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thepowerofswayze · 3 days

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demonstration

originally on ao3

based on this post by @fantasylandloser

pairing: art donaldson (challengers, 2024) / afab reader [gender not specified]

word count: 1.9K

warnings & info: 18+, afab reader, college era art AHHH, friends to lovers, first time together, mostly smut, oral sex (reader receiving), art is a munch obviously, reader wears a bra and skirt

summary: Catching Art up on your adventures gets hard when he doesn't get your explanations, or your hand puppet examples. Looks like you just have to show him exactly what went down. Based on this post that i could not stop thinking about. :))

☆

“Oh my god, fuck you!”

Art chuckled from where he stood, watching as you tossed the t-shirt he’d balled up and chucked at you back in his direction. It fell harmlessly to the floor a foot from him, and you glared at him as he snickered, picking it up and putting it away.

You were visiting Art, your close friend from high school, at Stanford. At that moment, you happened to be explaining how an interaction at a party at your university had gone a couple weeks before. Art never really liked listening to you talk about guys- hence, the shirt thrown directly at your face when you’d started describing this particular frat boy to him in detail- but he’d given up complaining a while ago. It was either that or be honest about why he hated it so much, and that was never going to happen. So, he tidied up his room as you explained the lead up, the flirting, the stumbling up the stairs. He fell back parallel to you on the bed as you got to the “good part”, his head by your legs and an arm over his eyes, like he could block out the imagery.

“Anyway, I didn’t think it was a big deal at first, like when we were flirting, but then I was on him, kinda like-” You took a moment to sit up straight, grinning as art groaned and propped himself up on his elbows to see you better. He watched you attempt to mimic the position with your hands, your left hand being the guy you were talking about, your right being you.

To Art, it just looked like you were mashing your hands together. He looked up from your hands to see you raising your eyebrows at him, as if to ask if he was following. “Huh?” He said.

With an exasperated sigh and without another thought, you pushed yourself up on your knees and waddled over to him, swinging a leg over his body and hovering just over his torso. For a moment, Art just watched, bewildered, as you steadied yourself with your hands on either side of his head. He let himself fall back from his elbows, hands sliding up your hips and settling at your waist, catching momentarily on the fabric of your skirt. His fingers peeked just under the hem of your shirt. Your skin tingled where he touched you.

“... Like this,” you said finally, blinking at him for a moment. “Well, uh.” You moved your hands to his chest instead, careful not to push too hard (though with the muscle he’d acquired since he’d started playing tennis for Stanford, you were sure it bothered him much less than you thought). “More like this, I guess.”

Art nodded, quickly licking his lips before asking, “Then?”

You tried not to look at his mouth. “What?”

“Then what did you do?”

It finally hit you then: what the fuck were you doing, climbing all over your best friend to ‘show him’ how you and some guy had been fooling around a couple weeks ago? That would just mean fooling around with him, obviously. That wasn’t really the plan.

But, it was too late for your common sense to kick in now. There you were, your hips hovering over his, not quite touching yet. You watched his eyes dart down to your lips, then drag slowly back up to meet your gaze. You couldn’t wait here and think about what you’d gotten yourself into and how this would change your friendship forever, though you got the feeling he’d let you take as long as you wanted.

Then what did you do?

You steeled yourself, biting your lip and watching his lips part slightly as he tracked the action with his eyes. Then you took that moment to fully sit on his lap.

You could feel his chest expand beneath your hands with his sharp inhale, his eyes snapping down to your hips, then back up to your face.

“This,” you murmured. You’d intended for it to come out cocky, maybe even a little seductive, but you could hear the breathlessness in your own voice. You were trying your best to ignore the growing pressure where your hips met his, though really, it was hopeless.

Art’s ears were burning a bright shade of pink. The urge to gently nip at them crossed your mind, just for a moment. He cleared his throat. “Then?” His voice was almost a whisper, chest rising and falling unevenly with his nervous breathing. The way he was looking at you, like he wasn’t sure you were real…

Fuck.

You leaned forward, trying not to let your breath stutter at the friction caused by the movement, until your lips hovered just over his. Then you kissed him.

You pressed your lips together gently, lingering for a moment before pulling back by centimeters. His lips chased yours, his grip on your waist tightening ever so slightly, and you were right back on him, lips falling open against each other. A soft sound escaped him as your hips shifted against his, along with a contented sigh from you. You repeated the motion, reveling in the low groan he let out, followed by your name murmured into your mouth.

Art’s lips were soft. And he’d shaved recently, you thought, hands cupping his face. The smooth skin of his cheeks was a stark contrast to the calloused hands he was now raking over your thighs, your skirt pushed up around your hips. You broke away from his lips, kissing down his neck instead, listening to the noises he made whenever you left a mark, whenever you ground against him just right. “Shit,” he gasped. “You’re- You’re sure?”

“Yeah.” You left another kiss just below his ear, before murmuring, “What is it?”

You could feel him all but shudder beneath you. “Fuck,” he groaned, then your name, before he looked you in the eye. You resisted the urge to dive right back in. “Let me eat you out,” he said, suddenly determined, though still flushed and dazed. “Please.”

All you could say was “What?” because, surely, this was one big dream.

“Please.” His hands hadn’t stilled, still rubbing shapes into your thighs, his hips rolling up against yours. “Can I?”

Your entire body was on fire. “Okay, yeah. Yes.”

He wasted no time flipping the both of you over, laying you against the bed so he could kiss down your neck. You barely had a moment to process, your hands moving to tangle in his hair, one of his knees slotted between your legs. He tugged at the bottom of your shirt, prompting you to lift yourself slightly and help him get it off. Your bra came next. “You, too,” you murmured, pulling at his shirt and making him chuckle. He reached behind his head, tugging it off in one swift movement and abandoning it beside your shirt and bra on his freshly cleared floor.

One of his hands slid down your chest from your shoulders, enclosing one of your breasts, the thumb circling your nipple. You bit your lip and sighed, pulling him down for another kiss by the back of his neck.

Art let his hand trail from your chest down the sides of your stomach, then slotted his palm right between your legs, over your underwear. You gasped quietly, pulling away long enough for him to return his lips to your neck, your shoulders, your collar bone. You murmured a couple choice words as he started to move his palm, rubbing at your clit through the fabric. The dulled sensation was almost enough on its own, paired with the kisses he left against your chest. “Arthur,” you whined, tugging at his hair. “Don’t fucking tease me.”

A grin overtook his face at the use of his name, his hands only slowing down, tracing torturously slow circles over you. Art only snickered at your glare before hooking his fingers into the waist band of your underwear, pulling it down and leaving you in your skirt pushed up to your waist. He watched you carefully as he slid further down so that his head was between your legs. His finger only traced a line from your clit to the bottom of your hole before whatever restraint he had was gone, and his mouth was on you.

Art’s tongue flattened against you, the warmth and friction making your head fall back as your eyes fell closed. “Fuck,” you moaned, hands threading into his hair as he answered with an equally obscene noise, muffled against you. ‘Hungry’ didn’t even begin to describe him, his mouth falling into a vague rhythm, eyes closed blissfully, whining into your pussy like it was doing him just as much good as it was you.

You thought about asking him to finger you while he worked, but his tongue prodded at your entrance and almost immediately, words escaped you. You brought one hand up to your face, clasping it over your mouth to muffle your moans, but Art stopped suddenly, watching your face. You whined your confusion, and he reached out to tug at your hand. “I wanna hear you. Let me.”

You blinked at him, chest heaving, and murmured “Alright,” before watching his head dive right back between your thighs, one hand still intertwined with yours. You had no choice but to moan unabashedly, your other hand busy pulling at his hair. His free hand was wrapped around the outside of your thigh, pushing it in towards his head, so tightly you were sure it couldn’t be comfortable. But there he was, continuing to move his tongue against you like there was nothing else he’d rather do, whining and whimpering like you were his first meal in weeks. “Fuck, Art,” you cried, barely keeping your eyes open so you could watch him move. “You’re gonna make me cum.”

He groaned at that, relenting the pressure of your thighs against his head just long enough to reply: “That’s it, baby, please.” If he had anything else to say, he couldn’t keep himself off of you long enough to finish, already pushing your thighs back against his head, nose bumping against your clit as he bobbed up and down.

It seemed like that was all it took, really. You squeezed his hand and his head embarrassingly tight as you felt yourself tip over the edge, head thrown back and eyes squeezed shut. Art kept up his rhythm as you cried out his name, your hips rolling against his face. He didn’t stop even when you’d come down, chest heaving, until you basically pushed him off, desperate for a moment of relief.

He kept a hand on your thigh, the other untangling from yours to push his blonde hair out of his eyes and look at you. He was breathing as hard as you were, you noticed. His mouth hung open as he panted, the entire bottom half of his face coated in saliva and your arousal. Fuck, he was pretty like this. “‘S good?”

You shook your head, beckoning him toward you and pulling him down by the back of his neck when he was close enough. “You’re unbelievable,” you murmured, lips against his almost before you were even done speaking. You didn’t mind the stickiness. You pulled back to look at him, then glanced down to the tent in his pants. “Lemme return the favor.”

Art let out a breathless chuckle. “I don’t think I’m gonna last that long,” he said, somewhat embarrassed. “Not if you’re the one touching me. Not after this.” He gestured to the shine still on his face, to your thighs beneath him. Your face burned, and your smile was so wide that your cheeks hurt.

You shrugged. “Lemme try anyway,” you said, before bringing his ear down to your lips, nipping at the lobe gently. “Please?”

He couldn’t say no to you.

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ddarker-dreams · 2 days

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what would make the husband rotation genuinely mad and would they act when theyre mad?? bad vibes for everyone

upsetting chrollo is an arduous endeavor.

he values control, whether it be over himself or others. creating the troupe would've been impossible if he was easily agitated. ironically, by muting his emotions for so long, he's set himself up for failure. when they do escape the fortress he built to contain them, they're wild. their repression drained any civility chrollo pretends to have.

regarding what it takes to get to this point... a third party revealing his criminal affiliations to you would do the trick. especially if the evidence they provide is irrefutable. chrollo isn't naïve, he's always been aware of the possibility. it'd be different if your efforts unmasked his identity. sure, he wouldn't be ecstatic, but he'd feel a hint of pride over your sleuthing capabilities. he almost considers it your right, in a weird way.

this sentiment doesn't extend to another's interference. they've inserted themselves into your relationship and warped your opinion of him. it's a violation, an intrusion. chrollo comes off as unusually detached when this information reaches him. he would've preferred you confront him, so he could control the narrative and do immediate damage control. with that plan dashed, his anger will simmer, until it can scald the one who tainted your perfectly fine relationship.

gojo satoru wants to be the center of your universe.

he's selfish, he isn't content with anything less than you in your entirety. he wants to be your partner, your best friend, your rival and confidant. he's cool with your friends and family (wow thanks gojo), since he knows that ultimately, you're both close in a way few can understand. shoko tells him at point blank that he's overdependent on you. he's aware, he just doesn't care to fix it. he's shameless enough to admit it as much without remorse.

for this reason, should someone capable of exerting influence over you stumble onto the scene, he would not be happy. megumi (kid or teen) remarks that he gets this 'creepy look', like he's pretending to be human. if he released a mere tendril of the cursed energy writhing inside him, it'd be enough to render most sorcerers comatose. his vibes become that abominable.

whether it be a former mentor, childhood friend, or some other role he can't fulfill for you himself — he wants to create as much distance between them and you as possible. fortunately for him, simply being himself is enough to repel most people. gojo inserts himself into your conversations until this person catches the hint. after knowing him for so long, you've grown immune to his questionable boundary crossing. he'll keep at it until they're scared off.

scaramouche gets angry with you for making him fall in love.

had his chest cavity not been empty, he would've clawed his heart out to avoid this harrowing feeling. the timidity, the vulnerability, oh, how he loathes it; loathes you for the spell you've placed him under! this resentment is, in truth, mostly directed at himself. shouldn't he have learned his lesson by now? how many times must he be chewed up and spit out before he stops wandering into the maw of emotional connection? he resolves himself to kill this... whatever it is you both share, before he's dragged through disappointment once again. he'll work himself up into a frenzy, all righteous anger and crackling bitterness—

—then your eyes light up at the sight of him, his name a warm exclamation on your tongue. in an instant, he's pacified, like he'd undergone a lobotomy. what a lovesick fool he is. you won't even let him fester in his negativity, you keep flitting about, earning his undivided attention. it's embarrassing how giddy he is around you (though he hides it beneath snark and condescension). when the interaction ends, he's left torn on what to do. all he knows is that he's running out of excuses to make this your fault.

blade's fury could slice through stars if you were ever hurt.

his mara is voracious until he returns every ounce of your pain tenfold. it's a scene from hell; rivers of blood, shredded limbs, piles of corpses tall enough to be mistaken for towers. in the heat of battle, he occasionally forgets where he is or why he's even doing this. then, all it takes is his mind's eye flashing the image of your face contorted in pain for his mania to blaze anew. you're precious. kind, warm, bestowing care upon him that he hadn't experienced in centuries. annihilation awaited anyone or anything that threatened you. he thinks death is too good for them, but it's the punishment he delivers best.

this explosive rage isn't finite. once his sword is deprived of living prey, he's forced to endure silence. entropy. an all-pervasive thought that you'd be better off with another. he never understood why you blessed him of all people with your affection. upon wiping his weapon clean, his reflection greets him. he scarcely looks human. drenched in viscera, eyes bloodshot and crazed. is this the man you love? what would you think, if you could see him now?

he almost wishes the fury would return. it's preferable to the hollowness he now faces.

#chrollo x reader #gojo x reader #scaramouche x reader #blade x reader #chrollo brainrot #gojo brainrot #scaramouche brainrot #blade brainrot #concepts #answered #Anonymous

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chaos-in-deepspace · 3 days

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LNDs: Romance/General Headcanons

Yoooooo so here's some headcanons I have for all the boys in Love and Deepspace! I say headcanons but some of this stuff is just straight up canon. This is mainly to help me figure out how I want to write each boy as well, think of it like a warm-up.

Disclaimer: This is an original fan work for “Love and Deepspace”. Do not repost on other platforms or plagiarize. All characters shown in this fic is 18+. Warnings: None

Blog Information | Masterlist

Xavier

General Headcanons

Xavier is the kind of guy who will 100% own some of the softest blankets known to man. He has an entire cupboard in his apartment just filled to the brim with them, as well as soft pillows.

His phone is almost exclusively on "Do Not Disturb". He has it so emergency contacts can still text and call him and he'll get a notifications. You are the only emergency contact.

If someone near him yawns, he has to. It's one of those things he can't help. Xavier is also the type who will get a bit teary eyed when he yawns.

Xavier knows how to do a lot of things, almost like a Jack of all Trades. The issue is that he doesn't tell anyone he knows how to do things so he doesn't get roped into it. He'll normally play dumb around others if they are asking him to do so.

He can have full on conversations in his sleep. He won't recall anything that happens, and his eyes will be closed, but you can talk to him and he'll have responses. It's honestly kind of entertaining to ask him for things when he's asleep since he always will tell you yes.

Romance Headcanons

Xavier is an amazing cuddle buddy. He's normally pretty warm and his sweaters are always super soft like his blankets. He doesn't mind being the little or big spoon, and once you settle on a position he won't budge from it.

