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#and possibly seriously injure or kill you
kittyprincessofcats · 2 months
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ICJ Ruling
Okay, let's get into this.
First of all, I get the frustration at the court not ordering a ceasefire. I was disappointed and frustrated at first too, since a ceasefire was the biggest and most important preliminary measure South Africa was requesting - and of course we just all want this horror to finally end for the people in Gaza. So I get the frustration and disappointment, I really do.
However, I do think this ruling is still a major win for South Africa, Palestine, and international law as a whole and here's why:
The court acknowledged that it has jurisdiction over this case and completely dismissed Israel's request to throw out the case as a whole. It will now determine at the merits stage (that will probably take years) whether Israel is actually commiting genocide.
The court acknowledged that Palestinians are a "distinct national or ethnic group and therefore deserving of protection under the genocide convention". Pull this out next time someone tells you "there's no such thing as Palestinians, they're all just Arabs".
The court acknowledged very unambiguously that "at least some" of Israel's actions being genocidal in nature is "plausible". South Africa has a case, officially. Israel is accused of genocide, in a way the ICJ deems "plausible", officially. This is huge. (And seriously, how freaking satisfying was it to hear all of those genocidal statements by Israeli politicians read out loud and used as justification for this rulling?)
The court might not have ordered a "ceasefire" in those words, but they did order Israel to "immediately end all genocidal acts" (which includes killing and injuring Palestinians) and submit proof that they actually did. How are they going to comply with this ruling without at least severly reducing or changing what they're doing in Gaza?
In fact, this wording might actually be more appropriate for a genocide (vs a war), as author and journalist Ali Abunimah notes on Twitter:
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He's completely right. Israel lost today, by overwhelming majority (I mean, 15 to 2? I heard people predict the rulings would be very close, like 9 judges vs 8, but instead we got 15 to 2 (and even 16 to 1 on the humanitarian aid). Holy shit.) The court disimissed almost everything Israel's side of lawyers said, while acknowledging that South Africa's accusations are "plausible".
And this is important especially because of Mr Abunimah's second tweet there^. Because the question is, where do we go from here?
This ruling means that Israel is officially /possibly/ commiting genocide and that should have huge international consequences. The rest of the world now HAS to take these accusations seriously and stop arming and supporting Israel - and if they won't do it on their own, we, the people, have to make them. This is THE moment to rise up all around the world, especially in the countries most supportive of Israel (the US, the UK, Germany): Protest, call your representatives and demand a ceasefire and an end of arms deliveries to Israel.
We now have a legal case to back our demands: If Israel is, according to the ICJ, "plausibly" commiting genocide, then all of our governments are, according to the ICJ, "plausibly" guiltly of aiding in genocide. And we need to hold that over their heads and demand better. We need to do that right now and in huge numbers. Most politicians only care about themselves and saving their skin. We have to make them realize that they could be accused of aiding in genocide.
(As a German, I'm thinking of Germany here in particular: After South Africa's hearing, our government dismissed their case as having "no basis" - how are they going to keep saying that now that the ICJ officially thinks otherwise? Over the last months, people here have been arrested at protests for calling what's happening in Gaza a genocide. How are the police supposed to legally keep doing that now that the ICJ has officially deemed this accusation "plausible"? I used to be scared to use the word "genocide" at protests or write it on my protest signs - not anymore, have fun trying to arrest me for that when the ICJ literally has my back on this one 🖕🏻.)
So yeah - don't be defeatist about this, don't let Israel's narrative that they "won" (they didn't) take over. This might not be everything we wanted, but it's still a good result. Don't let what the court didn't say ("ceasefire"), distract you from the very important things that they did say. Let this be your motivation to get loud and active, especially if you live in any country that supports Israel. Put pressure on your governments to not be complicit in genocide, you now officially have the highest international court on your side.
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hells-wasabii · 2 months
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Hey!! I had an Adam request for Hazbin Hotel. If possible, could it be a mixture of headcanon and drabble? If not, just drabble, please!!
So imagine if Adam had escaped before being killed by Nifty, and is still incredibly hurt. The angels had left, thinking he had died, leaving him behind. Then demon reader finds him bleeding out, and despite knowing who he is and what he's done to their kind, they still help him and let him stay at their apartment to heal properly, and hopefully tries to change his mind on Hell and other demons.
Gn reader would be great, if you could please! - 🍋
Howdy hey! I'm really glad you asked for a half and half, I don't think i'd be able to delve into this request proper. Also, adam is seriously growing on me. I got to work on my requests today later than i would've liked though, so I'll try to make up for lost time
Character: Adam
Type: Headcanons+Drabble (injured!Adam x sinner!reader, Angst, Fluff)
Adam, despite what you might think, fully understands the severity of the situation. He knows that he's royally fucked, especially if he happens across the wrong demon. He also knows that heaven’s not coming for him. The fact that what was left of his army had retreated was testament enough that they believed him to be dead.
Yeah, he might’ve escaped with his life but he wasn’t out of the woods yet. Could you imagine what could happen if he ran into somebody with a grudge against him specifically? It wasn't like he was subtle about his identity at the moment, covered in golden blood, oh, and of course, the wings were a dead giveaway. 
So when the very first man collapsed in some dirty alley way he thought he was done for. That was where he met you. You were an anomaly to Adam. Why would you, a sinner, help him of all people? He figured that you just didn’t know who he was as you took him back to your home to help him heal. That assumption didn’t last long, though, you called him by his name so you definitely knew who he was.
When you’re helping him heal, offering up your apartment as a place for him to recuperate, he’s gonna be bitching about it the whole time. You knew who he was, so now there was no way he’d let you forget he was the first man and how absurd it was that he was left like this. He’d complain about any little thing too, he’s used to a life of comfort, used to getting what he wants when he wants it. And you’d best believe you’re going to hear about how he hasn’t gotten laid since getting stuck down in hell.
Adam couldn’t believe it as he stared at the calendar hung on the wall of your dingy apartment. Despite all the slack he’s given you, the first man had long since decided that maybe you weren’t so bad for some loser sinner. The last of his wounds were healed now, something he had you to thank for. Bones were set properly, and he’d even been able to stave off infections under your care.
The angel was grateful. He really was. And as uncommon as it was, he wanted to show you just how grateful he was. You had gone off somewhere, work you said, but he wasn’t sure what you did for work now that he thought about it. You had probably mentioned it early on in his stay, but at that point, he didn’t really listen to much of what you said.
So, he decided to make you something to eat, you should be back in an hour anyway.
Simple enough, right? There was some pasta in the cupboards, he’d start with that.
Oh, you were gonna be so impressed! After all, you were going to eat a meal prepared by the first man here! This surprise totally-not-a-date-even-though-he-maybe-wanted-it-to-be dinner was going to rock!
...
In his defense, he had been left alone. You were pretty lucky to have gotten home when you did, or you were sure your kitchen would've been burnt down. You sighed, turning to the angel who was making a rather convincing impression of a kicked puppy. Instead of scolding him, you offer a small smile. "Why don't we just get takeout?"
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kamaluhkhan · 2 months
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GET HIM BACK! (or: the 7 reasons you wanted revenge on luke castellan)
read part one — THE GRUDGE (or: the 7 things luke castellan hated about you)
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pairing: luke castellan x nemesis!reader (afab, she/her pronouns)
summary: you were very angry and possibly still in love with luke castellan. kill him or kiss him — you still weren't sure what he deserved.
warnings/disclaimers: spoilers for season 1 of pjo + lots of book references. reader + luke are around 21 for most of this. rough? smut (p in v, oral f+m receiving, biting, scratching, slight choking, etc...) 18 + MDNI ! injuries + blood + violence. reader and others drink alcohol + smoke. lots of angst!!! luke + reader have matching tattoos. twilight + other pop culture references. reader kinda gives 'hell is a teenage girl in her 20s' vibes. maybe slightly toxic dynamic between reader + luke but we love complicated relationships ♡
author's note: thank u so much for all the love on part one!! i got a bit carried away with this one oops, but i hope y'all enjoy it :)
♪: "get him back" by olivia rodrigo
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(i. he had a savior complex) 
if you were less consumed by anger, you might have noticed the sound of his footsteps following closely behind you. 
no one was supposed to go into the forest alone, but you were 17 and reckless and not at all concerned about breaking the rules, especially if it meant proving clarisse larue wrong.  
you ventured into the woods, farther than you'd ever been before, with nothing except your knife and a chest full of determination to prove that you were strong and brave just like any other demigod, regardless of if you had a cabin or not. 
you were younger then, less disillusioned, and more willing to buy into those fantasies of power and glory, spoon-fed to demigods as truth. one that you hoped to cross off that afternoon: being worthy of attention if you could sink your blade into the next monster that dared to cross your path.
everyone would see that you’re not just some little, powerless girl with no reason to be at camp. 
and, sure, there was a small but not insignificant part of you that hoped your mother was watching, that she’d finally notice how much of a hero you could be.
you could have died that afternoon. you put up a decent fight, but soon enough you found yourself fallen to the forest floor: blade down, broken arm, bleeding out. a manticore inches away from sending you to the underworld. 
you weren’t angry anymore, the adrenaline had left your body. you just were a scared child, silently praying to deities you hoped wouldn’t look away like they always do. 
i’m sorry, mom. i couldn’t do it. 
you closed your eyes, waited for your fate, and just when you thought all hope was lost — 
the sound of a sword ripping through flesh, an injured growl, and then nothing but your ragged breathing. 
your eyelids fluttered open.
it wasn't your mother, or any of the other gods, who jumped in to save your life.
standing in the middle of the clearing, gripping his sword, was luke castellan. 
he tucked annabeth’s invisibility cap into his back pocket and brought you to the infirmary.
"she's okay, though?" luke asked. he was watching you carefully, ashes from the manticore dusting his orange camp shirt. his arms were crossed, and it seemed that he managed to defeat the monster relatively unscathed.
lee fletcher, son of apollo, nodded as he set your injury. 
"nothing more than a broken arm and minor concussion. make sure your girl gets lots of rest, okay? no more monster hunting. probably has to sit out capture the flag tomorrow, too.”
you ignored the churning in your stomach when lee assumed you were luke’s girl. luke didn’t bother correcting him. 
lee left to get you some ambrosia to speed the healing process, leaving you and luke alone in the room. 
“you know, i’m not a damsel in distress you have to follow around, waiting to save. i’m not your girl.” 
“seriously?” he raised an eyebrow, but his cheeks became slightly flushed. “you would be dead if it wasn’t for me. i heard what happened with clarisse, but gods — you didn’t have to go and get yourself killed to prove something.” 
he was right, of course. part of you wanted to argue with him for always having to be the hero, but the fight lingering in your throat wasn’t enough to act on. you just sighed and looked away, feeling too impulsive and powerless and exhausted down to your bones. 
you felt the bed dip beside you, and then a hand on your shoulder. it was warmer than usual, but the calloused skin still felt familiar on yours.
“they’re not worth it, okay? that’s what you’re always telling me.”
luke’s voice was lower than before, a touch of bitterness laced through.
“yeah, well you never believe it,” you replied, voice hollow. “so why should i?” 
clarisse entered the infirmary before he could answer. luke was instantly on his feet, blocking you from her view, hand on the hilt of his sword.
“what are you doing here?” he practically growled. 
“i heard what happened,” clarisse explained, looking past luke to catch your eye. you waved at her with your newly applied cast. “i’m sorry about what i said earlier, if that had anything to do with it.”
at that point, you were still trying to figure out where you stood with clarisse. she had arrived at camp just before the new year. you’d been so used to new campers being younger than you, and it was nice to have someone the same age to be friends with. 
it wasn’t until the start of march, around two weeks ago, that ares had claimed her. ever since, there had been a newfound animosity between you, leading up to your explosive argument earlier that day. part of you had a feeling she was just trying to fit in with her siblings. it was a subtle thread woven throughout the camp, especially with the ares kids: this hierarchy of power according to the gods, with you on the lower end because your mother was only a minor goddess. 
needless to say, it wasn’t anything you hadn’t heard before; it was just that the words pierced through your thick skin when coming from a friend. 
but the very fact that she came to visit you, that she apologized and seemed to regret that you’d gotten hurt, healed you more than the ambrosia lee was just coming back to give you. 
“thanks, clarisse,” you said after a mouthful of ambrosia. 
even with an established truce, luke didn’t move away from you. in fact, he puffed his chest out a bit more. 
“if you say anything like that to her again, i swear to all the gods —”
“i just said sorry, castellan,” clarisse scoffed. “now get out of the way so i can sign her cast.” 
clarisse attempted to move closer, but luke stayed planted where he was.
“you are not getting anywhere close to her,” luke warned. 
“easy, tiger.” you got up to put your hand on his arm, but luke jerked away from your touch. your fingers brushed against his skin however, and even that brief moment was enough to shock you with its temperature. you tried again, this time bringing a hand to his neck, and he let out a hiss upon contact. his pulse seemed quicker than normal.
“are you feeling okay?”
“i’m just fine,” he huffed, and stormed out of the infirmary.
a few days later, you were training with clarisse, when silena beauregard ran into the arena and interrupted you.
“it’s luke,” she coughed, out of breath. “he’s in the infirmary—”
you sprinted towards the big house before silena could finish her sentence. 
when you reached the infirmary, luke was being held back by lee and a few others, screaming that he needed to go find you or you’d die. he was holding his sword, and campers wrestled to remove it from his grip. the sleeve of his shirt lifted up slightly, and that was when you noticed it: a gash across his bicep, shallow, but turning a sickly green. the rest of his skin was flushed, his eyes frantically searching for someone — you — and he was breathing heavily between sentences.
it turned out that he’d gone the entire week with the wound festering. one of the manticore’s spikes must have grazed luke, and he hadn’t thought much of it because he was so focused on making sure you were okay. 
manticore poison could fuck with someone’s mind if not treated right away. worse: it could be fatal. 
despite your heart beating out of your chest and the chaos you walked into, you kept your voice gentle, but firm.
“luke.”
for a moment, everything stood still. luke froze, and the campers took the opportunity to get a better hold on him.
he blinked at you and shook his head. “no. no. you’re not her. i heard her screaming from the forest and - and she’s in trouble. i need to —”
“it’s me, tiger,” you assured him. 
you approached him carefully and, despite some whispers of warning, you gestured at everyone to let go of him completely. they might have had a point, because as soon as they did, the tip of his sword was dangerously close to your chin. 
“you’re not her,” he insisted. “you’re just some monster trying to trick me.”
you stood in front of him then, and slowly raised your arm to show him your cast. a few people had signed it — beckendorf, chris, clarisse, silena. luke had signed his name too, of course, along with a poor attempt at a cartoon tiger that made you all laugh. 
“see? it’s me. i’m okay.”
there were a few moments when you held your breath, feeling the celestial bronze dig into your skin a bit more. and then:
“it’s…you. you’re….okay?” 
luke’s speech was slightly slurred. he dropped his sword like it suddenly weighed a thousand pounds; it nicked you on its way down. you didn’t care though, because luke almost fell to the ground, too. 
you gripped his wrist to steady him. 
“you’re probably not okay, though,” you explained, well aware of the urgency of the situation. his pulse felt weaker by the second, his skin burning against yours. 
“i’m….i’m fine. i just need to — she’s gonna die if i don’t —”
“i’m right here. i’m here because you already saved me, remember? you saved me, but you got hurt.”
 he shook his head slowly, and his eyes started to flutter close. 
“no, i’m okay,” he breathed, his voice smaller than you’d ever heard it. “i need to make sure y/n is okay. she needs me….” 
you swallowed the lump in your throat, seeing him start to fade away right in front of you. 
you refused to lose hope. 
no — you wouldn’t watch luke castellan die.
“i’m here, luke.” you gripped his wrist even tighter to remind him.
“but —” 
“just rest for a minute, ” you insisted, guiding him towards a bed. “for me, okay?” 
as soon as you managed to get luke onto the bed and, more importantly, calm, everyone else sprung back into action. 
chiron was away for the week, so will solace — one of the younger apollo campers, but probably the best healer at camp — used some healing magic, while lee misted luke with cold water to cool him down and another kid dripped some nectar onto his wound.
luke hissed when the liquid seeped into his skin and reached out for you. you felt like the flesh might melt right off your bones, but you let him squeeze your hand for as long as he needed. somebody came around to put a bandage on your chin, too.
you'd always resented the gods, but that was the first time you'd really lost your faith in them. watching luke fight for his life even after saving yours, other demigods joining the battle, and you thinking: this is the life you cursed us with. you imagined the gods, with power to twist fate in their favor, simply enjoying a feast on mount olympus, hermes sipping nectar and not even aware that another one of his children is dying. you supposed your mother wasn’t any better either. her neglect felt like revenge for something you didn’t even know you had done.
after a while, the skin around luke’s wound lost its greenish hue. you released a deep breath when both lee and will declared that luke seemed to be on the mend — he just needed to get some rest, and, best case scenario, the poison should have run its course by morning.
you didn’t ask about the worst case scenario.
you estimated it was around 2 am when you heard luke’s voice again.
“cold,” was all he said through shivering teeth. 
you wordlessly grabbed as many blankets as you could, and tucked them around luke. you waited a few minutes to see if it helped.
“so - so cold,” he shivered again. you reached out to check luke’s pulse, and all you could find was the faintest heartbeat. his skin looked pale in the moonlight and now felt ice cold despite his high fever earlier. 
no one else was in the infirmary then. you were wracking your brain to remember what you had learned in demigod survival class about hypothermia. something about warm drinks? you ran to the kitchen and made him a cup of hot chocolate — with cinnamon, just how he liked it. 
you whispered his name once you were back at his bedside. his eyelids fluttered open. you tried coaxing him to take the drink, but he wouldn’t even hold the mug. you didn’t think twice about climbing into bed next to him, gently sitting him upright against the headboard so that you could offer him tiny sips. you noticed then that he was still only wearing a tank top, so you took off your sweatshirt — which happened to be one of luke’s — and slid it on him. 
when the hot chocolate was done, luke sighed. some of the color returned to his face, and his teeth stopped chattering. 
“thanks, karma.”
you just hummed in response, setting the mug down on the nightstand beside you and twisting underneath the blankets. luke settled back down next to you. he brushed his thumb over the band-aid on your chin. 
“what happened? did clarisse —”
“easy, tiger. it’s nothing — just a little scratch,” you replied. 
you spared him from the whole truth. sure, there was a moment earlier when you didn’t know whether or not luke would hurt you. it was only a split second, because that wasn’t your luke. he shouldn’t have had to live with the guilt of something he did by accident, as a result of a poisoned mind.
“anyways, i should be thanking you. you’re the one who almost died saving my life. you were hanging by a thread just a few seconds ago. it seems like you’re not completely out of the woods yet.”
“well, i guess the fates are still deciding what to do with me.” he cracked a smile. 
it was a bit morbid, given what you’d been through the past 12 hours, and the fact that the manticore venom clearly hadn’t left his body completely. the possibility of his death had not completely disappeared, though you supposed that, as demigods, the risk always remained higher. 
fuck the gods. they weren’t your protectors. they weren’t your family. 
the campers who put their whole heart into healing you and luke, the boy who risked his life for you — they were your family. 
you took luke’s humor as a good sign. the luke castellan you knew — confident banter, radiant grin, heart of gold — was coming back to you. 
the luke castellan you would not allow die, even if you could still feel the cool bronze of his blade linger on your chin. 
(ii. he had an ego)
according to annabeth chase, it was statistically improbable for a demigod to reach drinking age. something always kills them first - a monster, a blade, a fatal flaw. the likelihood of survival only gets exponentially lower with each passing year.
she repeated that information to luke on the morning of his 21st birthday.
“thanks for the cheerful birthday wishes, sis.” 
annabeth shrugged and hugged him before walking back to the athena table to finish breakfast. 
"you hear that, tiger?” you pointed a syrupy fork at luke. “you are literally saying fuck you to fate, just by being alive." 
"that’s the way i like it," luke quipped, and stole a blueberry from your plate. 
"hey man, happy birthday." chris patted luke’s shoulder on his way to sit across from you and luke. "so, i just talked to chiron and he agreed to let us go out tonight." 
you smiled between bites of your pancakes, reaching over to offer chris a triumphant fist bump.
“nice work, rodriguez.” 
"we're going out tonight?"
you pressed your knee to luke's under the table. 
"of course we are," you hummed. "we have a lot to celebrate." 
so, you, luke, chris, and a few of your friends — beckendorf, silena, and clarisse — went into the city to celebrate. one of luke's favorite bands was playing, and you had managed to snag a few tickets. you'd all entered a bar confidently that night, the fake ids you were at once so giddy and paranoid about no longer needed. 
there were few times when you could all just kick back and have fun, without having to worry about the responsibilities of being senior counselors. that night, you were all itching for a taste of freedom. or, at least, some alcohol. 
