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#haunted souse
see-arcane · 26 days
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@ibrithir-was-here I have committed another sin with your Blood of My Blood AU. This flavor of story-crime features a couple of youths who take advantage of winter's thaw to try and find buried treasure, believing the Count Dracula of last century to be only a ghost story told by credulous grandparents and soused uncles. There is no white-haired old man, alive and dead and skulking on the mountaintops, only dead men's gold..!
Cue the resident gaunt and haunted retainer of Castle Dracula coming around to do the equivalent of banging gothic pots and pans together to let the kids run off afraid but alive, rather than oblivious wolf dinner.
(No gold, but at least they'll have some storytelling currency to pass around and keep the legend running like a verbal Keep Out sign for the next generation of wary townspeople.)
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sinisterexaggerator · 2 years
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Do I smell a size kink?
We're talking about hands, right? I am. Inspired by this ask and this work of art by @thebluevipersden along with my thirsty posts about Cad Bane's lengthy fingers since before the  Batuuan cows came home.
Cad Bane x Fem! Reader
Note: This is the most verbose, self-indulgent garbage I have ever written. I do not apologize. This is pr0n without plot. I may mention a room? A bed? No specific setting, meant to be kind of "cerebral" or whatever.
Word count: 3.4+
Warnings: NSFW / 18+ for size kink, voice kink, fingering, edging, name-calling, hair-pulling, straight up lust and body worship, double Durosian cock sucking, finger sucking, rough and passionate kissing, breast massaging, mild/consensual gagging/choking, cum guzzling, greed, master/slave scenario though desired by the reader, light degradation, praise, orgasm control, begging, and hat tipping.
P.S.: There is remotely a happy ending. Bane will always come back to you.
Size Matters
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Extensive fingers, long-reaching, your fantasies brought to life on the vertex and crooks of their multi-jointed lengths. Blue flesh, cold and smooth with a faint roughness that paralyzes you when they caress your human skin. Marks are left in the form of horripilation; the bristling of micro hairs on your aching body as you pine for the hunter’s patented ministrations. Cruel, while at the same time tantalizing, stimulating your already sultry sex, dampened to the deepest, darkest depths that he can fathom.
***
You are a souse for Duros, drunk off this one in particular, the size, the massive expanse of his all-encompassing alien anatomy, the sight seared into your memory, occupying your thoughts all waking hours of the day and on sleepless nights, flourishing at the forefront of your conscious mind, haunting your dreams, and making a slave out of any free will still in your possession.
When Cad Bane graces you with his daunting presence you are a puppet, a plaything. He frightens you, though you are insensible; insatiable, ready, willing, and brimming with an outspoken lust that makes even this cold-blooded; cold-hearted creature smile toothily, a sinister salaciousness etched into the scarred and weathered contours of his angular features, perfect in its imperfection. Like a fine work of art, paint cracking and splitting, though no less loved for all its wear.
This man sits on a pedestal of your own making, higher than a Renek, an Emperor, or a Daimyo on his dais, those reedy digits perverse in the clasping of your mewling throat. Dangerous, deadly, decidedly erotogenic is the gentle hold that encapsulates you, yet it could crush bones into pulp and dust and nothingness.
A hand that could engulf your own smaller, mammalian one; your face; the fullness of a breast, capable of being seated and smothered in the frigid breadth of a palm.
One finger enters your mouth, sliding past the barrier of your flat teeth, fondling the wet muscle that plays at the apex until it bypasses your uvula and cants down, down, into the empty hollow, incisors and molars met with knuckle at its end. It wallows in your saliva, sequestered in the pit of your throat as you barely begin to gag, your tastebuds registering the astringent pungency of worn, dusky leather. His gloves are fingerless, though this does not prevent you from having a sampling of their acridity.
Syllables laced in heavy modulation seep slowly past twin-tipped fangs that bare themselves in approval and fascination, the callous hired-gun clothed in armorweave seething at the same time he sings his praises in your ear. “Good girl. Not de only thin’ yer gonna take from me.”
Your core is molten, a burning fire lingers in your center as he withdraws from you, rivaling the heat of a brightly blazing star. He leaves your body empty, tears threatening to fall from your bedroom eyes as he gazes at you, a twisted upturning of his lip denoting the immense amount of pleasure he receives from simply watching his prey squirm.
His depraved touch causes your chest to heave as he trails languidly across your pulse point to your clavicle, strolling along your sternum until he swoops back around to encircle a hard, erect nipple. The protrusion stands at attention, pinpricks of ecstasy enticing you to moan his name out loud, the Duros basking in the afterglow of your sudden shock as he pulls away leaving you wanton, barren of his debauch affections.
Your parted lips tremble as he inserts his tongue into your open maw, forcing your mouths together as he steeps himself to the farthest reaches, those monstrous hands clamping down on the soft tissue of your breasts to massage and adulate those doughy things that are meant to feed human young, yet are so fun to grapple and molest.
You groan against his fangs, wanting those almost nightmarishly large appendages to get lost in the bows and angles of your feminine form, exulting his name higher as you rasp quaking breaths between the annunciation of his title directly into his gaping jaws. “Fill me, Bane, please.”
He pulls away, licking a stripe from your chin to your temple, grasping you by one shoulder to maneuver you as he forces your small body to turn, bend, and lie prostrate over his boney lap upon the bed he sits on.
“Up,” he says. You crawl backward just enough like the worm you are, arms stretched across and beyond his scrawny legs, your back arcing into an all too familiar curve as your replete ass is left exposed to the open air. Cad traces a narrow pattern on your back down the veer of your spine causing your epidermis to betray you as it pimples with excitement and adrenaline once again.
“Haunchess,” he commands, and you sink down onto your knees, sitting atop your forelegs with all the appearances of a roasted pig, ready to be devoured by hungry chops.
His arm sweeps the cusp of your body, skirting your buttocks to take a sample of the secretions that practically ooze from your vaginal opening, finger pads playing with the clear, gleaming residue produced by your ardent arousal, the Duros obviously pleased with himself by the telltale snide smirk that resides at the corner of his thin-lipped mouth as he spreads the sheen apart then licks it clean.
“Sso needy,” he rasps above you, the wide brim of his bolero hat casting a dark shadow over his countenance to the point the only thing left visible are those scorching, hellfire eyes, like pools of lava boring into your soul as the man himself bores into your drenched nexus with a single, sizeable finger, each one having an extra phalange in comparison to a human being that causes you to cry out as he slowly, tortuously makes a show of forcing you to plead so indecently for more.
Oh, this is taboo; you are corruptible, so far gone your head is swimming as the hunter imbues and otherwise impales your plush innards all the way to the apogee of his Durosian digit. You would traverse entire galaxies to worship at this man’s boots, to have him render you asunder with his fearsome teeth. He belauds your increasing wetness. You meekly voice your physical and mental high with an abject whimper that makes him laugh pitilessly at your amplified awareness, his stimulation of your sweet spot somewhat austere though it does not matter. You are at his mercy.
“Easy.” He berates you, another finger comparable with the first in length and girth worming its way inside of your already stretched cunt. He stays stationary as you grind your body over the rigid appendages of the Duros, riding so close to an orgasm he pulls your head up by the hair.
You gasp, choking on your own spit, mouth hanging open as he snakes his tongue back into you, entrenching it past your tonsils as his canines graze your upper lip and chin. A shudder rocks your body and he pries himself away. You beg him for another kiss. “Master, please.”
He exudes a sound between a snort and the auditory equivalent of a sneer, mocking the exigency of your tone, his free hand unbuckling the holsters at his hips. They drop to the floor with a clatter, Bane coaxing the clasp of his pants to open, unzipping his insulated blacks, then reaching for his foreign genitalia. His cocks are revealed, twin phalli equal in width and a myriad of other ways, including ribs and ridges, crests of flesh and soft scales that when utilized synchronize with your own reproductive organs despite the hunter being of another species and ilk entirely.
“O’pen wide,” he instructs you, pushing you back down by the back of the head as those fingers so worthy of your pathetic attempts at adoration cling to your locks, guiding you to imbibe thankfully, only one, as your throat could not accommodate another. Instead, he drives this second cock forward. He thrusts it in your face even as you slather and saturate his first dick with your saliva. His slick is saccharine with a tang, the Duros’ hemipenis residing hidden until brought into service; until pumped full up of his green blood.
Your tiny, fragile hand makes note of every line, every pliable spine that threatens to latch onto the softness of your palm though it wouldn’t serve a purpose in the here and now so Bane refrains, otherwise gingerly coercing you to swallow his dick whole as you grasp and jerk his other cock within the warm seat of his chosen implement, regardless of the temporary vulnerability as his eyelids droop.
You buzz against him like a swarm of Bluebarb wasps, Bane’s top rung of a lip curling inward, a single, snaggle-fang peeking out the gap though you are too preoccupied to see the visual reward accompanying your hard work.
Your cheeks become depthless depressions, concave in appearance as this act that keeps him coming back propels a sibilant hiss, a rattle from the epicenter of his larynx, circumventing the breathing tubes that are stationed deep within, expelling that fiendish resonation in such a way that it only encourages the debase performance you are subjecting yourself to.
Objectification is in the sabacc cards, and so is degradation, though you crave any and all ill-mannered attentions this cowboy from the ghetto will give you. But so is praise, aggrandizement. He is a barbarous figure of authority when the mood strikes, yet he can also flatter and finesse.
“Dat’s it prin’cessss.”  
Your tenuous, corporeal shell has become inflexible as your sole focus is to suck him dry, though you are groaning humbly at the rich sound your body’s byproduct makes as it leaks down your inner thighs and legs from Bane’s expert influence on your dripping pith. Back and forth, the hunter’s fingers are coated in the stuff, the carnal manifestation of your dopamine release, and his building as you continue your lecherous endeavor by his guidance.
Your forearm engages in supination, muscles activating to keep pace with the suction of your mouth, your thumb stroking the bulbous head of his shaft to relish the texture of the seepage that already founts at his slit. Bane moaning is the most beautiful music to your ears, pushing you towards the throes of an orgasm quicker, though you bridle yourself from peaking prematurely by homing in on the sensation of the Duros’ adulterant anatomy gliding in and out, eluding your rather dull canines, a mere parody in contrast to his.
You’re trying so hard to curb your climax when the hand on the back of your head reaches back to smack your ass, leaving in its wake a large, red welt that shakes you viscerally and you whine against his cock jammed against the rear of your throat, profane vocalizations filling the space of the room and Bane’s ear canals with what is akin to a kind of decadent euphony. At least in this way you are both similar, taking delight in the other’s lascivious vocalizations in such a way that they appease an innate need for approval, though Bane would do as he wishes, approval or not, and the slut in you; the whore that you are does not seem to care.
“Not ta cum un’less I ssay,” he unfairly states, though your pussy is clenching as you uptake his sonorous voice. It echoes inside your ear drums, filtering through to invade your mind with its lewdness. It’s only his natural way of being, the way he speaks as Basic is not his first or native language, though the enunciations of this Duros cause you to writhe again across those spidery digits and he knows what he is doing is agonizing; he knows how those wisps of his hot breath against you are unsportsmanlike in this game you play, yet he does it to spite you, for the punishment is far worse should you disobey.
He'll leave. He’ll walk away and desert you for weeks, months on end. It is not a risk you are willing to take, so you relax your Kegel muscles and return your focus to his phalli. Though, you implore him now between your voracious appetite for his cock, and the one being stroked in your diminutive human hand, for your long sought-after liberation against his exceptionally flawless kneading of your velvet loins.
“Please, sir,” you entreat him amongst strings of your spittle, but oh, this has the opposite effect that you want it to. He spans his reach inside you, then adds a thumb to the glandular protrusion of your clit, sensually circling the little nub just to torment you. The demons of hell would have been more forgiving, yet Cad Bane does not tarry from his sadistic mission even as you legitimately cry, the salty tears streaming from your eyes a bitter reflection of the harrowing experience; the trauma engrained in you; the very idea you would be denied his visitations for the foreseeable future the only thing keeping you from spilling yourself all over him.
He gives a guttural guffaw full of derision even as it transforms into a harrumph; a mutter that borders pornographic as does anything that exits that otherwise wily mouth. Oh, the hunter is crafty, but your administrations are artful along his cock, expressing your devotion for him in a tangible way as you pick up the tempo.
It is like a dance, and you are entertaining him. He matches your momentum, and it is nearly unbearable. You thrum beseechingly, hoping that when he attains his, you will get yours, or that he will allow you to, as you are edging closer and closer, and you do not know if you can contain yourself much longer.
Your dedication and perseverance pays off. A cacophonic croak rises from the bottom of his voice box as the cock in your mouth lets loose a torrent of gelid seed, glazing your throat with its balmy texture and unique, savory flavor. It reminds of you tart confectionaries, though the aftertaste is almost sugar sweet and makes you want to guzzle the shit like there’s no tomorrow.  
You give an enrapt purr as it slides down and into your stomach. You keep sucking. You won’t stop for the life of you, not until the Duros bats you on the nose with the crown of one blue finger and you relent. He is panting, but you catch him off guard, shoving the other of his dicks into your gluttonous gullet.
“Greedy minxxx,” he hisses directly in your ear, your head bumping into the underside of his oversized hat as you bob your head, urging his second batch from the recesses of his testis. His species had two organs; two loads, and you would coax them both to the surface and into your belly - a meal in and of itself – one that always leaves you starved for more.
He sibilates again before his fangs clack against one another, the Duros bearing down on his bottom row of jagged teeth even as he jerks his fingers inside you, coiling them, applying pressure to the anterior wall of your vagina. He does this as you push him to another orgasm, that same icy, sour ejaculate coating your tongue, the inside of your mouth, and slipping down into your eager bowels.
You can’t help it. His reptilian patience, the faultlessly unhurried, absolutely professional way Bane nuzzles his entire palm against your pubic mound while adeptly nestling his colossal knobby fingers inside you causes your cunt to quiver of its own volition. They are prodigious. You come up for air, the hunter’s semen dribbling down your lips and chin as you scream to the ceiling of your meager dwelling.
You cum. He had not given his permission, though he does not remove his fingers. You ride out your pleasure to its completion, literally, body undulating like the ocean waves of Kamino over his expansive extremities.
His thumb’s pad increases your release as it keeps its movements steady over your swollen bud. He rubs another one out of you without even trying. His limbs are sodden with your liquid excess. He inclines his neck so as to look at you face-to-face as he removes those fingers you love to well, inch by interminable inch, a sopping sound in hot pursuit that makes your cheeks flush redder than his eyes until a new expression takes over your face – regret.
“Please, Cad. I’m sorry,”  you say as he wipes your overflow on the back of his chaps, the Duros standing so you are forced to sit up on your knees.
“Don’ know how t’lissten, do ya’, girl?” he chides you, sending a shockwave of humiliation through you the same time as horror and longing. You cling to the hunter’s hips, wrapping your arms about his wafer-thin waist, pleading for him not to abandon you so soon, even as he cuts himself off, adjusting and refastening his bodysuit and trousers.
“Forgive me, I didn’t mean to,” you urge him, eyes glistening as you stare into his so full of an unreadable stoicism, the only hint to his current mindset being the faint smile that tugs at the corner of his hairline lips as he squirms away, taking up his gun holsters. “I tried.”
“You did try, didn’ you?” He asks, fastening the LL-30's to himself before he brushes the backs of those spindly digits, those knotted knuckles, across your silken cheek in a kind bestowal of favoritism, drawing your chin up between the cradle of his thumb and forefinger to tilt your neck to fully face him.
“An’ ya’ failed.”
He’s right. You failed to obey. The Duros is overpowering. He ravages all five of your human senses. You would let him overtake you; engross you with every fiber of his being if it were possible, yet you know in that instant you had lost the privilege of his tactical, almost formulaic tenderness for the unknowable future, whatever he deems fair or necessary. However, it won’t stop the urgency of your appeal.
“Please, Bane, don’t leave me. I’ll do anything.”
He scowls, though it is tinged with a modicum of levity, yet dark as molasses. The man is not entirely heartless no matter the rumors and hearsay that follow his every footstep, but his true modality somehow evades you, even as his smile contorts into a full-fledged, vicious grin.
He tightens his grip on your mandible, parting your whining mouth further with the tip of his tongue. It slithers inside you, furling as it whorls with yours. He grasps your breast, palming its entirety as you rise up off the bed to meet him, though your stature still causes him to bend to greet you halfway.
He kisses you with such passion the electrical signals communicating with your brain short circuit, and you are left a throbbing mess as he pulls away. You gasp at the separation; he inserts a finger to quiet you. You suck along its length. It is drawn out and slow.
“Anny’thin’?” Bane rumbles, then he charges you with a simple decree; a verbal behest you are so unwilling yet anxious to adhere to even as he slips that finger in and out of your mouth like a third cock, watching the puckering of your lips, hypnotized by the delectable spell of your sensuous gesticulations across his blue flesh to the point he nearly loses his own train of thought.
“Mhm,” you agree, wide soliciting eyes impervious to distraction searching his ruby elliptic ones for understanding, yet he steals that finger from you with a resounding pop.
“Den you wait 'ere fer me,” he states simply, unjustly, savagely as he tips the brim of his hat to you, glossing the edge with two of those wickedly inhuman appendages that did you so, so dirty.
You gasp, cry out, grab at his coattails as he whisks around. You miss and nearly stumble, Bane leaving you in ruins and with nearly the total loss of all your dignity. The Duros pauses by the entrance of your abode. You look away, ashamed. He does not loiter, but solidifies his departure with quick strides and a slamming of the door. Even so, Cad knows he will be back. The skillset you possess is unmatched; peerless, and he has been around the Galaxy more than enough times to know he’s found a catch.
He will only leave you long enough to make you fret, but not long enough so you forget, though chances are it’s nary possible.
----
Main Masterlist
Cad Bane Masterlist
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deathsmallcaps · 7 months
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Thinking about a fucked up house based on this post and that one house in Pennsylvania with the dead animals in the walls
The attic is for hiding shames
Basements are for the dead
Closets are for skeletons
And the queer thoughts in your head
The garden is where you grow
Flowers to pretend control
The well is for whispering secrets
Who will tell? Not that wet hole
You have a dining room
But it’s mostly for show
The kitchen is for defleshing
Your pies get lots of compliments though
The bathroom holds the only mirror
For every prisoner must have one window
The mudroom incites madness
With the dirt’s constant flow
The bedrooms, guest and personal alike,
You feed and stall your nightmares
The walls are full of mummified watchers
As they are deafened by the creaking stairs
The living room is haunted
By the people who never say hello
The laundry room can never really wash
All the blood off your clothes
A million other things are falling apart
The porch is collapsing, the hall is dusty
The doors always slam, the windows too
And the pantry is rotting and musty
The shed is full of evidence
That can’t be burned away
The chimney is stuffed to the brim
With what? You shall not say
Once you moved on like the others
Realtors say, “There’s good bones in this house!”
Yes, and the bad ones are in the yard
In blood, the new people will souse
Just like your family did
Until you were the only one
It keeps cycling and cycling and cycling
What ghastly fun!
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warbornhq · 1 year
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welcome to trasnavda , blodeuedd verch iorwerth , sadhbh inghean uí bhroccáin , vasilka dragola ! be ready to present yourself to the king in 24 hours , follow the checklist and keep your wits about you . cara gee , danielle galligan , billie piper are now taken !
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cara gee . demi woman . she / they . wasn’t that blodeuedd verch iorwerth walking the palace grounds ? it’s nice to see the ottolan spy out and about on such a fine day as this. i’ve heard from the court spies that they are notoriously illusive, whilst also managing to be quite sibylline. the thirty-nine year old is eager to find out who exactly is behind the killings from what’s being said at court. i heard that they themselves aren’t vrajiit. it’s funny, whenever i think of them, i think of an ear, pressed to the knots in the floorboards, heeding what sorrow this house has to spill; ( “ burying the bodies before they even know ⸺ ” ) echoing diaphanous and wicked, their song of ash, and of blood; spun in the cobwebs, swept up into the empty corners, like dust / it’s grief caught in the rest of her throat. ( in every shadow she sees only ghosts, “ haunt me, then! ” ) tender heart, a thing kept hidden: inside of a needle, inside of an egg, inside of a duck, inside of a hare, locked inside of an iron chest, and buried beneath what is bitter and rot ( is this how one becomes deathless? the self bleeds away as ink to water, until even her body is not her own, but one of many: each to fill the role worn before her, on and on and forever ⸺ not a person, but effigy, to the docious and ephemeral, always razed and made again ). and a bend towards detachment, “ sometimes i feel like i’m not solid, i’m hollow, there’s nothing behind my eyes, i’m a negative of a person. ” great to see the ophelia around, isn’t it ? 
danielle galligan . demi woman . she / they . wasn’t that sadhbh inghean uí bhroccáin walking the palace grounds ? it’s nice to see the master assassin out and about on such a fine day as this. i’ve heard from the court spies that they notoriously tenebrous, whilst also managing to be quite adroit. the thirty year old is eager to find out who exactly is behind the killings from what’s being said at court. i heard that they themselves are vrajiit ( poison manipulation, hallucinogenic venom ). it’s funny, whenever i think of them, i think of a portrait of gentility as masquerade; its glaze peeled back to expose all manner of machination, what horror may be hewn in dark corners ⸺ many palms outstretched in perversion of grace, and each to be washed of their death ( and an itch, lingered, to look over one's shoulder; for that which follows across oceans of time, for what lies in wait when the lights go out ). the sea’s cool breath, and how it would beckon, faint song of shorebirds and salt clung to skin: a life before the great flood of red, but so thinned with age ( with harm, all softness leached out ) it has all but spilled from their hands ( there is no returning, there is nothing left, " this house is a corpse ⸺ that makes you the maggot." ) and the hand now a thing profaned, possessed not for care but molding, to provoke: fear, obedience, a distant heart ( and like the rabid dog, this creature he has birthed, she will bite ⸺ into the meat of him, and take what she is owed, with blood and with teeth ). great to see the instrument around, isn’t it ? 
billie piper . cis woman . she / her . wasn’t that vasilka dragola walking the palace grounds ? it’s nice to see the sister to the king and socialite out and about on such a fine day as this. i’ve heard from the court spies that they notoriously mercurial, whilst also managing to be quite magnetic. the forty-one year old is eager to find out who exactly is behind the killings from what’s being said at court. i heard that they themselves aren’t vrajiit. it’s funny, whenever i think of them, i think of the tender swell of soused laughter, gossamer whim and all cast in flush; an unlovely world become dreaming, and to be the lotus eater ⸺ indulge only pleasure, milk and honey ( and allowed by virtue of their gentle blood, as black as it is proud ). one's face turned against the void that is burden of rank, its cruel rend toward event horizon from which there is only loss ⸺ of self, and so, of everything ; this despair, to be made distorted, ( and still endures the hope for their favor, a fetid thing, bored through her and left in its wake: a singular, aching obsession ) the last, loathsome apple of a tall and crooked tree. and hunger chased with no heed to consequence, the world narrowed to feeling: skin too-tight, and yawning want, a surrender to one's own ruin; anything to fill and fill and fill her up, this aberration, this chasm between herself and what is good, what is human ( “ something is missing from me. and i can’t. i can’t. ” ) great to see the sybarite around, isn’t it ?
