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#the thing about me is if a book has dragons I will read it
redgoldsparks · 3 days
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Hi, I just read your book gender queer and wanted to tell you that i have never felt more seen by a book in my life (or any media for that matter). Im also genderqueer and somewhere on the aro/ace spectrum and your book put into words alot of things I’ve never known how to express. Thank you for putting yourself out there!
(also do you have any other comic book recommendations?)
Hello anon! Thank you for this kind message! I very much do have comic book recs. In no particular order, here are some favorites. Not all of these are books are queer, but many are. If you want queer specific recs, here are some other asks I've previously answered- books about nonbinary identities, nonbinary mostly fiction
Memoir/Nonfiction 
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley 
March Trilogy by Senator John Lewis, Nate Powell and Andrew Aydin
The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui
Fetch: How a Bad Dog Brought Me Home by Nicole Georges 
You & a Bike & a Road by Eleanor Davis 
Tetris: The Games People Play by Box Brown
The Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott and Harmony Becker
Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls 
Hey Kiddo by Jarrett Krosoczka 
Almost American Girl by Robin Ha 
Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang 
Dancing at the Pity Party: A Dead Mom Graphic Memoir by Tyler Feder 
Banned Book Club by Kim Hyun Sook, Ryan Estrada and Ko Hyung-Ju 
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton 
Homebody by Theo Parrish 
The High Desert by James Spooner 
Fiction
Prince of Cats by Ronald Wimberly 
This One Summer by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki
Skim by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki
Seconds by Bryan Lee O’Malley 
Nimona by ND Stevenson 
The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang 
The Hard Tomorrow by Eleanor Davis
On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden
This Was Our Pact by Ryan Andrews
Grease Bats by Archie Bongiovanni
The Chromatic Fantasy by H.A. 
Salt Magic by Hope Larson and Rebecca Mock
Beetle and the Hollowbones by Aliza Layne
Kiss Number 8 by Colleen F Venable and Ellen Crenshaw 
Finder Library Vols 1 & 2 by Carla Speed McNeil
Castle Waiting: The Lucky Road by Linda Medley
The Deep and Dark Blue by Niki Smith
Across a Field of Starlight by Blue Delliquanti 
O Human Star by Blue Delliquanti 
Snapdragon by Kay Leyh
Cyclopedia Exotica by Aminder Dhaliwal 
Woman World by Aminder Dhaliwal
The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen 
A Frog in Fall by Lisa Sterte 
Thieves by Lucie Bryon 
The Great Beyond by Lea Murawiec
Short Stories
The Amazing Screw-On Head and Other Curious Objects by Mike Mignola 
Other Ever Afters: New Queer Fairy Tales by Melanie Gillman
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rachetmath · 2 days
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Yang Hostage Situation
Yang: Jaune would you-
Jaune: Absolutely.
Yang: what? Y-you didn't let me finish.
Jaune: You were about to ask if I were given a chance would I have sex with your sister? And my answer is yes.
Yang: Wow, okay. But-
Jaune: Sweetie. I already have my sword and new toy ready. And I require a test subject. Would you like to volunteer?
Yang: Jaune I can beat you. You're too easy.
Jaune: I mean you can win the battle but not the war.
Yang: What do you mean?
Jaune: *scroll rings* Oh. Seems my plan is working. 
Yang: Gimme that. *See the message* Oh my God.
Jaune: Yep. That's right. You see, I’ve been giving Oscar some good details about your sister. And if you have been paying attention for the last few months, you probably would have stopped it. But now look at her. Blushed. Flustered. I think she might be close to giving it up. 
Yang: You bastard. I will stop you.
Jaune: You aren't going to do a damn thing because I got your girl on my radar.
Yang: *laughs* Jaune don’t be an idiot. Blake won't -
Blake: Hey Jaune, are you ready?
Jaune: Give me a minute.
Yang: What's going on?
Blake: Oh Jaune and I have been reading the same books lately. Sometimes we act out the scenes and every time I... I *blush and her ears flap* oh, sorry babe, I think I shouldn't tell you.  Anyways, Jaune I’ll be waiting at our usual spot. Later. *Leaves*
Yang: What's the usual spot?
Jaune: My room.
Yang: You monster. 
Jaune: You let your guard down, baby girl. Now you have to choose between your girl or your sister. Regardless you lose. 
Yang:  Oh Lord. 
Jaune: That's the game. Sink or swim you Dragon-worthless Natsu-salamander bitch. 
Ren: Jaune?
Jaune: Hey Ren how's -
Ren: Have you been talking to Nora?
Jaune: I mean, yeah, why?
Ren: She has been ignoring me for a while.
Jaune: I mean, have you tried calling her?
Ren: Yes.
Jaune: Then she doesn't want to talk to you. 
Ren: but-
Jaune: I made pancakes for her once. She didn't want them.
Ren: Oh my God I screwed up.
Jaune: Probably. *whisper* Asshole.
Ren: but-
Jaune: Give her space. You should have thought about that before you went on your hissy fits.
Ren: *sad*
Jaune: Anyways, I'm going to see Blake. Who knows maybe we’ll have a bit of fun recreating a few scenes. Maybe with a few twists. 
Yang: I'm coming too.
Jaune: Do you know the book?
Yang: No.
Jaune: Members only. Do not disturb bitch.
Yang: Damn it.
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hylialeia · 10 months
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finished Fourth Wing and well. Eh
This book started off with a page labeled "BookTok praise", so... there's that.
