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dammitadolfnomorecake · 2 years

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**Cultivating Love**17**

Keith could barely control himself. To strike without killing was not a skill he’d needed of late. His heart wouldn’t stop racing, preventing the clarity of battle from settling in. Lunging from target to target, he seemed to be making no ground. The female mermaid cowering behind Pidge and Hunk as they started throwing spells. They irritated him. They should have been able to call forth their divine weapons, despite the distance between, or at least know where their weapons were. He didn’t have time to waste on the mindless masses, not once the Queen made her escape from the room. Thankfully she was quite distinguished from the rest of the mermaids, her size and facial features different, as most mermaids seemed to be, yet hers annoyed him enough to stick in Keith’s brain.

“I’m going after her, you deal with mermaids!”

Before Pidge and Hunk could protest, Keith was making his way against the flow of the army. His magic wanted to run rampart. To burn more and destroy the mermaids rather than helping. Shiro had shown him how to calm his mind, making it possible for wolf born as a lowly as him to take the position he had now. Lance was going to tease him for this, for leaving Hunk and Pidge behind, yet he didn’t care. He couldn’t care. He only had so much space to care for those around him and all of it was being channeled to praying to the heavens that Lance would be safe at the end of this.

Shiro frowned as he stared at the palace of the mermaids before him. He’d transversed the journey largely on foot, a strong feeling of energy upset sinking in while he’d been picking his way through the swamp on the edge of mermaid territory. The last anyone had heard of Keith was over a month ago. Longer for him given the way they’d parted. He hadn’t wished to keep the damage of Lance’s soul a secret, yet he had. He’d known it’d been selfish, but the Lance that had come through the nearly successful assassination attempt had been so frail.

He’d never forget the way he’d lost his mind. Though barely able to move, Lance had come to him soon after waking. He’d taken him back to Shiro’s room, insisted he rest, and acted as if he’d been the one fully responsible for the attack. Perhaps it’d been being the object of Lance’s affections that had kept his tongue silent? For a time he truly felt blessed by the heavens for what they had together.

But he couldn’t forget. Each day he wore the pouch, containing what could be saved of the fragments of Lance’s broken soul, around his neck. He’d placed his spells in place, to keep Lance calm in mind and allowed his own chi to be absorbed by Lance’s soul, hoping to be able to preserve and bolster the remains until the day came to return it to Lance.

The more time that passed the more he told himself that Lance would be fine. That Lance was strong. He didn’t like to leave Lance behind in the palace, yet that was where his spells were in place. There’d be no safer place in the realm for his fox than in their shared rooms. He knew it was sheer cowardice, but he also feared that Lance couldn’t forgive him for the secret he kept.

Then Lance had left. The spells Shiro thought were in place were no longer. Fading due to him growing too comfortable with the life he thought the three of them shared. He hadn’t been actively avoiding Lance, still, he had been. Lance cared so deeply and what was he to say when he felt his mate… lover… from his previous life return? The shock of Lance leaving felt as if he’d been freshly whipped to the depths of his bones then soaked in brine. The world wasn’t safe for Lance… The world wasn’t safe for Lance because of him and Keith. He’d never told him. He’d lied. He’d slept with Keith to cool the fever of his heats, because that’s what wolves did, but by doing so he’d pushed Lance so far that all he could do was run from their toxic love.

He hadn’t wanted any of this. He’d wanted to be wrong about Lance leaving and for Keith to be happy. Now Keith would not speak to him so he’d come to the place he’d known Lance would come. He’d come to see the mermaids to find the fate of the two men he loved. Yes, he still loved them in his own way. That his mate was reborn was not something he’d thought he’d live to see, so he’d allowed himself to move forward. To find a new happiness with the men he called his mates. Keith’s impatience. Lance’s almost infinite patience. They were his mates and they were the lights of his life.

Having watched Keith leave, Shiro had wished to too. Then he’d thought about it, and felt the time apart might be good for Keith and Lance. He’d hoped that Keith would have the words to tell Lance of his worried about the changes in Lance’s mood and scent. That they’d talk things through. He was frustrated with himself that he’d let it cross his mind that Keith meeting with Lance might be for the best seeing if they had each other, they wouldn’t need him. Yes, he was infinitely cowardly. He was and he knew. All students thought their masters unshakeable and all knowing. They weren’t. They were simply doing what they could to figure out their own paths. He’d stalled in his steps, while Keith had charged ahead blindly, unshackled by being on his second life and forced to know too much.

As Shiro’s right boot sank into something strange, he lowered his gaze. He couldn’t smell it, yet beneath his boot was rotting flesh. The kill stripped of its head and its internal organs sat rotting in the sun as the water moved lazily around it. Whatever it’d been, it turned out to the first in a long line of dead things inhabiting the swamp. Mermaids would never allow such a thing to take place. Even when whales neared too close to the shore and wound up beached, mermaids would guide them back to the deep water. All things had a beginning and all things had an end, but sometimes they needed a little help in the middle so they didn’t reach the end too fast.

There was too much death. Too much uncleanliness. The knot in Shiro’s stomach growing as he picked up his pace, heading towards the palace.

Reaching the palace, Shiro felt physically ill. All at once a sickening wave has washed through him as he passed through the barrier. A darkness seemed to loom on the inside. A deeply disturbing darkness. He couldn’t feel Lance there, Keith unknowing that Shiro seemed to have picked up the ability to sense him close due to the closeness of Lance’s soul fragments. Drawing White, he knicked his thumb pad with his left canine, then drew his blood along the blade. The interior of the palace was far too quiet. No palace he’d ever entered had been so quiet.

With careful light steps, Shiro moved through the palace. As he moved he wrapped his hand around the strands of Keith’s hair he’d collected from his mate’s bed, activating a tracking spell that immediately told him Keith was there somewhere. Following the spell, he still met no one. Mermaids were known for their hospitality. He’d corresponded with them more than once in matters of the realm. Instead of plunging down into the lower part of the palace, he was lead upwards. Two flights of stairs and many long corridors Keith hair had grown hot enough for him to dismiss the spell.

Rounding the corridor’s corner, Shiro saw Pidge and Hunk ahead. Sheathing White, his footsteps hastened, rushing to the pair. Both looked exhausted, their eyes red rimmed and their shoulders hunched. As Pidge raised her head, Shiro would never forget the look in her eyes. Marching over to him, he didn’t have time to react before she’d punched him with all her might in the face, screaming at him

“It should have been you! I curse you, Shiro. I curse you until the end of your days!”

Behind her, Hunk had looked away. No corruption lay in their energy, only a deep sadness that rivalled the pitch black coldness of the bottom of the ocean

“You shouldn’t be here. You’re not wanted”

Hunk didn’t mumble the words, but they were low. Shiro utterly confused as he wiped at the blood streaming from his nose

“What…”

“You did this! This is all your fault! Go away before you can ruin anyone else’s lives!”

Pidge broke down into tears, Hunk moving to wrap himself around her as she started sobbing

“He’s not worth our time, Pidge. Shiro, we don’t want you here and if you dare harm Keith, I will tear your throat out with my own teeth. Come, Pidge. We don’t need to see him”

“But… but, Keith?”

“I’m sure Keith will make his own feelings known. Here, let’s go inform Queen Luxia”

“Okay…”

Knocked into by both Hunk and Pidge, Shiro didn’t know what to say. Evidently something had happened, but without clear answers from Pidge and Hunk, he could only hazard a guess that something had happened to Lance. All but tripping over his robes, Shiro threw himself forward to the room Pidge and Hunk had been standing in front of.

The door was open. The room singed black from Keith’s magic. Sitting on the floor, Keith had three items before him. The red lantern lovingly carved by Lance for the festival. A black pearl. And finally Red, opened slightly to preserve the image in front of him. Lying there on the floor, Lance was in Keith’s arms. Keith cradling him as he’d said something. The image frozen, constructed in red, and brought forth from Red Dream. Panic and pain. Shiro’s knees nearly giving out from under him as he gripped the doorframe for strength. Lance had died in battle. Lance was gone. There’d be no chance to explain himself. His mate was no longer of this world.

Pidge had been right. This was all his fault.

Keith hadn’t noticed him enter. His grief a thousand times more potent than that of Pidge and Hunk. Corruption had touched the tips of ears, where weeping sores oozed black. Keith didn’t want to be saved. He’d given up. His mind was now so filled with Lance that nothing else bore significance. With his finger on the floor just beneath the handle of red, Keith drew a quarter of a circle to the right, leaving fresh blood on the already blood smeared line as he did. The images shown by Red moved backward.

Lance fighting. Him being run through. Keith moving to his side. Lance coughing blood. Then pausing on the image of Keith holding Lance. With a broken almost squeak, Keith’s body shuddered, the image then moving backwards again. It was horrific. Tears rushed down Shiro’s face as he gripped his chest. He’d hidden. He’d left Keith with Lance. He’d not planned what to say upon their return… only planning to be honest with his feelings about his mate’s reincarnation, and that he selfishly didn’t want to lose Lance or Keith either. He should have thrown his duties away and come for Lance, as Lance would have done without a moment’s hesitation for him.

Suddenly Keith’s hands shot to his head as he wailed. Shiro stepping forward until he realised that the image of Lance’s death was progressing. Keith holding Lance’s hand as Lance tried to make himself heard. Keith lying Lance down and pressing the pouch with his soul against him. Keith being thrown by magic. Magic engulfing Lance. Lance disappearing. Lance had vanished. He’d not died there… though he must have for Red to replay the scene. Keith’s bond with Red had to have deepened. He was not dead yet could clearly see himself. Now was not the time.

As he grew too close to Keith, Keith blindly struck out. Fire narrowing missing Shiro from Keith’s suddenly outstretched hand. His mate’s body heaved. Blood ran down Keith’s chin from his mouth. Keith wouldn’t hear him, even if he screamed his loves name in his ear. Sidestepping, Shiro moved behind Keith. Covering Keith’s eyes with one hand, he rested his other on the centre of Keith’s back between his shoulder blades. Manipulating Keith’s energy, a thump went through Keith’s body, Shiro regretting knocking him straight out, but he’d had years of Keith’s upset emotional states as experience. He’d been ostracised from a young age for his temper, instead of being shown love, he’d been shown fear and contempt. Keith had grown into a fine young man, and with love had blossomed brilliantly. Shiro understood why Keith was how he was, but… even for a moment, he’d been confused by the vision of Lance’s death. Darkness still lingered in the palace and he felt sure there was more to this story. He was sure he would have felt Lance’s death had Lance actually died.

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divine-mistake · 3 years

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virtue and vice

Summary: What they don’t tell you in bootcamp is that trying to fall asleep next to your co-worker, the one that you’re insanely attracted to and might have the tiniest crush on, who also hates your guts and kind of would rather turn himself over to HYDRA than hold a real conversation with you, while sharing the same bed, is impossible. There is no way in hell you’re going to be able to fall asleep next to Bucky.

Characters: Bucky Barnes/Plus-size (f)Reader

Warnings: 18+ smut (vaginal fingering, rough sex, dirty talk, bit of a Dom Bucky Barnes), language, insecurity (weight issues, a little perceived fatphobia which is wiped out really soon after)

Word Count: 6120

A/N: This is a tumblr request for @buckybarnes101 who requested a Bucky/Plus-sized reader enemies to lovers who have to share one bed with smut. I loved this request and really hot to make something hot and rough and fast! Thank you so much for the request - enjoy!!

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It finally happened, the one thing you prayed would never ever happen, the thing you’ve been dreading since you started joining James Buchanan Barnes on his stealth missions, the event that will inevitably spark your downward spiral into doom, destroying the crumbs of the relationship you’ve managed to build with him.

“You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me,” he says, barreling through the motel room like a ping pong ball with a little too much pent up energy.

You shrug your bag off your tired shoulder, letting it fall to the ground, not caring about how dirty the carpeting must be.

“At least it’s a queen,” you say, toeing off your boots. “I’ve had worse with Steve.”

Bucky turns to glare at you over his shoulder. “You’ve shared a bed with Steve?” he says, accusation rising in his tone. You stare at him like he’s crazy.

“I’m sorry—are you saying you haven’t? ‘Cause I call bullshit on that.”

He doesn’t answer, choosing to sift through his duffel bag instead. You shrug despite the fact that he can’t see you.

“I mean, it’s pretty routine, isn’t it? I’ve shared with Natasha, too. Sometimes you just have to make do.”

“Yeah but it’s Natasha,” he says like it matters. “I can’t believe you’ve slept with Steve.”

“God, Bucky, it’s only weird if you make it weird, and you’re making it weird.”

He straightens now, body stiff, one of his hidden holsters hanging from his vibranium hand. He doesn’t look at you and you’re too tired to start a fight—much less finish it—so you hope he just goes ahead and fucks off to the shower which you know he’s getting ready to do. He’s always been selfish like that. But it’s also not so selfish, you think, for someone like Bucky to want to wash the missions away as soon as possible.

But the bastard could ask sometimes, couldn’t he?

“I’m going first,” he says, just like always, and you bite your tongue.

“‘Kay.”

You turn and sigh, focusing your glare on the one bed filling the motel room. If there was one thing you always hoped for after a mission, it was not to end up in the same bed as James Barnes. The two of you notoriously don’t get along, for whatever reason that may be (although you’re pretty sure it has to do with the fact that he thinks you’re a useless addition to the team), but there is literally no denying the attraction you felt for him.

The man is hot, and he’s had a couple, or maybe most, of the screws in his head knocked loose.

You have it bad for him.

Oh, but James Barnes is not fond of you. Not that he would ever admit it, but the dude has some serious fatphobia going on. You’re ninety-nine-percent sure of that.

Alone in the bedroom, you start to strip out of your tac-suit, letting your gun belt and the rest of your holsters fall in a ring around your feet. As soon as the heaviness is off you, relieving some of the ache in your body, you think about just falling straight into the bed blood and dirt and grime and all. But you’re also sure Bucky would lose his mind if you did that.

Instead, you look to the floor length mirror just in front of the motel door, frowning.

Your skin-tight suit doesn’t do much to hide all the lumps and bumps and dips and hips all squished into it, and when you’re covered in tiny cuts and burns on every visible patch of skin, you can’t help but think about how Bucky sees you.

The useless fat Avenger! How fun.

You turn to the side a little, glancing at the fullness of your ass. Nice. A redeeming quality of the extra weight you carry atop the strong muscle you’ve built in your short time as part of the Superhero Menagerie. Not having a gimmick of any kind really forced you into working for the position—and now you’re not just the useless fat chick, you’re the super hacking, super gun toting, mega-badass fat Avenger instead.

The shower squeaks and the water stops, signaling the end of Bucky’s shower.

You look up to the ceiling, praying to some god to hear you that everything will work out just fine.

And then Bucky exits the bathroom, steam flooding from the room, wrapped only in a thinning motel towel secured by his metal hand at his waist. It isn’t the first time you’ve seen his chiseled figure, but there’s something that jumps up your throat at the thought that you have to shower in that same shower and then sleep in the same bed as the bed that body is sleeping in.

Oh, fuck.

“All yours,” he murmurs, not even looking at you.

“Great.” You grab your change of clothes and head for the bathroom, trying to think about anything except him.

When you smell less like blood and asbestos and more like strawberries and peaches, hair damp and a clean t-shirt and sleep shorts sticking to your heat-splotched body, you enter the bedroom once again. Bucky is sitting against the headboard, going through his phone now that you’re both safe and secure in France, dressed only in a pair of sweatpants.

Okay, act cool. Just get into bed and pretend like it’s not weird.

You pad over to the bed, grimacing at the feel of the gross carpet beneath your clean feet, hopping beneath the sheets as quick as possible. If Bucky looks at you, then you don’t see it, because you are focused solely on not looking at him. Petty? Perhaps. Keeping your sanity intact? Absolutely.

“You tired?” he asks and you snort.

“Extremely. You don’t have to turn off the light if you aren’t ready to sleep, though.” You situate yourself as far on the edge of the bed as possible—something you’ve never done with any of the other people you’ve been forced to share a bed with. You and Natasha aren’t new to sleeping together, especially after some of the nights out you’ve shared, but you and Steve definitely cuddled, though you wouldn’t admit it to anyone. Steve’s just kinda lonely, you think. And to be honest, you’re a little touch-starved yourself.

But you know you take up a lot of space and you’re sure Bucky hates that, so you bury yourself under the motel sheets and snuggle up to your pillow, trying to make yourself as small as humanly possible.

After a moment, Bucky asks, “Are you comfortable like that?”

You crack an eye open and twist to look at him. “What?”

He shrugs. “Didn’t you tell me not to make it weird? You’re making it weird now.”

“You already made it weird.”

“I’m trying not to make it weird anymore.”

“A little late for that—”

“God, just, c’mere.”

Bucky grabs you around your waist, your shirt riding up, and pulls you closer. You shriek in surprise, eyes wide, as he manhandles you until you’re away from the edge and your back is pressed against his bare chest.

“There—that’s better,” he says, nearly whispering in your ear he’s so close to you now. He unwinds his arm from your middle and reaches up to hit the light, the room going completely dark save for the little sliver of artificially light pouring in from underneath the shitty curtains.

You don’t even know what to say. Bucky’s rendered you completely speechless.

First of all, the man has never touched you for no reason like that before. Second of all, how the hell did he just move you like you weighed the same as the pillow beneath his head? Third of all, he hates you, so why is he so bothered about you and your comfort? Fourth, he just moved you around like you weighed literally nothing.

And boy, did it send a flood of pleasure straight to your core, almost as if your body just gave the green light to your libido. The perfect time too, y’know, when you’re sharing a bed with your co-worker who hates your guts.

Play it cool. Just play it fucking cool.

“Uh, are you okay?” you ask him in return, and Bucky shifts so his back is pressed up to yours.

“Yeah,” he says. “Go to sleep.”

“‘Kay. Good night.”

“Night.”

What they don’t tell you in bootcamp is that trying to fall asleep next to your co-worker, the one that you’re insanely attracted to and might have the tiniest crush on, who also hates your guts and kind of would rather turn himself over to HYDRA than hold a real conversation with you, while sharing the same bed, is impossible. There is no way in hell you’re going to be able to fall asleep next to Bucky.

Your brain turns and turns and turns, body straining to stay as still as possible to not upset the super soldier sleeping right beside you. What does he have against you? Why does he hate you so much? You really thought once you started going on more missions—proving you were worthy to be a part of the team—that he’d start coming around and seeing your value. But you feel like all it’s served is to make him hate you more, especially now that you tag along on his stealth operations as his techie.