Xavier likes to hold hands with you whenever you guys are out walking together. However, his favorite is just hooking his pinkie with your own while making your way around town.

He's jealous and he's not subtle about it either. He'll glare at anyone who tries taking up your time and attempt to whisk you away at a moment's notice.

To add to the jealousy, he's also overprotective. If you so much as get a scrape while he's around, he's wanting to get you checked into the hospital. If only he could care about his own health as much as he cares for your own.

He's a fan of literally taking your breath away with his kisses. He always starts off with soft, almost shy kisses that then escalate to the point where you have to pry him off your mouth so you can breath again.

Zayne

General Headcanons

Zayne's coffee in the morning is normally filled almost halfway with flavored creamers. He has at least two flavors sitting in his fridge at all times, and whenever a new one comes out he'll snag it.

He's mastered the art of powernaps. He can be sitting on his computer at work and rest his cheek on his fist and pass out for about five to ten minutes if he knows he needs to quickly sleep. He's also pretty good at waking up a few minutes before his alarm goes off on days that he's not exhausted.

He's horrible when it comes to throwing away small candy wrappers while he's working. Normally they end up piling up on his desk when he's in the zone and he doesn't notice until he finished and sees they're scattered everywhere.

He bites the ends of his pen when he's working. He'll only do it if he owns it, but sometimes if he borrows a pen he notices it creeping up to his mouth and has to stop himself. Any old hoodies he owns, especially those from when he went to university, has bitten up strings.

There has been numerous times where it has been in the early hours of the morning and he hasn't slept at all. Still doing paperwork in his office and he can't find his glasses. He just can't seem to notice them anywhere and he knows he just had them. They're on top of his head. If you happen to see him looking around confused, just point at the top of your own head and he'll figure it out. He'll also figure out that he should probably go to bed at that point.

Romance Headcanons

Zayne is a sap when it comes to you. He has a photo of you and him as his phone background, as well as a different one for his laptop background. It's not like you often see his phone, but if you happen to glance he'll quickly lock it before you notice.

He also has a special ring tone for you, but that's not all. If his phone is set to vibrate, he has a custom made vibration for his phone that'll go off for both text messages and calls. That way he always knows if it's you.

At the start of your relationship he doesn't like any form of PDA other than holding your hand. He thinks those moments shared between the two of you is just that...between the two of you. However, as time passes on he'll slowly get a bit more bold in public places.

Despite being dominant in the relationship, he does let you take control of most situations at first. He doesn't like to be suffocating and believes you can make your own decisions. That is until your decisions become horrible decisions and he has to step and steer you into the right direction. Half the time he gets roped into it though. He is absolutely whipped.

He is whipped. You could probably suggest the two of you rob a bank together and he would seriously debate it. He is the voice of reason at the end of the day, but sometimes you make him question things, especially when you look at him with those puppy eyes.

Rafayel

General Headcanons

When Rafayel wakes up before noon, he is not coherent in the slightest for those first ten minutes. If anything you could consider him useless in the morning. He'll normally lay in bed until he's more awake, but if he gets up it's a train wreck. He'll be bumping into everything, not comprehend human speech, among other things.

He has had conversations with random sea creatures before. Once he went to the aquarium and just sat by the sting rays while chatting. They never replied, but he did manage to carry on the conversation well enough.

He will text you for the most random things known to man. Sometimes he uses you like a search engine instead of just looking it up. He'll also text you to come over because he left a glass of water in the kitchen and he's now in his studio. Thomas used to get these texts all the time and eventually he learned not to play along.

Rafayel is polyjamorous. His taste in music tends to vary a lot when he's working on a new painting. Sometimes it's to help him find inspiration, sometimes he just wants something to vibe to. On occasion he has a single song that he'll listen to on repeat until he manages to block it out. On other days he doesn't listen to any music, preferring the ambiance of the ocean with a window open.

He tends to video call more than normal phone calls. He likes to see the expressions of whoever he's speaking with so he knows how they're actually reacting to what he's saying. It also helps him know when someone is listening to him or just pretending and giving generalized responses.

Romance Headcanons

He has a secret sketchbook that he keeps. A lot of them are just random drawings of you or places the two of you have been together. He's not ashamed of it, he just doesn't know how you'd react to seeing a picture drawn of you half asleep, hanging off the sofa with drool on your face.

He's really inexperienced in relationships, at least in this life he is. He could go off the past with you, but that would be moving too fast. So he sometimes has these awkward moments of wanting to do so much more with you but knowing it's far too early in the relationship.

He is always wanting to all over you. It's to the extent that sometimes you have to pry him off so you can go to the restroom. His favorite position is with his arm around your waist and his head in your shoulder.

He will whine about you not spending enough time with him...while you're spending time with him. If he doesn't have you with him 24/7 then you aren't giving him enough attention. He does let you live a life, he just wishes he could be experiencing it all with you.

When he isn't being a total brat, he is super sweet. He will kiss your hands the moment they get near him, shower you in compliments, and if you so much as mention wanting something he'll have it for you within a day.

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artist-issues · 2 days

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every now and then I play with the exercise of "what if we're wrong" because sometimes I get bored and also as an actual exercise. I usually apply this to Christianity/religion, matters of the after life, or about other people.

So sometimes I poke at the big question, if Christianity isn't real, what does that mean? And I don't usually go the route of atheism or bad sci fi, just that the religion is proven to be fundamentally inaccurate to reality, so what does that mean?

Anyway it wasn't until I was reading a really good sci fi story, where this one dude explains to some aliens the concept of "Love your enemies, do good to those that hurt you" and of course the aliens are like what? (Because in the sci fi narrative the universe is functioning under a Dark Forest Theory) And the dude explains its from one of earth's greatest teachers. And the aliens are like, if the inhabitants of the universe could believe that, this universe would be a different place entirely.

And it was at that point where I realized bro... even if it's not accurate, practicing Christianity is still worth it, for a human being. Loving your enemies means loving them like humans. The Poor, the Meek, and those who mourn, those are promises and comforts that we shouldn't toss aside even if heaven isn't real.

I don't know, this is just a terribly simplistic because I'm not the best at putting my English thoughts into english out loud, but that crack gave me a touch of useful coping. I asked my dad, if aliens are proven to exist it doesn't automatically mean christians stop practicing and believing, right? And he said obviously not.

I don't know but have you ever engaged in such a question " what if we're wrong?" And if you ever have what answer had you arrived at?

EDIT: As @atwas-meme-ing correctly pointed out in the comments section of this post, who cares whether or not I’ve played this game: God answered the question through Paul in his letter to the Corinthians: “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” 1 Corinthians 5:19.

There’s no “good moral teaching” to be found in Christianity if Christ wasn’t God, or if God didn’t exist, or if eternity weren’t real. My rambling logic is below the cut.

I mean, I play that “game” all the time about other things, and sometimes I do it for work. I’ll take two established characters and a setting me and my friends have agreed on, and I’ll “run a scenario.”

But the thing is, once my brain picks out something that doesn’t make sense, or that wouldn’t be in-character for the characters to do, the whole scenario grinds to a halt and I have to start over. I can’t suspend my own disbelief once I notice that something doesn’t line up. Even if I really liked “where the scene was going” before I noticed that thing. Whatever I’m getting stuck on because of it’s out-of-character nature unravels the parts I like, too.

All that to say I can’t even run a scenario in my head where “what if all this isn’t true? What if it fundamentally doesn’t line up with reality?”

I can’t. Once or twice I have tried. But I hit snags immediately. I’ll go, “pretend all of this Christian religion really is just a centuries-old conspiracy humanity’s been patching up the holes in.”

But then that little simulation-checker in my brain goes, “then how do you explain people dying for it? That many martyrs aren’t likely to have allowed themselves to be tortured and murdered for something they knew was a conspiracy.”

And I go, “well, pretend they died because they didn’t know it was a conspiracy, they believed it.”

And the sim-checker goes, “but the original disciples of Jesus, ground-zero of the faith, were all martyred. Not just people who learned from them and came after them and could’ve been hoodwinked: the starting points, themselves. They would’ve had to know it was a conspiracy, if it was a conspiracy, and they still willingly died for it.”

Maybe I’ll pivot and go, “pretend there isn’t objective truth.”

And the sim-checker goes, “there isn’t truth…objectively?”

Maybe I’ll pivot again and try, “pretend that everyone really does just measure morality based on what they’re used to, what their individual society’s trained them to associate with pleasant feelings and reactions.”

And the sim-checker goes, “Okay, where did those societies get the training manual? Where did it come from? Why do so many different societies’ and people groups’ ‘association with pleasant feelings and reactions’ around the world have so many things in common?”

And the answers to all that leads me back to Christianity. Even if I go the longest way round I can think of.

And eventually I quit running those scenarios. Because guess what?

Where’d the ability to run scenarios come from?

How did I get that? How did you?

See, the thing is, we go, “what if all of this isn’t true?” But it’s right there in the question. “Where did you get that desire? The desire for “truth?”” Is it to keep yourself safe, like the natural animals have an instinct toward, or is it to keep yourself sane, because you need some sense in this life to make it through? Sure. Maybe. But why? What’s “sane?” What’s “safe?” Sanity presupposes order. Why do you, and all humans, naturally lean toward wanting things to be “the way they’re supposed to be?” Where’d that come from, that idea of “supposed to be?” And Safety presupposes good being found in avoiding pain and damage and fear. “Good?” Where’d you get that idea?”

The further you dig, even into your own psyche, the less you can run any scenario that has God absent entirely. And no wonder. He designed it.

One more thing.

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” - C.S. Lewis

I used to lean into the idea you’re saying here. “Even if it’s not true, I’m going to live like it is and believe it just in case. Besides, it makes me better, and makes the world better.” That’s not belief at all. That’s ends-justify-the-means thinking. The teachings that Jesus gave which “make the world a better place” are utterly worthless if they’re coming out of the mouth of a liar. Because why should anyone believe Him? Why should anyone “turn the other cheek,” or “do unto others?” Because it makes us “better?” Who gets to define “better?”

The answer, of course, is Jesus does. The One who taught those sayings. But only if He’s God. Only if He was telling the truth. If He wasn’t God, what right has He, to tell us to give away our possessions to others and let them abuse us and give our lives up? If He was a liar, all of those “good teachings�� would be tainted and untrustworthy. Besides, like I just said, they’re all only able to be called “good” teachings if you accept that there is one objective, universal “good.” And we’re right back to “where did Good come from?”

All roads lead back there, to Him. But we humans like to do this thing with God where we pretend there could be any reality outside of Him. It sort of makes sense, how we got that way. After all, when was the last time you noticed oxygen? How often during the day do you consciously inhale and exhale? As often as it happens automatically? How often during the day do you notice oxygen touching your skin or moving your hair or drying your eyeballs? As often as those things happen automatically? No. But it’s ever-present. Without it, you couldn’t live, let alone notice anything. But oxygen has always been around and everything in our lives interacts with or can only exist WITH it. God is much more than that, but that’s as close as I can get to communicating: He’s so good, and He’s so constantly there, everything, all the time, that it’s easy for us to take Him for granted, forget Him entirely, then use our two-pound brain matter to say, “He might not exist.” You might as well say, “imagine a world with no matter.” 🙄 “Ohhhh kay. Then it wouldn’t be a world.”

#This was fun to talk about though #because even when you’re trying to pick apart truth for “fun” you just get…a closer look at how true truth is.#analysis #christianity #apologetics #theology #faith #Jesus Christ #Bible #c.s. Lewis

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uranometrias · 6 hours

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nobody ever loved me like you do, spencer reid

just a little prompt i couldn't get out of my head. this is majority fluff, it got kind of heavy towards the end, but no smut because i'm a coward, reader is a university student, there's an age gap between reader + spencer, unspecified, but reader is over 22. based off of 'pov' by ariana grande.

this absolutely got long as shit, i don't know how to be normal. (5.6k wrds)

"what's on your mind?" you hadn't realized you'd gone quiet until you feel the dip of the couch. it takes a moment to snap out of the little moment you've dug yourself into, but when you do you're pleasantly surprised to see your boyfriend on the couch next to you. he grabs hold of the book you'd haphazardly discarded, and flips it over. you imagine internally he's tsking at you, he was always reminding you to be careful of the spine of the books you read, but you're happy he doesn't make a move to scold you about it now. instead, he closes it, and places it in his lap, letting his eyes trace all over your pretty face.

"is everything okay?" he prods, and in truth, you were fine. you didn't really know why you'd gotten so lost in your head, it just happened sometimes. domesticity was still fairly new, and despite the fact that your relationship with spencer had gotten to the point where you both were comfortable staying at each other's places for long periods of time, you still kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. spencer was the first guy you'd been with that was older, already established, had a 'big boy job' as you so eloquently labeled it. he had security.

not that you were some lazy, unprepared individual letting your life slip by, but you were still figuring things out. you were in university, and you had big dreams and hopes for your future, it just felt like it was taking forever to get there. to your future. everyone was always telling you not to wish away your youth, but by law you were no longer a child, you hadn't been for a while. your twenties were meant to be for 'figuring things out', finding yourself all over again, or that's what you were always hearing. over time it felt easier said than done.

the point was when you were still uncertain about what you wanted to spend the rest of your life doing, it was hard to feel grown up. especially when you had a boyfriend like spencer who was always doing something to raise the bar for humanity. he was a genius, he worked for one of the most prestigious units in the fbi, he was in the fbi... that in itself was an accomplishment. he had phds, bachelor degrees, and an extensive knowledge of literature in numerous languages and texts. to top it all off, he really was a great boyfriend.

you supposed it was just you feeling a bit insecure. you didn't believe that he expected too much of you, but that didn't stop you from putting unnecessary pressure on yourself. "everything's fine." you promise, and you tack on a warm smile to really sell it. the action triggers an involuntary smile from spencer, and you feel a bit faint, just because he's so pretty. "i was just watching you read." you admit, and it was true, you had gotten a bit lost in how quickly spencer was speeding through his own book. it didn't trigger insecurity, it just left you in awe at how absurdly lucky you were to have bagged spencer.

"yeah?" and he's got this edge to his voice that he usually gets when he's tired, sleepy, content. it was comforting, knowing that he was comfortable being here, like this with you. "are you sure that you're alright?" and he's leaning forward, hand cupping your cheek as he rubs his thumb over your jaw, and you lean into him. "you know you can talk to me about anything." he adds, and he's perceptive. you're certain that part of this has to do with his job, and the other part has a lot to do with the fact that he knows you so well.

"i know." you answer instantly, and you bring your hand up to hold over top his. "trust me, i know. that's why i like you so much." you beam brightly, and you lean in and press a quick kiss to his lips. it's a peck, and it sounds like one with the way that your lips smack together. you note his disappointment when you pull away just as he moved to kiss you a bit more fiercely. you find yourself giggling a bit as he pouts at you, and you lean in to offer him another kiss.

"like?" he asks, and you know he's fishing, but for what you're not sure. his eyes never look as bright as they do when he's sitting across from you. it offers you a bit of an ego boost to know that someone as handsome as your spencer consistently looks so enamored and enraptured with you. "i thought that we were a little past like..." he says, and your nose scrunches up at his big doe-eyed stare. "am i wrong about that?" and he holds his breath.

