#hey!: thank you so much for reading!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

chloecherrysip · 1 year

Text

all the pain will change into a memory of when we were amazing (mario & luigi-centric post-movie fic, part 1!)

(My weekend got a little busier than I was expecting, but I was still DETERMINED to get this up today and hey, I succeeded!!! I will eventually post an AO3 version as well, so if you'd like to wait for that, you can (and I will of course link it here), but sharing on tumblr is just a little easier for me to start out with. :)

Remember that this is just the first part and there will be at least two or three more coming soon!! Like I've already said in other posts, this fic has become SO LONG that it needs to be split up a little just for ease of reading. The title comes from the song Casey by Darren Hayes, which for the record, is a song about siblings and really fits movie!verse Mario & Luigi's relationship, in my eyes. Also, just so you know, this part (and only this part) has some Mario/Peach moments as well! I hope you enjoy!)

It took roughly eleven hours to put Brooklyn back together.

Not to how it was before, just to be clear. Not even close. Just enough that you could no longer tell right away that it had been subjected to a catastrophic tear between dimensions or alternate realities or whatever the two worlds were in relation to one another — who even knew? Instead, it looked more like it had suffered a few earthquakes in quick succession, or a hurricane closely followed by a tornado for good measure. Y’know, normal disasters.

It would no doubt require weeks of work to fix the cracked roads, replace all the crushed cars, reassemble the shopfronts enough to reopen and finally, finally get rid of all the black chunks of molten rock and huge mushroom stalks that were still being found in the strangest crevices and alleyways. But there was a lot to be extremely grateful for too. It was an outright miracle that Bowser’s airship had happened to crash down into the empty construction site mere minutes before the workers were scheduled to get started, somehow missing all occupied buildings. Everyone on the block was unhurt and accounted for, and they all still had a mostly-intact place to sleep that night. That, Mario reasoned, was more than good enough for now.

He’d jumped headfirst into helping with the emergency cleanup efforts as best he could, of course. It was the very least he could do after unintentionally causing the whole mess to begin with, and Luigi had jumped right in alongside him, ready to go. The star had worn off — even if Mario was still seeing glimmering afterimages of rainbows in the corners of his eyes every time he blinked — but it seemed like there were some lingering aftereffects. They felt better than ever, every injury down to the slightest bruise or cut completely healed, an overflow of joyful energy humming pleasantly all through his core. Mario guessed it was some kinda mixture of leftover magic and his own adrenaline and relief, which probably could have kept him going strong for a long time all on its own. They’d actually made it home. They’d seen their parents and family again. His brother was back within arm's reach, smiling and solidly warm and safe. How could he not feel like he was on top of the world?

So they’d spent the rest of the day working with neighbors to clear debris and shattered glass, move cars safely out of the way that were too crushed to move on their own any longer, nail up boards to cover gaps where windows once were. There were various damaged water fixtures and pipes that desperately needed some TLC before they came entirely undone and caused more damage (thankfully, Mario knew two talented plumbers who were more than up to the task). And of course, there was the not-so-small matter of rounding up all of Bowser’s minions and stuffing them back through the pipe before they snuck further into the city and started causing mass chaos. Most of that went smoothly, thankfully (other than one notable incident of some Koopas messing around at a bowling alley and accidentally getting stuck in the ball return). The magician in the blue robe, the one with the wand, had vanished entirely, though. Luigi had been the first one to notice, nervously mentioning that he’d seemed important, like a second-in-command to Bowser. Mario didn’t like that one bit, but Peach reassured him that they would stay vigilant.

Speaking of Peach, she’d taken charge of the chaotic situation right away, her leadership skills shining bright in a way that left Mario quietly in awe. She’d personally overseen Bowser’s transfer and imprisonment back in the Mushroom Kingdom while also coordinating efforts on both sides of the warp pipe, DK and Toad providing support as they all passed back and forth between worlds several times throughout the day, transporting as much of Bowser’s broken-up airship back to where it came from as possible. Toad Town was still a mess from the invasion as well, and many of the Toads who’d evacuated needed to be helped back from the forests. Mario had only spent a little time there, but thinking about such a lively, cheerful place in abandoned disarray troubled him. He considered going back for a little while to help out there too, just to make sure everyone got home safe.

But the familiar warp pipe loomed before them, and Luigi’s smile strained. Mario, hand lightly pressed to his brother’s back, registered the sudden, new tenseness, the way his breathing became shallower, despite his best efforts to not let it show. And there was Mario’s answer. He wouldn’t put Luigi through that again, not so soon, and if Luigi wasn’t going, Mario wasn’t going — end of story. The thought of being an entire world away from him after everything they’d just struggled through, even briefly, was too much to handle. All day, that uneasiness had hung around him, the one wrinkle in his light-as-air happiness and boundless energy. He hadn’t even liked Luigi being out of his sight for too long as they worked on the cleanup, which he fully knew was silly and unreasonable. That was why he'd never breathed a word of the feeling outload, even when the discomfort settled in heavily like a bad stomachache.

It'll get better once a little more time goes by, Mario kept insisting to himself with a sure, stubborn forcefulness. What's there to be worried about? We made it, both of us. We're together. Everything's gonna be okay. It really is.

“Don’t worry! We’ve got it all under control,” Peach reassured him. “I promise. The Kongs are helping, and so are the penguins from the Ice Kingdom. We’re going to work with them to rebuild their castle as well. On the bright side, I think our alliances will be much, much stronger after this mess.”

“Are ya sure?” Mario couldn’t help but press, interlacing his fingers tightly. “I dunno, I just feel like I need to do something. If it wasn’t for you, all of you, I wouldn’t have gotten to Luigi in time.”

“Oh, and like you didn’t do even more to help us?” She gave the brim of his cap a flick that was somehow both playful and graceful. “Mario, you and your brother stopped Bowser in his tracks. Both of our worlds are safe from him now because of you two. If anything, we owe you! Toad was already talking about organizing a parade, or giving you both a chest of gold coins!”

“What? No, no, who needs all that?” Mario insisted, his face flushing a little. “Besides, those coins won’t even fit in my wallet! There probably isn’t an exchange rate or anything here for ‘em. Just my luck.”

“I thought as much.” She placed a fingertip to her pursed lips, tapping lightly as she pondered. “What about a house?”

“A whole house!?” Mario nearly choked on the air. “For free?”

Peach gave him an odd look and a shrug, as though it was perfectly reasonable in her world to offer someone she’d just met a few days ago real estate with absolutely no strings attached. “Why not? You and Luigi are always going to be known as heroes in the Mushroom Kingdom, you do realize. It's the least we could do. But…” She thought in silence for a moment longer and then smiled, the curve of it a little heavier, more subdued. “A house doesn’t do much if no one will be living in it, huh?”

Mario considered that. Across the sewer room, the black of the warp pipe’s insides spread out behind Peach, vast and unending. “That’s…yeah, that’s true,” he said, his shoulders sinking a bit. “For now, don’t worry about doing anything for us, all right?” He swallowed around a strange, new lump in his throat. “Before anything else happens, I just really need to make sure my family’s all right.”

Peach nodded. “And I need to make sure mine is too,” she said, voice warm with understanding.

She shot a meaningful glance over Mario’s head, and he followed her gaze to where Toad and Luigi were sitting off to the side. Toad was excitedly talking, making big, bombastic gestures with his pan as though he was reenacting something. Luigi, for his part, looked a little bewildered but interested, following along as best as he could manage with lots of nodding. The strain in Mario’s chest eased.

“But you’ll both visit before too long, right?” Peach brought his attention back to her, her tone pointed. “There’s still plenty of beautiful places to see in our world. We barely scratched the surface! But we can start with a nice cup of tea in the castle, of course.”

Mario couldn’t help but smile widely. “Definitely,” he said. “And besides, I already made a promise to DK before he headed back. Me and my “stupid overalls” have to give him a rematch at some point. C’mon, how can I pass up a chance to kick his furry butt all over again?”

“And I want to come back and visit this world again too!” She added excitedly. “I want to know more about the bowling we saw, and video games, and — what did you call that one thing? A calzone? — and well, everything!”

Mario laughed outright. “Sure, come back anytime! Luigi and me know allll the best spots in Brooklyn like the backs of our hands. With us, you’ll never have a bad time, guaranteed.”

Some bright, delighted mischief flashed in Peach’s eyes. “And besides,” she said, “your mom said she would show me some of your baby pictures next time. I have to see that because I can’t imagine you without a mustache, honestly. It just doesn’t seem possible.”

Mario’s laughter got less boisterous and much more strained in a big hurry. “Right, right,” he said, voice cracking. “Gotta remember to, heh, burn some of those before then.”

“Don’t you dare!”

With more than a little reluctance, she waved over at Toad, signaling that it was time for them to say goodbye.

“I’ve got to get out of this wedding dress already,” she joked, holding up the skirt so Mario could clearly see all the tears and scorch-marks and dark staining, all intermingled with white and glittering pink. On the top, she was wearing a new, light pink “I LOVE NY” shirt from a cheap souvenir store; Luigi had actually been the one to get it for her, having noticed that she was spending a lot of time standing out in the sun with her shoulders uncovered. At some point along the way, she'd also tied up her blonde hair in a messy ponytail to keep it out of the way. “What a disaster, huh?”

Mario honestly thought that she looked beautiful. But there was no way he could say that, and he also didn’t want to agree because that sounded rude. Thankfully, he had only had a few more seconds of mounting internal panic left to go on that subject before Toad and Luigi came over.

“Your brother’s just as cool as you are, Mario!” Toad brightly announced out of the blue, which in turn made Luigi jolt and blush behind him. “But I should have guessed! You guys are the SUPER Mario Brothers, after all!”

“Hey, I coulda told you that a lot sooner!” Mario grabbed Luigi around the middle with one arm and squeezed tight, enough to make his brother wriggle with a hoarse, surprised laugh. “He’s always got my back!”

“Hey, hey, I’m flattered, but there’s no way I’m as cool as Mario,” Luigi insisted, grabbing and squeezing Mario right back, playfully poking at his stomach. “Are ya kidding? This is the best guy in the world, c’mon! No contest!”

"You c'mon! Who came up with using a manhole cover as a shield out of the blue, huh?”

Luigi blinked a few times and then ducked his head down with a big, bashful grin. “Okay, maybe that was me.”

“Exactly.” He smushed his brother’s cap, ruffling his hair underneath. “What were you guys talking about, anyway?”

“Ohohoho, wouldn’t you like to know,” Toad insisted right away with a thick air of secrecy. He mimed locking his mouth with a key and then tossing it away, winking in Luigi's direction. “No need to be jealous, Mario. I can have two best friends.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Mario replied dryly.

“It was no big deal, r-really!” Luigi backed Toad up, a little too loudly. His eyes looked somewhat glassy, as though he was teetering on the verge of tears, but when Mario met his gaze full-on, worried all of a sudden, his brother smiled back, big and sincere and seemingly very happy. “We’re all good! Better than good! We’re great!”

Peach stepped forward, then. “You really made a difference when it counted most, Luigi,” she said warmly, taking one of his hands in her own and patting it. “Thank you again for that. I know you didn’t see the best our world has to offer, but I hope you’ll give us another chance soon enough.”

Luigi, having stiffened a little at her touch out of sheer surprise, relaxed again. “Of course, Peach — I mean, Princess Peach. Your highness? Ma’am!” He gave her a salute with the other hand, for some reason. “I, uh, definitely appreciate it.”

She let go of him and reached for Mario’s hand in turn. Out of the blue, he thought about kissing the back of it — she was a princess, right? Wasn’t that what people did in all the fairytale books? — but that was a silly idea, stupid enough to make the back of his neck burn from embarrassment. Instead, he simply held onto her tight for a long moment, reflecting her sweet smile back at her, his heart pleasantly fluttering.