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lake-lady · 3 years
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darkisrising · 3 years
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a bobadinluke snippet, by DarkIsRising
This probably won’t see the light of day on ao3, but I wrote this for the BobaDinLuke server and since it’s the first piece of writing I’ve done in what feels like forever, I thought I’d share here... CW: implied drunk sex.  Prompt:  buy'ce gal-  the amount of ale that fits in a helmet
It’s the singing that tells Din where to go. It’s a gentle sound that winds its way through the dark and lingers in the sandy cracks and crevices of the passageway, leading Din better than any navigation system or compass ever could.
The flight to Tatooine had been long— longer than he’d hoped, especially once his hyperdrive had started giving him problems— and it's now so deep into the planet’s sleep cycle he’d half expected to find the throne room empty and everyone already in bed. Instead Fennec nods to him from the doorway where she’s leaning with a rifle on her hip and a flask in her hand. The two Gamorrean guards had been listing a bit, but they are quick to stand at attention and uncross their axes at the sight of Din drawing nearer. It makes a metallic scrape that sets his teeth on edge, and Din tiredly mutters his thanks as he walks past.
Now the singing is louder, clearer, and though the words are hard to follow— Din’s Twi'leki has never been more than passable— the melancholy yearning is understandable in any language.
It’s a love song, and not a particularly happy one at that.
Boba doesn’t stop playing when he looks up to see Din come nearer, but his lip tilts up in one corner in the barest of smirks before he bends his head back over the instrument he’s plucking, the smooth tenor of his voice rising and falling with every new note. It had been a surprise, the first time Din had heard Boba sing, but he knows all too well about the loneliness of deep space, and all the ways a being might try to drive away the ache for a little while.
Some turned to spice. Boba Fett learned to sing. Not that he’d ever admit it; to mention it outside of these quiet, languid moments is as good a way as any to get a vibroblade between the ribs as any, or so he threatens whenever the subject comes up.
Luke is laying at Boba’s feet, and in his black clothes he spreads like a shadow beneath Boba’s throne. With one foot propped up on the dais and the other dangling down, he’s got the easy sprawl of the well and truly soused. He hasn’t noticed Din’s approach, which might be a surprise if it wasn’t for the half-empty bottle of spotchka he’s balancing on his chest. The glow of the liquor paints his pale face slightly blue and his eyes are closed as he listens to Boba sing. When he ends with one last haunting note, Luke’s teeth glint as he grins: wide and bright. 
“Oh, I like that one. I like the way you sing it,” he says and Boba huffs a laugh as he kicks a gentle, affectionate thanks with the toe of his boot against Luke’s hip.
“Yeah, well. It loses most of its meaning without the lekku.” Setting his instrument down so that it leans against his throne, Boba stands, stretching his arms above his head until his shoulders crack. “What do you think, Mando? Should I turn to music if this kingpin business falls through?”
Luke startles at that, scrambling to sit up with wide eyes and it’s only through a judicious use of the Force that the spotchka doesn’t upend over his face. The bottle hovers and Boba reaches out to pluck it from the air, muttering *Easy there, Jedi* while Luke exclaims: “Din! I didn’t hear you come in. We were waiting up for you!”
“I can see that.”
“Boba was serenading me,” Luke savors the words even as Boba's face creases in a scowl. With a theatrical whisper, Luke confides: “I think he likes me.”
“Not in the least,” Boba growls but his hand catches the back of Luke’s neck and he pulls their inebriated Jedi into a short kiss before sizing Din up with a practiced eye. “Tired?”
“A little.” Mostly Din is ready to get to Boba’s quarters and get his helmet off. Wearing it never used to feel like a burden until the three of them had fallen into this little arrangement. Now it’s all he can think about whenever Boba and Luke are near: how far away he is from them when it’s on, and how long it’ll be before he can take it off again. “How much have you two had to drink?”
“Me? Not so much. Him? Buy'ce gal.” Boba gives a rueful shake of his head as Luke shouts a loud Hey! in protest. In one practiced bound, Boba leaves the dais and stalks to where Din waits for him. Luke follows with considerably less grace. Buy'ce gal, indeed. “It was a long wait, ner kar'ta.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t be,” Boba says, bringing their foreheads together and then stepping away so that Luke can have his turn. “Business is business. You needed to take care of business.”
Luke winds his arms around Din’s neck with his mirshmure'cya, sliding his lithe body close until he’s pressed into all the places that have ached, empty, with his absence. When their foreheads come apart he doesn’t go far.
“Come on. I had to trade my body for a song.” Luke grins and it punches Din with a heat that vaporizes away the exhaustion, leaving behind a jolting, eager want. “You can watch.”
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ronmanmob · 2 years
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🍁 Where does your OC go when they need to have some time to themself? Would they ever have their own “comfort corner” filled with all the things they like? Do they have a favourite spot outside that feels like its theirs and theirs alone?
Soft OC meme
In full knowledge of the fact that there will be times in his day-to-day life that he'll need a moment's escape from humanity as a concept, Ron's carved out spaces in his most frequent haunts where he can retreat to and unwind as needed. A favourite is his private office at his East End pub The Sole Trader. It lives in the back of house area that's accessed through a door that's only reachable from behind the bar and is, like the pub's main room, a wooden floored affair. Within lives a writing desk and chair, along with Ron's business folders, takings books and other needed-for-legitimate-work papers. And the walls, oh the walls. They're give or take made of tightly filled book shelves that spill over with Ron's favourite works. He'll retreat here, usually with Claude the Mastiff, if he's in need of a break. It's quiet but for the soft buzzing of the old electric ceiling light and the faint murmurings from the pub's main room as they filter back, and carries the comforting scents of Brasso polish, cigarette smoke, and the hoppy tang that most old pub spaces are soused with.
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As to an outside space, very few feel safe in the same way his happily enclosed space in the pub does, but, if it counts for anything, the in-the-open-air space beyond the open windows in Ron's Cedra Court flat is some of his favourite in all of London. It's into that air that he reaches during rainstorms, that he exhales on sleepless Horlicks nights and that calms and focuses his sometimes racing mind when it wisps inside to touch his skin.
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dylinski · 4 years
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Come Back Home
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Warnings: angst with happy ending, smut (vanilla), language, vomiting, seizure, lots of kissing, fighting
Relationships: Stiles Stilinski/Derek Hale
Word Count: 10465
Author: @dylinski​
A/N: so, i spent six months on this lol. i also haven't written anything in three months so yay! let’s just hope i can stay in the groove and keep my muse. ☺️ this is also a submission for sterek bingo 2020
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Derek walked into the seedy motel room, the sound of panging rain echoing through the small space. He collapsed on the bed exhaustedly, not bothered to remove his soused clothes. He let out a distressing grunt and winced in pain from shifting in bed, forgetting he had been wounded. There wasn’t much concern for it since abnormally rapid healing was expected, so he let sleep take him willingly despite his discomfort.
It had been like this for months now, the endless cycle of wasting his day away chasing his demons and passing out in a shady rented room to do it all again the next. He found comfort in this, or at least a numbness from all the memories he was hopelessly trying to suppress. It kept his thoughts occupied and he was always too engrossed or depleted to allow his mind to wander without his consent. Unfortunately, he had even less control over the slumberous plane versus his conscious one.
Dreams were never a relative concept to Derek since they customarily failed to linger after he opened his eyes. He could always feel the essence of the illusions of sleep, but that would soon dissipate as well. There was always that one nagging feeling in his abdomen that he could faintly feel albeit his attempts to choke it down. Always there, always lingering, to the point that he thought he might feel empty without it.
Typically, when suffering from a nightmare, Derek would wake suddenly and still as if he were petrified. No screaming, no cold sweats, no rapid heartbeat. As if he had been given a dose of kanima venom, his body found no reaction to the terrors that absconded once his lids flew open. So what made tonight different? What suddenly changed in him, allowing everything he had spent months taking apart to force itself back together, pulling like a magnetic field until it was recognizable?
Derek sat up violently in bed, his eyes flashing blue in the stark black of the room as it was riddled with the sounds of panting and a rapid heartbeat. Being a werewolf meant the muscle in his chest was already accelerated, with the rate at which it thumped now could end in sudden cardiac failure for anyone without supernatural aptitudes. He sucked air through his teeth at the sudden jerky motion upwards, instinctively bringing a hand to his stomach. Through the darkness, he could see his fingers laced with blood. Temporarily sidetracked, he jumped from the bed and flicked on the light switch, shielding his eyes at the abrupt flooding of brightness.
Derek lifted his shirt up while standing in front of the rancid sink and mirror to reveal the bullet wound that had befallen him earlier that night. He peeled off his shirt, raising his arms slowly as the pain began to radiate through his body in hopes to examine the spot more easily. Pulling the skin back, it appeared that his injury had not only failed to improve but began to deteriorate. A rush of horror made his stomach jump, nausea overcame him, knocking him to his knees as he emptied his belly into the toilet. Leaning back, he wiped the corner of his mouth and rested his head against the cold linoleum walls of the bathroom.
With his eyes closed, all the images he suffered during his slumber came rushing back, and a sting like being stabbed repeatedly manifested where he was starting to bleed again. Sitting on the floor, distraught and terrified, he let a single tear cascade down his cheek as he clasped at the lesion in his side. What was happening? The inability to recover physically was pushing his body to its barriers mentally, assuming that was what was happening here. He took in a deep breath through his nose and let it out slowly, preparing to shut his lids and face what was haunting his mind. There were flashes of memories and voices, but nothing concrete, like a puzzle that was still trying to piece itself back together.
Derek knew exactly what his subconscious was trying to communicate, exactly what recollection he had thoroughly stored away in the recesses of his mind. Regardless, he was able to call upon the record of his life. He drew in deeply as the breath hitched in his lungs, holding back the hot tears that were brimming in his eyes. It probably should have been archived as a happy memory, that moment in someone's life that alters their course and turns their world on its head, which it was, but being Derek wasn’t an exact science.
***
The large metal door flew open with a loud clang, reverberating through the large loft, as Derek swung it open. His arms were full, carrying the lanky boy, hooking his legs over his arm while wrapping his other around his back and under his shoulders. “Derek! I said I’m fine, okay? Just put me down!”
“No.”
The freckle-faced boy slacked his jaw and glinted in distaste while Derek avoided eye contact, focused on the task at hand. The boy grunted in defiance and tried to wiggle out of his arms, but Derek tightened his grip making it almost impossible without supernatural strength of his own. “Jesus, Derek. Why are you acting like a crazy person?”
Derek only responded with a grunt as he approached his bed, laying Stiles down gently. He disappeared into the bathroom as Stiles leaned back on his elbows, rolling his eyes and throwing his head back as he shouted, “Seriously dude, I'm fine!”
Derek started back towards Stiles with a first-aid box in hand and a brooding mug. Stiles scoffed when he thought about the idea of a werewolf keeping a first-aid kit around, but then it occurred to him and his face went flush. Derek scurried to his side and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Are you okay? What’s wrong? Do you need me to take the pain?” Derek grabbed Stiles’ limp hand and anchored him back to the moment.
“Huh? What? Oh, no. No, I’m fine.” Stiles was easily distracted.
Derek rolled his eyes as he let Stiles’ hand go reluctantly and turned to get a better view of his ankle. 
“You keep saying that.” Derek’s voice was gruff and annoyed. He pulled off Stiles’s shoe and the boy winced as he pulled in air sharply. “And as usual, you are not fine.” Stiles rolled his honey eyes and let his head roll between his shoulders mockingly. 
Derek peeled off the brunette’s sock and turned up the hem of his pants the best he could without causing discomfort.
Stiles was trying to hold his breath to hide the pain that radiated from his ankle up to his thigh as Derek worked on him, but the rhythm of his heart betrayed him. His eyes were screwed shut and the pain started to fade, allowing him to relax, but when he realized what was happening, his eyes flew open.
“Hey! I said don’t do that!” He swatted Derek’s hand away, the black veins in his arm paling. Derek grunted and put his hand back on his skin, the charcoal lines pulling the ache from him. There was no point in fighting Derek because Stiles had no doubt that if he kept it up Derek would have him tied down so that he couldn’t push his hand away. If there was anyone to rival the stubbornness of Stiles Stilinski, it was Derek Hale.
The pain dispersed and he could only feel a slight tingly sensation along with the impression of the swelling. Stiles sat up to bring Derek and his foot into view. The ankle was roughly the size of a tennis ball and he had had enough broken bones and injuries in his life to know that wasn’t a good sign. “How bad is it? Is it broken?” Stiles coiled back, preparing for the answer. Derek didn’t respond so he wiggled his leg to get his attention. “Do I need to go see Melissa?”
“No.”
“No, what? I asked three questions.” Stiles squinted and pursed his lips.
“I know.” Derek kept his focus on Stiles’ ankle, continuing to care for the injury.
“Okay, grumpy-pants, that still doesn’t clarify anything,” Stiles said as he waved his hand and rolled his eyes.
Stiles seemed more easy-going since Derek took the pain and the wolf found comfort in that. From the angle he was to the boy, Stiles couldn’t see the small uptick on the corner of his mouth.
“No, it’s not bad. No, it’s not broken. And no, you don’t need to see Melissa.”
Stiles unknowingly let out a long sigh of relief as he let his head fall back. Stikes took a deep inhale before he looked back up and Derek was finishing up wrapping the white compression gauze around his foot. He couldn’t help the smile that graced his lips as he watched the man care for him, a side Derek tried to keep buried down but Stiles had seen break through the surface many times.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Derek hadn’t removed his eyes from Stiles’ injury, so the brunette shook his head in awe, startled that he was able to notice. Damn werewolf senses.
“Looking at you like what?” Stiles didn’t even try to hide the sass in his tone.
Derek sighed and pulled in his lips as he turned his head towards Stiles. He tilted his head and knitted his brows together.
“I’m sorry, I don’t speak eyebrows,” Stiles mocked.
Derek rolled his eyes at Stiles and picked up the items he had littered around the foot of the bed while nursing the boy's ankle. He placed them all back into the kit and stood up, walking over to the center of the room. He placed it on the table in front of the couch as he sunk into its cushions. Leaning back, Derek rubbed the place between his eyebrows and pinched the bridge of his nose. He was so exhausted. Letting out a long sigh, he straightened his back by sitting up, knowing he couldn't rest yet.
He looked over to Stiles who was still examining him adamantly. “You need to rest, Stiles.”
“Apparently, so do you.” He threw an arm up at the man as he shifted in the bed, pulling himself up to lean against the headboard.
Derek sighed and let his head fall into his hands, digging his elbows into his thighs as he leaned forward.
Stiles scooted over to the side of the bed as best he could without twisting or moving his ankle then cleared his throat. Derek looked up hazily and saw Stiles pat the spot on the mattress next to him.
Quizzically, Derek looked the scene over and drew lines into his forehead. Stiles tried to offer him assurance with the softest of smiles.
Nervously gulping, Derek let his thoughts run rampant. It’s not that the idea repulsed him, but that fact that it didn’t. He’s known Stiles for a few years now and he has successfully drowned his feelings for him in that time frame. Stiles wasn’t very subtle and he could tell that the brunette felt...something too, whatever that may be.
No matter what he did, Stiles seemed to weave himself into the structure of Derek’s existence and there was no denying it, so he ignored it. Giving in to his weariness, he stood up and walked over to the bed, falling into its embrace. He edged the side, trying to put as much space between him and Stiles as he could.
“Look, I know you bite, but I don’t.” Derek rolled over to face the boy and glared at him with tired eyes. 
Shrugging his shoulders, Stiles slid down onto his back and let his fingers tap restlessly on his belly. Derek drowned out the noise by honing in on the boy’s rhythmic breathing. In...out. In...out. In...out.
***
A surging pain woke Derek on the bathroom floor, wrenching his intestines as he leaned over to puke again. He opened his wet eyes and saw that everything in the toilet was black. A cold chill ran down his spine and his body started to tremble as he leaned against the wall again.
With his mind spinning, he couldn’t focus on anything around him let alone a coherent thought. He pressed his palms to the cold floor, pushing up to attempt bringing himself to his feet. Before he could raise himself higher than three inches, his arms gave way and he settled back onto the ground.
If he wanted to live through the night, he was going to need help from someone...anyone. He was desperate and his instinct was taking hold, his need to survive no matter what. His wolf howled as his fragile body was decaying from the inside out.
Derek’s eyes flew open, their brilliant cyan shining in the dimness of the small space as he let out a pained shout. He needed to call for help before he passed out again fearing he wouldn’t wake up next time. He reached into his pocket, pulling his phone out and agonizingly typed in a number. His fingers were weak, along with the rest of him, struggling to enter the digits with one hand. He left black blood on the screen as he tapped, there was black blood everywhere.
His lids grew heavy and his hand went limp just as he managed to send the call. He listened to the shrilling ring on the line as he faded into the absence of reality. The last thing he heard was the familiar voice calling his name with panic. He wanted to say something back, he wanted to comfort them and convince them he was okay, to take the worry from their mind but he couldn’t.
***
Derek awoke to the feeling of fingers tracing the lines of his face. Without opening his eyes, he smiled and grabbed the hand, pulling the person it belonged to into his chest. They shifted and turned, placing the curve of their back into Derek, slotting them together perfectly. His arm was draped over them and placed over their heart, feeling the rapid pumping of blood. He nuzzled his face into the crevice of their neck and shoulder, inhaling deeply and feeling tingly at the scent he loved. 
The scent.
That Scent.
Fuck.
Startled with reality finally catching up to him, Derek jumped up from the bed, and Stiles fell off the other side in response. Derek ran over to him and kneeled down next to the boy as he groaned. “Oh shit, sorry... I didn’t...I just...sorry.” Stiles was rubbing the back of his head and sitting up while Derek looked him over frantically, terrified he had broken him.
“It’s fine, sourwolf. I’m still relatively in one piece.” Stiles leaned back on his hands, giving him a content smile and Derek let his features wash over him. Like a crashing wave, everything hit him all at once. All the emotions and thoughts he had built a barrier to hold back. The dam had cracked and the pressure became too heavy. For the briefest of seconds, he lost all control and brain function, purely acting out of instinct.
He frantically grabbed Stiles’s face with both hands and pulled him to his lips, kissing him as if his life depended on it. There wasn’t any tongue or sexualization to it, but a hunger and desire to be closer, to be one.
Every movement of their lips clashing together felt like breath was being drawn out of his chest, pulling him in like a mist into the other man’s lungs. He was so enamored by the feeling of Stiles’ mouth that he failed to realize the fingers weaving into his hair, pulling so tight that it stung his scalp. He needed Stiles so fervently that searing tears welled in his eyes and leaked past their closed hoods.
When Stiles felt the warm moisture between their cheeks, he broke the kiss and ran his fingers through the wolf’s hair, then bringing his palm to cup his cheek. He brushed away a stray tear as the raven-haired man leaned into it, eyes still refusing to crack. He inclined forward and kissed Derek’s damp cheek where the tear had been wiped away. They sat there in silence, taking in the presence of the other.
They didn’t need words to communicate, they never did. Words were pointless between them, unable to bring light and understanding to what the other was truly experiencing. If you took a look back in their history, you could catch the longing gazes that failed to hide their affection while the other wasn’t looking. The ability to connect and comprehend one another without even speaking. Conversations of the eyes that allowed them to converse with their souls rather than their words.
Possibly, they weren’t entirely aware of it themselves, but it was there nonetheless. When they did become vocal, it was banter and words of indifference, contrasting everything their bodies spoke truth to. Their subconscious’ blatantly aware of what was happening between them, but their primitive brains just needing to catch up.
“Derek…” Stiles’ voice was barely above a whisper and it made the wolf knead deeper into his hand. The way he said his name, it was dangerous. Dangerous in the sense that it was raw and desperate.
Derek’s eyes finally opened and they were the piercing cobalt that bore into Stiles’s whiskey ones.
Gnawing on his lip, Stiles leaned back in slowly and searched for some kind of rejection in the cerulean orbs, but found none. He kissed Derek so gently that the brush of their lips was almost non-existent. He kissed again, somewhat harder. He repeated the action, each kiss becoming more and more demanding.
They made their way back up to the bed, refusing to break their lips and found themselves with Derek stradling Stiles’s legs. Their pelvis’ clinging together like magnets as they deepened their kisses. Derek licked across Stiles’s bottom lip as he pushed his hips hard against the boy.
Stiles moaned and the wolf took advantage, agonizingly pushing his tongue into the other’s mouth. He searched the open space, exploring its crevices and swirling around against the opposing muscle. Stiles let small keening sounds move past their locked lips and met Derek's crotch with his own small rolls of his hips.
Derek let his hands grip Stiles’ shoulders and brush down his arms until he intertwined their fingers, bringing his arms up and over their heads.
Their bodies rubbing together caused both their shirts to ride up and Stiles whined at the lack of skin. He pulled back and tugged at the hem of Derek's black shirt, prompting him to remove the item.