Maybe he knows you’re into him, and maybe that’s why he never wants to be around you. But, god, it’s not like you think you have a chance with him in any capacity, and you’d pass up tens of thousands of chances to be with him if he’d just be your friend!

Because Bucky deserves another friend, doesn’t he?

As if he can read your mind—or maybe it’s just god playing tricks on you—Bucky shifts around in the bed again, turning toward you. You don’t know if he’s sleeping yet or not, but you curl in on yourself a little to give him more space to stretch out.

Bucky’s vibranium arm slides over your waist, cool metal grazing by the sliver of skin peeking out from underneath your shirt, and when you flinch from it, he pulls you flush against him. Behind you, the bare skin of his chest is warm, almost too hot. Super soldiers run warmer than normal humans, and you think he’d be nice to have in bed more often.

In your ear, Bucky groans in his sleep and it makes you shiver despite the heat radiating through your back. He must be like Steve, wanting to cuddle in his sleep. No one ever wants to admit it out loud, but you’re the best thing to cuddle in the Tower. Being squishy and soft atop hard, strong muscle means you’re more comfortable than all the rigid bodies of the Avengers. Maybe Bucky needs this.

But you wish you could fall asleep so you’ll stop thinking about how much you’ve wanted this since the day you saw him, the new Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes, hair tied up in a messy bun and stubble thick and dark, vibranium arm hidden within the sleeve of his leather jacket.

Suddenly, everything is too hot. The room, the motel sheets, the pillow beneath your head. Bucky Barnes behind you, arm slung over your body, holding you to him. He’s sleeping, you know, the quiet rumble of his breathing a song in your ear, chest rising and falling against your back. You shift a little, trying to get more comfortable as the warmth starts to become unbearable. When that doesn’t help, you shift again, trying to pull your back away from Bucky, but it sends your bottom half straight into his.

A growl brushes by your ear all breathy and low and Bucky’s arm tightens around you, bringing you back to him.

Damn, who knew Bucky was such a cuddler when he’s sleeping?

You wait a few minutes, keeping still, until you’re sure he’s slipped back into unconsciousness. His nose is nearly pressed into your hair, his breaths upsetting the small wisps of hairs that curl at your ear. Sweat is starting to collect underneath your shirt where your bodies are connected and you know you’ll never be able to fall asleep like this.

Again, you shift toward the edge of the bed, trying to pull yourself out of Bucky’s grasp, but he drags you back into his embrace. The swell of your ass meets his thigh and in a panic, you move around to try and put space between the two of you again, but Bucky lets out a strangled-sounding groan, hissing through his teeth.

“You gotta stop moving, doll, or you’re not gonna like what happens next.”

He is not asleep.

“Bucky?” you squeak, eyes wide, frozen in place.

“Hm?” His metal hand sneaks underneath the hem of your shirt, fingers finding your soft skin and thumb starting to rub little circles just above your hip, a point of pleasure on your body. No one ever touches you here, and it takes everything you have not to press back into him, asking for more. Your breathing is heavier now as you try to control yourself.

“You aren’t—Why aren’t you sleeping?” you ask, sounding winded from the simplest act of him touching you.

“Hard to sleep when you’re next to me,” he murmurs in your ear, nose brushing up against the patch of skin behind it. Your eyes flutter closed. Every small touch feels like heaven. You never allow others to touch you more than necessary, but now Bucky is handling you so gently.

“I can’t sleep either,” you whisper. “Do you want me to go? I can take a walk.”

He makes a noise of disapproval. “Just stay still,” he says, almost begging. “Go to sleep.”

“It’s hot,” you whine. “You’re too hot.”

You can feel him smirk into the back of your neck. “You don’t gotta tell me, doll.”

“Shut up,” you say with a huff of frustration, wiggling in the bed to get your point across. Immediately, Bucky’s vibranium hand falls to your hip, fingers digging into your flesh hard enough for the flash of pain to turn to pleasure, holding you still.

“I said stop moving,” he says, and it's so close to a command that your teeth tear into your bottom lip as his voice sends shocks through your core. Now, hyperaware of how close your bodies are underneath the sheets, you realize your ass is pressed against his pelvis, not his thigh, and you’ve definitely been—

Bucky grinds into you, seething, breath ghosting over your ear, his cock hard and heavy in his sweatpants.

Wetness pools between your thighs, dampening the thin cotton panties you wear beneath your sleep shorts.

“Bucky,” you breathe his name. “What are you doing?”

“So tired of you teasin’ me,” he grits through clenched teeth. “I’ve put up with it for so long—too long—and I just knew you were gonna do it tonight, too. Only one fucking bed. You’re gonna kill me, baby.”

Your voice sounds so small when you whisper, “What are you talking about?”

Then Bucky lays a kiss to the back of your neck, trailing upward until he reaches the lobe of your ear, and pulls it into his mouth and between his teeth. You shiver, violently, unable to stop the reaction. It must please him because he yanks your hips back into him again, forcing you to grind on his bulge.

Your hand comes up to cover your mouth, muffling whatever sounds threaten to fall from your lips.

“Doll, you’ve been teasin’ me from the beginning. From the moment I saw you in your gear on the Berlin mission, all your curves on display in that tight little cat-suit you’re always wearing, armed to the teeth, handling all those guns looking so fuckin’ gorgeous.”

You swallow hard. The Berlin mission, your first stealth mission with Bucky, had gone sour and the two of you found yourselves in a gun fight that was never meant to happen. You’re pretty sure you walked back onto the quinjet covered in blood, bruised, and a gash in your thigh that made you wobble when you stood up, and Bucky didn’t even look at you as per usual. Bucky never looks at you on missions unless he absolutely has to.

Wait.

“Is that why you never look at me?” you ask him, and you wish you could see his face right now, but all you can feel is his lips as they pepper kisses along the column of your throat, coaxing shudders and little squeaks out of you.

“You expect me to look at you without wanting to jump your bones, doll?” His nose caresses the spot at the top of your spine, his fingers melting at your hip and soothing the bruises you’re sure he’s already left. “That’s just askin’ too much, baby. How am I supposed to look at you and stop myself from kissin’ you silly?”

Pleasure flutters through your stomach, surging through the apex of your thighs.

“Then do it,” you tell him. Bucky goes still, unmoving, and you wonder if you’ve pushed too hard.

But then his voice is low, dark, in your ear. “You don’t know what you’re saying, doll.”

The honey dripping from your center, pooling in your underwear, says very differently. Instead of answering, you press your ass back into him, gyrating your hips straight upon his pelvis, rubbing against his clothed cock. Bucky chokes.

And then he’s up and above you, rolling your body beneath him, caging you between his arms. You nearly gasp when you look up at him, his blue eyes intense in a way you’ve never seen them before, his lips pink and swollen from biting—you’re sure yours look the same and he hasn’t even kissed you yet.

Bucky leans closer, his mouth only inches from yours, his breath mingling with yours. Your eyes threaten to flutter shut in anticipation but you force yourself to look at him, to take all of him in.

“If you want this, I won’t be able to hold myself back, doll. Wanted you too long. Need you.”

Then, he pulls back, eyes searching yours.

“But if you don’t,” he swallows, “then we’ll forget this ever happened, and everything will go back to normal.”

Fuck that.

“Kiss me, sergeant,” you command, hand shooting up to tangle in his thick hair.

Bucky curses and then he’s on you before you have a chance to reach up and meet him halfway. His lips are rough, chapped, but plush and perfect against yours. He wastes no time, tongue licking into your mouth and meeting yours, tasting you for the first time. You respond eagerly, hand fisting in his hair, pulling him into you until you can’t tell where his body ends and yours begins.

When he’s satisfied with how kiss-drunk you look, lips swollen and eyes hazy, he moves to the juncture of your neck and shoulder and sinks his teeth into your skin, causing you to cry out. The pain and the pleasure mingle, like lovers, like you and Bucky, as his fingers take hold of your shirt and in one tug, the fabric pulls apart at the seams.

You don’t care—you can buy a new shirt. You need him to touch you.

Until you realize you aren’t wearing a bra and that your top half is completely bare to Bucky, the man who, before a minute ago, you thought hated you because you were fat. Because it was the only explanation you had. Because you’re insecure.

Your hands fall upon his chest, bracing against him, stopping him in his tracks. He pulls away from your neck to look at you, brows drawn together in confusion, and all you can do is try and cover yourself with your arms before he gets a peek. It’s dark, but super soldiers can see in the dark. A blessing and a curse.

“I don’t want you to look at me,” you whisper so quietly you realize no normal person would have been able to hear it. “I’m—I shouldn’t have let you—I’m so fat, Bucky.”

Bucky’s eyes widen.

“Baby, baby,” he soothes you, his flesh hand coming up to cradle your cheek, fingers brushing delicately over your skin. “You don’t believe me when I say I want to see you? Doll, your body drives me insane, and god, every time you get an attitude with me and you put your hands on your hips and you look at me all mad…”

Bucky groans and he rocks his pelvis into yours, hard cock hitting your center and making your breath hitch.

“You’re beautiful, baby. Gorgeous. Do you know how hard it is for me to be around you sometimes ‘cause you’re just so pretty? More than pretty, I don’t even know the words to tell you, baby. Please, please don’t hide yourself from me, let me look at you, let me touch you, baby. S’all I want to do is look at you for the rest of my life.”

You don’t realize you’re crying until Bucky’s thumb swipes a tear away and you blink, and he’s smiling at you so warmly, really looking at you, maybe for the first time ever since you’ve known him.

“You think so?” you ask, breathless. “Even though you’re so—so good, Bucky, so beautiful and so good.”

He rests his forehead against yours, inhaling your scent, your essence, your soul. You nuzzle into his palm, kissing the center of his skin where his lifeline sits among other small scars. Then, you pull your arms away from your body, moving to wrap them around his neck, fingers digging into his scalp as you tip your chin up to slant your mouth over his. Bucky returns your enthusiasm, tongue meeting yours sweetly, and then metal fingers are trailing up your side.

Bucky pulls away, searching your eyes for consent.

“Say you’re mine,” he begs. “Say you’re mine, baby, but if you do, I won’t be gentle.”

You look up at him from underneath your lashes, already heady with the feeling of Bucky wanting you, desiring every part of you.

“I’m yours,” you whisper, and the mood in the room shifts violently.

In an instant, Bucky pulls your arms away from where they’re wound around his neck and pins them over your head, metal fingers locked around both your wrists. It makes you arch into him and then his nose is tracing your sternum, a line down your center, cutting you in half until his flesh hand attaches to your breast and his lips find your nipple.

Just like he said, he’s not gentle, and it has your eyes rolling into the back of your head, lids fluttering, as his teeth nip and tug at the delicate bud. His tongue follows the performance, sucking and soothing the pain away with sweet licks until he’s bored and moves onto the other one.

He lifts his head up to say, “Don’t move your hands,” and then his vibranium fingers find the hardened, sensitive nub and begin to twist and pull at it as his lips play with the other. The pleasure is overwhelming, the pain is a shocking reminder of who is playing your body like a symphony. You arch your breasts toward him, you roll your hips up to meet his bulge, you do anything you can to relieve the pressure that’s building in your core, screaming at you that you need his touch.

“Bucky,” you call out, moaning, struggling to keep your hands near the headboard.

“Do you need more, sweet girl?”

“Please,” you beg and press your center up to rub his cock. “It aches,” you whine.

“You gonna be a good girl for me? Let me touch you? Let me make the pain go away, baby?”

His words send new waves of pleasure through you, every part of you flushing with heat, your thighs squeezing together as if you can hide your leaking core from him.

“Yes, yes, yes, Bucky.”

He lays kisses on the underside of your breasts, just below them, like he’s following the lines of your ribs as he moves down toward your stomach—the part of you that you hate the most. You struggle underneath him.

“Not there,” you say as he places open-mouthed kisses on your soft belly. It tickles and makes you tremble and writhe.

He chuckles darkly. “I thought you said you were gonna be a good girl?” Both hands fall upon your hips, trapping you, fingers digging into your soft, pliant flesh as he nuzzles and licks and nips and kisses your stomach. You throw your head back, dizzy at the thought of what your body will look like tomorrow, purpled bruises made of passion.

“I’m a good girl,” you pant, mouth falling open as you struggle to catch your breath.

“Then let me touch you, doll. All of you—I want all of you.”

You hear the sound of fabric ripping before you feel the cool air rush over where your sleep shorts are no longer, Bucky tosses the tatters of fabric over the edge of the bed. He inhales sharply at the sight of you, hands roaming over the wide breadth of your hips as if he can’t even draw himself away, smoothing over your stretch marks with loving strokes until he finds the thick expanse of your bare thighs.

Bucky’s thumb brushes over your clothed cunt, panties drenched, and a strangled moan flies from your mouth as you press toward him, begging for more.

“This all for me?” he asks, voice gravelly. “My pretty baby is all wet like this for me? Christ, doll, you’re dripping.”

“Yes!” you shout as metal fingers hook around your underwear to rip them off, parting your lips to watch your slick seep from your aching core. “It’s all for you, Bucky, all of it.”

He groans at this. “Good girl,” he praises you. “That’s my good girl.”

And then he sinks two fingers into you, your juices soaking his hand almost immediately, and pumps into you like his life depends on it. The pleasure is too much, and when his thumb finds your clit and begins to slide over it, your knees try to close out of instinct, hips canting away from the pleasure. Bucky growls and wraps an arm around your hips, keeping you close, baring your naked body to him and him alone.

“You like that?” His voice is low, teasing, so fucking hot you can’t do anything but gasp for breath. “You’re sucking my fingers in, baby. So tight. Gotta work you open or you’re never gonna be able to take my cock, honey.”

You whimper his name, hips twitching under his grasp, crying out as every stroke of his fingers brings you closer and closer to the edge. When he adds a third, you think you might die from the mix of pleasure and pain as he stretches your walls.

“You’re such a good girl,” he coos. “You’re gonna take it all, aren’t you? Been teasin’ me too long, and now you’ve gotta take it all, baby.”

He drives his fingers inside and hits the soft, spongy spot inside of you and it breaks you apart, tears you asunder, you’re arching off the bed and Bucky holds his thumb on your clit as you undulate upon his fingers. You can feel the gush of come that trickles down his thick fingers, and then he pulls out and places them in his mouth, licking your honey from the digits as the aftershocks of your orgasm wrack through you.

And when you can finally open your eyes, vision hazy, Bucky is looking at you with a mix of adoration and lust, licking your juice from his lips, grinning.

“That’s my good girl,” he praises again and the fire of pleasure and want and need ignites.

“Need you,” you whine, “right now, please, please sergeant.”

“Fuck,” he curses. “You don’t know what you do to me when you say that, doll.”

You definitely know what you do to him, and you’re gonna keep saying it and saying it until he’s yours, forever, until the end, until he’s buried so deep inside of you that you could die happy.

Staring up at him, your face flushed, hair sticking to your sweaty forehead and spread among the motel pillows, you think you might be in love with Bucky Barnes.

“Need me to fuck you, baby? Fuck, you drive me so fuckin’ crazy. I’m crazy about you, baby. You’re so goddamn perfect, so soft, so beautiful.” Bucky’s hands touch every part of you, even the places you hate. He finds the soft rolls of fat you try to work off at the gym, finds the squishy parts of your upper arms you think look unsightly when you’re hacking into HYDRA’s systems, fingers flying over the keyboard. He passes over your stubbly legs, a little sharp from three days of not shaving while on the mission, he caresses the dimples of cellulite in the backs of your thighs you hate so much.

And then he pushes the waistband of his sweats down and kicks his pants off, his cock exposed and standing attention all red at the tip and thick and hard and hot, and his hands slide underneath your thighs and press you up until you’re angled to take him.

He hesitates though, you feel it. And god, you’d do anything for him.

“Fuck me, sergeant,” you beg so prettily, and Bucky growls.

His hips snap into yours, cock sliding through your walls, parting you for him, splaying you open, stretching you, burning you, he’s everything. Bucky gives you one second to adjust and then he’s moving within you, the pain blurring into pleasure, your head thrown back, keening, moaning, crying out, nails sinking into his shoulders.

“Yes,” he hisses, sweat dripping down his temple as he rams into you over and over and over. “Give it to me, baby. You feel so good.”

“Harder,” you manage in between your shrieks and moans and Bucky answers your call with a response. He drags you toward him until your hips are attached to his, connected, his cock reaching the deepest parts of you, the darkest parts of you, and you sob as the new angle makes you feel every single drag of his length. The head of his cock pierces you, smashing against the spot that makes you keen, and the pressure is building up within you again.

Bucky’s fingers find purchase in the plush flesh that sits on your hips, dragging down until he’s digging into your thick thighs, the sharp pain a beacon cutting through the haze of pleasure you’re locked in as he fucks you. It’s building, building, building, pressure, building.

“Come for me,” he snarls, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, like he can feel how close you are. And for the second time, your body is shattered and your orgasm breaks like a wave crashing against the shore, swallowing you whole until you’re lost in everything that is Bucky.

You scream his name, legs tightening around him like you’re trying to hold onto something, anything, and his words are lost on you.

“That’s it, good girl, that’s my good girl, coming so sweet around my cock, god you feel so good baby, so tight, such a good little girl.”

Bucky pulls out of you and you whine as your slick slips out of you, his cock coated in your essence, smearing it against your inner thighs. But it doesn’t last that long. With an immediacy that turns you on—he wants you, he wants you so bad—Bucky grabs you and flips you over, putting you on your hands and knees. His palm forces your head down, back bowing until you’re arched with your ass upturned, face smashed into the pillows.

“God,” he groans, “this fuckin’ ass of yours, baby. It gets me in so much trouble, d’ya know that? You don’t even know how many times I’ve caught myself watching the way your ass swings when you walk, like y’gotta purpose, like you don’t even know how fuckin’ sexy you are.”

Bucky’s hands round over your ass, caressing them gently, then grabbing fistfuls of your flesh until you’re crying out once again. It makes you lean back into him, trying to seek out the pleasure of him, wiggling as if you can entice him to stuff you with his cock again.

“So fuckin’ pretty,” he breathes, and then he gives your right cheek a slap that makes you shriek, laying a kiss on it just after to soothe the pain.

“Please sergeant,” you gasp. “Please, please, I need you to fuck me again.”

“You want me to fuck you again?” he asks, smug. “I just fucked you ‘till you came around me, baby. You need me to do it again?”

It’s humiliating, but your words are jumbled as you cry and beg and cry and beg for him to take you again. You need him. You need him to fuck you. You need Bucky Barnes to do anything and everything to you.

