the closer i get to having to lay down in bed the worse and worse my mental state gets </3 even though i would love being asleep and resting were it not for the horrors.

What they love about you (part 2)[Genshin Impact]

Synopsis: It was as if the universe had changed when they saw you.

Characters: Zhongli, Childe, Albedo, Kazuha. Part 1 here

Genre: fluff

"Poetry for my hopeless romantic heart 🥺 and Kazuha, he was the perfect candidate for this. I decided to put Zhongli first of course, he deserves it after saving my ass in Baal's fight."

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

Spirit flows through the Immovable rock (Zhongli)

Nations fall, truths be told, iron rusts and earth erode

Through six centuries these were stories he watched unfold.

He sees you and the archon knew that you shall too grow old

But despite it all, he loves you for your existence, as nothing can compare to your intransient soul.

The purpose of contracts were made to ensure there had been a fair trade between two parties. Like merchants striking business deals for a favourable outcome, like mother nature maintaing the balance between life and death, like how you and your beloved said your vows and whispered promises to one another as evening bids farewell by the warm welcome of the moon's gentle glow. Those days were the most treasured that you couldn't help remisicing them-- when Zhongli appeared in your life. Your mortal life. How time can fly so fast.

Perhaps this had been a common notion among human standards. That to be connected, both sides must share the same factors in order to proceed the contract. Clearly your placement proved to be mismatched. Unlike Zhongli there could be a day when your legs gave up and you can no longer walk. He will go on without you, continuing to drift in places where you cannot reach, where time was out of the question, further and further away until the mist begins to seize your field of vision and soon your eyes were too old to see.

The difference in age can truly make someone feel alone and Zhongli knew it well. Thus he smiled softly like he always does and held you close, speaking with so much kindness:

My dearest.

Your soul existed like an evergreen tree blooming through all four seasons, unwithered and everlasting, even against the cold storm of white. And it could be as soft as the sunbeam cascading through the mountain peaks while they dust the land with their ethereal hues and emitting the warmth that breaths absolute serenity. If artifacts were a piece of what someone left behind then maybe everything you made was considered an artifact-- a treasure. A piece of you in those handwritten letters, the beauty in your fingertips after knitting him a scarf which caused scars to mar them, and because of how heavy your spirit weighs through everything you did, it became evident that the one he had fallen for was not your skin nor your body but the person who resides in it.

And sometimes he wonders if he had met you once upon a dream. What else could explain the mysterious feeling that made you seem so familiar, even when he only saw you for the first time? Or perhaps you were an old friend from the long long past, someone he stargazed with upon the infinite mounds of grass and glaze lilies, someone whom he shared the taste of osmanthus wine, someone he came to cherished just like how he cherished his own nation. Regardless, whether you were that someone or not, he wouldn't hesitate to relive those times all over again.

If there was a day when the world around you decided to cave in, where time inevitably caught up and you succumbed to change, he would still be yours. After all, the immovable stone was meant to be the symbol of constancy. He already sworn to you that his devotion and affection will never waver, they were solely held towards your essence for you had touched him through the things he could not touch, and left a mark that would last longer than his ancient self can last. Zhongli may have lived through many lifetimes but meeting you was the beginning of everything. You were a mortal immortalized in the world his heart, etched so deep that it stirs him apart, there was no room for anyone else.

~xx~

Drowning in the ocean flames (Tartaglia)

There was a man who fell deeply in love with war

They raged inside of him like the spontaneous battlefields he came to adore.

Consumed by desire, pain became an addiciton

And he eventually surrenders to the heat of your passion.

While many fear death, Childe learned to dance with it.

He revels in the way his heart pounds endlessly, as if new life had been born from the inside and then bursted like thunder, sending trembling sensations through his veins, bringing him to the peak of euphoria. The feeling was a drug in which Childe hesitates no more when he confronts it, rather he deliberately seeks it. He seeks thrill in the most dangerous situations since they were the moments that made him feel so alive.

Henceforth the Harbinger sought you out. He inches closer and ever so close, those deep cerulean eyes trapped in your hypnotizing ones. Childe loves how you look at him like you were about to devour him, consume him as the flames in hell would, perhaps destroy him completely to the point there was no turning back and yet...he would not mind.

Childe had been so drawn to you like a moth to a light. No. Rather, Adam and the devil, tempting him to sin because the things he would do for you were undeniably impetuous. It was too late. It was too late when you told him you wanted to stay. Too late when you pulled him down, with arms around his neck, stealing away his breath in one swift manner as well as a kiss. Curse you for having so much power over him, from then and there he was no longer the mighty harbinger everyone knew but a man foolish in love. Take him higher. Higher. Take him far. To say you were alluring would be an understatement. The scent of you brings all his senses to disarray and the taste of you-- by the archons-- had never made him feel so starved. All he thought of was mindlessly running his hands over your small back, reveling in the shape of you, exploring every inch and curve in attempt to make you completely his.

This was the reason why he grew accustomed to dancing with death. Because it was you. You were going to be the cause of his downfall and you were the cause of this insanity. Even though you constantly reminded him how risky the situation was due to being a wanted criminal in his homeland's eyes, Childe pays no mind. Didn't he already tell you to trust him? Anyone who threatens you would be an enemy of his, much to their misfortune. Whether it'd be conquering the world and laying it beneath your feet or walking through the depths of the abyss all over again, he'll make sure to have it all and no one can say otherwise.

~xx~

Shelter (Albedo)

Your warmth was his hearth

Like stars falling onto the earth

Gracing the plains in an empereal bliss

As they trembled under the touch of heaven's kiss

Closing his eyes, you are the first person he sees.

The sound of snow chasing the wind fills the silent night once again while it's whispered blows continued to echo just by the cave's entrance. Albedo had planned to take you back to Monstadt that day but Dragonspine was not the place to be merciful with the weather. No one else except the two of you occupied the abandoned space and a singular camp fire to serve as a source of warmth. You place your hand on your lover's forehead, brushing away his ash coloured strands while he seeps into slumber. Albedo sighs contentedly. Despite the world being engulfed in sheer cold, here he felt safe and sound.

Before meeting you Albedo never really had that. People regularly held him on a high regard and had a hard time matching his pace. He was a born genius to the point that he practically stood out like a swan out of the ducklings' crowd as they admired his brilliance. Truly Albedo was a perfect human being. But when turns around to see the rest he noticed how distant everything seemed. He was so focused on his pursuit towards the universal truth that he hadn't given the time to consider; where is he going with this? And what for? Everyone else looked so happy living in their mundane routines and Albedo soon grew curious about such thoughts. Out of all the places in Monstadt, exactly where does he belong?

Opening his eyes, you are the first person he looks for.

"Welcome home, Albedo!"

The answer was obvious. Home was the sound of his name on your lips. When you were side by side with him while he sketched the landscape from the far distance. In places where the lights were on as he entered the room, knowing you were inside. This feeling couldn't be describe with just a word. Home was not a nation nor was it a destination. Home was in your touch where he felt the most protected.

I'm home.

A sky filled with stars and he only saw one; his Starlight. Your warmth held the emotion similar to the kind where there had only been one cande lit amidst an infinite stretch of darkness. But it also brought the joy of flowers blossoming into the vivid future of new spring. There was no place he'd rather be than the shelter of your arms because with you, Albedo believed he truly found where he belonged.

~xx~

Pirr against the Scarlet Leaves (Kazuha)

Silencing the world

My heart begins to find peace

Soothed by your presence

- For my beloved, (Y/n)

I remember how the first petal of spring drifted by as it had flown into the crossroads of our path. Subconciously my entire being began to still. This particular flower... it must have come far and wide for the wind to carry such a pleasant scent. Although I had intended to continue my venture onwards but the air ceased to sound and I knew that this way was true. And so nature beckons me to the shore where the waves lulled back and forth under the moonlight's entrance, only then I began to sharpen my vision to see what was before me. You stood there on a rock with your face looking into the sparkling sky, singing a tune that drew me near. Just the mere sight was enough to stir my heart alone.

My beloved, do you know why I named this poem 'Pirr against the Scarlet Leaves?'

Watching you was like witnessing the ephmereal birth of a flower sprouting amongst the slums of an abandoned nation. A fleeting miracle where snow falls from the summer sky. I am compelled to capture these feelings in this poem yet there are moments where my thoughts scatter as if the autumn wind had whisked them away and out of my grasp until a singular leaf is only what was left. Perhaps it wouldn't be necessary for me to keep a notebook of ways I can describe your presence, instead a few simple sentences would suffice. Nevertheless, I only wish to express my feelings for you.

When you're with me it seems I have nothing to think about. The aura around you can silence the world alone, speaking louder than thunder cries, weighing heavily to those around you in ways it would feel empty if you're not here. Yet I could breath as if alleviated from the burdens of my past. This had me realize that this must have been the will of the wind. You were the greatest gift to have ever bestowed upon me and I confess, sometimes my chest aches because of how much I cherish you, it pierces me like a sharp blade but even if my heart bleeds it will continue to bleed only for your sake.

So wherever you are, wherever you may be, I can feel you in the breeze. Return soon my beloved, I'll be here, waiting.

oh my god, you absolute darling. this concept is consuming all my thoughts and you're to blame. just...levi swimming at night for practice and bc he finds it surprisingly soothing (despite tsking every time anyone brought up the ocean) you emerge and get to just watch, catching him in a rare moment when his guard is down and he's just focus on perfecting things. (also let's talk about the fact that you're one of a very countable number of people in the world who has seen levi practicing anything & how inevitably in a way he feels more relaxed and seen by you just bc you're not expecting him to be perfect). his arms are all graceful and strong as he cuts thru the water. the strain in his neck when he tosses his head back to remove the hair from his face and his heavy breathing every time he surfaces from underwater after pushing himself to swim further than last time. the way he looks under the moonlight when he's emerging from the water tired and the way his body is glistening and his shorts riding low as he towels off. i'm weak. - xx

anon please stop giving me such amazing ideas!! i genuinely cannot handle them omg you're inspiring me so much this is so cute u g h you should be writing and posting this the talent is impeccable

"So you do practice," you hum thoughtfully, revealing yourself in the dark, "and here I thought it was all natural talent."

Levi isn't surprised by your presence, or if he is he doesn't show it openly. Instead he simply dries his torso with a towel, water dripping from his hair down his cheeks. No one else is around besides the two of you, all too busy sleeping off the busy day. A part of you wonders what Niccolo would say if he saw how closely you were fraternizing with the enemy, but with how he stares at that girl who relishes everything he cooks, he doesn't really have room to talk.

"So what if I do?"

"It's dangerous, what if you drown and don't have anybody to save you?"

He looks off thoughtfully for a few seconds, gazing towards the moonlight that reflects on his skin beautifully, before responding. "You would be able to save me if you weren't so busy watching like some creepy pervert."

A light blush dusts your cheeks, but you stick your chin out, defiant. "I'm only looking out for my pupil."

With a flourish, he tosses the towel aside to join his clothes, leaving him clad in trunks only. You swallow as he walks towards you, like a predator stalking its prey. Behind you, your hand finds nothing to grasp at, nothing to hold onto as he approaches and corners you, one hand snaking around your neck to prevent you from going any further back.

"Is that so?" he breathes, quiet over the pounding of the ocean and the one in your heart. "You consider me a devil, and yet you'd save me without a second thought? It'd be in your best interests to let me die, foolish woman."

Dammit, you can't think when he's this close. Your eyes rake down his chest, still glistening like something out a portrait, down to the v-line leading to what you can only imagine about. Levi makes no move to stop you until your eyes fall to the ground, which is when he places a thumb under your jaw and forces your gaze back up to his face.

"Can you practice some more while I watch?" you ask, throat dry.

He gives you a long, hard look, then nods.

"But I think," he whispers, "that it's not quite fair for you to teach me without demonstrating yourself. So why don't you strip, sweetheart, and join me in the water?" When you hesitate, he moves his lips to your ear, barely brushing your skin and sending shudders down your back.

"Be good and I'll give you a show."

Obey Me: The Brothers Accidentally Trigger an Abused MC (Lucifer) (1/7)

Disclaimer: I’m not an expert on abuse or mental health. I’m not portraying how one should respond to these situations, only how I think the characters might. Abuse and trauma in particular are very complex topics, and people respond in all sorts of ways to them, and sometimes it gets really bad on all sides.

I can only draw from my personal experiences as well as those of people who have shared their stories or who I’m close with. There’s no one narrative of abuse and how it affects someone, so what I’m familiar with might not be what you’re familiar with. Let’s try and all be respectful of each other.

Content Warnings: Heated arguments, reference to past abuse, parental abuse, trauma response, breaking down in tears, this is quintessential hurt/comfort y’all, buckle up

First up is Lucifer! I will be writing similar scenarios for the other brothers, and they’ll get linked below once they’re done and posted.

Lucifer (You’re here) Mammon (X), Leviathan (X), Satan (X), Asmodeus (X), Beelzebub (X), Belphegor (X)

Becoming the embodiment of a sin is much like a curse. It takes a natural trait and amplifies it to absurdity, and there is nothing you can do to curb it. While the appetites caused by greed or gluttony or lust can be all-consuming, there is no sin more cruel to fall victim to than that of pride.

Lucifer sees how his brothers are affected by their sins and both pities and is disgusted by them. How low, to succumb to base urges like that. He could never do that. He’s better than that. He is in complete control of himself.

He has to be.

This attitude does not lend itself well to maintaining close personal relationships. When Lucifer gets stressed, his controlling tendencies get worse. He can’t handle another failure, not again, but he also can’t admit that he’s in over his head. His brothers know to steer clear of him when he gets like this.

MC does not.

They won’t stop bothering him, asking if he’s sure he’s okay, offering to help with this or that, and shooting him such pitiful looks when they think he’s not looking. He cares for them deeply, he truly does, but they’re still human. And the idea of a human pitying him is revolting.

“Lucifer, please, let me help, you look so-”

“What makes you think you know how I feel?” Lucifer’s wings snap open and the aura of tension around him becomes suffocating. “I am thousands of years old, and have lived through things you could not hope to understand. You think you have the right to even guess at what I’m feeling? You think you can help?“

“I-I’m sorry! I j-just-”

“Just what? Couldn’t help sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong again?“ Stop talking, you idiot, Lucifer thinks, but his mouth doesn’t comply. “Just stop wasting my time and go, MC!”

“I-”

“Leave.”

Lucifer’s posture, the anger in his voice, MC can’t help it. Eyes full of tears, they run out of his study, and don’t stop until they’re outside the House of Lamentation. They happen to breeze past a very confused Mammon, who follows them, only to find them curled up on the steps of the dormitory.

“MC? What’re ya doin’ out here, you shouldn’t be alone outside-” He notices their sobbing. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

For a few solid minutes, MC can’t manage anything more than fragments of words and hiccuping cries. Mammon holds them close, rubbing slow circles into their back and murmuring soothing platitudes until they calm down enough to explain.

They got into a fight with Lucifer. He’s been so stressed lately, and they just wanted to help, but he...

“Oh, I know exactly what he did,” Mammon frowns. “Said somethin’ stupid like ‘what makes you think a peon like you can understand the Troubling Complexities of I, Lucifer, the Avatar of blah blah blah’,” he flaps his hand as he talks, poorly mimicking Lucifer.

MC lets out a small giggle, but their smile quickly fades. “He got really mad at me... And it... brought up some bad memories.”

Mammon sobers up as well. “Do you...” he scratches the back of his head. “...do you wanna talk about it?”

~

Lucifer is drowning his feelings in paperwork when the door to his study bursts open and in flies a pissed off looking Mammon. He can barely get out a “Mammooooooon...” before his piles of completed work are pushed aside and the Avatar of Greed slams his hands on his desk.

“You got a lotta nerve, sittin’ there pencil-pushing after what you did!” Mammon snaps.

“As do you, barging into my room uninvited-”

“Oh, shut up, Lucifer!” The oldest brother’s eyes widen.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me! What makes you think you can talk to MC like that, huh?”

“...Oh.” The tension in Lucifer’s body changes from aggressive to almost meek.

“’Oh.’ Is that all you have to say?! Do you know how scared they were when I found them? They could barely speak! I thought someone had tried to kill them!” Each word might as well have been a punch in the gut.

MC had feared for their life. Because of him.

“I... I need to apologize to them,” Lucifer mutters, which does nothing to quell his brother’s anger.

“Like hell ya do! You better get on your knees and beg after what you did! Bringin’ up memories like that, sheesh...”

“What are you talking about?” Mammon freezes for a second, then scrambles backwards, the reality of what he’s doing starting to set in. “Mammon.”

“I-It’s not my place to tell ya...” he feels for the doorknob behind him, determined to get as much space between himself and Lucifer as possible just in case the latter fully processes the unspoken rules he’s so thoroughly violated. “You should ask MC about it.” He turns the handle and zips out the door with a SLAM!

Just as Lucifer relaxes, the door peeks open once more. “After you apologize!”

~

MC sits on their bed, contemplating their immediate future. They aren’t sure what to expect the next time they encounter Lucifer. More anger, perhaps, or a terse explanation about what was frustrating him so much that he lost his composure like that. Maybe he wouldn’t even mention their argument, or worse, he would say that he forgives them. Because that’s all they do: fuck up and stick their nose in other people’s business. They’re a useless, meddlesome brat who needs to be put in their place-

Someone is knocking on MC’s door.

Lucifer calls out from the other side, “MC, are you alone? I need to have a word with you. Privately.”

MC tenses. Privately means they will be punished. 

