#and hes eyeing u wanting to know what happened

[miguelhugger2099]

Just a silly little request👉👈

Do u think fem!reader likes to wear crop top with no bra and Miguel's boxer. You two are just flirting and teasing each other until Miguel decided to toss the remote to reader for movie night and reflex, she tries to catch it reveal her tits and Miguel just "😳... Nice catch..." And smut if u want. Having his hands speezing them I'm going insane 😭😭

Just One Touch

a/n: this ask has been in my inbox for so long and ur not gonna believe what got me out of my month long stump to write this. everyone thank sir-mix-a-lot's song "ride" it possessed me and gave me energy. excuse the crappy writing, i'm still lowk having writers block so it's not my greatest work. please enjoy and as alwayssss i can rewrite this if you'd like <3 Art: mar_mar0u on instagram ! Unedited btw, plz dont crucify me ill die :(

It wasn’t unusual for you and Miguel to wind down after the sun had set. Movie night was a must, whether it was cheesy romcoms for you to sob to, horror movies for Miguel to be annoyed at, or even action movies to make fun of–as long as it was together. Still, Miguel teased you by holding the remote up above his head and out of your reach. He grins with one hand on his hip and watches you reach up with no progress in sight. “Give it!” You laugh, trying to keep your anger believable. “No, first you take my clothes and I know you’re gonna pick one of those creepy knock off animated movies.” He chuckles and he walks off. Due to the size difference, every step of his was three of yours–practically chasing after him. “Put respect on Over the Hedge’s name! It’s not even a knock off!” Miguel plops on the couch on one side with a huff of laughter. “Fine, fine. Here–take it!” He throws the remote above your head and you pause and stumble back.

You reach high up to grab the remote. “You asshole!” You laugh. The remote hits your fingertips and bounces a bit farther back. Your crop top rides and flows up as you lean back onto one foot to finally grasp the device in your hand.

Miguel could feel everything happen in slow motion. The small glimpse of your underboob before your nipples finally come into view. The grin on Miguel’s face slowly drops and he could feel drool slipping from his lips. He watched your boobs bounce, the roundness of your flesh and perky buds making his cheeks go red. He can’t help the disappointment in his face when your arms fall back down, shirt hiding the glorious view of your tits.

“Caught it!” You smirk at him triumphantly. His eyes continue to glance at your tits.  “Yeah, uh…” He gulps. “Nice catch.” He adjusts his shorts, hoping his growing bulge wasn’t too apparent.

You don’t notice, too engrossed in your victory and making Miguel speechless. So, you crawl in his lap, Miguel’s hands suspended in mid-air as you nestle yourself in his arms. You feel his muscles surround you like a warm comfortable blanket, leaning your back on his firm chest while you click the buttons to turn on the TV.

“So what are we picking this time?” You ask, flipping through random trailers to find what you’re looking for.

“Huh? Oh, uh, anything’s fine.” Miguel shrugs half-heartedly. He’s too focused looking down at your crop top. Slowly and gingerly, his fingers caress your stomach–light and feathery as if trying to be discreet.

“Yeah sure, whatever. Don’t complain if you don’t like it.” You laugh softly, clicking on a random movie that looked good enough.

“Mhm.” Miguel mumbles, not even hiding his disinterest in a damn movie right now. While your eyes are on the opening scene on the TV, Miguel’s eyebrows scrunch together, his lips into a tight line as he resists his urges.

He can’t help it though. He gets handsy, Miguel carefully caressing your stomach. You barely notice it since the two of you always get snuggled up like this.

You only notice when he hikes higher up, his hips shifting slightly while his fingers run up and down the valley of your tits. You smack his arm around your waist with the remote.

“What are you doing?” You ask, trying to sound annoyed but the smile seeps through your tone.

“Nuthin’” He murmurs. Miguel then feels the curve of your breast, his fingers itching for a squeeze.

“We’re supposed to be bonding.” You move to turn your head up at him. You try to meet his eyes but he stays glued downwards to your chest.

“We are.” Miguel insists, his lips slightly parted. His thumb swipes across your nipple and you gasp, feeling your cheeks burn. He can feel the nub perk up and his tongue darts out to lick his lips, biting his bottom lip to hide the satisfied smile on his face.

Miguel takes his chances, bending down to kiss along your neck, tugging you closer to him and making you melt. His body moves against yours and your eyes flutter shut. His mouth gently sucks and licks your skin and you shiver. Miguel grabs your left tit, the plump flesh squeezed in his palm. His fingers flick your nipple, circling around before gently twisting it.

You back arches and you moan. “Ah–fuck, Miguel!” You hissed, a burning heat crawling up your neck. Your hand lifts up to curl in his hair while he attacks your neck, his other hand running down to his boxers you were wearing. He slips his fingers in the front hole of the boxers, using his index and middle fingers to spread your folds apart. You feel him nip your neck with a smile as he smears your slick around your clit.

He then uses both of his hands to lift your shirt up and over your head. Your breasts are now out in the open, the cool air hitting your chest and making your nipples hard. You barely get a word out, Miguel already cupping your boobs and squeezes them. Your hips buck back to grind on his crotch, eyes closing as he plays with you. Miguel used his fingers to tease your nipples simultaneously, flicking and tweaking them. He lifts them up and watches them fall down before squeezing them again. Your pussy is soaking through his boxers, aching for more stimulation that’s making you feel empty.

His eyes are dark watching his own hands play with your chest, the memory of the bounce of your tits as you caught the remote high in the air. He wanted to see that again.

Miguel could feel his cock swell and twitch along with each bounce of your breasts. You have your body arching, hands behind you and holding onto his thighs. He plays with your tits switching with his hands or his mouth–but if you asked him, he preferred sucking on them. So that’s where he was now, lips attached to your right nipple and his right hand playing with your left. You slammed down on his cock, whining since you barely felt him thrust up. But in all honesty, Miguel could do this forever with your tits in his mouth and his cock buried in your cunt. While his tongue sucked and lipped your nipple, he knew if he didn’t focus, he’d cum instantly. He looks up at you after playfully biting down on your nub, your squeaks making his dick twitch against your walls. You look down with glossy eyes, hips stuttering and pussy throbbing when you see him smirk up at you with your boob in his mouth. One of his hands that was on your waist comes up to your back to keep your body arched. Miguel scrunches his eyes shut, eyebrows furrowed while he sucks on your nipple, his hips jerking and balls slapping against your ass. You wail with each thrust, falling forward and holding onto the backrest making your boobs squish in his face. Miguel groans as he lets you fall on top of him, hands falling down to your ass as you grind on him. His cock slips in and out of your wet cunt with a wet squelch. It makes you bite your lip with a loud whimper, the action making your man under you tug on your nipple with his teeth. He’s obsessed with you, Miguel pulling away just enough to make your tits swing in his face. He glances up at your pleasure filled face, sweat glistening down your face and body while you panted and whined. He’s entranced, eyes falling down to follow the way your boobs bounce as he fucks up into you. Miguel trusts you to keep fucking yourself on his while his hands leave your ass to come up and cup and squeeze both your breasts. He kneads them and watches your mouth drop open to moan. Your head hangs and your foreheads almost touch. Miguel doesn’t need to tell you a damn thing, his lips parted while he looks at yours. You lean down to kiss him, Miguel immediately slipping his tongue past your defenses with a low groan. He continues groping you, his hips smacking up with your thrusting and he can feel himself about to cum. He can tell you’re about to too by the way your pussy spasms wildly, sucking him in deeper and soaking him in your slick.

So he hammers into you, grunting as he puts all his strength in making you cream. Your eyes roll back, mouth separating from his to dig your nails into his shoulders and roll your hips. You can barely get a word out, garbled moans of his name escaping you while your body twitches, ecstasy flowing through from top to bottom. Miguel watches your chest heave as you catch your breath, your juices dripping out of your a making a sticky mess in his lap. You’re dizzy and weak, body flopping forward on his chest. Miguel soothes you, curling his hand in your hair and pressing you into the crook of his neck. He kisses the top of your head and you’re too numb to feel him take your body off him. He places your back down on the couch, hair sticking to your face with sweat, lips plumped from kissing. You’re whining when your sensitive folds feel his still hard cock rub in between them, accidentally slipping his tip in a few times. You swallow to get the dryness out of your throat. “Mig…Mig…” You’re cut off when Miguel slams into you, your body jerking and tits bouncing with the hard thrust. Your hazy vision rolls onto his face, Miguel glued onto your chest still. He gives another few soft thrusts and watches your boobs jiggle around. You feel his cock jump inside your walls, a soft hum of approval coming from deep in his throat. He bends down, biting and licking the side of your tit to add another mark to his collection. His teeth marks littered around your plump and round flesh–his favorites being the ones around your areola.

His face is buried in your breasts while he pounds into you, your head thrown back and legs locked around his waist. Oh, he’s in heaven.

#miguel x reader #miguel o'hara x reader #miguel o'hara x y/n #atsv miguel #miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara x you #miguel spiderman #miguel spiderverse #miguel x reader reblog #miguel ohara #spiderman 2099 x you #spiderman 2099 x reader #spiderman 2099 #miguel x y/n #miguel x you

[irndad]

hii dollface, would u write smtg abt hotch being jealous?

like he's trying to hide it from making the team notices when he saw some officer flirting with r?

no pressure in writing, lovey. change it however u want or ignore it if u dont feel like writing it (i completely understands u 🤍)

my love this has lived in my brain so relentlessly <3 i hope you love it!!!! thank you for requesting!! wc: 1.7k

It is incredibly easy to like her.

She’s charismatic in a way that’s almost universally appealing, and he’s memorized the shape of her wide grin. She smiles with her whole face, and Aaron hasn’t really spent too much time trying to make people smile. He’s had success in some ways, but when she smiles at him there’s something in his chest that burns in achingly lovely way. 

At first, he had assumed her kindness was a way to win him over. In her first week, she had noticed there was a rip in his tie (which he’s not sure how could even happen) and she’d whipped out a pocket sewing kit, repairing it. 

He tries not to think about the fact that she’s beautiful. She is, though, in spirit and in appearance. He’s an expert in controlled presentation, but to some extent she must know that’s he’s fond of her. 

When they’d first met (which he can still picture in his minds’ eye- her oversized sweater tucked into her tailored pants, the purple lipstick adorning her beautiful smile) he’d tried to keep his distance. It’s easy to romanticize her, and being her friend felt a little impossible when seeing her as more felt so inevitable.

This plan did not go well, and Aaron had officially tossed it when one day, the babysitter for Jack fell through when he was halfway around the world. She’d picked him up from school and tended to him, and Aaron had come home to a blanket fort on his kitchen floor, and a happy little boy who wanted her to come over every day. 

So it's a little hard to ignore how much he adores her. 

She doesn’t normally want to come out to the scene and they usually don’t require it, but they’re going out to a place she spent most of her twenties, and she knew people in the local PD, so Aaron had asked her to come. 

She’d done so without complaint, although he knows she doesn’t sleep well on the jet. No one knows where the nicer pillows and blankets came from, and Aaron would prefer it that way. 

Anyway. 

The bullpen of this department is chaotic and a certain caretaking is living at the edge of Aaron’s consciousness, a protective desire to keep her from the loudness and violence that she’s typically protected from. 

He’s still thinking this, when he hears her voice over the chaotic hum of the department. 

“Oh my god, Logan!”

Her voice is joyful, and when Aaron turns to see who she’s looking at, it’s an agent. He can tell that he’s not a police officer for many reasons- the fact that he’s got a long, shaggy haircut and a 5 o clock shadow and a leather jacket on his shoulders. The local police would be too strict, and he must be some kind of different authority to be allowed to be here.

He hears the stranger call her name back, and they hug. 

It’s a quick thing, but imbued with deep fondness. Aaron’s not sure he’s ever hugged her for more than a second- just a congratulations when his commendation came in. She’d smelled like roses. 

Now, she’s hugging Logan. 

“Hotch,” she says, a smile still in her voice, “This is Logan! We went to graduate school together. He’s brilliant, I can’t believe he’s down here.”

Her voice is seeped in admiration, and Aaron feels an ugly amount of what can only be described as jealousy. 

“Great to meet you. You’re the unit chief, yeah?”

“SSA Aaron Hotchner,” he offers the man a curt nod, “Have you met the team?”

He goes through the motions of introducing him to the team- he greets Reid with a warm smile and tells him that he’s read his papers. Logan compliments Emily’s shirt, and Morgan’s watch. 

He’s incredibly charismatic.

Is Aaron charismatic? He doesn’t think so. His team, who probably adore him as much as anyone could, still note that he can be harsh, prickly. He never smiles, he knows. He lacks expressiveness. Logan is all fluid movement and easy conversation, and when he takes the jacket off, Aaron sees a great deal of tattoos on his forearm, his sweater sleeves slid up. 

He’d smile for her. 

What should be a good thing, but hurts- Logan is an excellent consultant profiler. He’s thoughtful and helpful and she has an easy rapport with him. Aaron- he’s so bad at talking to women. 

She makes Aaron feel like he’s good at it though. When they drive together, the conversation is easy and feels nice. It’s like sunbathing, basking in the light of her attention and intention. 

With the help of the man that Aaron has decided he hates, the case is finished up quickly. 

He can’t shake the thought they’ve probably dated. It’s not his business- this crush, although this word feels inadequate for the intensity of the way she makes him feel. It’s a private thing he’s never going to act on- he’s older and her superior, and besides- 9 stab wounds and a lifetime worth of issues is a million times less appealing than someone like Logan. Young, exuberant probably not too afraid to ask for what he wants.

“Drink tonight?” Logan asks the team, and a chorus of yes’s and please’s echo through the emptying bullpen. 

“Raincheck,” she says to Logan, “I’ll see you next time I’m in town, yeah?” She beams at him, hugging him in a quick-but-too-long-for-Aaron’s-taste motion, and the string in Aaron’s chest that feels like it’s been pulled all week threatens to pull him under.

After everyone files out, she offers to help him fill out paperwork in his office. It’s just like her, so kind and sweet. Spending her free time filling out reports to make his workload go easier.

About a half hour of amenable silence passes, before Aaron chooses to speak.

“So, you and Logan.”

“He’s great, right?”

Regrettably, Aaron agrees.

“He seems very kind.”

“Yeah, he and his fiancee are really fun. They travel all over, kite-board and do tons of adventure stuff, he’s pretty awesome.”

A moment passes.

It’s like a balloon losing air, the feeling of relief taking the place of panic.

“I thought you two were romantically involved.” He doesn’t know how to verbalize things casually. If he lets it up, he might do something dangerous like tell her that he wants to be someone who romances her, wants to be the person who kisses her after dates and holds an umbrella over her head when she’s caught in the rain. He wants to be what she comes homes to, and it’s a confession living in the back of his throat, threatening to escape at every moment. 

She sucks in a harsh breath, and he wonders if it’s a misstep to have told her- it’s not a confession, really. It sounds like one though- why would he care? What makes it his business?

“Not that that’s relevant to me,” he stammers, “You’re free to engage with whoever you’d like-“

“I know, Hotch.” She doesn’t grace him with his first name, but her voice is fond and warm, her doe eyes meeting his. He likes it, he decides. 

“I’m not seeing him,” she continues, her body shifting to face him, “I think he’s a little…casual for me.”

He thinks of Logan’s leather jacket and unshaven face, rugged appearance and compares it to how he presents himself- clean cut and sharp lines, his suits tailed to fit him like a glove. 

“You prefer something a little more…dignified?” He hears himself say with more confidence then he feels- her implication is clear, but he wonders if he’s mishearing it. 

She tips her head back and he hears her lovely laugh ring through the air like something sacred, and he waits to hear her response. 

“I don’t know, I just know that I’ve been liking this guy for a while,” she muses, looking down at her fingernails, “But he hasn’t seemed to pick up on any of my hints.”

On one of his braver days, he’d told her that he liked that purple lipstick. He hasn’t seen her without it since. She’d always been so kind to everyone that it was hard to notice when her treatment towards him was special, but he thinks it might be. How quick she offers to help with Jack- gives away a Saturday evening to spend with him, even though she sees too much of his face at work.

Her friend from grad school offered to get drinks, and she’s here, telling him what she looks for in a guy.

He tries to be logical about the whole thing, but it’s a bit hard- she’s funny and warm and Aaron loves being around her- loves her company enough to maybe ask for more of it. 

“If this ‘guy’ did like you,” he murmurs, intentionally not meeting her gaze, the precision of which is boring a hole into the side of his head, “How would he go about that?”

He’s not sure what the point of being coy is now, but he can’t seem to stop. He does look down to her and meet her eyes. 

“I think I’d probably corner him,” she says breathlessly. They’re quite close together, now. He wonders if she likes his aftershave. She tugs a hundred through her hair, a nervous but incredibly attractive gesture, “Y’know, if everyone we worked with went to get drinks, and it was just us. If he was amenable to that.”

“If he was amenable to that.”

A rush of emotion licks up his spine- it’s fun, flirting with her. The creep of warmth on her cheek, how her fingers are brushing hers. 

“I think he might be.”

Purple lipstick, rose perfume mixing with the scent of expensive aftershave- he thinks he might be able to kiss her, now. He’s never been good at knowing when to take the jump, but this is something he can do. He can let her know that he wants it. 

She reads him well enough, it turns out, and she kisses him. It’s a surprise and he is so rusty at this and yet- his hand stand on the small of her back, pulling her in and he can feel her lovely smile against him. She’s warm and joyful and she’d kissed him, and all he could do was lean in-

“I think he might be too.” She says, significantly less color on her lips, and more on his, he imagines.

She doesn’t have to wonder, though. When Aaron kisses her again, he decides- he will make her incredibly certain of his affections. 

#aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner fanfiction #aaron hotchner x you #aaron hotchner x y/n #aaron hotchner fanfic #aaron hotchner one shot #aaron hotchner fic #aaron hotchner oneshot #aaron hotchner imagine #aaron hotchner imagines #aaron hotchner blurb #aaron hotchner blurbs #aaron hotch hotchner #aaron hotch x reader #aaron hotch imagine #aaron hotch fanfiction #aaron hotch x you #aaron hotch fluff #aaron hotchner fluff #aaron hotch fic #hotch #hotch x reader #hotch x you #aaron hotchner x fem!reader #ssa aaron hotchner #agent hotchner #criminal minds #criminal minds fic

[dontexpectmuch]

hey pookie love your writing and the memes you be adding at the end are sooo😭😭😭😭

I was wondering if you could write something about watching true crimes w Jude real fluffy and cute 🥺

sending you kisses 😚

i changed it up a bit! hope u don’t mind :3

—————————————————————

“babe, that shit’s fucked up.”

it is a normal saturday noon, and like always you and jude decided to spend your free day together. you wanted to get some coffee, he wants to shop for a bit, so naturally you combine both of your wishes.

getting ready in your bedroom, you sigh as you look at jude through the mirror. he himself looks quite comfortable laying on top of your bed sheets, his phone at hand. he knew that you like to listen to podcasts while getting ready, though he did nit know what kind of podcasts exactly.

“what do you mean, love?” you lean closer to the mirror as you do your lashes, determination written over your face.

jude scoffs, “unbelievable.” he mutters to himself as he gets up from your bed, moving closer to you as he watches you do your, whatever it is.

“that dude just said that some murderer gutted one of his victims with his mouth. and then ate him. like? the fuck?” he looks bewildered by the content you oh so calmly listen to, not really affected by anything.

finishing one eye, you turn around to look up at your boyfriend, his face showcasing how he feels about your podcast.

“bebé, it’s true crime, of course they describe how some stuff happened.” you explain, quickly pressing a kiss on his abdomen before turning around to finish your make up.

jude stays quiet for a while, just watching you do your thing, humming to yourself. the podcast is still playing in the background, the description if certain acts getting more and more detailed and even brutal.

he decides to speak up again, his imagination running wild as he listens to the words, “and you are not, y’know, affected by it?”

he steps closer to your body, massaging your shoulders with bis big hands, smirking to himself as you sigh and lean against his touch.

you shake your head, “no, it helps me relax and get ready faster.”

“relax, you say?” he raises his eyebrows, his hands now trailing down from your shoulders to the front of your neck, “i can help you relax even better, hm?”

you groan as you push away his hands, “not now, love, gotta get ready.”

he sighs and moves back to your bed, watching you get ready once more, “boring.” he says under his breath.

“shut it.”

“make me.”

“jude.”

“sorry.”

——————————————————

#jude bellingham #jude bellingham x reader #football x reader #football one shot #x reader #jude bellingham imagine #jude bellingham one shot #jude bellingham x you #football #jude bellingham fluff

[ayacokeandpepsi]

Heya gurllll!

I don’t remember if you’d make a the walk in thing (parents or a member walking in when u have sex) if u haven’t can u do it? And if u have can u make, Y/n and Riki being in a relationship and the other members wants to have “the talk”

love yaaa ❤️💋

This is kinda long lmao

Cw: smut, fingering, protected sex, making love not sex

It started off as Jake pulling Riki to the side to chat with him about “relationship stuff”, Heeseung being too awkward to bring it up with him.

“So I know you really like her, but are you.. yknow, being smart?” Jake tried to make the air less awkward as he asked Riki.

“Smart?” Riki questioned, oh god, did Jake really have to spell it out for him, god this was embarrassing for both of them. “Riki, are you… using condoms?” Jake winced as he brought his fingers to his temple, looking at the ceiling.

“What, oh, well yes! Totally,” Riki said, not wanting to bring up that you and him haven’t actually started yet. Jake relaxed his shoulders. “Okay so now we don’t have to have this talk again and we can just pretend it never happened, Kay?” Jake sighs out, patting Riki on the shoulder before walking away to join the others.

It left an idea in Riki’s mind. He should be embarrassed but, these days anything could turn him on. You tying up your hair, bending over, wearing a skirt, touching his arm, even seeing you sweat while working out. It’s not that he didn’t want to have sex, he just didn’t know how to suggest it, and with his busy schedule, it didn’t give much time to ponder complicated questions about relationships. But it was like Jake’s lecture was a sign, something telling Riki to make you his, make you feel good.

It didn’t help when as soon as he got back to his hotel room, the shower was on and your clothes were discarded on the floor near the bathroom door. He knows he shouldn’t, but seeing your used panties and bra on the floor awakened something in him. He stared at your underwear as he palmed himself through his baggy jeans, trying not to make his pleasure audible. The sound of the shower shutting off and your footprints coming to the door made him composed and act like he just got there, but seeing you in only a towel, that was way too small, it made him throb. His gaze burned into you, causing you to let out a nervous chuckle. “Hi Riki.” You giggle. Feeling bold, you got out your pjs and laid them out and dropped the towel, exposing your naked body to him. Riki’s mouth flew open, averting his eyes to the ceiling as his heartbeat grew faster.

The cool air made your nipples hard, it almost gave goosebumps to your skin, but was quickly replaced by a warm blush below your belly and in your cheeks. Instead of putting on your pjs, you decide to try out a new and tiny silk lingerie set, a cami and some shorts that didn’t cover your ass, in a blue white color. After slipping it on, you look over to Riki, his eyes not on you. You laugh. “You can look now,” he cautiously turned his head and his jaw dropped again, not expecting you to be in the tiniest pj set, seeing your nipples poke out from under the thin silk of your lacy cami that didn’t go lower then your ribcage. And the shorts, high rise to your navel but they ended right where your crotch was, the back not any better, it covering maybe half of your ass. His face was blushed now, if he wasn’t before.

