#So much plot

[reiderwriter]

More Than Words

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female BAU!Reader

Requested: yes

Summary: After telling a white lie to your family about your relationship status, your forced to beg your coworker Spencer to pretend to be your boyfriend for a weekend wedding.

Warnings: Light smut at the end, penetrative sex, creampie, mentions of Spencer's childhood.

A/N: Thank you for the request on this one! Ever since I rewatched Season 7 and saw Spencer dancing with everyone at JJ's wedding I've been thinking non-stop about him just holding you close like that and I'm going to shut up now because 8k words of that is more than enough lmao.

You can find my masterlist here, and I just started posting all my stuff on AO3 as well, so if you prefer to read there, check it out!

Despite knowing about your brother’s impending nuptials for the last 18 months, it was in the final two-week stretch that you actually started panicking about getting the date that you’d promised them. It was one sweet little white lie that you had made that had just spiraled out of control, but you’d yet to actually manifest the secretive boyfriend who was “very real actually, mom, he’s coming to the wedding actually.”

It was that statement that had sealed your fate, and always one to wear your emotions on your face when you weren’t on a case, it wasn’t long before someone noticed your building anxiety and guilt.

“Okay, spill Y/N. You look like you just witnessed your favorite author kick a puppy or a kitten or something,” Penelope said when you dropped some files off in her room that morning, spinning around on her chair to face you as soon as she caught your reflection in her monitor.

“It’s this wedding I have to go to,” you sighed dramatically, falling into one of the other chairs in the room kept for visitors.

“Want me to help you get out of it?” Penelope offered, patting your hand comfortingly.

“I’m not sure my brother would be too pleased about that, since it’s his wedding and all. My mother would drag me down all the way from here herself if she had to.”

“Okay, so a no-show is a no-go. Then what gives, my sweet avenging angel? There has to be something serious to get you looking all glum.”

You sighed and ran a hand through your hair before straightening up and leaning into Penelope more, creating an air of secrecy.

“Promise you won’t tell?”

“Oh sweetie, if only you knew the secrets these four walls held,” she replied dramatically, pulling a laugh from you.

“Last year, I was so, I don’t know, jealous I guess, of all the attention my brother and his fiancee were getting because of the wedding, and it just felt like every time my mom called me, she would only want to talk about them because of the wedding. I felt left out, and I already live so far away anyway, so it’s hard to have that connection with people back home, so I might have told a small, tiny, inconsequential lie that now actually has consequences?” Your face flushes at the confession, and you can see Penelope trying her best not to blurt out her thoughts, intent on letting you continue.

“I told her I was seeing this guy. He’s amazing, he works in the FBI just like me, and he’s smart, and he takes me on dates to these amazing places, like museums and interesting restaurants and to book fairs. I told her he was handsome and that he looked at me like I put the stars in the night sky, and he just doesn't exist, Penelope. And now I have to disappoint my mother again by turning up to my brother's wedding without a date.”

“Oh sweetheart,” was all she said for a minute, and the sympathetic look on her face made you want to run out of there immediately.

“I know, I know, I need to tell her the truth, but I don’t want to do it at the wedding and spoil her happiness. She loves weddings.”

“And this fake boyfriend is supposed to be your plus-one?” she asked.

“My invitation read ‘To our darling sister and her mystery man,’” you groaned, wondering how you could have been so childish in the first place. You’d acted like any child on a playground would, inventing lies to make yourself seem more important and cooler.

“I think I have the perfect solution for you, angel, but you might not like it,” Penelope grinned from her chair, leaning back and playing with the pen in her hands nefariously as if she’d been waiting for this chance her whole life. You didn’t trust that look, but you had no other option, so you took a deep breath and listened to her plan.

–X–

Three days later, and you were suddenly pacing the hallways with a coffee and a croissant, poised and ready to kidnap an FBI Agent the second he passed you.

At first, you’d laughed at the suggestion she’d made, outlandish as it was. But 72 hours of reflection, and a timely phone call from your mother, and suddenly you were on board and ready to lock on to your target. You stopped pacing when you heard the elevator ding, signaling the arrival of Spencer Reid. You were thankful that his schedule was so regular and timed down to the minute that you had just enough time to ambush him in the hallway before any other member of your team noticed.

“Spencer! Here I bought you coffee and a croissant from that cafe I mentioned a while back,” you panicked, unloading the gifts into his arms quickly, taking him off guard, before checking left and right before pushing him into the nearest empty room and shutting it behind you.

“Good morning to you, too, Y/N. Is there a reason we’re in a closet right now?” he asked, looking down at you with knitted eyebrows.

“Yes,” you gumped, afraid to say anymore.

“Are you going to tell me what the reason is?”

“I need you to be my boyfriend for a weekend,” you finally blurted out.

“You need me to… Just for a weekend?” He looked confused, and you felt your cheeks flame up, as you tried your best to explain the situation for him.

“My brother is getting married in LA this weekend, and I need a date. I told my mom last year that I was in a relationship with a really great guy who also works for the FBI.”

“Oh. So, you broke up with him and don’t want to tell your mom?”

“No, he never existed. Long story, I can explain on the plane, but I really need you to come with me! I’ll pay for everything, and I’ll even get you this coffee and any pastry of your choice every day for a month, please, please, please!” You begged him, so desperate that you were moments away from dropping to your knees and grabbing his leg, refusing to move until he acquiesced. You didn’t have to in the end.

“Oh, sure, I’ll go. When did you say it was?” Your jaw fell open in shock, and it took a few seconds to pull yourself back together as you reacted to his words.

“This weekend? The flight is tomorrow at 6 a.m.” You smiled sheepishly as his eyes bugged out of his head.

“This weekend? What were you going to do if I said no?” He laughed at you a little, taking a sip of the coffee you bought him.

“Honestly? Plan B was to cry, and plan C was to kill off my mystery man in a freak accident.”

“Wow, we just started fake dating and you’re already trying to bump me off.” His smile made you burn hotter than before, as you playfully hit his arm in response.

“Stop saying we’re dating. I pulled you in here to ask you privately because I didn’t want weird rumors circulating in the office,” you pouted.

“Then you better let me out of the closet, Y/N, before people think we’re doing something we shouldn’t be. At least three people saw you drag me in here, you know.”

With that, you rush to open the door and run out, shouting a reminder back at him.

“Just be ready, okay. I’ll see you at the airport at 6 a.m.”

–X–

The flight, despite being ridiculously long, was altogether quite pleasant, and you made it back to California in one piece, Spencer trailing behind you like a lost puppy for a while, letting you take up the role of “airport dad” as you guided him through the airport and to the hotel where the wedding was being held.

“So what’s our cover story?” He asked in the taxi on the way there, breaking the comfortable silence.

“What cover story?” you asked, looking up at him from your phone, still focused on just getting to the destination.

“Where did we meet, how long have we been dating, how much do they know about me?” He listed off the possible questions that his parents were absolutely going to interrogate him with soon. “I need to prepare so we don’t get caught out, right?”

“Oh, right. Based on what I told them, we met at work and we’ve been seeing each other casually for about a year now. I didn’t give them a name yet, which annoys my mom to no end, but I was always pretty private as a child so she didn’t find it all that suspicious. Other than that, they don’t know that much about my mystery boyfriend apart from the things we’ve done together.” He listened attentively as you spoke, taking each of your words in and committing them to memory.

“What was our first date?” He asked.

“Coffee shop. That place I got you the coffee from earlier, it’s called Flondon. I’m a regular there, so it made sense to use it in my story.”

“What else have we done together?”

“There was a book fair in New York a few months back that we, uh, spent the weekend at. You surprised me for my birthday with the tickets.”

“Wow, so I’m a really great boyfriend then.” He joked a little, and you let out another groan of annoyance at his teasing. You didn’t get the chance to finish your conversation though, as the taxi finally pulled up to the hotel.

You climbed out of the taxi after paying the driver, Spencer having already left to grab your bags, before walking into the foyer of the hotel.

“Y/N, just one last thing before we go in,” he stopped you at the door, grabbing you by the arm gently. “Are we… the, um. Hotels tend to get booked up pretty early for weddings, and I’m sure your family will be suspicious if we don’t share a room so…”

He didn’t have to finish voicing his thoughts before you were cursing, not having made the connection before.

“Shit, you’re right. My brother made the booking for me months ago. We just have to go in and get the room key but I totally forgot… It’s fine, right? We’ve roomed together on cases, haven’t we?” You asked, looking up at him.

“No, we haven’t. 67% of our motel bookings allow for single occupation rooms for Agents, I end up sharing a room with Morgan for 15% of overnight stays where double occupation is necessary, Hotch for another 17%, and the remaining 1% is made up of outliers where I had to share with Rossi or Prentiss, but we…we haven’t shared before.” He gestured between the two of you for a moment there, letting the facts sit with you.

“Spencer, it’s okay with me, is it okay with you? I understand if you’re not comfortable with it. We can just turn around now if you want.”

“No, no it’s totally fine. I just wanted to make sure you’re comfortable with it. Morgan says I snore, so I guess I’m not the best roommate in the world.” He smiled at you then, reassuringly, and moved his hand down your arm until it reached your hand.

You looked down at where his hand had entwined with yours and your heart gave a little jolt. Spencer didn’t like physical touch, and you knew that. You tried not to initiate any contact with him, despite being a touchy person, but there had been times after particularly tough cases and with close calls where you’d thrown yourself into the nearest person's arms, and he always happened to be near.

But those hugs had been thoughtless, natural reactions to stressful situations and this was intentional, and more importantly, he’d started it.

“Sorry, I just assumed we should get used to, uh, touching each other, I guess? We’re going to be doing it all weekend, you know, might as well start now.” He gave you an awkward closed-lip smile, and you giggled at his awkward explanatory tone. Squeezing his hand a bit, you grabbed your suitcase again in your free hand, and pushed open the door with your shoulder, pulling Spencer in behind you.

The lobby was filled with people arriving for the wedding, and you instantly spotted three cousins and two aunts from across the room, giving them a little smile as you made your way to the reception desk, Spencer right at your side.

“Hi, reservation for Y/N L/N, please.”

“Sister of the groom, right? Your mother asked me to give her a call when you arrived. Please wait one minute.” She handed you your key, and you felt yourself go pale, turning around to Spencer for reassurance.

“Oh god, she’s coming now, what do we do?”

“Y/N, calm down, it’s okay, we knew we were going to have to see your mom tonight at the reception anyways.”

“You’re right. Okay, right. Okay.” You breathed out, as Spencer wrapped his other arm around you, holding you in a closer embrace while keeping your hands locked together.

“One of my aunts is looking at us. She looks like she wants to say something. Oh god, she’s coming over, Spencer act natural,”

“Saying act naturally is actually counter-active-” but he didn’t have time to finish before you had turned to greet the older woman, disentangling yourself from Spencer’s arms as you hugged the woman warmly.

“It’s so good to see you, Y/N, you know how we all worry about you doing that job of yours. The other week we saw you on the news about that tragedy with the young girl…” she trailed off, giving you a worrying look before quickly shifting her gaze to her actual target, Spencer.

“I think I saw you too, young man. You must be Y/N’s boyfriend,” she smiled at him, waiting to hear a response so she could return to the other matrons with the gossip.

“Yeah, nice to meet you, I’m Spencer.” You could tell he was thankful that the woman hadn’t stuck her hand out to shake his, as he positioned himself mostly behind you, keeping his hands occupied by letting one settle on your hip and the other keeping a hold of your suitcase.

“Spencer? Spencer Reid?” You heard your mother before you saw her, turning around in your place to finally see her, as Spencer whipped his head around as well. “I’ve heard so much about you. It’s so wonderful to finally meet you.”

Your mother had none of the restraint of your aunt, and unfortunately, you’d inherited your clingy side from her, which is why she immediately swooped in to give Spencer a hug. To his credit, he greeted her warmly as well and didn’t avoid the touch, but he kept it short and polite nonetheless.

“Mom, how did you know…”

“You tell me about your coworkers all the time, I’m just surprised I didn’t work it out sooner. I always said that you talked about that Spencer with a fond tone, you should ask your father, he’ll tell you that I did.” You rolled your eyes at your mother’s words, doing your best to avoid Spencer’s gaze. He’d fallen back into place by your side as you greeted your mother.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you, You know, Y/N has been keeping you as this big secret for the last year, and it’s so nice to see that you’re actually real. You’re here!” She sounded so excited for you that your heart almost broke under the weight of your guilt, knowing that you’d have to come clean at some point after the wedding. As it was, you were already going to have to try really hard to avoid the photographer and videographer throughout the night so you didn’t have to be constantly reminded of your idiocy whenever your mother got the photo albums out,

“Sorry, the two of you are probably exhausted after that flight, right? Go and get yourself unpacked. The rehearsal dinner is at 8 p.m. so we’ll catch up then, sweetheart.” She left in a whirlwind, having deposited you next to the elevators, and left you with no other option but to do exactly as she said, making your way to your space for the weekend.

–X–

The following few hours had been a little awkward, to say the least. You’d awkwardly pulled away from one another in the elevator up to the room, apologizing for invading each other's personal space. The room was a decent size, but still small enough that you’d be constantly tripping up over one another the entire weekend if you weren’t careful.

Reid carefully unpacked his tuxedo when you got into the room, and then quietly informed you that he’d need a shower. You’d unpacked your own things while he did, trying not to listen to the water flowing over his body in the next room. His earlier touch had ignited something in you, and your heart was beating at his every gesture now, something that you were sure it hadn’t done before.

What was it about weddings that made you so open to even the possibility of romance that even someone so off-limits could become the object of your affection?

So you tried not to listen, not to wonder why it was taking the man so long to just take a shower, not to let your mind wander to a place where it was perfectly acceptable to wonder what he looked like in that shower, and you unpacked and organized your things.

“Hey, Y/N, I’m really sorry but I forgot to bring my clothes with me,” he called awkwardly through the door a few minutes after you heard the water turn off, and you turned to the bathroom, not expecting the sight before you.

You’d assumed from the quiet volume of his voice that he was calling from within the bathroom itself, but instead, he stood awkwardly in front of you, a towel wrapped around his waist and torso, held together desperately in one hand.

“Oh shit, sorry, I’ll just turn around, I guess,” you stumbled over the words, dragging your eyes back up to his face as you did so, whipping yourself around to stare ahead of you.

“No, no, it’s my fault. I was so hasty I forgot my outfit for tonight. It’s okay.” You heard him fumble for his clothes and return to the bathroom quickly with another mumbled apology, finally allowing you to let out a deep, almost dreamy sigh, startling yourself. Mentally chastising yourself once again, you finished your organizing and let yourself fall onto the bed in the middle of the room sleepily while you waited for him to come out again.

You must have dozed off a little because you woke with a jolt when you felt a soft touch on your arm. There he was above you, a soft and concerned look on his face as he woke you up as kindly as he could.

