets the point, you push off of him and stalk away like a feral wolf, already unclipping grenades and medical packs from your vest.

“You’re the damn reason the target got away!” Gear is thrown haphazardly to the long table in the center of the room. The Austrian watches with predatory eyes, hands clenched so hard that they quiver. He stays still, watching, as you send scathing glances. “The reason we’re going to be here for ten times longer than we’re supposed to be!”

“It is not my fault you failed to properly check the perimeter before you rushed in like a fool.” Volatile couldn’t be used to describe this…this was nothing short of volcanic. It was as if there were two sides of a scale filled with bullets and gunpowder—fire in the middle that was equally heating both piles as they raised and lowered erratically. König’s voice grates over the air, “I did what I could to fix your scheiße plan!”

“Don’t you shit on my plan!” You point, voice bouncing off the weapon racks as you rip the rifle strap from over your chest, chucking it away.

“I will shit on it—it was…it was…!” König’s voice cuts out and he can’t find the words. The Austrian descends into visceral German ramblings. “Es war so ziemlich der schlechteste Plan, den ich je gehört hab. Welcher halbwegs vernünftige Mensch geht in eine heiße Zone ohne vorher alle Zielobjekte richtig zu markieren?! Ich kann dich und deine Rücksichtslosigkeit nicht mehr leiden — du bringst mich um meinen Verstand! Hast du überhaupt ein Gehirn in deinem Schädel?”

You shake your head to yourself, heart pounding. “You’re still the one that was supposed to focus on the HVT. I rushed so he would flush out, but, no,” taking out the magazine of the rifle you hold it in your hands like an accusatory ruler that a teacher would hold. König shoves off the door and stands to his full height; arms tensed and straining before they coil around his chest in a soothing gesture.

He hated the fighting—the constant strain between the two of you. But when you were together it could never amount to anything else. The room felt like it was a million degrees.

Your eyes stab at him, “No! You had to go and focus on me! I hate to break this to you, König,” feet come forward and you once again find yourself close to him—breathing the same air and taking in the scent of gunpowder and blood. You point the tip of the magazine into his chest. His unseen lips pull; jaw clenching with held-back fire. “But I am not your damn mutt to keep on a leash. I had it under control.”

It’s as if you don’t realize the Austrian could snap you in half with a single kick of his leg, as if the sheer size of König had slipped your mind as a whole. His hands could snap your neck in an instant, but that was only if he got ahold of you.

But that was a line the both of you were never planning to cross. Words were one thing in this profession, actions another. If you ever got into a physical fight, you’d both kill each other, no doubt.

You’d like to think you’re a bit above that, but perhaps not.

König’s chest rises and falls deeply, taking in calming breaths as he tries to get his temper under control. “You didn’t,” he jeers out, “I saved your life, you Heißluftgebläse. And if you wanted to be treated less than a dog,” he grunts to you, head pulling down close to your face, harshly whispering out, “You could have simply asked me, yes?”

You both snarl at each other's throats like rabid animals, the world disappearing all around the obsidian eyes that match with yours; for a moment you get lost in the shining bits of silver in his iris that seem to burn with chilled iron. What little skin you can see is flushed and tight—hawk nose nearly poking out your eye as you’re leaned over like a giraffe near a bush.

Body vibrating, you sharply breathe, “I’m not even going to ask what that fucking means, you tool.”

“Good.” The words are bitten and fast, “because I am not telling you.”

“Great!”

“Perfekt!” You both were arguing like children. Hot faces and unwilling to let the other have the last word. If you got along it might have been funny.

“I’m going to dump all of your Einspänner out on the tarmac.” Your sure voice echoes with a definitive promise to the tone.

Pale lids widen in horror at the threat to the Austrian's favorite beverage, comfortably sitting in the Base’s fridge.

“You would not,” König’s tone is deathly serious and you smirk, eyes dancing. “You…” a guttural growl meets the air, mind translating words and giving meanings, “beast of a woman!”

“Oh, is that the best you can fucking do?!” You yell, splaying your hands out widely and moving away from him. “Now that’s really a show stopper, König, I’m shaking in my damn boots.”

“Ich komm mit dir nicht mehr klar.” König yells, moving back and placing both of his hands atop his head, knuckles white. “You’re rude—you do not even try to get along. You are loud and disrespectful; how do you live like this?!”

Your eyes slightly widen, watching the Austrian.

“Don’t try?” You echo, scoffing loudly. “What do you mean don’t try? I was the one to try and smooth things out between us in the beginning.”

“When?!” König spreads his hands out, knees slightly bent. “Because I have no recollection of such events.”

“Well of course you wouldn’t!” The heat was meeting a breaking point—words were getting more personal, sharper. Like a blade being honed for the kill slowly; being sharpened by rocks and whetstones of conviction.

König points a finger at you, voice going low and thin, “I’ve had enough of you, yes?” His sniper hood moves rapidly with his fast ricochets of breath. “Just about enough. Would you have wanted me to let you die?”

“I had it,” your lips spit, nose scrunched, and forehead tight. The man’s chest vibrates with a mute growl.

In all actuality, you’d never seen him this worked up before. König wasn’t above giving your quips back even if he obviously disliked it—most of that was due to the strange familiarity between the two of you. In large crowds, the man preferred to stay silent. This only added to his almost deadly aura with others, though you knew the muteness was because of social anxiety and not some built silence. He wasn’t shy per se, just afraid he’d say something wrong; mess up the conversation. You did most of the talking in meetings and you never minded it. Added him in when the topic was something he knew a lot about.

Your mind had addled it up to thinking it was cute, actually. How his feet would shuffle; his half-lidded gaze and his intense eye contact to let them know he was still listening. When he’d have to remind himself to look away with a pinch to his thigh because it was starting to seem threatening. It was endearing, even.

But around people König knew, well, he was going to speak his mind. No matter how long it takes his brain to catch up with his lips.

The only thing the two of you were good at was being moths—hitting the metaphorical window over and over on the same topics and tension points. Slamming heads and flapping wings. You were at the end of your rope just as he was.

“I should have never taken you as a partner!” He calls, feet splayed. “Should have gotten out of this the second you were assigned with me. Gott, ich hab wirklich versucht, dich zu verstehen — Ich hätte gleich aufgeben sollen.” Your lips thin, lungs stalling as all the air vacates the room. You stand still and listen to what he really thinks, fingers shaking.

König’s large form towers over all, great sparks of electricity flying out. His gear shakes as he moves, thigh straps pushing fabric to shift and conform to his body. Your blood pumps with brewing hesitance.

Maybe this had gone too far. I’ve never seen him like this.

“I can’t stand you any longer! Pathetic squabbles that mean nothing, absolutely ludicrous plans that make little headway.” Your head bursts with aggression and what little warning signs you have are squashed. “I can’t keep saving you because you can’t do your job correctly!”

“You don’t have to save me at all!” You scream. “You can’t keep your damn eyes off of me for five seconds, König.” Feet move away quickly from the armory door as if someone had come to put away their stuff but thought better of it. The next words burst from you before you can think of the contents. “It’s like you fucking love me or something!”

König doesn’t miss a beat, but for months afterward, he wishes he had.

“Oh, do not make me laugh—” he scoffs ferally, adrenaline making him talk, “as if anyone could ever love a woman like you in the first place.”

Twin eyes widen and both parties immediately fall silent. A sharp inhale.

Too far.

Under the hood, König’s face goes an embarrassing shade of red all the way down to his chest. Fingers freeze. Jaw slackens.

You feel like your heart was just grasped in his grip and ripped out of your ribs with one violent motion—one sentence out of all the others enough to knock down the rebuttal that had formed on the tip of your tongue. Your throat closes up as you blink in shock.

“I-I…” König stutters, mind blanking as he struggles for words. But anger was easier than pain.

Numb fingers rip off the last of your weapons and belongings as you let them hit the floor with defining thuds as warm shame floods your cheeks. Shaky puffs of breath like a panting dog. Dark eyes watch with regretful panic, heart jumping and eyes flinching. The adrenaline it…it made him forget himself on occasion—how to properly act when not on the battlefield. It was like that with everyone but…but he hadn’t meant that.

Shame that it’s already too late.

Your fisted hand slams into his chest, brutal and unforgiving. König lets off a grunt but does nothing as you slither past, hissing into his ear, “Find yourself a new punching bag.”

His hand snaps to his breast where you had slammed your KorTac patch right into his heart, catching it. It’s many moments before he can think enough through the alarm; form words.

“I…I didn’t…oh, du blöde Kuh!”

By the time the man composed himself, panicked tears burning in his eyes, the door had already slammed shut. His feet squeaked over the tile to an empty audience.

—

Private Military Companies don’t have ranks. There are no Sergeants, Lieutenants, Generals or Colonels. Just people. Beyond the orders you’d been hired on, there was nothing keeping you in line with König on this mission. And those orders were loose at best.

Adhere to policy and listen to the Base’s COs. Shut up and get the job done.

The Austrian and you weren’t due out for another week because of rotations. Since you’d failed to capture or kill the HVT that you were assigned, another group had picked up the tracks in the meantime. Like an oiled machine, the gears of this operation kept whirling.

Evolve, or die.

“Lieutenant!” You call to the geared-up man on the tarmac—the one heading that very same group. It had been only a few hours since the incident in the armory. You needed a distraction; blood was still running high and brain pounding for release. There were only so many times you could bruise your fists and legs on a punching bag before people started giving you nervous looks. “Need an extra hand?”

Your voice sounds strained, even to you. The man looks you over once and narrows his eyes. Nods not moments later.

“Get tired of your big friend? Okay, how fast can you be ready for me?” You feel your shoulders loosen, a relieved sigh exiting your lips.

“Three minutes.”

“...get to it then. We move in five.”

So that was how you found yourself backed into a corner five hours into the op from hell—bloody knife held tightly in your grip and mouth open in ragged pants.

“Fuck,” your vest is torn and riddled with bullets; your entire chest must be bruised by now because it surely aches like it is. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

You really are reckless, just like König had said you were. Maybe you’d just never realized it because he always seemed to watch your six. This…this was really bad. The comms were awash with screaming orders and panic, ringing out across the abandoned mining factory that exploded with light from gunfire and the sounds that accompanied it. You knew for a fact three soldiers were down; two KIA.

The Lieutenant is one of them.

Your hand snaps to the radio strapped to your chest, one eye squinted in pain at the ragged slice across your left brow line. At your feet, two heavily armed men lay dead.

“Pull back! They knew we were coming!” But your word didn’t carry weight here. Your face twists between pain and rage. König’s comment still rings in your ears as the onset of tinnitus does, as if anyone could ever love a woman like you in the first place. It wasn’t ideal to be thinking about this now—it was detrimental that you didn’t.

But König and the things he did often stained your brain. No matter how much you tried to distance yourself from that fact.

Snapping the knife in your grasp down in an arch to dispel the blood from the blade, you take a steel-laced inhale and shove off the wall. Limping, but moving. Sprained ankle. Nothing you hadn’t dealt with before.

The concrete under you is splattered with crimson viscera and you stumble over spasming bodies riddled with bullets. With a subdued shink you slip your knife into its thigh sheath, grabbing the FTac Recon strapped around your chest after slamming a fresh mag into it. With a numb calm overcoming you, you slip your forefinger into the trigger guard, poised over the easy press of the trigger itself.

The long shadows spread over you; your head illuminated by the dull sheen of the moon as you pass under a stretch of open sky to slink into the building across the empty street. Feral yells still bounce off the air and you go to them readily, purpose settling in your veins.

Pain flies to the back of your mind, displaced by adrenaline and the rabid puffs of breath that fall like grinding thunder from your lips.

You wonder what König’s thinking right now—he’d without a doubt noticed that you were gone. He’d even probably gone to your barracks room to try and apologize and found it empty. That was just how he was.

Would he be happy? You wondered. Relieved to see you out of his life? You’d both done nothing but fight, but there were moments of peace. Understanding.

Shared meals and comfortable, yet sarcastic, comments; soft glances when the other wasn’t looking. Heat in your face and obviously shown on his when shy hands brushed.

Your hold tightens on your gun, brows dripping with sweat as it dribbles down along with the blood. Gunfire flashes.

Closer now.

Shadows scream on top of a raised walkway attached to an in-mountain compound, targets with trigger fingers firing on your fellows who take cover behind crumbling walls. Pinned down. You watch, unseen, from a broken window as dust and moths collide.

Your eyes lock on the closest hostile and you raise your weapon slowly, barrel resting on the frame between shattered glass. You clock the distance and adjust accordingly; breaths falling steady.

The small insect that keeps hitting the window plays in your mind over and over—drowning out the yells; the fire.

Just a moth readily willing to smash into that barrier until it dies. You hum under your breath and rest the gun into the crook of your shoulder, cheek to stock.

Your finger slams into the trigger.

—

You stumble out of the loud infirmary with a bloody rag pressed deeply into your forehead, medical pouch under one arm. You hear rushing feet and barked orders from nurses and doctors just before the door closes, cutting off as you stake out on your own.

Limping, you reason there were others with more severe wounds than your own; as blood drips from your flooded rag, your feet take you deep into the base one broken step at a time. You’d figure it out yourself.

Plus, the silence would give you time to think. Think about König.

You just gritted your teeth and decided that was better than taking up space in the infirmary.

In times like these, the Austrian would fix your wounds for you, just as you did his. While you had your disagreements and heated fights, he’d never made it as personal as he had hours beforehand. Never made it hurt.

“Jesus,” you mutter, rubbing your other crusty hand over the mud along your chin. Everything ached and you don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing.

Flinching along like a downed bird, you shove through into the last door into the barracks; thoughts now stuck on finding a chair to sit down on before your legs gave out. The darkness of the common area was deep—staining your eyelids as you grunt, bumping into the back of the couch.

It’s almost funny the way the lamp flicked on mere moments later.

You hiss, eyes snapping shut as the rays attack your sight, rendering you blind for a moment. The shaking hand on your dripping rag tightens before the spark of pain makes you lighten the pressure.

There’s a dark grunt just as you open your eyes back up.

“You are late.” König.

He sits in one of the chairs—sniper hood still over his head yet only clothed in a large compression shirt and casual camo pants. Like a disappointed parent, the Austrian’s arms were crossed over his chest; feet resting out and crossed at the ankles. With such a big stature the look could strike fear into anyone.

Anyone but you, that is.

König’s dark eyes rove over you, stopping immediately on the fabric you keep to your forehead. The previous, furious, tone stops and the flash of very real concern takes precedence. His hands tighten on his biceps, thighs tensing over the cushion; spine just a little bit straighter.

You watch and say nothing—dead-faced.

Your heart suddenly skips beats, stuck into the framework of the man’s eyes. König’s brows peel back and a timid stutter stays in your breast.

“...Vögelchen?” Lids blink rapidly, and before you can register anything because of your blood loss and fatigue, you’re being dragged to the couch and forced to sit down.

Strong hands encompass your shoulders and small breaths flutter in front of your face as König peels back to kneel in front of you; spying the medical pouch in your under-arm.

“What is this?” He mutters to you, vision flinching along your body but always dragging back to the bloody rag on your face. “What did you do to yourself?”

Scarred hands raise before pausing, obsidian eyes staring deeply into yours as if in frantic question. Your own gaze keeps him close, spying on his veiled fear at the sight of your blood and your disappearance. He’d heard about the mission, then, that much was upfront because of his earlier comment.

The humvee had been late arriving back. Half an hour.

“Fuck off,” you utter, shoving off the couch before you’re captured in an unyielding press again, shoved down. Your anger spikes along with your unease, “König! I don’t have the patience—”

“I’m sorry.” The fight leaves you.

Fingers squeeze your biceps, hold lightly shaking with nerves. “I did not mean it.” Obsidian pierces you, “Please, Vögelchen, I am sorry. Utterly. I speak so fast I misplace words—get far more,” words fail as you stare so intently at him, a strange feeling swirling in your gut. König’s face was going crimson again, though not from anger. His tone was deep and honest, accent becoming more whole with emotion. The hands on your skin stay. “Rude than I intend. It is not an excuse, but…”

In the horizontal oval of his hood, you spy the dots of tiny freckles; the whispers of auburn hair. That hawk nose still points violently from behind the fabric. König never finishes his sentence, just takes a large breath and looks to the side after a moment of silence.

Then he steals the medical pack from your grip and opens the zipper with firm fingers, taking out gloves and gauze. Needle and sutures. It’s all placed on the side table as the bear of an Austrian stays on his knees for you—bending and shifting as the bottom of his shirt rides up.

It’s a tense affair of touching skin; warmth and hissed curses. Gentle shushing. But you say nothing through it. Until he’s up in your face trying off stitches with forceps and a needle holder, breath making his hood lightly caress your bloodless face. His fingers are large and firm, never second-guessing or stuttering over the course of directing tools that dig a needling and thread into your flesh.

He’s warm and every motion elicits shivers. You see his form from the side of your eye; his face’s outline as the lamp light illuminates the hood’s fabric. Shadowy silhouette of König’s strong jaw that shifts with every other breath from his wide chest.