“I-I’m so sorry,” they say, growing increasingly frantic as they start to address someone else. “I shouldn’t have- I shouldn’t have bothered you, I knew you were busy, and you work so h-hard, and I’m just in your way- I promise I won’t do it again! I promise, I promise, I promise!”

What on Earth are they talking about? Lucifer throws open the door and storms in, making a beeline for MC. The next thing they say stops him dead in his tracks.

“PLEASE DON’T HIT ME!”

And with four words, Lucifer knows everything he needs to. 

Slowly, carefully, he approaches MC, who is holding their arms out in front of them, protecting their face. They lower their arms when they don’t feel the sting of a hand or a belt and look up at him fearfully. Telegraphing each motion, he kneels down at the side of their bed, hands out in front of him, eyes locked on theirs.

“I will never lay my hands upon you, MC, not without your permission.” Lucifer pauses, and his eyes wander to something in the back of the room before returning once again to MC’s. “I came here because my behaviour the other day was… unacceptable. You were simply trying to help and I see now that my reaction was…” Say it. “You were deeply upset by it. I want to apologize, and to assure you that I will do everything in my power so that such a thing never happens again. Can you forgive me?”

Can they? Even as MC returns to the present, the panic doesn’t fade with the memories. They’ve given others so many chances, much like the one Lucifer is asking for now. Is this the only one they will have to give? Or will there be more? Can they truly expect the Avatar of Pride to both admit to and right one of his wrongs? In the end, MC decides…

...to forgive him. Lucifer’s actions were hurtful, but not intentional. And now that he’s aware of MC’s history, he is extremely conscientious of upsetting them like that ever again. Once they fully calmed down, Lucifer had asked them if they had any other triggers he should be aware of, and has since made it his top priority to prevent MC from being exposed to them. 

Of course, he is still as headstrong as ever when it comes to accepting help. A demon’s nature cannot be swayed so easily, after all. But now, he is clear about his boundaries and notifies MC well in advance when a rough patch of work is coming up. There are still some surprises, and in those times the two learn each other’s rhythms, when to hold fast and when to give each other distance, and it works for them.

...they can’t forgive him. They know he didn’t mean to hurt them with his behaviour, but it doesn’t change the impact. The rational part of Lucifer understands. He broke their trust, and it is not his place to demand forgiveness. But this is MC, this is the person who helped him and his family so much, and it kills him that he can’t do the same for them. That they will always be at a certain distance now.

And it’s his fault.

“I can taste her lipstick and see her laying across your chest” One of the Adulttrio your pick. I’m an angst hoe

The first time you see her, it is two in the morning and your first time in bed together.

It is only a shadow of a silhouette, looming oppressively over your shoulder as Chrollo drapes an arm over your waist. She disappears as soon as your strangled yelp interrupts your kiss, the smell of something distinctly floral wafting in the room.

She sits in the living room, just at the corner of your eye, disappearing as soon as you turn, the rushing of waves ringing in your ears.

She’s there against the wall, boring holes into your skull as Chrollo plants kisses along the nape of your neck, and the air becomes so salty it forces you to squint.

She visits in chunks, appearing for days on end and disappearing for months at a time, leaving with her the scent of the sea and jasmine blossoms in her wake.

There never is anyone there, you never truly see her, you doubt she truly even exist. But you feel her presence in every hidden laugh, every longing touch, every smile you shared, and you know that she is real.

And each time she appears, Chrollo’s eyes grow blanker, his touches more draining, and you start tasting her even in his kisses.

“This isn’t normal.” You say one day.

“But maybe it is,” He smiles gently, and the shadows the moonlight casts starkly contrast his pale face, his lips twisted into a simple smile, “maybe that’s just how things are meant to be.”

You shake your head, “You don’t love me.”

He chuckles, the implied mocking rattling your ears. With practiced familiarity, he pushes a strand of flyaway hair from your face and tucks it behind your ear. You are after all, his silly little doe, too caught up with their own emotions to think straight.

“Of course I do, why would you think otherwise?” He lies as easily through his teeth as he breathes. The usual casual grin spread across his face that accompanies this making your stomach churn, and the strength of which you grasp his hand with could crush bone.

“Stop playing these games. There’s someone else, isn’t there? Don’t lie, I feel her too.” You stop him before he could reassure you with more false reassurances. He slides his hand away from you, and his blank face is the response you need. As he stares coldly down at you, grey eyes calculating and cold, the mask he wears is shed, and only a stranger is left.

“What I have, what I am, what I can give… It’ll never be enough, would it?”

He looks away, and the expected sigh that rolls of his chest doesn’t hurt any less than empty gaze he adopts when you’re speaking, the glazed way he stares of into the distance whenever you hold his hand, or the cold frown his mouth twists into whenever he is inside of you and think you wouldn’t notice. Every single laugh, every act of kindness, you peeled back the layers of deception and it all fell into place.

The faint wafts of jasmine drift past and the feeling in your chest blooms in ways that expands and fills each hidden crevice of your heart, and you simply just cannot believe this. You have had your fair share of lost loves and fractured relationships, but this?

Cruel laughter bubbles at your throat, your mirthless laughter burning the night air, yet your pleasure at his slightly alarmed look does not soothe the ugly beast threatening to crawl its way out of you. You extend a single accusatory finger in his direction.

“Chrollo Lucilfer, you’re a man suffering from heartbreak.”

“I’m not.” He murmurs, barely audible even in the dead of night.

“You are.” The frown he makes with pursed lips remind you of sour cherries.

“I’m not.” You push, tasting the hint of sweetness even as the sourness consumes you.

“You are.” He stands up.

“I’m not.” He repeats those words with such confidence that your resolve waver, “you’re wrong.”

You get to your feet, soles thudding heavily against the plain wooden boards as you storm towards him and grab him by his collar, forcing him to look down into your eyes,

“Do you think I don’t taste her when we kiss? Or see her in your dreams? It’s in everything you do.” Each shout feels like an arrow to the head, and the feeling in your chest releases its explosion, “You are drowning in it, Chrollo. It’s all around you, like a storm that won’t stop, and every time we touch, I see her too. So don’t you even dare deny it!”

He slaps you hard, right across the face. It is the first time he’s ever lashed out at you, let alone physically assault you. Gingerly, you paw at your nose, and the dark shade of red that drips from your nose shocks you less that the fact that for once, he finally dropped his mask.

Immediately he is before you, crouched down to your crumpled form as he gently cups your chin in his hand and tilts you head up.

“You don’t know anything about me. So don’t ever put words in my mouth again.” There’s a coldness in his voice, an unfamiliar harshness from the detached way he brushes your cheek. Far away, you hear the distant crashes of the ocean.

You lean into his touch, battering your eyes, sneering when he curls his lip in disgust. “Do you miss her? Do I remind you of her?”

He squeezes your jaw so hard you hear a pop, the blood from your nose dripping in steadily down his fingers.

“Does it really feel that good to lie all the time?”

His hands tremble, ever so slightly, and your eyes water when they meet his. You love his eyes, endless depths of liquid silver that shine with intelligence. But staring into those dark, hurtful pits now, you cannot help but to simple fall apart.

He lets you fall to the floor, eyeing you with the same empty look he gives whenever you both kiss. It’s late, you just want to drift into the unknown and let all of this just float away and kept tucked away permanently at the back of your mind.

“It’s not enough isn’t it?” You ask, closing your eyes.

“No, it isn’t.”

Just as suddenly, he pounces on your like a starved beast, pushing you against the floor and whispers six simple words into your ear:

“But we can make it be.”

You smell salt and something indescribably sweet when he forces his tongue against your lips, patiently coaxing them open. He brushes against them, once, twice, fingers roughly carding themselves through your hair as guides your tentative hands to entwine themselves around your neck. And you think you see her too, a perfectly frame face with delicate eyes and plush lips, it’s not difficult to see why he cannot move on. Eye lashes fluttering with tears, you ignore the drying blood trailing your face and let out a whimper when he bites down hard on your bottom lip. It does not take long for you to reciprocate his feelings, and the guilt that overwhelms your senses taste just as bitter as you had always assumed.

Even when he’s holding unto you as though his life depends on it, you smell her perfume and eye the shadow of her imprint lying across his chest.

His heart belongs to another.

But he is grinding against you desperately, pawing at your breast as you slowly shed of your shirt, trailing a line of kisses along the curve of your jaw.

He does not love you.

Yet he is panting, nipping at your collarbones as he rushes to grip your hips, forehead resting on yours.

You cry out, partly out of the pain when he finally pushes himself into you, partly because of the hurt that lodges a deep crack in your heart.

And that is alright.

He grabs your hands, fingers curling around them. You cannot help but be mesmerize by how pale they are, how soft they feel, or how they easily envelop your whole hand. You return his grip, fiercely and fight back your sob.

It was inevitable.

With only a fistful of empty promises and filthy desires, filled with useless efforts only you can do, you wait, simply drowning in the shadow of his touches, the lonely ghost of lost love continuously waltzing in repetitive steps as you return to uncovering your hearts and baring each layer of your soul to sing your lamentations, lying to yourself that this was what you want, and what you both needed.

Even if you continue to play second fiddle.

Even if you forever remain second best,

You feel him smile against your kiss, and the tears that pour feel like a torrential downpour, swallowing you whole.

It is what you will do.

It is all you can do.

In the beginning was MICHAEL, an ANGEL loyal to the cause of the ANGELS. He is said to be IMMORTAL and uses HE/THEY pronouns. In this New Testament he serves as a KING of the KINGDOM OF CAELUM. Blessed be his name.

THE INDELIBLE MARK.

Michael is widely regarded as the elite among the angels - though they move fast, he moves faster. Though they are intelligent and clever, he is cutting and far quicker with his wit. What makes him a true force, though, is his ability to predict his opponent’s moves and strategy in battle. Once they have an established pattern that he is able to discern, defeating them becomes rather easy - and this is something that he is able to apply in other spheres of life as well, such as negotiation and debate. Although, he finds this rather difficult to apply as of late. There are a number of demons that are aware of this ability and have learned to abate it somewhat, and mortals are far more difficult to gauge  due to their unpredictable nature (and newfound abilities)  since the dawn of this age.  

THE HISTORY.

He remembers what it was to be beloved. To be favored by both God and Man, lauded as the savior of the kingdom of heaven and the children on earth. At the first flicker of his existence, Michael knew what his duty was - to be the protector and the sword that God would wield against the world, whether it be as protection or punishment, it did not matter. So long as he did his duty and did it well; it is a difficult thing, though, to fulfill one’s duty when bearing a heart that it is aflame, one that aches and trembles at the gentlest of touches. And yet he had to learn how to brutalize it, how to do so in order to steel it against the notion of mercy.  What good was mercy when chasing the foolish humans from the garden of Eden - though they wept and bemoaned the loss of the only place they had known to be their home? What use was it when he cast his own brother, Lucifer, from heaven and watched him fall to the decrepit realm of hell? He had led the soldiers of heaven against the rebels that were condemned. With his flaming bled he slaughtered those he had once called his brethren, and he did so at God’s bidding and in His name. One would think that, since it was his duty, his sole reason for creation, it might have been easier for him to bear; he waited for his heart to quiet, perhaps it might even revel in the righteousness of his duty. After all, for these acts he was lauded and venerated, rendered and depicted in paintings, scraps of metal, and marble stones. But decades turned into centuries, and centuries into millennia and this suffering of his never seemed to wane.

And God, his father, never seemed intent on lessening his suffering. Michael never uttered a word against his father, and his father never thanked him - but still all saw him as the only beloved, as the only angel worthy enough to be wielded as God’s sword. Imagine, then, their surprise when his rageful heart could no longer be quelled by his haphazard attempts at soothing it, could no longer be caged by the steel that he had meticulously built and reinforced millennia after millennia. It had been one, single request that he had finally uttered - have mercy upon the soul of this girl, Father, he had begged. A single girl, taken too young - perhaps no one in the grand scheme of things, a blinking, flickering star that was fading in the vastness of the cosmos. But she had been kind, she had been good, and God had let her be taken aware far too young, had allowed her to feel the flicker of flames simply because it had been predetermined. But Michael knew the truth as well as his Father - if He had so wished, the girl might have been saved. The only request he had ever made since the waking of his existence and still his Father denied him. No one could blame him when, after that, he had felt his heart truly break. And from it burst forth a torrent of unfettered rage and pain.

There are times where he thinks that he might have drowned his own brethren with his seething anger, forcing them to drink it in until they were poisoned with it as well. Other times he thinks that he blinded himself to the resentment that tied the angels in their coup against God. But he knows that to ruminate on the events of the past can only lead to madness - regardless, he still held his sword to his Father’s throat, watched the ichor pour from His divine wounds and cast Him from the heaven that He had so long hidden Himself in. What an odd thing it was to feel the steady beat of his heart and to know, as he watched his Father fall to the earth that he was finally at peace. What an odd thing it was to realize that death and peace were one in the same. Though, with this dead heart he found that it was easier to wear a crown upon his head and take the burden of this new world upon his winged shoulders. With his bloodied hands he built a kingdom that allowed his people the freedom that they were never given by the divinity that they had once called God and Father. He ushered them into a new era in a world that could be theirs - and what better turn of fate could there be than if the world was theirs alone?

He sees how the dawn of this new age has made them stronger - and he has felt how it is making them weak. Each day he awakes and feels the beating of his dead heart push him closer to the edge of greed, to the edge of hunger and he is beginning to find it difficult to smother it, to stop himself from giving in. But he looks at the lands that await them, thinks of the promise of peace should all bend their knee and fall under his rule. How could they deny him the crown and kingship when it is so clear that he, who has known true suffering and true pain, is the only one that can stop it from consuming them all? Fate has thwarted him, the obstinacy of the demons and humans prodding at him like the bites of gnats. They think they know better than he, the celestial that rallied the entirety of the heavens against God? They think they know better than the angel that has witnessed the true danger of natures of demons and the fickle, beguiling morals of humans? Michael, he is named. He Who Is Like God - and when has God ever been satiated unless he dictates all things?

THE CONNECTIONS.

GABRIEL & RAPHAEL: The Archangels. They were known as the three Archangels in the old world - famed and venerated (though Michael above all). They are brothers in every sense of the word: bickering over the smallest of things, needling one another, but loving one another all the same. Though, as of late, Michael has become worried that his new status as their liege and lord has caused something of a rift between them. Perhaps chasm is a more accurate word to describe it. Before, their arguments would end in jest, but now he can only recall the biting words that seem to dig deeper each time they dare to broach any sort of conversation. What worries him more is the fact that, since the dawn of time, they have been at his side - have been the wards against his own pride and paranoia. The further he drifts from them, the more he begins to wonder if he is well and truly sane.

ZADKIEL: Pawn. They were close once, despite the disparity in their positions - one an Archangel and the other a Cherubim. They were both treasured by God, beloved by Him especially when Lucifer was cast out from Heaven. They had both thought of the fallen angel as a brother and had found comradery in the face of misery and disappointment. But then Michael became more prominent among the Mortals, revered and uplifted while Zadkiel receded into the background, all too glad to remain beneath the shadow of God’s hand. Michael knew that, without a doubt, even if it warred with Zadkiel’s obstinate sense of duty, he would fall into line if asked. And he would do it again and again and again, no matter what the Cherubim might forsake along the way. Call it morbid curiosity, but Michael cannot wait to find out what will push him to the edge.

VIKTORIA: Muse. There is something unnameable about them that calls to him like a moth to a flame, like a mortal to sin. Since the dawn of time he has kept his gaze upon them, watching them from afar, fascinated by every utterance that echoes from their lips, or every weary wave of their lithe fingers. Whenever they speak, he bends an ear to listen, though it seems that they have no interest in ever speaking directly to him. Or, when they deign to, it is in short clipped words that are rarely ever complimentary or kind. No matter, he tells himself, because regardless they are hired to protect him and ensure his safety - to be his eyes and ears in the places where he is unable to reach. It costs him a pretty penny, but it's worth it, so long as it keeps them coming at his beck and call again and again.

SALOME: Headache. He really does loathe how she looks at him whenever they are forced to regard one another. Her words always seem saccharine, laced with falsities and only ever contemptuous when he bothers to read between the lines. Why she loathes him, he can’t seem to fathom, but whatever the reasons be they seem to be founded on nothing more than a gut feeling. Perhaps she remembers how his blade had kept her from heaven and how he had watched her be casted into health, as she had rightfully deserved to be. Or perhaps she sees in him everything she is denied -- and Salome has been refused so little in the world that to deny her every request fills him with delectable satisfaction. Perhaps, he thinks, that if he wears away at her enough then she might be rendered utterly useless to the Vices in her quest to fulfill her needs above all else.

Michael is portrayed by Adonis Bosso* and was written by ROSEY. He is currently TAKEN by CAROLINE.

GoT Fanfic: And if you howl (3/9)

Notes:

As always, I own nothing but the mistakes.

This was originally written for the Jonsa Festival over on Tumblr. The prompts were anonymous so I have no idea who came up with this... but if it was you please let me know, I'd love to gift this fic to you.

Also, if you’d like to read the first two parts you can find them here.

The second time - anger

She’s still tired when she opens her eyes the next day, and there’s a rebellious streak in her that wishes she could remain in bed all day, lingering among her warm furs, but the sunlight streaming through her window and painting her chambers in a play of shadows are proof enough she has already wasted several hours of the day and she reluctantly rises.

She carries with her duties as faithfully as ever, long, tedious meetings with high lords and ladies alike, prominent discussions about trade agreements with the south and the state of their stored provisions, as winter is still harsh and relentlessly holding the land. There are always matters that demand her attention, endless disputes that need soothing.

