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#just needed to say something for once because idk if people MEAN to be mean and make creators less interested in sharing things?

sanguineterrain · 4 months

Note

Jason is definitely the type to go feral over his best friend he hasn't seen in years. Hear me out: he's alive again, and not only that, but he's huge. Strong. People are afraid of him. So the reader is in town, walking the streets, and they meet again, maybe when he protects them as Hood. And reader is ecstatic to see Jason again of course and he's the same but also, all he can think is minemineminemine and I WANT YOU. mans is down horrendous for his sweet best friend that he missed and he's been in love with them for so long and now that he has them, he's not giving them up

idk if this was a prompt but i got inspired <3 thanks for stopping by anon

jason todd x gn!reader. feral jason i guess, but really soft jason. jason who yearns to be yours. jason who'd do anything for it, even if it meant one sided devotion... and also, jason who is loved by you. 1.2k words

****

"I don't understand why you can't come to my apartment."

"I told you why." Jason's posture is rigid but his tone is gentle. Because he has told you why he won't enter your home. Multiple times. Doesn't mean you don't challenge it every time you meet him on a random rooftop.

"It would be fine, Jay," you say. "I trust you."

"I know. But I don't trust everybody else," he says, words crackling through his modulator. That had frightened you at first; in fact, everything about a newly-resurrected Jason Todd had frightened you. From his height to the guns, you'd been sure that night in Gotham would be your last.

But then it had become clear that cheated death aside, nothing could kill his heart.

"You haven't visited in a while," you say.

You don't mean for it to sound accusatory.

"I know," Jason says. "Been busy. The Bats..."

And you knew. You knew the second you found out that Jason was alive that it would be like this, that he wouldn't be completely yours. He wasn't yours when he was Robin either, perhaps even less so.

And what's wrong with that? You have no right to ask him to be yours. To give you more.

But the recent distance has frightened you. Maybe it's for safety's sake, but your selfish heart wishes that he'd drop that for once.

Then again, there's always that dread in your stomach that perhaps Jason Todd doesn't love you the way you love him. And perhaps he never will.

"Well, I wish you'd call," you say.

This is wrong. You shouldn't be picking fights. Jason doesn't go dark out of cruelty, only necessity.

Jason sighs. "I can't. 'M sorry."

You cross your arms. It's chilly tonight.

"Do you even want to see me?"

He tilts his head. Dangerous.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't want to intrude," you say. "You're busy and all the stuff with B, I don't—I mean, I wouldn't hold it against you if you—"

Jason takes two long strides and closes the distance. You swallow the rest of your sentence as he backs you up against the brick exterior of an abandoned apartment. Your heart picks up. You're not afraid; the fear went long ago. You're just... something. You're something about Jason.

The last time you two hugged was after Willis' death. You'd wanted to wrap him in his cape, thought maybe that would make everything feel as small as he'd been.

Now, a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier, Jason clearly does not need a cape. Right?

He takes off his helmet, lets it hang on his hand. His other hand is by your head. You lean back, let your neck go on display. Jason doesn't miss the movement.

"What're you doing, Jay?" you ask levelly.

Maybe he thinks you don't notice this distance but you do. You don't want to push him to talk about it, because as upsetting as it is, you're still strangers to each other.

You are and you're not. He died and he didn't. You grieved and you didn't. You burn and... you burn.

But you're tired of being and not being. You won't let him keep you in emotional purgatory. If he's done with you, he should just say so.

"If you don't want to meet anymore," you start, and let the words hang in the air.

"I—" he starts, then swallows. He tosses his helmet to the side. He doesn't touch you, just hovers inches away. Jason smells like lilac and gun smoke.

"I don't think you understand... my devotion," he says, voice low. "How much power you have over me."

Your eyes widen. "Wh—"

His green eyes reflect the streetlight like a cat's. The sight stops you short. Jason Todd is hot metal on a knife's edge, and it would do you well to remember that.

His hands curl into fists. He shakes his head.

"Sorry," he whispers like a prayer. "Not tryna scare you." His chest rises and falls rapidly. "'M I scarin' ya, sweetheart? Tell me and I'll go home, shake it off. Wait forever. I can be good. Won't want what I don't deserve."

"I'm not scared," you say, and it's the most sure you've ever been. "Not scared of you, Jay."

He breathes a laugh, like he can't quite believe you. His breath is warm on your neck.

"You'd be the first," he says. "The only one."

This, you believe. This, you have wondered some nights, knowing that even Batman isn't sure what to do with a son who lives with death on his shoulder.

"You don't have to devote yourself to me," you say, because that makes you pause. Who are you to be his god?

Jason laughs again, strong and sure. He sinks to his knees in front of you. His white streak glows in the light.

"You think it's a vice?" he asks. He rests a hand on your left thigh, testing. You lay your hand over his, so he holds your other thigh too.

He hums. "You do. You think you're holdin' me hostage."

Jason takes a shuddering breath and flattens his palms over your legs. Then he leans in and rests his cheek on your leg, nose near the apex of your thighs. Your belly flips.

"Let's make one thing clear. My devotion is my only redemption. 'S the only thing that makes me believe I'm not all rotted inside. Makes me behave. In this world and the next, I'm yours."

"I... Jason, you belong to yourself, not me. I don't—"

"You don't have to do anything. If it's too much, then I'll disappear. You can carry on."

You stroke the exposed side of his face. He looks up at you.

He is still. You have made him still.

"I'm yours too," you say.

He shakes his head. "You don't hafta—"

"Do you think being yours is a curse?" you ask, gaze sharp.

"Don't promise something for balance's sake," he rasps. "I'll be yours without you being mine."

Your heart is still. He has made it still.

"I'll keep coming back," Jason whispers, eyes wide. "If you're mine, I can't leave. Y'don't know what you're doing. Don't give yourself to me."

"I do. I'm yours."

His grip tightens around your legs. Jason shakes his head.

"Don't do it," he says into your thigh. "I shouldn't have anyone. I'm-I'm only meant to be yours. Nobody's mine."

But you know. You can slide your finger along his teeth and he'll wait with his mouth open. You can touch his edges and he'll turn his cheek so you won't nick your finger. He would sooner chew his own tongue.

"It's alright," you say, and kneel. You dirty your knees right alongside him. "It's okay, Jason. I know what I'm doing."

His breath hitches. Jason presses you into the brick, tucks his face into your neck. His arms wrap tightly around your waist.

"Sorry," he whispers frantically. "'M sorry. You can push me away. Sorry."

"I won't do that." You hold him and let him take you. "I know you're good. I thought—I thought you were pulling away, and I..."

"I was," he admits, muffled in your skin. "'M sorry. Was the only way I could think of to let you go. You deserve better. Couldn't think 'round you, honeylove. Knew it was a death sentence when I found out that you still lived in Gotham."

"It wasn't," you say. "Best thing that's ever happened to me."

Jason huffs. "You say that now, but..."

"No. I say it now and I'll say it again. Keep me, Jason. I'll keep you too."

#jason todd x reader #jason todd x you #jason todd fanfiction #jason todd imagine #red hood x you #red hood x reader #red hood fanfiction #batman fanfiction #dc fanfiction #jason todd x yn #jason todd x gender neutral reader #inbox #blurb

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wombywoo · 7 months

Text

Ok! I've finally decided to put together a (somewhat) comprehensive tutorial on my latest art~

Please enjoy this little step-by-step 💁‍♀️

First things first--references!

Now I'm not saying you have to go overboard, but I always find that this is a crucial starting point in any art piece I intend on making. Especially if you're a detail freak like me and want to make it as realistic as possible 🙃

As such, your web browser should look like this at any given point:

Since this is a historical piece, it means hours upon hours of meaningless research just to see what color the socks are, but...again. that isn't, strictly, necessary 😅

Once I've compiled all my lovely ref pics, I usually dump them into a big-ass collage ⬇️

(I will end up not using half of these, alas :'D)

Another reference search for background material, and getting to showcase our models of choice for this occasion~

When picking a reference for an actor or model, the main thing I keep in mind (besides prettiness 🤭) is lighting and orientation. Because I already kinda know what pose I'm gonna go with for this piece, I can look for specific angles that might fit the criteria. I should mention that I am a reference hound, and my current COD actor ref folder looks like this:

Also keep in mind, if you're using a ref that you need to flip, make sure you adjust accordingly. This especially applies to clothing, as certain things like pants zippers and belt buckles can be quite specific ☝️

Now that we've spent countless hours googling, it's time to start with a rough sketch:

It doesn't have to be pretty, folks, just a basic guideline of where you want the figures to be.

The next step is to define it more, and I know this looks like that 'how to draw an owl' meme, but I promise--getting from the loose sketch above to below is not that difficult.

Things to keep in mind are--don't go too in-depth with the details, because things are still subject to change at this point. In terms of making a suitable anatomically-correct sketch, I would suggest lots of studying. This doesn't even have to be things like figure drawing, I genuinely look at people around me for inspiration all the time. Familiarize yourself with the human form, and things like weight, proportions, posing will seem a little more feasible.

It's also important at this stage to consider your composition. Remember to flip the canvas frequently to make sure you're not leaning to one side too often. I'm sure something can be said for the spiral fibonacci stuff, which I don't really try to do on purpose, but I think keeping things like symmetry and balance in mind is a good start ✌️

Next step is just blocking in the figures. Standard. No fuss 👍

Now onto the background!

It's frankly hilarious how many people thought I was *hand-drawing* these maps and stuff 😂😂 I cannot even begin to comprehend how insanely difficult that would be. So yeah, we're just taking the lazy copy and paste way out 🤙

I almost always prepare my backgrounds first, and this is mostly to get a general color scheme off the bat. For collage work, it's really just a matter of trial and error, sticking this here, slapping this there, etc. I like to futz around with different overlay options until I've found a nice arrangement. Advice for this is just--go nuts 🤷‍♀️

Next, I add a few color adjustments. I tend to make at least 2 colors pop in an art piece, and low and behold, they usually tend to be red and blue ❤️💙There's something about warm/cool vibes, idk man..

Now we move on to coloring the figures. This is just a basic block and fill, not really defining any of the details yet.

Next, we add some cursory values. Sloppy airbrush works fine, it'll look better soon I promise 🙏

And now--rendering!

I know a lot of beginner artists are intimidated by rendering, and I can totally understand why. It's just one of those things you have to commit to 💪

I've decided to show a brief process of rendering our dear Johnny's face here:

Starting off, I usually rely on the trusty airbrush just to get some color values going. Note--I've kept my sketch layer on top, but feel free to turn it on and off as you work, so as to not be too bound to the sketch. For now, it's just a guideline.

This next stage may look like a huge jump, but it's really just adding more to the foundation. I try to think of it like putting on make-up in a way~ Adding contours, accentuating highlights. This is also where I start adding in more saturation, especially around areas such as ears, nose and lips. Still a bit fuzzy at this point, but that's why we keep adding to it 💪

A boy has appeared! See--now I've removed most of the line layer, and it holds up on its own. I'll admit that in order to achieve this realistic style, you'll need lots and lots of practice and skill, which shouldn't be discouraging! Just motivate yourself with the prospect of getting to look at pretty men for countless hours 🙆‍♀️

I'll probably do a more in-depth explanation about rendering at some point, but let's keep this rolling~

Moving forward is just a process of adding to the figures bit by bit. I do lean towards filling in each section from top to bottom, but you can feel free to pop around to certain parts that appeal to you more. I almost always do the faces first though, because if they end up sucking, I feel less guilty about scrapping it 😂 But no--I think he's pretty enough to proceed 😚

They're coming together now 🙆‍♀️ Another helpful tip--make sure you reuse color. By that, I mean--try to incorporate various colors throughout your piece, using the eyedropper tool to keep a consistent palette. I try to put in bits of red and blue where I can

Here they are fully rendered! Notice I've made a few subtle changes from the sketch, like adjusting the belt buckles because I made a mistake 😬 Hence why you shouldn't put too much stock in your initial sketch~

The next step is more of a stylistic choice, but I usually go over everything with an outline, typically in a bright color like green. Occasionally, I can just use my initial line layer, but for this, I've made a brand new, cleaner line 👍

And the final step is adjusting the color and adding some text:

Tada!! It's done!

All in all, this took me the better part of a week, but I have a lot of free time, so yeah ✌️

I hope you appreciated that little walkthrough~ I know people have been asking me how I do my art, but the truth is--I usually have no clue how to explain myself 😅 So have this half-assed tutorial~

As a bonus, here is a cute (cursed) image of Johnny without his mustache:

A baby, a literal infant child !!! who put this wee bairn on the front lines ??! 😭

Anyway! peace out ✌️

#tutorial #my art #art tutorial #since people have been asking #I remembered to save my process from this latest work~#enjoy 🙆‍♀️

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fatesundress · 1 year

Text

⭑ for the love that used to be here. tom riddle x reader

summary. you and tom are the only muggle-borns in slytherin, until one day he isn’t.

tags. angst, afab reader who is referred to as a witch a few times and rooms with girls but i don't think i ever use she/her pronouns or say the word girl/woman, biggest warning is that this is SO long (idk what compelled me to write a year 1 – post-hogwarts fic but here we are twenty thousand damn words later), blood purity and bigotry, dumbledore is greatly offended by the bonding of two orphans until he can capitalise on it, frequent wwii mentions (specifically the blitz), book clerk tom, MURDERER TOM… ministry reader, kissing, smut once they’re 21/22 May all the minors in the room exit at once, more angst, sad ending kinda, me spreading a very personal and very nefarious tom riddle agenda that is canon to ME but probably only like two other people

note. i need a shower and an exorcism after writing this shit. i'm exhausted. i don't even remember half of it. but i'm also SO stoked, this is my little (very large, frankly) 100 followers celebration! i've only been on here for about a month and the love has been so crazy so thank you mwah mwah mwah ♡

word count. 21.8k (i know... i KNOW)

You learn quickly that your shade of green is not the same as theirs. The rest of them are emeralds, even at that age — they glitter with their parent’s polish. You are flotsam, sea-sick, envy green; the putrid boiling stuff that brews in your cauldron when you look away for a second too long, and, really, it’s more of a stain than a colour at all. There is a fraction of a second where you find something powerful in that. You are not an easy thing to remove. And then it’s gone, because they want to so badly.

You learn, with a bit less tact, that you doesn’t actually mean just you; that it’s you and him whether you like it or not.

He evidently does not.

“It has to be completely fine,” Tom says to you in Potions, his voice small then but just as practised.

You narrow your eyes. “‘Scuse me?”

“I said the powder has to be completely fine.”

“I heard you completely fine. I know how to read.”

He stares blankly at you before returning to his own station, and that’s that.

It isn’t unheard of for muggle-borns to be sorted into Slytherin, so you’ve been told, but one glance around your common room and you can see it’s pretty damn rare.

There’s Tom Riddle, there’s you, and there’s a seventh-year girl whose knuckles are always white like she’s spent so long with her hands balled into fists that they don’t know how to do anything else. Tom Riddle is a prat, the girl is too old and unapproachable even if she wasn’t, and you are very good at being alone.

That decides it. Flotsam still floats.

Everything is — fine. It’s fine for months; you have no one and need no one and sometimes you catch a jinx in the back of Charms that zips your mouth shut or bends a foot the wrong way (a cruel reminder of how much more these people know than you) and your broom occasionally pivots so sharply the Flying professor has to stop you from careening into a wall and breaking enough bones for a week’s worth of Skele-Gro, but it’s fine.

…It’s just that he’s insufferable.

The boy is eleven years old and he speaks like he’s stealing glances at an invisible lexicon between every word, more refined than any of the orphans you grew up with which makes you wonder which sort he’s surrounded by, and you take it upon yourself to theorise in passing if you could ever scare him badly enough his real voice would slip and he might just appear human for once.

Only it becomes clear when you’re stirring awake in the Hospital Wing after a mysterious bout of dragon pox (conveniently, all the pureblood children developed an immunity after catching it young) has rendered you bed-ridden and pockmarked, that you don’t think anything can scare Tom Riddle. He’s suffering just as well in the bed beside yours to keep the contagion to the two of you, and he’s all cold, eddied rage under sallow skin and beetling bones.

“They’re going to kill you,” he says after three days of silence, when the room is dusted in moonlight so thin it’s like squinting through cinema noise or mohair fluff to try to see him.

You blink at the vague shape of him. “What?”

“If you don’t hurt them back, eventually, they’ll just kill you.”

In hindsight, it’s an assumption so hastily bleak only a scared child could make it.

I want to hurt them, you try to say, but for what follows you cannot: I want to hurt them but I’m not good enough to do it.

You roll over and pretend to sleep, and in the morning, you hurt them anyway.

It’s Avery who’s unlucky enough to be the first to test you when you’re three assignments behind in Transfiguration, still a bit groggy from your last dose of Gorsemoor Elixir, and actually, physically green. He tugs your hair and stings your cheek with the promise of “bringing a bit of colour back to your face” and it’s sort of funny how banal it is compared to the other transgressions you’ve been dealt — that this is the thing that makes you bare your teeth, grip your wand in a hand that still can’t hold half of it, and send Avery flying across the room with a Knockback Jinx.

Tom sits with you in the Great Hall for dinner that night, and he never really stops.

You practise spells by the Black Lake between classes and he’s anything but kind about the ordeal, but you teach each other. You end your days with singe prints and sore wrists and you often take more damage than he does, but sometimes, as spring settles in with warm tones (apple and jade and moss — all the greens you’d never imagined), you leave with less bruises than he does. It hardly feels like friendship. It feels much more like purpose.

When summer comes you don’t write to him, and you don’t expect he will either. You don’t suppose you’ve actually written a letter in your life. Instead you try new wand movements under your quilt every night and wait for August’s departure on a big red train.

You sit together when the day does come. He asks you if you’ve been practising. You frown and tell him you’re not allowed to use magic outside of school.

Second year is nothing but monotonous, antiquated theoretics. Most everyone complains. You don’t see why they should — they’re already aeons ahead of you — but that means you finally have a chance to catch up in your less-than-school-sanctioned meetings with Tom while the rest remain practically stationary.

Deputy Headmaster and Transfiguration professor Albus Dumbledore is imperceptibly less soft with you than he was last year when you make the apparently poor decision to sit beside Tom on the first day, and you file the subtle shift in demeanour into some mental cabinet to review later.

You find workarounds with the librarian, Madam Palles, inclined to sympathy for the poor, orphaned muggle-borns to grant relatively unfettered daytime access to the Restricted Section so long as you keep it tidy and none of the books leave the library. That’s where things get a bit more interesting.

For a month you remain innocuous as can be. You browse through rare historical tombs and foreign biographies that would charge more galleons than you can conceptualise, and you never leave so much as a tea stain on the parchment. You smile at the Madam when you return the key each night, and walk back to the dungeons with your hands behind your back. It is, of course, totally unrelated that a month is what it takes for Tom to master the third-year curriculum’s Doubling Charm. An entirely separate affair when you meet him in the most secluded alcove of the library, slip him the key, and stifle your grin as he duplicates it perfectly.

You discover Christmas break is your favourite time of the year. Nearly all the purebloods go home. The Slytherin dormitories are effectively halved.

It’s two weeks of earnest, uninterrupted work and sleep without fear of waking up with jelly legs or whiskers.

Madam Palles, most nights, makes a slight, drowsy effort of searching the library for leftover students before she casts the lights out and closes the door. Then, it belongs to you and Tom.

You’re splayed rather ridiculously over one of the big reading chairs on Christmas Eve, Lore of Godelot in hand, enthralled by a chapter detailing his controlled use of Fiendfyre through the power of the Elder Wand.

Tom is cross-legged and sat straight, his brows furrowed in concentration.

“What’ve you got?” you ask, leaning over to answer your own question.

Tom as good as rolls his eyes, holding up the book to give you an easier look.

“Magick Moste Evile?” You scrunch your nose. “Bit much, don’t you think?”

“It’s the stuff they’ll never teach us.”

“I wonder why.”

He steals a glance at your own book and smiles in that smug way that makes you want to slap him.

“What, Tom?”

He shrugs. “You might want to know you’re reading stories about the author.”

You look down. Lore of — Godelot wrote Magick Moste Evile?

It shouldn’t really be surprising. Three chapters ago your book was recounting his months in Yugoslavia grave-robbing magical burial sites.

“Whatever,” you mumble, “It’s just a biography. Least I’m not reading the words out of his mouth.”

“Well, they’d be out of his quill.”

“Oh my God, Tom, shut up.”

All good things must come to an end. Term resumes and your hackles are back up.

Abraxas Malfoy, Antonin Dolohov, Walburga Black and the best of the worst of your house have returned, sleek-haired and insatiable and deranged, truly, in such a manner that you don’t think you can be blamed for the instinct you feel every time you pass them to lunge like a wild predator or run like wild prey. All Tom does, though (and so you follow, because he’s standing with you and who has ever done that?) is meet their gazes with equal assuredness. He never seems bothered. He never seems animal. You are still all hammering heart and heavy lungs, and you are learning not to see the world through the eyes of someone who’s only ever had their fists to fight. You have magic, you remember. You’re good at it. You could hurt them, if you really wanted.

Not much is different that summer than the last. The war is hard. The food is hard to chew. You chip a tooth. You’re too afraid to fix it with the Trace on you, but you still smile because you will, and everyone seems put off by that. What is there to smile about?

You suppose, for them, it’s a question with few answers.

For you — you’re back on a big red train musing about the functions of muggle warfare with Tom Riddle, chucking a useless card from a chocolate frog out the window and moaning about how you wasted the sickle you found under your seat.

He’s gotten very good at ignoring your theatrics and going right back to whatever it was he was talking about. And you note, unrelatedly, he almost looks like he’s learned how to open the windows at Wool’s. (You dare not suggest he’s doing something so ludicrous as sitting in the sun too, but this is a start.)

Dippet, or the Minister, or whoever it is that’s in charge of the practicality of the curriculum, has become fractionally less stupid in the last three months.

You don’t have to rely on nights in the Restricted Section or weekends at the Black Lake to actually learn something anymore. Of course, without the assistance of those illicit extracurriculars, you wouldn’t be able to match up to your peers the way you are this year, but it’s nice to duel with dummies instead of motioning your wand vaguely over a desk, and you and Tom still climb the notice boards in rapid succession.

