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t-lostinworlds · 5 months

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Competitively Stupid | Steve Harrington

》 PAIRING: steve harrington x female!reader

》 TROPE/GENRE: rivals-ish (since childhood) to lovers, some angst; fluff

》 SUMMARY: It was stupid, jumping off a cliff just to prove that you were better than Steve fucking Harrington. But you were competitive. You were not losing to him. But you know what was stupider? For it to take a near-death situation for you both to confess what you truly feel for each other.

》 WARNINGS: canon divergent (everyone is alive & well & happy thanks), pet names (sweetheart, baby), shitty parents (on both sides), competitiveness on all accounts, r is basically a counterpart of steve during high school (cheerleading captain, queen of hawkins high, swim team captain, etc.), peer pressure-ish, some stupid decisions & stupider actions, very irresponsible cliff jumping (which doesn't end well), drowning, CPR, injuries, an emotional moment™, love confessions, and a happy, sappy ending.

》 WORD COUNT: 5.3k+

A/N: hi! okay, well, it's been a while since i posted a steve fic so i'm kinda nervous ngl. also, not me making it a habit to include swimmer!steve in all my fics from here on out. this was meant to be short & sweet to dust off the cobwebs but lol. super random. i saw a video of someone cliff-jumping & boom, the idea was born. also, not me using the first aid training i learned in college.

📍 BLOG NAVIGATION ✩ STEVE H. MASTERLIST ✩ MAIN MASTERLIST ✩

⊱ ─────.⋅♚ *｡･ﾟ.★. *｡･ﾟ✫*.

This was stupid.

Absolutely idiotic.

You genuinely have no idea why you were even doing this in the first place.

"There's no way you can do it."

Right.

That's why.

The taunting voice of Steve fucking Harrington was the reason why you were standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down at a thirty-foot drop into the dark ocean.

This was supposed to be a relaxing trip with your new found family.

"You know you don't have to listen to him, right?" Robin sighed, so completely over the fact that her two best friends who never got along no matter what she tried, somehow came to an agreement to not listen to her right now.

Not that you could blame her.

You and Steve had been rivals ever since you were kids.

It was what you had always known.

What with narcissistic parents who used their children as pawns to one up each other, you had been conditioned to see him as an enemy from the second you step foot into their home.

Your family was invited into the Harrington residence for dinner as a way of welcoming you to the neighborhood. You recently just moved in, so you didn't know anyone else yet. When you heard that the next-door neighbor had a son who was your age, you had been really excited to gain a new friend.

All that changed when your dad sat you down an hour before, prepping you about how the Harringtons were a respected family in the town, and that you needed to show them you weren't any less than them, if not show them you were better. He drilled it in your brain to be on your best behavior, to be the best and the perfect daughter.

It only got worse when you finally sat down at that dinner table.

The comparisons were endless.

"See, my daughter here is a wonderful gymnast, quite amazing for someone her age."

"How wonderful. Steven here has swimming lessons every weekend. His coach said he might end up in the Olympic team once he's of age."

"Splendid. How about his academics? I'm sure he can take inspiration from my daughter's exemplary grades."

"He's the top of his class. Maybe if they study together, your daughter would be able to catch up in time."

It was harsh, pitting two seven-year-olds against each other—impressionable kids who only wanted to make their mom and dad proud.

But neither your parents nor his truly gave a shit. All they cared about was becoming the best family in the street, if not the whole town.

The sad thing was, those dinners became a regular thing, held alternately between your house and his.

It always looked like a preparation for battle whenever your mom would pull out the finest china in her collection along with the cookbook she only ever used for special occasions.

It was in the guise of cordiality when it was, in fact, an excuse to show off, to make a competition out of everything, a moment to compare who did what best. Those dinners were like monthly scoreboards, tallying up the respective families' recent achievements—and that included yours and Steve's.

Nobody was surprised that the competitiveness stuck with you both.

And it only got worse during high school.

Whether that was something as mundane as winning the popularity contest when running different circles—even going as far as getting crowned the King and Queen of Hawkins High—down to academics and extracurriculars.

Captain of the basketball team. Captain of the cheerleading squad. Prom Queen. Prom King. MVP of the season. Brightest student of the year. Beer pong Queen. Kegstand King. Best summer camp counselor. Lifeguard of the month and it went on and on and on and on.

When he got co-captain for the men's swim team, you rubbed it in his face that you were the captain of the women's team. When you got second place at the science fair, he made sure to rub his first place medal right in your face. When you became president of the student council, you ordered him around to do extra work whenever the basketball team was required to help with community service.

It was a constant back and forth.

There was always a competition between you and Steve Harrington.

And sure, since you graduated, it became subdued. But it was still very much there. Vying on who was the coolest babysitter in your band of ragtags, even fighting to have the title of Robin Buckley's ultimate best friend.

This thing between you and Steve was deeply rooted. So there really wasn't much Robin could do apart from getting in between your frequent squabbles before you started actually killing each other.

In Robin's words, something drastic had to happen for you both to finally wake up and see that this rivalry between you both wasn't what it seemed to be on the surface.

You had no idea what she was even implying.

Now, on a little getaway on the nearest beach you could drive to, the competition started with a race on who could get there first. It wasn't even fair seeing that you weren't the one driving.

The group had split into two, some were in Eddie's van—along with everyone's belongings since he had ample space in the back—while the others were in Steve's Beemer. Since you and Steve couldn't be in the same room together without an argument ensuing, it was a unanimous decision to have you two separated. Nobody wanted to deal with that for hours on the road.

Not that you could blame them, either.

And sure, it was the kids who suggested the race, but with Steve's smug smirk and that arrogant wink he threw once you got into Eddie's passenger seat, you knew it was game on between you too.

Yet despite the metal head being a fast—albeit slightly reckless—driver, he somehow took his sweet goddamn time getting to your destination.

Only when your group arrived at the beach last, did he say something about Steve threatening him to be extra careful with driving because there's important cargo in his van—whatever the hell that meant.

You lost to Steve on that one, but you would argue it was rigged from the start.

The next was a supposed friendly bout on who could build the biggest sandcastle that didn't topple over after a few minutes.

It was boys versus girls with you and him being team leaders. The girls won, obviously and El never used her powers. It was fair and square since the other team mostly argued over everything they could think of and had no teamwork at all. You made sure to point that out to Steve as you watched their sandcastle crumble into ruins.

Another one was beach volleyball. Same leaders as before, but you get to pick the members of your teams this time. Steve made it his mission to pick the tallest of the bunch. Still, it wasn't the advantage he thought it was because it ended up being one point too close.

Your team would've won if Steve wasn't such a dramatic asshole.

It was truly an accident. When you spiked that ball, you were not aiming for his face. He simply thought it was a good idea to catch the ball with it. Besides, he was distracted, flirting with some random girl in a bikini who was passing by, right in the middle of the game.

How was it your fault that he wasn't paying attention?

He made sure to oversell his injury after that, curled up on the sand as the girl fussed over him. But you saw that smirk on his face. You would've hit him again—definitely not by accident this time—if you weren't busy arguing with Robin about the point deduction. She said it was only fair since you hit the ball when she hadn't blown her imaginary whistle yet.

You decided to let it go when Steve commented on you being a whiny sore loser.

Unfortunately, the competition was ending with who could make jumping off a cliff and into the ocean look the coolest—adults only, despite the groans of protest from the mischievous bunch.

Eddie offered to stay behind and watch the rascals. When teased, he simply said he didn't want to test Death today.

His comment didn't help your nerves.

Robin said she was only coming purely as a voice of reason. She'd been saying nonstop how it was a horribly stupid idea, that there really was no need to be doing this in the first place.

But Steve wasn't backing down, so you weren't going to either.

So once again, it was only you and him.

As it always had been.

He volunteered to go first, throwing in a comment about rushing back up the cliff's edge before you could take your turn because he wanted a front-row seat for when you'd chicken out.

It only made you want to do it more.

His dive was smooth, almost flawless, you admit. He even showed off with a little flip near the end. It didn't take long for him to swim back to the shore, either. His years of training as a swimmer were obviously paying off.

But you trained just as much if not more than he had.

The only difference was, adrenaline didn't fuel you as much as it did Steve. So instead of getting all powered up looking down at a cliff's edge like he was, you were terrified.

But who wouldn’t get scared looking down at harsh waves crashing against sharp and jagged rocks? There was no margin for error here because one wrong slip and you'd be dead.

Still, if Steve could do it, you could do it better.

You weren't about to lose to his stupid ass.

"I'm not listening to him," you argued back, taking in a shaky breath as you took a step.

"He's doing reverse psychology!" she squeaked. "So you doing it is still listening to him!"

"I'm fine, Robs, I can do it," you mumbled, a slight questioning lilt at the end of your sentence.

"Look, sweetheart, it's okay to admit defeat," Steve said, cocky voice with an even cockier smile as he crossed his toned arms against his bare chest. His hair was still damp, quick to climb back up so he could get his front-row seat as he promised.

But you weren't chickening out.

Never.

"I mean, it wouldn't be the first time you lost to me so, it shouldn't sting as much."

You ignored him.

Instead, you took another step, the tips of your toes now hanging over the edge.

You can do this. Wipe that smug smirk off his face. You got this.

"Listen, you don't have to do—"

"Shut it, Harrington," you growled.

With a deep breath, you closed your eyes, counting from three, two, one…

You jumped.

-:-:-:-:-:-:-

This was stupid.

Absolutely idiotic.

He shouldn't have pressured you like that.

The jump wasn't deadly, per se, but it also wasn't exactly deemed the safest, especially if you weren't an expert in any sort of way.

And he didn't want to say it out loud because if he did, he knew it would only push you to do it more just to prove him wrong.

But Steve could see how scared you were.

He was already dropping the act, voice laced with concern as he started telling you that he wasn't worth all of this, that he was stupid and that you were always going to be better than him.

But, obviously, you didn't listen.

You simply jumped.

You and your stupidly competitive ass.

"Damn it," he cursed under his breath, rushing to the edge of the cliff, tensely watching your falling figure disappear into the water with a splash.

"You two are complete idiots."

"Shut up," Steve gritted, never looking away from the water. Yet any annoyance was quickly overpowered by sheer worry as he scanned the deep blue for anything.

There was no sign of you.

"Like seriously! It's like I'm the only one with a brain cell here!"

"Come on, come on, come on," Steve mumbled, completely ignoring Robin when you still hadn't emerged to the surface. "Come on, Y/N, don't scare me like this."

"Uh, Steve?" Robin asked after a moment, carefully looking over the cliff before shooting him a worried glance. "You look anxious and you being anxious is making me nervous."

"She hasn't come up," he grumbled, glancing at his watch.

It was nearing a minute.

"Maybe you didn't see her?"

"I haven't taken my eyes off the water, Buckley," he gritted, too harsh and uncalled for since Robin didn't do anything wrong.

But he was panicking.

A minute and thirty seconds.

"Come on, sweetheart, you can do it. You're an amazing swimmer," he whispered encouragingly, hoping some sort of magic would let you hear him underwater all while saying it aloud for his own sanity.

Two minutes.

You could never hold your breath any longer than that.

Steve knew because he always won that competition.

And that was in a calm pool.

"Shit, shit, shit!" he cursed, gearing up to dive after you. "I don't think she's coming up!"

"Okay! Okay," Robin rushed, panicking. "Maybe she's already on the shore. We should go down now and see—"

Steve didn't listen.

He jumped right after you.

The biting cold was awakening.

Still, it was the absolute fear of losing you that was keeping him alert.

He ignored the sting of the salty ocean water in his eyes as he frantically searched for you, his heart beating hard and fast, struggling for oxygen all while fearing for your safety.

Steve didn't know which came first, relief or dread when finally found you, aimlessly floating and unconscious under the deep blue.

He swam to you as fast he could, securely hooking his arm under your shoulder and dragging you up to the surface.

Steve always knew that adrenaline can give you a random boost of strength when needed. He simply didn't expect that to be proven true when he was carrying your unresponsive body in his arms as he brought you to the shore.

He gently placed you on your back on the sand, cupping your face as he checked for any injuries.

You were so cold.

"Hey, hey, wake up," he begged, grabbing your shoulders to try and shake you awake.

Nothing.

"You didn't have to make the jump, you idiot. Why do you always want to prove me wrong," he scolded with no ounce of anger, only worry. He started tapping your cheek frantically. "Come on, wake up!"

Still no response.

"Dammit, Y/N, why'd you have to be so fucking stubborn," he scolded, his voice shaking in fear, his chest tightening as he pressed two fingers against your pulse point.

His own heart stopped when he couldn't feel yours.

And you weren't breathing.

Steve tried to keep himself calm. If he panicked now, he wouldn't be able to give you the aid that you direly need.

"Come on, Harrington. You know what to do. You trained for this," he mumbled to himself, getting into the proper position to give you CPR.

He gently cupped your forehead with his left hand, his other two fingers under your chin as he tilted your head up.

"You're going to be okay," he whispered, pinching your nose before slotting his lips against yours.

Breathing into your mouth, one, two, he watched your chest rise as it filled up with air, only for it to settle back down without coming back up again. He quickly kneeled straighter, locking his fingers together and placing the heel of his left hand in the middle of your chest, pushing down with enough pressure to try and get your heart to start again.

"One, two, three, four, come on, sweetheart, breathe for me," he mumbled, easily finding the right rhythm, his first aid training as a lifeguard coming back to him like it was second nature.

Still, he never wanted to use this skill in a real-life situation, much less use it on you.

It was the longest thirty counts in his life.

Check for a pulse. Check for breathing.

Still nothing.

"Goddammit, Y/N, come on!" he growled, blinking back the tears as he pressed his mouth against yours again.

Two rescue breaths.

Thirty chest compressions.

Steve repeated the cycle over and over. His eyes were stinging with unshed tears, his knees were burning as the rough sand dug deeper into his skin, and his arms were starting to get sore, tiredness slowly covering his aching muscles.

But he'd rather die first than give up on you now.

"Steve—"

"Call for help, Robin!" he ordered, not taking his eyes off you for even a second. When he didn't hear any movement, he yelled, "Don't just stand there! Go!"

He was going to apologize for being an asshole later. For now, he needed you to fucking breathe.

"Come on, come on, please," he begged, leaning back down to give you two more rescue breaths. "Breathe for me, baby, please."

Thirty chest compressions.

"Trying to prove me wrong when I've always been wrong, you idiot."

Five, six, seven—

"Sweetheart, come on," he choked back a sob. "Who's going to call me out when I'm being stupid, huh? You know Robin can't do it alone."

Twelve, thirteen, fourteen—

"And you're really going to leave me alone to watch our kids?"

Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two—

"Y/N, baby, please, I can't live without you," he whimpered.

Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thir—

Steve felt his breath leave his lungs when you finally gasped for air.

He quickly turned you to your side, rubbing your back as you choked out all the ocean water that got into your system.

"There you go, you're okay," he whispered, whether to reassure you or himself, he didn't even know anymore. All he was focused on was making sure you were going to be okay.

"S-Stevie?" you coughed out the nickname that was only ever used by you.

It was the equivalent to his nickname for you—sweetheart.

Names that started out to annoy each other but the more often it was used as time passed, it only managed to grow into an endearment that held something warm underneath it. You both were quick to realize that the nicknames you had for each other weren't out of spite anymore.

Neither of you simply addressed it.

"Steady, sweetheart, I'm right here," he reassured, hurriedly getting into your line of sight to stop you from trying to turn around to face him. He gently cupped your cheek, offering you a soft smile when your gaze found him. "I'm not going anywhere."

You nodded as best as you could, your eyes clinging onto his brown ones only for them to screw shut when a shiver ran through your whole body.

"C-Cold," you stammered.

"I know, I know, come here," he said softly, guiding you to sit up before quickly settling behind you. He gently pulled you closer between his legs, his chest pressed against your back as he blanketed his body over yours, rubbing your arms to keep you as warm as possible.

You turned to face him slightly, burying your face into his neck only for you to wince at the slight movement. He quickly tried to steady you again, checking over you twice to look for any visible injury. But he couldn't find any.

"Tell me what hurts," he asked, pressing his lips against your cold forehead as he fully wrapped his arms around you.

"A-Ankle," you whimpered in pain, your grip on his waist tightening and God he hated that sound so much.

You must've rolled it when you jumped, and having landed on it when you reached the water, it definitely made it worse.

"It's okay, you're okay," he murmured, littering kisses against the side of your head to try and keep your mind off it. "Robin already called for help, they should be on their way, alright?"

You gave him a small nod, inching even closer to him, seeking as much warmth from him as possible. Your cold breath was tickling his skin but he didn’t care. Hell, you could be breathing fucking ice and he still wouldn’t give a shit.

As long as you were breathing.

"I need you to stay awake for me, okay?"

"I-I'll try," you whispered.

"First to fall asleep is the biggest loser," he mumbled, squeezing you slightly when he felt your eyes flutter close. "And you wouldn't want me to win this, babe, because I'll be a little shit about it."

"Not f-fair," you choked out a laugh.

"It's plenty fair," Steve chuckled tearfully, ignoring the sudden wetness on his cheeks. He hugged you tighter instead. "So stay awake or you'll lose to me. Again."

"Right there! They're right over there!"

Steve had never been so grateful to hear Robin's voice.

-:-:-:-:-:-:-

"So are you finally going to tell her?"

"Tell her what?" Steve questioned back, unable to take his eyes off of you, soundly sleeping in a hospital bed with your foot now wrapped in a cast.

The doctor had already checked everything and thankfully, there weren't any further injuries apart from your twisted ankle.

Now, all you needed was to rest and recover.

"That you've been in love with her this whole time."

Steve sighed, squeezing your hand before turning to look at his best friend.

"I'm not in love with her, Robs."

"Right," she scoffed, raising a knowing brow. "Because jumping off a cliff with zero hesitation so you could save her is totally normal behavior for someone you claim you hate."

"I never said I hated her," he argued, and it was true. He couldn't think of a single moment where he hated you.

"Yeah, well, you two definitely don't act like you like each other."

"Does she annoy and frustrate the shit out of me? Yes. But I never hated her," he admitted.

Steve didn't know what it was exactly, maybe it was his tiredness muddling his brain, maybe it was from everything that happened in the last couple of hours finally catching up to him, or maybe it was the overwhelming need to confess everything into the open before it was too late—and it almost had been. Either way, he found himself suddenly spewing out all the things that he always just kept to himself.

"She's also been the most constant person in my life, you know? Hell, we basically grew up together. I can't just not care about her," he continued, memories flooding his system before he could even stop it. "She's been so ingrained in my life, her and the cute dresses she wore at those stupid dinners our parents always dragged us to. Her and her stupid competitions whenever our babysitters would bring us to the park together. Her and that stupid dance she always did whenever she won at anything even if it was my expense—she always does this cute little wiggle whenever she won, and that never left her even as we got older," Steve chuckled at the thought.

"And fuck, don't even get me started with how similar our parents are. She's the only one who will always get me when it comes to that," he continued. "And yeah, we compete a lot, but there was no hatred between us. Maybe at the start but all that went away when we learned that whatever our parents were feeding us was bullshit—that they were bullshit.

"And fine, did I sometimes get so annoyed whenever she got a new boyfriend? Yeah. But only because she always had this bad habit of dating fucking assholes. I don't know where she got those dickheads from but every time I see a glimpse of her crying by her window at night I swear to fucking God I would've killed every single one of those assholes if she asked," he gritted, slumping down in his seat with a sigh.

"She deserves to be treated right, you know? She's already experiencing so much shit at home, she doesn't need any more of that anywhere else. Sure, she irritates me to no end but that doesn't mean she's not a sweet girl who always cried whenever some random pet commercial came on the TV during the holidays. Does her competitiveness drive me up the wall? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean I don't feel so fucking proud of her whenever she wins another medal or achieves another milestone. And yeah, I wonder about how she's doing, if she's taking care of herself, if she's getting enough sleep between her work and classes. But that's only because I worry, you know?

"And maybe I do think about her a lot but that doesn't mean I'm in love with…"

Steve blinked.

Well fuck.

"Wow," Robin marveled. "You're stupider than I thought."

"He hit his head as a kid, cut him some slack."

Steve paled at the sound of your voice, swiftly turning red at the thought that you probably heard all the things he said.

He turned to face you, groaning in annoyance when he saw the smug smile on your lips. "You've been awake this whole time?"

"I'll leave you two love birds alone," Robin sang, quickly slipping out of the hospital room and closing the door behind her.

"How much of that did you hear?" Steve asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Enough to say you're stupid," you hummed.

He rolled his eyes, leaning back in his seat with crossed arms. "I'm not the one who jumped off the cliff and almost died just to prove a fucking point."

"Yeah, well, I guess we're both stupid then," you snorted.

He shrugged. "I guess we are."

"Jesus, you don't have to act so tense. I mean, you've already given me a mouth-to-mouth, we've practically made out already," you scoffed playfully. "I honestly thought I'd die first before swapping spit with you yet here we are."

It was your attempt at alleviating the tension, to throw in a funny quip. But with everything still so fresh in his mind, Steve simply couldn't take it well.

"Don't fucking joke about that will you?" he snapped, rubbing a frustrated hand over his face.

The silence that followed only made the tension worse.

"I'm sorry," you whispered.

Steve immediately felt bad.

"No, no, no. You didn't do anything wrong, don't apologize," he sighed, meeting your eyes with an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped. It's just—"

He stopped himself, chewing on his bottom as he looked everywhere but at you when he felt the tears well up again.

"Will you come here?"

Steve took a calming breath and did as you asked, moving his chair closer but didn't attempt anything else than that.

"Stevie," you called when he still wouldn't look at you.

Harshly wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, he lifted his head. You smiled at him sweetly, wiggling your fingers to get him to come even closer.

"You scared me back there," he croaked, taking your hand with a squeeze.

"I didn't mean to," you softly said, remorseful and apologetic even though you didn't have to be.

"I know," he murmured, pressing your warm palm against his cheek as he shot you a glare. "Just don't do that again."

"Promise," you giggled, stroking his cheek with your thumb.

Steve leaned closer into your touch. "How are you feeling?"

"Better, thanks to you," you hummed, brows furrowing in thought. "When Marcus got that black eye, you said it was because he was playing dirty on one of your games." You tilted your head knowingly. "That wasn't true, wasn't it?"

Steve shrugged. "He hurt you."

"It was a small bruise on the arm, Steve," you reasoned.

"He shouldn't be giving you a fucking bruise in the first place," he growled, the memory bringing back the same anger he felt when he first saw that bruise. The soft tapping of your finger against his cheek calmed him down. "Sorry."

"Did you lose on purpose to get him expelled?"

"What? No!" he scoffed, offended, rolling his eyes when you giggled. "I tried so fucking hard to win that fight, you know, for you."

"You've always been protective of me," you hummed, taking his hand and interlacing your fingers together.

"Don't think I didn't know it was you who dyed that poor girl's hair green that one year in middle school summer camp," he retaliated.

It was a sharp and piercing scream that woke up the whole camp that morning. Everyone rushed out of bed to see what was going on only to find a girl who once was blonde was now sporting bright green hair in the middle of the crowd, crying her eyes out.

Steve would've thought it was only some silly prank if he didn't know who the girl was. But he did. Because the day before he tried to ask her to be his girlfriend, only for her to turn him down in the most embarrassing and humiliating way possible.

It wasn't difficult for him to find out who the culprit was since he immediately noticed how you kept hiding your hands in your pockets for the next few days after the incident.

The counselors quickly found out that the little menace—whoever she was—decided to use permanent dye on the poor girl's hair instead of something washable.

Your green palms colored you oh so guilty.

"She called you pathetic and gross in front of everyone!" you argued, pouting. "You looked like you were about to cry and I hated it."

Steve's heart warmed at that, a smile on his face despite rolling his eyes. "I wasn't about to cry."

"Yeah well," you shrugged, eyes trained on your intertwined fingers, your thumb playing with his. "I'm the only one who's supposed to be mean to you."

"Hmm," he agreed, bringing the back of your hand to his lips. "I guess we've always been there for each other, huh?"

"I guess so," you giggled, cupping his cheek and tugging him closer.

He stood up from his seat, following your lead until he was pressing his forehead against yours.

"Thank you for saving my life, Steve," you whispered, eyes turning glossy as so many emotions covered your irises, the weight of what almost happened catching up with you.

"You don't have to thank me for that," he said sincerely, brushing the tip of his nose against yours. "I'd do it over and over again in a heartbeat."

You nodded, sniffling, "Still, thank you."

Steve wasn't able to argue some more when you all but kissed him.

The first time Steve felt your mouth on his was a horrible experience considering he was trying to keep you alive.

Now, everything was the complete opposite.

A kiss that was careful but sweet, a hint of nervousness and excitement all the same, completely unhurried yet burning with passion as his lips molded against yours.

But still, it felt like that first gasp of air—a finally.

"I'm in love with you, too, by the way," you murmured as you pulled away, your warm breath tickling his lips.

"Thanks for clarifying," he chuckled, eyes laced with adoration, unable to stop his smile from growing wider, warmer. "I couldn't figure that out from the kiss."

"I mean, you are kinda stupid," you teased.

"We're on that same boat, sweetheart," he chuckled. "I'm sure Robin would remind us about that every single day now."

"Unfortunately," you groaned playfully. "God, she gets annoying when she's right."

"Tell me about it," he hummed, brushing his lips against yours, moving away when you chased it.

You whined.

Steve didn't hesitate to dive back in.

✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ♛ *.

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russellsppttemplates · 1 month

Text

It's just the beggining (Oscar Piastri)

Oscar hasn't done or said anything, so you're taking matters into your own hands

Note: english is not my first language. It's my first Oscar piece and I'm nervous posting this, but hopefully you enjoy it! 🫶

Thank you so much to everyone who likes and reblogs, your feedback is appreciated 🤍 and I'm taking requests so if you have any ideas or concepts you want to share, feel free to do so as I'll try to get to them the best I can!

my masterlist

Cw: mentions reader's grandparents' health issues, mentions the situation with McLaren and Daniel, insomnia

Tag list: @myloverjk-blog

"Hey, Y/N!", James called you once he saw you walk by his classroom, "hey", you greeted back, adjusting your books on your arms.

"There is a new kid, I'm sure you know, Oscar Piastri his name is, and apparently he's staying the long weekend too, like you", he trailed off, not knowing if he was stepping further than he should.

"Yes, I am staying, it's okay to talk about it", you gave him tight lipped smile, "well, I was hoping you'd keep him company - he's a bit shy, but he's very fun to be around and the teacher also thought it would be good since you're both staying", he reasoned as you nodded.

You had to stay back because your grandparents didn't live in England, and because of their old age and problems that naturally arose with that, your parents had to fly out and spend sometime with them, meaning you didn't have anyone back home, so you stayed. As for Oscar, you found out that he was staying back because his family was in Melbourne.

"At first, I just had online schooling, but it got trickier to manage and my dad needed to go back to work so I had to stay back", he explained when you asked him why he was there, "and I hope I can focus on racing, but you already know that", he scoffed softly.

"I don't think I do, I'm sorry", you narrowed your eyes, genuinely unaware of what he was talking about.

After he told you all about his career until that moment, as well as his hopes and dreams, he chuckled, "you really didn't know?", he wondered.

"I didn't! The girls said something about you moving here but I didn't listen much, I'm not that into gossip and my memory is like Dory's, I can never keep up with the latest who likes who and who flirted with what's his face", you earnestly replied.

For the first time since he arrived at the school, he felt like he could really trust someone and he could hope for new friendships on this side of the world.

You were there for his final race in F4, clapping at him on the podium, and even F3 and F2 despite your university deadlines, always making sure you could support him in every way you could.

"Hey, Osc", you said over the phone, setting your pen down the desk and swivelling in the chair. You wanted to get as much knowledge and experience as possible, so you applied to do a internship in a physiotherapy clinic near your apartment during the summer.

"Hey, Y/N, how are you doing?", he asked as you could notice the antsyness on his voice.

"I'm good, it's a bit of a slow day here, my supervisor said I could read up on a few articles", you mused, "is everything okay?", you asked.

"I was wondering if you wanted to have dinner tonight", he began, "you can come to my flat if that's okay, I'll order something in since I can't be trusted in the kitchen", he suggested.

"Fine by me, I'd like that, sounds really nice", you smiled, "I'll see you soon, then", you added, not wanting to dwell much on the fact that he didn't answer your question.

When you left the clinic, you walked to Oscar's place since the sun had graced you for the day and it was still nice to be out. Knocking on the door, you waited for him to open it, "I'm still in my scrubs as I didn't see the need to change", you said as you walked inside, hugging Oscar after dropping your backpack on the floor.

"Hey, you look nice, don't worry about it", he smiled as he led you to the living room, "I had to go and get the take out myself, but it's still warm", he said as you sat at the dining table.

"Now can you tell me if there's something wrong?", you wondered as you poured some of the wine he kept for you at his place on your glass.

"I have something to tell you actually", he played with his glass while he fought the smile on his lips, "this weekend I finally had some conversations with McLaren", he began.

"McLaren?", you asked as you served yourself of the food in front of you, taking some bimi brocoli and then some of the warm noodles.

"Yes, McLaren. We finally spoke about contracts and, this morning, I signed the official driver contract for next season", he stated as if he was saying that the sun had been out today.

"You did what? Since when has this been in the works?", you gasped, dropping the kitchen utensils and looking at him intently, "you're driving for McLaren next season?", he nodded, "like, driving on track? Oh my Goodness, Oscar! That's amazing!", you got up and hugged him, "why didn't you lead with that?", you pinched the nape of his neck playfully as you kept the tears from falling from your eyes. This was his dream and he was getting to live it as early as the end of the year when pre season preparations began.

"I didn't want to tell you over the phone", he shrugged his shoulders.

"But how? This is huge, Oscar!", you smiled, your teeth showing and eyes squinting with how high your cheeks rose.

"There were a lot of conversations about it, specially the last few weeks", Oscar explained, "they still want to keep it quiet", he warned.

"So you're driving alongside Lando?", you wondered. You only followed motorsport and the Formula series because of your bestfriend, so the assumption you made was based on what you had seen and read.

"Yes, hence why they want to keep it quiet, I've only told you and my family", he mentioned, "my manager knows that, obviously, but I really need you to keep quiet about it", he smiled.

"Absolutely, don't worry!", you assured, "this is so amazing Oscar! You're going to drive in Formula One! Aren't you amazed?", you beamed.

"I put in the work too, you know?", he dramatically feigned offense as you hugged him tighter, "this is your dream, Osc", you cooed, letting the tears fall freely down your cheeks as you swayed you both around, "I'm so proud of you", you hiccuped, holding his head close to your lips so you could kiss his forehead.

"Let's eat, this is getting cold", your best friend urged as the situation for more intimate and brought you closer and closer to the thing he had been avoiding for nearly a year.

The feelings he had been arbouring for you weren't just friendship. How could he keep himself from being in love with you? You had been there with him and for him when he was alone in a new country, being the other shy kid that spent the long weekend im boarding school, and since then you had been attached by the hip. You were kind, caring, intelligent, beautiful inside and outside and anyone would be a fool to not see why Oscar felt the way he did about you.

"I'm just going to a training camp, Y/N, I do these every year!", Oscar reasoned as you groaned.