Further down, Toad grabbed one of Mario’s legs and one of Luigi’s legs in both arms and hugged them fiercely at the same time, sniffling a little. They gave his head a few soft pats in return (and winced when he loudly blew his nose into their overalls).

“See you around, Mustache,” Peach said softly. She took a small step backwards towards the pipe but didn’t let go of him, their arms stretching out further. “And don’t forget what we talked about,” she added after a beat, delicate, maybe even the tiniest bit hopeful. “What I offered…it’s always on the table, if you ever do decide you want it.”

“I won’t forget,” he said in return, softer too. “Stay safe.”

She squeezed his hand one last time, and then she and Toad were gone. The warp pipe’s signature sound bounced off the impossibly high walls of the room they were in until it was just a tiny echo. Mario took a deep breath. He turned to find Luigi beaming at him, eyebrows raised high and wiggling a little at the ends.

"Shut up," he sighed.

“What!? I didn’t even say anything!” Luigi insisted, even as he continued to grin.

“Yes, you did. I can read your mind.” Even Mario’s sternest do NOT go there, I’m serious look could never do much when Luigi was ready to do some ruthless teasing, but he tried it anyway as they started to trudge towards the stairwell at a much slower pace then when they’d first come down it. When had he started to feel so tired? A big yawn fought its way up his throat before he could continue. “I just met her! We’re friends. That’s all there is to it, thank you and goodnight.”

“Look, you can't prove a thing, but if I was saying something, well, I'd start with the way she was looking at you.” Luigi whistled. Mario pulled down the brim of his cap, if only to hide the sudden warmth creeping into his face a little better. “She certainly seems like a princess with good taste, y’know?”

“All right, all right. Ya done?”

“As a matter of fact, I’m not! She’s already got a dress too, which is really convenient. After all, weddings are expensive—”

“Stop, Lu. You better not breathe a word of this back home! Cause you’re gonna get Ma and Dad all riled up too and then I’ll never hear the end of it."

“Are ya serious!? Oh, my poor, sweet, naïve Mario. They already smelled the blood in the water at least five hours back. They were talking about little blonde grandkids when you were in the bathroom and everything.”

At least the long trek ahead of them out of the sewers would give Mario time for his face to cool down to a normal temperature again. “Great, great, just what I need,” he grumbled. “Now I gotta find a princess for you to get the heat off me.”

“W-What!?” Luigi sputtered. “I mean, I wish. But a kingdom only has one princess, right? And you’re the lucky guy.”

“There wasn’t just one kingdom,” Mario mused. He was climbing the stairs by then, metal clanging with each step. “I betcha all the money I have that if I went looking around long enough over there, I could find a real cute royal out there who has a thing for the color green.”

He reached behind him to give Luigi’s shoulder a playful shove, only for his hand to meet nothing but air. Turning fully, he saw that his brother was moving a lot slower than he’d expected. He was still at the bottom of the stairs, clinging to the railing and blinking furiously, his gaze focused on nothing in particular.

“Luigi?” Mario asked hesitantly. “You good?”

Luigi perked up at that and gave a thumbs-up. “A-okay!” He chirped, starting to climb. “I just — whew. I’m a little, uh, dizzy. It feels like that crazy star hung around for a while, eh? Like, we weren’t super-powered anymore, but nothing hurt, and I still had tons of energy to do whatever I wanted. But now…”

“Yeah, I’m definitely feeling that too.” Mario realized it more clearly, his breathing already labored after only climbing one flight of stairs. The injuries weren’t back, thankfully, but he was aching all over, a new heaviness creeping into his bones more and more. Luigi was hurrying to catch up with him, moving unsteadily.

“Just go slow,” Mario called. “We’re not in a hurry. Be careful.”

It didn’t seem like Luigi heard him, still trying to talk as he climbed, huffing and puffing. “I mean, wow! We were running all over the place! We were fixing things! We were saving Brooklyn! But…huh. Something’s kinda weird.” His voice had dropped down into a mumble, so quiet and fast that Mario almost couldn’t understand him. “I’m having that pins-and-needles feeling, like my legs are asleep, but I’m still walking just fine. Right? Do I look normal walking? Be honest. I…I can’t tell.” He looked sleepy, and then he suddenly looked frightened, unfocused, as though he wasn’t even sure where he was at all. “Wait. Am I upside down? Mario…”

It happened so fast. With one last shuddery breath, Luigi’s eyes rolled back into his head. He started to fall backwards, about to topple down a nearly full flight of stairs.

Mario’s heart seized. “Luigi!”

He covered several steps in one desperate jump. Somehow, he managed to get one arm around his brother and pull him back with every last scrap of strength he had left, crushing their bodies together. The other arm, he wrenched over and around the railing blindly, worn metal scratching and squeaking against him painfully as he struggled to hold onto it. For a long, agonizing moment, the fight against gravity seemed like it was going to be too much to overcome, and Mario, teeth gritted, mentally prepared himself to turn them around in the air so he would take the brunt of the long fall. But miraculously, his shoes found enough purchase on the steps, and his aching grip lasted just long enough for Mario to pull their combined weight back in the other direction. The two collapsed in a heap against the ascending stairs instead.

Mario’s gasping breaths seemed like the only sound in the world, the echoes bouncing wildly all around.

“Luigi,” he finally managed to wheeze — quiet at first, then again, much louder. As gently and carefully as he could manage, he scooted up into a sitting position and turned his brother over onto his back, cradling him. He was still out cold. Mario patted his face. “Hey, Luigi. Come on, Lu, wake up for me, all right? I’m here. I’ve gotcha.” He patted a little harder, steadfastly ignoring the way his hands were trembling at that point. Every second passing with no change stretched on, an eternity and then some. “You’re all right, everything’s all right. Come on, Luigi, snap out of it…”

Up close, Luigi looked extremely pale, sweat beaded along the line of his cap. How had Mario not noticed that before? He’d been too caught up with all the cleanup efforts, too distracted by Peach and Toad and the thought of that hypothetical house. How could he not see that Luigi was starting to struggle? What kind of brother was he?

The kind that does something really, REALLY stupid because of pride or "destiny" or whatever you wanna call it. The kind that not only drags his brother down with him to do the stupid thing, but almost gets him killed because of it.

Mario's shoulders sagged. He gripped Luigi tighter, pressing his little brother's face close to the crook of his neck, if only to try and desperately ground himself in the knowledge that he could feel him breathing still, at least. Their injuries were gone, it was true, but for Mario, it was suddenly like the star had just shifted the pain around instead. He could feel it pressing up from under his skin, a deep well that was ready to split him open all the way through if he let it.

It no longer seemed like he'd just been in a magical world on a whirlwind adventure, or that he'd defeated a spiked turtle monster with anger issues and saved Brooklyn in a glorious, technicolor blur. Now, he was just a small, ordinary man in a dark sewer room underground, exhausted and terrified and unable to help the person he loved most.

All of a sudden, Luigi jolted under his hands. “Noooo more flambé for me, thankyouverymuch, I’m-a good!” He shouted, the words slurred together to the point of being nearly unintelligible. With a handful of slow, very confused blinks, he finally managed to focus on Mario’s extremely relieved face overhead. “Waaaaaaait. Whuh happen?”

Mario bundled up all those sharp, aching feelings behind a new wall and regathered himself. No matter what, he was going to stay strong, stay in control. He needed to do that for Luigi’s sake. There was no other choice. “You went down like a big sack of bricks, ya lug,” he tried to joke, even as his voice cracked badly on the last word. “Nearly gave me a heart attack! Are you okay?”

Luigi considered this information, eyes unclouding bit by bit. “I’m sorry,” he finally said, soft, a little embarrassed. “Y-Yeah, I think I’m good. I, uh, don’t really know what happened there! It was like…it all just hit me at once, I guess.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” Mario worried his bottom lip between his teeth. “When’s the last time you slept, bro?”

Discomfort crept into Luigi’s expression at that. He looked away from Mario, not able to meet his gaze for more than a few seconds at a time. “Well, I dunno if I — I was wandering around for a while, and then I couldn’t really sleep in that cage, y’know? All that lava made the metal real hot, so I had to keep moving to not get burned, and you have no idea how hard it is to nod off when there’s a creepy star laughing its head — body? — head off in the next cage over, and, and...well, I’m sure I got an hour here and there,” he scoffed lightheartedly, waving off the thought with a wobbly sweep of his hand through the air. “Nothing worse than those all-nighters in high school!”

“You almost had a nervous breakdown because of those all-nighters,” Mario said. His grip on Luigi’s shoulder tightened, fingers winding snug in the green material. “And…what about food? Water? We’ve been go-go-go all day. I didn’t even think about…”

A brand-new sense of dawning horror came over Mario, sudden enough that he trailed off. He couldn't remember them ever taking a break, even sitting down in the shade for a few minutes. There'd just been so much to do, so many people in need of help, and the two of them had felt so good, laughing and joking and keeping up with no problems whatsoever. The time had flown by. But now...

“Pfft, who needs it?” Luigi said, extremely casually and extremely unconvincingly. He coughed, closing his eyes again for a long moment, resting his cheek sleepily against Mario’s chest. “Hmm. A guard gave me some sips a couple of times? And there was some weird bread. I think it was bread. Who even knows? It was stale like croutons. Not like the really good garlic ones Ma makes, though. These were like…like erasers or something. Blech.”

A few sips of water and some "bread." A couple of hours of sleep, if that. Luigi was on his own, scared and struggling and eventually imprisoned in a maniac’s floating lava airship, for over two full days.

“Well, no wonder you passed out,” Mario sighed, rough and very quiet. He had to talk like that — any louder, and his voice was going to become too unwieldy. It already felt like someone had promptly stuffed his heart into a blender and cranked it up to the highest setting. “Speaking of Ma, she’s probably got a full spread out by now. I’m gonna get you home, you’re gonna eat until you pop, and,” he had to pause for a moment to swallow, his throat hurting, “and then you’re gonna sleep until you can’t anymore, okay? That’s what we’re doing.”

Luigi sighed too, his smile resurfacing. “Man, that sounds like heaven. What are we waiting for?” He started to sit up with newfound determination, only for the dizzying sight of the stairs descending down into the dark beneath them to make his motions distinctly more rubbery again in a hurry. He sunk back into Mario’s arms, breathing faster, eyes closed again.

“Just, uh, one more minute," he half-wheezed. "Nothing to worry about, I’m getting up right now, I swear, but…is it just me or is it really, really hot down here? Those burns I had, they’re all gone, which is great, but I can still kindaaaa feel them? Is that a medical thing? Or am I freaking out? Because, heh, it’s starting to feel like I might be freaking out, and not to toot my own horn but some might consider me an expert when it comes to the signs of freaking out—”

“Just breathe, Lu,” Mario interjected, gently but firmly, the way he always did when Luigi got lost in a thought process that wasn’t going to lead him anywhere good in a hurry. “We can wait as long as ya need. No rush at all.”

Mario pressed back the brim of Luigi’s cap so he could brush his hairline soothingly, wipe away the sweat. He leaned down, gathering Luigi close enough to bump their foreheads together so they could breathe in slow, deep unison. He’d done that little motion to Luigi their whole lives, an unspoken shorthand that only they understood. When his little brother was scared or anxious, touching foreheads was a way to make the world smaller, less overwhelming, if only for a few seconds. It was an easy way to say: who cares about any of that? Focus on me instead. It’s just the two of us. I’m here for you. I’ll always be here for you.