"happy birthday to the one and only luke castellan: a hero by any other name!" 
everyone raised their shot glasses, echoed beckendorf's words, and threw back their drinks. 
the night became louder, more vibrant. yet, even as you laughed and drank and danced with your friends, there was a heaviness lingering in your chest.
for most demigods, birthdays were bittersweet. each one served as a reminder of time running out because of exactly what annabeth said that morning. most half-bloods don’t even live past their teens, let alone the age of 20. you had the blood of gods flowing in your veins, and your lives were influenced by sinister, divine forces from ancient times. you were the new generation of heroes, protagonists of those greek tragedies that made mortals weep.
there was no guarantee that this would last forever, but all of your friends —  the people you loved — had beat the odds. 
so, who would blame you for getting a little sentimental? 
beckendorf and chris had wandered off to play pool, in hopes of winning some bets and free drinks. clarisse was flirting with some girl who caught her eye, and silena went to grab some water after having danced for a bit. you and luke were still in the crowd, swaying to the music. for one glorious moment, you were just a group of twenty-one year olds enjoying a carefree night out. 
under the flashing lights, you stole a glimpse at luke. he wore a simple white tank top and ripped jeans, paired with a leather jacket and some rings he borrowed from you so he could, in his words, look more punk-rock. his curls were messy, his skin glittering with a thin sheen of sweat. the chain he layered with his usual camp necklace caught the multicolored light and highlighted the sharp angles of his collarbones. 
whatever aesthetic he was going for, luke looked good. based on various eyes following him throughout the room, you assumed others thought the same as well. it made you just a little bit furious, feeling that he wasn't only yours to admire. 
“you good?” luke’s voice cut through the noise, but he had to lean in close.  
his fingers brushed against the section of waist exposed by your cropped top. you’d gotten so warm that you had to tie your flannel around your waist, but luke’s touch sent a shiver through your body. it made you somewhat dizzy, feeling the cold metal of those rings on your skin. even moreso, when you realized how much you wanted to kiss your best friend, sink your teeth into his smirk and taste the mint chapstick and tequila on his lips. 
to be fair, you and luke had crossed that line before, and you were in the fields of asphodel ever since. 
not quite friendship, not quite romance. something deeper, more volatile and electric. 
you didn’t want to make things blurrier than they already were, though. whatever you acted on that night could have just been dismissed the next morning as a drunken mistake.
so, you just nodded at him and turned back towards the band as though you were never thinking about anything more than the music. 
after a few more songs, luke commanded your attention once more.
“hey, didn’t you once say you wanted to start a band?”
“what do i look like, a child of apollo?” you joked, but luke raised an eyebrow at you, clearly wanting a serious answer.
it was slightly alarming, how well he knew you; through your childhood dreams and down to your core. 
“in another life,” you conceded. “maybe.”
“in another life,” luke echoed. he leaned in close again. “you’d be a pretty hot drummer, and i’d be front row at every show.”
your lips could have touched if you moved your head just an inch, but he pulled away before you did. he was giving you that classic son-of-hermes smirk, the one that made everyone swoon. 
the thing was, you were sure that luke knew the effect he had on people. you had seen him continuously bask in the praise of chiron and other campers, always preening for the crowd's attention, as if he had to do anything more than smile. everyone loved luke — he was handsome, charismatic, strong.
and, yeah, you weren’t immune. your fatal flaw: not loyalty, or anger, or recklessness, but luke castellan’s charm.
you had to keep yourself grounded. it would be a bad idea to cross that line again on his birthday, right? 
luke licked his lips as you kept staring at him. you could tell he was waiting for you to do something. 
maybe it was the alcohol coursing through your veins or the rhythm of the music vibrating through your bones, but you started thinking — fuck it. 
before you could act on that impulse, some person with bright red hair stepped between you and luke. she introduced herself, telling luke she saw him from across the room, and she'd been watching him all night, and would he by any chance want to dance with her?
luke seemed flattered, interested even. he flashed her the very same smile he had just given you, which left a bitter taste in your mouth. you excused yourself before you had to hear them flirt even more. 
you walked over to silena at the bar. she had a half-empty glass of ice water melting in front of her, her attention somewhere else. you sat down beside her and followed her gaze to what — who — she was looking at. 
“if confessing feelings to someone is hard for aphrodite’s daughter, then there’s really no hope for the rest of us,” you tell her.
silena whipped her head towards you. her cheeks were flushed a light pink. 
“i - i don’t have feelings for clarisse.”
“lena, please. we all know. well, except maybe clarisse.”
“what?” she blinked at you, eyeshadow shimmering in the light.
“yeah,” you said with a small laugh. the irony of it all: the head counselor of cabin 10  denying that she was in love with someone. “we talk about it all the time.”
“well,” silena huffed, cheeks now a bright red. “i guess i should tell you that the rest of us talk about you and luke.” 
you reached over to grab her water, your throat suddenly dry. 
“what about us?” you asked after finishing the drink in one long sip. 
“about how you obviously both have feelings for each other. half the camp already thinks you’re dating.”
you started to crunch on whatever ice was still frozen. 
“well, we aren’t.” 
that reality hurt more than the sharp pain piercing your brain from ingesting too much cold, too fast. you couldn’t even spot luke in the crowd — he and the redhead had probably gone off to some private corner. 
“people think love’s a joke,” silena sighed. “but they don’t realize how much power it can have over a person. it can make people —”
“cowards?” you suggested.
silena nodded solemnly. “cowards.”
neither of you said anything for a while, two love-sick half-bloods slumped over a sticky bar counter.
suddenly, silena sat up straight. she tied her black hair up into a ponytail. perfect, of course, along with her makeup. you were sure you had sweat off the glitter she had applied to your cheeks earlier. 
“i am not a coward.” 
without another word, silena got up and glided towards clarisse, and you were left with an empty stool next to you. 
part of you was proud of her for following her heart. the other part couldn’t stop picturing someone else’s tongue down luke’s throat. 
“can i get a ginger-ale, please?” you asked no one in particular, hoping that the bartender heard your request for something to ease your nausea. 
“you sure you don’t want anything stronger?” 
someone slid onto the barstool next to you. he looked around your age, wearing a navy and red rugby shirt. he had what looked like a pretty expensive watch on his wrist, and he was already leaning in way too close for a stranger. 
“i’m fine,” you deadpanned.
“oh, come sweetheart, it’s on me.” 
you scoffed at the nickname and shook your head.
the guy next to you didn’t care. he snapped to get the bartender’s attention. “two vodka tonics, please. that’s your drink, right? i’m usually pretty good at guessing.”
“dude, i said i’m fine,” you repeated through clenched teeth.
the bartender set two drinks in front of you and rugby shirt pointed towards them.
“well, i already got you a drink, so you at least owe me a conversation.” he slid the drink closer to you.
"i don't owe you anything." 
"oh, come on," rugby shirt cooed. "i don't bite." he slipped his hand underneath your skirt, nails scratching along the skin of your upper thigh, through your fishnets.
you growled at the contact and stood up abruptly, more than a little coincidentally knocked the glass over. the liquid splashed onto him. his flirtatious grin melted right off his face.
“jesus christ —you bitch,” he spat. “this is what i get for trying to be nice?”
“that’s what you get for trying to grope me,” you snapped. “but i could do a lot worse if you’re in the mood.”
his face was a pissed-off shade of red, his mouth formulating a response when —
you felt luke’s arm wrap around your waist, pulling you close to him. you side-eyed him, and ignored the hickey blooming at the base of his neck.
“is there a problem here?” luke’s voice was firm, steady. 
it seemed like all the fight left rugby shirt’s body, and he put his hands up in surrender. 
“oh, sorry dude. i didn’t realize she was taken.”
you rolled your eyes. figured that this guy would only back off if there was a jealous boyfriend in the mix. 
“it’s fine, i’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.”
“that’s for sure,” the guy continued. “your girl practically bit my head off for being nice and buying her a drink.”
your fingers tightened into a fist.
“that is not —”
“look, i gotta apologize on her behalf.”
“luke, what are you —”
“let me handle this, baby,” he hummed. “trust me, she’s normally a good girl. she just gets….harder to control after one too many drinks.” 
“i am this close to throwing my next drink at you,” you insisted. 
you weren't naive. you knew luke was putting on an act, but you weren't sure why he felt the need to appease this jerk and put you down in the process. 
you hated the way he was acting now — arrogant, condescending, borderline sexist. you wanted to storm off, you really did, but that would mean having to tear yourself away from luke, and.... you didn't hate the firm hold he had on you. 
he chuckled and raised an eyebrow at the guy knowingly, like they were the closest friends. 
“see what i mean?”
“that’s quite the firecracker you got there,” the guy complimented, as though you were a prize luke had won. “those are the ones you gotta keep on a tight leash, though.”
oh, your patience was wearing thin. if luke didn't take care of this guy soon….
“don’t i know it.” luke laughed when you barred your teeth at him. “look, we all came here to have a good time. why don’t you go join your friends again, and i’ll send over some drinks.”
rugby shirt looked at luke, then nodded. 
“alright. thanks, man. and sorry again for the….confusion.” 
luke extended a hand, and the guy shook it.
"no hard feelings. i'll be sure to keep her on a tighter leash, though."
rugby shirt walked away, laughing. you were just about ready to bite luke's head off.
you shoved luke away from you. your whole body felt like it was on fire. 
“luke castellan, i don’t care if it’s your birthday, if you ever talk to me like that again, i swear to all the gods —” you faltered when luke’s lips curled into a smirk. 
that smug, gorgeous, self-important smirk.
“what?” 
“i’m just waiting until you’re done chewing me out,” he said, clearly a bit amused. “you done?”
you hesitated, narrowing your eyes at him. “for now, i guess.”
“good, because we have about 2 minutes before our misogynistic frat buddy over there notices that something’s missing.”
he lifted his hand to show off the real prize of the night. 
“you did all of that….. to steal the guy’s watch?”
“well, duh. he was being a jerk and i’m the prince of thieves, karma. gotta use my powers for good.” 
luke winked at you as you stared at him in awe. 
“we really should go though. the others are waiting for us outside.” 
you jutted your chin towards the bruise on his neck.
"what about the redhead?"
luke flushed, adjusted his collar to hide the hickey. "i kinda lost interest when she said i was hot for an asian guy."
"oh." you ignored the triumph in your gut. "sounds like a jerk, too." 
"whatever." luke shrugged. "hard to find the good ones, right?" 
luke turned towards the exit.
"wait.” you tugged him back, and luke looked confused for a split second. “you're one of the good ones, luke castellan. did i ever tell you how incredibly happy i am that you were born?" 
luke grinned. "you could stand to say it more often."
his smile was infectious. you liked this side of luke: protective, mischievous, a bit of a trouble-maker. 
it made you want to kiss him all over again.
(iii. he lied without flinching)
you couldn’t find luke anywhere. 
he wasn’t at the climbing wall, or the arena, or the forge. luke seemed to have a knack at vanishing when you needed him most.
when you finally found him, he was outside the big house, in what seemed to be a somewhat heated conversation with chris and a new camper, ethan nakamura. 
ethan nakamura, son of nemesis. you were shocked when your mother’s symbol — swords crossed underneath a set of scales — appeared over his head after two weeks of staying at the hermes cabin. 
you were still getting used to having a younger half-brother. 
“hey,” you greeted the trio, slightly out of breath from running all over camp. as soon as you joined them, a silence fell over the group. “i was looking for you everywhere, tiger. what’s going on here?”
“actually, we were just —”
“nakamura,” luke spoke ethan’s name like a warning. 
“i’m just saying, maybe we should consider —”
luke cut ethan off this time with a sharp glance. 
“i already said no. end of discussion.”
“whatever you say, boss,” ethan grumbled.
the trio was silent again, and you eyed each of them suspiciously.
“okay, seriously. what’s —”
“we’ll talk more about this later, guys,” luke interrupted. his tone was commanding. ethan and chris dispersed. 
once they were gone, you furrowed your brows at luke, not sure what they would be talking about that could make him speak so harshly. 
“what was that about?” you asked for the third time.
“nothing important.” luke gave you a smile that seemed to stretch a bit thin. “you said you were looking for me everywhere. wanna go makeout in the hermes cabin? i’m pretty sure it’ll be empty this time of day.”
you shook your head, no matter how tempting the offer. the scene you walked into made you so uneasy that you completely forgot there was something important you needed to tell luke.
“percy and annabeth just iris-messaged me,” you explained. 
“oh,” he quirked an eyebrow at you. “is their quest going alright?”
you repeated everything the kids had told you: medusa, the chimera, ares. clarisse maybe being the lightning thief. luke had to sit down on the stairs leading to the big house when you spoke that last part. you understood why — clarisse was your friend. 
sitting down next to him, you sighed.
“you don’t think….you don’t think it could be true, do you?” 
clarisse was hot-headed, sure, maybe a bit impulsive, but a war between the gods? that didn’t seem her style. 
you hoped luke would assure you, but instead he said:
luke ran a hand through his hair. “it would make sense.”
“what?”
he leaned in close, voice low.
“clarisse was there with us during our field trip to olympus in december. the gods are arrogant enough to leave their stuff in the throne room, and there’s not really any security. she could have easily snuck in when everyone was sleeping. clarisse….” luke let out a heavy breath. “clarisse is the lightning thief.”
“no. no. she wouldn’t —”
“it makes sense, karma,” luke insisted. he placed a hand on your knee. “clarisse is angry at the gods.”
“we all are,” you pointed out.
“well, sure, but her dad is ares. how else do you get the god of war’s attention if not starting a war?”
you took a second to process luke’s reasoning. maybe he did have a point. it was just that sharp pain in your chest keeping you from believing it. 
“we don’t know anything for sure,” you decided. “and until we do….we don’t tell anyone. especially chiron.”
luke squeezed your knee, gave you a reassuring smile. 
“sounds like a plan.” he moved in closer and whispered: “now, how about we sneak away, and i do that thing with my tongue that makes you squirm?” 
you felt something tighten in your lower abdomen. you and luke were still in the sneaking-around-camp stage of your relationship; you both got a thrill from it.
at the time, you figured luke was just offering you a much needed distraction.
he kissed just below your ear to sweeten the deal — and how were you supposed to resist?
you didn’t even question how luke knew when the bolt was stolen, let alone how he seemed to have the theft already planned out perfectly.
(iv. he hid behind a pretty face and perfect teeth)
 it had been a little over a week since people around camp — including percy, annabeth, and grover, who had gotten back from their quest — found out about you and luke, together. apparently your friends had a bet going, meaning that everyone other than silena was less than thrilled about your announcement. they warmed up to the idea since then.
it still felt a little bit surreal calling luke castellan your boyfriend. 
luke often played the role of the perfect demigod, the one everyone should strive to be. he paid extra attention to new campers and made them feel welcomed. he did his chores on time, stepped in if more hands were needed for kitchen patrol, and spent hours going through reports for chiron. he taught sword-fighting and encouraged younger campers to keep practicing. he did participate in the occasional prank, that mischievous child of hermes streak impossible not to indulge in, but it only made everyone adore him even more. because luke was responsible, but not boring. he was incredibly skilled and driven, but also gracious. he was sensible and charismatic. 
you watched that luke — camp half-blood’s golden boy, the hero everyone either wanted to be, befriend, or date — and you were in awe. mostly, you wondered how he managed to bury the anger and resentment you knew was churning inside him, the same anger and resentment you sometimes let slip through. 
no, you were not as careful as golden boy luke, who showed no malice towards the olympians. to chiron, to everyone else, luke castellan respected the gods, honored them in everything he did, and taught others to do the same. 
that was not the luke who sucked a bruise onto your neck while suggesting something even you might consider blasphemous. 
“we can’t just - uh,” you had to catch your breath when luke slipped his thumb underneath the band of your sports bra. “we’d get in trouble, tiger.”
you felt him chuckle against your skin.
“since when do you care about that?” 
“since the king of the gods would probably strike us with lightning, or turn us into some horrible monsters, or curse us if we were caught fucking in his cabin." 
"that’s only if we get caught." 
luke gave you that flirtatious smile, the one he now reserved only for you.
it was that smile that led to luke settling between your legs, fucking you with his tongue and fingers, his other hand digging into your thigh to keep you from writhing too much. 
zeus’ cabin was, of course, empty, since his only known child was turned into a pine tree. you and luke had tucked yourselves into the one corner where the giant statue of the god couldn’t see you, setting a sleeping bag down on the cold marble floor and your discarded clothes scattered throughout. the dome-shaped ceiling was decorated with an enchanted mosaic sky that seemed to move. the only sounds that echoed throughout the room were moans as your orgasm washed over you.
"you're so, so pretty," he mumbled, wet lips brushing the skin of your inner thigh. he stayed where he was, awfully concerned with lapping up everything.
you whined his name when you found him taking too long, already a bit sensitive and wanting him inside you.
it might have been your conscious, but you swore you could hear a storm brewing, the threat of thunder and lightning looming.  the mosaic sprouted some clouds, growing darker by the second as if a countdown to your doom.
luke, on the other hand, was acting like you had all the time in the world, and then some.
he paused after his name tumbled from your lips again, and you tugged his hair. he propped his chin on your stomach to get a better look of you. luke was gorgeous, with his mess of black curls, deep brown eyes a little more dangerous than usual, smirk shining with your come.
"yes, sweetheart?"
“get up here and kiss me,” you groaned. 
once again, luke took his sweet time. his mouth left a trail along your thighs and your hips, your stomach and ribs. it felt like he was worshiping every inch of your skin, scarred and uneven and tattooed as it was. luke took extra care in appreciating the sword engraved on your sternum, the tattoo that matched the one he had on his collarbone.
“hi,” luke whispered once he was face to face with you. 
“hey, tiger,” you matched the softness of his voice, contrasting the harshness that followed when luke crashed his lips into yours. you could taste yourself on his tongue, and once he sucked all the air from your lungs, you had to pull away. 
you informed him: “there’s a condom in my back pocket.”
“always prepared,” he noted with a smile, reaching over to get it.
you kissed luke again as he entered you, your nails scraping down his back. when he pulled away to look at you, you couldn’t meet his gaze. instead, you were mesmerized by the sharp contours of his body and the healed wounds that lingered, every scar that you knew by heart like they were your own. it might have been strange, but you had a favorite — the faint cut on his hip from when he, thalia, and annabeth were on the run and they had to jump a fence.
if luke hadn’t been thrusting into you, you would have bent down to kiss it. 
“eyes up here, beautiful.” 
when you complied, luke smiled and ran his thumb along your jaw.
“good girl,” he praised. “you okay if i go harder?”
you settled for kissing the scar on his cheekbone.
“yes,” you finally answered.  "please."
luke brought his hand down to wrap your leg around his hip before he started moving faster. your head fell back against the marble floor, but you didn’t care about the impact. you just focused on how good it felt to have luke inside you, his strong hand on your hip, his warm breath on your skin. 
after feeling you tighten around him, luke let go a bit more. he dropped his head between your neck and shoulder, his curls brushing against you. as he reached his peak, luke bit your shoulder, hard,  to keep himself from groaning too loudly. you could have sworn that you heard thunder at that exact moment. in fact, it seemed to shake the entire cabin.
luke seemed to catch the threat that time, too. 
there was no room for pillow talk as the two of you rushed to get dressed and get out of there before the king of the gods lost his patience and struck you with lightning, turned you into some horrible monsters, or cursed you. maybe all three, maybe something worse.
you slipped on your underwear and pants, but couldn’t find the top half of your outfit. 
“do you see my shirt there?”
luke had just pulled on his boxers when he turned and passed the item to you. you weren’t sure why he paused for a second while doing it. then, he whispered:
“shit.” luke’s eyes were glued to your shoulder, where his teeth had broken skin. his cheeks flushed a bright red. whether it was shame or embarrassment, you didn’t know; but you were slightly taken aback. “i’m, i’m sorry, i — i didn’t mean to hurt you. i never want to —”
you placed your hands on his cheeks. 
“hey.” you whispered at him softly, and it was enough for him to stop rambling. you could tell he felt guilty, though, since he refused to meet your gaze.
“luke, baby, look at me.”
when he finally did, your heart ached. 
it wasn’t like you hadn’t done similar to luke. you’d never broken skin, sure, but luke seemed to enjoy — really enjoy — whenever you used your teeth in the heat of the moment. you just assumed he knew you wouldn’t mind the same.
but, one bite, and luke was almost reduced to tears, all because he was afraid of hurting you. 
“it’s fine, okay? i’m fine.”
luke didn’t seem convinced, his brows furrowed with concern. you kissed the crease on his forehead and reassured him once more that you were fine. 
 “if anything, consider it payback for the hickey i left that took a week to fade away.”
luke smiled softly at that, and you knew he was coming back to you. 
“you know, annabeth suggested that i go to the infirmary because of how it looked. i had to tell her i got it during sparring practice.”
“it wasn’t that bad,” you laughed, and so did luke. 
thunder rumbled throughout the cabin once more, and you swore the clouds were growing darker by the second. 
you were about to finish getting dressed when he grabbed your waist.
“look, if i’m ever too rough whenever we’re —”
“sparring?” 
“sure,” he smiled, thumbs rubbing circles on your bare skin. “whenever we’re sparring, just promise that you’ll let me know.”
“of course,” you hummed. “only if you do the same.”
“of course,” he echoed, and he pecked your lips. “i think it’s hot, you know? when you feel like you can let go. when you mark me. i like everyone knowing that i’m yours.”
you bit back a smile, feeling your cheeks grow warm.
“well, i think it’s hot when you mark me, too. especially when you bite me,” you admitted. 
“don’t tell me you’re still into the whole vampire thing,” he teased.