They hate you for it. One of your roommates makes a pointed effort each night to glare at you from her bed like those jelly legs are back on the table, Orion Black (two years younger but just as nasty as his cousin) nearly trips you on your way to Divination, Abraxas Malfoy develops what you think borders on obsession with Tom, and for once it feels almost offhand to not care about any of it.

You’re beginning to think even at its best, Hogwarts is remarkably insufficient. This leads you to books mercifully unrestricted so you can read about a few of the other magical schools for comparison. Beauxbatons is renowned for providing most of the worlds alchemical developments, Uagadou’s early propensity for wandless magic makes it unfathomably more practical than Hogwarts, Durmstrang (though you scoff at their violent anti-muggle sentiment) teaches the Dark Arts as something beneficial rather than unforgivable, and — what do you learn here? Even with the hair’s-breadth of magical leniency you’ve been allowed this year, it’s no surprise so few recognizable names in wizarding history are Hogwarts alumni.

“Let me have a look at that,” you say to Tom one evening, when he’s peering once more over the pages of Magick Moste Evile. He’s a purveyor of knowledge in all forms, but he always seems to come back to Godelot in the end.

He raises a brow, handing it to you like your intrigue doubles his. “No more reservations?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. I’m only curious.”

“Curiosity—”

“Killed the damn cat, I know.” You glare at him through the pages. “I think that’s you, in this case though, since you’re the one in love with the bloody thing.”

He shakes his head as he reclines in the low light of the Restricted Section, muttering something that sounds like “ridiculous,” or “querulous,” or something else unimaginably fucking annoying.

You might be wrong. Retract your last quip and expunge it. If Tom’s in love with any book, it’s the behemoth dictionary he’s been spitting stupid adjectives out of since he was eleven.

But Godelot’s musings on the Dark Arts are fascinating enough that you can understand the appeal. He’s no wordsmith, and you appreciate that in a way you’re sure Tom deems regrettable, but his points are straightforward but thoughtful in such a way you can read in them how he was guided by the Elder Wand through everything he did. There’s a stream-of-consciousness to them. Something doctrinal you’re surprised to enjoy for all the obligatory English creed they washed your mouth with at the orphanage.

“Find what you’re looking for?” Tom asks, combing with little interest through the tomb you’d put down in favour of his.

“I’m not looking for anything. I’m just…” You sigh. It’s almost painful to say. “I think you were right, and — oh, shut up, don’t look at me like that — I don’t think we’re learning anything here. Not really; not as much as they do at other schools.”

“Of course,” he says blankly. “Hence this.”

This — restricted books and furtive duels — should not be necessary.

“You know that’s not gonna be enough. For the rest of them, maybe, but not us.”

He tenses how he always does at the reminder of his difference. And you get it. Sometimes in moments like these you forget the reason you’re here in the first place. It isn’t just the rebellious divertissement of two academically eager students, it’s… survival. What future do you have as a penniless orphan in wartorn London? What future do you have as a muggle-born Slytherin who’s apt with a wand when there are a thousand more your age, just as skilled and twice as pure?

It isn’t enough to be as good as them. You have to best them, and you have to do it forever.

The night stumbles into an exhaustive silence because you both know it’s true and it’s a bit too heavy right now. The answer isn’t in this room. Just you. Just him. So you sit in the dark and you stare through that muffled nighttime noise playing tricks on your eyes. The worst of the world can wait until morning.

The worst of the world has impeccable timing.

A fault of both sides of the coin; the muggle world is a travesty and the wizarding world is just a bit fucking late, really.

So there’s the newspaper. It’s October first and the date reads September tenth. School owls are a joke and you can’t afford anything better.

And it’s a dirty, ashen grey. It smudges your green if you ever had it at all. You were born to this and you will return to it always.

BOMB’S HAVOC IN CROWDED PUBLIC SHELTER

MOTHERS AND CHILDREN AMONG THE CASUALTIES

DAMAGE CONSIDERABLE, BUT SPIRITS UNBROKEN

All you can hope to do is pass the paper to Tom and wonder without words what you’ll go home to.

The answer is very little when the summer clouds your vision with dust and you stand dumbly with your suitcase in front of nothing at all. You’d tried your best until your departure to keep up with muggle news, but it had remained, routinely, a month behind with the owls. By the time June arrived you were still holding your breath through May. Tom had attempted to reason with Dippet for summer lodgings at the school but you were both denied in light of the exquisite mercy — the bombs have stopped! The Blitz has ended! Go back to the aftermath and make do with the craters.

It’s a bit ironic that Tom’s orphanage survived and yours didn’t. At least you can finally see what all the fuss is about.

In truth, it’s more strange than anything. You feel unreasonably like you’re impeding on a part of him that has never belonged to you (if any of him does); that place where you intersect but never draw attention to. You remind yourself you had no choice in the matter. The system puts you where it wants to, and these days the options are slim. But it’s — the walls are amber-black tile and plaster, lined with sanitary-smelling hospital beds and a cupboard per room. Per room, you think; you’ve got one of those now, and with only one girl to share it with.

You figure the reason for the extra space is probably not one you want to know.

Anyway, you don’t actually see Tom for two days. The caretakers bring you a tray of dinner that’s vaguely warm and a bit too salty and you sleep off the debris you think you breathed in that morning, half-sated and sun-tired.

But then you do see him, and he’s in these funny uniform shorts and a thick blazer and your greeting is an offhand joke about the scandal of his knees that he doesn’t seem to appreciate. He eyes your muggle clothes while you wait for your own set and you know you really don’t have any room to judge.

He doesn’t, or at least doesn’t say he minds your relocation.

You spend half the summer waking up in the middle of the night to acquaint yourselves with the London tube stations, and the other half in whatever crevices of the orphanage you aren’t harangued by Mrs Cole every five seconds, which are far and few between. She seems to have decided fourteen is old enough an age to worry about your intentions unchaperoned, like it’s the bloody 1800’s, and admonishes you and Tom relentlessly despite only ever finding you quietly buried in useless books.

You begin to miss Madam Palles and her invaluable pity. Everyone’s an orphan here. No one’s sorry.

“What’s his deal?” you ask one stuffy afternoon, reclining in your creaking seat to prop your legs on the desk.

Tom knocks them off (he’s so well-mannered that you sometimes push these little gestures of impropriety just to bother him) and glances at the target of your question. Some broad, blond boy who skitters down the corridor a shade paler than he arrived. You’ve yet to properly introduce yourself to anyone you don’t have to, so names are muddy when you try to apply them to faces.

He shrugs, but there’s a flash of something in his expression you’re fascinated to realise is unfamiliar. “He’s an imbecile.”

“...Riiiiight, but that isn’t a proper answer.”

You smile. Legs return to table. Timeworn Oxfords muddy the surface. Tom scowls.

“There was an altercation last year,” he says tersely, “he’s rather fixated on the matter.”

“An altercation.”

“Very good, that is what I said.”

You narrow your eyes and he sweeps your legs off the desk again, gaze catching the unmistakable ribbon of an old bullied scar on your shin.

“And I suppose you’re above such incidents,” he muses.

You cross your arms and huff. He always wins games like these.

You’re grateful when you return to Hogwarts in one piece after your final night of summer is spent underground, and the certainty of knowing where you’ll rest your head for the next ten months cannot be understated.

But the worst thing has happened, and you blame it on the flicker of a moment where you missed Madam Palles like it was some jubilant, accidental curse to ever miss anyone. A foreign thing you remind yourself never to do again.

She’s only gone and jinxed the locks to the Restricted Section so they cry like newborn Mandrakes when Tom’s replica key clicks in place.

For a second you both stand there looking stupidly at each other. Getting caught was a fear two years ago; you’d almost forgotten it was still possible.

Tom is quicker to collect himself. He grabs you by the arm and casts a Disillusionment Charm, and you don’t burst running out of the library like two blurry suncatchers reflecting the candlelight as your instinct heeds; you cling to the shelves and you slither silently to the door. (You’ll make a joke about it when you can breathe.)

Madam Palles the Traitor comes heaving into the library in her nightgown, a blinding blue light baubled at the end of her wand, and it’s really just theatrical at this point to use Lumos bloody Maxima when the basic spell would do the job just fine.

“Has she suspected us the whole time?” you say on gasp once you’ve made it to the dungeons.

“Perhaps someone else has,” Tom suggests.

“What? Malfoy?”

You think it’s a good first guess. It could have been any of the Slytherins, upon consideration, but Malfoy seemed most fixated on Tom last year and it wouldn’t surprise you to learn he’d been observant enough to follow you to the library and notice you don’t leave with the other students.

But Tom quashes the idea. “I’m doubtful. Malfoy is attentive, but Madam Palles is hardly partial to him.” (He had, in second year, set one of her books on fire while studying offensive spells.) “I suspect it was someone with more influence.”

Only no one has more influence than Abraxas Malfoy. The rest of the Slytherins follow him like lost pups. But then Tom might mean —

“A professor?”

“It may be.” He says it like he’s already decided his suspect.

He is, as always, and ever-infuriatingly, correct.

It’s that file you tucked away for later, reoccurring when you return to Transfiguration in the morning like a second epiphany: Dumbledore.

He assigns the term’s seating arrangements, which he’s never done before, and there’s something in his tone when he pairs you with Rosier that feels intentionally like not pairing you with Tom. You don’t think it’s paranoia clouding your better judgement, and by the way Tom’s gaze hardens as he takes his seat beside Malfoy, neither does he.

Dumbledore is suspicious for a number of reasons. He disappears for weeks at a time. The Prophet writes articles on his sightings in Austria and France like he’s an endling beast. He’s being sighted in Austria and France — two notable countries in Grindelwald’s ongoing war. Perhaps ancillary, you’ve decided the charmed glass repositories he uses to hold his old artefacts are the same ones encasing the least permissible books in the Restricted Section. And if that isn’t paranoia (which, you’re willing to admit, it may be) then you assume he has them so proudly on display because he wants you to know.

You consider it a warning.

Tom does not.

“Just give it up,” you hiss over a game of wizard’s chess, “I bet we’ve read every book in there twice already anyway.”

His jaw ticks as the sole indicator of his annoyance, and he takes your rook. You scowl.

“Tom, that man thinks you’re devil-spawn. You know he’s just waiting for an opportunity to catch you doing something wrong.”

“So?”

It sounds so petulant you think he’s been possessed by his eleven-year-old self. Then you think he was a lot wiser at eleven.

“So?” You make an aggressive move with your knight. “So don’t give him one!”

He stares at the board and his breath is just a trace sharper and you hate that you know him like this and no one else. You wonder if he knows you like that too, but resolve with ease that he does not. You’re hard frowns and lewd jokes and trousers torn at the knee to bare scars with stories you wish you could forget. There’s no mystery there. Tom is nothing but — gordian knots and fixed expressions and little patterns to learn like the rules of this stupid game between you. You must know Tom Riddle by every atom or not at all. And that isn’t a choice, really. You’ve never known anyone else.

“Are you stupid, Tom?”

You glance at the board. He’s got Check. A terrible, true answer.

“No,” you finish. “Then don’t act like it.”

Your king glances at you and you nod. He falls. The game is resigned.

Tom acts stupid.

Dumbledore knows.

It all happens very fast.

You strike Tom harder in the arm with Confringo than is likely necessary that night, and he returns the favour with a Knockback Jinx that thrusts you into the shallows of the Black Lake.

You gasp. The cold water feels like it’s swallowing you whole when it strikes, an envelope sealed around you and licked shut for good measure. Everything holds to you, and it’s fucking November. Your senses are so overwhelmed that you forget to murder Tom the instant you sink in. You forget to do much of anything.

You wade trembling out of the lake when sense returns and Tom huffs, peeling off his robe to treat the burn on his arm.

“You—idi—iot,” you mutter, trying to find the incantation for a warming charm but the words get stuck between your chattering teeth. “You stole a re… stricted book.”

Tom glares daggers at you between his poor healing job and you scowl, mincing through the grass and grabbing his arm. “Fucking imbec-cile…”

You’ve done enough damage that if he were anyone else you’d be proud of yourself, and somehow, simultaneously, if he were anyone else you’d be able to manage a pinch of guilt. But he’s Tom, and you know him by every atom, so you cannot be proud, and he’s Tom — he retaliated by tossing you in freezing water and now your clothes are clinging sodden and heavy to every inch of you, so you certainly can’t be guilty either.

“I borrowed it,” he says tightly. As if that means anything at all. And then he takes his robe and drapes it spiritlessly over your shoulders. “You could attempt communication before curses.”

“I could attempt communication,” you scoff, uttering a charm to partially close the gash on Tom’s arm, “Fucking h-hypocrite. I did communicate. You lied.”

“I —”

“Omitted information? Withheld the truth? Watch your mouth or I’ll steal your fucking dictionary, Riddle.”

You swear a great deal when you’re cold and mad, apparently.

“I won’t be caught.” His calm is infuriating. “It would hardly earn expulsion regardless.”

“It doesn’t matter! He knows it’s you! He was staring at you all class!”

“So nothing novel then.”

“D’you want me to blast you again?”

His lips form a flat line. No. That’s what you thought.

You sigh, clutching his robes in your fists to quell your trembling. “What’d you take, anyway? We never touch the encased stuff.”

That is, you assume, why Dumbledore was vexed enough about the whole thing to mention it in class today. A highly valuable book has gone missing, from a repository you dare conclude belongs to him, and he has to pretend all the while not to know it’s Tom who took it. You are out of the question. Theirs is some delicate vendetta you can’t begin to unfurl.

“Nothing anyone should miss,” Tom says, a complete non-answer as he stops to murmur a warming charm you could probably manage yourself by now.

“Tom.”

“It was an encyclopaedia. It’s entirely in Runes. I suspect it will take months for me to decipher.”

“God’s sake,” you groan. He really is exhausting. “I think Dumbledore’l take his chances and loot your dorm before that happens.”

Tom wipes a stray droplet of water from your cheek. His fingers are soft. “We should return. You look half-drowned.”

“I am half-drowned, dickhead.”

And you accost him in hushed tones the whole walk back. Runes, Tom, really? Threw me in the damn lake over a Runic Encyclopaedia? He accosts you just the same; You burned me first.

It does, in fact, take Tom months to decipher the Runes, and he’s quite secretive about it. He won’t let you see the book, won’t tell you what it’s about, won’t indulge your queries on how far he’s gotten or if it’s worth the way Dumbledore bores his eyes into the pair of you in the Great Hall with nothing but the glass of his spectacles to soften his censure. You consider — well — you consider taking your chances and looting his dormitory.

The day everything changes starts the same as any.

You muse over breakfast about muggle news and how the way Tom holds his wand when he casts defensive spells is too sharp when it should be circular. He argues. You soften the criticism by telling him his offensive magic is stellar but you’ll always beat him in defence if he doesn’t swallow his damn pride and listen to you for once. (So, really, you soften it very little.) He doesn’t take Divination so you don’t see him until Herbology that afternoon and he’s silent enough during the hour you share with your wormwood plant that you know he’s done it sometime between breakfast and now.

Tom has cracked the book.

It’s late spring and the night takes longer to settle than it did in the winter. Errant sunbeams still sparkle on the water when you meet him by the lake, and it’s warm enough to forgo a coat.

“Are you going to tell me what it’s about now?” you ask without preamble, arms crossed over your chest as he approaches.

He hands you the book like it’s worth something to you without his explanation, but you’re intelligent enough to gather something from the illustrations of two twined snakes embroidering the cover.

“I should have suspected it sooner,” Tom says before you can comment. “By the way Dumbledore acted when I told him… I should have known he would have wanted to keep it from me.”

“Tom, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“It’s an Encyclopaedia on Parseltongue and its known speakers.”

You flip through the pages and none of it means anything. “Parseltongue?”

“The language of serpents,” Tom supplies, and the two of you walk along the edge of the forest. “It’s almost exclusively hereditary.”

“Okay, so, what — you’re trying to learn it anyway?”

“I have no need.”

You frown. “You… you already know it.”

“I always have,” he says, and there’s something almost unrestrained in his voice. He’s proud in a new light, and it takes you a moment to understand and you’re not sure why exactly it makes your heart sink, but —

“You’re not muggle-born.”

“No, I’m not. And Dumbledore knows.”

“So, he —” You try not to sound crushed because why should you be? Why should it matter that he isn’t some exact reflection of you? He’s at your side, he’s still there, he’ll always be there — “How does he know?”

“When he came to Wool’s to inform me I'd been accepted at Hogwarts. I hadn’t known anything, certainly not that speaking to snakes is emphatically rare, so I asked him. He said it was ‘not a peculiar gift.’ Perhaps to keep my interest at a minimum.”

“Why would he lie?”

“Because it isn’t just that I’m of magical blood. I’m a descendant of Salazar Slytherin.”

You can’t be faulted for laughing. It’s not often Tom makes jokes, let alone funny ones.

“That’s good, Tom. Morgana used to have tea with my great-great-hundredth-great-grandmother, so that works out nice.”

He sighs, taking your hand and leading you further into the woods.

“Are you trying to murder me?”

“I might.”

“You’d be the first suspect.”

“No, I wouldn’t. You’ve far too many enemies.”

Not by choice, you start to scold, and then he stops, not so far into the Forbidden Forest that you’re afraid, but far enough you understand this is not something he’d chance showing you in the open.

He closes his eyes and whispers, and it’s — decidedly not English. And you know the sound of a few other languages, at least; this doesn’t sound like words at all. His consonants are pointed, his S’s stretched, the syllables repetitive but separated by a difference in cadence someone less perceptive might not notice.

It shouldn’t be surprising; it’s exactly what he told you, but it startles you how much it reminds you of a snake.

“Tom?” you murmur, unsure at the prospect of speaking some ancient, unknown language into the air of the Forbidden Forest, and, underneath that, still reeling with the knowledge that this is real at all. You’ve pinched yourself a few times to make sure.

There’s a low susurration in the grass, wet with dew that catches the moonlight, and you gasp, clinging to Tom’s arm when you see the blades part in helices for the space of an adder.

“It’s all right,” Tom says softly, almost elsewhere, his eyes zeroed in on the snake. “It won’t hurt you.”

You’re still by the balance of his arm and some petrifying awe as he extends a hand to the grass and the adder coils around it, weaving upward to his shoulder.

“Oh my God. Oh my God, Tom.”

The adder points its beady gaze at you, and Tom whispers something else in that strange language before it retreats in agreement or compliance or whatever could come close to expression on the face of a fucking snake, and maybe you’re dreaming this despite your pinching. Maybe you’ve lost your mind.

“Hope you didn’t just tell it to bite me,” you try, and it comes out half-choked.

He smiles. It’s partly for you and partly for this venomous little thing on his shoulder, and that’s a bit startling. Tom Riddle smiles for adders and you and not much else.

“Should I?”

And all you manage, for whatever reason, is, “Don’t be like them now that you’re not like me.”

It’s out before you can stop it, welling from a small, scared place that embarrasses you to return to. A hospital bed when you were eleven. The walls of a bedroom ravaged by bombs.

Tom’s smile fades. “We’re nothing like them.”

The thing is, neither of you know that’s the day that changes everything.

You celebrate your fifteenth birthday in the Deathday ballroom with Tom, a stolen dinner pastry, a green candle, and a few sad ghosts. You try to learn how to dance. Tom thinks it’s silly. You tell him that’s only because he’s upset he keeps stepping on your toes.

Summer blisters when it comes.

Some of the children take jobs as mail-sorters and steelworkers and you clasp for whatever you’re (one) allowed and (two) capable of, which isn’t much. You’re both old enough at the end of the day to explore London on your own, opting to spend as much time away from the orphanage as Mrs Cole allots, but you only have knuts and pennies and you warn Tom it would be unwise to swindle muggles and risk a letter from the Ministry. So you work where you’re needed and you eat the rationed nonsense you always do and you miss Hogwarts terribly. It’s much the same: you’re together, you’re hungry, and you’re nothing like them.

And then it’s different: Tom makes Slytherin Prefect, is suddenly tall, and you wonder in fleeting moments if his face has always suited him this well.

A stupid remark. You fervently ignore it.

Fifth year begins and you have almost the same number of electives as you do core classes, Tom has duties in his new role that take much of his spare time, and despite popular belief, you and him are not a mitotic entity, so this splits you up more often than it had in previous years. Which is fine. You still have plenty of things to talk about during meals and between duels, and you reckon you’ll share DADA until you graduate.

But in his absence, your attentions are forced elsewhere, and you should be grateful they land on something potentially promising.

It’s like Transfiguration just clicks for you this year. You’ve never been the greatest at Transformation (importantly though, you’ve also remained far from the worst), but fifth year launches you into Vanishment and something about that feels like a perfect equation. There are no complicated half-numerals and objects stuck between inanimacy and being — just unmaking the made. Nothing or not. You’re fucking excellent at it. You glean the theoretics fast and then the practise comes like breathing. Even the purebloods struggle as you Vanish Dumbledore’s Conjured garden snakes in brilliant tendrils of light. You exult unabashedly when you brush past them on the way out of class — who was it that didn’t belong in Slytherin?

You say the same to Tom and he rolls his eyes, but the amusement is there.

“Think you can talk to my snakes for me?” you tease, nudging him on the path to Hogsmeade.

“If they’re yours, I doubt they have anything worth discussing.”

And Dumbledore is… a hue nearer to the man you remember from first year. He praises your improvement and smiles when you can’t hide your giddiness as if equally impressed.

He doesn’t shelve people the way Slughorn does (you’re dismayed to find Tom has been invited to join the Slug Club and you have not) but you think if he did you’d be rapidly climbing your way to the top. Maybe get put in one of those neat little repositories he keeps all his best treasures in.

Dumbledore does, however, offer additional assignments for those who are interested, and tasks you with a few if you’re up to the challenge.

You always are.

The Tom-Dumbledore-Encyclopaedia debacle is apparently either resolved, or your part in it forgotten.

Tom humours you when you’re both singed at the fingers from duelling, yours dipped in the lake while he buries his in the cold moss, about how Abraxas takes the seat beside him at every Slug Club dinner. He tells you he pretends to be very interested in the Malfoy’s business affairs and their stock in the Bulgarian Quidditch team’s win this coming spring. He tells you he finds it amusing to let Abraxas think he can make Tom his pet. Tom says he considers searching for Salazar Slytherin’s fabled Chamber of Secrets and showing Abraxas what a real pet looks like. You smack him in the arm.