(And he’d tried, hadn’t he? He tried, and he hadn’t been good enough this time, when it mattered most. Luigi had suffered because he couldn’t hold on tightly enough. Because he hadn’t fought harder, been smarter, pushed to move faster throughout every part of the trip. And at the end when he’d finally found his brother? It had just been dumb luck, really. He’d squinted up at all the cages at the right time through the haze of the lava heat, breathless from the climb and still half-focused on trying to stay in the air without plummeting, and he’d seen his brother fall, and his body had just reacted without any thought, desperation and adrenaline screaming in his veins, the only word in his head echoing out as faster, faster, FASTER. And if one little thing had gone differently — if he hadn’t found that specific powerup, if he hadn’t figured out how to use it properly, if he'd been looking anywhere else, if he’d misjudged the speed or simply missed his grab entirely — then that would have been it, and it would have been all his fault. The sight felt seared into Mario’s head, something he could see whether his eyes were open or closed. He saw Luigi tumbling in the air, terrified and yelling and out of control, hurtling towards the lava at full speed. Only this time, he couldn’t reach him, he couldn’t move at all, he could only watch helplessly and in horror as he—)

“Mario?” Luigi asked quietly. “Are you okay?”

Mario jolted back into the moment. He was breathing too hard, too fast; a tremor ran through him, bone-deep. Luigi was holding one of his arms, his eyes big and shining with newfound worry.

Mario smiled reassuringly for him, as easy and unthinking as a reflex. He took Luigi’s hand and wedged his fingers through his with a tight squeeze, resolving not to let go again until they were safely at home. That awful drowning feeling was rippling all through him, but he could keep his head above it if he focused hard enough, if he refused to let it sneak up on him again. He could do that. He would do that, no matter what it took.

With a slew of careful, slow-going movements, the two brothers finally stood up together on the stairs.

“Don’t worry about me,” Mario said, and turned to lead the way. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here."

#mario movie #mario movie spoilers #super mario bros #mario and luigi #mareach #super mario bros movie #cherrysip fic #super mario bros movie spoilers #a succinct summary of this part: things are going great! and then things are going not so great :(#this feels very derivative of other people's fics but hey that's what happens when you take over a month to delve into your own #post-movie scenario - everyone's done most of the common things before lololol. I GOTTA JUST BE OKAY WITH THAT #anyway much MUCH more to come as soon as i can make it happen! thank you for reading - i appreciate you all!#(also i always hate having to say it but please do not tag this as ship!!! just don't!!!)

196 notes · View notes

tianhai03 · 2 years

Photo

guys wake up new C coloring pic just dropped <333 have some teefs i drew awhile ago that i probably never posted here

#this was a banger drawing and C made it so much cooler with the paint splatter ty for the addition #also it makes me happy to hear you like how i draw nero bc. i dont know how to draw him actually ahsdghkajd hes very hard to draw #anyway. sparda chompers supremacy. these boys have sharp teeth and they WILL bite someone with them #devil may cry #dante(dmc)#vergil(dmc)#nero(dmc)#fan's colorings #everything from here on out is directed at C bc i have no other ways to talk to them so you guys can stop reading here <3 #hey C! i actually didnt see what your first submission was bc i didnt even receive it lmao #but i just want to say that you dont have to worry about anything; what i said the other day wasnt directed at you at all #i do enjoy the little stories you have whenever your submit things; they seem to be pretty personal stories and i appreciate that you trust #me enough to tell me about them.#if you'd feel better not sharing any more that's fine! i'm never going to mention anything in them anywhere regardless #i'll just keep posting your colorings as usual for everyone to see and appreciate :)#hope you have a great day C! and thanks again for always coloring my stuff!#allyart

1K notes · View notes

storfulsten · 6 months

Note

Hey, I hope that I'm not crossing any boundless with this but I would appreciate it if you could draw a picture of bf and gf? Thank you ^^

lol it's fine, since you're nice about it no worries ha. don't have anything new to offer but found this old doodle that I just added some color to the lines to, hope it's ok

silly vibes only

63 notes · View notes

presiding · 7 months

Text

you'll never guess which level we're up to in this dishonored 2 rewrite

#if i haven't stuffed up my timezones this post should land on thanksgiving so here's somethin' to read to go with your food coma #dishonored #dishonored shitposting #emily kaldwin #billie lurk #dishonored fic #interesting the way the resurrection was handled - rock up to aramis stilton's powerpoint presentation basically #does anyone else think it would have been cool if you had to do the duke's palace first.#grab delilah's mortality and give it back in the past. like while she's vulnerable #kind of makes sense too from an emily character perspective #because she shows SO much character growth in stilton's manor #and then goes to the duke's palace next and IMMEDIATELY says the dumbest shit she says all game re: her entitlement and obliviousness #stilton's manor: wow ive learned so much i finally get it now!#nek minnet. emily misunderstands class warfare so bad she thinks she needs to sharpen her dads folding blade. emily. no #and if you think about it the duke's palace would have made a lot of sense for an earlier level just from emily's perspective.#hes very clearly her enemy compared to meagan's vague idea of where sokolov might be. a darker timeline perhaps #lovely Off_Topic mentioned hating time travel as a plot device and i have to agree. here's my take on that level anyway #also big thank you to RoseEll (<3) for saying it parallels the limitations of the game's mechanics interestingly ♥#using this meme template was like. 'oh hey lingering hatred for jeremy clarkson i forgot i had you'#making the badly photoshopped heads too big. my beloved.#ah crap rambling again

61 notes · View notes

bittybeanie · 10 days

Text

oh boy! time to post a new fic! I can't believe it's been *checks calendar* ....oh. uh. oops. ignore that! it's the fourth and final installment of (this) aspec reigen series, complete with a lite™ version of a couple different kinks and finally getting to touch the peen! this one's real long, folks, clocking in at about 9,500 words, so you might wanna get a nice beverage and settle in.

content notes: thigh riding, themes of consent, drunk almost sex, a discussion about the drunk almost sex in the following scene, praise kink, a very loose (literally) definition of bondage, and so so many pet names. minors please don't interact!

also on ao3!

It takes more than a couple tries for you to get settled on the bed. You’re too close, then too far, and Reigen can’t get comfy, and your hand keeps sliding out from under you, and he can’t decide how he wants your leg angled, and there’s too many clothes, then all at once so few clothes that it feels like too much at once and you hastily agree to put your shirts back on, not wanting to break the already fragile layer of quiet hope.

Finally, finally, everything is perfect.

Awkward, stilted, and a little tense, and you’re not sure how long your leg will let you keep it just barely raised like this before it cramps up, but he’s here, embarrassed but steadfast, breath coming out in shivery gasps, hovering over your thigh, one hair fisted in the back of your hair. If he tips over, there’s no way you’re not going with.

Perfect.

His thighs shake as he holds himself up, deciding which direction he wants to move. You reach for the small of his back to steady him. "Does this count as keeping my hands out of the way?" He nods, so you test the waters by sliding your other hand up his thigh.

"As long you don’t- just no direct touching. Close to is fine, just not… well." He moves a hand back and forth across where he’s hovering over your thigh.

“Keep off the goods. Gotcha."

"The goods? Awful. You're awful, I swear."

You slide your hand up, just barely skimming your fingernails over his hip when you catch the hem of his shirt, and his cock twitches in his boxers.

"The goods don't seem to agree."

"Oi." Despite his protests, the laughter loosens him, and he relaxes enough to lean back into your knee. “Fine, fine, just stop saying goods.”

“Alright.” He raises an eyebrow. You lift both hands in surrender. “I promise! I will never again use ‘the goods’ to refer to your perfect, gorgeous, suckable-”

“I get it! I get it.” He grabs onto your shoulder - maybe in an effort to distract you, or maybe just to keep his balance - as he shifts closer. You can practically feel the heat radiating from his ears. “Here, actually, can you-? Hm.” He presses a hand against the inside of your other leg, thumb digging in as he gives a shove. He slides a knee into the newly free space between your legs, leaning forward to get a better angle. Your hands settle back on his waist.

“Better?”

“Much.” He lets out a little hum as he pushes his hips forward, and you have to stamp down a whimper at the feeling, his dick heavy and warm even through fabric.

“Didn’t mean to just push like that, though. Sorry.”

“S’okay. I’ll survive a little manhandling, as a treat.” You hit the last “t” sound with a click of your tongue, and he falls into your neck with a laugh. You trace patterns on his hips as he moves, tracking the motion as you press your fingers into his skin. “God, how do you get your hips to move that smooth? It’s sorta mesmerizing.”

“Hm? Oh, I don’t know, I’m just- I wasn’t thinking about it. S’just what f- ha, feels good.” His breath fans out across your collarbone, warm and fast.

“Yeah? You like using my thigh, baby? No thoughts other than what feels good? Your own personal toy to get yourself off against?”

“Oi.” His hips stutter once before he falls back into a slower rhythm. His fingers dig into your shoulder as he pulls you closer.

“Too much?”

“That’s not how I think of you.”

You can’t help but laugh, a light chuckle coming out in a breath against his hair. “I know, ‘Taka, I know.” You slide your hands under his shirt, over his stomach and up to his collarbone. “But would it really be so bad to belong to you?”

“I- fuck.” There’s a moment of worry when he shoves you away, but then he’s scrambling for the hem of his shirt and pulling.

“Are you sure?” It’s a formality, uttered even as you’re already reaching to help slide the fabric over his elbows, but it’s one you can’t even imagine going without.

“Very.” He lifts himself off of you to push his boxers down, shifting his weight from one leg to the other as he shimmies them all the way off. The mattress shifts and pitches him over, and you hurry to grab his arm.

He crawls back over to straddle your thigh, the tip of his cock tapping lightly against your side before he leans back onto his ankles.

“Do I need to get-?” You chuck his shirt into infinity and gesture vaguely to the bedside drawer. He’s technically never told you that he started keeping lube in there, but he hasn’t made much effort to keep the secret either.

He shakes his head. “I’m close. Won’t matter.”

He tries to go back to rutting against you, anchoring his hands on your waist to tilt his hips this way and that, but something about the new angle is off, and he can’t get any good contact.

“Oh no, now horrible, your dick is just so hard it won’t stay down on its own.”

He clicks his tongue at you as he scoots to sit closer, flush making its way from his ears to the edges of his cheeks.

“That gorgeous curve probably isn’t helping, either. In this case, anyway. Be an absolute treat to have inside me, though.” You press your thumbs in just above his knees, encouraging him to spread his legs more, and he jumps with a squeak, hands flying to grab yours. “Sorry, sorry, di-”

“No, it’s-” He pulls your hands together, just in front of his stomach, and the tip of his cock brushes against you. For a moment, you think he’s going to pull down, but he guides your hands back to his hips, pressing them into his skin as he rolls his hips. “Here.”

He gives up and puts his hand flat over his dick, pinning it down against your leg. He lifts himself to adjust the angle, just his tip dragging along your skin until he bumps into your hip, precum rolling out in a thin line over your thigh. When he pulls back, he grinds down insistently, coating his length and covering what isn’t already marked of your thigh so he can slide more easily. After a few impatient jolts of his hips, he settles back into a rhythm, smooth and fluid, and lets up on the pressure of his hand. He slings his other arm over your shoulder to pull you closer, and he falls forward to bury his face in your neck, whining into your collarbone.

He wasn’t lying when he said he was close, because it only takes a few drags of his cock against you for him to seize up, body tensing before going boneless, cum rolling over his hand and onto your hip as he slumps against you in a mess of pants and sighs. You slide your hands up his back to support his full weight, pressing kisses to his hair as he catches his breath.

“Just… gimme a second, I can cl- get you- god, my legs.” He rolls off of you with none of his usual grace, limbs falling everywhere at once, lightly smacking your arm as he goes limp.

You laugh and push his hair back from his face. You don’t bother to untangle your legs from his, accepting your fate of needing a shower later in exchange for getting to lean down to kiss his cheek.

“Eh, let it dry.”

“I’m starting to think you like it more than tolerate it.”

“If you haven’t gotten the hint by now that I want you to absolutely cov-”

He gives you a shove, rolling his hand so there’s no real force behind it, but you seize the chance to topple with a dramatic moan, one hand falling theatrically across your forehead as your eyes flutter closed.

