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mondaymelon · 5 months

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hi :)) can i make a request about zhongli who has a s/o who is very self conscious and has low self esteem?? like they’re just constantly hating on themselves and have nothing good to say about themselves making poor zhongli worried :((

₊˚ෆ 𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐁𝐈𝐃… | zhongli, xiao, childe x gn!reader

[ "archons forbid you in having these thoughts once more. love, you are perfect, and please don't let anyone sway that." ]

— "archons, why did i just do that? ...fuck, i'm such an idiot..."

ZHONGLI interrupted the occasional stroke of his ink-stained brush upon silk canvas, his gilded eyes glancing up and searching your face until they met yours.

"Love, why are you..." His voice trailed off as his gaze filled with warm concern, his expression softening as his brows furrowed, as if he couldn't even begin to fathom why'd you think such a thing. He set down the brush in its hold, before moving to stand. You were sat on the couch across from his desk, where you could remain in his line of sight as he did his duties, and now you were curled up on its cushions, looking at him with the corners of your mouth slightly drawn down into a pout.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He sat down next to you, unsure of how close he should get, and so hovered an arm's length away from your form. You quietly shook your head in a frustrated manner, and he made a short hum of acknowledgement. "Love, come here. Let's take a break together, you and me, alright?"

When he had received your approval, he gently held you in his arms, stroking a gloved hand in your hair soothingly. He was warm, his tall figure engulfing you, and you melted at his touch. "...Zhongli, why do you love someone like me?"

You felt his fingers' delicate touch abruptly still to a halt at your words. Silence encompassed the room, and Zhongli shifted in his seat, drawing closer and finally moving his hand to your face, grabbing at your chin and tilting it upwards so you had no choice but to stare into his glittering eyes. The traces of a smile lingered on his lips. "It'd be impossible not to."

How come your vision had grown so cloudy? "I'm bad. At everything. I can't do anything right."

"Just who told you that? Love, your character is beautiful. You're diligent, hard-working, talented, with a golden heart... it makes me wonder how I even was able to join hands with you in the first place." His corners of his mouth were truly curved upwards now, and he met your gaze with a close eyed smile, his dark-lashed lids fluttering. "Archons forbid... please don't tell that to yourself again, alright?"

Hot tears begun to spill from your eyes at his words. No, that couldn't be true. How... how come it was possible for someone like to trust you to this extent?

Ah, I know why. The thought came to you as he kissed the tears from your sorrow-laden lashes. "I love you."

His cheeks warmed just the slightest, his gaze of melted gold soft as a smile graced his lips once more.

"Yes, I love you too." ₊˚ෆ

— "agh, messed up again... archons, how come i can't do anything right??"

XIAO's head snapped up as soon as the words were uttered into the midnight air, immediately emerging from the shadows by your side as you stared over the edge of Wangshu Inn's balcony, tightly gripping the wooden railings.

"What... What did you just say?" You flinched at his sudden presence, something you had still yet to grow accustomed to. The adeptus had a habit of listening in on your rambles with yourself, and appeared whenever he deemed fit. However, your words now seemed to have angered him, as eyes were narrowed in displeasure, his cat-like diamond pupils forming mere slits.

"Is there... something wrong?" You tilted your head in confusion, watching a flit of emotions cross Xiao's face in a mere split-second.

"Yes. Three steps away." His voice made it clear that it was no mere request. Complying to his order, you duly backtracked the said amount, empty hands raised in front of you as a sign of surrender. "Don't get too close to the railing. It's dangerous."

You almost laughed. "Ah, but won't you save me if I happen to fall?"

"That's granted." Xiao scoffed, nodding a little too quickly after your question, but caught himself. It seemed that he had, in fact, learned a thing or two about mortal speech from you. "No, don't change the topic now. What you said earlier... do you really believe that?"

"...Well, it's true, isn't it?" You faced the scenery in front of you, the blue, slightly cloud dusted skies, the grooves of the land and the jagged mountains poking up out of harsh stone... it was an easier sight than looking into the adeptus' eyes at the moment. His eyes were acute, perceptive, honed sharply after years of service. Oh, that was the truth, wasn't it? You were afraid that he'd see too much in your gaze, and that he'd know how much of a pathetic failure you were, with nothing but mistake after mistake following your every movement-

"Hey." There was a light touch on your wrist - Xiao's gloved fingers, wrapping around it gently. "Just what are you thinking about? You look... upset, and I don't like it." There it was. His clear eyes, staring into yours with concern. "You... You said you couldn't do anything right, but that's not true at all, love."

Love.

Xiao had never been one to display much affection, yet he had readily agreed to use such a name for his one and only. His voice was quiet, gentle, nothing like how you had first imagined it in the days after the two of you's first encounter.

"Thank you, Xiao." You finally turned to him, face breaking into a smile, and you saw his tense figure visibly relax at your contentment.

"...What for?"

"For being here. Everything." In the dim moonlight, you just might've glimpsed the whisper of a smile on the adeptus' lips, a secret one, a small one, just for you.

"There's no need to thank me. It was the least I could do." ₊˚ෆ

— "seriously?? this is the eighth damn... i knew i it, i'm absolute shit at everything i do... "

CHILDE's eyes widened as he spun to look at you, his mouth forming a round 'o' as he spotted the countless ink splatters on the paper, on your table, on your fingers, staining your clothes - everything.

...And upon seeing the chaos, clutched his sides and burst into several bouts of laughter that stretched on for minutes. When he was done with his ridicule, he placed his hands on his hips dramatically, a playful smile still decorating his joyful expression. "Aha- Love, just what...?" His voice trailed off, surely there was no need to finish his sentence? There could only be one possible thing he was referring to, and it was the absolute mess you had created, and a mess that you now sat in the center of, blinking awkwardly with a wobbly half-smile on your lips.

"Uhm... I tried to... Ugh, nevermind..." You crumpled up the canvas sheet filled with incoherent scribbles and threw it into some archon-forsaken corner, where you prayed it would never cross your line of sight again. Under your breath, you mumbled out several curse words, a frown tugging at the corners of your mouth. "Shit, this is why no one should place any faith in me, good for nothing..."

The smile on his face dropped. Curse him, and his stupidly acute hearing. Instantly, he was a mere two inches away from you, deep ocean eyes boring into yours in an almost uncanny manner. "...Hey, just now, care to repeat that?"

"...Good for nothing...?" You flinched, unsure of where the sudden wave of bloodlust that was currently flooding your senses had come from - until you glanced up at Childe, who stood over you, his eyes closed in a happy smile but the expression on his face anything but happy.

"Who told you that?" His voice was venomous, it felt like you were being poisoned just listening to it. A dark shadow cast over his eyes, as if this were some dramatic soap opera.

"Did someone have to?" You sighed, waving your hand in the air in a dismissive way. "It's true, though. I seriously can't get anything right, and I haven't even gotten started on what I don't like about myself-"

"Stop." Childe held a finger over your mouth, pressing it to your lips and effectively bringing your words to a halt. "Stop, stop stop, it's all wrong, love!" He looked like a kicked puppy, his eyes downcast and a pout on his lips, and you could practically imagine the ginger folded ears and tail that might've been. "Seriously, how do you even think up of these kinds of things?? They're not true at all!"

Why was he so adamant on this? "But... it is?"

"That's it." Childe waltzed over to where you sat on the ground, before grabbing you from the middle and hoisting you over his shoulder, giving a little huff when you wriggled to try and break free from his grasp. "We're going on a one-week vacation. To Mondstadt. Inazuma. Sumeru. Fontaine. Shneznaya, for all I care. Just not here."

"Do... Do I have a say in this?" You frowned slightly from your position, you arms dangling over your head as you fought your hardest not to laugh.

"No."

"What's even wrong with here, why..."

"Shush. Let me take care of you, won't you?" ₊˚ෆ

(a/n) apapapappow second request done!! im not doing all that bad hehehe... wish me luck on my ap class midterm!! i should be studying rn but uhm uhm yes genshin men are first priority >>>

-> teehee what if yall left a message on my christmas tree 😶😶😶

໒꒱ || ᴛᴀɢʟɪꜱᴛ (open! send an ask or a comment ♡) : @manager-of-the-pudding-bank, @iamdedinside, @ilyuu, @achlysis, @swivy123, @scara-is-my-wife

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charliemwrites · 3 months

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Government Asset Soap! This is half of the last part (the smut got too long and I wanted to post this dammit).

So consider this part 4.5? idk it's late.

Usual CW for this series with dubcon, mean Soap, post-trauma coping.

It’s probably a fire hazard, the candles. They’re sprinkled across your little cabin like fireflies, feeble but steady heartbeats of a home you’re failing to build. Too many of them, likely. Two, sometimes three, per room. Tiny tealights, smokeless soy, scented pine. It would be easier, safer, to just turn on the lamps you foolishly invested in.

You can’t bear anything brighter than golden halogen anymore, though. The glare drags you back to a tiny cell bisected by cruel metal, holding back an even crueler fate. No, you’d much rather wade through pools of shadow and firelight, fire code be damned.

It’s a small cabin, but you’ve already cluttered it up with furniture and rugs, a theme for each room. Yellow and blue for the kitchen. Purple and cream for the den. Green and brown for your bedroom. Nooks to hide in, spaces to squeeze into, big shapes to huddle behind. You’ll never be caught out in a cold, barren room ever again.

Your days are long regardless of the time of year. Get groceries in town every day, making a point to be friendly and seen so that someone might notice if you suddenly stop coming. Clean incessantly, so many surfaces to dust. Pick hobbies like daisies. Knitting and crocheting, different paint styles, felting. You’re contemplating carpentry, would like to build shelves for all the books stacked up in the den. Keep a dream journal by your bed that you neglect for weeks at a time.

You draw out the nights until you can count the hours until dawn on one hand. Stay up baking, making homemade ink, learning new ways to style your hair, anything, anything, anything—

It’s not the sleeping – or at least that’s not the worst of it. It’s the waking.

Laswell suggested a cat.

You told her to stop suggesting pussy to unstable people.

But it’s still not a bad idea. Another living thing to keep you accountable; the plants are pretty and time-consuming, but not good company.

You talk yourself out of it every time, knowing the worst-case scenario. It’s not catastrophizing if it actually happens, and you can feel an invisible time weighing on your shoulders like another gravity. Tick, tick, tick. Heavier, heavier, heavier. It’s hard to breathe beneath the wait.

The military doesn’t do apologies. It does platitudes at best. Well wishes and good intentions are painted in brushstrokes of blood. Victory flags are planted on bodies, living or otherwise. Laswell apologized. She swore that if there had been another way – any other way…

She didn’t promise to leave you alone. Didn’t assure you that you’d never see her or her goons again.

If you thought it would do any good, you’d tip one of the candles over and set it all aflame. Rebirth through fire. But you never did figure yourself for a phoenix. And besides, a phoenix is still itself, even when the ash falls away.

So, you spool out your time like picking at tapestry threads, one thin string at time.

Tonight, it’s bread. Cinnamon chocolate babka, to be specific. You were craving something sweet. Are debating the merits of some sort of cream cheese icing while you shower off the long, ever-busy day.

Have decided on an optimistic why not as you slip out to begin your overly complicated self-care routine. Moisturizers, hair oils, lotion. An unexpected benefit of overloading yourself, you suppose. Even when you first got out of the military, you didn’t take such good care of yourself. You have a jogging route now. You’re handling your trauma every possible way except therapy. (And sleeping.) Better than nothing, you figure.

The candles have gone out in your bedroom. You click your tongue in annoyance, trying to remember where you left the matches this time. Bedside table?

