#like might as well just sit on my laps monk

[mr-stottlemonk]

do y'all remember stottlemeyer sitting on monk's couch in his boxers, legs spread as they bantered about the coffee table.

how married can they be fr.

#monk 2002 #adrian monk #leland stottlemeyer #stottlemonk #stottlemeyer x monk #monk tv: s02e05 #mr. monk and the very very old man #like might as well just sit on my laps monk #monk being so wifey and sliding TWO coasters lmfaoo #leland is just “sometimes i wonder why we're married” #i cant get over the fact that monk's alright seeing the captain's bare legs #like idk what hes thinking but id admire them legs too

[happilyhertale]

Destiny is all - Osferth x female!reader, Part 4

Summary: You are Finan's sister. You live in a village in Scotland, near the border with Northumbria. You lead a quiet life until your brother decides to visit you with his boys and your life changes completely.

Pairing: Osferth x fem!reader

Author’s note: Hey you (:

Now I am finally sharing my little Osferth story with you. The events are a little different from the story in the series. (No, Osferth will not die either). I hope you will enjoy it! English is my second language, please forgive me if I made any mistakes (:

Word count: 2.9 k

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7

Other stories of mine

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

You continue to eat breakfast. You eat without saying much. The boys talk to each other, but you cannot follow the conversation. Your thoughts are with Osferth. The way he touched you last night cannot be described. You can still feel his fingers and the further your thoughts go, the stronger your arousal becomes. You bite your lip and try to distract yourself. You try to concentrate on the boys' conversation. Just when it seems that it would work, Osferth comes back. He sits down opposite you and your cheeks turn red. You look at your plate again. Osferth has to smile at the sight.

But when Uhtred suddenly speaks, he has your attention.

"I have an idea... how we might manage to stop Ubba"

Suddenly there is silence at your table. You are all eager to hear what Uhtred has to say.

Uhtred's gaze suddenly falls on you.

"I need your help," he says to you.

Your eyes grow wide, "My help?" you ask him.

Uhtred nods, "You will get information directly from Ubba," he says.

"Okay," you say immediately, without thinking twice.

"Ya will not!", Finan immediately counters you. Then he turns to Uhtred, "Lord, she will not," he says sternly to Uhtred.

Uhtred looks at Finan, "She will not be alone," he says assuringly to Finan.

"I will go with her to the camp. She will be my woman," Uhtred grins.

Finan looks at him warningly.

"Uhtred... I don't know if this plan is so well thought out... if ya go in there... you are the Dane Slayer..." you say to him.

Uhtred shakes his head slightly, "I will stay in the background. Most people don't know what I look like. Ubba just needs to see that you belong to someone," he replies.

"How will it get ya any information if ya go to the camp with her and she is your woman?", Finan asks Uhtred dryly.

Uhtred is still grinning, "Ubba liked to hump all the women at least once. If he sees her and sees that she is there with me, he will want her. He will see that you are mine and will want you," he says suddenly facing you.

Your eyes grow big.

Finan immediately interferes, "Ya will not lead my sister to Ubba!"

Uhtred sighs, "Nothing will happen to her... Ubba does not harm women"

"It's enough that he might touch her," Finan retorts.

Yours and Osferth's eyes meet, but Osferth quickly looks away.

More and more people come into the inn. The conversations and laughter grow louder around you, but you can only focus on Uhtred.

Suddenly Sihtric's voice rings out, "I'd actually worry more about the part about Uhtred being discovered. That would be dangerous for everyone involved"

Finan gives a short laugh, "That's even more out of the question. She's not going in there alone"

Uhtred looks at him seriously and he thinks for a moment, "We have no choice. And.. I have to agree with Sihtric... If I go in with her and am discovered, it would also put y/n in danger," Uhtred says finally.

He continues and looks at Finan, "You can't go in because you're not a Dane. And our Osferth is a monk. He would be impaled before Ubba could even see y/n"

Finan is silent for a moment.

"But... What about Sihtric?" asks Finan finally.

"How would Sihtric get information from Ubba?", Uhtred asks him.

"Eeeeh... I'm not sitting on Ubba's lap, Lord," Sihtric replies.

Uhtred gives a short laugh.

"No one sits on anyone's lap!" interjects Finan.

"Okay stop, boys. Ya need the info, right? So I'll do it," you finally say. There is a short silence at your table.

"Y/n... Please... ya can't do that... something might happen to ya," Finan says to you seriously but still worried.

You smile slightly, "Finan... It's okay. If I can be with ya on the road, then I can manage to survive between Danes as well"

"And Ubba will love having her around..." says Uhtred, winking at you.

"And once she manages to have his trust. Eats together with the Danes... At some point, she'll hear them talking about what they're going to do," Uhtred continues.

"'At some point? How long do ya want her to stay in there?" asks Finan.

Uhtred shrugs, "I don't know. Two days? Then we'll get her out again," he says.

Finan grumbles to himself while Osferth suddenly gets up from the table. He has said nothing all this time and now he leaves the inn without a word.

You look after him.

As the other boys start talking about how the whole plan could best work, you go after Osferth.

You step out of the inn into the sun. A few people walk past you. You walk down the street a bit and spot Osferth. He is standing by your horses and petting them.

You walk slowly towards him.

"Os...?" you say softly.

He turns a little towards you, "Lady?" he replies.

"Are ya all right?" you ask him.

He looks back at the horses and strokes them again.

"Os...?" you ask again.

"Yes. Why would anything be wrong?" he finally replies.

"Well... Ya didn't say anything all this time... and now ya just left...", you say quietly.

"I needed some fresh air. And I wanted to check on the horses," he answers you.

"Okay... If maybe it was because of the whole thing with Ubba..."

But Osferth interrupts you, "No.... my lady. It doesn't bother me. Do what you have to do"

You look at him a little hurt, but he continues to face the horse, lets his hand glide over the horse's mane.

You just nod, "All right, then..."

You turn slowly and walk back to the inn.

You sit with the boys again and they seem to have decided quite quickly on a course of action. They will drop you off near the camp in the hope that the Danes will bring you into the camp. Finan doesn't like the fact at all that this whole plan is based on the Danes discovering you and taking you into the camp. But you are confident. You have two days in the camp to get Ubba's attention and the information. Then the boys come to the camp and cause trouble and take you away again.

You agree.

The day passes without further incident. You hardly see Osferth, he seems to be passing the time elsewhere.

As you lie in your bed in the evening, you miss Osferth. His warmth and his body next to you. Perhaps you miss him a little more because you are afraid of tomorrow. You are confident that you will return safely, but you are still aware that something could happen to you. And at the thought, the feeling of fear continues to spread through you.

But the room is filled with snoring and this brings you back to reality. That you are lying in your bed and looking up at the ceiling.

You sigh slightly and sit up. You look towards Osferth. He is lying on his back. He has put one arm under his head and is also looking at the ceiling. The other boys seem to be asleep, at least judging by their snoring. You slowly get up from your bed and quietly walk over to Osferth.

He turns his head slightly towards you as you stand in front of his bed. Neither of you says anything and you look at each other briefly. But then he slides a little to the side and makes room for you in the bed. He lifts the blanket a little for you. You don't hesitate for long and lie down with him. You snuggle up to him and he immediately puts his arms around you. You press your nose into the crook of his neck and inhale his scent. You close your eyes and enjoy this moment. Osferth just holds you tightly in his arms.

After a while you look up at him and see that he is smiling gently at you. Softly he presses his lips to yours. You return the soft kiss and press yourself closer to him. The kiss is different from the other kisses you have exchanged. It is gentle, but still passionate. You feel all the affection he feels for you in this kiss. You feel his tongue exploring your mouth. How he lets his tongue dance gently around yours. You breathe harder and notice how your arousal slowly rises. You grin lightly against his lips as you let your hand slowly travel down his body.

Slowly you caress his firm belly as you feel his breath catch. He shakes his head slightly as your hand rests over his crotch. You feel how aroused he already is. You also feel the size of his arousal and have to bite your lip lightly. He takes your hand in his and holds it. You giggle slightly as he moves it away from his crotch. He kisses you again to stop your giggling.

You lay your head on his chest and he holds you tight. Slowly he caresses your body until you feel your eyes grow heavy. You don't want to fall asleep. You want to enjoy the time with him. His caress does not let up and finally you can no longer resist, you fall asleep. He caresses you gently until he himself slowly falls asleep.

As the sun slowly rises, you feel your cheek being gently kissed. Again and again you are gently kissed. You feel a nose gently nudging your cheek.

"My lady," you finally hear softly. You slowly open your eyes. Osferth smiles at you.

"Os... It's so early..." you say softly in a sleepy voice.

He nods slightly at you.

"But you should go back to your bed... Before the others wake up..." he says softly.

You groan slightly as your thoughts become clearer. The boys are in the room with you. You just nod and reluctantly get up. As soon as his arms are no longer around you, you immediately feel an emptiness inside. But you go back to your bed.

You are lying in your bed again and your thoughts are circling around your upcoming task. But before you can torture yourself further with the thoughts, the others wake up.

You go to the inn together and have breakfast. Uhtred has managed to organise clothes for you that look more like "Danes". You have to smile a little when he gives them to you, but you put them on. You retreat to your room for a moment and change your clothes. You even braid back individual strands of your hair and braid a feather into a strand of hair. You like the result of your transformation.

As you step in front of the boys, they have to grin. You can hear Uhtred chuckling, but you can also see that Finan must be smiling.

You get on your horses and ride off. Sihtric leads you this time and shows you the way to get to the camp. The boys will spend the two days in the forest, a bit far away, so that they can at least be near you.

After a while of riding side by side in silence, Uhtred stops.

"We will stay here," he says. You dismount from your horses. Uhtred looks at you, "Sihtric and I will take you to the camp. If we are discovered there, it is most inconspicuous if you travel with Danes"

You nod slowly at him, "All right," you say quietly.

Finan comes to you and hugs you for a long time. Without saying anything, he just holds you tight.

At some point you hear him clear his throat.

"Ya remember what I taught ya? With the dagger? Either in the neck or in the balls. The blood loss is so enormous that your opponent becomes incapable of doing anything to ya..." he says quietly.

You have to smile, "I would never forget the wisdom ya pass on to me," you say softly.

Finan smiles and takes a step back. He turns around and starts setting up camp for the night. After a while he goes into the forest to collect wood.

You stand with Uhtred by the horses and you wait for Sihtric. When Osferth comes to you. You stand in front of each other and smile. Uhtred notices that he is interrupting and has to grin.

"Well... I'll leave you alone for a moment then?" he looks at you with a grin.

You just look at him.

"Okay... I'll see where Sihtric is," he finally says and walks away from you.

Osferth gently takes your hand, letting his thumb slide over the back of your hand. "My Lady... take care of yourself... will you?" he says gently.

You just nod. Tears well up in your eyes and you have to bite your lip lightly. He smiles softly at you.

"I'm here. If I notice anything wrong, I'll be at the camp right away, okay?" he says to you.

You chuckle slightly, "Okay, Os..." you say softly.

He gently strokes your arm before stepping away from you.

Uhtred returns with Sihtric.

"Ready?" he asks you. You nod at him.

Sihtric and Uhtred walk with you towards the camp.

You walk for a short while until Sihtric quietly raises his hand. In the distance you can see the camp through the trees. Uhtred just nods.

"Do not be afraid. In two days we will get you out. And remember what I told you. Danes are not prudes and tend to prefer vulgar language. Flirt with Ubba and have fun," he winks at you.

You roll your eyes and go off.

Sihtric and Uhtred are still standing there, they want to make sure everything goes well.

When you are at a safe distance from the camp, you start collecting sticks pointlessly. You collect for a while and feel very stupid. Suddenly you hear a voice.

"Hey! Woman! What are you doing here?" he shouts at you. You try to stay calm and slowly turn around to face the voice. A tall Dane is standing a short distance away.

"What does it look like? I'm collecting wood," you answer.

The Dane just looks at you, "Come back to camp!"

You just snort, but are glad that he asks you to come along. You follow him and try to look annoyed.

Uhtred and Sihtric watch as the Dane approaches you and leads you into the camp. When you are no longer in sight, they slowly turn around and go back to their own small camp.

When they arrive, they see that Osferth and Finan have built a small fire. No conversation can be heard from them.

Osferth and Finan look up curiously when they hear the footsteps of Uhtred and Sihtric.

"All is well," says Uhtred, "a Dane came and led her into camp."

Finan nods and Osferth looks at the ground. Slips a small stick through his fingers.

The boys are sitting together by the fire when Finan suddenly breaks the silence.

"I have to kill something. Sihtric, are ya coming hunting?" he asks Sihtric.

"Sure.. why not," Sihtric replies and gets up from the fire.

Finan and Sihtric walk further into the forest.

The sun slowly begins to set and Osferth absent-mindedly throws small sticks into the fire.

"You know... If you like a woman, you have to show her," Uhtred says suddenly.

Osferth looks at him irritated and stops his movement for a moment.

"Lord? I don't know what you mean..." he mumbles and continues throwing small sticks into the fire.

Uhtred has to smile, "I saw her come to bed with you last night"

Osferth looks at him again. A slight blush comes to his face.

"Lord. You must not say that to Finan, he would..."

But Uhtred interrupts him, "Don't worry Osferth, your secret is safe with me"

Osferth looks at the fire again. And then he sighs.

"Lord... I don't really know..." but he stops.

Uhtred looks at him questioningly, "...how to hump a woman properly?"

Osferth just looks at him, "I'm not a virgin anymore, Lord," he replies simply.

"Then what's the problem?" he asks with a grin.

"I don't know if she really likes me... or...", Osferth finally says.

Uhtred is momentarily speechless.

But after a while he replies, "Well... she came to your bed?"

Osferth sighs again and nods briefly, "Yes... But maybe, she's just used to it... and because you all snore"

Uhtred gives a short laugh, "She has a choice of three men and chooses the monk. What more signs do you need?"

Osferth simply shrugs.

Now Uhtred is the one who sighs.

"Jealousy always helps," Uhtred finally says.

Osferth looks at him again, irritated.

"Well, if you want to know if she likes you. See if she reacts jealously when you flirt with another woman"

Osferth looks a little startled, "I wouldn't do it with another woman..."

Uhtred interrupts him, "...You shouldn't go with her either.... Just see how y/n reacts..."

Osferth shakes his head slightly, "That could go quite wrong...", he says quietly.

Uhtred shrugs, "But then you know"

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Tag list

@aemonds-wifey @hoshi-miharu-blog @arryn-nyx @aemond-targaryenx @praline357 @chainsawsangel @assortedseaglass @darkenchantress @aemondmama @melsunshine @sahvlren @tinykryptonitewerewolf @tssf-imagines @tosiaf @greenowlfactif @slytherinambitious @svtansdaddyx @sarahkimtae @sarahssm121 @drgonstone @fan-goddess @parabatei-winchester @yentroucnagol @heavenly1927 @drinking-tea-and-be-obsessed

#osferth #osferth x y/n #osferth x reader #osferth x you #osferth smut #osferth tlk #baby monk #the last kingdom #seven kings must die #osferth imagine #osferth the last kingdom #osferth fanfic #uhtred of bebbanburg #finan tlk #sihtric #ewan mitchell #aemond targaryen #ettore #tom bennett

[brisbookmark]

My Lord - Osferth x F!Reader (18+)

Gif from daily tlk

✧ A Book!Osferth x fem!reader because I found out he becomes a lord in the books and I will never shut up

✧ Word count: 1k

Contains: lap sitting, thigh grinding/riding, overstimulation, pet names, fingering, no penetration, choking with a chain, book Osferth is a cocky tease

“Lord Osferth,” she cooed, letting the title roll smoothly off her tongue. His cheeks reddened even more, but his confidence did not falter as he secured two strong arms around her waist and held her on his lap, lifting the edge of her dress up to the top of her thighs.

“My lady,” he breathed, leaning back into his new chair. He was now the Commander, a lord of Burnanburgh, and his woman would not let him forget it.

“Lord Osferth,” she whispered again, soft fingertips trailing his bottom lip. The ex monk let out a small moan, letting his hands dig into the naked flesh of her thighs. “It sounds quite nice doesn't it?” She asked, readjusting herself on top of him, innocently glancing at him as she brushed above his clothed cock.

He was already stiff.

“Now that you, you say it like that..” Osferth answered, pulling her hips back into him with a large hand. “I suppose it sounds better coming from your..” he paused to press a long passionate kiss to her mouth, “sweet..” and another.. “lips.” He let himself indulge until his head was light, giving the gentlest of kisses and bites, massaging her tongue with his own.

Already she had started softly grinding into him, thighs clenching and her wetness pooling onto his pants.

“Are you already wet?” He asked, sliding his hand from her hips to between her thighs, and he let out a shuddery groan as his fingers became immediately coated. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he teased, running them up and down her folds oh so slowly.

“Osferth,” she whined, bucking into his hand just once before he held her still.

He smiled gently up at her, moving to kiss under her ear, his warm breath tickling at the hairs on her neck. “What happened to that sweet title?” Osferth asked, biting on the lobe of her ear and enjoying how she started to shiver under his touch.

“I’m sorry my lord,” his woman sputtered out, using one hand to grab at the cross on his chest as if it were her lifeline.

Osferth felt a chill run up his spine at the word, or perhaps it was the cold chain of his cross moving under his collar as she deliciously pulled on it. “Good girl,” he tutted, tapping her nose gently with a finger, “My clever girl.”

His pride soared as he felt her cunt tighten against his leg, her breathing turning into soft pants. The ex monk took a chance to lift her slightly, moving his cloth up, leaving just his thin pants between them. He slowly flexed his thigh, moving his lover so she might straddle it, letting her explore the new friction on her own.

Fearing he might cum too soon, Osferth held her still again. She grabbed harder at his chain, pulling him forward to take his lips- biting and sucking and savoring his sweet taste. It dug so wonderfully into his neck- the more desperate she had become the harder she gripped the cross pendant, always unknowingly tugging too hard.

He found out well enough that he liked to be choked by her. Consciously or not.

“Darling..” Osferth cooed, giving himself a chance to breathe after her assault, “Will you be telling me what to do or can I have my fun?” He asked, cupping the back of her head and flexing his strong thigh again under him, smiling as she adjusted her hips once more and cool air blew on the wetness she had left.

The poor thing couldn’t speak. She was so lost in grinding against that spot on his leg, kissing away her moans into his skin now that he has denied her his lips.

He used his fingers to gently brush her clit, and she jolted- now looking him in the eyes. “Did you hear my question, darling?”

His lady nodded, biting at her lower lip now. Osferth shrugged, pressing his calloused thumb onto her clit again. “Guess I’ll have my fun..” He muttered nonchalantly, looking into her eyes with a softened gaze. “You want to have some fun with me?” He asks so innocently, ignoring the guttural moan that came from his lover, and the way she gripped into his shoulders for balance.

Rocking herself against his hard muscle, she mewls as that sensitive bud catches on the rough fabric of his pants, head falling forward into his shoulder. Osferth grips her and guides her up and down his thigh, flexing just right as her cunt passes over him.

Her fingers are tight on his shoulders now, her cheeks flushed. “Do it… do it again..” his lover whines, and Osferth feels his cock leak just a bit more.

“Do what?” The man asks teasingly, rubbing at her clit with two fast fingers.

Quick, muffled moans fall from lips, but he can hear the simple “Not that.”

“Tell me then darling, tell me,” he coaxes, his face full of faux concern. Just as she’s about to answer he drags her cunt roughly again, tightening the muscles as she goes.

This time her moans are much louder.

“Good girl,” he whispers again, and she clenched around nothing. “Don’t be scared to let out those sweet noises my dear, I want to hear them.”

He continues his motions again, quickening his hand until she’s stammering and her eyes go up to the ceiling. She’s shaking like a baby deer in his lap, desperately grinding more into his hand.

With a loud moan she finally cums, spilling out onto his fingers, still tightening her cunt around emptiness. It throbs almost painfully, and as he touches her clit again she bucks away from his hand from the overstimulation.

“My dear we’re just getting started,” Osferth teases, but nonetheless removes his hand to hold her gently on him. He brushes her hair behind her ears delicately, planting a soft kiss to her lips. He can tell her mind is still reeling as her eyes flit around, finally closing at the feel of his soft kiss. “Shh dearest, I’ve got you,” he whispers.

He looks around at the dying candles of his hall, and he readjusts himself on his chair. No one was to be expected until the morning.

Osferth smiles, kissing his lady once more, a tickling hand running up her thigh.

They’re in for a long night.

#osferth #osferth x reader #tlk fanfic #TLK #ewan mitchell #ewan mitchell x reader #osferth imagine #osferth headcannons #the last kingdom x reader #osferth smut

[starsurface]

Gaaaahh! Those regressor Nightwolf headcanons were SO GOOD!! Thank you!!! 😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️ Could I bug you for one more? Little Nightwolf with CG Fujin? (Also totally get him as a playable character in Aftermath!! He’s so fun!! It’s his Tower of Time ending that has the angst! No spoilers but Emo Nightwolf is canon!!😭)

Ugh Windwolf!!! I know you didn't ask for romantic but I think I accidently implied that they're together.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

CG Fujin w/ Regressor Nightwolf Hcs

☁️ Y'all I actually love them both and I know they'd be so supportive of each others regression 🥺

🐺 Nightwolf calls Fujin mostly Dada or Fuu Fuu

☁️ Fujin calls Nightwolf so many nicknames but Cloudy, Sweetheart, Cub, Little Wolf, and Baby Boy are the most common

🐺 Fujin finds Nightwolf's middlespace so entertaining, ngl

☁️ Like, the makeup, the outfit, the attitude-

🐺 He's not trying to be mean, it's just different!! And it's been time time since he's been with mortal like these

☁️ The one time Fujin teased Nightwolf about his look, Nightwolf generally started sobbing and Fujin felt really, really bad

🐺 Afterwards he let Nightwolf dect him out in emo/metal (which Nightwolf completely abused) and Raiden almost had a heart attack when he saw his brother

☁️ It's actually really funny seeing them because you have this sulky emo middle schooler and this guys radiating of sunshine always following and bothering him

🐺 Fujin will let Nightwolf blare his music but not too loudly, he can't have his hearing get bad now can we?

☁️ He knows EVERYTHING, and Fujin knows NOTHING, that's how the world works >:D

🐺 Que to Fujin shrugging and just going with the flow

☁️ Fujin adores toddler Nightwolf!!!

🐺 The two will go outside and run around until Nightwolf gets sleepy

☁️ Playing tag, playing hopscotch, sitting in the grass on a blanket, rolling in said grass, whatever Nightwolf wants to do!!

🐺 The only time Fujin gets weary is when they near this small lake that Nightwolf likes collecting rocks from

☁️ Like, he knows it's too shallow for anything to happen to Nightwolf, but he also isn't taking his chances

🐺 Any and all weapons get put away onto high shelfs (Nightwolf gets extremely pouty about it)

☁️ Naps in the Storm Gardens because they fell asleep playing

🐺 Or Nightwolf fell asleep on Fujin's lap and now he's stuck there

☁️ Fujin will happily answer any questions Nightwolf has (and if he doesn't know the answers, he'll make one up and Nightwolf is usually content)

🐺 Fujin handles Nightwolf's hissy fits really well, standing there patiently for him to calm down

☁️ Both really like talking about why Nightwolf was upset and it's usually an easy time

🐺 Both Fujin and Nightwolf adore cuddles and really like to snuggle on calmer days

☁️ Fujin will use his powers to make Nightwolf giggle

🐺 Together they pull little pranks on the others monks, or Raiden

☁️ (Making a paper keep flying just out of reach for a few seconds, blowing Raiden's hat off, very harmless things)

🐺 Or making keeping one of Nightwolfs toys in the air, making him gasp and awe

☁️ Fujin really likes to do arts and crafts with Nightwolf but my goodness, the mess it makes

🐺 Depending on what they made, glitters all over the floor, there's glue everywhere, scattered pieces of paper

☁️ Luckily Nightwolf likes helping cleaning up before bathtime

🐺 If Nightwolf made Fujin anything, Fujin will tear up and get a concerned headpats

☁️ (^ And Nightwolf gets a bunch of cuddles and whatever food he wants <3)

🐺 If Nightwold let's gim, Fujin will do his hair (it's so silky and soft!!!)

☁️ Nightwolf will over to do Fujin's hair but he might fall asleep laying on it because it's all nice and long and comfy

🐺 Fujin doesn't entirely mind, he'll make Raiden get him a book and lay with Nightwolf so hos hair isn't getting pulled

☁️ I can see Nightwolf being a wolf regressor and Fujin adores it (okay, he just adores him, let's be honest)

🐺 Head scratchies all day, Nightwolf loves them

☁️ Fujin will intimidate Nightwolf's howl and Nightwolf will get all huffy and puffy because he thinks he's being mean >:(

🐺 (He's not, and a quick kiss on the nose will make him better)

☁️ Nightwolf will curl up by the fireplace and Fujin will let him lay his head on his lap

🐺 If Nightwold ever regresses for any kind of negative reason, Fujin makes it his mission to fix whatever wrong

☁️ Too stressed? A bubble bath might help

🐺 Bad memories? He'll be okay, Fuu Fuu’s here now, sweetheart

☁️ Fujin is constantly fussing over Nightwolf, bad day or not

🐺 That's his baby, he's gotta make sure he feels completely loved and safe 🥺

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

I want Aftermath so badly but Steams gonna have their Spring sale soon and I gotta wait a month!! :(

#age regression #agere #sfw age regression #age regression headcanons #mortal kombat agere #sfw agere #mk11 headcanons #mk11 #mortal kombat 11 headcanons #mortal kombat 11 #little Nightwolf #regressor nightwolf #cg fujin #caregiver fujin #windwolf

[swordsmanoftranquility]

Interview

The blue sky above sways gently as the carriage rocks back and forth upon the bumpy road. If Zihark wasn’t used to travelling often as a mercenary, he probably would have been hurling chunks off the side just like the other passenger. It was a rough ride, and the man likely had a weak stomach. Understandable that he would be ill then.