My most positive note here is that it was a super fast read, even if it wasn't a short one; the pacing stayed quick and gave me a lot of ammunition to keep going, with surprisingly few lulls. It takes the Fantasy School concept and runs with it, and to its credit, it keeps things interesting enough to move forward and makes you want to see how the story turns out, particularly in the first half as we build towards "the Threshing," the event where the book's fantasy equivalent of college students (who feel more than a little inspired by the Dauntless faction in Divergent, albeit with a better in-world purpose for existing) are chosen to bond with their dragons. After that point, I felt a gradual decline in interest beyond the protagonist and her dragons, which while not detrimental to the story, was never fully resolved or reversed.
The worldbuilding was underwhelming. There was clearly thought and effort put into it, enough so that it had potential conceptually, but it never really got the focus or expansion I was hoping for. Atmospherically, the strongest areas were at the school, but beyond that, I felt like we got very little, which is a shame since the narrative decided to switch focus to the larger world near the end. I enjoyed the device of inserting excerpts from in-universe tomes and texts at the beginning of each chapter, though; Crier's War did something similar, and as far as exposition devices go, I think they're clever and fun.
Less fun were the characters - several interesting concepts that made it all the more disappointing when so many of them ended up being basic archetypes with no hint of deeper complexity. There were so many areas ripe with potential exploration and subversion, places where Rebecca Yarros could have turned the standard dynamics and clichés on their heads, but never really did. Bully character is a bully, jealous bitch character is a jealous bitch, etc, etc. Luca and Jack died without being anything other than obnoxious and awful; Violet and Dain's relationship fell apart remarkably quickly. I found some of the side characters intriguing - Rhiannon and Ridoc in particular - but there was never a particularly compelling depth to any of them, and worse, no moments in the story that really pushed that complexity to the surface. Liam seemed to be the one exception to this in a few instances, but that potential never got utilized and was fully extinguished when he died. For a book that started with such an emphasis on potential betrayals and high stakes, most character dynamics play out exactly as they seem and are far less cutthroat than promised.
Violet and Xaden are the worst offenders on this front. From what I gather, the romance was meant to be the main draw in this series, but I have to say, I never felt really pulled in or compelled by the supposed enemies to lovers slow burn between these two. None of their actions are ever those committed by outright enemies, especially not given how ruthless the setting is supposed to be. They don't even actively try to harm each other. I didn't necessarily dislike them as characters - mostly because the writing never took enough risks portraying them as people to ever get that far. They were never "too unlikable" (maybe an attempt to avoid SJM's pitfalls with very, VERY similar character archetypes), which left me finding their whole dynamic incredibly lukewarm. As characters, they felt more like vehicles through which to project what the reader wants to see, and less like vehicles through which to convey the already decided story via their strong personalities and designs.
Speaking of designs, I felt let down by Violet. One of the most interesting and exciting parts of the beginning of the book was in Violet's disability - or what I was led to believe was a disability (brittle bone disease/osteogenesis imperfecta) - and how she navigated that in this militaristic, ableist world. This came up often in the first half of the book, but by the end, it seemingly doesn't matter. It's such a huge missed opportunity, and one that would have fleshed out not only the protagonist, but several other characters and the overall world itself.
Overall, the story was competently written in a technical sense, though there were some stylistic choices that had me rolling my eyes. If I can be totally subjective for a second, the narrative voice really wasn't for me; there were several moments where it stripped some of the more tense moments of of their impact and took me out of the story entirely. In a story striving to portray the horrors of war, nationalism, and propaganda, it was hard to take much of the subject matter seriously with a bunch of fantasy college students calling each other "toxic assholes" or "fucking hot toxic assholes".
But there were dragons, so. 4/10, mostly for that and the pacing.
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ragsy · 3 months
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It's so weird-- It's super easy to be "it is what it is" about it when a belonging of mine breaks. Yeah, it sucks that I gotta buy a new one, but things happen. As my ceramics professor said: "pots break, people die." Fact of life.
But when a belonging of mine disappears without a trace and I have no idea where it could have gone? That shit is going to nag at me for the rest of time. I didn't get CLOSURE! It could be wedged in a drawer somewhere in my home and I'm none the wiser! It could be in the backseat of someone else's car! It could have been accidentally thrown away! But I will never know for sure and it's driving me INSANE!!! Where the HELL IS IT!!!!!
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kazz-brekker · 7 months
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me reading a romantasy that is mean to mostly be a exciting and sexy read: don't overanalyze the politics and world-building don't overanalyze the politics and world-building don't overanalyze–
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timewizard-oldman · 3 months
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paragraph that deals 500 emotional damage
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darkdragon768 · 11 months
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I'm so fucking tired of Major Character Deaths just for the Character to come back to life at the very end of the story because of uwu happy endings uwu
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girlscience · 1 year
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me for the past several years: I think something is wrong with me, I just don't like books the way I used to. I have maybe finished 3 books in 4 years and the last one I finished took me making an intentional effort to do nothing but read it one day to finish it :/
this book,
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bursting into my life: NO IT IS THE BOOKS WHO ARE WRONG
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Ever see a depiction of St. George and the Dragon? It's pretty fair to say if you've seen one, you've seen them all: Georgie on a horse stabbing a flailing dragon creature, princess piously kneeling in the background, vague landscape alluding to the homeland of the artist's patron.
The most varied part is the dragons. No one had a real definition for the thing, it seemed. For your pleasure and entertainment, I have ranked some medieval depictions based on how impressive George's feat seems once you see the dragon.