You pad across the soft carpet, using the edge of the bed as a guide in the pitch black. The only other problem with candles is that their humble light doesn’t reach very far. But you know this house and keep the floors tidy enough that you’re confident you won’t trip.

Make it to the nightstand without incident and pat around. Knock the side of your hand into the little carton and only just catch it before it hits the deck. Let out a little huff and start to fumble it open.

“Nice catch, bonnie.”

You gasp, but your voice doesn’t get any farther than the back of your tongue. The box slips from your numb fingers, matchsticks scattering across the floor. He tsks.

“Shame that. We’ll get ‘em later.”

You can’t move. Can barely breathe. You’re just frozen, heart thundering with a sudden storm of fear and confusion. Hands still aloft in front of you, spine rigid, knees locked.

You feel more than hear movement behind you, and then the warmth of his body seeping into your naked skin. Not quite touching. Not yet.

“Missed you, little bird,” he rasps in your ear.

You always thought that in a moment like this you would scream. Kick and elbow and fight, damn your certain loss. But when it comes down to it, survival drowns out all those stupid, haughty ideas about pride and dignity. So you don’t curse and shout like you always fancied you would.

You whisper, “Soap.”

He hums but it sounds like a growl in your panicked state. “Missed me too, aye? You’re already naked fer me.”

His hands are searing when they settle on your waist like they belong there. He pulls you back against him; in the dark he’s bigger, broader than you remember. At least, you think, he’s fully clothed for now.

“What are you… how are you here?” you ask.

He barks a laugh, mean and rough. “Was only a matter of time after that shite they pulled.”

You squeeze your eyes shut and see it recreated in the phosphenes behind your lids.

Soap buried balls deep inside of you, murmuring a constant stream of filth as he got harder and harder inside you. Filling you up as you twitched around him, oversensitive and teary, afraid of what would come next.

Then the lights flashed, flicked red. An alarm sounded, Laswell’s voice ordering Soap away from you. But he just snarled and hunched over you, hips snapping to bury himself right back inside while you cried out.

The locked door swung in, armed guards swarming in. Yanked Soap off you while you scrambled to cover yourself. Someone grabbing your arm none too gently to pull you from the room. Soap wild-eyed and snarling like something possessed, until he was overtaken by struggling guards and you were trembling naked in that damned hallway.

“Was mad at you, at first, cannae lie,” he says, almost conversational. Your eyes snap open, though you know it’ll do you no good. “But I’ve had time to think on it. Wasnae yer fault, was it? Saw them drag you out.”

An awful relief floods you. Fuck dignity, fuck honesty. This is Soap right behind you, completely unrestrained and unsupervised.

“Yeah,” you answer, voice small. “I didn’t know they would do that. What… um. What happened to you?”

He presses his face into your damp hair, pressing closer, snaking his arms to squeeze you against him.

“Sent me off on some shite mission,” he explains, “probably hoped I’d die out there. You smell so good, lass.”

You shiver as his breath ghosts over the sensitive skin of your neck. Hot, humid.

“And… and then what?” you insist, trying to stall.

You’re not sure what you’re stalling for. There will be no miraculous saves here – not that you really got any last time. It’s not like there’s any real plan to be made here, either. None that you’d be confident enough to risk his wrath on.

“Disappeared. Took care of business. Came to get my pretty little bird.”

A rough hand trails over the curve of your hip, brush the neat curls of your mound. You suck in a breath, hands twitching with the urge to stop him but not sure of putting up resistance when you’re still unsure of his mental state.

“And what about you, hm?” he rumbles. “Been a good girl while I’ve been away?”

His fingers dart down towards your entrance, not nearly prepared for anything. Least of all his thick digits.

“Y-yes!” you yelp, grabbing at his wrist. Relief makes you dizzy when you manage to stop him. “I-I’ve been good. Which means I’m not… I can’t just take you. I need… I need prep.”

He huffs, nips at the tender spot beneath your ear. The thrill that shoots through your stomach is terrifying.

“That’s what these are for, bonnie.”

And to your horror, he starts to push past your resistance like your staying hands aren’t there at all.

“John!”

He freezes. You shudder air into your burning lungs, feeling dizzy on panic.

You can get through this without pain, just think.

“I haven’t even got to see you,” you stutter, voice shaky. Can’t quite inject the disappointment you’re trying for, but hopefully it’ll work. “And I bet you’re all dirty from travel.”

He grumbles. “So what?”

You scramble to think of a satisfactory response. “S-so let’s get reacquainted in the shower, yeah? That way I can see your handsome face, at least.”

He chuckles, grazes his teeth “playfully” across your cheek. “Bossy thing.”

“You like it.”

And to your shock, he agrees with an amused huff. Hauls you up in his arms and walks you back to the still muggy bathroom. You’re set on your feet and spun around, chin jerked up to receive a savage kiss. All tongue and teeth, no finesse. He’s just licking into your mouth, hungry and animalistic, spit dribbling down your chin.

When he finally pulls away, you blink spots from your vision. Finally focus on his smug features and make a soft, horrified noise when you register the splatter of crimson across them.

“Och, that? My little bird had watchers.”

Of course you did. The horror ebbs a bit. Resentment has made you indiscriminately bitter.

“Oh,” you say, “th-thank you. Definitely glad we’re showering first, then.”

“Squeamish?”

You’d like to know when the world turned upside down and John fucking “Soap” MacTavish began teasing you about the blood on his face.

“A bit,” you admit.

“Poor dear,” he coos. “Hard to believe we were made for each other sometimes, aye? Complementary, we are.”

Is that what he thinks? Christ.

You turn to start the shower again, spine prickling with the weight of his eyes on your back. The water rushes down and then he’s crowding you against the cold wall beneath the (thankfully) warm spray.

“Y-you’re still dressed!” you protest between sharp nips to your collarbone.

“Fix it, then,” he snarls.

You claw his shirt up his back, get momentarily distracted by the impressive display of muscle hidden beneath. Draw your palms over his chest and feel him shudder.

“Fuckin’ heavenly, love,” he purrs. “Missed this.”

A vague memory comes back to you, him gripping you close because he felt you naked against him for the first time. Him admitting he hasn’t had affectionate touch in a while.

This… this you could work with.

#cod #my writing #fanfiction #reader fic #dark fic #asset soap #asset john soap mactavish #dub con #non con #rape

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amateurmasksmith · 1 month

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You Didn’t Know (Reprise)

(don’t mind me, just got inspired by a shitpost by @onesidedradiostatic (and their Anon) and turned it into angst…)

(also, it looks like @convolutedblasphemy beat me to it - well done btw - but I still wanted to give it a stab!)

Vox (yoinking the proof away): “Gimme that, Alastor, It’s not meant to be seen by you. Let’s move on, everyone, Figure out the best move that should, Improve our chances against the Angels’ threat!”

Alastor teleports behind him and counter-yoinks.

Alastor: “You want me to ignore that? No, not yet.”

Alastor examines the figurine closer, with a morbid fascination.

Lucifer, to Alastor: “It’s not as simple as you think, Not everything’s been spelled in ink.”

Vox lunges at Al angrily, flailing his arms as Alastor easily sidesteps him. Val catches him before he can fall.

Vox: “Leave it, Alastor!”

Valentino: “Careful, Voxy, keep a cool head.”

Vox pushes away from Val, gesturing towards Alastor.

Vox: “No! You never cared, did you?! You left, and it was like you were dead, Al/ /astor! We could’ve just gone our separate ways, but You left me here, with this internal blaze!”

Alastor: “I’m sure you wish it had been so, but there’s a lot that you don’t know!”

Vox: “You left before we could talk it out! Find a way we could still be friendly! But you blew your shot when you dropped off the block, Yeah, I’m so ‘sorry’ for being so petty!”

Alastor pulls Vox into a dance as they sing past each other.

Alastor/Vox: “No more questions to be posed,” / “There’s one question to be posed,” ”I hate you now, case closed” / “Though you are predisposed” “I try to forget that we were forever!” / “Why is this thing worth losing your temper?”

Vox breaks off and walks away, putting distance between them…

Vox: “I made the mistake once, Now I won’t be a chump! Decades of isolation await you,”

Velvette, concerned where this is going: “Vox?”

Vox: “No-one else will think to even date you!”

Alastor: “Wait-”

Vox turns around, realizing what he said.

Vox, who didn’t mean to spill: “Shit.”

Alastor (Aro 404): “What are you saying? Let me get this straight, When you begged me then, Down on your knees…?”

Valentino: “He didn’t know?!”

Velvette: “Whoops! Guess the cat’s out of the bag!

Alastor (through gritted teeth): “Oh, what a reveal!”

Vox: “Wait a sec here, Al, you didn’t know?”

Alastor begins slowly pacing towards Vox.

Alastor: “I thought you were bolder, as our friendship grew older!”

Vox, pained: “No!”

Alastor’s demon form begins to show as he slowly corners Vox.

Alastor: “You have to listen, My life here has just one mission, So it’s lucky I saved you, The anguish it takes to… Do what was required!”

Vox: “To think that I admired you, Al!”

Alastor breaks off, dismissing him with a wave of his hand, and starts walking away.

Alastor: “I don’t need your condescension, It’s not my fault you weren’t direct!”

Vox: “Was our relationship just manipulation? Oh, I was naive to expect you, to care beyond favors you’re repaying!”

Alastor: “Vox, what on earth are you saying? Love is not forever, your programs here are all lies, I’d have thought that seven years would give you enough time! Now I’ll leave you all to handle your foolish little scandal,”

Al gestures to the group, and casually drops the figurine in Lucifer’s hands as he brushes past.

Alastor, to Lucifer: “I’d recommend you stick to sculpting Anatidae.”

Alastor is engulfed by his shadow, and melts into a nearby radio. He emerges at Rosie’s place, ears drooping. The music takes on a softer style.

Alastor: “Rosie, dear, I have a problem.”

Rosie: “For you, Al, I’m all ears! Sit down here!”

Rosie gestures to her couch, on which she sits, and Alastor crumples.

Alastor: “Ugh! Apparently, my old pal Vox, Bought a commission, born from horrid thoughts… I gave him a piece of my mind, he Said ‘we were forever,’ and yet somehow I never…”

Rosie: “Oh. Yes, I see…”

Rosie brings Alastor in for a hug.

Alastor: “Why the fuck / Was I the last to know my old friend had a crush?”

As the music fades out, we see Alastor’s face buried in Rosie’s shoulder, partly obscured… Without a smile.

#onewaybroadcast #aroace alastor #hazbin hotel #alastor

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rockethorse · 4 months

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Stocking Stuffer 1/5: A Bajillion Random Painting Recolours

Happy Holidays to all! While I'm proud that last year I finally managed to achieve a longtime goal of sharing a full TS2 Advent Calendar, I'm simply not gonna be able to pull it off this year. Nonetheless, the holidlay spirit has encouraged me to finish up and share a couple of things before the end of the year! I'll be sharing five little gifts over the next few arbitrary days. First up: A BUNCH of Maxis painting recolours.

One recolour each of A/B/C Stroke (yes, I still enjoy playing with these as three separate paintings) using vintage matchbook covers designed by Saul Bass for The Ohio Match Company.

Two recolours +frames for Abstrutionism; "Poppy Cake" by Adolf Fényes (1910), and then this edit of Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth (1948) to include Bella Goth (the original Tumblr poster has deactivated).

A recolour of Anonymous Masterpiece with these two digital paintings by user chestnutroan featuring their farmer Sim and his two alien daughters.

One recolour of the Arghist Soldier with "Friday Nights" by Deborah DeWit (2006), perfect for your novel-enthusiast Sims' reading nook.

