#what was left of her mortal home was already gone

[ladamedemartel]

hc + home

send me  ‘ hc ‘  + a word and i’ll write a headcanon about it regarding my character.

Tristan. Just, that's the tweet. Tristan is her home. Now, if you were to ask her, she would probably say that France is her home, but realistically, wherever Tristan is is her home. Though generally she prefers more Mediterranean climates, so she and Tristan likely rotate around there for the most part, but even Elijah was aware that wherever Tristan goes, Aurora follows.

#;;headcanons #france as it is today wasn't really a thing when aurora was human #and while yes #i think the first place that tristan and lucien took aurora after the compulsion broke was france #home became much more about tristan #and even #to a lesser extent #lucien #rather than a place #by the time the compulsion broke #what was left of her mortal home was already gone #tristan and lucien were the only remaining links to who /aurora/ was before she was made to be rebekah #and while i don't think the compulsion wiped out her personality or anything like that #it was still hard

[dailyadventureprompts]

Dungeon: A Bleak Picture

Unsure whether they've been trapped inside a painting or been cast back in time, the party must venture through the desolate ruins of a once warm and familiar place to rescue a number of innocents that've gone missing after being abducted by some shadowy force.

Adventure Hooks:

The party arrive in the town of Valasren on innocuous business, following the rumors of a ruin, attending a nearby shrine, or visiting some old friends. When they arrive they're given an unexpectedly amiable welcome by lord Lucas Kevral, who's heard of their earlier exploits and wants to cultivate a good relationship with such aspiring heroes. While taking him up on an invitation to dine at his castle, the party spy a gloomy painting depicting Valasren in ruins. Lord Kevral explains that it was painted to commemorate the near destruction of the town some generations ago, when one of his ancestors left the settlement defenceless to go off seeking glory in war. His grandmother commissioned the painting from one of the survivors, and hung it in a place of honour so she nor any of her descendants would forget their duty to defend the people.

As the party pursue their mission around Valasren they'll begin to notice a number of disappearances that only seems to climb as time ticks on. Rumors begin to circulate about something moving in the night, stalking people, creeping into their homes when they're asleep, leaving only open doors and empty beds come daylight. These rumours become all too real when the party awake one morning to find one of their number missing, taken without a whisper from where they slept. A scattering of untrustworthy witnesses say they saw an unnatural figure carrying a sack up the hill towards the Lord's castle, giving them at least a ghost of a trail.

Following the trail back to the palace eventually leads the party to the painting, an inexplicable cold draft intermittently drifting from its now permeable surface.

Background: The painter who witnessed the destruction of Valasren was a true master, and was years later able to immortalize the hopelessness they felt in that moment through their skill with the brush. There is power in such emotional resonance, and transformed the painting into an overlap with the shadowfell, where the town's sorrow had likewise been reflected. Not quite a portal, the painting never did much harm but making the already drafty castle hall a little more cold and unwelcoming at night, at least until recent days.

Drawn by the warmth of life and merriment on the air, A Snatcher has discovered the painting and forced its way through, one by one dragging inhabitants of Valasren into the upside down for an unknown purpose.

Challenges & Complications:

Once the party figure out there's something up with the painting, cut to the abducted player waking up in the ruined shadow-town. There's no corresponding painting anywhere to be seen, and because they were taken while they were asleep they're likely a bit exhausted and missing most of their gear. They'll have to be quiet and clever to escape the nightmare things and lingering spirits that dwell within Valasren's shadow, but doing so may give them vital clues about what's really going on. Keep the tension on until the isolated hero is backed into a corner, then have the rest of their friends arrive.

It's a grim irony that before war came to Valasren, the painter was working on capturing the beauty and peace of their home town on canvas, only for that work to be destroyed in the town's raising. Thinking it lost forever, the painter added it in as a detail nearby the burnt out remains of their workshop as a meditation on the happiness thought taken from them. Like many things lost to the mortal world, an echo of the painting has come to reside in the shadowfell, and acts as the exit portal back into the land of light. Finding it though is a problem, the snatcher has removed it from it's resting place and given it over to the terrible entity lairing in the castle. Where they've put it, who can say?

Numerous townsfolk have been pulled into the shadowfell and are scattered about the echo of a place they thought they knew. Lost, affraid, and isolated, many of them have run for cover or have started to sink into the spirit siphoning torpor that afflicts all to dwell too long in shadow.

Extra special thanks to @dm-tuz , who's monsters are ALWAYS an inspiration.

Artsource

#shadowfell #shadowfell dungeon #town #town encounter #rescue mission #hub #dungeon

[chiefdirector]

Searching | Tim Bradford | The Rookie

Part One

Two Years Ago

Tim felt his blood run cold. 

The words all made sense out loud, he knew what he was being told. But he himself could not make any sense of it. How could he? How could he make sense of any of this? How could she have just vanished? It wasn't meant to go like this; Tim wasn’t meant to lose her.

His body tensed as his mind began to race. He was meant to protect her, he should've been there to make sure that she was safe. He should've been there with her. He should have done something. He had failed her.

Grey repeatedly told him that he couldn't have changed the outcome, as if that would convince the man. Deep down inside Tim knew that was true. There was no way that the LAPD would let him anywhere near this operation. The pair of them were already on thin ice considering that they were both stationed at the Mid-Wilshire precinct. But despite the knowledge that it wasn’t his fault, Tim could not help the guilty feeling creeping back. He was her husband, he had vowed to always keep her safe. Now she could be in mortal danger and he was incapable of helping her.

Grey had also tried to send Bradford home. He lost that battle very quickly. Tim wouldn’t just sit at home and let other people take over. He couldn't. He had to help; he had to find her, even if it was the last thing he would do.

Search parties and covert operations were authorised, Tim took point on anything that he 

could. Captain Anderson gave him a chance, she knew it was risky with how strongly Tim felt about this but she also knew that nobody would look as hard and as thoroughly as he would.

He lasted two days before he was removed from the taskforce. 

——————

One Year Ago

Files were strewn across the coffee table. They had been for days, it was easier to keep them out than put them away every day. It was what he had spent the most of his free time doing, searching through files that he had already read back to front at least a hundred times. But maybe, just maybe, on the hundred-and-first time would he find something different, spot something that had been missed. Maybe in these pages he would find the answer he longed for.

But even at this point, Tim could feel the thought that this was all pointless, that (Y/N) would never be found, creeping in. He was a cop, he knew that the chances of finding a missing person after the first forty-eight hours plummeted drastically, and the chances of finding them alive was even less.

Still he picked up the file again, flipping to the beginning where he saw the initial missing persons report. They used two pictures, one was her portrait taken by the department, and the other was one taken by Tim. The two of them had gone away on a road trip for their honeymoon. At the time, (Y/N) had not yet cut her hair shorter, so the winds of the Grand Canyon were blowing it crazily in all directions. She smiled as wildly at the camera, eyes shining in joy. After Tim had taken that, another tourist offered to take the camera so the young couple could have a nice photo together. In that one, (Y/N) no longer faced the camera but her husband, and somehow her smile was even bigger.

That second photo was framed and carefully placed on Tim’s bedside table. It was his favourite photo and if she was never found, it was the way he wanted to remember her: happy, spirited, and free.

Tim didn't know what it was, whether it was the growing helplessness or the nostalgia of seeing his wife’s smile but he stood up, letting the paper fall to the ground, and meandered towards the bedroom. On the dresser stood her jewellery box, it hadn't been moved since she had left. He gently opened the lid and took out a simple chain. Next he slipped the ring from its place on his left hand and mounted it on the chain before attaching it around his neck.

——————

Six Months Ago

Life went on.

He knew it would, it was expected but that it didn’t mean it wasn’t any less daunting. He learnt to handle the day-to-day. He went grocery shopping, he did laundry, chores, cleaning, errands. He went on, one day at a time, it was the only way he could survive. Weeks seemed like years, months like decades. So Tim counted every single one of them: 547 days since she had disappeared. 562 since he last saw her. 

But life went on nonetheless. No matter how he documented it, the seconds, hours, minutes all flew by. (Y/N) just became another face in the sea of LAPD cold cases, another name that people would vaguely recall. And as she disappeared from the memories of many of his coworkers, he became more and more ghost-like. He never regained that joy he had from when he had her by his side.

He became a hardass, a stickler for rules, vengeful, angry, lost.

He was lost, but that was okay. He was okay with being like that because that meant the memory of her was not. He would remain a ghost, stuck in the past. A being that would never move on from what was taken from it. It provided comfort in some sort of sick and twisted way. He could relish in the memory of her, he could close his eyes and pretend she was there beside him.

He could guide others, help them not become him. Help them be better. He would take on another rookie, he would mould them into a model officer, and he would have to hope and pray that their fate would be better than his.

Part One | Part Three

Series Masterlist | Masterlist

Tags: @xceafh @kmc1989

Tags are open

#tim bradford x reader #tim bradford #tim bradford imagine #the rookie imagine #the rookie #chiefdirector #bottom of the river

[whereserpentswalk]

You sell items to adventurers for a living. It's relatively easy to get business in a frontier city like the one you live in. You were planning on becoming an adventurer yourself but an injured leg when you were young prevented that. But because you already know how to find items, and how they should be fairly priced, so it's a good living.

Not everyone who thinks of themselves as adventurers actually are adventurers. You sometimes have to sell weapons to naive groups of kids, who have no idea what they're doing. Useally you humor them, they tend to go off into useless places with no gold to be found, an old mineshaft that's been explored a thousand times over has become famous for such things. If they seem like they'll go somewhere way more dangerous than they should, you point them to the mineshaft.

Of course, most of your business is from actual adventurers. They tend to be wanderers, foreigners, a lot of ex merchants or ex millitary, or children of nobility who cant inherent, the type of people who never had the chance to make a safe living. Most of them are nice to you, and if they're not you know how to get them to leave.

You also know how to become a protecter for the adventuring parties who need it. Your shop is basically the center of their community in this part of the city. If a spellcaster is part of an illegal religion, or performing banned practices, you know what symbols to sell them to help them hide themselves. If someone is clearly a runaway slave or serf, or from a race that's considered a monster in this part of the world, you know how the forge the right documents. There was a hobgoblin who frequented your shop for a long time, who you sold weapons to, who you had to testify in front of the city sherif was not a hobgoblin but was infact a member of a rare subrace of elf that you made up to protect him. You may have also recently made an entire fictional category of magic legally real for the sake of protecting some necromancers you know.

There are some people you never sell to. It's not considered good principle to sell to people who would gladly kill your other clients. There was a group of warriors weilding holy magic who talked a lot about punishing sinners, they came back with the heads of goblins and hobgoblins a lot, and vampires, and humans of religions other then theirs. After they started bringing in more of their freinds you cut them off.

There are people who you wished you hadn't sold to for other reasons. There was this human noble girl who you sold a suit of armor to, she had run away from an arranged marriage and joined an adventuring party so she could be as far from her parents as possible. She seemed so excited to be in a big city, to be out in the world, she chatted with you for hours about an epic poem from ages long gone that she liked. When she came back to your shop after her first quest she had turned undead, something happened in her first dungeon that changed her, her skin was pale, and her teeth had turned sharp, you just remember her shivering and trying to cry, and muttering about how cold she was. Her other party members said they were happy she was more durable like this, they didn't seem to care about her outside of that.

And of course, there's the fact that every adventurer you know, useally doesn't come back eventually. When a full party goes you can assume they left town, but when just one or two from a party is missing there tends to be one explanation. Most adventurers don't have long careers, and mortality especially high for rookies. But you don't tend to ask if anyone is dead, it's better to just assume they went home, as implausible as it may be.

#196 #my thougts #worldbuilding #writing #my worldbuilding #my writing #fantasy #rpg #ttrpg community #ttrpg #goblins #goblin #dnd #pathfinder #adventuring party #vampire #undead #dark fantasy #original fiction #flash fiction #short story #short fiction #high fantasy

[dragonmurray]

Childish Games

Pairing - Loki x F Reader

In which a bet made amongst avengers junior agents leads you to finally confronting your feelings for Loki.

Warnings - smut

“What is it you want Price?” You asked the young agent as you stood in the training room of the Avengers compound. You had just completed a round of training with a group of first years, looking to work their way up in to the field and join the ranks of full agents.

You were already there. Having excelled in all fields, you were now working with the Avengers and actively joining missions. You had quarters in the Tower and there was never any doubt that you belonged there.

“Actually it’s what I can do for you Agent. It hasn’t gone unnoticed you know” said the cocky agent. He stood next to you, arms folded across his chest, smirking down at you as you gathered the last of the equipment from the floor, ready to head home for the evening.

“Please get to your point faster Price, we all have places to be” you couldn’t wait to get back to the Tower. To sneak in to the library and catch a certain god reading. How you loved when he would read to you and tell stories of his youth. You had struck up quite a friendship. Though your heart ached for more.

“You are alone agent y/n, there’s no Mr Agent waiting for you at the tower. You never date. I bet it’s been years since you’ve been kissed. Let me change that” he gripped your arm pulling you upwards in an attempt to bring his mouth to yours. Before he could get close to your face his arm was twisted enough to bend, his legs buckling and an undignified scream escaping his lips.

“Touch me again Price and I will break you, limb by limb, molecule by molecule, until there is nothing left of you but ash and unkissable dust. Now tell me, what the hell are you doing?” You pressed him further into the cold stone floor of the training room, your knee in his spine.

Suddenly the doors to the training room flew open. Loki entered, dragging an equally terrified female trainee behind him.

“Ah, I see I am too late to rescue you Agent. Have you heard what the children are up to?” His voice dripping with malice, sending a shiver down your spine. Did nothing sound bad from his mouth?

You looked at him with confusion as you buried your feelings, once again.

“It seems they have a game being played, they each have avengers assigned to them to try and seduce into bed. This poor thing here, picked me. A clear mistake on her part. I would never lower myself to such a level”. He glared at the trainee behind him, pushing her over to her friend on the floor as you stood up. Price letting out a relived cry.

Loki’s words stung. You knew he was a God. A God couldn’t be with a mortal, why would he try.

“Spill it Price, tell me everything” you sighed. Moving to stand next to Loki, looking down at the two agents like disappointed teachers.

“It’s just a bit of fun, seeing how far we could get before the end of the year. We’ve only got 2 weeks left and you’re the only two left not to crack. You’ve never been seen with anyone so we figured we had to try” he whined rubbing his bruised arm, and ego.

“So this is all because we’re the only avengers not throwing ourselves around? Although I am surprised at Steve” you shrugged.

“He caved pretty quickly, Janine dressed up in a 40s uniform and he kissed her then cried, it was pretty sad actually” said the female agent, she looked down as she mumbled.

Loki stepped forward “I see. Well, we disappoint you then. And it’s off to bed for you two. Goodnight agents, we will leave this little failed operation between ourselves, for now” he glowered down at the two.

As he was talking, an idea was forming in your head. Slowly working it’s way to the surface.

“You know, we could end this now Loki. Take ourselves off the game cards” you said.

He slowly turned to you, his eyes shimmering with confusion.

“I mean, I don’t know about you but I don’t like being cornered by idiots. I also don’t like the reputation of never being kissed. Which isn’t true by the way” you glared at Price.

The two agents on the floor stood up, thinking they were about to win big and compete their score cards. But, before they could straighten, Loki took two strides across the room taking your face in his hands and bringing your mouths together.

You stumbled but his hand reached behind your back pressing you against him, hard. He tilted his head, his tongue asking permission to enter your mouth which you granted, still too shocked as your arms hung in the air unsure how to react.

As his tongue slid against yours, you melted. Your hands went to his chest, gripping his shirt. He moaned in to your mouth pulling you even closer to him. As if nothing was good enough, as if he needed to be one with you.

The two agents stood dumbfounded. As moans started to fill the room they made their hasty escape. Either way they had lost this round.

As the training room door slammed shut you pulled backwards gasping for breath and sanity.

“I… we… I mean..” you stuttered, with no idea what you were even trying to say.

Loki gave you a devilish smile. “Oh agent, I couldn’t agree more” he pulled you back to him slamming your lips together as you both gasped. Gripping each other and pulling at each other’s clothes.

He pushed you backwards until you hit the locker wall, instantly gripping your thighs to wrap them around his waist. You opened up for him, grinding on to him. Incoherent mumbles leaving your mouth.

“I had always pictured our first time being slow, meticulous on my part Agent, but I fear I am past the point of no return. I need to be inside you, now, I have already waited too long to show you how I feel” Loki growled into your ear as he placed kisses down your neck. Your head falling back in ecstasy.

“I didn’t hear a lot of that, my head is swimming. But if I’m correct, then take me Loki, now, please” you sighed.

A green glow worked it’s way across your bodies as your clothes melted away. His cock pressing against your dripping core as the barriers between you disappeared. You took his face in your hands forcing him to look into your eyes.

“Loki, I need you to know. To me you are always worthy. I will always chose you” overwhelmed with emotions you poured your heart out as a million fantasies finally came true.

Loki’s eyes blazed in to yours with so much emotion you couldn’t comprehend.

“Y/n. I have waited eternity for you, and I will spend eternity worshipping you”

With his declaration he pushed inside you. Both of your crying out in pleasure as he set a steady pace. You had never felt anything like this and could do nothing more than grip his shoulders as the pleasure built inside you.

He picked up the pace, burying his head in your shoulder. Kissing and biting as he speared in to you. You couldn’t hold it any longer, your orgasm slammed into you like a freight train and you screamed his name.

Loki gripped your hair to slam your mouths together as he emptied himself inside you. Both of your breaths mingling as you tried to steady your heart rates.

His forehead rested on yours as he slowly withdrew from you, setting your shaking legs on the ground but not letting you go incase you fell. The green glow clothes you both again and you held on to each other. Emotions whirling around you.

Doubt started to creep in. Was this all a heat of the moment scenario? Would he move on to the next conquest? Loki saw your eyes change and tilted your chin up to meet his eyes.

“Take my hand Agent. We are going to my chambers and we will not leave until I have worshipped every inch of your body and proved to you that you are mine” he kissed your hand and started walked towards the door pulling you with him.