Zihark sits up, sliding over to the poor man and placing a gentle hand on his back.

“Are you alright?” Zihark asks carefully. The man lifts his head with a groan, looking rather green. He promptly leans back over the edge and continues to lose his lunch. Zihark lets out a small sigh, he must not have been used to travelling, “I am Zihark. Might I have the honour of knowing your name?”

The other man wearily lifts his head again and mumbles out, “Kev…… in. I’m a… hrnk… monk at Garreg Mach. Heading back there now. It’s not usually… this bumpy…”

Zihark smiles, offering another stroke of Kevin’s back to try and ease his pain. He lights up at the mention of Garreg Mach and his gentle pats turn into a hearty smack, “What a happy coincidence! I’m also headed to the monastery!”

“Wow… who would have… hrrngh… guessed,” Kevin muttered, scowling through his illness like it should have been obvious that they were headed to the same location, “You don’t look like much of the… student type… nor clergy. What are you gonna… do…?”

“Be a knight of course! I can’t imagine there is a better use for my skills at the academy,” Zihark laughs gently, leaning against the side of the carriage. He lets the autumn breeze flow over him, wind rustling pale blue hair around him.

“Hnnrghh… you haven’t… done an interview yet have you…?” Zihark lightly shakes his head at Kevin’s question. He had figured it would be able to wait until he had arrived at the monastery proper, but Kevin frowned deeply even through his motion sickness. The other man lets out a loud sigh and says, “... I can… urgh… do it for you right now, since we’re both already here. That way you… don’t have… anything to worry about…”

Ah what the hell; why not? Might as well get it over with, “Alright then. Hit me.”

Kevin looks like he would rather actually hit him right now, or maybe he just wanted to hit the carriage. That would be understandable. 

The monk groans, and rustles around in his sleeve for a moment to pull out a slip of paper. He squints at it through his sickness and starts with another groan, “Urgh… What has led you to where you are today?”

“Conviction,” Zihark says almost instantly, wringing his hand together gently in his lap. It had been a long held dream of his to see peace and harmony between beorc and laguz within his lifetime. Even before the one woman he would never forget, he had never thought it was right the way laguz were treated with such prejudice and scorn. They were people all the same, with thoughts and feelings, complex beings that deserved respect as much. After she had died, that yearning for them to be all the same and not treated differently only strengthened. He didn’t want anyone else to ever have to face the prejudice they’d had when they were together, whether they were just one person or many; so with whatever little time he had, he wanted to strive for his perfect world - one where laguz were not hated, treated just the same as any beorc - and not falter. He was willing to sacrifice nearly anything he had for that which he held up in his beliefs - that laguz should not be caged, thrown away as lesser when they certainly were not. He would kill those he had once aligned with, slip away and betray even his own country. If it went against everything he stood for, then he could not just stand idly by and let transgressions happen that he did not believe in, “Though I imagine it’s a driving force for many people. I can’t be unique in that aspect.”

Kevin nods in understanding, sick understanding but understanding nevertheless and clears his throat so he can continue, “What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?”

Zihark stares at his gloved hands, the bandages wrapped around his wrists, the scars that ran up and down his arms. He thinks of the scars that cover the rest of his body, invisible underneath his clothes. The reminders of years of battle and travels long gone. He says quietly, “Well, I’m certainly physically strong. Willing to stand up for what I believe in. I’ve had to learn a lot of skills most men my age might not have had to, like sewing and cooking for myself on the road. And I have a natural talent for remembering names and faces. That’s about it, I suppose.”

But are you really so strong if you couldn’t save her? An old nagging voice echoes in the back of his head. He tries to ignore it, rubbing at his arm with a sudden anxiousness.

He clears his throat, “Right… weaknesses. Let’s see here…” He pauses intentionally in thought, pushing down the memories of when he had once been weak. Of a girl long gone from his life who he had once loved, “I suppose I… have a habit keeping certain secrets. Ah, that’s not really a weakness, is it? Can’t think of anything else though.” 

He twists a piece of the bandages on his arms gently between his fingers. Sometimes, he wondered if he really knew who he was beneath the dream of his ideal world where beorc and laguz could coexist without lashing out at one another. He had a dream of peace between their peoples, an idea that they were no different in the end, but it was one that he could not speak of in his homeland. When he had been young, he would never have been able to speak of such things out loud. He would have been kicked out of his father’s house at best, and dragged through the streets at worst. The memory of being young and scared of such a powerful man who swung in the complete opposite direction of his child - whose sympathies lay with those who hated laguz more than anything - still haunted Zihark, a dark shadow lingering in the depths of his mind. 

He had left once he was old enough, and not looked back. He had met a girl and tried his best to stay true to what he really believed in. He had fought with Ike and his band of mercenaries, striving for a common goal, a dream that they both believed in. He had fought for Daein until he could not take it anymore, once again taking up the sword alongside Ike. He had faced Ashera and not backed down even then. 

And yet… thinking of his past in Daein, his childhood, could still make him tremble slightly.

But he could not be afraid. He had to strive forward, believe in what he did despite it not being what he was once taught. Zihark had let the winds of fate guide him to this, and he wanted to believe that his homeland would someday change as well. Change to be better than hate and scorn towards those who were different. A wistful dream, but one he wanted all the same. 

That was why he couldn’t be weak.

(Even so, now he could still be weak. Even if the best part of himself screamed he wasn’t. Even if he could never say it, his greatest weakness could be that he was still held back by a certain fear at times. Fear that he wasn’t doing enough, wasn’t doing the right thing. When he had lifted his sword for Daein, he had known that the land of his birth still didn’t align with loving the laguz as equals, but he had done so anyway, perhaps out of love of his country… or, perhaps out of fear if he didn’t, then it would be wrong to just leave Daein to suffer. He had wondered if it would be right, knowing that her heart lay elsewhere, but he had still done it. It was why he was still travelling , resolving conflicts between beorc and laguz. He couldn’t sit idly by because; what if he wasn’t enough? He couldn’t be inadequate, nor even in this. He had to be good enough. He didn’t wish to think he had such a weakness against his own heart, but nobody was perfect. It was that he was scared to fail himself and others that was his weakness all along.)

Kevin clears his throat once more, making a gesture like he wanted this to be over with, “Uh… last one, I think. If a story were written about your life, what role would you play?”

Zihark lets the pain wash away with an easier question, an easygoing smile coming across his lips. He speaks confidently once more, “Someone who wields their sword for the justice of others in this world. For the weak and those who need protection from prejudice,” He laughs, realising something, “Ah! I suppose that’s just a knight; isn’t it? Guess I’m taking up the right job then!”

Yes, he would not waver now. Even in a land far away from that of his birth, he would stand strong for all that he believed in. That’s all there was to do; wasn’t there? And that was enough.

#ooc #drabble #//here's his interview uwu

[watchiingover]

@someonehastodosomething​ asked:

“I might not be able to understand what it is that you’re going through, but I understand you need someone here for you.” { Zenyatta for whoever! }

Mei sniffles softly, wiping the tears from her eyes with her arm before glancing up to the omnic from her position on one of the garden’s benches. She hadn’t expected anyone else to be out here at this time of day, usually coming out here to sit amongst nature and be alone with her thoughts, but it seemed that Zenyatta had found her.

She didn’t know the omnic monk well, but after he had helped her with the injuries she had sustained protecting a village in the Himalayas, she greatly respected him - and if anyone had to see her like this, she didn’t mind it being him. “Xiè xiè...” She thanks him for his compassion, offering a weak smile. She glances down to her lap then, where she fiddles absentmindedly with her glasses.

“I was thinking about my friends. The ones who didn’t survive cryostasis like I did...” She begins quietly. “Every time I think of them, I always remember--” She cuts herself off, flinching - it hurt too much to speak of the condition she had found them in. The images forever seared into her brain.

“I just-... Sometimes I wonder why I was the only one to survive... Why did everyone else’s pods malfunction, but mine didn’t? It-... It isn’t fair. They should be here...”

#the survivor's guilt is strong #our world is worth fighting for // mei (ic) #someonehastodosomething

[clementinesjourney]

Behind every earl is a strong woman...

AN: I loved Ubbe so much. So here is this little something something.

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

After hours of metal clinking together, of death screams, victory roars, bloodied laughs of the men that came to rob the small monastery. Funny enough they thought that among all the men of god they slaughtered, there would be no woman in this place so far out of society, so far from any of their kings. You had been locked here most of your life. Your father was a viking, however once baptised and married a princess, he is now a king. You were the only heir, whilst he had felt the need to protect you. You were to be removed from the castle, from your mother's loving arms, only to be locked up high in the tower above the church, having the monks take care of you, educate you properly. Your long red locks, falling over your shoulder, as you hid behind the window, too scared to open it, to let them know that you're here. The last thing you needed was them to take you away. You sat down and scribbled a letter to your father:

"Dear Father,

By the time this letter finds you, only god knows that i'm dead or enslaved, or maybe if the lord shines upon us i am safe and sound, on my way back to your kingdom. The vikings had killed every soul in the monastery, as i'm writing this letter, they are scavanging every last bit of food and gold they can find, i am trembling in hope as they won't find me.

Your loving daughter, (Y/n)"

You carefully take a single white pigeon, tie the letter to it's leg, open the window just a crack, and let it out.

You couldn't see but there was one viking down in the yard, who watched you send the bird away, smirking that there is still a place to search, still someone to find. Soon enough you heard footsteps on the stairs. You went to your bed, and took the dagger from under your pillow. The green emerald shining in it's handle as you held it, ready to end your life if it was ever needed.

The door slowly opened and a man with crystal blue eyes entered, shutting it after himself. He didn't say a word, nor did he look like he wanted to kill you. As he slowly stepped closer, you lifted the dagger to your neck, a single tear running down your cheek.

He immediately put the sword down, and lifted his hands for you to see.

-Please don't do that. - he said, which sent you into a shock nearly, yet you did not move the dagger from your neck.

-You speak our language.

-Makes it easier to negotiate, isn't it? - he smirked.

-Why did you murder everyone?

-We did not, you're still here aren't you? - this made you look away for a second tears now flowing freely. - I get why they fought. Monks never fight, yet they fought for you. Who are you?

You didn't say a word. Once again you tried to blink away your tears, you looked out the crack of the window. Perhaps this is the last you'll see the sunlight. You didn't have enough time to process it, but somehow in a blink of an eye, you were in the stranger's arms, and the dagger had flewn to the other side of the room. Your eyes snapped into his in horror as you tried to struggle free from his hold as he laughed.

-Let me go.

-No, not until you promise me not to slit your throat. - he laughed

-Maybe i'll slit yours instead. - your remark made him look amused.

-Bold words from a lady in a dress this pretty who just wanted to kill herself.

-If i am to be either a slave or dead in a matter of hours, what does it matter if i take one with me?

-Smart lady at that, however killing me would only make your remaining life worse. Since the rest are going to feast, and celebrate now, and you see i'm quite tired, why don't i lay in your lap, while you sang me a song.

-Why would i do that?

-Well you see, that would ensure a few more hours to live, it might even show you that i have no intention of killing a lady like you unlike the men down there. Be good and sing me while i rest.

You sit down, he laid his head on your lap, took one of your delicate hands in his, and waited for you to sing.

Towards the end of your song you heard soft snoring. How can a man so merciless, be so vunerable laying in your lap. You smiled a little to yourself. As you finished your song, he was napping quietly, not letting go of your hand. With your other hand you traced the tattoo on his face gently.

He didn't open his eyes, he just sleepily murmured to you.

-It's runes. They mean potential, succeess and need. - you didn't say a thing just finished tracing it, then removed your hand. He turned in your lap, so he could look you in the eye, as he took your hand that you just lifted away to kiss your knucles and held above his heart with both hands.

-Come with me.

-Do i have a choice?

-You do.

-Will the men down there say the same?

-Yes.

-Why do you want me to go?

-You're the only heir of the king yes?

-Yes.

-Your uncle sent for you to be killed, just like your father and mother last month. It is not safe for you here.

-And it would be with you?

-I'd promise to protect you.

-I don't wanna be a slave.

-You wouldn't be. - he said as he looked into your eyes. All you saw was honesty. As he kept tracing small circles on the back of your hand with his thumb.

There were footsteps on the stairs, and you shuddered. He looked in the direction of the door, still holding your hand. The door bursted open, and there was a smiling man, looking similar to the one in your lap. He did not spoke your language, so you didn't understand a word they had said.

*in old norse*

-Brother, i've been searching for you all over. - he said coming closer with a glass full of wine.

-Well you have found me Hvitserk, what do you want?

He looked over you then smiled.

- Well i wanted to ask if i can finish off the last of them, but now i'm thinking of entirely another kind of fun.

- No can do little brother.

- Oh come on Ubbe, i never so much as see you with another woman. What's so precious about this one?

-Can't a man fall in love at first sight? - he said as he looked at you with a small smile, you just looked back questioningly. He lifted one hand to caress your cheek, but before he could do that you swatted his hand away, rolling him out of your lap. The other man chuckled and said something in their language again.

-I see, i see. You just love it when they don't fall at your feet even if it possibly means you'd kill them...

-I like a good chase.. what can i say. - he said smirking as he started to crawl over you, caging you between his hands, before you slapped him with all your might.

He inhaled sharply and looked at you with now black eyes. You thought it was anger, but he tried to actually control himself not to take you then and there.

-Careful kitten. - he said, his voice was surprisingly low. The only noise you heard was the door shutting behind the other man.

-What did you talk about?

-Nosy huh? I'll tell you for a kiss. - he said cheekily.

-I don't care anymore.. - you huffed as you pulled the cover over you, turning your back to him, shutting your eyes.

He just chuckled while he put an arm behind his head as he laid on his back.

Somewhere in your hazy state you felt something heavy over your waist, and something warm at your back, but you soon fell asleep.. You didn't hear him as he smiled and said to himself in old norse..

-Such a brave little girl, falling asleep with the enemy next to her..

The next morning you woke up still with a heavy thing around you, and warmth at your back. The light snoring made you look down to your stomach, seeing an arm, as you trembled, and tried to roll to see the owner of it. As you managed to turn, you've met the handsome face of the man from last night, he stayed and you're still alive. His eyes not opened yet, as he pulled you closer to his body.

You struggled to keep at least your head and chest away, but he was stronger.

-Quit struggling, i'm stronger and i know you actually feel safe.

-Why would you think i feel safe?

-You fell asleep next to me last night, you slept even more peaceful when i cuddled you. - you didn't know what to say to that, you were just glad that your face was flush to his chest, so you could hide your red face. The silence made him chuckle.

-So will you come with us?

-What could i possibly do there?

-Live. - he said as he lifted your chin to look him in the eyes the first time that day. They had just murdered everyone you ever knew, the information abour your uncle could very much be true... He did promise you wouldn't be a slave, and somehow you trust him. So you find yourself taking his hand to get on the ship, his heavy fur coat over your shoulders. The rest of the men gave you hungry looks, until one of them tried to grope you. That one was instantly killed by the man with the crystal blue eyes.

He never once left your side after that. It was a long road back to their home. It was the second night, you were still under his fur coat, your back flush to his chest, as he had one arm over you and the other playing with your hand.

-What is your name? - you asked.

-Ubbe.

-Ubbe... - you tried it, and suddenly he was glad that here was the thick fur between you and him, so you didn't hear his heartrate pick up at hearing his name roll off of your tongue.

-I'm (Y/n).

-(Y/n)... - he murmured next to your ear, as his breath tickled your neck. You blessed the day that it was nighttime, so he couldn't see you blush.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

When you reached their shores, there was a swarm of people and woman waiting for them at the docks. You were anxious to see if there was someone for him. A man this handsome and gentle surely had a wife and kids by now. But there was noone. He greeted some men, before a woman with gray hair marched towards him, hugging him close, as a mother would you imagined. They talked about something before she looked at you behind him, cupping your face and pressing a kiss to your forehead. She smiled wamrly and said

-Welcome.

There was a big celebration, everybody ate, drank, sang, danced. You found yourself smiling.

-Do you like your knew home princess? - the old woman asked.

-It is far better as it could've been i must admit. I'm just afraid still.

-Ubbe will protect you didn't he already show you that?

-I am not certain of his intentions.

-Well i am pretty sure that i see our earl falling for you by the minute. As he should. A good earl needs a strong woman behind him... and from what i've gathered so far you've threatened to kill him, you've slapped him, put him in his place... but you do have a gentle side...

-He doesn't know me.

-He doesn't.. but the heart knows.. And i've seen enough to know the look in both your eyes towards the other. - she said before standing up, leaving you to watch Ubbe from afar, having fun with his brothers.

When all the noise was too much, you sneaked out to the back. You leaned to the tree nearby.

-Do you already wanna go back? - a familiar husky voice asked behind you. You didn't need to turn to know who it was, you relaxed into his arms as he snaked them around you.

-No, it is just all too new. And that lady sure knows how to stir the pot.

-Did she try to marry you off already?

-Does she do that often?

-With the rest of my brothers yes, with me it's the first..

-What if i don... - the words died on your tongue as he turned you around lifting your chin, making you look at him.

-You don't have to.. - he said sadly, in nearly just a whisper, as his thumb rolled over your lower lip. You closed your eyes at the sensation. - but i plan to win you over... - he whispered finally before placing a soft, slow kiss on your lips.

------------------------------------------------------------

Months have passed, and you slowly came to terms with your feeling for Ubbe. You occasionally let him kiss you, but never in front of others. He brought you flowers, furs, you baked to him, sang him to sleep. Nearly every night you slept in his arms. You felt more and more that familiar ache towards him, every kiss lasted longer, filled with more and more want. He peppered kisses on your lips, your jawline, your neck, your collarbones.. Earning small moans from you.

-If you give me sounds like that princess i won't be able to restrain myself any longer... - he whispered on your skin, making you shudder.

-I'll only give myself to my husband Ubbe... - you said between sighs as your hand played with his hair at the back of his neck, the other roaming around his chest. He gave a kiss to your lips, before pressing your foreheads together, opening his eyes to look into yours. He whispered

-Marry me then.. - as he fished out a small gold ring under his pillow. You chuckled kissing him.

- You really want a foreign princess as your wife instead of literally any shildmaiden?

You both chuckled as you peppered his face with kisses. He rolled over, so you were straddling him, as he held thering with one hand, and put the other behind his head smirking at you.

-I only ever want you..

#vikings #ubbe x reader #ubbe x you #vikings au #vikings ubbe #ubbe ragnarsson #lagertha #hvitserk

[thunderheadfred]

🐈‍Aizawa HC’s🐈‍

I dunno if people will care for this; I suspect my HC's for Aizawa are a little off the fandom norm. Still. I tried. Things get approximately NSFW under the cut. Minors do not interact.

- - - - -

General

He has like, one discernible change of clothes per season. There is no distinction between hero outfit, casual wear, and pajamas. That fabric used to be black. It is now an exhausted shade of ‘please stop washing me.’ If you suggest that he buy new clothes, he will stare you down like you have three heads, and none of those heads have a brain.

This man does not spend money. He has a mind-blowing amount of savings, but no one will ever know until he dies and wills it all to a random animal shelter in the middle of nowhere. Has a secret scholarship fund for UA students. Again, this is completely anonymous. Only the principal knows.

He's a startlingly competent sketch artist. Nothing fancy, and he never took an art class in his life, but his quirk innately lends itself to spacial reasoning and feature recognition. He has sketch books brimming with sloppy but pin-point accurate life drawings. He can capture your soul in three strokes of a dried-up ballpoint pen. It's eerie.

Given his schedule, you’d expect him to prioritze convenience first, but junk food makes him cross-eyed. His body is a temple and he eats like a fucking monk.

He’s a wine snob. Well, a liquor snob generally. He knows the name of every regional sake-maker in Japan, and can tell you exactly which bottle is the best, down the the month of production. Assumes everyone possesses such laser-focused knowledge.

Tea drinker. Yeah, he has encyclopedic knowledge about that too. Apparently everything this man drinks comes with a bibliography.

Technically he’s supposed to live in the UA dorms part of the time. He sleeps poorly there, and goes home whenever he has the opportunity.

His house is old, but not valuable. Probably inherited. Traditional style with very few modern updates. He keeps it meticulously clean and does repairs as needed, but the age is still obvious. Everything creaks. You swear the place is haunted but won’t dare admit it aloud - he WILL laugh you out of the house.

There’s a garden but he doesn’t have time to keep it up. He has a lot of memories of the plants in full bloom. Letting it go to seed upsets him more than he lets on.

He has zero personal possessions aside from household appliances, which he meticulously researches and keeps in perfect condition.

Reads an insane amount of books. These mostly come from the library. There’s always a stack near his bed. You have no idea how he finishes them, because every time you see him with a book, he’s asleep with it on his face.

He doesn’t adopt cats so much as just leaves his doors open and lets them freely colonize the place. It’s not his house, it’s theirs. Somehow there's not a single cat hair on anything.

Most of these cats are cuddly little angels; you've never met nicer. But there’s a few beasts in the mix, with battle scars and three legs and a craving for human meat; these are Aizawa’s special favorites.

- - - - -

Dating

Falls for you when he stumbles across you taking care of one of the hideous strays he usually feeds on his route. Doesn’t approach you at first (definitely tries to hide) but the cat is like "mrrr?" and brings you over to him, giving the game away. Traitor.

Will make you pay for your half of everything, down to the last yen. So what if you’ve been together for ten years? You have your own income.

One exception to the above: he’ll never buy you presents but he WILL treat you to lavish meals in dark restaurants with hand-written menus. Don’t mistake this for romance, he just likes the quiet atmosphere and excellent service.

He cleans every day; there’s an unwritten five-dimensional schedule and that schedule is EXACT. Zero time wasted. He’ll never actually ask you to help with any of it. He’ll never directly thank you, either. But if you learn how to take over certain chores and do the daily upkeep while he’s away, he’ll love you forever.

Not the type to talk about his day; he’d rather sit with you outside. He values silence. Not because he doesn’t want to talk to you, but a lot of the time he doesn’t have the energy to give you his full conversational attention. Physical contact is easier, and more comforting besides. Just... hold his hand a while.

His scalp gets tingly and sore from overusing his quirk. If you run your fingers through his hair he will pass out instantly.

He will cozy trap you. He’s touch-starved and was definitely a cat in a past life. Will hang all over you if you don't give him enough attention and constantly falls sleep in your lap. Hope you don’t need to get up anytime soon; he’s not moving.

You don’t exactly ‘move in’ with him. He never wants to spend a night without you, but his living space is already exactly how he likes it. He will never move out of that old house, but he’ll give you some rooms to yourself. Your stuff and his... complete absence of stuff... stay pretty much separate. Do NOT clutter up the bedroom.

The kitchen is the exception. That's a warm and cozy shared spot, the heart of the home. You’ll always be stepping around a cat.

He LOVES when you cook for him (so that he doesn't have to take the time). Will shower you with praise and encourage you to make huge earthenware vats of old-timey tsukemono that the two of you cannot possibly eat by yourselves. He’ll help with food prep and knows his way around, but he insists you’re the better cook (even if you aren’t).

Big on actions over words. Makes an effort to be present with you as much as he can.

Will stare into your eyes until you look away. When you look back, he's still staring with a rare warm smile on his face.

God, he loves you. You will never, ever know how much. He doesn't tell you often, but he shows you every day.

- - - - -

Somnophilia???.........

ACE ACE ACE ACE

This man is A-fucking-sexual. He’s not sex repulsed in any way, he’s just not personally invested.

Aromantic too. Deadass doesn’t get the hype. You are the most important person in his life and he’s deeply commited to and comforted by you. Just don’t expect to be seduced; it will literally never happen.

If you are allosexual, he will still be devoted to your sexual well-being. At first, that means buying you a DELUXE toy and encouraging you to use it on your own.

His voice is too damn sexy, even when he isn’t trying. He’ll give you all the phone sex you want; he thinks it’s sweet how you unravel for him. Edging you for ages is a fun little power play, but he’s definitely grading papers while he does it. Don’t be offended. Toshinori has overheard some THINGS.

When your relationship gets sufficiently serious, he’ll help out with his hands. He’s VERY SKILLED AT IT. He likes to lay down next to you and whisper encouragement in your ear. Eventually he gets possessive about your orgasms, and will make you ask for permission.

Sometimes the stars align, but his arousal is a rare bird. He'll take a whole afternoon to prepare. It’s love-making, full stop. Always slow and intensely emotional. He'll cherish every inch of you but might not cum at all; you can’t force it.

#aizawa shouta #aizawa sensei #aizawa x reader #aizawa x you #aizawa x y/n #gender neutral #aizawa headcanons #bnha #mha #bnha headcanons #mha headcanons #fred writes

[babyybitchhh]

Law x Reader 18+

Rating: Explicit/R-18+

Words: 6,653

Warnings: sexual roleplay, sex work, excessive/rough breast play, vaginal sex, creampie, set in Wano but honestly I just took advantage of that unknown period when they first arrived, chubby reader

A/N: It's okay, Law doesn't need to use condoms. He's a doctor. : )

♥♥♥♥

“Well, how do I look?”

Head coming up, Law glances over from his spot on the tatami and ire immediately flashes through stormy gray eyes. But you pretend not to notice as you turn in the doorway, letting him see the back of your kimono with its neatly tied bow and the flowing long sleeves that had delighted you when you’d first glimpsed the style of dress in this country.

Truth be told, you were really quite pleased with yourself.

Particularly after Kinemon had assured you it was a lovely choice for the role you were to take in Wano; that of a maid servant working at the finest brothel in the capital where you were sure to overhear plenty of hush hush information the others might not likewise be privy to. The place was frequented by big wig politicians, powerful samurai and members of the ruling Kurozumi faction, according to him, which meant you would be playing an integral part in the plan going forward.

