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reidingandwriting · 28 days

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latched on > keigo takami/hawks (mha)

Word Count: 1.3k

Ship: Sub!Keigo Takami (Hawks) x Dom!Reader

Warnings: NSFW, smut (very loose term), mentions of abuse from the hero commission, mentions of call girls (if you squint), mention of violence (also if you squint), allusion to sub drop

A/N: Baby’s first attempt at writing some attempt at smut, I may try and do a full smut with sub!hawks later, I love my whimpering baby bird <3

how did he go from feeling so, so good to so, so stupid in the matter of minutes?

he was in bliss not even five minutes ago, whining out mixes of your name and high keens of mommy! as you worked him through another orgasm.

bottoming was new for keigo. he had never had anyone he trusted enough to tell about his desires, with the commissions grip on him. his list of ‘approved partners’ who were vetted by the commission and could (would) be… handled properly if they were to spill any details about the number two pro hero. keigo rarely ever called them, never satisfied from the basic hookups they provided, wanting so much more from his partner that he was terrified to vocalize. hero work was so demanding, he wanted to turn his mind off and just. let someone else make the decisions for him. but that required trust, and he never had that with anyone. and then he met you.

you were a PA at his agency, and as time passed, keigo found himself captivated by you. drawn to the way you treated him as if he was any other civilian. like yeah, you recognized him as a hero and what he did. you knew your work hours would be hectic due to his hours, yet you never complained. never seemed to mind really, always greeting him with a soft smile and some form of jab about him ‘messing up your beauty sleep’. which would turn into flirty banter, little jokes, and during late nights, sleepy giggles and conversations keigo would remember forever.

the shift happened when you were a plus one to a gala with him.

‘i’m not your boss right now, stop looking so tense,’ keigo teased as he rested a comforting hand on your shoulder. ‘just think of me as your smoking hot arm candy’ you laughed at his comment and rolled your eyes.

‘okay, pretty bird’ you cooed to the hero and you bit back a grin at the way his wings puffed up from the nickname. your hand met his cheek, and you turned his head to face you. golden eyes seemed to be darker, pupils dilated as he focused on the sparkling necklace you wore. ‘if only my arm candy would pay attention to me’ you pouted and keigo’s gaze met yours.

‘how could i look away?’

from there, there had been an obvious shift in your relationship with the hero. casual touches turned into lingering, intentional touches. behind the safety of his office doors, “hawks” was occasionally replaced by ‘pretty boy/bird’ and keigo had to keep from whining every time the teasing nickname left your upturned lips.

he wasn’t sure exactly what shifted that got keigo in this situation. but he found himself pinned under you, writhing under your touch. gentle touches, firm grabs. feather light touches that left him begging for more, hard grips that had him squirming and thrashing, threats of tying him down only exciting him more.

he was beautiful, you kept telling him. which he heard from fans every day, he knew he was attractive. but hearing it from you? a whole other feeling. whimpering each time ‘look so pretty, birdie’ or ‘my beautiful boy, gonna cry for me?’ and ‘my good boy, so good for me’ slipped from your lips. his breaking point? your fingers gently lifting his chin up so his teary gaze met yours, peppering his face with kisses and whispering in his ear ‘wanna see you cum, songbird. deserve it, pretty boy, i’ll take care of you. just let go’

and god did he let go. strings of white spurted from his cock, over your hands, over his stomach, but keigo was too spent to care. he was truly fucked Stupid, basking from your coos as you talked him down, your hands petting him as he calmed down. suddenly, there was a shift in the mattress and keigo couldn’t stop himself from grabbing your arm, panic filling his body as he begged you not to leave him, he’ll be good, please stay, please let him stay, and he felt his grip on you tighten. and there’s where he made his biggest mistake. he couldn’t let go.

“it’s okay, birdie. i’ll be right back, just gonna get something to clean you up.” you soothed and you frowned lightly as his grip didn’t relent. “hawks?”

keigo flinched from the use of his hero name, missing the nicknames that you called him just a minute ago. “i-i’m sorry. ‘m so sorry, i can’t-“ keigo started to hyperventilate and you were on him in a second, by his side and pulling him closer to you. keigo curled into your body, face buried in the crook of your neck, and tears burned in his eyes. moments of silence passed until it dawned on you.

“you can’t let go, can you, bub?” you asked and keigo shook his head.

“it, it will stop in a little bit. i just… i thought you were leaving me and. i panicked, i lost control. ‘m so sorry,” keigo whispered and you carded your fingers through his messy hair, smiling as you felt the tension start to leave his body.

“not going anywhere, promise. just wanted to get you a washcloth so we could clean you up a little bit. but i can wait. however long you need, love.” you pressed a kiss to keigo’s head, humming as you slowly rocked him. you figured this could happen, but you thought it was such a small chance, you didn’t really prepare for it. but it was hawks. your hawks, your birdie. you could adapt. you’d take care of him.

a while later, keigo’s grip started to release, and as soon as he was able, keigo pulled his hand away. you tutted at him and took his hand in yours, and you started to massage the hand that had been gripping your arm. keigo found himself staring at the spot he had grasped you, hurt you he’s sure, and you called his name.

“are you okay now?” keigo blinked at the question. “feel up for a shower to clean up?”

“you.. you’re worried about me still? i hurt you.”

“and i just spent god knows how long overstimulating you. probably a little painful, even if it felt good.” you tilted keigo’s head up and pressed a lingering kiss to his plush lips. “i told you, hawks. i care about you, i’m here to take care of you. as long as you’ll let me.” it was your turn to blush, your cheeks burning but you kept keigo’s gaze.

“keigo.” he found himself whispering. “name’s keigo.” you mouthed his name, whispered it to yourself and the prettiest shade of pink covered keigo’s cheeks. “if it’s not gonna be any of your little nicknames, i.. i’d prefer keigo outside of work.”

“well, keigo,” you smiled as you pulled his hand to your lips, kissing over every knuckle. “why don’t we get you cleaned up? then we can come back to bed, order some takeout for dinner? i can make breakfast for us in the morning,” you offered and keigo felt his heart flip in his chest at your offer.

“that sounds perfect.”

an hour later, you were cuddled in bed, keigo on his stomach, head on your stomach as his wing draped over you. his breath hit your stomach, soft puffs leaving his lips as he slept peacefully. you combed through his damp hair, occasionally running your hand down between his shoulder blades just to see his wings flutter and his breathing shake a little. a small smile graced his lips as he slept and you let your eyes close, a matching smile on your lips as you dozed off into the best sleep of your life. you could get used to this…

#mha #bnha #mha fic #bnha fic #bnha hawks #mha hawks #hawks x reader #keigo x reader #keigo takami #sub!hawks #bottom!hawks #hawks smut #smut #mha smut #bnha smut #baby’s first smut fic #smut is a very loose term in this fic #i wrote this in like an hour

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sednas · 1 year

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['CAUSE HE'S A F×CK BOY ─ s. gojo]

꒰ ͜͡➸ sorry what did you say? oh you want a virginkiller!gojo fic? with enemies to lovers vibes? yeah I might have this one in store for you. smut will be in the second part tho! (which will be posted in one week or five months, who knows! :))

pairing: virginkiller!gojo x virgin!fem!reader

tw: college!au, suggestive themes, virginity kink, (dub-con) make out session, gojo is annoying but hey what's new, sexual tension, light fem masturbation at the end

gojo satoru was the golden boy. the most intelligent student of his class, the most talented sports player of the school, the most popular guy of the campus, maybe even of the whole city. he was excellent at everything. people were too amazed by his talent to notice his arrogance and his condescending smile, too blinded by his bright blue eyes and his snowy white hair.

gojo was the best at everything, and it included fucking. hell, fucking was actually on top of the list. he had a cheerleader waiting for him every night in his room, sometimes he could just wink at a girl and she was already spreading her legs for him in the bathroom a few minutes later. he could have literally everyone, but what he liked best was virgins. he loved them, such good girls who managed to keep their innocence until college. they were always so easy, so pliant.

and the thing he mostly liked to do with them was fucking them so hard that nobody could ever compare after that. he wanted them to think about him every time they would fuck someone else, he wanted them to rub their thighs together while thinking about him years later, this is what he liked to do with them. of course, the thought of ruining them for their first time was also appealing, they were usually so shy and reserved, he liked to take them apart piece by piece, make them drool, and then cry, and then forcing them to look at themselves in the mirror, letting them see how the filthiest version of themselves looked like. and in the end, when they were too fucked to think, he made them say thanks.

and this was exactly what he wanted to do with you.

you were way more difficult than the others, doing your best to ignore his piercing blue eyes, answering by a simple nod of your head every time he was trying to start a conversation, leaving the room every time he was in.

yeah you were difficult, but satoru always got what he wanted.

“all by yourself uh?”

he startled you a bit, and he could see that you were already looking for a way out by the way your eyes were looking at everything but him.

he moved his body to be at the same height as you, looking at you through his glasses, and then he said your name in a sweet voice, smiling when he saw how easily he got you looking back at him, your face obviously flushed.

“finally paying attention to me mh? it's a shame that you don't look at me often, I really like your eyes, they're pretty.”

and he really meant it, you were telling him everything with those eyes, the way you were constantly daydreaming about him, how you were humping your pillow at night, imagining it was his thigh instead. yeah, very pretty eyes.

“I want to get to know ya.” he said with a smile, and he got closer.

he kept himself from laughing when he saw you taking a few steps back and then he stopped, not wanting to make you panic too much.

“here, gimme your phone.”

you obeyed after barely a few seconds, and it only confirmed what he was already thinking; you were wrapped around his finger even though you were trying to hide it.

“mmh cute wallpaper… alright I'm just gonna add my number to your contacts annnnnd… done!” he finally said, his relaxed smile still on his face, handing you over your phone.

he didn't let go of it immediately, making sure your hands brushed against one another, noticing the way your breath got stuck in your throat.

“call me okay?”

one month passed by and you never called, or even texted. gojo felt frustration for the first time in his life, and because of that he was rougher than usual when he was fucking a cheerleader, his thoughts always coming back to you, and the way you were still ignoring him even though you were fucking yourself with your fingers every night while thinking about him. he was starting to get tired of his own game, but still, he wasn't planning on giving up. and so when he saw you standing in the kitchen during that halloween party, a devilish grin appeared on his pale face...

it's already too late when you spot him across the room, his blue eyes are on you. you can barely think of an escape that he's already in front of you, wearing a black tuxedo, a white collar wrapped around his neck and long white victorian sleeves hugging his arms, and making the rings on his fingers look elegant.

“you didn't call me.“ gojo whispers against your ear, his long arms trapping you between his body and the kitchen counter.

you open your mouth but no sound comes out, your eyes try to escape his teasing gaze as you're sure he can see every little detail on your face by standing so close.

“I thought… I thought you weren't serious when you gave me your number.”

he chuckles, noticing how you're even more embarrassed to look him in the eyes when he hasn't his glasses on.

“I like your costume, it suits your body.”

you feel your skin grows hot, his voice so soft and intimate, his eyes trailing on your body from up and down. it feels like you're alone in the whole house with only him. and your heart is racing with fear and anticipation, as you bring your thighs together. gojo notices it, placing his knee between them before you can fully close them, making you gasp.

“so tell me something baby…” he starts speaking in a honeyed voice, his lips coming closer to your ear.

you blink at the nickname, his body weighting a little more on your own, your back uncomfortably pressed against the kitchen counter as your body slowly bent to accommodate to the awkward position.

“are you scared of me or something?”

a nervous laugh comes out of your mouth, turning your head to escape from his warm gaze.

“I'm not scared of you.”

he can tell you're sincere, but it only makes him want to know more.

“then why are you avoiding me all the time uh?”

he tilts his head to the side, eyes burning with curiosity and his teeth flashing at you when you finally look back at him.

“i'm avoiding you because… you're so annoying, and you fuck everyone you know and you're so arrogant, always thinking you're better than anyone else. I don't like you, at all.”

a few seconds of silence pass by while both of you just look at eachother, until a smirk slowly appears on gojo's face.

“I didn't know you were so mean.” he laughed. “but if you hate me so much why aren't you pushing me away right now?” his sultry voice keeps sliding on you like honey, his mouth so close to your skin, breath fanning over your neck.

he's right, and he knows it, smiling even wider when he sees you looking at the ground in defeat.

“that's what I thought.” he smiles, one of his hand sliding along the side of your jaw, the sudden touch making your heart skips a beat.

his pale hand looks good on your skin, you can feel his fingers squeezing lightly your throat and the atmosphere becomes more tense than before, he still has this grin, like he knows everything about you, especially how much you want him to touch you more.

you're a few seconds away from giving up, your body almost falling on the counter to let gojo fully rest on you. somehow his smirk grows wider when he sees you closing your eyes. you let out a little whine when you feel him pressing all of his body weight against you.

“that was a sweet sound baby, mind if you make some more for me?”

despite shaking your head no, you pressed your body against him, hungry for more, finding a new pleasure in being the center of his attention. his slender fingers find their way to squeeze your chest, drawing another whine out of your mouth.

“more…” he orders, the sound of his voice muffled against your skin.

you try to close your lips, in a poor attempt not to give in so easily, but your legs turn to jelly as soon as he puts his soft lips on your neck. one of your hands flew through his white hair as you gasped at this new sensation.

his hot tongue tracing kisses along your neck, he grabbed your hips, bringing you even closer, letting you feel his boner. you feel dirty, intoxicated, but the heat coming out of his body is addictive. you let out another sound and your fingers are now grabbing his shirt in a needy way, trying to get him even closer to you. you want more. you need more.

you suddenly open your eyes when you feel his warmth vanish from your trembling body. you watch him walk away in disbelief while he's wearing a wicked smile on his face.

“I think my friends are waiting for me… it was fun, you should call me later okay?” he winked at you before exiting the room without letting you have any time to react.

you're left here, breathless, blood pumping into your veins, eyes clouded with desire, a pool of arousal between your legs. your hands clench into fists, of course he did it on purpose.

your eyes are fixated on your phone as breathless sighs keep coming out of your mouth.

"fuck!" you let out an exasperated groan, throwing your head back into the soft pillows.

your fingers are still trying to reach that spongy spot inside you, you arch your back, lifting your hips in the air, hoping it will allow your fingers to touch deeper parts. but you're left unsatisfied again, your legs twitching in frustration. your head hit your pillow and your eyes go back to your phone.

"he would fuck me right." you mumble to yourself.

part two

jjk masterlist

a lovely reminder that reblogs and comments are highly appreciated ♡

#jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen headcanons #jjk headcanons #jujutsu kaisen smut #jjk smut #gojo satoru smut #gojo satoru x reader #gojo x reader #gojo smut #gojou satoru x reader #gojou satoru smut

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whiskygoldwings · 1 month

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Within Operating Parameters

One shot

Cody/Obi-Wan. Boil/Waxer. Clone/clone relationship mentioned.

Alternative Universe: Soulmates

Warnings: Dehumanization of clones

This kinda hit me out of nowhere, and kept me up until nearly 1 in the morning to finish it, so apologies if there's any errors/disjointedness. Also, I'm not sure who started calling the Negotiator's medic Helix, but it's stuck with me and I can't shake it now!

The clones never removed their helmets. Or, at least, not where anyone other than another clone can see. They spoke in military terms only, introduced themselves with identity numbers instead of names.

It makes Obi-Wan nauseous, even as he smiles gently at CC-2224 and thanks him for his assistance again.

He could FEEL their personalities in the Force, which only made their outward meat-droid presentation all the more painful. It’s unsettled all the Jedi, he knows, but he has always been particularly empathetic, and their fear and anxiety every time any nat-borns are near them makes him want to gag.

It presses at him constantly, the wary avoidance of him, the hopeful hero-worship, tainted by terror and panic. He’s been convinced from the very beginning that the clones are a trap, too conveniently placed to gift them an army when war began. But they are a particularly efficient trap for him. He can feel the curl of the Dark in the violent hatred he feels for the Kaminoans, in the creeping desire to turn the Negotiator to Kamino and rip the foundations asunder.

He breaths deep, drawing in the loving warmth of the Force, and breathing out the pain. His eyes are closed, and he feels a worried pang from one of the helmsmen, but he does his best to ignore it.

It’s the most effective torture that could have been devised.

——

CC-2224 stares at his eyes in the Mirror.

Still matching. Still golden-brown. Still within operating parameters.

He steps away, pulling his helmet on and activating the seals, ceding his spot to the next brother in line. CT-1477 is similary within operating parameters, but he takes the pre-requisite 30 seconds to observe and ensure he is still acceptable before moving to follow CC-2224 to the bridge.

CC-2224 sheds Cody with every step away from the Vode barracks. The clone slips over him, concealing the defective core of the brother from the enemy.

It’s a little harder today, as he steps onto the bridge. General Kenobi turns to him, and there’s a sad smile on his face, that quickly slides into a warm greeting, blue eyes shining at him.

CC-2224 knows the flash of warmth in his heart is defective, but it passes quickly. It is not permanent. It does not require reporting.