She supposes she cannot truly be blamed if her attention wanes from time to time, her mind drowning out the constant chatter to fly across frozen plains and snowed forests, beyond the wall and into a wildling camp.

And when night comes, and she stands in the exact same spot as she stood the night before, closing her eyes and imagining rough hands stroking coarse white fur, she tries not to be too disappointed when nothing happens.

As days go by though, Sansa begins to grow increasingly frustrated. There is an important trade agreement with Dorne that doesn’t seem to be advancing, with unreasonable demands from both sides growing more unreasonable with each passing hour, and she’s starting to feel more and more like Old Nan trying to appease bickering children than she does a queen. Her patience is wearing thin and she wishes she could just slam the door in their faces like a petulant child and leave them to it.

She longs for some peace and quiet. She longs for some freedom from duty and responsibility.

Her short spam spent inside Ghost’s mind is long gone, the memory of it feeling more like a fading dream with each passing day, one she struggles to remember fully but can feel slipping away like the snowflakes she used to try and catch with her hands as a little girl.

She has tried, more times than she cares to admit, to slip back into the direwolf’s mind. But she doesn’t know how to, though, and so far all her attempts have come to naught. It’s not like she can ask the maester for help with this – the look of disbelief and shock she’s certain would grace the man’s solemn features is enough to make her smile ruefully. Maybe she will ask him, she thinks wickedly, just for the sake of it.

Of course, the more obvious choice is Bran – her little brother knows all there is to know about warging, she has seen him do it on more than one occasion – but she’s loathe to reach out to him on this, to put words on a quill and send out ravens on such a topic, on what she feels is essentially spying on Jon.

The door of the meeting room where she still sits with the southern emissaries sweeps open suddenly and startles her out of her thoughts before a young boy sweeps inside the hall. His hair is disheveled, brown locks sticking to his forehead as if he had just run all the way here, a look of excitement shinning in his dark eyes.

“Apologies,” he pants out, looking sheepishly at the lords before his eyes settle on her and he walks across the room with determined steps, “Your Grace, there’s been a raven, from King’s Landing. It has the royal seal.” He remembers himself then, and drops into a clumsy bow under the reproachful eyes of the lords.

She smiles at the boy as she takes the rolled up parchment with steady hands. She fails to see what could be so exciting about a raven from her brother, even though she wonders at it as well. But it does offer the perfect opportunity to shirk this dull meeting, so she doesn’t hesitate to rise from her chair. There’s a rushed scraping of seats as the assembled lords scramble to their feet but she pays them little notice.

Part of her wishes she could just walk out without a word – and yes, slam the door forcefully on her way out – but years of instilled courtesies still ring in her head. They are her armor, a distant voice whispers, and she feels her insides twist. “If you will forgive me, I feel I must see to this at once.” She doesn’t wait for them to answer, and only faintly hears their mumbled agreements.

She makes her way to the godswood before dismissing the guards that have hurried behind her after her hasty departure. The ground is thick with snow, her boots crunching against the icy pathways. The pond is frozen solid, covered with a fresh layer of ice glinting in the rapidly fading sun, its edges marked by fallen red leaves from the massive weirwood. Her gloved fingers caress the wood slowly around the carved face, its red eyes seemingly boring into her.

Bran’s quill is slightly rumpled by her grasping fingers and she stares at the wax seal depicting a raven with open wings. She makes quick work of breaking it and reads the message in slightly blurred ink.

Focus your attention. Be a wolf. With love, the three-eyed raven.

“What?” Her voice comes out far louder and harsher than intended and a crow startles in the tree, its indignant squawks breaking the stillness as he flies across the sky in search of quieter perching. What is that supposed to mean? She tilts her head upward and closes her eyes, taking deep, measured breaths and allowing her frustration to dwindle away slowly. Bran’s messages may be cryptic, she smirks, but he wouldn’t have bothered with it unless it meant something.

Her mind flies back to Jon and Ghost and the precious night she has spent with them. Could this be what he means? She has been focusing on it, far more than she ought to, but it has gotten her nowhere. Perhaps Bran means to warn her against it, against spending her nights chasing a flight of fancy that will never amount to anything. Or perhaps it is something else entirely. It’s hard to tell with Bran nowadays.

She sits against the massive tree, her back against its white trunk, and lets her mind wander to happier times. Her father used to sit in this very spot, a lifetime ago, his hands polishing Ice as he enjoyed a few precious moments of respite from his duties. Her mother would come here then, to speak with him, to gently coax him back until they would walk back to the keep, arm in arm and a smile on their faces.

She thinks back on the night she ventured across the Wall under the guise of a direwolf, and the happiness she had felt then. It had been confusing at first, Ghost’s heightened senses overwhelming her completely, the fragmented presence of the direwolf’s mind nudging inside his skull against her own. But then everything else had been drowned by Jon and her efforts to try and recapture that feeling had proven both consuming and pointless thus far.

Be a wolf.

Her focus changes suddenly, and her mind wanders to Ghost and what it felt like to truly be him, instead of someone else trapped in a foreign body. His coarse white fur keeping her warm against the chilling winds, his red eyes and one ear, so much sharper than her own, his massive paws carving their way against the snow covered grounds. She feels a sudden awareness of her surroundings, her earing and her smelling sharper somehow, as she recalls how everything felt so much more powerful when she was a wolf.

She hears a rhythmic thumping to her side, with whispering voices carrying over the rustling leaves, and she jerks her eyes open ready to snap at whoever has seen fit to disturb her here. It takes her only a fleeting moment to realize she’s no longer in the godswood.

She’s lying on the ground, the softly falling snowflakes teasing her whiskers, and she licks them in an attempt to ease the itching. Her paws feel the cold but her body is unbothered by it, the coarse fur keeping her warm and cozy. She instantly recognizes the clearing and she twists slightly to look at the small cabin directly behind her.

She’s back, and there’s a giddiness building inside her chest at the realization, something soft and bubbly that makes its way across her body until she’s so excited she could scream. Was it really this easy? Her snout turns up, facing the endless blue sky as she playfully tries to bite at the falling snow. The movement makes her fall backwards and she yelps, startled, before she lets herself fall back against the frozen blanket and giving it a few playful rolls.

It’s been years since she’s felt like this, careless and free, and she longs to enjoy it for however long it lasts.

The thumping stops abruptly and she hears a chuckle that startles her out of her playful roll in the snow. Jon is standing a few feet away, an axe in his hand and a smile on his lips. “You’re in good spirits.”

She leaps to her feet, shaking the excess snow from her fur before she quickly makes her way to him, bounding around him and nudging his legs, in a show of undivided affection. He’s still smiling as he crouches down to run his fingers through her fur, giving her a tender pat on the head. “You’re acting like you’re a pup again.” She snaps her teeth playfully at him before she nudges him again. She’s still learning her own strength though and he topples back, landing on his arse with a bark of laughter.

She circles around him as she waits for him to get up, sniffing curiously at him as she goes. His laughter dies down eventually but he still doesn’t move as she comes back to a stop in front of him.

“So this is how it’s going to be, is it?” He shakes his head reproachfully at her. “Alright, just remember this was your doing.” There’s a mischievous glint in his smile as he starts picking up handfuls of snow and she takes two steps back, her tail waggling as she keeps her eyes on his hands.

Surely, he wouldn’t dare…

But surely he does, as he lifts his hand with a triumphant smile and a carefully rounded snowball and throws it up into an arch. Her red eyes follow with rapt attention as it flies across the air before it explodes against her head. She startles back and hears him laughing again as she starts to shake herself furiously, trying to get rid of the ice that stubbornly clings to her fur.

His hands are already busy making another snowball when she looks back at him, and her head tilts to the side, red eyes glinting in the sun as she ponders her options. Ladies don’t enter snowball fights and it’s been years since she’s been in one, but the notion is almost foreign to her in this moment. The more immediate concern is the distinct lack of hands, and the fact that her paws cannot compete with him.

The wind swishes in front of her and she jumps back a mere moment before another snowball lands right in front of her. He chuckles and she narrows her eyes at him, her plan already formed. Her upper body drops against the snow, her tail dancing back and forth as she tries to distract him, before she lunges forth.

It’s graceful, the way she lands in front of him with a soft thump before quickly twisting around. She thinks she would blush if she could, as she feels her tail thumping against his face before his hands start moving against it, trying to bat it away. He’s still chuckling, completely unaware of his impending fate, when she buries her paws into the snow and begins to dig.

The crunch of the snow against her nails is a crescendo of sound as she digs faster and faster, spurred on by the sound of his laughter echoing across the clearing. She takes a huff of breath, tilts her head back to look at him to see him covered in white before she turns back around to dig some more.

“Alright, alright, enough! You win.” His words are practically muffled by laughter and snow but his hands land on both sides of her tail and she stops abruptly. Her tongue is lolling to the side but she attributes it to the effort and certainly not to the way his fingers spear through her fur before he gives a gentle push to her behind.

His laughter dies down and she hears a rumbling from his chest before silence seems to settle over them. Sansa sits down primly in front of him, back straight and lone ear pointed up, and suddenly their eyes lock. There’s a softness in his gaze as he stares at her that seems to tear at her insides and she trembles.

Jon shakes his head warily before he rises to his feet, his eyes sweeping around in a warrior’s stance before stopping to look intently towards the edge of the trees. Sansa looks too, her body suddenly tense and alert. She can’t see or hear anything, though, nothing besides the wind as it rustles through the leaves and the occasional cracking sound as one of the giant trees bends and shakes under the heavy weight of snow. She looks back at Jon, cocking her head.

Jon’s eyes have a faraway look as he keeps his gaze steadily looking ahead. He seems as though he’s lost somewhere in the recesses of his mind and it takes Sansa but a few moments to realize he’s looking south.

Winterfell. He’s looking towards home.

She steps forward and nudges her snout softly against his leg, trying to ease some of the tension that seems to have settled over his shoulders and waits for the inevitable ear rub, but it never comes. Instead he keeps his hands to his sides, his eyes trained forward.

“I can’t go back,” he sighs. “I can never go back.”

There’s a resignation in his tone that sparks a sudden sense of anger within Sansa, and she feels the fur at her neck bristling as she bares her teeth in rage. Because he can. He should be there. He doesn’t get to look longingly back, as if something precious was taken from him. She had tried to bring him back. He should be there. He could be there if he really wanted to.

If he wanted to.

The thought is hardly new and yet too much at the same time and she takes two steps back, pulls away from him. The sudden movement seems to snap Jon out of his daze and he looks at her bared teeth in astonishment. “Ghost? What’s wrong boy?”

He takes a cautious step towards her, his hand stretched out in front of him with his palm up, trying to soothe her, but right now Sansa is too mad to care. She bares her teeth again, letting out a low snarl and he stops stunned. “Ghost. It’s me.”

She takes a few more steps back, trying to put some distance between them, trying to control this anger that seems to own her and she sees his eyes suddenly cloud with hurt. “So you’re just gonna turn on me too, is that it? Leave me as well?”

I’m not the one that’s left, she wants to scream at him.

He huffs out an annoyed breath, a hand coming out to rub over his face in a gesture she’s so familiar with that her heart aches at the sight and, for a moment, it’s as though they’re back to their old ways, arguing and bickering with a carelessness borne out of the certainty of the bond they shared.

But it’s not the same, she reminds herself. Things have changed. Their tentative trust has been broken and the bonds tying them together have changed and shattered. She fears he may never forgive her. She doesn’t know if she has forgiven him.

Her mind is screaming and suddenly Sansa is running, her powerful wolf body carrying her over snow covered grounds and into the deep woods that surround the dwelling, with only the wind rushing by her coat, the crunching of ice beneath her paws and the desperate sound of Jon calling her name.

Pick A Side (Part 8)

pairing: Taehyung x reader

word count: approx. 1,500

genre: university!au; angst; romance; slice of life stuff; a bit a bit of fluff 

warnings: references to school bullying; references to voyeuristic behaviour

previous part: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

taglist: @destiel1597 @mila271 @hopetookmysoul @ximaginx @honeyursosweet @coffeecupyoongs @bangtanbaesstuff @annoyingpessimist @betysotelo18 @okaysoplshelpme @igot7bangs @tahaing 

comments: i am sorry this took so long, i just keep feeling like it’s not enough xD this was originally the second half of part 7, so it’s best read together with part 7 ^^ And also, this is what I have been trying to express through this series, I hope you will enjoy reading it! 

In any high school you would be able to find two kinds of people, the one that everyone had a crush on, and the one who could only have a crush on someone. You belonged in the latter category, attributable to the biggest crush you had on a certain senior. He played baseball, he had good grades and needless to say, he was really popular. You obviously never even had a chance to speak a single word to him, all the while only looking at him from afar.  

A deafening crash travelled down the empty corridor one evening, scaring the hell out of you, who had forgotten your textbook and had gone back to the empty classroom to retrieve it. You followed the noise to a secluded storage room that hardly anyone knew existed. Through the tiny gap in the windows, you peered in, seeing a boy thrown against the metal cupboards. His hair was in a mess, his eyes glassy, and his body slumped onto the ground. Another two students towered over him.  

You squinted to get a better view and you were half-certain the guy on the floor was your classmate, Jinho. You were not close to him, hardly anyone was in fact. But you couldn’t just walk away. What were you supposed to do now? Do you call the teachers? Should you barge in?  

The tiny slit of light from the corridor was the only brightness filtering into the storeroom. Just as you were about to dash off to the teachers’ office, one of the boys standing over him turned his face slightly towards you. You will never get his side profile wrong, not even in the bad lighting, because that’s the only profile you were able to swoon at every lunch time.

It can’t be. This isn’t possible. Something's not right. You reminded yourself time and again not to jump to conclusions. It can’t be that he was bullying Jinho. There must be something else to this. Before anyone saw you, you turned away and ran out of the building, without telling anyone about what you saw, without a single word.  

The next day Jinho came to school as per usual. You stared at him sporadically throughout the lessons. His expressionless face was no different than other days, but you felt uneasy. He looks fine though. Is he fine? Why would anyone bully him? It's not what it seems, right?  

Lunch time came and you stared at that familiar side profile. He had the same cozy smile, laughing and chatting with his friends, but all you felt was uneasiness. It was definitely him in that room. Is he a bully? Why would he be? There must be some explanation behind what you saw, right?  

That night a classmate sent a video to your group chat, asking if the boy in it was Jinho. In the shaky video, the guy’s face was half covered, his upper body bare, and he crouched in a corner of what looked like a less-patronised school bathroom. Whoever was or were behind the phone taking the video had a field day hurling and splashing what you could only hope was water at the ragged boy. No one else could be seen in the video, and the sounds were muted too.  

Your fingers hovered over the screen of your phone, shaking. Don’t jump to conclusions, you reminded yourself.  

But the conclusion jumped at you – the next day Jinho didn’t come to class. In fact, he never came again.  

---

Taehyung was now sitting next to you on the floor, listening intently to you. The way you peeled at the skin on your fingertips was evident of how much it still stresses you out.  

“You must have been scared”, he wanted to make you feel a little less bad about your decisions.  

“That’s the worst part. I was scared of the bullies... but I was more scared of admitting that he could be the bully. Because I liked him... I told myself not to jump the gun, I gave myself excuses that I didn’t know everything. I lied to myself thinking that I was being fair, that I was being neutral...”, your voice started breaking.  

“... it was obvious... at that time... it was already so obvious... when I did nothing, I chose his side. I am no better than him... it’s not wrong if anyone calls me a bully too”, you were choking by now, tears flushing down your face, as you were sucked into a whirlwind of guilt and remorse.  

And you were reminded of the words that you lived by ever since:  

“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” ~Elie Wiesel  

“You are not a bully, Y/N...”, you felt his hands hold onto both of your tear-stained cheeks, his palms warm from the hot hairdryer air.  

“... you were the only person who helped me during orientation, remember?”, he continuously tries to wipe away your tears with his hands, but they continuously fall from your eyes uncontrollably.  

“Do you know tha... that... after the video spread around, Jinho couldn’t come to school? They say he locked himself up for days and... and his mother broke down the door eventually... and found him unconscious. When he woke up he couldn’t... he wouldn’t say a single word. She has all the right in the world to hate us. She wouldn’t let anyone from school visit him. But I keep trying... I just... I feel so bad and sorry to him... if only I did something, if only I...”, you rambled on, sobbing and choking through your tears.  

He pulls your head down onto his shoulders, “Everyone makes mistakes... it’s ok... it’s ok”, he paused a while before continuing, “We all hope for forgiveness when we make mistakes... so that we can breathe easier. But whether to forgive is up to the person who has been hurt... it is only fair that way...”, if the air could speak, it would probably sound like his voice now.  

When the ice beneath cracks, it cannot be fixed. And if you live with cracks inside of you, those are the marks of your mistakes. Everyone has cracks inside of them, small ones, long ones, ugly ones, bleeding ones. We create them on others and we get them from others. Some people let the cracks consume themselves, some people let the cracks consume other people, some people learn to live with them, some people learn from them.  

“So, maybe it's not always about being forgiven... sometimes maybe it is about letting go. Not that we should forget about it... but sometimes we have to live with our mistakes and the consequences... live with them in our hearts, at least I think that is what a good person would do...”, Taehyung sighs, as you drenched him in your tears this time.  

These are the things he thinks about these days. Will he ever receive forgiveness? From you. Or should he learn to let go? Of you.  

“I know it’s hard...”, he started stroking your hair lightly, trying all the ways he could think of to help you through this.  