A cracking sound filled the room as Tony’s voice came over the intercom “Does no one in this compound care about the cameras? My eyes are burned. Also I erased it, you’re welcome kids”

#loki smut #loki #loki god of mischief #loki laufeyson #loki odinson #loki x reader #loki of asgard #loki x you #loki x y/n

[sweet-evie]

Pure Love

Rewatched JJK 0 recently, and caught the feels...

Content: JJK0 timeline... Post-Suguru... Established relationship, AFAB!OC, nameless OC, she/her/hers pronouns, Fluff, Angst & Comfort, Cheesy thoughts about love (like it's actually disgustingly cheesy), Lovesick!Gojo, Soft!Gojo, Sad!Gojo

✨ masterlist ✨

The blade slipped from his fingers and clattered loudly against the ground — the final punctuation to what should have been an unforgivable deed according to the laws of mortal men. He couldn’t bear to hold on to the blade, not when the deed was done, and not when he had already accomplished what was once unthinkable. 

He stared at his own hands and the specks of red that stained the pale flesh, stared at the man he’d called his best friend, his one and only, even after a decade had come and gone. He was horribly disfigured, the sight made uglier by the clean cut across his throat — just an empty shell of what he had always known.

His friend really had gone. The familiar traces of Suguru’s cursed energy, snuffed out — as it should be, and none other than at the hands of the strongest sorcerer alive — none other than at the hands of his best friend.

The tears wouldn’t come and the shortness of his breath didn’t abate. He couldn’t bring himself to stand again either, just numbly content to kneel on one knee before Suguru’s corpse — the murder weapon several inches away from his trembling fingers. Closing his hands into tight fists, Satoru refused to look away. He had priorities. He still had to check on his students despite the fact that he knew they were actually okay. But all the same, his own legs betrayed him and refused to get up — refused to leave. Suguru deserved better than this, and Satoru only had himself to blame for failing to see his friend’s struggles all those years ago — so absorbed in his own tumultuous thoughts, he’d unintentionally left his friend in the dust at a time when Suguru needed him most.

“Satoru…”

His ears barely registered the sound of his own name and the familiar set of footprints behind him. He now knew it was her, but he couldn’t bring himself to move still. He wanted to say something, he knew he needed to say something, but the words couldn’t quite leave his tongue. His own voice refused to cooperate. And for this, he would choose silence over the utterance of something careless and brash.

No number of words could properly express how he felt at this moment. Devastation, loss, guilt, anger at himself, exhaustion.

She was quiet and respectfully distant, offering him respite yet reminding him that he wasn’t alone — that he didn’t have to be alone. Not when he had her.

There were no words of reassurance, no expressions of verbal sympathy. Once again, she just knew that it wasn’t what he needed right now. Perhaps for later, but right now, he needed the silence, and not for the first time, he was eternally grateful for her unfailing understanding of his nature. She let him stew in his thoughts, let him feel whatever it was he needed to feel — just as she gladly shouldered the brunt of the turmoil he felt. She was steadfast and simply carried the burden of his loss alongside him.

A burden shared was a burden halved, was it not?

He vaguely registered her movement, noting that she’d left her naked katana on the ground in favor of kneeling beside him. A pair of familiar arms wrapped around his shoulders from behind as she buried her face into the crook of his neck and just held him. Her fingers threaded through his hair gently, drawing small soothing circles all over his scalp. His body responded to her touch and her ministrations, leaning into her compassion and her understanding.

And he was grateful for it all… Grateful to her even as grief swallowed him whole and left an empty space in his soul where Suguru used to be.

=OoOoO=

His sullen mood lasted all through the night. Even when they eventually returned to the home they shared, her Love stayed quiet and so very subdued.

The heaviness of loss combined with the weight of what he’d done for his best friend’s sake kept chipping away at him until she was left with a grieving husk — a man removed from his vibrant and cheery personality. She didn’t expect him to be okay at all. He could take as long as he wanted, and she would stay beside him all the same — to be there for him whenever he needed her (not that he would ever tell her that out loud). He never shed a single tear, never so much as sobbed or caved under the oppression of his own emotions. But he didn’t need to cry to show just how broken and defeated he felt.

He laid on his side all night, staring off into space — grieving in silence, perhaps even blaming himself. It honestly wouldn’t be the first time. It meant a lot that he was comfortable enough to let her be in his space while he wallowed in undeserved self-loathing. As they stayed longer in front of Suguru’s lifeless body that afternoon, she could feel his trust and gratitude in the way he buried himself in her arms.

And so as the night wore on, she didn’t hesitate to spoon him. They lay together with her arms around him and her lips leaving affectionate kisses on the crown of his head, his temple, or his cheek.

She drifted off to sleep with him in her arms and when she woke again in the middle of the night, the space he occupied beside her was empty. He was still in the apartment. In fact, she knew exactly where he would be. Padding out of the bedroom in her sleeping shorts and one of his T-shirts, she found him standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling glass windows.

Her heart breaking for him all over again, she stopped and stood beside him. She pretended not to notice the way his heavy gaze landed on her. Neither dark sunglasses nor pesky blindfolds obstructed her view of those gorgeous blues.

He embraced her this time, took her into his arms and held her tightly as they stared at the distant yet flickering night lights that dotted the rest of the Tokyo metropolis. Sheltered in his grasp with her ear resting on the place where she could feel and hear his steady heartbeat, his fingers found their way into her hair as his other hand moved up a little to caress her face and trace her features like he’d done hundreds of times before.

“Thank you.” He whispered quietly into her hair. “To be honest, I don’t know what to say right now. But perhaps it’s for the best. Just… thanks for not leaving me alone. I— I won’t be okay for a while, but it’ll get better.”

“I understand.” She smiled and squeezed him a little, more affectionately than she would like to admit. “I love you and I’ll be here. I’ll always be here.”

“Always there.” He echoed quietly. “You’ve always been there.”

“Do you need anything?” She pulled back a little to peer up at him through her lashes.

“You. I just need you.”

His lips pressed to her forehead, she basked in his love and the gentle yet potent thrum of his power simmering just underneath his skin. Inhaling deeply, she burrowed further into his arms, stepping ever closer into his space until she couldn’t tell where she began and he ended. Pressed so close to him, one of his hands drifted to cradle her cheek, tilting her head up ever so slightly so that when he leaned down to eliminate the space between them, brush his thumb across her lower lip, and initiate a tender kiss, she melted into it. They’d kissed plenty of times before and yet this one felt so different — filled to the brim with assurance, absolution, and comfort. A kiss so full of love, it made her head spin and her toes curl.

She was so in love with him and if he wasn’t holding on to her or too busy kissing her senseless right now, the force of the renewed realization would have knocked her off her feet. She sighed onto his lips when they parted long enough to catch their breaths, and when he leaned in again to kiss her, she let him — let him take as much of her as he wanted just as she basked and indulged in the love he poured into her.

It was… beautiful, exhilarating, blissful, consuming, and so unconditional.

It was so raw and wanting, so encompassing. So much love, her own heart could barely take it. He loved her so deeply and completely, all of the longings he’d had pent up, rushing out all at once to overwhelm her and ground her so firmly into his presence — fueled by a desperate need to communicate the depths of his love lest cruel fate intervened one day and he would never have the chance.

For as much as he grieved and agonized over the loss of someone who was tied and bound to his soul, he also reveled in the beauty and consuming nature of the love he found and shared with her — a love nurtured and cherished for nine long and precious years.

They parted quietly, softly gasping for air that couldn’t enter their lungs fast enough, staying close enough for their breaths to mingle.

A fond smile graced those lips as he regarded her with tenderness through half-lidded eyes that held infinite blue skies.

How he loved her so…

He kissed each cheek, the bridge of her nose, each eyelid, her forehead, and her lips again.

When she reached up to touch his cheek, eyes misty with gratitude and adoration for the man who always chose her from the moment they met, he held her hand against his face, turning to the side to kiss her fingers and her palm with the reverence he reserved just for her — his partner, his equal.

For her… For the love of his life.

==========================================

[Dumped in AO3]

#jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jjk x reader #gojo x reader #satoru x reader #gojou satoru x y/n #gojo satoru x y/n #gojo x y/n #satoru x y/n #gojo x fem!reader #gojo x oc #satoru gojo x you #gojo satoru x you #gojo x you #satoru gojo #gojo satoru #gojo x fem!OC #jjk x you #wbad fanfiction

[hihiitscai]

Dimension 20 moments that have hit me right where it hurts (spoilers ahoy):

Fantasy High

"My parents just left and I don't know where they are"

"Having panic attacks? That is not a character flaw, you understand?"

"I do not know why I was so easy to discard"

"Will you be my big sister? I'd really like for you to be my big sister"

"In the same way that your heart feels and your mind thinks, you, mortal beings, are the instrument by which the universe cares. If you choose to care, it cares. If you don't, it doesn't"

"It's Gorgug, keep going"

Unsleeping City

"You can't take other peoples' reality away to be real

"You come for my family, you come for my friends, I will drop you"

"I am faithful! I was faithful! I would have continued to be faithful!"

"You know, just kind of when you're already in a shame spiral and then people are good to you, it almost stings a little bit worse"

"I owe you an explanation, and an apology"

"You're not done yet, kid"

"Hey, I want you all to meet Langston Brown"

“My love—for you are my love, my one true love: you don’t need to enter, because you are already here. You do not need to become real, because you already are”

“American dreams change”

Crown of Candy

"Don't let them kill me" "I will die before they kill you"

"My last wish is for you to come home"

"Bring her back!"

"Hello, Liam"

"You can be my sister or you can be my queen but I cannot give you both"

"Even something as primal as a dragon can be changed by the wish for a better world"

“I misjudged you, chancellor.” “Oh, shut up”

Misfits and Magic

"I have the best friends...nothing I'm ever gonna do is worth endangering any of that"

"You're not GOING anywhere!"

A Court of Fey and Flowers

“You’re more than just a goblin”

“They’re good things to me”

“Thank you for allowing me to see you. It is an honor that I will never disgrace”

“He turns to join the goblins, and in that moment, knows himself a coward”

“Thank you for seeing me”

“You guys are alive, and there’s nothing wrong with that”

“If you are orphaned then so am I, and you will never know a lonely day again, not while I draw breath”

Mice and Murder

“You being duped is the only lie I can’t believe”

“I forgive you”

“I’ve never truly been in love”

“I will not change for you so you may as well just give me up”

The Seven

“Thanks for showing up”

Neverafter

“I don’t know what I might do to try to get in”

"If I was so dead, where was my funeral?! Where’s my headstone?"

“But when you’re gone, I don’t really know what I’m supposed to be fighting for”

“It’s only gotten harder to make friends, now”

“It is as painful to lose as it is wonderful to have”

#dimension 20 #crown of candy #fantasy high #the unsleeping city #pete the plug #kingston brown #sofia lee #adaine abernant #jawbone o'shaughnessey #liam wilhelmina #king amethar #amethar rocks #evan kelmp #misfits and magic #a court of fey and flowers #acofaf #mice and murder #Daisy D’umpstaire #sylvester cross #neverafter #ylfa snorgelsson #red riding hood

[shini--chan]

Hello there! Can I request a yandere light yagami blackmailing a smart classmate into working as assistance in his ministration and falling for her or a yandere karasuma falling for a normal female teacher of class E? Thank you and have a good day regardless!

Of course you may, and both ideas will be addressed. 

Yandere Light Yagami - The Tree of Insight

What a wondrous day it had been, thinking that you had gone mad. The worst part of it was that that monster had taken the greatest pleasure in taunting, floating above you and quipping and giggling the longer the hours drew by. Not even covering your ears had blocked out the rasping voice, as it had mused that you were awfully particular for a mortal. 

When you got back home, you would go through your family's medical records to see if schizophrenia infected one of the branches - that might explain the hallucinations then.

Ryuk, or that was at least what he called himself, bobbed up and down as he floated to your side. The other students that were walking up and down the road didn't bother him, as he simply fazed right through them. Suddenly, the apparition flew sideways, and out of reflex, you imitated the apparition out of reflex. 

"Keep going that way, kid. You have somebody waitin' for ya", the raspy voice of that… thing, said loud and clear. As fried as your nerves were, you were tempted to lash out, to disobey out of petulance. Today had been a rough day, and it had been reflected in your demeanour.

Your peers had constantly been casting worried glances your way, and even a teacher had pulled you aside to inquire if everything was alright. As touching as you would have normally found it, it had just been annoying and had exacerbated your mounting irritation. By the end of the school day, you had just wanted to be left alone. Maybe that's why you solemnly followed the floating clown’s instructions - yelling out loud would just make you appear mad, and you were also curious to where heeding the directions would lead to. 

There really was somebody waiting for you - a little to the side of the road, at the  edge of the park that was directly next to the school, was Light Yagami. Now that was strange - he normally went home with his friends. Then again, he had been acting weird for the past few weeks, his slightly standoffish nature being amped up to 11. 

As you approached him, he lowered the book that he had been reading, and raised a questioning eyebrow. All of this seemed like a bad idea. Then, the monster ripped the book out of the boy’s hands and added: “Not act so oblivious. You’re gonna get nowhere by playing coy now, kid”. 

Light shot it a baleful look. “Getting bored already, Ryuk?”, he asked slightly. Brown eyes focused on you the entire time, gouging your reactions. Before this conversation could continue without you, you butted in:

“You can see him too, Light? What is your connection to this … thing?”

It was comforting that you weren’t seeing things that weren’t really there, but on the flip side it meant that more sinister things were afoot. Judging from the plotting expression on your classmates face, he surely wouldn’t disappoint when it came to the latter. 

“Ryuk here is a shinigami, and before you ask, he’ll be in your life a while longer. How, that is up to you to decide.”

Why was he being so unusual to the point? Though, his statement did imply that he had a measure of control over this shinigami. An interesting tidbit that you would dwell and muse over in the future. 

“And why that? What do you want from me?”, you asked.

At your sides, your hands balled into fists, with your nails digging into the tender skin of your palms. With each passing second, this situation was becoming worse. While you were quick on your feet, both mentally and physically, the matter at hand was devolving too fast for you to keep up well. There was no chance of you darting a few steps ahead and taking control, and that was probably intended by Light.

“You truly are a delight. It is wonderful to converse with somebody that can keep up so well. In other circumstances, I would have to spoon feed the whole matter bit by bit”, Light mused, his eyes crinkling in a strangely genuine smile. “What I mean, is you either work for me, or I’ll have Ryuk haunt you until your sanity slips.”

Your heart pounded in your ears upon his words. Turning your head slightly, you stared at the shinigami, at those wide bulging eyes, at that too slim face and the staples at the collar. Today has been hell in its own way, with that spirit dogging your every step, holding its one-sided conversation and making life just difficult in general. Since it could interact with the physical world, as it had just demonstrated a few moments ago, which meant it could even drive you to madness. Today just had been a foretaste, and the demon had been holding back. 

This was too much, too fast. As it was, you were tired, and frustrated and disappearing to go live in the middle of nowhere sounded very attractive right now. What other choice did you have but to give in? 

As indicated above, Light would put you in a position where you wouldn’t be operating at full mental capacity and offer you a deal that you can’t refuse. Since there would be many roads to Rome, in this case, he wouldn’t resort to threatening you with the Death Note. If anything, with L tailing him, having you suddenly die or report him as Kira and then die would be very suspicious and make things more complicated than needed. So he would blackmail you the old fashion way, or use Ryuk to some capacity. 

Next to his feelings for you, having you at his side would serve another purpose - you would act in his stead should he be incapacitated. With two people on the job, the whole thing would go even faster, and give the appearance of an organisation to L. Asides, while Light is arrogant and under a lot of scrutiny and thus makes mistakes, you wouldn’t be, or at least not to the extent that Light is. 

Perhaps he’ll even draw you to his side, and make you see things his way. In that case, it would eradicate some of the fears that he would have about you acting against him. Also, with you looking at the other woman in Light’s life, like Misa, you would come to the conclusion that being the goddess of the new world wouldn’t be a really good position to be in. Best stay the secretary. 

Yandere Tadaomi Karasuma - Normie 

Karasuma would be drawn to you exactly because you are normal. You are no government agent or super spy or assassin-in-training. You are just a normal person, caught up in something far too big for you to handle; way out of your depth in many ways. To him, you would represent an opportunity to just switch off from all the official business for a few hours, touch grass and all that jazz. But because you are worlds apart in many a sense, he would start to dig his claws in you. 

Through the whole experience with Koro-sensei, you would be forced into a world where you would have to hit the ground running, and learn fast. Though you’d probably never be on the level where you would be able to go toe-to-toe with any of the special staff, or even the students for that matter, you would still have to be aware of the basics. With that, two things would become a reality - you would gain an understanding of all the spy and agent shenanigans, and therefore would understand Karasuma when he would complain about his day to you. Secondly, it would probably be him that reached out to you to help you with the situation, and thus a bond would form. 

At first, he would tell himself that he would have to be more privy to your daily going-ons for security reasons. If anything, you would be the weak link in the chain, and he would have to make sure that you don’t spill the tea or become a chess piece of third parties. Then, he would convince himself that he would have to spend so much time for you to ensure that you don’t have a mental breakdown. The whole situation would be never stressful in any case, and the last thing that would be needed would be for a normal staff member to become out of commision. 

These would all be excuses and justifications that he would formulate to distract himself from his own feelings for you, and why he is spending so much time with you. This problem would just be exacerbated by the fact that the octopus would ship the two of you - hard. It might even be that, that would force him to acknowledge his own feelings to you. 

With the pressure of the world ending, the secrecy and his own disposition, the agent would find himself spending an unnatural amount of time with you. Since he’d be one of the very few that would be in the know about the whole situation, you would find yourself embracing it - to a certain extent. Beyond a certain point, he would start spending too much time with you, maybe even going so far as to make you move in with him. All your concerns and protests would be waved away due to “security concerns” and the like. 