“Oh, stop it.” He crawls over and props himself up on his elbows. You can feel his breath fanning over your collarbone, stilted like he’s trying not to laugh. You crack one eye open, breaking into giggles when you see his forced serious expression, eyebrows pinched together and one cheek sucked into his mouth to keep the smile off his face. He breaks at your laughter, breathing out through his nose and pressing his forehead to yours. “I can’t take you anywhere.”

“Oh, you could take me anywhere, handsome.” You waggle your eyebrows suggestively, and he rolls onto his back with an exasperated groan. You laugh again and sit up, pulling a blanket over him so you can settle in without accidentally brushing somewhere he’d rather you didn’t.

“Hey, Arataka?”

“I love you, too.”

“That, too.” You chuckle. “But I have a real question this time.”

“Oh.” He turns his head. “Sure.”

“After you… when you took my hands earlier, were you…?” The fleeting moment of contact between him and your hands floats through your mind. You can’t help but wonder what he was thinking in the moment he hesitated, but it feels weirdly invasive to ask so bluntly. “Sorry, never mind, this is a weird line of thought.”

You lay down beside him, craning your neck to rest your head on his shoulder. His hand finds yours, lacing your fingers together as his thumb smooths up your wrist.

“Do you mean…” He takes a steadying breath, grip tightening almost imperceptibly. “Do you mean after the clothes came off?”

You nod. For a moment, he stills, not even breathing.

“I was… I wanted so badly to let you touch me. I thought if I didn’t have to say it, if I could just… imply, then I could get around it, but,” he sighs heavily, and he sounds tired when he continues, “I panicked.”

You’re both quiet, long enough that you startle even yourself when you finally break the silence.

“It’s not a bad idea.”

“...Panicking?”

“No, angel. Implying.” He presses his cheek to the top of your head. “Maybe you just have to imply for a little longer.”

“I’m not following.”

“What if you left your hand on top of mine? That way it’s like- it’s the same as when you do it, but it sort of, hm, bridges the gap? All the sexy, none of the surprise.”

For a long moment, you’re not sure if he’s quiet because he’s thinking or because he’s falling asleep.

He hums, shoulder rolling under your head, and he pulls you tighter against his side.

"Okay." You shift nervously, tucking your foot underneath yourself, then deciding against it and unfolding your legs. "Walk me through the zones again."

"I'm not a city planning map." He rolls his eyes, but he takes your hand. You’re not sure which one of you the gesture is supposed to comfort.

You shift back onto your knees.

"Here up, anything goes." He points at the middle of his chest. "But try to stay- so more like, well, from maybe..." He gestures to his collarbone and wags his finger up and down. "Here to here, really."

When he looks back at you, you can tell he's waiting for something. You settle for a small nod.

"Right. A-and then, here to here," he points from his chest to just above his hip, "Hands are fine. Doing... whatever." He steadies himself with another deep breath and rushes through the rest. "Legs, stay still, and anything... direct we'll do the- on the- yeah, got it, that's all."

You let him sit for a moment to make sure there's nothing he forgot. His grip on your hand tightens, and you swear he moves to pull you closer, but he must decide against it at the last second.

"Whose hand is going on top again? Sorry, we've swapped it so many times I can't remember if we decided."

"Oh. Right. Um." He hovers his right hand over his left, then swaps them, then swaps them again. “Yours under mine.”

“Got it.” You reach for him, letting him pull your hand up to his collar. "And you know you can tell me to stop at any time?"

"You tell me that every time."

"It's important every time."

He swallows thickly and traces a circle on the back of your hand with his thumb. "Yeah. I know."

You shift to pull your legs off to the side, then cross them again, then sit back up on your knees. Gently taking the collar of his shirt in your hands, you trail one thumb along the edge of the fabric until you reach the top button. "And can I do this, or would you like to?"

He nods before realizing there were two options in your question, then points at you, then at your hands, then flashes you a thumbs up. "Yeah. Go ahead."

"Well, now hold on, I have manners. I'm not going straight for the goods." He laughs and shimmies to sit up straighter, letting his legs straighten out in front of him. "How about the pants later?"

"Uh, right, that's, I didn't think about that. I mean it would make sense that you're going to be- I mean it's not like-"

"Arataka."

"Yeah." He swallows.

"I'm not going to be offended if you’d like to take off your own pants."

He pauses, staring down at his knee. Eventually, he shakes his head. "I want you to do it."

"And your-?"

"Just do it at the same time."

"Got it." You take a steadying breath of your own. "I won't stay there, but is it okay if I straddle you for a little bit? I wa-"

His hands are pulling at your waist before you can get your legs properly unfolded, and you almost tumble over him. He laughs an apology as you move on top of him, hovering over his legs to avoid making any real contact.

You brush his bangs back from his face, following through with the motion until your fingers tangle in the shorter strands of hair at the back of his head. He tilts to follow your hand, craning his neck to keep you from pulling.

"Ready?"

He nods slightly.

"I’d like a verbal yes for this one, lovely."

He swallows. You watch his Adam's apple bob.

"Yeah, yes.” He nods again. His hand jerks, taking yours with it, and he awkwardly lets your hand fall into his lap. You do your best not to move. “I trust you."

You drag your gaze back up to his face, searching for any last signs of reluctance. A bead of sweat trails down his temple, and you’re certain if you put your hand to his cheek you’d worry he had a fever. Sure enough, when you slide your fingers along his jaw, he’s hot to the touch, and the tips of his ears are turning brighter shades of red by the second.

He clears his throat, pushing his jaw into your palm. “Are you gonna-?”

“In a minute.” You swipe your thumb across his bottom lip. “I’m savoring.”

He scoffs at that, the same scoff he uses when he sees somebody do something stupid in public, and you take the opportunity to catch him by surprise, surging forward to push him down onto the bed. His hands go to your shoulders on instinct but he pulls them back almost immediately, hovering awkwardly in the space between you. Using your grip on his chin, you angle his head so you can lean down and kiss him without knocking your noses together.

Once you’re sure you can support yourself without falling on him, you allow your free hand to trail down, tracing down the muscles in his neck, across his collarbone and back, finally settling on the first button of his shirt. It takes a little effort to get it undone with just one hand, but you manage it, and you allow yourself to dip down as you settle into a rhythm, lips ghosting along Reigen’s skin as you uncover more of it.

He’s shivering, hand shaking where it hovers over yours on the last button of his shirt. When you slide your hand back up along his side, his hand falls back to the bed, pulling at a wrinkle in the sheets.

You kiss along his jaw, savoring the feeling every time his breath catches in his throat under your lips. Your hand trails down along his side, wrapping around him to hold his waist when he arches up into the press of your thumb. He hums, eyelids fluttering, and you dare to slide your hand down, ever so slightly, thumb brushing over his waistband and back onto bare skin.

He grabs for you, grasp tight around your wrist, almost painful before he slowly relaxes and drags your hand back up toward his chest. You push yourself off him, swinging your leg to kneel beside him.

“Here, let’s try this.” You guide him to sit up. Once he’s situated against the headboard, you settle in by his thigh, your knee pressing gently into his hip. One hand traces circles and patterns as you trail down to his stomach. “Still good?”

He hums, but he scrambles for your wrist again, holding on tighter and tighter the closer you get to the button on his pants.

“You’re allowed to change your mind, y’know. I can let you do it.”

“That’s not- mm.” He relaxes his death grip on your arm but keeps his thumb hooked around it. After a few tries to let go completely, his head tips forward into your shoulder. “I thought I would… I’m sorry.”

You shake your head and slowly pull away. “Nothing to apologize for.” You cup his face with both hands and gently turn him, but he doesn’t hold your gaze for long.

“Do you want to keep going? Should I…?”

He opens his mouth, but says nothing. His expression is pinched, tight with something you’re not sure how to label. His fingers press together, thumb and index, thumb and middle, thumb and ring, thumb and pinky, over and over as you lean back, nodding softly.

“Stay in bed?” Your voice is shakier than you’d like. You swear he flinches, and you clear your throat. “Or move to the couch and watch something?”

“Couch.” He nods once, stiff and harsh, and swallows thickly. “Thanks.”

He presses a kiss to the corner of your mouth, and slides out of bed, starting to button his shirt back up as he wanders into the other room.

You keep nodding as if in a trance, and you follow him out.

Despite the now faint memory of some friend of a friend forcefully inviting you, there's not a single soul at the party you recognize. With the exception of a few people dancing by the kitchen, closer to the speakers, everyone has settled for taking a seat and awkwardly bobbing their head. You’ve repeated the same three lines of small talk more times than you can count, it's just cold enough that you've had the chills the whole time while still managing to feel overwhelmingly stifled, and the music is so awful you wonder how somebody hasn’t tried to change it yet. But there's alcohol, the good stuff that somebody is clearly very particular about, and lots of it. You can't remember how much you've had, and that fact is enough to tell you it was probably too much, but it doesn't stop you from taking whatever the host is passing out when they wander through.

You think Reigen might be the only person doing worse than you. He looks... woozy. His face is flushed and his eyes are lidded like he might throw up, pass out, or both at any moment. At one point he took a tumble when he tried to sit down, graciously ignored by everyone else, and you had to throw your arm around his waist to keep him from sliding down the front of the couch again. He's leaning on you for support every time he moves, and if there were anything left in his can you’re sure he would be spilling it on you right now.

He's restless at the best of times, you know this, but even through the fog you can tell something is off. Not wrong exactly, but he keeps giving you this sideways glance, digging his fingers into your thigh to steady himself and then yanking his hand away, knocking his head into your shoulder and muttering something you haven't been able to make out.

He laughs - way too loudly at something you're not sure was supposed to be funny - and stands abruptly. Your hand around his waist falls limp on the couch, and he sways without the support.

"I'm going to the re- the ba- I gotta piss."

Nobody but you pays him any attention. He takes a wobbly step forward, knocking his foot into the leg of the coffee table, but he doesn't seem fazed. His knees bend at a weird angle as he shifts his weight from foot to foot, then he straightens back up and whirls around to face you. The momentum sends him tumbling back down, and you manage to catch him before his nose smashes into your jaw.

"I guess you better help me there."

"Yeah." Your voice crackles from dehydration. You have to clear your throat and try again to get a recognizable sound to come out. "Alright." You do a quick mental scan of your legs to make sure they'll support you before you motion for him to get up so you can stand. He does, grabbing your wrist and pulling with the conviction of somebody who does not need help walking.

The gears in your head start to turn.

He drags you along, glancing over his shoulder as he rounds the corner into the hallway, only stumbling once when he has to screech to a halt and back up to yank a door open. He pushes you inside, pulling the door closed behind him after he follows you in.

It's pitch black, and you're not sure if the overwhelming lemon smell is coming from Reigen or something in the room. You reach out to find him, but your fingers brush against something cold and smooth instead, and it's not until it tilts and hits you in the head that you realize it's probably a handle for something. Reigen's hand whacks into your arm and he holds on tight, fingers digging into your shoulder as he pulls you forward.

"I don't think that was the right door."

"Hm? Oh, sure." You can feel the air beside you moving until eventually his other hand finds your face, one finger dragging across your cheek until it hits your nose. "No, I- yeah, I know."

"Then wh-"

He pushes, hard and sudden. You fight to keep your balance as you adjust to the weird backwards lean you find yourself in. Reigen hisses as he pulls his fingers out from between you and the wall.

"Dumb, that was so dumb. Sorry." He fumbles for your waist to guide you backwards, and you feel his hips press against you when he reaches past your head to lean on the wall.

Everything clicks together all at once.

Your hands fly to where his waist should be. Once you find him, you're not sure if you want to shove him away or pull him in closer.

"You're super drunk. I don't know if-"

"Tha's the point." The hand on your face slides around until his thumb catches your bottom lip. He sways, like talking about it has made him remember how much he's had to drink. When he leans against you, he's heavier than normal, like he can’t support his weight anymore. "Liquid courage."

