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nexusnyx · 1 year

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keep close | part III

Joel Miller x F!Reader [8.3k] summary: Joel was never a man of religion—thinking about the enormity of everything was not for him, but he understood the concept. Devotion. An other-worldly comfort in something, or a place. Joel had never, on the other hand, experienced religion. As he lifts his touch from your hands to explore the rest of your body, Joel is blessed, and this is holy. The air around him sizzles with everything existing between you two. 📝 This is the final part of this little story, and I hope it meets the expectations. If you enjoy it, reblogs and comments make all the difference. warnings⚠️ mature content—explicit depictions of sex, so minors dni. | 🏷️ soft!joel (he is, deep, deep inside, okay?), bathing together, slow undressing, deep talks, first time, dirty talk, begging, fingering, guided orgasm (yes, Joel Miller does walk you through it), penetration (p in v).

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Joel wished he felt comfortable in his skin.

He remembers there was a time when he did. He used to have a lighter step, lighter touch, lighter eyes.

All his edges feel sharp now, even to him—silver like steel, or the hair that glinted at him from every reflection as a reminder of why, and up until some time ago, he'd kept up a good shell. An exoskeleton of great thickness that kept him going with minimum blows to the skin.

Until a while ago, he had no reason to try being anything other than this.

Being this kept him alive, but—it would also keep him away. From Ellie. From you.

He wanted to be close to you. Closer than he admitted to himself for a long time.

As close as physics would allow, and even then, it wouldn't be enough.

He thinks about all that as he puts Ellie to bed.

Not that he calls it that. Or, god forbid, you did.

Ellie claims to be grown enough to live all on her own if it came to be, and yet, she somehow always ended up 'awakening' sometime in the night. Joel lost count of how many late-night conversations with you had been interrupted by that sight: her short, teenage frame being outlined in the darkness standing stiff and awkward, right before she blurted, "I keep hearing... you know."

Their noises.

Ellie's nightmares were about their noises. One day, you simply got up, took a deep breath, and said, "C'mon, let's go back to bed, I think you need just need some company. We can talk, if you want. Or not.."

No one — not you, not Joel — called it 'putting her to bed' because Ellie was grown, and 'far from a kid' already, as she'd put it. She didn't need some grown person talking to her until she falls asleep. It's just nice, she said. It's just soothing, because according to Ellie, they — the grown-ups — have a tendency of forgetting the 'younger folk need some stimulating conversation too, man'.

How could someone not love this kid?

Joel watches her sleeping body for a few moments. He places and tucks the blankets around her to keep her warm, and closes the door on his way out.

He hated to admit how magnetic she was at the start. It was so difficult to accept the sharp wit and horrible jokes were simply her. A part of her, born embedded in her genes just like a lack of patience, or straight hair.

When Joel opens the door to the bathroom, he's greeted by steam.

The whole place is still covered in it despite the hour of dinner.

He sees you sitting in front of the bathtub, and proudly announces. "Miss I don't need a lullaby today asked me to tell her a story," his eyes feel yours on him as he takes off his jacket.

He hears the scoff. "She's been asking me that all week," you answer with a tone that says you're behind, old man, "And she even threw the 'make them good stories, too—I don't want any boring, pg-13 rated shit.'"

"The army teaches shitty manners," he takes off the flannel jacket too and starts unlacing his boots. "She woke me up with a wet finger in my ear once. D'you know how long it's fuckin' been since someone did that? Decades. It's been literal decades."

"I think you meant to say the army doesn't teach them any manners," you say. "And hey—at least that's kind. You, on the other hand—"

"Oh, here we go," he laughs.

"—you decide to wake people by saying their name. Announcing their name, in that deep, Odin-inspired vibrato that already gives them a heart attack, and then you just," you blow raspberries in the air. "Fuck off."

He laughs. Tries his best to keep the volume low because he knows better, but laughing and kicking off his boots feels amazing.

None of you have showered since the attack.

A week was a gross amount of time to spend without a washing rag and hot water rubbing every inch of your skin, but the poor unfortunate truth of living in an apocalyptical world remained almost natural now—it was not weird to happen. Just gross.

Cleaning yourselves to the best of your lonesome abilities when there are bruises littering almost every member of your body is also a challenging task.

He's done poorly in his, and he wished bashfulness still existed somewhere in his bones for him to feel sorry about it. Instead, Joel let his body fall back with only a layer or two of clothes left in him and laid on his back on the floor.

He says, "I can't believe I'm gonna shower," fully expecting some witty remark back.

A joke. A jab. Anything other than— "Joel."

A soft, single whisper. Joel's head whips in your direction, and he almost gets up in an electric shock—your curled-up position awakens his instincts of 'cradle, cover, protect'.

Scared. Had he made a mistake? Had he jumped the gun and done something too fast? Something wrong?

Before he can jump to any conclusions, you add. "I'm gonna say this in a single breath 'cause I'm feeling oddly stupid about it and the rational, intelligent parts of my brain that know this means absolutely nothing can't find a single argument back for the question then why the hell do I still feel like every inch of my skin is a part of my insides..." you breathe in deep, and lift your head, tilting your chin high. Your eyes make sure to meet his. "I—," you choke on it once, and Joel witnesses as the blush rises from your neck, painting like watercolor its way up your skin. "I never... did anything. Nothing that went beyond sad, pathetic displays of.. what I can only call 'making out'," you laugh, humorless. "God, I feel like a fucking idiot."

"You're not," he affirms. He might be failing faintish, and his body may be running hotter than the insides of a volcano, but he'll be fine. "You tell me anythin' you wanna tell me, and I'll listen. And if you want to—"

"Don't," you interrupt him. "Don't take it back," your eyes shine at him. Don't take back your offer because it would hurt. It would kill me. "Please."

Joel would do anything you asked. "I won't."

You smile. "Thank you," you say softly. After another deep breath, you go on. "I wanted to tell because... It's only fair you know. Considering—" you swallow visibly around the word, and his body mimics the action as if you and he are your own hive of two, "I've thought about this. A lot, Joel."

A lot, Joel.

"Jesus Christ," he exhales, feeling the air punched out of his chest. He looks away from the earnestness on your face.

"And whether it's because a first impression always stays or not, I don't know, but I'm gonna remember."

And so would he.

Joel gets up from the form, his body now released from the imaginary chains that kept him bound to his place as you said your peace, and makes his way up the step to where the bathtub is and you're sitting on the floor.

It hits him that he's kissed you, and you've kissed back, and Joel's free to do it again.

The thought is what makes him sit right back you, pulling you in direction of his chest. You go easily, and it melts him more than the prospect of hot water on his body sometime soon.

"I thought you'd be happy I opened my mouth instead of stewing on stuff and keepin' it to myself and, y'know," he saw above your shoulders the way your hands did movements all over the place, and he laughed on your neck. "Didn't think you'd be this cuddly, though."

Joel rubs the bottom of his face on your skin just for that comment, enjoying feeling you squirm. "You opening your mouth is never a problem," he bites back with amusement.

"Callin' me blabbermouth?"

"Callin' you straight spoken," he corrects. "Precise."

"Awn, shucks—thanks, man," the sarcasm in your voice makes him groan. He's surrounded by smartasses, and it pains him. The laughter is nice, though; Joel guesses there are worst things than spending winter locked in a mountain cabin with someone who makes him laugh at the end of the world.

Sure, he is bruised and so many things are not right with humankind, but—not here.

He won't think about that now.

It's not his weight, just for these moments.

When you're done laughing, your body sags inside his hold, melting like snow under the Sun. He drinks it all in. "I'm aware this will be good for wounds 'n all, but I hate that I know it's gonna hurt so much the first couple of minutes that it makes me want to postpone it. What's another week without a proper shower, right?"

"Hell."

"Yeah, but so will be submersing our bodies in this," you point at the tub.

"At least it's together?" Joel offers.

Your head resting on his chest tilts up until you can look at him properly, and he's always thankful for the opportunity of seeing you smile. "That was cheesy," you whisper.

Once more, Joel sighs. He's smiling, but—it sounded so damn cute. Cheesy, accused between the lips that formed that teasing smirk, that mouth that—

Joel hates missing things.

He writes down in his mind that he will never miss your mouth; he'll always have it. If he wants it, he'll take it, and so he does.

Your face is angled, waiting for a hand of his to cup it and guide it toward his lips.

Kissing you is better than most things Joel's mind still clung to as the ones worth living for.

His personal favorite, the sun hitting skin for the first time after a long winter—it felt like that, but better.

He felt a tingle in his spine when you melted on him, prompting him to kiss harder—Joel starts moving his lips on yours and is granted with you following his lead like in the kitchen; you open up so well for him. You follow the rhythm of his tongue, and it makes it feel easy when he knows that's far from the truth.

When he pulls back, Joel thinks about what you said.

I never did anything.

Joel has to take deep breaths. You open your eyes after another heartbeat, and he's burdened with the silly need to kiss your entire face, so he does.

First the lips again. Then the cheeks, and the nose next, and you start giggling when he moves to your forehead, whispering, "tickles, Joel," but he doesn't care. There are the temples, and finally the chin, and—he exhales, smiling content at himself.

He looks ahead to the tub. It's a soaking type, made of dark wood he's almost sure comes from the forest surrounding them right now. "You think we'll fit in there?" he asks.

He feels your head moving to look, too. "It's made to fit two adults, I think."

"Ellie said it was the best bath she's had since she left the school," he shares.

Your hum of approval makes him realize just how hard this task is going to be—pun not intended but well applied. "She really needed one."

"We all do," he scoffs. Reluctantly, Joel lets go of your body to get up and finish undressing. He sees the two wood buckets you used to heat up water for Ellie's bath are full again, so he asks. "You heated up more water? Why?"

You pierce him with a are you kidding me, look. "Joel."

"Yes?"

"We need a wash, rinse, and repeat. I don't know about you, but I feel gross. Disgusting. Crusty—"

"Okay, okay," he interrupts, bursting into laughter. "I got you. You can stop tryna seduce me," he says while standing up.

Even though there's steam, he knows your blush is from him. For him. "Wasn't trying to," you argue with no heat. Smiling.

Joel is so fucked. "Really? All that sweet-talking about how much you stink had no goal?"

Your response is only a roll of the eyes, and Joel starts unbuttoning his shirt. "Hmm. Could've sworn it got me here showering with ya."

"You offered," you laugh, and then—your gaze lifts, sees what Joel is doing, and lowers, twice more bashful than before. "There was no seducing involved."

He groans in response. "Nope. 'm pretty sure your mouth was on mine. That's seducing," he states. "Hey," he calls. Your eyes find his. "You can look, 'yknow? 's nothing you won't be seein' in a second." Joel would say 'it's nothing special' but he knows you well enough. You'd hate hearing it, you'd fight him on it, so he thinks on his words. "If you want to," he adds, because fucking hell.

You do look up.

The second he feels your gaze on him, Joel's lifetime insecurities reappear from the shadows, birthing all over again like a flair under his skin.

He's okay. 5"11' of scars covering inner demons always on a battlefield, veins of whiskey, and a chest that he swore up and down would die empty.

It feels hot now. Occupied.

The shirt comes off, then the white tank top that's more a rag than a piece of clothing by now, and he only musters enough courage to look at you again as he unbuckles his belt.

The permission didn't prepare him to see you staring.

Gazing, checking him out with eyes as thirsty and obvious as a starving person being presented with a plate of their favorite food.

Joel swallows thickly around the knot that forms in his throat.

He wants to say something, but instead, he just undresses.

He wouldn't know what to say.

Joel didn't want things for two decades. He wants so much now that he feels like his body could vibrate at a frequency that would break glass.

His pants fall on the floor, and Joel stands there only in his underwear.

You swallow visibly, too. Then you look up into his eyes and say, "Permission to share a weird thought?"

That got his curiosity. You two loved sharing weird thoughts — no judgment, that was the rule — and he sees you nodding.

You start undoing your clothes as well. "You know that feeling of being so comfortable around a person 'cause they make you feel like you can be yourself?"

"Yeah."

"I always had that with you," you say. Joel removes his underwear with a single motion and tries to push down the feeling of hotness climbing up his chest. "And... I don't know if it's post-apocalyptical shit or not, but, d'you feel like you have a hunger that could never be fulfilled, ever again?"

Joel sits back down while he waits. "I do," he answers. "About everything, right?"

"Yes!" your exclamation is earnest. You get it. "I'll never satisfy any of it," you conclude. "That same feeling—that despair that a decadent world creates in you... it made me look at you and think 'I wanna bury myself in him' because—it brought me comfort? I hope that's not a too weird thought, I don't wanna freak you out or anything, but..." you shrug. He sees you trying to gather the words, and waits. "I just always had this.... feeling, this thing where I looked at you, and you're so broad, and tall, and strong," you shiver, and Joel feels his body twitching in response, "I wanted to get under your skin. Just... make myself all cozy inside you. That's probably some weird, mother-issue kind of thing, but."

It makes him laugh.

Joel looks down at himself for a second because taking in what you said and watching more of your skin become visible made his throat dry and his hands itch. "Trust me," he says. "You're under my skin."

Despite already being naked, Joel feels he peeled off another layer just with those words.

"You ready to go in?" He doesn't check for how you took the confession. He'd never said anything close to it that if he thought about it too long or too hard, something inside him would burst. "It's gonna hurt."

It takes a second for you to answer, and he's already up and dipping his legs inside when you do. "Good to know."

Nothing more than a soft whisper, and it heats up his insides better than the water.