“Y/N, it’s 7 p.m. We need to get ready for the rehearsal.” He whispered as if he weren’t too bothered if you didn’t want to go down at all, content to let you sleep. But you forced yourself upright anyways, and nodded at his words, swiftly moving yourself towards the bathroom he had since departed.

“Thanks for waking me, Spence,” You rubbed the sleep out of your eyes, gathering your towels and change of clothes before turning back to him. In the four hours you’d apparently been dead to the world, he’d managed to dry his hair, change his clothes, and, from the looks of the book on the bedside table, read through an entire book twice.

He noticed you looking and cleared his throat. “Sorry, you looked so tired I didn’t want to wake you, so I just sat here and read while you got some sleep.”

“It’s okay, Spence. I guess I was pretty tired. I’m gonna go…” you gestured towards the shower and stepped towards it with an awkward smile, not letting him answer before you had closed the door between you and taken a deep breath, setting thoughts of him aside for the night before you focused on getting yourself ready to face your lies.

An hour later, you were making your way back down to the lobby, having received a text from your brother that that was where everyone was gathering before making their way to the dining room. Spencer offered you his arm in the elevator on the way down.

“Here, grab my arm.” He said softly down to you, a sweet smile playing on his lips.

“Oh yeah that makes sense,” you said distractedly, looping your own through his and leaning into him.

“It’ll also stop you from picking your nails,” he joked.

“I don’t pick my nails!”

“You so do. You do it when you’re nervous and when you lie about something. Last month on that case in Chicago when that officer asked for your number, you told him you had a boyfriend and started picking your nails,” he laughed down at you, enjoying your pouting face a bit too much as he profiled you.

“You’re one to talk. The last time a woman asked you out, you started rambling about the linguistic history of the phrase “go out,” in the romantic sense. She stood there for five minutes before she gave up.”

“Wait, when did that happen? I don’t remember any woman trying to ask me out.”

“Then you’re even denser than I realized, Doctor Reid, because they do it constantly.” Your back and forth ended there, though, as the elevator doors finally opened into the lobby. You smoothed out your dress and tried your best to act natural as the two of you made your entrance.

“Y/N! Over here,” you heard your brother and saw him wave at you from the other side of the room, his fiancee next to him receiving guests.

“It’s been so long since I saw my kid sister. Get over here,” he smiled at you, beckoning you over, and you released your hold on Reid to give your brother a warm hug.

“Now who is this kid sister you’re talking about because last I checked you’re only 18 months older than me.”

“18 months, 18 years, all that matters is that I am, in fact, the older one,” he released you from the bear hug and glanced up to Reid, standing awkwardly watching the scene waiting for an invitation to the conversation. “Holy shit, you’re real.”

“Hey! Be nice. This is Spencer, he’s my… he’s my boyfriend, we work together.” You felt your cheeks flame as you introduced the two of them, your brother looking at Spencer through knitted eyebrows, taking on a faux protective stance.

“Spencer, hey. Mom mentioned you were here earlier, but I didn’t think you’d be so gangly… It’s my wedding, and I’ve been told I have to keep all threats to a minimum, but if I see you getting all handsy with my sister, just know that I have a blackbelt in jiu-jitsu.”

“No, you don’t. You have a yellow belt in karate at most, and you got that at age 10.” You laughed at the man.

“And whose fault is that?”

“Oh my god, it’s been almost 20 years, I already apologized!”

“Apologised for what?” Spencer finally managed to butt in, watching your sibling bickering as if it were a tennis match.

“This little rodent,” your brother said, scruffing up your hair as he spoke, “broke my wrist when she was 8 and I was 10.”

“It was self-defense! You were trying to use your karate moves on me and I panicked!”

“And now, you’re a hot-shot FBI Agent and you get to break bad guys wrists all the time.” He finished for you and you laughed, suddenly glad to be back around family.

“So, Spencer, you’re an FBI Agent, too? I thought my mom mentioned something about you being a Doctor earlier.”

“I am. A Doctor. And an FBI Agent, uh, they’re PhD’s not medical degrees, though. Three of them, Math, Chemistry and Engineering. I also have Bachelor's Degrees in Psychology, Philosophy, and Sociology.” He answered, and you looked up at him proudly, taking his hand as you noticed him growing slightly uncomfortable with the attention from your brother.

“Wow,” was all your brother said, until he finished the statement with “All those degrees and my sister was the best you could do, huh?” You punched him in the arm after that, and you felt Spencer physically relax a bit, twinning your fingers with his as you chastised your brother.

“Anyway, thanks for taking the time to come to our, hopefully, lovely wedding, the reception will be starting soon. The dining hall is just through there.” You hugged your brother again, and, with a breath of relief, led Spencer down the hall to the dining hall.

“That went well, I think?” you whispered to him, conspiratorially.

“Your family is nice,” he replied. “Does he always act like that, or is it the wedding spirit possessing him somehow?”

“If you’re referring to my brother, I think he’s probably partaken in a few flutes of champagne already this evening. But yes, he’s always like that. They all like to treat me like a baby when they see me.”

“I think it’s nice. They care about you a lot,” his words were warm, but his eyes were sad, and you remembered what you’d been told of Spencer’s own childhood and felt your heart ache for him. His mom loved him a lot, but Spencer had needed to grow up much too fast. You squeezed his hand, still clasped in yours and before you knew it you were pushing onto your tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek.

“Thank you, Spencer. For being here,” you said as his now flushed face met yours. You didn’t let him respond though, simply pushing forward into the dining hall, ready to live in the fantasy of your own making for the evening.

–X–

“Spencer, you were amazing!” You giggled, walking down the hall to your room, stumbling slightly in your excitement and haste.

“Those magic tricks? The little babies couldn’t get enough of you,” you spun around, wrapping your arms around the man’s neck and pulling him in close to you, letting him hold you against the door to your room. He laughed a little at your antics as he pulled out the key card.

“Y/N, are you drunk?” he asked, one hand firmly planted on your waist to steady you now.

“No! I’m just happy. And if that happiness was caused by an array of cocktails forced into my hands by distant aunts and cousins who all wanted to know about my absolute catch of a boyfriend, then that is simply secondary to the feeling itself. And furthermore-” He pushed the door behind you in on itself, and your words were cut off by your legs giving out beneath you.

You were so sure you were about to take a tumble to the floor that you shut your eyes tight and braced for an impact that didn’t come. Opening them again slowly, you saw Spencer closer than before, his face mere inches from your own as he held you in an improvised dip, having caught you just before you’d hit the ground.

“Sorry. I… Shit, maybe I am drunk,” you breathed out, not letting your eyes drift from his own, knowing that if you ever considered a glance down at his lips at that moment, you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself from closing the measly distance separating you.

“You should use the bathroom first,” he told you, but without making any move of his own, stuck in that pose with you as if he was content to stay there for as long as he could hold you. “You should take your make-up off. We have a long day tomorrow, right?”

You were the first one to move, letting your feet find a more solid footing beneath you and twisting up from his grip. His hands didn’t leave your body as you became more upright though, still keeping you in that close embrace.

“Yeah, I should… I should go wash up.” You said, and he nodded, still looking at you with the same intensity as before.

“Spencer, that means you need to move,” you whispered quietly, and he jumped back as soon as the words were out of your mouth.

“Sorry. I’ll just… I’ll just be over there,” he held his hands up in surrender before moving further into the room, leaving you next to the bathroom.

Fifteen minutes later, you emerged from the bathroom and were ready to sleep once again. Thankfully, you of earlier that day had managed to store your pajamas in the bathroom ready for their use. Upon exiting the bathroom, you saw that Spencer was getting ready to sleep too, slacks and a shirt having been replaced by a pair of flannel pants and a very old and beaten-up CalTech sweater, looking perplexedly down at the bed.

“Spence, what’s wrong?”

“We didn’t speak any further about the sleeping arrangements…” he mumbled and you looked at the bed in front of you, still confused at his meaning. “Y/N, we have to share the bed.”

“Oh.” You knew you probably sounded dumb, but after the amount of alcohol thrust upon you that night, that was all you could muster at this point.

“I can sleep on the floor if that makes you feel more comfortable. It’s probably no worse than some of the motel beds we’ve stayed on before,” he offered, but you instantly shook your head.

“No, I dragged you out here, I’m not making you sleep on the floor as well,” you sighed and made your way to the side of the bed you’d slept on earlier, beginning to pull the covers down so you could get in.

“What are you doing?” Spencer asked, perplexed by your somehow contrasting words and actions.

“I’m getting ready for bed. It’s late.” You replied, not looking up at him again, for fear that he’d spot the blush on your face. “You should too,” you continued, patting the other side of the bed, gesturing for him to get in, too.

“Oh.” It was his turn to stand there shell-shocked in the moment, and you almost let out a giggle but held back thinking that would be too much for him to take in at that moment.

“Come on, Spence, I’m tired, I’m sure you’re tired. We’re just sharing a bed, it’s not like you have to marry me after this.” You climbed fully into the bed, making sure that your nightgown covered you decently before pulling the covers up around you. Spencer mumbled something that you didn’t catch, but he acquiesced and climbed in after you. You turned your head over on the pillow to face him, turning onto your side as you watched him turn his head to you as well.

“What?” he smiled, noticing your stare.

“Nothing. Good night, Spence,” you smiled, finally letting your eyes drop closed.

“Good night, Y/N.” He whispered, and the sound of his voice carried you off to sleep.

–X–

You weren’t sure if it was the light streaming in through the window or the rise and fall of a chest that wasn’t your own was the first thing to wake you in the morning, but nonetheless, you woke from the comfortable warmth of sleep and found yourself wrapped around your fake boyfriend.

To be fair to yourself, he was also wrapped around you. Your head had gravitated from your pillow to his chest, his left arm wrapped up and around your back. Your leg had also risen in the night, pulled up over his waist, held in place by his other arm, which was, almost embarrassingly, cradling your ass, pulling you in closer to his core. Unsure about how to go about disentangling yourself, you resigned yourself to just waking the man up.

“Spencer… Spencer,” you whispered, letting the hand that had fallen onto his chest tap him slightly. He stirred a little and then cracked an eye open, looking confused with the situation.

“Y/N, is it time for the wedding?” He asked through half-lidded eyes, evidently wanting nothing more than to fall back into whatever dreams he was having. You shifted uncomfortably in his arms then, suddenly growing stiff in the position you’d probably held for hours, and found your nightgown had risen dangerously high on your body, his hand on your near bare ass.

“No, no, it’s just…” You rolled your hips against his in discomfort, and the movement had his eyes breaking open as he finally took in your positions.

“Shit, I’m….Sorry, I don’t know what happened, I must’ve grabbed you when we were sleeping,” he said, reluctantly slipping his hands away from your body, trailing his hand around your leg, and letting it fall onto his stomach. The movement sent a shiver up your spine, as you finally had enough room to lift your torso up, not quite ready to relinquish the proximity of your entire body yet.

“It’s okay, I think it was probably me who started it in the first place. Those pillows weren’t that comfortable…” you tried to explain, the hand on his chest rubbing slow circles into his skin before you could realize what you were doing.

He pushed himself up into a sitting position then as well, clumsily. With your legs still wrapped around his waist, you had no choice but to move with him, suddenly finding yourself straddling him, the bedsheets suddenly pressed away from your body. If he looked down, he’d see a lot more than you planned for him to see, your panties on clear display as your nightgown twisted itself up into the sheets.

“Shit sorry,” he moaned out again, as you steadied yourself with hands on his shoulders.

“No, it’s okay, I didn’t move quick enough.” You quickly pulled your dress down again, and extracted yourself from the bed, lifting your leg up and off of him and finally pushing off the bed, leaving him sat there.

His hands fell into his lap and you started gathering things around the room, readying yourself for the busy day ahead.

“I have to be in the bridal suite at 11, so we have about… two hours to kill before then. Do you want to grab a shower first, or should I?”

“You first,” he mumbled quickly, before clearing his throat and trying again. “You should go first. You probably have more to do today, right?” You nodded at his words and made your way to the bathroom again. Out of the corner of your eye though, as you let the door close behind you, you watched his hands come up to cradle his flushed face, as he let his head fall back again into the pillow.

–X–

The morning was so busy after that, you barely had any chance to talk to Spencer again. You spent the early afternoon in the bridal suite with the wedding party, welcoming your new sister to the family, then made your way to the aisle space set up outside, checking up on last-minute details and helping to flower girls into position. You weren’t walking down the aisle yourself, but you could see that the extra help was letting the very stressed-out Maid of Honour get some well-needed respite. And more importantly, it stopped your wandering thoughts from letting you fantasize about Spencer.

You’d woken up in bed next to people before, of course, but it had never felt so comfortable. In fact, other people you’d slept with said you were pretty distant in your sleep, choosing to move as far away from physical touch as you could get, but you knew with no doubt that you had been the one to move in first, to touch him first. That he’d pulled you even closer had your heart singing, and you wanted to be wrapped up in him all over again, suddenly desperate to seek him out. So you distracted yourself, not wanting to make any mistakes you would regret when you were no longer wrapped up in your own fantasy.

So you kept your distance as the ceremony started. Then the wedding march was playing, and you were holding back tears as his hand slipped into yours, your head falling onto his shoulder as you watched your brother marry the love of his life.

You kept your distance as you reached the reception hall, watching all the old ladies on both sides fawn over him, asking him questions, and watching from his side as he blushed at the attention. You swept the hair out of his eyes as the couple was announced, and you took your seat for the wedding meal and the speeches, his hand falling to your back to guide you to your chair, pulling it out for you like a true gentleman.

You kept your distance as your new sister tossed the bouquet, and despite your low effort and the ravenous looks of the bridesmaids, it fell neatly into your hands as if it belonged there. You ran excitedly over to him to show him and he lifted you into a hug, caught up in your own excitement.

You kept your distance until you realized you’d not kept your distance at all, physically unable to keep yourself away from the man who had somehow stolen your heart in the middle of the night.

“I know that look,” your brother said, somehow sneaking up on you later into the night as you watched Spencer perform even more of his magic tricks for the smaller guests.

“What look?” you asked, not for one second letting your eyes drift from Spencer.

“You’re in love with him,” he said, taking a swig of the drink in his hand.

“He’s my boyfriend,” you said reflexively, turning to the drinks table behind you and picking up one for yourself.

“No, he isn’t. Or at least he wasn’t before this weekend,” your brother said, as your eyes finally snapped up to him.

“Oh, don’t act all surprised, Miss FBI Profiler. You may be good, but I’ll always be your older brother, and contrary to popular opinion, I do in fact pay attention to things.” You sighed and leaned back against the table.

“How’d you figure it out?”

“You were picking your nails the entire way through the reception dinner when the aunties were asking you about your relationship. You did that when we were younger too, when you tried lying to Mom and Dad about how I broke my wrist. Doesn’t take two PhD’s to figure that out.”

“Three.”

“Three what?”

“Three PhDs. He has three of them.” You sighed dreamily and ran a stressed hand through your head.

“He’s just my coworker. I didn’t want to disappoint Mom by coming alone after telling her all those stories, but now…” You tried to explain yourself but words were escaping you in that moment.

