#i think i remember you referring to yourself with she/her pronouns before but if i'm wrong please correct me
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⭑ for the love that used to be here. tom riddle x reader
summary. you and tom are the only muggle-borns in slytherin, until one day he isn’t.
tags. angst, afab reader who is referred to as a witch a few times and rooms with girls but i don't think i ever use she/her pronouns or say the word girl/woman, biggest warning is that this is SO long (idk what compelled me to write a year 1 – post-hogwarts fic but here we are twenty thousand damn words later), blood purity and bigotry, dumbledore is greatly offended by the bonding of two orphans until he can capitalise on it, frequent wwii mentions (specifically the blitz), book clerk tom, MURDERER TOM… ministry reader, kissing, smut once they’re 21/22 May all the minors in the room exit at once, more angst, sad ending kinda, me spreading a very personal and very nefarious tom riddle agenda that is canon to ME but probably only like two other people
note. i need a shower and an exorcism after writing this shit. i'm exhausted. i don't even remember half of it. but i'm also SO stoked, this is my little (very large, frankly) 100 followers celebration! i've only been on here for about a month and the love has been so crazy so thank you mwah mwah mwah ♡
word count. 21.8k (i know... i KNOW)
You learn quickly that your shade of green is not the same as theirs. The rest of them are emeralds, even at that age — they glitter with their parent’s polish. You are flotsam, sea-sick, envy green; the putrid boiling stuff that brews in your cauldron when you look away for a second too long, and, really, it’s more of a stain than a colour at all. There is a fraction of a second where you find something powerful in that. You are not an easy thing to remove. And then it’s gone, because they want to so badly.
You learn, with a bit less tact, that you doesn’t actually mean just you; that it’s you and him whether you like it or not.
He evidently does not.
“It has to be completely fine,” Tom says to you in Potions, his voice small then but just as practised.
You narrow your eyes. “‘Scuse me?”
“I said the powder has to be completely fine.”
“I heard you completely fine. I know how to read.”
He stares blankly at you before returning to his own station, and that’s that.
It isn’t unheard of for muggle-borns to be sorted into Slytherin, so you’ve been told, but one glance around your common room and you can see it’s pretty damn rare.
There’s Tom Riddle, there’s you, and there’s a seventh-year girl whose knuckles are always white like she’s spent so long with her hands balled into fists that they don’t know how to do anything else. Tom Riddle is a prat, the girl is too old and unapproachable even if she wasn’t, and you are very good at being alone.
That decides it. Flotsam still floats.
Everything is — fine. It’s fine for months; you have no one and need no one and sometimes you catch a jinx in the back of Charms that zips your mouth shut or bends a foot the wrong way (a cruel reminder of how much more these people know than you) and your broom occasionally pivots so sharply the Flying professor has to stop you from careening into a wall and breaking enough bones for a week’s worth of Skele-Gro, but it’s fine.
…It’s just that he’s insufferable.
The boy is eleven years old and he speaks like he’s stealing glances at an invisible lexicon between every word, more refined than any of the orphans you grew up with which makes you wonder which sort he’s surrounded by, and you take it upon yourself to theorise in passing if you could ever scare him badly enough his real voice would slip and he might just appear human for once.
Only it becomes clear when you’re stirring awake in the Hospital Wing after a mysterious bout of dragon pox (conveniently, all the pureblood children developed an immunity after catching it young) has rendered you bed-ridden and pockmarked, that you don’t think anything can scare Tom Riddle. He’s suffering just as well in the bed beside yours to keep the contagion to the two of you, and he’s all cold, eddied rage under sallow skin and beetling bones.
“They’re going to kill you,” he says after three days of silence, when the room is dusted in moonlight so thin it’s like squinting through cinema noise or mohair fluff to try to see him.
You blink at the vague shape of him. “What?”
“If you don’t hurt them back, eventually, they’ll just kill you.”
In hindsight, it’s an assumption so hastily bleak only a scared child could make it.
I want to hurt them, you try to say, but for what follows you cannot: I want to hurt them but I’m not good enough to do it.
You roll over and pretend to sleep, and in the morning, you hurt them anyway.
It’s Avery who’s unlucky enough to be the first to test you when you’re three assignments behind in Transfiguration, still a bit groggy from your last dose of Gorsemoor Elixir, and actually, physically green. He tugs your hair and stings your cheek with the promise of “bringing a bit of colour back to your face” and it’s sort of funny how banal it is compared to the other transgressions you’ve been dealt — that this is the thing that makes you bare your teeth, grip your wand in a hand that still can’t hold half of it, and send Avery flying across the room with a Knockback Jinx.
Tom sits with you in the Great Hall for dinner that night, and he never really stops.
You practise spells by the Black Lake between classes and he’s anything but kind about the ordeal, but you teach each other. You end your days with singe prints and sore wrists and you often take more damage than he does, but sometimes, as spring settles in with warm tones (apple and jade and moss — all the greens you’d never imagined), you leave with less bruises than he does. It hardly feels like friendship. It feels much more like purpose.
When summer comes you don’t write to him, and you don’t expect he will either. You don’t suppose you’ve actually written a letter in your life. Instead you try new wand movements under your quilt every night and wait for August’s departure on a big red train.
You sit together when the day does come. He asks you if you’ve been practising. You frown and tell him you’re not allowed to use magic outside of school.
Second year is nothing but monotonous, antiquated theoretics. Most everyone complains. You don’t see why they should — they’re already aeons ahead of you — but that means you finally have a chance to catch up in your less-than-school-sanctioned meetings with Tom while the rest remain practically stationary.
Deputy Headmaster and Transfiguration professor Albus Dumbledore is imperceptibly less soft with you than he was last year when you make the apparently poor decision to sit beside Tom on the first day, and you file the subtle shift in demeanour into some mental cabinet to review later.
You find workarounds with the librarian, Madam Palles, inclined to sympathy for the poor, orphaned muggle-borns to grant relatively unfettered daytime access to the Restricted Section so long as you keep it tidy and none of the books leave the library. That’s where things get a bit more interesting.
For a month you remain innocuous as can be. You browse through rare historical tombs and foreign biographies that would charge more galleons than you can conceptualise, and you never leave so much as a tea stain on the parchment. You smile at the Madam when you return the key each night, and walk back to the dungeons with your hands behind your back. It is, of course, totally unrelated that a month is what it takes for Tom to master the third-year curriculum’s Doubling Charm. An entirely separate affair when you meet him in the most secluded alcove of the library, slip him the key, and stifle your grin as he duplicates it perfectly.
You discover Christmas break is your favourite time of the year. Nearly all the purebloods go home. The Slytherin dormitories are effectively halved.
It’s two weeks of earnest, uninterrupted work and sleep without fear of waking up with jelly legs or whiskers.
Madam Palles, most nights, makes a slight, drowsy effort of searching the library for leftover students before she casts the lights out and closes the door. Then, it belongs to you and Tom.
You’re splayed rather ridiculously over one of the big reading chairs on Christmas Eve, Lore of Godelot in hand, enthralled by a chapter detailing his controlled use of Fiendfyre through the power of the Elder Wand.
Tom is cross-legged and sat straight, his brows furrowed in concentration.
“What’ve you got?” you ask, leaning over to answer your own question.
Tom as good as rolls his eyes, holding up the book to give you an easier look.
“Magick Moste Evile?” You scrunch your nose. “Bit much, don’t you think?”
“It’s the stuff they’ll never teach us.”
“I wonder why.”
He steals a glance at your own book and smiles in that smug way that makes you want to slap him.
“What, Tom?”
He shrugs. “You might want to know you’re reading stories about the author.”
You look down. Lore of — Godelot wrote Magick Moste Evile?
It shouldn’t really be surprising. Three chapters ago your book was recounting his months in Yugoslavia grave-robbing magical burial sites.
“Whatever,” you mumble, “It’s just a biography. Least I’m not reading the words out of his mouth.”
“Well, they’d be out of his quill.”
“Oh my God, Tom, shut up.”
All good things must come to an end. Term resumes and your hackles are back up.
Abraxas Malfoy, Antonin Dolohov, Walburga Black and the best of the worst of your house have returned, sleek-haired and insatiable and deranged, truly, in such a manner that you don’t think you can be blamed for the instinct you feel every time you pass them to lunge like a wild predator or run like wild prey. All Tom does, though (and so you follow, because he’s standing with you and who has ever done that?) is meet their gazes with equal assuredness. He never seems bothered. He never seems animal. You are still all hammering heart and heavy lungs, and you are learning not to see the world through the eyes of someone who’s only ever had their fists to fight. You have magic, you remember. You’re good at it. You could hurt them, if you really wanted.
Not much is different that summer than the last. The war is hard. The food is hard to chew. You chip a tooth. You’re too afraid to fix it with the Trace on you, but you still smile because you will, and everyone seems put off by that. What is there to smile about?
You suppose, for them, it’s a question with few answers.
For you — you’re back on a big red train musing about the functions of muggle warfare with Tom Riddle, chucking a useless card from a chocolate frog out the window and moaning about how you wasted the sickle you found under your seat.
He’s gotten very good at ignoring your theatrics and going right back to whatever it was he was talking about. And you note, unrelatedly, he almost looks like he’s learned how to open the windows at Wool’s. (You dare not suggest he’s doing something so ludicrous as sitting in the sun too, but this is a start.)
Dippet, or the Minister, or whoever it is that’s in charge of the practicality of the curriculum, has become fractionally less stupid in the last three months.
You don’t have to rely on nights in the Restricted Section or weekends at the Black Lake to actually learn something anymore. Of course, without the assistance of those illicit extracurriculars, you wouldn’t be able to match up to your peers the way you are this year, but it’s nice to duel with dummies instead of motioning your wand vaguely over a desk, and you and Tom still climb the notice boards in rapid succession.
They hate you for it. One of your roommates makes a pointed effort each night to glare at you from her bed like those jelly legs are back on the table, Orion Black (two years younger but just as nasty as his cousin) nearly trips you on your way to Divination, Abraxas Malfoy develops what you think borders on obsession with Tom, and for once it feels almost offhand to not care about any of it.
You’re beginning to think even at its best, Hogwarts is remarkably insufficient. This leads you to books mercifully unrestricted so you can read about a few of the other magical schools for comparison. Beauxbatons is renowned for providing most of the worlds alchemical developments, Uagadou’s early propensity for wandless magic makes it unfathomably more practical than Hogwarts, Durmstrang (though you scoff at their violent anti-muggle sentiment) teaches the Dark Arts as something beneficial rather than unforgivable, and — what do you learn here? Even with the hair’s-breadth of magical leniency you’ve been allowed this year, it’s no surprise so few recognizable names in wizarding history are Hogwarts alumni.
“Let me have a look at that,” you say to Tom one evening, when he’s peering once more over the pages of Magick Moste Evile. He’s a purveyor of knowledge in all forms, but he always seems to come back to Godelot in the end.
He raises a brow, handing it to you like your intrigue doubles his. “No more reservations?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. I’m only curious.”
“Curiosity—”
“Killed the damn cat, I know.” You glare at him through the pages. “I think that’s you, in this case though, since you’re the one in love with the bloody thing.”
He shakes his head as he reclines in the low light of the Restricted Section, muttering something that sounds like “ridiculous,” or “querulous,” or something else unimaginably fucking annoying.
You might be wrong. Retract your last quip and expunge it. If Tom’s in love with any book, it’s the behemoth dictionary he’s been spitting stupid adjectives out of since he was eleven.
But Godelot’s musings on the Dark Arts are fascinating enough that you can understand the appeal. He’s no wordsmith, and you appreciate that in a way you’re sure Tom deems regrettable, but his points are straightforward but thoughtful in such a way you can read in them how he was guided by the Elder Wand through everything he did. There’s a stream-of-consciousness to them. Something doctrinal you’re surprised to enjoy for all the obligatory English creed they washed your mouth with at the orphanage.
“Find what you’re looking for?” Tom asks, combing with little interest through the tomb you’d put down in favour of his.
“I’m not looking for anything. I’m just…” You sigh. It’s almost painful to say. “I think you were right, and — oh, shut up, don’t look at me like that — I don’t think we’re learning anything here. Not really; not as much as they do at other schools.”
“Of course,” he says blankly. “Hence this.”
This — restricted books and furtive duels — should not be necessary.
“You know that’s not gonna be enough. For the rest of them, maybe, but not us.”
He tenses how he always does at the reminder of his difference. And you get it. Sometimes in moments like these you forget the reason you’re here in the first place. It isn’t just the rebellious divertissement of two academically eager students, it’s… survival. What future do you have as a penniless orphan in wartorn London? What future do you have as a muggle-born Slytherin who’s apt with a wand when there are a thousand more your age, just as skilled and twice as pure?
It isn’t enough to be as good as them. You have to best them, and you have to do it forever.
The night stumbles into an exhaustive silence because you both know it’s true and it’s a bit too heavy right now. The answer isn’t in this room. Just you. Just him. So you sit in the dark and you stare through that muffled nighttime noise playing tricks on your eyes. The worst of the world can wait until morning.
The worst of the world has impeccable timing.
A fault of both sides of the coin; the muggle world is a travesty and the wizarding world is just a bit fucking late, really.
So there’s the newspaper. It’s October first and the date reads September tenth. School owls are a joke and you can’t afford anything better.
And it’s a dirty, ashen grey. It smudges your green if you ever had it at all. You were born to this and you will return to it always.
BOMB’S HAVOC IN CROWDED PUBLIC SHELTER
MOTHERS AND CHILDREN AMONG THE CASUALTIES
DAMAGE CONSIDERABLE, BUT SPIRITS UNBROKEN
All you can hope to do is pass the paper to Tom and wonder without words what you’ll go home to.
The answer is very little when the summer clouds your vision with dust and you stand dumbly with your suitcase in front of nothing at all. You’d tried your best until your departure to keep up with muggle news, but it had remained, routinely, a month behind with the owls. By the time June arrived you were still holding your breath through May. Tom had attempted to reason with Dippet for summer lodgings at the school but you were both denied in light of the exquisite mercy — the bombs have stopped! The Blitz has ended! Go back to the aftermath and make do with the craters.
It’s a bit ironic that Tom’s orphanage survived and yours didn’t. At least you can finally see what all the fuss is about.
In truth, it’s more strange than anything. You feel unreasonably like you’re impeding on a part of him that has never belonged to you (if any of him does); that place where you intersect but never draw attention to. You remind yourself you had no choice in the matter. The system puts you where it wants to, and these days the options are slim. But it’s — the walls are amber-black tile and plaster, lined with sanitary-smelling hospital beds and a cupboard per room. Per room, you think; you’ve got one of those now, and with only one girl to share it with.
You figure the reason for the extra space is probably not one you want to know.
Anyway, you don’t actually see Tom for two days. The caretakers bring you a tray of dinner that’s vaguely warm and a bit too salty and you sleep off the debris you think you breathed in that morning, half-sated and sun-tired.
But then you do see him, and he’s in these funny uniform shorts and a thick blazer and your greeting is an offhand joke about the scandal of his knees that he doesn’t seem to appreciate. He eyes your muggle clothes while you wait for your own set and you know you really don’t have any room to judge.
He doesn’t, or at least doesn’t say he minds your relocation.
You spend half the summer waking up in the middle of the night to acquaint yourselves with the London tube stations, and the other half in whatever crevices of the orphanage you aren’t harangued by Mrs Cole every five seconds, which are far and few between. She seems to have decided fourteen is old enough an age to worry about your intentions unchaperoned, like it’s the bloody 1800’s, and admonishes you and Tom relentlessly despite only ever finding you quietly buried in useless books.
You begin to miss Madam Palles and her invaluable pity. Everyone’s an orphan here. No one’s sorry.
“What’s his deal?” you ask one stuffy afternoon, reclining in your creaking seat to prop your legs on the desk.
Tom knocks them off (he’s so well-mannered that you sometimes push these little gestures of impropriety just to bother him) and glances at the target of your question. Some broad, blond boy who skitters down the corridor a shade paler than he arrived. You’ve yet to properly introduce yourself to anyone you don’t have to, so names are muddy when you try to apply them to faces.
He shrugs, but there’s a flash of something in his expression you’re fascinated to realise is unfamiliar. “He’s an imbecile.”
“...Riiiiight, but that isn’t a proper answer.”
You smile. Legs return to table. Timeworn Oxfords muddy the surface. Tom scowls.
“There was an altercation last year,” he says tersely, “he’s rather fixated on the matter.”
“An altercation.”
“Very good, that is what I said.”
You narrow your eyes and he sweeps your legs off the desk again, gaze catching the unmistakable ribbon of an old bullied scar on your shin.
“And I suppose you’re above such incidents,” he muses.
You cross your arms and huff. He always wins games like these.
You’re grateful when you return to Hogwarts in one piece after your final night of summer is spent underground, and the certainty of knowing where you’ll rest your head for the next ten months cannot be understated.
But the worst thing has happened, and you blame it on the flicker of a moment where you missed Madam Palles like it was some jubilant, accidental curse to ever miss anyone. A foreign thing you remind yourself never to do again.
She’s only gone and jinxed the locks to the Restricted Section so they cry like newborn Mandrakes when Tom’s replica key clicks in place.
For a second you both stand there looking stupidly at each other. Getting caught was a fear two years ago; you’d almost forgotten it was still possible.
Tom is quicker to collect himself. He grabs you by the arm and casts a Disillusionment Charm, and you don’t burst running out of the library like two blurry suncatchers reflecting the candlelight as your instinct heeds; you cling to the shelves and you slither silently to the door. (You’ll make a joke about it when you can breathe.)
Madam Palles the Traitor comes heaving into the library in her nightgown, a blinding blue light baubled at the end of her wand, and it’s really just theatrical at this point to use Lumos bloody Maxima when the basic spell would do the job just fine.
“Has she suspected us the whole time?” you say on gasp once you’ve made it to the dungeons.
“Perhaps someone else has,” Tom suggests.
“What? Malfoy?”
You think it’s a good first guess. It could have been any of the Slytherins, upon consideration, but Malfoy seemed most fixated on Tom last year and it wouldn’t surprise you to learn he’d been observant enough to follow you to the library and notice you don’t leave with the other students.
But Tom quashes the idea. “I’m doubtful. Malfoy is attentive, but Madam Palles is hardly partial to him.” (He had, in second year, set one of her books on fire while studying offensive spells.) “I suspect it was someone with more influence.”
Only no one has more influence than Abraxas Malfoy. The rest of the Slytherins follow him like lost pups. But then Tom might mean —
“A professor?”
“It may be.” He says it like he’s already decided his suspect.
He is, as always, and ever-infuriatingly, correct.
It’s that file you tucked away for later, reoccurring when you return to Transfiguration in the morning like a second epiphany: Dumbledore.
He assigns the term’s seating arrangements, which he’s never done before, and there’s something in his tone when he pairs you with Rosier that feels intentionally like not pairing you with Tom. You don’t think it’s paranoia clouding your better judgement, and by the way Tom’s gaze hardens as he takes his seat beside Malfoy, neither does he.
Dumbledore is suspicious for a number of reasons. He disappears for weeks at a time. The Prophet writes articles on his sightings in Austria and France like he’s an endling beast. He’s being sighted in Austria and France — two notable countries in Grindelwald’s ongoing war. Perhaps ancillary, you’ve decided the charmed glass repositories he uses to hold his old artefacts are the same ones encasing the least permissible books in the Restricted Section. And if that isn’t paranoia (which, you’re willing to admit, it may be) then you assume he has them so proudly on display because he wants you to know.
You consider it a warning.
Tom does not.
“Just give it up,” you hiss over a game of wizard’s chess, “I bet we’ve read every book in there twice already anyway.”
His jaw ticks as the sole indicator of his annoyance, and he takes your rook. You scowl.
“Tom, that man thinks you’re devil-spawn. You know he’s just waiting for an opportunity to catch you doing something wrong.”
“So?”
It sounds so petulant you think he’s been possessed by his eleven-year-old self. Then you think he was a lot wiser at eleven.
“So?” You make an aggressive move with your knight. “So don’t give him one!”
He stares at the board and his breath is just a trace sharper and you hate that you know him like this and no one else. You wonder if he knows you like that too, but resolve with ease that he does not. You’re hard frowns and lewd jokes and trousers torn at the knee to bare scars with stories you wish you could forget. There’s no mystery there. Tom is nothing but — gordian knots and fixed expressions and little patterns to learn like the rules of this stupid game between you. You must know Tom Riddle by every atom or not at all. And that isn’t a choice, really. You’ve never known anyone else.
“Are you stupid, Tom?”
You glance at the board. He’s got Check. A terrible, true answer.
“No,” you finish. “Then don’t act like it.”
Your king glances at you and you nod. He falls. The game is resigned.
Tom acts stupid.
Dumbledore knows.
It all happens very fast.
You strike Tom harder in the arm with Confringo than is likely necessary that night, and he returns the favour with a Knockback Jinx that thrusts you into the shallows of the Black Lake.
You gasp. The cold water feels like it’s swallowing you whole when it strikes, an envelope sealed around you and licked shut for good measure. Everything holds to you, and it’s fucking November. Your senses are so overwhelmed that you forget to murder Tom the instant you sink in. You forget to do much of anything.
You wade trembling out of the lake when sense returns and Tom huffs, peeling off his robe to treat the burn on his arm.
“You—idi—iot,” you mutter, trying to find the incantation for a warming charm but the words get stuck between your chattering teeth. “You stole a re… stricted book.”
Tom glares daggers at you between his poor healing job and you scowl, mincing through the grass and grabbing his arm. “Fucking imbec-cile…”
You’ve done enough damage that if he were anyone else you’d be proud of yourself, and somehow, simultaneously, if he were anyone else you’d be able to manage a pinch of guilt. But he’s Tom, and you know him by every atom, so you cannot be proud, and he’s Tom — he retaliated by tossing you in freezing water and now your clothes are clinging sodden and heavy to every inch of you, so you certainly can’t be guilty either.
“I borrowed it,” he says tightly. As if that means anything at all. And then he takes his robe and drapes it spiritlessly over your shoulders. “You could attempt communication before curses.”
“I could attempt communication,” you scoff, uttering a charm to partially close the gash on Tom’s arm, “Fucking h-hypocrite. I did communicate. You lied.”
“I —”
“Omitted information? Withheld the truth? Watch your mouth or I’ll steal your fucking dictionary, Riddle.”
You swear a great deal when you’re cold and mad, apparently.
“I won’t be caught.” His calm is infuriating. “It would hardly earn expulsion regardless.”
“It doesn’t matter! He knows it’s you! He was staring at you all class!”
“So nothing novel then.”
“D’you want me to blast you again?”
His lips form a flat line. No. That’s what you thought.
You sigh, clutching his robes in your fists to quell your trembling. “What’d you take, anyway? We never touch the encased stuff.”
That is, you assume, why Dumbledore was vexed enough about the whole thing to mention it in class today. A highly valuable book has gone missing, from a repository you dare conclude belongs to him, and he has to pretend all the while not to know it’s Tom who took it. You are out of the question. Theirs is some delicate vendetta you can’t begin to unfurl.
“Nothing anyone should miss,” Tom says, a complete non-answer as he stops to murmur a warming charm you could probably manage yourself by now.
“Tom.”
“It was an encyclopaedia. It’s entirely in Runes. I suspect it will take months for me to decipher.”
“God’s sake,” you groan. He really is exhausting. “I think Dumbledore’l take his chances and loot your dorm before that happens.”
Tom wipes a stray droplet of water from your cheek. His fingers are soft. “We should return. You look half-drowned.”
“I am half-drowned, dickhead.”
And you accost him in hushed tones the whole walk back. Runes, Tom, really? Threw me in the damn lake over a Runic Encyclopaedia? He accosts you just the same; You burned me first.
It does, in fact, take Tom months to decipher the Runes, and he’s quite secretive about it. He won’t let you see the book, won’t tell you what it’s about, won’t indulge your queries on how far he’s gotten or if it’s worth the way Dumbledore bores his eyes into the pair of you in the Great Hall with nothing but the glass of his spectacles to soften his censure. You consider — well — you consider taking your chances and looting his dormitory.
The day everything changes starts the same as any.
You muse over breakfast about muggle news and how the way Tom holds his wand when he casts defensive spells is too sharp when it should be circular. He argues. You soften the criticism by telling him his offensive magic is stellar but you’ll always beat him in defence if he doesn’t swallow his damn pride and listen to you for once. (So, really, you soften it very little.) He doesn’t take Divination so you don’t see him until Herbology that afternoon and he’s silent enough during the hour you share with your wormwood plant that you know he’s done it sometime between breakfast and now.
Tom has cracked the book.
It’s late spring and the night takes longer to settle than it did in the winter. Errant sunbeams still sparkle on the water when you meet him by the lake, and it’s warm enough to forgo a coat.
“Are you going to tell me what it’s about now?” you ask without preamble, arms crossed over your chest as he approaches.
He hands you the book like it’s worth something to you without his explanation, but you’re intelligent enough to gather something from the illustrations of two twined snakes embroidering the cover.