He leans over you, breath hot on the back of your neck. “I’m gonna fuck you now, baby, again and again and again.”

And then he slams back into you, the angle so much deeper this time, cock hitting the back of your cunt like he was made for you—like you were made for him.

You can’t speak, can’t think, can’t do anything but drool into the pillow as he takes you from behind like a wild animal. The sounds that pour from your open lips are heady and strung together, making no sense, but Bucky knows what you need. He fucks you raw, fucks you hard, fucks you until you know you’ll be covered in bruises in the morning. His metal arm is wrapped around your waist, holding you to him because you don’t have the strength to hold yourself up.

When his thrusts become sloppy, Bucky takes his vibranium hand and searches for your clit, making you cry out. It’s too much—the overstimulation. You’re too sensitive, too exhausted, too fucked out to take the pleasure anymore. But you clench around him, the sloppy sounds of your wet heat taking Bucky as he pounds into you making you flush, and the coil in your stomach is tightening.

“Give it to me,” Bucky commands, ramming into you impossibly harder, fingers sliding over your slick clit. “Give it to me, baby.”

You whine his name and Bucky’s free hand smacks your ass again, the sound of flesh on flesh mingling with the sound of him fucking you.

“You said you’d be good,” he grits through his teeth. “Are you a good girl?”

“Yes,” you pant.

“You’re a good girl?”

“Yes.”

“You’re my good girl?”

“Yes, sergeant, yes!”

“Then give it to me. Come, baby, come for me, one more time.”

And like that, you come apart, knees collapsing beneath you. Bucky catches you in his arms, thrusting once, twice more, and then buries himself so far inside of you that you barely feel his hot seed spurt inside of you, coating your insides.

You fall to the bed and Bucky follows, pulling out of you and wrapping his arms around you, pressing your back to his chest in the very position that started this all. He peppers kisses over the expanse of your shoulders, behind your ear, and then turns you until he can connect his lips to yours. Bucky kisses you like he means it, like he wants it to last forever.

“I’ll be right back,” he whispers against your mouth, then he’s off the bed and headed for the bathroom. You lay there in bliss, staring up at the ceiling with lidded eyes, unable to think of anything but the pleasure and exhaustion that make up your body right now. When Bucky returns, he has a ratty washcloth in hand and he uses it to clean between your legs. It’s warm and he’s gentle, leaving you shivering when he’s finished.

When he climbs back in bed, he tucks a piece of your matted hair behind your ear, smiling at you.

“Such a good girl,” he says, one last time, and it makes you smile. “My good girl,” he murmurs as he kisses you again.

“Yours?” You look up at him, blinking innocently.

“Mine.” Bucky lays your head upon his bare chest. “All mine.”

You fall asleep before him to the sound of his breathing, sharing the same bed with your co-worker Bucky Barnes, who you really think you might be in love with, especially as he strokes your hair so softly until your eyes fall, heavy.

Taglist: @melancholic-metanoia @kitkatd7 @mimiswitchywrites @tripleyeeet @allidoiswritewritewrite

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x plus size reader #bucky barnes #bucky barnes smut #bucky barnes fic #one shot #drabble #fic requests #inbox me to request a fic!#smut fic #thanks for supporting me!#divine masterlist

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lantsovsupremacist · 3 years

Text

nikokai lantsov: home

hate is spitting out each other’s mouths but we’re still sleeping like we’re lovers.

set during ruin and rising ig?? no spoilers <3 happy reading!

even all consuming contempt could not stop you from crawling into his bed. you hated yourself for it. a part of you though, hidden deep under the suffocating layers of frustration and exhaustion, accepted the inevitable a long time ago.

you used the incessant aching in your calves to justify the decision. his room was steps away while yours was down another floor. the idea of the rickety elevator in the center of the spinning wheel had your stomach turning. you could not trust your overworked body to carry you down the stairs, either.

a single candle burned on top of his coffee table. you caught yourself in the act of shaking your head, having regularly disproven of the rather unsafe habit. you blew it out quietly and moved on but, at this time more than any other, you certainly understood the need for light amidst all of the looming darkness.

he was on his back. although his eyes were closed, you knew better than to assume he was asleep. he always slept on his side—or even on his stomach with his head tucked into your chest. never on his back. much like you knew this, you also knew that he would expect you to pick up on it.

you stripped out of your kefta and almost immediately, the chill in the air seeped through your skin and into your bones. you hung it on the back of the chair adjacent to the vanity—what once belonged to you. you avoided studying any one corner of his room too closely, in fear of the ghost of memories coming back to haunt you.

“c’mere.”

maybe if you belonged to a different order, you could have caught the characteristic shift in his breathing before he produced words. you relied on your silent and careful observation. your heart skipped in your chest—a lucky rock getting three jumps in before it plummeted underwater. then, everything stilled.

every other time you had snuck into your ex-boyfriend’s room—four times in the last two weeks to be exact—you both remained silent. you could not help but keep count. the small action gave you back some of the control you so readily and shamefully relinquished each time you closed his door behind you. you were both smart enough to understand just how much the quiet within itself communicated.

so, when he chose to speak and forgo the expected routine, you nearly jumped. your heart took a moment to remember it’s new place among his. the soft lilt of his voice did not match a tone normally reserved for someone that had broken his heart.

but of course, he had broken yours, as well. with all of the shattered pieces from that damage, it should have come as no surprise that in the hurried cleanup, some of the fragments got swapped. you knew you carried a few pieces of his heart. you might have stuffed them at the bottom of your pockets, hoping to forget they were there, but the weight could never go unnoticed.

“don’t be difficult about it. you’re shivering where you stand.”

there was your ex. maybe, if you were still together, he would have finished his words with calling you love or darling. however, this was not the case. he could no longer even call you his own let alone elaborate on that with an added sentiment.

your eyes did not meet but you knew that mattered little to the surety of his invitation. it nearly embarrassed you, the way his voice bit right into the night. yet, there you were you, poised and ready to climb in next to him and let him warm you under the covers of his duvet.

nikolai hummed as you dropped next to him.

“never delicate with anything.”

“i’ll leave this bed right now.”

the blonde beside you scoffed. your skin shivered as he ran his fingers along your spine, tracing a new pattern all his own. after a moment, you shifted to face him. his blue eyes cut into the night, visible by the trails of moonlight cascading in through his cracked window.

“why talk to me now? touch me?” you mused with all of the playfulness held in your tone and none in your gaze, “you always preferred the quiet and stillness before.”

it almost pained you to watch him equip himself with the armor of carelessness before your eyes—the word almost included because you saw the truth in his eyes. they could never lie to you.

“maybe because it’s the coldest night of the year and despite being your ex, i’m not a dick.”

maybe because i miss you.

all things considered, though, he was right. he was all class. you could not even attribute the quality to the way his parents brought him up. no, nikolai lantsov was the daring flower that chose to bloom among the weeds that filled every crevice of the little palace.

“besides,” he continued to challenge you, “you responded. in fact,” he nudged your leg lightly with his foot, “you’re on me right now.”

you’re on my mind, too.

you shifted uncomfortably under his stare, closing your eyes for a moment. when you opened them again after a pause, you found him studying your face. from the way his curls sprawled onto the pillow sloppily, he had run his hand through them all night.

“i never stopped missing you.” the frailty of his whisper exposed every vulnerable piece of his being.

“nikolai,” you shook your head as you bit your lip forcefully, “stop.”

“no,” he resisted you.

you pushed back the familiar sting behind your irises, “don’t do this. please.” had there not been but a breath between the two of you, your final word would have been lost to the late hours of the night.

“i should have fought for you then,” nikolai built on, “and saints i’m so damn sorry i didn’t.”

“you can’t,” you took a much needed breath, “you can’t put all of that on yourself. we were on a path to destroying each other more than we already had.”

he hated how much it sounded like you had given up.

you blinked quickly, moving to press the palms of your shaking hands to your wet eyes. he caught your wrists halfway, shaking his head. you noticed his eyes had begun to shine with tears, as well. his thumbs caught yours but he held onto his own.

“please.” his voice strained, “saints, please.”

“we’d be so selfish to do this, nikolai,” you spoke, “there is so much more that needs our attention.”

“and what if there’s nothing left after this?” he questioned with an alarmingly sharp tone, “none of it is worth anything if i can’t find my way home to you after,” his voice broke from rising an octave and he sighed before dropping his gaze, “if there’s even an after.”

fright beat the doors to your heart down. ever confident nikolai had not hesitated to express his doubts. you figured everyone harbored a fair share of them but you certainly had not expected him to be the one to let them break his facade down.

your expression grew more solemn. you felt the weight of the bags under your eyes. everything the two of you carried for each other now became yours alone. the burden grew heavier with each fleeting day.

“because i hope you know you are my home,” the fervor in words did not lose itself on you, “and i am so incredibly lost without you.”

cautiously and with the care of a gentle breeze, he pushed a strand of hair behind your ear. you sucked in a breath, eyes fluttering closed at the gentle contact of the man who had once loved you unlike any other. perhaps, he still loved you.

he did.

“can i kiss you?”

the tension in the room thickened. if asked, you would swear up and down that it was to blame for the way you curled into him. his strong arms molded against your back, trailing his lips up your neck. teasing without touch.

“you’re delicate with everything,” you whispered, allowing him a glimpse at your smile and saints was he left greedy for more.

his one arm fell to cradle your jaw and the other found the spot right above your rib cage. you leaned into his touch, letting him place his lips on yours and his heart back into your hands. you were home.

#nikolai lantsov imagine #nikolai duology #nikolai x reader #nikolai lantsov fluff #nikolai lantsov x reader #nikolai lantsov #shadow and bone fic #sab netflix #shadow and bone #ruin and rising

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dannyphantom-justiceleauge · 3 years

Note

This may be a minor gripe but something that has kind of bothered me about discussions and depictions of Dan is how often people seem to forget that Dan isn't just an older evil Danny, he's a combination of Danny and Vlad's ghost sides. Like people always talk about him like Danny threw away his humanity and turned evil but that's not even true. Sure, we can say that Dan is the result of Danny's action but that's a little unfair. (1/2)

(2/2) Him cheating on a test, coincidentally putting his loved one's in a position where they could be killed, is absolutely not his fault. Letting Vlad take away his ghost powers with a strange contraption might not have been the smartest move, but we are talking about a grieving CHILD here, of course he isn't going to make the best decisions. If anything Vlad's the one to blame here, and even then, it's not like he could predict what happened

---

you aren't wrong, my friend. it really isn't entirely danny's fault and the whole 'if you cheat on a test, you'll loose everything you love' moral is confused at best. i think as fandom we find it more interesting to look at danny's potential evil and moral struggle with himself. so simplifying it to be dan is a worse case scenario of danny makes the conflict less abstract.

particularly because when it comes to self blame danny isn't going to go easy on himself just because it was excusable mistakes.

i think another talking point should be how danny is the target of the time assassination more than vlad is, even though vlad is part of the evil whole. you could argue that danny is the catalyst of his friends death and vlad inventing the claw things. but vlad invented the claw things. maybe because his human side survived and acted relatively harmless from then on? or maybe it's because the observants based on the available evidence recognized danny as more of a threat. i think that fits actually, for all vlad tried to be an evil mastermind, his achievements outside of terrorizing a teenager and theft isn't particularly impressive. danny was the one who got shit done. all his fights he finished one way or another and i could see how that would bleed into dan defeating everyone.

the real question is how to we fix this. ideally we could shape this idea so it's less confused, though i do honestly find the dynamic of half danny, half vlad interesting. if for not other reason. than two half ghosts make a whole. actually that's something else to be said about dan. his self-loathing is what led him to killing his human half, another negative aspect coming from danny.

i wonder if we could frame it like fusion, from su. obviously dan isn't stable or healthy, or based on love. he's most comparable to malichite. but with less internal debate. dan took the best and worst of both of them. danny's determination, danny's fighting ability, danny's anger, danny's sarcasm, vlad's anger, vlads lack of morals, vlads schemes, vlad's control. heck, vlads desire to rule the world. i don't think we ever got that from danny.

maybe if vlad was more involved in the fight with dan it could have been used as an opportunity to compare and contrast their characters. to go we're not so different you and i. danny gets to recognize that he has that dark potential. vlad gets to be humbled by the fact that what he wants isn't good for anyone, especially himself. and to be fair, we do see some of that humbling with future vlad, but none of that character growth is given to present vlad, so, really it's just another vehicle for danny angst. it also depends on what you want to do with vlad though. he's a fascinating character and could be given redemption under the right circumstances or be a character who has the opportunity for redemption but chooses not to be redeemed every time.

that fits him and makes him both a more pathetic and despicable villain. it's hard to pity someone who ignores the opportunities to heal and grow.

as for danny, he becomes far more aware of the consequences his actions, especially his selfish and cruel ones can have. because that potential was always there. he has a history of abusing his powers. perhaps for this specific incident him abusing his powers can be something less understandable than almost cheating on a test that he couldn't study for through no fault of his own. (maybe i just have flexible morals?). maybe it could be something more character relevant, like he did something particularly vlad like, maybe he set up a prank at the nasty burger to get dash but it set off the explosion that killed his family. or maybe he did something particularly cruel and manipulative. there are better catalysts than a test. either way he recognized that he should never go that far again and strive to avoid being actively cruel.

he also has the opportunity to recognize that vlad does have a human half, even the one he's fighting everyday. he can face some conflict in it's not entirely clear what trait belongs to vlad and what trait belongs to him. he can empathize with vlad and he can recognize that situations aren't always in black in white. those who fly the highest, fall the hardest, after all.

it can be a growing experience. and while making it solely a danny goes bad and learns not to do evil kind of story. maybe we could cut vlad from the equation and just have danny face himself, full evil refection. i think exploring both vlad and danny through this fusion is far more interesting. especially because we can build on what's revealed about vlad in these episodes, in later ones. danny sees a future where vlad chills and that maybe his vlad could get their. later he see vlads past and what he lost to become who he is.

and then there's vlads turning point episodes. i don't know when motherly instinct took place but maddie fully recognizing he's a bastard and rejection him, was a turning point for his sanity, and danny helped it along. then we have danny rejecting him repeatedly, then we the clone episode, which we can all agree was a desperate move on his part, that danny once again thwarted. and we can all agree that this was the cannon turning point for his character where he stopped fighting for a family and started trying to be danny's villain. in that episode, i think danny could potentially pity vlad enough to try and reach out. he's not going to justify what vlad did and he's not going to apologize for stopping him. he went too far. he hurt danny and dani, he crossed a moral line that can't be justified even with his desperation. but if he changes...

he lost this time but if he changes, maybe they'll reach the point where they're ready to accept him.

i think the same thing could be said about his relationship with jack and maddie. if he changes, if he reaches out. if acts like less of a crazy fruitloop, his friends would be there for him. jack is still trying to be there for him, even if he's being oblivious about vlad's faults. vlads the one driving wedges into his relationships and pushing everyone away.

and that's so freaking human and understandable.it would be such a cool thing to explore with his character.

i could also see a potential arc where after valerie finds out vlad and masters are the same person she tries to get close to him, both to sus out how evil he is and to understand him as a halfa. afterall danny got her to acknowledge dani as human enough, the same would apply to vlad/plasmius, right? only he's a bad person and the more she uncovers about vlad masters the man, the more she realizes it's not the ghost half that's evil. but this is a double edged sword because, vlad is getting attached to her and encouraging her to be more evil. he's encouraging her to go darker and darker in her fight against ghosts and her fight specifically against phantom. to the point where she finally draws the line and says, i'm not doing that! boom exploring the moral ambiguity of her character and getting her to take a hard stance on her morals, because there's a line too far for her.

and boom a further breakdown of vlads character because he finally had someone outside the fentons to redeem him. she could have helped pull him out of the hole he'd been digging himself into. she wanted to help him. he got attached to her, but he and his bad decisions decided to dig himself deeper instead. so once again he's 'abandoned and betrayed'.

from that point, i think it'd be time for him to finally face jack head on. not through manipulative schemes. not through veiled threats and insults. but the full confrontation of 'i always hated you. you ruined my life. you're the reason i lost everything'. which is really just his own self loathing speaking. and jack... empathetic jack can see that vlad desperately wants help. and jack would offer it to him. jack would try to hug it out and apologize and give vlad the love and friendship vlad's been fighting to steal this whole time.

and vlad would reject it.

he'd probably lash out a jack and go into a full breakdown/world destroying attack. could finally put the stolen crown to use and try declaring himself king and embracing his megalomaniac thing and actually be a threat this time. and THAT would be our series finally. everyone teaming up to fight 'king vlad'. danny probably finding out that he's technically king because he beat pariah dark but the matter being a bit confused because he had help. val and danny trying to find the ring of rage or at least find someone who can make one. secrets are out. i imagine vlad, upon revealing himself to jack would out danny to make danny as sad and alone as him. except nope, his family still loves him and val has had the character development to come around to him. (she's still gonna punch danny for lying for so long.) the ghosts will come and help because no one wants another tyrannical kind and vlads obviously off his rocker.

ah, the could have beens

anyway, i didn't mean for this to become a full vlad character analysis and rewrite when we were supposed to be talking about dan, but hey, i'm a simple creature. i like good writing, and i have to rewrite things myself, so be it. - Hestia

#dpjl #hestiawrites #danny phantom #vlad masters

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soobadnoonecanstopher · 3 years

Text

Touch it for Real, Part 5

Genre: Humor / Fluff / Eventual Smut

Warnings: OMG they were roommates / slice of life / slow burn / mutual pining / crude humor / cursing / virgin!baek / idiots to lovers / mention of feet

Characters: Baekhyun X You/Female Reader

Description: You teach Baekhyun how to date. (Basically the Get You Alone M/V)

Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , Part 5, Part 6

Baekhyun was trembling. His hands were actually shaking so much each time he tried to type into the keyboard of his phone he hit the wrong letters and the typos rendered his message impossible for even the autocorrect to guess what he was trying to say.

“Just — ugh — just give me a regular keyboard for fuck’s sake,” he was grumbling to himself, “my hands wont stop shaking. I can’t. I can’t do this.”

He tossed the phone with force away from him and it landed face down on the carpet across the living room.

“No. I refuse,” he was staring over at the phone on the floor with a shell shocked aura about him, “just forget it. I’ve changed my mind. I can’t. I won’t!”

You’d given him a homework assignment an hour ago.

Ask a girl out on a date.