"Who am I going to complain to about university? Or how noisy my neighbours are? I'm going to die of boredom", you stated, "when you come back, I will have ceased to exist because of boredom and lack of attention", you exaggeratedly threw yourself on your sofa.

"You won't, silly", he chuckled, pulling you up since his trainer was picking him up soon, "you're going to go out and enjoy yourself, okay? You'll barely notice I'm gone", he tried as you helped him with his suitcases down to the door.

"I'll miss you", you muttered as you hugged him, "enjoy your training camp!", you smiled as you pulled away, waving at him before you made your way to your place.

Getting on with the project you had to hand in at the end of the week, you got it all through to the end, leaving time to proofread later.

You clicked on the folder where you kept your photos and videos, looking through them and reliving all of the memories you had in there.

Most of them had Oscar somehow, wether it was a screen grab from one of your FaceTime calls when he was at races, picnics in the park and lazy days at your place.

You had to admit it, for your sake and Oscar's sake as your friendship was on the line. At first you thought it was just the fact that a boy seemed to want to spend time with you, so you put it to that. Recently, however, things changed perspective and you felt stronger feelings and emotions when you thought about him.

You loved spending time with him and cherished every single hour he chose to spend with you whenever he didn't have racing related duties. Every time he hugged you, you clung just a little longer to feel hia body against yours and his arms enveloping you.

Whenever someone approached you in the rare times you went out clubbing with your friends, "I have a boyfriend" became more a wish and a need rather than some made up excuse to get guys to leave you alone.

So, to sum it up, you either had an honest conversation with him or continued to dwell on feelings you couldn't keep to yourself.

"Y/N just sent me a picture of her notes, can you believe they ask them to know all of that?", he showed his trainer Kim while they had lunch after a strenuous workout.

"I had to learn most of that, too", he said nonchalantly, not necessarily diminishing your competences and intelligence but letting Oscar know that maybe his infatuation with you had a source elsewhere.

"Y/N is very smart, I'm sure she'll do really well - oh, she sent me a picture, she's all dressed up!", he said as he inspected the mirror picture. He assumed it was a requirement for your presentation, as you usually preferred comfy attire, since you had a pair of trousers and a shirt, some small heels on your feet and your bright smile that left him feeling butterflies in his stomach every single time, "she looks gorgeous", he said as he texted you the same words along with wishes of good luck.

"Something you'd like to say?", Oscar quesioned when he felt Kim's eyes on him as he put the phone back on the table, screen down.

"I'm just here wondering why you're not together", the trainer offered simply after he wiped his mouth on the napkin.

"No, we are not together, at least not yet", he mused. The thought had crossed his mind, admitting how he felt about you before the season began. If everything went belly up and you didn't feel the same and didn't see him that way, he would occupy his time and channel all of his energy into racing; if you did feel the same, he would have been worrying for nothing and would have a extra spring up his step for his first season in Formula One.

"Good to know you're working on it", Kim waved his fork at Oscar, "now we need to finish this and we'll do some recovery stretches", he announced as Oscar groaned, prolonging his meal as long as he could.

Today, Oscar was coming back from Lanzarote and you couldn't wait to speak to him. Lately, it all dawned on you.

It happened a couple of nights ago, a slight insomnia episode keeping you up when you thought about what things would be like from now on. Oscar would travel a lot more, and he would be in a much public role compared to his previous one. It would seem stupid to other people, but a lot more people would know him, and you were sure they would fall in love with him. How could they not? Hence why you wanted to quit those thoughts while you were ahead of them.

I'm on the cab to your place, it should take another 10 minutes and Can't wait to see you, Oscar texted you just as you finished tidying your living room.

You missed him dearly, so when you threw yourself into his arms, you didn't let go as he kicked his suitcases into your apartment while still holding close to him, "I kind of need to get my backpack off my back, and I can't do that if I don't set you somewhere - only for a bit at the very least", Oscar suggested after trying to balance you against his body with one arm but he didn't feel safe enough to let you go without you falling.

Reluctantly, you got back down, feet back on the floor as he discarded his backpack before he tapped your hip twice, "up again, I want a proper hug", he mumbled as you jumped back, his hands protectively holding your thighs up as he nuzzled his face on your neck, "I need you so, so much", he sighed.

"I missed you too", you replied back, "and I don't ever want to miss you like this when I don't know how to feel about you", you forwarded. Now or never, you thought as you jumped out of his hold and faced him.

"I missed you like I have never missed you before, not even when you go a visit your family or when you went away for triple headers - and I've been trying to understand why and I finally realised what it was. I like you, more than friends like eachother - for Goodness' sake, I'm in love with you", you chuckled nervously as you admitted it out loud to him, "and everyone else will love you too - I just know it -, so soon enough you won't be my Osc anymore and I couldn't not tell you. People - and these gorgeous girls all over the world - are going to like you so much and I won't be able to compete with them, so I'm just telling you how I feel. You can leave if you want or we'll just stay here in silence of that works too, but I needed to admit my feelings", you let out in one go.

Oscar smiled, a big teeth and gums showing smile as his eyes crinkled at your words, "I'm not leaving, and we are not going to be silent - at least immediately - because I want to tell you how I feel", he began, "I'm in love with you too; I have been for about two years and only realised it a year ago, and I don't want to pretend anymore. I want to be able to kiss you, to hug you, to take you with me wherever possible, to sleep next to you, to argue with you, I want all of it. With you", he said, hand cupping your cheek as his eyes asked for consent to kiss your lips.

It was as you dreamed it would be, soft, gentle and caring, lips moving in sync as you held him by his waist, pulling him closer to you.

"I thought I was loosing you to the whole F1 fandom", you chuckled, looking up at him once you pulled away.

"Of course you won't, you're my best girl", he winked, "this is just the beggining for us", he added as he pulled you to cuddle on the sofa, sharing his stories of the past days as you revelled in the feeling of being in his arms.

#oscar piastri imagine #oscar piastri x reader #oscar piastri x you #oscar piastri fluff #oscar piastri fanfic #f1 imagine #f1 fluff #f1 fanfic #f1 x reader

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drawlfoy · 10 months

Text

the benefits of journaling p.1

pairing: diary!tom riddle x ravenclaw!reader

summary: you pick up an unassuming journal in diagon alley during an antiques sale without knowing that it's actually a part of a late dark lord's soul. sort of no voldy AU, set in the golden trio era where voldemort was defeated in the first war and thus harry has parents still.

warnings: she/her pronouns/reader that stays in the girl's dorms, language, eventual discussion of murder and whatnot but not yet!, you being a little femcel-aligned/obsessed, tom being awkward because he's been stuck in a diary without talking to anyone for 50 years, i fumble around trying to explain how to brew potions after taking only one semester of high school biology

please note that this tom riddle is definitely not the same tom riddle that dumbledore describes in canon. i read a few meta posts that rewired my brain and now my tom riddle is ~complicated~ and not just evil and murdery for the plot. so just keep that in mind lol

a/n: whoa is this....something other than draco on this blog? yes. im suffering right now and needed to get this out. hopefully i can get this longfic completed within 2-3 parts! i'm not using my usual taglist because i don't know how many of my draco readers want this

wc: 10k

The day you unknowingly bought a part of the late Lord Voldemort’s soul was like any other. It was overcast, the thick clouds a somber, humid ceiling hanging above you and Lucy as you made your way through the annual antiques sale in a dusty corner of Diagon Alley.

“Y/N,” said your companion for the day—a slight, freckled witch with mushroom brown waves and a perpetual smile etched into her mouth. “Look. This is so you.”

You looked up from the bookshelves of one of the stands. It took you a moment to see what she was holding, but once it came into focus, you rolled your eyes. “Oh, sod off. Not funny.”

Lucy just cackled, tossing the crudely carved wooden snake back onto the pile wearing a wicked grin.

The world is cruel in that you can scream once when you see Draco Malfoy’s pet ball python in third year and no one ever lets you forget it.

You turned away from Lucy, looking back to the old bookshelf that had been moved onto the cobbled street. The rich mahogany wood was close to buckling under the weight of all the tomes stacked haphazardly atop each other—far more than would be advisable.

But it wasn’t just the furniture that caught your eye. No, it was the glimpse of a black spine on the bottom, partially hidden away by an ancient encyclopedia on arithmancy.

You knelt, carefully arranging your robes so that they wouldn’t pick up dust from the street. You narrowly managed to avoid sending all the books on top tumbling into the street by slowly sliding it out from under the stack.

An unimpressively sized black journal laid in your hand, looking entirely unassuming and incredibly boring.

You frowned. A quick flip-through confirmed that it was in fact a journal—and that there was nothing written in it.

Why would someone try to sell an unused journal at an antiques market? You wondered, turning it over in your hand. Though its pages appeared entirely pristine, you could see some wear on the cover. There were no markings detailing when it had been manufactured.

It could very well have been an antique journal, you conceded. But why anyone would want an empty journal made years ago was beyond you.

You went to set the journal back onto the stack, getting so far as to nearly loosen your grip and let it drop from your fingers, when—

You had to buy this journal.

You weren’t sure why, or how. You just knew that this journal was coming home with you today, even if it was the least interesting thing you could’ve come across in your shopping trip.

“What’s that?” asked Lucy, appearing at your side and gently taking the journal from you.

“Just an empty journal, I think,” you answered, staring blankly at it in her hands.

“You know we can just get a normal new one at the bookstore, right?”

“Well, I like this one,” you heard yourself say. “It has…character.”

“Character.” She snorted, holding it up next to her face. “This is the most bland looking thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

“Consider yourself blind, then. Surely they’ll charge you twice the cost for this since it’s allegedly ‘vintage’.” Lucy made liberal use of air quotes. “You sure you don’t want to stop by the bookstore before we go? It’ll be on our way.”

“No, it’s really fine,” you said, taking it back into your hands, “I really like this one for some reason. I don’t know. There’s just something about it.”

Lucy tilted her head, giving it one last odd look. “Whatever you say. You go check out, then. Mum’s going to expect me back soon and the queue looks a bit long.”

The journal sat in your bag for the remainder of the summer, nearly forgotten as you went about your day. You opened it for the first time to examine it on August 31st, just a day before you were off to begin your 6th year.

There was writing that you hadn’t noticed before—thin, elegant script on the inside of the cover in black lettering. A simple “Property of Tom Marvolo Riddle.”

You stared, letting your finger trace gently across the parchment. There was a slight indentation at the lower swoop of the last letter “L”, like whoever had written it had pressed a little too hard with his quill.

“Tom Marvolo Riddle,” you whispered, trying the syllables out on your tongue. You’d never heard of any wizard named that before. You wondered how long it had been since those words had been written. You wondered if Tom Marvolo Riddle was still alive, and if he was, why he saw it fit to mark his property and then swiftly lose its custody to an antiques dealer.

Oh well. Sucks to suck, you thought dryly as you took the quill that you’d been using to finish updating your calendar and lifted it over the parchment. Whatever happened to the crusty old dinosaur that hadn’t even been able to make one full entry into his own journal before croaking or whatever was none of your business.

You’d barely started out how you imagined a normal person would begin a diary—a date, August 31st—when it suddenly became clear why this Tom fellow had been unable to leave a lasting mark.

The ink hadn’t even begun to dry before it sank into the pages, disappearing in a blink of an eye.

“What the fuck,” you mumbled, dumbstruck. You dipped your quill in ink once again and drew a series of short slashes across the first page, using more ink than was strictly necessary.

In a moment it was as if they had never been there.

WHAT??? You wrote mindlessly in the freshly blank page as your mind spun. What kind of magic was this? And what was the point?

No wonder you’d been drawn to it. It was probably dripping in all sorts of charms. Maybe the combination had been unintentionally alluring to particular passerbys.

Before you could think any further, the clean page transformed again, but not at your hand.

Hello.

The word assembled letter by letter, as if a ghost was writing it over your shoulder.

It seems you've found my journal.

You stared. A journal that could write back to you. Huh. A smile caught on your lips as you became glad after all that you’d chosen this one over a plain bookstore version.

How old are you? You wrote, resting your chin in your palm as you waited for a response as to whether or not your new acquisition actually belonged at the antiques market.

Sixteen.

You frowned. That was hardly vintage.

This was made sixteen years ago?

The response appeared quickly..

No. I'm sixteen.

Yeah. You were made sixteen years ago.

This time, the journal seemed to hem and haw at the response.

What year is it? Was the final answer that appeared.

What year do you think?

1943.

A little off. you wrote impishly.

Oh really?

Just a smidge.

Define a smidge, please.

What does it matter to you?

This seemed to stump the journal.

May I ask who I have the pleasure of speaking with?

You may not. Then, because you had nothing better to do, you dipped your quill and drew out a Tic-Tac-Toe board, placing an X in the middle.

The board disappeared into the page, and for a moment you wondered if you’d annoyed your magical journal too much. But then it reappeared, this time with an O in the middle.

You huffed. When you took too long to respond, another line appeared below.

I'm Tom. Tom Riddle.

You stared at the letters, the implications sinking in. If the journal had belonged to Tom—who was presumably a real person at some point in his life—then that would mean…which meant…

In seconds you’d slammed the journal shut and had your wand out, poking at the binding and being careful to avoid touching it again with your bare hands. Stupid, stupid you, buying something that had so clearly been engineered to lure you in, just like it probably had done to Tom back in the 40s.

The antique market rarely had issues with unknowingly cursed objects. They were allegedly thoroughly vetted by the stand officials to ensure that something like this didn’t happen. But perhaps this one had fallen through the cracks.

There was nothing you could do for now except to wrap the journal in a blanket and throw it into your suitcase. As a muggleborn, there was going to be no real magic for you until tomorrow on the train.

Better to investigate then, you decided firmly. With access to spellwork, you could at least cast protective wards around yourself and try to detect what exactly was wrong with it the next time you touched it.

Yes, you thought. That cannot possibly go wrong.

“Y/N!”

“Sorry, what was that?” You blearily blinked in the direction of Lucy and Ishan, both sitting there with an expectant look on their faces.

“I was saying that I’m pretty sure that Parkinson and Malfoy are actually together this time,” said Lucy, frowning. “I just came from the loo and his head was in her lap. Revolting, to be entirely honest. I can’t believe I had to see that with my own eyes. But whatever. Are you feeling alright? You keep spacing out.”

“I’m fine.” You pulled the fabric of your robe over your wrist so you could gently scrub at your eyes. “Just—tough night last night. I barely slept.”

“I totally get that,” mused Lucy, nodding as her gaze fixed itself on the window. “I can normally never get to sleep the night before we leave. I just get so excited for the new year.”

You smiled. “Yeah.”

But that hadn’t been your problem. Despite the creepy journal encounter that had left you with your mind spinning, you’d fallen asleep deeply the moment you’d gotten into bed. The issue had been staying asleep after all the dreams you’d had.

You rarely dreamt. When you did and remembered it the next day, it was normally nonsensical and had to do with forgotten final exams or missing a lecture. But last night…last night had been different.

There was a boy. His hair was dark and his face cast mostly in shadow, his voice a tenor that seemed typical to boys in your year. He hadn’t been speaking anything you’d understood, though. The most peculiar, bone-chilling hissing noises came from his mouth as he bowed his head leaned over a vaguely familiar sink.

Even though he wouldn’t acknowledge you, it was as if a channel had been opened between you two, like you could feel his emotions as phantoms within you.

Franticness. Vindictiveness. A thirst for vengeance beyond anything you’d ever felt before.

You sat watching this mysterious dark haired boy from the cobbled floor, feeling the wetness on the stones seep into your robes, climbing up and up until it soaked your skin.

At precisely 4 in the morning, you’d shot awake so distressed that you hadn’t slept a wink after. Needless to say, you were hardly what you’d consider to be well-rested.

The remainder of the train ride and the welcoming feast went on without a hitch. You managed to keep yourself from falling asleep at dinner and even joined in on the cheering for new Ravenclaws. The first years seemed to look younger and younger every year, you noted dully as you cut into the roast on your plate. It was making you feel awfully old.

Sixth year was supposed to be exciting—the year of N.E.W.T.S and figuring out what you’d concentrate in during your final year and getting to go to Hogsmeade without permission. But you hadn’t quite figured out what it was that you wanted to study. Being a muggleborn from a modest upbringing meant that you couldn’t be too frivolous. There was no amateur art or sports or celebrity career in your future. You couldn’t even count on marrying well—or marrying at all, in fact. None of your halfblood or pureblood friends seemed to understand that your family hadn’t already had an engagement arranged for you from the moment you were born. It was hard to look forward to a life that was so cloaked in uncertainty.

That being said, you had more immediate concerns to attend to. Though the journal was tucked safely away in one of your suitcases far away in the Ravenclaw Tower, you couldn’t help but feel its presence. You were itching to get back to your dorm so you could steal away into a corner and begin to inspect it.

Dumbledore finally dismissed the students after a rather uninspiring speech about the importance of dreaming big and staying true to yourself. You all but ran up the stairs, rushing to unpack all of your things.

“Merlin,” noted Padma from her desk. “That excited to move in?”

“I just want to go to bed,” you said, relishing the feeling of casting a spell to quickly stow away your skirts and button ups into your dresser. “Long day.”

“And even longer tomorrow.” Lucy was sitting at her desk, her feet crossed at the ankles. She’d somehow unpacked even quicker than you. “Does everyone have their finalized timetable for the term?”

“I’ve got Potions with Slughorn and Transfiguration with McGonagall on Mondays and Thursdays,” you began, unzipping your last bag and flicking your wand to send your school supplies to your desk. “Divination with Trelawney, Arithmancy with Vector, and Runes with Babbling on Tuesdays and Fridays. And of course the extended lab section on Wednesday for Potions.”

“Which lab section?”

“Morning,” you said. The diary was levitating from your wand now, looking unassuming and very innocent under the golden light of your dorm room. “You?”

“Same,” said Lucy, grinning. “I can’t believe you’re taking N.E.W.T level Divination. Do you hate yourself?”

“It was that or History of Magic.”

She nodded emphatically, turning back to make a marking in her planner.

With the dorm settled into a comfortable silence, you brandished your wand again, peering at the diary in front of you.

There was nothing outwardly sinister about it. When you’d gone over to Ishan’s manor over Easter break last year, he’d shown you some of the (potentially unlawful) darker artifacts that his old pureblood family had in possession. They’d felt dark. This journal didn’t have that syrupy thick feel around it. Its aura felt sparkly, magnetic. Surely it couldn’t have been dark magic. Because all dark magic felt dark, right?

You gulped. You wouldn’t touch it with your bare hands anymore, you reasoned. Just spellwork and using the tip of your wand to maneuver it. Just in case.

Your 5 years of Hogwarts education had left you sorely deficient in useful diagnostic spells, so you dug around in one of your Defense Against the Dark Arts textbooks from previous years and found a section on spells to examine magical objects.

Revelo you whispered, feeling the slight jolt of magic as the charm left your wand.

Nothing, It didn’t even glow blue, a sign of magically active objects.

Huh.

You frowned. The slightly more obscure spell you’d heard Snape use once on a student’s suspiciously well-written essay didn’t yield anything either.

“Whatcha doing?’

You nearly screamed, clutching your wand to your chest.

Lucy grinned wickedly as she leaned over your shoulder and reached for your journal. “Ooh, is this that thing you bought at—”

“Don’t touch!” You quickly batted her hand away.

“Sheesh,” said Lucy. “Chill. I wasn’t going to read it or anything. I was just wondering why you were waving your wand at your journal. Secrecy spells?”

“No,” you said. Your heart was racing, “Er—not quite. I actually haven’t written in it, you see,”

“Oh?” Lucy’s brows furrowed in confusion, “Explain the theatrics then?”

A half-baked lie formed at your lips that was about to spill when you stopped yourself. Lucy was your friend. She’d been your best friend since the moment you’d met on the Hogwarts Express during first year. There was no reason to lie.

“It’s so weird!” You motioned towards the diary with your wand. “I buy this, right, because I feel this weird draw to it. And I take it home and try to write in it, and suddenly the book starts writing back.”

“A self-writing journal?”

“Not quite. Maybe. Maybe not, I’m not sure. It’s just—something’s not totally right about it, but I can’t tell if it’s dangerous or not.”

Lucy gave a good natured snort. “A journal? Dangerous? And from old Linda’s stand? Please. I see her going through everything in her inventory. The poor shopboy in charge of vetting items has to answer to her if he slips up. There’s no way anything actually powerful slipped onto the stacks.”

You stuck the tip of your wand under the cover and carefully pried it open, pointing at the lettering on the inside.

“Tom Marvolo Riddle?” She frowned. “Am I supposed to know that name?”

“I don’t know,” you responded at the swooping lettering. “But the journal talked back like it was Tom. Like, it introduced itself as Tom and said that it was 1943. And it acted like an….I don’t know. It was like it was a real person talking to me.”

“Huh.” You could see the gears slowly turning in Lucy’s head,

“Do you know any detection or diagnostic spells?” you asked. “I tried all the ones that we’ve learned so far and it doesn’t even detect magic. But it has to be cursed, right? If the last owner of this diary got sucked into it?”

Lucy was just beginning to open her mouth when ink began to appear.

It is rather rude to be casting all sorts of spells in my direction without warning.

You jumped. “Jesus Christ. Do you see that?”

“Yeah, I do,” said Lucy, but her eyes were crinkled. “Girl. Don’t worry. If it was dangerous, you’d probably know by now. You’ve had it around you for, what, two months? And you’ve already touched it. It doesn’t feel dark. I don’t think there are any slow burning curses that gradually trap you inside an object. If you’re still alright, you’ll probably stay that way. Maybe you should just ask Tom how he got there?”

“If I start disappearing, do try to keep me in this plane.”

“Noted.”

Nervously, you dipped a quill on your desk into an inkwell, waiting for a moment before thinking up how to word your request. In the meantime, a drop of ink fell to the page. It was quickly swallowed up by the parchment.

Sorry you began. Just wanted to make sure you weren't going to trap me in there with you or something

An understandable concern

“Just ask him the bloody question,” said Lucy, hitting your shoulder. “I want to go to bed.”

“Right, right.”

If you'd like me to stop with the spells, maybe you could tell me how you ended up in here in the first place

“Nice,” said Lucy. She was nodding thoughtfully. “Very smooth.”

It took a long time for Tom’s answer to appear despite the fact that your writing had almost instantly disappeared. Finally, black ink began to rise.

It was an accident. Nothing that can be replicated by you, however. There's no need to worry. I fooled around with the wrong book in the school library.

“School library?” Lucy leaned closer so that the locks of her hair dangled over your shoulder. “Ask him if he went to Hogwarts.”

Hogwarts? You wrote quickly.

Yes.

In your sixth year?

Yes.

“Ooh.” Lucy hit your shoulder. “Maybe you can use this to get comfortable talking to boys, Y/N.”

You scoffed, blushing a hot red. “Excuse me! I’ve told you. I’m too busy for that.”

“Uh huh.” She twirled a piece of her hair around her finger. “Well, I think you should just keep it. It’s harmless. Like I said, it’s from one of the tamest parts of Diagon Alley. And you wouldn’t be able to get anything genuinely dark into Hogwarts. The wards would’ve detected it. Have fun with it.”

“Have fun with it?”

Lucy shrugged, bouncing once as she settled down on her bed. “I dunno. Think about it. I think a responding diary could be fun. Let’s say I’m not around to gossip one day. You have another outlet. Or maybe you could use him to help you study or something. Really, the possibilities are endless.”

“True.” You mulled over the thought as you let your wand sit on its stand on your desk. Tentatively you grasped the soft leather of the journal and pulled it nearer to you. Tom was waiting for your response, after all.

Me too you wrote.

And you still won't tell me your name?

“Do you think it’s a bad idea to tell him my name?” you asked Lucy, whipping around.

She set down her book and shook her head. “What’s he gonna do with it? He’s stuck in there.”

Y/N.

A splotch of black appeared on the other end, but it was quickly crossed out.

How did you find me?

Antiques sale in Diagon Alley

I'm an antique?

Given that 1943 was over 50 years ago, yes

Nothing from Tom.

Is that not what you expected? You added.

I'm not sure

Just as you were about to close the journal and head to bed, Tom wrote again.

And how are you liking your time at Hogwarts?

It's nice. Fall term starts tomorrow.

You thought about leaving it there, but for some reason the words began to spill out of you.

It does feel weird being so close to graduating, though. I don’t know quite what it is that I want to do yet.

Oh? But surely you must have some idea.

You pressed the end of your quill to your lips, debating whether or not to share it with this mysterious Tom. In the end, Lucy’s previous comment was what made the scales tip. What did it matter? Tom wasn’t going to tell anyone.

I would really like to go for a cursebreaking mastery abroad, but that hinges on what happens in my N.E.W.Ts this year. I need an O in Potions.

I was taking N.E.W.T Potions at the time that I was trapped, Tom wrote. Perhaps I can be of assistance.

I can’t ask that of you.

Please do. It’s terribly boring being all alone in here.

You swallowed, watching the ink slowly sink back into nothing.

What do you mean? What’s it like being trapped?

It took a while for a response to form.

Quiet. You’re the first visitor I’ve ever had. I’m still in Hogwarts, technically, but there’s no one else here.

I’m sorry you found yourself writing before you could stop yourself. That sounds very lonely.

I don’t mind being lonely. It does get a bit dull, though.

“Luce,” you said, leaning over the back of your desk chair. “He just offered to help me with Potions.”

“See? Useful.”

I've got to go to bed now. First day of classes and whatnot.

Best of luck

Can you sleep where you are?

I don’t need to but I can

The words chilled you somewhat, but you pushed the feeling away.

Well, goodnight you wrote.

Goodnight

How were classes?

The ink appeared the moment you flipped open the journal. It was already two weeks into term, and you’d written to Tom nearly every night. You were curled up in bed, your blankets pulled heavy around your lap and your pajamas clean and smelling of lavender. A mug of tea lay steaming on your bedside table, its tendrils barely visible in the dim golden light of the candle you’d lit.

As expected you wrote, yawning. How was your day?

Oh, you know. Thrilling.

You snorted.

“What are you giggling about?” Lucy’s voice snapped you back into reality. You looked up to see her peeking over the textbook in her lap, a smirk etched deeply into her lips.

“Nothing,” you said quickly, but the way you slammed the journal shut gave it away.

“Talking to your fake boyfriend, huh?” teased Lucy.

“I’m not even going to answer that.” You rolled your eyes. “He’s a fucking journal. It’s not like he’s real.”

“Didn’t he say he was trapped in there?”

You huffed. “I guess. He seems to have accepted his position in life, though. It’s not like he’s begging for help.”

“No,” agreed Lucy. “But just think about it. What if you did manage to get him out? How romantic would that be?”

“Oh my god, shut up!”

Lucy ducked away from the pillow you lobbed in her direction, cackling maniacally all the way.

There you are. I thought I’d bored you.

The words reappeared within seconds of you reopening the journal. You tried to smother the way your lips turned upwards at the sight.

Sorry you wrote back, hoping that Lucy was sufficiently distracted with her textbook and would give you a rest for the night. A friend wanted to talk.

Does this friend know about me?

You held your quill to your lips for a moment before you wrote back.

Yes. She loves to tease over how much time I spend writing to you

I take it she doesn’t understand

Quite the contrary. She’s the one who encouraged me to write to you in the first place, in fact.

How so?

Something about how it would be nice to be able to tell my secrets to someone who could never tell anyone else

Tom’s response took a bit longer to appear this time around.

Oh? Any you’d like to share now?

Your heart skipped a beat as you looked at the drying ink.

You first.

For a minute, you thought that maybe Tom had disappeared. The parchment remained blank and clean. Maybe he’d gotten bored with you and had gone off to…whatever he did in his empty version of Hogwarts.

Then the lettering appeared again.

I used to have a pet snake when I was a child. I was an orphan, you see, and the other children thought that I was too strange to play with. I was terribly lonely. The matron took us to the beach once, and I found this little grass snake in the weeds. I stuck it in my pocket and took it back to the orphanage with me.

You lived in a muggle orphanage?

Yes. Obviously. Once I was amongst magicfolk, people did find me quite charming.

Why’d you pick a snake?

I liked having someone—or something, I suppose—to talk to.

You stared as the ink sunk back into nothing. Talk. Snakes. Talking?

Are you a Parselmouth?

I’ve already given a secret Tom wrote. Your turn.

Will you answer if I give you one?

That’s only fair.

Secrets—you barely had those. You’d grown up sharing nearly everything with Lucy since you’d been paired up in first year Charms class.

Not losing your nerve, are you?

I’m just thinking you quickly wrote back. I don’t have many secrets.

Surely you do.

This isn’t a very exciting secret. Heat rose to your cheeks as your quill scratched against the paper. But I haven’t told anyone this.

Go on.

I can’t tell anyone this because they’ll think I’m annoying. I do really well in classes. But I feel like I’m never going to be smart enough. It seems like nothing that I ever do will be enough to stand out

I understand more than you know

What do you mean?

I was sorted into Slytherin. Coming from such a modest background meant that I had to prove that I was worth the space I was taking up

A swell of…something rose in you as you stared down at the paper. You tried to imagine this mysterious Tom in the familiar green robes that you saw every day in Potions, scrunching his nose up over a book and studying hard. All alone—motivated by the knowledge that no one was rooting for his success—knowing that there was no name he could depend on to cover even one misstep—

You blinked. Whoa. That was some serious projection.

I can’t really tell this to anyone else. All of my friends come from influential pureblood families, so they just don’t get why I don’t get to make mistakes or slip up. They think I’m so uptight

Exactly. They all have safety nets. The grades, the house points, the prefect badges—those are all just surface level. It’s your name that gets you anywhere important

“You’re looking mighty serious over there,” said Lucy from over her textbook. “Trouble in paradise?”

You laughed tightly. “Er, no. Just talking.”

“Uh huh.”

I always feel like it’s evidence that I don’t belong when I don’t immediately understand something in class you add into the journal. To your horror, tears started pricking at your eyes. None of your friends were muggleborns. You’d never been able to voice these things out loud—or on paper, in this case. Writing it all out seemed so sad now. Like today in Runes. It took me longer than usual to understand a translation technique for this ridiculous slate from the Middle Ages. I had to talk myself down from believing that I’m faking it and that everyone else doesn’t even need to try

Is Babbling still there?

Yes. She’s still teaching

She was already too old to be coherent when she was teaching me wrote Tom. Tell me, do you have to rennervate her throughout the lesson to keep her present?

She was old back then???

Ancient.

I can’t believe she’s still alive. You chewed on your lip as you thought. She’s practically a fossil.

Do you think of me like that? Old?

Would it make you feel better if I said I considered you vintage?

I’m wounded

“Fucking get to the library and start researching ways to pull that poor boy out of there,” said Lucy from her bed, “Or stop giggling like that. Merlin. You’re killing me. You’re practically twirling your hair.”

“Shut up!” Slowly, you opened the journal back up after slamming it closed.

Your friend again?

Yes you scribbled back. She’s teasing me again about how I should try to get you out of here. Which I’m assuming is impossible, since I’m doubtful you’re even a real person

I’m very real

Your blood cooled.

Then why haven’t you asked me to get you out?

A pause—just long enough for you to feel suspicious.

