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#hope my hand writing is like at all legible

ollylotl · 1 year

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EDIT: this drawing was made BEFORE Lizzie's redesign. It's no longer representative of how I draw her. idk if ill ever clean this up so take this messy comic of lizzie and ava's first kiss. back when things were at least relatively simpler and more innocent.

would lizzie have her eye patch at this point? would ava have that uniform at this point? i dont know. i know nothing.

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whiskeyghoul · 3 months

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She blinded me with science || [Spencer Reid X Goth!reader]

A/N: self indulgent little fic here. I have been in a writing slump for a few weeks and needed to do something just a little self indulgent. So we have this which has been on my mind for ever. I love Abby Sciuto from NCIS and thought how fun it would be to see our little nerd fall in love with the alternative lab rat of the FBI. This is not proof read or anything so it might not be the absolute best but I just wanted to put something out here again.

WC: 1737

Tags: fluff, crush, first meeting, love at first sight possibly, multiple parts, opposites attract, self indulgent fic, reader is described as female, reader is alternative

Warnings: Mention of human remains.

Read part 2 here, read part 3 here

The music coming from the lab was muffled. Even through the closed door Spencer could hear the barely legible lyrics as he got closer and closer. As he reached the door and knocked there seemed to be no answer. Certain his knocking wouldn’t be heard over the noise that he now recognized as Siouxsie and the banshees. He opened the door. As soon as the barrier between him and the music was lifted it sounded so clear. It was turned up to 11 and he wondered how anyone could even focus with music that loud.

That was until he saw you, swaying along to the music, the white coat exaggerated the movements. Swishing from side to side as you reach for a pasteur pipette while bobbing your head along to the music. You seemed absorbed in the music, focussed on your work leaning over the bench and carefully dripping a clear substance on a piece of paper while still perfectly on beat with the music. Spencer cleared his throat loudly, hoping to make himself known before he interrupted you in whatever you seemed to be doing. Though it didn’t quite reach the decibel level to alert you. “L/N” he called out your last name but once again no response. So he took a few steps closer. Once Spencer was close enough he reached out and softly tapped your shoulder. You jumped in response, whirling around in shock with the pipette in your hands raised like a weapon. Like somehow you would be able to defend yourself with the lab instrument. A yelp falling from your lips.

“Oh my god! Can’t you knock!” You accused, eyes wide as you placed your free hand on the top of your chest, taking a deep breath. “I did. I also tried to clear my throat to not scare you.” Spencer retorted, his voice raised a little louder so you could hear him over the music. You twirled around, placing the pipette in the holder. “I’m Doctor Reid, from the BAU.” He continued loudly. You turned, holding your left hand up to shush him. Your right fishing the remote from your coat pocket. It gave Spencer some time to look you over.

Your lab coat was about the only light thing you wore. The outfit underneath was black on black on black. A band tee with illegible writing that peeked over a corset, layered with a ripped fishnet top underneath. The abundance of necklaces of all different lengths, cascading down your neck like silver waterfalls. Ripped jeans he wasn’t quite sure were safe for the lab environment, but the skin of your thigh caught his attention. Something inside of him stirring. He fidgeted with his hands in front of his body.

“So… you were saying?” You spoke. Spencer’s eyes snapped back to your face. You looked up at him with big eyes, a small smile accompanying them. The music was turned down now giving him room to think. Though your eyes still made it difficult to really focus. “Oh, I am Doctor Reid, from the BAU.” He answered after swallowing for a moment. “Ah! You are here for the clothing analysis, right? Penelope mentioned one of the team would come pick it up. Normally it's her or Derek, though I think Derek has complained about hearing loss.” You whirled around while rambling on, pony tail waving behind as you turned, bounding over to a table with scattered papers. Spencer followed close behind, not focussing on the words rather just the tone of your voice, a slight intrigue towards you. He didn’t even know your first name, yet somehow your mannerisms, your unconventional style, it made him want to know more. “Right.” He said, realizing he hadn’t technically answered your questions.

Spencer looked over your shoulder as you picked up a stack of papers neatly stapled together. He thought he might be a bit too close as he could smell the subtle perfume wafting off of you. Though he also strangely enjoyed it. It was sweet but not overly so. A hint of cherry that was fitting in his eyes. The color of the fruit matching that of your lipstick. As you looked over the paper and began to talk again, “So, the substance that was on the clothes seems to be turpentine. Commonly used in oil painting. The vapors can already cause irritation to the eyes, skin, and airways if exposed to them for longer periods of time.” you rambled off the words as you read them. “There were some other things found on the clothes that coincide with the oil painting. Different pigments and paint residue.” You turned, eyes still on the paper nearly bumping into Spencer as he had been standing so close. When you looked up at him surprised he could feel a tightening in his chest. “Oops, sorry.” You apologized, a small smile on your lips.

You apologized to him while he was the one in your way. “Oh it was my fault. Shouldn’t have stood so close. Sorry.” He muttered. The words falling from his lips unceremoniously. He felt like half of his intelligence had up and left his brain as he talked to you. Not really knowing what to say at that moment. His hands fidgeted at his sides again. His left hand playing with the hem of his cardigan sleeve. He cursed himself internally for being reduced to a stumbling mess in front of you. You kept standing there though. Clearly you had turned around to go somewhere and Spencer had been in your way. Yet he was nailed in place and so, it seemed to him, were you. “Did you know they used to make oil paints with human remains?” You spoke excitedly. Like you had been waiting to tell someone, anyone, that little fact. He knew that. He knew that for a long time yet seeing you, tell him a fact with such delight, made him want to lie. “Now I do.” He answered, his smile matching yours.

“It was called mummy brown. They ground up mummies, both human and animal, and put it in the paint.” You continued. Your voice trailing off slightly after the word animal. You held up the stack of papers to him. “Everything you need is in there. If you need me to clarify something just give me a call. Or stop by whenever you want.” Spencer nods after your sentence. Taking the papers from you his hand touched yours ever so slightly. His brain short circuited for a moment before the neurons started firing accordingly again. “I eh- I don’t have your number.” he stumbled over the words.

As if you realized that in that moment you took a step aside and walked past him. Walking over to a desk and rummaging through a drawer. Spencer walked a bit closer to your desk. No longer being nailed in place by some unspeakable force. You pulled out a thin sharpie, and Spencer raised a brow ever so slightly at that. You walked back over, holding out your hand to grasp his. Spencer placed his hand in yours. His mouth felt incredibly dry for a moment. His tongue was uncomfortable in his mouth. His heartbeat raced faster. Nothing like he had ever really felt before. You could have done it on the papers, or maybe even a sticky note. Yet you decided that his hand would be the perfect place to write down your number. He thought about it for a moment, your hand was soft and warm. You twisted his hand, writing down your phone number along with your name. Once you finished you let go off his hand. Spencer looked at the black numbers, committing them to memory, and your name. God your name would be bouncing around his head for days. “Y/N.” He said, testing the name. It felt right.

“That’s me, you better put that in your phone. These markers are not nearly as permanent on skin. It’s the oils.” You went on, capping the marker as you spoke. “I will. Thank you.” Spencer said and smiled. He stayed standing in place for another moment. Trying to commit you to memory just in case his eidetic memory failed him. He realized he was staring a little and cleared his throat. “I eh… I have to go.” pointing his thumb to the door. You giggled a little, a sound that made Spencer’s cheek heat up a little. “Right, pretty boy, head on out. I need to get back to work too.” You smiled casually. Spencer’s face was only heating up more. He swallowed. The nickname the others used for him sounded so much better when it came from you. He turned around to hide his ever heating face from your sight, walking over to the door quickly. Once in the opening he quickly looked back, giving an awkward wave that you returned with a smile.

When Spencer entered the bullpen his face had calmed down a little. Not feeling nearly as hot as before. He was able to think clearly again, but when he looked at your number and name on his hand he felt giddy inside. Reaching his desk he sat down, placing the analysis file on his desk. “That took you long enough, pretty boy.” Derek called out from his desk, humor in his voice. The nickname had no effect when he said it. “Sorry, the lab tech… she was explaining some things to me.” Spencer quickly lied. “Alright, can I get the file?” Derek had his hand already out. Spencer gave him the file and Derek’s brows raised at the number scribbled on his hand. “You got her number?” He smirked. Spencer pulled his hand back covering the numbers and your name with his other hand. “If something needed more clearing up.” He retorted. Derek merely chuckled at his awkwardness, “She’s friends with Garcia, you wouldn’t have needed her phone number.” He added with a smirk. Spencer felt his face heat up a little again, embarrassed. He knew that. He knew that he had known that. But in that moment he couldn’t think.

He looked back at his hand. Your name on his skin. A little flutter in his chest kicked up when he did. Derek cleared his throat, making Spencer look up again. Derek pointed at him with his pen, before opening his mouth. “You better call her soon.”

#criminal minds #spencer reid #criminal minds fic #spencer reid fic #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid fluff #Goth reader #self indulgent fic #fanfic writer #tumblr writer

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running-with-kn1ves · 2 months

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Sleepy Afternoons

A/N: Teehee ngl I just wrote this as a period comfort fic indulgent for myself. I hope you nerds enjoy it as much as I liked writing it!

CW: AFAB reader on period, jokes of breeding, using a dragon as a heating pad, pretty much just fluff

WC:2000

Synopsis: A lazy Sunday, the perfect start to a week on your period where you'll be constantly pestered by your dragon boyfriend.

A dragon’s hoard in times long before consisted of fine jewels and immense mounds of gold, shiny objects as far as the eye could see. Whether it was stuffed in the depths of a cave or deep in the forest, a hoard barred spikes and “DO NOT ENTER” warnings; whether they were legible or not was never up to the righteous dragon’s responsibility.

Adventurers and bandits never heeded these signs of caution, getting stuck in the narrow holes meant for dragons to shimmy through or meeting their demise through puzzles and endless booby traps-- such monsters were thorough in keeping their treasure safe. Any item that caught the creatures attention could be found in their rich reservoirs, even if they were mere wave-smoothened stones from a lake, an old lover, or a prettily decked-out concubine that was too tempting not to take.

That however, was centuries ago. Dragons, like the rest of us, must conform to modern society, technology too powerful and people too abundant to go around flying and terrorizing just to get one’s hands on a pretty penny.

Your boyfriend, once a ravenous creature with a cave of glittering gems and fine craftsmanship-- that he may or may not have maimed many blacksmiths to steal-- now resided with you in too big of a bedroom. You had argued before buying the apartment; who would need this much space? But his hoarder tendencies clearly made up for the abundance in space. Gaming consoles, silvery granola bar wrappers, aluminum dollar store trinkets, books with glittery covers-- the floor was almost unseeable with his trash and treasure mixed together. He wasn’t necessarily dirty-- in fact every item had its own spot and preferred place, which is why it killed a piece of him any time you threw away something that should not be “decorating” your shared home.

Though as you practically took care of both of you, it was hard to keep up being the caregiver in the relationship. Especially, on your period. Sunday, what a perfect day, to realize you had a whole work week ahead of mood swings and lower abdominal pain, all mixed with the gory massacre you’d face every time you went to the bathroom. Your cramps didn’t usually come in this early of a start, but it seemed like nothing was going quite right today.

“T’s wrong, darlin’?” Your draconic, crusty-eyed boyfriend mumbled into your back. “Somethin’ hurting…?”

He had been asleep since noon, ignoring the stream of yellow shining down on him from between the cracks of the blinds. But with those poor eyes and slightly above average listening skills, he completely ignored the sun and heard your groans of pain as you curled into a ball. The aching in your lower tummy was like hellfire, crisp burning and somersaults of your organs unlike any other pain than usual. Nothing was helping, no cold rags or medicine, it was like your infinite headache and body pains were destined to consume you.

“C’mon baby answer me, I wanna help..” He pouted again.

“Just my stomach..” You downplayed, not sure if you could handle his frantic coddling if he realized you’re period started. The last time you made the mistake of doing so, you had pads stacked to the brim in your bathroom cabinets and tampons in your closets, the mass shoplifting endeavor of his creating even less space in your home. Well, atleast you were set for the next fifty-seven or so cycles.

“I just need to rest n’ I’ll be fine, soon…”

Another wave of pain came through, head ringing as soft nails raked up and down your sweating back.

‘When will this be over,’ you wondered.

Maybe that horrible breeding endeavor your boyfriend was always obsessed with was worth it if it meant you wouldn’t have to suffer through this for nine months. Yeah, just nine months of morning sickness and bloating and growing a whole dragon-human parasite inside of you. But hey… the making part wouldn’t be too bad, and atleast you would be crotch-pain free.

Man, now the pain was really talking through you.

“Yer period, right?” Your dragon wonders, scratching the back of his head. He’s more awake now, and you wish he was still passed out grabbing onto you, even through the sticky sweat from his body heat. “I’m sorry baby…I know it hurts. What’you want me to do?”

“How’d you even know..” You groan, almost annoyed at how keen he is. Next thing you’d know he’d be shoving some pretty pawn shop jewelry for you to hold to distract you from the pain.

“I don’t think.. You want to know. And well there’s the obvious, I noticed you changed the bed covers.”

Oh lord, was he talking about that split tongue-nose smell-ability ‘dragon thing’ again? Could your embarassment get any worse?

“Does that mean you’ve… EVERY TIME? Every time you knew?”

He sheepishly fell into the new sheets of warmth, those dark eyebrows lifted in innocence.

“Sometimes before you knew, I think.”

Officially, you wish your boyfriend was asleep again. Maybe you’d just strangle him to end this mind-numbing conversation.

“What can I do?” He repeated. “Get you more pads?”

“No.” You shut him down as soon as the words left his mouth.

“What then? A snack, more pillows? Now’s the time to be babied, you know. Unless you’d be okay with me coming to work with you--”

You groaned, partly to shut him up and to vocalize the squeezing, contracting inside of you.

His clawed fingers came to cradle your belly, right below your belly button on your pelvic muscle. He rubbed, just gently, back and forth with a slight pressure as your head buried into the sheets beneath you.

“Just this.. is fine..” You murmur, feeling hot, humid breath exhale against your neck, emerald green slits baring into your twisted expression. He was watching you, the way your body reacted, the little signals of discomfort.

You heard a slight flutter of his wings as they adjusted, his body fitting against yours like a puzzle piece; it was nice to be the small spoon again, rather than cradling your needy dragon lover like a cocoon as he so often desired.

The dragon slowly pushed a leg between your bunched knees that stuck together, getting easier access to your tummy. His palm was so warm, as the torso flushed behind you kept a reassuring prresence. You almost turned on your back to get his palm farther against your stomach, the slight pressure and warm temperature soothing the ache in your lower back and groin.

“You know… I could always breed ya, then you wouldn’t have to--”

“Don’t try to convince me right now.” you spat, turning into him as his hand worked magic, the other brushing hair off of your neck and cheek. “That’s not an option, especially right now.”

“Well, at the very least I can make you feel good. Might ease up some of the pain, yeah?” He laid back down to lean in closer.

You sighed; he clearly didn’t understand the discomfort and embarrassment that his oh-so keen intimacy would bring you right now. You loved the sentiment, and maybe you’d be up for it if you weren’t solely thinking about your physical misery, but you barely had the fortitude to look back toward him.

Your dragon buried his flared nose into the top of your head, lined against you like a perfectly shaped heat blanket.

“You wouldn’t even have to do anything.. I’ll do whatever makes ya feel better.” His other hand snakes beneath your hip against the bed mattress, pulling you back toward his body even closer, if possible. The warm, spiked fingers tapping alongside your pelvic bone made your skin spark, your lower stomach buzzing with numbed pain and a fullness that made you want to sleep for another week. “I don’t like seeing you like this.” He frowns. “Your face.. You look so, uncomfortable.”

“Wow, thanks.” You jab, feeling a heated tail slither up your knee, to your thigh. It almost flicked in apology. “Mm.. Just stay my heating pillow and I’ll be fine.”

“I can do that.” The confidence in his voice worries you, knowing he’ll do an unnecessary load of more than you asked for. Your fetal position was gently yanked free, a pounced creature on your back as you’re forced onto your stomach. “I’ll be the best spiky heating pad you’ve ever seen.”

The strong, scaled forearms of your draconic spouse come to wrap around your hips, a burning touch ringing from his skin, worming his way beneath your comfortable pajama pants and shirt, skin on skin as his body temperature rises to accommodate your desires. His forearms seem to ripple against you, fingers tickling your sides as his legs trap against your thighs from above, most if not every length of his body pulsating against yours like a live, scaly cocoon intent on making you his personal plush, and he your sweet, warm monster.

“Feel better baby…” He kissed at the nape of your neck, sandpapery forked tongue popping out to lick away your sweat. “It’ll be over soon.. I’ma make it all better.”

You leaned deeper into the stuffy mattress sheets, the pressure on your abdomen welcomly encouraged as you push as far as possible into his fiery hands.

“I’m betting on it.” You muffle into the pillows, squirming your hips against his his body, warm chest and carved quadriceps surrounding you. The slight pressure of his inner thighs against your hips was welcoming, his mounted position atop of you seemingly odd to an outsider-- but you didn’t care how weird it might’ve looked, as the calm of your gutted abdomen took over.

You yawned into the side of the pillow as you turned your head, lifting your hips just a little to soak in the heat radiating from behind you.

“Awe’d, so sleepy huh? Need a little nap?” the dragon behind you poked.

Who knew a murderous, millenium-old dragon would be sweet-talking you so gently-- just a few centuries ago he was murdering travelers for stumbling just a few steps too close to his prized hoard.