"no, you're right." you promise, and he relaxes. "we're past that." spencer looks relieved, and you wonder sometimes what's going on in his mind. he doesn't say anything for a while, he just looks at you, his thumb continues to draw soothing circles on your face, and you think you might be convinced to fall asleep if he keeps it up. "i'm sorry." you offer, and spencer's immediately shaking his head at you.

"don't apologize." he presses, and he's peeling his hand away from your face. now it's your turn to be disappointed. "and if you don't feel like we're past the 'i like yous'... that's okay too." and he looks sad now. it's your least favorite expression on him, and you wonder if you've done something wrong. "i don't want you to feel like you're rushing yourself, okay? or like you're forcing yourself to feel anything that you don't." he says, and your eyebrows furrow inward, face contorting.

"i don't feel that way." you deny sternly. spencer's head tips to the side, curls following along, and the urge to run your hands through his hair almost chokes you out. "spencer, i don't feel that way." you reiterate, and you hate that his expression doesn't change. you hate that he looks like he doesn't believe you. "i have too many feelings for you." you admit, and you shake your head. "all of the feelings." you insist, and the problem is that you haven't managed to fully verbalize what that means. spencer's told you that he loves you, often.

you haven't managed to say it back, but not because you don't believe it. it's more so out of worry that once you tell him, things will get too real. you'll grow too comfortable, and by-proximity expose parts of yourself that spencer might not be ready for. things that'll make him run for the hills, and take his sweet i love yous with him. "that's a lot of feelings." spencer replies, and he sighs deep, chest moving with the action. you smile, mostly to ward off the tension.

he doesn't return it, and you suddenly feel anxious. "do you want-" he trails off, and he looks conflicted. "if you wanted to break up..." and your heart sinks. "you would tell me, wouldn't you?" he asks, and you immediately reach out for him, his hands curling into yours as you interlock your fingers. you want to slam your head into a wall, mostly for worrying him in this way. The last thing you'd been thinking about was a breakup, in fact, you'd finally resided yourself to the fact that you were in this relationship as long as spencer wanted you.

"do you think that's what this is about?"

"isn't it?" his quick retort makes you frown, and now you're facing one another with matching pouts. "i just want you to trust me with your feelings... all of them." he explains. "even the ones i might not enjoy the most." he treads lightly, and you find that there's nobody in the world who could matter more to you. "and i'm sorry if i haven't been doing enough to let you know that." and you huff in annoyance, but not with him. never with him. with yourself for overthinking.

"you've got it all wrong." you tell him, and you hope your words sound as definitive as they feel. "a breakup is the farthest thing from my mind." you shuffle a bit on the couch, mostly to invade the space he just took. you don't stop moving until he's back in your orbit, your knees brushing against his leg. "i've never met anyone like you before." and it feels cliche, but you suppose you've earned the right to quote the words, because they're true. "i think as far as expectations for boyfriends go, you managed to smash through them all."

spencer finds himself nervous under the onslaught of kind words. he can't look away from you though, because it's so rare when you let him into your head. despite all his profiling skills, you were still almost completely a mystery. he understood your physical cues, but the emotional ones were still hard to pinpoint. "i think sometimes i still keep waiting for you to realize how amazing you are..." and he has that annoying feeling of giddiness in his stomach. it feels childish, but he adores the rush loving you continues to give him.

"i think i'm a little aware." he says, and you laugh. your hands reach out, and now you're the one holding his face. he thinks it's a comfort thing of yours, the way you like to hold onto him when you're talking. his apprehension towards touch was no match for the way your hands on his face brought him a feeling of comfort like nothing else.

"and you still want to be with me?" you ask, and you don't sound bashful, more confused than anything else. spencer's confusion soon matches your own, his eyebrows furrowing as he recites your words over and over in his head. what sort of question was that? "i just mean that there's so many types of women out there... you work with so many." and your mind drifts to his closeness with the girls he worked with in the fbi. namely jennifer jareau.

you'd only met her a few times, you knew she was married with sons, but you couldn't shake the thought that if she wanted him she could have him. she was older, more confident, disastrously pretty. "i just don't understand why someone like you would want to be with someone like me." you express, and spencer is flabbergasted. he forces you to peel your hands from his face, instead choosing to hold your hands and squeeze them gingerly.

"someone like you?" and he wants you to get it all out, every last bit of it, mostly so that he can correct every incorrect notion about yourself that you expose.

"someone who's immature, naive, inexperienced, uncertain about almost every major decision... you know? someone like me." you divulge, and he winces. "you've got so much going for you, i just don't want you to feel like i'm holding you back." you admit. "so when i saw you reading... i don't know-" you trail off, and spencer's eyes shoot across the room to his own discarded book. "i guess i just remembered how incredible you are, and how severely inadequate i must be in comparison." and your voice gets quieter as you finish.

"you could never hold me back." he states firmly. "and even more than that... i don't think it's actually possible for someone to really hold you back." he admits, and you feel him beginning to start on a tangent, though you don't mind. they were far and few in between these days. "to me it always seemed more like an excuse people use to place blame on someone else for their shortcomings." spencer's let go of your hands, and you watch them as he gestures boisterously. "for everything i'm good at, there's so many areas where i fall short."

you don't think you've ever loved him more.

"and who says phd's and fast reading skills are what make a person better suited or fit for anything?" and he knows that you want to rebuttal, so he continues so you don't get the chance to. "my skills help me with the job that i do... we can agree that's true, right?" he asks, and you nod your head. "right. but, you don't want to have my job, do you?" he asks, and your nose curls up. you thought that what spencer did was admirable, you loved celebrating the victories with him, you knew it was important, but you don't think you had it in you.

"no, i guess not." you disagree.

"and you don't need to be called 'doctor' or hold a gun, or kick down doors, in order to be... a suitable life partner."

"you're not kicking down any doors, spencer." you crack a joke, and you like that he laughs, it's the kind that morphs into a toothy smile.

"maybe not, i just mean that out of the two of us, you're not the one who needs to worry about not being adequate... i don't think there's anything in existence that would make me not want to be with you." and you feel bashful, but know full well that you can't pull your eyes away from him. "you're a lot to lose." he exhales, and you blink. "and you don't need doctorates or much of anything for that to be the case." spencer beams a little bit, "you captivate people without even realizing it sometimes." spencer's hand moves to rest on your thigh.

"you think so?"

"sometimes i try and figure out how i got so lucky, and i hope that i keep doing whatever it takes to make you stay." he admits. "does that make sense?" he asks, and you feel your heart wanting to burst out of your chest.

"it makes a lot of sense." you agree. "and i can guarantee that as long as you want me, you'll have me." you promise.

"and if i want you forever?" he asks, and you smile despite yourself.

"then i guess you're stuck with me forever, doctor reid." and he likes the thought a lot more than he anticipated. he thinks that's why he can't ignore the urge to kiss you. he leans forward, lips overtaking yours like a magnet being pulled towards a kindred force. you almost pounce, finding yourself rooted on top of his lap, fingers finally finding solace in his hair, as his hands scope out your waist and the curve of your hips.

you hum when his lips peel away from yours, landing on your neck as he peppered the space with kisses and small bites. kissing spencer was a surefire way to get you both started down a path of insatiability. it was dangerous, but you supposed with the conversation context in mind, it made perfect sense for this to be the end result. still, it feels like there's more to say, and you suppose that it's why you tighten your hold on his hair just slightly, craning your neck to give him all the access he needs. "spence?" you gasp.

he doesn't verbally acknowledge you, instead his arms loop around you, bringing you closer as he proceeds to leave hickeys in areas that would be much too difficult to hide. "spence..." you try again.

"i'm listening." he promises before he's placing a kiss just behind your ear. it makes you squirm, suddenly feeling lightheaded as his grip on your waist tightens slightly.

"can you tell me again?" you ask, and you don't want to ruin the moment, especially after he just sweetly poured his heart out to you. "tell me how you feel about me..." you instruct a bit more impatiently. spencer's more interested in leaving more marks on your skin, but he also enjoys the vulnerability that comes with expressing himself to you. he pulls away from your neck with one last peck, before his lust-filled gaze is locked on yours. you've taken to raking your nails through his hair, gently dragging against his scalp.

"you still don't know?" he asks, and part of you thinks he's doing this on purpose. it's not until you register the slight upturn of his lips that you recognize that he's teasing you.

"is it so bad that i want to hear it again?" you press, and you're feeling a bit impatient, mostly because you're itching to finally spit the three word phrase out, but you want him to say it first.

"no." he denies, head shaking. "it's not bad at all, and i don't mind telling you, but, can you ask me the right way?" and you feel the shift, the way his fingers finally slip under your shirt. it makes you jump, the way his fingertips trace over the skin of your lower back. "what are you fishing for, pretty girl?" you don't have the courage to stare at him anymore, instead you find your head glued to his chest, eyes squeezed shut, as your arms looped around him.

"i'm not fishing." you deny, and spencer presses a swift kiss to the top of your head. despite the desire to 'get to the good part' that you know you both feel, you still enjoy this part. the clinginess, the way he showered you in attention and affection that you had never believed yourself worthy of. he loved you so openly, so easily. it never felt like a burden, it never felt like something he had to try too hard at. you liked that, you liked that he made falling in love so easy.

"no?" he doesn't sound convinced. "what are you hoping i'll say then? i know you have an idea." he says and his chin is resting on the top of your head as he adjusts you on his lap. the tension still rests in the air, but he's holding you like he's comforting you almost, arms looped around you in an almost-hug that feels warm and comfortable and familiar. it's the kind that you could get lost in, fall asleep in. maybe you will, just as soon as you get through this last little emotional hoop.

"you don't know everything."

"did i say that?" he corrects you lowly, he's not impatient with you, and you wonder how long it took him to garner enough stamina to keep up with your sass.

"no." you deny, and he hums in agreement. you've taken to running your hands up and down his back, palms closing and opening as you try and quiet your anxiety. "i want to hear you say that you love me again." you admit, and it feels like a lump is forming in your throat. "i know that you do." you add a second after. "but sometimes i like to hear it anyway..." you clear your throat. "it makes me feel-" and you trail off, because you haven't really gotten over this hurdle.

spencer's smiling, and you know that he is, because as much as he knows you, you think you know him a little bit too. "how does it make you feel?" he asks, and you shake your head, eliciting an amused sort of exhale. "you can tell me anything." he reminds you, and of course you know that. "or we could move on... if it's too much to say right now." he offers you an out like the gentleman he always has been. "do you want to go back to before?" and you definitely want to kiss him.

maybe do a bit more than kiss.

"yes." you agree, but when it seems like he's about to move, you hold him even tighter to you. "wait, no." you deny, and he's exhaling through his nose. you cringe, because you know that sometimes you can be indecisive, but you think about what he'd told you earlier. you remind yourself that he wanted you, and you calm down. "i want to kiss you again." you start, and he doesn't say anything, because he knows you're not finished. "but i want to finish our conversation first." you huff, and he's surprised, in a pleasant sort of way.

"we can do that." he promises, "what do you want to tell me?"

"i like when you tell me that you love me." you admit, and you think it's good that you're not looking at him. you also like that he's still lightly dragging his fingers along your waist, it makes you shy, but you welcome it. "it's not something that you just tell everyone, so i like that you tell me, even though i haven't said it back." you feel like you're losing your breath as you rush to get it out. "and i like how what you said earlier makes me feel."

"how's that?" and spencer is spencer. he likes to drag things like this out, he likes for you to elaborate, to explain yourself. you suppose he likes to hear you just as much as you like to hear him.

"i don't know how to express it really, but it feels nice. 'cause you always sound like you mean it when you say it." you freeze when his fingers stop their slow journey, but you don't have time to focus on that right now. "not like butterflies, but it's like stabilizing." you shrug your shoulders. "and it's not the sort of thing that feels like it comes with some sort of price. like i don't hear it, and think 'oh he's only saying this because he wants to sleep with me', it doesn't-" you inhale. "it doesn't make me anxious or anything."

spencer's disappointed that his memory mostly works for things he's seen rather than heard, because he wants to relive this conversation for the rest of his life. it's a bit unheard of, especially in his lifetime. he's seen people in love, he's witnessed incredible relationships, but nothing he's seen has ever compared to the way that you manage to make him feel. he's had girlfriends, one-night-stands, experimentations, and things in between that felt like they could be the real thing, eventually. being with you though feels easy.

even when things go wrong, when you're too stubborn to communicate, and he's too tired to fight for you to, it still feels easy. like the struggles that come with your relationship are struggles he's willing to deal with. you're someone he's willing to deal with.

"it makes me want to stay." you offer, and it's scary, mostly because you've got the world's worst habit of running away when things get too real. you packed your bags at the first inconvenience, it was who you were, who you had been before spencer. you didn't stick around to fight for your relationships, you didn't let anyone fight for you either. "like... like even if things go horribly wrong, it'll still be okay as long as you still sound like you mean it when you say i love you."

you don't think you'll cry, but you do think once you're all finished, you'll want to stay wrapped up in him like this.

"i've just never met anyone that makes life make so much sense." and your leg is slightly shaking, and you're burrowing even deeper into his chest, holding him just a bit tighter. "so please... can you tell me again?" you ask, and your hands have taken fistfuls of his shirt, curling just slightly as you try and will your heartbeat to slow.

"you all done?" he asks, and you nod your head, all done with talking for now. "i'm so proud of you." and your confusion is back, as well as your ability to talk.

"what for?" you inquire, and he unloops his arms from around you. you don't want to move, but you know where this is going. still, you decide you'll wait until he asks you.

"can you look at me, please?" he asks quietly, and you're immediately pulling back, hands in your lap as you take in all the emotions resting on your boyfriend's face.

"oh, spence!" and you hope he's not about to cry. you've never been privy to it, but you can imagine what it'll do to you in your emotionally high state. "i know that was a lot, i'm sorry." you apologize despite the fact that you've done nothing wrong, a bad habit.

"please don't ever apologize for something like that." he corrects you gently. "i'm proud, because i can imagine how hard that likely was, but you did it anyway, so thank you for sharing how you're feeling with me." you look away just for a second, the moment feeling too heavy for you to manage. you're looking back at him just a moment after, his stare something you've always been terrible at ignoring and avoiding. "would it be a let down if i told you that i feel the same way about you?" he asks, and you wonder if this phase ever ends.

you don't want to wake up one day and find that your smile no longer reaches your eyes when you look at him, or hear his voice.

"no." you answer quietly. "i like when you agree with me, especially about your feelings for me." and it's a small joke, one you partially mean. "but, you still haven't told me that you love me, yet." you remind him a bit more sternly than you have been.

"i know." he retorts, and he looks a bit smug. you want to say that you hate when he gets like this, but you know you're lying. "i'm waiting to see how long it'll take you to crack." he admits, and your nose curls. he beams at you, and you want to glare, just for the fun of it. "why are you determined not to say it first?" he asks, and you cross your arms over your chest, busted.

"you don't know what's in my head." you instead argue, and his eyes roll, but he still seems amused. "i can say it first if i very well wish." you add, and his eyebrows raise, a challenge. unlucky for you, because you had a problem with being challenged. you would always walk right into his trap like a fool.

"so then say it." he taunts, and you realize pride is one hell of a killer.