He’d been sitting on this sofa with his phone in his hands, writing, deleting, rewriting and deleting, again and again, into the text message conversation he had going with Mia.

It had been going pretty well with Mia actually. You’d been handing him the reins more and more and you both celebrated together with a single glass of wine the night he’d had his first actual phone conversation with her. Baekhyun was a lightweight and usually refused to drink more than a few sips of alcohol but he’d gone for the chilled bottle in the fridge and poured it into two glasses and handed one of them to you and lifted his own into the air. He did not wait for you to acknowledge his toast though. He just downed the contents of his glass with a wince on his face in a single go, slammed the empty glass down onto the counter roughly and stormed out of the kitchen toward his bedroom. You sipped your glass and counted it as a shared celebration.

His phone call lasted for 3 minutes and 32 seconds and he managed to tell one awkward joke that elicited audible laughter from the girl. You knew because you sat on the couch beside him with your ear pulled up as close to the phone as you could manage, trying to hear everything that happened. You’d let him know you were here to intervene if something went wrong but honestly you were sure he would do well on his own. And honestly, he was about to do well on his own, despite how awkward and very nervous his voice was.

They had gotten past the introductions at least twice when he briefly forgot what came after “hello” and simply said it a second time. She at least said it twice too and the awkward pause that came after that went on for too long when you held up the index card in your hand and pointed with your finger to the question you had written down.

“Uhh...so h-how...umm...how are — I mean, what are you up to?”

You couldn't make out her response, but whatever she said pulled an interested hum from the back of his throat and he made a quick witted remark that had her giggling in response.

You could definitely make out the sounds of her laughter and you could instantly see the change on his face when it happened. You saw the brightness form inside his eyes and he turned to look at you with a surprised expression as he lifted a finger to point at the phone he held in his hand.

His eyes were wide with something in between amazement and panic and he mouthed the words ‘she’s laughing’ at you and you nodded enthusiastically in response.

Unfortunately a few seconds after the joke he accidentally dropped the phone and it took a wild bounce, landing somewhere under the couch. He couldn’t find it for two whole minutes and when he finally found it, he made up some excuse about having to go because he smelled something burning.

He stared at the phone until the screen turned black and he didn’t move when you rubbed a soothing hand over his back.

“That went pretty good,” you offered. Baekhyun grunted and turned toward the kitchen for the celebratory toast.

Since that night, (you know the one) you’d intentionally taken on a more supportive teacher role in this project. You vowed to keep yourself involved as much as he needed and you swore you could keep your own selfishness from impeding his progress. The way you had been acting had been unfair and he was too good to you for him to deserve anything less than your very best.

You had made a promise to Baekhyun and then you made a promise to yourself to follow through on that promise. You would move Heaven and Earth to help him reach his goal because he deserved it and seeing him happy would be enough to get you through anything that came your way.

You were fine.

No really, you were completely fine.

He was moaning.

You sat on the couch beside him with your foot propped up on the coffee table as you carefully applied the second coat of polish to your toenails. You’d become quite the expert at applying polish to your nails during bumpy situations. Sitting next to the man who flailed and squirmed beside you on this sofa was commonplace and simply no big deal.

You could probably do this during an earthquake.

His moaning turned into much louder moaning and he threw himself back onto the arm of the couch dramatically and in protest of the unfairness of your assignment.

“Buuuug,” he whined through his nose, drawing it out like a little kid.

You’d just finished your pinky toe when his foot pushed up against your thigh.

Your aim was quick and you reached over and grabbed his foot by the heel as you pivoted in place.

“Be still,” you said calmly and you held his foot in place as you applied the bright red polish to his big toenail. You often did his toes to match your own because it made his toes look adorable and he wore socks everywhere he went anyway so he didn’t mind what you did to amuse yourself.

You moved quickly, dabbing carefully over each of his nails until they were all painted to match yours. You blew air over them to dry them, being thankful you’d invested in the 60 second polish.

“Buuu-hu-hu-hu-uuug,” he moaned harder, wiggling his hips into the fit he was throwing and closing his eyes to sell you on the absolute anguish he was in. “Bug, I just don't think I can do it. Can we do something else? I don't even know what to do on a date. What if she says no? Oh god, what if she says yes, I’m going to puke. Do you want to see me puke? Because I am going to puke.”

You tapped a hand lightly over the top of his finished foot and pointed to the other one and after a few moments he shifted, giving in to what you asked for right away.

But good lord, he was dramatic. The whining and the moaning intensified just when you thought you couldn't stand another volume increase he raised his voice into a shout and put actual words to his protests. Your ears were already ringing and you could feel your substantial patience — really, you were on a level with a Buddhist monk after two years living with this — beginning to shake.

“I mean, if I asked you to teach me how to swim would you chuck me into the ocean on the first day?”

You forced your focus down on his other foot, getting the polish smooth and perfect with each stroke. He had gone quiet after his question to you and you bit down on your lip as you carefully pondered the words he was saying. The last thing you wanted was to make him so uncomfortable he was unable to go about his daily life. You didn't need this project to become a source of heartache for the man.

You were not an unreasonable person. Perhaps this really had been too big of a step for him to take without having even practiced under the careful instruction of a teacher.

He’d waited in silence for you to answer for only a few seconds and when you didn’t; because you were thinking about it, dammit, he threw his whole head back and his mouth opened up and he wailed into the ceiling above his head at an even more annoying volume than you thought was possible. This was new and shocking. It was deafening. Surely the neighbors would think someone was being butchered in here.

The awful sounds were coming straight from his diaphragm. The man had power in those pipes and he was going to destroy your ear drums in order to get his way. It went on and on, changing from a moaning, groaning large-dog-with-a-bellyache sound into what you imagined it might sound like inside of an echo chamber trapped with a big sad whale, the biggest ones they made, who also happened to be on fire. He was giving you everything he had now. This was full volume and it was horrible.

“Alright!” You shouted over the wretched screaming, “Alright fine! For the love of God, Baekhyun!” You said for emphasis and the incredible relief of silence flooded and cleansed your ear drums that still vibrated from the after effects of all of that noise.

He lifted his head and closed up his mouth instantly and his eyes were wide as he cautiously watched and waited for what you would say next.

“Do you want me to teach you? Do you think you can practice with me so you learn how to do it before you have to do it for real, on your own? That’s what you mean right? You want more instruction before I throw your ass into the ocean?”

His lips were situated down into a fierce pout now and he nodded his head twice; a big ol’ up and down.

You were irked now. No amount of pathetic pouting on that face could pull you back from the edge. Even the slow careful nod of his head was just an obvious attempt at winning you over with cuteness. Well, it wouldn't work. If anyone was capable of annoying someone to death, it was this man right here and he came very close just now.

“New assignment,” you said with your finger raised and he pulled his bottom lip in between his teeth and pushed his top lip forward as he inflated his cheeks into round balloons. He sat up straighter and he waited for you to speak.

“Since I am a woman,” you began with your finger still raised and waving in his direction. His eyes glanced down at it, “you may ask me out on a date, for practice. And if I say yes, we will then—”

Your pointed finger was joined by your whole hand as you opened it up and you waved it through the air twice, a visual representation of cause and effect of such a situation. His eyeballs followed every movement you made, looking at the hand that moved instead of at you, the actual speaker.

His eyes popped up into yours when he registered the words you were saying; the requirements of his new assignment.

“...we will then — well, we will..”

Your words were sticking. He was listening very closely and he’d released the air trapped in his mouth and his lips now hung open as his eyes occasionally followed the waving of your hand in front of his face. It was silly how shifty his focus was when your hand moved in front of him.

“We...will…” he said and his face moved, mirroring the movements of your hand as he tried best to understand the new task you were trying so hard to assign to him, even repeating your words to help you get the next ones out.

“We will go on a date. A real one. A practice date. You will have to take me on a date, Baekhyun. You’ll just have to .. do your best at it.”

“A date? I’ll have to,” he said with a flinching, squinting blink of his eyes, “...do my best?”

“Yes, of course,” you said as you pointed your finger at him again, pulling a swift but deep gasp into your lungs to fight the dizziness you could feel building inside your head, “It’s an assignment. Like school. I will give you a grade on how well you do. If you fail, then it’s over and I’m a terrible teacher and clearly your problems are beyond my area of expertise.”

His polish was dry. This conversation needed to be over because you were weirdly agitated by the wide eyed, deer in the headlights expression stuck on his face.

“I’ll send you some study materials later. You better take this seriously, Byun Baekhyun. This is a real assignment from your real dating teacher.”

The entire situation made you anxious. The desire to flee was very strong. You needed a getaway and you needed it now. You felt a tremble inside that could only be attributed to just how freaked out he had been acting. It was rubbing off on you.

You wanted to make a quick escape but you were now fighting with the many bottles of nail polish scattered across the coffee table; you’d gone through so many of them as you decided on which color to use — they really were just numerous and just everywhere. You grasped at them, trying to grab huge handfuls at one time but your hands couldn't hold as many as you wanted and each attempt sent a bottle or two clattering noisily to the table below. It was really ruining the dramatically cool exit you were trying for.

After quite a bit of noise you felt the warmth of Baekhyun’s arm as he leaned against you and began to help you pick up the bottles; carefully placing each in it’s designated spot in your huge nail polish organizer.

It took a bit of effort for you to turn to look at him and when his fingertips carefully placed the final bottle in the case you clicked the lid closed and finally managed to face him.

His eyes were flighty. His face was flushed and when he met your eyes the smile on his lips was very tense. It looked like a grimace.

You had to be insane to be doing this. Willingly putting yourself into a situation like this with him, a situation that was for instructional purposes only, but a situation nonetheless. Your heart was racing inside of your chest and you briefly wondered if he could hear it with him sitting so close to you.

You swallowed it away, the nerves or the uncertainty or whatever it was that had taken hold of your hands and made them unstable and you turned to look into his face head on.

“Do you understand the assignment?”

Baekhyun filled his lungs with air and straightened his shoulders, pulling them back as his eyes closed up. You recognized the self calming behavior. When he turned to look at you he held a new determination in his eyes and he nodded his head and furrowed his eyebrows.

“I was always a good student,” he said, “I will do my best with this assignment. I’ll take it seriously, so I can learn from you well.”

You reached forward and patted the back of his hand lightly and offered a reassuring smile.

“Don't be too nervous, okay? Remember it’s for class so you should learn from it. Mistakes are natural and they help us grow. And you won’t have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable. I mean it.”

He swallowed and his lips flattened out into a thin line across his face. His head bobbed up and down and he hummed out a response that told you that yes, he did know what was expected of him for the sake of the lesson; for the sake of his future as an adult man who was entering the dating pool in search of the companionship of some lucky lady.

“Also remember, it’s just me. No pressure. Okay, Peanut? I’m here to help you. You could spill an entire cup of iced tea down my dress at dinner and I would still forgive you.”

“No pressure,” he repeated under his breath and when you were finally satisfied that he really understood, you stood, hefting your manicure supplies up with both hands and you stepped away from the living room to return them to your bathroom.

“Do I have a deadline?” He called after you and you turned back with your hand on the doorknob to your room, quietly amused by the seriousness you saw on his face. At the same time, proud of what a good student he was. He was a smart boy, he would do well in anything he was determined to do.

“Ask me out by tomorrow or else Ben might beat you to it.”

You figured a little sense of competition couldn't hurt. And yes, you were still actually speaking regularly with Ben. You were pleasantly surprised with how smart and how funny he turned out to be and he turned out to be a pretty good distraction for the evenings when you’d normally be bored and hanging around in Baekhyun’s room while he played some game on his PC and he’s toss you a remote for the screen that hung up on the wall above his head. You’d play music videos, or cooking videos from YouTube, or some drama or variety shows and he’d play his games and lean far back in his chair watching the screen when exciting things happened on screen.

A few times lately though, when you went into his room you’d find him watching some anime and you just knew he’d want to pay close attention so he could discuss it later with Mia. You’d much rather find someone to entertain you alone so you didn’t have to be ignored or shushed when you interrupted his anime with some stupid question about it, like who is that guy with the crazy eyes and why is he trying to kill everybody. Ben’s conversations were good enough to keep you occupied at least a little bit.

Back in your bedroom you got to work searching for materials for Baekhyun to study. Mostly using helpful YouTube videos with titles such as “how to ask a girl out”, “what to talk about on a first date” and a super helpful online book you found called The Gentleman’s Guide: How to be the Perfect Date. It was just a little outdated with the styles but the book was extensive and ran the gamut from hygiene to manners to confidence and conversation; it even had an entire section called The Art of Subtle Seduction and it made you just a little embarrassed to think of Baekhyun reading this part. He was an adult. He could handle this much. The Dos and Don'ts of a First Date section alone was worth the price you paid for the book.

You wrote up an email with your course materials and sent it off to the man.

Then you sat and waited alone in your bedroom until your level of boredom that in any other situation would be unremarkable, when combined with the built up anticipation inside of you, mixed into a perfect storm of swirling lunacy that was bouncing around inside of you; trying to break free and wreak havoc on something other than your chest walls.

You grabbed your cell phone, slipped by the 2 waiting text messages from Ben that you would absolutely get to later, and opened a new text message to Baekhyun.

‘peanut did you get my email ^^?’

You were sure he did. Of course he did. You wondered if there was anything he found lacking in the pages and pages of super helpful information you sent him. You wondered what he thought about it all and maybe if he needed some guidance or suggestions on how to proceed with the first step of his assignment. Did he need you to come over to his bedroom and watch the videos with him? Would that be too awkward?

Your phone vibrated.

‘yep’

He would ask for help if he needed it, you were certain. He would be fine. This wasn’t real anyway. It wasn’t like there was an actual deadline, not really. You enjoyed talking with Ben but it didn’t seem like he was close to asking you out yet. He had been a bit busy lately and you had been busy as well with work and with helping Baekhyun.

You’d seen from the notification preview on your phone that Ben’s last two messages were asking you something that would take a while to explain and you didn’t want to open them yet in case he’d been expecting you to reply quickly. You needed a bit more time to come up with an answer for the questions he had casually asked about your roommate. You’d tell Ben that Baekhyun was, yes, a guy. And no, it wasn’t awkward living with a man.

You’d get to all that later. Now, you were entirely too keyed up about a problem of your very own creation.

When.

But really...

When?

You could not relax. Because honestly it could happen at any moment. He could come barging into your room, plop his ass down unceremoniously on your bed and say “Hey Doll, hows about you and me go on a hot date this weekend, what about it? Nyeeahhh?” Like some sort of 1940s gangster. You could definitely see Baekhyun doing this accent. You were pretty sure he had a 40s gangster hat in his closet.

You’d decided that you wouldn't give him a hard time about how he asked you. You’d accept right away for the sake of his nerves, if he worked up the courage to ask you at all, then he was on the right track and he deserved an E for effort.

You still had trouble with the anticipation. Not knowing when was the hardest part to handle. You tried your very best to go about your day in as normal a way possible. Sure, you jumped every time you heard a sound, but other than that, it felt like any other day.

He spent the rest of the evening in his room and didn't even come out until you heard the doorbell ring. You peaked your head out of your bedroom door and waited for him to answer it but after a few minutes with no sight of him you stepped out. The doorbell rang a second time and you rushed from your room to answer it before the visitor gave up.

It could have been something important. This building had a doorman so it was usually someone who had a purpose ringing the bell.

The view through the camera monitor showed a run of the mill pizza delivery man, and you remembered that it was Baekhyun’s turn to make dinner tonight. He must have ordered you a pizza so he could hide in his room all night and not have to worry about walking around you in the kitchen and not asking you out on a date.

This was his way of avoiding you for the night.

You had to swallow down the flash of silly disappointment that popped up. You’d assumed correctly that he had already paid for the pizza and you received your cardboard box of loneliness with a polite smile for the weirdly cheerful delivery kid.

You gave a quick glance at the label in the front of the box to check for forbidden toppings just in case he’d forgotten who he was avoiding tonight and put something weird on it like corn and mayo or hot peppers.

The label had four lines of ingredients listed, the first said ‘xtra cheese’ and each additional one after that said ‘xtra cheese.’ Nothing else, just ‘xtra cheese’ listed four times in succession.

What in the world?

You briefly considered a malfunction of the pizza shop’s label maker, but boy was this thing heavy. Did he sneeze while selecting toppings and accidentally hit the option four times?

You set the monster down on the counter and lifted the lid. It was steaming hot despite the trip in the car and up the elevators to your door and as soon as you opened it you noticed the odd appearance of the inside lid.

There was a message handwritten with black marker inside of the lid.

Your stomach leapt up into your throat as you recognized what this was. The message started with the word Bug.

You had to cover your mouth to get through this.

Bug,

I know this is really, really, really, really cheesy, but will you go out on a date with me this Saturday?

Knock thrice on my door for yes.

-Peanut

P.S. Did I beat Ben?

You had to hang your head to contain it. You wanted to scream. Giggles actually burst out of your mouth before you could stop them. You were highly amused. Actually reallly fucking impressed and goddammit you felt a genuine flutter of butterflies inside of your stomach. How was he this clever? He had always been very silly and good at thinking of the most ridiculous scenarios to get things done, but wow. When you lifted the lid once more to read his message again your mind spun with the logistics of that man in that bedroom sneakily ordering this thing from a real pizza shop that was probably a block from your home.

Did he call them and explain the situation? Did all of the employees gather around, chanting ‘More cheese! Give the man more cheese!’ As they loaded this pizza up with what looked to be a full inch of melted cheese on top? It compromised the edges of the crust and flowed over the cardboard below. It was absolutely ridiculous and nearly inedible too.

Did they giggle at the pet names you called each other as they selected the employee with the best handwriting to relay his message?

You were buzzing again. This time it was pride. He was brilliant at everything he put his mind to and this was clearly no exception. He would do so well in his life.

You left the kitchen and made your way toward his closed bedroom door. As you came close you heard a very soft thud; wooden door hitting wooden door frame. The movement was hardly noticeable but you could see a slow turn of the doorknob too. He probably thought he was sneaky.

You lifted your closed fist and quietly hit three times against his door and after exactly ten seconds you heard the squeak of his doorknob turning and his bedroom door opened up an inch.

You saw a single brown eyeball peeping at you through the opening.

“I’ll text you the details later,” he whispered and the door closed up again before you could respond.

The details came by text message a day later, just as he promised. It was a Thursday afternoon when your phone buzzed and you’d just put the final touches on your data entry work for the day, running it through a spell checker for mistakes as you always did. You’d expected to hear from Ben by now, he said he had something to go straighten out at the bank. He’d taken it well, finding out that your roommate was a man around your age, and he didn’t even ask too many prodding questions about him.