“You-are you going to sleep in that?” Riki says. “Yeah, why? Do you not like it?” You tease. “No-I like it a lot,” he replies. “It’s kind of hot, I usually sleep in boxers, do you mind?” He says, already slipping his shirt off. You shake your head.

He takes off his oversized jeans along with his necklaces and some bracelets. He notices you staring, he chuckles smoothly. “You like what you see huh?” He grins. You roll your eyes and look away. Before you can realize, Riki grabs your wrist and pulls you closer to him, sitting on the shared hotel bed, holding your waist and dipping down to kiss you. He giggles when you wrap your arms around his neck, and play with his hair as he continues to kiss you. “You taste so good, hmm,” he sighs into the kiss, making you laugh.

He deepens the kiss by gently biting your bottom lip as his hands sneak up under your cami, his thumb stroking over your ribs, dangerously close to your breasts. And he knows, he grins as he feels you tense and close your legs. He pulls you into his lap now, and you can feel his hard cock against the lower part of your back as he continues to kiss you, adjusting your position so you’re facing him but straddling his thighs.

He groans as you unintentionally grind on him, his grip on your waist moving down to your hips, moving them in sync with his own hip movements, making you whine out. He chuckles again as he pulls away, kissing your neck slowly, his warm breath tickling your collar bone. He looks up at you for permission and then lifts up your cami, exposing your breasts, which he holds and starts to kiss, making you moan. His plump lips wrap around your nipples, as he groans into them.

You take off your top, kissing him as he moves your hips against his own. You move his hand near the inside of your thighs, letting him feel how wet you were for him. His ears are red as he palms your heat, his thumb rubbing over your clit experimentally. He studies your reactions, looking up at your facial expressions each time he circles your clit, your eyes closed in pleasure. You pull off him enough to take off your tiny shorts, showing him all of you. His eyes are glued to your pussy, cherishing the sight of how it shines in the hotel lighting, from the wetness. You guide his fingers inside of you, whining as he moves his ring and middle finger in and out of you.

The heel of his palm hit your clit every time his fingers went in and out of you, adding to the stimulation. You threw your head back as Riki continued to play with you above his thigh. You bring your head down again, “Riki, I want you, please,” you motion for his cock that was unbelievably hard at the moment. He smiles as he pulls the back of your neck in to kiss you, it was slow and soft and sloppy. You pull away, “Riki, look in my purse pocket, there should be a condom,” you giggle as he quickly reaches for your purse and finds one. He slips off his boxers, leaving both of your completely naked. He slides the condom on his length as you gently straddle his thigh, kissing his neck and playing with his hair, making him go crazy. He guides you down on his cock, both of you moaning as he fills you, his brows furrowed in pleasure as he focuses on thrusting up into you while holding your waist. His pace was amateur, understandably, but it was sloppy in the best way, this wasn’t sex, this was making love.

#niki smut #enha smut #enhypen smut #enhypen hard thoughts #riki smut #n1k1smut #riki hard thoughts #ni ki hard thoughts

[jakesangel]

how would jake be if you go non verbal >< -requested

to jake, you're comfort is his top priority, whenever and wherever you're with him. his hands on your waist is a way to keep you close to him and away from the danger but sometimes that wouldn't be enough to keep you safe.

the mall being too crowded, overwhelming you with to munch sounds : people's laugh, babies cries, children running all around,,, and being hyper alert always always makes you go non verbal.

the first time it happened, he didn't know what to do, concern also overwhelming him. baby, why are you not answering ? are you okay ? he would ask you, stopping in his track. you'd shake your head, meaning no. he'd take you outside, calling for a car so you guys can come back to your home. he tries to be as mindful as possible tho he doesn't understand why you are in this state rn, but he understood that you need your privacy, hence why you are not on way to his dorm.

once arrived, he wouldn't let you get undress by yourself, going on his knees to removes ur shoes, going back up to help you w ur outside coat. are you feeling better, baby ? he would whisper making you nod. should we go cuddle on your bed ? or would wathcing a movie help you out ? you, obviously, can't answer to that right now, just looking at him. he'd be dumbfounded n would think about how to help you while he removes his own clothes. he would then lead you to the bathroom, helping you wash your hands. let's go to your bedroom okay ?, reassuring you w a smile of his.

once settle on the bed, he'd make you sat in front of him so he can see your facial reactions, and be sure of your well being. let's do yes no questions, would that be alright baby ? making you nod, i don't really know what's going on, and i won't ask anything until you're ready. i just want your to be okay. would cuddles be too much for you ? you shaking your head left n right meaning no. okay baby. let me set it all up yeah ?

after cuddling for over an hour, you'd finally be able to talk and it's only then jake would make you talk about your condition and asking you why u didn't tell him previously. he wouldn't be mad at you but towards himself, as he would feel like he failed his boyfriend duties. during this important conversation, hed tell you lots of comforting words you're okay baby, i'm here, i'll always love you. he would also take extra precaution to leave your place only if he is sure that you are more than alright. once back to his dorm, he would go on internet, trying to educate himself. he would also text you and ask you questions about ur triggers n how u would usually handle urself.

since then, he would always be more than cautious. his hands would pulls you even closer to him and his eyes a bit less on you to keep in check your environment. whenever you'd want to go out, he'll always check the influence and if he think it would be too munch for you, he'd change the destination or make you wait with another activity waiting peak hours to pass. or if you come over to the dorms hed tell the members to stay more or less calm, or he'd keep you in his room w chilling music to block the stimulations away. but even if his extra preparations wouldn't be enough, he'd still be prepare. always having a pair of headphone w him or hoodie to try to block your stimulations and soothe you down. he would even make you a special playlist those moments, a playlist full of your comfort songs.

note : thank you anon 🩷 for this , i do wish you the well and i'm glad u have friends who can help you w it <3

@imaluckygirl @luvj4key @heeseungswifefr @stwrjvke @goldenretrieverjakezgirlbaby @jaeyunpinkyring @pockettwinzz

#jake sim #sim jaeyun #sim jake #jake soft hours #sim jaeyun fluff #sim jake fluff #jake sim x y/n #enhypen jake fluff #jaeyun imagines #jake x y/n #jake sim x reader #jake fluff #jake x reader #jake headcanons #enhypen fluff #jake enhypen #enhypen #enha #jaeyun fluff

[kenntolog]

Hey hey hey! If it’s okay with you, can I request lowkey a reincarnation modern au with Gojo where everything with goo that happened was a memory that past reader went through but current reader dreamt of this memory full on thinking it was just a nightmare and wakes up all like, a sobbing mess and stuff and Gojo wakes up and is panicking while reader is saying ineligible things while tightly holding onto Gojo

𝝑𝝔 an: well this was sad to write. spoiler for the manga but i think everyone already knows. hope u like this <33

satoru looks nice in white. wearing traditional haori, as if prepared for a grand event you aren’t aware of, he slowly walks forward until his steps come to a halt. they seemed to be the only thing disturbing the dead silence, their click echoing through the space until he stopped.

you look around in confusion, watching the grim expressions of his former and current students, all dressed somewhat similarly to each other, as they watch their teacher, each having a different emotion in their gaze, but all laced with something weirdly familiar to you. grief.

“sensei!” yuuji’s voice rang through the air, as if in your head. “your technique’s in the way!”

satoru turns to face his student with a wide smile, taking of his robe and motioning for him to hit him properly which the pink-haired boy does with the excitement of a little boy wanting to make his father proud. everyone says something to gojo, but strangely, you can’t make out whatever they are saying and soon they blur out to the background, your focus solely staying on your lover.

as if sensing your pointed gaze, satoru turns around to face you, his face softening and smile turning more sweet.

“wanna wish me luck, sweetheart?” he mutters as you step closer to him, but you hear him clearly.

“what for?”

the smooth chuckle he lets out makes you even more uncertain about the reality of what was happening. has he confused your genuine confusion and curiosity for something else more teasing and lighthearted? you don’t know and you don’t think you will ever know since satoru is already throwing on his robe again and turning to leave you after placing a warm kiss on your forehead.

was this a dream? why does it all feel so real?

you can barely bring yourself to move, your steps not nearly as fast as you want them to be, as you try to get closer to satoru, hand reaching out for his in the air. sensing your presence once again, he turns back again and the worry on his face only alarms you further, a confused ‘oh’ escaping you when he pulls you into his chest.

the column of his neck faintly smells of his favourite cologne mixed with the familiar notes of his shower gel. your favourite scent in the whole world — satoru; it’s enough to distract you from the events of whatever the hell you’re in right now, closing your eyes and forgetting about this weirdly graphic dreamscape.

you think you’re going back to the peaceful darkness of your usual sleep. that is until the familiarity of satoru’s smell is replaced by cold nothingnes and the metallic undertones of blood.

eyes opening wide, you’re met with satoru’s blue orbs staring up somewhere, not you, but through you. the marble skin of his face all broken, the perfect white of his locks dirtied and seemingly fresh blood slowly drying under his nose and all over his mouth. you shudder with a silent gasp, hands cupping the sides of his head carefully as you lean in closer, horrified but unable to let go of him.

this is not real… right?

“s-satoru?”

he finally looks at you. you try to move yet the barely audible splash under your knees makes you still in your place. gradually moving your gaze lower you realise that you’re sitting in a pool of blood.

his blood.

the snow falling to the ground around you mixes with it, dusting him along with his forearms and intestines that are just… just slowly falling out of his ripped abdomen. no, you can’t— this is not— no way, right?

a loud thud from behind you alerts you out of your current state of shock just to throw you into another one, because when you look back you see the rest of his body and it’s enough to make you stop breathing and wake you up from this nightmare.

please be a nightmare.

you sit up on the bed as if electrocuted, chest heaving in sheer fear and panic as you quickly search for satoru only for him to find you instead; warm hands cupping your cheeks as his worried gaze frantically scans over your features.

“hey! are you okay?”

you don’t know that you’re doing exactly the same before a broken sob leaves your throat along with an infinite string of incoherent sentences, and you bury your face in his stomach, arms closing tightly around his waist as you push yourself into him.

“sweetheart? c’mon, talk to me.”

hands crawling under his shirt, you squeeze at his sides, feeling the supple skin for anything that resembles a rip, a tear, anything meaning that satoru’s been hurt. you breathe him in. his favourite perfumed detergent lingering on the fabric of his shirt, a little bit of his cologne and just him. it’s so him.

“i’m here, baby, it’s okay.”

his hands gently rub your shoulders as you continue sobbing into him, crawling even closer, belly hitting his knees as you hold him even tighter to your body, unable to look at his face, scared. as if sensing everything along with you, satoru grips you under your shoulders and tugs you up so he’s able to embrace you instead.

big arms wrapping around your shoulders carefully, he pushes you into his chest, just like he did it in that dream, making you sob even more. he’s alive.

“d’you wanna tell me what happened?” he asks after what seem to be like forever spent in silence; with you just breathing him in and him trying to comprehend everything that just happened with you.

“you were hurt,” you mutter into his chest, voice raspy and quiet. “very badly.”

“i’m okay, baby, you can relax—”

“it looked so real.”

you look through him, the sight of his untouched face blurring and his ruined face coming forward, as if forever claimed in your mind.

his gaze turns even more troubled and uncertain as he watches tears well in your eyes once again, hating the sight of your fear and sadness. he leans down to kiss your forehead warmly, to which you seem to react more viscerally, shoulders shaking in another round of sobs which he can only help you get over with his warm embrace and one hand stroking your head soothingly.

“i’m sorry, satoru,” you wail into his chest, fingers gripping the black shirt he’s wearing so tight it’s close to ripping. “i’m so sorry—”

satoru has no idea why you’re apologising, but it scares him so much. it scares him how familiar the tone of your voice seems to him even though he’s never seen you in such state before. but he still continues to hold you close until your body stops trembling and you pass out from exhaustion, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

#— miya writes! #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen satoru #gojo satoru x reader #gojou x reader #jjk gojo #gojo satoru x you #gojo satoru angst #satoru x reader #gojou satoru x reader #gojou satoru x you #gojo satoru #satoru gojo #jjk x you #jjk x reader #jujustsu kaisen x reader #— miya’s inbox!

[cute-sucker]

can u write something about diner!jj and deer !!! maybe something angsty or fluffy!! maybe just like their relationship overall

-🌕

short masterlist: part one here, part three here, part four here

˚❀༉‧₊˚.˚❀༉‧₊˚.˚❀༉‧₊˚.˚❀༉‧₊˚.˚❀༉‧₊˚.˚❀༉‧₊˚.˚❀༉‧₊˚.˚❀༉‧₊˚.˚❀༉‧₊˚.˚❀༉‧₊˚.˚❀༉‧₊˚.˚❀༉‧₊˚.˚❀༉‧₊˚.

diner!jj is really shocked when he sees you in his diner the first time. theres something about the cute overalls you're wearing, a bubbly baby in your hands. you give him a tired smile when ordering, and then you leave in the middle of your food.

he's surprised, before heading over to check on the table you're sitting in. the baby is still attached in her stroller, and her big doe eyes are turned on jj. he wasn't sure what to do, but there was something so irresistible in those big watery eyes, and he ends up cooing to the baby in his gruffest voice.

everyone in the diner is shocked.

jj kicks people out if they act just slightly weird, and yet he's got that little babies pinkie around his hand, and the baby is grinning, beaming almost in that cute way.

when you come back, all tired and holding a baby bottle or whatever it was you went to do. he felt embarrassed, you were a single mother and he was acting like a creep playing with your baby. yet you give him the most grateful smile when your baby squeals and giggles.

suddenly he's stopped smoking. theres a sign with no smoking on the top of of the boards in his diner, and somehow he always manages to weasel himself into being your server. you barely notice how weird it is that the owner will only be your waiter. you swore you saw him hush another server before heading over to you.

one time though it backfires on him.

"yeah? and she wants chocolate milk?" jj said raising his eyebrows under his hat. your baby giggles when he winks at her. she's already reaching out for jj's hand, and he can't help but give it to her. suddenly she's got jj's rings in her mouth, suckling on it, before giving him a proud gummy smile. he can't help but laugh before noticing how you're looking at him.

he gives you a teasing look, and you find yourself blushing looking down, "nah. that's for me."

he loves it. how quickly you can flush under his attention, your eyes bright as you look up at him. he smiles, a big cheesy smile that makes you play with the hem of your skirt, "does mama want some whipped cream and a cherry on that too? making special demands, aren't we now?"

he gives you a pointed look, and you fidget before nodding. he lets out a bark of a laugh, "dang. you're spoiled."

you roll your eyes in protest, "you've spoiled me!"

at this he stops laughing, a strange look on your face that makes his feel like your heart is too big for his chest. he feel as if the whole world has stopped when you look at him like that.

"jj," you sigh, placing your small hand on his bicep "i know i tease, but thank you for everything."

jj shakes his head, feeling nervous as he shakes it off, "it's nothin'."

theres something electrifying about your touch, and he knows that if you continue to touch him like that, something is going to happen that he doesn't want to be responsible for. suddenly it's too much to take, the starstruck way you're looking at him, and the way that your baby fits in your arms as if she was his daughter. it makes him hurt.

what bastard would leave you?

"is that all?" jj finally finds himself saying, voice hoarse, and you nod quickly giving him a smile. he nods, before tucking his hand away from the baby. she lets out a small shriek, and jj playfully places his finger against his mouth to make a 'shh,' where she quickly complies busy with the small toy next to her stroller.

"hey? waiter?" a group of teenage boys snap their fingers jeeringly at jj. he stiffens up, a snarl set on his face. jj swirls around, a glare set on their voice, and the two of the boys seem to notice the tension and quickly put bow their heads, stammering out sorries. except the one boy. he doesn't understand it.

he's grins almost fueled by the glare, "listen, can i have a table by the windows?"

jj tilts his head to the side and ignores him while placing the menu's back on the table, "got work to do," he mutters. "leave or sit down." the boy is left dumbfounded and you feel confused as well. doesn't jj serve everyone?

you find yourself scooting closer to an elderly lady in your booth, you point to the boy, and where jj left back into the kitchens, "why didn't he serve him?"

a woman sighed before leaning in closer to you noticing your confused face, she has a soft elderly face, purple eyeshadow dapped on her eyes, "honey, he only serves you."

then the women gives her a pointed look, a coy smile flittering across her face.

and you're left more confused, a shy smile on your face.

taglist: @yourmumstoym @lionasvault @saturnrings77 @rainbowpiss34

let me know if you'd like to be added !!

#🌕 anon #diner!jj x deer!reader #jj maybank prompt #deer!reader #jj maybank #jj mayback x reader #rafe imagine #jj obx #jj mayback imagine #jj outer banks #jj x you #jj x reader #fluff #jj drabble #jj mayback drabble #babymama!reader #dad!jj maybank #jj maybank imagines #jj maybank fanfiction #jj maybank fluff #jj maybank imagine #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank x you #dad!rafe cameron

[craziechwiv]

Ruby is seen skipping along the gym area of their academy, where she sees her best bud, (and crush), Jaune Arc working his ass off. Or in this case, working everything on him into shape.

Ruby watches from a distance without a care in the world before making her way towards Jaune as he stopped to take a break.

Ruby: Heeey, Jaune!

Jaune: Sup Ruby, need something?

Ruby: Nah, just wanted to tell you that I love you~.

Jaune: Aw thanks, I love you too bud.

Ruby: Bud...? N-No, not as a friend.

Jaune: Oh I know, I'm just playing with ya.

Ruby: Wait for real?!

Jaune: Yeah, I know you're my best friend!

Ruby:

Jaune: Uhm, you okay Ruby?

Ruby: UGH I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!

Jaune: Uh, take what- WO-KAY! OOF!

Ruby pushes Jaune down back onto the bench he was working out on and sits on top of me, staring deep into his blue eyes.

Ruby: Listen here Jaune Arc, I love you. More than a friend, more than a BEST FRIEND. And more than anyone who could possibly say they love you more than I do!

Jaune just stared at Ruby in shock and bewilderment as she confesses her feelings for him.

Ruby: Now, you and me are going to have a date tonight. I don't care where, as long as we end up in one of our dorms, and you can cuddle me to sleep!

GOT IT?!

Jaune: U-Uh, y-yea sure thing Ruby. I'd like going on a date with you...

Ruby, turning back into her bubbly-self: Great, better get to the showers then! I'll meet you at the town at 6~.

With that, Ruby jolly sprinted out of the gym, with Jaune only staring at the ceiling as he just thought of what happened.

Jaune: ...wait. Did Ruby say she like, likes me?

Meanwhile, two people were watching this all go down.

Ren, trying to knock some sense into Jaune:Just let me....hit him....once!

Nora, restraining an angered Ren: I'd be okay with this, but not to our leader!

Ren: He forgot to buy pancake batter.

Nora, lets go: KNOCK HIS BRAIN OUT!

#rwby #jaune arc #ruby rose #rwby lancaster #9 days of lancaster #lancaster #nora valkyrie #lie ren

[liliewrites]

Hi, I love the way you write. You express the characters very well, I can really hear Arlecchino's voice in your sentences.

You can do one with Arlecchino x femreader? Where Arlcchino and reader are married and take care of the children together (would be great seeing reader being maternal with Lyney, Lynnett and Freminet) After reader arrived in their lives, parties and family moments were common. One day at a gymkhana held with all the children, a traitorous Fatui was ordered by an Arlecchino's enemy to kill Arlecchino while she was distracted, but Reader noticed and got in front of her, taking the hit. Reader almost dies and Arlecchino, Lyney, Lynnett and Freminet want revenge.

(Sorry for bad english)

HELLOOO ANONN:)) lmaoo sorry i was brainrotting a lot about this ask and i didn't know how to write it and end it because it's such a good idea and has a lot of potential.. anyw here u go and eat uppp!!:) also forgive me if i understood the word "gymkhana" wrong.. i just searched up the definition on google since i am not familiar with the word hihi..

-warning/s ; a bit of violence at a certain part:) besides that, none!:)

(men dni utc please!)

it was a fun, festive day for the children at the house of the hearth.

arlecchino and you had decided to host a fun little event for the kids, as both of you agreed that it'd be beneficial to the children not just for improving their skills, but for their enjoyment as well.

as of the moment, you and arlecchino were sitting on the side, lyney and freminet were currently tasked with helping and assisting the younger children, while lynette had mostly insisted on staying with you and arlecchino while helping out with organizing the event. you and your wife didn't mind much as you knew she was more introverted and a couple more helping hands would help a lot.

"mother, i believe that we should start the flag race soon.. shall we get the horses and the players ready?" lynette asked, looking down at the clipboard in her hands. you couldn't help but smile, lynette has grown into such a fine, young dependable lady. you pat lynette's head, giving her ears a little rub as praise. "yes, my dear. i would appreciate it too if you assisted them with getting on as well, see to it that none of them get injured." you told her, and she nods at you, her tail slightly wagging as she walks away. you couldn't help but chuckle, knowing that your praise didn't go unnoticed by your daughter.

"mother! mother! look, look!"

"don't i look cool, mother?"

"mother! this is so fun!"

left and right, children were all calling for your attention, and your heart was bursting in joy as you got up from your chair to approach them. you could see the smiles on their little faces and you knew they were enjoying themselves. one child ran up to you, holding freminet's hand and a drawing in another. she brought it up and showed you, smiling widely. "mother, ah- look! big brother fremi drew me an octopus!" she boasted, making freminet look to the side shyly. you couldn't help but feel proud of freminet, whom was usually alone and reserved, was now trying his best to get along and help out with the younger children. "my, what a lovely drawing, hm? mother is very glad that both of you are having fun." you smile, the turning your head to look at lyney as they both walked away. he was currently busy entertaining the audience (who were also kids) with his little magic tricks as they waited for the flag race. little eyes looked at their older brother with admiration, watching him unfold each trick with excitement.

and of course, as all this happened in the background, your wife was currently sitting from where you had currently sat with her on the side. arms crossed as she leaned on her chair, eyes watching over you and the children intently, yet the intimidating look had gone away from her face. instead, a soft look could be seen from her eyes, and she was sitting in a rather relaxed manner as she smiled at the sight of you with the children. her heart swelled joyously, seeing you interact lovingly with them, your laughter along with theirs ringing pleasantly in her ears as she made sure to capture each pretty smile you had on your face.

funny, as her comrades and enemies alike told her that "your wife is your weakness, knave. you've gone soft." if it were the old her, the old her that were full of hatred, of revenge-- devoid of the compassion and acceptance that you've taught her, it would've been an insult but right now? it was a fact, she knows it herself. you were her weakness, but you were not her drawback nor her flaw, but the weakness to the lost, angry soul that she was without you. you were the guiding hand that gave her a reason to continue watching over the house of the hearth, a proper one, unlike a certain motherly figure she came to know.

amidst the festivities, lyney had told everyone to calm down as the flag race was about to start. a big smile on your face as you stood there, instead of going back to sit with arlecchino, as the kids wanted to be with you.

everyone had got into position, the kids were safely mounted on the horses. the audience was cheering, and lyney was holding party popper to use as a signal cue. all of you were filled with thrill and excitement, as lyney counted off to start the race.

"alright, on your marks, hold tight!"

"get ready, set, and-"

before he could even pull on the string and say go, another loud bang was heard- and it was not from the party popper that lyney was holding.

much to everyone's horror, you were clutching your sides. you felt like you were slowly falling the floor, eyesight getting hazy, you were losing your senses quickly- everything was becoming blurry.

the whole event was silent before high pitched, loud screams calling your name could be heard as they ran towards you. the older trained kids, however, were sure to hold them back to give you space.

arlecchino, the moment she saw you get shot, wasted no time in rushing towards you to catch you. ".. d-darling, darling. are you okay? i got you, beloved.. i.." her eyes widened in shock, but her face froze in horror as she held you. warm, thick and sticky liquid pouring onto her and her clothes, but she didn't care.