I’ve gotten quite used to my little home in here wrote Tom finally. And forgive me if I believe it a bit forward to immediately demand the first person to which I speak to orchestrate my extraction.

Extraction. Interesting word choice, you thought.

How polite. Part of you was beginning to feel the slightest bit uneasy. And what would this so-called extraction entail?

That I haven’t quite figured out yet. The response was instantaneous. Ever since we’ve met I’ve been returning to the library in hopes of finding an answer.

Which book trapped you in here?

Another pause.

I sincerely doubt it’s still in print wrote Tom. It was a very dangerous book with dark, terrible magic. I had no business digging around in it. I paid the price dearly.

He refused to elaborate.

You spent the entire weekend digging through the Restricted Section, paging through every book you could imagine that had anything to do with Tom’s situation.

Nothing. Nada. Zero. You tried every querying spell you could think of. You were desperate enough to recruit Madam Pince by telling her that you were writing a paper for a class and needed to find anything there was on getting yourself trapped in magical objects. What she did dig up was at best irrelevant—tales of ill-executed Animagi rituals that resulted in the wizard getting stuck in their animal form and reports of interactions with cursed objects sending the users into a different dimension, never to be heard from again.

But as you were leaving the library on Sunday night, feeling downtrodden and profoundly disappointed, you saw something that caught your eye: the Alumni section.

It was one of those things that you always passed by without another thought. No classwork required students to reference previous Hogwarts attendees. It existed largely to appease the old families by nodding to their longstanding presence in Hogwarts, and the only friends who you had ever seen in this part of the library were purebloods curious about their ancestry. As a muggleborn, this was predictably unrelatable. There’d been no person of interest waiting for you in the old, dusty books that were shoved neatly into chronological order, no long-lost ancestor or namesake.

Not until now.

The click of your oxfords against the dark hardwood echoed as you came to a stop in front of the stacks. Every yearbook was the color of that school year’s House Cup winner, and the one with 1943-1944 on the thin spine was a rich, loud red. It slid easily from the shelf—which was a relief, because occasionally older books required permission to handle and were thus unremovable—and settled gently in your hands.

For a second you pondered leaving the aisle and finding a table to crack it open and savor the moment, but the thought of having to explain why you were looking at the 1943 class yearbook would be embarrassing. Doubly so if Lucy found you—she’d never let you hear the end of it. So, case closed. You’d open it here.

Oh god. You swallowed and used the cuff of your free sleeve to wipe the bead of sweat that had formed on your forehead. This was a terrible idea—or was it? Maybe he wouldn’t be your type. Yes, maybe he’d look just like someone who annoyed you in class or he’d have poorly kept hair or he’d have a creepy smile. Then you could stop thinking about—that.

And that shouldn’t even matter! You squeezed your eyes shut to dispel the thought. It was all Lucy’s fault for teasing you so much about him being your sort-of-weird-ghost boyfriend—part of you was starting to pretend like that was real. And it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. It didn’t matter that no boy before had managed to make you this excited to talk to them. It didn’t matter that he got you like no one else in this castle seemed to. It didn’t, because as of present he was actually a journal and not a corporeal being.

In short, you reminded yourself harshly, you were checking this yearbook to verify that a Tom Marvolo Riddle did in fact exist and attended Hogwarts during the time period he claimed. That was it—nothing more.

Nervously, you let the cover flip open and began to card through the thick pages. Moving pictures of entirely unfamiliar students greeted you, flashing past your eyes. First years, second years, third years, fourth years…

You paused before turning from the fifth year page to the sixth, overwhelmed with the thought that whatever you saw was going to change the way you saw your interactions with the diary. If he wasn’t there, you’d need to re-evaluate how safe this whole diary scenario was. You’d need to go back and reconsider if anything you’d heard from him was ever the actual truth. And if he was…

You swallowed. You couldn’t pretend like you hadn’t been imagining what he’d look like on nights that you struggled to fall asleep. There was never a face you could settle on. Whenever you’d spin up something in your mind’s eye, the features would shift and morph into something entirely different before you could enjoy it.

But it didn’t matter—it couldn’t matter, because it was crazy that you’d even been fantasizing about a potentially make-believe boy who only existed in a worn diary.

You turned the page, and Tom Marvolo Riddle stared right back at you.

Tom looked every bit of what you’d expect a Slytherin prefect to be like. Everything about him was neat, orderly, and intentional, from the tidy robes to the obediently shaped dark waves atop his head that looked tragically soft. The only thing out of place was a single piece of black hair, dangling temptingly in the middle of his forehead.

His lips were drawn into a polite almost smile, his image almost entirely still save for the slight bob of his throat that repeated as the image replayed, over and over again.

Tom was pretty—much prettier than you ever could’ve thought up on your own. He looked unreal, like he’d been sculpted by some higher being’s hand with the express purpose of being devastatingly ethereal.

And he’d been talking to you. Connecting with you. And he was real. The weight of your satchel over your shoulder reminded you that he was right there. All it’d take was a quill and some ink to speak to him again.

The picture had repeated its loop one final time before you closed the book shut and pushed it back onto the shelf, hearing the pounding of your heart the whole way.

When you wrote to him that night, you tried your best to keep yourself imagining how he’d look writing back. Would he smile when he saw that you’d opened the journal? Would he laugh at your (admittedly stupid) jokes?

September turned into October which tilted into November with such speed that you could barely breathe. Time barreled ahead as classes sped up, assignments piled on, and each day became just another challenge to survive.

Tom remained one of the few constants in your life, alongside Lucy and Ishan. It was concerning how much you’d come to confide in him, telling him things that you’d never dare to share with anyone else. You told him about the little accomplishments that you could never bring up to your friends, like Professor Snape insulting everyone’s potion except yours and what McGonagall wrote on your most recent paper, calling it one of the most well-researched essays she’d gotten from a N.E.W.T level student. You even told him how Lucy occasionally got on your nerves and how it made you feel like a bad friend.

He was a good listener and an even better conversationalist. When he wasn’t being your confidant, he was more than happy to indulge any academic topics of interest. You spent hours going back and forth, debating the content of the news headlines that you’d tell him about each day.

With time, the memory of Tom’s face and intimidatingly good looks faded to the back of your mind. You’d barred yourself from going back into the Alumni section in the library lest you felt inspired to crack open his yearbook again and remind yourself just how attractive your imaginary friend had been when he’d been alive. If you did that, then you’d start fantasizing about a future where you invented some sort of way to pull him out, and that was just silly. You had exams, and Tom didn’t seem particularly rushed in leaving his journal—or he’d at least come to accept that he’d never leave.

Despite this new normality you’d built around the strangeness of the journal, some things still felt tense. You’d grown comfortable with Tom—arguably more comfortable with him than nearly anyone else, save for maybe Lucy, since you couldn’t ever imagine opening up the journal and telling him all about the fact that it was your time of the month and detailing exactly how your cramps were making you feel—but there was this underlying sense of anticipation. For what exactly, you weren’t sure. You just knew that things couldn’t be like this forever. Something had to give.

In the end, it was Professor Snape who started it. He’d looked down at your cauldron and said something about how your Draught of Living Death base was the most elementary thing he’d ever had the misfortune of laying his eyes upon and that you were lucky to even be allowed into the class, and something inside you broke.

You’d tried so hard on that potion. You’d followed the instructions to a T. You’d diced everything evenly and stirred it with the precision of a muggle performing brain surgery. Potions had never been your best subject, and you tried to make up for it by trying harder than everyone else. Normally it worked, but N.E.W.T potions was something else.

Tom was taking longer than usual to respond to this particular soliloquy that night, a few letters surfacing before he scribbled them out.

I know this might seem scary he finally wrote. I’ll understand if this frightens you too much. But I think that I may be able to help.

What do you mean, scary? Are you a mean tutor or something?

I mean that I can show you how to brew that Draught Tom replied.

Show me?

If my research is correct, it’s possible that I can temporarily cross you over into my world.

Your heart thudded, your hands suddenly clammy.

“Lucy?”

“Yeah, what’s up?” Lucy tossed her book onto her desk and turned to face you. “Oh no. Did something happen? You look awful.”

“Gee. Thanks.” You swallowed. “Er—sort of? I was writing to Tom about how crazy Potions class was today and he told me that he could help me. Like actually tutor me.”

“Is that not a good thing?”

Your mouth was dry. “No. That’s not it. He means like, tutor me tutor me. In person. He says he can cross me over into his world temporarily.”

Lucy froze.

“I have to say no, right?” It was so, so stupid that you were asking that. Of course you had to say no. There was no telling what he could do to you if you said yes. Maybe he was actually a demon that was attempting to possess you. Maybe he was going to eat your soul and use your body as a husk to feed on the other students and—

“I mean, probably not.” She thoughtfully pressed the top of her quill to her mouth. “Think about it. You guys have been in contact for months and nothing supernatural has happened. We already came to the conclusion that the journal isn’t dark magic because the wards would’ve kept it out.”

“But what if I get stuck with him? I haven’t been able to find anything about this type of magic before. I don’t know how it works.”

Lucy hummed. Then realization flickered across her features. “Hang on. I think I have something that might help.”

She dug around in one of her desk drawers until she produced a small spool of half-used thread. It was golden in color but so thin it was nearly iridescent.

“What’s that?” you asked, squinting at it.

“It’s Invisible String,” said Lucy, already rolling it out and pulling it around your wrist. It was pleasantly warm against your skin, like it’d just been sitting out in the sun. As soon as it made contact with your body, it disappeared. “It used to be used for Ministry Employees who used Time Turners. Whoever is on the other end of the thread is able to pull the wearer back to this reality and this timeline. It’s very useful in avoiding nasty time related incidents. My dad took home a bunch of spools when Time Turners were officially outlawed. He taught me how to apparate with them since it can also work over long distances in the same reality—just in case I did something stupid.”

“Wow,” you breathed, staring down at your wrist. There was nothing to stare at, of course. It was already gone. But it was an ingenious little contraption, probably charmed so many times with such obscure and rare spells that it would go for thousands of galleons if you tried to buy it yourself.

The perks of having a rich pureblood best friend, you supposed.

“As long as I’m holding the other end, I’ll be able to bring you back,” explained Lucy, holding the spool up demonstratively. “So, go for it. If that’s your only hold-up, I think you should go meet him. If anything, at least it’ll help your Potions grade.”

You turned your attention back to the journal, worrying your lip for a second before you dipped your quill in the inkwell and wrote out Ok.

“This is so exciting,” said Lucy from over your shoulder. “You have to tell me everything when you get back.”

“If I can come back.”

She dangled the spool in front of you. “I’ll make sure of that. If you’re not back by curfew, I’ll yank you back to this reality by myself.��

“Right.” Anxiety began to build in your middle, bubbling up until you were sure you were trembling.

This might feel a bit uncomfortable was all Tom wrote before you were suddenly falling into a void.

When the inertia faded and light slowly bled back into your vision, you were sprawled on the floor of a Potions classroom that you’d been in when you were a second year. Tom Riddle stood tidily a few feet away from you, wearing the same formal school robes you’d seen on him in the yearbook.

“Hello.” His voice was proper and measured. It fit him perfectly, but the fact that you were finally hearing him speak for the first time made you feel something that was highly inadvisable.

“Hi.”

For a moment, you just stared right back into his eyes as the silence closed in around you and the gravity of your situation sunk in. You’d really done it now, hadn’t you? As if to comfort you, the thread around your wrist warmed against your skin.

“Don’t worry,” said Tom, like he could already tell what you were thinking.“You won’t be trapped. It’s me who’s bound to this world.”

“And how are you so sure of that?”

“This is a prison for my soul,” he said casually. “Not yours. You have nothing keeping you here.”

“Right.” You slowly made your way from the ground to your feet, brushing off your robes and casting a few cleansing charms to dispel the dust clinging to you. At least your magic seemed to work fine here, you noted. It was a small comfort to know that you’d be able to defend yourself if shit went left.

“I didn’t think you’d say yes.” Now that he was speaking more, you couldn’t help but admire the way he sounded—silken and smooth and entirely unbothered, like he did this every day. “I was sure that I’d scared you off.”

“You underestimate how much I want that Potions O,” you offered.

“Never,” he said dryly. “Now that I see that you’re a Ravenclaw, I wouldn’t endeavor to make such ill-informed assumptions.”

You blanched, your head whipping down to take in what you were wearing. You weren’t sure why you were so shocked to see that you were wearing exactly what you’d had on moments ago at your desk—a midnight blue jumper with the Ravenclaw emblem stitched into the left breast, pulled on top of the white button up with the bronze and blue tie tucked underneath. That, and the standard-issue Hogwarts skirt and tights. Hardly dungeon attire—if you didn’t start brewing something soon, you’d be shivering.

It all looked very silly compared to how many layers Tom was wearing. His prefect pin glinted under the dim lighting of the Potions classroom, and you tried your best to keep your heart from swooning.

“Did I not tell you that I was a Ravenclaw?”

The corner of his mouth twitched up. “I don’t believe so. I would’ve remembered.”

“Are you surprised?”

He cast his dark eyes up to the ceiling and scrunched his nose in a way that you thought was meant to convey a serious bout of thinking. “Not quite. I was stuck between that and Slytherin.”

“Slytherin?” You couldn’t stop the way you grimaced at this.

“I thought we had enough in common for it to be plausible.”

A thrill shot through you. “I’m sorry to disappoint.”

“I suppose I can't be too taken aback,” he said mildly, stepping neatly back and conjuring a cauldron to appear on the tabletop to his right. “You are a muggleborn. I don’t know of any who have been sorted into Slytherin.”

This wasn’t news to you, but Tom’s delivery stung more than usual. The implication hung heavy in the air that you were somehow in the inferior house, only placed in Ravenclaw because of your blood. As an afterthought—as a convenient place for you to be put away.

“That’s true,” you said, stepping closer until only the brewing table was in between you two. “But I doubt that I’d have been sorted there, even if I had been born a pureblood. The whole glutton-for-knowledge thing about Ravenclaw has always been me.”

“I disagree.” Tom summoned over a few jars of ingredients with a nonverbal wave of his wand. “If you’d been born with purer blood, you wouldn’t be so desperate to find a way to compensate.”

You flinched. Ouch.

“I’m very aware of why I feel the need to work so hard,” you snipped. “But I really don’t think that has anything to do with my genuine academic curiosity. If I was so single-minded in using knowledge for compensation then perhaps I would have been a Slytherin.”

For a moment, his dark eyes flashed with something that you couldn’t quite catch before his face ironed itself into something impassive once more. “Excuse me. I didn’t mean to offend.”

You frowned, watching as he placed familiar ingredients on the table and began lining them up. “It’s fine. Just a bit of a sore spot, that’s all.”

He gave you a look that made you feel like you’d just pointed out the obvious. Which you had, clearly. But it was offensive regardless.

“I’ve assembled all the ingredients for a Draught of Living Death,” he announced, stepping back from the table and waving one pale hand at the spread in front of you. “You said you had trouble with brewing the base. This makes sense, since more complicated potions require more stable bases. I’m not wrong in assuming that you’ve always been adept at following instructions and brewing perfect potions before this year?”

He waited for your nod to continue.

“N.E.W.T Potions is different in that it challenges your intuition. Before this, you’ve been able to coast by relying on the guidance of others. But with potions like the Living Death, you need to be able to think on your feet. Even the slightest variation in your ingredients—the age, the quality, the place of origin—can be what ruins an otherwise perfectly good brew. Every potions recipe you see in school textbooks makes implicit assumptions about the quality and age of your ingredients. If, say, it’s an unusually hot day when a supply shipment arrives and the gillyweed oxidizes, the instructions for a more difficult potion won’t anticipate that you need to temper it with volcanic salt.

“That’s where you come in. When you’re preparing your base, you need to have an intimate understanding of the properties of each ingredient and how they interact with each other. This way, when you notice something isn’t quite average with your supplies—as is common in a school where ingredients are shipped in bulk—you can adjust.”

Tom paused, his eyes meeting yours. You blinked once, then broke the contact to look at the cauldron.

No one had ever explained that to you before. No one had ever taken the time. Snape certainly hadn’t been interested in lecturing about why so many students were incapable of producing viable potions—he was far more content with insulting his pupils for being inadequate.

“I never knew that,” you admitted, finally looking back at him. He hadn’t moved an inch. “That makes so much sense.”

Though your words were far from creative, honesty dripped from your voice.

“Right then,” said Tom, nodding tightly and stepping back to gesture to the ingredients. “Try to prepare the base again. This time pay attention to the state of the ingredients.”

You got the work, thinly dicing the beetroot while you set the moon water to simmer in the cauldron.

“This was bruised,” you noted, motioning to the cubes you’d just cut.

Tom nodded, looking at you rather expectantly.

“...which means that part of it has already oxidized,” you continued cautiously. In truth, you hadn’t spent much time learning about the different chemical properties of the ingredients. That felt too concretely muggle, too blatantly biological. “Which means that the enzymes have, uh, had their bonds ruptured?”

“And…?”

“And that means I need to…” You squinted down at the vegetable, trying to conjure up any knowledge you had about enzymes and potion making. It probably wouldn’t be volcanic salt. Would it? “I don’t think that I can use volcanic salt as a binding agent this time. If my memory serves correctly, moon water becomes unstable in the presence of pure minerals. So that means…acid? Lemon?”

Tom slid a vial over to you, a ghost of a smile on his face. “Mix a little into the beetroot before adding it.”

You uncorked it and let the citrus juice sink into the purple cubes, running slightly down the cutting board and pooling in the wooden crevices.

The rest of your base preparation went just as smoothly, with Tom offering up the odd helpful comment while you nodded and committed it to memory.

You finished with a base that looked nothing like the disaster you’d created just hours ago. You were just barely able to keep yourself from grinning and throwing your arms around Tom’s neck as you both began to clean up and vanish the contents of the cauldron.

“Well done,” said Tom, spelling the cutting board clean. The vibrant pink marks from the beetroot vanished. “Consider me impressed.”

You nearly exploded with giddiness.

“Thank you,” you said very normally. He was standing so close to you now that if you reached out, your fingers would skim his robe-clad arm. But you wouldn’t do that, because that was weird. Because he was living in a journal and he was somehow bound to this strange alternative reality. Because you weren’t even sure if it was possible to touch him. Because even if it was, Tom Riddle did not seem like the type of person who would be partial to physical affection—especially not from someone like you. “Do you—have you found anything out about how you can escape?”

Tom’s fluid motions as he tidied the table only stuttered for a moment. “Some. Nothing concrete, though.”

“If you told me exactly what it was you did to get stuck in here, I’d probably be able to offer a lot more help,” you pointed out in a way that you hoped didn’t sound too cajoling.

He didn’t say anything.

“Come on,” you pressed, putting your hands on your hips. “I’ve aired out all my dirty laundry to you. You can tell me. I don’t think there’s anything you could say that I haven’t already guessed.”

“Really?” drawled Tom, his eyes locking on yours. “Nothing at all?”

“Nothing,” you affirmed.

“So why don’t you tell me what happened?”

You rolled your eyes. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”

Men could be so frightfully dull sometimes.

“There’s a book,” said Tom with a deceptive casualness, “That should be in the Restricted section. It’s called ‘Secrets of the Darkest Arts.’ Read that. If you’d still like to know afterwards, I’ll oblige.”

You let out an exasperated sigh. “Fine.”

The work table was all cleaned up, no trace of your previous potion brewing except for the lingering scent in the air.

“Well,” said Tom. His hands were folded neatly behind his back as he remained a respectable distance away from you. “I suppose I should be sending you back.”

“I suppose,” you echoed. “Will I—do you think I’ll get to see you again?”

You regretted it the moment the words left your mouth. Hopefully the blush on your face could be written off by the excuse that you were just brewing.

This time when he looked at you, it felt like he was re-evaluating something. “Whenever you’d like. I’m not especially occupied.”

Before you could stop yourself, your face was splitting into a bright smile. “Of course. I was definitely asking because of your busy schedule.”

He blinked twice. Then he opened his mouth, closed it, and fidgeted with his tie. It was the most obvious sign of discomfort you’d seen from him the entire evening.

“Right,” he said stiffly. “Ehm—yes. It was pleasant to have you here.”

“Pleasant?” you echoed, your eyebrows raised.

“I mean that I’ve enjoyed the time that we’ve spent in correspondence,” he said, waving a hand like that made what he said any less awkward.

“Tom, I was teasing you,” you said. “I don’t need some sort of confession about how you can actually stand being around me. I can tell.”

“Right,” he said again. “I’ll send you back now.”

Before you could add another remark about how weird he was being, you were catapulted out of the dungeons and back into your desk chair.

“Merlin’s Beard!” gasped Lucy from behind you.

You blinked, letting your eyes adjust to the bright lighting of your dorm.

“You literally came out of nowhere!” said Lucy, coming around to put her hands on your desk and stare at you. “I was getting worried, too. Padma is coming back soon. I thought that I’d have to devise some sort of plan to keep her out of the room so she wouldn’t ask why you materialized out of thin air.”

“Yeah,” you said, your eyes unfocused.

“So what happened?”

“I—” You exhaled. “Lucy, I’m so fucked. He’s actually really cute.”

“I knew it,” said Lucy, shaking your shoulders.

“He helped me brew the base for the Draught of Living Death,” you elaborated. “He’s a really good tutor. He spoke for like 5 minutes about the properties of different ingredients, and I swear I’ve learned more from him than from 6 years of Snape’s lectures.”

“And did you guys talk?”

“A little.” You frowned, thinking back on the interactions you’d had. “He was really odd when I asked him about what I needed to do to get him out. Even weirder when I asked if I was going to see him again. He made some comment about how he wasn’t exactly busy and I said something that implied that I knew that but wanted to know if he liked seeing me, and he was super awkward.”

Lucy cringed. “Well, I mean, if I’d been stuck in a diary for 50 years without talking to someone, I’d probably be a little strange too. Tell me how he is when he talks—or writes, I guess—to you next.”

The next time Tom responded to a diary entry, you had news.

Tom you wrote. Are you there?

Yes.

Can you bring me back to you?

Why? Do you need another Potions lesson?

You rolled your eyes. Not quite.

Well, no. I won’t let you back until you’ve read the book I told you about.

That’s why I’m asking! I’ve tried looking for it everywhere. When none of the querying spells worked, I went through the entire Restricted Section by hand. Nothing! I asked Madam Pince and she told me that that book had been banned since before she’d gotten the position as librarian. I’m probably on some watch list now

That is troubling.

So if you’ll be so kind, please let me back in so I can use your library. Thank you in advance

There was a long pause that you imagined Tom took to sigh and run his fingers through his hair in exasperation. Then:

Very well.

You were falling through space once again.

final a/n: thank you for reading! let me know how you feel about it! this is my first time writing for tom so im kind of nervous or whatever

#tom riddle x reader #tom riddle x you #tom riddle x oc #tom riddle x y/n #tom riddle imagine

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depravitycentral · 10 months

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Yandere! Feitan Portor NSFW Profile

Yandere! Feitan Portor x fem! reader

Tw: mentions of non/dub-con, stalking, masturbation, kidnapping, spit, drool, lots and lots of cum, Feitan is gross and icky and comes in your conditioner I'm so sorry, seriously this one is pretty gross I apologize now, bondage, ropes, blood, period sex, consumption of period blood, Stockholm Syndrome, a few mentions of reader having pubic hair, mentions of premature ejaculation, Feitan has intimacy issues, a touch of sadomasochism, dry humping, blindfolds, begging, edging, overstimulation, there's a lot going on, fem reader, MDNI

I do not condone any of the actions described in this post - this is fiction and should be treated as such. If you or a loved one is in a similar situation to anything contained in this post or my blog in general, please seek help. You're in charge of your internet consumption; please make responsible choices. With that, enjoy!

WC: 12K (oh my god)

HABITS:

Even amongst the Troupe, Feitan is particularly emotionally stunted.

Of course, he knows about relationships, about the intimacy that ensues - he’s never personally fucked anyone, but he knows how it goes, what it’s like (at least, in theory), how it’s supposed to feel. He’s just never wanted to - his libido is actually quite low, and although he’s spent nights tossing and turning in bed, cock throbbing and aching for attention, he’s never felt the urge to find some random woman for a fun, stress relieving night.

Sure, he’s jerked off more times than he can count, and he’s been to more strip clubs with Phinks and Uvogin than he’d care to admit. He’s been around it his whole life, even from a young age as a child in Meteor City - so yes, he knows about sex.

He’s just never been able to tolerate someone long enough to consider sleeping with them, much less actively wanting to sleep with them. And yet, once you step into his life, Feitan finds himself uncomfortably aroused by the idea of letting his hands wander your body, of seeing the way your pretty face would scrunch up in pleasure, of hearing your little moans and yelps when he kisses you and sinks his teeth in just a bit too hard.

Once his obsession with you forms and he begins moving past some of those initial mental barriers, Feitan finds himself beginning to crave you intimately, physically, sexually. And, just as the rest of his feelings for you, he hates it at first.

He hates how just a simple thought of you has his body growing hot, the collar of his jacket uncomfortably tight as he shifts his weight, trying to ignore the way blood is steadily rushing south.

He hates how just a simple look from you, with your eyes all innocent yet sultry, makes him gulp a bit, his fingers twitching at his side. He doesn’t like how he can’t control his body’s reaction to you, but it’s not like he can help it - it’s instinctual, primal, carnal, as if his body is recognizing that you’re the chosen one for him to fornicate with, as if you’re the only one worthy of his sexual attention.

Feitan doesn’t like this change in developments much, but quickly he finds himself at a crossroads; he can spend nearly every night staring at the black of his ceiling, laying in bed and glancing down at the massive tent in the sheets centered around his crotch, or he can give in and get working, letting his hand run along the length of his cock all with you on his mind.

He doesn’t feel guilty about masturbating to you, per se, but there is this weird sense of embarrassment that sits heavy in his chest as he exhales shakily and spreads the bead of precum along his shaft. There is this weird feeling like he’s doing something bad, something naughty, as if you’d be disgusted if you were to ever find out.

It makes him feel strange, but he almost likes it - it’s a thrill he gets, particularly to the knowledge that you’d probably be disgusted to know he wrings himself dry (often more than once at a time) nearly every night, all with the mental image of you naked, writhing and stuffing your fingers into that warm, wet, oh so fucking tight cunt of yours.

He’d never admit, but he’d give anything to be your fingers, to feel the sensation of being inside you, even if it was only for a few moments. (That’d probably be enough to make come the first time he fucks you, anyways.)

Once he gives in to getting off with you in mind, Feitan finds himself fucking his fist frequently, frantically, his hips thrusting into his hand faster and rougher the longer he goes on, the longer the image of you crying his name and clenching down around his cock plays behind his eyelids.

He wraps his hand around his girth and immediately starts violently pumping his fist up and down, until he’s eventually stuttering your name and coming, sending spurts of cum flying up onto his chest, the white staining his pale chest. It feels good, or at least good enough to satisfy him for the moment, up until he ends up palming himself through his pants the next night.

It’s a never ending cycle, and frankly it leaves Feitan frustrated – it’s just not enough. The thought of you is more than enough, really, to functionally get him shooting ropes of cum out of his swollen, needy tip, but there’s this part of him buried deep inside that needs more, something to make him feel like it’s really you he’s touching and fucking.

It’s not enough to be the one touching himself, when he knows it would feel different if it was your soft hand, your warm lips, your tight walls. He needs something more, something more intimate and personal and you in order to really get himself off, to really feel connected to you in the way he craves.

And so, Feitan makes a discovery one evening that changes everything; he has a penchant for sneaking into your room after you’ve fallen asleep, the dismal security of your apartment something he’s simultaneously grateful and irritated with you for. He likes to just watch you sleeping, those dark eyes taking in every detail about your unconscious form, all exposed for his viewing pleasure without you even knowing it.

He always shuffles closer the longer he watches, his feet taking just a tiny step every once in a while, just because he can smell you better when he’s closer, see more detail in your skin and features, and it’s only after he’s crept his way right up to your side that he notices it. He should be disgusted, he thinks, when he sees the bit of drool slipping past your lips, your slumber deep enough that you haven’t noticed the wet pool of it against your pillow.

He should be grimacing and scooting away, revolted by something so gross, but instead Feitan finds his eyes getting caught on the way your lips are just slightly parted, the wetness against your chin shining ever so slightly in the pale moonlight.

He doesn’t really know why he does it, but soon his fingers are reaching out, lightly brushing against your lip, a sharp inhale audible as he feels the warm wetness of your saliva against his fingertips. He’ll retract his hand, staring with narrowed eyes, before slowly, carefully bringing his fingers to his own mouth, slipping them past his lips, letting his eyes flutter closed because he’s tasting you.

It’s euphoric, your spit sweet and leaving the perfect tang on his tongue, and suddenly Feitan’s reaching into his jacket pockets, frantically searching for the vial he keeps on hand, just in case he needs a bit of blood from a victim or enemy. He gulps when he finally pulls it out, wiping at it to rid it of any remaining blood, before carefully bringing the glass up to your face, positioning it right below your chin so that the next bit of drool to drip out of your mouth lands in the vial rather than on your pillow.

It’s a slow process, filling it up, but Feitan’s committed, spending every night sitting beside your bed, watching you sleep and seeing the glass slowly fill with your drool, collected all for him. And when he finally has enough? Well, it’s easy to transition from slowly dipping his fingers in the vial and letting his tongue glide over them to letting the spit cover other areas of his body, even if the mere idea makes him scoff while a blush settles over the bridge of his nose.

It’s not until one night, though, that he finally takes the plunge, crossing a line he can never recover from. He’d been particularly pent up, his cock absolutely swollen, aching and desperate for release, and his fist was just not enough. Even as he pounded away, biting his lip and furrowing his thin brows, the pleasure just wouldn’t come.

His eyes wander from his ceiling down to his dresser, zeroing in on the glass vial sitting so innocently, so provocatively, practically taunting him to come closer. He’s snatching up the glass before he can really think, sitting back down and tearing the top off, his fingers moving faster than he can process.

Soon, he’s dipping them in, swirling them a bit to make sure they’re really covered, but instead of bringing them to his lips, his hands travel south - gripping onto his cock, the wet coolness making him hiss through his teeth. He brings his wrist up, your saliva slowly smearing along his shaft, leaving it wet and twitching in the cold air of his bedroom, visibly throbbing as he runs his thumb over his slit, making sure to absolutely drench himself with your spit.

His eyes slide shut, head rolled back slightly as he moves his hand at a steady, painfully slow pace, trying to calm his heart rate because this is so very different from before. It’s different, if only because it’s you - your saliva is letting his hand move smoother, your saliva coating his skin, you helping him to get off. It makes him feel dizzy, the familiar coil in his stomach appearing embarrassingly quickly as he speeds up his fist, images of you playing behind his eyes.

He can’t help but imagine you on your knees before him, staring up at him with those pretty eyes, all wide and glassy and yearning, with your hands tied behind your back and your lips parted, pink tongue lolled out and waiting for him to fill that tight throat of yours. He grunts, squeezing at his tip, digging his fingers back through the vial to refresh the supply of your drool, and in his mind he’s slowly tracing your lips with the head, smearing his precum along your skin as you clench your thighs together and hum, practically begging him to facefuck you.