He’s had an ego forever. He just has a few too many reasons for it now.

And maybe that’s why you push harder in Transfiguration, dedicate the majority of your studies to it, spend your Saturday nights scrutinising advanced techniques while Tom makes nice with Potions experts and politics with people who don’t even know what he is but like him anyway. It’s patronising, of course — borderline fetishistic; not a real like — but it scares you. Tom Riddle would not allow himself to be anyone’s pretty mudblood show pony if he didn’t have an ulterior motive.

Everything changes but the observable truth that he is still insufferable.

You’re lucky to see him twice a week if it isn’t in class, and the way it starts is so slow you don’t even fully understand what’s happening until Christmas break when Abraxas stays a few extra days and leaves by Dippet’s Floo instead of the train.

You don’t dare ask where Tom has vanished to in that time or why the hell Abraxas Malfoy would willingly subject himself to unnecessarily extended time at school with all his lackeys gone, and it isn’t because you don’t want to. It’s because he won’t tell you himself. It’s because you’re terrified the answer will feel like a broken promise, and you’ve come to realise (it’s been there for so long; such an obvious, tiny thing that you’ve never stopped to really dissect it) that it’s quite difficult to know someone at every atom and not love them a little bit.

You’re suddenly aware of the risk of it: you love him like an inextricable piece of yourself, and, well, you’ve seen war. You know what amputation looks like. You’ve seen the remains of structures designed to stand forever, and you’re strong like them — casts and gauze in all the weak spots because you remember the pain of breaking them — but those were blows dealt without the complication of loving the bombs behind them.

Tom is the green on your robes, the dragon pox tinge you sometimes think never truly faded when you look in the mirror too long, and all the shades you never imagined. Apple, jade, moss. The beginnings of emerald. (No, he couldn’t be that.)

You wonder what the world would look like if he stole those colours back, and it’s much worse than some brutal decimation; it would leave you with too much. You would just be you without him.

So you love him into June like you always do, and you pluck his Prefect badge off on the last day of school and tell him it makes you jealous like a joke when it’s half-true.

It’s raining when you walk to the train together, miserable for what should be summer but not at all remarkable in Scotland. Tom wipes it from your cheek. Your wrists are sore from vanishing bits and bobbles all night while you still can, never truly prepared for three months without magic, and you curl into your seat as soon as you’re in it. Tom wakes you up when you arrive back in London, startling you to find that you fell asleep at all.

It rains a lot that summer. There’s nothing much to see in the city and you can’t get anywhere else (you note: the Trace cares little about broomsticks but you can’t afford one of your own and flying might be the only thing Tom is bad at) so you’re stuck to the library again with a noseful of old paper and a certain prose that magical literature cannot replicate. You theorise a lifetime of reckoning with the mundane forces one to be more creative.

Perhaps it’s the cold that makes you sick. Perhaps it’s the state of your meals. Either way, your final weeks before sixth year are hell. Biblical, blazing hell.

The nurses aren’t sure what it is — another influenza epidemic you’re the first in the orphanage to catch — but they isolate you immediately and there’s not much care they can offer.

You hear Tom arguing with one of them outside your door but can’t make out the words. Everything is dizzy, sweaty, halfway to unconsciousness but without its relief. You’d take dragon pox over this.

Some days later (though you can’t be sure because it feels like bloody centuries), he’s at your bedside, and you think even if you were lucid enough to ask what horrible thing he’d done to change the nurses’ minds, you wouldn’t.

But you know he’s not beyond breaking wizarding law, because he’s muttering healing spells with a hand to your damp forehead, and you hazily find yourself reaching for him, trying to shake your head no.

“Not allowed,” you mumble. Your throat is sore and your nose is stuffy. You sound terrible and you probably look worse.

Tom is slightly blurry but you think he’s staring at you. You know if he is it’s with the utmost incredulity.

“Not allowed,” he repeats slowly. It’s very easy to picture him clenching his jaw. “I wonder, if the Trace is so exact that it can detect all forms of magic, it can’t also detect malady. You’re burning — and I’m to consider whether saving your life might be illegal?”

He’s angry. He’s angrier than you’ve seen in a long time; and you can actually see it now. His magic courses through you and your vision clears, bit by bit, until your depth perception steadies and you realise he’s closer than you thought. His jaw is, in fact, clenched.

You move to catch his wrist and manage it this time. “Tom.”

“Don’t argue,” he says thinly.

“You’ll get sick.”

His face is far too neutral for the way his fingers stroke your damp cheek. “Hm. Then it’s a good thing you’d break the law for me too.”

Of course he’s right — you love him. Which makes it a good thing he doesn’t get sick.

Some of the younger children do. The fever comes overnight for a girl who wasn’t in the orphanage last year, and it takes her by the next.

When you get back on the train to Hogwarts, the virus is circulating Britain and you’re livid.

What Tom said is true; you consider the Trace’s precision and the details of the laws on underage magic — how one of the technicalities is that a young witch or wizard may be absolved of the consequences if the circumstances are life-threatening. You think about how it supposedly doesn’t care about broom-riding or Portkeys or Floo travel, and if the Trace is that complex, surely it understands sickness.

You only wonder if the Ministry would understand it. There haven’t been any epidemics in the wizarding world since Gorsemoor cured dragon pox in the sixteenth century, and when there isn’t healing magic there are antidotes and Pepper-Ups and herbs that muggles simply don’t have. The fatality of a fever of all things is not something you imagine could be comprehended by the sort of people who sent you and Tom back to London in the wake of the Blitz.

Of course, the Ministry hasn't written to you, you haven’t been forced in front of a representative from the Improper Use office, and you have no real reason to be upset.

You are regardless.

It shouldn’t even be a thought: you immolating into oblivion protesting rescue because one of you might get in trouble for it.

A world you’ve never much cared for is blanketed in ash and its people are dying and you can’t help them. A girl is dead. You’ll return next summer and there will certainly be more.

Life is for the magical, you find. The muggles can burn.

It’s what makes you start to panic this year, knowing you’ve only got one more after it. You have no idea what you’re going to do after school, and it doesn’t help that Tom doesn’t appear to share the sentiment. He’s got Head Boy in the bag and when he isn’t with you he’s with Abraxas, who can surely provide him connections if whatever game Tom is playing at works (and you have no doubt it will), but it’s like you said in third year: that isn’t enough for you.

You remember with a small ache that you no longer means you and him.

And then — it makes sense. You feel incredibly stupid.

“You told him, didn’t you?” you ask Tom the first opportunity you can get him alone, in the glum blue light of the Deathday ballroom on your way back from supper.

He sighs like it’s a conversation he’d hoped to put off for longer. “You’re referring to Abraxas, I presume?”

“You’re referring to — yes, you prick, I’m referring to Abraxas. Of course I’m referring to Abraxas, or are there others? Dolohov and Nott seem unusually enthralled by you, now that I think about it.”

“And for a reason I’m supposed to be aware of, this is an error on my part. Should I be apologising?”

“Why did you tell him, Tom?!”

“Why?” he deadpans.

You throw your hands up. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“Shall I provide you with my itinerary as well? Would you accompany me as I tour the third-years around Hogsmeade? Or can you do me the favour of trusting me to make my own decisions with the nature of my ancestry?”

“You’re keeping something from me and there’s a reason,” you say, stepping closer to him, “and forgive me if I want to know what it is when you were willing to tell me you’re the Heir of Slytherin and you can talk to snakes. What — what could possibly be bigger than that?”

Tom returns your approach with one of his own. His eyes are steady, dark, thick with lashes and you can’t reminisce on the details of the rest of him because that would be strange for a friend to do. Stranger to do it now, when you’re angry with him and there’s two sleeping ghosts in the corner and he’s framed by deep indigoes like the ripples in the Black Lake and — you’re doing it anyway.

To be short, he’s close, he’s very beautiful, and sometimes you despise him.

“Trust me,” he says again, without the derision of the last time. “This will change things for us.”

You frown, but it’s a weak upset in contrast to the explosion you came in here willing to make. There were at least twenty questions you meant to ask and you only managed one.

You are not his keeper. You know that.

“Change them for the better, Tom,” you say on a sigh.

He blinks, and you think he’ll respond with a nod or a slightly offended ‘of course’ but he does not. He blinks and he just keeps looking at you. It’s disarming. It probably resembles the way you often look at him. There’s a rationale somewhere; you never see each other anymore, life is so incredibly busy, maybe he’s forgotten what you look like.

And he does nod, finally, but he does it with his thumb brushing the corner of your lip.

What? Sorry. What’s going on?

He pulls it away like he’s heard you. “You had something.”

You’re almost positive you did not.

Transfiguration this year brings Conjuration, which is an advanced and welcome distraction, and even more exciting when you consider no longer having to Vanish things you have no idea how to bring back. Dumbledore’s is one of three N.E.W.T classes you’re taking — Defence Against the Dark Arts and Alchemy besides. It’s easily your favourite.

You share it with eleven other Slytherins and twelve Ravenclaws. Four of them are muggle-born, and it’s hard to describe the ease you feel among them because you don’t think you’ve ever had anything resembling ease with anyone but Tom.

Your schedule is more crammed than it’s ever been, but it’s good. Two of the Ravenclaw girls invite you to Hogsmeade every other weekend, you share butterbeers when you can afford one, you study until you collapse, you take Dumbledore’s extra assignments and consider trying out for Chaser on one of your more restless evenings before waking up in the morning and resolving there is such as thing as too much of a good thing. Best not to get ahead of yourself.

Your contentment is remedied quickly.

Someone is found unresponsive in the dungeons. Dippet makes an announcement at breakfast that the boy isn’t dead, rather, petrified. No one is quite sure the cause, but the Headmaster warns a few minor precautions, suggests a buddy system, and says that after dinner studying should remain in everyone’s respective common rooms rather than the courtyards or library.

You know next to nothing about petrification, but the victim is muggle-born, and you suspect it was the result of a poorly performed statue curse by one of the many blood zealots in your house. The whole thing makes you hold onto your wand a smidge tighter, but you’re adamant not to let it drive you to paranoia like it would have a few years ago.

Tom nods at your theory when you manage to escape to the Black Lake together in November.

“That isn’t unreasonable,” he says. High praise.

You sink into the moss, sighing. “Do you think there’ll be more?”

He looks out onto the lake, the lapping waves, the crystalline beads that furrow them, midnight algae and flotsam you don’t think you belong to anymore.

You peer up at his silhouette in the dark. “Do you think whoever did it will do it again, I mean?”

“I don’t know,” he says finally, and after another pause: “but I don’t think it would be you.”

“How’s that?”

“No one would be senseless enough to try.”

And he sinks beside you with that, breath shaping the cold in steady, rhythmic clouds while yours are scattered. His robes brush yours and you take his arm with a sleepy hum, tracing patterns in the stars until your eyes feel heavy and he insists on taking you back to your dormitories.

One of the Ravenclaw girls, Marigold Wright, distracts you with a spare blue scarf and an invitation to her next Quidditch match. You watch from the stands and cheer as she catches the snitch to beat Gryffindor.

It’s a bit strange — having a distraction — having a friend. Mari is kind, smart, a good study partner who’s as keen on stepping into the advanced theoretics of Human Transfiguration a year early as you are. She’s funny in a vulgar way, introduces you to all her friends, shows you the best way to sneak into the kitchens, and you sometimes wonder if she was sorted wrong, but — her methods are creative, and she’s definitely intelligent. She’s also definitely not Tom.

You see less and less of him and more of her, Dumbledore, the Ravenclaw common room and the pages of progressive Transfiguration methodologies. He sees less of you and more of Abraxas, Dolohov and Nott and all the other purebloods, Slughorn’s soirées and Prefect meetings that cut into meals.

It happens again.

Second floor lavatory. A girl called Myrtle Warren. She isn’t petrified.

There’s a vigil the following week and her parents are there, two muggles whose sobs wrack the Great Hall even as the students clear out. Flowers descend from the charmed ceiling, little bluebells and white chrysanthemums.

You cry that night. You can’t remember the last time you cried.

This time, you don’t have to seek Tom out. He catches you on your way back from Alchemy and brings you to the Deathday ballroom with a melancholy glance in your direction that you don't hesitate to follow. You realise it’s an odd place to continue to end up in, but no one else goes there and you suppose that makes it yours.

You’ve seen Tom skinny and sickly and olive green, but today his eyes are circled with veined violets and the lack of summer sun this year has whittled him grey once more. He’s still beautiful. He’ll always be beautiful. But he’s tired and — sad — and for the six years you’ve known him you aren’t quite sure what to do with that.

You don’t spend too long pondering it. You just hug him with the dawning newness of a thing like that; a thing you’ve never done, and never really thought to do. (You ask yourself in bewilderment how you’ve never thought to do it before.)

He’s warm. He’s uncertain. He doesn’t reciprocate immediately.

And then he does, and you understand without caveats or concerns that you stopped having a choice in your destruction the moment you chose him. He’s home, and that’s going to ruin you one day.

Your arms tighten around him and his around you, the rhythm of his breath holding you to earth when you begin to float away. Nothing makes sense in this moment but the mercy that in all the death you’ve seen, you swear to God you’ll never see his. As long as you’re alive, he must be too.

And there’s something to be said about the innate self-slaughter of loving a person (of loving Tom Riddle, especially): that it’ll cleave you in two, that you’ll say feeble things in his embrace that you should be above saying, like ‘I’m scared’, that his hand will find the back of your head and he'll tell you he knows, that that should not feel like enough but it will be. You’ll clasp your hands under black robes and hold this singular embrace together by the faulty adhesive of your fingers. Maybe you’ll cry again, like your body can suddenly comprehend its capacity for it and is making up for lost time.

The first sign that something is wrong, more than the obvious grievance of the death itself, is the Ministry’s happy acceptance of Rubeus Hagrid as the culprit.

The boy is maybe fourteen years old, half-blood — half human, mind — and no one has a bad word to say about him other than he likes to keep eccentric pets. Which leads you to wonder what pet he possessed with the ability to petrify one student and kill another and what cause he’d have for it in the first place besides two terrible, miraculous accidents.

That question draws an even stranger path. Mari says over butterbeers (on her, bless her soul) that she read somewhere years ago that Gorgons can induce petrification, but that she doesn’t remember much else.

One of the boys in DADA says that his father’s an auror, and heard from him that Hagrid’s pet was some sort of arachnid. Tom deducts five points from his house after class with a scowl on his pale face, muttering about conspiracy.

The second sign that something is wrong is that only one of those things would need to be true for the entire case on Hagrid to be called into question. If Mari’s memory serves right, how the hell did Hagrid come into ownership of a Gorgon? (Could Gorgons even be owned?) If the auror’s son is worth your credence, then what species of arachnid is capable of petrification?

You take to the library.

Unsure of where to begin and hesitant to draw attention, your research lingers into Christmas break and stalls some of your extracurriculars in Transfiguration. Tom is busy enough not to notice the new step in your routine, and you’re grateful not to have him breathing down your back, telling you you’re looking in the wrong places or you shouldn’t be looking at all.

The third sign is the end.

You wish to retract it all. There are time-turners and memory charms and potions that could dizzy you enough to manipulate the truth; there is anything but this. You’d suffer the consequences for the bliss of loving him with one more day before the ruin — you’d write it down to remember through the fog: look at him, duel him without wanting to hurt him, kiss him to know that you did it at least once, have him, be had. You never will again.

He’d shown you the adder. He’d joked about the Chamber of Secrets. He’d spent months disappearing with Abraxas, earning the trust of the sons of the Sacred Twenty Eight.

And he’d killed Myrtle Warren.

So it’s statue curses and Gorgons and Tom — speaking to serpents when no one else can, buttressed by pureblood boys who want people like you dead.

Don’t become like them now that you’re not like me.

He’s something else entirely.

What do you do in a moment like this? Panting into an empty library at a revelation you wish you could unknow, fingers digging into the hickory of your desk — another memory carved among the initials and hearts; how do you stand from your chair and leave like the world outside this room is the same as it was when you entered? There’s nothing to orbit. You are cosmic debris, tea dregs in a barren cup, flotsam.

You stand; and you tell no one. Not even Tom.

His presence in your life is so infrequent that you don’t even have to come up with excuses for your distance until three weeks after your discovery when you’re paired together in DADA to practise stretching jinxes.

You almost laugh. He’s standing beside you, tall (lanky like he was when he was a boy if you look long enough) and serious, and you love him without knowing who he is anymore. You’ve skirted corners to avoid him and sat with Mari during lunch and breakfast like he’s some scorned lover to escape confrontation from and not someone who held you through a grief inflicted by his hand.

“You look tired,” he says, inspecting the daisy you’d been tasked to elongate.

You glance at him. You are tired. It’s exhaustive, bone-deep, aching like nothing you’ve ever known, and maybe that’s why you can look at him and smile sadly instead of thrashing against his chest screaming for what he did. You suppose it happens enough in your head to satisfy. When you can sleep, you sleep to the thought of it. The waking moments are just blank.

“Mhm,” you hum, transfiguring the daisy stem back to its regular length.

Tom observes it with curious eyes. “You’re getting good at that.”

“I’ve been good at it.”

His lips turn, a small frown before he puts it away. You make the observation that he’s tired too; there are still bags under his eyes and his hands tremble ever-so-slightly with his wand when he loosens his grip on it.

His own doing and still you flicker with some relentless hope that he's drowning in regret.

“Sorry,” you say. A ridiculous thing. Do you intend to slowly push him from your life with weak disinterest and diverging academic avenues? As if he were something extricable. He’d never let you.

You’ll have to confront him, and that’s a revelation that holds its weight on your chest until you think you'll suffocate under it.

You’re in the blue light of the Deathday ballroom with a face you've never worn before when it happens, deep into spring, and you know then that you were wrong all those years ago.

He sees all of you.

Takes you in in the flash of a second and maybe it’s your quivering jaw that reveals you or the flint of betrayal in your eyes waiting to be struck and lit. Yes, you were wrong — Tom Riddle knows you at every atom too.

“Are you going to let me explain?" he asks before any hello. His jaw is tight but there’s nothing else to go on to judge his disposition. He's settling into impassivity like an animal drawing its shell. You will not be allowed in if you're going to make it hurt, and you might be the only one who can.

“Explain," you copy with a hard exhale, “Just tell me it wasn’t you. That’s all there is to say."

He stares at you. There’s nothing there.

“Tell me, Tom.”

Your breath catches on an automatic please but you don’t want to offer him that.

“I cannot.”

Then make me forget, you want to scream. Let it be summer. Let us work for pennies and breadcrumbs and be no one together.

It’s late winter and it’s too cold.

“You killed her,” you say quietly.

“If I told you I did not wish for it, would you even believe me?”

“What are you… so it was an accident?”

“There was — an opportunity presented itself that may never have come again; that does not mean I don’t find the nature of it regrettable.”

“Regrettable.” You’re laughing or crying or both, and you must look unwell. Halfway out of your mind.

He’s so composed in the face of it that it only makes you more incensed.

“You told me to change things —”

“You killed someone! Can you understand that?”

“You nearly died,” he hisses, “and if I am to apologise for recognizing it only as the first of many times, I will not. If I am to apologise for doing whatever is necessary to prevent it, I will not. The hand we were dealt will not be the hand we die to — so yes, I understand it. And one day so will you.”

“Don't," you spit, and your anger must look pathetic under your welling tears. “Don't you dare tell me that this was for me.”

“Do you want me to lie?”

“What could her death possibly bring me, Tom?”

“Her death is the first step to —”

“God, stop dancing around the fucking question!” Both hands have wound their way to your head, clutching at your skull like the brain matter might spill through one of the cracks he’s wearing down. “Just… tell me.”

“You recall Godelot's work," he says stiffly. The question of it takes you by surprise, peels the moment back like the rim of a fruit and you're left uncertain.

All you can do is nod, arms falling to cross over your chest.

“There was one form of magic he refused quite concisely to impart. I searched the Restricted Section for days, and under Dumbledore's watch that was not an easy thing to do."

You stole from him, you're urged to remind him, but it's something you'd say with a nudge of annoyance and a roll of your eyes. Such admonishment is small and far away.

“I found it at last in one of the repositories," he goes on, “Secrets of the Darkest Art."

“...What?"

“It's called a Horcrux,” he says. “Murder, by nature, splits the soul. The Horcrux simply makes use of the act; puts the soul fragment into something imperishable so that it is protected, rather than abandoned. In turn, your life cannot be taken. By malady, by magic, by sword — the vessel is destroyed but the soul lives on.”

You blink, feeling dizzy. “Myrtle was the sacrifice.”

“Myrtle was there,” Tom remedies.

“How lucky for you.”

“The circumstances could be ameliorated if one were to be made for you. I would have preferred it be someone who deserves it.”

“For — you’d do it again? Again, Tom?”

His brows crease, and even his upset seems contrived. There’s this barricade he’s placed that you, in all your infallible knowing of him, cannot puncture. It’s agony to begin to question what he could possibly be keeping from you in a confession like this.

“You killed someone, Tom. You — I would never ask you to do that. I would never live at the cost of someone else."

“No, you would not,” he agrees, though he shakes his head like it’s incredulous of you. “Do you think, even if I knew it were certain, a summons from the Ministry would have stopped me from saving you this summer? Do you suppose the threat of punishment would cause me to waver at that moment? I know it would not hinder you. So, you have your lines and I have mine — you never needed to ask.”

And now it hurts. The emptiness clears and you can't stand yourself for crying, but you do. It comes out in ragged, breathless sobs, clasped behind your palm as you turn away from him.

You've loved him since you were eleven. It's always been you two — it was always supposed to be you two. What is there to say to him? He's blurring in your periphery like in the midst of your sickness, and there's nothing he can do to heal you this time. Your vision will clear and Myrtle Warren will still be dead. He'll still be a stranger in the face of the boy you love.

“Why," you whine, a wet, hollow stain in your voice you've never cried enough to hear before. “Myrtle was — wasn't — uh —" You swallow, hysterics severing your words. You can't really think right now. Your body wobbles and your head feels puffy and hot. This might be shock.

Tom scowls like it irritates him to watch you push yourself, like this is just the unfortunate effect of you depleting your energy in a duel, not eating correctly, treating yourself carelessly.

Of course you can't stand or talk or think. You're you, contemplating a life without him.