Derek reached behind the brunette, gripping at the end of Stiles’s shirt and bringing it over his head. He then sat up tall after he tossed the garment on the floor, then stilled, taking the boy in for all of his worth. His fingers brushed his collarbone and made their way down, ghosting his skin. He let the pad of his thumb sweep over his nipple, causing Stiles to shudder at the contact, then down over each bump of his ribs that protruded through his flesh. Over the line that formed half of the infamous “V” on his hip and to the patch of hair below his belly button, leading down past the waistband of his chinos.
“God, you’re beautiful.” Stiles’ cheeks flushed pink at the compliment and he gulped, the bump in his throat shifting slightly as he swallowed. Derek leaned down and kissed it, leaving a trail of wet kisses around his neck, up under his jaw, and around the base of his skull until he reached behind his ear.
Stiles was absolutely blanched, his breaths thready and mouth dry.
“I need you, Stiles.” Derek’s words weren’t desperate or pathetic, but whole-hearted and demanding. A simple statement of truth.
Derek sat up again, causing Stiles’s hand that was resting on his shoulder to drag down his chest. Stiles kept it there, against the defined abs of Derek’s stomach.
Derek was waiting for any sort of response from the brunette, but Stiles was unbelievably silent in all manner of the word. Derek Hale had managed to leave Stiles Stilinski speechless. He searched the younger man’s face and found a hint of awe, making him smile.
In return, Stiles broke his lack of reaction with a toothy grin that was comically large, but utterly pure. Derek’s smile grew even wider and he let out a small chuckle, leaning in for another chaste kiss.
Derek couldn’t wait anymore, he had to have Stiles now. He hovered over him, tugging on his bottom lip with question and the brunette turned his head minimally, mimicking the uncertainty. Derek pulled away a bit more and curled his fingers into the top of the Stiles's pants.
Stiles’s eyes grew wide and he gave a weak nod. The ebony-haired man unbuttoned the pants and pulled them off, leaving behind the plaid boxers. The hardness beneath them was undeniably visible as the head of Stiles’s pink cock peeked out at the top.
Derek swung his leg over Stiles and got off the bed, the boy whining in protest at the absence of his weight on him. He pulled off his own pants and briefs, leaving himself on display for the brunette to ogle.
He was large and thick, his cock not entirely up despite its hardness. The weight of it caused him to hang slightly. Stiles’s breath hitched as he looked at the man before him.
Derek looked to be carved from stone, a masterpiece by Michelangelo himself. His eyes seared into the flesh as he examined him, the bits of his hair sticking up from where his own fingers ran through, thick brows that rested above his kaleidoscope eyes. Lips that were pink and soft as clouds, his tongue running across them with desire.
Stiles followed the line of his jaw, littered with scruff down his neck that was thick and strong, shoulders that too often bore the weight of the world and arms that showed muscle without flexing. He looked at his hands that were deftly underrated, strong rough hands that he didn’t see as weapons the way Derek did, but as gentle tools. He remembered how those very hands had been used to take care of his injury and take away the agony that came with it.
Stiles’s eyes drifted to the surprisingly boney hips next to where his hands were hanging. Lines shot downwards from his hips into his pelvis but were cut off by dark hairs on his crotch. The hair extended up and onto his stomach which was hard and toned. A red blush covered his face as he looked back down to his thick cock, now being pumped by those full hands. Derek’s head was pink and swollen, liquid leaking from the slit at the top. Stiles could feel his own precome pooling on his stomach from the tip that poked above his underwear.
Stiles swore he was close to coming just from the sight of the man alone. His mouth was a contrast of watering with desire and dry from astonishment. It matched the oxymoron of his body, now breaking out into a cold sweat. His jaw was slack and he took in a shaky breath. “Fuck.”
Stiles had imagined Derek before when he let his mind wander, he even had seen him shirtless countless times, leaving little to the imagination, but seeing him fully, and in this way, wanting Stiles, was like gazing upon him in a new light. It felt like he was seeing him for the first time.
“Don’t just fucking stand there,” Stiles threw up a noodle of an arm, and Derek wasted no time to climb back on top of him. He wiggled his way between the brunette’s legs, letting their cocks rest next to each other. 
He went in for a kiss, this one more sloppy and heated than the others, different and less sensual. Derek involuntarily began to buck his hips down, rubbing his cock alongside Stiles’s, only the thin fabric of the boxers between them. Stiles let out a moan from the friction against Derek and resented the barrier between them. He wiggled his pelvis up and Derek hissed with the unexpected pleasure. 
“Off,” was all Stiles could manage as his heart pounded in his chest, and Derek complied. He sat up, pulling the waistband down and bringing Stiles’ legs in front of him and straight up. He tossed the item and brought his legs back down slowly, but Stiles was impatient and sat up to meet his lips. He made his way onto Derek’s lap, straddling him.
Derek would roll his hips up into Stiles and keening sounds escaped with each brush. Their cocks caught between their stomachs and mixing the precome into their flesh. Stiles wrapped his legs around the wolf’s back as he was lowered back down. “Derek, please. I need you inside me.”
The beta reached over to the table next to the bed and opened the drawer. He pulled out a bottle of lube and spread it across his fingers. Stiles looked on in anticipation and couldn't help but to gnaw on his lips.
Derek traced the ring to Stiles’s entrance and the boy shuddered at the touch. The lube made Derek’s fingers cold at first, contrasted to the heat irradiated off Stiles’s body. 
“You gotta talk to me, okay?” Stiles nodded at Derek’s words with his eyes closed, basking in the pleasures he was feeling. “No, talk.” Derek wasn’t demanding, but still adamant.
“Okay.” Stiles breathed out hard, his voice almost nonexistent. He realized Derek was waiting on him. “More.” He could hardly keep his eyes open, his head back and neck exposed as he wiggled beneath his lover.
Derek pushed in a single finger and Stiles let out a harsh breath that turned into a moan. The sensation was strange but felt amazing. When he adjusted, he looked up at Derek and let him know he was okay. The man slowly inserted a second digit, stretching Stiles out. Stiles’s cock twitched, a steady stream of clear liquid leaking from his slit and onto his belly. He bucked his hips, begging for movement, and Derek started to incite his fingers, pulling them out and pushing them back in.
As Stiles relaxed and loosened around him, Derek’s movements were faster and stronger, pulling elicit moans and whines from Stiles.
“Der-” Stiles couldn’t manage to say his whole name between his hitched cries of pleasure.
“What do you need? Talk to me, remember?” Derek kept the rhythm of his fingers, twisting and scissoring inside Stiles.
Stiles let out a grunt of frustration, unable to form words. He wasn’t sure why Derek kept wanting him to speak, but he’d comply as best he could. “You.” He let out another groan of satisfaction. “I need you.”
Derek halted his hand and tilted his head at the boy. He watched as Stiles let out a whine of protest and looked up at him pitifully. Derek offered him a small smile and leaned over the brunette to get more lube, placing a small kiss on his lips. Derek poured some in his hand and then applied it to his enlarged member, flinching at the sudden chill the liquid brought.
Stiles watched over his belly and through his legs in awe as Derek pumped his cock in his hand. Stiles found himself bringing a hand to his own dick and wrapping his fingers around it as he pleasured himself. 
Derek looked up and noticed, pushing Stiles’ hand away. He leaned down, still stroking himself with one hand and enveloping Stiles in the other.
Derek made a long stripe from the base of Stiles’s cock to the swollen head with his tongue and took him into his mouth, tasting the salty-sweet precome. Stiles let out a loud gasp and tensed slightly from the surprise as he bucked his hips up into the back of Derek’s throat and wrung his fingers into the man’s black locks. Realizing how close he was to finishing, he stilled Derek’s bobbing head, “Wait. Derek, just wait.” His words were strained.
Derek stopped and let Stiles’s throbbing cock fall from his mouth with a pop and hit his stomach where the patch of hair was thick on his belly. He raised an eyebrow with concern that Stiles wasn’t happy. Sitting up, he separated himself from the mole-speckled man slightly, in fear he was changing his mind.
“No! No, come back. I just…” Stiles looked to the side and bit his lip. Derek couldn’t help but let out a needy noise at the sight. “I was close and didn’t want to finish in your mouth.” Stiles sat up and placed his hand at the back of Derek’s head, locking their eyes. “I want to finish with you inside me. I want to feel you fill me up, coming on your cock.”
A thundering growl escaped Derek’s lips as he crashed them onto Stiles’s, knocking them both back down into the bed. His wolf took hold, no longer buried beneath the surface. His eyes flashed blue as he pushed himself up to look at Stiles and the young man gawked in amazement. Stiles brushed Derek’s cheek with his thumb and worried his bottom lip, gazing deeply into Derek’s sapphire eyes.
They met in another deep kiss, inhaling the moans the other made as their cocks rubbed together between their stomachs, slick from the lube. Derek lifted his hips and reached down, refusing to break their liplock. He positioned himself against Stiles’s hole and felt him flinch at the touch. He looked down to make sure the position was right and looked back to Stiles for affirmation one last time.
Stiles nodded with begging eyes and Derek pressed into him with dragging speed. Stiles let his head fall back and his jaw went slack as he felt Derek’s head slip into him. It was a mix of pain and pleasure, something words couldn’t define. He felt himself fluttering around Derek, adjusting to the protrusion and relaxing as his body became attuned with it. He closed his mouth and looked back to Derek who had stilled and Stiles frowned, whimpering and in need of more than he was given. “Derek…” His voice was hoarse and crackly, barely making a sound.
Derek offered sympathy and responded by slowly sliding in deeper. He was met with some friction as he felt Stiles clench. “Relax,” he whispered as he leaned down and kissed Stiles easily with nothing less than love. That’s what this was. They weren’t fucking or hooking up, they were making love and it scared Derek shitless but that was the last thing on his mind as he looked down at the man lying before him, offering himself wholly and completely.
Stiles felt relief at the reassurance of his lover and relaxed as best he could, his heart beating rapidly against his chest. His mind and pulse were racing at inhuman speeds, relentless, but everything around him stilled. Derek’s lips stuck to his, making a small noise when they separated from one another. God he loved Derek, he loved him with every atom of his being and had for so long, even if he hadn’t known it.
Feeling Derek rolling his hips, his cock moving in and out at an agonizingly slow pace, it forced Stiles to close his eyes despite his desire to stay locked on Derek. The room was filled with his wanton moans and gasps met with Derek’s grunts and shallow whimpers. The sounds rang like music to Stiles’s ears, listening to his lover as he began to thrust at a more unrelenting pace.
“Oh fuck,” Stiles breathed and flew his lids open to see Derek’s wolf eyes beating down at him. They had both acquired a sheen of sweat, causing their chests to glisten in the light.
“Stiles,” Derek grunted, screwing up his features trying to hold back his release. His stamina was higher than this, but with Stiles it was different. He could look at the boy naked and come, his body begging and screaming for liberation.
The way Derek said his name told Stiles he was close. “Touch me,” he demanded frantically and Derek complied, reaching for Stiles throbbing dick, a constant stream of cloudy precome escaping his slit and pooling on his stomach.
Stroking Stiles’s cock was easy with the mix of sweat, precome, and lube that had accumulated between them. He kneaded the slit with the pad of his thumb then started to stroke again, Stiles’ breath hitching in his throat, something blocking his airway. 
“God, Stiles. I- I love-” Derek faltered for a split second but managed to recover. “Fuck, you’re amazing.” He placed kisses along the man’s spotted jaw and whispered so softly that even a wolf would have trouble hearing. “Come for me.”
Stiles let out a bellowing cry and for the briefest of seconds, Stiles felt his stomach lurch—the feeling you get when you hover in the air right before you come down on a swing. In that moment, everything made sense and the whole world was crystal clear. He looked at Derek for what felt like hours and saw him shining like a star; his beacon of light that would always guide him home—Derek was home.
Stiles’s whole body shuddered violently as he came over Derek’s hand, his body tensing and tightening just before all his limbs went limp. Derek felt the brunette beneath him and around his cock, straining him and pulling his own orgasm with the pressure, having seen the man he loved come because of him. He could watch Stiles come over and over again.
Stiles’ face contorted in the most beautiful of ways, like an angel that wasn’t worthy of his gaze. He emptied himself into Stiles, coating him with his seed and a roar escaped his chest as he collapsed onto Stiles, panting and huffing in sync with the body under him.
They laid there for an unnamed measure of time, Derek now flaccid inside Stiles, both of them too exhausted to move or clean themselves up. After what felt like an eternity, Derek managed to regain some strength and got up to grab a wet cloth. He cleaned Stiles and then himself and after he proceeded to climb back into bed. He pulled Stiles into his side, holding him close and tight, never wanting to let him go again. 
They dozed off effortlessly in each other's arms and under the covers, breathing in each other and living in that moment where the world outside the loft didn’t exist. Just two men deeply and madly in love and they didn’t need another damn thing, this was enough.
***
Derek felt hands on his face, a familiar and longed for touch. His eyes opened but his vision was dark and blurred. “S’iles?” He slurred and felt his head roll as the bathroom swirled around him. “S’you?”
“Derek!? Derek, what happened?” The panic was blatant in Stiles’s voice as he coerced Derek to wake. “DEREK!?” He tapped the man's cheek as Derek’s head started falling.
Derek shook his head and opened his eyes, flashing between their beta color and his natural blues and greens. He groaned and tried to sit up, but had no control over any part of his body.
“Derek...” Stiles searched the man as best he could for the source of the black blood under the fluorescent lights. He pulled up the shirt Derek was wearing and discovered the open and festering wound on his side. “Oh my God. Derek, oh my God. What happened? Shit. Shit shit shit shit.”
Stiles grabbed the hand towel from the wall, which he was certain was less than clean in a place like this, and used it to apply pressure with both hands. A cocktail of curses and prayers escaped Stiles’s lips as his eyes began to well. “Derek, I swear to God…”
Stiles grunted as Derek shifted and contorted his face in pain. That was better than seeing his limp body laying on the floor. “I swear to God if you fucking die I will kill you.”
Derek’s eyes rolled into the back of his head as he fell, laying on the ground. His body went rigid and began convulsing.
“FUCK.” Stiles threw the towel down and turned Derek onto his side as best he could. Stiles sat behind him, Derek’s back leaning against his chest as Stiles used his whole body to keep him in that position.
Tears streaked Stiles’s cheeks and he gritted his teeth, a bottomless terror tearing its way through his chest down into his stomach. He was beyond his depth and felt helpless. He needed to get Derek stable so he could piece together what was happening to him.
Stiles held onto Derek like the man would evaporate if he let go. Screwing his eyes shut he clung so hard his fingers were going numb and his knuckles turning whiter than bone. After finally finding Derek, he wasn’t about to lose him again; he couldn’t. If Derek died, he would die on the floor right next to him.
The seizure lasted less than a minute, but it felt like hours. After Derek finally stilled, Stiles let his head fall onto Derek’s shoulder and he could hear shallow breaths. He relaxed into the unconscious body on the floor and let out a choking sob. He sat there a minute, whimpering and soaked in the black blood that was seeping out of Derek.
Stiles couldn’t move, didn’t want to move, finding peace in Derek’s breathing. In...out. In...out. In...out.
***
“How’s your ankle?” Derek spoke softly as he let his fingers trace the side of Stiles’s arm. He was curled into the older man’s side, a smile on both their faces and eyes closed with contentment. Every once in a while, the brunette’s body would mildly shudder from the sensation of Derek’s touch, it wasn’t his fault he was ticklish. 
“It’s fine.” Stiles hummed and nuzzled closer into Derek’s side.
“I don’t like that.”
Stiles sat up and looked down at his wolf with confusion. “Don’t like what?”
Derek pushed himself up onto his elbows and showed a sympathetic smile. “When you say ‘I’m fine’. You say it too often and I can always tell that you’re not.”
“Well, I am now. More than fine actually.” Stiles was starting to feel marginally defensive. “What about you? You say it too.”
“I do not,” Derek grumbled and laid his head back down, dismissing the discussion, but Stiles wasn’t finished.
“You do so! All the time actually.” Stiles sat straight up and picked up an accusatory tone.
Derek opened a single eye and glared at the boy who was now speaking with his hands.
“Hey Derek, how are you?” Stiles comically deepened his voice, “Fine.” Speaking normally again, “Yo, Derbear, how’s it hanging?” In a mocking timbre, “Fine.”
Derek was not appreciating the antics Stiles was executing.
“Oh my God, Derek! You’re bleeding from everywhere!” In his Derek voice, “I’m fine.”
Derek growled and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He got up and pulled on his briefs, then walked over to the couch to get some space.
“Oh! Real mature. So it’s okay for you to have a problem with something that I do, but the second I have an issue with you, you turn into a toddler.”
“I’m not a toddler.” Derek’s words were hard and gruff, spoken through gritted teeth. He crossed his arms over his chest and refused to look in Stiles’s direction. 
Obviously, that wasn’t going to work, so Stiles leaned over the edge of the bed to find his boxers, then limped his way to sit on the table across from the grumpy wolf. “Really? Because it sure looks like you are to me.” 
Derek looked at Stiles fleetingly and huffed in defiance. 
“Seriously, why do you put these walls up around me? We just had the most...mind-blowing sex, and you opened up to me in ways I didn’t think possible, but you’re still doing this shit.” Stiles hesitated for a moment, pondering the idea of mentioning what he heard in the throes of it all, unsure if it was something that just slipped out or intentionally said. Shit, he didn’t even know if Derek knew he said it. “For fuck’s sake Derek, you told me you fucking love me! Why are you still keeping up these walls?” 
Derek threw up a horrified stare like someone just told him he could never wear a black t-shirt again. Stiles drew into himself, feeling like he shrunk in size, immediately regretting everything that just came out of his mouth. “You need to leave.” Derek looked straight into Stiles’s eyes, bare of any emotion.
“Excuse me?” Stiles widened his eyes and watched Derek stand up and storm off to the other side of the room, his back facing him.
“I said go!” Derek shouted over his shoulder, standing there like an immovable object.
“No! Derek, no. I’m not go-”
“Jesus Christ, Stiles. Just give me some fucking peace!”
Stiles sat frozen, just blinking here and there, not entirely sure if any of this was real. For what was only a minute, in reality, felt like an eternity, but he refused to move and finally spoke up when he processed what the fuck was going on. He didn’t understand it, but he processed it nonetheless.
“Derek…” He heard a grunt from the man. “Please, just listen to me…” He heard no protests, so he continued. “I...I don’t know if you meant it, but…” Stiles paused when he thought he heard a diminutive whine. “...but I do. I get why you do this, I do, but I wish you didn’t keep building yourself up and breaking it all back down in this repetitive and arduous cycle. You show me things, tell me things, that I’m pretty confident you hide from everyone else, but then whenever I try to talk about them with you, you close off and shut down. What are you afraid of? I know you’re scared, I know you’re always scared. You think I don’t see you, but I do. After everything we’ve been through, all the shit we’ve faced...even after this!!”
Stiles took a deep breath and sighed in an attempt to relax and not shout again. That wasn’t his intention, he doesn’t want to make Derek any more defensive. “Even after this, you still can’t trust me.”
Stiles’s words hurt, and Derek wanted to tell him none of that was true, he did trust him, he trusted him with every atom of his being, but something in him, something deep in his gut made him still as stone. Stiles was right about one thing, he was scared, terrified to the point of petrification.
Everyone in his life has left him, whether it be by choice or circumstance, but they left him behind all the same. It became second nature for him to close off, shut people out. Why should he let someone in when they were just going to leave too? Everyone he ever loved or that meant something to him had gone, leaving him alone in this world, taking a piece of him with them when they walked away.
His father, who left him and his mother when he was too young to remember, just the stench of stale cigarettes and smoke. Paige, the first girl he ever loved. Kate, the first woman he loved. His mother, whose death he blames himself for. Cora, finding another pack in South America. Isaac, leaving him to join Scott’s pack. Peter, choosing power over family. So much pain in his memories, the belief he wasn’t good enough and no one wanted him.
“Fine, if you won’t talk to me, I’ll go, but just know…” Stiles felt moisture in his eyes and couldn't hold back the silent tears, burning. Trying not to whimper, he could only manage a whisper. “Just know that I love you. I don’t care about everything else, okay? I’ll never forget the day we met. It was like something clicked, but I didn’t know, not until the pool.” 
Stiles didn’t need to elaborate, because Derek knew the exact moment he was talking about.
“I still hated you, oh yeah, but I loved you too. I hated who you were trying to be, the mask you wore, but I loved the man underneath. That’s all I want Derek, I want you.” Stiles pulled on his pants as best he could with his injury, slipped on his shoes and shirt, and headed for the large metal door. He slid it open and stopped to look at the man he so unashamedly was in love with who hadn’t moved a muscle, then regrettably left.
***
Derek woke to the sensation of a numbing pain throughout his body and loneliness in his stomach. Everything was too sore to move, even the strain of opening his eyes. The early morning light shined through his lids, so he raised an arm over his head and laid it on his face. His mind was slowly catching up and the heavy weight pulled down on his heart when he remembered imaging Stiles amid his delusional state.
Shifting in the bed, Derek became aware that the last time he was conscious, he was on the floor in the bathroom. Derek’s lids flew open and he managed to sit up minimally with his sudden rush of adrenaline. His eyes scanned the bright room, adjusting to the light, and found the familiar speckled face asleep in a chair in the corner. Stiles’s mouth was somewhat open and tiny snores escaped as his chest rose and fell.
Derek attempted to pull himself up in the bed and winced in agony, clutching his side. He leaned back against the headboard, gasping for breaths and closed his eyes to even his breathing. When the pain became manageable again, he opened his eyes to see the boy unmoved.
“Stiles,” Derek spoke softly as to not startle him, but he was unphased. He spoke his name again with more vigor and Stiles almost fell out of the chair with alarm.
“Huh!? What!? Who’s dead!?” Stiles rapidly blinked his eyes, adapting from the darkness to daylight, and pulled himself up in the chair.
“Stiles…” Derek wasn’t impressed with his antics. Maybe he would be if he wasn’t consumed by the torment of his wound, but it was difficult for him to focus on anything else.
Stiles saw the strain on Derek’s face and stood up quickly, racing to the bed and kneeling on the edge. “Derek? Are you okay? Shit. No. I know you’re not okay. What can I do? What happened?”
Stiles continued to spit out question after question until Derek interrupted by repeating his name for a fourth time.