“It’s nothing compared to what he had to go through”, you wept, referring to Jinho. 

“Mmm...”, the wisest response he could think of was to agree. He too knows, that whatever he was going through, was nothing compared to what he made you suffer. 

Not every mistake will be forgiven, not every wrong can be absolved. Out of respect for the hurt which has been caused, it should never be forgotten. Now and then, it will find ways to submerge you, seeping through the cracks within you, but you don't have to let it drown you.  

He was waiting for you to use up all your tears but Taehyung must have been exhausted by his day, because as time went by, you felt the strokes on your hair weaken and eventually his hand falls onto your shoulder. His breathing was deep and lethargic, his heartbeat slow, and you realise he must have dozed off with his head now resting on top of yours.  

The unhurried beats in his chest were soothing, his sweater was softer than your blanket and his arms circling you was like a fence. This moment felt safe, the air felt serene, the night felt tranquil.  

You guessed that this is why people are always known to be selfish. You couldn’t take someone’s side when they required it, yet you so readily accepted this gesture of companionship in your own time of need. You buried your face into his chest like an ostrich hiding from something, although even an ostrich wouldn’t be able to hide away from its conscience in this way. You were equally exhausted, and eventually the lullaby of his heartbeats lures you into sleep.

You knew you were still not forgiven, even with Taehyung by your side. But you were no longer bearing it alone, because Taehyung was by your side.  

---

In the morning, as you picked up that yellow post-it which had slipped out from your pile of mail, you finally now recognise the handwriting as Taehyung’s:

“Please don't say anything Reach my hand out to cover the mouth But in the end, spring will come someday The ice will melt and flow away”

Your smile at his words lasted a few moments, but then it slowly devolves into a bothered frown. Why did Haejoong not correct you when you asked if he wrote the notes?

LiuShen Week 2019 | Day 4 | In which they share kisses in different situations.

Written for LiuShen Week 2019  @liushenweek

Day 4: Loved (Free Day)

Title: And the Reason is You Fandom: Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System Characters/Ships: LiuShen Rating: Slightly NSFW Summary: Three times Shen Qingqiu kissed Liu Qingge, and that one time Liu Qingge initiated the kiss. A/N: Holy shit. Am I writing again? I know, I’m shocked at myself too.

-

i.

“Liu-shidi, I—”

There was a hint of strain in his usually calm, assured tone, as if he was using his last ounce of strength to hold himself back from reaching out to the man sitting so close to him.

His shivering fingers lightly wrapped around the back of the other man’s neck, and he pulled his head down, their breaths mingling for just a brief moment, hearts thundering and drowning out everything else.

Even when he was slightly under the influence of the venom, Shen Qingqiu still somehow managed to kiss him with such careful precision and control. The mesmerizing taste of his osmanthus-scented breath — a clear sign of him being poisoned — was overwhelmingly saccharine when he touched his lips gently against Liu Qingge’s, who could only widen his eyes at the unexpected turn of events.

Two hours ago, they had dragged their exhausted bodies back to the inn after exterminating a group of high-level flower demonesses who had enchanted and kidnapped the town’s young men in order to suck their vitality in aid of their cultivation.

It wasn’t a particularly difficult encounter they had in terms of an extermination mission, but the leader of those demonesses had been cunning, enough that Shen Qingqiu – who, at least according to a scoffing Liu Qingge, had been too easy on them as the lord of Qing Jing Peak had initially planned to extract the kidnapped victims in a more polished means without causing too much of a mess – had fallen into the demoness’s trap.

Neither of them was seriously injured in the end, but Shen Qingqiu inhaled some of the dangerous sweet pollen, which as he soon found out to be a very potent aphrodisiac, and no long cold soak in the bathtub was able to completely erase the devastating effects of such venom. Tendrils of tantalizing heat and sparks of prickling sensation snaked up from within the depth of his body and spread to the surface of his skin, making him slightly flushed and breathless, almost as if he had a fever.

Shen Qingqiu had been absolutely vigilant of any physical contact since they came back, but it was all over the moment Liu Qingge’s fingers brushed against the back of his hand — swelteringly warm and over-sensitive – when he was handing him a cup of warm tea in an attempt to sooth the twitching, pulsing desire within him.

It took Liu Qingge much longer than he was willing to admit to react to the kiss, for the initially chaste touch of their lips quickly turned into something much more intense, something that threatened to rip Liu Qingge’s breath and last strand of logic away.

Then the acute, unnaturally sweet floral taste of Shen Qingqiu’s tongue shattered the illusion when he tried to deepened the kiss, and Liu Qingge quickly staggered back, shoving away the slightly shorter man, who was putting up quite a fight for someone who was supposedly poisoned and weakened.

“Shen. Qing. Qiu.”

With each syllable of the man’s name, Liu Qingge’s voice dripped with icy impassivity and quiet fury: a warning, or a subtle sign of fear.

“Damn it, Shen Qingqiu! Wake up!”

Shen Qingqiu’s eyes were clouded with raw lust stirred up by an artificial source, but the kiss had been real, the little noise of discontent rolling from the back of his throat when Liu Qingge pushed him back had been real, the desperate grasp of his sleeves when he attempted to come closer once more, and the eager way with which Shen Qingqiu called for him had also been real.

But…

You are not yourself, Liu Qingge thought.

He wondered why his heart was hurting so much when he finally lost the will to fight and simply allowed Shen Qingqiu to embrace him as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

And I am not the one you truly want.

-

ii.

“Liu-shidi, stay exactly where you are and don’t move!”

As soon as the Sha Lu Er flopped lifelessly onto the ground with a thundering thud, its gaping jaws twitching a few seconds more as human blood dripped from its yellowing fangs before it laid completely still, Shen Qingqiu returned Xiu Ya sword back into its sheath and ran towards his companion, his furrowing brows and hastened pace the only signs of his unease.

“Are you all right? Dear god, your arm…”

“I am fine,” Liu Qingge would roll his eyes at his shixiong’s melodramatic antics were he the type to do so; instead, he just acted how he usually would – avoided eye contact at all costs and pretending everything was fine, like the flesh and bones of his left arm weren’t crushed into a bloody, mangled mass by that damn fifteen-feet-long shark-deer monster that had been wreaking havoc and endangering the villagers in nearby towns. “Shen-shixiong has no need to be overly concerned for me.”

A pause, and then something hard hit the back of his head.

Liu Qingge uttered a pained groan and glared at the other man through the messy fringes of his forelocks, his iron-grey irises blazing in irritation despite his pale complexion due to blood loss from his injury.

Shen Qingqiu’s grasp on the handle of his fan tightened until his knuckles turned white, his lips pressed into a firm line as he maintained their eye contact.

“What the hell was that for?”

“What do you mean — that I don’t need to be concerned for you?! Liu Qingge, I thought we’ve gone over this already! What you did just now, throwing yourself so carelessly into the fight, I—” Shen Qingqiu exhaled harshly, turning his head away as uncomfortable warmth crept up from his neck to his cheeks when Liu Qingge continued to stare at him with a hint of curiosity laced within the initial frustration. “That was for making me worried sick!”

Liu Qingge blinked once, twice, finally comprehending what Shen Qingqiu was insinuating, and he stumbled the two steps forward to close the distance between them, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

“Shen Qingqiu…” he murmured, eyes lowered in a silent apology.

Shen Qingqiu lifted his arm and gently gathered a strand of Liu Qingge’s ink-black hair in between his blood-stained fingertips.  He kissed his locks with a warm, tender light in his eyes that Liu Qingge had never seen before.

He didn’t dare imagine; he didn’t dare hope; he didn’t want to be disappointed.

“I cannot bear the thought of losing you, so please, Qingge, I beg you, don’t put me through that again.”

-

iii.

Shen Qingqiu kissed the back of the other man’s hand reverently, lips lingering on the skin marred with battle scars and tongue gliding over callouses hardened by swordsmanship training over the years. He traced his lips over the elegant structure of his fingers until he reached the tip of Liu Qingge’s middle finger, which he then took into the wet cavern of his mouth in its entirety, until the fingertip grazed the back of his throat, and he swallowed hungrily around it.

It was shameful: the wet sounds of Shen Qingqiu sucking on his skin like he couldn’t get enough of his taste reverberating in his ears, those mesmerizing red, swollen lips wrapping around his fingers, the trembling eyelashes surrounding the darkened irises that looked like Shen Qingqiu wanted nothing more than to consume him whole.

It was shameful, and Liu Qingge wanted to turn away from this unbecoming sight, but he couldn’t stop noticing how Shen Qingqiu’s chest was rising and falling deeply with each breath, or how his long hair, freed from the length of his hair tie, flowed like rivers of ink over the pale canvas of his shoulders.    

“Mnn… Shen Qingqiu, stop playing around and get to it…” he’d meant to sound menacing, but the breathless way with which he uttered the threat betrayed the swelling desire barely contained within his shivering body.

At long last, as if finally satisfied by the teasing he’d instigated against his beloved shidi, Shen Qingqiu pulled his head away with a knowing smirk, a thin string of saliva still connected from his lower lip to the tip Liu Qingge’s finger.

On the battlefield, Liu Qingge incited fear in his enemies and admiration in his allies simply by his presence and the powerful arcs and sweeps of his Cheng Luan sword; in the privacy of their shared bed while lying underneath Shen Qingqiu, Liu Qingge somehow lost the prideful and confident air that made him one of the strongest combatants in the cultivation realm. Instead, he would relinquish all his control to Shen Qingqiu, who would then patiently guide him between the valleys and peaks of pleasure through agonizingly gentle touches and ferocious, carnal ecstasy.  

“Qingge, is this how you ask your shixiong for something? Where are your manners, hmm?”

Shen Qingqiu had a light grip of Liu Qingge’s chin so that the other man couldn’t turn away as Shen Qingqiu had suspected he would.  

With bloodshot eyes and lips that’d been bitten raw, Liu Qingge muttered a fairly impressive, “fuck you.”

“I thought that was the plan, was it not?” Shen Qingqiu laughed, amused by Liu Qingge’s lackluster insult as he placed a soft kiss on the other man’s forehead. “Or are you having second thoughts?”

“Never.”

-

+i.

Shen Qingqiu was not good at cooking. He wasn’t awful at it per se, as he had the skills of making instant noodles with various toppings back in the good, old days without burning down his tiny apartment, but he’d choose to go exterminate a bunch of evil demonic beings over doing this any day.

But for his cultivating partner — the light and love of his life, his newly-wedded husband — he would cook him a proper meal even if it killed him.

Perhaps he was being a little over-dramatic in this matter.

Shen Qingqiu chopped the tofu half-heartedly, trying to recall the specific way Luo Binghe had taught him, but all his effort only resulted in uneven chunks of the silky white curds, one-fourth of the portion he was certain he’d turned into useless mush that couldn’t be pan-fried in the wok.

On second thoughts, maybe he should have taken actual notes when Luo Binghe had been teaching him how to make a few homely dishes just a few days ago.  

He was about to get another cube of tofu sitting in the wooden tub of cold water when Liu Qingge’s voice could be heard from the kitchen’s entryway.

“Shen Qingqiu, there you are,” the lord of Bai Zhan Peak had a slight, confused frown to his brows when he stepped into the kitchen and gradually made his way towards his partner. “I have been looking all over for you… what in the world are you doing?”

He raised one of his brows in puzzlement. “What is this? Are you… are you making dinner?”

“Trying,” Shen Qingqiu emphasized the keyword in this matter. “And failing miserably, as you can see.”

He stepped away from the counter to let Liu Qingge observe his progress — or lack thereof, rather.

Shen Qingqiu sighed, placing the knife down on the cutting board.

“Binghe spent almost four hours the other day teaching me how to make this dish, too. Now I feel terrible for wasting his time. It seems that I have learned nothing from our culinary lessons.”

Liu Qingge’s eyes flashed dangerously at the mention of Luo Binghe.

“Wait, you were with that brat? On your own? When was that? How many times have I told you to stay away—”

“Oh, calm down,” Shen Qingqiu chuckled, swiftly going over to his partner and wrapping his arms around the taller man’s shoulder, pulling him closer as he continued, “he’s just a mere child, Qingge. Why must you two always act so childish and hostile to each other every time you meet? It’s understandable for him to act this way since he’s still a teenager, but Liu Qingge, you are the renowned, respectable Bai Zhan Peak Lord. You don’t have to stoop down to a child’s level like that. I know you are better than that.”

“Hmph. I do not understand why you are so protective of that brat, but he is your disciple after all. Just… promise me to be careful of his intentions when you are around him by yourself.”

“Duly noted,” Shen Qingqiu noticed the genuine worry in his partner’s eyes, and he nodded solemnly in response. With the ill-chosen topic out of the way, Shen Qingqiu once again glanced over at the atrocity he’d created in the short span of twenty minutes of meal preparation. “Now then, I suppose I should clean up this mess and let the kitchen staff reclaim their space.”

“Wait,” Liu Qingge placed a hand over Shen Qingqiu’s as the Qing Jing Peak Lord was about to reach for the knife.

“Hmm?” Shen Qingqiu turned to look at his partner, his head tilted to the side slightly in question. “Qingge, what is it?”

“I…” Liu Qingge bit his lower lip as he struggled to put his thought into words, his cheeks gradually turning pink. “I would like to try your cooking, i-if you do not mind, that is.”

Almost as an afterthought, Liu Qingge lowered his head and pressed a firm but gentle kiss against Shen Qingqiu’s lips before he stood up straight once more, the tips of his ears burning such a bright red that it was impossible for either man to ignore.  

“Um,” Shen Qingqiu lost the ability to process for a good five seconds before he said with a bright smile that made his entire being glow with pure happiness, “sure.”

“We’ll figure it out”

A/N: Yes, I do seem to have a thing for making Harry feel like absolute garbage. It’s a bit concerning, considering he’s my favourite character and all that. (The next one will be happier! I promise!) Anyway, this took me forever to finish, but I do ultimately like it a lot and figured it was time to just put down the damn pen. (Laptop.)

Warning for a mention/discussion of the Dursleys and an amount of f-bombs I promise I didn‘t plan. (I also take a subtle dig at Cursed Child, because of course I fucking do.)

Part 4 of 100 Ways To Say I Love You.

@diva-gonzo asked to be tagged - here you go. Alright, let’s all grab a snack and go!

„We‘ll figure it out.“

After the ecstasy is gone – after every member of the Weasley family has hugged them at least a dozen times, and after they've shared a thousand incredulous, glowing smiles, and after they've had messy, blissful sex twelve times in three days – when the thrill of it all finally quiets down, and Harry's cheeks have stopped hurting from smiling so much – what it leaves behind feels like a small hole at the very pit of his stomach.

“Fuck’s sake, she’s hard on you”, Ron tells him six days after – referring to Head Auror Chadwick – as soon as he’s closed the door to their joint office.

“It’s not that big of a deal.”

Head Auror Chadwick – only their supervisor and one of Ron’s favourite people to complain about – just handed Harry a thick stack of new files, though Ron’s complaints are louder than Harry’s.

“You were supposed to be spending this weekend getting absolutely shitfaced with us! You know, celebrating!”

Harry doesn’t have the heart to tell him he asked for the extra assignments. There aren’t any words that can explain it, anyway.

“But we’ll do it, promise, and you’re gonna have the time of your life. There’s no way we’re not celebrating.”

And Harry smiles. He shoves the files into his bag, joins Ron in complaining about the ruined weekend, and smiles, and smiles, and smiles, while the hole inside him quietly grows.

At some point after him and Ginny first broke the news, the shocked faces and cheers and congratulations turned into making plans. Discussing how to juggle it all. Advice from Bill and Fleur and Molly and Arthur. Advice from Hermione, not because she has any qualifying experience at all, but because she's Hermione, and of course she picked up a book on the subject immediately after they told everyone.

Harry is there for all of it. He watches Molly gush, and Hermione babble. He watches Ginny glow. He’s there for every dinner conversation and every clap on the back, every anecdote shared and every single time Ginny secretly rolls her eyes at her fretting mother. He is there – so why does he feel so goddamn far away from it all? All the smiling is making a balloon blow up inside the hole of him: one that’s empty and sickening and, worst of all, a lie.

And so, two weeks after, he sits in his office at home, more hole than person, and pretends he‘s absorbing any of the information on the papers before him. Maps and Death Eater files and incomplete stakeout plans clutter his desk, and it‘s all urgent, it always is. But he keeps catching himself staring out of the dark window that reflects his desk lamp, and his thoughts run in a thousand directions at once. He can make out vague shapes of the neighbourhood in the dark, and the top of the apple tree in their garden. Godric's Hollow's rooftops shine in the pale moonlight. Harry knows what direction the primary school is, because they always walk past it on their way to the grocery store.

But it’s useless, he tells himself, as he struggles not to acknowledge the anxious hands that seem to have gotten hold of him, digging their fingernails into his insides and closing around his throat until he feels like he’s being choked. He takes off his glasses, rubs his tired eyes, and forces himself to breathe against the emptiness in his chest.

“You’re still up?”

Harry turns around in his chair. Ginny is leaning against the door frame, already in her pyjamas, and though Harry can't make out her face in the dim light, he can hear a smile in her voice. He half-nods, half-shrugs, and turns back to his desk.

Ginny is having none of it.

“You’ve been weird this week”, she says. Because she’s Ginny, it’s not an accusation: She merely observes.

Harry listens to her footsteps on the wooden floor when she comes closer, putting her hands on his shoulders before easily wrapping them around his chest. Harry can feel her stomach rest against the back of his head and wonders what the fuck is wrong with him.