“Sit," he says in frustration. You smack his hand away when he reaches for you, but the world has turned a shade darker and you're slipping into it.

He tugs a chair towards you with a silent charge and a reprimand, and your body doesn’t possess the wherewithal not to collapse into it the second it’s under you.

After a moment you can speak again, shaking hands steadied by your knees. “Did you… did you think I wouldn't find out? You know, the only thing that can petrify someone besides a serpent is a Gorgon. And — where would Rubeus Hagrid have found one of those?"

“I thought I would have time.”

“To come up with a good lie? Something I’d sympathise with?”

He bites his cheek. “Evidently the particulars matter little to you.”

Fuck him. “Fuck you.”

“Very cogent.”

“No, fuck you, Tom. We could have — we only had a year left and then we could — we could've done anything we wanted." You're crying again. You don't have the energy to be embarrassed. “And you chose this."

He’s indignant as he steps closer. “With what money? For what life? We are better than all of them and it’s never mattered. It never will; you know that. You told me that. You’re angry now, but you must know the truth of it. I would not forsake you. I would not lose you.”

You blink up at him, mouth stuck with some cottony feeling and cheeks stiff from crying.

“You have lost me, Tom."

He stills as if suspended. Some maceration must follow but it doesn’t.

You stand on weak legs to look him in the eyes. You wonder if he can see the love in yours. You wonder if he knows you will walk away despite it. (Of course he does. You’ve never lied to him.)

You think about how his fingers seem to always find their way to your cheek and you put yours to his. The bone there is sharp, but the skin is soft. Boyish.

There isn't a word for a goodbye like this. It shouldn't exist and so it doesn't. You just leave.

You fail your N.E.W.T courses. Quite spectacularly.

Mari sits beside you on the train with a soothing hand on your shoulder, and doesn’t ask what’s rendered you into a comatose husk since March. There’s no crying. You chew numbly on soft caramels from the trolley and stare out the window onto the hills.

That summer is spent in your bedroom unless you’re forced elsewhere. A new girl with skin so white it’s nearly translucent sleeps in the bed beside yours, taking meals on trays like you did in your first days here, tracing the cracks in the tiles, humming to herself in the dark. She makes you feel less pathetic for doing much the same.

You’d been right in your assumption that there would be more dead upon your return, and wrong that there would be more empty rooms. There are always more orphans being made.

And then you receive a letter. It isn’t delivered by owl (only for secrecy, you assume, because there are no muggles who’d be writing to you) but it’s stamped with a vaguely familiar crest. Not Hogwarts’ waxen seal, but something undoubtedly magical. A cockroach and a cup, you think, squinting. Transfiguration.

You tear the envelope open and pull the letter out.

It’s from Dumbledore. Some of it melds together, but the key words stand out.

Spoken to Dippet… Exceptional promise… N.E.W.Ts… May be reconsidered… Upon dispensation… Be well.

Be well.

You are not. You are something half-drowned and half-burned, never enough of one to quell the effects of the other. Sunlight is sparse through your side of the orphanage. On the radio, they warn a pattern of one bomb every second hour. The only other warning is the sound when they fly overhead, and if you can’t run fast enough —

You write your answer in a crowded tube station with a spotty ballpoint pen. Tom is there, looking between you, the dust, and your shaking hands as if to say: tell me I was wrong.

Some of your letter melds together but the key words stand out.

Thank you, Sir. Whatever you need.

It’s a shock that you live to seventh year. It’s a shock that you do it without him — though he watches, and in his gaze you feel regressed. You’re alive, yes, but there’s something there… his dead weight, death-grip; his haunting. They always speak of the dead as something heavy. Something that holds onto you even after it’s gone.

You find that to be true.

Dippet’s condition that you remain in Dumbledore’s N.E.W.T class is that you achieve more than the standard requirement. Essentially, your final exam will be much harder than everyone else's: Human Transfiguration, mastery of petty Transformation (through the means of Wizard’s Chess pieces), Conjuration and Vanishment of various delicate objects — all done nonverbally.

Even Dumbledore seems sceptical, but it translates to more rigorous practise rather than resignation, assignments he doesn’t even task to Mari, though she’s just as good, and you can’t begin to understand why he cares so much.

“I’ll entrust you with these while I’m away,” he says before Christmas break, sliding a sheet of parchment your way with a flick of his wand.

You frown, unfolding it. His instructions are always short now — you’ve learned to decode his meaning well enough without much exposition.

Teacup to gerbil — to cat, and inverse.

Inanimatus Conjurus spell (cockroach and cup, as instructed) to be Vanished when perfected.

Study Antar’s Doctrine. Miss Wright will act as your partner.

Due February.

It’s far too much to be done in that time. “Sir?”

Dumbledore lugs a messenger bag over his shoulder that appears small, but he carries it in such a way you suspect it’s magically extended. He smiles wistfully, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. “You know, I often regret how much this war asks of me. A consequence of my own doing.”

Right — Grindelwald. Sometimes you forget between awaiting the next muggle paper. War is everywhere.

You nod. “I hope… Good luck, Sir.”

Another half-smile as he twists open a jar of Floo Powder, and then he shakes his head with something you almost decipher as amusement. A brittle sort. Tired. “Good luck to you.”

And then he’s gone, in a swath of green flames that do nothing to inspire any desire for Floo travel in you.

Antar’s Doctrine is simultaneously prosaic and grandiose. They read like excerpts of a journal and you yawn into them over your morning tea, stirring amongst the first-years, who are the only people at the Slytherin table you can stand to sit with. Your blood status is apparently nullified by your age, and the worst they do is look at you funny. You aren’t sure what Abraxas’s — Tom’s (the new hierarchy never fails to stagger you) — lackeys would do if you sat with the other seventh-years instead. A part of you longs to know. They certainly don’t bother you in class the way they used to, you aren’t tripped in the corridors, but you wonder how far Tom’s influence can stretch. He is the Heir of Slytherin, and he’s earned them. But you are nothing.

You’d like it if he would let them hurt you. You think the incentive would be enough to hurt him back. And God — God, you want to. You want to hurt him almost as much as you want him.

You practise through the doctrine with Mari, as Dumbledore directed. When you’re able to sever Antar’s egotism from his abilities, you can see why Dumbledore would recommend his book to you. It feels like slipping through a crack in glass without shattering the whole thing. You weave in and back out, and Mari grins when she returns from the shape of a teapot to her body without you needing to utter a word to do it.

In the back of your mind, you’re aware what you’re doing is nearly unprecedented. It’s spring, you’re months away from eighteen, muggle-born, and mastering nonverbal Human Transfiguration like it’s a Softening Charm. Mari tells you you’re the smartest person she’s ever met. It makes your cheeks go hot to hear such open praise, worse when you snap out of the thought that you believe her.

Grindelwald falls. The school celebrates in whispers until the evidence is in front of them — Dumbledore, returned without a scar, a new wand in his hand — and then they’re cheers. The feast that night is a great one, and he toasts to you from the end of the staff table, a discreet tilt of his cup before he takes a sip and returns to converse with Professor Merrythought.

You take from your own, and your eyes land on Tom, spine of his goblet tight in his hand. He’s looking at you like you’ve affronted him somehow. You could laugh — by choosing Dumbledore. Of course. As if it was a choice at all.

But if it bothers him… if it feels anything at all like the betrayal you felt, then — good.

You drink, and don’t look away.

By the time your N.E.W.T.s arrive you have a renewed confidence that you’ll succeed, even with the obstacle of performing each exam wordlessly.

There are only twelve students who came out of your sixth year class, so to divide resources for the tests is no grand task. You’re given a Wizard’s Chess set, a desk with assorted vases and goblets, an intricate epergne (you had to whisper to Mari to learn its name), and a Ministry worker borrowed like some laboratory mouse. You suppose it makes sense, though — you’re all capable enough of Human Transfiguration not to mutilate anyone, and performing on a classmate could obfuscate the results. It’s far easier to Transfigure someone you know than someone you don’t.

You start with the chess set, Dumbledore and the Ministry worker observing you as you turn pawns to knights and rooks to kings, the minutiae of the pieces drawing sweat to your brow. They change, and change, and change, and you don’t mutter an incantation once. The Ministry worker puts the set away and directs you to the glass. You Switch the vases with the goblets, Vanish them, and Conjure them again. The Ministry worker takes notes. Dumbledore nods affirmatively at you and you can exhale. The epergne is the hardest; so kitschy and elaborate you don’t know where to start when you’re tasked to Transform it into an animal.

An animal — like that isn’t the vaguest instruction you’ve ever received.

You look at it on the desk, mirrors and glass and gold on protracted arms, and you go for the first thing you think of because the Ministry worker is staring at you like you’re inept and you see it in his eyes — this is the muggle-born one, this one can’t do it.

You’re better than them. You can do it forever.

The epergne spins at the dip of your wand, and emerges more than an animal. A big glass tank appears in its place, round and gold-rimmed, water lapping at the sides. Inside it is a jellyfish. Emerald green, bobbing, tentacles and oral arms coiling against the glass like the limbs of the epergne had spanned its centre.

The Ministry worker swallows. Dumbledore smiles.

“And — and back?” the worker says, like that will be the thing that stops you.

You point again, mouth tight with irritation, and reverse the Transformation. A droplet of water smacks your face and you’re lucky to be so hot you can disguise it as sweat. You suspect even an error that small would cost you a mark.

You wipe it away. A strange thing happens; you imagine Tom brushing the water from your cheek at the Black Lake. You imagine his fingers in the rain.

The Ministry worker steps closer with a shameless frown. He tells you to turn his hair red. You do. He regards himself in the mirror and scribbles something down. He tells you to turn it back. You do. To grow him a beard, to change his clothes, to make him taller, shorter, this and that — all read from a list he does not appear enthused to recite. You do it all.

He shakes Dumbledore’s hand when it’s done, duplicates his notes for him to keep, and follows the other Ministry workers through the fireplace when everyone’s exams are finished.

You find out you’ve passed with an Outstanding on your birthday.

Mari drags you to the Three Broomsticks to celebrate, butterbeers on her. (They always are.)

“Can’t believe we’re about to graduate,” she says into her cup, froth on her upper lip.

You sigh into your own, partially giddy and mostly nervous.

Mari squeezes your face between her thumb and finger so your frown is puckered. “Chin up, genius. You’ll be excellent.”

You push her hand away but can’t help a small smile. “Outstanding,” you correct.

“Outstanding!” She bursts out laughing. “Bloody ego on you now…”

“Well, I am the smartest person you know.”

“I take that back.”

She pushes out of her chair with a slightly inebriated wobble. “Going to the loo. Don’t touch my chips.”

Your hands raise in surrender, and you steal only one when she’s gone.

You aren’t the only ones here to celebrate. (Your birthday and your mutual achievement, yes, but the Three Broomsticks is filled wall-to-wall with seventh years drinking their final nights at school away.) There’s music charmed to reach every corner, even yours at the little alcove hidden from plain sight. It’s nice to watch from here — the stumbling, the kisses meant for mouths that land drunkenly on cheeks and noses, the barkeeps that roll their eyes as soon as they turn away from all the newly adult customers, not yet learned or careless in their drinking manners.

It is not nice to be occluded from plain sight in such a way that you don’t notice Tom Riddle until he’s inches away from your table. It is not nice that no one else notices either.

On instinct you don’t make any impressive exit. He slides into the booth next to you and your brain short circuits for a moment at the warm familiarity of his presence beside you. Then it occurs that it’s been more than a year since this was remotely commonplace — that you cannot forget the reason why.

There’s not much time to decide whether you want to be vicious or indifferent or to debate on past precedent which would bother him more. You haven’t attacked him despite being concealed enough to do it unnoticed, and you haven’t shoved furiously out of the other side of the booth.

Indifferent it is.

“Can I help you?”

“You’re causing quite the stir,” he says, taking one of Mari’s chips.

You’re allowed. It’s infuriating when he does it.

“Am I?”

“It’s enough to fail a N.E.W.T level class and be expressly petitioned back, but to have a special criteria set for your exams and manage an O on top of it all…” He inclines his head as if to appreciate your face so close after so long. You should not let him. “You are incomprehensible. It terrifies them.”

“They’re afraid of the wrong mudblood, then, aren’t they?”

Indifference effaced. You’re angry.

He seems to have come prepared, and shrugs your scorn off like a scarf you would have forced him to wear winters ago. “Of course, they have no reason to suspect Dumbledore might have ulterior motives.”

Ulterior — you certainly hope he isn’t suggesting this is based on anything but your merit, but then — you couldn’t begin to understand why Dumbledore cared so much, could you? You’d made brief inspections of his disdain for Tom in second year, his waning shades of kindness and the matter of his stolen encyclopaedia, but you hadn’t… you hadn’t thought at all about how his dedication to your progress only begun after you’d stopped sharing a class with Tom, how it had developed as you began to drift from one another in fifth year and accelerated in sixth after the first petrification and Myrtle’s death. How Tom had worn you down with a weighted glare at Dumbledore’s little toast.

It wasn’t because you had chosen Dumbledore, you realise. It was because Dumbledore had chosen you.

“Why don’t you worry about your pets, Riddle?” you snarl, “I’m sure there are bigger problems with your lot than my exam results.”

Something in his face shifts at the name. You swell with distorted pride.

He mends the reaction by looking you over in more detail, his features schooled into something he must know you can’t deduce. You try not to squirm under the intensity of it.

He reaches almost mindlessly for your collar (there is nothing mindless about it, you’re sure) and smooths the fabric gently with his fingers. “I always liked you in this colour.”

You blink. His thumb just barely brushes against the skin of your neck before retreating, and your mouth falls open.

“Don’t do that,” you say. Truly a sad attempt. Your repulsion is more with yourself than him, and that’s not at all right.

Where is Mari?

“Your friend was at the bar, last I saw her.”

You stare at him with wild eyes. How the hell — ?

“You were always easy to read,” he supplies, and leans in so you can follow his line of sight to the tiniest sliver of the bar visible between two columns, where Mari looks deeply engaged in conversation with Leo Ndiaye, one of the Gryffindor Chasers.

You take a sharp, exasperated breath at her antics. She might be more in love with the competition than the boy himself. They’d never last without Quidditch to bind them, but you can’t fault her for wanting a bit of fun.

“Well then —”

Right. Tom hasn’t actually moved away. You turn and his face is just there.

His eyes dart forthwith to your mouth, and — no. No, he won’t be doing that and neither will you.

“...I’m off to bed.” Stop talking to him like he’s your friend, you think miserably. Stop looking at him like he’s your —

“That would be wise.”

He’s still looking at your lips.

No one else is looking at you at all.

It could exist in just this moment, you deliberate; separate from everything else.

Except nothing about Tom exists in its own moment. He’s all over you all the time, skin and bone and soul. You hope you still have a place in the broken fragments of his.

“So I’ll be going now,” you say again.

“I haven’t protested.”

But he’s leaning in, and he has to know that’s impedance enough.

“But you will.”

His lips touch yours. “Yes, I will.”

You grab him by his shirt and you’re kissing him. You’re kissing each other like either of you know what the hell it means to kiss anyone, but you’ve learned the rest together, haven’t you? Your noses bump and you don’t care. You just need to kiss him, and — God, you make some noise against his mouth and the hand cupping your face spreads to capture more of you, greedy and wayward — he needs to kiss you too. It’s a horrible thing to know. It leads you to pose too many questions.

The need must have begun as want, and when did the want begin? How long has he looked at you and wondered what you’d feel like to kiss, touch, mark? (He’ll never have the latter. You swear that.)

You’re pulling away in intervals. “You don’t have me, you know.”

“I know,” he responds, lips on the corner of yours.

“You still lost me.”

“I know.”

“I hate you.”

He pauses for a moment. “I know.”

You kiss him again. Long and soft, memorising his cupid’s bow and the tip of his tongue, and when one of his hands moves to your waist you part from him like you’ve been burned.

“I —” You resist the urge to touch a finger to your lips, standing abruptly from the table and adjusting your shirt. Your body feels like an evolutionarily faulty vessel, too easy to please, though you can’t imagine it responding to anyone else this way. Or perhaps your mind is the problem. Not wired well enough to resist an evidently bad thing. “Goodnight, Tom.”

You thought there wasn’t a word for your goodbye, but that’s it. So simple it sinks you. Goodnight, Tom. I’ll dream of a morning where I wake up beside you, but you won’t be there.

He grabs your hand before you can go, licking his lips and it haunts you to think he’s savouring you. It stings a place deep in your chest you’d spent all year trying to heal.

“My door is always open,” he says.

He lets you go.

You graduate with Mari’s hand in yours, and you aren’t afraid.

Dumbledore requests that you stay for the summer to help him prepare for the first year’s curriculum in the fall. It’s a ridiculous opportunity for someone your age — free lodgings and a stellar impression on your resume, and — you can only accept it with an ire you haven’t felt since the spread of influenza in muggle Britain.

If he’s offering you lodgings now, he could have done it all along.

It sends you down a horrible train of thought while you move your things from the Slytherin dormitories to a little chamber a few doors down from the staff room; Tom will be removed from Wool’s this year. Will he stay at Malfoy Manor? But Tom is still publicly muggle-born — Abraxas’s parents would never allow it. Will he find a job, a flat? Will he swindle muggles once he turns eighteen and the Trace is no longer an obstruction?

You think of him often. You think of his offer.

My door is always open.

Plenty of doors are open to you now. Why should you want to go back to his?

Still, the Second World War ends in November and you feel like you can breathe at a depth you never could before. The school doesn’t celebrate like it did with Grindelwald. No one but you seems to care at all.

It’s a tempting door.

The year passes in a blur of graded papers and lessons Dumbledore sometimes involves you in and sometimes does not. Most of the first-years care little for you, but there are two Slytherin muggle-borns who look at you like a new sun to orbit. Everything is worth it for that.

You see Mari when you can, and find she’s training with the Italian Quidditch team, who apparently are smart enough to care more about skill than blood. She says she misses the complexities of Transfiguration, but any career in it was always going to be yours. Smartest person she knows, she reiterates. Biggest ego too.

The next summer Dumbledore informs you of a posting at the Ministry. Something small with a smaller wage. He emphasises the weight of his personal recommendation, but that you won’t be respected unless you claw tooth and nail for it. You don’t take long to consider a chance to make an actual income with an actual career doing something muggle-borns simply don’t do before you’re nodding assuredly and asking him what you need.

Better clothes are first, and all you can afford until further notice. You take to Gladrags with intent to purchase for the first time in your five years of wandering in the shop with eyes bigger than your wallet, and the owner looks at you with distrust when you slide her your sickles.

The Ministry job is truly, infinitesimally, insignificant.

It’s far down in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. You’re a glorified secretary, and you recall the few times you’d worked as a mail-sorter during the war. It’s some sick irony that you’ve landed yourself in a pile of paper once more.

But the money, though offensively scant to someone with better options (and it’s infuriating the options you deserve), is more than you’ve ever had, and within the next year you’re able to leave the castle and take a cheap room at an inn in Hogsmeade. You’re close enough to Dumbledore to aid him when he needs you, but far enough to feel like your school days are departed, and you need not worry about memories lurching unexpectedly at every corridor.

A sick part of you still reaches for your mouth sometimes to remember what it felt like to be kissed. That part of you wishes for Tom. You could kiss him into oblivion. You could find a way to make it hurt him back.

My door is always open.

Then you’ll slam it bloody closed.

Mari invites you to her first professional game and you cheer for her in the stands, a green, white, and red scarf around your neck in place of her old blue.

She wins and you get drinks in a muggle pub. You kiss a man at the bar. You go home with him. His hair is dark, but not dark enough. His lips are soft, but the shape is wrong. He makes you feel good, but you wonder if in another life, the dream is true; you roll over in the morning to Tom beside you, and he makes you feel better.

When you can find time between the monotonous demands of your job, you’re in the Transfiguration classroom, staying behind to help the Slytherin muggle-borns with their Switching spells.

It’s one stupid accident the next fall that changes things.

A muggle bank has been robbed, and whatever idiotic, panicked witch or wizard was behind it apparently found themselves incapable of getting the deed done with a simple Imperius Curse (you can’t imagine, based on the scene, that they’re above Unforgivables), and somehow ended up leaving the building half-charred and teeming with at least six bank tellers Transformed into birds, two chirping into the floor tiles with broken wings.

“Renauld’s on it, though,” your coworker says when the news finds your department.

“Renauld?”

He’s a year older than you, a pureblood with parents in high places, and endlessly fucking hopeless.

“Well, yeah —”

You push out from your desk, files fluttering behind you. “Renauld will expose the whole damn wizarding world if he touches that building.”

“But McCormack sent him.”

“Where is it?”

“I… McCormack said that —”

“Where is it, Flack?”

“Um. Um, near King William, I think. Moorgate or, um —”

That’s good enough. You toss the Floo Powder into the fireplace and go.

The place is a mess. You don’t even have to look for it. There’s some ward around the street, bouncing muggles away like an invisible end to a map they don’t even register is there. At least that’s handled right.

But you slip through it and curse under your breath at the muggles trapped inside the wards. They’re like fish prodding at the dome of their bowl, and some run up to you demanding explanations when they see you unaffected by it. You brush them off — Obliviation is not your strong-suit — though you do shout at a pair of DMAC wizards uselessly standing guard outside the bank.

“What the hell are you doing?” you ask on approach. “Renauld’s supposed to handle the inside, yeah? You deal with fixing them.”

You point toward the frantic muggles, and the officials just regard you with vague confusion at your presence. “Renauld said —”

“Oh my God! Fix. The muggles.”

You afford nothing else before pushing past them to enter the bank.

It’s quite impressive, actually; Renauld, the result of generations of foolproof breeding, is waving his wand around like he’s just stepped out of Olivanders for the first time.

“Heal their wings,” you say without greeting.

Renauld jumps. “What? What are you doing here?”

“Heal their damn wings. They’re easier than human limbs and healing magic’s the only thing you aren’t completely shit at.”

“Who authorised you?” he hisses.

“I did.”

In hindsight, it should have gone horrifically wrong. Your wand could have been taken and your life might have been over in all ways that matter, flung back into the muggle world where you’ve always been told you belong.

But Renauld vouches for you. You Transform the walls, you fix the burns, you mend the bank to something presentable. A muggle robbery — dangerous, financially tragic, but believable. And your suggestion to heal the injured bank tellers in their animal forms might be the thing that saved them. When Renauld mends their wings and regenerates their blood, you Untransfigure them, and the other DMAC officials alter their memories with haste.