“But I just woke up.” You protest, upset at the sleepiness of the afternoon that was rubbing off from your draconic lover on you. “Got too much to do, can’t lay in bed all day..like you.”

You groan into the pillow as a wave of cramps hit you, only slightly set ajar by the gentle massaging of the skin above your pelvic bone.

“Hrmm.” Your boyfriend thinks, shoving his warmly snout against your neck. “I guess it’s unfortunate that I’m not going to be letting you go then. Not allowed to get up until you feel better.”

You laugh, taking one of your dragon’s toasty hands to your chest to hold onto.

“I’ll be here all week, then.”

It was here you felt the safest, the warmest, the most vulnerable and easily devourable-- well, thankfully dragon’s didn’t particularly have a taste for the flesh of humans. Shutting your eyes, you let the guttural ‘hrmm’s’ of your dragon lull you to thoughtlessness.

“If that’s what it takes..” He presses a deep kiss close to your forehead, relishing in the sweet scent of your hair. The huffs from his nose tickle the back of your ears, such petrichor warmth and humidity so reminiscent of past lazy mornings. “You’re not going anywhere, my diamond.”

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dfortrafalgar · 1 month

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Looooooved ILY! Kudos! It was chair-gripping, tear drenching, rot your teeth fluffy and a bunch of other things in between! Brava! 🥰

If you're still accepting requests (I don't know if you have already been flooded by messages or not) I would like a story about being part of the Kid Pirates but reader is in a really sour mood because it's the anniversary of readers's parents death (you can make up a story if you'd like) and reader disobeys a direct order from him and, to top it off, reader talks back at him in front of the crew, earning the reader a severe punishment (up to you). Eventually Kid finds out why reader's mood is so sour and tries to talk it out except Kid can't be soft and that just makes things more awkward. Could be SFW, could be NSFW, I'm leaving all this up to you. And the ending as well because I only got that far. I hope you like the idea and get excited.

I love your work! ❤️🥰 Thank you for sharing your talent.

HI ANON!!! thank you so much for your request and your super kind words over IMLY, that means so much to me!!!! i know i keep saying this but yall make me smile every single day when i log onto tumblr and see your messages <3

I also really loved writing this request! i really love Kid, but i also wanna kick his ass on the playground if that makes sense, and i think that sentiment came through in my writing ;w; I hope you like it!!! and thank you again!!! (Also, i kept the reason for your parents' death ambiguous, because i know some people (myself included) read fics with their ocs in mind, so you're free to fill in the vagueness with your own personal ideas if you want!)

Feeling Overhaul

Eustass Kid x Fem Reader

The anniversary of your parents' death always leaves you feeling shallow, but your boyfriend's lack of social and situational awareness crops up to make your day even worse.

Warnings: SFW, hurt/comfort, reader being understandably upset, descriptions of an argument with some veeeeery slight verbal abuse, once again hurt/comfort, hurt/comfort. communication is key loves

Your sour mood had been steadily building over the last few days, but your sorrow reached its peak on the last day of the week, according to the barely legible crew calendar that was based off of when the messenger coos arrived with the weekly paper. It was a day you despised thinking about, the memories associated with the day leaving your throat tight, an uncomfortable malaise in the pit of your stomach.

All things considered, you thought you were doing a decent job at keeping your emotions in check while performing your usual duties on the Victoria Punk. The bow of the deck needed a thorough scrubbing, a few spots in the walls of the crow’s nest needed repairs from a recent run in with a smaller, weaker pirate crew, and a few secondary sails needed their holes patched up. It was a perfect day to distract yourself from your woes. Drowning your discontent in your work had become quite a valuable skill.

Until you slipped on the soap that lathered the hard wood of the bow and fell flat on your ass. When trying to stand, your hands gave out under you and you hit the deck once more, one of your crew mates tossing you anxious glances as you struggled to regain your bearings. Climbing up to the crow’s nest, you were plagued with a sudden wash of grief over the day, so much so that you lost your grip and slipped down the Jacobs ladder, your foot catching on one of the wooden rungs beneath you. Wire was directly under you, climbing as well to assist with the crow’s nest repairs, and his method of helping you after your slip involved gripping your arm so hard it left a bruise. You bit back your tears at the pain of your crewmate’s hand around your limb and the humiliation of almost falling 12 feet onto the hard wooden hull, but you once again bit back your shame and finished your arduous climb up.

By the afternoon, word had gotten around the Victoria Punk that your work was lacking, that you were clearly struggling with something, that perhaps you weren’t feeling well. When it finally got around to Captain Eustass Kid, who doubled as your beloved partner, he was less than pleased.

The last thing he wanted to do was deal with your emotions, and the last thing you wanted to do was deal with his abrasive, apathetic attitude.

“Care to explain why the hell the entire crew has caught you slacking off today?” he demanded, thundering toward you in one of the upper corridors of the ship’s hull. You were still returning some of the tools you had used to patch up the ship’s sails when he accosted you in the hallway. It was almost dinner hour, and many of the crew were bustling through the same corridors finishing their afternoon tasks before meal time.

“What?” you snapped back, caught off guard by his threatening question.

“Don’t ‘What’ me. Why have you been tripping and falling everywhere? What kind of joke are you trying to play?” His face was angry, livid even, not granting you even one second to explain your plight.

Your eyebrows furrowed. “I’m not trying to bumble around the boat like an idiot. I’m just not feeling well and haven’t been able to focus.”

Kid scoffed. “Then get over it.”

Perhaps you were being irrational, but at the same time, you had officially had enough of the entire day. You dropped your supplies on the floor around your feet, heat radiating off of your body in waves. “What did you just say to me?”

Your captain bent down to be at your level, which was insulting to your current state. “Get. Over. It.”

Anger boiled in your lungs, lighting your heart on fire, blinding the corners of your vision with a fuzzy white light. You tried to turn your back to him and escape down the corridor, but yelped when Kid grabbed your wrist and pulled you back toward him.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong with you?” he asked. He really couldn’t control the sound of his voice, regardless of his current emotion, and the volume of his shouts filling the space made your body tense up in fear. Eyes watching the scene unfold around you widened.

Around the corner behind Kid’s back, Killer darted forward, alerted to the sounds emanating from the narrow passage. “Kid, chill out!”

“Are you going to care about me any more if I tell you?” you demanded back, trying to pull your wrist away from his grip. His flesh hand held firm, however, almost burning your skin. He shrugged Killer’s own hand off of his shoulder forcefully, completely ignoring his friend’s plea to calm himself somewhat.

Kid rolled his eyes. “It better be damn important if it’s got you almost falling off of the Jacobs ladder.”

You steeled yourself, sucking in an uneasy breath and facing your stubborn partner head on. “Today’s the anniversary of my parents’ death. I’ve never been able to feel alright when I think about them.”

There was a brief, uncomfortable silence that floated between the two of you, the air in the hallway thrumming with a suffocating tension. Kid’s grip finally relaxed on your wrist, allowing you to yank it away and rub your sore skin. His red-painted lips finally parted, and all he graced your ear drums with was, “That’s it?”

Your heart dropped. “What do you mean ‘that’s it’?”

“Parents die all the time. What makes today so different?” His narrow eyes were back to their scathing glare.

At this point, however, you had had enough. You were practically shaking with a barely contained rage of your own as you stepped closer to your captain and spat in his face, causing him to stagger backward, giving you enough space to let your emotions bubble outward. “I don’t have to tell you shit if you’re going to talk to me like that! In front of the entire crew?! Just because you’re my captain doesn’t mean you get the excuse to accost me in the hallway and berate me for slipping a few times.” You frantically dug through your brain for words to add to your outburst, perhaps asking how he had the sheer gall to have such an attitude toward you despite dropping his walls and being so kind toward you on an average day, but all you could muster in response was, “Fuck you, Kid.”

You stepped away from him, narrowly missing another one of his lunges to get you to stay. His voice was low and intimidating. “Don’t talk to me like that.”

“Then don’t tell me that my day of grieving is stupid! Fuck! You!” you spat back, finally turning on your heels and sprinting out of his reach, down the hallway and into the ladder well into the lower deck, desperate to get as far away from your captain as possible. You knew he was prone to struggling with empathy, and kindness had never been one of his strong suits, but to be talked to in such a way, have your feelings belittled after you had almost severely injured yourself as a consequence of your lacking mental health, hurt more than a stab to the liver.

Kid’s burning gaze followed you as you fled, harshly turning on his own heels to slink to the galley and drown his frustrations in whatever liquor the crew had acquired from the last island. He bumped Killer’s shoulder, forcing the blonde to the side. The crew watched as their captain rounded the corner out of sight.

---

You didn’t arrive for the dinner call, your usual seat left unfilled and the plate uneaten. A few crew mates who hadn’t witnessed the explosive scene from an hour ago asked around for your whereabouts, but the only one who bothered to stand up and search for you was Quincy who quickly ate her meal and abandoned the table.

Kid was pounding back alcohol like no one’s business, leading to many a concerned glance.

“Kid,” Killer muttered. He rested his masked head in his hand, desperate for context at what he had previously run in on. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” the red-head grumbled, throwing back another mug of golden beer, some of it dribbling down the side of his mouth.

The few straggling crew members who remained around the large dining table shared worried looks.

“It’s clearly not nothing,” Killer countered.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” snapped Kid. Even at the age of 23, he was still no better than a bratty little child when things didn’t go his way.

Killer dropped the subject with a sigh, the sound escaping the holes in his mask with a subdued hiss.

Quincy, on the other hand, carefully opened the door to the women’s bunk room where she found you, curled on your side on the mattress that used to belong to you when you first joined the Kid Pirates, your face buried in a pillow and your shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

“Darling,” she cooed, silently tapping across the floor to sit on the side of the bed, her gentle hand ghosting over your arm. “What happened? Why didn’t you come to dinner?”

The sound of her voice unraveled you from your coil, your tear-stained face and puffy red eyes meeting her concerned stare. “Kid and I had a fight,” was all you said.

“About?”

You rolled onto your back, clutching the pillow that was thoroughly drenched in your salty tears to your abdomen. “Today’s the anniversary of my parents’ death, and when Kid asked me what was wrong, he told me, ‘What makes today so different, parents die all the time.’ Like…?” your voice wavered, “Who says that? And to his girlfriend nonetheless!”

Quincy made a disappointed tsk sound with her tongue, sympathetically rubbing your arm through the sleeve of your shirt. “Honey, he’s stupid. But still, he was wrong to speak to you like that.”

You sniffled, wiping some snot from your face with the arm that wasn’t being caressed by your close friend. “I know… but it still hurts. I wish he could just… I don’t know… be nicer to me?”

For what it was worth, both of you knew that Kid wasn’t truly ‘stupid.’ He was strong, strategic, and resilient, but when it came to matters of the heart, his brain dwarfed to the size of a peanut. It was only a matter of getting the headstrong captain to realize how he had truly hurt you.

“Honey, sleep in here for a few nights to get a proper rest, away from him,” Quincy offered, standing up from her seat on your mattress to approach one of the wardrobes, pulling out a comfortable shirt and baggy pants to relax in. “Let this blow over for a little while, and then you can try to talk it out with him. We can help if you need it.”

You sat up yourself, gratefully taking the clothing from her arms, a small smile on your lips. “Thanks, Quin.”

The curly-haired woman left the bunkhouse to let you change, passing by Killer trudging through the hallway, a towel draped over his scarred arm. “Hey, have you talked to Kid?”

“He’s drunk off his ass right now,” Killer grumbled, dragging his free hand down his mask in a display of exasperation. “I couldn’t get him to tell me what happened, but he’s gonna be out of it for the rest of the evening.”

Quincy bit the inside of her cheek as she assessed the first mate’s message. “I’ll tell you.”

---

It had been about three days since the argument Kid had blasted you with in front of your crew mates, your humiliation and anger toward your captain burning a hole into your lungs. You couldn’t contain your tears for at least six hours after your initial outburst, the grief of losing your parents in the way you had all those years ago now partnered with the anguish of screaming at Kid… and spitting on his face. The act was so beneath you, and yet. Dive and Hip, who had seen the argument first-hand, had helped to assure you that you weren’t in the wrong for what you had said, reassuring your stance that Kid was far too intimidating when all he wanted was a simple answer for your strange behavior.

Heat had come to you with a covered plate containing the dinner you had missed, informing you that Kid still had a very poor system of managing his emotions. While you understood this first hand, being his partner for the better part of a year, you still didn’t believe that was a proper excuse to diminish your emotions in the way he had.

After those three days of your absence, strategically avoiding him at all hours of the day, Kid was fed up. He needed to talk. His bed was too empty without you.

Killer told him it would be a bad idea to call you to his quarters, but he did it anyway. And when your anxious knocking reverberated through the thick wooden door of his cabin, he was quick to call your name and grant you entry.

You stepped in, shutting the door softly behind you, keeping your head low. Kid stood from his mattress, clearing the floor in broad steps and trying his best to lay on the charm, wrapping his large arm around you and cooing his best, casual greeting, “Hey, babe, I’ve missed you.”

You shrugged yourself away from him, your eyes downcast. You looked… hollow. “Did you want something from me, captain?”

Kid felt a foreign pang deep in his chest. You hadn’t been referring to him as your boyfriend or partner. Right now, he was strictly ‘captain,’ and that notion left him feeling far too empty and vulnerable for his liking.

Fuck, he wasn’t good at this in any way.

Your gaze bore scorching holes into his own eyes, silently demanding the apology that you knew you deserved to hear from him. With a deep sigh, Kid turned around and stomped back to his mattress, dropping his head into his hands.

“I didn’t know your parents died,” he blurted.

You stayed quiet.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” His voice was a low grumble.

You suppressed a scoff. “How about, ‘Sorry for yelling at you in front of the crew?’ Or, ‘I’m sorry for saying that your feelings don’t matter.’ Something like that, maybe.” Your voice, in comparison, was eerily level, your time to be physically upset with the situation having expired two days ago. Now all you were left with was an uncomfortable feeling of unease, a hole in your heart where Kid usually sat now being emptied and replaced with a barren cavern that desperately wished to be occupied by the man you loved once more.

Because you really did love him. You knew his lifestyle, his behaviors, his tendencies toward cruelty. And yet, he remained kind toward you. He allowed you to open up to him and did the same in turn, and he nestled himself perfectly, albeit clumsily, into your life. You didn’t want to lose that.

Watching as Kid clearly struggled forming those two little words on his tongue was like watching someone perform self-surgery. His pride had impeded his sense of empathy for so long that the simple notion of apologizing was such an estranged concept for him.

How stunted.

But you held firm, remaining in front of his closed door as he kept his head in his hand, his thick fingers teasing through his slightly greasy red hair. After what felt like an eternity, he finally picked his head up. “I’m sorry.”

There it was.

He continued, sucking in a shaky breath. “I really didn’t know it was the anniversary of your family’s death. I wish I asked you about it sooner instead of… that.”

You stayed quiet.

“... Instead of yelling at you like that. And attacking you for something that was out of your control.” He kept his voice low, as if he was carefully picking out his words from a small bucket inside his thick skull.

After a few uncomfortable moments of silence, you released the tension in your shoulders with a sigh. “And I’m sorry for spitting on you. And for cursing you out.”

“No, you shouldn’t apologize,” Kid stated, finally picking up his head and gazing at you, his eyebrows furrowed. “I deserved it, really.” His fingers anxiously rubbed the rough fabric of his pants. “Killer sat me down and gave me a bit of a beat down. Physically and verbally. Because I know I’m not good at this. I’m not a good person. And I really fucked up with you.”

You remained firm with your feelings, but you finally approached his bed and sat next to him, leaving a comfortable gap between your bodies that your captain, your partner, didn’t try to close. He kept his distance from you, silently ensuring that you were allowed, and encouraged, to open up to him when you were the most comfortable.

“I just want to make sure that you actually mean it,” you whispered. “And that you’re not just saying that without believing it.”

“I mean it,” Kid confirmed, his voice unwavering. “I really do.”

You gazed at him apprehensively. “... Promise?”

Silently, Kid held out his pinky toward you.

You looked at his finger, confusion glossing your features. “What are you doing?”

“Have you never made a pinky promise before?” he asked.

Your mouth threatened to curl into a small smile. “Can’t say that I have.”

Kid released his hand only so he could take yours, folding your fingers down so only your own pinky stuck out from your fist. He repeated the motion with his own hand, curling his smallest digit around your own. “It’s a promise that I mean what I said. Killer and I used to do this all the time as kids.”

Your composure finally broke as you snorted, your own finger curling around his. “That’s sweet…”

“The point is that, if I break the promise, you get to break my finger,” he explained.

“Suddenly everything makes sense,” you uttered, your lips finally curling into a grin. “Don’t give me an excuse to break your finger.”

In response to your lighthearted plea, Kid raised his hand with yours still attached and pulled back down in a handshake gesture. “Never.”

Your finger stayed curled around his as you gazed at your hand. “I’m still kind of upset with you.”

Kid’s shoulders stiffened. “I get why.” After you stayed silent for a few extra moments, he finally asked, “What can I do to make it up to you?”

Your eyes bore into his once more, his gaze remaining steady as well. “You can start by not jumping to conclusions… or being accusatory without any context.” You sighed. “I’m not telling you to change your entire personality, Kid, because I know who you are. And I fell in love with the normal, regular You. But I just ask for a little bit of kindness.”

Kid released your pinky in order to lace his entire hand with yours. “I’ll give you more than a little.”

