#until you can prove to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that some people can be born the opposite sex
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trans is an inherently spiritual belief. you believe that somehow, in an unfalsifiable way, you were born the wrong gender. i don't have to believe that. i have freedom of religion, and therefore freedom from religion. i am an atheist. i don't believe in god. i don't believe in weird spiritual gender woo. expecting me to refer to your spiritual gender instead of your biological sex is like expecting me to pray to your god and getting mad when i don't. sorry not sorry <3 i only care about material reality.
#atheism#gender critical#until you can prove to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that some people can be born the opposite sex#you will always be the sex you were assigned at birth to me#and don't bother with that outdated study about transgender brains#it said that transgender brains were different from 'cis' brains#not that their brains were the same as the opposite sex#and the difference was very small#and they couldn't prove that it was there from birth#it might have been influenced by socialization
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What sexual orientation are Trystan and Carolina?
Hey Nonny,
Thanks for the ask. I'm sorry I've sat on it for so long, but I was really giving it entirely too much thought. I also wanted to do more work on my HC before answering, and I didn't want to leave you hanging any longer.
In my HC, both Trystan and Carolina are bisexual, and Carolina is demiromantic.
Now, admittedly, I need to go back and look at my posted fics, and I may need to tweak some things a little to make that work for Carolina, but that's the direction I want to take. It makes sense for her. In my mind, she has not had any serious romantic relationships prior to Trystan, and she honestly wasn't seeking one with Trystan.
Carolina can be flirtatious, and she has had other relationships in the past, but she tended to be more comfortable with physical, no-strings-attached relationships that were more transitional in nature. When she attempted to have more, it definitely had more of a FWB feel. She wasn't comfortable in them and quickly found ways out.
Most people assumed she was relationship/romance-avoidant because of the tragic way she lost her father. Since that was the perception of many, including those she loved/trusted, including her therapists, Carolina tended to believe that, too. It wasn't until after she came out as bisexual and became more active in the LGBTQIA community that the lightbulb went on.
She knew her father's murder was an additional layer to her story, but it was not the full picture. Even before he passed, she knew who she was. She just didn't know it had a name. She didn't know others felt the way she did.
For what it's worth, I think her father was very much a "Don't look at my daughter or I'll kill you" type, and Carolina adored him. This is not why she is demiromantic... it's not connected... but it led to a delay in her understanding of who she was. When other friends had crush after crush after crush, they'd tease her for not having any, and her answer would be, "As if my dad would allow it." Honestly, it was a relief for her to have that "excuse" at the time, but as she got older, she realized there was much more to it.
Carolina can have a different relationship with Trystan solely because of the bond they formed. Their relationship developed slowly. Yes, the physical attraction was there from the start, but Carolina could only open herself to more after their friendship developed and deepened. Trystan proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, how loyal and devoted he was to her, and not because he was expecting or demanding anything in return.
I'm trying to research the fuck out of this. I am not aro, and I don't want to misrepresent this. Hence, I will be reexamining existing fics and tweaking where necessary. I will also put a lot of care into future fics. I think we need to be more representative of all; however, I believe who do not share the same identity as the character REALLY need to do the work and not fall into perpetrating misconceptions and prejudices. Hell, as a bisexual woman, I try to remember that not everyone is bi like me. I'm rambling now, but that's my answer. :)
Thanks for asking, and I hope to explore all of this more soon.
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Harry Potter FanFiction I greatly enjoy (it’s just tomarry and sevitus)
Fair warning, I’m not good at describing stuff, and most of these are not complete (yet) but if you have similar tastes as I do then you’ll definitely like these stories.
Meddling of a Mischief Maker - by Athy
https://archiveofourown.org/works/5380535/chapters/12427268
I enjoy this fic because it shows a more human Voldemort with him still being an asshole as per usual. They do a good job of having Voldemort believably change into a not crazy murderous bastard haha. It also has Sirius interacting with Voldemort and for some reason I find those scenes hilarious in any fic I read.
“Harry's being a horcrux is a bit reworked here in this AU Story set during the summer after 5th year. A Mischief Maker intervenes in the Ministry during Voldemort and Dumbledore's duel, changing the course history. MorallyGrey!Dumbledore, Sirius, Restored Souls, HP/TR”
Draw Me After You (Let Us Run) - by ToAStranger @toast-ranger-to-a-stranger
https://archiveofourown.org/works/22327684/chapters/53334382
This story is a delight, it’s tone is very good and they do a great job of writing in the characters ‘voices’ for their pov’s. I especially like the posh way Voldemort talks and acts. This story is also hilarious on top of just being a very good slowburn, AND it has Sirius, which as you might have guessed, I love dearly. They also don’t bash any of the characters, and instead make them well rounded but flawed individuals, which I really appreciate.
“Harry Potter,” comes the soft, sibilant hiss of a voice he has heard in his dreams, in his nightmares, in his waking hours for years.
Slowly, carefully, Harry twists over and pushes up onto his hands and knees. He stays there, short breath fogging in front of his face, and his pursuer lets him. Harry has no doubt of that; he’s being allowed this respite. This small moment to catch his bearings, heart pounding in his ears, blood singing.
“It seems I have finally caught you.”
Consuming Shadows - by Child_OTKW @childotkw
https://archiveofourown.org/works/7040089/chapters/16011331
I’ve read two of childOTKW’s fics and both of them are fantastically written and attention grabbing stories. This one was the first one I read, and it has a very interesting take on lily Potter (one which I really enjoy) and the plot can leave you on the edge of your seat at times. The characterization is great, and the process of Harry and Tom getting to know each other is done very well.
“His attention skipped passed the students and moved to the politicians’ pavilion. His gaze locked with crimson, and he nearly faltered under the sheer hunger in those eyes.
It unnerved him how fixated the man was on his dirtied, exhausted figure.
But what troubled him more was the slight smirk he could make out on the man’s lips. It was almost pleased.
On the night of the attack, Lily managed to escape with her infant son, but at the cost of her husband’s life. Distraught and distrusting of her friends, she fled to France with Harry, to raise him away from the corruption in Britain and the rising influence of the Dark Lord. She trains him to the best of her abilities, shaping him into a dangerous, intelligent and powerful wizard.
But when Britain re-establishes the Triwizard Tournament, and Harry is forced to return to his once-home, he finds himself questioning whether he really wants to kill the Dark Lord. Voldemort finds an unexpected challenge in the child, and as his intrigue and amusement grows, so too does the desire to possess the spark in those defiant green eyes.”
A story that is kind of similar but not really: The Train to Nowhere
You Belong To Me (I Belong To You) - by child_OTKW
https://archiveofourown.org/works/11270490/chapters/25203408
This is a story inspired by the manwha ‘At The End Of The Road’ by Haribo. A comic I read before reading this, which is very good I recommend it. They do not take the exact plot from the comic though, obviously changing significant details for it to work properly as a Tomarry Fic, but one main thing stays the same, which is that this is a body swap. Honestly I really enjoy childOTKW’s works, and this is no exception. The characterization is wonderful as always, and Harry is Fantastic. Plus I’ve always been a fan of time travel fics. (Fair warning this is another slow burn and Harry centric)
“What I find absolutely fascinating,” Riddle said, stalking closer, “is you.” He marched forward, backing Harry up until he was pinned to the cool wall of the common room. “Do you know why?”
“No. And I’ll be honest here, Riddle, I don’t particularly care.”
The taller boy grinned at him, small yet infinitely pleased. “That. Right there.” One hand rose and brushed some of Harry’s fringe from his face. “Nathan Ciro was a spineless little boy too afraid of his own shadow to dare even glance in my direction. But you…”
He leaned closer, “You look at me like you want to stab me.”
“After an accident, Auror Harry Potter wakes up in the body of fourteen year old Nathan Ciro, a tormented Slytherin who recently tried to end his own life. Seeking answers to his strange predicament, Harry returns to Hogwarts, and causes quite the stir through staff and students - especially when they come to realise he is not the same boy as before.
He tries to avoid suspicion, but as his quest for the truth draws more and more attention to him, Harry begins to think that he might not like what he will discover.”
Some Bonus AU tomarry
A Thousand Paths Among The Stars - by Haplessshippo @haplesshippo
https://archiveofourown.org/works/12015060/chapters/27191238
This is a star trek au and it’s honestly my favorite tomarry au fic. Granted, I am a huge sci-fi fan. There’s also a bit of a twist at the end, or at least it surprised me, due to the way we usually expect tomarry plots to go.
“Harry Potter, newly appointed Captain of the Marauder and son of the famous Captain James Potter, was falling apart at the seams. His crew didn’t respect him, he was lost in the empty expanse of space, nightmares plagued his sleep, and his Commander deserved the Captain position more than he did. Good thing multiple attempts on his life and a vicious warlord after his head was all it took to turn it all around.
Alternatively, that space fic in which Harry Potter almost dies too many times, Tom Riddle slowly becomes the most smitten fool on the ship, and the rest of the crew are all just a bunch of assholes with popcorn watching the show. And exploding ships, don't forget the exploding ships.”
The Matchmaker - by TanninTele
https://archiveofourown.org/works/16507676/chapters/38664089
I am ALSO a huge true crime fan, and this story has a criminal that kinda reminds me of one that might appear in Hannibal (but with less murder). I enjoy the characterization, though tom is pretty tame in this compared to more cannon fics, considering he’s not the criminal and instead an investigator. Harry is also different from how people usually portray him, but I still like it.
“'The Matchmaker' is a serial abductor whose modus operandi consists of pairing two same-sex individuals together in a coffin, six feet underground - buried alive. He isn't a killer. He's a kidnapper with morals, and Detective Chief Inspector Tom Riddle finds himself obsessed with solving the case.
Unfortunately for Tom, the Matchmaker is just as intent on knowing him.”
And on to the Sevitus Stories
Far Beyond A Promise Kept - by oliversnape
https://archiveofourown.org/works/547431/chapters/974693
A classic, Harry stays with snape and unintentionally proves all his assumptions wrong and makes snape care about him. Both the stories have this aspect, but this one has snape a bit nicer from the get go. Probably because it takes place during the third book, so they’ve only known each other two years. It’s quite wholesome though, and I rather enjoy the progression of their relationship.
“Snape never wanted anyone to know of his promise to Dumbledore, but has realised that he can protect Potter much better by taking a less passive role in the boy's training. Actually liking Harry Potter has never been part of his plan. mentor/guardian.”
Crime And Punishment - by melolcatsi
https://archiveofourown.org/works/24102232/chapters/58018174
Snape and Harry have way more of a rocky start in this one, and Snape having to pick Harry up from the police station Really Doesn’t Help Snape’s opinion of him. This story very realistically shows the progression of their relationship, going from enemies to family, and near the ‘end’ (it’s not finished) it becomes very wholesome with Snape trying to help Harry with his mental and physical health after years of abuse/ neglect.
“Harry is accused of burglary. The Dursleys leave him to rot. Dumbledore sends Snape to remedy the situation. Harry finds himself in the care of an irate Snape. Not slash, gen-fic w/ focus on Sevitus relationship. Angst galore. Warnings: coarse and suggestive language, mentions of abuse/neglect. Un-betaed and un-Britpicked.”
#tomarry#tom riddle#harry potter#sevitus#severus snape#fanfic#fanfic reccomendation#ao3 fanfic#ao3#archive of our own#tom riddle x harry potter
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Count the Shadows - Bucky Barnes smut
The one where Bucky wants you to sit on his face.
Warnings: smut, a more dominant reader than I’m used to writing, pining!Bucky, all of the good stuff, second hand embarassment
A/N: so... this is a gift to @navegandoaciegas. She gave me the idea for the Graveyard series ending, and that actually inspired me to keep working on that fic that was supposed to only be a oneshot and then became the pride of my eye. I hope you don’t mind that I’m dedicating this to her 😅 It also allowed me to explore some new kinks that might be appearing thanks to her writing and so really, I felt like this had to see the light of day. But really, if it weren’t for @world-of-aus, @sweetkingdomstarlight-blog and @awesomerextyphoon‘s support, I probably never would have had the courage to publish it, so thank you guys so much!
Y/N’s P.O.V.
Friday nights at Stark tower meant that something out of the ordinary was about to happen, and I’d already grown used to it, after being a part of the Avengers for the last two months. However, that didn’t mean that the prospect of a night planned by Tony Stark didn’t bring me a hell of a lot of anxiety, to the point where sometimes I’d catch myself wishing for a simple recon mission to take me away for the weekend.
Despite all of my fears and discomfort, I’d been lucky so far. Not once had his attentions turned towards me, and he never even so much as called me to dance with him during one of the raves he liked to organize, so I was able to slip by unnoticed, seizing the opportunity to drink the good (expensive) booze and talk to my friends before retiring for the night.
By Wednesday that week, it was clear that the same couldn’t be said about the next event he’d be hosting.
“Say, Y/L/N, have I thrown you a welcome party?” Was my rude awakening on that fateful morning. Until his arrival, I’d been happily whipping up some pancakes for the supersoldiers and Sam, my morning run partners. The moment his question was processed in my brain however, I froze on my spot, looking up at him with wide eyes. “Oh, now, don’t give me that look. When have I ever thrown a bad party?”
Bucky choked on his coffee, and I immediately was by his side, lightly tapping his back to help him. “I guess this answers your question,” I joked, but with a serious face. Unfortunately, Tony simply rolled his eyes, too used to Bucky and I’s “antisocial behavior”, like he usually described, to give us any attention. “Okay, so maybe not bad, but if you’re going to throw a party using me as an excuse, I have at least one request. And it’s a dealbreaker for me.”
Something in my words truly interested Tony, because instead of brushing me off he actually turned to face me, raising his eyebrows in expectation. “So what you mean is that if I don’t give you what you want, you won’t join the party?”
I nodded, standing my ground. “That’s right.” Next to me, Bucky stood straighter in his chair.
“Neither will I.” That brought a smile to my lips, and I turned to hug him quickly.
“Thanks Buck,” I whispered in his ear, relishing in the way he always held onto my embrace just a second longer than I expected. It was always like this with us. Ever since I first noticed just how touch-starved the super soldier was, I’d find little excuses to touch him. And if I ever doubted my first assumption, the way he always chased away my warmth for just a second longer was enough to prove to me that I was doing something right.
“Very well,” Tony said after clearing his throat to regain my attention. “What’s your request?”
“Only the people who live in this tower can be invited.” I was expecting a lot of fuss from the billionaire, but surprisingly, all I got was a disappointed sigh.
“Figured as much. Okay, big shot. But here’s the deal: you’ll have to stay the entire night and participate in every game we decide to play.” I shrugged, taking a sip of my coffee. That sounded fair. “It’s a deal then! All you have to do is be here on Friday night, capisce? Don’t be late.”
I should have known something was up back then, but as it were, I was just happy that I was able to stop him from filling the Tower with people I didn’t know. Not only would it help to keep Bucky relaxed (and perhaps even allow him to enjoy himself for once!), it’d also help to keep myself relaxed.
I’d never been one to enjoy big crowds, and I especially didn’t want to celebrate joining the team with people who weren’t even a part of it. It made sense. So when Friday night rolled around, it found me in a way better mood than I expected. I even accepted Nat’s suggestion and let her pick my clothes. I was feeling so great, in fact, that I felt bolder, brave enough to accept to wear a satin red dress with a deep neckline that seemed to be able to attract every man’s attention upon seeing me.
Even Bucky seemed drawn to it. And I couldn’t deny that knowing I held that sort of power even to a man of his caliber, a man that attractive, made me feel even braver. But with braveness comes stupidity, and I was brutally reminded of that fact by Tony’s smug face when I heard the dare he had for me.
Listen, I would have never accepted the idea of fucking truth or dare if it wasn’t for this stupidly sexy dress. I mean, the powers that clothing can have… They can make you blind with clout. That’s the only way I could justify what happened next.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I argued, much to Tony’s (and the rest of the team’s) amusement. Each and every single one of them looked at me with barely contained laughter, with the exception of Bucky, apparently.
“Careful, sweetheart… The dare’s already on and that wasn’t very sexy of you.” Narrowing my eyes at him, I very carefully thought out my gameplay here. I could very well retreat to my bedroom and go to sleep. But then again, this whole night had been so fun, and Tony had been really nice to abide by my wishes to only invite people that I knew…
“Fine. I’ll spend the rest of the night being as blunt as possible as I hit on you guys. After all, this is probably the only way you’ll ever get to hear me talking dirty, huh?” And with a wink in Tony’s direction, I resigned myself to face the challenge ahead. “So, let’s get on with this orgy, shall we?”
Bucky’s P.O.V.
It’s not that I was jealous. Of course, I wasn’t jealous. It’s just… hearing her say those things in front of everyone else made my blood boil like nothing else. I knew it wasn’t my place to feel this way. It’s not like she owed me anything, much less attention. As much as I wanted, she wasn’t mine, or even close to that.
Despite being head over heels in love with her, I still hadn’t gathered enough courage to even ask her out for a cup of coffee - or anything else, for that matter. And the worst part was that everyone but her seemed to know about my feelings. Which made this whole night even worse, since I was pretty sure Tony had done all of this on purpose.
So I had to sit through a lot of “Oh, please fuck me”, and “I wouldn’t kick you out of bed,” none of which were addressed to me - and those were the least graphic ones. I couldn’t really blame her, since I hadn’t spoken a single word from the second this whole dare started, but still, I was sulking, and I knew it.
In fact, I was so lost inside my own head, that I didn’t even realize what had happened when she asked “Do you want me to sit on your face or what?” (which I’m pretty sure was directed to Sam) until a heavy silence took the place of the animated chatter that had been going on. Imagine my surprise when I realized everyone was staring at me.
“What?” I asked, my heart already beating out of control, looking from one face to the other in the hopes of grasping what I had lost in the conversation.
“You just said you wanted Y/N to sit on your face,” was the response I got, from no other than Sam himself, and if my heart had been pounding on my chest only seconds before, now it felt as if it had stopped altogether.
“You’re crazy,” I tried to joke, trying with all of my might not to look at the woman who was staring at me. I could feel her gaze on my face. It burned and I ached to look, to see what sort of expression she was wearing, but my anxiety was just too strong - stronger than my curiosity ever could be.
“I wish I was, man. But you literally just answered ‘Please sit on mine’ when she asked if she could sit on my face.” I was going to die. I was sure of it. My face felt so warm, there was no way I wouldn’t just spontaneously combust any second now.
The worst part was, I knew Sam was telling the truth. Because those were the precise words I thought the second that I heard the offer leave her beautiful lips. And now I didn’t know what to do.
“Fine, your room or mine?” She broke me out of my self-deprecating thoughts, surprising me so much that I automatically raised my eyes to meet hers, finding her looking down at me with a mischievous smirk on her lips. Was she joking? Was this part of the dare?
The room erupted on laughs and I forced myself to join them, praying to whoever was available up in the heavens that they would let me be and thankfully, soon enough, the conversation smoothly transitioned away from me and my stupid malfunctioning. Y/N didn’t look in my direction again, which helped with my task of trying to get my breathing pattern into a normal one once more, and in a half hour people were breaking up into small groups and going back into their own rooms for the night.
I figured it was safe to do the same. So I got back to my bedroom’s floor with my hands buried deep in my pocket, trying to figure out what the hell had happened that night, when the door to my room suddenly opened and a tiny hand wrapped around my wrist, hauling me as best as they could into my own living quarters.
Y/N’s P.O.V.
Bucky looked beyond surprised as he stared down at me with his mouth hanging open. I was tempted to tease him about letting flies in if he stayed like that, but I didn’t want to make this any more difficult for him than it clearly already would be. To be honest, I also had no idea how I’d been able to move that mountain of a man.
“What are you doing in my room?” Oh, right. That’s what he was concerned about. Fair enough.
“I wanted to show you something.” By the way he opened and closed his mouth a few times before finally being able to say anything else, it was clear that it wasn’t the answer he was expecting, but then again, he obviously wasn’t expecting me to be in his room.
“W-What?”
I grinned, immediately curling my fingers on the edge of my dress before promptly pulling it over my head and sending it flying across the room. Bucky’s jaw dropped, and it only made my smile grow bigger as I quickly got rid of my bra before finally doing the same to my underwear.
“What? Did you think I would let you suffer?” The poor thing, he didn’t seem capable of answering at all, eyes the size of plates as he stared at my naked body, practically drooling. I ran my hands over my breasts, cupping them slightly before trailing further down.
“Did you think I’d let Sam learn what my pussy tasted like? Or Steve? No, no, no, James. This is for you and you only.” Burying a finger inside of me, I made sure to let out my loudest, most pornographic moan as I slowly thrusted it once inside of me before raising it to his face.
“See how I’m soaked? I always get like this when I’m near you.” Bucky actually whimpered, knees faltering for a second as he reached out to grab a hold of himself with the wall next to us, and I laughed before raising a challenging eyebrow in his direction. “What are you waiting for? Get on your knees.”
My breath hitched as I watched the mountain of a man before me literally do exactly that, hypnotizingly staring at the space between my legs before slowly meeting my eyes with a look of pure need in his perfect face. Jesus. How the fuck was I supposed to control myself when he was looking at me like that?
I had gathered the sense that Bucky wanted me, that much became clear tonight, but I had no idea the extent of his desire until just then. Until he looked at me with pupils dilated from under his stupidly long eyelashes, breath coming out from his open mouth like he was desperate for me, desperate to taste what I had to offer.
He looked like he would do anything I asked him to in that second, and the feeling of power that thought gave me left me horny as nothing else. So my first order of business was to command, “Eat me.”
The second the words were out, it was clear that was all he was waiting to do what both of us so clearly wanted. Two strong hands grabbed me from behind and with that grasp of my ass, he pulled me to him until I was in fact seated on his face, wholly dependent on his muscular body to keep me up.
“Oh God,” he was the one to whisper, and a shiver ran through my body as he licked my pussy from clit to hole before diving in as if he was determined to rid me of all of my wetness - knowing fully well it was an impossible task.
Bucky Barnes didn’t need any guidance in the art of eating pussy, that quickly became clear to me, but I still felt the need to grab a hold of his hair just to help keep myself grounded into the reality of this moment. The way he moaned against my cunt at the action, the vibrations running through my body and making me tremble on top of him, certainly didn’t make me regret any part of my decision. It was clear he liked that sting of pain.
Bucky’s P.O.V.
I was having a hard time believing this was really happening, even though I had Y/N’s completely naked body on top of me, her cunt spread open by my own tongue, her juices covering every inch of my tongue. I couldn’t even convince myself to close my eyes to fully enjoy her taste, too preoccupied with memorizing every little thing about this moment.
And the second she opened her eyes to find me already looking up at her, I was particularly glad for my decision, if only because I got to witness the delicious smile that took over her beautiful face before she grinded her pussy against my lips.
“Fuck, you look so good like this. I could get used to this.” A jolt ran through my body at the implications of what she was saying. Before I could even fully process it, I was already responding with the only thing that occupied my mind then, “Please do.”
If I thought I would scare her away with my desperation, a delighted giggle immediately managed to calm my nerves. “Do you always say what you’re thinking?” She asked, still rubbing herself against me, so it took me a while to be able to moan against her wetness an honest, “Yes.” When I did though, the vibrations managed to be exactly what she needed to gush her release onto my waiting mouth, making me growl in excitement. She was so fucking sweet. My cock was so fucking hard it hurt, but all I could think about was how much I wanted to pleasure her, how much I never wanted this night to end.
Unfortunately for my plans, she decided to climb down from me, eyes drinking my kneeling position while she caught her breath for a bit before she threw herself on my bed, feet on the mattress so I’d get a perfect vision of her perfect pussy. Hypnotized, I didn’t even notice I’d gotten up and approached her until her voice broke me out of my reverie.
“Would you like to take a picture?” I knew she was joking, but there was no way I’d miss the slightest possibility of getting at least a permanent reminder of this night, so I answered as truthfully as possible yet again, “Of course. Would you let me take one?”
I was expecting her to laugh it off and move this along, but once more her answer surprised me. “Only if you promise me you won’t use it to jerk off to.” The confusion must have been clear in my expression, because she quickly added, “That’s what I’m here for.”
My heartbeat picked up as I struggled to process her words. “D-Does this mean you’ll want to do this again?” I watched as a small smile grew on her lips and she sat up on the mattress before reaching out to me.
“Every night, if you’ll have me.”
Another moment of silence as I struggled to accept that this was real, that this was really happening.
Y/N’s P.O.V.
I couldn’t contain my delighted giggles at the lovestruck expression on Bucky’s eyes. But my need for him was growing deeper every second, so while he stared I reached out for his jeans, quickly managing to unzip them and push them down until I could wrap my hands around his member.
“Jesus, you’re so hard.” Even without any actual stimulation, apparently just giving me pleasure was enough to get him ready for me. I could barely wait to feel his cock inside of my pussy.
“I-I can’t believe this is happening,” he whispered while climbing on the bed and settling between my thighs. “I’ve been dreaming about this for the longest time.” Gosh, could he be any more perfect?
“Well, it’s happening now, James. Please, please, fuck me. I need your cock in me.” His lips looked wet from our earlier activities, and my gaze immediately fell on them when he gasped at my words and the feeling of his cock rubbing on my pussy. When I positioned the head and pulled him closer to me, signaling what I wanted, he followed without any resistance, his entire body trembling as he struggled to keep himself up with both hands on either side of my head.
“You’re doing so great, baby. God, it feels so good to be with you like this.” Apparently, Bucky grew tired of fighting against his own body, since he allowed his massive frame to fall just over mine, resting his forehead on mine.
“Fuck.” Hearing the word whispered so close to me, his warm breath dancing over my skin, while he was effectively about to do just that, felt incredibly arousing for something so small. “It’s like I can’t get close enough to you.”
In the search to feel more connected to me, he finally started thrusting, and then it was like I’d forgotten to speak altogether. Only able to hold tight to those shoulders that tempted me for so long, I struggled to keep the moans and whimpers inside so I could continue to hear the little breathless whispers that he was releasing, almost like he was speaking to himself…
“So wet…” It all only made me more desperate for the enchanting man on top of me, so beautiful, and yet so insecure of his own allure. I hoped after tonight he’d start understanding just how attractive he truly was, at least to me.
“Bucky…” I managed to whisper, calling out for his attention and earning it when his eyes snapped open to meet mine. “Bucky, kiss me.” I needed to feel those lips against mine, to have that one sweet gesture of entwinement that we still hadn’t shared. Apparently, he felt the same need, because in a second, he was onto me, mouth slowly prying mine open so his tongue could explore yet another part of my body that now belonged to him.
By then, he couldn’t contain his moans anymore, and I was grateful that I was still able to keep mine low so I wouldn’t miss the symphony of whimpers and whines, especially after he pulled away to catch his breath and his eyes met mine.
“Fuck, darling…” Each sound from his lips made my pulse grow quicker, my body warmer, that incredible high closer and closer to me. And still, because I needed to tease him, I found myself saying, “For someone who was so embarrassed about the team knowing you wanted me, you surely can be loud.”
Bucky hid his head on the crook of my neck, making goosebumps rise all over my body as he rubbed his nose against my skin, breathing me in. If I thought it was a gesture of shyness, his next words assured me that wasn’t the case at all.
“I want them to hear. I want them to know I’m yours.” The confession had the fire of desire burning brighter inside of me, and my hands slipped around his back, certainly leaving nailprints behind.
“Oh, is that it? You’re mine now, James?” The thought thrilled me to no end, but I needed him to say it, not only because I wanted to be sure there was no uncertainty in his feelings for me, but also because it made me even weaker for the soldier and the dominance he had over my body.
“C-Can I be? Please?” There was so much vulnerability in his beautiful blue eyes that the only answer I managed to give at first was the connection between our lips again, pulling him down to me so our bodies were completely glued to one another once more. My fingers buried in his locks, I pulled on them when I needed to gather some air, and finally give him an actual answer.
Bucky’s P.O.V.
“Hell fucking yes. We’ll be the hottest couple on Earth.” A shiver went through my body at the realization that she truly wanted this, that she truly wanted me. A sound escaped my lips before I could realize, and in fact, I only noticed it because she broke me out of my reverie by saying, “You know, everytime you whine, I have the overwhelming urge to just tie you down to this bed and give you a reason to do so.”
Shit. This woman made me weak. And the moment I lost control of my own weight, she took advantage of it, inverting our positions so she was the one on top, while managing to keep my cock nestled deep inside of her.
“Do you want to cum, sweetheart?” Hearing the filthiness that spilled out of her lips only made me hotter and hotter, my hands flying up to hold her waist as she began to ride me. “Tell me just how badly you want it. Say it, or I’ll leave you right here, right on the edge of bliss, and I’ll cum on your thigh instead.”