“You should tell him, trust me. He definitely feels the same.”

“How are you so confident about that? How did you manage to end up with all of the confidence between the two of us, when I can barely work up the courage to tell my own mother I’m still single?”

“Y/N, look at me. You got the brains, I had to have something. And no man flies to the opposite side of the country on a few day's notice for a girl who is just a friend, okay? That’s more logic than confidence, and that’s supposed to be your strong suit.”

You considered his words for a second, turning back to look at Spencer. Evidently, he’d finished his magic show and was beginning to say goodbye to the children, but he felt your eyes on him somehow and met your gaze. He brought his hand up into a shy wave before a little girl grabbed his attention again, and he looked at her seriously, nodding along to each word she was saying.

“Fuck, what do I do, I’m not good with… any of this.” You turned back to your brother, but he’d left you there, stranded in your own thoughts as you let yourself hope, let your brain dream that one day this would be your wedding and the man by your side would be Spencer Reid.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the bride and groom request the presence of all the couples on the dancefloor for this next song.” You saw your brother again, next to his wife, whispering his explanations in his ear as she turned to look at you and winked as well. God, they were going to be a force to be reckoned with together now, you thought, as people started pushing past you to make their way to the dancefloor.

You recognized the song of course, and it was almost so on the nose you almost rolled your eyes. More Than Words by Extreme. Perfect.

“Y/N, may I have this dance?” He had somehow snuck up on you from behind as you watched your brother, and held his hand out to you. You put your drink down and took it, letting him lead you to the dance floor.

“I didn’t think you danced, Dr. Reid,” you teased him as he pulled you in, letting his hands rest on your waist, as yours came up around his neck, gently letting him sway you side to side in time with the music.

“I don’t really, but it seemed wrong not to,” he smiled. “I’m at a wedding, with the most beautiful girl on my arm, and the couple made it very clear that we should be dancing, so here I am.” You blushed at his words as he spoke. He removed his hands from your waist, instead grasping one of yours in his own as he pulled you closer.

You stared up at him with a soft smile for a few more seconds before letting your head fall back to his chest.

“I know I’ve said it a lot this weekend, but thank you, Spencer.” You said into his shirt, letting him hold you close as the song went on.

“You don’t have to thank me, Y/N.” He insisted, and you looked up at him again. “Actually… I didn’t exactly agree to this with the best of intentions.”

Your heart lept to your throat as you stared up at him, hoping that he would take your silence as a means to continue.

“I’ve been… I thought that maybe…” he struggled to get the words out, his face aflame with the effort.

“You promised me those coffees right?” He finally stuttered out, and you were left confused and a little disappointed.

“Yeah, Spence, it’s okay, I’ll get you those coffees for the month, just like we promised.” You couldn’t help the sad smile that played on your lips as you answered him, so sure that he was about to say something else.

“No, I mean… Y/N I don’t want the coffee. I want this. I want us to go home, and make everything that you made up come true. I want to take you on a date to that coffee shop. I want to be a boyfriend you can call and tell your mom about because it’s serious and it’s going to work out between us. I even… God, I even spent the morning looking up book fairs in New York City so I could make that come true as well,” he rambled the words out and you could feel the tears forming in your eyes.

“Spencer,” you said softly, trying to get him to focus on you, but he’d started speaking and he wasn’t going to be stopped so easily.

“And if any of that creeps you out, just say the word and I’ll never mention it again. Because I know I’m not good with this, and when I feel something, I tend to feel it overwhelmingly, and Derek tells me I can be really oblivious sometimes, which I don’t really get, but-”

“Spencer,” you put a bit more force into your words this time, punctuating them with a hand on his face.

“Spencer, kiss me.” And he does. He takes your head in both of his hands, and he draws you up to him perfectly, letting your hands fall to the lapels of his suit jacket as he steals your breath away one more time. The kiss is lingering, but short, and he hesitantly backs away, looking around to spot witnesses. But you don’t care and you pull him back down for another, and another, until you’re just two lovers on the dance floor that cannot get enough of each other, gasping for breath between chaste kisses as you let him hold you there, gently swaying.

“Spencer,” you whisper finally, forehead resting on his, as the song finally draws to a close.

“Yes?”

“Spencer, take me to bed.” You tell him, and he nods. He leads you over to the bride and groom where you offer each of them a hug and a happy future before making your excuses and running away with Spencer back into the hotel like two love-drunk teenagers, a mess of giggles and stolen kisses as you stumble up to your room for the second time that weekend.

But this time, you don’t hesitate, don’t pull away. He backs you into the door and you let him hold you there, his mouth on yours, your tongues entwined as he fumbles for his key card. You fall together into the room, laughing and smiling the entire way, not letting him escape your touch.

“May I?” He asks, playing with the zipper of your dress as you kiss his cheek, his jaw, his neck, anywhere you can reach, nodding and moaning your consent. The moment the zip is pulled down, he lets you go for a second, and the dress falls straight to the floor. You're practically bare in front of him, chest exposed, neck littered with the beginning of love bites that he’s about to absolutely build upon.

“You’re beautiful.” He says, softly, wrapping his arms around you again, lifting you up so your legs can wrap around him as he delivers one more soul-crushing kiss to your lips. Your brain is a mess of emotions, your only solid thought is that you will never let him go again. You both eagerly worked on unbuttoning his shirt together, a desperate mess of breaths as he finally laid you on the bed. His hand fell to your core, tracing a finger over your sensitive nub as you begged him for more, needing to feel all of him, to devour his very existence.

He pulled himself out of his remaining clothes, lips still attached to yours, climbing over you and holding you tenderly, his arms wrapping around your body as his legs came to settle between your own. Dropping his forehead to yours, he finally spoke again, his hand dropping between the two of you to line himself up.

“Is this… are you sure?” You heard the restraint in his voice, the desperation, the love, the overwhelming lust as he held himself back, needing to hear your consent.

“Spencer, I love you,” you whispered, and he finally pushed himself into you, joining the two of you together in a moment of bliss. You shared another sweet kiss, letting him swallow each and every one of your moans as he began thrusting into you, your hips rising to meet him in your delirious pleasure.

He whispered sweet nothings in your ears, brushing the hair off your face every now and again to tell you how beautiful you looked, and how well you were doing.

“You’re so perfect, Y/N, you’re doing so good for me,” he pressed kisses against your neck with each word, keeping his pace steady as you chased your inevitable high, already clenching around his thick cock.

“Spencer, I love you,” you let the words drop from your tongue like a prayer, repeating them over and over with each thrust as small tears welled up out of your eyes. He kissed them away from your cheeks, listening to each confession as your stomach tightened and your climax spilled over you. He grabbed your waist then, leaving one hand cupping and stroking your cheek as his own thrusts grew sloppy, finally spending himself fully inside you.

“I love you, too,” he whispered into you then, unwilling to let you go for even one second. You spent the rest of the night whispering the words back and forth to one another, waiting with bated breath for the fantasy to break, for the magic of the wedding to wear off.

It never did.

#spencer reid #criminal minds #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid smut #mgg #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fandom #spencer reid x self insert #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x reader smut #spencer reid x you #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds fluff #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x oc #criminal minds smut #So much plot #maturereiding

[zephyra-in-the-house]

Second Chances Chapter 28

Yoooooo guess what I did~

This chapter is so long guys you have no idea LOL

I hope you guys enjoy!

#lego monkie kid #second chances #shadowpeach #lego macaque #lego sun wukong #fanfic #lmk macaque #lmk sun wukong #lego mk #lego red son #angst #horror #feelings #character development #so much plot #like holy shit #there's so much plot #and so much backstory

[redisaid]

Beneath the Blue Moon - Chapter 6

Quarter

Why did you, yes you, vote for the scenario that had so much fucking plot? Why are you so cruel to me and to poor Jaina? In spite of you, I got through the plot and using every goddamn Horde character known to man, and still made it funny to cope.

Please let me write about sad women kissing again soon. A new vote will be up within a few days, so spare a thought for poor, plot-ridden me.

8450 Words

Read it on Ao3!

Grief has made me blind, Cruel, quick, hungry. Who could blame? For I had held, The sunlight in my arms.

The captain’s cabin was richly appointed, small as it was, but Sylvanas had never spent much time there or intended to spend much time there. Certainly not an entire day.

The ship rocked and rocked, accompanied by a steady rhythm of creaks and groans and the whipping of ropes and fabric, accented by the drum of the boots on the aft deck. Though the latter was lessened now as the storm had worsened in the afternoon. All of Dazar’alor’s grand harbor had bunkered down, and Sylvanas, while she was grateful for her Forsaken flagship, thought that perhaps the fat, shallow-keeled barges of the Zandalari no doubt fared better in this storm than she did.

Though she would not be so welcome to hide in their cabins.

And it was just that, hiding. She’d told her rangers she would remain here and wait for word of the Alliance’s reaction. Her reasons for doing so were many. First, of course, was the excuse it gave her to get Clea off her back--that she was resting her injury. The hole in her shoulder was closed now, and no longer seeping black ichor, but the skin still bit tight around where the chain had pierced her when she moved. A not so subtle reminder of how close she had been to losing it all in her impulsive gamble.

Second, of course, was because what had happened was written plainly on her face for all to see. Sylvanas believed her Horde deserved an explanation, and she wished to deliver it to them with a ceasefire. A promise. An atonement. Blue eyes with a purpose.

Lastly, she needed time to think. She had done little of the thinking she’d wanted to do, though.

Mostly, her thoughts were cyclical. Her half-written notes for a speech lay on the desk that had been blessedly cleaned by Marrah upon her return with the requested coffee. Sylvanas had watched her do so with a strange appreciation. How many messes had she cleaned up after? How many had been more vile even than a corpse lain on a table?

That had started the thought that kept bringing her away from the speech--the reason it lay half-finished.

Even this very ship was a testament to loyalty she wasn’t sure she’d ever rightly earned, and certainly didn’t deserve to maintain. The sun tried its best to light up the green glass of the window at the aft of the ship again for her, but the storm had darkened the afternoon to the point where the craftsmanship of the window could hardly be appreciated in its full glory. Her Forsaken had built her a wonderful ship, which she didn’t care to be on or take time to appreciate, and for that, she had blighted their city in a spiteful rage. Her city. A city she had once fought so hard to allow them all to reclaim.

And yet, she knew the shambling survivors of that very city still sang her praises from ramshackle tents and the disused corners of Orgrimmar that they now were forced to inhabit. They still rasped out, “Dark Lady watch over you,” as if she had watched over anything lately.

Sylvanas decided that things had been much easier when she was not fully herself. When all she had was that raw anger, that undying rage that had been left to her, it was easier to be cold and callous and to justify the means to the end. Her soul, their souls, their freedom from death itself, were worth everything--every loss, every slight, every trail of fire left in her wake.

But she had not thought she would feel any differently once it was over. She had not thought she would feel much of anything. She supposed that she assumed it would be like Arthas’ demise, where she’d be made to watch from afar, and to know that justice was done by another’s hand, not hers. Such was the fate of a General, though it had always irked her. Instead of watching champions strike down a monster, though, she thought she would lead another monster toward rewriting creation itself with justice in mind.

Justice, Sylvanas knew now, was too subjective to be trusted. Justice was not written in the tight fittings of the floorboards of this cabin. It was not written in the rolls of fine maps stashed in a scroll cabinet. It would not be written in a half-finished speech, either. Justice did not exist, and would never. At least not for her, not for all she had done and had yet to do. And not for those who sought justice for her actions either. There would be no satisfaction. No mercy. No end.

Sylvanas knew now that this was the way of things, and knew with great certainty just how painful it was for all involved.

As if on cue to save her from further contemplation, the door to the cabin opened, letting in both wind and rain and a good portion of Velonara’s black cloak. She’d remained on guard all day, despite the storm, and turned away any that would seek an audience with the Warchief with a variety of excuses. But after those things, Nathanos’ broad frame filled the door as he muttered and shut it behind himself.

As much as she both dreaded and hoped dearly at what news he brought, Sylvanas mostly decided it was better that she wasn’t left alone any longer. In life, death, and whatever this was that came after, she had always been prone to brooding.

“Report, Ranger,” she offered.

He expected sternness and coolness from her. A part of her knew he worked best under such conditions, prone to mischief as any elf if his orders were left too open-ended. A part of her too, wanted to think of some way to thank him for staying with her. For his loyalty. For whatever it was that kept him tied to her even when she was so clearly broken.

But then again, death hadn’t been kind to Nathanos either. She supposed that they were all a little bit broken in their own ways. Him, maybe a bit more so than others.

Nathanos slicked the water off his coat with his hands, onto the fine floor made by finer men who showed their loyalty to her in how level and smooth it was. Nathanos showed it by tracking in mud.

“Dark Lady,” he offered with a bow. “I am pleased to inform you that the Alliance allowed me to leave intact.”

He spoke Thalassian as clearly and as haughtily as any elf. While many found him boorish and just plain difficult to be around, Sylvanas had always found his sarcasm amusing in a way.

It nearly made her smile. She suppressed the urge, unsure about what to do with it. The Dark Lady certainly did not smile while listening to reports.

“What did they have to say about our proposition?” Sylvanas asked flatly instead.

Nathanos reached into a deep pocket of his coat, and pulled a letter from within it. Just one, but dry and safely kept.

It passed with ease from his stubbed gloved fingers to her slender, ungloved ones, sliding between them as her upturned wrist exposed the glowing moon symbol with the action. But, disappointingly for her and that blue moon, the seal of the letter was bright blue wax, with the lion symbol of House Wrynn, and the neat handwriting of the young king.

Jaina, in her youth, had silly, loopy handwriting that Sylvanas found incredibly endearing. She couldn’t help but wonder if she still wrote that way, like a young girl who would hide hearts in the characters that spelled out the name of her beloved.

Sylvanas suppressed another smile. This was getting harder.

Thankfully, Nathanos decided to continue his report, “I’m afraid you won’t find much in the way of decisions in that letter, just to set your expectations. I am sure the boy king is asking you within it for time to discuss with his allies. The other delivery caused quite a stir.”

“I thought I instructed you to give the Lord Admiral her letter privately, if possible?” Sylvanas asked.

“I did,” Nathanos assured her. “And she still has no appreciation for good sleight of hand--some magician she is. It was the other delivery that caused the problem. Lady Katherine was present, and became quite emotional.”

“Ah,” was all Sylvanas could offer to that. She did not know Katherine Proudmoore, save for Jaina’s brief descriptions of her from their time together, and letters where she lamented how distant she’d grown from her family since coming to live in Lordaeron as a young girl.

Too young, Sylvanas had once felt. And with the intent for her to court a man who was clearly not her soulmate? Despicable. She understood that humans did not value those bonds as deeply as elves, feeling as though they had to make the best of the short time they had, as they did not have a near eternity to find the one they were meant to love. Still, it rang wrong to Sylvanas in a deep way that she could never have forgiven the woman for, even without knowing her.