“Or I can break your pinky?” you asked once more, another small smile breaking out on your face.

Your partner grinned. “I’ll throw myself overboard if you ask.”

You finally closed the gap between your bodies, tentatively laying your head on his shoulder. “No… I wouldn’t want to lose you like that.”

#x reader #reader insert #fem reader #one piece x reader #op x reader #eustass kid x reader #eustass captain kid x reader #eustass captain kidd #eustass kid #one piece kid #request fics

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ewanmitchellcrumbs · 6 months

Text

Sweet Nothings

Pairing: Abraham (Grantchester) x f!reader Warnings: Dirty talk, smut. Word count: ~1.4k

Summary: They had agreed to call it quits when Abraham's community moved on from Grantchester, however, the urge to keep in touch is too powerful for either of them to resist.

Author's note: Day five of the Smuffmas prompts - "letters and lingerie". No tag list. Follow @fics-by-ewanmitchellcrumbs and turn on post notifications.

Abraham had kissed her fiercely, his lips pressed tightly to hers as though he meant to steal the very breath from her lungs. He’d kissed her like it was the last time he ever would, because the reality of it was just that - he was moving on, this would be the last time their mouths would meet with such passion.

She had always known that this was coming; six weeks prior when they had begun their little tryst, they had agreed when his time in Grantchester came to an end, so too would their relationship.

That doesn’t stop the ache in her heart when that day finally arrives though, but she does her best to hold back her tears as she watches him walk away, not wanting to make this any more difficult than it already is. She swears when he looks back she sees a hint of regret cast back at her in the blueness of his gaze. Perhaps that is just her seeing what she wants to see though.

Two weeks pass, and she does her best to carry on as normal, despite the void that Abraham has left behind in her life.

That is until the day a letter passes through the letterbox, landing softly on the doormat. It’s addressed to her, though she doesn’t recognise the handwriting. Tearing it open, a warmth spreads through her chest, recognising the sender as she reads it.

Darling,

I know we said that this is it, but I can’t stop thinking about you. The pillow on my bed that you laid your pretty head upon still smells like you. I miss the warmth of you, the way your body fits against mine. I can still picture your smile, still hear your laugh, and I think I’m going crazy without you.

I’m sorry if hearing from me is upsetting for you, I just can’t stand the idea that some other bloke will make you smile, make you laugh, make you moan like I used to. I don’t expect you to write back, but I’d be over the moon if you did. We’re camped up at a place called Yaxley, just outside of Peterborough. If you do decide to write back, address it to the Yaxley post office, and I’ll pick it up. I’ll check every day to see if you’ve written.

Yours, always,

Abraham

The penmanship is a barely legible scrawl, and the letter is riddled with spelling errors, yet she can’t deny it makes her pulse race to know that he’s missing her, so she snatches up a pen and paper and writes back straight away.

Over the following weeks they write to each other frequently, talking about their days, professing their yearning for each other, and with every exchange their words grow more heated and passionate.

She gets an idea when one of his letters states that he is “missing the pretty little pink thing” she used to wear for him, knowing exactly the lingerie set he’s hinting at.

Slipping on the satin French knickers and matching brassiere, the material feels silky soft against her skin. Butterflies flutter in her belly remembering how the last time she’d worn this, Abraham had peeled it off her, his bright eyes following the path of it as it had fallen away from her body.

Setting up the polaroid camera, she takes several photos of herself in various provocative poses - ones she knows will make his blood run hot - jutting out her hip, pushing out her chest, arching her back, accentuating her curves and all of his favourite places to touch her.

Once she is satisfied that she has an adequately arousing selection, she settles down to write.

Abe,

Enclosed are pictures of that “pretty little pink thing” you love so much. I hope it satisfies your longing, though it does little to sate mine. I ache for the feel of your big, strong hands against my body, and I’m saddened that when this comes off once more it won’t be you that’s removing it.

Remember the last time I wore this? I do. If I close my eyes, I can still feel the weight of you on top of me, the feel of your lips against my skin, the wonderful ache between my legs as you moved against me.

I’d give anything for just one more night with you. I fear you have ruined me for all other men.

Yours forever.

The envelope she drops into the postbox the next day is thicker and heavier than usual, and she grins excitedly, imagining the smile on Abraham’s face when he eventually opens it.

For the next week, her gaze is fixed on the letterbox each morning, waiting for his reply to drop through, but nothing arrives and the disappointment she feels mounts by the day, sadness and embarrassment causing a heated feeling in her cheeks and a heaviness in her chest.

She has all but given up on the idea of him ever replying, thinking she has made a fool of herself, or worse still, that her letter has gotten lost, when one evening there’s a knock at her front door.

Strong arms wrap around her, and once more her breath is stolen away, as Abraham’s mouth descends upon hers, backing her up into the living room as he kicks the door closed behind him.

He cups her cheek, keeping her close to him when they eventually part for air, his chest heaving. “Couldn’t find the right words for what those photos made me wanna do to ya, so thought it best I just show you.”

She squeals as he throws her over his shoulder, carrying her towards the bedroom and depositing her onto the bed as though she weighs nothing. Propping herself up on her palms she looks at him in wide eyed excitement as he looms over, his darkened gaze roving over her form before moving to follow her.

He bumps her nose with his as he plants a hand either side of her head. She can feel how hard he is already through his trousers, as he presses himself against her, and it makes her core throb with want.

“First,” he whispers, “I want you naked, no flimsy underwear compares to the feel of you bare against me.”

She gasps, as he all but tears the clothes from her body, the barely audible pop of buttons and seams lost to the desperate need she feels for him as she pulls at his shirt and trousers in turn. Sighing in pleasure at the sensation of his skin against hers once more, she feels a sense of relief. Having him like this is like returning home after a prolonged absence.

He kisses her, and she whines when he pulls away, the gesture all too brief, though she is quick to giggle as his lips trail a path from her neck, all the way down her body until he’s positioned between her legs.

“Then,” he continues, eyes flitting up to meet hers. “I’m gonna taste you, see if you’re sweet as I remember.”

Her head falls back with a moan as he licks a line with the flat of his tongue from her opening to her pearl. The rumble of appreciation that growls within his throat vibrates through her, and she buries her hands in his hair, certain she is ruining the carefully waxed and styled coif, though he is making her feel too good for her to care.

His hands grip her thighs as alternates between lapping at her with quick precise movements, and fucking her with his tongue. As she feels herself on the crest of her pleasure, he pulls away, and she cries out in frustration.

He grins as he moves back up her body, his chin slick and shining with her arousal.

“Now, I wanna feel you squeeze around my cock until you peak,” he murmurs, lining the head of himself up with her and pushing slowly forward.

Her mind goes blank as he presses inwards, only able to focus on the stretch of him inside of her, causing her to arch against him.

“I want every thought to be gone from your mind, every thought but how good it feels when I fuck you,” he continues, keeping his thrusts slow and steady, “So that that’s what you’re thinking of when I leave again and ask you to come with me.” As she feels the pressure begin to build in her lower belly again, she knows there is no way she can say no to him. Letters just won’t be enough anymore after this, she needs all of him.

#abraham x reader #ewan mitchell #abraham grantchester #grantchester abraham #abraham x you #abraham x y/n #abraham imagine #abraham smut #abraham fan fiction #abraham fanfiction #abraham fan fic #abraham fanfic #grantchester fan fiction #grantchester #grantchester fanfiction #grantchester fan fic #grantchester fanfic

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no-name-publishing · 7 months

Text

Tiny Book? Tiny Book. Pt1.

Idk yall I just felt like writing a little how-to of how-I-do my tiny A9 books! So if you've ever been interested, I hope this will be helpful. This will be neither a beginner typesetting nor beginner bookbinding tutorial; as I go through my process I will only be showing my process and providing a few tips, assuming you already have the basics understood. We can worry about the rougher technical skills in another post.

Also keep in mind that this guide includes images of fic I've bound, and you're zooming into these fics at your own discretion. I am not responsible if you read something yucky. I know you have a lot of options out there but thank you for flying No-Name Publishing.

Tiny books part 2; Tiny books part 3

Just like with regular ficbinding, there are layers, and they are:

1 - Typesetting and Imposing 2 - Printing 3 - Cutting, Folding, and Sewing 4 - Gluing, Rounding/Backing, Endbands 5 - Building the Case and casing in 6 - BOOK

In this part we will be focusing on steps 1 and 2. Please feel free to skip to the area you're interested in most.

1 - Typesetting and Imposing

Okay, so this area has some nuances that you don't have to consider so closely with typesetting for more traditionally sized books. To me, these tiny books are not about readability, they are about novelty. As such, I do not prioritize readability. Instead, I try to achieve something that is closer to scale. That said, neither do I want these illegible. But we'll begin from the top.

You want to make a tiny book, but you're wondering, what would be an appropriate word count for a tiny book? Tiny books are the perfect medium for the ficlettes, the shorties, the one-shots. They are also perfect for the mid-sized, 10-15-20k fics, in my opinion. Here we can see,

On the left we have a fic that is exactly 12,771 words, typeset on a 1.5" x 2" (37 × 52 mm) document, with .3" margins, 6pt Garamond font, and 5pt line spacing. This book is only approaching 1/2" (13mm) wide, and only took 5 sheets of Letter paper to print. On the right we have a fic that is exactly 1,939 words, typeset to the same specifications. This book is only 4-5mm wide, and took only 1 sheet of Letter paper.

In my opinion this format of book begins getting unruly around the 300-page mark. However, making any combination of margins, fonts size, and line spacing will yield different page results for different word counts. For example:

Like the above, in each of these examples I typeset in Garamond font @ 6pt size and 5pt line spacing. Typesetting on an A9 page, this is about as small as I felt comfortable sizing my font while still being legible. But notice the rivers between the words--the rivers of white space bisecting the lines, due to the Justified alignment battling the admittedly tiny work surface. At this scale, with the font at this size and alignment, those will be unavoidable. Over time I began disliking this in my own work, so I pursued a different method, which was typesetting on a quarter letter page (4.25" x 5.5" / 108mm x 140mm), and allowing my imposer to scale the PDF down.

Have you ever seen anything sexier. THIS looks like a tiny book. Little to no rivers, still legible (hand-wobble), and preserves the novelty feel that I desire from a tiny book. This method of scaling down (specifically from quarter letter to A9) does change the final shape of the book, from A9 to A9-ish in this case. Specifically, from 1.5"X2" (37 × 52 mm) to 1.625"X2" (41.3mmX52mm). You're achieving something closer to a square shape, which is delightful to hold. All this to say, you have some freedom with word count, with font size, with page size. I've done as many pages as 376 and as few as 17. The fantastic thing about tiny books--their structure will not be load-bearing, meaning--the only thing stopping you are your tastes.

Quickly, some more examples of features in a regularly sized typeset and their tiny counterpart after the imposer has scaled them down. First, scaling half-letter down to A9, a little-over 4X shrinkage:

And from B6 to B9, smaller by 3x:

You notice the compression of every element, and too how entirely unparcable the text in the first example is, sometimes not horrible, sometimes very. Make your decisions dependent on your tastes!

You have decided on the fic you'd like to bind into a tiny book. I will be using my own fic as the typesetting example, and I will be using Word 365 for PC. I'm sure many of my pointers during this process might not apply 1-to-1 if you are using a different word processing software, but hopefully you can adapt the concepts to your program of your choosing.

Kay, next you will do your typesetting. Since this is not a typesetting guide I'm trusting that you have your preferred methods, but I will go through my key steps for setting up a tiny typeset:

First, for every typeset I delete each default Style, create mine own, and dictate the document size. For this example I will be doing my preferred quarter letter method, setting the custom page size to 4.25" wide and 5.5" tall, and .5" page margins all around (except Gutter; leave 0"). On the Multiple pages dropdown I will select Mirror margins (however, as all my margins are the same size, this is redundant, though may not be the case for you). My body text style will be Cardo font @ 11pt size and Exactly 15pt line spacing, with a .2" first line indent and Justified alignment.

You can use whatever body font you like, I only encourage you to do many many test prints to refine your preferences. Your favorite font for half-letter books might not translate to tiny books. After ~30 tiny books I've found I like Cardo at this size and spacing. And if you're using A-paper sizes, consider doing quarter A4 instead of quarter letter, which is technically A6--4.1"X5.8", or 105mmX148mm. Follow your heart~~nyah 🐱♥

Now I will go to my fic and download the HTML file. I hugely prefer copying from the HTML file rather than the browser itself. It kind of standardizes any goofy formatting that might try to make its way over otherwise, while still preserving the italics and bolds, etc, and makes for an easier editing process. It was important I made my body Style in Word first, so that once I paste the text into my document that Style is automatically applied in one fell swoop (if not, you can change that in your Word settings. Advanced -> Cut, copy and paste -> Merge Formatting. It is a huge time saver.)

Now you've gone through your typesetting process, you have a liddle quarter letter Word document that you're happy with. Gets real close to you. Listen to me--listen, you're going to Export as PDF. Not Save As PDF. Not Print to PDF. Export. It's in--listen--it's in File, then Export, then Create PDF/XPS. You need to Export. Especially if you selected Bookfold instead of Mirror margins in your page settings because we need an unimposed PDF in order for this to work right and exporting to PDF is going to solve 99% of your pdf formatting woes with Word. Okay, I love you 👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨

Now, your EXPORTED pdf should look something like mine. Straight, unimposed.

Now what we're going to do is take this PDF back to my penthouse and freak it. Go to this link for the Renegade Bindery-created and -curated imposition tool. This has been will be is such an incredible FREE asset to you, maintained by a crew of intelligent, skilled Renegade Bindery members who understand the importance of community and accessibility. If you find someone hiding this link behind a paywall of any kind it is not with the creators' permission, so shame on them.

Anyway I will be assuming that you know what imposing your document means. If you've never used this site before, it's very straight forward, and here are my settings for making Tiny Books.

1 - Upload your unimposed exported pdf. 2 - ignore 3 - Select the paper size you will be printing on. This is not the FINAL size of the book, this is what paper you are printing on. These instructions are for Letter sized paper. Don't change any of the other settings right now, I will explain more about the Single-sided vs Duplex option in a bit. 4 - Skip aaalllll the way down to Signature Format. Under Wacky Small Layouts, click on the bubble next to Little. You'll notice there are a lot of options here. I encourage you to play with these settings later on as well, there are so many things you can make with this tool.

Once that's done, scroll down to the very bottom. You'll see the Signature Info area, telling you the results of your imposition. In the case of using the Little option we've selected, 1 sheet of our paper will make 40 book pages. 3-signature-sets of 3/3/4 folio configuration. That's a lot of pages per page.

Anyway for our document today it will cost us 2 sheets of Letter paper, and will make 6 signatures. Math says that's 80 pages. Now, you may be concerned because your typeset PDF is not formatted in a number equally divisible by 40. And why would it be. The imposer is doing that math for you in the background, organizing your pages regardless. In my case, my finished typeset is 62 pages, which means that from my second page, I will only be using my 3 folio segments, and discarding the 4 folio segment. This will make more sense later. Click the Generate button, and save the zipped folder wherever you want. Don't change the name of it.

Unzip that baby, and inside you'll notice 2 files--(filename).pdf_little_packed_backs, and .pdf_little_packed_fronts. Appropriately named as one file contains one side of the sheet that will be printed, and the other file the other side.

And when you open them up, they will look like:

2 - Printing

We are manually duplexing this bad boy, because working at this scale amplifies and compounds every millimeter of difference. Manual duplexing will keep printer skew to a minimum, as the printer will not have to perform gymnastics in order to print on the reverse side of your page. Here are some examples:

Two auto-duplexing examples of skew, one horizontal and one vertical, dependent on which direction my paper was loaded into the feeder. There is significant skew. Not a horrible issue on full-sized books but these will matter much more on our tiny books, the key issue being that we do not have much to work with in the margins department. Trimming 5-6-7mm of margins of your half-letter sized textblocks might not be much of an issue; however, here, in order to remove all the trim lines during the cutting process, you will be significantly impacting the margins of your tiny textblock.

Now here is an example of the skew from manual duplexing:

MUCH subtler. Your skew with manual duplexing will range from this--less than .5mm--to no skew at all, and you will have to cut off far less of each page to remove the trim lines, maintaining the consistency of appearance of your tiny, beautiful pages. This is why during step 3 of the imposing process we selected Single-sided (which is MANUAL duplexing), and not Duplex (which is AUTO duplexing) appropriately. This will result in you either getting two files for manual duplexing, or one auto duplexing file.

Your next consideration when it comes to printing your liddle book will be whether you want to use an inkjet printer or a laser printer. I've until recently only had a laser printer available to me. I can say after about 6 or 7 little books on an inkjet printer that I prefer the laser printing on tiny books. Here is an example of why:

On the left you have a tiny book printed from an inkjet printer printed on the highest quality setting, and on the right is a tiny book printed from a laser printer. These were both printed at the same scaling, same font size, same line spacing, everything. The inkjet printer, printing at this scale, introduces pretty glaring feathering on the letters, whereas the laser printer is crisp as can be. I've said before that to me tiny books are more for novelty rather than readability, however I do still want to make out the word I'm looking at, you know what I mean? For this reason I prefer printing my tiny books from a laser printer. Use what you got though, you'll get a tiny book regardless. Make sure you're flipping on the short edge with these tiny books too, and double check to make sure your page numbers line up. And when you're done you got...

BOOK(-adjacent).

Continue on to part duex.