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Paolo Uccello, 1456
This is a terrifying beast. The hell is that. Uccello was one of the first experimenters with perspective, so the thing also looks surreal, like it's taking place on Mars, or a Windows 95 screensaver. I would not want to fight that, I would not want to be tied to that. (Sometimes the princess is tied to the dragon for some reason.) 10/10
Horse thoughts: Maybe if I look at the ground it will be gone when I look up
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Unknown artist, c. 1505
This is a rare change of form for the dragon; it's the only one I've seen actually flying (or at least falling with style). It doesn't look particularly deterred by the spear through its throat, either. Also, George looks appropriately nervous. On the other hand, it hasn't got teeth, it seems to be fuzzy rather than having scaly armor, and George is bolstered by his army of Henry VII and his children, most of whom definitely didn't actually die in infancy. Still, wouldn't want to fight it, wouldn't want my pet sheep near it. (Sometimes the princess has a pet sheep for some reason.) 9/10
Horse thoughts: I am so glad I wore my mightiest feather helmet for this
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Raphael, 1505
We are coming to Dragons With Problems. This guy looks about comparable in size to George, and does have wings, but doesn't seem to be using these things to his advantage (and has he only got one wing?) And how does he deal with the neck? He does have a comically small head, but holding it up with such a twisty neck seems complicated at best. But most egregiously, he is doing the shitty superheroine pose where he is somehow simultaneously showcasing his chest and his butt, with its unnecessarily defined butthole (more on this later) (regrettably). 8/10 bc it's Raphael
Horse thoughts: AM I THE BESTEST BOI? AM I DOING SUCH A GOOD JOB? WE R DRAGON SLAYING BUDDIEZ
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The Beauchamp Hours, c. 1401
We had a spirited debate about this one at work. Again, the dragon has gotten smaller, and this one hasn't got even one wing. He's basically a crocodile. So the debate became: would you want to fight a crocodile if you had a horse and a pointy stick? Would the horse trample the animal, who can't get on its hind legs, or freak out and throw its rider? Would the pointy stick be enough to pierce the croc's thick hide? In this case, George seems to be controlling his horse and putting his pointy stick in the dragon's weak spot, so we can be impressed by his skill and strategy. However, his hat is dumb. 7/10
Horse thoughts: Dehhhh
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Book of Hours, c. 1480
Here we have the same kind of croco-dragon, but George's focus on his strategy has gone out the window. He's flailing around, not even looking at his target, he's about to lose his pointy stick, he hasn't got a hand on the reins, and his sword seems to only be poking the invisible dragon over his shoulder. All he's got going for him is that his hat is slightly less dumb. 6/10
Horse thoughts: Yay, new friend! Come play with me, new fr- what is happening
Final dragons put behind this Read More for your safety:
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Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1432
I'm thinking this guy is at least semi-aquatic. Webbed feet, wings that seem more like fins, bipedal but top-heavy, jaws that seem more for scooping than biting. Maybe she's crawled up here from the nearby body of water to lay her eggs, and this is all a big misunderstanding. Moreover, George's dagged sleeves seem entirely impractical for the situation. 5/10
Horse thoughts: i got my hed stuk in a jar and now it is this way forever
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Unknown artist, c. 15th century
I hate this. I hate everything about it. Why has it got human eyes and teeth. Why is its nose melting. Why has it got a dick on its face and balls under its chin. The fin/wings are back but they look even more useless. Also, George is shifty as hell, schlumped over in his saddle with his bowler hat thing over his eyes. The baby dragon at the bottom eating some hapless would-be rescuer is kind of metal. 4/10 at least the thing is gonna die
Horse thoughts: I Have Smoked So Much Crack
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Book of Hours, c. 1450
Remember what I said about the buttholes? First, sorry. Second, yeah, we're back to that. I'll admit this one is less about the danger from the dragon itself than the very specific choices the artist has made. They didn't need to do that. It's a lizard. They don't even have. And it's like they had an orifice budget and they skipped an exit wound for the spear to focus. Elsewhere. It's so detailed. And George had an even dumber hat. 2/10 take it away
Horse thoughts: I Have Smoked So Much Weed
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Book of Hours, c. 1415
This is just bullying. There isn't even a princess. That is clearly an infant. Look at that smug look on George's face as he swings his sword that's bigger than the whole little guy. This is the equivalent of when DJT Jr. hunted those sleeping endangered sheep. 1/10
Horse thoughts: ....yikes
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And this is the previous one, but now the baby dragon is cute. He's chubby. He's got toe beans. He's Puff the Magic Dragon. His eyes have already gone white, implying that George is just kicking its corpse around for funsies. What's the difference between the dragon and the lamb in the background? That the dragon is dead, like our innocence. This George is truly deserving of the dumbest hat of all. 0/10 plus one more butthole for the road
Horse thoughts: Perhaps it is we who are the buttholes.
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My brain refuses to sleep, so more drabbling! Probably modern-ish AU?
Steve makes a career for himself as a re-decorator (or de-decorator, as he loves to call himself). His clientele are those celebrities who rose to fame so quickly they have plenty of money, but they don't have time to make their houses feel like home. They just bought penthouses and mansions and now live in homes that are fancy, but they feel like hotels.
Steve is there to fix that.
One of his clients is the hard working rockstar Eddie Munson whose life path went from a trailer park to couch surfing to living with 4 people in a tiny apartment, then suddenly tours, hotels and boom! He has a house that looks like an IKEA prop.
He doesn't hide his distaste at the pristine condition of the place (yes, Eddie has a cleaner). "Oh god. A beige carpet?" he scoffs and he sounds so bitchy Eddie decides he likes him already.
He likes him even more when Steve puts on reading glasses. Damn.
Over coffee, they discuss what Eddie wants. Except Steve doesn't just...tell him. He doesn't give him any hints. He just keeps asking about Eddie's favorite colors, what movies he likes, does he have hobbies apart from music? Can Steve see some of the items that bring him comfort?
And Eddie's surprised. "Shouldn't you, like...be telling me what I'm supposed to want?" he asks the gorgeous man who almost wails when he sees the vase with fresh flowers ("This is the third place in a row that has this fugly thing! Is it like a status symbol? Uh, tasteless.").