Joel hisses in pain as his body submerges. While he alone occupies a good portion of the tub, you'll fit. A tight fit. Another knot forms in his throat.

There's the faint sound of clothing pieces hitting the floor and when he looks to the side, you're like he is—naked.

Vulnerable.

Just like him, you do it in one go, submerging your body despite the pain of the still-throbbing wounds. Your face scrunches in pain, which is the only reason he can focus on something else other than your legs touching his underwater.

The rag used for bathing is hung on the tub—clean, dry, washed.

He picks it up as you throw some water on your shoulders, and thinks about how much of you he'd like to know still.

So he asks. "Can I start?" He'd never be able to focus on something else with your hands on his body—washcloth separating the touch or not.

"You—you're actually gonna—uhm. Bathe me?"

"That's the idea, yeah. Unless you don't want me—"

"I do!" you interrupt. "I just—I thought you were only gonna clean my wounds."

There's not much space to move around now that you two are sitting, but he can move.

"No," Joel dips the cloth in the water and grabs the soap bar outside the tub. "Can you turn around for me?" He needs to find his guts first. If you're facing him, Joel will just gaze. Desire. Distract himself. "Wanna start with your back."

"'kay."

When you turn, Joel's mind goes blank.

Here he is, sharing a tub with the one person who's made him feel more human than anything else, and all he can do is long for.

His worries as he walked to the bathroom involved discomfort or tension. There's none to be found, even in the silence.

Joel sees your hair all tied up and wished he was the one to do it. "Aren't you gonna wash your hair?" he asks, and his hands start to work.

"One thing at a time, don't you think?" you chuckle. "If I was gonna do that I'd have to heat up another bath."

"Just for the hair?"

"Just for the hair. Ask El, doing this shit nowadays is a nuisance."

"I'll take your word for it," he's careful with his hands. There aren't many open wounds on your body, only splashes of purple, green, yellow, and blue. A Monet painting. "Please tell me if I hurt you."

There's a moment of silence before you answer, "You couldn't." It's the softest he's ever heard your voice, and he hears the confidence and truth in it. You don't believe he could hurt you. You're a hundred percent right, of course, but hearing it still soothes him. "But I will," you add, turning your face around to give him a smile.

Instead of returning it, Joel leans forward and kisses the lips that continue to do it—every time you confess thoughts and feelings buried in you, Joel feels something stirring inside. Being born, maybe. Growing.

You lean back to the kiss, and suddenly, your back is touching his chest. Joel makes sure to keep his hips propped against the bathtub so this is about what he said more than what he wants, but this is now his favorite position.

When you pull back, Joel feels himself smiling.

Opening his eyes, he finds you staring.

"It'll hurt when I wash that knife wound," he remembers.

Your eyebrows pierce together, recalling the gash you have on your left side. "It'd hurt more if it were days ago?"

It's offered like leverage. He takes it. "Brave one," he states. So much braver and smarter than he'll ever be—someone who still has the courage to feel what she feels and say it.

Joel hopes it'll rub off on him.

"You're the brave one," you counter. "You know... I think you never told me about what you did before all this."

He frowns. "No?"

You shake your head. Joel adds more soap to the cloth and starts washing your arms, "I used to work construction."

"Did you like it?" your body is loose in his hold. Joel holds up one of your hands and washes it slowly, back and forth, like he'll do to every part of you.

"I did. I think there's something to be said about building a home. About building good structures, y'know?"

As he cleans your body and wounds, the questions keep on coming, and he keeps on delivering answers.

For your arms, you ask about his work, and who he worked with. Joel takes note of every scar you have on your body, curious as to whether they came before or after the outbreak.

When he moves to your back and chest, you ask him about what he used to enjoy. He talks about it—trips with his brother, barbecues with friends and family, a nice and peaceful week at a distant country somewhere where he barely speaks the language, but he can get to know different cultures and people.

Joel stops when he sees the tattoo of a date under your right boob, trying his hardest to ignore the desire to squeeze what's in front of him.

Not the time. Bathe first, feel it later.

"Whose birthday is it?" he asks, putting the tip of his finger on it.

You stay silent, so he keeps on moving. He slides his hand underwater to your leg, and palming its way down your thigh and calf, he grabs hold of your foot; he's analyzing for any wounds but finds none, so he starts washing your legs.

When the answer comes, Joel's hand stops for a moment.

"It was—," your choked-up voice pulls his eyes to your face, and the sorrow he finds there makes him ache. "Oh, god."

A choked-up laughter. No humor to it, and a thousand ghosts on your face tell him he's about to hear something that'll change him again.

"You don't have to—" he starts, but you raise a hand asking for silence, for give me a second, and he stops. As long as you want to.

"We never talked about the 26th," you state. He goes back to washing your legs, shaking his head. "Can I?"

"Yeah."

"I was—" you breathe in deep, and look at him again searching for something. "I never told this to anyone."

Joel nods. "I never talk about it, too."

"It doesn't help, does it?" Your eyes are red-rimmed, and Joel notices there's much about you he never figured out. You're younger than him by a lot, but you were there.

"No." Sirens, flares of green light, and the cracking cacophony of screams and shots still wake him up almost daily. "No, it doesn't."

"I miss talking about him," you whisper to him. A tear slides down your face, and it cuts him.

Who does she miss? "Who do you miss?"

He's moved onto the other leg when you answer. "I was at my best friend's house on the twenty-sixth. She was working double shifts at the hospital to pay for—," you stop.

Joel can only take so much. He pulls you close until your face is resting on his shoulder, and he feels his eyes stinging.

He gets that. Sometimes saying a name was too much.

It took months before you heard of Sarah, and her name was all you got until now.

"Take your time," he says.

"Caio needed new glasses." Your arms wrap around Joel's middle, and he knows you'll be staying in his arms until the tale's over.

"Caio," he repeats. Recalling the roman numbers, he adds. "January twenty-five."

"Yeah. He—Caio broke his on his solo mission to find fossils in my backyard—well, technically my dog Diana was responsible, but he always said 'don't blame her, Gumma, she only wants to kiss me', so we said it was his fault."

"Gumma? Who's Gumma?"

"I am," you laugh. "He couldn't say 'godmother when he was born, so he shortened it. He told everybody I was Gumma, his s-second mommy."

Joel tightens his hold on you, suddenly very aware that he's shaking.

"He was sick," you go on. "So no school for him that day. Which means I was there. I could work from home, so Milla always called me."

"Was it just her?"

You nod on his shoulder. Joel starts rubbing his hand all over your back and he could never tell if it was for your comfort or his.

Both, probably.

"We raised him, basically," you sniffle. "Milla and I lived on the same street. She was basically disowned for her teenage pregnancy, so I told her parents they were always shitty at their job, and that unlike them, I knew what family meant, and that we didn't need them. If she wouldn't, I might as well."

Joel smiles at that. "Sounds like you."

"We moved, worked shitty jobs, and lived together for the most part. My parents helped us with bills for the most part of the first years. When—when Caio turned eleven, my parents paid for the coolest party. And—I'll never forget it, 'cause it was the last one he had, so..."

Eleven.

Joel buries his face and tears on the curve of your neck.

"So on the twenty-sixth, I was at home with him all day. Fucking hell, how unfair is that? That I got all those hours with him and—" the way you burrow your face on his throat makes Joel wish he could make you live under his skin. Protected from everything. Even memories. "When everything started going wrong, Milla was still at the hospital. She called twenty-three minutes before all signals went out to tell me that something was wrong, very wrong and that she felt we needed to go somewhere safe. She said 'babe, I want you to think of nothing else but getting to safety, d'you hear me? Go to Mr. Nunqua's house, he has a safety bunker there—go, and take Caio. I'll find you there."

Joel listens to the rest of the tale with his heart in his hands.

You got there, but Mr. Nunqua was already infected.

He was the first person you killed. His wife was the second.

You managed to get both you and Caio to the bunker, safe and sound, but it wasn't enough.

It never is.

Caio being Infected was a crueler end than anything Joel's mind came up with.

"He realized it, Joel. He noticed something was wrong, and—"

It takes a few more moments before you can finish what he already expected. "He asked me to make the pain stop before he could hurt me. He said 'please don't let me hurt you, Gumma'."

Milla found you cradling his body in your arms hours later, and that was the last you two saw of each other.

He lets you take your time to feel better before he pulls your face back to look at it.

The pink cheeks and eyes hurt him, but when he kisses your face, your lips, all he can think is how proud he is of you.

"Can I do you now?" you ask, pulling your hand out of the water in a request for the cloth.

He hands it to you, and watches as you do the same routine as he did.

In return, he asks you all types of questions.

He thought it would be hard to concentrate with your hands on him, but they're so dainty and careful that Joel feels transcendental.

No one ever took care of him like this.

Even the lovers that he once showered with, it was never this intimate.

In the bruises where he hisses in pain, you kiss somewhere else in a soothing manner. His shoulder, the nape of his neck, his outreached arm.

When the question comes, Joel is waiting for it, but he's not ready.

You answer the question about the places you've been and he replies with, "Oh, Sarah always wanted to go there. India."

"Did she?"

It's such a simple answer.

It locks him up the same. His muscles become tense, and his head shakes almost on its own.

I can't do it. He wished to be strong like you but talking about her hurts. "It hurts to talk about her. I don't—I can't."

He expects a nod, or a change of subject.

What he gets instead is you cupping his face in his hands and looking at every inch of his face.

"I know it hurts," you state. Joel, for the first time, believes someone. We raised him. You know how it feels, you do. Which is why what comes next blindsides him. "But Joel—she's already gone. I never thought I was gonna be able to speak about him with someone who understood, but—here you are. We cant—are you going to let her be forgotten, too?"

Bullets hurt less.

His body reacts for him—the inhale is shaky, almost frail. Your words hit harder than shots, but that's okay, because your inquisitive mind and sharp tongue were a couple of the reasons why he went back for you.

It was needed.

"I—" you start. Stop. Joel looks up at you, breathing out the air stuck inside his lungs, and wills himself to breathe. "You know..." your voice is quiet. "I think higher... beings or whatever—that does exist, 'cause—" your laugh is humorless. "I would totally be dead because of my stupid mouth if my path had crossed with anyone else but you."

Now he gets the lack of humor—a sad statement, but never untrue. Not even a hyperbole. Joel nods, "I'd say it's because you say things that you shouldn't, but it's the opposite. And most people don't like that."

I'm not most people, he thinks.

Thank you for saying what you did, is left unsaid. He sees in your eyes that you heard it loud and clear.

"What I'm saying is... you don't have to be ready now, but—" when you lean, his eyes close on instinct, but the kiss lands on his cheek. Sweet. Saccharine. "Please know that you can. When you want to."

He nods.

After a deep breath, you look at all of him. "I think we're clean. Next round?"

The tub is emptied, filled up again, and Joel thinks about how right you are, and how often.

The second shower will be perfect. He's clean now, but when he sits back down on clean water, it feels different.

He groans, and you laugh in response. "I know, right?"

Joel liked it better when you were fitting your bodies against each other.

The water in the tub seems to carry the tension of what you two have been waiting for. Conducting the electricity in each other's thoughts.

"What now?" you ask.

Joel knows what now. "C'mere," he pats his chest.

Like a well-oiled machine, you spin around and fit yourself against him in a second.

This time, Joel pulls you close until you're basically on his lap.

"Now this," he answers. To feel. "I think I had a dream like this once when we were camping."

"What?!"

He likes how shock always makes you look at him, even if it means craning your neck in the worst positions. He laughs. "Yeah. It was a river instead of a cool tub in a forest cabin, though."

"There's no way you—" words are cut sharp, and your eyes widen. "You did! Oh my god, you actually did. You avoided looking at my face all day for two days after that, I thought I'd done something wrong!"

He takes the hit you land on his shoulder with a smile. "You did. You sunk a knife in the middle of an Infected's head and kept me from dying."

What else could he say?

Joel shrugs. "It was hot."

He likes how you can look shy even sitting on his lap, feeling all of his body. "You're crazy," you laugh, looking down.

"Mmm. And don't you forget it," he kisses your shoulder, and that's it—that's all both of you needed to wish for more.

Your hand comes to cover both of his, and Joel is giddy with excitement when you guide his hands from your middle to your breasts.

It's silent permission. An invite.

It's all he needs.

"Can I make you feel good?" he kisses right under your ear and nuzzles his nose right there, goosebumps rising on his skin in response to your full-body shiver.

The next touches are bathed in silence.

The only sounds in the room come from the water moving with each move of both your bodies, and the soft exhale that escapes your lips.

Joel doesn't think about how long it's been since—everything feels like a first time.

A rekindle of sorts.

The hands you guided to your boobs stay there for a few moments, getting a feel of their size, their softness, how perfect they feel in his hands.

Your head drops to his shoulder, chin tilted upwards, eyes closed.

Joel thinks he's dreaming.

The faint pain in some places of his body is the only indication he has of reality.

Nothing else matters when you say, "Joel," so softly, so pleading.

"I'm here," he kisses the words on your skin. Your cheeks, temples, your shoulders that are right there. "I'm here, darlin'."

In the soft moans you let out, Joel plants a flag to signal his way home now every time he's lost in darkness.

The moans are so earnest and shaky that Joel starts trembling when you do. His hands move to explore your belly, and he pins the wound on your side as a reminder for later—it'll scar. He wants to kiss it better. Will kiss it until he's satisfied.

When his hands reach your waist, he imagines you feel his heart racing faster.