“Sorry”, he says flatly.

Ginny strokes the top of his head, and Harry lets it soothe him, even if he doesn’t think he deserves it.

“We can go to bed, if you want”, she says, “or you can tell me what’s going on.”

And the truth is, of course, that Ginny has watched him fuck up many, many times in the few years they’ve been together. She's been witness as he's forgotten things, and failed to show up, and broken promises he meant to keep when he made them. She was there when he didn't understand what bothered her so much when it was him that bought the house, and when he told her it was just money. She didn't turn around and leave, every time he tried to protect her and ended up hurting her instead. She was there and looked at him when he yelled and cried and pushed her away and said things he didn't mean.

And two weeks ago, when she told him she's pregnant, she was there when his face lit up, and when he kissed her like he's never kissed her before, and when he smiled so much his cheeks still hurt the next day.

So Harry decides to confess, not because he likes it, or because that makes it easier, or because he's any less ashamed. But because he knows that Ginny has already seen the worst of him, and that she won't think any less of him.

Even if Harry does.

"I'm not excited anymore", he says with a tight throat.

The silence that that sentence leaves rings in his ears. Even now, Harry knows that no judgement awaits him – no tantrum is coming. She’s not going to fight him. But she's going to be there and watch, unflinchingly, as he falls deeper and deeper into the dark hole he’s turning into, and he is so fucking sick of it.

"Okay", she says simply.

"It's not okay, Ginny, it's really, really fucking not –“

"Babe, you're spiralling."

She rubs his shoulders and takes long, steady breaths that Harry can synch his too. When he's stopped gasping like he's drowning overwater, Ginny reaches for his hand, and together they sit on the carpet by the couch, where Harry and Ron usually sit when they spend their weekends working on cases together.

“Alright”, she says quietly. “Talk to me.”

Harry fixes his blurry eyes on their entangled hands, but Ginny doesn’t. It’s the one favour she never does him: she never looks away.

“I’m supposed to be really fucking happy right now”, he says hoarsely. “And – I don’t think I am anymore, and I don’t even know why.”

Ginny is silent for a few moments while she takes this in.

“To be fair”, she says softly, “I was a bit surprised about how excited you were. It’s not like we were planning for it to happen so soon.”

“But I was”, Harry insists. If there’s nothing else he can do to make it better, he needs to make sure this part, at least, he gets across. “I promise I was excited, Gin, I was – it’s just … everyone’s making all these plans, and thinking about how we’re going to manage it with work and everything …”

He trails off.

„I know they’re a handful“, she says, smiling faintly. „And we can tell them to tone it down, if you want … but I don’t think that’s what’s going on.“

Harry looks around his office, searching for a way to say it that doesn’t sting.

“I started thinking about what things are going to be like when the baby is actually here, and … I just have a bad feeling.”

When he glances up at her, he can see her jaw clench: she's silently pressing her lips together, and Harry wants nothing more than to shove what’s left of him into the hole he’s become.

“Well”, she says quietly, “do you wish I wasn’t pregnant?”

Silence.

“I don’t know”, he mutters. “No…”

Ginny quietly lets out a breath. “Okay. But something’s wrong.”

Harry bites his lip, willing it to stop trembling. There are no words for the feeling that’s filling him up like cement – the stirring and shifting of heavy dread that consumes him. But there are words he is thinking – words he desperately needs to ask, so someone, anyone, can reassure him, and yet, words he cannot let himself say, for fear of speaking it into existence.

“What if I’ll be shit at it?”, he whispers. “What if this baby grows up and fucking despises me? And what if I’ll despise the baby, too?”

What follows is their heaviest silence yet. Her grip on his hands has loosened, though she hasn’t let go. When he glances up at her, something in her face shifts, and Harry knows they’ve fallen into their usual routine.

“That’s not going to happen, Harry.”

“You don’t know that.”

He falls: deeper and deeper into this most recent hole he’s carved out for himself, until him and the hole are one and the same thing. She finds him at the bottom and looks at the mess he’s made.

He deals Ginny the blow, and she takes it.

“I do know that”, she says fiercely. Her eyes are red. “Because I know you. And you��re not your relatives, Harry.”

There's a small, stinging silence.

“That's what is it”, she asks, “isn’t it?”

And Harry shrugs, and nods, and stares at the empty wall across from them. “I guess.”

Ginny rubs his hands while she sniffs. “Okay. I get that. But it’s not going to be like that, Harry. You’re not like that.”

Harry closes his eyes. “And what if that’s the only thing I’ll know to do?”

“I know for a fact”, she says, “that you’re better than that. I wish you could look at yourself sometimes, Harry … you wouldn’t be worried.”

Harry doesn’t bother to tell her that the very last thing he wants to do right now is look at himself. “What are you talking about?”

“Teddy”, she says simply. “I wish you could see yourself when you’re with him. The way you treat him … you are so full of love for this kid. And Teddy’s as good as your son – this won’t be different.”

Harry hasn’t thought about it like that.

“And you would never want him to feel the way you did”, she continues, after a brief moment of hesitation – with that quiet thunder in her voice that only ever breaks through when they’re talking about the Dursleys. “Because you remember the feeling, don’t you?” When he looks up, her eyes are wet and fiery, but she battles her way through the next sentence anyway, a strangled whisper, nothing more. “You’d make damn sure your own kids never know it.”

There is no point in pretending anymore: Harry lets hot, salty tears slip down his cheeks and drip off his chin. “Yeah, I would”, he whispers.

“That’s all I care about”, she says. “If anything, it’s going to make you a better Dad, Harry, not a worse one.”

She untangles her crossed legs with a sigh and slips onto his lap, and Harry holds her there. Once she’s comfortably sitting on his leg with one arm wrapped around his shoulders, he buries his face in the crook of her neck, and there they are, crying on his office floor like teenagers.

“Look, if it’s any consolation”, she says, “I’m pretty scared, too.”

"You'll be great", Harry mumbles, and he knows it to be true without question.

Ginny plays with his hair. “Why am I supposed to be such a natural at it?”, she asks quietly.

“I just know.” Harry lets himself put his head on her shoulder – there is no feeling quite like the weightlessness that comes with leaning on her. “And you’ve got your parents to look to …”

“I figured that was part of it.” Harry doesn’t respond – he doesn’t need to. “And that’s what scares me, funnily enough.”

She doesn’t quite meet his eye when he looks up. “Which is why I’d actually appreciate it if we could ask them to back off a little, if that’s okay with you.”

“Yeah – what’s going on?”

“Everyone’s so damn convinced I’ll be amazing at it.” Pause. Then – “Even you.”

Again, it is not an accusation.

“And I get it”, she says. “Because my Mum did such a fantastic job, how could I possibly be different?”

Quiet sarcasm has slipped into her voice. Harry doesn’t miss it.

“Well, I’m not my Mum. And – she’s great and all that, but I don’t want to be my Mum. I wish they’d all shut up for a minute and stop acting like I exited the womb ready to be a mother. Merlin, I’m twenty-one, and now I’m pregnant, there’s no way I’ve got it all figured out right now.”

“I didn’t realise”, he mutters. “I’m sorry.”

She shrugs. “I didn’t want you to worry about me. You had enough on your mind … I could tell.”

“I do think you’ll be great”, he says – desperate to offer anything at all.

“And you will, too”, she says with complete certainty. Something he finds oddly soothing, even if he can’t believe it, not yet. “We don’t have to know it all today. We’ll figure it out.”

Harry looks away. “I just … wish I was still excited.”

Ginny strokes his cheek. „Me, too“, she says softly, and Harry’s chest hums and aches at those words. “But I was there when you found out, you know. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this – stupidly happy. That was real. I thought it was, anyway.”

And that last bit somehow hurts even more than the fact that Harry never wanted to fall into this hole. He wanted so desperately for this to be okay.

“It was”, he says. “I promise.”

Ginny waits for him to continue, and when he doesn’t, she blinks away her tears and says: “You’re acting like it’s all ruined, and it’s not, Harry. That baby isn’t even the size of a Snitch yet. Nothing’s lost, okay?”

“Okay”, he says finally. The hole inside of him hasn’t gone anywhere, but the urge to throw himself into the abyss has lessened slightly.

She smiles.

“I’d like to point out”, she says and sniffs, “that all these tears are entirely hormonal, because I’m pregnant, but I’m still cool and intimidating and all that.”

“You are cool”, Harry says and looks up at her. “I – thank you. For not losing sight of me.”

The night is not over yet (Beckett x MC) NSFW

Pairings: Beckett x MC (Maeve)

Words count: 3270

Author’s Note: This happening 2/3 months after Drowning, but before Lá Bealtaine. It’s kind of my thoughts what could have happened after their endeavour in chapter 14. Please let me know, if you want to be removed from tag. This will be NSFW on later stage.

Warning: It may contain a little bit rough oral sex also mentioning of seed swallowing, so please read on your own risk. If you feel uncomfortable please don’t proceed. 

Raiting: NSFW/18+

Tagging: @elles-choices @fluffy-marshmallow-heart @walkerismychoice @tmarie82 @harrington-sinclaire @darley1101 @damienazarionos @boneandfur @littleblossom-18 @too-many-choices-too-little-time @scgdoeswhat

- Happy Birthday, Mae, - whispered Beckett smiling at her with tenderness. His eyes roaming over her body hidden by the layers of clothes, once again. The soft moonlight glowing in her tousled honey hairs, her lips rosy and plump from all the kissing they had.

They sit on the edge of the lake for a little while longer, their bodies pressed closely together, their fingers intertwined, before reluctantly heading to the party. They were silent all the way to the Roost both trying to find the words, but not sure how to start. Both are lost in their own thoughts, so close to each other and so far apart. This was already several months since the day they started to date. But since than stolen kisses, stolen moments alone and stolen touches was all what they had. Tonight was the closest they came in they relationships to each other, craving and wanting for this to happen. But, as it happened many times before, they were interrupted. She wanted him, and she knew he felt the same. She sighed, he was so bold with her at such moments, but as soon as these moments passed, he became the same Beckett Harrington, the one who was unsure and awkward in expressing his feelings.

After following the path so familiar to them both, they finally stopped to the halt.

- Mae, I… if this will be okay, if I call it a night?

- Ohhhh, - disappointment flowed in Maeve’s voice.

- You know, that tomorrow are the start of our finals. So I need to go over some of my books.

- Sure… finals, - she sigh, but nodded kissing him lightly on the lips, - see you tomorrow?

She was ready to leave, when Beckett’s strong hand tugged her firmly back to him and his lips found hers, kissing her passionately, deeply, not letting go. She could feel his excitement pressed into her lower abdomen becoming even more obvious. He kissed her until both of them started to lack an air and become dizzy. They breathing became heavy, their foreheads pressed to each other, panting. They stayed so for several minutes before he released Maeve from his embrace.

- Happy Birthday, Mae, - Beckett added hoarsely, before he turned around and left.

He walked quickly along the dim long corridors, lit only by the moonlight glow sneaking through the massive windows. It was already late, but Beckett still hoped to get his study done before tomorrow’s exam. Unconsciously hoping that this will take his minds off the girl who occupied them constantly. He could still feel her warm breath on his lips, when they met in a kiss just a moments ago and it felt like a thousand of fireworks just exploded above them, hiding them from everyone in a billion of metallic sparks. Her sweet, but subtle scent of wildberries and lavender hover over them bewitching him and mesmerising, forcing him to forget everything and surrender to her. Beckett could feel that he gets excited again, forcing himself to stop thinking about her. He speeded up, trying to get to the safety of the library as soon as possible. He could feel, that the last restraint he had starting to crumble. And Beckett could swear that as soon as this restraint will stop holding him back, he will run back to her making something that she probably will regret the next day. He could see the massive oak doors appearing in front of him, thankfully the librarian has left for the day and the door wasn’t closed what made it easier for him. He slipped inside, quietly closing the door behind, his back firmly pressed to it. Beckett sighed with relief, blocking all the thought about everything and everyone behind this doors. Slowly starting to move along the aisles, his fingertips grazing over the books’ bindings looking for the ones he came here for. The antique books’ smell usually soothing him now reminded him of the totally different scent, the one that made his blood boil in his veins. His heart started to beat faster echoing loudly in the dead silence of the library. His breath quickened from the memory of his fingers grazing lightly along Maeve’s bare skin just an hour ago. He stubbornly tried to resist his desires, taking several books over to the big oak table placing them carefully in front of him. He sat down with firm determination to focus, starting to browse through the ages of knowledge hidden in this books. But every time he tried, he failed hopelessly. Every rustle of pages sounded as her soft whispers to his ears. Every letter blurred out turning into her beautiful face in the cold light of the moon with golden hair tousled in the wind. Every page was filled with her scent enveloping him. Every touch to antique binding felt as her silk skin under his fingers, forcing him to groan in the silence. He could physically sense her presence pushing away the knowledge of generations, filling everything with the single thought pulsating with the blinding light. He could feel his manhood hardening making him shift in his sit. He can't help, but reach to the crotch palming it through the pants letting out a frustrated sigh. He can feel how burning desire consumes him and he cannot focus on nothing else except of throbbing hardness between his legs. Beckett slowly closed his eyes imagining Maeve’s small hand palming his thickness through his pants, running her gentle fingers over his length. His hand slides over his shaft making the path he dreamed that she would make one day. He groaned quietly still trying to fight his primal needs, but his body ached for release not leaving any opportunity to focus. Now every single cell of his body was pulsating by her, leaving no restraints within him. 

Struggling he unbuckled his pants with a shaking hands and pushed them down below his knees, his manhood snapped to the fool erection. Groaning he took his dick into his hand, running his fingers over his shaft. He could imagine Maeve gentle hand sliding over his hardness, her thumb rubbing his head. He groaned feeling his own thumb running over rubbing the tip of it. His hand started stroking up and down his length, moans filing up the room and his head thrown back. He could almost feel Maeve's warm little mouth wrapping around his hot, engorged cock. Their eyes locked while her head bobbing back and forth, her eyes sparkle with unhidden desire. He would give everything to see this gaze on him. He bucked his hips toward his hand, stoking faster and faster as his imagination and fantasy became more alive. A throaty moans filing the room, while he was totally and completely absorbed in a sensations of approaching bliss not noticing anything around him. 

Meanwhile, after Beckett left, it took Maeve another several moments to recover before joining her friends to celebrate. Her eyes lingering a bit longer on Beckett’s muscular back before opening the secret trapdoor. When the time was close to midnight and after having a couple of drinks more, she also decided to call it a night.

Excusing herself she started to wander through the dark empty hallways lit only by the faint glow of the moon. Her quite footsteps in silver lace ballet flats made not a single sound. Her moon blue knee lengths dress dancing while walking. She slowly went toward the library even not realising this. Her every single nerve and bone within her body craved to be closer to Beckett and after a tiny glimpse of what could have happened but didn’t, she subconsciously went to the only place where she would feel closer to him. 

Quietly she sneaked to the door and froze, seeing what she never expected to see. Maeve’s hazel eyes gone wider, her breath hitched and hands started to reach for the handle, sneaking in unnoticed. She slowly approached to the big oak table, her eyes like enchanted were fixed on the man in front of her, her mouth grows dry like in a desert - moments before feeling with a waters of desire. Maeve could have sworn her heart have almost stopped, watching Beckett’s hand move up and down his shaft the groan escaping his throat. Coming closer she could clearly hear his breathing becomes quicker and he moans her name: “Mae...” Biting her lips she slowly sank to her knees in front of Beckett, still unnoticed by him. Her hairs were sliding in thick waves over her shoulder, her heart was racing and she felt lightheaded just from single thought about what she about to do. Her hungry eyes roamed over his long and thick cock, her warm breath tickling his sensitive skin making his eyes fly open in an instance and release his manhood.

- Mae..., - hoarsely groaned thunderstruck Beckett, feeling terrified, that she would caught him doing it. He could feel blush creeps up his face, watching her hand cupping his heavy sac beneath his shaft.

- Hush, - she murmurs emboldened by amount of drinks she had, starting slowly massage his balls looking him straight into his eyes. Her cheeks are flashed from shyness and amount of alcohol in her system. Maeve’s palm gliding over the shaft circling it on the tip, lightly gripping it in one hand and starting to stroke, slightly twisting her hand as she moves all the way down to the base. Her eyes never leaves his, her breath hitches, her hand’s movement mesmerised him.

- You don’t need to, - he groans shaking his head, trying desperately to take control over his desires. Hearing his own blood roaring in his ears and his heartbeats ringing through the dead silence of the room interrupted only by their breathes and the sound of her fist rhythmically sliding over his hard cock.

- Oh, but I want to, - she slyly smiles at his surprised face, biting her lower lip seductively. Maeve’s eyelashes fluttering, before her hand slides down and she slowly starts to massage her clit using big flourishing strokes, coating her fingers in her own juices. After awhile, not taking her eyes from his, she brings her hand up rubbing her juices on his shaft. Painfully slow she run the tip of her tongue around his head, still sliding her hand up and down his shaft.

- How do you want it? - she murmurs, - what do you want? - she asks huskily.

- Let me show you what do I want first, - breathed Beckett surrendering to his desires, easily lifting Maeve from her knees and putting her on the desk, his breath rasping, - and then... and then I will show you how do I want it.

He slowly leaned toward her not breaking they eye contact, lips gently sliding over her jaw, planting wet kisses’ trail there. His lips moving lower along her slender neck peppering it with kisses. Maeve moaned arching toward him, wanting so much more. She felt his strong hands under her dress sliding higher to her hips, raising her dress up. His mouth stopping in the crook of her neck sucking on her sensitive spot, while his hand painfully slow slides along her inner thigh higher. He hears her gasp when his hand find her wetness, and exhales in surprise when his fingers lightly graze along her bare folds.