The message was from Baekhyun with the time he would ‘arrive’ to pick you up on Saturday and he gave you sparse details about what he actually had planned; just a quick note at the end that he would be wearing a suit. You figured this was a hint for you to dress up as well.

Was Baekhyun taking you some place fancy? Your curiosity was positively burning and Baekhyun had been acting super weird around you lately.

Whenever you’d come into a room he was already occupying he would make up some excuse why he had to leave it and vanish inside his room to carry on with his highly secretive behavior. Whenever you went into his room he would spin in his chair toward the door with what you were positive was a caught red handed look on his face. It was like you had just caught him watching porn, only you’d caught glimpses of his screen before he quickly hit a keyboard command to clear out the screen and you didn't see a single boob.

After the first time, you’d made it a point to barge into his room often, just to see the surprised look on his face; you did it all for that gasp of air, the frantic fingers of panic on the keyboard, and the trembling hand over his chest as he clutched his pearls. All you caught flashes of were just regular looking websites. Regular text and regular pictures. You saw some blues, you saw some greens. You definitely didn't see the incriminating black and yellow theme of everyone’s favorite adult website. There was nary a penetrative moan to be heard through his speakers. The entire thing brought you great joy. The man was acting so odd and honestly he was getting your hopes up for a fantastically mind blowing date on Saturday. You’d already picked out your dress, heels, and jewelry and had been having a very hard time tolerating the ever so tedious passage of time.

By the time Saturday rolled around you were a wreck of nerves; though you weren’t exactly sure why you were so anxious. It was probably his recent fretting and obsessive preparations that had rubbed off on you. You’d decided to take it easier on him today. He’d obviously been working very hard on this assignment once given the dangling carrot of a good grade to be awarded at the end and if there was one thing you knew about Baekhyun, it was how much he strived to achieve perfection in his academic performance. You’d provided the materials. He’d obviously been studying and go-time was quickly approaching.

You took your time getting ready, soaking in your bathtub to kill some of the dull waiting hours before he was due to pick you up. By the time you were scrubbed, rinsed, shaved, moisturized, plucked, preened, coiffed, and scented to your satisfaction, you had only a half an hour to slip up the straps on the fancy fitted cocktail dress and check your reflection in the full length mirror. It was fitted and had a deep plunging neckline. It accentuated the best parts of your figure and the high slit that landed over your upper thigh showed just enough skin to make you feel sexy.

With your heels you were ready to go; feeling about as pretty as you had in a long while. The silliest little fantasy swam through your head as you spun in front of the mirror and it brought just a little warmth to your cheeks as you allowed it to play out. The idea that he would find you so lovely, so irresistible, that even the iron willed man with his self control like a steel trap would lose himself in the slow blinks of your lashes and drown in the pools of your eyes for just one night.

When you lightly slapped a palm over your cheek, it was to ground yourself. This was fake. Everything that happened tonight would be the result of careful calculations and applications of behaviors modeled in text books that he had studied all week long. It was a date with Baekhyun, but it wouldn't really be an accurate representation of the Baekhyun that you know so well.

You knew he would follow a script. He would perform as a perfect gentleman and you would play along, knowing that when he brought you home you would get a gentle hug and a thanks for sharing your knowledge with him and you would close your bedroom door and he would return to his bedroom door and life as you know it would simply fall back into place as it should remain unchanged for however long it took for you to get back on your feet, perhaps get a place of your own not too far away from him; although this neighborhood was very expensive, you’d settle for one or two subways stops away if it meant you could visit your best friend often and see him living out the life he deserved with someone who was worthy of his love.

Tonight, you will enjoy. But you would not allow your emotions to betray your rational mind. You would enjoy it and then it would be over and Baekhyun would have the skill set to ask out Mia, or whoever else he set his mind on asking out.

Your quiet self assurance was interrupted by two soft knocks on your bedroom door and your hands were trembling as you grabbed your handbag that had your cell phone, a tube of lipstick for touch-ups and a few just in case items you were always taught to carry with you, you know, just in case.

You’d reached the door and swung it open with a beaming smile on your face.

Your date was here. Baekhyun was here. It was Peanut.

A smile that quickly transformed into what you were sure was a gaping opening in your face resembling some aquatic animal and you found yourself gazing upon, frankly, an expertly styled exquisitely handsome real life man, who was wearing Byun Baekhyun’s face and smile.

Despite seeing him standing before you with your own two eyes, your brain was having trouble reconciling the two; your harmless roommate and the man who stood before you wearing a crisp suit jacket that he filled out shockingly well, a fashionable collarless dress shirt that looked like it came from some fancy boutique from downtown, fitted dress slacks that you tried your best not to linger on for too long, and were his shoes Italian? You were pretty sure they were Italian. More than just the clothes, his hair was different. He’d gone and had something done to his hair! Lord, you saw slight waves and a deliberate styling by an expert hand with just a bit of his forehead visible. Oh he looked so lovely with this hair style.

You remembered to close your mouth, but only after the realization dawning on you that he hadn’t said anything to you as you silently admired how beautiful he looked standing in his fancy suit looking like at least a million bucks.

You knew...you knew he was an attractive man. You’d have plenty of glimpses of it again and again, freshly reminded of it during that photo shoot late that night. You’d even known he worked out and had had plenty of chances to ogle the muscles on his arms and chest when he just woke up and would wander out shirtless for a drink of water. You knew that the entire shape of this man was the kind of handsome that you had to make conscious decisions to ignore. You’d forced yourself to look away plenty of times in the past. Still, the Baekhyun who stood here today, the one who had his lips parted as he stared into your eyes now after what you were certain was a head to toe, slow as hell, full body appreciation of all of your preparations to get ready for tonight, this Baekhyun was, for lack of a better word, he was sexy as all hell.

For the first time since you began this project; these lessons in dating, you felt like you might actually be in some sort of trouble.

Baekhyun spoke at last and it was the softest whisper. He said your name. Not Bug, not stupid or dummy or stinky which he called you sometimes even though you knew, you fucking knew you always smelled amazing. You went out of your way to smell great. The sound of your name on his voice softened the shock in your face and you felt a smile pull at your lips.

And so you smiled at him and watched the slow but complete smile that manifested on his pretty face.

“Hi,” he said with a blink of his bright eyes.

“Hi Baek,” you said. Your heart was racing.

He pivoted on his (Italian!) shoes and extended a bent elbow toward you and you slipped a hand around his arm.

He was doing so well. Each step you took through your shared home felt new. You had a hard time keeping from watching the side of his face and each glance you made was greeted with the light touch of his eyes as he met your eyes with his own.

Moments blurred. He ticked all the boxes, of course. He opened your door, closed it quietly behind you once you were inside. Even helped you with the seatbelt, much to the dismay of your racing heartbeat when he reached over to pull the red strap across you, careful to keep his hands well away from touching any of your actual body as he did it. The true devastation hit you when, all closed up inside the dark car in the silent moments before he started the engine and the intoxicating smell of him reached your nose.

This was a new smell. Baekhyun had gone to the salon, gone shopping for expensive new clothes, and was also wearing what had to be the best smelling cologne you had ever experienced in person.

“You smell really good,” you said without looking at him and your fingers fidgeted with the strap of your handbag to keep your mind working.

“So do you,” he said followed by an inhale that you were certain sounded just a little thready and he was steering the car through lanes and turns of a parking garage to exit the building.

His destination was the kind of fancy dream-like restaurant that you saw only in movies. The sun would be setting soon and you were led to a rooftop terrace with a view over the city and a single table set for two. You followed the pleasantly clean woman and lingering just behind you, Baekhyun silently fell behind one or two steps. A glance behind woke him up from whatever daze he’d fallen into and he closed the distance with two larger steps and a shy smile on his lips.

The waitstaff worked like ninjas. Glasses were refilled as if by magic and course after course of delicious food appeared before you as you watched the sunset over the horizon and when the light faded enough, the soft glow of twinkle lights illuminated the view around you.

The dinner was delicious and the scenery was breathtaking and that alone would have given him full marks for such a lovely evening out, but Byun Baekhyun was proving to be an overachiever as he started to talk to you. He was asking you open-ended questions, pulling conversation easily from you and you found yourself giggling and laughing as he joked in response or told you some funny anecdotes from his childhood that he knew you would love.

By the time dessert arrived you were pretty certain you were drunk despite half of the wine that remained back in your glass. Baekhyun, ever the stickler for vehicle safety had stuck to soft drinks and when he excused himself for the restrooms, you waited patiently under the glowing lights as you daydreamed about the genuine brightness you were certain you saw in his smiles. Had the twinkle in his eyes been just a reflection of this place? Everything about him tonight felt so real. You’d read through the same book he read through and you couldn’t recall him using a single recycled phrase or conversation point during dinner.

Maybe he was just that good of a student.

A noise startled you from behind and you jumped when a single red rose was laid on the table in front of you.

A rose. Baekhyun had brought you back a rose from somewhere; maybe he stole it from the elaborate flower arrangements you passed on the way in.

“Where did you get this?” You mused as you smelled his sweet offering and he shrugged and tugged at the top button of his shirt, undoing it and slipping slim fingers down to undo the second button as well. Your eyes watched the action and weirdly the fragrance from the rose smelled sweeter than the first time you smelled it.

“I just had it,” he said cryptically with another charming and blinding smile.

“Ready to go? We have one more place to visit.”

The next place he took you was even more magical than the fancy restaurant. The parking lot was nearly empty and when he opened your door he was fussing around with a small bag in the backseat of his car. He pulled out a pair of black ballet flats and you watched in awe as the man actually kneeled down on the pavement in front of you to carefully slip your heels off of your feet and slip on the comfortable shoes.

While they did not look anywhere near as sexy as the heels did, you instantly understood the need for a change.

Baekhyun had brought you to an aquarium with what looked like miles and miles of indoor and outdoor paths to walk through with tunnels traveling through the biggest tanks of aquatic sea life you’d ever seen.

You were instantly hypnotized by the deep sea exhibits that seemed to take you for miles and miles below the surface of the ocean where the sea life grew weirder and the lighting grew darker and dimmer the further down you traveled. Here at depths difficult to wrap your brain around the fish and sea creatures have adapted to freezing waters and a bleak existence without any light at all. Many had their own light sources. The bioluminescent exhibits sparkled and twinkled like the stars in the sky out in the country. You saw entire universes all around you.

Baekhyun was as enraptured as you were and spent his time carefully reading each exhibit’s information card out loud as he stared with his mouth open in awe at the different creatures. There were hundreds of different species of fishes, beautiful ones and downright creepy ugly things from the very bottom of the oceans; endangered species too; the sleepy eyes of the sea turtles were your favorites and the impressions Baekhyun made of their swimming faces made you cackle with laughter. Bright lights illuminated meters of corals of all shapes, sizes, and colors, and you honestly felt like you’d entered another planet when you both walked into the jellyfish halls.

They glowed and flowed, bounced and danced, and moved like a dream. You found yourself hypnotized as you stared at the biggest tank full of them for long enough for Baekhyun to make three circles around waiting for you to follow him out of this room so he could go see the sharks.

You knew the sharks were coming. You’d had a look at the map. And while you didn't necessarily dislike them, their huge sizes and razor sharp teeth always gave you the heebie-jeebies. The jellies were just so comfortable to look at and so relaxing.

It took some coaxing from Baekhyun, and maybe even a little tiny push at the back of your shoulders to get your feet to move and you lingered a bit long in the dark hallway that connects the two exhibits.

You just felt that maybe, the sharks could wait just a little bit longer to meet you.

He’d noticed right away and you opened up your eyes that you’d closed up for a little relaxing session when you felt the tips of his fingers running along the palm of your hand.

He gripped lightly at first, and then shifted your hand within his and he began walking forward in that dark hallway with you trailing behind him.

Baekhyun touched you sometimes. This was something that he did, on occasion. During a scary movie when you’d jumped too many times, or when you both walked through a crowded place and he didn't want you to wander off, he would occasionally hold your hand. This wasn’t something new to you.

However your heart was beating hard in your chest and the warmth of his hand coupled with the firmness with which he held you felt so damn nice you were having trouble focusing on anything else except for your own shallow breathing and racing heartbeat — and his hand holding yours.

Sharks swam at a gentle languid pace. Clearly at ease and very well fed here in their homes, there didn't seem to be very much murder and feasting happening at all. Hammerheads, tiger sharks, something uglier than any other creature you had ever seen that came from The Midnight Zone of the deepest parts and with each creature that swam overhead, or beside you, or creeped up from somewhere behind you, Baekhyun would turn to face you and take two or three steps backwards as he pulled you through it, your hand held securely inside of his. He would smile at you that debilitating smile, and tilt his head and call you a scary cat or a big baby and you would laugh and roll your eyes and deny that you were even a little bit scared of anything at all.

All was going well. You were very well taken care of and felt very secure inside this tiny tunnel at the bottom fo the ocean and you’d noticed this time when Baekhyun had turned around to look at you with a bright smile that smile wavered just a touch and his eyes seemed to focus on something that was coming up from behind.

Your curiosity got the better of you and you turned to see what he saw.

Baekhyun moved quickly then, moving both of his hands up to reach for your face he pulled your head forward and moved his own face close to yours. You felt the warmth of his forehead lean against yours for a moment and you could not see around or behind you with his hands placed so carefully on the sides of your head like this.

You knew what it was. It had to be something huge and terrifying, maybe even something with fresh blood still on it’s teeth. A Great White. The giant monster from the movie Jaws that you had watched with him once not realizing just how scary it would be and you spent most of the film curled up under his arm wincing at the horrors you saw on the screen.

“Hey Peanut,” you said softly while looking up close into his eyes. He was so close you could feel the warmth of his breath on your face. His smell, that new smell of his smelled even better this close to his skin.

“Hey LoveBug,” he said with a gentle smile and you knew based on the use of this carefully reserved nickname for emergencies that it was exactly as you had feared. A Great White, chomping on the remains of the cutest crying baby penguin. The fluffiest one with its whole life ahead of it.

Baekhyun was safe though. Baekhyun was warm and he was here to protect you. You would be okay, you knew it.

“Is it gone yet?” You asked after what felt like the average time for a fish that size to swim away and you noticed something. It was a look, just a glance. Baekhyun’s eyes floated a bit and the warm breath you felt coming from him was delivered in quicker puffs through his parted lips.

When he licked his lips, you could not help it, your eyes caught the motion as his tongue ran over his bottom lip and left wetness behind and by the time you realized what you had done — where you had looked — you had already done it, your stubborn eyes had already looked and in your mind a vivid replay was happening. You felt too much. This was too much. This was supposed to be fake. Why did he have to smell so fucking good and why was he so aware of every tiny detail about you he knew when something would overwhelm you and ruin your mood, so he used his own body to shield you from it and protect you. You cautiously pulled your eyes back up only to find him blinking too fast and he was dropping his hands from your face as he took a step back and away from the stifling closeness.

You were dizzy. You felt it all over. Your heart was racing and the warmth you felt traveling through your body sent waves through you. You had to rub lightly over your forearms to smooth out the goosebumps and Baekhyun was no longer facing you, but was staring off into the literal depths of the cold black ocean and you took a while to recover enough to walk by him toward the exit of the aquarium and back into the darkened city streets you knew as the real world.

The walk back to the car was quiet and had an odd flavor about it. You both could feel the end coming. It had been a wonderful date. You’d spent hours, just the two of you talking and laughing and exploring literally new worlds you hadn’t before experienced. You felt a sudden but definite melancholy to see the fancy circles that made up the logo of his car.

“Hey, you want to take a walk?” Baekhyun’s voice halted your steps and you turned back to see him standing with a hand in his pocket, fidgeting in hidden, likely with the key fob to his car, and a new sort of nervous flush on his cheeks that you hadn’t seen since he first showed up at your bedroom door looking like a dashing Prince Charming ready to sweep you off your feet.

“Sure,” you said, meaning every bit of it and secretly extremely thankful that this evening wasn’t over yet.

The walk was peaceful. It was a bit chilly tonight and you didn’t even resist when you felt the warmth of the coat jacket he placed over your shoulders. You thought you’d become used to the smell of him by now, but clearly you were incapable of ever getting used to his smell.

The streets were mostly empty now that the night had grown stale and you walked side by side passing various touristy shops that had long since closed up for the evening. Ahead you could see a small street side cafe that sold warm teas and coffees and Baekhyun was pulling out his wallet before you even had the chance to look at him with hopeful delight all over your face. He ordered two hot coffees and you danced and celebrated when he handed the first one to you.

It warmed you from the inside and you paid no mind to the smudges of lipstick all over the white lid of your cup. The hot drink made you happy and you could see your breath like a dragon in the chilly night air around you. Each puff made Baekhyun smile and when he’d taken a particularly big drink from his cup he pulled his head back and puffed out three perfectly formed rings of warm air into the color air above his head. The rings grew and then faded quickly but you were so excited to see his trick that you made him do it again and again until he was puffing and out of breath and laughing too much for any more cool rings to form. This man was full of secrets. Absolutely full of them!

The night was winding on. You could feel the lateness in your limbs and you’d long since finished your drinks and dropped your paper cups into a street side trash can. Your feet, you found were protesting. It wasn’t that they ached or hurt or anything like that. You weren't even that tired. You were just having trouble with the idea of this ending and the night being over.

Everything had to end eventually. You didn't even pout at all when he pulled open your door. You just climbed in and sat down, fastening your own seatbelt this time with a sense of finality looming in your mind along with a wagging finger that quietly scolded you for letting your guard down during this date.

The drive back home was quiet. He didn't even turn on the radio and even though he drove with one hand, he held his other hand firm atop his thigh.

The small touches and stolen glances were over. The date was over. He had done very well. You were thoroughly swept off your feet and his grade would be an A+. You would go back to your room and go to sleep and tomorrow morning when you woke up you’d find him back to his usual antics and maybe, maybe you’d even get him to ask Mia out on a date.

You swallowed the dryness in your throat and the familiar landmarks outside your apartment building called you back home. Baekhyun pulled into the parking garage and you did not wait for him to round the hood of the car to reach your door, you simply opened it yourself and pushed through it.

Baekhyun did well. You had given him a task and he’d done it. He deserved all the praise and recognition for a job well done. He’d taken it seriously just as he said he would. This dark mood that had suddenly come over you could not show. You shouldn’t do this to him.

You cared for him too much to ruin this sweet evening.

You loved him too much. This quiet secret usually echoed around inside of your heart and you winced to hear it peaking it’s way up into your running thoughts.