I heaved loudly, trying to force my own tongue to work, but the sight of her breasts bouncing with her movements was too hypnotizing. I would never regain full control of my body again, I realized, for as long as she wanted to keep me around. But instead of feeling lost, like I did when the Winter Soldier took over, all I could feel was peace.
She wanted me. She wanted my body, my soul, every part of me. Despite every missing piece, every scar. Everything anyone had ever done to me, everything I’d done to so many. And I’d gladly give it all to her, forever.
“Please, please let me cum, ma’am.” The name left my lips before I could realize, but it made her smile. And right then, I knew I’d done the right thing. Her movements picked up, her hand searching mine to guide my thumb to meet her nub, and as soon as I started rubbing it, she gasped in the most melodic of sounds.
“Cum for me, James. I wanna feel you cumming inside of me.” Jesus fucking christ. I didn’t have a choice, my body reacting to her calling like she was a siren and I was helpless. I felt helpless. It wasn’t difficult to see that I liked it, though. I liked being under her control. I liked how she pulled me apart and held me in place all at the same time.
“If you don’t take your thumb away, so help me God.” Her voice broke me out of my thoughts, realizing her chest was heaving with the effort to breathe properly now that she’d reached her climax with me. I smiled sheepishly before adjusting on the bed, right when she climbed down from my body, and a whine escaped my chest despite my better wishes, making her look at me with an amused smile.
“I’m sorry, I just… I kinda miss you already.” Her smile grew bigger, her eyes twinkling under the moonlight as she leaned over me to kiss me, and I couldn’t help it. I just had to hug her closer, have her falling on top of my chest just so I could invert our positions and kiss her some more.
“I want something that’ll show them I’m yours.” I admitted once she pulled away to gather her breath, and her eyebrows rose in surprise, but also interest, I could tell.
“Like a collar?”
“I was thinking more like a love bite, but I don’t mind.” Her giggle was the most adorable sound in the universe, I was sure of it.
“Baby, I’ll let you fuck me in front of them, if it’ll help your insecurity,” she soothed me, and the thought of having everyone see us together, fully understand that I belonged to her, electrified me. “You’re mine now. You can be damn sure if anyone tries to flirt with you, they’ll have to deal with me. And I’ll make sure they know I’m yours and only yours if they try to chat me up.”
The thought made me smile, and I laid back on the bed and pulled her to rest against my chest, my hand instinctively coming up to play with her hair. “I can get used to that.” We stayed like that for a while, just breathing in each other’s presences, relishing in the comfortable silence between us, until I felt the need to break it.
“Can I kiss you again?” I felt her smile against my skin, before she pushed away to reach for me and connect our lips once more. God, I don’t think I’d ever get used to knowing I could have this anytime I wanted. “One more,” I begged when she pulled away, and she pretended to think for a moment before shooting me a mischievous grin.
“Only if you come fuck me in the shower.”
The only thing I could think to say in response, as I watched her strut in the direction of the bathroom, was “Fuck, you’re sexy.”
#my fics#bucky barnes smut#smut#bucky barnes#bucky barnes x reader#bucky barnes reader#bucky barnes reader insert#bucky barnes reader inserts#bucky barnes fanfiction#bucky barnes oneshot#bucky barnes oneshots#I'm gonna reblog it with the taglists later
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touch your heart [senju tobirama/you] - prologue + chapter 1
Summary: Hashirama might go down as the worst matchmaker in history, but he thinks he might be on to something. Tobirama sees through his brother's schemes and is determined not to fall for it. Or fall for you.
Word Count: 5k-ish
A/N: Yoooo sorry for taking this long to post it LMAOOO anyways, this work is available on AO3 with 12 chapters in, so if you want to read away!
also dedicating this post to @senju-sekhmet you’re the best, and happy belated XD
AO3 LINK FOR TOUCH YOUR HEART
LINK FOR THE REST OF THE SERIES
[PROLOGUE]
Thank you.
Those two words are what Tobirama’s mother seemed to tell his father all the time. She looked grateful saying it too. Too grateful to the point that she is cooped up in the Senju compound all the time, with nowhere to go. Tobirama was a smart kid–too smart for his own good–and he saw that the last place she wants to be was here, with family and raising children in this godforsaken war zone.
His mother said that was how she met his father, and how she fell in love with him, by the words of gratefulness, but Tobirama is a smart kid. He knew nothing of love, but he could tell that his mother did not love his father. She mistook feelings of gratitude as feelings of love.
His mother has a cold face, but she was gentle and fierce and was a great story-teller. She told stories of the great mountains and rivers that she has seen before everything fell into disarray. His mother loved art, books, and knowledge. She always encouraged Tobirama and his brothers to pursue their own curiosities beyond war.
Tobirama always took that to heart. Sure, his body and his mind are well-suited for battle but his interests lie elsewhere. He loves to explore, to discover, to observe and to experiment to prove something foreign to him. He loves to break down something to its smallest detail and build it back up to make something new. He wants to create.
Thank you.
Those were two words that were too much for his mother to bear all her life. It weighed on her. It chained her down.
Thank you.
Those were her last words to Tobirama.
Thank you, for being my son, for letting me be your mother.
Those were two words that stuck to him like a curse. They were binding, until the bitter end.
.
.
.
[PART ONE, CHAPTER ONE]
The first time Tobirama sees you, he immediately forms the opinion that you are too loud. Loud, in a sense that everything that passes by you, has to pay attention to you. Loud, in a sense that, when you speak, everyone has to hang by your every word. You are too loud, and he immediately concludes that you will not last long in a battle because you seem like an easy target. It is not like him to make fast conclusions without further observation, but you are just so loud that he wants to immediately shut down his senses.
So loud in fact, that even among the crowd, Tobirama cannot help but look your way and be wary of your presence.
Contrary to what he thinks, you are not that much of a blabbermouth nor a person who speaks aimlessly, but he does not know you yet. He has not even had a chance to look you straight in the face.
Today, he finds you standing by an umbrella stand, where a dozen colorful and detailed parasols are opened as a display to passerbys. You are in your casual kimono, and because it is spring, there are lovely pink cherry blossoms etched on your left sleeve, spreading towards your chest. Your obi cinches your waist and holds your sword by your side, so that it is easy to rest your hand on top of the hilt. Your hair is held back from your face with a simple hairpiece, and a festival fox mask hangs on the side of your head.
Tobirama stares, not having anything else to look at.
Hashirama and Madara are also walking around, greeting the citizens of Konoha, and holding children up in the air. Hashirama’s young sons follow closely behind, playfully roughhousing each other and anyone who happens to get in their way.
Hashirama notices his brother, glaring at a distant point and decides to step in lest Tobirama accidentally offends someone. He knows that his brother does not mean to glower at times. It’s just his eyes are a bit sensitive to the sun.
At least, that is the reason, most of the time.
Tobirama immediately looks away from you, but Hashirama already saw who he was looking at. He gives Tobirama a curious smile.
“What?” Tobirama deadpans.
“You should go talk to her,” Hashirama suggests. “You seem interested.”
Tobirama folds his arms. “No.”
Hashirama opens his mouth to add another thing, but Tobirama beats him to it.
“Brother, I said no,” Tobirama affirms, and that was that.
Hashirama sighs, and pouts a little. “She’s nice!”
Tobirama fakes a cough, making sure to spit out the words idiot clearly, and he crosses his arms. “You think everyone is nice.”
“Well, innocent until proven guilty, as they say!”
Tobirama glances back at you, and finds that he can easily track you.
“With all due respect, elder brother, that is a very naive statement coming from you.”
Tobirama has heard of you and he stops himself from telling Hashirama that, and instead lets him point out that you were one of the newly ranked jounins and that you specialize in kenjutsu. You also have been spending your free time teaching some of the older genins the basics of close range fighting and defense.
As the Hokage, Hashirama is more than happy to get to know those who are rising to the ranks and especially those who are gifted. It means that their Academy is working, even though it hasn’t been very long since it was established. You were one of those people from a clan who are already shinobi, but had to be evaluated in order to determine your rank and the Shodaime Hokage saw how skillful you are, despite not being the most powerful user of ninjutsu. He wants Konoha to have dependable teachers who will pass on useful skills and knowledge to whoever wants to learn.
You start to walk away from the umbrella stand, when suddenly a bunch of kids and teenagers rush towards you. Tobirama sees some young students in the group that he had picked himself. Hiruzen stands out among the rest, loud and rambunctious, while Danzo follows closely behind like a shadow, but as obtrusive.
“Sensei! You should join the sparring competition later! They have bokkens, you’re good with bokkens!”
You laugh, and try to back out before the others start to make your decision. “I think I will pass!”
“Aww, no!”
Tobirama watches the commotion, and then you look towards him. He freezes, as you smile at him and continue to wave him forward. Tobirama glares, because you are still waving at him but he does not know you so obviously he is not going to wave back, but suddenly Madara passes by him and Tobirama almost feels embarrassed.
Almost. He checks himself.
The wave was not meant for him.
He glimpses Madara give a small wave, and this makes him pause.
Madara waves? Tobirama almost scoffs at this, but he must keep his public appearance.
You smile warmly, and introduce Madara to the younger children who were starting to cower a little because of his serious and glum expression. Tobirama watches as you slip your arm through Madara’s arm like you have done it many times. Tobirama’s students look at each other, but they do not harbor any bad sentiments toward the Uchiha clan leader. Some of them even crack a smile at the younger children’s reactions. Madara can be a little intimidating at first, if you do not know him.
Then, you say something to the kids, earning a laugh from them and a small, tight-lipped smile from Madara.
Tobirama notices that the edges of Madara’s eyes have softened, something he only does around Hashirama.
“Are you sure you don’t want to get introduced to her? She is a very warm person,” Hashirama asks. “She’s also very smart and I think you’d benefit from her insights.”
Tobirama watches her say her goodbyes and pat a few children’s heads, and walk away. “I’m fine.”
Hashirama looks at Tobirama, doubt painted across his face, but he lets it go.
For now.
//
You stand in front of the Hokage, waiting for him to speak. You have been called early in the morning to meet with him, and you have been there for a few minutes, standing awkwardly. You are not sure whether to start some small talk since the Shodaime is busy peering over a few scrolls. Usually, whenever you see him, the Hokage is pretty chatty and offers a lot of kind words. He also seems to talk a lot about his younger brother to you, bragging about him and his accomplishments, and underwhelmingly explaining his personality, which you find strange.
It makes you think that there’s something off about Tobirama.
The door behind you opens and you step to the side to make a wide berth for the incoming person, even though there is enough room for at least a few more people to stand there. Tobirama walks in, his face sporting deep eyebags, but his eyes are hard and alert. You look him over, and your eyes go to his rough hands, where there are dried ink stains on his pale skin. His veins protrude out, blue and green rivers criss-crossing over his hands and up his arms. You see hints of faded scars on his skin, but in this light, his pale skin makes up for the blemishes.
“Brother,” Tobirama greets, although it sounds more like he is about to scold his elder brother.
Hashirama smiles and he motions for you to step closer.
You do, and you feel Tobirama’s eyes track you. You immediately look up and you catch his gaze, which makes him look away.
“I have a task for the two of you,” Hashirama casually brings up. He looks strangely cheerful. Like he has a step by step plan that went exactly as he wanted.
You look at the Hokage, all ears. And curious as to why he is acting this way.
“It has come to my attention that while we are training the next generation to be good shinobis, I do not think that we have a proper and standard curriculum,” Hashirama begins.
Tobirama’s head snaps upright at this. “Brother, what do you mean?”
He sounds almost angry, and well, if you were the creator of the education system in the village you built and someone had found flaws in it, you would be too.
“I think that there should be specific learning materials for each year before graduating to a genin, and so on,” Hashirama elaborates some more. “The two of you are to come up with these materials, and I want you to include other aspects that are not just related to being a shinobi. I want the next generation to not only be bred for war, but to have dispositions in other areas.”
Hashirama stands up and he places his palms on his desk. “Tobirama, you know this. You want to expand our village, I think this is a good step to make that happen.”
Tobirama looks at his brother with narrowed, suspicious eyes. He is not an idiot. He knows this is some set up, otherwise, why would his brother call you earlier than him? Why would his brother need you for this? These are the types of things he can accomplish on his own, so why are you here?
“I understand. Then, I think it is time for that to happen. We are at peace, after all.”
You slowly raise your hand. You notice that Tobirama does not even glance at you, and you want to laugh. You have heard a few things about Senju Tobirama from his own brother, and while it does not surprise you that he has a prickly attitude, it is another thing to see it upfront. It does not intimidate you, rather, it makes you want to see more of his reactions. He reminds you of the shy children that you have met in the Academy.
You just need to push the right buttons.
“If I may, Lord Hokage,” you start.
Hashirama nods for you to continue.
“With all due respect, what qualifications did I have to help Lord Tobirama with this new project?”
You swear you saw Tobirama’s eye twitch from the way you said his title. You hide your smirk by biting the side of your cheek.
Hashirama lets out a small chuckle, in which he earns a glare from his younger brother.
“I have heard about your dedication in teaching the children when you have the time, and since you insisted that you do not want to be a jounin sensei yet, like my brother is, I think it is a good idea for you to keep your head busy. Besides, I have heard you are quite the quick learner. You will find that my brother here is a very good teacher and can offer guidance well, if you can look past his mean demeanor.”
Tobirama opens his mouth to snap at his brother, but instead, takes a breath and holds his tongue.
Hashirama gathers up some documents from the corner of his desk. “You two can start tomorrow. I would love to have this done by the end of summer, just as the new school year is upon us.”
“Brother, stop being ridiculous. That is in three months,” Tobirama interjects. “I think I’m going to need time to plan.”
Hashirama glances at his brother. “Well, luckily for you, someone is here to help you. I have faith in you.”
“Too much, perhaps,” Tobirama dryly says, not even bothering to hide that he does not like this.
“And you, as well,” Hashirama says to you with a cheerful smile.
“Lord Hokage, with all due respect, am I going to get paid enough for this? I am practically jobless, I have a living to make,” you inquire with a smile. “Besides, you may also have to compensate for putting me up with your dear brother.”
In the corner of your eye, Tobirama crosses his arms.
Hashirama laughs heartily, and he gives Tobirama a grin. “I like her!” He nods. “You will surely be thanked for your services.”
He extends the pile of documents towards you and you step forward to accept them. You thank the Hokage with doubt, half-serious about the salary, but you decide to not push it today and you give him a smile. Then, you also smile at Tobirama.
“I will see you tomorrow then,” you tell him.
Tobirama carefully gazes at you, and then he nods. He turns to his brother with a determined look on his face. Or an angry look. You are honestly not sure.
“The Hokage mansion’s library,” Tobirama grounds out curtly. “9 am. Sharp.”
You look at him, wondering what type of bad day he is having to be this abrupt, or if this is how he really is. You understand that he and his brother have been at war for all of their life, so maybe this is how he has turned out.
“I will see you.” You bow quickly and walk out of there, ready to dive into the materials the Hokage gave you.
//
Madara aims a punch towards your way, but you quickly dodge it and block it with the palm of your hand, and you follow through by sending his movement forward by using his momentum and landing a charged punch to his lower ribs, just where his liver will be.
Madara chuckles and he flips himself away from you.
“Brutal,” Madara comments breezily. “That can actually kill someone, but fortunately I’m not just anyone.”
You roll your eyes. “Yeah well, give me an A for effort.”
Madara falters and his eyes narrow at you. He knows as well as you do that you are slacking and there is a lot on your mind. “Is this about what Hashirama told you earlier?”
You meet his eyes and let out a sigh. “Wow, word travels fast.”
Madara starts to walk towards you and he gathers his hair to one side. “That was not fair of him. If you want, I can talk to him about that.”
You watch Madara’s face, and a cloud passes overhead. You are almost tempted to say yes and cling to the wings that Madara has put you under to shelter you, but you are not that woman anymore. You are not a quitter. Besides, you need to have a purpose to pour your efforts in. If not, then what else could be in store for you?
“It’s not like the Hokage asked me to cut off my hand, I will be fine, Madara,” you finally answer. “Really.”
Madara folds his arms and he presses his lips together. “If you ever need me to go beat him up then say the word.”
You cannot help the chuckle that escapes your mouth. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. There will be no need of beating.” You pause and a smirk forms on your face as an idea takes form in your mind. “However, you can help me get to know Tobirama.”
Madara scowls, knowing that you are pushing his buttons. “No, you are on your own,” he grits out.
The air around your friend changes, and suddenly all the silliness in your demeanor fades away. Your eyes narrow warily, as his face darkens at you with disapproval. You know that he still holds a grudge on Tobirama, and it really is quite low of you to mention him so casually.
Madara narrows his eyes at you and shakes his head. "You have some guts."
You point your chin towards him naughtily. "Everyone's fair game." You break out into a smile, even if Madara can decide right then and there to end your life. "You just can't take it."
Madara used to always intimidate you, and he furthered that feeling at times by showing you his sharingan, because you know, you know , what he is capable of doing with those eyes, but he never really did anything to you. It was more of the idea of what he can do to you, at any given time.
Madara stays silent for a few more moments. Then, he attempts to soften his voice. “What do you want to know?”
You raise an eyebrow at this. “Uchiha Madara is finally giving in?”
Madara rolls his eyes and he lets out a small, tight-lipped smile. "Just this once, but you are paying for lunch.”
You gasp, taking offense at this. “You do know I am broke, right?”
“Who’s fault was it for not taking my offer to live in the Uchiha compound?” Madara matches his footsteps with yours as the two of you head towards the village.
“First of all, I am not an Uchiha, your people will oust me the moment I step foot, and second, I want to make a living for myself.”
Madara rolls his eyes. “Yeah, but you’re all alone.”
“Aren’t you?” You retort without thought.
Madara falls into silence. “You know someday, you will get in trouble with that mouth of yours.”
“You just can’t handle me.”
“The offer still stands,” Madara mutters, and he glances at you. “And it’s safe there. I will make sure no one even says a bad word about you. If you are with me, they won’t even look at you.”
“That sounds like a lonely life, and you know that I have been mostly caged in my childhood.” You sigh and you bump your shoulder against his arm. “I appreciate everything you have done for me, but I have nothing, Madara. It’s time I do something for myself and invest in something bigger than me. I need that.”
//
The Hokage mansion is huge inside, and since you do not visit this place often, you are not sure where the said library is. It could just be any room in here. Or, there is no such thing as the library in the Hokage mansion and Tobirama just said that because he wants to avoid you and send you on a goosechase away from him. You know that he is not thrilled to be put up on this project with you, based on his expressions yesterday, but you are kind of determined to change his mind now.
Besides, you are fun and cool, something he can take notes on as he seems prudish.
You sigh as you decide to just wait for Tobirama outside, instead of wandering inside the mansion. There are still some parts being built, and you do not want to cause any trouble to the workers there.
You are quite early, hoping to beat Tobirama to the punch to solidify yourself in his good graces and show him that you are serious about this. However, due to your punctuality, the waiting time is becoming ridiculously long. Sometimes you are not big on the whole waiting patiently thing.
You sigh, and aimlessly walk around the whole building.
You hear people starting to mile about to start their day, and you hear children laughing and talking loudly among themselves, which brings a smile to your lips. You decide to stay near the entrance of the mansion so Tobirama will not have any trouble looking for you.
Lost in your thoughts, you brandish your blade from its scabbard and you start to draw stick figures on the soil, and you add little details such as trees, kunais and shurikens.
You are not sure how much Tobirama knows about you, but you have heard many things about him, mostly from his brother, both good and bad. You know that he is a great warrior and one of the most brilliant minds that his generation has seen. He is responsible for the complex system of the very village you reside in, and the Hokage’s trusted advisor, even more than Uchiha Madara, who you know is very close to Hashirama. You also know that he is a great sensei, according to his students, which you have no doubt about since he is very intelligent.
Personality wise, he remains a mystery to you. Mostly because Hashirama glosses over that when talking about him. All you know is that Tobirama can be difficult at times, but you figure that it is how one should act when you are at the forefront of leading this village.
However, you are not in the least intimidated, even if he is a little older and has experienced more in life. Now that you are going to be working with him more, you are curious as to what the famed Senju Tobirama is really all about.
“I hope I did not keep you waiting,” Tobirama’s rough voice interrupts the quiet that you have immersed yourself in.
You perk up, and put your sword back with a loud click. He glances down at the ground, where you have made silly stick figures of shinobis fighting. You attempt to erase them with your foot.
“Not at all!” You lie, but Tobirama sees through that and he narrows his eyes suspiciously.
His serious face does not change, and instead you think he grew even more serious. He nods and gestures towards the mansion. He clutches the books and the scrolls he has close to his body.
“Shall we?”
You follow Tobirama towards the entrance, trying to keep up with his long strides, though he seems to be speeding up on purpose. Finally, he unlocks the library doors and opens them wide. The two of you step in, and you cannot help but feel underwhelmed at the great reveal of the Hokage mansion’s library.
It is bare, with a lone wooden table and three chairs situated next to the windows.
To the side are empty bookshelves, with the exception of one shelf, which is almost halfway filled.
“This is a sorry library,” you comment under your breath.
Tobirama walks up to the table and puts down the materials he has been carrying.
“We are going to fill it, starting today,” Tobirama says. “And for the rest of the year.”
You raise an eyebrow. “How? Write and publish our own books?”
Tobirama glances up at you, without irony. “Yes.”
You feign a smile. “Oh,” you deadpan. He does seem like the type of person to do that.
“We are also going to visit every clan in the village and ask if we could transcribe some of their writings,” Tobirama continues. “We can make our references through that, integrate their history and make a comprehensive one for Konoha. We also need to learn some of their jutsus and study them, among other things.”
You nod, understanding what he means. “Alright, where do we start? And how do we rewrite the Academy curriculum part?”
“Well first, I will have to set a few rules,” Tobirama drones on, looking at you pointedly.
You walk towards him so that you are standing on the other side of the table. “Alright, shoot,” you say.
“I have written the deadlines of the parts that you will do. You must give them to me, on time ,” Tobirama sternly says, slipping one of the scrolls forward. “I have a vague plan of what the curriculum can look like, but you will also have the chance to express your ideas.”
You take the scroll and open it gingerly, and you look at the back to back due dates.
“You must not talk to me aimlessly, unless it is about this project or if you need any clarification on the tasks you have to do,” Tobirama continues. “When we are working, I expect you to only work.”
You nod, thinking that these are easy, reasonable rules.
“You must be punctual.”
You are way too punctual, so you know that you are going to follow this rule perfectly.
“Do not eat near me.”
At this, you almost roll your eyes, but you hold yourself back.
“Do not touch my things, unless I give them to you. I hope that you can call my title with respect,” Tobirama drones on and on, mostly about the little things he is apparently very particular about. “You will also be training with me and my students, and I expect you to always be on top of your game.”
“Yes, of course.” You blink at all his so-called rules, and fight the urge to roll your eyes. It’s like he already has the impression that you won’t be as dedicated to your job as he is.
But you are dedicated.
However, you cannot help but talk back. He probably made a rule for that, but it goes unheard by you.
Tobirama nods. “Very well.”
“Did you stay up all night making this up?” You ask, unable to help yourself garner some reaction from him.
Tobirama’s stare is stormy, and his eyes narrow strictly. “It is common sense that you abide by such unsaid rules.”
“But you just, well forgive me, enumerated them. If they are common sense, then you would not have to re-tell it.”
Tobirama lets out a stream of breath from his nose that sounds a tad bit impatient, and he rolls his eyes.
You smile, feeling a little triumphant at getting a reaction from him. He catches your expression and he schools his face to become serious once more.
The two of you sit in silence for a moment, and you wait for Tobirama to speak.
“I heard you teach at the Academy at times,” Tobirama suddenly brings up. “When did you start?”
Your eyes narrow slightly at this. Tobirama built the Academy, so he must be aware of the things happening there. “Almost a year ago.”
Tobirama taps a finger on the books that he set down. “And you teach when?”
“Wednesdays and Fridays,” you reply.
Tobirama nods. “I will be coming with you.”
You pause at this. “Wait, why?”
Tobirama looks at you as if it’s obvious. “To size up what the kids need to learn, observe which materials are appropriate for age groups until they graduate as genin, and so forth.”
Of course, that makes sense.
Tobirama pulls out the chair and he slides into it. “Then, let us begin. We have many things to research and read up on.”
You look at him as he opens the books, and distributes some of them to you.
“Will you get around to telling me what your plan is, or are you just going to let me guess?” You ask as you flip to the first page of one of the books that he handed to you.
You slide on the chair across from him, taking care to move to the side so that you are giving him his space.
“Silence, when I am working,” Tobirama states without looking up from what he is reading. “Do not talk to me aimlessly. You will get a chance to ask me questions later, I suggest you start listing them down.”
“Alright, alright,” you mumble.
You read the first paragraph of the book, already taking note of the main idea. After a few pages, however, you glance up at your book and to Tobirama, who has not moved an inch except to turn a page. You observe his pristine expression, your eyes going down the slope of his strong nose, his high cheekbones, and his lips that form into a pout, and then to the markings on his face and chin.
He’s handsome, you’ll give him that.
His eyes never waver, unlike you, and from this, you can tell that he always pours all his focus and efforts when he does something.
“Work,” Tobirama reminds you. “And look at the due dates so you can think about how you can strategize your time.”
You snap up and pretend to go back to your reading, but you glance at him one last time. Something about him piques your curiosity, and it makes you want to push his buttons just to see what the famed Senju Tobirama is all about.
You cannot help but let out a tiny smile and you raise the book to hide your face.
Well, if he already has some sort of prejudice towards you, you might as well play that to your advantage.
You smirk to yourself, finally looking forward to the time the two of you will spend together.
.
.
.
[CHAPTER TWO >>>]
#angelica writes#avversiera writes#Tobirama Senju#Senju Tobirama#senju tobirama x reader#senju tobirama x you#tobirama x reader#tobirama x you#Senju Hashirama#Uchiha Madara#naruto fanfiction#'til death do us part
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ok i realized something the other day when i was watching kung fu panda clips on youtube and thats that shifu and tai lung have a similar relationship to that of ambrose and morganthe
PLEASE DONT LEAVE I CAN EXPLAIN MORE
im going to take a lot of creative liberties however bc i like what people in fanon have come up with morganthe and ambroses realtionship better than what we got in canon
shifu and tai lung had a.. parental relationship. seeing as how shifu raised him from birth and then molded his kung fu skills along the way, the same could probably be said or ambrose and morganthe, in which ambrose acknowledged that morganthe had a lot of potential as his prodigy and allowed himself to mentor her to become somewhat of a parental role to morganthe
this is where they are both similar – in that tai lung and morganthe held themselves to a higher standard. i mean, morganthe was able to learn the song of creation and survive (for the most part). its not an easy feat to attempt but she would have mastered it in due time had we not been there to stop her.
its also where morganthe and the wizard are similar – in the sense that they are capable of great feats of magical prowess. they are twins of the prophecy. one just had more fortunate circumstances on their magical education.
of course morganthes banishment and tai lungs banishment also coincide with one another -- as both of them were after a power/role that the mentor was molding them for this moment. morganthe had ambrose and eventually the spider magi, and tai lung had shifu. both of them end up getting betrayed - or rather, both of them feel betrayed by their own respective teachers because of what they been trained and taught to do
tai lung feels betrayed because shifu didn’t stick up for him and go against the wishes of his master. in particular, shifu says that “you were not meant to be the dragon warrior, that is not my fault” to which tai lung replies, “who filled my head with dreams? who drove me to train until my bones cracked? who denied me my destiny?”
OOGH THAT LAST LINE IN PARTICULAR.... i feel like there are a lot of parallels between the wizard and morganthe and how both had become children of the prophecy - both of them had the same mentor, which was ambrose, but it feels like the young wizard and ambrose have what morganthe and ambrose could have been.
the only reason morganthe was banished was because she was handling powers beyond her control, no doubt spurred on by the idea of furthering garnering ambrose’s praises, but also trying to quell the thirst for knowledge she wanted outside of merles teachings. merle takes this a step further when this happens and banishes morganthe, taking away her deck of cards and wand -- this is where the betrayal happens with morganthe. ambrose was so proud of morganthe, knew that she could do great things and achieve them through discipline and will, but ultimately she ends up biting off more than she can chew and endangered the lives of others.
morganthe and tai lung are both similar in these aspects, that theyve been wronged by their teachers, and both end up doing things in order to prove themselves “right” to their teachers. although, both of them do have different goals and storylines in their respective franchises.
morganthe wants to learn astral magic - it’s always been categorized by her as something slippery and difficult to handle. some of my favorite breakdowns of this particular goal is to show ambrose that morganthe can control astral magic, shadow magic -- all magic. that she fears weakness, and overcompensates that by learning the song of creation – she would never feel weak again if she ripped the spiral apart and made it in her own image, to make herself its powerful ruler. tai lung wants to be the dragon warrior, as hes trained his whole life for it - but if we allow ourselves to analyze his wants and needs for it, it all comes down to making his master proud, and proving to them that tai lung had the capacity to become the dragon warrior, but was denied that right by someone else.
in this sense -- both tai lung and morganthe are denied things by both of their respective teachers, who they have grown to see as parental figures in their lives. both trained hard in their craft, studied it, and when the time came, were betrayed by the expectations of their teachers.
whereas tai lung felt betrayed by shifu’s lack of defense for him and his dragon warrior title, no doubt spurned from shifu’s high praise and reassurances, morganthe felt betrayed because the one person who told her he was proud of her, nurtured her curiousity for knowledge, said that she had high hopes in her future, ended up ripping her away from the one thing she had after the death of her brother.
and so, both went to become the one thing their teacher ended up creating — a force to be reckoned with.