- When? - hoarsely asked Beckett against her neck, imagining her walking like this around the campus, imagining her pussy becoming wet while he kissed her passionately just an hours ago. His fingers continues rubbing her folds, thinking of her dancing like this among their friends.

- After we were interrupted..., - she gasped thrusting her hips toward his fingers, - near to the lake...

Following her lead, Beckett slowly enters one long finger inside starting to move it gently, his lips began to slide up her neck looking for her rosy sweet lips, running his tongue over them and capturing them in a tender kiss. Not rushing he starts moving his finger inside of her, entering deeper inch by inch. They breaths mingled, their tongues rolling over each other. He gets drunk by her scent, by the movements of her hips and by the golden light radiating from her body. He adds another digit in her, starting moving faster, kissing her deeper and more fierce, they tongues battling, his hand pressed against her lower back pulling her closer not stoping to pump her wetness. He can feel her slick, wet walls coating his fingers with juices. She moans against his lips, feeling him breaking their kiss breathing heavily, his eyes are dark with desire. His gaze meeting hers equally burning with lust. He takes his fingers out making her whimper in protest, running them over her folds spreading the moister all over them. Maeve shifts her hips closer to his touch begging for him. His hand slowly moves from lower back to rest just above her breasts leaning closer to her, grazing lightly his lips over her hardened peaks sticking through the thin material of the dress. He flicks his tongue making her arch toward him moaning in ecstasy. He start sucking her bud taking it inside his wet mouth, sucking hard then licking it. He lowers her dress, exposing her breasts, his lips and tongue moving rhythmically dancing over her peaks, alternating between them. His finger still massaging her damp folds, he can hear her breath getting faster and faster. Her hips moving in sync with his fingers. Lifting his head he can see her head thrown back and her eyes half-lidded. This sight of her completely dissolving in pleasure because of what he is doing, emboldens him even more. He slowly leaned down pressing his lips to her wetness, wrapping them around her swollen nub sucking it gently, running his tongue in circles. He rhythmically moves his tongue around her clit, his speed increasing with every movement. His fingers gently stroke her folds, pressing them firmer to her, before sliding them inside of her wetness steadily pumping her wet and eager pussy. He starts moving faster and deeper inside of her sweet wet pussy. Maeve’s breathing becomes faster and her skin starts to glow in the dim light of the library. He could feel how close she was to fall over the edge, watching her juices running down his finger. He looks at her bewitched by her incredible beauty as she looks like unearthly being descended to earth. Her golden hairs fallen over her shoulders, her skin glowing with warm light coming from the inside, her head is thrown back and her eyes are half-lidded in pleasure. His tongue gently licking on her swollen nub, sucking on it, making her cry in pleasure. His tongue swirling around her clit, making her inhale sharply, her body shivering under him and her pussy starting to pulsate around Beckett’s fingers coating them in her sweet juices making her fall apart onto thousand pieces. He lazily continues to swirl his tongue over her sensitive clit, feeling shockwaves of her orgasm cursing through her. Finally Beckett’s moves away watching the golden glow fade and her breathing returns to normal. She lifts her head looking him straight in the eyes, her pink tongue runs over her swollen lips.

- Now tell me how do you want it - murmured Maeve gently pushing him back in a big chair, sliding to her knees in front of him. Her hand cupping his heavy sac and her eyes sparkle with unhidden desire, the one he longed to see for such a long time.

- Are... are you sure... you want me to... , - he asks, swallowing, watching her to smile seductively at him. Her lips moving closer to his shaft and her voice just barely above the whisper: - Does it look like I don’t want or I’m not sure? - her tongue slowly runs up and down his shaft, watching him closely, - tell me how you want it, - she asks once more.

He groans reaching down and stroking her golden hairs, gently grabbing them and lightly pulling her head back. They eyes meet with equal desire and lust. “Tell me how”, she mouthed, biting her pink lips in anticipation, her breathing rasped.

He leans closer to her, his lips barely touching her ear.

- I want you to take it, nice and slow, to get used to it, - he whispers into her ear, his warm breath tickling her sensitive skin making her nose wrinkle with giggles, - Then, when you will get used to me, I want you to take me as deep as you can, letting me take control over you, - he groans into her ear, biting it lightly and leaning back into his seat.

Her pink tongue slid over her lips and tentatively touched the tip of his shaft. One hand caressing his balls while another gripping the base of the shaft and working it up and down. Her eyes are fixed on his, watching him half closing his in pleasure. Slowly she starts circle the head of his manhood with her tongue, taking it into her mouth and sucking urgently, tightening her grip. She can feel Beckett’s hands clutching at her thick hairs guiding her up and down his shaft, sinking in her moist warm mouth, making her take him deeper. His guttural moans of pleasure fills otherwise quite library. He thrust forward hitting the back of her throat lightly. Maeve’s lips making slurping sounds of pleasure, working up and down his shaft. Her tongue lightly swirls around the head of his manhood on the outstroke, sucking him back in. Her small hand working in sync with his thrusts and her own mouth. She can hear his breathing becomes rasped and his thrusts more forced and irregular, feeling how close he is to his own pleasure. She picks up the pace starting to work her mouth faster on his shaft, sucking and licking him. She can feel his manhood swell and his muscles tense inside of her moist mouth, thrusting deep inside and hitting the back of her throat. His hot salty seed shoot deep inside of her mouth making her to swallow every last drop. He bucking his hips to meet her mouth for the last time before sinking back into chair. The distant shockwaves still cursing through Beckett’s body before he opens his eyes to meet her sparkling in the dim.

A shy smile playing on her lips. He reached over to her silky hairs stroking them gently, slowly moving to cup her cheek gliding his thumb tenderly over it. They eyes meet and she moves her face to graze her lips over his palm, making his heart to tremble in his chest.

- Mae..., - he whispers lifting her up from her knees easily and sitting her on his lap arms around her waist pulling her closer to him, - Do you reg...?

- Not even, for a second, - she whispers to him knowing perfectly well what he wanted to ask her. They sit this way for a bit longer enjoying the quietness of the night and closeness of each other. Standing up, she started pulling his trousers back onto his hips while he took care to adjust her dress. Meeting his gaze, she gently takes his hand in hers and starts leading him toward her dorm. Her heart still pounding in her chest with anticipation of what will come next.

I have headcanons... Head Cannons if you will

I thoroughly believe Bakugou is the type to bullshit his way around every little truth so honestly this shit might as well be canon bc he is Absolutely That Extra

- The new reveals told that: The reason we didn’t see his room is because it’s got shelves of romance manga.

-Therefor : Bakugou is a MAJOR BOOK NERD NESTER

-He has cookbooks, his trashy literature, his classics, his mangas, every school book he ever owned has been kept. 

-This includes shit he wrote himself

-Cookbook notebooks, its a full wall to wall scenario. He has books in every language and they make a librarian weep.

-The books he can’t read?? He has notebooks filled with translations he’s jot down after hours of scouring the internet and his OTHER books.

-TBFH his self written notebook collection puts “shitty nerdy fanboy deku” to shame

-Not only does he have this many books, they have consumed him. His room is wall to wall with them and they are so neatly organized to his mind that he just AUTOMATICALLY knows EXACTLY where every little page is. 

-However

-You may think, “Bakugou is the neatest of the students”

-Bullshit

-He understands his methods. You could never. I’m not shitting you, we have only ever seen his bed because its the only clean spot. He has piles of books, his closet is filled with his novelty t-shirts--

-Oh, he swaps out his wardrobe every season. Not because he cares per say but rather if he didn’t he’d drown in the clothes. His parents own a fashion line, every. single. month. he gets something new.

-Clothes mean jack shit to him. Sure, he gets it. He understands that clothes are “Expressions”... but to him its just bullshit extra merchandise that he gets in  packages once a month since he born. He long since left behind any attachment to anything that wasn’t some doofy bs novelty shit. His skull shirt collection is hideous and he loves it. 

-Bc he gets clothes so often, he just as often donates them.

-Everyone in 1-A has received a mysterious package of clothing. Everyone. And it’s always customized because like hell he’d just throw clothes at people puh-lease his father DESIGNS FASHION FROM SCRATCH

-It’s also ‘secretly’ his way of trying to put some kind of fashion sense in the heathens he lives with. 

-So his closet is full, his walls are lined with shelves and stacks and notes.

-But the rest of the “clear space” is filled with art.

- Drawings, Sketches, Designs. Little thing stacked up or tapped together. Prototypes over a desk thats STUFFED with pencils and erasers and extra paper and books. 

-Photographs of the places he’s been. So many different shots of Paris, mountains, rivers, lakes. He has a series of photo albums for the best and one is entirely dedicated to sunrises- another to sunsets.

-He has a map above his bedside. It’s the only spot big enough because it doesn’t have a big ass bookshelf on the wall.

-The map is big and delicately detailed. But it’s still just a map.

-The cool shit is that it is COVERED in tack-markers. Well, most of it is. 

-Europe is washed out by tacks. France has so many different colored tacks its an eyesore. Paris has a big ass push pin bc he’s been there so many times. Enough that when Aoyama starts mumbling obscenities at their classmates he has to stop himself from cackling along.

-He has a trail of pushpins along the Alps and Pyrenees. 

-The different colors mean things. But only he gets its.

* Black is Done. Been there, done it, no point going back.

*Green is Good. It’s a place he kinda liked, but its not somewhere he needs to go back to. Paris is a big ass green push pin.

*Red is for a place he wants to go back to. The mountains are a trail of red that grows inch by inch longer.

*Blue is for Potential. He marks his next trips in blue, but not his dream trips.

*Those would be his nice, doofy, silver tipped push pins. the classic “string on a crime board” kind. He has major cities plotted out with these. Theres a large mishmash over america filled with silver and blue. He has books and books and BOOKS on american mountain ranges and cuisine and he not-so-secretly plotted out a course all-might themed rest stops.

*Yellow is for his favorites. The first mountain he ever hiked, the onsen he found while his parents dragged him out to a business trip up north, the island they went on once for a family vacation. (He fell in love with the sunset. It was clear and bright and there were so many colors at once that its his ‘happy place’. He sat on top of a fucking volcano and it was AWESOME.)

-The map is obsessively picked over, the pins are carefully arranged, and the map itself its surrounded by his favorite snapshots of the places marked.

-His room is a mess. But he does know the exact inch everything belongs in.

-He may not seem it, but he is sentimental. He just doesn’t keep all the sentimental shit in the dorms. Those things are at home. On shelves and wall caddies and tucked between his even BIGGER collection of books and cd cases.

-He does have All Might merch, but again, at home. The few things he has at the dorm are hand drawn posters, so much cooler than the cheap shit you get in the store.

-He doesn’t have time for movies and shows, but when he does its either “cheesy romance serial” or “blood, guts, and glory”

-TBFH his FAVORITE movie is a bastard child of a romcom, an action, and a suspense thriller. It’s horrible, its audacious, its cheesy and the vgi is awful but its one of those Things he loves. (On really bad days, when his arms ache for hours and he didn’t sleep well the night before he lets the movie go on repeat just for the cheese. It’s a soothing ‘nothing really matters’ kinda Thing)

-Oh, lets not forget his arms.

-His quirk is DEMANDING. Its a needy little princess. He gets sick of it acting like a bitch. His arms will ache if he over does it, so he has a giant fucking box of tiger balms and compression wraps and weird fucking icy-hot concoctions.

-He DOESN’T have skin car shit. Surprise surprise, he doesn’t need it. He is soft. He is also, incredibly fucking annoyed.

-He has those super obnoxious spray colognes, some super expensive shit, and inbetweeners. Because otherwise he smells like he just rolled out a vat of butterscotch and step into a shower of caramel. But BURNT.

-Seriously, his room would be noxious from the nitroglycerin smell alone. He constantly has a fan going and the window open. And while the room is cluttered he CANNOT let it go uncleaned or he risks a build up of explosives. He has to change his sheets daily, he has a routine for covers and pillow cases, and he is damn near religious in clothes washing because otherwise he’s destined to explode Something he Doesn’t Want Exploded. (The books. The very flammable sometimes RARE books.)

-Oh, and he has MANY a blanket and throw. He swaps them out so he isn’t doing huge loads of laundry for the big shit. It’s mostly thin blankets anyways, but they’re super soft and cozy and he nestles up to read his books like a demented caterpillar. The blanket he sleeps with ALWAYS ends up on the floor. 

-He doesn’t like to think himself overly conceited. But he is cocksure and arrogant and he has an image to keep. So of course he has routines to make himself look good.

-This is just a Bakugou thing TBQH.

-More of a personal headcanon, but he’s definitely gay. Not in the super obvious way, but he’s definitely confident in it. He isn’t about to go plastering his walls with flags (as if they’d fit), and he isn’t jotting down crushes in a journal (he does have journals, they’re just... incredibly volatile and profane)

-He’s just, confident.  He has a single little rainbow picture, its a picture he took and its super cool and shit. A rainbow in the mountains, right after a shower. He keeps in in a frame in one of the bookshelves near his manga. It’s tasteful, and it’s subtle. He knows what its for, and the littleness of it feels nice and secure.

-He doesn’t shy away if asked. But no one asks. He’d be honest, if anyone did. It’s not something he will hide- that’d be cowardly...

-But deep down, it does give him pause. It’s something he wrestled into submission since he figured it out. He had this big dream of being N.1 and then one day he realized that, had society not advanced the way it did, he could have nothing. He’d never tell a soul but it scared him, to know that despite all his ‘perfections’  he had this one thing that would turn heads in a way he didn’t want.

-He realized though that it as just one more thing he’d own. So he noosed it, that fear, and he throttled it into submission. He’d be N.1, he’d be open, He’d pioneer that shit if he had too- but he didn’t have too. It ended up being something that added character if nothing else, and he was determined to make it a trait and not a flaw and to build his pride with it.

-That all being said, much like any self respecting gay- he does has a string of lights tastefully weaving over the wood of his bookshelves.

-Extras:

* He doesn’t get sick often. Just, doesn’t. He keeps a close watch on his health, is always good on hygiene, and in general doesn’t jeopardize his well-being.

* When he gets sick. It hits him like a FREIGHT TRAIN.

* He only gets fevers once in a blue moon and he’ll fight the damn moon itself to keep it this way because when he DOEs get a fever its like a putting a handful of firecrackers into a cooking pot.

* He pops when sweaty. He just DOES, It’s INCREDIBLY annoying but thankfully localized to the hands. But when the fever strikes, his whole body pops. He spends the majority of his fever curled up in something flame-proof to wait it out.

*If he’s sweating, and by some MIRACLe he blushes, he CRACKLES.

* He’ll kill you if you witness it.

* I said he’s confident, not that he can’t be flustered.

* On that note, he’ll take it to the grave, but he definitely made Kaminari discharge in front of the dorms that first day by kissing him. It was on the cheek though! And it fucking hurt. Touching Kaminari is like playing roulette and his finger tips smell funny afterwards so he tries to avoid it.

* Honestly, the same can be said for anyone with a quirk that can react to his.

*Fucking half-and-half actually worries him. For the sanctity of his clothing.

* That fight with Deku in ground-beta set off every nerve ending he had and for a solid 24 hrs afterwards he actually had trouble keeping his quirk under his skin. He can still vividly recall the arc of electricity over his face and it never fails to leave a lasting echo in his mind.

* Kirishima is good for this though. Ironically, he’s grounding. He’s the one person Bakugou has never worried about hurting or leaving damage behind. Likewise, he knows that Kirishima high-key needs the confidence boost that Bakugou drags with him everywhere, so he amps up his attitude when the red-head seems down.

* He has no earthly idea how to describe his relationship with Kirishima and it shows. He would never dare say it allowed, but he knows that the boy is his best friend and he’d honestly kill for him. But more so, he’d be willing to live and fight beside him.

* Kirishima is one of the VERY FEW who has a picture in Bakugou’s room. It’s from a hiking trip, and its really backlit so you honestly wouldn’t know at first glance, but its beautiful. A sunrise, right at the summit. A figure standing on a rock with a hand excitedly outstretched towards the horizon.

* The other people with photos, are his parents- and the Midoriya’s.

* It’s not as obvious this one. But he keeps a family photo on his bookself of the three Bakugous, and then theres an old photograph tucked away between some of his older school book collections.

* It’s a beach photo. He couldn’t be more than, maybe three? 

* It’s a whole other life. A time before his quirk. Before he knew he was destined.

*He’s sitting on a rock with a backsplash of salt and foam. He’s got an arm wrapped around a tiny Izuku. It was the only thing keeping the other boy from tumbling off into the waves. Their moms are sitting on either side, big happy faces all around.

*The boys were burnt, both heavily freckled, and smiling like the world was endless.

* The photo...makes him sad. He can’t explain it, not even sure what words could do so. It’s nostalgic sure, but something between the pixels of ink has him at a lost. It was such a different time, and the little boy in the photo is a stranger.

*Sometimes, rarely and in the dead of night when a nightmare finally gets him awake, he thinks about life. About how different it could have been, about the paths he chose and the ones he burnt. He wonders, he regrets, and he moves on before morning.

*Bakugou Katsuki refuses to dwell. He bottles and compartmentalizes and he tucks it away like a pamphlet in a library. Notes and subscripts to be lost in translation. 