“oh, please. you were as obsessed with it as the rest of us. don’t you remember?”
as if either of you could forget marathoning the entire twilight saga with your friends, the six of you squeezing onto the small couch in the big house, sharing one bowl of popcorn and endless cups of coffee to stay awake.
you shivered out of the memory when he brought his fingers up to trace the bite mark he had left on you.
zeus could have sent more thunder. he could have created a whole godsdamned storm, but you wouldn’t have cared.
luke was so close that you had nothing better to do than to close the distance between you.
luke got bolder as the kiss became more heated — he sank his teeth into your bottom lip, his tongue sweeping over the crimson liquid that emerged, the tang of copper invading your mouth.
“easy there, edward,” you joked, and felt him smirk against your lips before moving to nip at your neck. 
you trailed your hand down the front of his exposed stomach, outlining the contours and curves. with the moonlight reflecting in, accompanied by the crackle of lightning, it almost looked like luke’s skin was glittering.
“you’re so beautiful," you cooed, nails scraping against the tight muscles of his lower abdomen.
“this is the skin of a killer, bella!” he mimicked.
you laughed at the reference, but when luke seemed to realize what he said, you swore you felt his grip tightening on your hips, though you didn't know why.
“i never want to hurt you,” he finished the sentence you had interrupted earlier.
“you won’t.” 
at the time, you didn’t think he was even capable of such a thing. 
for better or for worse, that was the night you realized something.
you liked golden boy luke. or, at the very least, you tolerated him.
the rule-breaking, sin-committing, blood-sucking luke?
in the words of bella swan: he was the one you were unconditionally and irrevocably in love with. 
except your life wasn't some cliché yet endearing love story about fictional vampires and werewolves. 
it had monsters, too. you just didn't realize who they were until it was too late. 
(v. he made you look so naive)  
there was blood on your hands, but you weren’t sure who it belonged to.
yours or luke’s — it was a toss-up that made you more than a little nauseous. 
luke had stolen the lightning bolt. luke had tried to frame percy and start a war between the gods. luke had begged you to join kronos’ army with him. you almost killed him because of it until you realized that he left percy to die. 
you summarized everything to chiron and mr. d once you had made sure that percy was getting help in the infirmary. the scorpion poison was still putting up a fight, but percy was strong. annabeth was there with him.
dread simmered in the pit of your stomach just thinking about having to tell her everything, too — to see the look in her eyes when she hears just how much her big brother betrayed her.
“and you have no idea where mr. castellan could have gone?” chiron’s voice was stern, as usual. 
you shook your head, not particularly paying attention. you could still feel blood seeping from the blademark luke had left. 
“that’s awfully convenient,” mr.d scoffed.
you narrowed your eyes at him. 
“what’s that supposed to mean?” 
“i’ve heard around camp that you and this luke were quite…. close,” mr. d said, pointing his can of diet coke at you accusingly. 
a wave of anger surged through you. it had been building in your gut ever since luke revealed his betrayal, and you didn’t care if it was a god who was on the receiving end of your wrath. 
“seriously? i saved percy and told you everything, and you’re here suggesting what? that i’m somehow a traitor, too?”  
“seems like the plot of a pretty twisted love story.”
your lips curled into a snarl, and you were about to pounce until chiron dismissed you.
you were in a trance for the rest of the day. chris was gone, too. ethan didn’t seem surprised. silena sobbed, clarisse comforted her, beckendorf cursed luke’s name. other campers kept asking about where their favorite counselor had gone, until they started growing weary of you.
because if golden boy luke was evil, what were the odds that his hot-headed, impertinent girlfriend was, too?
luke left you there, looking like an absolute fool for believing in him, trusting him, loving him.
you couldn’t unsee his blood on your hands. you might as well have been lady macbeth, desperately scrubbing out stains that would never leave.
vi. he was a vice you could never shake
calling all riot grrrls and punk rockers — this show is for YOU!!! come see the SIRENS OF NEW YORK perform THIS friday at joan’s bar ;)
the flyer was an obnoxiously vibrant shade of red and plastered throughout the neighborhood, and it did a good job. one of queens’ best dive bars was packed with people waiting to see the band perform: stella yamada on guitar, mohini banjaree on bass, sally mcknight on vocals — and you on drums. 
it was nice and still a bit new, this relatively normal existence with relatively normal people.
you couldn’t cut off the demigod side of your life completely. there was still a war brewing, and you were in regular enough contact with camp. 
but, you’d been away for a few years, trying to live the life of a non-halfblood in their early 20s. you had an apartment, a cat and a nice enough roommate. you were in school and working as a bartender to pay for rent and tuition. you had friends who, for lack of a better term, were normal. people who worried about paying off student loans and finding their passion in life, whether it be law school or feminist prose or angry girl music of the indie-rock persuasion. people who spent their time in classrooms or tattoo parlors or their friends’ bathrooms at 2am while bleaching their hair after a bad breakup. 
sometimes though, usually late at night when you couldn’t sleep, you had to admit to yourself that you missed your old life. 
you missed home. you missed playing capture the flag and training in the arena and having breakfast in the dining pavilion. you missed your friends, the ones you’d grown up with. 
you missed —
no. you tried not to let your mind wander towards him, or the consequences of what he did. you both drew blood the afternoon he confessed his sins to you, but he was the one who twisted the knife. he was the reason you couldn’t stand your life as a half-blood anymore. 
you just tried to focus on the mortal, mundane things that now composed your everyday life, like the stage you would be performing on in 30 seconds. 
before every show, your bandmates went through different degrees of anxiety. you didn’t get stage fright like them. they called you fearless, but the reality was that you had just gone up against much worse. 
and yet, that night, you almost froze mid-set, just as you started a cover of the joan jett’s “you don’t know what you’ve got.”
ironically, luke had gotten you a cd of this album for your 15th birthday. 
i was caught so unaware, when you made other plans.
think of the devil, and he shall appear.
it couldn’t have been him there, though. last time you heard of him, luke was growing kronos' army somewhere on the west coast.  
you pushed through, even though your concentration was shaken. 
i can’t stand to hear your name
you had to shake off the feeling of him watching you. 
it was just that — a bad feeling, right?
 you missed another beat, and mo turned around to give a concerned yet frustrated frown. joan had hinted that there might have been an agent in the audience, and you couldn’t afford to mess up. 
oh baby, you really blew it.
the song ended, and your blood ran cold.
it had to be a trick of the light, seeing luke in the crowd, but just the thought of being in the same space again made it impossible to be up on that stage, so exposed. 
as the band was getting ready for the next song, you slipped away, out the back door and into the alley for some fresh air. with shaky hands, you brought a cigarette between your lips and pulled out your lighter. it was a terrible habit, you knew.
those were always the ones hardest to quit and you needed a vice to keep you grounded. 
so there you found yourself, shivering in your black tank top, just cropped enough that the fishnets you wore underneath red leather pants were slightly visible. the bricks were cool against your back and you exhaled into the soft evening twilight when you realized it hadn’t been a trick of the light. 
“you look like buffy the vampire slayer.”
you rolled your eyes, because of course luke would do that. you were on opposite sides of an impending war between gods and titans, a world-ending conflict that luke directly enabled, and he led with a light-hearted comment like you were still the best of friends. 
as if you hadn’t been on the receiving ends of each other’s blades ever since luke revealed himself to be a traitor. 
“give me one reason why i shouldn’t kill you right now. ”
“because i’m alone.”
“you could still be here to kill me,” you reasoned. “or at least try.”  
after everything, you wouldn’t put it past him. you known him to do a lot worse, all to people he claimed to, in a past life, care about. 
luke tried again. 
“because you always liked a fair fight. i came alone and unarmed.” 
you scoffed, dropped your half-finished cigarette to the ground, and snuffed it out with the toe of your chunky patent boot before walking over to stand in front of luke. he put his hands up in surrender as you approached him. 
“if you’re not here to fight, then why are you here?” you demanded, fingers brushing against the switchblade in your pocket. you always kept a celestial bronze weapon on you in case you came across any monsters in the city. you looked at the one in front of you, and wished you had brought a bigger knife.
“i just….i wanted — needed to see you.”
your eyes grazed luke carefully.
he looked rough. deep shadows under his eyes, hair disheveled and partially matted down, shirt wrinkled like he’d been on the run for days. his hands caked with blood and dirt, his face, too. a nasty bruise on his elbow, and what looked like another one disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt. 
you bit down the urge to care. you had to remind yourself that luke was dangerous, cruel, and heartless. you couldn’t stand to look at him for one more second, at least not without biting his head off, or at the very least the cut on his lip. 
“no. you don’t get to just —”
the door slammed open, echoed throughout the alley. stella poked her head out, guitar still strapped to her shoulder. from inside, you could hear the crowd cheering.
“jesus christ, y/n! where have you been?” 
“sorry, stel. i needed a smoke break and then i ran into a — ” your voice caught on the word friend. “luke.”
his name left a poisonous taste in your mouth, and you swallowed its bitterness. 
she saw luke then, who gave her that charming smile of his you hadn’t seen in forever. he extended a hand towards her, but stella just scowled at him and turned back to you.
“are you coming to finish the show?” stella demanded. 
“i need to deal with this,” you told her. “i’m sor—”
stella huffed and slithered back inside before you could finish apologizing. 
 “great,” you laughed cynically. “now one of my best friends is pissed at me, and i might get kicked out of the band. my luck just gets worse every time you force yourself back into my life, castellan.”
you weren’t quite sure how to make of the way he looked at you — maybe apologetic, possibly desperately, definitely some sort of disguise. 
“i know….i fucked up, karma.”
you glared at the use of his old nickname for you, feeling a shudder run down your spine.
“yeah, you fucked up. and now everyone, the whole world, is suffering the consequences. me, annabeth, your mom —”
“please,” luke begged once more, voice shaking now. “if you ever loved me —”
“don’t.” you barked. “if you ever loved me, you’d accept that the next time we see each other, it’ll be fighting on a battlefield. until one of us is on the ground, bleeding out, or never again.”
luke stared at you. you glared back at him. 
“sorry i’m late, lukey. did i miss much?” a sickly sweet voice cut through the tension. 
you turned and saw a cheerleader. she looked relatively normal, but the mismatched legs — one bronze, another furry — along with the red eyes and fangs gave her away. 
“you said you were alone,” you pointed out, tilting your head towards the monster. “looks like you brought company.”
“i didn’t,” luke insisted. “kelli’s been hunting me down.”
kelli pouted. “i thought we were playing hide and seek. but it’s over now — i win. please don’t be mad, baby.”
baby. you could have laughed. 
“i guess you moved on, castellan.” you meant your words to come across as mocking, so you hoped luke couldn’t sense the resentment behind them.
kelli giggled, and you thought your ears might bleed. 
“he sure did,” she cooed and moved closer to luke, running a long red fingernail down his chest. he pushed her away abruptly, and kelli pouted once more. “we miss you, luke. i miss you. please come back home with me.”
“that’s not my home.”
out of everything luke had said, those were the words that got through to you. you glanced at him once more — his hands curled into fists, jaw clenched, and eyes locked on yours, panicking and pleading at the same time. 
you had to give in to those pleading, panicked brown eyes. 
luke didn’t have any weapons on him. all you had was a tiny pocket knife and some combat skills you’d been maintaining through kickboxing classes with your roommate, but you were willing to put them to good use.
you stepped in front of luke. 
“listen — kelli, was it?” the empousa growled at you. “call me sentimental, but i can’t let you take him.”
kelli gave you a snarl, and you whipped out your switchblade. admittedly, it looked a little pathetic compared to her deadly fangs and sharp claws. 
“aw, cute!” she mocked, and then pushed you backwards. 
you expected to tumble into luke, but he had disappeared. seemed like you did make the wrong choice, to trust luke again. 
again — the worst, most sinister habits were the hardest ones to break. 
it briefly crossed your mind to chase him down after this for leading you into a trap. for now, you had a shapeshifting cheerleader to take care of. 
you managed to side-step kelli’s next attack, and sliced across her arm in the process. she shrieked. her hair bursted into flames, as if your day could get any worse. you tried to get another jab in, but kelli managed to be quicker this time. she punched you in the jaw, then kicked you, hard, with a hoofed foot, causing a dull crack to your ribcage upon impact. the kick sent you spinning towards the brick wall; it stopped you from falling, but knocked the air out of your lungs. you spat, your mouth thick with the taste of blood. your ears were ringing, and you couldn’t locate your knife. 
you were definitely out of practice. 
“kelli!” 
you both turned your attention towards luke, standing at the entrance of the alley with his sword in hand.
“luke!” kelli said like he was her long lost lover. she batted her eyelashes at him, the murderous grin she had given you melting away to something more enticing. “you came to help me finish her off.”
luke tilted his head. “not exactly.”
luke threw the sword towards you. despite a split second of surprise, you caught it; made a sharp diagonal cut. before kelli knew it, she was reduced to nothing but dust.
you dropped luke’s sword and fell to the pavement, adrenaline coursed through your veins from the first near-death experience you’d had in months. even with your body bruised and broken, fighting was a thrill like no other. 
luke came to kneel in front of you, sneakers crunching over the ashes of his ex-girlfriend.
“you said you were unarmed.” your voice sounded muffled. you spat out another mouthful of blood.
“half-bloods are walking monster bait. i’d be an idiot if i didn’t have any celestial bronze on me.” 
to emphasize his point, luke tucked your switchblade carefully back into your pocket. he moved his hand to the hem of your shirt. it was your instinct to keep him from lifting it up, and he stopped when he noticed your hesitation.
“i’m just trying to see how bad it is,” he informed. his lips then formed a bemused grin. “besides, i’ve already seen everything.”
“shut up,” but you smiled weakly even if it made your cheek hurt.
the skin where kelli had kicked you was turning an alarming shade of purple. luke tried to touch it, but you let out a sharp breath when pain emanated across your ribcage, and he recoiled. 
“okay, we need to get you —”
“i’m fine,” you groaned. you struggled to stand up, but you urged yourself to walk away. in your mind, the scales were already balanced. 
the moral, logical side of you was in danger of yielding to the wicked desire you always tried to suppress — to be with luke, even once more, just like old times. your quest for vengeance could only be stopped by your hunger for something more, and you needed distance from him before you gave in too much.
“i don’t need your help,” you insisted. “i protected you from kelli, and you gave me the sword that saved my life. we’re even.”
you started to limp away, but luke grabbed your side before you could get too far. you yelped at the contact.
“sorry,” he winced. “just — let me at least get you to a hospital.”
“what do i look like, a rockefeller?” you scoffed, and then grimaced when it felt like a giant was crushing you from the inside out. “i can’t afford that. i have some emergency nectar and ambrosia at my place, anyways.”
“let me at least get you back there, then. please.” he grabbed your hand. “i owe you.”
looking into those deep brown eyes, something in your stomach snapped. 
bad habits were always the hardest to break.
“fine,” you coughed. “but one wrong move, and i swear: i’ll go full vampire slayer and pierce a wooden stake through your heart.”
luke nodded once, lips curling into a smile. “seems fair.”
you groaned as luke wrapped his arms around your waist to keep you steady, his hold terribly familiar as he carried you back home. 
(vii. he loved you — and you weren’t sure if that was a fact or a weapon)
your apartment was only a few blocks away. luke must have gotten stronger, because he was able to carry you up the fire escape to avoid too much attention.
“i’m not sure if my roommate is home,” you whispered as luke set you down on the carpet by your bed. “so we should try and be quiet.”
you told him where you kept the supplies. he snuck away and emerged from the bathroom a minute later with clean hands and a first-aid  kit.
luke knelt down in front of you. 
“can i take your shirt off?” 
you nodded, trying to keep your eyes from fluttering closed. you were so bloodied up, more so than you initially let on, so you let luke do whatever he needed to do. he took off your shirt, assessed your injury and apologized when the pressure from his fingers made you wince. he wiped the blood off your lips and coaxed your mouth open to feed you some ambrosia, offer you a sip of nectar. 
there was no doubt about it: luke was taking care of you.
at first, you imagined your bones stitching themselves back together, and maybe some pieces of your heart, too. 
what were the odds that he was manipulating you, though? certainly not zero.
and then you noticed something when he reached over to place the canteen of nectar back with the kit. he was moving slowly, his breathing shallow and fresh blood seeping through his shirt.
“wait. what happened?”
“nothing,” he winced. luke was always good at hiding his pain.
“luke.”
“it was a few days ago. a hellhound bit me when i was trying to escape from….”
kronos’ army. he didn’t need to say it for either of you to remember. 
wordlessly, you switched your positions, led him to prop himself up on the bed frame while you crouched in front of him. 
“can i take this off?”
luke nodded. 
the first thing you noticed was that his muscles were more defined, yet his body was more beat-up than you'd ever seen it. there was a pretty nasty bruise on his shoulder. your eyes traveled down to the bitemark at his hip, and the haphazard stitching job luke must have done to himself. it looked like it could be infected, and with the activity from today, it was no wonder the wound reopened.
like he had done to you just seconds before, you took care of him.
“so…how are our friends?” he exhaled as you ran a cloth over his skin to clean off some of the blood.
our friends. it didn’t feel right that luke could still call them that. 
“i’m guessing you know what happened to chris….” luke grimaced, and you hoped he felt a little guilty at sending one of his best friends into a madness-inducing labyrinth. “clarisse and lena broke up, and neither of them will tell me why. beck is doing fine, always coming up with stuff in the forges. i guess that’s as good as anyone can be now, inventing new weapons for a war none of us wanted.”
you couldn’t help but add that last part. 
“and the kids?” luke asked as though you were divorce parents and he lost the custody battle. 
you looked up at the gray streak in luke’s own hair, remembering that he had manipulated annabeth and percy to hold the weight of the world, a burden that they couldn’t seem to shake.
it made you more than a little uneasy, luke showing any sense of caring for the people he seemed to leave behind and hurt so easily. you wished he hadn’t been so tender and attentive, like all the fighting and animosity had been a bad dream. 
luke just had to make everything so complicated.
“they’re fine, all things considered.”
you didn’t offer anything more, anything less. 
he was quiet for a moment.
“you seem to be doing alright, though?”
you ignored the question completely that time, focusing on getting the job done. you gave luke some ambrosia and nectar, watched as the infection magically disappeared. the wound didn’t completely heal, and there were many bruises that lingered. you were about to give luke some more when he shook his head. 
"you should save the rest for emergencies," he suggested, chin jutting towards your diminishing supplies. "in case something happens."
"is that a threat, castellan?" you asked, only half-joking. 
"no." luke reached out to touch your face, perhaps a move to reassure you, but then he redirected himself. "besides, i'll be fine. just need to cover it with some gauze." 
"you should take a shower before, then. i'll see what we have to eat." 
you helped him up, and sent luke into the bathroom. you changed into clean clothes before going to look for some food.
the ambrosia and nectar made your body feel more powerful than it had in days, even before getting kicked around by a demon cheerleader. no wonder the gods felt invincible, if that was their diet. meanwhile, all you had in your kitchen was a half-empty box of cinnamon poptarts and packets of instant coffee. 
you could hear your roommate singing from behind her closed door. you were quiet in toasting the breakfast pastries, and then slithered back into your room to look for something that would fit luke.
luke didn't hear you knock, so you just entered and closed the door behind you gently. on the bathroom counter, you set a pair of sweatpants that an ex had left behind, along with an oversized shirt of yours. before you could leave, there was a knock on the door. luke heard this one, and poked his head from behind the shower curtain. you gestured at him that you’d take care of it. he nodded, and closed the curtain again.
"yeah?"
"do you have any tampons in there?" your roommate's voice was muffled through the door.
"yeah," you replied. "i'll be out in a minute."
"do you mind if i just come in now? i'm bleeding out, out here." 
you were about to protest, but the doorknob started to turn, and you panicked. you slipped behind the shower curtain with luke, who looked at you wide-eyed. you placed your hand over his mouth before he could say anything. 
you were lucky earlier, that stella's mind was so preoccupied she didn't notice how beat-up luke was. you didn't want to take another chance. you didn't need your roommate asking questions. 
once the sounds of shuffling through cupboards stopped, and you heard a small thank you followed by the door closing, luke bit your palm.
"ow!" you hissed, pulling away from him.
"she's gone,” luke shrugged. “you don't need to muzzle me anymore.”
you rolled your eyes. “i put some clothes out for you, and a clean towel.”
luke caught your wrist before you could leave. 
“wait. my shoulder is killing me. do you mind…would you maybe help me….” 
his question trailed off, and you furrowed your brow when he pointed the shampoo bottle in your direction.
“you practically carried me down 3 blocks and up 4 flights of stairs, but you’re too hurt to wash your own hair?”
“i guess the pain just caught up with me.” his cheeks flushed and he cleared his throat. “sorry, i shouldn’t have —”
something pinched in your chest, hearing him stumble for forgiveness, even if it was so mundane. you caught yourself saying:
“i’ll do it.” 
before you could decide if it was a bad idea or not. you got rid of your shorts and tied your shirt up around your waist to prevent the clothes from getting too wet. luke blushed even more at your panties and exposed stomach, as if he wasn’t fully naked — which you were, of course, trying to ignore.
neither of you said anything as you focused on the task at hand, massaging shampoo and then conditioner into luke’s curls until they were rid of the grime trapped within. all you heard were luke’s soft sighs as your fingers scraped across his scalp and steady stream of water hitting the bathroom tiles. luke seemed so relaxed that his eyelids fluttered closed, and he almost toppled over. with your own sudsy hands, you brought his hands to sit at your waist, steadying him. 
the space was a little foggy, slightly too warm. you and luke had been intimate before, but never like this. it was almost enough to make you forget.
once all the soap was washed away, you brushed your fingers over the scar on his face, down to the sword tattooed along his collarbone, before you realized what you were doing.