#wizard101#w101#morganthe w101#i... hope this makes sense#also im aware this is probably the most dumbest post that could come out of my mind but i just couldnt help but make it#IT JUST.... HAD A LOT OF INTERESTING PARALLELS OKAY#halfway through writing this i was like i cant believe im writing this .#(continues writing it)#long post
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cant wait for lethal combination chapter 5! and loved the holiday nessian fic you wrote!
then you shan’t have to wait! and thank you so much, nonnie. the fic they’re talking about and all previous chapters of lethal combo can be found here, x
“Forgive me, father, for I have sinned.”
Nesta kept her gaze on the wall of oak opposite her.
“Is this the part where I tell you to get on your knees for me?” She asked.
Humourless.
And she could practically feel the feral rage radiating from him. Bleeding through the grate to her left like he were trying to smoke her out.
“This is the part where you-“
“Shhh.”
A lean shadow, a head of auburn hair, muted in the darkness like the decayed verdure of autumn, barely distinguishable through the latticed window no bigger than her hand.
She’d made Eris wait almost a day.
In Nesta’s experience teenage girls understood psychological warfare better than any CIA types she’d met. And rule one in the handbook was never call him back right away.
Eris might as well have been a cute boy from home room, the advice stood fast.
She’d also chosen the time and place for their meeting, giving no concessions in authority. Picking the church as unlike her he’d inherited both the egregious wealth of his family and their faith. Irish Catholic. Meaning he’d find himself here every Sunday evening regardless, and providing not only the guise of normality, but the cosy anonymity of a confessional.
The only people who did secrecy better than assassins, were the Catholics.
It was perfect really, the perfect plan. Undistracted Nesta had been able to work it out pretty quickly after Cassian had left. Leaving her all those hours between four in the morning and her meeting the following evening with nothing to do but hate him.
Avoiding returning to the bed he’d screwed her in. Glaring at his jacket which still hung beside her front door over a bottle of vodka.
It was a blow to her pride to be sure. The closest thing to rejection she’d ever received from a man. Whatsmore, some gooey part of her she’d pushed down had been upset.
Too worked up to sleep she’d spent hours tucked into her armchair and entertaining plucking his teeth from his mouth like the petals of a rose. He loves me, he loves me not. Because worse than revealing himself to be a complete ass as most men did, Cassian had done so subsequent to fucking her better than she could have dreamed. And she’d had that dream. Multiple times.
Wet dreams that couldn’t hold a candle to the way he’d had her dripping down to her knees, begging for his cock, trembling on legs he’d thrown over his shoulder to lick out her cunt like it was the reason he got out of bed in the morning. The man had spoilt her rotten.
Nesta knew she probably shouldn’t have been thinking about sex in a church. Her mother was likely burning with a fury hotter than the flames that surrounded her down below, but she couldn’t help it. Because while she hated the sinner- ever bronze buffed, tattooed inch of him - god did she love the sin.
“The adult is going to talk,” she said quietly. “If you want to throw a tantrum you can do it on your own time because as of this moment, I’m officially off the clock.”
Eris’ silence said he knew better than to interrupt her. Perhaps he was smarter than she was about to give him credit for.
“In fact I stopped working for you as of the moment you chose to question my methods and profess concerns that I may have jeopardised our venture because I lack the professionalism to keep my legs shut,” she said.
“So if you want Helion Day neutralised, you’re going to have to find someone else to do the job. Though I seriously doubt you’ll be able to.”
Cue phase two of the plan.
Because she may have hated Cassian, but she wanted the monopoly on causing him emotional anguish.
Like hell some other pro was going to put a bullet between Helion’s eyes and devastate his bodyguard. Making that man cry was Nesta’s prerogative.
“I have made it clear to anyone in my field you might attempt to solicit that you are a impertinent, trust fund brat, who insists on micromanaging the work of other’s despite your incompetence in an attempt to feel important beyond the breeding mummy lied and told you made you special.”
“I wasn’t aware you also specialised in character assassination.”
Eris’ voice was charred with a sweetness like wealth; earthy and rich it reminded Nesta of muscovado sugar.
He was right. She was being unprofessional. But she was tired and hungover and out of a gorgeous lay so fuck him.
“My specialities are no longer any of your business, Mr Vanserra,” she replied. “My displeasure however, should be of great concern to you.”
“Is that a threat?”
“I wouldn’t do you the courtesy of warning you if I intended to kill you.”
Eris said nothing.
“You can consider it incentive if it helps you sleep at night though,” Nesta continued. “To do as you’re told.”
She gave him strict instructions. Wait five minutes then leave. Never contact me. Forget we were ever in correspondence in the first place.
“Murder is cheap, Mr Vanserra. You don’t want to learn the cost of disobeying me. It’s not the kind of thing daddy’s wallet can cover.”
She emerged from the confessional, slim shades obscuring her eyes and the deep bruises beneath. Her heels clipping against the stone floor as she made her way toward the station of votive candles at the back of the church.
Each glowing stick a prayer for a lost loved one. Matches and and a few unlit offerings still available.
She lit herself a cigarette on a flame.
And Nesta couldn’t have missed the fresco above those colossal doors of oak and rustic gold flake even through the plumes of smoke that curled upwards as she stalked lazily down the isle: a depiction of the Heavenly Father himself.
She didn’t bother flicking a glance behind her to the confessional.
Who’s your daddy, now?
-
She’d collapsed face down into already rumpled sheets.
They’d smelled like sex and heaven and she’d smelt like cigarettes and a church and that was all she knew before the exhaustion caught up with her, the world went black, and she was waking up in exactly the same position . Vex’s fluffy tail swishing against her ear. The tickling sensation plucking her from the bliss of pure nothingness.
Nesta groaned a little as she rolled over and pulled herself to sit up. Pleased to find she’d had the energy to take off her clothes. Unlike her makeup.
“Damn it,” she hissed as she saw the smudged mascara on the pillow.
Not that the sheets didn’t need washing anyway…
“Ugh,” she huffed, dropping flat onto her back again.
She’d been awake less then seven seconds and a man had already ruined her day. Just thinking about him…
“Ugh,” she said again, louder. Like she was angry with the ceiling for not acknowledging her the first time.
Vex meowed, his little head nudging at her bare arm. As though he were trying to coax her bra strap back up to a respectable position on her shoulder.
“Hi, baby,” she grumbled, picking him up for a cuddle. “You hungry?”
He meowed again.
Padding down to the kitchen she’d made them both breakfast (technically lunch, she’d slept in till almost one) and carrying her plate of fruit back upstairs to draw a bubble bath he winded between her ankles, catching her attention as he hissed at something in the living room.
“What?” she inquired, looking down at him before tilting her head to follow his own.
Cassian’s jacket.
Uhg.
Now she was thinking about him again.
Childish, dumb, insecure little prick. How he’d had the fucking nerve to call her a coward was truly a mystery.
He was so crippled by that fear of not being good enough he’d immediately presumed she wanted rid of him. Lashing out defensively- God he was infuriating.
She looked back to Vex who was now staring up at her. “If that thing somehow ends up on the floor,” she said, “you have permission to piss on it”.
He purred.
Vex truly was the only boy worth his salt. Something he proved yet again in hopping atop her bathroom counter and guarding her like a fluffy little gargoyle as she sank into the bath. Opening m the window to let out the smoke of her cigarette so as not to bother him. The sound of rain slipping something comforting through the January chill, twirls of smoke and steam visible in fatigued plumes.
Another lethal habit she’d picked up from Aunt Ripleigh.
The thought gave her an unpleasant feeling in her heart. Like a worm writhing in the rotted meat of an apple.
Ripleigh wasn’t actually her aunt. But Nesta avoided her much like she did the rest of her family and that was what really counted. Besides, spilling blood together arguably made for a closer bond than just sharing it.
Like Nesta said, not really her aunt.
Aunt Ripleigh – initials AR, an homage to the assassin’s preferred weapon the AR-47, American hybrid of the Russian Автома́т Кала́шников, A.K.A the AK-47.
Some mothers left their little girls pearls, or scrapbooks packed with baby pictures and the lingering scent of their perfume. Angelina Archeron had left her’s a Mafia assassin’s cell number.
Of course Nesta hadn’t known that.
Not until she’d found herself with her hands caked in something dark and sticky, her boyfriend’s skin stuffed beneath the lip of her nails and a taste in her mouth like hot rust.
She’d been seventeen the first time she’d killed a man.
Not a man. A boy.
A few months her senior, Thomas been a child just like her.
Her first crush. Her first boyfriend, her first love, and her first.
Nesta had known Thomas was using her for sex. Just as she’d been using him for his money, and wasn’t that what love was? Finding the gratification of your needs in someone else? In Thomas’s case he’d needed to get his dick wet. In Nesta’s…it was more than embarrassing but half the time all she’d needed was a hot meal.
She couldn’t count the number of times she’d called him in the dead of the night to hook up in his Porsche so she could sleep there instead of at home, where the windows screamed freezing air from their shattered mouths and the electricity bill was rarely paid.
But one night Nesta hadn’t felt like earning his kindness. And so he hadn’t offered it.
Instead he’d held her wrists, ripped at her shirt, forced his hands into her jeans. Pushed up against the bonnet of that Porsche by a lake in woods she’d torn through his face, her nails splitting through the waterline beneath his eyes as she’d kicked and screamed, blood pouring, his hand on her neck, throwing her head against the wing mirror. Heat spilling heavy down her jaw and neck from somewhere which had smelt like lose change.
She remembers blood in her eyes and the taste of soft, smooth skin and a kind of rubbery strength between her teeth as she’d bit down hard until something had popped or burst or split with a squirt or a tear. She remembers spitting out whatever of Thomas’s ear she’d torn off between her teeth and something swinging into her lower ribs so hard one broke. She remembers the sounds that had been both of them and then at some point just her.
Her screaming.
Her sticky, disgusting face, stinging with every horribly wet sob and shriek. The shrieks that hadn’t choked to shaky breaths until she’d pulled herself to sit back against the wheel of the car. Clutching at her ribs which had only hurt so much worse when she’d thrown up right next to her boyfriend’s body. What looked like a pint of blood glowing in the dust. His face…his head.
It’d looked like a Halloween prop. Like dark jam. Like a brutalised seventeen year old dead in the dirt.
And sometime after noticing one of his teeth in the dust, Nesta had realised how fucked she was.
It wasn’t much of an achievement when you considered Grafton, Vermont had a population short of seven-hundred: but the Mandrays had been quite possibly the most well connected and well off people in its less than seven-hundred square miles. And despite keeping Nesta’s name out of their sneering mouths through referring to her almost exclusively as “that white-trash bitch”, that population short of seven hundred didn’t give a shit about her.
Didn’t give a shit she’d been top of her class with a place at Georgetown. Because Nesta could never have afforded to accept it.
And it certainly didn’t matter she was a pageant queen when everyone knew the petty cash prizes were the only thing that paid the rent on their shitty one bedroom. Especially with things barely breaking even. In spite of Feyre’s making use of their father’s rifle and sourcing for the butcher any chance she could.
A too skinny child in the woods with a gun and blood in her braids.
Nesta’s efforts to keep food on the table had always seemed to pale in comparison to that. But she’d never felt bad about it. Wouldn’t bother hating herself when everybody else was already doing that for her.
Nesta Archeron was the cheap fuck that nice Mandray boy was messing around with. The gold digger with the dead commie mom and daddy issues.
No one would have ever believed he’d tried to rape her.
And she’d had no money for a decent lawyer- she hadn’t even had anyone to call. Not her dad, not a fourteen-year old Feyre nor Elain, sixteen and the last person she’d ever want wrapped up in something like this.
Nesta had been desperate and vulnerable and jaded for as long as she could remember but she’d never felt as terrified and broken as she had in that moment. Crying alone and hugging herself tightly, she’d just wanted her mom. As cold and neglectful and dead as the woman was.
“три три два пять семь девять пять шесть три восемь”
Her mother’s last words.
Ten numbers.
Nesta had somehow gotten to her feet, only realising Thomas had broken a few of her fingers when she’d tried opening the car door. All but collapsing inside once she’d managed as she’d fumbled for her phone.
“три три два пять семь девять пять шесть три восемь” she’d repeated to herself, voice hoarse and wet and cracking as she’d dialled.
Ten numbers. Ten numbers. Ten numbers.
Like a phone number.
No doubt concussed Nesta had deemed it logical enough. Her mother’s dying breath a kind of atonement for leaving her children with nothing in the whole word but a father that could watch his girls starve and go into the woods with his hunting rifle and whore themselves out like they meant nothing.
A life-line in the deep waters opaque with clouds of blood.
“Здравствуйте.”
Those three syllables had been like a punch to the gut.
Nesta had made a noise that might have sounded like “mom?” or the creaking of a damn as it ached under duress. She’d obviously known it wasn’t her mother, but she hadn’t heard a woman speak Russia since- hadn’t heard Russian at all in years.
“Who is this?”
Trying to pull herself together Nesta had taken a breath that had rattled, dripping wet and slightly wheezing. Everything was going to be okay. She’d been right. It couldn’t have been a coincidence. Of all the phone numbers in the world what was the likelihood that the voice on the end of this one spoke her mother’s native tongue?
“I’m- I’m Angelina Archeron daughter. She gave me this number I don’t know what to do I-”
The specifics aren’t as clear after that. Like a jigsaw left out in the rain or soaked in fresh hot blood, the pieces, the details, they’d melted to mush.
A mess she’d held in her hands and wondered what the fuck to do with.
What do you do with a dead body and the knew found knowledge your mother was a boyevik for the Russian Mafia? What do you do with her retirement package which contained nothing but the contact for an assassin working for the New York arm.
Nesta had only known what she wasn’t going to do.
Go down for murder.
Aunt Ripleigh had told her what to do over the phone, instructing her on how to deal with her injuries and Thomas’ pulp of a body. How to explain the state of her face and ribs and fingers and head. What to do with his car and how to speak and sit and and react when then police came asking questions about Thomas’ disappearance. How to get away with it.
Nesta had followed each direction flawlessly. Consoled in finally having a definitive plan. Even a plan that started with “buy meat cleaver, trash bag, battery powered blender and bucket, with cash from dead boyfriend’s wallet.” Even a plan that got progressively worse from that point on.
Filleting chunks of a body that had once been inside her. Hauling a trash bag of boyfriend smoothie to the river with broken fingers. The thick slop sinking almost immediately just as Aunt Ripleigh had said it would. Before she’d told Nesta to burn the bones and roast marshmallows over them.
“If it had not been you it would have been next girl,” Ripleigh had said. “And she might not have had your fight.”
“You mean she might not have been disturbed enough to kill her boyfriend?”
“Killer instincts, Anastasia. Is not disturbed, is talent,” Aunt Ripleigh had said. “Cannot be taught but what can be taught you learn quick. No whining. Like very good puppy with very sharp teeth.”
“Woof,” Nesta had said dryly.
“Stray puppy though, no? Is why you have no manners.”
“You offering to adopt me?”
“I have pet already. And my husband is funnier than you.”
Nesta’s compromised rib had punished her for finding that funny.
“But you ever want job, you call me.”
Needless to say that was not the last time she’d called Aunt Ripleigh.
Three weeks later and four months shy of getting her high school diploma Nesta had turned eighteen and moved to New York in order to “pursue modelling”.
In reality she was doing coffee runs with a dash more arsenic than normal and luring prosecutors to hotel rooms they’d never leave. A personal assistant of sorts to Aunt Ripleigh.
She had kept the mafia, the Bratva, at an arms length whenever she’d been able. Paying off the shitty house she’d left her sisters in with one less mouth to feed and not wanting their address in any files accessible to people with skill sets like her’s.
And while working with Ripleigh had been a mortiferous riot, two gals shattering the glass ceiling in their industry and slitting throats with the shards; Nesta had developed expensive taste from the fringes of high criminal society. She’d cared less about the art of killing than she had about the art she could hang up in a penthouse apartment if she were in private practice. Her lust for comfort winning out after two years or so at which point she’d gone freelance. Assisting in a few heists before getting in with a crowd of Nazi hunters for a bit, all the while keeping in touch with her mentor.
Until Feyre had moved to the city.
Then she’d given up on the more dangerous antics, selling out for safer and even more lucrative bets like CEOs and cutting ties with Aunt Ripleigh. Terrified if not a little paranoid of something happening to her sister. Which had been shit. Because Nesta hadn’t had any other friends. Like, at all.
At eighteen Feyre was still as bitter and proud as she’d been when Nesta had left. As Nesta herself still was.
Elain had tried bridging her sisters’ relationship once she’d moved to New York but she’d had better success career-wise. Working at a florists before eventually graduating to a self employed wedding planner.
Nesta had kept her thoughts on the psychological tells of a girl jilted at the alter becoming a wedding planner to herself. Mostly because Elain was always brining her cake samples she’d stolen and Nesta wasn’t going to sabotage her supply of free cake.
Feyre on the other hand had gone about far less conventional means of making a living. The child was a force to be reckoned with if for nothing but her resourcefulness and almost objectionable will to survive. Fiercely independent and clumsily capable she’d taken a crack at everything while selling her art on the side. It was a piece she’d modelled for that had delivered her to true economic grandeur however.
Well, “modelled” maybe wasn’t the word. Her sister had essentially been used as a human stamp. Her naked body detailed with intricately painted swirls then pressed to canvas.
The work had been showcased somewhere high brow and had caught the eye of one Mr Rhysand Velaris, thirty-one and the sole inheritor of his late father’s worldly possessions. Among which were several millions of dollars.
Half of which now belonged to her sister thanks to a very reckless prenup on his part.
Though Nesta had briefly wondered if he’d spent at least that on the engagement ring. A glittering iceberg that seemed to only glare brighter next to the stark black band tattooed just beneath it, a matching tattoo on Rhysand’s own ring finger. Because of course they’d eloped in Paris and gotten tattoos instead of wedding rings.
If Nesta had been closer to her baby sister she imagined she might have felt betrayed on some level. But as things were, Nesta wasn’t entirely sure she would have received an invite even if they’d had a traditional wedding, planned to perfection by Elain.
It was probably the worst part of her job. The distance she had to put between herself and everyone she had the potential to care about. A distance she could never close even if she decided to retire right this minute because the damage had already been done. Nesta had become a liability to their safety the minute she’d moved here and started in this line of work.
She took another chocolate from the box she’d snatched from downstairs on second thought. Her supply already dwindling thanks to the rather depression freight train of thought she’d embarked on.
That and the fact they were really very good.
Cassian may have been a prick, but she couldn’t deny he had great taste.
In chocolate, and women, she thought smugly. Sinking deeper into the basin.
A heat flushed up her neck that had nothing to do with the bath as she unwillingly remembered how he’d softly coaxed one of these lovely little parcels between her full lips. The drunk hunger in his deep brown eyes and what he’d done next, snapping her lace thong between his teeth-
Her music stopped. Only to be replaced by a buzzing thrum of her phone.
Leaning forward Nesta checked the caller ID before swiping across the screen to accept the call and sinking back to her earlier position.
“I’m not in the mood,” she hummed dismissively, head tipped back against the lip of the tub and eyes closing. She’d known this was coming, better to get it over with.
“When I supply you with handsome, rich, and eligible men, I do not expect you to break them!” Feyre castigated through the phone, and anyone might guess she were the elder sibling.
Feyre indeed thought herself wiser and more worldly than both Nesta and Elain, and getting married hadn’t helped diminish her false sense of maturity. Thrusting her character into some weird sarcastic seriousness that mirrored her husband’s demeanour perfectly. It made Nesta cringe so thoroughly she was mildly concerned about getting wrinkles.
“And I thought we’d grown out of sharing toys, but it seems both our expectations were thwarted.”
“Humans aren’t toys!” Feyre reminded her. Not that Nesta didn’t already know that. No vibrator had never made her cum as hard as Cassian had.
“And if you resented me setting you up with Cassian then why did you fuck him ?” Feyre asked. And she said fuck as though it were synonymous to stab or poison.
“Was it to punish me? Because if so you did a spectacular job. He’s crazier about you than ever and won’t stop moping. The second-hand embarrassment is painful enough without the added agony of how annoying it is.”
If he likes me so much why was he so eager to assume the worst of me? Nesta thought spitefully.
It didn’t matter that she technically was lying to him. He didn’t know that.
“You told me to give him a chance.”
“And you couldn’t have decided you didn’t like him before having sex with him?”
Nesta wasn’t surprised Feyre had taken Cassian’s version of things at face value.
Her husband’s family were unimpeachably wonderful in her eyes. Meanwhile Nesta remained just another reminder of a time Feyre couldn’t have afforded the plane ticket to get to New York, let alone a town house on the upper east side. A cold bitch who hadn’t begged to join the weird cult that was the Velaris family and their innermost circle when Feyre had married Rhysand last year.
“Oh I’d already worked out he was an ass by that point but I thought he could at least make up for putting me through the date. Not much going on in that head but he quite clearly had it all going on-
“Ew ew ew!” Feyre interrupted. “One, I need this conversation to steer clear of anything anatomical, and two, do you have to be so horrible?”
“You’re the one pimping out your friends, I just took you up on the offer.”
“Ever heard of the third date rule?”
“Didn’t you marry Rhysand on the third date?”
Feyre sighed.
“Cassian’s a good guy, Nes. It takes a lot to come out the other side of what he’s been through a good man and he deserves the world so-”
“So why did you send him my way?”
Nesta knew what Feyre thought of her. And if she hadn’t then this conversation would have made it very clear.
“Because Nesta! You’re twenty-four and already a crazy cat lady! I’m sorry I tried to save you from dying alone and having Vex eat your corpse.”
Nesta rolled her eyes.
“Have you ever considered I choose to be alone because I like it?” She asked.
Feyre sighed again, but it was softer this time, sad more than exasperated.
“You’re not alone, Nesta,” she said. “You’re lonely.”
It was annoying enough that she was right, she didn’t have to be so pretentious about it aswell.
“I’m fine,” Nesta said.
“You sound just like Cassian,” Feyre grumbled.
“Well I’ve been smoking.”
“I’ll be sure to put how funny you were on your headstone when those things kill you.”
“I’m racing Rhysand to the grave, he has more cigars than I do shoes.”
“He only smokes them on special occasions.”
“And how do you know this isn’t a celebratory cigarette on account of you calling me?”
“Because instead of saying hi you said I’m not in the mood.”
“Oh so you did hear me?”
“I hear you, Nesta,” Feyre conceded, disappointment weighing on her words. “Loud and clear. Have a good week.”
She hung up.
“You too,” Nesta said into the silence.
When the silence replied she sank beneath the water. As though she hoped it might act as the cushioned walls of a padded cell meant to protect those who posed a danger to themselves.
It didn’t. And that unpleasant ache didn’t go away. It never did.
Worse than the dull pounding in her ears and tightness in her chest as she held her breath.
But it would be nothing compared to the devastation of seeing Feyre or Elain hurt. The tender ache of keeping them at arms length, knowing they were at least there to brush her fingers against, was worth avoiding spending the rest of her life reaching for someone taken from her.
Perhaps that was also why she’d wanted so fiercely to dislike Cassian.
Nesta re-emerged with a gasp, her chest on fire.
What an unpleasant notion, she thought, running her fingers through her wet hair and sinking back as she took a slower breath. That she’d been looking for a reason to dislike him even after overcoming the minor detail she was going to kill his friend and client. An excuse to throw in the towel as soon as she could. Because it was just easier.
Easier than accepting she was fundamentally terrified of keeping him around.
Easier than keeping him around and seeing him get hurt.
Fuck.
Her being mad at him had been a cop out.
Because yes he’d been a petty, insecure idiot; but hadn’t she told him she was going to fuck and chuck him? Hadn’t she been at typically fast to get in a fight with him? Substantiating his insecurities.
Nesta might have been furious at his calling her a coward, but he hadn’t actually been wrong.
She’d let some subliminal fear convince her to sabotage things.
A subliminal and blissfully irrational fear she realised because, Cassian, a monument of pure muscle, could definitely look after himself. He’d been marine corps for Christ’s sake. Not to mention she’d seen him take down Helion enough times in the ring while still working for Eris and the fact the man literally specialised in keeping people safe for a living!
Nesta felt a weird and almost unfamiliar lightness in her shoulders. It felt a little like hope. Which was also terrifying.
But she wasn’t going to the let the fear control her this time.
—
Cassian had ignored her calls.
All three.
Which was fine because she’d been stalking him for the past month. She knew exactly where he’d be that evening and doing things in person meant she could kill him if he kept up the asshole routine.
Nesta’s platform stiletto boots clipped against the laminate flooring as she emerged from the elevator. Stalking lazily through the top floor of the Illyria building.
Even if she killed Cassian he was going to die happy. She looked good enough to eat. Thick hair fastened back into a high ponytail, the details of her face were subject to full attention. Her eyes appearing almost wider and lashes lavished with a black like her jet thigh-highs and tied coat. Plump lips softly lined and shaded, she looked drop dead fucking gorgeous.
Though it was what she was wearing under her fastened coat that was the real killer.
Nesta didn’t uncross her ankles from where they’d flicked over one another as she let herself lean against the doorframe of Cassian’s office.
It was wide open. No privacy needed when everyone else had gone home around four hours ago. The night detail on Helion allowing Cassian time to catch up on work as he had every night and well into the morning for the past month.
“All work and no play?”
Cassian looked up from his desk.
“I can fix that,” she said.
He’d never looked more handsome.
Hair bundled into a dark band, his shirt cuffed at his forearms and a bit of scruff marring his chiselled jaw. A pair of slim reading glasses were pushed up his slightly imperfect nose and it was such a turn on Nesta was glad she was leaning against something.
He looked a little exhausted in a kind of brooding and adorable way.
It gave her this awful pining to massage those sculpted shoulders as he let loose a deep, tired sigh, arms folding across that powerful chest causing his white shirt to hiss as he leaned back into his chair. It was a fucking massive bit of furniture. But then it had to be to accommodate him.
“What are you doing here?”
Rude.
Nesta pushed off the doorframe and into his office.
“You ignored my calls,” she said by way of explanation. Making her way to the bookcase and running her fingers across a row of spines. It was mostly files, but she noticed a few novels as well.
“You kicked me out of your bed at three in the morning.”
She turned to find him watching her.
His words were dismissive and effortlessly confrontational as usual. But there was an edge to his voice. And it wasn’t arousal. Even if his gaze caught on her boots and lingering there for longer than he’d probably care to admit.
Nesta leaned back against the bookshelf, inspecting her manicure with an eye roll.
“You’re still upset about that?”
“Not at all,” he said with a smirk. Reclining back against the chair a little further, hips rolling and arms casually folding. Too casually. The dangerous grace of it speaking to the emotion that no doubt roiled beneath his bronze skin. Belied by that bullshit cockiness which grated her to the bone. “It seems I dodged a bullet.”
“Oh really?”
“The whole hot but mean cliché is one thing, but crazy hookup who stalks me-“
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she sneered.
She’d seen hints of this before. The rugged and crude act meant to cover up the insecurity she’d also been treated to.
“Oh I’m sorry. I forgot you can’t ever admit what it is you want.”
“You don’t have a clue what I want.”
“I have several, Nesta.” He looked her up and down pointedly.
The way he said her name. Even like this it made her weak in the knees while her fingers itched to choke him.
It was all very conflicting.
“Oddly confident in your last performance for someone so insecure,” she quipped lazily.
Cassian rose his brows with a mean a laugh.
“What do I have to be insecure about?” He said. “I didn’t hide behind a half-ass lie to throw someone out of my bed. And I’m pretty sure even your neighbours can attest to how good of a time I gave you,” he smirked again. “You’re not a good enough liar for the way you moaned my name to have been an act.”