( He’s vocal, he’s vivid. He writes. He loves his book collection and he writes his own short stories. His imagination is as vivid as the rest of the class, and he jots down half finished ideas all the time. He has a memory that makes an elephant cry, so his school notebooks are tiny and his idea notebooks are scattered. The words he can’t get out into the air are sometimes trapped in ink. )

Monochrome

Some days, it feels like they are blind, like all senses have been numbed or stolen from them. They stand upon a world they were never meant to see and cast no shadow, and they feel like an intruder.

But it is true. They don’t belong here. They are alien, not living, a shadow bound in a bone-white mask. Creeping out of the darkness at the bottom of the world, not belonging to the surface where living things go-

(The reminder of the world reaching out restores them little by little. Kindness is a flame that never goes out and company in the rain and a hand to hold. It is so many things that bleed colour and warmth and sound back into their head.

They will always be a part of this world.)

They shake and stumble through the dark, through horror and death and danger. They quickly learn to fear the glow of orange eyes, because it means yet another thudding, awful heartbeat in their head, the sickening sound of something that was once alive now dead, now gone, devoured by the light inside. The light inside trying to get out, puppeting flesh and shell, replacing living fluid with foul sickness.

The rhythm thumps, the voice screams kill destroy crush devour enemy enemy enemy and they try to ignore the fact that this entire kingdom is shrieking at them THIEF MONSTER INTRUDER EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY

They sleep, uneasy and shallow. Stealing a few moments on a cold bench, shivering in the guttering light of a quiet town.

When they wake, the world seems to have lost its luster, and they resign themselves to it. Sometimes, it just happens, and they don’t quite understand why.

(Sometimes their heart is sick to death of this constant hostility. A shadow passes over them, at such times. A cloud covers their vision and makes everything seem lifeless, drowns their feelings deep inside until they feel nothing at all.)

They wander, aimlessly. Walking well-trodden paths and acting entirely on instinct. Eventually, they come back to the bench again, to the surface, because even if their mind is lost in a haze their body still occasionally needs to rest.

They doze. They wake. It means nothing to them. The world is still so terribly grey.

They linger by the Troupe’s tents, not for any particular reason. They simply follow impulse; their goals are, for the moment, too distant to bother with.

Brumm bids them to sit, and they do, obedient and numb. They stare blankly, straight ahead, vaguely taking in colours and shapes and what is probably texture; scarlet curtains, patterned tent walls, red light on fabric. When a familiar shadow falls over them, they hardly notice.

Grimm kneels to meet their eyes, and his own narrow a little when they barely respond.

“My friend, something has changed in you,” the Troupe Master notes, a hint of worry audibly easing its way into his normal, languid tone. “Have you encountered something too heavy for your heart to bear, perhaps?”

They’re not sure why he speaks of them having a heart, or what this has to do with anything, or why he would even ask.

(They are empty inside so there’s no point in even asking such a useless question. Useless, discarded vessel, hollow-hearted enemy. Yes.)

Rather than nod or shake their head, they simply tilt their head to and fro, trying to look at him properly. Attempting to adjust their vision, because they’re...fairly certain he’s not usually this hard to see.

“Well, you are in quite a state, my friend. This won’t do. This won’t do at all.”

His voice seems to come from far away (everything does), but the warmth he provides as he scoops them into his arms is...surprising. Freely given, without caveat or favour demanded.

(Why?)

They relax into it without even really meaning to. That normally well-repressed loneliness, that void inside them, is too loud to ignore.

He hums softly, the low vibration of his voice resonating through them, and cradles them gently as he walks. Snatches of music that he clearly finds memorable; well-loved notes.

It is the same way they have seen him soothe his child, and it feels painful and wonderful at the same time.  It’s not something they have ever had or learned to get used to, this affection (this love). It’s not for them. It’s not for them.

But still...

Their small fingers clutch weakly at his cloak, as if trying to decide whether to push themselves out and away or to cling on more tightly. Grimm simply makes clicking, soothing noises, and their grip loosens almost entirely.

Given the choice, they curl into the embrace. (It’s awkward and stiff, like they don’t know how to express it, but the amount of effort they put in shows they yearn for it nevertheless.)

They are surrounded by warmth, to the feeling of a steadily beating heart and the sound of a song from some distant place they have never seen. A low voice and the gentle music of an accordion, bidding them to sleep.

They don’t resist.

They sleep.

(When they stir, still held in his arms, he pats their head and tells them they’ve done well, that they should rest a little longer, and they don’t resist that either. They clutch onto his cloak, stiff and awkward  - and the unpracticed way they do it, clearly not used to such a thing, makes him inhale sharply as if in pain and hold them closer -  and drift into slumber once more.

Everything else can wait, for a little while. Hallownest has waited hundreds of years already.

It can wait a little more for a lonely child’s rest.)

When next they wake, properly wake, the world is a little brighter, a little warmer, and everything isn’t so far away.

Their wandering takes them to the fountain, in the rain. They’ve looked upon it a hundred times, and this one is no different.

Well, perhaps it’s a little different, this time.

They barely react; it feels like time is coming in stops and starts. One moment they are alone and the next moment she is there beside them, water still running down the silk thread tied to a distant point and the metal of her nail and soaking the pink of her distinctive cloak to a duller shade

She’s talking to them.

Focus. Focus.

“What are you doing?”

They don’t know how to answer. They don’t know what she’s expecting. They don’t--know. What she wants. Haven’t they already done everything she asked?

They gesture to the fountain again. To the nameplate. Remembering the first time they’d read those words.

It feels like time repeats itself; they read the words, stand at the fountain, and she is there. A cycle within a cycle, time passing and yet not.

She touches their shoulder (gingerly, awkwardly, because she doesn’t know how to do this either) and they don’t know how to react, so they don’t. They can almost hear the frown in her voice when she speaks next.

(Why? Why bother?)

“Has something happened, ghost? Are you tired? Ill?”

That’s a new angle they hadn’t considered. Are they ill? The thought should terrify them, sicken them, because they have already seen one sibling consumed by plague and heard the screams of another, still bound. It haunts them even now.

They are shaking and they don’t know why. Are they cold? Are they afraid? They don’t...

They don’t feel anything and

(they feel the struggling silence of emotions crushed in the deep, fighting to get out)

somehow, it scares them.

That great, terrible numbness deep inside drowns all feeling, except that lingering warmth. It’s just enough to push their hand forward, to reach out, to...

They don’t know whether they are offering their hand to her or asking that she take theirs.

She takes it, despite that awkwardness, despite that abyss of history, of lost time, of missing links between them. (Despite the fact she has no reason to and all the reason in the world to refuse.) They have never known her before this; she has never known them. All the memories in the world that they have regained cannot get back what was never there.

But she holds their hand anyway. Clumsy, awkward.

It hurts, but it hurts in the way that a healing injury does. It’s a pain that promises something is being fixed.

They come back to themselves a little more.

“We meet again, my small friend!” Quirrel’s jovial greeting is met by usual silence, because what else do they have, but it’s absent of enthusiasm, of reaction.

They muster just enough energy to nod, trying not to feel like the world is slipping away from them, and he kneels immediately.

He doesn’t ask them if anything is wrong, not directly; he hmms in thought and kneels and cups their face gently (his hands are slightly warm, but even that slight warmth melts away another barrier) and tilts his head to look at them from this angle and that.

What is he even checking for? It’s ridiculous. It looks ridiculous, the way he does it.

(Somewhere inside there is the urge to laugh, buried deep, even without a voice. That bright flare of happiness that Quirrel always inspires in them, that always pushes them to respond.

It’s sunk deep. But at the sight of him, in the face of his casual affection, it still stirs.)

“No? Not even that? Well! Let’s go on an adventure!”

He takes them by the hand and swings them up onto his shoulders, and they don’t resist being carried. They hadn’t really realised how tiring it was to walk everywhere until they were given other means of transportation; stagback and tramway and now, being carried by someone else.

They rest their face against his shoulder and watch the world go by. He talks to them, the whole time, even though they’ve never responded. Even though they can’t respond.

He still talks to them anyway. He still treats them like a person, not like a vessel, not a creature carrying some heavy burden; in a happier time and place, a world where things had gone differently, this could almost be the past. A cheerful archivist, a small and curious child; when they are too weary to walk, he carries them.

They don’t know where he’s going. They think they should probably know, because he would have told them, but...

But they’re tired. It’s a different kind of tired from that grey fogginess that overtakes them now; (that is slowly losing its grip on them little by little, being driven back) it is a sudden recognition of how long they’ve wandered in this state.

Little by little, colour is pouring back into the world, and their curiosity is coming back with it. Greens and blues and purples and yellows (never orange), a place that seems to burst with life all over again. No matter how much they travel, they never get tired of it, this overgrown wilderness, this beautiful scenery-

-they had almost forgotten that.

(It feels like they’ve stopped drowning at last.)

They nod off without realising it, feeling safe in Quirrel’s care, and they miss it when he slows and stops to check on them and finds them sleeping. They miss it when he laughs gently and carries them in his arms for a time.

He finds a bench and lets them rest, and rests beside them.

When they wake, the world is once again full of colour, and they’re ready for anything -

well, given a few more minutes. Quirrel dozes beside them on the bench, and they don’t want to wake him up.

They can take a little more time.

Wrong Hope

So here it is. My emotional rock bottom. Actually, i’m not going to hold back this time.

For three months i have being getting over a relationship break up. For three months i have been wondering if i have overreacted to it, if i have become obsessed over it, if three months is actually enough time to get over it, if other people were to look at me would they see a rational response or would they wonder if i’m going crazy over this. For three months i have had all this in my head and more and i have been wondering when it will cease. I want it to stop. 

A cancer in my mind, eating away at my thoughts. Reoccurring dreams that seem to beat me, hurt me, inflict great pain upon me and in all of it i feel SELFISH. I’m feeling this and then there are people who have it worse than me, so I invalidate my own feelings and i’m just tired of it. I feel selfish because this blog, it’s all about me and i hate talking about me from a vulnerable position. 

So for these three months... trying to make friends with myself like i so often say to do is fucking hard. It’s fucking infuriating and i’m just at the fucking bottom now. The trigger for is this is possibly finding out that the girl i’ve been trying to get over is now in a relationship. Possibly. And even if this is me overreacting... actually, let me first explore that word “overreacting”. 

I write these posts when i can. I really have to force myself sometimes but i know it’s better to get this shit out there. But it’s horrible. It’s uncomfortable and EVERY time i write one, i feel like i’m blowing my feelings out of proportion, that i’m whining and that i’m going through something everyone has at one point so i should just shut up and take it. When i say overreacting, i mean it in the literal sense of me reacting to something TOO much. 

Even if this is me overreacting to some snippets of conversation and me inferring that she is now in a relationship, it doesn’t fucking matter. She will get over me and i her and sooner or later one of us will be in a relationship with someone else first. Right? This might be the day i’ve been dreading or it might get delayed. Now that i’ve had this possible “scare”, i may as well deal with it all now. So i will. And this will be my longest post and i will get everything out there because the energy expenditure to not scream this all, to not run for 9 hours to her house and shout it at her is just simply too much for me to bear.

When i sit at my computer typing these, i hope beyond hope that she will read them. Not to make her feel guilty, not to cause her pain but for her to see that i am changing. That i’m trying so fucking desperately to keep my head above this sea of shit. As my friend said, sometimes i just get stuck in the swamp of sadness, mud and shit. It all clings to me as i try frantically to wade out of it. But after a while, i just stop trying. I fall to my knees and i just rub it all in, because after all, why should i try to get out? Why should i fight this creeping malaise? My friend describes it like this because he can figuratively see it on me. He tries to help me but what’s the point if i don’t help myself. I digress here but can you just see what happens, can you visualise it? Battling against your own internal conflict and this knot in your stomach that makes you want to wretch your heart out. It’s a waking nightmare and a sleeping dog ready to sniff out your moment of weakness and strike you with memories, pain and a fear of being alone. 

It’s all so emotive because that’s just how it has to be. How else do i convey these feelings? Allow me to tell a story that will perfectly illuminate why the fuck this all matters:

My girlfriend, she broke up with me. At first, there were these vague reasons as to why. Obviously i was dazed and nonplussed at the sheer suddenness of it all. Typically, as it all strikes us in these times, i went through the very common stages of grief. Firstly, denial swept over me like a calm wave rolling into the beach. Oh but i am lying of course, denial was never so kind. It grabbed my mind, held it tight and shouted at me in it’s delightfully booming voice “this. isn’t. happening”. What could i do but repeat those words over and over and over again. I made it my identity. 

It wasn’t happening. It was a dream. This can’t be real. This makes no sense. You’re joking, right? 

All those denial-ist phrases and more poured out of me. She replied to each one with “it is real”. After a while of sheer confusion the ever so polite anger came into the folly. But of course, his mood quickly went south and engulfed my thoughts like mould around fruit. It seeps into everything, down every passage, through every pore. All consuming and all mighty, how could i hold it back? So i got mad. I had a go at her, i insulted her, i spoke down to her but, thankfully, she took it all... to a degree. 

My seething rage was one of the most rational rages i’ve had. It wasn’t anger from a dark place, it was anger from hurt, from pain. It was an anger that could be bargained with and spoken to with a calm tongue to ease the torment behind it. That’s why, after a short time of talking, it receded into the fool’s gold of grief: bargaining. Why fool’s gold? Because it tricks you into thinking there is hope and you can talk your way out of all this shit but you can’t. It’s faux. Faux bargaining. You try to trade dignity, sometimes sex or all manner of things to get 1 minute, 1 hour, 1 day, etc. of faux resolutions that you think will stop the grief and (in my case) stop the relationship from ending. 

My faux resolution lasted 1 month. A month where i buried everything i felt deep inside. I mean i really buried it. My lovely friend denial helped. He said everything was fine and took all those worries and parts of the grief all the way down into my core... where it’d rot and fester. But as long as i wasn’t aware, my faux resolution could just quite maybe almost possibly become a real resolution, right? If i did some work on myself, if i changed, if, if, if, if, just a series of endless “ifs” that would get me closer to my gold. My fool’s gold. Typically, it fell apart. But not why you’d think. She realised that it wasn’t about me or our relationship, it was about her as a person. This is actually a really important thing i want to talk about.

We often forget that the person next to us, is us. They have ideas, dreams, goals, hopes, fears, secrets, thoughts. They are conscious. They do things to a certain code and thinking process that only slightly differs to our own in some cases. I don’t mean “our” as a collective, but rather an iterator over each member of humanity. To tie this in with what she realised, it’s also something i realised. The big beautiful word here is empathy. To empathise with her in this moment where i am hurting is something i am proud of. What she realised it she truly wasn’t happy in herself. She needs time and a friend in herself for real betterment. At first, i was cynical. But over time (and time is the greatest proponent for change), my view changed. People who read this might be cynical to everything i wrote. They might say, as i thought initially, that “she is just saying that to ease the pain on you”. But does it ease the pain? The end result is the same: we’re not together anymore. The end feelings are the same: i’m fucking miserable and miss her a lot. There is no ease. There is no need to be cynical. Her profound realisation, while it hurts me a lot, benefits her in a way i could never ever provide. Like i said, it’s not a comfort for me but thinking it could be is just selfish. What else can i do but be proud of her from afar?

That previous paragraph was a big detour but it needs to be said since it’s a revelation i’m only just having. Unfortunately, the story isn’t over, and the stages of grief must continue to perhaps the worst part of the 5 stages. Depression. I could write a book on how it feels, using every idiom, metaphor and simile i know. But in the end, depression will be in your system before you write that book and it’ll sure as hell still be there after. After that “trial month” or “faux resolution month”, everything my denial pushed down erupted in the amalgam of pure sadness. The best way i can think of describing it is like a river. While meek it looks to the observer, enter in and you shall surely be washed away by it’s current, maybe even drown. It will erode the banks you stand on, it will take the things you throw in it and cover them under it’s disgusting river bed. Memories you hold dear could so easily slip in and be washed under. Attempts to salvage them yields this black sludge that cannot be cleaned away. Soothing water is the guise it uses to lure you in. In fact, the “water” is mostly your mental energy, slowly draining away from the source. And after all is done and you simply give up, it will still be there. It will still be there. Out of the 5 stages, depression will still be there in you. 

But there’s hope. There’s always hope. However, this isn’t the pleasant end to the story since, well, there isn’t one. There is always hope true, but there’s wrong hope and right hope. I must confess that i cannot stop clinging onto the wrong hope. My final message to her, to sum up, is like closing a door but leaving it unlocked. Our relationship is over, i’ve finally accepted it but i still love her. The door is closed but, like all good functioning doors, it can be opened again. It won’t pick up what’s left off, it won’t start midway. It will open at the start of the corridor, a long winding path that has an occluded future but one filled with my favourite word of all: hope. To open it however, you must be polite and knock. You must enquire as to if anyone is behind it and open it slowly so it doesn’t creak. You must treat the door as if it’s never been opened before. It’s an unlocked door so of course it has history, but we mustn’t forget where history lead us last time. 

That was my final gift. No hate, no anger, no resentment, simply an offer that will stand like a door. Doesn’t that just sound so pure and sweet? 

Unhealthily, i’ve become attached to that sentiment. I desire it. My reoccurring dreams both fuel me and siphon me. My wrong hope is that she takes my offer when she is ready. Because i hope it so dearly and do not let it go, i am not allowing myself to get over her. Why does the thought of her being in another relationship poison my mind so? It’s due to me seeing it all as a betrayal. 