“sorry,” you whispered, pulling your hand away.
“it’s okay,” he hummed, and he moved his hand up to brush against the very same tattoo you had on your sternum, touch burning through a layer of cotton.
you wanted his hands elsewhere — around your neck, between your legs.
the water was running cold by then, and it jolted you back to reality.
you had to keep your desires in check. luke was manipulative and cruel and ruthless — you were enemies, not friends or lovers. you weren’t supposed to want him carnally.
you reached behind him to turn the shower off without another word, and left the bathroom so he could get dressed. 
neither of you were armed, but the situation was dangerous. you were barely healing from the claw marks luke left on your life and yet…. 
part of you wanted him to dig his fingers back into those wounds — to feel him again, even if it bled you dry in the end. 
luke’s sword, backbiter, leaned against your windowsill, a menacing reminder of who he had aligned himself with. luke was essentially kronos’ right hand man. he was your enemy.
what were you doing, bringing him into your home, taking care of him and letting him do the same to you?
leaving yourself vulnerable to him, letting your guard down?
now that you thought of it, if his guard was down, you could probably grab your own knife and just —
you heard luke clear his throat and you turned to see him standing in your doorway, shirtless and sweatpants hanging low. it was embarrassing how much you wanted to lap up the drop of water traveling down his chest.
luke must have noticed, so cleared his throat again. your body felt warm all over when you met his gaze, and he gave you an annoyingly confident smirk.
“so, here’s the thing. i’m pretty sure you’re either thinking about wanting to kill me, or wanting to fuck me.” 
you rolled your eyes at his arrogance, but couldn’t help but play along. 
“sounds like you’ve accepted your fate either way.”
“well, i do have a preference,” he quipped. “i just don’t particularly care as long as it's in your hands.”
it didn’t get past you that luke was checking you out, too, eye trailing over the exposed skin of your legs and lingering on where the t-shirt hugged your chest. 
how bad would it be to, for one night, indulge? no concern about what was right or wrong, about titans or gods; no worries about what a prophecy foretold or which side of a war you’re on. 
just you and luke: giving into your own twisted desires, and dealing with the consequences later.
another droplet trickled down luke’s torso. it disappeared underneath the band of his sweatpants, and you just couldn’t take it anymore.
you strode over to him, about to crash your lips into his when —
luke stopped you with a hand wrapped around your neck.
“no kissing,” he warned. 
“what’s the matter?” you smirked. “i thought you liked it when i bite. worried that you’ll turn away from the dark side if i do?”
luke swallowed thickly.
you were taunting him, relishing in how his breath caught in his throat and gaze seemed fixed on your lips.
it was cute, how luke tried to hold onto some semblance of control, but couldn’t hide the slight tremble in his voice. 
“no kissing. that’s my only condition.”
“okay.” you took off your shirt, positioned yourself on the bed to punctuate your point. “as long as you’re fine sleeping with the enemy, castellan.”
luke stared for a few seconds before accepting his fate. 
he caged you in with his arms, settling his hips between your legs. his lips traveled down your tattooed sternum, nipping and sucking and re-bruising your skin until he reached the waistband of your panties. luke pulled it up with his teeth, the elastic snapping back when he let go. you whined his name and he looked up at you with dark eyes. 
“can i?” his breath fanned over your navel, his nails digging into your hips as he waited for your answer.  
“yes. please.”
you hadn’t meant to sound so desperate, but you could feel luke smirk against your inner thigh before sinking his teeth into it. you whimpered, and luke salved his tongue over the area to ease the sting before removing your underwear. he positioned your legs over his shoulder for better access to where you needed him most.
luke manipulated his tongue and fingers in all the ways he knew ruined you. in return, you gripped his black curls, tightly, and uttered praise in all the ways you knew ruined him. 
“just like that, pretty boy,” you encouraged, practically melting into the mattress. it felt so good — dangerously good — to be devoured by luke. “keep doing a good job and i’ll return the favor later.”
luke’s moan vibrated throughout your body and he became harsher, bringing you over the edge. he left a few more bites on your body on his way up to meet you and when he did, luke’s lips and chin were still shining with your release.
you leaned forward slightly to lick it up. you ghosted your mouth over his, and luke groaned when you pulled away.
“no kissing,” you mocked and ran your thumb over his tattooed collarbone. 
luke tightened his grip on your hips, surely leaving bruises for later. his eyes feral, his curls a terrible mess, when he grumbled:
“you’re such a —”
you twisted your calf around luke’s leg and you flipped your positions before he could finish his sentence. he grunted as his back hit the mattress. 
“don’t worry, sweetheart. i’ll still take care of you,” you drawled, starting to trail your tongue down luke’s body, occasionally incorporating your teeth or sucking brutally, imprinting a constellation of bites and bruises. his skin smelled like your pomegranate mango body wash, and it was more than a little intoxicating.
you weren’t soft or gentle, because you knew how luke liked you — rough, raw, a little ruthless. luke once told you that the wounds you left on his body weren’t the type that left him bitter; they were the type of wounds he wished would never heal.   
in a moment of weakness, you left a kiss — just one — on the semi-healed wound on his hip. luke sighed at the gesture and reached a hand down to gently brush his fingers against your cheek. 
“i missed you so much, karma,” luke almost sobbed. 
slightly shaken out of your lust, you weren’t sure whether to smirk at the hold you had on him, or sob at the reality that you missed him too. 
sensing your hesitation, luke removed his hand and told you to continue.  
you made quick work of luke’s sweatpants. luke, already hard and throbbing, didn’t last long with your lips wrapped around him. you swallowed him whole, and then some. 
“always such a good girl for me,” luke praised when you were face to face with him once more. his thumb swiped over your wet lips to gather what you missed. you granted him access to push into your mouth, and luke groaned when you hollowed out your cheeks and sucked his thumb clean. your teeth scraped the skin on his way out. 
what followed was a brief squabble over who should be on top. you won out. 
there you were, luke sitting up against the headboard, you on his lap with his length nestled in your cunt. you scraped your nails down luke’s chest, and then curled your hands around the base of his neck. he gripped either side of your waist, thumbs pressing circles into your back encouragingly. luke looked up at you in awe, desperate sighs leaving his mouth as you rutted your hips against his. it felt sinful and wonderful, feeling luke buried deep inside you again, stretching you deliciously. the two of you exchanging animalistic grunts as you used the other's body, chased your high.
when you rolled your hips into his at just the right angle, luke’s moans turned into whines. 
“fuck it. please — kiss me.”
you stilled your hips, and luke whined some more. “are you sure?” you asked, breathing heavily.
luke nodded and gently moved you to lay on your back with him hovering over you. he leaned close, nudging the tip of his nose against yours. 
“please,” luke pleaded once more.
his brown eyes looked down at you with such hunger and passion, something deep within you ached. 
you kissed each other harshly, then. you still tasted him on your tongue and yourself on his. his sharp nose cut into your cheek, mouth attacking yours and vice versa. your nails pierced the skin of his shoulder as he resumed thrusting into you at a vicious pace. luke kept gnawing on your bottom lip until he made you bleed. you groaned, and he slipped his tongue back into your mouth to savor your coppery taste.
yes, luke could also be rough and raw and a little ruthless — which you always loved. but you knew, regardless, you were safe with him in that moment. all he wanted was for you to feel good.
you yanked his curls to force luke to look at you. he whimpered at having to detach himself from your lips.
“i missed you too, tiger,” you finally admitted, calling him that old affectionate nickname you promised yourself you would never use again.  “i missed you so fucking much.” 
luke gave you that troublesome smile of his. you connected your lips once more. you wrapped your legs around his waist to bring him impossibly closer, and luke wrapped an arm around your back to do the same. 
it wasn’t long until you both reached your peak, collapsing back onto the soft mattress, chests heaving. you each lied down on your side, facing each other. you admired luke’s mess of curls, his swollen-kiss-bitten lips, the rose-petal bruises you had left.
you wished the post-sex haze lasted longer, but then luke had to disturb it by saying:
“what you said earlier — i never think of you as my enemy, you know.”
you sighed and covered your face with your hand. “luke —”
“never,” luke insisted. he inched closer, took your hand in his and held it to his chest. 
you were overwhelmed by his heartbeat, strong and fast, so you pulled yourself away.
“we’re fighting on different sides,” you pointed out.
you could’ve said more, but all the things that have been said and done already hung heavy in the air, reoccupying the space between you and bursting your brief moment of peace.
“but we’ve always been fighting for the same thing.”
maybe that was true.
in theory, you weren’t against overthrowing the gods. but you couldn't reconcile with everything luke had done, what he was willing to do. you couldn't let your friends and thousands of innocent people die in the name of divine beings who valued power and control over all else. you couldn't hurt or betray people you loved for the sake of revenge. you couldn't turn that love against them, the way luke had, in search of justice. 
deep down, you knew it wasn’t right to have him there in bed with you. if it was so wicked, sinful, treacherous — then why did you want him to stay?
“i’m not sure they have a word for what we are,” you concede, returning to the conversation moments ago. 
"i guess not."
you let luke bring you into his arms that time. you rested your head against his chest. his heartbeat still steady, but a little slower. you idly traced your fingers across the marks you left on him, and you avoided the ones you didn't.
"how's your shoulder?" 
"it's okay," luke sighed. he lifted your chin between his thumb and forefinger. "whatever we are: i love you." 
those weren’t the words that were meant to make you sick, but your stomach churned — with nausea or desire, you weren’t sure.
you moved to straddle his hips. your eyes glanced over a scar you didn't register until now. the cut you had sliced across his cheek that afternoon he tried to kill percy, and then ran away from camp. you had a similar one that he had given you during that same struggle. 
matching tattoos, matching scars. there really was no word for what you and luke were to each other. 
"i love you too.”
at some point throughout the night, with luke’s strong arms wrapped around you and your legs intertwined beneath tangled sheets, it occurred to you that luke must have tracked you down for a particular reason.
maybe he was here to convince you to join kronos' army, to help him overthrow the gods and burn the world as you knew it; maybe he was here to break your heart all over again, just for the sick thrill of it; maybe he did just want to have one more night together, enemies or otherwise. maybe, maybe, maybe.
luke’s soft snores lulled you to sleep, and you couldn’t bring yourself to care about the scales of justice.
you'd figure it out in the morning. then you'd decide whether or not he deserved a blade to the heart.
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samberrybay · 4 months
Text
This part in 32 chp always felt kind of odd to me and this is the reason why:
The coward wolf boy, Lock. Until Choi Han found him, Lock had been hiding as the chief had told him. The Lock at that point is very much a coward, a weakling, and kind of slow. In simple terms, Lock easily took the position of the character that readers found to be extremely frustrating.
This has bothered me since I first read the novel, and to this day, even after several rereads, it still haunts me.
Cale simply isn't the type of a person to actually call a kid, no matter how they behave, to be "frustrating".
(When the text said "readers" it's damn well obvious of Cale being the one to think so.)
Pondering for some time I can roughly guess why the wording was so unexpected for his character.
At the time of the assassination/kindaping in the village, Lock was only thirteen years old. He also hasn't had his first berserk transformation yet. Therefore it is not surprising that Lock's uncle hid him and told not to go out, saying that everything was fine and he should continue to hide.
Now let's look at the situation realistically.
Lock (in tcf) jumps out of his hiding to protect his younger siblings. The adrenaline and inner Blue Wolf Tribe's instincts to protect turned on his berserk transportation one year beforehand, however if not Rosalyn and Choi Han, who came earlier than in the actual novel, i don't think it would help much.
Lock would possibly be able to kill a few people or at least seriously injure them, but CMON. They killed an ENTIRE village full of berserk Blue Wolf's and with almost-Wolf King (Lock's uncle). Do you really believe that a thirteen years old boy jumping into his first berserk transformation would be able to fight properly against strong organization that had holy water or some sort of holy artefact on their hands?
Again, if not for Choi Han's and Rosalyn's arrival... it would have definitely ended pretty bad.
In TBOAH Lock for some reason didn't jump out. Different circumstances, wrong wroted part in the novel, idk, but the fact is stated: Lock stayed hidden. He also most likely survived only because of Choi Han's help. Just with much worse scenario where he was left alone from the whole village.
And it wasn't Lock's fault yet again. He was a child. No matter if a Beastman one or not, the boy was just an innocent, naive and weak child.
So why would Cale, Kim Rok Soo at the time, find him frustrating? Extremely so even!
The answer is much easier if you think about it.
Because it wasn't Kim Rok Soo blaming a kid for being weak and cowardly in a fearful situation, it was a man who saw his own past that he hated so much.
A coward, a weakling and kind of slow.
For Rok Soo, who blamed himself for half of his life for the deaths of team one members, Lock was like a salt for still open, but ignored wounds.
KRS greatly disliked and maybe even envied Lock for a bit. The boy got a new family, he got friends and some sort of guidance from them even after facing so much despair.
While he was all alone, trying to understand what to do on his own.
It sure is irritating for Rok Soo.
Yet Team Leader Kim Rok Soo was probably unable to fully hate Lock for his weakness, because while the latter was still a kid, the same forgiveness can't be used on him. At least in his own head.
So with conflicting feelings Cale settled on "Extremely frustrating" description.
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lyak12 · 16 days
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Lucy bronze x reader. They just had a tough game and reader had a lot of back pain and Lucy helps her and massages her and takes care of her. Some fluff :)
I have your back
A/N: This was just so cute. Again it's not very long, only about 1k words, and I'm honestly half asleep right now so I don't know if this is any good but I couldn't help but see how Lucy would see right through readers facade at this req. Not proofread, and again, I'm a bit rusty, but still, I hope you enjoy!
Warnings: None I can think of, if you see something lmk:)
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It's your first season playing for Barça and you love it. Especially since you're reunited with your girlfriend again. Lucy and you play both for the English national team and have been dating for over two years now.
As Lucy had moved to Barcelona about a year into your relationship, you had been scared that your relationship wouldn't last, but you quickly realized that your love had known no distance.
Nevertheless, as the opportunity arose for you to join her in Barcelona, you had jumped on it, and it's been the best decision you made.
Life with Lucy in Barcelona is great. The weather is unbelievable and the food to die for.
-----------
It's is your second time starting for Barça and since you were one of the best teams in the league, you hadn't expected the game to be so rough. Not rough in the team is super strong, but rough in you felt like you're playing rugby.
It's around the 70th minute, Barcelona is in the lead with 6:0 as you jump up for the header. It's a beautiful pass from Lucy and it finds you perfectly. However, before you can even head the ball in, you feel a player from the other team jumping in your back.
You fall to the ground without being able to really catch yourself, landing mostly on your back, which causes the wind to get knocked out of you.
You groan as you try to catch your breath. For a moment, everything is black. As you open your eyes again a moment later, the first thing you see are your girlfriend's worried eyes.
"Are you okay y/n/n? That was an ugly fall", Lucy asks, worried, her northern accent coming out thickly when she's worried. "Yeah, I think so", you say and try to sit up. Your back is killing you.
The medics come running towards you to make sure you're alright and didn't get injured in the fall. They notice you're still breathing a bit shallow, but from what they can tell, nothing is seriously wrong. They help you up, and you stretch your back slightly.
You stay on the field, partly because you are too stubborn to admit you are in pain and partly because you feel like you need to prove yourself on the new team. "Are you sure?", Lucy asks, worried but you just nod.
Your back is in agony the rest of the game, but you push through. As the game is over and you win 7:0, you can't help but celebrate with the others on the team. However, Lucy can look right through your facade.
She keeps a hand on your back gently and makes sure you take it easy without causing much attention. After a nice hot shower, all of you get dressed and get back on the bus to drive back.
You wince slightly as you sit down, the bus seat certainly not helping your back. Lucy just smiles sadly before patting her lap. Normally, she's a bit more reserved in front of the team, but right now, her whole focus is on getting you as comfortable as possible until you're home.
You curl up on her and end up dozing off a little. The drive back luckily wasn't that long back to the headquarters. Once you all got off, Alexia and a few others asked, "Do you guys wanna get some food with us?".
Lucy knows you'd never tell your new captain no, so she's quick to answer, "Not tonight, I think we'll call it an early night and get some well needed recovery done. Thank you, though. You guys have fun." Alexia just nods with a smile, knowing how important recovery is for Lucy's knee.
That Lucy is feeling completely fine is beside the point.
"Why did you turn them down?", you ask softly, trying to appear tough, but Lucy sees right through you. "Because you're in pain, love. And I'd rather spend the rest of the night to make you feel better than going out to eat", Lucy says as she kisses your forehead, and you just smile softly.
The way home is not far, thankfully, and once you're in the privacy of your apartment, you can no longer keep the facade up. "Bloody hell, this hurts", you say as you lean on the kitchen counter. "Yeah, that was a pretty rough fall. I can't believe you kept playing after that", Lucy says, gently rubbing over your shoulder.
"Don't act like you wouldn't have", you say with a raised eyebrow as you look at your girlfriend. "Guilty, but we both know I would've gotten an earful from you as soon as we were home", Lucy says with a chuckle, and you just laugh slightly before you wince. Laughing hurts.
"Come on. Let's get you on the bed so I can massage your back", Lucy says, gently ushering you to the bedroom. "Luce, you don't have to. You must be tired and.. ", you try to argue, but Lucy interrupts, "Close that cute mouth and lay down on the bed, take off your shirt. This is not up for debate."
You know that tone, so you do as you're told and lay down on the bed on your stomach, top less. Before you know it, you feel Lucy straddle your thighs as she spreads some oil on your back and starts massaging.
You normally love Lucy's hands on you, but at the beginning, with your muscles being so tense, it's just painful. You can't help but groan a few times, and Lucy says gently, "I know, I'm sorry. Try to relax, baby."
Eventually, you do relax, and your tense muscles are starting to loosen up. By the time Lucy feels accomplished with her massage, you were fast asleep. This game took it out of you, and Lucy can't help but smile at you.
Kissing your head a few times, she gets ready for bed herself before crawling in with you and tucking you both in. You instinctively cuddle into her chest, and she just pulls you close, pressing a kiss on your forehead before mumbling, "I love you, sleep well, Baby."
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Note
could I request headcanons of uvo, chrollo, and phinks with a little sibling figure reader in the troupe and she’s ten years old maybe? :) platonic ofc . tysm and it’s ok if u can’t do this request ! (If three characters is too much just uvogin is ok ^_^)
Of course! I hope you enjoy!
Uvogin, Chrollo, and Phinks with a little sibling figure in the troupe
Warnings: none
Female! Reader
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Uvo:
I know Uvo’s a violent man, but I feel like he would be the softest in the world with you, which is unusual because he helped kill an entire clan, including the children
-I mean first of all, he’s very impressed by the fact that your a ten year old and also in the freaking phantom troupe, with enough training you could even defeat him over time!
-He very quickly decides he’s gonna look out for you wether it be in training, missions, or just when your all hanging around waiting for orders
-Speaking of training, he wants to see you reach your full potential as soon as possible, so he spars with you often. He won’t go easy on you, but he won’t seriously injure you either, he’s very aware that your both physically smaller and more mentally immature than he is (at his old ass age) so he’s aware that he has an advantage when it comes to fighting
-You learn a lot from fighting him though, he may make harmless taunts every now and then but he gives very constructive criticism and it does help improve your fighting skills significantly, perks of sparring with one of the strongest troupe members I guess
-He play whatever games you want in during times when there’s nothing to do, especially when your on guard duty with nothing to entertain you. He makes a surprisingly good playmate (he’ll let you play with his hair too)
-He keeps an eye on you during missions, but he’s well aware you can hold your own, you wouldn’t be in the troupe otherwise. That being said, if something gets serious enough (like Kurapika’s case for example) then he won’t hesitate to defend you with his life. There’s not a lot of people he’s willing to die for, but you’re one of them
-I kinda see him like a cool uncle more then a brother, idk why but he just gives off those vibes
Chrollo:
-I think Chrollo’s quite fond of children personally, he’ll still kill them if their in the way of achieving a goal but I don’t think he enjoys it and he also wouldn’t kill a child for no reason like he would an adult
-He’s very impressed by your power level, your a very useful addition to the troupe and he plans on utilizing that as much as possible
-But he does genuinely come to care for you later on though, that’s not surprising considering how the troupes practically family anyways
-He let’s you sit with him during meetings if you want, your also the only troupe member that’s allowed to touch him without explicit permission beforehand
-He doesn’t involve himself too much with you, but he does keep an eye on you more than he does the others, you may be powerful but your still young, it’s not easy living this kinda life at your age
-He’s the one to introduce you to the troupe and he’s also the one to make sure you get acquainted with the troupe without any issue, he can and will threaten any troupe member that is too unkind to you
-Like Uvo, he’s not concerned about you during missions, he’s very well aware of your powers, he’s probably the most familiar with them out of all the troupe members since he had to recruit you
-I honestly can’t see him treating you too differently from the other troupe members, your tough, you have incredible potential, he doesn’t see the need to coddle you like some of the other members might
Phinks:
-He’s skeptical if you at first, why did Chrollo choose you of all people? The troupe is no place for a child as young as you
-After seeing you fight for the first time though he’s immediately like “damn maybe she does belong in here” and now he’s curious as to how you turned out this way in the first place
-Phinks doesn’t approach you right away, he ops to observe you from afar for awhile, but the longer your in the troupe the more you inevitably interact
-For some reason, the two of you are put on missions often, so you grow very attached to him and he’s very confused about it. He has no idea why you cling to him specifically but he gets used to it after some time
-He’s definitely the most protective of you out of the group, he’ll never let you know how much you’ve grown on him but he makes sure nobody bothers you
-Especially on missions, in theory he knows you can hold your own but when your actually fighting and in danger he tries to do the bulk of the fighting no matter how much you protest
-He’s afraid to train with you because he fears he might hurt you, he’s a tough dude who doesn’t hold back when fighting so he’s not sure how well he could hold his strength against you
-He’ll “begrudgingly” (not really tho) play games with you if you ask him nice enough, but he’ll make lighthearted complaints the entire time
-Fears that your gonna die during your time in the troupe, it’s a very dangerous job and your super young compared to most of the guys they fight
-We have a tsundere older brother over here everyone lol
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vikkirosko · 29 days
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Ok so I’ve read all ur stuff for Adam x reader and now I need to send a request so here it goes!