One recolour of City Skyline with a fruit & veg painting by Twitter user snail_soup (you can buy a real print of this too if you like it!)

One recolour of the Fourth Element wall scroll with "From Stardust to Stardust - Raccoon" by user ArtOfMienda.

Four Vegetables recoloured with four deliciously juicy tomato paintings by artist Leah Gardner.

Geometry 101 recoloured with a beautiful palette knife painting by Lynn Boggess.

Two recolours of Grilled Cheese (you all know what Grilled Cheese looks like, c'mon); one vintage ad for Hollywood Diet bread which I cleaned/redrew to remove text/graphics, and then "Cloud Rows" by Ivan Eyre (2004).

In The Beginning (+frame) recoloured with "Little Thief" by Courtney / Trash Kitty Art (also available as an affordable IRL print).

Kitten vs. Yarn (+frame) recoloured with this goache painting by user ieafy.

"Until Tonight" by Mark Grantham (2019) slapped on Lady On Red.

Two recolours of Living Room; "Midwestern Summer Fun" by user ink-the-artist (you may wanna zoom in for a surprise), then "Girl On A Swing" (2000) by Andrew Macara.

One recolour of Marketing Print with the Beatles as drawn by other Beatles. I don't remember who drew who because I'm actually not much of a Beatles fan but I thought these sketches were really darling.

In Memory of Johnny Gnome (+frame) recoloured with a piece by Emma Roulette.

A recolour of My First Holiday with art from Twitter user heikala_art.

On Pointed Toes (+frame) recoloured with this digital painting by Twitter user catwheezie.

I fell in love with this Guinness ad so I tweaked it from the photo to fit on the Route 66 poster, then made an accompanying Simlish option.

A single Scruffles recolour (+frame) with this adorable cow illustration by Twitter user poodlewool.

Four recolours of the Sim Noir pop art print; three pieces by Al Parker I found through this Tweet (with some English removed) and then an edit of the original painting to look passingly familiar...

Two recolours (+frames) of Snoozing Enemies; "The Cat on the Pillow" by Adolf von Becker, and "Sleeping Sasha" by Lena Rivo.

Stiller Life (+frame) recoloured with this oil painting of McDonalds by artist Noah Verrier.

Two recolours (+frames) of Stumped Hound; "Shadow" by Tianyi Zhou and "cat falling off table" by user anasauruss.

The Muse recoloured with this Juxtapoz magazine cover by artist Josh Courlas.

And lastly, three recolours of Untitled (the Bella Goth pop art painting) with works by Hiroshi Nagai.

Download All Paintings @ SFS

#the sims 2 #s2cc #sims 2 cc #Stocking Stuffers

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amuromi · 7 months

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★ ₊ ⊹ ⋆˙ ┈ 𝐅𝐔𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐆𝐔𝐑𝐎 𝐓𝐎𝐉𝐈 X ᶠ!ᴿᴱᴬᴰᴱᴿ

✦ ⋆˙ 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓 ┈ 5.3k

✦ ⋆˙ 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐒 ┈ NSFW! mamaguro!reader, tipsy/drunk sex, unprotected sex, established relationship (married), pet names (mama), oral (f!receiving), postpartum/baby weight insecurities, implied safe word (not used, just mentioned)

✦ ⋆˙ 𝐀!𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄 ┈ According to Gege, Mamaguro was what got Toji on the straight and narrow for a little while. I wanted to explore the thought a bit.

✮ 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐒 & 𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒 𝐃𝐎 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓!! ✮

The familiar beeping of the keypad cuts through the droning static of the night, trilling crickets and passing cars, as Toji punches in the passcode. The little light seems to hesitate before flickering green and blinking its acquiescence to his presence. With a dull click of the motion sensor the entryway blooms with a stark wash of fluorescence bright enough to make him squint, eyes stinging after wasting hours in the dimness of some club. His pockets are lighter and his head is fuzzier for it, the taste of alcohol still burning on his tongue as he kicks off his shoes and pads deeper into the apartment. The entryway goes dark without him to trigger the automatic light and the hall offers no light to replace it but he’s familiar enough between these walls to find his way towards where he needs to be, stumbling only once as a toy finds its way underfoot, squeaking as he kicks it away.

The room is illuminated by the faintest light leaking through the slightly parted curtains. The thread of faded yellow light slants across the bed, finding shapes in the darkness. The parted lips of his wife and the fluttering lashes of his son. He’s a tiny thing even after all these months–still a wisp of a person–but bigger than the last time Toji saw him. His face has started falling into place, fledgling features beginning to take shape. So strange that this little thing could look so much like him. Familiar black hair falls across his forehead like streaks of ink and his face is screwed up into a scowl even as he sleeps, legs kicking and arms twitching.

Toji’s shadow cuts through the beam of light as he stands over his son in his nest of pillows–“to keep him from rolling,” he vaguely remembers you saying. Toji’s hands are rough, calloused and scarred, but he can’t deny the urge to touch his son. He presses a dimple into the baby’s cheek, and his skin is plump and warm like a dumpling beneath the pad of his father’s fingertip as he begins to stir in earnest at the disturbance. He stretches like a cat, grape-sized fists reaching out above his head before his eyes blink open with a yawn. Twin pairs of deep blue eyes meet in the darkness. Toji expects the tears that ensue as his son’s sleepy gaze lands on the hulking silhouette standing over the bed. At first it’s only the whisper of a sound, short garbled whimpers that slowly work up to a volume loud enough to wake you. The reaction is immediate, platitudes ready on your tongue even as your voice slurs with exhaustion.

“What’s wrong, Megumi?” The raspy drawl of your voice is enough to soothe the baby’s tears as you sit up to hold him. It takes you so long to acknowledge Toji that he has to wonder if you’re purposefully ignoring him as you fret over the crying baby. A curt “welcome home” is all you can muster towards him as you dote on your son, shushing and cooing until his little whimpers turn into snores. The nursery is at the end of the hall–the farthest room from the front door at your insistence–and you shoulder past Toji to take Megumi to his room. He lets you, stepping aside because you’d never actually be able to move him even if you used all your strength. He’s as movable as a brick wall even if there’s a bit of alcohol numbing his reflexes and you know it. Knocking into him is as effective as a dog growling at a wolf.

While you’re gone, he tosses the extra pillows to the floor along with his shirt. It’s laced with the scent of cigarettes and folded pride after spending the day whittling away his earnings on what were supposed to be sure things. Easy money made by taking low stakes bets that all unraveled one after the other. The money is wasted now and maybe he needs a fight, some kind of outlet, to expel the lingering frustration. He’s waiting for you at the foot of the bed when you return from putting Megumi down. Like a moth to a flame you come fluttering over to him looking to get burned. You stand between his spread legs and Toji can’t find it in himself to keep his hands off you.

The tank top you wore to sleep is already rucked up your waist from sleeping and his thumbs find the exposed skin of your stomach, kneading against the new softness of your waist. It’s waning with each day as your body slowly reknits its shape after having Megumi but Toji finds himself somewhat enthralled with the lingering baby weight. You’re always quick to catch an attitude the moment he starts clinging around your extra weight. Smacking at his hands and telling him to leave you be like he cares if you’ve gotten bigger from carrying around his kid for nine months. It shows in your hips and your breasts, makes you look real good even when you moan about how long it’s taking for your body to “snap back.” It’s not like you’re a stretched rubber band to be shrinking once the tension’s gone but he keeps the thought to himself. It’s been made abundantly clear you’re not trying to hear his reassurances anytime you get to berating the body he loves so much. As if you aren’t everything he wants and more.

“Missed you.” The words sting worse than the alcohol. It isn’t in him for Toji to be saying things like that often. But both of you already know he hates being away from you, and now Megumi, too. His hands tighten around your waist as you try to pull away, pulling you closer even as your feet drag until he can rest his face against the lingering roundness of your stomach. He got you like this. Everything about you in this moment, the tired drawl of your voice and the added softness of your body is all his doing and he’s damn proud of himself. His pretty little wife that suffers his erratic presence and pitiful parenting with little more than patient sighs. Sometimes you’re upset and he always deserves it but even when your face is lined taut with anger he can’t help but marvel about how lucky he is. Makes him want to straighten up, be better. Makes him want to do right by you like a proper husband should. You’ve given him all your time and energy. Your name and everything. It’s the least you deserve but here he is, face smushed happily into the soft warmth of your tummy as you card through his hair, waiting for an explanation for his absence. After all, he said he’d be home two days ago.

Toji has been gone for nearly a month, having fed you some lies about freelancing on a construction contract a few prefectures over. It’s something simple, easy to swallow. Because he can’t very well tell you about what it is he really does to keep a roof over your head. It’s selfish, lying to you the way he does, but Toji has never claimed to be a particularly altruistic man. He’s selfish and greedy. Doesn’t want anything bad coming near his girl, tainting the charitable image of him she has in her mind. If you wise up too much you might up and leave him and then where would he be? Nah, he’ll keep telling you he’s out doing grunt work, manual labor. The type of strenuous work that pays well because you don’t need to know what it is the hands he touches you and your son with are truly capable of.

“You mad at me?” He asks when you take too long to answer him. It’s not meant to sound so teasing, so mocking, but Toji is sardonic by nature and his tongue is plied with too many shots. It makes him sound like he’s trying to rile you up. And maybe he is. Hadn’t that been his original intention before you came back to him all soft and sweet, looking so perfectly tired. He shouldn’t push you but he wants to. It’s clear you’re exhausted but he’s wide awake and pumped full of liquor and audacity. It curls around him like armor, makes him want to poke and prod until you stoop to his level and entertain his excess energy. He needs something to help him work through the high of coming home to you. His teeth find a soft spot to land above your navel and you yelp out a sharp quit it! before smacking the back of his head as his tongue tastes the place his teeth had been.

“What do I have to be mad about?” Comes your pragmatic answer as your fingers tangle in his hair, tugging at the roots to get his mouth away from you. It doesn’t work. He’s stronger than you, won’t move unless he wants to and what reason would he ever have to leave the soft warmth of your body? You smell so good in a way you probably hate. There’s no trace of perfume on your skin. No lingering scent of soap or detergent. You smell wholly like yourself. Like sweat and something sweet and it makes him want to taste every inch of your skin. You squirm as Toji pushes your shirt higher until it’s tucked up under the swollen weight of your breasts heavy with milk.

“Nothin’.” Toji decides even though he’s sure there’s a thousand things you could be mad at him for. He was gone two days longer than he said he’d be and wasted one of those days blowing his money on spoiled bets. He was late and still had the audacity to come home far past midnight, in those dark hours that linger just before sunrise, after you’ve been dealing with a newborn all day. Yeah, you should be mad, but he’s glad you’re not. When he looks up there’s the faintest hint of annoyance lingering on your face, pinched between your brows and weighing at the counters of your mouth. It’s a pretty look on you as his eyes begin to adjust to the muted darkness. Mussed hair, tired bruises under your eyes, and disheveled clothes. It’s a look only he gets to see because you’d never leave the house looking like you’ve just gotten into a fight. But fuck if you don’t make it look so good.

It’s enough to make Toji smile. Something mean and wanting as he stands to get in your face. He can hear it in your voice, that aloof attitude that you get whenever he’s in one of his moods. You’re trying your hardest not to rise to his prodding and it’s almost annoying how fucking perfect you are. The kind of woman that only exists in movies. The kind of woman that deserves more than him. But Toji won’t let anyone else have you. He made that decision a while ago. Marriage and a baby. A ball and chain to tether you to him. He watches the realization dawn on your face as he presses in until you’re nose to nose, a nervous “not tonight, Toji” whispering over his lips as you try to pull away from him again. He wants it to be tonight. And every night after. How can you be so perfect and expect him not to be panting after you like a dog every second of the day?