“I should have suspected it sooner,” Tom says before you can comment. “By the way Dumbledore acted when I told him… I should have known he would have wanted to keep it from me.”
“Tom, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“It’s an Encyclopaedia on Parseltongue and its known speakers.”
You flip through the pages and none of it means anything. “Parseltongue?”
“The language of serpents,” Tom supplies, and the two of you walk along the edge of the forest. “It’s almost exclusively hereditary.”
“Okay, so, what — you’re trying to learn it anyway?”
“I have no need.”
You frown. “You… you already know it.”
“I always have,” he says, and there’s something almost unrestrained in his voice. He’s proud in a new light, and it takes you a moment to understand and you’re not sure why exactly it makes your heart sink, but —
“You’re not muggle-born.”
“No, I’m not. And Dumbledore knows.”
“So, he —” You try not to sound crushed because why should you be? Why should it matter that he isn’t some exact reflection of you? He’s at your side, he’s still there, he’ll always be there — “How does he know?”
“When he came to Wool’s to inform me I'd been accepted at Hogwarts. I hadn’t known anything, certainly not that speaking to snakes is emphatically rare, so I asked him. He said it was ‘not a peculiar gift.’ Perhaps to keep my interest at a minimum.”
“Why would he lie?”
“Because it isn’t just that I’m of magical blood. I’m a descendant of Salazar Slytherin.”
You can’t be faulted for laughing. It’s not often Tom makes jokes, let alone funny ones.
“That’s good, Tom. Morgana used to have tea with my great-great-hundredth-great-grandmother, so that works out nice.”
He sighs, taking your hand and leading you further into the woods.
“Are you trying to murder me?”
“I might.”
“You’d be the first suspect.”
“No, I wouldn’t. You’ve far too many enemies.”
Not by choice, you start to scold, and then he stops, not so far into the Forbidden Forest that you’re afraid, but far enough you understand this is not something he’d chance showing you in the open.
He closes his eyes and whispers, and it’s — decidedly not English. And you know the sound of a few other languages, at least; this doesn’t sound like words at all. His consonants are pointed, his S’s stretched, the syllables repetitive but separated by a difference in cadence someone less perceptive might not notice.
It shouldn’t be surprising; it’s exactly what he told you, but it startles you how much it reminds you of a snake.
“Tom?” you murmur, unsure at the prospect of speaking some ancient, unknown language into the air of the Forbidden Forest, and, underneath that, still reeling with the knowledge that this is real at all. You’ve pinched yourself a few times to make sure.
There’s a low susurration in the grass, wet with dew that catches the moonlight, and you gasp, clinging to Tom’s arm when you see the blades part in helices for the space of an adder.
“It’s all right,” Tom says softly, almost elsewhere, his eyes zeroed in on the snake. “It won’t hurt you.”
You’re still by the balance of his arm and some petrifying awe as he extends a hand to the grass and the adder coils around it, weaving upward to his shoulder.
“Oh my God. Oh my God, Tom.”
The adder points its beady gaze at you, and Tom whispers something else in that strange language before it retreats in agreement or compliance or whatever could come close to expression on the face of a fucking snake, and maybe you’re dreaming this despite your pinching. Maybe you’ve lost your mind.
“Hope you didn’t just tell it to bite me,” you try, and it comes out half-choked.
He smiles. It’s partly for you and partly for this venomous little thing on his shoulder, and that’s a bit startling. Tom Riddle smiles for adders and you and not much else.
“Should I?”
And all you manage, for whatever reason, is, “Don’t be like them now that you’re not like me.”
It’s out before you can stop it, welling from a small, scared place that embarrasses you to return to. A hospital bed when you were eleven. The walls of a bedroom ravaged by bombs.
Tom’s smile fades. “We’re nothing like them.”
The thing is, neither of you know that’s the day that changes everything.
You celebrate your fifteenth birthday in the Deathday ballroom with Tom, a stolen dinner pastry, a green candle, and a few sad ghosts. You try to learn how to dance. Tom thinks it’s silly. You tell him that’s only because he’s upset he keeps stepping on your toes.
Summer blisters when it comes.
Some of the children take jobs as mail-sorters and steelworkers and you clasp for whatever you’re (one) allowed and (two) capable of, which isn’t much. You’re both old enough at the end of the day to explore London on your own, opting to spend as much time away from the orphanage as Mrs Cole allots, but you only have knuts and pennies and you warn Tom it would be unwise to swindle muggles and risk a letter from the Ministry. So you work where you’re needed and you eat the rationed nonsense you always do and you miss Hogwarts terribly. It’s much the same: you’re together, you’re hungry, and you’re nothing like them.
And then it’s different: Tom makes Slytherin Prefect, is suddenly tall, and you wonder in fleeting moments if his face has always suited him this well.
A stupid remark. You fervently ignore it.
Fifth year begins and you have almost the same number of electives as you do core classes, Tom has duties in his new role that take much of his spare time, and despite popular belief, you and him are not a mitotic entity, so this splits you up more often than it had in previous years. Which is fine. You still have plenty of things to talk about during meals and between duels, and you reckon you’ll share DADA until you graduate.
But in his absence, your attentions are forced elsewhere, and you should be grateful they land on something potentially promising.
It’s like Transfiguration just clicks for you this year. You’ve never been the greatest at Transformation (importantly though, you’ve also remained far from the worst), but fifth year launches you into Vanishment and something about that feels like a perfect equation. There are no complicated half-numerals and objects stuck between inanimacy and being — just unmaking the made. Nothing or not. You’re fucking excellent at it. You glean the theoretics fast and then the practise comes like breathing. Even the purebloods struggle as you Vanish Dumbledore’s Conjured garden snakes in brilliant tendrils of light. You exult unabashedly when you brush past them on the way out of class — who was it that didn’t belong in Slytherin?
You say the same to Tom and he rolls his eyes, but the amusement is there.
“Think you can talk to my snakes for me?” you tease, nudging him on the path to Hogsmeade.
“If they’re yours, I doubt they have anything worth discussing.”
And Dumbledore is… a hue nearer to the man you remember from first year. He praises your improvement and smiles when you can’t hide your giddiness as if equally impressed.
He doesn’t shelve people the way Slughorn does (you’re dismayed to find Tom has been invited to join the Slug Club and you have not) but you think if he did you’d be rapidly climbing your way to the top. Maybe get put in one of those neat little repositories he keeps all his best treasures in.
Dumbledore does, however, offer additional assignments for those who are interested, and tasks you with a few if you’re up to the challenge.
You always are.
The Tom-Dumbledore-Encyclopaedia debacle is apparently either resolved, or your part in it forgotten.
Tom humours you when you’re both singed at the fingers from duelling, yours dipped in the lake while he buries his in the cold moss, about how Abraxas takes the seat beside him at every Slug Club dinner. He tells you he pretends to be very interested in the Malfoy’s business affairs and their stock in the Bulgarian Quidditch team’s win this coming spring. He tells you he finds it amusing to let Abraxas think he can make Tom his pet. Tom says he considers searching for Salazar Slytherin’s fabled Chamber of Secrets and showing Abraxas what a real pet looks like. You smack him in the arm.
He’s had an ego forever. He just has a few too many reasons for it now.
And maybe that’s why you push harder in Transfiguration, dedicate the majority of your studies to it, spend your Saturday nights scrutinising advanced techniques while Tom makes nice with Potions experts and politics with people who don’t even know what he is but like him anyway. It’s patronising, of course — borderline fetishistic; not a real like — but it scares you. Tom Riddle would not allow himself to be anyone’s pretty mudblood show pony if he didn’t have an ulterior motive.
Everything changes but the observable truth that he is still insufferable.
You’re lucky to see him twice a week if it isn’t in class, and the way it starts is so slow you don’t even fully understand what’s happening until Christmas break when Abraxas stays a few extra days and leaves by Dippet’s Floo instead of the train.
You don’t dare ask where Tom has vanished to in that time or why the hell Abraxas Malfoy would willingly subject himself to unnecessarily extended time at school with all his lackeys gone, and it isn’t because you don’t want to. It’s because he won’t tell you himself. It’s because you’re terrified the answer will feel like a broken promise, and you’ve come to realise (it’s been there for so long; such an obvious, tiny thing that you’ve never stopped to really dissect it) that it’s quite difficult to know someone at every atom and not love them a little bit.
You’re suddenly aware of the risk of it: you love him like an inextricable piece of yourself, and, well, you’ve seen war. You know what amputation looks like. You’ve seen the remains of structures designed to stand forever, and you’re strong like them — casts and gauze in all the weak spots because you remember the pain of breaking them — but those were blows dealt without the complication of loving the bombs behind them.
Tom is the green on your robes, the dragon pox tinge you sometimes think never truly faded when you look in the mirror too long, and all the shades you never imagined. Apple, jade, moss. The beginnings of emerald. (No, he couldn’t be that.)
You wonder what the world would look like if he stole those colours back, and it’s much worse than some brutal decimation; it would leave you with too much. You would just be you without him.
So you love him into June like you always do, and you pluck his Prefect badge off on the last day of school and tell him it makes you jealous like a joke when it’s half-true.
It’s raining when you walk to the train together, miserable for what should be summer but not at all remarkable in Scotland. Tom wipes it from your cheek. Your wrists are sore from vanishing bits and bobbles all night while you still can, never truly prepared for three months without magic, and you curl into your seat as soon as you’re in it. Tom wakes you up when you arrive back in London, startling you to find that you fell asleep at all.
It rains a lot that summer. There’s nothing much to see in the city and you can’t get anywhere else (you note: the Trace cares little about broomsticks but you can’t afford one of your own and flying might be the only thing Tom is bad at) so you’re stuck to the library again with a noseful of old paper and a certain prose that magical literature cannot replicate. You theorise a lifetime of reckoning with the mundane forces one to be more creative.
Perhaps it’s the cold that makes you sick. Perhaps it’s the state of your meals. Either way, your final weeks before sixth year are hell. Biblical, blazing hell.
The nurses aren’t sure what it is — another influenza epidemic you’re the first in the orphanage to catch — but they isolate you immediately and there’s not much care they can offer.
You hear Tom arguing with one of them outside your door but can’t make out the words. Everything is dizzy, sweaty, halfway to unconsciousness but without its relief. You’d take dragon pox over this.
Some days later (though you can’t be sure because it feels like bloody centuries), he’s at your bedside, and you think even if you were lucid enough to ask what horrible thing he’d done to change the nurses’ minds, you wouldn’t.
But you know he’s not beyond breaking wizarding law, because he’s muttering healing spells with a hand to your damp forehead, and you hazily find yourself reaching for him, trying to shake your head no.
“Not allowed,” you mumble. Your throat is sore and your nose is stuffy. You sound terrible and you probably look worse.
Tom is slightly blurry but you think he’s staring at you. You know if he is it’s with the utmost incredulity.
“Not allowed,” he repeats slowly. It’s very easy to picture him clenching his jaw. “I wonder, if the Trace is so exact that it can detect all forms of magic, it can’t also detect malady. You’re burning — and I’m to consider whether saving your life might be illegal?”
He’s angry. He’s angrier than you’ve seen in a long time; and you can actually see it now. His magic courses through you and your vision clears, bit by bit, until your depth perception steadies and you realise he’s closer than you thought. His jaw is, in fact, clenched.
You move to catch his wrist and manage it this time. “Tom.”
“Don’t argue,” he says thinly.
“You’ll get sick.”
His face is far too neutral for the way his fingers stroke your damp cheek. “Hm. Then it’s a good thing you’d break the law for me too.”
Of course he’s right — you love him. Which makes it a good thing he doesn’t get sick.
Some of the younger children do. The fever comes overnight for a girl who wasn’t in the orphanage last year, and it takes her by the next.
When you get back on the train to Hogwarts, the virus is circulating Britain and you’re livid.
What Tom said is true; you consider the Trace’s precision and the details of the laws on underage magic — how one of the technicalities is that a young witch or wizard may be absolved of the consequences if the circumstances are life-threatening. You think about how it supposedly doesn’t care about broom-riding or Portkeys or Floo travel, and if the Trace is that complex, surely it understands sickness.
You only wonder if the Ministry would understand it. There haven’t been any epidemics in the wizarding world since Gorsemoor cured dragon pox in the sixteenth century, and when there isn’t healing magic there are antidotes and Pepper-Ups and herbs that muggles simply don’t have. The fatality of a fever of all things is not something you imagine could be comprehended by the sort of people who sent you and Tom back to London in the wake of the Blitz.
Of course, the Ministry hasn't written to you, you haven’t been forced in front of a representative from the Improper Use office, and you have no real reason to be upset.
You are regardless.
It shouldn’t even be a thought: you immolating into oblivion protesting rescue because one of you might get in trouble for it.
A world you’ve never much cared for is blanketed in ash and its people are dying and you can’t help them. A girl is dead. You’ll return next summer and there will certainly be more.
Life is for the magical, you find. The muggles can burn.
It’s what makes you start to panic this year, knowing you’ve only got one more after it. You have no idea what you’re going to do after school, and it doesn’t help that Tom doesn’t appear to share the sentiment. He’s got Head Boy in the bag and when he isn’t with you he’s with Abraxas, who can surely provide him connections if whatever game Tom is playing at works (and you have no doubt it will), but it’s like you said in third year: that isn’t enough for you.
You remember with a small ache that you no longer means you and him.
And then — it makes sense. You feel incredibly stupid.
“You told him, didn’t you?” you ask Tom the first opportunity you can get him alone, in the glum blue light of the Deathday ballroom on your way back from supper.
He sighs like it’s a conversation he’d hoped to put off for longer. “You’re referring to Abraxas, I presume?”
“You’re referring to — yes, you prick, I’m referring to Abraxas. Of course I’m referring to Abraxas, or are there others? Dolohov and Nott seem unusually enthralled by you, now that I think about it.”
“And for a reason I’m supposed to be aware of, this is an error on my part. Should I be apologising?”
“Why did you tell him, Tom?!”
“Why?” he deadpans.
You throw your hands up. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
“Shall I provide you with my itinerary as well? Would you accompany me as I tour the third-years around Hogsmeade? Or can you do me the favour of trusting me to make my own decisions with the nature of my ancestry?”
“You’re keeping something from me and there’s a reason,” you say, stepping closer to him, “and forgive me if I want to know what it is when you were willing to tell me you’re the Heir of Slytherin and you can talk to snakes. What — what could possibly be bigger than that?”
Tom returns your approach with one of his own. His eyes are steady, dark, thick with lashes and you can’t reminisce on the details of the rest of him because that would be strange for a friend to do. Stranger to do it now, when you’re angry with him and there’s two sleeping ghosts in the corner and he’s framed by deep indigoes like the ripples in the Black Lake and — you’re doing it anyway.
To be short, he’s close, he’s very beautiful, and sometimes you despise him.
“Trust me,” he says again, without the derision of the last time. “This will change things for us.”
You frown, but it’s a weak upset in contrast to the explosion you came in here willing to make. There were at least twenty questions you meant to ask and you only managed one.
You are not his keeper. You know that.
“Change them for the better, Tom,” you say on a sigh.
He blinks, and you think he’ll respond with a nod or a slightly offended ‘of course’ but he does not. He blinks and he just keeps looking at you. It’s disarming. It probably resembles the way you often look at him. There’s a rationale somewhere; you never see each other anymore, life is so incredibly busy, maybe he’s forgotten what you look like.
And he does nod, finally, but he does it with his thumb brushing the corner of your lip.
What? Sorry. What’s going on?
He pulls it away like he’s heard you. “You had something.”
You’re almost positive you did not.
Transfiguration this year brings Conjuration, which is an advanced and welcome distraction, and even more exciting when you consider no longer having to Vanish things you have no idea how to bring back. Dumbledore’s is one of three N.E.W.T classes you’re taking — Defence Against the Dark Arts and Alchemy besides. It’s easily your favourite.
You share it with eleven other Slytherins and twelve Ravenclaws. Four of them are muggle-born, and it’s hard to describe the ease you feel among them because you don’t think you’ve ever had anything resembling ease with anyone but Tom.
Your schedule is more crammed than it’s ever been, but it’s good. Two of the Ravenclaw girls invite you to Hogsmeade every other weekend, you share butterbeers when you can afford one, you study until you collapse, you take Dumbledore’s extra assignments and consider trying out for Chaser on one of your more restless evenings before waking up in the morning and resolving there is such as thing as too much of a good thing. Best not to get ahead of yourself.
Your contentment is remedied quickly.
Someone is found unresponsive in the dungeons. Dippet makes an announcement at breakfast that the boy isn’t dead, rather, petrified. No one is quite sure the cause, but the Headmaster warns a few minor precautions, suggests a buddy system, and says that after dinner studying should remain in everyone’s respective common rooms rather than the courtyards or library.
You know next to nothing about petrification, but the victim is muggle-born, and you suspect it was the result of a poorly performed statue curse by one of the many blood zealots in your house. The whole thing makes you hold onto your wand a smidge tighter, but you’re adamant not to let it drive you to paranoia like it would have a few years ago.
Tom nods at your theory when you manage to escape to the Black Lake together in November.
“That isn’t unreasonable,” he says. High praise.
You sink into the moss, sighing. “Do you think there’ll be more?”
He looks out onto the lake, the lapping waves, the crystalline beads that furrow them, midnight algae and flotsam you don’t think you belong to anymore.
You peer up at his silhouette in the dark. “Do you think whoever did it will do it again, I mean?”
“I don’t know,” he says finally, and after another pause: “but I don’t think it would be you.”
“How’s that?”
“No one would be senseless enough to try.”
And he sinks beside you with that, breath shaping the cold in steady, rhythmic clouds while yours are scattered. His robes brush yours and you take his arm with a sleepy hum, tracing patterns in the stars until your eyes feel heavy and he insists on taking you back to your dormitories.
One of the Ravenclaw girls, Marigold Wright, distracts you with a spare blue scarf and an invitation to her next Quidditch match. You watch from the stands and cheer as she catches the snitch to beat Gryffindor.
It’s a bit strange — having a distraction — having a friend. Mari is kind, smart, a good study partner who’s as keen on stepping into the advanced theoretics of Human Transfiguration a year early as you are. She’s funny in a vulgar way, introduces you to all her friends, shows you the best way to sneak into the kitchens, and you sometimes wonder if she was sorted wrong, but — her methods are creative, and she’s definitely intelligent. She’s also definitely not Tom.
You see less and less of him and more of her, Dumbledore, the Ravenclaw common room and the pages of progressive Transfiguration methodologies. He sees less of you and more of Abraxas, Dolohov and Nott and all the other purebloods, Slughorn’s soirées and Prefect meetings that cut into meals.
It happens again.
Second floor lavatory. A girl called Myrtle Warren. She isn’t petrified.
There’s a vigil the following week and her parents are there, two muggles whose sobs wrack the Great Hall even as the students clear out. Flowers descend from the charmed ceiling, little bluebells and white chrysanthemums.
You cry that night. You can’t remember the last time you cried.
This time, you don’t have to seek Tom out. He catches you on your way back from Alchemy and brings you to the Deathday ballroom with a melancholy glance in your direction that you don't hesitate to follow. You realise it’s an odd place to continue to end up in, but no one else goes there and you suppose that makes it yours.
You’ve seen Tom skinny and sickly and olive green, but today his eyes are circled with veined violets and the lack of summer sun this year has whittled him grey once more. He’s still beautiful. He’ll always be beautiful. But he’s tired and — sad — and for the six years you’ve known him you aren’t quite sure what to do with that.
You don’t spend too long pondering it. You just hug him with the dawning newness of a thing like that; a thing you’ve never done, and never really thought to do. (You ask yourself in bewilderment how you’ve never thought to do it before.)
He’s warm. He’s uncertain. He doesn’t reciprocate immediately.
And then he does, and you understand without caveats or concerns that you stopped having a choice in your destruction the moment you chose him. He’s home, and that’s going to ruin you one day.
Your arms tighten around him and his around you, the rhythm of his breath holding you to earth when you begin to float away. Nothing makes sense in this moment but the mercy that in all the death you’ve seen, you swear to God you’ll never see his. As long as you’re alive, he must be too.
And there’s something to be said about the innate self-slaughter of loving a person (of loving Tom Riddle, especially): that it’ll cleave you in two, that you’ll say feeble things in his embrace that you should be above saying, like ‘I’m scared’, that his hand will find the back of your head and he'll tell you he knows, that that should not feel like enough but it will be. You’ll clasp your hands under black robes and hold this singular embrace together by the faulty adhesive of your fingers. Maybe you’ll cry again, like your body can suddenly comprehend its capacity for it and is making up for lost time.
The first sign that something is wrong, more than the obvious grievance of the death itself, is the Ministry’s happy acceptance of Rubeus Hagrid as the culprit.
The boy is maybe fourteen years old, half-blood — half human, mind — and no one has a bad word to say about him other than he likes to keep eccentric pets. Which leads you to wonder what pet he possessed with the ability to petrify one student and kill another and what cause he’d have for it in the first place besides two terrible, miraculous accidents.
That question draws an even stranger path. Mari says over butterbeers (on her, bless her soul) that she read somewhere years ago that Gorgons can induce petrification, but that she doesn’t remember much else.
One of the boys in DADA says that his father’s an auror, and heard from him that Hagrid’s pet was some sort of arachnid. Tom deducts five points from his house after class with a scowl on his pale face, muttering about conspiracy.
The second sign that something is wrong is that only one of those things would need to be true for the entire case on Hagrid to be called into question. If Mari’s memory serves right, how the hell did Hagrid come into ownership of a Gorgon? (Could Gorgons even be owned?) If the auror’s son is worth your credence, then what species of arachnid is capable of petrification?
You take to the library.
Unsure of where to begin and hesitant to draw attention, your research lingers into Christmas break and stalls some of your extracurriculars in Transfiguration. Tom is busy enough not to notice the new step in your routine, and you’re grateful not to have him breathing down your back, telling you you’re looking in the wrong places or you shouldn’t be looking at all.
The third sign is the end.
You wish to retract it all. There are time-turners and memory charms and potions that could dizzy you enough to manipulate the truth; there is anything but this. You’d suffer the consequences for the bliss of loving him with one more day before the ruin — you’d write it down to remember through the fog: look at him, duel him without wanting to hurt him, kiss him to know that you did it at least once, have him, be had. You never will again.
He’d shown you the adder. He’d joked about the Chamber of Secrets. He’d spent months disappearing with Abraxas, earning the trust of the sons of the Sacred Twenty Eight.
And he’d killed Myrtle Warren.
So it’s statue curses and Gorgons and Tom — speaking to serpents when no one else can, buttressed by pureblood boys who want people like you dead.
Don’t become like them now that you’re not like me.
He’s something else entirely.
What do you do in a moment like this? Panting into an empty library at a revelation you wish you could unknow, fingers digging into the hickory of your desk — another memory carved among the initials and hearts; how do you stand from your chair and leave like the world outside this room is the same as it was when you entered? There’s nothing to orbit. You are cosmic debris, tea dregs in a barren cup, flotsam.
You stand; and you tell no one. Not even Tom.
His presence in your life is so infrequent that you don’t even have to come up with excuses for your distance until three weeks after your discovery when you’re paired together in DADA to practise stretching jinxes.
You almost laugh. He’s standing beside you, tall (lanky like he was when he was a boy if you look long enough) and serious, and you love him without knowing who he is anymore. You’ve skirted corners to avoid him and sat with Mari during lunch and breakfast like he’s some scorned lover to escape confrontation from and not someone who held you through a grief inflicted by his hand.
“You look tired,” he says, inspecting the daisy you’d been tasked to elongate.
You glance at him. You are tired. It’s exhaustive, bone-deep, aching like nothing you’ve ever known, and maybe that’s why you can look at him and smile sadly instead of thrashing against his chest screaming for what he did. You suppose it happens enough in your head to satisfy. When you can sleep, you sleep to the thought of it. The waking moments are just blank.
“Mhm,” you hum, transfiguring the daisy stem back to its regular length.
Tom observes it with curious eyes. “You’re getting good at that.”
“I’ve been good at it.”
His lips turn, a small frown before he puts it away. You make the observation that he’s tired too; there are still bags under his eyes and his hands tremble ever-so-slightly with his wand when he loosens his grip on it.
His own doing and still you flicker with some relentless hope that he's drowning in regret.
“Sorry,” you say. A ridiculous thing. Do you intend to slowly push him from your life with weak disinterest and diverging academic avenues? As if he were something extricable. He’d never let you.
You’ll have to confront him, and that’s a revelation that holds its weight on your chest until you think you'll suffocate under it.
You’re in the blue light of the Deathday ballroom with a face you've never worn before when it happens, deep into spring, and you know then that you were wrong all those years ago.
He sees all of you.
Takes you in in the flash of a second and maybe it’s your quivering jaw that reveals you or the flint of betrayal in your eyes waiting to be struck and lit. Yes, you were wrong — Tom Riddle knows you at every atom too.