Due to that exact reasoning, he would do background checks on your family and friends, and start dictating who you can see and not. When the attacks on the school would start, this point would become all the more relevant. All that would make his protectiveness over you increase. The worst part of it would be that you wouldn’t be able to do a lot against him, since he would have the power and the skills to control your life and make all his arguments seem plausible to third parties.

#yandere assassination classroom #yandere death note #yandere light yagami #yandere karasuma #yandere x reader #yandere #x reader

[coffeewritesfiction]

Which Image - A Chzo Mythos fanfic

Title comes from the song Witch Image by the band Ghost. If there's interest I'll write more and explain to my followers what this game series is.

Apologies to the people who wanted to be tagged in this, Tumblr isn't recognizing your urls. I'll try to tag in a reblog. Also apologies to the British if my American ass screwed things up. I'll make edits as needed.

London, 2015

In between the crackling thunder, a young man screamed in agony, sweet as the music of a harpsichord.

Footsteps pounded like the rain through the stolen, repurposed corpse of a building. An office, once, now a shell like any other mortal body. Down the many stairs the footsteps carried, sneakers squeaking wet on dirty tile. Down the stairs and through the halls, she ran.

Why the persistence? Too late, far too late, to save her friend. But the young woman resisted the obvious. Dark of hair and pure of heart, he could not harm her yet. He watched the sweat drip down her warm brown skin, how she brushed the strands of hair from her face. Standing, kneeling, struggling, suffering.

He watched and he wondered. Yes, he did wonder.

It'd been a strange choice, to offer up an American for a sacrifice, but Chzo was not a picky god. This young woman could not have looked more different from her light-haired friend. But in her eyes, a desperate fire burned, and looking away proved a challenge.

That fire… She reminded him of someone. How distasteful.

Of course, of course, too late for her friend. She opened the door to strangers standing over the remains. Of course, of course, too late for her. The cult would spare her, when they caught her, he would ensure it…

They did not catch her.

They did not even notice her, too consumed with their own escape. The Ministry agents closed in, fortune smiling upon them once again. She fled, they fled, and it had all gone wrong.

He could've been furious.

He could've been.

Instead, he stood upon the old building, his shadow stretching long in the light flashing overhead. He stood, and he watched her race into the darkness, her parcel, their parcel, clutched to her frail body.

He watched, and yes, yes he wondered.

She reminded him of someone… Cabadath wasn't sure he liked that.

It'd been almost twelve hours before anyone realized the girl was gone. Far too late to save her life. The Order of Blessed Agonies worked fast. But so did Trilby.

The Order must've been desperate to prey on tourists. They had to have known who they were choosing. The accents on these kids weren't subtle. Five of them came overseas on spring holiday, bright eyed and oblivious. Three headed home tonight. The other two would follow in coffins.

“Trilby,” one of his supervisors said, “I know what you're thinking. Don't put yourself at risk to try and save this kid.”

“I'm already at risk,” he'd said. “What's a little more?”

“We need you alive - and so do they.”

And that was the thing, wasn't it? The Order wouldn't keep this girl, this Jillian Taylor Cortez, alive, but he couldn't say they'd do the same with him. Damned prophecies…

Her name was Jillian Taylor Cortez. She just turned 19. Mexican-American mother, British father. Got her middle name because the latter died before she was born, so said her friends.

She looked nothing like Simone Taylor. If she had, Trilby might've lost it again.

Twelve hours, they found the boy, or what was left of him. They'd followed the muddy footprints from the ground floor all the way to the altar. Trilby followed them back up, frowning. Pretended he didn't see the glances between the ones around him.

He had a hunch.

Just a hunch, but he'd been doing this for almost twenty years now. Just a hunch, he'd say later… but he'd been right before.

“Don't you dare!” Someone shouted at his back. “Damn it, Trilby! Get back here! It's not worth it!”

He ignored them, ignored the rain soaking his suit. Wasn't breaking the rules if nobody up top told you not to. Besides, he was just following a hunch. Just giving a quick check around the buildings. No harm in that.

No harm on her, when he caught her dead center in the light of his torch.

He stared at her and she stared right back, her eyes wide and hollow. The rain soaked her right through, plastering clothes to skin and hair to her cheeks. The bow in her hair, half undone. The fear in her eyes, too painful, too real.

Trilby raised a hand.

“Jill-”

She bolted.

“Wait! No!”

Trilby followed.

The kid knew how to run. Ran through the streets like the world was ending. Trilby kept up. He wasn't young anymore, he'd feel it for the next few days, but he kept up. So did the rain.

Only took a few wrong turns. She didn't know anything about the area - neither did he, to be fair. Was only a little bit of a surprise to find themselves in another alley, to come across the fence blocking their way. Was a very big surprise when the girl ran right for it.

“Jillian!” He shouted over the thunder. “Jill!”

Did she even hear him? She didn't stop. Lunged for the fence, one hand grasping the chain link metal. Trilby moved faster than her.

He grabbed her around the waist. She screamed. They both hit the ground, he let her go and she scrambled backwards. He shifted, sat up, looked her in the face again.

Terrified eyes, wide and wild. It wasn't just the rain soaking her cheeks, the spring weather shuddering her shoulders.

Trilby raised his hands.

“Jillian,” he said. “It's alright, Jill. I'm with the Ministry of Occultism. We're here to help you. I can't believe you're still alive…”

She breathed. She held the book in her arms tight. Book? He looked down at it. Heavy, large, leather bound. Some kind of writing on the cover.

Oh my God, he thought. Did she steal that from the Order?

Trilby looked up to her face again. Her eyes locked onto something over his shoulder.

Trilby jerked out of the way. The blade buried into the ground he'd stood moments before. Trilby moved, backed away as far as he could go, the blood draining from his face.

“Oh, hell,” Trilby said.

The featureless face of the Prince of Pain tilted towards him. Cabadath had not changed at all in the last twenty years. Bone chilling, even after all these years and all their meetings. Still ever the same, nine feet tall and dressed in black, the rain coursing down his long coat and leaving the fabric dry. The Prince straightened in slow motions, raising the four pronged scythe and resting it by his side.

Still the Prince stared at him, though he had no eyes to do so. He raised a hand and pointed to the girl.

Jill. She'd gotten out of the way just in time. Trilby couldn't risk looking away from the Prince for longer than an instant, Cabadath moved too fast, but she still breathed, standing against the fence. Her eyes, still wild, locked onto the terror between them.

Had Cabadath been chasing her too? The Prince had powers like no human ever could. Hallucinations were a favorite, Trilby knew that from experience.

The Prince waited.

Trilby took a breath.

“Jillian,” he said. “Give him the book.”

She did not move but her whole body shuddered with her breath.

“He's playing nice right now,” Trilby said, eyes locked on the Prince, “but he doesn't have to. You don't know what he's fully capable of, you've just seen part of it.”

Jillian did not move.

“There's nothing in that book that can help you,” Trilby said. “You don't want to get involved with this more than you have been. I don't know how you got it, but you need to give it back. Before he takes it from you.”

Her body shuddered. Jillian blinked, hard. The Prince did not move. He did not look away.

Her arms unlocked. She took another deep, shuddering breath. Holding the book in careful hands, she laid it upon the ground at her feet, and stepped away. And away. And away.

Trilby watched the Prince. He did not notice where the young woman moved to, until she stopped. Stopped between him and Cabadath, facing the Prince, her arms stretched out as if she could protect Trilby from the monster watching them.

Protect him from Cabadath. He wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or cry at the thought.

The Prince tilted his head. His gaze shifted towards the girl. Trilby placed a hand on Jillian’s shoulder. Cabadath’s shoulders shook, as if in silent laughter. But of course, no sound came from the Tall Man. They were not worth the effort.

Turning away from the mortals, Cabadath stepped toward the book. He knelt, and with one long free hand, picked it up. Turning fully back towards the two humans, he bowed a mocking thanks. Trilby set his teeth, held Jill's shoulder as she flinched.

As the Prince straightened, he vanished. The rain poured down over them and the tension disappeared from Trilby's body. Cabadath truly was gone. For now.

Jillian sobbed.

Trilby's focus snapped to her again. Shit.

“Jill?”

She placed her hand over her mouth as the sobs shook her body.

“Cal,” she whispered the name of her friend. “Cal, I'm sorry.”

He couldn't think of anything to say. Trilby wrapped an arm around her and pulled out his phone with the other. How long had it been ringing?

“Yeah?” He said. “Yeah, I'm alright. Yeah, we're both okay. I found the girl, she's alive. It's… it's a long story. I'll explain everything back at headquarters.”

Trilby held the young woman against his body as he led her back into the light. He glanced uneasy at the roofs above them, expecting a tall shadow staring down, but only the rain waited overhead, the drops falling down between her tears.

#chzo mythos #writeblr #writeblr community #cabadath #chzo Mythos Trilby

[mikashisus]

Arsonist’s Lullaby

“you got a taste for blood when you were licking your own wounds”

summary: You had won your Games at the mere age of fourteen. The days of the arena still haunt your memories, even years after it all had happened.

Now, you find yourself back in the arena, fighting for your life a second time as you struggle to grasp the reality you’re living in.

pairing: genshin x fem!reader

content warnings: lots of blood and gore, heavy angst, character death, panic attacks, ptsd, su!cidal thoughts, su!cide attempts, feral behavior, hallucinations, hospitals, alcohol and drug use

other disclaimers: genshin hunger games au, mc is known to be unhinged bc of trauma, xiao & lumine are katniss & peeta here, mentor venti, a few andrius mentions, fluff and hurt/comfort

ch.1 wc: 4.9k

author’s notes: y’all gonna hate me once this fic ends, cause im killing off a lot of the characters. im sorry in advance.

it took me so long to decide who to include in this fic & who would be part of what district. i included a few of my ocs in here too!

i adore the relationship i created between venti and the mc. it’s literally just father daughter dynamic, but venti is also the mc’s safe space. he understands her so well and knows exactly how to calm her down when she has outbursts.

i couldn’t decide on a singular love interest, so there’s multiple. most of them will die though (sorry not sorry).

plot follows catching fire and mockingjay! there are a few mentions of previous events just for plot purposes.

cross-posted on ao3!

CHAPTER I: silent brewing of a storm

This victor party could’ve been way better than it was. The drinks were bitter, the food was bland, and the outfits were way more extravagant than you would’ve liked.

It almost made you sick thinking about it. You downed another glass of beer and hoped with all your might that you’d get so blasted that you couldn’t feel any nerve in your body.

This was all for show: the parties, the dresses, the accessories… all of it. You hated it here in the capitol where all eyes were on you. You wanted so badly to go back to your home in district seven, to fall onto your couch and cuddle your cat close to your chest as you cried and prayed that you wouldn’t have to spend another day here in the capitol— that you could live the rest of your life peacefully.

You knew that was an empty dream.

Grabbing yet another glass to drown your sorrows, a hand pulled it from your grasp just as the rim was about to meet your parted lips.

“I think that’s enough alcohol for one night, huh wolfie? I’m surprised they let you off the leash.”

That voice. A headache began to pound against your skull. Of course your mortal enemy had to come and ruin your already sour night.

“Go away, Ajax.” His name felt like a burden on your lips. Upon hearing your slurred words, he frowned.

“Now now, if I let you go on your own, you’d drink the last of the capitol’s reserves. You’d finally catch up to Venti,” he joked, taking a sip from the glass he had snatched from you. His face twisted in disgust. “Gross. What is this?”

You rolled your eyes. “Beer.”

Ajax made a disgusted noise as he placed the glass on the table you were leaning against. “How can you stand that stuff?” he asked, watching as you shrugged. “Does that alcoholic mentor of yours have you addicted now?”

Venti was your mentor— a former victor, and a man who had won his games at the age of twelve; the first year his name was put in. He was the youngest victor in history, which naturally gave him a surplus of popularity within the capitol. Now, he was well into his early thirties, yet his youthful glow still lingered. He didn’t look a day over sixteen.

How? That was the world’s greatest mystery.

Scanning the room, you found him passed out on one of the tables, a wine bottle still clutched tightly in his limp hand that hung off the side of the table. His cape and vest were long gone, discarded elsewhere in the room as he was left only in his corset, dress shirt, and dress pants.

You awkwardly turned away from the sight. When he was mentoring you, it had been hard to get him to be serious. when he was serious, he was the best mentor the capitol had ever seen.

He was way better than Ajax’s mentor, that was for sure. You had only met Skirk once, and in those five seconds, she had completely blasted your self confidence to bits. Needless to say, you prayed on her downfall after that.

“Nonsense,” you spoke, your voice hoarse. “Venti could drink the entire nation’s supplies in one gulp if he could. Drain the entire capitol’s wine industry to the ground.”

Ajax snickered into his glass of red wine before taking a more lengthy sip. He sighed in relief afterwards and handed the empty glass to a nearby waiter. “Can’t argue with that. Hey, how ‘bout we get out of here, huh?”

You sent him a teasing look. “You sure you wanna get involved with me? According to Andrius, I’m dangerous.” You grabbed a glass full of beer and chugged it down before making your way over to Venti.

It was true. Andrius, an older man who had been Venti’s mentor for his games, had an impeccable intuition. As soon as he had laid eyes on you in the capitol, he didn’t hesitate to tell you and Venti that you would be incredibly dangerous if you ended up winning your games. Except… there was no “if” when he told you.

Confidently, he stated in a rough voice,

“You will be so dangerous that even the capitol won’t be able to control you.”

Venti had told you that Andrius told him the exact same thing before he entered his games. You later found out that Decarabian, the man who had mentored Andrius and was now long gone, said the exact same thing to Andrius.

You guessed it was tradition for mentors in your district to tell their tributes that. You didn’t yet realize how much weight that statement held.

Ajax followed you, chuckling all the while. “Yeah, I’m well aware. I saw your games. I know you killed eight people at once with an axe and a net. I also know you went batshit crazy after returning from your games. What was the exact word the capitol used? Ah yes, feral.”

You sent him a glare before you lugged Venti off of the table. He pulled the table sheet with him, hitting the floor with a loud thud. You winced at the sound and slapped him over the head with flowers that were previously in a nearby vase. The man startled, babbling on about beer as he began to wake.

“Leave, Ajax— Venti! Get up, you fucking embarrassment! Everyone in the room is staring at us!”

They really weren’t, but you were so used to eyes being on you, that you had a permanent paranoia. You grabbed Venti’s arm and attempted to pull him off the floor. He hiccuped as he stumbled, his half lidded eyes staring at you as you draped one of his arms around your shoulder.

He smiled when he realized it was you. “Ah, if it isn’t my favorite victor! Can I have another beer?”

“No.” You didn’t bother saying goodbye to Ajax as you led Venti towards the exit. “But you can have water when we get back.”

Venti grumbled, only to brighten up again at the sight of a certain white haired gentleman. He waved happily, “Kazuha! Hello!”

Venti hadn’t mentored Kazuha, but they were closely acquainted because Venti was always fussing over you like a mother hen. It was quite adorable that he was so protective over you, but it also felt like he was smothering you at times.

You smiled softly as you made eye contact with Kazuha. You and Kazuha had back to back games. After yours, the capitol considered putting you down like a dog because of how feral you had gotten. However, after your outbursts had slowed down and gotten more under control, they just barely allowed you to live.

If it weren’t for Venti and Andrius advocating for your cause, you most likely would’ve died.

Kazuha’s games were a year after yours. Venti came to you with the idea of mentoring Kazuha shortly after you had started calming down from your trauma. The memories you had wouldn’t go away that quickly, but at least you were learning to cope in a healthy way.

You didn’t like the idea of being a mentor at first, especially since you were so young. You didn’t know the first thing about being a mentor, and you weren’t very good at talking to other people. Venti encouraged you to try, and he co-mentored Kazuha with you since you were so uncooperative.

But because he wasn’t assigned as an official mentor for Kazuha, there were certain times where he couldn’t help you with the right words to say or tell you how to comfort Kazuha. You were on your own, and you eventually got the hang of mentoring, even if you still weren’t the best at communicating with others.

You were always thankful for Kazuha’s patience with you. Not once did he yell at you or tell you that you were doing a shit job. Not once did he push you away or insult you behind your back. Not once did he criticize you or laugh when you relapsed because something triggered you. Instead, he was calm. His presence was comforting, and he always knew what to say to you. He was a good listener, and he was patient. He never crossed any boundaries and he was always kindhearted, even if the games had messed him up the same way they did to you.

Kazuha was the only tribute you mentored, and also your favorite. You understood why Venti acted the way he did with you. It was because he felt the same way towards you, even if you caused way more trouble for him than Kazuha did for you.

The boy in front of you smiled gently as he held your gaze, crimson eyes softening at the sight of you. “Do you want help?”

You snapped out of your daze and shook your head. “It’s okay, but thank you. I got him. He’s my responsibility after all.” You chuckled softly.

Kazuha nodded, though you knew he didn’t believe that you could handle this on your own. After all, you looked just about ready to punch Venti in the face because he kept tugging on your arm. You absolutely despised being touched, but you tried not to mind it when it came to Venti.

You knew his love language was physical touch, and so you were smothered in hugs and forehead kisses before your games. However, after your games, you’d lash out at the mere ghost of a touch on your skin. That resulted in more than a few doctors being killed.

Right now, you were fighting off every voice in your head that was screaming “danger” and tried to focus on just getting Venti back to his room in the hotel you two were staying in.

Kazuha stepped forward, “Are you sure? I don’t mind helping—“

Something in you snapped as you squeezed your eyes shut and shouted, “I have him! I said I’m okay!” You panted heavily as your chest heaved. When you opened your eyes, you were surprised to see that Kazuha was still standing so close to you.

Instead of running away like anyone else would’ve done, he simply smiled warmly at you— sweet and full of kindness. “Okay. At least allow me to go with you just in case.”

A little shaken up, you nodded. Your hands trembled as you continued to lead Venti out of the party venue and outside. Kazuha followed, keeping a reasonable distance from you.

After you safely got Venti into his hotel room, you sighed heavily and collapsed onto the couch, your gown billowing as you did so. A little annoyed at how the fabric itched your skin, you tore the dress off, now being left in your silk chemise that you wore underneath the gown.