So yes, she had not thought about what Katherine Proudmoore would think upon seeing the body of her son.

“Jaina took your letter, though. And the coffee. And afterwards made as swift an exit from the scene as was diplomatically possible,” Nathanos continued.

“You did not hear back from her then?” Sylvanas prodded.

“I stayed within range of Boralus for an hour or so, as you instructed. She could have found me if she wished. But she did not,” Nathanos offered with a shrug. “I suspect that she will answer you on her own terms, if she wishes to.”

“I suspect you are right about that,” Sylvanas said with a nod.

He was a surly dog of a man, not so pretty to look at, even after his restoration, and not so inviting to be around--but damn anyone who didn’t give him credit. Nathanos was smarter than he let on, and loyal to a fault. She was lucky to have him still, after all this time, after all these failures and follies.

“Nevertheless, I thank you for a highly entertaining morning,” Nathanos said with another nodding bow.

He was also a chaotic man, prone to laughing both in the face of danger and at the stupidity of just about anything or anyone else. If left to his own devices, he was prone to causing more havoc than harm, and delighted in vexing her other rangers with riddles and puzzles that they had very little patience to entertain.

A complex creature, that is for certain.

“And I thank you for your service, Champion,” Sylvanas offered in return, trying again to be the best impression of the passive, cold leader that he expected.

But again, that was no longer who she was. A smile did not threaten to tug at the Banshee Queen’s lips quite so often. Fond memories never lingered in the edges of her mind. And neither too, did the anxiety that buzzed at the back of her thoughts, mirroring her own, but unlike her own entirely.

What was making Jaina anxious this evening? Her letter? Her mother? Memories of her brother? The moon that no doubt glowed through a mirror image on the back of her hand? The fitful combination of restlessness and deep sleep that she had wrestled with the night before?

Many things, Sylvanas concluded. She had many things to be anxious about. And as much as it grieved her, she could not blame Jaina for failing to reply.

She knew this would take time. She knew that she could not be forgiven for all that she’d done. She knew that Jaina was least likely to forgive her, or to try to understand. But, all the same, the longing that Sylvanas felt for her was nigh unbearable.

Even before she had been restored, it had been there. At first, an empty wrongness that confronted her as part of her undeath--a curse among curses. Then, when she became aware of what she lacked, a nagging itch that demanded to be scratched. A hole to be filled. A hunger no sustenance could satisfy.

Now, knowing and understanding and feeling everything again--Sylvanas still could not have what she wanted. Nor would she force it. No. She wanted Jaina so badly, just to be near her again, but she would have to wait.

Nathanos was right. Jaina Proudmoore was never one to do anything outside of her own terms, and gods help anyone who tried to make her.

“Am I to understand that I’m dismissed then, Dark Lady?” Nathanos said as he came up from his bow.

“With new orders, yes,” Sylvanas said, shaking her thoughts away to more present concerns. She waved the letter at him. “I’ll read this and prepare to brief the Horde on what we plan to do about it. Hopefully they find the conditions amenable. Gather the leaders and have them attend me on the ship tonight at sunset. On the decks if the weather breaks. In this cabin if not.”

“On the decks?” Nathanos wondered. “With Marrah reporting she’s caught wind of Alliance spies watching the ship?”

“I mean to make those spies our allies,” Sylvanas reminded him. “Though your concern is noted and appreciated, I care not if they know what I say to the Horde.”

Nathanos grumbled. There was no more elegant word for it. The man was a grumbler. In many ways like a toddler refused a favorite snack. Even his face was no different, save the beard.

Sylvanas couldn’t help the puff of air that hit the back of her teeth as she looked up at him. A short, percussive laugh. A genuine laugh at his pouting.

She watched as Nathanos’ red eyes took her in, bushy brows furrowing in thought. He said nothing, but obviously contemplated the laugh--the break in a character she wasn’t sure she should bother trying to keep up anymore.

“You are dismissed, Champion,” Sylvanas told him. “Report back when you have informed the Horde, and tell me of their reactions.”

And with that, Nathanos grumbled off into the rain again, and Sylvanas smiled as soon as the door was closed behind him.

Anduin’s letter was brief and polite, as expected. Nathanos was indeed correct in that it asked for time to consider her proposition. It also promised to honor a ceasefire until any decisions were made and to withdraw any aggression from Horde territories or those belonging to the Zandalari until such decisions were reached. In a slightly more surprisingly bold and shrewd move, it invited her to share specifically with him, any information she might care to divulge on the larger threat at hand, so that he might better understand the need for cooperation between the factions on a personal level, rather than explaining to his Alliance that they must just trust in what she had to say.

His diplomacy reeked of Jaina, who no doubt had schooled him in this, and in his want for peace.

Sylvanas smiled again as she put his letter aside, in spite of herself, and in spite of the middling news it offered.

Not a moment later did the door open again, without so much as a knock or announcement, as Clea barged in with more strength and seeming rage than her small form should have offered.

“You let Nathanos in before me?” she demanded as she flipped back her hood, slicking the rain off of it onto Nathanos’ mud tracks as damning evidence.

“You didn’t seem to have any problem getting in,” Sylvanas noted as she gestured to the door that Velonara had been forced to shut back behind her.

“I’ve never been more offended in my life, death, or beyond,” Clea spat, making a grand show of removing her sodden cloak before hanging it on a peg by the door, and yet still managing to make less of a mess of the doorway than the man before her had.

“I love that we have to invent new phrases like that,” Sylvanas drolled back at her, feeling no need to keep character. Indeed, with her long-standing Rangers, she had always been a bit more playful, even at her most severe.

Perhaps it was the human in Nathanos that drove their communications to be more polite and formal. Elves were never really that way with one another. When one lived for thousands and thousands of years, one tended to lose patience for pleasantries pretty quickly.

“I can’t say I enjoy it,” Clea offered as she turned and stared Sylvanas down.

Those red eyes made her feel instantly exposed. And to Clea’s credit, she was. She’d kept her armor off after being stripped of it, and was dressed in new leathers, but nothing else. It had been quite some time since she’d spent this long out of armor. She’d left her arms exposed with a sleeveless top, mostly to allow Clea to come scold and tisk over her shoulder as she knew she would. She had discarded the bandage on it some time ago, seeing no need for the thing now that the wound had closed. Her state of relative undress had also left her wrist exposed for her to toy at tracing the outlines of the faintly glowing moon on her skin, but no one but her needed to know about that.

And while she had contemplated redonning her armor many times over the course of the day despite these things, that didn’t feel correct either. The skulls and spikes of the Banshee Queen no longer suited her. No, that would have to change somehow, as she had. Perhaps she could find something that fit how she felt--stuck in-between.

But there would be time enough for that later.

As expected, Clea’s gaze focused mostly on her shoulder, and narrowed in further as the Ranger approached.

“I have rested and am mostly healed,” Sylvanas assured her.

Clea offered no initial comment as she poked at Sylvanas’ shoulder, and made none further as she flinched slightly from the remaining tenderness of the wound.

“Mostly,” Sylvanas hissed.

Only then did Clea offer her opinion, “But not completely. Doctor’s orders are that you continue to refrain from exercise until dawn tomorrow, and also that you tell the fucking doctor what did this to you.”

“The doctor will hear all in due time,” Sylvanas noted, reaching out to gently push Clea’s hand away from her.

Clea sighed out her disappointment, but at least did not prod the wound again. “What is the point in all these secrets anymore?” she asked. “You’ve run from this dark master of yours. Or stole your soul back from him. Or what-the-fuck-ever is going on. You can at least tell us.”

“There will be no more secrets after tonight,” Sylvanas told her, gesturing down at her half-written speech. Clea didn’t need to know it wasn’t even written to the point of explaining Zovaal quite yet. “So I meant what I said. The doctor will hear all she wishes to hear soon enough.”

Clea’s gaze drifted between Sylvanas’ shoulder and her newly blue eyes before finally settling on the moon on her wrist. Only then did Clea seem to remember another purpose of her barging in.

“The remaining Rangers have all returned from their recall,” she reported. “None of our forces remain in Kul Tiras, save those maintaining the garrisons and outposts there.”

“Thank you,” Sylvanas said in reply. “No trouble with the extractions then?”

“We wouldn’t be your Rangers if there was trouble, well, except for Nathanos,” Clea offered.

This time the smile came easily to Sylvanas’ lips, and she let it. The Dark Lady, the Banshee Queen, the Warchief of the Horde may have occasionally allowed the bantering and subordination that her Rangers so loved, but never encouraged it. She had no time for games, after all.

But a part of Sylvanas has always treasured their little petty innerworkings and pranks and jabs. It was what made them people, after all. People she knew and loved and worried about, and not soldiers in a field, numbers in a ledger. Arrows in her quiver, even, as she remembered saying.

No, she reminded herself, these were her friends.

She could smile around them. Especially at Nathanos’ expense.

Clea, however, was busy looking elsewhere, and didn’t seem to notice, for all the thought that went into it. She stared out the green window at the storm beyond and asked, “You truly think then, that this lord of yours will come to take his vengeance?”

“I am not certain how he will do so, but yes,” Sylvanas answered honestly. “It is only a matter of time.”

“And is that why you ordered us to send some champions over to the Temple of Bwonswamdi?” Clea wondered.

“It is the place nearest to here that is associated with death, so yes,” Sylvanas told her. “I know far less than I wish to about how this works, how he might reach across the planes to exact some sort of revenge. However, I can tell you that I’m quite certain he was behind the Scourge.”

Clea hummed low and monotone. A pensive sound. What else could one do when faced with the prospect of another Scourge?

They both knew well enough what the Scourge had done, how the plague of undeath had rent both their bodies and their homeland and damaged them beyond comprehension. The place where they had fallen still remained a scar on the land--a strip of death and decay in a forest that was otherwise full of life and magic for as long as they had ever known it. Sylvanas had watched, on that same strip of blighted land, as Clea fell near her, finally overwhelmed by dozens and dozens of ghouls.

She’d never felt so powerless as she did in those final moments. Until then, she had felt there was a chance, however small, that she could stop the march of death itself upon Quel’thalas. That she could just try something new, fight longer, fight harder, outwit that foolish prince one more time, and it would be over. But the dead kept coming. He kept bringing more and more monsters to bear. And for all her cunning, all her fighting, all her trying, there were just too many of them and too few of her and her Rangers.

In the end, it had just been her left, cornered and alone. When Sylvanas had died on Frostmourne’s jagged blade, she only thought of Jaina. How terrible this must be for her. How awful it would be to know she was truly alone. Death, as terrible as it was when Sylvanas faced it, was nothing compared to living each day knowing that you’d never be with the one you were meant to be again. That you couldn’t. That your very soul was forever isolated from the thing that had made it whole again, made it shine and sing.

She wondered how Jaina felt when she discovered that this was still true, even though the woman she once loved still stalked the pine forests of Lordaeron, hunting down the living that dared to reclaim the land now haunted by the free undead.

Sylvanas shook her head. Now was not the time to remember those days.

“For that reason,” she continued on, “I think I am justified in my caution, and in my request that we cooperate with the Alliance to prepare.”

Clea had little to say to that, her normally barbed tongue going still. She stood sideways now, searching the stained glass of the window for answers. Sylvanas wanted to ensure her there were none there, as she’d already looked.

“Times are strange, and likely dire,” Sylvanas told her.

“They have been for fucking decades,” Clea finally lamented.

“Wouldn’t it be nice, then, if this was our last battle to fight for a while?” Sylvanas asked, more of fate itself than anything else. “If after this, we could settle with the Alliance. We could just be.”

“Your fancy new eyes are making you too optimistic. What happened to death to the living?” Clea asked.

“I never said that one,” Sylvanas told her. “Though I understand it was popular in the Undercity.”

“Not even about Garithos?”

Sylvanas smiled again. “Maybe a time or two about Garithos.”

This time, Clea caught the smile, then shared it and didn’t seem to know what to do about it. She blinked, red eyes peering into blue, and didn’t seem to be able to process what had just happened.

“I--Sorry. This is weird. You’re still you, but--” she tried to explain as she looked away again.

“I’m like I was before, but still willing to joke about wanting to murder that conceited fuck, and enjoying the fact that we did, in fact, murder him?” Sylvanas finished for her. “Believe me, I’ve been wrestling with it all day. If there were a manual for how to deal with having one’s soul returned to wholeness, I’d love to read it. But, I think that I’m once again a singular case.”

When Clea looked at her again, a flash of sympathy made its way over her features. It was doubtless in the slight droop of her ears, the furrow of long brows, and the brewing concern beneath the red glow of her eyes. In life, Sylvanas remembered them glowing a vibrant blue, hinting at the warmth of gold in some ways--shining and brilliant like Quel’thalas had been.

Had been.

What would Lor’themar have to say to the notion that she still considered it less than restored?

Sylvanas decided that having her entire soul back was overall a very distracting experience.

“Either way, I will tell you what I know, after I’ve had a chance to tell the Horde in a formal sense. Let them have the long and short of it, and I will give you and the rest of my Rangers the entirety of what details I do know, and have Signe share what she knows as well. Perhaps the lot of you can make sense of things where I cannot,” Sylvanas offered.

In truth, the secret keeping of the last few years had worn on her. She did rely on her Rangers for their intelligence, and had done so throughout the course of her life and unlife. It had been difficult to have information she either felt she could not share with them, or that she could not begin to explain. But there was no use in that now. She needed all the help she could get.

All of Azeroth, it seemed, might need all the help she could muster, if she was right.

“I do love a good briefing,” Clea answered with a genuine grin. “And I have missed them.”

“A briefing you shall have, then,” Sylvanas stated. “After the speech. Find Nathanos and make sure he’s doing as I asked in the meantime.”

“Why am I on babysitting duty?” Clea asked with another long sigh.

“Because we both know someone has to be,” Sylvanas told her. “Or he’ll be off making friends with every dog in the city the second his task is done.”

“The Zandalari don’t have dogs,” Clea reported. “They have dinosaurs.”

“The last thing we need is for Nathanos to somehow obtain a dinosaur.”

“On that, I suppose we can agree,” Clea said, relenting and offering a Ranger salute as she turned to don her cloak and leave.

Just as Sylvanas found herself smiling at the image of Nathanos playing fetch with one of the Zandanalari’s great reptilian beasts.

---

The rain was gone by sunset, but left the deck Sylvanas stood upon still wet and smelling of sea and sky. The ship no longer rocked and rocked, and saw no deterioration from the storm. It was still a fine, fine ship, and still one she was happy to take leave of. Still one she was not sure she deserved to have built in her name.

She stood at the railing of the aft deck, looking below as the leaders of the Horde gathered around the lower deck, some not even daring to stray too far from the ramp back to the quay. Each of them had looked up at her with puzzled expressions as they came aboard, then gone to whispering to one another.

Saurfang, the stubborn old bastard of an orc, never took his eyes off her, though, and stared even then as Rokhan whispered something in his ear.

He had no reason to trust her. No reason to trust this change wasn’t another trick or feint. She didn’t blame him. She couldn’t. She couldn’t blame any of them.