“You’re an asshole for saying that to me, y’know.” you slip your gaze away just as he snaps over. “Adrenaline or not.”

The needle pauses and a swift nod is given.

“I…I know it was. No amount of apologizing can explain how very horrible I feel. It was like I was so…so…” An annoyed grunt was leveled at himself.

“Pissed off?” You offer quietly.

“Yes! Pissed off.” Amused glances were shared, the air slowly smoothing out between the two of you. Dark eyes quickly look away from yours and König clears his throat terse-like. But softer, steadier, “I…could not bear it if I were to see you in harm and be unable to assist you. That…is why I was watching. Why I do watch you.”

Inside of you, it was like there was a pot of water on the stove, steadily boiling under the heat. Your eyes are delicately wide when the man’s hands leave your face; kneeling body still tall enough to stare into you.

“You are…” König pauses, but not to find the words. To ready himself. He takes a long breath. “You are special to me, my Vögelchen. I can not see you hurt,” a gesture to your forehead and creased eyes. As if your pain was his own. “Not like this.”

“What are you saying, König?” You whisper, face twisted with hurt and confusion. Apprehension. “You’re giving me mixed signals. We always fight with each other. I’m not saying I’m blameless, but…c’mon, now. Look at us.”

“Not…always.” He grumbled like a child, tools placed away and hands dripping blood before he slips the gloves off. They meet the side table with a tiny toss. The Austrian leans back onto his ankles, butt to heel. He begins to look at your forehead and you can practically hear his heart break. “I do not like arguing with you, you know that, yes?”

“Me neither,” you whisper, fingers fiddling as a sheen of anxiousness sets in. “You just,” you pause, “confuse me.”

König blinks in surprise, head tilting and large eyes shimmering. Your mind flashes to a curious cat and you try to explain with a burning face and fast lips.

“You say we’re partners but you never act like it,” he stares and listens. When had you both had a conversation like this before? “You make it seem like you can’t trust me to do the simplest task. I’m not,” your voice betrays you, cracking, “I’m not that useless, am I?”

He freezes, muscles going taunt.

“U-Useless? Nutzlos? No, no,” A hand comes to capture your chin and you let him move you where he wishes. Creased eyes lock on yours. “That is not right. You’re not useless to me—how could you be?” Pained brows move in, “did I make you think like this? Like I did not appreciate your skills?”

Your eyes burn, and the aches from your wounds mix with the pure fatigue in your flesh to leave your emotions running between sanity and sadness. A moment later you’re turning your head away.

König recaptures it, hands finding both sides of your cheeks. He looks shaky; desperate.

“No, please, Vögelchen, please. I need you to look at me.”

“König, I don’t—” You close your mouth before you let out the beginnings of a sob. “I can’t keep fighting with you.”

“I know, oh, I know,” his hands are so grounding it’s like you’re the inner pages of a book, and his grip the thick leather cover—leather laced with shared scars and the same that had stitched you up countless times. This push and pull had to end. “I cannot fight with you either—it tears me apart. Oh, du weißt gar nicht, wie sehr es mich schmerzt, dein wunderschönes Gesicht anzuschreien. Mit dir zu streiten bedeutet, meinen Verstand und mein Herz gleichzeitig zu brechen.” König’s thumbs run up and down your skin, still bloody with dried flakes falling to the ground. He seems not to care a bit.

“What can I do to fix this? Anything. Anything to get us to stop doing this to each other.” You stare into his eyes, both creased and glazed over.

There’s a brief moment where you wonder if anyone truly even knew you as well as König did—there was no one else that you shared such a deep connection with. Years upon years of being stuck at his side.

And someone else’s hands had never felt as good as his. They were hard and callused over but cupped your face as gently as one would cup water from a rippling stream. His eyes were stars; visible skin like porcelain, his breath raised a large and wide chest with a fast-paced heart. You could sense his throat trapping air.

König kneeled to you and bared himself.

Anything, he had said, to fix what he had said. To stop this.

There was one way you could think to stop this—it might not have been smart, certainly not, but…hmm…You gradually raised your hand raised from your lap and slipped it under the front of König’s hood.

Slowly, with all the delicateness of a glass dragonfly, your fingers strayed to the side of his neck to press into tight flesh. A rapid pulse.

The man goes to stone. It’s like you’ve stolen his nervous system. Dark eyes stay locked onto yours as you gaze back, hand dragging nails up with a light pressure near to the speed of a slug.

König whispers your name into the empty space and the oxygen seems to dry up. Warm light from the lamp cast phantoms on walls and over skin in a small moment of foreign discoveries. The Austrian swallows saliva and you feel his neck flex. You don’t answer him, just watch and feel his own hands tighten on your cheeks in warning.

But you never listen, do you? Reckless you were called. And König had been right.

You were reckless.

Your hand had now explored like a map the indents of hidden facial scars; long and short over jaw and lips. The hand that was doing this had hiked the sniper’s hood up around your wrist so that the man’s lashes were twitching as the fabric got too close to his eyes. And you watched. And so did he.

A twin pair of moths hitting a glass window, staring from opposite sides at one another until they realized the break in the frame.

“Anything?” You ask in a loose tone, barely heard above the flood in both of your ears.

König was breathing heavily but didn’t pull away. Pupils wide and body heavy to your touch. His spine briefly straightened, until he realized he had moved back slightly and immediately hunched again if only to keep your hands on him.

“I…” he grunts, “A…anything.” Fingers touch his nose, they spread under the hood to trace the bumps and marks he keeps hidden like buried treasure. Your vision takes in the otherworldly hue on his visible skin; the glaze of rapture in his eyes yet still that ingrained heat.

Your body shivers at the gravel in his accented English.

Fingers stall over his lips, hood showing you the pale being of König’s strong chin and jaw. You shift your touch to the side and find chapped lips revealed to you, a small palate scar that had healed to nothing more than a line up to his nostril.

You spare it nothing more than a glance before you look back into obsidian. Dark ether and dead galaxies devoid of stars. Swallowed in a sea of pasts and futures. You look for hesitation; for disgust.

You find none.

“You said that no one could ever love someone like me,” your head leans in, and your breath mingles together with an intimacy that had never been shared between this type of partners. König, as if broken from a spell, takes down a swift inhale of air into his stiff lungs. He stares with far back lids. Flashes of unidentified emotions. “Why did you say that?”

A moment of silence and of rabid hearts. The man’s lips twitch over yours as he answers slowly, not breaking eye contact for a moment. As if he did he’d be turned to rock. As if he’d miss something amazing from happening.

He speaks with a whispered confession.

“Because if they did—I would have to kill them. Because no other than I would be able to love you more.” Your world slows and your ears strain with the breathy words.

Face burning your lips part with shock and awe. Violent to any other, but to you this was a confession from a man that could meet you blow for blow—calm you and infuriate you all in one. Challenge you, but knew when he’d gone too far and how to properly apologize.

He’d waited in that chair for you all night, you’d realized.

For you to come back to him. His partner.

You press your lips to his and hear his pitiful sounds of gasped reassurance. Slipping your tongue into his mouth, you let saliva drip off of your chins to splatter onto bent knees and shaking thighs.

König’s arms cage you; capture your waist and draw you closer, lips breaking apart before you both share a wide-eyed look of momentary pause. There was no room to breathe; to think. Chests hit together and fingers tighten to a tendon-visible hold.

The man's growing smile is wide from where you still hold his hood up by his nose, and with a lick of his red and wet lips, he reconnects your awaiting mouths.

This time, you’re the one to gasp.

“Lass mich zeigen, wie leid es mir tut, Vögelchen.”

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fuckyeahisawthat · 9 months

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Can already tell the scene where Crowley and Gabriel talk about memory loss is gonna be this season’s Plant Scene, in that it’s the scene I get weirdly obsessed with and read a lot into. But it’s just…so tonally strange and kind of disconcerting. It’s not just me, right?

It feels weirdly…secretive? Yes Aziraphale just told Crowley to go over and talk to Gabriel, and it’s not the only time they’re alone together, but it’s just the two of them, in a back room, no Aziraphale, and it has this kind of foreboding tone to it?

It seems very clear that Crowley has not told Aziraphale all the details of the attempted execution in Heaven and this is part of why he wants the secrecy.

Crowley is clearly furious at the beginning, but seems kinda disturbed when Gabe seems ready to follow his instructions to jump out the window. (EDIT: TO FALL idk why I didn’t pick up on this before.)

Crowley has his glasses off almost the entire scene. He takes them off so Gabriel can see his expression clearly when he’s at his most angry and threatening. But then he keeps them off for the whole rest of the scene, which just does not seem like something Crowley would be likely to do around Gabriel. He was just talking to Aziraphale about how he doesn’t feel safe/comfortable in the bookshop with Gabriel around. (What does it meeeaaannn)

“I feel like an empty house. A house where someone lived for a very long time, but now they’re gone, and the house can sort of tell where the things used to be” is such a raw fuckin line, and after the memory loss plot mostly being played for comedy it really stands out.

“It hurts to remember.” “I know. Do it anyway.” WHAT

The fact that Crowley seems to know that if pushed, Gabriel can remember bits and pieces (which he does). WHAT DOES IT MEEEAAAANNNNN

”If it happens again, it’ll make it seem like an institutional problem” being one of the 2-3 specific things Gabriel remembers.

“I know. Looking at where the furniture isn’t.” WHAT

Crowley, clearly extremely annoyed about his impulse to do so, offering Gabe a hot chocolate

#this scene is weird right??#once again i say #what does it meeeeean #good omens #good omens season 2 #good omens s2 spoilers #crowley

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autistichalsin · 4 months

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One of the things that fascinates me about Halsin is how, as into sex as he is, he seems singularly focused on his partner's pleasure; he gets on his knees for them in his romance scene, but shows no sign of wanting them to return the favor.

And in fact, he is a lot better at giving advice than taking it. After flirting at the Tiefling party, Halsin tells the player not to worry about coming on too strong and that they were just seizing the moment, and yet, if the player rejects Halsin after he accidentally wildshapes, the next morning he apologizes for coming on too strong.

Whether that's just a hangup of his because he thinks he has to be the Best to make sure his lover won't leave him, or maybe some of it is a result of the Underdark, I'm not sure. But he definitely is harder on himself than others.

And I think that is one thing that would come out in his kinks; as much as he affirms that, for example, dom/sub fantasies are perfectly normal (like in that party banter to ascended Astarion, where his worry is specifically because the player is actually thralled) he seems like he has trouble affirming his own. For example, he shifts into bear form in the Drow brothel, but only does this when they express interest in his bear form; "we must give the people what they want, mustn't we?"

So it would be really interesting, then, for Halsin to have a really taboo kink/desire, and be absolutely terrified to tell his partner about it, terrified they'll think he's sick/a freak and leave him.

TW: Discussion of consensual non-consent, also known as rape fantasy or rapeplay, are under the cut. Read at your own risk.

So imagine Halsin having this fantasy. As a big guy he is used to being the dominant partner; no one has ever suspected he might like to bottom, or to be a submissive. The only time he's done such a thing was with his Drow captors. He knows he would like to give his submission willingly, and he does with his partner a few times, before expressing this particular kink.

One thing that gets horribly misunderstood is what makes one actually want CNC. It isn't that they actually want to get raped; it's the idea of having control forcibly taken so completely, while still being safe. Such people wouldn't enjoy a real assault. It's precisely because it comes from a trusted partner, who isn't actually hurting them, that people enjoy it.

So for Halsin, who always has to be in control, to want to explore his trauma where he was forced to lose control, and to experiment with elements from that in an entirely different scenario, where he can draw comfort from it, is something i could very much see him wanting. He would want to revisit those on his terms. He himself said that while under such endless stress from the Shadow Curse, he began to fantasize about his days with the Drow, viewing it as a safer place mentally. "Perhaps [the Shadow Curse] caused me to gild undeserving memories of my youth..." He is trying to work out his feelings towards when he lost control.

He clearly doesn't want to return to them; if a Lolth Drow threatens to sell him back to his captors, he snaps, "you would be unwise to attempt it, trust me. In any case, the house of my captors is long-extinct." Then he pauses and has a realization; realizing for the first time that they were captors, not hosts, and that captors was a more accurate term. Halsin is still processing parts of his trauma, after all this time, and admits that his current stresses caused him to struggle with this.

So he doesn't want to actually return to them, but in his head he constructed a fantasy version of them that was safer to engage with, where the violations he endured weren't real. And honestly, in his shoes, it's completely understandable how and why that happened.

So that makes the case for why he needs a safe place to explore himself, his fantasies, his fears, all of it.

The issue of course is that Halsin is self-sacrificing and, as noted above, doesn't seem to prioritize his wants as much as his partners'. If he ever did manage to speak about this, it would be, I think, after a great deal of guilt and maybe even self-loathing, thinking there must be something wrong with him for having these fantasies.

So imagine him with a partner who is happy to indulge him, who gets him to finally open up about his desires. Who affirms that he's allowed to have desires, to process his trauma however he needs; after all, any way of working through it is better than doing nothing like Halsin has been doing for centuries. This is him finally being willing to explore it, to see how it interacted with his own sexuality; of course his partner would never refuse him such a thing.

That is the core of the CNC fic I'm going to write; showing how Halsin's unique blend of traumas affect how and why he craves this in particular.

#halsin #halsin silverbough #bg3 #baldur's gate 3

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myfictionaldreams · 1 year

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hello! i was wondering if it was possible to write a poly!marauders story about y/n using their safe word during overstimulation and the boys stopping to help them through aftercare.

i love seeing the proper use of consent in your stories and would just like to see one ab the care given when you sometimes need to stop mid way.

love your stuff!

A/N: I loved this request, thank you for sending it. I hope you (and everyone reading) are having a lovely weekend!

Tags: 18+ readers only, smut, fluff, angst, rough sex, intense, overstimulation, use of safe word, bdsm, dom/sub, size difference, panic attack, overwhelmed, crying, hurt/comfort, praise kink, aftercare, cuddling

Words: 2.4k

my masterlist 📚 AO3 Link

Overwhelmed. That was one word you’d use for the current situation.

Your body was coated in all manners of different bodily fluids including sweat, spit, your juices and two other clumps of cum, one that was dribbling out of your mouth and the other was being used as lube by the third person involved.

Remus’s towering form was hunched over you, his cock pumping into your highly sensitive, sore cunt. It had been hours of intense fucking from all three of the marauders, so much so that a faint buzz had settled in your ears, muffling the voice of your boyfriend as he tried to coax another orgasm. “I know you can do one more for me love, just one more”.

“No”, was your exhausted response, eyelids drooping.

The word ‘no’ may have been muttered by you but it wasn’t necessarily a stop word, not in the current dynamic of the relationship. The four of you had a very specific dominant and submissive relationship and abided by the colour-coded safe word system, or if one of the three boys deems you’d been going for too long, everything would stop. This was meant for certain scenes to play out, you could say certain words to play along but if red or yellow was even mentioned, all trust was in the men looking after you to stop.

Even in your delirious, fucked-out mind now, you were still aware of these rules and even though it was a relentless session, you were holding out on the hope that Remus would be cuming soon, needing him to find his fulfilment.

However, the minutes ticked by and his thrusting continued with no end in sight. It hadn’t only been a long day, it had been an intense weekend. One day led into another and upon waking the euphoric, happy buzz that filled your veins with adrenaline had you instantly jumping onto one of the Marauders.

Now it was taking its toll, the pleasure seeping away and replaced with stinging, aching and discomfort. The thought of even another orgasm that would cause your pussy to flutter and spasm had a sense of dread, something you never thought would even cross your mind. However, glancing up at Remus, seeing the lust in his eyes, lips still moving in praises meant to make you feel safe and you did for the most part.

The thought of him cuming, finding his thrill and coating your insides to mix with the other Marauders cum was what kept you going and even though the safewords did momentarily cross your mind, the worry of them being upset that you were in pain and the embarrassment was enough for you to hold your tongue.

Remus slowed down his thrust, his scarred hand gripping your jaw sturdily, thumb moving to swipe across your lips, capturing the dribble of cum and pushing it into your lips. Happily, you sucked on his thumb, hoping the sight would excite him and it did for you too, the salty goodness a quick distraction.

“Good girl, you’re doing so well for me, just want one more orgasm Pup”, his lips found yours as he finished his sweet praises. Remus knew the exact phrases to say, he was so tentative and wanted the best for your pleasure and this only added to your own reasoning as to why you wanted him to find his end rather than your own.

James and Sirius were the same, particularly today. This may be why you were extra sensitive, the two quidditch players had sucked, licked and fucked their way to so many orgasms you’d lost count before Remus had even touched you.

Remus lifted his upper body up, leaning on his knees between your legs, still thrusting slowly and you could feel the drag of his cock against your swollen walls. With a hand on each thigh, Remus hiked your legs up higher on his hips, the grip tight, making sure the two of you were moulded together but from this angle, it meant his cock could press that little bit deeper.