Kazuha picked up the gown, gently folding it over the back of the couch. He sat down in a nearby chair, giving you your much needed space. After awhile, you broke the silence that settled between you both.

“I’m sorry,” you muttered. “I didn’t mean to yell back there.”

This happened often, way more often than you would’ve liked. It happened a lot with Venti because he was so persistent, but he was also calm and patient. If he set you off, he’d be right there to calm you down too. He’d apologize and sing comforting songs that made you relax.

Kazuha shook his head. “You don’t need to apologize, I understand.”

After years of being by your side, he learned how to handle any outbursts you have. He first learned how to when you were mentoring him. Both of you had been fifteen at the time.

You would be triggered by something so easily back then. You couldn’t even walk freely because of it. An escort would always be with you, keeping a close eye on you and ensuring you didn’t accidentally kill someone again.

Kazuha had never feared you, even when you lashed out at him a few times during your mentoring. Something would trigger you and you’d leap into an outburst. Nearby peacekeepers would try to interfere, but Venti and your District escort, Signora, would hold you down to the ground and tell security that they had it under control.

Even though you were severely unstable the entire time you mentored Kazuha, somehow someway your mentoring had led him to winning his games.

You could still remember even now, his petrified expression once he realized he was the last one in the arena, and how he broke down into tears the moment you saw him directly afterwards. You could still remember how he hugged you, clinging onto you like a lifeline.

His tear stained face dug into your shoulder, and you turned your back to the cameras so that he could cry in peace. You put your hand on his head to ensure he had at least a little bit of privacy as he cried, and you held him tightly with your eyes squeezed shut until he finally pulled away from you and mustered up a small smile.

You had told him that he didn’t need to force himself to smile, that he could cry into your shoulder as much as he needed to. He shook his head, saying that his tears had already dried up. That was obviously a lie, as when you went to leave him that night, he scrambled out of bed and begged you to stay with him. His voice had been so shaky when he told you he was scared of being alone because of his traumatic memories in the arena.

You stayed with him every night until the pain got somewhat better. Due to your own experiences, you couldn’t sleep. You’d stay awake, staring up at the ceiling and being a comforting presence for Kazuha if he had a nightmare.

The games had affected him almost the same way they did to you. There was one huge difference though: you left the games as a killer, while he left as a survivor.

You had killing tendencies after your games, while he was left with nightmares of someone targeting him. The both of you had very different types of trauma and dealt with it in two very different ways, but you stood by each other through it all. And now, you could confidently call him your best friend— besides Venti.

As Kazuha left for the night, promising that he would check back in on you in the morning, you made your way back into Venti’s room. The man was sleeping soundly on the bed, the covers all askew and one of his legs hanging off the side of the bed. You smiled at the sight and sat down next to him.

You pushed his bangs away from his face and gently placed a kiss to his forehead. Tomorrow, you’d help him nurse a hangover, and you’d be there right as he woke up, just like he always was for you.

The train ride back to District 7 was more than peaceful. Due to your sensitivity to loud noises, Venti and Signora decided to take their constant arguing to another room while you and Kazuha sat in silence.

The white haired man across from you was wearing a pair of glasses while he skimmed through a book. After his games, his eyes were banged up real good and he had to get glasses for things like reading.

You always thought they looked good on him, which made him feel better about wearing them. Silently studying the man in front of you, you noticed his cheeks beginning to turn a faint shade of pink.

Kazuha was undoubtedly very pretty— so pretty you found yourself staring at him for long periods of time whenever you were with him. He usually didn’t mind, or at least, pretended like it didn’t bother him. It really didn’t bother him, but it made him quite flustered.

He should’ve been used to the staring by now, but the truth was that he wasn’t. He softly cleared his throat and avoided your gaze, “Everything alright? Do you want me to go get Venti?”

The fact that he knew you so well to the point where he knew when you needed Venti made your heart melt. You meekly shook your head.

“No… I’m fine.”

“If you say so,” he muttered.

He was able to tell whenever you needed Venti’s support. There was always this look in your eye that told him that you needed Venti to be with you at that moment, and you were currently making that face despite telling him that everything was alright.

Venti was your safe person, your lifeline. If anything was wrong with you, he’d always be right by your side in a heartbeat. It made Kazuha feel a little pang inside his chest, even though he knew that you didn’t see Venti that way. That you and Venti were more akin to a father and daughter dynamic than anything.

Kazuha met your prying eyes. “I’ll be right back-“

“I said I’m fine!” you called after him, a little agitated that he wasn’t listening to you.

He waved you off despite your protests, and Venti was rushing in a second later, his eyes blown wide with worry and panic and his heart beating fast. He had thought that you had one of your outbursts again.

As soon as he saw your relaxed form, his shoulders relaxed and he let out a huge sigh of relief. “You had me worried something happened again,” he muttered before taking a seat next to you. You immediately moved to curl into his side like a cat.

You weren’t a huge fan of physical touch unless you were the one initiating it because of past trauma. Often times, you opted for no physical touch whatsoever, even if it was something so small as holding hands or a brush of a touch against your skin.

The smallest bit of touch could set you off on most occasions. It could have you screaming and gasping for air, clouding your brain with one word: danger.

Venti understood this, and so he never initiated anything with you. If he wanted to give you a hug, he wouldn’t unless you asked him for one. If he wanted to kiss your forehead, he wouldn’t unless you told him he could. He was always careful, making sure not to trigger an outburst or send you into a panic attack.

“I’m fine,” you grumbled, crossing your arms over your chest.

Venti huffed, “I don’t mean to scare you, but if you so much as look at anyone the wrong way, the peacekeepers won’t hesitate to put you in chains again.”

You knew what he was talking about.

After your games, you had gone a little batshit crazy because of your trauma. You refused to let any doctors treat you because you were scared of being touched. Venti and Signora had tried to hold you down, but it only made matters worse.

It wasn’t until they realized why you were making such a fuss that they tried to calm you down, but at that point it had been too late. Your brain was already clouded and filled with thoughts of getting away from whoever was touching you. You were seeing them as threats, and they didn’t know how else to calm you down other than sedate you.

When you woke up, you were strapped to the hospital bed, which made things even worse . You screamed and kicked, until Venti had rushed in with a panicked look on his face and a kind smile. The familiar sight made you relax a little, just enough for him to distract you from the doctors who were just trying to do their job.

You were deemed too unstable to be left alone, and so Venti decided to join you in Victor’s Village. He lived with you for the next two years, and his comforting presence was what helped you to find healthy coping mechanisms.

For an entire year after your games, you were put in chains because of your tendencies to lash out at anyone who got within five feet of you. You had killed multiple doctors by that point, and when the capitol attempted to turn you into their plaything, you absolutely lost it. You killed every client until the capitol had enough and tried to put you down like a dog.

That was when Venti and Andrius intervened, advocating for your cause and defending you because you were just a poor, traumatized fourteen year old girl who would never be the same again. All you had wanted was to go back home to district seven and forget about everything that happened in that arena.

Your games had been way too traumatizing, and way too bloody. You refused to ever speak up on it again, and everyone knew better than to ask you about it— lest they end up dead.

“I just want to go home,” you whispered.

In truth, you had no home to return to. The capitol had taken everything from you: your childhood, your innocence, your life, your sanity, and your family. There was no one else except Venti and Kazuha left— your only last traces of home.

Signora was technically part of that home, too. She was the district seven escort, and also the woman who fashioned outfit designs for you. She was a hopeless romantic at heart, and she always loved having girl time with you before your games.

Afterwards though, you were too traumatized to say or do anything with her. You clung onto Venti like a lifeline, and your relationship with her all but fell apart. If it weren’t for Venti bringing you both back together through Kazuha, then you probably wouldn’t have ever spoken with her again.

Now, you were back on good terms with her. Though, you were still a little too unstable for her to deal with. You could sense that she missed having lively conversations with you over tea and sharing a plate of coffee cake, but anything could set you off at any moment— like a grenade. This made her keep her distance, as she was not that good at comforting others or dealing with people with PTSD.

That only resulted in you becoming closer to Venti, though you knew that even if you had become close with Signora, you probably still would’ve been closer with your mentor.

“I know, cecilia.”

There it was, that nickname that always brought you back to reality. No matter what you were going through, that nickname that Venti had given you always seemed to ease your mind and calm your nerves. You clung onto him tighter, afraid he might disappear if you let go.

He hesitantly placed a hand on your back, unsure if you were okay with reciprocated touch right now. When you didn’t show any signs of tensing up, he gently rubbed circles into your back with his thumb.

Eventually, you fell asleep.

Your “welcome home” was not a welcome at all. After arriving in district seven, the three of you disembarked the train and made your way back to your houses.

The people bid small hellos to Kazuha and Venti, who both returned their greetings with kind smiles and greetings of their own. However, as soon as the people saw you, they shuffled out of the way and went dead silent. They refused to meet your eyes.

Venti quickly led you back to your shared home, easing both yours and the people’s worries. You sighed in relief upon arriving back home, immediately flopping onto the couch and curling into a ball.

“Andrius wanted to stop by and see you,” Venti told you, rummaging the kitchen cabinets for a mug. He could tell you could use some warm tea right about now. “But I know how much you hate visitors.”

You hadn’t had visitors in years, but Andrius was different. You perked up at the mention of him, meeting Venti’s brilliant eyes. “Not if it’s him,” you said with a small smile.

If Venti was like a parental figure for you, then Andrius was like your grandfather. Although he preferred to be alone most of the time, he would occasionally come to visit just to see how you and Venti were doing. He would stay for just a little while, with Venti offering him something to eat or drink. He would ask you a few questions about your current mentality and your overall health.

If you hesitated to answer, he took that as a sign that you weren’t doing so well. Venti would often speak for you, carrying the conversation because he knew how much you hated talking. Despite your lack of interaction in that regard, you quite liked Andrius’ company. That, and he usually brought small gifts with him whenever he visited.

They weren’t anything special, just some snacks he knee you liked or some wooden carvings he recently finished and wanted to give to you. You had a few of them sitting on your windowsill from the last time you saw him.

The simple three knock pattern alerted you immediately, and you all but jumped up from your spot on the couch to go open the door. Venti chuckled at your excitement, watching in amusement as you threw open the door to greet Andrius.

The steadily aging man donned some wrinkles and a few gray hairs now. His bright blue eyes were significantly duller than the last time you peered into them, and his usually combed back navy hair was rather messy.

He held a neatly wrapped gift in his hands. Upon seeing you, he attempted a small smile. You knew he wasn’t one to smile or show much emotion in the first place, so you were surprised with the sight in front of you.

You stepped aside to allow him in, and he chuckled softly. “I see you still have it smelling like pine and cinnamon in here.”

“Of course!” Venti chimed in from the kitchen. He set down three mugs of tea in the living room. “Perfect timing! I just made us some tea.”

“Tea?” Andrius asked incredulously, almost as if he was offended. “What happened to all the alcohol?”

You smiled as you took a seat on the couch again. Grabbing your own mug of tea, you took a lengthy sip. “Venti finally drank it all.”

Andrius sat down in a chair across from you and shook his head with a knowing look. “I’m surprised it took him this long.”

“Hey!” Venti collapsed onto the couch next to you. “I’m not that bad!”

You were silent for a moment as you eyed the bottle of wine in his hands. It took one glance from you for him to whine and complain that he didn’t have a drinking problem. Which, of course, was a lie, but you knew the reason why he had a drinking problem in the first place.

It was all to forget what he experienced in the arena.

Everyone had different ways of coping, and not all of those were considered healthy. Andrius turned to smoking after his games as a way for him to cope with his overwhelming win. Venti turned to drinking, washing away all of his sorrows with way too much alcohol. And you?

You just dealt with it. At least, that’s what you claimed to do, but the scars on your arms and legs said otherwise. They told stories of dark nights alone on your bathroom floor, sobbing as you smudged your thumb over the new line of crimson that tainted your skin.

You got away with it for awhile… until Venti finally caught you in the act and had a breakdown right there with you on the floor. You could still remember the way he hugged you so tightly even though you tried to push him away. You could still remember the way he cried and how he promised he’d always be there for you.

It stopped after that day, but the reminders of your unhealthy coping mechanisms still lingered on your skin even now.

A small beep interrupted this oddly domestic moment you were sharing with Venti and Andrius. You flinched at the noise, the sound almost sending you into a panic attack before Venti gently shushed you and managed to calm you down. A second later, the screen of your tv lit up with the face of the wonderful President, Phanes.

The sight of her face had you lurching out of your seat. Venti abruptly pulled you back, immediately letting go of you when you looked like you wanted to punch his face in.

“It’s just an announcement,” Andrius reassured you in a somewhat comforting tone. “It’s about time for the annual games, it’s only natural that there would be an announcement.”

You nodded at his words, trying to calm your beating heart by repeating his words over and over again in your head. It was just an announcement.

You quickly found that it was more than just an announcement once Phanes issued that all previous victors were to be reaped again at the next annual reaping.

Everything faded into nothing. You remembered hearing a bloodcurdling scream as your heartbeat echoed loudly in your ears and your vision went blurry. You remembered being tackled to the ground by someone stronger than you, and you could vaguely remember the scent of metallic iron.

When you woke up, your eyes met Kazuha’s, and your heart dropped to your stomach once the events of a few hours prior flooded into your brain.

You would have to be reaped again.

author’s notes: chapters after this point will be extremely long, therefore it’ll take me awhile to write them. please be patient with me 🙏

and in the meantime, feel free to read my other works!

masterlist

#genshin #genshin impact #angst #genshin x reader #venti #kazuha #kazuha x reader #tartaglia #hurt/comfort #la signora #the hunger games #genshin kazuha #genshin venti #genshin tartaglia #genshin signora #— ✦ arsonist’s lullaby 🔥

[tsarisfanfiction]

Absent No More

Fandom: Trials of Apollo Rating: Gen Genre: Family Characters: Apollo, Cabin Seven Not much changed, after Zeus was destroyed, but for a certain group of people, they got the change they'd always wanted. TOApril day 3 - Divine Intervention! Some credit goes to @fearlessinger for today's prompt interpretation, because she was the one to suggest the Ancient Laws, so here we are!

Most things didn’t change.  It was weird, for the mortals in the know, the demigods that knew the king of the gods was gone forever, that Olympus was without her ruler.  It felt like there should be some sign that things had changed, but rain still fell, lightning still lashed across the sky, and whatever power vacuum may or may not have been going on in Olympus never touched their lives at all.

If not for the gap in the original horseshoe of the twelve Olympic cabins, where cabin one had once stood, they could almost, almost forget that Zeus was gone.

Except for one thing.  One small thing, insignificant in the grand scheme of things, barely worth a mention, hardly a footnote in the story of the Olympian uprising and subsequent consequences.

Small and insignificant to most, but not to all.  To some people, great in number but barely a splash in the ocean that was the human population of the world, it was huge, on a scale they’d never dared to dream before.  For many of them, it was all they’d ever wanted.

For the woman in South Korea with her own dance studio that accepted students of any age and taught some of them how to turning fighting dances into fighting, it was the helper that regularly came by to give all her students an extra bit of guidance.  It was suggestions on who needed more help, or dance props that happened to include aspects of certain rare, celestial metals.

For the man in Canada, it was procedures that went perfectly and the doctor that never left his side, holding his hand as he woke up slowly with the knowledge that he was never going to feel sick if he caught sight of his bare body in a mirror again.  It was celebrations and affirmations and whole-hearted acceptance, gentle hugs light enough not to agitate still-healing flesh but firm enough to be all-encompassing anyway.

For the royal bowman in Scotland, it was the company he found waiting at home after a long day of practice, either parade or combat, with a warm meal and chores all already done.  It was hair ruffles and a large, bright smile, and the soothing of aching muscles with simple touches.

For the librarian in Germany, it was the patron that came by every day, smile as bright as the sun and always a stack of books to return.  It was long conversations on authors, on recommendations, and the fresh stack of books checked out at the end of the day, right before she clocked out to go home, and the way she was always walked to her door.

For the actress pulling long hours to make ends meet, it was the dedicated make-up artist that always ended up working on her, no matter the role, and told her stories as she watched her transformation in the mirror.  It was the way the ugly scar on her face from where she’d once tried to fight for what was right never counted against her in auditions, and smoothed away to nothing with a simple touch of foundation.

For the lawyer that had had to fight every step of the way to her position because of her gender and the colour of her skin, it was the assistant that floated past her office every day to bring her drinks and make sure the case notes were always in order, even when her dyslexia made her want to throw them out the window.  It was forced breaks and warm rolls straight from the oven of her favourite bakery for no reason other than being loved.

For the brothers that played basketball for opposing teams because their greatest challenge had always been the other, it was the cheering in the crowd for both of them equally, because no matter how serious it got it was still just a game, and family didn’t pick sides.  It was post-match celebratory drinks, always on the tab, no matter the result, just because.

For the doctor it was the shoulder to try on whenever he had to give a patient bad news, when all the training and skill in the world couldn’t spare patients trauma.  It was the way he never, ever got sick despite the near constant exposure to illnesses, so he could always be there to give others the best care possible.

For the farmer that had fled from war to raise sheep instead, it was dawn wake-up calls and an extra pair of hands when the animals couldn’t settle.  It was lambs surviving their birthing and thriving even when other farms struggled with high mortality rates and animals struggling to adapt to the ever-shifting environment.

For the poet tearing her hair out over her latest publishing deal, it was soothing hands massaging away the headache while a melodic voice recited her writing back at her, assuring her that her words were flawless.  It was the way the deals always made it through, in the end, and made her enough money that she never had to give it up in order to find another, better, job to make ends meet.

For the healer surrounded by children with weapons they were still learning to use, it was a helping hand in the infirmary, and a bright hug when the last mischievous teenager that had thought they knew how to handle weapons better than they did was gone.  It was falling asleep during nighttime vigils and waking up with the sun to find blankets and golden company keeping watch while he rested.