“Let me do it,” he asks, voice toeing the line of begging as his hands find your waist again. “Let me have it, mama.” Toji loves the way you squirm and pout and look away from him whenever he calls you that, like you aren’t the mother of his child. He kisses the corner of your mouth, a habit he picked up from you always pressing sweet little kisses to his scar. You fluster and shake your head, trying to pull out of his arms. He lets you just to see what you’ll do, frowning when you tug your shirt down over your stomach and go to lay back down. He watches you settle on top of the sheets, curling up on yourself like he won’t be able to see you if you make yourself small enough. Your breath comes too quickly for you to be sleeping, body lined with too much tension as you wrap yourself around his pillow like he’s not standing right here for you. His fingers wrap around your ankle, pulling you loose from the ball you’ve curled yourself into.

“The fuck are you hiding for?” Toji snaps as you try to fix your top after his pulling rolled it up your back again. He hears you whine his name, small and petulant like you have something to be embarrassed of. It takes a moment for the realization to click into place, for Toji to fully accept the idea that his pretty little wife might not be feeling so pretty after all. Toji isn’t big on manners, doesn’t wanna stoop to saying please and begging for what he wants but he just might with the way you’re acting. It’s clear you want it. He can tell by the way you’re rubbing your thighs together. You want it just as bad as he does and yet here you are, covering yourself with the sheets and murmuring about not yet. Toji’ll be the first to admit he hadn’t paid much attention to anything the doctors were going on about when you were laid up in the hospital, sweating and crying as you held Megumi for the first time, but he does vaguely remember being advised against sex for awhile.

“Does it still hurt, mama?” He asks because he can’t be too sure you’ve fully healed from the ordeal of pushing a little person out of your body. When you shake your head and throw your arms over your eyes, Toji frowns. He’s been gone for three and a half weeks, hasn’t fucked you in just as many months, and yet here you are mumbling over excuses to keep your clothes on. Too tired, too late, Megumi might wake up again. As if he won’t do all the work to make you feel good.

Toji can’t help but scoff. “What are you on about?”

As if he hasn’t answered calls while he’s balls deep inside you. If his son wakes up he’ll go see what he needs and come back to finish what he started. You don’t even need to move. All you gotta do is lay back and spread your legs while he takes care of the rest. His fingers hook into the elastic of your waistband, keen on pulling those baggy pants off. He knows what to expect. Your thighs got thicker to match the new weight of your hips. He’s expecting the plushness as he wrestles the pants off your legs even as you weakly bat at his hands and whine about him waiting a minute. All it earns you is another bite to the softness of your thigh because why would he wait even a second more after he’s already waited this long.

He’s nearly delirious with desire. There’s no more time for waiting and your pitiful little protests aren’t doing much to convince him that you actually want him to stop. You need this. Need your man to bully you out of your clothes and prove how much he’s missed seeing your body because clearly Toji’s words aren’t enough to get it through your thick skull just how gorgeous he thinks his wife is. But fuck do you look beautiful even in the darkness. He spares a second to turn on the bedside light, ignoring your feeble attempts at protest as the dim light washes over you. He watches you try to roll away, grasping at the sheets to cocoon yourself out of sight.

“Stop fucking runnin’, mama. Lemme see my girl. Already said I missed you.” Toji groans as he grabs you by the waist, reveling in the way you squeak as he moves you where he wants. Little thing always thinking you can run from him like he won’t pull you back every time. He’s greedy, wants to keep you to himself. You’re his. His wife, mother of his son. His, his, his. And yet you’re acting like he’s exaggerating how desperately he wants you after so long. Maybe it’s the alcohol turning him mean, but he wants to prove himself beyond a shadow of a doubt in your mind. It’s all he ever wants. To prove himself worthy. He knows he not but it’s the least he can do to pretend that one day he might be. You just have to let him.

He takes pity on you as you squirm, grasping for the edge of the sheets Toji’s already tossed out of reach.

“S’okay, mama. I got you.” His hands pet over your hips, fingers playing at the edge of your panties. He wants them off of you, wants to get his mouth on your cunt ’cause he can clearly see the wet spot seeping between your legs. You’ve always loved how big he is, how easy it is for Toji to move you how he wants, and yet here you are trying to play at being bashful like you don’t want his head between your legs.

“Don’t be gross,” you whine as he works you out of your panties and brings them up to his nose. Toji doesn’t miss the way you lift your hips to help. All this huffing and puffing when you want it just as bad. It makes him want to be nastier just to get under your skin, and just like he wants you to, you whine something about him being such a nasty weirdo as he tongues at the wet spot your pussy has left in your panties. The taste has his cock swelling in his pants, twitching to be inside you after months of only using his hand. It’s nearly painful the way his dick throbs at the sight of you spread underneath him. Wet and neglected as you try to tug your shirt down over your lap. Fuck, he’s glad he married you because Toji can’t stomach the thought of another man ever being in his place and getting to see you just like this. He hears the sound of your hand smacking his shoulder more than he feels it as you try to get him from between your legs. It doesn’t work, just makes him nip at your thigh again as he shoulders your legs apart and pushes your stretched shirt out of his way.

Toji isn’t doing it for you when his tongue licks a broad stroke up your pussy but you sigh like he is before thinking better of it and going back to pulling at his hair, trying to get him from between your legs like anything could part him from your fat little cunt. The feeling prickles over his scalp and sings down his spine in a way that has his hips grinding against the bed. He’s not worried about you as he sucks your clit into his greedy mouth, tongue tracing the shape of his name over the sensitive bud. It’s his, you’re all his.

He can barely hear you whining over the sound of how wet your cunt is in his mouth. “Toji, get up. M’gonna squish you, stop it!” You’re not saying anything important and he tightens your legs around his head, trying to drown in the warmth of your thighs smothering him. When you don’t get your way he feels the hand not gripping his hair pressing against his shoulder. Not trying to move him, but using his immovable nature to your advantage as you try to scoot up the bed. He doesn’t care until you get far enough that his mouth pops off your cunt. There’s a shining mess of spit and arousal strung between the two of you and he’s eager to make you even messier. An arm is tossed over your wiggling hips, heavy as a steel beam to keep you from running from his mouth again.

“Stop movin’, lemme eat in peace.” He groans as his nose nuzzles against your clit while he tongues at your fluttering hole. His eyes watch you over the soft curve of your tummy. Your eyes are wet with tears as you whimper over the feeling of his hot tongue on your pussy. You’ve been suffering just as much as he has but you’re still acting like you don’t want him to fucking ruin you, like you don’t deserve it. You do. Of course, you do. Everything and more. He feels you relax into it, hand loosening to softer tugs in his hair as your lashes flutter and lips part. This is how he likes you, soft and happy. Quiet little moans filling the room as he makes a mess between your legs. He can feel you getting close as your pussy drools down his chin. Your thighs are tensing around his head, shaking in the way they always do when you’re close to cumming. It makes him laugh, and the deep sound sings through your pussy. It’s enough to push you over the edge.

Finally, finally, you drop the shy act and pull his mouth closer, hips grinding against his face like you’re trying to mark him up with your wetness. He can feel it glossing over his cheeks and chin, smell it as he watches you ride his face. Two fingers find their way inside your fluttering walls, hooking against that sweet spot until you squeal and he gets to hush you like that’s not exactly what he wanted to hear. Because weren’t you the one worried about waking the baby? Now listen to you. This is what he wanted and you were being all stubborn acting like he couldn’t have it. It’s not until you’re running again that he eases up. He could keep going, keep eating you until you’re all out sobbing and shoving at him to get his greedy mouth and thick fingers away from your pussy, but he’ll be nice just this once. Toji sits back on his knees and watches you cringe at the sound his fingers make as they slip out of your soaked cunt. Webs of your arousal cling between his fingers and he makes a show of dragging his tongue between them like he’s still eating you out.

“Felt good, huh?” He knows it did. You made such a big mess and you’re still dripping onto the sheets. Makes him eager to get you on his dick. It’s still straining in his pants, painfully hard from tasting you and hearing all your little noise. He gets up just long enough to strip off his pants, ignoring the mess he’s made just from getting his head between your legs. Toji eyes your shirt, still pulled defiantly low.

“Take it off.” You grab at the hem, fiddling with nervous fingers. “Take it off or I’ll rip it off.” He amends. You mumble something that sounds like “don’t wanna” as you cling to the fabric like it’ll keep him off you.

Toji scoffs, “You know what to say if you don’t want to.” He reminds you as he grabs at the collar of your shirt. It’s damp with sweat as is the rest of your body. You look shimmery in the low light, eyes glittering with tears as he works you out of that last piece of clothing with a quick jerk of his arms. The shirt doesn’t put up a fight, ripping like paper so he can shove it away from your chest. Your body comes spilling out without the tight fabric clinging to you. Tits swollen with milk and tummy still holding on to that last bit of baby weight. You look like a mother and it makes his balls tighten. His mama, his girl. He got you like this and fuck if he isn’t gonna enjoy it while it lasts. He’ll leave your tits alone only ’cause you’ve been complaining–and he’s happy to listen–about how sore breastfeeding is making you. You’ve gone up a couple cup sizes and your tits look gorgeous but he won’t bother them if it’ll hurt you.

“Toji.” You’re pouting. He can hear it in your voice and see it in the way you’re squirming as he kneels over you, fisting his cock as he stares at your body.

“What?” Right about now he doesn’t really care about what you’re whining about unless you’re gonna start begging for his cock. His free hand finds your waist again, kneading at the softness he finds there. So plush and warm. Fucking you like this is gonna feel like he’s fucking a cloud. He hears you muttering about being too big and tells you to shut up.

“Don’t be fucking dumb. Acting like it’s the end of the world. Shut up and let me fuck you.” Usually he’d try to be more tactful with his words. It’s only right that you get to complain about how your body changed, but right now he really doesn’t want to hear it. You’re talking down on the body that’s driving him insane like you can’t see his cock twitching at the sight of you sprawled out beneath him. Toji tosses your thighs over his, pulling you up into the cradle of his lap, remembering only vaguely to shove a pillow under your back. You cover your face as he stares at your pussy, like he didn’t just get real up close and personal when he had her in his mouth. She’s still drooling real pretty for him as he ruts against you, wetting his dick with the mess you’re making. He feels your thighs jump every time the head of his cock catches against your clit. He pulls back the hood so he can really love on it, listening to the way you choke on your breath as he grinds over the sensitive little bud.

“Gonna let me inside, mama?” Toji asks and you nod eagerly, hips bucking in his lap. Fuck. You’re cute when you stop worrying so damn much. Acting like he isn’t dying to get his dick inside you. He can feel you clenching as he presses in, pussy gripping him so good as he drags you down on his cock. You take it so well. Inch by inch you let him inside until you’ve swallowed him down to the base, already wetting his hips with your excitement. The clenching heat is enough to stun him and Toji has to hold you still with clenched teeth to keep you from milking him to the edge too soon. You’re already trying to ride him with little bucks of your hips, hiding a smile behind your hands as you lay back against the pillows and act like you weren’t just trying to keep him off you.

“Not so shy now, huh?” Toji asks, squeezing at your thighs as he pulls back just to fill you up again with another deep stroke. You make a pretty little noise as he bottoms out, wet lips parting around a moan even as you try to catch it with your shaky hands. He’s got you good. You’re making enough noise for the both of you as Toji stirs up your insides, keeping you locked on his dick even when it starts to get too much for you. He can feel you trying to squirm away when he gets too deep inside you, hands grabbing at his wrists, trying to pry him off you. He’s mean about fucking you now, thumb rubbing quick circles on your clit as you wail about it being too much.