"I’m drunk."

"Mm. Shit." He pulls away, just barely, and he nods. "Do you mind?"

Your mouth drops open uselessly. All your thoughts feel like static, indecipherable noise screaming for you to do something, if only you could figure out what. He's squirming now, like it hurts to stay still. You realize he's whimpering at the same time you realize he's grinding his hips against your leg.

“M’fine.”

He lets out a sigh of relief and drops his hands as he shuffles around. You take the chance to stand back up. When you finally bump into each other again, he wraps his arms around you and squeezes, his breathing coming out in pants against your chest. He hooks one leg around yours, tapping his foot against your heel to bring your leg forward. You make a strangled humming sound when he grinds against your thigh.

"Hey, where's your hand?"

"My...?" You suddenly remember you have hands. You allow yourself a moment of silence for all the time you could have been holding onto him before you push one hand forward. It smacks into what you think is his stomach. "Sorry. Here."

"S'kay. Stay put." You keep your hand pressed against him as he leans backward. You're not sure when he stopped holding onto you, but one of his hands is suddenly over yours, and a loud zip cuts through the sound of you both breathing. He slides his hand down, dragging yours with it. Your fingers glide along his skin, smooth and soft, until you brush against a patch of hair.

A sobering panic cuts through you.

He must realize what he's doing at the same time you do, because you both freeze. His grip tightens. He guides your hand away from him slowly, stopping when he makes contact with your side.

"Stay... stay put."

He turns and scrambles for the door. Something falls beside you when he misses the doorknob, then you're squinting as light floods in from the hallway. You can make out the silhouette of him sprinting into the room diagonal from where you're standing, and then there's the unmistakable sound of vomiting.

Your place is only two blocks away - no more than a ten minute walk.

You call a cab service.

It smells like coffee.

When you try to sit up, the room spins. You end up in a sort of half sit, half lean as you grab onto the side of the mattress, willing everything to stay still. You take stock of the things that are clear enough to look at, slowly making sense of what happened once you got home.

You're laying on top of the covers, still in your clothes from last night. One shoe is in the doorway, and the other is nowhere in sight, probably somewhere closer to the entrance. The coffee smell, growing more enticing by the second, is a good sign Reigen's in the kitchen.

You slide onto the floor beside your bed, not trusting yourself to stand up without falling just yet, to rummage for more comfortable clothes. Once you manage to get changed, you stand up slowly, and make your way to the kitchen.

Reigen must have grabbed a set of pajamas at some point last night, though you can't remember when. His back is turned to you; he's lazily stirring something on the stove. Two steaming cups of coffee sit on the counter beside him. Before you can decide whether you want to say something and risk startling him, he seems to sense you standing there, and he turns around with a weak smile.

"Hey."

"Morning?" It's both a greeting and a question, because you have no idea what time it is.

"Yeah." He lets out a breathy chuckle. "How, um, how you feeling?"

Your head is throbbing so bad your teeth hurt, your legs and back are sore, and you have a looming sense of guilt.

"I think I should be asking you that."

"I'm fine, really." He clicks off the fire and reaches for a bowl. "I told you, I felt basically back to normal after I- well, um, you know. Thanks again, by the way, for car- for carrying me."

You nod softly, feeling a little useless as he hands you what looks and smells like a very delicious soup.

"Reigen, I am so-" "I didn't mean-"

He reaches for a second bowl. "You first." When you start to shake your head, he rolls his wrist in a "go on" motion. "Please. I'm not actually sure how to say mine yet."

"Right." You swallow thickly, fidgeting with your spoon. Deep in thought, you miss Reigen slipping past you. He clears his throat and gestures to the seat across from him. You slide into the chair. Your spoon clanks against the bowl as you set it down. "I, um. Shit, I'm so sorry."

He seems surprised, a spoonful of soup halfway to his lips.

"What for?"

"Wh-" You blink. "Every... thing? I- I know sorry doesn't even cover it, but I-"

"Whoa, hey, okay." He shakes his hand in front of him. "Never mind, I'll go first, because I think you got the wrong idea and I'm not gonna let you apologize for anything that happened."

"But you trusted me, and I-"

"And I still do. That's- that was the whole- look, I-" He sighs. His spoon clanks as he sets it down, abandoned in favor of wringing his hands together. "I set you up."

"You-?"

"I didn't mean to! I thought- It was stupid, and I should have just told you what I was trying to do, I know , but I- I wasn’t exactly thinking straight, and I thought if I could speed up the process, then- I mean, there's only so many times you can put up with almost getting to- if I could- ugh, sorry, hang on."

He pinches the bridge of his nose. You swear your headache is reacting sympathetically, because pain shoots between your temples, dull but persistent. He goes to retrieve the coffees from the kitchen, just cool enough to drink, and you down some as soon as he hands you a mug.

"You've been so patient, and I know you would never do anything I didn't want, but I... I keep overthinking it. And I thought it would be the perfect excuse to... to not have to think about it at all. I mean that's- that's just what people do at parties, right, and- I mean, it was... ugh." He sits back down, his posture unnaturally rigid. He chooses his next words carefully, pausing between words as if he’s testing out different sentences in his head. "I trusted you… to not take it further than I was comfortable with… more than I trusted myself to… not panic over nothing. So, I- I saw the chance and I..." He gestures weakly, hand falling back to the table with a soft thump.

"Liquid courage."

He takes a sip of his coffee and slumps forward, holding his chin with one hand.

"You... got drunk on purpose?"

"Not originally, but, uh."

You nod slowly. Your stomach grumbles, and you realize you haven't actually eaten any of your soup. You take a reluctant spoonful, chewing slowly as you take everything in.

"When you froze up, it- I realized how little I had thought it through. I- it wasn't fair to you. You didn't do anything to- I never should have put you in that position in the first place."

"I... would have appreciated a warning, yeah."

"Sorry." He runs his hand through his hair and leaves it against the back of his neck. "I'm really sorry."

"Apology accepted." Reigen relaxes into his chair. As he stretches his legs out, one of his feet bumps against your ankle, and you laugh softly. "I'm still sorry, too. I should have asked more questions. And I didn't... I think I noticed something was wrong but I didn’t realize it was that frustrating for you. Before, I mean. I never wanted to make you feel like you had to do something like that."

"It's exclusively a me problem, I promise. I thought something would have worked by now. I don't... I don't really know what’s getting in the way." He shakes his head, breathing out sharply through his nose.

“I mean, literally speaking, your hands.” You laugh and take another sip of your coffee. He tilts his head. “Because, you know, y-you always grab my hand before I-?” He stares, unblinking. “Sorry, too soon to joke, probably,” you mutter into your cup, taking another sip just to have something to do.

When he moves again, it’s with a jerky start, sitting up and leaning forward. “My hands.”

“Yeah, I-”

“No, my hands.” He throws his elbows onto the table. The bowls clatter and his coffee sloshes; his chair scrapes against the floor as he stands. His wrists come together in front of you, palms up and fingers curled loosely, as he stares, silent, waiting for a glimpse of recognition to cross your face. It takes a moment, but when he finds it, he grins. “My hands.”

“If you want to stop-”

“Saying so has always been enough.”

You stand, leaning to match his eye level. You consider him, searching for hesitation, but you find none.

You take his hand, and you start pulling.

“This is… mine?” An old black tie lays across Reigen’s palms, the ends hanging loosely over his thighs.

“Yeah, you left it here. A while ago, I guess.” You shrug. “You never really liked it, though, plus you’re here all the time anyway, so I didn’t get around to giving it back, and it’s just been here ever since.”

As you slide the drawer closed, he catches a glimpse of an old t-shirt he left on his first night in your place, folded neatly in the back corner, under a small collection of his dress socks.

There are signs of him everywhere, really, if he looks. His toothbrush in your bathroom, a blanket he bought you for your birthday draped over the back of the couch, his favorite sweater of yours hanging on the handle of the closet, never out of service long enough to make it in with the rest of your clothes.

He’s struck with the realization it’s not just in your things, your home, but in you, the way you gesture with an extra dramatic flourish that wasn’t there before, the unwavering, tight smile that settles on your face when you talk to clients, the softness in your voice when you welcome the kids into the office, quietly clearing a table for them to do homework on, the flashes of movement in the kitchen as you dash back and forth whenever you make recipes he taught you - favorites from when things were harder and uncertain and cooking was his escape, before even the hardest parts of his life were laced with joy.

He’s wearing off on you.

He’s known it for a while, but he’s never put it all together like this, never seen it all so neatly represented in a single black tie, satin and unassuming and full of possibility. You kick your abandoned shoe out of the way, pushing the door shut with a soft click that startles him just enough to draw his attention.

“Still okay?”

He wonders how you’ve worn off on him, which parts of him weren’t there before that he doesn’t notice, can’t notice.

“Yeah.” He nods. “I’m ready.”

He smooths his thumb over the fabric, watching it wrinkle and crease where he applies pressure. It slides across his palms, dragging slowly as you wrap one end around your hand, until he’s left with empty air, hands outstretched between you.

He feels light.

You take his hands in yours, turning them in toward each other, and start to lay the tie across his wrists.

“Oh, wait!” You pull back right away, and he holds up one finger. “Not- we should take my shirt off first.”

“Jesus, you scared the shit out of me!” You laugh and settle back onto your knees. “Yes, okay, let’s- yeah.”

Reigen stops halfway up. The fabric stays bunched when he lets go, and he pulls your hands to the exposed patch of skin. He can feel the tie, still wrapped around your palm, pressing against his side, cold and smooth, and he swallows thickly. As you drag your hands up, it slides up with you, and a shiver wracks through him when you finally pull the shirt off his arms.

He cups your face, pulling you into a kiss, fingers coming to press at the back of your neck to keep you against him as he topples backward. You catch yourself on one hand, the end of the tie flipping to rest over his shoulder as you climb to straddle him. He’s insistent, both hands tangling in your hair, little sighs and puffs of breath against your mouth as he refuses to pull away for air.

You press a kiss to his cheek to soothe the loss when you lean back. He drapes his arms over your shoulders, locking his fingers together behind your head.

“We could stay like this? My hands are… close-ish together.”

“I can’t see behind me to tie it, but,” you pull his hands around your head, “I’m sure we can figure it out after that.”

He nods. You turn his hands back toward each other and his fingers curl, knuckles pressing together as he relaxes. You drape the tie around his wrists, trying a few different ways of looping it but not finding anything you’re satisfied with.

“Sorry. I just wanna make sure you can get out if you need.”

“It’s alright. I like the attention.”

You freeze, a wobbly grin taking shape as your face heats up.

“‘Taka, I’m supposed to be the composed one!”

“I’m just trying to be honest!” He flexes his wrists, pressing his knuckles together to crack them.

“Don’t worry,” you press both ends of the tie between his hands and motion for him to hold them still, “I like giving you attention.” You fold the middle of the tie over to make two loops and start twisting them in on themselves. “And I wanna hear about it as much as you can bear.”

“You seem plenty composed to me.” He pinches his thumb between two fingers and squeezes.

“Quick recovery. I learned from the best.” You wink and put your fingers through the loops. “Here, hands in here.”

He flattens his hands to squeeze them through, stopping to let you shimmy the tie the rest of the way over. You hold the ends of the tie and give a quick tug before tying them together.

“There, it’ll have to do.” You slip a finger in each loop, making sure there’s enough room to be comfortable without him being able to slip out without meaning to. “It’s a little loose, so don’t pull too hard, okay?”

“Sure.” He folds his elbows down, letting his hands come to rest on his chest. He jerks one hand up toward his hair, pulling his other hand with it, and the tie snaps taut. He has the courtesy to look sheepish. “I’ll try.”

You roll your eyes, smile still wide.

“Hands above your head, please.”

“Hm?”

“I’d like to get at your neck.” You press up on his elbows, and he unfolds his arms. “Those were in the way.”