“Are you going to let me explain?" he asks before any hello. His jaw is tight but there’s nothing else to go on to judge his disposition. He's settling into impassivity like an animal drawing its shell. You will not be allowed in if you're going to make it hurt, and you might be the only one who can.
“Explain," you copy with a hard exhale, “Just tell me it wasn’t you. That’s all there is to say."
He stares at you. There’s nothing there.
“Tell me, Tom.”
Your breath catches on an automatic please but you don’t want to offer him that.
“I cannot.”
Then make me forget, you want to scream. Let it be summer. Let us work for pennies and breadcrumbs and be no one together.
It’s late winter and it’s too cold.
“You killed her,” you say quietly.
“If I told you I did not wish for it, would you even believe me?”
“What are you… so it was an accident?”
“There was — an opportunity presented itself that may never have come again; that does not mean I don’t find the nature of it regrettable.”
“Regrettable.” You’re laughing or crying or both, and you must look unwell. Halfway out of your mind.
He’s so composed in the face of it that it only makes you more incensed.
“You told me to change things —”
“You killed someone! Can you understand that?”
“You nearly died,” he hisses, “and if I am to apologise for recognizing it only as the first of many times, I will not. If I am to apologise for doing whatever is necessary to prevent it, I will not. The hand we were dealt will not be the hand we die to — so yes, I understand it. And one day so will you.”
“Don't," you spit, and your anger must look pathetic under your welling tears. “Don't you dare tell me that this was for me.”
“Do you want me to lie?”
“What could her death possibly bring me, Tom?”
“Her death is the first step to —”
“God, stop dancing around the fucking question!” Both hands have wound their way to your head, clutching at your skull like the brain matter might spill through one of the cracks he’s wearing down. “Just… tell me.”
“You recall Godelot's work," he says stiffly. The question of it takes you by surprise, peels the moment back like the rim of a fruit and you're left uncertain.
All you can do is nod, arms falling to cross over your chest.
“There was one form of magic he refused quite concisely to impart. I searched the Restricted Section for days, and under Dumbledore's watch that was not an easy thing to do."
You stole from him, you're urged to remind him, but it's something you'd say with a nudge of annoyance and a roll of your eyes. Such admonishment is small and far away.
“I found it at last in one of the repositories," he goes on, “Secrets of the Darkest Art."
“...What?"
“It's called a Horcrux,” he says. “Murder, by nature, splits the soul. The Horcrux simply makes use of the act; puts the soul fragment into something imperishable so that it is protected, rather than abandoned. In turn, your life cannot be taken. By malady, by magic, by sword — the vessel is destroyed but the soul lives on.”
You blink, feeling dizzy. “Myrtle was the sacrifice.”
“Myrtle was there,” Tom remedies.
“How lucky for you.”
“The circumstances could be ameliorated if one were to be made for you. I would have preferred it be someone who deserves it.”
“For — you’d do it again? Again, Tom?”
His brows crease, and even his upset seems contrived. There’s this barricade he’s placed that you, in all your infallible knowing of him, cannot puncture. It’s agony to begin to question what he could possibly be keeping from you in a confession like this.
“You killed someone, Tom. You — I would never ask you to do that. I would never live at the cost of someone else."
“No, you would not,” he agrees, though he shakes his head like it’s incredulous of you. “Do you think, even if I knew it were certain, a summons from the Ministry would have stopped me from saving you this summer? Do you suppose the threat of punishment would cause me to waver at that moment? I know it would not hinder you. So, you have your lines and I have mine — you never needed to ask.”
And now it hurts. The emptiness clears and you can't stand yourself for crying, but you do. It comes out in ragged, breathless sobs, clasped behind your palm as you turn away from him.
You've loved him since you were eleven. It's always been you two — it was always supposed to be you two. What is there to say to him? He's blurring in your periphery like in the midst of your sickness, and there's nothing he can do to heal you this time. Your vision will clear and Myrtle Warren will still be dead. He'll still be a stranger in the face of the boy you love.
“Why," you whine, a wet, hollow stain in your voice you've never cried enough to hear before. “Myrtle was — wasn't — uh —" You swallow, hysterics severing your words. You can't really think right now. Your body wobbles and your head feels puffy and hot. This might be shock.
Tom scowls like it irritates him to watch you push yourself, like this is just the unfortunate effect of you depleting your energy in a duel, not eating correctly, treating yourself carelessly.
Of course you can't stand or talk or think. You're you, contemplating a life without him.
“Sit," he says in frustration. You smack his hand away when he reaches for you, but the world has turned a shade darker and you're slipping into it.
He tugs a chair towards you with a silent charge and a reprimand, and your body doesn’t possess the wherewithal not to collapse into it the second it’s under you.
After a moment you can speak again, shaking hands steadied by your knees. “Did you… did you think I wouldn't find out? You know, the only thing that can petrify someone besides a serpent is a Gorgon. And — where would Rubeus Hagrid have found one of those?"
“I thought I would have time.”
“To come up with a good lie? Something I’d sympathise with?”
He bites his cheek. “Evidently the particulars matter little to you.”
Fuck him. “Fuck you.”
“Very cogent.”
“No, fuck you, Tom. We could have — we only had a year left and then we could — we could've done anything we wanted." You're crying again. You don't have the energy to be embarrassed. “And you chose this."
He’s indignant as he steps closer. “With what money? For what life? We are better than all of them and it’s never mattered. It never will; you know that. You told me that. You’re angry now, but you must know the truth of it. I would not forsake you. I would not lose you.”
You blink up at him, mouth stuck with some cottony feeling and cheeks stiff from crying.
“You have lost me, Tom."
He stills as if suspended. Some maceration must follow but it doesn’t.
You stand on weak legs to look him in the eyes. You wonder if he can see the love in yours. You wonder if he knows you will walk away despite it. (Of course he does. You’ve never lied to him.)
You think about how his fingers seem to always find their way to your cheek and you put yours to his. The bone there is sharp, but the skin is soft. Boyish.
There isn't a word for a goodbye like this. It shouldn't exist and so it doesn't. You just leave.
You fail your N.E.W.T courses. Quite spectacularly.
Mari sits beside you on the train with a soothing hand on your shoulder, and doesn’t ask what’s rendered you into a comatose husk since March. There’s no crying. You chew numbly on soft caramels from the trolley and stare out the window onto the hills.
That summer is spent in your bedroom unless you’re forced elsewhere. A new girl with skin so white it’s nearly translucent sleeps in the bed beside yours, taking meals on trays like you did in your first days here, tracing the cracks in the tiles, humming to herself in the dark. She makes you feel less pathetic for doing much the same.
You’d been right in your assumption that there would be more dead upon your return, and wrong that there would be more empty rooms. There are always more orphans being made.
And then you receive a letter. It isn’t delivered by owl (only for secrecy, you assume, because there are no muggles who’d be writing to you) but it’s stamped with a vaguely familiar crest. Not Hogwarts’ waxen seal, but something undoubtedly magical. A cockroach and a cup, you think, squinting. Transfiguration.
You tear the envelope open and pull the letter out.
It’s from Dumbledore. Some of it melds together, but the key words stand out.
Spoken to Dippet… Exceptional promise… N.E.W.Ts… May be reconsidered… Upon dispensation… Be well.
Be well.
You are not. You are something half-drowned and half-burned, never enough of one to quell the effects of the other. Sunlight is sparse through your side of the orphanage. On the radio, they warn a pattern of one bomb every second hour. The only other warning is the sound when they fly overhead, and if you can’t run fast enough —
You write your answer in a crowded tube station with a spotty ballpoint pen. Tom is there, looking between you, the dust, and your shaking hands as if to say: tell me I was wrong.
Some of your letter melds together but the key words stand out.
Thank you, Sir. Whatever you need.
It’s a shock that you live to seventh year. It’s a shock that you do it without him — though he watches, and in his gaze you feel regressed. You’re alive, yes, but there’s something there… his dead weight, death-grip; his haunting. They always speak of the dead as something heavy. Something that holds onto you even after it’s gone.
You find that to be true.
Dippet’s condition that you remain in Dumbledore’s N.E.W.T class is that you achieve more than the standard requirement. Essentially, your final exam will be much harder than everyone else's: Human Transfiguration, mastery of petty Transformation (through the means of Wizard’s Chess pieces), Conjuration and Vanishment of various delicate objects — all done nonverbally.
Even Dumbledore seems sceptical, but it translates to more rigorous practise rather than resignation, assignments he doesn’t even task to Mari, though she’s just as good, and you can’t begin to understand why he cares so much.
“I’ll entrust you with these while I’m away,” he says before Christmas break, sliding a sheet of parchment your way with a flick of his wand.
You frown, unfolding it. His instructions are always short now — you’ve learned to decode his meaning well enough without much exposition.
Teacup to gerbil — to cat, and inverse.
Inanimatus Conjurus spell (cockroach and cup, as instructed) to be Vanished when perfected.
Study Antar’s Doctrine. Miss Wright will act as your partner.
Due February.
It’s far too much to be done in that time. “Sir?”
Dumbledore lugs a messenger bag over his shoulder that appears small, but he carries it in such a way you suspect it’s magically extended. He smiles wistfully, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. “You know, I often regret how much this war asks of me. A consequence of my own doing.”
Right — Grindelwald. Sometimes you forget between awaiting the next muggle paper. War is everywhere.
You nod. “I hope… Good luck, Sir.”
Another half-smile as he twists open a jar of Floo Powder, and then he shakes his head with something you almost decipher as amusement. A brittle sort. Tired. “Good luck to you.”
And then he’s gone, in a swath of green flames that do nothing to inspire any desire for Floo travel in you.
Antar’s Doctrine is simultaneously prosaic and grandiose. They read like excerpts of a journal and you yawn into them over your morning tea, stirring amongst the first-years, who are the only people at the Slytherin table you can stand to sit with. Your blood status is apparently nullified by your age, and the worst they do is look at you funny. You aren’t sure what Abraxas’s — Tom’s (the new hierarchy never fails to stagger you) — lackeys would do if you sat with the other seventh-years instead. A part of you longs to know. They certainly don’t bother you in class the way they used to, you aren’t tripped in the corridors, but you wonder how far Tom’s influence can stretch. He is the Heir of Slytherin, and he’s earned them. But you are nothing.
You’d like it if he would let them hurt you. You think the incentive would be enough to hurt him back. And God — God, you want to. You want to hurt him almost as much as you want him.
You practise through the doctrine with Mari, as Dumbledore directed. When you’re able to sever Antar’s egotism from his abilities, you can see why Dumbledore would recommend his book to you. It feels like slipping through a crack in glass without shattering the whole thing. You weave in and back out, and Mari grins when she returns from the shape of a teapot to her body without you needing to utter a word to do it.
In the back of your mind, you’re aware what you’re doing is nearly unprecedented. It’s spring, you’re months away from eighteen, muggle-born, and mastering nonverbal Human Transfiguration like it’s a Softening Charm. Mari tells you you’re the smartest person she’s ever met. It makes your cheeks go hot to hear such open praise, worse when you snap out of the thought that you believe her.
Grindelwald falls. The school celebrates in whispers until the evidence is in front of them — Dumbledore, returned without a scar, a new wand in his hand — and then they’re cheers. The feast that night is a great one, and he toasts to you from the end of the staff table, a discreet tilt of his cup before he takes a sip and returns to converse with Professor Merrythought.
You take from your own, and your eyes land on Tom, spine of his goblet tight in his hand. He’s looking at you like you’ve affronted him somehow. You could laugh — by choosing Dumbledore. Of course. As if it was a choice at all.
But if it bothers him… if it feels anything at all like the betrayal you felt, then — good.
You drink, and don’t look away.
By the time your N.E.W.T.s arrive you have a renewed confidence that you’ll succeed, even with the obstacle of performing each exam wordlessly.
There are only twelve students who came out of your sixth year class, so to divide resources for the tests is no grand task. You’re given a Wizard’s Chess set, a desk with assorted vases and goblets, an intricate epergne (you had to whisper to Mari to learn its name), and a Ministry worker borrowed like some laboratory mouse. You suppose it makes sense, though — you’re all capable enough of Human Transfiguration not to mutilate anyone, and performing on a classmate could obfuscate the results. It’s far easier to Transfigure someone you know than someone you don’t.
You start with the chess set, Dumbledore and the Ministry worker observing you as you turn pawns to knights and rooks to kings, the minutiae of the pieces drawing sweat to your brow. They change, and change, and change, and you don’t mutter an incantation once. The Ministry worker puts the set away and directs you to the glass. You Switch the vases with the goblets, Vanish them, and Conjure them again. The Ministry worker takes notes. Dumbledore nods affirmatively at you and you can exhale. The epergne is the hardest; so kitschy and elaborate you don’t know where to start when you’re tasked to Transform it into an animal.
An animal — like that isn’t the vaguest instruction you’ve ever received.
You look at it on the desk, mirrors and glass and gold on protracted arms, and you go for the first thing you think of because the Ministry worker is staring at you like you’re inept and you see it in his eyes — this is the muggle-born one, this one can’t do it.
You’re better than them. You can do it forever.
The epergne spins at the dip of your wand, and emerges more than an animal. A big glass tank appears in its place, round and gold-rimmed, water lapping at the sides. Inside it is a jellyfish. Emerald green, bobbing, tentacles and oral arms coiling against the glass like the limbs of the epergne had spanned its centre.
The Ministry worker swallows. Dumbledore smiles.
“And — and back?” the worker says, like that will be the thing that stops you.
You point again, mouth tight with irritation, and reverse the Transformation. A droplet of water smacks your face and you’re lucky to be so hot you can disguise it as sweat. You suspect even an error that small would cost you a mark.
You wipe it away. A strange thing happens; you imagine Tom brushing the water from your cheek at the Black Lake. You imagine his fingers in the rain.
The Ministry worker steps closer with a shameless frown. He tells you to turn his hair red. You do. He regards himself in the mirror and scribbles something down. He tells you to turn it back. You do. To grow him a beard, to change his clothes, to make him taller, shorter, this and that — all read from a list he does not appear enthused to recite. You do it all.
He shakes Dumbledore’s hand when it’s done, duplicates his notes for him to keep, and follows the other Ministry workers through the fireplace when everyone’s exams are finished.
You find out you’ve passed with an Outstanding on your birthday.
Mari drags you to the Three Broomsticks to celebrate, butterbeers on her. (They always are.)
“Can’t believe we’re about to graduate,” she says into her cup, froth on her upper lip.
You sigh into your own, partially giddy and mostly nervous.
Mari squeezes your face between her thumb and finger so your frown is puckered. “Chin up, genius. You’ll be excellent.”
You push her hand away but can’t help a small smile. “Outstanding,” you correct.
“Outstanding!” She bursts out laughing. “Bloody ego on you now…”
“Well, I am the smartest person you know.”
“I take that back.”
She pushes out of her chair with a slightly inebriated wobble. “Going to the loo. Don’t touch my chips.”
Your hands raise in surrender, and you steal only one when she’s gone.
You aren’t the only ones here to celebrate. (Your birthday and your mutual achievement, yes, but the Three Broomsticks is filled wall-to-wall with seventh years drinking their final nights at school away.) There’s music charmed to reach every corner, even yours at the little alcove hidden from plain sight. It’s nice to watch from here — the stumbling, the kisses meant for mouths that land drunkenly on cheeks and noses, the barkeeps that roll their eyes as soon as they turn away from all the newly adult customers, not yet learned or careless in their drinking manners.
It is not nice to be occluded from plain sight in such a way that you don’t notice Tom Riddle until he’s inches away from your table. It is not nice that no one else notices either.
On instinct you don’t make any impressive exit. He slides into the booth next to you and your brain short circuits for a moment at the warm familiarity of his presence beside you. Then it occurs that it’s been more than a year since this was remotely commonplace — that you cannot forget the reason why.
There’s not much time to decide whether you want to be vicious or indifferent or to debate on past precedent which would bother him more. You haven’t attacked him despite being concealed enough to do it unnoticed, and you haven’t shoved furiously out of the other side of the booth.
Indifferent it is.
“Can I help you?”
“You’re causing quite the stir,” he says, taking one of Mari’s chips.
You’re allowed. It’s infuriating when he does it.
“Am I?”
“It’s enough to fail a N.E.W.T level class and be expressly petitioned back, but to have a special criteria set for your exams and manage an O on top of it all…” He inclines his head as if to appreciate your face so close after so long. You should not let him. “You are incomprehensible. It terrifies them.”
“They’re afraid of the wrong mudblood, then, aren’t they?”
Indifference effaced. You’re angry.
He seems to have come prepared, and shrugs your scorn off like a scarf you would have forced him to wear winters ago. “Of course, they have no reason to suspect Dumbledore might have ulterior motives.”
Ulterior — you certainly hope he isn’t suggesting this is based on anything but your merit, but then — you couldn’t begin to understand why Dumbledore cared so much, could you? You’d made brief inspections of his disdain for Tom in second year, his waning shades of kindness and the matter of his stolen encyclopaedia, but you hadn’t… you hadn’t thought at all about how his dedication to your progress only begun after you’d stopped sharing a class with Tom, how it had developed as you began to drift from one another in fifth year and accelerated in sixth after the first petrification and Myrtle’s death. How Tom had worn you down with a weighted glare at Dumbledore’s little toast.
It wasn’t because you had chosen Dumbledore, you realise. It was because Dumbledore had chosen you.
“Why don’t you worry about your pets, Riddle?” you snarl, “I’m sure there are bigger problems with your lot than my exam results.”
Something in his face shifts at the name. You swell with distorted pride.
He mends the reaction by looking you over in more detail, his features schooled into something he must know you can’t deduce. You try not to squirm under the intensity of it.
He reaches almost mindlessly for your collar (there is nothing mindless about it, you’re sure) and smooths the fabric gently with his fingers. “I always liked you in this colour.”
You blink. His thumb just barely brushes against the skin of your neck before retreating, and your mouth falls open.
“Don’t do that,” you say. Truly a sad attempt. Your repulsion is more with yourself than him, and that’s not at all right.
Where is Mari?
“Your friend was at the bar, last I saw her.”
You stare at him with wild eyes. How the hell — ?
“You were always easy to read,” he supplies, and leans in so you can follow his line of sight to the tiniest sliver of the bar visible between two columns, where Mari looks deeply engaged in conversation with Leo Ndiaye, one of the Gryffindor Chasers.
You take a sharp, exasperated breath at her antics. She might be more in love with the competition than the boy himself. They’d never last without Quidditch to bind them, but you can’t fault her for wanting a bit of fun.
“Well then —”
Right. Tom hasn’t actually moved away. You turn and his face is just there.
His eyes dart forthwith to your mouth, and — no. No, he won’t be doing that and neither will you.
“...I’m off to bed.” Stop talking to him like he’s your friend, you think miserably. Stop looking at him like he’s your —
“That would be wise.”
He’s still looking at your lips.
No one else is looking at you at all.
It could exist in just this moment, you deliberate; separate from everything else.
Except nothing about Tom exists in its own moment. He’s all over you all the time, skin and bone and soul. You hope you still have a place in the broken fragments of his.
“So I’ll be going now,” you say again.
“I haven’t protested.”
But he’s leaning in, and he has to know that’s impedance enough.
“But you will.”
His lips touch yours. “Yes, I will.”
You grab him by his shirt and you’re kissing him. You’re kissing each other like either of you know what the hell it means to kiss anyone, but you’ve learned the rest together, haven’t you? Your noses bump and you don’t care. You just need to kiss him, and — God, you make some noise against his mouth and the hand cupping your face spreads to capture more of you, greedy and wayward — he needs to kiss you too. It’s a horrible thing to know. It leads you to pose too many questions.
The need must have begun as want, and when did the want begin? How long has he looked at you and wondered what you’d feel like to kiss, touch, mark? (He’ll never have the latter. You swear that.)
You’re pulling away in intervals. “You don’t have me, you know.”
“I know,” he responds, lips on the corner of yours.
“You still lost me.”
“I know.”
“I hate you.”
He pauses for a moment. “I know.”
You kiss him again. Long and soft, memorising his cupid’s bow and the tip of his tongue, and when one of his hands moves to your waist you part from him like you’ve been burned.
“I —” You resist the urge to touch a finger to your lips, standing abruptly from the table and adjusting your shirt. Your body feels like an evolutionarily faulty vessel, too easy to please, though you can’t imagine it responding to anyone else this way. Or perhaps your mind is the problem. Not wired well enough to resist an evidently bad thing. “Goodnight, Tom.”
You thought there wasn’t a word for your goodbye, but that’s it. So simple it sinks you. Goodnight, Tom. I’ll dream of a morning where I wake up beside you, but you won’t be there.
He grabs your hand before you can go, licking his lips and it haunts you to think he’s savouring you. It stings a place deep in your chest you’d spent all year trying to heal.
“My door is always open,” he says.
He lets you go.
You graduate with Mari’s hand in yours, and you aren’t afraid.
Dumbledore requests that you stay for the summer to help him prepare for the first year’s curriculum in the fall. It’s a ridiculous opportunity for someone your age — free lodgings and a stellar impression on your resume, and — you can only accept it with an ire you haven’t felt since the spread of influenza in muggle Britain.
If he’s offering you lodgings now, he could have done it all along.
It sends you down a horrible train of thought while you move your things from the Slytherin dormitories to a little chamber a few doors down from the staff room; Tom will be removed from Wool’s this year. Will he stay at Malfoy Manor? But Tom is still publicly muggle-born — Abraxas’s parents would never allow it. Will he find a job, a flat? Will he swindle muggles once he turns eighteen and the Trace is no longer an obstruction?
You think of him often. You think of his offer.
My door is always open.
Plenty of doors are open to you now. Why should you want to go back to his?
Still, the Second World War ends in November and you feel like you can breathe at a depth you never could before. The school doesn’t celebrate like it did with Grindelwald. No one but you seems to care at all.
It’s a tempting door.
The year passes in a blur of graded papers and lessons Dumbledore sometimes involves you in and sometimes does not. Most of the first-years care little for you, but there are two Slytherin muggle-borns who look at you like a new sun to orbit. Everything is worth it for that.
You see Mari when you can, and find she’s training with the Italian Quidditch team, who apparently are smart enough to care more about skill than blood. She says she misses the complexities of Transfiguration, but any career in it was always going to be yours. Smartest person she knows, she reiterates. Biggest ego too.
The next summer Dumbledore informs you of a posting at the Ministry. Something small with a smaller wage. He emphasises the weight of his personal recommendation, but that you won’t be respected unless you claw tooth and nail for it. You don’t take long to consider a chance to make an actual income with an actual career doing something muggle-borns simply don’t do before you’re nodding assuredly and asking him what you need.
Better clothes are first, and all you can afford until further notice. You take to Gladrags with intent to purchase for the first time in your five years of wandering in the shop with eyes bigger than your wallet, and the owner looks at you with distrust when you slide her your sickles.
The Ministry job is truly, infinitesimally, insignificant.
It’s far down in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. You’re a glorified secretary, and you recall the few times you’d worked as a mail-sorter during the war. It’s some sick irony that you’ve landed yourself in a pile of paper once more.
But the money, though offensively scant to someone with better options (and it’s infuriating the options you deserve), is more than you’ve ever had, and within the next year you’re able to leave the castle and take a cheap room at an inn in Hogsmeade. You’re close enough to Dumbledore to aid him when he needs you, but far enough to feel like your school days are departed, and you need not worry about memories lurching unexpectedly at every corridor.
A sick part of you still reaches for your mouth sometimes to remember what it felt like to be kissed. That part of you wishes for Tom. You could kiss him into oblivion. You could find a way to make it hurt him back.
My door is always open.
Then you’ll slam it bloody closed.
Mari invites you to her first professional game and you cheer for her in the stands, a green, white, and red scarf around your neck in place of her old blue.
She wins and you get drinks in a muggle pub. You kiss a man at the bar. You go home with him. His hair is dark, but not dark enough. His lips are soft, but the shape is wrong. He makes you feel good, but you wonder if in another life, the dream is true; you roll over in the morning to Tom beside you, and he makes you feel better.
When you can find time between the monotonous demands of your job, you’re in the Transfiguration classroom, staying behind to help the Slytherin muggle-borns with their Switching spells.
It’s one stupid accident the next fall that changes things.
A muggle bank has been robbed, and whatever idiotic, panicked witch or wizard was behind it apparently found themselves incapable of getting the deed done with a simple Imperius Curse (you can’t imagine, based on the scene, that they’re above Unforgivables), and somehow ended up leaving the building half-charred and teeming with at least six bank tellers Transformed into birds, two chirping into the floor tiles with broken wings.
“Renauld’s on it, though,” your coworker says when the news finds your department.
“Renauld?”
He’s a year older than you, a pureblood with parents in high places, and endlessly fucking hopeless.
“Well, yeah —”
You push out from your desk, files fluttering behind you. “Renauld will expose the whole damn wizarding world if he touches that building.”
“But McCormack sent him.”
“Where is it?”
“I… McCormack said that —”
“Where is it, Flack?”