You were glad for it, eager to be of some use in the coming battle to overthrow the shogunate since such an opportunity very rarely presented itself to non combatants like you.

But when you turn back around, beaming expectantly only to find Law glaring across the room, your shoulders quickly droop in defeat. “What? You don’t like it?”

Rather than directly answering the question, he scoffs and looks away. “You’re supposed to be blending in with the people of this country, not standing out like a sore thumb.”

You guffaw, glancing down at yourself. “What do you mean? Everyone’s wearing clothes like this!”

“That’s not the problem.”

“Then what is?”

Try as you might, you just couldn’t figure out what he was finding issue with here. The rich silk print wrapped around your body was understated, not nearly as intricate or attention grabbing as those of the oiran you would soon be waiting on, but that didn’t make it any less elegant. In fact, you’d thought for sure he would like it for just that reason.

The monochrome base with its bursts of color in the form of vibrant, blooming red and pink chrysanthemums had struck you as something he would appreciate for its simple yet undeniable beauty. He’d picked out his own clothes in similar fashion, going with a basic black and white kimono and a relatively plain yet stylish jittoko to wear over top so you weren’t really sure what made your outfit any different.

They were practically one and the same - and you tell him as much when you step across the room, fully prepared to fight him on this.

But as soon as you're close enough, Law reaches out to snag your wrist and he yanks you down on the floor with him. You draw a sharp breath as your knees hit the woven mat, quickly jerking your attention up only to choke on whatever you were going to say when he crowds into your space with that steely eyed frown he was known for.

“W - what?”

“It’s not the same.” He intones, low and unamused. “I’m going to be playing a traveling monk with my face covered. You’ll be working in the red light district. There’s a world of difference here.”

You start to ask him to elaborate, because you just weren’t seeing it, but stop yourself short when the answer abruptly clicks into place.

Oh.

So it was like that.

“Could it be … you’re feeling a little possessive, maybe?”

Law barks out a quick laugh, making your cheeks warm. “And why would that be?”

“I don’t know!” You blurt, embarrassed. “Even if you’re not serious about this - about us, I just thought you might be getting sort of ... jealous, thinking about other men looking at me that way. I guess.”

“You’re not mine to feel possessive about, sweetheart. You know that.”

Too well, in fact; you think as you turn your face away to hide the hurt you were sure he’d find staring back at him.

He's quick to reach out and grab under your chin though, manually turning you back around. “Don’t pout. You volunteered for this job.”

“I just wanted to be useful …”

“You are useful.” He murmurs, the pitch of his voice dropping an octave, intentionally or not, to send static racing down your spine. “Don’t you worry about that. I have a solution that I think will satisfy both of us, though.”

“O - oh?”

Without missing a beat, Law snakes his arm behind him, grabs the tengai sitting at his knee and brings it forward so he can unceremoniously plop it down on top of your head. You squawk, hands flying up to grab the hat which basically amounted to little more than a straw basket and, therefore, should have been easy to remove. But the hand he still had resting on top of the damned thing kept it firmly in place no matter how you pushed at it and you outright seethe when you catch the slightly muffled sound of his smug, snickering laughter.

“Law, you ass! Stop!”

He hadn’t even had the decency to put it on the right way! The slats were facing out at the back of your skull and you couldn’t see anything except warm light bleeding in through the woven textiles.

“But if you wear this,” he tells you in a sobered yet no less amused tone. “I won’t have to worry about horny old perverts looking at you too much.”

“I swear I’m gonna’ - -“ You stammer to a halt, suddenly realizing what he’d said. “So you are jealous that other men might look at me!”

“Mm. Jealous isn’t the word I would use, personally.”

“Oh, then what hell would - -“

You cut yourself off with a flustered gasp when his unoccupied hand abruptly winds around your waist and finds the bow Kinemon had tirelessly struggled to fasten your obi in. He tugs at it, gently at first, and then more forcefully when it doesn’t give. With a click of his tongue, so close to your basketed head that you couldn’t miss it, Law adjusts his grip and feels around for the weak point in the knot. Once located, his long, dexterous fingers make quick work of loosening it with a soft slither of silk that makes you shudder for him and lean into the heat of his body.

The amount of sway he held over you just wasn’t fair.

“Do we really have to do this … with the hat on?”

Obi successfully undone, he starts to unwind it from around your waist one slow loop at a time.

“If I have it my way,” he says quietly. “This is the closest you’ll ever get to having anonymous sex. So the answer is, yes.”

The implication of what he was saying had you running hot, and not just in arousal. “I won’t sleep with any of the men at the brothel, you know.” You tell him tersely.

“I’m sure you won’t, but just in case you ever wonder what it would be like …”

His hand finds your shoulder as soon as the ridiculously long band of fabric is pooled between both of your laps; gentle but commanding in the way he pushes you down to lay out on the floor. You comply, though not without a soft whimper at the uniquely strange pitter patter in your suddenly tight chest.

It’s not that you didn’t understand what he was doing here.

Giving you a taste of what it would be like on the off chance hearing the girlish moans in the next room over ever sparked your interest, so you’d think back on this moment and remember how good he was at fucking you into a blissed out stupor. As if you could ever forget.

But, still, it seemed he wanted you to go into this with that knowledge fresh in your mind. And if it was the thrill of anonymity you wanted, he was clearly happy to oblige in that too. The fact he cared about something so silly, enough to remind you with a hands on demonstration, warmed you from the inside out in a way that little else ever had. He may not have admitted it in quite so many words, but this was possessive behavior if you’d ever seen it.

Admittedly pleased by this turn of events, you lay back with your arms splayed across the tatami mats and feel him move close to hover over you. Bracing a hand on the floor, he begins to carefully part the layers of your kimono with the other, one at a time, while you stare up at the inside of his tengai. You badly wanted to reach up and slip it off your head, or at least spin it around the right way so you could glimpse him through the slats, but you choose to refrain. If not because you were sure he’d just find a way to secure it until he was finished making his point then certainly because you were curious to see how far he would take this.

Law clearly felt something more towards you than just baser lust and general irritation, and that excited you almost as much as his hands on you did.

“To answer your earlier question,” he drawls, gently nudging you back into the here and now. “You look good in these clothes. Almost frustratingly so, actually.”

You gulp down the butterflies dancing in your throat and try your hardest not to smile, even though he couldn’t see it either way. “Really?”

“I wouldn’t have said it otherwise, silly girl.” His long fingers finally find the nagajuban, the last flimsy barrier separating you from him, and Law noises a brief sound of anticipation as he descends upon it.

A sedate shudder ripples down your spine while he makes casual work of spreading the robe open around you, your nipples immediately puckering when the cool air hits them. It makes you twitch and arch for him, squirming fitfully on your impromptu bed of silk; but he doesn’t stop long enough to pay it any mind and you have to bite back a groan when he somewhat callously palms your breasts with broad hands.

He isn’t as soft with you as he usually is. Not quite so preoccupied with prioritizing your pleasure over his own, and the almost greedy way he kneads at your chest serves its purpose in making you feel like a properly casual encounter. Something to vent his frustrations and nothing more.

You’d like to say it was off putting and that you didn’t like being handled so indifferently, but that would have been a bold faced lie. You were rapidly growing hot under his attention - tipping your head back inside the tengai to mewl out a whine when he bends down and eagerly seals his mouth around one stiff nipple without any of the slow buildup you were accustomed to. You were entirely at his mercy like this, in this particular role, and Law’s affinity for your breasts quickly makes itself known in the form of rough, enthusiastic sucking and nibbling that was perhaps just a little too sharply applied for it to be pleasurable.

But it wasn’t for you that he was doing this, so he takes his time indulgently suckling at the teat in his mouth until you finally whimper and twist underneath him. He comes up at the noise, leaving the tip of your breast feeling sore and unbearably coiled in the scant space that separates the shallow rise and fall of your chest from his. The tight bud gives a muted throb in the aftermath, the ache of it just edging your peripheral, and he chuckles when you squeeze doughy thighs together, rubbing them.

“Oh? You like that, do you?”

You can practically hear the roguish smirk in his tone, and your face goes hot behind the woven barrier. He knew your body well enough to recognize a sound of genuine pleasure from one of tender pain, but you don’t get the chance to correct him before the rough pad of his finger abruptly swipes over the swell of your breast. Sure and steady, it follows the natural curve of it right up to the straining nipple in the center which he delivers a sharp flick to, making you twitch and whine. The heat pooling in your gut seemed to suggest it wasn’t entirely disagreeable but you weren’t used to such indelicate treatment, not from him, and you positively writhe when he palms the weight of it in his hand again.

“My, what a sensitive little minx I’ve invited into my bed. I can already tell you’re going to be worth every penny.”

Understanding immediately dawns and you bite down on your lower lip to keep quiet as he switches his attention to the opposite tit, pinching the meat of it firmly enough to make pliable flesh spill out between his fingers. You shudder at the way he guides the puckered tip to his mouth with a sense of slow, savory anticipation, warm breath wafting against your skin moments before his lips close around it. Issuing a hazy groan, you curl your hands into the fabric laid out underneath you and arch, pushing your chest up to meet him halfway. If it was a sweetly compliant mistress of the night he expected you to play, then that was what you were going to give him.

“Mmm, you’re good at this, mister.” You murmur softly, still embarrassed to be saying it even with your resolve, and he snorts.

“Yeah? Don’t try to flatter me, sweetheart, I’m sure you say that to all the John’s.”

He goes up then and sits back on his knees, both arms stretched out across your body to cup and fondle the weight of your breasts with that same intense focus as before. A puff of air stutters out of you when he slowly drags the blunt of his thumbs over stiff points, making your pussy clench with a sympathetic flutter. Everything felt somehow that much more intense without the use of your sight and it takes every ounce of willpower you possess not to reach up and grab ahold of his bony wrists when he finally pinches one tightly coiled bud between two of his fingers.

“Nggh, w - … wait!” You mewl, your breath coming quicker when even something as simple as that makes your gut twist hard enough to leave you aching for him.

Chidingly tutting at you, Law makes a casual show of teasing your swollen nipple to straining attention while his other hand kneads the opposite breast like a happy feline earnestly fluffing it’s favorite pillow. That is to say, rather aggressively.

“Sorry, but you don’t get to tell a paying customer what to do. That’s part of the deal,” he informs you politely enough, but the reprimand itself as well as the pressure on your tit still makes you wince. “You’re mine for the night, so we’re going to do whatever it is I want. That’s what we agreed on, isn’t it?”

“... yes.”

“Good girl.” He breathes out, palming both of your tits now to squeeze them. “Stay nice and sweet for me, and I just might leave you a handsome tip when I’m done. How’s that sound, hm?”

You give your head a stilted nod before recalling that he probably couldn’t see it. “I … I’d like that very much, mister.”

“Then you had better make sure you behave yourself. I won’t give you anything extra if I don’t think you deserve it. You need to earn it. Do you understand?”

“Mm, yes … yes, I understand.”

“Good to hear.”

Giving the swell of your tits a bitingly rough pinch, Law slowly drags his palms down so that rough calluses scrape over your sensitized nipples. You can’t quite stop from crying out when the two buds give meaty little jostles in the wake of his hands, so puffy and engorged now that they felt achingly tender to the touch. He seems satisfied by the lack of protest though, and he pauses long enough to give them both another taunting tweak before trailing lower, sharp fingertips dancing across your stomach.

“You have the perfect body for this, you know.” He says, almost casually offhand. “Soft in all the right places and so very inviting. The kind of body anyone could lose themselves in, if given the chance. I’m sure you’re quite popular.”

“Mm’ not …”

Scoffing quietly, he splays his hands wide across your stomach and rubs the soft pudge there before dragging them around to squeeze at plushy lovehandles that seem to mold into his palms. You whimper at the avid attention to your body, even though you really should have been used to it by now, but he doesn’t say anything to scold you for it like some men otherwise might have. Law was more inclined to showing rather than telling, after all, and he responds instead by bringing his hands forward so he can press your thighs open for him to settle between.

“You know I don’t buy that, sweetheart. How could anyone with a working cock pass up the chance to have a pretty little pussy like this all to themselves, huh? You look like you’d just suck me right in.”

His spindly fingers dip into the space between your legs and find plump, velvety lips, slowly pressing in and spreading them apart so he can get a good, long look at you. Choking at the sensation, your thighs tense and flex as if to close him out but you stop yourself from acting on the urge with a tiny, faltering mewl. Your face is on fire behind his hat while you make do with twisting on the floor instead - your hands balling into tight little fists with layers of kimono clenched in them as you try to decide if you should happily offer him your cunt or tell him to stop. It was a surprisingly hard choice to make when he had you so vulnerably exposed like this.

“M - mister … please, you’re embarrassing me!”

“Am I now?” He chuckles faintly, making you flush even hotter. “We’ll just have to fix that then, won’t we?”

Your breath catches in your throat when you feel Law sit back on his haunches again, those long fingers of his still keeping you spread open for him. Trying to brace for what was coming next quickly proves to be an effort in futility when he crowds his other hand in with the first and presses down on your clit with expert precision, rubbing smooth little circles into it. A startled sound of pleasure erupts out of you even as your body goes ramrod stiff, the sensitive nub giving a receptive throb under featherlight pressure which prompts you to angle your hips up in search of more.

He laughs in response to the needy display, unhurriedly adjusting the position of his hand so he can flick at your clit with a slow, steady back and forth of his finger until you finally twitch and writhe, just as he wanted.

“Hmph. Pretty girl. You look good when you squirm for me like that, but I’m sure you’ll look even better when you’re squirming on my cock here in a minute.”

You let out a frazzled, sucker punched sound and twist on the floor, making your heavy tits bounce and jiggle with the jerky motion. “Please … I want it!”

“What do you want, sweetheart? Tell me.”

“N - ngh … I want - want your cock …”

Humming faintly, Law picks up the pace of his finger, battering your clit from both sides, and you almost come up off the floor with a strangled, gasping wheeze. “I didn’t quite catch that, I’m afraid. Would you like to try again?”

“Your cock! I want your cock, La - - haah, m - mister! Please put it in …”

“You’ll have to be a bit more specific. Do you want it in your mouth? Or perhaps your ass …”

You shake your head so wildly that the tengai slips up just enough for you to feel a rush of fresh air assaulting the lower half of your face, but you hardly think anything of it in your quickly mounting desperation. You didn’t need to see - you needed to feel him inside you, stretching your guts to capacity.

“No, no please, mister, not there! I want it in my pussy! Please stick it in my pussy and fuck me stupid with your cock! I p - promise I’ll be good!”

At that Law sucks in a sharp, heated breath, letting it back out in a rumbling low groan as his finger drops away from your clit to swipe through the copious slick oozing out of you, testing your wetness.

“Ooh, what a damn good girl you are. You’ll have me coming back for more, if you’re not careful. Would you like that? Do you want to share my bed again?”

“Yuh - yes! I want you to fuck me lots and lots …”

A mildly flustered sigh slips out of him, sending a brief touch of ghostly fingertips across your inflamed skin to make you tremble and shake, still so sensitive even now. “How could I ever say ‘no’ to that, huh? You’ll gladly be the ruin of me at this rate …”

He leans all the way back then, big hands retreating from your body with a deliberate sense of action. You’re left flushed and sprawled out on the floor, dizzily blinking through the needy haze that’s come over your punch drunk mind when you catch the sound of rustling fabric directly in front of you. You think to tip your head down, peering along the length of your nose, and a certain amount of surprise washes over you when you realize you can see something other than just the inside of the basket.

Past the shallow rise and fall of your chest and the soft swell of your stomach, you catch a glimpse of him moving between your bent and splayed legs. He was already naked, his borrowed kimono shrugged off and discarded; sizable cock jutting proudly into the space between you two and leaking a glistening bead of precum. You still couldn’t see Law’s face when the rim of the woven hat was taking up a good majority of your line of sight - just up to about the midway point of his waist - but that only seemed to heighten the feigned sense of anonymity in this situation.

Choking down a much needed gulp of air, you watch as if in a trance while he finishes getting himself situated and reaches out to hook his hands under your knees. Spreading them further apart and then folding them towards your chest allows him to shuffle even closer and settle the fronts of his thighs against your upturned ass, tilting your pelvis up at him in the process. He lets one leg settle beside his narrow hip so he can snake a hand into the now scant space between you two where he gives himself a few savory pumps before guiding the glans to your waiting cunt.

“L - Law!” You gasp, close to delirious at the feverish scene unfolding right in front of you.

“Hmm? Am I not ‘mister’ anymore?” He teases, slowly drawing the head of his cock up and down your slit to coat it in sticky arousal, the soft nudge against your clit on every steady stroke making your hips twitch in anticipation. “I kind of liked the sound of it, to be honest with you. Maybe I should have you call me that more often.”

In a daze, you reach down as if to grab for him but stop yourself short at the last second when you abruptly recall your assigned role here. Fingers twisting in frustration, you ball them up into fists against your lower stomach only to blush red hot at the way he chuckles, faintly laughing at you. You have to fight to keep your eyes open when you want nothing more than to screw them shut, embarrassed, and a quiet whine rises in the back of your throat as you watch Law purposefully guide himself to your entrance. He applies just enough pressure for you to feel the blunt head pressing into you, barely, but not enough to sink in yet, and your toes excitedly curl in the air, eager for the sear of penetration.

“It’s okay, sweetheart.” He murmurs, drawing your attention away from what’s going on between your legs. “You don’t have to hold back. I doubt you’ll be able to keep it up, anyway.”

You don’t need to be told twice, and you quickly snag your fingers around his wrists as he latches on to your other leg again, digging his fingers into pillowy soft flesh to keep them spread. Noticeably holding the air in his lungs now, Law leans his weight into you and the glans slowly breaches the first ring of muscle with an intoxicatingly delicious rush of friction that has you instantly shaking for him.

He pushes in deeper and deeper, ever so slowly, making sure you feel each individual inch that penetrates you at that tortuously staggered pace. Your eyes start to roll back before he’s even fully seated inside you, and you eventually let out some sort of desperate, wounded animal noise when he finally slides home a small eternity later.

He lets out the breath he’d been holding in a stuttering rush and it seems to rattle through his narrow chest while he takes his time grinding the sharp planes of his pelvis into the plushy give of yours. The coarse but neat thatch of curls at the base of him scratches and tickles, leaving a burning trail in their wake as you gratefully jut your cunt up into the pressure, plaintively asking for more. He felt so good inside you. He always felt so good.

“Nngh … please, Law! Please make me cum on - on your cock, please … I’ve been good …”

“You have.” He agrees, at last angling his hips back until you fear he would slip right out only to push inside again at that same frustratingly slow pace. “You’re a good girl, when you want to be. You know I’ll always reward you for a job well done, don’t you?”

You offer a quick nod, breathless, as you try to crane your neck up to get a better look at where his cock was sedately gliding in and out of you, but it only makes the tengai slide back down into place. Realizing you were once again without sight, you screw your eyes shut and groan bitterly as you toss your head back.

“T - that’s why I wanted to be useful for you …!”

Feeling him hunch over you, and rather suddenly at that, you tense when the slight change in position increases the pressure of him inside your guts. Your mouth warbles open as if to groan but nothing comes out, and genuine surprise rapidly floods the forefront of your mind when he grabs the top of the hat and pulls it off, making you blink owlishly in the suddenly bright room.

“I figured as much when you volunteered for a role as risky as it is potentially invaluable. You’re not a fighter, so it was fairly obvious you had a motive.” Fixing you with a sly smirk, he tosses the tengai aside and settles more squarely on his knees. Picking up the force behind his thrusts, now perfectly angled to drive into your upper wall and attack the tightly clustered nerves on the other side, Law clutches at you all the more fervently until you’re positive you’ll find bruises in the morning. “But I trust you … I know you’ll do a good job, sweetheart. You always do.”

Letting out a series of whimpering groans, you push up on your elbows so you can flick your attention between his glistening wet cock as it drives into you and his handsomely pinched face. “Then w - aah - what was all that b - before … you ass?”

He offers you a tersely clipped laugh. “Just a bit of fun, mostly.”

“Such a … nngh, such a jerk …”

Chuckling under his breath, Law lets up his hold on your legs in favor of sliding broad palms across your stomach, calluses scraping, to get a good grip on plushy hips. You respond with a low groan as you struggle upright so you can get your hands under you and push up, slanting your pelvis down to meet his leisurely thrusts tit for tat. The hushed sound of skin meeting skin picks up in the old room, otherwise silent besides the soft moans and faltering breaths coming from the two of you.

It was unexpectedly nice, given the circumstances.

“Yes, right t - there … haah, so good, you feel so good, Law. God, don’t stop …”

“You know I won’t,” he rumbles, possessively squeezing your sides in a pinching tight grip so he can guide you into a more energetic bouncing motion that has your heavy tits bouncing for him. “But I meant what I said earlier … any man would be a fool to pass up a night with you. I’m sure you’ll be quite popular in the brothel.”

You shake your head, sucking in a faltering gasp. “I don’t c - care … I only want you …”

“How reassuring …”

A shaky groan puffs out of him and the sound races straight to your cunt, making you clench around the stiff cock relentlessly carving out a space within you. Your subconscious reaction only seems to make him dig up into your sweet spot all the more insistently and, seething, you close your eyes, dropping your chin to your chest. You could feel the coil inside you slowly tightening just that little bit more each time he slid up inside you, making your toes curl while you struggled just to keep up with the pace he wanted.

Your legs and arms were quickly growing tired though and, with a soft, whining plea, you lift one of your hands to reach for him. Law catches on quick as usual, immediately letting go of your hips so he can curl one arm under your armpit and across your shoulder blades. With very little effort on his part, he hauls you up against him and locks the other arm behind your back so he can hold you in his lap.

“You like it better this way, sweetheart?” He murmurs, bracing his scruffy chin on the center of your chest with his head tilted back to look up at you.

“Ahh - mm, mhm!”

Clinging to his broad shoulders, you adjust the positioning of your feet and bounce on his cock a little more smoothly now. He seemed to hit even deeper than before, knocking something inside of you that made every inch of your body feel like it was on fire. You could hardly breathe through it, sucking in one haggard gasp after another while you continued to work yourself over until you felt near delirious with the need to cum.

You weren’t quite there yet though and you curl yourself around him, tucking your face into the crook of his shoulder so you can inhale the smell of him into your contracting lungs. Pinewood and ozone, the faintest note of antiseptic. You could even make out a faint trace of the dark, heady cologne he hardly ever bothered to put on. It was indescribably intoxicating, and you couldn’t take much more of it.

“Wanna’ cum …” you mewl against his collarbone, feeling like you were moments away from drooling all down the front of him. Your mind was a cotton stuffed mess.

Turning his head, Law presses his mouth to your hair and gently kisses you. “Are you starting to get tired?”

“Yuh - yeah …”

He tsks at that, the sound warm and comforting in your ear.

You suddenly choke on a sharp inhale when he tightens his arms around you without so much as missing a beat, hauling you up even closer to him and prompting you to wrap your legs around his waist with a light jostle. Crossing your ankles behind his back, you hang on for dear life as he somewhat awkwardly goes up on his knees, adjusts the grip he has on you - all without dislodging himself from your pulpy cunt - and then pivots his hips forward to test the angle.

The action rocks you in his arms, increasing the pressure on the downward slide when your soft ass paps against the fronts of his thighs. It knocks the air right out of you and you jolt, lifting your face from his shoulder so you can keen in frazzled, almost hysterical pleasure. You sounded like something wild and mindless.

“Is that better?” He whispers, his tone much too smug for him not to already know the answer.

Law doesn’t even give you a chance to respond before he does it again though, more forcefully this time, and you practically shriek in wordless delight. The momentum of his gravity assisted thrusts builds into the next, and then the next until he was fucking into you at such an enthusiastic pace that you couldn’t even begin to keep up with it.

Your mind completely blank now, you let your mouth hang open in doped out bliss while you freely moan and squeal in pleasure; the sticky wet squelching between your bodies and the sharp smack of skin on skin serving as an all too appropriate backdrop for the sounds you were making. The coil inside you was quickly reaching its breaking point and all you could do anymore was clutch at him, digging your nails into his back while he relentlessly slammed into you.

His straining grunts, so hot and heavy in your ear, had you vibrating like a wound up ball of static electricity and you hung there on the precipice for a horribly long beat, silently praying for the pin to drop. You weren’t sure how much more your aching cunt could take at this level of intensity - and then, so abruptly it almost startles you, he turns his head so he can shove his mouth against your neck and kiss you again.

It was, embarrassingly enough, the abrasive burn of his chin scruff that finally shoves you over the edge.

Toes curling to the point of genuine discomfort, you jerk in his hold so violently that it nearly tips the both of you over onto the ground. Law is quick to steady himself though and he crushes you against the front of him with a rumbling groan while your cunt spasms and tries to strangle his cock in a chokehold. You were far too caught up in the wild, full bodied tremors that were wracking through you to complain about the creaking ache in your ribs from where he was holding on to you so tight, but you also didn’t really care.

You were floating somewhere far above the physical realm, your flesh and blood body little more than an afterthought at that point.

Finally, you come back to earth with a strangled, heaving gasp, hands scrabbling against Law’s sweaty back as you writhe in his arms like you were something feral and untamed. He wasn’t about to let you go anywhere just yet though, and he rocks forward on his knees so that your back hits the rumpled layers of your kimono again. Keeping his arms locked around your quaking frame, he settles close enough to rest the fronts of his thighs on the backs of yours and pin them to the floor underneath him.

The vigorous pounding that follows seems to drag out your soul shattering orgasm to the point of real discomfort and it very nearly sends you spiraling into another. Your legs were flexing in the air, jerking with each powerful thrust of his narrow hips, but he was chasing his own high now and he couldn’t be bothered to stop long enough to pay attention to your desperate bleating. For a brief moment in time, he was a man well and truly possessed.