The white hot fist in her stomach folded in on itself as it melted to a stickiness despite the misguided insult. She certainly hadn’t been putting it on Saturday. Every sound he’d drawn from her dripping with sincerity. Every moan and whimper well deserved.
“You’re right,” she said.
Cassian blinked.
Nesta prowled toward him and hummed, “those, four, orgasms, were about as fake as my emergency.”
The sultry softness to her voice thickened to something less affected at those last words.
Cassian scoffed. Though there was something withdrawn and careful to him that hadn’t been there a second ago. Like a snake recoiling in case it needed to strike. “Your emergency, of course. Which was?”
“Nothing to do with you.”
He shook his head, laughing bitterly.
“Seriously, Nesta? You’ve had two days to come up with something now.”
“You’re not listening to me,” Nesta slipped atop the corner of the desk, perching there with her long legs crossed over one another. The blade of a stiletto heel close enough to brush up his calf if she wanted to make him shiver.
But she didn’t. She just wanted him to listen. To understand what she was saying so she didn’t have to say anything more because for fucks sake he was the one who’d acted up and yet she was here putting her pride on the line again.
“It had nothing, to do with you,” she said slowly.
A weighted silence settled like snow between them.
Until Cassian took a blow torch to it.
“Shit.”
His head fell into those large hands.
“Shiiiiiiiit,” he cursed again. “Oh god, how badly have I fucked up?” He groaned, looking up. So humbled and distraught it was almost comical.
“Irredeemably.” Her eyes flirted with the notion of a little smile even if her mouth remained unquirked as she propped her hands against the desk behind her and leaned into them to more comfortably watch him suffer.
“I’d beg you not to tease me but honestly I think it’s the least I deserve- fuck.”
“Like me teasing you isn’t the highlight of your day.” She rolled her eyes.
Cassian laughed, pained and almost sheepish, which shouldn’t have been hot but god it made her blush.
Keep your cool goddamn it. She wanted a little more bang for her buck where grovelling was concerned before she let on how eager she was for things to get back on track.
“Want to flat out abuse me and make it the highlight of my year?”
She was struggling to keep the smile off her face even as she said, “I’m not in the habit of rewarding bad behaviour. You’re a man, you get enough of that already.”
“Nesta,” he took his glasses off, setting them down on the desk beside her thigh. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking her in the eyes. “I’m, really, really fucking sorry I’m an idiot.”
Nesta slid of the desk.
“Go on,” she instructed.
“A moron a fool a stupid, stupid son of a bitch.”
Taking a step forward she was stood between his thighs. Picking up his glasses and pushing them back on his nose. Missing the sight of this hulking, powerhouse of a man in spectacles.
“I’m sorry.” Cassian was looking up at her with those big brown eyes, and the bastard actually leaned into her palm.
“Oh for fucks sake how did anyone discipline you as a child with those damn puppy-dog eyes?” She growled softly, furious.
“They didn’t to be honest,” he admitted with a breathy laugh.
“I can tell.”
She slid her hands to his shoulders, fingers curling soft and possessive over the stacked muscle and palms pressed to his upper chest, stepping tighter into him.
“I guess I’ll just have to do it.”
Cassian swallowed.
“Don’t threaten me with a good time, sweetheart,” he tried. Intoxicatingly deep, trying to maintain that arrogant and playful edge in a way that made his words all the hotter. The simmering ache he attempted to push down all but throbbing in his voice.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she returned, brows arched. Battling a smirk off her face.
“Can I ask you to do something for me, then?”
“If you say please.”
“Please don’t screw around with me.”
Nesta faltered.
Those warm hands came to rest on her lower back, long fingers curling slightly into the fabric and coaxing her that last bit closer so that her thighs brushed against the edge of his chair and her stomach was brushing up against his.
“I’m really into you,” he admitted. “You’re smart and you’re beautiful, and at first I thought the whole hard to get thing was an act but woman you are genuinely hard to get and it is, so sexy. But whatever it is that’s holding you back, that made you wait a week to call me, that made you claim all you wanted was a hook up; I’m clearly not cut out to compete,” he confessed. “It got in my head, and that’s on me and me lashing out at you the other night that’s on me too and I’m so, so sorry Nesta. I need to know where I stand with you though. I need to know if you’re actually interested in me. Because I like you. But I’m too old for games.”
The silence was so thick she could have cut through it with a knife.
Nesta’s hands fell from his chest slowly.
“That’s good,” she assured him at last. “Because I’m not a toy.”
She brought her fingers to the belt of her coat and pulled slow and deliberate.
Black glazed her figure with a gorgeous intimacy. The dress hugging at what little it concealed with perfection enough to make up for its lake of mercy. Long legs sheathed in those thigh-high boots, the item was short enough that a decent length of her thighs could be seen. Interrupted at the last possible moment by sleek jet as though she’d been dipped in oil of purest night.
Cassian’s eyes blew out to sticky treacle behind those glasses.
“I’m human, Cass,” she hummed, tossing her coat onto the desk behind her as she spoke. “Which means I make mistakes.” He swallowed as she sighed softly, her cleavage swelling a little with the motion. “And that I have needs. Needs you can be the one to fulfill or not.”
She slipped into his lap, straddling him, knees bent either side of his thighs. The corded strength of which pressed painfully and exhilaratingly apparent against the soft seam of her inner thighs and she was genuinely suffering from some kind of contact high. Every inch of him seizing up subtly, deliciously taught at her touch in an effort not to respond and yet it only revealed just how much she affected him.
“Nesta-“
“Shhhhhh,” she interrupted. Hands cupping that ruggedly handsome face and titling it back to tuck her’s against him slowly. “But I want it to be you,” she purred against his jaw, tracing her nose up the stubbled curve. “Let me show you how bad.”
“Someone could come back-“
“I don’t care,” Nesta murmured against his mouth. “I want you.”
His eyes fluttered shut. And she felt his cock stir in those immaculately tailored slacks.
“Nesta-”
She could feel every muscle that licked up his stomach tremble with a drawn out contraction as she said it again, her hands slipping down to his broad shoulders.
“I want you,” she purred again.
He might have tried to breath. And it might have rubbed up something uncomfortably nice in her lower tummy.
“Say it,” she whispered, tilting her face so that the tip of her nose brushed up the side of his. Her breath hot on his stubbled Cupid’s bow and hands running down the solid power of his upper body, burning up through his shirt. “Say it, Cassian.”
His brown eyes like cognac and magnolia were hooded behind his glasses as he conceded.
“You want me,” he breathed.
She grazed her mouth against his. Lips parted suggestively and an almost silent, utterly cruel noise escaping her.
The length of his thick cock pressed up against the seam of her plush sex as he grew to full, hard attention in his slacks. Warm and thrilling even through her panties and their open mouths melted into one another hot and heavy, tongues caressing as his large hands came to her knees and smoothed up her bare thighs covetously.
“Fuck,” he groaned lazily as her hips began rolling deeply into him, and her hands slid under his shirt. Fingers splayed, she snaked up the cobbled muscle of his stomach, the flesh burnished and warm beneath her touch. His shirt riding up to reveal the gutter of his hips, gruesomely toned and dusted with hair.
“This is…such a…” he breathed, between the perfect and yearning motions of their jaws, a hand smoothing up her waist in a way that made her shiver.
“Dream come true?” She hummed, kissing him wanton and unhurried. Dangerously close to becoming a brainless mess with the way his cock rubbed up her core.
His groan melted to a laugh or maybe it was the other way round.
“Yes,” he admitted breathlessly. “And a bad, bad…idea.”
“Well you’ve been a bad, bad boy, Cassian,” she whispered filthily against his ear, before capturing the lobe between her teeth softly.
She sucked and nibbled oh so gently and he expelled a breath so gravelly and masculine it twisted the hungry knot in her core tighter.
“Nesta…we-fuck you’re good at that…” he groaned lethargically . “Sweetheart, we can’t…”
“Why not,” she coed quietly, the sound airy and affectedly filthy.
“We’re…” he choked as he took in the sight of her cleavage, pushed intimately to his chest and escaping the neckline of her dress like a plume of toothpaste squeezed from the tube. “Fucking hell Nesta we’re in my office.”
“And I’m saying you could be in me.”
She rocked her hips against him with a particularly cruel slant.
The groan that escaped him made something flip in her stomach, tossing about whatever sweet, impossible to describe feeling rushed there at the same time at the way his head fell back against the chair as she worked him over. The hot friction that rubbed against her sensitive core the cherry on top of the sweet, creamy, decadent sundae.
“Besides,” she moaned, breathless and sultry. Teeth plunging softly into her plump bottom lip as she continued rolling her hips. Hands rubbing over his shoulders and providing her leverage. “You’re the boss.”
“I think we both know…that I’m not the boss…right now…” he groaned. Almost pained.
“Your cock a little much for those slacks?” She hummed, faux sympathy dripping through her mocking pout.
“I thought you liked a tight fit,” she teased, still pouting but eyes smokey. Her toes curling in her boots as her fingers began work on pulling his shirt apart.
The buttons popped undone with a sensual and pining tempo and she was moaning quietly into his mouth as she explored the panes and ripples of that powerful upper body. More than thorough in her hands-on assessment.
Cassian’s own hands were keeping just as busy, massaging and kneading her ass indulgently before smoothing over her rolling hips and eventually coming to her lower back. His thumbs pressing to the small of her back either side of her spine and it made something tight inside her swoon. The touch so hot and the memory it conjured so good. His big hands on her as he fucked her from behind.
“Nesta,” Cassian groaned deeply, as she began rocking into him tighter, hotter. The impression of his cock lined up just right with her aching core.
“Hey, baby,” She purred, drunk on the friction that made her whole body throb and hum with pleasure and the tip of her nose brushing the side of his. Hands snaking from his exposed chest to either side of his face and capturing his bruised mouth with her own. Chewing on his bottom lip obscenely, the friction beginning to push her over edge.
“Fuck you’re incredible,” he groaned huskily once she let up. Kissing back decadently. “I’m so sorry,” he breathed almost mindlessly. “I’m so fucking sorry, Nesta.”
“You wanna show me how sorry you are?” she purred, sultry and low, mouth parting, forehead still pressed to his and eyes fluttering open to hold his own.
Cassian nodded, dumb and silent and eager and Jesus it turned her on.
“Yeah? You wanna make me cum?” She hummed.
“Yes, yes, please.”
“Touch me, Cassian,” she whispered against his open mouth. “Make it up to me, make me feel good.”
Cassian’s hands slid back to her ass and she moaned into the kiss he captured her lips in as he lifted her with a sensual squeeze, wrapping her long legs tightly round the tapered cut of his waist as he stood.
The surface of the desk was beneath her before she could work out which way was up and his touch smoothed down her legs to her knees before she could take a a breath in reprieve from kissing him. Her legs splitting either side of his broad hips and his erection, tucked to the side in his slacks and thick and heavy and hard, pushed against the inner seam of her thigh as he pulled that band from her hair.
“I’m gonna make these gorgeous legs tremble for me,” he pledged against the her jaw, kissing and nipping his way down to where her pulse throbbed for him as he a hand through the loose locks.
And he began suckling at that sensitive spot just as a calloused hand slipped between her thighs.
“Mmmmm,” Nesta moaned smugly, gripping at his biceps still sheathed in the sleeves of his shirt as Cassian’s thumb ran up the seam of her dripping cunt through her panties. The lace a flimsy veil between her swollen clit and his hot touch.
“Fuck I’ve missed you,” he moaned into her neck, her head rolling back as he snapped her panties and began stroking his fingers through her soft folds possessively. “Missed those little sounds and your mouth and this pretty neck and perfect pussy.”
“Then cut out the all bark no bite bullshit and prove it,” she breathed.
“Yes ma’am,” he murmured thickly, the pad of his thumb coming to her clit and she moaned as he circled the sensitive bundle of nerves expertly. Her nails pressing into his shoulders, a few through the hiss of his shirt but the others carving crescents into the bronze muscle and tattoos like the meat of an apple.
His forefinger began teasing at her tight entrance and Nesta’s breath caught.
“Tease me and you’ll fucking regret it,” she warned thickly, and he pushed the digit inside.
The intrusion was far from the thick, eight inches she craved, but when he curled his finger against a sensitive, swollen spot deep inside her Nesta keened aloud.
“You look so fucking good like this,” Cassian breathed, husky and bestial as he crooked his finger inside her over and over.
“More,” she demanded.
It probably wasn’t clear if she was demanding more dirty praise or physical attention but Cassian was a good boy and covered all his bases. A second finger pushing inside her that second.
She gasped as the snug walls of her cunt stretched to accommodate the two of them as he waxed lyrical about how hard her moaning got him. Their foreheads level and those deep brown eyes lathering her with his earnest attention.
“You’re dripping down my knuckles like a fucking peach,” Cassian told her as he thrust inside her over and over, the only thing more obscene than her facial expression and the breathless sounds she was making being the quite, wet noises his fingers illicited.
He hadn’t let up on her clit, and at the exact moment he decided to start curling those two fingers together, he increased the speed and pressure with which he rubbed at her most responsive spot with his thumb.
“Cassian,” Nesta moaned, her fingers running up the nape of his neck and delving into his hair, still pulled into that bun.
“That’s it, that’s so fucking hot, baby, I want your cum dripping down my wrist,” he growled softly. Her nails sliding down his scalp.
“You’re so fucking needy,” she got out, which only served to utterly delight him. His thumb working at her from an oh so subtly more intense angle that had a familiar buzzing low inside her threatening to pluck her apart at the seams.
“Oh my god fuck,” she moaned. “Uhhu, that’s it, just like that oh my god.”
“You gonna cum, Nesta? You gonna cum on my desk- Jesus I’m gonna be thinking about you moaning, long legs spread for me while you moan so fucking dirty for my fingers every time I’m sat at this fucking desk now, you know that?”
His words sent her over the edge.
Silently she threw her head back as her orgasm licked up every frayed nerve in her body. It was hard. And Cassian kept on working those thick fingers inside her and over her sensitive clit throughout.
Fucking her dirty and skilled. Prolonging her twitching and bone melting pleasure.
Until she was snaking her hands from where they’d wound through his fastened hair, and pushing him off her at the shoulders. Falling back on her forearms with a shaky exhale, thighs still trembling subtly.
Cassian smirked. And brought his fingers to his mouth. Licking up the length of the calloused, sticky digits. Eyes on her’s from behind those obnoxiously sexy reading glasses she had half a mind to slap off his face.
“You taste even better than I remember,” he purred.
“Then get on your knees.”
Her voice was shaky but he didn’t even throw her another of those antagonistic and gorgeous smirks, just sank down. All six foot whatever, two hundred and something ridiculous pounds of muscle. Knelt on the floor between her legs.
“Is initiative encouraged of am I to be strictly obedient?” There was that smirk.
“You can use your brain,” she permitted. Still out of it. But still dying for him to touch her again. “If only because I need to be convinced you have one.”
His chuckle felt like fucking heaven between her thighs. His stubbled jaw rubbing up against her aching cunt as he kissed her like he meant it. Open mouthed and his tongue then slipping out to lavish her dripping slit before he began playing with her clit with the tip.
Nesta moaned, chewing down on her lip once she located the dignity to quieten down so she could keep it that way.
Her previous orgasm should have taken the edge off, but it had only reminded her already whetted appetite what there was to gorge on. Leaving her pining for more and disastrously sensitive.
“Mmmm,” Cassian moaned deeply- though honestly it was closer to a growl which was hot- and brought those large hands to her thighs. Holding her open for him stoking the bruise-blue flame that writhed in her core and allowing him better access to her pussy.
“Oh god right there,” Nesta keened. His nose brushing up against her clit as he licked up her snug entrance, teasing his tongue inside.
He threw her legs over his stacked shoulders and obeyed, working his tongue inside her with shameful enthusiasm only emphasised by the noises he was making. Seriously he was putting her to shame.
In fact if she hadn’t been rapidly approaching another orgasm she might have thought he was have more fun than her.
Hands no longer occupied with gripping her black-clad thighs they came to her hips and waist. Coaxing her to slant forward at an angle that granted him an even more advantageous angle from which to eat her out.
She moaned, manicured nails almost clawing into his desk behind her. “Mhmm mhmm uh,” she gasped sharply at the sudden relocation of his tongue. Cassian capturing her clit in his mouth and sucking on the sensitive bud as he flicked his tongue up and down.
“Fuck, yes yes yes yes,” she was utterly breathless. “Oh god, oh fuck, I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum,” she whined.
Cassian fucking groaned and it was like he’d pulled at the knot in her stomach with his teeth.
The muscles in her lower stomach twitching as she came, the cushiony walls of her cunt pulsing tight and the only thing grounding her to reality.
Though she was just lucid enough to know Cassian was lapping up the nectar between her legs with audible and pleased snarls of pure, masculine satisfaction.
Nesta couldn’t say how long it took her to stop seizing, just that she was completely drunk on pleasure by the time her body allowed her to at least try and think. She failed completely. Wasted on her orgasm, on Cassian.
“Come ‘ere,” she said, breathless and doped up. Eyes barely fluttering open, heavy lidded and probably glazing over with unabashed appreciation as Cassian did as he was told. Rising to stand before her, thick arms winding round her waist snuggly and pulling her to him tight.
His sheathed erection pushed to her sticky inner thigh and his powerful upper body, chiselled and broad and comforting, warm and hard and dusted with dark hair, pushed to her’s.
His sharp jaw, like her thighs, was slightly sticky, and his mouth looked even more abused than it from the attention of her teeth. But the best part- better than his mid-sex blush or the way he was breathing all deep and powerful and hungry for her, were his glasses. They were slightly fogged up at the edges.
“Apology accepted?” He asked huskily, like he was already sure of the answer. Like he didn’t care because no matter what she said he was going to have her screaming for him till they were both sick of each other.
“Apology accepted,” Nesta confirmed. Splayed hands smoothing up his broad chest as she captured his lips in a wanton kiss.
“That still leaves your punishment though,” she whispered.
Cassian’s dark brows had barely risen before she’d pushed him back and he was falling into the chair again. Breathing deep and thrumming with a desire that destabilised him as he watched her slip a stiletto heel beneath her panties on the floor and flick them up into her hand. Prowling toward him and climbing into his lap. Hoping it wasn’t obvious that her legs felt like liquid.
“Hold these,” she demanded, feeding the bundle of lace into his mouth, his groan muffled by the fabric and her hands making quick and embarrassingly eager work of removing his unfastened shirt. All but tearing it off his sculpted arms that must have been as thick as her thighs- his body was ridiculous.
She griped his wrists before he could start doing something like feeling her up and brought them behind his head. Elbows out and biceps flexed, his hands meeting in the middle at the nape of his neck.
Cassian kissed and nipped at her fingers as she plucked her panties from his mouth with one hand, holding his wrists with the other.
He licked at his lips as though chasing the taste of her lingerie, eyes on her’s from behind his glasses.
She wasn’t gentle knotting the lace round his wrists.
“Oh,” he grinned, trying to move his arms.
He couldn’t of course, the physics working against him and rendering it so his only way out would be pulling until the lace snapped for a second time this evening. Still, it was a fucking gorgeous sight watching him try. Biceps and broad chest flexing.
Tied up and at her mercy she was dripping wet for him and slipped her tongue into his mouth as a little reward for how fucking hot he looked like this. Kissing him obscene and wet.
“Safe word?” She murmured into his mouth.
“Harder,” Cassian grinned. No doubt referencing her answer to the very same question the other night.
Nesta bit his bottom lip, puncturing the bruised cushion subtly and she tasted blood on her teeth and his tongue.
“Safe word,” she insisted once more against his lips, fingers winding through his hair with a drawn out and yearning pull.
“Amren,” he groaned`. Then added, “don’t ask.”
“Yeah we’re done talking,” she informed him dismissively. Unbuckling his belt and pulling it through the loops of his slacks with a swift tug.
Cassian’s hips jumped beneath her and she unfastened the button slung low on his hips, pulling the zip of his fly down. Parted lips close to brushing.
“Down boy,” she purred.
“Bit late for that,” he breathed raggedly, jaw feathering as she slid her hand into his boxers.
“God you’re adorable,” Nesta pouted, freeing his thick cock. Obnoxiously engorged and a dribble of pearlescence spilling from the uncut tip.
“Now be a good boy and don’t you dare cum until I say,” she warned.
And sank down on thick inch after inch of his hot, rigid shaft.
Nesta couldn’t help the arch that slipped through her spine as he filled her up, the stretch so acute it had her eyes rolling back with a flutter of her thick lashes.
“Oh my god,” she moaned breathlessly, hands splayed against his powerful chest. Thighs straddling his, her walls hugged him vice like and- Jesus, he rubbed up that deep spot inside her perfectly.
“Nesta,” Cassian groaned beneath her. “You’re so… fucking tight.”
Nesta rolled her head to the side in tandem with her hips, growing accustomed to the sheer size of him and eliciting a raw sound from the man before she removed his reading glasses. Fitting them over the bridge of her own petite nose.
“No backseat driving now, sweetheart,” she purred a little shakily.
She rose onto her knees only to sink back down again with a filthy twist of her hips. Repeating the motion again and again. Gliding up and down his cock with a tight and slippery friction that had her stomach flexing and his gaze heavy lidded. Encouraging, low noises escaping from deep in his chest that she wanted to bottle up and get drunk on.
“Uhh,” she keened, dirty and blissful, hands on his stacked shoulders. “Uhhu.”
“Oh fuck,” Cassian breathed huskily. “Mmhhm…that’s it…fucking ride me baby”
Nesta felt a familiar heat fan at her core as she drank him up. Every perfect, delicious inch there for her to use.
“Cassian,” she moaned. The sound tasting like sex in her mouth.
She fluttered around him again on an upwards twist of her hips, his cock pushing in and out of her snug cherry with a delicious wet sound. Just audible above her filthy moans.
Riding him was like sucking on a hard candy, that intense sweetness at the centre burning ever closer. And he kept running that damn mouth. Gravelly and deep, lavishing her body with sickly sweet and dirty compliments.
“Fuck that’s it gorgeous, just like that sweet thing fucking hell you’re fucking perfect.”
Powerful and dripping with raw fucking desire his body rolled upwards into her, slick with sweat and chiselled sinew. His cock burying deeper inside her. The sounds he was making just to top it off causing a tight fuzziness to tremble in her upper thighs.
“Oh my god,” Nesta moaned, hands coming to his face and lips brushing his as so she moaned a hot, “I’m gonna cum,” into his mouth.
Cassian groaned. Kissing her hard and deep.
“Cassian,” she keened.
She began bouncing deeper in his lap. Up and down up and down. His cock thrusting inside her hard and rubbing at her g spot just right while her clit grazed the coarse hair at his rugged hips. There was a bead of sweat gliding down the chiselled muscle that carved his broad torso, washboard abs flexing as he resisted release and Nesta felt the pressure between her thighs reach a fever pitch.
Grunting he bucked violently beneath her once, twice, and she was undone.
Nesta might have made a noise this time. Airy and hot and open mouthed against his neck as she buried her hands into his hair.
He was so tense beneath her, like pure marble soaked in the heat of the sun. Trying not spill inside her as her walls flexed with every hot wave of pleasure.
And once it passed his breathing was as ragged as her own.
“You did so good,” Nesta whispered at last against his ear. Voice wrecked like she were experiencing a sugar crash. Nibbling at the lobe. Tasting salt on her lips and eyes fluttering shut at the heady scent of his aftershave.
“Does that mean I get a reward?” he managed.
“Something like that,” she hummed, repositioning herself so that her back was to his chest.
“Nesta please. Just untie me, sweetheart,” Cassian whispered against her ear. Voice trembling like he’d shot up something good.
Nesta only chuckled, head knocked back so she could hold his eyes as she rolled her hips. Teasing, tormenting.
“The second you get your hands on these,” she brought her hands to her tits, giving them a soft squeeze and biting her lip, “you’ll be cumming and out of commission.”
Cassian growled, watching her feel herself up as she rolled her hips in leisurely circles. Sensual and dirty. The length of his hard shaft, thick and velvet smooth beneath her.
“Fuck,” he moaned huskily. Nose buried at her throat and lips working against her pulse point with the assistance of his tongue and teeth. Just as slow and through as her hips.
She gasped softly, grinding deeper.
“You know how good I can make it for you,” he purred.
“Mmmm,” she moaned quietly in agreement.
“Let me take care of you.”
“Cassian.”
“You make my name sound so sexy,” he grazed his stubbled jaw against the bruise he’d worked into her throat, the sensitive skin blushing warm at the contact as he moved his mouth to another location and started kissing and nibbling there. “Untie me, baby, and I’ll give you everything you want.”
Nesta smiled.
“Or I could keep you tied up and just take it.”
Cassian growled against her neck as she tilted her hips forward allowing his cock to spring up, and sank down on him again.
She moaned, loud and keening. Hands snaking through his hair behind her as she rocked herself up and down slowly. There wasn’t a lot of friction, but for now it was enough just to revel in how good Cassian’s cock felt. That last orgasm having finally takes the edge off.
“Fuck that’s it grind for me,” he moaned. His breath was hot against her neck and she could feel his heart beat. Feel every deep sound reverberate through his chest as she moved.
His cock rubbed up against her g spot, colours and stars bleeding behind her eyes like fireworks.
“Cassian,” she whimpered lowly.
It was so good.
Hands fumbling distractedly she brought her fingers to untie him. And he deemed it all the permission he needed. Tearing himself free with a growl. Capturing her mouth in a slow and wanton kiss as those big hands came to rove her body, taking his time to pull her apart.
His touch hot and calloused, Nesta moaned into his mouth as he ran up her stomach, her hips, her thighs, her tits. Massaging and glazing every inch of her with a rough heat that made her feel like she was going to explode. Her body a champagne flute dangerously close to shattering at the frequency of his hot groans and growls.
“Right there, oh right fucking there baby,” She moaned quietly against his lips, one of his hands rubbing her hip and guiding her motions while the other palmed at her breast.
“Yeah? You like that?” He dipped his head to pull down the straps of her bra and dress down with his teeth until her cleavage spilt from the cups. Pebbled nipples tight and rosy in the dim light, peaking over the balcony of her bra.
“Mmmmm,” he murmured against her throat, exploiting the sensitive spot as he made his way back up to her face and watched her plump tits sway. A hand running from her hip down her thigh and back up again to slip between her legs to stroke her clit.
Nesta whined softly.
“Cassian…more…”
She kissed him sluggish and distracted. The two of them humming and moaning every so often until he started caressing her clit tighter and her sounds grew more frantic.
“Fuck uhhu, uhhu just like that,” she panted quietly into his mouth. “Oh god uhh, uhhh more…more…more more Cassian fuck me.”
She was on her feet before she could complain that his hands were no longer between her thighs. Pushed up against the edge of his desk, hands falling splayed against the surface to stop herself falling across the wood and legs split apart.
“Oh!”
“Good girl,” he grunted deeply. “Moan for me.”
His calloused fingers came to her clit, coaxing her closer to the edge as the other gripped her hip.
“That’s it, that’s my girl such a good girl baby.”
Mouth caught open as though on a fish hook Nesta started seeing black splodges, the puddles flaring in her vision on every one of his thrusts. Deep and dirty and filling her till she was so impossibly full she spilt over.
“Fuck fuck just like that oh my god you’re so fucking tight, cum on my cock, cum on my cock, uh, uh, uh.”
Cassian finished inside her with a guttural sound as she came. Pumping her full one last time with a brutal snap of his hips.
She was vaguely aware of his ragged breathing against her ear. Somewhat sure her forearms had fallen flat against his desk and her head hung forward. Hair falling over her face and back arched as her tight sex twitched and fluttered around him.
Coming back to her senses took longer than she’d ever admit.
“Is that cctv?” Nesta asked eventually, head tipped back and resting on his shoulder. Eyes flicking in gesture to the tiny little camera in the opposite corner of the ceiling.
“Don’t worry,” Cassian breathed. “It’s switched off.”
She turned her gaze to him.
“Shame.”
He let out an exhausted and reverent sound that might have been a laugh. And just as exhausted, once he’d pulled out, he fell back into the chair behind him. Trousers pulled back up but unbuttoned.
Nesta followed in fatigued suit, working her dress back down over her hips and sinking to the floor, back against the desk. She probably shouldn’t have worn black… but the impending bill and judgement from her dry cleaner would be worth it.
“Friday night. Pick me up at eight,” she breathed.
Cassian grinned.
“You like Italian?”