"d.. darling, you-"

she was blinded with rage. all she saw was red and black, you just got shot, the perpetrator shouldn't have gone far. "children, find who did this. now!"

the older kids had gone and scattered, lyney and freminet leading them as lynette ushered the youngers ones to evacuate. as they dispersed, arlecchino held your body with gentleness and care, you weakly held onto her. ".. b-beloved, don't.. don't get the kids into this.." you pleaded, but arlecchino shook her head. you were in a critical situation, and yet, you still thought of the kids?

"my love, they are trained for this. have faith in our children, now, hold on. i will take you inside."

arlecchino gently lifted you up, holding you closely to her chest as she possibly can without hurting you. "don't pass out on me, beloved." she gently coaxed you as she brought you inside, trying to keep you awake.

as she finally got you in the clinic, the kids whom were trained in medical aid had prepared to take care of you while they waited for a real doctor to come. she gently laid you down on the bed, sitting next to you and she held your hand. every time the children made contact with your wound, you couldn't help but groan and moan- this was all being done with anesthesia after all. the sight of you crying in pain made arlecchino's chest tight with anger and fear. it was the first time the children saw their father become eerily quiet with such an expression on her face.

"father! we've caught the culprit!"

lyney came running in the clinic, panting. arlecchino leaned in to kiss your forehead, you were dangling on the edge of consciousness and it made her feel bad to leave you, but she had to- lest her wrath consume her whole and that would not be good for all of you. "beloved, the children will take care of you while we wait for a doctor. i'll be back soon, i promise." she whispered, before joining with lyney. "lyney, is the man tied?" she asked, and lyney nodded. "yes father, shall we turn him in to the-"

"no, never mind that. i will take care of him on my own."

she dismissed lyney with her hand, making the boy silently nod at her father's command to not hand the criminal over to the authorities. however, he couldn't shrug off the creepy feeling coming from his father. arlecchino had a blank expression on her face, he couldn't decipher her feelings at all. he paid no mind to this, not wanting to be the outlet of whatever his father was feeling.

as soon as they walked into the room where the culprit was held captive, the room was filled with a chilling atmosphere. all of the kids within the room could feel it. the perpetrator however, his face was full with fear as he looked at the harbinger. he started talking, but his words were muffled as his mouth was tied and covered.

"children, i am proud of you all for catching this man. we've given your mother justice, but for now. you are all dismissed. tell lynette to come over."

at your words, the children silently obey and leave the room. now it was just the man and arlecchino. for the whole time, arlecchino had held herself back from showing any kind of murderous intent, as she knew you wouldn't appreciate having it shown to the kids.

but now? the look on her face was indescribable, her hand was trembling in pure wrath. she leaned down, grabbing the man by his collar and throwing him against the wall. "i will ask you questions, and for every wrong answer, i will cut off one finger. think wisely." she threatened the man, grabbing a chair and pulling it in front of him. "however, seeing as you've decided to hurt my wife in the first place, i can see that you lack a brain."

the man was silenced, and she carefully studied his features. he was a fatui, much to her annoyance. "a traitor, i see. now tell me, who was it that ordered you to do this?" he asked, tugging on the cloth on his mouth.

"p-please, my lord- it wasn't my intention to-"

the man was cut off by his own agonizing scream of pain, with arlecchino stepping on his leg, piercing his flesh with the tip of his heels. "let this serve as a warning, you buffoon. if you do not give me an answer, i will cut your finger off next."

"i-it was one of the rich men you offended last time, my lord! s-sir van duyn!"

arlecchino clicked her tongue, tsk, it was one of those greedy capitalists again. how childish they are, just because of a few true but harsh words, and they act pathetically like this? sending in someone to hurt the knave's wife as they spend a fun day for the children?

arlecchino walked out the door and lynette was already there. "clean up the mess, do not let anyone else know of this." she ordered and lynette silently nodded.

oh, now they've done it. with a snap of arlecchino's fingers, the man's curdling screams had echoed within the room, his flesh slowly being consumed with her flames and soon, the one behind all this would suffer a much more painful death.

it was already nightfall when you had woken with you in full grasp of your senses. you looked around you, the children sleeping, and you immediately felt bad. they must've been so tired to fall asleep this early.

"beloved, are you awake?"

you were startled, but you looked towards the door. your wife, she was there. there was blood on her. you immediately sat up, but she immediately brought a finger to her lips, a silent cue to be careful not to wake the kids up. she walked towards you and sat by your side.

"oh celestia, my beloved.."

you gasped, hand touching her cheek. blood was splattered against her pale skin, but you were able to deduce that it wasn't hers, seeing as there were no visible wounds on her body. arlecchino however, had leaned into your palm, her hand on top of yours as she closed her eyes. "careful, my love. i do not wish to dirty your hands.." she reminded you, but the blood was dry. your chest was spilling with worry and fear. "what happened, arlecchino? are you okay? are the kids okay? i-" she took your hand off her cheek, kissing your knuckle.

"i'm glad that you are back to your senses, beloved, but yes i am fine. the kids on the other hand, i told you to have faith in them remember? they are fine and unharmed." she assures you as she crawls into bed with you, gently pushing you down and collapsing onto your chest as she wraps her arms around you. "now please, i wish to hold what i've almost lost in my arms." she wishes with a pleading tone, so you decided not to press on further. knowing that it's been hard for arlecchino to see you like this, you sigh, moving your hand to run through her hair again. she closes her eyes, now was she only truly able to calm down, feeling your warmth invading her senses. "if it means being able to keep holding you like this.. i'll do anything- anything, my love, just to protect the warmth that you give.."

a little bonus hihi ;

you sighed, deciding to let this go for now. however, at bedtime, you refused to let arlecchino sleep next to you (for awhile) as you were upset that she had made the kids do something as dangerous as running after the culprit.. but the next morning, arlecchino smiled, seeing as you were sleeping soundly on her chest.

currently, you were having morning coffee with arlecchino while the kids were still asleep. you were skimming through the newspaper, and you couldn't help but gasp in shocking as you read a certain news. "oh, darling? do you remember sir cecil van duyn?" you asked. arlecchino hummed, placing her cup down. "yes, one of our investors? what is it, dear?" she asked, looking at you curiously. "he was found dead! i may have not seen him often, but what a shame.." you sighed, oblivious to the fact that it was your wife's doing. arlecchino looked away, bringing the cup to her lips again. "yes, indeed darling, what a shame.."

she would not tell you this but for you, if it meant keeping you well and alive-- yes, she'd kill for you any day. she could paint her whole arm with the blood of those that dare to even lay a finger on you and she'd wear it proudly, to instill the image of it in their minds, so that her enemies know that it could be their blood next splattering on her if they decide to do the same dumb mistake the others already have.

#arlecchino x reader #arlecchino x female reader #arlecchino genshin impact #lilac writes💜 #lilac asks💜 #jaksdkjjwahs

[paradiseprincesss]

I thought I would send this into your inbox hehe!💖🥹

Jonathan Crane x Rachel’s younger sister where after bumping into her at the courthouse (she’s not a lawyer, just a supportive little sister who wanted to see her sister at work, against her sister’s wishes for her to be kept out of it that is), he becomes very infatuated with her and feelings grow for her. When Rachel confronts Jonathan about his findings about Falcone, Y/n tags along with her for support (even thought Rachel really didn’t want her to), and Y/n did really wanna see Jonathan again (he was very charming to her and she also has growing feelings for him). Right before Jon sprays her sister with his fear gas, he drags Y/n towards him and shoves a gas mask on her so she would remain unharmed. Then when they’re waiting for Batman to arrive, he has her right by his side, still wearing the mask for safety. Jon being reallyyy soft with her, petting her hair, telling her how he won’t let anything happen to her. Omgg and at first Batman takes her away from him, but while Jonathan is locked up in Arkham, he has his men go grab her and bring her to Arkham, telling them NOT to harm a hair on her head. Omgg and he’s super comforting when they bring a very terrified Y/n into his Arkham cell (when they’re freeing him), but omgg if his men were rough with her and she did get hurt, ooooh boy would that not end well for them… but anyways… He brings her to his huge mansion for safe keeping while the whole plan with fear gassing Gotham happens😳

goodnight n go - jonathan crane x reader

masterlist

notes: if you don't know this song...you must. im putting u on so like, thank me later? also rachel is like in her thirties in the story making the reader like twenty something. anyway, hope yall like dis one.

summary: you're the little sister of rachel dawes, and one day while visiting her at work, you run into jonathan crane. the two of you are instantly drawn to one another, and when rachel confronts jonathan about falcone, he makes his attack on her - all while protecting you at all costs.

word count: 4.6k

warnings: 18+ mdni, smut, oral (f!receiving), p in v, creampie, kissing, swearing, fear gassing lol, reader has no morals and lowkey cray cray like jon

"you shouldn't have come here." rachel groans, looking at you with annoyance.

"i just wanted to come support you, i even got you your favourite coffee." you say, offering her a coffee that you got from her favourite coffee shop.

she sighs, taking it from you with a small smile. "ugh, fine - and thank you, i appreciate that. i'm just tired today, that's all." she tells you.

rachel dawes was your older sister, and she was currently working as an attorney, which you were so proud of her for. you were her little sister, younger by a almost a decade, and you were her biggest supporter. you were still in college, so you looked up to rachel greatly, as she was a hardworking, successful, headstrong woman who you aspired to be like one day.

"miss dawes?" a voice called out from behind you. turning around, you and rachel both answer with a "yes?" as you, of course, shared the same last name. as rachel looks over your shoulder, and you turn around, you were met with the most breathtaking man you'd ever seen.

he was very tall, extremely handsome, and had such gorgeous, blue eyes that took your breath away even from behind his glasses.

"sorry," you say, embarrassed, "force of habit."

rachel takes one look at the man with disgust, and she seems to be getting increasingly more irritated. "doctor crane, to what do i owe the pleasure?" she says, sarcasm laced in her tone.

"who might this be?" he asked rachel, gesturing to you, and completely ignoring what she had said. with a scoff, she shoots him a dirty look. "this," she says, taking a step closer to you, "is my little sister."

the man, who you learned was "doctor crane", had an amused smirk on his face after she had mentioned that you were her sister. "i wasn't aware you had a sister," he says to her, then turns to look at you, "i'm doctor jonathan crane." he introduces himself, and you smile at him shyly, introducing yourself back.

"it's a shame i haven't seen you before," he says softly, and rachel grimaces, "at least, i don't think i have. i surely would've remember if i saw someone as stunning as you around here."

"seriously?" rachel said with abhorrence, making jonathan smile with amusement once more.

"is something bothering you, miss dawes?" he asks her, to which she looks at him with disdain. "you have no sense of boundaries," she deadpans, "stop trying to flirt with my little sister."

"rachel," you interject, smiling a little awkwardly, "it's fine."

you knew how overprotective rachel was of you, but you didn't want her to start an argument with him, especially not in a courthouse of all places. your older sister had a tendency to be slightly...confrontational at times, so you tried to put out the fire before she started it. jonathan seemed to notice your shift in behaviour, as did rachel, and the both of them swiftly steered the topic of the conversation into all things work-related.

"you really think a man who butchers people for the mob doesn't belong in jail?" rachel asked, raising a brow at jonathan who remained stoic.

"well, i would've hardly testified to that otherwise would i, miss dawes." he says coldly, staring at her with a dead expression.

you stood there awkwardly, unsure as to what you could say in this moment since this conversation had nothing to do with you. you knew it was also none of your business. before you had the chance to escape the situation by silently walking away, rachel dismissed herself from the conversation, clearly fed up with him in just mere seconds.

"we'll see about that, doctor crane," she says, turning to you, "i have to get back to work. you should go, i'll see you sometime next week, okay? dad says he wants to do dinner with us or something on saturday. give him a call for me, please."

walking off with an annoyed huff, she left to get back to whatever work task she was working on prior to seeing you. "is she always like that?" jonathan asked you, his tone shifting into something much sweeter than the one he was talking to rachel with.

"she's just...confrontational, i think." you say, offering a sympathetic smile.

"hm, you don't take after her, i assume?" he asks with curiosity.

"not really, no. i do really look up to her, though." you admit, to which he gives you a small smile.

"i see," he says with a sigh, "i'm afraid i have to get back to work as well, my dear. maybe i'll see you around again - soon, i hope."

every time he spoke to you, your heart started to do little flips inside your chest, making your breath hitch as you stared into those sapphire pools that he had for eyes. "yeah," you say softly, getting lost in his eyes momentarily, "soon."

after he made his way back to the courtroom, you stood there in awe for a moment - he was just so attractive. you didn't know what to do with yourself. you weren't sure why rachel hated him so much; he seemed like a gentle soul.

the thought of him plagued your mind for weeks to come, the little fantasies of him that you conjured up playing in loops over and over in your head like a tape that never ended. his demeanour was magnetic and his aura pulled you in like no other. seven billion people on this earth, and yet, you'd pick him over all others - that's how striking you found this man. better yet, he was also extremely intelligent.

of course, jonathan was feeling the same way about you. he was thinking about you while he was at work, or even doing mundane tasks on his days off. he couldn't believe his luck, what were the odds that the universe that was so vast and filled with so many different people gave him the opportunity to run into someone as beautiful as you? maybe with luck like this, he should play lotto.

"please," you whined, "can i please come with you?"

"no, akrham asylum is for the criminally insane. do you know how dangerous it is? you're not coming." rachel tells you sternly, but you were determined to get her to agree to let you tag along.

"come on, rachel," you plead, "you shouldn't be going alone, then. since it's so dangerous, right?"

she rolled her eyes at your attempt to get her to change her stance on the matter, "i told you, he's dangerous," she warned, "i've seen the state some of his patients are in. i don't want you getting involved."

"i won't, i swear!" you say to her, whining like you were back in high school again and begging to go to some party after your parents had told you no.

"can you stop whining?" she laughed, shaking her head at your continuous attempts of tagging along to arkham asylum. "i know you only want to go because you want to see him again. if you like him so much, why didn't you, i dunno, ask for his number or something when you saw him."

"because i was nervous!" you exlaim, "and i thought you hated him."

"i do hate him," she says, a look of disgust flashing across her face before she changes her expression, "but hey, if you're okay with going to therapy for the next decade, he's all yours."

"he's really not that bad." you say, and in your defence, he'd never been rude to you.

"he's insane," she deadpans, "and you're insane if you think going after a guy like that will end in anything but flames."

"i want to go with you!" you whine again, and finally, she agreed.

"okay, fine, ugh. you can come. just stop whining - and stop talking about him." she groans.

happily, you make your way into her car as she drives off to arkham asylum, and you made sure to look your best for jonathan. you did your hair and makeup, perfecting it for hours, and threw on your favourite outfit. nothing too crazy, just something that said cute, but she's not trying too hard.

as rachel pulls into the parking lot of arkham, you feel your heart do that thing again - you know, doing little flips and making you feel short of breath. all at the just the thought of seeing him again. everything rachel had warned you about went straight over your head, and you were too busy with your head in the clouds to focus on a word that came out of her mouth unless it was jonathans name itself.

walking in, rachel tells the receptionist that she was here to see jonathan. the receptionist pages him, and you impatiently wait to see the man you'd barely known yet craved so deeply. finally, you saw him make his way down a hallway, walking straight to you and straight into your infatuated little heart.

"i didn't tell her to come, just so were clear. she wanted to see you or something, i don't know. but i'm here to talk about falcone." rachel clarifies right off the bat, making you blush. she wasn't supposed to tell him that.

"is that so?" he asked you with a smirk, "well, i did say i hoped to see you again rather sooner than later, so i'm more than happy you've tagged along."

"uh-huh," was the only response you could offer, his words causing your brain to short-circuit and your heart to go into arrhythmia.

"i'll take it you're glad to see me, too." he teases, but his soft, teasing tone and gentle smile disappear the moment he turns his attention to rachel. "and what exactly about falcone did you want to discuss, miss dawes?"

as soon as he gave her the green light to talk, she started to talk. she accused him of multiple things, like drugging falcone with unknown substances. she also accused him of saving falcones thugs with the insanity plea so that they could be under his watch, instead of the law. it was accusation after accusation - she was a lawyer, after all. it was just in her nature to act as such.

"i have something i think you should see." he tells her, expressionless as ever. "please, follow me."

he gestured the both of you towards an elevator that was clearly for staff only, and with the swift click of a key, the buttons lit up. he pushed one as the elevator started to ascend up, and rachel gave you a nervous look. you weren't worried, though. jonathan wasn't crazy...right?

as the doors in front of you opened with a screech, he allowed both you and rachel step out first. he followed suit, and he was guiding the two of you down a dingy, drab and dimly lit hallway which looked eerie as hell. hesitantly, you both followed him until you reached a huge door. jonathan pushed it open, and rachel kept you behind her just in case.

the room he had led you into appeared to be a lab of some sort, with a variety of inmates and patients in their arkham jumpsuits mixing away at some liquid chemicals and toxic looking substances.

"this is where we make the medicine," he says ominously, "perhaps you should have some. clear your head."

without second thought, rachel grabbed your hand and made a run for it back down the hallway. looking back, you saw jonathan hadn't moved - he was still standing there in the lab. rachel pushed you into the elevator, panicking as she slammed on all the buttons. as much as you should've been panicking, you didn't feel the need to. though, you couldn't quite place why you were feeling that way.

"i told you!" she exclaimed, but the elevator doors open again to what appeared to be jonathan with a scarecrow mask over his head. suddenly, he reached for you and pushed you behind him, putting a gas mask on you before a cloud of white surrounded all three of you. all you could hear was rachel coughing over and over, and then suddenly, a group of men were dragging her out of the elevator - leaving you unharmed.

jonathan gently took a hold of your wrist, dragging you along with the group of men as he waked back to the lab. after cascading down a flight of stairs (with jonathan helping you, of course), you reached an abandoned warehouse of some sort. his men placed rachel on some crates, and she was completely out of it. worried for your sister, you try to rush over to her, but jonathan wraps his arm around you softly, shaking his head.

gently, he leaned down slightly and removed the gas mask off of you. you looked at him with tears in your eyes, and he pulled you close. you could still see those strikingly blue eyes through the scarecrow mask, and it was oddly comforting. slowly, he started to pet your hair softly, keeping one arm wrapped around you as the other was gently playing with your hair.

"it's okay, darling," he said softly, "i needed to make sure she would stop interfering with my...plans."

"what did you do?" you whimper, clutching onto him.

"i just dosed her with some of my fear toxin, darling. not to worry, it was not a concentrated dose. she'll be fine and the effects should wear off within half an hour, or so." he says to you, hand still stroking your hair lovingly. "you don't seem too frightened."

"i'm not, i'm just worried about her. she's still my sister, jonathan." you say quietly, and he pulls his mask off swiftly. his eyes were even more electrifying now that his glasses weren't on.

"i know," he coos, kissing the top of your head, "she'll be fine, i promise."

"are you going to dose me, too?" you ask meekly, and he shakes his head, looking almost offended that you would think he'd even do such a thing to you.

"never, darling," he assures you softly, "i'd never let anything happen to you. you're always going to be safe with me."

"really?" you ask him with an innocent expression, looking up at him in a way that was so adorable, he felt his own heart rate start to stagger.

"my goodness, darling. you truly are too cute." he coos, pulling you into a soft kiss - much too soft for a time like this, but neither of you were thinking straight at this point. certainly not him, anyways.

after pulling away from the kiss, he laughs breathlessly. "he's here," he says under his breath, "the batman."

"what should we do?" one of his men asked, looking over at jonathan while he held you flush against him.

"what anyone does when a prowler comes around," he says, "call the police."

"you want the cops here?" another one of his men asked, loading up a gun.

"at this point they can't stop us." jonathan says, shaking his head.

the next moments unfolded in a blur. the whole time you were quivering in jonathans arms, and he held onto you tightly. he continued to place soft kisses against the top of your head and your cheek, telling you continuously that you were always going to be safe in his arms. eventually, the batman did show up to rescue rachel of course, and you were still wrapped up in jonathans embrace.

you were one of the few people that knew bruce wayne was batman, and as he approached you and jonathan, he stuck out his hand. "come," he said, "it isn't safe here."

"i-i don't want to." you whimper, clutching onto jonathans arm out of desperation, and bruce looked at jonathan.

"crane," he growled, "let her go."

before either of you could react, jonathan was being dosed with his own toxin, and bruce was grabbing him by his hair. he shoved you aside as to make sure you wouldn't get gassed with the fear toxin, but you instinctively tried to run towards jonathan. however, bruce being batman and all, was much too strong for you. eventually, the police poured in and bruce quickly grabbed both you and rachel, fleeing.

bruce took rachel to wayne manor, but you demanded to be taken back to your apartment, which was against bruces wishes. "he could've killed you!" he exclaimed to you, but you stayed defending the man who did quite the opposite. "he wouldn't hurt me." you say matter-of-factly, and bruce sighed. eventually, he did take you back to your apartment. you spent the next couple days reflecting on what had happened.

you were missing jonathan deeply, and you wanted nothing more than to see him. you resented bruce, as he had jonathan locked up in his own asylum, being an inmate at the very place he once was the chief psychiatrist at. you let your anger stir within you, but before you could react irrationally, there was a loud pounding at your front door.

cautiously, you open the door ever so slightly. to your surprise, two men who you recognized from the other night stood outside, armed. they said your name quietly, as not to alert the neighbours of what was going on, and told you to grab all your essential belongings.

"we have the others breaking him out of arkham," one of the men informed you gruffly, "and he has requested that we bring you, so grab whatever you need and lets go."

in a rush, you grab some essential belongings; your phone (obviously), a charger, and your wallet all stowed away in your little purse. you knew rachel would be pissed - but oh well, you were your own person, and this was your life, after all.

the armed men bring you to a blacked out car out back in an alley by your apartment building. all three of you get in hurriedly. the drive was quiet, your mind was preoccupied with the thoughts of seeing jonathan again.

soon, you were parked outside of arkham, and it appeared that all hell had already broken loose by the time you got there.

inmates and patients alike were screaming, running out of the building as police tried to keep everything and everyone under control - but it appeared they were failing miserably. the two men grabbed you, ushering you upstairs to what you assumed was where jonathan was. you were correct, as you saw jonathan in his scarecrow attire, the door to his cell busted wide open. he wasn't in a jumpsuit anymore, but back to his regular suit and tie, complete with the burlap scarecrow mask.

"my darling," he rushed over to you, pulling you close, "i'm so glad you're alright. i was so worried about you."

"i was worried about you, jonathan." you say, snuggling into his chest as he held you.

"we must go," he says, "there's no time. please, come with me, my love."

he takes your hand and intertwines it with his, and you happily allow him to. he wasted no time, though. within mere minutes, the two of you were back in the same blacked out car as before, and speeding off the lot so quickly, there was sure to be tire marks left on the pavement.

"darling," he breathes, taking the mask off, "i've missed you insanely."

giggling, you kiss his cheek. "i've missed you more, jon. where are we going?" you ask sweetly, and he swerves down a winding road on the outskirts of gotham.

"my place, nobody will find us. my men have this area surrounded." he says, placing his right hand on your thigh as he started to drive at a reckless speed.