“S’not enough if you don’t cum, mama. Lemme feel it.” You’re already clenching so tight around him, pussy milking his cock like you want another baby. He’s lucky you’re on the pill because the way your body is rippling with every thrust is getting him weak. There’s no way he’d be able to pull out even if he can barely handle the one kid he’s already got. It feels too good to stop even when you’re trying to get away from the feeling of him spreading you open.

Toji can’t help but laugh between his panting. “This is your dick, mama, stop running from it.”

“Yeah, it’s mine.” You agree, tongue getting loose the closer you get to cumming. “Want it. Want you.” He can feel you tightening up as you babble about him being yours. Your thighs start to shake again, trying to knock shut even with his legs keeping you nice and open for him.

“Get me wet, mama. I know you want to.” You cum hard, clit twitching under his thumb as you cream on his dick, getting him all sticky with your cum. Selfish as he is, Toji keeps you on his dick for a little while longer. Milking himself dry inside you while he keeps a quick pace on your clit. You’re crying and wailing–real loud like you don’t have a kid and neighbors–by the time he eases up on you. Your pussy is flushed and swollen around his cock when he pulls out. His dick is shiny with wetness, dragging out a mess with his softening cock. You’re leaking his cum in a frothy mess onto the sheets, pussy hot and twitching from how hard he fucked you. Toji can’t help but thumb through the mess, smearing the mix of your releases over your puffy pussy and circling your clit just to hear you whine about it being too much. So fucking pretty and all his.

His hands rub at your thighs as he lets you off his lap, trying to work the soreness from your muscles while you catch your breath. He watches you relax as the fatigue slowly creeps back in. He kept you up far longer than he should’ve but it was worth it for the way you seem so content to let him rub on you. An hour ago you would’ve been batting his hands off of you and cowering like you didn’t want him to see you. Now you’re content to stretch out across the bed and let him squeeze anywhere he pleases. This is what he prefers. It’s his body you were berating anyway. You belong to him. You’re not allowed to act shy and be mean like he won’t remind you just how much you’re worth. He thinks about getting his mouth on you again as he watches you cuddle back up to his pillow and decides you won’t mind too much. He can taste himself leaking out of your pussy as he drags his tongue through your folds. You whine and shift but the hand you slip into his hair is gentle, letting him have his fun as long as he goes slow. He only parts from you when a sharp cry crackles through the speaker of the baby monitor.

“I got him.” Toji says easily. You’re barely awake and it’s the least he can do after being gone for so long. “Go pee.” He reminds you as he slips back into his pants. You mumble something that might be an “okay” as he goes to see what Megumi needs. The little spud is squirming in his crib, snotting and crying like he needs something but he quiets the second Toji picks him up. He doesn’t want his bottle, doesn’t need to be changed, he’s just making noise ’cause he woke up wanting attention. Toji is content to give it to him, walking around the nursery until Megumi falls asleep again. Toji holds him a little while longer, basking in the sweet scent that seems to cling to him. Like milk and lotion as he rests a hand on his son’s back. When he gets back to bed where you’ve already changed and fallen back to sleep, Toji considers a career change.

#toji ★#toji smut #toji x reader smut #toji x reader #jjk smut #★ mine!

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vxiphoid · 10 months

Text

PIXELATED ZEN

❨ summary ❩ genshin › genshin men playing minecraft with you ((ft. alhaitham, itto, cyno, diluc, kazuha, kaeya, heizou, & xiao))

tags ✧ modern au, drabble, fluff, chaotic energy, not proofread, cursing, ooc(?), established relationship, gn!reader, kaeya sets a forest on fire, alhaitham does not appreciate bees, mentions of pixelated deaths

amanuensis’ message ⊹ IM NOT TRYING TO KILL MY OTHER FANDOMS I SWEAR… im gonna back up from twst for a bit (im literally posting scarabia soon.) you can clearly tell who my favorites are… this unlocked a whole different part of my brain holy shit im deceased

⌜200+ e/chara ⌟

♫ blossom - t. shan

genshin masterlist

ALHAITHAM

╰┈➤ tbh he thinks minecraft is stupid, i mean, why not read a book instead of burning the images of pixels into your eye sockets😒 yeah, he’d just rather books. its a game about blocks, what could possibly be so interesting? he will admit the music is… nice. its nostalgic even though he’s never heard the track before. his favorite animals are the axolotl idk they’re his little pookies. its their little stick arms, they look so silly… as soon as haitham found out that you could color things its over, he make some sweet things like putting a sign on top of your shared house with both initials with colored dye. he’s so happy, just not very vocal about it, but he has the smallest of smiles. he definitely has headphones with the crochet sprout on it omg😭 alhaitham does not like bees whatsoever, they stung him for trying to get food. he just wanted honey :[

“look, the dog’s collar is blue. and the sign’s letters are green and then if you add a glow squid’s ink, it lights up.”

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ARATAKI ITTO

╰┈➤ he has waited YEARS for someone to play minecraft with him omfg. certified snack hoarder for times like these. you both literally hit each other to show love, you’ve accidentally killed him once bc he didn’t tell you that he had like half a heart… itto likes the water, hates the guardians because who do you think you are attacking him out of nowhere??? gets one shotted by the elder guardian while trying to fight it with a stick and then blames it on magma blocks pulling him down. GAMING WITH HIM IS NEVER CALM GODS💀 you cannot lay on him or anything bc as soon as those cave sounds or disc 13 start playing, he’s already done sprung out of his seat. his screams are actually really funny though, you got him a cat from how much he’s been assaulted by creepers. when you introduced him to shaders, he was so in awe. “babe i have a shadow!” type of excitement JAKEJEJDMnda.

“the cat’s name is sir arataki the third, you are now my loyal guard cat. who’s an adorable little guy?”

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CYNO

╰┈➤ look at this nerd (affectionate), ofc he plays cubecraft. loved it so much that when he didn’t have the actual game, he would play the really bad knockoffs💀 plays on console so you can sit between his legs, lean back, and game with him. cyno hate the split screen because he always gets confused on what side he’s on so he lets you use his switch, that way you’re both still comfortable. he’s more of an explorer if you do get mod packs for him, likes the horror ones the most. there’s nothing like hitting the enemy or shit talking the thing that could potentially one shot you with your s/o‼️ yall crouch a lot, its like a little dance. he really likes the disc “far” it itches his brain in the right way. definitely downloads the little raccoon mobs but then regrets it because he gives up all his berries to them, look at their little begging arms, literally how can you say no to that?? AND THEY WASH THE BERRIES. you both fall asleep to the ambience and to each others breathing all cuddled up ‘n warm. cyno absentmindedly sings the music while chopping wood or mining that shit has you SLUMPED. he kisses your head when you fall asleep, smiling like a silly goober.

“do-do-do-do do-do-do-do do, neow neow neow nneow neeeowwww… huh? oh, i’m almost done then we can go to bed, yeah? i’ll charge the switch too, don’t worry. just rest.”

(he’s singing that one part in danny lmfao)

┏━━━━━━ ━ ─ ╴⋯ ⟢

DILUC

╰┈➤ diluc does not understand the concept of minecraft but its okay, he’s just happy to be here. he also doesn’t call it minecraft but “cave game”, the original name, he did his research though it is rare that he actually calls it minecraft. found out that you could breed animals and accidentally made a pack of wolves. diluc is really good with redstone its actually insane😭 he’s the type to protect you the whole time while you’re getting flowers for the house, boyfriend bodyguard. diluc doesn’t play much because of his job but when he does, he’s prepared to sit for hours and spend time with you :(. these are the times where he’s most affectionate, randomly kissing your cheek, getting water for the both of you before you play, etc. luc loves the mod pack “industrial”, he can build machines, how neat is that??? also it has way more OMFP with the added features it has yk? he likes the trains :D

“is the water running…? the water’s running, they have moving windmills!”

┏━━━━━━ ━ ─ ╴⋯ ⟢

KAEDEHARA KAZUHA

╰┈➤ kazuha has the most expensive equipment yet doesn’t use this shit half of the time unless he’s streaming with heizou??? like im talking msi infinite rs pc, multiple monitors, a graphic drawing tablet, headphones with immaculate sound quality AND!!! the ear cups have fucking cyberpunk 3d wing guards on them. but anyways, minecraft, yes, he plays. in fact, kaedehara has about 10 beaten hardcore worlds every time a new update comes out, he must beat the game again. he rarely plays minecraft without his shaders so when you want to play the original og minecraft, he doesn’t mind, he actually enjoys the nostalgia. so much so the music is actually his background music when he’s just lazing around. words cannot express how much he dislikes (hates) wardens omg. he’ll protect you from them but if there were diamonds behind a warden, ig he’s going somewhere else😭 kazuha gives you random shit, weather that be something really sweet or questionable…

“love, do you want my rotten flesh? here<3 oh! and, i also got you some steak, you’re low on hearts…”

┏━━━━━━ ━ ─ ╴⋯ ⟢

KAEYA

╰┈➤ he’s heard of it, watched people play, just never played it. but when he does… he’s a menace. kaeya got his hands on flint and steel and set an entire jungle on fire… but he can be sweet sometimes! you’re the one protecting his ass while he walks around at night UNARMED to gather blue flowers for you. like you’re cute, but take a shield or something😭 he’s jumped off of a tall building before and landed on half a heart for a stack of bread you didn’t want. he’s rather oblivious to the mobs around him, he once thought shulkers were friends because they were just “silly little guys in little boxes” yk until they almost killed him. you bought him his own skin and introduced him to parrots and now its his favorite animal, he looks like a pirate!!! kaeya is chaotically sweet.

“yes, you almost died protecting me but how could you resist my everlasting love plus pixelated blue flowers?”

(has a cat unironically named ice spice LMFAO)

┏━━━━━━ ━ ─ ╴⋯ ⟢

SHIKANOIN HEIZOU

╰┈➤ your boyfriend is good at literally anything else BUT minecraft. its the way this game constantly has it out for him too like what did bro do??🙁 heizou stream’s with kazuha every now and again and on those, he still doesn’t know what to do… he’d rather play on the servers, bedwars in particular. extremely good at bw, you’d rather NOT be his enemy😭😭 wins almost every single game even when he carries, rank 98 in the server. yet when it comes to a casual server between you and him, the chats are filled with his deaths and his hashtagged rages💀 heizou despises silverfish which is also why he hates going into strongholds, they could get stomped on for all he cares! >:( he has texture packs with really beautiful skies and then a picnic mod so he can stargaze with you and eats minecraft cake :(<3

“oh. babe, green is heading for our bed, no pressure or anything. i loovveee youuu😚”

┏━━━━━━ ━ ─ ╴⋯ ⟢

XIAO

╰┈➤ xiao has the MOST downloaded mod packs, shaders, and worlds. not very expensive mod packs most of the time but when they are, they’re always good. spends his time fighting off mobs at night, #1 totem holder. he even has his own custom skin!!! he’s kinda been waiting for you to ask so when you do play mc together, you already have your own room, but when you voluntarily move your bed into his room to sleep… he melts. xiao loves cuddling while the two of you play, he’d rather your arms around him than the other way around, feels more intimate. you have matching hoodies for occasions like this. he has the dragon mod pack and has his own golden and orange dragon named ‘li’. he doesn’t talk while gaming, curses silently when he gets hit, but other than that doesn’t talk. if you want to talk, he’ll listen, he likes hearing about your day :].