This only lasted for a couple of thrusts before the tall Gryffindor was relaxing his hold on one of your legs to idly rub circles against your overused, swollen clit. The feelings almost took your breath away, imaginary sirens blaring in your mind, immediately shouting “no”, eyes clenched closed and then the word was automatically stumbling from your trembling lips, “red”.

The sensations went from overwhelming discomfort to instant relief as Remus within a second was off of your person, hands untouching and cock swiftly pulling out, leaving you throbbing but empty.

James and Sirius were by your side in an instant as well, all three hovering over you and it was like a tidal wave of one area being overwhelmed from physical to mental. Guilt was the first one, the look of worry etched on each of their faces, you didn’t want them to feel like that, it was supposed to be a nice time, instantly regretted using the safe word.

“Love, look at us, are you ok? Did I hurt you, was it too much”? Remus’ voice was laced with regret and panic as he tried to soothe the skin of your cheek with his thumb.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry”, your panic was engulfing, your body trembling with anxiety but this only caused the panic to increase as it felt like the world was collapsing in, the air seeming thick so you couldn’t breathe properly.

“She’s hyperventilating”, Sirius was the first to move, shifting his arm underneath your back, lifting up your body so he could easily slide behind, using himself to prop you upright. His lips hovered next to your ear, forcing you to listen to him, as the rest of him enveloped around you so his body heat could try and ground your panic attack.

James cupped your hands, holding them firmly whilst also stroking the back with his thumb in circles as Remus remained in front, cupping your face still.

Even though this situation had not happened during sex before, there had been occasions where you’d experienced panic attacks this severely and after much communication, they’d found that you liked to feel tight and contained, whether it was in a blanket that you were wrapped in or all of their bodies. The four of your bodies were still naked which also helped, to feel warm and safe in their embrace.

You were still struggling to stabilise your breathing into a normal pattern, heart pounding, feeling like impending doom, eyes tightly clenched closed but tears were still streaking down your cheeks. Remus was quick to catch these with his thumbs.

“Love, listen to my voice, I need you to look at me”, his voice was low and calm as he spoke, trying not to let his own panic about the situation dictate how he looked after you.

“I’m sorry- I didn’t mean- to say it-” you choked between quick breaths, beginning to feel dizzy, head attempting to lul back but unable to with the grip on it.

James lifted your hands up to his mouth, kissing your delicate fingers, shushing your words, and feeling his voice vibrate against your skin. Sirius was just the same from behind you, working with the two other marauders to use soft commands to get your breathing to calm.

“Stop talking sweetheart, I need you to open your eyes and look at me”, Remus continued, using a slight hint more authority in his tone, hoping to snap it through your anxiety. It worked as reluctantly your eyes snapped open, expecting to see him angry from stopping but all that was looking back at you were the warm eyes of Remus.

It was hard to try and rationalise any thought when your emotions were so heightened, knowing that it would have been absolutely fine otherwise but this had escalated so much in your mind that only the worst thoughts were circulating.

“Well done”, he made sure to add emphasis to the praise, to hope that you knew he truly meant it. “Now I need you to slow your breathing, keeping your eyes on me”.

The eye contact was helping but it did take a few attempts to stop trying to desperately take a deep breath. It was only when James moved your hands onto his chest that you could ground down to something, feeling his own breaths, how long he would breathe in for compared to breathing out. As you finally found any sort of rhythm with your breathing, were you able to concentrate on the others as well.

For example, Sirius’ soft commands of “in and out” as he moved his chest that was still holding you up, physically moving your body with him which helped immensely.

It took a while of stuttering and being forced to not talk but to only concentrate on your breathing, all the whilst holding eye contact with Remus. Eventually, you were calm, the sensation of doom or passing out having passed, only instead replaced with shame and embarrassment.

“That’s it, keep going, nice and slow”, Remus interrupted you as your mouth opened to speak but this was something you wanted them all to hear.

“I’m sorry”, your voice was croaky and barely above a whisper. The tears were still flowing and you were sure to look like a mess but from the sad smile Remus was giving you, he didn’t give anything away. Sirius’s gentle kiss against your neck made your heart beat a little quicker with how soft he was being, the subtle tickle of his long hair against your shoulders caused a slight shiver to pass through you.

“You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for”.

“But you didn’t cum”, again shame was writhe throughout your body, cheeks heating as Remus continued to make sure you looked into his eyes.

“Love, I would never cum again if it meant that you were comfortable during these moments. Don’t ever apologise for using safe words, they’re there for all of our safety, we need to listen to each other.” His words were almost like a warm blanket, muscles relaxing slightly into all of their grips. Of course, you knew he meant those words and that was what had been discussed before and agreed to, just your anxiety and panic for some reason changed your outlook on it.

Finally, the tears slowly stopped dropping and Remus’ grip of your face relaxed, the warmth disappearing was a loss but automatically you were able to relax back into Sirius’ shoulder, turning into his neck as he held you.

“Are you hurt? Did I hurt you?” the words sounded just as ashamed as yours previously did.

“No, no it’s ok, it’s just sore and the thought of having another orgasm just set me off I think, I’m sor-”.

It was James to cut you off, lifting his rough hand to cover your mouth entirely, eyes gleaming with mischief. “I’m banning the word sorry from your pretty lips”. Beneath his hand, you couldn't hold back the small smile, which he felt and was speedy to remove his hand so he could see the small spark of joy in your expression. “Ah, more of that please”.

The four of you sat in momentary happiness but the discussion needed to be had so Remus gently tipped your chin in his direction with a single finger. “Talk to me, so we know what we need to be doing better next time”.

“I’m just sore and overstimulated I think and I think I forced myself to go on for too long because I wanted you to cum but it was a little overwhelming”.

“I’m sorry, Love”, it was Remus now to look distraught at causing the discomfort but you were quick to brush that away.

“No please don’t be sorry, you didn’t know I was feeling like that”.

“I think it’s something we can all learn from”, James continued speaking on everyone’s behalf, taking a moment to pause and kiss your temple before continuing. “We’ll be more careful next time and maybe check in more frequently if you’re reaching your limit rather than just using the safe words. However, it is a group effort darling, we have safe words to limit the use of red so please if you’re ever feeling remotely uncomfortable, say yellow or red. Even if it's as simple as changing positions or having a drink of water, we will discuss it to stop it from getting to the point of using the red word and you being overwhelmed. And please never feel like you have to suffer just for our benefit, we can take care of ourselves if you don't want to continue, how does that sound?”

A lump formed in your throat as you stared into the big hazel eyes of James. How could you ever be worried that they’d be upset at you, they always made it known your priority was first.

“Yes, that sounds good”, you made sure to respond verbally, smiling as you finished the sentence.

Sirius’ kiss against your cheek had you turning towards him slightly as he asked, “how does it feel now? Are you still in pain?”

“It’s just all throbbing a bit”, referring to in between your legs.

“Can we check?” Nodding your head in response, Sirius helped to lay you back into the middle of the bed, kissing your cheek one last time before easing out from behind you. Remus and Sirius checked all over your body for any signs of injuries, the most obvious being the swollen and physically throbbing cunt.

James lay beside you, talking you through everything, keeping you smiling and occupied as Sirius found some cooling gel that had been previously used to help soothe when you were overused. Then as Sirius used his wand to delicately clean up the liquids coating your body, Remus sat on the edge of the bed, making sure that you drank a full glass of water, praising you when you handed back an empty glass.

He then too joined the bed, lying on the opposite side to James and handing everyone a chunk of chocolate from his secret stash, the sugar perfectly needed. Snuggled between James and Remus, you could hear Sirius shuffling around somewhere before he casually asked, “Have you guys heard of the muggle singer David Bowie?”

“Here we go”, James muttered to himself, sitting up to see what Sirius was doing. What proceeded was a lengthy performance filled with props, very off-key singing and theatrics from Sirius who was still very naked but that added to the performance. You laughed so hard that tears were forming in the corner of your eyes.

Even though it had been a stressful night, glancing at each Sirius, Remus and James, you couldn’t help but feel grateful. They made you feel safe, warm and happy.

#poly!marauders #the marauders #marauders smut #sirius black smut #sirius black one shot #remus lupin one shot #remus lupin smut #james potter smut #james potter one shot #hp smut #hp one shot #mine*#sirius black #hp #remus lupin #james potter

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lucrezianoin · 7 months

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Astarion-centric fics recs (49 fanfics)

I will divide them by ship. They are all complete unless specified. Also, if a fic is not here it does not mean that I did not like it, I could have forgotten it or just not seen it given that there is a lot of Astarion content!

Just make sure to read all the tags warnings when you open the AO3 page. I added the non-ship focused but Cazador focused ones at the end.

Also it feels weird to rec my own fics, but in case you want to read astarion h/c I am writing you can find me here at LadyRagnelle (for now all DarkUrge or Tav/Astarion).

Regarding if this reclist might be useful for you... there are a lot of Astarion fics, a lot of tags used and a lot of preferences! I have a very particular preference for a specific kind of fic (h/c, whump, softness, mainly) and in the case of Astarion I tend to not read nsfw, usually. So if you have been around my blog and you think we might share fics preferences... maybe these are the fics for you too! I will update this post with time.

I am trying to add a small description to all the fics, but I prioritized adding the links, so some of them do not have a description yet, but they were beloved in my bookmarks.

GEN (no ship)

Prying eyes (unsupermarket) - One of my absolute favorite. Karlach and Astarion share one of Astarion's nightmares (thanks to the tadpoles).

Reflecting endless down the hall (Asidian) - Each chapter is dedicated to one of the companions and the way they interact with Astarion, each chapter connected to a part of his past and trauma.

TAV (OR DARK URGE)/ASTARION

After all that I can do for them is done (votiveviscera)

To Aid and be aided (Beppoberry) - Post Cazador, taking care of each other.

Between the lines (Slothquisitor) - Amazing story about Tav gifting Astarion books.

Broken mechanism (laquearia) - Character study on Astarion's "Don't touch me".

Copper blood and silver hearts (netherprince)

The darkest corner of Baldur's Gate (Nebulad)

(Don't) lose your head (CL34R)

Don't you hear me praying? (ridgeline) - Short haunting story about Astarion's trauma.

And his pretty hand hold my leash (osiris_ryes) - one of the few nsfw fics in this rec list. This has some amazing Dark Urge writing and manages to use nsfw scene without ignoring the consent issues present in the game.

Hold me without hurting (fairbutnotsomaiden) - Astarion disassociates, Tav is kind.

I could feel my life begin (Flowercitti)

I have a good place to hide (Flowercitti)

I know how this will end (MyFandomCausesHanaji) - Amazing Dark Urge story about Durge trying to stop themselves from killing Astarion - and reliving the same day over and over.

A long dead pulse (enthugger) - Post-Cazador, Tav takes care of Astarion.

Made / Unmade (Adaphyl)

Mortal shortfall (titasylase) - Giving a gift to Astarion + act 1 angst, perfect combination.

Not something that I was but what I played (WitchyBee)

Out of wine and flowers (enthugger)

Porcelain (cweepa) - Astarion is sick, and he really cares about how he looks. Absolutely stunning story full of very delicate hurt/comfort and angst. I've reread this so many times.

Savages (cweepa) - Astarion finds a kitten.

Seducere (Tlon) - This is THE fanfic. I remember waiting every night for the new chapter. It narrates Astarion's past and his present in the game. Heartbreaking and haunting.

Specter (justfortune) - post game fanfic about Tav and Astarion's new life together, with some interesting concepts about personal space and sharing life.

Suck the rot right out of my bloodstream (Flowercitti) - I love Flowercitti's stories so so much. This one is specifically about consent. Please, read all their fics.

Vanity items (Flowyen) - Incomplete fic, but still amazing. Just Astarion receiving genuine compliments.

You only feel it when it’s lost (gettin’ through still has a cost) (Flowercitti) - Flowercitti's Tav takes care of Astarion after Cazador.

The way you are (imprinted on a page) (cryptidvaquero) - Tav draws Astarion as a gift.

Was it something you ate (Anoke)

Water down what I call being grateful (Flowercitti) - This fic was written for one of my prompts. I will be eternally grateful because I love stories that deal with looking right through Astarion's seductions.

HALSIN/ASTARION

Animal I have become (Ulfrsmal)

Free (Faetality)

Handmande (BerlinBelin) - One of my favourite, absolutely stunning series about touch starved Astarion trying to ask (with difficulty) fo non-sexual intimacy.

Known in its aching (BerlinBerlin) - sick fic with so much tenderness.

Never gonna fall for (modern love) (Dwinkle) - Halsin offers Astarion his blood.

Through sneers and words snide (BerlinBelin)

HALSIN/TAV/ASTARION

Working on it (casswathever) - Very well written series with multiple fics, I particularly loved the relationship discussions.

WYLL/ASTARION

To die with you (WaterSeraphim)

A dream of sweet things (Asidian) - delicious h/c, trust issues and some nightmares too.

Innocence died screaming (Flowercitti) - Wyllstarion fic that starts from Astarion's past with Cazador, from his turning into a spawn. Ongoing.

KARLACH/ASTARION

Repairs (Asidian) - Heartbreakingly angsty fic about Karlach finding her touch again and Astarion expecting their first night to go a certain way.

The Things you miss (Asidian) - A very sweet fic about Karlach and Astarion interacting.

ASTARION/SEBASTIAN

A lyric on your tongue (justfortune) - Sebastian and Astarion meet.

GALE/ASTARION

The heat is only skin deep (ThatKorka)

POLY

Sharing (Asidian) - a touch of angst, touch starved characters, act 1 spoilers so slightly present consent issues.

CAZADOR-FOCUSED (no secondary ship)

Fake it (deerna)

Lost and never found (arenathesia)

Thou art mine (sophos) - The story of Astarion learning how to keep Cazador happy.

your reflection can't offer a word (to the bliss of not knowing yourself) (undermounts)

#astarion #halsin #wyllstarion #karlach #karlachastarion #dark urge #my fav fics #fic recs #astarion fic recs #fanfics #bg3 spoilers #mind the tags please #cazador

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mapoeggplant · 1 month

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skip to loafer and the "i love you as a person" message

skip to loafer general spoilers

one thing that i'll always be very grateful of skip to loafer is really how they highlight so much the "i love you as a person" mindset — and how that is present in all the narrative, not only on shima and mitsumi's relationship.

this is not only important for the story's target audience, but it also opens the door to a discussion about the value of platonic relationships, which are often "denied" because they are not as "important" as romantic love. and this happens not only when mistumi tells shima that she will like him no matter what happens or who he is — the message spreads to other characters as well.

one of the examples i love most is the moment mika confesses to shima. throughout the chapter, all of her insecurities are exposed and she tirelessly hurt herself saying things like how she doesn't deserve to have someone who likes her in any way (a reflection of the way she was treated throughout her adolescence). this dissolves when shima refuses to throw away the valentine's gift she made especially for him and thanks her for all the care she took with it — an affirmation that her hard work has been recognized and appreciated. this shows mika that she is a person who deserves love and to be valued. for the first time, mika understands that she is being seen as a person, as someone who deserves to be treated well and be recognized.

i know that many people must be thinking that there was an intention for a romantic development in this scene and yes, i agree. after all, mika went to him to confess her feelings. but the way in which the scene was handled makes me think that being seen as a valid person to have feelings was worth much more to her than having her romantic feelings reciprocated — and this, in my opinion, comes back to prominence in chapter 54, when nao, once again, recognizes her pain and connects with it (the appreciation of the "self" when you find someone who understands where you’re hurt).

(...)

(this part wasn't included on the original analysis, but later on I decided to add:

oh my god i was so focused on some very specific scenes for mika that this one slipped my mind and i feel so bad for that! this moment is one of the most important for mika’s development and it also highlight the first time she was seen as a person (by no other than nao). since that day, mika holds nao to a very important place in her heart. i feel that she, at that time, said exactly what mika needed to hear to feel validated and to feel comfortable enough to just go back and spend the night with the girls. if it wasn’t for nao at that time, mika would probably go home and regret ever making this decision — and this ties directly to chapter 54.)

(...)

the second character i want to talk about is yuzuki and all the times he had his identity erased thanks to other people's selfishness.

since the opening of chapter 38, yuzuki talks about how she was always seen as someone whose time was numbered: there was a countdown until the day she achieved "true beauty" and began to be an object of desire, no longer a person. this not only happens thanks to the disgusting adult men that surround you, but also thanks to the friends she tried to make in middle school, one of the most important times of a child’s life, phase where they are beginning to recognize themselves as a person.

yuzuki is simply seen as a object of status to the boys in her class, while to the girls, she’s someone who was only interested in "diminishing others with her beauty" — something she never did, but never even had the chance to defend herself.