"okay." you say cutely, leaning into his touch.

eventually, he threw the car into park on his driveway. helping you get out of the car, he wrapped his arms around you and walked you to the front door. you took a look at his home; it was breathtaking, quite like he was. the home was huge, a lonesome mansion standing tall in many acres of land far, far away from the dangerous city of gotham.

"this place is beautiful," you comment, hearing some birds chirping in the nearby forest, "it's so peaceful."

"isn't it?" he says, closing the front door behind the both of you, "i thought you'd like it. it's very you."

suddenly, he was pulling you close. he was getting handsy, touching the curves of your body softly as one hand came up to cup your face. "you have no idea what you do to me, darling." he whispered, the distance between you was getting smaller and smaller.

"i think i have an idea." you whisper, closing the gap between you and him.

his lips collided with yours, and within seconds, he had you pushed up against the wall in a hungry kiss. both of you were eager and desperate, not even a minute in your new home and you were already trying to get him to take you right now, against the wall. "bedroom?" you ask breathlessly, pulling away from the kiss. he nodded, picking you up with ease. you squealed and giggled, and he tossed you onto his king-sized bed.

he went right back to kissing you ravenously, the passionate act making you needier by the second. you wrapped your arms around him, kissing him like your life depended on it. he pulled away and started to trail kisses down your jawline and your neck, nipping and biting at the delicate skin. he was marking you up, claiming you as his without saying a single word. you moaned softly at the feeling, and he snaked a hand down.

"god, you're perfect." he mumbled against your skin softly, tugging at the waistband of your pants. he propped himself back up, and started to undress you hungrily, clearly getting impatient. the tent in his pants showed you he was. after he carefully shed you of your clothing, he took a moment to admire your body that laid underneath him. "you're truly a piece of art," he whispered, hooking his finger into the lace of your panties, "i'm gonna worship every single part of you, darling."

slowly, he sunk down between your legs, and you felt yourself losing your breath. teasingly, he pulled your panties down and the cold air made you shiver. tossing your panties somewhere in the bedroom, his mouth watered at the sight of your drooling cunt in front of him.

he dove in like he was starving, licking a fat stripe up your cunt, making you moan breathlessly. he continued to lick at your soaked hole, sucking your clit and peppering teasing kisses all over. "tastes so good." he moaned against you, teasing your cunt with his tongue, continuously licking and sucking in all the right places.

your back arched suddenly, feeling one of his fingers poke at your soaked entrance. slowly, he pushed a digit into your core which elicited a filthy moan out of you. pumping his finger in and out faster, he had you a moaning, withering mess for him in seconds. his tongue continued to lap a your pussy, and he sucked on your clit making your voice hoarse as you screamed his name.

"i-im gonna-" you panted, but he didn't stop, "fuck, gonna cum!" you squeaked, and he lapped up every last drop like it was the last thing he'd ever do. you came all over his tongue, legs shaking, and he took every bit of it proudly.

as your chest was heaving, he got back up and wiped your slick from his mouth with a dopey smile. "i need to feel you do that around my cock, baby." he groaned, unbuckling his belt in a rush while he pulled down his pants.

his cock sprung out against his stomach once he was out of his pants, veiny and thick, just begging to be buried in your warm, sticky hole. settling between your legs, he lined his cock up with your cunt, teasing your sticky folds with the tip.

"jonathan," you moaned, "m-mm, please."

with one hard thrust, he sank himself into your hole. the both of you moaned at the feeling, and he started to set a slow but deep pace. your back was arching out of habit, and you could feel him stretch you out completely. his cock twitched at the feeling of your tight cunt clenching around him, and he groaned your name.

"jesus, baby. you're so fucking tight- fuck-" he grunted, starting to fuck you at a faster, more merciless pace.

"a-ah, so full-!" you moaned breathlessly, feeling his entire length push up against your cervix, stretching you out to the point where the line between pleasure and pain started to blur.

"s'full, baby?" he asked, fucking you even faster, "feels good?"

"so good, o-oh my god!" you squeaked, feeling him split you open on his fat cock, pounding into you so brutally you were sure for the next week you'd be left sore and limping.

he continued to fuck your tight, soaked cunt. your warm walls sucked him in, and the both of you were moaning each others names repeatedly, the pleasure consuming you both. his hand reached down and started to rub circles on your clit, causing you to become an absolute fucking mess for him if you already weren't yet. he continued to snap his hips into you, cock plowing in and out of your aching hole as you took him balls deep.

"s-so fucking close, oh fuck." you moaned, feeling the familiar feeling building up in your stomach as he continued to assault your pussy with his fat cock.

"y-yeah? cum for me, pretty girl" he asked, glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose, "i'm gonna fucking fill this cunt up till you get fucking pregnant."

the threat had you clenching down on his cock, making him moan. the thought of him filling your cunt so deeply with his cum pushed you over the edge, and the threat of him knocking you up had you screaming his name as you creamed on his cock.

"f-fuck, just like that, baby-" he groaned, "gonna fucking cum in you."

as he let you ride out your high, his hips stuttered and with a few more shallow thrusts, he was filling you with every last drop of cum he had. after he came, he continued to give you a few more thrusts, making sure every single drop would fill your hole. he pulled out after he caught his breath, watching his cum trickle out your abused pussy.

"what a sight." he sighed, smiling as he watched you leak his cum. "i need to see this everyday, i think."

you giggled, and he came to lay beside you, holding you like you were a plate of fine china that could break at any given moment. "i didn't hurt you or anything, did i?" he asked softly, petting your hair as you pulled the covers over the two of you.

"not at all." you tell him, resting your head on his chest.

jonathan held you close to him gently, kissing the top of your head. "you're so pretty," he whispered, "i'm going to give you everything, darling."

"all i need is you, jon," you say, kissing him gently before pulling away for a split second, "now, how are we going to fear gas gotham city together?"

he smiled at you - in that moment, he'd fallen in love with you if he hadn't already. his crazy thoughts and your crazy heart were simply meant to be, complimenting one another in the most unhinged of ways.

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[lyrenminth]

have a request for a joe burrow fic can u do one where the reader has surgery and joe takes care of her in the hospital

Partnership

The pain started during the night. At the beginning you thought they were cramps, no big deal until the pain got worse and worse. You tried not to wake up Joe, who was peacefully sleeping next to you. You went to the bathroom and sat on the toilet and you saw blood like you were in your period. You changed your underwear for a pad, but you were bleeding a lot, and you couldn't stand up from the pain. You started gasping for air, and cried silently.

Something was wrong.

Joe knocked the door and open it. "Babe, what's wrong?" He asked, when he saw you crying, sitting on the toilet his face changed from sleepy to alarmed in matter of seconds. "What's happen? Are you having cramps?" he got closer.

"I'm bleeding a lot, and I'm having a-a lot of pain" you cried "I can't stand up and I'm feeling dizzy"

"I'm calling an ambulance" he went back to the room, looking for his phone. When you started feeling wet your legs you realized it was blood. "Joe!" You called him, weakly.

After a couple of minutes, you were on his arms, he was carrying you outside the bedroom and laid you on the floor. You closed your eyes, sleepy. "Baby, hey, it's not time to sleep, baby" you felt a hand touch your face. His voice sounded distant but you could hear the worry and anxiety. "Hey, honey please, wake up, the ambulance it's closer but I need you to stay up, okay?"

You nodded, opening your eyes only to look at his blue eyes. Joe seemed like an angel coming for you. But he was frowning and talking to the phone.

You wanted to stay awake but he was getting blurred, and the world was so slow. "Baby, don't sleep, don't do this to me" fear, Joe was scared.

***

You woke up with the beeping sound of some device. You looked around, confused. Your eyes stopped on Joe, sleeping on the couch. He looked so peaceful and handsome as always. When you tried to incorporate, a pain in your lower abdomen made you flinch. You hissed and laid back again.

Joe woke up, and stood up, rubbing his eyes. "Are you up" he stated. "What happened?" you asked. "You were losing a lot of blood" he took your hand and squeeze slightly "Damn, I thought...I thought you wouldn't-" he shook his head, keeping the thought away "You scared me,bad" he kissed your forehead and looked for any sign of discomfort.

"Sorry, I don't know what happened" you apologize. "The doc said something about your left ovary" he explained a little embarrassed he couldn't provide more info. "Let me call a nurse"

Minutes later a doctor and a nurse entered the room.

"Oh, Mrs Burrow. How are you feeling now?" The doctor said, she was friendly.

"Better" you replied.

"Yes, we have to do a emergency surgery for your left ovary. You had an enormous cyst that exploded" she explained "you lost blood but we could bring you back"

Your breathe shakily. The nurse checked your pressure, while the doctor explained the process and your recovery.

"No lifting heavy things, and you need to rest. We're going to have you here for the day but tomorrow you can go to your house" she looked at Joe "I'm sure you are in good hands, he was so worried about you"

You looked at Joe but he was serious. Did you really scared him? There was a turmoil of emotions inside you.

Once you were alone, he was still holding your hand. You touch his hand, playing with his fingers. "Are you ok?" he had bags under his eyes, and looked a little bit messy.

"Yes, I'm tired. I was calling your parents and everyone to let them know the situation" he replied. "So don't worry about that, you need to rest"

Joe was with you until the last minute you left to the hospital. He helped you to get into the car, bought the medicine the doctor gave you and healthy food your dinner. "I need to take a bath, I feel sticky" you confessed, he snorted but help you to undress. He was so gently with you, you almost cry. When he tried to get into the shower, you stopped him. "Baby, I think I'm alright" you said, giving him a kiss.

"Are you sure?" he asked, but he was holding your elbows like you were leaving forever.

"Yes, I-I can do this"

"Just yell my name if you need something"

Once the shower was over, he looked for your clothes and help you to dress again. "Do you want me to braid your hair?" It was one of his hidden talents. When you taught him, he learned fast and actually like to braid your hair. "I find it relaxing" he explained.

You nodded and sat on a chair, and his hands caressing your hair relaxed you so much you were falling asleep.

"Joe" you mumbled, "Mmm?"

"Did I scared you?" silence, he never stopped moving his hand though "Yes"

"I'm sorry"

"Don't apologize. You didn't know"

"Joe, the doctor told me she had to removed my left ovary" you starting saying, finding the courage to continue "it's going to be difficult for me to get pregnant"

"That's ok, you are here right now. That's what matters"

" I know you wanted a family"

"Yes, but I want my wife to be healthy too"

"Thank you" you cried. His reassurance was relieving. When he finished braiding your hair, he brought you a soft dinner, and while you ate he took a shower.

Joe always took care of you when he could. As you did with him. You were a couple.

A team.

Thank you for this request. I have a similar fanfiction written about Joe too, but it's shorter. You can check it on the masterlist!

#joe burrow fan fic #joe burrow #nfl #joe burrow x reader #fanfiction

[campbenji]

*JWCT SPOILERS* very messy first thoughts

OH BOY here we go

-ben and darius's dynamic was epic. the hug. the roadtrip scenes. "is your friend okay?" "no 😊". ben getting darius out of his isolation cabin and darius grounding him in ep2. the parallels with s3ep7. "you kiss your mother with that mouth?" i'm gonna be thinking about that scene for days. their ship is still a swim to me but please they better keep whatever the fuck they have going on in s2 because it's fucking wonderful

-i love that they took the chance to give more light to duos we didn't see much in jwcc. teamups we didn't often see like ben and sammy, THE B-DUO, and darius and sammy got very special moments here

-the amount of pictures/videos from the six years in between??? the brooklynn flashbacks??? we were so well fed

-BRAND!!!!!! i got so happy when i heard him the first episode, he's clearly been checking on his brother and i'm glad he's ok

-bowman family FEAST. brand and darius talking over the phone. the pictures on the cabin. kenji saying he calls mrs. bowman once a week and all the nice things he said about her. the whole mess between kenji and darius. "we're brothers, right?" i died dead. i love this family your honor

-sammy. she's got so much going on and we desperately need to talk about it. i'm so worried about her, she's desperately trying to avoid confronting what happened with brooklynn, with yaz and her own trauma, and then they casually dropped on us that her family isn't speaking to her and never elaborated on that?? sammy, who's love and care for her family was her biggest motivation in jwcc?? i need to know what happened because it must've been big

-mateo!! i liked him a lot, he definitely doesn't want to get into any of this mess but still dabbles around a bit to help the kids, which i respect. also i hope we get to meet his daughter hiraya, she sounds really cool

-MS MICROBANGS (or the handler, or whatever name we're calling her). what is her deal. who is she working for. she's so uncanny, literally almost robotic i need to know more about her

-brookenji over i cheered. don't take this personally i've never been a fan of this ship and a part of me knew they weren't going to last long

-the animation increased in quality so much. the scene after ben, yaz and sammy get out of the sinking van is so well done it's so pretty to look at. and the t-rex with the explosion behind her? it reminds me so much of toro in the tunnels in s1ep8, and i haven't tested this out but i feel like if you put them one next to the other the improvement would be so noticeable.

-also related to the point above: that thing when a character's eyes start filling up with tears but they don't cry just yet? 10/10. chef's fucking kiss

-sure jwct has the same tv-y7 rating as jwcc, but from minute 1 it's obvious it's not the same audience they're talking to. it's not a big change in tone, like for example adventure time/distant lands/fionna and cake, but it's there, you can tell they know it's not little kids watching anymore

-BUMPY IS HAVING A BABY BUMPY IS A MOM NOW they had me shit scared for her and then they pulled a freaking egg my heart was literally pounding. anyways i hope they get both bumpy and the egg somewhere safe and that they name the new anky "speckles" (i've gotten so attached to that name in the last 24 hours it's insane)

-YASAMMY THE QUEENS THAT YOU ARE. their relationship was stellar this season, i was scared when i saw that they were apart but their issues felt organic to their relationship and i just love how they were written in the show, they are still so in love with each other and i can't wait to see where they go next season. they're everything to me

-yeah they were apart for half the season but. benji crumbs. the egg cradle scene. kenji helping ben after he got hit with the stun gun. basically all they did was act like they knew each other but idc. we are so back.

-the brooklynn reveal was... meh?? it could've been more rewarding if they waited until s2 to reveal she's still alive, but at least i hope they take their time before reuniting her with the rest of the camp fam. also i can't believe ppl even guessed what arm she was going to lose y'all have prophetic powers or smth

-bringing daniel back to kill him the same episode was an insane move btw. i would've normally complained but it's all worth it for causing the panic attack scene in ep7. kenji's reaction felt so genuine, i'm forever in awe at how well this show writes grief and trauma

-i'm so conflicted about darius's confession. i like dinostar, but i feel like it wasn't needed for darius to be in love with brooklynn to explain the voicemails and the way he was dealing with her death. she was one of his closest friends, his grief made sense even with them being platonic. on the other hand, i love how he admitted it to kenji and the fact they didn't turn it into a huge fight between them; also, "i didn't know i could even feel that way" aroace/acespec darius truthers never lose

-maybe it's just that i need to rewatch, but i'm lost as to where they're going next season?? i know they're getting on a boat but where does that go?? what are they trying to do?? there's so much happening my head is spinning

-ben... he kind of felt like the comic relief for most of the show, the first episodes showed him as being really paranoid again and struggling with being alone, but halfway through the season they just sort of forgot about it?? idk something was off

-bring back kenji's old latin spanish va idk who this guy is but that is not kenji i can't do this. i'll survive the loss of ryan potter but i won't survive this

anyways yeah i think those are most of my uncooked thoughts, overall i really liked the season, i can't believe we got to see the kids again this is still so unreal to me

#c rambles about jwcc #jwct #jwct spoilers #chaos theory spoilers #jurassic world chaos theory #chaos theory #camp cretaceous

[coloursflyaway]

Cry With Joy At The Depth Of My Love

Pairing: Edwin Payne/Charles Rowland

Rating: T

Word Count: 18.000

Read on AO3

“Edwin?”, Crystal asks, and Edwin would say something snarky, maybe even something mean, but Charles is wrapped around him like he’ll never let go again, and there are more important matters at hand.

“Crystal, what has happened here?”, he asks, and a few seconds later, their new psychic is standing in front of him, trousers splashed with the coffee she dropped, disbelief written across her face. “I was gone for a few hours and now Charles… and the whole building…”

He’s not quite sure how to put it, most likely because he still doesn’t understand, and Crystal looks at him like he come back from the Cat King’s lair with an additional head.

“Edwin”, she says, slowly, like she is still searching for the words, “what are you talking about? You’ve been gone for six weeks.” ____________ Edwin takes the Cat King up on his initial offer, so instead of a few hours, he is gone for six weeks. Charles isn't good at coping with it.

Tags for everyone who wanted one ♥: @that-ineffable-devil @mentally-unstable-fangirl @tipsyscone @butternutsquashthesenutz @makemeimmortalwithahug @mylu @imineffible @fabledshadow @asherxme @twopercentboy

„Now, I think this concludes our business“, Edwin says and fixes his bow-tie, the collar of his shirt. His lips feel strange, now that they have tasted their first kiss (and their second, and third, and fourth, and…, his treacherous mind corrects him), but this was a small price to pay for safe passage out of this godforsaken town. “So, could you please transport me back to my friend?”

The creature in question unfurls his body from the sofa they were lounging on for the transaction, and even if Edwin cannot find much that is good about this situation, the Cat King at least has been rather civil about it all, no matter his unconventional request for payment.

Even now, he walks closer and there is a smirk on his lips.

Lips, Edwin does not want to look at, because he knows how they feel and knows that they felt right in one, and terrifyingly wrong in all other ways.

“If you insist”, the Cat King drawls, and brushes two fingers across Edwin’s shoulders. “I can take you back to your little friend. But you’re also more than welcome to stay a little longer…”

“No, thank you”, Edwin cuts him off before he can continue, because he needs to get back to Charles, and as soon as possible, too. “As far as I can tell, you have been made quite happy, so I consider my debt repaid and would very much like to return where I belong.”

And the Cat King looks at him like he knows something he won’t tell Edwin yet, and snaps his fingers, and the world changes.

Edwin disappears in front of their eyes, and Charles forces down the spark of panic that comes with that.

The Cat King wanted to talk and Edwin can handle it, of course he can. Even if Charles would have liked it much better if he could have done it within his sight.

The warehouse looks different when it reappears.

Edwin needs a moment to make sense of it, but then his gaze gets stuck on the scratches on the walls, the splintered wood and bent metal, the wrecked throne and the hole in the floor that looks like someone dug it with their bare hands, blood streaked across the grey concrete.

It looks like a crime scene, like a war had been waged inside of it, and then Edwin’s eyes find Charles’ form in the middle of the broken up ground.

He’s sunken on the floor, like a marionette whose strings had been cut, his coat torn to shreds, his white socks stained, and his hair a matted mess of curls. Bits of concrete are stuck in there, but Charles doesn’t seem to notice, like he doesn’t seem to notice anything else around him, and it scares Edwin more than anything ever has before.

Before he knows it, he is moving, gasping out Charles’ name, and for a terrible, terrifying second, Charles does not react. He just sits there, motionless, like he is stuck in limbo; then he looks up, slowly, like he is moving through molasses, and somehow, it’s worse.

There is no life left in his eyes.

Usually, they shine brighter than the sun itself, sparkling with every emotion Charles is feeling, but now their light is dimmed until it has all but gone out, their brown not warm and inviting anymore, but flat.

A sound tumbles from Edwin’s lips, although he cannot quite make out what kind, something between a sob and a plea and a prayer, and Edwin is about to drop to his knees in front of him, when Charles propels himself upwards and flings himself into Edwin with a force that knocks them both to the ground.

If he was still breathing, the impact would force the air out of Edwin’s lungs, but he is certain that even then, he wouldn’t realise it, because Charles is holding him so tightly it compresses his non-existent ribs, like he has been hurt, like he had thought Edwin was.

And he’s crying.

It’s the kind of crying Edwin hasn’t experienced before, but something which he understands anyway; it’s the kind of crying he would hear in hell, seeping through the cracks of his doll house, the kind he would see much later when he was escaping.

It’s crying without any kind of restraint because there is no strength left to fight it, the kind of crying that comes from desperation so deep it captures your entire soul, and forces anything else into meaninglessness.

Edwin has never cried like this before, and he swears right then and there that he will find and butcher whoever did this to Charles.

Three hours have passed and Edwin isn’t yet back.

Charles is doing his very best to keep calm, but it is so, so difficult when the only thing those damned cats are willing to say is, sometimes the King likes to keep them for a while.

What is a while?, Charles had asked, but there had been nothing but a self-satisfied meow, which most likely just means that the cats know about as much as Charles does.

Which is not reassuring, but in the end, it will be fine.

Edwin might not know how to fight, but he’s clever and he’s brave and he would never leave Charles alone.

“Shh, it’s alright”, he is whispering into Charles’ curls, trying to soothe him even though it doesn’t seem to be working at all.

Charles is crying like the world has ended, his sobs so violent they make Edwin’s chest seize up, his fingers grabbing and pulling at Edwin’s clothes like he wants to sink into him and fuse their bodies together.

And Edwin might not know how to fix this, but he’ll damn himself to Hell if he lets go.

He’s about to try and change their position in hopes of making Charles more comfortable, when there is a thud and the sound of splashing liquid behind them.

“Edwin?”, Crystal asks, and Edwin would say something snarky, maybe even something mean, but Charles is wrapped around him like he’ll never let go again, and there’s more important matters at hand.

“Crystal, what has happened here?”, he asks, and a few seconds later, their new psychic is standing in front of him, trousers splashed with the coffee she dropped, disbelief written across her face. “I was gone for a few hours and now Charles… and the whole building…”

He’s not quite sure how to put it, most likely because he still doesn’t understand, and Crystal looks at him like he come back from the Cat King’s lair with an additional head.

“Edwin”, she says, slowly, like she is still searching for the words, “what are you talking about? You’ve been gone for six weeks.”

Edwin has been gone for a day and a half and Charles is going insane.

He knows he’s going insane, but that doesn’t change anything, because Edwin has been gone for a day and a half, and they have never been apart for this long since they met.

“I swear to God, if you don’t bring him back, like, this instant, I’m going to start breaking things”, he tells one of the cats that have come to watch them; it’s not an effective threat because Charles has been saying this for at least six hours, but he cannot stop himself, because he feels like breaking things.

He feels like he needs to break things, and that scares him, but what scares him much, much more is that Edwin isn’t here, and he has been gone for a day and a half, and Charles doesn’t know how to get him back.

“Sure thing, lover boy”, one of the cats replies, and Charles shouldn’t, but he screams.

Silence stretches between them, only interrupted by Charles’ sobs, his heaving breaths.

“What do you mean, I have been gone for six weeks?”, Edwin finally asks, dread of a previously unknown type and magnitude filling him with every tear Charles is crying into his suit.

“What do you think I mean? I mean, six weeks, you have been gone for six weeks, and we have been looking all over for you and this one”, she gestures to Charles, “has taken the entire town apart because he was so convinced that he would have to dig you out of Hell with his own bare hands. That’s what I mean with you have been gone for six weeks.”

And she looks down at Charles who is shaking in Edwin’s arms, and there is tenderness and true affection in her eyes, which vanishes as soon as her gaze returns to Edwin.

“So, like. Good to have you back, but also, what the fuck, how could you do this to him?”

It’s been two days since Edwin was whisked away by that absolute prick of a Cat King and Charles is losing his mind. Whatever he thought before about going insane was nothing, nothing at all, because this is so much worse.

Crystal, bless her, has been trying to calm him down, but there is only so much she can do, which is nothing at all, because Edwin is gone and no one will fucking talk to Charles and tell him what is going on.