And Steve just stares at him. "Uh, Mr. Munson?"
"Eddie."
Steve nods. "Eddie. Why should I have any say in what you want? If you ask me what's practical, easy to clean, what bounces off light well, that's another thing. But in matters of taste...you're the boss. You live here, I don't. (Pity, Eddie thinks) Now, let's change this place into somewhere you actually like staying, hm?"
They spend the whole afternoon talking. Eddie opens up about what he loved before the touring and expectations from his agent took that from him. He talks about the Lord of the Rings, Dungeons and Dragons, fantasy in general, and Steve listens, makes tons of notes and asks questions that make Eddie's heart bleed, such as "and who is your favorite Lord of the Rings character?" and "you mentioned elves, dwarves, orcs, wizards...so what is your favorite group?" and "which DnD class would you be then? I guess a bard? Is that too obvious?". Now, Steve doesn't know much about these things, but learns quickly and works with the info he has.
They walk through the house again, with Steve making notes and wincing at transgressions against humanity or at least against his taste in things ("Oh ew. EW. Glossy finish on a kitchen counter? What is this, a future crime scene?") and Eddie feeling equally amused and curious. Eddie orders dinner for them, it goes something like:
"I don't know what would be appropriate, any preferences?"
"Eddie, there's no time or space when pizza is not appropriate."
"What about a funeral?"
"It puts fun in a funeral."
"Touché."
They follow up on a bunch more things. Steve notices Eddie fidgeting and asks him like the mindreader he is if perhaps the place is too clean for him. "Minimalism is what everyone's trying to push," Steve says, not without sympathy, "but it's not for everyone. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but you seem like a person who'd love a more....personal, cluttered space."
And god, Eddie feels so seen. He tells Steve about all his favorite books and trinkets that he lost during a horrible earthquake in Indiana, so when he moved to the city it was just some clothes and his two guitars. Steve makes so many notes. "I've seen quite a lot of collectibles for your beloved trilogy," he says with a hint of a smile. "Is that something you'd like in your home?" Eddie can't nod any faster.
They talk about the budget (Eddie just scoffs at that, for the first time in his life money is not an issue), Eddie's absolute no go things ("No more vases, please! PLEASE. Also maybe the one room that can stay as it is is the studio, there's no decor"), if he has issues touching any materials, if he wants to keep any areas in the house neutral for visitors (he doesn't). Then finally, he asks Eddie if he wants to be more consulted or surprised.
And Eddie, tired and surprisingly relaxed from talking to Steve, just grins and says: "Surprise me, big boy."
Steve just smirks and makes one more note. "Oh, I will, Eddie."
...
Eddie goes on yet another tour for a couple of months, which is the ideal time for Steve to start working on the house.
Steve sometimes texts Eddie random choices, such as "Rohan or Gondor or both?" or "what's the best pub in the Middle Earth?" and Eddie usually trips over his feet trying to get to his phone after concerts to see if maybe he has another message from Steve. He learns bits and pieces about the man as well - he has a younger brother, Dustin, who is into the same stuff that Eddie is. Sometimes it goes like this:
STEVE: What's the best battle in the LotR movies?
EDDIE: The Ride of the Rohirrim, duh!
STEVE: Dustin says you're wrong, it's the last stand at the gates of Mordor.
EDDIE: The disrespect to king Théoden!
And finally, the big day comes. Eddie meets with Steve at the door. From the outside, the house still looks boring, but that's what they agreed on. At least for now.
But there's one notable difference and Eddie gasps when he sees it.
"I know we said no changes on the outside," said Steve sheepishly, "but I took the liberty to make one slight change."
Where the door used to be bland and white, it is now carved with silver etchings. It replicates the Doors of Durin. Eddie loves it.
Steve smiles at him. "Speak friend and enter, right? Dustin told me. Anyways, are you ready?"
Turns out, Eddie wasn't ready. Steve took all of the shiny and sterile surfaces and turned them into something beautiful.
The kitchen is now in warmer colors, brown and green, imitating the Green Dragon inn, plaque included.
Guest rooms have been changed, each to represent a group or a nation of the Middle Earth. Eddie thinks his uncle will love the Rohirrim one.
No more vases are to be seen, but Steve got potted plants ("almost immortal, as long as your housekeeper waters them once a week or so").
Eddie howls in laughter when he sees that Steve somehow managed to disguise all his security cameras as tiny eyes of Sauron.
The bathroom is inspired by the Rivendell, with soft tones and nods to Elvish architecture.
Eddie's bedroom resembles the Shire, with round shapes and homely motifs.
But Eddie's absolute favorite is the living room.
The only things that remain there that he bought are the massive TV and his stereo system with records. The rest though...
Gone is the ugly and sharp couch that looked like a geometry exercise. The new one is large and comfortable, with a couple of armchairs to finish the cozy feel. The coffee table and TV stand are more rough looking, with decorative ironwork. And then, around the room and on the walls...
"Oh wow," whispers Eddie and Steve beams at him.
There are collectibles and figurines that young Eddie Munson would have killed for. A replica of the Narsil hangs over the TV. It's cluttered but tasteful, still easy to clean, but Eddie always has something to touch, to play with.
And then he spots the bookcase and actually sobs. "What the fuck, Steve?" he asks, but there's no anger, just awe. "How did you know?"
The bookcase is full of Eddie's most beloved books, all that he told Steve about and more, but it's not just that. These aren't just pristine new prints - Steve managed to get both those and well-loved used copies. Most of them are the same editions that Eddie had before the earthquake. He runs his trembling finger over the back of the Hobbit and it feels like home.