“Um. Um, near King William, I think. Moorgate or, um —”
That’s good enough. You toss the Floo Powder into the fireplace and go.
The place is a mess. You don’t even have to look for it. There’s some ward around the street, bouncing muggles away like an invisible end to a map they don’t even register is there. At least that’s handled right.
But you slip through it and curse under your breath at the muggles trapped inside the wards. They’re like fish prodding at the dome of their bowl, and some run up to you demanding explanations when they see you unaffected by it. You brush them off — Obliviation is not your strong-suit — though you do shout at a pair of DMAC wizards uselessly standing guard outside the bank.
“What the hell are you doing?” you ask on approach. “Renauld’s supposed to handle the inside, yeah? You deal with fixing them.”
You point toward the frantic muggles, and the officials just regard you with vague confusion at your presence. “Renauld said —”
“Oh my God! Fix. The muggles.”
You afford nothing else before pushing past them to enter the bank.
It’s quite impressive, actually; Renauld, the result of generations of foolproof breeding, is waving his wand around like he’s just stepped out of Olivanders for the first time.
“Heal their wings,” you say without greeting.
Renauld jumps. “What? What are you doing here?”
“Heal their damn wings. They’re easier than human limbs and healing magic’s the only thing you aren’t completely shit at.”
“Who authorised you?” he hisses.
“I did.”
In hindsight, it should have gone horrifically wrong. Your wand could have been taken and your life might have been over in all ways that matter, flung back into the muggle world where you’ve always been told you belong.
But Renauld vouches for you. You Transform the walls, you fix the burns, you mend the bank to something presentable. A muggle robbery — dangerous, financially tragic, but believable. And your suggestion to heal the injured bank tellers in their animal forms might be the thing that saved them. When Renauld mends their wings and regenerates their blood, you Untransfigure them, and the other DMAC officials alter their memories with haste.
You were completely out of line and utterly right.
It isn’t something people like you are allotted.
Your probation period is dreadful. You hide in your room at the inn most days, Vanishing little stained panes on your window to feel the warm breeze of air before you Conjure them again. You help grade papers, though Dumbledore is displeased with you and the night is a silent one. He assures you curtly that he’s doing his best with the Ministry to amend this.
And… he does.
With Renauld’s help and the corroboration of the other DMAC officials, you’re back at work by the start of the school year.
It’s a slow process — almost eight months of meaningless paperwork — before the next incident occurs and you’re hectically ushered to the scene like a belated understudy. And then it happens again. And again. And again.
There’s really no choice but to promote you.
Your heroics are torn from a Gryffindor cloth, so says Flack. You urge him never to say such a thing again.
By your twenty-first birthday, you think about Tom almost exclusively in your sleep. You’re much too busy to think about him anywhere else.
The summer is warm and Hogsmeade is lively. You’ve vacated your room at the inn for a little house on the outskirts of the village, decorating it how you like — discovering what you like. You’d never had a chance to find out before.
Mari visits when she can once you have your fireplace connected to the Floo Network (you yourself prefer Apparating) but her name is slowly working its way from the Italian papers to the British ones, and she has so much to tell you there isn’t possibly enough time in her days to tell it. There’s also the matter of Leo Ndiaye, who has, recently, gotten on one knee and proposed to her. If there had been a bet on them ending up together, you would have been out enough galleons to put you in debt.
After especially gruesome days at work, you and a few colleagues make a habit of getting sherries at the Siren’s Tail, complaining that sometimes the nature of your work is akin to an auror’s but without the notoriety and pay.
“Oh, please,” says Emilia Alves, twirling her straw, “have you seen the shit the aurors are up to lately? I’d rather be a blimmin’ Unspeakable.”
“You’d have to be able to keep your mouth shut for that, Alves.”
Emilia punches Renauld in the arm.
“What are the aurors up to?” Flack asks.
“I dunno much. There was a murder all the way in Albania, s’posedly. Reeked of dark magic.”
“Nothing new,” you join, and then frown. “Why’s our Ministry dealing with it though?”
“I dunno. I got word from Hillicker that the Albanians didn’t know what to make of the mess. They’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Hillicker’s not a source,” Renauld scoffs.
“Yeah? Why don’t you ask your daddy for something better?”
“Alves, I’ll have you know —”
You lean in over the counter. “What do you mean they’ve never seen anything like it?”
She grins. “Why? Storming a bank robbery wasn’t exciting enough for you?”
You roll your eyes, taking a drink.
That ought to be the end of it. One extraordinarily lucky incident to push you up the career ladder was rare enough — there is absolutely no way digging around a case that has nothing to do with you or your department could ever end well.
But something about it itches.
You make nice with Hillicker. She’s a year younger than you and far too kind for her own good, and she gushes freely about her husband’s work as an auror (they must be a perfect match for him to gush freely about it with her). It’s a bit manipulative. You have no excellent excuse for it, but… ambition, and all that, you suppose. Flack’s Gryffindor theory is studded with holes.
You are green, through and through.
Emilia’s updates are meaningless when you garner so much information that you’ve already heard everything she has to say over drinks, and at this point her and Hillicker might be a step behind you. Emilia still only knows about Albania; peppery little details of half a story. Hillicker discusses an assortment of murders with no real string between them, and Dumbledore regards you with cool heeding when you bring up the matter with him.
You see him little nowadays but you’ve never been close in any true sense, traces of resentment budding over the years like rainwater collects on glass until the stream finally slips.
You visit Hogwarts mostly for your Slytherins, fourteen or fifteen now, unafraid of the distinction of their blood.
And then there’s one night after you turn twenty-two where drinks take place at yours for a change, Mari and Leo included and happily wed. You have no sherries but your ale is just as well, and it’s only you and Renauld who are sober by the time everyone else is vanishing into the fireplace and going home.
That makes it much worse when you sleep together.
There’s no excuse of having had a glass too many — so sorry, I’ll be on my way then, and him stumbling over his trousers to get out of your hair. Of course, he does that anyway, scratching the nape of his neck when he reaches your doorway in the morning.
“Thanks for the — well, you have a nice home — I do think I should —”
“Yes.”
“Right.”
“Oh!” He turns around at the last second. “Er — I know you’ve become a tad obsessed with… Hillicker mentioned another, anyway. Hepzibah something. Killed by her own elf, the aurors suspect.”
“Oh,” you echo, sheets pulled up to your shoulders. “Thanks, Renauld.”
“I thought you might like to know. Don’t be daft about it.”
You’re incredibly daft about it.
There’s something reminiscent about Albania in this case that wasn’t there with the others. The tide of dark magic ebbing across the scene, the cherry-picked information released in the Prophet, the claim of an old, dumb House Elf who poisoned her mistress like the Albanian peasant killed in some insoluble accident.
The itch exacerbates.
You see him in your dreams again. He peers over Runes in a stolen encyclopaedia, he whispers to an adder on his shoulder, he kisses the corner of your mouth and it isn’t enough. He kills you, again and again. You kill him too.
You wake up and he isn’t there.
It’s a new low when you’re invited to the Hillicker’s anniversary dinner and you end up digging through the drawers of their study halfway through the night.
The Albania file offers nearly nothing. There was the charred residue of dark magic imprinted on a hollow tree in the fields of the peasant’s hamlet, but nothing detailing more than a blank imprint of the Killing Curse in his eyes. Still, you tuck the knowledge away for the file of one Hebzibah Smith, whose tea did indeed have traces of poison, but whose den was also ripe with a layer of darkness that didn’t line up with the Ministry’s tale of senile elf.
And then there’s the forgotten matter of her being a purveyor of ancestral artefacts. The file doesn’t recount whether any are missing, since the woman was wise enough not to proclaim all her possessions to the world, but it’s something. A scratch.
You travel to Albania that Christmas. The neighbours in the peasant’s hamlet have skewed memories, so they provide little help, but the man’s house was left almost untouched.
You tear the place apart and Transfigure it back together when you’re done.
All you find, in the end, is a scrap of an old envelope in a suitcase.
R.R
It could be that it’s old. The cursive seems ancient enough. But you swear the letters have the distinct shape of quill ink — too artful for any pen — and maybe that wouldn’t matter if it weren’t for half a wax seal stuck to the torn edge of the envelope. Stained but silver, the barest hint of two ribbons, a crest, and the letter H.
You return to Hogwarts posthaste.
It’s snowing in the courtyards and you waddle with a duotang under one arm to pretend you’re here for something scholarly, an array of excuses prepared in case you run into Dumbledore, but you don’t.
The Grey Lady is as beautiful as she’s rumoured to be.
You ask her about her mother, and she’s silent, an expression on her face like you’ve struck her.
“Is it found?” she whispers. The snow floats through her.
Your heart hammers as you consider how to approach this. She thinks you know more than you do, which means there’s something to know.
“Yes,” you say. And you dare further with the context you know, “In Albania.”
“Oh,” she hums. “Oh…”
And if she means to say more she doesn’t seem able, washing away through the balusters, then the walls. You think of your house ghost and what he did to her, and you feel sorry for a second.
Madam Palles expels you from the library the moment you find what you’re looking for, and you rush past a throng of staring students to the staff room fireplace. It’s too far a walk to the border of the castle wards to Apparate. You bite back the preemptive sickness, get swallowed by the flames, and go home.
There are blanks to fill in but you do it easily. Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem. Hepzibah Smith and her assortment of unregistered artefacts. The stain of dark magic. Something so rare not even the aurors recognized it.
But you do, because he told you.
You wonder on your search to find him what object he used when he killed Myrtle Warren. Nothing special, you think — maybe even the closest thing he could find. These murders involved more preparation. He got to mark them however he wanted.
It’s almost disappointing to find him here. In a little flat over Knockturn Alley with a view of charmed coalsmoke and the brick wall of another shop.
It’s as tidy as his room at Wool’s, the only dirt the irremediable age of the building itself. The whole place looks almost slanted, large enough only for the bare necessities; a kitchen, a toilet, a bedroom that looks more like a closet, and a study/dining room/den you can’t imagine he hosts many gatherings in. You rescind the mere thought. Whatever gatherings Tom Riddle is having these days, you’re sure you can’t begin to imagine at all.
You wait, legs crossed on an old loveseat, fiddling with your wand.
The door clicks open when the snow has turned to hail and there’s no light but the few scattered candles you’d lit on the mantelpiece.
It strikes you only when he’s standing before you that it’s his birthday.
You’re in Tom Riddle’s flat, on his birthday, adorned by the orange glow of half-melted candles, and you know everything.
He eyes you carefully, a hint of surprise at the sight of you after four years that even he needs a second to recover from. And then he's even, inscrutable Riddle again, and you dare to think, come back.
“I placed wards," he says, hanging his bag on a rack by the wall.
“I thought your door was always open.”
You see his posture change from just his silhouette.
“Wards never work in Knockturn,” you offer additionally, “not really. There's too much conflicting magic; one border cuts into another; leaves a little sliver behind if you’re smart enough to find it. You should know that."
He turns to you. You take in a moment to acknowledge how he's changed. It's hard to see in the curtained moonlight, and it seems unreasonable to imagine he’s grown, but you think he has. An inch taller, perhaps. Two. Maybe the dress shoes. His arms are bigger under his button-down, but not enough to consider him muscular. His black hair isn't as perfect as you remember, and you suspect a long day of work undoes his curls. You always liked him better that way in school, after a night duel at the Black Lake, his robes askew and his hair a mess. Evidence that you were the only one to dishevel him. Now you were — what? Did he even think of you anymore? Yes. You'd always think of each other.
“Duly noted. What are you here for?” He tries your surname like a foreign language.
You cross your arms, and you're acutely aware that he's observing your changes too. You're not the matchstick witch he once knew. Your emotions are cultured now, taut to mirror his. You wear dull, formal grey, and that glowing green tinge that should be gleaming on you is under a thick carapace. That’s for Mari, Flack, Emilia — even Renauld. Not for Tom.
You wonder if he knows it was Dumbledore who put in the word that got you this uniform. You wonder if he resents you for it.
“There’s been talk at the Ministry," you say finally, “A string of murders. Whispers of something — some dark magic they don’t understand. And you know they're careful about things like that after Grindelwald."
“A string of murders... Hm. That might imply you understand a connective thread. Is there some sort of accusation being made?”
“Oh, I'm sure you'd be flattered by accusations. There’s not enough there, as it stands. Just whispers." You sink more comfortably in the seat and the springs make a concerning sound. “But I know you."
His hard, sharp gaze falters for a moment. You watch the flames dance behind him, the firelight playing against the lines of his shoulders, and feel your heart skip a beat. “Who else is speculating?"
“No one." Your fingers brush over the book spines on the coffee table. “I guess their attention hasn't been drawn to a book clerk yet, even if you have taken residency... here." You say it with no shortage of disapproval.
Knockturn was never where Tom belonged. You'd once imagined a flat together in muggle London, taking the telephone booth to the Ministry together, changing the world together. It's a wish that's a lifetime away now.
“Is this a warning? I assure you, I don’t need the condescension.”
“I'm not warning you," you scoff, “I — I'm seeing you. God knows I'll probably never get the chance to do that again once you get yourself locked up in Azkaban, which you will."
You sound exasperated. You sound half-pleading. “What are you doing, Tom? Is this — this is really what you want?"
“Yes."
You shake your head. “I don't believe that." And then some of that fiery spit returns to you, and you feel like a child again, stuck in the London tube stations holding his hand at every plane that flew overhead, scowling that you needed his reassurance. Scowling that you were afraid.
“Well, your conjecture is ever-appreciated. Shall I lend you mine? Shall I congratulate you on your revolutionary position at the Ministry? Or is it Dumbledore I should afford my thanks?”
“I earned this,” you hiss.
“You deserve it,” he amends. “But do not lie to yourself and pretend that’s why you have it.”
“Fuck you.”
He smiles. “There you are.”
“I don’t need your congratulations, Riddle. Dumbledore doesn’t need your damn thanks. But,” you say, biting back the snarl that wants out, “you could thank me. After all, I could turn to the Ministry any minute with the truth of your heritage. I could tell them about Myrtle, the Horcrux — Horcruxes.”
The humour dissolves from his face and you despise the immense glee it brings you.
“Oh, did you think I didn’t know? Didn’t understand the connective thread? You are sentimental under all that… fucking posturing, you know. I’m sure it’s all very romantic to you — making Horcruxes out of Hogwarts artefacts. Shame it’s such an insult to your intelligence.”
“Very good,” he says after a long, terse silence. You’re sure he’s thinking just the opposite.
You hum, meddling with your nails. “So what’s your plan?”
“I’d need a Vow for that.”
You laugh. “I’m not that desperate.”
“You’re also not an auror, are you?” He tilts his head appraisingly. “And yet you’ve found your way here.”
“How many do you plan to make? How many people do you plan to kill?”
“A Vow.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Tea, then? Biscuits?”
“Oh, I shouldn’t. I read in the paper the other day about a poor old woman who had her tea poisoned.”
“Hm. Terrible shame.”
Your fist clenches around your wand. “Is it paying off well, Riddle? It must be a good life if you’re willing to split your soul to hell and back to have more of it.”
He smiles at the barb in your words. “You never were good with subtlety.”
“I wasn’t trying to be subtle. This place is horrific.”
“I was referring to your inability to see more than what’s directly in front of you.”
“Oh, really? And what more should I see than a boy who’s very good at getting weak men to bow and do very little else? I’d try to see the bigger picture, but I reckon it wouldn’t fit in here.”
Tom regards you colourlessly. You are slate, Ministry-grey, impermeable like palace portcullis.
“I suppose I should have killed you.” He says it with the nonchalance of a forgotten chore. He says it like you’re a stain.
He doesn’t say it like he feels any terrible urgency to remove you; and you think, this time, you’d feel more powerful if he did. You think it’s far more debilitating to sit here and be looked at like he regrets wanting you alive more than he wants you dead.
“Yes,” you concur, “I suppose you should have.”
You place your wand down on the table and scoot your chair away for good measure. “It’s never too late to rectify your mistakes.”
Tom, for a moment, looks surprised. That makes you feel powerful. You’d take more of that.
“You have wandless magic,” he tries. A weak recovery.
“Scout’s honour, Riddle.”
He doesn’t move for a moment, then fixes his wand in his hand and rises, doused in the same inscrutable calm that always used to drive you mad. Now something in you gleams with the knowledge that he only ever looks like this when he’s trying not to look like anything at all.
He steps closer and it gleams brighter. It trembles inside you and you know, distantly, that this is insane. You’re weighing your life on a childhood trust that was shattered years ago, and you don’t think you’ve ever been that good at faith, but he’s approaching you and that gleam you feel is reflected in his eyes and you just… know. Your spilled blood once crawled with his. There’s no undoing that. Half of you is made of the other.
“I should have killed you,” he repeats.
It’s a murmur. Stilted. Angry, even. Angry that you made him this and there’s no fucking rectifying it — what a joke that is. What an immensely you thing to suggest.
“Yes,” you agree.
It’s a breath. Low. Proud, even. Proud that you’re his only mistake and he’s going to make it again.
Tom kisses you. It’s a murder of its own kind. You kiss him back, and — you were always going to kill each other like this, weren’t you? It’s you and him whether you like it or not.
There should be no love in it. You know that. Love is far behind the both of you, stifled in a gasp at the back of your throat on your eighteenth birthday and the soft, selfish hands of a seventeen year old boy. This is mutual destruction. Spite and teeth and skin that’s cold under your fingers.
He was your first in everything but this.
You push back at him and feel the hunger, the need in him, like a flame as he kisses you deeper and harder, and you find yourself losing yourself to it all over again, like you're back in the dark alcove of a pub where you told him goodbye, pushing to extend the juncture. And then he lets out a hitched, gravelly sound; not a moan but enough to make you shudder.
You pull him onto the sofa and crawl onto his lap.
“How long?” he asks thickly.
You don’t have to ask what he means. You bite against his neck, nails under his shirt as you struggle to pop the buttons open. There must be a violence in all your want for him because if there isn't it's just loss. It's just another thing you'll give him without taking anything back.
“Sixth year," you pant, “in the Deathday ballroom when we fought for the first time. You — ah — you put your thumb on my mouth. Since then."
You hear a sharp intake of breath, and his hand moves up your back to pull you impossibly closer. His voice is ragged. “Should I tell you how long I’ve wanted you?"
You shudder a breath. “Since —" And it's a bit hard to talk with the way he's rolling your hips — “Since when?"
His lips twitch into a mirthless smile, hands spanning your thighs as you start to rock against him. “When you burned me, and I sent you into the lake."
You swallow, agonised by the slow pace his grip forces you to keep when all you want to do is go faster.
“Your uniform was terribly wet,” he says, mouth tracing your jaw. “Did I ever apologise for that?"
“N-no.”
He tuts, the hushed sound warm and deadly on your neck. “Bad manners. I must have been distracted."
Oh. Oh, you think. It seems pointless to flush in the position you're in now, but the knowledge that he wanted you then and you hadn't even known is... all the more devastating.
But you shiver at the question of how he’d wanted you, in what amount of detail, in what precise way. You almost want to ask. See it for yourself.
You don't think you'd manage the words. He’s hard underneath you and your head wants to lull toward his shoulder but a big hand holds you from one side of your jaw down the length of your neck, his tongue laving up the other. Instead you’re balanced only by his hands and his mouth, rolling against him because it’s all you can do like this.
He’s marking you, you realise with a gasp, and your fingers bury in his hair to remove his mouth from its descending assault on your collar. Not that. You’d sworn against that.
Your fingers return to his buttons and he copies you by finding yours, pulling at the fabric tucked into your trousers until it’s discarded entirely. You press your hands to the planes of his chest and watch him, your mouth agape as his eyes linger on your chest.
His heart is pounding and he must know you’re about to comment on it because his lips are on yours again and he adjusts his position and your fingers dig into his shoulders at the delicious new feeling of him pressing into your thigh.
You move for his belt. He moves for your zipper. It’s some sort of race, whatever you’re doing, and you’re at an unfair advantage when you’re still fumbling with his buckle when his hand is already carving a slow path to the band of your underwear. You're scalding under the journey of it, little stars pricking you under every new inch he explores.
He dips in and your eyes wrench shut, grasping frantically for his wrist.
“Shh,” he says softly, caressing your cheek with his spare hand, thumb finding your mouth how it did all those years ago and you want to curse him. The fucker knows exactly what he’s doing.
You shake your head, chest rising with heavy breaths as you return to his belt and scrabble to unbuckle it.
“So tense,” he murmurs. The hand at your cheek draws over your lower lip before it falls to your back to hold you closer. “Rest now.”
And his fingers trace you where you want him most, brushing past your clit as he pulls his face back to watch you.
You sink into the feeling, still swaying on his lap, a half-efforted attempt at finding friction in the hardness between his legs that feels fruitless because it won't be enough until he's inside. Your hand just grips onto the fabric of his unzipped trousers and stays there. It’s a pause. An obstacle on your path to him that you need just a moment to recover from before you’ll make him feel just like this. Better. Worse. It’s hard to tell which is which.
He’s stroking at you now, pleased by the way you lurch against him with every touch.
You have to recover, you have to make it even, you have to… you…
A finger presses inside and you moan.
“You came back to me,” he whispers, close enough to be kissing you but there’s just the stutter of his breath. It's a fucking religious thing to say, the way he does it.
“Doesn’t make me yours,” you breathe.
He shakes his head. “I know. You’ll still take it though, won’t you?”
Oh, fuck.
He makes a sound of approval. “Good.”
Good. Fine. Your hands slip from his zipper to the meat of his thighs, pushing yourself forward so the shape of him is firmer against you, and Tom slips another finger in.
You’ll take it, won’t you? Yes.
Maybe you don’t need to tear him at the seams (though you want to) to make it even. Maybe this is punishment enough. That he can have you like this and it still won’t make you his, that he’ll give you everything and you’ll lap at it with half the greed he possesses.
You ride his hand, clutching his shoulders, rocking your hips. You take all of it, and it builds something delirious inside you, that it’s him doing this, his perfect fingers, the shape of his lips, the soft dark of his hair when you find your hands in it again. The feeling makes you stutter, and he has to move you by the waist himself to keep the momentum when you can't do it yourself.
He’s painfully stiff, pushing up against you with a degree of self-control that feels like it can only end disastrously for the both of you, and you start smattering kisses down his cheek. You tilt his head back and lick a stripe down his neck. Rest now, you'd say if you could.
But he adds a third finger and your head falls, a cry planted in his collar when you come, and you don't think you say anything.
Tom holds your legs steady, guiding you through it like this is just another one of his studies. You are what he knows better than anything else, and still he wants to learn more.
“Look at you,” he mutters, dipping you back to press his lips down your chest, unclasping your bra while you’re still breaking, the sensation swelling again when he takes a nipple into his mouth.
“Tom,” you try to say. Your mouth is the sticky sort of dry that words refuse to come out of.
“Will you give me more?”
Give, not take. You fuss into a stolen kiss, grappling again with his trousers, pulling them down until you can palm him through his boxers.
He hisses, gripping your wrist like he hadn’t just done the same to you, and then he’s pulling you up and off the couch, trousers discarded with what must be magic because you blink and they’re gone. Greedy boy. (You have no room to judge.) Your back is to the wall an instant before his fingers are on you again, pushing your underwear down your thighs until it falls at your feet like they despised to ever part from you.
You arch to feel him press against your stomach, pushing off the wall so that you can meld to him but he just closes in on you to do it himself.
He goads the heat from you when his fingers push in again, still wet, coiling how you like, where you like —
“Want you,” you protest shakily, hand on his abdomen.
That must kill him a little, because he curses under his breath (a thing he never does) and the immediate absence of his touch is cruel when he goes to free himself from his boxers. You reach for him without thinking as he does, and he pins your hand beside you when your fingers so much as graze the length of him.
You sound frail, but you have to ask. “Is this how you wanted me?”
A cruder version of you would go on. Is this how you pictured it? Taking me against a wall? Have you waited for it all this time?
And you don’t belong to him but you’re so incomprehensibly, contradictorily his. You’ll want him forever. He could do anything, and you’d be his. You could haunt him into his lonely eternity, and he’d be yours. Then, you suppose — haunting him makes him yours by principle.
Maybe you already do.
Tom practically growls into your mouth, pressing against you and — God, it’s skin on skin. He's right there. You could push forward and —
He slides in. You cry out at the feel of him inside you, the angle of it like this.
“I wanted you,” he says lowly, your legs wrapped around him, “everywhere.”
You’re gripping him so tight you think he’ll bleed under your nails and somehow you still feel on the brink of collapse when he thrusts deeper.
“I thought mostly of your mouth,” he rasps. “It felt depraved to imagine it wrapped around me, but then I thought of you splayed out before me instead. That maybe you’d like it if it was my mouth on you.”
You whimper.
“Would you like that?” he asks, hands spanning your hips to snap them into his, like you are a piece removed from him he seeks to reattach.