“Oooh, fuck, you get so tight when you cum, sweetheart, hng - haahn, your pussy’s so good to me, you know that? I’m gonna’ fill you up, baby, you ready? It’s coming …”

You jerk your head in a disoriented nod and Law drops his face to your shoulder, his slender frame shaking uncontrollably with the intensity of his fast approaching release. The obscenely loud, sticky wet squelching that noises between the two of you only seems to highlight the rough, primal quality of the seething grunts and groans that slip through his clenched teeth, rattling around inside your otherwise empty skull. You were starting to ache, in earnest this time, and reflexive tears sting at the corners of your eyes while you fervently cling to him, brokenly moaning at each desperate stroke of his cock.

For better or worse, it only takes a few minutes of this brutal pace to have Law’s hips stuttering and losing their rhythm, his thrusts gradually turning sloppy and uneven before grinding to a complete stop. Heaving, he puts the whole weight of his body into it and slams himself inside the mess he’s made of your cunt, mercilessly rocking you back against the floor once, twice, three times. On the fourth plunge, he suddenly freezes on top of you, lurching with the loss of momentum, and a powerful shudder races down his spine while he sensitively twitches and paints your guts white.

You let out a flustered groan at the sensation, delighting in the way the warmth of his release settles and spreads through you, coating your palpitating walls in creamy discharge. It was enough to send a fresh wave of tremors racing up your legs and the two of you groan in near perfect unison as you both go limp, struggling to catch your breath.

He recovers somewhat quicker than you do, eventually pushing his weight up and slipping out from between your legs so he can tiredly roll over onto his side next to you. You’re still panting when he turns you to face him, gently drawing you up against his shallowly contracting chest so you can nuzzle your nose into the thin patch of hair there. You could still smell him, a faint comfort, through the faint musk and various bodily fluids now sticking to your skin, and you were content to enjoy it for just a little bit longer.

His hand slides around to rub across your back while you both work at coming the rest of the way down from your peaks, a true feat after that unexpectedly intense session, and he lets you press in close until it was hard to tell where one of you stopped and the other began. If asked prior to this, you wouldn’t have thought you’d be all that into role playing in the bedroom but, somehow, it was actually kind of fun with him.

Law did often seem to have that effect on you.

“Hey,” he says at last, bringing his hand up and around to gently brush the hair back from your temple. “You hungry?”

Still thrumming, you give yourself a moment to think about that. “Mm, I could eat.” You murmur even as you contentedly snuggle somehow even deeper into Law’s chest, getting comfortable.

He gives an amused snort and drags his rough palm down along your side, delivering a sharp pinch to the meat of your ass to make you jolt.

“Come on, let’s go see what kind of food we can get in Wano. I’m sure we’ll find something good, or at least something edible.” Pausing, he dips his face close and presses his mouth to the top of your head, speaking into your hair. “And when we get back maybe I’ll eat you next.”

#trafalgar law #law x reader #one piece #self insert bullshit #my writing

[visit-ba-sing-se]

My contribution to the “what happened to Kuzon?” question, I guess. No canon, just me making myself cry. Kuzon was old. He knew that, and with every move he made his body reminded him. Still, he was crouching over to clean the dust from a statue. The monk that it resembled had his eyes closed and seemed to be mediating, blissfully unaware off the world around him. Kuzon sighed. What would he give to just trade spots with him. Once more, he was not sure if he was supposed to find it rather funny or tragic that this small shed, in a small village between somewhere and nowhere, was where his life had led him. His parents had been a merchants. But not the kind of merchant you would meet on the city market and who'd sell you cabbage or fish. The kind of merchant that travelled to Ba Sing Se or Omashu and returned with ancient relicts that they'd sell some fire nation nobleman. Or the other way around, trade spices that would be used to for the spicy pickled kelp severed to earth kingdom royals. And Kuzon had been accompanying them for as long as he could remember, and a lot of it, he had loved. Counting heavy coins while sitting on his father lap, helping his mother chose between different colored pieces of cloth to buy and sell again for more, crossing items from a list before he even could read the words. And of course, he had met two of his best friends on their journeys. Bumi and Aang. And he had believed that that would be how things would stay, and that one day, he would grow up to be a merchant as well. Of course, in his mind he then imagines being the greatest merchant there ever was, who would have dinner with the king of Omashu and make his parents proud. And of course, that dream shattered as childrens dreams do.  One conversation it had taken to tear his world apart. One conversation that he had listend to from the closet in their living room. Kuzon had used to hide when his parents welcomed wealthy clients, as they had never wanted him around then. Today, he still remembered that one trade as if it had been yesterday, not a century ago.

“You know, the prices for those artifacts are going to increase rapidly soon,” his mother had said, her you find my price to high but there is nothing you can do about that voice as he called it. “It is not like new once will enter the market. And I even heard that the government is striating to seize and destroy those that are currently one it.” Kuzon was angry at himself for not taking a peak at what she was selling earlier. Now they were standing with their backs to him and the view was blocked. “Even if you are right, which is not unlikely”, that buyer, a fire nation noble, had responded,  “don't feel any bad at all profiting from that?” His mother had snapped back directly “Oh, don't strike that chord with me. You want to invest. I have an investment to offer. Nothing more, nothing less. This little intermission won't fool any of us, and you know it.” “Fine.” The nobleman than had sighed, as Kuzon had moved his head slightly, desperatly trying to get a glimpse of what had being sold.  “A pity they had to kill all of them.” “They just made the best fruit pies. And they were so fun at parties.” None of this had made sense to Kuzon. Not until he finally had seen what the noble man had just bought. An air glider. Like the one Aang had had. And with that, it had hit him. Fruit pie. Air glider. Aang. Killed. Kuzon had not left that closet until finally, after he had missed lunch and dinner in there his father had discovered him and ordered to go to bed. Of course, looking back, it was childish. But In that moment, he truly had thought that as long as he stayed in the closet, the reality would stay out. The reality in which Aang, his best friend Aang, the funny, caring and genius Aang, Aang who he had spent some go the happiest days of his life with, was dead. And his parents were selling air gliders for profit.  But of course, the reality was there, and it did not care if Kuzo accepted it or not.  He was just 12, and one might say that a kid that age would not understand so much anyway. But Kuzon felt like in fact, he was the only one who did. The only one who saw all the places in which the air nomads were missing. The only one who saw how fearful the merchants from the earth kingdom that used to be good friends of their family now looked. The only one who did no pretend that their firelord was nothing else but a liar and murderer.  All of that had made him wanting to yell. Or cry, Or both. But his parents had taught him not to do so very soon very well and so he did neither.  But he wrote it down. He started with everything Aang had told him about his people, and what he could remember from the times he had visited. He continued with everything that happened then. When his father got drafted for the war. When they started having to say this weird pledge in school. When the man with the serious face brought the letter that made his mother cry. When they had to leave their big house in the capital and move back to his grandparents into a smaller house in a small village. And how despite all of this, the first thing his mom did in her new, small room was to hang up picture of Sozin so that he could stare down from there as well. He wrote down how after that picture changed from Sozin to Azulon, he applied to university to avoid getting drafted himself. The thought of that made him chuckle now. How smart he had found himself to be. Only too find out that at university they may did not teach him how to kill someone with a sword. But to kill his mind with some words. Of course, he had written that down as well. Just as he wrote down the rumors of the deserted admiral, and the drinking songs the other students were singing about bravery and burned towns. Finally, he got into one last fight with his anthropology professor that got him kicked out of university and close to being arrested. After more or less fleeing town, he cut his hair, hid in a few more closets and stole the passport of a poor lad named Lee. Like that, he escaped his military service scrubbing floors, serving tea and unloading ships on docks. He spent some nights in prisons as well, after fights he had picked at night and after assaulting governmental officials. For jokes about Azulon that he alone had found funny. As the result of trying to convince people that attacking Ba Sing Se would not be right. But no one wanted to be convinced, so once more, all he could do was write down what he observed. The cheering masses and tea sipping towns people just as the polluted rivers and starving fisherman. The children playing war in the streets, already so eager to kill and die for honor and glory just as the factory workers with dark circles under their eyes. He hated to admit it now, but during that time, he had been giving close to giving up more than once. He woke up in the morning not knowing which town he was in, nor how he would pay for dinner there in the evening. He had given up his home, his studies, his name. All because he had not been wanting give up on Aang. He could not betray his friend. When he was not able to fight all of them and stop the war, the least he could do was not to become one of them and instead bear witness for future generations to come. But is just got harder and harder each day, and more and more times he scolded himself for being just stubborn and stupid. His friend was dead. The Dragon of the West was at the walls of Ba Sing Se. And everyone just loved Azulon. What difference would it make if he joined them in? Or if he just stopped trying completely? What saved him was a small clay figure of a sky bison. A woman sold it on the market in a town which's name he did not even know. What he knew, however, was that these kinds of toys were only made by air nomads. And that that woman clearly had no idea how much the piece she was offering here was worth. He bought it without thinking twice. And that was how he finally became a merchant. Trading goods became his explanation for traveling up and down the country, searching for traces and hints, gathering artifacts that one way or another that found their way into the hands of people who had no idea what they were holding. Of course, he had to start small. Very small. But he had learned from the best there were. And he had a goal. “Maybe I am naive to think that one day, the war will be over and the firelord defeated. That one day we can speak freely again and that people will come and learn about the airnomads.”, he wrote down during this time, but when that day comes, they need to have something to learn from. After many years, when Ozai already replaced Azulon, Kuzon settled in a small village, where he lived in a small hut with an even smaller shed in which he kept the artifacts hidden. People quickly started avoiding him as the weird old man who in any other place would have already been arrested but here just served as village idiot. He continued writing, but news travelled slow and when they arrived were usually not reliable at all. Because of that, he nearly did not dare to write the first hopeful line after what seemed to be an eternity. Word has it that the Avatar has returned.

And then after another year, despite all odds and just like that, the war suddenly was over. At least so he heard. And noted that the war was over. And then finally, he put the pen down. Everything suddenly had changed. Yet still, it remained the same.

Kuzon was still alone in his hut and with his books, and still no one seemed to care. He had a testamony to make, but no one wanted to listen. They all just wanted to forget so fast.  And he was a disturbance, since they knew that he remembered.  There were rumors that the new firelord, Zuko, 16 and like that himself half a child, wanted to change things and own up the crimes that were committed. Some people pretended to support that. Others openly complained. Kuzon just would like to believe it was true. But he just had stopped trusting in firelords a long time ago.

Still, he tried his best to maintain the artifacts in good shape, but he was old. He had no family. No friends. And the thought that they would remain hidden here after his death, abdomend and forgotten, broke what was still left of his heart.  But here he was, and here they were. Alone. Suddenly, when Kuzon could already feel his eyes filling with tears, he was interrupted by a voice. A very familiar voice.

“Somebody here?”, it asked.  Kuzon was sure that it was only in his mind, brought back by all the memories. Still, while scolding himself for being a stupid old man, he slowly turned around, expecting to see nothing except for the wall of his shed. But his mind had not tricked him. There he stood, smiling that familiar smile that Kuzon never would have thought he would see again. Aang. And Kuzon cried.

#avatar #Avatar The Last Airbender #aang #kuzon #My writing #atla fanfic #atlla #avatar aang #why did I do this? idk #the good thing is that I cannot sleep anayway #the bad thing is that is is 1:48 am and I really need to get stuff done tomorrow #also I am sad now

[warmau]

love languages x day6

*this post was commissioned | commissioner asked for something loving + warm.....so here is something overly cheesy indulgent and hopefully warm

sungjin

acts of service 

doesn’t think twice about peeling all of the tangerines himself and sharing the halves with you without a word - just one slice for you, one slice for him

can’t leave you alone when you’re cooking or cleaning. 

you tell him he’s busy from all of the bands schedules and he should just let you do it for once but a moment later

he’s standing beside you and chopping vegetables or he’s snatching the broom from you before you can even get started

you don’t complain too much though, he does look really cute in the kitchen apron

a man of little words he literally does all of this because he wants to say he loves and appreciates you but the words don’t come out easy like they might for other members

so when you’re alone and you tell him you love him you cant really get worked up over the fact that he barely mumbles something into your hair

because he’s shy about it - but he’s not shy about getting up first and bringing the cup of coffee to you in bed

people don’t give him as much credit as they should, which frustrates you, because sungjin is the kind of boyfriend and just the kind of friend who will bend over backwards for the people he cares for

from lugging all the instruments around, helping members with suitcases, or volunteering himself for the short end of the stick in bad situations

sometimes it gets so bad you have to put your hands on his face and steady him and be like sungjin, no. the boys can handle it without you.

and he’s like but im the leader-

and youre like shhhhhhhh before i kiss you so hard you cant breath for the next five minutes

and sungjin stares at you with those big brown eyes and hes kinda like well now im just gonna say something so you do tha-oH 

you and him get like an hour alone before he has to leave on tour and it is supposed to be full of sweet words and i miss yous

and sungjin just comes in with a bag full of groceries and you’re like is that for your tour

and he’s like oh no this is some stuff that i noticed you needed from last time 

and you’re like babe you’re leaving in like thirty minutes stop thinking about things to do for me 

and he just looks at you and says; “i can’t stop, im always going to be thinking about what i can do for you.”

just another way of saying ill miss you and i love you suppose LOL

jae

words of affirmation

will never admit it out loud but if someone isn’t telling him he’s doing a good job. he will die.

and guess who gets that job? you - the second jae fell in love with you (and he do so very clumsily) you have been hired

jae does this kind of little look over his shoulder at you whenever he does something he thinks is cool or fun and you have dated for a while so immediately you’re like 

“that was amazing come here” and he trots over with literal hearts spinning around his head (youngk gagging in the distance)

but if you miss the little beat then jae just looks like a puppy that got left out in the rain until you rush over to do damage control LOL

with work or anything like that it’s this sort of playful thing between you two

where you’re like jae you are the best at skateboarding. singing. playing guitar. all of it. and he’s like am i the best? really? and you’re like YES THE BEST

but the real affirmation he chases from you is the guarantee that you ........ love him

some people like to be close without words, some people can talk with their hands or gestures 

but jae wants it said - and you are happy to oblige 

kiss him all you want and not like he’s gonna not enjoy it but when you say something about how he makes you the happiest person on earth well some things are just better you know?

when you say this stuff to him while you’re ontop of him and jae just - eyes rolling back but let’s move on

when days are really bad or jae is not in a good mood everyone has learned that the cure for him is your voice

so sungjin calls you and even if jae tries to be like IM FINE sungjin puts you on speaker and is like “please cheer him up and be as gushy as possible in front of all of us”

you: “jae you know i adore you and you’re my pumpkin pie sweeti-”

jae skidding across the table to take you off speaker: “I WILL TALK TO THEM IN THE OTHER ROOM-”

he scurries out to listen to you coo to him privately and the rest of day6 is like waiting 

and jae comes back, shining like a sunbeam until dowoon is like 

“so pumpkin pie sweetie are you feeling ok?”

jae about to fling the phone at dowoon before sungjin is like HEY-

youngk

quality time 

seems like a total homebody hermit who is like leave me be im ok living in solitude like a monk on a mountain

but the reality is that if he loves someone, and he loves you, if you two cant have that time together - he just feels wrong

like the gravity around everything else he is doing is just off centered 

and everyone can tell because it is like a raincloud just starts following him around

and also - he gets very grumpy

jae teases him and is like awwwwwww do you miss your s/o are you getting all saaaaaaaad 

and youngk is like shuttup no im not im fine

sungjin (who has a brain) is like no he’s literally going through withdrawal and then hits your number on the speed dial

he’s ok with group dates and being around the band and your other friends but there is really nothing like one on one intimacy to him

and that could literally be as innocent as sitting in the back of an empty bus, holding hands and sharing each other as pillows

to locking the bedroom door and falling over onto his sheets

tries to be slick about it though and texts you like “wanna come over?” and you’re like “oh ;)” and he’s like “........jae will be in the other room don’t lose your mind in the gutter”

but plot twist jae is not in the other room actually youngk has bribed everyone to be gone for an hour or two and you well

you pretend not to notice for your easily flustered boyfriends sake

gets the softest when you are alone ........ he puts up a front around others but if it is just you 

running your fingers through his hair and listening to him sigh happily in your neck 

that’s when the tender words like “i can’t live without you” come out

funnily enough he’ll say something so beautiful just for you to hear and when you kinda hear a similar sound lyric in day6s next album you’re like oh? was i inspiration?

youngk getting red down to his neck: NO?

wonpil begs you guys to do more PDA or something because he’s a sucker for love and sometimes he feels like you guys hold back

and youngk is like if you want to live another day-

jkjk

you just hold youngk’s hand and tell wonpil not to worry, once everyone is gone and it’s just you two, it is actually quite romantic

everyone is like we cant imagine youngk being sweet

but he really is, he cherishes you so much and he needs you to himself far away from the world and all its stress

what im saying is yes he seems like he’d be like leave me alone but like dont leave the room im in and actually just stay right here in his lap

wonpil

receiving gifts 

and not in a materialistic kind of way but in a “im always thinking about you” way

there is no feeling like seeing wonpil after a long time and the first thing you do after running into his arms is going “i got you something while you were away!”

and as nice as big, expensive, frilly gifts on holidays are - what wonpil really loves the most is when you drop something in his hands and tell him you noticed he needed it 

“oh, i remember you said you didn’t have anymore bandaids at the studio” “you should take sunscreen with you - here i got you some” “you’ve had that old jacket for so long, let’s go get you a new one for the winter.”

everytime you say something so casually to him, it just makes the inside of his heart burst because

you are always listening to him, observing him, thinking about his needs

and if that’s not love then. well.

you staring at a bunch of tickets and receipts in a box in wonpils room: what is this.........

wonpil: it’s from all our dates! they’re the gifts of the good memories!

you trying not to cry because he’s the cutest person on earth: o-oh

lmao jae will sometimes have to stop wonpil if they’re packing for a tour because wonpil could fit a suitcase full of stuff you’ve either given him or he got with you like

wonpil: im taking the blender. me and my love bought it at ikea three months ago

jae: im sure the hotels will have blenders...........

he attributes sentimental value to anything you touch really and wonpil can be overwhelming in all aspects of love

he likes touching you, he likes giving you uplifting words, he likes doing things for and he of course wants to spend every second with you

but something about having things that are shared

or just his because you gave it to him ............ another level

but don’t be fooled. he showers you in twice as much because he wants you to feel that same thing he feels everytime

dowoon 

physical touch

hand is on you. on your shoulder. on your waist. on the top of your head if need be. 

he will try to inch down from your waist when he thinks no one is looking before sungjin is grabbing him by the ear like boy - i taught you better

you: it’s fine i dont mind

dowoon: *:P intensifies* 

but really he is like an overactive puppy when it comes to you because wow you are tangible and you love him and he loves you why cant he touch you every. second. of. the. day.

the funny thing is when you first started dating it was nothing like this - dowoon can be shyer than most and so it took him close to two weeks to gather the courage to hold your hand first

but now that it is comfortable and established it’s like he cannot live without it

kisses? gotta have them, before the set. after the set. when you wake up together in the morning. before you go to sleep.

you pushing his face away like you have morning breath and he’s like i will kiss you if my life depends on it

you also have noticed that if you are in a situation together where touching would be super inappropriate or something

dowoon will find a way to make contact. he will either play with the fabric of something you’re wearing or he’ll bump your hands together when you reach for something

part of you assumes he’s just being cheeky, but the reality is that touching for dowoon does so more than any words or gifts or anything

because you cannot lie through a touch - he either feels your warmth or he doesn’t 

and when he doesn’t, life just sucks plain and simple

youngk: “jesus you’re on each other like a bad rash”

jae: “you sound jealous”

dowoon and you: “true youngk you do sound jealous.”

youngk grumbling: “young people....................”

there probably hasn’t ever been a moment where you’re ordering something at a fastfood place and dowoon is like order for me too and youre like do it yourself and hes like im busy and youre like busy doing what and hes hugging you from behind and hes like idk im busy holding my entire world now can you tell them i dont want pickles  

#day6 scenarios #day6 au #day6 #jae au #youngk au #dowoon au #wonpil au #sungjin au #writing commissions

[kitkat1003]

When the Tide pulls away and the Earth Sharpens to Steel

Chapter 2: But He Burns All the Same

HUGE Warning for this chapter -Temporary Suicide -Graphic Depictions of Violence -Blood and Gore Nothing too crazy imo, but still enough cause for an alarm I imagine.  Just want y'all to know what you're getting into. Enjoy!

AO3 Link

In the end, very little changes.  Tang still continues through the days, as winter turns to spring turns to summer turns to fall.  Almost lazily, Bajie and him fall into a routine just a little different, where they no longer have to dance around their feelings.  Lingering touches can mean something, can lead to something.  Tang can blush and get teased and not be terrified of being found out, of ruining anything.

The days are very much a routine.  He goes out to meditate, and comes back to help Bajie cook.  He’s not actually much help, considering that of the two, Bajie has far more experience in cooking, but he certainly does try.

Bajie seems to enjoy teaching Tang, regardless of Tang’s missteps.  Tang thinks Bajie likes feeling like the smart one for once.  Likes seeing Tang fumble around awkwardly.

Bastard.

The other monks notice Tang’s chipper mood, but no one was ever that interested in anything Tang has done or been, unless it’s to admonish his misconduct.  So, they leave well enough alone.

All save for one.

Tang is coming back from meditation to see what wonderful concoction Bajie is cooking up for dinner when a hand grabs him by the shoulder.  He whips around, startled, and comes face to face with

“Bao,” he grinds out.  “Have you taken up stalking?”

“You’ve been a ghost in the monastery for months,” Bao argues.  “I just wanted to see what you were up to.” 

He steps around Tang and towards the doorway.  “Collecting occult objects?  Sneaking in meat?”

Tang runs so that he’s back in front of Bao, trying to stop the monk’s advance.  His face is bright red, a mix of rage and embarrassment.  If Bao finds out about Bajie-well, the whole monastery will.  The one thing that brings Tang joy will be thrown into scrutiny, until he can’t enjoy it anymore.

“I wanted some privacy.” It’s not exactly a lie.  “And besides, no one liked living near me anyway!  Shouldn’t you be happy I’ve found a space far away from the rest of you?”

“Why hide it then?” Bao argues, smiling when Tang cringes away from him.  “Clearly, you’re doing something you know is wrong.”

“That-that isn’t-why won’t you leave it?” Tang clenches his fists, voice quieting as he speaks, as if the thoughts turn everything to a hiss.  “If you know I’m doing bad things, then why do you care?  Everyone already thinks I’m a bad person!  What, you just want to satisfy your curiosity?”

His voice has more hurt in it than anger, because he’s spent his entire life knowing his life’s features were segmented into categories. There was the place he lived, the people who lived there, and him.  He could never be part of that whole.  He’s the outlier, always has been, and he’s learned to live with that.

It still hurt, when he thought about it.

But Bao was a reminder.  Bao pushed.  Tang could take the neglect, the snide looks, but Bao would talk.  Would intrude into the space Tang carved out for himself and himself alone, and prod at Tang’s sore spots until he snapped.  And Tang was so tired of that, nowadays, because he finally had someone that made him believe he might not deserve it.

A shadow falls over them and anything Bao was going to say doesn’t come out, silencing into a squeak.  Tang watches Bao’s gaze rise up, up, up, before locking onto something.

Bao’s eyes quickly fill with fear.

A very familiar hand rests on Tang’s shoulder, though Tang is surprised to feel Bajie’s grip tighten.  The claws dig just a little into the fabric of his shirt, though Bajie’s grip is always careful not to damage Tang or his clothing.

A growl comes from Bajie’s throat, too.  When Tang looks up, he’s surprised to see Bajie’s eyes glowing, his teeth bared.

“Tang is my mortal.” Bajie’s voice is cold.  Rage is painted in his posture, as he leans down so he’s eye level with Bao.  He huffs a breath through his nose, one that ruffles Bao’s hair.  “Mine.”

Bao flinches.

“You stay away, or I’ll find you.  You say a word about this, and I’ll find you.  Got it?” Bajie pokes a claw into Bao’s chest every time to punctuate each ‘You,’ eyes narrowed to dark slits.Bao nods, very quickly.  His head is a blur.

Bajie leans in even closer, so that his snout is touching Bao’s nose.

“Now, start fucking running.”

Bao stumbles back, trembling.  He turns on his heel and sprints down the hall, disappearing behind the corner.

Tang blinks and looks up at Bajie.  Bajie continues to stay in a battle stance, free hand splayed out with claws bared, fingers twitching.  Likely for his rake, Tang surmises.

“Bajie,” Tang reaches up and places a palm flat against the side of Bajie’s face, gentle.  As much as it is charming to have a strong demon as his protector, Tang much prefers his Bajie when he’s off the battlefield.  Bajie responds best to touch, regardless.  Sometimes words don’t reach him. 

 “Dinner will run late if we stand out here all night.”

Bajie blinks a few times and shakes himself off, lifting his hand from Tang’s shoulder carefully.  His shoulders slump down as he relaxes, a little weary after being so tense.  He rubs the back of his neck sheepishly and smiles, a little strained.

“Right.  Uh, sorry.”

He ducks beneath the doorframe and heads back into their room.  Tang follows.

They make dinner in relative silence.  Tang has gotten rather proficient with a knife, and he chops up the vegetables as Bajie sets up the broth.  Bajie’s started making the noodles himself.  Apparently it’s far cheaper if you do, even if it takes longer to complete.

When they’re done, and when Bajie pours out their servings so they can eat, Tang speaks up.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he says.  “I could have handled it.”

Bajie sets his bowl down with a heavy sigh, hands clenched into fists in his lap.

“He shouldn’t talk to you like that,” Bajie says slowly.  “No one should.”

“Bajie,” Tang starts, a sad smile of acceptance already on his face.  “Plenty of people here are like that.  I’m used to it.”