You were completely out of line and utterly right.

It isn’t something people like you are allotted.

Your probation period is dreadful. You hide in your room at the inn most days, Vanishing little stained panes on your window to feel the warm breeze of air before you Conjure them again. You help grade papers, though Dumbledore is displeased with you and the night is a silent one. He assures you curtly that he’s doing his best with the Ministry to amend this.

And… he does.

With Renauld’s help and the corroboration of the other DMAC officials, you’re back at work by the start of the school year.

It’s a slow process — almost eight months of meaningless paperwork — before the next incident occurs and you’re hectically ushered to the scene like a belated understudy. And then it happens again. And again. And again.

There’s really no choice but to promote you.

Your heroics are torn from a Gryffindor cloth, so says Flack. You urge him never to say such a thing again.

By your twenty-first birthday, you think about Tom almost exclusively in your sleep. You’re much too busy to think about him anywhere else.

The summer is warm and Hogsmeade is lively. You’ve vacated your room at the inn for a little house on the outskirts of the village, decorating it how you like — discovering what you like. You’d never had a chance to find out before.

Mari visits when she can once you have your fireplace connected to the Floo Network (you yourself prefer Apparating) but her name is slowly working its way from the Italian papers to the British ones, and she has so much to tell you there isn’t possibly enough time in her days to tell it. There’s also the matter of Leo Ndiaye, who has, recently, gotten on one knee and proposed to her. If there had been a bet on them ending up together, you would have been out enough galleons to put you in debt.

After especially gruesome days at work, you and a few colleagues make a habit of getting sherries at the Siren’s Tail, complaining that sometimes the nature of your work is akin to an auror’s but without the notoriety and pay.

“Oh, please,” says Emilia Alves, twirling her straw, “have you seen the shit the aurors are up to lately? I’d rather be a blimmin’ Unspeakable.”

“You’d have to be able to keep your mouth shut for that, Alves.”

Emilia punches Renauld in the arm.

“What are the aurors up to?” Flack asks.

“I dunno much. There was a murder all the way in Albania, s’posedly. Reeked of dark magic.”

“Nothing new,” you join, and then frown. “Why’s our Ministry dealing with it though?”

“I dunno. I got word from Hillicker that the Albanians didn’t know what to make of the mess. They’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Hillicker’s not a source,” Renauld scoffs.

“Yeah? Why don’t you ask your daddy for something better?”

“Alves, I’ll have you know —”

You lean in over the counter. “What do you mean they’ve never seen anything like it?”

She grins. “Why? Storming a bank robbery wasn’t exciting enough for you?”

You roll your eyes, taking a drink.

That ought to be the end of it. One extraordinarily lucky incident to push you up the career ladder was rare enough — there is absolutely no way digging around a case that has nothing to do with you or your department could ever end well.

But something about it itches.

You make nice with Hillicker. She’s a year younger than you and far too kind for her own good, and she gushes freely about her husband’s work as an auror (they must be a perfect match for him to gush freely about it with her). It’s a bit manipulative. You have no excellent excuse for it, but… ambition, and all that, you suppose. Flack’s Gryffindor theory is studded with holes.

You are green, through and through.

Emilia’s updates are meaningless when you garner so much information that you’ve already heard everything she has to say over drinks, and at this point her and Hillicker might be a step behind you. Emilia still only knows about Albania; peppery little details of half a story. Hillicker discusses an assortment of murders with no real string between them, and Dumbledore regards you with cool heeding when you bring up the matter with him.

You see him little nowadays but you’ve never been close in any true sense, traces of resentment budding over the years like rainwater collects on glass until the stream finally slips.

You visit Hogwarts mostly for your Slytherins, fourteen or fifteen now, unafraid of the distinction of their blood.

And then there’s one night after you turn twenty-two where drinks take place at yours for a change, Mari and Leo included and happily wed. You have no sherries but your ale is just as well, and it’s only you and Renauld who are sober by the time everyone else is vanishing into the fireplace and going home.

That makes it much worse when you sleep together.

There’s no excuse of having had a glass too many — so sorry, I’ll be on my way then, and him stumbling over his trousers to get out of your hair. Of course, he does that anyway, scratching the nape of his neck when he reaches your doorway in the morning.

“Thanks for the — well, you have a nice home — I do think I should —”

“Yes.”

“Right.”

“Oh!” He turns around at the last second. “Er — I know you’ve become a tad obsessed with… Hillicker mentioned another, anyway. Hepzibah something. Killed by her own elf, the aurors suspect.”

“Oh,” you echo, sheets pulled up to your shoulders. “Thanks, Renauld.”

“I thought you might like to know. Don’t be daft about it.”

You’re incredibly daft about it.

There’s something reminiscent about Albania in this case that wasn’t there with the others. The tide of dark magic ebbing across the scene, the cherry-picked information released in the Prophet, the claim of an old, dumb House Elf who poisoned her mistress like the Albanian peasant killed in some insoluble accident.

The itch exacerbates.

You see him in your dreams again. He peers over Runes in a stolen encyclopaedia, he whispers to an adder on his shoulder, he kisses the corner of your mouth and it isn’t enough. He kills you, again and again. You kill him too.

You wake up and he isn’t there.

It’s a new low when you’re invited to the Hillicker’s anniversary dinner and you end up digging through the drawers of their study halfway through the night.

The Albania file offers nearly nothing. There was the charred residue of dark magic imprinted on a hollow tree in the fields of the peasant’s hamlet, but nothing detailing more than a blank imprint of the Killing Curse in his eyes. Still, you tuck the knowledge away for the file of one Hebzibah Smith, whose tea did indeed have traces of poison, but whose den was also ripe with a layer of darkness that didn’t line up with the Ministry’s tale of senile elf.

And then there’s the forgotten matter of her being a purveyor of ancestral artefacts. The file doesn’t recount whether any are missing, since the woman was wise enough not to proclaim all her possessions to the world, but it’s something. A scratch.

You travel to Albania that Christmas. The neighbours in the peasant’s hamlet have skewed memories, so they provide little help, but the man’s house was left almost untouched.

You tear the place apart and Transfigure it back together when you’re done.

All you find, in the end, is a scrap of an old envelope in a suitcase.

R.R

It could be that it’s old. The cursive seems ancient enough. But you swear the letters have the distinct shape of quill ink — too artful for any pen — and maybe that wouldn’t matter if it weren’t for half a wax seal stuck to the torn edge of the envelope. Stained but silver, the barest hint of two ribbons, a crest, and the letter H.

You return to Hogwarts posthaste.

It’s snowing in the courtyards and you waddle with a duotang under one arm to pretend you’re here for something scholarly, an array of excuses prepared in case you run into Dumbledore, but you don’t.

The Grey Lady is as beautiful as she’s rumoured to be.

You ask her about her mother, and she’s silent, an expression on her face like you’ve struck her.

“Is it found?” she whispers. The snow floats through her.

Your heart hammers as you consider how to approach this. She thinks you know more than you do, which means there’s something to know.

“Yes,” you say. And you dare further with the context you know, “In Albania.”

“Oh,” she hums. “Oh…”

And if she means to say more she doesn’t seem able, washing away through the balusters, then the walls. You think of your house ghost and what he did to her, and you feel sorry for a second.

Madam Palles expels you from the library the moment you find what you’re looking for, and you rush past a throng of staring students to the staff room fireplace. It’s too far a walk to the border of the castle wards to Apparate. You bite back the preemptive sickness, get swallowed by the flames, and go home.

There are blanks to fill in but you do it easily. Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem. Hepzibah Smith and her assortment of unregistered artefacts. The stain of dark magic. Something so rare not even the aurors recognized it.

But you do, because he told you.

You wonder on your search to find him what object he used when he killed Myrtle Warren. Nothing special, you think — maybe even the closest thing he could find. These murders involved more preparation. He got to mark them however he wanted.

It’s almost disappointing to find him here. In a little flat over Knockturn Alley with a view of charmed coalsmoke and the brick wall of another shop.

It’s as tidy as his room at Wool’s, the only dirt the irremediable age of the building itself. The whole place looks almost slanted, large enough only for the bare necessities; a kitchen, a toilet, a bedroom that looks more like a closet, and a study/dining room/den you can’t imagine he hosts many gatherings in. You rescind the mere thought. Whatever gatherings Tom Riddle is having these days, you’re sure you can’t begin to imagine at all.

You wait, legs crossed on an old loveseat, fiddling with your wand.

The door clicks open when the snow has turned to hail and there’s no light but the few scattered candles you’d lit on the mantelpiece.

It strikes you only when he’s standing before you that it’s his birthday.

You’re in Tom Riddle’s flat, on his birthday, adorned by the orange glow of half-melted candles, and you know everything.

He eyes you carefully, a hint of surprise at the sight of you after four years that even he needs a second to recover from. And then he's even, inscrutable Riddle again, and you dare to think, come back.

“I placed wards," he says, hanging his bag on a rack by the wall.

“I thought your door was always open.”

You see his posture change from just his silhouette.

“Wards never work in Knockturn,” you offer additionally, “not really. There's too much conflicting magic; one border cuts into another; leaves a little sliver behind if you’re smart enough to find it. You should know that."

He turns to you. You take in a moment to acknowledge how he's changed. It's hard to see in the curtained moonlight, and it seems unreasonable to imagine he’s grown, but you think he has. An inch taller, perhaps. Two. Maybe the dress shoes. His arms are bigger under his button-down, but not enough to consider him muscular. His black hair isn't as perfect as you remember, and you suspect a long day of work undoes his curls. You always liked him better that way in school, after a night duel at the Black Lake, his robes askew and his hair a mess. Evidence that you were the only one to dishevel him. Now you were — what? Did he even think of you anymore? Yes. You'd always think of each other.

“Duly noted. What are you here for?” He tries your surname like a foreign language.

You cross your arms, and you're acutely aware that he's observing your changes too. You're not the matchstick witch he once knew. Your emotions are cultured now, taut to mirror his. You wear dull, formal grey, and that glowing green tinge that should be gleaming on you is under a thick carapace. That’s for Mari, Flack, Emilia — even Renauld. Not for Tom.

You wonder if he knows it was Dumbledore who put in the word that got you this uniform. You wonder if he resents you for it.

“There’s been talk at the Ministry," you say finally, “A string of murders. Whispers of something — some dark magic they don’t understand. And you know they're careful about things like that after Grindelwald."

“A string of murders... Hm. That might imply you understand a connective thread. Is there some sort of accusation being made?”

“Oh, I'm sure you'd be flattered by accusations. There’s not enough there, as it stands. Just whispers." You sink more comfortably in the seat and the springs make a concerning sound. “But I know you."

His hard, sharp gaze falters for a moment. You watch the flames dance behind him, the firelight playing against the lines of his shoulders, and feel your heart skip a beat. “Who else is speculating?"

“No one." Your fingers brush over the book spines on the coffee table. “I guess their attention hasn't been drawn to a book clerk yet, even if you have taken residency... here." You say it with no shortage of disapproval.

Knockturn was never where Tom belonged. You'd once imagined a flat together in muggle London, taking the telephone booth to the Ministry together, changing the world together. It's a wish that's a lifetime away now.

“Is this a warning? I assure you, I don’t need the condescension.”

“I'm not warning you," you scoff, “I — I'm seeing you. God knows I'll probably never get the chance to do that again once you get yourself locked up in Azkaban, which you will."

You sound exasperated. You sound half-pleading. “What are you doing, Tom? Is this — this is really what you want?"

“Yes."

You shake your head. “I don't believe that." And then some of that fiery spit returns to you, and you feel like a child again, stuck in the London tube stations holding his hand at every plane that flew overhead, scowling that you needed his reassurance. Scowling that you were afraid.

“Well, your conjecture is ever-appreciated. Shall I lend you mine? Shall I congratulate you on your revolutionary position at the Ministry? Or is it Dumbledore I should afford my thanks?”

“I earned this,” you hiss.

“You deserve it,” he amends. “But do not lie to yourself and pretend that’s why you have it.”

“Fuck you.”

He smiles. “There you are.”

“I don’t need your congratulations, Riddle. Dumbledore doesn’t need your damn thanks. But,” you say, biting back the snarl that wants out, “you could thank me. After all, I could turn to the Ministry any minute with the truth of your heritage. I could tell them about Myrtle, the Horcrux — Horcruxes.”

The humour dissolves from his face and you despise the immense glee it brings you.

“Oh, did you think I didn’t know? Didn’t understand the connective thread? You are sentimental under all that… fucking posturing, you know. I’m sure it’s all very romantic to you — making Horcruxes out of Hogwarts artefacts. Shame it’s such an insult to your intelligence.”

“Very good,” he says after a long, terse silence. You’re sure he’s thinking just the opposite.

You hum, meddling with your nails. “So what’s your plan?”

“I’d need a Vow for that.”

You laugh. “I’m not that desperate.”

“You’re also not an auror, are you?” He tilts his head appraisingly. “And yet you’ve found your way here.”

“How many do you plan to make? How many people do you plan to kill?”

“A Vow.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Tea, then? Biscuits?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t. I read in the paper the other day about a poor old woman who had her tea poisoned.”

“Hm. Terrible shame.”

Your fist clenches around your wand. “Is it paying off well, Riddle? It must be a good life if you’re willing to split your soul to hell and back to have more of it.”

He smiles at the barb in your words. “You never were good with subtlety.”

“I wasn’t trying to be subtle. This place is horrific.”

“I was referring to your inability to see more than what’s directly in front of you.”

“Oh, really? And what more should I see than a boy who’s very good at getting weak men to bow and do very little else? I’d try to see the bigger picture, but I reckon it wouldn’t fit in here.”

Tom regards you colourlessly. You are slate, Ministry-grey, impermeable like palace portcullis.

“I suppose I should have killed you.” He says it with the nonchalance of a forgotten chore. He says it like you’re a stain.

He doesn’t say it like he feels any terrible urgency to remove you; and you think, this time, you’d feel more powerful if he did. You think it’s far more debilitating to sit here and be looked at like he regrets wanting you alive more than he wants you dead.

“Yes,” you concur, “I suppose you should have.”

You place your wand down on the table and scoot your chair away for good measure. “It’s never too late to rectify your mistakes.”

Tom, for a moment, looks surprised. That makes you feel powerful. You’d take more of that.

“You have wandless magic,” he tries. A weak recovery.

“Scout’s honour, Riddle.”

He doesn’t move for a moment, then fixes his wand in his hand and rises, doused in the same inscrutable calm that always used to drive you mad. Now something in you gleams with the knowledge that he only ever looks like this when he’s trying not to look like anything at all.

He steps closer and it gleams brighter. It trembles inside you and you know, distantly, that this is insane. You’re weighing your life on a childhood trust that was shattered years ago, and you don’t think you’ve ever been that good at faith, but he’s approaching you and that gleam you feel is reflected in his eyes and you just… know. Your spilled blood once crawled with his. There’s no undoing that. Half of you is made of the other.

“I should have killed you,” he repeats.

It’s a murmur. Stilted. Angry, even. Angry that you made him this and there’s no fucking rectifying it — what a joke that is. What an immensely you thing to suggest.

“Yes,” you agree.

It’s a breath. Low. Proud, even. Proud that you’re his only mistake and he’s going to make it again.

Tom kisses you. It’s a murder of its own kind. You kiss him back, and — you were always going to kill each other like this, weren’t you? It’s you and him whether you like it or not.

There should be no love in it. You know that. Love is far behind the both of you, stifled in a gasp at the back of your throat on your eighteenth birthday and the soft, selfish hands of a seventeen year old boy. This is mutual destruction. Spite and teeth and skin that’s cold under your fingers.

He was your first in everything but this.

You push back at him and feel the hunger, the need in him, like a flame as he kisses you deeper and harder, and you find yourself losing yourself to it all over again, like you're back in the dark alcove of a pub where you told him goodbye, pushing to extend the juncture. And then he lets out a hitched, gravelly sound; not a moan but enough to make you shudder.

You pull him onto the sofa and crawl onto his lap.

“How long?” he asks thickly.

You don’t have to ask what he means. You bite against his neck, nails under his shirt as you struggle to pop the buttons open. There must be a violence in all your want for him because if there isn't it's just loss. It's just another thing you'll give him without taking anything back.

“Sixth year," you pant, “in the Deathday ballroom when we fought for the first time. You — ah — you put your thumb on my mouth. Since then."

You hear a sharp intake of breath, and his hand moves up your back to pull you impossibly closer. His voice is ragged. “Should I tell you how long I’ve wanted you?"

You shudder a breath. “Since —" And it's a bit hard to talk with the way he's rolling your hips — “Since when?"

His lips twitch into a mirthless smile, hands spanning your thighs as you start to rock against him. “When you burned me, and I sent you into the lake."

You swallow, agonised by the slow pace his grip forces you to keep when all you want to do is go faster.

“Your uniform was terribly wet,” he says, mouth tracing your jaw. “Did I ever apologise for that?"

“N-no.”

He tuts, the hushed sound warm and deadly on your neck. “Bad manners. I must have been distracted."

Oh. Oh, you think. It seems pointless to flush in the position you're in now, but the knowledge that he wanted you then and you hadn't even known is... all the more devastating.

But you shiver at the question of how he’d wanted you, in what amount of detail, in what precise way. You almost want to ask. See it for yourself.

You don't think you'd manage the words. He’s hard underneath you and your head wants to lull toward his shoulder but a big hand holds you from one side of your jaw down the length of your neck, his tongue laving up the other. Instead you’re balanced only by his hands and his mouth, rolling against him because it’s all you can do like this.

He’s marking you, you realise with a gasp, and your fingers bury in his hair to remove his mouth from its descending assault on your collar. Not that. You’d sworn against that.

Your fingers return to his buttons and he copies you by finding yours, pulling at the fabric tucked into your trousers until it’s discarded entirely. You press your hands to the planes of his chest and watch him, your mouth agape as his eyes linger on your chest.

His heart is pounding and he must know you’re about to comment on it because his lips are on yours again and he adjusts his position and your fingers dig into his shoulders at the delicious new feeling of him pressing into your thigh.

You move for his belt. He moves for your zipper. It’s some sort of race, whatever you’re doing, and you’re at an unfair advantage when you’re still fumbling with his buckle when his hand is already carving a slow path to the band of your underwear. You're scalding under the journey of it, little stars pricking you under every new inch he explores.

He dips in and your eyes wrench shut, grasping frantically for his wrist.

“Shh,” he says softly, caressing your cheek with his spare hand, thumb finding your mouth how it did all those years ago and you want to curse him. The fucker knows exactly what he’s doing.

You shake your head, chest rising with heavy breaths as you return to his belt and scrabble to unbuckle it.

“So tense,” he murmurs. The hand at your cheek draws over your lower lip before it falls to your back to hold you closer. “Rest now.”

And his fingers trace you where you want him most, brushing past your clit as he pulls his face back to watch you.

You sink into the feeling, still swaying on his lap, a half-efforted attempt at finding friction in the hardness between his legs that feels fruitless because it won't be enough until he's inside. Your hand just grips onto the fabric of his unzipped trousers and stays there. It’s a pause. An obstacle on your path to him that you need just a moment to recover from before you’ll make him feel just like this. Better. Worse. It’s hard to tell which is which.

He’s stroking at you now, pleased by the way you lurch against him with every touch.

You have to recover, you have to make it even, you have to… you…

A finger presses inside and you moan.

“You came back to me,” he whispers, close enough to be kissing you but there’s just the stutter of his breath. It's a fucking religious thing to say, the way he does it.

“Doesn’t make me yours,” you breathe.

He shakes his head. “I know. You’ll still take it though, won’t you?”

Oh, fuck.

He makes a sound of approval. “Good.”

Good. Fine. Your hands slip from his zipper to the meat of his thighs, pushing yourself forward so the shape of him is firmer against you, and Tom slips another finger in.

You’ll take it, won’t you? Yes.

Maybe you don’t need to tear him at the seams (though you want to) to make it even. Maybe this is punishment enough. That he can have you like this and it still won’t make you his, that he’ll give you everything and you’ll lap at it with half the greed he possesses.

You ride his hand, clutching his shoulders, rocking your hips. You take all of it, and it builds something delirious inside you, that it’s him doing this, his perfect fingers, the shape of his lips, the soft dark of his hair when you find your hands in it again. The feeling makes you stutter, and he has to move you by the waist himself to keep the momentum when you can't do it yourself.

He’s painfully stiff, pushing up against you with a degree of self-control that feels like it can only end disastrously for the both of you, and you start smattering kisses down his cheek. You tilt his head back and lick a stripe down his neck. Rest now, you'd say if you could.

But he adds a third finger and your head falls, a cry planted in his collar when you come, and you don't think you say anything.

Tom holds your legs steady, guiding you through it like this is just another one of his studies. You are what he knows better than anything else, and still he wants to learn more.

“Look at you,” he mutters, dipping you back to press his lips down your chest, unclasping your bra while you’re still breaking, the sensation swelling again when he takes a nipple into his mouth.

“Tom,” you try to say. Your mouth is the sticky sort of dry that words refuse to come out of.

“Will you give me more?”

Give, not take. You fuss into a stolen kiss, grappling again with his trousers, pulling them down until you can palm him through his boxers.

He hisses, gripping your wrist like he hadn’t just done the same to you, and then he’s pulling you up and off the couch, trousers discarded with what must be magic because you blink and they’re gone. Greedy boy. (You have no room to judge.) Your back is to the wall an instant before his fingers are on you again, pushing your underwear down your thighs until it falls at your feet like they despised to ever part from you.

You arch to feel him press against your stomach, pushing off the wall so that you can meld to him but he just closes in on you to do it himself.

He goads the heat from you when his fingers push in again, still wet, coiling how you like, where you like —

“Want you,” you protest shakily, hand on his abdomen.

That must kill him a little, because he curses under his breath (a thing he never does) and the immediate absence of his touch is cruel when he goes to free himself from his boxers. You reach for him without thinking as he does, and he pins your hand beside you when your fingers so much as graze the length of him.

You sound frail, but you have to ask. “Is this how you wanted me?”

A cruder version of you would go on. Is this how you pictured it? Taking me against a wall? Have you waited for it all this time?