Thanks to that, yuzu is forced to grow up without having an identity of her own, but one forced on her, causing her to rebel and refuse to open up to new people. she had her feelings denied, being defended only when there was a sexual/romantic interest in the mix and forced to believe that she was being selfish for denying such a privilege of being "spoiled" and "admired" by everyone, all the time.

yuzu gets her chance to be valued as a person when she enters high school and meets mitsumi and the other girls. she is, for the first time, seen as a person, seen as a yuzuki, seen as someone who has the right to impose herself and be selfish, something she has never been able to be before. her feelings are not diminished or seen as "not valid enough” but most importantly: she’s finally heard.

and then, i think we have one of the most important “i love you like a person” moment: the breakup chapter. chapter 46 is a huge twist to skip to loafer’s romantic narrative, which i myself appreciate a lot. kind of a personal twist here, but it’s a breath of fresh air for someone like me, a demi girl, who always had a little trouble with understanding love when i was their age — and now, basically ten years later, mitsumi’s words not only reached shima, but it also reached me and other thousands of readers who needed to hear something like that.

but well, let’s get back on track. chapter 46 is one of the first times we see shima talking about his past relationship with other people and going a little more in-depth with his relationship with his mom. the core message of it all and the core line that guides all of his personal connections is very simple and highlight why shima have so many trust issues: no one ever saw him as a person, but only as a status object, as someone who was there to be used for their own benefit. shima was used by his mother when she forced him to keep on acting, was used by his peers in a situation a little similar with yuzuki (ofc not completely equal, because we need to remember that gender roles also have a huge influence on how both stories developed (see ririka, for exemple. i have a whole thread on her as well, but this is another topic), when both felt like they were nothing but puppets to the ones around him.

when shima is sitting by mitsumi’s side, he starts to wonder if he really deserves all of that, if he really deserves someone like mitsumi near him. he doesn’t understand his feelings as a whole, because he was never given the opportunity to really explore them and try to dissect it all — this is brought up once again on chapter 53, when he starts to discuss with mukai what it means to love someone in a romantic way (and why loving them as a person isn’t enough on society’s eyes).

he’s not, at any point, using mitsumi or making fun of her feelings. imagine if you were never allowed to think for yourself and then, suddenly, you have the freedom to do so. how does one express something they never had? how does one understand what it means to have a feeling, any feeling, if all they ever felt was guilt?

and that’s when the bigger bomb hits the scene: mitsumi, seeing how troubled he is, shows how important he is and how she values him as a person. it might seem silly to a lot of people, but just hearing someone saying “i will always like you as a person, no matter who you end up being” when all you ever heard in your life was how useless you were, makes you whole world crumble on the spot. he was seen, he was heard, he was understood. mitsumi valued him to the point of assuring him that a romantic relationship wasn’t more important than the platonic one they had. isn’t that beautiful?

to finish it off, i think the conversation the girls have on chapter 57 is also extremely important to the narrative and to the overall message. by not wanting the girls to see shima in a terrible light, mitsumi is, once again, putting their relationship as friends above any other romantic relationship they could have. she shows how much she values him and how much he is important to her — she sees shima as a person, not as an object.

and then, makoto comes to picture with a beautiful speech about how loving someone (any kind of love, not one or another) is to hope that they are happy, content, being taking care of and being comfortable with their own feelings. by forcing someone to feel anything you selfish want, you’re not valuing them as a person with their own feelings and insecurities, but only seeing them as a way to satisfy yourself.

of course, i’m not here to defend everyone and say that they never hurt anyone. yes, shima did hurt mitsumi and she still not completely over it, but she’s way worried with losing him as a friend than forcing something out of a relationship that both don’t feel very comfortable with. mitsumi herself is also someone who is slowly understanding her feelings and understanding what it means to love romantically — but never putting the platonic side aside, since there is no right way to love someone.

thank you so much for reading!! i hope i was clear about the points i was trying to bring up, but i'm always open to discussion!!! 💛

#skip to loafer #skip and loafer #iwakura mitsumi #shima sousuke #mika egashira #yuzuki murashige #nao iwakura #me having flashbacks of my own self discovery #this manga is just a gem #i will never get tired of talking about it #duckmetas #skip to loafer spoilers #skip and loafer spoilers #stl spoilers

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topbottomswitchblade · 3 months

Text

Intro To Knifeplay

I'd been wanting to make a tutorial and then @hollyhocks-hoping asked if I had any tips for getting into knifeplay so that finally motivated me enough. Gonna try to make this seem like a really know what I'm talking about and not get anyone killed.

First things first: Knifeplay is risky. It can cause actual harm. But like, so can driving a car, so we mitigate the danger with things like seat belts and drivers ed. This is drivers ed. (driver's ed? drivers' ed? hm.)

There's different ways to do knifeplay that can make it more safe or more risky, depending on what you want out of the experience and are comfortable with.

On the safest end, you can use alternatives to real/sharp knives. I'm going to give some examples but to be clear I am not vouching for any specific products because I have not used them because I skipped the safety level and went for blood. But that's just me.

Acrylic/resin knives (example 1, example 2, example 3,)

Training knives (example 1, example 2)

This is a knife you can order dull, which is kinda the same as a training knife, but I'm making a separate point to say: I have seen some people give advice on ways to dull a blade so you can use it for knifeplay and um. Don't Do That. First of all, very tedious. Second and more importantly, it's unlikely you'll get it to a safe level of dull and could end up hurting your partner/yourself worse if you get careless thinking it's low risk. And if you get cut, it won't be a clean cut. Also the one I linked it sold out sorry. But this one is a dulled bowie knife intended to be used as a paddle?

Putting a butter knife in the freezer so you get the chill of a cold blade without it being sharp. Pair it with leather gloves so the dom's hands don't get cold.

Of course, there's still risk associated with a dull or non-metal blade. If you're like "let's do a scene where I stab you to death, and baby, I'm going for an Oscar," you can still, like, stab your partner. It just won't do as much damage as a real knife would. Like, getting shot with a paintball vs a bullet. Still hurts, but it won't kill you. Don't jam it in their eyes or whatever.

Next up on the danger level: Using real knives without intending to cut your partner.

Use the spine instead of the blade.

Here's is a v simple diagram for our purposes

This comes with some risk (especially with a clip point) as the point is still sharp

But if you want to flash a real knife and hold it to their throat and whatnot, you can press the spine to their skin instead of the blade. Note: even I, as a pretty experienced knifeplayer, do not hold the blade's edge to my partner's throat. If I want to do that, I still use the spine.

You can also use the flat of the blade, which I'm going to say is a touch more risky because edge will be against their skin. Your sub will have to be good and keep still.

Next level: Making shallow cuts with the tip

What I usually do with my partner is use the back side of the knife (spine towards their skin) and make scratches and shallow cuts with the point of the blade. Keeping the blade edge turned away and only using the point gives me more control of the depth. I don't have to worry so much about actually slicing deep, but it's still sharp enough to draw a bit of blood.

Like so

It gets results like this

Pro tip: Open up shallow cuts wider (but not deeper) by paddling them afterwards 👍

I gave an example of clip and drop point above because they're the most common for folding knives, and also are featuring in my parts diagram, but for this practice I also use a karambit which looks like this

Obviously in this case I would not be facing the blade away to use the tip

Spice it up: Put the blade in your sub's mouth. But watch out!

Questionable method: Light stabbing

So. You can push the point in a bit before it breaks skin (unless it's a really sharp blade). I started incorporating this, but then one time I did break skin and it started For Real Bleeding. I staunched it with a tissue for a minute and it stopped and you couldn't even see the puncture, but uh. Probably won't do that again. Do with that what you will. Don't kill anyone; I don't want my blog to appear in court.

I don't think I should really suggest anything more extreme than that in good conscience. I'm sure there are people out there who go harder, but you'll have to find those people and ask them. Ultimately if you practice it safely and feel confident enough to experiment that is a call for you and your partner when you feel ready, just be smart about it and be prepared for do first aid in case of accidents.

Suggestions for blades:

Knives come in a wide range of types and prices, but you can find pretty good ones for like $20-30. Even name brands like Smith & Wesson can be anywhere between $15 and $160. Or if you want a really fancy one like a Benchmade they can run up to the multiple hundreds. But you don't need that.

I've gotten a few of my knives from megaknife.com

Outdoors/sporting goods stores (Cabela's, Tractor Supply Co, Dicks, etc)

Website for a specific brand (Smith & Wesson, Buck, Gerber, etc)

Exacto knives (craft or office supply stores) or scalpels if you want to do some carving. I have used an exacto knife but I prefer regular folding knives. I have not used a scalpel so proceed with caution.

Be aware of the knife laws where you live! This is more for if you're going to be carrying the knife, but still. Usually blades over 3" fall under concealed carry laws.

Safety tip: Aim for meaty parts. Avoid veins and arteries.

Sanitation:

Use alcohol wipes on the blade and skin beforehand. Wash your hands or wear gloves. Clean the cuts afterwards using a gentle soap and warm water. Do not use alcohol on the cuts afterwards. I mean, unless that's part of your pain play but I don't know if that would even be fun lol. You can use neosporin, bactine spray, etc as well.

In general, use good BDSM practices. Talk it through beforehand to establish what you and your partner are comfortable with. Use safewords, give aftercare with the first aid. Don't hesitate to check in throughout. Take it slow when you start out. Don't feel like you have to go hard and draw blood the first time you try it.

#mine #knifeplay #psa #knives #text #probably gonna think of more stuff to say later but i already had to stop myself from rambling #best hits

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sundrop-writes · 4 months

Text

Emergency Contact

Jason Todd x Gender Neutral Reader

You choke on your words, but you swallow them faster.

Just want you to be my Emergency Contact.

Summary:

After Jason miraculously comes home from his brush with Deathstroke, you’re both feeling it in very different ways. You have an unexpected physical wound from the battle, and he has many (very expected) emotional wounds. You help each other heal. Even if it’s very stubborn on both your parts.

Jason Todd x GN!Powered!Reader. Enemies/FWB to Lovers. Angst and Hurt/Comfort. (Slight Smut). Set during Season 2, Episode 5.

Word Count: 10,400

DC Titans Masterlist | AO3 Link

THIS IS A RE-POST. This is a fic from my old blog (a blog that was shadowbanned, forcing me to move). This fic is not stolen, it is completely mine, and I am just re-posting it to help people find my new blog, and to make my masterlist complete when I post new fics for this fandom.

Detailed warnings and author’s notes below the cut.

...

Warnings: general emotional angst, Jason has a self deprecating inner dialogue, (kind of) enemies to lovers - more like annoyances to fuck buddies to lovers, friends with benefits to lovers, the reader and Jason have a bantering/argumentative nature to their relationship, the reader is meant to be 100% gender neutral (the reader is never referred to in the third person, so there is no need to use they/them pronouns, but the reader is not called she/her or he/him), Jason calls the reader ‘babe’ (imo, a completely gender neutral term and he would call anybody that), mentions of alcohol (Jason drinking a beer), the reader character has ice powers (not entirely relevant to the plot but I couldn’t help myself lmao).

sexual themes throughout, mentions of sexting (no detailed descriptions), mentions of sexting in public, mentions of the reader character sending nudes to Jason (no detailed descriptions of the photos), one scene with detailed smut (but it is not the primary focus of the fic), the reader’s genitals are not described in any specific way, some dirty talk, Jason is more dominant and the reader is more submissive, penetrative sex, Jason is annoying even during sex, Jason has a pain kink (even when he’s a dom, he’s a painslut, I don’t make the rules), scratching/marking (Jason receiving), slight humiliation kink.

mentions of canon level violence, mentions of kidnapping (in alignment with canon), mentions of Jason being beaten by Deathstroke, mentions of Jason’s near-death experience (being dropped off the building), gun violence, the reader is injured - has a bullet wound/bullet fragment in their stomach, mentions of blood, descriptions of first-aid, mentions of puss from an infected wound (theoretically, not something that happens in the fic). That should be everything.

A/N: The title for the fic comes from a song by Pierce the Veil of the same name. It’s a newer song, and it’s one that I absolutely went to when looking for a title for this fic. The concept of becoming someone’s emergency contact is about upgrading the relationship from casual to much more serious, and just the whole song, and specific lyrics in it suit this fic so well. I highly recommend listening to it paired with this fic.

This was based on a request from my old blog, but obvi I don’t have that ask anymore - the request was about Jason getting shot and having his wound attended to by the reader, but I changed it to the reader getting shot cause I thought that was more interesting and less common. If the person who made that request sees this and finds my new blog, I hope you enjoy it! And in general, I hope everyone who reads this enjoys it.

This is another re-post from my old blog, and I do have a sequel for it in my drafts, which I am not actively working on. And before I post the sequel, I do plan on tweaking this and revamping it a little, but I figured I would repost this for now just to have the masterlist complete on this blog.

...

If asked, you would be hard pressed to explain your relationship with Jason Todd.

The best way you could describe it would probably be - friends with benefits?

But most of the time, the two of you weren’t even friends. You weren’t the type to hang out casually, or spend time alone together if it didn’t involve ripping each other’s clothes off.

If you ever exchanged secrets or those precious bits of your most raw selves, it was by mistake. It was through sarcasm, or coming off the tired lips of someone who had just been exhausted by a few orgasms. The two of you knew each other well, quite literally inside and out. But you always made a deep, concerted effort to hold each other at arm’s length. And maybe that’s part of what all the snark and harsh words were for.

It wasn’t all arguing. You were friendly. You could be civil, at the very least.

Right from the moment you had first met Jason, you had found him to be so damn annoying, a shitstain on the earth - yet, someone you couldn’t stay away from. The line between flirtatious banter and a truly grinding argument was always so thin with the two of you.

…

You hadn’t expected that your life would be truly changed when you walked into that safehouse in Chicago that day. You truly thought nothing of him when his eyes landed on you - in those moments, a completely anonymous stranger, raking his eyes over you like you were a piece of meat. It was a gaze that immediately made you feel naked, something that made you want to smack him. You told yourself it was because he was being a pervert, not because of the heat that curled in your gut at feeling so intensely desired by him.

He had been sitting on the couch sipping a beer like he owned the place, his thighs spread wide in a way you immediately decided was arrogant and annoying rather than hot - showing off his muscle tone as if it was trying to break through his jeans. Definitely annoying. Definitely the stance of a fuckboy trying to look bigger and badder than he was. He definitely was not attractive.

When Dick led you, Rachel, Gar, and Kory further into the condo that seemed far too conspicuous to be a safehouse, the stranger you would later come to know as Jason quickly spoke up.

“Who are your friends?” He asked.

As he rose from the couch, his eyes lingered on you. Though his words seemed more out of curiosity, you couldn’t help but feel that bite of something more salacious lingering in his voice.

It caused you to scoff and roll your eyes.

“Not important.” Dick declared, his voice snippy. He was clearly annoyed with this new guy, and you could tell that your perceptions of him were definitely not ill-informed.

“Who’s he?” Kory asked, going for the obvious question.

“Not important.” Dick parroted out the words again, sounding much shorter with his patience.

“Anybody want a brew?” Jason asked, motioning with the beer bottle in his hand.

“Brew?” You twisted your eyebrows with disgust, staring him down as you commented on his odd choice of slang.

He didn’t get to reply, as you were trampled over by Gar’s enthusiastic voice in your ear.

“I do!” He said, raising his hand with excitement.

“No, you don’t.” You quickly told him, reaching out to grab his hand and put it back down. “It’s disgusting.”

You had a grand suspicion that Gar had never drank beer before, and he had no idea what he was truly asking for. Rather, he was simply taking advantage of trying new things because Dick and Kory were incredibly slack parental figures and he was away from home for the first time.

“No, no one wants a brew.” Dick sighed, shaking his head. He threw Jason a small glare and you resisted the urge to laugh.

“That can’t be Adamson.” Kory said, motioning toward Jason.

This left you confused. But you didn’t question it.

“He’s not Adamson. Adamson’s in the bathroom. Unconscious.” Dick explained.

“Hi, I’m Rachel.” Rachel told Jason, offering him a sweet smile - being her usual sweet self.

“Jason.” He introduced himself, in that moment, finally giving you a name to that obnoxious face.

“I’m Gar!” Gar said with a grin, to which Jason nodded.

Jason caught you glaring at him, and looked you up and down again, as if trying to willfully tear off your clothes with his eyes. It made your skin itch with heat and you would forever deny that it was a feeling you liked.

“What can I call you, babe?” He asked, his voice entirely slimy, the kind of tone he would have used to recite cheesy lines to Tinder dates, you were entirely sure of.

Before you could come up with some clever reply, Dick sighed in frustration and started balking again.

“Okay, who we all are doesn’t matter right now.” He pressed, his neck so entirely tense that veins began to pop from the skin. “Can we just chill out, relax, sit on the couch and watch TV or something?”

It seemed that he wouldn’t get his wish.

Gar quickly charged around the table, finding something else to get strung up about.

“Yo, when did you get another one?” He asked, putting his hands on both of the expensive cases on the long dining table - a copy identical to the one you knew to be containing Dick’s Robin outfit.

It made you curious, and the answer that followed certainly surprised you.

“That one’s mine.” Jason said, his chest literally puffing out with pride as he stated the fact.

“No way.” You scoffed.

“Yes way.” He quickly argued back, the whole exchange sounding entirely juvenile.

“This one’s yours? Wait, you’re Robin too?” Gar quickly put the pieces together.