#bookbinding #ficbinding

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yaekiss · 11 months

Note

#Mailroom Open!　──　hey my darling <3 letter delivery for kaeya and i’d love to have a yandere w/nsfw reply back! any petnames are good with me, i promise <3 letter below the pink!

“To my dearest, Kaeya,

It’s almost shameful how you have me wrapped around my finger. There’s only so much a man can do when you fill my mind, and even in work, I can’t help but imagine what you’d be doing, how you’d let me shower you with all the affection such a jewel like yourself deserves. A day spent without you feels sacrilegious nowadays with how you’ve carved your place into it.

How are you faring back in Mondstadt? It must be a chore with so little to do without me there with you, but I know the wine will always be sweet and the flowers always in their lively beauty (though it can’t compare to yours, I’m sure.) I hope you’ve kept an eye on Diluc: you know how he works himself, so have him take it easy every now and then. He runs the tavern you love so much, after all.

I can’t see you soon enough. May the gods bless me so that I can be back home sooner than I know.

— Your love”

( in a box containing the letter, there’s a bottle of regional wine intricately wrapped with a gold bow, alongside a bouquet and a lace choker. you know i had to do it <3 )

꩜ Letter Content: Dom! GN! Reader x Yan! Subby! Kaeya, no gendered terms for reader, Kaeya calls you "my heart", mentions of alcohol, mentions of blood, unhealthy and obsessive relationship from Kaeya, lmk if I missed out anything ! ꩜ Delivery Notes: Phew! He sure replied fast, it's almost as if he knew you were sending a letter to him! :3c Anyways, I wonder what he replied with? ꩜ Wanna write a love letter yourself? Check out it out here!

In return, Kaeya sends back a box as well, no bigger than the envelope stuck to the top of it. The deep royal blue envelope’s material is glossy and pearlescent, holding it under the moonlight produces a faint shimmer, one that reminds you of his eye.

Upon opening the letter, your senses are greeted by the waft of Kaeya’s perfume, the same one you gifted to him months back when you returned to Mondstadt from yet another arduous work trip. Eyes scanning over the contents of his reply, the words are written in outstanding but legible cursive, impressive penmanship (tsk, always a showoff). His love letter reads:

“Addressed to my one and only,

Much thanks for the presents, my heart. You truly know my tastes, the wine was magnificent and went down smooth, almost impeccable. The only thing that could improve it was if you were there as well. I do so dreadfully miss you too, I find myself sighing whenever I reach out for your hand only to remember you’re away in Fontaine for work. Are you sure I can’t convince you to leave your job? I could take care of you, you’d never find yourself needing anything, other than me, of course.

I digress. Back to the subject at hand, Mondstadt is, well, the same as always. Nothing much to report about. My days are immensely duller without you around, obviously. Diluc’s still not much fun to be around but I suppose he’s been well, so no need for you to… (There’s some words scribbled out here with a squiggly doodled arrow pointing to it, saying “Ignore this! :)”) fret over him at all.

It’s just that… I can’t bear to be away from you, my heart. You say I have you wrapped around my finger but it seems to be the opposite. Since you entered my life, it was as if you were Orpheus: coming to rescue me, but unlike the tragedy, I won’t lose you, and you won’t lose me. Not even the gods above could keep me from you. Not one moment does my mind stray from the thought of you and how I need you close by and the way I can’t bear to… (The words are scribbled out again, this time it’s messier, shaky lines uncharacteristic of his usual neat strokes. Another squiggly arrow points to the dark mass of ink, saying “Ignore this too! :)”)

All I want to say is, we are much closer than you might think, my heart. I’ll keep this short, I’d hate for you to bore of me.

Counting down the days till we truly meet again,

- Kaeya Alberich -

P.S. I have a picture in the box reserved for your eyes only, enjoy ♡”

Removing the lid of the box, a vial on a gold chain catches your eye, it glistens, almost as if beckoning you to wear it immediately. Its contents are a deep red and swishing it around reveals how it clings to the sides of the bottle. Not wine then. There’s a tag hanging from a ribbon tied around the clasp, in Kaeya’s signature handwriting it reads, “So I’ll always be around my heart.” Flipping it around, there’s 2 reddish-brown thumbprints on the back, stamped so that it looks like a heart.

After putting the accessory on, you move on to pull out a smooth card stock from the bottom of the box. How scandalous. The cavalry captain is shown, knees tucked under him on the bed as he’s clad in lacy white lingerie, hands on the sheets in front of him as his arms push his tits up to accentuate them. A white garter belt wraps around his thigh and fuck, the tip of his cock is peeking out of the sheer ivory fabric, precum already drooling from his slit. The bouquet you gifted him is in the shot as well but what really draws your attention are the dribbles of wine cascading from down his lips to his chest, staining some of the white lace a deep crimson. To top it all off, he’s wearing the lace choker you sent him, how obedient!

However, the more you look at the photograph, the more off putting the atmosphere becomes. The background looks suspiciously like the rooms of the hotel you’re currently staying at. The lighting is the same hue. The furniture matches up too. Everything is strikingly similar, right down to the carpeting. Squinting, you can just about make out the room number on the keys captured in the shot.

It’s the room next door.

Thanks for reading! Consider supporting me on kofi if you enjoyed this or check out my other works hehe ♡

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hollythius · 1 year

Text

VANITY | vampire! genshin characters x reader

note | trying something new here! we’re going for multi-chapter, multiple characters x reader, and you get to choose your route! hopefully this goes as planned 😔 general trigger warnings for blood and biting in a (mostly) non-sexual manner.

SYNOPSIS | you receive a letter from a mysterious admirer, inviting you to an exquisite gala. when you arrive, you find various suitors waiting for you— but there’s a catch. they’re all vampires!

first chapter (you’re here!) / next / previous

Dear Y/n,

You have utterly captivated me. Your charms are like the sweetest incense, drawing me nearer like a moth to a flame. When our eyes meet, my heart erupts with joy in a way that words cannot describe. Simply writing to you makes my hands shake in wistful longing. The quill in my hand is as restless as I; and I hope my penmanship is legible. (It would be my worst shame to write to you and have you not be able to read it) Now allow me to get on with the real point of this letter.

I formally invite you to the Dawn Winery next Saturday evening to enjoy a delicious wine tasting and incredible live music. As it is a masquerade, please dress in appropriate attire. I propose a game to you as well— if you can spot me in the crowd, I’ll give you a sweet surprise.

Yours in secrecy,

Your secret admirer.

The love letters were new. You were used to odd trinkets: windwheel asters, berries, a honeyed ale or tasty biscuit. Never had you received such a flowery parchment. Flush rose to your cheeks, tinting them red as you stood on your doorstep. You shook your head, pushing back inside. Sure, it was true that sometimes you stayed awake at night, thinking of who could be behind the gifts. A rich nobleman? A sweet farmer’s son? A librarian, a fisherman, a baker? At times like these, you longed for the touch of your admirer. The country of Teyvat was large, but the incoming fesitival at the Dawn Winery drew in travelers months in advance. Your admirer could be from any reach of the nation! Could they be from your hometown of Mondstat, or the farthest reaches of Inazuma? You would have to find out yourself, should you attend the wine tasting.

Who were you kidding. You were already gathering money for a masquerade mask.

please reblog my work! i spend lots of time on my projects, and it really helps me out :) tagging @ilyuu and @hobieist bc they helped me finalize the ideas for this series!

#genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #🍵 . your tea is ready! ´ — writings #diluc x reader #kaeya x reader #childe x reader #tartaglia x reader #zhongli x reader #xiao x reader #venti x reader #wanderer x reader #albedo x reader #alhaitham x reader #kazuha x reader #vampires #vampire x reader #vampire x human

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vodika-vibes · 3 months

Note

Hey hey Vod'ika! I think I've finally settled on my prompt for you. It was so tough narrowing down which clone. I just love them all and your writing is amazing!

Can you do Howzer in the summer with garnet but can we put a lil spin on it and lean towards jealous/over-protective? I'm kinda thinking he maybe sees the reader interact with Crosshair and that's what drives the whole thing? You picking up what I'm putting down lol.

Thanks love!

I'm Not Jealous

Summary: You’re very secure in your relationship with Howzer, but when Crosshair joins the Clone Rebellion, you can’t help but notice that he’s a little more protective.

Pairing: Captain Howzer x GN!Reader

Word Count: 704

Prompt: Garnet - Protective Love, with a twist towards jealousy

Warnings: None

Tagging: @trixie2023 @n0vqni @imabeautifulbutterfly

A/N: The name of the game is 'how legible can I keep this story until the cold medicine kicks in'! And I think I managed it pretty well! Thank you for the request. I hope this makes you happy~

You like Crosshair.

He reminds you of a foster dog that your mom took in when you were little. Angry and scared and traumatized and so desperate for affection and attention, and yet so afraid of it too.

It is part of the reason why you’ve tried to go out of your way to be welcoming to him. And it’s not like anyone else is going out of their way to make him feel welcomed.

Sure, he was part of the Empire and did some truly horrific things, but he’s not with them now. And the path to redemption has to start somewhere, right? So why not with you?

The problem is that since you’ve started your friendship with Crosshair —it’s not really friendship, you’re essentially shaking a bag of cat treats to try and trick the tooka out from under the couch so you can bring him to the vet— Howzer has been more and more out of sorts.

In fact, he snapped at you yesterday.

Oh, sure, he apologized right after the fact. Apologized and peppered your face with bunches of little kisses and offered to make dinner as an apology. Of course you took him up on it, your Howzer is an excellent cook after all, but you’re…concerned.

Concerned enough that you beg out of the flight for the day, passing it off to your second in your stead, while you try to figure out what’s going on with Howzer.

After all, you thought that the pair of you were fine.

You look up from where you’re making a breakfast quiche, mom always swore by it when she needed dad in a good mood, as Howzer steps into the kitchen from your shared bedroom.

He looks surprised to see you, though the surprise melts into delight very quickly, “Cyare! I thought you had that transport mission to Hoth?”

“I did, I passed it over to my second.” You reply, “I thought I mentioned it.”

“If you did it wasn’t to me.” He crosses over to you, and kisses your temple, his arms sliding tightly around your waist, “Maybe you told Crosshair.” There’s something in his voice. Something tight and angry and jealous.

And there it is.

You finish pouring the egg mixture into the pie crust and slide the whole mixture into the oven, before you turn in his arms, and place your hands on his chest. “Howzer,”

“Cyare?”

“You know I love you, right?”

Something warm and soft slides across his face, “I know. I love you too.”

You reach up and press your hand against his scarred cheek, “I know you do.” You rub his cheek with your thumb, “Why are you so jealous of Crosshair, love?”

“I’m not jealous!” He blurts immediately, and then he averts his eyes, “I’m not…overly jealous.”

You smile at him, “Howzer,”

“I don’t like you talking to him.” He admits, a frown on his lips, “Why couldn’t you try and befriend Hunter instead?” That was definitely a whine.

You laugh softly, “Howzer.”

“I know I can’t force you to not be friends with him. But I really, really hate him.”

Your other hand comes up to press against his cheek, “Crosshair needs a friend. Someone like me, who’s so low stakes in the grand scheme of things that he can just be himself.” You smile at him lovingly, “But if you really don’t like it, I’ll stop.”

Howzer releases a slow breath and presses his hands over yours, “You’re a better person than me.” He mumbles, “I don’t want to stop you from making friends. Even if it’s with Crosshair.” He makes a face.

“I’m always going to come back to you at the end of the day, Howzer.” You whisper up to him.

He flashes a small grin at you, confidence sliding across his face, “Oh. I know. That was only ever a minor concern.” He drops his head and kisses you, “After all, I highly doubt Crosshair can love you like I can.”

You grin at him, mischief dancing on your face, “And how’s that again?”

He smirks at you and twists the both of you so that he’s able to walk you backwards towards the bedroom, “Let me show you.”

#star wars #tbb #vodika-vibes 500 followers celebration #captain howzer x reader #howzer x reader #star wars fanfiction #x reader fanfiction #gn!reader fic #answered asks

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bloomingdayswithyou · 3 months

Note

Hear me out- hear me out here-

Easily flustered reader tries to ask out Lev Haiba (and fails miserably, reader literally walked up to him and then gave up) so reader just slides a note to him and refuses to acknowledge said note the entire time because they’re afraid of rejection

Guys am I the only one that is gay for Lev

Clumsy Confession

Pairing: Lev Haiba x gn!reader

Words: 590

Warnings: none!

A/N: hi!! I'm really sorry for not appearing these past few months while having my requests opened! I will try to write everything you've requested as soon as possible🥹

In the bustling halls of Fukurōdani Academy, where the sound of bouncing volleyballs echoed like a symphony, there was a figure that stood out among the crowd. Lev Haiba, with his towering height and striking presence, commanded attention wherever he went. And today, he found himself the unwitting target of a shy, easily flustered admirer.

Y/n, filled with a whirlwind of emotions, had harbored a secret crush on Lev for what felt like an eternity. They were not one for bold gestures or confident confessions, instead opting to admire him from afar, stealing glances whenever they could muster the courage.

But today was different. Today, fueled by a sudden surge of determination, y/n decided it was time to finally act on their feelings. With shaky hands and a racing heart, they approached Lev as he stood near the gymnasium doors, a small group of teammates surrounding him.

"Hey, Lev," y/n managed to squeak out, their voice barely audible above the chatter of the hallway.

Lev turned towards them, his golden eyes sparkling with curiosity. "Oh, hey there! What's up?"

Y/n felt a blush creep onto their cheeks, their nerves threatening to overwhelm them. But they pushed through, determined to see this through to the end.

"I, um, I was wondering if, uh…" They stumbled over their words, unable to form a coherent sentence in the presence of the object of their affection.

Lev tilted his head, a puzzled expression crossing his face. "Is something wrong?"

y/n's heart pounded in their chest, their palms growing clammy with anxiety. They couldn't do it. They couldn't bring themselves to confess their feelings to him face to face.

Without another word, they turned on their heel and fled, leaving Lev standing there with a bemused expression.

Confusion clouded Lev's features as he watched y/n’s retreating figure. He couldn't understand what had just happened, but one thing was for certain – they had left something behind.

Curiosity getting the better of him, Lev bent down and picked up the small slip of paper that had fallen to the ground. It was a note, hastily scrawled handwriting barely legible.

For a moment, Lev hesitated, unsure if he should read it. But curiosity won out, and he unfolded the note, his eyes scanning the words written upon it.

"Dear Lev," it read, "I've admired you from afar for so long, but I've never been able to find the courage to tell you how I feel. I know this is probably weird, but I just wanted you to know that someone out there thinks you're amazing. Even if you never feel the same way about me, I'll still be cheering you on from the sidelines."

A warmth spread through Lev's chest as he read the heartfelt words. He couldn't help but smile, touched by the sincerity of the confession.

With a newfound determination, Lev tucked the note into his pocket, vowing to find the mysterious admirer and thank them properly.

Meanwhile, y/n lurked in the shadows, their cheeks burning with embarrassment. They had done it – they had finally confessed their feelings to Lev, albeit in the most awkward way possible.

But as they watched him read the note with a smile on his face, a sense of relief washed over them. Maybe, just maybe, their clumsy confession hadn't been such a failure after all.

And as Lev looked up from the note, his eyes met theirs across the crowded hallway, a knowing smile playing at the corners of his lips.

Maybe there was hope for them yet.

#haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu x male reader #haikyuu fanfinc #lev #lev haiba #lev x reader #lev x male reader #lev fanfic #anime #anime fanfic #anime x reader #anime x male reader #lev fluff #haikyuu fluff #anime fluff

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00127am · 3 months

Text

signed with love and forever yours, dejun

postage. xiao dejun & gn! reader, mentions of kissing cost to ship. 872 words

there was that time, laying in the open field behind the school, that you asked me why i always avert my gaze around you. i wasn't able to provide you with an answer. and how could i? when you were laying so close to me, nothing more than the thin separation of blades of grass between us. the same grass that i twisted in between my fingers as i fumbled for any semblance of a correct response. you weren't looking for a 'correct' answer, but an honest one, and perhaps--in the grand scheme of all things--that was worse.

it was hot that day. some week in late august, when we were skipping class. a class i shouldn't have skipped. considering the fact that i was flunking it. i had to get kun to tutor me, though i also remembering begging you too. i knew you weren't any good at the subject, but to me, at least, you could never be bad at anything.

you always loved the sound of cicadas. they were loud that day, a steady stream of their chirping that you said sounded like the melody of your favorite song. no matter how hard i tried, i couldn't figure out exactly what you meant. but perhaps that was because they were hard to hear over the beating of my heart. a rhythmic pounding that overtook all other noises beyond the tone of your voice. the up and down waver of your inflection which cut clear through everything else in its way. you sounded like my favorite song that day. though i guess your voice is always my favorite.

the answer to your question, the one you asked about me averting your gaze--if you still care for the answer, i hope you do (pray)--is one that you probably already know. or one you have figured out through my obvious yearning. or told by hendery, the most likely out of the three options. i can't look at you for long, because if i do--if i spot the reflection of myself in your irises and the utter adoration in my own--it becomes obvious what i feel for you.

if you were to look into my eyes, to return my stare with one of your own (the same one that makes my mouth run dry and my chest burn) then you'd catch every bit of longing for you that i hold in my body. the same longing that is desperate for your words, attention, touch, kiss.

if i did answer your question that day, underneath the heat of a dying summer (one which remains immortal in the grounds of my memory) and in a moment caught in time, i'm afraid that i might have kissed you. that my silly, schoolboy crush would have superseded any inkling of common sense in nothing but the sheer hope that you would kiss me back. would you have? kissed me for an honest answer?

i'm being honest now. so when you get this, and if you still care--if you would have rewarded me back then in between the blades of grass and in the lull of the cicada's song that summer--will you repay me with a kiss?

about dejun's love letters.

xiaojun's handwriting is practiced to a degree of elegancy, with swooping ends of consonants and dramatically drawn vowels. everything about him is beautiful, so it only makes sense for this to be as well, with elongated strokes of cursive that seem to be stripped from the fine pages of old prose. despite all of its intricacy and detail, it's always legible. every phrase and sentiment able to be discerned underneath all the glitz and glamor of his penmanship (something he tends to regrets each and every time ten or hendery seems to get their hands on them).

he's a nostalgic person, constantly and consistently returning to old memories to revisit them again and again and again. he loves to write about the past, to remember every detail that made his head spin and his breath catch. and he loves to relive them, though it's nearly melancholy, and to write them down with such a pretty consideration to ensure he'll never forget them. it's for this reason that he writes on white lined paper, the kind you rip out of notebooks or are handed in secondary school. it's rather pointless in the grand scheme of things, since his words transcend lines and sentences break across margins. isn't it really all for the memory, though?

like chenle, xiaojun's letters are not slipped into an envelope, stamped with an address, and signed off with your name. he finds there to be something devastatingly romantic in writing love letters that will never reach their addressee, or at least, don't have the intent too. but he hopes that one day, perhaps in the silence of a conversation or when his hand is clutching yours a bit too tight, that he'll find the courage to enunciate all of his affections. and then deliver the letters, each and every one that he has written throughout all the years he has known you, in the hopes that your love will become something that he can hold with both nostalgia for your younger years and fortune for your future ones.

your mailbox

taglist. @evilsailorsenshi @222brainrot @yangasm @jenaisnte @sour-chaos thank you for supporting me! ♡

🧾 © 00127am 2024

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idyllic-affections · 1 year

Text

i know my kingdom awaits, and they've forgiven my mistakes.

summary. "Baizhu reached out to their shoulder, giving it a tender squeeze. "I just want to know why you left so abruptly. We were so close. There is nothing you could say or do that would make me resent you."" trigger & content warnings for self-hatred, severe blood, major traumatic life events, depictions of trauma, panic attacks & a fuck ton of crying, implications of suicidal ideation but it is never explicitly stated in an obvious way, overall heavy on the themes of mental health, heavy spoilers for baizhu's story quest and childe's character stories, [name] is called pretty once. tropes, pairings, fic length, & other notes. friends to strangers to friends, hurt/comfort. baizhu & childhood friend!reader, brief hints of childe & reader. 10k words. they/them pronouns for reader. author's thoughts. it is here. the fabled "friends to something significantly worse to friends again" fic is finally here (june if you're reading this, thank you for the idea lmaoo <33). btw! this post runs on the theory that skirk is associated with khaenri'ah. no idea what her personality is like so.... bear with me pls. she gives off "tired, bitter big sister" vibes in this fic. at one point, nightmare by set it off started playing while i was writing this and i think thats so fucking funny, that is so childhood friend![name]core. a LOT of ironic songs played while i was writing this actually! maybe ill make a post about it?

"What's the last thing on our list?"

Surely the sky had been painted by the Celestial Gods above—how else could one even hope to explain the otherworldly beauty it held? Pinks blended smoothly in with hues of golden orange and baby blue as the sun crept lower and lower towards the horizon. A few stars already dotted the evening sky, twinkling and sparkling against their background.

In the reflection of their eyes, the light danced.

Their friend hummed thoughtfully, brushing some of his hair away from his face, before scanning the words written in practically illegible handwriting inside the little journal the two's shared master had given them. "Violetgrass... I think."

"You think?" they echoed, amused, peering over his shoulder into the notebook. He shrugged.

"Master's handwriting isn't exactly... er, legible."

They giggled at that. "No doctor's is. I think it has something to do with how many prescriptions they have to write on a daily basis. Like... they have to write fast, so they have some kind of language of their own to be as efficient as possible."

"Is that so?"

"...Honestly, I don't know. Something like that, I guess."

He smiled at them, teasing, "Shouldn't you know better than anyone, [Name]?"

"Shut up, Baizhu, I'm still learning!" they huffed with faux annoyance, snatching the book from his hands. "Yeah, that says Violetgrass. Hm... you should probably go back, then. It's getting kind of late," they mused, meeting the boy's gentle burgundy gaze. "I've got it from here."

"Are you sure?" he asked. "I don't mind going with you."

"I'm sure. I get Violetgrass on my own all the time. It gets cold at night, and with everything going on, it's probably better that only one of us goes out. Less of a chance of the sickness spreading further, you know?"

"I can't really argue with that," he admitted. "Alright, but don't stay out too late."

"Don't worry," they reassured, "I don't intend to."

— flower of the universe !! 🌸

Darkness had fallen by the time they reached their normal spot for gathering Violetgrass. Specks of glittery stars dotted the night sky; it took all of their mental strength to not sit and admire it. They would never get their task done if they did.

'The last time I did this with my bag on, I fell.'

With that thought in mind, they hummed and carefully took the cross-body bag filled to the brim with medicinal herbs off. They set it neatly to the side. Before beginning, they stretched, hoping to somehow make themselves more flexible and limber by doing so. A series of satisfying pops were released from their bones.

It was then that they began gingerly scaling the cliffside—it wasn't impossibly steep, and they'd done it an abundance of times in the past, so it didn't present too big of a challenge. It wasn't anything they weren't used to.

The ground then unexpectedly trembled beneath their feet. They huffed as their foot slipped, sending them sliding down a few feet and back onto solid ground. The single piece of Violetgrass that they needed seemed to mock their failure from its place several feet above them.

"Aw, come on..." they murmured, slightly frustrated. "Maybe I should have had Baizhu stay and help..."

Then, again without warning, just as they were about to make another attempt, the ground split open.

A scream was torn from their throat as they fell. It was as if Teyvat itself had swallowed them into its core. They made a a desperate attempt to reach for the surface, but as soon as they were in, the crack snapped shut once again. No matter how fast they fell, no kind of ground ever seemed to get any closer. Briefly through their terror, they wondered if this was how they'd die—falling into nothingness for eternity until they starved, mortal body eventually decaying into nothing and becoming one with the never-ending emptiness.

This was never meant to be how they'd die. Their death was supposed to be fated through Changsheng's contract, not through... this.

A sob ripped through their throat as their body unexpectedly slammed into the ground. Upon impact, they knew at least a handful of bones in their wrists had broken. Perhaps it was unwise to brace their fall with their wrists, but then again... it would have been far worse if they landed on their back. Breaking their back may very well have been a death sentence in the scenario they were in. Honestly, they were just thankful that their shoulders and forearms seemed to be okay, aside from a rhythmic throbbing coursing through both arms. Their body trembled pathetically like a leaf in the wind, ready to be blown away at any second. At least a leaf would see daylight or even moonlight.

It was pitch black for them, as if the darkness actively sought out and destroyed any source of light it was capable of finding. It seemed to sap any will they might've had to resist, to find a way out. Their will was gone. It was like it was never there in the first place. The ominous dark took all that determination, all that light, and consumed it like a starved beast until there was nothing but a shell left behind.

A deep pit settled in their gut as they whimpered, curling up into a ball. Surely, this was just a dream. An awful, terrible dream. They'd wake up and everything would be normal—they'd still be on the surface, gathering the last of their master's requested herbs before heading back and resuming their life as normal.

Regardless of whether or not this was a horrifying nightmare, sleeping was far more appealing than staying awake.

It was with tears rolling down their cheeks that they tucked their head into their arms, wincing at the shooting pain that ascended the length of their arms when too much pressure was applied to their wrists, and succumbed to the boundless darkness.

— flower of the universe !! 🌸

Time was an illusion.

That's how they felt, at least, because they had no idea how long they had been underneath Teyvat for. It could've been hours or it could've been days—they wouldn't know the difference either way. Everything was fuzzy. Their sleep was restless and interrupted; no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't truly sleep. Even if they managed to fall asleep, they'd wake up again after a few minutes with a jolt and a wave of paranoia. What frustrated them so deeply about it was that they knew very well that their body would never heal if they didn't sleep well. They'd never have the strength to escape if that were the case. It was infuriating.

The distant echo of footsteps made their muscles tense. The sound ceased a few feet away from where they laid.

"You'll never survive down here like this."

A nervous whine threatened to leave their throat. They swallowed it down, hands trembling slightly.

"Get up. I can tell that you're awake."

Fuck.

With what minimal strength they did still have, they pushed themselves up using their elbows. Using their hands would only hurt them more. It was difficult to see, but nonetheless, they could see her eyes clearly. Empty, star-shaped irises stared down at them, piercing the very depths of their soul, picking them apart like some kind of subject of a dissection. The utter bite of her gaze caused them to suck in a sharp breath, posture straightening slightly.

"I've no idea why the Abyss would want someone so... pathetic," she scoffed. "Look at you, resigning to your fate like some kind of lost puppy with its tail between its legs."

"No, I... That's not..." they stammered, trailing off, hoarse voice quick to die out in the face of her frigid sternness. "I'm not..."

"Oh? Am I wrong?"

"No— Yes, I mean, yes, I was... My wrists, they broke when I fell, so... They broke and I don't have anything to fix them with, so I thought resting would be a better idea than running or fighting, and—"

"Alright, alright, stop. Get up. Follow me."

She began to walk away.

"H— huh?"

"You want to survive, don't you?"

They scurried after her before they could have any kind of second doubts.

— flower of the universe !! 🌸

The woman introduced herself as Skirk, a seasoned swodswoman with extensive knowledge about the Abyss and how to survive in it. She had been kind enough (well... it was debatable whether her gesture was out of kindness or due to ulterior motives, but they had no other choice but to trust her) to treat their injuries, stiffly wrapping their wrists so that they could heal properly.

It took about six weeks for them to heal adequately. Within that time, they were surprised to find that they had begun to be able to see through the darkness, as though their eyes had finally adjusted.

They had hoped she would help them get out when they were fully healed, but...

No.

When she asked if they wanted to survive, she sure as hell intended to teach them how to do just that.

"Slow, uncoordinated, weak," she criticized venomously, swinging her blade down at them with great force. She would undoubtedly kill them if they gave her any chance to. If they made one mistake... "Just how do you think you'll get by in this realm when you can hardly defend yourself?"

"I— I didn't have to in Teyvat!" they sobbed, tears streaking down their cheeks from both the pain of the several open cuts and bruises blooming on their skin and the pain of being away from home for so long. How long had it been? They had no clue. Their wrists throbbed as they parried her blade with one of their own. "I was the apprentice of a doctor! I was safe there!"

"Well, you're not safe here. Get used to it," she sneered. "It's kill or be killed down here."

"I don't want to kill!"

"Then you'll be killed."

— flower of the universe !! 🌸

"Stop hesitating. Kill it."

The Abyssal creature at their feet seemed to whimper, trying its best to crawl away from them. It's body was already terribly mangled, limbs broken and twisted in ways they never should have been. Archons know what the eldritch creature even was—they sure as hell had no clue. All they knew was that they felt sorry for it. It looked so small and weak beneath them. 'Pathetic,' a malevolent whisper drifted through their mind, 'it looks pathetic.' With a shake of their head, perhaps in an attempt to rid their mind of such cruel thoughts, cries escaped their throat. Their chest rose and fell in sobbing, labored breaths. All they could hear in their ears was the distinct sound of blood rushing. Their chest ached. Their body ached.

They wanted to go home.

"I can't, Skirk, I can't..."

"You can," she hissed, "and you will."

"No," they cried harder, "look at it! I can't..."

"You can," she repeated, though this time with strange serenity, as she stepped behind them; with her hands, she forced their dagger down into the creature's chest, "and you will."

Blood splattered across their figure as they let out an utterly visceral wail.

— flower of the universe !! 🌸

Soft sobs wracked their figure. The more they tried to suppress their cries, the worse they got.

Many nights were spent in this manner. It wouldn't be the first night they spent crying themselves to sleep, and it was unlikely to be the last. Was it from the pain? The stress, perhaps? They truly didn't know. The only thing they knew was that they could only fall asleep if they exhausted themselves by crying first.

They just wanted to go home.

Then again...

Would they be accepted back? There was blood on their hands now. Fresh blood of a life that had value just like any other before they so cruelly took it away because in Skirk's words, it was 'kill or be killed.'

Would they still be viable for Changsheng's contract?

What if their master was dead by the time they returned?

What if they never returned?

Maybe that would be for the better.

But they wanted to go home regardless.

Then, the first light they saw in what seemed to be ages graced their empty irises. The light was treasured. Without thinking, they trapped it between their palms like one would to a firefly in the night so that it could not escape them.

A cool, smooth stone that most definitely wasn't there before now sat between their cupped hands. The rush of cold against their feverish skin prompted them to peer inside the little cage created by their rough hands.

Inside sat a Cryo vision, still-wet blood smearing over its chilling surface.

That night, they cried harder than they ever had before, clutching the Cryo Archon's blessing like it was some kind of lifeline.

Contrary to what they may have believed at the time, the night they got their vision marked the final night they would ever spend crying themselves to sleep in the Abyss.

That "morning," Skirk would note an evident change in their demeanor.

That "morning" would mark the point at which the Abyss officially reached the depths of their soul, sucking the last of the light from them and changing them fundamentally.

That "morning" would mark the point at which they were no longer Changsheng's next contractee.

— flower of the universe !! 🌸

Skirk taught them much in the first seven months of their time in the Abyss.

The longer they stayed, the warmer she became in her behavior towards them. She vaguely reminded them of their medicinal Master, though she was certainly much tougher than he was. She was not unkind, they had concluded. She was simply hardened. Archons know what she must have been through to be so cold.

Despite all that, she even did them the kindness of celebrating their birthday.

"When you do finally get out," she had said to them that day, "you will find that very little time has passed in Teyvat. Don't be surprised. You'll be a year older mentally, but your bodily age will be about the same as it was when you fell."

"How long has it been since I fell, then?"

Her reply sent chills up their spine, stomach twisting in sheer disbelief:

"Seven days."

Of course, "celebrating" just meant that they got to sleep the day off rather than be relentlessly beat up by the swordswoman. Nonetheless, they appreciated the break.

Ultimately, they had come to the conclusion that she was much different than what they'd initially assumed.

They'd taken it upon themselves to patrol around what Skirk considered to be her "territory." They'd chuckled a bit to themselves when she described it in such a way, but said nothing, only offering to patrol in her place for the day as a favor. Allegedly, that was how she encountered them all those months ago.

They were surprised to find that they, too, encountered a poor victim of the Abyss. It was a boy; if they had to guess, they would say he was somewhere around their age, maybe slightly younger.

'Is this what Skirk saw when she looked at me? Archons, no wonder she looked like she was going to tear my throat out,' they mused absently, unblinking void eyes staring down at the ginger boy on the floor in front of them. He looked like he wanted to say something but simply couldn't force the words out. 'He really does look like a lost puppy... is that what I looked like?'

His blue eyes were wide with shock and terror, glossed over with unshed tears. The Abyss was slowly beginning to dim the light in those eyes of his, but hadn't gotten very far yet—they still shone with an innocence they hadn't seen in quite a while, an innocence that didn't belong in a place such as the Abyss. His shaking hands clasped weakly at his foot; that's when they noticed that it was broken.

�� Some kind of forgotten instinct suddenly sparked again in their chest at the sight of his wounded ankle. Life... it was a thing they were supposed to protect. That was something they had been taught for as long as they could recall. It was only after falling into the Abyss that they began to stray from those teachings.

They needed to protect him. He was so fragile, the poor thing.

Briefly, they wondered what Baizhu, Jiangli, and their Master were doing right about now. Were they worried? They had no way of knowing. They did their best to brush those thoughts off before the homesickness could set in.

"You're hurt..." they observed, breaking the uneasy silence. "Broke it when you fell, huh? Can you walk, or will I have to carry you?"

"H— huh? Um..."

"Right. Got it. Hurry up and get on my back," they instructed, kneeling down with their back facing him so he could climb on with ease.

"How—" he gasped, withdrawing from them. "How can I trust you?"

"You'll die if you don't," they stated plainly, glaring back at him. Their gaze sent chills up his spine. It was so... empty. He was sure that not even the most seasoned warrior in his home nation looked so blank. It seemed as if all the light had been sucked from their soul, leaving a hardened shell of what they once were. Even Fatui officials had some kind of light in their face, but they simply did not. It unsettled him. "Get on. Now. You wouldn't last a day out here."

Though hesitant and utterly terrified, he yielded, reaching up to wrap his arms securely around their neck. They hooked their arms under his thighs and hoisted him up. Then, with a huff, they stood up.

The silence weighed a little too heavy for the boy's liking. Once the initial terror had worn off, he felt something much warmer bloom in his chest—awe. Absolute, unfettered awe.

Surely someone as tough as them could help him become more courageous.

"What's your name?"

"What, you trying to make conversation? Build rapport? I'm not planning on killing you. Relax," they scoffed. Then, after a brief, awkward silence, they went on, "...It's [Name]."

"I'm Ajax," he greeted with surprising grit for someone who just fell into the Abyss. "Hey, you're brave, right?"

"I... I guess?"

They dared to peek back at him. His eyes shone with light and determination foreign to anything or anyone in the Abyss. It did not belong here. He did not belong here.

"Teach me how to be brave like that."