If you wanted to answer you couldn’t. You’re clinging to him and the rising surge inside you, carved between your legs like something sweltering and unfixable. It rushes in and he pulls out of you. He pushes in and you cry for the release of it, the moment the wave lurches over the edge, but he won’t let you have it.
“But,” he says, and your eyes want to roll back at how heavy his restraint is, callous in the tone of his voice, some leash at his neck he must tug himself lest you take it from him — “If I knew how well you’d take me like this, I would have thought of it much more.”
Taking him, again — you don’t feel at all like that’s what’s happening. You feel possessed. You are buoyant in his arms: his and his and his.
“You can — uh — you can — ”
"Hm?" He brushes down the slope of your brow, your cheek, back to the edge of your mouth, wiping a trail of saliva from your chin. “Poor thing.”
And he slams into you again, drawing a mewl from you that slices your unfinished thought.
You clench around him, flames wild and fluttering at every contact of his skin on yours, and there are too many to count. Too many points where they intersect, just some blend of bodies connected at every curve.
“You’re going to give me more,” he says, like it’s an epiphany when you already told him you would.
You remember then. What you meant to say. “You can take me too.”
You feel him twitch inside you, his pace stilling for a moment, and the thumb on your lip slips into your mouth. Your lips close around him and he curses again.
He fucks you with a finger in your mouth and his teeth clamped over your shoulder, soothing the sting with his tongue. His pace is too slow when he drags his free hand between your legs, but you understand its purpose well enough that the mere recognition almost destroys you.
He’s patient in bringing you to the edge because there's time here. A slow agony that severs you from the rest of the world until it splits you down the middle. And he may not ever have it again.
You have to promise yourself he’ll never have it again.
But the movement of his fingers against the same spot he’s hitting inside you is too much at once, and you won’t last. You drool around his thumb. You let him mark you. You can see on his neck you’ve marked him too. And you hope impossibly there’s a scar. You hope the little death you coax from him claims him as yours for eternity, keeps him even when you're gone. You tighten, lurch for the edge, and make him mortal once more.
Tom holds you there, your cries reverberating as he sinks another finger in your mouth, and then he’s gasping at your neck, peeling back to look you in the eyes when he spills into you. Your eyes screw together and he releases the sounds you make by holding you by the jaw instead.
“Look at me,” he says, and for the strained need in it you do.
You come down to earth and you kiss him, wetness dripping down your thighs as he pins you to this moment. You love him. You’ll always love him.
He’s still inside you when he’s secure enough to bring you to his bed, only removing himself from you when you’re safely in his sheets, legs surrendering their grip on his waist as you pull apart. You pant into the cold linen of his pillow. Everything smells like him. There’s something empty now; the reason you came today; the reason you left four years ago.
You love him and it isn’t enough. Not even to look at him, the sleepy hint of the boy you knew in his eyes, and know that he loves you too.
“Goodnight, Tom,” you say, finding home in the warmth of his chest.
You’ll dream of a morning where you wake up beside him, but you won’t be there.
#tom riddle#tom riddle x reader#tom riddle x you#tom riddle x y/n#tom riddle fluff#tom riddle smut#tom riddle angst#(the trifecta)#tom marvolo riddle#voldemort#voldemort x reader#tom riddle imagine#tom riddle oneshot#harry potter fanfiction#wizarding world#ftltutbh
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make my heart surrender | carmen berzatto x fem!reader | chapter seven: tuesday, again
pairing: carmen berzatto x fem!reader
warnings: lots of swearing, tooth-rotting fluff, use of she/her pronouns, friends to lovers, references to sex, no use of y/n, second person pov, happy ending
word count: 3.8k
summary: you left your heart in chicago, so the only logical conclusion you've come to, is that you have to go back.
a/n: ok this author's note may be a long one. WOW. can i just say 'wow' holy shit?! i wrote this story in a week because inspiration struck and i couldn't get these characters, or this story, out of my freaking head. i am beyond grateful to any and all that read, liked, reblogged, or commented. thank you for being cheerleaders for me, carmy, and this story. i am truly so in love with these characters it hurts, so thank you for encouraging me to continue this love affair.
that being said, i am not done with these two at all. i have a few companion pieces i'm working on right now: a playlist, a headcanon, and maybe even a oneshot (or a few but who's counting)? thank you again for reading. please enjoy.
read: part six | masterlist
Tuesday, again.
It’s Tuesday again and your time in Chicago has come to an end. Carmy had stayed the night with you at your airbnb. But morning came, and he left early to start his morning at the restaurant. Truthfully, he just hadn’t wanted to watch you pack – couldn’t get out of there fast enough when you’d opened your suitcase. You noticed how much it bothered him, letting him know that you’d stop by the restaurant before heading to the airport.
And that was that. You’d gone your separate ways before, and you’d go your separate ways again – just for a little bit. And it wouldn't be like last the last time. It’s bittersweet – leaving today – but you keep reminding yourself of the conversation you’d had yesterday about the future of your relationship. You wanted to be with him, and Carmy wanted to be with you. The rest, you’d figure out as you go.
Your boyfriend.
It felt strange – even if he’d basically already been your unofficial platonic boyfriend back in New York. Adding a title to it was a whole other ball game.
New.
Never did you think, as you were preparing for this trip, that you’d return back home with Carmy as yours. You thought maybe you’d talk about what happened -- smooth things over -- but that would be that, and you’d go back to being friends. After this week, you were starting to believe you were never supposed to be just friends.
You had a feeling none of your friends would be surprised when you shared the news – not in the least.
You finish packing up your things, double checking that you haven’t left anything behind before heading to the restaurant. It’s about thirty minutes to lunch service, and since they’re not open just yet, you enter through the back door one last time for what feels like could be a while.
And there it is again: that bittersweet feeling.
“Chef!” Tina says, her eyes lighting up as she sees you. “You headin’ out today?”
“Hey, T,” you reply. “Yeah, I’m heading to the airport after this. Just wanted to stop by before I go.”
“Well you better come back soon,” she says almost as if it’s a threat, and you laugh in response.
“Of course.”
“There she is!” Marcus hollers across the kitchen, as soon as he spots you. “Damn. What am I gonna do with you?”
“Uh… keep doin’ what you’re doing and kill it?” you reply, eliciting a proud smile from him.
“Seriously. This last week… I’ve learned so much from you. Thank you,” he says, his gratitude evident in his voice.
“No, thank you, Marcus,” you answer, genuinely. “I haven’t felt this inspired in… well a while. I want to be kept up on all your new flavor pairings. Just remember. I’m only a text away.”
“Yes, chef,” he replies, moving in to give you a hug.
He wraps his arms around you and you hug him back. Boy, is it bittersweet. How, in one week, have you gotten so attached?
“Hey! I want in!” another voice chimes in, as you and Marcus’ hug comes to an end.
“Syd!”
You smile, greeting Sydney with a hug – a hello goodbye kind of hug.
“You better come visit me in New York,” you insist. You’re not sure how long you’ll be there, but you say it anyways, just in case it’s a while.
You watch as Sydney and Marcus exchange glaces.
“What?”
“Nothin’, chef,” Marcus answers, almost too quickly.
Sydney shrugs, “I don’t know. Just uh, wondering how long you’ll be there for.” She’s prodding and she knows it. You decide not to ask what she means by it.
“Well, if it ends up being longer… than I expect, you better come up,” you clarify.
“Okay, yes. I definitely will,” Sydney agrees with a nod, before pulling you in for one more hug.
“Hey, cousin said you’re headin’ out so Ebra’s made you a sandwich for the trip, babe. We’ll see ya around soon,” Richie greets, interrupting your moment with Sydney and Marcus.
Richie, whose affection seems to catch you off guard, slings an arm around you, handing you the sandwich that Ebraheim has so kindly wrapped up for you.
“Cousin!” Richie shouts, in search of Carmy.
“Jesus Christ, it’s ten in the morning. Are we already starting the yelling this early or-?” Carmy calls back to him. He bursts through the doors from where he’s been fixing something up in the front of house dining area. He stops as soon as he sees you.
“Hey.”
“Hey yourself,” you reply, taking in the image of his unruly curls, white t-shirt, and blue apron you've gotten so used to over the last few days.
It’s almost as if everyone else but Richie tries to make themselves as busy as possible – to give you two a chance to say goodbye. You can hear Marcus and Sydney making themselves scarce as Angel and Manny turn the sink water back on.
“I just uh-, wanted to stop by before heading to the airport,” you say, unsure of just how much everyone else knows about you and Carmy’s current relationship. “Say goodbye to everyone.”
It’s clear that they know something’s up, but you still have your reservations about kissing him in front of everyone.
“What do you mean?" Richie asks, glaring at Carmy. "This asshat’s not takin’ you to the airport?”
Richies practically shouting for the entire kitchen to hear, causing you and Carmy both to take a breath. You exchange a ‘here we go again’ look as Richie continues on.
“What kind of-, I swear to god, cousin-.”
“Richie!” you hear Tina snap, looking up from her prep station. “Shut the fuck up and give them a minute, you old bitch.”
Richie throws his hands up, before bowing out of the conversation, leaving just you and Carmy in the middle of the walkway. You can hear Richie and Tina bickering in hushed tones over by the stove, earning a quiet laugh from you.
Your heart aches in the best way as you commit this moment to memory.
God, you're going to miss this.
“You wanna..?” Carmy asks, nodding his head in the direction of the back door.
You nod in agreement, letting him lead you back out to the alley.
And now it’s really just the two of you, and while it’s not the most romantic of backgrounds, you’re going to work with what you’ve got. Carmy seems nervous as he fidgets with the ties of his apron.
“You uh, you sure you don’t want me to take you to the airport?” Carmy asks hesitantly, thinking back to Richie’s earlier comment.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” you answer with confidence. “Besides, I’d never want to take you away from these guys. You open in a few anyway.”
He smiles, accepting your answer. It’s something he loves about you: that you get it. You understand that sometimes the food’s gotta come first.
You didn’t know why it felt so weird – so challenging, awkward, strange – to say goodbye to him. Because it wasn’t really a goodbye. And it also was and you’re not sure if you have a name for this feeling yet.
“Carm?”
“Yeah?”
Instead of answering with words, you just reach over, grabbing that beautiful head of hair of his, and you kiss him. He tastes of the cigarette he smoked on his walk to The Bear and the Altoid mint he had later in his office in anticipation of your arrival. You want to memorize each and every part of this: the way he smells, the way he tastes, the way his hands feel on you. He pulls you in, wrapping his arms around you as you continue your passionate make out – your passionate goodbye kiss – in the alleyway behind the restaurant.
Your kisses begin to slow down, and before you know it, you’re pulling away from him.
“Text me when you land, okay?” he asks, a hopeful look in his eyes.
You nod, “Yes. Yeah. I will.”
And you want to turn to go, but you can’t yet, so you add, “Thanks for inviting me out here.”
He laughs dryly, leaving one more kiss on your lips for the road.
“Thanks for coming to see me. I’ll see you soon.”
A few Tuesdays later
It takes exactly five minutes of being back in New York to realize that Chicago is where you need to be. You don’t regret asking for time to think, but you almost felt silly to worry that you wouldn’t come to this conclusion. You have to go back: to the restaurant, to purpose, to Carmy.
You let yourself think through every little detail, and in each scenario, you know that Chicago is where you’re supposed to be. It had, afterall, been everything you’d felt you were missing.
Your heart was there, and for once, you were going to let yourself follow it.
You’d just needed some time to let your head and your heart catch up – get on the same page – and wrapping things up in New York gave you that time to get clear that this was your next step.
Not that you mind letting the man you adored and some very hot sex cloud your judgment.
It takes a few weeks, but you and Carmy text every day, even on the busy days. Some days you text a lot, and some it’s just a few exchanges: a ‘good morning’ text, a ‘thinking of you,’ and a ‘goodnight’ text when he’s wrapped up at the restaurant. But it doesn’t bother you. You know what it’s like. Other days, you’re able to sneak in a phone call… maybe even a FaceTime… and if you’re really lucky, you get to talk for hours before either of you realize it’s two in the morning and you should’ve been asleep a long time ago.
People are always coming and going in New York City. It’s why it’s not hard to find a sublet for your apartment, and once you’ve set the ball in motion, it feels impossible to backtrack. After you find the subletter, you tell the restaurant that you’re not coming back and they’re not happy with your decision. You tell them you’re moving to Chicago and only a few people left on staff understand why. Your friends who know you and Carmy aren’t surprised – just as you expected – and by the end of your happy hour catch up, they’re halfway to booking you a ticket to Chicago for that night.
Your parents on the other hand are less than ecstatic. They have more questions, more hesitations, and they want to make sure you’re thinking things through. You tell them that you have, that you’ve combed through every possible scenario, and each time you come to the conclusion that this is what you have to do.
But they’re happy you’re happy. They say they’ve never seen you like this and you agree. You’ve never felt this way before either.
You’ve got to stay just a little longer – make sure you can get all your shit sold or moved. Because you’re a responsible adult even when you hate being a responsible adult. It takes a few more days to get an available U-Haul, and you’re all packed up. You’d called Carmy earlier to tell him, but he’s not answering his phone. Sydney hadn’t been in touch either, so you figured they were slammed at the restaurant.
Holy shit. This is really happening, you think to yourself.
With one foot over the ledge already, you’re off.
Wednesday, again.
You’ve set him up so well that if he blows it, you’re gonna be pissed. All he has to do is be his normal, annoying, crass self.
C’mon, Richie, you think to yourself, pleading with the gods that this goes the way you hope it will.
As you’d told him your plan, he seemed more than happy to oblige. Just rile him up a little just to make the surprise that much better. Richie wouldn’t miss out on an opportunity like that, would he? You can hear shouting coming from the kitchen, and can tell your plan has been set in motion.
“Richie, what the fuck are you talking about? They said what? Who?” Carmy asks, frustratedly.
Yesterday’s dinner service was a shitshow. It’d been slower for lunch this afternoon, and he berates himself for being naive enough to think that he could catch his breath today. The last thing he needed after yesterday was some food critic coming into his restaurant to pick apart all of their hard work.
“I don’t know, cousin,” Richie shouts back defensively, as if he has no other volume level than that one. “I don’t know if she’s a fuckin’ food critic or not but she sounded like one. Somethin’ about an overseasoned juice or whatever the fuck!”
“Jus,” Carmy corrects. “It’s pronounced, ‘zjhoo,’ fucko. Not ‘juice.’ How many times do I have to tell you?”
“Yeah, yeah, fuck if I care,” Richie mutters. “All I’m saying is you should go out there and give the pompous jack hole a piece of your mind.”
“Alright, if it’s going to get you off my back, I’ll do it!” Carmy snaps, having had enough of Richie’s shouting. “Just tell me where she’s sitting so I know who to talk to.”
“At the bar. Christ,” Richie sighs, removing himself from the conversation entirely as he steps away from Carmy.
Carmy sighs in frustration. He removes his apron before hanging it on one of the wall hooks, then makes his way through the swinging doors that lead to the dining area. It’s still slow, even after the small lunch peak they’d just experienced, and there’s only one woman sitting at the bar.
You.
It’s then the Carmy realizes he’s been set up. This was all just an act to get him out here – out to the front of house. His breath catches in his throat as he sees you sitting at the bar of his restaurant. You lock eyes with him, and he’s suddenly feeling much more nervous than he previously was.
“Surprise,” is all you manage to get out, half apologetically.
He makes his way to the open side of the bar, stepping around it so that he can stand on the same side as you.
“Hey,” he says, even though he’s practically speechless.
“So uh…” he stammers nervously. Out of all the things he could say to you all he can think of is, “What’s this I hear about an overseasoned jus?”
You shrug, a devious smile on your face and a sense of mischief in your eyes, “Well I had to come up with something that’d get your attention.”
“It worked. Consider it gotten,” he nods, a blush running all the way down his neck. “Wh-, What’re you doing here?”
He doesn't mean for it to sound so abrupt, but what he really wants to ask is: what does this mean?
You wait, taking half of a beat.
“I… heard you might be hiring another pastry chef to… you know… help out around here,” you reply, nodding towards the kitchen. Carmy has no idea how you’re playing it so cool, and you’re not sure how you are either.
“I-, I’d have to talk to Marcus first,” he stammers, matter of factly. His head is spinning, and he can’t breathe, in a good way this time. He can’t believe you’re here and half expects to wake up and realize he’s only dreaming.
“Of course,” you nod in agreement.
You pause again, wondering if he’s surprised in a bad way.
“I uh… I called,” you offer up, almost as an apology.
“We’ve been slammed,” Carmy replies, taking a step closer to you. “And I passed the fuck out last night after service. I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay! I-, I figured…” you chuckle, beginning to explain yourself. “I just wanted you to know that-, I mean the rental company had a last minute opening and it was gonna take a few more weeks to get another a U-Haul if I didn’t-. I didn’t intend on making this like… you know this big surprise or anything…”
“... but then I saw Richie first and uh, well, I couldn’t help fucking with you a little bit.”
He laughs, shaking his head at you, “So this was a set up?”
“Oh yeah.”
You stand up, out of the bar chair, taking a step towards him. You look around, noticing that the restaurant is mostly empty, save for a couple in a booth over by the window.
“You never answered my question. About you. Being here,” Carmy starts, redirecting the conversation back to you. He doesn’t want to get his hopes up – needs you to say you’re here for good before he lets himself feel all of this excitement that’s bubbling up in his body.
“Right. I just came here to tell you that uh, I found someone to take over my lease in New York,” you start, seeing Carmy’s eyes light up.
God, you’ve missed the way he looks at you.
“And the urban garden I've been volunteering with… they got me connected with a spot here. Keep my head out of my ass,” you continue, eliciting another laugh from Carmy at your crude comment.
“Natalie’s-, she and Pete are gonna help find a place too.”
You take another step towards him.
“You talked to Natalie?” he asks, surprised.
And he, towards you.
You shrug, playfully teasing him, “She picks up her phone.”
“Right,” Carmy says shyly.
If he had picked up his phone you would’ve told him that you were coming and he’s not sure what he would have liked more: knowing ahead of time, or this surprise. Fuck it. He doesn’t care how it happened. He’s just glad he gets to have you.
“I… had a lot of time to think on the drive and-,” you tell him.
“Uh oh,” he interjects, playfully. “That’s never good.”
You shake your head with a laugh, “Will you just shut up and let me get through this?”
He concedes to you, a soft smile on his face as he waits for what you’re going to say next, as you continue your whole boombox over head, throwing stones at the window love confession thing.
“I was thinking that maybe I’d stick around for a while… get a cat or something to keep me company on the days we just can’t stand each other,” you say.
It’s not what he’s expecting to hear but he understands what you’re really saying. You want to be here. With him. You want to plant roots.
With him.
“A cat?” he questions.
“Well, yeah neither of us have time for a dog. We’re both gonna be too busy with the restaurant,” you answer, continuing this scenario you’ve got in your head.
“We?”
“We.”
Another step.
He waits for you to say more, but you both understand that anything else would be overcomplicating it. And suddenly you’re standing so close to each other that you’re grateful that there’s only two other people in this restaurant.
“Does this mean-?” he begins to ask, trailing off toward the end. He looks down at the floor, wondering why he feels so shy.
“That I packed all my shit up to move here? Yeah,” you reply, confirming his assumptions about where this was going. “When I got back, it took me about five minutes to realize that what I’ve been looking for-, I had it. For a week. Here.”
He looks back up from the floor, to you, his blue eyes staring into your soul.
You take a pause once more, mustering up all the courage in your body to say what you need to say next.
“I want to be here, Car. With you. If the offer still stands.”
He looks at you, you speechless, because he can’t believe this is real.
But this is real. You’re not dreaming, he reminds himself.
He opens his mouth to say something and all that comes out is, “You hungry?” And you’re shaking your head and laughing, hopelessly in love with the man standing mere inches away from you who can barely get out the words he needs to tell you how he feels.
“Because I’m sure you’ve had a long trip and I can-,” he continues to ramble, his face inches away from yours.
“God, I fuckin’ love you,” you blurt out, impulsively closing the gap between the two of you. You press your lips to his, giving him the most passionate kiss you’ve perhaps given anyone, and he kisses you back.
Because he loves you too.
And he never wants to let you go ever again.
Your kiss is suddenly interrupted by the sounds of voices, cheers, and a few claps, splitting the two of you apart. You both turn to find the entire staff of The Bear, crowded around the door that leads to the kitchen, and peeking out. Tina’s got a proud smile on her face, while Richie is most certainly the one clapping. Marcus is saying an ‘oh shit’ to Sydney while she’s practically squealing at the two of you.
You and Carmy exchange a look. He looks away, his face turning redder by the second, as you laugh.
“I called it! What did I say? Did I say three weeks? I think I fuckin' said three weeks." Richie cries out in celebration, his fist pumping into the air in triumph, earning a groan of disappointment from Gary.
"Pay up, fuckos!"
“Wait, what?” Carmy asks, his brows knitted together in confusion.
Sydney rolls her eyes, beginning to pull a few ten dollar bills out of her apron as Tina mutters an insult in Spanish
“You guys were-,” you start, searching the faces of your future colleagues.
“Betting on how long it would take for you to come back? Yes, chef. Yes we were,” Marcus answers, cheekily. “I said two weeks. Syd put her money on a month, but Richie said three.”
“I just meant that it’s not that easy to move! Not that you wouldn’t come back,” Sydney adds, justifying her guesstimate.
“I said she’d be back in a week,” Tina chimes in.
“It was clear to us you’d be back. We just didn’t know when,” Gary informs, leaning up against the bar.
“Well, that’s news to me,” you laugh, shooting Carmy a look that says ‘did you know about this?’
He shakes his head ‘no.’
“You two are also idiots. That was also clear to all of us,” Tina points out, earning a laugh from you and Sydney.
“Never even cleared your work station, chef,” Marcus adds, nodding back towards the kitchen. “You can uh-, come join us when you’re ready.”
You watch as Marcus disappears, back into the kitchen, hearing the sound or Richie’s more than jovial chants that he was right. Tina’s yelling at him in Spanish and Sydney’s telling Richie to shut the fuck up.
You’ve missed this.
“I uh… gotta get back to work,” Carmy says, pulling you out of your head. The blush permeating his face has spread all the way down to his neck and he's not sure how he's supposed to continue the day like this. “Gotta wrap up lunch and prep for dinner.” But he gets to do it with you, so he's gonna figure it the fuck out.
He turns to you, holding out his hand.
“You comin’ or what?”
You’re beaming as you take his hand, your heart pounding out of your chest. It feels like a beginning of something you don't have the words for, and you're very much okay with that. You're ready to throw caution to the wind and fearlessly dive in -- to take a leap -- as long as you get to do it with him too.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
the end.
taglist: @lazypeachsoul @bookwormvoyageuse @allthefandomstogether @gaysludge @sobshoney @harrysmatcha
#carmen berzatto x you#carmy berzatto#carmy x oc#the bear hulu#the bear fx#jeremy allen white#carmen 'carmy' berzatto#the bear marcus#sydney adamu#the bear tina#richie jerimovich#carmy berzatto x reader#carmen berzatto x reader
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Video Games // Simon (Ghost) Riley
Part II for "Listen before I go"!! And for those who wanted to be tagged in part two here you go: @sseleniaa @ascybous(and all the others in the comments)
my fucking tags aren’t working.
Pt.1
Warnings: ooc ghost, wattpad y/n, gets suggestive at the end though no real smut. Reader is referred as "you" but use she/her pronouns Didn’t edit because I don’t feel like it, Simon crying and being silly!
You wake up to intense bright lights beaming into your eyes. Causing your hand to shield the light, already feeling your eyes water from it. After a few minutes of adjusting to the bright setting, you try to sit up. (Key word: Try.) But the unknown weight on your lower body prevents you from sitting up all the way. Your eyes fall down to the weight on your lap, but only to see Simon. His mask was off and he was in more casual clothing. A soft smile shone on your lips when you hear his soft snores. His cheek was buried onto your thigh as his hand laid on top of your body.
Your thumb caressed the softness of his cheek, causing him to stir in his sleep. His eyes slowly blink open. Seemingly like he forgot where he was until he saw your face. Simon wasted no time sitting up and greeting you. “You’re okay” he breathes out in relief. The poor man sounded so stressed and it made you feel so incredibly bad. Your hand cupped his cheek as you gave him a weary smile.
“I’m sorry-” Simon cuts you off with his hand to your lips.
“Please don’t blame yourself, if only i didn’t storm off you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”
Now it was your turn to cut him off, “This wasn’t your fault Ghost, I was the one who didn’t see the group before.”
The man's heart dropped hearing his code name escape from your lips. He didn’t like hearing that name from you, he preferred his real name. It made him feel safer with you. Like he had nothing to worry about.
You sighed, suddenly remembering the harsh words he told you. Thoughts started to pounder, “if he dislikes me so much then why is he here?” you thought. Your eyes glued onto his as your own started to water.
“Why are you here?” you whisper in a hushed voice, only being loud enough for the man to hear it.
Simon almost flinched at the sound of your voice, he didn’t know how to answer you. Between wanting to lie to you or just telling the truth like you needed.