“Oh god, I’m sorry.” Stiles shied with embarrassment, knowing the last thing Derek wanted to handle was Stiles’s slew of inquiries. “I’m going to check your side, okay?”
Derek only managed a barely audible grunt and small nod before Stiles began to lift up his shirt. Looking down, Derek realized he wasn’t covered in black blood, and clean clothes had been put on him. “Did you…”
Stiles was focused on the injury and looked up slightly dazed, “What?” His voice was soft and distant.
Derek nodded down towards his body.
Stiles shyly responded, “Oh. Uhm, yeah. It’s no big deal.” He shrugged and pulled Derek’s shirt back down, then got up from the bed. He went back to the chair, slumping down into it. “So what happened? It looks like a bullet wound.”
Derek couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea that Stiles managed to drag him from the bathroom into the bed, clean him, and change him. Speaking of which, he began to ponder the idea of how he even knew he was here and needed help in the first place.
“It is. How did you find me?” Derek’s throat was raw and dry, along with his lips. He licked them and longed for some water.
Stiles sat forward in his seat, “Doesn’t matter. How did you get shot? Was it laced with wolf’s bane? That could be why you’re not healing. And it explains all the black blood.” Stiles scrunched up his nose at the memory of almost having to cut off Derek’s arm. “I’m not going to have to amputate you from the sternum down, am I?”
Derek growled and rolled his eyes. The sound tore at his throat. “Water.”
“Oh!” Stiles jumped up and found a glass on the table and filled it at the sink. He noticed a bullet laying inside and picked it up. He mindlessly offered the cup to Derek as he inspected the piece of metal in his other hand.
“Stiles…”
“Hmm?” Stiles turned back to Derek and it occurred to him he needed help with the drink. “Oh. Yeah, shit. My bad.” He sat down next to Derek and helped him take some sips. Stiles placed the glass next to the bed on a side table and looked at the bullet again. “It doesn’t look like it’s laced.”
“Because it’s not. Wasn’t hunters.” Derek slouched some, lessening the pressure on his open wound.
Stiles stared at him quizzically, “What were you doing to get shot at by non-hunters? Who even-” Stiles’s eyes widened and he stood up forcefully, “COPS!? Were you being shot at by cops!?”
“No.” Derek was beginning to feel his body worsen and was having trouble keeping his eyes open.
“Who was it then?”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m dying anyway.”
Stiles shot daggers at Derek, “You’re not allowed to.”
Derek glared and shook his head, of course, Stiles would be the one to challenge death. He turned in bed, closing his eyes.
Stiles sat down hard on the bed and shook Derek until he opened his eyes and groaned. “Listen, asswolf, we’re gonna figure this out. You were pretty bad before. I didn’t…” Stiles looked down at his hands on Derek’s arm for a moment then raised his eyes back up. “Thing is, you got better, but you’re starting to get shitty again. If it gets as bad as before, I don’t think you’ll come back from that.”
Fear was evident in Stiles’s eyes and Derek wanted nothing more than to reach out and kiss him, tell him it was all going to be okay, but he couldn’t and it destroyed him. A surge of pain ran through Derek’s body and he tensed, letting out a seething breath through his teeth.
“Derek! Fuck!” Stiles reached out again, touching Derek’s arm, and his body instantly relaxed. “Oh my God…” The boy grabbed Derek’s shirt and pulled it up, almost off him completely.
Derek was confused and his lack of clarity and consciousness wasn’t helpful. “What…”
“Shh.” Stiles shushed him sternly and traced his fingers over the black veins from the wound and up Derek’s chest.
Derek shivered at the contact, warm fingers against his cold skin, fingers he felt before and a touch he had ingrained in his memory. Something in him pulsed--his heart, his mind, his blood--he didn’t know but it pushed him and for a fleeting moment he could breathe. Stiles’s fingers left his skin but the feeling of his touch lingered.
Stiles looked at Derek and his eyes appeared more wet than normal, “They’re almost to your heart.”
Derek pulled down his shirt, “I know.”
Stiles pursed his lips and furrowed his brow deep in thought. Derek examined him, scanning his face, every mole, freckle, and shape. He always loved the way his nose was slightly upturned, making it easier to kiss his soft pink lips. God, he desperately wanted to kiss him one last time before he died.
“Stop that!” Stiles lightly punched Derek’s arm but it was still enough to make him recoil in his vulnerable state. “I know that look and I hate it. You’ve given up. You’ve decided that this is it and you’re dying. I’m not turning my back on you this time!”
Tears begged to leave Derek’s eyes and he managed a sad smile. He had forgotten just how relentless Stiles was and how much he loved him for it, even admired it. He was right though, Derek was content with this ending, Stiles with him. Although it wasn’t how he thought he would die, it would be enough--Stiles was enough.
“I said stop it!” Stiles hit Derek again and served him a hard scowl.
“I’m sorry.” Derek closed his eyes in shame and let out a heavy sigh.
Inhaling deep with frustration, Stiles took Derek’s hand into his own. He knew those two words intimately, the same way Derek did. Derek wasn’t apologizing for what he did, but what he didn’t do, or what he felt was not enough.
Stiles took his free hand and brought it to Derek’s face, cupping his cheek and running his thumb under his eye, wiping away the tear before it had a chance to fall. “You still got me.”
Derek’s eyes opened and he tilted his head, gears turning in his mind.
Silence took over as they embraced one another with their glances until Stiles’s eyes widened and he knitted all the pieces together. “Scott!”
“What?” Derek was beyond confused now, certain he was hallucinating.
Hurdling a leg over Derek, Stiles straddled his calves and pushed the shirt up again. “Scott!” He shouted with excitement like it was the answer to all their problems. Engrossed by his own mind and thoughts, he was oblivious to the fact that Derek had no clue what he was referring to.
Shock took over Derek as he was being topped, “Scott?”
Touching the decaying flesh on Derek’s stomach, Stiles pressed gently and looked up to Derek’s eyes. “Yes, Scott. This happened to Scott. I know what’s wrong and I can fix it. Well...I can’t, but I know how. You have to fix it.”
Understanding Stiles was an art, and Derek had mastered it long ago, but it was doing him no good right now. His eyes searched for answers, yet found nothing but joy and hope in Stiles’s eyes. He didn’t comprehend it or know why he was so filled with optimism, but it was enough. “Tell me.”
Stiles settled onto his knees, wiggling into Derek unintentionally. Had this been any other time, Derek would have growled and flipped them over. “Okay. When the alpha pack attacked you and we thought you died, the second time,” Stiles squinted and realized they thought he died four times and was going to bring it back up later because that was unacceptable, “Scott blamed himself. He had been hurt too but he wasn’t healing and it kept getting worse. His blame and guilt prevented his ability to recover and did the opposite. He believed he deserved it, the pain and suffering.” Stiles tilted his head innocently and sighed.
Knowing Derek carried the weight of the world, there was an endless list of things that Derek felt unnecessary guilt for. He had found himself in a vicious self-deprecating cycle and it needed to end. “Why do you feel guilty?”
Derek shied away, hiding his conviction, but Stiles took his chin and turned him back to face him. Stiles wore a sad smile that begged for Derek to open up, he always wanted him to open up, but Derek had always been so frightened. That’s what fucked everything up in the first place. Looking deep into Stiles’s eyes, Derek replied, “You.”
Sitting up straight, Stiles donned confusion. “You feel guilty because of me?” Stiles seemed broken and distressed, leaning back subtly, “I...did I do something wrong?”
Derek sat up quickly, ignoring the surging pain and cupped Stiles’s face, “No! No, no, no. You didn’t do anything. It was me, it was my fault. I did this.” Derek searched Stiles’s eyes and tried to offer a sense of solace but he had nothing to give; at least nothing but the truth.
He pressed his forehead to Stiles’s and whispered, “I’m sorry. I didn’t want this. I was so terrified of you. You tangled yourself into me, I didn’t know how to handle that, so I ran. I wanted to tell you everything that day in the loft, I begged myself to, but I was paralyzed. My greatest regret was hurting you after we...and then letting you walk out that door. I didn’t want you to blame yourself or think you did anything wrong. I pushed you away, I made that choice for us. As soon as you left, I packed a bag and just drove as far as I could. I’ve been numbing myself ever since, searching for Kate and helping Chris, that’s how I got shot, one of Kate’s goons.”
Stiles pushed their foreheads apart and glowered at Derek, but kept quiet as to not interrupt.
Tracing his thumb across Stiles’s cheekbone, he continued, “Stiles, you were right. I was beyond afraid of you, of us. Everyone who has ever meant something to me left me alone and took a piece of me with them, I couldn’t open myself back up to that, I couldn’t lose you, so I left before you even had the chance.”
“I would never leave you.” Stiles waited for Derek to keep going, but he kept quiet. Stiles could see in Derek’s eyes that he wanted to believe his words, but couldn’t because of the ghosts in his past, haunting, and lingering. “Derek, I could never leave you. I looked, you know. I searched for you after you left, every day. You’re not easy to find.” Stiles let out a sad laugh. “When you called me last night, I didn’t know who it was, but I heard you say my name. I called out but you didn’t answer. I knew something was wrong, so I may have committed a few felonies by tracing your number. That’s how I found you. I’ll always find you.”
Derek licked his lips, feeling warmth return to them and the rest of his body. He leaned in and tilted his head until they were sharing the same breath. He wanted to kiss Stiles fervently but hesitated for an unknown reason. Something in the back of his mind still holding him back like an invisible chain. He told Stiles everything and knew what Stiles said was true, but he couldn’t feel it.
Stiles sensed Derek’s tentativeness and waited for him to close the gap. His heart was pounding against his ribs and his blood was boiling. He missed Derek desperately and finally found him, he was in his arms but knew he had to let Derek make the move. He laid everything out on the table and knew the only way Derek would start to heal was if he accepted the past and forgive himself.
Derek inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. The final link in the chain, holding him back had to be broken. He couldn’t hide behind his fear anymore because it was killing him, quite literally. He had no reason to keep it inside, and why would he want to. It was time to open up, so what if things didn’t turn out okay? Living a life paralyzed by all the “what if’s” was no way to live. He needed to let go of the past and look to the future, look to what was sitting right in front of him, who was sitting right in front of him.
Leaning in, Derek whispered against Stiles’s lips like a prayer, “I love you too.” That was the final piece, to say out loud what he felt so profoundly in his bones. Stiles had been his guiding light since the day they met. They always seemed to find their way back to each other, meeting in the middle and being what the other needed or was missing. Derek loved him so deeply and wholeheartedly that it was painful, but the pain that lets you know you’re alive. Stiles set a fire in his bones and sparks in his veins, reminding him that it’s okay to live, okay to feel, and okay to be human.
Derek kissed Stiles hard and deep, neither of them noticing the black lines on his arms receding. He wove his fingers into Stiles’s hair and gripped tight, trying to get closer to him, his breathing heavy and deep. He pulled back Stiles’s head and kissed down his neck and over his Adam’s apple down to his clavicle, sucking small purple marks along the way.
Stiles moaned and his open mouth gasped for a breath he couldn’t catch. Derek made his way back to his lips and pulled them down to the bed. Stiles slid his hands up Derek’s sides and across his stomach. He stopped abruptly and stilled, then sat up. Stiles pulled up Derek’s shirt and ran his hand across the place the wound used to reside. “It’s gone.” He looked up to Derek, beaming like the sun itself, “It worked!”
Derek laughed and Stiles grabbed Derek’s face, crashing into his lips. Derek couldn’t help but smile and chuckle between each kiss. Derek flipped them over and rolled his hips between Stiles’s legs, pulling a soft moan from him.
They fit perfectly together, like two halves of a whole. The way their lips slotted together, forming the perfect seal. Derek trailed his hand up Stiles’s arm above his head and slid his fingers into his, fitting together seamlessly.
Derek could lie here with Stiles forever, just kissing him, his lips, neck, collarbone, shoulders. The taste of him lingered on his tongue and it was a flavour he never wanted to wash out. He exhaled and fell into the crevice of Stiles’s neck, scenting him and nestling in.
Stiles ran his hands over Derek’s back, tracing patterns unknown to him and inhaling the scent of Derek. They laid there holding each other, consumed by their love and passion. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for them.
Derek rolled off of Stiles and curled in next to him, Stiles playing with Derek’s fingers as he put the other behind his head for support.
“Come back home.” It wasn’t a question or a demand, but a request. Stiles missed Derek and couldn’t imagine spending another minute without him.
Letting go of Stiles’s hand, Derek raised it to the boy’s face and pecked his lips, “You are my home.”
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Forever Taglist: @stiles-o-dylan24​
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skeletorific · 4 years
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man i just wanna throw this out there and i think you'll catch it, how do you think some of the ancestors would take an invite to a human thing like a party or a ceremony? like if it was prefaced with 'compared to troll events there's a strict no one dies policy and a be human-style nice to people you don't particularly like or care for rule as well' idk if even the first ship crew would come along, and tbh i wouldn't really fault them because it's new and spoopy and they're dead after all
Ok, so you have thrown it, and I have caught it. I am unsure if I caught it in the direction you threw it, but I have caught SOMETHING and it is something I love dearly.
So, this question: I had to think for a moment. What scenario results in every single ancestor being in the same locale, in such a capacity that they are forced to interact, not only with each other, but with humans, to the point that not only can they not kill anyone but there is literally no point in killing each other?
....
....OH WAIT EARTH C-
So yeah, everyone say thank you paradox space. There had to be at least one dream bubble out there from a timeline where the alphas got yoinked into sburb as their Alternian selves by mistake right?
So, let’s assume they’ve had a few months to settle in, adjust to modern life. Troll kingdom has issued an ultimatum to the more....chaotic Ancestors in terms of the rearranged hemospectrum. They will, to quote Karkat, “FUCKING DEAL WITH IT”. Not an easy pill to swallow for a few of them, but then, a few millenia in the dream bubbles has forcibly mellowed them quite a bit and eventually its just more trouble than its worth.
I have a lot of thoughts on this timeline (ancestors get apartments are you kidding me, the potential), but let’s return to the question at hand.
The invitation makes the rounds through a lot of ghost communities, but a particularly bold human approaches the Ancestors themselves with an invite to one of the bigger ragers being thrown in the human kingdom. The celebration of the return of the gods is always a blowout, and this year promises to be especially so, with something between a gala and a block party planned to be pitched.
So here’s why they all show up, and here’s what they do:
The Handmaid is an odd duck. Sure, there’s a certain morose pleasure in watching the cosmic plans of the man who abused her from childhood fall apart because of a handful of chump kids, but that doesn’t mean she’s happy to be back here with these assholes, and it doesn’t mean she’s looking to build a social life. She’s perfectly happy to spend the rest of her days haunting the abandoned house she found on the outskirts of the carapace kingdom and terrorize any local teens that stick their noses where they aren’t wanted. When the uni student turns up with a flyer she cusses them out but good and sends them on their way with a couple of threats to life and limb.
And then shows up anyways.
Not to socialize, mind, just to watch. From the rafters probably. Snickering at all the drama going down, dropping spiders in Makara’s drink and stealing Dualscar’s watch when he’s not looking. And maybe see if Condy gets drunk enough to want a rematch. Laws be damned. Now THIS is a party.
The Signless’s entire crew is a bit of a chain pull. The Disciple wants to go extremely badly, so of course she manages to purrsuade The Signless to come with her. The Psiionic doesn’t want to go period but he’ll be damned if he’s letting Vantas out of his sight into an unguarded area. The Dolorosa wanted to go this whole time and is the one who got Leijon all riled up about it in the first place, but pretends she’s just doing it to keep an eye on Vantas and Captor.
Once there, they’re not exactly social butterflies, but compared to the others they’re practically savants. Leijon prowls on the edges of crowds, listening for snatches of information, and enjoys constructing narratives in her own mind about the relationships between all of them. Vantas finds himself pulled into a lot of conversations just to explain his life’s work (and, to his chagrin, to destabilize a few myths he’s accrued over the centuries). He tries to keep a level head but after a few beers though he’s hotly debating politics with three or four Kankri ghosts and has to be dragged away by Captor, who’s been following him and Leijon like a kid following their parent at a family reunion. Maryam disappeared hours ago and doesn’t get back home late, looking a little bit smug but tight-lipped about her evening. All four of them avoid the other Ancestors like the plague.
Neophyte Redglare of all of them has probably adjusted the best to this new life. Unlike the others, she’s actually gotten some friends that weren’t a part of the dream bubbles, and would happily spend most of the evening chattering with them. Still, for reasons we’ll get into it later, she spends most of it babysitting Makara and doing a bit of pitch-flirting with everyone’s favorite pir8.
Speaking of the Marquise Mindfang Spineret, like the Handmaid she protested loudly she was too cool for this party and then showed up anyways. Still, its not like she’s there to socialize. Most of what she does is spot the people who look like they might be heading off to bigger and more illegal things outside the party and without a word installing herself as part of their social circle. She invites Nitram, but her matesprit is a little occupied with an old enemy. That’s fine, she appreciates a score to settle, but its not fun if someone isn’t paying attention to her antics. Fortunately, Pyrope is happy to oblige her, and Dualscar is a delightful enough lackey while he’s still sober enough to handle it (so, for about five minutes). All told, an entert8ning evening indeed ;;;)
Executor Darkleer shows up for roughly ten minutes, near the very end, and does what he’s done at most social gatherings since they left the dream bubbles: stand awkwardly in the corner, stare at Leijon, and wonder if they’re still cool. Are they still cool? Probably? Right? But who’s to say. He absconds early to go work on his personal projects and probably punch something.
The Summoner is in peak form. Like Vantas, he has plenty of questions coming his way, and while no Nitram has ever been arrogant, he’s at least a little indulgent about some, shall we say, popular headcanons that have popped up since then. He’s slamming beers to cover up the usual low level of social anxiety (a battlefield he can handle, but a soiree is another matter altogether), and its working. He’s flirting a storm through the ballroom, something Serket is probably going to give him repercussions for. Its also making him a little, uh....confrontational, shall we say. So when he spot an old, clowny foe, well...
Oh, The Grand Highblood. 
He didn’t want to come. Full stop. Picked the wriggler with the flyer up by the back of their shirt and turned them around. Damn lucky he didn’t just throw them out. He wasn’t going to show up at this meaningless little heretical shindig, bump shoulders with strangers and be bored out of his motherfucking skull to boot. The only reason he got dragged in is Peixes didn’t give him a lot of other options. So here he is. Standing like a grim spectre of everyone’s demise, sullenly scowling at anyone who approaches and snarling at anyone who opens their protein chute in his direction.
For about five minutes.
What can I say, clowns love parties.  A couple of faygos later (if you think Condy didn’t come prepared you’re crazy) and this brawny ass goat is getting turnt out of his mind on the dancefloor. Nobody knows exactly what the fuck he’s doing with his body but its definitely deeply explicit and more than a little alarming. Still, it suits the environment, and there’s this unaccountable field of manic energy that just sort of erupts around him, escalating the party wherever he goes. Redglare has to babysit him (because Peixes, Serket and Ampora sure won’t, and who the fuck knows where Zahhak is), and even still he ends up with a busted keg dangling from one of his horns. He is feeding off of this motherfucking rhapsody tonight, fellas, and the grisly bastard has more than a few sick bars in him.
Orphaner Dualscar is decidedly less enthused. Nothing quite like being a failed romantic footnote in the only surviving account of your life to kill your rep as an intimidating pirate. He’s not adjusting well to modern life, and mostly spends the night in the corner with a solo cup, scowling at any and all. For a while he joins Serket in her activities but eventually is too soused to really participate, and she ditches him. Which is starting to become a recurring trend. He spends the rest of the night trying to seduce someone, literally, anyone, just get him out of this fucking stupid party, he’s so FUCKIN LONELY GOG-
up to you if it actually works or not.
Meanwhile, Her (Formerly) Imperial Condescension.....look, Peixes can’t stay away from a party. Even a lame-ass one for guppies 3>8(. I mean, the no killing thing is REALLY fucking cramping her style, but to be frank its more trouble than its worth. Most of them just come back as ghosts and try to bonk you back. Annoying is what it is. So, fine, she agrees, no culling. 
Doesn’t mean the party can’t at least be interesting, and that’s damn well what she brought Makara to do for her. Works like a charm, too, Makara might be a grumpy basshole but he knows how to cut loose when he wants to. She’s chanting him through chugging an entire keg on his own with a small crowd of people when she spots a familiar pair of impossibly wide horns. Ohhh shit, get the grubcorn-.....wait, is that Megido in the rafters?!
No trolls or humans were (fatally) harmed in the making of this evening’s closing act, but suffice to say the building wasn’t so lucky. Two reenactments of the more legendary battles in Alternian history (which is saying something) was more than the palace could handle. In the end they were separated and sent to dry out in separate cells, Dave using his time powers to keep a handle on the The Handmaid. 
Suffice to say it’ll be a while before any of them get another invitation.
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eightlittletalons · 4 years
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Prompt #9: Lush
Definition of lush 1: growing vigorously, especially with luxuriant foliage 2: opulent, sumptuous 3: (slang) intoxicating liquor : a habitual heavy drinker
My wife: What’s today’s prompt? Lush? You could write something spicy! Me: Haha yeah *proceeds to write about E’andhris making healthy decisions (/s) and drunkenly flirting with the Exarch post-slaying of Amh Araeng’s Lightwarden*
To be fair, it does get a little spicy at the end. On AO3, this will be rated M, for reference. 
The Scions had returned to the Crystarium, the conquering heroes after their latest victory over the Lightwarden in Amh Araeng. Though instead of accompanying his fellows to debrief with the Crystal Exarch and discuss their plans for Kholusia, E’andhris had been sent to bed by Y’shtola like an errant kit. His own mother had doled out similar punishments whenever he’d explored a little too for from home as an actual child. 
He stalked angrily towards the Pendants, feeling frustrated by his lack of control over the Light he carried within him. His pride was likewise scuffed at being treated as though he were fragile by Y’shtola and Ryne, though the concerned look in the young girl’s eyes especially haunted him. He really must be in deep shit this time. Beyond that...Minfilia. 
Seeing his dear, old friend again had ripped open the barely healed wound of losing her to begin with. She’d been among the first of the Scions to make him feel truly welcomed among them. A sister in all but blood, ripped from his grasp thrice over. 