"fine, i will." you retort, voice laced in mock-aggravation. "i love you." you deadpan, you say it like it's a bother. "happy now?"

"not with that attitude. can you try again? say it like you mean it?" he presses, and you're weaker in the knees than you initially believed. all your bravado goes right out the window, and you're suddenly anxious again, with no bite to curb your words, you're certain he'll hear every ounce of emotion you feel towards him if you say it again.

"spence." you exclaim, and he's not moved. you think you hate him just a little. "it's not fair, you're being mean." you express, looking down at your lap, and you know that you're only behaving this way because you're overwhelmed.

"i'm not." he promises, and he ducks just a little so that you're looking directly at him again. "i wouldn't be, especially not about this." he adds. "i just want you to say it again for me, can you do that? please?" he asks, and you hate how absurdly handsome he is sitting across from you. he's got this way of looking innocent even when he's baiting you, and he's always got this intensity in his stare that's enough to knock the wind out of you. it's kryptonite, and precisely why you concede.

"spencer, i love you." he groans, quietly, but you hear him all the same. he's kissing you before you can react, and it's easy getting lost in moments like these. he always kisses you like he's trying to swallow you whole, too handsy for his own good. his kisses are desperate, tongue swiping out just slightly, likely to test the waters. you match his ferocity, and let your own tongue drag over his bottom lip before you press a bit more forcibly, hurriedly, desperately.

"i love you." you don't know why you're saying it again, but it's not as hard as the first time. you kiss him again, grumbling when he's quick to lean out of reach. you shoot him a sour glance, and he's not moved.

"hey, i love you too." he echoes you in the most love sick sort of way. it feels precisely as you had described it earlier, and that makes you happier. the fact that the feelings didn't change, didn't disappear all because you'd said the three words back. you hum contentedly, and then your head is back on his chest, listening to the steady thrum of his heartbeat. "does it still sound like i mean it?" he asks, he questions you softly, like he's trying to preserve the moment.

"mhm." you answer quietly, and you strain to kiss his throat once, before your back to resting against him. "did it sound like i meant it?" you mimic his line of questioning, and you're happy when his arms are back around you. he's a lot more respectable this time around, but before long, his hands are finding their chosen place back under your shirt, exploring your waist and hips as you try not to squirm.

"yes." he replies, and you're glad to hear it. "can you say it again?" you suppose in the grand scheme, you do have lots to make up for. he'd probably want you to say it over and over again.

"i love you." it's instantaneous, as is the way spencer's hold on you grows more firm. you hadn't wanted to mention it, the way sitting here like this with him had you itching for more, but it seemed you weren't the only one in that headspace. "spence?" you question, and he's dragging his hand up and down your back, legs starting to bounce just slightly.

"yeah?"

"can we go back to before now?" you ask, and you expect him to be a tease. he could never just give you what you wanted, he always had to drag it out, and make you nervous.

"back to before?" he pries, and he's leading. you huff audibly, and you adjust yourself on his lap, trying to control the way the pit in your stomach seemed to grow warm, heating you up from the inside. "you'll have to be a bit more specific than that, love." he tsks, and you hate him.

"i just-" you frown, hating this part. "i want you." you deadpan. "and you know that, so i don't know why you're being like this." except you do, because it's amusing to spencer to watch you get all flustered and nervous. you don't know why, but it's how he is. you think that one day you'll try your hand at flustering him back, just to see what all the hype is about. "i want you to-" and you're not sure exactly what counts for too blunt with a boyfriend like spencer. "let's f-fuck, okay?" and spencer's got that stupid amused look on his face again.

god, you hate him.

"that wasn't too hard was it?" he questions, and you cut your eyes. you're certain he'll make you pay for the looks, and the smart mouth down the line, but you can't care right now.

"it was excruciating." you correct haughtily. "you should be ashamed of yourself for treating the girl that you love this way." you add, and spencer's got his bottom lip tucked between his teeth as he takes you in. you gulp, shuffling just slightly as you realize precisely the predicament you've gotten yourself into.

"do you want me to make it up to you?" he asks, and he sounds breathier than before, which only serves to make you more of a hot-and-bothered mess.

"i-" you blink owlishly, unsure of his intentions.

"yes or no?" he presses, and you think either way this goes, your done for. "you've just got to say the word."

"yes." head nodding, eyes blown to hell, it's easy enough. "you should. you definitely should." you respond, and then he's kissing you again. he's much more intense this time, stealing all of the air out of your lungs as his nails scratch against your skin, you hands moving to cup his face, you hope to keep him anchored to you this way. when he breaks from the kiss again, you're ready to lay into him, only to squeak when he scoops you up, standing up from the chair.

your legs immediately lock around his hips, and you're panting already, he seemed to have that constant effect. all it took was a little kissing, and you were already a mess. "i love you." he says this like it's a reminder, and you are quick to chase his mouth with your own. you could say you were a bit obsessed with the act.

"i know." you reply, and his eyes roll at you, but he still looks as love sick as you feel.

"good. i'm going to need you to remember that, because when we get to the bed, i'm going to do a lot of things that might make you think the opposite." he says this like a definitive promise, and you gasp. "do you understand?" he asks, and you're shivering, the anticipation already managing to strike you down.

"yeah-yes!" you stutter. "i understand, it's okay." you add. spencer's already got this look of pride residing in his eyes, and you know that you're in for it, silly you for thinking love confessions would be enough to get you out of all the backtalk and clear attitude. "i'm ready!" you insist like the eager girl you are.

"we'll see." he retorts.

god, you love him.

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mosylufanfic · 3 days

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If you're still doing it, Casual Encounters for the fic titles?

For this title, nonny, I'm absolutely still doing it.

I love the thought of Jyn being the queen of one-night stands. It's just easier that way, you know? She tried to be the girlfriend type in high school but they always got so pouty and whiny when she didn't call them back. She has no desire to call them back. They're going to make her do shit like go to the movies or out to dinner before they get down to business.

Look, she is what she is, she's not going to apologize for it. She's busy. Scholarships don't win themselves, and while she knows her foster dads' employment at Yavin University will take care of most of her tuition, she's determined not to be beholden for the rest of it.

When she gets into college, she stops trading numbers. By her junior year, she stops trading names. Stops them when they try. Yavin University is big enough that she doesn't have to see anybody twice if she doesn't want to.

Bodhi doesn't like it, mostly because he's got some dude friend in his grad program that he thinks would be just perfect for her. "He's smart, he's funny, he can keep up with you - I just think if you met him, you'd like him."

"You're a romantic," Jyn says, and both of them know it's not a compliment.

Anyway, there's this guy that keeps turning up. Dark eyes, tall and lean, fine with no names. Just her type. He even had his own condoms the first time they hooked up in the backyard of a frat party.

She breaks her own no-repeat rule the next time she sees him, at a bar. He buys her a drink, then fingerbangs her in the alley. She goes down on him in his car. It's only polite, if you think about it.

It gets to be a thing. Sequential one-night stands, catching each other at parties and bars and street fairs and one time a visiting professor's lecture. (They did wait until the lecture was done. It was really good.)

They still don't know each others' names. Sometimes she thinks he'd like to ask.

Sometimes she'd thinks she'd like to tell him.

He doesn't sleep over, of course. God, of course not. The one day he wakes up in her bed was because they ran into each other at the library in the wee hours, both of them pulling near-all-nighters to finish midterm projects.

"Stress release?" he offers.

One of her other rules is that she never fucks in the university library because if Chirrut or Baze or one of their co-workers ever caught her, it would be unspeakably awkward. Which is why she impulsively says, "My place isn't far."

She wakes up before him and waits to feel that recoiling sensation of somebody being too close. She doesn't. That's weird.

She gets up and goes to make coffee. A key scrapes in the lock, and Bodhi staggers in, yawning.

"I've got someone here," she says once she finishes teasing him about his walk of shame. "He might want the shower."

Bodhi grunts, guzzling coffee, just as Jyn's bedroom door opens. She's head-deep in the fridge, trying to determine if the yogurt is worth the risk, so she just hears her multiple-one-night-stand's voice, ringing with shock. "Bodhi?"

Bodhi says, "Cassian?!"

(Of course, inspired by @andorerso's Rebelcaptain Smut Month. Does this count?)

#Jyn Erso #Cassian Andor #rebelcaptain #ask game #okay this got really long #but it was fun!#thanks nonny #star wars

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yarrayora · 12 hours

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Idk how to explain properly, but I’m a really big fan of the dynamic you portray between Marcille and Falin. I’ve always loved . idk how to say.. divorce? trouble-in-paradise? arcs/portrayals that look at problems in otp, and yours is super interesting. Sorry if this is weird just wanted to say :)

not weird at all! im flattered, thanks!

i wasnt really into farcille at first, mostly i was just impressed an f/f ship managed to be the fandom's no1, basically proving that when two female characters in a mostly male dominated cast are allowed to bond with each others and be their own characters people will latch on to them

mostly though aro touden siblings is still my no1 and even back then i didnt care about shipping because any type of romantic relationship in dunmeshi is less interesting than the potential of political intrigue the worldbuilding set up (yes, even chilchuck's failing marriage is less interesting to me than how living in the dungeon was safer for the orcs than being neighbors to human civilization) (shocking, i know)

but it all changed when i saw the daydream hour about marcille thinking falin looks cute in feminine clothing while falin herself is obviously uncomfortable with it

i can't sleep. i have to think about this. i have to think about how it's their first love and their first relationship and one is going in blind while the other set up her expectations based on a harlequin romance novel. they are NOT in the same wavelength at all and neither of them are particularly good at communicating their intention, with falin who grew up a convenient kid because she thought it was the least she could do for her family and marcille who frankly speaking was used to being treated as someone superior back at the magic school

thank god kabru exists because who else is going to give them a real advice for their very real relationship? chilchuck will be like "okay just break up" while not seeing the mirror to his own relationship with his runaway wife. senshi, wise as he is, is never in a romantic relationship. laios would be like :((( you guys are fighting? and gets stressed out on his own which makes it even more stressful to the girls. namari is like. "i, uh, please talk to kabru."

anyway theres also the bonus comic about falin inviting marcille to watch daltian clan's opera adaptation and while there is something to say about marcille thinking the humans playing elves doesn't fit her aesthetic (and the difference of societal expectations of dressing up as a different race in dunmeshi universe compared to in ours) all i can think of is that in modern day au where daltian clan has a movie adaptation marcille has a tumblr blog where she posts Hate on the daltian clan movie tag and calling it criticism which it is but also not the place, girl, go to rotten tomatoes for that

falin also has a tumblr and she and marcille had no idea the other is a tumblr user. falin made a post like "just watched daltian clan with my gf i get why shes really obsessed with it now" and marcille, against her better judgement replies to the post like "really sorry that you were misled by your girlfriend like that, you should read the novels instead, it's way better."

laios who sees falin looking shocked at her phone asks whats up and then after receiving the answer says "wow sounds like a real jerk! just block them"

anyway thats my modern day farcille when there's no high fantasy problems involved

#dungeon meshi #farcille #marcille donato #falin touden

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mama-qwerty · 2 days

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Understanding SCU Knuckles

Okay, one of the big things I keep seeing a lot of people bring up is the fact that movie!Knux talks about being a warrior all the time, and how different he is from other characterizations of Knuckles, specifically the games and comics. He doesn't seem to care about guarding the Master Emerald, and always seems ready to jump into things fist-first.

So I thought I'd do a deep dive into his psyche to see what truly makes him tick.

Buckle up, this'll get long.

Before I start, I wanna just put it out there that I headcanon the SCU is a separate universe from any other Sonic media. I actually take ALL Sonic media as separate universes--Boom is separate from Prime, which is separate from the SCU, which is separate from the games, which is more connected to but still separate from the comics. They're all different, which means the interpretation of the characters will be different too, to varying degrees.

The Knuckles of the SCU isn't like any other version. He wasn't born and raised all alone on Angel Island. He wasn't always the last of his kind. He wasn't essentially raised with the knowledge of what the Master Emerald truly is, and understood his role as its protector and guardian. He wasn't completely removed from what happened to all the other echidna, all those many years ago. He doesn't have the benefit of hindsight, to recognize that the warrior ways of the echidna were what ultimately led to their own demise.

Movie!Knux knew his tribe. He was raised by them. They were still in the middle of a war with the owls, so yes, they would still be warriors. That was what he strived for, too, because he's been raised on the stories of his people, with likely a heavy slant toward the "we did nothing wrong!" angle of what happened all those years ago. (And honestly, we don't have a completely unbiased story on what truly happened back then, so who knows what the actual truth is. But, anyway.)

He lost his tribe to that very same war. All of them. As a very small child. One who was then thrust into a dangerous galaxy, whether willingly or unwillingly, to figure out how to survive and try to complete the quest of his people. That was the only thing driving him, the only thing keeping him going. That quest.

So yes, being a warrior was, and is, a very important aspect of how he sees himself. That was his people's legacy--how they worked to retrieve the ME and regain the honor that had been stolen from them all those generations ago. Seeing this mindset through the eyes of a small child, he would accept that as being the way he should carry himself as well.

Movie!Knuckles has been living in survival mode for most of his life. He felt a tremendous amount of pressure to find the Master Emerald and complete the quest of his lost tribe. He was all that was left, it all fell to him, and failure meant his entire race died for nothing.

Fighting is what kept him alive. He didn't have the luxury of staying out of conflict, like game!Knux. He didn't have the advantage of being on a nearly inaccessible floating island, surrounded by harmless chao and flickies and other critters as he grew up. Movie!Knux was hunted and forced to fight in arenas for the entertainment of others. He fought, or he died. It was that simple.

And, it could be, over time the idea of what an echidna warrior was became warped in his head. He only had his memories of a young boy of about 6-ish to guide him as to what an echidna warrior stood for. Being out in the galaxy and having to fight for survival may have gotten the ideal of "being a warrior and fighting for a cause" confused with "everything requires a fight to solve".

He calls himself a warrior because he wants to keep his people's legacy alive. He wants to make his ancestors--his father--proud of him, by carrying on their tradition and honor.

He lived his life how he thinks they would have wanted, based on his memories as a child who lost everyone he loved.

He fought. He survived. He searched to complete that one quest that had plagued his people for generations. And when he finally, finally got his hands on the Master Emerald, he had this look:

This is not the look of a brave warrior, proud to have finally finished his quest.

This is not the look of a proud warrior, celebrating his victory after so many years.

This is the look of a boy, who'd lost everything he held dear, because of the pursuit of this little rock.

This is the look of a boy who thinks "Is that all? Is this truly what cost his entire tribe, his entire clan, his entire race, their lives? Was this rock truly worth the sacrifice made in its name for all those years?"

Maybe part of him hates the Master Emerald. Hates that the single focus his people had with it is what left him all alone. It was well hidden on Earth, tucked beneath the waves of a secret temple. The very second it was found, someone he trusted used it to cause great destruction and harm.

He had caused great destruction and harm in his own pursuit of it. However noble he believed his own goals were, he had behaved in ways he may be ashamed of now, all because of the belief that the Master Emerald belonged back in echidna hands, by any means necessary.

And now look.

The sacred temple, destroyed. Green Hills, partially destroyed. Sonic and his guardians, very nearly killed.

All because of this rock.

All because of him.