“Ghost, if you were forced to keep watch over me. You’re free to go, I'm awake now.”
He shakes his head, lips going dry. “No, I wanted to be here.”
Another sigh escaped your lips, your fingers fidgeting with the hem of the bedsheets. “Then why are you here?’
“Because..” Simon tries to speak but his words die in his mouth.
“You told me that you hated me, that you’ll never see me more than a teammate.” you murmured and raked your fingers through your hair. A stray tear falls down your cheek. “For someone who claims they don’t want anything to do with me, you’re doing a whole lot just out of your own free will.”
“I only said that because I was scared!” Simon finally admits. He feels tears in his own eyes, “I was scared that if I told you that I loved you, something was going to happen to you.” Simon blinks his eyes shut, his pride way too high to let you see that he was crying. He didn’t need to think that he was some baby. “I’m sorry.”
Withthat Simon gets up and makes his way out of the room, not wanting to make you any more upset then you already were. But with the sound of his name leaving your lips, he stopped. He turns around to see you shifting to the other side of the bed, making enough room for him.
“Let’s talk, alright?” there it was, your soothing voice. A voice that sounded like that didn't just hurt to move to make room for him. A voice that seemed like nothing was wrong. A voice that never stopped caring. Simon finally breaks. Tears ran down his cheeks, no longer feeling embarrassed anymore. He sits on the bed and leans into your open arms, finding immediate relief.
“I’m sorry for telling you all of those things. I didn’t mean them, I was just scared and I know that these might seem like excuses and you don’t have to forgive me because trust me I wouldn’t either. And you can call me an asshole or tell me that you hate me too, that you don’t want anything to do with me and I won’t stop you because that’s what I deserve.”
You hush him, your fingers running through his hair while gently cradling the poor boy. “It’s okay, Simon. I’ll forgive you, alright? Just don’t say that about yourself ever again, you are so much better than that and you deserve so much more.” You feel him nod, but that wasn't enough. Reaching for his chin you pull him to face you. Eyes boring into yours. “You deserve everything.”
Simon didn’t know what he was doing but he held onto your soft and beautiful face and leaned in. His lips touching yours, instantly smiling into the kiss when he feels you reciprocate it. He gently pushes you back onto the bed, pressing your back down on the soft mattress. He barely pulls back, his lips brushing against yours. “I love you.” He kisses you again, “I love you so much.” This time he kisses your jaw trailing down your skin until he meets the hem of your shirt. “And I don’t know why I was so stupid by not telling you sooner.”
You feel his lips right on your throat, his hands running down your sides. Careful to not hurt your wound. Everything was so hot, your skin, your body, seeing Simon under you. “God simon.” you moan when you feel his hands squeeze your waist. He slowly tugs down your pants, kissing your hips.
“Please let me love you.” he pleads, fingers massaging your legs hoping to remove any tension from laying in bed for so long.
Your hand comes to cup his face as you give him a gentle smile. “How about I show my love for you?”
Another kiss was given to your leg before he shakes his head, “Not tonight, tonight is all about you.”
“Alright,” you consent, “Show me the best you got.”
#angst#hurt/comfort#cod mwii#mwii#mondern warefar 2#mw2 imagine#mw2#ghost mw2#cod ghost x reader#cod imagine#simon riley imagine#simon ghost riley x reader#simon ghost riley#simon riley#simon riley x reader#call of duty#task force 141#ghost x reader#fluff#simon riley smut
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『 01 』 NAVIGATION.
masterlist // rules // spam blog // graph blog // ao3
『 02 』 ABOUT ME.
Boo ! I’m Phantom, but you can call me Coco! I’m French Canadian, my pronouns are she/her and I’m 24 years old.
୨♡୧ When I write (y/n)... I don't put myself in (y/n)'s place, rather I put a version of myself in (y/n)'s place, a sort of OC. Sometimes I read fics and think "I'd never do that!", but the OC of myself can do it, since her personality is based on the one the author chooses ♡
୨♡୧ When you read my fics... it's important to remember that I write, mostly, for myself. I write scenarios that occupy my mind, so (y/n) is based on "me". However, I try to keep the character's physique neutral to help you immerse yourself in the story! That said, all my (y/n) are women, they're smaller than all the love interests and they have hair.
୨♡୧ When you finish reading my fics... and like the post/leave a comment/reblog, you have no idea how much that makes my day! The attention you give me motivates me to keep going ♡ If I don't respond to your post, there's a chance I saw it, but forgot to reply '-'
୨♡୧ When I haven't updated a fanfic in a while... You can send me a private message and ask me where I'm at with the next chapter! Who knows, maybe you'll be treated to a little teaser ~
『 03 』 QUESTION&ANSWER.
⋆★⋆ Can you translate my fics? Yes, absolutely! Don't forget to ask and credit me!
⋆★⋆ Can you draw a fanart based on my fics? YES YES YES. And I want to see it!
⋆★⋆ Can you post my fics to adapt it to a male or trans reader? Yes, but you must ask me before posting and ONLY change the pronouns/physical references. You can't add sentences, you can't change dialogue, everything has to stay the same, except the gender of the reader. And of course, I want to be credited.
⋆★⋆ Why do I allow minors to read my smut? Because I started reading smut when I was a teenager. I spent many nights fangirling in my bed, discovering my sexuality through the many fics and learning important things like consent and the importance of pleasure. My parents and school weren't very good at teaching me these topics, so I thank the many authors who shaped my knowledge of sex ♡
⋆★⋆ Why do I change my theme regularly? Because I'm indecisive ♡
『 04 』 LIST OF UPCOMING SERIES/HEADCANONS/ONE-SHOTS.
Dracule Mihawk + sex pollen
Dracule Mihawk NSFW alphabet
Dracule Mihawk + temporarily blind!Reader (multiple chapters)
Sanji + mysterious!Reader (multiple chapters)
Christmas with the straw hat pirates (platonic)
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Impressive Anon again!
I don’t remember what I said exactly but it was something like this:
Is it wrong to lie about pronouns?
Everytime I’m asked about my pronouns I try to avoid responding and if I can’t change the subject I lie and say she/her. I am not ready for people to interrogate me about why I don’t use she/her so I just say that’s what I use to make them happy.
This week I start my placement. I’ve been really stressed about them calling me Miss or Ms as that’s how I’ll be perceived. I’ve told my mum about this (not exactly, I kind of just said I don’t want to be ms/miss ‘last name’ bc it makes me feel old 😭) but still kind of the same thing. Anyway she said something along the lines of “this is your time and you should be referred to how you want to be (thinking I prefer ms (then my first name instead of last name)). But what she said made me think about introducing myself at this school as the real me. Like I’ll use my real pronouns and get called what I want to be called. But this also makes me anxious bc as I said before I’m really scared of judgement and don’t want many questions asked.
When I lie it makes me feel shitty bc I want to be able to express who I am but society makes it hard to do so.
I’ll probably just go to the school and be called ms and use she/her. But is it normal to feel like a liar when I lie about this even tho it’s to protect myself?
Ok this is a ramble and probably makes no sense but is it normal to lie about pronouns bc I’m not ready or am I doing the wrong thing by myself?
Do you have any experience with this that could make me feel less alone :(
Is there anything the students call you that feels right? Do students know you are non-binary?
(You don’t have to answer those if you don’t want to)
Thank you so much again Cas for being the most supportive, kind, friendly, amazing and helpful human in the world! <3
Hi! <3
I am so glad you asked this because it's such an important topic.
It is ABSOLUTELY okay to lie about your pronouns.
Here's the thing. Saying your pronouns is basically coming out, right? And you should NEVER come out before you're ready. EVER. You would do so much more damage to yourself if you outed yourself when you weren't ready.
And I'm going to be honest, I lie about my pronouns all the time- either by omission or flat out. Why? Because I literally don't feel safe in some situations. Is it ideal? No. Does it feel great? Absolutely not. But in new situations with people you don't know, It's okay to put your safety and your needs first. you're not hurting anyone by doing so.
As far as school, I am currently called Mrs.(lastname) and I hate it. I started working at my school before I came out to anyone, so at the time, going by that made the most sense. Now? Not so much. But funnily enough, I have a few students with speech issues that just call me (lastname) and it's super affirming. So, at my next school, I'll probably go with that. As far as why I haven't changed it? Honestly, I'm scared. I DO wear a pin with my pronouns, and I have them in my signature of my e-mail, but only one person in the entire school uses them (and calls me (lastname)), so it doesn't feel like a safe place to really push it, you know? And like you, sometimes I feel bad about that, but it's like...is it more detrimental to my mental health to be she/her-d all day or to possibly be made fun of for my identity all day? Right now, it's the first one. It might change later.
Only YOU can decide what feels right and safe for you, and I support you 1000% on whatever you choose. Anyone who doesn't isn't looking out for you.
Also if you ever want to chat about this more, I'd absolutely love to- there are so few educators (or upcoming educators) that struggle with this that it would be so cool to talk!
<3 <3 <3
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Obey Me! Harry Potter Au [1/?]|
Mc x Obey me Brothers + Dateables + Non-Dateables [minus luke]
MC referred with Mx. and They/them Pronouns! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mini note: This is a short[ish] story. Also for easiness sake:
Lucifer , Diavolo, Barbatos, Mephisto, Simeon- 4th years
Mammon, Leviathan, Satan, Thirteen, Raphael - 3rd years
Asmodeus, Beelzbub, Belphie - 2nd Year
Solomon, Mc, Luke - First Years
Putting everyone around about the same year [though Luci is still oldest, Belphie youngest, ect]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mc would find a letter in their letter box as owls surrounded their family home. As they picked up the letter they would look at the back and the front before tearing the top open.
'Dear Mx [Last Name],
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress'
Mc would stare at the letter confused before going inside. "Mama! Mom! I got a weird letter!"
.
.
.
That was the day you learnt your Mom was a witch - your other Mom was definitely surprised at that news as well. You would learn a lot about yourself that day. Your Mom assumed you wouldn't make it as you are a muggle - adopted into their family. Your biological parents were unknown - so no one really knew your heritage - the conversation left at that.
You would find yourself entering inside of a placed called "The Leaky Cauldron" before going to the back and entering inside of a street hidden by a wall.
"Woah..." Mc's eyes darted from place to place - seeing how students would wonder around the area.
"It's been so long since I've come here." Your Mom sighed and smiled. "I remember my first time visiting here." Your Mama huffed. "I still can't believe you kept it from me dear." Your Mom grinned and smiled. "I forgot." "You forgot?! How"
Your Mom sighed and looked at Mc. "You can go ahead towards Ollivander's to get a wand, your Mama and I are going to collect your text books." Your Ma handed over a small purse of money. "It's your money to buy something nice for school. We will get everything else for you. Have fun exploring." Your Mom would drag away your Mama who was rambling about how she was still salty her wife had been keeping the secret!
A small sigh left you as you started to wander around each location. Your eyes watched as the children would chatter about a new broom stick that came out or talk about how they got a bad jelly bean.
Mc pushed opened the door to Ollivander's before someone shouted. "Watch out!" Mc ducked as some books were flung across the room.
Mc glanced up to see 2 teens standing inside. One was older than the smaller one who was looking scared as he held onto the wand. "That one won't do." The shop keeper hummed as he took the wand away to put away.
"Sorry!" The younger boy squeaked as he looked horrified. The older one just laughed a bit. "Sorry, you are not hurt are you?" Mc shook their head a bit and looked at the place that was stocked fill of different wands.
"Are you also here to get a wand?" Mc looks at the older male. "Yeah I am..." The male smiled a bit. "Luke here, is also getting his. Though I think he is scared after that event." He laughed a bit, getting the younger boy - Luke - to puff up. "Simeon! Don't make fun! I almost hurt someone!"
Simeon ruffled the blonde male's hair and hummed. "It's not the worst I've seen happen. I destroyed almost a whole shelf of wands the first attempt I did."
Simeon looked back at you. "Apologies. We didn't introduce ourselves. My name is Simeon. This is Luke." Simeon jestered over to the smaller male. "I'm a 4th year in Hogwarts." "I'm a first year." Mc looked at the two.
"I'm a first year too." Mc smiled a bit. "It's nice to meet you. My name is Mc."
Simeon smiled. "Well, I wish you a good stay at Hogwarts. We'll be seeing each other around. Hopefully. Another one of our friends is starting his year at Hogwarts too. And I'm sure that the rest of our friends will be happy to meet you."
As the gentleman behind the counter came over and handed another wand to Luke to try, he nervously looked at Simeon, who nods his head and smiled.
Luke took a deep breath and flicked the wand, luckily it didn't destroy anything this time. "Thats it. The perfect wand for you." The gentleman smiled as Luke's eyes lit up a bit. As the two were finishing up, Simeon gave a last wave before leaving with Luke, who was excitedly talking about getting his new wand.
"Hello there..." The gentleman at the counter greeted you. "Shall we find you your perfect wand?"
Mc nods their head. As The male grabbed the first wand, you would flick it - causing a plant pot to break instantly, causing you to place the wand back down.
"No the wand clearly..." The male hummed as he continued to search before taking another wand. "Try this one."
Mc would pick it up and flicks it, causing various wands to fall off of the shelf. "Not it..." As the male continued to look. He started to chat with Mc a bit.
"So what brought you to go to Hogwarts?" Mc looked at the gentleman. "Well, I didn't know my Mom was a witch, and I'm not related to her or my other Mama... So I'm going to figure out what I want to do while I'm at Hogwarts... Find my own path."
The gentleman hums as he soon looked at a certain box and pulled it off of the shelf. "Why not try this one. A phoenix core, Flexible, 12 inches, Yew Wood..." He listed off the attributes before handing the wand off to Mc, who flicked it - surprising nothing bad happened.
"The perfect wand." The gentleman smiled as he took the wand and placed it into the box again and pushes it over to Mc, who took it and thanked him. "Hope you enjoy your time at Hogwarts and find out what you want to do."
Mc would continue their journey before entering inside of a store where they were selling school uniforms and different clothing items.
"Asmo, are you going to take much longer." A white haired male called out as the guy beside him was playing on a handheld console - he didn't seem to care about what was going on around him.
"Beauty takes time! I need to find the best thing to wear for my first day as a second year!"
Mc would just walk past over to the stall where the lady in front would help Mc with getting their uniform.
As they were fitting on the outfit - they chose to get a scarf as well to complete the outfit. "I'm gonna come and drag ya out of there!" As Mc left the room, they would head out before bumping into someone, slamming into their chest.
Mc looked up to be faced with the white hair male from before. Mc apologized quickly - before hearing grumbling from the white hair "Ya better be sorry."
Mc continued down and paid for the clothing and headed out quickly.
They would continue on their way through the street and stopped in front of a window to see a broomstick on that students earlier were whispering about.
"Beel, Lucifer won't be happy if you break another broom..." A male yawned a bit as he left with a taller orange hair male.
"Yeah, I know... We should go and check out the stalls. One of them were selling things from Hogsmeade." The Orange hair male commented as he held a broomstick over his shoulder. "Let's go Belphie." "Alright Beel..."
The shorter male with dark blue hair and white highlights hummed as he followed the orange hair out to one of the stalls.
They would continue to roam around before stopping at a shop with magical creatures of Owls, Toads and Cats...
"For the last time Satan, I am not letting you get a cat." Mc poked their head around the corner to find a blond hair male holding onto a black cat and glaring at the black-haired male who was crossing his arms.
"Levi got to bring a goldfish! Even though the school didn't say that he could! Why can't I get a cat?! It was even allowed in the rules!"
"You know why Satan." the black-haired male sighed as he went to try and get the cat from Satan's arms, who pulled away glaring at him. It was getting more intense, and Mc didn't know what to do so they just...
"I think you should let him get the cat..." The two males looked towards Mc who felt like they were shrinking under the glaring gaze of the taller one.
"What did you say." The black-haired male's voice deepened as he went closer to Mc.
Before Mc could speak, the blonde hair male started to speak. "They agree with me. I can get a cat."
"You are not going to disobey me Satan. Some opinion from a half-blooded witch/wizard doesn't matter." For some reason what he said irked you. You glared a bit at the black-haired male.
"Half-blooded wizard/witch? Excuse me. I'm not halfblooded or whatever you said!" The black-haired male went up to you and glared down at you, you could feel yourself sinking and shaking at his gaze.
"What are you then? Full blooded? I would have heard if there were more full-blooded witches and wizards going to Hogwarts. Both of your parents aren't Witches and Wizards are they." Mc opened their mouth but what they said came out as a stutter.
"W-well... I don't know..." "You don't know?" Mc shook their head.
The black-haired male seemed to piece some things together before standing up. "You are the mud blood student that Diavolo mentioned." The male's face seemed to change to disgust for a moment as he dusted his hands on his jacket. "I don't have time for you. Satan. We are going. And you are not getting a cat."
Mc watched as he left - dragging the blonde hair male behind him - leaving the black cat with white paws behind....
Mc only realized how scared they were as they couldn't see clearly.
"Mc! Honey! We got everything." You looked to see your mothers coming over with bags filled with different items. "You look like you got your wand." Your Mom grinned as she took the box. "Ah, its almost like mine! I had Unicorn core, and it was inflexible...and Hazel wood... okay maybe not the same..."
Mc nods their head a bit as their eyes glance at the black-haired male and the blonde hair male walking off in the distance.
"Something wrong dear?" Mc looked at their Mama before shaking their head.
"No... nothing is wrong... But...can I get a cat?"
.
.
.
A few weeks would pass before you would find yourself heading through a wall between platform 3 and 4 to find the train to Hogwarts.
Your mother would kiss you goodbye while your Mama squeezes you into a hug, not letting you go.
"Mama, I need to go." Mc huffed a bit before their Mama let go and smiled a bit. "I can't believe my baby is growing up into a... wizard/witch?"
"Yeah... a Witch/Wizard..." Mc smiled a bit and picked up their bag. They would look at the black cat inside of carrier and smiled a bit.
"Come on Mittens, lets start our first school year. Together."
Mc would head off towards the entrance, handing over the ticket to the conductor before looking for an empty stall. There was an empty room which they put their bags under the seat with the cat carrier next to them. They took a deep breath and looked out the window where they could see their mothers waving towards them. Mc blushes a bit out of embarrassment but waved back a bit.
"Excuse me." Mc jumped a bit to see two males waiting at the door. The taller one grinned a bit. "Do you mind if we join you?" Mc shook their head.
"Feel free to... Um.." "Diavolo." The red head smiled and jestered over to the male next to him. "Barbatos."
"Mc." Mc smiled a bit. Diavolo took a moment before his eyes lit up as he sat down across from Mc, with Barbatos sitting next to him.
"You're the new Muggle Wizard/Witch!" Mc looks at Diavolo.
"Um...yes? I think I am?" Barbatos cleared his throat.
"Muggle means you don't have wizard or witch parents." Mc nods their head, thanking Barbatos for the explanation. "My Mom is a witch, though I'm adopted..."
"You are the first Muggle Wizard/Witch that has been allowed inside of Hogwarts. The Past before this year, only allowed those who are half-blooded or Pure-Blooded witches and wizards"
The first...Muggle wizard\witch? You stared down at your hands.
" I hope you're excited to see Hogwarts." Diavolo smiled "You will make a great wizard\witch Mc."
Mc smiled weakly. "Thank you Diavolo..."
Soon a tram filled with sweets went by - which got stopped by Diavolo who bought a bunch of sweets for himself.
"Mc, feel free to take as much as you want. Take it as my welcome to Hogwarts for you."
The door to the tram soon opened to reveal a magenta haired male standing there. He wore an outfit with green colouring on it - unlike Diavolo who had red "There you are! I've been looking for you. I've been wanting to ask you to tell me who is the Muggle student-" Soon the male noticed Mc sitting across from Diavolo.
"Mephistopheles." Diavolo smiled at the male. "I want you to meet Mc, our new Muggle Wizard/witch."
"Hi...I'm Mc." Mc smiled a bit as they played with the bottom of their uniform.
For the rest of the ride, you were being questioned by the new presence of Mephisto.
.
.
.
You would stand in a group of new students as you waited outside of the great hall. "Mc?" A voice called and you turned to see a familiar blonde who you had met while getting your wand.
"Luke. Hey." Mc smiled a bit as they looked at Luke, who smiled back a bit. "How are you."
"I'm a bit nervous. I want to be in Hufflepuff with Simeon...but I can't decide that..." "Hufflepuff?" Mc tilted their head a bit. Which Luke nods his head. "Yeah, what house do you want to be in?"
"Well...I don't know...I don't know any-"
"Who are you talking to Chihuahua?" A teasing voice came from behind.
"I'm not a Chihuahua!" A huff came from Luke as he looked at a new male who entered the conversation. The white-haired male looked to see Mc and smiled.
"Mc, right? I've heard about you from Simeon." Mc looked at the new guy and they nodded their head. "My name is Solomon. I'm a first year too. You are the Muggle Witch/Wizard."
"Muggle...witch/wizard?" Luke looked at Mc. "I thought Hogwarts didn't allow Muggles?"
"There was some sort of exception this year. If you want to know more, you can ask Diavolo." Luke shook his head.
"I'm not talking to Any Gryffindor or Slytherin or Ravenclaw!" Luke huffed. "And some Hufflepuffs! Only gonna talk to You, Simeon, Raphael and Mc. Especially not the brothers.
Before you could ask questions, a new person entered the room. Professor McGonagall told everyone to quiet down as she would explain to everyone the different houses and roles.
As the group started to enter the building. Mc was shocked by seeing the floating candles above them before their eyes looked over at the different tables.
The first-person Mc saw was Diavolo who was waving towards them. Mc smiled a bit and waved slightly before noticing a familiar black-haired male beside him, his red eyes seemed to notice Mc and he watched them as they were walking with the group.
Mc would see sitting at the table behind was a group with yellow coloured uniform.
Simeon was sitting there, and he smiled a bit, Mc noticed Luke looking at Simeon and waving slightly. Though a familiar group of people who Mc met on their adventure were at the same table. The white hair who they bumped into while getting their uniform plus the guy on his console who was seemingly grumpy about something. One stood out which was the orange haired male who was looking over at the table on the other side of the room.
Mc would look at the table with Blue on their uniform. A familiar blonde cat lover was sitting at the table. While at the final table, Mc noticed Barbatos with green on his uniform and beside him sat a sleeping male with white and blue hair while a white-grey haired male was nearby who seemingly was looking at Luke as he was walking with Mc and Solomon. The final two at the table that stood out to Mc was a champagne-haired male looking at a mirror trying to fix the scarf around his neck and a girl with pink and blue hair seeming glaring at Solomon who was grinning and waving at her.
"Do you know her?" Mc asks softly to Solomon who nods his head. "Let's just say we have some history together."
Soon standing in front and Professor McGonagall was talking. "Welcome to Hogwarts. Before the Welcome Feast, we must sort all first-year students into their proper houses." As she explained how it worked, people were being called up.
As Luke sat on the chair he closed his eyes, crossing his fingers in hoping to get which one he wants. "Hufflepuff!" Luke cheered to himself a bit before getting off the stool. Once his uniform changed colours, he found his way over to Simeon, who welcomed him with open arms.
As a few more went. Solomon sat on the stool, as the hat was placed, he would wait before it shouted out. "Ravenclaw!" He would change into blue robes and find his way to a seat next to the blonde who looked up from his book to greet Solomon.
"[Last Name] MC." McGonagall called out. Mc would find themselves heading up and settling on their seat.
As Mc looked at the groups of students at each table, they closed their eyes and waited for what house they would be in.
"You are in..."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fun fact: The Headmaster isn't Dumbledore as it will be the Demon Lord [I ran out of characters so I'm using most of the Harry Potter characters for those I can't replace]
Longest thing i've written WOOO
#Obey me!#Harry Potter au#obey me harry potter au#obey me#obey me x mc#obey me x reader#obey me lucifer#obey me satan#obey me mammon#obey me leviathan#om lucifer#om x mc#om x reader#om#omswd#om!#obey me beelzebub#obey me mc#obey me barbatos#obey me belphegor x reader#obey me x mc belphie#obey me levi x mc#obey me lucifer x mc#obswd#harry potter au obey me#om harry potter au
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prompts 10 and 20 with natasha?
Natasha Romanoff x Reader: Hide and Seek
AAAAAHHHH YEEESSSS! I was having a terrible night but now I'M SO EXCITED! Thank you anon <3
Prompts: "Don't fall." and "How'd you lose a shoe?"
Description: Reader and Natasha are forced into one of Tony's ridiculous parties. Superheroes playing hide and seek? Hm.
Gender: no pronouns used but reader is referred to as "Lady"
WARNINGS: none!
*not my gif* (i <3 sassy nat)
"But I'm tired!" You flop onto Natasha's bed dramatically.
"Yeah, so am I, but Tony won't let us live it down if we don't go." She is tying the belt of her kick-ass striped flare pants. And you get to hug her all night.
She grabs your arm. "C'mon," she literally drags you up and you groan.