Nesta rolled her eyes from behind the reading glasses askew on her nose, but nodded none the less. She was sort of screwed if she didn’t. Cassian’s adopted family were Italian on his father’s side. The cuisine was going to be pretty commonplace if they kept seeing each other she imagined.
“What are you thinking about?” He hummed, watching her.
Nesta smiled. Then crawled toward him across the floor. “How I still have that table cloth you call a dinner jacket at my place.”
“Was that plan b?” He laughed, snaking an arm round her waist as she climbed into his lap. “Hold my jacket hostage till I agreed to go out with you again?”
“No,” she glared at him softly, nestling into the crease of his shoulder. “Though I had thought about wearing it tonight. Just your jacket and a pair of heels.”
Cassian licked his lips as though contemplating the sight and liking what he imagined very much. “Next time,” he hummed distractedly. Less promise more pleading. “This was…,” his free hand roved down her side, the black fabric glued to her figure. “And these…,” his touch made her melt as he ran down her thigh and platform boot, her legs flicked over one another.
“Lethal,” he whispered.
Nesta scoffed. “You’re telling me. My toes are killing me.”
Cassian hummed sympathetically, fitting a heel in his hand and guiding the shoe off her foot. Nesta groaned softly and he did the same with the other boot.
“That bad?” He chuckled, starting to massage her.
“Worth it though,” she sighed, nuzzling into his shoulder.
Cassian held the door open for Nesta to emerge out onto the street first. The cool night air whipping lazily at her hair.
Their second date had been incredible.
He’d taken her to Gnocco in the East Village. Proper Italian food, fairy lights, and intimate little corners perfect for flirting over too many glasses of wine and playing footsie beneath the table. Not to mention casual enough to see Nesta Archeron fitted out in heels, a snug black top, and a jaw dropping pair of jeans.
Tactically quiet and effortlessly biting as ever, she’d been armed with passionate reviews on the podcasts she’d listened to or books she’d read that week. Asking him about his own week and listening thoughtfully in a way that had probably made him blush.
If it hadn’t, then the way she’d licked at the creamy vanilla gelato on her dessert spoon definitely had.
Cassian was far too tempted to slip his hand into the back pocket of her dark skinny jeans as he emerged after her, but he felt Nesta probably wasn’t one for PDA. Or more accurately, public groping. And he was determined to be on his best behaviour this evening. Determined to make her forget all about how shit-awfully he’d handled last Saturday.
Not that he hadn’t given her a thorough apology.
Consistency was key however, and there would be no lapse in his conduct any time soon when it came to Nesta. He’d lucked out so fucking hard in getting a second chance when he hadn’t even deserved the first with a woman like her. Clever and beautiful and passionate and god he had it bad.
Had been thinking about her all week. Their date the only thing getting him through the late nights that were pretty much killing him at this point and the days spent arguing with Helion.
Cassian had worked out who’d put a hit on his friend. And why.
The contracts Helion was in the midst of signing were of a more personal nature that he’d originally let on. His will to be precise. In which it was detailed that upon his death, the pharmaceutical powerhouse that was Day Inc. should be handed over to Saoirse Vanserra.
The married woman Helion had gone and fallen in love with twenty odd years ago. The mother of his child.
Not that Helion had been aware of the that little detail until recently. Terminally ill, Saoirse hadn’t wanted the secret buried with her, and had gotten in touch with her old flame to tell him her youngest was his.
Despite being well into his fifties, Helion behaved like a twenty-something at the best of times. But learning he had a son that actually was twenty-something had thrust him into a panicked play at accountability. Saoirse was going to die, and soon, but Helion would still have a piece of her, a piece of the both of them despite the estrangement that had haunted their relationship since the start. A piece he’d do every and anything in his power to do right by.
Which meant Lucien would inherit his father’s company when the time came.
But removing Saoirse from his will…it felt like signing her death warrant. At least that’s what he’d told Cassian. That it it felt like he was giving up on her.
Cassian wished Helion could process everything in as much time as it took him. But time was a luxury not even the multi-millionaire could afford. Not with Saoirse’s eldest, Eris, trying to take him out before the will could be changed.
As things stood, Eris was set to inherit anything of his mother’s- a compromise reached between Saoirse and her cunt of a husband who’d wanted everything in his name. The Vanserra court its own savage little patriarchy of snakes and vipers, meaning as long as Beron was around, what belonged to his sons, belonged to him.
Still, Eris was the undisputed second in command and Beron wasn’t getting any younger. If he could take Helion out before any changes were made to the CEOs will, and if Saoirse’s doctors were to be believed, Day would practically be his by the end of the year.
Maybe sooner. If Beron beat his cancer ridden wife to death upon learning she’d been left Helion Day’s company and why.
He doubted anyone would put it past the bastard.
“Hey,” Nesta’s voice tugged at his attention as they turned off tenth. “Where’d you go?”
Cassian snaked his arm around her small waist, pulling her against him. “Just thinking,” he said. And as hard as he tried to push those thoughts away, something of them lingered in his voice.
She raised a neat eyebrow. That little beauty spot above the arch lifting with it and the one beneath the corner of her plump bottom lip quirking just barely.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you do that before.”
He couldn’t help but laugh. Tucking her tighter to his side as he looked down at her. “That’s because the only thing I ever think about is you. And when I’m with you, I don’t have to do that, do I?”
Her blush was so utterly adorable it made him want to kiss her senseless.
“How do you do that?” Those eyes like the smoke of ice narrowed in sincere curiosity. It was a little terrifying. Which off course only made him like her more.
“What? Make you blush like a-”
“No,” she interrupted him with an embarrassed and chiding laugh, pushing at his chest slightly. “Say things, just say them- like the only thing that matters is that you mean them?”
Cassian smiled. “Not everything has to be done strategically, Nesta.”
“Says the military man.”
“And wouldn’t you say that makes me qualified to- okay fine, roll your eyes at me. Jokes on you because it’s actually very sexy when you do that so.”
Nesta laughed, her head falling to rest below his chest as they walked.
“Fortunate you say something to make me roll my eyes every five seconds then,” she hummed.
“And that I know just how to make those eyes roll back,” he purred lowly in response with a roguish grin, rubbing his thumb against where her coat lay over her stomach.
“Oh and you’re telling me this whole conversation wasn’t strategically constructed so you could use that line?” Nesta looked up at him.
“Sweetheart, when are you going to accept that I’m just incredibly smooth?” He grinned. “Besides, that wasn’t a line.”
“That was so a line!”
“You’d know if I was giving you a line.”
“Go on then. Give me your best line,” she challenged. Stopping dead and turning on him with her arms folded. Cassian didn’t let his arm slip from around her waist though. Kept it right where it was as he brought his free hand to tuck a lock of chocolatey hair behind her ear. Inspiration striking him.
“Are you a box of chocolates?” he asked, gravelly and suggestive. “Because I’d love to take your top off.”
Nesta really had the loveliest laugh in the world.
“That’s awful!” She put her hands firm against his chest. “How did you ever get laid before I took pity on you?”
“Um I’m gorgeous and rich,” he reminded her, both arms now caging her in.
“What a coincidence,” Nesta purred, their noses tucked against one another just barely thanks to his date’s shoes. No doubt expensive as they were tall.
“No coincidences here, sweetheart. This is all fate.”
“I’m deliberately not rolling my eyes just to spite you for saying something so cliché and dumb,” she murmured.
“Fine then. Fate and your meddling sister,” he admitted.
“Let’s not talk about my little sister right now,” Nesta’s hands snaked up to toy with the lapels of his coat.
“What would you rather we talk about?”
“I don’t want to talk at all,” she whispered. And pulled him down lazily to meet her mouth.
Cassian moulded his lips to the perfect pressure of her own. Hard and soft, her mouth like velvet and her body pressing into his tight and loose in all the right places.
Kissing Nesta was like brushing you fingers against the glacial softness of snow like flakes of glass. Irresistible and inevitable. Burning so soft at first before the sensation grew unbearably tender and acute. It reminded you that you were alive.
The movements of their mouths grew hotter, no less lethargic, but simply heavier. Like they had all the time in the world and planned to exploit every second.
So much for not into PDA, Cassian thought, as she coaxed his mouth open further with her tongue, his own slowly swiping to meet it. And he did slip his hand into her back pocket then, giving her a fond and pining squeeze which pulled her tighter into him.
The pads of her thumbs brushed at either side of his jaw as she arched a little, those perfect tits pushed against his upper body and he dug his fingers a little more possessively into the fabric of her coat. Bunching at her waist beneath his calloused touch.
Nesta sighed sweetly into him-
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Cassian swore. Tame Impala playing from his pocket.
“Looks like I’m not the only one who likes your attention,” Nesta laughed quietly, hands smoothing back to her sides politely. The little menace. Her effortless composure all the more devastating with her mouth kissed cherry-red and pupils blown wide as saucers.
He fished out his phone, and declined the call.
“Well you’re the only one getting it.”
She rose her brows as though she were impressed, winding her arms back around his neck.
“For a man who hates games you have game, Velaris.”
“Would you feel less wooed if I told it you was just Rhysand?” He admitted. Rejecting his busybody brother’s phone call a far less bold gesture than if it had been work.
Nesta’s little smile was like molten satin.
“That makes it even better,” she kissed him again.
Cassian kissed her back through his laugh, dipping her back slightly for a more indulgent angle, her arms lacing tighter around him to hold herself up. Like he’d let her fall.
Nesta was the one laughing now and it tasted like gelato and champagne and sunrises. He nipped at her lip as he pulled her back up with him snuggly, and she brought her hand to cup the side of his face, the other at his tapered waist.
“I should get going,” she hummed distractedly, hand gliding up his body like she didn’t even realise.
Her tongue caressed his slowly before he was muttering against her, “probably”, chasing the plush heat of her mouth.
They didn’t stop. Not even as Nesta was murmuring a disjointed, “heighten the…suspense…keep you…wanting and all that.”
“I’m already losing interest,” he purred gruffly, their jaws knocking intimately as the kiss became hotter and fitful, short breaths and hungry mouths. Her nails scraping softly up the nape of his neck and through his hair.
“And you’re looking for it in my back pocket, is that it?” She whispered, and Cassian gave her ass a firm squeeze as either confirmation or reprimand.
She bit his bottom lip, the nip of her pearly teeth giving way to a sensual sort of chewing that made his eyes roll back behind closed lids and his large hands wound through her hair to guid her head back so he could take charge. Kissing her slow once again but dirtier, thorough and wanton and Nesta keened almost silently.
“Found it,” Cassian said thickly into her mouth.
“Want your prize?” She whispered breathlessly.
“Yes please.”
Nesta slid her hand between them. Fingers brushing his belt, then lower-
Cassian couldn’t tell if he was relieved or devastated when she slipped her way inside his pocket and plucked free his phone.
She withdrew just barely from the kiss, switched it on and turned the screen to him. The device unlocked as both his hands tucked into her pockets and her manicured thumbs were tapping away.
Cassian brushed at the curved beam of her high cheekbone with his nose, trying to see what she was up to.
“What are you doing?”
“Callander says you’re free Friday. Or it did. Now it says you have a date.” She nestled herself back into him tightly, tucking the device back into his pocket, exploiting that teasing proximity to something else entirely and driving him crazy as she grazed his mouth with her own.
“Congratulations.”
Cassian grinned.
“Tha- wait just to be clear the date is with you, right?”
“Yes, Cassian, the date is with me,” she chuckled. “And I can’t wait,” her humming melted to something wordless and heavy as he kissed her again.
Slow and explicit he stroked his tongue inside and he swore he felt the flutter of her lashes against his cheek.
“Cassian,” she breathed almost silently and it burnt his lungs like freezing air.
“Can I take you home?” Cassian whispered.
“May I take you home,” Nesta corrected between the sinful caress of their lips.
“Please do.”
She was kissing the smirk off his face like she could taste how snug he was and wanted a piece of it for herself. Like she were working at a marshmallow or strawberry lathered with thick chocolate from a hot fountain of the stuff.
“Maybe you are smooth,” she whispered and it only inflated Cassian’s self satisfaction. “But we both know I like it rough.” Ouch. “Just like we both know you’re way too exhausted to have your way with me.”
He pulled back abruptly.
But his mouth had barely opened to argue when she gave him a definitive “don’t”. It was little bit arousing. “You said yourself how late you’ve been working. Have you slept at all this week?”
For all her icy glares and hellish attitude, at her core, Nesta was kind. She cared despite her pretences to the contrary and it meant she noticed things. Like how despite his lively grins, Cassian was out for the fucking count.
“That’s what I thought. You can screw me when I know you won’t pass out before making it to third base.”
“The only one who’d be passing out is you once I’m through fu-”
“Save that thought for a night you have the energy to see it through,” she said.
“But I-”
A quirk of her neat brows shut him up.
He growled a bitter but accepting sound. She was right, of course she was right, because she was Nesta and a Nesta was always right.
“Friday,” he promised. “I’m gonna cook for you, something fucking romantic.”
“More romantic than that sentence?”
“Look I may not be Keats but I know my way round a stove, so hold all sarcastic comments until I’ve fed you.”
“I’ll try, but I know for a fact you’re going to make that very hard.”
“How have you already failed?”
“Shut up,” Nesta laughed.
“You have the sexiest fucking laugh.”
“So you’ve said,” she blushed.
“And I’ll keep saying it if every time I do you blush like that.”
“Like I’m embarrassed for you?” she countered with an arched brow and a cruel twitch at the corner of her mouth.
“You’re so mean,” he grinned.
They made their way to the curb and hailed down a car on twelf.
“Want me to ride with you back to your apartment?” he said, opening the back door of a yellow cab that had pulled up for her.
“That’s sweet, but trust me, I can take care of myself,” she promised.
“Text me when you get home safe and sound just to spite me then,” he said from the opposite side of the door.
“I will. But you better not be awake to read it,” She gave him a lingering kiss before gracefully tucking herself inside.
“Night, gorgeous,” he winked, and shut the door.
Her ride had just turned onto fourteenth when Cassian decided against hailing his own despite the cold. It was only fifteen or so minutes on foot, and he could probably do with cooling down.
Though even if he had to trek through tundra to get home he suspected he’d still find himself burning up under a cold shower in an attempt not to jack off to the thought of Nesta like a fourteen year old.
Stuffing his already slightly numb hands into his pockets he began walking, his fingers brushing against his phone. He should probably call Rhys back.
The phone rang for a moment before his brother picked up.
“Did you decline my call?”
“Yup.”
“Bastard.”
“I’m sure Feyre will kiss your bruised ego better,” Cassian grinned as he walked. “Along with something else so long as she doesn’t hear you’ve been calling me names,” he added slyly.
“Are you threatening to tell on me to my wife?” Rhysand asked, a little wound up by the allusion to Feyre’s kissing certain places even if he hid it behind an unimpressed drawl.
“Are you pretending the thought doesn’t have you quaking in your givenchy loafers?”
“On the topic of not upsetting Feyre, she’s demanding a family dinner.”
He laughed deeply at Rhysand’s avoiding the question.
“That why you’re calling?”
“Partly,” Rhys said. “Work’s been…She wants to be around family right now,” he said with an all too familiar casualness. “You free?”
“For Feyre?” Cassian said without hesitation. “Yeah, I’m free.”
He would just have to pull an all nighter on the Monday.
“Thank you. And also fuck you for implying if it was for me you wouldn’t be,” his brother said.
“Well you called me just as Nesta was about to slip her tongue down my throat so-”
“Nesta?” Rhys interrupted. “I thought that was over?”
Shit.
In all the carnage that had been the last week he hadn’t bothered letting his family know he and Nesta were back on. The woman was a touchy subject and he hadn’t had the energy or balls to get into it.
While Rhys had been able to excuse Elain’s inactivity when the Archerons had been at their financial lowest, he’d never managed to extend that same courtesy to Nesta. Maybe it was because the first time they’d met she’d called him a cradle snatching whore. Regardless, Rhysand pretty much hated the woman’s guts, meanwhile his wife was desperately trying to lure her into the inner circle of the Velaris family.
Cassian may have been able to bench a number higher than his IQ but he wasn’t dumb. He’d clocked on to the fact his sister-in-law was using him as Nesta bait. In all honesty he was loving it. Nothing made him happier than helping out his family, and if that meant taking out an intelligent, passionate, stunning young woman, then really it was a double-win.
Taking a second to grind his jaw softly he was reminded to tread carefully. Not something he generally excelled at, but for the sake of his brother he could try.
“I know you’re not her biggest fan,” he said. “But Feyre forgave her years ago for bailing-”
“Well Feyre’s a better person than I am.”
“I’ll say. She set me up with a smoking hot model, meanwhile you’re trynna cock block me,” he tried.
“You can put your dick wherever you want, doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“I guess not,” he ground out. Itching to hit something at the implication Nesta was just “somewhere to put his dick”.
“Cassian if you want to date a biblical plague in human form knock yourself out, seriously, god knows Feyre will be thrilled. And Azriel, your moping-”
“I don’t mope,” Cassian interjected.
“Fine, your stropping-”
“Fuck off.”
Rhys’ laugh was about smug as the bastard’s crooning voice.
“Mor’s gonna kill you by the way. You put a two grand dent in her wine collection over a woman you took back the next week.”
Cassian groaned, wiping a hand over his face. The only thing worse than the hangover he’d had Monday morning would be Morrigan’s laying into him on this.
“Don’t you dare tell her,” he warned.
“Fine but you’ll have to do it before next Sunday, you’re bringing Nesta.”
“Hang on a minute-”
“Feyre wants a family dinner and if you and Nesta are back on that means she’s coming,” Rhys said.
“Boy you are asking a lot of me here,” Cassian sighed dramatically. “I mean I can think of a few ways to persuade her but most of them are illegal in a lot of countries,” he grinned.
“I don’t care if you have to roofie her and strap her to the hood of your car, just make sure she’s there.”
“Alright, alright Don.”
“Don’t call me that,” Rhys growled irritably to Cassian’s delight.
“What else were you calling about then?” He smirked. “You said dinner was only part of it.”
“I wanted to ask how things were going with Helion,” his brother said. “Any update?”
Cassian sighed heavily.
“This a secure line?”
“Always”.
“The hit’s Eris,” he said. “Apparently Saoirse does pretty well for herself if Helion kicks it and it’s looking like she won’t last the year. When she goes Eris takes the lot so he’s trying to take Helion out before he can change his will.”
“That little bitch,” Rhys interrupted.
“I’m not done. Guess who Helion might be transferring that inheritance to?”
“Is Azriel going to finally have the funds to build that sex dungeon?”
“Not quite,” Cassian said. “The money’s going to Lucien.”
“Lucien?”
“Turns out the kid’s his.”
“Fucking hell.”
“Seems obvious in hindsight to be honest.”
Rhys was silent on the other end for a moment as he evidently thought through matter.
“You said might, is he waiting on a paternity test or something?”
Cassian winced. “No. No he’s dragging his feet about changing the will altogether.”
“Why the fuck is he doing that there’s a bullet with his name on it!”
“You think I don’t know that?” Cassian hissed, trying to keep his voice down. “I’m the one whose gonna have to jump in front of that bullet if he doesn’t get his ass in gear. But he…he’s losing the love of his life, Rhys. I’m trynna cut him a little slack-”
“Slack Eris is going to have someone strangle him with.”
“I’m handling it,” Cassian promised.
Rhys went silent again.
“We could always just kill Eris.”
Cassian would have laughed at the unrestrained glee in his brother’s voice if the suggestion hadn’t been so tempting.
“No you can’t,” he reminded him, ascending the steps to his front door.
“Sorry, sorry, you probably want plausible deniability and all that- which is a shitty reason to leave a family business-”
“What are you talking about? I left because I don’t like any of you.”
“Dick.”
“See it’s that kind of thing that made for a hostile work environment I really couldn’t foresee a future working under,” he grinned, unlocking the door.
“You taught me words far more creative than that growing up, monte de merda-”
“Desenmerda-te, and don’t cuss at me in Portuguese carcamano.”
“I’m fucking Persian!”
“Tell that to your pale ass like unbaked garlic bread, minchia,” Cassian retorted in Italian as he tossed his keys onto the skirting board and shrugged off his coat.
“A fanabla!”
“Love you too, tell Feyre I said hi.”
“See you and Nesta on Sunday, I’ll text you timings.”
“No shop talk okay, she still doesn’t know anything about-”
“I know, I know, it’s not me you have to worry about. Feyre keeps asking me to hire her.”
“As what? Has Cosa Nostra began dabbling in the modelling industry under your direction, baby brother?”
“If I said yes would you come back to us?”
“I’m a one woman man, Rhys.”
“Jesus, it’s been less than a month.”
“At which point you and Feyre were engaged.”
“Nesta’s no Feyre.”
Yeah, Nesta has enough wit about her to know you can’t go round offering Mafia jobs like candy, he thought to himself.
“Whatever man, I’ll see you then.”
“See you then.”
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Alright, If We’re Gonna Play with Az’s Bonus Chapter, Let’s PLAY with Az’s Bonus Chapter (Pt. 2)
Yeah baby, part 2 of a PAINSTAKING close read lol.
Azriel winnowed into shadows before she could say anything he uses the shadows to ESCAPE, they are a coping mechanism, appearing at the door to Rhys’s study a heartbeat later. His shadows whispered in his ear that Elain had gone upstairs. It’s interesting that the shadows specifically report on Elain’s whereabouts here and not earlier, as well as later not reporting on Gwyn.
Rhys sat at his desk, fury a moonless night across his face. He asked softly, “Are you out of your mind?”
Azriel donned the frozen mask he’d perfected while in his father’s dungeon. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Rhys’s power rippled through the room like a dark cloud. “I’m talking about you, about to kiss Elain, in the middle of a hall where anyone could see you,” he snarled. “Including her mate.” It is not out of line for Rhys to acknowledge that this was stupid. If for no other reason than that it would hurt Lucien if he saw/felt them.
Azriel stiffened. Let his cold rage rise to the surface, the rage he only ever let Rhysand see, because he knew his brother could match it. Which is the mirror to something that Rhys notes in ACOFAS, that they are similar in their darkness. Because Rhys is really the only person Azriel can be himself with, completely, I think it’s important to acknowledge that this is unprecedented ground for them and specifically for Azriel. This is the first time Azriel can actually voice ANY of these thoughts out loud, and only because Rhys saw them, he did not bring this concern to Rhys himself. “What if the Cauldron was wrong?”
Rhysand blinked. “What of Mor, Az?” Also very not out of line thing to ask. Feyre is the only person Mor has really told about her sexuality, and so to Rhys and co. AND Azriel, nothing about this situation has changed in the past 500 years. The fact that Azriel is able to get over Mor, without that confirmation of her sexuality, because of Elain, is significant I think.
Azriel ignored the question. Hmm yeah, but he can’t keep ignoring this question forever, and that’s another reason he and Elain did NOT kiss in this chapter. He and his family and Mor all need closure regarding their relationship. “The Cauldron chose three sisters. Oh boy, I have a lot to say about the number three later on! Tell me how it’s possible that my two brothers are with two of those sisters, yet the third was given to another.” He had never before dared speak the words out loud. NEVER BEFORE DARED TO SPEAK THE WORDS OUT LOUD. This is the first time he’s even verbalizing these thoughts - of COURSE he doesn’t know how to navigate this conversation. This is raw emotion being spewed out right now, enhanced by the unresolved tension from his interaction with Elain.
Rhys’s face drained of color. “You believe you deserve to be her mate?” So, he says that his two brothers ARE WITH two of those sisters, which is a way to acknowledge the fact that both people in each pair accepted the bond and that it was a mutually built connection. Then he says “the third was given to another” which is actually really different. He’s saying that Elain was given to Lucien by the Cauldron, suddenly one member of that bond is not an active participant - and this is mostly true! Elain has ignored Lucien diligently, and she hinted about her lack of feelings for him when she asked Feyre why he should be entitled to her affections just because of the cauldron and whatever amends he has made. I don’t like Azriel saying that Elain is something to be given as opposed to a person to be connected to, but I’m not sure exactly what it means that he did that. ANYWAY, Rhys really does supply the word deserve, and we have evidence from earlier in this chapter that essentially proves that Azriel does not believe he deserves Elain, anyway. He is having an argument with Rhys, yes, but it almost feels like he’s arguing with himself.
Azriel scowled. “I think Lucien will never be good enough for her, and she has no interest in him anyway.” (THE ONLY TIME ELAIN’S ACTUAL FEELINGS, ACTIONS ARE CONSIDERED IN THIS DISCUSSION BTW) Also, not that he doesn’t answer Rhys’s question. For Azriel, this isn’t necessarily about what HE deserves in this moment, it’s about what Elain wants. Almost certainly, Azriel DOESN’T believe that he deserves Elain, but he sees the injustice of her being forced to accept a bond with someone for political or spiritual/societal reasons. So while to Rhys it may seem like Azriel is is putting Lucien’s claim down in order to boost his own, I actually think Azriel is trying to distinguish a different issue - Elain’s agency. This same thing happened with Mor and Eris. ABSOLUTELY THIS IS NOT ALL LIKE THAT SITUATION BECAUSE LUCIEN IS NOT ERIS!!! I am not trying to compare their behavior. BUT, Azriel would have dueled Eris for Mor’s agency regardless of whether or not she chose to be with him.
“So you’ll what?” Rhys’s voice was pure ice. “Seduce her away from him?” Rhys, I think, misinterpreting Azriel and it’s mostly not Rhys’s fault. Azriel doesn’t communicate well and is not currently communicating well. That being said, I wish he would give Azriel more benefit of the doubt.
Azriel said nothing. He hadn’t got that far with his planning, certainly not beyond the fantasies he pleasured himself to. HE HADN’T PLANNED ANYTHING, this whole conversation is just like a raw nerve.
Rhys growled, “Allow me to make one thing very clear. You are to stay away from her.” Well come on, now, Rhys, what if she doesn’t want to stay away from him? BE A FEMINIST RHYS, just add, “unless she wants to see you”!
ALSO, DID RHYS TELL FEYRE ABOUT THIS? MY MONEY IS ON NO, AND IF RHYS DIDN’T TELL HER ITS BECAUSE HE KNOWS HE’S NOT WHOLLY DOING THE RIGHT THING BY ELAIN.
“You can’t order me to do that.”
“Oh, I can, and I will. If Lucien finds out you’re pursuing her, he has every right to defend their bond as he sees fit. Including invoking the Blood Duel.” Another really big sign that this is going to play out Elriel style is the mentioning of the Blood Duel. Chekhov’s gun eh?
“That’s an Autumn Court tradition.” The battle to the death was so brutal that it was only enacted in rare cases. Despite being an outsider, Azriel had wanted to to invoke it when he’d found Mor all those years ago. Had been ready to challenge both Beron and Eris to Blood Duels and kill them both. Yes see? He would have done this regardless of Mor’s feelings toward him. Only Mor’s right to claim their heads in vengeance had kept him from doing so.
“Lucien, as Beron’s son, has the right to demand it of you.” But hey fun fact Rhys knows that Lucien is almost CERTAINLY not Beron’s son. Interesting to consider in context.
“I’ll defeat him with little effort.” Pure arrogance laced every word, but it was true. Again, Azriel is dodging Rhys’s points and is honestly being pretty immature right now, but he hasn’t actually said ANYTHING about an intention to pursue Elain with any of this. Rhys has filled in the blanks, and Azriel has responded to smaller aspects of Rhys’s macro-points with which he finds fault. I think this is also because he knows Rhys is right about a lot of the realities of the situation, but he is in the mood to be contrary right now, so he’s fighting back where he can stomach it.
“I know.” Rhys’s eyes flickered. “And your doing so will rip apart any fragile peace and alliances we have, not only with the Autumn Court, but Also with the Spring Court and Jurian and Vassa.” Rhys bared his teeth. Rhys’s motivations are based entirely on things that have nothing to do with Elain’s feelings, which is sad. But, they’re not insignificant considerations. Though come on dude you did pretty much enable Hybern’s arrival to Prythian by alienating The Spring Court with Feyre’s escape.“So you will leave Elain alone. YES, ALONE, because Elain probably is PRETTY FREAKIN LONELY If you need to fuck someone, go to a pleasure hall and pay for it, but stay away from her.” Low. Blow.
Azriel snarled softly.
“Snarl all you want.” Rhys leaned back in his chair. “But if I see you panting after her again, I’ll make you regret it.” I do think this is a really ungenerous description of what was happening downstairs with Elain. Their interaction was careful and consensual, we have painstaking detail to prove that, and it was far from panting/animalistic in action.
Rhys had rarely threatened punishment or pulled rank. It stunned Azriel enough that it knocked him from his rage. This is another person taking ANOTHER choice away from Elain. I think she may find out about Rhys doing this and I personally think she’s gonna be rightfully pissed.