Little did he know that light would disappear soon enough. They simply chose to look away, rather than mourn the loss that was inevitably going to occur.

"...You'll want to meet my teacher, then. She'll toughen you up."

— flower of the universe !! 🌸

"What is that?"

Ajax squeaked slightly, to which their lips twitched upwards into the ghost of a vaguely amused smile. Skirk must have unsettled him even more than they did.

"A boy."

Skirk's cold eyes narrowed at them. "No shit, [Name]."

"He fell and broke his ankle, so I brought him here," they elaborated, kneeling down again so he could easily get off their back without hurting himself even more. He gingerly slid off of them. Once he was off, they stood back up, walking over to her. "Anyway, I see why you wanted to rip my head off when you met me. You're totally right. He looked fucking pathetic."

"Oh, you get it now, hm?" She smirked, placing a firm hand on their shoulder. "Never thought I'd see the day you called someone pathetic."

They shrugged. "This place changes you, but I suppose I don't have to tell you of all people that." Then, they beckoned her to lean down slightly. When she obliged them, they whispered something inaudible into her ear, occasionally glancing over at Ajax. They eventually withdrew, turning to face him.

"If it's courage you seek," Skirk said, scrutinizing the boy; he seemed to shrink under her gaze, "you'll indeed find it down here."

— flower of the universe !! 🌸

Ajax’s time in the Abyss was short. They had briefly wondered if they would ever one day run into him on the surface when they did eventually get out. The thought was oddly nice.

He changed very fast, they recalled. What was once a timid and easily frightened boy had become a hardened weapon of war that sought out bloodshed just for the thrill of it. It fascinated them, really. Why weren’t they like that? They were but a fraction of the beast that he had become. The sensation of being alive certainly gave them a rush, but they hardly reveled in it the way he did.

Then again, maybe that’s why they could at least hold their own against Skirk.

That was something he could never truly manage to achieve. Once in a blue moon, the Snezhnayan boy could hold his own against them, but never Skirk. She was on a different level entirely. Now that they really thought about it, however, it seemed very likely that it was because he just wasn’t level-headed in the way they were.

That brought another question to mind, however: why wasn’t he level-headed like them? Why did he relish in the bloodshed more than they did?

The only possible explanation was their origins. Being from Chenyu Vale, it was hardly any surprise that one particular ideology was stamped irremovably into their brain.

Even so…

It would be unrealistic to expect that they wouldn’t change during their stay in the Abyss. Their exposure to Abyssal energy was insanely long—the fact that they still cared at all about saving lives was shocking.

Fourteen months into their time in the Abyss, something in their mind snapped.

They could recall nothing about their episode. All they remembered was that Skirk had them training, as usual, against hordes of Abyssal monsters. It wasn’t something all too challenging for them; they were quite used to her highly demanding training sessions. Just when they started getting slightly overwhelmed, an unfamiliar rage boiled in their chest, and they blacked out.

When they came to, all they could see was death.

Blood soaked their clothes and fingertips. They were quick to come to the horrifying realization that it was not theirs. None of the blood was theirs. Not a single drop was theirs. The shallow scratch on their cheek wasn't even deep enough to bleed. They dared not turn around. Their gaze remained locked into the darkness ahead of them, hands trembling and eyes watering.

Before they could say or do anything, before Skirk could say or do anything, the Abyss spit them out. It simply... decided it was done. As if it had grown bored, or as if it were finally satisfied with the level of corruption in their mind and soul. They lost consciousness briefly, only to awaken exactly where they had gone missing over a year ago.

…

Well, over two weeks ago, they guessed. Time dilation was a difficult thing to get used to.

“Bright… Archons above…” they groaned, pressing their hands over their eyes in an attempt to gradually adjust to the sheer brightness of the surface. It made them a little sick, if they were to be quite honest; they had grown used to the pitch blackness of the other realm. “Gods, it’s bright…”

“…[Name]?”

They peeked through their fingers, squinting in the hopes of being able to make out the figure standing a few feet from them. When it finally hit them just who it was, their heart throbbed. The soft green hair they had grown so accustomed to braiding throughout their childhood, now wild and untamed as a terrible consequence of stress and panic, the tender eyes filled with perhaps a little too much wisdom for a child that age…

They were really back on the surface. It wasn’t just some sick trick of the mind, no.

They were home.

“Bai— Baizhu?”

— flower of the universe !! 🌸

He was quick to call for help, leading them back to their shared Master. Jiangli seemed to almost cry when she saw them again—tears of relief or tears of worry, they didn't know. She reminded them of a concerned mother.

However, something they dreaded terribly had come to pass.

Their Master discovered that they were in no need of his healing. They were uninjured. All that blood was not theirs. It was never theirs. They were completely unharmed.

"There isn't a single scratch on you."

They intentionally avoided his gaze, instead focusing on their hands rested in their lap. Absentmindedly, they noted how calloused and scarred their hands were compared to how soft they had once been. The hands of a healer had become something far more sinister. Changsheng was eerily quiet.

"...[Name]?"

"No"—they sniffled, finally meeting their Master’s golden irises filled with tender concern, concern they did not deserve after what they had done—"there isn't."

The conversation died right then and there.

— flower of the universe !! 🌸

Their departure from Chenyu Vale was sudden and unexpected. Many did not know why they left. All they left behind that could explain why they left was a small envelope for Baizhu, but they honestly didn't know if he would even open it. Leaving him without a single word... it made them want to cry every time they thought about it.

The goodbyes they said to Jiangli and their Master were tearful, but neither of the two could stop them from leaving after learning that they had suffered so much. After all, what place did a killer have in Chenyu Vale?

‘You’re not a killer,’ Jiangli had insisted. ‘You’re not. You belong here, with us.’

They disagreed with her sentiment. How could she still look at them with such kindness, even after knowing what awful things they had done? Maybe that’s why they left without speaking to Baizhu. Maybe they knew he would have pleaded with them to stay. Maybe they knew they would have stayed if it were he who asked.

Many of their years were spent wandering Teyvat, but every now and then...

They'd settle in Snezhnaya to catch up with an old acquaintance of theirs after tracking down his whereabouts.

"The Fatui, hm? Looks like you really aren't some scared little kid anymore. Shame. You were quite a cute scared little kid."

They hopped from nation to nation on a whim, picking up knowledge and still studying medicine on the side, though they wouldn't dare call themselves a doctor of any kind. It was Liyue that they often avoided, and if they really couldn't help it, they'd sneak along the border like some kind of internationally wanted criminal. The idea of running into Baizhu would always send their stomach into knots. What would they even say to him? He owed them nothing. He owed them no kind of forgiveness.

'And yet, despite all that...' they mused, staring vacantly at the sleeping Jiangli at their side, 'here I am. I won't let anything hurt you, even if it means putting myself at risk.'

Their fingers gently ran through her tangled locks.

The constant pulsating glow of their Cryo vision was indication enough that, through their own means, they were keeping those terrible god remains at bay. Between the gorgeous icy energy that generated from them, a magenta glow was woven in like some kind of skilled artist's tapestry. It was as beautiful as it was unsettling.

The Abyss would always be a part of them. They might as well put Skirk's teachings to use.

"Why do you do such insane things?" they wondered aloud, head tilting back to shift their empty gaze towards the roof of the cavern. "You know that if I destroy those remains, your husband will die, and yet... I followed you nonetheless, knowing I would be at an impasse until someone came to rescue us, knowing I would inevitably cross paths with the one I have fought so hard to avoid. Why are you like this? So irresponsible, but then again... I am no better. I wouldn't be here if I was."

"Jiangli!"

"Well... it doesn't matter now," they murmured quietly, gently shaking her shoulder. "Jiangli, wake up. Baizhu and your husband are here. Some others too… I don’t know them though."

"We found her!... but who's that beside her?"

Baizhu was oddly silent, watching how they treated her with such tenderness, helping her sit up when she groggily rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Jialiang did not so much as flinch, however—he rushed up to them.

"[Name]! How is she?! Is she okay?!"

"Gods, Jialiang—" they hissed, pinching his arm in a soft attempt at scolding him. They vaguely resembled a parent chiding their child, despite the fact that he was older than them. "Don't run like that. You'll keel over dead if you keep that up. She's fine. She was just sleeping, I promise. I ensured her safety."

"Your ability to stave off the effects of the god remains is rather impressive, [Name]."

"...It's really not, Baizhu," they opposed quietly, rising to their feet. They dared not meet his eyes, looking anywhere but at him—they would feel an overwhelming sense of guilt if they were to see the evidence of his and Changsheng's contract, the contract that was always meant to be theirs. On top of that… they were certain he could see right through them, see the way they huffed out their breaths in a labored attempt at getting enough oxygen. "Don't try to make conversation. I'm not planning on running away this time. Jiangli probably did this on purpose... she forced my hand. It— look, it doesn’t matter. We'll talk about this, about everything, later."

He seemed content with that answer—for the time being, at least.

"Well, that's a first," Changsheng hissed from around the doctor's neck, "now isn't it?"

"You're getting sassy in your old age, Changsheng," they commented. "Haven't changed a single bit since the last time I saw you, hmm? Sassy old lady~"

"Hey!"

"Sorry, wait— Paimon's confused," the floating fairy interrupted. ‘Oh,’ they thought, ‘so that’s who Ajax was talking about.’ "Knowing Baizhu is one thing, but knowing Changsheng is waaaay different! Who are you?"

"My name is [Name]," they introduced with deceptive calmness that masked the pure, unadulterated panic they were experiencing on the inside. "You may have heard of me through a certain Fatui Harbinger. ‘Codename Childe, but I also go by Tartaglia,’ you know. The ginger with a bunch of cute siblings. Have you met them? They’re the cutest. Anyway, the harbinger has quite the collection of good things to say about you, traveler."

Aether tensed slightly, shooting Baizhu an odd look, almost as if to ask who he was associating with in his spare time.

"Relax. I'm not a part of the Fatui," they dismissed with a wave of their hand. "Those people are a bit insane, if you ask me, supporting a deity who hardly seems to care for them or the general population of her nation... Erm. Anyway. I only happen to know Ajax because we were both victims of the same circumstance a while back."

"What..." Aether trailed off, blinking. Something in the way he looked at them, looked at the blankness in their eyes, said that he already understood. "...What does that mean?"

"Ask him yourself. Do me a favor, though, and tell me what he says. I'm genuinely curious."

"Hey!" Paimon cut in with an annoyed huff, stomping her foot like an aggravated toddler. The thought made them smile slightly. "Stop ignoring Paimon! You still didn't answer her question!"

"[Name] was another one of my Master's disciples, like Jiangli," Baizhu explained on their behalf, briefly glancing in their direction. "Although... I haven't seen them in several years. Like Jiangli, they too ran away."

"Oh, Gods, Baizhu," they groaned, turning to face him properly for the first time in years. Their breath almost dared to hitch at the golden irises that stared back at them. "Don't be dramatic. Are you telling people I ran away? I didn't run away. I told our Master why I was leaving and when I planned on doing so. It's Jiangli who really didn't tell anyone why she left. I wasn't that secretive about why I left, you know."

"Nuance."

They then softened up slightly, running their hand through their hair. A deep sigh left through their nose. "...You really haven't changed at all."

He seemed to smile a bit at their exasperation. It was only fair, they supposed. They had left him in the dark for years. He deserved to find some amusement in the uncomfortable situation they were both forced into.

"Well... whatever. We have bigger issues than my past friendships right now," they said, crossing their arms over their chest. "What are we doing about these remains? I have protected Jiangli's body and mind, but only to an extent. She is infected and it will continue to worsen if we do nothing. However, if we destroy these remains..."

"Indeed..." Baizhu murmured, turning to the man in question. "If we destroy these remains, your life will come to an end."

"If you knew what she was doing," Aether cut in, "why didn't you stop her?"

"You cannot stop a woman like that once she has her heart set on something. All I could do was watch from the background until she put herself in too much danger, to the point where I'd have to defend her," they sighed, "such as what she did here."

Jialiang looked between them and Baizhu. "...I had wondered when this day might come."

Jiangli was silent.

"We've been working our butts off to save Jialiang's life!" Paimon shouted. "We can't just give up on him now! Baizhu, you're a great doctor. Surely you've gotta know of some other way we can save him, right? Or— [Name]! If you studied with Baizhu, you should know a few things too, right?"

"Sure. I still remember some things from that time," they replied, tilting their head back a bit so they could gaze at Jiangli's husband. "Jialiang could continue taking the poison. Jiangli is... in decent condition overall, so it wouldn't be the end of the world to delay the destruction of the remains, but she will fall more ill as time goes on. Either way, someone will die if we don't do something."

"[Name], you've been watching Jiangli," Jialiang stated, standing up to meet their eyes. "How long does she have?"

"If she completely stopped coming here..." they mused thoughtfully, "a few weeks at most would be my guess. You'd probably get a more precise answer from Baizhu, though."

"I would say that is accurate," Baizhu agreed, nodding. "I could... extend that time, however, if I were to treat her using a secret art."

"You..." They wanted to scold him, chide him for even suggesting such a thing, but in the end, they did not. It would make them a hypocrite. They simply bit their tongue. Jiangli watched closely with a gentle gaze comparable to that of an aunt or a mother as the various emotions flickered across their expression.

"...But what would be the point of that?" Jialiang lamented. "Dr. Baizhu, I am all too aware of the dangers of god remains. You are not the first to mention it to me. [Name] often warned me, but... I did not listen. If I continue to sustain my own life using this wretched substance, then not only would Jiangli have to keep risking her life to make my medicine for me, but I would have to live with the looming threat of these remains breaking out and wreaking havoc not just upon me, but my entire family. I know for a fact that I should have died over a decade ago. The fact that I've been around to see Ayu grow up is already a great blessing from Rex Lapis. If my choice can keep Jiangli alive, then... even if I die..."

"Jialiang..." Paimon trailed off.

The man chuckled sadly. "After cheating death for so long, it seems I've grown somewhat addicted to life."

"Life is a terrible drug for those of us who often come face-to-face with death," they admitted, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Take a minute to talk with Jiangli. We'll wait."

"Thank you..." he said, kneeling down at his tired wife's side, "I'm sorry that I won't be able to repay your kindness in this life."

"Jialiang...” Paimon cried, wiping her face with her little balled up hands. “Baizhu, Changsheng, [Name], is there really nothing else any of you can do?"

"Cheating death is beyond my ability," they answered apologetically. "I know much of arts that are... beyond this world, but they are not used for preserving nor extending life. I wish I could do more, but I can’t. My apologies."

"I am sure that over the years, Jiangli will have tried all the conventional methods known to humankind. As for the less conventional methods, I have little expertise besides Changsheng's secret art..."

Aether's gaze flickered between them and Baizhu as he said that, before settling back on the Liyuean doctor. "...They're aware of it?"

"Try to avoid treating me like an outsider," they half-scolded. "Believe it or not, I was meant to be bound to Changsheng. Fate had different plans, however, so yes. I am very much aware. Even through the medium, that being Changsheng, none of Baizhu's predecessors could manage to cheat death."

"Mortals are fated to grow old and pass on when their natural lifespan runs out," the snake mused. "If it were so easy to combat the natural processes of aging and death, Jiangli would not have had to resort to unnatural methods."

Paimon sniffled. "What a crazy situation... Jiangli risked it all to save Jialiang's life, and now, Jialiang has to sacrifice himself to save Jiangli. What's the point of it all..?"

"Love, I have heard, tends to make people do insane things," they stated. "It's quite tragic, really."

The traveler nodded. "All we can do now is honor Jialiang's decision and bear witness."

"...I've seen many final farewells in my time," Baizhu commented softly, quietly, "but I can never get used to it."

"In the human realm, all things must come to an end. Is it not a fitting end to die for a worthy cause? At least... that's what generations of Masters before you always believed."

They wondered if Changsheng was somehow trying to be reassuring.

"The path they chose was indeed a heroic one," Baizhu agreed, "but when I think of those who would willingly sacrifice themselves for others... I cannot help but think that theirs are the lives least deserving of death."

The quiet whispers shared between the couple gradually died down. It was then that Jialiang stood up.

"I've said my goodbyes. My time has come. Do what you must."

"As you wish."

"We have not been in contact for years," they spoke up, stepping forward and raising their hand, "but I know you well enough to know that a man dying indirectly by your own hand will weigh on your mind. I will take care of this. Stand down, Baizhu."

The doctor seemed momentarily stunned, but he nodded nonetheless, backing off. "...Very well, [Name]."

With a chilling wind and a flick of their wrist, the god remains dissipated with a hiss.

It wasn't very long until Jialiang collapsed.

— flower of the universe !! 🌸

"Jialiang..! Jialiang!"

The man shot up with a gasp, instinctively clutching at his chest.

"Dad! Are you awake?!"

"Jiangli..? Ayu? Didn't I..." Jialiang trailed off, gaze drifting to the seals stuck on his skin. "Huh? What are these?"

Changsheng’s voice drew his attention. "How does it feel to come back to life?"

"Do you feel strange or different in any way?" Baizhu questioned, walking to his bediside. "If so, could you describe it to me in detail?"

"Dr. Baizhu! I thought I was going to..."

"Die? You did, actually," they stated, gently holding his arm, carefully inspecting the sigils as to not disrupt the delicate imitation of immortality that the doctor had created. "To think this is what Baizhu's been doing in my absence... absolutely fascinating. Sorry, Jialiang, do you mind? I'll back off if it's uncomfortable. Don’t be afraid to tell me.”