So, he is pacing, because he cannot start smashing things up, even if he wants to.

Not because of any consideration Charles has for the Cat King or his kingdom or his subjects, but because Edwin will come back and he will have solved everything, and he will be so cross with him if Charles starts smashing things up.

So, instead, he paces, and thinks about how he’ll hug Edwin once he’s back, no matter if Edwin wants him to or not, and how he won’t let him out of his sight for the rest of eternity.

Six weeks.

The words shatter something within Edwin that he didn’t know existed, tear him down until he’s not sure if he’s still the same person as he was before.

Because Charles is crying in his arms like he watched the world end, and suddenly Edwin doesn’t just understand the emotion there, but feels it deeply, viscerally.

If Charles had been gone for six weeks, he would be tearing the world apart with his bare hands to get him back.

And suddenly, every one of Charles’ sobs is an open wound, every trembling grasping of his fingers a broken bone, every time he breathes in, wet and desperate and painful, is a death he dies, because Edwin is the one who caused this.

Edwin, who was gone for six weeks without knowing, who has left the most important person in his life to suffer without him; Edwin, who can’t do anything but hug Charles tighter, and pray to whatever god will hear him that Charles will be able to forgive him.

It’s been three days and Charles doesn’t care anymore.

He has told Crystal as much, after she had dragged him out on a coffee run, insisting that he cannot spend his entire time in that godforsaken warehouse. Which she is wrong about, he realises as soon as he has stepped outside, because Edwin could come back any second and Charles would not be there to take care of him after whatever this Cat King has been putting him through.

At first, the Cat King hadn’t seemed too bad, not dangerous, more annoying, but apparently Charles had been wrong because Edwin isn’t here, and there is no way Edwin would leave Charles alone for this long, especially because he must know how worried Charles is by now.

So, the only explanation is that the Cat King must be keeping Edwin from leaving somehow and Charles will not allow it.

He should have gone with him right away, shouldn’t have let Edwin out of his sight, will never do so again.

So, he lets Crystal get the coffee she wants, but ignores her looks when he brandishes his cricket bat even before they walk into the warehouse. Maybe he is overreacting, because it has only been three days, but at the same moment, Charles knows he isn’t, because maybe for other people, spending three days away from their best friend is just part of everyday life, but it isn’t for them.

Charles is used to looking up at any given time and finding Edwin within his sight and the fact that he isn’t terrifies Charles to the point where it is hard to think.

That’s why it doesn’t matter that Crystal is obviously uncomfortable when Charles twirls the bat around as he enters the warehouse, just like it doesn’t matter that the cats scatter, not even that Edwin would tut and tell Charles to use his head to solve this, not his muscles.

Because Edwin isn’t here, is he?

“Oi!”, he calls into the vast room and sends more cats running. “One of you little fuckers is going to tell me where your King has taken my friend or I’ll start smashing shit up around here, alright?”

Just to make sure they know he means business, Charles brings down his bat on the closest barrel and feels the metal dent under the impact.

It’s satisfying in a way that scares him, but everything scares him right now, so this doesn’t matter, either.

“Do you hear me?”, he shouts and knows that he doesn’t sound commanding, just desperate, because that’s what he is, desperate and scared and not even good enough to keep the most important person in the world safe. But maybe desperate is enough for this, because desperate people do desperate things and Charles is about to rip this place into bits and pieces until he finds Edwin again.

There is no answer, and Crystal reaches out to tug on his jacket, like she thinks he doesn’t mean it, but oh, that’s where she is wrong.

They have only spent a week and a half together so Charles doesn’t hold it against her, but he’ll show her, just like he’ll show the cats, how much he means it.

Edwin isn’t certain how long they stay like this, but it’s not like he cares either. His mind is still reeling from the revelation that he has been gone for six weeks, his heart caught in a cycle of ripping itself apart for leaving Charles alone and patching itself up once more because he cannot let Charles see how much he is hurting, not when Charles needs him to be strong now.

Despite having existed for over a hundred years, Edwin has never become comfortable with another person’s touch – Charles’ being the exception – but he knows that Charles needs it, so his hands have started running over Charles’ back, combing through his lovely curls, anything that will let Charles know that he is here and he is safe and he isn’t leaving ever again.

“For me, it was only a few hours”, Edwin whispers, a response that comes far too late, feels like far too little, because who cares what it was like for him if it has left Charles in such a state? “If I had known that time passed different there, I would have come back immediately. I wouldn’t have spent a second with that blasted man.”

His hand is cupping Charles’ head, trying to support him through sobs that seem to wreck through his body with the intensity of an earthquake, the tears they bring soaking through Edwin’s jacket and shirt. Even if his spectral skin cannot feel them, Edwin knows it anyway, just like he knows the desperate grip Charles has on his back, the shaking of his slender body in Edwin’s arms.

“Time passed differently-”, Crystal starts but then stops herself, almost like a decision Edwin can see her make, before she crouches down and puts a hand on Charles’ back, just below Edwin’s. Part of Edwin wants to push it away, because it should be him who touches Charles, no on else. “You know what, we can talk about that later. We have to get him out of here first, then we can figure the rest out.”

Metal bends and wood breaks and concrete doesn’t do much at all apart from sending shocks up Charles’ arms, especially if he does it again and again and again.

If he was still alive, his muscles would be screaming, he’d be covered in cuts and bruises, splinters embedded in his flesh and being driven deeper with every motion; like this, there is nothing, just Charles and the cricket bat and the violence he is unleashing.

The first hit had felt good, like a release, but by now it feels like nothing at all anymore, but in the end, he does not do it to feel better, but to get these goddamned cats to finally tell him where Edwin is.

It’s the only thing that matters, that has mattered, will matter, and Charles will take the whole fucking warehouse apart if that is what it takes.

His bat slams into the side of a barrel, denting it, and a cat flees; his bat hits a post and another one does.

“Just give him back!”, he screams and he sounds crazed, but that doesn’t matter either. “Tell me where he is!”

There is carnage around him, there’s bits of wood flying where Charles’ swing has toppled a palette over, and it doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter at all.

It’s nearly impossible to get Charles to stand up and it breaks Edwin’s heart, because Charles should be light on his feet, a flurry of motion even if he is trying to stand still, but instead he stumbles when Crystal helps lift him up. His hands are still clutching to Edwin’s clothes, cramped to the point where Crystal can’t dislodge them, although she is whispering soft nothings, coaxing with even softer touches.

In the end, they shift his arms so that they are around Edwin’s neck, clinging to him when Edwin picks him up like one would a child.

Were they still alive, Edwin wouldn’t be able to carry him a step, but Charles’ astral body has no weight to it, so Charles’ head comes to rest somewhere between Edwin’s neck and shoulder, fresh tears spilling down to wet his collar.

His sobs have quieted somehow, but he is still crying, still mute to Crystal’s questions and Edwin’s attempts of encouragement.

In all the three decades Edwin has known him, he has never seen Charles like this, never this closed off or devastated; it hurts in ways Edwin didn’t know he could hurt.

Crystal doesn’t talk much to him, but for once, Edwin doesn’t blame her: if he had been here in her stead, watching Charles spiral from his usual self to this state, he also wouldn’t want to talk to the person responsible for it.

So, he just follows her to the room she is still renting, holding onto Charles’ trembling form and swearing to never let him go again.

Eventually it’s Crystal who stops him.

She screams his name over the sounds of destruction, an expression on her pretty face that Charles has no energy left to decipher.

“Charles, they are not telling you anything”, she says, and yes, that’s the problem. “Maybe they don’t know. Maybe Edwin is somewhere else entirely, maybe the Cat King has taken him somewhere else in town.”

It makes little sense, and Charles wants to go back and smash another barrel into pieces, just in case it’s this one that will make those fucking cats tell him where Edwin is, when Crystal puts a hand on his shoulder and adds, “Maybe he needs our help there.”

Suddenly, a barrage of images: Edwin kept prisoner, forced into iron shackles; Edwin, being tortured; Edwin, waiting for Charles to come free him.

Charles, who has sworn to protect him and failed once already.

Edwin puts Charles down on Crystal’s bed, but even then Charles doesn’t let go of him and Edwin is touched, Edwin is terrified.

He seems so small like this, curled up on Edwin’s lap, and Edwin’s heart aches with love and with devotion and with an unbearable amount of guilt.

Without thinking, he pushes a hand through Charles’ hair again, but this time, Charles shivers against him, either because of the touch or by chance, Edwin isn’t sure.

“What happened?”, he asks Crystal softly, as not to disturb Charles.

“What do you think?”, she asks instead of answering, “He thought you were gone. He thought you might be gone forever, or trapped in Hell, or another thousand things his poor brain came up with. Would have gotten himself wiped out of existence if I hadn’t stopped him. Or dragged down to hell. He was willing to do absolutely anything to find you.”

She looks down at Charles and Edwin watches her eyes soften, like she is watching something precious; she is right, of course, but part of his heart still screams for her to stop.

“I’m not sure you know how much he loves you”, she tells him, her expression still soft, and it’s preposterous, it’s uncalled for, and Edwin desperately wishes it not to be true.

They search the harbour and the lighthouse, the library and the abandoned houses scattered around town, the high school and the cemetery; Edwin is nowhere and Charles curses Port Townsend and its people, curses the two of them for ever setting foot in it and curses Crystal for bringing them here.

In the woods, they find something akin to a shrine, complete with ancient writing that Charles cannot read, but there is no sign of Edwin anywhere. Around it, skeletons are scattered across the grass, and Charles should care about it, should make this a case, but the thought of it feels so far removed he’s almost surprised when Crystal picks it up to bring with them.

That summons the skeletons and they run, and Charles forgets about it almost immediately afterwards because it doesn’t matter, nothing does.

As Crystal outlines the events in the past six weeks in broad strokes, Charles hardly stirs, even if his tears dry at some point.

He’s not asleep, because that is not a luxury granted to them, but Edwin notices this kind of exhaustion anyway; he’s felt it before, after he had crawled out of Hell, covered in soot and bile and blood, and had collapsed right there on the floor, finally safe, but unable to move for what felt like an eternity.

And he understands it, too: he’d rather go to Hell again than lose Charles.

“He just sat there?”, he asks when Crystal is nearing the end of her tale, because it seems impossible, should be that. Charles is movement, is a constant dance, and yet Crystal is telling him that prior to Edwin’s return, he hadn’t moved in a fortnight. And it should be inconceivable, but Edwin thinks of how he found Charles, sunken into himself like he had become part of the ground itself, and suddenly it is difficult to doubt her words.

Crystal nods, and again her gaze softens when it touches Charles; again something within Edwin twists and hisses.

“He said he wasn’t leaving until you came back”, she explains, and her voice is a caress not meant for him, but Charles, who cannot hear it. “And he said he would wait forever if he had to… and I believed him.”

“Oh, Charles.”

It’s a declaration of love, of sorrow, of everything in between, and for a second, Charles stirs in Edwin’s lap, before he settles back down; it’s for the best, even if Edwin craves to see Charles’ eyes with some semblance of life in them like a starving man might crave a meal.

He strokes his knuckles down Charles’ spine, wishing he could feel the bumps of every vertebra, and Charles presses closer, almost imperceptibly so.

“Thank you for taking care of him”, he tells Crystal and means it, even if the words feel like pulling barbed wire through his airways, because taking care of Charles isn’t Crystal’s duty, it’s Edwin’s. But she was there when Edwin wasn’t, and it comforts him at least a little to know that Charles hadn’t been alone.

“Of course”, Crystal says, and her eyes stay soft, stay on Charles, “but don’t you fucking do that again.”

The vase helps nothing at all, because Charles cannot read the words that were transcribed on it or the table, because he’s useless without Edwin at his side.

Edwin would be able to solve this, there is a reason why he’s the brains of the operation after all, but Charles? The best he can do is put the vase down on Crystal’s table and all but forget about it.

Until he comes back that night from another trip to the harbour, the magic shop, the warehouse, without Edwin, whose absence feels more like a gaping, oozing wound with every passing second, and there is a stranger in Crystal’s bed.

She’s petite and looks peaceful, but Charles doesn’t even get to ask what she is doing there before Crystal starts talking.

“I put some flowers into the weird vase we found”, she says, and it doesn’t explain anything at all, “Dandelions that I found when I went back to check if we had missed anything in the woods, you know, because of the skeletons. And I heard a thud from the hallway and Niko here had passed out right in the middle of it. Which, in itself, would have been concerning, but then...God, there is no way to say this without sounding insane, but there were little people? Crawling out of her mouth? Which are now asleep in the dandelions I put into the vase.”

She looks at Charles like she expects a response, but it’s really difficult to give one, when it’s… well. When it’s not about Edwin.

“That’s good?”, he tries and Crystal rolls her eyes, looking annoyed for a second.

“Charles, I know this isn’t-”, she starts, but then stops herself, her expression softening. “I know you are worried about Edwin, but I need your help with this, okay? It won’t take long, we just have to take those little creatures back to their little altar thing so they won’t crawl back into Niko once they wake up. Can you do that for me?”

It seems reasonable and Charles still wants to say no, because nothing matters as long as Edwin isn’t back where he should be, but then he remembers, dimly, through the pain and the confusion and the gaping hole that is Edwin’s absence, that this is what they set out to do.

Help people.

So, he nods, and Crystal smiles, and that might matter at least a little bit.

“I’ll take him back to London tomorrow”, Edwin says into the silence that has settled around them. “Through the mirror. Not because I don’t want you to come, just…”

He doesn’t quite know how to say it, but Crystal seems to understand it anyway.

“That’s a good idea”, she agrees easily, and reaches out to touch a hand to Charles’ back, just below Edwin’s hand once more. “I think he should be back home and you two… I think it might be good if you had some time to sort through things. I’ll join you later.”

In any other situation, Edwin would ask what she means by that, but right now, it really doesn’t seem to matter, so he just nods, settles back against the headboard, and lets his eyes slip shut.

Charles takes the vase back where they found it, and there should be some kind of satisfaction in it, something about the job being jobbed and the day being saved and the stranger, Niko, being out of danger, but there is nothing but the gaping hole in his chest where his heart is supposed to be, because Edwin isn’t there with him.

When the sun is rising, the first rays of light coming through the windows, Edwin tries to rouse Charles once more.

“Charles?”, he asks as softly as he possibly can, not yet pulling away. “I was thinking, we should go back to London.”

For a few moments, there is no answer, but then Charles slowly, ever so slowly, sits up, his arms still around Edwin’s neck, as if he couldn’t bear to lose their closeness.

And Edwin expects a reaction, but none as violent as he gets when he finally sees Charles’ face again.

It’s not like he has forgotten it; for him, not even a day has passed, and yet it feels like seeing him for the first time.

His eyes are the same brown Edwin has become so familiar with, but they are dull still, even if a hint of life has returned to them; they are rimmed with red, eyelashes clumped together as if Charles had just been crying. And he might have been, even if the thought that he didn’t notice hurts Edwin in completely new, unexpected ways.

“You’re really back”, Charles whispers and the words are a sob and a prayer and an exaltation, and Edwin’s heart breaks because he should never have been back, he should have just been there. “You’re really here.”

There are tears spilling down his face, making his gaze a little brighter and yet not worth it; Edwin reaches out to wipe them away without thinking and Charles trembles under his touch like he never has before.

“I never meant to be away that long”, he tells Charles, although he’s not sure it matters, because he was, and there is nothing he can say or do to make it better. “I never wanted to worry you.”

I never want to be away from you for more than a few seconds, he thinks, but doesn’t say, doesn’t recognise the thought but knows it to be true nonetheless.

“I know”, Charles says, and it’s still half a sob, more tears spilling down his cheeks for Edwin to wipe away. “I always knew that. And you came back and you’re safe and that’s all that matters and I just. I missed you so much.”

And it’s not all that matters, not by a long shot, but for now, Edwin just nods and wipes another tear from Charles’ skin.

Niko wakes up again and she’s lovely in a way Charles knows Edwin would have enjoyed, but if anything, that just makes the need to get Edwin back worse.

It’s been a week and Charles desperately wishes he could sleep, just so he wouldn’t have to feel this all the time.

At least Niko seems to be willing to help, which would be a relief if Charles had any hope left that looking through town would bring Edwin back. But they have been everywhere thrice, have looked at every single thing Tragic Mick has on sale, and Edwin is just gone, like the Cat King has made him vanish from existence.

The thought cuts into Charles’ flesh like iron would, burning hot and torturous and it’s been a week and maybe there’s no other way. Edwin must be hurt or captured or a thousand other things Charles won’t allow himself to think of, and Charles will bring him back, no matter what it takes.

“Could you girls go and check the lighthouse again? Maybe the beach?”, he asks and maybe Crystal is getting suspicious, but he cannot find it in himself to care. “I just, I don’t want him to get back and there not being anyone there to take care of him. Please?”

It’s enough to convince them; they won’t find anything, he knows it deep in his bones, but it gives him the time and the space to go back to the warehouse and do what is necessary.

It takes some convincing to get Charles to let go of Edwin enough to stand up, his hands sliding down Edwin’s arms like he doesn’t want to lose contact, and it’s then when Edwin’s gaze gets caught by something that should be impossible.

There’s red on Charles’ fingers.

Not the red Edwin associates with him, but the red of dried blood and fresh wounds and overwhelming pain; Charles’ fingers are stained with blood, his nails torn to the flesh, some missing ,his knuckles scraped and bruised.

A gasp escapes him, because they cannot get hurt, they are already dead. Wounds, even those from iron, are fleeting, fade within minutes. And yet, Charles’ hands are battered, bloodied, like he had just been punching a wall.

Without thinking, Edwin takes them in his, fingers delicately gripping Charles’ wrists as not to hurt his poor, wounded hands any further, as he raises them up for inspection.

“What happened?”, he asks and hears his voice breaking, feels his heart do the same.

Charles’ eyes flicker downwards and there’s a fleeting look of recognition there, but nothing more. No surprise, no confusion, not even pain.

“Oh, yeah”, he says distractedly, turning his hands within Edwin’s grasp. “It happened a few weeks ago, when I was trying to dig through the concrete. Started out with just a scrapes that healed again, no problem, but then at some point they just stayed. Don’t really know what they’re about.”

“Do they hurt?”

“Yeah”, Charles says easily, like it’s nothing, like it doesn’t send Edwin’s mind spiralling. “But you get used to it, don’t you?”

It’s the warehouse again because it’s always the warehouse because Edwin has gotten lost there, and Charles has to get him back, no matter what.

So he marches into there, cricket bat brandished, and sends the cats scattering. Their King has not yet returned, his throne empty and Charles’s non-existent, aching heart seizes in his chest, like it does every time he looks at that horrible pile of palettes.

For a moment, he wants to beat it into splinters even more than he already has, wants to reduce it to dust, but then he stops himself.

It’s not what he is there to do.

One of the cats is too slow; Charles catches it easily, even if it is scratching and screaming and twisting its little body in a futile attempt to break free.

Charles doesn’t want to hurt it, but if that is what is necessary, he will.

“Tell me where he took my friend”, he hisses at the creature, ignoring that the scratches sting like fire, ignoring that the cat is most likely terrified of him. “If you don’t I’m going to crush every bone in your body and I won’t even regret it.”

There is a moment of silence, and Charles sees his hands covered in blood, feels thin bones splinter in his grip, imagines a life going out because of him, and he doesn’t want to do it, but he will if he has to.

Its little legs kick out again, before they go still and then, with the most contempt Charles has ever heard in another being’s voice, it says, “There is a cave south of here where the King sometimes goes when he doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

“Is Edwin there?”, Charles asks, a hint of hope blooming in his chest, because it’s a direction at least, a possibility. Yet, he tightens his fingers just so, just enough to let the cat know he means it.

“If you will find him, it will be there”, the cat replies and Charles breathes a sigh of relief, and lets go.

Edwin tries not to watch Charles say goodbye to Crystal, but it’s impossible not to, because Charles won’t let go of his hand. And Edwin cannot feel it, but he knows that Charles’ knuckles are still raw and his nails torn down to the flesh, and it is impossible to think of anything else.

“You’ll take care of yourself, okay?”, Crystal says, and reaches out to hug Charles, who goes willingly, their joined hands dragging Edwin closer, too. Their joined hands, Charles’ bruised and bleeding because of Edwin.

“’Course I will”, Charles answers and buries his face in Crystal’s hair; Edwin wants to tear him away from her and keep him to himself for the rest of forever. “You, too, though. And take care of Niko.”

“I will. Maybe she wants to come with me to London. See the sights. The agency. The haunted vending machine.”

The words give Edwin a start; that case, the vending machine that used to be haunted until Charles and he convinced the ghost stuck in there to move on in 2002, is nothing Crystal should know about. It’s one of the cases Charles and he still refer to sometimes when they pass that particular machine, a little inside joke.

That Crystal knows about it, that this Niko does as well, is an almost physical blow to Edwin’s chest, and for a moment, he does not know why.

But then Charles pulls back, his bloodied hand in Edwin’s still, and says, “That’d be brills. And we can make a few new memories, too. Good ones, this time.”

And suddenly, it is so clear: in the last three decades and some, there have been almost no memories they haven’t shared, and suddenly, there are six weeks of Charles’ existence that Edwin hasn’t been part of and the realisation of it feels like it’s ripping him to shreds.

“We should go”, he says, before he thinks of it, and it is unkind and cruel and selfish to ask Charles to cut his goodbyes short; yet Edwin cannot help but feel relief when Charles looks at him for a second and nods. “I’ll see you in two days, okay, Crys?”

And Crystal, who has a nickname too, nods, and Edwin breathes a quiet sigh of relief.

Charles drags the girls with him to the woods to the south, unsure where to find the cave and yet determined to do so.

Chances are that Crystal is just humouring him, but Charles doesn’t care. And it doesn’t matter, does it, because it’s her who finds it in the end.

“This doesn’t look very nice for a kitty”, Niko comments as they come closer; Charles still isn’t certain if she knows what and who they are looking for, but he doesn’t have the time stop and explain it, not if Edwin might be here, might be hurt, might be being tortured.

“I’m not sure if the Cat King would describe himself as a kitty”, Crystal replies as they get close enough to see into the cave, “But in general, I agree. I don’t think this looks nice for anyone in particular.”

She’s right; it looks damp and overgrown with weed, not a place fit for a king, but maybe for a prisoner.

“You wait outside”, Charles tells them, because he can’t die anymore, and because he isn’t sure if he wants his new friends to see what he’ll become if faced with the Cat King now. “If I need help, I’ll shout for you.”

Maybe Crystal answers, maybe she doesn’t; Charles doesn’t wait to hear it, just pulls out his bat and barges into the cave, ready to knock the whiskers off the damned creature that has taken his best friend, the best person in the world.

Inside, the cave is cosy, carpeted, a large bed and a bar crammed into a corner; it’s magic, quite obviously.

And it’s empty.

Being back in London feels right, even if the hand in Edwin’s still feels wrong.

Not because Edwin doesn’t want to hold Charles hand – he finds, although he never would have considered it before, that the weight of Charles’ hand in his is comforting, the pressure of his fingers grounding, that the occasional tug makes his heart skip a metaphorical beat – but because even without feeling, he is constantly reminded of the state of them, the blood caked under Charles’ fingernails.

Almost, he raises their joined hands again to see if maybe, some of the bruises have healed, but when Edwin turns around, Charles is looking at him with such wonder, such care, such lingering pain, that it takes his breath away.

That look alone is like a stab, a full-body blow, and Edwin hates himself for having caused it, for thinking about his petty jealousies when Charles has been through six weeks of what must have been Hell.