“O-oh. Right.”

You lean down, tilting his chin up with one hand, and press a kiss to his throat, savoring the way it moves as he swallows. You trail down until you reach his stomach, dragging your tongue along his skin on the way back up. He exhales sharply, breath moving your hair as you get closer to his face. He forces out a laugh, and he rolls one shoulder.

You glance up. The tie is already starting to come loose, untwisting in the middle, but his hands are clasped together, the tie held in place between his wrists, fingers over the ends.

You kiss him, quick and breathless, and slip your fingers under his waistband. When his breath hitches, you smooth your thumb along the bone there, a reassurance you won’t move yet. You can feel him tense under you, pressing up into your touch, then slowly settling back onto the mattress.

You’re both reluctant to acknowledge the fact that you have to get off of him to take his pants off. You do your best to shimmy them under you, and he lifts his hips to help, but you need both hands to make sure his boxers stay on for now, and you want to make sure he can move his legs, so eventually, begrudgingly, you climb off him.

He takes the opportunity to stretch, his back arching off the bed as you throw his pants off somewhere to worry about later.

“Ooh, pretty. Think you can do that for me again?” You press a thumb to the inside of his thigh, at the edge of where his boxer leg has ridden up, and he jumps, hips rolling against your touch.

“Trickery.” He squirms, a whine that refuses to come out shining through in his voice. “Not fair.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll get plenty more chances.” You trail your fingers up his thigh, along the “v” of the bone, up his stomach. He shivers when you trail back down, your fingers catching on the waistband of his boxers to drag it over his skin before letting go, settling your hand lightly over the bulge in the fabric. It’s slightly damp against your skin, and Reigen chokes back a moan when you press down.

You pull, grinding your palm down on his cock as the waistband moves until you can see the base of it, then you slide back up, tracing the outline of him with your fingers. When he whimpers, you’re too slow to hide your grin, and he glares halfheartedly.

“Having fun down there?”

“Oh, lots, thanks.” You slip your thumb below the elastic. “Seems like you are, too.”

“Hm.”

“Sorry, what was that?” You lift your hand with mock alarm, and he scrambles to reach for you, slowly lowering his arms to his chest when he sees your smile.

“Yes.”

“So, just to make sure, you are having fun?” It’s just as sarcastic as it is serious, and he seems to take it in equal measures, because he scoffs at the same time he nods. Both hands are on his hips now, both thumbs in his waistband, and you pull up gently to get him to lift his hips.

“Good boy.”

You’re not sure you would have felt it if you weren’t holding him, but he definitely shudders, trembling where your fingers press into his skin.

“Arataka.”

“Hmm?” He sounds breathless, and his chest heaves with effort, the rest of him as still as he can keep it.

“Should I keep calling you a good boy?”

“Um. If you want.” He jerks his hips up, and you take the hint to slide his boxers off, keeping an eye on his face as you do. You climb between his legs and lean over him, wrapping your hand slowly around his cock, firmly but gently, your thumb over the tip.

He squeaks, and he tenses, but he doesn’t reach for your hands.

“You’re doing so well, ‘Taka.” He swallows, and he shifts his hands, twisting the tie so he can lay his arms closer to his hair. “Such a good boy for me.” Precum oozes out of his slit, and you feel it roll down your hand.

“Mhm.” You lean back on your heels. “How about this? You tell me what feels good, and every time you do,” you pull your thumb down, spreading the precum along his length, “I’ll let you know just how much I appreciate it. Sound good?”

He nods, and you stop moving.

“Can I hear you say it?”

“Yes,” he breathes, pressing his wrists together, “yes, sounds good.”

“Good job.” When you lean to kiss him, grip tightening to keep his dick down against his stomach, his knuckles brush over your hair. “So perfect.”

You start slow, focusing more on touching every inch of him then keeping any sort of rhythm. When you trail up the vein on the underside, he shivers, and he gasps when you squeeze the base, and his hips jerk up when you pass over his slit, one leg coming up to press his ankle against your side. It’s not until you slip your other hand around him, though, arm passing through the space created by the bend of his knee to settle on his outer thigh, that he says anything.

“Fuck, that, more of that. P-please.”

“This hand?” You press your fingers into his thigh. He presses back.

“Yeah. I need… just, hold onto me.”

“Okay. Yeah, of course, sweetheart.” You scoot closer to wrap your hand tighter around his leg, spreading your legs to slip your knee underneath him. Once he relaxes, the full weight of his leg on yours, you press a kiss to his knee. “Good boy.”

“Shit,” he laughs, squirming closer to you. “S’not close enough.”

“Let me try something, then.” You slide backwards, reluctantly letting his leg fall to the bed, and you shimmy onto your stomach. When you pull his leg over your shoulder, he immediately hooks his ankle into your back and lets out a breathy moan. The pressure makes it a little harder to reach back around his thigh, but he relaxes into it easier, and the view is incredible. “There you go, perfect.”

You start up a little faster this time, twisting your wrist as you move up and down, and he bucks up into your hand. You risk a kiss to his thigh and his hands fly to your hair, the ends of the tie flowing down against your cheek.

“Sorry, too much?”

“Not enough.” His voice is scratchy now, and he gives a little tug once he gets a hold of you. “Can you, don’t put it- but, closer?”

“You want me here instead?” You press a kiss to the underside of his cock, flipping the loose ends of the tie out of the way to lay across his hip.

“Y-yes. Yes, fuck.”

“Gladly.” Between words, you pepper kisses along his shaft, following the trail of your hand up and down. “Thank you for letting me do this for you. You look so beautiful like this, feeling so good.”

He starts to make a noise of protest, but it quickly shifts into a stifled groan when you press a kiss to his tip, just barely letting your tongue drag across his slit as you pull away.

He whines and bucks his hips to follow you, and you can’t help but let an incredulous laugh slip out. “Alright, love, I’m gonna give you a choice, okay?”

He swallows thickly, then nods.

“Option one, you can tell me exactly how you want me to make you come. If you want my hand or my mouth or to go faster or slower or anything at all you just have to say the word. But I won’t do anything you don’t tell me, so you’ll have to say exactly what you want.”

His breathing is ragged, and he twitches in your grasp. “And option two?”

You grin and lean over him, propping yourself up on one hand. “I do whatever makes you the loudest, and if you stop making those pretty noises for me, I stop.” He seems to flinch at that, and you brush his hair back. “Just for a little while.”

He takes a shaky breath, eyes fluttering closed, and he pulls his arms in and down to drape one across his forehead. The tie was never really secure in the first place, but after quite a bit of pulling and flailing, it’s fully undone by now, nothing but luck and stubborn determination holding the loops in place around Reigen’s wrists.

“Both options, of course, come with all sorts of praise and admiration.” You slip a finger under the fabric and give a light tug. He lifts his hands to let the tie slide free.

When he opens his eyes, a shudder running down his spine, he sees you absent-mindedly tying the tie around your neck, uneven and loose, hanging down between you to brush against his stomach. He’s sure you just needed somewhere to put it, something to do with your hands, but it flips a strangely possessive switch somewhere inside him. Not because he’s seeing you in his clothes - he’s had the privilege of that many times before - but because you’ve taken the thing that was supposed to restrain his ability to fuck up the situation, taken something he left safe for you to keep track of without even realizing he’d done it, taken the symbol of his presence in your space and your time and your life, and you’ve put it on without a second thought. He thinks of his misguided reasoning that got you into this situation, that he trusts you with him more than he trusts himself, and he knows what he wants.

For once, words are failing him, which just makes the choice even easier.

“Second one.”

Your eyebrows raise a little, like you’re surprised at his answer, and he almost takes it all back, but then you’re grinning and leaning down to cup his jaw, kissing him like he’s giving you the only air you could ever breathe, and he moans into your mouth.

You lean away just enough to pull in a gasp of air, fingers sliding to tangle into the base of his hair.

“Just like that, gorgeous.”

He laughs, sucking in a shaky breath as you wrap your hand around him again. It pinches into a sort of strained whimper as he starts to quiet himself and thinks better of it, and you start moving.

“That’s it, good boy, just let me take care of everything.”

For all he got into his head before, breaking the seal of touching him seems to have removed any last bits of hesitation, because he relaxes into your touch almost immediately. Your experimenting earlier left you with a good idea of what will get the best noises out of him, and he doesn’t hold back. You’re silently thankful, not only because you get to hear him, but also because you’re not sure you could have followed through on your threat of stopping. And if he’s exaggerating for your sake, all clipped moans and raspy mumbling and bucking hips, well, you’re not going to complain.

After a particularly tight stroke up his cock and a brush of teeth up the inside of his thigh, he pulls one arm over his mouth, pushing it against his lips with his other hand. You’re still deciding if that counts as muffling his sounds enough to slow down when he bites his wrist and yelps, a loud, desperate, frantic noise that seizes what little of your attention isn’t already on him. His head tips back as he struggles to prop himself up on one elbow, hand flipping to clamp down over his mouth, and you can see the bite mark, lines pressed into the pale skin just below the jut of bone where palm meets wrist. It takes you a minute to realize he’s saying something, your brain struggling to piece his noises together into words.

“Can I have your hand?” You hum, scrambling to extract your hand from his leg. “I just- I need,” he opens and closes his hands, “something.” When you hold your hand up blindly toward him, he takes it quickly and holds on tight, fingers lacing together with yours. He gives a few tugs, and you hurry to sit up.

“Please, I need- I can’t take it anymore.” He looks frantic, eyebrows pinched together and his chest heaving with ragged, shaky breaths. His hips buck wildly, quick and shallow into your curled fingers. You realize you’ve forgotten to keep moving as you were watching him, and you quickly correct your mistake, reveling in the shiver that racks through him as your thumb swipes over his tip.

He’s begging now, your name falling out in pieces between gasps and cries; he’s still tugging at your hand like you can’t get close enough, pressing his lips to your jaw like he can’t quite remember how to leave kisses there. He pitches his hips up and presses against you, knees coming together to press into your sides, pinning your hand against your torso as he lets out a final shuddering whimper.

He comes across your fingers, his whole body tense as he holds himself up, back arched and head rolled to the side. He moves to wrap his arms around you, forgetting that his elbow is supporting him, and he pulls you down with him as he falls the short distance to the mattress.

You do your best to roll off him without letting go of him during the aftershocks, but you’re not exactly paying attention to where you’re still holding, and he yelps again from the overstimulation. You yank your hand away with half an apology, smoothing your hand up his side as you lift yourself up on your other arm.

“Nono, wait, don’t-” He scrambles to grab you wherever he can, and you intercept him before he can smack you across the face.

“It’s okay, ‘Taka, s’okay. I’m not going anywhere. I just didn’t wanna crush you. Let’s sit up so you can get some water, alright? All that noise can really make your throat sore, I know.” You slip your hands under him, one at the small of his back and one between his shoulders, gently lifting him toward the headboard. “That’s it. You’re okay. I gotcha.”

Once he’s upright, a glass of water in two shaky hands, you lean over the side of the bed to fumble for a washcloth. When he doesn’t slow down on his own, you start to reach for the glass, but he pulls away for a big gulp of air before you can.

“How you feelin’?”

He doesn’t answer right away, leaving you to fidget with the cloth, slowly reaching for his thigh. He lets his eyes slide closed as you start to wipe him off, smoothing an apologetic thumb over his hip when he hisses from the sensitivity. You wipe your hand on a mostly clean corner before you chuck it in the general direction of the hamper, silently relieved when it makes it in.

“I think I died.” His hands are still shaking as he goes to set the glass on your nightstand, and you gingerly take it from him, lifting yourself up to set it on the far corner where neither of you can accidentally knock it off later. “I understand you now.”

“You didn’t die, I promise.” You allow yourself a smirk and pull a blanket up from the end of the bed. “That’s high praise, though.”

“You’re high praise.”