For the saxophonist it was the accompanying instrumentalist giving him a proud grin that had teeth too white to be natural as he came off stage, because the performance had gone off without a hitch, and the second, private recital for just the two of them.  It was the way his instruments always stayed perfect and in-tune, never suffering misfortune on journeys from venue to venue.

For the Olympic champion it was a beaming face in the crowd as she won competition after competition, toppling world records and making them her own, and two male voices proudly claiming her as their daughter for the world to hear.  It was one-on-one shooting, where they did things most mortals didn’t dream could be done with a bow and laughed the whole way through.

For the historian always finding themselves in the deepest depths of archives, it was the gentle light that was always bright enough to read by, but never damaged the precious manuscripts they poured over.  It was the listening ear as they recited what they’d discovered, to make sense of it, and the quiet confirmations of someone that had been there when the history had been written – or knew someone who had.

For the bowler who also picked up a bat, because not everyone in the team could bowl but they all had to be able to hit the ball, it was the perfect lighting whenever he made the run, always in his favour and never in the batsman’s.  It was the same person catching the ball over and over, when he hit a six and it sailed into the crowd.

For the drum teacher, it was the way she always had new students signing up to learn whenever she had a vacancy, eager to learn from her.  It was the way she could always talk about them, celebrating when they worked hard and got to where they wanted to be with their music, or asking for help when a student was struggling and she didn’t quite know how to help them, knowing that there was always help available for her.

For Apollo’s children, whatever walks of life they ended up taking, it was their godly father finally being there in their waking hours as well as their dreams, wherever and whenever they needed them.  They’d always known they were loved, but knowing it and experiencing it, it turned out, were two entirely different things, and while he never explained exactly why he’d started being more around after his own father’s destruction, they all had their suspicions.

#trials of apollo #trials of apollo fanfiction #riordanverse #riordanverse fanfiction #toapril #toapril 2024 #pjo apollo #cabin seven #will solace #austin lake #kayla knowles #toa yan #toa jerry #toa gracie #tsari writes fanfiction

[a-world-with0ut-dr34ms]

John Price x journalist!Reader

One week has passed since Price's chance encounter with you, a memory that refuses to leave him. He didn't think he'd ever see you again, let alone at a dinner party being hosted by Laswell.

Tags: Extreme Fluff, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Sappy Romance, Slow-Burn, First Kiss, Flirting, Banter, Sexual Tension, Build-Up, Drama, Foreshadowing Future Angst, Young Price, Break-Ups, Dinner Parties, Formal Wear, Military Inaccuracies probably, Slight Manic Pixie Dream Girl Trope, Slight One That Got Away Trope, Subtle nods at some existential stuff

WC: 6k~

Prelude | Chapter One | Chapter Two Masterlist

Chapter Three

10 Years Ago...

Price didn't know what it was about the sea which stirred such emotions in man's most mortal of hearts — Had the waves and their many dressings been responsible, or its scent that kissed the skin of others with its phantom mist? 

The ocean had a way about it that felt both all-consuming and empty, truly a beautiful force of nature. An uncertain, curious creature, never moving and yet forever changing. One can't help but stare at its glory in awe, and Price had been no better. It frightened him just as it had fascinated him in its entirety.

As a child, he'd walk the shores with his mother, most of those days so cloudy that the sea felt blinding whenever the sun would grace its waters with its glow from time to time. 

There'd been days, alongside the shore, where you two stood hand in hand as they watched the cold horizon, staring far off until his sight could no longer detail the world outside itself. From there, his imagination was left to fill in all its blank spaces; somehow, he always pictured someone on the other side, only doing what he was now, thinking the same things. Fearing the same fears.

The ocean was always so large and endless, even as a child. His mother's soft laughter swelled over the waves each time she felt her son's small grip tighten over her hands, anxiously watching as the waves would lap just a little too close to his shoes. As though the sea could swallow him whole from the shore itself.

Having grown older and seen the world and all it had to offer, returning to the shore where his gaze meets the horizon once more, he always finds himself waiting to not feel such a way again. To be able to look to the sea and not have such a stir of emotions rise in him like a flurry.

And yet each time he's seen its waves, life questions itself once more. Even now, it only takes a painting of the ocean to bring him to a pause.

A cold painting, sitting on the wall of some living room, tucked away from the other houseguests, who couldn't give a single care to the thing. It sits alone, painted in muted grays and blues, offset by the warm glow of the room. This dry canvas still paints the swell of the sea and whispers its crashing waves in just a still image.

A faint sense of dread washed over Price once he saw that his drink had now gone below half after his most recent swig. Two more sips and he'd have to return to the party for a refill; he had just started enjoying the solitude he'd found in this corner too.

The one nice thing about dinner parties was that they weren't as loud as your typical party. Everyone stayed in their little corners with the friends they came with, and it didn't look odd if one decided to stand off to themselves for the evening, which is what Price has been doing since arriving. He left the small talk to the people who enjoyed that sort of thing, entertaining himself instead with the room's decor, having been left with nothing much else to do.

Had things been his way, Price would be home right now, curled on the couch, knocked out with his telly playing in the background as white noise. It's been a suitable form of pastime for the past week, he'd argue. However, Laswell was ADAMENT about getting him out of the house. And seeing as she was already hosting a dinner party for all their colleagues, she already had an excuse made up to forcibly drag him out of his house. 

Of course, Price could have always said no; Laswell could pester at times, sure, though he knew she'd respect his wishes if he truly wanted to stay in for the night.  Seeing as she knows the man better than himself, however, she wasn't surprised when he "reluctantly" agreed to come out.

It beats the alternative, he supposes, which had been nothing more than waking up every morning to an empty room and coming home to that same empty room. Price figured a change of scenery might do him some good, and thus it's been the excuse he's used all night as to why he's still standing here. 

"The Monk by the Sea." A familiar woman's voice speaks to the right of Price suddenly. "Painted by Caspar David Friedrich," she says.  "Truly a masterpiece."

Looking over to the source of the sound, he isn't surprised to see the hostess herself - Kate. Dressed completely down all the way to her expensive, open-toed heels. It makes Price double-take every time he catches her; he's so used to seeing her dressed so... comfortably rather than formally. It truly never got old seeing his colleagues outside of their usual work settings.

Though she's still shown some restraint with her looks tonight. She'd had her hair still pinned into a tight bun and her makeup still done modestly so, not wanting to look too flashy, and yet still dressed properly for the occasion.

No doubt Price is sure Laswell's wife had a heavy hand in helping get the woman put together for the night. He only knows too well what it's like to have someone in your life to care enough to do that for you. Years ago, despite having broken up last week.

He grins, looking back over to the painting. "I take it you picked this one out yourself, then?"

"I did," Kate smiles. "I think it really brings the room together."

"Hm," Price looks around, his expression funny. "Yes, it certainly brings a... somber feel to the place, doesn't it?"

"I don't know; I figured you'd have more to say about it," Laswell jokes. "You've been over here staring at it all night, I thought you might be writing a review."

"Oh ha ha," Price finishes his drink off to that, setting it to the side on a nearby shelf. The woman gives him a look as he does, but he merely shrugs at her and smiles. "Perhaps I will," he says. "Ought to keep me busy for the next hour or two."

"Where's your date?" Kate asks, and suddenly Price is reminded that he did not come to this dinner alone.

"Yeah, about that..." Price sighs, crossing his arms with sudden amusement. "I might need to revoke your matchmaking license, Kate.”

"What makes you say that?"

Price uses his head to gesture across the room, as Kate gives her best side eye to take a look without appearing noticeable.

Sure enough, Price's date, Polly her name was — a tall, pretty redhead who looked like she modeled in her free time, was indeed having a good time tonight. Just not with Price. It hadn't even been thirty minutes before she'd split off from him, having found some other man to entertain herself with.

Right now that entertainment had been some CO Laswell invited, a tall lanky fellow with dark hair and a sharp nose that could cut paper. The man must be a comedian because Polly's laugh has been turning heads obnoxiously all night.

Price would have felt more embarrassed, having come here with her initially. However, this embarrassment hadn't been his. It had been Laswell's. The blind date had been her idea from the start.

She only figured he could use a distraction from Morgan, given she hadn't seen a lick of him outside his house since the breakup. Whenever she asks him about it, he merely acts as though it's no big deal and that it's something he'll get over. Kate knows he really wants to, and she thought she might help him with that.

However, all Kate can say when she sees his date and her coworker across the room is, "Oh." Which just makes Price laugh in response. "Yeah."

“I’m surprised you haven’t gone over there,” she adds.

Price merely shrugs. “I can’t be bothered.”

Kate goes to continue speaking. However, her attention is quickly pulled by a few other attendees who'd deemed themselves more important than Price to let their conversation continue. 

After a few seconds, she somehow managed to slip away back to entertaining her guests, having been holding that same cup of tequila in her hand since drinks were first passed out. No doubt, she's kept herself too busy talking and moving around to be drinking. Price would just pick up the slack for her then, he's decided.

He turns back to the paintings another time, staring at the detailing of the brush strokes, and the chillness of its colors.

There's a thought that keeps passing him similar to this. It comes and goes, but it keeps coming, nonetheless. That day on the beach a week ago. He hasn't shaken the thought, though it grows more faint with each passing day. In a matter of time, Price knows he won't remember this. He'll get over it. But did he want to? 

That gray day on the shore, not so long ago. He can still taste the salty air between his teeth and picture that look in your eyes just as clearly. It disappointed him to say he'd remembered more of your backside than your face. It had been the last thing he'd seen of you that day. But even your backside, as faceless and vague as a memory could be, had been a beauty worth remembering.

Eventually, Price moves himself from his corner, though it's not to return to his date. The man instead migrates back over to the drink table, finally having grabbed that other glass of Guinness he'd wanted. From there, he did his best to mingle with the crowd. Price wasn't some aloof mute, though, with recent personal events, the man can admit his mind had been anywhere but here.

At some point, he'd begun to people-watch, wondering dumb questions like where Laswell met all these people. He knew the woman was social, but damn, there were already a handful of faces he didn't recognize among the crowd. More CIA operatives and intelligence agents than anything — a bunch of people caught up in their own worlds. 

There were a surprising amount of people in black tonight, he's noticed; this dinner could easily be mistaken for a funeral, had people not been drunk. Even Price dressed in dark dress attire for the occasion, though it hadn't been a deliberate choice. The man hadn't wanted to stand out, and clearly, his gut was right. 

The sea of dark definitely managed to make the outliers in the crowd stand out. A few reds, some dark blues, a few purples even. Nothing that truly caught the man's eye, nothing until they'd fallen on something else different. 

An emerald green gown, slender fit, draping down to the floor like an elegant curtain. The backside was low-cut, revealing the slender spine of the woman that wore it. Price's blue eyes trail up each groove of their spine until they met the parts where her pinned-up hair had begun, loose strands falling from the sides.

Price could recognize that back in his sleep, and it made his heart feel as though it were about to burst from the sheer shock of it all. It couldn't be you, could it? The woman from the beach?

Price stares a bit longer from the drink table, really trying to take in the sight of this woman. Others might have taken him for a weirdo if they happened upon him right now. But she's standing next to Laswell, deep in conversation about something. It's got them both completely invested, a close friend from the looks.

After a few more seconds of staring at this woman's back, Price smiles to himself and shakes his head. Look at yourself right now, he thought, all up in sorts about a woman you spent five minutes talking to. What has he become? There was no way that woman was you, the man was being delusional he's sure. 

But... man, wouldn't that have been nice if it had been. 

As though to take his mind off this sudden awkward event, Price felt his phone buzz in his pocket and quickly stepped out to the back patio. 

The air is cold and the woods surrounding the house are pitch black, the place having been more of a resort out a ways in the woods. One thing Price had liked about it was how silent the world became the minute he stepped out here, being greeted by the distant croaking of frogs and the chirp of the crickets, the wind shuffling through the dark Evergreens.

Price steps forward on the wooden porch, moving to rest his hands on the railing ahead of him. Once the door had clicked shut behind him, he pulls his phone out, feeling his stomach turn to stone when he reads his Captain's name on the screen. 

He quickly answers. "Captain," he greets.

"Price!" The man speaks cheerfully, already tipping the English man off that this conversation would be something short. He never was the type to make social calls. "You sound like you're out right now."

"I am," he says. "Kate's hosting a dinner party."

"And I wasn't invited?"

Price chuckles. "Take it up with her, not me. I wanted to sit on my couch and catch up on my sleep."

"I doubt you need any more of that," his Captain jokes, though Price knows that there had been some truth held in his comment. "Have you been alright?"

Price has to refrain from sighing, having been tired of the babying a week ago. "I'm just waiting for our next assignment."

The man on the other line chuckles now. "I've never met someone so eager to not be on vacation."

"I've got all of my retirement to do that," Price chuckles. "Now, what's the latest?"

"I got word from the General, and we've been cleared. Brass is sending us out to Urzikstan in five days."

Now news like that might be a gut punch to some men, hell Price only got here from his last assignment maybe a month ago. However, it had been a month too long. 

Price smiles ear to ear hearing this news. Finally, he wouldn't be stuck here anymore; he could get on with his life and get back to bigger and better things. If this week has shown him one thing, it's that he needn't worry himself about being alone if he's too busy to even think about it. Eventually, he'll have forgotten, right? 

"You know how long we'll be gone this time, sir?" He asks. His Captain can all but hear the excitement in his lieutenant's voice.

"Two months, give or take," he says. "Think you'll be ready?"

"Was ready yesterday, yeah, Captain?" Price quips.

"I like to hear it."

His Captain starts to conclude himself, having said everything he'd wanted on this call now. "I'm sure after this one, you'll be due for that promotion. Though I'm not sure I'm ready to start calling you Captain yet."

"Better get ready soon," Price says. "Already got a few pointers I'll have to show you once I'm promoted."

"We'll see about that Price."

The call ends soon after a few more traded lines, yet Price remains outside, with a child-like smile and a pink rosy shade dotting his cold cheeks. Five days until something new. Five days to move on. Five days to live. 

There's so much Price can't wait for already.

The door opens behind him suddenly, the man having felt a warm breeze clash with the coolness of the outside. He hadn't turned to face them, expecting some guest needing to step out for some air for a moment.

It hadn't just been any guest, however.

"Is it cold?"

A woman's voice asks from behind him, laced with something cool and seductive. A familiar voice, one Price thought he'd all but forgotten, only to remember it as clear as day upon hearing it.

Price's heart skips a beat, his entire body having caught aflame. He turns his head to match the face to the voice, and when his blue eyes fall on the emerald green dress from earlier, it's as though all of this fresh air around him has all but left the man breathless.

His eyes completed the shape of this woman, taking in every groove and every detail, until he reached her gaze, having been met by a brightly lit-up pair of eyes, which had felt both familiar and alien all the same.

It's a good thing it was so dark out; that way, he could still tell himself you hadn't noticed his sudden enamored expression. He's sure he looked a fool right now, with that soft look in his eyes. Like a puppy who'd just been returned to its new owner.

You smile brightly at him, having both looked like everything he had remembered and yet even better than that. Beneath the night sky, you look absolutely stunning; the house light's warm glow from inside outlines you like a halo, with your hair and makeup done effortlessly so.

You look to him with just as much dazzle, seeming to have forgotten how attractive Price had been yourself. You remembered him being handsome, even underneath that tired expression he had that day (which he still does). Now, you're seeing him all dressed and cleaned up, with that cute little smile of his scrunching the man's blue eyes welcomingly. It's got you a little tongue-tied, having now beckoned his attention your way, just as before.

You both didn't speak, merely finding yourselves lost in one another's gazes. As though you both had meant to rectify the brief meeting from before in just a single moment of silence.

After what felt like a minute, you hear Price's low and husky voice speak to you. "It's not so bad," he says. 

Your smile grows larger. You step around him, leaving a sweet, floral scent as you've passed by, resting your bare arms against the cool wooden railing.

"You know," you start to say, staring off into the woods. "Had I'd known you knew Kate, I might not have done all of that in front of you the other day… I'm a bit embarrassed now…"

Price chuckles to himself before joining you by the rail, leaving just enough space so that your arms did not touch. You quickly noticed the man's restraint, having silently appreciated his respectfulness, even during that day on the beach. 

"Ah," he sighs. "It's nothin' to be embarrassed about. We’ve all been there.”

You turn to him in disbelief. “Have you?”

Price glances down at you — half lost in your gaze, and half lost in the thought that tried to answer your question. “Absolutely,” he says. Recently, in fact.

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” you say. "...You didn’t mention anything about me doing all that on the beach to Kate, by the way, right?”

He shakes his head. "I hadn't."

You sigh out of relief. "Good, good," you say. "Thank you."

“Everything OK?”

You're quiet, though looking over at you, Price can see it isn't because you don't want to answer him. Rather, so many things seemed to buzz in your mind all at once that you didn't even know where to begin with a response.

“No,” you say bluntly. “But who cares?”

Price looks back at his hands for a moment to think about your words. And after a while, he simply says, "I do."

He's felt your eyes turn to him now, a sudden heavy sensation on his shoulder. When Price meets your gaze, he'd expected to see a number of things — discontent, irritation, boredom. You gave him no such look, meeting him with a warm smile instead.

"Lucky me."

You've gone and made the man blush again, and he almost curses under his breath, knowing that you've noticed now. But forever the charming sort, he simply chuckles and turns back to the woods, resting nonchalantly against the railing and soaking in this small thing. Surely he's made some deal with the devil somewhere in his life to have this kind of luck tonight, of all nights.

 “I was surprised you got in the water with me," you say. "I thought for sure you were gonna walk away.”

“I almost did,” he admits.

“What stopped you?”

Price exhales to himself as though he’d just gotten done carrying a heavy item, having pondered that question all week now. “Don’t know really…" he says. “I guess I’d just been a bit… curious.” He then extends a hand out to you, presenting you with his most charming of smiles. “John Price,” he greets.

You take his hand, daintily letting your fingers slide into his gruff grasp, as he gives you a gentle squeeze. It makes the skin on your arm tickle like a million tiny tap dancers slowly traveling over you. “I know,” you smile.