Fuck. He needed a bath and a drink, and he didn’t care in what order they came in. Although...the Wandering Stairs just so happened to be on the way to the Pendants, so technically he wouldn’t be entirely disobeying Y’shtola’s strict orders by making a detour. He swung right, up the stairs, and leaned his elbows against the counter. 
Darlfort took one look at him and gave a sympathetic wince. “You look like shit, lad,” the galdjent said, bending to grab something from beneath the counter. “You’ll be wanting something strong, I’m assuming?” At E’andrhis’ eager nod, Darlfort placed a large bottle down with a clink. The Warrior recognized the label from his early days in Norvrandt, playing delivery boy. 
“Much obliged,” E’andhris replied as cheerfully as he could force. He reached for the liquor, cradling it gingerly in the crook of his arm as he dug into his coin purse. Before he could pull out a single gil, Darlfort snorted and gave the miqo’te a look. Shrugging, E’andhris turned to take his leave. Blast the Crystal Exarch for taking such good care of his special guest that E’andhris couldn’t even pay for his own booze while within the Crystarium’s bounds. 
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It turned out that E’andhris wasn’t able to enjoy his liquor immediately. He’d returned to Ardbert waiting for him, and then his...condition flared up. He was only glad that he’d managed to get the bottle onto the table before the Light within him bubbled to the surface, bringing him with a cry to his knees. He’d barely registered Ardbert running to his side through the pain. He felt the tingling sensation of the hume’s heavy hand upon his arm and suddenly his vision cleared, and he could draw breath again. The men stared at each other in shock, then Ardbert made a hasty retreat, muttering some nonsense about not being a hero. 
Left alone, it was harder to ignore. The panic. E’andhris uncorked the liquor with his teeth as he undressed and filled the small bathtub with steaming water. He spat the cork somewhere on the floor uncaring of where it ended up. He took a large swig of the drink as he stepped into water hot enough to turn his skin red on contact, and he almost coughed at the harsh burn the alcohol left in its wake. It had been far too long since he last imbibed, clearly. The smell alone made him dizzy. Placing the bottle on the floor beside the tub, he sank into the water up to his ears, holding his breath and counting to ten. 
Soon, he thought, Soon they’d travel to Kholusia and Ryne would be able to pinpoint the precise location of the final Lightwarden. Soon, he’d slay the monstrosity, bringing night back to Norvrandt for good, and then...what? The Exarch had the utmost faith in his ability to hold all of the Light within himself, without issue, though that clearly wasn’t the case. Perhaps he would finally die, having cheated death one too many times. His panic clawed its way from his chest, though E’andhris shoved it back down, chasing it with another large mouthful of liquor. Now was not the time to lose it. 
Taking a third sip, he began to furiously scrub at his skin and scalp. Time to focus on what he could control, such as freeing himself of the sand and grit of Amh Araeng. By the time he was finished, his skin burned from the harsh treatment, but the pain had served its purpose of helping him to center himself. Hauling himself out of the now tepid, filthy water, he glanced at his bed. Absolutely not. 
Instead of retiring to bed like he probably should, he dressed in the himation and sarouel he’d been fond of wearing on the Source, and gently folded the robes he’d received from the Night’s Blessed for later laundering. Slipping into his simple leather shoes, he grabbed the liquor once more and fled from the suite into the cool night air. 
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The Exarch knocked on the door to E’andhris’ chambers and waited more than a little anxiously. He rubbed absently at his crystallized arm at the prolonged silence, and hoped he wouldn’t have to wake the Warrior. When the Scions had come to meet him in the Ocular without E’andhris in their company, his mood had fallen. With the group leaving for Kholusia soon, he’d hoped to spend more time with the tall miqo’te mage, against his better judgement. 
But when Y’shtola and the newly named Ryne made their entrance with worriedly pensive expressions, his heart caught in his throat. As they explained about the Warrior’s struggle to contain the Light after Storge’s defeat, his alarm rose. Every ilm of his body urged him to end the meeting and run the distance between the tower and E’andhris’ room, to throw himself at his feet, and beg for his forgiveness for putting him through such pain. Instead, he kept his face schooled into polite concern. He made excuse after sickening, riddle of an excuse in the face of their worry for their dear friend. 
After all, he would soon fix this fine mess that he’d created of their lives. 
In the present, his sandaled foot tapped an impatient beat on the tiles of the Pendants’ hallway. He decided to knock a little louder, and waited once more. Still no answer. Pressing gently on the door, the Exarch was surprised when it opened with the softest of creaks. He warily stepped into the dark room, glancing this way and that. The Warrior wasn’t here, though signs of him were. The astringent scent of strong alcohol lingered in the air, mixing with the humidity of a hot bath. The flimsy blue, feathered robes that E’andhris had taken to wearing on the First lay folded on the end of his bed, though his shorts and myriad of accessories lay scattered over the floor. 
So come and gone, the Exarch mused. But where would the mage have gone at this late hour? He made a note to ask the staff to ensure that E’andrhis’ robes were gently washed of the grime from the desert, as he left to search for his wayward Warrior. 
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A bell and a half had passed, and the Exarch grew more frantic in his searching. Surely, E’andhris wouldn’t be so foolish to leave the city in his state, on his own, in the middle of the night. Surely. Perhaps if he told himself that several more times, he’d believe it. For as long as he’d known the Warrior, he had been headstrong and painfully self-sufficient. Ever one to shoulder others’ burdens without a care for his own. 
It was one of the things that first drew him to the man. A true hero. Now it was the cause of his headache. With a great sigh, the Exarch began to make the ascent up the watchtower - his favorite place in the Crystarium when he wished to just exist. His hope was that he’d be able to somehow spot E’andhris if he had indeed made the trek into Lakeland. If not, then to the Ocular he’d go to scry upon the troublesome mage. However the thought was dismissed as he heard faint...singing? 
The Exarch forced his legs to carry him more quickly to the top and paused, breathless from exertion, when he finally found his Warrior. He sat precariously on the edge of the platform with his legs dangling off into the open air. The hooded man let out another sigh - this time of relief - as his feet carried him hurriedly to E’andhris’ side. 
He reeked of the same scent he’d caught in the Pendants, and his eyes easily found the culprit clutched in the Warrior’s hand. A bottle of the Wandering Stair’s finest, three-fourths of the way finished. “Oh, E’andhris,” he breathed sadly, settling down beside the thoroughly soused hero with a soft grunt of exertion. 
“Exarch!” the other miqo’te cried, throwing his arms wide in an exuberant greeting. Those arms came around him tightly in a friendly embrace, taking the Exarch by surprise. The Warrior was in a good mood, then. 
E’andhris’ strawberry blonde hair was down, damp yet from his bath. In all his time in Norvrandt, the Warrior had kept it pulled back from his face in a charming little ponytail, with silver pins holding back errant strands. Seeing it loose brought back memories of before. It was...distracting. 
He cleared his throat. “What are you doing all the way up here, E’andhris? Are you all right?” he asked, tamping down the urge to reach out and brush a lock of the Warrior’s hair away from his cheek. His hand made an aborted attempt anyway. Instead, he redirected it to pluck the bottle from E’andhris’ hand and placed it far out of reach. 
“I needed some air,” the Warrior replied blandly, his blue and brown eyes settling more than a little unfocused on what little of the Exarch’s face he could see. He flinched when E’andhris’ now empty hand shot out to trace the crystal curled along his cheek in a decidedly intimate caress. “The Light started hurting again.”
The Exarch took a deep, calming breath and gently wrapped his hand around E’andhris’ wrist to pull his touch away - an act that took no small amount of will. “Does it yet pain you or has it passed?” he asked, a traitorous finger caressing against the skin of the Warrior’s soft palm. E’andhris let out a soft gasp and twisted out of his grasp, instead twining their fingers together. That...wasn’t better. 
“’S better now,” E’andhris replied, slurring his words as he scooted closer to lay his head on top of the Exarch’s cowl. He let his breath out in a hiss through his teeth, urging himself to move away from the display of affection. Instead, he leaned against his friend’s side. E’andhris began to purr in delight, and the sound went straight to the Exarch’s loins. 
“Thank goodness for that. I would not wish to see you suffer,” he whispered, damning himself further as he wrapped his spoken arm around E’andhris’ trim waist to hold him closer. He forced himself to give the speech he had intended to present to the Warrior in his chambers. “You must survive this, no matter what.”
The Warrior nodded, clearly only half listening. He nuzzled against the fabric of the hood beneath his cheek, and the Exarch was never happier in that moment that he kept it enchanted to stay in place. “Exarch...” E’andhris breathed, and he leaned in to listen. “When I kill the last Warden, will your work finally be done?”
“Yes, I believe it will,” the Exarch replied after a short pause. He steeled himself to push through the half-truth. “Once the tyranny of Light is ended, the people of the Crystarium will be safe, and the future that must be shall come to pass.”
E’andhris gave a happy hum, bunting against the Exarch in a move so loving that it brought tears to his crimson eyes. “That will be nice. We should do something fun after everything,” the Warrior said, his gaze somewhere between the hooded man’s nose and chin. “There’s those hot springs our in Lakeland. I bet one word from the Crystal Exarch would see them vacated for a private occasion.” His tone was playful, flirtatious even, and each word twisted the knife in the Exarch’s heart further. 
“I’ll see what I can do,” he found himself promising. “For now, though, we should get you to your bed.” E’andhris gave a sound of dissent, and the Exarch had to drag him to his feet. The tall miqo’te dissolved into giggles when he realized his legs refused to hold himself up reliably. In spite of himself, a fond smile found its way to the Exarch’s lips. 
“You’re very strong,” E’andhris cooed, as he wrapped an arm around the Exarch’s shoulders in an effort to keep himself upright. They began to make their very slow descent from the top of the tower. The caretaker had to grab hold of E’andhris’ waist firmly with both arms to keep him from listing too far one direction or the other. 
“You’re very drunk, E’andhris,” the Exarch responded with a snort. He started as he felt the Warrior’s thumb tip his head up to face his. His friend was looking at his lips, he realized with alarming clarity. 
“And you’re incredibly pretty. Has anyone ever told you that, o’ Crystal Exarch?”
The Exarch quickened their pace as they reached the ground. He needed to get his inebriated hero to bed, and not in the way his lower half was desiring. He felt a lecherous old man, that he even found E’andhris appealing in such a state. “I may have heard it once or twice in my many years,” he gritted out. He forced himself to ignore E’andhris’ increasingly wandering hands as they made their way towards the Pendants. He only hoped the manager wasn’t there to witness whatever was happening between the two of them. 
The gods must have finally decided to smile upon him for the first time that night, for the lobby was empty when they arrived. E’andhris began to fumble for his key, and the Exarch rolled his saccharine eyes from beneath the gloom of his hood. “There’s no need for that. You left your room unlocked in your grand escape,” he grumped. The Warrior had the decency to look mildly ashamed at that, at least. He dragged the taller man into the room and dumped him on the bed, intending to make a quick getaway, when the mage grabbed his crystal wrist and pulled. 
The Exarch stumbled, thrown off balance, and braced himself on the bed hovering over top of the Warrior who grinned like a lovestruck fool. “You could stay,” he whispered in a tone the Exarch had never thought to hear with his own ears. E’andhris stretched out beneath him in a way that send levin straight to his already hardened cock. Seven hells. 
“No,” he gasped forcefully, scrambling to his feet and putting several fulms between them. He should leave. He should leave right now. Then E’andhris pouted, and the Exarch opened his mouth to comfort him, to his complete horror. “I would not have our first time be one that you forget.” 
He clapped crystal hand over his mouth hard, likely bruising his lip in the process. E’andhris gazed up at him, surprised and obviously equally interested. The Exarch turned and rushed from the room before he could hear whatever witty retort his inspiration could come up with to convince him to set aside his rapidly deteriorating defenses. He could only hope that E’andrhis truly did forget this come morning light. 
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curious-minx · 3 years
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October 2010s Music Deep Dive!
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A mock up poster for the only possible music festival line-up I would be willing to risk my life attending. Tony Allen’s passing has caused the entire Octoberfest to be cancelled indefinitely, but all proceeds from ticks will be given back to the community. 
Hope all of you special nobodies and overblown somebodies reading this right now are having a smashing start your first o November. All last month I had taken it upon myself to listen to as many albums and fragments of albums released sometime during the month of October spanning the entire 10’s decade, 2010 through 2019. This is all probably a result of drinking too much dead water, Quarantine brain, undiagnosed Autism, magical thinking and the death of boredom. I have created a Spotify playlist sporting 25 hours and 4 minutes worth of music with an arbitrary amount of albums getting multiple songs, but largely one song/album. This project did create a sense of madness because of the volume of music that gets cranked out. How can we expect anyone to properly criticize music when it is nearly impossible to keep up with it all? I largely culled these albums from Allmusic’s Editorial Choice section, but I did have to use Rateyourmusic to fill out the hip-hop and R&B gaps. In gathering up all of this music I am attempting to see if spooky music was relegated to the October season and any other possible trends. Even though October has been laid to rest her swelling calendar breast still contains a treasure trove of music worth discussing. Grab your broom, sharpen your heels and get the cobwebs out of your ears because we’re going on a Deep Dive! 
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The 2010s Old Souls and Musical Auteurs 
I consider any musician or band that endures more than a decade worthy of this veteran label. Music biz lifers seem found solace in the October release schedule. A trend that has carried onto the new decade with October 2020 offering revitalized releases by Elvis Costello and Bruce Springsteen reunited with the E Street Band. All three main members of Sonic Youth, Moore, Gordon and Renaldo are still harnessing that spooky Bad Moon Rising energy and carrying it over into their solo releases. 
KIM GORDON’s NO RECORD HOME
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The first truly proper solo album by Kim Gordon following up her pretty good noise rock releases under the Body/Head moniker with Bill Nace. No Record Home towers over Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo’s mostly okay solo releases because of how truly experimental and refreshingly modern sounding No Record Home is. This album sounds like it could easily have come out from a young Pacific Northwest Trip-Angle (RIP) label upstart. Instead, Gordon is defiantly aging gracefully and remains an all around important feminist voice in experimental rock music. No Record Home did not pop up on a lot of “Best of the Year” lists in 2019, nor did Gordon embark on any kind of touring for the release. I am hoping that more people will eventually discover this great album and realize that Gordon was truly the best, most truly experimental aspect of Sonic Youth. Her vocals on this album are the best she’s ever sounded because she built these songs and sounds with the intergral collaborator, producer Justin Raisen. A glimpse at Raisen’s Wikipedia page is a who’s who of great artists of the past decade: Yves Tumor, Charli XCX, and Sky Ferreira. The collaboration occurred at an AirBnB shared between Gordon and Raisen and birthed the first single of the project “Air BnB.” A song that completely sets the tone of the album and features one of those amazing music videos in the same line us Young Thug’s “Wyclef Jean. “
Björk - Biophilia
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Can you name the last album the rolled out with its own app? Nine years have come and gone and I certainly can’t think of another album with such wholesome ambitions. Björk was getting passionate about ecological concerns in her native Icelandic home with Sigur Ros and using her sphere of influence to try to good. 2014 the app has found a permanent home in the MOMA, but outside of this curio status the album itself is still a worthwhile addition to the Björk canon. Biophilia finds Björk in musical scientist mode using sounds captured from a Tesla coil and making a whole musical universe onto herself. The rest of the 2010s found Björk going for bigger and more ambitious projects that continue to frustrate those who wish she would go back to her poppier roots. She remains one of those most consistent solo artists around and someone no one will be able to predict what she does next. The only thing is certain is that it will be visionary and will probably include a wildly ambitious rollout and a new piece of physical art like Biophilia’s $800 tuning forks.
NENEH CHERRY - BROKEN POLITICS
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Featuring production duties for the second time from Four Tet (who also pops up in the October playlist with his 2013 album Beautiful Rewind). Broken Politics in Cherry’s words, “is about feeling broken, disappointed, and sad, but having perseverance. It’s a fight against the extinction of free thought and spirit.” The music video for single “Natural Skin Deep” was filmed in Beirut, a backdrop made even more painful given 2020’s Explosion. Cherry is an artist with deep spiritual and blood connections with artists central to jazz’s history. Broken Politics also features songs built around Ornette Coleman samples. This is all to say that Neneh Cherry is always going to be someone tapping into a creative cosmic vein that spans generations, and with that comes a hard wisdom. Two years later we’re still dealing with the same god damn guts and guns of history. 
OTHER NOTABLES:
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(Cat Power - The Wanderer; John Cale - Shifty Adventures in Nookie Wood; Tony Allen - Film of Life ; Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Psychedelic Pill ;Bryan Ferry - Olympia; Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Ghosteen ;Yoko Ono - Warzone; Vashti Bunyan - Heartleap; Elvis Costello & The Imposters - Look Now; The Chills - Silver Bullets; Weezer - Everything Will Be Alright In The End;Laurie Anderson - Heart of A Dog;Janet Jackson - Unbrekable;The Mercury Rev - Light In You;  Rocketship - Thanks To You; Van Dyke Parks & Gaby Moreno - Spangled; Donald Fagen - Sunken Condos; Prefab Sprout - Crimson Red; Pere Ubu - 20 Years in a Montana Missile Silo; Negativland - True False )
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TRILOGY OF BLACKSTARS
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Three last albums released by three titans of 20th century songwriting. Two of them follow the trajectory of an older artist getting rejuvenated by a younger backing band. Lulu is beyond a meme at this point and is considered one of the most confounding flops since Metallic Music. Like Metallic Music, Lulu will get a reappraisal and find its audience. Mr. Blackstar himself Bowie considered  Lulu one of his favorite releases. “Junior Dad” alone makes this album a worthy addition in Lou Reed’s discography. Scott Walker invited some similarly hairy and intense younger rock studs into his private castle and pulls off a far more natural combination. Soused fits like a velvet glove on a elegant corpse hand swirling thick slabs of guitar and demonic percussion. Scott Walker effortlessly orchestrates between elegance and moribundity whereas Lulu wallows and thrashes against  the ugly riffage. 
No riffs or oozing wall of sound are  anywhere to be found on the sparse and pointedly elegiac You Want it Darker. Leonard Cohen never went full on sleazy I’m Your Man ever again but he didn’t become adult contemporary either. You Want It Darker finds Leonard and his son Adam Cohen. When Leonard passed away he was the only one to get a full David Bowie like museum tribute, Lou Reed only got a corner of a library. Cohen is far and away the most accessible mystical Jewish Buddhist monk with a penchant for fedoras and having a masked man with a leather belt beat him in the recording booth [citation needed]. You Want It Darker is the only one of these mortality laden kiss offs to win a Grammy. I do wonder if Cohen would have ever allowed a more adventurous production to touch his staid and timeless old fashioned sound. Tom Scharpling divides Leonard Cohen into his Pre-Fedora and Post-Fedora days. If you are being literal about that demarcation that still gives you a pretty vast body of music I just want sad bloated blurry black and white Leonard Cohen with a banana or the smiling cad on Songs of Love and Hate. Even the floppy fedora era has worthwhile albums and he sounds like if Serge Gainsbourgh was a muppet Gargoyle, he’s reliable. I will always beat myself for not buying that official Leonard Cohen raincoat at the Jewish Museum Leonard Cohen exhibit, but I hope someone has and they are finding comfort with Cohen’s music. A lot of his latter day period is comforting in a sardonic sexy mind bending nursing home sort of way. 
I am glad that these men were ultimately spared from having to deal with Covid times and even someone as tasteless as Brian Wilson’s Ghost can acknowledge that it’s more important than ever to keep your elderly loved ones locked away in a well ventilated pod. 
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(INSERT ARTIST HERE) SEASON
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For a few sticky sweet select few artists the month of October proved to be a suitable release launch pad for more than one album. The Mountain Goats and clipping. have just joined the October two-timer club this year. The reigning queen of October releases is Taylor Swift and Adrianne Lenker. In chronological order swift released Speak Now, Red and 1989 probably Swift’s biggest run in terms of critical and commercial success. None of these albums have a particularly big place in my heart, in fact speaking on behalf of Brian Wilson’s Ghost Ltd. I’m not the biggest fan of America’s Sweetheart, Sweet Tea Poet Laureate.  All three of these albums all came out in the latter part of October and based on the Target brand synergy roll-out felt as inevitable as pumpkin spice. Haunted. Sad Beautiful Tragic. Out of the Woods. These are either song titles taken from these three albums are the names of the under utilized Romantic Halloween Horror Comedy genre. Lady Gaga might have been spooking it up on American Horror Story, but Swift gives a far more chilling performance in Tom Hooper’s midnight madness of Cats and I could envision Swift excelling really well as a horror film actor. Especially in a role like Scarlett Johansson’s Under the Skin. 
You cannot get more polar opposite from Swift than Adrianne Lenker. Who released her first solo album abysskiss   and the second Big Thief album of 2019 Two Hands. Lenker will have also gone on to make her third October release this year with her second solo album songs & instrumentals. Striking that such a ghostly autumnal band would have only released one album in October, but autumnal feeling albums are not beholden to release calendars. The song “Not” from the Big Thief album Two Hands is a watershed breakthrough moment for the band and put Lenker and her band on the map. In 2019 Big Thief became a band that could get booked onto a Goodmorning American performance slot and more or less made Big Thief one of the rare 2010s indie bands to become more or less a household name. 
Other notable artists to have released more than one album on October 2010s:
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Less notable artists to have multiple October releases: James Blunt Korn
Calvin Harris 
Kings of Leon
Pentatonix 
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FORMER HARBINGERS OF HYPE
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These are October releases from artists that once felt like whenever they put out an album a wider array of outlets and publications seemed to care more and would spill more digital ink over them. The big three artists that had the biggest drop off in attention and acclaim that stick out to me the most are Titus Andronicus,  Justice and Why? All three artists debuted with strong starts back in the aughts, but according to critical reception more or less crashed and burned. Titus Andronicus’ Local Business was one of the last times Titus Andronicus would get positive marks from Pitchfork. Local Business a fun and shaggy follow-up to one of the most self-serious concept albums of the 2010s. 