General Kenobi’s smile falters, and briefly there’s something painful on his face, before the serene calm washes it all away.

CC-2224 does not ache for the smile to return. He is functional. He reviews the battle scenario presented to him, and devises a strategy. He is not proud when General Kenobi strokes his beard and grins. He is not pleased when General Kenobi tells him it’s an excellent plan. He nods, and issues orders.

Cody bundles the memory in a tiny, precious box in his mind, and holds onto it for later.

——

Cody wakes in the midst of his brothers, warm and comfortable. Boil has a leg over his, Crys’ stomach is under his head. Wooley, the limpet, has drooled on his kriffing bicep again, and Cody can’t quite bring himself to be annoyed about it.

He’s woken, as he always does, at precisely 05.00hrs. He’s the Marshall Commander, he needs to wake before the others. The Kaminoans had trained it into him.

They did not train the extra five minutes he takes to soak up the warmth of his vod into him. That he took for himself.

The others wake around him when the five minutes are up. Wooley wipes his face on Cody’s arm, grinning up at him when he glares down. Crys stretches, careful not to disrupt Cody too much. Boil doesn’t move. He’s always struggled with mornings. Waxer is already pressing kisses into his cheek, dragging him up from the dark with the sheer obstinateness of his love.

Cody sighs, and waits until Boil manages to curl himself away from him, into Waxer, fumbling tired fingers into Waxer’s hair and holding him to him.

It’s time to get up.

Cody rises, stretching out cramped muscles from sleeping on the cold floor. They haven’t had an inspection yet while on the Venator, but the harsh punishments of the trainers and Kaminoans when they’d dragged the mattresses onto the floor still ache in each of them, and they haven’t dared that level of deviance yet. He firmly pushes away thoughts that General Kenobi probably wouldn’t care, would probably be pleased to see the humanity in them, and goes to take a piss and brush his teeth. There’s mirrors all along the wall in the bathroom over the sinks, but they’re not the Mirror, so he doesn’t bother to meet his eyes. Around him, brothers do the same, a mix of grumbling and smiling vode, all going through the morning routine.

Breakfast is caff and porridge. It’s actually not bad. The Generals had argued that ration bars was not enough to sustain an army conducting warfare, so Cody and his vod got real food now. It’s eaten in the confines of their cafeteria, sequestered deep in Vode territory, away from any nat-born eyes, but it makes Cody feel a little more human.

There’s not been a lot of that in their lives.

He finishes first, and stands first. He is always the first. It’s the correct order of things. He feels Cody start to slip away, CC-2224 activating with the measured footsteps towards the armour lockers. None of the other Vode catch his eye, the fond touches of earlier come to an end.

CC-2224 is not their vod.

He strips perfunctorily, and steps into the sonic. Cody looks down at his body, traces the new scar on his shoulder. CC-2224 steps out when it finishes. Pulls on the new set of blacks waiting for him. He settles the pieces of armour into place.

Around Cody/CC-2224 other brothers/clones strip and clean themselves. Deadened eyes, tight jaws. The rare aesthetical defect standing out in the midst of symmetrical bodies.

Cody glances away and walks out. He stutters a moment, dread coursing through him.

What if he didn’t look in the Mirror? Just for one day. What if he didn’t look?

He does, of course. Two golden-brown eyes. Matching. No deviance.

CC-2224 pulls his helmet on and goes to his duty.

——

There’s something tense in CC-2224’s presence today, Obi-Wan observes. Almost like he’s approaching a precipice, and has a choice as to whether he backs away, or continues to the edge. It’s beautiful. Obi-Wan finds himself watching out the corner of his eye, breath held, waiting to see which way he goes.

CC-2224 stays calmly still, hands behind his back, feet shoulder width apart. His chest rises and falls slowly.

Obi-Wan sighs, and looks away. There’s a spark of frustration, before he manages to ease it into the Force. The tense feeling has eased, CC-2224 has walked away from the cliff edge, and Obi-Wan does his best not to feel bitter disappointment.

Perhaps if he’d approached the man...?

He’s very tired of being feared.

It’s a moment of anger, a moment of exhaustion that drives him when he strides over to CC-2224, and puts a hand to his shoulder. It horrifies him in the next second, and he gapes awkwardly at the tilted helmet.

He has never breached their personal space before. It was vile, they had so little autonomy over their own lives; he refused to put them in uncomfortable situations when they were so clearly institutionalised to avoid any nat-borns.

Yet he’s still got his hand on CC-2224’s shoulder. He’s still staring into that visor, blue eyes searching for a glimpse of anything underneath.

CC-2224 doesn’t shake him off, doesn’t move. His external comms must have switched off, because there’s not even the sound of his breathing. He is still, silent, and his Force presence has shrunk to a...

Oh...

Obi-Wan feels his own breath catch, as something delicate and yearning unfurls from the shadow of CC-2224’s mind. The helmet trembles slightly, and a gloved hand comes up to place careful fingers over his own. They stand like that for a moment, two, and Obi-Wan realises the trembling of the helmet is rough, disjointed.

He thinks CC-2224 is shouting in there.

Obi-Wan doesn’t know what compels him. He lifts his other hand to CC-2224’s helmet, places his fingers over the button to unseal his helm. CC-2224’s other hand jerks up, grabbing his wrist. He waits, and CC-2224’s fingers loosen, then slide over the back of his hand, over his own fingers, and press down against them.

The helmet unseals with a hiss.

They stand there for a moment longer, Obi-Wan staring into the visor, the visor impassively staring back. The trembling has stopped, but CC-2224 heaves with every harsh breath that pants out of his mouth, loud in the absolute silence of the Bridge. Obi-Wan suddenly worries for his ability to breathe, bringing both hands to the edges of the helmet, dislodging the gloved ones on top of his, and slides the helmet off.

CC-2224 has wide, golden-brown eyes, a cruel scar around the left one, and a wide, gasping mouth. He stares desperately back at Obi-Wan, who hungrily drinks in every line of his face, the helmet falling to the floor and rolling away as he presses his hands to either side of CC-2224’s face.

He watches, wonderously, as the golden-brown of Cody’s left eye swirls and rivers of blue flow through it’s warm deserts. He feels an odd, warm sensation in his own left eye, and knows sunlight and sand is filling his in turn.

CC-2224’s eyes snap to his own changing one, and he touches a gloved thumb to the edge of Obi-Wan’s eyelid. Obi-Wan can’t help himself, this wonderful, miraculous man in front of him overwhelmes him, and he turns his face and tilts up, pressing his lips to the pad of that thumb. Something broken punches out of CC-2224’s throat He grabs Obi-Wan’s face and slams their lips together.

It’s imperfect, teeth, brutal desparation and terror, but Obi-Wan answers, careful and gentle, easing them into a cautious kiss. He slides a hand into curling, regulation-cut hair, and slowly pulls away. He leaves his forehead pressed against CC-2224’s briefly, watching him come back to himself in fits and starts, and the horror beginning to twist his face.

Obi-Wan steps back, heart heavy as he lets go of CC-2224, as CC-2224’s hands fall away from him. This is his soulmate. His soulmate is terrified of him.

Obi-Wan has gone too far.

He still isn’t really sure what came over him. He steps away, collecting CC-2224’s helmet from where it rolled to, and walking back to him. The man is frozen, the only movement his eyes, wide like a cornered animal as he watches Obi-Wan. It hurts, like nothing Obi-Wan has ever felt before.

He raises CC-2224’s helmet over his head, and carefully brings it down, concealing those beautiful, mismatched eyes, one the colour of golden sands at sunset, one ocean-blue. He brings the helmet down, until it sits snugly where it should, and activates the seals.

He steps away, then turns and leaves. He feels the tears on his cheeks as he goes, and knows CC-2224 saw them before he left.

The other clones on the bridge never turned away from their panels.

——

CC-2224 functions within parameters for the rest of his shift. He does not see the General again. His heart rate is high, his breathing short, but he wrangles them back into acceptable ranges every time they begin to exceed the maximum. The other clones do not react to him. They do not say anything. They do not deviate from their duties.

Only Cody has done that today.

CC-2224 carries them through the rest of their shift. He does not wonder where General Kenobi, and his deviant mismatched eyes are at any point. He does not think about him. Does not remember his chapped, warm lips on his...

CC-2224 breaths carefully, brings them back within parameters, and functions.

It is Cody, when he passes the door to the Vode barracks, who wrenches off his helmet, tearing skin in his haste to pull it off before he releases the seals, and flings it carelessly to the floor. It is Cody who stumbles to the Mirror, desparate and terrified, and looks at his eyes.

Mismatched, deviant eyes.

His right is still regulation golden-brown. His left... His left is wonderful, brilliant stormy ocean blue. He presses stunned fingers to his own cheek, then to the Mirror, not quite able to believe what he sees. He stares, and stares, and stares. It does not change.

His brothers are behind him, helmets off, matching golden-brown eyes all staring at his own not-matching set. There’s wonder, horror, fear and anticipation on each of their identical faces. They are silent, waiting for him to react first.

He does not know what to do.

Eventually, the tableau is broken by Helix.

The Chief Medical officer orders them all to their dinner, placing himself between Cody and the others, arms folded. He stares them all down, until they trickle away, each one looking behind them at their Vod as they go. Wooley is the last to leave, and goes to reach out for Cody before Helix hisses at him. Wooley slopes off with a worried gaze, and finally, Cody and Helix are alone.

Helix turns to Cody, and watches him carefully through the reflection. It’s several minutes before Cody managed to look away from that blue, blue eye and meet Helix’s own regulation golden-brown pair.

Helix’s face is firm, but not angry. He looks at Cody. There’s no pity, or condemnation, he is simply there.

It helps Cody find himself again, in amongst the echoes of the Kaminoans in his head. He takes a deep breath in time with Helix’s own, and closing his eyes, turns away from the mirror.

He only opens them again when he’s turned completely away, and, standing straight-backed and proud, he faces Helix, waiting for his vod to lead him to the medical bay for decommissioning.

——

Obi-Wan hasn’t managed to meditate for the past hour. It’s not for lack of trying. He’d sat on the floor, hands on his knees, eyes (mismatched, wonderful eyes) closed that whole time. His legs are numb; he’s not entirely sure he can get up at this point, and frankly, he still desparately wants to go and find CC-2224 and beg him to please forgive him.

He winces as he unclenched his fist from where he’s dug his nails into his shin again. With a heavy sigh he gives up, awkwardly pulling his legs out from their crossed positions, and flopping back so he’s laid on the floor completely.

Meeting your soulmate was meant to be... The most incredible moment in your life. He’d grown up on stories of eyes meeting across rooms, drawn to each other inevitability. That first curl of colour-shift, that first warmth of knowing each other. Even Qui-Gon had spoken reverantly of it, in those moments he managed to overcome the grief and speak of Master Tahl.

Instead, Obi-Wan felt like he’d violated his soulmate.

He couldn’t help but remember those wide, frightened eyes, the hitch of fear in his soulmate’s breath. His warm brown skin had paled, even as he’d lurched forwards into the kiss.

Obi-Wan shudders, swallowing back bile.

Whatever the Kaminoans had done to the clones, his taking away CC-2224’s right to hide his eyes, to not make that soulmate bond was far, far worse.

He could feel it, delicate and frail in the center of his mind. He curled protectively around it, even as he carefully kept from touching it or strengthening the fragile thread. A soulmate bond with one who was force-sensitive could be a beautiful thing, a gentle sharing of emotions and thoughts of each other.

Obi-Wan refused to intrude upon CC-2224 anymore than he already had. He would allow himself tonight. One night to hover over it, bask in it, but careful not to touch. And tomorrow he would go to CC-2224, apologise for his over step, and seal it. It couldn’t be broken, not now it’d been allowed to form, but he could prevent it from growing any stronger, and give CC-2224 choice in this at least.

He wipes away his tears, and stared at the ceiling.

He was not meant for good things.

——

Cody stares at Helix, confused and frankly, fucking angry. They are in Helix’s office within Vode territory.

Helix has positioned them with Cody’s back to the door, and Helix facing it. He has placed Cody’s helmet in his hands, and set up a proximity alarm, so they will be alerted if anyone approaches. Helix stated he isn’t worried about Vode, that the secret will be kept by their brothers, but the fear of a nat-born inspection hangs over them even now.

Helix is a very good brother. He had spent the last hour explaining soulmates to Cody, and answering his questions. He explains that back on Kamino, those Vode pre-selected and trained to be chief medical officers had been quietly and secretly taught by Trainer Skirata exactly why they had to check their eyes every day, why they weren’t allowed to remove their helmets, why the Vode were trained to be inhuman drones when performing their duties.

Skirata had not been kind, but he had been indignant that this had been taken from them. It had been his small rebellion before he went and committed his full betrayal.

Helix told him of the Manda’s gift, the sign of the soulbond, the person who was made for Cody, and who Cody was made for. He told him that the Kaminoans had hidden this from the Vode, kept it from them for fear that their product would escape their indoctrination. He held Cody’s face and smiled, wide and proud, as he told him that this meant Cody would be loved.

At first Cody was silent, then doubtful, and then, so, so force-damned angry. So angry he shook with it, and thumped his fist on the floor, teeth clenched.

The Kaminoans took everything from them. Produced them. Trained them. Modified their bodies and mind. Gave them only identity numbers and shoddy armour. He didn’t know why this was the final straw on the pile of his resentment, but it was. He roars and bellows, Helix quiet and solid with him as he rages. The sounds of his fury echo off the walls. It isn’t long before the proximity alarm rang repeatedly.

No one enters, and Helix remains calmly sitting, waiting for Cody’s anger to settle.

Eventually, it does. But not into the weary acceptance of before. He feels something delicately warm in the core of him, and he surrounds it with calm revolution. He looks up at Helix with mis-matched eyes, and sees the same anger in him.

Together they rise, and Cody leaves the office, stepping out to the fading whispers of his brothers stood in the hallway, as they all turn to watch him. Boil and Waxer, Wooley and Longshot. So many brothers faces with halting, worried expressions.

He looks back at them, a single set of mismatched eyes within the sea of golden-brown, and tells them the truth.

——

Obi-Wan woke from troubled sleep to a sense that something had changed. For a moment, he stays lying on the floor where he’d eventually fallen asleep last night, and blinked up at the ceiling, struggling to center himself in the Force.

The oppressive fear and anxiety had been swept away by a flood of rebellion and joy. It sang through him, wardrums pounding at the heart of it. His limbs were flush with energy, his heart pounding in time with the beat. He found himself clambering to his feet, unable to resist the pull of fierce jubilance. His saber leapt to his hand, the force dancing playfully, excitedly around him, teasing him towards the door.

He walks dazedly through the hallways, following the curl of something golden dragging at his chest. His feet are bare, he wore only his sleep clothes, hair flattened from lying on the floor, and he didn’t care. He needed to find it, that wonderful bloom of warmth in the center of his mind, that proud, fierce presence that unapologetically called for him.

Blinking, he steps onto the Bridge.

The clones wore no helmets. Identical heads, with identical curled black regulation haircuts stood at their stations. The few nat-born officers were stood quietly, confused, unable to stop staring at the bared clone faces around them.

Obi-Wan could only see one.

CC-2224 stood, turned towards him, face open and proud and mismatched eyes locked with his. His hands are calmly held in the small of his back, posture military crisp. He watches Obi-Wan as he approached, until he stands infront of him, then he reaches out his right hand, placing his thumb on Obi-Wan’s cheek below his golden-brown eye.

“Cody,”

Obi-Wan startles, placing his own hand over the gloved one on his cheek. “What?”

Mismatched eyes crinkle nearly closed with the force of the smile on his soulmates face.

“My name is Cody.”

#star wars #the clone wars #commander cody #star wars the clone wars #obi wan kenobi #codywan #star wars fanfiction #codywan fanfic #cloneshipping #clone trooper waxer #waxer/boil

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grapenehifics · 3 months

Text

Prisoner 224

I really loved writing Out of Sync for @fulcrum843's @topwan-obikin fest prompt, but fully intended it to be a one-shot until @somethingsteff started feeding me ideas and, well, I'm limited on free time right now so this is still only a ficlet but I couldn't help myself.

If you don't know the fic, the Council finds out about Obi-Wan and Anakin's relationship and they quit the Order. Anakin punches Palpatine when he insults Obi-Wan and gets sent to jail, and Obi-Wan hurries to hit the Chancellor as well so they can stay together. This also fulfills @ficwip's Hey Sweetheart challenge!

Text under the cut:

“Where are we going?” Anakin demanded. His hands were bound at the wrists in front of him, which didn’t make him look very threatening, but he gave his best glare to the backs of the heads of the troopers escorting him down the hall anyway.

Neither the troopers ahead of him nor the two at his back answered him. Their little group just kept marching along.