“You’re the one that liked it so much.”

He rolls his eyes, too tired to argue. As you pull yourself up the bed to sit beside him, he leans over, one hand sliding behind you to rest on your hip. Now that he doesn’t have the distraction of everything else, you can tell he’s starting to think, because his ears are tinting pink and he’s fidgeting with a string on the edge of the blanket.

“Doesn’t mean I wasn’t happy to oblige.”

You scoop his hand into yours, leaving the blanket’s seams to live another day, and examine the bite mark on his wrist.

“I can’t believe I did that.” He scoffs, shaking his head a little as you turn his arm over. “The hell was I thinking?”

“Obviously you weren’t, which is both the point and very hot, so hush.” He turns away stubbornly, but he looks pleased. “You could probably say a spirit did it. Biting seems like an evil ghost thing to do, right?”

“With clearly human teeth?”

“Maybe it… stole them?”

He laughs, pulling away from your grip to get comfortable against your side. Just as you start to drift off, soothed by the sound of his breathing slowing and his weight settling on you as he relaxes, you feel his fingers walking down your hip, making their way to your thigh. You crack one eye open, and he looks away with obviously fake innocence.

“Where you going with that hand, darling?”

He smiles, bright and daring, as his fingers dig in. “Your turn?”

You consider it. You’re not quite capable of fully ignoring how turned on seeing him like this has made you. There’s a bit of nervous energy, buzzing over what’s left of your hangover, excitement, the joy that bubbles up in your chest at seeing him smiling at you like that, everything coming together in an overwhelming, swirling feeling of wanting whatever he will give you. But there’s something else, a calm undercurrent to it all, coating the emotion in quiet and directing it all back to a single point, solid and unwavering and right .

More than anything, you are content.

He sees your expression and laughs, must know what you’re going to say the moment you decide, because he mouths the words along with you as he pulls his hand back up to your hip.

“Maybe next time.”

#reigen arataka x reader #reigen x reader #my writing #it's been so long i forget how i tag things lol #hey bestie you're for sure gonna get a notif for this and i apologize in advance lsjkdfk #thank you so so much to everyone that stayed through the hiatus #i have been reading all the kind comments and asks and even though i don't respond they absolutely make my day #i was trying to avoid the internet as much as possible and it kinda... just stayed that way for a long time #if you're worried about this being the “last” aspec reigen pls don't panic #there's a more detailed ramble on ao3 but basically there will be more of these two goofs in love #(and probably a third goof in love)#but i wanna change some stuff and it'll be easier to do that in a new series #since this wasn't really meant to be a series in the first place weirdly #so basically it may be slow going but this isn't the end #i'm dropping this and then going to bed so i'll see y'all in the morning i hope you enjoy!!#i have.... so much to catch up on.....

20 notes · View notes

its-a-me-mango · 1 month

Note

out of general curiosity, what’s your follow count look like 👁️👁️

I don't know.

#mangos mystery ask box #It changes every time I see it but all I know is that every single one of them is very cool and have great taste in blogs to follow #Hey if you're reading this. You're awesome and thank you so much for following me. It genuinely means a lot to me :'3

26 notes · View notes

jacketpotatoo · 1 year

Text

Hey @thehomelybadger , thank you for breaking my heart

#the way I picked up my iPad and started drawing angst #caitlyn kiramman #vi arcane #piltover’s finest #caitvi #arcane #fanart #jacketsketch #(this was scheduled before chap 32 came out - I need to sleep so I haven’t read it yet but oh boy)#but I also want to say before I do - thank you.#thank you so much for telling this story. I’m not exaggerating in the slightest when I say it got me through a lot these past few months #it fueled my inspiration it calmed me down on bad days when I was beating myself up with stress it gave me something to grasp onto #I love your characters - every quirk and trait you’ve gave them and this world you’ve fleshed out #I hadn’t seen a second of ice hockey and now I’m looking up reference photos and trying to get the jerseys down #i love these guys and it pains me to be letting them go already - I can’t imagine how it’s like for you - but I’m forever grateful for this #wonderful thing you’ve created out of just the pure love for the characters and for hockey #I went into this thinking ‘hey what a lovely bedtime story’#and I’m heading to its end forever changed and impacted by it for the better #so thank you badger - see you when I read the next chap

278 notes · View notes

just-french-me-up · 10 months

Note

hey hi i'm buzzing with the need for dreamling fic recs if you would be so kind as to point me in your favorite direction pls pls pls

Oh friend, you asked and I shall ✨ deliver ✨

DREAMLING FIC RECS 🌻✨

of my misery make thy use by @qqueenofhades (Explicit - WIP - 129k so far - In Universe, but with some tweaks, Rescue fic) Dream is Roderick Burgess' prisoner, in all his silent, sullen, naked glory, and has given up on the thought of anyone ever helping him out of there. Even Hob Gadling. Especially Hob Gadling. In fact, he's quite sure the man never wants to speak to him ever again, regardless of his current predicament. A bummer, really, because he also happens to be married to him. (Listen that fic has slain me EVERY WHICH WAY, it has EVERYTHING, it will take you PLACES (literally), it's rewarding as fuck, has OCs to die for, just... just read it, ignore the WIP status, what's there is absolutely chef's kiss)

the unknown and static strange by @qqueenofhades (yes, again, listen, if i loved you less i might be able to talk about it more bla bla bla) (Mature - WIP - 69K so far (nice) - Dubious AU status, Memento mets Academia, Modern day with a twist) Professor Robert Gadling, under cut rocking, weird dreams having, and trauma suffering, discovers a strange piece of undocumented art that seems to follow him everywhere he goes. The Regis Somnorum won't leave him alone, and as he tries to follow that thread, a whole mysterious tapestry unfolds, putting everything he knows, or thought he knew, into question. (This fic is a fucking delight, it's just KEEPS feeding you "oh shit" moments and suspense and revelations and the pacing just keeps you on the edge of your SEAT. Again, IGNORE the WIP status I BEG OF YOU, read it, devour it)

This Rough Magic by @avelera (Mature - WIP - 36k so far - Rescue fic with a twist) Hob Gadling never fancied himself a mage or a warlock, but dabbled enough in the occult to pick up a few tricks over the years, all in the hope to communicate with his Stranger. A stranger, he later discovers, who is trapped under Roderick The Fucking Magus Burgess's manor. Now, he may not be the best magic wielder there is.... but Burgess doesn't know that, does he? (There are some VERY clever things in this fic, everyone is written to a T, I love a fic where my loathing of Burgess can burn from the brightest flame and at the same time have him not like a cartoon villain but a full human being! Can't wait to see where that goes!)

if you just let me (have you, love you) by Lost_Elf (Explicit - 25k - Human AU - Adult Film Actors AU (I see you tumblr, restricting words these days, I see you) Both very prominent in their own niches of the Internet, Dom-BDSM-oriented Dream and Vanilla-centered Hob cross paths and plan what could be (or so their managers hope) the collab of the century. And they might learn a thing or two along the way. (Listen, I read this on a whim, I wasn't too into Human AUs at the time, I was up for some smut that day, and this fic is a LOT more wholesome than the subject lets on and really gripped me! Lots of very nice details in there! And also, you know.... smut)

by the minute by @issylra (Explicit - 11K - Human AU, Sex Phone Operator Dream) Dream has a bet with Desire : he has to manage a phone sex line for some time. He's not thrilled by it. Callers are... unimaginative and unoriginal, to say the least. Except one. He has a very nice voice. He's funny. And he sounds just about as lost as he is, in life. (The tags make it sound super raunchy but it's more about developping attraction through someone's voice and getting to know someone through the phone and falling in love and.... it's just lovely, it's very sweet, it's like a little blanket with a warm cup of tea, really)

Now I KNOW this is not what you EXPLICITELY asked for but.... dare I suggest..... something with an OC thrown in the mix? Cause that's just adding a fun player to the game, with added stakes, really!

as heart for heart, for loving me by @kittttycakes (hello darling) (Explicit - WIP but soon to be finished - 151k so far - Canon compliant - OT3 if there ever was one - How to polyamory, a guide for Dream of the Endless, a primordial being who needs to use his goddamn words) When Dream finds Hob at the New Inn, he's ready to open up a little. Be a friend. Be a little more than that, though he can't quite articulate it. The only issue with that is that Hob has a girlfriend. A live-in girlfriend. A very much serious girlfriend. Dream tries his darnest to hate her, and finds he can't quite bring himself to. (It's soft, it's lovely, it has angst, it has smut, it has fluff for days, it has developping relationships GALORE (plural) and it's just a nice read to switch up your rotation, cause the potential for situations is tripled now!)

#the sandman #sandman #dreamling #dream x hob #dream x hob gadling #fic recs #sandman fics #the sandman fics #sandman fanfiction #sandman recs #I'm waking my way through in the waking world we wait and we want cause i'm a fucking slow reader and it's a monster of a thing #but it's also v v v nice #my dyslexic brain is killing me but i'm still standing #anyway one day i'll make a rec of all the shorter e rated fics ive read for dreamling #cause there are a few and shorter fics also deserve a shoutout #you'll be BUSY dear asker #also thank you so much for asking me ????? idk where that came from but i'm FLATTERED #hope you havent read all of those already #but also that's me giving lil reviews to those writers cause!!! hey love yo work you know #also watch me write all those summaries and struggle to come up for ANYTHING when it comes to my own fics is2g #i'm the type of gal who reads one fic at a time so my reading list is fucking growing by the DAY

99 notes · View notes

tubbytarchia · 6 months

Note

Hey, just wanna say that I love your "blabber" posts, especially when you answer asks. I understand why someone would feel like they're being annoying but I just want to be another person to tell you that you're not, and if anyone doesn't vibe with your thoughts then they can indulge somewhere else. You seem like such an incredibly open-minded person with a very big heart. You're clearly so passionate about what you do and you love to share what you know. Even when you've disagreed with something or felt hurt (like feeling envious of others, like you say), or felt that you've done wrong, you always respond with such heartfelt thoughts. You always make it known that YOU KNOW what's up and how you're dealing or planning to deal with it rationally. You're clearly working hard to better the parts of yourself that you're not happy with and that makes you an amazing person in the truest sense of the word. Interacting with people and expressing your thoughts seems to make you happy and so you do that. You do what makes you happy and that genuineness shines through your text posts. Don't stop doing that.

what am I supposed to say to that

#???????????????#blabber #I hope that drawing incapsulates my feelings well enough idk what to say to that #you read me like a book and now Im a lost puppy but instead of being abandoned on the road Im in a warm embrace next to a fireplace #this in itself makes me feel a bit bad because Im such a fuckly wired person that Im afraid receiving such love makes me look like a beggar #ofc thats only at myself!! I hope no one who's shown me love ever feels bad about it to any degree #that's just little shakly who needs to rewire herself a wee bit still but hey. Nothing that significant comes easy and I'll work towards it #I think the best solution is to just not say it. Just stop thinking that Im annoying or a beggar because Im among my people who understand #I shouldnt feel the need to excuse these things and hopefully one day. Baby we'll get there!!#thank you so much kind anon what the hell

24 notes · View notes

the-dye-stained-socialite · 7 months

Text

@fallenlondonficswap @alexis-royce I had a lot of fun writing up this fic for your secret swap!! I also had to trim it for the word limit

Mr Pages takes the Ex-Disgraced Academic out for a night at the theatre. Something is being planned.

Rating: Teen

No Warnings

Word count: 2,016(fic) + 398(oc credits) AO3 Link

It was later than typical when the letter arrived at the door. Mr. Cards had just changed out of its robe, and back into the Ex-Disgraced Academic. They were preparing to work on their Correspondence when it had slid through their mail slot.