Baine Bloodhoof shuffled his massive frame aboard, second to last to attend, and didn’t so much as gawk at her as he just took her in with those big, sorrowful eyes. He always seemed as if he was in mourning for something. Maybe his father. Maybe his friendship with the Alliance. Maybe peace itself.

Sylvanas looked back at him, wishing she could convey some sort of sincerity by just an expression alone. But she knew that he didn’t have that expectation of her either. He shouldn’t, at least.

None of them should.

It was finally the sound of raucous laughter and the exchanging of coins that distracted Baine as he lumbered across the deck, and straight into the back of Gallywix. The Trade Prince was already making bets, and Sylvanas supposed she should take that as a sign he was no worse for the wear after his brush with the Alliance. He didn’t seem to mind his brush with Baine’s hooves either, as he merely turned around, scolded him loudly enough for all to hear, then tried to get the chieftain in on whatever bet he had going with Gazlowe.

An unlikely gamble, but an admirable effort nonetheless.

Lor’themar, of course, was the last to arrive--fashionably late as always. He was flanked by a rather exhausted-looking Lady Liadrin and the perfectly quaffed black hair of Magister Rommath--no, Grand Magister Rommath, lest Sylvanas forget. It was always strange to deal with them now, these people whom she had considered friends in life, who now looked upon her as the others did, with caution and delicacy--the deserved reservation of those who questioned the motives of their leader.

Lor’themar had never looked at her that way when he’d been just another of her Ranger Lords. When he would limp into the infirmary to be scolded by Liadrin, still wearing her priestess robes and not a paladin’s heavy armor. When he’d try to excuse himself early from giving a report, while Rommath waited outside, and insisted that no, he was not late for a date. When he’d come to her office as she worked into the evenings, uniform coat unbuttoned, a bottle of her favorite mana wine in his hands, and remind her that she should, and could, relax once in a while too.

Sylvanas realized then that she missed him and his company with an incredible force that threatened to topple her from her perch on the aft deck. Lor’themar had been her friend. He was her comrade. Someone she trusted with her Rangers and her very life.

And even he gawked up at her with his one good eye like he expected her to drop a barrel of Blight on them. As if she would give up the lives of every critical member of the Horde without batting an eye, all for some scheme, some plan for vengeance that would never come.

And yet, Sylvanas couldn’t blame him.

Nor could she blame the hard scrutiny of Liadrin’s eyes--all holy gold peering from deep, dark bags below. What had her so busy? She had only recently returned from Arathi, and had been otherwise commanded to maintain a defense of Dazar’alor and the Horde forces stationed there in the event of an Alliance invasion. But that was cakewalk for Liadin, surely not enough to keep her up at night.

Or had she been crying?

Another question Sylvanas had no right to ask, and an odd feeling about wondering the answer to. She’d given up that right long ago.

Though the judgment Liadrin threatened had nothing on a much taller figure she ended up standing next to. The imposing Zandalari heiress, Talanji, stood nearly as tall as Baine, and stared harder than Saurfang ever could. She had been suspicious of Sylvanas from day one, and yet they had not yet met in-person. Sylvanas had trusted her advisors and representatives to handle Talanji, and knew better than to face her directly. Talanji was a woman of action and quick decisions, and would have not stood for any deception or vague promises in her dealings with the Horde.

So it was in Sylvanas’ best interest to let this first direct address be as truthful as possible.

Luckily for her, that was the plan. The plan. Right. Time to get to it.

She hadn’t been nervous about addressing a crowd in over a decade. Funny, how much harder some things were, full of tension and regret and unchecked emotions.

Or maybe that was just Jaina, still gnawing at the back of her skull with her own anxiety raging on and on. How Sylvanas wished she was projecting her constant stream of youthful optimism of old, as she so often did when last they were tied. Gods know she could use some of it.

Sylvanas adjusted her armor one last time, still feeling out of place in the skull motifs, but having no alternative. There were many reasons to feel out of place. The eyes on her. The fact that she was the Warchief of the Horde, somehow.

All of it, really.

But now was not the time.

She summoned up a facade that she once used long ago, not clouded by a passive, simmering rage, but projecting confidence she both did and did not have. The mask of the Ranger General, which she’d seen her mother wear long before she’d ever worn it, was both physical and not physical. It was a stance, a face, but also a projection of an image within. An image Sylvanas felt she didn’t deserve to embody, but at the same time, needed very badly to inhabit once again.

“Champions, leaders, valued members of the Horde, and our esteemed Zandalari hosts,” she began, using near the full power of her dual-toned voice to resound over both the ship and into the harbor beyond. “While I am certain you have been left wondering more often than not these days, and have wondered why I have called you all here, I can assure you that today, you will not leave this ship wondering anymore.”

The truth had been such a lonely place. Sylvanas was familiar with that loneliness. She felt it when she’d gone nearly two hundred years without finding her soulmate. She felt it when it had been Nathanos, and not Vereesa or Alleria, who had been the first to come to her after mother’s death. She felt it again when Vereesa sent her the letter after she’d botched their plans at Garrosh’s trial, and told her that she was too broken to mend, too dead to be worth living with. She felt it even before she understood her emptiness, when Jaina wouldn’t look at her in the throne room of the Undercity, even as Varian threatened to end her for all she had done, all he had seen in the supposed rescue the Alliance had come to provide.

“I am sure you have noticed that I am changed. How exactly, I am still attempting to understand. I will not lie to you, not anymore. I have been attempting to bring this about for many years. I have worked not in your interests, but in my own, in seeking what I wanted. I have no doubt you’ve found my recent actions extreme. I have no doubt that many of you disagree with the direction I have moved the Horde in over this last year. Well, I will tell you that I did so for myself, for my very soul.”

Her soul. A flighty thing, full of emotion and chief among those, regret. Regret that she didn’t attempt to snatch it away sooner. Regret that she had at all, for the doom it would now bring upon this world. Regret, too, that she did not understand the entire capacity of what that was, or what Zovaal might do to seek his vengeance against her.

But it was hers again. And it should never have been taken from her. In that, at least, Sylvanas could feel justified.

“I will brief you on the details of what I know later, but know this; I have been working at the behest of a lord of death. A keeper, it would seem, of hell itself, whom I met when I sought to end myself at Icecrown, and found out exactly what horrors await the dead. I have since found out that this lord holds hostage the souls of Forsaken such as I, who were slain directly by Frostmourne. Last night, I was able to free my soul from him, and stand before you made whole again.”

Whole, but dead. A soul in a body that still didn’t feel right. A ghost made manifest on will and rage and cunning, and ultimately, a desire for control. Sylvanas had all the control she could want now, and it hadn’t made anything better, only more complicated.

“I stand before you whole and full of regret. There is no better way to say it. There is no way to atone for what I have done to you, and ordered you to do to others who did not deserve it. I wish there were time for me to humble myself and explain, to beg you to understand and forgive. My actions warrant none of those things, but I also know that we don’t have time for them.”

Sylvanas looked down, watching the sea of faces below bound from confusion to outrage, then back again. She saw Saurfang’s lips working, as if he were about to accuse her of some trickery, and decided she couldn’t afford to pause again.

“I have asked the Alliance to entertain a ceasefire. What I did for myself, and hoped to do for the rest of my Forsaken, has no doubt caused the master I once served great anger. He will come for me, for Azeroth. His goal, as I understood it, was to gain the power to remake reality itself in the image of his choosing. He knows no mercy, and cares not for what he destroys or consumes in the wake of moving toward his intention, which I have now disrupted in my disobedience to him. No doubt this sounds familiar to you. I realize such a course was one I once shared. Well, not anymore.”

Sylvanas’ Orcish still wasn’t the best after all this time, but she appreciated the language for its directness. There were fewer flowery words or complex expressions to trip over. Ideal, honestly, for a speech she struggled to give. There was so much to say. So much to speculate on. But this was not the venue for uncertainties.

Sylvanas had to ask them directly for what she, and the rest of their world needed.

“I ask that you work with me, and work with the Alliance, to help fortify our world against this new threat. The armies of death itself will march upon us, perhaps not unlike they did in the Third War, or perhaps in new and terrifying ways. I know again that I do not deserve it, but I ask you for your understanding and your cooperation in these efforts. Please. For Azeroth.”

A din erupted below, but out of all of them, Lor’themar’s reaction was the first she heard.

“Fuck, a ceasefire?” he shouted back in Thalassian, half at her and half at the rest of his delegation. “Sun bless it. What is she saying?”

Somewhere below his hip, Gallywix and Gazlowe stood, coins in hand, not sure how to go about exchanging them. Clearly the result was unexpected, enough to make even the Trade Prince reconsider the legitimacy of his bets.

“Sylvanas, what is the meaning of this?” Lor’themar asked in Orcish for all in attendance to understand. “Are you saying that your eyes have changed, and obviously your mind, because you’ve regained your soul, that apparently you didn’t have?”

“To make a very long story short, yes,” Sylvanas answered.

“Pardon my language, but what the fuck?” Lor’themar shouted back. “Where has it been?”

“In hell,” Sylvanas answered, again, truthfully.

“What do you mean, hell? What trickery is this now?” Talanji was the one to ask this time.

“I can see there’s going to be a lot of questions. I will answer what I can. Let’s be orderly about this,” Sylvanas cautioned as more voices rose above the clamor.

“How can we believe you, you banshee witch!” Saurfang finally snorted through his tusks. “After all you’ve done, all you’ve killed and left to fester in your wake.”

Perhaps the speech wasn’t what she should have dreaded. “Nathanos,” Sylvanas said, calling him forth from where he stood guard behind her on the aft deck. “See if you can find some refreshments for our guests. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long evening.”

While what she said was meant only for Nathanos, Sylvanas doubted anyone could hear it anyway. At least not over the shouting, and the loud, thunderous sigh of relief that Baine Bloodhoof was letting out.

---

“I must say, though, sun above is it to good to have you back,” Lor’themar went on, despite the fact that Sylvanas had gently reminded him not once, but twice already that she was, not, in fact, back.

No, it was very clear that she was not who she once was in any aspect of her life before, or undeath after. Her eyes might glow a different color, her full spectrum of emotions and the judgment that came with them may have returned to her, as did her connection to the very souls of Azeroth and her inhabitants, but Sylvanas Windrunner was still very much the same woman who had burned Teldrassil and blighted the Undercity, and would not be easily forgiven for either, least of all by herself.

And while Lor’themar’s trust might have returned easily enough for him to linger in the captain’s cabin as he once had in her office in Silvermoon, the rest of the Horde had still been quite cautious of her, even after what seemed like hours and hours of questions she did her best to answer as wholly and truthfully as she could.

She’d even taken time to plan out the course of their ceasefire and cooperative efforts with the Alliance with the other leaders, should they accept. At the very least, the rest of the Horde were eager for the ceasefire, though remained a bit suspicious of one endorsed by her. It was only Gallywix and his war profiteering, who seemed at all disappointed by the prospect. He showed no signs of stopping in his quest to make money off of the war and Azerite, despite his recent brush with death.

Oh, and Talanji, who seemed quite annoyed that the Horde wanted to treat with Kul Tiras, rather than wipe them off the map in Zandalar’s name, as she had been promised.

She threatened that her father would not welcome this news, but Sylvanas felt the troll king would. He had a healthy fear of death about him, that much was certain. A war was a risk he did not take lightly, and he lacked his daughter’s bloodthirst for it.

All the same, Talanji seemed to see more reason after Sylvanas told her of her suspicions of Bwonswamdi. Of how she’d come to hold the title of Warchief, and how Zovaal had been so pleased with himself for the effort. Talanji went deadly silent after Sylvanas remarked that she cared little for who held the title at all, so long as they would listen and keep the peace.

It was all such a tangled mess--these last few years, so interconnected and rotten all the same.

Sylvanas didn’t feel she could swear by the sun anymore. Belore no longer answered her call, but still, she smiled up at Lor’themar from her desk genuinely. That would have to be enough.

“Take heart however you will. I am who I am and what I am,” Sylvanas finally answered. “But I am glad to have your help. You are content then, to deploy some regiments to watch the remainder of the old Scourge sites in Lordaeron?”

Lor’themar grinned to the point it bent the soulmark on his cheek, a glowing thing that he said represented a flaming arrow. Sylvanas always felt it was far more abstract in shape, but let him have his fun. Rommath wearing its opposite along the top of his ear was scandalous enough already.

“Of course!” he answered. “You said you believe the wall between worlds to be the weakest in places where death was settled before?”

“Or where it calls home now, yes,” Sylvanas offered. “I mean to send a contingent to Icecrown Citadel as well.”

“Smart,” Lor’themar concluded.

“You can stop grinning at me like a well-fed cat, you know,” Sylvanas reminded him.

“Sorry, it’s just--This feels like old times. Better times,” Lor’themar offered.

“I fear that ‘better’ is hardly a word I’d use to describe what we face,” Sylvanas said with some degree of certainty.

Only some, of course. She didn’t know how Zovaal would go about his revenge. What she did know was that he had reached into Azeroth before, and could do so again. Like she would with any enemy breaching walls, Sylvanas only knew it was a safe bet to watch the cracks.

It took far more time and conversation than she wanted to shoo him from the cabin, but Lor’themar did eventually see himself out. The door opening ahead of him revealed the great harbor had darkened into a clear, crisp veil of night. A blanket of stars shone overhead, absent a moon. It would be dark tonight, and newly reborn tomorrow.

A strange feeling that Sylvanas could sympathize with, surely.

Alone again for a fleeting moment, she wondered if the exhaustion she was beginning to feel was hers or Jaina’s. No doubt it was late for living things that needed to sleep.

It was stranger still, that Sylvanas found herself wishing the Lord Admiral of Kul Tiras would get a good night’s rest.

“Signe,” she said to nothing.

And from that, the val’kyr formed before her. Signe no longer traveled between the planes of life and death, but she also didn’t seem to be particularly bound by the rules of physics either. She was where she was needed, corporeal or incorporeal when it concerned her to be either, but always came when called.

“Yes, Dark Lady,” Signe answered, forming the wholeness of her spectral form, and nearly filling the small cabin with it.

“I have two tasks for you tonight,” Sylvanas told her. “But first a question. Are you able to get to Kul Tiras tonight?”

“It would not take me long,” Signe answered. “I will fly swift and true.”

“Are you able to do so unseen?” Sylvanas questioned further.

“If that is your will.”

Her will. She wanted nothing to be for her will anymore. Will was what had kept her going. It had kept her cruel and decisive. It had seen her defy and overcome.

But Sylvanas was tired of being willful.

“Carry this then,” she said as she offered up an envelope. “To Lord Admiral Jaina Proudmoore. You know her, yes? You know from me what she looks like, where she might be?”

Her connection to the val’kyr seemed to impart some of her knowledge to them. Sylvanas didn’t want to think what that might mean for those the Jailer had reclaimed. But for now, it was helpful not to have to brief yet one more person.

Signe nodded to this.