No one would have ever found the ME if he hadn't come looking for it. He nearly brought the same fate as his people unto the heads of who knows how many others.

All for this little rock.

Remember that the legend indicated that the Master Emerald was created from the chaos emeralds. The ME shattered, releasing the chaos emeralds that allowed Sonic to go Super. When Sonic released the chaos emeralds at the end of the fight, he scattered them throughout the world, and severed their connection to the ME in the process.

It's very possible no one really considers the Master Emerald to have any power itself. It was simply the container that held the smaller emeralds with all the power, and once they were released, the ME itself was simply a pile of crystal shards. Knuckles reformed the ME, but at this point, there's no reason to believe it holds any power at all.

youtube

When Knuckles fixes the ME, he doesn't say that the emerald itself is a threat to the safety of the universe. He doesn't say they needed to band together to prevent others from using the emerald's power to cause harm. He says they needed to use their power to keep the universe safe. This is a very vague statement, and does not indicate to me that he's looking at this as a "This emerald is a danger, we must keep it out of evil hands at all costs."

At no point in the series did Knuckles make any mention of the Master Emerald as a source of great power. (At least I don't think he did.) He simply said he had sworn his life to protect it. It's possible he looks at it as simply a totem of his people, a reminder of their fall. A sacred relic that is tied so firmly to his people's history, he feels responsible for keeping it safe and well-guarded. His people all died going after this thing, so he will honor their deaths by keeping it near.

So it's not surprising movie!Knuckles isn't all about guarding the ME and never letting it out of his sight. It's a dead rock, one that holds no power at all. An heirloom that carries his tribe's history, and that's all.

The series picks up very shortly after the second movie, so Knuckles is still leaning really hard into his warrior status. It's all he knows, it's what will keep his people alive in his own heart. Just because he's not constantly on the run anymore doesn't mean he can simply stop doing what's essentially ingrained in him at this point.

He's spent his whole life on the move. Training, fighting, questing. He's a work dog who can't adjust to life as an indoor companion pooch. He needs something to do.

He's a warrior, and a warrior doesn't just relax. So he's not gonna just sit around and make his entire life revolve around the Master Emerald.

Yet.

Keep in mind that we haven't seen the entire story of the SCU yet. Just because he's still leaning into the warrior thing now doesn't mean he always will. It doesn't mean he won't have some epiphany or vision or just a change of heart after some time in the Wachowski's care, and realize that being a warrior maaaybe isn't the best path for him at this point. That maybe that part of his life is done, and although he'll still need to fight when necessary, he is free to pursue other interests now. That he doesn't have to live his life according to what his people would want or deem appropriate.

I don't believe he's actually grieved for his loss yet. Not fully. I think a part of him always felt like an open wound because the ME was still out there, still tainting the memory of his people. And now that he has it, and is on a planet that allows him to feel safe, he'll be able to work through those emotions. Work through that grief and maybe discover who he is, apart from his people and their legacy.

The fundamental aspects of what makes Knuckles who he is is still within movie!Knux. In the series he told Wade that he had been betrayed over and over and over again, which indicates that even though he was in a rough and dangerous galaxy, he tried to trust others. He tried to make friends. But each time he did, they betrayed him. But that didn't stop him from trying again.

We saw glimpses of a different Knuckles in the series. One who opened up to others. One who cared about others. One who acted like the boy he was, instead of the hardened warrior he thought of himself as.

Movie!Knuckles needs time to figure out who he is now that his quest is over. Change doesn't happen overnight, and given his backstory, it makes sense for him to still hold onto that warrior title with both fists. He's an echidna, the last echidna, and he doesn't want to turn his back on what he remembers his people to have been.

I'm eager to see how he'll behave in the 3rd movie.

#knuckles the echidna #scu #sonic movie 2 #Youtube

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thecarnivorousmuffinmeta · 2 days

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If Alphard Black was alive during canon, would that change/affect anything? Besides giving Draco a competent grandparent figure to maybe, perhaps slightly negate some of the influence of incompetent father figure.

Alphard Black, a great character @therealvinelle and I have completely made up for our own purposes.

Honestly, the way Harry sees it, no or else so minimally it's going to be no.

Where Does Alphard Fit In?

Alphard in this universe lives far past his original due date in the early 1980's/late 1970's. Potentially, this means no money willed to Sirius as he's not dead, but we'll go with @therealvinelle and my convenient interpretation of "gifted money to Sirius" in which case Alphard's not quite regretting giving that money but very :/ about it when a few years later Sirius is found to be Death Eater Number 2 who blew up an entire Muggle street in cold blood and sold his best friend, wife, and child out to You-Know-Who directly.

Alphard doesn't suspect this is false given the sheer emotional gut punch he receives around this time that is Bellatrix being a confirmed die-hard Death Eater who has tortured a fucking baby/murdered many/and tortured people into insanity, Regulus's disappearance and presumed death, and Narcissa being married to what clearly is a Death Eater who is now in dire straits and is bribing everyone he can to stay out of Azkaban. At this rate, why shouldn't Sirius have done this? Everyone else in Alphard's life has. Just par for the course.

(As an aside, I doubt Sirius would have gone to live with Alphard when he ran away because a) he didn't canonically b) he had support through the Potters c) the entire point was to run away from the family and that would just be running to family. So, they didn't have a period where they were very close and we remain in the canon world where Sirius was pretty surprised to have gotten money from his uncle like that and then doesn't really think about it.)

Alphard spends the 1980's onwards in a daze of extreme sadness as Regulus has presumably killed himself for no reason the family can discern, Sirius turned out to be a lunatic Death Eater no one suspected (which means he ran off from the family for no reason??? Sirius???), Bellatrix is in Azkaban deservedly for crimes so heinous Alphard really doesn't want to think about it, Narcissa is still fucking married to Lucius who is so clearly a Death Eater it's practically a running joke and sees 0 problem with this (and it's worse because Lucius is doing so well! This is great! He's filling the power vacuum!), Alphard's sister dies at some point during this period as does his second cousin/brother-in-law, and we're basically looking at a guy who's going to be hanging out with Andromeda (and fuck what the family thinks at this point, Alphard's so tired) who looks like the only remaining sane one and telling Narcissa to "PLEASE LEAVE LUCIUS" and being Draco's sad sad grandfather/granduncle figure who's very :/ about Lucius and Narcissa privately talking about how great Voldemort and the Death Eaters are.

I imagine Alphard's very dubious about the Boy Who Lived thing but mostly he just doesn't care. It's just so stupid and his life's misery and people are acting like he's supposed to be happy because at least Voldemort's gone. He doesn't expect to ever interact with Harry Potter because, well, why would he?

Alphard's role comes in more when Sirius escapes Azkaban and I imagine the Aurors aren't sure whether to guard him or not. However, Sirius doesn't give a fuck about his uncle and so he never comes around. Alphard has no reason not to assume that Sirius is on the run somewhere and is guilty as hell given Sirius canonically did not get a chance to prove his innocence.

More to the point, Harry has no reason to hear more about Alphard Black than he already did in canon.

Grimmauld Place was willed to Harry directly from Sirius and so Alphard wouldn't come into the picture there anymore than any of the other Blacks did when Sirius died.

Harry has no reason to interact with Alphard later as there's no suspicion that Alphard would have a Horcrux and he learns about RAB from Kreacher without having to interrogate Alphard about anything.

Draco still becomes a Death Eater because he really has no choice when it comes to saving his family/he wouldn't listen to his boring old grandfather/granduncle anymore than he did his mother/Snape of why this is a bad idea and he should be very careful.

Basically, Alphard would be one of the many witnesses to the tumultuous years that are canon and would have no real affect on it.

#harry potter #harry potter meta #harry potter headcanon #alphard black #meta #headcanon #opinion #vinelle #therealvinelle

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mo-ondrcps · 1 day

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♖ ˗ˏˋ 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐂𝐀𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐑 ´ˎ˗

❛ life with casper, grim reaper.❜

: ̗̀➛ casper x reader (gender neutral) warning(s): nsfw content after the soft category. minors dni on that point! + some spoilers of the game if you haven't played it. genre: au — modern, supernatural, romance, fluff, smut. word count: 1.0K author's note: IM SO IN LOVE WITH THIS MAN!! that i even tried to make this about him tehee. (i now know my type are grim reapers /bricked).

### ★ SOFT.

— this is based on the dlc, beyond the bet opening video and some of the artworks where he's now staying with you. he'll cook for you. casper will cook you breakfast, some homemade lunch and dinner for the both of you. (even if some of them are burnt. he's trying to get a hang of it don't worry!) all for his sunshine.

— you'd always find new flowers in your apartment every time the last batch that casper gave you now withered away. of course it's sunflowers that reminds himself of his sunshine. it's always been a good greeting to you after a long day of work, if not that an additional greeting from your boyfriend stealing you kisses, welcoming you home.

— hand kisses like a gentleman. will do it randomly just to catch you off guard and probably when you're not teasing him so he wouldn't be too flustered and shy away from doing so. he'll do it when you least expect him to so he would make fun of you for being so embarrassed.

— will sometimes help you relax in bath by giving you a massage on your back or wash your hair after a long day of work. sometimes because it really depends on your mood if you want his company or just want to be left alone for a while and he'll respect either option you give him. he'll also help do your nightly routine for you if you're that exhausted to move before drying you then moving you to the bed to relax.

— more of the gentleman and caring casper that he is, i believe he would open doors for you and if you have watched the video for beyond the bet dlc, if you forgot your umbrella he'll go straight away just to give you one. baby doesn't want you coming home and catching a cold. not on his watch! and the coat, the coat, the coat on your shoulders! (don't mind me rambling). make sure you're always warm and cozy.

— although if you did catch an illness expect worried and some light nagging from housewife, casper ("ugh, i told you so, sunshine") for forgetting an umbrella, a jacket when you forgot to bring one yourself. he'll prepare (and possibly search) what medicine and food mortals need to get well soon with some guidance from you. don't make him worry too much! he doesn't want to lose you (just like in the other universe- i mEan!).

— stealing his coat is a must (yes we're going back to his coat). so we all know he's neat and very dedicated to his morning and night routine, i just feel like it would be very comfortable to steal his. it would smell so soft and very casper that it would be too hard to give it back to him... without a little play fight of course! once he gets it back however, i feel like there would be teasing him here and there because casper would probably lean in and sniff his jacket after you wore it, just to catch your scent.

— "you know, you can always lean in and sniff me for yourself.", "i- i know that sunshine!"

— cuddles are always a must (even if azrael would most likely be in the middle of the both of you like your very own soul baby besides your pet). gives the warmest cuddles. i just know it, that man cuddles azrael bet every time he sleeps. he'd be hard to get away from every time you wake up for work though.

### ★ NSFW.

— he is a switch. it depends on the both of you on who wants to be in charge. there are times where he would tease you and take over. i believe he would take up half of the time and when he isn't too sure on the next you'll either guide him or coax him gently that you'll handle it. a very pouty baby because he wants to make sure you feel good this time and to repay you after all he's learned.

— loves praising, pegging ( i'm not too lost on what goes on with that one valentine's day art they made of him ). i kinda think roleplay as well, maybe. i'm not sure i feel like it would be nice to integrate the time where he wore a vampire look in one of the arts i saw and provide heated kisses and marks on your collarbone and neck.

— he'll whisper words of being possessive and protective of you too while he's at it. "you are my mortal. your soul, your body, your entire being belongs to me."

— he whines. the most prettiest whines you'll hear every time you sink onto him while riding him or whenever he takes over on you. will beg every time you edge him until he is very close to his high.

— i know i have said praising, but also, body worship. i'm taking reference from the artworks i've seen again but just taking your time kissing his skin while lifting up his dark shirt and telling him how beautiful his figure looks or slowly undressing him in general while leaving praises from your lips besides what he is doing is right while you guys do it.

— so from our soft point on the bath, if you're in the mood for it and need his company he'll join and help you relax. he'll help massaging your scalp, your back but also a bit on the suggestive side where he starts rubbing slow circles on your hip and thigh while his teeth nibble on the side of your neck and collarbone like a vampire trying to quench his thirst making you draw a heated gasp.

— enjoys orgasm denial and edging, anything to keep him so riled up and for you to tease him every time he's almost there just to hear his whines until you give him what he wants. only under a deal that he begs for what he wants and a bit loudly just to watch him writhe a little more before you give in to his long awaited reward with tears brimming his eyes out of pleasure.

────────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹────────

author's note: i was thinking of writing more of casper but with some mix of genres like supernatural, fantasy and what not as the type of fics i usually write but that will come soon. that's all from me from everything that i remember of casper! i can't wait to play beyond the bet once it releases and i hope you guys are excited for it too!

#casper adwd #casper a date with death #a date with death #grim x reader #casper x reader #casper x mc #adwd #adwd grim #grim a date with death #nsft #not safe for tumblr #smut

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irondadfics · 2 days

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Hii, I'm sorry for bothering you guys again but if it's alright, do you guys have any post nwh where everyone forget about Peter temporary?

here’s some recommendations for you, enjoy

O Brother, Where Art Thou? by theskeptileptic

8 year-old Morgan is struggling after the death of her mom. Her dad is working non-stop and her extended family of emotionally constipated superheroes are just as uncomfortable with her grief as their own. To top it off, she can't stop dreaming about a brother she's never had and all the trouble he might be in. When she convinces Tony to take her with him on a work trip to Caltech, she meets a student who looks a lot like the boy in her dreams. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem very interested in her. Good thing her dad always knows what to do. A sort of No Way Home, Everyone Lives (Except May and Pepper) Fix It story, where Morgan channels major Pepper Potts vibes, Tony channels major concerned Dad vibes, and Peter channels major college age-Tony Stark vibes. Served with a splash of angst, a heap of trauma, and a sprig of making adults take proper care of one depressed spider child.

Peter Parker's Tapeworm by Ginevra_Benci

Everyone forgets that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Everyone includes Peter Parker.

The world kept you like a secret, but I kept you like an oath by for_the_night

NWH SPOILERS At 23:37 Doctor Strange casts a spell to make the universe forget Peter Parker. At 23:36 Tony Stark's heart stops for three minutes. When he comes to, no one remembers his kid, but you best believe he's going to do everything he can figure out why. He isn't going to lose his Spider-ling again.

Long Story Short (It Was A Bad Time) Or AIs Don't Forget by peacockgirl

Turns out magic doesn't affect AIs. Karen is Peter's only link to his old life, and helps him hold on when he gets low. Meanwhile, in Upstate New York, Tony struggles with the inexplicable certainty that he's lost a kid. Until Peter gets hurt, and Karen tells FRIDAY ... Set in that wonderful AU world where Tony survives Endgame, and our boy (eventually) gets all the hugs he needs and deserves.

Fond absences by frostysunflowers

The thing is, Morgan can’t really remember when she and Daddy started visiting the donut store. She just remembers being there one snowy day before Christmas, a bright pink frosty donut in her hand, Daddy sipping on his coffee that Mommy says he still drinks too much of, and Michelle and Ned, before she knew their names, looking over some big glossy books that had pictures of people in dark red jumpers on the front. Another boy had been there too. He looked sad, really sad, and very tired, like he could fall asleep at any moment. or Magic spells are strong, but love is so much stronger.