“You shouldn’t be!” Bajie explodes.  “You shouldn’t have to deal with all that, it’s none of any of their business what you do!  People shouldn’t expect the worst from you!”

Bajie stares down at him with a plea in his gaze, like he’s begging for Tang to understand, but Tang looks away.  Something about what Bajie is saying, some part of Bajie’s expression, makes his chest twist something painful.  Maybe Tang has always known, deep down, that being treated the way he is is wrong, maybe he just buried that part down so it wouldn’t hurt so much.  The earnest look in Bajie’s expression, the desperation-that digs that part back up, and Tang struggles to bury it again.

“It doesn’t matter.  People think what they will of me.  I just don’t want their opinion to be any worse,” he sighs.  “I can handle what they throw at me.  I can prove that I’m better than they are.”

Bajie’s reaches over, tilting Tang’s head up and forcing Tang to look at him again.

“You don’t have to hold yourself to such a high standard, you know.  You’re allowed to be angry.  I get mad enough, and you never tell me not to be.  Why can’t you get upset?  Why do you gotta handle it all?”

Tang blinks, and his vision blurs.  When had anyone, before now, told him that he was enough?  Just as is, without need for a perfect posture, unbreakable composure.  When he was young there were times where he could almost say he was liked, but soon the other children pulled away and Tang was forced to climb his way up to somehow reach their level again.

But here Bajie is, on the same level as him, telling him the view is just fine right here.

Bajie pulls him forward, and Tang holds Bajie as tight as he can, hiding his tears in Bajie’s chest.

When he finally lifts his head up, Bajie is smiling down at him.

“See?  Nothing wrong with gettin’ upset.  Better to go through it and come out better for it than to let it sit and grow.”

“You’re just saying that because you liked going ‘protective demon’ on Bao,” Tang mutters, grinning despite himself.

“Hey—well, maybe, but that’s not the point!”

Tang presses his face into Bajie’s chest to muffle his chuckles.  Soon enough, Bajie is laughing too.

At night, when they lay together, Bajie likes to pull Tang close.  Tang will pepper Bajie’s jaw with kisses and lean his head against the demon’s chest, listening to the rumbling purr of delight Bajie is unable to stifle, along with Bajie’s heartbeat.

Being in love is something Tang finds unexpectedly warm and comfortable.  Like slipping into a slipper fitted perfectly, he stands taller and walks with far better purpose than he had before.  Even the whispers of how he isn’t a proper monk do little to stifle the swell of elation sitting in his heart, each breath making his ribs creak with strain, as if his heart couldn’t fit it all.

It’s a good type of pain, to be in love.

One night, though, Bajie presses Tang so tightly against him that Tang startles.  He’s about to ask when his lips are stolen in a kiss, and, well, he doesn’t mind that at all.  He leans into the heat, making his cheeks blush.

But a hand creeps up his thigh, beneath his clothes.

Tang is suddenly consumed by panic.

He pushes away, quickly, wide eyed and trembling.  Glancing at Bajie’s eyes show no anger, more confusion and hurt.  They’re both breathless, but Tang has to take an extra minute to get his lungs to cooperate, to be able to breathe at all.

He knew this would happen.  This was the whole point of the challenge, was it not?  He just...he hadn’t thought of it, between the shock of Bajie actually loving him and the fluttery feelings he had for the demon as well.

“I-I’m sorry,” he sputters, embarrassed.  Ashamed, even.  

He’d known that women were expected to perform for their husbands, and while Tang wouldn’t call himself a wife, he knew that there was always the expectation to perform if he began this sort of relationship.  To be unable to...it’s shameful.

Bajie looks very much like he wants to reach for him, but he keeps his hands pressed against his chest, away from Tang.  Worried.  Nervous.

“I-it’s okay.  I’m not-I want you to be comfortable.  Did I do something wrong?” Bajie assures.  Soothing.  The lack of anger makes Tang relax a little. 

“No-no, you didn’t, I just…,” Tang doesn’t know how to explain.  “I-do we have to?”

Bajie blinks a few times, confused, and he rubs the top of his head in thought, looking around before his gaze settles back on Tang.

“I thought…,” Bajie starts, haltingly.  So very careful.  “I thought that this is what mortals do.  Anyone does.  You know?  Is this about the monk thing?”

“No,” Tang replies again, firm.  “It’s hard to explain, I just…,” He takes a breath.  Shuffles a little closer.  

Bajie’s hand settles on the bedroll.  Tang places his own on top of it, like an olive branch.  He feels Bajie relax, a little.

“What do you like about me?” Tang asks. 

Bajie tilts his head to the side, at the question.  It’s an odd one, but Tang has heard time and time again that consummation equals the truest love.  And yet, if that were true, why love any other part of your partner?  Why think of anything besides this moment?

Tang has a plethora of things he loves about Bajie.  He hopes that Bajie is the same.

“I mean it literally,” Tang clarifies.  “Why are you in love with me?”

Bajie shifts, laying on his back and staring up at the ceiling.  His hand does not move from where it is, in Tang’s, so he rubs a circle into the back of it with his index finger.  He turns it into a spiral.  Bajie’s hand is big enough for it, after all.

Bajie’s voice starts soft. “I like the way your hair looks.  It’s windswept, almost.

“I like how your face looks.  It’s very soft, and comes to a nice point, you know?  I like your eyes, because they’re a brown red I haven’t seen before, and I like your smile, because it’s kind of cheeky but mostly just kind, and I like that look you get on your face when you read, or when I make you something to eat, and I like that your hands are soft, and—”

Bajie stops, for a moment.  His eyes are wide, face  flushed, like the more he talked, the more affection burned him.

Tang thinks he’s nearly a cherry tomato himself, with how much he can feel his face steaming.

Bajie shifts to face him again.

“I love that you can talk to me about things like this.,” Something warmer enters Bajie’s voice, right then.  “Most people either tell me to go or don’t tell me anything.  You stand your ground, but you don’t just shove me away.  You tell me why the things I do upset you, so I can fix it.  Most people are too scared to bother.”

“I am scared of you, sometimes,” Tang whispers.  He’d kept that fact a secret, afraid of the look it would put on Bajie’s face, to know that Tang, even with all his love, fears Bajie even a little.

“But you still try and stop me if I push too far.  That’s trust.  That’s bravery,” Bajie rebuffs, steadfast even with the hard truth laying between them.  “I love that about you.  You’re brave.  You trust me.”

The way he says that takes Tang’s breath away.  It takes Tang a few moments to even collect himself, and when he does he still feels like he’s going to melt into a puddle.

“Right,” he starts, and Bajie chuckles before he continues.  “And what does that, any of that, have to do with,” He gestures vaguely to the whole concept they’re avoiding.  “Sex?”

Bajie opens his mouth, and then closes it.  Tang watches the thoughts bounce around Bajie’s brain with a fond smile, until Bajie finally looks back at him.

“I guess it doesn’t,” Bajie mutters, and then laughs, incredulous.  “You’re so smart, you know that?  Sometimes I wonder if you’re wasted, here.” 

He reaches over and brushes a hair back behind Tang’s ear.  Tang chuckles, both at the sentiment and at the motion. Perhaps laughing will help the butterflies out of his stomach.

“This place is my home,” he says, and he shrugs.  “I belong here.”

Bajie’s smile flattens into a straight line for a moment, but he doesn’t argue.  Silence falls upon them, as Tang’s fingers trace shapes into Bajie’s hand and arm, until Bajie speaks up again.

“I uh-I thought for a second it might be because of, uh, this,” Bajie gestures vaguely at his person, and Tang raises a brow.

“You just gestured to all of yourself,” He says.

Bajie flushes, embarrassed, before huffing out, “The biggest hurdle most mortals have to get over is that I’m not exactly conventionally attractive, by mortal standards.” 

Bajie doesn’t look him in the eye.  It’s said matter of factly, and there’s an undercurrent of hurt that has Tang’s brow furrowing.  Tang doesn’t know about the partners Bajie’s had before, but he does know Bajie has been chased out of many towns.  He wonders how much of it was because of Bajie’s attitude and how much of it was his appearance.

“That’s true.  You’re not,” Tang replies bluntly.

Bajie seems surprised, before Tang continues.

“You’re not mortal.  You’re not human.  It would be ridiculous to use those standards to classify you as attractive or not.  By my standards….”

He trails off for a moment, and when he continues, his smile is coy.  “Well, you’re quite outstanding.”

“Tang,” Bajie starts, and it comes out choked out, the blush moving from embarrassment back to attraction.

Tang scoots closer, and reaches up to Bajie’s face.

“You have lovely ears.  Perfect for hearing anyone who would dare attack you.  They blush like your cheeks, did you know?  I always love that about them.  Gorgeous blue eyes.  Two different shades, even.  Most mortals are stuck with one, but I suppose this was a treat from the gods for me,” Tang fiddles with the ears for a moment, before his hands trail down. 

Bajie doesn’t seem to know how to handle this much affection.  His eyes are locked on Tang’s, and his lips are slightly parted in shock.

“You have such strong tusks.  Very imposing,” Tang wraps his fingers around them, grips them for a moment.  “Perfect for biting through most anything.  A strong jaw.” 

He trails the shape of it with his finger.  “To show you mean business.  Powerful vocal cords.”

Tang smooths a hand down Bajie’s neck.  Bajie shivers.  “To shout at anyone who would challenge you.  Broad shoulders so that you loom.   Sharp claws to cut through any obstacle.  Strong arms to lift that rake of yours.”

“Burly legs so you can move faster than any mortal would dare, and,” Tang has to laugh. “An adorable tail that you can’t stop from wagging when you’re happy.”

Bajie just stares, as if no one has ever said something like that to him in all his years of life.  The tragic thing, to Tang, is that it’s likely that that’s the case.  He pulls himself up, so that he and Bajie are eye to eye.

“I almost forgot your lovely snout,” he leans forward and places a kiss there.  “Perfect for kisses.  All of it makes you the most beautiful demon I’ve ever seen.  My Demon.  My Bajie.  My Pigsy.”

Each phrase is punctuated by another peck.  The last title snaps Bajie out of his haze, and he grins, lopsided and gorgeous.

“Pigsy?” he asks.

Tang flushes a little.  “Do you not like it?” 

Bajie lifts Tang up and shifts so he’s on his back, placing Tang on top of him.

“I love it,” he murmurs.

Tang smiles and curls on top of Bajie like he’s always belonged there.

They lay there for a moment, until Bajie opens his mouth.

“Did I still win the challenge?”

Tang laughs so hard  he cries, tickled by the memory of a conversation what feels like a lifetime ago finally coming to its close, leaning down until his forehead is resting against Pigsy’s.

“Of course you did.  You got me, didn’t you?”

They have arguments.  Disagreements, really.  Arguments imply real hatred and they never have that, not for each other, but they do disagree.

Bajie wants Tang to come with him, to leave the monastery and go out into the world.  But Tang can’t.  Not when everyone here already expects him to fail, to be the worst of them, to fall away from the religion and be the lesser monk they think him to be.  What would they say, if he disappeared into the night, never to be seen again?

“I don’t understand why that matters,” Bajie stresses, during one such disagreement.  “You know they’re never gonna be satisfied.  And what about when they find out about me, huh?  How are you gonna swing that?”

“I know!” Tang cries, head in his hands from the frustration.  “I know, I know that, but what can I do, Bajie?  I can’t just leave, they’re my family, this is my home.  What don’t you understand?”

Family is difficult to handle, and Tang knows his isn’t perfect, isn’t terribly kind, but it’s his.  It’s so hard to imagine disappearing.  Could he even come back?  Obviously not, they already dislike him, so there’s no way he could leave.  How could he keep in contact?  The mail moves so slow, and how would they write him back when he’s moving around so much?  Would they even write to him?

Bajie doesn’t get it.  Bajie doesn’t have a family like Tang does.  Hecan just salt the earth and leave and lose nothing.  Tang could lose everything.  He needs his foundation.  He needs something to go back to.

“Tang,” Bajie starts, soft and gentle, but unrelenting.

Tang raises a hand to silence him.

“Stop asking,” He says firmly.

His voice takes on a more desperate edge as he adds a quieter “Please.”

He needs to figure this out for himself, and if he’s constantly being pressured one way over the other, how can he make an informed decision?  He just needs a little more time.

Bajie’s brow furrows, eyes going dark for a split second before his expression empties, like everything has been poured out of him.  Tang stiffens, because the lack of reaction is frightening, somehow, like he’s been pushed to the edge of a cliff, and isn’t sure how long the precipice can hold him.

But then Bajie leans down, and presses a kiss to his forehead, soft.

“Alright,” Bajie whispers.  “I love you, you know.”

“I love you too,” Tang whispers, promises, hopes.

Bajie starts leaving.  At first, it’s only for a few days.  Then, the trips become longer.  A week.  Two.  

He’s never gone longer than a month, and he always tells Tang the night before that he’ll be gone in the morning.  Tang will wake up to the feeling of a soft kiss to his forehead and he will watch Bajie trudge out of their room as sunlight peeks over the horizon.

Tang hates every second that Bajie is gone.  Hates that the monotony of his normal life is no longer satisfactory.  He had forced himself to be satisfied with the mundane, the normal, the expected.  Then Bajie had come in and smashed all his expectations and made Tang yearn for more again.

At the very least, Bao is no longer a problem.  Tang feels a sense of satisfaction that when he enters a room, Bao is quick to leave it.

“I wish you wouldn’t leave so much,” he says, during a night when Bajie is here, and close, and Tang can lay with him.  “You never seemed bothered before.  You never went anywhere for this long.”

“I had a goal, then,” Bajie rumbles, voice soft.  “You’d be surprised by how easy it is to forget about other stuff when you have a task.  But I’m a demon, with a nine toothed rake that isn’t for tilling land.  I’m not made for domestic life.  Not when I’m just getting started.”

The explanation feels almost like a farewell, and something in Tang’s chest squeezes tight in a panic.  Tang isn’t a demon, he isn’t a fighter.  He’s the definition of domestic, isn’t he?  If Bajie isn’t made for domestic life, maybe Tang isn’t made for him.

“Can’t you stay?” Tang whispers, interlocking his fingers with Bajie’s.  His hand is dwarfed by Bajie’s large palm.  “Just for a little while.  Just—am I not enough?”

“Can’t you come with me?” Bajie rebuffs, voice almost too pointed.  “Aren’t I enough?”

And, well, there’s no winning the argument there.  Unstoppable force meets immovable object, and Tang’s afraid of the crash.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.  “It’s never because you aren’t enough.” 

He needs Bajie to know that, to know that Tang isn’t doing this because Bajie failed, in some way.  Tang wishes he could feel secure enough to jump ship, to leave everything behind like Bajie wants.

But, regardless of what Bajie thinks, Tang has never been brave.

Bajie says nothing.  Tang wonders what the silence means.

As Tang wrestles with himself, his wants, his life, he finally comes to his conclusion.  He rethinks life, his own, from beginning to present, and like any good story he wants a happy ending.  Who doesn’t?

And he realizes, at the center of it all, that a happy ending isn’t possible if Bajie isn’t there.  That in every path Tang’s life leads him down, Bajie has to be there if it's to end with a smile.

And if Bajie needs Tang to leave, then Tang will swallow his terror and take the leap.  He has to at least try.  If it doesn’t work, if Tang fails, then...then he’ll only have himself to blame, won’t he?

He has to try.

There’s preparations to be had.  He researches.  While Bajie is out on trips to who knows where, Tang learns about the marriage methods of demons.  Apparently, when a demon takes a mortal’s hand in marriage, they kidnap the mortal, steal them away.  There’s an exchange of courting jewelry.  A physical claim.

He doesn’t have the money for jewelry, but he thinks he could do something else.  So he buys some paper, some leather, some twine, and carefully, he constructs a book.  A journal.  Something that they can write in for years to come, something they can share.  Maybe it’s unorthodox, maybe it isn’t good enough, but Tang wants to be able to look back.  He wants to see Bajie’s scrawled sentences, words written comically large next to Tang’s smaller, tighter script.

Maybe it isn’t the right way, but it’s Tang, in every sense of the word.  If Bajie rebuffs that, then there’s nothing to be done.

He writes out a script.  The next time Bajie leaves, Tang works on his speech, writes and rewrites.  He memorizes until every line is burned into his head, and then goes over it again, because he knows that when he says it he’ll stumble.

He plans, and strategizes, and hopes.

 This time, when Bajie returns, Tang can tell something is off. Bajie is….distracted.  He spends more time off to himself, staring out the window, than he does interacting with Tang.

It makes Tang anxious.  It feels like the moment before an explosion.  He wants to broach the subject, but he’s afraid of being caught in the blast zone of whatever Bajie is hiding.

So he sets the plans aside and focuses on lifting the terrible fog that makes Bajie stare at him like Tang is already gone.  Like Tang is some far away place that Bajie cannot reach.

It seems to work.  Tang complains uproariously about different texts he’s been reading in the interim of Bajie’s stay, and he gets Bajie to laugh.  He helps make dinner and remarks on how invaluable he is to Bajie’s cooking process.  Bajie rewards him with a few stories of some customer service issues he had to resolve when he worked as a cook.

“She had to get thrown out by the owner, she was screaming so loud,” Bajie laughs.  “It’s a good thing he settled things with her and not me.  I woulda given her the what-for, if she’d screamed at me.”

“I have no doubt,” Tang giggles.

It settles, as they become comfortable with each other again.  Every time Bajie leaves and comes back, it’s like they have to slowly get back in sync with each other.  Sometimes it takes longer than Tang likes.  Like now, where it feels like it takes weeks.

Bajie stays for an entire month and it takes most of that to get back to that comfortable place their relationship should always be in. A month full of Tang making excuses to wait to propose, making excuses to be patient, to give it a little more time.

But, after a month, things seem comfortable.  Tang swallows his fears.  Bajie called him brave once and Tang has to live up to that, right?

Except, after a week of things seeming okay, Bajie suddenly closes himself off again.  Goes quiet, empty.  Pensive and secretive in the worst way.

“Don’t shut me out,” Tang whispers, a hand against Bajie’ cheek.

Bajie’s sitting down, staring out the window, and Tang is standing, as he slowly turns Bajie’s face toward him.  “Is something wrong?  Tell me, please.  You’ve been...different.”

Bajie still stares at Tang as if Tang were the world, except now it’s as if the world is crumbling in front of him.

“I’m not going anywhere.” Tang promises.

He leans in, so his forehead rests against Bajie’s.  Bajie leans into the touch, eyes shut.

“I’m sorry,” Bajie’s voice is soft.  “I—nothing’s wrong.  I’m just...I’ve been thinking too much.”

“That’s a first,” Tang smiles, trying to joke.  

Bajie’s lips twitch upward, but he doesn’t smile.

Tang glances back, towards the book hidden, and thinks of the speech burned into his brain.  He could let everything out, right now.

But Bajie looks like he needs more time.  Looks as if Tang were to push, he’d crumble.  And Tang is terrified to see Bajie break, so he decides to wait a little longer.  To stall, a little longer.

It takes far too long to coax Bajie to lay down that night, pulling his gaze away from the starry sky and back to the ground, back to Tang’s eyes.  Tang searches for something familiar in Bajie’s, but the picture is too blurred to be recognizable.

“You look tired,” he hears himself say.  “You should get some rest.”

Bajie doesn’t reply, but he does lay down, and Tang curls up against him, like he always has.  Like he always should.

“I love you,” he whispers, promises, hopes.

Bajie must say it after Tang is already asleep.  He must.

That’s the only reason Tang wouldn’t hear it said back to him.

Tang does not see Bajie sit up in the night, knees pulled to his chest.  He does not see Bajie turn to look at him, eyes watery.  He does not see Bajie run a hand over his head, shaking, glancing between the door and Tang over and over.  He does not see Bajie reach a shaking hand over Tang, a breath away from touching down, from shaking Tang awake.  He does not see Bajie pull away with a choked breath so quiet it’s almost unheard even by Bajie’s ears.  He does not see Bajie cry into his knees for far too long, and he does not see Bajie wipe his eyes, look over, and press a feathersoft, gentle kiss to the top of Tang’s head.  He does not see Bajie stand, slowly, and walk out the door, never to return.

Tang sees none of this.  He wakes up the next morning to see Bajie gone, with nothing but the indentation he left in the bedroll to indicate he was ever there.

It’s odd, because typically Bajie says something before he goes, but Tang chalks it up to the odd mood Bajie was in.  He must have simply forgotten.  The alternative is of course laughable.  Impossible.

So Tang moves on, continues with his life, and waits for Bajie to return.  

Because he has to.

Right?

It takes three months for Tang to start doubting.  

It takes six for it to start to hurt.

A year passes.

Tang feels the shelter he’d given his heart cave in as he buckles under the weight of heartbreak.   

The cliff has crumbled beneath him.  He’s fallen over the precipice, and the worst part is that no one, absolutely no one, would ever think to reach and catch him.  

Heartbreak feels like grief.  Tang has felt grief before, when his beloved masters would eventually fall to time.  Loss of a person and loss of love are equally painful, because once something is gone it can never be reclaimed.

He goes through the motions.  Moves slow, but moves regardless, like every step is through mud. He gets up, gets breakfast, gets some new scrolls.  Meditates, waits.

He just keeps on waiting.  He refuses to get rid of the fire pit Bajie made, nor the kitchen utensils, nor the pot.  He cleans them, scrubbing them all until they shine in the sunlight, polished and pristine, and then he places them back in their spots with a reverence reserved for the gods.

When Bajie gets back, he’ll want them to look nice.

Another few months pass, before logic kicks in.  Of course Bajie would leave.  Why stay with a nobody, why stay with a mortal, a monk?  There are far too many cons against the few, if any, pros.  Tang should have known that this was an eventuality.  

Sure, he’d dreamed of them growing old together, or spending eternity together, or any number of things.  But those are all that those thoughts will ever be, dreams.

Tang is a fool, to dream.

The utensils collect dust.  Tang does not read books. He doesn’t do much of anything.  He meditates, more to give himself an excuse to sit, with his eyes closed, and forget existence.

He settles again.  He must.  Logic holds him together like cheap glue, and while his cracks drop pieces as he forces himself to continue to move on, move forward, it holds enough.  Enough that he can breathe.

“Have you heard?” 

Tang is eating lunch in the common area, idly chewing on rice, and he only hears the conversation because he’s not focusing on anything else.

“The monk Triptaka is going on a journey!”

“Isn’t his name Tang Sanzang?”

“Yeah, but he goes by Triptaka.  Maybe wants to get away from a name shared by…”

Tang ignores the glances thrown his way.  He’s dealt with them plenty.

“Anyway, he’s going on a journey to get holy scriptures.  I’ve heard Bodhisattva Guanyin is even overseeing the journey herself!  She amassed a group of demons to protect him.”

“Wow, who?”

“Sun Wukong-she had to release him from under a mountain.  She also got, um, I think a dragon prince to be his steed, a demon named Sha Wujing, and one named Zhu Bajie!”

Tang freezes.  Logic starts cracking.

“What?” he finds himself saying, turning to the group.  They seem startled by his intrusion into their conversation.

“Uhhh,” one of them goes, cringing away from Tang in confusion.

“Who is on the journey?  The last name you said.” The words keep coming out of him, and Tang doesn’t have the time to figure out where they’re coming from.

“Zhu Bajie?” The name falls out of the other’s lips, and Tang recoils.

No.  No, it must be a mistake.  It couldn’t be.

A monk named Tang, on a journey with Zhu Bajie.

The thought is acid in his brain.  It burns, and he feels his hands shake.  The bowl drops to the floor, and shatters against stone.  Rice is wasted at his feet.

“Tang?” someone says.

It doesn’t matter that this is the first time in months that anyone has spared him a drop of concern, because Tang is running, running to their room, running to the room he’s been waiting in for months and then was grieving in for longer as the pieces of his broken heart started trying to slide back together.

Everything is shattered again, and Tang doesn’t know if he can put himself back together.

He gets to their room and falls to his knees in the center, the thud muffled by a bedroll he hasn’t had the energy in months to fold or move because that would require realizing that one half of the space would never be filled again.  He covers his mouth with his hands.  He can’t stop shaking.

He can’t.

A monk named Tang, on a journey with Zhu Bajie.

He thought it was because he was a mortal.

A monk named Tang, on a journey with Zhu Bajie.

He thought it was because he was a monk

A monk named Tang, on a journey with Zhu Bajie.

Gods, he didn’t think it was because of his name, but even that avenue is gone.

A monk named Tang, on a journey with Zhu Bajie.

Tang sobs.

A monk named Tang, on a journey with Zhu Bajie.

In the end, when you strip away his mortality, you strip away his monk status, when you strip away his name, all that’s left is his character.  His personality.  Himself.

A monk named Tang, on a journey with Zhu Bajie.

And that’s what Bajie ran from, wasn’t it?  That’s what he abandoned.  He didn’t abandon a mortal monk named Tang, he left Tang.  The person he is at his core.  Bajie looked, was given Tang’s heart, and decided that wasn’t what he wanted.

A monk named Tang, on a journey with Zhu Bajie.

Tang laughs.

It’s funny, he thinks, after hours curled into a ball, heaving sobs and crackling laughs.  It’s so terribly funny, so terribly cruel, so terribly poetic.  He knew from a young age that he wasn’t enough, that he wasn’t a good monk, wasn’t a good person, but he’d tried.  He’d tried so hard. 

And then Bajie had come along.

And Tang had hoped.  Selfishly, he’d slacked on improvements, believed that he was enough as is.  Bajie never seemed to want more from him, never expected anything special, and Tang had grown lax, grown complacent.

No wonder Bajie had left him.  Tang was never good enough for anyone.

But maybe he can try to be.

He can’t change who he is.  Clearly, his 25 years of failure have shown him that.  He can’t change who he is at his core, but if he fixes everything else, maybe that will be enough.

Just maybe, then, he will be enough.