Could I get Adam in a relationship with a suuuuuper sweet reader like they’re polar opposites but their relationship is freakin amazing and Adam is all jokey and not very serious when he comes to the hotel for the extermination until Alastor pulls an uno reverse and pulls out reader to get the upper hand on Adam
I know it’s not much but I’ve had this idea floating around in my head since the last episode came out and I need drama! 🤣 You can choose how it ends or change it how you need to but ur stuff has been great and I’d love to see what you can do with it! 😊😊😊
🎸 Adam x Reader headcanons Dirty trick✨️
There were many good things in Heaven. Adam could do almost anything he wanted. But the best thing that happened to him was getting to know you. You were the lightest, sweetest and friendliest person he had ever met. The fact that you started dating him was the reason for his joy. Your relationship was unlike any of his previous ones. He was really happy. On the day of the extermination, he went to Hell in high spirits, knowing that he would return to you very soon
He treated everything that was happening without much seriousness, including the battle with Alastor. The sinner annoyed him, but not so much that he was really angry. This went on until suddenly, you appeared in Alastor's hands. At that moment, Adam's composure cracked. You shouldn't have been there. You should have stayed in Heaven. But here you were, taken hostage and now your life was in danger
Adam began to fight much more fiercely. He didn't want you to see him like this, but now there were no other options. He was supposed to protect you and bring you back to Heaven. He wanted to kill Alastor, but he could only injure him. The fact that he escaped meant less than the fact that you were safe again. He told you to stay on the roof and run away if there was even a hint of danger. Adam was going to deal with all this as soon as possible, and already at home he talked to you about how it was too risky to go after him
You saw Adam fight against Lucifer's daughter, and then against Lucifer himself, and all you could do was hope that he would return home alive, and when Lucifer did not kill him, you breathed a sigh of relief. You were going to help Adam at least get up, but you didn't get close to him. He was killed right in front of your eyes. You felt your legs weaken and you sank to the ground, and tears began to flow down your cheeks. You wanted to scream, but the scream got stuck in your throat and your head started spinning
Lute took you back to Heaven, where you were consumed by your grief. You cried until you ran out of strength. Lute visited you and made sure that you didn't forget to take care of yourself. She knew how much Adam loved you and couldn't let you ruin yourself. It was hard for both of you and you both tried to cope with your grief, but Lute intended to fight on, and you hoped that you would be able to meet Adam again, if not in this life, then perhaps in the next
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yutas-girlfriend · 7 months
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megumi x reader oneshot
you and megumi get into an argument about your safety.
warnings: nothing too nsfw, makeout, yelling
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looking him dead in the eyes, without a hint of hesitation, you notice his eyes flare like a fire being fed with gasoline. his jaw clenches and he swiftly grabs your wrist urgently and begins stomping away. a look of confusion and excitement spreads accross your face as the rest of the group begins to chatter once more.
you’ve always known how to press megumis buttons. hes an easy target, practically anything can annoy him to the point of snapping, and you fed off it. you were an excellent fighter both physically and with words, and so was megumi. you fought day in and day out since your return to jujutsu tech, but this was different. this was not a normal friend fight. the only thing you didn’t enjoy arguing about was your safety. he was no saint, definitely a rule breaker, but not in a way that would jeopardize his ability to see you again. you on the other hand, were a rule breaker without many boundaries. you often found yourselves fighting about the situations you got yourself into, and the possible danger.
he dragged you into the nearest classroom and sat down on one of the few desks. it was dark, with only the sunset shining through the windows. you wanted to get this over with, it was getting late now. you begin rubbing your temples, as he exhales sharply.
“i just dont want you to get hurt. you have to understand where im coming from, don’t you?“ he says sharply, looking at your face once more.
“i never said i didn’t understand, but i’m fine. i always am. name one time i’ve been seriously hurt.” the words sting as they come out of your mouth. you already know whats coming next. he huffs, and a small sarcastic chuckle leaves him.
“name one? just one fucking time of the hundreds youve been seriously injured? are you kidding me?” he begins standing and walking towards you, stopping a few inches from your face. “i didnt see you for months because you went on that stupid mission that almost got you killed! ” he says loudly. “what about the time you decided to be a hero and go back for that woman? or the time you jumped in front of me? you are lucky to be alive.” he says pointing at you as he stares daggers into your eyes. you’re no pussy, so you stand staring back at him, not breaking eye contact for a second. he’s breathing heavily, his arms hanging loosely. your pissed, but even when the rage he fuels you with is flowing in your veins, you have to admit hes beautiful. he has a tall, slender but purely muscular frame. his jet black hair is messy but purposely, it sits softly framing his face. his bright eyes gleam in the sun light, as the bright beams bounce around the room, reflecting off the perfectly polished button on his jacket. but by far, one of his best features, were his lips. never dry, always perfectly plump and a soft pink colour, even though he bit them when he was angry, uncomfortable or nervous. you allow yourself a swift momentary glance at his lips. his breathing hitches for a moment. shit. he noticed. he looks at yours. shit. hes still breathing as if hes angry, the rage from before still sitting with you both. you continue breathing heavily and staring at each other, but the anger is slowly fading. it seems to be replaced by something else, something deeper. lust?
in the blink of an eye, he grips your face from above as he steps forwards and kisses you roughly. you grip the sides of his neck as you continue. he moves his hands slowly downward to your hips as you press yourself to his chest. you pull closer and suck his lip gently, clearly igniting something within him. you place your leg upwards towards his hip as he moves his hands to your thighs, lifting you up and onto the counter by the wall. he moves his hands to your hips and pulling you closer to him. you grab his hair in your hand, pulling his face as close as it could possibly be to your own. wrapping your legs around his waist, you pull his hips against your own. he kisses you harder, and you let out a small hum at the feeling.
suddenly, he pulls his mouth from yours, a string of saliva between you. he looks drunk, eyes droopy and hair messy. he kisses you one more, but softer, much more tender this time. he holds your face in his hands and you place your own over top. he pulls away once more and rests his forehead against your own. “please be careful,” he mumbles, placing his face in the crook of your neck. your hands find his again, and you turn your head slightly so he can hear. “i’ll try,” you say quietly back.
he lets out a sigh of relief.
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matan4il · 1 month
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Daily update post:
A 47 years old mother and her 15 years old son were seriously injured in a Hezbollah rocket attack today, aimed at the northern city of Kiryat Shmona. I'll just point out that even though the Iran-funded terrorism group always claims their attacks on Israelis are a retaliation for this or for that, they chose to open fire at Israel on Oct 7 (when this country was busy with Hamas terrorists still infiltrating it in the south), and they haven't stopped since.
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I just wanted to show you what it looks like when Israel's border is being fired at, but please keep in mind that Iron Dome was only implemented in 2011, but we have been fired at by one hostile entity or another (often more than one) for a very long time. I can't remember a time when we weren't afraid of rockets being fired at us. And Iron Dome, as demonstrated again today, with all due respect to it, is like every other defence system: it's not foolproof. Any person who wouldn't accept being at the receiving end of these rocket barrages, has no right to demand that Israel continues to accept this distorted reality.
(audio: Golda Meir)
So this is a reminder that this is what Israel has been dealing with almost non-stop since Oct 7 from several fronts.
Here in Israel, we continue to follow with alarm the rise of antisemitic incidents around the globe. This time, I have to share with you this horrifying bit of news, about a Jewish student, Lahav Shapira, being beaten so badly, that he had to be hospitalized and undergo surgery for the facial injuries that he endured at the hands of an Arab (so called "pro-Palestinian") student. Police says this was following an argument over the war in Gaza, Lahav's family says he and his gf were stalked, then he was jumped, while the attacker shouted, "Why are you posting pictures of kidnapped people?" To make matters worse, this happened in Berlin, and Lahav is the grandson of an Israeli athelete who was murdered by Palestinian terrorists in Germany, while he was participating in the 1972 Olympic Games. Berlin's Free University's response was weak, focused on explaining that the law prevents them from expelling the attacking student.
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While ignorant social media users insist that what's happening to the Palestinians is a genocide, the niece of Qatar-based Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh gave birth in an Israeli hospital. Her baby was born prematurely, and is taken care of in the NICU. Haniyeh has 3 sisters who married Israeli Bedouin Arabs, got Israeli citizenship through that, and live in Israel with full citizen rights. I've worked with so many victims of actual cases of genocide, and NONE went to get medical treatment from the people who were massacring them.
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I've now seen Tumblr posts accusing Israel of bombing over one million people in Rafah. These are posts referring to the rescue raid, where Israeli soldiers raided one apartment, SAVED two hostages, and then left. If you're trying to save two hostages from terrorists who would kill their prisoners and themselves first, you wanna sneak in there as discreetly as possible. You wouldn't bomb an entire city. Even Hamas' false spin, blaming Israel of a massacre (and don't forget that Hamas is the organization telling the world how many died during this operation), didn't try to claim that the IDF attacked the whole population of the city. There's something insanely wrong in a reality where people on social media uncritically pass along lies that not even a terrorist organization dares to tell.
The graduating student in the cap is Matan Levi.
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He studied law, and was about to have his graduation ceremony when Hamas' massacre took place. He left everything, and went south to fight as a reservist that verey day. On Oct 14, he was hit by a mortar, and when he woke up in the hospital, he discovered that he had lost his eyesight. According to his own account, that was very hard to hear, but his first thought was regarding how this won't break him, how he can move on from this. Since then, he's been accompanied by a former soldier named Amit Barel:
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Amit fought and was injured in the Second Lebanon War, back in 2006. He lost his sight, too. He has since developed a career, married, and had kids. He's a part of a program where wounded former soldiers are helping those who have been recently injured to cope with their new challenges. He said that simply seeing that life is possible even with serious injuries is very helpful to a lot of the newly wounded soldiers. I thought it's inspirational, how people can put their misfortune to good use, to help others, how these new bonds and friendships get formed, so I wanted to share the story of this touching project.
But I also wanted to reflect on how Israel is a society of wounded people. Not just physically. We have the collective trauma caused by thousands of years of antisemitic persecution, including the Holocaust and the expulsion of Mizrachi Jews from Arab and Muslim countries, and we have the on going trauma caused by the continued use of violence against us in a war that was started against us in 1947, and has never really ended, whatever form it has taken at different points in time. No one has a right to speak about this conflict, unless they're willing to acknowledge this hurt, too.
(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)
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slashersteve · 2 years
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A Little Closer
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pairing: Steve Harrington/Female Reader
summary: There is a time and place to proclaim your love for somebody, and being injured and trapped in the Upside Down is not one of them.
warnings/extra tags: cursing, reader and steve arguing for no reason, and some kissing tm. >>>SPOILERS FOR ST4<<<, not beta read i edited myself but can't be trusted either.
note: I haven't written an imagine for him in a hot minute, and I say this because I have an ongoing series so check out my masterlist ;) Anyway, I wrote this with a dream my friend had about him in mind (she knows who she is). Thanks in advance for reading and please enjoy!
✧ ✧ ✧
You liked Steve Harrington, a lot. And have since you first met in that junk yard years ago when you were introduced to the creatures of this other dimension they called ‘the Upside Down’
Only then you just liked him, because these days you were pretty sure you were hopelessly in love with the guy. This didn’t mean he couldn’t get on your nerves though, especially when he treated you like you incapable of doing literally anything.
"No, you're not going down there."
Steve's voice was firm as he spoke, his words directed at you as you were starting to unbutton your Hawkins Letterman jacket, preparing to dive into Lover’s Lake and see if this gate was down there like Dustin theorized.
"Says who?" You bit back as you were pulling the jacket off, "Robin said Nancy was in charge, not you, Steve."
"Yeah well, I was the co-captain of the swim team and have had life guard certification for 3 years, so logically, it should be me," Steve stated as he too began to undress starting with his shoes all the while Eddie, Nancy, and Robin just watched. You scoffed at him.
"And I was the Captain of the girls swim and water polo team, and have had my certification for 3 and a half years,” you replied, “Can someone tell me which is better?"
They looked awkwardly at each other until Robin began to speak.
"I mean...technically speaking you both had similar responsibilities as a captain and co-captain, but I mean…” her eyes went to Steve who was looking at her with raised brows, “She doesn't have the co in front of hers and didn't have to share responsibility, and uh…her certification beats yours by half a year…so...I would say hers is better."
Steve shot a look at Robin as he was taking off one shoe as fast as he could.
"Gee. Thanks for taking my side Robin," he told her with a scoff while Robin shrugged and claimed she only said so because you asked, "It's just dangerous alright? There could be a gate down there, or worse Vecna could be there- and I don't think you should-"
"Look, out of everyone here I feel like I've been the most useless, and I'm taking the chance to do my part," you explained briefly, "Let me do this because I can do this."
"I know you can, but that doesn't mean you should-"
“And why not? No matter who goes down there the risks are all the same,” you said tearing your t-shirt off now, leaving you in just a tank top and your Hawkins gym shorts. 
Steve was untying his other shoe now, trying not to become distracted by your sudden loss of layers, and argued, “Yes, but I don’t want you to take the risk-”
“So anyone but me can?” You gave him an odd look, one that made Steve shake his head quickly.
“No- No I didn’t say-”
"Okay. Are you two seriously going to argue who gets to swim to a possible underwater gate to another dimension where yet another thing is trying to kill us?" Robin was asking, successfully making you and Steve finally go quiet, “Is this a regular occurrence? Arguing over who gets to do risky shit? Because I think this happened last time too.” 
She remembered how when coming up with a plan to infiltrate what they thought to be a simple stock room at Starcourt, Steve argued against pretty much any plan that involved you risking your life. Many valuable minutes were wasted with arguments like this with you two going back and forth. 
It was almost embarrassing honestly that Steve didn’t realize how into you he actually was or how into him you were because for everyone else on this boat, and on the shore line, it was pretty obvious and has been for quite some time. This was just more evidence of it.
“No, we’re not arguing because we all already decided I’m going,” Steve said, making you laugh and toss your shirt at him before he could even think about taking his other shoe off. It hit his face and momentarily blinded him.
“We decided? No, you decided. Are you implying this needs to be voted on Steve?”
Steve took your shirt in his hands, and looked back at you, “Well maybe it should be- Robin who do you think-” 
“I think the one who is already ready to go should go, you still have one shoe on and she does not,” Robin replied quickly as she was shoving the flashlight in the plastic bag Eddie had handed to her.
Steve groaned, “Are you never going to take my side or something Robin? I’m getting hurt over here.” 
You were twisting your neck side to side, a pleasant smile on your lips that Robin chose you, but it hadn’t compared to when Nancy finally spoke up. 
“Let her do it," Nancy told Steve, then cringed as her eyes went to yours, "Not because I think you're useless or anything, but I've been to enough swim meets for the paper throughout the year to know she's damn good…and she does hold the Hawkins High record for how long she could hold her breath...she can do it, Steve." 
It was always nice to have Nancy Wheeler on your side, especially when it was Steve on the opposite side. He always seemed to listen to her and take her words to heart and while other times in this friendship of yours he seemed to drop everything and listen to her it made you feel a tad bit jealous, this time you felt satisfied. 
“And like I said, I know she can, better than me, and certainly better than the rest of you, but what if-”
“Dude I’m about to dive down there just so I don’t have to hear you argue for another minute,” Eddie interrupted for the first time since your argument started, “I mean, I’m not going to, of course, but the fact that I was tempted to says a lot. You just gotta trust your girl, Harrington.” 
All eyes went to him besides yours at his statement. You kept your gaze trained on Steve, seeing his expression turn from grumpy to confusion then to what you confused with amusement rather than nervousness.
“What? My girl? She isn’t…” he laughed, and you hated how a small part of your heart cracked, “She isn’t my girl, if anything she’s all of our girl-” he cleared his throat as he realized how weird that sounded, “I mean, she’s nobody’s girl, but definitely, definitely not mine-” 
Nancy cringed at Steve’s words, and Robin had rolled her eyes for you while Eddie just raised a brow. You were frowning now, turning away from all them after you snatched the flashlight from Robin with a little too much force. Her eyes snapped to yours, being the only one to see your aggravated expression and understanding why. 
While Steve’s concern was appreciated and not exactly unwanted, you were starting to get annoyed with him. Sometimes it really felt like when he was with you and the kids…he just saw you as one of the kids he had to keep an eye on and not as… something else.
Well, he didn’t get to tell you what to do, especially now when everyone was on your side and not his. So, without much of a warning, you dived into Lover's Lake.
The splash of the water had captured their attention, especially Steve’s and when he saw you were no longer in the boat. He cursed and looked over the edge and saw nothing but the darkness of the water. 
“Dammit! I should’ve known she’d do that!” he said as he gripped the edge of the boat. 
Why did you have to be so reckless sometimes? It seriously stresses Steve out, from you throwing him out of the way from that Demodog and getting smacked by it yourself despite it being your first encounter with one to you flirting with the guards at Starcourt and to now jumping into the lake to see if there’s a gate down there. One obviously was more dangerous than the others, but he wished you would just stop.
He was taking his shirt off now, obviously going to dive and swim down after you until someone's hand hit the back of his head just as he got the shirt off. 
“Ow, hey-”
“Don’t be dumb, Steve!” Robin told him, “She’s going to be fine. Nance, how long can she hold her breath?” 
Nancy answered, and it was more than a minute longer than Steve could, and it was obvious when he sighed. 
“See, we’ll just time her and if she doesn’t come back up then you can valiantly dive in there and rescue her, maybe even give her mouth to mouth since you want to kiss her so bad-” Steve’s eyes widened slightly and he scrunched up his nose.
“Woah what? I never said-” 
“Please, it’s obvious, so, so obvious that our new pal Eddie here thought you were together.” 
Eddie looked at the both of them, "I thought you were like…an overprotective boyfriend or something with how hard you were trying to take her place.” 
“Man, what do you know, you barely got here…”
“I’m just saying, man, I don’t think you would’ve fought that hard if it were one of us,” Eddie stated, making Steve scoff because he wouldn’t even hesitate to do the same with Robin and Nancy at least, but it was the fact that you could very well make this dive better than him was enough to prove to them at least that there was something more to it. And maybe a little to Steve too.
“Oh you don’t even know the half of it,” Robin said while Nancy half-smiled in amusement as she looked down at her watch, being sure to keep track of the amount of time you’re down there, “One time she flirted with a secret Russian guard, and lover boy here looked like he was going to explode-”
“What!” Steve’s cheeks were heating up at the mention of that, “We remember that very differently.” 
Sure, he was a little annoyed but not because he thought you were trying to hook up with him, because it was risky. It didn’t matter if it kind of worked…and he was a bit jealous...not explosion jealous, but still in the spectrum of jealous.
“And the way they’re always around each other? We had no room on this boat and Steve insisted she come with…”
“Yeah, it is a little exhausting having to keep you two apart to be honest,” Nancy stated, “We could’ve used her at Pennhurst.” 
“Hey, that is different, you guys are making it sound like I tell her what to do or something- first, I didn’t want her to be a babysitter again and second- she wanted to stay behind with me when you went to Pennhurst.”
“And I wonder why that was…” Robin hummed. Steve bit the inside of his cheek, not understanding was Robin was getting at, “You like her Steve, just admit it and things will feel better. I swear.”
Steve sighed, “Okay yeah, so I like her, but she isn't into me and I don't see why it's important right now-"
“Oh Steve, I thought you were a pro at this,” Robin said, and he shot her a little look as she grinned back, “I’m just saying, after all this is done, and your only problem is finding the ‘one’ maybe look at her, yeah?”
Steve swallowed a lump of spit, and laughed, “You’re just trying to mess with me so I'll ask her out and you can laugh when she says no.”
“Am I really that cruel?" Robin questioned, but was met with silence, she scoffed and continued to say, "Like I said, just look a little bit closer.”
Robin was finished speaking then, and Steve shook his head in disbelief before deciding to keep asking Nancy how much time had past.
✧ ✧ ✧
You hadn’t resurfaced yet, and the time you usually could hold your breath underwater was inching closer and closer by the second. Steve was getting nervous, eyes flickering all over the lake to see if you had maybe emerged elsewhere. 
Already, he was moving to stand, “That’s it, it’s been too long, I’m going down there-”
“Steve-” 
Suddenly, you were bursting out of the water with a loud gasp and splashing water all over everyone. Steve nearly fell over as it was where he was about to dive into. You looked up at him as your vision readjusted and saw him staring at you with relief. 