“Make sure you are not seen. By her as well, if it can be helped,” Sylvanas instructed.

“It will be done,” Signe assured her, reaching out for the letter.

The letter was perhaps a bit foolish. A bit awkward, certainly. Sylvanas merely wanted one thing, and that was a reply. Any sort of reply.

Even Anduin had told her to wait. She could take that from Jaina. She would wait.

But the lack of acknowledgement was grating on her. She needed to know. She needed to know if this was all worth it. If her soul could truly be whole again. If there was any chance.

So yes, she was sending her last remaining val’kyr to Jaina Proudmoore with what some might call a sappy love letter. And it was ridiculous and foolish and perhaps a waste of her time. And it was equally ridiculous that she might be using said val’kyr for this task, because she was certain any Ranger given the job would tell her exactly how foolish it was.

But Sylvanas had to know.

“Return safely from this, and then I will ask your next task of you. You will brief my Rangers on what you know of the realms of death, and of your former master’s plans,” Sylvanas ordered.

“I have shared what I know with you already, Dark Lady,” Signe replied.

“And I have no desire to keep it to myself, not anymore,” Sylvanas told her. “You will brief them all tonight, so we might rely on their counsel for the days to come.”

Signe nodded slowly to this. Perhaps it was an odd notion for her to accept, a ruler who asked and checked, rather than just imposing their will.

Sylvanas knew, after all, with both portions of deadly certainty and gnawing uncertainty, what awaited this world. But it was only her place to warn and prepare. Not impose.

She had a feeling that any who thought her mad would soon be proven wrong either way. She only hoped that somewhere, where Jaina was still stirring in this moonless night, still buzzing with anxiety, that she wouldn’t wait to find out. That she could believe, as Sylvanas herself was also struggling to believe, that some things could change for the better.

#Sylvanas Windrunner #Jaina Proudmoore #sylvaina #fanfic #beneath the blue moon #so much plot #blergh #AND SHIP TERMS #who allowed this??? #oh right literally all of you

[frogsare-friends]

I'm Not Built for Helping Myself

chapter index | chapter 1 (you are here)

- JEREMIAH -

Nothing at the summer house felt the same without her there. That was the one and only thing I was confident would never change. Sometimes I wished I was back in Boston, with too many bad memories to make it a happy place. There I could be mad at her, at Dad, at Conrad, even. Here all I can picture is her smile, the one reserved for summer, for Cousins. The rest of the year were tight-lipped, plastered on smiles that never reached her eyes. I couldn't blame her, though. I wore the same one. Dad and Conrad, however, prefered a blank slate. Cold and bitter, telling everything and showing nothing.

I almost think that if I could leave, I would. I would go and never come back, never remember her smile, or the dresses that were still hung in her closet. When I was little Belly and I used to sneak into her room and play dress up. Belly wore her button down (the only one Susannah had owned) and made me wear her heels and her frilly dresses she'd buy for the fancy dinners Dad took her out to. They had stopped doing that when I was 12, they started back up as apology dinners when I was 14. We'd leave the place a mess, and looking back, Mom definitely knew what we were up to when we'd run off scheming, giggling to ourselves — unbeknownst to us that we were giggling to everyone else, too. Dad found us once, I was dressed in my mom's favorite shade of blue, Belly and I putting on her brightest red lipstick. I haven't touched makeup since, made Conrad put the contents of her vanity in a tote to go in the attic.

I think that if I ever really did leave, Conrad would kill me. I don't think Conrad could ever let people know how much he cares about them, not without hurting them. He's trying, I have to remind myself. Maybe he wouldn't kill me, maybe he would track me down and never stop texting and calling. Not to convince me to come back, just to yell at me. Just to hurt me enough to make sure I know Conrad cares about me, but not to care about me enough to make sure I know I hurt him. Maybe if I couldn't read Connie so well that approach would actually work.

"That's stupid," I think. I don't even make sense in my own head. I get why everyone wants me to be happy all the time now, it's so much less confusing for everyone.

"Jere, c'mon man. Liam's having a party tonight. You're the DD!" Steve yells as he runs past me, not waiting for me to object. I'm excited, excited to get out of my head a little. Spend some time with my brother, Steven, and — mainly — Belly.

I should go check on her. I'm so in love with her that sometimes I think it might kill me. I've never felt anything good so strongly, nothing that hasn't crushed my lungs. I know Conrad feels that way too, know about the panic attacks. Maybe I'm a bad brother for not telling him I know, but Conrad has always shut down when people notice things about him. The problem with me is that I never stops noticing, but I know how to pretend. I'd help, though, in a heartbeat. If I was there when he had one, mysterious older brothers be damned, I would help him. Would ask him for 5 things he can see. I don't have the heart to tell Conrad that anxiety is genetic, that I get them too. I can't tell him about how I get sick when I'm anxious, how I sit in bed and cry and have panic attack after panic attack when the weight of this house and the last get to be too much.

I want to. I want to look at Conrad and find what used to be there. But I can't. I try and bile rises up my throat, and really, that's the problem in the first place. So what's the point? I've never been one for holding grudges, and I'm not. If accused of it, I wouldn't deny it, but that's not what this is about. It's about trust. I trusted him, I needed him. And he wasn't there. I knows it's not fair, not fair to ask Conrad to take care of me, look after me, care about me. I know it's not fair, but I can't help thinking that I do it every time. Conrad thinks he's the only one that carries everything, but he isn't. I'm the one there to pick up the pieces and glue them back together whenever Conrad drops it. I've always looked up to Conrad, but more, I've always looked after Conrad. When Dad went to London for two weeks because he was mad at me, I was there for Connie, not the other way around. It's not fair, it never has been. But I can't help but want Conrad to care about me the way I care about Conrad. I know he cares about me as much, but I don't care how much he loves me if he won't say it, won't talk about it. I want more than for Con to love me a lot, I want him to love me well.

By the time I get upstairs, Belly is already dressed and putting on her makeup. God, I'll never get over how I can't breathe in a good way whenever I see her. Not like the world stops, like I stop. Because in the entire world all I'm thinking about is her. The world is still there, I just couldn't care less when she is too.

Then she turns around. And she's wearing the same dress that Mom used to love. The same one Dad once caught me in. The first of two times Adam Fisher ever laid a hand on either of his sons. And suddenly that good feeling of can't breathe, of too much is very much a bad feeling.

"Jere, what's wrong?" But I can't, I can't, I can't. She always could read me too well.

"I-" and I don't get the time to finish my sentence before I'm running to the bathroom. Pulling up the seat and dropping to my knees in front of the toilet. There's a soft hand on my back, rubbing it while her other one grabs a hair tie, pulling my hair back for me. God, I love her.

"It's okay, Jere. Shhh, it's okay. Let it out, I got you" she continues to whisper sweetly into my hair, kissing my head when the worst of it's over. I'm panting, trying to get rid of that feeling of not being able to breathe.

"Ew guys, no being in the bathroom togeth- Oh. You okay man?" Steven walks over, looking like he wants to help but would also rather be anywhere else. He does have a fear of throwing up, afterall.

- BELLY -

"It's fine Steven, he'll be fine. I don't need you throwing up on the floor, get out of here. You and Conrad go, we're not gonna make it." I'm not mad at Jere for being sick, how could I be. But I will be mad if Steven doesn't get out of here and throws up all over the floor because of it. I'm not cleaning it up, and I'm definitely not rubbing his back.

"Are you sure you don't want us to stay here? We can go out and get some crackers," Steven offers, his back turned but still listening intently.

- JEREMIAH -

"No, you go man, I'm good. You've been looking forward to this all day, have a good night" I'm practically begging him. I like to think that if things were different, if I wasn't sobbing over a toilet, begging him to go, Steven would stay. I don't usually get what I like though.

"Yeah, alright dude. We'll see you tonight?" Steven walks out before he gets an answer, I wasn't sure he was really asking a question though.

#tsitp #jeremiah fisher #the summer i turned pretty #tsitp jeremiah #belly conklin #conrad fisher #belly x jeremiah #tsitp belly #tsitp conrad #ik this is a lot #and not very plit or jelly focused #but the next part will be #i promise #so much jelly #so much plot #even more sadness #happy at the end tho! #i swear! #please comment if you like it! #or reblog! #that one paragraph is the longest paragraph i've ever written in a story before #i coukd go on about the fisher sibling dynamic forever #belly taking care of sick jeremiah #writing jenny's wrongs

[belladonicbloodsucker]

bg3 update

#so much plot #wylls a demon now too but i lost the mod that gives him cool hair <///3 #i DID get the top surgery mod and EA karlach to work tho. unfortunately it only works w camp clothes #og #bg3 #img #lb #karlach #astarion #ashvin'i #wyll

[timehealstale]

The Entire PLOT (SPOILERS WARNING)

Okay, since I am in a terribly good mood. Imma ramble once more about TimeHealsTale (THT) again right here and for Eagle too. Maybe have a bit of a revamp too. Maybee.

Trigger Warning: Dark topics of war, abuse, inhumane experimentations, genocide, marriage for benefits, etc. not really safe and fluffy. I made and carved this story during covid lockdown. It is not a cosy story. But hey there is the power of friendships and hope in here too.

TimeHealsTale is an AU set in an IRL situation where Undertale's plotline takes place but it is only a small narrative over the entire history of the AU's creation. See, the story starts all the way from the beginning from the creation of the AU. From Nothing to Something.

Oblivion or any other name it can be referred by as it was nothing decided to create something. It controls nothing but basically gets the ball rolling for everything. Doesn't really gives a crap of Anything happening in their sandbox because nothing was only an audience. It saw the threat of a random entity entering its domain and making a mess on his creation. Hates it. Obliterates it.

The entity Changing something (ie gaster's development) in the narrative and threw the entire thing off course from the Undertale plotline to TimeHealsTale plotline instead. Like ya know how a butterfly flaps its wings and change the entire course of history. It is like that.

Nothing didn't do anything to gaster because Nothing recognises Gaster as one of their even if... Changed. It just shrugs and moved on. Keeps watching. Oblivion recognise no concept of Time. They/It are just glad to have Something to hold on. For it was theirs. Even if Gaster/Gesu/ Wind Chimes of Slaves was kinda ripping apart his creation at the seams with high goals to rewrite history to his liking. They/It do not see him as a threat.

Nothing very VERY JEALOUSLY guards it from Outside entities. Absolutely rejects their very presence. Ink, Error, Fresh, Dream SwapSans and any other AUs. There is a reason why this AU is hardly known by others. Sitting right in the corner, hidden away and more.  It is very young yet the AU itself is rich with its own history. Filled with entire galaxies, planets and unique ecosystems.

Not merely a game.

It is life that this particular part of nothingness adores.

Really a walking contradiction like all life.

Doesn’t gives a shit but actually give a shit.

Now onto the THT Plotline.

The Entity having given Gesu a mind of his own.

Okay, let’s rewind a bit. Monsters exist here. From the beginning of the planet Earth. The first Monster to be created was a plasma Monster made of pure energy that formed under the wishes of many MANY creations dying in a tsunami or some form of cataclysmic event. Their SOULs wishing or hoping for a saviour, for light, for warmth and lo behold they got their saviour.

Albeit, a bit late as they were all dead to get help.

This pure energy of a Monster was mindless, aimless but with a single goal. To help, to give light and warmth, to GIVE HOPE. Reshaping the planet as we speak. It in records of history was recognised as the first Monster. Compared to as the sun on cave carvings. Having life flourish on this harsh environment. An Ancient being that formed a mind of its own after centuries and carved the earth to be as it was now. Before “dying” and becoming the moon.

A floating ball of congregated dust in space pulling the tides for earth.

Ya gotta know, a Monster’s lifespan in this au is effin long as heck.

Humans with such a short lifespan easily accepts them as deities at times before forgetting and the cycle repeats.

So basically, Monsters are made of wishes from a living things’s dying will. Like that. And at times there will be multiple all over the planet. Gotta keep in mind that these exist outside of the galaxy too. So these means Monsters exist universally as well in space XDc. Moreover, if two Monsters or more get together, yes they can have offsprings and thus begins the group of Monsters going around with settlements of their own.

And now there is a whole generation of Monsters. Born instead of made thus, they also forget if their Ancient Monster Ancestors refused to goshdarn explain their origins to their kids. I mean who wanna tells em. “I was made by HUNDRED IF NOT THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE DYING to form me.” Yeah? Yeap .

Sooo, Gesu. In the period time of the year 1300 ish formed under on accident with the rest of his batchmates of two Ancient beings duking it out, who were created PURPOSELY by the warring Human clans for WAR. Specifically, Gashodokuro and a floating demon mask, Oni Mask. He, Gesu not named yet or it back then, lives underground, a creature who works in the coal mines put to work by humans, cause it was mindless an animal so why not? Humans says.

BUT, it encountered the ENTITY who says wow that is suppose to be a Monster what da hell. Then used its power to form Gesu’s soul. A Soul that held no hope, compassion or anything that resembles resolved itself to give a fuck for another person. It was formed too early, unnaturally developed to quick by the entity’s ignorant act. HIS savior, gave him a mind to think, to speak, to walk on two instead to swim in the dirt or walk on fours rattling like a horror creature. Mask slips on to hide sharp sharp teeth, laughing laughing in silence at nothing and form eyelights to look at the flaming darkness that was the entity in the dark darker yet darker cave he was slaving away getting coal for ungrateful walking flesh.

So unnatural to him.

It seems very, very interesting.

“Gesu (Slave), what will you do now?”

“I will follow you, my Master.” For he knows not nothing else.

“Oh fuck.”

So this begins Gesu borderline yandere obsession with the Entity that once nothing removed the random Entity Gesu wanted to rewrite history to turn back time to get the Entity.

This all took a span of 500 hundred plus years. Holy hell muffin.

He uh, kinda researched the creation of Monsters, the history of Awakened Humans which is another story to tell that is mainly about Humans awakening their latent ability to wield magic of their own if they spend enough amount of time in a Monster settlement. Happens to very few special people that will be attached to a specific ‘thing’ that their awakened abilities will have to be conducted with. Because apparently Humans are much more solid and volatile concentration of energy than a regular Monster that feels more natural and in tune easily with everything.

A Human’s abilities are limited but powerful.

A Monster’s abilities are limitless but weak.

Ie, Humans are limited to their colour and conduit, like I can heal by cooking food in my frying pan, so green magic but colours are relative that’s another whole ass story.

A Monster can freaking use any colour of Magic but do have inclinations to be stronger in one kind of colour magic suited their subspecies like Goat Monsters/Ram demon from hell So cool. Suit Fire Magic! Skeletons, Gravity Magic!. But goshdarn they are weak physically than the humans in these au and attacks on Humans are so hard for them too. But Monsters can absolutely kill Humans here just as easily. Humans are just more sturdy.

Now imagine, Gesu going around doing research. He does burn a few towns and Monster settlements not gonna lie. But when he heard that there was an entire clan of Monsters just sitting ducks after getting excommunicated to some island and sealed underground at that. He was like GOLD. I STRUCK GOLD.  It was a Skeleton Monster Clan of Course.