Step one.  Get rid of his mortality.

Bajie and him can’t share eternity if he’s dead a hundred years into it.  If he’s to reinvent himself into something worthy, into someone worthy, he needs time.  Mortality cuts that short.

He is a ghost in the monastery in the sense that he appears in rare bursts and his continued existence leads to whispers and rumors.  He leaves and does research in the library.  The stares of disapproval no longer stab through what once was pride, because that space in his chest has been torn open.  The knives pass right through the hole left in its wake.

He’s fervent.  Doesn’t sleep.  Doesn’t eat.  There is no point in maintaining a body doomed to die, regardless of his efforts.  He can care about himself when he’s worthy, when someone tells him he matters.

And no one has told him that.  Bajie can’t count anymore.  Not until Tang gets him back.

A year of research leads to nothing. 

Tang lives in the barest of senses, half dead on his feet as he works.  He has to figure it out, he has to.  The books he find tell him little.  But, then, he remembers the town.  The townspeople.  

People know plenty, when you know how to get it out of them.

He is a ghost in the town in the sense that he hides in its darkest, coldest corners and listens.  Travelers come in and out, always with stories.  Slowly, Tang learns how to use a stiff drink and a kind smile to pull the stories out.  Slowly, Tang learns how to twist until the people he talks to think that it was their idea, to say what he wants them to.

Tang does this all quietly.  He’s always had a way with words, always too afraid to use that power.  After all, a true monk wouldn’t be so manipulative, wouldn’t want the knowledge of anything beyond the buddhist texts, much less the ravings of wordly travelers.

Bajie is worldly.

Tang wants.

He has heard, from a million different whispers, of how Monkey King is able to live forever.

Folktales fall from slippery lips and Tang listens.  Tang learns and relearns, drags the specifics out with carefully placed drinks and sugary sweet honeyed words that coax out more information.  This is important.

Monkey King’s spirit was dragged down to Yama’s realm, he hears.  Monkey King blotted out his name from the ledger, so he may never die again.

Die again, he thinks, and realizes you have to die once for such a thing to be true.

He considers the stares aimed toward him.  He considers the lingering whispers of how he doesn’t belong, how he isn’t true to his practice.  He considers the years of him asking what else?  What else is there to learn?  He considers cold, disapproving eyes that followed him from youth to adulthood.

He considers blue, beautiful ocean blue ones that looked at him as if he’d hung the stars and he considers blue eyes gone in the night without a word.

Considers dying.  

Considers.

Acquiring poison isn’t difficult.  He buys it in the market (He used to go with Bajie where’d they’d pick out the vegetables and noodles for the ramen that night and make fun of weird shaped vegetables and laugh) with some coins Bajie left behind (left behind with him, like him, left left left abandoned because Tang made Bajie wait made Bajie lose love Tang ruined everything—) and stuffs it in his pocket.  He eats dinner (Bajie made it better he was always the better cook and Tang is nothing isn’t anything just the worst monk in the world—) and carefully pours himself some tea, mixes in the poison, and breathes.

It barely changes the taste.  There’s something bitter on the edge of it, but Tang drains the cup and sighs.  

He sets up his bedroll and lays down, eyes staring up at the ceiling.  He can feel a slight pain in his chest.  Likely due to the poison.  It’s not a very painful one, slow but not cruel.

Like this, he can practically feel Bajie next to him, a hand over his heart.  That must be where the weight on his chest comes from.  Must be.  Bajie has to be here, beside him, at the end of it all.  Where else would his love be?

They were having a conversation.  One hard to navigate, but Bajie was trying, so Tang would too.

“Why are you in love with me?” he tries to say, but the black edges take over his vision.

Dying isn’t so bad, he thinks, when it’s like this.

He comes to with little difficulty, laying down on stone.  The sky is a dark purple, with blue clouds.

He feels empty.  Weightless.

He stands and is immediately shuffled into a line of a million people, all spirits heading in one direction.  The dead are the dead, and he is placed with the typical mortals, those without plans.

Some are far older than him, some far younger.

The land of the dead is a palace.  He can see the entry gate, a speck in the distance.  The dead whisper amongst themselves, but he says nothing, stepping out of line.

He heads down the path away from the gate, off to the right.  Occasionally, he ducks out of the way of guards, which only proves that he’s going in the right direction.

Being dead doesn’t change much.  If anything, he feels a little lighter, without a physical body to hold him down.

He finds the room he’s looking for after about an hour, a large, seemingly endlessly long book sitting on a table, open on a table.  Tang walks over and when he looks down on it, he can see thousands of names.  Every second, another changes status.  Black for alive, white for dead.

White is a mourning color, after all.

He quickly begins searching for his own name, flipping through page after page with utter abandon and scanning, because time is of the essence.  He is fairly certain that there’s a reason only the Monkey King was known to have pulled this off, because it isn’t as though anyone besides King Yama and his attendants are meant to touch said book.

Not that Tang much cares who is and isn’t supposed to be doing this.  If he’d cared at this point, then, well, he wouldn’t have bought poison for himself.

He’s finally making headway, recognizing a few names from those who once lived in his town, when he hears footsteps coming toward his direction.

Well, not footsteps.  Hoofsteps.  The sound of cloven feet on tile.

Tang schools his expression, and continues to flip through the book, even as the steps come closer.

“Hey!” He hears.

He looks up.

Ox head and Horse face were mentioned in the stories detailing Monkey King’s escapade through the land of the dead.  They were the ones to drag the Great Sage’s spirit down, after all.  Ox head has dark eyes and a shining golden nose ring that accents the gold on his arm and leg bracers.  Horse face has golden earrings to match, and his outfit is much the same.  They both wear a leather-esque set of armor, ornate in its stitching, but scuffed with dirt from sparring matches or nonsense fights.

Tang looks them up and down, and decides immediately that they do not compare to how Bajie intimidates.

“Hello,” he greets, keeping his voice even and uninterested as he glances back down to the names on the page.

Ox head and Horse face stare, clearly taken aback by Tang’s cavalier attitude.  Tang is simply glad they can’t see his knees wobble behind the desk.  Sweat trails down the back of his neck.  He cannot fail.

He won’t.

“Mortals aren’t supposed to touch that,” Ox head growls out.

Tang looks up again, face the perfect picture of confusion, before he smiles.

“Oh,” He laughs a little.  “Clearly there’s been a communication error here.  King Yama sent me to fix a clerical mistake with this book.  I’m just looking for it now.”

He looks back down, and bites his lip to stop himself from smirking.  Time is of the essence.  If he finds his name before they catch onto the ruse, far better for it, right?  He just needs to find his name.  He can tell he’s close.

“Nobody told us about this.  And we’ve never seen you before,” Horse face interjects.

“Yeah, we’re in charge here.  Someone would’ve said something to us,” Ox head agrees.

“If you say so,” Tang replies.  “I’m simply following orders.  King Yama is a very busy man, and he wanted this completed quickly.  If you want to waste his time by dragging me to him just to get the same answer I’ve told you, be my guest.  

“But,” Tang shrugs and smiles. “I don’t believe King Yama is very forgiving, when someone is wasting his time.” 

He continues to flip through the book, ever patient.  When he glances up, for a split second, he can see Ox head and Horse face share a look.

“...You know what, I think I remember being told about, the, uh, clerical thing,” Horse face finally says.

“Yeah,” Ox head agrees, awkwardly.

“Don’t, uh, don’t tell King Yama about this, alright?” Horse face tries for a smile.

“We’ll just keep this between us,” Ox head fidgets with his arm bracers.

Tang smiles, and he doesn’t know what he looks like, but the two demons freeze.

“Of course,” hHe replies.

The pair leaves, rather quickly.

It takes Tang a few more minutes to find his name, written in white on the yellowed pages.  There are pens near the book, so clerical changes must be a plausibility.  He takes one of the small pens and dips it into the inkwell.  He carefully drags the ink across his name, blacking it out.

With a harsh yank, his soul is pulled away from tangibility, and he drops the pen with a clatter as he is rocketed back up, up, up—slammed into his body with utter abandon, weightlessness and emptiness replaced with the heavy feeling of embodiment.

He wakes up with a gasp, and when he breathes he coughs, as if his lungs collected dust in the time he wasn’t using them.  He moves his limbs experimentally, and everything moves fine.  His senses are a little duller, he thinks.  His vision was always poor, but now it’s even moreso.  He doesn’t smell much of anything.  He can barely taste his own saliva.  There’s a ringing in his ears that doesn’t go away, but eventually he gets used to the sound.

He sits up, glancing around. Everything in his room is untouched.  He is unsure of how long he was dead.

To the left, he hears the shuffling of footsteps.  He turns his head.

Bao is scrambling back, half fallen over, hand gripping the doorframe.  His eyes are wide, his breaths are coming out as gasps.

“You—” Bao breathes.  “You were dead.  I-I checked—you were dead.”

Tang stares.

Bao.  Terrible, awful, disgusting Bao.  A nuisance that plagued Tang’s life for years, a person who took great joy in Tang’s upset.  A person who, at one point, was someone Tang desired the respect of.

Terrible, awful, disgusting Bao, trembling at the sight of him.

Tang smiles, slow, letting his lips curl up to show a flash of teeth, and finally learns the joy that comes from being feared.  He winks.

“Only technically,” He says, almost hisses, and he finds a perverse sense of utter satisfaction as Bao pales, turns on his heel, and runs, as fast as he can.

Away from him.

Tang laughs to the disappearing sound of footsteps, and breathes in new air.  He thinks Bajie would be proud of him, as he stands and brushes himself off.  He’s finally stopped caring.  

Immortality achieved.  But there’s still more to do.  If he’s to be worthy, he needs power.

Which means he needs to learn how to acquire it.

He takes what will be useful, settles it into a pack, and leaves his home of a quarter of a century behind without much thought.  So silly of him, to be attached to it.  If only he’d left sooner.  If only he’d stopped caring sooner, maybe this all could have been avoided.

He leaves the utensils.  Leaves his books, the dictionary, and keeps the memories safe in the space where his heart once resided, heading off to the next town.

He becomes a vagabond of sorts, coasting from town to town.  He will devour the town library’s collection, searching for something, anything, and perhaps partake in town gossip.  People have so much to say, after all.  Finding the pearls of wisdom and knowledge beneath the swine tales, so to speak, is something he becomes rather shrewd at.  

Some of the people he talks to apparently find him attractive.

“Has anyone told you that you have beautiful eyes?” A woman he met in a small restaurant asks him.

 I like your eyes, because they’re a brown red I haven’t seen before.

“No,” Tang replies.  “But it’s kind of you to say.”

He’s drawn to a town over whispers of mystic artifacts and knowledge being held there.  It’s a rather unassuming town, no different from the others, but the library is a bit bigger than most.  He pours over texts, though in the week he spends searching for something of use he comes up short.

Frustration has him nearly tearing the pages, and he lets out a harsh breath through his nose and forces himself to be patient.  He has eternity, after all.  As does Bajie.  The execution of his plan needs to be perfect or it won’t work.

A tap on his shoulder.  Tang turns his head to glance up at the librarian, previously absent or seemingly oblivious to his existence.  She stares at him with sharp, knowing eyes.

“You seek something?” she asks.

“Knowledge,” Tang finds himself replying.  “Power.”

She smiles at him.  It’s a wicked type of smile, but nothing cruel towards him.

“Come. I have something for you to see.” She turns, and gestures for him to follow. 

Tang nearly trips over himself rushing to her side.

She leads him to a room behind the library desk, a small office with more bookshelves filled with large, old scrolls and books.  He watches her trace her fingers across the different scripts, searching, before she slides a book out from the shelf and turns, handing it to him.

“If you want power, this is how you will take it,” she says.

She opens the book in his hands, flipping it to a specific page and pointing at the picture there.

“A gem,” she explains.  “You fill it with life, and it grants you power.”

Tang reads over the text.  You take a gemstone, one typically one clear in color for better results, and then use the life force of others to power it.  After a certain amount of power is added to the gem, you fuse it with your being.

“I’ll have to kill humans?” he asks, glancing up at her.

She chuckles.  “If you want, but it would take a lot.  Demons are far more...potent.”

Tang nods.

Demons.  That may take some work.  Demons are a breed far more powerful than humans, and even as an immortal being, Tang is fragile.

And, before even that, there’s the matter of acquiring a gemstone.  Those are often expensive.

He snaps the book shut.

“Thank you.” He bows his head in thanks.  “I’ll be taking this.”

It’s not a request.  He leaves with the book in hand and starts his search for a jewel.

He finds it three towns over.  There’s a jeweler there with an assortment of gemstones.  All definitely out of Tang’s price range, but now he’s located them. 

He thinks of stealing, but that’s a fool’s errand.  Taking something that can be bought with hard work is something an idiot would do.  Tang wants to be able to move between towns as he pleases, and gaining a reputation of a criminal makes it far less likely that people will speak to him, will tell him the things he needs to know.

So, he gets a job at a restaurant.  Bajie did it once and so shall he.

The work gives him something to do.  Being immortal means sleep and nourishment are no longer a requirement, and without those time killers the days and nights stretch on longer and longer, Tang made painfully aware of every passing hour, minute, second.  His purpose, his goal, remains the same, but with his job now there’s something else to occupy his time as he plans.

Plus, it helps that he learns how to use a knife effectively.  Bajie taught him the basics, but when it’s the lunch rush you learn far more how to cut, dice, chop, and slice efficiently.  If he’s to kill demons, he needs to be able to fight.  

His coworkers do try to start conversations with him, but he is far too focused on the task at hand to join in.  They learn, eventually, that he isn’t up for talking.  Interacting with people is only useful when there is something to gain from it.

Life has made it very clear that friendships do not come to him, so there is no bother hoping.  Tang is chasing the only person who gave him some semblance of respect.  He does not need, nor want, anyone else.

No one typically comments on his appearance.  His skin is paler than most, eyes dark and shadowed.  Still, that’s not enough to raise suspicion of him.

Typically, anyway.

“Do they know?” A man asks, when Tang comes up to the counter to hand him his order.  “Do they know what you are?”

Tang glances at the man with a small smile.

The man pales.  

Tang smiles wider.

“Here’s your order, sir,” he says.

The man leaves.  Quickly.

It takes him a year to accrue enough funds to acquire the gem.  It’s a clear white stone, almost in the shape of a teardrop, and it sits comfortably in his palm.  The jeweler had asked if it was a gift for someone.  Tang chose not to reply.

Now, there’s the matter of finding a demon to power it.  Again, not very hard.  Demons are well known to ravage towns from time to time.  Steal their crops, take the flesh to devour, things like that.  The next town over has been struggling with one.  Nothing too powerful, or else they’d have had a far bigger outcry, but of interest nonetheless.

He leaves his job without notice.  He doesn’t care if they’re bereft of a cook, not when he’s so close.  He rushes off, clutching his gemstone and his knives and disappearing into the night.

The demon doesn’t attack during the day, so when he arrives he has enough time to ask around.  Gather details.

They’re some sort of rhino demon, evidently.  Charging through homes in the night, taking mortals to consume, leaving nothing but demolished buildings and blood in their wake.  The townspeople are terrified, spending most of their days fortifying their homes.  They’ve neither the money nor support to escape, and sending for help will likely take too long.

That’s fine.  Tang can take care of this for them.  They get to be saved, and more importantly, he gets the power he needs. 

Tang stands at the entrance to the town, the moon high in the sky, patiently waiting for the demon to arrive.  His knife is gripped tightly in hand.  He has his pants rolled up to his knees, though his sleeves still hang loosely.

He hears the footsteps before he sees them.  Charging hoofsteps on the ground, and the glint of blood red eyes.  The rhino demon is large, at least twice his height, and is aiming for him, specifically.

Tang side steps, holding his knife out and letting it slice through the demon’s hide as he charges past.

“Sloppy,” he calls, turning around.  

Blood drips down the demon’s side.  The demon snarls, baring his sharp teeth.  He shakes his injured leg out a few times, splattering blood across the dirt, before he stomps it back down onto the ground, readying his stance for another charge.

Tang readies himself.  “Not used to a human who fights back?” 

Bajie taught him to fight.  Well, more how to dodge, because he said if Tang got hit by a demon even once he’d probably die on the spot.  Apparently, humans are very fragile.

“Do you have to be careful, with me?” Tang asked.

“A little,” Bajie had admitted.  “I mean, you’re not made of glass.”

“I’d hope not,” He’d laughed, sitting on Bajie’s shoulder..

“But I have to be a little careful,” Bajie shrugs the shoulder Tang isn’t sitting on.  “Most demons wouldn’t.  I, uh, want you to be ready for that.”

Tang scritched the place behind Bajie’s ears that always made a purr rumble up Bajie’s throat, smiling when he heard it right on cue.

“You have a lot of enemies?” he’d asked.

Bajie laughed.

“Something like that.”

The demon charges, and Tang jumps, stepping onto the demon’s large horn and using it as a springboard.  He leaves a large gash in the demon’s back when he descends, stumbling a little when he hits the dirt.

There’s a roar of pain from the demon at that.

Tang smirks.

He ducks when a large fist is levied his way.

Jump.  Sidestep.  Dodge.  Slash.

Close quarter combat would be to Tang’s disadvantage, considering one blow would break him into pieces.  The demon knows it, refusing to allow Tang an opening to make any more distance.  Tang doesn’t let that deter him, using the milliseconds between strikes to slash at whatever part his knife can reach.

By the time he trips, the demon is bleeding in more places than Tang can count.  Not bleeding much, the gashes rather small, but bleeding a little from a lot still has an impact.

Of course, getting choked also has an impact, Tang finds.

A large hand grips him by the neck when Tang trips, squeezing tight enough to bruise and then some.  If Tang were entirely mortal, well, this would be it for him.  Needing to breathe is certainly something required of Tang, in a sense, but he can hold his breath for far longer.  He makes his eyelids flutter, sliding them shut to keep the illusion that he’s dying. 

As this happens, as he goes limp, the demon huffs. Even relaxes a little, as if the battle’s won.

Tang opens his eyes and smiles.  He slashes once more and catches the demon across the throat.

Blood sprays out as if it were thrown out of a bucket, coating Tang’s face before he’s dropped.  The demon presses his hands to his throat and chokes, coughing up blood and wheezing for air.

The demon drops to his knees.  Tang comes close.

He drives his knife into the demon’s head, right below the horn, and the demon goes limp.

Tang side steps the falling body.

He takes a few deep breaths, watching the blood pour across the dirt in a way he’s never seen before.  He’s never watched anyone die like this.  He’s never made someone die like this.

All life is sacred, he was told.  All life was to be protected, cared for.  That’s why he was vegetarian.  That’s why he was a monk.  He should feel something, staring at the dead body before him.  He should be devastated by his actions.  He should be horrified.

He should care, but the demon was killing this town.  All life cannot be sacred when one life takes so many.  And, besides that, he needs the power.  If this is how he is to gain it, so be it.

He pulls out the gem, fumbling a bit.  His hands are wet from the blood.  He presses the gem against the demon’s body and waits.

Sure enough, energy flows into it.  The gem warms in his grip, and Tang swears he can hear a rattling scream before the gem begins to glow pink.  Reaching towards red, but not quite there.   

He holds the gem up in the moonlight, watching the light filter though it.  It’s too clear, still.  Once it’s near opaque-that’s when it’s ready.

“Look on the bright side,” he says to the body, though his voice is hoarse.  His throat is sure to bruise, and it makes it a little difficult to speak.  “Now that you aren’t murdering families in the night, maybe you’ll be of use.”

He pockets the gem, and after stealing some hanging clothes from the village—he feels little remorse, considering he saved the town—leaves the body to rot.

He washes himself off, burns his bloody clothing.  He’ll have to be smarter, he thinks, about how he kills.  Clothes are not easy to come by, and Tang doesn’t enjoy the idea of taking new clothes every time he kills a demon.  Far too much work, honestly.

He cleans off his knife once the rest of him is free of blood, staring at his reflection in the water.  The knife glimmers in the daylight.  The gemstone weighs heavy in his pocket.

He travels on the words of humans towards demons, flitting through the towns of the former and murdering the latter, and finds it a little isolating that he sees himself as neither.

The isolation is nothing new, though.  Tang has always been alone.

It’s after the sixth demon he kills that the gem starts to glow with promise, rattling in his grip as it begs for an outlet.  One powerful demon would have brought it to this point easily, but while Tang is no longer mortal, he is still terribly human, which means he is terribly weak.  He has to find the scraps of the demon world, those so weak they spend their days with mortals, hiding amongst them while trying to live a normal life.  He finds them using sigils that allow him to follow their trails like a scent, and he is silent as the grave in the night, knife steady in hand.

He’s gotten rather proficient with a knife, but he hates using it.  Too messy, too close, too personal.  He’ll find something more suitable later.

For now, there’s the matter of making sure the power he won (stole is such a dirty word, and is it really stealing if he beat the demon fair and square?) stays with him.  Consulting the book he took from the library, he knows he needs to establish a physical connection to it. 

That requires effort.  But Tang is nothing if not stubborn enough to make it work.

That night, he takes off his shirt and folds it carefully, setting it down beside him.  He places the gem on top of the cloth, and then uses his finger to trace the line where he needs to make the incision.  

He grabs the knife and follows his finger’s line down the center of his chest with the tip of the blade.  

Up and down, up and down.  

It starts to burn.  He trembles.  

It stings, aches, sharp and raw, and the knife slips from his fingers.

It drops, he presses a shaking hand to the wound.

Gasping for air, he coughs on agony.  Chokes on it as he wrestles with the pain of the action.  The urge to heave makes him shudder.

He isn’t unused to pain. He’d slipped a few times, cut his fingers while preparing dinner with Bajie.  The bruises on his neck took weeks to heal and asphyxiation burned.

But nothing like this.  Carving flesh, your own flesh, and having to continue regardless of every logical, emotional, and primal part of yourself screaming at you to stop is a challenge Tang didn’t think would be so hard to undertake.

Not for the faint of heart, the book said.  

His is already shattered, isn’t it?  What’s another break?

He takes a piece of wet cloth and wipes away the excess, patching up his failed attempt and making sure everything is clear.  He cleans off the knife, and takes a deep breath.

He raises the blade to right beneath his chest, closer to it than his stomach but still enough below that it isn’t exactly where his heart resides.  He hisses a breath in through his teeth as he sinks the blade in again.

Up and down, slowly pushing in deeper and deeper until the blade presses into flesh.

Up and down, like cutting vegetables, steady.

Up and down, deeper with each movement.

Blood wells up and pours down his chest as he slices deeper.  The stream buffers with every rise and fall of his chest as he takes deep breaths.

His hand shakes.  Pain is all he can think of and he pulls out the knife when he manages to make an incision a centimeter deep.  

Deep breaths.  Focus.

His teeth are clenched so tight they might shatter in his mouth, as he reaches over and grabs the gem.  He sets the knife aside and uses one finger to pull one side of the incision apart, creating more space.

His skin is clammy, sweat dripping down as he fights to keep himself from curling in on himself and screaming.

The blood pools down his legs, dripping toward the ground.

The gem sits comfortably in his palm, as he drags his tired limb up to press the stone into the newly made space.  His fingers are slick with blood, fumbling and terribly unsteady, as he forces the gem in deeper, until it pushes apart his flesh even more.

The sound is wet and sticky, as if his flesh were overwatered rice.  He swallows back nausea at the thought.  His breaths are haggar pants, wheezing gasps as his lungs beg for air below the lump of pain that tightens his throat.

The power hums, as he presses a flat palm against his chest, holding the gem in.  It pulses once, twice.

And then everything pitches into white hot agony.  Tang screams.

White becomes red in his vision as power surges through his core, the smell of burnt meat rising up to his nose as the gem clings to his flesh and fuses with it.  He can feel it touch bone, pressing against it.  He can feel veins crawling beneath his skin like worms, forcing their way into him.  

He curls in on himself, holding himself up by his forearms trembling against the ground, as something inhuman breaks through any barriers Tang once had and makes a home in his center.

It feels like hours.  Like centuries, even, as he twitches uncontrollably with every spark of energy that courses through him.  He coughs, and blood splatters onto his knees and onto the ground.  He spits a few times, to get the rest of it out of his mouth.  The metallic, bittersweet taste lingers on his tongue.

He swallows the urge to vomit up the meager meal he had a few hours earlier and breathes hard through mouth.

And then, as quickly as the pain comes, it vanishes.  Warmth spreads through his being, a soothing balm against the agony that threatened to pull him under.  Skin and flesh knit itself back together, even his first attempt healed within moments.  Where there was once pain there’s adrenaline

Tang pushes himself up and wipes his mouth.  A flash has him staring at his palm in surprise.

Crackling red energy twirls around his fingertips.  It bathes his skin in warm light, and when he clenches his fist and opens it again the power settles in his palm like a flame. Swaying with the wind, it moves in time with each breath.

His eyes glow with promise, as power surges through him.  He throws his arm out towards the firewood and the red energy crashes against the wood, splintering it and creating a blaze that shoots up tall, the flame rising up towards the treetops before it settles.  

He lets out a half hysterical laugh, a hand still against his chest.  He traces the veins that pulse outward, bright red, and imagines just how powerful he’ll be with more than six demons, more than ten, more than a hundred even.  It doesn’t matter how much it’ll take, he’ll make it happen.

“Just you wait, Bajie,” he whispers, grinning, imagining warm blue eyes, imagining the room they shared, imagining a new one.

The journal, the speech, it sits in the forefront of his mind.  He hasn’t had a chance to give either, yet, but that’ll change.  It’s only a matter of time.

“I’ll catch up to you soon.”

#kitkat1003 #dadswap au #lego monkie kid #monkie kid #monkie kid tang #monkie kid pigsy #gore #blood

[whatifxwereyou]

The Oncoming Storm Part 10: Distance

Liu Kang x Reader and Kung Lao x Reader (gonna do both, two paths!)