And you don’t belong to him but you’re so incomprehensibly, contradictorily his. You’ll want him forever. He could do anything, and you’d be his. You could haunt him into his lonely eternity, and he’d be yours. Then, you suppose — haunting him makes him yours by principle.

Maybe you already do.

Tom practically growls into your mouth, pressing against you and — God, it’s skin on skin. He's right there. You could push forward and —

He slides in. You cry out at the feel of him inside you, the angle of it like this.

“I wanted you,” he says lowly, your legs wrapped around him, “everywhere.”

You’re gripping him so tight you think he’ll bleed under your nails and somehow you still feel on the brink of collapse when he thrusts deeper.

“I thought mostly of your mouth,” he rasps. “It felt depraved to imagine it wrapped around me, but then I thought of you splayed out before me instead. That maybe you’d like it if it was my mouth on you.”

You whimper.

“Would you like that?” he asks, hands spanning your hips to snap them into his, like you are a piece removed from him he seeks to reattach.

If you wanted to answer you couldn’t. You’re clinging to him and the rising surge inside you, carved between your legs like something sweltering and unfixable. It rushes in and he pulls out of you. He pushes in and you cry for the release of it, the moment the wave lurches over the edge, but he won’t let you have it.

“But,” he says, and your eyes want to roll back at how heavy his restraint is, callous in the tone of his voice, some leash at his neck he must tug himself lest you take it from him — “If I knew how well you’d take me like this, I would have thought of it much more.”

Taking him, again — you don’t feel at all like that’s what’s happening. You feel possessed. You are buoyant in his arms: his and his and his.

“You can — uh — you can — ”

"Hm?" He brushes down the slope of your brow, your cheek, back to the edge of your mouth, wiping a trail of saliva from your chin. “Poor thing.”

And he slams into you again, drawing a mewl from you that slices your unfinished thought.

You clench around him, flames wild and fluttering at every contact of his skin on yours, and there are too many to count. Too many points where they intersect, just some blend of bodies connected at every curve.

“You’re going to give me more,” he says, like it’s an epiphany when you already told him you would.

You remember then. What you meant to say. “You can take me too.”

You feel him twitch inside you, his pace stilling for a moment, and the thumb on your lip slips into your mouth. Your lips close around him and he curses again.

He fucks you with a finger in your mouth and his teeth clamped over your shoulder, soothing the sting with his tongue. His pace is too slow when he drags his free hand between your legs, but you understand its purpose well enough that the mere recognition almost destroys you.

He’s patient in bringing you to the edge because there's time here. A slow agony that severs you from the rest of the world until it splits you down the middle. And he may not ever have it again.

You have to promise yourself he’ll never have it again.

But the movement of his fingers against the same spot he’s hitting inside you is too much at once, and you won’t last. You drool around his thumb. You let him mark you. You can see on his neck you’ve marked him too. And you hope impossibly there’s a scar. You hope the little death you coax from him claims him as yours for eternity, keeps him even when you're gone. You tighten, lurch for the edge, and make him mortal once more.

Tom holds you there, your cries reverberating as he sinks another finger in your mouth, and then he’s gasping at your neck, peeling back to look you in the eyes when he spills into you. Your eyes screw together and he releases the sounds you make by holding you by the jaw instead.

“Look at me,” he says, and for the strained need in it you do.

You come down to earth and you kiss him, wetness dripping down your thighs as he pins you to this moment. You love him. You’ll always love him.

He’s still inside you when he’s secure enough to bring you to his bed, only removing himself from you when you’re safely in his sheets, legs surrendering their grip on his waist as you pull apart. You pant into the cold linen of his pillow. Everything smells like him. There’s something empty now; the reason you came today; the reason you left four years ago.

You love him and it isn’t enough. Not even to look at him, the sleepy hint of the boy you knew in his eyes, and know that he loves you too.

“Goodnight, Tom,” you say, finding home in the warmth of his chest.

You’ll dream of a morning where you wake up beside him, but you won’t be there.

#tom riddle #tom riddle x reader #tom riddle x you #tom riddle x y/n #tom riddle fluff #tom riddle smut #tom riddle angst #(the trifecta)#tom marvolo riddle #voldemort #voldemort x reader #tom riddle imagine #tom riddle oneshot #harry potter fanfiction #wizarding world #ftltutbh

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mysecretlittlelibrary · 2 months

Text

Touch Tank

Pairing: Loki x Reader

Word Count: 5.5k (look it wasn't supposed to be this many- my characters got away from me)

Warnings: sheesh, oral (f receiving), fingering, handjob, creampie, Loki is very soft and worshiping, unprotected sex (be safe) I think that's it idk this is kind of mild compared to some of my other stuff- could be waaaay more raunchy lmao

Genre: fluff, smut

Summary: Loki is not the easiest person to get close to, but you're not deterred by his standoffishness. He deserves a friend in the tower and you're determined to be at least that much.

He's so pretty when he goes down on me // he tells me he's gentle when he wants to be // I think he wants to be gentle with me ~ Touch Tank by Quinnie

***

You rush down the hall, excited for your night out with a group of your non-Avenger friends. You make a point to see your other friends as often as you can to balance those relationships with your ones on the team. After all, living with the Avengers means that you see them all the time, but being an Avenger is not all there is to you. Walking into the main room you're surprised to see Loki sitting at the kitchen counter, just kind of staring at nothing.

"You alright Lo?" You ask him carefully. Your question seems to pull him out of whatever trance he was in.

"I'm fine." He says, though his face isn't convincing.

"Okay? Happy staring- I'm going out so- I'll see you later then." You frown heading over to the main elevator. Loki's not exactly close to anyone in the tower except Thor, and even that he'd argue is false but you always make a point to include him even when the others ignore him a bit. As you ride down to street level you can't help but wonder what has him so pensive up there by himself. On the street, waiting for a taxi to flag down, you can't get yourself to shake Loki from your mind so- reluctantly you dial one of your friends.

"Y/n!" Your friend's excited voice practically yells down the line.

"Hey! Listen, you know I hate to do this, and I wouldn't if it wasn't important, but I'm not going to be able to make it out tonight, something's come up. I'm okay, I just can't come. You guys have fun! I want loads of pictures and a play-by-play once one of you returns to life tomorrow yeah?"

"Aw we're gonna miss you!"

"Ditto! But I'll see you guys soon! Tell the girls I said hi!" You say.

"Of course! Take care, and call if you need anything!"

"Same to you!" You blow a kiss as you end the call and sigh. "Dammit Loki." You roll your eyes as you turn around and go back inside. You ride the elevator back up to the main floor where Loki is still sitting at the counter. You knock on the counter in front of him and grab a bottle of water from the fridge.

"Aren't you meant to be going somewhere?" Loki's eyes narrow at you.

"I was, but I called my friend on my way down and she's actually not feeling too hot so we decided it'd be best to reschedule once she's feeling better." You shrug. You know better than to tell him you cancelled your plans because you saw him moping at the counter. He'd flip at the first possible hint of you pitying him, even though that isn't what this is.

"I see."

"Do you want to watch a movie or something?" You offer.

"What?" He scoffs.

"Well- I was supposed to be spending time interacting with people tonight and that fell through but I'd feel kinda bummed if I spent the whole evening alone now after all the mental prep to be social so if you can be so terribly bothered to hang out for a bit I'd- value that." You say. Loki looks you over as he considers your words and then he sighs.

"I suppose I could spare a few hours, but only because I can't stand watching you mope around the tower the way you do whenever you're disappointed, it's pathetic. But this favor is a huge inconvenience to me I just want you to know that." He says and you have to fight the urge to smile. You know the show of bravado is for his own sake more than anything, and you're willing to let him have it, but it's funny to think of how much rationalizing he's doing to convince himself it's alright to spend time with you.

"Your sacrifice is both duly noted and greatly appreciated. I can offer you compensation in the form of a meal or freshly baked cookies." You say. Loki's eyes light up very briefly at the offer of cookies, he'll never admit it out loud but he loves your baking, he always eats almost half a tray when you make them.

"You know Midgardian food has very little appeal to me, but I suppose a batch of cookies will do." He says with feigned disinterest.

"Do you want them now or at a later date?"

"I have no interest in dragging this out, so now would be better."

"Alright, give me five minutes to change, I'll make you some cookies and we can throw on a movie." You smile at him. You change out of your dress and into a hoodie and shorts. Twenty minutes later you're sat with a tray of cookies and a few other small bites with some random sitcom on the TV.

"I don't understand the point of this. Is there even a plotline?" Loki scoffs.

"Yes but only a little one."

"A little one?"

"So there are a number of shows that you can throw on and watch out of order with little consequence. Like if you do watch every episode in order there is a throughline of like character development and life changes but if you jump into, let's say, season 3 episode 2, you'll just see some funny little antics that are mostly inconsequential and chances are will not come up again until maybe the finale where they recount all their little goofs over the years." You explain.

"Why?"

"Mindless entertainment? It's nice to have something to watch that you don't have to be aware of watching." You shrug. "Lots of shows have complex storylines and characters that need to be paid attention to in order to comprehend what you're watching. Sometimes you don't want to do all of that." You shrug.

"If you don't want to think about what you're watching, why watch anything?" He frowns.

"Pass the time, fill the silence, any number of things. Like we have one on but we're talking now so we're not really paying it any attention, but because it's a sitcom we're not missing anything vital because there's nothing vital to miss. And when this conversation lulls to a stop we'll just tune back in and pick up wherever it's at."

"Your Midgardian habits are very strange." Loki hums.

"What do you do when you're bored and want to be entertained without much effort?" You ask him.

"That specific phenomenon I'm not quite familiar with. If I'm bored, I read, practice spells, on Asgard there wasn't much time for boredom." He shrugs.

"Well, things are different on Midgard. And seeing as you hate everyone and everything about this place you may find yourself well acquainted with that specific phenomenon sooner than you might think." You say.

You gotta say you're pretty proud of your ability to interact positively with Loki. When he first started living here you never would've guessed you'd be watching movies and having silly conversations like this. He's always been rather closed off from the team but perhaps that's something you can actually work around.

*~*~*

"Loki!" You call when you catch him in the hall.

"What?" He rolls his eyes.

"Are you busy?" You ask.

"Why?" His eyes narrow suspiciously.

"Well I was meant to go to the aquarium with Thor today-"

"Thor is on Asgard." Loki says.

"Yes exactly." You nod. You weren't meant to do anything with Thor today, but it seems the key to the trickster god is minor deceptions.

"Did he forget you were going to this 'aquarium' today?"

"It would appear so. Which- I'm not mad about really but these tickets did cost money and I can't exchange them for another date so I was hoping you'd be able to replace him that way the ticket doesn't go to waste." You explain to him.

"You don't have anyone else you could ask?" He huffs.

"Not on such short notice." You shake your head.

"How short is short notice?"

"We need to be there in forty minutes."

"Oh you have got to be kidding me." Loki scoffs.

"If you come with me, when we get back I'll bake you a batch of cookies." You offer. It seems to be the easiest way to get him to do things. You watch Loki contemplate for a moment before he caves to his inner discussion although you're not sure there was much of a debate once you offered baked goods.

"Very well, I'll go so you don't waste your money, but you can't keep bringing your nonsense to me in exchange for cookies." He says.

"Of course not!" You smile knowing damn well you will be doing it again if you see fit. Loki will never admit to enjoying your company or wanting you to make him cookies, but considering he always accepts your offers and never truly complains when you're together, you know the irritation is only a front. "We'll leave in 15 minutes 'kay?"

"Very well." He says. You head back to your room to get yourself together and 15 minutes later you meet Loki by the kitchen.

"Ready Lo?" You ask.

"Yes let's get on with it." He says. You loop your arm through his as you leave the tower and you're surprised he doesn't protest the contact, but you won't bring it up. At the aquarium, you excitedly talk about all your favorite exhibits as you walk from section to section. "So what was the plan exactly?" Loki asks.

"What?"

"With Thor, why were you bringing him here in the first place?"

"Oh! Well because there's a lot he still wants to learn about Earth so I've been trying to take him places where he can learn a number of things at the same time." You shrug.

"And how is that going?"

"We've done the zoo and a couple of museums already so I'd say not bad. Oh, we're by the jellyfish, you should see the touch tank!" You say.

"The what now?" Loki frowns. You grab his hand and lead him to the shallow tank of water off to one side.

"This is a touch tank. These are jellyfish, they're like 95% water and don't have brains, some of them are dangerous, but these ones are pretty harmless and you can touch them! Only on the tops of their heads though. Like this." You lift his hand up and push down all but two of his fingers and then slowly, you guide his hand into the water. "You have to be gentle." You tell him softly as you let his fingers touch the top of a moon jelly in the pool. You turn to Loki with a small smile only to find him already looking at you very intensely.

"I'm quite gentle when I want to be." He says quietly. You step back a bit and clear your throat, dipping your own fingers in to touch a jellyfish for yourself.

"Well I hope you want to be gentle with the moon jellies. This is one of my favorite things here." You tell him.

"So anyone can just walk up and pet the jellyfish?"

"Yeah! Isn't it cool?"

"Sure." He nods.

"Wait till you see some of the other Jellyfish they've got here! They're insane!" You take his hand again and walk further into the jellyfish exhibit.

"They have more open tanks of creatures?"

"Oh- no all the other Jellyfish are in closed tanks." You giggle.

"Just as well, you said some are dangerous, no?"

"Well, yes, but aren't they just so beautiful?" You say looking at one of the tanks.

"Breathtaking." Loki says before he can help himself. He clears his throat, lucky you're so captivated with the floating water creatures that you don't even notice his eyes on you as opposed to the exhibits.

"Thank you for coming with me." You tell him.

"You bribed me."

"True- but you still could have said no. Especially since you're not even a fan of our, how do you say it? 'Mediocre Midgardian food'."

"Yes well, you pout when you're disappointed and it's incredibly displeasing to see. The whole tower suffers your moods. And while Midgardian food is mediocre yours is- the least. Plus I can rub this in Thor's face."

"I see you really weighed those pros and cons." You chuckle.

"I must. If I'm to disrupt my entire afternoon on such short notice." He shrugs. You roll your eyes and pull him through to the next exhibit but the smile on your face can't be hidden.

~*~*~

You hum to yourself as you enter the tower library.

"Good morning Loki." You say immediately spotting him on one of the lounge chairs. He's always in here, it's like his sanctuary and over the last few weeks you've found it easy to interact with him.

"It's 3pm y/n."

"It's morning somewhere Lo, time is arbitrary, don't be a grump." You shrug.

"What are you doing here anyway?" He rolls his eyes.

"Utilizing the insane collection of books we have considering there's only like 3 people living here that would ever pick up a book for from here."

"You've been coming here a lot lately."

"Why should you be the only one taking advantage of this big otherwise undisturbed room?"

"The best part of this room is that none of you come here."

"If you want to not run the risk of having to interact with anyone who lives here to might I suggest your room which has a lock on it." You smile brightly.

"Very funny." Loki scoffs.

"I thought so too!" You snap back. Loki gives you a dry look.

"Must you be so-"

"Charming? Witty? Adorable?"

"Not quite the adjectives I would've chosen." He says.

"Well next time finish your sentence." You wink at him.

"Are you trying to get under my skin?"

"Of course not! But it's pretty easy."

"Why must you bother me?" His eyes narrow.

"Maybe because you like talking to me more than you want to admit."

"And why would you think that?"

"Because you always do."

"Do what?"

"I'm sure you can figure that out." You say turning to leave the library.

"Do what y/n!?" He calls after you. "You didn't even get a book!" He shouts as the library doors close behind you. Loki frowns to himself for a moment and then decides to contact the only person he'd ever go to for advice on any subject. A looking glass spell slowly brings Frigga to life above his palm.

"Mother." He gets her attention.

"Loki?" Frigga picks up her looking glass with a smile. "Hello my darling boy. So lovely to hear from you. Thor tells me you're well."

"In the physical sense, yes." Loki nods.

"What troubles you my dear son?"

"I think Midgardian women might be more confusing than those on Asgard." Loki says.

"A woman? Do you feel for her?"

"Don't be ridiculous mother." Loki's words come out as a breathless chuckle.

"It is not ridiculous. She plagues your mind. Why, if you do not feel for her?"

"Truthfully I'm not sure." He frowns.

"Have you considered that you feel for her?"

"How would I know?"

"I believe the fact that you are asking may perhaps be a strong indicator already. This girl, do you see her often?"

"She lives here so yes." He nods.

"I mean intentionally darling." Frigga smiles.

"What?"

"Walking past her in the hallways is not quite what I'm referring to."

"Oh- well she's the least insufferable person here so- sometimes, yes. Though it's usually her bribing me to do things when her other plans fall through."

"What do you mean?"

"Well she invited me to this water creature house they call an aquarium a couple of weeks ago because Thor forgot he was meant to go with her."

"Are you sure Thor was meant to go with her?" She asks.

"I don't follow." Loki shakes his head.

"I wonder if this girl is playing tricks on my trickster." Frigga smiles knowingly.

"Do you overestimate her or underestimate me to believe I could be outsmarted by a mortal?"

"It is not a blow Loki, be calm my son. She plagues your mind when she is not there, she has made her way to a spot many people never have the pleasure of knowing within you. I believe she has stolen your heart and even you do not know it yet."

"What makes you think that?"

"In all your years Loki you have never once asked me about a girl. And this one seems to have you quite... wrapped."

"I resent that notion." He scoffs.

"What made you contact me?"

"Well she was-" Loki stops himself, his mother has already decided Loki is a goner, perhaps he shouldn't feed her any more information.

"She was with you Loki?"

"I spend a lot of time in the library. She came by and we had a short conversation that's all."

"What did she say?" Frigga asks.

"She thinks I like her more than I do. Or rather more than I will admit. I asked her why and she refused to answer."

"Well- what would lead her to believe that?"

"I have no idea." Loki scoffs.

"How is your relationship with her different than with the others?"

"I don't speak to the others. I only speak to her and Thor."

"Tell me about her."

"She is- happy, but not like Thor- his happiness is loud and aggressive she is- a calmer happiness. She seems to be crucial to the peace in this madhouse. Not for me, for everyone. She's also frustratingly smart, she has a comeback for everything and- it's nice to feel as though someone on this dreadful planet can match me- even if I find it vexing at times. Also she bakes- I don't quite enjoy Midgardian food but her treats are quite good though I refuse to tell her that-"

"I'm sure she knows." Frigga says with a soft smile.

"Why are you smiling like that."

"If you could see your face when you speak of this girl you would know like I know that your heart is no longer yours."

"My heart is very much still-"

"No darling. You may not realize but your mind has already given your heart to her. Follow your heart to her. Allow yourself to go there. It will do you good and you deserve it."

"Mother I cannot." He shakes his head.

"You can, and I suggest you do soon. If you do not tell her she has your heart you risk her unknowingly breaking it. Though I sense she is more aware than you may think. Certainly she's more aware than you are."

"You keep saying that-"

"There was no day planned with Thor. I would bet money she wanted to go with you, but you are a tricky thing. To catch fox you must think like one."

"What do I do mother? If you are right and this girl does have me, what do I do?" Loki asks.

"Be kind, be honest, be true. Don't wait too long." Frigga warns.

"Don't wait too long?" He frowns.

"Yes child, that woman will not wait forever for you to wake up."

"What if she is not waiting?"

"You misunderstand. I'm not saying she is waiting on you to come to your senses what I'm saying is that affections change one day she may not enjoy your time as she does now, someone serious may woo her and you miss your chance entirely, stars forbid it but something could happen to her or you. Do not get in your own way Loki, you have a tendency to do that."

"I do not get in my own way."

"Loki." Frigga says, leveling her son with an unimpressed look.

"I will consider your advice mother thank you." Loki cedes.

"Good. I will expect an update soon so be prepared for me to check in."

"Of course mother. Take care."

"You too my son." Frigga sets her looking glass down and Loki disconnects his end of the spell with a sigh. If Frigga is correct, Loki has much to consider, and rather quickly based on her warnings.

*~*~*

When the door to the library opens you don't bother looking up. The book you're reading is far too interesting to stop mid-page.

"What are you doing?" Loki jumps when he walks passed you. You look up momentarily, debating how badly you want to make a stupid joke.

"I'm practicing my backhand spring." You say flatly.

"You're sitting on the couch?"

"I'm also holding a book and yet you asked what I'm doing. I don't know what answer you expected honestly." You shrug.

"I just meant you're not usually sitting around in here."

"Is reading in the library that odd to you?" You chuckle.

"Well- no. I was just expecting the library to be empty." He says.

"Would you like me to leave?"

"Why would you offer to leave? You were here first."

"Yeah but I can read anywhere. Your hermit tendencies limit your spaces far more than mine."

"I am not a hermit." Loki rolls his eyes.

"Of course not." You hum.

"I'm not. I just have no desire to waste my time having unintelligent conversations with the uncultured morons that live here."

"Well don't let me bother you then."

"Not you, the others. And you can obviously stay."

"Why thank you for deeming me worthy enough to stay in your presence." You quip dramatically.

"It's not as if you care what I deem anyhow."

"True, that was sarcasm. Happy reading." You turn your attention back to your book and though Loki would like the conversation to continue he can't think of anything to say to justify pulling your focus from the book you're so clearly captivated by. You're in the library with your book for a few more hours and during that time Loki cannot help the way his eyes wander to you every so often, he doesn't even realize it's happening at first but once he does his mother's words that have been in his head for the past 2 weeks ring even louder.

~*~*~

"Y/n!" Wanda practically sings as she walks, no from the sound of it she's skipping, over to you at the kitchen island.

"Yes Wanda my dear?" You chuckle, setting your sandwich back on its plate.

"You know our coffee shop?"

"Around the block?"

"Yep!" She nods.

"What of it?"

"Well I heard through the grapevine that someone who works there has a crush on you."

"You heard- through the grapevine?" You quirk up an eyebrow at her.

"Cassie told me."

"How did you end up in that conversation?" You chuckle.

"Not the point, we should go down there!" She suggests excitedly.

"I'm eating a sandwich-"

"Not right now, tomorrow morning."

"You wanna tell me- who this mystery crush is? Because I'm not going anywhere if you don't tell me." You say biting your sandwich.

"It's Elliot."

"Oh he's cute-"

"Wanda." Vision calls as the main elevator arrives.

"Soooo we'll game plan when I get back?" She asks walking backwards.