"That was the hardest part," says Steve and leaves Eddie to rummage through the books, the old DnD guides and used comic books. "But I assumed you're sick of new and shiny. In fact, most of the collectibles are already used as well. They have some history. As for the books, uh..." He scratches his neck, embarrassed. "I will be honest, I don't read much. Dyslexia and some issues with the eyes, although audio books are making it more possible for me now. So I had to ask Dustin for help. We looked for editions published before the earthquake. I hope we got some of them right?"
Eddie just mutters "Sorry, I'm about to do something really unprofessional now" and pulls Steve into a bear hug. And Steve reciprocates.
"Fuck, this...this is everything," says Eddie into his shoulder. "How did you do this? Are you magic. You must be magic."
Steve grins. "I take it the surprise was a success then?"
Eddie finally pulls back. He would have loved to keep embracing Steve for a bit longer, but boundaries. "A total one. Wow. I mean. It's a lot, but so good. SO GOOD. How can I repay you?"
"You already paid me, Eddie."
"You know what I mean!" Eddie points and the books and apparently also a DVD collection he now owns. "This must have been so much more work than you normally do, no? I doubt every client has you memorize the members of the Fellowship."
"Not just that, but also why Sam is the best," Steve smiles at him and fuck. Eddie might be in love. "It was more than usual, but I loved it, Eddie. That's why I like my job so much, helping people find themselves again. You don't owe me anything. Although, if you're offering..."
"I'm listening."
Steve runs his fingers through that majestic hair. "So, I didn't tell Dustin that I was decorating the house for you, but he's a huge fan of your music. Like, massive, has every album, has been following your career from the start. And feel free to tell me it's too much, you are my client after all, but...he'd love to meet you. Over a pizza, maybe? The plain ham and cheese one you like so it doesn't have too many flavors?"
And Eddie melts. Because Steve still remembers his pizza choice from months ago, even though this definitely wasn't in his notes. He decides there and then that Steven Harrington is a national treasure.
"Sure, big boy," he smiles at Steve, and hopes he didn't imagine Steve leaning into the touch. "How about you invite him over for a movie night or something? With pizza of course."
It looks like Steve could kiss him, but he doesn't. Not yet. That only happens a week later, when they bump into each other in Eddie's kitchen when they scramble to make more popcorn for Dustin.
Steve stays the next night. And maybe a few after that. Always in a different themed bedroom.
They travel for work a lot, but when they are both in Chicago, they always meet in the Green Dragon kitchen, cuddle in the bed that would be far too large for a hobbit, and in the night, Eddie wraps himself around Steve and whispers: "My preciousssss."
And Steve can't really complain, because it's his fault that his boyfriend has re-discovered his dorkiness, so why would he mind?
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emo-batboy · 7 months
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Things Battinson Totally Did During His First Year of University
Using Unhinged or Odd Things I Also Did as a College Freshman :D
Note: for this list, let’s believe Bruce was living in an (admittedly expensive and swanky) dorm because it is required for first-years, especially those entering at a young age, and Alfred told him he needed to make friends. Also yes I did every single thing on this list. I never claimed to be a role model
Bruce, to his TA: I’m so sorry I’m late to class. I gave blood a few hours ago and almost fainted on the way here, but it won’t happen again.
Signs up for a class called “Age of Dinosaurs” despite it not being required whatsoever and proceeds to work his entire schedule around it
Bruce: Your mental health is super important. If you think you should see the on-campus therapist, go see them. Friend: Fine. I’ll sign up for therapy if you sign up for therapy too. Bruce: Hold on-
Finds a loophole in his housing contract that allows him to get a pet frog, calls him kermit :)
Gets a second frog because Kermit was lonely, names it Constantine after Muppets Most Wanted, then realizes that they’re gay for each other. Wonders if the rainbow-colored rocks he got them triggered anything
Swings dramatically between calling Alfred every single day and ghosting him for weeks, cries when he realizes what he did
“Accidentally” joins the student body council, doesn’t know what he’s doing, gets re-elected anyway
Molds a dragon out of Laffy Taffy instead of doing his work
Bruce: *joins Honors, gets all A’s, takes the max amount of classes, has several minors, overachieves* Also Bruce: I’m a failure.
Breaks into a building after hours to study because NO ONE KNOWS HOW TO SHUT THE FUCK UP AT THE LIBRARY
Bruce: I will not get seasonal depression this year. Bruce: *gets real and seasonal depression that year*
Meticulously schedules his day with a color-coded planner because if he sits down for too long, the thoughts will consume him
Gives a presentation to his rhetoric class on how much he likes Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (it is 20 minutes long)
Successfully allocates funding from the student body council to pay for free feminine products in the dorms OUT OF SPITE because someone said it couldn't be done. fuck you, Andrew
Bruce: It is not an all-nighter if I go to sleep before my first class. Friend: It is 7:30am, the sun is in the sky, and your first class is at 12:30. Bruce: But I am getting sleep.
Refuses to go anywhere without his backpack because what if he needs three notebooks at once
Loses over 20 pounds because ✨stress✨ and scares the shit out of Alfred when he comes home for Thanksgiving
Argues with his TA over the one (1) question he got wrong on his Dinosaur exam
Bruce, calling Alfred: Hello father figure. How do I do taxes? Do I have to do them myself? Also, I think I’m having a panic attack.