#fic rec list #fic rec #post no way home #forgotten peter parker #Temporarily forgotten peter

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icycoldninja · 3 days

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Hello!! Can I request for a platonic one for the Sparda bros with Nero and V? Like what if the twin have a younger sister who got most of their mom’s features, but still as strong as them. She’s kinda like Nero, stubborn, reckless, but has a big heart and like the twin she got an obsession with video games

Please n thank u 🙏

Yes, of course! Enjoy 💜

Sparda boys + V x Reader platonic headcannons

¤ Dante ¤

-Dante is reminded of you guys' mom every time he looks at you. You're basically a younger clone of Eva, which is both a good thing and a bad thing, because as much as he loves his mother, he is reminded of everything that happened when he looks at you.

-Dante trained you to be as strong as he is, (Vergil helped too) and is glad you turned out to be a badass devil hunter just like the rest of your family.

-Dante loves you, as any big brother does, but, being your sibling, he is obligated to argue with you at least twice a day.

-Will steal your food when you're not looking, especially if it's pizza.

-Sometimes your arguments turn into full on wrestling competitions where the victor usually isn't clear for several hours.

-However, Dante will always be around to play games with you when you want him to.

■ Vergil ■

-Vergil is that overprotective older brother that scares away all your friends and potential dates cause he doesn't trust them.

-He takes very good care of you because you remind him of his mother, whom he failed to protect. He'll make up for it now by protecting you.

-He'll train you to be a swordswoman who is at least half as good as he is so if you're ever in danger and he's not around to help, you can defend yourself.

-You are the only person who can get between him and Dante and stop a fight without getting injured or called deadweight in the process.

-Still, as siblings are inclined to do, you guys still fight a lot, usually over menial things. For instance, Vergil will insist you misplaced his copy of William Blake, you'll deny it, an argument starts, Vergil rises from his seat in anger, discovers he was sitting on it the entire time, and sits back down sulkily as you give him the silent treatment. About an hour later you'll be back on speaking terms.

-Doesn't know how to play video games because he's your boomer bro, but he won't object to being taught.

□ Nero □

-Nero finds you to be the cool aunt, though you're really more like his best friend since you have less of an age gap.

-Plays video games with you all day, every day, whenever you want.

-Is amazed that you have the power to stop an argument or fight between Dante and Vergil and that they actually listen to you.

-It must be because you look like their mom, Nero reasons, and he's right. Also, the fact that you look almost like a carbon copy of Eva means that Nero gets a chance to bond with his grandma and aunt at the same time.

-Loves to spar with you to test your strength and see how well Dante and Vergil trained you.

-Is really more fond of you than he is of his own dad.

● V ●

-V, being the human half of Vergil, knew who you were and had some level of familiarity towards you, but carried none of the brotherly love Vergil had.

-Because the memories he gained from Vergil are somewhat fuzzy, he mistook you as Eva herself when he first saw you and had to do a double take. Then when he saw you and Trish standing side by side, he thought the two of you were twin sisters.

-Does not know what video games are as he's only ever read poetry, but with your guidance, he might learn...someday...when he finally understands that the controller is not magic and that the TV is not a window to another universe...

-Is very glad you're as strong as the Sparda twins because his condition warrants a bodyguard, ashamed as he is to admit it. You, the younger sibling, must now protect her older brother's human half because said human half is trying to protect you.

-V cares for you, and even though he doesn't see you as his sister, he does see you as a very dear friend.

-He will divulge Vergil's secrets to you, and also spill the beans on how this MOTIVATED man feels about his baby sister so you can use it to tease him later.

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blazinghotfoggynights · 18 hours

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I know Buddie fans prior to season 7 were not delusional, misinterpreting scenes, or making it all up. There were too many instances that were blatantly hinting at attraction, even if the two involved were oblivious.

(Also, platonic friends don't act like that. You may be able to gaslight those with very little life experience, but some of us have circled the sun more than a few times.)

With all that being said, I am at a point where I can see the writing on the wall. Buck and Eddie? I would say there is an infinitesimal chance it ever happens and that guy in power is laying the foundation for a BuckTommy endgame and Eddie Diaz is being confirmed as completely het. I wouldn't even be surprised if this is leading to an Eddie Diaz exit.

Buddie never happening is okay. I've been in fandom long enough to know there are authors who will give us excellent alternatives.

My issue lies with the character currently dating Buck and how he is being portrayed and embraced. (If you can't deal with even a bit of Tommy criticism, don't go past this point. This isn't about the ship wars or the actor. This is about accountability and the portrayal of women, LGBTQ, and POC in fiction.)

Before BuckTommy fans accuse me of being a Buddie shipper who is delusional or jealous, please. They are fictional characters. There are fanfic writers who are doing the lord's work, so I am completely fine.

What I don't like is the obviously slanted take on the situation of the character Buck has been paired with.

I haven't been extremely vocal about my feelings for the Tommy Kinard character and how his return has been handled, but I am going to touch upon it now.

I think the manner of that character's return is tone deaf and disrespectful to people of color, LGBTQ people, and women. Tommy now being an out gay man does not suddenly absolve him of his past actions. Racist, misogynist, homophobic taunting, insults, and humiliation have no excuse. Okay, there is one, but this blog is not ready to get into all that. (IYKYK)

Tommy Kinard returning to a universe where his deplorable actions are explained as merely giving in to peer pressure AND, what is even more unnerving, his victims forgiving him and becoming his friends is a slap in the face to every single POC, woman, or LGBTQ person who has been tortured for just being who they are. So no, I don't support or like the character and how his return has been handled. If he is called out and held accountable, that may change.

Before any problematic fans take that and run with it, I am going to say my issue is with the CHARACTER. I don't know a damn thing about the actor who portrays him. As a woman who spent time in a male dominated field, I know what it is like to be surrounded by those who feel that as het white males, they own the space and heaven help anyone who doesn't fit the same description.

Would I love to see Buddie happen? It's obvious I would. But, as with any work, the author has the right to take the story in any direction he or she wants to. They aren't obligated to give the fans what they want. That is what fandom works are for.

As someone who has witnessed the type of behavior Tommy engaged in under the prior Captain's tenure more often than I care to think about, erasing his past with a mere stroke of a key and acting as if it didn't happen or didn't matter makes me feel some type of way. Those who have experienced that treatment know what I am talking about. The people who are on the receiving end of the hatred are always expected to accept apologies, regardless of how self-serving or disingenuous they are, with appreciation, grace, and forgiveness. That is seriously problematic.

I don't mind if Buck and Eddie end up with other people. I just don't want those other people to be Tommy and Marisol. Give Buck a good guy or girl and give Eddie, well, right now, daily therapy and later, a good person.

For balance, I am not a Marisol fan either. Hiding important facts about yourself because you think the person will leave you is manipulative and deceitful. I've left people for doing it and I support anyone for doing the same.

#911 abc #911 on abc #9 1 1 buddie #buddie #buddie 911 #buck x eddie #eddie diaz #evan buckley #eddie x buck

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shinewerst · 1 day

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Here I will leave some of my thoughts, guesses and headcanons. Some of them may be stupid and unreasonable, but I will share them with you anyway.

I've noticed that a lot of people headcanon Earth and Moon or Earth and Venus as siblings. And I partially agree with this. But here are my thoughts on this matter: They are cosmic bodies and they do not have siblings in the usual sense, but since they live for a very long time, over billions of years of being close to each other, they can develop family feelings for each other. But only if they are always close. Therefore, most often this occurs between a planet and its moons or between several moons of one planet. This is unlikely to happen between planets, since each of them is in its own orbit, perhaps double planets are an exception. Therefore, I headcanon the Moon and Earth as brothers, Phobos and Deimos too, and Mars as their guardian. (Earth and Venus may be somehow connected, but not family) It's more difficult with gas giants. I believe that when their moons are too numerous and constantly increasing in number, they stop keeping track of them and treat them more like decorations. But Idk.

In the Solar System, having life is supposedly cool and the Earth is proud of it, Venus dreams of it, etc. but it seems to me that in other systems the attitude towards this may be different. For example, I have an oc exoplanet and in her home system this was not considered something cool. They literally treated it like lice lol.

Planets/stars/satellites do not speak any of the earth’s languages, but their own. But different systems have something like their own accents and dialects. So my oc speaks a little differently from them.

In different parts of the universe, the appearance of the planets changes and what the planets will look like usually depends on the star (I'm talking specifically about planethumans).

For the planet/star and satellites, love is something deeper than for earthlings. This is very strong, sensual.

I also noticed how in many fanfictions characters call Proto-Earth that way. But it seems to me that the term “Proto-Earth” itself appeared after his death, namely the collision with Theia and the appearance of the “new Earth”. Before that, everyone simply called him Earth.

Each of them has its own axis tilt, right? They don't really follow it, especially in the planethumans format, so I made a headcanon about them sleeping on their slants. So, Venus sleeps upside down, huh?

The Earth speaks all earthly languages and knows the stages of evolution of almost every creature on his surface, although sometimes he himself may be confused about this. His past memories are slowly fading. He does not remember how he and the Moon appeared, he does not remember that there could have been life on Venus before. I imagine him periodically reading a book about dinosaurs because he doesn't want to forget about them.

I like to think that Mars used to be a bad-tempered asshole, but Earth doesn't remember that. Mars himself does not want to remember this at all, since he has already grown out of it.

Probably the Earth became the way we see him because of humans. Perhaps he was different before. I imagine him as a sweet and kind planet who does his best to care for his friends and his little brother. But when he changed, Luna continued to love him like a brother and care for him in return.

Earth usually tells others only the good side of earthlings, but usually he complains to the Moon about how much he is hurt, about how they are starting another war and doing other terrible things. Therefore, the Moon is much more tolerant of the Earth; he must be the only one who knows how hard it is for him.

Venus is jealous of the Earth and everyone has already understood this. I like to think that Venus, after losing life on its surface, feels the need to protect Earth and its inhabitants.

Luna is aroace. Just because for some reason it seems to me that dating someone just doesn’t suit him.

That's all for now. Maybe I'll create a second part cause I might have forgotten something :p

#solarballs #solarballs earth #solarballs venus #solarballs moon #solarballs mars

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devilart2199-aibi · 2 days

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Transformers Skybound Reading update: Issues 6 & 7!! 📚

As a Soundwave enjoyer, these were crazy. Thoughts and spoilers below ⤵️

I gotta say I feel like someone on the team likes Soundwave haha. This fella feels like he always gets the short end of the stick. Always incredibly efficient, loyal and quiet, but never rewarded. But in this one!! Soundwave steps up! I had to go over it a few times to just take it in and be like "Wow Soundwave really just did that?!?"

It kinda felt weird almost, like maybe we're getting too much from him? You know when a character usually occupies a quiet role and they work on something in the background (a scheme or something). Additionally him really caring for his Cassettes is something I love so much so getting that too, I almost feel spoiled! Or like maybe this is too good? Like something horrible is gonna happen?haha I dunno.

The panels too of Soundwave fighting Screamer and them all saying his name!! OOF!!! *Chefs kisses*!!

I loved this so much too T__T ahhhhh

Also I feel so bad for Thundercracker! He lost both his seeker bros T_T I kinda hope he finds out how Skywarp died actually and maybe goes on his own again like in IDW1.

Arcee being trained by magnus is a cool idea! Magnus always fluctuates in importance and age so much between interpretations!

She looks so adorable here. Poor baby T_T (also is she holding Magnus' hand?? 🥺)

And I was very happy to see Warpath for 1 second 😭 rip silly guy (also Kup)

I'm enjoying it so far! One thing that always gets me confused in Transformers series is just how much it takes for them to die? Like when should I be heartbroken or can they just be put back together? IDW1 eventually makes it pretty clear, but I'm still a bit confused with Skybound.

Some characters have gotten killed off and I'm just like "Dang... you too??" Starscream doesn't count because he's Starscream. You could put him in a blender, feed him to Unicron, have him poop him out and then be tossed in the dark universe and he'd still come back! Probably with a spiffy new paint job too!

Anyway the whole things with Sparkplug and the Matrix ehhhh I'm not sure what's going on? I get the a soul for a soul kinda thing, but I'm not sure how i feel about it 🤔well! I'll find out eventually! It's just different and interesting rn! 🤔

I have one more issue so I'll yap more then! What do you think so far?? Please no spoilers tho for the next issues! (8 onwards since I'm reading the physical releases!) I'm curious what your thoughts are!

#aibi thoughts #transformers chats #small disclaimer i haven't read IDW1 fully so idk Soundwaves full story there and everything he does but he deserves a promotion #soundwave always gives me assistant to the assistant regional manager vibes 😭😂

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im-not-corrupted · 2 days

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For my contribution to mermay, have the second chapter to like doves, falling to the currents aka my Mer!Hob fic! Read part one on Tumblr here or read the entire thing on ao3 here.

Tags: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Merman!Hob, Human Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, the fantasy is very vague but like. mermaids., Dream of the Endless | Morpheus has Depression, Grief/Mourning, deals with the death of Orpheus, and Dream and Calliope's divorce, Brief suicidal ideation, Near Death Experiences, Drowning, Touch-Starved Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, POV Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Arranged Marriage, Dream of the Endless | Morpheus Saves Hob Gadling, Developing Friendships

—————

He rests for a good week or so. Not out of any true desire to do so—every part of him wants desperately to return to the beach, to see if what he saw there was real, to see if the merman waits for him. A foolish desire, that; if he was real, then the fact that he even bothered to save Morpheus in the first place was a miracle in and of itself. There is no reason for him to wait for Morpheus's return, especially when Morpheus gave no indication he planned to go back.

No, he rests on the orders of Unity Kincaid, the doctor who took one look at him upon his return to the palace and demanded he take some time to recover. At this point, he had yet to see his parents. Whether they had been alerted to either his survival or his arrival at the palace, he didn’t know. He also didn’t particularly care, and still doesn’t—their disappointed glances, the sternness in their faces during their last conversation, remains all too easy to recall. While he is still so exhausted, and questions his sanity just a little more whenever somebody tells him that his survival is a miracle as he only just manages to stop himself from mentioning his fish-tailed saviour, he doesn't want to see them.

Not only because he does not want to deal with their disappointment yet again, but also because he does not want to talk to them about the prospect of marriage again. Somehow, the two of them saw fit to bring it up before he left for Orpheus's funeral. It is your duty as prince to this kingdom, his mother had snapped at him. You failed with Princess Calliope. No matter. You may take another bride from a neighbouring kingdom and strengthen our ties to them, or marry some Lady of our own kingdom.

He can't comprehend how they might see fit to bring this up while the loss of both his son and his wife remain unhealed wounds to his heart. And when they brought it up, he had been made both angry and ashamed—ashamed for failing, ashamed for being selfish enough to not want to marry some other lady for the sake of his duties, and angry that these things were demanded of him. He is the third son in line to the throne. The chances of him taking the throne are slim. He should not matter in the grand scheme of things, yet his parents seem insistent on holding him to duties he doesn't want to follow through with.

After Calliope, the idea of marriage...he can't do it. Perhaps in another three or four years, if his title truly does call for it. And with no true argument to make—his parents do not sympathise with his losses and don't seem to see them as a reason for disregarding his duties—he has no way to avoid any decision regarding such arrangements.