He takes his time with it, not only because you deserve it, but because it feels good.

Playing with the hair on your pussy feels good because it makes you whimper. Touching the folds with the tip of his fingers gets your legs to open a little wider until they're spread apart. Joel moans at the gesture and is gifted with another shiver. "Like this?" he asks, doing it again.

Tracing his fingertips up and down the folds.

"Joel," you grind against him, reminding him that he's here, and he's aching, too.

When you do it, your ass finds his cock hard as a rock, and it snuggles to grind on him, giving him the first feel of friction.

With another moan, Joel's lips are sucking on your earlobe. "Tell me what I do that feels good," he states.

Then he dips his fingers inside.

"No one's touched you here before?" his middle finger dips right into the core, applying pressure but not touching.

Your moans vibrate on his chest. "N-no one but me."

"Yeah?" the mental image makes him even harder. Joel thought that wasn't even possible anymore. "Did you finger yourself a lot?"

You nod frantically, pushing your hips forward, seeking more of his touch.

"Did it feel this good?" he moves his middle and ring finger up until they find your clitoris, and he starts rubbing circles on it; he pinches it, measures it with his knuckles, plays with it.

Maybe that's why you don't answer.

He'll take your moans as a good sign. Your chest is panting, and Joel feels a little drunk. He hasn't been drunk in years—no whiskey available for regular people will do that anymore; too diluted, too fake.

Your heavy breathing and nails sinking on his forearms get his mind hazy.

Joel kisses, licks, then sucks on your neck. "Talk to me, darlin'. I wanna know. I need to know."

"Joel," you say, but too loud. He uses his other hand to pinch your nipple, and the whimper you let out makes him twitch against your back.

"No screaming." Not this time. "I'm waitin' on your answer."

"I don't remember the question," you whine.

"Did it feel this good?" he pushes only one finger inside, and your mouth opens wide. Joel might not make it—it's so fucking tight and all he can think about is burying himself in it. All of him.

"Nonononono, it didn't, it didn't," you mumble.

It's a slow process, opening you up.

All the time, Joel talks in your ear about how good you're doing. "Taking my fingers so well, look at ya," he sounds drunk if he pays close attention. Two fingers fit in too tight, so Joel takes his time until he feels you opening up.

There's the grinding that never stops—the more Joel pushes his fingers in and out of you, the more you move in sync with his hand, grinding back up against him with every push inside.

It's torture. He loves every second of it.

"I want more," you whine at some point.

Joel was so lost appreciating the view of your chest painted red that he missed when you whispered his name the first couple of times.

He checks it—buries his fingers up until his knuckles, massages the spots inside of you that make you curl your toes and pull your knees up higher.

"Please," you beg.

He likes the sound of it, but he'll leave that for later.

The third finger is easier than the second—Joel feels how slick you are. He knows water bodies are not the best places for penetration, but he values your comfort more than anything right now, and in here you're both warm. At ease.

When his name starts falling from your lips like a song, Joel knows it's coming.

His other hand keeps traveling through your body—grabbing at your neck, pinching the hardened nipples of your gorgeous tits, palming through your stomach.

If his lips left your skin for longer than a minute, Joel thinks it's too much. "Yeah, yeah, I know, darlin', it's climbing up, isn't it?" he thinks addiction can be so easy. Your whines are necessary now for him, no matter what. "I wanna see it so badly." His voice had never been this low. Hoarse like sandpaper, and so filled with lust. "You're all ready for me now, d'you feel it?"

All three fingers are buried until the knuckles. Scissoring them open, pumping them against your walls in search of that spot inside you that makes you shake—Joel can barely breathe.

"D'you want more than this? Hm? 'Cause I'm in heaven, darlin'," he tells you. "All I need is to see you let go now. I can't believe I'll be the lucky fucker that gets to see you fall apart."

"Joel, I want more—want all of it, please, please—"

"I'll give it to you, I will." He'd give you anything. "You can have anything you ask me, anythin'."

"Harder—please, please, please—oh! Fuck, like that, like that, Joel."

"You sound so good moaning my name I'm gonna fuckin' lose my mind," he growls. "Do it. Cum on my fingers. Cum for me."

Joel marveled with every shake of your body. He closed his eyes and kissed the part of yours that was the closest. Your legs clamped shut around his hand, thighs shaking. At least this time, you remembered to muffle your sounds on him.

In his neck, you bit down the whispers of his name. Whimpers. Ohs,

He waited for the impossible grip to ease before he thumbed a grazing touch over your clit—just to check; to feel.

"Want more," you kissed his neck, and there was no need for all that honey in your voice, really.

Joel drank it, anyway. Licked it clean from your lips, and drowned in the way you and the water seemed to wrap him in.

"We gotta get outta the water, baby," says Joel. "'s not a good idea we do it in here."

You stopped kissing his neck, your hips stopped their motion and the little look around you at the room makes Joel's stomach feel funny. He feels almost suffocated with this need to kiss all over the red on your face.

"Uhm—are we... here?"

Joel never thought he'd live to see the day you would avoid the word 'fuck', but he smiled at it. "No, darlin', we should get dry. Put our clothes on. We can finish this in the room, right?"

You lick your lips, and then his. You bite his bottom lip, sucking it into yours, and Joel is fucked.

He melts, too. All over you, on your fingertips caressing his cheeks, on your chest pressing against his, and on the depths of your eyes as you stare deeply into his.

"'kay," you whisper. "Let's go."

Joel helps you out and loves to watch the way you gravitate toward him. When you whisper, "Do we have to put on our clothes?"

He wraps you in the towel instead of answering, and pulls you to his chest again. "Body warmth, remember?" Just for good measure, he puts the other one around him, collects all the clean clothes you had bought, and then looks at you.

"Hop on," he nudges your waist with his hands, and you get exactly what he means; your legs wrap around his middle and your arms stay firm around his neck. Joel holds you with a satisfied grunt, "atta girl."

The warmth of all of this has a price.

Joel knows it as he walks you to the room you two share, as he closes the door behind you both, as he lays your bodies on the joined mattresses, and pulls the winter blanket over your bodies.

It'd be more than a steep price.

Something on the figures of what he signed off when he took the job from Marlene—when he took Ellie out of her fingers.

Those dotted lines he signed with a blind eye. Unaware of what he was agreeing to until he Ellie's life faced danger and all the moments of every single awful joke she told, her smart jabs and the braveness in her bones to risk her life for him came back like a slap to the face, and Joel was crushed under the enormous weight of it all.

He accepted it, even if he still couldn't say it.

With you, it was almost the same.

He signed the dotted lines when he came back for you.

He couldn't know, wouldn't dream of knowing what he had signed up for until the time he ordered you to keep close and you answered with: "Always. El, you know it—between us."

Seven words, and Joel thought of nothing else for days.

Always.

For months, you never left his side.

Abided by his temper, shortness, curt words.

Spoke through his darkness and whiskey, reaching out to him the same way you did with Ellie—pulling from deep within the part of him that was still alive. Truly human.

When Joel touches all of you covered under a blanket, he wills his eyes to stay shut because if he opens them, they'll sting.

He feels too much, and it's never enough. The taste of your skin is sewn along with lines of fear, the acidic and familiar taste of I can't do it. I can't lose this. I can't lose you.

He kisses every inch.

Joel licks his name out off your lips every time they come out.

He nuzzles his face like an animal trying to imprint scent all over—from your neck all the way down to the inside of your thighs you'll have beard burns and it's okay, because you ask for them.

In the quiet, you two say so much.

Joel asked you, "you gotta keep quiet, baby, we can't be loud," and you listened, because you're so good. He says it, too. "So good, baby... you're so good," and listens to you reply with,

"You're so good, Joel. So good."

He soaks it all up until it's all mixed in his veins.

The price of hearing your sinful whisper in his ear is high. "Need you inside me," you brand in his skin. "Please, Joel?"

Joel would close his eyes and see those words—he wants to burn them behind his eyelids since they're so loud they erase everything else from his brain for a while.

He fingers you some more to double-check if you're ready and he has to talk, because, "You're so fuckin' wet, darlin', my god," he whispers in your ear, and your nails clawing at his back, digging into his skin tell him to hurry. "All this for me?"

"Please stop torturin' me," you whisper back, sounding like you're about to cry.

It's torture for both of you, so Joel lines up. He teases you with his cock, gliding his shaft between your lips, coating it in the slick that's dripping down your legs, and whispers, "You want it?"

"Joel," you growl at him.

Joel pushes in with a smile on his face and has his face scrunched in a silent smile when he slips inside. It's a tight fit at first, and Joel has to stop midway. He has to breathe.

"'m gonna go slow, 'kay?" He does. He pulls almost all the way out, and slowly pushes in again, feeling you tense around him, "Breathe, baby, you gotta breathe for me."

"Joel," you whisper. Around his cock, your cunt pulses, and he curses under his breath. You bury your whole face in his face and moan. "s big," you moan. "Feels so good."

He's only a man, you see—Joel's hands are supporting his weight on each side of your face, and they tremble.

He has to drop to his forearms and elbows, caging your body underneath his. "Breathe really deep for me, baby," he whispers, and you do it. "Close your eyes now, and relax."

The price of having you all to himself is one Joel never could afford, but one he'll spend each day of his life doing everything in his possession to pay.

His whole body shakes as you open up for him. It's a blossoming—Joel feels it around his cock the moment your body relaxes and you feel it.

Your legs wrap around him tighter.

"Move," you whisper.

So he does.

He's deeply in debt.

Joel gets lost in the feeling of how warm and tight you are around his cock, and it makes him drunk. It makes him feel like you're wrapped all around him, and Joel never fucked like this.

He could've gone a century without sex and he would remember;

Nothing felt like this.

No desire or lust or bodies aligning ever made him move this slowly, with this much pace; Joel's back must become a mural of claws being sharpened by the time you beg him to go faster, to push harder.

"'m not gonna break Joel, for fuck's sake, please," you beg as he kisses your lips and fucks you leisurely, and it registers.

Through the thick fog of everything that this is, he listens to it, and he gives it to you.

Joel has no idea how he lasts this long.

When you cum for him, it's not even because he's fucking you. He's more like imprinting the memory of your velvety touch all around him, pushing deep and hard as he caresses the sweat off your face, and he's telling you all that his lust-drunken mind is thinking off.

"Didn't think—could feel this good, darlin'." His pauses are his thrusts, and he wonders if you're listening to any of it, or is just lost on the sound of his voice. He knows you like it. "You like—the sound of my voice—don't you, baby? I know you do." Thurst—and deep, and fuck, "I'm—so fuckin' lucky—look at you—look at how good—god, you're gonna kill me, baby—"

He dies a little death when he feels you start shaking.

All you.

His name spills from your lips and your nails dig in deeper than ever before, and that's what does it, what drops the pin and makes the ball of knotted tension that kept him high burst—Joel has only the notion to pull out before he cums, but he cums so hard that he loses sense of everything for a moment or two.

Your hands are soothing his face when he comes back to it.

Joel feels like a whole person for just those hours with you in the dark.

With you, he realized something—while Joel's skin may offer him little comfort, yours does.

The soothing peace that comes with feeling that again, comfort, makes Joel breathe out and close his eyes without his chest tied in one big knot for the first time since... it. He is alive. However that came to be, or why, he'll never know, but your words are a mantle of truth that can start bringing peace to his inner war of two continuous decades now—he can either keep living and burying everything: Existence, hopes, feelings, love, memories, her, her—Sarah;

or... he can live.

Joel wants to live. With Ellie, with you. He pulls you closer, and focuses one last second to hear the certain sound of Ellie's pencil furiously creating something on paper across the thin wall, and he sleeps.

📝 So. I gave the old man some love and some peace (that he deserves) because I watched him lose yet another person this Sunday and I was hurt. What did you guys think? :)

#usernexusnyx #joel miller fanfic #joel miller smut #joel miller #joel miller fic #joel miller fluff #joel miller hurt comfort #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x reader #joel miller x y/n #joel miller x you #joel miller x female character #joel miller imagine #the last of us fic #the last of us fanfiction #tlou fanfiction #tlou fic

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lord-ofthe-frogs · 2 years

Text

I wanted to try something a little crazy.

*makes you get turned by a vampire and werewolf at the same time, while also signing a contract to a holy God that would grant you protection from said things all at the same time, wondering what would happen if everything synced up*

#they tried this a few times before but couldn't get the timing right #They all either were rejected by the god and immediately smited #or actually ended up being protected and the werewolf and vampire ended up being pushed back.#and then the person was just left untouched (other than like. signing their soul away to a god)#one day though.#(I like to think the god realizes this and. Actually kind of wants to see what happens)#(so at some point they just start also trying to get their blessing to happen in the exact moment the vampire and werewolf bite)#and it's like. this whole thing.#They wanna see if you're just like that. Or if you explode. or implode. or cease to exist. or some other shit.#The werewolf is hoping you get some freaky powers or something #Though they all know if it does work you may end up rejecting your own blood and dying from the blessing but. oh well they've already #killed so many people.#Also #there's a huge influx of new vampires and werewolves because of them and nobody fucking knows where it comes from.#because they also sign a contract saying they wont tell unless given permission #and also the gods kind of got their back at this point #and so. There are just mass amounts of new vampires-werewolves and the communities are beginning to get fearful because like. This wasn't #supposed to be a thing that happening in the first place. And now there just keep becoming more and more and they honestly are beginning to #outnumber the local vampires and werewolves #so they start making more vampires and werewolves because they are scared they'll be overthrown #ideas #plot ideas #vampires #werewolves

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tteokdoroki · 1 year

Note

Isagi is golden retriever behavior. Tell him to bakr he will do it. Tell him to kneel he will. He will protect you with his whole being even if he seems to be nice guy. He isn’t afraid to throw hand s

*ੈ🌩️‧₊˚— as close as strangers + yoichi isagi.