“no, keep talking. i’m listening. see, li’s listening too.”

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theloveinc · 4 months

Text

if i didn't care (more than words can say) - a dabi / touya todoroki x reader fanfiction—NO QUIRK!college-ish!AU

wc: 7.3k — my longest to date :')

sum: a beautiful but notorious shadow keeps following you home. over the course of some weeks, you eventually get to know him.

a/n: more than anything, this is really just a huge ode to my hatred of graduate school, though since the start of writing this, i admit it has gotten a lot better—hence there being a mixture of characters and ocs included. i don't think i was able to nail this exactly the way i envisioned, in clarity and thematically (and it's wordy as all hell)... but i am still delighted by this concept. i hope it tickles you, as well!

a MAJOR thank you to my beloved @weird-dere-writes for beta-ing this! twyla is a a real one whom i adore like the shining sun.

warning: lighthearted in spirit but DARK CONTENT! features stalking, physical assault and mentions of sexual assault, miscommunication, suicidal ideation, talk of death, gore + general sense of unhappiness/unease. gender neutral but some of the pet names include: pretty, sweetheart, lollipop, cookie, hon, baby + etc., also I think you might have a purse?, HAPPY END!

(read on ao3 - coming soon!)

title credit goes to the ink spots.

enjoy!

The sun has just barely set by the time you leave your final class of the day. Fog seeps from over the distant hills that surround your city, subway tracks murmur from underneath the thick concrete, and car high beams yellow in the fading light of the sun and slate blue sky.

Your classmates—those who have all left the lecture hall before you to give each other rides home—laugh, their voices echoing throughout the campus plaza as they disperse; the last students of the night to begin their trek home, down the hill that is your campus, and far, far away from you.

You don’t mind.

…or you tell yourself, at least.

Your walk home is pleasant enough, not so close that it doesn’t feel like a trip worth making, not so far that it feels like you’re a freshman again, tearing out of class just to run to catch the bus in time. It’s the perfect temperature where walking is comfortable, and if timing allows, you’ll get to enjoy the sunset as you go. Maybe today you’ll see the funny looking tuxedo cat that stares at you sometimes from the ground floor apartment window of one of your neighbors; you only recently found out that they have a little tortoiseshell, too.

Besides, while it’s not as though you enjoy your time alone any more than you enjoy anything else in life, home has become a sort of sanctuary, the trip to-and-from, a ritual, from school and the tension that sears your nerves on a daily basis. You still can’t help but wonder why it is that you’re only ever regarded by other students with hateful looks or by plain being ignored, sitting in the front corner of every classroom, freezing from both the weather's cooling breeze and the fact everyone just happened to ice you out by sitting in the back.

It's no surprise that nor can you ignore it, either.

For as much as you try, which is almost as often as you open your eyes in the morning, you simply haven’t succeeded. Hence why, with the cold air nipping at your cheeks and your fingers numbing from a chill you know will only get worse the longer you stay outside… you suppose you should finally start heading back, too.

You notice them first when you stop to adjust a faulty earbud.

A figure behind you that stops. Waits. Lingers. More than a block away, under the newly darkened sky and opaque clouds. A street light illuminates their body as they appear to dawdle; awkwardly hovering about a pole, staring at something you don’t see on the ground, trotting a couple steps, and then looking up at the sky.

You glance at them, the way one glances, with one hand pressed to your ear, the other gripping the strap of your bag tightly as you turn your head ever so slightly to look out of the corner of your eye and pray the movement isn’t noticed.

The figure, of course, freezes–like it’s not obvious, like it’s possible you won’t pick up on the sudden shift from dance to pause, autonomous to marionette, breath to stone. You can’t make out much about them aside from their long, dark clothing as their face is hidden by dark glasses and a hood, but when your stomach knots with something sour, nerves that twist and scream, you know nothing good will come from standing around and waiting to find out anything more.

You let your eyes shift back to the paved street in front of you slowly, as if you just found yourself caught up in the frustration of skippy music. Then, you start walking again, hoping it was all just some coincidence, illusion, pretending that if you were to look back, the figure would have since simply turned the corner and left you behind, like most people almost always seem to do.

But you look again. Peek, from the corner of your eye, briefly, like you normally would when no one is there and you just want to make sure… but this time, someone is, and by the time you really catch sight of them (closer now, like they were walking fast, jogging maybe, red light, green light), you don’t want to draw any more attention to yourself and turn back before you can make things any worse.

Your heart beats. Your breath shudders. You flex your fingers where they’re held, stiff with terror, wondering: is this really happening? What should I do? Am I crazy?

It’s five more blocks until your house. Three stop signs, then two traffic lights. One liquor store, and an empty cafe that has already closed for the day, filled with stacked chairs and little mice you sometimes catch scuttling by the edge of the curb. You live by a school, but since it’s already dark, there will maybe be a total of four cars that pass you by. Maybe. Then there’s a trek up a short hill before you finally reach your street.

You wonder, not once slowing your step, if this is something you need to be worried about, if you’re really being stalked like you’ve always been warned of before, if anyone would even care if you didn’t show up to class tomorrow, or the day after that, or the day after that… and then, despite the whisper of your unconscious telling you not to be so self-involved, no one wants you, anyway, you increase your step. You want to look back, confirm what you think is happening, face a fight you don’t think is fair but haven’t yet decided whether or not you want to win.

But you don’t, thinking you can almost hear their footsteps now, though maybe you’re just confusing them for the wild thump, thump, thump of your heart and the catches of your breath. And when you check back, they’re half a block away but feel closer than ever, eyes on you and hands halfway around your throat though they’re still hidden deep in their pockets.

You feel a little like hurling, a bit more like giving up and letting them have you (though you’ve only ever written a suicide note, never a will)... but the creature of fear in you ends up prevailing, throwing it’s tentacles up through your gullet into your brain and dragging you into the depths… just as you say a prayer for the first, or any, god willing to listen.

And then you start running.

Heft your bag over your shoulder, suck in an icy breath and charge forward into the night, past the three stop signs and through the red of each stop light that blares at you, really the only thing that seems to acknowledge you as you refuse to waste any time looking back.

Self preservation is one hell of a drug, you only manage to briefly think in between gulps of air, your cheeks stinging with the breeze and your feet beginning to grate and blister against the friction of shoes that aren’t meant for running. You figure at this point you’re more likely to trip and crack your skull open on the pavement than be caught and dragged away by some freak with a violent agenda. Would that really be so bad?

But your answer quickly arrives in the form of making it home and climbing the stairs so fast you manage to forget the thought entirely, along with most of the rest of the world aside from the few people you come up with (and proceed to scratch out) when determining who, if there's anyone, you can call for help.

It's inside, silent and alone in the dark, you try to process what just occurred for so long that eventually your roommate comes home from their shift at the bar. It’s only at their surprise from seeing you still awake (ghostlike, on the couch) that you realize hours have passed in the span of what felt like only seconds, minutes, the metronome of a few steps home–and that you hadn’t actually processed anything at all.

You go to bed that night, not having eaten but not hungry, still feeling the phantom sensations of your bounding footsteps on hard concrete, cold sweat sliding down the slant of your neck, and the feeling of a man just inches from your putting his hands on your back.

The next day during lecture, you are awoken from a hazy daydream by a notification on your phone.

Campus Creeper Found Passed Out in Uni Plaza.

You blink, exhausted after an adrenaline crash made worse by your night of haunted sleep, eventual overheating, and your roommate taking a shower at four am. You were happy to even drag yourself out of bed this morning and make coffee just tolerable enough not to spit out all over your kitchen floors.

Local man, you read after clicking, deemed the “campus creeper,” was found passed out on the Student Union steps early this morning. Identified by a member of student patrol at Mustafu University, the man’s name has yet to be released to the public as it appeared he was suffering from a number of wounds, mostly external.

Despite condition, students have taken to social media to express their relief, as the man has reportedly been following students—

You stop reading, having hardly even processed the words, really, as you try to shake off the fog that keeps you from really understanding what the words are telling you.

A tightness settles in your stomach, heavy and painful with a nausea you can’t shake, a question you don’t yet realize: is this the same person, same man, who scared you half to death last night by trailing you all the way home? It’s unclear from the article, the timing, the picture with his blurred out features… and the fact that he must've been dragged all the way back up to school because he was found nowhere near your home.

While you assume you’ll be more excited once the new sinks in and the nerves turn to consolation (and the person to your left stops chattering into the ear of the person sat behind you), you can’t help but shoot to your feet and run to the closest bathroom in a panic, trying not to hyperventilate looking at yourself in the mirror in between splashing water on your face.

The day has once again fallen into night. Your bag is heavy with the weight of books and pens and your schedule notepad that has all your plans for the rest of the week and even the month beyond that. Today, however, the clouds don’t creep and instead, you see stars, maybe only a handful or so, one airplane too, as the sun descends in a tender calm and the windchill greets your cheeks once more.

You walk, out of class and down the ancient steps of the building, start descending the hill down to the first busy intersection of streetlights where the president of your school was once hit by a car.

It’s not three blocks into the way home, however, that a shadow appears once more. Distantly, though you’re sure it’s calculated enough so as not to ring as intentional no matter how much you know it is, and can feel it in your bones.

You thought he had been caught. The creeper.

You hadn’t realized you were so relieved by the thought. It slipped your mind, the celebration over as quick as it started under the weight of all your schoolwork and the dirty looks your classmates sent you after you came back from dry heaving into the bathroom sink. Maybe it was a different guy they caught, you wonder, then kick yourself for being so naive as to think that maybe you’d been spared.

Of course not, you think. It’s never that easy, is it?

Panic once again bubbles up in your throat, anxiety pooling in your stomach like something hot melting through stone, and tears start to sting at the center of your eyes. You do your best to ward away the urge to collapse, instead trying to focus on the fact that everything was fine yesterday and tonight’s just another dream you’ll wake up from again tomorrow…though by now you know it’s not.

It is easier, this time, however, to begin to run, to bounce on your feet with a purpose you hope isn’t any more transparent than your fear. You’re happy that today you managed to pack light, skipped filling up your water bottle, and happened to put on your sneakers instead of your slip-ons, as if you didn’t spend half of your entire morning trying to convince yourself that potentially saving your own life was a good thing.

By the time you make it to the door, chest heaving with a wheezing heat as your hand shakes the key into the padlock, when you turn back to look one final time before ducking inside, still gasping for air, the shadow is no longer behind you.

The creeper is getting braver, you notice.

It has been weeks since the shadow appeared and the following began. One week of that same distant trailing which had you sprinting like some sort of track star, two weeks of running only the last block home, locking every single bolt on your door (then unlocking when it was time to let your roommate in), and three in total of squinting behind you in stinted moments and wondering what you see.

You think his hair is white.

Now though, tonight, he stays not a block or two behind you but rather, less than fifty feet. You can make him out—see now the faded black of his jeans and the red of his chuck taylors, dirty. He’s young-ish, you think, more noticeable than before, and skinnier–though maybe your eyesight has just gotten worse, or the memories have faded in trying to spare you from another trauma, maybe even from awakening any of the first ones.

You wonder how he was able to speed up, where he was waiting for you, where he came from that first night, the second, and now. And you wonder why you’ve stopped running as fast, even if you’ve been trying to leave campus earlier and earlier as if that will keep you any safer from walking home at night.

(You had remained after class one night to ask your professor a question you no longer remember, and a wispy haired girl sneered at you so badly you ended up weeping on your way out the door. Not only did it kill your urge to ever stay longer on campus than you needed to, it also caused a wane to your desire to even arrive home at all).