Per usual, the two of you are the last to arrive.
"There they are!" Tony shouts. "Fashionably late. Again."
"You're lucky I'm here at all." You mutter under your breath.
"Lady Y/N, come see these wonderful candies!" Thor beckons you away from Natasha, of whom you were clinging onto very tightly.
Reluctantly, you unattach yourself from your girlfriend and stalk over to Thor, who is holding out a bowl of-
"Pixie sticks?" You give him a look. "Who gave you these?"
"Clint Barton." He smiles.
You turn and find Hawkeye. "Really? You have him sticks of sugar?"
"He's a god, probably won't affect him. Had to take them from my kids." Clint shrugs.
Well, if they're out. You take a red stick, rip it open, and tilt the whole thing in your mouth at once like it's a shot. You don't like alcohol. Sugar is the next best thing sometimes.
"I propose we play some games." Tony speaks up above everyone.
A few annoyed "ugh"s come from the Avengers, but this does not deter him.
"Hide and seek!" He flourishes his hands and takes a bow before sitting back down.
"Um, no." Clint smacks him with a drumstick.
"What is this game you speak of?" Thor asks.
"Everyone hides and one person has to try and find everyone." You explain. "It's a kids' game."
"And I am a kid at heart." Tony adds. "Team bonding, we're doing it."
"What's in it for us?" Natasha speaks up.
"How about you play the game and I won't tell FRIDAY to turn off your room's air conditioning?" Tony smirks.
Natasha rolls her eyes.
"Alright, fine." Steve says. "Let's just do it, then."
"Great!" Tony stands up. "You all go hide, I'll count to 100."
"Why do you get to count?" You grumble.
"Air conditioning," he whispers.
"Fine." You quickly flip him off.
"1," Tony suddenly shouts, scaring you. The group shares a few looks and shrugs before Thor is the first to walk away.
You cling back onto Natasha's arm and start to drag her away. She shakes you off.
"I'm not hiding with you."
"What? Why?" You give her puppy eyes.
She laughs. "Your loud breathing will give me away!"
"I don't breathe loud!" You are very offended.
"Sure you don't." She gives you a sly smile.
"Well, I don't want to hide with you anyway." You fold your arms and walk in the opposite direction
And you keep walking.
Down three very, very empty hallways. Why are there no hiding places in this entire building?!
Finally, you stumble into the kitchen. You suddenly remember that Wanda had gone on a cleaning spree yesterday and emptied two of the cabinets.
Perfect.
You are too far away to hear Tony counting anymore so you quickly crouch down and open the door.
"Hey!" Natasha whisper-shouts. You stare in shock. "This is my hiding place, go away!"
"This is the only place I could think of!" You whisper. "Where am I supposed to go?"
"Too bad, I got here first." Natasha flicks her hand against your arm and shuts the cabinet door.
Where are you supposed to go now?
"Mr. Stark has reached 100 and is actively seeking." FRIDAY announces.
Ah, shit. Okay. Any enclosed spaces around here?
Then, your eye catches the tiny space above the fridge. It's dark and no one would think to look up there.
You definitely very gracefully climb onto the countertop and push yourself onto the fridge. You swing your leg up to try and stay on but end up slipping back down.
Again, you jump and your leg stays in place this time, but your sandal is about to fall off. You shimmy the rest of the way up, desperately trying to hold onto the sandal with your foot. Just as you start to sit down, the sandal slips to the ground with a soft thud.
Natasha's cabinet opens slightly to see the commotion.
She lets out a surprised laugh. "Don't fall."
You roll your eyes. "Thanks for the confidence."
She closes the cabinet again and you wait in silence.
Only a few seconds later, you hear footsteps coming from down the hall. You definitely can't get the shoe in time.
Tony rounds the corner and immediately sees the shoe. But instead of looking up, he looks right at Natasha's cabinet.
"Haha, found you!" He triumphantly yells. "Lost a shoe," he kicks the shoe toward her.
"That's not mine." Natasha says smugly, absolutely meaning for you to hear that.
Tony does an evil laugh. "Y/N, I'm coming for you."
Natasha stands up against the counter as Tony starts searching the other cabinets. She makes eye contact with you and grins. You stick your tongue out.
"Where in hell-" Tony stops mid sentence, eyeing where Natasha had been looking. "There you are! Two down!"
He leaves the room. Natasha comes over to the fridge as you start to untangle your limbs so you can get down.
"I hate you." You mutter. "You're the worst."
"I know." She smirks. "How'd you lose a shoe?"
"I don't wanna talk about it." You jump down from the counter and trip.
"How many pixie sticks did you have?" Natasha laughs.
"Shut up!" You ram your shoulder into her arm but a smile is growing on your face.
💫
Once everyone was found, Tony picked the next counter. Well, you bribed him by saying you would pretend not to find him until last.
Before you close your eyes, you give Natasha an 'I'm gonna get you back' look. She raises her eyebrows like 'oh, really? try.'
You count to a hundred, skipping the sixties because the numbers were starting to loose meaning in your head.
Immediately after FRIDAY makes the announcement, you are on a mission. You start heading to Natasha's room first and find Bruce hiding behind a plant.
Natasha's room is a dud, but on your way to the living room you find Thor hiding in a pile of laundry.
The only person in the living room is Tony. He hid between the cushions, only his arc reactor's glow gave him away. He complained that you broke his agreement.
Steve, Bucky, and Rhodes were lamely making an attempt in the training room.
Wanda was in a chandelier over the stairs. You argued that it was an invalid spot because no everyone could fly. Tony disagreed and you continued.
Clint was in a vent. Obviously.
Vision was levitating behind a curtain. You argued against that, too.
And then you realized you found everyone except Natasha. You give yourself a little kick. You let her win.
You checked everywhere, right? Living room, hallways, workout room, her bedroom, your bedroom. . . .
You forgot the kitchen. Dammit. Of course.
You walk with a purpose to the kitchen and right over to her cabinet. Of course she would hide in the same spot to trick you. You open the door but it's empty. Then, you hear something fall to the ground behind you.
A shoe.
You look up and there she is. On the fridge.
You burst into laughter.
"You're right." She says as she starts climbing down. "This is a good spot if you don't drop your shoe."
"You literally gave me away!" You exclaim.
"That's a matter of opinion." She sassily leans up against the fridge.
"Nat!" You yell with a smile.
"Ready to go to sleep?" Natasha finally stops her teasing.
"Absolutely not!" You give her a challenging look. "I'm not done until I beat you."
Thanks for reading and THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for my first request! Don't steal, not joking 👀
Buy me a coffee?
#natasha x you#natasha x y/n#natasha romanoff x reader#marvel x reader#marvel x y/n#avengers x y/n#avengers x you#avengers x reader#natasha romanoff#fanfictions#fluff#natasha x reader#natasha romanoff fanfic
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what if i just uhh
shows up in your inbox with songs
i have to pick this for shinsou because i simply must:
kami feels like this atm:
and then for me i''m picking this bc it's been living in my brain recently:
just wanted to let u know that i adore u <333
EVIE, HIII BABES I WAS AWAITING YOUR ARRIVAL!!
Hitsoshi Shinsou x Denki Kaminari x Reader 0.7k
READ: the reader's chosen name will be 'Eve', and variations of their name will be used in this work, since I'm writing this with her in mind. The reader will be referred to using "she" & "they" pronouns, as those are Eve's preferred pronouns.
If you have an issue with that, don't read this work. It's for Eve, but anyone can read for their enjoyment as well!
~THE CULT OF HOT DEMON BEHAVIOUR~
“Want... Kami.. wanna see h-” Shinsou cuts you off with a firm grip around your throat. His hooded eyes aren’t giving away any clues to what he’s feeling, but from your seat in his lap, you feel his thighs tense.
“You’ll get to see him when he’s done changing, I already told you.” His fingers around your neck twitch and he leans down to press a kiss on your forehead.
Your mouth falls open and a shiver wracks your body instead of responding. Fluttering eyelids meet your boyfriend’s smirk, his mouth starts moving- probably to say words -you theorize. Whatever is leaving that pretty mouth of his goes unheard by your ears. Instead, your head is swimming in a gooey pool of trying to remember the name of his cologne- it’s probably something stupid like.. 9Lives, Dark Matter- no that’s too edgy-
The warm, custom collar of Shinsou’s fingers recedes and the world around you trickles back into focus. You carefully turn yourself around in his lap, like a cat finding the perfect napping spot. Your droopy eyes turn toward the closed bathroom door.
“-Kay, I’m ready!” Kaminari’s voice slices through the dissipating fog in your swamp of a mind. The bathroom door swings open and he jumps out behind it wearing an oversized hoodie with a Gengar print on its purple two-tone front. You recognize it as one of yours.
You feel Shinsou's growing arousal, in the clearing of his throat, and in the growing warmth of his pants.
“Do I sense a siiimp?” Kaminari plops onto the backward chair set in front of you and sticks out a leg, “Is it you, 'Toshi?”
Your eyes drop to Kaminari's legs.
The milky skin of his thighs through the thin ribs of black fishnets stare back.
Shinsou says nothing, but you can feel his gaze over your shoulder and just the thought of how his eyes must look sends a tingling to your arms and through your fingers.
"Oh ho ho, it is!" The sweet staccato of Kaminari's giggles has you getting up without thinking, and Shinsou doesn't stop you from approaching your other boyfriend.
Kaminari watches with a lopsided grin as your gaze moves up and down, up and down.
Just a hoodie and fishnets, just fishnets and a hoodie. Does he have underwear on under the hoodie- your hoodie?
Your hand reaches out to cup the side of his face. He tilts his head back to look at the ceiling, avoiding you and Shinsou, and your eyes catch the bob of his adam's apple.
"Kami."
"Uh huh?" Still watching the ceiling.
"You have underwear on?"
His head falls forward, gaze trained on your mouth. "Nuh uh."
He watches you purse your lips, then his gaze flits to Shinsou already getting up and coming over.
"Are you a fan of my outfit, babes?" His grin is directed at you while his eyes track his boyfriend's approach.
Before you can even nod, Shinsou's fingers are gripping your shoulder and holding you in place. You might as well be glued to the floor.
"Thought you were gunna wear mine." His voice is low on Kaminari's neck, causing the corners of his grin to twitch slightly.
"Mm, but theirs smells better than yours, stinky." His tongue finds the side of Shinsou's face and he launches a big wad of spit onto his boyfriend's cheek.
Shinsou is dragging you back into the living room, "You're not gunna touch him, Eve."
He turns to address Kaminari, "Stay."
"Heyy! I'm not a little cat."
Shinsou raises an eyebrow, silent.
A meow rings out from somewhere else in the house, bouncing off walls to reach you. You have to cover your mouth with your free hand to keep from laughing-- it doesn't work.
You lean into Shinsou's side, whispering a possible translation of your cat's screaming.
He nods along with you and finally looks back at Kaminari seated sideways on the chair. "Georgie's right, Denki-" His smirk is downright amused, "You're just a dog. And this-" His arm snakes around your waist, pulling you into his chest.
You swear his voice drops a whole octave. Your ears ring with the rumble in his chest.
"This is my kitten."
You chime in, equally amused and bolstered by Shinsou's teasing.
"Now we're gunna have fun, and you get to watch- like a good boy."
@shin-kam-eve
#sunkingwrites#sunkingdrabbles#sunkingrots#eve <3#shinkameve#she/they pronouns#denki <3#shinsou <3#shinkami x reader#gn reader#bnha x reader#mha x reader#<333
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Аня, привет! У меня есть вопрос - it's fine if you don't want to answer!
Since I'm nonbinary myself, I wanted to ask how you refer to yourself in russian? or if you know which options people use? most google results i found are from 4-5 years ago so i'm not sure if they're up to date
спасибо большое 💙
hi, renée, it's all good! i am actually thrilled to have an opportunity to rant
the other day i was listening to a podcast with a russian comedian who recently came out as non-binary, and they said they were never able to fully comprehend just how thoroughly grammatically gendered the russian language is before deciding to go by different pronouns... and i've never felt more understood lol
this is going to be kind of long, because i love to talk about languages, but i'm also not an actual linguist, so excuse me if some of my wording is off
so, there are two most common options that i know of:
the first one is они/их, the equivalent of the english they/them
russian-speaking people often have the same old complaint about it being "strictly plural", But when referring to someone with the formal "you" ("вы"), which is the same word as the plural "you", the endings of the verbs are the same too (hence, a phrase like "Как вы себя чувствуете?" ("How are you feeling?") could be used for a singular person and no one would bat an eye)*, so it certainly has potential! it becomes much trickier when you're talking in first person, though, especially in past tense, as sentences like "Я чувствовали себя отлично" ("I felt great") sound "wrong" and grammatically incorrect to an unprepared ear
the second one is оно/его, the equivalent of the english it/its
yet again, the same complaint about it being intended for inanimate objects, and, therefore, dehumanizing. but we need to remember that while words like "солнце" (sun), "яблоко" (apple) or "одеяло" (blanket) are referred to as "оно", there are also words that mean inanimate objects that are referred to as "она" ("she"), like "стена" (wall), or as "он" ("he"), like "ковёр" (rug), and that doesn't suddenly make them living things. neither does it depend on anything more than "idk, it just sounded right" — like, nobody's going to argue that a rug somehow has more masculine qualities than a wall. so, i say we are certainly capable of moving past that
there are also always neopronouns, but i don't think i'm qualified enough to talk about them, so i just won't
that leaves us with two options that both sound strange at first, but start to feel more organic the more you hear it and the more you use it. or, in other words, language is ever-evolving, and we need to quit being little bitches about it
that being said, i go by она/её in russian — the funny thing about being bilingual is that seemingly equivalent things sometimes don't feel the same at all. i'm way more comfortable with она/её than i am with she/her. though, i've noticed that i'm not a huge fan of strangers using it, so i ask to be referred to by the formal "you" and just try to avoid using the first person past tense verbs by using passive voice or Rephrasing™ instead. i wish i could use они/их for myself, but i'm not ready for all the explaining it requires, at least yet
*i also came up with a different example, but i'm not sure how it classifies lol. anyway, sentences like, for example, "i was told" translate the same way as "they told me" — "мне сказали". even if it was just one person. all the more reasons to get over the fear of the singular "они"!
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HI, WELCOME AND SOME RULES
Good morning, Good afternoon and Good night. And welcome to my blog.
I'll introduce myself!
My name is Nucci.
I'm 20 years old.
My pronouns are he/him and she/her.
I'm a VERY multifandom person and I always accept to know new works, so don't be afraid, tell me what you like or something you think I'll like.
The blog is written in english and brazilian portuguese.
Bom dia, boa tarde, boa noite. E seja muito bem-vindo ao meu blog.
Vou me apresentar!
meu nome é Nucci.
tenho 20 anos
Meus pronomes são ele/dele e ela /dela.
Sou uma pessoa MUITO multifandom e sempre aceito conhecer novas obras, então não tema, me conte o que você gosta ou algo que você ache que eu vou gostar.
O blog será escrito em inglês e em português brasileiro.
Lista de Personagens/Character List
Lista de Fandom/Fandom List
Playlists
Twitter
DO NOT DO!
Interact with my stories being a MINOR.
Well, my stories are aimed at an audience over 18, please if you are under 18, please do not interact.
Being a shit person!
HAVE SENSE!
Any prejudice, no matter what, will NOT be tolerated here, in short: OUT
NÃO FAÇA!
Interagir com minhas histórias sendo MENOR DE IDADE.
Bem, minhas histórias são direcionadas para um público maior de 18 anos, por favor se tiver uma idade abaixo de 18 não interaja.
TENHA BOM SENSO!
Qualquer preconceito, não importando qual seja, NÃO será tolerado aqui, resumindo: FORA
ABOUT THE BLOG
This is a fanfiction blog, and please make yourself at home here, no need to be ashamed!
We all share love for fandoms and characters!
I've been writing for a few years, but I took the courage to post on tumblr now.
I do both shipp fanfiction and Imagine fanfiction.
Here we are kinkfriendly.
Don't worry I'll always put TW in my fanfictions, and sometimes I explain the kinks that are being used.
I love music, so most of the stories I write will have references to one or two songs that helped me through the creative process.
The songs will always be available in playlists on youtube. The playlist update 1-10 songs per day
CONTENT WARNING
NSFW & SFW
The blog is NSFW content (+18) This means that, as already mentioned, the target audience is precisely people over eighteen years of age. Sometimes we'll have a headcannon here or there that is SFW but remember it's pretty rare. If you are underage, get out of here.
KINKS, FETISHES, BDSM AMONG OTHER PRACTICES
Yes, this is a totally free space, talk to me, ask for what you want, we will make your wish come true. The rare are the ones that I don't do, I already say here that I don't do cnc fanfictions.
SONG
As I said before I love music and yes, you can send me your way!
PERSONAL SPACE
The box is open, you can say good morning, tell me something, you can always talk to me!
FREQUENCY
EVERYDAY: NSFW Headcannon usually shorter, over some random character. ONE OR ONCE OR TWICE A WEEK: Fanfic (shipp or imagine) or a more elaborate headcannon.
TWICE A WEEK: Open box for confessions (a lot of 2015 tumblr in mind) confess things you've thought about a character or scene from movie, game, animation, anime, series.
THE GOOD OLD REQUEST RULES
Here is a very open blog, we are sexfriendly and kinkfriendly (as already mentioned). But I have some rules:
I DO NOT DO FANFICTIONS WITH UNDERAGE CHARACTERS!
Any application involving romanticization of sexual abuse, sexual harassment, incest, abusive or violent relationships, drug abuse will not be accepted.
Applications that involve the romanticization of mental disorders will not be accepted, mental health is very important! Please if possible seek help and take care.
As described before the blog is NSFW and SFW content is also allowed.
As this is a multifandom blog, I recommend that you order in the following way.
Character name- fandom- request
SOBRE O BLOG
Este é um blog de fanfiction, e por favor sinta-se em casa aqui, não precisa se envergonhar!
Todos nós compartilhamos amor por fandoms e personagens!
Escrevo há alguns anos, mas tomei coragem para postar no tumblr agora.
Eu faço fanfiction de shipp e fanfic de Imagine.
Aqui somos kinkfriendly.
Não se preocupe eu sempre coloco TW nas minhas fanfics, e às vezes eu explico os kinks que estão sendo usados.
Eu amo música, então a maioria das histórias que escrevo terão referências a uma ou duas músicas que me ajudaram no processo criativo.
As músicas estarão sempre disponíveis em playlists no youtube. A playlist atualiza com 1-10 músicas por dia.
AVISO DE CONTEÚDO
NSFW & SFW
O blog é de conteúdo NSFW (+18)
O quer dizer, que já como já citado o público direcionado são justamente pessoas maiores de dezoito anos.
Algumas vezes teremos uma headcannon aqui ou ali que é SFW mas lembre-se que é bem raro.
se você é menor de idade, saia daqui.
KINKS, FETICHES, BDSM ENTRE OUTRAS PRÁTICAS
Sim, aqui é um espaço totalmente livre, converse comigo, peça a vontade, faremos seu desejo ser realidade.
O raros são os que eu não faço, já digo aqui que não faço fanfictions de cnc.
MUSICA
Como disse antes amo músicas e sim, podem me amndar a vontade!
ESPAÇO PESSOAL
a caixa está aberta, podem me mandar bom dia, contar alguma coisa, podem falar comigo sempre!
FREQUÊNCIA
TODO DIA: Headcannon NSFW geralmente mais curta, sobre algum personagem aleatório.
UMA OU DUAS VEZES NA SEMANA: Fanfic (shipp ou imagine) ou uma headcannon mais elaborada.
DUAS VEZES NA SEMANA: Caixa aberta para confissões (muito tumblr de 2015 na mente) confesse coisas que já pensou sobre um personagem ou cena de filme, jogo,animação, anime, série.
A BOA E VELHA REGRAS DE PEDIDOS DO BLOG
aqui é um blog bem aberto, somos sexfriendly e kinkfriendly(como já mencionado). Mas tenho algumas regras:
EU NÃO FAÇO FANFICTIONS COM PERSONAGENS MENORES DE IDADES!
Não será aceito quaisquer pedido envolvendo romantização de abuso sexual, assedio sexual, incesto, relações abusivas ou violentas, abuso de drogas.
3. Não será aceito pedidos que envolvam a romantização de transtornos mentais, saúde mental é muito importante! Por favor se possível busque ajuda e se cuide.
Como descrito antes o blog é NSFW e o conteúdo SFW também é permitido.
Por se tratar de um blog multifandom recomendo que faça o pedido da segunte maneira.
Nome do personagem- fandom- pedido
#blog rules#ask box open#requests are open#fanfiction#fanfic#multifandom#castelvania#boku no hero#bungou stray dogs#death note#haikyuu#hellsing#hunter x hunter#jojos bizarre adventure#naruto#sailor moon#shingeki nokyoujin#soul eater#carmilla#dracula#frankstein#fallen saga#the phantom of the opera#the pictur of dorian gray#the scarlet letter#the strenge case of dr.jekyll and mr.hyde#twilight saga#dc comics#dceu#marvel
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Back on my nonsense with Satan
This long post is more about my interpretations and me translating those into my writing so it's not really a breakdown but more of a... a... it's a braindump that's what this is.
Prefaces:
This will be covering Satan, if you don't want to expose yourself to that feel free to leave no judgement here :)
This will also be covering the vilification of women in abrahamic religions, this is *not* representative of those who follow these faiths or the overarching ideologies- religions are diverse, many people contribute, many ideas are amalgamated, this post is not about bashing these faiths
This post will also be covering some dharmic ideas too! These ideas are not representative of the faiths as a whole or their followers, what I will be looking at is a tiny sliver of something much, much larger
Also, this is super-duper messy, I’ll probably rehash this when I have time with some actual structure and more solid arguments because I re-read this and it hurts my brain pfft
Finally, the usual apology, sorry for any grammatical mistakes!
Now, on with the ramble!
So, it's an ungodly hour and I should be sleeping but alas! I'm not.
Because an idea has popped into my head.
What is it with Satan and women? Why is this typically attributed male creature a representative of femininity?
Then, I do a bit of digging and a bit of thinking. You see, it all started with Eve and then it expanded from there.
Eve is often seen as the embodiment of women, she's all women rolled into one. Eve is shorthand for woman. And Eve also was the one who fell for Satan's ploy and ate the apple, thus dooming all of humanity and all of women. Tsk. Tsk. Eve, I would've spotted those red flags from a mile away. What are you doing, babes?!🙄
Anyways, jokes aside, Eve was the one who was seduced and was the one who fell from grace and brought all of us with her. She's at fault. Thus, women are at fault. Eve's feminine mind was easily manipulated by the sultry words of the og bad boy and it cost her everything. Why? Because she's vulnerable. She's corruptible. And she demonstrates that in spite of being Adam's literal rib, she's separate.
Eve defies and separates herself from the holy man. Who else did this a couple chapters before? Oh yeah, the Devil.
Satan defies God and separates himself from the holy man.
Both are cold reflections in this respect.
You know who else mirrored Satan's fall?
The woman before Eve! Lilith. She solidifies her separation from Adam, both literal in that she was not made from him but rather another mound of clay, but also spiritually. Lilith abandons her expectations and leaves, to later find a companion in the Beast.
So why is this so bizarre? Why is the Devil not only spurring on these women to make the 'woman's' mistake but also committing the feminine error himself?
Remember when I said he defied? Well, what if we put that in respects of his role. Satan is masculine, there's no denying that, he is constantly referred to by male pronouns and constantly associated with phallic imagery (think tridents, swords, spears) and hellenic male symbols too (the image of the horns and goat legs comes from satyrs, notorious for being creatures of male vices such as lusting, adultery and usually harassing women in their myths). Satan, to me at least, is male by nature. He is a he, but he somehow is mirrored by and associated with women. Because he both simultaneously defines and defies masculinity.
Satan confronts his gendered role as protector, going down a woman's path of being easily enraptured by his words (his pride could be seen here, man gets seduced by himself) and ends up falling. And time and time again women follow suit.
Why? Because he too is vulnerable. He's corruptible. He's delicate.
He's feminine.
Oooh! What a twist! The Devil, unbridled male destruction, the one who gives men bad thoughts, who represents male sin, is feminine?!
How?
Because Satan wants to be a God. He wants to be everything.
In a post a while ago, I made reference to an ESO quote about someone desiring to be "all races, all genders, everything" but inevitably only being themself. I love that quote so much because it summarises Satan.
Satan wants to be God. He wants to be Father. But, dare I say, he also wants to be Mother.
He lives vicariously through Eve, pulling the strings so that she fulfils the role he wanted. She becomes mother to all, but not without a satanic taint influencing the universe to come. Satan now has had a taste at being a mother, his original sin passing between her legs as she gives birth. However, he's never satisfied. He needs more.
This is where we get to my thoughts. And oh boy do these thoughts think!