૮˶ᵕ ༝ᵕ˶ა synopsis — while at a bar with your sister, a stranger comes to your rescue and he’s not afraid to come to your defence.

⭑ warnings — please read + mdni ! characters aged up to 20s, fluff, strangers to lovers, meet cute, reader has a younger sister, weird men at bars (harassment kinda? but it’s minor), pro player!isagi, fem!reader - not beta read !

⭑ words — 1.4K.

⭑ notes — thank you nonnie for sending this in!! I got a little itty bit carried away but i hope you like it !! - m.list ✩

unironically, a bar can be one of the most dangerous places on earth. with its overpriced and watered down drinks, loud and disruptive patrons, and not to mention the countless number of men that can’t seem to take a hint. you find the sticky table tops gross and the peanut shells on the floor uncouth but you’re here for your little sister — who wanted no more than drinks and to catch up, filling you in on the details of her latest fling (who she’s sure is the one, despite it being the fifth time) since you returned to Japan.

you work a lot, you travelled abroad for college too so it’s been ages since you’ve last breathed the same air and walked underneath the same sky. you’d feel bad for missing this opportunity to meet someone important in her life while you still had it.

and you love your sister, so while she powders her nose in the bathroom as you both wait for her boy toy, you’ll put up with the stench of beer and the sleazy stranger arms length away from you who just can’t seem to get it through his head that you’re not interested.

“c’mon sweetheart, just one drink. lemme buy you a beer.” the stranger slurs over the top of his own beverage that threatens to spill into you as he encroaches on your personal space.

shaking your head politely, you lean away. “no thank you. i’m not to keen on beer.”

“then whas’ your drink of choice, cutie. let me know what i can get’cha.”

nothing. you refrain from rolling your eyes. nothing that he could afford. grabbing a handful of peanuts to distract yourself, you de-shell them with ease and chew on them to avoid speaking any further.

“no thank you.” you say plainly, reiterating yourself.

he still doesn’t seem to understand, cosying up to your side — his alcohol tainted breath cascading over the shell of your ear. “then let’s get out of here, i’ll get you somethin’ you can really enjoy.”

“i’m waiting on someone.”

“who? a boyfriend?”

“yes,” you lie as easy as breathing — you’re almost certain he wouldn’t leave you alone if he found out you were with your sister. “he’ll be here any minute.”

the stranger lets out a chuff, “i don’t see him, gorgeous girl—“

he reaches for your hand and it causes a wave of uncomfortable goosebumps to rise along your skin. you shudder, hold back a gag, and if only the bartender was closer you could signal for some form of help but you can’t bring yourself to move.

that is until a warm arm slips around your shoulders— and instead of being slimy and unsettling, the presence of this stranger behind you is comforting and safe. “there you are precious, sorry for being so late, i got caught up with work.” this man’s is smoothe like molten chocolate or rather honey running through your ears, and you find yourself enticed — leaning into him as if he’s a safety net.

you turn, only just, catching a glimpse of the stranger’s handsome side profile — his skin is golden, glowing as if it had been blessed by the god’s of the son. his eyes are a blue im a shade that you cannot match, it’s almost unreal to you. his hair his soft, his face calm and again, he feels so safe.

“i missed you,” you breathe the words into existence as if they’re natural, allowing a smile to overtake your features. “it’s okay.”

the dark haired man gives you a firm nod before looking over your head at the drunkard who had been bothering you. he offers a hand to him. “hi isagi… the boyfriend. do we have a problem, here?”

you recognise the name from somewhere but say nothing, letting isagi handle the situation from here.

“n-no sir! i-i’m so sorry i didn’t realise that—“

“good,” isagi’s voice lowers an octave, far less welcoming and kind than when he had initially addressed you as your fake boyfriend. “then next time you’ll take a hint and learn to leave women alone when they tell you no the first time. fucking creep.” he spits, squeezing you into his side protectively.

the stranger’s eyes blow wide and he lowers his head apologetically but you’re too focused on how flustered isagi’s whole act is making you feel. “a-again! i’m really sorry! i’m a huge fan i would never—“

“are you just that dense or do i have to repeat myself? scram.” isagi growls once more and does so until the man that had been bothering you flees the scene. within an instant, the tall dark and handsome man jumps away from you with an apologetic smile — and you embarrassingly admit to yourself how much you miss his embrace. “i am so sorry for touching you without asking. i-it’s just that i could see he was making you uncomfortable and no one else was jumping in so i just—“

turning around to face isagi fully, you shake your head and offer him your brightest grin. “it’s okay, if it hadn’t been for you i don’t know what would have happened. thank you…”

you pause to give him time and isagi trips over his words to give you his full name. “yoichi. yoichi isagi!”

you respond with your own name, trying not to dwell on the familiarity of his.

the pair of you spend the next few minutes chatting about everything and anything. you find out that yoichi likes soccer and has since he was a child. that he was an only child as well, travels a lot and has seen the whole world, though he thinks it gets a little lonely. you shyly admit that you feel the same — especially when work drags you across the globe and away from your family here in Japan.

the flow of your conversation is only interrupted by your little sister emerging from the bathroom excitedly, her nose effectively powdered as she waves an arm at you. “i see you’ve met isagi already!” she beams, sliding into the bar stool on your left while isagi takes your right.

“wait, you two know each other?” you squeak — how mortifying would it be that your younger sibling’s new boyfriend is the man you’ve been crushing on for all of fifteen minutes. “is he…the one?”

the duo share an amused look over the drinks that your new friend had ordered, your sister shaking you as if to snap you out of your trance of crazy. “god no! isagi is way too polite to be my type. my bachira is a little more adventurous!” she rambles, all love sick like. “no offence yoichi!”

“none taken,” he laughs before focusing all of his attention on you , making you squirm under the surface of his ocean blue eyes. “i’m just here for moral support. bachira was nervous about meeting you so i told him to take a lap around the parking lot to calm down before he came in.”

“wait bachira— as in meguru bachira? that one player from the blue lock team? i just styled him for my magazine in the US last month? that’s who you’re dating?” you ramble, eyes wide — which only seems to amuse isagi even more.

“uhuh, and this,” your sister grabs you by the shoulders and rotates you to face isagi, who’s cheeks flush red with nervousness. or shyness. “is yoichi isagi. blue lock’s heart and soul and your date for this evening. you’re welcome!” she sings.

“oh my god! i thought i recognised you! s-she used to have posters of you in our room back when bluelock was streaming!”

“you’re the one that used to kiss them!”

“you’re the one that’s dating his best friend!” you counter her stubbornly, but her attention is quickly stolen away by the world famous dribbler that slips through the doors — bachira’s own face lighting up when he spots her from across the room. your sister melts, running over and jumping into his arms. you can’t help but swoon, realising that whatever she has going on with bachira is obviously more serious than whatever chance at love she’d had before.

they look happy. you’re happy for her. “they’re cute together, aren’t they?” isagi mumbles, elbowing you gently with the wisps of a smile on his lips.

“oh yeah, big time.” you agree, taking a sip of your drink as you scoot closer to japan’s beloved striker. “you’re not mad that he swiped her from right beneath your feet?”

“nah,” yoichi responds simply, scooting closer to you as well. you let your gaze drift over from the happy couple to meet isagi’s fond one, looking down at you as if you’re the most precious thing in the world. “i’d rather have that kind of happy with the girl who was making out with my merch.”

you punch isagi in the shoulder out of embarrassment, and when his timbre laughter fills the room — you can’t help but think you’d want that happiness with him too.

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hana-no-seiiki · 1 year

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Can you write something about yaoshi?thou their design is very pretty (⁠●⁠’⁠3⁠)⁠♡⁠(⁠ε⁠`⁠●⁠)

Let's say we're their fav human/god

I hope this makes sense

We don’t know much about the Aeons yet, so don’t expect this to be an accurate representation of what Yaoshi acts like. I’ll give ya two versions (human and aeon reader).

(YANDERE?) YAOSHI x READER (ft. Other Aeons)

warnings: ddne, mind break, power imbalance, massive age gap & infantilization(for the human section), yandere themes in general, somnophillia.

note: from what i read in yaoshi’s lore what i wrote feels like something the canon character would do hence the question mark

status: unedited

STORY ONE : TO LIVE IN ABUNDANCE | Doctor ! Reader

Yaoshi could not fathom why one would not wish for eternal life. Life was the most beautiful thing in existence. Wondrous, with a diversity one could not begin to imagine. Yet, there exists people who desire for existence to come to a halt, many who wish for their teachings and gifts to end.

You were one of those people.

Despite your occupation as a doctor, you believed that every patient had a right to choose their destiny. Whether it be to continue fighting for their lives or to die peacefully in their death beds, who were you to decide what happens to them? You were only the nurturer and provider. Even the best doctor in their field has to let go of a patient when it came down to it. For life is only beautiful, meaningful when it has to diminish one day.

And in spite of your beliefs, Yaoshi decided to bless you to join him in his path.

Your world was shaken.

Why were you of all people chosen by this Aeon?

Sure, you were fully dedicated to career. But if anything, your views were more aligned to the Archer Lord of Fate. You have had many Mara strucken, the victims of Yaoshi’s ‘gifts’, pass away before your very eyes. Beasts who have long lost their minds and ability to choose what future they’ll follow. If you had a choice, without a heartbeat

Several millenia pass with you never aging. Generals that ruled come and go.

And now, because of their so-called kindness, you were banished from Xianzhou. Your home. Thrusted into the embrace of space and void,

and none other than the Aeon that doomed you.

“Child. You have come home at last.”

II.

If you were born into a different culture, perhaps a planet that worshipped the Aeon before you, maybe then you would be elated with your current happenstance.

But this was not the case unfortunately.

You spend around a decade filled with hatred and anger. Hurling the most venomous words and even attempting to harm their being. Of course, none of your actions do anything to help your situation.

A century was spent trying to convince them to let you go, to rescind their blessing and leave you to live your life as a mortal.

They refused, stating that it would saddened them to lose you.

It gets close to another century with how long you spent in tears. For the loss of your loved ones that had left you to go to the afterlife. For the situation you were forced into. As you cried and cried, all Yaoshi could do was embrace you using their many arms. It was a peculiar feeling at first but unfortunately became comforting soon enough.

And after all that you finally gave in.

Yaoshi did not seem surprised at all. In fact what awaited your complete acceptance was a gentle smile. One akin to a parent seeing their child come back home after running away in a fit.

“We can finally begin the preparations.”

“For what?” Your voice, hoarse and abused by your depressed barely came out.

“For our wedding.”

iii.

You were used to their multi-armed touches, their inhuman way of showing affection towards you. But nothing could prepare you for the consummation.

You don’t remember anything. Throughout the whole process you were extremely disassociated to the point of being catatonic.

This, this was your life now. Stuck to a god as a human who has far outlived their expiration date. Slowly yet surely your mind corroded.

And even as your body was littered with the golden allure of ginkgo leaves, your freedom never came.

Yaoshi did end up releasing you from their grasp to roam the cosmos freely. People from all over the universe called you the Golden Wanderer, or the Sanctus Medicus Saint.

But what was the point?

Even with your endless fame and immortality. You were a dead man walking.

Waiting, hoping, that one day someone would grant you mercy a god of life and everything beautiful in it could not.

STORY TWO : TO DIE IN THE LIGHT | AEON OF DREAMS - IMAGINARY ELEMENT ! READER

In the time humanity and civilizations began to rise. You were created within the womb of the universe representing a concept. Dreams. Though you most presided over preferable ones, you were known to give unending nightmares to those that slighted you and your domain.

In the grand scheme of Aeons, you were neutral. Never straying from the unbiased perspective of a god. Those that worshipped and favored you get rewarded, those that dirtied your name were punished.

For that you were often looked down upon by your fellow gods, seen as indecisive with your head literally and figuratively stuck in the clouds.

Yaoshi used to be one of them. They had a difficult time understanding how one could live without ever peeling their eyes to the grandiose aesthetics of the world.

They soon began to fall in love with your fair — beautiful and impartial — self.

And if those mara-struck beings were anything to go off of . . .

Their infatuation spelt your doom.

ii.

There you were. Your form shone brilliantly under the light of the moons and stars that seemed to dangle above you.

Even a god snored, and snored you did. But to Yaoshi this hoarse sound was music. No, even more than that.

It was a reminder that throughout the eons, you two are alive. Together. Breathing.

Yaoshi visited your slumbering body frequently to the point that it became a risk. That Lan would sometimes stand guard over you in case they would come, or have the Xianzhou oversee your vicinity. Not many mortals can hold up against the Aeon however, and if it meant having to go against their path in order to see you — the choice was obvious.

Their stays mostly consisted of performing lullabies and poetry of how both your and their followers adored your seemingly romantic partnership, to your blissfully unaware body.

At least that’s what they thought.

iii.

Contrary to popular belief, your most devoted of followers do not eternally sleep. Nor do the majority spend a lot of their sleeping. In order to spread your name, a lot chose to stay awake. Because if there was anything your true followers loved more than a good nap it was you.

As such, not known to many people or gods, you had a vast network of knowledge. A lot of what people learn and experience appear in dreams, and once the more fantastical ones were taken off the list, you were left with a near infinite amount of information.