We split up amicably and because of reasons that aren’t due to incompatibility or malice towards each other. For her to be ready for a new relationship, i feel it my right that she should pick me first. That’s what my insecurity cries and my wrong hope demands. In those twisted aspects, i see this as a betrayal. I write all this to illustrate a very important point:

I am not bad. I don’t want to be bad. Having these feelings, hoping the things i hope, i feel that i am bad. Do i want her to be happy? Yes. If happiness means moving on from me and finding another person, do i want that for her? ....

No.

The guilt and sadness amalgamate in me. Thick with black does the river run. I don’t know what to do now. Honestly. I sort of feel i’m back in this “denial daze”. I want to message her and ask. I want to show her this blog and say “look at the vulnerability and tell me i’ve changed for the better, please”. I want to ask my friends if they know if she’s in a relationship or not but i can’t do that. These friendships i have are dog-eat-dog. Show one sign of “weakness” (vulnerability) and you’re fucked. Loving your ex? You’re going to get mocked to shit. 

The only positive out of all this is that i’m stopping with the “I” orientated posts. I want to help people. What we all really want it for someone to hug us and say “i see you” or “i understand you” or even just “i love you”. Innocent and innocuous, nothing more nothing less. Moments of pure understanding is what i offer to the world. Hopefully, with my lovely companion, time, will i get over that guilt and change the “no” to a “yes”.

If I answer your call - A conversation with Hades

She kept driving, she was supposed to go home instead she kept driving. She couldn’t let her family to see her like this, wild emotions and drowned screams. She couldn’t explain why she felt like this, what triggered it. She was lucky to be able to hold it until work was over, now she just couldn’t anymore.

She remembered a place where one of her friends went to be alone; a clearing near the airport. When she was like this, she felt that she was an ongoing danger behind the wheel and to go to the airport you had to take the highway; regardless, she set her course before she had more time to think about it. She needed to go somewhere safe, right now home was not safe.

It didn’t take her long to find the place. It was not beautiful, it was the beginning of autumn and the grass was rugged and brown, it made a crunching sound where she stepped. Trash could be found around, beer cans, cigarettes, wrappers, she wouldn’t be surprised if she found needles or used condoms. It did offer a lot of cover though, the trees that surrounded the place were tall, some of them looked grim without their foliage; still it was quiet and lonely.

It may not have been wise to do it, but she went deeper into the forest. At the moment, being still was impossible to her, the electric feel that was going through her body was too overwhelming, breathing wouldn’t help she knew and sitting down or lying down would only make her feel worst. As she walked she let the air fill her lungs, the further she went the air got fresher and it carried the characteristic smell of wet ground, it was chilly too but she didn’t mind, it soothed her.  

The feeling was gone once her legs couldn’t go any longer; a sadness so vast and deep took over her when she stopped moving. A torrent of tears came down her face and she dropped to the ground. It had been a long time since she had let herself cried like this: letting her tears to fall freely and sobbing so hard, the way little kids sob when they truly feel anguish. Tears were good, tears were therapeutic, but it was not enough. Please, she thought, please somebody help me, anyone. If you can hear me, please, tell me what to do, tell me where to go, I cannot go like this anymore… Lord of shadows, someone, help me.

For a moment she went numb, her crying subsided and her mind was silent. It was so sudden and so absorbing, the emptiness, that she was startled when she came back to herself. She realized that she had gone too far from where she was, the deep side of the forest, where no one used to go, where it might be too dangerous to go, especially alone. She should be afraid, she should go back immediately, but she wasn’t afraid and she didn’t want to leave; this part of the forest was not like the clearing at all. The grass was emerald green and fresh, there was no naked tree, some of the sky was visible through the cracks, it was past dusk and it made the place look blue without the moonlight. Blue, green and brown, those were the colors surrounding her. Except for the sound of the airplanes the clearing was quiet, but this, this was something else; not a sound could be heard; an owl could be heard but even its howl was strange. She touched the grass and found it wet with dew, she saw something a few steps before her and she crawled to see what it was. Flowers. Some of them had six petals and a yellow center with an orange edge and others had also six petals but with a burgundy or violet line in their middle and filaments with a brown tip. I know this flowers. This were not common flowers of the area, she was sure of that. Then she remembered. She had read about them, seen them in pictures for she had never seen them in real life. One of the flowers was what it came after a young, arrogant, beautiful young man was cursed by a goddess to fall in love with his own reflection. Narcissus. And the other ones could be found in a place where ordinary people was sent to spend the eternity after they died. Asphodel.

The shadow of a man appeared obscuring the flowers. She turned around but there was no one behind her.

“If I answer your call, do you think you’ll be able to hear me?” Said a deep male voice.

She looked back to the flowers and the shadow was still there. She had asked for an answer but she realized know that she didn’t expect one. She was terrified now, she asked someone for help and someone had come, but who? Despite of her fear she found herself saying:

“I will, I promise”

The shadow lifted from the earth making her crawl backwards. When it touched the ground slowly a man started to materialize. Young, no more than thirty, tall, pale as a phantom, golden eyes, lean but strong, no bear. He was holding a black scepter that had two silver horns at the top, he was wearing black trousers, a long sleeve purple shirt with silver and gold embroidery, a black wool cape falling to his ankles, black boots that where so polished that they look like they were made of obsidian, and a simple silver circlet decorated with sapphires was his crown. The only thing that surprised her about his image was his hair, it was silver not black, short and spiky. Nevertheless she knew who she was beholding: Hades, Lord of the Underworld. Mesmerized, she sat on her knees in a sign of submission and respect. She looked up.

“But, how can you? When your heart is so closed” When she had answered him she did it with steadiness in her voice, but she didn’t really feel it and there was no way she could hide her heart from him. She was looking at his face and it was hard to read, suddenly she felt that it was improper to look at him so openly.

“I will open it” She said looking to the ground.

“Look at me and rise” He said, gently but firmly.

“Haven’t you tried before?”

“This time will be different. I will try harder” Tears were coming back and her voice had gone high pitch with desperation.

“You still haven’t figured it out, have you?” He looked at her like she was a toddler instead of an adult woman.

“I don’t know what you mean”

“Oh my poor child. It is not about just trying, it is about flowing, to let go, to feel freely and with pride. You’ve been so focused on surviving, on pretending and hiding that you have forgotten what is like to be. You’re always on edge, with your guard up, shutting everybody away, you didn’t even realized that you did it with you as well”

She knew what he was talking about. She was the kind of person that wore her heart on her sleeve and she did everything she could to protect it, and as a result she was now suspicious, afraid and extremely cautious.

“I… I didn’t know what else to do”

“I know you don’t see it like this, but you did the best you could. Now it is time to be brave and do what you must”

“What is that?”

“I will help you but that doesn’t mean I will give you all the answers, especially when you already know some of them. I know this seems rough, but tell me, if I give you everything that you ask, just like that, what will you actually learn? How will you know what you are capable of? How far can you go? Like I said, I will help you, I will guide you but you will have to work with me”

“I understand. But I fear I am not strong enough” Her body was tense and she was fisting her hands so tight that her knuckles were white and her nails were digging in her palms. She was trying not to cry in front of him. Her mind was in overdrive; guilt, shame, anger, sadness, hopelessness were gathering around at the same moment and she couldn’t scape them. A heavy weight had settle upon her chest making it hard to breathe.

“This affliction won’t let me” She managed to say.

He took a step closer and put his hand on her shoulder. Being touch by a god was a surreal experience; she could feel his temperature trough her clothes, he was cold, but it was not the kind of cold that made you flinch, it was the kind that made your body feel alive and awake. It was said that mortals couldn’t see gods in their real form, if they did they were consumed by their glory immediately, like Semele, Dionysius mortal mother who asked Zeus to show her his true form; Zeus unable to deny her request obliged her and she was killed by his divine splendor. Whether this was Hades true form or not she could not say, but there was no denying that this was a touch of a superior being.

“Let me ask you something. If I tell you that I could take it away, your affliction, what you think holds you down, but in return you will lose a part of who you are, a part so fundamental of your essence that without it you will not be the same and certainly not the person you are meant to be. I am not saying that pain makes someone especial, original or important; everybody goes through it, it is part of life. But when you know how to deal with it, how to move on and learn from it, make peace with it, pain makes you stronger, wiser and kinder. I don’t need to tell you this, you have known it for a long time: Nothing that is of actual worth comes out easily”

For a long time she had wondered what kind of person she would be if this affliction wasn’t a part of her persona. She hated it, but it was true that it had also given her some things in return; it gave her empathy, one of her virtues was to be able to see things from other people perspective. Kindness, for it was not hard to her to let others find solace in her. Her depression sometimes had a mind of its own and it could be suffocating, but every time it threatened to swallow her whole she tamed it and to be able to master something so dark and insidious was not an easy task. So she nod at him.

“I want you to say it”

“It is time for me to accept who I am. With all the good and the bad. And it is also time to forgive myself”

He nodded and smiled, satisfied.

“Good. Give me your hand” He extended his right hand and she couldn’t help to marvel at it, it looked like a writer’s hand, smooth, with long elegant fingers, no veins could be seen underneath his ivory skin and his palm held no lines. She reached out and as soon as her hand touched his she breathed in and tears came down of her eyes. The oppressing feeling on her chest was gone, she felt serene, clear, and her mind and soul were in sync for once.

“Soon you will be starting a new journey and for that you need composure” He prophesized, while still holding her hand.

“I see” She said in bewilderment.

“Don’t be afraid. You have everything that is need to conquer this world and I will be guiding you no matter what” He lifted his scepter and pounded the ground twice, emitting an echo so profound that even the trees swayed.  Beside him a black puppy appeared.

“Name her as you wish, she will be your companion and support, nurture her and she will give you love in return. Every time that you stray out of your way she will lead you back, you must trust her”

She picked the puppy and it licked her hand. She looked like a Labrador and her eyes were yellow, similar like his. She laughed, a metaphor had just come to life.

“So now my thoughts will be the dark dog that companies me instead of the black cloud upon my head”

“Exactly. It won’t be easy, sometimes you will want to give up. But no matter what keep going. When it is time for you to be taken to the Underworld I want to send you to Elysium not the Asphodel meadows”

He lifted his scepter and put the sharp horns on her forehead.

“I bless you my child, for now on you are under the protection of Hades, Lord of the Underworld, the dead and wealth. I will look after you and those you hold dear, I will protect your household and secure your prosperity, the only thing I ask in return is your loyalty and your cooperation. Do you accept?”

“I do” Never in her life had she felt so certain.

He removed the scepter and nodded.

“It is done then, farewell”

“Wait my Lord. I thank you with all my heart, you can’t imagine how much. I don’t mean to offend you or question you, I just want to know. Why me? Why did you answer my prayer?”

He simply shrugged and said:

“Not a lot of mortals call me, and when they do I answer” When he vanished he took everything with him; the enchanted part of the forest, the flowers, she was back in the clearing, the black puppy with the unusual yellow eyes was the only proof that everything had been real. She went back to her car and set her jacket on the passenger seat, carefully setting the puppy there. Content, the puppy laid down and closed her eyes. Normally puppies didn’t feel safe right away with their new owners but she already trusted her, a warm feeling went through her body. I won’t let you down. She thought as she caressed the puppy.

It wouldn’t be easy, he said, and he was right. Nothing that is of actual worth in this world is ever easy. She would have doubts, she would be scare but know she had a companion, a reminder, of who was protecting and guiding her. She was not alone. There was only one thing left. How should she name her new puppy? An ordinary or corny name was out of the question, this dog deserved a true name; something that capture what she truly was: a guide and a protector. She would have to do some research, and with that thought in her mind, she started the journey to her new life and self.

55 or 93 for Blackwall/Evelyn? :)

55. “I’m not going anywhere.”The first time he says it she’s half-delirious from potions and pain, eyelids heavy as she blinks, twice, trying to focus her eyes on something inside the tent. A fire, she thinks. A fire in the near distance and a crowd of people, their smells and sounds falling into the slow beat of her body where she lies. People who had been running with her, escaping; she can see it if she closes her eyes again, all the shattered movements of them, their erratic little flight. Haven. As the memory returns, Evelyn flinches and tries to sit up.

“My lady.” A hand on her arm. “You shouldn’t. Strict orders from the healers.”“You-” she turns her head, meets his gaze. It’s troubled but calm, like him. A quiet spot in a storm. “Thank you.”He frowns, leaning forward slightly. She imagines sometimes that she would like to run a finger across the worry-wrinkles in his face, smooth them out with her calloused skin. Melt into him, mend him or herself - or possibly wreck them both. “Whatever for?” he asks, his voice low and hoarse, like he’s holding his breath. Evelyn thinks about the nightmare she fought through, thinks about his eyes then and the depths in them, the hollow burning pain consuming them all. “You’re here,” she replies, not certain how to phrase everything she could say, how to even think it. “I’m not going anywhere, my lady.” “Good.” She lets her head sink back into the pillow, allows the immense exhaustion to take over her body again. Before she closes her eyes she imagines she can see a brief little smile on his lips. –The first time she says it he wishes she hadn’t. “I’m not going anywhere.” She stands with her legs apart, arms folded across her chest and the imagine of her is a damn blow but he has sworn it, a hundred bloody times over, sworn not to be the man he is. Skyhold is hers now and he’s been pushing himself away ever since they arrived. At times he wonders if the confusion is what makes her so angry and insistent; at times he wonders if some witch back in Haven has turned her head because there is no reason the Lady Inquisitor would look at him twice. No, he corrects himself. Not you, but Blackwall.  Even so it astonishes him. “My lady, don’t.” “Blackwall-”He leaves the room before she has a chance to finish her sentence, runs like the coward he is. –There’s a soft rustle of worry sweeping through her mind when he breaches the distance between them, a note of doubt rising from her self-preservation. She tells him he’s a good man even though she can’t possibly know. The Wardens recruit at the gallows and it echoes through her but Blackwall smells of rain and metal and his breath on her skin makes her boneless with the kind of want she has never known existed. She tells him he’s a good man, that he deserves her; he kisses her until her blood burns and her fingers dig into his shoulders, her voice rough as it slips out of her in gasps against the hollow of his throat. “Don’t leave.”“Not going anywhere now. My lady.”The worry can’t be quelled but Evelyn pulls him down over her body, presses herself into his embrace until their shared motions drown out everything else. –He’s back in Skyhold, back in a life he stole and wrung inside out, tore to pieces and bled dry along with everyone in it. “Spare your melodramatics,” Evelyn tells him, hard and sharp and hurt. He can spot the wound every time he looks at her, flinches at how raw it still is, how deep it goes. “I’m not going anywhere. You’re not, either.”“You could have just let me hang.” Her eyes then, when she locks her gaze with his and Thom has to look away; the horror in them, the way she breaks at his suggestion. “No,” she says. “I couldn’t.”–And that morning in her bed. Sunlight in patterns that stretch across his chest, making the hair there seem golden or silvery; sunlight on his face that gradually comes to life as she presses her lips to his cheek. I love you, she thinks and it means more when she doesn’t say it out loud, the weight of thoughts are higher, less flighty. Around them Thedas shudders and shatters but they have survived everything thus far and Evelyn looks at the place where her hand used to be, where the bleeding Fade used to be, and wonders how many more times she will survive everything. “Good morning,” she mumbles, feeling invincible. Thom stirs, blinks. And smiles. “My lady.”“Still?” “Huh?” He’s too slow for banter, still halfway asleep. She kisses the corners of his mouth, brushes her healthy hand up along his side, leaving goosebumps behind. “You still call me my lady.”He kisses her back, soft and eager. “You’re still here. So, yes.”“Not going anywhere,” she says, her voice muffled as she shifts position beside him and he pulls her tighter against him. –So many times over the years that follow, each day a new opportunity for the promise that has become part of their routine. They are never married in the eyes of the Chantry. They are nothing but married in the eyes of everyone else. There’s a black-haired baby girl a few years after the Inquisition disbands. Lydia. Terrible timing being born into a war but she has strong lungs and an even stronger heart and she lives as stubbornly as her parents. Looks just like her mother and Thom is breathless with worry, with fear, with love every time the girl places a sticky fist in his palm or - later on - asks for forgiveness for one of her multitude of pranks and mischief. He always looks the other way; Lydia is his in a way that nothing else on this earth has ever been and it nearly kills him to think about it like that.   They buy a home, a dog. They make do with what they have and they have so much. A few years after Solas forces the ground beneath their feet to burn once more, Lydia has a little sister and Evelyn nearly dies but doesn’t, in the end. Anne is larger, quieter, more robust and less prone to adventure and Thom sees himself in the girl’s eyes, sees himself and is forced to kiss away bruises and blisters, soothe as her clumsy little child-heart is upset and Evelyn watches them sometimes, a strange expression on her face. Friends come and go in their house, they travel as often as they can, they work hard and keep their spirits up even in times of bad news as the years pass by around them. They make do with what they have and they have so much. –The last time and he’s wrapped around her in the large bed, they’re both grey but his arms are still thick and strong around her vanishing body. He kisses the bridge of her nose, her forehead, mutters things about the qunari or the elves, old war stories they’ve both outlived though they never imagined they would. There are injuries that have mended into scars and then further into nothing; children that are grown women, wives, mothers; nations rising and falling into shadows. They’ve outlived so many things and for so long that she cannot fault their world for ending now. Once, a couple of months ago when she understood where it was going, this disease that has been growing in her, she had looked at Thom and he had nodded. That is all they have ever said about it; there are no words for certain things in life. Even now, with the draught in their mouths and bodies, there are no words. Evelyn closes her eyes, opens them again. Thom still looks at her and there’s a warmth there at the bottom of his gaze that floods her still. “I’m not going anywhere,” he whispers, one last time.