The apartment was dark and you walked through it easily, knowing exactly where you could walk without bumping into anything and he didn’t turn on any lights as he walked closely behind you. He hadn’t said anything to you on the drive home, nor did he speak right now as he walked you back to your bedroom door where he had picked you up.

You turned to face him now. You pushed a smile up to your lips and his face was mostly in the darkness, barely lit with the city lights from the window.

“Thank you for a lovely evening, Baekhyun. It was perfect. You were perfect. Seriously, you are amazing.”

You leaned before he did and you felt the staggered response from his limbs as he wrapped both of his arms around your shoulders for the hug.

“Thank you for coming with me tonight,” he whispered against your ear and when you pulled out of the hug, your small smile was not returned. You could see enough of his face to see that he did not smile at you now.

Your hand was on your door and you turned and stepped inside, thankful that you had left your small table lamp on. The room was warm and inviting and you closed the door behind you with a soft click that sounded exactly like clapperboard snapped to signal the end of a movie scene. You could almost hear a director somewhere yelling cut. Everybody clapped for the job well done. All the actors could now go home. It was over.

Your shoes were off. You’d pulled off the earrings and had taken off your necklace and the delicate tennis bracelet’s clasp was so tiny you had to try a few times to get it open so you could take it off.

When you reached up to slip the strap of your dress off your shoulders a tiny sound interrupted you. It was almost like a knocking, but it was so soft you had to listen carefully to hear if it repeated again.

It did not, but you could not shake that feeling that it had happened and out of genuine curiosity you walked across your bedroom and pulled your bedroom door open.

Someone was there; Baekhyun was there, standing in nearly the exact same position as he had been, wearing the same clothes. The only difference was the sight mess to his hair and the definite pink shade you saw on his face even in the dim lighting from the windows.

“Peanut?” You couldn’t imagine what this was. He was finished. The assignment was finished and he had done perfectly, you’d said so already...but, his eyes. You caught that same look that you’d seen on him many times before. It was a look of hard determination that propelled him forward when he dove into some new and difficult project he had to master. If you had to give it a name, you’d call it his passion. The passion he had inside of him to do things right. To be perfect.

“I said I would take it seriously,” he said in a well controlled voice and you shook your head, not understanding what he meant. Did he have some regrets about how the night went? Did he feel that he had somehow failed to live up to the requirements you’d set forth for him as his teacher?

“The date, I told you I would.” He wasn't clarifying anything with his words.

It was then that he moved.

His hands were up and Baekhyun took a step closer to where you stood confused and surprised at the threshold of your bedroom door. He reached for you with both hands and you felt the warmth of his palms on your cheeks at the same time as you felt the exhale from his parted lips against your mouth. It happened in a single moment. His lips connected with yours and you gasped in a surprised breath. Baekhyun kissed you. His lips were on yours and he held your face tightly between both of his hands as he did it. This was it. This was his goodnight kiss at your front door. This was the end of the date.

You could just make out the ultra up close view of him, his fluffed up hair, the smoothness of his forehead, his eyes closed up tight and dark eyelashes spread over his cheeks and it was all a big blur and so you closed your eyes and your heart raged noisily inside of your chest with the sudden need you felt for this to happen.

Your own lips parted and you felt the tilt of his head as his bottom lip pushed out slipping perfectly between your own and you could not stop it. You could not control the tightness with which your hands clung to the cotton of his dress shirt and pulled him toward you. You could not contain the way his tongue brushed lightly against your own and the way you reacted to it. The light moan that escaped from your throat and bounced around inside of his mouth. The light draw you felt on your lip as he pulled lightly and sucked on your lip as he did it. The final pull was him pulling away.

He ended the kiss with a step backward and a drop of his hands from your face.

He had kissed you and you most definitely had kissed him back. The labored breathing you struggled to contain did nothing for the dizziness.

“Goodnight,” he said with a roughness on his voice; plus the blown out look in his eyes was telling you of many forbidden things that he was running from now. Things that even he knew were a very bad idea.

This had been fake. This was supposed to be a lesson.

You stood at your doorway and watched him disappear into his bedroom and after standing frozen in your doorway you had no choice but to return to the quiet glowing comfort of your own bedroom and close your door too.

Your hands were shaking and you felt the trembling all over you as you looked around at the place you called home. The place you loved more than anything in the world except for maybe that man who was likely facing a very similar struggle behind his own closed bedroom door.

The only difference was just how much you had to lose if you gave in.

You loved him. You knew it deep down inside of your soul. It had been buried for so long deep in the frozen depths of your ocean that you thought it would never surface and consume you, yet now you knew you’d been a fool.

Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , Part 5, Part 6

Tag list: @j-pping @blahblahblah-boo @his-mochi-cheeks @amyeonzing@littleflowercrown13 @baekinmylife @insta1010 @nana-banana @f4ncyvelvet@bbhbeth @totallynerdstuff @byunbabybaek @maijinki @bbyunz@theclawofaraven @kingkushdealer @uhobob

#Baekhyun #Exo #Baekhyun fic #Exo fic #Baekhyun fanfiction #Exo fanfiction #Baekhyun fluff #Baekhyun smut #Exo fluff #exo smut #Baekhyun scenario #exo scenario #baekhyun series #exo series

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itstimetotheorize · 3 years

Text

Shadowmoths victory, Marinette and Adriens breaking point, the miraculous teams desperate efforts (warning, spoilers for season 4 finale)

Ever since the series began, Marinette had always been considered to be one person who would be the most difficult for hawkmoth to manipulate. And while Marinette has had some close calls such as in “Zombizou”, “Chameleon” and “Ladybug”, Marinette had always succeeded in avoiding being akumatized, be it through sheer will power alone or just plain luck such as when Nathalie lost her grip on all the akumatized civilians, including Marinette!.

However, ever since the episode “chat blanc” had revealed to us just what it would take to akumatize chat noir , many of us had since begun to wonder what it would take to finally akumatize Marinette?

Marinettes akumatization had always been foreshadowed in previous seasons, especially season 3. Out of all the foreshadowing the show could have ever provided for a number of things, it was almost as if the show was always hinting towards some extreme event should Marinette ever fall prey to hawkmoths manipulation. An event so shocking it would even rival the time chat blanc had destroyed all of Paris. As to what this event would be and how it would come to fruition, well…that all depended on what would happen to hawkmoth and ladybug.

In terms of hawkmoth, well, hawkmoth had always stated how despite his ongoing defeat, he knew ladybugs winning streak could not last forever, sooner or later her luck would run out and when it did, she would make a mistake that would finally guaranty his victory. The only question was...how exactly was ladybug(aka Marinette) going to screw up? what would have happened to her that would cause her to lose the cautiousness which has helped her overcome every obstacle thrown her way?. When it comes to Marinette and her battles against hawkmoth, Marinette had always thought things through, she had always remained cautious, calm, collected and above all...she learned not to let her emotions get the better of her so long as hawkmoth was watching and waiting....then again... If Marinette were truly ever to be akumatized, something needed to happen within the show which would lead her to throw all logic she had out the window....but what?...perhaps Zag studios had already provided us with an answer.

Early in July 2021, Zag studios had revealed something NO ONE believed they would have ever considered making public at such an early stage within the release of season 4, what was it exactly? well....it was the title and synopsis for the season 4 finale!

According to this news, the season 4 finale had been revealed to be titled, “Shadow moths last attack”!....this... was a big deal! because ever since “Timetagger” revealed to us that Gabriel Agreste would Not be the hawk moth of the future, many wondered when exactly Gabriels time as the villain of the series would come to an end. Well, after years of waiting, it would appear as though shadow moths time WILL come to an end... in season 4!.

But aside from revealing shadowmoths possible last season, Zag had also coincidentally revealed in an interview one very important, but not all to surprising plot point of the series. Before his inevitable demise... shadowmoth will first obtain what he had worked so hard to take...ladybug and chat noirs miraculous!

However, despite hawkmoths inevitable victory before his final defeat, its clear something of great importance needed to happen to Marinette in order to guarantee hawkmoth obtaining the miraculous of creation….but what? What needed to happen?

Looking back at all the times shadowmoth had attempted to steal ladybug and chat noirs miraculous, shadow moth had only ever akumatized every person he could get his hands on in order to obtain the help he needed to accomplish his goal.... and yet time and time again, every person he had come across would fail him, but why?...well, maybe it was always because they were never the right person for the job... maybe what hawkmoth always needed was someone who would be considered his greatest “masterpiece”...and as we have seen throughout the series, that someone...was always Marinette!

but even if hawkmoth realizes he must obtain someone like Marinette in order to accomplish his goal, how would he even go about finally akumatizing her?... well...isn't it obvious...shadowmoth never needed to wait for her to fall into emotional destress, because all he needed to do was use the one person who he knew could push anyone to far... or quite simply, cause a situation which would purposely force large groups of people to be akumatized at the same time. Who is this person exactly? well... we all know the answer to that....its Lila Ross of course!!

Despite Lilas lack of participation within season 4, many understood she couldn't stay quiet forever, after all, Lila had always been presented as someone who was more than willing to take part in some sort of major evil event within the series, such as the season 1 finale, the season 2 finale and even the season 3 finale!!. And based on zag studios reveal of the season 4 finale description, it would appear as though Lila will once again have her part to play. Looking at the season 4 synopsis, its said:

“Having understood that her cautiousness is the reason why Ladybug is always triumphing, Shadow Moth prepares a diabolic plan which consists of creating a supervillain able to make his victims take all sorts of risks. When Marinette finds out that Adrien is leaving Paris for a few weeks with Lila, the new figure of the Agreste brand, she’s ready to do anything to prevent him from doing so; but to what point? Would she reveal her secret identity for the sake of love? And would Adrien take the risk of finally confronting his father?”

Now, despite Marinette having been displayed as someone who was willing to take risks for the wrong reasons in the past, Marinette has also been shown to improve in taking risks for the right reasons over the span of the series (such as entrusting Alya with her secret identity). However!...keep in mind we don't yet know for sure if Marinette will be the one akumatized within the season 4 finale until the studio reveals the official season 4 finale trailer. But if Marinette is truly planned to be akumatized, then its possible the studio may have already revealed to us what we had suspected all along. Just as in “ladybug”, Lila will once again be used by hawkmoth in order to attempt to akumatize the “bad influence” she claims to be following Adrien, the bad influence being of course, Marinette herself! However, considering Lilas agreement with Adrien to not hurt the people he cares about (after pulling a stunt on Marinette which caused her to get expelled) its clear Gabriel will have to devise a scheme which will place Lila in a situation where she will finally force Marinette to reach her breaking point and make her take every risk she can as she watches Lila being given the chance to leave on a trip with Adrien!

And considering the great lengths Marinette went through just to warn Adrien of Lila back in “Oni- chan”, who knows what kind of lengths Marinette will go through to stop Lila and Adrien from leaving together. Should this occur, its possible Marinette will begin to lose her sense of self and toss all logic she has out the window as she uses everything and I mean EVERYTHING she has at her disposal to accomplish her goal...this includes her powers as ladybug!

It wouldn't be the first time Marinette had used her powers for selfish reasons. After all, the only reason the events of “chat blanc” occurred in the first place, was because Marinette decided to use her powers to enter Adriens room in order to leave her signed gift. This single act alone was what ultimately lead Adrien to discover that ladybug is Marinette. So then... if Marinette were to once again use her powers for the sake of love, would her actions once again result in the one mistake she always knew would lead to disaster? would her misguided attempts.... reveal her identity to shadowmoth himself?!...maybe

If Marinettes desperate attempts really result in her identity being revealed to shadowmoth then would her frustration over Lila, piled on top of everything else she is dealing with as ladybug and guardian, finally seal her fate of being akumatized?!...perhaps....but even if Marinette were to finally be akumatized and even if hawkmoth were to finally obtain his chance to take the miraculous of creation, how would he then obtain the miraculous of destruction from Adrien?...well...lets just say Gabriel might have already had his suspicions from the very beginning, after all, aside from Marinettes akumatization being for shadowed within every season thus far, the only other major for shadowing which followed parallel to Marinette was Gabriels growing suspicion towards Adrien and the ring he had on his finger! However, even if Gabriel continues to grow suspicious towards Adrien, what could possibly happen between the two off them that will finally reveal to Gabriel his sons secrets?...unless...what if Gabriel reveals his secrets to Adrien first?...

Gabriel had always stated how much he wished he could have told Adrien about his mothers true condition and whereabouts. That despite all the cruel things he had done up to now, it was all for the sake of bringing his mother back. When Adrien had discovered hawkmoths identity and the true reason behind his actions back in “chat blanc”, we see how despite chat noirs loyalty to ladybug and despite him wanting to carry out his responsibility as a hero by stopping hawkmoth, Adrien still struggled with the thought of being given the chance to be reunited with his own mother, even at the cost of ladybug and his miraculous!

The frustration of his fathers true identity, the realization about his mother having never disappeared and hawkmoths words swaying him with the idea that he could have his mom back was what gave shadowmoth the chance he needed to finally take chat noirs mind and force him to be akumatized! However, keep in mind, all these events happened in a separate timeline which was later fixed through Bunnyx powers and ladybugs quick thinking to erase her name on her signed gift to Adrien. The events of “chat blanc” were sealed to never happen again so hawkmoth would never find out Adriens true identity as chat noir...but if hawkmoth were to truly obtain the miraculous of destruction then... wouldn't Adrien first give him the chance to take it all over again!?

Fans had always feared the return of chat blanc within the series, especially after seeing chat noirs growing frustration over ladybug throughout the span of season 4.

If Adrien were to discover all over again hawkmoths identity and his mother whereabouts near the end of season 4, would Adrien once again give shadowmoth the chance he needs to once again akumatize him?!...along with Marinette?! or would Adriens confusion and distress lead him to once again become vulnerable enough to make a mistake which would reveal to Gabriel what he had suspected all along... his own son.... has a miraculous! but not just any miraculous, the miraculous of destruction he’s been fighting for!

However!, despite hawkmoth being fated to finally obtain both miraculous, there is still something even hawkmoth himself has yet to realize... something he never bothered to consider as he became blindsided with his thoughts of victory... his wish.... CAN be granted... but its comes with a PRICE!....Its just as Master Fu said, whoever wields the ladybug and cat miraculous will be given the chance to make a wish that can alter reality itself. However!, because the universe needs to maintain a balance when a wish is made, something of equal effect must happen in return. Despite Gabriels plan to use the miraculous to fix a past mistake and finally restore his wife to her former self, Gabriel might have never realized once his wish is granted, something bad will happen in return! as to what this disastrous result would be... well, your guess is as good as mine. If hawkmoth tried to just revive his wife then perhaps someone else might be forced to take her place. But if Gabriel were to go to the extreme and actually change a past event which lead his wife to be in the state she is in now, then this alone could prove to have major consequences. Its just as Bunnyx said, messing with time is dangerous, and if your not careful it could have dire consequences in the future.

But regardless of what will happen, one thing is for certain, the end result of Gabriels wish.... will be catastrophic! and may quite possibly be to much for ladybug and chat noir to solve even if they do manage to get their miraculous back!

so, this does beg the question, should hawkmoth obtain the miraculous of destruction and creation after akumatizing Marinette and quite possibly even Adrien then later cause a catastrophic event upon seeing his wish be granted...what could possibly happen within the series to solve this mess?!... well, keep in mind, ladybug already planned ahead, after all, she and chat noir are no longer the only superheroes in Paris. Even if she and chat noir were to be defeated by hawkmoth, there is still one person hiding in the shadows, ready to take action and ready to gather all the heroes of the miraculous team in order to face this challenge. Who is this miraculous person waiting to take action should the day arrive? why...its Alya of course!

Ever since Alya had been entrusted by Marinette to act as a temporary replacement to ladybug( should anything ever happen to her) many understood it would only be a matter of time before Alya had to take charge and gather the rest of the miraculous team in order to fight the two people anyone would dread facing in battle, ladybug and chat noir!. But how would Alya even begin to figure out the proper way to handle this kind of situation even with the aid of the other miraculous heroes?, Alya only ever understood ladybugs side of things now that she knew her secret identity, but how could she possibly help chat noir when she doesn't even know who he is!....then again....she doesn't have to struggle with figuring out who chat noir is...because Luka already knows both ladybug and chat noirs identities!

We always theorized ladybug and chat noirs identities would one day be revealed to someone close to them, granted, since season 4 is still ongoing we don't yet know if Adrien will bring himself to reveal his own identity to Nino just as Marinette revealed her identity to Alya at the start of the season. But, ever since the events of “Wishmaker” revealed to Luka the identities of ladybug and chat noir, fans had wondered why Luka of all people would be set up to discover both of their identities without either of their consent?, well, after much debate, the answer may have been obvious all along... unlike the other miraculous heroes, he and one other miraculous holder carry with them a power which will serve of great importance should Alya and the others be forced to face ladybug, chat noir and hawkmoth all at the same time. Considering the unimaginable challenge which is to be faced near the end of season 4, then its possible Luka was always one person who needed to know ladybug and chat noirs identities should he ever give the team a winning chance!

If what we suspect is true and if Alya and the others are meant to face their leaders in a fight, its obvious this fight alone... will be doomed to be plagued with errors and failures!, after all, this is ladybug and chat noir we are talking about, the miraculous team doesn't stand a chance against this dynamic duo to begin with, but if Alya and the other heroes ever plan to succeed then they must have someone who will proved them with a “second chance”, no matter how many things go wrong! Lukas power alone can provide the team with as many chances needed in order to change everything which could result in failure! and with luka having already known ladybug and chat noirs identities, he will waste no time in finding a way to save their friends rather than remain in shock and confusion over the outcome which will occur in the finale. But if this were to be the teams solution in saving ladybug and chat noir, then what will they then do about the mess hawkmoth leaves once his wish is granted?

If his wish were to truly cause a catastrophic event, would Marinettes miraculous ladybug be able to fix it even if they managed to defeat shadowmoth? we��ve seen ladybugs power repair some extraordinary things, but could it repair the effects of the two most powerful miraculous being used together? Should ladybug try to repair this incredible damage and fail, then what would she and the others do next once they’ve all failed?....unless....what if this was never their mess to help fix, because if everyone fails, then maybe it will soon be time for ladybug to call upon the one miraculous holder who had been labeled as “the miraculous of last chance”....what is this miraculous?...why...the rabbit miraculous of course!