"Fine." You shake your head and chuckle as she disappears in the elevator with Vision. You take a bite of your sandwich, presumably alone again, only to hear a throat clearing from behind you. You look over your shoulder to find Loki the source of the sound.

"Oh hi Loki." You say covering your mouth.

"Hello." He mutters.

"What brings you out of hiding today?"

"I'm not a hibernating bear you know."

"Of course not." You hum. Loki opens the fridge to grab something to drink, although it's mostly just so he can convince himself to bite the bullet and confess to you before this 'Elliot' from the coffee shop has an opportunity to turn your head like his mother warned him of.

"Do you have a moment? I know you're- eating but I'd like to talk- about something." He says awkwardly.

"Sure. I can use multiple senses at once. What's up?" You ask taking another bite of your sandwich. Loki opens his mouth a couple of times before he frowns. "Is something wrong Loki?"

"I don't know." He says, brows furrowed as he looks at the floor.

"You don't know if something's wrong? Are you dizzy? Dehydrated? Feverish? Do you need to sit down?" You sit up, concerned.

"No, I don't."

"You sure? You look kind of- constipated. I think you should sit down."

"I don't want to y/n." He grits out.

"Okay, calm down no need to get angry with me for caring."

"You said I look constipated!"

"Well you do! But only a little bit!"

"This is not going at all how I planned it?"

"What are you on about Loki?" You frown.

"Nothing it was just way easier to do this in my head."

"Easier to do what?"

"Never mind. Enjoy your lunch." Loki pivots and you almost knock over your barstool trying to stop him from leaving the kitchen.

"Not so fast god of mischief tell me what it is you're so panicked about."

"It's nothing y/n." He rolls his eyes.

"Nonsense. If it were nothing you wouldn't have made such a big deal out of it in the first place." You tell him.

"Yes, I over reacted, which is what I just realized and why I'm no longer interested in having this conversation." He says completely avoiding your gaze.

"Don't be a coward Loki." You snap.

"I beg your pardon?" His eyes widen.

"Don't be a coward. I've never known you to shy away from sharing your thoughts even when nobody asked don't tell me suddenly you're incapable of speaking your mind."

"I am far from incapable." He says.

"So spill it." You push.

"And if I don't?"

"Then you're not who I thought you were."

"Over a personal thought?" His eyebrow raises.

"It's the principle. What have you got to lose that makes you so fearful of your own voice?"

"Something I didn't even realize was important to me until recently." He says quietly.

"What's that?" You ask. Loki's eyes scan your face for a long moment, and if not for how close you are you'd swear he's holding his breath for how shallow it is.

"You." He whispers.

"I'm not going anywhere." You shake your head.

"I'm afraid you may take that back if you hear that which I refuse to say." He says.

"Is the reward worth the risk?" You ask.

"If I'm lucky."

"I'm disappointed that you see me as someone so easily run off Loki."

"That's not what this is." He shakes his head.

"No? It sounds like it."

"Do you see me as somebody that could be loved?"

"Of course I do. Thor loves you unconditionally. Your mother too from what I've heard."

"Do you see me as somebody that could be loved, by you?" This question is far more hesitant.

"Is that what you want?"

"In time, yes." He nods and a stray giggle escapes your lips.

"That's what you thought would drive me away?!" You shake your head. "Maybe you haven't noticed but I put quite a bit of effort into creating time to spend with you."

"Oh come on it's mostly coincidence, your friends canceling or Thor forgetting you had plans."

"You silly trickster. I chose to spend that time with you." You say.

"To be clear- does that mean you're as taken with me as I am with you?" Loki asks.

"You're taken with me?!" You blink at him in shock.

"Yes was I not clear about-"

"I'm joking Loki I just wanted to hear you say it directly." You smile.

"You vex me." He breathes out.

"And yet you like me anyway. Even more than I expected."

"Don't boast."

"How can I not?" You ask.

"I can think of a few ways to stop you."

"You can try Loki but I'm not so easily swayed." You taunt. Loki's hand comes up to your cheek and he kisses you. His lips are soft and he kisses you as if he's got all the time in the world. When Loki pulls away your eyes flutter open with surprise.

"How's that for sway?" He smirks.

"I'll admit that wasn't a terrible start." You breathe.

"Oh yeah?" Loki lifts you into his arms suddenly and you squeal in surprise as he carries you to his room. He lays you gently on his bed and kisses you again. "Not a terrible start is not enough." He hums trailing to your neck, peppering your throat with kisses and light nibbles. Loki pulls your shirt over your head. "Stars above you're beautiful." He mutters trailing his fingers delicately across your newly exposed skin.

"I'm not a flower you know." You giggle, the soft touches making you feel ticklish.

"What do you mean?" He frowns.

"Nothing bad. You're just being much more gentle than I'd have expected." You tell him caressing his face. He pauses for a moment as you trace his features.

"Do you remember what I said at the aquarium?"

"About the hammerhead shark reminding you of-"

"No about being gentle you silly girl." He says with a disbelieving chuckle.

"Oh! Yes that you can be when you want to be."

"Precisely."

"I didn't realize it applied elsewhere."

"Do you not like gentle?"

"Gentle is good." You shake your head. "Just unexpected." You smile. Loki returns your smile and leans down to press kisses down your abdomen. He pulls your shorts and panties off together, kissing your calf ones you're freed from the fabric. Loki's eyes are on you as his lips glide up your leg, opened mouthed kisses until he reaches your thigh where he bites at the skin, just enough for you to feel it. With one last kiss to your hip, Loki buries his face in your heat. You gasp at the first feel of his tongue against your center. His movements are unhurried as he watches your reactions to his mouth. When he finds the rhythm that you react the strongest to he sticks to it, enjoying the whimpers and moans he pulls from you and the way your body grinds against him.

"Oh god." You pant, one hand tangling in his hair. When you feel two of his fingers slowly glide into your entrance and curl upwards your eyes shoot open with a whine that makes Loki hum against you. You glance down at him, surprised to see his green eyes peering up at you with something akin to adoration shining in them and despite the pleasure building in your belly all you can think about for a brief moment is how... pretty he looks. Of course, that train of thought is lost when Loki wraps his lips around your clit, focusing his attention on the sensitive bundle of nerves. Between his tongue and his fingers you don't have a chance of staving off the orgasm that washes over you soon after. Loki works you through it, only pulling away when your breathing starts to steady.

"You are a vision in the heat of release you know." He says a hand on your chin to guide your attention.

"No, I did not know that." You smile reaching up to undress Loki. You pull his shirt over his head, littering his chest with kisses as you undo his pants but don't pull them down. You slip your hand into the waistband of his underwear stroking his hard hot dick.

"F-fucking hell you might be the death of me." Loki breathes out shuddering beneath your touch.

"I sure hope not. I quite like you alive you know." You joke with a giggle. Loki grabs your wrist and shakily pulls your hand from him.

"Right, if this goes on I'll embarrass myself." He says with a slight chuckle shifting to pull his pants down enough to free himself. He lines himself with your entrance and slowly works himself passed your walls with short rolling thrusts, deeper each time.

"That's nothing to be embarrassed about you know Loki." You tell him, admittedly a bit winded as he fills you.

"Maybe not, but I'll admit it's not ideal for our first time together." He groans as he bottoms out.

"Don't get caught up in expectations Loki." You tell him.

"Only my own darling." He says. Loki holds still for a few moments, allowing you to adjust to his size, only moving when you begin to grind against him.

"Move, Loki, please." You groan. Loki lets out a breath as he starts a steady rhythm. He's immediately a string of groans and curses in your ear as he fucks you, his sounds mingling with yours beautifully.

"Gods you feel even better than I could've imagined." He pants out between thrusts.

"Don't stop baby. God you feel so good." You moan, grinding up against his hips to meet his movements. Loki reaches between your bodies and his fingers find your clit, rubbing tight circles against the bud that turn your quiet moans to loud whines.

"Come on darling, I want to feel you cum on my dick. Please y/n- let go for me." Loki coaxes, kissing at your throat again and it doesn't take long for your body to tense with the feeling of another orgasm. Loki groans deeply as your walls tighten around him from your release.

"Did you like that Loki? Feeling my pussy clench from cumming for you? You're close aren't you? Come on baby, cum for me."

Loki's thrusts speed up a bit, then falter, and stall altogether moments later as you feel the heat of his release inside you. Loki kisses your shoulder gently as he comes down from his orgasm, your fingers stroking his hair a comfort he wouldn't have thought he'd enjoy.

"You know- I know you were trying to get me to stop boasting but if boasting always ends with us like this I'm inclined to do it more often." You say after a few moments of silence and Loki chuckles against your neck.

"Boasting is not a prerequisite my darling." He says sitting up. Loki conjures a damp cloth and gently dabs first your face, then your neck, and carefully between your legs before helping you into his shirt.

"Well what is?" You ask.

"There isn't one you tricky girl." He chuckles pulling you into his chest.

"How am I the tricky one here?"

"You caught the fox, I think that's worth some tricky points."

"What fox? Are you the fox?"

"Mhm." He nods.

"Well- then that's by far the best thing I've ever caught." You smile up at him.

"The fox isn't complaining either." He hums and you cuddle closer to him. This hadn't exactly been your original gameplan with Loki but this is way better than any outcome you could've expected.

***

#marvel #marvel fanfiction #loki #loki fanfic #loki x reader #loki fluff #loki smut

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nhlclover · 3 months

Text

𝐓𝐄𝐀𝐑 𝐈𝐍 𝐌𝐘 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓 | 𝐉𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐇𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐄𝐒

word count: 2.50k

summary: in need of a date to your cousins wedding your mom suggests you take jack. i mean what could possibly go wrong if you ask your childhood crush to be your date?

warnings: drinking, kissing, maybe one swear word? idk

You sat in your cozy apartment, the soft glow of your phone illuminating the darkened room. It was your mother calling again, the persistent ringtone piercing through the quiet evening. You debated whether to pick up, knowing exactly what the conversation would turn into. Your cousin's wedding was coming up, and your mother's probes about your date—or lack thereof—were becoming increasingly insistent.

Knowing that if you didn’t answer the phone you would be on the receiving end of a passive-aggressive tirade from your mother, you answered.

“Hey, mom.” You said hesitantly.

“Y/n!” She squealed. “I can’t believe my daughter finally answered.”

You rolled your eyes at her attempt at a sly jab, although you didn’t let your tone convey your annoyance. “Sorry, I’ve been busy with work and everything.”

“Oh, of course, I understand.” Your mother said. “Well, I just wanted to chat about your cousin's wedding.”

You audibly groaned. She didn’t even say anything about a date yet, but you knew it was coming. “Mum, we’ve been over this. I’m not bringing a date to Katie’s wedding.”

“Why not, y/n?” She asked.

“I’m not seeing anyone and it would be weird to bring a stranger to her wedding.” You answered. “Plus, Katie said she wanted it to be small. Just people she knew. So I shouldn’t bring a random dude to her wedding.”

There was a beat of silence where you thought you had finally succeeded in getting her to stop nagging about the possibility of a date before she spoke again.

“Why don’t you ask Jack?” She suggested. “He’s such a sweet boy and Katie knows him! It’s perfect!”

“Mum!” You groaned, bringing a hand over your eyes.

“Why not?” She argued.

You hesitated, attempting to scrounge up an excuse. “Mum, I don’t even think he’s in town.”

“He is! I ran into Ellen and Jim a week ago. He and his brothers are in Michigan the whole summer.” She said.

Of course. You hesitated once again. You didn’t necessarily want to bring Jack to the wedding. It's nothing against Jack, but the thought of finding yourself in a romantic situation, or an event celebrating love like a wedding, made your palms sweat.

The pair of you became friends in childhood, attached at the hip through preschool, middle school and high school. Somewhere throughout your friendship, something shifted. His laughter echoed differently and his smile warmed you differently. It became harder and harder for you to deny the fluttering feeling that erupted in your stomach whenever your eyes met.

Your friendship evolved, but for you, it morphed into something more. You yearned for his presence and attention in a way that went well beyond the boundaries of a friendship. However, you kept your feelings buried deep down. You deemed it wasn’t worth the risk of losing a cherished friendship for the possibility of something more.

So, you continued to mask your true feelings behind a facade of platonic feelings, convinced it was enough to bask in his friendship.

“Fine.” You say reluctantly, knowing that if you didn’t ask him, your mom would end up asking him on your behalf. Your mother cheers with joy, then proceeds to fill you in on hometown gossip. The call ends an hour later, closing with her reminding you to call Jack.

──

Jack's contact sat open on your screen, your thumb hovering over the call button. The prospect of being in a romantic situation, especially at an event celebrating love like a wedding, sent a shiver down your spine and caused your palms to break out in a nervous sweat. However, you had to do it. Because if you didn’t, then your mother would be meddling in your love life, which was less than appealing.

You clicked the button, bringing your phone to your ear. The incessant ringing was like a lifeline, offering you a brief pause from the pressure of the moment, until finally, his familiar voice pierced through the silence, filling your ears with warmth and familiarity.

“Hey wassup y/n?” He asked. For a moment you’re taken aback by a rush of emotions.

“H-hey!” You said, forcing your voice to sound cheery, despite your nerves. “I have a question for you.”

“What’s up?” He says

“I was wondering if you wanted to be my date for a wedding?” You ask.

There was a beat of silence and your heartbeat picked up its pace. You decided to speak before Jack could give you an answer.

“It’s for my cousin Katie’s wedding and my mom has been on my ass about bringing a date, and I didn’t want to bring a random guy cause Katie’s been adamant about it being a small wedding of just people she knows and I-”

“Y/n?” Jack interrupted, his tone gentle but firm.

“Yeah?” You say softly.

“I’d love to be your date.” He says. Jack’s words washed over you like a wave of relief, sending a rush of warmth flooding through your veins.

“You would?” You say, slightly surprised.

“Yeah, of course. When’s the wedding?” He asked.

“Uhm, it’s August 3rd.” You tell him.

There’s another beat of silence as Jack checks his schedule. “You are in luck because I’m free.” Jack says. You let Jack know a few more details before hanging up. As the call ended, your stomach still fluttered with nerves, a strange mixture of excitement and anticipation swirling within you. Now, you were just counting down the days until the wedding.

──

You paced back and forth in the small room, checking the time every few seconds, waiting for the clock to hit 3:45. That was when you and Jack were supposed to head down to the ceremony venue. You had been ready for at least eight minutes now, nervously pacing as you awaited the knock.

With a knock on your hotel door, you grab your clutch, take a deep breath, and open the door. Jack is standing on the other side, wearing his dress clothes. He opens his mouth to speak but pauses as his eyes scan your figure and the gown you were wearing that accentuated your features. His eyes widened and, for a moment, he seemed at a loss for words.

“You… look amazing.” He stammers, cheeks flushing lightly.

You had to suppress the wide grin that was tugging on your lips. “Thanks.” You replied, a blush creeping onto your cheeks. “Shall we go?”

Jack sticks out his arm, hooking yours into his, and heading down to the lobby to get in your awaiting Uber. As you enter the venue, you admire the flowers and other decor your cousin had chosen to decorate the chapel.

“Y/n!” You hear your mother shriek. You turn to the doors, seeing your mother walking hand in hand with your father.

“Hi, mama.” You say. Only when you separate do you realize that you and Jack have been arm-in-arm with one another since you left the hotel.

They greet Jack, your mom shooting you a not-so-subtle wink as he shakes hands with your dad. You roll your eyes, trying to usher Jack away from your parents and to your seats. The ceremony passes in a blur of smiles and whispered conversations. You and Jack stole glances at each other whenever you thought the other wasn't looking, your hearts racing with unspoken feelings.

At the reception, you find yourselves on the dance floor nearly the whole time. You two are by no means the best of dancers, in fact far from it. You dance opposite each other, tossing out your best moves, laughing at the other's best attempt at staying on rhythm. You knew you were embarrassing yourselves, but your spirits were high, fueled by the several flutes of champagne you’d both consumed.

You’re The One That I Want played, Jack and you dancing. Jack spins you out before pulling you back. You laugh as you trip over your own feet, stumbling into his arms. The pair of you laugh in sync as you stumble off the dancefloor.

“Man, we are bad dancers.” Jack laughs.

“I think I stepped on your feet multiple times.” You say, trying to catch your breath.

The song morphs into ‘Crazy Love’ by Van Morrisson, with couples flocking to the dance floor. You were going to take the opportunity of a slow song playing to get another drink and rest your feet after dancing the whole evening thus far. Just as you move to step away, there’s a gentle hand on her arm.

“Do you… would you like to dance?” Jack asks softly. His eyes search your face for any signs of hesitation.

Surprise washed over you, mingled with a hint of relief. You hadn’t expected him to ask you to dance to a slow song. You came to this wedding as friends after all. But, there was a part of you that was silently hoping throughout the whole reception that Jack would ask you to dance.

“Of course.” You reply, smiling gently.

Jack extended a hand, drawing you to the dancefloor. As the two of you stepped onto the dancefloor, it was as if the rest of the world floated away, leaving the two of you in an isolated moment. The unfamiliar feeling of Jack’s hand on your waist sends tingles down your spine. As you swayed to the music together, the distance between the two of you disappeared till there was barely an inch separating your bodies.

Looking up at his face, a small smile tugs on his lips. His eyes flicker across your face, landing on your lips.

The voice of Van Morrisson ends and ‘Sweet Caroline’ by Neil Diamond begins to play, ripping the pair of you from your moment of bliss. Your arms falter from one another.

Suddenly, your mom is by Jack’s side, saying that people want to meet your date. Jack is whisked away and put into conversation with your aunt. He shoots you a brief glance, eyes portraying a bit of nervousness. You can only chuckle at him and leave him to deal with the combination that is your mom and aunt.

“Hey there y/n/n.” Says Katie, sidling up to you.

“Katie!” You beamed, arms wrapping around your cousin. “You look so beautiful, I’m so happy for you two.”

She thanks you, flashing a bright smile. “So… Tell me about the boy that your mom seems to think is about to become her son-in-law.”

“Oh my god.” You roll your eyes. “That’s Jack, he’s just a friend.”

You explain the situation to her, receiving a skeptical eye when you finish explaining. “That is not what it looks like. For both of you.”

You push down a smile, looking towards Jack who is engrossed in conversation with your mom. And in that moment, as you watched him laughing and joking with your family, you couldn't deny the truth that lay beneath the surface. Your feelings for Jack ran deep. With every passing moment that you spent with Jack, they got stronger and stronger.

As the night wore on, you kept dancing, mingling with your family. Your laughter and smiles maintained the facade that there was nothing more to your feelings.

Finally, you and Jack hit your limits, feeling on the verge of passing out from exhaustion. You bid goodnights to the remaining guests, deciding to do the short walk to the hotel. Still donning your heels and under the influence of several glasses of champagne, you found yourself tripping over the uneven concrete.

Jack slips his hand into yours, stabilizing you. “I don’t need you bashing your face on the concrete.”

As you walked, hand in hand, conversation flowed easily between the two of you. You made your way into the hotel and up to your floor. Standing in between your respective doors, you find yourself reluctant to let go, your fingers still intertwined with his.

“Thank you again for coming, it meant a lot.” You say, “And thank you for dealing with my mom, I’m sorry for whatever she and my aunt said to you.”

Jack chuckles, shaking his head. “I had fun, I’m glad you invited me.” He says.

You wrap your arms around his torso, giving a quick squeeze. As you separate, Jack's fingers linger on your waist briefly, giving you hope that maybe this wasn’t goodnight. Despite that, he reaches into his pants pocket, pulls out his key card and heads into his room.

“Night.” You say over your shoulder, stepping into your room and shutting the door behind you.

You huffed, tossing your clutch onto the bed. Now alone in your room, you found yourself unable to shake the memory of your shared dance. The feeling of Jack’s hand on your waist still tingling on your skin. Meanwhile, across the hall, Jack couldn't shake the image of you from his thoughts, your laughter echoing in his ears and her presence filling the empty space around him.

Unable to resist the pull any longer, you found yourself drawn to the door, your heart pounding in your chest as you crossed the hallway to Jack's room. Before you could second-guess yourself, you raised your hand and knocked softly on the door, your pulse racing with anticipation.

Jack opens the door, brows furrowing at the sight of you. He had abandoned his tie, dress shirt fully unbuttoned. You glanced at his torso briefly, but Jack caught the glimpse. Your words get caught in your throat and you blurt out the only words that were coming to mind.

“I’m stuck.” You say.

Jack cocks his head to the side, leaning against the door frame.

“M-my dress.” You clarify. “I can’t reach the zipper, can you help?”

Jack clears his throat. “Oh, uh, yeah.”

You turn around, sweeping your hair over your shoulder so that Jack can access the zipper. You feel him slowly tug on the zipper, the fabric separating and exposing your bare back inch by inch. The fabric parts, teasingly revealing the soft contours of your skin. The opening stops just before your hips, leaving Jack on edge.

“You’re good.” Jack breathes. You turn around, the distance between you and Jack now only mere inches, Jack’s breath getting caught in his throat as your eyes meet.

Without a word, Jack’s hand is on your cheek, meeting your lips. His kiss is delicate at first, apprehensive as he is unsure how you feel. Your heart thundered in your chest, melting into Jack's embrace. His hands go to your waist as yours go to his hair, your fingers tangling in his soft waves. Despite being in an unfamiliar situation, you find his lips comforting and surrender yourself to the moment.

Jack reaches for the straps on your shoulders, sliding them off and letting the top of your dress fall down your chest. His hands slide onto your bare torso, lifting you slightly, and allowing you to hook your legs around his waist. He walks you briefly to the door, shutting it and cutting the rest of the world out.

#jack hughes #jack hughes x reader #jack hughes imagine #nhl #nhl imagine #hockey #hockey imagine #nhl fic #new jersey devils

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kisses4lao · 10 months

Text

Yeah, BOO!! Twst men kinks and shit idk

another writers block blurb LMAO

My one coworker bought me ice cream in exchange for a shenhe smut so I'm trying to get done the floyd smut im working on so I can get that to her </3 here's some filler so you guys don't go starving waiting for content

Cw!!! Fem reader, so much filth

NO ORTHO.