“Charles”, he says softly, because he doesn’t know what else to say, but he doesn’t even get to finish saying his name; before he does, Charles pulls him closer, into another hug, that feels almost as desperate as the one they shared back at the warehouse, kneeling on the ruined concrete floor.

“I thought I lost you”, Charles sobs into his shoulder, and the only thing Edwin can do is hold him. “I didn’t want to believe it for a second, but you were gone for so long and I thought- I didn’t think I’d ever be here again, I didn’t think I’d be here again with you, I didn’t-”

It makes Edwin think of what Crystal said an ocean away, that Charles didn’t want to leave the warehouse, not without Edwin, and there are tears in his eyes now, spilling over and impossible to stop, because Charles there on the warehouse floor, unmoving as the world changes around him, is the worst thing he has ever imagined.

He hugs him closer, and Charles buries his face in the crook of Edwin’s neck, hot tears spilling against Edwin’s skin and soaking into his blazer, changing the fabric in the most fundamental of fashions.

The girls find him eventually.

Charles isn’t certain how long he has been sitting there, but he isn’t sure he cares anymore, because Edwin isn’t here and Charles doesn’t know where he is, so he can’t save him, which means Edwin is somewhere out there, alone and lost and most likely hurt. And he must be waiting for Charles to come, because Charles has always come, Charles has promised him, again and again, that he would always come.

And now, Charles doesn’t know where to go.

He doesn’t know he’s crying until Crystal is crouching before him, dabbing at his cheeks with a crumpled tissue, and it’s like everything falls apart around him, beneath him, inside him, because Edwin isn’t here and Charles doesn’t know how to get him back.

They eventually part, although Edwin isn’t sure he likes it; he’s not used to this kind of closeness, and yet it feels good to hold Charles, to comfort him.

It’s not like Charles goes far either, he keeps one of his poor, battered hands on Edwin’s wrist and drags him to their sofa, pulls him down until Charles can rest his feet on Edwin’s lap, their fingers still intertwined.

At first, it’s difficult to find somewhere to put his other hand, the one that is so used to holding books when he sits here, but Charles looks at him hopefully as he fidgets, until Edwin puts it down on top of Charles’ thin ankle, fingers snaking around to hold it.

“Do you want to tell me about what happened?”, Edwin asks after a few moments of silence – not uncomfortable, but heavy still – but Charles shakes his head almost immediately, dark curls bouncing.

“I’d rather not”, he says, and it sounds prim, almost rehearsed; it hurts in a new, novel way to think that Charles feels like he has to prepare answers when talking to him. “It wasn’t… pleasant. Do you wanna tell me how the Cat King kept you there for so long?”

His immediate response is no, he doesn’t want to tell Charles just what he had to do to appease the Cat King. There is an explanation ready on his lips, one he has rehearsed, back when there were lips on his throat, leaving imperceptible marks, but then he thinks of Charles’ hands, of his eyelashes clumped together with tears, and Charles deserves the truth, especially because there is so little else Edwin can give him.

“He asked for a kiss. Or rather, several”, he explains, then, because he isn’t certain how much Charles understood back then, on the warehouse floor, “For me, it was only a few hours, but wherever he took me, time must have been stretched there. It is the only explanation I can come up with.”

And he expects a chuckle, a smile, anything at all, but Charles’ eyes go dim again, go dull, and Edwin hates himself with renewed passion for causing it.

Charles isn’t sure how they end up in Niko’s room; he cannot remember walking, cannot remember teleporting either. But they do, and he is still crying, surrounded by pink and purple and bright yellow, and there are two sets of arms around him and they still don’t make him feel better.

He can’t remember the last time he cried, and he doesn’t think he ever cried like this before, not even with his father’s belt raining pain down on him. This is worse, because this is Edwin, and this is forever, and this is all his fault.

“Maybe the cat just didn’t know”, Crystal says softly, rubbing a hand along his back; for a brief moment, Charles wishes he could at least feel this. “Maybe their King doesn’t tell them much, I don’t think kings usually do. We’ll just keep looking. We’ll find someone who does.”

It’s meant to soothe, but it doesn’t; if anything it makes Charles cry harder, because who is left? He could go through the cats, one by one, and he will if necessary,, but if this one didn’t know, why should the next one be any better?

He doesn’t know how to answer, because any sound that comes from his lips is coated and drowned and swallowed by sobs, but he doesn’t have to, because Niko kisses the top of his head, and says, “You did mention a witch, maybe she knows? Maybe she has one of those crystal balls to look inside and find your friend!”

And she’s wrong, because Esther would never help them; and she’s right, because Charles has questions for her anyway.

A bit of light returns to Charles’ eyes quickly, thank God. Edwin isn’t sure what snuffed it out in the first place, but he swears not to make the same mistake a second time; his soul would not be able to take it.

He tries to keep the conversation light, only that so much of it seems to be caught up in everything that has happened.

It’s unusual, having to tread lightly around Charles, and Edwin hates it with a passion that surprises even himself. But it just feels so wrong, even more so than watching Crystal’s hand on Charles’ back, hearing her mention anecdotes from a life she wasn’t part of.

So, when he again almost asks Charles just how Crystal could have known about the cursed vending machine, he instead picks up the book lying on their side table and holds it up without even looking at the title.

“Do you want me to read you something?”, he asks, because back when they first met they occasionally did this, especially on winter nights whose cold they couldn’t feel, when Charles still remembered dying.

For a second, there is silence, Charles’ thumb brushing warm across the back of Edwin’s hand, and Edwin could live in this moment for the rest of his existence.

“The Complete Encyclopedia of Uncommon and Rare Arachnids?”, Charles asks, and there is a hint of his usual smile curling around his lips, a ghost of his normal teasing.

“I could get another book”, Edwin counters, and gives Charles a smile in hopes of getting a real one in return, “but I would have to get up to get it.”

And Charles is shaking his head immediately, and the smile on his lips grows into something Edwin almost recognises.

He reads the Complete Encyclopedia of Uncommon and Rare Arachnids to Charles for hours.

They get to E.

“Don’t do this”, Crystal repeats for the dozenth time, but Charles doesn’t slow down his steps, doesn’t even think about it. “Charles! Don’t do this. You remember the last time, she’s dangerous.”

“I know”, he answers, and he does. It’s just that it doesn’t matter. “That’s why she might have Edwin. Because she’s dangerous. Or she might at least know where he is. I can’t, Crystal.”

And he does stop, just for a second, turns around to see her and Niko trailing after him, Crystal obviously distressed, Niko most likely just confused. And he wants to care so much, but he just can’t.

Not when it’s Edwin.

“You stay out of this, Crys, please. But I can’t, not when it’s him. If there is any chance that Esther knows what that goddamned Cat King has done to Edwin, then I have to try. I have to.” He doesn’t expect Crystal to understand; they don’t know each other for long, it’s a miracle she’s even here still. “He’s my best friend. He would do the same for me.”

For a moment, nothing.

Then Crystal’s expression softens, like she might understand after all, and she nods.

“Alright”, she says, “Niko and I will stay around the corner and I’ll try to read her mind. But be careful, Charles. You won’t be much help to Edwin if you join him wherever he is.”

Night falls and they are still wrapped up into their cocoon of warmth on the couch, Charles’ hand by now a familiar weight in Edwin’s.

“I know you want to ask”, Charles says into the comfortable silence, and Edwin rejoices just for the pleasure of hearing his voice. “And I’ll tell you everything you wanna know, just… not now, okay? I want to enjoy having you back before I have to think about all that again.”

“Of course”, Edwin answers and he means it, understands it, too. He looks down at Charles’ hand in his and that is enough for now. “Whenever you are ready. There is no rush, we have the rest of forever to figure it out.”

Charles’ fingers twitch in his and it must be the light, but the knuckles look slightly less raw, less torn. Without thinking, Edwin lifts their hands to his lips and presses a kiss on the wounds, hoping that it won’t cause more pain.

It gets a response, at least, a sharp intake of breath, Charles’ fingers clenching around his, but when Edwin looks up at Charles, allowing their hands to drop once more, his eyes are wide and warm and a little alive.

“Doesn’t hurt”, Charles answers the question Edwin has yet to ask, but his voice sounds a little strangled still. “It’s just that you don’t usually do… any of this. I thought the hand holding would be almost too much, I just couldn’t let go.”

Because I need to make sure you’re really back, he doesn’t say, but Edwin hears it anyway. And the sentiment hurts, the thought that Charles thinks physical touch is a burden to him to the point of trying to let go of Edwin’s hand for his sake.

“I do not mind it in the slightest”, he declares, making sure to tighten the grip he has on Charles’ hand. “Not if it’s you.”

And Charles’ eyes widen once more, a spark in them igniting, and Edwin kisses his knuckles, one by one, vowing that he won’t let go until Charles can look at him without fear in his eyes.

“Esther!”, he yells before he has even reached the door, ready to barge in without knocking, even if Crystal has implored him to at least stay outside of Esther’s house. “If you don’t come out, I swear to God, I will come and find you and-”

“What?”, the door swings open and Esther is standing there, pipe at her lips as she regards Charles with a put upon kind of disinterest. “I heard you boys were still in town, but oh my God, can’t you let a woman cook up her revenge in peace? You boys are so annoying.”

If he was still alive, his teeth would splinter from how hard Charles is clenching them; his fingers are itching to grab the bat and just try and mash her face in.

“Do you know where Edwin is?”, he asks instead, because that’s more important than feeling her skull split apart again.

“Who’s Edwin?”, she drawls, taking a drag from her pipe and blowing the smoke into Charles’ face. “Is that the other one? I can’t keep up with you kids and your stupid little names.”

“That’s him, yeah”, Charles answers and God, he wants to smash her kneecaps in, he wants to beg her to help, he wants to storm past her and tear her house apart until he finds Edwin. “Do you know where he is?”

“You seem desperate”, Esther says, smirking, taking another drag from her pipe. “I like it. What’s it worth to ya?”

“Everything”, he replies, although he shouldn’t, because in the end, it’s the only answer he can give.

“Love that. Not for you, but for me.” Esther is sizing him up, obviously considering something Charles won’t like the least, and yet he knows that he will do it, no matter what it is she asks, if she can only tell him where to find Edwin. “It’s gonna cost you, and I mean, like, a lot.”

“I’ll pay it”, Charles answers without a second of hesitation, and Esther smirks in a way that should make him regret his words; it doesn’t. “Whatever it is, I’ll pay it.”

Sometimes, Edwin forgets how different they get to experience time; sometimes he's forcibly reminded of the fact. Because Crystal and Niko find them like this, wrapped up in each other.

Part of Edwin wants to tear himself away from Charles, although there is nothing untoward they are doing, but another, one he understands even less, wants to press closer, wants to kiss Charles' knuckles again and let the girls see.

"You made it!", Charles exclaims when he sees Crystal, voice sounding at least a fraction alive, and Edwin loves it, despises it at the same time. "How was the trip?"

They are dripping rain water on the floor, Edwin belatedly realises, but he decides against mentioning it anyway, less for their sake and more for Charles’.

“It was alright. Long, mostly”, Crystal answers, pushing a hand through her thick curls and sending a spray of water down onto their wooden floor. Edwin does his best not to notice it. “How are you? Is everything alright?”

The concern is palpable in her voice, almost a physical entity in the room, and Charles seems touched by it, his eyes softening and another sliver of a smile playing across his lips.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. Edwin’s here”, he replies, like it explains everything, and Crystal nods, as if she agrees that it does.

Her gaze flickers over to Edwin for a second, then back to Charles, whose fingers clench around Edwin’s almost imperceptibly before he shakes his head, the motion so small Edwin almost misses it.

He’s about to ask what he is going on, but then Niko steps forward, spreading even more water on their floors, and Edwin is distracted by the bright teal of her coat, the white of her hair that wasn’t there before he was taken.

“You must be Edwin”, she says and holds out a hand that Edwin cannot take without letting go of Charles’. “Charles has told us so much about you.”

“That would be me, yes. I apologise, my hand is currently quite occupied”, Edwin answers, then raises their joined hands to help explain why he cannot shake Niko’s; an expression flits across Crystal’s face, too quick for Edwin to make sense of it, yet Charles seems to understand it easily.

It shouldn’t bother Edwin as much as it does.

“Ooh, that’s okay”, Niko says, and she sounds like she means it. Her eyes are wide and happy and suddenly, even without knowing much about her, Edwin is glad that she was with Charles when he was gone. “You should be holding Charles’ hand, that’s much more important. I completely understand.”

And silently, Edwin agrees.

Esther is grinning at him in a way that reminds Charles of the snake Edwin had found in her house, cold and dangerous and like he should be running from that smile.

Instead, he takes a step forward, and he would take another if Crystal wasn’t suddenly next to him, yanking him back.

“She doesn’t know a thing”, she half hisses, half shouts, her voice as deadly as Esther’s smile. “I read her thoughts and there is nothing in there. She just wants you to promise her that you’ll do what she asks, and then use you.”

Her grip is so strong Charles feels it through his clothes, through the barrier to physical touch that is death, and as she yanks him back, Charles feels the heart he doesn’t have break in his chest once more, because for a moment, he had had hope.

Esther cackles and Charles knows there are tears spilling down his cheeks, even if he cannot feel them.

“Well, it was worth a try”, she says, sounding like it’s nothing, like it doesn’t matter at all, and something in Charles just snaps.

Crystal’s hand on his shoulder still feels solid, but the cricket bat in his hand does even more so, especially when it connects with Esther’s still-smirking face.

While the girls go and dry off, Charles sinks back into the cushions, his eyes fluttering close. Almost, he could look relaxed, but Edwin can still see the tension in his body, like a spring curled tight and waiting for the lightest touch to set it off.

Edwin wants to soothe him, but he doesn’t know how to, especially not when there is still so much he doesn’t know about those six weeks.

He is trying to figure out a way how to ask, or at least hint at it, but then Charles opens his eyes again, and they are softer than they should be when Charles has been through so much.

“I think you’ll really like Niko”, he says, and he sounds wistful somehow; Edwin desperately wishes he knew why. “She’s pretty brills. Might have saved me once or twice.”

“Saved you? What from?”

Edwin imagines Esther and her giant snake and Hell and everything in between, but Charles’ eyes don’t change, neither does his voice.

“Myself, really.”

In the end, it takes both of the girls to pull him off Esther.

His whole body is aching from her iron cane in ways he had forgotten he could hurt, but the pain is distant, far away; the only thing that matters is that she had said she knew how to get Edwin back and she had given him a sliver of hope and then she had snuffed it out again.

Another thing that is far away: he is screaming, or crying, or both; two sets of hands drag him down the steps, and Charles knows he’s fighting them, because… because he doesn’t know what else to do.

And then he’s just crying.

Arms pull him close against a solid chest, fingers card through his hair, and there is nothing stopping the sobs wrecking through his body, so violently Charles feels them almost like he had felt the hits from Esther’s cane.

He doesn’t know how long they stay there, crouched on the ground, but it is a long, long time.

When they come back, Niko hops onto the sofa’s backrest and Charles looks up at her with obvious affection.

“Do you need some band-aids for your hands?”, she asks, placing a little box on her knee. “I brought the Hello Kitty ones.”

The words make no sense to Edwin, but Charles nods, and Edwin hates how much he doesn’t know, hates that they ever had to spend time apart.

Charles twists and turns until he can put one of his bruised hands into Niko’s lap, who inspects it, before a bright, bright smile spreads across her face, like a sunflower opening to greet the morning.

“It looks better!”, Niko tells him, and she’s right; the knuckles are still red, but have scabbed over, the cuts are a little less prominent against Charles’ warm skin.

“Does it?”, Charles asks, and sits up straighter to see for himself. “I guess your dad was right, then.”

“I told you.” Niko is pulling a pastel pink band-aid from her box, unwrapping it before placing it gently across one of the deeper scratches on the back of Charles’ hand. It covers only half of it, if even.

“Charles”, Edwin starts before he can stop himself, “what is the purpose of this? Those patches won’t make your wounds heal any faster.”

It takes a moment, but then Charles turns to look at him; it’s a silly thought, but it almost feels like Edwin has missed his eyes on him.

“They won’t”, Charles agrees, and his lips are curved into an almost-smile. “But it will make them heal better.”

Charles cannot remember how they get back to the butcher shop, but they do, because Charles ends up sitting on Niko’s bed, while she rummages through her night stand.

He isn’t certain what she is looking for, but she finds it with a little ah!, and returns to the bed with a box in her hand. It’s metal, dented and scratched in a way that shows it has been loved; she opens it and there are dozens of colourful band-aids inside, waiting to patch someone up again.

“Now, I don’t know Edwin”, she says in a strange cadence, like she is trying to figure out what to say while speaking.”But if you love him so much, then I don’t think he would like you to be hurt. And since he isn’t here to make it better, I will try.”

The words make Charles’ eyes sting with tears once more, because Niko is right, Edwin wouldn’t want him to hurt; because she is right, Edwin isn’t here.

“Ghosts don’t-”, he starts, because if he doesn’t talk, he’ll start crying again, “Our wounds heal differently. Those band-aids won’t make them heal faster.”

Niko stills for a moment, then takes one of his hands in hers, which is scratched from Esther’s cane. The wounds won’t last more than a day, Charles knows it, but Niko still touches his hand with so much care, as if she thinks she could hurt him.

“My dad used to put band-aids on my knees when I fell from my bike”, she tells him as if it’s an answer to a question Charles hasn’t asked; maybe it is. “And he always said that even if that wouldn’t make the scrapes heal faster, it would make them heal better.”

And Niko looks up at him, her fingers cradling his hand like she thinks he can still feel it.

“Do you want a pink or a green one?”

“Pink”, Charles says, and doesn’t bother to blink the tears away this time.

Niko covers Charles’ hands in band-aids until she runs out of them, Charles’ wounds too numerous for what her little chest holds. They feel strange against Edwin’s palm when Charles switches the hand he is holding Edwin’s with halfway through, the plastic so different to Charles’ skin.

He watches the exchange and it tugs at his heart in ways he doesn’t understand; it hurts and it heals, because at least Charles had someone to put little plastic patches over his wounds, even if how familiar both of them are with the process means that there must have been far more wounds than Edwin was aware of.

At the very end of it, Niko places a kiss on Charles’ knuckles and Edwin’s lips ache in jealousy.

“Thank you”, Charles tells her, and she nods, bright and happy, before she starts sliding off the backrest.

She stops, though, and cocks her head as she looks at Edwin.

“The kiss makes the wounds heal even better”, she says, like imparting a secret, and then, she’s gone.

“You can’t keep doing this”, Crystal tells him the second they are alone, in a voice that allows no objections; Charles knows he will object anyway. “Charles, I know you cannot die a second time, but you cannot keep doing this. Esther hurt you and we had to watch and I just. I can’t do that again. I know he’s your best friend, but you’re running yourself into the ground with this and I don’t know if I can watch it happen.”

She looks like she means it and Charles wants to help, but if there is one thing he cannot give her, it’s this.

“I can’t”, he answers, and looks down onto his hands, peppered with brightly-coloured band-aids someone who cares about him put there, up at Crystal who saved him from being bound to a witch’s whim, and yet it all pales in comparison to the gaping hole in his chest where Edwin’s presence usually lingers. “I’m so sorry, but I just can’t stop, not as long as he’s still gone.”

He wants to tell her about how Edwin would do the same for him, about how he has saved Edwin from a hundred monsters and will save him from a thousand more, about how he isn’t sure if he can continue existing without Edwin at his side.

But he doesn’t get to, because Crystal takes a deep breath, and asks, “What if he’s not trying to come back?”

The question shocks Charles into silence, but Crystal continues talking anyway, words blurring into each other with how fast she is speaking.

“I didn’t want to say anything, because I know how much you care for him, but maybe he just left. Maybe that is why we can’t find him anywhere, why the cats couldn’t tell you anything either. Because he doesn’t want to be found.”

And it’s-

It’s the most ludicrous thing Charles has ever heard in the fifty-odd years he has spent on this Earth.

“No”, he tells Crystal, “No, you’re wrong. And not because I couldn’t bear it although I really, really couldn’t, but… that’s not how we are, Crystal. He wouldn’t leave. Never. If there is anything in the world I know for certain, it’s that Edwin wouldn’t leave. And that means he’s out there somewhere and he is hurt or captured, and he is waiting for me to come and get him. And I will, Crystal, no matter what happens, I will.”

There’s nowhere in the agency for the girls to sleep, so they set out to find a hotel, and Edwin breathes a sigh of relief, even if he hates himself for it only moments later.

He shouldn’t be so jealous of Charles’ attention, his affection, especially not when Crystal and Niko have stuck with him for six horrifying weeks, and Edwin should be nothing but grateful to them for taking care of the best, the most important person in existence instead of him.

But the door closes behind them, and it’s just Charles and him once more, and Edwin is weak, is possessive and greedy and looks down at Charles’s hand in his, and thinks that at least one thing is right in the world.

“Alright”, Charles says and turns to look at Edwin. “You can ask me. Not about everything all at once, maybe, but you can ask me.”

It should take him at least a second to understand what Charles is talking about, but it doesn’t; Charles says you can ask me, and there’s a thousand questions swarming through his head immediately, begging to be spoken aloud.

He nods, but before he can decide on any one thing to ask, he takes Charles back to the sofa and makes him sit down, their hands still loosely joined between them.

Touch is something Charles has always needed, but now, with Charles so hurt, so vulnerable, Edwin realises that he needs it almost as much.

There are so many things he wants to know that it feels impossible to settle on one thing, at least to start with, until suddenly, there’s a question that blazes through his mind so painfully that Edwin speaks it out-loud before he has a moment to reconsider.

“Did you ever doubt I would come back?”, he asks, then corrects himself, “No, did you ever doubt that I wanted to come back?”

He tells himself that he’ll accept any answer Charles will give him and it’s the truth; another truth: if Charles ever doubted that the only place Edwin wants to be is at his side, it will shatter his heart to pieces.

“Of course not”, Charles says, not missing a beat, and Edwin gets to keep his heart after all. His voice is soft and his eyes are, too, even if their light is still dimmed. “I’d never doubt that. It’s you and me against the world, isn’t it?”

Edwin nods, and there are tears in his eyes he does not deserve to cry.

“Thank you”, he says, unsure what he is thanking Charles for: for still being here, for believing in Edwin, in the strength of their friendship, for enduring all of it. “I know it must have been Hell, because that’s what it would have been had the roles been reversed, but something must have happened, because your hands…”

Without wanting to, he looks down at Charles’ fingers, wrapped in bright plastic, his own woven between them, pristine because he allowed the most important person in existence to go through this alone.

“I’m not really sure”, Charles replies, and when Edwin looks up again, it’s Charles who is staring at their joined hands. “To be honest, I didn’t really stop to think about it. We found out about this other dimension the Cat King uses to escape, and I just went mental, didn’t I? Started trashing the warehouse completely, and when my bat broke, well. I just used my hands. I guess they’re not as sturdy.”

He tries for a smile, and it rips Edwin’s heart to pieces.

“You-”, he starts, but doesn’t get the words out, because the thought is too much to bear, the images of Charles ripping his fingers to shreds to find him too vivid.

“Had to get you back somehow, didn’t I?”, Charles asks, answers, still smiling, and Edwin cannot take a second more, so instead, he pulls Charles against his chest and hugs him so tightly he knows that, if he had any bones left, he’d feel them creak.

Maybe he should be discouraged, maybe it should be difficult to go back out and start looking for Edwin all over again, but it isn’t.