He raises an eyebrow. “Do you now?”

“I asked Kate,” you smile proudly. “I know all about you, lieutenant.”

Price hadn’t noticed he’d still been holding your hand, not having let go since you two shook. You made no comment on the matter yourself; somehow he felt you’d been in the same boat. Once you two had noticed, you nonchalantly tucked your hands away, turning to lean against the railing once more.

“So you asked about me then, did you?” You can hear the excitement in his tone, even as he attempts to cover it up.

“Is that a bad thing?”

He shakes his head immediately. He had been flattered in fact. “What did she tell you?”

“She said you’re SAS,” she starts. “That true?”

“And proud of it."

You take a moment to look the man up and down, as though having this piece of information confirmed somehow changed things. Deep down, Price was afraid it would; he could no longer count on his own two hands how many women have left him the second they learned he was enlisted, a fact which would never change any time soon.

By the amused look on your face, he needn't worry.

"I guess you look the part," you say.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Price scoffs playfully. "What gave it away?"

"A few things," you say. "You've got that classic crew cut look thing going on with your hair, which is sort of a dead giveaway."

"Ah, so if I had a hat on, you wouldn't know?" he teases.

You shake your head. "I'd still know."

"So it's not just the look then."

"You're very... disciplined with how you talk and move. I've only ever met soldiers who act like that."

"You like to watch other's mannerisms often then?" He asks. "Or am I just a special case?"

You giggle. "Maybe both."

“What about you then? I take it you’re not in the field.”

“Very perceptive,” you say. “Care to take a guess?”

Price thinks to himself, using this as an excuse to steal another look at you under the guise of thinking. “Detective.”

You laugh, and Price could have sworn he'd felt an entirely new emotion developing in him altogether. “Try staff writer for the city newspaper.”

Ah, he thought. That explains a lot.

"A journalist, hm?" he says. "What's the word around town then, Ms. Reporter?"

Your gaze grows provocative suddenly, your lips curving playfully, even more so when you’ve seen the concealed, little gulp he makes at the sight. A sudden slip to the otherwise masculine individual you've seen him for. Before long, he’s matched your magnetic gaze, his body shifting more so he could face you properly. Quick thinking, and even quicker to adapt. Giving you his complete and undivided attention.

"Well," you say. "Word is, this really attractive British guy just popped into town recently."

Price' snorts to himself, his eyes starting to crinkle delightfully. "Is that right?"

You nod, rather adorably he might add. "My readers are dying to know more about him."

He damn near purrs out, "You only need to ask the right questions."

Finally, he's managed to catch you off guard with that, a small chuckle having left your lips at the thought. You can hold your own on your side of the banter. Even so, an attractive man returning your advances was no doubt going to leave you flustered sometimes.

You lean against the railing once more, using the woods to help simmer down. You felt hot all of a sudden. "I'll have to keep that in mind then."

Your playfulness had felt as infectious as it did feel brand new. Like a breath of fresh air in an open field. Price only realizes now that nothing else had been on his mind beyond you here in front of him. Not his break up, this dinner, not even work. Only you. It had been an extraordinary fortune to be so aware of it, in the moment, and he knew that-- just as he knew how special this was.

“Y'know, I must admit..." Price steps in closer, his voice growing lower, cooler. Holding everything in its power to swoon you with the rasp of his words, and doing so more than well. "...I had been upset to see you run off so soon that day."

Now Price knew this conversation could go one of two ways, the first being you gently turning him down and that being the end of everything — the daydreaming, the what-ifs, the nows. Price hadn't been a fan of this first route, though he knew it well.

But as though to one-up yourself time and time again from each encounter, you don't go with the first route. You don't turn these sudden advances down at all.

Your gaze grows flirtatious, lips pursing with amusement as you've adjusted yourself to face the man fully, cocking your head back to meet his eye.

"Why didn't you follow me then?" you asked.

You see the man grow silent, your question toiling around in his mind. The whole time you do, you watch him with amusement, seeing all the finer details in the man's face, and awaiting his reply with bated breath.

"I don't know..." he said. He wishes he had followed you. "I figured you got cold feet."

Your body freezes, taking exactly three seconds before you burst into infectious laughter, playfully shoving the man at his pun. The action itself had felt so small, and yet immensely intimate. As though he's already known you his whole life.

You bring your girlish laughter down to a small simmer, having needed it from the looks. "Oh, you're a funny one, you are."

"I try to be," he says. "It helps when the audience is cute."

"Cute?" you nearly scoff. "You think I'm cute?"

"Among other things."

You take a generous step forward until you've felt your arms brush against his, and his anxious breathing paint over the bare parts of your skin. Price does not move, letting one arm continue to rest against the railing and the other at his side, his smile growing more sly.

"Do tell," you purr.

"I'm not so good with my words, love," he coos back.

"I've always thought actions spoke louder anyway."

Price chuckles under his breath, having found your wit to be both alluring and amusing... in ways he's not felt with someone in such a long time before... maybe even ever. Why didn't he follow you that day, he wonders. With you within reach again, looking up at him with a flame behind you just waiting to be fanned by him, he wouldn't make another mistake like that, he reckons.

He brings his hand up, resting it against the side of your neck and feeling the warmth of your skin send a shiver down his spine. His large hand fits in the crook between your shoulder and ear like a puzzle piece, his index finger gently grazing the skin behind your earlobe. It makes you hum pleasurably, the sound of your voice widening the man's smile.

Lowering his head, Price lets his lips come closer, feeling them feather over yours. Testing the waters, patiently, hungrily. You adjust your head, making sure that your lips were matched for him to come in; the action alone made his mind buzz lustfully. Nearly in a whisper, Price speaks.

"Likewise."

It's you who leans in for the kiss first, having brought yourself up to your tip-toes and thrown your arms over the man's shoulders. While you'd made the move first, Price makes quick work with being the dominant hand in this exchange.

He kisses you with a gruff longing, having spent the past week subconsciously daydreaming of this very scenario. Before long you've felt your back press against the railing, one hand at the nape of your neck while the other kindly held onto your hip, his thumb massaging against you at each peck you've made against his lips.

You've felt his mouth take in the very shape of your lips before his kisses begin to travel downward, stopping for short moments to steal the salt-stained taste of your perfume-scented skin. His lips curve over your chin, following the line of your jaw, as he's used his hand to cock your head to the side, giving him free range to your neck. He starts beneath the lobe of your ear, planting light kisses, which slowly travel down more and more. As he's gone on, he hears the broken gasps and breaths which quietly leave your lips, feeling the rise and fall of your chest at each of his movements.

Price could just feel how turned on he had you; if only you knew how bad you had him feeling right now too. Something told him you did, from how you let your hands continue to claw at his back like you'd begun to do. Silly woman, he'd thought. You must know that actions like that'll only make a beast out of him. And there's nothing he'd want more right now than to let that side see the light of day again.

The whole time he kissed you, he had nearly felt outside of himself, his body moving on its own accord. He's been with women who've managed to rile him up in ways he thought back on with glee. Yet in those instances, he felt some control over himself, with methods to his madness. Here with you, he couldn't predict his next actions even if they were preemptively laid out to him.

The man wanted to take his time, however. Enjoy every second that he had with you now here. After that day, he knew he didn't want to waste any more time with you at all. He'd pause time right now if he could, he really would.

"Hey, John."

A voice speaks suddenly from behind him, making you both jump from your skin. You hadn't even noticed that the backdoor had opened, nor that someone had joined you two out on the porch.

Price quickly pulled away from you, fixing the collar of his shirt before turning to face the voice which had spoken.

"Can I-"

SWOOSH!

Before the man can even process who or what just happened, he's felt a drink be thrown right in his face, ice cubes and all.

"You're a fucking asshole!" A nagging voice. A woman's nagging voice. His date from earlier. Polly... Ah, yes!

Having suddenly remembered that he'd been on a date this entire time, the man defeatedly wipes the drink from his eyes before giving himself a light shake. At least it hadn't been alcohol.

Truly, he had no idea what her problem could be; she couldn't have made it any more clear that she wasn't interested in him. Then again, if the roles were flipped, he's sure he'd feel at least in some similar way as well. This was disrespectful, no matter how it got spun.

The woman hadn't been interested in hearing what the man had to say, even as she'd just asked him a question, merely continuing herself.

"First you disappear for like the entire fucking party, then I come out here and find you with this fucking bitch-"

"What did you call me?" You quickly cut in, your entire tone and demeanor having now taken a dramatic shift.

"Hey," Price uses a hand to gesture for Poly to tone the language down. "There's no need-"

Just when he's about to finish that sentence, you've suddenly stepped in front of the man, your tiny being now fuming. It'd been one thing getting interrupted, and another thing even being a "necessary casualty" in that whole drink-throwing fiasco as well, parts of your dress having now been ruined. But to call you a bitch on top of that, when you didn't even know who this woman was... and you think Price has had a long day?

"No, I want to hear what she has to say," you bark out.

"Look," the redheaded woman starts, though the base she'd once had in her voice had suddenly disappeared, the woman recoiling somewhat at your aggressiveness. "This has nothing to do with you-"

"Well it does now," you say. "So please, go on."

Polly glares at you, giving it her last shot at retaking control of the situation. When she sees you won't back down, your arms crossed and your glare equally biting, she instead looks over at the common denominator of this drama - Price.

He stands beside you, hands nonchalantly in his pockets having merely begun watching from this point on. He hadn't expected this outburst from you, your disposition being so solemn before. He hadn't expected to be so attracted to it either. It was nice seeing you had a little fire in you.

After giving the man a good, long glare, Polly finally speaks, only she turns her attention to you.

"I wouldn't bother with him," she says. "He'll just waste your time."

With an angry huff, the woman whips back around, leaving you both with a slammed back door. Once her presence had left, an awkwardness had quickly takes its place, Price not even knowing where to begin with explaining himself.

"I'm sorry," he simply says, before his words of apology have slowly turned into a small fit of rambling. "I should have told you I came here with someone-- I would have! The whole thing had been a blind date- Kate set it up, but... as you can see, we weren't exactly well on our way..."

Price felt the word vomit pool from his mouth, unable to stop from explaining himself, almost desperately so. He meant every word, and though he'd been too lost in his own head to see for himself, you could tell he'd meant his words too.

In the midst of his talking, you ask, "Is there anyone else I should know about?"

"No," he blurts out. "Absolutely not. You have my word."

You look away for a moment, at some spot behind him in the distance. Thinking.

And then, smiling, you step back over and practically shoot yourself into the man's arms, stealing a quick but sweet kiss.

Price wraps his arms around you, before feeling his soaked clothes press uncomfortably against you. He pulls back lightly, looking down at you breathlessly. Feeling himself fall completely into you by each second.

"I'd hate to ruin your dress," he says, referring to the remnants of drink which still dripped from him.

You smile playfully. "You'll just have to buy me a new one."

Price leans back down and kisses you slowly, memorizing every bit there had been to give.

"Yes ma'am."

Chapter Four Coming Soon...

Author's Note: I'm sorry this took so long to type! Life was picking up on my end and it's been making me have to pick and choose which WIPs to type.

The next chapter jumps back to the present again. I'm sowing foreshadowing seeds around to hint at all the possible things that could have broken them up, hopefully it's not too obvious (though it's not a crazy reveal either). Also, hopefully Price doesn't feel too OOC. I always imagined when he was younger to probably be the type to unintentionally date around , and while he's still a suave hot-shot, he's still young.

But either way, I hope you enjoyed. If you'd like to be tagged/untagged please let me know. Pleeeaaasssee let me know your thoughts and how the relationship is developing as well.

Stay Tuned!

@deadbranch @homicidal-slvt @argella1300 @random-thot-generator @poohkie90 @crunchlite @itsagrimm @cj-theyoungling @febster @thaprilks @midwesternwitchery @san-emi @glitterypirateduck @embers-of-alluring @quincessimus @urfavsunkissedleo @alhaizen @crazy-phan-girl13

#john price x reader #captain price x reader #price x reader #captain john price #john price #call of duty #modern warfare ii #call of duty modern warfare ii #mwii #mw2022 #call of duty modern warfare 2 #call of duty modern warfare #modern warfare #kate laswell

[ladylovesloki]

Loki but..just being pampered by reader

I am so sorry this took forever!! I came up with a few things and I hope you like the end result. I wanted to have the reader pamper Loki physically and emotionally 💚 Thank you for the request💚

Title: Home is Where The Heart Is

Pairings: Loki X Reader

Warnings: Language, Fluff & Smut

Summary: Loki has a shitty visit on Asgard. All he wants to do is be home with you.

Loki was furious, this was exactly why he hated coming home. Every time he saw Odin, there was an argument, nothing was ever enough. He was never enough. All Loki wanted to do was get home to his wife, his mortal wife that Odin refused to acknowledge. Every time he had to come to Asgard to check in with Odin he requested his wife join him and Odin always refused. Mother always tried to sway him but he would not budge, it was a sore spot for the Allmother and Alllfather. Frigga wanted to meet you so badly, she wanted to meet the woman that saved her son but she feared that day would not come. It made Loki sad all the time, what he would give to have the two of you meet. 

Loki was currently in his chambers cooling off after a meeting with his father and some of his advisors. He was sitting by the fire drinking some wine when there was a knock on the door.

“Enter.”, he calls out.

Frigga walks in, “Loki, I heard the meeting with the council got a little heated this afternoon.”

Loki doesn’t move his gaze from the fire, “yes…the council wishes for me to marry one of the princesses of Vanaheim…they feel a political marriage will help the realms move on from my transgressions.”

“Oh my son..”, Frigga looks down to the floor.

“I am already married mother. Happily. I will not leave her for anything in this universe. I would sooner give up my titles.”, Loki declares confidently.

“I know my son, they should not have suggested otherwise.”

He looked at her for a moment and then looked back to the fire, “they didn’t exactly suggest I marry in the immediate future.”

“Oh?”

“No, they suggested I marry after y/n…after she is gone.”

Frigga was silent for a moment, “my son…is that the worst outcome for you? You will be terribly lonely when y/n goes to Valhalla.”

Loki rises from his chair, “I will not replace her! She will be the mother of my children, we will raise them happily and have a wonderful life together…when Valhalla calls her I will remain faithful until I join her.”

“Loki…that is a long time to wait..”

“There is no one else for me in this universe mother..no one..and anyone you try to force on me will have a miserable life as my wife. I will give them no children. No love. Nothing. If Odin thinks to force this on me I will leave and never return.”

Frigga looks down again but then walks over to her beloved son, “I hope to one day meet this woman that you love so fiercely in person. To be honest I was surprised you were still here, I thought you would’ve left for Midgard as soon as you could.”

Loki grabs her hands, “I wanted to see you before I left, I want you to officially meet her mother. You would adore her.”

“Of course I would my son, a woman who could make you love so deeply and completely must be an extraordinary woman. I can tell she’s lovely from our short conversations”, Frigga had been able to speak to you telepathically a few times.

“I only managed to find such a fine woman because you showed me the type of woman I should be looking for.”, Loki smiles.

“Silver tongue..when are you leaving?”, Frigga smiles and laughs at her son.

“In the morning, I wish to calm myself before returning to her. She can always feel my irritation when I come back home.”

“Home.. I never thought I would see the day when you would consider Midgard home.”, she says almost sadly.

“Home is wherever y/n is…”, Loki says quietly.

Frigga kisses Loki’s cheek, “goodbye my son, I will see you soon yes?”

He nods, “of course mother, maybe next time Odin will approve of y/n joining me and you can finally meet her.”

“I’ll pray to the Norns that he does. I love you my son.”, she pulls him in for a hug.

He wraps his arms around her and closes his eyes, “I love you too mother.”

With that Frigga leaves his rooms leaving a restless Loki behind her. He decided to leave to Midgard immediately, he needed his wife. He transports to the Bifrost and asks Heimdall to send him to Midgard. He lands on the Bifrost landing pad at Stark’s compound, it was late at night and he expected you to be asleep. He didn’t even bother going through the building he just transports directly to your shared rooms, he didn’t want to risk any of the people that irritate him making him even more angry. A lot of the inhabitants of the compound annoy him so the chance of that happening was high. 

The living room and kitchen were pitch black, Loki is greeted by their cat. Y/n returned from the store one day with him in her purse. He remembers that day well, you showed up teary eyed because you found a sickly kitten in the street, abandoned and left to die. She has a soft spot for strays my wife. She came to me with her tear filled eyes begging me to keep him, saying that he chose her. How can a feline choose someone to be their owner? But she was insistent. My beautiful wife. I don’t deserve such a kind hearted woman but somehow the Norns saw fit to send her to me when I needed her the most.

Loki reaches out and gives the cat some of the greeting he was looking for, “hello Ollie, where’s mommy? Hmm? Where is she?”

“Meow..”, Oliver takes his cuddles and runs in the direction of their bedroom.

Loki smiles and follows him, what confused Loki was when he walked in, the bed was empty. He looks over to the bathroom and he sees a warm light coming from the partially opened door, he gets closer and he can hear you softly humming. He peeks his head in and he sees you sitting on the edge of the tub, your hand in the water testing the temperature. He doesn’t want to scare you so he knocks softly, you look up and see him at the door.

“Hi..”, he greets softly.

“Hey you”, you stand and walk over to him. The white robe you’re wearing basically only covering the important bits. It was making Loki’s bits react. You wrap your arms around his neck and give him a sweet kiss, “welcome home.”

Loki smiles at you and kisses you again, deepening it slightly, “thank you darling.” Loki looks over your shoulder and sees the bath tub was filled with bubbles and rose petals, candles filled the room filling it with a comfortable, sexy lighting. “What’s all of this? Having a romantic night alone?”, Loki asks.

You look down bashfully and then you bring your eyes back up to his, “well to be honest…your mom told me you were coming home..”

“What?!”, Loki’s eyes go wide in surprise.

“She sent me a message”, she taps on her head, “she said that you had a tough meeting with Odin and the council and you were coming home sooner rather than later.”

“Ah..”, Loki nods his head in understanding. He hates that the only way you and Frigga have ever talked has been through this telepathic communication but it’s better than nothing.