Feitan hunches forward slightly as his wrist moves even faster, hand flying up and down his shaft, wet noises accompanying every jerk all caused by the excessive wetness he’s coated himself with, the feeling of your spit exactly what he’d be feeling if he was actually stuffing your little mouth, dark hairs tickling your cheeks and nose as he pushes your head all the way down, so that his tip is nestled down your throat.

He lets out a guttural groan at that, a strained noise that makes him grimace, but he can’t help it - his orgasm is approaching, and he can’t help but listen to the wet squelching noises and imagine your gags and sharp breaths accompanying them, his toes curling. It feels so good, a building warmth in his naval that only grows bigger, stronger, more insistent, and all too soon he’s imagining the way you’d present your face to him when he pulls out and strokes himself over your face, cum spurting from his tip and landing in rivulets all along your cheeks, lips, nose, even getting into your hair.

You’d look so good, all messy and out of breath and covered in him him him, just as he is you.

He bares his teeth as he feels himself right on the edge, his fingers clutching onto the vial so tightly he nearly shatters it, his cock bobbing and throbbing, balls clenching as he curls in on himself, small chants of your name mumbled under breath and then he’s coming, cum spraying everywhere as he gasps, hips bucking involuntarily into the air, chasing after his fist with every pump, aching to be releasing inside you, where it belongs.

He takes a moment to come down from his high, chest heaving and eyes wide, staring down at the vial in his shaking hand, the weight of his orgasm shocking him. He’d never come so hard, like every muscle in his body was spasming, the pleasure nearly overwhelming. His eyes flick over to the clock, and he splutters, seeing the time.

3:08, meaning only three minutes had passed since he’d snatched up the vial, feeling your spit against his skin, feeling you against the sensitive skin of his cock.

His eyes close, his breath finally evening out, before he’s carefully setting the vial aside, recapping it and laying onto his back, trying to process why the hell he’d come so fast with something as grotesque as your spit to help him. He’s not sure, but then the images return of you on your knees for him, face still covered in his release and telling him that you want more, please Feitan, will you give me more?

He groans as he feels his softening cock suddenly begin growing once more, his hips twitching as he reaches down to lightly grope at his balls, swallowing and deciding whether to dip his fingers into the vial yet again - he only has a limited supply, after all, and he’d be needing it again tomorrow night when he inevitably lets his mind wander to thoughts of you tied up and begging for him.

He grumbles, a strained sort of sound, before getting to work once more, spitting into his hand and letting a small, barely there smile grace his lips, the slight flush still high on his cheeks. He’d have to get some more, he decided, because this?

Well, fucking you was surely better, but Feitan would be a food to not capitalize on this new discovery - and when he’s painting his chest with ribbons of cum again a few minutes later, he decides that he’ll never go back to not having something of yours to aid him while he gets off.

It’s just more intimate this way, better, like you’re really there - like you’re really naked and ready to fulfill every need, desire and fantasy of his.

Like you want him.

FAVORITE BODY PARTS:

Your face

In general, Feitan thinks you’re attractive. He’s hesitant to say beautiful or pretty or really anything of the sort, if only because the way he feels for you is a bit more complicated than that.

You’re not just pretty; you’re alluring, someone that always seems to catch his eye no matter how hard he tries to stop it.

You’re not beautiful; objectively, there’s nothing about you that he hasn’t seen in hundreds of other women, whether it be your hair, your lips, your figure, or anything else. (Except maybe your eyes, or maybe your smile - things that are just so unapologetically you, things that Feitan thinks he could recognize with his eyes closed.)

You’re nothing particularly special, physically speaking, and yet there’s something about you that he just can’t shake, some involuntarily thing that motivates him to always have his eyes on you, his body unconsciously facing you, his senses just so very aware of you. And because Feitan spends so much time simply watching you, he’s become extremely well antiquated with your features, with your pretty face that always seems to pull him in, like a moth to a flame.

He’s memorized the way your lips curve, the soft skin puckering and moving with every word you say, and he often finds his gaze flicking down to watch while you talk, eyes sitting there idly as he lets his mind wander to what else you can do with those lips, what other shapes they can make.

He’s studied every slope of your nose, the shape seeming to fit your face perfectly, and he even finds himself turning his lip when he sees models or celebrities with the same nasal structure - it doesn’t look nearly as good on them as it does you.

And of course, your eyes - he’s spent more hours than he can count looking into them, unwilling to break the eye contact as he stares, fascinated with the color, how they shine in the light, how sunlight seems to make them glow, making you glow.

So while there’s not any particular thing Feitan can say makes you attractive, you just are - enough so that he’s found himself seeing flashing images of your face late at night, when he’s unable to sleep and polishing his weapons, letting his mind wander and inevitably stumble into thoughts of you. He’ll relive the way you look when you smile - your grin is wide, teeth exposed, the pretty skin of your lips all stretched to accommodate your joy.

You look good like that, and all too soon his innocent thought process of you is slipping into something sinister, something dirty and risqué, because now he’s imagining the way you’d smile up at him when he’s got you underneath him, your pretty little pleas and desperate begs for him to touch you making his skin tingle and his throat feel stuffy.

He’s imagining the way you’d lick your lips when he tells you to get on your knees, his cock mere inches from your face as he strokes himself, the eagerness and hunger in your eyes making him rush forward and bury himself down your throat in one go.

He’s imagining the way you’d look when he’s got you creaming on his cock, face pressed against the mattress and a mixture of tears and drool slipping down your chin, the pleasure just too much, even while your hips grind back on him, wanting more more more.

He just likes your face, finding it oddly pleasing, and when the two of you are intimate, he finds himself eagerly searching out your facial expressions as often as possible - it’s the way he knows what you like, if you’re enjoying what he’s doing to you, if he’s doing a good job.

So really, exaggerate the expressions, make it clear exactly what you’re feeling, and Feitan will be over the fucking moon - pounding into you with a new vigor, a sudden resolve to get you coming at least twice before he’s done with you. You’re just too attractive for him to resist, and he’s only a man, after all.

His hands

In general, Feitan is a fan of showing his feelings rather than articulating them, and even then only to an extent.

There’s only so far he’s willing to expose his vulnerability, and it just becomes easier and less scary to just show you, to let his actions speak louder. And despite it taking a very, very long time for him to grow comfortable enough to actually act on this philosophy, one of the first ways that he’ll settle into touching you is with his hands.

They’re rough, the skin calloused and scarred, pale fingers just the slightest bit off in certain spots, evidence of the multitudes of times he’s broken them. His fingers are lithe, nimble, quick and dexterous, evidence of his abilities with swords and the various tools he uses for work. And so, once he turns his hands onto you, you’ll notice all these things.

It starts small - a fleeting feeling of his fingers pressing against the small of your back, merely a ghost of a touch that leaves you wondering if you really felt anything at all.

He’ll reach out to flick at your forehead if you do something dumb (something endearing, but dumb), glaring at you and telling you to stop it, though his fingers are tingling where they made contact with your skin.

He’ll lightly lay his hand on your hip, or on your thigh, keeping it there for a few moments before snatching it back to his own side, his hand flexing and the muscles tightening up because god, did you like that? Did you like it when he touched you?

He gets in his head way too much about how you react to his touch, but the truth is that Feitan is incredibly touch starved, particularly when it comes to any sort of positive or romantic touch.

He’s a criminal and has grown up in horrible conditions, and he’s simply never cared. But now that you’re here, someone for him to live out all those cliche, stupid romantic tropes? Well, he can’t directly ask for your affection, but you’ll notice the way his hands lay on your body for just a beat too long, just enough to make you wonder whether that touch was really as innocent as he seems to think it was (it’s not, at least not as much as he wishes - every time his skin brushes yours, this spark of electricity dances up his spine, making him gulp and tense up, because while the feeling blooming in his chest is warm and good, it’s still foreign, still something he hasn’t quite gotten used to yet).

And even once he reaches the stage where he’s grown comfortable enough with the concept of being intimate with you to actually touch you, he still relies heavily on his hands. Particularly, Feitan grows an affinity for fingering you - he loves the way your cunt just seems to suck his fingers in, as if your body is begging for more and more of him, craving his touch and the pleasure only he can give you.

He’ll experiment a lot with you at first, curling his fingers or scissoring them, dark eyes appraising your face and checking for any changes in expression that could hint at what rhythm or area you like.

(You’ll wonder where he learned some of the motions he tries out on you - he’ll never admit to watching porn to learn some ideas, nor that he practiced them before trying them out on you, his hand sandwiched between two pillows as he diligently curled them, perfecting the ‘come hither’ motion or letting his thumb practice rubbing tight, firm circles against the cotton. No, he’d rather die than have you learn that - you can’t know how badly he wants to please you, after all.)

He likes to watch his fingers dipping inside you, the way they emerge all wet and glistening, a ring of white sitting right above his knuckles and filling him with pride.

(Often, he finds himself idly staring at his fingers after you’ve fallen asleep, your body sore and exhausted after the fucking he’d put you through. He’ll spread them, staring from all angles, remembering the feeling of your wet heat around them, how your walls clamped down on him, even how your lips and tongue flicked across them when he’d shoved them into your mouth earlier. He’ll bring them to his lips, idly sucking on them, trying in vain to get every last drop of you off of them, so that he can taste you for just a moment longer, just to satisfy himself for as long as he can.)

He’s a late bloomer and it will take him a long while to reach the point of being willing to touch you sexually (though he wants to from pretty much the get-go, much to his embarrassment), but once he does, you’d better get used to the feeling of his hands against your skin - after all, he’s insistent, and you do not want to reject his touch. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll just moan and sigh and tell him it feels good, because Feitan is just so much more agreeable when he’s happy - you’ll get to come that way, too.

DRIVE:

Generally speaking, Feitan’s libido has never been especially high. Sex has never been a priority for him, and even once his days as a Troupe member begin, this doesn’t change. He doesn’t see the attraction to sleeping around, to fucking random women just for a few minutes of fleeting pleasure.

It’s just so much work to be around others, to have to communicate and hear their complaining when he doesn’t put effort into making them feel good – it’s just not fun, not something he wants to spend his time with. And so, while Feitan is certainly no saint, he doesn’t actively seek out sexual partners. And he especially doesn’t seek out touching another person, letting himself be touched, becoming vulnerable in any possible way.

So, once you step into his life, this self-inflicted celibacy doesn’t really change all that much. Of course, the idea of touching you is significantly more attractive than it would be to touch a random stranger, but Feitan is still not especially eager to fuck you once his obsession develops.

He’s a bit of a late bloomer, taking a while to let his emotions warm up to you. In doing so, it takes a long, long time for his sexual urges towards you to appear, because Feitan prides himself on having good self control. But once he fully gives in to the fact that he wants you, in a way that’s entirely new and scary and foreign to him, the urges begin appearing.

The idly thoughts wondering what you’re wearing, what you’re thinking about, if you’re in the mood… He’s still not as horny as some of his fellow Troupe members, but Feitan begins regularly imagining fucking you, the thoughts seemingly popping out of nowhere and completely unannounced.

Frankly, it’s irritating; why is he imagining you without a shirt on when Phinks is telling him about the latest job Chrollo had paired them up for? (It’s a pain in the ass to hide the slowly growing tent in his trousers from the blond - he always just seems to know, and Feitan would rather die than be subjected to the never ended teasing.)

Why is he imagining the way your lips would feel wrapped around his cock when he’s slicing off that man’s head, the cut clean and clear yet the only thing he can think of being how your cheeks would hollow as you suck?

It’s annoying, and although he tries to fight it at first, he eventually gives up. There’s only so much he can stop himself from imagining, and as his obsession grows deeper, the perverse fantasies he holds towards you only grow more numerous, more pronounced, more longed for. He finds himself actively wanting to be intimate with you, and while he won’t act on that desire for a very long time, it’s left to quality sit, festering and brewing inside him until one day it’s all just too much, a dam bursting that forces him to finally take that last step, to let himself rest a hand on you or brush his lips against your cheek or graze his finger along your nipple.

He doesn’t move very fast, but Feitan’s in no rush - after all, you’re stuck with him for the rest of your life, and he’ll be the only other human you’ll ever interact with. By the time he’s ready to progress your relationship forward, you’ll likely have come around, desperate enough for human contact that you’ll want him to touch you, that you’ll want to touch him back.

Just the thought makes him gulp and flex his fingers, excitement and anxiety settling into his stomach, his cock growing half hard even as his mind winces.

However, because he has so many issues surrounding intimacy and vulnerability, Feitan will likely never actually force you into anything.

Because you’re likely to come around and develop Stockholm Syndrome by the time he’s ready to touch you, you’ll be more than eager to let his hand rest on your waist, or to let him stand behind you so that your ass is pressed against his crotch, the tent in his pants more than apparent. You’ll be ready, but until he’s ready, he has to find alternatives.

Because he’s still frequently experiencing sexual urges towards you way before he’s willing to act on them, Feitan finds himself quite sexually frustrated. He has all these dirty thoughts, all these possessive, insistent feelings urging him to just take you, to stake his claim on you by stuffing you full of his cock and cum, and he has to release them somehow.

And so, he falls back on a method that he isn’t necessarily proud of, but does find some sick, twisted sense of pride and amusement from. That is, because he’s the one supplying literally everything to you once you’re trapped under his roof, it’s not so hard to tamper with some of the ingredients of your essentials.

Your conditioner, for instance; he buys you the brand you love (something he tells you is coincidence but most certainly isn’t), and as he opens the cap and smells it one day while you’re asleep in the next room over, he can’t help but notice how creamy it is, how thick and how white it is.

It make shim gulp, and after quickly making sure to lock the bedroom door you’re trapped behind, Feitan shakily returns to the bathroom, exhaling deeply. It’s just a coincidence that the conditioner resembles something that he produces, right?

It’s an amusing twist of fate that your favorite conditioner (with the scent he can only describe as you) looks almost exactly like his cum, right?

Feitan thinks so, and as his mind wanders back to the little stunt you’d pulled earlier in the day, he finds himself settling onto the closed toilet lid, reaching into his pants and pulling out his cock, already drooling precum and sensitive to the touch.

You’d been laying on your bed, blanket barely covering your body as you slept, the skimpy pajamas you’d fallen asleep in in disarray on your figure. Your shirt had bunched up, letting one pert, supple breast slip out, your nipple on display, not even the blanket managing to cover it up.

(He’d froze when he noticed, slowly creeping closer, licking his lips and unable to stop staring.)

And those damn sleeping shorts, always getting moved around and never quite sitting right on your hips when you wake up, were twisted a bit, the holes for your legs angled just right so that if he looked the right way, he could see the very edge of your cunt, one lip covered with pretty pubic hairs, looking soft and warm and so fuckable.

You were asleep, and somewhere in Feitan’s mind he knows you weren’t doing it on purpose, but it’s hard not to blame you for being so indecent, for hoping to tempt Feitan into giving in. You’re such a fucking minx, all teasing and daring to show off your assets, and how was Feitan supposed to react to this? How was he not supposed to immediately grow aroused and flustered, unable to tare his gaze from your vulnerable body?

Eventually he’d managed to, shutting the door behind him and taking a few uneven breaths, trying desperately to not replay the image of your breast over and over in his mind. It’s no use, however, and as he splashes his face with cold water in the bathroom, that’s when his eyes land on the conditioner bottle.

His hand moves fast as he fucks his fist, hissing under his breath over and over as he steadily gets closer, driven forward by the idea of lewd it will be to have his cum in something as personal as you conditioner.

He can’t stop thinking about how you’d have no idea, waltzing around with his cum soaked into your pretty hair, maybe even making you smell like him - He’s groaning, the thoughts pushing him closer and closer to the edge, his orgasm hurtling forward as he imagines the way you’d lather it in your hands, humming and making sure every square inch of your hair is covered in it, covered in him.

He imagines the way you’d bring it up to your nose and deeply inhale, sighing because it’s your favorite scent, wondering why it smells a bit more musky than you remember, but not minding. Maybe you’d even like the new scent, and just the thought of that is enough to push him over the edge, a sharp growl slipping past his lips as he aims his cock right into the bottle, cum spraying all over the conditioner, the white colors matching perfectly.

He’s breathing hard, a seemingly never ending series of spurts coming from his swollen tip, and once he thinks he’s done, he grasping his length and lightly shaking it, lodging any loose bits of cum out, coaxing them to join the pile. Once done, he’ll gulp, letting a small smirk slip onto his lips as he closes the bottle, shutting the lid tight and shake the bottle, making sure to thoroughly mix it.

He won’t tell you about his little ‘gift’, of course not - but you’ll know something is up when he’s standing stiff as you exit the bathroom, towel wrapped around your body and wet hair having been marinating in the special mixture he made for you, and when he’s eagerly sniffing your head every chance he gets after that, you’ll have to realize something is amiss.

When he’s asking you if your hair feels particularly soft, you’ll have to know he’s trying to get at something, some layer underneath the surface that he’s really speaking about.

It’s enough to satisfy him for the time being, his possessiveness over you quelling ever so slightly because even though it’s not in your cunt, where it belongs, at least he’s got his cum somewhere on you - and until he’s ready to fuck you properly, that’ll have to do. It’ll become habit, and one day you may even stumble upon him midway through the process, your conditioner bottle an inch or so from his tip as he frantically tugs and pulls.

(He’ll freeze, unable to process that he got caught, and frankly, he’ll just try to ignore that you ever saw it, not willing to broach the topic - and you won’t be either, because what the fuck?)He just really, really desires you, and Feitan is a resourceful man - so I hope you like the smell of musk and a bit of iron, because you’ll be smelling like it for weeks.

MAIN THREE KINKS:

Orgasm Control

In general, Feitan has to be in control in the bedroom. It’s not that he’s particularly onto any dominant or submissive roles between the sheets, but more because he doesn’t like the feeling of vulnerability that accompanies letting other people pleasure him. Something about being at the mercy of someone else’s touch or whims makes him nervous, an unpleasant feeling blooming in his stomach that leaves him fidgety and jumpy.

And so, every sexual interaction with you will see him starring as the dominant role, always calling the shots, and nothing exemplifies this sentiment quite like the way he treats your orgasms. Despite not having a huge amount of sexual experience prior to his infatuation with you, he’s very obviously aware that both partners are capable of orgasming in any given sexual interaction, that it should be expected and achieved regardless of methodology.

With other women, Feitan wouldn’t care in the least – he’s selfish by nature, and if he were to ever have sex with anyone other than you, in no way, shape or form would he pay any mind to their pleasure, only chasing after his own release.

But with you, this sentiment is a bit different; he wants to get you off, if only because seeing the way your body responds to him, shaking and shivering and moaning and clenching, gets him harder, his breath more ragged, his palms sweatier. There’s something incredibly pleasing about seeing the way your body is sensitive to his every touch that makes him giddy, an odd mixture of power, arousal and eagerness filling him.

He wants to make you a mess, to get you gushing and creaming and whimpering as he fingers you, as he shoves his cock inside you, even as he tongues at your clit (eating you out isn’t something that happens often, but when it does, Feitan expects you to come from it). He likes the sight of you falling apart for him, and consequently, that desperation for power and control comes hurtling back – so that he is the one in control of your orgasms.

He wants to be the one choosing when, how, and why you’re coming, every one of your movements a result of him.

He tends to rely heavily on edging you, enjoying the way you squirm and beg for him to keep going. He’ll have two slender, nimble fingers buried inside of you, curling and scissoring, the stretch a bit painful but in a pleasure-tinged way, making your toes curl and your bottom lip catch between your teeth.

His thumb will rub consistent, steady circles at your clit, the little nub sore and swollen, and he’ll keep his ministrations up until you’re breathing heavier, your stomach and thighs clenching, the telltale signs that you’re nearing your high.

(He’s very, very good at reading your body when it comes to your sexual pleasure – he’s spent so long stalking you that he’s seen you touching yourself more times than he can count, and while watching the way your cunt takes the toy is very, very difficult to tear his eyes away from, he’d made sure to study every other part of your body, too. He’s watched the way your face morphs as you get closer, your brows shooting up and your lips parting a bit, your eyes fluttering and threatening to close as the pleasurable knot in your gut grows tighter and tighter and tighter. He’s watched the way your legs shake, the muscles in your thighs visibly twitching and clenching, trying desperately to close and clench together, prompting him to imagine how they’d feel around his head, around his waist, around his cock. He’s even noticed your breathing, how you sound, the way your voice gets higher and more breathy, your moans increasing in intensity until you let out this sudden, strained gasp that gets him swallowing harshly, a thick pearl of precum dripping from his tip from the mere sound.)

He’s constantly observing you even while he's intimate with you, those dark eyes never wavering from your form, and he’ll bring you right to the edge, noticing with a tightness in his throat that your legs are starting to tremble, that your voice is climbing up, that you’re starting to get all gaspy and your abdominal muscles are clenching, and god, you’re squeezing around his fingers so damn tight –

The confused, desperate whine you let out when he suddenly pulls his fingers out of you makes him smirk a bit, the way your watery eyes blearily blink up at him, half clouded in lust and disappointment making him reach out to pinch at your pebbled nipple. Not yet, one more time. He’ll tell you, laughing a bit as you whine and gulp, chest heaving and your fingers twitching. He’ll make you wait, maybe even reaching down and jerking himself off a bit, making a show of hissing under his breath and making sure that you can see him, hearing the wet noises as he flicks his wrist and imagines it’s your sweet little pussy wrapped around him rather than his own fingers.

He’s embarrassingly sensitive when he does this, his own touch making him buck his hips as he stares down at you, spread before him, underneath him, where you belong. He’ll make sure to give enough time that you come down from your sensitivity, before resuming his ministrations, making you gasp and bite your lip.

He’ll keep doing this over and over and over, denying you of your orgasm some five or so times before he finally, finally decides that you’ve behaved well enough, that you deserve to feel good. (Often, what finally gets him to cave in is the fact that he too is very close, and while it’s cliché and stupid and a bit pathetic, he really likes it when you both come at the same time, your orgasms matching up so he can feel like you’re doing it together.)

He’ll work you through it, not stopping his motions, which brings up another aspect of how Feitan likes to tease you and assert his control over you – he doesn’t like overstimulation quite as much as denial, but he’s not shy about going faster, harder, his motions seeming almost frantic as you start whining and shaking, going on about how it’s too much, Feitan it’s too much I can’t!

He’ll just growl and shut you down, slapping (not too hard) your clit and seeing you way you jerk, telling you to shut up and take it, you’ve done it before. He likes seeing your eyes get all teary, your body spasming and shaking even harder, the overstimulation making you cry out his name with a renewed fervor.

(He’d never admit it, but that’s one of his favorite parts – he never pegged himself to be a fan of loud moans, but there’s something about the way that you do it, when it’s his name you’re moaning, that makes him throb, his cock twitching without any stimulation. You sound so destroyed, so wrecked and utterly desperate for him that it makes his head spin, his chest filling with pride and lust and satisfaction because you do need him, and your body is just proving that.)

He’s cruel, often pulling three or four orgasms from you every time he touches you, those dark eyes staring unblinking down at you, almost studying you as you fall apart on his cock, on his fingers, on anything he chooses. It makes him feel good to know that he’s in full control, that he can choose when you come – it shows his place above you, helping him to justify the fact that he’s pleasuring you, that he’s taking the time and effort to make you feel good when he really doesn’t need to.

He’s just being generous – you should be grateful he even cares about your pleasure at all.

(Say thank you to him as you orgasm and he’s gone – cum is dripping down your skin or out of your pretty hole before you can process what’s even happening, the man above you gasping and heaving, trying desperately to make sure you don’t see the slight red staining his cheeks.)

He wants you to follow his commands, so just let him do as he pleases – you’ll come eventually, most of the time.

Bondage

Tying into his preferences for holding control in the bedroom, Feitan has a certain affinity for seeing you restrained.

There’s something about the way your body is presented to him when you’re all tied up that gets him feeling hot, his hands twitching and yearning to reach out and touch you. He’s not picky about what he uses to bind you – the tried and true rope is never displeasing, and the variety of pretty knots and positions he can force you into this way leave him nearly drooling at all the different sexual fantasies he can carry out with you.

He’s particularly fond of tying you up in ways that are just the slightest bit humiliating, positions that make your neck and cheeks feel hot, embarrassment eating away at you because god, everything is exposed.

He likes when your legs are spread, a bit of rope keeping your calves firmly pressed to your thighs while your pussy is exposed to open air, the perfect amount of space between your legs for him to slip into. He likes when your breasts are free, jiggling and bouncing with every thrust, the rope digging into your sternum or ribcage as you moan and writhe.

(He also likes when the rope crisscrosses over your chest, digging into your nipple and making you whine in pain and pleasure, and when he undoes the ropes, he loves the way your nipples are so sore and swollen, a much darker color than they normally are and practically begging to be pinched at, to be twisted and pulled on until you’re a sniffly, moaning mess.)

He’ll often tie your wrists together behind your back, rope connecting from your waist to the back of your knees, keeping your legs bent while he forces your ass into the air, mounting you from behind and absolutely destroying you.

Rope is his favorite, if only because there’s something so familiar, so comforting in using it – of course, he never desires to fuck any of his victims, but he knows how to manipulate the material in order to get you bent the way he wants you to be.

And while he has no desire to do anything to you that he would to those he tortures, there’s something oddly sexy and taboo about the fact that he’s using the same kind of rope on you as he did to the man the other day. It’s dirty, sinful, if only because this is as close as he can come to mixing two of the things he loves most – you, and his job.

You’re safe this way, not liable to be cut or maimed or anything of the sort, but you’re still utterly at his hands, vulnerable to every whim or desire he wishes to enact on you. He likes how helpless you are when you’re tied up, unable to reach out or take control of your own pleasure, entirely reliant on him to do everything for you – something as big as stretching you out on his cock, or as small as pushing away a stray piece of hair in your face as he fucks your throat.

The power trip is insane, and while he won’t hurt you, just the knowledge that he could makes him harder than he’s ever been. He’s a fan of other alternatives to rope, too – handcuffs are fine, a bit too mainstream for him to use regularly, but in a bind it’ll do.

(Especially if he’s grown more comfortable with you, willing to show a more vulnerable side, because handcuffs give him less control and allow you to actively participate in your pleasure, letting you grind back against him or wrap your legs around his waist or any number of other things that can signal that you want him too.)

Silk ties are fine, and on days where he’s feeling a bit more sentimental or emotional, he’ll prefer to use these because there’s less chance of you bruising or getting any burns or rashes. (Plus, there’s something so fitting about you being shrouded in silk – you, who’s so weak and soft and dainty, matching perfectly with the fabric. It makes him snort a bit, because you always look like such an angel when you’re all tied up for him in this way – like a beautiful, naïve little angel just begging to be destroyed and tainted by his hands, a feat he’s more eager and impatient to accomplish than he’d care to admit.)

He’s even willing to use clothing to get you restricted – maybe the shirt you’d been wearing (his shirt, one he let you borrow, the one he finds adorable on you even if he’d never tell you) will get tied around your wrists, keeping them firmly above your chest as he sinks into you and squeezes his eyes shut, biting back the moan that threatens to tumble at his lips because you’re just so damn tight.

He’ll use your panties as a gag, though he doesn’t do this often because he really does like hearing your sounds – especially when they’re any sort of praise or his name.

(Often, after he’s stuffed the panties you’d been wearing past your lips, he’ll steal them back afterwards, sneakily storing them somewhere for later, for late at night when he’s standing over your sleeping form and breathing shakily, staring at you and rubbing the material – wet with both your spit and your slick – all over his cock.)

His preference is always to have you restrained in some manner, and it’ll only be once he feels as comfortable as possible with you that he won’t tie you up. To have you free means letting himself be vulnerable to your touches, and even your rejection of his touch, and just the thought is enough to get him nervous, having to wipe his slightly sweaty hands onto his jacket.

He’s had fantasies about fucking you without any restraints separating you before, but the moment it happens, you’ll notice that he’s oddly sensitive, his breath coming out harsher and more labored at touches that would normally leave him largely unaffected. It’s just so emotional for him, so scary and frightening, and he’ll stay inside you much longer than normal after he’s come, relishing in the warmth and wetness of you while your fingers maybe brush over his shoulders, maybe even running through his hair. It’s the sort of fantasy he’ll never, ever tell you about, though – and for now, he’ll stick with tying you up so that you’re easily accessible, provoking and arousing to stare at, and in no position to argue when he manhandles you into doing exactly what he wants.

Dry humping

While he has sexual, lewd thoughts about you from pretty much the moment he truly accepts his feelings for you, Feitan takes a very long time to begin acting on those feelings.

Even more, it takes him a long time to get comfortable enough to be naked in front of you, much less actually fuck you. And so, while this hesitancy persists, he finds himself using other routes to sate his growing desire to be intimate with you – routes that are less invasive, less opportune for embarrassing accidents (like coming too fast, or facing your rejection).

And while it still feels awfully pathetic, Feitan finds that the simple act of grinding on you is enough to satisfy his desires, at least for the time being – there’s just something oddly enticing about it, something arousing and the pleasure just dull enough to thwart him from coming within three or four minutes of touching you.

He doesn’t like initiating it, though, finding it a bit too pathetic, even for him, even for the way he feels for you. Instead, he holds his breath, hoping that every time you brush against him (normally by accident, your whole body freezing up the moment you realize what you’ve done) that you’ll do it again, because even just a single bit of friction between your (fully clothed) bodies is enough to get his neck feeling warm, the ghost of an erection springing to life in his pants.

He’s just so, so touch starved, and so as time goes on, he’ll start subtly trying to get into positions where you might accidentally grind on him, sometimes without you even realizing. He’ll make you pick something up off the ground, then choose the exact moment that you’re bent over and your ass is in the air to walk behind you, letting his hips just barely graze against you.

He’ll manage to hold back the little strained noise he makes, but at some point you’ll notice that it’s happening much too often to be a coincidence, and you’ll eventually realize that the strange hardness you feel when he does this is actually him.

He won’t ever just grab you and rut into you, but god does he want to, especially when he sees your hips swaying, or when you’re sitting down, the fat of your thighs splayed out and your hips looking wide and full and perfect to grab onto.

He’s embarrassed by his own thoughts, but eventually you’ll probably realize what it is that he wants – you’ve felt the way he tries to subtly make it happen, and while you were at first confused and shocked (you’d had no idea Feitan wanted anything sexual with you, as he’d never made a mention of it or acted in a way that would suggest it), you eventually start getting a bit brave, too.

You don’t love Feitan, far from it, but you’ve been trapped with him for enough months to start craving any form of human contact, and so you’ll pounce – Feitan can’t help but sharply inhale when you grind back against him one day while you’re bent over, the feeling of your ass moving against his cock making him struggle to breath.

He’s not sure what you’re trying to do, too pessimistic to let himself believe that you’re the one grinding on him, but one day you’ll find yourself sitting next to him on the raggedy old couch, the TV playing some mindless horror movie that Feitan had thrown on, and your hand will just sort of move on its own, slowly, carefully placing itself very lightly over his thigh. He’ll tense up at the sensation, dark eyes flicking between your hand and your face, your own gaze nervously set on the TV in front of you.

It’s silent for a moment, but when he doesn’t move your hand, you’ll get braver, turning to look at him and asking in a soft, unsure voice if you can sit in his lap. Feitan doesn’t know how to respond, simply staring at you with narrowed eyes, wondering if this is some sort of trick – but eventually he’ll nod, telling you to be careful, don’t try anything.