“I thought you were Robin?” Rachel commented, tilting her head toward Dick with curiosity.

“I am.” Dick said firmly.

“He was.” Jason corrected, a cocky smirk forming across his lips.

“Batman really lowered the height requirement, huh.” You said.

The words flew from your mouth before you could stop them, seeing as it was likely the only thing you could nitpick about Jason’s appearance. Between his stunning sharp jaw, his piercing blue eyes, his oddly appealing wild hair, his muscle tone being somehow visible beneath his baggy clothing - all of it made you equally frustrated and annoyed with him, and your baser urges couldn’t resist the low-hanging fruit.

You felt victory and a slight pang of guilt when Jason deflated because of your comment, shrinking back into himself at your words.

He didn’t have anything to say in return, he simply sipped his beer.

“Wait, how many Robins are there?” Gar said, beginning to excitedly ramble at the thought. “Are there a lot? Cause I would love to-”

“Okay, quiet.” Kory cut him off, clearly becoming annoyed with all of this dancing around the point as much as Dick was. “Sit.”

Her words were firm, and you couldn’t help but to listen. You found yourself collapsing to sit on the couch while Rachel and Gar took seats at the dining table. Jason continued to linger in the middle of the room, staring at Kory and Dick as their frustration filled the air.

“Bathroom.” Kory told Dick, and then they left to deal with whoever - or whatever - Adamson was.

Jason sighed and took a seat beside you. When his eyes fell on you, you set your jaw and glared at him. You didn’t give away a single ounce of the heat you were feeling as his eyes locked with yours.

“Even if I am the shorter Robin, I can assure you that everything else about me is… very long.” He lowered his voice and whispered those last words, crowding into your personal space as he did so.

It sent shivers down your spine, his silken voice making the words sound too tempting. Even if you twisted your face and said ‘gross!’ causing him to dissolve into laughter, you didn’t make an effort to move away from him or put any space between your two bodies on the very large couch. You told yourself it was because you were tired from a very long day of travel, not because you were enjoying the smell of his strangely expensive cologne from this close by.

His grin was still entirely smug, and you couldn’t stand it.

When he raised the beer bottle up to his mouth again, you reached over and put a hand on his forearm, forcefully dragging his arm down as you made a snide comment.

“That shit is disgusting, why the hell do you drink it?” You asked.

You found your face drifting toward his again and if asked, you would say it was a form of intimidation - not that you were being drawn in by an unconscious attraction to him.

“Because I can.” He replied, just as snide as he slipped your grip and sipped on the drink.

You mocked his words in an entirely childish voice, and then you raised a single finger up to it and skimmed along the neck of the bottle. It took only a single moment of concentration with your skilled powers to freeze the beer inside solid. He thought he felt an extra chill coming off his hand, but convinced himself that he imagined it. But when he kept it tilted and nothing came out to meet his lips, he shook it and then stuck an inquiring eye inside the bottle.

When he saw that it was completely frozen, he looked over and saw you grinning, and little did you know - that was the moment he became completely taken with you. You were one of the most annoying people he had ever met, and he found himself so intensely attracted to you.

Even if it was getting under your skin by arguing with you or fucking your brains out, he knew in that moment - he had to get inside you and drive you insane the same way that he knew you would for him.

…

When Dick left to go check on his old circus friend Clay, Jason winked at you and said ‘don’t miss me too much’. You made a show of putting a finger near your mouth and audibly gagging.

Later that night, when Jason didn’t return, you hated the curl of disappointment that panged in your stomach. You wanted to hit yourself for staring at the door, waiting for the second Robin to come in behind Dick.

You hated yourself even more for replying to Jason’s texts.

Apparently he had taken your phone out of your jacket pocket when you went to the bathroom (not to see Adamson - a different bathroom, to pee). And he had put himself in your contacts as ‘Hot Guy’. He had also sent himself a text from your phone that read ‘omg Jason you’re so hot, will you fuck me?’. And then replied to it from his own phone with a picture of his cock.

Unfortunately, the only thing you could mock about the picture was poor lighting.

When you told him as much, he quickly remedied that with several more pictures - ones with better lighting. He sent a video with very distinct audio. You would deny that you rushed to put your headphones in to listen to it while you sat on the train with Kory and Gar. You would deny that it drove a hard, hot pain between your thighs.

You dug through a folder and sent some pictures of your own. You told yourself it was to prove to him that you were too good for him - to show off something he could never actually have. To tease him.

You would deny that you loved the compliments he gave you, that you ate up the affection like a plant lovingly soaking up the sun.

When you were sexting him, you had no clue that you were ever going to see him again. It was almost mindless, something for a dopamine hit to distract yourself from all the chaos going on around you. You weren’t doing it because you actually liked Jason. You didn’t have any real attractions toward him, or any real plans to carry out all of the bold things you said in those messages.

You had no clue that you’d end up living together.

When you did find out that Dick would be taking Jason into the newly reopened Titans Tower along with you, Gar, and Rachel, you didn’t make a big deal of it in your mind. When Jason made flirtatious remarks toward you in person, you brushed him off. You put up a wall.

You told yourself that he was nothing more than a cocky, shallow guy who would use you for sex and then throw you away - something you could never actually build a proper relationship with. And if you were supposed to live together, be some kind of team like Dick expected you to be, then you couldn’t be messy. You couldn’t get emotional.

You had no clue that on one of those first nights living together, your self assured discipline not to give into your lust for him would break like a wafer cookie, and you would be in his bed faster than a sea turtle running into ocean.

…

“Fuck, babe, you feel so good on my cock.” Jason grunted, his face buried in your neck as he thrusted deep inside of you. The loud squelch of artificial wetness coming from between your thighs as he worked his hips, working you open with a needy, demanding pace. “Bet you love this cock, huh? Tell me how fuckin’ much you love it.”

“Shut up.”

The words came from your throat as a weak whimper, much less powerful than you had intended.

You didn’t want to give him any more power than he already held over you - he had you weak and willing on his cock, something you would have never admitted could be true until it was happening in these moments.

Though you would never admit it aloud, you loved the way he handled you. Having you pinned against the bed with his fingers digging into the flesh of your hips, having you breathless and moaning as he fucked into you with fast, obviously skilled strokes. Your nails cut into the flesh of his back, and he let out a low rumble from his gut as the sharp sting sent a wave of pleasure through him.

You hated the twinge of lustful embarrassment that curled in your gut when he chuckled at your words.

“Oh, you want me to shut up?” He asked, slightly breathless from the act himself, moving one hand beside your head to raise himself up slightly to look in your eyes.

He was sweaty, disheveled, his hair a mess, his muscles taught with the effort as he continued to pound into you. You hated that you had imagined him much like this before, and that this outlived all of your fantasies.

“Yes.” You fired back. “Just shut up and fuck me.”

He bit his lip - something you didn’t know was him trying to hold back his orgasm, so utterly turned on by your bratty defiance, the twinge of a whimper in your voice as you said those words.

“You weren’t tellin’ me to shut up when I was texting you.”

He said, all hot breath fanning across your chin, his hips spearing forward in sharp, hard hits that made your skin smack loudly together. It made you work hard to suppress moans deep in your chest in a way that was painful, like venom inside your lungs. You wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of your sounds, of knowing just how good he was fucking you - even if he could see it written all over your pleasure twisted face.

“You only begged for more when I was tellin’ you how I was gonna lay you on my bed. Take you apart… make you scream my name.”

He reached his other hand from your hip to the point where you were joined. He began touching that tender place, making sharp, vicious strokes that were almost vengeful. Tears easily gathered in your eyes and he let out another chuckle when you choked on a deep, pleasurable wail.

“Tell me, how many times did you touch yourself reading what I wrote?”

He asked, leaning down to whisper the words right in your ear.

“How many times did you cum thinking about me?”

“I didn’t.” You choked out, digging your nails deeper into the skin of his back, causing him to grunt as the pain mixed with the pleasure flowing through him.

“Sure, babe.” He smirked down at you, turning that look into something absolutely pavlovian that would forever make you feel his cock deep inside of you when you saw it, rather than feeling annoyed.

Maybe from that point on, it was a bit of both.

In an effort to shut him up, you reached up and claimed his lips. It was supposed to be a kiss, but it was mostly teeth. When you bit down on his bottom lip, snarling, he tasted blood and the way he moaned at the pain was absolutely unmistakable. It was something you remembered and used against him many times after that.

…

You wouldn’t allow yourself any room for self hatred when it came to that break in your self control. When it became an ongoing thing, you spun it as positive in your mind.

It was just sexual release. You and Jason both needed it. It paired well with intense training and the heavy studying that Dick made you do. It lowered your stress levels a lot, and it helped you get through the day.

The more time you spent around Jason, the more you got to know him, and the more you came to realize that he was nowhere near shallow. You easily saw that he was caring, deep, complex, troubled. The more time passed, you found yourself falling for him and the more you deeply denied it. Because it was just sex.

Things were good between the two of you, and you knew that if you added anything else to the mix - any complicated, mushy feelings - you would fuck it up.

You were especially reminded of this - how important it was not to fuck things up - just a day or so before every other force aside from you railed Titans Tower and began royally fucking things up.

…

It was a morning just like any other at Titans Tower. It was delightfully quiet - even though Dick demanded that everyone get up at ungodly early hours to begin training, you had somehow managed to wake up before everyone else and you were enjoying the peace it brought you.

When you got up to see that Jason was already in the kitchen, standing at the counter as he munched on a bowl of cereal, you wanted to scorn the idea that your peace would be interrupted. But instead, you found yourself willfully suppressing a smile.

You yawned and walked over to the counter, grabbing a bowl from one of the cupboards, thinking that cereal was just the right idea on his part. A deep frown cut through your face when you poured out the rest of the cereal box he had left on the counter, and a very measly amount fell into your bowl.

“What kind of asshole only leaves three fucking cornflakes in the bottom of the box?” You scoffed, causing him to chuckle.

“Learn to count, babe.” He told you, speaking with his mouth half-full. “That’s more than three.”

You rolled your eyes. You were likely exaggerating - but still, it seemed rude to you to leave such a small portion, barely a handful, in the bottom of the box.

“Or did I make you cum so hard last night that I knocked the common sense out of your head?” He added on, throwing you that signature smirk that made heat bloom between your thighs.

You let out a sarcastic snort, giving him a purposefully disgusted grimace as you lifted the bowl up and dumped the remaining cereal into his portion instead.

“You might as well take these.” You told him. “And don’t flatter yourself, you’re not that good.”

You moved behind them, distracting yourself from the conversation by making a cup of coffee.

“Oh really?” He perked up, rising to his full height, pure mischief in his voice. “It didn’t sound like it last night.”

Much to your horror, he then began imitating your moans.

“‘Oh, Jason! Oh, fuck me! More!’”

It was a cartoonish, pornographic imitation, something he likely wouldn’t have done if the others were anywhere within earshot. Oddly enough, even though your relationship was casual, you still kept it guarded and private, as though it were some precious secret that needed to be kept from the others.

“‘Jason, please, your dick is the best! Oh, make me cum!’”

But that was the farthest thing from your mind as embarrassment curled in your stomach, the reaction he likely wanted to draw out of you. You hated that you didn’t truly know if it was accurate or not, because sometimes - yes, he did fuck your brains out and make you completely mindless on his cock.

But you would never admit that he was right.

“Shut up.” You sighed, causing him to dissolve into laughter, feeling as though he had won.

But you wouldn’t simply leave it at that.

Instead, as you pushed the button on the machine and your coffee began to drip, you turned around and gently placed your fingers on the side of his cereal bowl. You froze all the milk inside of it solid, making it into one large frozen chunk with the spoon stuck inside when he wasn’t looking - distracted, staring at your face, looking for any trace of the reaction that he had drawn out of you.

You just glared, and he smirked once more.

When he picked up the spoon again and went to take another bite, the entire bowl came with it. He sighed in defeat when he realized what you had done.

“You know, it’s so damn annoying when you do that.” He sighed.

“I know.” You grinned at him.

He couldn’t help the butterflies that fluttered in his stomach at this. He resisted the urge to grab you by the sides of your head and steal the grin of your mouth with his own. He told you that it was out of annoyance, and not affection. He told himself those lines were most definitely not blurred when it came to you.

…

Confessing your feelings to Jason would not have been your choice.

Given the choice, you would have let your feelings quietly live and die inside of you. You would have just kept Jason as a friend. You would have even dropped the amazing sex if it meant staying on good terms with him.

But the stakes rose pretty quickly, and things were taken out of your hands. The choice was stolen from you and Jason entirely against your will.

When you found out he was missing, supposedly kidnapped by Doctor Light on the heels of some misguided plan - something inside of you shattered. Up until that moment, if you thought it was just a stupid crush, or an infatuation inside of you that would easily fade with time - you quickly found out that you were wrong.

You went through the stages of grief like a rocket.

Denial. Staring at the door, waiting for him to walk inside at any moment. Just like you had back at the safehouse.

Anger. Being so pissed at Dick at the other older Titans that you could barely breathe. How had they let this happen to him? How could they make him feel so inadequate that he felt the need to go out on his own, half-cocked, clearly doing something in the name of looking for their approval?

Bargaining. You would have traded places with him. You would have been the one, alone and scared and stranded if it meant that he got to be at home safe. You would have gone with him to carry out the stupid plan if he had only asked. Why hadn’t he asked you?

Depression. You wept in your room, hands clasped over your face, letting out chest-shaking sobs as you thought of the possibility of him never returning home again. You realized the possibility of him dying was very real and it made your lungs burn.

And then finally - Acceptance. You finally accepted that your feelings for him were something bigger, and if it meant that you were the only person in the Tower who truly cared about him (probably aside from Gar) - the only person who didn’t just see him as a pawn to be used against Deathstroke - then you had to do something about it.

So you laid out your love for Jason. You put it all on the line for him. You accidentally confessed to him, showed your feelings in a gesture so quiet it screamed.

You knew that for someone who stepped up to become Robin, someone who scorned cops for pummeling down on the innocent when they were supposed to be protectors - stepping up to try and save his life meant a love bigger than anything else you could have done.

And he was terrified of it. There was a big justice in your love for him. And to him, there was an even bigger justice in giving you an out to escape it - to escape loving him.

…

Hectic.

That was easily how you would describe the last few days at Titans Tower.

Between the unexpected arrival of Rose - Dick taking on another stray because, like Rachel said, he couldn’t resist a bird with a broken wing. Finding out that she was related to one of the deadliest men on earth that the Titans apparently had previous history with. And then Jason going off on his own without telling you, some botched hostage trade, and the group picking up yet another stray - a strange boy who had saved Jason’s life. It was all a blur of hectic chaos that had you snapping your neck to keep up.

Sleep was scarce and you couldn’t remember the last time you’d had a proper meal.

But you weren’t truly worried about any of that.

Dust had been kicked up around your life, and you couldn’t wait for it to settle before you made your next important decision.

Even though the wounds were still tender, you knew that things were safe for now, and your number one concern was Jason.

The minute he had gotten in the door, even though he was slightly hobbled and clearly sore from whatever Deathstroke had done to him, he rushed out of your sight. He was clearly eager to get away from everyone like a wounded animal sulking away to lick his wounds in peace. And when you had chased him, ignoring a nagging pain in your own side from the fight, he had slammed his bedroom door in your face, entirely uncaring of the fact that you called out his name, concerned for him.

The rest of the group was distracted with Conner - not knowing what he had been shot with or how to fix it. You hated it, but in the eyes of the group, yet again, Jason and any of his problems fell to the back burner.

After you had taken a short shower and changed your clothes, you found yourself here. Standing in front of Jason’s closed bedroom door, hoping not to face another cold rejection.

You wondered if he would be sleeping, wondered if you should interrupt his peace. But you knew that sleep was unlikely after everything that had happened.

So you took the leap.

You raised a fist, once again pushing down that stinging pain coming from the right side of your stomach. You reasoned that it was probably nothing more than a bruise forming there. And you knocked on the door.

A few moments later, the door was jerked open, and Jason glared at you.

His eyes were dull and tired, and there was a large bruise forming on the side of his mouth. Probably one of many others that you couldn’t see, from the way he had been walking earlier. He likely hadn’t been sleeping, but you had disturbed him.

“What the hell do you want?” He grumbled out, his voice dull, lacking any true fight.

“I wanted to check on you.” You told him, entirely honest. “I know it might seem stupid, but I wanna see how you’re doing.”

Jason scoffed and rolled his eyes.

He wanted to agree that - yes, it was stupid. It should have been obvious how he was doing after being kidnapped, beaten, and dropped off a building. But he was an idiot who had gotten himself thrown headfirst into that mess, thinking he could handle it. And he didn’t need to go crying to you about how badly he had fucked up. He had made a poor choice and he deserved all of the consequences. It was a simple fact of life.

“I’m doing just fine, thanks.” Jason said, entirely snide and sarcastic. “Look, I don’t need your help, okay? So fuck off.”