One day, the creeper catches up.

Reaches, like he’d be able to touch you, smiles, like his canines are sharp enough to chew through you…hopefully in one bite if he was even able to swallow that much. Maybe he is.

But you swat back when he does. Hoist your bag in close. Glare over your shoulder. Then speed up, and your lungs tighten into stone almost immediately when he speaks.

“Hey—”

“Get the fuck,” you screech, turning back just enough to say the words despite not knowing if you’d even be brave enough to let them out, to get away unscathed, “away from me!”

The shadow, however, instead of shrinking into disparagement like you so hoped… laughs, skipping towards you, laces flying, smiling wide.

“Aw, c’mon,” he jeers, to which you wince as you try to stomp away from his pull. That is, in between your attempts at keeping your eyes on him so that he doesn’t pull anything else fast, or deadly.

“I swear to fucking god. I will call the cops.”

Another laugh, his footsteps now lighter, his voice switching to something airy and cool.

“Don’t be like that, pretty.”

You barely look, but you see a flash of red as he kicks out his foot, the curl of a grin pulling one side of his lips lopsided as he lazily trots to match your hurried pace.

You want to start running, to disappear, dissolve—anything to stop things from developing further into a conversation and your possible demise—but he catches up to you again before you can even try to skirt away in any direction other than forward.

“You noticed quicker than I thought you would,” he almost hums, the words exposing the soft, pink tissue of his gums. “‘didn’t think you would.”

There is a question in his statement, though his voice doesn’t lilt and only his eyebrows give it away, quirking, stretching, falling, the piercing on his left one along with it, when you slow down (hardly, still breathing rough and nervous, not wanting to look) but don’t respond.

“Most people…” he shakes his head, “eh.”

“What?” you stop your stride, more out of surprise than want, and stare at him despite how distinctly you avoid catching his eyes. “Like people don’t know when they’re being followed?”

“Nah,” he says, his mouth remaining open after, humorously, like you’re supposed to get the joke, think it’s cool, that he’s a zombie, maybe. Something. “Like I thought you wouldn’t care.”

You cross your arms, blink at the ground in trying to hide what is most likely a stupid looking pout in your failing attempt to get hot and angry. You shouldn’t even be speaking. “I care when creepy people follow me.”

He laughs again, raspy and free. “It’s been weeks.”

You don’t want to give him the satisfaction of looking at him, but you look at him anyway. Truly focus on the mop of messy white and black streaked hair atop his head, the stained, canvas jacket with extra pockets and copper zippers, and his smile; the delicate, creased skin of his jaw that fades smoothly up his cheeks and down his neck. He isn’t bare of a good amount of piercings, either: he’s got all sorts metal in his ears, nose, and dimples, as far as you can tell by simply looking at him

He’s not really all that creepy-looking after all. To your surprise (and slight disgust), in fact, you find he’s somewhat… handsome.

You swallow.

“It’s been three.”

“Hm, baby?”

You tense, the claws returning, this time aiming for your heart, shredding it open, every insecurity lighting aflame when he smiles that smile again.

“Three weeks. That’s how long you’ve been stalking me,” you say.

There’s a pause, a shift, something you don’t catch and can hardly read. Then, he rolls his eyes, shoving his white knuckled fingers into the pockets of his coat. He doesn’t move otherwise, doesn’t even look angry, or as though he’s going to take any steps backwards or forward, and not like he’s going to lunge at you as if you’re prey and there’s an animal in him that he’s already promised food.

You feel otherwise, though he shakes his head with a ‘tsk. “I’d say stalking is a little harsh.”

You’re not sure why you object, “But–”

“I don’t stare into your window,” he taunts, “don’t have your number, don’t send you stupid love poems every night and every morning that say,‘I love you, be mine!’” He pretends to sing-song,

You can feel the irony, hear the chuckle but turn anyway to resume your walk into the night. Briskly. Refusing to look back and acknowledge the stranger you’re not sure wants to kill you.

“I don’t throw rocks at your window,” he continues to call after you, “or approach you in cafes and pretend you’re crazy when you scream.”

“Then leave me alone,” you shout, hoping the wind carries it far enough behind you to reach him, though you shiver still.

You don’t see it, but he shrugs. And surprisingly stays where he’s put, watching you try not to look like you’re peeking at him before nearly tripping on your own feet. You’re not sure if it’s a relief.

It’s the first night since first learning of him that you’ve walked home alone.

Later, you learn the creep has two names.

It’s been five weeks now, just after winter’s turn, the clouds not so big anymore but often dense with the slightest bit of rain you enjoy only when you wake up in the middle of the night too scared to go back to sleep.

The creeper, the shadow, your stalker, basically lives behind you now, grinning whenever you glance, dancing whenever you glare; it’s like he soaks up your, any kind of, attention like a bonfire being doused with gasoline. You’re still scared, unknowing of what he wants, but now that you’ve spoken, there’s somewhat of a static that’s settled, too; it’s tense and awkward, but the horror of it all is stagnant in build, in wait for the spark to light and set your whole world ablaze.

Though he finds you again, two red lights in, halfway to your house.

“Hey,” he says, following with your name.

You immediately shudder, jerking away from him in surprise as if there’s anything else you could do, but he just laughs that laugh of his, undisturbed he’s now talking to your back.

“Where’d you learn that?” you snap, but you can practically hear his grin when he responds.

“Got classmates, don’t you?”

Most of your classmates ignore you half the time, the other half just roll their eyes. Most of your classmates laugh whenever you speak, the ones who don’t have made you cry in front of your professors.

“They wouldn’t piss on me if I was on fire.”

“I would,” he says, pausing as if he’s some sort of pensive, then giving you a look that assures you he’s up to no good, “and they gave me your name. Ibara, Setsuna, Yui–I could go on, you know?”

You’re surprised. You’re disgusted. At him, at them, and you gape, the only thing you can think to do under a circumstance that implies no one has any regard for your safety and yet, hardly leaves you surprised. “I think I’d rather just die.”

“That’s not true,” the creeper laughs, seeming oddly sure of the answer. You’re too nonplussed to decide if he’s right.

“I hate you,” you try instead.

“You don’t even know me.”

And it’s no nice to meet you, but the words slip out before you can stop them.

“So, what’s your name then?”

He hesitates, sucking on the piercing on his bottom lip before letting it pop back out in a sneer that shows pointed teeth. You’re not sure if he’s meaning to come off as upset or pensive, bitter or just plain rude.

“Dabi.”

The words fall off his lips, snappy and hot, like you’re lighting the burner on an old stove, or flicking a match against a matchbox for the first time and getting surprised when it sparks.

You pause, peeking over your shoulder. “‘gonna cremate me once you kill me?”

This time, he doesn’t laugh. “Maybe,” he says, then when you don’t react, “no.”

Your foot taps the ground when you look forward again. “You should really think about changing it, then.”

There’s a pause, a shift in clothes and in breath despite the pace at which you walk. You feel nervous, awkward the way one does when someone catches you with bad hair, or wearing the last clean clothes in the house on laundry day. You’re not sure why you care so much about a man who clearly does not care about you. Or does… in the same way a farmer fattens up a chicken for slaughter.

“Call me Touya, then,” he says, his eyes dark. “That’s what my ma calls me.”

“Touya,” you repeat, sounding the word out on your tongue soft and slow. Lamp. Arrow. A name from his mother. Your lips wrap around it, caress the warmth of the dip, the bend, the aim… and his face breaks into that knowing, wolfish grin.

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

You freeze, one foot freezing in the air, and he bursts into a rasp of laughter so loud your eyebrows immediately shoot up and almost off your head entirely. You go in to shush him like you would as if you were accused of something embarrassing, your expression morphing into a deep frown, and his own lightening with humor but still twisting with something hidden, something you really hope is not satisfaction. His lopsided smile falls just the slightest when he sees you readjust your bag and start, almost, stomping away.

He lets you find distance, of course, he’s always been a shadow not a stable fly, but Touya once again resumes his lazy trailing, joyously humming now, the sound echoing in your ears much longer than it probably should as he falls into a careful step behind you just as he always does… until you eventually make it home.

At six weeks in, he finally drops you off at your house.

Normally Touya stops his trail about a block or two before you make it, today, however, by the time you’re on the stone steps leading up to your front door, he’s a mere ten feet from your side like a chivalrous date making sure you get home safe (or like someone intending to grab your hands when you’re opening the door and rush in after you, as if to mount you right there on the floor). Your knees wobble on the first step when he speaks, though he remains standing politely next to the fire hydrant by the curb, playing with an unlit cigarette in between his fingers.

“Got any roommates?”

You stop, keys dangling from your fingers as you refuse to turn back and look.

“Yeah,” you say, staring at the chopped firewood on your porch as you let the silence sprawl. You would’ve said the same even if you didn’t.

“Good. Smart cookie.”

Your stomach twists. Your face burns. He bounces on his heels. You can’t move.

“That bakery down the street,” he begins again, nodding his head when you peek at him, barely. “It got food?”

You squint, your stiff hands cold and tight, his in his pockets.

“Um.”

He waits.

“It’s got mice.”

Then he bursts into laughter, quickly quieting to suck his teeth and kick a foot forward like he wants to say something but doesn’t know how. There’s a part of you that knows you need to stop indulging this man, for your own safety and sanity, but there’s another part that also doesn’t flip when you think of the possibility of dying. Instead of going inside, you kick your own feet out and ignore your trepidation.

“Why?”

“Wanna get dinner?”

He grins, and you hate the thought as soon as it arises, but it’s lovely; he has the smile lines of someone who has lived a happy life, and he looks so pretty you almost want to cry.

(Today he’s dressed in dark, stained jeans and dirty boots. His hair is still a white and black mess and his smile is boyish and toothy. It sends a current up your spine that makes you jerk when you turn back to face your front door.)

“Piss off.”

You shove your key in the lock to ignore the way he responds with a chuckle as his farewell, goofily waving when you manage to get the stupid thing to turn and yourself inside (which you notice only when you turn to slam the door closed and the curtain ripples).

But later, when you spare one more glance, the way one glances, out of the window of your living room as if to merely check the weather, Touya is smoking his cigarette on the street corner.

Campus Creep Caught Hanging Around.

Busted, but this time, not blue! The attacker who was dubbed the “campus creeper” by Mustafu University students was spotted once more about a mile away from the local school. A local cafe owner claims he saw the man being followed by another of a similar size, but is unsure if the two men are of a related circumstance or other.

He reports that the neighborhood has been in good spirits lately, so this comes as a shock. As we continue to find out more, the public will be updated—

Today your shadow is waiting for you at the end of the block. You spot him from out of the third story window of your classroom, feet sticking halfway off the curb and a lit cigarette between his lips that curls pretty, silver smoke into the golden blue light of the nighttime air.

“Hey, need a ride home?” one of your classmates asks beside you, the one that has your same name, shocking you out of your stupor as they tap the fingers of one hand against your table and swing their car keys around in the other.

You can barely tear your gaze away from the window to look at them; their flushed face, their short curls, tight and bouncing, and their awkward, half-assed attempt at generosity. You wonder if this is some kind of exercise they were told to practice in therapy.

“I heard about the campus stalker,” they continue without prompt. “Shihai and Kinoko are coming too, but you can squeeze in the middle, if you want.”

Their smile looks almost pitying.

“Uh,” you blink, a little stupefied, a little shy. “It’s alright, but thanks.”

They raise their eyebrows. “Isn’t your neighborhood a ways down by that cafe?”

“Yeah,” you nod, pausing to flick your eyes upward, “But I, uh...my friend is gonna walk me.”