Rhys jerked his chin toward the door. “Get out.”
Azriel tucked in his wings and left without another word, stalking through the house and onto the front lawn to sit in the frigid starlight. To let the frost in his veins match the air around him.
Until he felt nothing. Was again nothing at all. With Elain, he is SOMETHING. Because he feels things.
Then he flew to the House of Wind, knowing that if he slept in the riverside manor, he’d do something he regretted. He’d been so vigilant about keeping away from Elain as much as possible, Further evidence that Azriel never intended to fight Lucien or make a stink over Elain and had stayed up here to avoid her, and tonight... tonight had proved he’d been right to do so.
He aimed for the training pit, giving in to the need to work off the temptation, the rage and frustration and writhing need.
He found it occupied. His shadows had not warned him. I am not sure what it means that his shadows didn’t warn him. It could mean that Gwyn is protected from his shadows/immune to them. It could mean that his shadows wanted him to go see Gwyn - either out of a desire for Azriel to find some peace with her or out of curiosity as to who/what she is?
It was too late to bank without appearing like he was running. Azriel landed in the ring a few feet from where Gwyn practiced in the chill night, her sword glimmering like ice in the moonlight.
She stopped mid-slice, whirling to face him. “I’m sorry. I knew you all were going to the river house, so I didn’t think anyone would mind if I came up here and—“
“It’s fine. I came here to retrieve something I forgot.” The lie was smooth and cool, as he knew his face was. His shadows peered over his wings at her. They are… wary of her? They’re shy around her?
The young priestess smiled — and Azriel thought it might have been directed at his curious shadows. But she just hooked her coppery-brown hair behind an arched ear. “I was trying to cut the ribbon.” She pointed with her sword at the white ribbon, which seemed to glow silver. Some interesting language here and above (glimmering, glow etc.) to do with light, and again a juxtaposition between light and dark. But not a golden light, a colder/silver light.
“Aren’t you cold?” His breath clouded in front of him.
Gwyn shrugged. “Once you get moving, you stop noticing it.”
He nodded, silence falling. For a heartbeat, their gazes met. Gaze is definitely a romantically charged word, this is one of the tiny details that makes me unsure about the future nature of their relationship. He blocked out the bloody memory that flashed, so at odds with the Gwyn he saw before him now. I definitely do not think they are mates. I’m not closing the door on them being romantically involved, I don’t have enough evidence to do that, but I really think that if they were mates, Azriel would have known when he saw her at Sangravah.
Her head ducked, as if remembering it too. That he’d been the one who’d found her that day at Sangravah. Shades of Cassian’s reactions to Emerie’s wings having been clipped, in ACOFAS. “Happy Solstice,” she said, as much a dismissal as it was a holiday blessing.
He snorted. “Are you kicking me out?”
Gwyn’s teal eyes I have a lot to say about these teal eyes :) flashed with alarm. “No! I mean, I don’t mind sharing the ring. I just... I know you like to be alone.” Her mouth quirked to the side, crinkling the freckles on her nose. “Is that why you came up here?” I’ll talk more about this later, but there are a few small moments in the book where it seems like Gwyn might have a crush on Azriel, or some kind of special awareness/interest where he is concerned. I have seen almost no evidence that Az returns those potential feelings, except PERHAPS for the moment where he hears her screech and pays attention. But I think anyone would pay attention if someone screeched? Also he watches reverently as she cuts the ribbon, but that also feels like it would happen regardless of any romantic feelings he might have. But I don’t know for sure!
Sort of. “I forgot something.”
“At two in the morning?”
Pure amusement glittered in her stare. Better than the pain and grief he’d spied a moment before. So he offered her a crooked smile. He cares that she not be feeling pain and grief, as he does with anyone he deems good, and that is part of why he offers her the smile, as he clearly says right here. “I can’t sleep without my favorite dagger.”
“A comfort to every growing child.”
Azriel’s lips twitched. I think her irreverence matches his sense of humor quite well. He refrained from mentioning that he did indeed sleep with a dagger. Many daggers. Including one under his pillow.
“How was the party?” Her breath curled in front of her mouth, and one of his shadows darted out to dance with it before twirling back to him. Like it heard some silent music. This shadow is acting totally independent of him. She’s asking a simple question of Azriel at the moment, and he CAN’T hear the music he believes that shadow might be dancing to. Lightsinger evidence, I’d say.
“Fine,” he said, and realized a heartbeat later that it wasn’t a socially acceptable answer. “It was nice.” LOL I will say here that Azriel has to make a lot of conscious effort in this interaction. He makes himself respond in a specific way, which is not language that was used to describe his interactions with Elain earlier in the chapter. This could totally just be because he doesn’t know Gwyn that well, and certainly that’s a big part of it, but I think there’s something to be said for the fact that he is still filtering himself here with Gwyn in the quiet.
Not much better. So he asked, “Did you can the priestesses have a celebration?”
“Yes, though the service was the main highlight.”
“I see.” LOL
She angled her head, hair shining like molten metal. More glowing-type stuff “Do you sing?” I love Gwyn.
He blinked. It wasn’t everyday that people took him by surprise, but... which is great! Elain surprises him with the headache medicine in ACOFAS, Feyre surprises him with her intuition and tenderness throughout. I think this indicates that they will have a significant relationship regardless of its exact nature. “Why do you ask?”
“They call you shadowsinger. Is it because you sing?”
“I am a shadowsinger— it’s not a title that someone just made up.” It’s super-duper interesting that they actually discuss the fact that he’s a shadowsinger. When Feyre meets Azriel, she is curious, but specifically doesn’t ask follow-up questions or for expansion on the ability. Why specifically remind us here that Azriel is a shadowsinger and that Gwyn sings? If not to foreshadow something related to the ability and Gwyn?
She shrugged again, irreverently. Az narrowed his eyes, studying her. “Do you though?” She pressed. “Sing?”
Azriel couldn’t help his soft chuckle. “Yes.” I love Gwyn. She is the reason I now realize a lot of what I’ve been doing in my life is irreverence :P
She opened her mouth to ask more, but he didn’t feel like explaining. Or demonstrating, since that was surely what she’d ask next. So Az jerked his chin to the sword dangling from her hand. “Try cutting the ribbon again.” I love this so much. Maybe it is romantic, but I think that’s debatable. What’s not debatable is that it’s completely charming.
“What— with you watching?” It’s actually pretty funny that in order to avoid giving a demonstration of something that makes him vulnerable and puts Gwyn in the role of expert he flips it and makes her demonstrate vulnerability while he is the expert. Gwyn might be quite a bit braver than Azriel in some ways.
He nodded.
She considered, and he wondered if she’d say no, but Gwyn blew out a breath, steadied her feet and balance, and sliced. A beautiful, precise blow, but it didn’t sever the ribbon. SEE? Brave. I love Gwyn.
“Again,” he ordered, rubbing his hands against the cold, grateful for its bracing bite and the distraction of this impromptu lesson. Distraction is a notable word here. Azriel’s thoughts don’t really ever stray from Elain and his turmoil throughout this interaction, that’s what the word distraction tells us.
Gwyn sliced again, but the ribbon remained unyielding.
“You’re turning the blade a fraction as it comes parallel to the ground,” Azriel explained, drawing his Illyrian blade from down his back. “Watch.” He slowly demonstrated, rotating his wrist where she did. “You see how you open up right here?” He corrected his position. “Keep your wrist like that. The blade is an extension of your arm.”
Gwyn tried the movement as slowly as he had, and he watched her self-correct, fighting against the urge to open up her wrist and rotate the blade. She did it three times before she stopped falling into the bad habit. “I blame Cassian for this. He’s too busy making eyes at Nesta to notice such mistakes these days.”
Azriel laughed. “I’ll give you that.” I sense a lot of compatibility, just, again, not sure it’s romantic.
Gwyn smiled broadly. “Thank you.”
Azriel dipped his head in a sketch of a bow, something restless settling in him. Even his shadows had calmed. As if content to lounge on his shoulders and watch. This is another line that I think offers the most evidence for something significant between Gwyn and Azriel. It’s lovely that she has helped to settle something restless in him with the distraction - and I think it’s important to note that it might not have done the same thing had he encountered Emerie or another trainee on the roof. At the same time, maybe it would have. Also love that his shadows like to watch Gwyn. Lightsinger/Shadowsinger evidence! This all being said, I can’t really think of an SJM romance that is built around a comfort zone. I can think of many friendships that operate that way, but not so much with the romances. There’s usually nervousness and flutters and passion and… restlessness, somewhere in there.
But— sleep. He needed to at least attempt to get some.
“Happy Solstice,” Azriel said before aiming for the archway into the House. “Don’t stay out too much longer. You’ll freeze.”
Gwyn nodded her farewell, again facing the ribbon. A warrior sizing up an opponent, all traces of that charming irreverence gone. I love Gwyn.
Azriel entered the warmth of the stairwell, and as he descended, he could have sworn a faint, beautiful singing followed him. Could have sworn his shadows sang in answer. This feels VERY much like Lightsinger/Shadowsinger evidence. His shadows, as this chapter has demonstrated time and again, operate independently of him, and they react to Gwyn’s song. I also think it’s possible that Gwyn is sort of always singing, even when she’s not. Like she glows with song on some level, and that’s what his shadows are reacting to - because I don’t think she’d necessarily actually sing while attempting to cut the ribbon.
He slept as well as could be expected which means pretty much not at all y’all — he makes it clear he never expects to sleep well, but when Azriel returned to the River House to gather his presents before dawn, he found Elain’s necklace amid the pile. He pocketed it. Spent the rest of his day, even the blasted snowball fight, with every intention of returning it to the shop in the Palace of Thread and Jewels. How did the necklace get there??? Did Elain really put it there??? Seems like even more evidence that he assumes too much about her understanding of his feelings. Also, though, it seems really rude/OOC for Elain to do that. She gave up very quickly after he gave her a really thoughtful gift. SOMETHING’S FISHY.
But when he returned from the cabin in the mountains, he didn’t go to the market square.
Instead, he found himself at the library beneath the House of Wind, standing before Clotho as the clock chimed seven in the evening. Important to remember that this is one of the longest nights of the year, which means dusk is coming on later than it was when Nesta attended the evening service weeks/months prior- a service that started almost exactly when seven bells rang the time. It is very well possible that Azriel finds himself at the library as the evening service is happening. The one in which Gwyn sings. If she does have some kind of Lightsinger power in her, it may be that he was lured by that power instead of returning the necklace. Even if they always start at 7, he still arrives exactly at 7. The only point against this surmising that I’ve done is that Clotho led the service which Nesta attended, and yet she is here to greet Azriel. Either I’m wrong and the service is not happening at or around this time, OR the service can take place without Clotho occasionally, and this served the interest of the plot so that Az could speak with someone.
He slid the small box across her desk. “If you see Gwyn, would you give this to her?”
Clotho angled her hooded head, and her enchanted pen wrote on a piece of paper. A Solstice gift from you?
Azriel shrugged. “Don’t tell her it came from me.” Yes, it really doesn’t seem super romantic to re-gift a necklace to Gwyn. It just feels sour, if this is the start of a romance between them.
Why?
“Does she need to know? Just tell her it was a gift from Rhys.”
That would be a lie.
He avoided the urge to cross his arms, not wanting to look intimidating. He blocked out the memory that flashed— of his mother cringing before his father, the male standing with crossed arms in such a way that made his displeasure known before he opened his hateful mouth. This feels very important. We know VERY LITTLE about Azriel’s story, his past, and his family, and so I want to point out ANY and EVERY nugget we get!
“Look I...” Az searched for the words, his voice becoming quiet. “If there’s another priestess here who might appreciate it, give it to them. But I’m not taking that necklace with me when I leave.” I’m not exactly sure what it means that Azriel says this. It could be that he doesn’t want to make a thing of his potential feelings for Gwyn and so tries to deflect with this statement, both to convince Clotho and himself that it’s not about Gwyn. It could also mean that Azriel needed to be rid of the necklace, and wasn’t in the mood to fight with Clotho over an ultimately secondary (to getting rid of the necklace) impulse to give it to someone who provided him comfort and companionship at a time when he needed it.
He waited for Clotho’s pen to finish writing. Your eyes are sad, Shadowsinger.
He offered her a grim smile. “I lost the snowball fight today.” HE LOST THE FIRST SNOWBALL FIGHT IN 200 YEARS! And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t because Gwyn made him feel better the previous night. I think he lost because he is in anguish over the situation with Elain. Again, I understand that anguish shouldn’t necessarily be a romantic thing, but in SJM’s writing it often is. This is a romance series, angst is a thing, stakes are a thing. It’s not necessarily the most healthy, but it’s also not all-the-way unhealthy. He just feels strongly about Elain and there are a lot of obstacles between him and finding a way to resolve those feelings for good or bad.
I am a counselor for folks who have and are dealt/dealing with sexual, gender-based, and interpersonal violence, and if you want me to do an analysis of all of the relationships in SJM’s writing that aren’t wholly healthy, there won’t be any left over. Except for maybe Sartaq and Nesryn. they really do have their shit together. I suspend a fair amount of my disbelief and professional knowledge in reading these books because I love them and they are fictional :) Also, relationships are complicated. It’s pretty rare for me to work with a client that has a cut-and-dry, black-and-white story.
Now, in my PERSONAL NOT PROFESSIONAL experience, shit is messy, and messiness, even in real life, doesn’t always mean something isn’t worth the strife. Though absolutely abuse and assault are a whole other thing. I think it’s really good to think critically about relationship dynamics in fiction, because it’s a safe place to do great learning and reflection. I also think it’s important to consider that the rules of our reality are not necessarily the rules of the reality being written by an author. Maybe you personally find Azriel’s feelings toward Elain (as they have been expressed so far) are beyond redemption, and are unhealthy to a point where the relationship cannot be salvaged. But that is not realistically a reason that the relationship in question won’t happen. Pretty much any negative/toxic assertions that can be leveled against Elriel based on the VERY SMALL amount of first-person perspective we have in the relationship could be leveled against at least a few of SJM’s other endgame couples. Totally happy to get into this more and provide those examples :)
Clotho was smart enough to see through his deflection. She wrote, I’ll give it to Gwyneth. Tell her a friend left it for her.
He wouldn’t go so far as to call Gwyn a friend, but... “Fine. Thank you.” Not sure what this means. Maybe just that it takes Az a while to open up to people and call them friends.
Clotho’s pen moved once more. She deserves something as beautiful as this. I thank you for the joy it shall bring her.
Something sparked in Azriel’s chest, but he only nodded his thanks and left. He could picture it, though, as he ascended the stairs back to the House proper. How Gwyn’s teal eyes might light upon seeing the necklace. For whatever reason... he could see it. And here we have the most romantic evidence for Az and Gwyn as a couple. Maybe he is falling for her and that’s why he can picture her smile. I really don’t know. I think it could also be that he is happy to be able to make her happy, in recognition of the comfort she gave him the previous evening. Maybe he can picture her because of her potential lightsinger status. Thoughts?
But Azriel tucked away the thought, consciously erasing the slight smile it brought to his face. Buried the image down deep, where it glowed quietly. The image glowing, again, lightsinger-supporting language.
A thing of secret, lovely beauty. So now he is referring to Gwyn’s smile here. This is interesting, because Gwyn’s smile wouldn’t necessarily be a secret, but perhaps it is if you think of her as being hidden in the library, or that he’ll know about her smile and her receiving the necklace even though she won’t know that he’s the one who gave it to her. Or maybe he’s drop dead in love with her! Another thing that I don’t think is true given his stony attitude post-Solstice (when Gwyn is very much around) and the fact that he doesn’t seem to react viscerally to Gwyn’s kidnapping until Cassian points out that bad things could be happening to both her AND Emerie, as well as Nesta. He knows Gwyn just as well, if not better at this point, as he knew Elain when he reacted to HER kidnapping in ACOWAR. He was very riled, he was the one who noticed she was gone, he vowed almost immediately to go get her, knowing it might mean certain death (to be fair, he seems to have a bit of a death wish, BUT he’s still a pragmatist and doesn’t try to WASTE his life on things - either they’re essential to the court and/or Prythian’s wellbeing or essential to someone for whom he cares deeply.)
#azriel#azriel shadowsinger#elriel#elain archeron#rhysand#gwyn acosf#acosf#acotar theory#acosf theory#azriel bonus chapter#azriel pov#azriel x elain#lightsinger#shadowsinger
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the years start coming and they don’t stop coming
In which Lilith’s return distorts her brothers’ perception of time.
Part 2 here
You’ve never seen the demon prince look so embarrassed.
“I can call for —”
“No, it’s okay. They deserve this.”
But you don’t, goes unspoken. You can see the pity in his eyes, feel the palpable disappointment in the air. Even Simeon and Luke make sure to hug you extra tight before stepping through the portal to the Celestial Realm, and Solomon promises to check up on you after you’ve returned home.
Thanking Lord Diavolo and Barbatos for their hospitality, you turn towards the final demon in the council room and put on the biggest grin your breaking heart can muster. “Hey, c’mere.”
Satan doesn’t hesitate to throw his arms around you. It’s almost like he’s trying to make up for his brothers’ absence, the way he crushes you to his chest and cradles the back of your head.
You can’t find it in yourself to blame them. As far as miracles go, this is a pretty big one. Lilith coming back to life is an unprecedented event, one not even Barbatos had seen coming. Nobody has any answers either. She’s definitely not a demon, not an angel, not human; just an immortal who knocked on the front door of the House of Lamentation three days ago.
Her brothers haven’t left her alone since. You’re happy for them, you really are, but a bitter part of you can’t help but wish her return had waited until after the exchange program ended. At least Lucifer had the courtesy to pull you aside and thank you on his family’s behalf (though you’re quite certain you had nothing to do with your ancestor’s sudden revival), in addition to making a pact with you as a token of his gratitude.
With that, you could have summoned all of them to send you off just as effectively as Lord Diavolo giving the order, but it won’t be the same and you know it. Your only saving grace is Satan, the one brother who’d kept his head and anchored you in the sea of loneliness you’d been set adrift in over the last few days.
“I’m gonna miss you, cat boy.”
“I miss you already,” Satan laughs softly, pulling back with a warm smile. “I’ll stay in touch, I promise.”
You squeeze his arms affectionately and glance past his shoulders at the closed doors. There’s the smallest shred of hope in you that thinks the others will come bursting through any moment now, scrambling for one final chance to see you. You give yourself five seconds, silently counting down to a pipe dream, before pressing a kiss to Satan’s cheek and releasing him.
“It might not seem like it now, but the Devildom will always be here for you,” Lord Diavolo says as the world around you fades to white. “Farewell.”
.
.
.
“Did you lose track of time at the library again? You missed dinner last night LOL.”
“Levi, be nice!”
Satan only hums quietly in response. He can’t be bothered to correct the assumption; it’s a convenient excuse for when his brothers actually notice he’s missing anyway.
The irony of Levi calling him out isn’t lost on him. While the otaku is still obsessed with his games and shows, he’s no longer as shut-in as he used to be, venturing outside the comforts of his sanctuary more often. Satan has passed by the common room on many occasions to find him and Lilith gaming or binging anime together, and the content expression on Levi’s face proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the void from his Henry’s departure has long been filled.
“Oh, but speaking of,” Lilith sets her cutlery down and smiles shyly at the fourth-born, “I haven’t had the chance to explore the libraries here yet. If it’s not too much trouble, can you show me around and recommend a few books?”
Shrugging non-committedly, Satan continues with his meal, not once looking her in the eye.
.
.
.
You’ve always wondered how someone with the Avatar of Lust for a brother can have such terrible fashion sense. It should be impossible to go wrong with dressing for a funeral, but you guess life (along with a certain eyesore of a tie) just loves to disappoint you. Still, you’re too glad to have Satan with you right now to care.
“Thanks for coming.”
“Anytime.”
You lean into the demon’s side as he holds an umbrella over both of you. Your eyes are drawn to the flowers he’d placed on your mother’s grave, the only splash of color against the dull tombstone. For the longest time, all you can process is the pitter-patter of the afternoon rain on the plastic wrap of the bouquet, and the comforting weight of Satan’s arm across your shoulders.
“She was in a lot of pain,” you admit after a while, your voice slightly hoarse. “The doctors had to sedate her. She went in her sleep.”
“I’m sorry.” Satan fidgets awkwardly, not quite sure what to say. He’s no stranger to death, but the loss of someone dear is unfamiliar to him. “Perhaps Simeon can find out if —”
“No, no it’s fine. I just — I need to —”
The umbrella is forgotten as Satan catches you, lowering you gently to the ground when your knees give way. You cling to him desperately, and it’s all he can do to draw you close as you start to wail.
.
.
.
Satan barely makes it three steps into the house before getting pounced on.
“How was it? Where did you go? Ooh you lucky demon, I want to hear all the details!”
“Oi, oi! What are you babbling on about?”
“Don’t act coy with me! Lilith saw you at the florist’s yesterday with the most gorgeous bouquet of flowers!”
“Yesterday? But —”
“How come you never told me someone caught your eye? I would have dolled you up, lent you some of my clothes —” Asmo gasps dramatically. “You didn’t wear that horrid jacket to your date, did you?”
Wrestling a hand free, Satan musses his younger brother’s hair. “None of your business,” he growls, walking away with a smirk when Asmo immediately releases him to fix his appearance. “Who do you take me for, anyway?”
“Aww come on, just give me a hint! Do I know them? Is it someone from RAD? Ooh, did you meet them at the library or —”
Ducking into the safety of his room, Satan shuts the door in Asmo’s face.
.
.
.
“Thank fuck. Who picked your outfit this time?”
“Barbatos. And shut up.”
You grab Satan’s arm with a laugh and lead him towards your table, politely introducing him as ‘Stan from work’ to any relatives who ask about the handsome young man accompanying you. Satan’s usual mask is in place, but there’s no mistaking the gleam of wonder in his eyes as he takes in his surroundings.
“Finally,” you sigh, sinking into your seat and grinning sheepishly at the blond. “Sorry about them. It’s just that they’ve never seen me with anyone, so they’re really curious about you.”
“Well, I’m glad you invited me along. I’ve never been to a wedding before.” The romantic in Satan is openly basking in the ambience of the reception. “You mentioned that your niece had gotten married?”
“Technically my first cousin once removed, but yeah.”
“And you’ve not been seeing anyone?”
“You would have been the first to know if I have,” you tease, nudging him playfully. “Apparently a lot of people are put off by the way I dress. Too modest, they say.”
But not without good reason. The pact marks on your body may be slightly faded from disuse, but they’re still discernable if stared at hard enough: Lucifer’s at the back of your neck; Mammon’s over your heart; Levi’s curled around your right calf; Satan’s circling your left arm; Asmo’s dangerously close to tramp stamp territory; Beel’s just under your navel; and Belphie’s on your ribs at the side you like to sleep on.
Passing them off as tattoos without attracting the wrong kind of attention is a little tricky, so you’d rather take a page from Solomon’s book and cover them up. Being called a prude is easier than dealing with cultists.
(It also helps you to keep your mind off of them, because some wounds continue to hurt even after they heal, so there’s that.)
Sensing the drop in your mood, Satan clears his throat to get your attention. It’s only then that you realize there’s music playing in the background, and couples moving from their tables to the floor.
Your companion stands up and offers you his hand, this time with a genuine smile on his face. “May I have this dance?”
.
.
.
Lucifer’s tone books no room for argument. “This will be a family event, so I expect your attendance. Don’t think I haven’t noticed your little escapades over the past few months.”
“Tch.”
“Do I make myself clear?”
“Whatever. I’ll be there.”
Satan has to resist the urge to hurl his hardcover at the back of Lucifer’s head when he takes his leave. That’s no way to treat a book, after all.
Beel’s Fangol team has an upcoming match and it’ll be Lilith’s first time watching him play. She’s been hyped up for weeks, so it comes as no surprise that Lucifer would use the opportunity to turn it into a family outing. He’s been doing that a lot lately.
Gone is the stuffy first-born who can spend days in his office if left unchecked. Lucifer is still as strict as ever, still fulfills his duties to Lord Diavolo diligently, but it’s like he’s managed to master balancing work and play overnight. He makes more time for his siblings now, even if it’s to dole out punishments for their endless shenanigans, punishments that vary in severity depending on how cutely Lilith pleads on their behalf.
Lucifer has always doted on her, and she has him wrapped around her little finger. Belphie has even gone as far as corrupting her into pranking him, and she need only bat her eyelashes to get off scot-free.
Lilith was the catalyst for the Fall, her descendent the glue that brought her siblings back together, and her return the final piece in making their family whole again.
But you were family too, Satan thinks sourly, pulling out his D.D.D. to mark the date in his calendar.
.
.
.
When you invite Satan over to your apartment for tea, he never expected to be introduced to your new housemate: a handsome fellow with chestnut brown hair, sharp jade eyes, a runner’s body, and the softest-looking toe beans he has ever seen in his immortal life.
“Satan, meet Satan!” You hold out the tabby towards him with a shit-eating grin.
Both demon and cat blink owlishly at each other. The blond doesn’t know whether to feel endeared by the feline sharing his name or insulted that you would replace him so easily, but all it takes is a single bop on the nose with a curious paw for him to melt.
Satan the tabby, who normally prefers to scale your shelves and nap between your books, spends the entire day a purring puddle in Satan the demon’s arms, shamelessly relishing in pets and massages to the extent that at some point, you have a very real fear they might just end up absconding back to the Devildom together. Thankfully, some kibble and freshly baked treats help you separate the two for a while, at least long enough for you to get some decent conversation in.
You brew a pot of Earl Grey with the beautifully crafted tea set Barbatos gifted you when you had first moved in, and serve the scones you made earlier in the morning using the baking tools blessed by Luke during your housewarming. You don’t know if the little angel had actually imbued them with Celestial magic, but everything you cook somehow always lifts your spirits when consumed.
Satan has to catch himself in the middle of regaling you with Mammon’s latest half-baked scheme. The wistful look on your face is new; you’re usually eager to hear what his brothers have been up to, but something feels off today. He pours you more tea, slides another scone onto your plate, and waits.
“…Are they happy?” You ask after a while.
The demon knows better than to lie, even if it’s to spare you from the truth he suspects you’re already aware of. “Yes,” he admits grudgingly.
“I’m glad.”
Your smile doesn’t reach your eyes.
.
.
.
Lilith stands outside his room, holding a tray of tea and cakes.
“Hey, um, may I come in?” Her smile is both hopeful and uncertain. It’s a gamble, ambushing the fourth-born when he obviously has no interest in her. At best, he’ll make up an excuse to turn her away or just ignore her completely; at worst, well… she doesn’t really want to think about that. To her visible relief, he opens the door wider and steps aside.
Satan clears a space for her to set the tray down. There’s the briefest moment of hesitation before he drags your favorite armchair over and offers her a seat as well. He looks guarded but not openly hostile, a promising sign so far.
“You’ve been in and out of the house lately, so I haven’t had the chance to catch you. I thought we might sit down and talk,” Lilith says, pouring two cups of the hot beverage as she chooses her next words carefully. “The others told me about how you were born, but I understand that you are your own person. I’d like to get to know that person.”
A part of Satan is acutely aware of their one-sided relationship; he is familiar with her through Lucifer, but she has never met him. It makes sense for her to be curious about him, though Satan isn’t so sure he wants to return the favor. She reminds him too much of you in the way she prepares her tea, how she sits on your chair, her shy lopsided smile —
But she’s not you, and you’re not her, Satan has to remind himself lest he commits the same mistake his brothers nearly did after your lineage had been revealed. Now in a convoluted turn of events, it’s you who’s gone and Lilith here, and there’s no reason why he can’t give her a chance and treat her like the sister she could be to him.
It’s what you would have wanted.
Lilith tries not to let her shoulders slump too much when Satan quietly stands up and heads towards his door. She’s prepared to pack up and leave until she spots him grabbing several books from a nearby shelf.
“Have you ever read Mid-Fall Murders?” He asks, handing her a hardcover with a shy smile of his own.
.
.
.
“What’s it like?”
Satan’s grip on your hand tightens. “I don’t actually know,” he confesses, shuffling closer so that your shoulder and arm are pressed against his. It’s a strange sight, the two of you lying side by side on your bed, staring aimlessly at the ceiling.
“Will it hurt?”
“No.”
You’ve never heard a single word hold so much promise, but you have no reason to doubt the demon’s sincerity. Satan wouldn’t take pity on you just because you’re —
A light knock on the door, and in pokes Simeon’s head. “Ah, little lamb! I’m glad we made it in time.”
“Not so little anymore, Simeon.” You laugh softly, greeting Luke and Solomon as they trail in behind him. Satan brushes his lips over your forehead before getting up to receive your guests.