Justice’s Audio, Video, Disco similarly is a follow up to a highly acclaimed album that set the bar high enough to doom Justice into never living up to the hype. Justice’s 2007 s/t heralded them as the next Daft Punk, but unlike those soulful and thoughtful robots Justice mainly wanted to make big ridiculous unfashionable synth prog rock. Audio, Video, Disco is simply cheesy fun and even though we live in a world better off without parties and gatherings this album helps you feel like you are in high-def IMAX monster mash on the moon. 
The leaves us with Why?’s Mump’s Etc. an album that already had the job of following up an already divisive follow up record Eskimo Snow. Why’s Alopecia is a really important 2008 indie blog rap album that helped thrust the online indie blogs into the hip-hop genre hybrid experimentalism. Why? would never make another universally beloved album again and with Mump’s Etc. ended up permanently in Pitchfork’s hate pit. In the original release review the Pitchfork writer essentially deems this album an act of “career suicide.” The whole review is essentially an assignation of Why?’s figurehead Yoni Wolf and taking him to task for all of his awkward lyrical blunders and the fact he is narcissistic enough to be a musician writing about his career in a meta fashion. Yet when I listen to Mump’s Etc. I am more or less enjoying Yoni Wolf’s personality and find the whole thing to be pretty charming. A perfectly serviceable 3.5/5 release that a media outlet like Pitchfork turns into a flexing opportunity to show how that they have the power to make or break a career. 
A.C. Newman, an artist who appears on this playlist with his terrific 2012 Shut Down The Streets took to Twitter to scoff at the idea that a good Pitchfork review has done anything for his career. Shut Down The Streets currently remains the last solo album Newman has released under his name choosing to focus on his main gig with the New Pornographers. The Internet based hype machine is even more ADHD addled and twitchier by the day. The joy of doing this deep dive allowed me to revisit a lot of these artists and acts that I had fallen out of touch with. I had completely forgotten about King of Convenience’s Erlend Øye who released the album Legao in 2014. I rediscovered a good deal of bands like the Editors, The Dodos, Kisses, Black Milk, Crocodiles, Empire of the Sun, Juana Molina, Jagwar Ma, Here We Go Magic, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., YACHT, Peaking Lights, The Twilight Sad, Elf Power, Swet Shop Boys, Radio Dept, Allo’ Darlin, Foxes In Fiction, and HOMESHAKE are all bands not trying to change the world or challenge listeners with avant garde experimentation. Instead I feel like I maintaining relationships with old friends on the edge of obscurity. 
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A HISTORY OF CHRISTMAS IN OCTOBER 
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A tradition stretching back as far as 2014 not October’s Idina Menzel’s Holiday Wishes, but Seth McFarland’s Holiday For Swing sweatily released on CD, digital, and vinyl on September 30, 2014.  2015 then brings us a Chris Tomlin and Ru Paul Christmas albums because every force of Neo-liberal good must be balanced with evangelical contemporary Christian music *shutters.* 2016 finds the Christmas in October era reaching a complete and utter nadir with R. Kelly’s final official LP 12 Nights of Christmas and A Pentatonix Christmas, but also buffered by Kacey Musgrave’s Christmas. 2017 only had time for Gwen Stefani’s You Make It Feel Like Christmas and no one else could evoke this feeling in October. On 2018, Michelle and Barack Obama’s combined one and only Christmas wish comes true, no not cancelling those drone strikes, but getting John Legend to join the October release jamboree; Eric Clapton claps open his guitar’s butt cheeks and hatefully squats out a half assed Xmas album defiantly opening the album with “White Christmas” [eyeroll emoji]; and finally 2018 found the Pentatonix announcing in October that Christmas Is Here. I apologize for all of that crude butt talk about the hateful racist Eric Clapton, but(t) I have festive gluteus Maximus on the mind, because in 2019 Norah Jones got her alternative country gal trio back together to remind us to shake our Christmas butts. Eat shit commercial shit, today’s Santa’s birthday! That’s the magic of the October release schedule! 
The hallowed Christmas in October tradition continues on in 2020 with Dolly I-Beg-Thee-Pardon  releasing A Holly Dolly Christmas right on time on October 2, 2020 (Carrie Underwood missed the memo and unwraps her unwanted My Gift in September 2020). Meghan Trainor, Goo Goo Dolls, and Tori Kelly released Christmas albums. Can you believe Seth MacFarlane comes up twice in this article, because his sleazy J. Michigan Frog croon is processed and grated like Parmesan cheese snow flakes all over a rendition of White Christmas.  What a time to be alive! 
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WHERE DID THEY GO?
A Brief Case For Class Actress’s Rapproacher
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Among my October music travels I encountered one artist that really impressed me with her proper LP debut Rapprocher. The trio fronted by Elizabeth Vanessa Harper is essentially peddling the kind of competent moody 80’s inspired synth pop that belongs on a lost Donnie Darko sequel. Harper’s vocals are striking and expressive and they are melded with constantly propulsive bed of shiny synths and glossy barely-there gated percussion. Outside of an 2015  EP called Movies featuring exciting production contributions from Italo-disco icon Giorgio Moroder there has been nothing else from Class Actress. Highly recommend you check them out especially if you want to find the sweet spot between Chromatics and Kylie Minogue. 
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THE OCTOBER 2010s MASTERPIECES 
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(Robyn - Honey, Big K.R.I.T. - 4eva is a Mighty Long Time  ,Miguel -  Kaleidoscope Dream, Crying - Beyond The Fleeting Gale , M83 Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming ,SRSQ - Unreality, Sufjan Stevens - age of adz, Joanna Newsom - divers, VV Brown Samson and Delilah, Kelela - tear me apart , Neon Indian - VEGA Intl., Fever Ray - Plunge , Antony and The Johnsons - Swanlights (goodbye album) , Caroline Polachek - Pang , Sky Ferreira - Night Time, My Time . Bat For Lashes  Haunted Man, James Ferraro - Far Side Virtual , Grouper -  Ruins , Kero Kero Bonito -Bonito Generation , DJ Rashad - Double Cup)
Maybe if I surround this VV Brown album with more well known artists she’ll finally get some more clicks? I should also mention that Joanna Newsom’s Divers is nowhere on my Spotify October Music playlist because Joanna Newsom thinks Spotify is bananas, and she hates bananas. I know I should also mention Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d city and Tame Impala’s Lonerism. That’s the maddening thing about October music that just when you think you covered all your ground you find another hidden hump underneath the carpet.  I feel remiss without mentioning striking debut and instant hidden gem Tinashe’s Aquarius, which did you know has a new album art on Spotify. Death Grip’s No Love Deep Web. T_T I didn’t even get around to making a big verbal mosaic to Thom Yorke’s witchy Suspiria soundtrack.Corpus Christi! I forgot to highlight The Orb album in the collage with my other veteran artists!  As you can see this project nearly ruined me. I did not necessarily listen to all of these albums from front to back, but I did listen all of the songs on the playlist and chose them from the immense collection of October releases. I am pretty sure this is the kind of content for no one in particular but I really needed to get it out of my system. Let’s meet back up October 2030!!!!!
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(Thank you to my beloved partner, best friend and Spotify provider Maddie Johnson XD)
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7sdLaNNaqWpKEKXRZ3jNqY?si=SLZxUwLMQYOQ5wA1xuZc7w
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juniperwindsong · 4 years
Text
Necessary Monsters (8/16)
Warning: this chapter will contain M rated themes including alcohol abuse, sexual situations, and some iffy decisions that I'd like to make clear I do not condone. PLEASE NOTE that just because characters act a certain way does not mean I agree with their actions. While I have refrained from including any smut out of respect for people who don't care for that sort of thing, I did write it. So the explicit version of a certain scene from this chapter can be found in my new story, Advanced Dragonology, which is where I'll be sticking all the smutty excerpts I'm not including in the story proper to keep it from being NSFW. It is posted only on A03 here or Wattpad here in order to comply with Tumblr’s content agreements.
Summary: "That was..." "Unexpected?" "Very." "So, does that prove this is real?" "If I say no, will you do that again?"
Proper socialisation is an essential part of a pureblood upbringing, so in his first seventeen years Felix has attended what he considers an excessive number of parties. Which is why it doesn't occur to him to be nervous until he steps up the squat house's ramshackle walk and realises he has never attended this sort of party: a gathering thrown by young people for young people, specifically for the purpose of "having fun". Although, wincing at the loud thumps of what he can only assume is intended to be music, Felix wonders exactly whose idea of "fun" this could possibly be.
The front door is slightly ajar; lucky, since he doubts anyone could hear a bell over all the noise. There's no host to greet him or make the necessary introductions, so Felix is left to stand awkwardly just inside the run-down east end townhouse, hands stuffed in his pockets and feeling entirely out of his depth.
A quick glance around at the crowd of milling teenagers informs Felix he isn't dressed appropriately. Exceptionally casual muggle attire appears to be the evening's dress code from what he's able to make out. Darkness also seems to be the fashion at this sort of party. There's hardly a candle to be seen anywhere, most of the light coming from a single flickering floor lamp tucked into a corner. There's a thin cord trailing from its base into the wall, and Felix remembers this from Muggle Studies as a tell-tale sign of a muggle invention. He puts two and two together, and his eyes widen in panic.
This is a muggle house; a muggle party. What on earth would Juniper and her friends be doing here? Tonks must have given him this address as a joke.
Fumbling behind him for the doorknob, Felix is just considering what sort of retribution would be fitting for the idiotic Hufflepuff, when a sudden outburst of applause draws his gaze to the corner of the packed room. Half a dozen teenagers are clustered around one garishly-dressed person and Felix's eyes narrow as he recognises the spiky pink hair. Tonks, grinning toothily, throws a jacket over her head then sweeps it off with a flourish, revealing hair, still short and spiky, but now electric blue. Another round of cheering and clapping from the spectators, and Tonks takes a dramatic bow, tripping over her own boot-laces. Felix can only stare, indignation flagging in the face of his open shock.
"Never seen a metamorphmagus before?" says a voice near his ear.
Tulip Karasu appears just beside Felix's elbow, leaning in uncomfortably close to be heard over the din. She's wearing muggle clothes as well, and considerably few, at that, but it's hardly the most concerning thing to Felix at the moment.
"I've never seen a metamorphmagus reveal herself in front of a whole pack of muggles, on purpose and in direct violation of the International Statute of Secrecy, no," he retorts waspishly. His voice is almost lost in the room's overbearing babble, but Tulip seems to understand the gist at any rate. She shakes her head with a wry smile.
"They're her cousins, or something. Her father's muggle-born," she says loudly into his ear again. "Besides, muggles don't believe in magic. Tonks could turn herself into a bear right there in front of them, and they'd still say it was a trick. It's fantastic."
Tulip glances around Felix.
"The rest of the entourage with you?"
"What do you mean?"
"You know," Tulip shrugs a shoulder. "Rowan Khanna...Penny Haywood."
It's painfully obvious, even in the dim light, that Tulip's nonchalant attitude is all a show, but whatever's happening between the tiny Ravenclaw girl and her Hufflepuff counterpart does not interest Felix in the slightest.
"No. I came alone. To see Juniper." Felix's brow furrows suddenly. "Please tell me she's not outside showing off her Comet 260 or something?"
Tulip's enigmatic smile sours slightly.
"Don't worry. Everyone's favorite curse-breaker is currently getting soused in the kitchen. Drinking contest, I think." Misinterpreting Felix's expression, she adds, "Don't worry. She always wins. Always wins everything, doesn't she?" And she saunters off in Tonks' direction without further comment.
-
It takes Felix several minutes to navigate the dark, over-crowded hallway and locate the dingy kitchen. He's relieved to find it more brightly lit then the rest of the house, and slightly quieter. A linoleum table takes up most of the room, covered in plastic cups full of unidentifiable liquids. A long bench set into the wall lines one side of the table, and at its end sits a girl with curled hair sipping through a plastic straw directly from a sloshing pitcher. A group of mostly male on-lookers eggs her on, giving a raucous cheer when she finishes. The girl pushes the empty pitcher away from her with a cry of triumph, and it isn't until she looks up that Felix is positive it's Juniper.
"Felix?"
He can't quite hear her over the continued cheering, but he recognises his name on her lips, painted an unlikely shade of electric pink. She's smiling, which might have been a good sign if it didn't seem so vacant, and she gestures at him wildly with a wrist full of clinking bracelets. Juniper's fans all turn to see who's captured her attention, and Felix pushes through them primly, seating himself next to Juniper, rather closer than strictly necessary. He shoots his patented prefect's glare at the gaggle of boys, most of whom take the hint and sidle away.
If Juniper notices her audience disperse, she doesn't show it. She hooks her wrist around a plastic cup and pulls it toward her. She plucks the straw from the pitcher with two fingers, and Felix is pleased to see her grip last long enough to drop the straw into the cup, before leaning down and chugging the drink nearly in one gulp.
When she finally comes up for air, Felix leans in close to her ear.
"Can we talk?"
Juniper turns so their faces are suddenly very close.
"I doubt it. It's quite loud in here." She smiles lop-sidedly, but her eyes are still dark and dead-looking underneath a thick layer of blue powder.
"Then, let's go somewhere else," urges Felix. Juniper shakes her head.
"Half the reason I come to these things is specifically because it's too loud to talk," and Felix has no counter-argument for that.
Juniper drags another cup across the table and leaves it in front of Felix, then pulls a third toward herself and inserts her straw once more. At a loss for anything else to do, Felix lifts the drink to his lips, but he can only take a small sip before returning it to the table in disgust. He swallows hard, trying to rid himself of the bitter taste.
Next to him, Juniper smirks. It's a nasty expression when combined with her empty-looking eyes. She dunks her straw into Felix's abandoned cup and leans over it. The drink hadn't tasted exceptionally strong to Felix, just rancid, but three plus a pitcher in less than five minutes seems dangerous. He's about to voice his concern when Juniper looks up.
"But would you like to dance?"
"What?"
Juniper nods at the dark room just beyond. It's full of people clumped together in groups and pairs, and Felix stares helplessly at the mass of bodies, their movements hardly recognisable as dancing. Even if he had the inclination to join them, he wouldn't have the first idea how to mimic them.
"I - I don't...really...I mean - that's not - "
"Suit yourself," Juniper interrupts with a shrug. She has to climb across him to exit the bench, using his shoulder for support, and once again Felix's entire attention is devoted to the sight of Juniper's legs, now covered only in black stockings. Not the kind worn with school uniforms, but the sort full of large, criss-crossing holes, like netting.
Without sparing a backward glance at Felix, Juniper joins a small cluster of girls just inside the other room, all moving in time with the thudding beat, arms rising and falling, close but not quite touching. Perhaps it's the current lack of blood in his brain, but Felix can suddenly see the appeal of the movements, clearly designed to call attention to certain parts of the body, and for the remainder of the song he's caught up in enjoying the sight. Juniper is smiling, and from here he can't see the haunted look in her eyes, and he can pretend it's the Juniper he knows, enjoying herself with friends like there's nothing wrong at all. Until the music changes seamlessly into a song with a more intense rhythm, and several young men take this as an invitation to join Juniper's group. Far from looking harassed, the girls seem to enjoy the company.
One particular boy positions himself just behind Juniper; far, far too close for Felix's liking. He runs distracted fingers through his hair, that primal call to action he associates with danger to Juniper tugging at him furiously, demanding he intervene. He contemplates whether a banishing charm might go unnoticed in the dark, or a stunning spell. He's just considering whether a Bat Bogey hex is too much, when the boy's hands are suddenly on Juniper's waist, guiding her back against him, and a mad rage erupts in Felix like he's never known. He stands, unsure what he's going to do but determined to do something, and his sudden, sharp movement knocks drinks from the table. In the split second he looks away to inspect the spill, there's a small bang, then a loud scream, and when Felix's head whips back round, the young man is on the floor.
The song plays on like nothing has happened, but the dancers around them have all stopped and stepped back, their collective whispers carrying over the music like rushing water. Juniper's chest is heaving, her head flicking warily from side to side. She reminds Felix of a cornered Vipertooth, evaluating its enemies, searching frantically for an escape route, and something about the comparison and the adrenaline still coursing through him activates his instincts. He crosses the room determinedly, grips Juniper by the elbow and pulls her out of the sea of muttering on-lookers, back through the kitchen, and out a door he hopes is an exit.
The warm night air hits him in the face as they step into the narrow alley between this house and the next, mercifully empty except for rubbish bins. Juniper rips her arm from Felix and totters a few steps away. She leans against the brick of the building, hands over her face, still breathing heavily.
"What happened?" asks Felix, voice calm in the way it always manages to be when he's focused.
"I didn't mean to. It - it just...happens sometimes."
"What did you do to him?"
"Just the Knock-Back jinx. I think."
Felix raises a curious eyebrow. "You can use your wand, now?"
Juniper shakes her head behind her hands. "No. Like I said, it just happens. I can't control it. It's like - being a little kid again, when you're angry and the magic just - just comes out." There's panic or hysteria at the back of her voice, and Felix reaches for his most soothing tones.
'It's alright. I doubt anyone saw you. And you're over seventeen, you don't have the trace on you anymore. You're not in trouble."
Dropping her hands, Juniper stares at Felix and the ice in her eyes make him shiver.
"What would they do, anyway? Snap my wand?" She tries to laugh, but it becomes a dry heave. Nerves begin to threaten Felix's composure.
"Juniper," he takes a step toward her, cautious as if she were an injured dragon. "Why don't you let me take you -" But Felix stops, unsure how to finish. Now he thinks about it, he isn't sure where to take her. The same idea occurs to Juniper.
"Where? To Tulip's house? She'd love that. Her parents don't even know she's gone. And I doubt anyone's been in my family's house in years. Unless maybe Jacob's camped out there." She forces another bitter laugh, clutching her stomach tightly.
"What about Khanna's place, then?" Felix suggests, when inspiration strikes him. "Or Hogwarts! Dumbledore won't mind, I'm sure of it. He's worried about you. Everyone is."
Somehow, this is the wrong thing to say. Juniper snorts, and tries to stand up straighter against the brick wall, an echo of anger flaring up behind her dark eyes.
"No. I'm not going back there. You know they're only worried about me because I'm the Cursebreaker." She pronounces the word like some vile epithet. "You think if they didn't need me for information or weren't worried I might turn out like my brother, they'd care about me at all? Dumbledore or Snape or the aurors? They don't worry about anyone else's safety! They don't keep tabs on Beatrice or any of the other students who've been hurt at the school. It's because they need me to take care of everything for them. That's the only thing I'm good for." Juniper wipes at her eyes viciously with the heel of her hand, smearing blue and black lines across her face. "And I can't even do that now, so, really, I don't matter at all, do I?
Felix shakes his head slowly, taken aback by this heated rant.
"That's not true."
"Yes, it is!" insists Juniper doggedly, wrapping her arms about herself as if the night were cold.
"That's not why I'm here," Felix argues, but Juniper only rolls her eyes.
"You're here because they sent you. If you're really here at all. This whole thing could just be some awful dream." Her words dissolve into a groan, and she slides down the bricks to the ground, arms clenched around her knees. Felix watches her in mounting frustration.
"Juniper, do you realise I left my job to be here? Without permission, without telling anyone. Probably, I'll end up sacked when they notice I'm gone, but I came anyway. Because I care more about you. And you know that I never cared about cursed vaults. I always wished you weren't so wrapped up in curse-breaking. I'm not here to help anyone use you for all that rubbish. I'm here to help you."
Juniper looks up at him, eyes still empty but her mouth trembling slightly. "I don't need help," she says stubbornly. Then she turns and heaves against the side of the building.
It's lucky, thinks Felix vaguely as he kneels next to her, that none of this happened three years ago, before he spent time in the wild. He can only imagine how he would have reacted to a girl vomiting in front of him when he was still at school. But Peruvian Vipertooth venom leaves one exceptionally ill, even after taking the cure, and Felix has spent more than his share of days sick as a pig, waiting for the toxin to leave his body. He's helped others on his expedition team, as well, so he lets practice take over, gathering Juniper's hair back for her and producing a handkerchief from the tip of his wand. Felix waits for the contractions in her stomach to subside, wishing uselessly that one of the bins next to them would suddenly turn into a dragon, maw open and flames spitting. Because that's more the sort of monster he'd prefer to rescue her from.
After a few minutes, Juniper climbs shakily to her feet. Felix takes her arm to help her, but she pulls away, letting the brick wall support her weight.
"I'm fine," she mumbles, wiping her hand across her mouth with a grimace. And Felix's temper, so patiently tamed throughout this entire bloody evening, flares unexpectedly.
"Are you physically incapable of saying anything else?" His sudden shout makes Juniper wince. "Juniper: You're. Not. Fine. And the only person who expects you to be is you. And pretending like you are isn't helping you or anybody else. Now, I can't make you let me help you - and you can carry on acting like a bloody idiot if that's really what you want - but you'll have to put up with me following you about everywhere because I'm not going to let this go."
Felix stops, panting slightly. He pushes back a bit of hair that's fallen into his eye. His anger now vented, he feels like a prat for shouting. He knows being angry at Juniper, so obviously irrational, won't solve anything, and he waits for her bitter retort or angry retreat. But Juniper only shakes her head, eyes still closed, and it isn't until tears leak from under her eyelids that Felix recognises her shaking as silent sobs.
"Juniper," he steps forward and reaches carefully for her, and for once, Juniper doesn't pull away. She leans into him, arms trapped against his chest, and buries her face in his shoulder. Felix can feel her crying quietly. "Juniper, I- I'm sorry. I shouldn't have-"
"No," she interjects, voice muffled against his robes. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Felix, I - I'm a mess, I know it. I'm such a mess right now. Everything's just - wrong, and I don't know how to fix it. I don't know why I'm like this right now. I don't know - how I feel or - or anything, and I'm - I'm so sorry."
Felix lets her cry, stroking a cautious hand across her hair. Tentative relief trickles through his veins, giddy and intoxicating, but a part of him can't help feeling ultimately disappointed. Supporting a crying, hopeless Juniper is far less romantic in real life than in his fantasy.
"Come on," he says quietly once her shaking has mostly subsided. "Let's get you out of here."
Juniper lifts her head from his shoulder and dabs at her eyes. "I can't apparate," she admits. Her face is too red and blotchy to tell if the confession embarrasses her.