Humans have also mastered a way of communion with you.

Case in point, you had long known about Yaoshi’s visits. You were the one that asked Lan to aid you. Breaking your self imposed rule of impartiality.

But all is for naught.

Misinformation had spread far too wide and the delusions Yaoshi infected the world with overpowered your truth.

Their acquisition of you was as tranquil and hurdle free as it could be.

While you were caged by Yaoshi, another Aeon swore to bring you back.

Ending life and therefore your deeply unconscious state. A state which they saw as involuntary. A cage infinitely worse than the Aeon of Harmony kept you in.

And the first Stellaron was born.

a/n: i imagine human reader, especially post yaoshi adoption, to be like a lifesteal-tank sort of abundance character. only ever healing(mostly themself) if they attack/hurt the enemy, which would go against what yaoshi wants. i might draw a design for them actually. the type that if you build well, won’t ever die. but any battle with them would take a really long time since their damage is pp in comparison to other characters at the very least.

[link to the design/drawing here if i ever finish it]

[here’s a link to another aeon related fic]

i wanted to include both versions here before i uploaded this even if the first one is so long cause i just know im never gonna write a part two if ever lol. and yes, the aeon in the last bit is nanook.

want more hsr fics/have an idea for one? send me an ask or submission ❤️

©️ hana.no.seiiki - yun | 2023

#yandere #yaoshi #honkai star rail #hsr #hsr x reader #honkai star rail x reader #yandere hsr x reader #yandere honkai star rail x reader #nanook x reader #yandere nanook x reader #yandere aeon #yandere lan #yandere yaoshi hsr #yandere fic #yandere x you

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pomefioredove · 6 days

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Saw you took specific requests. Here's mine:

Jamil with a religious reader who gives him a protection talisman.

Fun fact, prayer beads are used in multiple religions as they help count prayers (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc).

So let's say reader comes from a world where magic exists but it's exclusively on religious grounds. Meaning if you wanna do magic you gotta pray to the right god or make a deal with some form of mythological creature.

Reader knows that Jamil's is always in danger due to the constant assassination attempts on Kalim, so they make a set of prayer beads and ask a diety to bless it in order to protect their boyfriend (could be Allah, Indra, Shiva, Buddha, Susanoo, whichever). Jamil accepts it and heads back home appreciating the sentiment but not really believing.

Except any form of danger keeps getting thwarted. Drink/food he's trying is poisoned? Conveniently spills over/has a whole in the bottom. Accident happens? Conveniently pushed out of the way. Someone tries to hurt him/kill him? Struck by lightning and straight up dies.

Not even his own parents are safe. They try to slap him to "discipline him" then they get zapped (lightly tho).

you know!!! I love this prompt so much... I'm a religious studies major so this kinda stuff is so ^w^ to me I get so excited.

summary: giving jamil a protection spell type of post: short fic characters: jamil additional info: reader is gender neutral, the existence of religious beliefs in twst is. confusing. so we're keeping it vague, not proofread, reader is yuu

Perhaps it was because your world was still considered "magicless" by Twisted Wonderland standards, or perhaps Jamil was never superstitious to begin with.

Either way, he wasn't exactly as excited as you'd been hoping for.

"It's nice. Did you make it yourself?" he asks, inspecting the beads. "A bracelet?"

"Prayer beads, actually. And yes, I did,"

"It's well made. What's the purpose?"

You hesitate. The nature of religion in this world is still confusing to you, although you can surmise there's got to be some kind of belief system. It's best not touching on for now.

Besides, Jamil has never been much of a believer in higher powers. For good reason.

"For protection," you explain. "Not that I think you can't handle yourself. But I worry about you over break, you know..."

He's quiet for a moment, inspecting the gift in the palm of his hand. And then he tucks the beads away in his pocket and smiles.

"I'll keep them with me, then. Thank you,"

Even if he's not exactly keen on the idea that these things will make his life any less terrible, they're from you.

And so he keeps his promise, and tucks them away after you part.

By the time he's "home" (back in Kalim's family home) he's all but forgotten about the little blessing at the bottom of his pocket. Not that you can really blame him- "vacation" is more of a title than a reality when he's back.

The first incident happens not even a day after.

The al-Asim summer mansion is certainly nothing to scoff at. Though it's only one of many, this one in particular houses a large sum of physical treasures, line with gold and ivory, stuffed full of spices and all the makings of a feast that could feed thousands, a shining jewel of the desert.

Jamil is not all that impressed.

Especially when it comes to navigating such an ornate building on orders. The polished-to-perfection floors present a challenge when you're carrying three crates worth of grain to the kitchen on the lowest floor.

Damn these stairs.

Though Jamil may not be a religious man, he still asks whatever deity may be up there to smite the slippery spiral staircase he's descending.

His arms strain to uphold the weight of the boxes, and his legs strain to keep a good footing on one of the many long and elaborate and narrow servant passages designed specifically so that the unwanted workers of the family can slip by undetected.

Quiet, diligent, and he has to be quick, too. Kalim is expecting him for a game in one of the many lounges soon.

Another unfortunate "vacation". How he'd much rather be spending it with you...

For a brief moment, Jamil swears he can feel the beads in his pocket warm against him, reminding him of their presence.

And then he slips.

The crates free themselves from his careful grasp and tumble down the stairs, creaking and thudding but mercifully staying intact.

Jamil, however, isn't made of wood. He winces as he feels himself tilting forward- and then... somehow, a strong draft pushes him on his back.

He lands just shy of his tailbone, luckily not hurting anything, except for his pride.

What a turn of luck.

The next happens at dinner.

Jamil keeps his earlier blunder to himself. His pride is damaged enough as it is, after all, and so he tries his best to conceal how shaken up the experience left him by moving swiftly across the kitchen.

"We have a dish ready for you to test," someone shouts.

He sighs. How many more evenings of this will he have to endure?

Though, he reminds himself- this may always be his last.

The thought makes Jamil chuckle as he's handed a hot dish and a clean fork. He can only stop to smell the roses for so long, so there's no chance of savoring such an exquisitely prepared meal before he's off to another part of the kitchen.

Just as the fork digs into the food, the dish slips out of his hand and shatters on the kitchen floor. Everyone falls silent.

His eyes widen. "How- ugh. My apologies,"

Now this is just getting ridiculous. How clumsy can he get in one evening? He's usually much more careful...

"Look," the head chef says, the whole kitchen crowding around the food as it dissolves.

Jamil's stomach lurches. Cyanide. It has to be. If he'd eaten that dish right there and then...

The kitchen is swiftly cleared out, and he's sent back to the lounge.

it only gets stranger from there.

What Jamil initially wrote off as clumsiness and luck seems to become a pattern-

a flying arrow at the archery range just narrowly misses him when he bends down to fix his sandal.

The al-Asim family tiger (because of course they have one) chooses to toy with a visiting prince rather than him in the courtyard.

A strong draft pushes him on his rear end seconds before a sandbag falls from an under-construction part of the mansion.

He would call it fortune if he believed in such a thing.

By the end of the vacation, everyone is absolutely perplexed by his string of good luck. Jamil isn't unfamiliar with how dangerous his family's position in life is, and he's had his fair share of injuries as a result, but this time all he has to show for it is a slightly lesser sense of annoyance than usual.

It's only the end of the trip where he ponders (unfortunately aloud) about the string of coincidences, and the beads in his pocket.

Kalim goes on to babble about Jamil's "good luck charm" to anyone who will listen, much to his annoyance.

"Oh, I want one too! Can you ask them to make me one, too?" he says, folding his hands in a pleading motion. "It's so pretty!"

"It was a gift. But... I suppose I can ask..." he sighs, and then smiles to himself.

Of course you'll come up with some excuse to say no. Because, for once, this charm is all his.

#twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #jamil viper x reader #fun prompt! I liked it #queued

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justporo · 7 months

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my queen. ur sfw alphabet for astarion....it was so good. so amazingly good. grrrrrRUFF!!! GRAAAAFPBRRRR!!!!!! anyways.....would you....be able.......to make......an nsfw alphabet 👀

Oh my sweet Anon, how could I say no? And you're not alone in wanting the NSFW version so here you go, hope you enjoy! And thank you so so much <3. You know flattery will most likely get you your way with me. Surely a thing Astarion and me share... This is Fem!Tav/Astarion btw.

I used this wonderful template (although I changed C slightly), thanks again to @the-coldest-goodbye.

Smutty headcanons about Astarion and Tav (in alphabetical order)

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

Astarion is very cuddly and comforting – especially if it was a little rougher. He’s always making sure you’re okay, holding you, kissing you gently, laying around naked afterwards just talking and relaxing. Especially since he’s learnt being comfortable with non-sexual intimacy he also just enjoys being close to you with skin-on-skin contact, feeling your warmth.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

“Just one, love? Don’t make me choose a favourite?” Let’s face it, he knows he has the body and face of a fallen god. He takes pleasure in looking and being beautiful (rightfully so), he likes that he has a body that’s well built and incredible to look that. But not even in that kind of hollow way but it’s just aesthetically pleasing and that’s a source of joy for him (also he loves his hair a lot). That also goes for you: he’s constantly reminded of every single little beautiful detail about you. The way your neck curves in an elegant line, the way your lips open into a smile, the small lines in your irises that are only visible when he’s like an inch away from you, the little dimple above your butt? Ugh – he could get lost in all those little aspects for they’re all infinite spaces of beauty.

C = Coming (switched that one because I liked this more)

Astarion takes an incredible amount of pleasure in keeping you on edge sometimes. The way it’s so very much in his hands to let you fall or not and the way you’re willingly giving yourself to him in that way. He’d never truly make you suffer though – he only does what makes it more exciting for the both of you.

Sometimes it might even be a little bit of teasing who might be able to push the other beyond the point of no return. (Punishable by law and the other will pay!)

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

It turns Astarion on way too much when you wear his clothing. The way your ass looks when you’re wearing only his shirt, when it’s visible just beyond the hemline. The way your hardened nipples peak through the fabric and the outline of your breasts shows through it – he can never get over that image. Certain way to get him to push you against a wall in three seconds or less.(And it will stay on during the sex, so he can smell you and what the two of you did later on.)

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

Do we even need to answer this? He knows every damn trick in the book and he’s very creative and eager to show off and teach you.

But: Doing all this with someone he really loves? With someone he desires so deeply it threatens to melt him from the inside? That’s a whole new plane of existence he never even though existed.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

“Again, darling, you can’t possibly make me pick just one. Because when you’re under me I can see your face when I’m deep inside you. I can watch your eyes roll back and how your lips soundlessly form my name and your legs wrapped around my hips can slowly drive me insane. But when you’re on top of me I feel like you’re a goddess gracing me with your blessing. And when you’re on all fours and I’m above you, I can feel the tension in your whole body, how you desperately use every inch of space to get more friction and look at your pretty little back arch while I grip onto your thighs.”

Enough said, isn’t it?

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

He’s probably way too used to putting up the perfect performance in the beginning. But he slowly learns that being intimate means so much more: that it means being so deeply comfortable with each other, each other’s body and mentally, emotionally, that’s not about perfection at all. And that it can be so joyful if someone cracks a joke in the middle of the act because somehow the moan Tav let out sounded like a dying squirrel. Or because Astarion butchered his cheesy line because you’re driving way beyond mad with the way your hips roll.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

Elves have little to no body hair so there’s not much to take care of. The little hair that might exist just stays and is neatly groomed just like the whole man.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

Astarion opening up in these moments is one of the most beautiful things. Because he slowly learns to experience real intimacy. He’s slowly fully there with you: it’s not an act anymore. His hands linger now on your soft, warm skin, his kisses become more passionate and never ending, his eyes burn with desire but mostly with love. And he makes sure to tell you: tells you how much he loves you, praises every inch of your body. His heart is so wide open when he gets there, he’s so ready to be loved and to give love – being amplified by the fact that he’d never even dared to believe he’d be allowed to feel something like this.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

He doesn’t really – because why when he has you at his fingertips. Although if you had to be away for a little while he might find he’s craving you way more than anything else. And when he’s sitting soaking in the tub and he’s reminded of how you look getting out of the tub, streams of water glistening on your body – he finds himself pleasuring himself thinking about how it will be once you’re back with him.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Hmm yes, the thing with blood. Drinking from you while being in the middle of the act – yeah, you kinda both enjoy that quite a bit.

But also it’s such a massive turn on for him if you give yourself to him completely. The fact that you’re trusting him this much is driving him almost insane.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Oh, it could happen anywhere at any time.

Your enormous bed is your favourite place by far though. After all this safe space of coziness is just where you can completely intimate with each other in any kind of way. But Astarion for sure has to test every surface in the house with you – at least once. Okay, maybe twice for good measure.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

Just you literally doing anything. Once he realises he’s in love with you, he’s fallen and can’t get up. You’re angry at him – woah, the look you throw him takes his breath away. The way you bite your lip when you’re concentrating on something – he wants to put his lips on yours immediately.

And let’s not even talk about when you try to deliberately turn him on. You wearing something naughty just for him? You very purposefully letting your hands wander and linger just a little too much for it to be innocent?

“Love, either you keep these naughty little hands to yourself or you’ll put them right there right now and finish the godsdamned job”, Astarion whispers huskily and grabs one of your hands, deliberately placing it on the growing bulge between his legs.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

If he ever felt used in that way again he’s been put through for way too long – he will NEVER do that again.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Astarion very much enjoys giving head, because the way your thighs press around his head while he can feel you shiver and the way the pitch of your moans rise – hmm, delicious.