What would be difficult is sitting down and waiting; what would be impossible is to let Edwin stay wherever he is being kept.

So, he walks.

Past meadows and across streams, up hillsides and then looks down into the valleys and still finds nothing, nothing at all. It’s maddening, it’s the worst thing he has ever felt, because the scenery is beautiful, the days long and the sun bright, and Charles feels like he is dragging himself through barbed wire and broken glass.

When he gets Edwin back, he’ll never let him out of his sight again, he swears when he walks up to the lighthouse once more, for the fifteenth or five hundredth time, sparing a look at the ghosts sitting there, watching the water. He’ll keep him close, keep him in his sight, keep one hand in Edwin’s, no matter if he likes it or not, for the rest of eternity, just to make sure he won’t stray too far.

It becomes a thing between them when they are alone.

Charles will look at him and say, one question, or three questions, and Edwin will go through his mental catalogue of them, realising how much he hates that there is anything about Charles he does not know all over again, every single time.

How long did you wait in the warehouse at first?, he asks, and Charles says, days. Crystal had to force me to leave it for the first time.

Why is Niko’s hair white now?, he asks another time when they sitting on the roof, the sounds of the city dulled down to a gentle buzz. Oh, that was mental, actually, Charles answers, and launches into a story about gnomes crawling from her mouth, and Edwin sits there and watches him, and wishes Charles would tell the story like he would have two months ago, animated and excited about it, instead of matter-of-factly.

How long would you have stayed on that floor?, he asks, and doesn’t know if he wants to hear the answer this time, only knows he has to. And Charles looks at him strangely, fondly, sadly, and says, forever, mate.

Crystal catches up with him at the warehouse again, where he is pacing on the horrible, hated concrete floor, thinking about battering it open and seeing if he can find Edwin between the pieces. She’s been looking at him more often now, so openly worried Charles sometimes finds it difficult to hold her gaze, but there is nothing to be done about it, is there?

It’s the same way she is looking at him now, forehead furrowed and her dark eyes on him feeling like they are taking Charles apart, piece for piece, thought for thought.

“What are you looking for?”, she asks like she doesn’t know it, like the answer has ever changed.

He doesn’t answer, because he doesn’t know how to say Edwin’s name without breaking into tears, because if he says his name, he might not stop anytime soon.

“Charles”, she tries again and it stops his feet mid-step, “Charles, what if you don’t find him? What if he never comes back?”

It’s words that never should be spoken, because they cannot be allowed to be true, and Charles closes his eyes, just to save himself from the look in Crystal’s eyes.

“I’ve been to Tragic Mick’s shop and I asked him about ghosts and their wandering, because you are scaring me”, she continues, “and he told me that the only ghosts who wander are those that killed themselves. And that scared me even more.”

And Charles wants to shake his head and tell her she’s wrong, but it feels like that somehow; like half of him died and he is doing everything he can to follow.

Niko comes to change Charles’ band-aids and Edwin doesn’t think about it much, just watches her take out the box and tell Charles about the characters depicted on them. The wounds themselves have healed slightly, and even if no one knows why, Edwin breathes a sigh of relief at the discovery.

He expects Niko to let Charles choose a colour again, like she has done before, but instead she turns to him, who is just there because Charles is still holding his hand like it’s a lifeline.

“I think you should choose the colour this time”, Niko tells him, holding out a hand with three different band-aids in it, three different colours, three different patterns.

“It’s not my hands, though”, Edwin protests, but Niko just shoves her hand closer.

“No”, she agrees, “but they’re your wounds, too.”

And Edwin glances at Charles, who, for once, isn’t looking back, takes in the sharp cut of his jaw and the dullness of his eyes, thinks of his bleeding knuckles and broken nails, and knows she is right.

“This one, then”, he says, and leaves the green one, covered with leaves, the yellow one, covered with stars, and picks up the red one, covered in hearts.

The thought doesn’t appear gradually, it rips through him one day when he is walking through the library, forgetting to avoid the bookcases and just phasing through them instead.

Two days before, Niko, in a futile hope to console him, had put a hand on his shoulder and given it a squeeze.

“If he has come back from Hell, then I’m sure he’ll come back from where he is now. Especially if he knows you are waiting for him”, she had said, and back then, Charles had just tried giving her a smile, not thinking anything of the comment.

But now, it’s like a bolt from the heavens, a thought so devastating it leaves him gasping in the middle of the room, clutching at his chest like he still had a heart to calm.

He knows little to nothing about the Cat King, because in the end, Edwin had always been the brains of their operation, the one with the encyclopedic knowledge of anything supernatural, but something he knows intimately are Edwin’s stories about Hell.

Most of them, he has heard at least a dozen times, and even if that is not enough to imagine the horrors there, it’s enough to know that the entities there use souls like bargaining chips.

Edwin had told him before that he had been traded from demon to demon, and back then, in the comfort of their agency, Charles had shivered and put a hand on Edwin’s shoulder in lieu of pulling him against his chest, tucking Edwin’s head under his chin and never letting him go again.

Now, a picture forms in his mind that is so terrifying Charles feels like screaming, and Edwin is not here, so Charles will claw him from the mouth of Hell itself this time.

“Charles, could I borrow Edwin for a second?”, Crystal asks one evening, and Charles’ fingers tense around his own.

It’s a strange phenomenon that has only increased with time; occasionally, Edwin thinks he can almost feel Charles’ touch, not as just resistance, but like he used to when he was still alive.

“It won’t be long and I’ll bring him back, I promise”, she adds, not even bothering to ask Edwin, just assuming he will follow her.

“Yeah, sure”, Charles eventually answers, even if a second too late, and slowly, ever so slowly, untangles their fingers from where their hands had been resting between them. It’s the first time since Edwin has come back that they are not touching, and Edwin feels the loss of it immediately, his fingers itching to find Charles’ once more.

For now, though, he only gives Charles a smile before he follows Crystal outside, where she stops immediately.

Her expression is one Edwin cannot decipher, anger lingering behind her eyes, but almost concealed by something much greater, much more important.

“Do you have any idea how much Charles loves you?”, she asks, and the anger is there in her voice, the other thing is, too. “I know I asked you before and you said yes, but I don’t think you do. And I think you need to.”

“I am perfectly aware-”, Edwin starts, but he doesn’t get far.

“You are not”, Crystal interrupts him and she sounds so certain that Edwin feels helpless hearing it, because even if he doesn’t believe her, there are things now that she knows about Charles and he doesn’t. “I watched that boy beat up a witch that almost took out all three of us, because she had lied about knowing where you were, and the only reason he didn’t bash her immortal head in was because Niko and I pulled him off of her. He was willing to sell his soul to her just to get you back. To a demon, too. He nearly ripped off his own fingers trying to reach you, because he couldn’t imagine a world without you in it.”

She pauses for a moment and Edwin can’t speak, can hardly think, his brain trying to sort through the information and failing, because it hurts too much.

“I thought he was going to die, Edwin. Cease existing. Whatever”, she continues, crossing her arms in front of her chest, and the anger is still there, and Edwin understands it now, deserves it. “I went to see him every day at that warehouse after he had just sat down and accepted his fate and every day I expected him to just not be there anymore. That’s how much he loves you, I thought he was going to disappear just because you had, too. He loves you more than I can even imagine loving anyone.”

“Crystal…”

“If you hurt him, I’m going to make you regret you were ever born”, she finishes, and Edwin believes her without reservations, “and the only reason I won’t kill you a second time is because I know it would kill Charles, too.”

It’s not easy to get Crystal to tell him where David is, but Charles manages anyway.

The roller-skating rink is dark and dirty, the concrete floor too close to the one in the warehouse for Charles not to shiver when seeing it for the first time. But it doesn’t matter, isn’t allowed to matter, because crouched in the corner is a human figure with shaggy hair and a too-large fur coat, and Charles wants to rip him apart for Crystal, wants to beg him to help for Edwin.

“Oi!”, he yells out and David scatters in a way that reminds Charles of a bug of some kind. “You remember me, yeah?”

“What do you want?”, David spits back, pressed against the wall and trying to look like he wouldn’t flee if Charles gave him an opportunity to do so. “Haven’t you ruined enough?”

“Didn’t ruin a thing”, Charles replies, but there’s no fire to it, because in the end, as much as he hates it, he needs the bastard’s help. “I need you to send me to Hell.”

If he wasn’t so desperate, if there wasn’t a constant loop of torture behind his eyes whenever he blinked, showing him thousands of ways that Edwin could be torn apart this second, he would try to find a better, a more subtle way of putting it, but there is, and Charles has long since stopped caring.

He hasn’t seen Edwin in more than three weeks and if his best friend in the world, the one person who never deserved to go to Hell, spent three weeks there because Charles was too stupid to put the pieces together, he will never forgive himself for it.

“What?”, David asks, and Charles has no time for this, for any of it.

“Hell. I need you to send me to Hell, because my friend might be there and I need to find him”, he repeats, and it takes a moment, but then David laughs, an ugly, rough sound.

“You want to go to Hell”, he repeats, like Charles hasn’t said so twice already. “Voluntarily.”

“Yes.” Charles closes his eyes for a second, wishing that the deep breaths he used to ask Edwin to take would still have the same effects on him as they did when he was still alive. “You don’t need to understand it, you just have to send me there. I’ll sell you my soul or whatever it is you do, I don’t care. I just need to get to Hell as quickly as possible.”

David still looks like he wants to laugh, but this time, he doesn’t. Instead, he takes a step forward, raising his hands as if he was trying to placate Charles, a smile on his lips that Charles wants to knock off.

“Alright, alright”, he says, and Charles hates him and hates the Cat King and hates himself for letting it come to this. But it will be worth it, anything would be worth it if it brought Edwin back. He’ll figure out what to do about his own soul later. “I’ll get you to Hell, absolutely. But it sounds like you’re desperate, so I might need a bit more than just your soul to make it happen.”

“No.” He thinks of Crystal and Niko and Jenny, all safe, all oblivious, hopes they’ll forgive him. “You’ll get my soul, and that’s it.”

David pretends to think about it, but Charles has dealt with enough demons to know he will accept; they are greedy creatures after all, and a soul is a soul is a soul.

“Okay”, he says at last, and still, Charles feels relief wash through him. Just hold on a little bit longer, Edwin. I’m coming. “I’ll take your soul. And I’ll send you to Hell. But I’ll choose the Circle.”

“Sure, whatever”, Charles replies and the smirk that David gives him should scare him, but he’s far past scaring. “I’ll find him no matter what.”

Crystal’s words echo in Edwin’s head when they return to the agency and Edwin slots back into the spot next to Charles, their fingers intertwining naturally.

He knows Charles loves him, of course he does. Has known it for thirty years and has it carved so deeply, so prominently into his heart that he’ll never forget it, yet something about Crystal’s words makes that knowledge scream in his chest when Charles looks at him, a little bit of his usual brightness returning to his eyes as soon as they touch.

It’s not frightening, that knowledge, but it’s not comforting either.

It’s just there, beating in his chest like a heart might, asking if Edwin feels the same.

And without a moment’s hesitation, Edwin answers.

Yes.

“Oh, you fucking won’t”, rings out Crystal’s voice just before Charles’ hand touches David’s, and for a moment, Charles hates her.

Then someone grips his shoulder and flings him backwards, and Crystal is standing there, breathing heavily, a cleaver in her hand, and for another moment, Charles loves her.

“You won’t fucking touch him”, she hisses, and David laughs, the sound just as rough, just as ugly.

“He came here by himself”, he tells her, grinning still. “He asked me to take his soul. He begged me to do it.”

“Well, the offer has been rescinded. And you better go wherever the fuck you came from, before I send you back there myself.”

“Crystal, I need him to-”, Charles starts, desperate, but he never gets to finish the sentence, because Crystal turns her head to look at him, and her eyes are blazing like fire, before they go white.

“No one needs him for anything”, she tells him and her voice is distant and emotionless and powerful, echoing in the empty space like it is made of a hundred women speaking.

And Crystal reaches out and puts a hand on the centre of David’s chest.

For a moment, nothing happens, then he is being flung back against the wall with an invisible force, kept there suspended.

“You won’t touch him again”, Crystal says and the other voices still echo within hers, leaving Charles breathless and awed and despondent. “And you won’t touch me either. Otherwise I’ll bury you so deep you’ll be begging me to send you back to Hell instead.”

And she lets him go; when she turns back to Charles, there’s a small pouch in her hand.

“Crystal said you almost sold your soul to a demon”, Edwin starts the next time Charles allows him a question.

Everything Crystal had told him has stuck with him, but this he had only realised much later, and it had scared him like hardly anything else had before.

Charles just nods, this time doesn’t even try for a smile, and Edwin is glad for it; he’s not sure if he could take it.

“I didn’t really think I had a choice”, he adds after a few moments, like it makes it better. “I thought the Cat King might have sold you to some kind of demon and that was why I couldn’t find you anywhere. And the idea of you, stuck down there… I couldn’t take it.”

“But there was no proof, there can’t even have been any indication that…”

“No, there wasn’t”, Charles replies and this time, he does smile, and the sight is as torturous as Edwin knew it was going to be. “But I had to make sure. No version of you getting dragged to Hell where I don’t come and get you, is there?”

His fingers, adorned with less band-aids than there were before, squeeze Edwin’s and for a moment, they almost feel warm, real.

And Edwin blinks back tears and thinks of Crystal saying, he loves you more than I can even imagine loving anyone, and squeezes back.

“How am I supposed to get Edwin back now, Crystal?”, Charles sobs, the words coming out drowned in tears and desolation. “What if he’s in Hell and I can’t get him back?”

He’s on the floor of the roller-skating rink, David’s collapsed form just metres away, and Charles should move in case he wakes up again, but he can’t. His limbs are not moving, his thoughts spiralling, because the only thing that counts is that Edwin might be trapped in some kind of torture chamber in the one place Charles cannot reach.

Two familiar hands pull him up and into a hug that Charles cannot reciprocate, shaking too violently with the intensity of his sobs.

“Jesus Christ, Charles”, Crystal mutters into his shoulder, and she sounds shaken, sounds almost in tears. “Have you ever stopped for a second and thought what would happen if Edwin came back and you were in Hell?”

“Now that we’re all back, do you guys want to get back into detecting?”, Crystal asks them, and Charles flinches almost imperceptibly, before forcing a smile onto his pretty lips.

This time, at least, looking at it is a little less painful.

“Yeah, of course”, Charles says, “but maybe not right away. Unless Edwin…”

“No, I think a bit of a break would do us some good”, Edwin tells him before Charles can even finish the sentence. “Maybe once Charles’ hands have healed. We have no reason to rush it, do we?”

And watches as a little bit of light returns to Charles’ eyes.

It’s later, although Charles cannot tell exactly how much.

Crystal had to half-carry him out of the roller-skating rink, where they had both collapsed on the ground, unable or unwilling to move.

With time, Charles’ sobs had dried up, even though it feels like he has an ocean of them still stored inside his chest, lapping at his unbeating heart like waves. But Crystal had been right, he doesn’t know if Edwin is in Hell, just fears it more than anything else in this world.

“Charles?”, Crystal asks into the night air, sounding pensive, drained.

“Yeah?”

“I know you and Edwin are best friends, but that can’t be all that there is to it. Not with how you’ve been in the past weeks. What’s going on?”

It’s not the question he expected, it’s not even one he has ever asked himself before, but there is exhaustion so deep in his bones, paired with despair he didn’t know he could even feel, and Charles knows that Crystal deserves an answer.

So, he looks inside, pictures Edwin, his little smug smile when he wins at Clue and the elegance of his gestures and the way his voice softens when he knows Charles needs reassurance.

He thinks of Edwin, bathed in the light of the morning sun, and illuminated by the stars, thinks of Edwin’s wit and his brilliance and how easily he gets annoyed at period dramas on TV when their costumes aren’t historically accurate. Thinks of Edwin reading him to sleep when he was dying and reading him poetry afterwards when he found out that Charles had never truly liked a poem, and how Edwin’s voice had almost made him cry when he had recited Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale.

Thinks about how when he’s sad, it’s Edwin he wants to talk to, and when he’s happy, it’s the same thing, the same intensity.

Thinks about how no one has ever known him like this, inside and out, with all his flaws and imperfections and silly little quirks, and how Edwin does and still wants to keep him; how Charles knows just as much about him and feels the same.

Thinks about how it’s impossible to imagine a world without him in it, and how Charles never even wants to try doing so.

Thinks of Edwin and how he is the best, the brightest, the most important part of his existence.

“I love him”, he finally answers, and he’s choking on the words because they are true and yet he hasn’t known until a second ago. “Crystal, I love him. I love him so much and I never even got to tell him.”

And he’s crying again, just as hard as before, and Crystal reaches out and holds him until it’s morning again.

“Crystal and I found the vending machine”, Niko tells them the next day when the girls arrive around noon. She’s skipping, obviously excited as she sits down between them, completely ignoring that it means they have to rearrange their intertwined hands. “The one that was haunted. It was so cool, I got an orange soda out of it.”

She’s unpacking her band-aids, although nowadays, Charles doesn’t need many of them anymore, setting them out as a surgeon would their instruments, and no matter how charming Edwin finds her, the reminder that the girls know of the vending machine still makes something in Edwin’s chest clench uncomfortably.

“That’s great”, Charles says and maybe there is a little bit more light in his eyes than there was yesterday. He plucks a band-aid from Niko’s lap and hands it to her. “This one today, please.”

And it really isn’t great at all, but Edwin doesn’t know how to formulate the fact into a sentence that doesn’t sound like complete lunacy.

“And this one”, he says instead, and grabs a random band-aid too, just so he won’t make a fool of himself.

It’s the first time he has participated in the little ritual by his own volition and Niko smiles at him, almost a reward, before taking a look at the plaster he picked.

“That’s nice”, she tells him, and puts it down next to Charles’ choice for later use. “And really fitting. They’re in love in the anime.”

Charles’ hand twitches, but he doesn’t say anything else until Niko is finished.

“There is one more thing”, Crystal tells him as they are walking back to the butcher shop, after she has explained the power of her ancestors she has just discovered to him, or at least tried to. “When I was in David’s mind, I could see… something in the warehouse. Somewhere he thought about escaping to. I think it’s something like a little pocket dimension, if that makes sense. Maybe Edwin is in there.”

That night, Charles gives him another question, and Edwin knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t help himself.

“When did you tell Crystal and Niko about the Case of the Haunted Vending Machine of 2002?”

Charles looks surprised, and Edwin cannot blame him; it is such an inconsequential thing to ask when is so much else Edwin doesn’t know yet, but then his eyes soften a little, and there is a spark in his eyes that Edwin has missed dearly.

“I’m not entirely sure”, he says, and it makes Edwin feel a little better to know that: at least to Charles, it wasn’t an occasion that mattered. “But they asked about you sometime, especially Niko, after she could see me. About why I wanted to find you so badly, about how our life was like before we came to Port Townsend. And I thought the easiest thing was to just tell them about cases. And you were brilliant in the vending machine one.”

He smiles and for the first time since he got back, Edwin doesn’t have to suppress a flinch; it almost looks like the smile he is used to.

“So were you”, Edwin replies without thinking, and means it, too. His fingers tighten a little around Charles’ and he could swear he can feel skin against skin, flesh against flesh.

“We were pretty brilliant together.”

“We were”, Edwin replies and wants to pull Charles closer, wants to never let him go again, “And we still are.”

This time, Crystal doesn’t even try to stop him.

Charles walks into the warehouse, cricket bat in hand, vowing then and there that he won’t leave until he has found this pocket dimension, no matter what or where it is.

He starts with whatever is left of the furniture, smashing it to pieces and ripping those apart until they’re nothing more than splinters. The palettes strewn about are next, nails flying as Charles pulls the boards apart and leaves them scattered on the ground.

Then, the walls, tearing down the panelling, until the metal is bare and covered in dents and scratches and holes where his bat bust through the rust. He rips out the light fixtures and grinds them to dust under his loafers, shreds the nets hanging between the beams and leaves their tattered remains wherever he happens to be standing.

Finally, the floor itself, because if he has to dig down to Hell with his nails and teeth, he will.

The concrete cracks under the barrage of hits he rains down onto it, magic putting more force into the blows than his spectral muscles could, until the ground looks like a meteor hit.

It turns out to be too much for his bat, which splinters just like the palettes, the pillars, the concrete did, so Charles throws it away and uses his hands instead, shovelling away gravel and debris and chipped wood, digging deep into the ground until it, and Edwin, are the only things he can still think about.

Somewhere in between, his hands start bleeding, his nails cracking and ripping down to the flesh, but Charles pays them no mind, even as pain radiates up his arms with every punch, every blow, every cut.

It feels like the scratch of a cat’s claw, just a hundredfold, and it hurts, but it doesn’t matter.

Nothing does.

“Why is this so important to you? All the questions, I mean. I know Crystal told you the gist of what happened during that time”, Charles asks after he has answered another one of Edwin’s queries. He looks relaxed, his head pillowed on Edwin’s lap, and when he looks up at him, Edwin knows he could count the lashes around his deep, dark eyes.

They’re less dull nowadays, but still don’t hold that one spark that Edwin misses the most of all.

“It’s silly”, he confesses, not because he wants to, but because Charles has shared so much with him that he deserves to have at least one question of his own answered truthfully. “It’s just that for decades, all of your memories were mine as well. And those six weeks… I wish I could change them, I wish you didn’t have to endure them, I wish I could take all of it away, so please, don’t think that this matters more to me than that.”

He takes a deep breath, something that he had forgotten about in Hell, something that Charles had showed him once more after they had met, something that now will always be Charles to him.

“Suddenly, there are six weeks in the middle of your existence, and I wasn’t part of a second of them. And I hate that, much more than I should.”

For a few, long moments, there is no answer, just Charles’ eyes on him, just his fingers brushing across Edwin’s knuckles.

“Edwin, you were there for every second of it”, Charles finally answers, and his eyes are still not as bright as they used to be, but they’re bright anyway. “You were at the heart of everything. I missed you in every single moment.”

His hands are bruised and bloody, some of his nails missing, the others torn down until they are little more than gaping wounds, as Charles tears another piece of concrete from the floor.

He has looked everywhere and Edwin isn’t here and it is a constant refrain in his head; he’s not here he’s not here he’s not here.

Occasionally, there’s tears mixing with the blood, but Charles doesn’t pay them any mind either.

On the third day, Crystal finds him, covered in dust and grime and blood and splinter of what might be wood or bone or whatever is left of his ruined heart.

She breathes out his name and it’s a sob; when he looks up at her, it takes a second until he recognises her.

“You can’t continue like this”, she says, and there are tears in his eyes, on her cheeks, dripping down her chin. “Edwin wouldn’t want you to torture yourself like this and I can’t watch it any longer. It’s been almost a month, Charles, you won’t find him like this.”

It takes a moment or two until he finds the words, remembers how to speak, and when he does, he knows he’s crying, too.

“But what else is there left I can do?”, he asks, and Crystal chokes on her tears, before she reaches out and pulls him into a hug.

“I don’t know, Charles. I wish I did.”

“Your hands are almost fine again”, Edwin remarks and lifts the one he is holding up to inspect it. There are just two band-aids left, one around his ring finger, one on the back of Charles’ hand, green and yellow respectively.

“I know”, Charles answers, lifting the other one, a single frog-themed plaster around his thumb. “It’s a miracle, innit?”

And Edwin looks at him, his almost-perfect smile, the slope of his nose and the dark brown of his eyes; he loves you more than I can even imagine loving anyone, Crystal says in his mind.