Y/n starts to remove his dress robes, “let me take care of you baby. Let me help you feel better.”

“Just being home with you makes me feel better darling. Why do you think I came home tonight instead of tomorrow? I needed to be in your presence.”

You kiss him sweetly again and continue removing his clothing, Loki gets lost in your touches and starts moaning in your mouth. He tugs at your robe and it falls open, he pulls away from you slightly and looks at what you have underneath..nothing. Just the way he likes it. Always ready for him.

“Uh uh my prince, your bath is going to get cold.”

Loki walks over the tub and puts his hand in the water using his seidr to heat it back up, “there we go..just the way you like it.”

“This isn’t about me tonight. I want to take care of you baby.”, you lean in and kiss him again. You push on his chest so he takes a seat at the edge of the tub and you kneel down in front of him to take off his boots. If Loki wasn’t hard before he certainly was now. You kiss the top of his feet and tell him to stand up so you can remove his pants. You’re still on your knees in front of him when you pull down his pants, his cock now free from the confines of them. You see his cock standing proudly in front of you and take a lick of the tip.

“Fuuucckk…”, Loki’s head falls back, the feeling of your mouth on him making his heart start to pump harder and harder. You start to suck him with purpose and as Loki was getting close to his end you stop. “Come on baby, bath time.”, you smile and stand holding your hand out. Loki grabbed your hand slightly out of breath and helps you get in the bathtub. You sit down and tug on Loki’s hand telling him to join you in the tub without words. He gets in and you move him around so his back is facing you. 

“Darling? I came home so I can see you…”, Loki attempts to turn around.

“Uh uh uh…I told you. I’m taking care of you tonight.”, you take some of the soap and lather it up in your hands. You start to massage it into his shoulders and back, he leans forward slightly so you can get to his lower back. The feelings you were making him feel causing his cock to bob and pulsate under the water. He leans his head back and kisses you deeply, you now have access to his chest so you continue to soap up and massage his chest and abdomen. You work your hands lower to his aching cock and start to pump him slowly. Loki starts to breathe heavily, you can feel the signs of his cock getting ready to release. You stop jerking him off under the water and he whines.

“Shh…don’t worry baby, I’ll take care of you.”, you whisper in his ears.

“Mmm..yes…please….”, Loki begs.

“Let’s finish up in here and then we can take this to the bedroom.”, you tell him your plan.

Loki doesn’t respond verbally, he just nodded his head.

You work some shampoo into his hair and massage his scalp, you do the same with the conditioner and because he insisted Loki did the same to you. You specifically told him no funny business. Tonight was about his pleasure, not so much yours.

Once you both were sufficiently cleaned you get out of the tub and Loki being the impatient God he is, used his seidr to dry you both off. You lead him to the bedroom and tell him to get in bed. He gets in the center and lays down with his hands behind his head, his cock standing proudly.

“What now my darling girl?”, he asks. Curious to see what you had planned for him.

“I’m going to ride you.”, you tell him matter of factly. 

“Yes ma’am.”, he smiles excitedly.

You crawl on the bed and rub your pussy on him, Loki was becoming a moaning mess. His hips are reactively snapping up to get more contact and finally reach home inside you. You finally take pity on him and let him slowly enter you. You moan as he fills you all the way up.

“Fuck Loki…you feel so good baby…that cock always makes me feel so good.”

Loki snaps his hips up hitting you on just the right spot, “you feel so tight…mmMm…fuck…”

You force your hips down and grind on him, your hips circling him deliciously and when you start feeling your own orgasm creeping up you start to bounce on him. Your strong legs supporting you and you bounce and bounce, pulling off of him almost completely and then slamming back down.

“Yes my girl…yes…ride me…use my cock…cum on me my princess…I want it…”

His hands start to roam on your breasts and then finally he wraps his hands around your throat and squeezes lightly. Your pussy immediately starts to pulsate and your orgasm shoots through your body. 

“Loki! Fuck! Yes!! Yes!!”, you scream his name. You know how much he loves hearing his name while your cumming.

Loki is slamming into you and he finally loses his control and flips you over, his cock still buried in you. “I’m going to cum in this sweet pussy…I just don’t know how I want to do it…how do you want it?” He moves slowly as you come down from your orgasm, his hips slowly rotating into you. You grab his ass so he can maintain this amazing tempo, every squeeze you give him on his ass he moans. You start to squeeze his cock with your pussy too and that seems to spur him on. He pulls back and smacks you on the side of your leg, “hands and knees..now.”

You don’t waste any time, as soon as he pulls out of you you turn around, put your ass in the air while you put your weight on your forearms. Loki slaps your ass and you moan from the feeling, you loved it when Loki smacked your ass during sex. He knew that your pussy contracts every time he does it so he enters you roughly and gives you another smack. He felt your pussy react to it and it brought him closer to his end. Loki goes on over drive he starts to fuck you with everything that he had.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Darling. I’m cumming.”, Loki was so lost in the amazing feelings he was currently feeling that he could no longer hold back his orgasm. He fills you up and his hips continue to lazily push into you until he feels his cock finish pouring his essence into you.

“Oh my sweet wife..”, he starts to rub your now red ass cheek. “Darling, how right I was coming home to you as soon as possible.”

You turn your head and smile at him, “I guess I should’ve saved the bath for after the sex huh?”

Loki huffs a laugh and uses his magic to clean them both up.

“Mmm..thank you baby.”, you give him a kiss.

You cuddle up on his chest after he lays down next to you, “are you ok baby?”, you ask him.

He looks down at you confused, “I’m amazing darling, you make me so happy…this was…everything I needed.”

“What happened on Asgard that made you so upset?”, you ask him.

He sits up and runs his hands through his hair, “I would rather not speak of it.”

You sit up and wrap your arms around his waist from behind and place your chin on his shoulder, “it seems like it’s bothering you whatever it is…I just want you to know I’m here to talk about it if you want to.”

He closes his eyes, breathes deeply and looks at you, “the council is suggesting that I…remarry when you go to Valhalla…that I marry someone of status from another realm that can bring good fortune to Asgard. I told them I will not..I will not dishonor your memory so..”

You look down, “oh..”

He lifts up your face with his finger, “this is why I didn’t want to tell you…”

You give him a soft smile, “Loki it might be hard for you to accept but maybe you should consider it..”

He looks at you like you’ve lost your mind, “I beg your pardon? No you will be my first and last wife. End of discussion.”. He pulls himself away from you and stands up out of bed, he walks over to the window completely bare looking like a beautiful statue. It’s raining outside so the rain flowing down the window makes shadows on his porcelain skin. My god he is gorgeous.

You get out of bed, pulling the blanket with you. You pad over to him and wrap your arm around him from behind.

“Talk to me.”, you implore him.

He releases a breath, “I don’t wish to speak of this. The idea of losing you…it’s not something I wish to imagine.”

“But it’s going to happen…and I don’t want you to be alone Loki. You deserve to be loved…”

“I am loved!”, he turns around abruptly. “By you. I will be loved by the children you give me for the rest of my life. I will need no more than that.”

“Loki…”

“No.”

He walks away from you, using his seidr to put on some sleep pants. He walks into the kitchen and gets a glass of water. Oliver meows at him from the counter, Loki looks at him and gives him a quick cuddle. He doesn’t hear you walk into the room.

“He loves it when you’re home. He misses you so much when you’re gone.”

Loki smiles at the feline, “I am fond of him as well.” He looks over at you and offers a small smile, “I’m sorry…you gave me such a wonderful night and I’ve ruined it.”

“No baby”, you walk up to him and wrap your arms around his waist and put your head on his chest. “I love you and I want to take care of you…always…even when I’m not here.”

He looks down and nods, “I know…it’s just…the thought of being with someone else...”, he shakes his head not able to finish. 

You reach your hands up, “you don’t have to think about it right now..we still have plenty of time…and when I’m not here anymore…”, you stop speaking when Loki’s eyebrows furrow and he looks down again. You force his face back up and see tears in his eyes, “when I’m not here anymore…I want you to move on…I want someone to be here to take care of you, the thought of leaving you alone”, you shake you head to stave off your own tears, “you deserve love Loki…it breaks my heart to think that you would close yourself off from love…and your love is such a beautiful gift Loki. To be loved by you is…extraordinary…you are extraordinary…I love you”.

A tear falls down his face, “I love you too my heart…always.”

“Promise?”

He smiles, “I promise.”

The end…

#loki #loki smut #loki fanfiction #loki fanfic #loki odinson #loki fluff #imagine loki #loki imagine #loki x reader #loki of asgard #loki god of mischief #mcu loki #loki x reader fic #loki x reader fluff #loki fluff and smut #loki x you #loki x reader smut #loki x female reader #loki x you smut

[a-certain-romance]

Fallin’ for ya

Characters/Ships: Tattoo artist!Ei x gn!reader

Synopsis: Of all the customers who walk through your door, the cute tattoo artist from across the street is your favorite. Or in other words flower shop x tattoo parlor AU (Note: Because this is more of a modern AU, Ei is mortal)

Warnings: Light angst (happy ending)

Despite the fact that Ei is mortal, she finds the concept of eternity quite beautiful. It lead her to an interest in tattoos; the idea of choosing something meaningful to be a permanent part of your body resonates with her on a deeper level. There is a forever peace in a world that’s constantly moving, changing. The very store across from hers has already rid itself of the “For Sale” sign. Gone was an old, outdated convenience store that Ei would occasionally but snacks. The space was now called “Fresh Florals”.

Flowers, how fleeting she thought. Their beauty is bittersweet, radiant for only so long before they inevitably crumble. Sure, the romanticization is nice, but holds no importance over Ei. That is until she gets a particular request from a client.

Tulips…rose heads…Calla Lillies? The appointment gets made a week later with the promise of going over the details within that timeframe. Sensing her change in mood her coworker, Kujo Sara, questions her on what’s wrong.

“Just booking another appointment is all”. Her lack of interest in florals has finally come to bite her in the ass. Honestly, she’s surprised she hasn’t gotten a request like this sooner. Yet all this time has left her without the proper preparation. Her eyes land on the bright blue sign from across the street and an idea sparks.

Your day had been very average for the most part. You haven’t been offered any big orders lately and the foot traffic nowadays is mostly for young and elderly couples looking for something to surprise their significant other. Suffice to say today has been extremely boring. That is until the bell to the door jingles and in comes a beautiful, purple haired woman. Your eyes meet and she gracefully strides up to the front desk.

As she gets closer, you begin to notice her more clearly. Her eyes are a light violet, similar to her hair and she also has a small mole under her eye. Cute.

“Do you have any tulips? Roses and Calla Lilies? I need these in the upmost importance”. You mentally sigh, of course someone as gorgeous as her is taken.

Ei raises an eyebrow, “If you must know, I intend to study them for the sake of a client. I on the other hand, ahem, have no one of interest”. You don’t miss the way her cheeks tint a light shade of pink.

At least it’s not as bright as your own as you realize what you thought in your head was said out loud. “Right, um, let me get those for you”. You wrap her desires flowers in a lavender colored ribbon, “Here you go Mrs…”

“Please, call me Ei”.

“Here are your flowers Ei”, you pass the very small bouquet to her and after paying, she goes on her way. You on the other hand bury your head into your hands and groan.

“They’re dead”. You look up from the book you’ve been reading, not even noticing her entrance. Ei is holding the flowers she picked from the other day but they’re much more lifeless than before. It’s only been two days since you’ve last seen her. “I’m not quite sure what happened to them. This was the state they were in when I awoke this morning.”.

You examine the flowers closer, “Did you put them in water when you got home?”

“No, they’re dead are they not? Isn’t water supposed to sustain living creatures?”. You shake your head and examine further, “How much sunlight did you give them?”

“I left them on a windowsill”. You turn the flowers over in you hands, “Theres a chance they can be saved but in the meantime, I have most of the flowers you are searching for on display. You can come by anytime if you’d like”. And so was the start of it all.

Ei stops by daily during the afternoon determined to get the tattoo just right. The details will be up to the client but Ei insists that she should study the basic forms first. Yet even when the date for the appointment had already passed, she still finds herself coming back to your shop everyday. Most of the time you’ll find yourselves sharing your interests, hobbies, and other things you hold dear. Other times you’ll sit in silence, the both of you occupied with your own thing. The weeks that have flown by bring more realizations to Ei. She has spent so many years alone in silence, but learns that it isn’t so bad when she has someone to share it with.

On your days off you’ll surprise Ei with fun outings to commemorate the work you’ve both accomplished. Most of the time it involves having a picnic underneath pink cherry blossoms, your head on her lap and Ei taking full advantage of the sweets you packed. On one of these days your eyes flutter shut and Ei is debating on what to do with your sleeping form. She tucks some hair away from you eyes and admires you sleeping face. Her hand drops. Her heart beats faster.

Ei still has issues from her past. The death of her twin sister Makoto still haunts her years after her passing. Her isolation has kept her from so many things, and now she fears it’s keeping her from you. In the small moments, when you and Ei are working quietly or fighting over the last piece of dango, Ei fears.

It hits her on any other average day. When she comes by unsolicited yet you’re already waiting for her arrival with a bag of snacks to eat and stories to tell. She remembers the you that she first met, and realizes how much time has passed since that moment. How close your relationship has gotten and now she’s suddenly a child wailing for her sister to return to her. She carries on like she would normally do but you can sense something is off. The afternoon is cut short by Ei muttering something about an emergency appointment and leaves you be.

Isolation has always been her coping mechanism. When Makoto died she would spend months shut in her home replaying the memories of what once was. A day passes without contact. Then two. A third. By the fourth day Ei misses you. She misses the deep conversations and your rants about flower symbolism which she’ll never understand but will always listen to. She misses the way your eyes look in the sunlight and how you smile at her without reason. You were only across the street, so why did it feel so far away? Ei decided right then and there she can’t self sabotage what you two have created. You aren’t Makoto, you are still here with her and she wants that to last for as long as possible.

Ei sends Kujo Sara off and decides to close up early. She’s never really been the romantic type so she’ll need more time to figure out how to make up her absence to you. Her movements are on autopilot as she’s locking up before she feels a light tap on her shoulder.

From behind your back, you pull out a large bouquet of handmade purple flowers. Ei only recognizes a few: tulips and asters and, baby’s bottom? Or was it “baby’s breath”? “I’m not sure what I did to upset you, but I’d like to offer this as an apology for whatever it may have been.” you say.

No, no there was nothing you did wrong. “You shouldn’t be the one apologizing when I am at fault,” Ei holds your hands lightly, “There are sorrows from my past I have yet to overcome. Sorrows that, when the time is right, I would gladly share with you. But…I realize now the damage that can be done when I give the past so much power over oneself.”

She lifts your chin to better meet her eyes, “I want to be better, not just for you but for myself. There’s so much I’ve missed because I wanted things to stay the same but that all ends now. It’ll take time but, through it all, will you allow me to love you?”

The answer “Yes” gets lost between your lips as you pull her close.

#genshin impact #genshin x reader #raiden ei #ei #ei genshin #Ei fluff #ei x reader #ei x you #ei x y/n #raiden shogun #raiden baal #why so many names #raiden shogun x reader #raiden shogun fluff #genshin imagines #genshin fluff #🫀 #🥀

[dalgursbate]

Dame Aylin's Home for Wayward Girls (8/?)

Summary: Isobel swears she didn’t mean to start a commune. She’s not so sure about Aylin, though. Or, how a celestial and her reanimated girlfriend help the heroes of Baldur’s Gate process their trauma.

Rating: E WC: 20,515 Pairing: F/F/F, Isobel/Aylin/Shadowheart

part 1 || part 2 || part 3 || part 4 || part 5 || part 6 || part 7

Once they’ve left the pleasure house, it is unfortunately back to business as usual. Though, Isobel supposes, there really is no such thing anymore. 

They get to camp well before everyone else, having decided to return at first light. Isobel feels a dull ache of melancholy as they leave Sharess’ Caress, imagining a version of their lives where they could have spent longer luxuriating in one another’s embrace. She wonders what that world looks like, how their relationship with Shadowheart plays out when there is no apocalypse dancing at the edges of their collective consciousness. A world where Shadowheart does not face the looming threat of ceremorphosis, a world where the three of them could just exist and explore the new boundaries of their relationships with one another at an unhurried pace.

Isobel does not really claim to know where those boundaries are even in their own reality, truthfully, but she thinks that perhaps in that world they would be clearer. In the illusory existence she conjures, she and Aylin could spend the time to romance the cleric properly. To take her out to dinners and have conversations with stakes no greater than mere banter about a recent play they’d gone to see.

She wants that, she realizes, in a way that sends sharp pangs of longing to her chest. Isobel desires something more from the cleric than a dalliance, something more than an intimate friendship. The way Shadowheart slots so neatly in the space between where Aylin ends and Isobel begins—it makes Isobel ardently want to keep her there. She may not have the history with her that she shares with Aylin, may not have transcended death or conquered villainy or endured a century of torture to be with Shadowheart the way she and Aylin have for each other, but she finds it does not matter much. The yearning Isobel feels for her closeness is no less intense for it, and while she does not yet know the corners and crevices of Shadowheart’s mind the way she does Aylin’s, she finds that she craves to.

The mournful twinge in her gut throbs once more. Yes, she rather wishes they did not have to end their encounter so quickly.

She understands, though, that as the leader of their group Shadowheart has preparations to make and duties to attend to. She and Aylin did not need to exchange any words to know they would return with her, rather than stay and savor each other for another hour or two. Isobel assumes Aylin feels much the same as she does: that at best, allowing Shadowheart to leave and continuing in her absence would be unkind. At worst, it could send the message that the cleric is but an accessory for them to don and doff when convenient.

Isobel suspects Shadowheart already thinks of herself in terms of her utility. She’d rather not proffer more evidence for that misguided hypothesis.

The only other person there to greet them is Withers, who looks at Shadowheart curiously when they arrive. Shadowheart glances back at him with a quirked eyebrow as she grabs an apple from her pack.