He hasn’t been receiving quite that often so he’s not particularly fond of it, until – it’s you and he realises how wonderful you look with your lips wrapped around him.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

It really depends on the mood. There’s certainly not just the one way with Astarion. He can be so incredibly sweet and tender, touches like feathers. But another time it might be he has you up against a wall and it’s all about carnal lust – making it rough and quick. But he certainly always makes sure it’s pleasant for the both of you.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

As much as Astarion enjoys spending whole nights (or days) with you under his hands (or the other way around), he wouldn’t say no to just quickly bending you over the kitchen table to give you a sweet little reminder why it is that you can’t get enough of him – ever.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

Experimenting, yes? He likes to show you new things, but he’d never put you in any danger and making sure you’re one hundred percent comfortable with what’s happening is always his top priority.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

No matter what you can’t possibly keep up with him. And he teases you about it (affectionately): “Aww love, I was just getting started. We didn’t even get to the real fun parts.” You just glared him, being too out of breath to put anything you wanted to verbally hurl at him into words.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

The only things he needs really is you and himself. Although something like tying you up against the bed sometimes? Covering your eyes? But for the most part he enjoys completely uninterrupted body contact the most – and that by far doesn’t have too mean it’s always sweet and soft. Those long and elegant fingers have much expertise with sleight of hand and they don’t call it silver tongue for nothing.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Oh, an awful lot. Astarion is the definition of a tease. But in his defence: he also takes delight in being teased back. It’s no fun if you don’t claw back. And bickering and teasing a lot is definitely your specific kind of foreplay.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Astarion’s quite verbal – especially since he’s discovering new heights of pleasure with his loved one. Groaning and moaning – especially your name or praises for you. Also he does not care if he’s loud – he’ll proudly let the whole world now how much he desires you (much to the displeasure of you and your party members, oops).

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

It’s Astarion absolute specialty to make you flustered in public. Once he’s found you get these delightful full body blushes he makes it his goals to tease you at the most inappropriate times. You hate him and you love him for it – this smug bastard. He just knows how to push your buttons way too well.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

He’s hot alright. He most definitely has those muscles for vanity reasons and thankfully vampirism made sure he’s keeping those abs no matter how much of a domestic softie he’s gotten with you.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

High – especially in the beginning. Once he’s free to enjoy his own desires at his own pace there will most definitely be this high-demand honeymoon phase. You’re both not quite sure it will always really end (and you surely hope not).

But: it’s also important for Astarion that he’s getting more confident to maybe just not be in the mood every single time. Just like you aren’t always, too. And that’s completely fine, you assure him time and time again that you’ll never want him to indulge you just because he feels an obligation.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

You can sleep when you’re dead. There’s way too much stuff to be done after: maybe another round (or more), cuddle, talk, goof around, down a bottle of wine.

Although slowly drifting into sleep after being fully satisfied and full of love and warmth: that’s definitely the best way to end a night.

#astarion #astarion ancunin #baldur's gate 3 #fanfiction #baldur's gate iii #astarion x tav #bg3 spoilers #baldurs gate #astarion x mc #astarion x oc #astarion x reader #astarion headcanon #astarion headcanons #astarion imagine #poro headcanons

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khaosrealms · 7 months

Text

YUE LAO’S BLESSINGS (part three!) / saying i love you— as if urged by the gods themselves.

a/n: i promise you all that a part to the princess series is in the works (along with many other things) but i saw y’all have been liking this a whole lot! as such, here you go— a part three to satisfy your needs ! 🩵

LIU KANG:

"I love you" from Liu Kang is all-encompassing, all-knowing. You know you're not his first love, and perhaps, you won't ever be the full holder of his adoration-- but there's no cruelty in that truth. "I love you" is a steady hand on your back, a gaze that never aches, a kiss where you are the first to part and him the first to watch as you return. "You are perfect." And he's so certain as he says it because he knows. Because Liu Kang is the maker of your existence-- but every step that you've taken to him is in your wonderful image.

KUAI LIANG:

"I love you" is devotion from Kuai Liang. Certainty, stability. It is the mornings when you wake with him, enveloped in his arms, and his eyes have yet to open. Trusting you with every ounce of his body and soul; smiling as you kiss him, his heart pounding against your chest. "I love you" is the times where he searches for you, whether in combat or training; to return back to you, his love, to protect and be protected by you. "There you are, my love." Kuai Liang sighs, with every bit of relief and adoration he can muster. Here, back in his arms; as perfect as the day he fell for you.

ASHRAH:

"I love you" are newfound words for Ashrah. The first steps of many in becoming human. They are awkward words on her tongue and stumbled movements. Hands held too long, kisses left too quickly. "I love you" is learning from you, learning the ways you blush under her touch, the things that make you smile and moan. "You are my first love." Ashrah admits, tangled in her arms, the sweat of your sex still fresh on each other's skin. Smiling, every bit as radiant as the sun.

HAVIK:

"I love you" is your binding contract with Havik. It is a promise that you will be there, always, forever; through the chaos, through the realms, there with him till the world stops to spin. "I love you" is gasping for breath every time you kiss, begging for more time, for every chance you can spare to be with one another in the turmoil of it all. "Our love will never cease." Dairou promises, the pulse of his own heart, wretched from his chest, steady in the palm of your hand. His blood melding with your own in beautiful, grotesque harmony.

#mortal kombat x reader #liu kang x reader #kuai liang x reader #havik x reader #ashrah x reader #mk1 imagines #liu kang so so fine and for what...#this one i had a lot of fun w/ idk why #maybe bc these are all like #my boos #LOLLL #havik :unearthly groaning:#enjoy!#yue lao imagine

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qqueenofhades · 9 months

Text

Good Omens Season 2: Some Thoughts (and also Screaming)

First, /screams

Second, obligatory disclaimer that this meta contains MAJOR SPOILERS for all six episodes. If you somehow have managed to remain virginally unspoiled, look away now, scroll past, or add "good omens s2" and "good omens spoilers" to your block list, as those are the tags I have been using for all posts and reblogs.

Third, /screams more

Okay okay okay. Deep breaths.

Anyway, so, uh, how about all that, huh? First, the good thing about the tone of the season overall was that it felt considerably darker and more adult, in a good way. We didn't have the precocious kiddies, the kitsch and literally-comphet Anathema and Newt, the so-clever narration, etc. All that was gone, which makes sense when you consider that a) the end of last season saw them reboot into an entirely new universe, and b) the fact that God has gone silent is, in fact, a major plot point for the season. We don't have Her slyly telling us the story, or indeed anything, and everyone is left to make their own judgments and take their own actions. Which, obviously, gets them into a lot of trouble, especially when Metatron (the Voice of God, aka someone acting in the belief that they're speaking for God and therefore doing terrible harm) swoops in with the ultimate buzzkill at the end of episode 6. But we'll get to that.

The downside was that the main, present-day plot (hiding Gabriel in the bookshop and trying to get Nina and Maggie to fall in love) was fairly thin, felt stretched out and at times weirdly paced, and otherwise existed mostly to get us to That Ending and the setup for season 3. But the ending was so damn good (if obviously, very painful) that I can't be TOO mad, not least because we spent six episodes with them just making absolutely no pretense about the whole thing being as incredibly homosexual as possible. I'll be honest: I did not think they were going to actually, explicitly go there. Neil Gaiman has been so consistent about "your interpretations are valid and you're welcome to read it however you want, but the only canon is what's on screen," which I think is frankly a good thing (not least since the Neil GAYman Cinematic Universe is consistently very, very good to us queers), that I just... didn't quite think they'd pull the trigger. Sir Terry is dead and can't have active input, this is based on a book published 30 years ago, maybe they didn't want to make it LIKE THAT... etc. I certainly hoped, but I didn't really think they would.

Uh. Well.

As I said in my various semi-coherent liveblog posts, I honestly don't think there was a single straight person in the entire season, among both major and background characters. Aziraphale/Crowley and Maggie/Nina are the obvious paralleling couples, but Beelzebub (using "they" pronouns and addressed as "Lord" despite presenting as femme/femme-adjacent) is clearly nonbinary and therefore also queer, and the countless gay/queer side characters were just /chefs kiss. From Job's son making a sassy pass at Aziraphale, to the random Scottish goon with Grindr on his phone (which he then gives to Aziraphale, because what is subtlety), to the interracial couple with the trans spouse at the Pride and Prejudice ball, there was just a lot of casual, unremarked, non-story-critical queer representation visible at every turn. It's like the NGCU saw the bigots wailing about Sandman season 1 being extremely gay and went CHALLENGE ACCEPTED, LET'S MAKE GOOD OMENS 2 EVEN MORE GAY.

God bless.

Obviously, Jon Hamm as Amnesia!Gabriel stole the show (he was SO fucking funny) and it was also incredibly fun to watch Miranda Richardson repurposed as a scheming demon. Nina Sosanya also reappeared as Nina the coffee shop owner, which leads us into the Maggie-and-Nina subplot. They're obviously, wildly, incredibly clearly an analogue for Aziraphale and Crowley themselves, but they're also each, crucially, a mix of both. On the surface, Maggie is Aziraphale: the plump, blonde, earnest, sweet-natured one owning a slightly dated book music shop and somewhat clueless about emotional nuances, while Nina is (also on the surface) Crowley, the hard-edged dark loner who doesn't want to open herself up to people or be spotted caring. But emotionally, Maggie is Crowley: the one openly pining, clearly besotted, only wanting to hang around their crush and do whatever they can to make themselves useful, while Nina is Aziraphale. Interested but reticent, attracted but conflicted, trapped in an abusive relationship with a demanding offscreen "lover" (Lindsay/Heaven) who tries to constantly control and shame them without ever offering much, if anything in return. By the end, they bring themselves around to what Maggie/Crowley are offering, but by then, well. We've got a lot more problems on our hands.

As I also said in my earlier posts, this entire thing has always been a metaphor for religion, queerness, and what religion -- especially abusive, fundamentalist, organized religion -- does to queer people, but they really cranked the FUCK out of that metaphor this season. Aziraphale is guilt-tripped, controlled, and shamed for his attraction to Crowley at every turn. He is torn between his imagined duty to Heaven, in all its ignorant, uncaring, bureaucratic, gratuitously cruel system that he still insists on seeing the best in because he can't bear the alternative, and the chaotic and sometimes grey but genuinely more good morality that Crowley offers him. (Can I just say, we were explicitly shown that the two of them together doing "just a little miracle" are more powerful than Heaven AND Hell combined.) And at the end, he's told that the only way he can be with Crowley -- what Metatron explicitly blackmails him with -- is if they both go back to heaven, submit themselves to the cruel system again and give up everything that has made them who they are: their home in London, their human friends, their reliance on each other, their independence, their own ways of doing things. You can be queer in this (religious) framework, but only the limited, watered-down, controlled, controllable, constantly-under-supervision kind of queer, which relies on both you and your lover "converting" back to the true faith. And if you don't cooperate, they will literally kidnap you, lie to you, manipulate you, take you from your soulmate, and force you right back into doing the one thing (destroying the world) that you never, ever wanted to do in the first place, because in their minds, that is still better than this. It's for your own good.

Ouch.

And the thing is: that's why the ending a) hits so hard and b) is so fucking painful, because of course Aziraphale agrees. He has no conception of being able to defy Heaven on his own; he has always, always needed Crowley for that. In the flashbacks, when Aziraphale is faced with an order from Heaven that he desperately does not want to carry out (such as letting all Job's children get killed), he still relies completely on Crowley to "outsmart the rules" and find a better way. Crowley is A Crafty Demon; that's what he does, and so Aziraphale rationalizes it to himself that therefore that must be fine. Even in season 1, when he really didn't want the Apocalypse to happen but initially thought it was his duty as a good Heaven footsoldier, he relied on Crowley to talk him out of it and allow him to do what he really wants instead. That's their whole dynamic in a nutshell, as exemplified in that scene in episode 2, where Crowley tempts Aziraphale with the "pleasures of the flesh" while sprawled on his back in Ravish Me mode like the giant walking gay disaster that he is. (Sorry, buddy. That beard. Can't do it.) Everything that Aziraphale's existence is, that makes him who he is, that he loves and cherishes the most (in this case, food and wine) comes from Crowley. Everything else is just background noise.

Throughout the season, what we see is Aziraphale increasingly coming around to the fantasy of being with Crowley. He's coy and flirty; he talks about "our car" and expects Crowley will let him (which he does); he wants to have a Jane Austen ball and for them to dance together (oh my heart); he even thinks, at the crucial moment, that the best way for them to be together is to go back to heaven just like they were in the beginning, once more perfect angels, as if those entire six thousand years of struggle and grief and pining and separation and falling didn't happen. And Crowley -- poor, poor, brave, devoted, heartbroken Crowley -- has just heard for the first time in said six thousand years that actually telling the person you love how you feel is an option. Maggie and Nina tell them point-blank that their whole stupid plan failed because people aren't chess pieces who can be moved and automatically achieve the desired result. And of course this gobsmacks the dearest and dumbest Ineffable Husbands, because they can't conceive of anything else. People are chess pieces in the Great War of Heaven and Hell; Aziraphale and Crowley themselves are chess pieces who have been desperately trying to get out of being moved by external forces, but that doesn't change the fact that that's what they are. They don't have volition or agency aside from that which they can sneak for themselves in brief and stolen moments. That's it.