It was a set of harsh, cutting words. But he thought getting distance from you would be best. This whole thing had woken him up from the sweet little fantasy the two of you had been participating in. He was a natural born fuck-up. And sure, he could have you for a while, play around a bit - but he could never truly make you happy. Eventually, he would fuck you up too. He was a harsh poison and it would be better if he got out of your life before you felt the full effects.

He moved to shove the door closed and upon instinct, you reached up and fought him on it. Unconsciously, you winced as a sharp pain came from the injury in your stomach, reaching for it with your free hand as you held the door open with the other. It should have been no big deal. With your meta abilities, you usually healed quicker. You weren’t even used to feeling it when you got hurt. You were probably just feeling it worse because you were tired.

You tried to ignore the pain. But in a moment, Jason’s eyes went wide with worry as his gaze darted from your face, knit with pain, to where your hand was nursing the injury. Any sense of smarmy discontent dropped from his features, immediately being replaced with a softness and worry for you.

“You’re hurt.” He said quietly.

He let the door fall open again, reaching for your hand to inspect the injury himself.

“I’m fine.” You played the card this time, exchanging his lie for your own.

It was an odd play. He had lied about not being so torn up inside, emotionally devastated as he was, and now you were lying about not being physically injured from the fight. The two of you made an odd, but perfectly matched pair.

Jason barreled right past your words, and you were easily pliant to his touch as he removed your hand from the injury. You certainly were not expecting for him to find anything incriminating under your hand. But he glared at you when he found bright red spread across your palm, a glossy wetness leaking through your shirt.

“You’re bleeding.” He grunted at you.

Clearly, he was disappointed in the fact that you had neglected to bring this injury to the group’s attention. Pissed off at the fact that you weren’t in the medbay with Conner receiving some treatment right now.

Maybe you could blame it on the chaos. Maybe you could blame it on the fact that with everyone so emotionally distraught, you didn’t want to be just another problem for everyone to fuss over.

“Whoops.” You breathed out sarcastically. “I didn’t even notice.”

That last part was honest. In all the adrenaline, all your worrying over whether or not Jason was going to live as you watched him dangle so high off the ground - you truly hadn’t paid any mind to the injury.

“You didn’t-?” Jason huffed out in anger, but didn’t bother finishing the sentence.

Perhaps he partially understood himself, knowing how the adrenaline from a fight could stamp out pain. Or perhaps he knew how truly stubborn you were and he didn’t want to waste his energy arguing with you.

“You need this treated.” He added on.

No matter how fucked in the head he was, he never wanted to see you hurt. That was something he would definitely waste his energy on - wearing down your stubbornness until you let him or someone else in the house take care of the injury properly.

“Conner is worse off than I am.” You shrugged. “He needs the attention more.”

“Then let me help you.” He said, an impatient nagging rising up in his throat. “Bruce gave me some first aid training. One thing that means I’m not totally useless.”

The words made your chest ache for him, a pain that easily competed with the bleeding wound.

“Jason-”

You wanted to argue with him. You wanted to tell him he had infinite worth to you.

But of course, he cut you off.

“Just go sit on the bed.” He told you, quiet, but a firm command that you couldn’t ignore.

He gently pushed past you, on a quest for some supplies to patch you up with. You then found yourself drifting into his room almost mindlessly, your hand clutching the wound again upon instinct. It was a place that you felt oddly at home. The nights you had spent in that bed since coming to Titans Tower, your head delightfully empty as he had fucked you hard and fast - they were by far your favourites.

You would say it was because of the sex, and not just because you got to be wrapped up in Jason’s arms. Maybe everything had changed. Maybe your answers were different now. Maybe you were raw and tender and Jason wasn’t prepared to chase you in that devotion.

But that was just the thing. With you and Jason, there was never any sense of devotion. You and Jason were always hard and fast. Teasing each other, verging on the edge of vengeful. It was a flame that burned intensely hot - but it was never anything soft. It was never anything that prompted you to knock on his door so late, wanting to check on his well being. It was nothing that prompted you to make chase to put your life on the line for him.

Even just knowing that he had the intent to attend to your injury, called himself useful because of it - the thought cradled you like a warm blanket. It had you balancing on the edge of a dam holding back a barrage of feelings that you had been quelling down since the moment you had first put your lips on his.

“I told you to sit.” Jason’s voice came from behind you.

He had raided the infirmary and now had a handful of supplies - luckily without anyone seeing him or questioning why. When you turned to him, he was closing the bedroom door behind him, sealing you both in with this newfound soft intensity, the tired lull of two people unwilling to hold back that softness anymore. It was entirely dangerous, and entirely life-saving at the same time; and neither of you realized it.

“Since when do you get to boss me around?” You told him, your voice low and lacking any true spirit or sarcasm.

It was in the same vein as the banter the two of you usually threw around - bickering about who was a bigger asshole, who was more stubborn, who was better in bed.

You expected some kind of sexual comment in return. You could almost hear it now - he was the boss of you because he made you melt on his cock, made you mindless and dumb with it.

But, no dice.

The longer you stared at him, catching bits of the fresh pain swimming through those gorgeous blue eyes, you wished so badly for the mischief and sarcasm and light to come back and bite you the way that it used to.

It only made your stomach churn harder at the whole situation. Things had officially changed between you and Jason. You had yet to find out if it was for the better, or for the painstakingly worse.

Jason sighed through his nose.

“You can be such an asshole sometimes.” He told you. Coming from him, and given the nature of your relationship, you knew it was almost a compliment. “Will you just sit down and let me help you?”

Even though you were utterly terrified of the swelling of emotions you felt, bound to come to a head - you did.

You sat on the edge of the bed and he placed the supplies beside you.

When he mumbled out a quiet ‘lay back’, and you did, his cool fingertips at the hem of your shirt pulling it upward felt strangely more intimate than any other time you had been in this same position. It wasn’t heady, you weren’t granted the distraction of his mouth on yours and his tongue shoved between your lips while a harsh throbbing nagged between your legs.

This was quiet, and calm, and gentle.

When you caught his eye above you as he wiped away the blood with some clean gauze, you saw nothing but pity and worry and sparkling affection for you. You almost dared to call it something as epic and dangerous as love, buried deep in his eyes. He worked with the most delicate touch, almost as if he was afraid to break you, before he glanced down and inspected the wound.

His brow furrowed with even more intense worry, guilt nipping at his insides when he got a good look at it.

“I think I see a bullet in here.” He told you, and then he moved around the bed and grabbed his phone, turning on the flashlight to have a better light to inspect it. You felt intensely naked, intensely caught when he began shining the light on your stomach with a harshly inquisitive look across his face. “Definitely something shiny. You got shot and you didn’t fucking tell anyone?”

It was only then that you realized when you had gotten the wound - the exact moment clicking into place in your mind.

“It was only a ricochet.” You argued quietly. “It’s not that bad.”

Jason scoffed and rolled his eyes, and began sorting out his supplies, preparing to pull out whatever was lodged inside of you.

…

Dick explicitly told you to stay put.

They only wanted the more experienced Titans, the Varsity squad on the case when dealing with Deathstroke. He blamed young naive incompetence as the reason Jason had gotten captured in the first place. You blamed him and Bruce pushing Jason out, making him feel like he needed so desperately to prove himself. But it was something Dick wasn’t ready to hear - an argument you weren’t going to have with the very stubborn team leader.

Instead, you went for the silent route. You trailed the rest of them out of Tower, and when Dick strayed away from the rest of the group, his head on a swivel as he glanced back and forth, seemingly wanting to assure that none of the others were following him - you followed your gut instincts and went after him.

You hid in the shadows and the moment that Deathstroke hit the button and those panels scrolled up, revealing Jason stranded on that scaffolding - you couldn’t help yourself.

“Jason!”

You screamed out his name, you leapt forward.

Dick didn’t have time to scold you, not before the gunfire started.

Kory came out of nowhere - seemingly, she had the same idea as you. Putting her life on the line for an emotionally repressed man that she hadn’t admitted her feelings for. But she was there because she was in love with the other Robin. (Or rather, a man who claimed over and over again that he wasn’t Robin.)

Things quickly became a blur - flashes of flame as Kory fought, battling with the muzzle flashes from Deathstroke’s guns, limbs flying as they fought each other. You didn’t see it, but Deathstroke raised and aimed at you as you rushed toward the window, blindly going after Jason. In response, Dick charged forward, redirecting the gun as he pulled the trigger. You heard the sharp ‘ping’ sound of metal on metal - what you couldn’t see was the bullet hitting one of the metal beams in the ceiling. But you certainly felt it when it sliced into your side.

At the time, it was nothing compared to the fear you felt for Jason.

His eyes were wide with terror, and you could only focus on getting him to safety. You had no idea that a large part of his panic came from seeing you in the building. He had hoped that Dick would keep you away from all of this. But there you were, standing a few feet away from a man with a gun who was shooting around wildly. Jason would have delighted in being dropped off the building to his death if he had to see you get fatally shot when he could do nothing but squirm on the other side of the glass.

You put two hands on the glass, banging on it - of course, it was no use. It was inches thick, meant to keep people from going through it at this height. Working entirely on instinct, you put your palms flat across it and began forming ice crystals over it, hoping to make it rigid and breakable if it was frozen.

Once there was enough ice, you quickly looked around and spotted a metal pipe there for the in-progress construction of the building, so you grabbed it and rushed to smash the glass with it. You felt victorious as it shattered, and Jason flinched away from the shards, putting you one step closer to freeing him.

Though the moment the glass was cleared, leaving the wind whipping around you, his first words of greeting to you were not celebratory.

“What the hell are you doing here?” He barked at you, clearly angry with you.

You felt a dull ache in your chest at this. You thought he might be relieved, happy, pleased. At the time, you couldn’t interpret his harsh reaction as worry for you possibly getting hurt.

Nonetheless, you ignored his harshness. You would save him, whether he wanted to be saved or not. You draped your body through the window, reaching out to him. You made an effort to keep most of your weight planted on the floor of the building, in case the scaffolding wasn’t stable enough to hold two people at once.

“What do you think?” You replied, pure sarcasm dripping through your voice as you reached behind Jason and began fiddling with the rope around his wrists.

The position put the two of you in intensely close proximity. Jason caught a whiff of your unique scent, the shower gel you used that mingled with your body’s natural oils; and he felt so painfully at home. For the first time that night, he held back tears. He couldn’t help but to lean his forehead on your shoulder, taking comfort in having you so near after being on edge and terrified for so many hours. You resisted the urge to run a hand through his hair, to cradle him and give him further comfort. You forced yourself to focus on the task at hand - getting him to safety.

Behind you, at the very back of the room, Dick and Deathstroke wrestled with the remote for the explosives attached to the scaffolding.

Just as you managed to get Jason’s wrists freed, Deathstroke hit the switch, and the bombs went off.

…

You winced loudly as Jason dabbed at the wound with disinfectant.

“I would say sorry… but, you’ll thank me later when this isn’t swollen and leaking puss.” He told you, throwing you a small smirk.

It was smug. It was the usual kind of humor that he gave you.

It was comforting to know that every trace of the Jason you knew hadn’t been stolen by Deathstroke.

You held your breath as he pressed down with the medicine-covered gauze again, drawing much less of a reaction out of you this time.

“Great mental image, Jay.” You replied, your voice dull. It lacked any of the true bite you wanted to deliver in response to him. “I’m sure it’s such a turn-on thinking about my puss.”

It was meant to be a joke. But even unconsciously, it was an acknowledgement of that dangerous line - the line between truly caring and just using someone for sex. The line between having someone in your life as a body to get off with, and being so… homely with them.

You and Jason were towing that line dangerously. It was a thread that you were balancing on, and it would either break, or you would cross to the other side and be forever bonded to him.

Jason shrugged. “Maybe I don’t have to be turned on by you all the time.”

There was more stuck in his throat. Another dangerous acknowledgement of that line.

‘Maybe I just have to care.’

Both of you lulled into silence because neither of you dared to say it.

After a few moments, Jason put down the gauze and hesitated to reach for the tweezers. He knew that pulling the bullet out would be painful, but inevitable. It was a lot like the state of your relationship with him. Break it off, and find happiness elsewhere, or acknowledge this big thing swelling to fruition between the two of you. Have Jason fuck it up eventually. Painful, but inevitable.

“You shouldn’t have to be hurt like this.” Jason said quietly. “You shouldn’t have gotten hurt for my sake.”

There it was again - words with a dangerous double meaning.

You looked up at him, pure pain knit across his face, and for a moment he looked from the tweezers to you and he could hardly stand holding your gaze.

‘It’s worth it.’ You wanted to say. ‘For you, I’d bear any pain.’

The words lived and died behind your eyes, and your tongue decided on something else entirely.

“It’s nothing.” You told him.

You downplayed the pain, pretending that the injury was only a minor inconvenience for you. And in the grand scheme of life, it was. With time, it would heal. Losing Jason would be something you’d never heal from.

Jason shook his head at this statement.

He forced himself to reach for the tweezers then. He handed you his phone, a silent agreement that you would hold the light as steady as you could. He knew you well, too well, and he knew that you needed something else to focus on to push away the pain. He put his free hand on the plush of your stomach, pulling back slightly to hold the wound open while you held the light on it.

When the sharp metal of the tweezers breached your wound, you wanted to swear. You wanted to call him an asshole as the pain shot through you. You wanted to scold him for leaving the Tower and being kidnapped in the first place. But you knew that even if it was playful or sarcastic, fueled by the bite of your pain, it was not what he needed to hear right now. So instead, you held your breath, and gripped his phone hard, keeping the light steady as you bared the sharp shocks of pain.

After a moment of digging around that felt like an eternity, he pulled out the fragment and held it up to show you as you collapsed back against the bed, panting with tears stinging the edges of your eyes.

“It’s not nothing.” He declared sharply.

You couldn’t conjure a response. You knew he was right. And you didn’t want to be forced to admit it.

Instead, you turned off the light from his phone and relaxed into the bed, closing your eyes as he walked around to the trashcan and threw out the bullet fragment. It fell into the bottom of the plastic wastebasket with a very small ‘ping’ - making you wonder how something so small could cause so much trouble.

Jason quickly returned to you, dabbing more disinfectant into the wound in a way that made you groan and flex away from the touch. Once again, he did not apologize.

There were a few moments of muddy silence with nothing but your slightly labored breathing, trying to contain your sounds of pain so as to not make him feel any further guilt about the whole incident.

Your mind churned, and you couldn’t help the next words that came from your mouth.

“I meant what I said.” You told him.

At the sound of this, his hands immediately stilled. You felt his eyes on you, and you forced yourself to open your own and look up at him once again. He stared you down with intense examination. He looked for any ounce of falsity, any sign that you were lying, even posturing to make him feel better after everything that had happened.

He didn’t find any.

You thought he might acknowledge you, that he might say something back to return your mighty words. Instead, he simply reached for more gauze, and began putting a final bandage on your wound.

…

The explosion caused a sharp rattle through your ears. It shocked you and made you dizzy and put the whole world off-kilter. The only thing you could perceive past the mind-numbing hum in your brain was the feeling of Jason’s rough glove gripping tightly onto your wrist, so you gripped back as hard as you could.

When you blinked open your eyes, you were half-hanging out of the open window, the edge of the floor cutting into your waist as you held onto Jason by nothing but his wrist. His whole body weight created a harsh burn, straining on the muscles in your shoulder as you watched him dangle hundreds of feet above the street.

Panic flooded you.

You scrambled to reach out with your other hand, and the moment you moved, your shirt slipped against the sleek, polished material of the floor and you began sliding out the window. You gasped and Jason stilled his panicked flailing immediately.

“Don’t move!” He shouted.

“Give me your other hand so I can pull you up!” You shouted back.

Beyond the unpleasant hum of your eardrums rattling, you still heard chaos behind you. Gunshots, the grunts of fighting, Kory and Dick’s voices yelling. They were busy with Deathstroke, they couldn’t help you or Jason.

Jason looked up at you with glassy eyes.

He knew that with all his gear weighing him down, even with the training you had been doing, you wouldn’t be able to pull him up. Not by yourself. And if you weren’t careful, his body weight would just pull you out of the window and cause you to go tumbling down to your death along with him.

When you saw that frown etch across his lips, that filthy look of dawning - you glared at him.

“Give me your other hand!” You screamed, your voice raking across your throat like hot coals. A hot boiling rage at the fact that he seemed almost determined to die.

There was one thing he was determined about. If he was going to die, he wasn’t going to take you down with him.

His gloved wrist started to slip from your nervous, sweaty palm, and you tried hard to hold on tight. You formed large shards of ice, hoping you could create some kind of bond there by freezing your hand to his. But it would only be temporary with gravity trying to tear the two of you apart.

“You have to drop me, Y/N.” He said, nothing but pure mourning on his lips. “I’m dead weight.”

You both knew it was a horrendous double meaning.

He thought he was a dead weight to your life.

“No!” You immediately defied this thought, that feral rage ripping at your throat once again. “I’m gonna pull you up. I’m gonna pull you up!”