He gets arrested, gets thrown there, blends in, works hard to not seem suspicious. But was suspicious as hell. But he was very useful so  that negates clearly everything he does.

Goddamit this is so long. Imma continue it when I am not irritated by my own story anymore. Geez.

But long story short.

Gesu or Gesuto or Gaster now, ochrestrated Komi’s life cause she is his daughter, borned of him. Brought up to be immune to DT or what is the centre core of a Human’s SOUL that has in abundance of. Something that CREATES Ancient Monsters upon death of the many. He wishes to posses her body like a puppet once she develops the ability to rewind Time. Because ya know that’s a thing here XDc, A Monster’s or Komi’s fineness in manipulating Magic and Frisk’s raw energy of DT. He wants to possess them both. The greedy bastard.

Shit life Komi lead, brought up as a pig for slaughter in a pen house that Gaster effin murdered all her family for, testing DT magic on every one of them till they haemorrhage on it, choking to death died in a pile of sludge and planned keeping Papyrus around because he detest her short stature. Like rude.

Wanna know how he got the DT?

He farmed Humans travelling into the prison Underground cave. He sealead ALL Entrances, keeping them for himself, put traps for Humans wanting to brave the cave lines. HE IS GOOD AT CAVE LINES.  Then he keeps them barely alive in his dungeon. This goes on for 500 hunderd years. Underground Monsters should have been freed by at the latest the 20th year of imprisonment but because he didn’t want that, of course not.

Komi found the dungeon and fucking vomits.

Komi found out that the sealed “dust” of her mom’s that passed away when she was eight was actual sludge and she hurls again.

It was a horror show.

She lived her life dependent on someone she believed loved her and would do anything to heal her of her ailment. A “terminal disease” that she was born with only to realize, he was the cause of it. Marrying her mother, only to use her to create the perfect tool to his reach his dream. (DT proximity radiation on the mother’s wedding necklace, right above her SOUL, cause of death)

This entire story is a horror mystery.

Where Komi and her gang of friends unravels everything one by one.

But it is actually more of a, her friends deprogramming her abuse and subtle brainwashing by Gesu. Slowly, as the story is arching over the her life growing up into an adult. With friends around her starting to notice the harm Gesu is doing and discrepancies in her life.

Doggo, her childhood friend and brother in all but blood.

Found the dungeon first.

Dude there is so many side characters in this. Side villains, side plots, side everything, oh my cheesepuffs sticks. I love it. 

Honestly, if it wasn’t for Doggo rooting for her to be a kid just like him and ALphys teaching the power of friendship through anime. She be so dead. If Papyrus wasn’t there for her to look after and be looked after in return she be double or triple dead.

The entire STORY IS TOO DANG LONG.,

There is the childhood arc.

The dead family arc + Papyrus Enter Stage Arc

The Doggo Friend Arc.

The Terrible Terrors of Waterfall Arc.

The I am Your Father and You Will Listen to Me Arc.

The Rebellion Arc. Or Snowdin Fiasco Muscle Boy Free from Dungeon /Komi Ignites Green to Push her limit and Save 4 year old Papyrus / Papyrus witness brutal human death by a grinning Gaster and Komi crashing down with a wide gaping cracked skull hella traumatized.

The Quashing of the Rebellion Arc/Next step to getting the Soul he wanted Arc. / Forced to Go Green Komi

Komi is a child Villain? No! I am 14! I am an adult and you will obey me Alphys (insert last name here)! Alphys : Okay, here have an orange and some anime. Arc Plus, gain some confidence Arc by Alphys due to being passionate about the injustice that was “shouting about I am evil and entitled you are all beneath me, Komi” as the kid spews clearly repeated lines adorably at her in overalls and boots, cackling MUAHAHAHAHHA like a classic anime villain.

Alphys wants an autograph and a therapist.

Komi realizing that she doesn’t approve of the people living the life they have now. Promised the Terrible Terrors of Waterfall better living situations in the name of her fallen skeleton clan people that had once nobly lead the people of Monsterkind. Realized she doesn’t have to do it alone. That she needs power too.

Que, breaking into the King’s Castle Arc.

Asgore: (hobo dazed in grief still after orange muscle child human died) Lucida? Is that you? Komi: NAY, I AM COMIC SANS DU FONT AND I CHALLENGE YOU FOR THE THRONE!

She is fucking adorable.

She did not get the throne but she got biscuits and a listening ear and a signature and a promise to visit his castle whenever

She visits because the King’s place is a terrible dump and she is wee bit neurotic about clean environment to live in. Plus, the King made somewhat decent pies and amazing golden flower tea.

Insert the Lost Judgement Chambers Arc, stuck in a void in the in between where uncle by 5 years older is stuck in a limbo also died at 5 years old. A clue to who did it. Sike. Also named Comic Sans Du Font) A room where she and the King needs to cross in yet only she could see it through the film of darkness. And a garden that would lead to a Greenery to solve the food shortage in the next few years.

Insert Papyrus jealousy Arc that spans in between story and accumulates until he got a frying pan to the head only for her sister to come in between him and Gaster. … But she still try to make excuses for the bastard that that was just dad. Papyrus finally sees it for what it truly was a growing six year old and understand that holy fuck Gaster was hella mean for a dad. Being jealous of a sister who always been there for him, picking him up from school and giving him hugs to scare away nightmares and for her to have a shitty father was absolutely hella shit.

Insert I’m gonna die and I accept it Arc by Komi, who made a will for Papyrus, prepares a house for him far away in Snowdin away from Gaster because she knows that Papyrus is not safe from him. But oh, SHE DEFINITELY WAS SAFE WITH HIM. THE EFFIN IDIOT. The will and the house was an entire Arc that involves Doggo and his uncle and aunt Dogamy and Dogressa who took away Doggo from waterfall from his original family that declared him the weakest runt of the litter and deserved to die all because he was blind and with him colluding with the Waterfall’s Terrors that was just bad influence. Dogamy and Dogaressa claims these three in a heartbeat as family. Screw it if they were skeletons and they were dogs. The children were theirs. Stupid laws stating that  14 year olds were competent adults is dumb as fuck and would not stop them from howling to the sky and having the kids follow along. Better yet if the skeleton children did it too, even if in embarrassment.

FREEEDOM (AWOOO)

ASDGJAFKLNA (AWOOOOO) gibberish – Komi and Papyrus/Ru

Yeah they helped a lot and inspired Papyrus to join the Snowdin brigade.

Next Arc is the heartwrenching tale where she feels death creeping up at her, the medicine that she took daily was no longer working on her. Green Magic that runs throughout her body no longer feels sustainable and Gravity Magic making her bones attached to one another no longer feels enough to hold her together. Arc she died and got stuck in a coma for 1 year and half after Papyrus’s birthday and giftmas. Papyrus 8th bday gift is a house in Snowdin she worked and didn’t manage to pay for but supplymented by Dogamy and Dogaressa and adoption papers to the dog family that will ensure he gets everthing to the skeleton family because apparently the laws are tight that no outsiders married to the family will get an inch of inheritance in here.

Papyrus, I don’t want a house, I want my sister back. The stupid I am off to die letter was not enough. Trauma MORE TRAUMA. Eigth year old abandoned feels the pain of Eight year old Komi abandoned. WHAT A MIRROR.

Arc The Rescue. Doggo and Alphys who her parents got blackmailed by gaster made a daring rescue attempt after finding where Komi went to after a year of research. But, no it was actually Gaster dropping clues to them. He was airtight. Gaster had nothing incriminating on him.

He was just healing his daughter after all from a terminal illness that killed off all the skeleton clan people. (cough chemical genocide cough) Look, his daughter is right there on the bed all healed up just stuck in a coma. Please take care of her for him. He did no wrong of course. Not at all.

Doggo can smell the lies on him and growls.

Gaster: Such a good loyal mutt you are.

Alphys: Let’s retreat. We got what we came here for.

Gaster: Ever the practical one, Doctor.

Alphys: (Hiss in dinosaur lizard language)

 Doggo carries unmoving Komi home to Snowdin to an even more traumatized Papyrus who now has an unmoving Komi iunder the basement for 6 months. The poor kid.

I just love making these pair of siblings life a pain. I know. Covid was a bad time for me.

Papyrus kinda fills up the time with training and getting stronger to kick his not dad’d coccyx because he knows HE DID THIS. He’ll protect his sister if he had to die for it. (Obsession is strong)

Grows stronger when he failed again and again and again.

Dude he needs a therapist so bad. Komi you should stop throwing yourself into dangerous situation where you keep dying in front of him or put yourself in danger of dying. It is unhealthy. Doggo is the glue to their tumultuous relationship.

Arc Komi wakes up and is crippled Arc. Can’t move her body. She is entirely calm in front of Papyrus who she asks gently to get Doggo. She broke down in front of Doggo. Hella she felt useless for being alive right now. Papyrus, 9, was behind the door gritting his teeth.

Komi: I can’t move. How am I going to protect anyone if I can’t move?! I can’t protect Papyrus like this. I am scared. I am so scared. Doggo. Dad can help. I want Dad.

…

Can you please help keep Papyrus in aunt and uncle’s house. Just for a bit. I don’t think…. He’d like Papyrus around for this.

Doggo remains valiantly stone faced in the face of it. Even if he wants to whoooo boy shout and scream at the unfairness of the world. His sister by bond is in pain and she doesn’t even know she’s swallowing the poison herself.

Doggo: (breaths in and out) How about I’ll go get Al instead, she’s the closest. Later, … I’ll go get Dr. Wing Dings.

Komi: Thanks, Brugo. You’ve always helped me out… Thank you. And, I am sorry.

Doggo: Don’t apologize, Coco. You didn’t ask for this. You should rest.

Komi: Yeah.. Hey, why are you calling dad. Dr. Wing Dings now.

Oops went on a tangent,

So Arc. Komi feels like she’s fucking useless and gains mobility of her arms but not her legs yet. So useless she wants to die but she needs to get to dad first. Because she is a literal walking Time Bomb now. Explodes in a power of rewinding everything around her dramatically. Doesn’t understand why everyone is stopping her from seeing him. Additionally wasn’t aware for when Gaster actually came into her room crushed her SOUL in front of Papyrus who screams fucking bloody murder. She stayed not awake for two weeks.

But oh ya know, Dad came to pick her up at the frontdoor and the Arc he jumped himself into the CORE of the machine. Saying random stuff that tugged at heartstrings and honestly Komi was heartbroken again and really was at the lowest point in that moment. Even if it went all according to his plan.

She really wanted to die alone in the forest of Snowdin, if it wasn’t for grillby going out taking wood to burn later. Granpa Grill Arc. It is an adorable sweet scene of Gran Grill hefting her on his back holding her crutches and then giving her tea. Before gently pointing out the things she has to live for. It takes awhile to get through her head a bit. Like a long whle

Arc of Change and development happening. Greenery in Snowdin, more jobs opening. Alphys mentioning they couldn’t have done it without her. The leader of the Terrible Terrors decking her in the face for her close call action before she hugged the stuffing out of her. There she was surrounded by family and was fucking blind to it. Papyrus gets a new mentor from Waterfall. The honoured Captain Undyne, the one to bring down the Waterfall Terrors at the age of 14.

Arc Time Bombed. She blew up in the Snowdin forest. Hauntingly shouting desperately Papyrus to run. To not get rewinded out of existence. He couldn’t make it. But Gerson visiting his student’s student did and threw Papyrus away out of range in time to get hit by the blast and yeah. Time rewinded for him along with the forest that grew luscious green leaves and turned old Gerson to the youthful in body yet luckily not in mind. A seven feet towering height muscular Commander of the Monsterkind that joyously laughs at his regained youth.

Flexing his muscles that he had once in his prime.

Picked up a befuddled Komi and Papyrus and head for his old friend Grillby.

Grillby: What the fuck.

Gerson and Gran Grill had a shouting match about child soldiers and what constitutes as one for Papyrus. Papyrus stand his ground in front of adults that he WILL BE A ROYAL GUARD. HE WILL LEARN TO PROTECT. Komi breaks internally.

Further breaks as the truth comes out about her father in lieu of Doggo and Alphys investigation now with the help of Undyne who has a crush on the hot and assertive passionate Alphys.

Komi didn’t know what to believe anymore.

What didn’t help was the Flowey Arc. Alphys did the same thing but this time at least she had Komi’s help. Having learned to control her rewind abilities that she knows enough to use it in occasions now to avoid the accumulation of the DT energy in her SOUL. Alphys not telling that she had tested on the King’s personal flower so holy shite. Because why would that be important? The worst part is Komi is aware of everything looping like groundhog day and the apathy grew and grew until damn she pushed away a worried Papyrus who, saw her dead dead eyelights, from her door and walked out without a word because why bother talking.

She had a gun to get from Catty and Bratty to modify into a sniping rifle and weed to pull from its roots.

Disabled Komi walking with one crutch learned to blow herself up with her unstable white magic called Bomber Snappers, modelling it after her father’s Gaster Blasters and Bratty’s head. Bomber Snappers that can sink into the ground to get the weed out of the earth and crush him to bits. Snipping for Flowey’s Flowey Omega’s eye. Before she learned to grow bones straight from the monster’s eyes and body. Giving in to her own medical knowledge that she has and been taught by good old dad to do a macabre scene of Flowy bursting with bone attacks coming from the inside.

Even her apathy twinged with regret at the sight of him screaming like the permanently 11 years old he was.

So she gave up.

Flowey’s constant repeats had actually aided Gaster’s design.

He planned for a Human’s … but this would do.

Komi’s SOUL had developed its next stage but she was falling down  as a Monster.

Flowey who now can see the eerie Gaster standing in the void where he makes his RESETS. Recoils in fear and horror once he realized that he won’t be able to RESET anymore. Because’s Komi’s SOUL is overlapping his. He should’ve realized she was gaining more power in each attack, in each reset. Komi also hardly reaslising that fact as she laid on her bed. Willing her self to just shut down and die there.

But flowey who had been upset in the last few resets where Komi didn’t even bother with him nor getting up from the bed to deal with his shenanigans and murdered her friends and family before her.

Flip his lid and dragged out her melting body off the bed to meet his mother who was a stupidly good healer.

Toriel can probably heal her crumbling mind. Hopefully.

Cue Arc putting a ducktape over a depression which was the desire to be useful to others other than themselves. Komi becomes a Healer and smiles a bit. Adores, feels fond of her siblings who breaksdown Toriel’s door to get to her. Panicking about a kidnapping, traces of leaves drag marks, sludge dust and sled tracks. Flowey getting the stink eye from Papyrus.

Flowey does indeed get along with Papyrus in the coming story. Flowey calls him the most insane I don’t want to get on his bad side genius, mastermind Papyrus.

Komi having high functioning depression. Smiles, waves works as a Healer for the Underground. Give and gives. Stupidly popular which works in her favour to fulfil Toriel’s promise she made (to save the Humans that comes through. She fully supports this.) with much to Undyne eternal chargin. Because after she became a Healer, prison time for her rule breaking was limited to less than a week even then Komi was summoned to Heal in between that time all over the Underground so that was useless.