So, Satan obviously has an affinity for women, desiring to embody all sides of the coin simultaneously. I mean this in a celestial being way, I'm not applying anything to do with our human views of gender and being those respective genders. Satan wants to be there for women, allow women to fulfil his need to be a patron god of all things feminine (I get this is a bit reductive in that it’s saying women are at this feminine end and men at the other, so I’m just going to clarify that I acknowledge gender isn’t necessarily a binary where you sit at either end) as well as the men who share this plane.
He makes more Eves. In Christian lore, especially during the witch hunts, word on the street was that women were more vulnerable to demonic forces because of their connection to Eve. However, what if it was the opposite way? Women don't have a special association with the Devil, the Devil does with women.
He talks to them, watches how they listen and encourages them to thrive, more like thrive by his interpretation of thriving (remember, Satan is a "my way or the highway" type guy). He doesn't understand them, not as well as he likes to think he does, but he offers his hand and chooses to be theirs.
Now, you can interpret this as the classical man assuming he knows women inside out and takes the reins on their problems.
Or you can see it as Satan embodying his role as protector.
Remember when I said a while back that in Satan's defiance, he fulfils his role as Adversary?
What if he is destruction and he is redeemer? He is the rage which spurs on change.
It reminds me of my favourite goddess, Kali. She is terrifying, this force of nature, destruction, time and change. But she is also protector. Protector of women. She protects by devouring the abusers, balancing the universe by destroying those who wish to upset power.
Arguably, Satan is doing something similar. Though it is selfish in his eyes, making God's augmented creation go out and eat apples and curse humanity, he's in fact balancing the universe. He is not selfless like Kali, nor kind like her. To compare the two would be like comparing fake Pinterest ivy to the Oxford Dictionary, like what you on about? How did you even-
They’re only similar in that they’re both embodiments of destruction and have an relationship with women, but don’t make the mistake of putting this Hindu goddess in Abrahamic terms!
But, in a way, he too is the ultimate mother, upsetting the power imbalance by imbuing his daughter (Eve) with the privilege of having the first taste of free will. Satan destroys, aggravates and manipulates reality to his will but in a twisted way he does this in service to his daughters.
Satan may not be able to entirely relate, to step down from his pedestal of power and privilege as both a masculine force and also an eldritch abomination, but he loves to terrify men by giving women power.
Yes, he's flawed, he's selfish, he's terrible. However, he's also doing his job. He is the Adversary and he will have his rage be wrought through opposition- be it separating the rib from the man, or making plans to destroy the world from his penthouse in Hell.
This ramble was made with a very mushy brain, so bear that in mind. Nevertheless, thank you for reading. These are basically glorified DeviantArt OC profiles lmaooo :D
#writing#abrahamic religions#horror#satan#ah yes writing#femininity#lucifer#brain dump#i keep crawling back to mandela catalogue for that sweet sweet inspiration#character making#original work#wip
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"Hello and welcome to our final class of the day! My name is Mrs. Toriel and I'm your English teacher!" She said, standing in front of the room. "Today we'll be discussing some common grammar errors students make."
Noelle sat down in one of the seats in the classroom, taking out the book she bought yesterday.
"Now then... let's begin," Mrs. Toriel began. "Many students tend to use the wrong preposition in their sentences. Some examples are: 'go' instead of 'to', and 'it' instead of 'that'. It is important to remember these simple rules so you don't sound like an idiot."
"...I'm sorry, what?" Noelle asked, looking up.
Mrs. Toriel smiled. "You didn't hear me? I said that many students make mistakes in their grammar, and that they should try to avoid them."
"Oh! Yes ma'am!" Noelle replied, trying to act smart.
"Good! That wasn't too hard. Now then, today we will be talking about pronouns and possessive nouns. I want you all to pay attention and take good notes."
Susie stared at Noelle, rolling her eyes. "...I think I may have gotten my report card mixed up with my math homework..."
"Okay then, let's get started. Pronouns are words used as substitutes for nouns. An example of a pronoun is 'her' when referring to a female, and 'they' when referring to a group of people. Another example is 'you' when referring to yourself. Possessive nouns are words that show ownership over something. They can also be called possessives because they show possession. For example, 'my' shows ownership, and 'your' shows possession. There are many more examples, but I expect you to learn these words by heart."
"Yes Ma'am!" Noelle answered, nodding along to Mrs. Toriel's lecture.
"Now then... I hope everyone got their assignments done before coming here today. If not, I'll give you extra credit."
Noelle nodded, taking out her notebook and turning to the page assigned for this week's lesson.
"Alright, now onto pronouns. We're going to be starting off with 'he' and 'she'."
Mrs. Toriel stood up and walked to the board, writing 'HE' on the whiteboard.
"Remember to never use he/him when referring to a female. Use she/her instead. He/his refers to a male, and she/hers refers to a female. The same goes for she/hers and him/hims."
Mrs. Toriel wrote 'SHE' on the board after the last statement, turning to face her class.
"Well then... moving on."
She wrote on the board again.
"Now then, pronouns can also be pluralized! It is important that you keep track of these rules. But first, let's go over the different forms."
Most of the students turned to look at Mrs. Toriel, listening intently.
"There are three forms of pronouns; singular, dual, and plural. There are also multiple ways to pluralize a pronoun. Let's start with singular."
Mrs. Toriel looked at the students, waiting for someone to speak up.
Noelle raised her hand. "Can I?"
"You may."
"What if I'm talking to more than two people? Like four or five?" Noelle asked, making sure she was heard.
"Then you would use 'they' or 'them', as many times as needed. They is a plural pronoun, and them is a possessive pronoun."
"Thank you," Noelle said, looking down at her notebook.
"Now then, dual. To say something is 'two of', you would put an apostrophe in between the words. 'Two of us went to the store.' for example."
As Noelle listened, she scribbled down the words and information Mrs. Toriel had given them.
"Pluralizing a pronoun is simple, but the process can get complicated when you have to pluralize certain pronouns."
Mrs. Toriel began walking around the classroom, looking at everyone's work.
"This one is easy. You just add -es to the end of the word. 'Your' becomes 'yours', 'their' becomes 'theres', and 'its' becomes 'it's'. Simple enough, right?"
"Yes ma'am!" Noelle said, smiling.
"Now then, as we've already learned, a pronoun can be singular or dual. Dual pronouns are pronouns that refer to two different things, such as 'me and you' or 'we and them'. A dual pronoun can either be singular or plural. In fact, you could say that 'it's' is a dual pronoun because it can be pluralized as 'its' or 'them's'. So, do you see how that works?"
"Yes ma'am!" Noelle answered, nodding along to Mrs. Toriel's lecture.
Susie groaned, leaning back in her chair. She was not paying attention, but no one seemed to care.
"Alright then... we're going to continue this lesson tomorrow. I expect everyone to come ready to learn. Also, if you have any questions please feel free to ask them now."
Noelle closed her book and stood up, looking at Susie.
"Uh... Susie?"
Susie glared at Noelle, opening her mouth to say something.
"Stop!" Mrs. Toriel spoke, placing her hands on the desk in front of her. "If you wish to speak to someone, simply raise your hand. Do you understand? Please sit down, Noelle."
"I... uh..." Noelle stammered, sitting down slowly. "S-sorry... I-I didn't mean to interrupt..."
Susie snorted and rolled her eyes, turning away from Noelle and looking out the window. "Whatever... sheesh, Noelle. Can't you even follow instructions?" { TYPE: Long-form story * M2 }
#artificialintelligence#ai#fanfic#fanfiction#deltarune#susie x noelle#susie#noelle x susie#deltarune noelle x susie#noelle#deltarune chapter 2#susie deltarune#deltarune chapter 2 kris x noelle#deltarune susie x noelle#noelle deltarune#deltarune noelle#susie and noelle moments deltarune#deltarune 2#kris x noelle x susie#susie x noelle comic#deltarune suselle#deltarune susie#suselle#suselle deltarune
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information
basics (slashes will be in order of preference):
name: elle/egg/ella/elisabeth
pronouns: they/them/she/her (neurotypical cishets use they/them only please)
my relationship status is single
i am femme nb, all pronouns are applicable. am poly lesbian asexual.
i am jewish and black
regarding my posts:
this is out of date and will be fixed when i have the chance
there will be few times where this is applicable, but please only compliment my work, not me, unless you have express permission.
i write silly little things about silly little characters. if you don't agree with my head-cannons, move on. if you take issue with my drabbles, ask yourself whether its a personal issue before commenting. if you think i've said something wrong, fundamentally, morally, or politically (that word is used for lack of a better one), comment or dm me about it. do not reblog it, unless the tags say otherwise. i will see if it needs changing and act accordingly.
the tag 'elleyouwhore' will be used with spam shit regarding me.
the tags 'who is peter nureyev?' 'a simp' is one that i will use. you'll figure it out. it is a reference to the penumbra, but the tag may not be regarding penumbra.
vent posts should have the tag 'ouw' meaning 'opinion unwelcome'. if it doesn't, you are free to offer an opinion. otherwise, leave it alone.
do not do:
don't call me racist. or sexist. i am neither.
don't compliment me
don't make advances of any kind, thanks so much.
do not interact:
people who take issue with my identity
people who take issue with my race
pedophiles/sex offenders
anyone who has read and agreed with the book 'masculine christianity.' buying it is also a red flag.
people who support international mission trips
anyone who is anti-abortion rights
anyone who is anti vaccine
nazis. i shouldn't need to say that.
people that fetishise relationship types (e.g. mlm, wlw, t4t)
fun fandom stuff:
bnha (multiship)
sk8 the infinity (the obvious ones)
vld (klance)
tma (the canon ones)
penumbra (canon, i think)
percy jackson (the canon ones)
hp (i literally don't remember what happened in canon anymore, don't remind me)
deh (treebros)
others, but expect these the most, i think.
this is a georgie barker hate account. i don't hate her, but someone called me sexist for not including her in a post, and now i'm feeling petty.
i do not like dumbledore, nedzu is fine.
i do not agree with the pjo hunters of artemis. i don't like them if misandry existed, it would be personified as them
natalie deserved better than jace and i stand by the fact that he was in the wrong.
'pathetic little white boys' is a compliment. and i will say it in regards to people who are none of those things.
my discord is ellesnothere9434
prev url: generalofloki5
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as i sit on my bed and wait for the next video to load so i can distract myself from feeling to much of the impending doom of tomorrow, i think about how much of an impact lying can have on a person, i think about how i want to walk away, i think about how i think, how i look at others i decide what is normal or what looks off.
One thought at a time.
lying, right? i think about how many times a lie can (and has) been rambled of to someone else. knowingly or unknowingly. i think about the impact a lie can have, i think about the lie when someone changed the wikipedia article to say that some deer or antelope's name is said like xylophone. i think about the lie about how pee can stop a jellyfish sting from hurting. i think about how the person who thought of that must've had a piss kink or something. one thought at a time. minds can wonder, you know? travel far off from the point. has this post been to long? remember, one thought at a time. right. remember how i said i saw on my bed? yeah, no. i'm in my bathroom. on the floor. typing. thinking. later i'll say that i walk to work, that i even have a job, and i'll be lying then too.
I think we have exhausted this thought.
i think about how i think. i remember analyzing other people to see where they put their hands while they walk, most people have their hands to their side. some have there hands in their pockets, and i think it looks a little odd. i remember that i stored that in the back of my head, to remember not to put my hands in my pockets while i walk. i remembered seeing someones phone in their pocket with a earbud wire coming out of said pocket and reminded myself to not put my phone in my pocket while listening to music, to instead annoyingly hold the phone in my hand instead of looking a slight bit off if you look close to the people i walk past on my way to work. i think about a time when i didn't think about things like that, looking odd or out of place. i must have been young, probably not older than 10. i think about my younger self, how she was, at one point, carefree and unknowingly annoying. i think i miss him. her. i think about referring to yourself (specifically your younger self) when you have changed things like pronouns or names. do you use the old pronouns to preserve what is left of your old self or your new ones.
One thought at a time. Remember?
no i don't, actually
Go back and look.
...
i messed up
Yes. Yes you did.
i messed up the order.
Fix it.
no
i think about how i want to walk away. not run, walk. walking away usually refers to getting out of a situation before it turns sour. or even after its turned sour. i think about how my life has gone, and if i can walk out on it.
That's wrong.
what?
Your walking away not walking out.
oh... right.
i think about how late it is. it's not that late in the grand scheme of things but it's late enough that my spelling isn't something to be admired. i think about the grand scheme of thing. thing about how big but small things are. i think about perspective. i think about letting go, about letting lose and being free. i think about how happy i could be. i can be. i think about-
i hear the small talk of to dudes with enough money to buy two microphones and a camera come through my earbuds and i freeze.
i think about lying and how i've lied.
i think about how i perceive myself and other, and how i hold myself because of it.
i think about walking.
i think about shutting my phone of and walking away. walking out. outside. onto the streets.
What are you doing in the middle of the road?
i think about how maybe i find a street that leads me back home.
Get out of the road, your going to get hit.
i think about the bright headlights to the side of me
GET OUT OF THE ROAD YOU WILL GET HURT
i think about deer
...
i think about blood on windshields
...
i thought about how i'll never find home
Idiot kid.
#a conversation with myself#kind of#long post#long poem#idk what this says about me#but it probably isn't good lol#i don't know what caused me to do this but oop can't go back#sat dec 3 2022 btw#a little past 10 o'clock#told you it wasn't that late#i've spent far to long thinking about this than i would have hoped#and it went completely of the rails from the thing i originally thought of#suicide tw#tw suicide#suicide#implied suicide#tw implided suicide#impided suicide tw#poem#again not real a poem but idk what to call it#a story maybe#essay???#idk man#essay#story#story telling#short story
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Hello! Ik you might be busy with writing other stuff so you can get to this whenever you want but I was wondering if I could request a trans!reader x Dwayne, maybe like they were friends as kids and y/n eventually came out to Dwayne and the Hoovers- maybe a little conflict with Richard being his usual Richard-y self or something and saying something kinda outta pocket or mjsgendering y/n. Can be masc, fem, or androgynous!! Also both hc style writing or just like usual story is fine, I'm sure I'd enjoy either <3 sorry this is long have a great day!! (Also sorry if this kind if a strange request lolz)
(Yay my first dwyane request thank you anon!!! i love this request :,) )
-Dwayne Hoover x gn!reader
-warnings: transphobic talk from Richard
Growing up Dwayne was and still is your best friend :)
You two are attached to the hip and that's how you like to keep it
Growing up you guys always had play dates, the same classes, and going to each other's houses for dinner
You families knew each other well and loved seeing you two together, they kinda suspected you guys liked each other and who knew they'd be right
When you start dating it was still the same as before, but now loving gazes and small pecks on the cheek were added
Y'all loved it that way
But you feel... away from yourself. When trying on clothes, you didn't feel feminine or masculine enough. You didn't like how it made you feel.
You couldn't pinpoint but you didn't like yourself and then you start to feel off or upset when someone would refer to you as she/he...
You didn't some deep diving and self-exploring to figure out you are nonbinary and go by they/them pronouns
Then it came to tell Dwayne...you were so nervous and couldn't help but cry when telling him. You didn't want him to break up with you or think you're weird
Though at this time it was 4 months into his vow of silence, he had to be there for you, he gave you a tight hug "Listen, I don't care what you identify as. I don't mean that in a mean way but in a way that I fell for you because of your personality and you being you. You're still funny, smart, caring, and perfect to me..." he whispered into your ear.
You smiled, you haven't heard his voice in so long, but this was nice, but you wouldn't tell anyone he talked
If you have a preferred name, he will use it!
Though he won't speak he'll correct everyone that misgenders you or uses your wrong name
After the whole Little Miss Sunshine incident, Dwayne came home talking! This was such a nice surprise but his dreams of being a pilot were crushed...But you guys talked about everything that happened on the trip.
But this is the first family dinner back and without their grandfather...but everyone seemed changed, but one person really hasn't
“So what did you get up to when we were gone Y/n?” Sheryl asked you, helping Olive get her salad ready. “Oh nothing much, just kinda waited for you guys to get back.” you said, eating your food.
“That was quite the adventure wasn’t everyone?” Frank asked, laughing a bit afterwards. “What’s your name again...Y/n right? Could you pass me salad bowl?” Frank asks you and you nodded, handing the bowl to him.
“You know Y/n..I remember seeing pictures of you when you were younger and you always looked so cute dressed in dresses/overalls….What made you change that huh?” Richard asked looking at you.
No words could come out your mouth and you couldn’t bare to look at Richard. Why would he say that?
“Richard, stop it.” Sheryl looked at him with a look of disapproval.
“What it’s a simple question? Before all this they they crap it was normal she/he!” he exclaimed, this was the final straw.
The tears in your eyes fell, you sniffled as you said, “I’m gonna go to the bathroom…” getting up out of your seat as quickly as you could and walked to the bathroom, trying not to slam the door.
This was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Dwayne, “Don’t you ever say that again asshole! Just shut the hell up!” Dwayne yelled, getting out of his seat and making his way toward you.
You cried into your hands, why was he saying this shit to you?! Why now?! You then heard knocking on the door.
“Y/n…open the door, it’s me..” Dwayne’s voice said. You opened the door and he pulled you into a hug immediately.
“I’m so sorry… I don’t know why he did that but i yelled at him for you..” Dwayne mumbled, caressing your back as you cried. He didn’t know what it mean to be misgendered but he could only hear the pain in your voice as you cried.
“Just know I care about for who you are know, not who you were before…I love you Y/n..” he kissed your cheek. You couldn’t help but smile, Dwayne didn’t say those three words often cause he showed his affection in other ways but when he did say it he meant it.
“I love you Dwayne…you’re amazing you know that?” you asked, kissing his cheek. He shook his head as he smiled.
Dwayne wanted to protect you, always and forever.
#danonation#paul dano#dwayne hoover x reader#dwayne hoover#little miss sunshine#dwayne hoover x gn!reader
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Hello! @bubblyani inspired me to make this!
Truth | 01
Warnings: 18+, lime, blood, death, murder, suicide, depression
Fandom: Lucifer
Pronouns used for reader: she/her (reader is also AFAB)
Enjoy, loves. <3
"Please? It'll be so much fun!"
Your friend said, putting an emphasis on 'fun'.
You sighed, rubbing the bridge of your nose. "Fine, but if either of us gets kidnapped at this club, it's not my fault."
"Oh my God, you're so dramatic."
"It's my talent. When are we going? I have work to do today." You asked, fumbling with a shirt that was on the floor of your bedroom.
"Does eleven o'clock work?"
You glanced over to the clock, reading the time.
7 PM.
You'd be done with work at around eight-thirty.
Thinking for a moment, you reluctantly agreed. "Okay. LUX, right?"
"Yay! Yeah, the owner's super hot. And so is one of the bartenders. Maya? Macie? Something with an 'a' and 'm'."
"Gosh, you thirst over everyone."
"You would, too, if you saw them! Which you will. Well, I don't know if the bartender will be there, but—"
You two talked a while, until you had to do your at-home work.
You liked working at home because you didn't really like going out to work for countless hours, but sometimes it was nice to let loose.
Like at this club you were going to go to, which you were kind of nervous about.
Your mind gave you flashbacks of one night when you just turned twenty-one and went to a club with your friends, Hørizon was the name.
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The sounds of booming music made it's way to your ears, your head pounding.
"Five shots of whiskey over here!"
"Um, I- I don't think I ca..." Too drunk, you couldn't even finish your sentence, as you wobbled a bit in your seat.
A minute later, a whiskey shot was in front of you — too drunk and tempted, you grabbed the small glass, gulping it down.
Delilah's friend, Tina, paid for the drinks.
The burning sensation in your throat didn't affect you much after the many shots you took before.
Your head turned to your best friend, Delilah, -which you had just met a few weeks ago at this time-, who was selecting the first contact in her phone to call, since she was a little too drunk to dial a number manually.
"Heeeeeyy, Fionaa, we're at a club." She slurred her words a bit, giggling. You could hear the faint voice from the phone.
"Oh my God, are you drunk?" Delilah only giggled in response, too drunk to make a coherent response. "Okay, I'm assuming you're at that one club you went to last week, right?" "Mmmhm!" "Are you with anyone else?" "Errr... like, my friends."
You could practically feel Delilah's friend pinch her nose. "How many?" "Uhhh... one... two... four..." She paused. "Fourth!" She said, giggling, adding a -th to the word she meant to say.
"Alright. You're lucky you're my... friend."
And then you blacked out, waking up at Delilah's apartment on the couch, others on the floor or sharing the couch with you.
You still remember that awful hangover you had afterwards.
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You chuckled at the memory, stretching a bit. After finishing an essay for your boss, revising and editing it, you glanced at the clock, checking the time.
8:51 PM.
It was definitely past 8:30, but you weren't going until eleven.
You had time to pick out your outfit, relax, and do some housework if you wanted to -which you didn't want to-.
Standing up, leaving the chair you'd been glued to for almost two hours, you sighed, making your way to the closet.
You rummaged through it, and after a little, you found an outfit you liked.
Humming, you put it on your bed, along with your extra wallet (which had less money than your normal wallet, so when you went to the club, you wouldn't lose a bunch of money from being robbed or losing it) and some water to put in Delilah's car to sober up after the club.
You checked your phone before putting it on your charger.
Footsteps padded against the floor as you made your way to the couch to watch some of your favorite show, 'The Good Doctor'.
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'Some' turned into almost three hours.
And now you had eleven minutes to get ready.
You rushed to the bathroom to do your makeup — not like anyone would see it, anyway. But you liked doing your makeup, not because you were insecure, but because you just liked trying new styles.
And you really liked eyeliner.
(Reference picture, I think it's Niki Nihachu, but I'm not sure.)
After you were done, you shoved the makeup into your container in the bathroom, hastily going to your room, fumbling with the clothing to put it on.
After about five minutes, you succeeded, and grabbed your phone from the charger, opening your messaging app up.
You
Hey, you ready?
Seen at 10:57 PM.
Lilah 💖
yep. i'm already headed there.
Seen at 10:57 PM.
You
Don't text while driving.
Seen at 10:57 PM.
And don't respond to this.
Seen at 10:58 PM.
You turned off your phone, putting it in your pocket, grabbing your stuff, your wallet shoved in your other pocket, two bottles of water in the other hand.
A few minutes later, your door opened to reveal your friend in a clubbing outfit, her curly black hair mostly laying on her right shoulder.
She had a see-through black top with another top under it, the same color.
Delilah had a black bag, the actual bag part laying on her right hip, the strap on her left shoulder.
She had a black skirt-shorts with a red and black plaid flannel tied around her waist.
The beautiful woman also had long, black, high heeled boots, going up to under her knees, but short enough to walk.
Her tattoos were slightly visible on the lower thighs.
(What I based her off of. Not sure who this is!)
"If I wasn't planning on making a move on that bartender — if she's there, I would try to date you, oh my God, you're gorgeous." Her lips formed a flirtatious, but platonic joke.
"Oh my gosh, you're definitely prettier, what the hell do you mean?" You smiled, winking.
"Alright, you've convinced me, I'm prettier." She said, shrugging her shoulders. You let out a playful pout, "Damn, I'm so broken."
"Whatever, you'll get over it. Let's go!" She smiled, tugging your arm, taking the water bottles and putting it in her bag so you could lock the door.
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Soon, you both arrived at the fancy, famous club called LUX.
Excitedly, your friend, Delilah, got in line with you, figuratively jumping up and down with joy.
"Oh my God, you'll love it here, Y/n. All of the men, women, and enbys are definitely gonna hit on you, bae."
"Assuming I'd be confident enough to let them approach me."
She rolled her eyes, chuckling.
You both got closer and closer to the doors of the provocative strip club, you both paid your halves when you finally approached the doors.
Stepping into the building, you both smiled. 'This time, I won't drink as much.' You promised yourself.
Oh, how promises break.
Immediately, Delilah went to the bar — partly for the drinks, but mostly because she saw a particular bartender.
Giggling at the absurdity of her actions, you went to a couch, not drunk enough to have confidence to talk to people or dance — not that most of them would remember, considering how many had drinks in their hands.
You fiddled with a silver ring you had bought about a month ago, which laid on your index finger.
"Why, hello! I've never seen you here before! I would remember a face like yours." A velvet voice was heard, oddly close to you.
'Wait, are they talking to me?'
You whipped your head up, mouth parted a little.
There stood a tall, dark haired man with dark eyes, a black suit with a slightly visible white shirt under it, black, shiny shoes on his feet.
You swallowed. "Hello..."
You should've gotten drunk beforehand.
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Hello, everyone! I have no clue how drinking or hangovers work, or strip clubs, since I'm 18, but I hope it's not too far off. 🖤
Sorry it took so long to get to Lucifer, it's more of an introduction to some characters in this chapter.
Also, Delilah is bisexual, and goes by she/they.
The reader is possibly bi-curious, it depends on your view of the reader. <33
Delilah may have a lil' crush on Maze and just thinks Lucifer is hot, haha
#lucifer morningstar x reader#lucifer morningstar#lucifer imagines#lucifer morningstar imagines#x reader#female reader
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