The day is as ordinary as it can be. You talk and catch up with your friends, trading stories and laughter over cups of tea that neither grow cold nor go empty. When the session turns into a mini book club gathering halfway through, Luke helpfully retrieves the debated titles from the massive shelf in the living room. He takes a while to find them; you’ve accumulated plenty of works over the years: recommendations by Satan, literature published under Simeon’s pseudonym, and handwritten tomes from Solomon to keep you in touch with your magic. The shelf is practically jam-packed with books, the only exception being a corner on the topmost tier, housing a little space that’s empty save for a worn green collar with a rusted bell.
Come sundown the five of you are still neck-deep in discussion, but as with all good things, the get together eventually reaches an end.
“Thanks everyone, it’s been fun,” you say, reclining back in your bed as Satan wordlessly cleans up. You squeeze his hand when he returns to your side and bid the others goodbye. “Hopefully I’ll see you guys soon?”
“About that…” Solomon clears his throat, wearing the smug look that usually accompanies a trick being pulled out of his sleeve, but this time it’s tinged more with excitement than mischief. “Simeon has a little present for you first.”
The guileless smile on the angel’s face betrays nothing as he steps forward and reaches into a small pouch at his hip. “Solomon, Diavolo and I have a theory. Now, keep in mind that this is all very experimental, but if it works, you’ll have more options to choose from, should you so wish.”
And then he brings out a ring.
.
.
.
“Are you, uh, are you okay?”
“Not in the mood, Mammon.”
“Oi, I’m trying to be nice here! Who do you think covered for your sorry ass when you came back past curfew the other day, huh?”
“What the hell do you want?”
“You may think you’re all stealthy and shit, but your eyes were pretty red that night. I thought you were at a book club meeting. Did something happen?”
“None of your business.”
“Argh, fine then! This is the last time I try to be a good big brother.”
“…Mammon?”
“?”
“...”
“...”
“I’m sorry.”
“Eh, what are you — you can’t just say that and then run off! Get back here!”
.
.
.
“Twenty, nineteen, eighteen…”
Lilith’s countdown echoes along the deserted hallway, prompting Beel to nudge the deadweight on his back. “Belphie, go get your own hiding place.”
“Mmngh… zzz…”
“Come on, or she’ll win this round with a two for one. Again.”
“…Just dump me somewhere she won’t find me then.”
A tall order, especially since Lilith can easily track them down by listening out for Beel’s stomach and/or Belphie’s snores. Still, the sixth-born lumbers through the house as quietly as he can, doing a one-eighty whenever he hears Lilith’s cheerful hums coming from the opposite direction. Technically they can avoid being caught if they keep moving, but that would be cheating. They hid in the attic previously so that’s a no go, their room’s too obvious, the kitchen too tempting, the common room too exposed…
Maybe Levi’s room? The otaku had sound-proofed his walls to avoid distractions from the outside world when he’s gaming, so it’s an ideal location to hide. He can stash Belphie in the bathtub and run interference until time’s up.
Backtracking, Beel breaks into a light jog towards the other wing, keeping his ears open for their seeker. It’s only because of his heightened senses that he’s able to pick up the faintest traces of magic on one of the walls, causing him to pause in his steps.
“Hmm? Why’d you stop?” Slightly more awake now, Belphie rubs his eyes and slides off his twin, who’s studying the blank space intently. “What’s wrong, Beel?”
“There’s something here, something…”
“It’s just a wall —”
“No, don’t you feel it? I know you weren’t around then, but it’s the same glamor as that time Luke went missing and we —”
Beel goes white. He whispers a name, a name not spoken in the house for years, and a door flickers into view. One hand grabs Belphie’s in a death grip as the other twists the knob and pushes the door open, revealing an old yet familiar room.
The place is devoid of life. Most of the furniture are covered by sheets, resting under thick layers of dust. In the middle sits a tree, sagging with age and soft with rot. Sunken footprints mark the demons’ furtive venture into decrepit memory, and the creaking of floorboards with every step only tethers the growing nightmare closer to reality.
A photo frame crashes to the ground.
.
.
.
They deserve this.
Satan feels it the moment the spell concealing your room was broken. It had been his way of protecting your memory, ensuring that your sanctuary would only be accessible to those who made the effort to remember you. He cast it about a year after you had left the Devildom, after he realized that leaving your door in plain sight wasn’t doing you any favors.
Hidden away in an alcove at the back of the garden, curled up with a blanket and a thermos of hot tea, Satan slides a bookmark between the pages of his latest novel and leans his head back, closing his eyes with a heavy sigh.
Even this far away from the house, he can hear the cacophony of screams and shouts, objects being flung and shattered into pieces, a muted bang suggesting that a wall has just collapsed. The fallout comes as no surprise; waking up after living the past hundred years or so in a daze will do that to a person – or in this case, demons.
Although the sounds of fighting call to the rage bubbling within him, the vindictive thoughts of his brothers getting their just desserts cool it to a simmer. He knows he’ll have to face them eventually, but he’ll cross that bridge when he gets to it.
“Meow?”
Emerald eyes blink open. There’s a faint rustle from the nearby bushes as a tiny Calico wanders out of the foliage, peering around the garden curiously. Upon spotting the blond demon, it perks up and makes a beeline for him.
“Hm? You’re not Callie. Are you new here, little one?” His mood considerably improved, Satan extends a hand towards the kitten. It skips the finger sniffing step and goes straight to headbutting his palm, begging for attention.
“You’re an affectionate one, aren’t you?” Satan caves immediately and scritches away with a delighted chuckle. He examines the markings on its tri-colored fur, wanting to recognize the friendly feline if it comes back in the future. The Calico is mostly white with patches of brown and black splashed over the back of its neck, near the base of its tail, just under the side of its ribs, and several other spots that seem to collectively resemble a familiar pattern…
Satan’s hand stills. He whispers your name, trembling with hope, and the kitten practically leaps into his arms, nuzzling his chin with a happy purr.
#writing#obey me#obey me fanfic#obey me lucifer#obey me mammon#obey me leviathan#obey me satan#obey me asmodeus#obey me beelzebub#obey me belphegor#obey me lilith#obey me diavolo#obey me barbatos#obey me simeon#obey me luke#obey me solomon#obey me replaced mc au
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So I was wondering if you'd also write for other members from the thieves guild? Lately some of them have caught my interest like cynric, niruin, rune, especially thrynn but I can find nothing about them. If you do write about them could I pretty please get some thrynn hc? Literally anything would satisfy me rn
sorry this is late anon i’ve never read or written for thrynn so i hope this satisfies!!
content warnings: explicit sex and language. Minors DNI
he’s not stealthy. you like to watch him work because it’s just so different from everyone else in the thieves guild. he knows that he’s deadly and wants his prey to know that he’s coming for them. his name carries weight to those who know his history with the bandits and he likes to intimidate them.
thrynn is absolutely the person you want with you when travelling. he knows the woods better than anyone else in the guild. he knows all of the bandit hiding spots and where to find the best place to make camp. you can see him switch modes when out in the wilderness - telling you to stand aside while he sets up the bedrolls close to the empty fire pit. when you complain about the chilly air and setting sun he simply says “guess we're sharing a bed roll, then.”
it’s hard to earn his trust. he probably doesn’t trust you until you’re made guild master and prove yourself beyond a shadow of a doubt that you’re fully dedicated to the guild and its members. he’s closed off, telling you the one story about himself and nothing more. you overhear bits and pieces about him from the others - he does Maven’s dirty work, he has a foul mouth and a good sense of humor. you want to get to know him.
once you become the guild master though he’s fiercely loyal. some of the others are loyal just to the guild but he is loyal to you. he’s at your side whenever you’re leaving the rift, explaining that after the way his clan tore itself apart he can only be loyal to people who prove themselves worthy.
*ns fw* he’s not private when he’s fucking you. he spent years in a bandit clan and living in the Cistern, he doesn’t care who overhears. he wants to hear you moan his name no matter where you are. he’ll fuck you in his bunk, on the road to some job, it doesn’t matter. he isn’t shy about his feelings for you, why should this be any different?
he’s really intense about everyone in the guild knowing how to protect themselves. if the recruits are young he uses a wooden sword and blunted dagger, showing them exactly where to hit on an attacker to stay alive. one day he dares you to show him how strong you are, to show him that you can defend yourself. he spends the next week with a split lip, asking you to kiss it whenever possible.
it’s really hard to get thrynn to relax. you try everything - sex, long walks, weapons practice, it doesn’t matter. he’s spent so much of his life anticipating the next attack that it’s a struggle for him to turn off the survival side of his brain. it only really happens late at night when you’re travelling, the night sky above you and some wine in his system.
thrynn confides in you one night that he wants you two to escape the thieves guild someday. you’ve heard him mention that he’ll take maven’s worse jobs just because they pay well, never once knowing what he was spending the money on. it turns out that his coins were tucked away for the future. all he knows is that he wants to move somewhere cold, somewhere remote, where his past can’t catch up to his loved ones.
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Fly Away my Love || Chapter 1: Step Out (Stray Kids Reader Insert AU)
Masterlist
You didn't have any plan in mind when you escaped, and that left you lost in the wide-open world. Luckily for you, you found some helping hands along the way who proved to be more than strangers who were in the same boat as you...they became something more, and you couldn't be more thankful for the eight men by your side. Stray Kids Supernatural Abilities AU! Platonic relationships as of now~
Warnings: Some violence with mentions of getting hurt, blood, and guns.
Run.
Get out of here!
Faster.
I can’t leave you behind!
Fear.
Stop it!
Go.
You panted as you struggled to keep yourself in the air. The air was cold and dry, and your throat was quickly parched as you tried to gulp down air. The sweat that was causing your clothes to stick to your body felt cold and sticky in the cool air. Making you feel simultaneously hot and cold as your nerves felt alight with burning pain. The sky surrounding you was a light gray that allowed you to see without squinting into the sun but it seemed to suck the color out of the landscape below you.
You knew your wings were already damaged, and to suddenly throw them into heavy use caused a loud protest. You could feel everything that was happening on your wings, you could feel every brush of a feather against another, and every wound screamed as if it were on fire. You heard the sound of guns and blindly swerved in the air, hoping that it was trained on your previous position and that you would escape unscathed. However, that hope was in vain.
You let out a cry as a new wound bloomed from the tip of your wing. You could feel hot liquid leaking out and knew without looking that it was dying your white wing red. More gunshots. Move! A voice desperately cried in your head and you tried to dodge something you couldn’t see. A flare of pain. You clutched desperately at your arm that had been hit. Renewed fire made its way through your nerves and your hand was soaked in red. Tears started to pour down your cheeks from the pain, and the flaps from your wings faltered.
There was another shot and pain erupted from your other wing. This time it hit the center and the pain seemed to seize your wing and make it unresponsive. You desperately tried to regain control as you spiraled to the earth. One wing desperately flapping to keep you afloat while the other was frozen in shock. The earth was rapidly coming towards you and you steered yourself towards an open dumpster that you hoped was full of things that would cushion your fall.
There was a loud crash as your body came to a screeching halt, but luck was on your side for once. While the crunching of metal and the clinks of glass made it sound like there were definitely some soda cans, the top layer was a few bags of thrown out clothes. You let yourself lay there for a second to try and catch your breath. Around you, your wings disintegrated into little white flecks that glowed a soft (f/c).
You didn’t know how long you rested there, one hand clutched around your wound in an attempt to staunch the bleeding (which was working), your breathing slowing down to a calm rate. It was strangely...comfortable. Sure, it was lumpy and you definitely wouldn’t choose it as a bed, but given your current state of exhaustion, laying there in the dumpster felt like the best course of action. You felt your eyes start to flutter shut and you did nothing to try and stop it, especially after your grand escapade. You just wanted to rest.
Your eyes shot open when you heard shouting, “find (pronoun)!” Your heart dropped into your stomach. You thought you had lost them. As it turns out, you weren’t able to get far enough away. Either way, staying in the dumpster would certainly corner you, so even though it felt like every muscle was telling you ‘no,’ you had to get out. Peeking your head above the edge of the dumpster, you checked the area to see that it was devoid of life. Good.
With a hand placed on the edge, you lightly swung your body over it and onto the ground. You checked again, and seeing nobody, ran in the opposite direction of where you heard the shouting. You tried to keep your feet from slapping loudly on the ground as you peered around corners and darted out. You didn’t know where you were going, you just needed to get out. Maybe find the edge of the town and hide out in the area beyond. You hadn’t seen anyone yet, but that didn’t mean the town was deserted. Leaving would lessen the number of eyes and the chances of you getting caught.
You didn’t get far until you heard someone shout, “there!” and you were running for your life again. You didn't know how many people were chasing you, but judging from the chorus of footsteps behind you, it was a formidable group. You doubted you’d be able to take on one person, but a whole group? Biting your cheek, you forced yourself to keep moving. While ignoring the fatigue weighing down on your limbs and trying to get you to stop. At least you had a break from running during your flight and your little not-nap in the dumpster.
You chanced a glance behind you to see how far your pursuers were from you, and you were relieved to find a space between you and the small group clad in black, but that didn’t mean you were in the clear yet. You were still clearly visible to the group chasing you, and if you faltered for a second, they would catch up. A small voice in your head wondered why they hadn’t shot you yet, considering how normally they never restrained like this, but you were too panicked to care.
You turned a corner hoping to lose them, but instead, a hand shot out and grabbed your wrist before pulling you close. Thinking the worst, you desperately punched and kicked against whoever held you, fighting back against the person who grabbed you and pulled you into the shadows. “Stop it!” the hushed yell commanded as the person fought with you and managed to pin you against the rough wall, “do you want to get caught?” a hand clamped over your mouth to keep you from screaming even though a scream threatened to rip itself from your throat. Both from pain and from fear. However, the rapid stomping of feet caused you to still and listen to the stranger. You knew with certainty what would happen if you were captured by the soldiers in black. Falling down that path meant going into a tunnel with no light. This stranger...well, you could always fight back if you needed to. Probably.
The stranger let out a sigh of relief, “they’re gone.” He reported and loosened his tight grip on you. You immediately took the chance and yanked yourself out of his grasp. He desperately tried to catch you and keep his hold, but you were too quick as you put a couple of feet between the two of you and glared at him. You could’ve run, and a small voice in the back of your head was shouting at you to run. Get out while you can. But whoever this was, he saved you, and you were far too curious to know why than to listen to the voice of reason.
“Why did you save me?” you demanded, a bit too coldly for someone who desperately needed that split second of kindness to save you. Your chest was still heaving and it felt like your limbs were heavier than before, but this was still a moment of rest that you hoped would give you enough strength to continue.
Even in the shadows of the alley the two of you hid in, his eyes seemed to emit a faint glow of red as he stared back at you. You couldn’t help but take a scared step back. You didn’t notice it when he held onto you, but he seemed to emit an aura like a demon. He noticed the fear that settled on your face before he blinked and shook his head, “sorry,” he apologized with a sweet smile and the glow disappeared. You blinked. Was that magic? Did he have something like you? “You were running from them, right?” he asked with the same sweet smile.
You were slow to respond as you were trying to be careful about the situation. Revealing that you were trying to get away wasn’t anything that would hurt you, right? “Yeah. Thank you.” Your response was curt. This was still a stranger, and even though there was the slight possibility that he was in the same situation as you, you weren’t going to let that sway you into making rash moves.
“I’m Seungmin.” You couldn’t help but stare at the dark-haired man in shock. He gave away his name so easily. He knew nothing about you, yet he was already offering this hand of friendship?
He was looking at you expectantly, waiting for an answer from you, “oh, uh (stage/fake name. Will be abbreviated as s/n from now on).” He didn’t seem to hold any ill intent, but you weren’t going to be so trusting.
It was almost like he could read the atmosphere off of you and his gaze softened, “I can do magic.”
“Why would you say that?” you immediately snapped. The guarded look and atmosphere was immediately replaced with hostility. “You don’t know if I can do magic, and in this world, magic is a condemnable offense worth your life.” You took another step away from him, this time, not out of fear, but because this man was too trusting. If you let him through your walls and trusted him, if he went down, so would you, and right now it seemed like he would go down very easily. “Thank you for saving me, but I don’t owe you anything.” You took another step back away from him, he didn’t move closer to you, instead, he hung back with an almost disappointed aura around him. “I will be taking my leave now.” Without giving him a second glance, you turned around, gave a quick glance to make sure nobody was there, and ran off.
#stray kids#skz#stray kids au#skz au#super power au#kpop au#kpop imagine#stray kids x reader#stray kids reader insert#stray kids ot8#skz x reader#skz reader insert#skz ot8#stray kids x gender neutral reader#stray kids x y/n#seungmin#kim seungmin#super power#my work#kimi's writing
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Many of the women promoting the “cancellation” of men in comics, and demanding they post the recent empty promise known as #ComicsPledge, are in fact hypocrites. In this article, I’m going to present evidence of lies, collusion, rumor spreading, and, in my opinion, defamation and contract interference.
I personally know that they’ve colluded for YEARS to take down men. Specifically those with conservative politics and philosophies. This is an ongoing, coordinated effort. How do I know this?
Because I obtained access to their PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP.
This is Part 1 of the #Hypocralypse leaks
There is simply too much to put in one leak, so I will make the following three points for now.
1. The so-called Comic Book Whisper Network, which has been dismissed as conspiracy since 2016, is real, and I have hundreds of screenshots to prove it.
2. The Whisper Network has been targeting men and trying to destroy their careers, and use their connections in the comic book media to do so.
3. Whisper Network members have acted unprofessionally and unethically at best. At worst, they have engaged in what I believe could be illegal behavior.
MY STORY
I first heard about the Whisper Network back in mid-2016 from folks I knew at Image, DC, Marvel, and later, Valiant. Depending on who I chatted with, sometimes the group was called ‘The Women’s Network’, other times ‘The Whisper Network’, occasionally ‘The Whisper Campaign’, and eventually there were more conspiratorial names used mockingly (a friend called them a gender-swapped 4Chan, which became ‘FemChan’ to some insiders).
Regardless of the name, it was all the same group.
The same five or six names kept popping up in conversation over and again. As time ticked on, I noticed a trend on Social Media: half a decade of rumors, false allegations, cancellation attempts , and they almost always traced back to these same five or six people. The goal of this Whisper Network, according to industry folks, was simple: choose a target, smear them until they lose their reputation, their income, and are ultimately blacklisted – opening up job opportunities for the same people who started these smear campaigns in the first place.
Behind the scenes these “cancellations” are painted as morally or politically motivated, but in the end it’s all financial. As time passed, the group in question seemed more and more like a reality. I saw their influence. I saw things I knew to be verifiably untrue go viral online, appearing in what I thought were legit news sources. I felt angry and helpless seeing innocent people getting attacked, but did not know what to do.
A few years passed and by 2018 almost everyone I interacted with in the industry seemed to know about the Network, from top level editors right down to the letterers. It was an open secret, but no one was willing to speak up for fear of being targeted themselves. They knew the consequences.
And after all, this was a secret network. Without proof, there was no point in going public because members would just deny its existence, and use their media connections to smear anyone who challenged them.
THEN THINGS GOT INTERESTING
December 16, 2018, Whisper Network member Gail Simone, who joined the Network 6 years ago (4 years before the following tweet was posted), mocks “doofuses” who speculate that a “whisper campaign” exists.
At this point in late 2018, I was still skeptical of the Whisper Network’s existence. I’d heard many stories of individuals spreading rumors and lies, and plenty of malicious behavior was going on behind closed doors. Though I wasn’t ready to believe it was a coordinated effort, or collusion was involved. Then, certain people began openly mentioning the Whisper Network and my attitude changed.
March 26, 2019, Heather Antos, a member herself, did not outright mention the Whisper Network or her involvement, but she made what some took as a veiled threat to those who got on her bad side.
Heather “milkshake girl” Antos’ colorful backstory at Marvel, and later at Valiant, is notorious in the comic industry. A conversation about office rumor-spreading and bullying is never complete without someone bringing up a juicy Antos anecdote. Everyone has one.
Up until then, I still hadn’t seen ACTUAL PROOF of a larger scheme. But then, something changed in 2020.
January 8, 2020, Alex de Campi, who I would discover is one of the most active Whisper Network members, openly admits there is a Network. I have no idea if this was a slip or a brazen attempt to show off her power and influence, but this appeared.
Eventually, everything I had heard and read was confirmed beyond any shadow of a doubt after I gained access to their private Facebook group.
I WAS INSIDE THE WHISPER NETWORK!
This is the place where the Whispher Network has been colluding for years. And although their activity is not confined to just this site, from what I can tell, this was where they first met, and started their coordinated campaigns.
Members of the Secret Group called “Comic Book Women”
At present time, there are 440+ members of the secret Facebook group, called COMIC BOOK WOMEN. From what I can tell, a few are regular users, though many of them have never posted.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/comicbookwomen/
*unless you are a member, this will not show up in a search
Secret Facebook groups offer the same level of privacy as closed groups, but operate under a cloak of invisibility. No one can search for secret groups or even request to join them. The only way to get in one is to know someone who can invite you. Everything shared in a secret group is visible only to its members.
This secret group includes a list of members whose actions and connections speak for themselves. Members such as:
Zoe Quinn
Gail Simone
Alex de Campi
Heather Antos (aka Heather Marie)
Mags Visaggio (aka Magdalene Francis)
Mairghread Scott
And several key members of the group are women who work in the comics media and can be used to run damage control, including women like Heidi MacDonald of Comics Beat. They have contacts outside of the secret network as well, with some male allies in both comics and the media.
Just the fact that all of these folks were secretly linked in a private network came as a shock to me, considering their reputations and the accusations that they’ve made. Immediately I began to connect the dots…
They’ve denied for YEARS that they coordinate their actions in private. And yet they always coincidentally appear on Twitter, retweeting and amplifying each other’s accusations, signal boosting one another, and helping them gain traction. And their allies in media – Bleeding Cool and CBR specifically – will turn those same tweets into stories almost instantly & with no fact-checking or verification, sometimes within the hour.
I’m going to start explaining who the key actors are, and, from my perspective, how they coordinate these attacks.
KEY ACTORS
There are too many people to focus on at once, so I will have to break this into several posts, but I will start with one of the clear group leaders IMO.
Alex de Campi is well connected, despite never being part of the Big Two (since, from what I’ve been told management is well aware of her bullying, harassment, rumor-spreading and unethical behavior that goes back years, and depending on who you talk to she’s almost as notorious as Antos or Tess Fowler). She just wrapped up a graphic novel campaign on Kickstarter with David Bowie’s son, the Hollywood film director Duncan Jones. It grossed over $366K
All the while she makes baseless accusations while demanding transparency from everyone else.
Now, I’ll take you into their private network.
Two years ago, on May 13, 2018, De Campi launched a private campaign to target an independent creator, claiming she was using her connections to have Simon & Schuster cancel their book.
In addition to contacting the publisher, others in the Whisper Network coordinated their efforts to contact media outlets to have the narrative changed, according to the posts in this thread. Again, in my opinion, this could end up as a defamation or tortious interference case, and has many implications regarding media bias as well.
The following month, on June 23, 2018, de Campi posted private text messages between herself and writer Max Bemis in what appeared to be an attempt to damage his career. Despite Bemis being mentally ill (diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2014), de Campi still posted the private messages with malicious intent IMO. According to US and UK law this is an actionable offense: posting private texts without both parties consenting.
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Space Between [Aizawa Shouta x F!Reader x Yamada Hizashi] [1/9]
EraserMic x Reader
Part 1/8
Warnings: None, like 2 swears
You stare out the window of the plane, past your own reflection. In the darkness below, you can see the runway lights approaching fast, bright beacons in the shadow of night. You can hardly believe you’re about to land back in Japan.
It’s been years since you’ve set foot in the country, two and a half, to be specific, and to say you’re nervous is an understatement. You wonder if they’ll be there, your old friends, waiting for you. You’d called them earlier in the week, only ever reaching their voicemails, but you’d left them messages saying when you’d arrive…and that you’d explain everything.
When you left so long ago, it had been without a word. One day you were living your life, the next you were being shipped off to the United States, to work undercover. You hadn’t been allowed to tell anyone where you were going, or for how long. You’d just…left.
You hoped that they’d both be there. God, did you hope.
Not that they owed you anything, but the logical side of your mind told you they’d be likely to give you the benefit of the doubt, and hear what you had to say. At least, Hizashi probably would.
You’d known the blond since you were small children, having lived in the same neighborhood and gone to the same elementary school. You hadn’t met Shouta until years later, when you started high school.
The two of you hadn’t hit it off immediately. In fact. you’d found him to be aloof beyond measure, uninterested, and stubborn…but Hizashi really seemed to like him. So you’d made a point to try and get along, and it had eventually proved fruitful.
He had been difficult to get to know, but once you learned a little more about each other you’d found you had a lot in common. He was funny, in his own way, kind, and cared deeply about others, even if he didn’t show it on the surface.
And Hizashi seemed pretty pleased that you two had finally made nice with one another.
Your thoughts drift further along as you think more about the friends you left behind, the shaky beginnings of friendship, the stressful mayhem of your budding hero careers. You smile to yourself, recalling the shitty one bedroom apartment the three of you had crammed into in your early twenties, none of you being able to afford much more.
It had been nonstop work, back then. Double shifts for weeks in a row, extra patrols, second (and third) jobs on the side, all to earn enough cash to make your own way in the world. You’d been so grateful to have them back then. They made the hassle of it all worthwhile.
You’d come to the conclusion pretty early on that your feelings for them weren’t totally platonic, but you’d never had the desire to act on it. You were comfortable with where your life had been, and maybe fear had held you back, but you hadn’t wanted to risk messing anything up.
Besides, the two of them always seemed to pay more attention to each other than to you.
“Pardon me, Miss.”
You snap out of your thoughts when a gentle hand rests on your shoulder. You look up at the smiling flight attendant with wide eyes, electricity buzzing through your body where she touched you.
She lets you know the plane has landed and that the rest of the passengers have exited the deck (a quick glance around proves this), and that if you need help carrying anything to let her know. You thank her quietly, apologize for holding everyone up, and make your way into the airport.
—-
You squint as you walk into the building, which -even at such a late hour- is busy with people. The fluorescent lights almost burn your eyes, and the din around you is loud enough that you almost miss the sound of your name being called.
Thankfully, you manage to hear the quick footsteps behind you, before you’re scooped up like a doll and squished in a hug.
“Y/N! We missed you!”
You squirm a little in Hizashi’s arms, trying to regain your balance, but he only spins you in a circle and hugs you harder. You find yourself smiling, despite your earlier unease. He was here. He’d heard you. He’d come for you.
Out of the corner of your eye, you see Shouta meandering towards you, hands shoved in his pockets and donning his usual expression. You smile at him, too, and offer him a hug after you’re finally set down.
He’s softer and significantly more calm about it, but his grip on you is tight and warm. You sigh and lean into him, resisting the urge to stay like that for longer than necessary.
“I have a lot of explaining to do, huh?” you say, keeping your tone light. A fresh wave of guilt washes over you when you remember everything that’s happened, and everything you did. They were here now, but you could only guess what they were thinking and feeling; disappointment, shock, anger…
The three of you wander over to the baggage claim area, and stand in a small huddle while you wait for your things.
“Your voicemail said you were undercover,” Hizashi says, and you nod.
“Yeah, for two and a half years.” Shouta grumbles, low enough that you almost miss it. You fiddle with the sleeves of your shirt, avoiding their gazes.
“I’m sorry,” your voice is small, “Truly. If I could have told you about anything, I would have. The commission estimated the mission would only last a couple weeks, but…”
“Two and a half years.”
You droop. “It was supposed to be a small takedown, for some small-time ringleader in the states. Get in, get out, don’t get caught.”
Shouta watches a luggage bag pass by, carefully disinterested. “So what went wrong?”
You shrug. “Local lowlife ended up being part of an international smuggling ring. We could have taken the guy out, but then we would’ve lost the only source we had to something bigger. So we stayed, and we spied, and we put a lot of people in prison.”
Hizashi pulls a bag off the conveyor. “And you got yourself on someone’s shit list.”
“Oh, without a doubt,” you laugh, but neither of them do.
You reach for the handle of your bag, but Hizashi swings it away before you even get close. You roll your eyes and complain, but let him carry it anyways, the three of you lulling into silence on the way out.
Only when you’re outside do either of them speak again.
“You kept saying ‘we’, back there,” Shouta says, and Hizashi tacks on, “Did you have a partner?”
You’re quiet for a moment, pensive. Sad. Guilty.
“Yeah,” you try to keep your voice even, “I did.”
My fault.