“I demand to know where you’re taking me,” Anakin tried, not pausing in his forward march but flexing his fingertips in preparation. He didn’t want to use the Force against them – besides the fact that they were probably just acting on orders from someone higher up the prison management chain of command, he was also pretty sure even something mild like knocking four guards out for a few hours would get his sentence extended and that was the opposite of what he wanted considering Obi-Wan was already slated to get out weeks before he did – but he also was not planning on taking a move to another cell block without putting up some sort of a fight.

He and Obi-Wan were kept apart for most of the day – Anakin in his cell and Obi-Wan in his – but because they were part of the same cell block, they were allowed to take both their exercise hour and their meal break together, Anakin holding Obi-Wan’s hand clasped in his as they jogged around the exercise track in their prison-issued tracksuits and rubbing elbows as they sat side-by-side with their dinner trays (and this only because they’d been told off for trying to sit on each other’s laps instead). But it was still a far sight better than not getting to see him at all, and Anakin hadn’t even done anything wrong (lately) and so really didn’t deserve to be punished like this.

“I want to go back to my cell,” he said.

“One of my batchmates is serving under Commander Cody in the 212th,” the trooper behind Anakin on his right said through his helmet vocoder. “CT-3812.”

“Sure. Punch, right?” Anakin said easily. “Yeah, I know him. But what has that got to do with anything?”

“That’s him,” the trooper agreed. None of the prison guards had ever told Anakin their names, just their badge numbers, although not for lack of asking. This one was one of the supervisors. Some of the younger guys were so green they had five-digit designations. “He’s met General Kenobi a few times.”

“Cool. So have I,” Anakin nearly growled. “That’s who I’m trying to get back to. So if you could just put me back in my cell, that’d be great. Or at least tell me what I’ve done.”

“Punch tells me he’s a real stand-up guy,” the trooper continued, as if Anakin hadn’t spoken. “Always makes sure his men have enough to eat. Doesn’t take unnecessary risks. That sort of thing.”

They rounded a corner. Anakin was starting to get desperate. “Just tell me where we’re going,” he practically begged. “I can call in a couple of favors and get myself reassigned back to Obi-Wan’s floor”-

“Punch also said,” the trooper on Anakin’s right said, so loudly he was almost shouting in Anakin’s ear, “that one time you and your troops joined up with their battalion, you threw yourself in front of a blazer bomb. Saved the lives of fifteen men.”

Anakin had done that enough times that that didn’t really narrow it down for him. “Which campaign?” he asked, but the trooper ignored him yet again, which seemed rude, considering he’d started the conversation in the first place.

A commlink chirped – Anakin instinctively looked to his own belt before remembering he didn’t wear one anymore – and one of the troopers at the front of their procession answered it.

“We’re ready for you, Sergeant,” the voice on the other end said.

“Copy,” the man said, replacing the device on his belt.

“Well, I’m not ready,” Anakin said, and he stopped walking. The troopers at his back nearly ran into him. “I’m not going any further without an explanation. If you can’t give me that, then you can just put me back in my cell, because” –

“We do regular maintenance, on all the cells,” one of the troopers injected, talking over the tail end of Anakin’s sentence. “Routine cleaning, things like that. Check that the water pipes are functioning properly, do a little light dusting…”

“I don’t care if my cell is clean or not,” Anakin hissed. “You can skip mine for the next five months if you want. Or let me do it myself. Is that the problem? Just give me the tools and leave me alone. If you’re worried I’m going to break out, I promise I won’t. As long as you’ve got Obi-Wan here I’m, like, the opposite of a flight risk.”

“It might take, say, three hours to finish the whole floor, wouldn’t you say?” the trooper on Anakin’s left asked the trooper on Anakin’s right.

“Maybe as many as four,” he responded.

“And we do these sorts of rounds every other week,” the first one continued.

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Anakin demanded.

“If you’d just wait right in here, Prisoner 224,” the trooper who was friends with Punch said, and nudged Anakin in the back with the butt of his rifle.

“I told you; I’m not going. And you’re bluffing. You won’t shoot me.”

“That’s true,” the trooper admitted. “I’m not. What I am going to do is count to thirty, and by the time I get to the end, you’re going to decide to go, all on your own.”

“Ha,” Anakin said. “Like hell I am. What on earth do you think would make me” –

“Here we are, sir,” another of the troopers said, and he punched the button to release the door guard in front of one of the cells. He was wearing a bucket, but he somehow seemed to be able to stare straight into Anakin’s eyes anyway. “Four hours, every other week,” he repeated slowly, enunciating very clearly.

“I don’t care how clean it is,” Anakin insisted, just as he was very unceremoniously shoved forward into the new cell he absolutely did not want to be in –

“Oh. Hello, sweetheart,” Obi-Wan said, sitting up from where he’d been lying on his back across his bunk, his arms crossed behind his head. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“What” – Anakin stammered as the door guard slammed down behind him, locking him in. Locking him into Obi-Wan’s cell. With Obi-Wan.

Anakin opened his mouth. Shut it. Opened it again. The binders around his wrists unlocked and fell to the floor with a clatter. “Send Punch my regards,” he said, without turning his head. He and Obi-Wan hadn’t stopped staring into one another’s eyes from the moment they’d faced one another. Obi-Wan grinned. Anakin grinned back.

“Will do, sir,” his friend said jovially, but Anakin missed hearing him as he launched himself at Obi-Wan and Obi-Wan, laughing, caught him and lowered him down onto his bunk.

“Did I just hear you say something about four hours?” Obi-Wan asked mischievously, one eyebrow raising into a verbal question mark.

“Shut up and kiss me,” Anakin said, and Obi-Wan did.

#hey sweetheart #out of sync #obikin

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bropunzeling · 2 months

Note

matthew/leon 💛 please!

💛 reunion kiss/relief (for u and also @msmargaretmurry)

The distance between Florida and Spain isn't all that large when you think about it. Definitely not in comparison to Leon's flight out from Edmonton. Nine hours and non-stop, compared to multiple legs and spending a short eternity in O'Hare. It shouldn't feel that long.

Leon swears he can feel every second of it.

By the time he's spat out into the rideshare zone, Leon's exhausted and mildly disoriented, clutching his bag and fumbling with his phone to call an Uber. He's hungry -- couldn't eat much on the plane, nothing sat well in his stomach -- and tired down to the bone. Every time he tried to shut his eyes, get some rest, he instead replayed the events of the night before on the inside of his eyelids. Watching the Panthers-Vegas game in bed with his phone three inches from his face, tracking number 19. Seeing him go down. Seeing him clutch at his shoulder. Seeing the way he skated later, like he couldn't keep his feet under him.

By an hour after the game was over, Leon had already booked flights.

Now, though, in the light of day -- sitting in the backseat of someone's SUV, watching the scenery pass and blur in his vision, clutching his phone in his hand like a lifeline -- Leon wonders if he's made a mistake. He texted Matthew as soon as he saw: how bad is it; are you out the rest of the series; should i come over; i'm booking flights. All sent in five and ten minute increments as soon as the final buzzer went. None of them answered. As much as he tries to tell himself there's good reason for that between the pain and the pain meds, he can't help wondering if it's really because Matthew doesn't want to talk to him. Won't want him there.

It's admittedly a little stupid, given that Matthew had tried so hard to get him to come to Florida after the Oilers got knocked out. Kept saying how good it would be to see him, how good it would be to actually spend time together. His parents would be in town. Leon could meet them, his little sister. Finally put faces to names. Take that next halting step towards something with a label, something they could talk about with people other than themselves.

Matthew had tried so hard, and Leon hadn't wanted to hear it. Losing was still fresh, stinging; the distance between them, normally easier to bridge, felt impossible to cross. He missed his parents, his sister. He didn't want to think about hockey and all the ways in which he was disappointed. He didn't want to sit around making nervous small talk while Matthew was on the ice, surpassing him.

It wasn't a fight, necessarily, but it wasn't not one, either. Leon had figured they'd take the time to cool off. Regroup once the playoffs were over, once Matthew had -- well.

All those thoughts and plans flew straight out the window the moment he saw Matthew hit the ice.

And now, here he is. Walking up the driveway to Matthew's house, a place he's only been to a handful of times. Hitting the doorbell before checking his phone, looking to see if Matthew texted him back; he hasn't yet.

The person who opens the door must be Matthew's mom; she looks like him, or Leon guesses he looks like her. Same eyes; same flash of a smile. "Come in," she says, obviously giving him a once over. "Leon, isn't it?"

"Uh," Leon says. He feels tongue-tied, fumbling his way through English in a way he hasn't in years and years. "Yes." He clutches at the strap of his bag. "Sorry to, uh. Show up like this. Uninvited. Um."

Matthew's mom hums. "I had a bit of a clue. He left his phone on the counter last night."

Leon's shoulders inch down from where they were stuck by his ears. "Oh," he says. "Is he asleep? I can, uh --" Wait should be the next word, but it's impossible to say. He's not sure he actually can.

She looks at him like she knows what he isn't able to get out. "You know where to go."

Leon does know where to go. He's only walked through this place a few times before, but the sense memory is so strong -- hanging around in the kitchen trading kisses between sips of coffee; how the edge of that picture frame had dug into his shoulder; the place on the rug where he'd stumbled, trying to shove Matthew into his bedroom, off-balance and unwilling to let go. The only thing he isn't sure about is what he'll see once he gets there.

The bedroom door seems so innocuous, and yet Leon holds his breath when he eases it open.

Matthew's asleep, hands curled towards his chest the way Leon remembers from nights in either of their beds, when his own hand would be taken ransom and impossible to extract. His mouth is open, hair matted. Even from here, Leon can see how much weight he's lost, the edges of bruises peeking out from under the collar of his t-shirt. Can't see whatever brought Matthew down last night, but the lack of visible evidence doesn't ease the sharp ache in his chest.

For a long minute, Leon just stands there, looking. Then, carefully, he sets his bag down by the door and crosses the room, easing himself down onto the side of the bed. Gives into impulse and strokes sweaty curls off Matthew's forehead, then leans over and kisses his hairline.

Matthew stirs, eyes fluttering open. At first, he squints, like he isn't sure what he's seeing; then, he shifts, and that movement must jar something, because he winces and curls into himself. Even as he does, though, one of his hands reaches for Leon's wrist, grabbing on, holding fast. "Leon?"

Leon lets out a breath. "Yeah," he says. "I'm here."

Matthew's smile is small, and yet so sincere it hurts to look at. When Leon kisses him again, he imagines he can taste it.

#ask meme #again... how so long

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dragcnbreak · 5 months

Text

crazy for this boy

Ness is taken aback by a pretty man entering the diner and maybe moves a bit too fast with him.

Also cross-posted on AO3!

◞♡࿐

Ness was gay, which is a fact that is pretty much as old as time itself. Even with the year being 2000 and living in the state of Utah, he didn’t much try to hide it. That may have been the main reason why he was staring at the most beautiful man he’s ever seen in his life. Ness worked at a dinner called Sparky’s and he does meet a lot of pretty men who catch his eye but none quite like this one.

The man had the most intense hazel eyes, matted hair that was still somehow cute, and a gorgeous chiseled jaw with an endearing five o’clock shadow. Ness pouted internally when he saw him sit at a table that he wasn’t waiting. So before his coworker, Tara, could approach, he began to bribe her for the table. She gave him a knowing glance, letting him have it.

“Hi. Welcome to Sparky’s, sugar! What can I get you started with?” Ness rolled up to the table with confidence. It’s only when the man blushes that he realizes he let a pet name slip. “U-um, just a… water is fine.” Ness peered down at the stuttering man, smiling at the name tag on him reading “Mike”.

“Gotcha, Mike! Anything else? Lunch is the most important meal of the day after all.” Mike frowned at that. “Is it really lunchtime already? Damn it.” The sentences cause Ness to frown too. “Is everything okay?” He can’t help but ask, wanting to know more about the guy in front of him. “It’s none of your business.” Mike shook his head.

“I’ll be right back.” Ness says, an idea forming. He reported to his manager, Clyde, and explained that he would be going on his break now. Clyde nodded and Ness grabbed two waters on his way back out, one for Mike and one for him. The mentioned is taken aback when Ness comes and sits with him.

“I’m on my break so don’t worry,” Ness sipped his water, “but spill. You seem like you’ve got something worrying you and I want to help.” Mike furrowed his eyebrows. “I don’t even know you… Ness.” He said, glancing at the other’s name tag. “So?” Ness kept the conversation going, ignoring how his heart fluttered when Mike said his name.

Mike just sighed softly, drinking his water as well. “I guess… Um, I just can’t find a babysitter for my little sister for tonight. My usual one is sick and I really need to go to work.” Mike explained while he stirred his drink with his straw. “I can watch her!” Ness almost yelled, nearly spilling his own water.

The shorter blinked owlishly. “Seriously? Again, I don’t even know you.” He let go of his drink, staring at Ness, who just waved his hand. “The name’s Ness. And now you know me!” He smiled brightly, making Mike want to reciprocate it. “I’m free tonight and you need a sitter. I promise I’m not a serial killer or anything like that. Just a guy who wants to help a pretty boy like yourself.” Ness reached over the table, clasping Mike’s hand and looking into his eyes. The words and actions caused them both to blush and Ness quickly moved his hand away.

Mike sighed again, reaching back to scratch his neck. “I… I guess? I get paid tomorrow so I can pay you then. Just don’t hurt my sister or I’ll make you regret it.” Mike threatened Ness but all Ness saw was an adorably angry puppy. But he filed away that thought for later and nodded. “Don’t worry about paying me! This’ll just be my good deed for the day.” He reasoned.

The other didn’t argue, figuring it would be a losing battle to try to. Instead, Mike grabbed a napkin and a pen he kept in his work uniform. “Here’s my address and my um, my phone number.” He stuttered over his words, writing said things on the napkin.

Ness gave him a kind smile. “What time should I be over tonight?” Mike thought it over for a second. “7 works for me.” Ness nodded. “And 7 works for me too. My break should be about over but I’ll see you then, pretty boy.” Ness grabbed the napkin with one hand and the other took Mike’s hand again. Confidence filled him as he reached down and kissed the hand he held. Mike watched, flustered, as Ness then stood up and walked away.

◞♡࿐

Ness turned up to the Schmidt’s house 10 minutes shy of seven o’clock. He was a bit nervous about meeting Abby for the first time and babysitting her so he tried to channel some of the confidence earlier.

But then he knocked on the door and Mike answered it shirtless and his attempts were thrown out the window. The shorter must have just gotten out the shower the way his hair was wet and a towel was wrapped around his waist. “Sorry about… this.” He motions to his chest. “Shower. Um, I told Abby about you. She might be shy…” Mike talked more than he ever had before and here Ness was, spacing out and practically drooling at the sight of Mike.

“Ness!” The mentioned blinked a few times, returning to the world of the living. “Y-yes!” He nearly shouted. “Are you okay?” Mike asked with furrowed brows. “Of course! Why do you ask?” Mike frowned. “You’re bleeding.” He pointed to his nose, indicating where the blood was coming from. Ness swiped a finger under his nose. He copied Mike’s frown when he saw blood on the finger.

“Let me get dressed and I’ll help you before I go to work. Don’t get blood on the floor!” The shirtless man left the room, his little sister taking his place. She stared at him knowingly and suddenly, Ness wanted to die right there and then.

#mine #my fanfics #text #fnaf movie #Mike schmidt #ness #ness the waiter #securitywaiter #dreamtheory #mike schmidt x ness #mike schmidt x ness the waiter #fnaf #five nights at freddy’s movie #five nights at freddy's

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nerdthatsiriuslylovestea · 4 months

Text

Helpless part 7 (I'm in an airport rn lol)

The two stepped into a mall in New York that Nico could not bother to remember the name of, Piper grabbed his hand dragging him through the mall. Nico constantly reminded himself that human contact would not kill him and that it was probably a good thing Piper was dragging him along considering he had no idea where he was going.

"I still don't understand why I couldn't just shadow travel us here."

"Will threatend to kill me and Chiron if we let you shadow travel."

"Of course it was Solace, I would expect nothing less from him." The son of Hades said, rolling his eyes. The two demigods walked through the stores both trying on different clothes and Piper this time failing to convince Nico to get anything that wasn't black. All while Piper teased him about a certain son of Apollo,

"Be realistic Piper, he's probably straight anyways."

"No he's not actually, he's bi. Leo was going to tell you but he couldn't find you, apparently the rest of Camp knows." Nico's face lit up for a second before looking back down.

"There's still no chance. He is literally the embodiment of sunshine, I am the child of Hades, God of the fucking Underworld. There is no sunlight there."

"Nico he clearly cares about you."

"It's his job."

"But he checks in on you so much more than anyone else."

"Because he doesn't trust me to stay alive."

"If he didn't trust you to be alive he would have kept you in the infirmary."

"There's still no chance he likes me."

"You're the only one who thinks that Nico, he gave you a nickname for Aphrodite's sake. He doesn't do that with anyone else who is 'just a patient'"

"He did that to get on my nerve."

"Gods you're so dense, wanna go to McDonald's now?"

"Oh, sure." Nico said trying to hide the shake in his voice.

"Oh and di Angelo, Will threatened to kill me if I didn't make you eat a full meal so yeah."