And then he started to speak.
“Were you trying to beat your own record down there? Why did it take you so long? Were you sightseeing or something- I was about to swim down there and-” 
“It’s there,” you interrupted him before he could blast more questions your way, “I saw it, Dustin’s right- there is a gate right beneath us.” 
Steve went quiet, and the other three all shot shocked looks to one another and Robin quickly relayed the information Dustin on the walkie-talkie.
“It’s really down there?” Nancy asked more so in disbelief. You were nodding.
“Is it snack-sized, or like the one we saw at Starcourt?” Robin asked.
“Definitely not as big as that one was, but still pretty big,” you replied breathlessly as you began to climb up. It was Steve who was offering you his hand, and you ignored the fact that he was no longer wearing that yellow long-sleeved shirt that made you forget for a moment you were annoyed with him. 
“That’s insane,” Steve was saying as your hands met. He was about to pull you up when he was suddenly jolting forward and nearly falling into the water. Your eyes had met each other, and it dawned on you that something was wrapped tightly around your ankle and pulled. 
In one breath you said frantically, “SteveDon’tLetMeG-”
The rest of your sentence was drowned out by water as you were suddenly submerged once again, but this time it was very much against your will. Whatever that was coiled around your ankle was forcefully dragging you back down to the bottom of the lake.
Your hand had unfortunately slipped from Steve's grasp as you were pulled under, and he was calling your name. He didn't think twice, diving in after you while leaving Robin, Nancy and Eddie behind. In fact, Steve went after you so fast that for a moment they thought he was dragged down with you.
“What the hell was that, man! What the hell was that!” Eddie was shouting.
“What do we do?!” Robin shouted moreso at Nancy because she trusted her with decisions more than herself or Eddie. Nancy was already standing at the edge of the boat, ready to dive in after you and Steve. 
It was hard not to panic as you were being dragged further and further from the surface. The water of the lake filled your lungs, and you desperately swung your arms upward in an attempt to swim back up, but it was to no avail.
As fast as you were underwater though, before you could possibly drown, you were suddenly gasping loudly and being dragged across rough terrain. You were shouting, water spilling from you lips.
Just seconds after you were pulled through the gate, Steve was coming through it too. His eyes frantically looked around for you until he heard your shouts. He called out to you, already beginning to run as fast as he could toward you.
You called out to him too, "Steve! Help!"
Your hands desperately tried to grab anything that could anchor you, but everything easily slipped from your grasp. It was only when you hit something particularly large the thing let go of you, and the sudden force of the stop caused you to roll a couple of times before you were burrowed in a bunch of sticky vines. 
Steve called out your name again as he was by your side. You were too winded to comprehend what exactly had just happened, your eyes blinking rapidly at Steve and your new surroundings.
You were breathing heavily, gazing up at him with wide eyes as his hands grasped shoulders and making you face him. His eyes flickered all over you, making sure you were okay while asking you if you were hurt.
"I-I don't know, what- wait- where are we?" You said between pants as Steve eyes fell back onto yours. You were moving to stand, and Steve helped you.
After catching your breath with Steve’s arm wrapped firmly around you, you finally had taken in your surroundings. It was Lover’s Lake, yes but not your Lover’s Lake, and there were the same dust-like particles floating all around you. 
The terrain was covered with the vines, and the sky was permanently cloudy. What really had you staring in awe was the flashes of red in the distance that came with cracks of loud lightning and thunder. 
“Steve…are we?”
You looked at him now, and he was staring at the sky too, “Uh yeah…yeah I’m pretty sure.”
You were in the Upside Down.
✧ ✧ ✧
Steve was mad at you, though you couldn't really understand why. Because after he killed that bat-like creature that once had you by the throat by slamming its body repeatedly on the ground, he wasn't mad then, at least at you.
But, now he was and you thought maybe it had something to do with your newly sprained ankle that you were struggling to walk on. You knew the thing that had dragged you all the way down here was to blame for that.
After being dragged into this god forsaken place, these bat creatures had surrounded attacked the both of you. You were so high on adrenaline that you hadn’t even realized you could barely even walk on your ankle until you were able to catch your breath under Skull Rock.
"You shouldn't have dived down here," Steve said with a shake of his head, "It should've been me putting myself in danger. Not you."
You were leaning against Steve, who insisted despite his own injuries that he'd be the one to help you walk on your faulty ankle.
You rolled your eyes, "Again, it doesn't matter! We're all down here now, trapped and with no way of defending ourselves yet. The only way it changes is you being the one dragged and us coming after you."
"You went before we even properly decided who's going to go, at least you wouldn't be hurt or almost strangled to death-"
You huffed and began to try and move away from him, "You know what, I think I'd rather walk by myself."
Steve scoffed at the idea of that, "I'd hand you to Robin before letting you do that."
For some reason, this made you finally snap.
"Steve, seriously, what the hell is your problem? Why do you always treat me like I'm a kid who’s less than capable of doing literally anything? You treat me worse than you treat Dustin, an actual kid," you claimed in an irritated tone.
Steve seemed taken back by your words, stopping the both of you from walking (you limping) any further.
"Woah hey, I don't treat you like a kid-"
"Yeah well it sure feels like it," you interrupted with a deep frown now, "I just don't get it, do you not trust me or something? Is it because I'm a girl? Because you don't treat Nancy like that, or Robin-"
"What? No! It's not because of that, also I thought I made it pretty clear that I do trust you!" Steve argued back to you. You laughed in his face.
"Pretty clear? We wouldn't be having this lovely conversation if it was 'pretty clear' like you claim," you mocked slightly, Steve frowned too then.
"Well...yeah, I thought it was pretty clear how much I trust you and how much I..." he suddenly paused in his sentence, before sucking in a breath and saying, "...care about you, enough to not want you throwing yourself into danger and getting hurt," he explained, you pressed her lips together as you stared at him, "Seriously, you do it all the time-"
"For the same reason you throw yourself into danger all the time!" You exclaimed, this time loud enough for the other three to hear your back and forth, "I care about you too, maybe more than you actually know, so do you think it doesn't...affect me when you throw yourself into these situations too?"
Your voice was shaking slightly as you recalled him getting into a fight with Hargrove when he tried to attack Lucas, or when he was tortured and drugged up by those Russian soldiers. And how, more recently, you had to listen to his shouts of pain of the bats biting and chewing on his sides, being reminded of how helpless you felt.
Steve paused then, and furrowed his eyebrows.
"It does?"
"Yes Steve, it does because you're my friend. In fact, it terrifies me, Steve, when you do that because I'm also absolutely in love with you," You rambled on, "But I still trust you, you know? I trust that you know what you're doing and you'll just be okay. And I really, really wish you'd do the same for me."
Any words Steve was going to say had been wiped from his mind as he took in what you had just said. It seemed that you hadn't even realized what you said as you stared up at him with your eyebrows taunt and eyes meeting his directly.
'I'm also absolutely in love with you'
Steve's breath hitched gently, wondering if he actually hadn't of heard that and he was delirious from the blood loss.
"Shit, seems like he doesn't have to look closer," Robin muttered to both Nancy and Eddie who watched with raised brows that you'd just admitted that out loud.
"Uh hey, I don't think we have time for this-" Nancy called over to you too but was promptly interrupted by the ground beginning to aggressively shake beneath all of you.
Deep rumbles echoed from all around you as the tremors caused you to fall forward onto Steve. He caught you, but ended up falling backwards and hitting the floor with a thud.
You landed right on top of him with a short yelp, hands clenching the denim jacket Eddie let Steve borrow and your face pressed into his bare chest.
Despite the circumstances, Steve couldn't let go of your confession that he was now sure he actually heard you loud and clear. You were in love with him? Did everyone see it but him? You just had always seem to be this untouchable girl to him, even before you became friends, like you were there but never within reach.
When the floor had finally stopped shaking, you looked up to look at him with wide eyes that probably realized you'd just confessed your secret love for him. You looked ashamed, embarrassed even, and he could tell you were already thinking about ways to change what you had just told him before.
Steve realized in this moment you were always within reach, but just like Robin had said...he wasn't looking at you and just assumed you weren't interested when you very much were.
He prided himself in being able to capture the signs someone is into him, even called himself a pro, but clearly that title is wrong if he couldn't even tell if the girl he was in love with as well for almost a year returned his feelings.
"Steve I didn't-"
"It scares me too for the same reason," he suddenly told you. It took you a moment to process what he was getting at, "For the exact same reason."
You tilted your head, about to ask him if he knew what he was saying, but it was cut short by his lips meeting yours. It was a short kiss, but one that took your breath away in the few seconds your lips were touching.
“Are these two serious?” Eddie asked out loud.
“Oh yeah they are. This is not the time!” Nancy called from her spot, but her words fell on deaf ears as you and Steve kissed. Robin scoffed out loud and began to make her way toward her friends who were (finally) in a lip lock.
“Hey! I’m happy for you two to realize you have soft and fuzzy feelings for each other! I really am! But does it have to be right now!?”
Neither of you listened as you kissed, too engrossed with each other and the fact that these feelings you’ve both had for a year were reciprocated. It didn’t matter, at the moment, that you were in the Upside Down and would always remember your first kiss being here of all places.
You kissed him harder, pushing down onto him the way you always dreamed of kissing him and he returned with the same energy.
The kiss was brought abruptly to an end though when someone was grabbing you and making you stand. You blinked a few times in your stupor and saw that it was Robin.
“Like I said, I’m happy for you, but we seriously have to keep moving,” she told you. You looked back at Steve who was being helped up by Eddie. His eyes found yours, and so did a winning smile on his lips.
You laughed softly, still in a bit of a shock of what had just happened. Your fingers went to your lips that still felt tingly from his lips that were on yours.
“I better not wake up in my bed and realize this was just a dream,” you suddenly said to Robin.
She wrapped an arm around you, determined to be the one to help you walk now and replied, “Nope. This is real, we’re trapped in another dimension, and you just kissed Steve Harrington.”
You leaned against Robin now, a laugh escaping your lips.
Meanwhile, Steve was standing on his own, and gently placed a hand over his lips like you had, still feeling like he could feel your lips there and tasting you.
Eddie had cleared his throat, "Now you're really an overprotective boyfriend."
Steve coughed into his hand now as if to hide the fact he was touching his own lips, and stood up more straight. His eyes had found yours again, catching the smile on your lips as Robin helped you turn around and he grinned to himself as well.
He couldn't wait to kiss you again, preferably in your own world and on one of your first dates.
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primoredial-jade · 6 months
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heartbeat
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“ my heart's on fire for your love. “
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pairings: childe x gn!reader
cw: awkward / wholesome love confession confrontations, spoilers of liyue’s archon quest, reader is a medic, reader has hair long enough to put behind ear, reader resides in liyue, few mentions of light injuries and wariness of death, childe calls reader “doc’” 
a/n: i had finished this and left it in the drafts from over a year ago! this is an alternative story i wrote for a prompt didi ( @monocaelia ) sent me for a drabble i wrote called to be in love, and i guess i totally went a different route for that one. hope you enjoy this one as well!!!
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“i don’t get paid nearly enough for this.” 
the harbinger has the audacity to chuckle under his breath, leaning further back into the examination table with one of his hands covering his eye. he keeps his voice light despite the apparent discomfort he’s in. 
“don’t worry, doc’. i could offer a little donation to show my gratitude, if that’s what you’re worried about.” 
you can’t help the exasperated, heaving sigh that escapes your mouth. you knew his pockets ran deep, but you weren’t being serious. had it been anyone else, you would have kept quiet to maintain your professionalism, but with childe, this all went out the window. 
being a disciple of baizhu and gui at the renowned bubu pharmacy of liyue, you were prone to getting oddball patients every now and then. having to resuscitate a boy from nearly dying eating jueyun chili’s here, selling medicinal herbs to a woman that ate them raw on the spot there.
but truly, no one was as odd as childe. 
as a medical professional, you couldn’t just turn away a patient if they needed your help. the first time he turned up to the pharmacy with cuts and bruises all over in search of painkillers, you had an inkling who he was aligned with based off of the colors of his outfit alone, never mind the fact that he was obviously a foreigner. 
at that time, liyue harbor had only just survived osial’s attack, and word had gotten around that the fatui had much to do with it. while you remained as concise with your words as possible when handing him the bottle of painkillers, you could not repress the urge to make the passive-aggressive question that, 
“it really is a shame that some renowned factions, despite their cunning in their quest for world domination, do not have professional resident medics on standby. don’t you think?” 
you probably should have been killed on the spot for making such a crass comment. as his eyes rose to slowly meet your own, you found a deep sea torrent of both interest and fascination instead of anger. it had taken you aback, but you kept your chin held high.
needless to say, childe’s interest was piqued. 
he had begun to make it a habit to visit at least once every two days. granted, he really was injured or needed medicine when he dropped by, and you were definitely not happy about it; not only because it was him, but because you didn’t necessarily like to have regulars in this type of job. seeing the same patients, even if it was childe, getting hurt over and over again didn’t do your heart any favors.
sometimes, you would seriously consider if he got himself injured on purpose just to see you.
he initiated small talk during your examinations, and while at first you were curt and to the point, he managed to weasel his way past your walls. little by little, you were falling prone to his undeniable charm.
his stupid grin and quirk of his brow when you made an offhand comment made your pulse quicken, his dumb jokes that you didn’t understand unless you were snezhnayan still made you crack a smile, and the fact that he was always honest with you– you were beginning to tolerate him. maybe, more than you had anticipated.
it wasn’t like you were dumb. you could feel the longing looks he gave while you tended to his shallow wounds, his methods of finding cheeky ways to retain your attention for longer, the way he openly talked about his family. fatui don’t reveal personal information like that to just anybody.
today, it seemed as if he had gotten hit in the face with a dirtbomb from treasure hoarders, judging by the dirtied spots on his clothes. some of it must have gotten in his eye.
“i’m not even specialized in optometry,” you mumble, but he shrugs his shoulders innocently, disregarding your comment entirely.
“so long as you can help me see again, it doesn’t matter to me,” he answers easily.
“let me, then,” you urge in a quiet hush, peeling his hand away from his eye.
he has it still scrunched up in discomfort, and you can see the defensive tears from that eye covering the expanse of his face. while you know he isn’t necessarily crying voluntarily, it still brings a pang to your chest.
with the knowledge that he’s a capable fighter with a pain tolerance that is unrivaled, yet even just a little dirt can incapacitate him– it shocks you. at the end of the day, he was human, just like you.
and if he wasn’t so lucky the next time, it could even get in both of his eyes. who knows what would transpire on the battlefield next. he could… lose.
you’re clearly shaken up by your thoughts, and childe waves his free hand over your face, amusement clear on his expression.
“i didn’t come to one of the best pharmacy’s in teyvat to get spaced out on,” his tone softens, sounding more serious, “i’m fine, trust me. nothing to worry about, see?”
he gives a charming half-smile, and you resist the urge to pinch his cheek in retaliation.
“i’m going to flush it out. don’t force yourself to open it, but if you feel the discomfort easing up, just do it slowly,” you instruct, taking a bowl of clean water to his side.
childe, usually one to make more joking complaints, is uncharacteristically compliant with your demands. the room is quiet as he lets you pour the cool water over his eye, and slowly but surely, he opens it up again.
it’s red-rimmed and has seen better days, but you let out a hushed sigh of relief knowing that it’s still functioning fine from what you can tell so far.
“does it still hurt?” you ask, taking a towel and gently wiping away the wetness of the water on his face. it feels… oddly domestic, somehow.
childe shakes his head no, but squints up at you. “not really, but it’s still a little blurry.”
you hum, sliding closer to his face to get a better look, assessing it for a final time just to make sure.
this close, you can feel his breath fanning across your face. it distracts you, but not nearly as much as the endless pools of blue that are staring right into your own. it should unnerve you, the way they don’t sparkle like anyone else’s would, but it doesn’t.
his eyes flicker all across your face, and you feel heat rising up your neck.
once you nod in affirmation and pull away, it’s only then do you realize the flustered state that you left him in. he’s fidgeting, hands clenched into loose fists and ears pinking. you give him a funny look, unable to suppress a smirk.
“it looks fine to me, childe. thankfully it does not look like there will be lasting damage, but you should really see a qualified optometrist, so–“
“i have to tell you something.” he interrupts, looking bashful. you’re immediately on high alert. childe is never bashful.
“childe, i’m still on the clock,” you remind, already having some idea of what he might have to say.
“then consider this a… a patient telling you about their life, or something,” he finishes lamely, chuckling nervously. you can only chew on your lip in anticipation, blood pounding in your ears.
“well, i...” he takes a breath, “i think... well. i’m in love with a nurse,” ajax admits, posture suddenly straightening, confident. “i have been in love with them for a while now, actually. so… if i were to confess, how do you think they would react?” he purses his lips in anticipation at your response.
despite his unwavering voice, his red ears indicate how he really feels in this moment. he’s cute, you think. you briefly hold eye contact, smirking when he is the one to break it. it brings you a sick sense of pride to see such a powerful man brought to his knees from something like this.
he looks definitively taken aback at the airy chuckle you give, responding, “ah, i see.”
now he is really confused. “i– what?” he sputters, eyes darting over your face to get a read on you. 
the quirk in your brow, the knowing smile you have on your face. really, looking at how beautiful you look in this moment only confirms his feelings. 
the cogs in his brain are turning every which way, until finally, it clicks. he brings up a hand to his forehead, letting out a low grumble of embarrassment. with zero shame, he pulls you toward him by your wrist and leans his head against your shoulder. allowing him this brief moment of reprieve, you bring up a hand to card through his hair.
“you knew?” he asks, clearly ashamed at his lack of finesse. you snort, pulling away slightly to meet his eyes.
“well, you haven’t exactly been discreet…” 
he can only bury his head into your shoulder again, completely flushed.
“okay, well,” his breath tickles your skin as you give another chuckle, “i’ll ask again. how do you think this nurse would react?”
pulling completely away from him, you point up at the clock. he huffs, unhappy with your consistency to uphold professionalism.
“maybe you should ask this nurse in another hour after their shift is over.”
childe rolls his eyes. “alright, alright. then i hope this nurse will be happy to meet me at wanmin’s restaurant with their answer– i will only be expecting good things.” 
he laughs the entire way you shoo him out, and only eases up to lean down and tuck a stray piece of hair behind your ear.
“i’ll see you soon, doc’.”
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saturnianautist · 11 months
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🍯Astro Notes pt. 11🍯
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.・゜゜・  ・゜゜・..・゜゜・  ・゜゜・
Disclaimer: I am not a professional astrologer these are just my opinions and notes based on my own research and what I noticed from my surrounding and who I know.
Ps. (Currently working on getting a master list together so it’s easier for you guys to find things as I start adding more posts. Hope you enjoy <33
🍯 Placements under the same planetary rulership tend to either get along really well like best friends or just come into contact with each other many times in their lives. Also possible that they annoy each other but often only if their are harsh aspects so always check for those. For example: me and my sister both have prominent mercurial signs Gemini and Virgo and are like best friends, same thing with my mother and her best friend but with Venus ruled signs libra and Taurus. It’s just a friendship where you’ll be on the same page a lot of the time.
🍯 Earth signs in general love their comfort but Taurus moons bruh just don’t mess with their comfort or their self care routines they will look at you like you just killed their dog.
🍯 Fire signs are so heavy handed it’s crazy they’ll breath and everything around them will break or fall in some way 😭
🍯 Cancer placement stereotypes needa stop lmao bc they are not the cute mom friend, maybe at times but y’all can low key be maniacal. Remember that cancer is ruled by the moon and one side of the moon is dark at all times. They have this hidden side and people forget they have a duality to them like other signs. When underdeveloped as a person emotionally, this side comes out in an ugly way (when developed it comes out more as they just have a lot more depth to them as a person than you’d think like scorpios almost in a way). Tbh I think underdeveloped cancers are more two faced then underdeveloped Geminis.
🍯 The cancer placements I’ve met also can’t take anything seriously lmao like you’ll injure yourself and sometimes they be the first to laugh at you and pull they phone out and then finally help you after when u don’t need it anymore (I should specify again that this isn’t all of you just the underdeveloped ones).
🍯 A cancer mercury with a Gemini Venus makes someone very quick witted with there jokes and have a comeback for literally everything, especially if theirs also a Virgo placement thrown in their too (the sense of humor will be god level if there’s a sag placement as well, quadruple homocide) This person has the power to hurt your feelings if they wanted too but if they are more mature they won’t spend that energy on you most of the time.
🍯 Pluto and moon in the 11th house together is tough. Having Pluto here can already be difficult with the constant transformational energy in house of friendships/community, but having your moon in this house at the same time makes it even harder. Think about it, your moon is relying on building these kind of connections and forming these close knit bonds with people to feel emotionally fulfilled but then Pluto is constantly taking people in and out of your life or showing you who wasn’t your true friend. Sometimes it also looks like constantly outgrowing your friends, especially if you have any other Pluto or 8th house energy in your chart. This can also look like you causing transformations or shifts and awareness in other people but in my experience they don’t listen even after being aware until it’s too late (a lot of people will want you to do the work for them as this placement can attract a lot of energy vampires). As tough as this is, it’s almost always a blessing in disguise. You will start forming your true inner circle later on in life with better boundaries and knowing what to look for in healthy friendships with people who wanna grow with you.