You shake the thought away and pretend to miss the glance that the two of them share with each other, walking a few steps ahead of them. It’s obvious that it’s not something you’re willing to talk about right now, even if you weren’t exhausted from the flight and lack of sleep.
You reach the car before them, recognizing the old vehicle as the one Hizashi owned before you’d left.
“We’re glad you’re back, in any case,” he says, unlocking the side door for you to slip in. “It hasn’t been the same without you around.”
You smile at that, but you’re certain it doesn’t reach your eyes. Your mind is elsewhere, now, lost in old thoughts.
Shouta slides into the front passenger seat, peering back at you in the mirror. “We’ll be home soon. Try not to fall asleep back there, you know you get motion sick.”
You snort, but you can feel your eyelids falling. “I won’t fall asleep, I’m stronger than-” You break off into a yawn. “…Maybe not. Just drop me off at a hotel, okay? I don’t mind staying there for a while-”
“You’re kidding, right?” Hizashi plops into the driver’s seat, and starts the car. “You seriously think we’d just toss you out like that? No ma’am, you can crash on our couch!”
“It’s gonna be a couple weeks until I can find a place,” you explain, tiredness beginning to seep into your voice, “and I really don’t wanna take up space-”
Shouta reaches back without looking and pinches your leg. “Your money is better spent on new living arrangements,” he says, and you swat at him, “Don’t blow it on some shit hotel when you have people who want to house you.”
You grumble a little, but relent, knowing he’s right.
“So, you two are still living together, huh?” you ask, trying to change the conversation to something more comfortable. “I would’ve sworn you guys would have enough saved up to get your own places by now.”
“We’re engaged, so it makes sense.”
Your eyebrows shoot up at this, surprise evident in your expression. Engaged? Your stomach does little flips, and for a moment you’re not sure if they’re good or bad. On one hand, you’re glad they’re happy and together. On the other hand…seeing them after so long has definitely begun to resurface some old feelings.
You smile, masking the sadness. “I really missed a lot, huh? I didn’t even know you guys liked each other.”
Hizashi grins in the rear view mirror. “Some things came to light after you…left. We admitted some feelings, tried a few things out, and the rest is history.”
Your stomach sinks, all the butterflies you’d had instantly dying. “I’m glad you guys had each other. I’m…I’m sorry.”
Shouta reaches back again, but you manage to dodge his pinching attack this time. You slap at each other for a couple seconds, before you’re scolded for roughhousing in the car.
“You don’t need to keep apologizing,” he says, “we get why you had to leave, now. Besides, you’re back. We can pick up where we all left off.”
Where you left off, huh? Where you’d left off, you’d been overworked and pining hard for two of the dumbest smart people you’d ever known. Were you doomed to that fate again?
Still, you tell them, “That sounds perfect.”
#aizawa x reader#aizawa shouta x reader#erasermic x reader#yamada hizashi x reader#yamada x reader#this is a happy poly fic no worries#bnha x reader#mha x reader#reader insert#Space Between
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Sunrise
Fandom: Assassin’s Creed
Rating: Teen and up
Pairing: Shay Cormac x reader
Word count: 2344
Genre: angst
Shay is the Templar now, while you’re still the Assassin. Your love is as strong, as it’s forbidden. Yet sometimes the smallest things can mean the most. Inspired by “In The Heights”, this time.
Some people are unable to stay away from trouble by either causing them or finding them involuntarily. This kind of people simply cannot sit still when something is happening, they always have to be involved. Each one of you was that kind of people, you, Kesegowaase, Liam, Hope and Shay. After all, regular and peaceful people don't become Assassins, this kind of job is meant for uneasy spirits who can't stay in one place for long. They also must want to change the world for the better. At least this kind of thinking led you to the Brotherhood and you couldn't complain. You had an adventurous life, you were making the world more free with every killed Templar and you had your friends who always had your back. One of them was even more than a friend.
Shay was always the most energetic and impatient, like a white hot spark popping out of the fireplace. He acted or spoke first, then thought, compared to him you were almost stoic. Yet you had found a common ground easily, a lot like him, you doubted if what your Brotherhood was doing was right. You would've spend hours talking, joking and having fun, which ultimately lead you to develop a romantic relationship. For a very short time your life just couldn't be better. You were young, unstoppable and absolutely in love.
Unfortunately, your doubts turned out to be real. When Shay was sent to Lisbon, you couldn't stop thinking about him, you wanted him to come back to you, despite knowing he was fully capable of taking care of himself. One day, after painfully long weeks, you saw your lover coming back to the Homestead. You missed him dearly and you were pretty sure he missed you as well, yet when you ran to meet him halfway, you noticed he was upset. He didn't want to talk to you, he only said he needed to see Achilles. Soon you got to know what was bothering your man and you wished you didn't. Shay was right, the Brotherhood went away from its own tenants, but unlike him, you believed it could be fixed. You tried to convince him to help you, but he wasn't listening. Therefore he earned himself a mark of a traitor and was presumably killed, while you were punished for trying to protect him. But when you had found out he survived and joined the Templars, you stopped caring about the others. You had to see him.
Hidden in the soothing darkness of the night, when there was no moon and only stars were shining, you snuck out of the Homestead, triple checking if no one followed you. Then you infiltrated the Templars' quarters, where you expected to find your former partner. Finally, after a few hours of hiding in the shadows, you had found Shay's room. But as soon as you stepped in, he pulled out his sword and pointed it at your throat.
“I must admit, I am impressed. It doesn't happen often, that a prey comes to the predator themselves” he spoke trying to be cool, but you could tell his voice was about to crack. He didn't want to hurt you, even if he thought he had to.
“I'm not your prey” you answered, looking directly into his eyes.
“Why did you come?”
“To see you. Whether you believe it or not, I genuinely miss you. It's not a trick and no one knows I'm here. If you really want to kill me, go for it. But I don't think you can” you said daringly. Shay's hand trembled and he bit his lip. He certainly expected a trick, but failed to sense it, because there wasn't any.
“I can. You won't be the first Assassin who fall to my sword” he protested, but you knew he was bluffing. You could see it in his eyes.
“Really? You already forgot what was between us? How I tried to stop the others from killing you, because of my feelings for you? I love you, Shay. And nothing can change that, even if I wanted it more than anything. I didn't come here to kill you, I came here to see you and here's my proof” you exposed your hands proving you didn't have your hidden blade. That seemed to convince the man to lower his weapon.
“You came here unarmed? That's just stupid” he raised his eyebrow in disbelief.
“I'm not unarmed, I have a dagger, a few smoke bombs and some throwing knives. Everything that can provide me escape if something went wrong. But I didn't have to use them and I don't need them for now” you scoffed and unbuttoned your coat, then undid your belt and put them on the floor, clearly showing you didn't take anything from it, then you stepped away from them.
“What game are you playing, (y/n)?” Shay asked and you shrugged.
“I'm not playing any game. I missed my boyfriend who turned out to be not dead, so I wanted to see him. Now, would you allow me to come close to you, or am I supposed to take off something else?” you asked and his eyes lighted with feelings. Just like you, he couldn't simply ignore his heart.
“I have a few ideas” he admitted with a smirk.
“Then come and take it off yourself” you copied his smirk and opened your shirt, exposing your chest. That made Shay inhale sharply and unbutton his own clothes. At the same time he started to approach you and you weren't going to wait patiently. Your bodies crashed with desperation and longing, touch starved skin itched with the lightest brush, your clothes quickly became disturbing, so they had to go. It didn't take long until you both were naked and heavily aroused.
“I missed you so much, love” Shay purred as he kissed your neck.
“I missed you too” you whispered, stifling a moan as he sucked on your pulse point. For a moment the whole world was gone, Assassins, Templars, nothing mattered, only the two of you. It felt divine to feel him so close again, to make love with him, to forget you had any issues. The bliss lasted until the dark room started to light up a little, an inevitable sign that the night was coming to an end. Yet you kept lying in the arms of your beloved one, trying to figure everything out.
“Join me, (y/n)” you heard him say and you sighed. You knew he was asking for too much.
“I can't, my love. I understand your point, I shared your doubts, after all, yet I don't think there's no other option. There has to be.”
“They need to be stopped.”
“They need to be corrected. I believe there is a way to prove them wrong, to make the Brotherhood follow its Creed again. But becoming a Templar is not the solution” you lifted yourself on your elbow. “I respect your decision, Shay, but I also want you to respect mine. I will not betray the Brotherhood. I'm the Assassin since birth. If you're the Templar, that makes us mortal enemies” you stated, fighting back the tears. Shay caressed your cheek and you leaned into his hand.
“You were right. I couldn't kill you. And I will respect your decision, though I do not approve of it. I also can't go back to the Brotherhood.”
“Yes, I know. However this means we have no future together” you sighed and kissed him softly. “I wish we could have our happily ever after.”
“Seems like our fairy tale has no happy ending” it was Shay's turn to sigh.
“We have to catch little moments like this one. Before sunrise. When we are not the Templar and the Assassin, but two people in love.”
“It's sunrise already?” he asked with disbelief and looked at the window.
“It is. And I should go soon.”
“I wish you could stay for longer.”
“Me too. But I can't risk getting caught. I wouldn't want you to get in trouble because of me.”
“I don't care. I just want you” he pulled you close again.
“Anything at all can happen just before the sunrise” you smiled and gently caught his bottom lip between your teeth. He answered to that with a kiss.
“Promise me it's not our last encounter. Promise me you reconsider your allegiance. Promise me...” he silenced as he couldn't find the right words.
“Promise me you'll stay beyond the sunrise. That every time you see it, you will be thinking about me. That you will never forget our love. Because I promise I will never forget it. You will always be in my heart” you swore, marking an X on your chest.
“Why does it sound like a goodbye?” Shay looked at you with concern.
“Because I decided to leave the colonies if everything else fails. I'm not sure where should I go, but I decided that will be the best. If they keep ignoring my warnings, I will have to leave. I don't want to fight them and I don't want to fight you. And if I stay, it will happen sooner or later.”
“Maybe the Brotherhood needs a new mentor. Maybe you should take Achilles' place.”
“Would you be able to spare me if I did?” you asked and his silence was the answer you needed. “That's what I thought” you smiled sadly and slipped out of Shay's embrace. He watched you dress up with sadness and adoration.
“Goodbye, my love. I really hope we meet again” he said and you could tell he missed you already.
“I hope so either” you turned to the window and smiled. “Sunrise” you whispered and went outside, sending your lover one last look. Then you snuck back to the Homestead, which was slightly more difficult, yet not impossible.
“Where have you been?” you heard someone asking. When you turned around, you saw Liam.
“Doesn't matter” you answered, not even stopping by. Your heart hurt after your parting with Shay, you didn't care for much. But Liam grabbed your arm and turned you around, so he could look you in the face.
“You seem sad. What happened?” he asked and pulled your collar, to expose red mark on the base of your neck.
“Nothing happened, let me go” you protested and took a few steps back.
“Nothing happened, yet you snuck out, then came back sad and there's a love mark on your neck” Liam crossed his arms in his chest. “Did you meet with Shay?”
“Why would I?”
“You two were close, so I assume you didn't betray us then only to work for him now.”
“How dare you...”
“He's a traitor, (y/n)! You are supposed to kill him, not fuck him! Otherwise you're a traitor as well!” he yelled and you felt anger overwhelming you.
“I would never betray the Brotherhood! I love Shay and he loves me, but we're painfully aware of our allegiances. That night we forgot about them so we could be together, but I came back, because I'm loyal to my Creed. Even if I'm in love with the enemy” you confessed, unable to look Liam in the eye. “I value the Creed more than the man I love and while I share his belief that the Brotherhood is lost and doesn't follow its own tenants anymore, I know becoming a Templar is not a solution. Shay made his choice and so I made mine. I want to try to restore the Brotherhood, but if you keep being so stubborn, I'll have no choice but leave. I'd rather be a lone Assassin than join Templars or support your actions.”
“Then you can pack your bags already, because we're not going to listen to a traitor. If you're not with us, you're against us.”
“Fine” you turned around and ran straight to your room, where you packed your belongings. The sunlight was pouring through the window and you did your best to not cry. You knew however, that it was the only thing you could do to avoid unnecessary bloodshed.
“(y/n)? What are you doing?” Achilles asked, appearing in the entrance to your room.
“I'm leaving. I can't stay here anymore. Besides, Liam has just accused me of treason, because I've met with Shay” you closed your bag and looked at the older man. “I'm sorry, but I don't want us to fight. I also don't want to fight Shay. It will be best if I leave.”
“You just want to run like that?”
“And what am I supposed to do? I'm torn between my friends and my lover. I can't join him, I can't betray the Brotherhood, I've been the Assassin for all my life and I can't agree with Templars' philosophy. Yet I can't kill him, both of us had plenty of opportunities to kill each other and we couldn't bring ourselves to do that. Despite our allegiances, our love is strong and we can't help it. That's why I have to leave. Shay isn't going to stop, neither are you. I don't want to be a part of this. I'll do better if I serve another Brotherhood than get myself killed here.”
“Very well. Go if you want to, I can even write a letter that would help you get into another Brotherhood. But you are not allowed to come back. If any of us ever see you again, we won't hesitate to kill you” Achilles said and you nodded. Part of you hurt, it was tough to leave the place you had lived all of your life, you were also never meant to see your lover again. But the other part of you was relieved. You expected to be killed for treason, yet you had a point that exile was wiser. After all you were a good Assassin.
“Goodbye, Achilles. I hope one day you find the way to the Creed again” you said and not waiting for an answer, you had left to never come back again.
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Daughter of Darkness
Summary: Leaving the island had been a backup plan...and a last resort. She didn’t want to leave home, but by Hera had their actions driven her to. She’d grown restless with their stares and whispers...no more. But little did she that leaving had set her on a path she could never have imagined.
It hadn't been a day, one damn day in Gotham and Anna could feel the foreboding chill in the summer air. She made quick work of her armor and donned her sword, laso, daggers and shield. She made her way to the roof of the hotel she was staying at and flew to where the Shades where guiding her.
“The souls are there mistresssss,” the main Shade said pointing to a shed in the docks.
Anna nodded and opened a portal with a swipe of her hand.
She heard laughing when she entered the, fairly large, shed. The laugh made her bones quiver in a way she had not felt in a long time. She ducked down behind some cargo boxes using the darkness to her will and keeping out fo sight. She saw a white faced man with green hair in a purple suit slowly pace in front of the two figures there were suspended in the air. They were both masked and caped. However the one that surprised her most was grey/black suit donned by the batman.
‘So this is the famous Batman,’ she thought as she got closer to the trio.
The man, the clown, was pointing a knife at was clearly unconscious, which did not give her a good feeling. Men like the clown, enjoyed a show. She had no doubt he was going to do something to them both. But from the looks of it the clown’s main focus is to torture the man dressed as a bat.
“And with the bat down I can play with the birdy!” A white faced man said his already wide smile getting eerily wider as he approached batman with a zapping taser.
“Stop!” the young man, Robin, cried as he valiantly struggled to get free from his chains.
The screams that filled the shed chilled her to her bones.
An injured, and clearly, exhausted batman panted as he came too.
“Good you’re awake,” the clown said in a high pitched tone, “Was afraid you’d miss the show.”
The clown put the taser down and picked up a crowbar.
“Too bad Harley couldn’t be here to join the fun,” he said with a sigh.
But before he could do anything, Anna threw one of her daggers at the hand holding the crowbar.
The clown screamed as the knife went through his palm causing him to drop the crowbar.
He went to take the dagger out when Anna said, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
“And why ever not?” He asked
Anna’s eye twitched and with the flick of a finger an inky black tentacle wrapped around the knife and forcefully pulled it out tossing it in her direction.
“That’s why,” she said calmly as she caught the dagger.
She walked to the center of the dimly lit shed the darkness dancing like fog about her body as it licked her legs and arms. She saw the Shades circling, whom were they waiting for she didn’t know, she just had to make sure it wasn’t the two heroes doing a rather authentic impression of pigs for slaughter.
“So you’re the famous, or infamous, Joker?” Anna asked nonchalantly.
The Joker grinned widely and said, “What’s it to you sweetheart?”
He pulled out a gun and shot Robin point blank in the stomach.
“No!” Batman yelled and grunted as he struggled to get to his partner.
Joker then began firing at her
Anna easily dodged and deflected the bullets using her bracelets as she ran towards the Joker.
He in turn pulled out another gun and pointed it at Robin’s head..
“Come any closer sweetheart and I blow the boy wonder’s brains out,” he said cocking the gun as he moved to stand behind Robin.
Anna felt the Shades behind her hungry and hissing as they floated around the room.
Time seemed to slow as she made eye contact with the Batman trying to conveying that someone wasn’t going to leave here alive.
He nodded and closed his eyes.
“You can’t do it can you?” The Joker said cackling, “Can’t or won't kill just like the Bat!”
Anna growled at him, how dare this mortal! She pulled her dagger between her fingers ready to throw.
The Joker cackled again and said, “Girly can’t! Too good to kill are you!?”
Anna smirked at the Joker her eyes dark and predatory as she said, “You underestimate me for my sex. Typical man...You have one chance. Drop the gun and I’ll consider letting you live.”
The Joker cackled and pressed the gun harder against Robin’s temple.
“I don't think so, I’d much rather kill him than that,” he said and began to pull the trigger.
She swung her arm upward from where it lay at her sides, and with a twist of the wrist, the dagger went flying imbedding itself into the Joker’s skull.
Anna waisted no time and went to Robin, tore a piece of his cape of and added pressure to the wound.
She reached for the chain and pulled them apart with a firm tug.
Batman watching still in shock as this woman, the very same woman that had just killed the Joker, help his son down from where he hung.
“Is he alive?” He asked stiffly, then again after receiving no answer from the still occupied woman “IS HE ALIVE!?”
She heard his pain through the modulator and looked up after she’d managed to stop the bleeding.
“He’ll be alright for now,” she said rising from where she as kneeling over, a now unconscious, Robin, “The bleeding’s slowed and I’ve done my best to stop it until he receives proper medical attention.”
She turned to leave but was stopped by a hand to her upper arm.
She turned to the Batman a brow cocked, his grip on her arm tightened.
“Why did you do it?” He asked in barely contained anger.
“Most people say “thank you” and let things be,” Anna said pointedly, “If you’re asking about why I killed the Joker–”
“No one needed to die!” He yelled.
“What did you expect me to do!?” She yelled eyes glowing dangerously, “Incapacitate him while he held a gun to your partner’s head? Risk Robin getting killed?”
His grip tightened more around her arm and had to be at least a little impressed, this man whoever he is is stronger than the average mortal. He reminds her for a moment of the soldiers of old who’d seen and done things no other being had done. This one though, she could see that he’d seen too much possibly at too young an age.
“Let. Me. Go,” she said forcefully, punctuating each word, “The longer you try to convince yourself the Joker did not need to die, the less likely it is for the boy to live.”
She pulled her arm from his grip roughly and stepped into the shadows, “And in case you forgot, I gave the Joker an out. He didn’t take it and was about to bathe you in brain matter. If I hadn’t taken the shot, so to speak, when I could then a real tragedy would have occurred.”
Batman looked around the room trying to pin point where she was batarang in hand.
“Let me ask you this Batman,” she said evenly, “Was letting the Joker live more important than the life of your boy? I understand the need of such a rival, but when they prove too much to handle and end insight is what is needed.”
The fog of darkness lifted from the shed as she left, Bruce looked down at Robin and picked him up making quick work of getting him into the batmobile and rushing home.
//00//00//
Anna dropped into her room with a sigh.
“The boy shall live misstresssss,” a straggling shade said with a bow.
“Thank you, now let’s hope he doesn’t think it wise to hunt me,” she said as she took off her tiara and bracelets.
“He carries much within him,” it said curiously, “He has evaded ussss for years my lady.”
“The Batman?” She asked putting her weapons away. She saw the shade nod and gave a small half smile, “He is an interesting one I have to say, carries a darkness I’ve not seen in a man in centuries. I think times are going to get more interesting from here on out.”
00//00//00
“I must insist master Bruce,” Alfred said as he followed a limping Bruce to where Dick slept.
“She just...killed him Alfred,” he said as he sat on the chair next to Dick with a heavy sigh.
“Well, he was going to kill Master Dick, Sir,” Alfred said lightly.
“She gave him an out,” A hoarse voice said.
The pair looked to Dick both men breathing sigh of relief that is awake.
“She gave him an out...” Alfred said confused.
Dick nodded with a wince, “She told him to drop the gun and she’d let him live. But the Joker being the psycho that he is, was, he just said that the best course was to just kill me.”
Alfred had to lean agains the foot of the bed when he heard this.
Bruce had a thoughtful look on his face but he looked a bit lost if Alfred did say so himself. He knew this was going to be an adjustment for Master Bruce, he just hoped it lay to rest a few of his demons.
“I thought this would’ve had a grater effect on you Master Bruce,” he said instead of the former, “He had been a rather large part of Gotham’s criminal underground.”
“Oh it did,” Dick said laying back down, “He was beyond pissed, but I passed out from the blood loss before I could see or hear anything else.”
“She...made me chose in a way,” Bruce said quietly as he stared off avoiding any and all eye contact, “After killing the Joker, she asked me if letting him live was worth the risk of losing Dick...of losing my son.”
//00//00//
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Your thoughts on the Cursed Child giving us pure good Slytherins like Scorpius, Albus and Craig? I'm not a Slytherin myself but it's always good to see Hogwarts houses more nuance than a house being purely good or purely evil.
It's one of my favourite things about Cursed Child, honestly? It dismantles a lot of the preconceived notions about Slytherin, and it critiques Harry and his friend’s opinions on them. It takes that scene at the end of the books ("What if I am put in Slytherin?") and expands upon it.
I've already answered a question about Craig, so I'll mostly talk about Albus and Scorpius and their relationship with their house. It's interesting seeing or hearing how each actor responds in the sorting scene. Scorpius varies from annoyed, but not surprised - to happy and relieved, in Nyx's case. But Albus is always shocked. Sean changed her reaction up every time I saw her. Sometimes they were smiling. Still riding on the high of that conversation in the train carriage to Hogwarts - which made the look in their eyes at the sorting hat's decision all the more heartbreaking. And sometimes she was already terrified. Wringing her hands, her eyes darting through the audience as the hat stalls over Albus' house. And then it happens, and they go completely still with shock.
There's a lot of stock put into characters choosing their houses, but I don't think Albus or Scorpius had a choice. Albus didn't ask for Slytherin and, even if he did, how do we know that the hat would have put him there just because he asked and not because it's where he belonged? I think a lot of people used to misinterpret the traits of a Slytherin as purely bad or black and white. Ambition? Cunning? Doing anything to get what they want? Surely these aren't the traits of a good person. Surely no one that has the ability to be kind or selfless would be sorted into Slytherin.
But one of the major bullies of Scorpius and Albus is Polly Chapman, and she's in Gryffindor. Rose, also in Gryffindor, claims that she used to be best friends with Albus, but it's clear from their conversations that she doesn't talk to him anymore and that he doesn't trust her anymore. Even his older brother is a model Gryffindor student, and yet he teases Albus constantly. Something we forget is that these are all teenagers. Scorpius, Albus, and Rose are characters we first meet when they're eleven years old, and their arcs in the play end when they're fourteen. We're all still developing our sense of self at these ages. None of us knew who we were or what we wanted. We acted based on impulse and on years of influence from our parents, our family, our friends - anyone older than us who we believed must have known better.
There's something inherently flawed about putting eleven year old’s into houses that whittle them down to the most basic of traits. Because it's not as simple as that? Hermione could have been a Ravenclaw - she's got the brains for it, and the thirst for learning. But she could have been a Slytherin, too - isn't her ambition one of the first pieces of dialogue about her in the play? Craig could be a Hufflepuff. He's kind and loyal, he's quiet and shy. We see very little ambition from him in the play, although we do know that he's prefect and that he's clever enough to be able to do the Scorpion King's homework as well as his own. I think Craig is a perfect example of houses not defining a student's entire personality. He's the perfect example of how much more complex and nuanced these kids are, beyond what their houses say about them.
With Scorpius and Albus, we have a clearer idea of why they were sorted into Slytherin. We see how well Scorpius does in the other reality, concealing his true feelings and moving from each scene with such clear goals in mind and without ever faltering in his search for answers. There's something he says in the Forbidden Forest to Snape that I think sums my answer up really well - "The world changes and we change with it. I am better off in this world." Because, like it or not, he is popular in this world. He is well liked and respected in this world. He sees that and a part of him enjoys that - he and Albus even discuss it later on in the dormitory, and Scorpius reveals how much braver and stronger he feels for his experiences. But, as he goes on to say, "the world is not better. And I don't want that."
It's about the fact that, while he does enjoy being popular and respected, none of that matters because he still sees how cruel and jaded the Scorpion King is. He sees Craig cowering at the sight of him in the library and he hates it. Of course he fixes the world because he knows it can't go on like this. But he also fixes it because he looks right through the power and strength of his alternate self, and he sees a selfishness and cruelty that he cannot accept. When Sean's Albus would laugh and bring up Polly Chapman fancying Scorpius, Nyx would give the most unimpressed shrug. And then their voice would lower and their expression would darken, as they explained just how awful the Scorpion King was. How none of that popularity or respect mattered, because it concealed an evil that Scorpius hated to have found existed in himself, even in another reality.
And continuing with the theme of that scene in the dormitory, we also hear Albus dismantling his own actions that he's made up until that point. He worries that he only wanted to save Cedric to prove himself. He only put their lives on the line because he wanted to show the world that he isn’t just Harry Potter’s son. That he isn’t just a Slytherin in a family of Gryffindors - that he can be brave and heroic, too. But there are different kinds of bravery. And Albus could have done anything he wanted to remove himself from the shadow of his dad. He’s a clever kid. He’s cunning and resourceful - he’s more of a Slytherin than even Scorpius, who comes from a family of Slytherins. But instead, he overhears a grieving father begging Harry to give him his son back, and he decides to do something about it. He decides to put himself at risk, running away from school and changing time itself to save the life of a complete stranger. Because he sees the love Amos has for Cedric - the kind of love he doesn’t feel from his own dad - and instead of feeling jealous or angry, he... wants to help. He wants to do what his dad cannot and bring an old man his son back. That’s kind. That’s heroic.
“When Amos Diggory asked for the Time-Turner my father denied they even existed. He lied to an old man who just wanted his son back - who just loved his son. And he did it because he didn’t care... because he doesn’t care. Everyone talks about all the brave things Dad did. But he made some mistakes too. Some big mistakes, in fact. I want to set one of those mistakes right. I want us to save Cedric.” - Albus, Act One Scene Three.
“I know what it is to be the spare. Your son didn’t deserve to be killed, Mr Diggory. We can help you get him back.” - Albus, Act One Scene Fourteen.
"Cedric? Your dad loves you.” “What?” “Your dad loves you. Very much. I just thought you should know that.” - Albus and Cedric, Act Three Scene Twenty.
In the final scene, Albus talks about how he wanted Delphi killed for what she did, and he says that maybe this is his “Slytherin side”. Maybe this is what the sorting hat saw in him. Because even after everything, even after all that he experienced and all that he’s seen in both Scorpius and Craig and the other Slytherin students, he’s still held down by the misconceptions about Slytherin. And that’s so unfair? It’s unfair that children have been made to feel like this. Albus is empathetic. Scorpius is kind. Craig is loyal. But they’re put into a box that none of them asked for and that is so hard to wrap your head around at that age. Because you don’t know what you did wrong, but you do know that it must have been something because suddenly everyone treats you differently. So you try to explain it to yourself. You think of everything you’ve ever said or done in a different light. And you wonder if maybe, just maybe, you are what they say you are. And you start to doubt every part of you that’s good or kind or compassionate. And it’s something that Albus struggles with the most in the play. And I’m going to close this ask with some quotes from Draco to Harry, because I think I’ve gone on for too long and because what he said is very relevant.
“You can’t talk to Albus. I can’t talk to Scorpius. That’s what this is about. Not about my son being evil. Because as much as you might take the word of a haughty centaur, you know the power of friendship.”
“My father thought he was protecting me. Most of the time. People say parenting is the hardest job in the world - they’re wrong - growing up is. We all just forget how hard it was. I think you have to make a choice - at a certain point - of the man you want to be. And I tell you at that time you need a parent or a friend. And if you’ve learnt to hate your parent by then and you have no friends... then you’re all alone. And being alone - that’s so hard.”
“Maybe the black cloud Bane saw was Albus’s loneliness. His pain. His hatred. Don’t lose the boy. You’ll regret it. And so will he. Because he needs you and Scorpius.”
ask me questions about year two, year three, and other things!
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