"Of course he did."

***

They finished ordering, Piper had only gotten some fries and a drink because apparently the vegetarian options 'were so bad they tasted like grass'. Nico just nodded, not pointing out the fact that not ten minutes ago she was threatening him to eat a full meal today because Will would kill her if he didn't and here she was barely eating herself.

"Number 57!" Nico walked up and grabbed the tray, he breathed in deeply. He'll be okay, if he acted calm then he could play it off. He would just walk off for a bit, Piper didn't have to know. The two started to eat, it still tasted as good as Nico remember but he could barely get anything down his throat. He already felt sick but he knew he could withstand at least another five minutes without throwing up, he tried to keep conversation to a minimum putting all his energy into seeming fine. After another few minutes passed, then Nico muttered,

"Bathroom." Before walking away, he tried to keep his pace normal but already knew he was walking away too fast and Piper would know something was up. He quickly walked inside and was extremely thankful the bathroom was empty, he went into the stall furthest away from the door. He threw up everything he had eaten like countless other times, at that point he was just hoping no one would walk in. He cleaned himself up a bit and headed back towards Piper,

"Okay tell me. What happened?"

"What?"

"I know something happened, you're biting your nails and you looked sick before. Also you practically ran and you look nervous."

"Nothing happened."

"Nico don't lie, I know something happened. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Piper desperately wanted to know what had happened to the Hades boy but she knew when to stop pushing, she didn't want to charmspeak it out of him, that's purely invasive. He'll tell her when he's ready.

"Come on, I want to do something I'll regret in a week."

"Which is...?"

"I'm getting my ears pierced."

"Oh my Gods, yes. That is an amazing idea; if they say you look too young to do it without parents concent, I'll charmspeak them."

"Thanks McLean, didn't particularly like the plan of asking the God of the Underworld to come to a mall in New York." Nico was relieved Piper had either forgotten to continue interrogating him or was leaving the topic for now, he had been meaning to do this at some point either way and this seemed like a good occasion.

***

Piper had to do some charmspeaking, but finally Nico had gotten them done. He decided to get doubles since he was going to regret it anyway might as well go all out, he hadn't even flinched when it happened. After that they went to a few more stores and Piper finally convinced him to get something that wasn't black, instead a very dark blue.

"I would ask if you are actually allergic to bright colours except I've seen you in a bright red shirt so that clearly isn't the case."

"I just like black, is there a problem?"

"It makes you look like the Grim Reaper."

"I was hoping for that."

"You're hopeless di Angelo."

"Finally you're giving up, took you long enough."

"Nope, simply stating facts. If I can bring a metal dragon to life I can make you look less like a ghost without the use of charmspeaking." Turns out however that she could not, maybe some tasks really were impossible.

"I'll shadow travel us back, it's not that far."

"Nico, I would get killed by your loverboy if you did that. We'll just take the-"

"That is probably more dangerous if we're being perfectly honest, also shut up."

"Never. By the way not that many people died, it was-" but the daughter of Aphrodite didn't have time to finish. A wooden club hit her over the head, Nico cursed under his breath and pulled out the only weapon he had, a small pocket knife, he knew he couldn't do much against a fully grown cyclopes. He didn't know where it had come from but that wasn't important, the monster had probably found them because of his blood, children of the big three were the easiest to be tracked by monsters. He had skeletons but there is no way he could stab it with the celestial bronze blade, Piper had passed out and was bleeding on the floor. Meanwhile Nico was struggling to not get hit by the 15 foot cyclopes, he didn't know what everyone else had seen but they didn't pay much attention. He raised a few skeletons to try and keep it in place, he felt himself getting weaker. He knew he shouldn't be doing these things but he was fine for those years he was alone, he would survive now. Piper had lost a lot of blood, he didn't know how well this would go, he had some squares of ambrosia but couldn't get it to her without dying. There was nothing else he could do, he grabbed her wrist and shadow traveled back to camp, but still got hit with the club before he was gone. His head hurt and he tasted blood in his mouth, he collapsed as he showed up somewhere in front of cabin 13.

---

#percy jackson #percyjackson #Percy Jackson and the Olympians #Pjo #Percy Jackson fandom #Percy Jackson fic #Percy Jackson fanfic #Percy Jackson fan fiction #Solangelo #Solangelo fic #Nico di Angelo #Will solace #Annabeth chase #piper McLean #jason grace #hazel levesque #reyna avila ramirez arellano #frank zhang #leo valdez

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love--galore · 2 years

Text

“wanna make him jealous?” gojo x reader au!

pairing: gojo satoru x reader, meeting at the gym au!

summary: You travel to your usual gym after a breakup. Still in distress over your breakup, you almost drop the weights while on the squat rack but a strange pale-haired man helps you. You tell him why you made such a dangerous mistake, and he offers you a proposal, “Want to make him jealous?”

note: I saw this scenario on a TikTok that I can’t find sadly, and thought it was perfect as a story with Gojo. Also can someone tell me why I write such long stories lol ❤

word count: 2.7k

tags: fluff, gym au!, gojo helps you make your ex jealous, sfw

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You never miss leg day. Even when you’ve just been broken up with by your boyfriend of two years. Well, ex-boyfriend now.

The gym is relatively full, attendees staring at themselves in the mirror with headphones or earbuds in. It’s summer now, so the air conditioning is on full-blast. Thank god. You find an open squat rack in the corner of the gym underneath a vent and the air feels nice as it blows above you. At least one thing is going well.

You’ve been long distance for half a year, and ever since Nathan broke up with you one week ago over the phone, it has felt like the world has relentlessly rubbed it in your face. First, your car windshield cracks from a rock flying at you while you were driving on the highway the morning after, and then you get food poisoning from your favorite sushi restaurant later in the day. You then lost your apartment keys during a drunken night out with your girlfriends. Seventy-five dollars down the drain, which you guess that instance could be considered your fault for getting so drunk but nevertheless, the world hates you almost as much as you hate it.

You didn’t think you were doing anything wrong in your relationship to deserve all this bad luck, but clearly the universe would argue otherwise. Nathan said it was because he couldn’t handle long distance anymore, but what he didn’t know was that you had his Instagram and Facebook password. Now, some couples would see this as a red flag on your part because everyone deserves privacy, even those in relationships, but since he had been distancing himself for the past month such as not picking up your calls as frequently “because of work” and texting dryly, you decided to guess his password to his social media.

The funny thing is that it didn’t take you long to figure it out. That stupid idiot. It was his family dog’s name beginning with a capital letter and his birthday listed out in numbers. At that point, it was his fault for making such a shit password. And sadly, your suspicions were right.

You never saw Nathan as a cheater. He always swore he would never put you through that, and while you still don’t know what he did with the girls he was talking to or if anything physical ever happened, he was definitely reaching out to these other women and texting them more than he did with you. He even asked one girl if he could take her out on a date to the beach and a music festival since they’re both in the same city in California for work. Beaches and music festivals were the dates you would plan!

That’s when you snapped. Well, first you cried your eyes out and immediately called your best friend, and then you snapped. He was not prepared when he answered his phone to you screaming about him cheating and lying to you for weeks. You sent him the screenshots of his messages after he denied ever talking to other girls and all he could say was, “Why the fuck are you stalking my social media, y/n?”

“Because I fucking had a feeling and guess what, you dumb fuck? I was right!”

You feel your eyes burn at the memory as you attach the weights to the squat rack bar. You have never screamed so loud or cussed so terribly in your life but you were so hurt. This level of betrayal was painful in a way you couldn’t describe. If you didn’t look into his social media, who knows how long he would have kept it from you?

Nathan’s only reasoning was the long distance, but why couldn’t he have broken things off and told you before he spoke to other girls? He didn’t have an answer and you beat yourself up thinking of an answer to this question that even he couldn’t find the words for. You dip your head underneath the bar and set your feet before lifting the bar up over the hooks. You walk backwards a few steps before bending down and lowering your back, making sure not to arch it as you were told, by stupid Nathan, that arching your back is improper form that can lead to a back injury.

He was actually the one who introduced you to working out. It was a year ago and the two of you came to this same gym by your apartment. It was fun learning a new hobby with him because the two of you would spend quality time together and you grew more confident in your body, too. Not only physically but also mentally. You felt healthier and found yourself in a better mood than before.

But now, as you lower and lift the heavy bar on your shoulders, you feel worse than you did before coming to the gym. You lift the bar back onto the hooks and stretch your arms. That’s when you noticed the person working out on the squat rack beside you because he also paused his reps and placed the bar back. It made a loud clanking sound as he dipped his head underneath to release the bar onto the hooks attached to the rack.

You only glanced for a second but the plates on his bar were almost triple the amount on yours. He’s really tall, too, with platinum gray hair that flowed over his forehead. You were pretty small unfortunately, so everyone was tall to you, but he was definitely over six feet tall. You reach down to grab your water-bottle and that’s when you realize you didn’t even put in your earbuds. They sat inside of their charging case right next to your water. You must’ve been too caught up in your thoughts to put on music.

For some reason your eyes burn again and this time you feel your lashes get wet as tears begin to form. Why the hell were you crying at the gym? You brush your arms above your forehead, wiping them away before they could develop and pretending you’re wiping away sweat. Not that anyone was looking at you. You take a quick swig of your water before heading back to your set. You add another ten pound plate to each side of the bar before lifting the bar onto your shoulders once again. However, this time, when you step back to raise the bar above the hooks, you feel your feet suddenly falter under the weight and you gasp.

The right side of the bar quickly drops down and the sudden shock makes you lose balance. A hand shoots out from beside you and grabs the bar while you struggle to regain your balance. Sharp pain bounces around the muscles of your right shoulder from the sudden impact and you look over as the man who was working out beside you sets the bar easily back onto the hooks. You look down at a stray water bottle that spills around your feet. He must’ve dropped it as he jumped in to help you.

You frantically look around and the entire gym is now looking at you in confusion as the sound of clashing metal from your mistake was pretty damn loud. Your first instinct is to laugh awkwardly and you cover your mouth with your hand to stop yourself.

“Are you okay?” He asks. His voice was deep and filled with concern. You meet his icy blue eyes which lowered as he frowns.

“Uh, yeah. Sorry about that.” You tried to laugh again but that was a pretty dangerous mistake. He’s still behind you and you step back, clearing your throat. “Thanks for catching that.”

“I almost didn’t.” He replies bluntly, and suddenly you feel like a five year old getting lectured for crossing a busy street alone. “Maybe you should lay off the extra weight, kid.”

Kid? “The fuck?” The response comes harsher than you intended. Your mouth moves faster than your brain, which you know because Nathan and your family always pointed it out. “I’m probably older than you. And I can lift a hundred pounds.” You snap back.

Wait, was he watching you add extra weights? The man chuckles. “Then what made you almost wipe out over a hundred pounds?”

You’re weirdly offended by this reaction. You should be grateful he prevented you from almost hurting yourself but this dude wants to make fun of you? What is he, twelve years old? He certainly doesn’t look like it. He has defined cheekbones and a distinct jaw. He even towers above you and you have to arch your neck to meet his gaze.

“My boyfriend cheated on me.” You reason, but he only lifts a light eyebrow. A tress of his light hair shifts with it.

“Oh, yeah?” You wait for sympathy, but he only chuckles again. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that, sweet heart.”

You huff and reach down for your water bottle and phone, deciding to end the conversation. What is his fucking deal? You hate guys like this. But before you can pick up your things and walk away, he suddenly asks a question you could have never predicted.

“Wanna make him jealous?”

You turn back and it’s your turn to arch an eyebrow. “What did you just say?”

“Let’s make him jealous.” He says calmly as if stating that the sky is blue. You finally get a good look at this weird man, who’s dressed in all black work out clothing and speaks to you like you’ve been friends for years. You’ve never ever seen this person in your life. You feel like you would remember. Is this his way of being charming?

“I don’t even know your name.” You respond, and he promptly offers his hand.

“I’m Satoru, but everyone calls me Gojo, my last name.”

You stare at his hand for long moments before shaking it to be polite. His hands are a lot bigger than yours and veins crawl up his wrist and wrap around his forearm. He had pale skin and bright white hair. Was it dyed? An earthy scent surrounded him even though it looked like he had been working out for a while. A light layer of sweat sat across his broad shoulders and wetted the ends of his pale hair which was longer at the top and faded behind his ears and neck.

You’ve always been a sucker for tattoos, which Nathan refused to get for “professional reasons”, and this man had what looked to be an unfinished sleeve across his right arm. But the art wasn’t of a wolf or some other scary animal or looked dark and overdone in order to stand out. It looked like Japanese characters of some sort and though you couldn’t see it clearly, the inked illustrations surrounding them seemed to have some meaning in tandem with the characters.

“y/n.” You reply. Gojo smirks, the left side of his lips quirk up like you’ve just agreed to play some sort of game. “Nice to meet you, y/n. Now, do you know how to make a dude jealous?”

You cross your arms and hold your phone and water bottle closer to your chest. You’ve never thought about making Nathan jealous, so you shake your head. “Not really, do you?”

Gojo tips his head towards the wall of mirrors on your left, “This way.”

You follow him over to the mirrors which were made so the people using the array of dumbbells in front of it could watch their form. You seriously have never met this man so alarm bells are ringing in your head at this point, but he can’t possibly kidnap or assault you in a room full of people, so you watch as he gestures closer to the mirrors.

“Stand here.” He says plainly, pointing to a spot in front of the dumbbell rack and you step towards the mirrors. “Now unlock your camera.”

You don’t know why but you do as he says and he suddenly moves to where he stands right behind you. Your eyes widen and you almost step away instinctively but he places a gentle hand on your shoulder.

“How about a little mirror picture of me holding you?”

You feel heat quickly burn across your cheeks. “Um… I don’t know about that.”

You meet his blue eyes in the mirror and you expect them to be cunning or comical, but surprisingly he doesn’t look like he has bad intentions. He moves his hands towards the dip of your waist and asks, “Just like this. Are you okay with that?”

You take a moment to respond, because you don’t know what you’re okay with him doing. He’s a complete stranger.

“W-Why are you doing this?” You ask instead.

Gojo pauses and inches his face closer to where you’re turning to look at him instead of the mirror. For someone who’s been working out, he smells nice to where you wonder what cologne he uses. It’s musky and not too overbearing. He’s also scarily close but you don’t move away.

“You were crying, and I don’t want to see a pretty girl like you cry.”

You look away and shift to the mirror instead, flustered because there’s no way he would actually say something like that. But he doesn’t follow his words up with a joke or a smirk. His face looks sad, even, and you can’t handle what he just said so you reach for his arm and place it around your waist. You raise your phone and snap a quick picture facing the mirror.

Even with no time to react from either of you, when you scroll back for the picture, it looks oddly natural as if you didn’t just meet less than five minutes ago. Gojo’s arm is placed almost perfectly around your waist, showing off the inked art along his forearm and he had turned his face to inch closer towards the crook of your neck. Even with your height difference, it looked like you had practiced a hundred times. You’re quiet as you stare at the picture and finally the silence is broken with that familiar chuckle.

“We look pretty good.” He says simply, and smirks at you playfully through the mirror. You’re still silent because your brain is blank after processing that you just took a photo more intimate than a photo with a stranger ever should be. He seems to catch on to your loss for words and laughs. It was a deep rumbling sound, but wholesome and sincere.

“Would it be too much if I asked for your number right now?” The side of his lips quirk up. “You know, just so I can get an update about his response?”

You look at the photo again and consider posting it on your Instagram story. It would be nice to potentially get back at Nathan, and it was a good photo.

“I might not even post it, though.” You lock your phone and he tilts his head.

“You didn’t like it?”

You shrug. “I actually might just keep it for myself.”

The same smirk reappears. “You should. I enjoyed the excuse to get close to your neck.”

Damn, he’s really flirting, huh? As flustered as you are, you bury the feeling in your stomach and shrug casually, “I don’t blame you. I do have a nice neck.”

He inches closer and you hold your breath. You’re still in public.

“It’s a shame I won’t get to see it again then.” His hand suddenly appears back on your waist, this time touching your lower back. Your skin tingles underneath his touch. “Unless you let me take you out.”

As much as you wanted to, you worked out in the morning before working in the afternoon, and you needed to get ready before then. “I’m actually working today.”

“That’s not what you asked, though.” His hand presses against you and pulls you closer. You almost fall into his chest. “Would you want to go out with me, y/n?”

You pause and stare at his icy blue eyes. They put you in a trance, and all warning signs of danger and better judgment disappear as you respond, “Yes.”

Gojo smiles this time, the most innocent look you’ve seen from him yet, but he pulls you to where your hands brace against his chest and he speaks into your ear you almost shiver,

“Make sure to bring that neck with you.”

#jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen prompt #jujutsu kaisen gojo #jjk gojo #gojo satoru #gojo satoru x reader #gojo x reader #gojo x you #gojo fluff #gojo x y/n #gojo satoru fluff #gojo #satoru #satoru x reader #jujutsu gojo #jjk fluff #satoru fluff

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spacemonkeysalsa · 21 days

Text

Appetites

(Angst and fluff and smut)

It's been five years since the Vampire Ascendant Astarion helped save Baldur's Gate. He has everything he ever wanted, and he's miserable.