Two disclaimers this time: SOME OF THESE MY INCLUDE SAM AND CREWEL, WHEN THEY DO, READER IS NOT YUU FOR THEM. also not proofread teehee

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~♧♧~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Loves doing it in public. The fear of you guys getting caught while also having everyone know that you're his turns him on to no extent. He'll be thrusting into you at such a high speed, hand over you mouth as he whispers things in your ear, "someone may hear us, you may wanna keep it down." He says that with the CHEEKIEST grin on his face, he KNOWS how much you're struggling 😭😭

♧Cater, lilia, leona, rook(?), floyd, jade, Sam(would do it in his store)♧

Really like soft, sensual sex. Views it more as "love making", as he puts it. Will be rough if you want him to, but would never hit you. It may be hard for him to be rough at first, give him time. But back to the love making thing, he just can't get enough of you. He loves missionary because he can see all of you, having you in such a vulnerable position and having you let him do this to you makes him feel so trusted. He'll be going at a fast enough pace. Telling you how much he loves you, how much he wants you and how he wishes he could stay like this forever. Seriously the bestest men ever.

♧trey, malleus, silver, azul, riddle, jamil, kalim, jack, deuce,♧

So in love with you he'd try anything you want. Wanna tie him up? He's okay with that. Blindfolds? Who needs to see anyway. Wanna piss in his mouth? He thinks about it for a minute, but decides he'd gladly be your trashcan. In a way, all he wants to do is please you, he wants you to pleasure yourself on him so bad he'd do anything for that to become a reality.

♧kalim, sebek, malleus, ROOK, ruggie(only if you give him donuts), deuce, riddle, azul♧

Possessive sex x10. Would see you with another man and would get so anxious you may leave him. Too much of a baby back bitch to talk to you directly about it so he takes his frustration out by fucking you really hard. Says he's sorry later and tries to talk about it later but he's too shy.

♧just idia♧

SOOOOOO into breeding. Literally so inlove with how his cum drips put of you once he's done. Can't wait until you guys are older that way you guys can actually make a family. Seriously in love with the mating press position and hearing his balls slap on your ass when he's fucking you so hard.

♧malleus, leona, rook, vil, trey, cater, jack, crewel, azul, jade, floyd, jamilly willy♧

Wouldn't mind fucking you infront of a crowd. Not the same as fucking you in public, I mean like ACTUALLY fucking you in front of a crowd. Having hundreds of people watch the two of you express your love to eachother turns him on, he'd really like to do it but wouldn't wanna overstep your boundaries.

♧malleus, kalim, vil, leona, lilia but specifically general lilia♧

Really loves foreplay and can get off just by mouth fucking you. It turns him on knowing how easily you can get overstimulated from his mouth or fingers. He never expects anything in return, and he usually does it after you have a bad day (with consent ofc) so you can unwind more easily. Always runs a nice warm bath after <3

♧malleus (does want something in return sometimes but would never force you), trey, cater, ace, deuce, leona, silver floyd, jamil, rook♧

Kind of on the same page as the last one, LOVES having you sit on his face. Holds you down by your thighs and eats you out for hours on end. Definitely the type of guy to grab you by your waist, one hand rubbing your clit as he bounces you up and down on his tongue. Looks cutely fucked out when he's done.

♧ughhhhhh everyone bc yes <3♧

Uses lots of pet names during sex, will call you things like "darling","beloved","princess", idk may call you schnookums. Type of guy to call you all of these in one breath.

♧leona, rook, vil, floyd, lilia♧

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~♧♧~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/n: might make a part two idk lololilol

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hpimagines · 2 months

Text

Controlling Tom Riddle

Honestly idk what to classify this as, but it’s kinda like idk.. deranged? maybe not but I have more like this up my sleeve if it does well (TW: manipulation, unspoken gaslighting, extremely controlling, idk what else to add)

You loved Tom. You truly, truly did. But he tended to take the term "I just want to lock you up" a little too seriously.

I mean, it wasn’t much at first, barely even noticeable in fact. Simple things such as suggesting what you should wear, insisting the more modest options were much more flattering on you; “It brings out your eyes, doll.”

He would remind you of your favorite foods, and when to and when not to eat them.. “Not now, it’s far too late for late night snacks. However, I have something I think might suffice for you.”

Overtime the helpful things became him controlling everything you wore, no shirts were allowed to be low enough cut for anyone to see down- tall people included. You wanted to comfortably wear your uniform? Absolutely not. It had to be perfect, and to show just how much of a “good girl” you are for him, you get cute bows in your hair every morning; special spell from him.

His behavior didn’t bother you, how could it? Yes you couldn’t wear certain things, but everything you got in return was amazing. Nobody understands him the way you do, they don’t know him like you do. That’s what you’re constantly telling your friends. “You don’t know him like I do. He’s romantic.”

Romance? It really is funny how blurry the lines get between romance and control, dress up per se? Once again with the dressing you- believe me, he spoils your beyond belief. Though, most of it is “My eyes only.” Slowly your closet went from things you’ve gotten from friends, shirts you once loved, to everything Tom approved.

It didn’t matter though, because he still spoils you.

Being in class was an entirely different story. In the beginning you simply couldn’t speak to any other guys, you understood, not wanting him interacting with girls either it seemed fair. Until you couldn’t sit with any of them, problem being, its not like you can just chose where you sit everytime. That doesn’t matter to Tom though, “You seemed to betray me today hun.” Nice name, yet the tone anything but.

It was pretty sudden when Tom just happened to to become your seating partner in every single class, and yes, that somehow included ones he once hadn’t attended. But this was a good thing. You got to be with your boyfriend all day long, that’s so exciting. Watching your every move, telling you what you did wrong on your work “Can’t have a dumb girl, can I doll?”

It was sweet. He was being helpful, you always had help. Just don’t ask for too much, then that makes you stupid, idiotic, dense. That’s according to him though, and yes his words. “Honestly, I don’t know what you’d do without me, you’re just so mindless most of the time. It’s infuriating”

But no matter what it’s always okay because, “You know I never mean what I say, Love. I’ll take you out, even buy you something new”

You see, none of this happened quickly. It was like one moment you controlled your life, the next moment you didn’t. You lived in his dorm, once again don’t ask how, Tom Riddle has his ways. He chose your outfits the days no uniforms were needed, but of course only because “I just love picking out what my girl wears, you love it too, don’t you, hm?”

Now here you are, unable to speak to anyone really, no boys, no friends because well, they only attract unwanted male attention of course. It was crazy to think you’d leave your friends behind for a boy, not just your friends really more like your entire old life, but Tom wasn’t just any boy. No, he had full control over you and you both knew it. You loved it.

I know im saying idk a lot but idk how i feel about this 😭😭

once again i hope you all enjoy <33

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normansnt · 3 months

Text

Knight in shining armor

(Hazbin Adam x singer!male reader)

(Not my art, idk whose sorry I got it from pinterest but credits to the artist cuz he would SO wear that I cant😭)

Warnings: fist fight

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"FUCK YEAAHHHHHH THATS MY BOYFRIEND MF" yelled Adam to a random person at your concert.

He always did that. Whenever he went to one of your concerts (always, I am not kidding the man has not missed a single one) he yelled to every one of your songs because he knew them inside out and after each song he yelled to someone that you're his boyfriend.

It was sweet in your eyes he was truly your number one fan. However on more than one occasion this has gotten out of hand. Like right now.

Sometimes people get annoyed at his yelling even though it is a rock concert he is still the loudest one. But this time it was different. This time something happened that actually bothered him.

He was yelling about how much he loves you and how you are his boyfriend again when he overheard something that he didn't like.

"For real? That gorgeous singer is dating that flop no fucking way."

"I know right? I gotta say I wouldn't mind hearing the singers voice moaning my-" Adam didn't wait longer to hear the end of the sentence he straight on punched that guy.

"I fucking DARE you to finish that sentence." Adam literally growled. Even though this was heaven, assholes were present here too.

The fight got so big that you had to stop your performance and stop it.

"Adam- Adam stop" you tried to get your boyfriend off of the two guys who he was now fighting.

"Let me go babe, I'm gonna fucking murder those two mother fuckers-"

"Adam, they already had enough you won." You tried arguing with him while you dragged him to your dressing room. The two guys laying on the floor beaten to pulp.

Once you closed the door, the ruckus outside got just a bit quieter and you could finally take a deep breath.

"What happened this time?" You asked your boyfriend while getting the first aid kit and patching him up. He was much better of than the other guys thats true. But he still had some scratches and a black eye.

Adam told you the whole story of what happened and you listened intently while gently putting some alcohol at a deep cut on his nose.

"And then I was like- aww fuck babe warn me next time" he started whining because of the alcohol.

You sighed.

"Listen Adam, I appreciate what you did, those pigs said some disgusting shit and you were a great knight in shining armor but I worked really hard to get this gig and you know that" you said trying to be as gentle as possible.

"Babe, your boyfriend is the fucking Adam, tell me where you want to preform and you'll get in within seconds I can take care of that."

"I know Adam but I really wanna accomplish some things on my own." You sighed again.

Adam knew he fucked up, he sees first hand how much work you put into your music. But he just couldn't help it this is the kind of thing that pisses him off to no end. His first two wives left him for someone else and even though he might act confident he was terrified that you would leave him, too. He didn't want to loose someone he loved so much.

You put your hand on his cheek and made him look at you.

"Hey, its ok I understand." Thats all you needed to say. You knew about Lilith and Eve leaving him. And you knew how insecure he actually felt. You have been dating for almost 6 years now you knew him way too well.

You kissed him to let him know that you weren't mad. He kissed back with enthusiasm, he loved kissing you. It might be true that he has kissed a lot of people before you came along but he always said that you were his favorite kisser of all time. He just loved the feeling of your lips against his.

"(Y/N)...I- listen I mean what I said really, wherever you wanna play I can hook you up."

You chuckled lightly. You knew this was the closest thing you are gonna get out of him as an apology, the man was not good at apologizing. But you already knew that, and loved him nonetheless.

"I know honey I know." You put your forehead on his.

The wholesome moment was interrupted when you both started hearing chanting from outside.

"Is that-?"

"THEY ARE CHANTING YOUR NAME BABY COME ON GET YOUR BRETTY ASS OUT THERE"

And there he was again, your stupid boyfriend.

You laughed an snatched up your guitar.

"All right baby you wanna watch from back stage?" You asked back as you held out your hand to him.

"FUCK YEAAHH"

And with that you two walked out of your dressing room laughing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

HE IS JUST A STUPID LITTLE MEN HELP I LOVE HIM SM IDK WHY😭😭

Hope you guys enjoyed😘~

#male reader #hazbin x reader #hazbin x you #hazbin hotel x male reader #male y/n #hazbin adam

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moonstruckme · 7 months

Text

Hi! I'd copy-and-pasted this request into my doc to write it, but now I can't find it in my inbox! I don't think it was anonymous, so if this is your request and it somehow got deleted, I'm very sorry! Thank you for requesting, apologies for the wait, and hope you like it <3

hi love!!! Congratulations on 1,000 followers!!! I absolutely adore your writing and if your requests are open I’d love it if you could right something about poly marauders with a reader who’s non-binary or gender fluid. Maybe they just got together and the reader hasn’t came out to them yet or something. Idk you get all the writing freedom, of course if you don’t want to write it’s totally fine!!! Thanks anyway 🫶💗🫶💗 xoxo

cw: marauders unknowingly misrepresent reader's pronouns+gender

poly!marauders x nb!reader ♡ 1.1k words

“Sirius, no.” Remus rubs at his temples. “I will not mar you with a tattoo gun you bought from some bloke on the street.”

“Oh, don’t be such a wuss,” Sirius complains, sitting spread out on his bed. “It'll be fun, you can all do it!”

“I’m on board,” James says from his own bed. He’s levitating his shoes about the room idly. “Hey Pads, can we draw anything we want?”

Sirius ponders this for a moment. “If you do a dick, it has to be small, and I’m putting an arrow with your name next to it.”

James’ smile fades, and he lets the shoes drop. “You’re no fun.”

“I don’t know,” you say to Remus, looking up at him from your chosen spot on the floor of their dorm. “It’s his body, I say let him cover it in shitty tattoos if that’s what he wants.”

“Yes!” Sirius hops down from his bed to throw an arm around your shoulders, planting a kiss on your cheek. “That’s what I’m talking about, that’s my girl!”

You’d begun to glow at his over-the-top praise, but you dim at the last bit. Sirius must feel it; he looks over at you quizzically as Remus says for the fifth time, “That’s fine, but I won’t have anything to do with it.”

“Well, it’ll…” Sirius’ eyebrows furrow as he continues to watch you. You try to bury your discontent where he can’t see it, but once he catches a whiff of melancholy he becomes a dog with a bone. The levity slowly leeches from his voice. “It’ll be more fun if you all do it…Sorry, sweetheart, is everything alright?”

You don’t want the attention, but you can’t bring yourself to lie. “I didn’t mean to distract you,” you say softly, shoulders hunching forward. “Keep going.”

“No, that’s alright.” His slender fingers squeeze at your shoulder like he can tell you need the comfort. “It’s not actually important. What’s on your mind?”

You want to tell him. You want to tell all of them, you have for weeks, but is there ever a right time? When the boys had first asked you out, it felt too abrupt to say anything, like you were making a big deal out of nothing because they didn’t even know you all that well. But now you’ve turned serious faster than you could’ve seen coming, and they feel like they do know you that well. And the longer you go without telling them, the more like you feel like you’re keeping some dirty secret.

You should have just corrected them the first time they’d gotten your pronouns wrong. Each time feels like someone’s chipping away at your heart with a toothpick, the pain lessened by your surety in their good intentions but still very much there. It’s almost worse, now, to be on the precipice of falling in love with people who you don’t feel really know you, and it’s all your own fault.

This isn’t how you’d imagined the conversation coming about, but it might be the best chance you get for a while.

“I, uh.” You clear your throat, unsure if you should move out from under Sirius’ arm for this conversation but really not wanting to. “I don’t…listen, it’s not your fault, but I don’t really like it when you call me your girl.”

Sirius lets his arm drop to look at you properly, hurt flashing across his features. You take his hand, selfish thing that you are. “I mean it, it’s really not your fault.” It’s more plea than promise. “It’s just that I don’t—I don’t really see myself as a girl. I’m sorry.”

You watch confusion take hold in Sirius’ expression before letting your eyes flit to the other boys. James looks tentatively like he’s beginning to understand, and Remus’ face is carefully controlled. He leans his elbows on his knees, looking down at you.

“What do you mean by that, honey?”

You know the endearment is meant to soften the question, but you get all tense around the middle anyway.

“Just that…” You swallow, and James offers you a small smile of encouragement. “I don’t really see myself as any gender. It’s…it’s called nonbinary, I don’t know if you might’ve heard of it before? I’m really sorry I didn’t say something sooner.”

“Hey, that’s alright.” James kicks a foot out from his bed, nudging your leg gently. “I’m really glad you told us, angel. Thank you.”

You try to return his smile, chewing your lip.

“Merlin, I thought you meant you didn’t want to be our girl,” Sirius sighs, bumping your shoulder with his. “That would have been unacceptable. You can be our something-else, though, if you like.”

This is going well, you tell yourself. They’re being as kind as you’d always expected. Still, you don’t feel like they fully understand what you’re so clumsily trying to tell them.

“I get it if this changes things for you,” you say, and when you lean away from Sirius’ touch, he doesn’t chase you. “I know this is…you signed on for a girlfriend, not this.”

The gentle smile drops from James’ face. His eyebrows twitch together uncertainly. “We…what? No, we didn’t…we didn’t ‘sign on’ for anything like that. We signed on for you.”

“Darling,” Remus says, in that careful, measured voice that you can’t decide if you should be nervous about, “I don’t know a lot about this, so correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the point that you’re still you? You’re just telling us how you’d like to be treated and understood, right?”

You take a second to run over his words in your head before nodding.

Everything about Remus has gone soft, from his eyes to the gentle uptilt of his mouth. “Then James is right. Nothing has changed. I mean, we can make any changes to our relationship that make you more comfortable, but nothing about how much we care for you is any different.”

“And look around you, sweetheart.” Laughter livens Sirius’ tone. “It’s not like any of us are only dating girls.”

A smile tugs at your lips. “That’s a good point,” you mumble, and he laughs, arm reclaiming its spot around your shoulders.

“Yeah, I actually do make those sometimes,” he teases. “Listen, gorgeous, I don’t think anyone here has a problem with you being whoever you are. Just tell us what you like to be called, and we will. And if there’s anything we do that you don’t like,” he adds, giving your shoulder a little squeeze, “you can tell us those things too.”

James nods, emphatic. “Exactly. We want to support you, angel. Thanks for telling us, but just keep talking to us when you can, okay?”

You have to bite down on your lip to contain the full scope of your smile. “Okay,” you promise him, overflowing with a gratitude that feels a lot like love. “Thanks. You guys are too sweet to me.”

Remus makes a pfft sound. “Dove, I cannot believe that is your standard for sweetness. You’ve set the bar far too low.”

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catscidr · 3 months

Note

Dr ratio and student (adult) reader who tried really hard to study but she is kinda failing? 😭 I once had strict teacher like ratio and he was softer to me, so Idk if ratio would be the same or even more mean

this is a little different from what you asked. BUT. i Do think that he wouldn't be mean n would help u study because it means you're trying to not be an idiot and his whole shtick is trying to make people less dumb. ykwim. i might've projected a littol bit... times r tough what can i say <(ㅍ _ㅍ)> cw: blurb/headcanon format (?), hurt/comfort technically because ratio is a little mean. it's not that bad tho trust, university setting includes: gn!student!reader, professor!veritas ratio, can be read as either platonic or romantic (or favoritism lmao) wc: 1k

-ˋˏ I think he would be pretty frustrated at first. How come all your studying did little to nothing to change your less-than-ideal grades? Especially when he’s the one teaching you, at this point it’s an insult to him and his teaching skills!

-ˋˏ ...but when you showed up to his office with your lips curled down in deep a frown, downturned brows and meek eyes that refused to meet his gaze for more than three seconds and reflected just how embarrassed (and almost ashamed) you were, he could only sigh and wave his hand to gesture for you to come in.

-ˋˏ You took out your textbook, your notes and the study guide he had made specifically for the final exam. They felt heavier in your hands than they usually do, since now he could very well take a single look at your messy, scribbled notes and turn you away for “wasting his time” like you’ve seen him do with other struggling students. You couldn’t afford failing this exam though, so you place down your things on his (now cleared) desk and sit at the edge of the chair he had across of him, silently praying to whatever god to grant you some mercy.

-ˋˏ His first reaction was... not good, for lack of better words. Your notes were a mess and there were splotches of black all over about five pages— the result of an unfortunate accident where your pen exploded in your hands during an all-nighter. He was tempted to turn you away or to, at the very least, scold you for being so disorganized, but he wouldn’t be the infamous Doctor Veritas Ratio if he did. One look at you and he could tell that you hadn’t slept properly in God-knows how long, that you hadn’t eaten a proper meal in just as long, and that you had the drive to study, but for a reason unknown to you, simply couldn’t. Or, at least not in a way that made you retain the information you tried to hammer into your brain.

-ˋˏ You'd sit there; hands folded in your lap, eyes refusing to meet his, silently waiting for him to say something, anything lest you implode on the spot. Ratio would gloss over your notes, eyes lingering on the little doodles of yourself you drew in the margins of the page with a little speech bubble saying ‘help’ right above it, and would hold in a sigh. Crossing his arms over his chest he would lean back in his chair and tilt his head, burning holes in your skull until you lifted your head up. He wouldn’t say a word, he’d be as patient as he needed to be, waiting.

-ˋˏ When you finally looked over at him you swore you felt your heart drop to your ass (how long had he been staring?) as you forced yourself to not grab your stuff and dip. “Um-” you started speaking but he promptly shut you up by interrupting you with a question of his own; “Do you honestly think you can study adequately in such conditions?”

-ˋˏ (Of course he’d notice, you scold yourself internally. There’s no way to successfully hide the dark circles under my eyes.)

-ˋˏ You’re taking way too long to answer, too absorbed into your head to speak, and it’s starting to get under his skin. His frown seems embedded onto his face, the absence of his plaster head making you quiver in fear from the sheer amount of frustration he must feel because of you. Unfortunately, you’re nowhere near as observant as he is— because if you were, you would have noticed that his frustration wasn’t aimed at you, but at himself. How did he let it get this bad? He’s supposed to be a teacher, and teachers are supposed to care for their pupils

-ˋˏ (It might seem like he couldn’t give two shits about his students, but he does care— in his own harsh way. He considers kicking people out of his class a blessing; if he didn’t care about their wellbeing, he would have let them stay and feel stupid as well as let them be completely overwhelmed as a result of not understanding the content of his lessons and the workload he assigns. Of course, he doesn’t want people to drop his class, but if that’s what it takes for people to not go insane then so be it. He’s made peace with it.)

-ˋˏ “When was the last time you were able to sleep for longer than eight hours consecutively?” he asks, intense gaze unfaltering as your eyes dart all over his office in a poor attempt at avoiding the inevitable. Finally, you look at him sheepishly, and mumble a number that was far from satisfactory in his books. He clicks his tongue and unfurls his arms, grabbing your books strewn across his desk and shuts them, sliding them over towards you. You sit, puzzled and flustered that you’ve gone all this way just for him to kick you out. If he was going to be an ass, he should have just dismissed you as soon as—

-ˋˏ “Your assignment is to get a good night’s rest. Do not come into my classroom if you haven’t slept for 8 hours minimum. If I see you work dark circles as prominent as the ones you have right now, I’ll drag you to the nearest bed or couch myself.”

...Can’t say you expected that kind of response.

-ˋˏ You can’t even get a word in before he beats you to it, already knowing what you were about to say. “I’ll let you retake the exam if I deem your health to be unacceptable when you arrive in the lecture hall for the exam.” You shut your mouth, unsure of what to even say in response. You really felt like you were being scolded.

-ˋˏ He would gladly help you study when you come back looking (and feeling) refreshed, though. Not that he’d show it with his body language, but his actions said everything. He’d bring energy bars for you to snack on while he explained material you struggled with, would be patient when you’d ask seemingly dumb questions (one time you asked him why he hadn’t kicked you out of his class yet, and that was the first time he actually scolded you. Because that was the first dumb question you asked him).

#୧ ‧₊˚orderup!#honkai star rail x reader #hsr x reader #dr ratio x reader #dr ratio x y/n #dr ratio x you #veritas ratio x reader #veritas ratio x you

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