Fans had always been anticipating the return of Bunnyx, or rather, they have always been waiting to see when young Alix would finally have her chance to use the rabbit miraculous. But considering the dangers of the rabbit miraculous, many knew it would not be used until the day it was absolutely necessary... well... if the team were to continue struggling in saving ladybug and chat noir, then perhaps Alix will soon rise up to help figure out a way to not only save ladybug and chat noir, but also help find a way to repair the incredible damage which will be caused by hawkmoths wish...but what will she do?... will she travel to the past to alter something which will fix the present?... if so, what would she even change without causing another catastrophe?... or will she travel to the future and seek the aid of someone who she knows could help her and the team solve this terrifying crises?...but even if she did, who could she possibly bring back to the present?...would it be someone she already knew and trusted just as much as her future self talked about trusting herself?....someone like...the ladybug and chat noir of the future!?...maybe...but I guess we will just have to wait and see, for now thats just a theory... a miraculous ladybug theory!

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lamelinam · 3 years

Text

The maid and the Cat, Ren and Akira: some musings

What gloomy love brightened the half-lives of the Sohmas’ most Cursed ones?

I often wonder what the relationship between the former Cat and his attendant would have looked like, twisted and sad as it must have been. Precious little is shown about those two, and only through Kazuma’s pov. We know she took care of and pitied the Cat, to the point that she even slept with him and bore his child. This is not unlike Kureno’s relationship with Akito. She might have treated him with the same kindness and devotion, distant, perhaps harmful, yet selfless.

Selfless? I think another way to extrapolate on the story of Kazuma’s grandparents is with Ren and Akira’s relationship.

Many great meta writers have already pointed out that those who fill in the positions at the extremes of the Sohma hierarchy, the Cat and God, or in this case the Cat and the idolized, deified family head, are foils to each other and are the ones that are dehumanized and isolated the most.

But now I think that you can also compare the way the previous Cat and Akira both chose ("chose" being a relative term in the case of the Cat) a romantic partner.

(Akira wasn’t God, but as the family head, he was worshipped just like Akito. His sickness also contributed to making him stand apart. Not only was he kept inside the compound because of his frailty, the hold that death had on him blessed him with this ephemeral, divine aura. “Was it the sorrow that befell him at such a young age that gave him that otherworldly beauty?»)

Both Kazuma’s grandfather and Akito’s father were doomed, Akira to die an early death, Kazuma’s grandfather to live the life of a living dead. Both were buried alive in the Sohma estate, either at the outskirts or at the center of it.

Both reached out to their progeny. (But Kazuma rejected the offered cake, and will endeavour to atone and honour his grandfather’s memory. Akito clung to every memento she had of her father and will need to learn to let go of him.)

And both the previous Cat and Akira found some measure of comfort in the affections and arms of their female caretakers, Sohma servants who saw their loneliness and expressed their compassion, though not in a particularly healthy way: Kazuma’s grandmother acting out of pity, Ren out of obsessive love.

It’s interesting to me how their respective position was reflected in their partners’ feelings : the imprisoned, despised Cat, Kazuma’s grandmother looked down on. The respected, otherworldly beautiful Akira was adored by Ren.

Kazuma sums up his grandparents’ relationship thusly:

Those correspond to the main "duties" that a wife is traditionally supposed to provide her husband.

The day-to-day caring.

Childbearing.

Attending their husband’s deathbed.

Obviously Ren wished she could have skipped the second one and be there for the last one. (I headcanon that she had prepared her last words years in advance, finding small pleasures and comfort, on the back of the wave of despair anticipating Akira’s death, in rehearsing the declarations of passionate love she would address to the dying man.)

The Cat’s companion attended her partner’s deathbed, seemingly very composed, even cold, as seen in Kazuma’s memories, while Ren, deprived of her husband’s last moments, that she felt were “stolen” from her by Akito (in reality by the maids :@), was mad with grief.

"The only one who can save him"

Those parallels make me wonder whether or not the Cat’s companion might not have developed a saviour complex, like Ren, both believing that they were the only one able to save this lonely, condemned person they were taking care of, and relishing it.

“I love you” vs "I pity you"

On Ren’s side though, it seems that she believes she truly saw Akira, as the person hiding behind that otherworldly aura, filled with sadness and fearful of death. Seeing that Akira agrees with her ("Ren noticed I was lonely"), fought against the Sohma leaders and regretted on his deathbed that he and Ren couldn’t reconcile, I believe this is not a delusion of hers. Her love was genuine and passionate, and she and Akira were happy. Unfortunately, that happiness didn’t survive her pregnancy, for she was also jealous and obsessed.

Kazuma supposes that his grandmother believed that she was doing something good. I wonder at her expression. It is shadowed, enigmatic. Is it a smirk or not, is she sad or not? i wonder whether she was selfless in her pity, like Kureno, or selfish like Kagura, perhaps feeling better by «sacrificing» herself in associating with the Cat for the sake of a miserable soul.

(Whatever you can say or imagine about her, Kazuma doesn’t seem to suffer from the stigma of being the Cat’s grandson, nor does he bear any trace of an abusive upbringing - in fact, he was among those doing the abusing - or even the echoes of the previous generation’s, so my guess is that she was an okay mother and grandmother... which would have made Kazuma’s disappointment and hurt at her words all the sharper... Like Tohru thinking of the zodiacs members she finds so kind and adorable secretly looking down on someone else she realizes she cares about more than she thought.)

There is no way to know how the Cat reacted to a pity-love. But considering Kureno and Akito’s relationship, this might also have been but a superficial balm, and potentially just as hurtful. Then it depends on the interpretation. Kureno’s pity cocooned Akito and kept her from moving forward, but the Cat was condemned anyway to an eternity of imprisonment. Moving forward was forbidden to him. And if his self-worth was already completely destroyed as his role and his treatment are meant to do, he might have just felt grateful towards the attendant. There’s no way to say for sure whether he would have been hurt or not by the truth, and I don’t know which option is the saddest!

... but I know what could be sadder. Because is the maid entirely to blame? We know that in Fruits Basket, love requires a measure of selfishness. The one cursed with the Cat has no self, no existence, no wants and no future, and they accept this fate. They believe they deserve it. (Which is why the Cat's Room doesn't need bars in the manga, nor locks. Rin was under lock and keys because either Akito didn't completely trust her to keep her word or she didn't want someone to discover her.)

It would be very difficult for someone to fall in love with a person who has renounced to everything, perhaps including love. Because who's to say that the Cat loved the maid too?

Recognition vs indifference

How depressingly fitting that we don't even learn the Cat's name, while Akira’s is remembered by all and echoes back and forth in the later part of the story.

Ren marrying the Sohma family head was such a big political deal it provoked a family schism. The Cat’s story with the maid gets completely ignored. It is probably known, just not "officially recognized", says Kazuma. Like everything related to the Cat, it was relegated to the back of the minds, in the dusty closet of the things that are uncomfortable to think about but that you tolerate if it doesn’t upend your little world-view. Ugh, some maid is being inappropriate with that monster! Well, as long as she doesn’t free the loathsome creature, who cares. (And she wouldn’t, because she’s no Tohru.)

In contrast, the maids of the main family thought that Ren was stealing Akira from their grasp. Ren didn’t seem to care for the family, and in a way, her love allowed Akira to also escape from them, "snatched away" by "that woman”, for the old attendant. Unlike the Cat’s attendant, Ren felt like a threat to the Sohma strict hierarchical system. (Fortunately, God will be born to bring back the right order of things, phew! Certainly she he will accomplish what Akira-san was momentarily too misguided to do and rid us of that woman!)

Inheritance.

Both women's profession of their true feelings deeply marked their progeny and the way they view relationship, whether personal or not, romantic or filial.

While her mother affirmed that "a woman only needs one man", Akito leaned on the love of the zodiacs ; Kazuma viewed and loved Kyo as a human and dreaded that his son would find himself in the same situation as his grandfather but also with the same kind of companionship. (His reaction to Kagura speaks of a long-held anxiety). But Ren's hatred for Akito coloured the way Akito interpreted her words, while Kazuma’s grandmother’s declaration shook Kazuma, his personal relationship with his grandmother notwithstanding.

This comparison isn't about good or evil, neither to judge those characters. Furuba isn’t about that. Obviously, they are not blameless. But it is very difficult to say whether or not Kazuma’s grandmother was wrong to act out of pity if it provided a bit of comfort to a prisoner. And is it surprising that Ren developed this saviour’s complex when it seems she was the only one willing to breach Akira’s isolation bubble?

Anyway, Takaya-sensei is really good at making foils. Either because she does it on purpose or because her characters are so deeply intertwined with the themes of the series the parallels appear on their own. But in this case, I don’t think it’s for nothing that the chapters recounting Ren and the Cat’s attendant stories follow each other (chapters 114 and 115).

Of course, this meta is less an analysis and more suppositions and conjectures (frankly, I wonder if I might not as well have written a fanfic). From the little we see, the Cat’s companion and Ren work as distorted yin-yang mirrors, their differences highlighting the similarities of their situations, from the ugly effects of the inner workings of the Sohma cult to the messed up inner workings of the heart. Genuine but obsessed, jealous love... Pity, perhaps self-serving, in the guise of martyred love.... One thing I can say for sure is that these two both gave me chills in their own way.

#ren sohma #cat's companion #the cat spirit #zodiacs #fruits basket #fruits basket manga #fruits basket season 3 #fruits basket meta #love vs pity #meta #akito sohma #akira sohma #kazuma sohma

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ibijau · 3 years

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Lapse in memory pt 3 / on AO3

aka the fic where nhs is cursed into amnesia a few years post canon, and came to lxc for help

The worst part of Nie Huaisang’s amnesia, Lan Xichen soon decided, was the realisation that he should have seen long ago that there was something wrong with Nie Mingjue’s little brother.

Although the other man had apparently always possessed frightening self control which made it difficult to know how much his current loss of memory impacted him, he used that control in a manner very different from what he had done after the death of his brother. Instead of displaying eternal sorrow and helplessness, Nie Huaisang was acting exactly the same as he had done before his life took a turn for the worst. He smiled, and chatted with people as if things were perfectly fine, only to break down once alone with Lan Xichen, asking when this person had died, whether that remark had been a joke or a reference to a true event.

If he hadn't known better, if he hadn't been shown the other side Lan Xichen might have fallen for that new comedy as he had fallen for the old one. Nie Huaisang was good at this.

In fact, as Lan Xichen started remembering over the following days, he was good at many things.

For example Nie Huaisang was smart, it turned out. After a decade of lies, Lan Xichen had forgotten that, too used to a man who barely managed to pick his own outfits without needing three different opinions, and would make four mistakes in a two digit addition. And indeed, when it came to cultivation, or when Wei Wuxian tried to discuss his ideas about what curse might have hit him, Nie Huaisang was clearly lost. But when the topic interested him, when someone mentioned art or literature, he spoke expertly and always made excellent points.

Because he had his own duties to attend, and he aimed at being a better sect leader than he had been in the past, Lan Xichen spent little time with Nie Huaisang at first, and thus rarely enjoyed his conversation. Since the other man couldn’t be allowed to wander freely when there was still the possibility that all this was only a deception, Lan Xichen assigned one of his young disciples he trusted the most to stay with Nie Huaisang and make sure he didn’t misbehave. Almost immediately, he started hearing about the heated debates that Lan Jingyi and Nie Huaisang got into over classics, over art, over just anything that could be debated, and quite a few that shouldn’t. Lan Xichen had offered to find another person to keep Nie Huaisang company, only for Nie Huaisang to protest he was having great fun with Lan Jingyi.

It surprised Lan Xichen at first. Nie Huaisang wasn’t a man who enjoyed confrontation.

But he had once been a boy who did. Nie Mingjue used to complain at length about that, as did Lan Qiren when he’d had the dubious pleasure of teaching him. Nie Huaisang once had opinions on just about everything, especially if it could get him out of doing something he didn’t enjoy. Lan Xichen had found it amusing for a long time, and even he had been tricked into the odd argument here and there. But then there had been the war, there had been the constant worsening of Nie Mingjue’s temper, and Nie Huaisang’s tendency to argue over everything hadn’t felt so cute anymore.

After those difficult final few months, it had been a relief, in a way, when Nie Huaisang’s grief had made him so mild and pliable. He had never objected to any advice given to him, agreeing to everything and anything that Nie Mingjue’s sworn brothers suggested. If Lan Xichen hadn’t been so devastated by the loss they had both suffered, perhaps he would have noticed something was wrong.

Perhaps it was guilt, then, that soon pushed Lan Xichen to rearrange his schedule so he could spend a little more time with Nie Huaisang every day. He refused to let him down again. Or perhaps it was selfishness, the joy of having an old friend back in his life, someone who didn't know about his failings, and didn't judge him for being imperfect.

"Imperfection is more fun," Nie Huaisang claimed one evening, as they sat together inside the Hanshi's courtyard, watching a pair of swallows build a nest under the rafters. "I like you better when you're not trying to be Zewu-jun. Zewu-Jun is a very boring person, while Lan Xichen is delightful company. Do you remember how we used to laugh sometimes when I came here to study? You did such a good imitation of your uncle. And you'd help me with my homeworks, and I'd let you have candies… wasn't that more fun than being perfect?"

"I miss those days," Lan Xichen admitted, something he had never told anyone except Jin Guangyao, once. He'd instantly regretted it back then, realising that Jin Guangyao had never had a chance to enjoy a carefree youth. He didn't regret telling Nie Huaisang who laughed so hard he startled the swallows, making them fly away for a moment.

"Of course you miss that! Well, I'm back now, and until I'm better I can give you a taste of how it used to be. If I make you laugh enough, you'll stop being angry at me, right?"

“I’m not angry at you,” Lan Xichen said, which to his surprise wasn’t even a lie. This young and innocent Nie Huaisang, whose biggest crime was cheating during exams, who hadn’t yet discovered his own viciousness through fighting with Nie Mingjue and then for him, who could be irritating but always remained endearing… how could Lan Xichen have been angry at him?

“But you’re angry at the man I’ve become,” Nie Huaisang said.

Lan Xichen looked at him, that handsome young man sitting just a little too close, leaning somewhat toward Lan Xichen and yet tense enough that at the first sign of anger he’d probably leap away and disappear, the way he used to do with Nie Mingjue.

Lan Xichen wondered again how he had forgotten how observant Nie Huaisang could be. He should have known. The moment Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji told him that something terrible had been done to Nie Mingjue’s body, Lan Xichen should have guessed that Nie Huaisang knew as well, and that he’d be doing anything to avenge his brother.

“I think I’m more angry at myself than at you,” Lan Xichen said. “What happened, what you’ve done, it was… Maybe you really had no choice, or you thought you had no choice anyway, and I’m not sure I have a right to judge you. You… you still don’t remember, do you?”

“No. I don’t think I want to,” Nie Huaisang said. He started playing nervously with his sleeve, having forgotten his fan somewhere, and hesitantly spoke again. “I don’t think he wanted to remember either,” he whispered. “Him. Me. I… I don’t think it was an accident, Er-ge. I think I forgot on purpose.”

Startled by the confession, Lan Xichen stared again at Nie Huaisang who avoided his eyes. He looked pale, and started shaking slightly, as if again expecting a burst of anger that didn’t come. Lan Xichen was too stunned for that.

“When did you start suspecting this?”

“Right away,” Nie Huaisang confessed, nervously playing with his sleeve, pulling and tugging at the fabric. “It was just too odd that there was nothing at all about those lost years. I found some recent correspondence which let me know I wasn’t on very good terms with you, Jiang Cheng and Jin zongzhu, but that was it. And I know myself, Er-ge. I’ve kept a journal of everything I do since I was seven. Everything important, I write it down so I remember, I should have had a trace of those missing years.”

Lan Xichen nodded. Nie Huaisang had mentioned that habit of his, back when he was studying in the Cloud Recesses. Back then he’d complained that too little happened and he had nothing to write down, but also that homework and studying took so long he almost didn’t have time for his diary. Lan Xichen hadn’t realised that the habit was such a serious one, and he’d never heard Nie Huaisang mention it again as an adult, so he hadn’t thought to ask about that.

“Could it be that you simply stopped doing this?” Lan Xichen asked.

Nie Huaisang shook his head and frowned.

“It’s not just a hobby. My memory isn’t great, I really forget things if I don’t write them down. Everything important… in code if it's too important, of course, I’m only a little stupid. And I hid the journal, and kept all of them, from the very first. I’m the only one who knew where they’re all kept, but when I went to check, many of them had been destroyed, or at least moved somewhere else. Everything after the Sunshot Campaign is gone. Maybe he hoped to forget the war too.”

Not so much the war as what had happened just before it, Lan Xichen thought. He’d heard about the way hostage juniors had been treated by the Wens, and the horror of the Xuanwu of Slaughter killing people in that cave. Nie Huaisang had never wanted to talk about that, Lan Xichen recalled. He usually loved to complain, but on that particular topic he’d always close off or change the subject.

Aside from the death of Nie Mingjue, the terror of the evil Xuanwu had to have been the worst moment of Nie Huaisang’s life.

Without thinking Lan Xichen took Nie Huaisang’s hand, hoping to comfort him. Nie Huaisang startled and trembled, but didn’t try to remove his hand.

“I think it’s like you said,” Nie Huaisang explained, looking pleadingly at Lan Xichen. “That he did certain things because he thought he had no choice. He… I… if someone harmed da-ge, then I’d want to harm them back," he hissed with such rage that Lan Xichen shivered, reminded of the man Nie Huaisang had indeed become. "Even if it was san-ge! I can’t believe he’d do something like that, he’s always so nice, but it doesn’t matter. If I had been sure he’d hurt da-ge, then I… I would…”

“I know,” Lan Xichen said, squeezing Nie Huaisang’s hand.

“I think I had regrets of a sort though,” Nie Huaisang said. “The way it seems to me… I didn’t regret that these things had been done, I didn’t regret that people had died or been hurt, but I didn’t want to live with the weight of that either. I think… I’m a little bit of a coward, Er-ge. I’m fine with knowing I did horrible things, I just don’t want to know what they are, because that way it’s not really me who did them. So I can see why I chose to forget, and I also don’t want to remember.”

Had it been anyone else, Lan Xichen would have found that person cowardly indeed. Just as he bore the guilt of his failures and strove to do better, he would expect others to face their own faults, take their punishment, and try to improve in the future. But Nie Huaisang wasn’t just anyone, and Lan Xichen pitied him too much to wish for his suffering. Nie Huaisang had already been punished enough for what he’d done, having lost his brother, having lost all his friends, having lost the respect of his sect.