Isolde is nobody, and has nothing. When given the option to become a vampire spawn, her response gives Astarion a moment of pause; “No. Thank you. I think I’ll just die.”

Read Chapter One on Ao3

Read Chapter Two on Ao3

Read Chapter Three on Ao3

Read Chapter Four on Ao3

or read Chapter Four below the cut

He spied the bride to be and her groom, and wondered if he could get away with neglecting to pay his respects to the host. Surely, the only people who would really mark his entrance were those who wanted to fuck him, or make a deal with him, or do him harm. As far as he knew, the Eltans didn’t number among any of them.

Some of their guests, however... He saw Baron De Cloyo—who had been all three at one point or another. The last time they spoke was when the Baron interrupted his solitude in the middle of the night to complain about Astarion not having murdered Isolde. As though he’d disobeyed a direct order.

Astarion had actually been fascinated by how his investment in the relationship utterly vanished in that moment.

“You know what they say about thine enemy’s enemy,” someone murmured to him, Astarion resisted the urge to tilt his head around and see who it was, waiting instead for the speaker to step around, bow, introduce himself like a civilized person. “Well met,” Baron Horrold eventually fell in line with public decorum and Astarion inclined his head in return.

“You’ll have to remind me,” Astarion knew it would be rude to immediately excuse himself, but Astarion and Horrold had never been officially introduced, so it would also be the kind of thing that could ensure they never did have any productive interaction.

“My take away was always that they present a fine opportunity—something I believe you know how to recognize?”

“Oh, I’ve some experience on the matter, but I do rather enjoy when it’s explained to me,” Astarion lied, but did so smoothly, inviting. Let Horrold show his hand first. There was nothing in particular that Astarion wanted from him, but like any powerful elite in the city, there were always things he could get from him, if he could make the relationship work.

Perhaps Horrold realized his approach had been too eager already, because his cheeks went a little pink. “I just wonder what you did to De Cloyo; seems he dislikes you even more than he dislikes me. Impressive.”

“Oh, I hurt him,” confessed Astarion. “Inadvertently, but there it is,” He caught a waiter and snatched up a glass, draining it more to have something to do than to quench an imaginary thirst. “It wasn’t even about him—but then again, would that make you feel better?”

“No,” Horrold raised an eyebrow at Astarion, expression pensive for a moment, “I’ve never known it to not be about me.”

He sounded so sincere that Astarion had to refrain from releasing a bark of genuine laughter.

Obviously, he wasn’t depressed. If he was, he couldn’t possibly take so much amusement in the Baron’s complete lack of self-awareness.

“Is it still Baron then, or are we back to calling everyone by their family names only and referring to them as patriars? I rather fell asleep during the missive,” Astarion confessed.

“I like Baron,” Horrold smirked, “even if the Duke did want us to go back to the old ways, I think it would stick as a nickname, if nothing else.”

“Yes, true enough. Policies like that can lead some prick to calling himself ‘The Emperor’ and everyone following suit.”

“I suppose,” Horrold seemed rightly baffled by the comment, but recovered quickly by getting back to his own point, “And nothing can displace my family from the pedestal I’ve carved for them in the city elite. Baldur’s Gate needs us.”

“I’m sure,” Astarion was not sure.

“Your place is curious to me. I’d like to know more. I’d like to be involved.” Horrold kept his voice low, which in their present setting actually made him seem more conspicuous.

But Astarion wasn’t entirely put off. He could be a valuable ally. But he needed to be trained. Better to begin things in a more controlled setting. “Why don’t we arrange something later in the week? I don’t believe I’ve had you in my home before, seems a dreadful social oversight on my part.”

“You’re forgiven, and your invitation accepted,” the Baron gave a curt nod. “I’ll see what my man has on the schedule and arrange something with yours.”

“Excellent.” A bit of an exaggeration, but at least the evening was shaping up to be a productive one. Astarion released the Baron back to the party and forced himself to seek out a few others. Menotuous, tedious conversation followed in much the same vein as what had proceeded, and by the time midnight rolled around, he was drained by it all.

This kind of thing used to be relaxing for him. Social gatherings of the more banal type didn’t give him energy the way a more raucous event might, but it hadn’t felt like work since…

Since it hadn’t been his choice.

Was that the problem? Was that what had robbed him of his passion, his appetites?

He could do whatever he wanted now, so why did it feel like he was following directions from some unseen master? Someone very boring who he none-the-less had to take direction from?

The simplest answer was that it was because he was doing quite a lot, and none of it felt like his idea anymore. Maybe it never had been.

At one time, the prospect of finally having the freedom to find out what he wanted had kept him from total, intentional self-destruction. But, at some point, he’d taken it for granted. No one was telling him what to do any longer. He could do whatever he wanted.

And he still didn’t know what that was.

He was just doing what… he used to do, minus a few atrocities and diabolical schemes.

Old habits had him slipping into the seams of the party, finding the quiet, intimate places purposefully structured into the Eltan house to allow for tucking away with someone. Not even to make love just out of sight in a public place—though that had its appeal—but just to have them all to himself for a moment, to hold them and watch them watch him and savor every little interaction. All his.

Even when it was meaningless. Just a bit of fun, or even something more tragic. It was the part when he felt the pain and the pleasure heightened.

Assuming he felt anything.

The Eltans had opened their home to the great and the good of Baldur’s Gate, but that was apparently a broad category of persons because the manor house was overburdened with bodies. It took a hike into the next wing to find any isolation. Someone had clearly planned for and enabled the possibility that some of the guests might wander to find some privacy, because the candelabra were still lit, all the way into the more deserted halls.

The library seemed like a quiet place to find a comfortable lounge. He needed a moment to clear his head before he went back to that place that didn’t feel like home, though he’d lived there for centuries.

What did he want?

When was the last time he was sure he’d done something he really wanted to do? It could be something small, he just needed to think.

Astarion wasn’t the only person who had been looking for a little privacy in the crowded party, however. He entered the softly lit library, only to find it occupied. The couple didn’t notice him come in, right away.

They were propped up on a writing desk that was a little too dainty for their purposes. The woman had her legs dangling on either side of her partner as he seemed to struggle with her bodice between them. They clearly hadn’t quite gotten to the act yet, but at this rate Astarion doubted that they would, and couldn’t help but evaluate the whole scene and find it wanting on a few levels.

Gods, the man was doing it all wrong and the woman did nothing to help. Absolutely no support to any part of her body, she was just sitting there, trapped against the wall behind the desk, pinned in such a way so she couldn’t even use her hands. Then he saw the woman’s eyes over the man’s shoulders.

It was Isolde.

And, she wasn’t exactly fighting her partner off, but it was obvious in the stiff way she held her limbs that she didn’t want to be there.

He waited until she saw him, her gaze widened but she didn’t say anything, just stayed frozen and trapped where she was.

Astarion spared the immediate area a glance and noticed a crystal glass vase on display on its own shelf on the wall. Something to divide the otherwise relentless rows of dusty books. With an undisguised shove, he toppled it to the ground, expecting it to shatter on the polished wood floors.

To his disappointment, the vase bounced, ringing loudly from the impact, but it was fully intact still.

The man pawing at Isolde broke away from her with a yelp and whirled around.

“Gods, how embarrassing,” Astarion swanned along the nearest bookshelf, “had no idea anyone was in here.”

The man was quite good at buttoning up his own trousers quickly, even if his other movements could use some polish. He righted his waistcoat with a tug, but didn’t spare Isolde a look. His face was quite red, but aside from that, didn’t betray the slightest reaction. He eyed Astarion, but whatever judgment he passed on him didn’t reach his lips, instead he simply said, “No one is,” and quit the room.

Melodramatic, even for a patriar.

Astarion watched the man’s back as he slunk into the hallway, then turned to face Isolde, unsure if he’d be met with gratitude or wrath or relief or—

She looked distraught. So much so that it actually stopped him mid stride as he approached her. Isolde righted her skirts, and put her feet back on the ground, but was facing her shoes even as his shade fell on her. He was just about to ask her whatever was the matter, when she recovered.

He blinked and the shame on her face was replaced entirely.

In its place she wore a placid mask. “You’ve saved me again, My Lord.”

“You didn’t appear to be enjoying yourself,” he remarked with what he hoped was a particularly casual version of his most elegant shrug. “I do hope the manner in which I interfered was the right choice for the situation. I suppose I could have offered to educate the poor fool on his technique.”

“It didn’t break,” Isolde indicated the vase, still on the ground where Astarion left it.

“Ah, so it would seem,” Astarion returned to the discarded vase and picked it up, “no harm done, but then again—” he dropped it a second time, this time putting a little force into it. The Vase shattered in a satisfying rain of sparkling crystals that sprinkled across his fine boots. “There. A little wedding present for the Eltans. Nothing better than curiosity, is there? I wonder who they’ll blame?”

Isolde regarded him with eyebrows slightly raised. He thought it looked a little like she was resisting the urge to laugh. Why resist? He found he rather liked making her laugh. “Wicked of you,” she indulged in only a smirk, her attention briefly flitting back to the front of her bodice. She appeared to be wearing the same gray silk gown that she’d had on when he saw her at Wyrm’s rock. It was one of those items designed to be appropriate for day or night, and probably the nicest thing she owned, but all the same, suggested a certain level of neglect that her Lady let Isolde be seen in it twice in such quick succession.

“You seem a touch dour, or is it just the disappointment left by an inadequate lover?”

“I’m elated, honestly,” she said in a voice so unconvincing he half expected her to burst into tears the moment after she said it. “My Lady will be the one disappointed. But I think I can endure it better than I could endure him.”

“Your Lady? What’s it to do with her?”

“She was quite set on rewarding his aid to the family with whatever he wanted, and he wanted me,” she revealed simply.

Astarion felt an old pain, deep in his empty gut.

Her expression changed when she looked at him, like she’d seen something unexpected. She checked her hair with her fingers, trying to tame where he’d kneaded at her carefully coiffed hair, bringing it down in messy curls where it was meant to be pinned back.

“Allow me?” Astarion motioned to her hair, waiting for her to allow him to touch her.

For a moment Isolde looked like she didn’t understand, but then she lowered her hands and nodded, straightening out her neck and leaning in so he could work with what she had left.

Isolde wore a thin band just above her hairline and tucked under the nap of her neck, mostly hidden as she’d braided and pinned the curls into it to create an elegant, gradually elongating fall of dark hair that flowed down the back of her neck. It was loose, which didn’t seem to be the original intent in the work. Astarion tried to find where it was fixed to her scalp, perhaps it simply needed to be tightened.

Being this close to her again caused him to reflect on the night they met, and how she’d clung to him. Her pulse was speeding up again, and he hoped she wasn’t thinking about that. Reflecting on the night one almost died couldn't be much better than reflecting on the night one did die. She didn’t seem upset though, and the way her heart raced didn’t suggest that she was thinking about running for her life, it was the familiar, nearly dancing rhythm of increasing body heat and arousal.

Her face was serene, her breathing even. He liked being close to her, liked feeling how she liked it too, but he didn’t want to find himself mistaken. He shouldn’t assume. Even if she did want him, which he was fairly certain she did, he was too well versed in these matters to dismiss the reality that surely, some part of her was waiting to be rescued from him.

“Hywel won’t bother me again,” she exhaled slowly, but still he didn’t think her nerves were those of someone who wanted him to get as far away from her as possible. “You probably didn’t get a good look at his face when he realized we weren’t alone. He was furious. Like he suddenly remembered how worthless I am and—he’ll deny he ever wanted me. As I said. I’m saved.”

“Worthless?” That gave him a little pause and Astarion sighed. “Oh dear. This probably isn’t the kind of thing I can offer much of a counterpoint for, sweet one.” The band pulling her hair together wasn’t just loose, it was broken. The brute must have snapped it. Astarion realized if he tried to return even one more lock of hair back to its place, the whole thing would probably fall out, so he took a moment to assess the task.

“I’d ask for none,” but she said it with such a heavy sigh that it was clear she had been hoping for some soothing word.

From Astarion, of all possible monsters.

“To be perfectly honest, I don’t have the highest regard for the sanctity of any life, nor for the individual.”

“I suppose you couldn’t,” Isolde observed, “that would interfere with…”

“Sustaining my existence by consuming others? Somewhat, yes,” Astarion straightened up and walked around the side of the writing desk, trying to get a better look at the back of her head. “We may need to rethink strategy on this, I’m sorry to say.”

“Oh no, is it hopeless?” Isolde started to reach for her hair again, but the smart girl stopped before she made it worse, looking at Astarion out of the corner of her eye. “Help. Please.”

“All is not lost. Give me a moment.” Astarion rested his chin on his hand, taking in the whole image of her. The goal needed to be to find a way to style her hair that looked effortlessly elegant and not like she had just haphazardly attempted to restyle it without a mirror after being amorously groped in a dark library. “Permission to start anew?”

“I knew it. I’m hideous. Do what you must.”

“Oh, yes. Repulsive,” Astarion gave her a lecherous glance that he was quite pleased to see caused her face, neck and chest to all turn bright red. He slipped the tie from her hair and let the last of the curls fall. “Turn your neck. Good girl.”

Half-up would suit her, he just needed to decide on the height and the type of braid and how to plait it.

Surely, Isolde didn’t really hold herself in such poor regard. She was just hoping to inspire some sympathy in him so he would pay her compliments. But then he thought back to that night again, and how she hadn’t fought for herself.

It would have been so easy to despise her for such despair and cowardice. Maybe he ought to.

Giving all the way up on herself like that, what could one expect? If she didn’t care about herself, why should anyone else?

“Worth is often measured in comparisons,” he mused, loosening the braid with deft fingers as he decided it was too tight, better to look soft with the rest of her curly mane. “But. I have seen gods, celestials, inscrutable fey, and devils fall as ignominiously as any poor mortal wretch. In the end, we’re all equally worthwhile, and all equally worthless.”

Isolde already looked better. He was quite good at this.

“Take that for what comfort you can. You have just as much a right to live, and be a nuisance, and take others for your prey as anyone.”

She snorted, and he couldn’t tell for a moment if she was once again denying him the pleasure of hearing her laugh, or trying to hold something else back.

“Apologies,” he smoothed out the fall of her hair, tucked the frame back behind her cute stubby human ears and admired the results. “Not for the hair, that looks incredible. I’m very good. But, I do apologize that nothing I have to say can be of particular comfort. Especially given the fact that I’m a reminder of the worst night of your life.”

She did laugh, finally. A sharp, nearly bitter sound. “My Lord, I testify, that night was not even the tenth worst of my life.” All humor gone, but she did look lovely.

“I’m genuinely distressed to hear it. But you're in good company, at least.”

“For the moment,” he wasn’t sure what sparked the feeling, it might have been the soft smile and evasive blush when she faced him and the way her entire body seemed to relax when their eyes met again. For the first time in a long while, he felt the stirring of hunger. It wasn’t so strong as to compel him to lean in and bite down, but warmth spread up from the pit of him into his jaws and he felt his mouth salivate. It was a pleasant feeling, actually. He used to agonize over the constant hum of hunger. He used to personify it as a second tormentor, but removed from his old fears and weaknesses, it transformed into something different, though no less dangerous.

He didn’t need to feed. His elevated state kept him strong even after long fasts, and spare feasts, but the sweet savor of strong blood was an intoxicating memory that he’d managed to connect with after a few dull years of dissatisfaction. He knew in that moment that if he did bite her, he would finally feel that rush that had eluded him. But, if he went too far, he’d regret it.

For a moment, Isolde regarded him with bemusement, but he saw understanding starting to light her face, and tension returned to her neck and shoulders. “You’re… thinking about killing me again, aren’t you?”

“No,” he insisted, partly honest—he’d only thought about it long enough to confirm that he wouldn’t. “No,” he put a hand on her forearm, letting his thumb caress the inside of her wrist. “No, but I was thinking of asking something rather impertinent.”

“Oh, I adore impertinence.” Isolde pressed into his touch, fingertips finding purchase on one of the fine silver buttons on the front of his waistcoat. Her knees began to part, shuffling the fabric of her dress and making space for him to wade into her touch.

She would have made such a fun spawn. Perhaps she still could.

He grabbed her jaw, more firmly than intended, but she didn’t flinch and he lightened his touch to ghost his fingers down her throat. That throbbing quickened, and he felt it glide to keep pace with his own rhythm. “You entice me. May I?” It wasn’t fair, probably, to wait until his lips were brushing the soft skin just beneath her eyes to ask.

What chance did she have? Indeed, he felt her breath already coming in ragged.

“Just a taste,” he punctuated with a light kiss over her racing artery. “And you can say no. Forget pertinence. the titles, the traditions of the Gate, the fine rooms in old houses. Some day, our Duke, your masters, will be dead as any rat that drowns in the Chionthar and all with burn, and maybe while wandering the fugue plane they’ll realize they made it all up and it was pointless. What matters right now, is what you want, and what I want. So, tell me yes, or tell me no. Do you want to be tasted?”