Joins in on a charity arts-and-crafts project that gives kids books with matching activities made by volunteers, proceeds to commandeer the project because “it’s not color-blind friendly” and rewrites the instructions for everyone
Makes a murder wall
Goes to one (1) sports game and proceeds to leave in the first ten minutes because it’s way too loud wtf is wrong with people
Professor, addressing the lecture hall: I dare you to write an essay about these two sentences. Bruce: *writes an essay about six words, gets a 100, never even read the book*
Crawls into the ceiling for some alone time
Ghosts someone after a date because he’s too scared to tell them he didn’t know it was a date in the first place and now he feels bad
Classmate: How tf does he walk across campus that fast? I go in the same direction he does on my bike, and he’s always ahead of me. Bruce: *is gay sprinting to Dinosaur class*
Refuses to let others use his Favorite Pen TM
Constantly gets mistaken for a Grad Student because he is “so wise and mature” (bestie, that’s the autism)
Alfred: *casually mentions he got into a car accident through text* Bruce: *replies with a meme while hyperventilating because he doesn’t know what to do with that information??!*
Wears a suit to one of his finals
Regularly eats non-organic food for the first time in his life, proceeds to learn about several allergies Alfred forgot to mention he has
Writes “What is a Hot Pocket?” in calligraphy and proceeds to laugh his ass off alone in his dorm because he is so exhausted he’s reached the point of delusion
Locks himself out of his dorm right before class, frantically asks the floor group chat if someone can help, proceeds to tell the nice gay man on the floor who saved him “I love you” because his social skills have hit rock bottom
Makes a little music album display next to his desk for his favorite band (Nirvana) His friends call it a shrine, and they are technically correct
Has a blacklist of people he refuses to interact with because Reasons
Counselor: What do you want to do when you graduate? Bruce: *gestures vaguely*
Refuses to take the bus because there are people in there and he doesn’t like those
Loses one of his frogs, how tf did he do that, they’re fully aquatic, oh fuck, this is probably why they got rid of that loophole a year later because unbeknownst to Bruce, he accidentally started a frog revolution in the dorms, btw he SWEARS he did not mean to do that
Has two trash cans in his room: one for the Good Garbage, and one for the Bad Garbage. Only Bruce knows which is which
Bruce: *writes a creative piece about a ship’s final thoughts as it sinks, bringing its passengers down with it* TA: Absolutely lovely, Bruce, but are you okay?
Goes on Night Walks, keeps himself safe by maintaining a level 12 resting bitch face at all times
Earns the nickname “8th floor cryptid” after pacing the halls at 3am when it’s too cold for Night Walks (honestly tho how tf didn’t he get the nickname earlier?)
Bruce: Do you think a depressed person could do this? Bruce: *has a manic episode*
Okay that's all love you BYE
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THE CURSE OF CURIOSITY.
Aemond Targaryen x twin sister!reader
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"While your brother searches the library of the Dragonkeeper Elder for something new to read, you come in contact with some unlabeled fluid. You both learn that it's something meant to aid in the breeding of dragons, however, it also has a unique effect on humans. But lucky for you, your twin is there to help you through the ordeal."
WARNINGS: SEXUAL CONTENT—MINORS DNI; canon typical incest/targcest, dub con, sex pollen (rather fluid lol), p in v, breeding kink
WORDS: 4 K
NOTES: Hope you enjoy me having literally zero grasp on English. 🤭
❗️𝐚𝐝𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐲 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭!
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“It’s far too late for us to be here,” you huff, almost annoyed, as you watch Aemond graze his fingers along the spines of the several books kept in the currently deserted chambers of the Dragonkeeper Elder. “What are we looking for here anyways?”
The room is barely lit by anything else than just a handful of candles. Your twin holds a lantern of some sort in one hand, using it to make out the writings that are carved on the books backs. 
When there doesn’t immediately come an answer from him, you start to slowly walk around the room, inspecting its decor. “I have exhausted the castle’s libraries, and hope to take something of their collection for my own,” he murmurs, carefully selecting two books. 
You stop in your tracks and turn to look at him. Although you’re just a few moments younger than him, sharing the same attributes with your long, silver hair and lilac eyes, you have a much gentler nature than he does, one that doesn’t lend itself to the same mischief you had pursued together as children anymore. 
“And you couldn’t have just taken Floris with you? You ought to wed, and doing something together would do no harm to your future union. One sparsely sees you two around court,” you note, slightly annoyed your brother chose to wake you instead of his betrothed. 
Knowing all too well that just the mention of the betrothal is going to set him off, you choose to play with fire. If your brother wants your company, he’ll have to put up with your teasing. And just like expected, the notion of being forced into a marriage he doesn’t want to be in irritates him, audible in the sigh he releases. His resentment of the situation has become worse over time as he feels more and more suffocated by the ordeal.
“The girl is as dull as stones. Besides,” he replies with a shrug, “she knows nothing about our family’s history, much less about dragons.” The topic of dragons is something your twin is very passionate about, and you know that the fact that his wife-to-be cares so little about his passion infuriates him. It might be one of the main reasons for his dislike of her. “I have no desire to have Floris at my side any more than she does me.”
His annoyance is palpable, but you don’t feel bad about making it worse. For all the hours he has spent teasing, taunting and annoying you while you grew up together, he gets it back twice and three times over. And although he hasn’t spoken it out loud, you know you’re one of the few people he trusts blindly to be himself around. 
“That aside, it would be foolish to read with Floris,” he continues, your silence coaxing him to speak more, “as all she does is gossip with her friends and prattle on about pointless nonsense. You of all people know best how I feel about this match.”
“Floris isn’t so bad, you know,” you defend with a low voice. “And you’ve barely tried to get to know her. Surely you can find at least one thing to like about her. If you did, you might just see she’s not as terrible as you’ve decided.” If you both have to spend your days withering away in marriages sealed by your father and mother, you at least could find a little solace knowing your twin wasn’t as miserable in his. 
Aemond sighs in frustration. “You sound just like mother,” he comments dryly, finally moving to look at you from over his shoulder. “Can you really say that you like her? She is dull and naive. I am certain I couldn’t find anything to like about her even if I had all night. There is nothing for me to like about her. Nothing at all.”