So he hears Unity's orders to rest and locks himself in his chambers, glad for the excuse to spend time to himself, and more than glad that he has yet to run into either his parents or the siblings he has a more rocky relationship with than the one he has with Telute, despite the way he desires to run out to that beach again, to see if the merman is there, to see if any of it had been real.

Chances are, it was all some elaborate hallucination. By the time he wakes up the next afternoon after finally laying down to rest after what feels like years but really couldn't have been more than half a day, surely—he still isn't sure how long he was unconscious for, and vows to ask Lucienne at some point—he is half-convinced that the merman, and whatever conversation the two held on that beach, were nothing more than a product of near-drowning, and perhaps heat stroke too. He has the sunburn to go with that particular hypothesis, and after waking initially, much of his skin is red and raw and painful. He refuses to move for a good while when he realises just what price he now has to pay for laying on that beach for so long, feeling utterly miserable.

Heat stroke, then. Yes. Hallucinations is not a symptom he associates with such a thing, but he supposes there’s a first time for everything. He returns to Doctor Kincaid, who takes one look at his uncomfortable expression and too-red skin he knows will peel uncomfortably soon and hands him a salve she promises will help, then demands he returns to resting. He is not to overexert himself, after all, and he does exactly as she orders with minimal complaint. (The salve does help, a soothing chill that battles the fire of his skin. He makes a mental note to himself to thank the doctor the next time he sees her—which, he reckons, will not take too long. She has said already that she shall check on him soon.)

Despite dismissing the merman on the beach as an hallucination and dismissing it as simply too much time spent in the sun after near drowning, the urge to return to the beach remains, lurking under his skin with such determination he fears he may go mad with it, and is worsened every time he looks out to his large, ceiling-high windows that face the sea and remembers the way the sun caught on the golden flecks of the merman's eyes. His imagination has always been particularly strong—his parents have always expressed disappointment over this, tutting and telling him firmly that he should not ‘spend so much time with your head among the clouds, Morpheus’—but there are some things, he thinks, not even he can make up. That shade of gold, for example—he wracks his brain and yet cannot come up with a colour that feels remotely similar to what he saw that day. It does not feel right when he tries to replicate the way the merman looked at him inside his own head, like his eyes were twin suns of their own and had the same pull, the same power, as the one that hung high in their sky. He was awed at the sight of them on that beach, and there are some things even his imagination cannot come up with.

Each time he finds himself staring out at the sea and wandering down this tangent, he forces himself away. The sea still looks beautiful despite the storm he witnessed, despite the fact that he's now all-too aware of just how much brutality lurks beneath the waves. He pushes away the memory of the merman’s voice—one of the few things he can remember clearly, which only further reinforces the idea that the afternoon he spent with him was nothing but a figment of his own mind—and stalks away from the windows, swallowing down guilt and letting it tear open his trachea on the way down. It has not even been six full months since Orpheus's death, since Calliope left him for letting their son die. Yet in his weakest moment, he had somehow allowed himself to imagine up the merman in all his beauty, sun-bright and lovely. It feels unfair to those he lost to dream up somebody so objectively lovely despite his strangeness, cruel to think of him instead of those he lost.

Acknowledging that does not make the desire to find the merman again any lesser, but the guilt is strong enough he closes the window so he cannot hear the waves of the sea crashing against the rocks of the cliff. And for a week, he busies himself with reading as he regains his strength and his sunburn begins to heal, his discomfort growing a bit less by the day. There are many books in his rooms. Many of them, he has read before. Some he returns to for some modicum of comfort and lets himself drown in the nostalgia and longing they bring up. Some have yet to be read at all, and there is a new stack of books on top of his desk that he's never seen before.

When he approaches them, he spots a note written on white parchment in neat, swooping cursive he knows to be Lucienne's hand resting on the leather-bound cover of the first book in the pile. He picks it up and reads it quickly, chest swelling with gratitude as he does so.

Your Highness,

I figured you may be in need of some new entertainment while condemned to bedrest, my Lord. I thought you may enjoy them, and that they may ease the weight on your shoulders for a time.

Yours, Lucienne.

He places the note back on his desk, making a quick mental note to thank her whenever he sees her next, and then takes the stack in his hands. He follows Unity's orders and rests, slowly making his way through Lucienne's stack of books, which ranged from awful, trashy romance novels he consumes regardless of their quality and heart-wrenching tragedies that leave him feeling a little hollow and terribly lost, and resolves not to think about the merman with golden eyes who called him pretty even when he sat on death’s door.

+++

Not thinking about him doesn't work. His memory follows Morpheus through his rest days and then longer. After a few days, that memory is one of the few things that lingers from his near-death experience. His throat still feels scratchy, but his chest hurts less. With enough sleep, the physical exhaustion leaves him. (Despite that, he still does not feel truly rested. Without the bone-deep exhaustion that demands he lay his head to a pillow and sleep for the next ten years, all that remains is the more metaphysical ache in his chest. It is all so much, grief and misery overwhelming him in equal measures. It drains him, but he is not physically tired, so his body does not allow him rest. After a couple days, when his body is better healed, he falls back into the patterns he fell into before his journey for Orpheus's funeral, and sleep becomes difficult for him once more. Each and every time he closes his eyes, he sees Orpheus's face in his mind's eye. It makes sleep difficult.)

He is called to eat with his family the day his ordered bed rest ends, who express their sympathies for his "difficult journey" and do not say much else. He is grateful for that—his parents have never been particularly good at caring about any of their children, so he expects nothing else from them as he sits at the grand table and is brought food he hardly touches. It is better that they offer him sympathies they didn't truly mean than bring up marriage or alliances or any other number of horrid things they could possibly come up with.

So Morpheus sits in silence between his elder sister and younger sibling's chairs, avoids Telute's searching, worried glances, and simply listens. Nyx and Cronos speak only to ask questions of the others, falling silent when they lose interest, which happens quickly enough until either sibling mentions something that may tarnish the family's reputation. He does not mind sitting in silence—there is little he wishes to say either way.

After years of family dinners, he knows exactly how these things go. As soon as he opens his mouth, his younger sibling, Epithuma, will say something to goad him until he either grows frustrated enough to snap back or leave. Both of those options earn him their parent's ire; it is the only reason Epithuma has ever decided to bother him so. Telute claims it is due to him paying them a lack of attention, but Morpheus does not believe that to be true. Though the two of them were close when they were younger—as close as Epithuma and Aponia were now—as they grew, his sibling developed a hatred for him he still does not understand the origins of. They needled him, caused chaos that ended only in disaster for him, and have made little effort to hide their dislike of him. He misses them vaguely, in the sense that he misses only what they once had but would be reluctant to return to it if given the opportunity.

Yes, it is best he remains silent. The events of the last few months serve only as ammunition in his sibling's mouth. He does not wish to hear their take on Calliope's leaving of him, nor does he wish for them to detail his obvious failures. Those he knows well and has already internalised. He has no doubt Epithuma will find the most scathing way to word such things. He does not wish to hear it.

He manages to get out of that family dinner with his sanity only just intact, and without inducing anybody's frustration of him. Their parents do not call him back, and make no effort to talk to him, so he slips back to his chambers with the intention of disappearing until he is called out next.

That is interrupted by Telute, who manages to clutch onto his arm as he walks away. The touch is abrupt enough to startle him and he spins around, more than a little panicked until he sees it is his dear sister. She smiles at him, but it is a tentative thing too full of concern for him to find any comfort in it. "I didn't mean to startle you, brother," she tells him, and frowns. "Did you not hear me calling you?"

He shakes his head, and pretends he doesn't see the way her lips tighten in displeasure. "Can I help you, sibling?" And then, because he had forgotten that she, too, had been on that ship with him, he asks quieter, "How are you faring?"

She blinks at him, and the guilt he has become far too acquainted with grows thorns, tearing at him. It is selfish of him, to have not thought of her sooner. To have not asked after her. “As well as can be, I suppose. Though I didn’t nearly drown, so I have that going for me. Are you well, brother?”

The abruptness to her voice startles him. He does not know how to answer and stands in front of her, floundering, trying desperately to grasp for something to say that might soothe her. It is a difficult task, and in the end all he can think of saying is, “I am tired, sister.”

That one sentence can mean a good many things. When Unity Kincaid checked over him, he said the same thing—I am tired. Only at that point, he was talking about physical exhaustion, about his desire to sleep and not wake for another ten years so his body might not feel weighed down by lead.

Telute’s face softens in a way that suggests she understands, or at least knows, which way he means it in. “Would you like to walk through the gardens with me?” she asks. “I could use the company.”

It does not sound pitying, the suggestion. In fact, it sounds honest. His sister wants to walk through the gardens for a while, and she wants him to keep her company.

It is that honesty, and the lack of pity, that makes him move from where he stands in the hallway, holding an arm out for her. She threads hers through his, linking their elbows together, and gives him a warm, lovely smile. It feels out of place, that smile. Too bright when every part of his mind seems to be swallowed by dark clouds.

He does not complain. Telute’s presence soothes some of the ache inside of him, and he cannot help but be grateful for that. The two of them didn’t talk very much on the way to Orpheus’s funeral. That, he knows, was his fault entirely. When words came to him these days—and they so rarely did, whatever part of him that found joy from engaging in conversation with people like Telute and Lucienne disappearing almost entirely, making talking far more effort than it is worth—they tend to come out sharp. Weapons he doesn’t intend to use, weapons he doesn’t know are there waiting to be used, and yet weapons all the same.

He knows, in his grief, that he has been…particularly awful, he supposes. He is aching, and wonders why everybody else doesn’t hurt with him. It seems unfair, but he is aware enough to know none of those he is close to deserve his ire. If anything, it is only he who does—he who is responsible for Orpheus’s death, who drove Calliope away. He resolves, as the two of them walk out into the gardens, to turn those weapons inwards. If he bleeds from their impact, then all the better. At least it would be he and not those who are innocent in this, whose intentions are only good.

All the while, Telute talks to him. He is grateful for that, for the fact that he needs not engage in conversation. With anybody else, with any of his other siblings, he would be expected to speak back. To truly talk, instead of remaining a silent, impassive companion, regardless of how difficult it has become to find the words he wants to say. (It feels ironic, that. When they were younger, Telute used to call him the Prince of Stories, in reference to his love for reading. He had penned his own books at the time, too, whenever he had a moment to spare, filling journals with his own stories that would never see the light of day. It was an escape from his duties, from the binds of his family, and he relied on this escape heavily. He did not anymore—his parents demanded he grow up, and he saw the logic in that.

Now, he cannot even take part in a conversation properly without feeling terribly drained. Oh, how the mighty do fall.)

Telute does not speak of anything of particular importance, but that hardly matters to him. He hangs onto every word he can, listening eagerly to the stories she paints. She talks of the efforts Lucienne and Jessamy went into finding him, how grateful she was that he was alive and well, how terrified she had been to see him fall overboard. She talks a little about her own duties, avoiding mention of Calliope and Orpheus all together. On occasion, she asks questions for him—small things that are easy to answer. Have you healed well? and Have you read anything particularly great yet? and Have you returned to Kincaid for another checkup?

He answers all of those with small, one word answers. She beams at him, unfazed by how little he talks, and he is so very grateful for her, more than he believes himself capable of expressing in words. Whatever he can come up with now would not do her justice, nor properly express his appreciation.

Eventually, they make it out to the gardens. He has not been here in quite some time—beautiful though they are, they are wrought with memories he wishes to stay away from. Though the gardens are tended by the palace staff—and well-tended to at that, Morpheus always thought Mervynn deserved a larger pay for how much work he put into making this place so lovely and keeping it so tidy—there is a whole section of those that, once upon a time, belonged to his sister Del.

They are still her gardens, only they belong to her memory now. She found her death at her own hand. Morpheus had been the one to find her corpse, laying in a pool of blood with her wrists slit, an expression upon her face that was far too peaceful for such a horrifying scene. Their parents covered it all up—There can be no weakness in the House of de Endeles, Nyx snapped when he had protested, and she did not even seem to grieve for her youngest daughter at all—and resolved to have these parts of the gardens remade in their image.

It would’ve erased any memory of her. It angered each of them, one of the few things that he and his siblings agreed on unanimously. They are all so different, with varying opinions. They clash, each and every one of them, with their own favourites among them.

That time, though, they grew angry and it bonded them, just for a time. Long enough to work on the garden themselves, keeping it alive as Delirium imagined. Long enough to keep tending to the flowers and bother everybody their parents hired long enough for them to forget their plans of redoing them.

Now, it remains just as beautiful. Delirium had an eye for colour, and no new flowers had been planted in this area of the gardens since her death. They wanted to make sure it remained the same, how she wanted it to be, and so her area of the gardens is a riot of colour against the green hedges and the paved stone floor. She had gotten her hands on rather beautiful exotic flowers he would not know the names of had he not played a part in keeping the gardens like this, all of them various shades of blues and reds and purples. Lovely and wonderful, almost hypnotising to look at. They caught the sunlight with soft petals and glowed, turning their faces towards the sun to catch the most of it.

Telute leads him to a bench in the corner and urges him to sit beside her. He does so, and finds himself enjoying this moment of peace. The air is sweet, heavy with the scent of flowers. A gentle breeze messes with his hair, a lover’s caress against his face, and he closes his eyes to relish in it. The sun blesses him with its warmth, generous in its love, and he soaks it all in. Here, for just a moment, he feels…alive. It has been a long while since he has felt as though he is truly alive, instead of simply existing.

“Talk to me, brother,” Telute asks him after a couple beats of silence. When he snaps out of his reverie and looks towards her, her expression is open, compassionate. He does not like it. He does not like the earnestness, nor the idea that she perceives him to be so weak she has to ask this of him. “I understand you have been through…a hard time recently. I loved Orpheus, and though I was only his aunt, I miss him dearly. I cannot begin to fathom what you must be feeling, Morpheus. Only, I know you well, and I know you’re going to keep everything to yourself until you can no longer handle it. I do not want this for you.”

He clenches his jaw. Against his will, anger rises. She does not know. She does not understand the constant agony in his chest, the thorns of guilt curled around his heart and his stomach until he fears he will be sick with it, until he becomes convinced that the thorns have punctured his heart enough that he is bleeding out. What right does she have to claim to know him when he does not even know himself? When he finds himself completely unable to differentiate himself from his own grief and regret and his guilt?

Perhaps, he thinks, perhaps that is who he is now. Perhaps he is only a vessel for agony and grief, both his and Calliope’s. Perhaps he is nothing but a place to store anger at both the world and the circumstances surrounding Orpheus’s death, and whatever he had been previously had been burned away.

He hates the idea that he lost himself so easily. He hates the idea that he does not know who he is without the agony that holds his hand through every waking moment of every damn day. And he hates, more than anything, how he does not know how to erase this from himself.

Does he even want to? To erase the guilt, the grief, would be to erase Orpheus, too. And he wants to remember his son. He does not want to let go of him, of the child he tried his best to pour all of his love into. It simply wasn’t enough, and now he doesn’t want to let go of his regret, either. He deserves this, for driving Orpheus away. For pushing him towards tragedy, towards an early grave. If he is to let go of his grief, his guilt and regret, it would be the same as saying goodbye to one he doesn’t think he’d ever be ready to say goodbye to.

“I miss Orpheus,” he tells Telute honestly. He does not speak of the void in his chest, consuming anything that isn’t exhaustion. “I do not see the point of any of this without him.”