You point toward the window, where your shadow, Dabi, Touya, whoever, has stopped smoking and is now bent over (teasing, most likely, with a gray-tinted shoelace) one of the mouser cats owned by the keepers of the small temple that sits snug at the back of your school.

You’re not exactly sure when he morphed into your friend. You don’t even think he has yet… but the words feel natural, eager, and easier than sliding onto leather seats in between two people who have never once looked your way with a nice expression and probably never will.

“Oh good!” same-name laughs, tipping their head back in a way that almost seems exaggerated. “I was scared someone might try to nab you. Not anymore, though.”

You’re not quite sure if they’re joking, but you try to smile and nod along anyway.

By the time he catches up to you that night, he’s half out of breath.

“There you are,” he says, grinning that stupid, wolf-like grin. “‘thought maybe you’d left out the back. Would’ve had to run to catch you.”

You frown, readjusting the weight of your bag on your shoulder like always, distracted as you multitask trying to make sure your water bottle hasn’t leaked as you run through a list of things to remember as well as double check that you haven’t forgotten anything inside.

“The north wing is halfway around campus,” you purposely avoid mentioning you took the long way to skip the corner where Touya usually stands. Instead of his face, you stare at the ground instead, by now resigned to the torture of waiting for your end… even if you’re secretly a tad disappointed he hadn’t brought the cat with him.

“So?” Touya doesn’t look perturbed when you finally face him, almost as if he was waiting for you, “’woulda caught up eventually.”

You make a note to add that to your list of things to remember, raising your eyebrows.

“Why?” you ask, and then before he can tease, “Why bother, I mean?” and you can tell he must think you’re joking by the way he doesn’t answer, instead responding by flattening his face–his eyes sinking back into the cozy crevices where they rest and the skin of his chin tightening with exasperation as dry as tinder.

You try not to be too perturbed by it, instead of pressing him for answers, simply turning to set back off as if that will stop the eye roll he’ll give you behind your back and change his mind about following you home. But, as always, or at least, as of more recently, Touya waits a mere five steps before starting right along behind you like the shadow his is.

“What do you want from me, Touya?”

You ask the question one day, finally, two and a half months in. Classes aren’t over yet, but the end of winter semester is fast approaching. The words seem to scratch at your throat, their destination apparent even if you find they’re hard to spit out and burn on their way out.

“What?” he asks, falling into a perky step beside you. He’s been that close everyday for the last two weeks now. And now, pressed up against you, near hopping like you’ve been friends for years, he doesn’t back away from the inquiry.

You’re tired. Sick of waiting. Sad that you let this whole thing last so long when you’ve been quite aware of your impending doom (not that you ever told anyone, not even your roommate) and have done little to try and stop it.

“You wanna kill me or something? Take me home so you can fuck me then run me over?”

Touya’s footsteps slow, and he halts (for the first time ever of his own volition) a little ways behind you. He’s not as tall as you initially thought him to be back when he kept his distance, but you’ve also since learned that his eyes are the prettiest cyan you’ve ever seen, and his scarred skin is soft and pink. Silver piercings adorn his cheeks like dimples, scars cutting the two different textures right in half.

“No,” he says, then half heartedly and calm, “you know I’ve done enough of that, already.”

You glance at him, pulling your head back in a half-horrified glare. But instead of the only half-serious expression you’re so used to seeing on him, however, you find a shit-eating smirk on his face that tells you he’d laugh if he weren’t so obviously trying to yank your chain by not doing so at all.

Still serious, he jumps at you though, eyes opening wide, hands outstretched and twitching like a monster in a cartoon out to grab you, and you hop back like he’s on fire. No sooner does his face fall that he glances at you as if waiting for some kind of reaction, positive review, happy Halloween (even though it’s ages before Halloween).

When you stay silent, the hands on your chest not falling, your expression still one of terror but to him quite bitter, he rolls his eyes so far up that only the white are showing.

“I’m joking,” he says, his baby ocean blues coming back down to settle right on you. “Obviously.”

You pause, standing still, trying to breathe, comprehend the, the, the predator that has been following you so closely for what you finally conclude has been months now.

All those torturous moments, since that first night of running, all amounted to something even he won’t name. A silent end, for someone as lonely and pathetic as you; it’d almost be fitting, except for the fact that there’s no specific reason for it to be you. You’re a nobody, friendless and unhappy, waiting for the day you finally graduate and can leave this shitty city behind. It’s not like it ever kept you safe.

“Then what?” you ask.

You feel resigned, defeated, undermined… yet he looks at you dumbly, as if you’re supposed to know something you clearly do not, and while you’d normally be embarrassed, you find you’re too worn down to care. Touya raises his brows sharply, the bruised-looking (but delicate) bags under his eyes shifting slightly with the tension of an annoyed frown as his voice strains to mock you. “What do you mean, ‘then what?’”

Your face goes slack, and you think you’d try to hit him if you knew that wouldn’t end up with you on the ground or sobbing alone at home. “Seriously, Touya? We both know you’re stalking me.”

He laughs dryly, one of the few times you’ve seen him so serious (the last time when he pointed out something dead on the pavement you had to stop him from trying to pray for. ‘I don’t even go to temple,’ he had said at the time, sounding so offended that you decided to drop the subject altogether and just let him go for the little dead bird he said he wanted to give to a friend). “I’m not.”

“You are. I know you are. You…”

“I can assure you, hon, if I were stalking you, you’d already be roadkill,” he twists one of his earrings, making a show of staring at the painted nails of his other hand, dark purple, before tsk-ing at you, sassy. “Not like you run from me, anyway.”’

You feel your stomach turn in embarrassment, in shame. You know he’s partly right, but you’re not about to admit that to the man who started it in the first place, who chased you home that whole first month, who, despite the familiarity you share now, still takes pleasure in your pain.

“Because, because no matter what I do, you won't quit chasing me. I’ve been running from you. ‘Cos you won’t leave. Me. Alone.”

Touya rolls his eyes, then sighs like you’re being a hassle. “If you really didn’t want me here I woulda left. I’m not stupid.”

“But I don’t want you here. I never did. You show up out of, of, fucking nowhere, acting like you know me—”

“I’m keeping you safe, lollipop,” he interrupts, though the words hardly register.

“Safe? As if it’s my fault you can’t leave me alone?”

You think of all the nights that had you near paralyzed with terror, from that first day onward, of rubbing your feet raw in your shoes, of wishing someone would come save you, of puzzling why you never ended up dead, to now. You never once thought, realized–

“Not your fault. His. The neighbor stalker.”

You can barely respond, your arms shaking at your sides, eyes watering with distress.

“But you, you’re…”

He smacks his lips with a yawn.

“Yeah, I beat him black and blue, maybe. But only cuz he was trailing you, I wouldn’t…” he shoves one hand in the pocket of his coat, waves the other dramatically in the air, “go after someone unless—”

“Touya?” you question, your throat rough, your swallows heavy and thick with a syrupy confusion.

“They did something real bad, like messed with a—“

“Dabi.”

He finally looks at you, the sheen in his eyes, for once, solemn, as if he harbors a genuine concern for your safety all brought on by your confusion.

“What?”

It’s a question he asks a lot, but this time, he seems to mean it.

“Dabi,” you repeat, “you mean… you’re not the campus creep? The one on the news?”

He gawks at you suddenly. The silence stretching, the night suddenly looming, the breeze even seeming to laugh. His disinterested expression begins to fade into a blank, unreadable nothingness… and then he howls. Hoots. Yells. His smile returning then, wide, blazing, hot.

He laughs like you’ve never seen anyone laugh before, guffawing joyously and jollily, slapping his hands against the ripped holes of his jeans as his chest heaves underneath today’s thin, white tee.

It’s almost contagious. Almost.

“And here I thought we were bonding.”

You prickle like a cat, digging your toes into the tips of your worn out shoes. “Stop it. I’m being serious.”

“You’re tellin’ me,” he manages in between snickers, “you thought I was the creeper this whole time?”

“You’re not?”

“That guy?” Touya straightens up to wipe his eyes, and you finally notice the crow’s feet that crinkle around his eyes, “Hell no. You think I do this for fun? Wear fuckin’ ugly hats and shit to terrorize pretty students at the school my ass of a little brother attends?”

You say nothing. He starts laughing again, clapping his hands and keeling over. Even in jest, his voice still has that soft, raspy charm as he hoots at the ground.

“Dabi. Touya. Whoever you are,” you plead, the first time ever you think you’ve voluntarily gotten closer to him, grabbing the rough shoulder of his jacket and tugging. He stumbles, maybe more on purpose than because of your grip, closing the distance between you such that his chest is pressed against yours and his hands are on your hips. “Tell me the truth. What’s going on?”

He snorts, the only difference in sound now that it’s muffled by the closeness of your lips, but responds slowly nonetheless.

“I beat the snot,” he emphasizes, exposing teeth, “out of your stalker. And you didn’t even know he wasn’t me.”

“But…” you say, hesitating against him, your hands slipping from the stiff collar of his jacket to the front of his chest, confused. His eyes are as cold as ice but set you on fire when you meet his gaze. “You didn’t have to. I mean, I woulda been fine, right?”

He doesn’t look entirely convinced. “You tell me, when you’re the one still trying to walk your stupid ass home alone at night.”

You flush, cheeks heating the skin all the way down to your neck. Touya seems to have clocked you far better than you ever knew it yourself–that he was never the enemy, that you were trapped in a self pity so deep only he could drag you out of it before choking, that dying, being tortured, being stalked, was far from the punishment you needed to get that kind of smoke out of both your lungs and your head.

And, if anything, that you were lucky to have him.

“Yeah, yeah. I don’t care.” Touya steps back only to purposely step gently on your toes. When you glare at him, hand still stretched out to link the two of you together somehow, he only grins. “Buy me dinner to make up for it. Or kiss me sometime. With tongue. Either’s fine, cookie.”

It’s been six months. Summer is just about to begin, your roommate has already left on vacation, and the closer you get to the end of the season, the more you feel your worries begin to melt off of you like layers upon layers of frost on an icy window of a warm cabin.

The shadow still walks you home, but he no longer trails behind you, and you no longer call him a creep. You call him Touya–now your lamp, now your arrow–and sometimes Dabi (that is, when you feel like he’s not listening).

Though the sun now sets a whole hour later than it did during winter, excusing as much of a need for Touya’s presence in your routine, you have now welcomed him into it, (even if you spent the first couple months of your real relationship trying to make up for your initial confusion at his presence with bowls of soap and burnt bread from the cafe near your house.)

It is a Thursday when a wispy-haired classmate comes up to you on the steps that lead away from campus. She’s the one you knew vaguely from elementary school in your distant home town, and who made herself reacquainted by sneering at you once for eating a candy bar in class; she bared fangs at you like she herself had never been hungry, and then ignored you every time you saw her after (even during assigned group work, when you realized she wasn’t even that intelligent).

But, now, you know, Touya can sneer, too, and sneer for you in ways that light a fire in the hearth of your existence… and he does so, sharply, arrogantly, when she approaches underneath the fading light of the sun and slate blue sky. She looks almost scared, even more so of his smile, big, wide and scary—that is, until you interrupt the moment by calling out to her from behind his back.

“You ever heard about the campus creeper?” you ask, to which she nods anxiously, big, wet tears welling in her eyes as she hobbles right over to your side, Touya already barking into the warming night air as he begins to walk you both home.

#dabi x reader #touya todoroki x reader #touya x reader #oh m god. i want to do another read thru so bad but i am just going to press post.#please please heed warnings but enjoy #i promise it's not so scary #i love you #caitie fic #gen #caitie post #dabi

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