Having lost himself, too.

“It’s fine if you don’t remember,” Lan Xichen said. “You can stay here with us. Wei Wuxian seems happy enough to have you around, Lan Jingyi loves having someone to argue with… even uncle said the other day that it’s been a while since he’s had a decent opponent at weiqi.”

“And what about you?” Nie Huaisang asked, his cheeks a little pinker than they ought to be. “Are you also happy to have me here?”

“I am,” Lan Xichen replied, surprised to find that this, too, was the truth.

Partly because he’d always been a little too fond of Nie Huaisang, back before the Sunshot Campaign changed everything and forced him to set aside most of his personal attachments to better serve his sect. Partly, also, because he liked this current Nie Huaisang, who wasn’t quite as naïve and self-absorbed as he’d been as a boy, but lacked the cruelty years of solitude and resentment had taught him.

This was Nie Huaisang as he would have been, had the world been a little kinder. A clever young master who watched the world around him and understood people a little too well, but loved fun too much to ever do anything with what he learned, as long as his loved ones were safe.

“I’m glad to be here as well,” Nie Huaisang said.

He shuffled a little closer until he could rest his head against Lan Xichen’s shoulder. It had been years since anyone dared to be so carelessly intimate with Lan Xichen, who found he didn’t mind. Not if it was Nie Huaisang.

“You know, I’ve talked with Wei-xiong today, about this,” Nie Huaisang continued. “About what happened to me, and why, and how. He thinks it’s a curse, and there’s probably a condition that would allow it to be lifted. There usually is, after all. But I think if I really did this to myself, I'd have picked an impossible condition, because I wouldn't want to be saved from it. So I might stay like this for the rest of my life.”

“And you’ll be welcome to stay here that entire time,” Lan Xichen promised without thinking, squeezing Nie Huaisang’s hand again.

“That sounds really nice. I think I’ll take you on your offer, Er-ge,” Nie Huaisang said with a smile that Lan Xichen would have kissed if he’d dared. Later, while lying in his bed, he would wonder if he should have tried, only to eventually decide it would have ruined the moment.

Perhaps someday, in the future, thing would take that direction. For now they both had too much to deal with, too much to learn again about each other. It was fine. Lan Xichen was content to remain like this, sitting close together, holding hands, and watching those swallows finish their nest.

Just this was already more than he’d ever imagined he would get.

#xisang #nie huaisang #lan xichen #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #jau writes #if I had a tag for that story I don't remember it #but it started as a prompt fill so I probably didn't have a tag for it lol #nhs amnesia

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solomonish · 3 years

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you dumb bitch, i loved you! (belphegor & lucifer)

the worst part is i loved you, and sometimes i feel like i still do

when belphegor fell, it felt like everything he loved had been forced inside out and created just to hurt him.

WARNING: (christian) religious imagery and guilt, swearing, brief choking, and my own interpretation of how belphie was forced in the attic.

based off of this song // ao3 link: here!

No matter how hard he tried to forget, Belphegor remembered how passionately he loved the human realm and how his bliss in his old home had been nearly just as strong.

His memories are filled with adventures in the human realm, walking down the streets with Beel and Lilith at his side. Humans liked to marvel at their gradual progress over the centuries, but to an extension of Father himself as everlasting as His love, they seemed to grow and learn at a fascinatingly fast pace. He could walk down dirt paths made only by the constant wear and tear of feet, only to be pulled away by his ear and come back after his punishment to find cobblestone and two-story apartments lining the spot where he last stood. Humans were such darling creatures, bold and brave in their battles yet never losing that adorable haze of ignorance to the greater realms. There was something about them that made him want to work harder to guide them gently on their way - an urge to protect the people who interested him so much, in an effort to maybe let them know just how dearly he loved them all.

When he wasn't wandering the human realm with a wide-eyed wonder, he spent his time diligently working, hoping that he might catch the attention of a certain angel - or maybe get him to admit that his work made him proud. Angels were not perfect, being mere reflections of His grace - if the warped spot in Belphegor's mirror was not his interest in humans, it was the favoritism he harbored for a certain group of angels. His attachment to Beel could be tied to their kindred creation and his love for Lilith a version of the love all senior angels felt for their younger brothers and sisters, but the complete admiration he had for Lucifer was something entirely different. The sentiment was shared by most angels, complementary sighs of Lucifer’s beauty and success floating around any room he was in. But Belphegor noticed the softness Lucifer held for him and the others in their little group - a bond that would not go punished if not boasted about. Fortunately for them, boasting wasn’t in the nature of angels.

There was something about Lucifer that had Belphegor completely enamored. There was something about how he seemed so...brilliant, with magnificent wings and a certain air of vulnerability that made his few imperfections invisible. Not only did Belphie respect and admire Lucifer, he considered him his favorite. If angels were creatures of devotion, Belphegor had no issue devoting himself to Lucifer. It was hardly blasphemous to revere a creature made so as glorious as he.

Perhaps his fault was that he loved Lucifer more than his Father, or his love was too selfish. (He always knew in the back of his mind that his desire to be perfect in Lucifer’s eyes, his desire to hide away with only the seven angels that felt more like his brothers than anyone else, was sacrilegious). But at the end of the day, he had loved Lilith enough to go against Father, and he had loved Lucifer enough to trust in his battle plan. A band of disillusioned heretics was no match for the strongest armies of heaven, and their ideas were destined to burn.

And burn they did.

When he watched Lilith fall out of the clouds, Belphegor felt his heart drop, bile threatening to spill from him as he, too, slipped out of his realm. Plummeting to the ground, seven burning stars on their path to damnation, he was acutely aware of the fire encapsulating him and Beel - and yet the only burning he remembered was from his throat, raw from his screams. Just as quickly as his wings burned up and his halo fractured, all of the joy Belphegor’s life once gave to him disintegrated as well. It was replaced with a hatred just as deep, the comforting warmth turned into a scalding flame that ensured he would never forget what it once was.

The Devildom was hardly a place to fear as much as the Celestial Realm made it sound. Although Belphegor really didn’t experience much of the realm - between grappling with his grief and being lulled to sleep inexplicably most hours of the day, he didn’t have much time to irritate the denizens of his new realm. He accepted what was given to him, the room and the school itinerary, and spent his time in his room, mulling over what fate had handed to him. With no ear to listen, (one unbiased by its own pain, at least), sorrow quickly turned to bitterness. He refused to admit - or believe - that Lilith had been wrong, and a fond part of him that hadn’t yet died was reluctant to blame his past celestial siblings. It was humans who led to his downfall, humans in their stupid, ignorant, arrogant ways. They moved on too quickly, their rich energy a gilded facade that hid just how shallow and stupid they really were. It was their fault - it had to be, because the idea that it could be anybody else’s was far too terrifying to deal with.

Days turned to months turned to centuries, and Belphegor slept it all away. That was easier than dealing with the world. Besides, if what Beel told him was true, Lucifer was taking care of them. They were all in good hands.

Properly adjusting to the world, once he was forced to actually attend school (and regularly, at that! What a chore), wasn’t as horrible as he thought it might be. After all, spending so much time in the personal hell of his own mind meant that mingling with demons for eight hours of the day was a walk in the park. The worst part of his day was the school council meetings, a place in which he only learned he had just before he left to take a desperately needed afternoon nap. The meetings were boring, and he often found himself dozing off during them. It didn’t matter that he wouldn’t be able to offer ideas when he had nothing to offer. Lucifer scolded him, of course, for acting so disgracefully in front of Diavolo. The defensive aura prickling over both their skin made Belphegor shift in his seat, the scowl Lucifer wore like a horrifying version of the firm decision-making face he knew. The fall seemed to have done that to all of them, forcing them all into distorted versions of themselves. That time, he brushed the incident off and made an empty promise not to do it again.

He would do it again, though. There was too much effort in keeping promises.

Sometimes, though, he felt well-rested enough to stay awake during these meetings. He still slumped in his seat, head rolling back and eyes shut, but he was listening intently. It was then that he heard plans were being put forth for an exchange program - were some circles of Hell shut off from the main city of the Devildom?

Lucifer and Diavolo went back and forth, discussing logistics and statistics boring enough to almost put him back to sleep. Aside from an occasional interjection from Satan, nobody really interrupted their little lovefest - until Asmo seemed to perk up and ask excitedly, “You’re considering Solomon?!”

Finally interested in the conversation, Belphegor adjusted himself in his seat and watched Lucifer carefully. He looked worn thing and undeniably frustrated - his fault for working himself to the bone for his dumb little boyfriend - but he still spared Asmo a second to answer his question. “He would be at the top of the list, yes. It isn’t wise to bring in two humans who have no idea what they’re doing.”

Belphegor took care to hide his outburst, but his anger must have been palpable as the two heads of the table turned their attention to him. “How nice of you to join us,” Lucifer said, a hint of something completely unfamiliar underneath his breath.

“Belphegor! What do you think of the program?”

He only stared dumbly, eyes darting between the prince who had done everything wrong and his brother who he thought could never. He wasn’t concerned with revealing that he hadn’t been paying attention until this moment. For a moment, he could feel again, his sloth and hidden feelings doing nothing to dampen the turmoil inside of him. He didn’t miss being able to feel. His blood seemed to burn at his skin, like his entire red-hot soul wanted to explode out of him and destroy the entire city. “That’s what this exchange program is?”

“What’d ya think it was?” Mammon asked underneath his breath. Belphegor ignored him.

“Don’t you remember what they did to us? You didn’t forget, did you? You couldn’t have.”

His brothers either stared at him in shock or purposely looked away, examining the floor absently. Diavolo was the only one who didn’t understand, steepling his fingers in front of him and tilting his head curiously. Belphegor hated it, and fought the urge to leap at him from across the table.

“Lucifer, what the hell? We can’t just make peace with them and pretend that everything is fine!”

“No human is alive from then,” He justified, his voice missing the harsh edge Belphegor expected. Had they been in the Celestial Realm, it would have been soft and comforting, but he couldn’t risk his imposing image, could he? “Peace between the realms could improve life here more than we know.”

“What does he know?” Belphegor shouted. His throat started hurting again, reminding him of things he’d rather forget and forcing tears to prick his eyes. After blinking them away, he turned to Diavolo and started walking towards him. “You don’t know. This is a horrible idea. We can’t let them in.”

“Belphegor.”

“Wait until they tear everything you care about apart and force everyone you loved into people you barely recognize.”

He could feel the awkwardness settle over the room at that, but he also felt hot enough to burn everything in the room with one touch. Maybe that was why he was inching closer to the prince, wanting to burn him, scar him, teach him what pain was because surely he had never felt it if he thought bringing them into the Devildom was a good idea-

Belphegor ran into somebody, and it wasn’t Diavolo. It was Lucifer, who had a warning grip on Belphegor’s shoulders that felt like a plea to back down. Belphegor watched him glance over his shoulder, nodding once at Diavolo. The prince had a firm look on his face, fitting for someone of his status - too bad Belphegor was centuries past giving a shit about any of that. Gritting his teeth at the sight of Lucifer asking for permission, Belphegor tried to shake his hands off of his shoulders.

“This meeting is adjourned,” Lucifer announced, allowing Belphegor to push away from him. He wanted to rip Lucifer’s eyes out of his skull when they settled on him. “We will talk about this when I get home.”

“Like hell we will,” Belphegor hissed, turning to hurry out of the room. He didn’t bother to stop for his bag, just wanting to escape and run.

At the House of Lamentation, Belphegor kept to himself in his shared room with Beel. His twin had the wisdom to keep away for a while, though he did hear the zippers on his bag clink together when Beel dropped it off outside the door. Curled up underneath all of his blankets, Belphegor alternated between willing sleep to come to him or the weight of the covers to crush him. Nothing happened, the adrenaline and resentment coursing through him too quickly. As he held onto himself for some sense of stability, he clenched his teeth so hard his jaw locked. He didn’t know how long he stayed there, curling in on himself like a black hole and wishing he’d burn out, but he didn’t move until somebody knocked on the door. It was Beel again.

“Dinner just ended,” He said lowly. “I know you’re up. You should eat.”

That normally came with a silent I brought you food but I don’t know how much longer I can hold myself back. “Go ahead and eat it, Beel. I’m not hungry.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the door. “...You’ll die if you don’t eat.”

“I’m not you. I can skip one meal,” Another silence, one that gave Belphegor a moment of enough sanity to make a plan. Shuffling, he made his way to the door and opened it, surprised to see Beel still standing there. He was unsurprised to see him with half a phoenix leg in his mouth.

“Sor-” He started, voice muffled by the food. Belphegor put a hand up and walked past him. “Where are you going?”

“Lucifer had to talk to me, remember?” Belphegor didn’t look back, knowing the pained look that would be watching him if he did.

Lucifer knew who it was when he knocked - hell, he probably had their knocks memorized at this point - and called for Belphegor to come in. Just seeing Lucifer made all the anger come rushing back in a blistering wave, but Belphegor bit his tongue and fought it back.

“I take it, since you came to me, you’ve come to your senses?” Lucifer asked. When he clenched his fists, Belphegor felt the hostile way Lucifer glanced at them.

“What the fuck?” He asked. Unfazed, Lucifer only blinked. “How could you do this? You know what they did.”

“Belphegor, every human isn’t to blame-”

“Of course they are!” Belphegor didn’t care about how loud he was getting and how quickly he was unraveling. He was angry, and he needed Lucifer to see what he was seeing. “Who else? If she hadn’t fallen for that idiot-”

Cutting himself off, Belphegor clenched his teeth again and doubled over. Was this how Satan felt all the time, so consumed by a rage he didn’t know what to do with? Lucifer hesitated, but his words showed no such remorse. “I know that...it’s hard to believe people who we thought were family would betray us like that-”

“No it fucking isn’t!” When Belphegor straightened himself out and levelled Lucifer in a murderous glare, Lucifer immediately stood up. “That’s what you’re doing right now! You’re throwing me under the bus because, what, your prince wants to do something stupid?”

“Belphie,” Lucifer’s voice was softer than he had ever heard since the fall, but the way he squared his shoulders warned him to watch his step lest he step on a landmine. Unlike the spineless demon in front of him, though, Belphegor wasn’t a coward, and he was going to stomp through the field and hope he blew themselves both up. “We can talk about this.”

“They killed her, Lucifer. They killed Lilith, and if you wanted to talk about it, you should have done it centuries ago.”

The silence that followed felt suffocating, hovering with all the pain and anger left unsaid woven between the hesitation. He was stuck in a culmination of atrocities surmounting to their peak, the inevitable fall not finishing on a battlefield in glory but in a stupid fucking office. Belphegor could feel the content of the books surrounding them, filled with the words and law of the creatures he had been taught to despise since day one, one of the only two demons he'd ever truly been able to hate standing in the middle. Shaking with what he wished he could say, Belphegor wanted to prompt Lucifer to say something. He regretted the thought when he opened his mouth.

“I know what you’re about to say, Belphegor. Watch what you say next,” Lucifer said, slowly. Belpheor didn’t doubt that, but he let out a scorned laugh all the same.

“I’ll kill it. Them. Both.” His voice sounded much lower than he had ever heard it, like he was using it to its full demonic potential for the first time. “I’ll kill the human you bring down here.”

Lucifer rounded his desk and stepped carefully towards Belphegor. “Watch it.”

“Anything! Anything to stop this stupid program,” Instincitively stepping back, Belphegore’s gaze unfocused for a moment. “I’ll kill your precious prince, too. This can’t happen. It isn’t-”

All at once, Belphegor’s voice cut off and his back hit the wall behind him. His legs dangled a distance from the ground, and it took him a moment of being unable to breathe to realize Lucifer pinned him to the wall by his neck. He found himself staring at Lucifer framed in an endless black void, noticing a few moments later that he was in demon form and his wings were stretched out. His red eyes were staring through him, as if deciding what to do with the demon hanging limply in his grasp.

Lucifer didn’t give him the luxury of an explanation, instead forcing him down the hall and up the only staircase to the attic. When he was thrown forward, Belphegor felt what little breath was left being forced out of his lungs. He could vaguely hear Lucifer chanting something and bars forcing themselves into place, but by the time he realized what was happening, it was too late. Stumbling to the bars, still uneasy on his feet in his fatigue, Belphegor pressed himself against the bars. Lucifer stood just out of reach, and the thought that it had been like this since they were demons tasted bitter on his tongue.

“What are you doing?” He asked, his voice a harsh rasp. “You’re just- leaving me here?”

It was the first time Belphegor saw uncertainty flicker in Lucifer’s gaze, but he couldn’t find any pleasure in it with metal bars pressing into his face and chest. “Believe me when I say this is what’s best for you,” Lucifer said.

Belphegor didn’t know how long Lucifer was planning to keep him up there, but the finality circling around him was as bad an omen as any. When Lucifer turned to walk away, he began throwing himself against the bars, screaming his protests and promising to find a way out. He couldn’t see the pain on Lucifer’s face with his back turned - but his own angry, desperate tears would have blurred his vision anyway. Still, he wouldn’t resort to begging to be let go, not if it meant accepting a world where humans wouldn’t pay for what they did to his whole family.

For the second time in his life, Belphegor screamed his voice hoarse. For the second time, when he was done, his cheeks wet and body exhausted, he crawled into the nearest bed and lay in contemplative silence. There was one small window in the attic, one he knew he wouldn’t be able to escape from, and from it the moon shone through and painted the otherwise dark room a misty white. He remembered how he had stared at a similar moon and wondered with the humans about what it’d be like to go there, and felt as though he had finally made it there only to realize it was nothing but a dusty rock.

He hated being stuck without his brothers, being able to hear their commotion through the floorboards but knowing they didn’t miss him at all. He hated having so much time left to his thoughts, and it only embittered him more. Most of all, he hated Lucifer, hated how he could so clearly remember how great he had been and how pathetic he turned out to be. The illusion of fallen angels no longer stuck in his mind - he was the complete opposite of his former self, so it only made sense that Lucifer was, too. What once was great and admirable was now nothing short of disgusting, and Belphegor had allowed him to trick him into thinking he might still be worth something. Everything he loved had been torn apart and distorted into a monster even he couldn’t stomach.

How easy it was to be fooled by the things you loved.

How easy it was to fall for them.

#WAS HIT BY RANDOM INSPO AND WROTE THIS IN A FEW HOURS #SRRY 4 SUCK #obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me swd #swd obey me #obey me belphegor #swd belphegor #belphegor #mine #belphegor angst #obey me lucifer #obey me lucifer angst #lucifer angst #belphegor fic

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