Between them, silence grows, until his sister offers, “I know you do, Dream. Only—only you are still alive. There is no use in dwelling on the past. Perhaps performing your duties may…help you. To get out of your own head.”

Morpheus fails to understand how marriage would aid him here. It seems the kind of thing that would only put every wound that has yet to heal in full-focus, something that might carve them deeper. “Is that your advice?” he asks, and doesn’t manage to keep the poison from his voice. Later, he will hope his sister forgives him for that, or at least doesn’t think about it too heavily. For now, all he thinks of is, There is no use dwelling on the past, as though the two of them did not stand atop a cliff before a headstone with the name Orpheus de Endeles engraved into it. As though his son is not dead, a fact that can never be changed or made better. “To focus on my duties?”

She grips his hand, holds it tightly in hers. Her skin is so much warmer than his. “I have struggled too, brother,” she tells him gently. The tenderness of it is agonising. He wants sharpness. He wants knives to dig deep and bury themselves in his chest and hurt like the rest of him. He does not deserve tenderness to soothe him, to make things easier. He killed his son. He deserves the pain of whatever she might possibly be able to say. “Not the same as you do now, of course. But I realised I’m here to serve them, to make things better by performing my duties and acting the part.”

His shoulders slump, defeat weighing them down. He has never been particularly good at this part. At ignoring the way playing the part grates on him, even if he has always been good at it. “Very well, sister,” he says softly. There is not much to say to that. There is not much to say to her at all, now.

She places her hand on his and squeezes it gently. No doubt it is meant to be comforting; all it reminds him of is the way his duties feel like a cage, closing in around him at all times.

+++

He gives in soon enough. His mind keeps straying, no matter how much he tries to take his sister’s advice to heart. And he does try, truly. Yet there is nothing to stop the way his thoughts eventually turn towards the man on the beach, the merman, a being that should not exist and might never have in the first place.

There is a possibility that he does exist, though. And that possibility, however small, combined with the burning curiosity, is enough to send him out of the castle a couple of days after the conversation with his sister. He takes his horse and races down to the beach he was found on—it is not too far. In fact, he is fortunate to have washed up on a beach inside his kingdom, let alone so close to the castle itself.

It is the first moment of peace he feels like he’s gotten since he was deemed well enough to stop resting. His mare is fast and the air stings at his face and rips strands of his hair from the tie he used to pull it back and it is lovely to be aware of something that isn’t everything he’s lost.

It is freeing, the short journey. His heart soars in his chest the further he gets from the castle and perhaps, even if this trip proved nothing about the existence of the being who saved him, he might do this more regularly. Even if it’s for a handful of hours, the time spent away from the castle will no doubt be invaluable.

When he reaches the beach, it is quiet. That makes sense. It is late, and the beach itself is far enough from any villages or towns that it makes the trip…not unneccesary, but longer. He is moved only by his curiosity, a thing that burns inside him, and the desire to find out if anything he saw when he woke up on this beach a couple of weeks later was real. Inside his head, he tells himself that is impossible—the merman was not real, because such things are only fantasy. Yet his curiosity is a thing of fire, catching quickly, and it has burned away most sense of logic or rationality.

He ties his horse at the top of the beach, deciding to make the rest of the way on foot. Not for any great reason—really, he does so only because he wants to feel the air on his face and the setting sun on his skin unhindered. There is joy to be found in wandering towards the edge of the sea until the waves lap at his boots, in letting himself close his eyes and simply feel.

He does not remember much of this beach, for his only time here had been spent waking up after near drowning. But it is just as beautiful as he remembers. The simple act of standing at the edge of the water with the cool wind brushing his hair like a lover’s caress settled something within him he can’t quite explain, let alone articulate. It allows him to simply—exist, he supposes, without expectation or anything of the sort.

When he finally opens his eyes, the sight before him is breathtaking, and entirely different to seeing the sea from his chambers at the top of his tower. The setting sun glistens against the waves, making them almost blinding to look at, and the sky is so clear. It stretches out for seemingly forever, further than he could ever possibly discover himself, and there is something beautiful in that. He wonders if this is what sailors must feel when they set out to sea—if that is what all travellers feel when they head out onto an open road, no rules or companions save those of nature. Do they, too, feel like if they were to only take one step forward, they would obtain some kind of freedom?

It is easy to imagine, there at the edge of the sea, that this may be the answer to all of his problems. His way out of marriage, of his duties to a crown that will never sit on his head yet continues to bind him anyway, to a throne akin to a noose about his neck.

There isn’t even any fear as he stares out at the waves. He thinks there should be. He thinks he should not look out at the sea and yearn, not after it nearly killed him. Not when he can still feel water in his lungs, in his throat, like an echo. He knows what rage the ocean can be inspired to in a mere few minutes—yet the tranquillity of it now remains alluring, a call to home.

He is so far into his own head that he is entirely unaware of another’s presence until a voice calls out to him, “You aren’t planning on walking in, I hope?”

He blinks. Instantly, the voice is familiar to him, and Morpheus spins around. Except—except the beach still remains empty, the only sign that anybody is there the footprints he himself had left behind when walking down to the sea.

Panic claws at his insides, because—because what if this is some kind of trick, what if there is somebody here who intends to hurt him? Though he knows he should not, he had left the palace without warning anybody. Not Telute, not Lucienne or Jessamy. If—if there is somehow somebody hiding from him, if he is to be hurt or injured here, he would not be found for some time. Not unless somebody stumbles upon him by happenstance, and even then that depends solely on whether his hypothetical attacker would leave his slowly cooling body there on the beach.

A laugh pierces the air. It does nothing to soothe the panic, the urge to run run run rushing through his veins. “In front of you, pretty one.”

Though it doesn’t make sense, he looks back towards the ocean. It is as beautiful as ever. It is only when he turns to his left that he—that he sees him. The merman from before, from when he had woken up on this beach weeks ago. He looks exactly the same—chestnut hair framing his face, golden eyes shining in the light of the sunset.

The panic disappears, replaced by something kinder. “It’s you," he breathes, and despite himself, he feels awe bloom behind his ribs.

A smile curves his lips upwards. It feels warm, joyful, and Morpheus thinks he may be addicted to that look already. “Indeed,” he says, and his voice. It is the same voice, he realises now. And he had called Morpheus pretty one. "And it’s you."

“You are real,” he says, and oh, what a miracle this is. What a wonder.

“As real as you are,” the merman says with a shrug. He’s still further in the sea than Morpheus is, and they call across the water at one another. “Though you still haven’t answered my question.”

“What—? Oh. Right. No, I wasn’t planning on…walking in,” he answers awkwardly. He stares out at the distance between them and does debate it for a while, if only to be close to the impossible creature he had been unable to stop himself from thinking about since returning to the castle. It would be easy to cross the distance, he supposes—and if he underestimates the shallowness of the waters his merman currently looks at him from, well, he can always save him again.

The idea is almost enough to make him laugh. Almost. It bubbles up and demands to be let out, but he shoves it down. It is simply the sheer ridiculousness of the situation, let alone the idea that he might be able to rely on a merman to save him should he drown again. It is the kind of idea that belongs more in fiction books than any reality Morpheus knows of, and yet.

And yet the merman smiles further and looks glad to hear his answer. Yet he is real. That, or the sea simply sends Morpheus insane. Both, he supposes, are options. “Good. I’d hate to have to fish you out of the water again.”

That, then, is a no to being saved if he were to accidentally drown again. It is enough to dissuade him entirely from the idea of stepping forward and closing the distance between the two of them, though it isn’t enough to stop him from wondering. If he were to touch his fingertips to the sun-tanned skin of the impossible creature before him, what would it feel like? Would the merman like it? Would Morpheus?

He thinks he would. He is, foolishly, rather enchanted by this beautiful creature in front of him. He also thinks the ability to touch the merman properly would also confirm whether he truly is going insane or not.

“What are you doing here?” he asks after a couple of moments. It is a worthwhile question, he thinks—the ocean is a large place. He had spent only a handful of weeks on its waves, but he knows he hardly got to see even most of it. There is simply so much of it, stretching out so far. Surely there are greater things for this merman to be doing than waiting around this beach.

“Waiting for you, obviously,” the merman says, as though that makes any amount of sense.

“…Why?”

“Well, I wanted to see if you’re alright, is all. You were pretty out of it when we talked. It’s nice to see you standing on your feet and aware.”

“Yes, it is a…vast improvement on how I was then,” Morpheus admits. He at least isn’t dying, which is definitely some progress. He’s still convinced he’s going insane, though. “But still. How did you know I would return?”

“I didn’t. Just kept checking the beach for a bit to see if you’d return, when I had time enough to do so.” He shrugs again, a little half-hearted thing that looks, bafflingly, almost self conscious. A self conscious merman. Alright. It’s certainly the weirdest thing that has ever happened to him personally, but he isn’t going to complain. “What are you doing here?”

“I…Same as you,” he says slowly. “I wanted to see you. Wanted to know if you are real, or if I just…imagined you.” He certainly looks like the kind of thing he might come up with in the quiet of his own mind. Like a dream, he thinks, and the thought is ironic enough it makes him chuckle quietly. “Didn’t expect to see you, though.”

He grins. His teeth look…sharper, Morpheus notices, than his own do. He wonders at that. “Like I said, I’m as real as you are. So, what? You wanted to find me just so you can make sure you aren’t going mad?”

“Something like that.” If he was going mad, his parents would not take it well. Would they contain him within the walls of the castle, in his bedroom, like they did for Delirium? Cover up his disappearance in court with rumours, hide the truth beneath lies? Tell the world that he has simply fallen ill? There is no room for weakness among them—if he was to go insane, it would be as good as his death. The fact that the merman before him is real is a comfort to him, one he finds himself incredibly grateful for. “Though I think I wouldn’t mind a conversation with you, too, if you’re amenable. I have never met a merman before.”

“Ah, so that is what you want.” The merman’s face visibly sours, a bitter note creeping into his voice. “Knowledge. Secrets. Is that it?”

“…No? Nothing that you don’t want to share, that is. Just want to—know you, I suppose. You can talk about whatever you wish.”

The merman raises a brow, as though he doesn’t quite believe Morpheus is being truthful. “I see. And what do I get in return?”

“The same as I. Conversation.” When all he is met with is silence, he offers an olive branch. He has little clue as to whether it will mean anything to the other, but—“My name is Morpheus. Morpheus de Endeless. Though those I am close to call me Dream.”

“Dream.” He says it as though he savours it, that one single word. It sounds wonderful in his voice. Morpheus wants to hear it again and again and again. “Yes. This makes sense. I am Hob.”

Hob. It isn’t quite the name he would’ve expected from a creature as impossible, as mysterious, as this one. He hardly cares. It has a charming quality to it, and it makes him smile. “Then it is nice to meet you, Hob.” He steps away from the water. Hob watches him with hawk’s eyes as he steps far enough away that his clothes will not get soaked by the waves, until he sits on the sand. It is wet sand, which he knows will present its own problem, but he decides he will deal with that later. Better than returning to the palace with his clothes soaked through with sea water, anyway.

After a moment, Hob creeps closer. He cuts through the water with breathtaking ease, which—makes sense. He sits in the shallow end of the water, so the waves still lap at his skin, but now Morpheus can now see his tail once more, with all its golden scales and delicate-looking fins.

“Would you tell me about yourself, Dream?” the merman asks of him. The request is startling. “I confess, I have always been…fascinated by the lives you lead on the land.”

He smiles, strangely glad for the request. The tide will come in properly soon, he knows that, but until then—until then, he may offer Hob a couple stories, and he need not go home until he has to. “Very well,” he agrees, and he clears his throat. For the first time in a while, words come easy to him.

+++

When he returns to the palace, the place he reluctantly refers to as home, he is…tired, but not terribly so. His throat is unpleasantly dry after so much talking—he cannot remember the last time he talked so much all at once. Not since Orpheus was young and still requested bedtime stories, surely, and that feels like an entire lifetime ago. The Morpheus of then is not the same Morpheus that exists now. Though he has only lived without his son for a mere few months, the difference is startling. He thinks of how he had been before—lighter, his smiles coming easier—and wonders how that had ever been him. Wonders if he might somehow return to who he had been once, though dismisses this thought almost immediately. If he returned to who he was then, it would be akin to forgetting Orpheus, wouldn’t it? If he didn’t hurt and ache, he would simply be forgetting his son, and he couldn’t do that.

But he talked to the merman, who seemed to hang onto every word, until Hob told him he had to leave. (He did not ask Hob to stay longer, but—but the merman requested he return to the same beach at the same time in seven days, and Morpheus is not immune to the hope that shines in the merman’s golden eyes. He crumbled under the look and agreed—not that he minds the idea of returning to see him. The very opposite, in fact. He thinks of the next week, of returning to the beach once more, and for the first time in a long while, he feels as though he has something to look forward to.) And the words came easy to him, the stories he told falling from his lips easily.

Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the merman is, effectively, a stranger. Hob knows nothing of his plight, of the way he suffered these last few months, of the way he so easily failed at his duty. There is little judgement Hob can give him if he does not know Morpheus, and for that, he is grateful.

He did not talk about himself. He avoided that. Hob did not complain, and so his stories revolved around his siblings and gossip from the palace he overheard. Sometimes, he talked about Orpheus—he mentioned not that Orpheus was his son, nor that he currently lies inside a coffin buried under the ground. Those two facts are irrelevant to the stories. Instead, he mentioned his son’s love for music, the way he had the ability to move anybody in his nearby vicinity to tears. He mentioned the way his son’s laugh had been infectious—a trait he gained from Calliope, of that Morpheus has no doubt, for his own laugh is something harsher, grating and ugly—and the fact that he cared, so deeply.

It felt good. It still feels good as he leads his horse to the palace, refusing to acknowledge the way it feels a little like he rides to his own execution, instead thinking of the coming week. Hob’s companionship was—it was lovely, and calming, and he wants more of it. He wants it desperately, with a fire he recognises but refuses to think about directly. That is a fire that has brought him only pain and ruin—he would not subject Hob, who seems so good, so bright, to that. (He thinks he will not subject anybody to that again. He thinks of the last few times he has loved. His love is a terrible, brutal thing—it cannot be a coincidence, surely, that all those he has ever felt something for finds themselves miserable. His love is a curse. He will not subject any to that again, not while he can help it.)

Thankfully, he is not questioned as he leaves his horse by the stables, as the stablehand takes her inside. He is not questioned as he makes his way up to his chambers, and he does not even gain any confused or curious looks. That, he supposes, is due to the fact that he holds his cloak tightly around himself in case he failed to brush off all the sand that clung insistently to his clothes when he left the beach. There was little to be done for the sand on his boots, however—if he is careful about it, he will not be questioned about that, either.

When he makes it to his chambers, he changes into his nightclothes quickly. He is tired, yes, but it is not the kind of tired that would allow him to sleep just yet, not while the moon is still low in the sky. But he lets himself relax and rest, and when he does sleep eventually, for the first time since he left for Orpheus’s funeral, Morpheus falls asleep with a soft smile on his face.

#the sandman #dreamling #dream of the endless #hob gadling #dreamling fic #the sandman fic #morpheus dream of the endless #eris writes things #my fic #death of the endless #merman au

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