Jiangli giggled at her husband's look of sheer confusion.

"Uh... no, you're— you're okay..? Go ahead."

Baizhu's lips quirked up at the sight of their enthusiasm. He said nothing of it, though. "As things stand now, you're more akin to a zombie than a human."

"...I'm a zombie?!"

"That's right. Before we set off, I asked Qiqi to prepare and Elixir of Immortality. With its help, you have been suspended in the space between life and death. Of course, this is but a crude imitation of an adeptus art. I don't expect it to extend your life indefinitely. Whether it will keep you alive for a few days, a few months, or a few years...” Baizhu mused, “I am as interested as you to find out, but however long you have left, I believe it should be more than sufficient time for you to say your final goodbyes before departing the world in peace. ...I hope Director Hu finds this arrangement to be a satisfactory one?"

"An Elixir of Immortality? How'd you cook that up? Ugh," the girl in question groaned, "leave it to you to work on something like that behind my back..."

"It's a work in progress that hardly lives up to its name, and it would've had no effect if not for Jialiang's iron will." Baizhu shifted, crossing his arms over his chest. "In the end, I am merely a doctor. I understand very little about the great principles governing life and death, and the perpetual cycle of yin and yang. All I know is that if I am presented with a life that deserves to be saved, I will do everything within my power to save it. Even this would have counted for nothing if not for Director Hu's assistance... after all, did you not tell Jialiang to show us the way before we set off for Qingce Village?"

"Oops! Aaaand, I'm busted..."

"Without Director Hu nudging things in the right direction, we may not have found Jiangli and [Name] in time. They could only hold those remains off for so long."

"It wouldn't have meant anything if not for your friend over there," she pointed out. "They nudged me first."

"I did," they conceded, finally backing away from Jialiang after finishing their investigation of his sigils. "What of it? I was worried about Jialiang and Jiangli. I told Director Hu who I was and where I was headed after eavesdropping, and then she nudged Jialiang in that direction. It's not that serious."

"Eavesdropping is kind of serious!" Paimon exclaimed, shooting them an odd look.

"Fair point, but it's not like I was eavesdropping on someone I've never met. What could Baizhu have said to you that I wouldn't have already known? Absolutely nothing.”

"I knew there were people listening in on our conversation back then," Aether murmured. "To think it was you two..."

"No wonder he didn't mention the Elixir back then," Director Hu muttered to herself. "I thought he was being frank and transparent with me for once, but apparently not."

Jialiang cleared his throat, laughing a bit. "Director Hu told me to keep her suggestion a secret, and [Name] had told Jiangli and I a while ago to keep it a secret that they were in Liyue, but it seems nothing escapes Dr. Baizhu's attention..."

"Never underestimate a serpent's sense of smell!" Changsheng hissed, almost seeming to be proud.

"All I wanted was to help Jialiang find his missing wife as soon as possible, so that he could be on his way to the afterlife without any unfulfilled wishes making the journey more difficult than it needs to be..." Hu Tao sighed. "Leave it to Bubu Pharmacy to snatch the perfect opportunity right outta my hands at the last hurdle! Never mind, I'll just have to put it down in the books as a deferred consideration... one Qiqi was enough of a conundrum; the last thing I need's another one. If I'd known this was coming, I would have whisked him off to the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor the moment I found him."

"Y— you stay away from my dad! When I grow up, I'm gonna become a better doctor than Mom and Baizhu, and cure Dad for good!" Ayu declared, making them chuckle into their hand. They ruffled his brown hair fondly. "A— and [Name]! Better than [Name] too!"

"I don't really practice medicine anymore, honey. I definitely don't count as a doctor. You'd outdo me within a week."

Jiangli grinned at them, teasing, "I don't know, [Name]. For someone who 'doesn't practice medicine anymore,' you still act as if you do. You seem very fascinated with Baizhu's imitation of immortality on a very deep level.”

"Old habits die hard," they simply answered. "What can I say?”

"Oh? Is that so?" Hu Tao chimed, turning to Ayu. "Well, you wouldn't be the first person who's tried to put Wangsheng Funeral Parlor out of business. If you're serious about it, you'll have your work cut out for you."

Just like that, she turned on her heel and left.

"Phew... is she finally gone?" Qiqi peeked out from her hiding spot. Upon seeing them, and noting that Hu Tao was gone, she ran over to them, presenting them with a silk flower. "I meant to give it to you earlier... because it's pretty, like you... but I forgot..."

Their face turned serious as they faced the Liyuean doctor. "Baizhu."

"Hm?"

"I'm keeping her. She's mine now. This is my child now."

Both Baizhu and Jiangli chuckled at how purely enamored they were with her, kneeling down so Qiqi could tuck the flower behind their ear. They cooed over her sweetness, patting her head lovingly. Ayu almost seemed a little jealous of the attention they showered her in.

"All's well that ends well!" Paimon chimed, turning to Aether. "If you ask Paimon, we should probably go do something to celebrate this heard-earned family reunion..."

"Paimon's idea of a celebration can only mean one thing..."

"Hehe! At times like this, a grand celebratory feast is in order!"

Jialiang chuckled, "It feels like it was a whole lifetime ago when I last talked with Jiangli and Ayu around the dinner table."

"Rightfully so," they said, "you've been through a lot."

Aether nodded. "This was a hard-earned meal."

"Yaaay~! Paimon can't wait! Alright, first thing's first—off to the market for some fresh ingredients! Let's go~!"

"Wait up!" Ayu shouted, running after them. "I'll come too!"

"Baizhu, thank you so, so much for everything you've done for us..." Jiangli thanked, then turning to place a hand on their shoulder as many had done before her. "And [Name], I would not be as well as I am now if not for you. You've been standoffish for the past decade, but I know you still care. For all of us."

"Ah... I wasn't trying to come off as cold. Things just got tough for me after that incident. I never want you guys to feel like I don't care, you know..."

"Don't mention it, Jiangli," Baizhu reassured. "I was just doing my duty."

"Just your duty, huh..." she mused wistfully. "Baizhu, Changsheng, [Name], would you mind if we took this conversation outside?"

— flower of the universe !! 🌸

"Time flies. It's been so long since we've been together like this... Changsheng, you're the same as ever," Jiangli laughed. "You haven't changed one bit!"

"That's literally what I said to her, too," they exclaimed. "See, I knew I was right! Some things just don't change, hm?"

"...You two, on the other hand, have changed a lot," Changsheng replied, a thoughtful lilt to her tone. She certainly knew more than what she was letting on.

"You're right," Jiangli admitted. "My younger self would have never imagined that things would one day turn out this way."

"I doubt that any of us imagined our lives would turn out this way," they added. "I mean, really... our time in Chenyu Vale seems so far gone now, doesn’t it?”

“It really does,” the woman agreed.

The evening light bathed their face in yellow-orange light; it wasn't quite late enough yet for the light to take on a more golden hue, but it was beautiful nonetheless. Even after all the horrors they had witnessed, they still had the capacity to recognize beauty.

"Liyue's so pretty at this time, isn't it?" they wondered aloud.

"You always did think so," Baizhu replied. "That much hasn't changed."

An oddly comfortable silence settled for but a few short moments as the small group descended the last of the stairs that led to Bubu Pharmacy. Jiangli was the first to break it:

“I’ve taken a look at your Elixir of Immortality, Baizhu, as has [Name]. It isn’t altogether dissimilar from the poison I concocted in terms of the way it functions.”

“I have to say, Jiangli, it was a stroke of genius to use poison to maintain life. I hope you’re not too upset at me for… copying your methods?”

“No, not at all. With your intellect, even if you’d never seen my poison, I believe you would have eventually arrived at the same approach, but I’m still impressed by how quickly you gained such a thorough understanding of it. Jialiang’s still only been in your care for a few days. Not just that—you even managed to improve upon the original formula. That cannot be explained by intellect alone…”

“Ten mora says he tried it out on himself.”

“Ha!” Changsheng laughed. “Told you the truth would come out sooner or later.”

“Knew it,” they hummed. “Life force has never been the only thing Changsheng’s contract allows her contractees to transfer. I know simply because I used to catch our master doing things like that all the time.”

“Baizhu…” Jiangli trailed off.

“…Nothing gets past you two. Yes, Changsheng’s secret art also allows for the transfer of toxins and diseases. When I treated Jialiang for the second time, I transferred some of the poison from his body onto my own. Not only did this allow me to alleviate the burden on him, but it also gave me an opportunity to study its properties. There is no need to worry about any long-term consequences to my health, however. Now that the source has been destroyed, any remaining poison in me will have already dissipated.”

“But you took such a huge risk,” Jiangli opposed. “If we hadn’t destroyed the gods’ remains back there, then even you might have…” She then sighed. “What am I saying? I’m in no position to criticize you for this, and if [Name] knew… it’s no wonder why they were adamant on destroying the remains themselves.”

They nodded. “I had to be sure they would be gone. Believe me, whatever was there before… it is not there now and will never be there again.”

“Leave it to you to see through us all, even from such a distance,” she said with a fond, wistful smile. She turned back to Baizhu. “The reason I left our Master and went into hiding all those years ago was that he was getting old, and I didn’t want him using up any more of his own life force to treat my husband, but in the end… how were my methods any different than his? I risked one life to save another, and then you tried the poison on yourself, too… It looks like both of us have ended up going the same way as out master before us. As for [Name]… heh, they’re hardly any better.”

Baizhu seemed intrigued by her statement. “How so?”

“[Name], why don’t you tell Baizhu how you absorbed the majority of that gods’ remains to keep them from getting to me?”

“It’s different,” they insisted, gaze shifting towards the golden sky. "I mean, I did do that, yes—that’s not what I’m denying. You two do it because if there is a life in front of you deserving of being saved, you save it, and… ten years ago, I would have done it solely for the same reasons. Now, though… It’s different. That incident changed me, Jiangli. I do it because I get a rush from surviving things like that.”

“Nonetheless, your intentions towards others are still good,” Jiangli said, gently squeezing their upper arm. “Would you have done it if you didn’t care? If you weren’t scared for my life? You said it yourself. You were worried about my husband and I. You put yourself in a situation you knew would inevitably lead to you and Baizhu meeting again. You put yourself at risk, and that is what really makes me wonder: are all disciples of Chenyu Vale destined to turn out this way? To live a short life, having given away our own for the sake of others? To fight relentlessly against the natural course of life and death, whatever the cost? …Maybe our fate is sealed the moment we decide to study medicine.”

“We are doctors, Jiangli. We ought never say that anyone’s fate is sealed.”

“Baizhu, I can tell that over the years, you’ve used the contract with Changsheng to transfer many diseases and toxins onto yourself. There are so many, that some of them I don’t even recognize… can you still stop it before it’s too late?”

“Don’t fool yourself. We all know the answer to that question, Jiangli,” they interrupted, “and we all know it’s a very honest no. All disciples of Chneyu Vale believe in the same core principle. Don’t be a hypocrite.”

“Heey~!” Paimon shouted, waving the group over. “Food’s ready!”

“Mom!” Ayu exclaimed excitedly, running up to the woman. “Come and join us! Aether taught me a load of new recipes and said even Dad’ll be able to taste them! Come and try them out!”

“Yes, darling, mom’ll be there in just a minute… Hey, slow down!” she exclaimed, chasing after her child. She stopped briefly, turning back to face them and Baizhu. “Baizhu, I know I won’t be able to convince you, but… please don’t forget that, if one day, you’re not around anymore… Qiqi, Gui, and all the friends that have grown fond of you, they will all miss you dearly.”

“There’s no need to worry, Jiangli. I know what I’m doing.”

“…I can only hope so,” she sighed, “and [Name]? I believe you know where this conversation needs to go. I was honest about why I left. It’s your turn now.”

She walked off after her son.

A silence settled in her absence. This time, however, it was tense.

Then, Baizhu seemed to search his pockets for something. His face brightened slightly when he found it: a small envelope yellowed with age. He handed it over to them.

"You... never opened it?" they wondered softly, holding the letter they'd written all those years ago with such delicacy that they weren't even aware they were capable of anymore.

"I wanted to hear the explanation from you."

"This was from me," they tried to counter.

"[Name]."

"Yeah, yeah... I get it. You wanted to hear it from me directly. I know," they sighed, leaning back against the railing, fidgeting with the paper envelope help in their hands. "It really isn't a pretty story, but if anyone deserves to know... I suppose it's you. I’m surprised Changsheng didn’t tell you already, given how inclined she is to gossiping—”

“Hey!”

“—Just... please. Do me a favor and try not to look at me too differently after you hear it."

Baizhu reached out to their shoulder, giving it a tender squeeze. "I just want to know why you left so abruptly. We were so close. There is nothing you could say or do that would make me resent you."

They smiled bitterly. "We'll see about that."

— flower of the universe !! 🌸

For the first time in a very long time, they spoke to Baizhu.

Not superficially, not as distant professionals, but as friends. It was a moment of honest vulnerability that truly frightened them. They hadn't been that vulnerable since before their fall.

The silence weighed heavily on their chest as they gazed anywhere but at their former friend. Somehow, the anticipation for his response was far more suffocating than any other in the past—even the anticipation for their Master's response was never this heavy.

Then, the Liyuean doctor reached out, gingerly tugging them towards his figure. His arms settled comfortably around their waist.

The weak beating of his heart and the wheezing breaths he took prompted them to sob. The sound they let out was overwhelmingly heartbreaking; it was somehow even worse than the cry they had let out upon taking that first life all those years ago in the Abyss. All the pain they suppressed for all the years they hid from their home, their friends... it all came flooding out at once.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..."

"You went through all of that," Baizhu whispered, his voice meant only for them (and Changsheng by default…) to hear as a hand ran soothingly through their hair, "and you truly believed we would hold that against you?"

"Yes!" they wept. Archons... they hadn't felt this pathetic since their initial descent into the Abyss. "Gods, Baizhu, of course I thought you all would hold it against me! I was supposed to be Changsheng's next contractee! It was never supposed to be you! I didn't want it to be you!"

"I know."

"It's not fair! You— you're here giving away your life force, and you're going to die young, and it's going to be my fault! I should have done something differently! Maybe then we wouldn't be in this situation!"

"It's not your fault."

"It is!"

"It's not."

"You're suffering because of me!"

"[Name]."

"I only ever do bad things to you," they sobbed. "Why do you still want to forgive me? Why are you wasting your time comforting me? You should just move on. You're better off without me."

"Stay in Liyue."

"H— huh?" they sniffled. "What? No, I... No!”

“Stay, [Name]. Please.”

“No! Why do you even want me to stay here?! You should hate me! You should—”

“You’re reckless with your own life. Do you really think I don’t see it? You claim to get a rush from being alive, but… I do not believe that is the only thing you seek out by putting yourself at risk. Mentally well people don’t behave this way. Let me help you. Please."

‘No shit,’ they wanted to say, ‘I haven’t been well since that day.’

“Are you saying you don’t trust me to be on my own?”

“I am.”

Their throat closed. They squeezed their eyes shut.

He was right, much as they hated it.

“…Fucking hypocrite.”

"That may be so.” He smiled ruefully. “If that isn’t good enough of a reason, then… I’m asking you to stay because I want you to stay, [Name]. Stay with me for a little while." His eyes were filled with a gentleness that they wholeheartedly believed should not have been directed at them. "We still get along, don't we? Though you may have changed, I genuinely find it hard to believe anything about us has changed, so stay. Let's get to know each other again, hm?"

They blinked. Once, twice. Tears pricked at their eyelashes.

"...Okay."

They still failed to part from Baizhu, but he didn't seem to mind, only resuming his motions of brushing his fingers through their hair.

"Qiqi quite likes your company, too."

"Yes..." they murmured. "Um, a lot of kids seem to, you know... Ayu, my other friend's siblings... I don't really get it, but they, um, they all seem to like me."

For what was the first time in decades, they felt truly at peace. They'd often engage in meaningless conversation under the sunset's light with Baizhu in their youth, gathering herbs and the like for their shared Master. To do something so similar once again...

It soothed the beast their soul had become.

The sunset's light, however, did not dance in their eyes as it once had.

please consider reblogging, it helps me out quite a lot! taglist: @zeldadou, @ophelium-flowers, @aikitsuki.

#aphelion writes 🌸#favoniuslibrary #astronetwrk #genshin impact x reader #genshin platonic #genshin x reader #platonic genshin #platonic genshin impact #platonic genshin impact x reader #platonic genshin x reader #platonic baizhu x reader #baizhu x reader

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crucifiedbymypriestess · 25 days

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One thing about me is that I can't focus on just one thing or I'll start to procrastinate or get distracted, so I always make it a point to write a bunch of fanfics at once. English is not my first language, hope you guys can understand it well, also helped myself with Google translator.

Also my last time writing something was like seven-eight years ago, lmao.

This is one of them.

After a tragic accident and the death of David, the happy married couple begins to struggle and witness the deterioration of their marriage, a disastrous divorce, but life continues to bring Erik into Charles's life.

Here's one scene from it:

“-'cause the best thing for you and Erik is to stop for a while and get outside help, Charles. It's not fair to any of you that your coexistence is only with fights.”

Raven extended her hand, leaving a piece of paper with a contact in red ink, with perfectly legible handwriting. Charles continued with his blank face, empty eyes, sealed lips and rigid posture. Charles couldn't explain it, but sometimes his ears went deaf and his mind stopped caring what his sister had to say about it.

Leaving home was already a very difficult sacrifice to make, in these months when he could only stay stuck, sitting on the bed in the room of his sweet and beloved little boy. Spending afternoons and most of the night idly looking out the window now covered in dust.