Finding yourself at somewhat of a loss of words at this, you open and close your mouth without any words leaving it. Part of you wants to disagree with your twin, as Floris hasn’t been entirely unpleasant to spend time with at court, which makes Aemond’s dislike for her appear entirely without reason to you. On the other hand, you’ve known your brother long and well enough to know when he is resolute about something. 
“Just promise me that you won’t be a terrible husband to her. Even if you don’t like her, don’t make your lifes awful,” you finally blurt out. 
As you allow your gaze to trail through the chambers once more, you spot some small vessels standing lined up on the desk in the far corner with books and scrolls littered around them. You don’t wait for Aemond to reply as you make your way over, determined to inspect the small containers. The liquid inside of them resembles milk of the poppy, although it’s slightly more permeable to light when you hold it to one of the candles. 
You hardly think about the dangers coming with it when you open the lid to inhale a whiff of the fluid. Not smelling entirely unpleasant, it still has you scrunching your nose as a slight burning grows prominent in your nose and throat. 
Placing the vessel back down rather quickly, it stands too close to the edge of the desk. You’re not quick enough as it falls to the ground with a clatter, the vessel shattering into pieces and the pale liquid spreading across the floor. 
“By the Seven,” you mumble, sinking to the ground to collect some of the larger shards. 
The sound of breaking glass and your sighing is enough to catch your brother's attention again. Where he has read the spines of the books before, he makes his way over to the source of the commodation now. “You shouldn’t have dropped that,” he comments dryly, which prompts you to shoot him a heated glare. “Oh, you don’t say, mh?” you reply, your voice laced with sarcasm. 
Reaching for another shard, you pull your hand back with a hiss when it cuts your finger. “Ouch!” you exclaim and rise to your feet, soon enough spotting the crimson oozing out of the cut. 
Despite his annoyance at your clumsiness, Aemond’s good eye is drawn to the cut you have given yourself. It’s no deep wound, but even the hint of your blood makes something akin to guilt bubble in his stomach. “What were you doing with that?” he inquires, as he takes your hand to inspect your finger, nodding towards the vessels still standing on the desk. 
You watch him twist and turn your hand to have the perfect look of the wound, the stinging pain suddenly not too bad with his warm skin on yours. “I… I just wanted to see what they keep here. It is unusual for anyone other than the maesters to store unmarked liquids,” you reply, hissing as Aemond pinches the cut finger a tad too tightly. “I shall see Maester Mellos. Mayhaps this needs stitching.”
“That’s an excellent idea.”
Aemond fetches the books he has chosen from the collection, holding them under his arm as he brings the other to you to place a hand to the small of your back, guiding you out of the Dragonpit. 
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On your request, the cut on your finger is stitched by Maester Mellos, although he has voiced that it wasn’t quite necessary. But something tells you the opposite, especially when you catch him staring at your face and checking your temperature more than once. “Is everything alright, maester?” you ask him with a soft voice, a yawn following. 
Aemond towers over the both of you, carefully watching each move of the needle in the elder’s hands, just waiting for him to make a wrong move that’s meant to hurt you – he’s familiar with being stitched up after all. 
The maester seems to be out of his mind, and only reacts as he hears you say his name. “Maester Mellos?” 
His eyes are wide, but he nods quickly. “Yes… yes, princess. The wound should be able to heal calmly now.” 
He is quick to pack his utensils up again, and even faster to leave your chambers at once. And while Aemond hurries after the old man, trying to catch up on him outside of your chambers, you don’t wait for any of them to return again with sleep coming over you.
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The crackling of the fireplace is the only thing audible when you stir awake, a sheen of sweat covering your skin, making your nightgown cling to it uncomfortably. Your body feels as though it’s on fire when you squirm from one side to the other, not finding back to sleep. A tingling spreads in your loins, and each time your thighs squeeze together, it surges up your spine. 
“Gods be good,” you whine, utterly bewildered with the feeling of liquid fire coursing through your veins. 
Aemond not so silently rises from one of the chairs close to the fireplace, and comes closer to the bed, though, careful not to startle or frighten you as you regain your bearings. He has hoped you’d sleep through the entire ordeal and wake up as if nothing has happened, but that hope slowly dissipates with each passing moment. 
“How are you feeling?” your twin asks, concern in his voice. Suddenly, hearing his voice allures you, and doesn’t diminish the burning at the apex of your legs. 
As you clench your thighs together again, it releases some of the tension your body holds, and makes you whine in despair. “Aemond…” you pant, your chest rising and falling with your heavy breaths. “What are you doing here?”
The thin sheets covering your body do little to conceal what is happening beneath, and your brother just assumes it’s your way of trying to suppress your bodily urges ignited by the pale liquid you came in contact with before. 
“I…” his usual confidence and boldness completely deserts him at the state you’re in, and he can barely find the words to tell you what he’s been told by Maester Mellos. 
As he watches you writhe and writhe about on the bed, he’s unsure of how much longer he can just stand there and do nothing. But his concern and love for you cause him to make the decision to act, approaching you and reaching out to grasp your hands. 
At the contact, the feeling of his warm hands fully engulfing yours, it’s like something overcomes your mind and body, luring you in to move, staring up at him with wide eyes as you sit on your haunches. “Dohaeragon nyke… kostilus,” you whimper, strands of your silver hair clinging to the damp sides of your face. “Ziry ōdrikagon.. sīr bāne. Nyke sepār – dohaeragon nyke, lēkia.” Yet you don’t quite know what exactly you’re begging for. Help me… please. It hurts… so hot. I just – help me, brother. 
In the dim light of the candles, you spot his eye widening as you shift and squirm, looking up at him in such a vulnerable state with your innocent eyes, pleading for him to help you through your ordeal although you have no idea of what’s wrong with you right now. He can’t help but notice how your hair clings to your skin, seeming as if you’ve just bathed, and that your movements seem to contribute to its dampness. 