Man, the vibe between these two fine men is so different. I'm so into it! ALSO have some exciting stuff coming. Gonna try to update both days this weekend, and then setup some... very spicy/fun/dangerous romance stuff? Might add in some "choose your own adventure" style choices before we get to that big choice Lol. ENJOY! Much love.

Part 9 Part 11 Chapter Index

You rested on your side with your head in Kung Lao’s lap, a decision that you’d had no part in making. He held your hand while the monks tended to the wound on your side. You’d pulled more of your stitches than you’d noticed when you and Liu Kang had stopped to examine your wound. You could hear him saying he told you so in your head. You owed him an apology, you supposed. Kung Lao’s thumb brushed over the back of your hand and you were momentarily distracted from the rest of night.

Your exceptionally long awful horrible and terribly confusing but also kind of wonderful night. What a whirlwind.

The way that the monks fretted over you was embarrassing. It had done nothing to ease Kung Lao’s obvious guilt. You were fine! They’d been practicing and it had been an accident. Besides that, you’d had fun with him. You hadn’t wanted him to go easy on you and he hadn’t. You were grateful. Would he ever trust himself in a fight against you again?

After a lengthy discussion out of earshot the monks decided to cauterize the wound to prevent further bleeding since you didn’t seem to be clotting properly on your own. You’d agreed when it had been presented as the only option just to feel like you’d had some say in it. Liu Kang had done the same for your arm the other day and you wished he were there to do it this time too. You’d been spoiled by his magic in comparison.

They’d hooked you up to an IV of fluids to help you recover from the blood loss and set upon the task. It was a painful and miserable process that crippled you from the onset. Kung Lao stroked your hair soothingly and urged you to squeeze his hand. You weren’t sure if he was helping or not, but it was sweet of him to try.

Once the agonizing process ended, the monks suggested you stay for a while so they could keep an eye on you. While they cared for you on and off, Kung Lao talked. He was good at that. He comforted you with distraction and told terrible jokes to try and make you laugh. Eventually silence had fallen, and he had taken to running his fingers through your hair with his eyes closed.

From the way the monks spoke, morning was fast approaching. You hadn’t felt so exhausted and afraid to sleep in years. If everything hadn’t been such a mess, then you would have been impressed. As time passed the pain faded to a near memory. It was only then that you realized that you hadn’t spoken a single word since you’d agreed to have your wound cauterized.

“You don’t have to stay.” If Kung Lao needed you to absolve him of guilt, then you would gladly do so.

“I’m staying.”

“It’s been a long night, Kung Lao. You need rest too.”

“I’m not leaving until you can.”

“You don’t owe me this, Kung Lao. This isn’t your fault.” You turned so that you were rested on your back and Kung Lao helped you settle against his legs. Of all the places you thought you’d end up, head rested in Kung Lao’s lap was not one of them. Boy, you could use a drink.

“Then whose fault is it, exactly? Yours?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I know that it’s not my fault, Y/N.”

“Could you tell that to your face?” You reached to poke the underside of his chin. He smiled, as if relieved to see you joking with him again.

“I’m staying. And I’ll make sure you get back to your room.” He poked you right in the chest.

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“What’s ridiculous is that I am being perfectly charming and on my best behavior and you’re arguing with me all while using me as a pillow without so much as a thank you. You can’t just use me, Y/N.” He said it in that boyish way, as though he was teasing you for having a crush on him. You definitely had had a crush on him when you were a kid. You didn’t know what you felt about anything anymore.

You laughed and swatted at his hand that rested on your shoulder. It hurt to laugh. “I could be here for a long time. You’re better off not waiting for me. Presumably, you have things to do today and probably got an hour of sleep at most.”

“Well, you’re lucky that I’m curious to see how long it takes before my legs go numb beneath your dainty little head.” He patted your shoulder and so you reached to pat his hand. Just as when you’d been kids there was no arguing with him. He would do what he wanted to do and there was no stopping him no matter how idiotic it was.

“Well, if I fall asleep and drool on you then that’s your fault.”

“I’ve come to terms with this disgusting sounding fate, Y/N. You’ll just owe me.”

“I will not be in your debt, Kung Lao.”

“You already are. I saved you from that fire, remember?”

“Oh? I didn’t realize you were keeping tabs!” You closed your eyes.

“I never forget, Y/N.” He whispered, picking up your hand and tracing lines along your palm with his index finger. He then regaled you with a tale of a time where he’d run an errand for Raiden and had dislocated his shoulder, tried to pop it back into place and had done a piss poor job of it. You cringed the whole time, but he had been delighted in disgusting you without you being able to escape. His voice droned on and you almost fell asleep.

Thankfully, a monk came over to you and asked you to sit up. Kung Lao, without being asked, helped you upright. It was remarkable how comfortable he was with touching you. Chen, the monk, was one of the few who you had formed a bond with during your stay in the infirmary. She’d taken to teasing you about your close friendship with Liu Kang and from the look in your eyes, you were certain this moment was only going to make that teasing far worse. You could see it in Chen’s dark eyes. It was coming.

Chen tested your reflexes, took your pulse, and checked on your wound before removing the IV and wrapping the wound tightly. “Alright, Y/N. Everything looks okay. No more bleeding and you’ve finally got some color back. Promise me that you’ll rest. And that you’ll stop bleeding all over our temple?”

“Listen, I didn’t try to bleed on anything!” You assured your friend who looked at you as if to say that was a lie and that if she saw you in the infirmary for a new wound by the end of the day then you wouldn’t hear the end of it. You avoided eye contact. “I’ll rest. I promise.”

Getting to your feet, Kung Lao joined you and offered you an arm to steady you. You swatted it, blushed, and then walked on your own out of the infirmary. Kung Lao’s eyes were on you as you went and then he followed behind you.

“Hey, you’ve got enough color back to blush again. That’s a good sign.” He leaned close enough to your cheek for you to feel his breath and you swatted at him again. For someone you hadn’t seen for years he certainly was comfortable being in your personal space.

“I’m not blushing. And I was fine, even before.”

“Is it so hard to admit that I make you blush a little?” He teased. “And you were definitely not fine. No one’s going to believe you when you say that if you keep lying.”

“I wasn’t lying!”

“It’s okay to be honest about your feelings, Y/N. All of them. Really.” He stopped in front of you, and you stumbled to a stop before him, having to place a hand against his chest to steady yourself. You took a step back and he tilted his head confidently, giving you that smirk that could melt pretty much any heart, you were sure.

“Kung Lao, really?” You rolled your eyes at him, but your heart was definitely fluttering in your chest, betraying you. “Look, I’m going back to my room now. You can go do… whatever it is you do around here, Lao.”

“Right now, I happen to be walking you back to your room.” He shrugged. “Are you feeling weak, Y/N? Do you need me to carry you?” If he hadn’t said it in such a teasing and taunting sort of way, then you probably would have considered it. Your face was hot with embarrassment. He grinned in delight, proud to have thrown you off.

“I think you’re overtired, Kung Lao. You’re clearly not thinking straight.” If he was going to tease you, then you would tease him right back. It was only fair, after all. You stepped a bit closer to him and he cocked a curious eyebrow. You tilted your head back as you drew closer and made to touch his chest but then pulled your hand back at the last second. He was very still. “I can walk just fine.”

You then stepped around him and continued down the hall. He turned to watch you walk away, and your face burned but you talked yourself down quickly. Then he hurried his pace to catch up with you and joined you in your walk. It was quiet after that for the most part, as if you both had plenty to think about. You were tired. Drop dead tired. Even so, you felt far more stable on your feet than you had the rest of that night. The quiet gave you time to think, which you weren’t sure you liked or not. You had way too much to think about.

When you made it to your room, you pushed open the door and thought your bed had never looked more inviting. It wasn’t even a particularly comfortable bed, but you were still looking forward to flopping into it. You turned to find that Kung Lao remained in your doorway, resting against the frame with his arms folded over his chest, admiring you with a smile. He did that a lot- openly admired you. You were going to have to find a way to cope with all this damn blushing.

“You’re up for me staying a bit, right?”

“I’m exhausted.”

“Just a little bit.” Kung Lao walked past you anyway, and you sighed and closed the door behind him. It wasn’t that you didn’t want him there it was just that you also really wanted to sleep. Sunlight was peaking over the mountains on the other side of the ravine. Kung Lao dragged the chair from your desk and sat backwards on it. You sat on your bed and held your hand over the gauze on your side. It had a solid heartbeat beneath your fingertips. Kung Lao fiddled with things on your desk, picking up the journal that you and Liu Kang had been working in.

He flipped through the pages and you thought he looked a little sad, but as quickly as you had thought it, it was gone, and he looked bored. He closed the journal and then waved it toward you. “I thought that Liu Kang was just trying to flirt with you when he said study because that’s what I would have done. But you guys really study, huh? Your handwriting is awful by the way, especially for someone with ink arcana.”

“You’re less funny than you think you are. But yes, we actually study.” You were never sure what to do with the offhand flirtatious comments but teasing him in return seemed like the way the go. “You probably don’t remember this since we weren’t in the same class and I was kicked out of school before we got close but… I’m passionate about learning new things. Liu is an excellent and curious teacher. It’s been really nice.” You smiled in memory. It felt like it had been ages since they’d studied, and you missed it. “We’ve grown pretty close since you’ve been gone. I’m grateful to him.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” He didn’t even try to hide how he rolled his eyes and you scoffed in disbelief and scooted to the edge of the bed. “Liu Kang is a good friend to have. And so are you when you’re not being defensive.” He stood up and dragged the chair closer to the bed then sat back down. He kicked off his shoes and then placed his feet on the bed. You stared at them disapprovingly and he purposely moved them, so his legs were rested just next to yours, barely not touching you. “It was a lie, you know.”

“Huh? What was? Something Liu said or…?”

“No, definitely not. Liu is an atrocious liar. Me on the other hand? Practiced liar. So yeah, it was me. I lied to you.” He shrugged and then rested his folded arms behind his head. He was avoiding your eyes, something he seemed to do when he felt guilty. When he noticed you looking, he tilted his head, so the hat obstructed your view of his eyes. That was still extremely attractive. “When you first woke up after the fire, I told you that I would visit town because I had become fond of your dojo and your store. That it was a beacon of peace.”

“And that’s a lie? Why would you like about something so trivial?”

“You don’t need to know the reasons.” He shrugged and tilted his gaze back to you. His smile was confident, but his eyes commanded all your attention. They went from playful to serious so quickly it was giving you whiplash. You suddenly felt as if your tongue was blocking your throat and your brain went blank. All that was left to focus on was Kung Lao. “I came to see you.” He pulled his legs back from the bed and leaned closer in his chair, studying your response. It seemed like a harmless lie so why was he telling you this now? “I didn’t know that you were my Y/N but I was still drawn to you. Watching you was what brought me peace when often I struggled finding any.”

“Kung Lao…” This felt like a confession, but what the confession was he hadn’t said. They had a thousand things to talk about and this was where he started? Not the visions? Not the ink? No, his inner turmoil and the peace that you had brought him without knowing.

“If I had known that you were my Y/N then I would have been far more forward with you than I was.” He pulled off his hat and set it next to you on the bed, then rested his hands on either side of the bed next to you. You couldn’t remember him ever flirting with you back then, but you had seen many faces and most of his visits were a blur. You remembered him as harmless and thoughtful. Those were fond memories. You smiled and averted your eyes. “No? Too much?” He smiled that confident smile even against your silence.

“I’m thinking.” You laughed.

“Guy puts it out there and you just stare…”

“I don’t know what you expect me to say, Kung Lao.”

“Anything would do.”

“You’re very sweet.”

“Ouch.”

“No! No, don’t be like that, Kung Lao.” You laughed and without realizing you’d unconsciously moved closer to him. “Really, I didn’t even consider who you could be back then. You were a strange fellow from out of town who enjoyed sitting in the peace of my dad’s place. Honestly, that feels like a different life now.”

“So, where’s the but?”

“There is none.” You furrowed your brow and his thumb overlapped yours on the bed. “This is a lot, isn’t it?”

“It is.” He considered, but he was studying you, and it made you incredibly uncomfortable. This way his eyes looked you over from head to toe, not to objectify you entirely, but rather to try and gauge what you were really thinking and what happened beyond what you told him. While your eyes apparently spoke in novels to Liu Kang, Kung Lao read your body language like a book you had forbidden him to read. Never in a million years did you think that you’d be in a dilemma where your heart was torn between two men. You’d been in relationships before but most of them had been with men from out of town who you rarely saw and had been short lived. Most of the people living in your hometown that were your age were still afraid of you.

“I don’t know what to say.” You finally decided.

“Because of Liu?”

“Well, I don’t quite understand what you’re trying to say. You say a lot without saying much at all, Kung Lao. I will admit that I think of Liu Kang very fondly. Yet, it is a very strange and emotional thing to see you again after thinking that you were dead- something I would like to talk about eventually, by the way.”

“That’s less important than this right now.” He tapped the bed and spoke very quietly, and you watched his lips form every word.

“I feel selfish, Kung Lao.”

“We are allowed to be selfish at times. You were like that as a kid too. Have some fun with me, Y/N.”

“Wow.” You laughed and as he went to say something else, you pulled your hand back from where his thumb had hooked over yours. His eyes were like big puppy dog eyes. He gave you the shivers and it took everything inside of you not to shake with them.

“Come on. You like me.” He teased.

“Kung Lao, now is not…”

“If this is because of Liu Kang? Trust me, I can change your mind.”

“No, I… excuse me?”

“You were going to say something. Continue.” He leaned just enough back to let you breathe. You were so confused. What did he even mean? You had to think about it. You had to think about a lot of things. He and Liu Kang were family. You didn’t want them to fight because of you. You would sooner turn away from them both. Then there was the nagging truth of everything else.

“I’m afraid.” You confessed and as the words came out, you felt a sudden great weight on your shoulders. “For the first time in so long, I’m afraid. Since back then, Kung Lao.”

“I know you saw things then.” He moistened his lips with his tongue and his lips remained parted for just one second before he sighed and seemed to reconsider. “I asked you if you were a witch once and you got all annoyed at me.”

“In my defense, the other kids called me that and threw shit at me, Kung Lao. I was afraid that I was a witch. That I’d never be normal. Then you died and I grew out of it. Now here you are and here I am and all the things I lost as a kid are back. And I attacked Liu Kang without knowing. I don’t know what to think and then you being so forward and Liu being like he is… I’m overwhelmed. I keep thinking that maybe this is what I’m meant for.”

Kung Lao’s whole demeanor changed from flirtatious to serious and you were grateful for him listening. You hadn’t meant to say all that you’d said. It’d just come out. “No, Y/N. You’re a fighter. I know you are. I always knew that you were even back then. And I knew what was happening to you as a kid, too. Or I guessed it at least. I always thought that it made you even more special. Normal is overrated.” Kung Lao placed a hand to your lips to stop you from talking but quickly pulled it back. “Liu’s tough. I’m sure he was fine. And so am I. We can handle whatever you throw at us, knowing or not. I’m sure he’s up to the challenge.”

“Lao…”

“I will help you fight. I won’t watch you waste away here speaking in nothing but the future.” He placed his hands on either side of you again. “And I’m sorry about your side. I know it was an accident but I’m still sorry for the trouble it caused you.”

“I’m not. I wanted to fight. I didn’t want you to go easy on me. I had fun. I had so much fun, and it was nice not to be treated like something frail.”

“It was fun, wasn’t it?” He picked up your hand and brought the back of it to his lips where he made very purposeful eye contact with you and placed a soft kiss upon it. Words were lost to you again. He pulled your hand back from his lips but didn’t let go of it. “Do you remember when we were kids and would pretend that we were like those martial artists in the movies your grandma had? I may have been reliving those days a little when we fought. Except we both knew what we were doing and could have given those actors a run for their money.” His attention was paid mostly to your hand and his thumb brushed over the back of it. “You’re still so pale. Even after everything. You weren’t before we fought.”

“Maybe I always will be now.” You finally managed to say something, but it wasn’t any of the things you wanted to say either. That crush you’d had on him as a kid was rearing its ugly head again. It had been the silliest crush. You’d both been so young and understood so little of the truth of life but there it was. You’d credited that memory of him to ruining every relationship you’d ever had. No one could ever be Kung Lao. But there he was. Alive and the memory of his lips against the back of your hand at the forefront of your thoughts.

“Don’t resign to a fate of serving others, Y/N. You’re made for more than that.”

“I’m not resigning to anything but I’m not a fool.”

“Just don’t give up.”

“I’m not. I didn’t mean to sound like I was. Honestly, that all came out of me without meaning to.”

“Like you said: this is overwhelming.” Kung Lao released your hand and with that seemed to release the hold he had over you too. “I should let you rest, Y/N. For now.”

“How very thoughtful of you.” You managed to joke at last and scooted back onto the bed. Kung Lao stood, replaced your chair, and then offered you a short bow.

“Get some rest because the next time I see you, I’m not holding anything back.”

“You’re so much trouble, Kung Lao.”

“You’re welcome.” He left without another word, closing your door behind him. You sunk back into the bed and pulled the blankets over your head with a whine. You were never going to sleep again at this rate. Liu Kang and the wild fiery tension he brought with him and Kung Lao with his nostalgia, teasing you and dripping in romance. You supposed that of all the problems you had, those two were at least fun problems to have even if you swore that they were going to send you into cardiac arrest. You drifted to sleep, more mixed up than you had ever been.

#kung lao #kung lao x reader #liu kang #liu kang x reader #mortal kombat movie #mortal kombat 2021 #kung lao/reader #liu kang/reader #angst #romance #love triangle #danger #fanfic #fanfiction #mk fanfiction #ludi lin #max huang #mk kung lao #mk liu kang

[melzula]

The Promise

pairing: Zuko x Princess!reader

notes: this was requested by an anon and yes, it’s based off of the comics

summary: with tensions rising in Yu Dao, Aang seeks the Princess’s help in an effort to sway Zuko in the right direction

~ part of the fire lilies series ~

Aang’s heart is heavy with dread as he approaches the Southern Water Tribe for the first time since having left it nearly two years ago. Half constructed buildings peer out from the clouds, and as Appa nears closer to land the Avatar can see the statue of the south’s beloved leader. Her permanently etched smile does little to ease his nerves as he mulls over how he’s going to deliver the news to her, and though he hates to break his promise to Zuko he has found lately that some promises aren’t meant to be kept.

The moment the flying bison lands in the snow all the school children are quick to rush forward and excitedly crowd around the animal and the Avatar. In the distance you stand, a delighted smile on your face at the sight of your friend whom you immediately pull into a hug.

“Aang! It’s so good to see you again,” you exclaim before pulling out of the embrace. “Did you get taller?”

“I think so,” he chuckles sheepishly. “It’s nice to see you too, Princess. Or should I say Chief?”

“Please, Chief is only for formal occasions. You can still call me Princess if you’d like, just y/n will do too.”

“I was so sorry to hear about what happened to you,” Aang admits earnestly. “I wish I could have helped.”

“Don’t blame yourself, Aang. It was my decision to keep Koa a secret so that I wouldn’t pull you and Zuko away from your obligations. And everything turned out alright in the end, didn’t it?”

“I suppose it did, and I’m glad you’re alright. The South seems to be doing pretty well,” he notes with a faint smile, enjoying the way your eyes seem to light up at the mention of your home.

“We’ve already accomplished so much in just a short amount of time! The outer tribes are beginning to grow in number and our people have been mingling with those from our sister tribe. Oh, Aang, you have to meet my students! They’ve only been practicing for a few months but some of them have already passed the beginning level and-”

“That all sounds amazing, y/n,” the Avatar admits with a weak smile. However, his strong front doesn’t fool you in the slightest, and you immediately are able to detect that something is wrong, “but I didn’t come here for a friendly visit. There’s... There’s something we need to talk about. It’s about Zuko.”

He doesn’t miss the look that flashes briefly in your eyes at the mention of your boyfriend, and though he can tell how anxious you are Aang admires your ability to remain poised and collected in front of your students.

“Let’s talk in my office,” you utter quietly, and after dismissing the children for the day you and Aang are quick to head inside for a private discussion about the matters at hand.

“I’m so sorry to have to barge in on you like this when you already have so much on your plate but I didn’t have a choice,” Aang explains gently.

“What’s going on Aang?” You ask uneasily, and the worried look on your face doesn’t make things any easier for him. After all you’ve done for him and your friends, he doesn’t have the heart to break yours.

“The night the Harmony Restoration Movement was announced I made two promises to Zuko. I promised him that if things began to get out of hand and history began to repeat itself, I would end his life before he could have the chance to become like his father. The world needs peace and balance, and we can’t have anyone jeopardizing that. You know I’m just a peaceful monk, I couldn’t even kill Ozai, but Zuko is my friend and it meant so much to him that I had no choice but to agree.”

“And the second promise?” You murmur quietly, your mind reeling at the information given to you. Horror and panic flash across your features and you feel nauseous, you feel as if you can’t breathe and the walls are closing in all around you, and a newfound sense of desperation washes over you.

“The second promise was not to tell you. Zuko knew that if you found out you’d delay your return home to try and talk him out of it, and his mind had already been up. He didn’t want to worry you-”

“Why are you telling me this now, Aang? What’s changed?” You interrupt, though you fear you already know the answer. The Avatar refuses to meet your gaze.

“Zuko has withdrawn from the Harmony Restoration Movement and refuses to compromise. If things don’t work themselves out soon I might have to fulfill my promise...”

The room is heavy with tension and deathly silent as you process the news Aang has given you. It doesn’t sound like Zuko at all, and this promise doesn’t sound like Aang either.

“Aang, you’re my friend and I love you. But if you choose to fulfill this promise of yours I’ll never be able to forgive you.”

“Trust me, y/n, I don’t want it to come to that. That’s why I’m here,” he says earnestly. “I’m telling you all of this because I want you to talk to Zuko. You’re the only person he’ll listen to, so maybe you can get through to him and this whole mess can be resolved.”

“Where is Zuko now?”

“The last I heard he’d locked himself away in the palace back at the Fire Nation.”

“Spirits, so much for an honest relationship,” you grumble quietly to yourself. A small, defeated sigh escapes you and you nod. “Alright. Let me get my affairs in order and then I’ll go talk to Zuko.”

“Thank you so much, Princess. I know how hard all of this must be for you, and I wish there was another way but-”

“It isn’t your fault, Aang. At least not entirely. You only did what Zuko asked you to in respect of your friendship, and now in respect of our friendship I ask that you allow me to sway him in the right direction before any decisions are made.”

“Yes, of course,” he nods earnestly, and sensing that you need a moment to yourself, the Avatar excuses himself. “I’ll go make sure Appa is ready for the trip. Just let me know when you’re ready.”

A breath you didn’t know you’d been holding leaves you the moment the door shuts behind Aang, and it takes all of your will power to keep your rising tears at bay. To think that Zuko had gone to the extreme to reassure himself of the fact that he’d never repeat his family’s footsteps broke your heart; Zuko was nowhere close to being the cruel man Ozai had been, and you thought he was past this by now. You were worried about him and how he must be feeling, but you also felt it to be unfair of him to keep such a thing from you. He had been so distraught when he had learned about Koa and after that you had both sworn to tell each other everything no matter what, yet now it seemed Zuko had no intention of keeping that promise to you. Promise. It seemed like such a heavily loaded word now, and you were beginning to resent it entirely. You couldn’t wait another minute, you had to see Zuko.

It takes you no longer than an hour to get your affairs in order— Hakoda and your mother are left in charge to oversee the tribe while you’re away, and Pakku is to continue lessons without your presence. You pack your bag and join Aang on Appa’s saddle, and with the quick utterance of the phrase yip yip the two of you are riding high into the skies and making your way towards the Fire Nation.

The wind blowing through your hair is a bittersweet reminder of your days fighting the war alongside your friends; you had once believed that things would be simpler after the Fire Nation’s defeat, but so far nothing had seemed to be any easier than you had hoped it would be. You wished they were here now, you could really use some reassurance from Sokka or Suki, and you know Katara would probably have just the right thing to say to ease your nerves. Instead, the ride is silent and tense as you journey to see Zuko.

In the throne room sits the Fire Lord, tense and distracted by the millions of thoughts that whiz by in his head. He knew he was making the right decision by allowing his people to remain in Yu Dao, he was their ruler and it was his duty to look after their best interests, and backing out from the Harmony Restoration Movement would prevent the disruption of the peaceful lives they’d created for themselves there. Seeing the Mayor’s family, their daughter born of both Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom heritage, it allowed him to see his own future, one in which he selfishly realized what the movement would mean not only for his people but for himself.

Your portrait sits in his lap, face poised and stoic yet with a hint of a smile on your face, and it is this portrait that brings him solace and comfort during his time of turmoil. He’d purchased the photo from a vendor back in the South during the celebration of your coronation, and looking at it now he couldn’t help but feel guilty. Everything had become such a mess and all he wanted was your comfort; you were busy rebuilding a tribe, and after Zuko had made such a fuss about maintaining honesty between you two he felt foolish to try and tell you now. Surely you’d leave him for it, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to stand that heartache. Not again.

A knock on the door rips his attention away from your portrait and an immediate scowl forms on his features. He’d made it specifically clear that he didn’t want any visitors and was to be left undisturbed. Where were the Kyoshi Warriors to keep away the arrivals?

“I will see no one,” Zuko bellows, shoulders tensing when the door slowly begins to open despite his proclamation. However, when his eyes take in the sight of his beloved the Fire Lord does a double take before immediately relaxing at the presence of his Princess.

“Will the Fire Lord make an exception for me?” You ask with a meek smile, carefully shutting the doors behind you

“Y/n!” Zuko exclaims before scrambling out of his seat and rushing towards you. You can’t help the delighted laugh that leaves you when Zuko lifts your figure off the ground and holds you impossibly close to his chest. Tears well in his eyes as he nestles his face into your shoulder and breathes in the scent of fire lilies and snow.