“-Erik said that you refuse to sleep properly yet, that you don't even want to leave... David's room.”

Because sleeping with Erik felt so much rejection and pain, it suffocated him to be close to that man. Charles felt his air mixing with her husband's, and little by little he began to hate the idea of Erik's skin being so close to his body. Sometimes he dared to dream that his cute little boy was with him and he cried to him to go comfort him because of a nightmare, and he allowed himself to tell David that it was okay if he slept with Erik and him.

Other nights he dreamed that his son was running around in his bare feet and tripping in the hallway, but he laughed with Erik and then continued playing. But upon awakening all those happy and melancholic emotions his crumbled before the reality of the loss of his family.

“-we concluded that it would be best, Charles. You can’t keep treating Erik like it’s his fault.” Raven repeating the same speech that the rest of her acquaintances came to say.

Charles just let her continue, half-hearted and refusing to lend an ear to this annoying topic. He clenched his fists under the table, and simply let his sister continue with that petty speech that he refused to give space to. He closed his eyes and tried to regulate his breathing, but his nose stung and his eyes burned at the painful memory of her little David.

Raven listed over and over the reasons why Erik and Charles should go to therapy, talk calmly without either of them ending up screaming, and without Charles swearing hate and disgust in her husband's face for even having the audacity to show up. But he didn't want that, because he couldn't help but see Erik for what he really was, what his eyes presented to him, instead of his beloved.

“You know it's not fair, he didn't do it on purpose, it was an accident, it's no one's fault, Charles…”

And Charles fumed, opening his eyes to let angry tears escape as a cold gaze settled on his sister. He shook his head, as if he couldn't believe what this woman in front of him was saying, refusing to even see things as he believed them to be.

“No, Raven. Stop right here, don't you dare tell me, don't defend him too, Raven. For the love of God, don't tell me.” His voice came out with more desperation than he expected, and he surprised himself.

“It's not his fault, Charles. You… you really have to forgive him, you know well that it's not his fault. It was his son too, he loves you both. You are the love of his life, Charles. I know it's hard but you really can't live like this and keep blaming Erik, he-”

“Stop, Raven!” It had come out like a shout, causing a few glances from other tables throughout the restaurant. “Stop it, please, Raven! All of you, stop coming to me with forgiveness sermons, because I simply can't!” Charles began to sob hard, while his breathing and voice seemed ragged with the tide of tears pouring out of him.

“Don't ask me to look at that man and forgive him, because he says he loves me, and he loved my baby. Don't ask me to look at it and not see in it the disgusting being that let my baby die, because I don't know how, and I can't. It is not in me, because I will never be able to see his face again and not think that that man killed my baby.” One broken scream after another, and Charles could no longer stop coughing and hiccuping between his cries. And Raven didn't offer any comfort, she just looked at him frozen, averting her gaze from her brother so as not to succumb to the desire to cry with him. “Or do something for me, and tell me how, how can I look at him again without thinking that he is the culprit of my misfortune? Can you teach me, Raven? Tell me, speak! Tell me how he's supposed to be and don't think he killed my baby!”

#cherik #charles xavier #erik lehnsherr #fanfic writing #fanfic #writing

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oncewhenalongtimeago · 8 months

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Hi hello! I saw that you were accepting requests! Can I request something related to "Sorry, but I Think I Lost Your Plot"? I seems like our dear mc has a bit of a language barrier with Berk and I think it would be funny seeing another suitor trying to woo her with poetry in a language she barely has a grasp on

Sorry, but I Think I Lost Your Plot pt 5

Pairing: Onesided!Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III x Modern!Fem!Reader, Notactually!Fishlegs x Modern!Fem!Reader

Words: 1208

Such is the folly of a poet that, when dealing in rhymes and riddles, the innocent become victim to wordplay.

Tags: Time Travel, Reader into Movieverse, poetry, misunderstandings

“So…” You trailed off, “Ruffnut, huh?”

“What?” Fishlegs asked, clutching a stack of papers to his chest. He looked a lot like a deer in headlights, eyes impossibly wide, pupils outlined by white sclera.

You wrinkled your brow. It felt like a cliche. You almost felt bad, but it wasn’t like you were trying to listen in. You couldn’t help but to hear, especially not if he read his stuff aloud.

“O-oh,” he squeaked bashfully, “Don’t mind it, please!”

If you were going to be completely honest, you were only guessing.

“It was good,” You said. You would have been incredibly shy in his place, so you were careful to be kind.

“Really?” Fishlegs asked, eyes darting back and forth.

Of course, you had just given him quite the scare. He scrambled to bring loose, yellowed paper closer to him even as you blinked emptily to yourself.

You were by a set of wooden lunch table-esque benches in a tight clearing, created by an awkward placing of a few rows of houses. You’d been doing work round the corner, lazily pulling up a small bucket of water from one of the wells there in one of the alleys.

It was very private, probably why Fishlegs had taken so quickly to it.

“Yes.” You said.

His hands relaxed at the confirmation. And, as they did, some other thick papers slipped from his hands onto the table. You couldn’t see all of them very well, but a few of the writings were legible to you.

They read this:

Beautiful morning,

Yellow, yellow hair

Like snot

And, the next:

Raucous girl,

A slim, slender warrior,

Near the seawater

Fishlegs followed your eyes.

“I didn’t want to share those because t-the, uh, I was afraid the Snot bit would remind her of Snotlout.”

“That would be confusing,” You nodded along in agreement, trying to hide your wince, “So, what brings you out here?”

There was a long moment of silence between the two of you until he spoke.

“Reading it aloud is a part of my process. I’m, ah, trying to build up some confidence.” He uttered sheepishly.

“Why don’t you run it by me before you share it with her, then?” You asked, settling on one of the long wooden seats across from Fishlegs, folding your hands together in your lap. You dropped the small water bucket you were carrying as you did so, your arms sighing in relief. Water was surprisingly heavy.

“Are you sure?”

You nodded. It was a nice, sunny day out for once. Some poetry certainly wouldn’t hurt. In fact, you hoped it might add to the nice ambiance.

“Well, here goes,” He said, unsurely. You had to look up to see his face when he spoke. Thankfully, he didn’t block out the sun. You were facing the wrong direction for that.

As soon as possible, you shoved the small bucket of water into the back of your mind. You’d rather not have to deal with it, now or later. You wanted very badly to abandon it, hoping that if you had, by chance, forgotten it, then it might absolve you of your guilt in dropping your requested task.

“My lanky love, ” Fishlegs began. “I adore the way you jab, wrestle and prance, brawling with your kin of the same yoke, so similar. But how can I compare you to such an esque buffoon? You are more spunky, knotted and grappling. “

You wrinkled your nose in puzzlement. It turned out Fishlegs had a very loud speaking voice when he really wanted to have it.

“To wrestle- wrestling, that is-” He explained, perhaps catching onto your befuddlement. Not many people were familiar with how new you were to the language, though it wasn’t much of a secret. It was more because of a lack of care than anything else.

“Oh,” You said, as he continued on. You wondered when Fishlegs had figured it out. You two certainly hadn’t talked before then. Maybe. You did remember this one time a while ago, but it was very brief.

“What does ‘yoke’ mean?”

”-I, ah-, joined together- ‘Yoke,’ that is- And, anyways- And let me count the ways in which I love your brassy hair and torso-”

As he spoke, you brought your arms up onto the table, leaning on your elbows and letting your head slump onto your closed fist as you relaxed into your seat. It was a bit hard to understand given the difference between English and Norse in sentence structure, but you thought you got the gist of it.

“-Tis not endemic, nor appling. Wanting your ovular face fills my days, and my nights. My heart beats for you by a grotesque tempo-”

Your eyes unfocused and refocused, somewhat distracted as you picked up something from behind Fishlegs. You hoped to seem involved. You were, and you hung onto every word, doing your best to keep up, though there were a few words you hadn’t quite gotten the hang of yet. Like ‘ovular,’ ‘grotesque’ and ‘tempo.’

However, you weren’t sure if it was appropriate for you to stare at his face the whole time, or if you were supposed to look elsewhere.

It was at this point that Fishlegs began to sound nervous, glancing somewhere off to the side, out of the realm of your vision. You wondered why.

“I think of you during each turn of the seasons, led by Sumarr in the mornings and Vetr in the evenings-”

As he tapered off, you noticed the flickering of a black tail from the corner of your eye.

“Though I must venture yonder with a potted heart, please remember my intrepid words whilst we're apart…”

You wrinkled your brow at Fishlegs confusedly.

“Was that good?” Fishlegs hedged nervously, about three octaves above normal. You stared at him for a moment, before you realized you had very much forgotten to react.

You weren’t sure if it was poetry, exactly. You weren’t as well-versed in the art of it as he was, but it seemed alright.

“It was nice,” You said lowly, nodding your head. “I’m sure she’ll like it.”

Then, curiously, you turned your head, just in time to watch as Toothless strode forth to join his rider, standing behind one of the stacked rock walls along the edge of the clearing. He looked sort of grumpy. Both dragon and rider, that was. But it also looked like Hiccup was finally back in green, which was nice. You were starting to miss it, so you took that as a win.

“Oh, hey, Hiccup.” You waved, standing up and yawning. You put your hand over your mouth in an effort to cover it.

You wondered how long Hiccup had been standing there, gaping. You wondered if he was constipated, or something.

Fishlegs looked behind himself, like he was in trouble, at Hiccup who was standing behind the wall, brows furrowed, looking slightly scandalized, Toothless standing menacingly on his hind legs. Then he looked at you, and spent a while longer, eyes darting between the two.

Then, with all the force of a hurricane, you came to a startling realization.

“Oh, no- this isn’t-He wasn’t-”

“It’s not what it looks like!” Fishlegs crumpled his papers to his chest, squeaking loudly.

#how to train your dragon #httyd #x reader #fanfiction #hiccup haddock #hiccup x reader #httyd imagine #toothless #female reader #fem reader

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beansprean · 1 year

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“People Say Friends Don’t Destroy One Another” by LaCroixWitch (@fanfic-fugue)

(ID in alt and under cut)

ID: 1. Nandor laying on his back on a pile of broken wood and rubble, a bent sword sticking blade-up through his abdomen, slick with blood. He is dressed in a black tee shirt and jeans under one of his usual cloaks, and his hair is down and laying tangled against the floor. He and his clothes are tattered, bloody, dirty, and scraped up after a long battle. Guillermo, dressed in a white button down, chinos, boots, and his slayer gloves, is holding himself up on all fours above Nandor, legs straddling his waist. He is equally mussed and dirty, shirt ripped at the shoulder and dribbling blood down his arm and an open wound on his head bleeding freely all down his face, dripping onto Nandor. One arm is locked straight down to press Nandor’s arm to the floor. Nandor’s free hand is reaching up to dazedly touch Guillermo’s cheek. Despite the violence of his position, Guillermo is crying, tears shedding as freely as the blood as he locks eyes with Nandor. In the foreground, his glasses lay with the lenses cracked into shards, distorting part of the picture behind it.

2. A close up of the same scene, Nandor using the last of his strength to grip the back of Guillermo’s shoulder and neck and pull himself up closer. Eyes closed and face screwed up in desperate passion, he touches his lips to Guillermo’s. Guillermo, tear pooling in his lashes as he closes his eyes, allows himself to be pulled and pushes weakly into the barely-there kiss. In the foreground is a postcard, splattered with blood and creased in two directions from being folded and unfolded countless times. The smudged ink reads: “Guillermo, I do not think you are getting my cards. Perhaps mail takes a very long time to get to wherever you are. I find myself in New Mexico, but there are no piñata farmers here. I am told there is an old Mexico. That must be where your family is from.” The following text is smaller, as if hesitant to be expressed: “I hope you will write me back, I am rather lonely on my journey. I think you would like these places. You could see them during the daytime and tell me all about it. I miss you.” The last line has been crossed out multiple times, but still legible. /end ID

#wwdits #nandermo #mlm #what we do in the shadows #what we do in the shadows fx #fic rec #blood tw #violence tw #my art #fanart #image described

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wordsofhoneydew · 1 month

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fic pride

Rules: Post your favourite line or passage from as many of your published works as you’d like. Let yourself feel proud of your creations! Tag as many people as you post snippets, so your fellow fic friends can be proud, too.

thank you for the tags @anincompletelist and @firenati0n

(no pressure) pressure tags to : @cha-melodius @whimsymanaged @cricketnationrise @alasse9 @sherryvalli @nocoastposts

reading back at my work has only reminded me how proud and happy i am with the fics i have written, and i hope y’all enjoy them just as much as i do!!

stolen glances with a string attached

Henry isn’t completely conscious of the fact that he is borderline stalking now, having been captivated by this man’s beauty. Even with the fair amount of distance between their office windows, Henry could still distinguish the prominent shadows cast on his cheeks from his eyelashes, and the sharp line of his jaw clenching every now and then. His skin seemed to glow exquisitely under the morning sun; looking practically magical against the gray of the city landscape. That’s when the other man notices Henry, catching him in his trance for a split second before Henry turns his head to look down at the keyboard in front of him. That was close , he thinks to himself before slowly turning his head to look back at the window. And to his misfortune, the man is looking right back at him; his eyes squint, his perfectly sculpted eyebrows furrow, and his face is wearing an expression as if to say caught you. And he’s not wrong. Henry’s eyes widen, his body tensing up in sheer humiliation. That’s when he sees a sly smirk make its way to the man’s lips, and it only makes the embarrassment course through his body more rapidly, feeling all the blood rush to his cheeks. The man then spins around in his office chair, reaching for what looks to be a piece of paper and a pen. He scribbles on it for a swift moment before pressing the paper up against his office window. The paper reads, “TAKE A PIC,” written in sloppy, bubble-like handwriting just barely legible enough for Henry to read. The man grabs another paper and writes for a moment longer, this time reading, “JK” with a winky face. Henry cocks an inquisitive eyebrow in his direction, the embarrassment slowly morphing into curiosity as the man turns the paper over for Henry to read the other side. “ALEX.”

your body comes back to me in dreams [nsfw]

He comes back to himself in increments, the places where they’re touching becoming lighter and colder, and his vision softening around the edges. Henry grabs the other man’s shoulder with a vice grip, wanting to laze in the gratification of their love. He surges forward to kiss him again, desperate to feel the warmth of his body, but he feels almost nothing. Henry pulls away resentfully, in search of brown eyes that bear unwavering devotion—but they’re gone, replaced by nothing, and he is faced with the iciness of the man’s absence.

i became your device to name and soothe

June blushes violently and whispers, “It’s not the same when I do it to myself.” The air is eerily silent for a beat, and June hates everything that is coming out of her mouth right now. Nora’s face goes almost stoic, serious, but the sparkle of interest in her eyes never falters. “Tell me why.” “What?” “Tell me why it isn’t the same.” June stares back at her staggered, at a complete loss of what to say, or how to say it. June has never had to explain the reasoning behind why she likes spanking. Hell, she’s never really thought about it in depth herself. Knowing that it brings her euphoric pleasure is enough acknowledgement for her. “Well… I guess it has to do with the attention and— uh, being taken care of is part of it, too.” She chews on her lips subconsciously, looking down at her lap. “I see,” Nora trails off, thinking deliberately before saying: “I can help you. Only if you’re comfortable with that of course.” Nora places her hand on June’s knee, it’s a comforting sentiment more than anything, and June realizes that she really does mean to help. Not in the exact way June wishes she would, but she’ll take what she can get at this point. “Okay.” “Really? “I trust you, Nora.” “Yeah, of course. I trust you too.” June tries to swallow down the knot in her throat before speaking again, “It’ll be like, nonsexual, platonic—“ “Like a massage.” Nora’s expression is unreadable, the same face she makes when she’s in the middle of coding a script or calculating how many red bulls her body can tolerate without a wink of sleep in three days. Like a project she’s undoubtedly going to excel at. It makes June squirm in her seat. “I’m not an expert, so you’ll have to give me some… guidance.” God. What has June gotten herself into?

What are the chances? [nsfw]

“This what you wanted?” Nora whispers on her navel, kissing and licking up to the sweat that has begun to form between her breasts. The position of Nora’s fingers remain hooked inside of her, massaging repeatedly at her sweet spot, and June is seeing fucking stars. Her chest pushes into Nora’s face, giving her full permission to abuse them with her mouth. Instead Nora pulls back, laying her hand flat on June’s chest to settle her back onto the bed again. She gives a light slap to one of her breasts. “How does it feel? You were so desperate for it earlier, huh, baby? So, tell me how it feels.” June is unable to speak for a moment, her jaw slacked with no sound escaping. Her head is buzzing and her legs are trembling from how much stimulation her body is receiving. “Feels— oh fuck, ” she huffs, “feels so good, Nora. Please, don’t stop.” Nora unties one of her wrists, still maintaining the consistent rhythm of her hand. Once free, June immediately reaches out to touch her face; running her thumb over Nora’s eyebrow, cheekbones and then her lips, feeling how soft and plump they are. Nora takes that as an invitation to kiss June again, this time with a more deliberate, loving touch—she can taste a bit of herself on Nora’s tongue.

#wordsofhoneydew writes #rwrb #red white and royal blue #alex claremont diaz #prince henry rwrb #firstprince #alex x henry #rwrb fic #rwrb alex #henry fox mountchristen windsor #june claremont diaz #nora x june #nora holleran #junora #red white and royal blue fanfic #red white & royal blue #rwrb fic recs #rwrb fanfic #rwrbsource

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