“Astarion,” she said in a soft gasp, “please.”

“Say that again,” he purred into her throat, letting his teeth brush her flesh.

“Yes. Astarion, please.” Isolde pulled at him, encouraging him to press in more firmly against her, though it already felt like he was falling on top of her.

Astarion pinched the soft skin of her neck between his teeth, but didn’t break through just yet, he could smell the blood, but wouldn't drink yet. He enjoyed the sensation of her shivering anticipation under his breath. He cupped her head, to keep her from collapsing away from him, his other hand finding purchase at the very center of her neckline, gently brushing her flushed and heaving chest.

“Oh, God,” she whispered when he finally bit down. Her grip on him tightened, and he could feel blood and breath coursing through her, into him. The warmth of her spilled into his mouth. She tasted better than he’d imagined, but the yearning lust for her couldn’t be satisfied with a mouthful. He wanted more of her. Her blood, her body, and more of that voice crying his name.

If you take more, you could lose her. Just like you lost everything else. Astarion stopped, but kept his mouth pressed against the seeping marks as she rocked her hips against his, her legs straining to embrace him. The rush of warm blood seemed to flow straight to his cock. A sharper, more desperate gasp ripped from her throat. “Astarion, I—” she covered her mouth, falling to pieces in his arms as thousands had before. He held her close, hands pressing into her back and sliding downwards to her hips, encouraging her to grind into him, a titillating whine escaped her lips.

He forced himself to release her and leaned back. All things considered, the bite was clean and she barely seemed woozy. Instead, Isolde’s eyes were wide, sparkling, she shook her head in disbelief, “I can’t believe—tell me that’s normal, please?” The heat in her face had caused her to break out in glistening sweat in her hairline. “I’m mortified,” she confessed.

“Can’t say I’ve ever made anyone come just from biting them before,” Astarion wiped his mouth, with the blade of his thumb, not wanting to waste a drop. “At least not so enthusiastically. You’re delicious, my dear.”

Mortified accurately described how she looked. He tried not to betray a level of amusement that would embarrass her further, but Gods, it was funny. If she wouldn’t laugh, then he could make her cry out again. The moment of ebb had actually made him harder, and he started to gather her skirt up in his fists, but the look on her face gave him pause.

“Isolde. What’s the matter?” He heard the way concern sounded so sharp in his voice, and took a small breath, trying to tame it, trying to soften the words. “You’re all right.” He let go of her dress, letting it fall, and laid his hands over hers, cautious, and she managed a steady exhale that seemed to calm her. Though she still looked a little lost through her pretty face.

“You’ve done nothing wrong. There’s no need to feel…” what Astarion wanted to say twisted in his throat. He realized he didn’t actually know how she felt. He knew how he used to feel. He knew why he used to feel that way. It was tempting to project onto her, but then he’d probably just end up being wrong. He hated being wrong. “Are you still afraid of me?”

Was that all? Some conflict in her soul? Some distant voice of self preservation telling her to run from the predator?

Gradually she nodded, but then said, “It’s not what you think.”

“Tell me what I think,” he challenged.

“I don’t believe you’ll hurt me,” Isolde started, and the tender way her sparkling black eyes rested on him tugged at some buried moment. “Or, I don’t believe you want to hurt me. Rather… this is all just fun for you, isn’t it? It doesn’t mean anything.”

Well. Fuck. This again. He’d hoped she wasn’t so tender-hearted. It was easy enough to fane a little sincerity to preserve her feelings. He’d done it hundreds of times and had perfected the smile, the gentle delivery of exactly what she wanted to hear; “of course it means something. Of course I care for you. In my way.” But he couldn’t bring himself to say it, to wear the mask again, even if it was in an attempt to make her feel better.

“No, Isolde. It doesn’t mean anything.” Astarion didn’t know if he was being cruel or kind. He’d always struggled to evaluate such things in the first place. He’d simply landed on the understanding that he didn’t have to lie to her, and he didn’t want to. “At least, it doesn’t mean what you want it to.”

She was looking down at their hands, folded over one another in her lap. Was she more disappointed in him or in herself?

“Precious few people have ever let me feed off them. Most of the time, my diet of strong blood comes from the very unwilling. When I do get the rare chance to share in a moment like that one… I realize it’s a gift, and I am grateful. But. I cannot give you what you want in return. No matter how much I might want to. I’m not sure I’m capable.”

“I know that,” Isolde sounded steady enough but still wouldn’t break her intense study of her own lap and their hands clasped together there. “I do. And, I didn’t expect otherwise. It’s not really a gift otherwise,” she shrugged. “I just… I also didn’t expect to like it so much,” her voice sharpened to a whisper, “and I think for a moment I got a little carried away. Forgive me.”

“You got rather carried away is what happened,” Astarion corrected her with one raised eyebrow, “And I too, liked it much more than I expected.” He didn’t want to let go of her hands just yet, but he did want her to look up at him. He leaned it to tease a kiss, letting the tip of his nose touch her cheek. It worked, and her head shot up, mouth listing for his own, eyes fluttering.

He pulled back, “As I said, you did nothing wrong. There’s nothing to forgive.” In this one way, he didn’t have to be measured, didn’t have to hold onto some part of himself for control. He captured her mouth with his own. His coaxing was effective, in that she seemed to forget her sadness, or maybe she was using it. She reciprocated, eager, sloppy even, she slipped her hands free from his, and her fingers found their way to the back of his neck, working into the hair at the nap of his neck.

She delved deeper with her tongue, her legs tightening around him again. If he let her take control, what would she do? Although there was something decidedly inexperienced about some of her smaller, flailing little movements, he was tempted for a moment to let her guide him, and see where she took them. She broke away with a gasp, short of breath already.

Breath was something he didn’t actually need, which made certain acts so much easier for him. Her eyes were glassy, but alight, the rush of red through her face and chest intensified as she looked at him, seemingly unable to articulate her desire, or her question, or maybe any words at all as she swallowed and took another steadying breath.

He’d have to spare her again, it seemed. She was simply in no condition to be coherent.

Astarion slid to his knees between her spread legs, gathering the silk skirts up to her hips again with her latent, but eventually frantic help. In the low light, he couldn’t see much, but he slid one hand up the inside of her thigh, just ghosting the trembling flesh until his fingers pressed into her. Her underwear was soaked, her cunt throbbing just on the other side. He hooked his fingers through the fabric. She let out a small gasp, her legs instinctively coming together a moment as he pressed into her wet, sensitive clit before beginning to pull the underwear off.

She gasped again, but this one was different—Isolde shot up from the table, pushing her skirts back down, and Astarion released his grip on the underwear he’d managed to work down to the middle of her fat thighs. She was looking past him, eyes wide at the doorway.

This library must be cursed.

Astarion swiveled his head around, and wasn’t terribly surprised to see a pair of young ladies—he didn’t recognize them, but they were dressed fashionably enough that they could easily be the daughters of some patriar families. They looked surprised to see him in a way that suggested, that they did, in fact, know him.

He stole a sideways glance at Isolde, still as red in the face as ever, though the context was suddenly sheepish. Mortified. He remembered her saying just minutes ago.

Their encounter wouldn’t recover from this. He could probably carry on, but Isolde? She’d been caught in a compromising position for the second time in a single night. Maybe she’d had too much to drink. Maybe she was the source of the curse. Maybe, now was a good moment to rethink everything.

He sighed internally and then released it, and approached the women at an angle, blocking his would-be partner from sight, to give Isolde another moment to pull herself together. “My apologies,” he gave a small bow. “Alas, you have indeed thwarted a terrible rake. The poor woman’s virtue remains intact, thanks to your timing.”

He thought he heard something like a laugh coming from Isolde, but he could have been imagining it.

“How scandalous,” one of the girls giggled behind her hand.

“Oh, quite,” Astarion agreed with another drawn out sigh. “But, they’ll be other days and other unoccupied libraries. This one is all yours,” and he gathered up every inch of both of them in a searching look, “For. Whatever it is you need it for. The two of you.”

The two young women gawked up at him, mouths open. “Oh—ah, no,” one of them finally protested, “I was just going to show her a book—”

“Yes. Charming books in here! I assume,” Astarion let out a chuckle. Isolde appeared by his shoulder. Her hair still looked excellent, and she’d gotten cinched up tight rather quickly. He wondered if she’d abandoned her underwear, somehow situated it back into position that quickly—or if the garment was still constricting her thighs right where he’d left it, just a few soft inches below that delicious little wet cunt.

“Excuse us,” he shooed the ladies aside and ushered Isolde through the doorway without a backward glance, though he heard a scoff from one of them. He didn’t bother to wait until they were out of earshot before he said to Isolde, “well, if they weren’t going to fuck before, they should now.”

“You think so?” Isolde cleared her throat. She was still flushed, still obviously quite overwarm and underworked, but he knew better than to think they would get another chance now.

“In my experience, most people just need an opportunity and a suggestion.”

“Oh,” was all Isolde had to say to that.

He checked his buttons with the tips of his fingers but everything was still perfectly in place; Figaro had such an admirable understanding of the need for a waistcoat that hid one’s erection.

It had felt like such a long, wandering path through the Eltan estate’s dark hallways to get here, but as the two of them marched back, it seemed like they were woefully close to the rest of the merriment and the crowd after all. He stopped her, taking her by the arm and bringing them both to a halt before they could come back into the glow of the party, just at the mouth of the last deserted turn of the hall.

Isolde melted into the pressure of his touch, turning back to face him, eyes trailing along his lips back up to his eyes. He wondered if some part of her hoped to be stolen away into another deserted room to finish what they started—or perhaps she’d even submit to him right here.

“I want to take you home, and tie you to the bed, and keep you there to do with as I like,” he traced the backs of his fingers down the side of her face, watching his words shiver through her. “I am not certain Horrold would approve. But there’s easy ways around that. I can be patient. If I send for you, will you come to me?”

“I want to,” Isolde swallowed, something bubbling up in her breathless words. A similar reluctance to what he’d seen in her before. Was she sure she wanted this? Was she frightened? Yes. That was probably it.

“What are you afraid of?” It was something besides what she’d said before, he could tell. The fact that he was just looking for a good time and she was in danger of getting hurt was a risk she was clearly willing to assume, when it came down to it.

“I do not want to be a spawn,” Isolde said firmly.

Astarion let out a single note of a laugh; dismissive and cruel his voice sounded, he felt a slight twisting in his gut. “I know. I remember. You’d rather die. No worries, my dear. I have no intention of trying to change your mind.” A lie. Perhaps, the kind that was so obvious it would barely be called a lie, but still. “And how could I? I saw for myself that your desire to be free outweighed even your desire to live.” Her full, swollen mouth was so close and still so warm and soft from their encounter. He stole one more kiss, brief and teasing under the conditions. “What other desire could possibly be stronger than that?”

Isolde responded with a sharpening stare, and finally a shrug.

Astarion could have laughed at her again, but resisted the urge. “I’ll see you later darling, I’m sure.”

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #astarion ancunin #baldur's gate 3 astarion #astarion #bg3 astarion #appetites

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lapseinart · 8 months

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It began a few weeks before his mother’s death.

Ichigo’s older cousin was visiting from Italy - Sawada Tsunayoshi. He smiled at Ichigo and snuck him really yummy chocolate behind Kaasan’s back and told him he could call him niisan.

Or Kurosaki Ichigo gets an older brother

“Tsuna-niisan,” Ichigo had said because Isshin was listening with a weird smile, and Tsuna-niisan beamed.

He needed to get away for a bit, he had confided to Kaasan when Ichigo was supposed to be asleep. Goat Face didn’t like him much, but that was okay, because Tsuna-niisan was the coolest person ever. He didn’t care if Ichigo cried, never made fun of his name, and helped him with karate so he could beat Tatsuki. It didn’t work, but he did manage to surprise her, so it was almost like winning to Ichigo.

Tsuna-niisan also took really good care of the twins, which really made him the best. He always knew what was wrong and got them to stop crying even when Kaasan couldn’t. He believed Ichigo about the ghosts, even though he couldn’t see them any more than blurry outlines of people.

When Tsuna-niisan had to leave, he looked concerned and told Kaasan he had a bad feeling, to be very careful, but Ichigo told him he’d protect his mother and sisters because he was the First Protector, so Tsuna-niisan didn’t have to worry.

Ichigo failed.

He woke up that day on the riverbank, his mother’s corpse on top of him, a warm orange fire burning on his hands. That was how the paramedics found them, Ichigo on fire, pinned under his mother’s corpse as the rain fell on them. He thinks he passed out after that, woke up with no sign of burns on his body, much to the confusion of the doctors, who dismissed it as some sort of hallucination or mirage.

He stayed in the hospital for a week, practically comatose, until his sisters came to see him. Alone, without Goat-Face because who knew where he was now. He remembered what his mother had told him. First Protector. He had to take care of his sisters. They dragged Goat-Face into signing him out, and Ichigo began taking stock of the kitchen while Goat-Face went back into his office to plan the funeral and drink.

They were almost out of bread, because sandwiches were the only thing his five-year-old sisters knew how to make. Ichigo could kick himself for forgetting about them. Goat-Face has managed to pull it together enough to arrange the funeral, but he wasn’t dependable, what was he expecting.

Ichigo found his pocket money, found his mother’s wallet, found the emergency stash in his mother’s nightstand, until three weeks later they were out of money, out of food, out of options. Goat-Face kept drinking.

Ichigo was thinking about going out to fight some Yakuza for money when a slip of paper fell down from his desk. Ichigo was so tired. He’d picked up the habit of picking at his nails as he tried to calculate the food expenses. He seriously contemplated leaving the loose paper on the floor, but his mother didn’t raise him to be messy, so he picked it up and was about to throw it in the trash when he actually looked at it and paused.

Tsuna-niisan arrived with his mother and a friend two days after Ichigo called him and apologized for taking so long. He knelt down and hugged Ichigo, and he almost started to cry again.

Goat-Face hadn’t invited him or Nana-basan to the funeral, but they were here now, so it was okay. Hibari-san was kinda scary, but no one ever bothered them when he walked him and his sisters to school. Nana-ba made delicious food, and she taught Ichigo how to cook simple meals with solemn eyes. Tsuna-niisan made everything better.

They stayed for a month before Tsuna-niisan had to leave for his job because he was a Very Important Person, but he made Ichigo promise to call him every week and told him he would send them money once a month. He couldn’t take them with him, but he promised to come whenever he could. Hibari-san still lived in Japan, and he gave Ichigo, whom he called a small animal, his phone number.

Before he left, Tsuna-niisan went to the office Goat-Face had cooped himself in to talk to him. Ichigo didn’t know what they talked about, but Goat-Face came out the next day, scowling at Tsuna-niisan but opening the clinic again.

Life, Ichigo was half-horrified, half-relieved to find, went on. He never mentioned the orange fire, nor did he say anything about the occasional thugs that harassed him, or the Yakuza he traded favors and jobs for protection for his sisters. Tsuna-niisan protected them from separation, from financial insecurity, and in turn Ichigo protected them from the threats closer to home. Tsuna-niisan was always stressed when he visited, Ichigo had noticed, so he kept his mouth shut about the bullying, about Isshin’s surprise training attacks, and especially about the Yakuza.

Eventually it all came to a head when the boss asked him to attack a foreign group that was infringing on their territory. He was acting a bit shady, but Ichigo could hardly refuse. By thirteen, he had already built up a bit of a reputation amongst the local gangs of beating multiple people without much trouble. It was pretty obviously a trap, but it was hardly one Ichigo could refuse.

Ichigo crept to the warehouse carefully, doing his best not to be seen or heard. There were eight guys, three more than the Oyabun had told Ichigo there were. That was okay, Ichigo could manage up to twelve guys, if he was lucky and they were surprised. They looked unarmed, at the very least - it was hard to get guns in Japan - but they might just be concealing a knife or small firearm.

Ichigo was not lucky, they were not surprised, and they were armed after all. He managed to take down half before a skinny teenager who looked only a little older than him with curly hair managed to knock him down.

“What are you doing here, kid?” he squinted at him. “Wait. Are you Kurosaki Ichigo?”

Ichigo tensed and orange sparks appeared around his hands.

“What’s it to you?” he asked, struggling even more to hide the licks of flames.

“Tsuna-nii’s going to be so pissed,” the guy muttered with wide eyes and turned to one of the thugs coming up beside him, “Hey, you, stop that; he’s the Tenth’s cousin.”

Ichigo had stopped paying attention. “Tsuna-nii? As in Sawada Tsunayoshi? What’s Tsuna-niisan to you?”

Apparently, Tsuna-niisan was the other kid’s adoptive brother, so they were cousins.

Apparently, Tsuna-niisan has been trying to take over Karakura so the Kurosaki didn’t have to worry about any gangs threatening them.

Apparently, Tsuna-niisan was a Mafia boss to the biggest Mafia family ever.