🍯 If you meet a Taurus when they are developed, they are some of the most solid have your back friends, but underdeveloped they can actually be the opposite, unreliable.
🍯 A lot of people talk about Pluto, Scorpio and 8th house energy being transformational which it is, but another placement I don’t see as often mentioned is Sagittarius and Jupiter energy. Pluto is transformational energy itself, but Jupiter is the planet of expansion and growth. Its ever growing, which means it’s energy in a chart can make a lot of shifts to a persons life, and them as a person. All of the people with dominant Jupiter or Sag that I know have gone through some big hardships where it caused them to hit rock bottom, and the only place they could go was up. These people have also moved around a lot growing up.
🍯 All of the autistic people i know in real life including myself have dominant earth placements and then a fire placement or two (not a diagnosis just something I noticed). This kind of makes sense to me to those of us who can be really blunt and come off rude/stuck up to others who don’t know us.
🍯 Wherever your Saturn lies will tell you what you have to wait for till later in life to start seeing your blessings in. Remember that Saturn restricts things wherever it touches. For example: Saturn in the 6th house (6th house= daily activities/routine and health) might take a while to find the right daily routine for them especially with finding a balance between their self care and their responsibilities (6 also partly has to due with balance In numerology). They could also take a while to figure out what way of eating for them works. I have this placement and used to struggle eating enough and having an appetite. It took me a while to learn what portions and how often was best for me and how to plan out my day better in order to eat more like working out so I get hungry and meal prepping. It also took me a while to just figure out the best way I’m productive in the day which was flexible structure.
💛💛Thank you for reading to everyone who made it to the end! I also wanted to say I appreciate everyone who took the time to read through my first post the other day and I hope that everyone enjoyed this one just as much.💛💛
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maritotoy · 2 months
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MAUGA X Support/Medic Reader ((Part. 1))
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NOTE: Believe it or not, I never realize how long I've written this one.
This narrative tracks Mauga's obsession with Y/N as it grows to the point where he is prepared to kill everyone who stands in his way. With this in mind, Mauga's commitment would gradually grow. He would start out softly and then this need on you would get stronger.
It all began when your talents were initially utilised for recruitment. You were a terrific help, willing to assist your teammates in whatever way they needed.
Your main issue was that you could never truly let them handle things on their own. As a result, it became increasingly difficult to care for yourself.
They promised you riches if you helped them fight back against their threat. There were only so many ways to profit from rival worlds, after all. You were aware that you were going into a whole new universe when you agreed, but you also felt that you had no choice but to accept them.
Ultimately, you didn't wish to pass away, did you?
It was stated to you when you first joined TALON Organization, that you should concentrate only on the battlefield. Up until you met Baptiste, an exceptional combat medic, it was great with you. Your shared enthusiasm for curing illness is what unites the two of you. It turned into a shared passion. As you try to acquire experience in several areas, like medical supplies, you both hope to discover some more useful abilities, like healing or even a unique kind of combat capability.
But you can hardly ever get to Baptiste, he's constantly at the top. Both a combat mercenary and medic. You're always looking for ways to sharpen your skills.
Even after meeting him again at your base and on missions, you are still determined to improve your ability to deal with any possible emergencies. Not until later do you find out what happens when a member of your unit gets injured.
Baptiste surged in, carrying an imposing stature and a solid, muscular frame. His voice sounded desperate, asking, "I'm sorry if I came to you! I know you are busy, but I need help with my friend, please, Y/N!" The urgency was so obvious that there wasn't much resistance. Even if he was a doctor himself, it must have seemed urgent enough.
Besides... You were in the right place to help.
You rushed over to his side and helped him stabilize his huge friend. "What happened, Bap? Are you hurt?" He didn't reply, but his eyes told you all you needed to know.
You fix your sight on his pal. He does not appear to be hurt or seriously damage. However, the man's body is completely soaked, which looks very suspicious to you. "Is he alright, Bap? I don't see anything wrong." He shook his head and gave a sigh.
"We were attacked. Mauga and I found the source of the enemy attack and got separated."
"How long has it been since then?"
"Four hours, maybe five."
"Do you have any idea of what may have caused the damage?"
"I'm not sure. However, I had already discovered him unconscious but unharmed on the ground. It should not take long for him to awaken.." You glance at the unconscious man again before you say, "Let me take a look at him." He nodded and stepped aside.
"Mauga could never be wounded by shots like that. Despite his size, he could easily absorb one hit thanks to his physique." He explains.
You crouch down and check on his comrade. He seems fine to you. There's nothing unusual about him, other than the fact that he's a bit too heavy.
You knew Mauga.
And with such.
You just don't know how to engage with him.
On a conversation? Yes. Your profession is your duty.
You don’t really get along with those who rely solely on themselves as an advantage, even though you respect their abilities.
The feeling is mutual. Every time someone gets hurt because of something beyond their control, you are there to help them.
Because that's your job as a medic.
You both have quite a difference in interests, though. You can't stand the fact that he’s so reckless, you can't understand why he doesn't think more carefully before he acts. As soon as he sees blood, it's always the most important thing.
Mauga stands tall, towering over his opponents with an impressive height of 7'5 ft tall. (My headcanon)
Mauga is a formidable opponent on the front lines thanks to his strong, muscular physique. His broad shoulders and thick neck gives off an air of strength and power, and his body is well-built, demonstrating his strength and capacity to deal severe damage to rivals.
Did I mention he has two hearts?
Unlike you, Mauga is a ruthless and cunning individual, driven by his own motivations. He never lets anyone interfere with his goals, whether or not they involve you. While he might act with reckless disregard sometimes, he is also able to calculate the best course of action.
Not anyone knows this. But you knew nontheless with Baptiste.
You may be underestimating him in some way, or you may have witnessed the genuine thing, up close and personal, but he always brags about his achievements without hesitation or shame. His fighting style turns wild and unpredictable when he fights. If Mauga doesn't want to win, he will take his time, before using ChaCha and Gunny, his chainguns, to grab the victory, and he won't give up until he achieves his objective.
He definitely is careless, isn't he?
"He's breathing just fine, Baptiste. I would say he is in perfect health, aside from the injuries, I can't detect any signs of any damage injuries either." You said as you stood up. Baptiste sighs relief. "I'll leave him to you doctor. Don't worry, I trust that you have everything under control." He says this to you while nodding in satisfaction.
This gesture of his is a way of gratitude towards the medic's work.
"I will be back later," he says as he leaves to make a round to prepare for battle.
While Baptiste was gone, you sat next to the downed mercenary soldier and begin to observe him. In the midst of his unconsciousness, he seems to be in a good state. There was no sign of discomfort or pain. His pulses are fast but steady, knowing that Mauga have two hearts, one that allowed him to replace his damaged, organic heart with a cybernetic one. That way, his heart will beat twice as fast. You can easily tell that Mauga is in his natural state.
Your eyes began to feel heavy after observing him for some time. You weren't sure if it's due to fatigue from watching him, or simply exhaustion from your duties as a medic.
Before you knew it, you fell asleep.
When you awoke, you find yourself staring back into the face of Maugaloa Malosi, whose lips formed into those flashing, same pasted smile as usual. “Ah, Doctor. How nice to see you again.”
You quickly wake up, sitting straight up on the chair. “M-Mauga!" You exclaimed, alarmed. "H-How is you- I mean are you feeling alright?”
He grinned at you. “I am feeling rather fine.” You let out a long, sigh of relief. However, you didn't anticipate that this would happen frequently. “I see..." You replied.
Silence takes over for a while. Mauga stared at you intensely before taking a step forward. “Your Y/N, correct? Baptiste little assistant. I've heard much about you, but never expect that I would get to get treated from you.”
You flinched slightly at his words 'assistant' and the word 'little', but you remained calm. “I'm glad that you feel better now. You should rest and recover. If you still need them..."
“I appreciate the concern,” he says as he reaches towards your shoulder. You instinctively raise your hands in preparation of blocking. This caught him off guard, causing him to pause in his movements, then booms laughing.
“My apologies, Teuila. I thought that you might have forgotten what I do here,” he said in that familiar, friendly tone.
“If I recall correctly, I haven't given you permission to touch me.” This comment caught him off guard as he chuckles deeply.
He stares at your hand for a while longer. You're beginning to become worried. After a brief silence, he reaches forward and lightly holds onto your wrist.
“That’s a very sensitive spot…” He whispers gently. Your heartbeat begins to accelerate. “And your pulse is fast. Is this normal?” he asks. “Yes,” you respond in a soft voice.
“Then why are you afraid? You know I'm not going to hurt you...” He grinned. His sharp teeth glinted menacingly in the dim light. "Surely you've already made a friend? You also gave him a lot of attention than you do with me. Or have you grown to dislike me?"
"...I... I beg your pardon-" your speech is interrupted by Baptiste with a tired expression.
"Hey... Sorry that I took so long. I went to gather supplies. Mission was a success." He sighed in relief as he approached you.
"Mauga, I'm glad your awake bud." Baptiste sighs in relief and smiles at Mauga. Mauga returned the gesture before looking back at you.
He still has that huge grin plastered across his features while his eyes darted towards yours. "You're crazy out there Mauga. Do you really think that you can defeat the enemies single handedly?" Baptiste says with a chuckle. “You know me Baptiste, I never do things without planning them out.” He grinned, revealing that row of dazzlingly white teeth. “I still don't understand how you've been knocked down so easily. It's hard to believe that you can be beaten like that.” Baptiste gives a half smirk, half frown.
You listen to their conversation, and you try to make sense of it. Mauga laughs at the situation, as if it's all so obvious. "C'mon, Baptiste, we have bigger problems than me right now. The mission is a success because we finally found the enemy camp. But it was a close call, and we needed your medical expertise to treat the wounded," Mauga explains to Baptiste while looking directly into his eyes with a sly smile. "I carried your massive ass in this camp with support of your weight alone. You ought to be pleased to have a subordinate with such skill." Baptiste smirks. He was referring to you. Mauga laughs at his friend's criticism, displaying his amusement at the circumstances.
"So yeah. It was pretty rough, but we managed to secure the objective! Isn't that great news?"
It's not really a surprise to you.
Mauga does tend to put himself in danger, especially when he's in an unfamiliar place.
This guy is completely reckless, which is why you can't believe that he managed to survive so many battles without falling apart or breaking down.
"Your a loose-canon, but I hope ended well..." you say calmly, hoping that you sound convincing enough.
"I can assure that I have the highest respect and admiration for your abilities as a medic. I would never doubt your skills, even if I hadn't personally experience how skilled you are in dealing with wounds." Mauga comments, he sounds sincere as ever.
Baptiste grins again. "That's a big ego of yours, my friend. You should consider giving a few compliments to the people who did more than you."
"I would love to, my friend, but there's nothing wrong with being modest about our accomplishments."
"Alright," Baptiste said, sounding annoyed.
--------
After several hours, days, months of treating your patients at base. You cannot help but wonder seeing Mauga quite often, whether that is purely because of duty or something else. Although it is difficult to tell what he's thinking, there are moments where you notice the way that he is constantly staring at you. Like he's trying to figure out something about you:
studying your appearance, facial expressions, mannerisms. Sometimes he gets lost in his thoughts, sometimes he appears to be lost in his own world, occasionally, you could catch him smirking knowingly, or even smiling to himself. These small gestures usually only occur during times when it's with you with him. Sometimes, the man is just too cheerful, or too energetic in general.
You could hardly handle the stress of handling all these patients in the infirmary on your own. You're starting to miss having Baptiste around to keep him occupied while you go through patients. You sighed loudly not until Mauga appears behind you
You found him with wounds on his chest and torso. You turn to look at him, "What happened?"
"Nothing serious..." He grins, showing his sharpened teeth.
"Just a minor injury, eh?" You raise an eyebrow at the mercenary, crossing your arms over your chest. Mauga simply shrugs as he sits on a table.
There was another period of silence between you two, and the atmosphere seemed to tense up considerably. This time, it's you who breaks the silence. "I'm sorry that you got injured. I don't know how I should react seeing someone else getting hurt so casually. You could have died out there. And that's not the worst thing that can happen," you said sarcastically and sternly.
He chuckles. "Oh really? Tell me more." He leans closer to your face, gazing deeply into your eyes. "Ah. So that's how it is."
You glare at him angrily, but he ignores you as you continue working. "Are you seriously going to mock me for worrying about you?"
"Not at all," he replied, with a hint of sarcasm. "But there is one thing that concerns me."
"What? You're going to insult me too, aren't you?" Mauga laughs while Y/N tends his injury.
The felt of your touch sends shivers throughout his entire body. He tries hard to suppress the sudden urge to grab her hand and hold on tightly. It's becoming harder to control these urges though. He shakes his head rapidly as he pulls away from you. He looks at you with narrowed eyes. "I'm not mocking you, you know?"
Your gaze flicks briefly to his. "Hm."
There was a short silence between you two, until you began to clean a cut on one of his legs. You noticed his gaze follow every movement of your fingers. "Why are you staring at me like that?"
"I'd prefer that you didn't ask questions so frequently, Teuila."
"Teuila?" You face him. "You know, I never asked you of this... But why do you call me that?" He lets out a deep chuckle and replies. "Because you look like Teuila. It fits well, doesn't it?" He flashes you a warm smile before turning his head away again.
You shrugged of his answer, continuing your work without saying anything further, although you were extremely curious. "Teuila... What does that word mean?" There's a brief moment of silence in between the two of you once you finished cleaning up the blood staining his leg. A faint smile plays across his lips again. "I thought you were better than that."
"And you think that you're better than me?"
"Yeah," he replies smugly.
"Then... You've obviously underestimated me, don't you?" You give him a challenging smirk. He returns the smile with a smirk of his own, but he then turns serious again. His eyes narrow. "Let me enlighten you. That name means 'flower'. Do you understand what kind of flower it means?"
You gave him a blank stare. He continues to smirk, waiting for you to understand his meaning. Eventually, you sigh, putting your hands on your hips. "Do I look like I care to know?" You scoff, rolling your eyes lightly.
Mauga laughs. "Well, I guess it doesn't matter what you think of it..."
There was silence between you two for a few seconds, and you looked away with furrowed brows.
You finish patching up the mercenary, placing some bandages around him and securing them securely. "Now that I finished helping you, you're dismissed." You professionaly said after you made sure that everything was covered properly. Mauga laughs at this. "Really? Now? Just like that?" He asks mockingly.
"Yes Mauga, I don't have any other duties besides tending to your wounds. I've been doing that for quite some time now," you responded coldly.
Mauga raises an eyebrow at this. "You know, if you start beginning to care about those wounds, you might find yourself losing them. If you want me to leave your clinic quickly, then you'll have to earn my trust first, which requires some work."
You sigh heavily. Of course Mauga will insist on making things difficult for you. "I am no doctor Mauga, I cannot cure your injuries." You sarcasticly said.
"Oh I know that. But you're still willing to take the risk." He chuckled.
"You wouldn't had to waste precious time coming here in order to talk shit."
Mauga laughs at you again, grinning like a cat that ate the canary. "I wouldn't waste too much time coming here either, but I also wouldn't be able to enjoy it quite as much because you'll be gone by then," he says confidently. "Besides, you're not exactly known for your patience." You roll your eyes, turning back to the table in front of you.
"You know I've always wondered what it feels like to be your patient," Mauga mused. "To be the one receiving the attention of the most skilled medic in your battalion."
"You must be joking," you replied, you know what he meant, not wanting to think that you would ever become his patient.
"No. You know me... " He grins. You groaned. "Don't' make such assumptions, we don't know each other all that well yet."
"Yet..."
You glared at him as he laughed. "Whatever. It seems like there's no stopping you, is there? We haven't even officially met yet, and already you're acting as if you have a good relationship with me." You sighed exasperatedly, massaging the area of your forehead in irritation.
"Listen, Mauga. My job is simple, I care for my patients and treat them well. Nothing more, nothing less."
"Oh yeah? Well, maybe I'm different," he said cockily.
"How? Are you not afraid of dying?"
"No... No I'm not... I've done so much more reckless things than death." His expression suddenly shifted to an emotionless one. For a moment, it felt almost as if he wasn't looking at you anymore. Then he chuckled softly, giving you a playful wink. "But I'm no saint."
"It must be hard to admit being human." You shook your head slightly.
"Sometimes." His grin returned to his features.
You couldn't help but stare directly into his eyes for a little longer, taking in how dark they actually are.
Mauga shows a huge plastered face. His still wearing his dumb smile.
You blinked at him.
He blinked back.
You rolled your eyes. "Stop smiling so much." He continued to laugh, as you turned away from him again. Mauga stood up and stretched lazily, "I have something to attend to, I'll be seeing you later," Mauga teasingly said as he made his way towards the door. He opens it, but he glances back.
A small smirk forms on his lips.
You watch him disappear outside the door, closing it behind him with a click. Once the door closes you let out a heavy sigh, resting your back against the wall behind you. Your heart is racing a mile, a minute, both at the prospect of having finally been alone with Mauga again, and the strange feeling within you after you spent several hours alone with him.
This feeling...
It's definitely not normal.
End of part 1
Part 2- ???
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mari-the-bimbo · 2 years
Note
could you possibly do Dorm Mate Sukuna "when you come home injured" please?
Dorm mate Sukuna: you come home injured
A/N: This is kinda rushed but I hope it’ll make do! Enjoy ! <3
⚠️Warning: implied violence, mentions of killing
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You winced at Sukuna’s booming voice that came from the dorms kitchen when Yuuji told Sukuna about your injuries. The pink haired boy was too concerned and knew Sukuna should be informed.
You gulp at the heavy footsteps that resonated across the dorm, growing nearer to the living area, where you sat uncomfortably, avoiding pressing on your wounds.
You finally look up when you notice a towering figure standing over you.
“Hi Sukuna” you say obnoxiously, as if you didn’t just get your ass beat.
The big scary dorm mate stares down at you expressionless. His muscular arms crossed across his broad chest. It didn’t matter that you couldn’t read his facial expressions, because it didn’t take a genius to realise he had murder on his mind.
“Stand up” he says, you’re taken aback for a moment but you oblige, not wanting to upset the man any further. You hiss as you attempt to get up from the sofa and you see Yuji move forward to help you but he’s stopped by Sukuna, who watches you like a hawk as you wobble when standing.
But even your wobble doesn’t last long, as you lose balance and you fell forward, but luckily the tall scary dorm mate quickly caught you into his strong arms, and you face plant directly into his sturdy chest.
He hums shortly, as he stroked your head. You knew he was assessing the severity of the injury. His large arms that wrapped around you didn’t let go, and instead he picked you up and headed towards your bedroom silently.
Once he sat down on your bed, and caged you into his lap, he spoke. “Brat?”
“Yeah kuna?”
“Who did this?”
You look away in shame. Even though Sukuna already beat up the frat boys for you before, you felt embarrassed to tell him that you were targeted by them once again.
Suddenly you’re pulled out of your thoughts when Sukuna roughly grabbed your chin making you look into his void red eyes.
“Answer me when I’m talking to you”
You gulp before muttering “those frat boys.. it’s my fault though, I started it when they catcalled my friend”
Sukuna stares down at you blankly. “Did I not tell you to call me so I can pick you up so you won’t have to walk past those lil virgins?”
You nod your head, “you did, sorry kuna”
Even though Sukuna would never admit it out loud, it seriously upset him to see you hurt. No one should even be able to lay a finger on his prize.
His heavy, tatted hand once again strokes your head as his non verbal way to console you. His eyes momentarily softening as you lean into his touch.
“You gotta get better otherwise wrestling your weak ass is gonna be too easy” He teases softly with his gruff voice.
“I could still beat you right now kuna” you joke with a goofy smile making him chuckle before kissing the bruise below your eyes, “dumbass” he mumbles against it making you giggle.
“C’mon, go to sleep” he urges as he lays you down and watches you rest.
And once you fell asleep under Sukuna’s intense stare, the pink haired man finally left your room. Heading back to the main area, grabbing his car keys, and whistled to catch Yuji’s attention.
“Oi brat, c’mon we’re going hunting, and possibly a killing spree” he says to his pink haired pal.
“Quit joking Sukuna, shouldn’t we be taking care of y/n?” spoke Yuuji annoyed.
The man’s smile widened at Yuuji’s words and he chuckled as he turned to face him with a concerningly deranged yet handsome smile.
“Who said I’m joking?”
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Text
The F-Word (BR) - A Gwynriel One-Shot for Gwynrielweeks2024
@gwynrielweeksofficial My first of two contributions to this years Gwynriel weeks, yay!
Thread: After Azriel accidentially hurt Gwyn in training, his apparent lack of care makes her question the true depth of their friendship.
word count: 4.2k
warnings: faint swearing, miscommunication
“I will kill him.”
Healing salve was applied generously to Gwyn’s throbbing wrist. The overwhelming smell of peppermint and oak bark put her frayed nerves at ease, and she was finally able to relax into the soft cushions despite the flash of pain that racked up her arm and into her shoulder.
“I will rip out every hair on his head one by one.”
A bandage snaked its way around her wrist, the gentle but firm hand guiding it nearly shaking with anger.
“I will plunge his oh-so-dangerous knife in his oh-so-dangerous head and see if he’ll still have enough bravado to hurt you then.” Nesta continued to wrap the bandage around and around Gwyn’s wrist and secured it with a pin as she continued to mutter unintelligible curses with venom in her voice. Like an over-protective ghoul squatting in the attic.