You’ll position yourself so that your ass is pressed against his crotch, his thighs on either side of your hips, but you don’t lean back, even when you hear Feitan inhale slightly, having leaned forward to smell your hair. It’s a good twenty or so minutes later when you begin moving your hips slowly, nervously, listening to hear for any displeased noises or harsh commands for you to stop your movements.

Feitan is frozen behind you, staring at your hips and trying to understand what you’re doing – he likes it, but he doesn’t like the way his body is reacting, blood slowly starting to head south at the slight friction, at the way you’re so damn close to him, at the way he can smell you and can feel the heat radiating off your body.

It’s all too much, and suddenly he’s telling you to get off me, before quickly storming out of the room and locking himself in his bedroom.

His cock is in his hand within minutes, memories of how you’d felt against him, even with layers of clothes separating you still fresh in his mind. You’ll be left to believe he didn’t like it, that you’d totally misinterpreted his actions, ashamed and a bit afraid for how he’d respond moving forward.

Except, there’s no grand punishment, no mocking you for your actions – instead, the next night he turns on a new movie (still horror, gory and full of screaming and killing) and looks over at you expectantly.

His legs are spread this time, leaving a space between them, and for a moment you’re confused, unsure of what he wants. He just raises a brow at you, unwilling to articulate what he’s wanting, hoping you’ll understand it without him needing to say it.

You’ll shuffle closer, still staring at him, but soon he’ll just grumble, a hand reaching out and pulling you down to sit between his legs before you can even realize what’s happening. You’re stiff and unsure, unwilling to relax, and Feitan doesn’t like this. He wants you to move like you did last night, and after a few minutes of you sitting stone still, he’ll hiss into your ear do it again.

You’ll start slow, testing the waters, and you nearly jump when you feel Feitan’s hand ghost over your waist, setting his fingers against your shirt as if wanting to fully touch you, but not quite letting himself. He’ll occasionally tell you to go faster, the movie still playing in the background, the feeling of his cock digging into your tailbone making you a confusing mix of scared and aroused.

Eventually, he’ll let out this strange, unusual little sound, something like a grunt but much higher and strained, and you’ll feel something warm and wet pressing against you. Don’t mention anything, because Feitan doesn’t want you to say a damn word, not wanting to admit that the feeling of you grinding on him for roughly seven minutes has him coming in his pants, cum covering his cock and getting him all sticky.

He’s embarrassed, but it will become something of a ritual between the two of you – every time he turns on a movie, it’s your place to sit in his lap (eventually you actually will sit in his lap, fully on his lap, not just pressed against him, though this takes some time) and to gyrate your hips at that certain rhythm he likes, all up until you feel him tense up beneath you, seeing his fingers clutching at the couch cushions at your sides.

It’s a slow buildup into any sort of sexual activity between the two of you, but Feitan likes this, something about the intimacy making him extra sensitive, the feeling of you actually touching him (even peripherally, with clothes separating the two of you) making him feel lightheaded and airy. He likes it, and this will be the jumping off point for him to begin getting bolder, to begin letting himself actually fuck you, to finally do what he’s been craving for months.

And once you become aware that he likes it, please start imitating it – give him look and ask if you can um, sit in your lap?

He’ll almost always say yes, even if he’s in the middle of doing something, even if there’s not even a chair or couch nearby – he'll rush (not running, but very, very nearly) to the nearest surface, swallowing hard and staring at you, growing impatient when you don’t move fast enough for him.

Often, he’ll already be half hard, and while he prefers when your back is facing him, if you were to climb into his lap so that you were straddling him? Well, Feitan finds it much harder to look you in the eye, because now it’s your cunt grinding down on him rather than just your ass, and that’s much different, isn’t it?

Even once he’s progressed to stage of actually being willing to touch you, of being willing to let you touch him, Feitan still enjoys when you hump at him. And he particularly enjoys humping you, though he’s only willing to do this in the dead of night, when you’re fast asleep, your body ripe and vulnerable for him to touch, to explore, to use.

He doesn’t want you to be awake and see the way he crumbles when he drags his cock along the curve of your ass, if only because he doesn’t want you to see how pink his cheeks get, how he starts mumbling under his breath, how his every muscle is flexing and straining because he wants to go faster, needs to go faster, but he can’t risk waking you up.

It’s his dirty little secret, so you’d better start working on your stamina for grinding onto him – sure, he doesn’t last long, but he expects it often, and you can’t exactly refuse him.

Or else.

OTHER NOTABLE KINKS INCLUDE:

Begging

Feitan likes knowing that you want him. He feels so inferior and weak for having developed such strong, scarily dependent feelings for you, and it makes him feel good, satisfied, justified when you beg for him, all whiny and desperate for his touch, for his body, for his cock.

While he’s not particularly vocal between the sheets, he likes when you are - your voice is sultry when it gets all airy and gaspy, your little praises and pleas for him to go faster or please don’t stop making him double down and go harder, his desperation to please you driving him forward.

He won’t ever explicitly ask you to beg for anything, but you’ll be able to tell that he likes it.

You’ll see the way his eyes widen just a hair, the way his dark bangs settle over his forehead as he dips his head down, the exertion of moving his hips or wrist faster making him squeeze his eyes shut.

You’ll feel the way his thrusts get more insistent, hips slapping against yours while his balls clap against your ass, the sound lewd and only getting faster the more you beg.

You’ll be able to hear it in the way his breathing starts getting ragged, no amount of stamina adequate for hearing you beg for him, for him to touch you and pleasure you.

He wants to feel needed in the context of your sexual pleasure, as if you can’t get off without his help, as if you’re incapable of bringing yourself to orgasm when he so easily manages it. It’s unrealistic and he knows it, but he’s able to immerse himself in the fantasy of you wanting him when you’re begging him, able to delude himself into believing, if only for a bit, that you’re just as frantic for his love and affection as he is yours.

If you really want to get him going, a surefire way to have his cock springing to life and his heart lurching into his throat is to praise him a bit, then following it up with a plea for him to keep going. Tell him that it’s s’good, you feel so good Feitan, please don’t stop, just like that, fuck!

Tell him that you belong to him, that you’re his, that your cunt is his cunt, that you want him to come inside, that you need more more more. He might tell you that you’re greedy, grunting out something about you being a greedy slut, but the twitching of his cock inside you and the way his fingers tighten their hold on you will show you that he isn’t as unaffected by your words as he’d like to pretend.

He really just likes knowing that sex affects you just as much as it affects him, so please, please beg him - he’ll almost always do exactly what you want, almost like it’s a reward.

(After all, just getting to touch you is reward enough for him.)

Sensory deprivation

Because it takes Feitan so long to grow comfortable with letting himself be truly vulnerable with you (especially in the context of sex), he finds ways to get around this mental roadblock, so that he can experience everything he wants to without giving up any of his control.

And one of his favorite ways to do that is to limit your senses - specifically, Feitan loves to blindfold you. He doesn’t really want you to be looking at him during sex, too nervous and awkward and embarrassed, because once he gets inside you, his control over his facial expressions, his bodily responses, his everything is severely limited.

It takes all his will power to stop himself from coming prematurely, especially towards the beginning of his sexual relationship with you, and he’ll be damned if he lets you see the way his face crumples when he slips inside your wet heat, his dark brows drawing together and lips parting, eyes squeezing shut while he wills himself to calm down, to take deep breaths and not let himself get carried away.

He doesn’t want you to be able to look at him, but he wants to be able to see you - he wants full viewing pleasure of your body, and while this method does block seeing your eyes get all glassy and pleasured, it’s better this way.

This way, he gets to stare at the way your tits bounce as he fucks you, the soft fat jiggling and practically begging to be groped and squeezed at.

This way, he can stare at your ass he pounds into it, grabbing a handful of cheek in each hand and kneading the fat, spreading them apart and taking a peek at your pert, cute little asshole, seeing the curve and arch of your back.

He can let himself relax more this way, allowing his face to present every emotions and sensation he’s feeling, and he can let himself indulge in some of his more embarrassing urges - like reaching out to cup your hips when your bodies are facing each other, his fingers never quite brushing your skin but awfully close.

He’ll lean in close as if to kiss you, letting his breath fan over your lips but never actually closing the distance, just indulging in the smell of you and the idea of kissing you. He’s still very reserved, but this way he can do all the things he fantasizes about when he’s alone at night, his mind wandering to you and his body growing cold and lonely.

Plus, Feitan gains a certain amount of control this way - he gets to choose what happens to you, and because you can’t see anything, you’ll have no idea what’s coming next.

Will it be his hands, a vibrator, his cock?

You won’t know, and Feitan likes it that way - he wants to keep you guessing, to leave you unsure and awaiting his next move with baited breath.

He just likes how dependent you are when he’s got the black blindfold tied around your eyes, so you’d better get used to it - he’s not good at compromising, after all.

BIGGEST FANTASY:

While Feitan doesn’t harbor any desire to hurt you, there’s a certain allure that blood holds for him.

Of course, he doesn’t want to actually draw blood from you (the thought of you being in pain because of him makes any boner of his die immediately), but he discovers - by accident - that there’s a solution to mixing the two.

There’s a way to combine the two things that turn him on most - you, of course, and the slightest bit of blood - in a way that is safe for you yet still arousing, still enough to get him panting and his trousers feeling uncomfortably tight.

That is, Feitan discovers that he absolutely loves getting intimate with you while you’re on your period. It doesn’t matter if you get horrible cramps, mood swings, or are even totally unaffected - you’re sensitive, body needy and practically begging to be mounted and fucked, and who is Feitan to deny you?

Once he grows comfortable with intimacy, you’ll never be able to pull him away from you once the blood shows up in your panties. He’s obsessive, tracking your period for you, making sure that he knows the exact days that you’ll be starting and stopping.

He likes the way you respond to his touch so easily, your pretty pussy all messy and red and puffy, even the slightest touch making you buck your hips and gasp his name.

It’s euphoric, and when he slips inside you it becomes incredibly difficult to not immediately orgasm - you’re just so wet, so warm and wonderfully lubricated, and the sight of blood staining his cock when he pulls back to thrust back in makes his head spin.

You’re perfect when you’re menstruating, and you’ll notice he’ll be in a much better mood once you shyly report that it started, could you pick up some more pads for me? (He toys with the idea of actually collecting your blood, investing in one of those menstrual cups that you can remove once it’s full, just because the concept of drinking it is enough to make him fidget, the thought taboo and dirty and so very enticing.)

You can’t really say no to him normally, but you especially can’t deny him when it’s your time of the month - you will be getting fingered, fucked, even facefucked, if only because Feitan needs you, your pretty blood and pretty body making him go crazy in a way he didn’t think possible.

You make him go crazy in ways he didn’t think possible.

“Feitan, I - we can’t, not tonight.” You tell him, averting your gaze away from his as his hands grab at the old t-shirt and short you’re wearing. Unconsciously, your hand travels to your stomach, laying idly and making Feitan’s eyes narrow.

“Why not?” He asks, his voice clipped and suspicious. You didn’t often tell him no, and although there’s a bit of doubt swimming in his chest, he wants to know why you’re suddenly not welcoming his touch. You’ve reached the point of leaning into his cold, harsh hands, so why’re you suddenly being so standoffish? He doesn’t like it, and his hands stay idly resting on your shirt hem.

You’re embarrassed, he can tell, but he doesn’t drop the issue. Instead, he lets the silence sit heavily over the two of you, waiting for you to fill in the space.

“Well, um, you see…” You start, before squeezing your eyes shut and squeaking out, “My period started yesterday and it’s too messy.”

Feitan blinks at you, unsure what to say. Your period? You were bleeding?

“Okay, and?”

Your eyes peel open, daring to sneak a glance at your captor, who only stares at you, unimpressed. “Well, I mean, it’s going to be messy and gross and it probably smells bad and -”

“Shut up, we’re doing it.” He cuts you off, hand yanking at your shirt to bring it over your head. You grimace, already nervous for him to take off your shorts, because although you’re sure he knows what a period is, you’re sure he’s never actually been around a woman menstruating. Or at least, not sexually.

Actually, you’re pretty sure he’s never been with a woman sexually in any capacity.

He’s yanking at your shorts next, pulling down the material even as you voice your protests, but one scowl from him has you shutting up, embarrassment pricking up your spine as he grabs your thighs and manually spreads them, the scratchy blanket covering the bed biting into your ass.

He’s staring, dark eyes a bit wider than normal, and you feel yourself shrinking in on yourself, the embarrassment eating you alive. Why was he staring? Why wasn’t he doing anything? Why wasn’t he saying anything?

“Feitan..?” You mumble, biting your lip and letting your arms cover your bloated stomach. He doesn’t respond, but you feel his grip on your thighs tighten, to the point where you think you might see bruises tomorrow.

His eyes slowly, painstakingly, drag up from your exposed cunt to meet your face, and to your surprise you see the slightest dusting of a blush on his cheeks, as if he too was embarrassed. But before you can say anything, he’s rushing forward, lips pressing against yours in a messy, clumsy kiss, full of teeth knocking against teeth and too much spit. You’re not sure what’s gotten into him, but just as soon as he rushed in he’s pulling back, instead moving to bring his face level with your leaking hole.

Feitan can’t stop staring - there’s blood everywhere, and while he’d normally be thrown into a state of panic at seeing so much of your own blood staining your skin, somehow this is different. Somehow the sight of it staining your pussy, the red color all along your inner thighs and part of your asscheek making his mouth water, his cock already painfully hard. It’s so pretty - red against your skin, your lips visibly swollen, your little clit engorged and peaking out. You look good, like something he wants to taste, and before he knows what’s happening he’s diving forward, tongue licking a long stripe up your slit.

You taste like iron and musk and something oddly sweet, and immediately he’s diving in to taste more, tongue lapping at you like some dog in heat as he keeps his fingers firmly digging into your thighs. He can barely hear your sound of shock at his actions, too overwhelmed by your taste and your scent.

“F-feitan, stop!” You manage to force out, eyes squeezed shut as your hips shake and stutter. “It’s too much, I’m too sensitive, I can’t!”

Feitan stops at that, pulling away from your body with blood smeared all over his lips, chin and nose, staring at you with a look in those wide, dark eyes that makes you shiver. He looks like an animal like this, something primal and carnal - and when your eyes peek down to see his cock - throbbing, bright red and stiff against his stomach - you can’t help but feel as if you’re some sort of prey caught in his jaws.

“Not too much, you will survive.” Is all he says, before he’s resuming his actions, bringing a finger up to prod inside your walls while his tongue gets to work on your clit. His fingers curl and rub, but you’re so damn tight, your walls impossibly clenched, and it makes Feitan grunt against you. You’re even wetter inside than normal, the blood practically running down his hands in copious amounts, making it remarkably easy to slide his fingers in and out. Almost too easy, it would seem.

You’re blabbering his name, the stimulation hurtling you towards your orgasm much quicker than normal, your heightened sensitivity and emotions turning you into a moaning, whimpering mess. And Feitan loves it - those dark eyes are peering up at you from over the crest of your pelvic bone, blood tinging his cheeks and visible to you.

When he angles his fingers to press against the spongey, sensitive spot he knows you love, you suddenly gasp, a hand flying to tangle into his hair, the other gently pinching and rolling at your nipple.

“Feitan, oh fuck Feitan ‘m gonna, I’m gonna come-!” You’re squealing, something that makes Feitan cock a brow, the pure desperation in your body as you squirm under his touch making him feral, his hips beginning to rut against the bed before he can even think about it. You just look so sexy like this, with your nipples swollen and sensitive, your cunt all warm and wet and sweet, and he’ll watch with wide eyes as you orgasm around him, your walls clenching down so hard that they force his fingers out, his tongue and the circles he’s drawing on your clit the only thing grounding you. Your back arches fully up off the bed, tits thrust out into the air, and Feitan bites back a groan as his own pleasure hits a peak, the blanket ruined as cum oozes from his tip and seeps into the fabric.

You’re shaking, literally fucking shaking, and Feitan finds himself trembling too, his hands not as steady against your skin. If he’d known you would taste like this, how sensitive you’d be, how easy it is to get you orgasming while on your period, he would’ve done this long ago.

You’re out of it, blinking up at the ceiling and heaving uneven breaths, but even as sensitive as he is from his last orgasm, Feitan is quickly shuffling to his knees, grabbing the base of his cock and sinking into you, face contorting into something between a grimace and a gasp. You’re so damn warm, and he groans lowly as he sees the way his cock has pink slick all over it when he pulls back, a mix of your blood, your slick and his cum decorating his length.

Fucking you is heaven, the way you clutch at him and writhe, nearly screaming his name as you come on his cock, and Feitan can only grit his teeth and go harder, spurred on by the way your walls are caressing his length, massaging and gripping like a fucking vice.

It feels good, and by the time he’s emptied himself inside you, he’s already made a mental note to mark down when your next period will be - just so he can get ready, so that he can get prepared. So that he can prepare you, too, because you won’t simply be allowed rest after the first night.

God no, not if you’re like this the whole time.

#yandere hxh #yandere hunter x hunter #yandere feitan #yandere feitan portor #hxh smut #_lee's profiles #_hxh #_feitan portor

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photo1030 · 11 months

Text

Leather and Lace - Chapter16: Feelings Revealed

PART 2 - WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Summary: After Arthur’s rejection, tensions run high between the two of you and decisions need to be made.

*As always, special thank you to my best-y @rivetingrosie4 for beta-reading and all the helpful notes & encouragement.

*Full disclosure: The line about “the moon and stars” further in the story is based on a meme I read. And I have images from @red-dead-simp and @regwishesshehadmagic in here.

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*This stunning image comes from @red-dead-simp

Tag List: @rivetingrosie4 @bimbo-dollz @pine4pple-b0i @redwritr @kuri-chans-blog @queer-sadie-adler @joelmillerswifey @gimmethosedaddymilkers @pcotarelo @delilah-grimes @maemortem @wistfulwisteriawitch @lilacxxdreams @mentallyillfrogs @absolutegeek @spurz @sophiaj650 @uniqueclodzinevoid @lookingformaurice @pawoui @randomidk-123 @yyiikes @eddiemetalheadmunson @twola @kmartkiddieisle @red-dead-simp @regwishesshehadmagic

*I tagged people who expressed interest in the continued story. If you’d like to be added or removed, please let me know.

The ride back to camp from the overlook is terribly awkward. Your mind is blank and foggy and your body numb as you sit slightly slumped in Blue's saddle. You are reeling from the preceding events. You keep your horse moving at a quicker pace to stay ahead of Arthur's as you head home. Any time that you hear him approaching closer to you, your muscles tense up and you spur your heels into Blue's side to encourage him to go just a bit faster to maintain the distance between you. You can't even bring yourself to look at Arthur for fear of shattering into inconsolable pieces out of humiliation.

For Arthur, the entire ride back is riddled with regret and second-guessing. He casts his gloomy eyes on your backside the entire way home, without so much as a glance back or sound from you. It causes his heart to break in two. And oh, how he wants to give the other half of it to you. But as he looks down at his gnarled hands and the worn metal of the guns that hang so naturally on his hips, he knows this is the way it has it be. He is going to keep you safe, whether you like it or not. You may hate him for it, but at least you'll be alive to do it.

When you hit the treeline of the camp, you push Blue just a bit faster and lead him to the far end of the hitching posts, determined to stay as far away from Arthur as you can for the time being. You quickly dismount, with the hair on the back of your neck standing up as you feel his eyes watching you, while keeping your back to the man. Once you have Blue settled in for the day, you make haste to head to your tent, walking briskly and keeping your head down. Your eyes stay focused along the soft grass at your feet, desperate to avoid any attention from anyone else in camp. Somewhere in the distance, you can hear Karen calling your name, but you pretend not to hear her. You are not in the mood for visiting and carrying-on with your friends right now.

As soon as you reach your tent, your trembling fingers fumble to draw the sides down, a clear indication that you do not want to be disturbed. You can only hope that no one hears you sobbing quietly within the canvas. You are numb, totally and completely, as you fold your arms around yourself to keep from shaking. You cannot wrap your swimming mind around what has just happened. You poured your heart out to Arthur. You literally begged the man to be with you. And he rejected you. And worse yet, he basically severed himself from you in the process.

Arthur slowly climbs down from his own horse upon arrival, and silently watches you walk away and head to your tent. Regret coats his insides like water pouring over a river rock. But he doesn't have time to wallow too long. The man isn't even in camp for five minutes and Dutch is calling his name. He lets out a heavy groan, accompanied by a long sigh, at the sound of Dutch's voice carrying through the camp. Dutch is the last thing he wants to deal with right now.

Of course, Arthur's heavy footfalls and scowl are lost on Dutch as he approaches the older man's tent. Arthur is his guard dog; Dutch is used to seeing him angry and sullen. In fact, he almost prefers it. Dutch needs him this way. Arthur stands in front of Dutch's tent, his gaze unfocused and mind wandering as Dutch speaks to him. The man's deep voice sounds muffled in Arthur's ear as he half-halfheartedly pays attention to what is being said to him, his mind somewhere else entirely.

"Think you can handle that?" Dutch's words finally catch Arthur's attention, snapping him out of his listless thoughts.

Arthur lifts his eyes to meet Dutch's expectant gaze. "Whatever. Just make sure the tip is solid and I'll make it work."

------------------

Arthur takes advantage of the quick job Dutch sends him on the day that you have confessed your feelings for him. He smartly uses the opportunity to give you some breathing room and time to calm down a bit. After checking in with Dutch upon his return, he heads over to his tent to put away his things and takes a minute to breathe. Arthur stands with his thumbs hanging from his gun belt as he surveys the camp, checking the state of things. His body naturally falls into this stance whenever he stands still for a moment. And right now, he is more weary than he’s been in a long while.

His wandering eyes eventually find you working alone in your med-tent. Your hair is pulled back and out of your face so you can work, but a few tendrils of soft locks have escaped and dangle to frame your face. Your hands move slowly, practically dancing around the bowl that has enveloped your attention. Arthur takes in the heavenly sight of you, standing in a simple white blouse and green skirt set comfortably upon your hips, mulling over what he should do, as he nervously chews his plump bottom lip for a moment. Eventually, he decides to see how things feel between you two and tentatively makes his way over to your med-tent.

Arthur kneads his thumb into the palm of the opposite hand nervously while he waits for you to notice him standing there outside the tent. He stands with an uneasy grin, fidgeting slightly. "Hey you.”

You briefly look up from the steaming bowl of herbs and boiling water that you are stirring, careful not to look him in the eye for too long. "What can I do for you, Arthur?" Your voice carries none of the usual excitement that he hears when you see him.

Arthur's face drops, disappointed with your short reply. He clears his throat to attempt to dislodge the knot there before trying to continue. "I was out earlier and found some of that yarrow and dandelion root you use all the time. Grabbed some for you." He reaches into his satchel and pulls out a bundle of the fragrant herbs. He carefully unwraps them from the white cotton rag he's kept them in and holds them out to you with his large hands. A hopeful look sits upon his brow as he cranes his neck a bit to see if this peace offering will get you to look at him.

"Thank you. You can set them down on the table there," you instruct softly, pointing to the end of the table with your wooden spoon. Usually you'd jump at the chance to take something from Arthur, seizing any opportunity to touch his hands and for your fingers to teasingly graze across each other’s. But not this time. And this deviation in your behavior isn’t lost on Arthur, either.

"I could take you out and show you where I found it, if you like? In case you need more?" He gingerly sets the bundle of plants down, watchful for your reaction.

“Actually, that bundle there will last me awhile. But thank you.” With a quick and awkward smile, you return your full attention to the steaming liquid in front of you.

“Sure” he murmurs, feeling crushed. Arthur stands there a moment longer, as there is usually some sort of chatter from you. You always try to utilize his attention as much as you can when you have it. But now, you venture nothing else for him. So he turns and walks away, his boots slow to move in the grass. He does not notice that you discreetly reach up to wipe a rogue tear that escapes and cascades down your cheek as he turns away.

And so it goes on this way for a few days. You speak to Arthur only when he speaks to you, and even then, it's simple exchanges. There's no more joking or banter between you. Gone are the stolen glances and discreet blushes when catching each other staring. You have no harshness towards him, of course. But you can't bring yourself to maintain the flirtatious nature of your relationship either. You are not mad at Arthur after your revelation at the overlook, nor are you mean to him. You simply treat him like anyone else. Which, as it turns out, is something that Arthur is not prepared for. He is used to your smiles and greetings just for him. He is used to being special to you. But now, Arthur is just like everyone else in the gang.

This change in the dynamic weighs heavily on Arthur. His feelings aside, he simply misses you. It's been a long time since Arthur has had someone he can talk to and confide in. For someone who is generally annoyed by other people, Arthur has found that he enjoys your specific company. Your conversations and activities together range from the profound and insightful to the delightfully mundane and ordinary. In fact, he has come to need your companionship to balance the negativity of his life. Your softness counteracts the harshness that he experiences every time he is away from you. He craves the blissful distraction that your honey-sweet voice offers him.

One afternoon, Arthur decides to make another attempt to talk about this precarious situation. He catches you by the laundry while you are hanging today's wash to dry. You notice him out of the corner of your eye making his way over to you and you can feel your stomach start to churn as you avert your eyes to the task at hand.

He stops just in front of you as his hand comes up to rub against his chin nervously. "Y/N? Can I talk to you a minute, please?"

With a blank stare, you say nothing in response. You slowly lower your hands from the clothes line, twirling the clothes pins in your hands in distraction.

"Look, I know you're not happy with me right now, and I understand that," he starts. "But I was hoping we could still be friendly and all." Arthur's sapphire eyes search yours, looking for some indication that you are willing to put this unpleasantness behind you both.

Nibbling on your bottom lip, you hesitate before you answer him. "Did you change your mind?"

"No," he shakes his head, glancing down at his boots. "No, I can't go about that. But I want things to just go back to how they were between us." Arthur is a simple man, and he is also a creature of habit. He is used to your presence in his life and, more importantly, the impact that you have on it.

“It doesn’t work like that, Arthur." You furrow your brows at him, finally speaking more than a few words at a time. "I understand your reasoning, I suppose. I don’t agree with it, but I accept it." You pause, looking down as your eyes begin to flutter at the emotional wave that you are trying to halt in your gut before you continue. "You’re allowed to feel what you do about it. I suppose I can’t be angry with you for that." Rolling the smooth wooden clothespins between your fingertips and inhaling deeply through your nose, you lift your chin to catch his gaze again. "But don’t expect me to act like nothing happened, Arthur.”

"I just can’t go down that road again, (Y/N)," he says, gesturing with his palm out, imploring you to understand. "Besides, I just want you to have a normal life."

With a slight shake of your head, you look up into his face. "Arthur, I have no interest in a 'normal life'. And besides, my life has been anything but normal already."

His only response is an eye roll before looking off to the side in frustration, trying not to start a fight with you again. The movement causes a pang of annoyance to strike in your chest as your hand plants onto your hip.

"I don't need your constant protection, Arthur." Your statement comes across a little more harshly than you intend to when you notice he is trying not to look you in the eye.

It is a comment that makes him slowly turn his face back to you with a sarcastic scowl. "Oh, I beg to differ on that one." God, the condescension is almost tangible.

You let out a deep and disappointed sigh as you study him a moment. "Nevermind. You just don’t get it." Shaking your head and dismissing this whole conversation, you bend over and harshly snatch up the laundry basket at your feet. You maneuver around him to head back to the tents and leave him standing there.

---------------------

By this point, you have become quiet and melancholy around camp. Everyone notices that you're not your usual bubbly self, as you seem to float through camp now, rather than be a part of it. Always observant, Abigail has had enough and pins you down to ask what the hell is going on with you.

"Why are you and Arthur so odd lately? Did something happen? Did you have a fight or something?" She eyes you suspiciously, handing you a cup of coffee while you and the girls take a break from chores and sit at one of the tables. The weather is still fairly warm today and everyone is bustling about to prepare for the oncoming colder months ahead.

You look over at Abigail with a woeful look as you accept the hot cup. "I told Arthur how I feel about him."

The girls all gasp in excitement, eager to finally talk about this thrilling topic. But your somber expression immediately halts their celebratory giggles.

"I don't understand, (Y/N), why aren't you more excited about this?" asks Tilly, leaning in closer to you from across the table to know more, astonishment draped across her cherub face.

You stare listlessly at the cup in your hands. "He turned me down. He said no."

“He said what?!” Abigail’s eyes shoot wide before quickly screwing down in confusion.

“No! Why would he say that?” breathes Mary-Beth in hushed wonder, bringing her hand up to her mouth in shock. She exchanges a confused glance with Tilly before looking back to you, anxious for details.

You shrug softly with a sorrowful smile. “He doesn’t think he’s good enough for me, I guess.”

“Well, duh, of course he isn’t!” Karen blurts out with a wave of her hand before it slams down onto the table with a loud clap next to you. “But let’s be honest, there probably isn’t a man alive who is.”

“He’s entitled to his decision,” you quietly repeat the worn excuse you had given to Arthur already. “Besides, he’s been hurt before. I suppose I can’t blame him.”

“This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard," argues Karen, her pouty red lips frowning. "Do you want me to go talk some sense into him, honey? I’ll put my foot in his ass and set him straight.” Her doll-like eyes burn with intensity as she crosses her arms over her chest in a huff.

“No, no." You can’t help but smile at your friend's defense of you as the image of Karen taking on Arthur makes you chuckle a bit. "I can’t force him to be with me and I wouldn’t want to anyway.”

“It just doesn’t make any sense, (Y/N),” Mary-Beth points out. “I mean, we’ve all seen the way he looks at you. And when you two are dancin’ by the fire… I wish I had that.” Mary-Beth is so sweet and always the hopeless romantic of your circle. And while all of the girls have been pulling for you and Arthur to be together, it is always Mary-Beth who is the biggest supporter of it. When you had your hang-over confession of your crush on Arthur after your drunken night out with Karen, Mary-Beth told you that you and Arthur are like a real-life story out of one of her romance novels. At the time, you dismissed the silly notion as nothing more than a foolish daydream. But, still, it was a comment that made butterflies flutter in your stomach.

With a dejected sigh, your chin lands into the palm of your hand. Your shoulders sink as you lean onto the table. "Well, doesn’t matter now, does it?"

There is an awkward stillness as this discussion settles amongst your little group. Frankly, the girls are speechless. But your quiet moment with the girls doesn't last too long before Ms. Grimshaw saunters over and disperses you all. As long as there is daylight, there is work to do, and she will make damn sure that it gets done. Dividing up the chores between you all, the matriarch ushers you and Abigail over to Pearson's wagon to start prepping vegetables for tonight's dinner. You grab yourself a cutting board and a bowl of potatoes and amble over to a small work table to start peeling.

Once she has Jack occupied, Abigail grabs a bowl of carrots for herself and sits down across the table from you. She watches you with a heartbroken and disappointed look as you set about your task. You and she have become quite close since you've come here to join the Van Der Linde gang. While she certainly cares for Arthur as her own family, she feels just awful for you. She knows how much you care for Arthur. It's so obvious in everything that you do. And she knows that you could make Arthur truly happy, too. 'Damn him,' Abigail thinks to herself. 'Why does he have to be so god-awful stubborn?'