"We can take the Knight bus. I've never actually ridden it before, but I think-"
"No!" Juniper shakes her head frantically, her curls coming unpinned. "No, please - I don't want anyone to see me like this. It'll be in the papers, for sure. That Skeeter woman's been sniffing around me all summer."
Her voice quavers again, and Felix wraps one arm tightly about her shoulder, pulling her against him to support her weight.
"Alright, alright," he reassures her, coaxing her feet forward. "We'll think of something else." They shuffle awkwardly out of the alley. "Aren't there muggle motors that take people places? Can't remember what they're called. Not buses."
"You mean a taxicab?"
"That's it." They turn onto a road lined with houses, but no motors. Felix guides her down the walk in the direction of city lights.
"How do you know about taxicabs?" Juniper asks between sniffles.
"Muggle studies," Felix admits. "You need at least an OWL in the class to work at the Ministry."
They have to walk another block before they reach a street full of lit shops and the occasional passing motor. Felix flings out an arm and one screeches to a halt. He fumbles with the handle on the door, struggling with the mechanism until the exasperated driver climbs out to assist him, mumbling about drunks. The man eyes Juniper suspiciously as she clambers into the back of the motor, giggling through scattered hiccoughs.
"Where are we going?" she mumbles as she leans back against the plastic covered seats. Felix climbs in next to her, eyeing the inside of the car dubiously.
"The Leaky Cauldon," he says as the driver returns to the front. The man glares at Felix from his little mounted mirror.
"You off your face?"
-
"Do you know, I've never actually been in the Leaky Cauldron before. Except in passing," remarks Juniper. She inspects the shabby room from her seat near the fireplace, lit in spite of the warm summer night. "It's nice."
"It's alright," shrugs Felix. He wishes he had somewhere more impressive to take her, but his room at the Leaky Cauldron is the only place he could think of where Juniper would both be safe and where they might have an uninterrupted conversation. After washing the vomit, tears, and smeared makeup from her face and having a quiet sit by the fire, Juniper seems in strangely serene spirits, and Felix sits across her nervously, wondering how to broach his desired topic.
"You stay here often?" inquires Juniper politely.
"When I'm in England."
She cocks her head curiously. "Why don't you stay at home?"
"I'm not currently welcome there. Not until I'm ready to 'give up this ridiculous dragon nonsense and return to my family obligations,'" Felix quotes wryly, but Juniper doesn't smile.
"I'm sorry."
Felix shrugs her sympathy away. Silence ticks between them again, and Juniper settles deeper into the winged armchair, closing her eyes. With her elaborate makeup gone, Felix thinks she looks pale again. Her hair has come out of it's pins, and something about the way the new length frames her face makes it seem thinner.
"Why did you cut your hair?" he asks.
Juniper sighs. She opens her eyes, but keeps her gaze firmly on the fire. Her fingers fiddle absently with her fallen curls.
"Sometimes, I sort of...space out. I feel like I'm back there - like it's happening to me again."
"I thought you said you couldn't remember what happened," Felix interjects sharply.
"I can't," Juniper confirms. "Not fully. Not like a story I could tell. It's just...bits and pieces. And they sort of...pop into my head sometimes when I'm not expecting. Or I have nightmares - I don't even know if they're about what really happened or if they're just my imagination - but I wake up and I...I don't know if I'm awake." She shudders. "That's the worst. Not knowing what's real. Not trusting myself. I thought - I don't know - I thought...if something were different about me - like my hair - then... maybe, it would be easier to tell the difference between the past and the present. Does that makes sense?"
"Sort of," Felix agrees vaguely, although he's not at all sure it does. "Does it work?"
"No." Juniper shakes her head. "Not when I need it to, anyway. The whole world just feels so...unreal sometimes. Like, for all I know I'm dreaming, and maybe I just cut my hair in my dream." She sighs heavily, and rubs the heels of her hands against her eyes as if they ache. "Maybe all of this is just a dream."
Worry crawls up Felix's spine. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, maybe I am cursed." Juniper pushes off from her chair and sidles to the window, arms clasped about herself. "Maybe I'm still in hospital and none of this is really happening."
"Juniper," Felix says firmly, trying to call her attention back to him. "You know this is real."
She shakes her head, back still turned.
"I don't know. I don't know what's happening with me. I just feel so..." She leans her forehead against the glass. "I don't know what I feel."
Felix stands, one hand rubbing nervously at the scar across his neck, entirely unsure how to approach this strange admission.
"I think...that's probably normal. Considering," he offers carefully.
"Not for me," argues Juniper, turning from the window and raking her fingers through her hair. "I'm scared all the time. I never used to be scared of anything, and now...I jump at shadows or sudden movement or people touching me unexpectedly." She pushes off from the sill and paces the room in quick steps. "It's like it is in a duel. You know that feeling? When you're dueling someone and your whole body is just ready...ready for action, ready to dodge a spell or attack. All tense, and defensive. But it's like that all the time. I can't shut it off, and it's...exhausting."
On the last word, Juniper leans back against a bed post. "Even when I sleep I have these awful nightmares and I'm more tired when I wake up then I was before. I know it's making me mad. I watch myself acting mad and stupid, and saying these horrid things to people. To my friends. Maybe I have gone mad." She lets her head loll back against the wooden post. Felix approaches her tentatively.
"I think, if you can be worried that you're mad, then you're probably not." He says reassuringly.
"I don't know. None of this seems very likely, does it?"
"None of what?"
"All this? You?" Juniper lifts her head to look at him, gesturing vaguely about the room. "Why would you be here when you're supposed to be Romania. That's not rational, is it? Probably you're just a visual representation of my conscience or better sense or something." She chuffs a mirthless laugh.
"I'm here because I was worried about you," Felix reminds her.
"But isn't that exactly what you'd say if I made you up in my head?" she retorts.
There's something about this abstract train of thought that irritates Felix. It's irrational, which means it isn't an argument he can win with facts. But she's finally talking, perhaps more than she's talked to anyone since the attack, and he's afraid to say anything that might shut her off again.
"So, how can I prove that this is real?" he asks, hiding his frustration. Juniper shrugs listlessly.
"I don't know. Say something...unexpected. Something I couldn't make up."
Felix wants to laugh, wildly. He's full to bursting with things he's never said to her that he's dying to say: that he loves her, that he's never really loved anyone but her, that he'll do anything to make her better again. He screams the words in his head, as if she might hear them if he just thinks loud enough, but he can't force his mouth to speak.
Instead, he takes her face in his hands and kisses her soundly.
A/N If you want the explicit version of this next scene, visit one of the links above, but be sure to return for the end.
It's in no way the perfect first kiss Felix has fantasized about: full of sparks and unspoken declarations of love. Juniper isn't expecting it, so her mouth isn't ready and their teeth clash. A few seconds of decidedly unromantic fumbling, and he pulls away to inspect her reaction.
Juniper's eyes are wide in surprise, but for the first time that day, there's a light behind them Felix recognises. She doesn't move, only stares. She wets her lips, shoulders heaving with the force of her shaky breath.
"That was..."
"Unexpected?" Felix provides when she cannot find the word.
Juniper nods, smiling faintly. "Very." And it's her smile. Her real smile. And her eyes. And the relief is a rush almost as heady as his proximity to her body. Felix's smile in return is small but genuine as he asks softly:
"So...does that prove this is real?"
Juniper meets his eyes the way she always has, quietly confident and determined to get what she wants.
"If I say no, will you do that again?"
This time, it's exactly how he pictured. Juniper's lips are so soft against his, they're almost insubstantial. She pauses after each long, light kiss, lips lingering on his mouth for a moment as if to savor it.
War rages in Felix as he tries to keep himself calm. Somewhere underneath the excitement and relief and joy of finally getting what he's wanted for so long, there's nagging doubts over whether this is really a good idea. But the need for more is stronger. He slides his hands into her hair, pulling her face closer to his to deepen their kiss. There's no resistance. Juniper softens against him, opening her mouth to let him explore. She presses her trembling hands against his shoulders, steadying herself against the onslaught. It's minutes before they break apart for air, still clinging to each other.
Felix wonders if its possible to get drunk from the alcohol in someone else's mouth. It's what she tastes like, and it leaves him heady and unbalanced. It's not at all what he imagined, but what with her has ever been?
Juniper's eyes are glassy as she stares transfixed at his lips, and Felix has to fight a primal urge to press her hips as tightly against his as he can. Some voice at the back of his head is warning him to stop, now, before things go too far. He opens his mouth to find a way to tell her, when Juniper bites the corner of her lip and the words evaporate. Felix grips her waist until she's flush against him, the way he's wanted to do since he saw her at that Quidditch match months ago. She's on her toes to make her body line up exactly with his, and the pressure against his trousers drives him mad.
It's really only minutes, but Felix isn't aware of time as he explores her body. It's another thing he's never managed to picture correctly, but it's better than he dreamed. So focused on feeling everything, Felix doesn't notice when Juniper move her hands until they're against skin. His skin. His shirt is untucked from his trousers, and her fingers slide under the waistband and there's another rush of blood and his mouth is suddenly dry.
We can't, thinks Felix automatically as Juniper's fingers trail across his lower belly, tracing the light outline of muscle. But is there a reason? Or is it only because it isn't usually done this way? There's dates, time spent, he thinks frantically, you have to earn the right. But Juniper never does anything the regular way. And haven't the best parts of his life always started with her dragging him along somewhere unexpected? Then her hands stroke across his hip bones, and Felix's body makes the decision for him.
His hands creep up her legs, where there's more muscle than he expected, and Felix wants to take time to explore them more thoroughly but he isn't in charge of his movements anymore. His fingers are just there when Juniper jerks, and this time her gasp isn't quite the same. There's something less pleasant in it, and Felix's skin turns cold as he pulls his hand back, unable to meet her eyes.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't-"
She stifles his apology with her lips, kissing him with new furvour as she fumbles for his wrist, pulling his hand back into place.
"It's good," she murmurs against his mouth. "So good, I've just...I've never actually done...this before."
How hasn't he thought of that? Felix cringes with shame. Perhaps because Juniper was dating Barnaby at the same time he was with Aurelie and so he'd just assumed all relationships follow the same natural progression. True, she and Barnaby were still in school, but that hardly means anything. School can't have changed that much since he left, and students were always finding ways to do this in spite of their prefects' best efforts. It never even occurred to Felix to hope that Barnaby hadn't had her first, he simply chose to overlook that fact in all his fantasies of her. The sudden knowledge that he might be the first, perhaps the only person, to touch Juniper like this is both elating and terrifying.
Felix is suddenly acutely aware of the rickety iron bed, and the peeling paint, and the raucous sounds from the pub below. This isn't romantic. There's nothing about this room or this situation that would make for a beautiful memory. He might be able to see past that, but this is more than their first time, it's her first time. Felix is sure he doesn't understand what that means for a girl, but he thinks, in general, it's supposed to be better than this.
"Juniper,' he mumbles against her mouth. "This-this isn't right."
"What?" 
Juniper freezes against him. He can feel her frantic heart beat against his chest, and he wraps his arms safely around her waist speaking into her hair.
"I mean...not like this. You're...this...it's supposed to be...perfect," Felix finishes, thankful she can't see how red his face his. He can feel her giggle, causing her body to ripple against him deliciously.
"Perfect? My life is hardly a novel, Felix."
"Special, then," he insists, his lips now pressed against her ear, searching for a safe place to kiss her that won't add any further fuel to the fire already burning through him. But Juniper turns, on her toes again, so she can press her forehead against his and speak directly at his face in a breathless voice
"It is special. I'm with you." Her trembling fingers slide across his cheeks, burying themselves in his hair. "It should be you. I want it to be you."
If Felix kept a diary, he would have accused her of reading it. How else could she know exactly what he's always wanted to hear? He can't suppress a shaky gasp. His lips brush hers as he asks:
"Are you sure?"
Juniper meet his gaze steadily, eyes dark, but a different sort of dark than this morning. There's something on fire behind them as she nods.
"Positive."
And for all the ways this isn’t how he planned, it's still perfect. Because it's her. It's them. The two of them together, finally joined the way they're supposed to be, as close as two people can get.
A short time later, Juniper shifts underneath Felix as their heart rates return to normal, and he rolls to the side to keep from crushing her. He snakes an arm under her to pull her back against him, not wanting to be away from her body for a second. Juniper curls up half beside, half on top of him, and rests her head on his shoulder, eyes closed and smile tired, and Felix realises she must be nearly as exhausted as he is.
"Juniper," he says softly, trying to infuse her name with everything he's feeling. Any other words would surely sound trite in the wake of what they've just done. Her smile widens, though her eyes remain shut.
"Felix," Juniper answers in a voice as full of meaning as his, and Felix sighs, familiar warmth spreading through his chest the way it always does when she says his name. Only now he has brand new memories of the way she can say his name, and he clutches her more tightly against him, satisfied in finally having one dream play out just right.
-
Felix wakes up in little waves. There's soft warmth surrounding him he doesn't understand, until the memory of Juniper from last night returns and he smiles. He reaches out to stroke her hair where it lays pooled on his chest and his hands clench against fabric. He opens his eyes. It's a sheet draped across him. And the bed beside him is empty.
Felix shoots up, instantly alert. A quick scan of the room reveals he's the only one in it. Throwing back the sheet, Felix leaps from the bed and searches the floor for his clothes. He has a vague memory of shedding them somewhere around the bed's foot, but they're nowhere to be found. He swivels around, looking for any kind of clue, and this time notices his robes laid across the chair by the fireplace. Definitely not where he let them drop in a careless heap the night before.
An uncomfortable writhing wakes in Felix's stomach as he tugs on his trousers. This is not how he was hoping this day would begin. He fumbles under his robes for his shirt only to find it isn't there. He barely has time to contemplate this new mystery when the door opens and Juniper enters, a tray with two steaming cups and a plate of scones hovering beside her. She starts upon seeing him, cheeks turning rosy, and Felix realises she's wearing his shirt on top of her skirt and stockings from the night before. The look is less openly suggestive than her sheer blouse, but he finds the sight of her in his clothes impossibly arousing.
Juniper's thoughts seem to be somewhere near his own. She grins sheepishly, still blushing, and turns to push the door closed. The tray makes its own way to the little table near Felix and sets itself down.
"Morning," says Juniper, and her voice is almost bright. So much like what Felix remembers of her, and he wants to laugh and cry at the same time. He settles for smiling at her as she lifts a mug from the tray. It's a beer mug, he notices, the kind with a large handle on the side and she threads her entire hand through it, balancing the other side with her wrist. His smile falters a little.
Juniper plops heavily onto the edge of the bed, curling her legs up underneath her and breathing in steam from the mug. Felix glances wistfully into the remaining cup, a regular tea cup, and entirely bereft of the coffee he craves. Forgoing drink, he sits down carefully beside Juniper, self-consciousness beginning to twist his stomach into knots. There's no reason he shouldn't be allowed to lean across and kiss her, surely? But something about her sipping tea, eyes wandering everywhere but at him reminds him too much of mornings with Aurelie, and the memories play havoc with his confidence.
"How are you feeling?" he asks uncertainly, watching Juniper sip her scalding tea without a wince.
"Honestly?" She ponders this a moment, before replying candidly. "Awful. Absolutely miserable. The worst I've ever felt in my life, I think." She takes another sip of her drink before adding, "But, if I can admit that, then I guess I'm a good sight better than yesterday, right?"
Juniper looks at Felix as if in confirmation, but he isn't sure what to say. His face is blank, an exact match for his current thoughts. Juniper sets her mug carefully onto the floor.
"Had to borrow your shirt, I hope you don't mind," she says, interrupting the awkward silence, and beginning to undo the buttons. "I had to run a quick errand. And I thought Tom might chuck me out if I showed up downstairs like this." She indicates the ridiculously thin and clinging fabric underneath his shirt that served as her blouse from the previous evening.
"Of course not," murmurs Felix. It's a moment before he processes her words, distracted as he is by her new state of undress, but before he can ask any questions, Juniper continues.
"I may need you to conjure something up for me to wear, if you can. I've got a fair bit to do this morning and I can't do it in this. And I don't really carry my wand much anymore," she admits with a small, resigned smile.
This rouses Felix from his stupor. He scoots across the rumpled sheets to sit closer to her.
"Juniper, it's...good that you feel a bit better, but you really shouldn't overdo it. If there's things you need to do, let me take care of it. You need to take it easy for a while. Get back to Khanna's before that Auror - Moody - finds out."
This time, Juniper's smile reaches her eyes. Which still seem tired and sad, but no longer have the terrifying dead look of yesterday.
"Felix," she begins, then shakes her head as if overcome with what she has to say. "You are...extraordinary. But you can't do everything for me. I've got about a dozen apologies I need to make and they need to be done sooner rather than later. Starting with you."
"Me?" Felix raises his eyebrows in surprise. "What for?"
"Everything." Juniper shifts on the lumpy mattress to face Felix more fully. "Ignoring you. Worrying you. Making you come all the way up here. Just being stupid and selfish. You've no idea how embarrassed I am about all this."
"You don't have to be embarrassed," argues Felix, but Juniper interrupts, face screwed up as if in pain.
"I could have cost you your job, Felix!" she exclaims. "You've given up your whole life for this job, and worked so hard, and this is the second time I've almost jeopardised that. But I promise it's the last." She takes a steadying breath and picks at the fabric criss-crossing her legs. "Look, I'm not pretending like - like I'm better or-or back to normal or anything, I know I'm not. I don't even know what normal looks like for me anymore. I'm sure it's not what it used to be. But, I think...I might be past the worst of it now. Entirely because of you." Juniper shoots him a small, embarrassed smile. "I think... I'm thinking more clearly than I have in a while, and I- I know the direction I need to go, even if it's going to take me forever to get there. So you don't have to worry about me anymore. And I- I just need to know that nothing's changed - between us, I mean."
Everything in Felix's chest crumples. His insides sinking toward his feet, leaving his legs heavy and leaden and his head too light. Keeping upright is suddenly the only thing he can concentrate on. Juniper, still looking determinedly at her legs where she's plucked a hole in the fabric of her stockings, notices nothing.
"I know I've still got a long way to go, and I think the only way I can get through it is if I know that you're - that we're - still friends. That I haven't messed that up being...being stupid."
She finally lifts her eyes to peer furtively into his face, and Felix can't imagine what it looks like now, but it feels like it's been turned to stone.
"Of course," he hears himself say, and Juniper sighs, shoulders relaxing in relief.
"I know it doesn't make up for everything I've put you through, but," she fumbles with the waistband of her skirt, retrieving a small slip of parchment. "I've got a portkey all arranged for you. It's set up to leave in an hour, and it'll actually take you inside the Reserve itself. Or it should. I've got it from a, well, a source that owed me a favour, and he's really only semi-reliable at the best of times, but he staked his hoodie on this portkey working, and that's really the highest promise I could wrench from him."
Felix listens to Juniper prattle on without really hearing. At some point, she pauses, and inspects his face more closely.
"Are you feeling alright?"
Felix can't respond. He doesn't feel anything. He feels nothing when they say goodbye, a brief embrace and an awkward smile all Juniper is willing to bestow. Nor when he arrives in Romania, marching straight to the Peruvian Vipertooth grounds to relieve Rashbold, who is fortunately too exhausted to ask many questions. Felix continues to feel nothing as he takes the next shifts, his body going through the familiar motions without the help of any conscious thought. It's only when he returns to his quiet, dusty room, crawls under the tatty sheet of his camp bed, and buries his face in his pillow that tears finally come.
-
Read Chapter 9 |Here’s the link to the Masterpost.
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iilko · 4 years
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hi iilko! i hope ur having a nice day! i hav this idea for a while now and i hope youre caught up with the manga so may i request a scenario with muichirou and his fem s/o who fights alongside with him against koku, but she ended up dying and mui surviving? months prior to that, they both decided to get married once they defeated muzan and are old enough, and they both wear a ring that they would replace w a real one once theyre old. upon remembering this convo, mui just breaks. thank you
Mono No Aware.
count: 1k words.
苦あれば楽あり。
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The thought tended to flee from him before he could utter it out loud, but Tanjirou enjoyed how Muichiro’s household looked from afar. How the sakura trees cradled and hid the home from the onlookers and outsiders. The blessing of spring was that the trees birthed mutations of pink petals that puffed and covered every inch, giving them the illusion of a sakura forest.
Yet, in a season like winter, they became cold and barren, like a being stripped from its warmth, like Eve (the life-giver, naïve woman who cursed the flesh) after struck with the shame of being naked. Then, his shelter became noticeable and the world could see it.
In seasons like those, the former pillar wouldn’t step into the place.
“Ah, Muchirou.” Tanjirou settled himself down onto the engawa. “Did you plant another tree today?”
“… Two today.”
“Ah,” He tugged at the ends of his sleeves, sweat seeping through the cuffs, “I’m sorry, I was running late so I couldn’t help!”
“It’s fine,” Muchirou shuffled in his crossed position, he leaned his back to the wooden rail behind them and scratched his right bicep, the scarred bicep floating and wiggling in response. A painting of scars littered his body as the soft light slightly hit them. “You travel a lot.”
Tanjirou chuckled, “that I do.”
They hadn’t reached the middle-half of being twenty. Yet their bodies carried rivers of scars and wounds that spoke of an older, morbidly nostalgic time. As kind as their hearts could be to others, the skin of a former slayer would always be so tough and cruel. Time healed many wounds but not enough, and not the ones that mattered.
He found it tough but manageable living in an era of peace. War and bloodshed still carried on under his eyelids and at night you could hear the voices––– cinematic and life-like. He had the ghosts of the fallen stand beside him as he slept. Life, mentally, was never silent.
He was sure Muchirou could relate.
Those gradient locks were always in a single braid, resting down to the tailbone. His pale skin lost its glow from the scratches that marred his skin like a thin woman’s hair. His deep eyes were narrow but that infamous passive glint was stronger than ever. He said more than he would in the past but spoke less. Almost living in this weird plane of being.
He couldn’t help but play with the word if, if she was still here… Who would he be now?
“I’ve run out of seeds, though. The birds have eaten a lot of them.” Muichiro admitted.