You reached your other hand down and tightly wrapped both of your hands around his wrist, yanking upward. The harsh movement caused you to slide even further out the window. You were now dangling dangerously over San Francisco with only the thickness of your thighs giving you any real stability on the intensely high up floor. It made you dizzy, and the only thing you had to focus on were the wet wells of Jason’s eyes staring up at you.

“It’s no use!” Jason said tearfully.

You ignored him.

You cast your chin over your shoulder, and began shouting.

“Help me!” You screamed, trying desperately to get the attention of Dick or Kory. “Help me! Fuck!”

“You have to let go.”

Jason’s words immediately shifted your focus back to him.

But of course, you refused.

“I’m not letting go of you!” You declared sharply. “Not that easily.”

As he stared up at your tearful eyes, he knew that you meant it as more.

Unfortunately, it was the one thing he was terrified of.

He thought that you saw him as some shiny perfect thing, something good and worth having in your life. He thought that you were incapable of seeing the poison, the true fuck-up that he was. If you didn’t let go of him, sooner or later, just like everyone else in his life, you were going to get burned.

So Jason did what he had to do.

He began prying your fingers off his wrist, trying his best to keep you stable while he forced himself from your grip.

“No!” You shrieked. “No, no, no-”

You didn’t have much room to fight him about it without falling out of the window yourself.

You made a move to readjust, to get a tighter grip on him - and it was the one deadly move that caused him to slip out of your touch completely.

You were forced to watch on in chest clenching horror, blinking through heavy tears as he began hurtling toward the ground.

…

If not for Conner - a literal miracle - swooping in and saving Jason at the last second, then you would have spent the rest of your life regretting those moments, wondering what you could have done differently to save him.

When Jason finished taping down the bandages, making sure the wound was clean and secure, he laid his palm flat on top of it. It was a kind of ‘kissing it better’ that instantly spread warmth curling through your gut. It was a touch so incredibly tender - especially compared to the heated, aggressive groping you were used to from him - that it caused a whimper from the back of your throat.

You knew it was unlikely, but you hoped that he hadn’t heard it.

“All done.” He said quietly.

You instantly felt regret when he took his hand away and began tidying up the medical supplies. But you forced yourself to sit upright, now feeling only muscle soreness and a much duller pain coming from the area. You felt intensely thankful for his care as you pulled your shirt back down, righting your clothes back into place.

“You’re free to go now.” Jason told you, his voice still low, as though a single decibel would shatter the delicate peace between the two of you.

You felt your heart sink.

In an instant, you understood what it was - he was concerned about your physical wellbeing, but he didn’t actually want to have you around. Just like his reaction to you showing up at the hostage exchange - he didn’t want your presence there.

You heaved a sigh and got off the bed as Jason busied himself with gathering up the used gauze to throw it away. As you put your hand on the doorknob, you couldn’t quite bring yourself to leave.

It was something else.

It had to be something else.

Jason hadn’t let himself drop off a building in some desperate ploy just to get away from you. He had been trying to save you.

He was so utterly willing to give his life for yours.

And now he was trying to back down from that.

You turned and faced him, leaving the door closed. When he turned from ditching things in the wastebasket, he froze. He was entirely surprised that you were still there.

The two of you locked eyes, both staying still - like a predator and prey locked in a stalemate, wondering who would run first.

In this situation, you weren’t sure who was the prey.

You were both so vulnerable.

Jason thought it would be selfish to get caught up in all of this, to finally admit those dangerous feelings he had for you. When he cared for things, he usually ended up breaking them. Of course, it was never on purpose - he was an idiot. Everything he touched, he fucked up. He had made that more than evident with his last braindead plan, the outing to prove that he was worthy of being Robin. Something that had gotten you shot, probably could have gotten you killed.

If you stuck with him any longer, you probably would end up being killed. And he would never forgive himself for that.

He would be better off ripping himself from your hold, as much as it hurt. Giving you a dose of that heartbreak now so that you could get over him and go after better things.

As you stared at Jason, you could see all the pain boiling underneath his surface. You wondered what he was thinking, what the hell he was churning over in that intense brain of his - but you didn’t dare to ask.

You knew that he needed to be held right now - in every sense of the word. You knew that he needed to be cared for the way he had cared for your wound, pushing past the pain in order to heal. You wondered if he would lay down and bear it or if he would continue to fight you.

You were the one to bravely step forward. Though Jason was tempted to ask you to leave, that thing inside of him yearning to marinate in his isolation because he deserved it, he pushed it down. He let his hands naturally come to sit on the plush comfort of your waist as you put a gentle touch on both his shoulders, leaning into his body ever so slightly.

You laid your forehead on his cheek, right next to that ugly bruise that had been left on him, and he let out a contented sigh as he felt your warmth envelope him. For the first time since his feet had touched the ground, he felt calm. He felt safe.

You smoothed a hand across his shoulder, and raised your head, using your touch to gently tip his face toward yours. He quickly realized that your intention was to kiss him. And something ached in his heart - something painful and longing. He knew that it would not be needy and haste with the intention of pile-driving toward sex like your other kisses had been. He knew that it would be the metamorphosis of your relationship that he was not prepared to go through.

He nuzzled along your forehead, gently stopping you.

“Please don’t do this.” He murmured quietly into your skin.

He knew that it would break him.

He knew that this was the moment - like Gatsby reaching up toward the stars - this would be the moment that he was tied to you forever, damned by his love for you. Only, much different than Gatsby, he wasn’t destined for some grant fate if he didn’t have you. He was on a one way path to a messy death, and he was determined not to take you down with him.

Tears pricked the edges of his eyes at the thought.

You pulled back, just enough to properly look him in the eyes, and your own tears formed when you saw that pathetic puppy dog looking back at you.

“Why not?” You demanded, much sharper than you intended. You knew he was fragile and you didn’t want to upset him any further than he already was.

“You know why.” He replied, his voice barely scraping above a whisper as the emotion clutched at his throat.

Jason wanted to hold onto you forever, but he was also a realistic person. He expected that any minute now, you would rip away from his arms and charge out the door, entirely angry with him, and this would finally be over. You would finally be safe from him - safe from any nasty fate his life could conjure up for you.

You hated what he was asking of you - asking you not to care for him anymore. As if you could somehow switch it off. Impossible.

“I meant what I said.” You repeated yourself, still entirely firm in this conviction. “I’m not gonna let you go that easily.”

You leaned in, planting your lips on his in a light kiss. A pained sigh ripped through you when he didn’t make any moves to kiss you back.

“Jason, please.” You whimpered out desperately. “If you get to bandage my bullet wound, then I get to do this.”

Jason wanted to spell it all out for you, plain and dirty. He wanted to get angry, he wanted to scream. He wanted to rush along the inevitable. He wanted to tell you what a poison he was to the world, that he deserved to die and you deserved better things. But he had the utmost feeling that you wouldn’t listen.

“Please, stop pushing me away.” You whispered against his lips.

Instead, he listened to your plea. He let himself indulge in this selfish softness for once.

He reached up and grabbed your jaw, pulling you into a firmer kiss, declaring every ounce of passion and terror that he was feeling in those moments. You answered it all right back - digging your fingers into the shoulders of his shirt, letting out a hot huff against his cheek as you leaned into his body.

He would never be perfect - but he was yours.

...

PLEASE NOTE: I do have a sequel in mind for this, but I don't know when I am going to have it finished and posted. Please do not ask me to write more of this or ask me when the sequel will be coming. If you are going to comment, please comment about the body of work here that I have already written.

#sundrop writes #dc titans #titans fanfiction #titans x reader #dc titans fanfiction #jason todd #jason todd x gn!reader #jason todd x gender neutral reader #jason todd x y/n #jason todd x you #jason todd imagine #jason todd x reader #jason todd smut

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hobie-enthusiast · 10 months

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LOVE MY LOVE !

— hobie brown x gn!reader + specified reader hcs

— tons of fluff, hobie being ur bf hcs, mentions of injury and blood, petnames, hobie being so hopelessly in love, specific hcs at the end for transmasc, cultural, and dyed hair reader, plus one for bad parents

— some classic hcs for hobie being in a relationship with you

— i have a small section on hobie’s hair, so if any info about his wicks is wrong, pls feel free to correct me! also the last 4 hcs are “if you are/have” kind of scenarios but everything before that is for everyone!

— starting off strong he definitely writes songs about you. he keeps his whole punk scene with his band, but these songs are written to himself. he keeps them in a notebook, with random lyrics scribbled in and chords to match them. his songwriting process is messier than most, so sometimes you can barely understand the order of the music or how it sounds. but this works in his favour; because then he’ll play it for you, gauging for your reaction and maybe that embarrassment you may show when he pours out his feelings.

— i mentioned this one in two fics before but i will do it again; he’s so for matching stickers and pins. both of your interests are smacked on his clothes, guitar, and whatever you chose to sport them on. he doesn’t care if they clash with his “punk persona”, after all, being punk means not conforming to societal expectations. so yeah matching stuff is definitely a thing for him. he’ll also match bracelets and rings with you if you’re down for that

— he is such a petnames person. his faves to use on you are sweetheart, darling, love, when it comes to the standard ones (with those he varies between throwing in a “my” in front of it and not just depends). he also likes referring to you as his “partner in crime” and “his/my star” (since he insists he doesn’t like labels ofc). he would also really like if you use petnames on him, or even a nickname. if you ever call him using “hobie”, he knows you’re upset and will fix things. now, if you call him “hobart”.. he’s running.

— okay please please hear me out on this; he’s such a flower boy. loves getting and giving flowers. picking them while he’s out swinging just to bring them back to you is one of his main love languages. and he loves receiving them back. please give him flowers please. surprise him with them. put them in his hair. FLOWER CROWNS TOO FLOWER CROWNS! he just loves flowers, all kinds of flowers.

— his love language is physical touch and words of affirmation. he loves being in contact with you. hobie loves holding your hand, putting his hand on the small of your back, or patting your head. but his all time favourite? intertwining fingers. he loves the small and intimate feeling it provides, as well as comfort. hobie will praise you a ton. always congratulating you, telling you how amazing you are, that sort of thing

— hobie is very protective of the things he loves, including you. he would never take it lightly if say one of his enemies threatened him with you. he tries his best to keep you out of his spider-man work, but sometimes that just doesn’t happen. but trust, he will pull out all the stops to protect you. if you’re threatened, he’s with you 24/7, eyes always watching for the enemy who had the audacity to say they were going to hurt you

— he’s actually so smitten about you it’s insane. will never stop talking about you and how you make him feel. he loves it. loves seeing the way his friends roll their eyes whenever he says “s’ [Name] said-”. everyone who knows him knows he’s crazy about you. there was a time where he felt so alone in his life, but now that he has you, he remembers he isn’t alone. he remembers what he’s fighting for after your pep-talks to him whenever he feels down. you’re his pick-me-up, so ofc he’s gonna brag about you to his friends.

— hobie hates making you his “guy-in-the-chair.” ofc he’s hella grateful for you helping and supporting his cause, fighting for what’s right. but, one of the parts of that is fixing him up when he’s hurt. he hates seeing your face so worried when he swings into your window, blood pooling at his side as you grab a first aid kit. hobie never wants you to worry, he feels terribly bad about it. but he forever appreciates how you always help him, always welcome him home, always manage to make him feel better

— hobie brown said it himself; he is not a morning person. he gets up everyday like after 10, and so he likes to have you in bed when he wakes up. on the weekends, he’ll beg you to stay in bed and sleep more, holding your body close to him and coaxing you with soft neck kisses and raspy whispers (his morning voice btw its gotta be- oh my god). on the days he does manage to keep you to himself, he wakes up in a better mood with a small pep in his step a good amount of the day

— okay so his hair. he’s very very picky on who touches his hair. i wanna say that he would trust you to touch it, but it would take a while. the way hobie grew up and has ideals that makes it kinda hard to trust people. so it truly does take a while. but once he starts trusting you, he realizes how much he loves when you take care of his hair. he loves feeling your fingers mess with his wicks, combing at his scalp. i wrote a whole fic about this but he also loves when you decorate his hair, especially flowers (fic found here!). and once he truly trusts you, he’ll ask for your help when he washes his hair, since it could be time consuming.

— okay so politics and ideals; it’s very important to hobie you hold the same beliefs as him. i really can’t see him with someone who won’t fight and protest like he does tbh. because he needs that support. sometimes things like that just don’t go right, so he wants his partner there next to him to help him fight for what’s right and what they deserve. this is really important to him, hence why i just can’t see him with someone who won’t support him like that. so yea definitely gotta agree like that, and fight for the cause with him

— THIS ONES FOR ALL MY FELLOW TRANS BOYS ive been needing some of this. okay he takes no shit from anyone about your identity or his own. he’s very supportive of you and anything you need. no surgery and no t? he’ll help you bind and assures you you don’t have to conform to any trans agenda anyone sets for you. if you got surgery, he’s constantly helping you, making sure you take care of yourself afterwards. his favourite affirmations are “you’re so handsome.” and “you’re my pre’ty boy, y’know that?” god he’s so-

— now this one is for all my fellow cultural people. he would love to be taught all about your culture. make the food for him. show him the traditional clothing. tell him the history. he wants to know it all! hobie fights everyday for minorities who aren’t heard, and he always wants to know more about who he’s fighting for. he genuinely finds this stuff interesting, especially considering the different types of people he met during his youth. so please, immerse him in that side of you! he’s all ears!

— here’s one for my homies with bad parents (we matchin fr i see you). oh man hobie will not let your parents treat you like that, ever. if he sees them, it’s not good for them. he’s going to ensure you know that you never deserved that treatment from your own parents. he reminds you that you deserve love and affection, and he will be the one to give that to you. he’s very good at helping you through anything you need, with affirmations and his physical presence, he will always remind you that you are safe and that your parents truly are a joke

— this one for all my fellow dyed hair besties. hobie is so down to help you dye your hair 1000%. get the supplies and invite him over and he’s going go help you out. and trust, he knows what he’s doing. i feel like hobie definitely experimented with his own hair in the past, which includes having crazy colours. so he’s got your back, and will also recommend any colour he thinks is gonna look absolutely sick on you

#NEW ARTICLE || OUT NOW !!#hobie brown x reader #hobie x reader #hobie brown #across the spiderverse #spider man: across the spider verse #atsv x reader #atsv #atsv hobie

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rambling-prince-thoughts · 10 months

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rewatching selfishness vs selflessness for the 100th time in a row and there’s this one detail that i always notice. it hurts like a bitch every time i see it too.

in the scene where janus is questioning logan, he obviously takes advantage of the fact that logan had been forgotten by thomas and the rest of the sides when they all entered the courtroom scenario in the first place. logan was (rightfully and obviously) shocked to notice that they were enacting the scenario without him, logic, the person who would undoubtedly be the most excited to do so and would have the most knowledge about courtroom procedures.

but there is the moment where he says that there’s “always room for him” and janus responds with, “i know, that’s what i said! but patton insisted we leave you alone” and that moment sticks with me whenever i watch this episode.

logan immediately turns to look at patton with a surprised, hurt look on his face because he can’t believe that patton would say something like that about him. it’s true that him and patton don’t usually see eye to eye on things, but patton does value his input and they resolved most of their issues during the earlier stages of the sanders sides videos (although not completely).

i find that interesting because whenever janus targets logan, he always makes it a point to draw attention to the fact that logan isn’t very well liked, mostly because he embodies logic and claims not to feel anything, unlike the rest of the sides (who as thomas once put it, are too zany or relatable). he even calls out logan for this during the events of svs.

his “oh, of course you don’t” is dripping with sarcasm and janus is the lord of the lies, he would know when someone is lying. keeping that aside, it was obvious that a few minutes ago, janus’ lie about patton disregarding logan’s usefulness during the courtroom scenario hurt logan, so much so that it was visible on his face. roman’s comment of “did you see the look on his face?” was a nod to that.

so logan, in saying that he doesn’t feel anything, is lying about his own feelings.

additionally, it’s not the first time janus has used patton specifically to counteract logan and lie to him. the whole episode of “can LYING be good?” featured janus, disguised as patton, playing to logan’s likings via patton’s charm. it was evident from the first minute that logan appeared onscreen.

after that, he simply had patton reference famous philosophers, and logan clearly admired that because he seemed to be quite happy about it, even though virgil immediately became suspicious.

janus picked up on the fact that logan didn’t believe that patton would ever try to hurt him on purpose, and at least patton wouldn’t exclude him from things. that patton would listen to him. which makes it all the more sad that in svs redux, when logan said that philosophers would not agree with patton (after patton asked for his input), patton took the easy way out and pulled logan out of the situation.

it’s also why logan ignored patton when he tried to offer comfort after logan reappeared and said “i’m just here to deliver one last fact, then i will do you all a favour and spare you my company.” in fact, he ended up yelling over patton so he could get his point across and actually be heard.

i love logan and patton’s duo, and i really hope they resolve this during logan’s arc. in the meantime, sending love to our logical boy because he needs it.