“May I help you?” she asks, punctuating the question with the loud crunch of her teeth piercing the apple’s skin. Isobel fights to hide the way the corners of her lips tug upwards at the cleric’s insolent, indignant tone.

“Thou hast sought affections most greedily, it seems. Most mortals of this realm seek but one bosom companion.”

Shadowheart begins coughing violently as the apple she is eating apparently goes down the wrong pipe. There is a long, excruciating moment where it is the only sound in the camp. Finally, she catches her breath and levels Withers with a glare.

“I hardly see how that is any of your business, bone man.”

“See to it that thou doth not let it distract thee,” Withers continues gravely. Isobel thinks that she has never heard him be anything but, whether inquiring if they have need for his services or offering cryptic, unsolicited advice as he is now. Once more Isobel tries to smother a smile as she envisions what dirty talk sounds like coming from his mouth. Unfasten thine breeches and sit’st on mine brow ‘fore all is naught but dust and ashes.

Gods, perhaps she’s been spending too much time around Aylin.

Then Withers adds, “Recall that in time, all becomes dust and bone,” and a hysterical little giggle escapes Isobel’s lips before she can swallow it. The rest of them look at her strangely. Dust and bone, then, not dust and ashes. She was so close. She laughs again, unable to help herself, and slaps a hand over her mouth to dampen the sound of it.

“Ignore me, please,” she says airily once the giggling has ceased, waving a hand. “I am merely in the process of becoming a raving lunatic.”

“Worry not, my love,” Aylin says with feigned seriousness. “As worshippers of Our Lady of Silver, it would be accurate to say we are all stricken with lunacy.”

Withers looks unimpressed. “Be cautious, lest thou hinder thy mission with thy beguilement.”

Aylin smiles at him mockingly. “Perish the thought of it, ‘Withers,’ for we shall deliberate long on your exhortation and comport ourselves accordingly.” Isobel hears the verbal air quotes her lover places around the skeleton’s name and makes note to inquire about their significance later.

Something lights in Withers’ eyes then, that Isobel would almost call amusement. “‘Tis best that thou so do’st, Daughter of Selûne.” He turns to Shadowheart. “Remember that thou must keepeth sharp.” He pauses for a moment. “Though I suppose thou couldst have chosen…less suitable partners.”

With that, he glides away.

The three of them are silent for a moment. Then, Shadowheart breaks it by asking, “Sorry, but did Daddy Withers just bless our union?”

And then they’re all laughing like maniacs.

Hours later, they learn that today is the day of Enver Gortash’s coronation, and Shadowheart and her party have been summoned to speak with him. The rest of them, however, are evidently free to enter the Lower City without incident.

Isobel frets a bit about what Gortash may want from them, but she knows by now that Shadowheart can handle herself. She does worry slightly about Karlach, though; the barbarian had confided in her one night around the campfire about her history with that oily little politician. It sounded so awful, and had made Isobel grateful for Dammon’s interventions, so that she was able to pull the tiefling into a long, well-deserved hug.

But free as they are to explore the city, Isobel and Aylin have so far remained in camp, using the opportunity of Shadowheart’s absence to speak about her.

“You care very deeply for her,” Aylin starts. It is not a question.

“As do you,” Isobel responds plainly. Aylin nods.

“Yes, I must admit that I have grown rather fond of the little cleric,” she says, a smile growing on her lips. Still, her tone is serious when she says, “I believe our thoughts are in accord on this matter, but pray tell, how do you see her?”

Isobel considers it for a moment.

“I…I feel for her much the same way I did for you upon our first meeting,” she starts, speaking a bit slowly as she thinks about it. She wants to give the question its due weight. “My skin longs for her skin, my lips for her lips. My very bones call for her in much the same way they call for you.” She pauses, for a moment. 

“It is different with you, of course,” Isobel continues, “because over the years my soul has become one with yours entirely, and I am only just beginning to learn hers. But when I look at her I know it is the same as ours, that she was forged under the same stars we were.”

“Then we are in fact in agreement,” Aylin says, and the look in her eyes is so beautiful and soft that Isobel melts. “My affection for her differs from that which I bear for you, but though it is yet nascent and must still be tended, the magnitude nevertheless startles me. I suspect it shall find harmony with my love for you in time.” 

“Yes,” Isobel agrees. She closes the distance between them, resting one hand on the dip of Aylin’s waist. The other finds her hand, intertwining their fingers. She leans forward and rests her forehead against Aylin’s, creating a little bubble of shared space so Isobel can imagine that the whole world is contained within her lover’s eyes.

“It should not be surprising, I suppose,” Aylin grins, “as we have long possessed a singular talent for falling in love. Pity they do not hold races to devotion, my darling, as we would easily be crowned the fastest in the Sword Coast.”

Isobel laughs softly at that, and tilts her mouth up to catch Aylin’s lips in a kiss. She aims to make it chaste, but Aylin still can never quite manage that feat, so by the time they pull away from each other Isobel is breathless and a little aroused.

“We need to do something to help,” Isobel says after a brief moment. “I feel so useless to her, and there is so much she must be worrying about right now.”

“I have had similar thoughts of late,” Aylin says seriously. “I can sense the magic of her illithid parasite growing stronger, and I fear she is not acting quickly enough to prevent her transformation.”

“What do you propose we do?”

“I’ve heard tell of practitioners of the arcane arts within the city that far outpace any she may have encountered on her journey so far. I intend to seek them out today.”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea, my love,” Isobel says. “Where shall we be headed?”

Aylin frowns for a moment.

“I have thought long about that; I suspect the investigation may keep me til the morrow, at the least, as there is much ground to cover and not much time in which to cover it.” Aylin pauses. “I think it might be best that I head on this journey alone.”

“But–” Isobel begins to protest immediately.

“Shh, my darling,” Aylin places a finger to her lips and smiles slightly. “Do not protest. It would be cruel of us both to vanish so quickly after ravishing the little cleric. And she seems to take a great deal of comfort in your presence.”

Isobel frowns, but even she admits that Aylin has a point. Still, it does little to quell her objections. “What of the danger? What if something happens?” she asks. “How will I know that you’re safe?”

“Divine blood courses through my impressive veins.” Aylin’s grin turns a touch shit-eating for a second, before she once more looks at Isobel seriously. “I’ll be back on the morrow, I assure you, to check in if nothing else,” she promises. “And you will know if I am in need of your aid. I trust with everything that you will sense it.”

Reluctantly, Isobel nods. “You’re right. I'll stay here. Just…please, be careful. I cannot bear to lose you again.”

Aylin kisses her deeply, once more stealing the breath from Isobel’s lungs, before pulling back. “I swear to you that I shall.”

And with that, her wings unfold and she flies off. Isobel is left with a sickening anxiety in her stomach, but she pushes it down.

Aylin will be fine.

When Shadowheart returns that evening, she seeks Isobel out in her tent immediately.

“You should have seen it, guys,” she says as she enters, hands gesticulating animatedly. “Gortash was such a slimy little—wait, where is Aylin?” she asks, only now noticing the aasimar’s absence. “I didn’t see her around the campfire.”

Isobel smiles, though she wonders if it’s very convincing. “She’s gone off to do some research on the parasite. She should be back tomorrow.”

“Oh,” Shadowheart says, and she looks confused. “Why didn’t you go with her?”

“Bold of you to think I could pull myself away from you,” Isobel says with a smile that is much more sincere. Then, she clarifies: “We thought it would be rude to leave without letting you know.”

“Oh,” Shadowheart says again, blinking. “That’s…thank you.”

“Of course,” Isobel says, and pats the ground next to her so Shadowheart will sit. Shadowheart does. “Though if I’m honest, I am quite worried for her. We’ve only been reunited for so long, and I am absolutely terrified of losing her again.”

“Why did she go, then?” Shadowheart is looking at her sideways.

“Because we cannot bear the thought of losing you, either,” Isobel says plainly, and she rests her hand palm-up in between them. It is an invitation, and Shadowheart recognizes it as such, taking Isobel’s hand in her own.

“Thank you,” she says, and Isobel can hear her swallow.

They sit in silence for a while, though Isobel finds it to be quite a pleasant one. There are unspoken words hanging in the air, but they are exciting and full of promise.

Then, Shadowheart speaks again. “Do you want to stay with me tonight?”

Isobel is taken aback at the invitation. She hadn’t expected Shadowheart to offer. Still, she nods.

“I’d like that a lot.”

She falls asleep that night with Shadowheart curled around her back. They have not done anything more than that, have not even kissed—not with the way Isobel’s heart is beating a rabbit-kick rhythm in her chest and her mind races with worry. But as she feels Shadowheart’s thumbs rubbing small circles into her skin, she relaxes into the other woman’s chest. She feels safe, warm. Protected.

Isobel is drowning. She is underwater. Something is clawing, brutal and burning, inside of her lungs and she cannot breathe.

She feels herself gasping and choking, feels the hot tears spilling down her cheeks as she succumbs to the curse again. She cannot see, her vision too blurred by the crying, the only thing visible in front of her the fathomless dark.

She is dying, she is going to die. The void is going to claim her once more, oh Gods, and she will be deadgonenothing for all of eternity.

There are so many thing she never—

—the thought is interrupted as a cool blanket of magic surrounds her whole body, and the raw, animal fear that has struck her like Chain Lightning dissipates in a single instant as the spell settles around her.

She can breathe again. She can breathe.

She gasps for awhile as her body sucks in air. Her vision stops swimming, and she realizes that she is sitting up in Shadowheart’s tent. She looks around and sees the other woman’s hand raised, surrounded by the gentle blue aura of the spell she has cast.

“How did you—how did you do that?” Isobel asks after what must be minutes, when she finally returns to herself completely.

“Calm Emotions,” Shadowheart answers simply. She is looking at Isobel with a deep concern etched on her face. “You were having a panic attack.”

“A panic attack?” Isobel asks, and her mind feels so sluggish from awakening in that manner that it takes a second for the significance of that to sink in. All this time, she has assumed that echoes of the magic that killed her have remained in her system. Has feared that she would never be free of it. “So it wasn’t…I thought it was from the curse.” 

“In a way, I think it is,” Shadowheart says slowly, looking very intently, very sympathetically, into Isobel’s eyes. “But I don’t think it can hurt you. Not physically, anyway, if casting Calm Emotions was enough to soothe it.”

Isobel stares at her incredulously. Neither of them says anything for a long moment.

Then, Shadowheart cries out in surprise as Isobel tackles her and begins kissing her madly.

She doesn’t stop for a long, long time.

#bg3 isobel #bg3 shadowheart #bg3 nightsong #bg3 dame aylin #isobel/nightsong #isobel/dame aylin #moonmaidens #moon lesbians #my fic

[bullet-prooflove]

Wherever You Go: Michael 'Riz' Ariza x Reader

Tagging: @anime-weeb-4-life, @danzer8705 @mysoulisasunflower @vannabanana1995 @im-just-a-mississippi-girl @sxmmarie @camelia35 @queeniesdiary @briefpersonenemy @creativitybeware @genius2050 @buddinglinguist @mortal--soul 

It’s entirely by chance that Riz spots the fiddle in one of the pawn shops him and Creeper are investigating. It’s on the outskirts of Santo Padre, near EZ’s girl’s bar and the perfect place for someone to fence some stolen merch. The entire MC is running around the county, chasing down leads in an attempt to find out who broke into Hank’s mother’s house and stole her jewellery. It’s not worth much Hank tells them, but there’s a sentimentality attached to some of the pieces.

It killed Riz to see how shaken Mrs Loza looked in the aftermath of the burglary, seated at her kitchen table with her hands wrapped around a mug that proclaims she’s the world’s best mom. Hank’s hands enclosed over hers, Taza speaking to her in reassuring tones. Gilly had already boarded up the window where the intruder broke in, Bishop had been on the phone snarling at the glass company, demanding they fix it ASAP. Coco was in the lounge with Angel trying to straighten up the place because the asshole that did it had left a fucking mess. Riz could hear EZ outside sweeping up the glass that had fallen onto the garden path.

Each of them had a fondness for Mrs Loza. When one of them is sick or injured, she’s the one cooking up a storm to make sure they’re eating good, home cooked food to bolster their recovery. If there’s someone in need, she’s activating her phone tree to get them the resources that they require. She’s active in the local area, a trustee at the community centre where she was playing bingo the night the burglary happened. Riz is thankful for that because it could have gone a lot worse if she had been home.

The best he can do is try to track down the asshole who did it and get back what he can. Him and Creeper have a few connections in the area, between the two of them he reckons they can scare the shit out of the fences that aren’t as forthcoming as others.

Hedgewick’s place is a bust but he comes out with the fiddle case clasped in his hand as Creeper waits in the van, his sunglasses on and his fingertips tapping out the rhythm of the music he’s listening to on the side panel.

You’ve been taking fiddle lessons for a while now, longer than Riz has known you. It was only a couple of nights ago, the two of you were in his living room, him strumming away on his guitar while you studied a piece of music. He remembers how weird it looked at first to see you close your eyes and mimic the melody on an invisible instrument. He gets it though when you explain it. You can visualise the sounds, the plucking of the strings, the softness of the wood. You have an affinity for it, the teacher has told you. A natural gift and to you it feels like spending time with an old friend. You pour a piece of your soul into the music and hear it sing. He’d almost be jealous of that connectivity if you didn’t play so beautifully.

When he sees the fiddle in Hedgewick’s he can’t resist. You're barely making ends meet as it is, between your hours at the record shop, the lessons you teach in guitar and piano and then the gigs you do in the evenings you just about break even. Happiness doesn’t come from money you tell him, when you’re discussing it one night, it comes from feeding the soul. That’s what he thinks about when he buys the instrument.

“You adding a new string to your bow, pretty boy?” Creeper teases when Riz gets in the van and sets the fiddle case down in the footwell.

“Nah, it’s for my girl.” Riz tells him as he busies himself with the seatbelt.

There’s a moment of silence between them because this is the first time that Riz has mentioned he has a girl, although Creeper’s suspected for a while. He’s noticed the changes in behaviour, he’s not at the clubhouse as much and when he is, he’s more interested in playing pool or cards than the scantily clad women who try to make themselves available to him. Riz has always been a ladies man, they flock to him. Creeper has always thought it was something to do with the hair but lately he doesn’t recall seeing a girl on his knee, even at Vicki’s.

“Must be something special if you’re giving up all the extra pussy.” Creeper says as he removes the handbrake. “You in love or something?”

Riz puts his elbow on the window ledge of the passenger side, his hand coming to rest near his mouth as he stares out of the windshield ahead of them.

“Yea.” He tells Creeper. “It was love at first sight.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s later than you intended when you get to Riz’s that night. One of the kids you tutor needed some extra help for a recital they had coming up, so you had extended the session in help them build some confidence in the song they were undertaking. It’s a beautiful, complex piece with some intricate finger work but you have no doubt in your mind that Jana is up to the task.

You’re working on your plan for the next lesson with her at Riz’s kitchen table, when he disappears into the bedroom and returns with the fiddle. He sets the gift down on the table in front of you. The case is a little battered, well loved is how you think of it. You run your hands over the top as your thumbs stray to the latches.

“Can I?” You ask him, tilting your head up towards him.

“It’s yours.” He tells you and you feel the air rush out of the room as a well of emotion builds in your chest. You don’t speak when you flick open the clasps to take a look at the instrument. The truth is you can’t. You’re overwhelmed by his thoughtfulness, nobody has ever gifted you with something so precious. Your fingertips trace over the curve of the wood, it’s rose wood, a shiny darkwood that gleams in the warm glow from the light above. Your breath catches in your chest because the instrument is stunning and already you feel that thrum of connection.

“Is it ok?” he asks you.

You can hear the anxiety in his voice, the unsureity and it makes you fall in love with him even more.

“It’s wonderful.” You tell him before snatching your fingers away and meeting his gaze. “Riz, it’s too much…”

He shakes his head.

“Riz…”

He crouches down alongside of your chair, his knees hitting the floor as he takes your hand in his and looks into your eyes. There’s an earnestness in them as he leans in close. The scent of bergamot and leather clings to his skin as he brings your palm up to rest upon the space where his heart resides. You can feel it beating underneath your fingertips.

“It’s a gift.” He tells you. “An investment in you and your music. I believe in you Songbird, and I believe you are going to make some beautiful music with this.”

“How can I ever repay you?” You ask him as your fingertips chase along the line of his jaw, smoothing over the stubble of his cheek.

“Play me a song.” He requests. “That’s all I ask.”

“That’s hardly a fair exchange.” You try to reason.

“Trust me it is.” He whispers, his lips brushing over yours chastely.

He’s heard you play before, through the open window of your teacher’s house while he’s waited for you outside. It’s been a while since he’s picked you up from there. He knows you prefer bluegrass to classics.

When he sits at that kitchen table, a cigarette between his fingers as he watches you tune the fiddle by ear, he thinks this is perfect. He’s never allowed himself to envision a future, not with any of the women that have crossed his path but with you it’s the only thing he thinks about. He watches as you stand in his house, in a blue sundress with pretty white flowers stitched into it and no shoes on. You close your eyes when you play, he knows your picturing the notes, seeing them in a transition of colours, your hips begin to sway just a little as you pick up the tune and you part your lips to sing.

'Cause you taught me a lesson the hard way one time

Told me you loved me, but then changed your mind

I never told no one how I hurt down inside until now

He recognises the song, it’s Alison Krauss, Sleep On, he thinks.

It’s heart wrenching, it steals away his breath and twists him up deep inside. It makes him so fucking emotional, his eyes start to sting. There’s a beauty in the agony, he knows you feel it too, it’s in your expression, in the movement of your body. Some musicians, they channel the entity of a song, they capture it’s soul and bring it to life. They feel the whole fucking thing, he thinks that’s what you do when you have a fiddle in your hands, when you chase a melody, when you sing a song. It’s a form of magic he thinks, to be able to reach out and touch your audience with the sound of your voice.

You’re destined to go places, he realises as he sits and listens to you play, and he hopes that wherever you go you’ll take him along for the ride.

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