“I’ll buy you more then” Tanjirou exhaled with a softness, “so you’ll never run out.”
He hummed, “she would’ve fed them back to the birds, anyway.”
Kamado laughed. Light and airy, “still, would’ve kept some to plant, no?”
Muichirou did not give him an answer but Tanjirou didn’t need one.
There was a river. It ran from the mountains down through the towns. On its journey, it often made a route behind Tokito’s household, where it would splash against the salty river rocks and little rolls of bumps on the earth. The process was loud enough to hear through the tatami rooms, and it’s chattering spoke for them when they were stuck in their silence. When Tanjirou couldn’t say what he was here for.
Then,
“Did I do enough?” He whispered through the rivers.
Tanjirou could hear him loud and clear.
“You always do.”
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Muichiro felt sick when he saw you like this.
Your hurried steps alongside him and Gyoumei were hushed and light. The sheathed claymore you wielded so tight in your grasp made each individual knuckle popped under your skin. Your eyes were dry and burned with holy fire.
It was that aura of a shining beacon, the grace of felinity, and the energy of warzone–– all bombs and pipes that only you radiated. Your face hot, your breathing became heavier, your legs rose higher with each step, and you exploded with a diluted hubris to ease the people around you. To convince everyone that you had it under control.
You were digging your funeral and were waiting for the right time to fall into it.
Yet, when Gyoumei was ahead, you stopped, pulled him to the side and told him not to die. Your warm, calloused hands squished his cheeks as you rested your hot forehead against his. In a firm, beckoning, and tender voice you told him, “don’t you die on me.”
‘Don’t you die on me.’ You said it and soused it with love. Now, those words were morbid and achingly haunting.
You pecked his chapped lips, and the smoothed jade that jumped above your valley winked at him. His eyes went down to the jade bracelet on his right wrist, his words still lost in his throat.
You let go of him and stumbled back to inspect, your expressive eyes invoked a sweet melancholy (it was SAUDADE; a kindling affection sticky like mochi but an accepted destiny lingering under it), before you gleamed a smile, “I still want to get married, y’know.”
Maybe, if he had said it back to you before Gyoumei had called out for the both of you and before the shifting rooms violently pushed you from his space, you would’ve lived.
“Stop looking like that.” Those were the words refused to leave his mouth, he remembered his lips even trembling just to spit them out. His stomach dropped and the world collapsed.
Stop looking like you’re about to leave me.
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Tanjirou then put his hand into his laid coat, “right, Muichiro, it’s finally done. I’m sorry they took too long but sending such a small thing overseas can have it lost in a lot of things.”
Initially, it was just a small black box. Those scarred fingers pulled back the top and revealed two rings carved out of pure jade with a centerpiece of a lighter, brighter gem all accented with a gold bezel ring.
“Do you like it? It’s fancier than I expected but…”
“Will you help me put one on?” Muchirou asked and Tanjirou agreed with eager.
When placed, the ring flaunting on his marred digits, the corners of the younger man’s lips pulled.
“It’s glowing.”
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“Mui, do you want kids?”
Hazy eyes peeked up at you, before directing their attention back to the frog on the lily pad, his crouched form unwavering. “I haven’t thought that far, probably not.”
You pouted falsely and made your shoulders deflate as you turned your head away from him, “wow, that’s not what I wanted to hear at all.”
“Do you?”
“No, but I’m still kind of disappointed.”
“Oh,” Muchirou said lamely, “sorry.”
You rolled your eyes and sighed, making quick steps towards him. You crouched beside him, shoveling your skirt beneath your bent backside then turned to meet his blank stare, “you were supposed to say maybe, Mui.”
“Why?”
You could see the blurry confusion in his eyes and pursed your lips to stop your laughter. You punched him lightly with a fist and hopped an inch closer to him, placing your sight on the frog too.
“Just in case we think about having some.”
“I don’t want any right now.”
“Not in the future, though? When we marry?”
He didn’t answer you then, not until the frog hopped onto another lily pad. His eyebrows bumped together.
“You want to marry me?”
“Of course,” you smiled, “I love you.”
Shock looked hazy in his pupils, and it would leave his eyes to burn into embarrassment on his ears. The stoic look he was so infamous for melted with the small smile on his lips and pink cheeks.
“Okay.” He nodded, his eyes never off you. He wasn’t sure about love most of the time, and what it could mean or be but he didn’t mind learning with you. Never you.
“After, Kibutsuji is done for.” You nodded curtly, “we’ll get married in a forest of sakura trees and our rings would be made of that pretty rock we found. Oh! and we’ll invite everybody.”
“Okay.” He said softly and you arched a brow at his face, “what is it? Why are you making that face?”
The frog hopped and Muichirou’s grin grew a tad wider, “I don’t know, I can’t really stop!”
“You’re so weird!”
“It’s because of you!”
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Could one die looking heroic? Of course, you could leave this earth as a hero but could you die looking like one?
If it was, then could you die looking like you were in love? Perhaps, that would just be dying with a smile on your face.
Muchirou believed you died being violently, helplessly, foolishly in love.
You were in love with your family, your friends, humanity, earth, good, and maybe him. There had to be some if you wanted to marry him but maybe not enough if you left this earth knowing you were to die.
He kind of got love now, it was when he hated your absence far more than he loved your presence.
The sight of your body being impaled by the roots of his ancestor would never leave his mind. Along with the sight of his parents, the sight of Yuchiro.
It always felt as if they were always in his grasp and that he was never quick enough, never strong enough. The ones that mattered always died when he was still weak. At that moment, he knew was strong enough to have saved his mother and father. Weeks ago, he was strong enough to stop Yuchiro.
Years later, in a home hiding in a sea of sakura trees, he was strong enough to save you.
None of it mattered if they weren’t there, though. That’s the catch, no matter how strong you get, there was a time when you were too weak and couldn’t do anything, and that will always haunt you.
As Muchirou stood in front of your glorified grave with its white Chrysanthemums, yellow Camellias, petals of Sakura, and blue Sweetpeas, he came to a solution. It was a solution that took years to make.
He couldn’t have been strong enough for you, but he’d strong for himself and the others that needed him. It was the most he could do and it was what you would’ve wanted.
But for today, he’d plant another flower, the red spider-lily, place your ring on the top of the tombstone and cry out the last of his tears.
The river silenced itself, so did the branches, and the wind, and allowed him to cry one last time.
Sakura (櫻)/Cherry Blossoms: 物の哀れ (The pathos of life, the sensitivity to ephemera)
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littleblackqrow · 4 years
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For as long as you can remember, alcohol has been a part of your life one way or the other. 
You think about that a lot when its late at night and you cant sleep, almost always when you’re trying to figure out just why exactly you’re here now. Growing up in the Tribe, alcohol was always present. They were never in one place long enough to brew their own alcohol, so it was definitely always stolen, and it was the one resource that never seemed to run scarce. In their defense, water had sometimes been hard to come by, and sometimes wasnt safe to drink. Alcohol was sometimes a better alternative. You grew up used to the sight of tankards in people’s hands and drinking to excess, especially during celebrations.
The first time someone placed alcohol in your hand, you were nine, and the Tribe was having a wedding. It was heavily watered down beer, basically the only thing left in it was the flavor. Still, it made you feel like an adult, and very important for the rest of the day.
Your next drink came the day you became a Man, the day that the Tribe gave you your sister new Name, Qrow and Raven Branwen, the name you’d carry for the rest of your lives. It was a feast in your honor, after all, and you were now an adult in the eyes of the tribe, you could drink just like the rest of them. You dont remember much of that night after dinner, but you know you were very sick after that.
Going to Beacon was a bit of a paradox. Suddenly there was much easier access to alcohol, and yet here in “Civilization” you werent considered adult enough to drink it. Lucky for you, Summer and a couple of their other friends had fake IDs, and sometimes they’d slip onto the Beacon roof for some underaged drinking. Or wander the streets of Vale. At that point, you still considered alcohol something to do for fun, not something you needed.
You also noticed that for some reason, your semblance was easier to manage when drunk. That was your first indication that your semblance was tied to strong emotion, because when you drank, most of the time things started going numb, and less bad luck happened. Though... now that you think about it, maybe it didnt, and maybe you were just too soused  to notice its effects.
The heavy drinking because of hurt and grief didnt come until a year or so out of Beacon, and you learned that two of the Hunters you went to school with, two people that you were friends with, were killed in the field. Tai, Summer, and you all got blotto that night, while poor Raven couldnt because she’d been pregenant with your niece. 
Around that time, you think, thats when you started playing coy with your emotional pain, drinking to dull it, run away from processing it.
Things seemed to keep piling on after that. Raven left, more people died. You saw horrors out there in the wilds as Ozpin’s spy, things that still haunt your nightmares. It helps, you think, to pass out before falling asleep naturally, even though what actually happens is the alcohol makes your dreams worse. 
Summer was devastating. You had known about her last mission, and you'd told her he was going with come hell or high water. She seemed to agree, but then suggested that they go out for one last party night since she didnt know when you’d be back. That night, she got you so blackout drunk that you slept until late afternoon, and Summer was already gone. You’ve been avoiding those feelings of grief for years, first because Tai and the girls needed you, and second because that grief had been ignored so long it was a huge well of bad emotion that threatened to consume you. 
You werent trying to hurt anyone with your drinking. It never occurred to you how painful it must have been for Yang and Ruby to grow up seeing their uncle kill himself in slow-motion with booze. You swore that you’d always be there for those girls, and made yourself available for them to talk to if they needed it. You could still function and fight with a buzzing head, so that’s exactly waht you did, protecting them from monsters and all things that go bump in the night.
Until you didnt.
Brunswick Farms and the Apathy make your bowls go weak with fright just thinking about it. You can still remember clearly the subtle influences of the Apathy, encouraging you to just give up, let the bottle take you to oblivion, and you'd done it. Your nieces and their friends nearly died and you were none the wiser. You failed them. You arent sure what hurts worse, the psychic damage that the Apathy had inflicted on you, or the knowledge that you nearly got your nieces killed.
The decision to quit came in the middle of a fight. You were tired, definitely still drunk, and in that weird in-between phase between Drunk and Hungover. You thought you were doing your job, being the voice of reason for these kids before they did something stupid and ruined their lives, when your Ruby yelled at you, “I dont really care what you think right now.” If she’d shot you, or stabbed you with the scorpion poison again, it would have hurt less. In a world where everything had gotten complicated and crazy, Ruby and Yang were the one lodestone that you had left, and now one of them was rightly angry and upset with you.
If you wanted to be part of her life any longer, something had to change. That something was you.
None of that really helps you sleep any easier at night, and the answer of why you’re here still remains one of life’s greatest mysteries. But you feel like there’s at least one less mystery. 
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fuwafuwamedb · 4 years
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How whipped are the Gils whipped when it comes to Hakuno? We talking enkidu making whip noises and gestures, Artoria having Hakunos number on speed-dial, or the whole of Chaldea having a code word to get her when the Gils are doing shit they shouldnt
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Hello, friend! Welcome to Medb’s emergency scenario training.
Did you run into a Gilgamesh? Are they harassing you and/or your friends, creating a hostile environment, or simply bringing down the mood?
Please remember to FUCK.
F - Find Hakuno
This one is pretty easy since the woman has a phone. Try sending her a text message with your location and Hakuno will do her best to pick the Gil up as soon as possible.
U - Uncork Wine
A drunk Gil is a happy Gil. Usually causes them to wish for greener pastures as well. Properly souse your Gilgamesh in the area and watch them leave to find others to drink with.
C - Clean
Gilgamesh doesn’t want to waste time in a room that has someone doing nothing but cleaning. It’s very annoying, especially vacuums. Gilgamesh are like cats, they don’t want to listen to the noise and need to flee to better, more suitable locations. Get Cleaning!
K - Kill him.
You don’t have to finish the job, but if you start to try to kill him, others may come to stop you and take the king away. If nothing else, you earn some peace from that haunting laugh.
Fuck away, my friend! 
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prorevenge · 5 years
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Psycho Ex gets my egoless revenge with a side of heavy-duty karma.
The following story occurred over the course of 13-8 years ago, and I apologize preemptively for the length, because it is a bit involved.
I was in a relationship for 9 years with a girl I met in college. We broke up on the cusp of my 29th birthday. While breakups and divorce are never trauma-free, this one was as close to that as I believe is humanly possible to get, there were no fights and minimal drama, and I moved to a new city to get a fresh start and be nearer my dad/stepmom/half sisters, as I'm close to them and it was nice to have family during this. Get an apartment, start over, everything's good. Then I meet "her."
Things with her seemed good at first. She was the polar opposite of my ex. She's quiet yet nice, had her life relatively together (my first wife was very unfocused and horrible with money), physically a complete contrast, wild in the bedroom--I thought I had hit the jackpot.
Anyhoo, I fall for her hard. We have a whirlwind romance, move in shortly, and we have this glamorous life where we make good money (she was a corporate accountant, I had a decent small business, we're pulling in 150K+ combined), renting a luxury apartment, one car paid and the other brand new, no kids. Things are great, except that we drink too much together and some other underlying issues I'm blind to at the time. We get soused one night and drive to Vegas, and get married on the strip after 6 months of dating and 9 of knowing each other. The ink is barely dry on my divorce papers from version 1.0, but no matter, I'm in love. My family likes her overall. Her family loves me. We adopt cats. We talk about trying to have a kid.
We upgrade our life and take on more debt, just as the housing bubble bursts and the economy tanks, she loses a couple jobs due to her inability to show up on Mondays, and I start losing clients as the ones I have start cutting their advertising budget (my field). Things start to get pinched, and she first starts complaining, then gets petulant, because now we can't spend the way we used to, the quarterly mini-vacations dry up, plus we're cooking at home instead of going out to eat 4x a week. We basically stop having sex a little more than a year into the relationship (didn't realize it then, because I was dumb and love-blind, but she cheated on me during this period).seRealizing what we're up against with our normal bills plus our credit cards, I go out and get a job bartending at a posh resort, the only other real skill I have at the time that's marketable. I get two other part time gigs to help make ends meet. She still complains, and throws me an ultimatum before I even start getting paychecks, laying the blame at my feet. I say fine, screw this then. Had we stuck it out even a few more months, things would have started to turn a financial corner. Instead, she goes full two-faced, mean-spirited bitch on me. The night we first fight, she "attempts suicide" by scratching her wrist with a leatherman, then calls 911, gets admitted to the hospital (I arrive home to cops telling me this), and has the security guard toss me when I show up to see if she's okay because she doesn't want to talk to me. I use the quotes because there was a small collection of firearms nearby I bought for her target shooting hobby which were untouched, so it was obviously just a ploy for attention.
We basically fight for the next week, I give her everything she wants, which includes leaving the house, signing over my new truck to her, and only taking stuff I brought into the relationship, basically enough to fill a small storage space. She's financially pinched so I sell my office furniture for cash and don't even touch the bank account, just take my biz money and one CC I got separate from her. I go to the Bay Area for a few months, financially struggle, don't get the job I was sure was on lock. During this time, I have this revelation one evening--I drink too much and that it's caused a load of problems in my life, so I quit, and I haven't touched a drop since.
Broke and realizing nothing I try is working, I come back to town, live with my dad for a month, find a roommate, then a shit retail job (my business has dropped from 7-8K per month at its height to now around 500/mo), I bike everywhere bc I can't afford a car, and my credit is toast partially due to her love of spending on plastic, so I'm facing bankruptcy. I'm 31, and this is really humbling, but whatever, I'm alive, have dealt with hardship before, this won't last forever. She has kept her house, declared personal BK on her debts, keeps her car, and has been dating a series of men starting a couple weeks after we split. While I never asked the details, apparently she's also reached out to a few of my friends and badmouthed me a bit. This would be mildly annoying, but add in two factors--she's dragging her feet on the divorce due to not having money to file, keeps up contact on the pretense of us needing to talk, but plays emotionally manipulative head games during the whole sequence ("I've realized I still love you, that's why you can make me cry so easily," and other bullshit Hallmark movie lines like this). Also, we live in a suburb that's smaller and tightly knit, so multiple places I go to like my church, the bookstore I frequent, and the coffee shop right by my place, she talks endless shit to people. Says I was a cheater and physically/emotionally abusive (complete crap, but whatever), I'm stalking her, I supposedly stole tens of thousands of dollars from her, the whole nine. Some people actually believe her, I even get threatened by a wannabe biker one night that's literally twice my age with violence, itself a funny story but not the point.
Finally, after some more bullshit and back and forth, she leaves town (more falsehoods around this, including her borrowing a bit of money she didn't end up paying back, and sticking me with a massive overage on our cell bill right before we split the account). My dumb, trusting heart hurts but I'm mostly relieved to see the last of her, realizing she's only nice to me when she wants something. She goes to NY to shack up with another guy, gets pregnant 15 minutes later. Finally sends me divorce paperwork. I sign it and send back quickly, all notarized docs, everything organized and flagged. She attempts to be "friends" and I want no part of this BS. I'm businesslike, she gets upset. She screws up filing, blames me. I say "whatever," straighten out the court issues. One week after the divorce is finalized, the kid is born. No word from her after that for two years, thank god. I get a new career, start advancing in it, and start dating a new woman that I'm still with 10 years later. Weirdly enough, they knew each other, and she didn't like her, partially because one of my ex's infidelity partners was her ex-husband, during a time they were exploring patching things up for the kids' sake (though there were multiple reasons for her distrust, apparently she always gave my wife an icky intuitive feeling).
So flash forward two years. I get a call from my current squeeze. She's just talked to a friend who was also a very brief roomie of "her" after our split. She's breaking up with the baby daddy. There's a custody fight. He's saying he doesn't know if it's his. Will I help her? Well, it's the right thing to do, so even though I don't trust or particularly like her, I say yes. I get the call, and a sob story. Most of it doesn't add up--he took the kid, but thinks it's actually mine, to prove paternity I'd need to come to NY and take a paternity test at one of their facilities, also he hit her, put a GPS tracker on her car, brother is a Russian mobster who threatened her, all very far-fetched. Needless to say, even without this fanciful tale, I generally assume if this woman is talking, it's a lie, so I'm suspicious. Her lawyer calls me, and seems like a clueless shmuck. I get a letter from him, very unprofessional and not even on a letterhead (every other legal doc I've seen has "from the law offices of blah blah" on it, but this is literally just off a laser printer), and says, verbatim "I, M___ K___, am the ex-husband of J___ K___, and was married to her from 6/07-8/09. I have no legal interest in the child." Super shady.
Not wanting to end up in a situation where I've allowed myself to be legally fucked over, I make my own lawyer consultation appointment. Before I can even go, the baby daddy finds me on Facebook and sends me a message. Between calls with him, his lawyer, and the impartial lawyer NY state appoints for the child's welfare, I get a very different story. He knows it's his, he had a paternity test done on the sly at birth because she had been promiscuous before they got together, and she was pregnant so quickly he was concerned. They broke up because she was drinking too much, he busted her with a bottle of vodka as she was driving with the kid in the car. She stood up in court, claimed I was actually the father, and she had no idea where to find me (he found me in 10 seconds online, I'm a tech guy with massive social media presence, a tech blog, multiple writing credits on publications, my frigging name as a domain, plus I've had the same cell phone number for 14 years). Also the other BS was just that, he's an IT guy for a university and his brother works for a carpet cleaning chain, plus just like in our relationship, he never hit or stalked her, etc.
So she, not knowing what I know, starts sending me text messages. I say "Filled out and on its way back to your lawyer," and toss it in the trash. I'm so tempted to send her some poetic message about how the truth is coming back to haunt her, but I resist, because I'm not doing this for her, but rather for the sake of their son and his father, so let's keep my ego out of it. I provide legal statements to all in the court. Tell them I know it's not possibly mine because I hadn't been with her since April 15 of '08, kid's birthday is in Sept of '09 (I remember the date because, due to taxes, I got fucked twice that day). Explain when she was in NY, which is the likely dates of conception, prove I was thousands of miles away on the west coast. Tell them to look through her social media, where she meticulously tagged herself and took tons of pictures of even their mundane locations. Provide a blood sample to a local lab. Tell them salacious details about her drinking and occasional drug use, including her abused prescriptions and a previous hospitalization where she was held for psych eval due to taking way too many pills.
Court comes, and she gets blindsided. Stack of depositions and a collection of statements from me were what sealed the deal, apparently, and the incredibly stupid game she was running is fully exposed. Gets no custody, no support, supervised visitation once a week. I run into her ex-roomie, upset, but instead of giving her attitude, I just calmly tell her the scam J__ was running, then let her "pull out of me" the truth about our split. She's flabbergasted, but also a horrible gossip, so it gets around town like wildfire. People I barely know, including the aforementioned biker, all come up to me and apologize for misjudging me. I'm years past the stage of having any morbid curiosity to check her social media, but every few months she pops up as a "suggested friend," and I notice bemusedly the number of mutual friends plummets from triple digits to eventually 3. Baby's father sends me a massive Amex gift card for Christmas, as much as I make in a week at the time. I call and tell him I don't know if I can accept it, I don't want him or anyone to think I did this for a reward. He virtually begs, saying "you helped save my family. This is nothing in comparison. Thank you." We break down crying on the phone, and eventually form an odd, distant friendship based on mutual respect for each other. I even had dinner with him a couple times when I had to go to NY for biz over the years, and I always buy, because the poor guy has done enough and gone through enough having to coparent with this train wreck.
To this day, she's apparently struggling to stay sober (alcohol and other substances), and has minimal involvement in her child's life due to her inability to show up when expected. Baby daddy tells me she's been in legal trouble, financial issues up the ass, and a string of boyfriends that never last more than a few months. I'm doing well, got married again three years ago, raised step-children, am reasonably financially successful, and rather like my life. Granted, a large part of this story is just karma in action, but I feel like I did the right thing, wasn't petty, and what I did do hit her where it hurts.
TL;DR: Ex-wife fucks my life, destroys me financially, tries to trash my reputation, then tries to use me as a scheme in her custody battle years later. I talk to the court directly, work with the baby daddy's lawyers, and get her exposed for the psycho, lying wench she is. She loses custody, struggles, and the good people live mostly happily ever after.
(source) (story by heymomo7)
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