"I’m sorry, (Y/N), really I am." Abigail's voice breaks the painful silence as the two of you work. You look up at her with the eyes of a puppy that's been kicked. "I don’t know what’s gotten into Arthur. I really thought he’d jump at the chance to call you his," she insists tenderly.

You nod in understanding, but honestly, the whole situation is becoming exhausting. You've tried so hard to come to terms with it, but it's becoming harder than you expected. “Maybe it was a mistake to come here," you admit softly, your voice slightly broken. "But back home in the east, I have nowhere to go, and I can’t go back to Rosewood." You reach into the bowl of potatoes again, your fingers working as you precariously drag the knife over the starchy vegetables. "But, I don’t want to be a problem here either, though. I’d leave here but I'm afraid to even do that." You cringe internally at how pathetic you sound, especially complaining to Abigail who has had her fair share of hardship in this world.

She observes you with a sympathetic click of her tongue being the only sound she is able to muster at the moment as you continue.

"You know," lifting your eyes back Abigail, "Arthur said I shouldn’t even be here. Suppose he’s right about that. As usual." You roll your eyes a bit. "I guess I just don’t belong anywhere."

Abigail reaches over the table and wraps her hand over top of yours. "Oh, (Y/N) please don’t say that. Of course you belong here." She affectionately squeezes your hand a bit more. "Don't listen to that fool. You're one of us now." Chuckling, she adds, "Whether you like it or not."

You finally stop peeling potatoes and give her a tired but appreciative smile. "It's times like this that I really miss my father, you know? At least we were misfits together.” Your face drops a bit at the memory of him. You and he came out west together to start a new life and, well, that is certainly what has happened. You have forged a new path for yourself with this gang of thieves and miscreants and found a new family within it.

But still, you miss your father terribly, as he was always your one true and unyielding ally in this world. There have been many moments where you have caught yourself in tears and heartache over his abrupt death. While the members of the Van Der Linde gang have been most gracious in welcoming you into their circle, that pang of sorrow still lingers like a fresh wound. And now in light of this situation with Arthur, it seems to have come back to the surface ten-fold as you're not sure what to do now. Your father was always such a kind and understanding man, very pragmatic. You’d give anything just to have his council again.

After the two of you are done helping Mr. Pearson with dinner, you head back to the privacy of your tent to nurse a throbbing headache, and Abigail wanders over to the fire with Jack in tow. While her boy plays with his wooden figurines at her feet, Abigail sits cross-legged on the ground with her chin in her hand, staring into the crackling flames with a contemplative scowl on her face. Soon enough, an all-too familiar raspy voice catches her attention.

"Oh boy, who's on your shit-list now?" jokes John as he playfully tugs on the few wisps of hair that hang from her loose bun and dance along the nape of her neck. He slowly lowers himself to sit next to her, leaning out onto his knees with his elbows. "I'm hopin' it ain't me." He bumps into her shoulder with a smirk.

She snorts in his direction. "No, for once, it's not you. It's that idiot brother of yours."

John listens to Abigail vent her frustrations out to him as she goes on for a good twenty minutes. (Honestly, it feels good to him to not be the target of her ire for a change.) And after hearing of what is going on between you two, John decides to talk to Arthur about it. He actually agrees with his woman for once and wants to see if he can nudge Arthur in the right direction. You and John may have gotten off on the wrong foot when you first came to join the gang, but since then, he has come to be quite fond of you. He appreciates the friendship you have provided for Abigail, and you’ve helped him to create a better relationship with her. And, as much as he and Arthur bicker, John has to admit that you are good for Arthur. Plus, if he doesn't talk to Arthur, Abigail certainly will. And John will try to spare his brother her wrath that he knows all too well himself.

John finds Arthur over by the horses, getting them fed and watered for the night before everyone settles in by the fires. He saunters over to Arthur, no announcement, no greeting. He just blurts out “Are you crazy?!"

Arthur halts in his movements, looking over his shoulder and giving John a confused look. "What in the hell are you goin' on about now, Marston?"

"You have a woman like (Y/N) throwing herself at you and you say 'no'?! Jesus, I don’t ever want to hear you talk about how stupid I am!” John plants his hands on his narrow hips as he scolds the man in front of him. Arthur just gives him another confused look. "Abigail told me," replies John. "Apparently (Y/N) is all upset and was talking to Abigail about it."

Arthur rolls his eyes to the sky. "Shit..."

"And before you get all mad at (Y/N) for blabbin', Abigail had to drag it out of her," John says quickly. "She was wonderin' why (Y/N)'s been actin' funny the last few days. "

"Oh..." Arthur sighs. He tosses the horse brush that is in his hand into the bucket at his feet and shoves his fingertips into his eye sockets in frustration. Great. Now the whole damn camp is going to know his business. "It ain’t that easy, Marston." He offers John his feeble excuse with a dismissive wave of his arm towards his brother.

John rolls his eyes in exasperation. "Well, what’s so damn hard about it, Arthur? She likes you, you like her - and don't tell me that you don't!" he quickly points his finger at Arthur before the man can even deny it. "It don’t get much easier than that!"

"What if..." Arthur's hand waves haplessly in the air, his eyes scattering across the camp, as he tries to find the words. "What if I get her killed? Huh?" A long, depressed sigh escapes his chest as he turns to lean his burly arms out over top of Buck's backside as he thinks. "Or, what if she decides that she really doesn't like me after all?" His chin turns back over his shoulder to meet John's questioning gaze again. "What then?"

"Well, that's a real possibility. I mean, I've known you for years and I still don't like you," John snickers.

"Don't be an ass," Arthur snaps back.

John proudly places his hand over his chest. "I can honestly say that for once, between the two of us, Arthur, I am not the ass in this situation here."

“She deserves better than the likes of me,” Arthur continues, flipping his hand about wildly again to indicate himself and the camp. And as he hears his own words hanging in the air, Arthur knows he's trying to convince himself more than John right now. Deep down, he's desperately trying to justify the huge mistake he knows that he is making.

“Well, that goes without saying." John walks a few steps closer to Arthur, casually patting Buck's hind quarters as he speaks. "But I say, if you really want (Y/N) to be happy, then just give her what she wants. And for whatever reason, that’s you, jack-ass." He looks his brother in the eye, an impish grin on his thin lips. "(Y/N) is not dumb, Arthur. Did you ever stop to think that if someone like her fancies you, then you can’t be all that bad?”

Arthur thinks on this for a moment, stunned by this idea. He's never considered it from that perspective. His vividly colored eyes dart around as the notion rolls about in his head. "You know, Marston, you may not be all that dense, after all."

John simply snorts in response. "Well, ain't that hard, considering the company that I keep."

"I can't believe I'm taking relationship advice from you of all people," Arthur mutters, as he draws his hand over his face in disbelief.

"I know, right?" John chuckles a bit as he slaps Arthur on the shoulder.

To Arthur's surprise, his talk with John actually makes him feel better. He decides to try to make things up to you, or to at least make the focused effort to go back to how things were before. But to his dismay, you resist his advances. You are trying to keep your distance from him at this point, avoiding him whenever you can, as you find that it's just too painful to be around him. You eat your meals in your tent, and you keep to yourself when you work. You are not unkind or rude to Arthur, using only simple one word answers when you have to talk to him. But there is no fondness or attachment with him as usual. The familiarity between the two of you has dwindled like a dying candle flame about to be swallowed in a bed of used wax.

You strategically place yourself the furthest away from Arthur whenever he is in camp, volunteering for any task that Ms. Grimshaw has available to keep yourself preoccupied. Grimshaw hates it when you girls are interrupted from whatever work she has dictated you to do. So you will use her iron-will to your advantage to shield yourself from Arthur if you can.

Aside from washing laundry all day, you run errands with Mr. Pearson, run scouts with Javier, and try to get out of camp altogether whenever you have the opportunity. You jump at the chance to go hunting with Charles any time he offers. In fact, you have come to rely on Charles quite a bit lately. Charles naturally has a calming presence about him and he has become a great comfort to you. He himself is also a bit of a loner and outsider in this group, and you have found a kindred spirit in him.

At one point you are in your tent cleaning up and turn to head out to find Charles. You are not paying attention, looking down as you shake out the jacket in your hands and you run right into Arthur, almost bouncing off of his chest. He has come to try to talk to you yet again, and corners you by your tent. He is standing in front of you with his thumbs tucked into his gun belt, as he usually does, but this time he has a slight scowl set upon his face, his eyes dark. If you didn't know him better, you'd be intimidated by his demeanor standing there.

You gasp, jumping slightly and placing a hand over your chest in surprise. "Jesus, Arthur! You scared the hell out of me!"

“Figured I had to sneak up on you lest you run away from me again," he retorts, his voice carrying a tinge of annoyance to it. "What, are you trying to make me jealous by hangin' 'round with other men, now?”

You halt at his accusation, your face twisting up. "Excuse me?"

“You’ve been hangin' 'round with Charles quite a bit lately." His eyes level at you with a cold and mirthless stare.

"Have I?" Your reply is sarcastically innocent. You do not care for his insinuation in the slightest, and now it is you who is getting annoyed.

"Yeah, you have," Arthur pushes. "You won’t go out hunting with me, but you’ll go out with him.” He juts his thumb over his shoulder back at the camp behind him.

“I like Charles," you counter harshly. "He doesn’t talk much. I don’t have to worry about stupid shit coming out of his mouth.”

"Is that a fact?" His slow drawl is clearly an indication that he is not amused at your statement.

"Yes, it is. Is that a problem, Arthur?" You are not about to back down from him, no matter how much he towers over you as he steps even closer to you now while you glare up at him bitterly.

He waves his hand at you in irritation. "No. No, you do whatever you damn well want.” You can tell he is getting riled up now, as his eyes are flashing, and you can see his jaw clenching, even under his beard.

“Good, because I plan to," you snap at him again. "Besides, what am I supposed to do?" You toss the jacket that you are still holding onto your cot behind you before crossing your arms defensively over your chest. "And where’s this coming from, anyway, Arthur? I thought you wanted no part of that?"

He just stares at you, not really sure what to say to that. The argument is right there on the tip of his tongue, ready to strike its ugly head. He wants nothing more than to grab you and hold you tight, never letting you go; needing you to just stop lashing out at him for a damn second. But he can’t. He just…can’t. So instead, he stands there like a mountain; silent and not moving.

Anger begins to build in your chest, causing the brows above your beautiful eyes to crease. You can feel your heart beating painfully faster as the adrenaline courses through your body. And you can sense that your mouth is about to pour forth words that will be an unstoppable waterfall.

"First there’s the glances, the lingering touches, taking me out places, talking to me all the time," you start rambling, your composure quickly crumbling now that you are speaking to him again. "Then all of a sudden acting like I'm nothing to you-“

"Hey! I never said you were nothing to me!” he interrupts with a shout as he takes another step closer to you.

"- only to be jealous, now?!" Your voice squeaks as it hits the louder decibel.

“I ain’t jealous and I never promised you anything! You’re the one who made it complicated!” He points his large finger in your face, mere inches from your nose.

"Right, my error. My miserable error for giving a damn about you!" Your arms shoot straight at your sides as your voice continues to rise in anger, your eyes dangerously brimmed with tears that threaten to spill forth and betray your hard front.

You lower your head to your hands, driving your fingertips into your temples, desperately trying to keep your brain from exploding. "What are you doing, Arthur?"

"What?" he snaps defensively.

"What are you doing to me?!," you holler at him, lifting your face back to his. "You want me here, but you don’t want me here. You don’t want me, but you don’t want me with anyone else, either. You can’t keep stringing me like that! What is it that you want, Arthur?!"

"I don’t know what the hell I want!” His voice roars into your face, standing nose to nose with you now, so close that you can feel his hot breath across your cheeks.

"Well that’s obvious," you say flatly.

And as you fearlessly hold his stony gaze, it occurs to you that you're going to have to let this fantasy of yours die. You've tried so hard to make him see what’s in himself, and to see you; to get him to see that your heart is here for his taking and, more importantly, that he deserves to be loved in return.

But he’s a broken outlaw. And you're going to have to come to terms with that and let him go. The reality of this idea painfully nets over your heart as your gaze flutters before it drops from his angry eyes to his heaving chest and finally falls to the ground to his dusty boots.

Defeated, your shoulders drop. You shake your head as you turn away from him, not able to look upon his face anymore. "Just…get the hell out of my tent, Arthur." Your tone is quiet and broken now after all of the yelling. He's done it. He's won the argument and finally gotten what he's been pushing you for. You're done with your childish fantasy of making this fearsome outlaw a partner to you.

Arthur stands there staring at your back for a moment, the corner of his eyes stinging slightly. Rage electrifies and radiates throughout his whole body as his hands flex in and out of a fist at his sides. Finally, he turns and storms away from your tent. "God damn it!" he mutters harshly to himself. Why is it that everything he touches turns to shit?

From where he's been watching this whole exchange, Hosea quickly stands up from his chair, alarmed, as he watches Arthur stalk angrily away from your tent.

“Arthur!” Hosea calls out, his face clearly laced with concern. For an "angry Arthur" is a "dangerous Arthur" for sure.

"Not now, Hosea!" Arthur snaps, waving the older man off without so much as a glance in his direction as he stomps off.

Arthur is so infuriated right now, he's not really sure what to do. He's irrationally upset with you. He keeps replaying that day at the overlook when you revealed your affection for him. Why in the hell did you have to do that? It ruined everything. The two of you could have remained friends, and if he longed for you, he could just do it secretly as he's been doing since he's met you. But no, you had to push the idea and now the two of you are either hollering at each other or not speaking altogether. Why did you have to come here and be so nice to him? Why did you have to make him fall for you?

But he soon realizes how foolish he is being, chastising himself. It's not your fault, but his. He never should have let it get this far. He should have kept his distance from you from the start. He should have known he’d be weak-willed and defenseless against someone as good and pure as you.

Arthur stalks back to his tent and as he does, he looks up and sees Charles sitting outside of his own tent. He's sitting upon a log as a makeshift chair, his attention acutely fixated on the materials in his hands. Looks like he is making more arrows. 'Probably so he can take (Y/N) out hunting again,' Arthur sourly thinks to himself.

Arthur walks over to Charles, knowing he probably shouldn't right now. All of his reasoning argues that he should just stop and try to calm down. But unfortunately, Arthur is not thinking rationally at the moment. Charles casually lifts his head as he sees Arthur approach out of the corner of his eye.

"Arthur." Charles greets him with an air of caution, as he can see the tension on his friend's face. He could hear you and Arthur arguing just a few minutes ago. From where his tent is situated in camp, it is farther from yours, so Charles couldn't hear exactly what was said, only the volume and tone with which it was.

"Charles," Arthur coolly greets in return. "What you workin' on there? Hmm? More arrows to go huntin' with?" He cocks his head to the side as he coldly stares down at the items in Charles' hands.

"Yeah. I promised (Y/N) the next time we go out that we'd work on her bow skills. Been working with her on tracking lately. But she really wants to get a grasp on working with a bow."

Arthur looks on with disdain as Charles’ large fingertips delicately wrap the end of the arrow shaft with feathers.

"Oh, I'm sure she wants to get a grasp on somethin', alright," Arthur retorts bitterly.

Arthur's tone makes Charles hesitate. He looks back to Arthur and measures his words carefully. "You got a problem with me taking (Y/N) out hunting, Arthur?"

"Maybe I do."

Charles is not a violent man by nature, but he will stand his ground if need be. He has no designs to "steal" you from Arthur, if that is what the other man thinks he's doing. He has no intention of fighting over you, either. But Charles will fight for you if he has to. He puts the shafts and string in his lap down on the ground next to his feet. Arthur doesn’t move a muscle of his large frame as Charles slowly stands to square off and meets him at eye level.

“If you got a problem with (Y/N), Arthur, that’s between you two. She and I are only hunting together. That's all." Charles's voice is low and even. He doesn't want to provoke his good friend, but he also resents his tone. "Apparently, she's looking to get out of camp a lot lately, looking for some peace and quiet. And, she's a good shot, damn good shot, in fact. So she is welcome to hunt with me whenever she wants." Charles pauses, standing a little straighter, pushing his chest out a bit. "Besides, she’s my friend, too.”

Arthur cocks a knowing eyebrow at Charles. “Yeah, and we all know how friendships can go.”

“Mind yourself, Arthur,” warns Charles, pointing his finger at his chest and giving his friend a look that is more of disappointment than anger, before he sits back down and calmly resumes his work. He understands Arthur's frustration, and understands that he is not the target of the outlaw's anger. He also knows Arthur is better than this pettiness, too. But more importantly, Charles won't stand for anyone speaking badly about you, regardless of who it is.

Arthur says nothing else, realizing that he is not getting anywhere with Charles. So to avoid ruining yet another relationship that he has come to rely on, Arthur smartly buttons his lips and walks off to sulk in the solitude of his tent.

------------------------------

This stunning image comes from @regwishesshehadmagic

The morning following your fight, Arthur is awake before the sun. He watches with bleary eyes as the crisp morning sun begins to fracture into his tent between the opening in the canvas. Not being able to sleep all night, he drags himself to sit up on his cot with a groan, rubbing his hands through his disheveled hair. Despite his overwhelming fatigue, he is so restless, he can’t stand it. Feeling as if he is on the edge of going crazy, Arthur quickly gets himself together and rides out of camp before anyone is aware. He doesn't know where he is going or what he is going to do, only that he has to get out of this godforsaken camp and clear his head.

He spends the next two days out in the woods, thinking about what to do and what he really wants. He is being torn apart by this rift between you and him, torn between what he wants and what he feels is right. Arthur sits among the trees, silent as a statue, while the forest life goes on about its merry way around him, and rolls his doubts and misgivings over and over again in his mind, along with what Micah had said. Torturing himself with angry and hurtful words, the man blames himself for allowing himself to be in this situation to begin with.

As the long day draws out into the night, Arthur still sits, legs stretched out before him as the small campfire illuminates the now-encroaching darkness. And of course, Arthur also thinks of you. He takes his journal out and reads over the entries. Refreshing his memory with thoughts of you, he relives the moments you've spent together. Each passage brings forth a plethora of emotions, each stronger than the last. Your image is scattered throughout the worn pages in various forms, from the details of your eyes and lips, to the graceful curve of your neck, visible when your hair is pulled up, to a full-body likeness of you standing with Jack on your hip. His rough fingers trace over the lines of your face as he sits in deep thought, a small smile involuntarily blooming across his features.

But most importantly, he thinks about what you said at the overlook. His eyes relax and stare unfocused into the dancing flames of his fire, and Arthur's chest tightens as he vividly remembers the look on your face when he declined your affections and sat there and did nothing as he watched your eyes rim with tears. Your voice still booms in his ears: “What is it that you want, Arthur?!”

Arthur’s fingers move as if combing through mud as he pulls a cigarette out of his satchel and lights it. Pulling a long drag off of the end, he lets out an extended and tired sigh. What does he want?

He knows he’s lonely. He hates to admit it, but he is. Cold nights and empty beds; no warm arms waiting to welcome him home. But the fear of exposing himself to love again, only for it to end horribly, is terrifying, even to a fearsome, hard outlaw. Losing Eliza and Issac shattered his heart. And Mary’s rejection has left him bitter and angry. Over the years, Arthur has channeled his hurt and pain into an armor until he has become someone else altogether; a shell of what he once was, and he wasn’t all that great to begin with. He’s no good, like a rotten apple that’s fallen from the tree that no one wants to take. Arthur doesn’t think he has it in him to do it all over again. And now, he is in a position to be stuck between living his life and running from it.

But you are different. You are not as young and naive as Eliza was. Nor are you as self-serving as Mary. Though he cared for and loved both women, Arthur knew, even then, that he was doomed, for these women did not fit with his family and lifestyle. But with you, that burden is removed. Not only do you accept the gang, but you have embraced it. And you are someone who cares for him, not for what he does, but for who he is.

You are delightfully chaotic; quite the beautiful mess, in fact. Arthur finds you to be wonderfully out of place in his life, but maybe that is as it should be. Kind of like when you see the moon during the daytime. You’ve turned your broken into beautiful and made your strength look invincible. You have never asked Arthur for the moon and the stars, but only to lay in the damp grass at night with you to watch them. And to Arthur, this means more than anything. The way your nose wrinkles when you smile. The way your eyes light up when you see him. The way you snort sometimes when you laugh. The way you get impassioned when you speak of something that touches you. Even the way you walk away from the fire at night to head back to your tent. Arthur wants it all.

And it is then that Arthur is hit with a profound realization. His eyes open wide and the air is sucked out of his chest as if he's been thrown from his horse. Arthur loves you. He loves you. And, more importantly, he wants the two of you to be together. More than anything. But can he do that?

He knows it's not the safe path, and probably not what is best for you. But John is right: if this is what you both really want, why not do it? He finally comprehends that he’s spent so much time being strong for everyone else that he’s never allowed himself to be happy. Maybe that needs to change now.

With resolve in his veins, Arthur quickly packs up his makeshift camp, literally tripping over himself in his haste, and heads back home.

As Arthur comes down the path back to camp, his eyes immediately notice that your horse is gone. Disappointed, but not discouraged, Arthur thinks about his next move and decides to ask Abigail and Mary-Beth what to do. If he is going to fix this great divide between you and him, he is going to need help to do it, as so far, he clearly doesn't know what he's doing on his own. He needs to bring "the big guns," as they say. And fortunately, Arthur finds the very two people he needs sitting together at a table.

“Can I talk to you ladies a minute?" Arthur calls over as he walks with purpose in their direction with a very determined look upon his face. The two women halt their conversation upon hearing him, curious about what he could want.

Mary-Beth smiles up at him as Arthur gets close to their table. "Sure, Arthur. What do you need?" He sits down next to Mary-Beth, pausing to organize his thoughts before he just comes right out with it.

"(Y/N) told me how she feels about me. You know, that she likes me an’ all. And like a fool, I pushed her away.” His eyes dart back and forth from both of their faces before shamefully down at his own hands that fidget on the table. "I guess I underestimated how I’d feel about that."

Abigail sits up straighter as a huge smile begins to cross her lips. “Are you saying that you want to be with her then, Arthur?”

"The question was never if I wanted to," he says to Abigail. "But she won’t even speak to me now." He holds his hands up in defeat before letting them fall haplessly onto the table, and looks to the women with a pathetic face, pleading for help. "Every time I try, we end up yellin’, and I make it worse."

Abigail gives him a scolding look. "Well, Arthur, you wounded her pride and broke her heart. What do you expect?"

“Maybe you need a grand gesture?” suggests Mary-Beth, gesturing with her arms in emphasis. Her eyes go wide with excitement, eager to help usher this new relationship into existence. "(Y/N) can be stubborn, for sure. So if she won't talk to you, Arthur, then make her listen. Maybe you need to show her how you feel?"

“If you’re going to do something, you may need to do it soon, Arthur," warns Abigail, tapping her finger on the table. She goes on to tell him that you feel as if you don’t belong and have been distancing yourself from the whole camp.

"She's up and out before anyone else, and when she is in camp, she rarely leaves her tent now." This worries Arthur because what if you decide to leave? Then what? He’s scared to lose you even though you're not his to lose.

Arthur sits quietly, taking in all of this information. He tries to think of what he could possibly do while Abigail and Mary-Beth both stare at him, waiting for the answer. "Thank you, girls. I appreciate your help," he finally says. "Do me a favor though, and don't mention this to (Y/N), please? I don't know what I'm doin' just yet, and I don't want to disappoint her even more than I already have."

"Sure, Arthur. Whatever you say," Mary-Beth answers with a hopeful grin. “Good Luck!”

He then looks to Abigail, who just stares back obstinately.

"Abigail?"

"Ugh, OK fine! I won't say anything. But you had better do something, Arthur Morgan!" as she points her finger at him. "Or so help me-"

"OK, OK!" he holds up his hands in surrender as he stands up. "I don't need two women in camp after me. I'll take care of it." And he smiles to himself as he heads to his tent to plan.

After mulling over his options, Arthur decides to ride back to Rosewood where you came from to see if he can find anything of your father's there. If you are missing your family, as Abigail told him, Arthur is hoping to bring back some sort of remembrance of him for you. After a quick check-in with Dutch, Arthur immediately heads out of camp and on his way to Rosewood. It's a few days' ride, so he needs to get going so he can hurry and get back.

Meanwhile, back at camp, you notice Arthur has been gone intermittently since your revelation, and now he’s been gone for several days after your fight. Things seem to be going from bad to worse. Figuring he’s outright avoiding the camp itself because of you, you don’t know what to do. This is his family, his people. And if you're the one making things difficult, then you will need to be the one to leave. So, you start coming to terms with the idea that you will need to find a new place of your own.

This evening, as the sun starts to crawl back behind the mountains, you find yourself sitting outside of camp by yourself. You stare out into the watercolor-painted sky, thinking over where you'll go and what you'll do. The idea of leaving is terrifying. You'll have to start over yet again. You'll miss everyone in this camp who you have come to love so dearly. You’ll surely miss Abigail and Jack. And of course Hosea. You'll miss Arthur.

You draw your knees up closer to your chin and wrap your arms around them as an overwhelming fatigue cascades over you. You are so lost in your own thoughts that you do not hear footsteps behind you.

“(Y/N)? What are you doing out here?” You hear Charles' soft voice cut through your thoughts. When he didn't see you at dinner yet again tonight, he decided to come to check on you.

You hastily wipe away a few tears from your cheeks and try to smile for him. “Hi, Charles. What can I do for you?”

He cautiously approaches you as one does a wounded animal. His brows knit in concern when, even in the setting sunlight, he can see the red-rim of your wet eyes. "Arthur ain’t gonna be too happy if he finds out we’ve let you wander off by your lonesome.”

You scoff at that. "Oh, I highly doubt that," giving Charles a sad smile. "Although Arthur is the expert on what I shouldn’t be doing, it seems." You turn your attention back to the horizon, watching the last flecks of golden sunlight begin to fade for the day. "Besides, he won't have to worry about it much longer."

Charles freezes before nervously shifting his weight from hip to hip. "What do you mean by that?"

"Oh…nothing. Forget I said anything." You wave off the comment as if it is nothing more than a rambling thought, but you still avoid his dark eyes.

"(Y/N)…you OK?"

"Yeah…sure. I’ll be fine"

Charles steps closer to you, studying your face and countenance, not believing you for a second. "Listen (Y/N), I know you and Arthur are in a weird place right now-“

"Oh, Charles, I really don’t want to talk about Arthur. Really, I don’t,” you insist, shaking your head vehemently. Your eyes have a glassy sheen that causes Charles to cringe in pity for you.

“OK,” He’s silent for a moment. "Can I do anything for you?" His hand tentatively reaches out to you, not really sure what, if anything, he can do.

"No, sweet man, I’m OK. Thank you." You try to give him another smile for reassurance. "Go ahead back to everyone. I won't be out here much longer. I promise."

Charles hesitates a bit longer, before turning to head back to camp. "All right, if you're sure you're OK, then."

When you see him disappear amongst the tents again, you turn back to the horizon. The sun is gone now. The light has been snuffed out, leaving a cold and lonely atmosphere in its wake. The first few pin-pricks of starlight begin to emerge in the purple sky. You sigh deeply as your shoulders drop even more and your eyelids fall like stones.

"I'm not sure of anything anymore," you whisper to yourself.

A/N: *Oh my goodness, half-way there! More drama to come, but I promise, we’re getting there, and it’s definitely worth it (I hope anyway)

#arthur morgan #arthur morgan x reader #arthur morgan x female reader #arthur morgan x f!reader #rdr2 #Read Dead Redemption 2 #rdr2 fanfic #arthur morgan x reader angst

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arcielee · 8 days

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Hey everyone, I know it's a dark time in the fandom right now and I am only going to speak on this once.

To begin: there was a period of time where I had some bigger blogs blocked due to a misunderstanding that escalated. I recently learned that both sides were being fed a villainous narrative over something that I did not do. It became this weird Us vs Them ordeal.

I tried to pull away. I blocked a lot of blogs to try and remove myself from the HotD space.

I was very heartbroken. Tumblr was my little nerdy escape that allowed me to swoon over my beloved fictional characters and find kindred spirits who shared the same sentiment. I found myself hating to check my notifications, seeing the hateful anons and DMs, and seeing my mutuals receiving the same grief for publicly engaging with me.

It was awful.

After some time, blogs began to reach out and share what had been said about me, telling me about the rumors. It gave me clarity on what had happened. I see the fierce loyalty a lot of us posses and if I had been told these same horrible things, I probably would have responded in a similar way.

I was grateful for the honesty and I hold no animosity towards anyone who believed what was said. I do not care about the cruel things spread or the name calling, I just felt relieved that I could speak my truth and slowly become part of the community that I loved. I wanted to forgive and just move forward.

Then I found out that I had been doxxed.

They found my legal name and my private IG. They shared it without my permission. I feel fortunate that this group did not do anything with the information shared, but I also do not know if it was shared outside of this chat.

Tumblr is a silly hellsite that allowed me to learn the art of a Reader inserts, to brainstorm story ideas with my mutuals, to reblog nifty gifsets and fanart. But this is something I keep separate my from actual IRL, so learning about this felt like a violation.

I know we are all hurting. The point of this post is a reminder to stay safe, to set up your two-step authenticator and to please keep yourselves protected.

Like I said: I will not speak on this again. If you stay, please know my blog is a safe place where I do not tolerate bigotry of any means.

My DMs and my anons are open, always. 💜

#hotd fandom #doxxing #this has been a psa #it is time to heal and hydrate #i love my tumblr kindred spirits #please stay safe everyone

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vivid-ink · 8 months

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'The Love Shack' Part III - Blurring Lines - Teaser Snippet

Relationship: Neteyam(23) x fem!Omatikaya reader(21) x Lo'ak(22)

Author's Note: Hello my lovelies! As promised, here's a little teaser snippet this weekend of Part III of 'The Love Shack'! 😘 The whole of Part III will be uploaded next weekend. I'm already 6.5k into composing it & it's shaping up to be toe-curling already. This teaser post is also a test for my taglist (which I'm so blown away by the size of! Thank you to everyone for all your support!!) 😊

Part I - The Proposition HERE Part II - Three is a Perfect Crowd HERE UPDATE: Part III now available HERE

Part III Summary: You've spent weeks now, meeting with Neteyam & Lo'ak at the old outpost to play... You enjoy them both, but your feelings for Neteyam are becoming trickier to navigate. And unbeknownst to you, Neteyam is finding it difficult to share you... He wants you all to himself, away from his brother and away from other prying eyes...

Neteyam’s lips scored a heated path down the side of your neck with his lapping kisses. His massaging hands had moved from kneading the muscles in your shoulders to trail over your collarbone, drifting lower until his calloused palms met your hardened nipples.

Slick from the bath oil, you leant back against him while he gently massaged your breasts, his lips nibbling at the delicate points of your ears now. You’d never realised how sensitive your ears were, but they were definitely an erogenous zone for you. Every nip and kiss to the soft skin there made your legs weak and your core pulse.

You could feel the solid length and weight of his erection pressing insistently into your lower back like an unspoken invitation to you of the bodily ecstasy it could bring you. Neteyam verbalised his invitation, nonetheless, in a rumbling purr, “Play with me tonight. Here. Just you and me.”