Until, well. It's not it. They discover that this whole would-be war is actually an elaborate ruse to cover up another angel-demon romance, that of Gabriel and Beelzebub. (I'll be honest, I'm 99% sure they did this storyline because they saw the fans crackshipping them, but I appreciate a fictional narrative that values and incorporates its fans' input, rather than trying to constantly "trick" or "outsmart" them or "do what they don't expect.") And Gabriel and Beelzebub get to be together, but only by leaving their world forever. They have to desert their homes, their structures, even their own identities, and never return. And Crowley and Aziraphale are so rooted in their "precious, perfect, fragile" life in their little corner of Soho, with their bookshop and their Bentley and their dining at the Ritz (which they didn't get to do in the end because METATRON /shakes fist), that that just doesn't work. Neither of them can conceive of doing that. So Aziraphale thinks "go back to heaven and try to make the terrible system do some good and take what we can in terms of being together" and Crowley just... pours out his heart. He's ready to fucking propose. He barely stops himself from saying something to the effect of "I want to spend eternity with you." He begs, he pleads with Aziraphale to go away not in the literal sense, but the emotional/metaphysical: to finally break this toxic dependence on Heaven and tell them once and for all where to stick it. And because he is desperate to make Aziraphale understand, he finally throws all caution to the winds and recklessly, desperately, adoringly kisses him, the one thing he's wanted to do for ages and...

Gets. Shot. Down.

Ugghhhhh. I'm suffering all over again. Aziraphale wants him, hungers for it, for them, and yet he's been so abused and so conditioned by Heaven (he's still blithely repeating to Crowley's face that "Hell are the bad guys!") that he just cannot accept that kind of desperate, blind, limitless, lawless affection. He even forgives Crowley for this "transgression," just to really twist the knife, and Crowley just can't take it, can't face up to how terribly this has all gone up in flames, after he went to heaven trying to find the answer for Gabriel's situation. Gabriel, who he fucking hates. Gabriel, who tried to kill the angelic being he loves (and for which Crowley has transparently never forgiven him). And yet at one pouty puppy-eyed look from Aziraphale and a warning that whoever is harboring Gabriel might be in danger, Crowley leaps headlong into the Bentley again and rushes to the rescue while "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy" is blaring. He stoutly protects Gabriel; he does a miracle to disguise him; he lets him have hot chocolate and stay in the bookshop; he guards him from the literal demonic horde outside. All because of Aziraphale. That's it. And then, it still doesn't work. Not only that, Gabriel's absence and decision to forego Armageddon gives Heaven the one tool they finally need to take Aziraphale away from him.

I repeat: Ugghhhhhhhh.

(In a good way. Ngl, I love this angst. This is the kind of angst my brain Thrives on, the Thematic Parallel Romantic Character Arc kind. Nom nom nom. But also: AGONY.)

I also need to talk about Aziraphale driving the Bentley, aside from the obvious metaphor of him being in Crowley's home while Crowley is in his. Last season, we had the "you go too fast for me, Crowley" scene with them sitting in said Bentley, which was Aziraphale saying he's not ready for a relationship. In this season, as noted above, we see Aziraphale increasingly embracing the potential fantasy of being with Crowley. But here's the catch: when he's in the Bentley this time, driving it, setting the pace, acclimating to the idea, he's driving his own idea of what the Bentley/his relationship with Crowley is. It's not the real thing. He plays classical music; he supplies himself sweets; he turns it yellow; he drives too slow. Crowley calls him in another old-married-couple snitfit to complain that Aziraphale's messed it up, but what Aziraphale has actually messed up (or will, by the end of the season) is far more consequential than just a car. He's changed the entire shape of their relationship to the one he thinks can make it work, and it just doesn't. It has to be them -- "we could have been... Us" -- or it's not even close to the truth. It's not worth their time.

I repeat: Ouch.

Speaking of the writers validating fan theories, I know we all picked up and screamed about on Crowley's idea of Peak Romance Guaranteed To Fall In Love being sheltering from rain and gazing into each other's eyes, which confirms that that poor bastard was indeed ass-over-teakettle gone as soon as he met Aziraphale (again) in Eden. I also need to talk about the 1941 redux, because wow. This time, the danger comes from Hell, which we see being its usual self: gleefully, pointlessly cruel, pettily backbiting, dirty, sniping, tedious, endless, determined to mindlessly destroy because They're The Bad Guys and they like it. So they blackmail, spy on, miracle-block, illicitly photograph, and try to prove that Aziraphale and Crowley are secretly a couple, right after Aziraphale himself has just had the Light From Heaven realization that he's in love (which we all also picked up on in s1). They're forcibly outing them (to speak of more Religious Queer Trauma) in order to break them up/get them into trouble with their authorities/families. Aziraphale and Crowley manage to escape it mostly by dumb luck, but Crowley having an altogether freakout, hands shaking, barely able to actually point the gun at Aziraphale even in the knowledge that it's supposed to be fake, is just... wow. He can't even fathom the idea of ever trying to destroy him in earnest, especially when he knows on some level that Aziraphale also finally just realized his own feelings. So I just need to --

/screams

Anyway, Aziraphale's entire arc this season is doing what he thinks is the right thing and then inadvertently causing harm and damage as a result. In the Edinburgh flashbacks (live slug reaction of me: SEAN BIGGERSTAFF???!!) he tries to stop Elspeth from stealing bodies and gets Morag killed and Crowley drinking the laudanum to save him (though that part with David Tennant just riffing left and right, using his natural Scottish accent, and being Tiny Crowley/Huge Crowley was hilarious). He invites his neighbors to a Pride and Prejudice ball and makes them all the target for demonic attack. And of course the Job episode: Aziraphale, horrified at Heaven's callous cruelty, desperate not to get Job's children killed, willing to go along with Crowley's tricks to save them somehow, tempted by Crowley to do the fucknasty with their angel bits eat some food and decide that he likes it. As mentioned, the whole thing about God being silent this season is a major thematic choice. The only time we see/hear God is Her communing with Job from afar. Aziraphale enviously imagines the answers he must be getting (he's not, he's baffled and perplexed), while Crowley longs beyond words to even have the opportunity to ask the question: why? Why do this? Why is this your plan?

And of course, this absence culminates in the Metatron, the Voice of God, the person arrogantly claiming that they're speaking for God and know exactly what Heaven wants, being able to seize Aziraphale by the short hairs and absolutely fuck him over. Gabriel is gone/decommissioned/eloping with Beelzebub, so Heaven needs a Supreme Leader (God apparently is no longer a factor in the equation). And what this Supreme Leader needs to do is finally unleash the Apocalypse that Gabriel decided to pass on (the Second Coming). Aziraphale needs to be punished, taken away from Crowley's influence/love, and put back under Heaven's explicit control, so Metatron spots a great opportunity to do all three at once. It's not an accident that the exact tool he uses to get Aziraphale to agree is "now you can actually be with Crowley!" Aziraphale and Crowley have been trying so hard to hide out from their respective Head Offices, but now all at once, there's this seemingly miraculous opportunity for them not to have to do that anymore! They can be together! They can be sanctioned by Heaven! They can give up all this hiding and sneaking around and lying! Isn't that better?

... As long as, of course, they give up absolutely everything that makes them who they are. No big deal. Minor catch. Probably nothing.

Metatron doesn't let Aziraphale have time to escape, or think it over, or reflect, or anything. He pressures Aziraphale to come with him immediately, or be once more subject to Heaven's implicit wrath/destruction/judgment. Believe me, Aziraphale already KNOWS he's made a huge mistake, as soon as he hears what Metatron really wants: bringing him back to unleash the Apocalypse that Aziraphale and Crowley have given up literally everything to prevent. He doesn't need time to reflect. By the time my man is in that elevator, he's well aware of what a catastrophic misjudgment he's made, and yet --

Aziraphale needs this. He has, as noted, literally always relied on Crowley outsmarting Heaven's cruel orders in order to prevent himself from having to do them. He's relied on Crowley rescuing him ("rescuing me makes him so happy," WELL BUB, IT'S BECAUSE YOU ALWAYS NEED IT). He admits to Crowley's face that "I need you!" He hates Heaven's sadistic meanness, but he has absolutely no framework, in and of himself, to defy it. When the rubber hits the road, he will crumple and try to go along with it, and now he's been put in a position where he's going to have to stand up, defy Heaven, and make the break once and for all BY HIMSELF. He doesn't have Crowley around to do it for him, he has no support, he is going to arrive in Heaven and be shuttled straight off to the Apocalypse 2.0 War Room. The only way he gets out of this is if he actively stands up, if he chooses himself and Crowley and their life, and he has to.

The thing is:

Aziraphale has lived his entire eternal existence Looking Up. Up is the direction of Goodness and Heaven. Up is where Angels go. Up is where Aziraphale comes from and where Demons and Hell are not. But now he's going Up, in a position to take over the whole shebang, and it's the last thing he wants.

So he's going to have to come back Down.

He's going to have to Fall. He's going to have to get back Below at all costs. He's going to have to finally, once and for all, understand what led Crowley to make the choice to leave Heaven and never come back. It's only then that they can possibly be together on any kind of conscious, equal, deliberate footing, claim their own agency, reject Heaven AND Hell, and try to really earn that South Downs cottage and that happy-ever-after, and it's gonna hurt so good.

Now if you will excuse me, /screams

#good omens #good omens meta #good omens s2 #good omens spoilers #ineffable husbands #look this probably could have been twice as long #but i had to stop somewhere #I JUST HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS

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thoughtsandmusingsandideas · 14 days

Note

I had a thought for a creator but they didn't believe they were the creator and could influence others into believing it too.

The two characters are Sara kujou and yae miko

@mastadon64 here you go!

Gaslight, Gatekeep, Godboss - Kujou Sara and Yae Miko

Kujou Sara

Cw: Sexual innuendos

-Honestly, waking up in Teyvat, you had a hard time convincing yourself you weren’t dreaming

-(It took you tumbling down a hill and slamming into a particularly sharp rock to realize it was not a dream. Also, ow)

-(You ignored the way your blood was golden. You were pretty sure you’d never seen the Genshin characters bleed anyways. It was probably just censoring. Totally.)

-Some way or another, you ended up in Inazuma

-Honestly, it wasn’t as bad as you were expecting

-Most of the creatures were pretty chill, and as long as you avoided the people, you didn’t get in much trouble

-And then you kicked a Tenryou commission officer in the face and got arrested

-You know, jail wasn’t as bad as you expected either!

-Your cellmates weren’t too bad either- one of them asked you if you were god, which was weird, because you didn’t look anything like the Shogun, but you gave him a stick of dango and he shut up

-(You might not have been a god, but the fact that you managed to keep your inventory from the game was the closest thing to a divine blessing that you could imagine. Who needs a gnosis when you have your own pocket dimension?)

-It’s about half an hour before you’re taken from your cell for questioning

-You walk into a small interrogation room, shock igniting in your chest as you spot Kujou Sara

-Wasn’t she important?

-Was kicking that guy in the face really such a grave offense?

-“Are you the Creator God?” She asks, deathly serious

-Why did people keep asking you this???

-You’re pretty sure you don’t look too godly, garbed in stolen clothes that you’re ninety percent sure you put on wrong, a fading bite mark on your arm from when you tried to pet a rifthound, leaves in your hair. Honestly, you looked pretty disheveled, and…

-“Is that your way of saying you think I’m hot? Like… godly or whatever?”

-Considering the way the Tengu’s face turns a vibrant red, you’re either very right, or very wrong

-It’d be funnier if you were right though, so you press on

-“I mean, not that I’m not into it, but I’m feeling kinda iffy about the power dynamic here- prisoner and cop is a cute trope and all, but not all that smart in real life, I mean I get it if it’s a kink or whatever, I know handcuffs are attractive, but as of right now it’s immoral-”

-“Shut up. Please.” Sara mumbled, covering her red face with her hand. Her hair has more volume than usual, tiny sparks of static dancing between the strands

-“… I mean after I get out of prison I’d totally be down to go on a date, and if you feed me well enough I might even let you handcuff me.” You add.

-The silence in the room is heavy

-“Get out.”

-“Yes ma’am. Hm. No. Yes Mommy? Yes Master-“

-You’re cut off by an electrically charged arrow striking the wall beside your head.

-“Out.”

-“Okay!”

-You’re released from prison three days later, now with a whole gaggle of new friends from criminals

-(You ignored the fact that some of them made really important sounding speeches swearing their fealty to you. Also the small shrine they were building in your honor. If you didn’t acknowledge it, it didn’t exist)

-You were surprised that as soon as you left, you were met with a glaring Kujou Sara, who takes your hand in her own

-“Am I being arrested again?”

-“… I’m going to take you on a date. And then I’m going to handcuff you.”

-“Yes Mommy!”

-“I Will Shoot You Again.”

Yae Miko

-You had to admit, stumbling upon a small shrine that seemed to be dedicated to your doppelgänger was creepy

-But you had also just been Isekaied to video game land, so you were pretty adaptable at the moment.

-Or high on adrenaline.

-You pick up one of the Sunsiettas from the shrine, biting down and relaxing, until-

-“Your excellency?!” A voice squeaks, and looking up you see a very frazzled shrine maiden staring at you.

-“Uh. No?” You say, swallowing the Sunsietta.

-The shrine maiden starts sobbing. “Your excellency!”

-“Oh- no- I’m- uh- I’m like you? You know? I’m uh… a messiah? Priest? Prophet? Whatever gets you to stop crying?” You awkwardly pat her head.

-“You- you’re the Creators chosen one?” She blubbers.