Friends but with different belief’s yes.

Doesn’t help she has the King’s ear. Oh, look is that the Judge I hear? Nah, that’s just the Healer who kinda sticks around the unseeable Judgement Chambers sealed in void. Where she can breathe just a bit and see a small shadow of her five year old Uncle sticking around waving her hello.

Her mentality is that of a glass cannon at that point. Without her friends checking on her. There would not be any pieces of her left to glue together with gold like the Kintsugi method.

Advenstures with Frisk plus friendship growing soft fluffly sweet yadda yadda. Before guilt in Frisk cause them to admit in the Judgment Chambers that they accidentally killed a Froggit initially before they came here on accident.

They RESET the Sealed Underground much to Komi’s desperate shout of No getting unheard. Warning from Flowey ringing in her mind after that weed decided the Monsterkind was worth his time. And he amazingly befriended Papyrus of all people.

Arc kick gaster’s butt after he possessed Frisk body Arc before hand it kinda overlaps , preparation for THE DAY and a bunch of quick thinking from everyone. Because luck and hope and resolve is on their side.

Komi realizing she freaking cannot die or give up if she doesn’t want Gaster to win.

Special Void room plays a crucial role.

Arc Secret Lab and DT extracter that Al(Alphys) and Dyno lover (Undnye) prepared. Komi killing her father off to save Frisk.

But goshdarn he wasn’t even dead then but just vibing in the void waiting patiently for Frisk or his daughter to determinedly desire a RESET of the world with SOUL shards floating in his centre for SOUL.

Arc, Komi tattling happening on the time loop because she is not the one to keep anything from her family anymore. Because look at where that led to. Hugged both her brothers who died in the Gaster Possession Route. Everyone in Toriel’s house. Undyne did not have the same desperate camaderie develop with Komi in the GP Route but she tries even as Komi smiles at her and calls her brave as fuck. Al is in good hands.

Undyne: I WON”T GIVE UP!

Komi the hypocrite: (Dragging a rewinded unsludgified Undyne from her Last Defence Form Away from Possesed!Frisk.) GIVING UP IS NOT WEAK! RETREATING TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY IS NOT WEAK! FIGHTING ANOTHER DAY IS MORE AWESOME THAN DYING HERE AND NOW. ALPHYS IS WATCHING YOU DUMBASS. YOU WANT HER TO SEE YOU DIE? WE NEED YOU! SHE NEEDS YOU.

Very nice heart to heart moment in Arc Secret Lab where Komi becomes bait leading Gaster away to Void Room and Undyne and Al prepares the DT extractor. Where Undyne says sorry for her loss to Komi when she remembers Doggo and Paps did not make it. It sucked.

Gerson the cool old man died in place of Undyne. Sacrficing for the youngins he says its easy. No parents wants to see their young leave them first.

Gaster; How admirable. I’ll give you an honourable death o disgraced commander.

Arc Ending. Hug an ugly crying twelve year old frisk that says they are sorry for killing people. They are having a hard time computing that Komi is a child of that bastard as what the fuck? Seriously?  Frisk gets hot cocoa feels awkward bunch of already close knit individuals but was warmly welcomed only Komi giving green lit card for time travelling shenanigans and flowey’s input. Still keeping a one eye open though.

Now with Undyne entourage and proof of too specific things details by Komi. Frisk can walk too easily up to the King’s Castle. Moreso when Al and Komi whispers of things that they discovered on accident of things that would make everything so much better. Excitedly talking of possibilities. .

That leaves Frisk slightly a bit traumatized even if Komi explains the step by step process of what she plans on doing with their help.

Arc Komi in a coma again collapsing in front of spooked Frisk. Papyrus breezing through citing not too worry. This happens all the time. Very much aware of his trembling phalanges and arms. Doggo at his side helping to calm both of them. With all cast members in place.

It ends here.

(There is so much more I skipped over or summarized too much)

Next series starts with

Komi in a court before a Human Judge, accused of aiding her Father with criminal activities as a minor

Komi: What?

Arc evil side villains tries to ambush and attack the gang in Arc Ending. Failed but Doggo earns a new cool scar over his eye that was ruined gauge out. Then he got a cyberkinetic one which is cool asf.

Witches that waited for generation for the power of the Ebbot Island Seal to be theirs was shattered and they cursed to the sky for the one that did it. Cough Komi RUN cough. Government approaching the site with a bat to whack the witches away and welcome new neighbours cause holy muffins 500 years of residents in their land. Well ahem, natives hidden away sealed underground land.

Military Commander having tea with Queen Toriel as Asgore is stuck in a political prison of  a Royal House Arrest. Parliament in session. Organizing a group of Humans to intergrate into the Underground and bringing some Monsters up to intergrate on the Surface of Ebbot Island. New Act was pass to accept the Underground residents as recognized citizens and free rehoming will be given. 

Komi wakes up 3 months after all that happens.

In a random ass human hospital.

When it rains and thunders.

And she hides under the bed thinking it was a cave in shouting about an earthquake. Yeap.

Okay I should stop. Surface story is another long tangent I’ll get into later or whenever. It is 17 pages already and close to 3 am damnn.

#timehealstale #undertale au #undertale #writing #komi sans #comic sans du font #papyrus #doggo #papyrus du font #creative writing #yeshhhh #so much plot #too much plot #arghjjafafald #undyne #alphys #grillby #gerson #holy muffins there will be a lot of people

[kennedysbitch]

Chapters: 20/26 Fandom: Motherland: Fort Salem (TV) Rating: Explicit Relationships: Nicte Batan/Tally Craven, Sarah Alder/Tally Craven, Sarah Alder/Nicte Batan, Raelle Collar/Scylla Ramshorn Additional Tags: Angst, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort Summary:

[Post-S2 finale]

Nicte Batan was once the most wanted yet invisible face on the planet. She suddenly finds herself charged with keeping six young, reckless witches from getting themselves killed in an effort to take down the Camarilla. As the situation deteriorates, a blurry history and decades of concealed truths start to unravel what she thought were ironclad defenses not even Sarah Alder could penetrate.

Tally Craven’s powers are growing at an alarming rate. Her desire to seek the truth didn’t stop with Sarah’s passing, and she is determined to unlock the secrets between Alder and Nicte that helped bring witchkind to this place of reckoning — secrets that may prove crucial to ending the Final War.

#nictally #nictalder #motherland fort salem #nicte batan #tally craven #i have no excuses for this one #there is plot dammit #so much plot #i'm lying

[conduitstreetcat]

Chapter 34: Priestesses’ Wiles

Fire and Ice? We are Fire and Ice? And we need to - cross the Void? What??

You seem as puzzled as I am. We look at your grandmother, her face hidden in the dark except for the shine in her eyes. I realize that it hasn't really got lighter since we've been here - has any time passed?

"Fire and Ice came together in Love to create the world. Let Fire and Ice come together again, let the waters flow, let the Reindeer Mother walk the land... let the world unbecome, and be born again..." Her voice seems to become softer, like she's moving away from us, but we are right here, on this animal skin - reindeer skin? It feels - soft - warm - alive -

I look up, but I don't see her any more, there is just darkness all around us, only you and me in the void, on this skin –

Read it on AO3!

#mormor #tiger on the silk road #plot #so much plot #norse mythology #with a FaerieCat twist #priestesses #tigers #wolves #oh my

[jadedvibes]

I’m going to need at least a week minimum to process the Moon Knight finale.

#too much happened #too many feels #too much hotness #so much plot #I need some time #moon knight spoilers #moon knight

[quil12]

The totally unedited rough draft of this chapter is over 5k words long...

(For me, this is a long boy chapter)

Also, have an exclusive sneak preview of it!:

This is literally the least spoilery section of this whole chapter

#so much plot #the effects of this chapter are going to last for the rest of the story #its very important #i am not gonna apologize for the last cliffhanger though #that was very intentional #i hope this chapter lives up to it #because its so important #i want to take my time editing it #so itll probably be up either tomorrow night or the next day #we will see #lots of emotions to work through

[imakeficrequestsandthendisappear]

Stranger things (which already has like 10+ main characters) season 4 really had the audacity to introduce ~15 new characters in the first episode and expect me to give a fuck about all of them 

here is what my brain can remember:

#10: dies in the first five minutes

mean popular blonde girl: she’s a cunt

denim bullys: hang out with mean popular blonde girl. all denim all the time

crazy popular blonde girl: looks kinda like scarlet johnason 

basketball captain: future republican senator 

Argyle: sure why not 

newspaper boy: his posture is so bad his spine is shaped like a question mark

school counceller lady: so nice you know she’s gonna die soon 

eddie: I hate this man so much it makes my bones hurt. he looks like he smells like burnt weed and the worst city bus b.o. you’ve ever choked on 

the other dnd guys: who cares

will’s haircut: it’s a whole character 

robin’s crush: big gay 

the new police cheif: i miss hopper

enzo: i just think he’s neat

that one girl who sings (tammy?): queen 

max’s tylonol addiction: what are we doing here

the demon: oh no he’s hot 

#stranger things #stranger things season four #so much plot #it honestly gave me a migrain #it was good tho #better than season 3 #jim hopper #joyce byers #will byers #mike wheeler #dustin henderson #lucas sinclair #eleven #jane hopper #max mayfield #johnathan byers #steve harrington #nancy wheeler

[asteroidtroglodyte]

#troglodyte thoughts #free range sustainable shitpost #anti doomscroll patrol #fuck advertisers #fuck youth worship #you’re just getting started sweetie #there’s so much plot left to uncover

[universewolfpup]

What exactly does Springy’s spinoff in the AU involve? Like, I’m assuming that part of it is him still dealing with the loss of Goldie. Or, is that a bit that you’re still working on?

<Incorrect-fnaf-quotes

OKOKOK BSLDHEKEHEKDJ ahem

so before Springy's spinoff, what ends up happening is that he tries to burn down the diner (in the beginning of part 2), and Finn was actually inside the diner while Springy was doing this almost cinematic type scene I have in my head (I'll see if I can sketch it out at some point, either as a mini comic or animatic)

and so as Springy's getting ready to burn down the building and set himself on fire, Finn is in a distant room practicing his guitar (Freddy was gonna pick him up in a bit, so he was gonna lock everything up and such)

so, Springy's like prepping up and pouring gasoline on everything and stuff, and so he sets the building on fire from the inside, and Finn starts to like, smell something burning so he walks out of the room he was in to find a rabbit engulfed in flames (he doesn't know it's Springy)

and so Finn is like "what the hell ??" and he tries to get closer to Springy and put out the fire (the fire extinguisher is closer to Springy), and so Springy sees him and goes manic, straight up running and attacking Finn in this angered, distraught frenzy (think Geppetto in GDT's Pinocchio if you've seen it)

as they're wrestling on the ground, Springy ends up wounding Finn in the eye

Finn manages to get away from Springy and calls Freddy, and Springy runs out the back door and essentially runs away, and this is where the story splits from the gang and Springy's perspectives

now in Springy's spinoff, he ends up running for days and days, as far as he can from Fredbear's, from all the pain and suffering, and he manages to find shelter in this old decrepit building

inside that building he finds a young rabbit, who's pregnant (I haven't developed her character yet hrng, so she's currently nameless, having the title of ✨ Vanny's mother ✨) and so they're both scared and alone, but after a while they end up taking care of each other and becoming a family of sorts (Springy becoming a sort of loving father to her and baby Vanny once she's born !!)

(I hope I'm not boring you with all this rambling 😭😭)

I'm basically speedrunning through the story, but essentially the 3 of them become a family of sorts and it's really cute and it helps Springy heal a whole lot (he loves his girls ;-;)

sadly that happiness has to come to an end

cowabummer 😔😔

Vanny is now probably still a toddler, around 2-4 years old, and Springy's taking care of her while her mom is out running errands ✨✨

Vanny's mom gets into an accident and ends up dieing, and it crushes the ever loving hell out of Springy, who has to now take care of Vanny and not shut himself from the world like he did when Goldie died. he has to be there for his little girl !!

the years pass and Vanny grows, and as she's growing she gets more and more rebellious, and Springy gets older (mi viejito ;-;) and it gets to a point where they get into a heated argument and Vanny runs away, thus starting the ✨ Glamrock Spinoff ✨

yay ✨✨

#fnaf #five nights at freddy's #fnaf au #asks #glappy's universe #glappy's rambles #Springy my beloved <33 #my poor boy deserves better 😔😔 #long ass au hrng #and its still not over !! #we have so much more left #so much plot #so freaking much

[raepliica]

i think they should take turns cuddling for healing purposes

#trigun #trigun maximum #trimax #vash the stampede #nicholas d. wolfwood #meryl stryfe #milly thompson #mashwood #merylvash #vashwood #merylwood #polygun if i dare say #trigun fanart #raepliica_art #i blast them with the domestication beam!!!! #they need to stick two beds together bc fluff bird vash takes up too much space #meryl so small she gets lost in the feathers #they would fight for their turn at cuddling the feathered otherworldly creature #and they'd just sit around waiting for milly to come back from her work trip like dogs waiting at the door #excuse the lack of plot; i didnt plan anything beyond page 2🧍 #got possessed with wanting to draw mashwood again #and then merylwood specifically

[aarchimedes]

for context: I read the hobbit first over the course of two years when I was like 13, but I'm only now starting to read lotr. having a blast tho!

anyways, reblog if you feel like it 🙌🏻

#lord of the rings #the hobbit #lotr #hobbit #yeah guys idk i just feel like most people read it really young #but jolkein is really wordy and idk how y'all got through that at 8 yo #my attention span could neverrrrrr #obviously not as wordy as like. les mis. but you know what i mean. #lots and lots of context all the time. love that for his worldbuilding not so much for my hold on the plot #and yes i have watched the movies #i didn't completely miss the cultural zeitgeist #yay first time making a poll! if you vote or read my tags this far you are a gem 🫶🏻 #edit: i realize i spelled tolkien wrong. i feel like this proves my point #but also i feel like thats something you spell with your heart and not your mind

[glorious-spoon]

i know we all laugh (mostly fondly) about the paper-thin plots in porn that only exist to make the sex happen, but i was reading some old stargate fic over the weekend, and i really think we're sleeping on the paper-thin hurt/comfort plot that only exists to force the characters to FEEL THINGS.

like, is this scenario realistic? no. does it make any rational sense? no. does it provide a built-in excuse for a character to collapse, bloody and disoriented, into the arms of his beloved/friend/partner? obviously, that's the whole point of this exercise.

i love it. it's my favorite thing in the world.

#writing #hurt/comfort #much like smut it operates on the assumption that we all know what we're here for #obviously you CAN write a fully coherent plot with hurt/comfort elements just like you can write one with smutty elements #and those are lovely too #but there's something so charming about fics that are like #'look we all know what you came here for. i don't have to explain myself.'