Your thighs gave an involuntary squeeze together, the ache in your pussy growing so intense it felt hotter than the water of the hot spring you currently stood in. You felt Neteyam clasp your jaw with one hand, tilting your head back and twisting your face so he could plunder your mouth with his lips and tongue. The velvet sweep and suction of his kiss ensured that whatever hesitation you had was promptly abandoned.

However, you couldn’t help a sassy retort from leaving your lips, “I don’t know. You don’t have any of those sex toys here tonight to rock my world.”

Neteyam bent his knees slightly, bringing his hips in line with your bottom, and he reached down to reposition his cock so it could slide between your thighs and against your slick folds. His chuckle was dark and his voice was full of sensuous promise in the most sinful of ways, “Oh paskalin, you and I both know that I don’t need any of those toys to have you screaming my name tonight.”

***~~~***

Taglist so far: @teymars @eyweveng @leaveitbythewave @luvteyams @akiras-key @bajbr @qcswrites @reggiesslut @neteluvr @savvysscandles @dasaniix @emery-333 @vintaqestar @live-laugh-neteyam @itssomeonereading @strawberry-vamp0 @clairevoyancee @delacruzyari @bluecooki3 @aalex561-blog @frustrated-kitten @innercreationflower @wolf12thsworld @wheneclipsefalls @iameatingmyhair @ele-sme @investedreader @oasiswithmyg @daeneeryss @pandorxxx @anonka01 @hunbomb @pandoraslxna @adrianarose7 @sunghoonmyluv @notnat02 @getthisoverwith33 @simp4myself @spicymayyo @animehoe1-800 @daddysmurfslefttoenail @iman-lu @creepytoes88 @flyingspacewhale @neteyamswifesworld @lostress101 @nilsavatar @cloudyw1ndzz @itsjazzsworld @solemnlover @asweetblueberry2 @blue-slxt @slutforderekhale @swaggygurlbae @clairevoyanceee

Please let me know if I've got your tag wrong (some of them won't work 😔) Anyone else who'd like to be added to the taglist, leave me a request in the comments and I'll add you. 😊

UPDATE: Full Part III now available HERE

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edenfenixblogs · 5 months

Text

New Pinned Post: How This Blog Approaches The Conflict

I am not normally a politically-focused blog. I am normally a personal blog that enjoys fandom and occasionally processes my own past trauma. As this war goes on, I am finding that it is against my personal ethics and morals to stay silent when I have the ability to educate and remain more patient than most. (My patience is not endless. I’m still human). So, while disinformation/misinformation, and propaganda abound on all sides. I feel like the best way I can help lower the temperature is to put my skills to use.

Primary Political Goals:

1. Emphasize humanity above all and use verifiable information and good faith education and discourse to reduce tension.

2. Do my absolute best to move the conversation away from polarizing, accusatory discourse that forces Jews, Muslims, Arabs, Israelis, and Palestinians to play a desperate game of defense and toward a shared mutually beneficial peace that honors each grouped indigeneity culture, and connection to their ancestral homeland.

3. Demonstrate and emphasize both Jewish-Muslim solidarity and Israeli-Palestinian solidarity.

Primary Blogging Goals:

As a diaspora Jew, my primary goal is threefold

1. Educate about antisemitism and Islamophobia—including calling it out and explaining it to the best of my ability.

2. Elevate responsible, verifiable voices—regardless of religion or nationality—and information to the best of my ability.

3. Demonstrate effective activism and provide insight and encouragement for other to find their most effective way to contribute to fostering peace.

Elaboration:

1. I have the most experience with an understanding of antisemitism. I am more of an expert in antisemitism and have more ability to identify and educate about it. That said: I will not tolerate any Islamophobia or racism and if I don’t have the ability to educate about it, you will be blocked. If I have the ability to educate about it, I will do so and give you the chance to read about it and adjust your behavior. If you do not do so, I will block you.

2. This does not mean equal representation of all nationalities and religions. It means the best informed and most reliable voices AND the voices I personally have the best ability to vet, verify, and substantiate. This will often mean Jewish voices and Israeli voices. This is me staying in my lane, not choosing to suppress any voice. I will not elevate purposefully divisive, tokenized, or uninformed voices. This does not mean that I won’t elevate Palestinian, Muslim, and Arab voices as well. I will. But my primary goal here is responsibility. To do that, I have to stay in my lane.

3. I am most effective as an educator on this matter, a guide to finding reliable peace-oriented voices, and an example of patience. There’s a great desire among many to protest or create videos detailing their opinions and stances. Not only is this primarily performative—especially among non-Muslim/non-Palestinian goyim—it has the potential to be extraordinarily damaging to Jews both in Israel and in Diaspora as well as to Arabs, Muslims, Palestinians, and South East Asians worldwide. If you truly desire to help and not just feel like you’re helping, the best thing you can do is follow the lead of much more experienced activists with a demonstrated track record of effectiveness and good faith in their areas of expertise. As I stated: mine is primarily education and greater than average (though not limitless) amounts of patience. If you want to donate money or engage in more direct action and aid, I suggest finding pro-Palestinian Israeli voices and peace oriented Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian voices as well as organizations with experience in this conflict that do not rely on eliminating any population or erasing anyone’s connection to the Levant. Follow their lead on that matter. If you are only just engaging in this conflict for the first time due to current events, you likely do not know nearly as much as you think you do about any of this. Being uninformed and spouting disinformation has actual dire consequences that can get Jews, Muslims, Palestinians, Israelis, and Arabs killed. It is vital that you’re responsible in your engagement on this matter. Learning dogwhistles and how to spot bad faith arguments is a must. And to be effective, you should spend more of your time learning than you’re doing protesting or arguing. This is a 2000+ year old conflict. There is a lot to know and understand. And there are a lot of people willing to prey on your newcomer status and manipulate your existing beliefs to use you as a pawn to further their bad faith aims. The only consistent, trustworthy principal is to trust those who repeatedly affirm their goal as peace and shared prosperity and who reject any form of demonization based on ethnicity or religion. This is not a game. This is not the west’s fight. This is a conflict between two horribly oppressed, traumatized, and nearly exterminated ethnoreligous groups.

I am begging you to think, listen, and learn before joining the fray.

Note: I also don’t claim to be perfect. If I mess up or reblog something that causes unintended harm (which is very easy to do when engaging in discussions and activism about this conflict), I will say so and issue a correction. There’s no need to be hostile in informing me about this. Just message with your concern and I’ll evaluate from there.

Additionally, I will not interact with Hamas apologists. Hamas is a terrorist organization.

Anyone trying to make me feel like this is an Us vs. Them situation will be blocked.

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domreaderheadcannonscenarios · 3 months

Note

Can I get some sub!Andrealphus headcanons please? 🥺 I love him so much but so much of his content is with him as dom

YESS IM SO HAPPY YO GET A REQUEST ON HIM!!

I did sfw and nsft bc I love him and wanted ti share personal hcs of him!!

Also I haven’t seen anyone do any sub for like, any characters??? There’s so few other blogs for sub charas in this fandom?! Like I found 6 blogs with sub charas…and I’m nearly half of them…(I have one hidden side blog I don’t publicly use I’ve been posting about on)

Andrealphus

Cw: eye licking (canon kink), gore mention, death mention, torture mention, horn play, mockery halo play, capture roleplay, bath ***,

Sfw!:

You’re basically his only friend or family so he spends most his free time with you, even when he’s not hanging out with you he’ll often follow the group your with to keep you safe from a distance

He ask you to hold his hands in public so he doesn’t get lost, bump into someone or thing, or trip, even though he somehow notices when there’s items on the floor you don’t see and pulls you out of the way. He claims he just mis stepped as you clearly notice he avoids stepping in minor obstacles

He likes being close to you and loves you touching him, he sometimes just ask you to hold him, then he will just fall asleep and magically only wake up when you stop holding him

If you ever get tired he’ll give you a horseback ride (you have your legs around his hips and he holds your thighs while carrying you) all the way home. You notice he somehow doesn’t need you to warn him of any obstacles as he gently carries you, trying to avoid moving you as much as possible.

He feels bad for accidentally startling you a few times and to make up for it he pretends to be startled by you for your enjoyment. You have actually startled him a few times at to your amusement he visibly jumps when you run up from behind and hug him. He just doesn’t know how to react!

He’s good hearted but silly, and doesn’t know what humans like, so he starts giving you angel wings as gifts, but…they are preserved, he tells you they are valuable like that and that any devil (and a few angels) would want them for a high price

He doesn’t let angels get near you, in fact the angels usally are past tense when you finally get to see them, there isn’t a lot to see, just blood and angel remnants…though to your confusion the angels he takes wings from (for you not himself) have…been left alive and were at the mercy of the devils around them.

Nsft!

Canon kink: Oculophilia: deriving sexual pleasure from licking another persons eyeballs

He has tried to lick your eyes without asking before and upon freaking you out he’s confused, you come to the agreement he can only do it if your eyes are closed, it’s still weird and uncomfortable but he deeply enjoys it. He doesn’t do it often, and it’s usually if he’s in a mood and excited. When you did it back to him he actually just straight up creamed himself.

Sorry, the wings stay on during s*x, I don’t make the rules…

You’re his first…he actually never really had anyone to tell him what to do, so he genuinely just will let you do whatever you want and he practically just enjoys making you feel good, he’s a service sub

He is very quiet until you play with his horns, then he’s loudly moaning for you to keep going, where to rub, twist, scratch, etc. He does actually enjoy you playing with the halo, it’s tied to his horns with magic so he can feel you touch it through his horns

He…did sort of catch you off guard with requesting you to pretend to be an angel hunter, and he want to play as a angel and let you ‘torture’ him, then push it further to you only stopping once you ‘corrupt’ him into a fallen angel. (He uses his wings and halo for it.)

Andre likes when you do capture role plays, he enjoys being at your mercy, he even tries to teach you how to hogtie and other forms of restraining him.

You once started jerking him off in a bath and he now cant bathe with you without getting excited, he says it’s just an intimacy thing, since he’s not used to being so exposed

He will randomly ask to feel your face while you two are fucking since he wants to remember your expressions, he gets more excited if you let him

#nsft #whb #what in hell is bad #whb andrealphus #andrealphus #andrealphus x reader #sub Andrealphus #dom reader #hcs

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doodlemancy · 2 months

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uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuughhhhhhhhhh

so here's the deal re: this fucking horseshit. god i hate this.

i, personally, have mostly given up on trying to dodge inclusion in AI datasets. the stuff i make generally isn't what they're looking for anyway and there's no real way to 100% avoid being scraped short of becoming entirely invisible online, which would um, lead to me having no money and dying. that's part of the cruelty of all this, but also, in a way, it's the same risk artists online have always taken; if you want people to see your work, you have to post it knowing that some of those people are fucking lowlife piece of shit scumbags who will try to resell it on redbubble or something for a quick buck. AI is just a new and exhausting way for garbagey people to stink worse. i am not in any way excusing that behavior or trying to imply people should not be mad about it or that we shouldn't condemn this move and fight back. "if you don't want your work stolen, don't put it online" is the kind of shitty Internet Tough Guy talk i've always hated since my dA days. it's as useless and heartless as telling people that if they don't want their bikes stolen, they shouldn't leave them at the bike rack. i'm saying that i, personally, will not let a bunch of soulless thieving shitheads drive me offline. i belong here. they belong in a wifi-proof dumpster.

nightshade and glaze eat my artwork alive. they make it look terrible. when you have to sell things on the basis that they look nice, it's a big problem when protective measures make them look like dogshit. my work is not a good candidate for these processes. even if that weren't the case, i don't have the stamina, especially right now while my chronic pain is flaring for the third month in a row and my adhd meds are scarce, to go back and shade/glaze everything, and it wouldn't work on reblogs anyway. given the way midjourney and its equally stinky siblings have already scraped years and terabytes' worth of image data from popular websites, it doesn't seem worth my time. if you think it is worth yours i am not going to like, yell at you. i am just one person. but i want to be clear about the kind of situations some of us are being forced into.

i think some of the doomsaying about AI and what it will do to us has been overblown-- they need you, for marketing purposes, to believe that someday their shitty robot will be as good at "drawing" and as practical to work with as a human-- but the consequences of "AI" (which is not even actually AI) are already real and visible and obvious to anyone paying attention. i unfortunately am not infinitely wise and powerful and therefore do not have an ideal all-encompassing solution to this deeply stupid problem that the Most Unlikeable Manbabies On Earth have imposed on us after NFTs fizzled out.

what i do have is a very large repository of nice anime and game screenshots i've taken, knowledge of many archives of nice public domain images, a computer that can run nightshade overnight or while i'm off doing other things, and, most importantly, near-infinite capacity for pettiness. i do kinda feel like the jury is still out on how well nightshade/glaze will work in the long run, but in the meantime, i suppose it wouldn't cost me a lot to... perhaps... every time i get Mad About AI™, channel that anger into dumping some thoroughly-but-not-spammily-tagged, high-quality, inconspicuous poison onto this godforsaken hellsite via a secret side blog. i could make a batch of poison ahead of time, keep it on my phone, use my Toilet Scrolling Time or my Public Transit Time to post and tag up an image here and there. it could be a fun challenge to try to make some pretty robot poison that some humans will still enjoy.

the other thing we need to poison at this point, IMO, is the word "AI" itself, by being loudly and mercilessly critical of any company that dabbles in it, the same way we all clowned on any company that pushed their luck with NFT/crypto shit a couple of years ago. we need to have every corporation terrified that association with AI will tank their sales and hurt their brand. AI must = number go down and lots of people screaming at you. companies will fuck around. we must provide the finding-out. we shouldn't have to. but we can!

so make sure to let tumblr know you hate this. maybe you could include this interesting link (tw child abuse) about how Stable Diffusion was trained on some extremely serious crime. or these screenshots of Midjourney devs just sort of admitting what their whole thing is, which i got here but which have kinda been spread all over since January.

spite and anger can be forms of hope. that's all i have to say, or at least all i'm willing to type with my left hand tonight.

#long post #big long sigh

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russellsppttemplates · 5 months

Text

From the start, it was you (George Russell)

The heart doesn't seem to choose by team colours

Note: english is not my first language. This is the first driver!reader I've ever written, so I hope I've done a good job. Also, I did not plan to post this piece specifically now, but seems fitting with the whole shitshow that has been going on the past couple of days. Also, this is a plot I've seen written a lot, so I know there are many other pieces that are way better, and hopefully my take on it isn't too bad!

my masterlist

Tw: race collision, medical exams, curse words, gender inequality comments

Tag list: @myloverjk-blog

Your purple race suit made you stand out amongst all of the other kids as you walked back from the podium, proudly smiling at your trophy, "Y/N! We're here!", you heard your father as he waved so you'd know where they stood, "congratulations, darling! That was an impressive overtake you did there in the last lap!", he praised, scratching your head before placing a kiss there, "I was trying to get first, but I couldn't get it", you admitted it, looking sideways at the boy who you couldn't take the first place from.

George Russell was a tall boy, same age as you, so you often raced against eachother. While you had become friends with some of the other kids, Russell wasn't one of them. It began when you tried to congratulate him for his P3 a few years ago, stretching your hand out politely, a smile on your face as he turned his back to you, mumbling something as he walked towards his parents. So, you weren't the best of friends if anyone asked.

"Y/N, darling, go stand next to the boys so I can take a picture of you! It will be such a good memory for when you're older!", your mother said excitedly, making you, George and the boy that finished his race behind you on each of your sides, smiling at the camera and hoping it would be as quick as possible, not wanting to stand next to him for a second longer than you should.

"I have your media day schedules here", Mary said as she handed you and Oscar your respective schedules, "Y/N, you're going to get interviewed with Charles, Yuki, George and Fernando", she stated as she then moved on to Oscar, explaing a few things to him since he was going first.

"And Y/N, while you're in there, try not to kill George, even with your eyes, okay?", she advised, tapping your shoulder softly as you looked at her sideways, "last time you were both in the same panel, you managed to be out of qualifying", she nodded, "only because our car wasn't that reliable, and we all know how theirs is", you pointed out, smiling sweetly and hoping to get on her side, "you're lucky you don't annoy me too much, Y/N", she smiled back.

The team had made many improvements to the car, granting you and Oscar the possibility to aim for higher places on the grid, and since you were a nerd about all things engineering, too, you loved when you were asked about the topic. But lately, the questions about the car seemed to get asked to your teammate Oscar, leaving the excuse that "the journalists already have the information they need", and because they didn't want to be accused of not asking you questions like it had happened before, it seemed to divert to other topics.

"Y/N, here", one of the journalists waved, grabbing your attention, "With the recent events and new propositions from the F1 Academy, do you think the sport is going to suffer from having a bigger opportunity that's being given to women in motorsport?", your heard him say, making your blood boil.

Despite the constant raised awareness for gender discrimination and discrimination in motorsport, especially in the last couple of years, some people still had it pretty engraved in their system, and while sometimes it came out looking a little bit more subtle, this one didn't even bother to soften the edges.

You'd be lying if you said this was the first time you heard these comments directed at you, or that you thought it would be the last, no matter how much you wished some sort of disciplinary measure was taken, "I woul-", you began before you heard a loud clash on the floor and felt water on your legs. The trousers you were wearing were soaked around your thighs and knees as George got up to grab the bottle that belonged to him, "I'm so sorry, Y/N", he apoligised as he put the lid back on, "I think it's best if we call it a day, hm? The next group needs to have this cleaned before they come in here", the Mercedes driver said as everyone seemed to agree and get up, bidding goodbye as Charles and George stayed until the end.

"Careful, don't slip", the monegasque driver said, making sure you wouldn't fall and walking out of the room with you, "figures the guy wouldn't even be here to check if everything's fine", you muttered as Charles chuckled, "you two really are like the cat and the mouse".

"He's not even here! He just flew off to his fancy room to delight in the joy of making fun of me", you grumbled, bidding goodbye to Charles as you found yourself by the entrance of Ferrari.

Walking the distance to meet your team, Mary was the first to get you, "I'm sorry they asked that", she said, "it's a good thing Russell spilled his drink", she teased, knowing you wouldn't want to dwell on the comments for long. It hardly solved the problem and you'd look into it in the team meeting when the time called for it, "promise you won't take him out in the race?".

Laughingly at her assumption and the fact that she had managed to pull you out of your misery as you walked to you driver's room, "don't worry, and tell the guys downstairs to now worry either, they're not going to have to build me a new car either", you flashed a smile before closing the door, changing into another pair of trousers you had brought with you.

"You're starting P4, Y/N", your race engineer said over the radio, "we are going to give it our all to support you and help you".

"And I'm going to drive the beat I can for you guys. Today, we get orange flying around and its going to be because of the Papaya team", you smiled under your helmet, "Oscar is P6, so I think we can even aim for a Podium, depends on how things go", you said.

As soon as the lights went out, you reacted quickly and passed the car that had been sitting next to yours, your race engineer confirming your third place and giving you a run down of all the grid changes.

"Do us proud, you're doing well, good pace", you heard on your speakers. You were enjoying the drive, analysing the data without team and looking for the right opportunity to overtake Charles, "go after the next turn, Y/N. Charles' tyres are not looking so good, so we think you have the upper hand there. George's car seems to be having some issues, too, he won't go after you", the pit wall channeled in your radio.

You looked in your mirrors as you were about to make the overtake, having patiently waited to reach the specific turn and going with it, confident that you would be able to overtake the red car.

A fraction of a second, you would always say, was game changing in Formula One. A decision to overtake or stay back, to accept the call to the pits or a new strategy, sometimes all it took was less than a second. And it also took less than a second for your car to start spinning, making you remove your hands from your steering wheel and brace yourself for the collision that would soon enough happen.

The impact wasn't as hard as you had expected, having felt most of it in your hips and shoulders. Groaning, you opened your eyes to see the damage, hearing "Y/N, can you tell us if you are okay?" over the radio.

Pressing the button, you heard the equipment's buzz, "I'm okay. I'm sorry about the car, guys", you gulped, adjusting yourself, "another car tapped me, right? Are they okay?", you asked, "George's fine from what we've heard".

After the marshalls confirmed you were free to go with the medical car to get checked over, you were back in the hospitality as the race continued, "doctor said I'll have some bruises, nothing too bad though", you gave them the report as you apoligised and thanked everyone on your side of the garage.

"Turns out they'll have to build you a new car after all", Mary offered as she hugged you, "if Russell had been more careful, this could've ended differently", you groaned.

"From what I've heard, he was trying a risky move and the car had an issue and locked up. He lost control of it and his front wing tapped your rear wheels just about enough to cause the crash", she explained, "it's not like he purposefully wanted to take you out", she reasoned.

"I know, it's just not ideal", you sighed, "we could both be in there". On the screen, Oscar was sitting P2, having successfully overtaken Charles a few laps in after the race resumed.

Even though George was far from your friend, you still wanted to check if he was okay, specially after seeing the impact the crash had on his car, too.

Walking to the Mercedes hospitality, a few people stopped you on your tracks briefly to express their relief on seeing you up and about and wishing you well before you found yourself by the glass doors.

"Is George here? I'd like to see if he's doing alright, but only if that's okay, I'm sure you're busy", you asked one of the media girls, Holly, recognising her from previous encounters.

"He's in his driver's room, yes, let me walk you there", she smiled, walking with you and knocking on the door, "George, may I come in?", she asked before he gave a positive answer, "Y/N is here, she wanted to talk to you", she stated, backing up so you could be seen, "yes, that's alright", the tall man said as Holly held out her arm, gesturing you to walk inside the room as she closed the door behind her, most likely going back to work on the race content.

"Hey", you waved awkwardly, "I don't have any other way to contact you, and asking your team how you were didn't seem... right? So, yeah, I came here", you gulped, suddenly feeling a weird pressure to act properly, whatever that meant.

"I'm good, barely got a scratch since I was able to stop the car before it hit the barriers", George explained, "and you? It looked pretty bad", he checked.

"I have some bruises, I think the adrenaline is slowing down now, so it's a bit painful, but nothing major", you clarified.

"The car had some issue and there was not way to control it, I just let it go because there wasn't anything I could do. I'm very glad you're okay", he half smiled as he looked at you.

In all the years you've known him and interacted with him, there had never been a time where he was this relaxed and smiley around you, not even when he had overtaken you in the last lap of the race. And while it was new, it was also comfortable.

"Me too, it looked scarier than it felt, though", you offered as he grabbed his water bottle to take a sip from it, "Oh, close the lid properly on that one", you chuckled playfully, not imagining the backlash and reaction it would have.

The new and comfortable mood turned back to the old and expecting one.

"Do you really think I'm that clumsy to drop a bottle like that? I wanted to get us out of there, to get you out of there because they were asking sexist questions", he stated, "and I didn't do it because I thought you couldn't defend yourself, because you sure know how to stop your foot and put it down, but because they don't deserve your time like that. Hell, I wish you spent that little time with me instead!", George yelled out, not missing your shocked expression, "maybe there was a time that I didn't like how you just showed up and got things done, but in the end, it's not because it's you, or because you're a woman. I wanted to be the one to show up and get things done, because I admire you so much", he gulped.

"So you're saying it's my fault that I've been labelled a bad sport because we constantly fight out there? That's why you've hated me?", your defensive side turned up, not dwelling on his kind words.

"I'm not saying it is either of our fault! I'm just trying to explain to you that I don't hate you like you think I do", he put his hands on his hips, walking around his room, "you might hate me, and that's fine, you know? I'm not going to be the one to tell you how you should feel, that's not how it works, but I have never hate you.

"I might've said I hated you when we were little, but that's because you probably stole my place on the podium, and even that was probably well deserved. I never thought I'd feel like this about you", he concluded.

"And what is it that you feel about me? Because I would like a warning should you want to beat me up to deal with all it is that you're feeling...?", you gestured to his stance. Was he saying he didn't hate you? Did he have other feelings that were actually in the happiness section of the emotion wheel and not near the anger section?

Chuckling, he approached you, "I have had feelings for you since we started driving in F2. At first I thought it was just the thrill of the competition and of having someone to challenge me, and when you got the Mclaren seat, I was so happy that you'd be racing against me", he further offered, "I don't know when it came out that we hated eachother, and when you didn't seem to feel otherwise, I tried to hate you, or at least dislike you, and it wasn't working, so I just let it go however it went, and it's led me here. And I'm being honest with you, so laugh all you want, or deal with it however you want to", he raised his hands as he excused himself.

"George, I nerve said anything because I can't afford to say those things. How many rivalries have you seen in motorsport? So many, and many more that are not written in books and shown off in videos. And none of them have apoligies to offer, or rather, the very few that have done it, turned out okay. But if I was the one to talk about it? A female driver talking about how she cares that her colleagues and her have a good relation and that they don't hate eachother like the press wants people to believe?", you scoffed, "That's not on my books, that's not something I can consider.

"And I don't hate you, George. For Goodness' sake, I came here to see of you were alright. Any other person would've yelled that you ruined their race, but I understand that there are things we can't control and shit like this happens. It sucks, but that's how it is. Like Charles says all the time, 'sometimes it's like this'", you giggled, "I actually think you're a pretty decent guy", you blushed.

Over the years, the bickering had only spurred you on even more, and maybe it wasn't just the thrill of seeing him so on edge that made you continue to do so.

"So you're saying you've never hated me?",

George said as he offered you his chair to sit down as he prepared tea for both of you, "Maybe I didn't like you so much when we did karting, but that was just because you were really tall and actually gave me fair competition", you winked.

#george russell imagine #george russell x reader #george russell fluff #george russell fanfic #f1 x reader #f1 imagine #f1 fanfic

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fixing-bad-posts · 3 months

Note

Sorry about the weirdness coming from a stranger. You don’t have to answer this/can just delete it if it makes you uncomfortable.

I’m truly saddened to hear you’re going through something so hard right now. I know we don’t know each other, and I know nothing about your situation. But I know a tiny bit about you based on the fact that you run this blog.

1. You are a good and kind person. You fix bad posts and post them/others’ submissions to help people feel more accepted and to give people hope when they’re going through their own hard times. That’s not something anyone mean-hearted at their core would put in effort and time to do. So if you have any doubt about that, one stranger on the internet thinks you’re awesome.

2. You are one tough cookie. You read the bad post to begin with and instead of letting it bring you down, you defy that and make something beautiful out it. Whatever you’re facing is terrible and horrific, but you are stronger than you feel right now.

You’ve made my own hard days better with your blog, and I hope against hope that your situation improves soon. 💜💜💜

hi there—it’s taken me a couple of days to answer this ask because of the life crisis happening to me right now (🙃), and i sort of wish you’d sent this to me off-anon so i could respond privately because i’m just really grateful for this note. but in any case, i shall respond publically because there’s no other way to thank you haha!

thank you so much for sending this, i was really touched when i read it, especially awed that you took the time to write and send it. i’m so honoured to be someone who has made your own hard days better, and i hope i continue to be as i carry on with this silly side hobby of mine. truly, thank you for sending this. things are still hard right now, but life is moving. so it goes.

i also wanted to say thank you to everyone else who sent me nice messages, and hug emojis and shit seemingly in response to my vent tags about going through a rough time. usually it makes me self-conscious and it feels strange for people to send asks as if they know me and, in a way, it does still feel that way? but it also feels like i’ve cultivated a really sweet, well-meaning group of people who like this blog and right now that means a lot to me.

#i'm not going to respond to every ask i've got in here #but please know that if you send me something sweet i really appreciated it #ask fbp #anon ask

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depravitycentral · 11 months

Text

Yandere! Phinks Magcub General Profile

Yandere! Phinks Magcub x fem! reader

Tw: kidnapping, violence, Phinks slaps you, mentions of murder, mentions of non-con, mentions of masturbation, possessiveness, Phinks has anger issues, mentions of stalking, fem! reader, MDNI

DARLING PROFILE:

Friendly

In general, Phinks is not a soft man. He’s a hard edged criminal, finding his thrills in beating others and theft. There is no part of him that’s sweet – in fact, he’d say that would almost be an insult.

And yet, there’s something weirdly alluring about a darling who is; someone who’s genuine, kind, and social. Phinks isn’t that much of a talker, but there’s something about just being genuinely friendly and open to other people that he finds incredibly cute. Naïve, yes, but adorable nonetheless.

It’s endearing to see his darling so freely chatting and interacting with those around them, making them smile and laugh and feel comfortable. It’s endearing, until suddenly it isn’t – once his obsession with them forms, Phinks is honestly hating this side of his beloved’s personality.

Of course, it’s overwhelmingly cute and only further shows just how soft and sweet and opposite his darling is compared to him, but once his possessiveness forms it’s a bit of a death sentence for anyone his darling decides to smile at, to give a random compliment, to do anything.

He wants no one taking his darling’s time, no one getting the opportunity to bask in the warmth and loveliness that is his sweet, precious darling. All of that is reserved solely for him, and he’ll be damned if he has to share.

So while this his darling’s friendliness is initially part of what attracts him, it also helps drive forward many of Phinks’s more troubling tendencies – he’s so possessive if only because his darling talks to so many strangers, and at the end of the day, isn’t it really just their fault? For being so damn sweet?

Playful

Despite being one of the most dangerous criminals in the world, it’s incredibly easy to fluster Phinks. He’s not particularly smooth with women, and so a darling that is quick on their feet is a perfect match for him.

He likes the idea of his darling being able to keep up with him, always knowing what to say to get him at a loss for words, their quick tongue making him bashful and struggle for words. It’s embarrassing to look so foolish when he’s blubbering and unsure of how to respond when they wink at him and tell him he’s looking handsome today, but he'd be lying if he said he doesn’t fucking love it, his ego multiplying tenfold with every compliment that slips past his darling’s lips.

He likes the idea of his darling being chipper and happy, if only because Phinks himself is easily swayed by his emotions, and having a positive darling helps him stay calmer and more in control.

Besides, as his obsession grows, so do his fantasies – he’s got this daydream of his darling cooking with him, all domestic bliss while they move around the kitchen and he sits at the dining table watching, with they sending him looks and throw jokes over their shoulder. He wants them to boop his nose with a bit of sauce or flour, then kiss it clean, winking at them and watching his face go bright red as he clears his throat and tries to recover.

It’s lame, he thinks, to be so vulnerable, but he can’t deny the way his heart races when he thinks of it, how he gets all warm and gooey on the inside like some lovesick teenage boy.

A playful darling would be a good fit, and Phinks is smitten as soon as he sees this side of them.

Patient

Because Phinks has issues regulating his emotions, having a darling who is more steady and consistent is a good match for him. He needs someone who is able to calm him down, to stop him from exploding and raging at the slightest inconvenience, and as time passes Phinks slowly begins seeing his darling as his rock.

He turns to them for emotional support more often than he would like to admit, and as soon as he feels rage swimming in his veins he’s desperately running to them, because even just seeing them calms him down, the anger replaced by fondness, love, yearning.

He becomes dependent on them from a very early stage, their presence being the only thing to make him feel normal, sane, calm, and he quickly grows addicted to the feeling.

His darling is like his own personal drug, and really, how can Phinks be expected to not chase down this feeling, to not snatch his darling up all for himself? He’s a selfish man, and he has his needs – he’s just lucky that his darling, with all their patience and ability to calm him, fulfill more than just one of his needs.