Apparently, he had magic Mafia fire powers.

By the time Ichigo was 15, the Vongola had consolidated their hold over Karakura Town, and Tsuna had helped Ichigo get a nice hold over his Sky Flames. Nobody messed with the Kurosaki or their clinic anymore, not unless they’re particularly stupid punks, the kind that Ichigo could beat with his eyes closed and a hand tied behind his back thanks to low-key terrifying training from Hibari-san. He had a Latent Lightning Bond with Sado Yasutora and a Latent Rain in Arisawa Tatsuki - which were not going anywhere because Ichigo was not allowed to get involved or let others get involved with the Underground.

Tsuna had relaxed a bit, asking for calls only twice a month, and Goat-Face can get his act together well enough now that he could go to Parent-Teacher Conferences rather than Ichigo frantically calling Tsuna to have some adult going. Tsuna never stops sending money, but Ichigo quietly hides it away until his eighteenth birthday and for his sisters’ higher education. Ichigo is in the top ten in his class, and he is looking forward to studying English in college, maybe even moving to Italy. Life is, for all intents and purposes, good.

That’s when the Shinigami breaks into his room.

#kurosaki ichigo #sawada tsunayoshi #bleach #katekyo hitman reborn #kurosaki isshin #khr #ficlet #lapse in writing #isshin is useless #crossover #khr x bleach #ichigo kurosaki #tsunayoshi sawada #isshin kurosaki #bleach x khr

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ziskeyt · 1 year

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Ziv's GanLink Fic Rec List

I miss the days of actual reclists passed around communities, so I'm making one of my own. All of these are fics I've read, liked, and think you may also like if you like Ganondorf/Link. This is not exhaustive, of course. Please feel free to reblog and add your favourites!

Long Fic (80,000+)

no matter what by wouldyouknowmore Rated: E Words: 81,825

The return of the Calamity has been foretold. And while the peoples of Hyrule are united in their preparations to oppose it, there are some who believe the current king of the Gerudo would best be kept under watchful eyes, if for no other reason than his name. Fearing for his people’s wellbeing if he doesn’t comply, and all too familiar with the legends of his ancient predecessors, Ganon willingly places himself in Hylian protective custody until the threat of the Calamity has passed. He’s resigned to a lonely, unpleasant stay at Hyrule Castle, until he meets the Hylian royal guard assigned to protect him. Sir Link surpasses his every expectation from day one, fiercely loyal and courageous to a fault, uncaring of the suspicions that surround Ganon—not to mention incredibly charming. But as they grow closer, Ganon can’t help but wonder if their fates will tear them apart again before this is all over.

Ziv's Thoughts: This is a fun fic with some really excellent and delightful characterizations of both Ganon and Link. It's dealing with an interesting "What if" premise of the world pre-calamity in BotW, and delivers it well. The weight of what might happen to him is heavy on Ganondorf, but the relationship he builds with Link is just so, so sweet. *Update: The sequel is currently being uploaded:

What Remains by wouldyouknowmore Rated: E Words: WIP

A hundred-year sleep and a complete loss of memory aren’t enough to keep Link from finishing the job he’d left undone. The Calamity is sealed. The worst is over. They’ve even managed to come out of this ordeal without grievous injury, Link and the princess both—even Ganondorf, whose survival should have been impossible. They’re here now, though, and safe. But as Link very quickly comes to understand, safe doesn’t necessarily mean whole. His head’s a jumbled up mess these days, but he’s determined to push through it all the same, to figure out this whole After situation. It’s just, getting swept up in Ganon’s very intense presence isn’t really conducive to him thinking straight…

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Sands of Time by tirsynni Rated: T Words: 103,445

Link awakens in the desert with no idea how he got there, to encounter his worst enemy…except it was the King of the Gerudo, not the King of Evil, he faced.

Ziv’s Thoughts: An excellent read. Link wakes up in the desert many years after the events of Majora’s Mask and Ocarina of time, only, he’s in a different time yet again. The story has a very fairy tale-esque feeling to it, which is quite fun to read. There are a lot of references to different Zelda games, and different Links, and it’s pretty cool how they are implemented. Ganondorf here is pretty compelling as a King trying for the best for his people in what feels like an increasingly impossible situation. Link is also just a wonderful little gremlin who only talks when he decides it is needed, and has fun with keeping quiet otherwise a number of times.

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Medium Fic (20,000 - 80,000)

Little Souls in Blistered Light by hedgerowhag Rated: E Words: 58,970

The battle between the Calamity and the Princess's knight never took place. The Master Sword remains with Link, waiting to complete their shared duty. Five years pass and Link meets a stranger who is also searching for the Calamity to finally bring this story to an end.

Ziv's Thoughts: This story is just so, so good. I loved the journey they went on together, how Ganon is trying so hard to keep Link at a distance in the beginning, and how that changed entirely in the end. The character and world building in this is just delicious. I love Link here so, so much. And, of course, Ganon as such a sad guilty man. He tries so hard. There's some really beautiful messaging throughout and I loved the way Hedge wove it through so consistently. What is not to love from the GanLink salesman himself? amid sand and stone we stood by Eremji (handsfullofdust) Rated: E Words: 30,086

Ten thousand years ago Hylia and the Warrior of Light raised an army to defeat Ganon. Link means to finish the job once and for all. The beast dies on the grassy plains, leaking ichor into the dirt. It stinks powerfully of death, as though the very end of all things has been distilled down into one being that’s been left to rot in this fallow field.

Ziv's Thoughts: This reads like a fairy tale. It reminds me of how I felt when I read Deathless by Cat Valente for the first time. Kind of like being transported to this other place sideways of here and misty and full of possibility. It’s just a wonderful journey, and the conclusion feels right and kind of ethereal. It fits very well with the general setting of the games, but almost gentler and yet the pain is more visceral at the same time. I love the strength of love in this, it’s just so much, so beautiful.

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one hundred years past 🔒 by tciddaemina Rated: E Words: 38,545

He wakes a blank slate, a living body in an empty tomb. Water laps at his skin, glowing ever so faintly, pooled around him on the dais, and as he opens his eyes it slowly begins to drain away, the blue glow fading from the room second by second until it is dim and dark. (Something is wrong.) Link wakes up a century early. It changes everything.

Ziv's Thoughts: I really enjoy this fic, and yes you do need an Ao3 account to read it. It's a fun adventure into what might happen if Link were to awaken in the desert somehow, barely any memory but he recognizes Ganondorf and eventually gets more and more memories back. It deals with a growing corruption, the building toward Ganon falling into evil. Good read. A note, if you're like me and dislike this trope, it is mentioned that Ganon has increased stamina as the Gerudo men were upon a time supposed to father a new generation. But it's a passing mention and not an actual thing in this story.

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signs of radiance 🔒 by tciddaemina Rated: E Words: 24,883

There is a feeling of profound calm, as Ganondorf steps into the temple. He should be feeling something like terror, maybe even something like anticipation, a mixed dread and desperate hope that would threaten to make his breath catch, make his hands curl tight at his sides. There's none of it. He takes one deep breath, and then another, slow, even, taking a slow step forward. He's past being hopeful, he's past being desperate, and the doom he's trying to avert is too ruinous a thing to make him fear any price he might have to pay. Weeks, months now, he's been searching for the entrance to this temple, scouring scrolls of rotting papyrus for even the hint of its existence, for the faintest chance it might even be real.

It is real, and he's found it.

Ganondorf makes a deal with a creature that might be a god, and then he does it again, and then again.

Ziv’s thoughts: In this story, Ganon knows that there is a curse upon his kingdom, and he can feel coming seemingly for him and he goes to seek out help. Link is Link, but also a creature, a godling, something more. The story actually doesn’t have much Link in it in terms of the action, this is a Ganondorf-centric story and it’s a good read. Again, tciddaemina’s fics are locked to users so just log in.

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Short Fic: (up to 20,000)

a kiss for luck by wouldyouknowmore Rated: M Words: 9,279

Vah Naboris is all that stands between Link and his final showdown with the Calamity, and at long last, he’s found a way into Gerudo Town. It just involves posing as his own great-something-granddaughter, the plucky little heroine intent on finishing what her ancestor, the fallen Hylian Champion, had started. And lucky for him, King Ganondorf believes it. Now he just has to survive his last Divine Beast, and he’s set. … Well. He supposes also has to survive the charming, attractive Gerudo king’s (very welcome) attentions without blowing his own cover, but surely he can manage that, too, right? (So, yeah. He’s fucked.)

Ziv’s Thoughts: Link’s voice in this is just a delight to read, he’s such a disaster but he’s trying his best — Ganon just has no qualms with making him flustered and playing up on an understandable misunderstanding. This one works with the idea of what if Breath of the Wild, but there’s a Ganondorf who is also King of the Gerudo while the calamity is raging? Though, it is much more about the character study/misunderstanding between him and Link.

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The Crown Jewel by Nicxan Rated: G Words: 5,028

A Gerudo that makes jewelry for a living is shocked when a Hylian man moves into a Gerudo Village.

Ziv's Thoughts: This is a really cute fic. It is not set in any particular timeline/game. Just an adorable story of a Link who finds his way to Gerudo town and Ganondorf falls for him, but through the eyes of a jewellery merchant in the city. It's a nice perspective.

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Let Me Hold You, Like a Hostage by hedgerowhag Rated: E Words: 12,071

It almost seems obligatory that the Princess must be kidnapped. It would be a shame if her decoy was captured instead.

Ziv's Thoughts: If you're looking for a fun, shorter, raunchy fic this one has you covered. It's another pre-calamity fic, and this time Link is taken hostage by the Gerudo under the mistaken impression he is the princess. They hold him to get information and, in the process, he ends up sleeping with Ganon a number of times and is an entire gremlin about it.

#ganlink fic #fic reclist #loz #long post #ganlink fic recs #reclists aren't really the best for tumblr but well!!#i've seen longer posts so whatever #formatting was a pain in the butt #i'm sorry if i'm missing any you really like #but i am serious just make a reblog and add it

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homomenhommes · 3 months

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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … January 25

1874 – British novelist and playwright W. Somerset Maugham (d.1965) was born in Paris, where his father Robert Ormond Maugham was an English lawyer who handled the legal affairs of the British embassy.

Maugham was sent back to England to be cared for by his uncle, a Vicar, in Kent. The move was damaging, as Henry Maugham proved cold and emotionally cruel. The boy attended The King's School, Canterbury, which was also difficult for him. He was teased for his bad English (French had been his first language) and his short stature, which he inherited from his father. Maugham developed a stammer that would stay with him all his life.

Miserable both at his uncle's vicarage and at school, the young Maugham developed a talent for making wounding remarks to those who displeased him. This ability is sometimes reflected in Maugham's literary characters. At sixteen, Maugham refused to continue at The King's School. His uncle allowed him to travel to Germany, where he studied literature, philosophy and German at Heidelberg University. During his year in Heidelberg, Maugham met and had a sexual affair with John Ellingham Brooks, an Englishman ten years his senior.

On his return to England, the local doctor suggested he enter the medical profession and Maugham's uncle agreed. Maugham had been writing steadily since the age of 15 and fervently wished to become an author, but as he was not of age, he refrained from telling his guardian. For the next five years, he studied medicine at St Thomas' Hospital in Lambeth, London.

Maugham kept his own lodgings, took pleasure in furnishing them, filled many notebooks with literary ideas, and continued writing nightly while at the same time studying for his medical degree. In 1897, he wrote his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, a tale of working-class adultery and its consequences. Liza of Lambeth's first print run sold out in a matter of weeks. Maugham, who had qualified as a doctor, dropped medicine and embarked on his 65-year career as a man of letters. He later said, "I took to it as a duck takes to water."

The famous playwright was twenty-one when Oscar Wilde was put on trial. It was enough to make him "publicly straight." Frightened by the Oscar Wilde trial, Maugham avoided treating homosexual themes and characters in his novels and plays. He later said that his biggest mistake was "I tried to persuade myself that I was three-quarters normal and that only quarter of me was queer — whereas it was the other way around."

By 1914 Maugham was famous, with 10 plays produced and 10 novels published. Too old to enlist when World War I broke out, Maugham served in France as a member of the British Red Cross's so-called "Literary Ambulance Drivers", a group of some 23 well-known writers, including the Americans John Dos Passos and E. E. Cummings. During this time, he met Frederick Gerald Haxton, a young San Franciscan, who became his companion and lover until Haxton's death in 1944. Throughout this period Maugham continued to write. He proofread Of Human Bondage at a location near Dunkirk during a lull in his ambulance duties. Maugham also worked for British Intelligence in mainland Europe during the war, having been recruited by John Wallinger; he was one of the network of British agents who operated in Switzerland against the Berlin Committee. Maugham was later recruited by William Wiseman to work in Russia

Although Maugham's first and many other sexual relationships were with men, he also had sexual relationships with a number of women. His affair with Syrie Wellcome produced a daughter named Liza. Syrie's husband Henry Wellcome sued his wife for divorce, naming Maugham as co-respondent. In May 1917, following the decree absolute, Syrie and Maugham were married. Syrie and Maugham divorced in 1927-8 after a tempestuous marriage complicated by Maugham's frequent travels abroad and strained by his relationship with Haxton.

The gap left by Haxton's death in 1944 was filled by Alan Searle. Maugham had first met Searle in 1928. Searle was a young man from the London slum area of Bermondsey and he had already been kept by older men. He proved a devoted if not a stimulating companion. Indeed one of Maugham's friends, describing the difference between Haxton and Searle, said simply: "Gerald was vintage, Alan was vin ordinaire."

Despite his wealth, his fame, and the love of his secretary-companion Gerald Haxton and later, Searle, Maugham died a bitter man but among the pantheon of the most prolific and read writers of the 20th century. And if you haven't read him, you've watched his stories. No less than 35 film shave been made from his novels and short stories including The Razor's Edge, Of Human Bondage, Being Julia, The Moon and Sixpence and Sadie Thompson (later called Rain.)

1892 – Lesbian writer Virginia Woolf was born in London (d.1941). The most celebrated of the Bloomsbury set, her writing is cerebral, and subtle.

Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen on January 25, 1882, in Hyde Park Gate, London, the daughter of Leslie Stephen, a man of letters, and Julia Pattle Duckworth. Virginia's mother's first marriage ended with the death of her husband, leaving her with three children, one of whom, Gerald Duckworth, is known to have sexually molested Woolf as an adolescent.

Her adolescence was marked as well by a sequence of deaths and the first bout of a mental illness that would haunt her for the rest of her life: Her mother died in 1895; her half-sister Stella, who served as mother-substitute, in 1897; her father in 1904 and her brother Thoby in 1906. She experienced her first mental breakdown at the age of thirteen following her mother's death, while the final one ended with her suicide when she walked into the river Ouse on March 28, 1941.

Woolf developed her closest attachment to her sister Vanessa, what she called "a very close conspiracy." The two sisters functioned as co-conspirators in their alliance as women artists, on the one hand against the tyranny of the father who repeatedly sought to enlist their services as surrogate wives; on the other hand, against Victorian mores that considered marriage the only suitable profession for middle-class daughters.

Following Leslie Stephen's death, the four siblings moved to Bloomsbury, a section of London that would eventually give name to a group of artists and intellectuals, the Bloomsbury Group. This group began when her brother Thoby and his Cambridge friends moved back to London and met every Thursday evening to discuss art and literature, as well as pressing political issues such as pacifism and socialism. Initially, Virginia and Vanessa were the only two women present, as Thoby's sisters but also as intellectuals and artists. Several of the male participants were avowed homosexuals, including Lytton Strachey, who proposed to Virginia in 1909, although the engagement was almost immediately broken off.

Woolf's relationship to gay men remained an ambivalent one. On the one hand, she appreciated a lack of sexual interest that made it possible for her to have access to an intellectual environment based on an indifference to her gender; on the other hand, the absence of women meant a lacking female eroticism that for her prohibited creativity. Much later, on August 19, 1930, she wrote in a letter to Ethel Smyth: "It is true that I only want to show off to women. Women alone stir my imagination."

In 1912, she married Leonard Woolf, "a penniless Jew," also a member of the Bloomsbury Group, a political writer who had recently returned from service in India. This marriage is considered to have been a supportive although passionless one. In 1917, the Woolfs established Hogarth Press as an attempt to engage Virginia in more practical work in the hope of keeping at bay further bouts of mental illness. The Press published the works of several lesbian and gay writers, including E. M. Forster, Christopher Isherwood, and Vita Sackville-West.

Woolf had several intense friendships with women throughout her life. They often resulted in literary works, not always published, written as tribute to friendships that greatly fostered—but were ultimately confined to—writing. Often these women were older, unmarried, more masculine in appearance, and highly successful artists; often they offered Woolf some form of maternal protection as she struggled with another incident of physical or mental illness. None of these relationships is known to have had a sexual component.