(an unofficial part two to this post is now up, delving a little more into logan and patton’s relationship. i’ve hyperfixated on the glasses gays at this point /hj)

#sanders sides #rambling prince thoughts #logicality #logan angst #logan sanders #patton sanders #janus sanders #selfishness vs selflessness #logan really needs a break #someone please give him a hug too while you’re at it #the nerd is trying his best and we love him for it

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softxsuki · 4 months

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HAPPY 1.5K HAN!!!!! 🥳 Your blog is getting so big already! IT MAKES ME SO HAPPYYYYYY!! 😁

Ahem- okay, so... if you're up for it, could you do the trope #1. enemies to lovers with BNHA? 🙏

Take your time, I love you! 😘

1.5k Follower Event Trope #1 My Hero Academia

Trope 1: Enemies to Lovers

This event is now CLOSED. You can view the masterlist for the event here.

Warnings: Slight curses from Bakugou, reader is hurt, blood

Note: Thank you so much! Sorry for the longish wait. Hopefully it was worth it! I had a lot of fun writing this one. I still can't believe I wrote 1.5k words, my gosh. Love you <3

Everything was a competition between the two of you; having gone to UA together and now working at the same agency as Pro Heroes, you were always racing to see who was the best.

Whenever a villain report was announced over the ear pieces you both wore, it would be a race to see who could get there first and take down the villain the quickest. During patrols, you’d both compare the number of civilians helped and received bonus points for any villains caught during patrol as well. You and Bakugou were rivals, but deep down there was something more that both of you refused to pursue.

It was almost natural now for Bakugou to see your smiling face, racing him to see who would arrive on scene first when you were both dispatched. So, he felt his heart falter slightly when he showed up that one specific day to catch a villain but you never appeared. He can’t help the feeling of disappointment that fills him upon not seeing your face, he could have sworn he also heard your name in his ear piece being called to aid in taking down the villain in front of him now…not that he needed your help or anything.

Shaking himself off, he quickly takes down the villain, handing him over to the police and doing any paperwork they needed from him before returning to the agency. It wasn’t the same, and he hated how upset he felt just because you weren’t there.

His journey back to the agency was torturous. He was getting antsy now that he had arrived back to the agency and still didn’t see you anywhere. Where were you? Why didn’t you show up and why weren’t you at the agency? He hadn’t heard anything about you being dispatched elsewhere.

Bakuogu fought back the voice in his head telling him to ask someone about you, so he could find out where you were. But he couldn’t do it, the last thing he needed people to think was that he was desperate or needy for you; he did NOT like you…right?

Minutes turn into hours and still no sign of you, Bakugou was starting to lose his patience. It was a particularly slow day at the agency, very few villains were appearing that night, which most of the interns that were around for the day could easily handle the ones that did decide to cause chaos. He had finished all his patrols for the day and Ii anything, he probably should have been home by now, but he remained, trying to look busy at his computer and grumbling a response to anyone that dared to bother him. Why the hell weren’t you back yet?

He had enough, with a rush of energy, he jumps up from his chair and storms out of his office to head to Kirishima, his friend, and try to nonchalantly ask about you. But he freezes in his place at his office door and he sees you hobbling down the hallway.

Slight relief fills him as soon as his eyes meet your form, yet even more questions arise in his mind when he takes in your state; you’re covered in blood and hobbling as the hero beside you guides you by your arm, helping you to the medical room they had in the building.

A gruff grunt escapes Bakugou’s throat as anger bubbles inside him upon seeing the rando beside you. But what gets him going is that damn smile on your face, the one that never seemed to leave it even now when you clearly were in terrible shape.

His feet seem to move before his mind can keep up as he’s in front of you in a matter of seconds, glaring at the guy holding your arm before shoving him away.

“Leave, I need to speak to Y/N about a mission,” He lies, hoping the guy wouldn’t suspect anything, but he’s speeding off in another direction before Bakugou has a chance to say anything else to him.

Turning to you, he replaces the guy's hand on your arm and continues to help you walk to the medical room, making your eyes widen slightly at his unusual gentleness, but your smile still remains despite the pain searing through your entire body.

“Where the hell were you?” He asks gruffly, looking straight ahead, feeling a little awkward. “You okay?”

“Why, were you worried?” You tease, trying to ease the awkwardness you felt running through him. You weren’t okay, he could see that and so could you, but he didn’t know what else to ask, so he remained silent…weirdly enough.

You sigh and explain your situation to him. “They called me in for a secret mission, said my quirk was ideal for it, but obviously I couldn’t tell anyone else about it. Guess I wasn’t strong enough though…I would have been a goner had Deku not shown up when he did.” You mumble, feeling ashamed at how weak you had been against that villain, you needed to get stronger. Though you shake off your negativity, and flash Bakugou your infamous grin, “But I’m okay now!”

“You’re plenty strong, you can keep up with me, and that says a lot,” Bakugou almost whispers back, he was acting very strange and unlike himself, but you felt your heart skip a beat at his attempt to console you.

Not wanting to embarrass him though, you change the subject as he continues to guide you to be evaluated.

Little did you know the fiery blond beside you was doing everything in his power to not push you into one of the empty offices you were both passing so he could inspect your injuries himself. He needed to know how badly you were hurt, but he held himself back as soon as the medical room came into view. You’d be okay.

He remains outside the door through your whole examination as someone with a healing quirk works on you. There’s only so much they can heal though, the rest was up to your own body to heal on its own. But Bakugou stands there, arms crossed around his chest the whole time.

As you’re dismissed and given specific instructions from the nurse on duty, you thank her and leave the room, your eyebrow arching up in surprise at the sight of Bakugou still standing there, doing his best to avoid your eyes. With a shrug, you walk away, heading to your office to collect your things before leaving the agency for the night. The nurse had stated you’d need to rest for a few weeks before you’d be ready to get back into action, but coming to the office to do paperwork would be more than okay to do.

You could feel the presence of the blond following your every move as you exit the building, walking in the direction of your home with him hot on your tail. Frustrated, you spin around, which makes him pause.

“What are you doing?” You ask, eyeing him.

“What? I live this way.”

That was a lie, you knew it was a lie, Bakugou lived in the complete opposite direction of you, but you could see the look of discomfort on his face, so you let it slide, spinning back around as you continued to walk, with him following your every move.

Bakugou knew what he was doing was strange, but he couldn’t help the sense of protection he felt in his chest at that moment for you. Crime in the city was slowly on the rise, and you clearly weren’t in any condition to defend yourself at the moment, so he just wanted to make sure you got home safe.

And that’s exactly what he did. For the whole two weeks you were healing, he walked you home, sometimes walking by your side as the two of you engaged in some conversation. Other times, you’d feel his large hand rest on the small of your back as a few people got too close, and he’d use his body as a shield so they didn’t touch you.

You were beyond confused, yet the way your face heated up and your heart picked up its pace told you, you were okay with it. Perhaps a little too okay with it, because once you were back to normal, your heart dropped, knowing he’d no longer walk you home. Your little two weeks of bliss with Bakugou around to aid you would be over.

So, at the end of the day when he appeared beside you like usual, your brows furrowed.

“What are you doing? I’m fine now,” you explain calmly, trying not to let your disappointment leak through your tone.

Bakugou smirks at you, tugging the bag his hero suit was in further up his shoulder. “Walking you home, what does it look like I’m doing?”

This continued every night after your shifts together, but some nights he’d invite you to dinner or his pinky finger would find its way to yours, holding it gently.

You two were definitely still rivals, nothing could satisfy Bakugou’s excitement for competition like you could, but now there was another layer of excitement that existed inside your hearts. One that could only be satisfied with little touches and quality time spent together, perhaps it would grow into more, the longer you both fed it with each other’s company.

Posted: 1/8/2024

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aeoris4lovers · 11 months

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when caleb is talking to the nein about his past before the dinner with trent, he tells them that in the time he spent under trent, astrid and wulf never wavered in their dedication or willingness. after rereading his origins comic, though, i think he’s wrong. i think there was a pretty significant period of time where eadwulf specifically was having doubts about what they were doing right in front of his eyes.

exhibit a: the bodies

this is the most subtle example of it, but it’s also the earliest and probably represents the very beginnings of whatever doubts were brewing in wulf’s mind.

in both of these instances, there’s a dead or unconscious body on the ground, and wulf is staring at it while bren talks to trent. it’s hard to tell where he’s looking in the second one, but a later frame makes it clear that he’s looking in the direction of a body.

in the first one particularly, he looks to me like he’s visibly upset — his face isn’t as stoic as the others, and his body language looks uncertain, not his usual crossed-arm stance.

these were the moments that first caught my eye. they brought up questions in my mind: what is he thinking? what’s going through his head as he looks at the people they just hurt?

exhibit b: the bath scene

this comes immediately after the second body, and is what confirmed in my mind that wulf definitely isn’t entirely on board with the things they’re being told to do.

he closes the door behind them and just stands with his fist against it. none of them look happy by any means, but it’s clear that he’s upset to a point where even bren and astrid, in the midst of their own feelings, look concerned and go to comfort him.

bren in particular takes a long moment with him before the two of them rejoin astrid. i’ll get into why that — and bren’s role in general — is significant in a moment.

exhibit c: the morning after

this is the most important point in all of this, and the significance of his reaction here really can’t be understated.

in this moment, trent has just drawn their attention to their “memories” of their parents defying the empire. these are, from their point of view, very real and undeniable memories. and yet, the reaction we see here from wulf is one of explicit and absolute rejection.

and he’s not just denying what trent wants him to believe — he’s angry. he’s standing up and slamming a hand on table and raising his voice. doubt has been simmering under the surface in him for a while now, and this is the moment that trent crosses a line. trent has presented something truly unthinkable to him and despite his own memories supporting it, he absolutely cannot believe it. on a very visceral level, he knows it can’t be right.

this moment is significant not only because it confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt that wulf is not completely sure of what they’re doing, but also because we literally never see another student of trent openly defy him like this, nor do we see any volstrucker do so.

let me repeat that: until caleb goes up against him with the nein, eadwulf is the only person we ever see look trent in the eye and say “you’re wrong.” even after all of campaign two, we never see someone actively working under him defy him that explicitly — it’s only caleb, who escaped his control, or people like the nein with no real connection to him. even when astrid acts against him, she does it very quietly and is clearly terrified of those actions being alluded to at the dinner. wulf is the only one we ever see who, while at trent’s mercy, dares to openly and completely reject him.

bringing his family into it was a step too far. at this point, wulf isn’t just struggling with what they’re being told — he’s absolutely not having it anymore.

so what gives?

we know that he ultimately believes trent enough to kill his parents, and is even the first of the three to do it, so how do we get to that level of agreement from such a powerful moment of anger and denial?

that’s where bren comes in.

looking back at that breakfast scene, we can also see how the other two react to their own memories coming to light.

astrid’s is one of betrayal. she’s confused and struggling to understand why they would do it, but she doesn’t deny it either.

bren’s, on the other hand, is one of defeat. he’s clearly upset, but he’s simultaneously totally certain that what they’re remembering is true. and of course he is — his memory has been impeccable his entire life. why would he start to question it now, even if he doesn’t want to believe what it’s telling him?

bottom line: while astrid clearly also struggles with it and may have her own doubts, though not as strong as wulf’s, bren takes it all in stride and never wavers.

and if there’s one thing we know about wulf, it’s that he trusts his people. throughout his scenes in campaign two, we see him looking to astrid for signs of what to do or say and deferring to her when he’s overwhelmed by or unsure of the situation at hand. when caleb takes his hand at the blooming grove, he follows, and when astrid takes his hand and leads him away, he follows her. where they go, he follows. he trusts them implicitly and he looks to them when he doesn’t know what the right call is.

so what is he going to do in that moment, when his own mind is telling him something that he absolutely can’t believe and he doesn’t know how to reconcile it? he looks to them for guidance.

astrid clearly isn’t in a place to offer much, and hasn’t been. she’s not as lost in doubt as he is, but she’s not certain enough to reassure him either. we can already see that in the bath scene — remember when i said it was significant that bren is the one to stay with wulf while astrid goes off on her own? she wants to comfort him and tries to because she cares about him, but it seems that her conviction isn’t quite strong enough to be a steady base for someone else. and in the breakfast scene, we see that again, with her not openly going against it but still struggling with it in a way bren doesn’t.

bren, on the other hand, is consistently certain that they’re doing the right thing, even when it feels bad. caleb says as much himself when he first tells beau and nott his story: “i was so sure, i was so sure, until i wasn’t.” hearing his parents scream as they die is genuinely the first time he ever has doubts. until that moment, he’s sure. he trusts his mind and he trusts trent and he believes in their cause.

so when he sees wulf struggling with it, what does he do? he offers that certainty, reminds him of why they’re doing what they do, assures him that they’re doing the right thing and he doesn’t have to feel guilty. he’s their rock, the one wulf and astrid can trust to be sure even when their faith is shaken.

and that’s exactly what i think happens in the time between that breakfast and the night they kill their parents: bren sees wulf angry and totally lost trying to make sense of the massive gulf between what he remembers and what he knows to be true, he sees astrid confused and not able to put the pieces together, and he reassures them because he trusts his mind and so do they and he doesn’t want to see them struggle.

and i think astrid needs less convincing, but once she’s sure too and it’s only wulf that can’t accept it, that’s when he starts to think that maybe the unthinkable could really be true. bren is certain of what he remembers and astrid is certain that bren is right, so how can wulf, who trusts and relies on them so much for guidance, not at least entertain the idea that his parents really are traitors? how can he deny it and, in doing so, deny them?

that’s how he can ultimately go and do what he’s told, with such a stern and certain look on his face as he does. because his people were sure that it was the right thing to do, and no matter how strongly he feels that something must be wrong, he trusts them even more than he trusts himself.

that’s not to say that his doubts are completely quelled, though, because there’s still more of this thread that we can follow.

exhibit d: the aftermath

wulf’s move to knock bren out and save astrid is a quick and decisive one in the moment, but it’s clear that he isn’t at all sure if he did the right thing. he talks to trent — explaining himself, maybe even apologizing because he thinks he was wrong — and trent has to stop him and say that no, he was right.

this is significant for two reasons. the first and more obvious of the two is that this shows he’s still in a headspace of questioning what he’s doing almost immediately after doing it. that doubt was quelled long enough to allow him to complete the “exercise”, but not by any means gone for good.

the second, which i think is the most important to the person he ultimately becomes, is that this is the first time he’s had to look to trent for reassurance.

before this moment, it’s bren and astrid who comfort and reassure him. but now, bren is lost to them and astrid is in no shape to offer any comfort, much less give him the reassurance bren might have. and she might not want to do so even if she could — she wanted to save bren, not leave him behind, and may very well be angry at wulf for the choice he made. so what choice does he have, with neither of them able to support him, but to look to his mentor for reassurance?

and what happens once he gets that reassurance from trent? before, he doubted trent and even openly defied him, but can he continue to do that now?

if he wants to be able to live with himself after, to live with the choice he made and sleep at night, he has to believe that the reassurance trent offered him that night was right — he has to believe that trent’s judgment is right. if trent is lying or just wrong, that means he did the wrong thing that night, and where can he go from there?

that night is a turning point for wulf not just because he took his parents out of the picture, but because he made a decision that ended up forcing him to trust trent to an extent that he really didn’t before.

the new eadwulf

the wulf that we meet in campaign two as an adult is a far cry from the wulf who stood up at that table and said “no, they would never.” he comes across as largely apathetic to and even comfortable with the things they do — it’s just a job for him, not something to overthink or get hung up on. as far as he’s concerned, the lives they take are unfortunate but still necessary sacrifices, just like trent always said.

and if you ask me, his journey to becoming that person, to the doubt and the fire in him being all but completely stomped out, starts with the night he was forced to give up his one source of constant reassurance and finally put his trust in trent instead. everything we see him do to separate himself from his actions, from his belief in fate and his “good soldier” attitude to the drink he has ready after spending time with trent, stems from that moment. he is the way he is when we meet him not because he simply doesn’t care, but because he can no longer afford to.

caleb says they never wavered while he was with them, but i think it’s only because his vision was clouded by his own certainty that he never saw it. he just couldn’t believe that they might not believe in their cause as much as he did because it seemed so right to him, and how could he believe that the people he loved would doubt something so important?

but they did doubt it, especially wulf, and even as an adult, little bits of that stick around in him — he immediately gravitates toward caduceus after caduceus stands up to trent, and as soon as trent isn’t a threat anymore, he’s perfectly content to just stay with caleb (and probably would have if astrid hadn’t pulled him away when she did).

i think, if bren hadn’t been selected for the volstrucker program or just hadn’t been as confident as he was in all of it, it may very well have been eadwulf who found himself standing against trent in the end.

#thank you for coming to my ted talk #this turned out so much longer than i expected i just. have so many wulf thoughts #no clue if this made sense but i needed to write it all out #sometimes you gotta just. write an essay about some shit that no one asked to hear #cr meta #eadwulf grieve #blumendrei #caleb widogast #astrid becke #bren aldric ermendrud #eodwulf grieve #blumentrio #c2 #the mighty nein #critical role #critical role meta

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