“Yes”, he replies, “it really is.”

“Come with me”, Crystal pleads, trying to pull him up from where he is sitting on the ground, between broken pieces of concrete and wood.

“I can’t”, Charles says, and knows it is true. His limbs won’t move, his body refusing Crystal’s attempt to lift him up; he won’t leave without Edwin at his side.

“You have to”, Crystal replies, and Charles wishes he could reach up and brush the tears from her cheeks. “You can’t stay here. Not like this.”

“You don’t understand, Crystal”, he says, and maybe he is crying, maybe he has forgotten how to do even that. “I can’t leave. If he isn’t here, then nothing matters. I cannot pass on, because there’s no Heaven if Edwin’s not in it. And I could stop existing, maybe, but if I do and he comes back, then he’ll be alone. So, if I can’t find him, if I can’t bring him back, then I’ll just… stay. And I’ll wait. Forever if I have to.”

Even though Charles, who used to flit between places like breathing, seems most content inside the agency these days, Edwin drags him up to the roof, because the weather is lovely and Edwin wants to see the sun on Charles’ skin, reflected in his eyes.

He seems different today, distracted, but he gives Edwin a small, almost-right smile when they sit down on the ledge, looking down over the city.

“I’m sorry you didn’t get to ask a question today”, Charles says after a few seconds, but he sounds far away, almost distracted. “I know you like them. It’s just. There is one thing that I don’t think you how to ask about and that you should know. So I was trying to figure out how to tell you.”

Something about his words makes Edwin’s metaphorical heart beat faster, makes him look at Charles and notice everything at once: the way he clenches his jaw, the slight furrow of his brows, how his tongue darts out to wet lips that don’t get dry any longer.

He looks nervous, and Edwin hates it, because there is nothing Charles could say that would make Edwin care for him any less.

“You can tell me anything, Charles.”

“I know”, Charles replies and gives Edwin the smallest of smiles. “That’s what makes this so hard.”

For a long time, there is nothing, then Charles shakes his head slightly, a tick Edwin knows so intimately it almost pains him.

“You see”, he starts, “when you were gone, I found something out about myself. About you, too. I’m not sure if I would have otherwise, at least not now. And I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t, and now that you’re back it’s suddenly so difficult, because you’re here and I know it won’t change anything, not between us, but it will change something for me, anyway.”

He lifts their joined hands, the single band-aid stark against his skin, and smiles; for a moment, Edwin forgets that he doesn’t understand what Charles is talking about, because there is something so fond, so sweet, so devastating about the look in his eyes.

“I love you”, he says, and Edwin’s metaphorical heart stops, speeds up, swells until it is straining against his ribs, “No, that’s not what I meant. I’m in love with you, Edwin. And I thought I might never be able to tell you, so I’m doing it now.”

And he looks over at Edwin and for the first time since he had launched himself into his side in that godforsaken warehouse, Charles smiles at him and it’s the smile Edwin missed the entire time, every bit of sunlight in the universe bundled into his eyes, into the curve of his lips.

“You don’t have to feel the same. I don’t expect you to”, Charles says, and his voice is trembling, but he sounds happy nonetheless, sounds content. “I just needed you to know that you’re loved in every way there is.”

A beat, a second, another one, and Edwin looks at Charles and it’s like he is seeing him for the very first time, at the same time like he has never seen anything else in his entire existence.

He loves you more than I can even imagine loving anyone, Crystal’s words echo in his mind, and she was right all along, and Edwin…

“I love you, too”, he says without thinking about it, because he doesn’t have to, he has known this for years, decades, maybe forever.

“I know”, Charles replies and he’s still smiling; he’s so beautiful Edwin wants to break down and thank the fates that he was sacrificed, that he was dragged to Hell and escaped it, that he is allowed to be here, holding hands with the best, the most important, the most beautiful boy in the world.

“No, Charles. I’m in love with you.”

And another beat, another second, and Charles’ eyes go wide, the sun behind them goes supernova, and Edwin can’t believe he ever looked at him and didn’t know he wanted to kiss those lips.

“Oh”, Charles breathes out and he sounds overwhelmed, sounds almost bashful. “That’s… that’s brills, innit?”

“Yes. It is.”

There is a pause, because something shifts between them; it doesn’t change, because it was always there, even without them knowing, so instead, it blossoms and blooms and grows into something so delicate, so resilient, so beautiful that Edwin finds himself smiling, almost laughing, almost crying.

“Can you just kiss me, please?”, he asks, love and happiness and devotion woven into every syllable.

And Charles nods, eyes brighter than Edwin has ever seen them before, and there is a second of hesitation, but then he leans in and kisses Edwin, and this time, there’s no mistaking it; there’s lips pressed against his, warm and soft and sweet, and Edwin can feel them just as if he was alive.

“I love you”, he whispers against Charles lips, and Charles laughs, before pressing closer still, kissing him again and again until Edwin’s head is swimming with it, his lips wet and swollen and his cheeks wet with the happiest tears he has ever cried.

“I love you”, Charles whispers back, and he’s smiling.

And he kisses him again.

#dead boy detectives #dead boy detective agency #edwin payne #edwin paine #charles rowland #painland #payneland #paynland #chedwin #charles x edwin #edwin x charles #i am sooo glad i got this finished before the holiday #because i would have hated to explain to my friends that no unfortunately i wouldn't be able to go to a bar i needed to write gay boy angst #anyway i hope you guys like it!!!!!!

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

HI ITS ME gvxzggsgjfh ok look this is. i know this is a weird one it is SO specific and so obviously something i should just write myself if i want it👏but👏but👏BUT i decided to shoot my shot when a perfect chance has arisenderised for you to pick and choose from anything you like AND in any form, and to see if this one maybe by any chance just so happens to spark anything fun in u too xD

ssssssssssoooooooooooooooooooooo RANDOM EVENT ROLL D20 mc gets bitten by a werewoof or some other kind of "contagious" monster species (....cant really think of anything else other than vampirs, now that i say it) but WAIT THERES MORE because. what if mc insisted that they dont want any potential existent cures, they just wanna stay monstery >:3 JVDTHGLN who's considering it, who would absolutely go in the "its either me or this" direction, who's enthusiastic🤣 this is silly as hell but in the case it sparks joy id love to hear ur any and all thoughts because this idea has been haunting me for forever lmao honestly the best way ive imagined it is like one of your own selfinsert pieces youve posted before where its just all of them together bickering heeheehee💘💕🩷💞💖

love u have fun!!

The Arcana Drabble: MC transforms into a "monster"

In the spirit of things, I though a long drabble/short oneshot would work best to keep the madness going XD

Asra's getting stuck in their "one focus and one focus only" mode and right now that focus is making sure you're okay. He'll decide how he feels later, which isn't being helped at all because Julian keeps calling on him to help him slow down the process and get you to think about this a little more. However, it's hard to tell what exactly Julian wants your decision to be because in between him trying to get Asra to make you think about it some more, he's having all kinds of medical epiphanies about how your anatomy is adjusting to the new monster form:

"MC, let's think about some more, shall we? I'm sure Asra agrees with me - don't you, Asra? Asr - oh, whats this?! Your finger's joints are rapidly adjusting to accommodate for - I need a pen and paper -"

"Right here, Ilya." It's Portia's dismissive tone as she digs a small notebook and pencil out of her pocket that keeps you grounded. Not for long, though, because she can't wait to see what happens next. "Accommodate for what, anyways? Are you growing another joint?? Are you going to get claws??? Talons???? Show me!"

Between Julian jotting down unintelligible notes while he studies your elbow's range of motion, Portia's excited exclamations, and Asra's attempt at soothing touch as they rub your shoulders and ask how you're feeling, it's a miracle you can notice Muriel's quiet mumble in the background. He's clearly overwhelmed and very concerned that the physically-altering substance in general got to your brain first, making you so seemingly okay with turning into a monster.

"MC, do you remember your name? Do you need to take a nap? You don't have to be okay with this -"

"I believe this may warrant far more than a nap to recover from." Nadia's doing her best to keep Lucio calm, holding him back from tackling you much like she might grasp a leash. You can practically see the headache building behind her eyes. "We have yet to determine what the extent of this transformation is and therefore whether our dear MC is even capable of fully agreeing to the current process. MC, darling, did the source of this transformation give you any indication of what the end result would be?"

You'd try to respond, but Lucio's excited yelling is too noisy to shout over. He's fumbling at the fastenings on his cape, distracted by your ongoing changes, and very annoyed at Nadia's interference.

"Where did it go? I want to see if it can give me powers too - OW! Dammit, Noddy, I'm trying to help here! You're keeping me from finding the monster and getting it to give me cool - I mean, getting it to tell us more about what's happening! Don't you want that? Don't you want to help MC, Noddy?! Let me go -"

It's with a loud RIP and subsequent "that was velvet, you know!" that Lucio finally breaks free and sprints off in the direction of your new monster friend. You can feel yourself slowly settling in to your new form as the process shows signs of slowing and reaching completion.

Nadia's facepalming. Portia's looking at you with eyes shining in wonder. Julian's still trying to nag Asra into reversing this as he takes notes. The magician in question is still ignoring him as they ask you how you feel for the nth time. Muriel's eyeing the nearby closet in hopes of taking a nap and waking up to it all being a dream. Lucio's a distant, spiky golden speck at this point.

Faust is quietly trying to sneak her knife into your hand, for crimes.

#ask arcana brainrot #the arcana #the arcana drabble #the arcana imagine #the arcana fanfic #the arcana game #asra the arcana #julian the arcana #nadia the arcana #muriel the arcana #portia the arcana #lucio the arcana #asra alnazar #julian devorak #nadia satrinava #muriel of the kokhuri #portia devorak #lucio morgasson

[kanaakane1219]

will you forgive him...?

summary/synopsis idk: u and the cutie kunikuzushi r dating, u get bullied, he doesnt stand up for you, and things just escalate. (THIS IS MY FIRST FANFIC SRY FOR THE SHARTY DESC)

likes and reblogs are appreciated!

he didn't mean it.

he was abandoned, and all his life he's been a puppet, a wanderer, how would he know how to respond to you getting insulted?

He was scared. He wanted to stand up for you, he wanted to give those people a harsh tongue lashing, he wanted to beat them up, but he still stood there, rooted to the ground, unable to muster a single word. He didnt believe people were capable of being rude to you, much less insult you. You were neither ugly, nor were you unsuccessful. He had always found your paintings mesmerising and unique, all the strokes so smooth and perfect, not like what a puppet like him could do. But every time you would try to get your work on display somewhere, or when you tried to sell some at a convention, all your paintings would be left untouched. Your wish of making people around the world happy with your art would forever be forever just a pipe dream. When he saw your face, usually so bright and ever-smiling, turn so dull and unhappy in an instance, and deep down, he knew your reason for creating art was to make the world a happier place, he could only mutter out these words, as the guilt tore at his heart.

"im sorry, dear…"

12 days.

12 days since he last saw your face.

he knew. he knew full well it was his fault, as your boyfriend to protect you, to keep you safe. He only realised once you started to cry, and then he realised, he couldn't comfort you. he didnt know how. and when he came to that realisation, that perhaps his puppet heart could not love you like you would want someone too. And the thought brought him to tears. Because he really did love you. But maybe it wasn't enough. And maybe you were worthy of someone better than a puppet.

Then you ran away. But of course, what did he expect, he saw you crying, and didnt know what to do. It hurt seeing you like that.

"Kunikuzushi…i always spend my precious time to comfort you, and now, all you can do is stand there while everyone treats me like laughingstock??!"

The moment you called him Kunikuzushi instead of "Kuni", he knew he had really messed up. You had never tried to distance yourself from him. Looking back now, he clenched his fist, as tears uncontrollably began to fall from his eyes. He really was incompetent. But he just found it incomprehensible that people could talk about you like that. why didn't you think the same way about yourself? He was so, so, so sorry. You had always comforted him when he cried, so now, why couldn't he do the same? but he remembered what you told him that night when you found him sobbing into his tear-stained mattress, because he had a night terror, about the Electro Archon, his mother, Ei, and that a useless puppet like him wasn't worthy of such a gentle and delicate human like you. But you never complained. You never shouted at him for being noisy or waking you up. Instead, your eyes glistened in the moonlight, and with your soft eyes and loving gaze, you assured him that no matter what happened in the past, you would still love him.

"Everyone deserves a second chance, and so do you!"

He didn't believe it at the time, and he still could not bring himself to. A fragile puppet, who was abandoned by his own creator, his own mother…her words still echoed in his mind.

"You will have no relevance in my plan for eternity. You are merely a puppet, there is no need for you to retain you in my realm of consciousness. The Raiden Shogun is sufficient."

Those words were like gunshots to his heart. His own mother. The person whom he trusted at that time, had abandoned him. The Raiden Shogun was sufficient? And he was not? What sin did he commit to be born not even as a human, but a puppet, and still get rejected? Was his purpose for being created not to aid in her plan for pursuing an everlasting eternity? Why didn't she show any affection towards him? Was her realm of consciousness really no place for a puppet? He pondered, not able to acknowledge the truth, that he was now a wandering puppet with no real purpose in life. A puppet filled with rage, loneliness, fear of betrayal, and the throbbing pain in his heart. But that being said, it meant that even if he was a puppet, he still had a human heart, right? And Niwa said so too. But what if he was tricking him too? What if it wasn't genuine, what if it was all a facade, like what happened with Ei? She had left him on the dirty, muddy ground without a word. Even if the Plane of Euthymia was cold and lonely, at least his creator was there. At least he had a place to belong. But now what? was now a wanderer. He tried hard. He really, painstakingly, tried to rise up to Ei's standards, but to no avail. He was merely a puppet. He was both sufficient. He was of no use in her plan for an eternal Inazuma. A wandering, lost puppet was what he was. He was simply, plainly, utterly useless.

…Even if that was true, your words…he so desperately wanted to believe them, lie or not. He didn't want to recall those days of suffering, the mental anguish, and the fear residing in his chest when he recalled the events of that horrid night. Everyone deserves a second chance…if it was really true, then he was going to make it up to you, this was his last chance,this fleeting opportunity, and he wasn't going to let it slip away. He was determined to make you smile again, that sweet, loving smile that he longed to see again. The smile he missed so much, he couldn't go to bed without thinking of it. Without thinking of how to put that smile back on your face. In fact, he couldn't even get a wink of sleep without you lying next to him. And your laughter, the way your cheek starts to flush and heat up when he caresses it, he misses it all. It was you that he missed.

So how would he make it up to you? Write a letter, of course. It was the only thing that the puppet was even slightly proficient at. So he took a brush, some black ink, and a piece of paper and started to write…

"Im sorry for not standing up for you."

Too straightforward.

"Im sorry i was incompetent. I dont deserve to be forgiven."

Okay, but too self-destructive. And you never like to see him like that.

"Please forgive me. I was just shocked, i know it was my duty to protect you, but in the end, its always the other way round. and if i could just go back in time, i would have never let those jerks talk like that about you, because your tears are just like needles piercing my heart. but the past is the past, and i'm sorry. Your paintings are simply beautiful, i found it mind boggling how they could say things like that to your face. I know how you feel, and i want you to know that i truly care for you, and that this was all a misunderstanding. This was all my fault…if you are free, could we go out for dinner tonight? I'd like to properly apologise. And, i love you, dont forget that."

A little cheesy, but cute. (Added bonus, he stuck a scarameow sticker on it!!)

And now, you're sure to forgive him…how can you stay mad at him after such a heartfelt apology?

(off topic, but STREAM IF I CAN STOP ONE HEART FROM BREAKING AND SWAY TO MY BEAT IN COSMOS)

#kunikuzushi #kunikuzushi x reader #kunikuzushi x you #kunikuzushi x y/n #kunikuzushi angst #raiden shogun #scara #scaramouche #kabukimono #angst #scara angst #scara x reader #raiden ei #ei #niwa #genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact fanfics #kuni #genshin #impact #genshin kunikuzushi #genshin scara #genshin wanderer #sorry for the CRAPPY SHARTY QUALITY its my first fanfic hope this doesnt flop lol im crying anyways i love scara i love kuni i love wandere #Scarameow

[ruddyhotelau]

Hey I read the post where you mentioned about 9 AU for justicestatic if u don't mind I would like to know about au even a short one liner is enough!!

I am really curious and love your Au!!

Ok till the moment I answer this question, the amount of AU increase to 14 AU =)))))))

Nate did draw sketches for some AU in the list, we will break it down for you.

1. Hellaver Secret

This AU started our Hellaverse Journal, it is the combination of Hazbin Hotel and an anime called Spy x Family. Mixing the lore of both media to create a plot that balances between fantasy and slice of life . The main couple in this AU is RadioApple, JusticeStatic is only a side dish that we came up with as a joke at first.

Basically, in this AU, Samael gave up his position as a Seraphim to become a normal human and changed his name to Lucifer. He's currently an assassin, a daughter he has with his long lost wife - Charlie, a telepath that can read people's mind and Lucifer form a fake marriage with a man named Alastor - a spy in disguise.

Michael is still an Archangel in this AU, he came down to Earth to bring his brother back to Heaven and somehow agreed to a business deal with Alastor's coworker - Vox. Even tho they hate each other, they still try to work things out because they both want to break the fake Morningstar couple.

2. Ruddy Hotel

You guy already knew about this one =)))

But yea, basically role swap AU

3. Band AU

This is a human AU. All the Heaven siblings decided to create a rock band called Octagrams. Michael is the drummer of the band and Vox at first was their anti, like the kind of anti that will stalk you from behind. Vox is actually a very successful businessman but he's also a stalker cuz c'mon, it's Vox.

4. Students AU

They are high school students in this AU, and yes, Vox is older than Michael in most of our human AU. In this AU, Vox is a 12 grader student while Michael is in grade 10. If anyone wondering then no, they are not dating till later when they're both legal adults with jobs.

Michael: I think you should give up on that school already.

Vox: Shut up kid, I'm trying to concentrate.

5. Hotel Supervisor

In this AU, Michael already knew Vox when the TV was still alive. Michael has to come down Earth to do his jobs and somehow Vox was his next-door neighbor. Long short story, they then fell in love but in the end, Vox died and became a demon in Hell. Then, one day, Michael got a direct message from God ordering him to come down to the hotel, keep an eye on it and decide whether the hotel deserved a chance to prove redemption is possible. Vox then knew about Michael's appearance at the Hotel... After a long time of thinking carefully, he decided to knock on the hotel's door.

7. The contract

Michael is currently having a headache about the last extermination, about his brother and his niece, about their resistance, which could cause a misunderstanding for Heaven and made God think they want to rebel against Heaven. Michael needed to know what was happening in Hell as soon as possible and Vox was the most suitable choice for this job.

8. Soulmate AU

When humans turn 18, some of them will appear a small mark at their wrist, the mark that represent their soulmate. But love has never been easy, not everyone with the mark can find their soulmate because all the mark does is glow when your soulmate is making love with someone that is not you and you will be able to feel a faint electric shock when you meet them. The mark will disappear the moment your soulmate passes away.

Vox got his mark when he was 18. Some of his friends were jealous of him but all he felt was empty and annoyed. If anything, Vox is never the one who trusts in destiny and fate. Same with his soulmate - Michael, Archangel Michael got his mark as a gift from God but he never paid much attention to it. He didn't understand why God gave him this? The idea of himself getting attached to someone on first sight is something Michael can't even imagine.

So they both waited for the day that their mark disappeared so they would no longer be bound to a stranger anymore.

But things never go as they expected...

Destiny must be crazy when it thought that tying an Archangel and a Sinner together was a good idea.

9. Get rid of you

Michael is currently a third year law student in this AU. One day, his younger sibling Gabriel thinks it's a good idea to fill that empty fish tank in his brother's house with some fish in some skeptical looking pet shop. Lilttle did the Morningstar siblings know the mini shark they picked up at the store that day was actually a demon in disguise.

10. Roommate AU

Vox, the Static Demon and Archangel Michael got summoned to Earth in another universe where Heaven and Hell didn't exist by a mysterious cult. Because they both came from the same universe so it's best that they stick together to survive in this familiar yet strange world. It took all of Vox's neuron nerve to convince Michael and after thinking carefully about his current situation, Michael knew he will have a better chance at getting back to his world if he co-operate with an Overlord and a better chance at blending in the human world with the help of someone who used to be a human. So even though he despised Vox's existence but for his future benefits, Michael is going to spare Vox's life.

So the two began to live together to find a way to come back to their world and to survive in this society without drawing any attention to their existence.

11. Guardian Angel

In this AU, all the siblings are the guardian angels for the humans.

Michael - Vox

Lucifer - Alastor

Raphael - Cherri Bomb

Gabriel - Niffty

Uriel - Husk

Jophiel - Velvette

Chamuel - Angel Dust

Azrael - Sir Pentious

Their mission is to guide their human on the right path but sadly, for Michael, he and his human are not getting along too well. Michael could only hope that he could get the guy to be 50% better at being a good person until the day Vox dies or else Michael is going to lose that promotion that he's always wanted.

12. Your Name

Inspired by an anime called "Your Name". Basically, it depicts the story of two college students, Michael and Vox, who suddenly swap bodies despite having never met the other, unleashing chaos onto each other's lives.

If you're wondering why they're doing weird expressions that doesn't match their personality is because in the pic, these two losers are swapping bodies, Vox in Michael's body and vice versa.

13. The Moving Castle

Inspired by an anime named "Howl's Moving Castle". Vox is an overly confident man who is cursed to have a demon body with a TV head by a spiteful witch. His only hope of breaking the spell is meeting a powerful, cold and distant wizard that travels around in his moving castle.

Michael's mind is filled with doubts when he sees Vox. He couldn't believe this vile man in front of him was the one who could break his curse.

14. Apocalypse AU

Take place in the post-apocalypse world where almost everything was destroyed but with advanced technology. In this AU, Vox is a mad scientist and Michael is a soldier in a poor and small area.

So Michael and his siblings in this AU were all slaves when they were small. Some were sold to by dealer or black market and others came from a corrupted lab or were kidnapped. Because the 8 of them were locked in the same cage and all of them were around the same age so they got close with each other really quickly. (In this AU Michael and Lucifer are still twins) After knowing each other for a while, Lucifer came up with the idea that all of them should have a unique tattoo so even if they got split up in the future, they will still be able to recognize each other. So time passed, one by one was sold but the place collapsed before Michael got sold. And so he was able to escape then got adopted by a soldier.

Time passed, he became one of the protectors, an excellent and skilled soldier of the area. But one day, some people in the area started to go missing and Michael has been assigned the task of finding those missing people. And he was able to track Vox down. Vox noticed there has been some annoying rat following him lately, not to mention being the first to come this close to him in the first place. So he asked his old pal Alastor - a famous hitman to deal with Michael.

Then "BANG" - a clean bullet through the head, taking away Michael's life. Vox was not going to let Michael's body going to waste so what better way to reuse the body than to create a hybrid monster (The reason why Vox want to create a monster is because he remembered Al used to tell him a long time ago that he wondered how a monster tasted like. So Vox thought maybe if he created a monster and served it to Alastor, perhaps he could fix his relationship with Alastor)

So a monster was created and so did a broken screen. (Vox did change his screen later, don't worry) What will they face together afterward? What will the future hold? What kind of madness, wacky adventure and people awaiting them? It is something that they need to go through together in the future...

#hazbin hotel au #hazbin hotel michael #hazbin hotel oc #hazbin hotel vox #justicestatic