“It’s nice to know you’ve missed me,” you giggle softly, though your smile fades once Zuko sets you back on the ground and you’re able to see his face. Carefully you rest a hand upon his face, Zuko immediately melting into your touch. “My love, you haven’t been sleeping, have you?”

“How can you tell?” Zuko asks with quiet surprise.

“I can see the restlessness and turmoil in your eyes. You’re troubled.”

“That’s an understatement,” he scoffs quietly. You frown.

“What’s going on with you, Zuko? Aang told me you backed out of the Harmony Restoration Movement.”

“Is that why you’re here?” The Fire Lord replies, a harsh edge suddenly coating his tone. “Just to talk me back into it??”

“I’m here because I’m worried about my boyfriend,” you emphasize, and you don’t miss the look of guilt that flash’s across Zuko’s face for snapping at you. Quieter now, “Aang told me about the promise he made to you. I want to hear your side of the story, and I want to do everything I can to make sure it doesn’t go that far.”

Zuko is silent for a moment, and after a beat passes he nods. No more secrets, it’s time to tell you everything.

You end up in the palace gardens by the pond, loaves of bread in your hands as you enjoy the breeze and feed the turtle ducks. The Kyoshi Warriors stand in the distance to guard you both, and Suki gives you a quiet nod when your eyes meet across the way. You wanted to give Zuko a comforting atmosphere where he could feel safe to talk, the tone of the throne room was a bit too intense for the both of you, and after recalling stories he had told you of his mother you figured this was the perfect spot to do so. It takes him time to gather his thoughts and process his emotions, but you wait patiently until he’s ready.

“I want to start by saying that I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I knew you’d worry and drop everything to try and talk me out of something I’d already decided, and I didn’t want to take you away from your people, not again,” Zuko explains quietly. “But my family, selfishness and destruction runs in our blood, and I needed to make sure that I’d never make the same mistakes they did.”

“Zuko,” you utter gently, your hand coming to rest upon his bicep, “you are nothing like your father or your grandfather. You’re a good person, you’ve already proven this time and time again. Yes, you’ve made mistakes, but you’ve also made changes, good changes.”

“I can’t make any more mistakes, y/n. That’s why Aang is there to stop me. But backing out of the Harmony Restoration Movement is not a mistake.”

“Why did you do it?”

“Because of you.”

“Me?” You repeat in bewilderment. “I-I don’t understand.”

“I had the chance to visit Yu Dao and see what my people had created, the life they spent generations building for themselves. As Fire Lord it’s my job to make sure my people are happy, and they are happy— coinciding with earth kingdom citizens. You should have seen it, y/n. Best friends, business partners, families made up of two different nations. I know Aang believes there can’t be any harmony unless the four nations are separate, but Yu Dao proves that that’s not true, and so do we.”

“The mayor’s wife of Yu Dao invited me to stay with them, her an earth bender and her husband a fire bender. They had a daughter and together they were a beautiful family. And do you know what I saw when I was with them?”

“What did you see?” You ask quietly, your eyes welling with tears as you hang onto Zuko’s every word.

“I saw us. I saw you cradling a baby in your arms while you sat in the gardens and watched the older children play. It was peaceful, and even though the odds have always been against us it didn’t matter that the mother of our children was of the Water Tribe and the father was of the Fire nation. All that mattered in that moment was our family. A family that can’t exist if we keep the four nations separate,” Zuko emphasizes desperately. “If it’s selfish of me to base my decision on my own desires then I’ll take the hit, but I’d rather die than ever have to be kept away from you simply because we’re different.”

Zuko’s eyes have grown wide and his shoulders rise and fall with each anxious breath he takes as he gauges your reaction. You’re silent for a long while, your own gaze settled upon the pond as you watch the mother turtle duck look after her ducklings. You wanted to be a mother some day, and you’d be lying if you said you could picture yourself being with anyone other than Zuko. He was it for you, the only person you’d ever want to be with, and no one had any right to tell you otherwise.

“Zuko,” you say quietly, lifting your gaze to stare into his golden irises, “you’re absolutely right.”

“I-I am?” He splutters in response, surprised at the fact that he’s truly in the right for once. He’s always relied on you as a moral compass, so to hear that you agree with him is a weight lifted off of his shoulders.

“You are,” you reaffirm. “How can you have peace if everyone is expected to keep to themselves? That’s not harmony at all. It’s isolating and it’s lonely and it’s sad. Those families shouldn’t be separated, and you need to do whatever you can to keep them together.”

“I will,” Zuko nods quickly. “Will you help me?”

“I’m on your side Zuko, but I can’t fight my friends,” you lament gently. “I’ll try to reason with Aang, and if it comes down to it I’ll stop him from fulfilling his promise to you, but I’m afraid I’ll have to remain neutral.”

“I understand,” he murmurs gently. He takes your hands in his own and gives them a gentle squeeze. “Thank you for hearing my side and having my back.”

“I always will, Zuko. You’ll never have to worry about that,” you reply, smiling as he pulls you into a tight hug. Despite the conflict going on between your boyfriend and your friends, you have a feeling that everything is going to work itself out. It has to. It must.

And it will.

| tags: @rainteslerrrr @simpinforsukka @sirkekselord @protect-remus @oddment-niwit-blubber-tweak @thebluelcdy @royahllty @the-firebender-girl @coldlilheart @ilovespideyyy @yiyibetch @eridanuswave @lammello @a-monsters-love @knaite-solo @draqondance @taeeemin @user12345321 @just--artemis--with--ghost @titaniafire @dekahg @emberislandplayers @kikaninchen-2 @lozzybowe @izzieserra @melacholy @music-geek19 @thia-aep @thyunnamed @haylaansmi @nataliahaslosthershit @idkdude776 @aangsupremacy @thirstyforsometea @ihaveaproblem98 @brown-eyed-thang @djskfkdkkf @xapham @yeetletzgetitjae @misnmatchedsox @chewymoustachio @that-bucket-hat-gal @chilifrylizard2 @kyomihann @kaylove12 @kiwihoee @freggietale @neighborhoodpansexualdisaster @noodlesfluffy @moon-spirit-yue @bubblegum-bee-otch |

#the promise #zuko #prince zuko #zuko x reader #prince zuko x reader #zuko imagine #prince zuko imagine #aang #aang x reader #zuko and the princess #avatar the last airbender #avatar: the last airbender #atla #atla x reader #atla imagine #fire lilies #au

[pinepickled-jujutsukaisen]

The Three Dilfs plus the Twink Fathers if they had to joint parent the JJK kids.

Gojo

So just be conscious that I imagine the trio to be baby/toddler ages

Definitely the most jealous out of the four.

He won't say it, but hearing about how Yuji had the time of his life with Nanami and how Nobara adores Touji makes his blood boil

But when Megumi gives him those puppy dog eyes, he can't stay mad

So very jealous but also very whipped

The type of dad who tries to act all cool and hip with the kids but in reality is boomer

No clue how to care for a young child though. Rest in pieces, Babygumi.

Really dependant on Getou for the more dirty parts of parenting.

He refuses to change a diaper for the longest time until he does it once when no one is home bc Yuji was crying up a storm and he gets over it

Doesn't baby proof the house. At all.

I'll say it again

Rest In Pieces, BabyGumi.

Doesn't know where kids like to hang out. He takes them to Starbucks and then the mall, where Nobara proceeds to suck his cash directly from his bank account

Toji taught her well, after all.

Gojou has two ways to discipline them- let them see the consequences of their actions and then obnoxiously help them fix it (primarily when the kids were younger) or dangle them off a cliff while singing songs like a cracked out gremlin.

Gojou doesn't need to punish often, since in this universe I've made up he primarily watched over Yuta and Panda, who are nice little ones.

Still insists on kissing them all on the forehead and tucking them in at night

Getou

It takes a while for him to warm up to child rearing

He's still struggling with his "monkey" mentality, and young children are rife for it.

Though maybe as he's watching a baby Nobara sleep, watching carefully the way parents do as though to make sure she breathes through the night, he snuffs out all curses in the area.

After that night, the taste of curses- like a rag, used to clean up vomit- isn't so unbearable anymore.

Not when he feels such conviction in his soul

So slowly, as he holds Yuji's hands to help him take his first steps, as he tells Megumi what "miscellaneous" means, as he shows Nobara how to make cursed dolls...

Monkeys don't seem so bad anymore

But the zookeepers do

If you catch my drift

Getou doesn't believe in physical punishment, but he is a strict parent when it comes to life-decisions

Not in the way you'd expect though.

I.e., if Megumi was torn between leaving the jujutsu world or going to college, Getou would be there to help him find a third solution

And punishment was never his style. Swallow enough vomit-stained rags, you begin to feel disgusted over such things.

Instead, he guides. A distant hand that points in a direction and tells you where it leads.

Also hopeless with what kids like. He let's Yuji wander around Tokyo and whatever catches his eye, Getou suggests.

Nanami

Seems like a distant father at first

But his face is just like that

Genuine sucker for his kids

They have him wrapped around their tiny little fingers

The best out of the three of them with young children

And minors in general

Because- and sit down, this might shock you- he treats them like normal human beings

Nanami didn't have the best childhood, not to mention that many of his close friends didn't either, so taking care of children is something that's very close to his heart

So he likes to keep the kiddos close to his heart too

It made quite a sight, to see Nobara being lugged around in a baby bjorn, drooling all over his jacket while he exorcized curses.

The only parent out of the three mentioned that uses Vicks Vapor rub

If you know you know

Getou is more of a straight medicine kind of guy, and Gojo's never gotten sick in his life.

Nanami definitely got stuck with daiper duty when both Gojo and Getou refused

But he loves them

Tells the three of them that he's proud of them and loves them every chance he gets

Definitely one to have his heart melt when they fall asleep on him.

It's like the rule of cats. He is now legally obligated to stay completely still until the child awakes

That's his initial reaction, but then he remembers his rationality and picks them up and tucks them into bed.

Has definitely slept kneeling on the floor next to Megumi's bed when the boy grabbed his sleeve while sleeping.

Yuji was also a colicky baby, and Nanami found that putting him in a pot of water on the counter was an easy way to get him to be quiet

Nobara was mischevious. The second she could walk, it was over. Nanami burns 500 calories a day chasing her around.

And all of these memories are lovingly stored in his 6,000 baby albums.

Sukuna

Surprisingly good with babies

Extremely good with young children

And very nice with teenagers when he puts his mind to it.

Back in Sukuna's day, in his little social circle, being bad with kids was taboo.

You either are good with kids and love them to death or fuck you

So naturally, Sukuna took the "good with kids" route

He'll say a bunch of bluster about power and ruthlessness if you ask him

But the truth is that he adores children, and wouldn't have put in the effort to be good with them if he didn't already want to.

BabyGumi is such a tsundere with him

Always pouts and looks on the verge of crying when Sukuna is nearby or talking to him, refusing to respond without a wobble in his voice to Sukuna's questions

But the second Sukuna leaves, it's chaos.

He gets all sad and mopey, holding on to the tiger plushie Sukuna gave him like his life depends on it.

Sukuna has learned to just ignore BabyGumi's pouts and teary eyes and cradle the toddler close

And Megumi has no complaints being held in Sukuna's arms

He feels safe there.

The same can not be said for Yuji.

Sukuna scares him, but poor baby gets too distracted with other things when Sukuna is around to remember.

He'll be seated in Sukuna's lap, happily pulling flowers from the ground and giving them to the cursed spirit

And then when Gojo asks him how his playdate with Sukuna was, he bursts into tears and said it was terrifying

Makes for very awkward encounters, as Gojo saw for himself that Itadori was having fun

Nobara loves him

Genuinely wants to get his tattoos one day

And become a powerful sorceror like he was

He gives the best hugs (four arms!!!) So

Always indulges her when she rambles about her cursed dolls

And spoils her rotten.

Touji

Ah yes

The crusty anarchist (affectionate)

Megumi is also a big tsundere bby with this man.

The only one of his fathers he actually projects affection to is Gojo, and that's because Megumi knows his ass is one big jelly bean

As in mushy on the inside, hard on the outside, and very very jealous.

But Megumi will pout and claim not to like anything Touji does

Which really weighs on the man

He knows he's failed Megumi a bunch of times, and knows he deserves to be rebuffed

But it still hurts

Thankfully, Megumi is a sensitive kiddy, and even if he goes too far and Touji completely retreats within himself, Megumi tries to make it right.

Touji is so very whipped for his son.

The slightest bit of love Megumi shows makes his week.

And he's a very gentle father too

Is a staunch advocate against hitting children

His own shitty childhood paired with having a kid as quiet and reserved as Megumi, even if the kid wants to let loose but wont, stresses him out greatly.

Yuji also concerns him

Because he's very innocent, naive, and kind.

Touji knows he's gonna be trampled on.

So he does his best to sort of introduce more darker topics and harsh realities to Yuji without breaking the poor kid.

All in all, he's a depressed, cynical dad, who's trying to give his kids a better life and more tools to survive than he had.

DEFINATELY not the type of parent to hold the child's better life against them.

Tries to be loving, smothers the three kiddos in smoochies and lovingly made meals.

He doesn't really know what he's doing, but he prioritizes the kiddos safety and happiness first and foremost.

But he's definitely not as wealthy or stable as the others, and he knows it.

Whenever Nobara wants to go wander the mall, Touji struggles to swallow his pride every time.

He has the girl set a date, and between that day and the day they need to go to the mall, Touji works his ass off to save up.

He usually only needs to worry about money to keep himself afloat and leisure money for the kids

Since they usually eat at one of the others houses and stay the night there too

Yuji is the one he finds the easiest to be with when money is tight

Yuji doesn't have a habit of asking things from Touji- leftover instincts from when his Grandfather, also poor, took care of him.

So less stress is on Touji to take Yuji somewhere nice when it's just the two of them

Megumi is similar, but not quite.

Megumi isn't really interested in material things or going out to eat very often

But he adores going to temples and being with the monks.

As Touji used to do.

It's bitter and painful to take Megumi to the temple where he used to worship

But he does it.

His love is sacrifice, humility, and acceptance.

But slowly, slowly, he's accepting help from the other dads.

I hope you liked it! This was just a spur of the moment thing, not a lot of hard thought and intricate story telling was put into this, but I hope you enjoyed anyway. This is a mix of my personal headcanons and canon lore, so feel free to drop your own headcanons in the comments!

#jujutsu kaisen #jjk #fushigoro toji #fushigoro megumi #ryomen sukuna #gojo satoru #kento nanami #getou suguru #fushigoro touji #gojou satoru #geto suguru #jjk father #jjk headcanons #pine writes #mine

[eldritchtickles]

Widogast’s Wavering Feathers

Right so here is the fic for @chockfullofsecrets that they requested i think like 7 months ago?? At least I know that’s when I started the fic cause holy shit do I write slow as hell. Tho it turned out really well in my opinion and I’m pretty happy with it lmao. Also thanks to @meltedhoneythighs for the onslaught of CR tickle ideas! Ok enough talking enjoy...

Wordcount: 2141

SFW but if tickles aint your thing idk enjoy still I guess lmao

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Xhorhaus was quiet tonight. It  hadn’t been long since its owners had slept here, between whatever intrepid adventures they had all been on. The windows were open, their curtains billowing softly to show the moonlit city of Rosohna outside, its dark streets uninhabited. It took time to become acquainted with the eternal twilight of the Drow city, but it’s sights were nonetheless striking.

Though this peaceful sight is broken by the sudden appearance of a cat, jumping to the windowsill. A Bengal cat, who slowly lowered itself to the room that his owner was currently sitting in.

Frumpkin purred as he brushed up against the coat of Caleb, who gave his familiar a soft smile and scratched his head, earning a happy purr. Before the wizard lay an open book of incantations, his other hand and sleepy eyes gently tracing the arcane words and sigils with soft fingers.

“You are a good cat aren’t you, huh?”, he asked softly, keeping his voice down. He pulled the cat into his lap to continue petting. “Did you see any of our friends out and about?”

Though Caleb couldn’t understand his fae pet in words so much, their magical bond gave him the gist of the message. The rest were fast asleep, which worked perfectly for Caleb’s late night magic experiments. It was nights like these when he developed new spells, such as Widogast’s Vault of Amber. The night air, Frumpkin as his sole companion, no distractions from the usual antics of the Mighty Nein… It was a quiet moment to practice and perfect, a time Caleb cherished when it came about. Though tonight wasn’t as much a practice session, and more… A personal project.

“I think I might just have it, my fluffy friend.”, the redhead said with a slight excited grin that only appeared on his face when he talked about magic. “But first let’s make sure we won’t be disturbed, ja?”

Going toward the door, Caleb shrugged off his jacket and scarf before looking out into the hallway. All doors were closed, just the creaks of beds as his companions shifted in their sleep. From his component pouch, he pulled a thin silver wire and drew it across the hall either side of the door. It shimmered and seemed to leave a trail of silvery light as Caleb cast Alarm, so that any night time wanderers would be caught before they could intrude on him. Once he was sure he wouldn’t be disturbed, Caleb shut the door and skipped the pages of the tome to the spell he had been working on…

“Ja, that should work..”, he muttered. Four globules of light fwoomped from his outstretched palm. Showing the diagrams Caleb was looking at. Those brown eyes widened, lights reflected in them, as a blush rose to his cheeks. His fingers traced the list of components; strip of cloth, line of string… Feathers.

In their last few weeks of travel, Caleb had noticed the others being a bit more physical. Friendly punches were thrown, Jester and Caduceus gave hugs now and then, but one thing Caleb had noticed more than anything. The wiggling fingers, playful grins, the bubbling laughter… They had started some tickle fights. And it looked really fun, though the reclusive wizard would never say so. Caleb remembered the sensation, remembered enjoying it from his parents and Astrid… yet he hadn’t experienced the sensation since escaping from the Volstrucker agents. No, since joining the Volstrucker if he was being honest to himself.

Caleb would never join in with the others of the Nein, instead burying his head in a book. He would love to, but it wasn’t as if he was that close to any of them to ask for it. Veth would understand, she always did. Jester, he was sure, would be more than happy to oblige. But the embarrassment of asking, of being that open? That was what stopped him.

So here Caleb was, readying himself to try create this sensation through arcane means. He let out a small sigh, before putting his hands before him like a conductor would. He picked up the cloth, tied the sting around one end. Then he uttered the arcane words, stroked the feather across the cloth, and then…

Frumpkin let out a cry, before scurrying off Caleb’s lap. The scruffy wizard turned to see his cat on top of the bed, looking apprehensively at something behind his master.

“Frumpkin? Is something the matter?”, he asked, cocking his head. “Did you hear someTHIHING!!”

A sudden half chuckle, half squeak escaped Caleb’s lips, hand going down to brush at his hip where he had felt a sort of tingle. Looking down he saw the cause. A feather, ghostly and ethereal, floating in the air! It wiggled up at Caleb, almost like a greeting. Caleb couldn’t help but laugh again. More out of excitement this time, looking to Frumpkin with that rare ‘magic-is-so-exciting’ smiles.

“We did it!! I knew we could-“

Before he could finish, the feather flew in front of his face. It shook side to side, almost like it was shaking his head. Caleb couldn’t help but smile slightly, it was a cute little thing.

“You really are an animated little one, aren’t you?”, he chuckled. Then the feather started pointing, behind him. Caleb turned his head, before the smile dropped.

Floating there were another four feathers. The first joined them again. Shit, it was only supposed to make one! He had missed something. But that didn’t matter, as all five feathers pointed at him and started wriggling towards him.

“Oh.”, Caleb said, a goofy nervous grin finding its way to his face as he scooted back. “Sheisse.”

All at once the feathers converged on the man who had created them, as the ginger headed magician let out a sharp gasp of surprise. One of these ghostly feathers flew underneath the book holsters pressed against his side, earning a loud but gentle squeak. This reminded Caleb of another part of this spell; it was designed to be felt on bare skin, no matter what was worn. What was the point if some armour blocked their ticklish touch? Already, he regretted this decision.

“N-Nein!! Stohoho- Ah!! Out of thehehere!!”, he giggled out, trying to bat that feather away from his ribs as it nuzzled ticklishly into his poor ribs. This left his other side open, which he soon figured out as one of the feather’s siblings sawed directly under his arm with the stiff, soft bristles of its magical form. “AAAhahaha!! Y-You lihihittle shit!!”

The tickles now began to overwhelm, Caleb feeling this sensation as a fresh one considering his lack of ticklish touch over the years. He fell on to his back as the twin offenders flicked and rubbed along ribs and armpits, prompting bubbly giggles from the usually stoic magic user. These soft giggles were interrupted then by a loud yelp, as another feather joined the fray. He felt as it stroked along his sole, causing a violent kick of his leg. His yelp calmed back to a flurry of giggles as the feather flew up to his face, tapping his nose as if to say ‘stay still’. Then it flew back to his foot, its slow, methodical strokes earning a loud whine from Caleb that dissolved into giggles once more. It wasn’t long after that the fourth joined the fray, sawing beneath his toes which added squeaks to his already excited laughter.

Then, finally, his initial feathery friend returned to his view. It was longer than the rest and glowed brighter, seeming to be the ringleader of the group. It fluttered under his nose, earning a snort and a waving hand, nodding as if happy it had earned his attention. Then it placed itself on his chest, before sloooooowly tracing down his abdomen, approaching a certain spot.

“WAIT!! No, pleheheheeeeaaaase!! Not thehehere, just-”

Both wizard and feathers stopped their antics suddenly, frozen it seemed in place, as another magical source poked into the fray.

Ping.

“Oh no.”

“Caleb…? Caleb what the fuck are you doing…?”, came a groggy voice from beyond the door. The perpetrator who had broken the Alarm spell. The one person who Caleb knew would never let him live this down.

“Beauregard!”, he shouted, trying to stand before a flurry of feathery movements at his feet kept him lying down, a hand clamping over his mouth. These damned feathers… “I-I’m sorry to have woken you. Please, go back to bed, I’ll be doing so myself soon.”

A groan from behind the door.

“Caleb it’s the middle of the fucking night- …. I think, it’s hard to tell here… But you gotta get some sleep.”, the monk said with a yawn and a stretch, beginning to open the door. Empire Siblings, no knocking from either of them.

“Wait, Beau, don’t-”

But it was too late. The door swung open, and Beau stood frozen for a moment. There was Caleb, propped up on his elbows, face flushed a deep red with hair in a messy bun, askew in his eyes. Surrounding him, the ethereal feathers waved cheerfully to the newcomer.

Beau immediately lost it.

“You-”, she started, overcome with laughter at the sight again. “You were tickling yourself?!”

“L-Look, I know it must seem- NAHAHAAAA!!”

It seemed the feathers had become tired waiting around, as the ringleader hit its mark. Swirling around his navel, before drilling directly into it with its feathered fronds. Caleb was immediately lost in laughter as his death spot was attacked. Only a few seconds later, its brethren joined the fray and resumed their attack on previous spots.

“BEAUREGAHAHAHAHARD!!”, the wizard yelled, trying his absolute best to curl up and bat away his assailants. “HEHEHEHELP MEHEHEHE!!”

“Oh”, Beau began, a grin forming on her face as she approached the giggly man before her. “I’ll help alright! After all, you wanted this right Caleb~?”

Before Caleb’s eyes could fully widen at the realisation, Beau had already grabbed his arms and, after a quick strength contest, pinned his arms above his head and began to scribble her short nails underneath them. The new sort of sensation shot through Caleb like an arc of lightning, his back arching as his laughter reached a higher pitch, a loud snort ripping through the room. The displaced feathers moved down, both attacking exposed hipbones as his shirt had started to ride up to show his soft stomach with his new stretched out position.

“Daaaaaamn Caleb, you are crazy ticklish huh?”, she tittered, digging into the soft spot just underneath his armpits to earn a squeal. “You must reeeeaaaaally like it if you designed a spell too~! How long you been at this huh? Must have been a real long time… Could’ve worked on a more useful spell if you had just asked one of us to do this you know~.”

Caleb’s mind began to melt with the teasing words of Beau’s gravelly ‘I-just-woke-up’ voice, each word spiking his sensitivity through the roof. The contrast of sensations between languid feathery strokes, quick soft twirling, and digging, scratching nails had the poor man addled, his thoughts going mushy with the onslaught of this sensation he had craved for weeks now.

It was torture. And he was embarrassed to admit, he loved it.

A few minutes of laughter, begging, teasing and tickles later, the ethereal feathers all gave one last flourish before a quick flash of light indicated the end of the spell. Beau grinned down at her friend, blushy with his hair matted to his face, chest heaving for breath, and decided maybe now may be a chance to call it quits.

“Well its only my first time being a spell apprentice, but I think I’m a natural!”, she said, letting go of Caleb’s arms and helping him up to sit with his back against the bed, where she soon joined him with a signature cheeky smirk of hers. “You agree~?”

Caleb couldn’t keep the grin off his face. He let out a breathless laugh, patting her thigh with his hand.

“I think I may just have to agree for once, Beauregard…”, he muttered, eyes closed and content. “Though I suppose the whole house is awoken by now…?”

“Oh, for sure, I mean I saw Fjord pass by the room to get some of those earplugs Caducueus made, I think everyone knows, dude.”

“Well…”, Caleb said, beginning to sit up and look through his scattered spellbook. His hand traced arcane shapes in the air, and he cast a stray eye to Beau with a smirk. “If that’s the case, another test is in order. Ready apprentice Beauregard?”

“I think you’re a bit tired for-”

Then Beau felt the feathery trace along her neck, earning a soft giggle before she suddenly snapped her head towards Caleb.

“Caleb, Caleb no, Caleb you motherfuckehehEHEHEHER!!!!”

#this took so fuckin long but enjoy lmao #tickling #critical role #caleb widogast #beauregard lionett #fic #shit i dont think i have a fic tag uhhhhhhh #eldritch fics