-“Uh. Yeah. Totally. Stop crying.”

-“CHOSEN ONE!” And she’s crying again

-After a lot of crying, you’re led to the Grand Narukami shrine, where you’re introduced to the head shrine maiden as the chosen one

-“… Are you sure she’s not just the creator?”

-“You flatter me. I’m just gods favoritist and most specialist little princess.”

-The Kitsune likes this. Perhaps too much, but we’ll let her have her fun

-And thus, the war to get you to admit that you’re the Creator begins, hidden under the guise of her introducing you to chosen one duties

-She takes you on a pilgrimage all across Inazuma first, going to the most dangerous places possible just to put you in danger and save you at the last second, disappointed that you never use godly powers to save (read: reveal) yourself

-She meditates with you, and paints obscure markings on your face when you fall asleep, which you have to pass off as messages from the creator

-She takes you to meet the Shogun, but after leaving you alone for five minutes, returns to you teaching her poker and robbing her blind. You cited divine luck and she pretended she didn’t notice the cards stuffed inside your sleeve

-It ends pretty anticlimactically, actually

-She’s introducing you to the local foxes, when you trip over a rock and face plant into the floor

-And get a nose bleed

-Miko can’t help but doubling over in laughter at the sight of your pout as golden blood drips down your face

-“And how are you explaining this one, Oh revered Chosen One?”

-“Genetic condition.”

-The laughter doubles

#genshin sagau #sagau #sagau x reader #sagau genshin #self aware genshin impact au #genshin impact sagau #sagau cult au #sagau Kujou Sara #Sagau Yae Miko #I got a bit distracted with Sara and didn’t add too much creator stuff #but I still like it #I’m incapable of writing the creator as normal because I am not normal #the creator is an agent of chaos and we love them for it #RIP random shrine maiden she’s probably dehydrated now from all the crying #honestly to properly acclimate to a whole new world you’ve gotta be at least a bit insane

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bluexiao · 1 year

Text

#i love you, goodbye

—when they were about to confess their love… but you died / when they fail to confess to you

CHARACTERS. Albedo, Al-Haitham, Cyno, Gorou, Kazuha, Tighnari, Venti, Wanderer/Scaramouche, Xiao; gn! Reader

THEMES. main character death, angst, no comfort

WARNINGS. death (ofc), will not be too graphic

NOTES. still severely sick and stressed so here ya go. grab ur tissues i didn’t hold back in this one.

XIAO knew what love was—knew the affection he held to his brothers and sisters, and the love that emanated from the humans towards each other.

“You do know that humans… humans are very fragile, Xiao.”

He continues to bow his head in front of his god as he agrees, “I do.”

Zhongli said nothing more, but Xiao knew what he meant. It was advice. And a warning.

“Xiao!” You always called him with that beautiful voice of yours, ever so sweet, ever so tender as you bless him with your bright smile—a sun.

You are his sun.

“Xiao!” His heart would flutter once more—why do you have such an effect on him?—but at that point, he knew that no matter how hard he tried or tries to move away, your pull on him was strong, far stronger than the chains that were wrapped around his ever so fragile heart.

“Xiao…” it was on the third call that he decided to show up. He had been fighting enemies for the first two ones, and besides, you usually call him to merely see him or “hang” with him—a word you’d use as you try to lean into his side, your skin brushing his hands—so close yet not tied to each other.

He showed up, but he was far too late.

He was wrong.

“Y/n!” he calls your name this time—shouts it as he quickly approaches your figure.

“Y/n…” he pulls your body to his, empty and hollow, devoid of the same bright sunlight plastered in your face, the same beaming smile and shining eyes that could light up the night—light up his whole world.

“Y/n…” he wanted to say how he loves you so, how you bring out the best of him, and how he wanted to thank you for everything, for your patience, your presence, your love, your mere existence in his karmic-filled life.

But you were not there to hear anything of it.

And so he cries—cries under the same heavens that also took his brothers and sisters, cries because he couldn’t be there to save you when you were probably hurting, and he cries because of his own weakness—how he could love and always have that same love be taken away from him.

┌───────── · · · · ꒰⚘݄꒱₊

SCARAMOUCHE has had many betrayals.

But yours probably hurts the most.

“What happened?”

He glared at the Fatuus in front of him, kneeling on their knees with their heads bowed down in shame.

He crouches into one of them and sends daggers with his gaze, “I asked what happened here.”

The Fatuu trembled upon the sound of his voice, “M-my lord… it happened so suddenly, we couldn’t-their sickness-“

“Useless!” He releases a strike of his power and his subordinates immediately move to dodge, but they couldn’t walk away, not when they know that in the end, they can never run away from the Sixth Harbinger.

Yet unexpectedly, he trudges forward, to the big tent that laid in the middle of the camp, his footsteps and breathing heavy, hands trembling—of anger? Of fear?

No. A divine being such as him doesn’t tremble of fear.

Even when his knees give up beside the bed where you currently lay peacefully, even if he tries to control the tears that threaten to escape his eyes, he reaches for your hands.

Cold. So cold—like the night where he picked up the stars and called you as his—his star.

But it seems stars do die as well.

Pathetic.

And he’s even more pathetic to believe that humans will never betray him—that you never would.

┌───────── · · · · ꒰⚘݄꒱₊

VENTI sings of love to you, yet today marks the day that he shall confess outrightly—genuinely, with a promise of tomorrow’s kisses and hugs.

“Shhh, darling. No need to worry for me,” he smiles, “rest now. Shall I sing you a lullaby?”

He catches you forcing your own smile, and it pains him how you raise your hand and touch his cheek, which he holds and presses your palm on his skin, as if he was trying to transfer the warmth he has towards your frail form.

“Venti…” you let out your voice, hoarse and weak, “you knew… didn’t you?”

He purses his lips and his chest aches.

“You don’t have to… act like you love me too.”

He fails to catch his own tears, dribbling down his cheeks as he struggles to find the words.

“I-“

“I love you... But please don’t… pretend… for me.”

He squeezes your hand, and just as he was to utter the same words you did, to confess those three words that laid stuck in his throat—

“Y/n?” Instead, it was your name that he attempted to call, then he shook you, only to receive no word back.

“I…” I love you too—he wanted to say, but it died down. Once again.

┌───────── · · · · ꒰⚘݄꒱₊

There is danger in the forest, just as much as there are things to discover and admire. That is what TIGHNARI used to say to you.

It was a flora, a flower he had asked you to try and find—the same ones he was collecting for you, a suggestion from Collei for him to profess his love to you.

Let’s get this over with, he thinks. After all, he does love you, and it was an idea that seemed fairly interesting, to ask you to look for a flower and for him to give you the whole bouquet once you reach his side.

The thing is, you never did.

He was silent when he reached the village, his ears downwards as nobody dared to approach him. It was the aura he emitted, the faint heaviness of his footsteps, and the body that he held close to his own.

“Master-“ Collei tries, but someone else stops her, shakes their head as the girl merely frowns. How could this be? She begins to think, one minute you were there and the second…

“Collei,” she casts her thoughts aside as Tighnari finally speaks, yet he doesn’t turn to face them, halted in front of his abode as he adds on, “can you… prepare some water… to clean their wounds.”

“O-of course!” Her heart was pounding, but no matter how unprepared she was to see you-

“I’ll do the rest… don’t worry.” He says before he enters the hut, all alone.

He did not shed a single tear as he cleans your body. But nobody can ever know Tighnari’s cries as he holds his tail close to him, aching for the warmth that you once gave him.

┌───────── · · · · ꒰⚘݄꒱₊

KAZUHA’s poems always reach you. No matter how much distance he takes away from you, or crosses to go back into your arms, his poems and his flowery hidden confessions of love always reach your ears.

At the right time, he begs to himself, he will finally be able to say them to your face, when he could rid himself of the shackles of his past and live freely with you.

But those same shackles come and haunt him once again. In the form of yours.

“What happened?”

“I’m sorry… but they were attacked by Hilichurls and…”

“No one was there to save them.” Even as he says the words, there was this ache in his chest and prickle on the tips of his fingers, finally reaching out to your cold hand.

Death is a familiar face for Kazuha, but there is something far too different this time.

This time, he thought he had healed. He thought he was stronger. He even went away for it—only to come back with those same wounds and no one there waiting for him.

He places a kiss on your hand once he finds himself leaned over, unable to go without saying his last goodbye.

“In another life… Y/n,” he whispers in the wind, as if he could feel your presence there, and despite finding it difficult to look at your face without seeing your beautiful eyes and smile, he forces himself and says, “In another life… my dove.”

┌───────── · · · · ꒰⚘݄꒱₊

GOROU is a good General.

Anyone who was under him can attain to such, and even you. You respected him so much, trusted him so much.

And loved him so much.

“Gorou!”

He was right in front of you, you were right in front of him. The blade pierces through your body, but it feels like it has pierced his heart as well.

“No, no, Y/n—no!”

“Protect the General and Y/n!” The other soldiers went and gathered around both of you, shielding you both from the upcoming arrows and spears your way.

“Y/n… no, don’t-“ he cries, unable to stop the tears that drip down his eyes.

“General, you have to take them out of here.”

Gorou finally finds the courage to carry you and rush his way to the side, out of reach from the battlefield.

“Retreat!”

As the shouts with the same word echoed around him, he could only hear your voice and feel your touch that reached his ears, that despite your weakening strength, you showed him that smile of yours—no matter how forced or painful it must have been.

“Gorou..”

“No, don’t speak, you don’t have to-you’ll be okay-“

“I’m sorry,” you say as he shakes his head, unable to accept the apology, “I’m sorry I had to die like this.”

“No, you won’t die-you can’t die!” He still has something to say—a lot of things to say. You can’t die now! Not when-

“I love you,” you whisper, out of breath, “so much.”

Those were your last words. And no matter how many soldiers had perished under his command, yours held a hole in his heart that he can never fill—a hole that even a good General can never heal.

┌───────── · · · · ꒰⚘݄꒱₊

Everyone feared CYNO—his voice, his face, his spear, his very name, his wrath.

Oh how wrong they were to assume they had seen his wrath—because only until now had he shown it in an intensity no one could have imagined.

“What did you do?” He sneers, scarlet eyes glaring down, only to grab the clothes of the Mercenary, pulling him up without difficulty, “What did you do?”

The Mercenary chuckles despite the predicament he was in. “What? Failed to profess your love to the feeble thing?”

Everyone knew. Every single person in Sumeru knew that you were one of the people who the Great General Mahamatra cherished—probably much more than the few others. After all, you were the one who always stuck beside him, sometimes hiding behind a rock as he fought, or a bush when he talked to someone.

“Shut up! You don’t deserve to even mention them.” Cyno grits his teeth.

“So, I hit the nail, didn’t I?”

The Mahamatra throws the Mercenary away as he closes his fingers into fists.

He may never be able to bring you back.

But he can bring justice to your death, and nobody can ever escape the grasps of Cyno.

Except for you.

You slipped away before he can even tell you what he wanted to say, and now, there was no turning back.

┌───────── · · · · ꒰⚘݄꒱₊

AL-HAITHAM never regrets.

Regret is an emotion he had found to be so useless, and with that experimental mind of his, mistakes are merely normal, and if there was no point or way to try again, he can just discard the plan.

But there was no way he could discard you.

“It’s the Scribe!”

Everyone’s murmurs overcome the hall and he frowns even more.

How could he be so… unplanned with this.

“Scribe, we saw their body when-“

He motions for them to go away, and wordlessly, they do, quite remarkable, he thinks. But maybe, it was their pity—was he obvious? Of course, he was. He had tried so hard to amuse you, to make you feel his feelings despite the outer appearance and expression he had always kept. But you were as dense as a rock.

And unfortunately, he was wrong this time around.

“So this… is what regret feels like.” he mutters the words as he spares you his last glance, his last words, and his last time, all before he goes and turns away, an ache in his chest that he knew but can never rid. Not now, at least.

┌───────── · · · · ꒰⚘݄꒱₊

If ALBEDO was asked what was the meaning of life, he wouldn’t still be able to answer outrightly.

To live? To love? To spend time with others?

There can be a lot of answers—to anyone else, his answer could be very well different.

Well, he thought he did have an answer. But maybe, life was just too cruel to him—him, a homunculus that doesn’t know life and death and only knows how to survive.

But you taught him how to love.

Of course, he does love Klee, but the love you taught him was different, far too warm, too genuine, a romantic kind of love that he had not experienced in his whole life.

“I love you, but you don’t have to love me too. I’ll always be here for you, bedo!” Those were your words, and he clung to these words despite the stirring feelings his mechanical heart was feeling.

So warm. So genuine.

“I apologize,” he breathes out, “But I did love you too, Y/n… I apologize for never voicing it out. I’m sorry…”

And now he stares at the gravestone in front of him, written was your name that he used to always call out, used to always associate with the bright sun or the moon or the stars—anything that was too beautiful for this world—you were too precious for this world, and maybe that’s why life itself had to meddle and steal you away from those who loved you—from him.

If Albedo is asked what was the meaning of life, he’d probably tell of the love you gave, and the love he failed to give—to never do anything that makes you regret, or you’ll end up just like him.

Reblogs and comments are appreciated!!

(taglist either on reblogs or comments)

#genshin x reader #xiao x reader #scaramouche x reader #wanderer x reader #kazuha x reader #albedo x reader #venti x reader #scara x reader #gorou x reader #alhaitham x reader #cyno x reader #tighnari x reader #blue’s works

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