The priestess snorted, testing the stability of the wrap by flicking her arm back and forth cautiously. “You know he didn’t do it on purpose. I don’t think he even noticed what happened.”
Nesta levelled a stare at her that would have sent lesser females running. “And why would that be? What could possibly have happened for Azriel to not notice he sprained your wrist during training?”
Gwyn averted her gaze, lest Nesta see the faint smile that stole itself on her lips. “Maybe because I pretended it didn’t happen?”
The female kneeling before her rolled her eyes dramatically and got up to discard the medical items.
“It was my fault anyways”, Gwyn stated quickly, trying to calm down her best friend, “I didn’t warm up properly. No wonder my wrist couldn’t handle his weight without preparation.”
What a white lie that was…
Nesta scoffed, clearly not in the least convinced of Azriel’s innocence. “He is your instructor. He should know better. Especially when its just the two of you. The bat doesn’t have any reason to not dedicate every ounce of his attention to you when you train in the evenings.”
It was true that Azriel technically just had one trainee during their nightly sessions. The extra attention he paid her was only one of the many perks. But also the reason for her downfall.
“Let it go, Nes. It’s no big deal. Give it five days and it’ll be as good as new.”, Gwyn murmured, absentmindedly testing the bandage. Thankfully, Az had only rendered her non-dominant hand useless. Maybe he didn’t even have to know and she could ask Cassian to focus on leg training tomorrow morning-
“Five days where you can’t lift a shield, let alone weights. Not to mention having to slow down your library work.”, Nesta retorted seriously while observing Gwyn with a hawk’s eye.
Gwyn sighed, letting her head fall back on the couch. There was no denying it, was there? It went against every fiber of her being, but she needed to tell Azriel and Cassian that she sustained an injury during training.
Her ego will have to take the hit.
It wasn’t that injuring herself was so difficult for her to handle, it was more so how it happened that brought a wave of heat to her cheeks.
Because she did in fact warm up properly. Mother, the incident happened during the last ten minutes of training, every muscle – wrist included – had been ready for combat.
So how was she supposed to tell everyone that she was too busy losing herself in Azriel’s eyes to pay attention?
“I’ll tell Cassian tonight and he’ll relay it to Az.”, Nesta decided, clearly taking Gwyn’s lack of argument for permission.
The priestess nodded, heaving herself out of the comfy cushion and bidding Nesta goodbye.
As she lay in her dorm room a few hours later, cradling her injured wrist close to her chest, she debated whether or not skipping tomorrow’s training would be worth the trouble.
Nesta didn’t wait for Cassian to come home.
No, as soon as she heard the door down the hall clicking shut gently, she was out of her chair and on her way to kick some Illyrian ass. Even if that ass had more than a few inches on her.
“Az, may I come in?”, she shouted through the door while simultaneously knocking. The Shadowsinger probably sensed her agitation and opened after a few heartbeats, still in his leathers and eying her with a wary gaze.
“Nesta.”, he greeted her, stepping aside to let her in when noticing her expression. The male was smart enough to sense when her anger was directed at him.
She stormed into his room, turning around to a confused looking Azriel.
“Care to take a guess why I’m here?”, Nesta asked, her voice dangerously low.
Azriel had the decency to look mildly concerned. After thinking it through, he concluded to not have done anything wrong and wordlessly shook his head in her direction.
“Something to do with Gwyn in training?”, she prompted, angling her head.
Azriel crossed his hands before his chest, leaning back against the door. “With Berdara? Do you mean tonight or another day?”
“Tonight.”, Nesta replied, “During hand-to-hand-combat.”
She could have sworn a little blush crept into his cheeks, but it might have been there from the start. She was too agitated to care. “Nes, I seriously have no idea what you are talking about. Did I do something wrong?”
Nesta let out a long-suffering sigh. Honestly, didn’t his job entail paying attention to details? “You managed sprained her wrist during training. She came to me just an hour ago to have it set and bandaged.”
Silence ensured.
She expected her words to have some effect on him. After all, the two of them seemed quite close. But the pure horror that slowly took over every feature of his was another thing.
“I did what?”, Azriel whispered, body taunt with shock.
“She says it’ll probably heal in a few days. But she obviously shouldn’t do any training – morning or night – in the meantime. I wanted you to know that, just in case she shows up tomorrow pretending it didn’t happen.”, Nesta added, trying to calm him down again. She’d wanted him to grovel a bit, but now he seemed dangerously close to suffering an aneurism. “She’d rather have kept it a secret and suffer through her exercises than telling you. So I did.”
If it was possible, Azriel looked even more crestfallen at that. A low curse escaped him, and Nesta took that as her cue to leave.
As she approached the door, she paused to put a hand on his arm. “I didn’t tell you to make you feel bad.” Well, maybe a little bit. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. She’ll live. And you are both fools for how you acted.”
Azriel nodded, but it was so absent-minded that Nesta turned to leave him to his thoughts, bidding him goodnight quietly.
His reaction left her wondering, though. Had she been too harsh? If it got Gwyn a heartfelt apology and maybe some sweets to make it up to her, it might not have been too much. But the Mother knew Azriel was an overthinker. She only hoped that, whatever was going on between them for Gwyn not to admit to an injury would soon be mended.
She did it. She skipped training.
Throughout the whole day, Gwyn felt rotten to the core. She had never abandoned her responsibilities, at the very least not without explaining herself properly. Nesta had probably informed the two Illyrians by now, and the other priestesses had noticed the glaringly white bandage, but still – it felt so wrong to sit on all these weird feelings towards Azriel, to not talk to him as regularly as she used to.
It felt like abandoning him.
And only the Gods and Gwyn new how that made the already confusing and borderline frightening emotions she harbored towards him more complicated.
She realized it was wholly her fault. She should have admitted to the injury right away, blaming a loose stone on the ground, or an errand shadow or anything for her mess-up. But no. As soon as his arms had wrapped around hers from behind, as soon as she twisted her head to meet his gaze, she was lost. Utterly and hopelessly caught up in whatever daydream it was that took over her mind at that moment. And she didn’t have the capacity to free herself as he sent her tumbling down, painfully bending her wrist in the process.
She’d laughed it off, turning her back to him to stabilize and feel out the injury, all while joking that ‘at least he bested her once this entire session’. When she faced him again, he’d looked away too quickly for his eyes to linger on her form and suggested a water break.
Gwyn couldn’t pinpoint exactly when her feelings for him had taken such a turn. When their nightly talks or training sessions became a little less accidental, but rather more and more anticipated. She only knew that one morning, when her alarm allowed her a few more minutes to slumber in bed, her mind had drifted to him.
And it continued to do so until now.
She sincerely hoped she would get a grip on herself, or she’d completely ruin their friendship.
If Azriel didn’t manage to do it first.
Days after the accident, Gwyn’s wrist still too sore for training, the Shadowsinger remained as silent as death. No note, no impromptu lunch visits. Gwyn even trekked up the stairs one night, hoping to catch him waiting for her on the roof of the house. But it was Gwyn who ended up waiting for hours in the cold, without any luck. Not even Nesta had a message to relay on his behalf when they met for their weekly reading night.
It left a sour feeling in her stomach. Friends were supposed to take equal interest in each other. And Nesta assured her she informed Az of her injury. What was keeping him back, then?
Another long day of work passed and Gwyn returned from evening service, walking into the dimly lit hall that contained some of the priestess’s dormitories.
And stopping dead in her tracks when she beheld the massive bouquet of flowers that adorned her doorstep.
Peonies and tulips, lilac and lavender in the most beautiful hues of white and purple made the whole hall smell like spring. With measured steps, Gwyn crouched down to retrieve the card attached to the crown of the bouquet. The handwriting itself made her heart flutter with excitement.
Dear Gwyn,
please accept this as the first of many apologies to come for by behavior in training and afterwards. I hope you are feeling better.
Your friend (?) Azriel
The priestess’s brows scrunched in confusion. She appreciated the gesture, but something in his message bothered her. She read it again, and again, gaze snagging on his signature. And just like that, with as small of a symbol as that question mark, Gwyn’s smile was whiped clean off her face, her heart plummeting into her stomach.
Her friend. The word in itself should have been enough to elicit a little happy dance. Because that was what Azriel was to her, and so much more. It was a first step, the first time she heard him reciprocating the feeling.
But the question mark put the virtual nail in the coffin of her affection.
He either thought so little of their friendship he thought it breaking at the slightest mishap, or, and Gwyn’s lungs fought for air at the thought, he didn’t really consider them friends.
And it made sense. She never heard him say it. They never let a few days pass without seeing each other, but it took him a whole week to ask for her? Mother, she didn’t even know if he came willingly to their nightly training, or if he was ordered to – keeping an eye on the unstable female he had to save and making sure she didn’t crumble under pressure.
On some nights, she had poured out her heart to him and he had listened, comforted her, just as she had on nights where his own façade revealed the hurt and shame he carried around.
It couldn’t have been a lie, could it?
Gwyn’s thoughts spiraled, feelings of being unworthy of his affection eagerly feeding on her uncertainty. Until she was sure: he only sent flowers because he accidentally hurt one of the frail and traumatized priestesses and felt bad about it. Clearly not because they were friends.
Gwyn picked up the flowers and, trying to steady her breathing, brought them into her room where they found a place on her nightstand. Unfocussed eyes remained on the flowers while she debated whether she should cry or fight that overgrown bat – it only took a second to decide.
The priestess stormed out of the library, Azriel’s handwritten card fighting for breath in her fist.
She mulled it over as she took the stairs to the house proper two at a time, how he could negate their relationship with one simple message. Had she been so mistaken in his kindness, his interest? Had he seen their time together as an obligation, rather than a blooming friendship?
It agitated and confused her to no end. And as she finally arrived in the training ring, eyes already pinpointing the swirl of shadows with Azriel in their midst, she was positively furious.
“Azriel!”, she shouted across the ring, eating up the space between them in no time. She pointed her finger at him in accusation, her other hand grinding his message for her to mush.
The Shadowsinger turned, his expression morphing from wary to concerned in a split second. “Gwyn? What’s wrong? Do you need a healer?”
He actually had the nerve to step towards her, his hands coming to rest on her shoulders as he ran his eyes over her form. Trying to detect whatever it was that made her upset.
“Don’t you touch me!”, she snapped, and his arms dropped to his side immediately. “You forfeited your right to that.”
Azriel gaped at her, but nodded nonetheless. Massive wings behind him folded together tightly as he braced himself for her.
If anything, his actions made Gwyn even more angry. She came to pick a fight, not for him to roll over. So, the priestess stepped into his personal space again and pushed at his chest until he stumbled backwards.
It was petty, and unfair, and nothing like her usual self. But seeing the little slither of hurt flashing on his face made it worth it. She pushed again, ignoring the stab of pain emanating from her wrist as it collided with mountains of muscle.
“You are a coward!” Push. “You don’t deserve my friendship!” Push.
If Gwyn’s late high priestess could have seen her now, she’d have washed her mouth out with soap to negate the curse words leaving it.
But she didn’t care. The pain flooding her heart at his apparent betrayal was too much to deal with on her own. It needed an outlet.
After enduring another minute of her assault, Azriel saw his opening. He caught both of Gwyn’s wrists in his hands, stopping her dead in her tracks, and cradled them to his chest.
“Gwyn.”, his voice turned pleading and soft, “please stop, you’ll hurt yourself.”
And as the tenor of his beautiful, stupid voice reached her ear, all fight evaporated. With heavy breathing, she returned his stare. Somehow, even in the depts of hurt, the only thought her head could muster was how she had missed him the past week.
“I’m sorry.”, he whispered, his thumbs stroking up and down her hostage-held hands, “I’m so sorry I didn’t notice it. You truly deserve better than that.”
Gwyn didn’t find words for him, frozen in time as she stood before him, her chest nearly touching his armor. She didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. But an apology sounded about right.
“I was so caught up in my own head that night.”, he continued softly, his voice trying to soothe her into tranquility, “But I realize it’s not an excuse. I should have checked on you after that fall. Gwyn, I’m so sorry I failed you. It will never happen again.”
Gwyn’s eyes hardened. She stepped away from him, forcing Azriel to release her.
“I don’t care you hurt me in training.”, her voice turned cold. “I don’t care if you didn’t check up on me. What I care about is this.”
She flung the crumpled piece of paper at his feet.
Azriel’s eyes widened for a split second before he picked the message off the dirty floor, trying to straighten out the paper. He stared at it for a long time. Enough for Gwyn’s anger to subside, until only resignation was left.
She knew he was about to apologize again. But he’d never understand where she was coming from. Mother, she’d confused herself with the onslaught of feelings the little piece of paper elicited. So she spared him the mental effort.
“You don’t think we’re friends, do you?”
The silence that ensured was deafening.
“I mean”, Gwyn started, her eyes focusing on a stone on the ground, “it’s completely fine if you don’t think so. After all, we’ve been seeing each other only for a few months, and I know you have a hard time making friends. But I thought-“
With all the courage she had left, Gwyn lifted her eyes to him again. If she wanted his honesty, she needed to give it in return. “I have seen you as my friend for the longest time now. You are the person I can rant to with all the stupid, miniscule facts I read about daily. I feel like I can tell you about my hopes and dreams and don’t be judged. You make me stronger, even challenge me to dream bigger.”
She breathed in deeply, trying her hardest to keep her emotions at bay. “And until tonight, I hoped the same would be true for you. Yet I can’t shake the feeling that you keep me company because you have to, not because you want to.”
There it was, all her thoughts and deepest fears spread out before him as cohesively as possible. Minus the crush of course, Gwyn could only take so much heartache in a day.
Azriel gaped at her, as unmoving as stone, his message stretched taunt between his fingers.
And even though his voice remained quiet, the hurt in it carried all the way to Gwyn to bury straight into her heart.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Now it was Gwyn’s turn to gape at him. With each second passing, Azriel looked more and more agitated, his eyes pinning her to the spot.
“What did I do for you to come to that conclusion?”, he began pacing before her, each and every one of his next words a punch in the gut, “Was it the time I poured my heart out to you with feelings not even my brothers are privy to? Or was it when we spent nearly a whole night in each other’s arms when I can’t remember the last time I hugged someone that wasn’t family? Maybe it was that particular day when I nearly threw a temper-tantrum because you couldn’t make it to a session and I needed to see you so badly?”
He stopped in his tracks, hazel eyes so open and vulnerable that Gwyn had to swallow. “Or was it the night when I literally sprained your wrist and didn’t notice because your eyes are so gods-damn blue that I got distracted?”
Not even trying to process that last admission, Gwyn remembered all the instances he talked about. She’d considered them accidental at the time. That he was so stressed from work he took it out on the next-best person. But it slowly dawned on her that Azriel wasn’t the type to just dump his emotions on the next-best.
“You put a question mark.”, she tried weekly, suddenly feeling very small before him, “On the message, I mean. And you waited to contact me for a whole week.”
Even in the dark, Gwyn could actually see the vein in his neck pulsing with anger. He held his emotions at bay as he answered tough, his voice taunt. “Nesta came to me the night you got injured. She informed me of what I did and voiced her concern that you’d likely show up in training, pretending nothing happened. And the only logical conclusion I drew from that was that you clearly don’t trust me. I must have done something for you to keep an injury that I caused a secret. So forgive me if I didn’t think you considered me a friend, that I thought you wanted nothing to do with me.”
Well, that actually made a whole lot of sense.
Blood rushed into her cheeks. How did she let her emotions get away with her like that?
“Oh Mother”, she mumbled, her hands fumbling her hair out of her face as she tried to come up with a way to salvage this. “I misunderstood.”
“Clearly.”, the Shadowsinger deadpanned, crossing his arms in front of his chest. He observed her for a moment, his own emotions seemingly calming down. “So why on earth would you think I spend time with you out of-what? Obligation?”
With a deep, heartfelt sigh, Gwyn let herself sink on the nearby rock. The adrenaline that had been running amok in her body had left her to fend for herself, apparently. Even if it got her into this situation.
“I honestly don’t know. I guess I didn’t think you’d actually like me as a person, or as someone you could consider close to you. The fact that you were the one to save me that night in Sangravah doesn’t help this feeling either.”, she chuckled humorlessly, wringing her hands together for support, “I tend to think people see nothing in me but my trauma. That I need to be catered for specially, handled with care. I never wanted that.”
Azriel slowly stepped before her, kneeling down right before her spot on the rock. “And when have I ever handled you with more care than necessary?”
He pointedly glanced at her bandaged wrist and Gwyn couldn’t help but laugh. The admission did something within her, lightening the heavy feeling in her chest. He has always been real with her, holding her accountable, giving her his honesty. “That’s true. I know you designed the obstacle courses last year especially to vex me.”
The sheepish grin Azriel showed her was enough to get her stomach to do a little flip. “Worked like a charm, too.”
The priestess had to bite her lip to keep from smiling too hard. She remembered how she’d taken personal affront to the difficulty of those obstacles, and how she spent every waking minute planning how to best them – and in turn wipe the smug look Azriel liked to sport at that time off his stupidly handsome face.
The lightheartedness of the situation vanished, though, as she remembered how she spoke to him a few minutes ago. She’d pushed him for Cauldron’s sake.
“Azriel, I’m so sorry for coming at you like that, for screaming at you. You didn’t deserve that.”, she admitted, searching his face for any sign of anger. But she only found sympathy.
“It’s okay. You overacted a little today, but I didn’t react at all when it mattered. I’d say we’re even.”, he reached out his hands for her to take, resting them palms up on her knees. She complied, loving the warmth of his skin and the attention he showered her with.
“I agree. Let’s never talk about this again?”
Azriel nodded once, before lowering his head to press a light kiss on both of her knuckles, one after the other. His gaze snagged on her still lightly bandaged wrist. Pulling her hand closer, he kissed it too, his lips lingering on the gauze until Gwyn could feel the heat of them right through her skin. Her heart fluttered so loudly at the gesture she was sure he must have heard it.
So she blurted out the next best thing she could think of. That she couldn’t stop thinking about since he’d said it, actually.
“My eyes are teal.”
Azriel just watched her, a slow smile spreading on his lips as he took her in. As if he had nothing but time, as if he didn’t feel this overwhelming urge to shoot up and run from this situation. The bastard surely enjoyed her squirming.
“I know. But you didn’t seem to pay enough attention to the way I acted around you – and I wanted to make sure you do, from now on.”, he pulled her up with him as he stood to his impressive height. She would be paying attention now, that much was clear.
“Friends?”, Gwyn asked, not releasing him just yet. Their fingers must have found a way to interlace autonomously in the past few seconds and she savored the feeling of them a little longer.
“Friends.”, the Shadowsinger replied. But his face betrayed his even voice. Gwyn couldn’t quite put a finger on what happened, what change between them.
She only had this nagging feeling that more than friendship shone from his face as he bid her goodnight.
And she that she was well and truly in love.
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l0viez · 1 year
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This is a very random idea but like imagine,,, instead of YOU🫵🏻 being the creator of Teyvat, your actually just your parents sassy smart ass kid! and somehow your parent is the "CREATOR" of Teyvat💀 but..
SAGAU IMPOSTER!AU
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Imagine this alright, your parent plays genshin and so do you (your the one who introduced it to them! isnt that nice) now you both somehow got sucked in Genshin Impact💀(dont ask how, its for the plot LMAO)
You and your parent got chased, almost got killed, yelled at, insulted, got called as a imposter yk all that normal typical SAGAU Imposter fanfics😭
Now you and your parent somehow got mora and decided to buy a house, howd you guys even got the mora to begin with and where are you guys even buying the house from? Some shady bussiness man from Sumeru that looks like they came from Snezhnaya (no its not one of the fatui's)
Alright so let's say you both got a house now, not too big not too small just right, Sometimes some abyss mages comes by to your house and brings food at first you and your parent was warry of it (Who wouldnt?😭) but seeing the abyss mages being actually friendly it calmed your parent down abit and decided to accept the foods
One day your parent decided to go and search for some extra food so you guys dont go hungry! which leads you being the only one inside the house.. Of course you didnt pay mind into it at first then later on, you heard some people outside your house (maybe 6-7?) you heard one of them yelling that they finally found the "imposters" house and is about to break in
You look through the window and remebered one of the rumours & gossips about whoever can capture the imposters will get a very high huge ammount of rewards
You noticed these people possibly trying to kill you and your parent were Treasure Hunters
You acted quickly and went to find items to protect yourself
//(Now you know that movie "Home alone"? Where that kid's name is kevin and made some traps to keep the robbers out of their house until his family , yeah thats you rn Lmao)//
Good thing you being in that boy/girls scouts payed off, you made sure to watch every Troom troom videos/jk
No but seriously, You and your parent is prepared for this and they trained you what to do if this ever happens, you quickly went to the room where you and your parents putted the traps to protect your house
You began to set off the traps and went a place to hide somewhere in the tables (you a kid so you bet yo ass your short asf) once you fully trapped the whole house and grabbed your makeshift weapon
Once you heard them go in the house you watched the treasure hoarders fail miserably on trying to get pass through the traps you have planted
Once theyre injured enough they finally gave up and flee not obtaining anything
Meanwhile you laughing your ass off
Once your parent finally came back you told them everything that happened
and your parent laughed with you
Lets just hope those treasure hoarders wont come back or call more back up or else theyre gonna get theyre ass beaten by traps planted by you once again💀
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