If neither the distinctive seal, nor name, had not indicated the sender, the address would. It was sent from the tower apartments directly above their own. Those which belonged to Mr Pages, Cards' greatest rival. The Academic broke the seal on the overstuffed envelope eagerly. Their good eye flew over the dense verbage contained therein. It posed no challenge to them, and they quickly deciphered the meaning of the letter. It was an invitation to a play. And yet, did the Academic not recall Mahogany Hall being closed that evening? Oh, something clicked. Rumors had been circulating in Bohemian circles for many years about a forbidden play, performed only with explicit permission from Mr. Wines, against direct order from the Ministry of Public Decency. So why would the Master of censorship, the very one who, if rumors were to be believed, tried to stamp this play out at every possibility, decide to take them along?

The best way to find out was to go. They would send confirmation in the morning, but through the night they would prepare for any likely schemes.

They agreed to arrive seperatly to avoid being seen together in public. A theatre box far above most was... still public, yes, but easier to mistake features in, or to not notice at all. So when the Academic arrived at their reserved box, Pages was already waiting. At least, they recognized it as Pages as soon as it opened its mouth to wish them an "Enjoyluminating" evening. The loquacious master was not wearing its usual ink-stained robes. It seemed to have even ditched its bandolier of pens and inks. Or, judging on the suspicious way the oversized robe fell, perhaps it was simple under the cloak. The cloak which, based on style and size alone, clearly did not belong to it. In fact, it looked as though it had stolen a spare robe from Mr Apples. It was ill-fitting on the current Master. Pages looked about to burst when the Academic did not immediately ask why it had shunned its typical robe. They took a seat to one side, and then took the bait.

"So, my eloquent acommpanyment, why the change in attire?"

Pages arranged its own chair. "You are possilikely aware of my disgustred for this... play. Thus, you are also aware of my multinumerous attemps to blot it from the history books. As such, the only actors that would perform in it at those with ireverice towards me."

"Ah, so if it were known that is was you... you would be rather unpopular for the night.

"Precisorrectly."

The red curtains raised up, and the audience turned their attentions towards the stage.

An actor strutted onto the stage. Their costume was composed of deep blue and black feathers, contrasting nicely with hair the color of dark cinnamon. Flickering candles lit the stage. The light danced along the costume's wings to bring the iridescence to life. This was the role of the Raven.

Pages leaned over to whisper to its companion. "Jamie Awnings, a Poet-Laureate who writes the most horrendful poetry. How they were chosen I do not know, but I have had to step in many times to keep their work from the public."

The academic raised an eyebrow. One did not typically become Poet-Laureate while being horredful at the art.

The actor's talent with words and meter became evident quickly however. The round Raven began to sing an aria, but the words had not matched entirely with the Academic's research. If it weren't for the research, they wouldn't know that any of the words had been changed. They had, however, but it was well keeping with the original intent, and far better suited to the rhythm and rhyme of the piece.

Pages' attention was rapt and fixated. Pages was also clearly becoming inebriated by the music. Even the Academic was being affected. Still, now was the perfect opportunity to enact their plan. From a hidden pocket of a sleeve, they carefully slipped out a notepad, and a fountain pen preloaded with violant ink. The Academic has chosen their seat strategically, putting their writing side as far from Pages as they could, to hide their work. It was known for forbidding this play, and it was likely to try something tonight. Naturally, they could not be blamed for taking a transcript in shorthand.

The Raven continued their aria, setting the scene to fill in the minimal scenery. Something, however, caught the Academic's notice. Their box provided a good view of the stage, and importantly, the lightest of views into the wings to the side of the stage. The absence of visible stage crew told the steward that there was either a stage crew composed of only the actors, or that what crew there was knew well enough where to avoid walking to be seen. Perhaps both. So when someone in the Ministry uniform nearly stumbled onto stage partway through the song, it was an immediate tip off. Something was indeed going on behind scenes, something Pages had been planning. The rest of the song was performed without a hitch however. In fact, the Official seemed to be avoiding messing anything up as much as possible. Shouldn't he be trying to stop things? Still, perhaps the Academic's plans were compatible with Pages'. The music was working in their favor. It would addle the Curator's thinking, making it less likely to notice the gentle, soft scratching of pen on paper. They were a minute or so behind, but the Raven's personality had imprinted the details onto their mind quite nicely. It would make reconstruction easier later. A new character enters, their costume black and ragged. Tattered strips of cloth are woven into the spokes of their chair, and a shredded train follows behind them. Their stubble and bun were both intentionally left messy and unkempt. The overall effect was reminiscent of a wedding dress that has been dashed upon the zhoreline. A sense of love-sick duty weighed them down. The Messenger's sadness laid like Lacre on the stage. The Raven had been bragging about their singing not a moment ago, but as the raggedy Messenger approached, Raven deferred to the song of the Messenger. Pages scoffed. "That one has never been fond of me, always mooning for another. They have... circumvented my plans on multiple occasions." ~ The scene changed, with no sign of interference. ~ The play progressed, with no one noticing what had transpired, save one. Pages continued to interject comments at odd moments. The Academic continued to respond as well as they could while paying attention to the play and writing it all down. Suffice to say that it was rather difficult, and there were many unfortunate moments lost to Pages’ chattering. They wondered if it was deliberate, but that would require it to know what the Academic was hiding.

The Messenger, now played by a tall actress with manicured facial hair and a tattered groom’s suit, was holding council with the Owls. The Principal Owl had pale, tawny feathers that stood out from his dark brown skin. His head covering had baubles and trinkets that made a light sound as he trembled with fear.

Pages seemed particularly incensed by this scene.

“What do you do among my spires?” questioned the Messenger.

“Why, great master, we watch, we wait, we consume” he responded. “You watch, and wait, and consume, you say. And yet, is there not one who will consume you as prey?” On cue, another Owl stalks out from the shadows.Their hair is stark as fresh blood, the beak of the mask sharp. Their cane makes little noise as it lurks around the others. Their large feather tufts reveal their true nature. They are a Great Horned Owl Hunter. “Great Master, protect us so we will be free from their shrieks always, and we will serve you loyally the rest of our days!” She adjusts uncomfortably. There are many beats of conflicted silence, until she speaks again with a sigh “oh, were it only my unfettered choice. But alas, I owe them their hunts and the joys of their voice.” She left, and the Owls were left alone with the Hunter, who grinned behind their mask. Most of the actors were on stage at this point, distracted by the hunt. Another enforcer! Behind the curtains, nearly tripping on something, and carrying a large stack of papers. The Academic could not get a closer look however, for when they tried to shift closer, an ink-stained talon came to rest on their thigh. The intermission began, the curtain smothering any other chance. With its other hand, the Master made a sweeping gesture to the stage. Ice blue eyes turned towards their box from across the auditorium. Wines, who had bribed the Ministry to allow the play for the night. Their attention snapped back to Pages. “-these actors perform this play as an act of rebellion against me. They revel in this illegalbidden display. It is done to spite me, and undermine my authority”. It spat the sentence with less-than-figurative venom. “I will ensure they acknowledge my position as Paramost Poet and Auteur. And you” it turned towards them with luminescent eyes. They slid their writing out of sight. “You shall bow as well, Mr. Cards”. Was the blood rising to their face from anger? Or from the darker, more intense emotions that often defined the two of them. Those emotions had become so entangled of late. The Academic had been thinking of a clever retort when the brief intermission ended. With a personality that filled the stage and beyond, the Phoenix would not permit distraction from their soliloquy. The reflection of candle flames danced across their round lenses. Instead of the Phoenix's typical dress, this one opted for a tuxedo with the train of a peacock and the color of their fiery hair. “I am so very tired of flames, I will drown myself in snow and emerge in perfect serenity. Or not at all”. “What’s that? You have no more use for flame?” the Messenger reappeared and rolled towards the Phoenix. The scene went without hindrance. Even the final ‘immolation’ of the Phoenix in ice went as planned. It aroused the Academic’s suspicions. ~ When his cane made contact with the stage, it cracked like thunder, and reverberated against the proscenium arch. The gray streaks of his bright hair conjured to mind the storm clouds of the surface. His expression held little pity for the Messenger. Though she was taller by far, her presence was miniscule next to the Dragon. “You again,” she whimpered. “Yes. I remain the servant of you Master, as must you. He awaits the delivery.” “Do not! I beg you, do not! He cannot hear the message yet, he cannot hear what i have to say!” her voice turned frantic, fervent. The Dragon’s voice had little care. “You have a little time yet. Should this place fall, two will remain”. The booming of his cane grew distant as he left. She fell to her knees with a wail. ~

The play ended as it always must, message undelivered, crimes judged, and with Time devoured. The curtain fell, and then rose again for the final applause. “So, why did you invite me to see this play? Should you not have stopped it?” Pages stood to loom over them. It swayed slightly. “Have I not already stopped it? It would be rather difficult to perform without a script!” “The cast could perform-” “Oh certainly! Alone in their cells of New Newgate!” With gritted teeth, the academic stormed off. ~ They found Mr. Wines, and with pulled string, favours, and promises, convinced it to stop the Neddy Men from making arrests. The scripts however, were still missing. ~ Weeks later, new scripts of the Seventh Letter entered circulation. Lines and music had to be reconstructed from memory and missing gaps, but it was rather accurate. Most importantly though, Mr. Pages had not managed a score over Mr. Cards. ~~~~ OC CREDITS.

CURTAIN RISES. The last to ENTER is the PRINCIPAL OWL, with the MINOR OWLS FLOCKING behind him. He has dark brown skin, and near-black hair. He is still wearing his head covering. He is short and slight. He is The Theological Caregiver, created by @moonstruck-stormy. He bows with pride, then MOVES STAGE RIGHT.

The HUNTER ENTERS next. A step forward, ready to extend and ki- a pause. They had forgotten to leave character. A shift, and it is once more Harper Faraday. Light-olive skinned, with spectacles, and hazelnut shell hair. Their cane is light and practical. They were created by @the-insouciant-scientist. They bow, sheepish, MOVE STAGE LEFT. The PRINCIPAL DRAGON ENTERS with the presence of a rumbling Storm. His cane clicks are distinct and pronounced. He hais fair skin, large round glasses, and hair like a cloud rimmed sunset. The PRINCIPAL DRAGON is played by Orsinio Elderwood. He was created by @house-of-mirrors. The MINOR DRAGONS EMERGE from the WINGS to FLANK him. They bow together, then MOVE STAGE RIGHT.

The PHOENIX ENTERS from the East. At first look, they are similar to Orsinio. They share glasses and skin tone and hair color. On second look, they are different. The Partial Performer is taller, and has no cane. They were created by @thedandy-detective. Their bow has been practiced, with calculated flair. They MOVE STAGE LEFT. ENTER the RAVEN. Tonight, he is a stocky actor with russet hair and many freckles. They are short and fair-skinned. This is Poet-Laureate Jamie Awnings, created by @thedeafprophet. He makes a grand, sweeping bow, and MOVES STAGE RIGHT. The two halves of the MESSENGER STEP and ROLL to CENTER STAGE. They clasp hands. The MASCULINE HALF is tall, thin, and pale, with a well maintained mustache and goatee. Her hair is dark and short, and she wears glasses. She is Irving Merritt, created by @the-insouciant-scientist. The FEMININE HALF uses an elegant wheelchair. They have long hair, dark but greying, in a bun. They have stubble, and small glasses. They have fair skin, and are plump. They are Elias Leroux, created by @the-dye-stained-socialite. They bow with much drama. The CAST MOVES towards CENTER STAGE and form a solid line. They JOIN HANDS where possible, and raise them together. They swing forward into a final bow, then slowly raise back up to applause. CURTAIN FALLS.

#fallen london #dye stained fics #fallen london fic swap #mr pages #mr cards #fallen london ocs #the seventh letter #fl lore spoilers #hey! this one was actually both edited AND beta read!!!#also ao3 link coming soon #THANK YOU TO EVERYONE FOR LETTING ME BORROW THEIR OCS #i had so so so much fun writing this it was a delight

24 notes · View notes