Woolf's first passionate friendship was with Madge Vaughan, the daughter of the well-known writer and sexologist, John Addington Symonds, whom Woolf met at the age of sixteen and who was to serve as a model for Sally Seton in Mrs. Dalloway (1925). Violet Dickinson, almost twice Woolf's age when she nursed her during the mental breakdown following the death of her father, was an unmarried Quaker for whom she wrote "Friendship Gallery" (1907), a spoof biography that anticipates Orlando (1928). Much later Woolf looked back on this friendship as the one that enabled her to say for the first time with confidence, "I am a writer." The final of such friendships was with Ethel Smyth, a well-known composer, whom Virginia met in 1930, when Woolf was forty-eight and Smyth seventy years old.

Woolfe's greatest love was probably Vita Sackville-West, with whom she had the only intense friendship to include a physical relationship. Although married to Leonard Woolf, the ethos of Bloomsbury discouraged sexual exclusivity, and in 1922, when Woolf met poet and novelist Vita Sackville-West, after a tentative start they began a relationship that lasted through most of the 1920s. The sexual affair began in 1925, the point at which Woolf wrote in her Diary, "These Sapphists love women; friendship is never untinged with amorosity" (December 21), and is thought to have lasted until 1928. During that time, Vita took two trips to Persia to visit her husband who was working in the British embassy in Tehran. The second time she traveled in the company of another woman, which began to create a rift as Woolf became less and less tolerant of Vita's other affairs.

In 1928, Woolf and E. M. Forster wrote a letter defending Radclyffe Hall's Well of Loneliness, not as a good novel or because of its lesbian content, but in the name of free speech. Various members of Bloomsbury appeared at the obscenity trial prepared to testify as expert witnesses, including Woolf, who described her presence as a way of also defending Vita's Sapphism.

In 1928, Woolf presented Sackville-West with "Orlando," a fantastical biography in which the eponymous hero's life spans three centuries and both genders. It has been called by Nigel Nicolson, Vita Sackville-West's son, "the longest and most charming love letter in literature."

After their affair ended, the two women remained friends until Woolf's death in 1941.

1963 – Don Mancini is an American screenwriter, producer, and film director. Mancini is best known for creating the character of Chucky, and writing all of the films in the Child's Play series. Mancini was also the executive producer of Bride of Chucky, and he directed, Seed of Chucky, as well as the latest installment in Child's Play franchise, Curse of Chucky.

Along with Michael McDowell and Clive Barker, Mancini is one of the few openly gay writers in the slasher film genre.

In 2007, he won the EyeGore award for career contributions to the horror genre. He sometimes goes by the pseudonym Kit Du Bois (also spelled Kit Dubois).

1993 – South Africa adopted its post-Apartheid constitution. The breathtaking freedoms declared in this document made South Africa the first nation to bar discrimination based on sexual orientation.

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sizzlingpatrolfox · 8 months

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I don't think Layover did great tbh. Terrible on YouTube (including all his MVs, Tiny Desk, and music show performances), underperformed in the biggest music markets, did poorly on k-charts (that debut was abysmal compared to the other members), predicted for less first week albums in the US than D-Day despite an extra version (but waiting on chart). Here’s a chart I’ve seen floating around Twitter that gives a good idea. Probably need to verify some of it, but I think it’s mostly accurate...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F6LDbz4bYAADB7M?format=jpg&name=medium

His fanbases started working really hard on his first week Spotify streams when they realized he wasn’t doing great anywhere else, so he ended up with higher first week streams than FACE and LC, but barely, and most of his streams came from SEA (which isn’t a big deal or anything, but a lot of it was definitely from mass streaming farms). He also had a massive day 8 drop and allegedly way lower than day 8 for FACE. And let’s note that Layover has one extra song instead of an interlude too. He’s also higher on some official album charts, but that’s only because FACE wasn’t eligible because it’s an EP. He had much bigger overall album sales, but we were expecting that with vbar. I think they bought like 840k? So over 1/3 of his sales.

Unless I’m missing some achievements or got something wrong (I haven’t kept up with everything), I think it was a pretty meh debut considering all the promo he did and the fact that he’s “the most popular member”. They only have those first week streams, pretty sure. LMA has had good longevity though, so I guess we'll see. And BTW, they’re saying his hot100 performance was hurt because of DC2 sales being gone, which, sure, but he had 50k Slow Dancing CDs to compensate, way more than LC, and they couldn't even completely sell them out. I think his stans were using VPN to buy on iTunes in the US too because a few days in he went from 1 to 44 on iTunes chart with no explanation and never recovered. Curious what his final sales end up being. I'm not saying he did bad, but I don't think it's really anything to brag about either... I haven't seen a ton of objective people talking about it though so idk for sure.

The spreadsheet is killing me hahahs #dedication. I would like to know the missing numbers and positions, tho! Still, thank you.

I knew about kcharts, youtube, albums, and first week on spotify for the album. I saw some number that I assume included his prereleases, and it really is nothing major considering the first tracks released, and the fact that it had one more song than face. Just five minutes ago I saw that on their 8th day, like crazy (combined) had the same number of streams as Taehyung's entire album??

Sidenote: if there's one thing I was forced to learn this year, is how much difference combined versions of a song can make.

I don't think he had that much of international promo, or at least I didn't see it. I know he's been to A LOTTT of korean shows, and also his promo for pre-releases was already longer than Jimin's, but I think he just comes across as a really uninteresting person so I don't know if people would actually tune in to his music, no matter how many times they see him on TV. He definitely got more than Jimin, that's 1000% for sure, even if we consider the MVs alone; he got the same thing Jimin was denied.

I knew he'd get more albums sales, because past experience. And I knew they'd try hard to stream to break some "records", even if it won't hold up for too long. I also knew he doesn't really have many fans in the US, (I still think Jimin's the most popular member there). I've also been saying since the day I opened this blog that his "popularity" is overrated and he's never really been in the same league as Jimin when it comes to music. I blew off so many people here who would come up to me and try to convince me he was competition to Jimin or better than him in some way.

I guess the only thing I'm surprised with is youtube. I got his tiny desk video on my homepage today (saved it to watch later) and it has less than 300k views.......... It's kinda crazy. I wonder if part of the reason he got his visual album was because his youtube numbers were usually better than everyone else's combined and they believed he'd do good.

Oh, and the songs credits. It's unbelievable to me that he did NOTHING on it. People who work on songs get credits even for writing two words, so I just can't wrap my mind around the fact that he didn't do anything at all.

I'm also curious if they would've restocked the digital CD had it been sold out, but my gut tells me they wouldn't have, or it would've been just one more, and a smaller batch.

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leoremin · 16 days

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I just finished watching the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen...and I have...thoughts (along with some bad grammar)

This is an overall negative post, so if you don't like that keep scrolling. If you like this movie, go ahead and scroll on past if you don't want to read this. If you want to debate me, then hell, go ahead, I might be wrong in some areas and I'm fully willing to admit that. I'd love to see anyone's take on this movie.

To say real quick, I haven't finished reading Dracula (over 1/2 through tho), Sherlock Holmes, 4 billion leagues under the sea, and a few others.

Also...spoilers...obv

(last note: I am not against retellings or that stuff, I'm just rating it on MY OPINION of these little guys and all that stuff. This is depending on how much I like them from just a writers sense.)

Tbh I really love the idea of crossovers, I love so much seeing the babies all together (I am working on a crossover myself so...) but I feel like this one was just...mediocre

First up Jekyll!

Number one, assuming this takes place after the novella, that is not how HJ7 works. Jekyll turning back into Hyde is not right then. At that point, Henry would be living on a timer rather than Hyde.

Also, little pet peeve...THE POTION SHOULD BE GREEN!!!! THE POTION'S FINAL COLOUR IS GREEN AND THEY MADE IT CLEAR!!!

Also Jekyll is a doctor, he acts like the fucking wimpy Swiss man from Frankenstein. Jekyll is meant to be a (mentally) strong man who experimented on himself and kept good notes during the whole thing. He is a doctor; he is used to seeing some shit.

Also...why would you make Hyde look like that? One of the few clear physical descriptions in the book is that Hyde is much shorter than Jekyll, but he's...hulkish. I don't like that because it takes the monstrosity away, pinning it all on looks and not on action.

Also why Paris? Why did Hyde run to Paris? There wasn't really a reason for him to do that in a writing sense.

Upside: At least he continues to run on rooftops. All Hydes run on rooftops; it is not optional.

Next on the Chopping block is Dorian.

For a moment there, I really thought they ruined Dorian, but hell yeah! They kinda did it!

I wish they'd had another actor to play him, since the dark hair makes him look a little malicious, which is quite the opposite of what he's supposed to look like. He's supposed to be a child-like and innocent; deceiving.

Also...what the fuck was his ending?? Like he doesn't perish if he looks at the portrait. It literally says earlier that "the last time [he] looked at the picture" which literally contradicts what happens later. He can look at the picture, but chooses not to.

I am glad they decided to not have him redeem himself. That fits a little closer to the book.

For Mina!

Quick thing: I have not yet finished reading Dracula, so I have no clue what's happening there or why she's the vampire (please don't spoil it) so I won't say anything on that (cough cough...should've been Carmilla)

I don't like making women the sole love interest. It feels weird. Literally three people liked her (well only 2, Dorian was pretending) out of five. Make it interesting, make it something someone would ship...there is literally no chemistry between any of them (except Dorian, and we don't even get a proper "oh yeah I hooked up with him" moment. It's only implied. When did that happen???). Also, Mina isn't that kind of person. She's (in book) not looking for romance in that sense, she had a husband, and I'm pretty sure she'd probably stay faithful to him even after death.

Speaking of Chemistry, why tf is she a chemist? Jekyll should've been the chemist. Mina is literally known for being able to write in shorthand, and they could've used that to her advantage. Again, please excuse this if somehow Mina does become a scientist after Dracula, but considering people's views on women in that time period, it's unlikely.

Skinner:

I think that's his name...idk. I have not read the Invisible Man, but why would they kill off Griffin? Like Jekyll dies, but he doesn't have a replacement. I can't say much since I haven't read the book.

I think that's all.

Thank you coming to my Little Leo lecture, and I hope anyone reading agrees, or can hopefully handle this as a mature adult. If you have other thoughts on this movie (whether they agree with mine or not) go ahead and share them, I'd be thrilled.

I may update this as I have things to say, but idk.

#Also Quartermain is picking favourite wives #he was laid next to only one body #lmao #I *know* he and his first wife didn't get a divorce #the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde #dracula #the portrait of dorian gray #the league of extraordinary gentlemen #jekyll and hyde #mina murray #dorian gray #the picture of dorian gray #leo's lectures

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digital-corruption · 2 years

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... Screw it. Yes, I'm starting a new multi-part fanfic right before episode 10. 🤪

In this version of events, Jake disappeared right before the end of whatever happens without a trace. It is now 5 years later. MC has moved on (?).

Unrecognisable Part 1

⚠️ This fanfic has strong language usage.

⚠️ This fanfic features a**hole!Jake.

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“I wish I found the Man Without a Face instead.”

I never thought I'd ever say those words, but as they say, “expect the unexpected.” They also say, “never meet your heroes.” For good reason too.

Where to begin? I'm sure you know the story about Hannah Donfort. Who doesn't by now? It was all over the news and social media. Not a story I enjoyed repeating. Thankfully only a few people knew I was even involved as my name was left out of the news. And of the people I did tell, many claimed I lied for the attention. As if I wanted to be associated with that nightmare? No, thank you.

The only thing that kept me sane was my memories of the people I met along the way, especially HIM. Not many people are aware that the #IAmJake trend and the events surrounding Hannah Donfort were actually connected. Not even the conspiracy theorists were able to make that connection. I suppose it was good in a way - good for HIM. I wouldn’t be able to tell you because before it was even over he disappeared without a trace. Yes, like the Avatar, only he wasn't encased in ice.

To make matters worse, all of our history with him was gone. Even the photo he had sent to Lily and the backup she had saved. As it turned out the photo contained a trojan, which meant he could get to it on any device. Of course the one personal item he volunteered had strings attached. If it wasn’t for the fact Lily had printed a hard copy of the photo, we wouldn't had anything to go on, but even then, it wasn't enough. It’s not like you could identify him from an old photo of his mother. It's not like I could hack into the world’s most sophisticated international facial recognition software and search for matches.

Honestly though, I was pissed, no livid with how he disappeared. At first I was optimistic he would return, but as the days and weeks passed without a word, it was clear it was never going to happen. And as bad as it sounds, there were times I wished he was either dead or captured. The sting of him leaving wouldn't hurt so much then. Something told me he wasn't though. Somehow I knew he got what he wanted and was now in the wind. After a while, I had a friend of mine so a sweep of my computer and phone. Both had so many backdoors open for the right hacker to walk right through any time he felt like it. I was so disgusted with the gall of him. I immediately got a new phone and computer, and didn't touch my old accounts ever again. An absolute fresh slate. No more prying whenever you felt like, Jake. He would have to reach out to me the old-fashioned way.

So when I received the coded email from an unknown sender five years after he disappeared, you could imagine my surprise. I suppose an average person would have deleted it or marked it as spam. I just knew there was something about it though. I looked up all sorts of ciphers and encryptions. I ran it through online parsers. Surely if it was intended for me it wouldn't require too much deciphering, right? What I understood about the highest level of encryptions was they required a key to interpret the information, but I didn't receive anything else so I was baffled for days. Then I remembered that scavenger hunt he had sent me and Lily on, and that dumb phrase he kept repeating.

“You are the key.”

I tried my first name. I tried my last name. I tried them together, I tried them in reverse. I threw in my date of birth for kicks. Nothing. I nearly gave up, but then I saw a video on my feed mention how identity theft can occur from just having your social security number.

Bingo.

The parser confirmed that the decryption worked and returned to me two decimal numbers. At least I had watched enough mystery shows and played enough games to immediately recognise them as GPS coordinates, so you can stop shouting at the page now. (Who hasn't yelled at TV shows for spending more than a second working that out?)

And that is how I ended up at that abandoned building in a faraway city of a country I had never been to before. Then thing is, no one knew I had gone overseas. It wasn't so much of an issue with my work or my family. However, lying to my boyfriend was the hardest. He sincerely thought I was visiting my sick aunt. How was I to explain this to him? That I was chasing down a clue that may or may not lead to this guy I once had feelings for. I figured I'd work out an explanation afterwards. For now, I didn't want the interference, I just wanted to be able to focus on following the clue. I had to admit, as I pryed the boards off a broken window with a disused pipe I had found, I was beginning to have doubts about my interpretation of the message, but what else could it have been?

Even though it was the middle of the day outside, the old office building was dark as little light got past the boards. I had to use my phone to illuminate the hallways as I walked through them. There was only four stories, but when you don’t know what or who you were going to be finding, it felt like a never-ending labyrinth. Still, I carried on while trying to work out the best excuse to give the police if they had found me first and arrested me for trespass. They could speak English, right?

As I entered one of the offices on the third floor, my phone was suddenly knocked out of my hand. Before I could react, I was slammed face first into the wall painfully. Someone grabbed my hand and twisted my arm painfully against my back. Then I heard the click of a gun's safety being disengaged before the muzzle was shoved against my head.

“What the fuck are you doing here!?” a male voice grunted with an European accent.

My mind raced. Had I gotten the message wrong? Was I not the intended recipient? But it was my social security number that was the key! No, it had to have been for me.

“I-I followed the GPS coordinates in the email!” I stammered.

“What email!?” he pressured.

“Can we do this without the gun?” I pleaded.

“No! Answer the fucking question!” he snapped.

“I received an encrypted email from an unknown sender. All it contained though were GPS coordinates for this building!” I explained. “Please, you’re hurting me!”

“I’m hurting you? I'm hurting you?” he stressed. “Fuck! It’s people like you that keep the Nigerian prince scam going! You blindly following that email is going to get me killed! I should just shoot you and leave your body for them to find! Teach them to fuck with me!”

“I don’t understand!” I started to tear up. “You didn’t send me the email?”

“NO!” he yelled. His voice echoed off the walls. “At what point in entering this building did it seem like I wanted guests!?”

He pulled the gun away and shot my phone lying on the floor. The gun had a silencer on it, but the sound of the phone shattering still caused me to jump.

“Now what do I do with you?” he purred. “Do I leave you in the dumpster out the back? Or should I hang your body in the foyer?”

“Please...” I sobbed. “It was just a misunderstanding, ok? I thought you were someone else!”

“Yes, I know. You thought I was... what name did I use again? Oh, that’s right. You thought I was Jake,” he laughed.

My blood ran cold, “Jake?”

He spun me around and slammed me back against the wall. I started to cry out in pain when he smashed his lips against mine. I was in so much shock that all I could do was stare into his icy cold eyes that peered out from underneath his hood. He readjusted his face mask to cover the lower half again.

“What’s wrong? Was that not how you imagined our first kiss?” he chuckled.

I immediately slapped him across the face. “You can’t be...” I mumbled.

“Oh, but I am,” he sneered. “I am Jake!”

#duskwood #duskwood fanfiction #duskwood jake #duskwood jake x mc #unrecognisable fanfic

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