Many more.

Competitive

This one isn’t absolutely necessary for Phinks, but a more competitive darling is a significant turn-on for him. He likes a darling who isn’t completely meek; he wants them to be a bit of a spitfire, and while he doesn’t want them to be too competitive, he likes that his darling doesn’t just simply roll over and submit to those around them.

It’s attractive to see the way they get this glint in their eye, a desire to win rolling through them, and frankly, when Phinks sees his darling acting this way, he has to shift his pants a bit, discreetly trying to hide the way they’re getting just a bit too tight.

He likes this about his darling, but when it comes to him, Phinks doesn’t particularly like this trait. When he’s trying to take care of them, to protect them, he wants his darling to give into everything he says, to obey him without question.

He’s just trying to help them, and if his darling grows stubborn and decides to be a brat, he struggles to remain calm and rational, to not lash out and tell them to shut the fuck up and get into the bed, you have to sleep.

He wants his darling to keep this fiery personality trait, but to regulate it so that they aren’t super competitive with him – maybe playfully, sure, but not to the point where it throws a wrench in the relationship.

After all, he wants your relationship to normal, perfect, healthy, and if his darling is constantly fighting him, how can it be any of these things? Can’t they at least try and make it work, just like Phinks is? Can’t they see how frantically he’s trying?

GENERAL YANDERE TRAITS:

Lucid

Despite not exactly being the most romantic man alive, Phinks has enough knowledge about relationships to know that the way he feels for you is far from normal.

He’s very aware that you probably wouldn’t appreciate how his every thought revolves around you, how he’s constantly wondering what you’re doing, who you’re with, how you’re feeling, if you’re thinking about him…

He knows the obsession he’s harboring over you is wrong, that he’s a creep and a perverted, sick freak for tracking your whereabouts, for killing any man that comes close to you, for loving you in such an uncontrolled, passionate way, and while he wants to stop himself, to halt the feelings his has for you and lose the intense fascination and desire he feels for you, Phinks just can’t – both in reality and in principle. His feelings for you are too great, too intense and overwhelming and wonderful for him to ever be able to dispel of. He'll quickly come to the conclusion that he’ll always be in love with you, regardless of what happens, and regardless of how long he lives.

There’s just no way to lose interest in the person he honestly believes is his soulmate, the person he’d give anything and everything for. He quickly gives up trying, because it only hurts his heart, only makes him more and more desperate for you.

And of course, there’s also the more selfish side of him that loves having someone to love, someone to care for and want to protect at all costs. You’re one of the only people in his life that Phinks actually gives a damn about, that he wants to see safe and smiling and free from every single curse this world can dole out, and so the mere concept of losing you, of trying to forget you and move on causes his heart to physically hurt.

You’re so important to him, the main reason why he’s still living (aside from the Troupe, of course), and while it eats him alive from the guilt, Phinks slowly begins rationalizing his obsession and need for you as simply wanting to give you the amount of love and care that you deserve. He wants to be a good partner for you, for you to always be satisfied and want for nothing because of him, and one of the ways in which he shows this is to absolutely spoil you.

He’s never been the best at soft, gushy feelings, but the warmth that brews in his heart when he picks up the bouquet of red roses, of soft baby blue buttercups, of white tulips, he can’t help but smile softly and feel his cheeks heating up, because you deserve every fucking flower in the world, and even then they wouldn’t be enough to compare to your beauty.

When he picks out the necklace he’d like to steal for you (he won’t tell you it’s stolen of course, but you’ll quickly come to realize the exact nature of his profession), his heart hammers in his chest at the thought of you wearing it, of you loving it and proudly telling him and the world that Phinks owns you, that he treats you so well, and that he gives you everything you could ever want.

He spoils you beyond belief, hoping that the gifts will make up for his all of his violent, overbearing, wrong tendencies. He hopes it’ll work, and for the most part it helps ease his mind – so if you’re somehow who doesn’t like getting gifts or being so indebted, get used to it.

Phinks wants to give you the world, and with his skills in the ways of procuring valuables, he’s readily prepared to give it to you. Anything for you.

Possessive

In Phinks’s mind, you are completely and utterly his.

He still has enough lucidity about his feelings to recognize that you’re your own person, but only to a certain extent – yes, you have your own feelings and thoughts, but every part of you belongs to him. Your mind, such a pretty and entertaining thing to him, is owned by Phinks Magcub himself, forced to bend to whatever he wants and dictates, just as it should be.

Your body (something he spends hours dreaming about, shaky fingers hovering over your curves for minutes at a time once he’s got you in front of him) is his property, for him to do whatever he pleases with.

He figures that because he does so much for you (all of the protection he provides you, the security and guarantee that no one will ever touch you), the least you could do is be willingly his, to give into his possessiveness and let him just completely own you.

He has a real problem with jealousy where you’re concerned; in his eyes, every single male on the planet is a rival for your love and affection, a possible deterrent from you realizing how Phinks himself is the only one you could ever be truly happy with or need. His automatic assumption for every man within a ten foot radius of you is that they want you, that they want to talk to you and smile at you and use you and touch you and fuck you –

His blood boils the second someone approaches you, regardless of their intent – your male friend stops by to ask about the newest assignment from your boss? Immediately Phinks is scowling, fists clenching at his sides, aura flaring up impossibly because why is this piece of shit staring at you like you’re some slab of fine meat?

When the man in the grocery store accidentally bumps into you after turning around, immediately Phinks is shaking with rage, angry that this man thinks he can just touch you like you’re some commoner, like you aren’t the literal reason for his very existence.

It’s unhealthy to be so controlling and obsessive over making sure that you stay his, and for the most part Phinks knows this – he knows that he really shouldn’t have a say in who you hang out with, who you think of and where your gaze falls as you sit on the subway car to work, but he just can’t help it.

You’re all he thinks about, all he cares about, the only thing besides killing and the Troupe that gets him up in the morning; it’s the promise of making sure that you’re safe, of making sure that nothing ever gets between the two of you that gives him the drive to function.

Of course, while the swirling mix of rage and utter desperation for you is never ending in his gut, he’s more than aware that in order to really have you, in order to get you to actually love him back and not be terrified of his every move, he can’t be nearly as obvious as he wants to be about his infatuation with you.

He wants nothing more than to sock every man in the face who so much as glances at you, to leave them bloodied, bruised and thrust to death in the most painful ways, all with you watching and seeing just how far Phinks is willing to go to prove his love to you. But he knows that if you saw that you’d only cower away from him, terrified of what he could do to you if he was able to destroy so many men larger, stronger and more knowledgeable about combat than you.

And really, fear is the last thing Phinks wants you to harbor for him – he craves a normal relationship with you, to have all of the overplayed, cliché romance Hallmark movie moments with you. So while the urge to just grab you and keep you away from everything and everyone, to keep you completely and utterly his is nearly too overwhelming to ignore, Phinks holds out.

For you.

Because he knows it’ll only push you away, and Phinks isn’t kidding when he says he would literally die without you – you’re a drug to him, and he’s a greedy man. He isn’t willing to share his supply of happiness with anyone else, no matter how you beg and plead with him. He’s stubborn, so it’s really in your best interest to just submit to your fate and let him hold you in his lap, hands awkwardly set at your sides and palpably clammy.

Just let him do what he wants, because in the end he’ll always get what he wants.

Protective

While he’s by no means a gentle man, there’s something about you that makes him pale at the idea of being rough. Maybe it’s because you’re just so weak compared to him, so soft and sweet and nice, but he can’t stomach the idea of letting other people hurt you.

He’s more than aware that the world is full of horrible, blood thirsty criminals who kill at the snap of a finger (hell, he’s one of them, he would know), and in the context of your safety, Phinks can’t help but imagine all the worst case scenarios. He can’t help but imagine any number of them getting their hands on you, of any of them deciding that you’d be a quick, fun kill. He can vividly see in his mind you being snatched off the street, gagged and bound at the wrists while some psychopath makes you cry and scream, your pretty blood staining your skin and the life draining from your eyes.

The idea of you being hurt, tortured, raped, killed or any number of other horrible things is genuinely something that gives him nightmares. There’s this cold, sinking feeling in his gut that forces him up and out of bed, racing towards your home when he awakes from these dreams, his lungs burning as he runs faster than he ever has.

He’s picking at your lock with trembling fingers, slipping inside and hurriedly rushing to your room, eyes darting around wildly to make sure that you’re still breathing, that your body is all in on piece, that you aren’t bleeding and sobbing and broken.

He’s only able to take a deep, steadying breath when he sees you safe and sound asleep, your chest rising and falling steadily while your eyes dart around under their eyelids.

It’s a calming sight, one that immediately makes his heart stutter, his cheeks heating up because god, how can you be so beautiful without even trying? He has to grab onto the corner of your drawers to steady himself and keep from sinking to his knees in relief, and sometimes even a tear or two will trickle down his cheek if the nightmare was particularly graphic.

You dream of strange men that night, fingers gripping onto your hand with a force that makes you wince, your palm clammy and aching when you wake up in the morning.

He’s paranoid about your safety, absolutely convinced that without him around you’d be nothing more than a pile of bones rotting in some monster’s basement or left to die in some ditch in the country side. He’s not used to caring so intensely about someone, and he’s quite honestly blindsided by the enormity of his feelings, of how the compulsive need to be checking up on you every minute of the day hits him so hard at the most random moments.

He’s irritated in a way, at how you seem to draw so much emotion out of him without even trying, but Phinks could never, ever be mad at you about it – after all, while it’s overwhelming and scary just how much he cares for you, he wouldn’t trade the way you make him feel for the world. You’re so warm and soft, and you make Phinks so fucking happy.

Just being around you is enough to give him a massive serotonin boost, a smile that doesn’t leave his face all day no matter how hard he tries (the blush is present too, and Feitan is constantly teasing him, always telling him how he’s such a sappy little schoolgirl, did you write about her in your diary?, only to be punched halfway across the room and still snicker). He’s giddy, truly, even if you so much as glance in his direction or give him some half-hearted smile. In general Phinks can’t express enough how grateful he is to have someone like you in his life, such a beacon of happiness and joy for someone as misguided and undeserving as himself.

It’s only natural, then, to want to keep his source of love and devotion and obsession safe, to make sure that nothing will ever touch you or harm your perfect body, your pretty skin.

He isn’t exactly subtle about his protectiveness over you either – you’ll realize very quickly that he thinks of you as a glass doll, with the way he’s always hovering at your side, moving you closer to him anytime another man passes, eyes raking over your frame at constant fifteen minute intervals to check for bruises or cuts.

(And, though you don’t know it, the way that Phinks rummages through your things and makes sure that every blade in your home is dulled, that your stove can’t go any higher than a medium setting, that your locks are all the highest quality grade, it makes his obsession over making sure you don’t ever get hurt more than apparent).

It’s a curse he doesn’t mind undergoing, if only because he honestly views you as needing him, requiring his protection to live your life.

He’s not exactly sure how you managed to survive as long as you did without him, but now that he has you in his sights, so obviously needing him and being desperate for a big, strong man like him to make sure that you can have the easiest life you can, Phinks will make sure that he lives up to your each and every expectation of him.

After all, your opinion means everything, and just seeing your smile and hearing your laugh is enough to have Phinks proud, knowing that he’s fulfilling his role, that he’s keeping you safe and happy and his.

DEALING WITH RIVALS:

Jealousy is something that gets the better of Phinks much more often than he’d like to admit. He’s so possessive, so hellbent on making sure that you stay his and that no one else even so much as looks at you, that it leads to him interpreting interest from other guys way more often than what’s really true.

You’re absolutely perfect to Phinks, a literal human embodiment of everything he could want in a partner, both good and bad. And because of this, he’s so convinced that everyone else would be just as in love with you, just as desperate to make you theirs and keep you with them as he is, so isn’t it his job to make sure that that can’t happen?

Everyone is a threat to the relationship he’s so desperate to have and build with you, and Phinks will stop at absolutely nothing to make sure that nothing could ever possibly separate the two of you. His desperation is honestly a bit pathetic, to the point where many of the members of the troupe honestly take pity on him, thinking it’s sad to see their fellow comrade so helplessly obsessed with a sweet, innocent woman.

Jealousy consumes him, to the point where all he’s seeing is red, panic lacing at his chest because what if you decide that man who’s chatting with you and making you laugh is better than Phinks?

What if you decide that you’d rather be with the waiter at that restaurant you love – the one who always jokes around with you because you’re such a regular customer?

Phinks isn’t the most insecure man around, but when it comes to you and the question of your relationship, suddenly he feels like a teenage boy again; awkward in his own skin, terrified that the girl of his dreams thinks that he’s too violent, too ugly, too boring and mean.

And while he knows rationally that you don’t think these things, how can he help it when he’s watching from a few dozen yard away as you laugh and thank the man in the supermarket who helped you get the can of food at the very top shelf?

How can he help it when he sees you being so nice to others, being so kind and generous and friendly, only to have them turn around and exploit you for every ounce of kindness in your bones?

It makes him angry, beyond enraged to think of how others could be hurting you, how they could be trying to steal you away, wanting to beat you or kill you or rape you or any number of things – and so, Phinks must make sure that you stay safe, that there’s absolutely no chance on you ever being alone with another man. He has to keep your wellbeing in tact, and, of course, keep you completely his and his alone.

Because he feels so strongly when he sees that man approach you on the street corner and ask you in you know where the nearest bank is, Phinks has trouble holding himself back.

You’re kind to the man, blinking up at him and scrunching your brows in thought, trying to answer his question as he patiently stands beside you, a small smile on his face. Phinks is pissed – how dare this piece of shit, this worthless nobody approach you like that? How dare they start a conversation with you, stare at you, get to bask in your presence when only Phinks himself should be getting that pleasure?

His fists are clenched at his side, jaw set so tightly he almost fears his teeth might crack. His eyes are narrowed in on the both of you, his mind desperately telling him to stop, don’t do it, don’t do it Phinks she’ll just get scared and then you’ll make backwards progress – and it works, to a certain degree, up until the final straw as the man chats with you.

His hand, placed on your shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze as he smiles down at you, leaning forward ever so slightly for what Phinks is absolutely positive is a glance down your shirt. Suddenly he isn’t just seeing red anymore – he’s seeing scarlet, the bloodlust oozing out of him enough to propel him forward, his face the epitome of rage as he cocks his fist, landing a hard punch against the man’s jaw, hearing a sickening crunch accompanied by the man’s screams.

He’s on the ground in a second, Phinks straddled above him, fists flying as he beats him to a pulp, the rage never ending as he thinks of all the terrible, horrible things that he’d likely been imagining with you, that he’d been aiming to try with you, all while Phinks was right fucking there (or, a good fifty away, but still). He’s growling out curses and spitting on the man, telling him that he’s just a stupid piece of shit, you’re fucking disgusting, you perverted bastard, trying to cop a feel and sneak a peek.

You’re left to watch, shocked beyond belief and too frozen to move as you watch Phinks slowly pull more blood from the man, his body already bruising and twitching as desperate sobs out what you can only assume are pleas to stop escape the victim’s throat. And yet, you can hear perfectly what Phinks is saying, some more distinctly than others – don’t fucking touch her, she’s mine do you understand? I own her, she’s mine, mine mine mine and no one gets to touch her, to look at her, to think about her, certainly not digusting wastes of space like you!

Your jaw is dropped, still too scared to move as you register his words, wondering who this ‘she’ was, if he possibly meant you…?

Phinks doesn’t stop until the man is disfigured beyond recognition, his face smashed in on itself from the beating of his fists, blood staining the pavement under his head, though the frantic rise and fall of his chest and the small pathetic, pained whimpers tell him that he’s still alive.

But at the sudden sound of you sharply gasping and stumbling backwards, trying to put space between yourself and the monster in front of you, suddenly Phinks’s eyes are widening, his head whipping around as he shoots to his feet, running over to you and caging his arms around you.

He pulls you flush against his chest, his heart beating wildly as he whispers frantic apologies in your ear, voice desperate as he tells you he’s so sorry, I don’t know what got into me – he was just touching you and his eyes were basically fucking you and I just – I can’t watch anyone do that to you. Please, you have to understand, tell me you understand!

And while you’re terrified, feeling some of the man’s blood rubbing off of Phinks and onto you, at the end of the day you’re more terrified of one day being in the man’s position, so you shakily nod, whispering that it’s okay, I know you didn’t mean it.

And as Phinks’s body relaxes, relief coursing through him, you can only stare into his chest, fear and hopelessness settling into your heart, because is this who he really is?

TAKING HIS DARLING AWAY:

Phinks really does want you to want him.

He’s so in love with you, so desperate for you to return his feelings that it physically hurts, and as a result he’s trying everything he possibly can to approach you normally, to not give away how obsessed he is over you, how badly he wants to just hold you in his arms and never let you go, never let another living soul see you besides him.

He knows his feelings for you are unhealthy, that it’s wrong that he thinks of you as a possession, that he wants to own you, but he just can’t help it. And yet, because of his commitment to wanting to keep your relationship as normal as possible, as happy as possible, Phinks knows that doing something rash like stealing you away really isn’t the best idea.

It’s tempting – tempting as hell, if he’s being honest, because just the idea of you and him living together in a little house bought specifically for the both of you, you waiting patiently for him every evening with a hot dinner on the stove and a big welcome home kiss is enough to have him gulping, a blush dusting his cheeks at the sheer domesticity of it all.

He loves the idea of keeping you dependent on him, of keeping you only by his side where he can keep you safe and make sure that you understand how much he loves you, but he can’t bring himself to actually do it.

He can’t bring himself to gently knock you out, to cover your pretty lips and nose with a chloroform soaked rag, to throw you over his shoulder and give your bum a firm pat, a grin spreading across his features as he thinks of the wonderful, perfect life the two of you are starting.

He can’t bring himself to do it, at least without some push from an outside factor. Phinks will likely try to pursue a friendship with you – he wants to be around you at all times, to have your trust in him build, to make you comfortable and hopefully give you the chance to fall in love with him as well, and because of this he’s able to sate his overwhelming desire for you.

However, try as he may, Phinks just can’t get rid of his possessiveness; even dialing it down to seem more normal and healthy leaves him with enough emphasis on making sure that you don’t talk to anyone else, that you spend all your time with him to raise a brow. And you’ll quickly notice this – he’s a friend, one that you’ve grown to enjoy spending your time with, but his random bouts of jealousy, of insecurity and clinginess are just too much.

The way he butts into your life, changing your schedule to revolve around his is just too overbearing, the signs of a toxic friendship that you know you shouldn’t turn a blind eye to.

And so, you do what makes the most sense – sit him down and tell him that you don’t think you can be friends anymore, that he’s too controlling, too possessive, that you think it would be best if we took some time away from each other, just to clear our heads.

And Phinks is panicking across from you – take a break? Split up? He knows you’re not together yet, but he can’t shake the distinct feeling of rejection, the anger and fear and distress that the idea of you being separated from him causes.

And so, on a bit of a hasty split second decision, Phinks is pressing the pressure point on your neck, catching your limp body in his arms as he takes ragged breaths, mind swimming in anger, excitement and nerves as he hauls you towards your new home, your new life with him.

As a captor, Phinks isn’t too terrible – he’s never been much of a homemaker, not really someone who’s used to taking care of anyone but himself, and while he tries (he tries so, so fucking hard) for you, he’s not especially great at it.

Of course, your health is still the priority in his eyes, something that he cares for more than his own life, and because of this he gets only the best foods, making sure to cater to your tastes and keep your diet a plentiful mix of protein, starch and vegetables, so that your body can stay healthy and strong.

He’s making sure that there’s nothing in the house you could hurt yourself with, keeping every knife and razor away from you, putting a childlock on the stove, not letting you near the freezer. He doesn’t mean to be patronizing, but as he becomes paranoid about your safety and wellbeing, slowly he begins thinking of you as less and less capable, needing more of his help and guidance to do basic things.

He likes to bathe you (though he’ll never force you into it, only ever harboring it as a fantasy until you make it reality), to help dress you (when your body is sore from a night of intense, passionate fucking, he’s more than willing to help slip on one of his oversized shirts, loving the way it pools around your frame), to even help feed you when he’s in an especially loving mood.

But for the most part, Phinks isn’t too touchy with you. He still genuinely wants you to love him, to want to be with him and maybe even enjoy your time under his roof, and in all honesty he’s nursing the dream that one day you’ll turn to him unprompted, completely honest as you cuddle up against him and tell him in the sweetest voice he’s ever heard that you love him, that you’re so happy he’s with you, that you’d never, ever want to leave him.

And because he wants so badly for you to genuinely develop feelings for him, Phinks tries everything that he can to woo you – he’s not great with romance, has little to no experience, but he’s willing to do anything and everything if there’s even the slightest chance that it’ll make you smile at him, that you’ll look at him in anything other than fear, betrayal and apathy.

He begins watching rom-coms religiously, noting the various courting methods, how the male lead always seems to get the love interest laughing, smiling and telling them how funny they are. So, he tries to make jokes around you, hoping to get you to laugh and compliment him, and while you don’t particularly want to, sometimes they’re just so terrible and the look of hope in his eyes is just so heart wrenching that you can’t help but snort, chuckling lightly.

And to Phinks, just that step alone is enough to send him on a wild goose chase, doing everything he can to try and come up with other ways to make you see him in a more positive light. He’s scouring every resource he can – romance novels, online articles about attraction, relationship podcasts, everything and anything.

He even goes to the girls of the Troupe, asking with an embarrassed expression and rubbing the back of his neck if they have any advice on how to win a girl’s heart, something that they all react quite differently to.

Machi isn’t impressed – simply staring at him for a few moments and cocking her brow, before asking him why he thought that she would be a good person to ask – do I look like I’ve ever had a guy pining after me?

Pakunoda is more sympathetic, telling him to try the staples – buy her flowers from time to time, get her little gifts that you know she’ll like. Eventually it might add up over time to where she feels loved and cared for, and then she’ll be more willing to return your feelings.

But, surprisingly, Shizuku is actually the one that gives Phinks the best advice – hmm, well I think just being there for her is important. Ask about things she loves and get her in a happy mood, and just listen to her. Nod along and add a question or comment in every once in a while so she knows you’re listening, but just let her know that you’re genuinely invested in her.

Phinks takes the advice in stride, silently stewing on it before showing up at your shared ‘home’ the next day with a bouquet of lilies in your favorite color, a grocery bag full of your favorite snacks, and a nervous, carefully hopeful smile when he walks through the door.

And really, you know you shouldn’t think of him as anything but your captor, the man who stole you away and wants to keep you as his possession for the rest of your life, but there’s just something about the way he bites his lip as you go through the bag of candy, chips, junk food and snacks one by one.

There’s just something about the way he nearly trips over his own feet as you pat the seat on the sofa next to you expectantly.

There’s just something about the desperation with which he wants to please you, to make you happy and make you love him that will eventually get to you, no matter how hard you try to fight it. Because while it’s wrong and you know it, you’ve never felt this loved before, this desired and wanted, and it’s a strange sort of confidence and boost to your self-esteem, one that manages to warp your whole mental state into thinking that maybe you really do love Phinks, even if he’s a bit rough around the edges.

He spoils you, trying his best to give you every last piece of himself and his affection as he can, and eventually you’ll come to openly receive it, to fulfill his fantasy of you finally accepting him. Besides, there’s just something about the way he blushes and bounces his knee when you compliment him makes your heart melt, and when you tell him you love him, the way he looks so shocked, but so happy and soft and god, is he crying?

Phinks is desperate for you to return his feelings, for you to love him as he loves you, and he’ll stop at nothing to get you there.

PUNISHMENTS:

Phinks has a bit of a temper.

It’s something he’s always been aware of, and for the most part he couldn’t care less – he’s a thief, someone who gets what they want, and if he gets angry in the process, that just means a few more necks to break. He’s used to acting out on his anger, to mercilessly beating and killing those who make him mad, and in a lot of ways it’s simply autopilot to him.

But where you’re concerned, Phinks is absolutely the opposite. He’s terrified of hurting you, of somehow leaving marks of violence on your pretty, soft skin, and for the most part he manages to succeed in not lashing out against you, in not blemishing you in any way. He loves you, and the last thing he wants to do is abuse you, to punch you and kick you and take out every bit of his anger on you, so instead he tries to focus the rage elsewhere.

The desire to just punch something is too great to ignore, and if it can’t be your face or body, the next closest thing is the wall beside him. It scares you and never fails to leave you gasping and shuddering in fear as he punches a hole through the drywall, the grimace of anger and pain turning his features into some monster-esque look, and as you slowly back away, hands covering your mouth and trying to put distance between the both of you, Phinks can only sigh.

He hates scaring you, but his anger gets triggered so easily that it’s something he can’t even hope to control, that he can’t even try to conceal. He gets quite good at fixing drywall, and for a long while it works out. He gets angry at you, punches a hole in the wall, spends a few minutes breathing deeply and muttering under his breath, before turning to you and telling you to not go near the kitchen knives again, do you hear me?

And for the most part, you’re scared into submission. You very vividly remember him beating the living shit out of any guy who so much as looked at you before he stole you away, and because of this you’re more than aware of just how strong he is, at just how talented he is at throwing punches and drawing blood.

Life with Phinks is really just a balancing act in a lot of ways – he wants to please you and make you happy, so as long as you smile and hug him, whisper sweet nothings in his ear and try to not to make him angry at you in any way, you’ll be just fine.

That being said, there are moments when Phinks loses control, when he lets his anger cloud his mind and overwhelm him, his natural habits of lashing out coming to the surface.

Punching the wall is fine and it’s something that he does mostly when it’s small things you do that trigger his anger, like turning the stove on, hopping into the shower without telling him, flinch away slightly when he goes to peck your forehead. But when it’s larger offenses, things that you do that genuinely make him rage, Phinks has a tendency to get a bit more violent, a bit more mindless in his actions.

When he tentatively reaches a hand out to run his callused fingers over your hair, his breath hitches when you softly smile, telling him in a faraway, dreamy voice that you had a friend who used to play with my hair, it was always my favorite. They were really good at it, too.

His whole body is freezing before suddenly shaking, his breathing ragged as he realizes that you’ve just brought another person up, that you’re thinking of someone else while he tries to be loving and intimate with you, and before he knows it he’s on his feet, pushing you against the wall and slamming your back into the hard expanse.

You gasp sharply, staring up at him with wide, fearful eyes while he glares down at you, his teeth grinding together as the swirling pool of jealousy builds greater and greater in his chest, his gut twisting painfully when he realizes that he’s not he only one on your mind, like you are for him.

Don’t you ever talk about anyone else when you’re with me, do you understand? He growls out, hanging his head low so that you can’t see his eyes. You’re terrified, every inch of you trembling in fear as his grip grows tighter on your shoulders.

Answer me!

His voice is loud, curt and terrifying, and as you squeak out a timid y-yes! I understand Phinks, I’m sorry, I didn’t meant to make you jealous, she was just a friend – but before you can finish your rambling, frantic apology, a sudden sharp noise and an overwhelming stinging sensation against your cheek has you whimpering, pain flaring up and making your eyes well with tears.

Phinks is breathing hard, his eyes wild as he stares down at you, his hand still raised as if to slap you again, but when you quietly start crying, the pain mixed with the fear and hopelessness of the situation, suddenly Phinks is snapping out of his rage fueled daze, his heart stopping in his chest as he sees you cowering in front of him, cradling your cheek with tears streaming down your face, your body trembling while you beg him to not hurt you again.

And the guilt the hits Phinks square in the chest has him gasping, stumbling away from you and clutching onto his head, self hatred and regret making him shed a few tears of his own, realization that he just hurt you spinning through his mind.

And before you even get to a chance to say or do anything, suddenly he’s racing out the front door, the locks snapping into place as you slowly sink to your knees, sobbing and letting the emotions wash over you.

Meanwhile, Phinks is wandering aimlessly through the city, not hesitating to mercilessly snap the neck of anyone who dares approach him or try to talk to him, all the while he desperately tries to come up with a solution to make it up to you, to apologize for being such a monster. And, when he returns home a few hours later to find you curled up on your bed, a plush blanket thrown over your figure, he can only gulp and lightly knock against the door, watching as you stiffen up and say nothing.

He sighs, hanging his head and stepping inside the room, placing the bags in his hands onto the bed.

I’m sorry, he starts, discomfort and shame coursing through him. I shouldn’t have hit you, I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you, I shouldn’t have – look, I’m really sorry and I really, really regret it. You don’t have to forgive me, but I got some uh, some stuff while I was out… and as he gently motions the bags towards you, you slowly sight up, eyeing him wearily with puffy eyes as you paw at the bags.

You’re careful to open them, but when you see the packages of food, the jewelry case with a soft silver necklace sitting in it, you can’t help but feel a bit better, as materialistic as it is. And when you move to the next bag, you nearly cry – pictures and frames from your old home, little stuffed animals and knick knacks you’d cherished that were ripped away from you. your favorite books, a blanket, and countless other treasures that have you softly smiling, wiping at your eyes while Phinks watches with bated breath.

And when you finally look up at him, something in your chest feels warm, and immediately you know that you’re too far gone. Because when you look at Phinks, the man who stole you away, who keeps you locked up in his home, dependent on him and loses his anger when you talk about another soul, you only see an awkward, love struck man, who loves you more than life itself.

You know it’s Stockholm Syndrome at work, but as you softly whisper I forgive you, Phinks, you can’t find it in yourself to care. Not when the relief on his face is practically palpable, when he fiddles nervously with his fingers as you slowly get up and move to hug him. He gasps quietly, chocked by your affection, but quickly he’s clutching you against him, leaning down and breathing deeply next to your hair, letting your scent calm him as he basks in the feeling of holding you.

It’s wrong, but as time passes, you’ll slowly come to love Phinks – in a twisted, warped way, but isn’t all love just so wonderful?

OVERALL DANGER:

7/10

Phinks, despite being a violent, misguided man, is actually a rather tragic yandere – he’s so desperate for you to love him back, for you to hold even an ounce of the adoration and affection he feels for you, and he’s not at all subtle about it, no matter how he tries.

He wants to love you like a normal man, to give you a happy, loving life by his side, but he just can’t – his obsession is too strong, his possessiveness too overwhelming. He wants to keep you safe and happy, to keep you healthy and next to him, and he really does have good intentions for the most part – he’s awkward in love, nervous and anxious and wanting to constantly be around you.

He’s possessive to a fault, wanting to keep you utterly his and his alone, and in all honesty that’s what fuels the vast majority of his yandere tendencies – when he’s mercilessly attacking other men who might be construed as rivals for your love and affection, it’s the thought of keeping you by his side that’s guiding him.

When he’s gently knocking you out and slipping you into the new, queen sized mattress he’d stolen just for the two of you, it was all on the basis of making sure that you never stray from his side, that he can keep you close and safe and his for the rest of your lives.

He just wants you to love him back, and you honestly might – the desperation he feels for you is strong enough that you can almost physically feel it, the utter need and desire to just be loved by you pulling at your heartstrings and making you eventually decide that he isn’t too bad, that he could be much worse.

And really, Phinks will take anything he can get – he loves you, so much so that it physically hurts, and the second that you show him that the feeling is returned, he’s holding you in his arms, pressing you against him so tightly that you’ll never escape.

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