“Mellos has told me what the fluid is that the Elder keeps in his chambers,” he states, trying to stay calm and not let your state affect him too much. 
But with his proximity, all effort of you to process what he’s saying is fruitless. You pull on his hands, as if you want to encourage him to join you in bed, and when he doesn’t budge, you rise on your knees, and start to fidget with the buttons of his coat – solely driven by your urges. “And that is?” you mumble, not really listening.  
His cheeks run hot when you start to undo the buttons, and his hands capture yours once again to put a stop to it, making you pout. With furrowed brows, his grip finally has you looking up at him. “It’s something used to aid in breeding the dragons,” Aemond states. “He told me it’s also used to increase their stamina and to make them more…” he trails off, his body slowly growing tense as the implication of what he’s going to say settles into his mind. “... receptive to breeding.”
“Mh–Mh,” you hum almost nonchalantly, and watch completely mesmerized as your fingers graze along his, the warmth and softness of his skin only intensifying the tingling in your loins. Aemond is hesitant, unsure whether or not what you’re doing is entirely due to the potion’s effect, or if there is genuinely some desire for him on your part. 
You lick your lips and free your hands from Aemond’s to shrug the opened coat off his shoulders. The fabric of his tunic is pinched between your fingers as you tug on it once again to beg for him to join you. With him taking his sweet time, you find yourself clenching your thighs every now and then to soothe the aching burning at the apex of them.
“He also informed me that ‘tis necessary for someone to… help you through it,” he murmurs quietly, his voice almost sounding shaky as he speaks, “... for it will burn you from the inside out if not.”
Even though you’re fully acting on your body's desires, you do notice the way his widened eye trails down to your thighs, lingering there for a moment before it returns to yours. 
You don’t give a verbal response to his words, and instead, your only reactions are subtle ones. Nodding your head slowly, as if you’ve understood what he is implying, your hands squeeze his tunic further into his chest. He can practically see your body tensing with each movement of your fingers, almost as if you’re trying to hold back. 
With your eyes firmly locked with his now, you slowly trail your hands beneath his tunic, pushing it up to remove that as well from his body to get further access to him – if it wasn’t for him not raising his arms. 
Exhaling a deep breath, you sit back on your haunches. His reluctance does little to quell the fire raging within you, no, it only fuels to make you even more desperate. The lacey hem of your nightgown rides up your thighs as you spread them, and fully exposes your undergarments the moment you bring your hand between your legs. A breathy whimper falls past your lips as your fingers finally make contact with your clothed cunt, and then something akin to mischief flickers in your lilac eyes. 
“And… will you help me, brother? Or shall I ask Jacaerys for help instead? We ought to wed in a moon's turn after all,” your voice is honeyed as you speak, dripping with feigned innocence. “But you don’t want that, do you? That’s why you’ve stayed.”
You spot the exact moment his breath hitches in his throat. He suddenly feels a wave of heat overcoming him, your words triggering something in him that is more than just the usual desire to protect his younger sister, something primal. You sound and look so vulnerable asking for his help, secretly begging for him and him only. 
Intertwining your fingers with his, the intensity of your grip increasing as your senses become more heightened, your twin finally moves as you pull him onto the bed. The mattress dips beneath his weight as you watch him come closer, and when he is close enough, you reach and pull him down onto you in a quick motion. You don’t waste a second more and lock your lips with his, your hand slowly traveling down his back. But before you can grab his tunic and pull it over his head, Aemond pushes you back to lie flatly on the bed, pinning your wrists above your head. His eye burns with hunger as he gazes down at you, visible even in the dim light, and it makes you yearn for more. 
“Well, if I chose to leave you here to your own devices, would you crawl to your betrothed for help? I do not think so,” he says, his voice taking over a mocking tone. “No, in fact, I’m certain you would come to my chambers instead.”
When he doesn’t touch you, you try to wrap your legs around his body to grind yourself against him, but Aemond is quick to catch your hip with one hand, keeping your body still as it's pinned to the mattress.
“Sir, dohaeragon nyke,” you beg, voice shaky enough it comes close to a whimper. But when you notice that speaking in the tongue of your ancestors is not having any effect on him at all, you choose to coax him to tend to you in the Common Tongue. “Touch me, Aemond. Help me… please.” Now, help me.
Aemond is silent for a moment, visibly dragging his eye over your squirming frame. One hand still holds your wrists above your head, while the other slowly but surely releases your hip. “I shall take care of you,” he reassures you. “But you will have to let me, do you understand?”
You gaze up at him with wide eyes and slowly nod your head, only for you to pounce on him the moment your wrists are released. The tunic is gone as soon as your body collides with his, causing a strained gasp to leave your twin’s lips. While just the thoughts of his warm skin on yours have incite your mind already, seeing his bare chest sets your body alight. 
His demeanor changes in the blink of an eye, and he has never treated you as roughly as he does when he pushes you off of him. It leaves you dumbfounded for a moment, more so when he moves between your parted legs, towering over you. 
“Look how dull this fluid has made you,” he mocks, the condescending tone of his voice sending a shiver up your spine. Aemond notices that you’re not shying away from him, no, you keen at that. “Just because you couldn’t keep your hands to yourself.”
“If I help you,” he warns, “no one else, let alone that bastard of a nephew, is ever allowed to touch you again, do you understand?”
It might be the liquid-induced state, or the despair to have him do anything to you already, but you’re far too eager to nod at his words. 
Aemond’s hand wanders below the hem of your nightgown to heartily fist your undergarments and peel them off of you. He can already feel that the linen is soaked with your arousal, but still can’t stop himself from licking his lips as he sees your now exposed cunt glistening in the light of the candles. 
“Now, we do not want you to suffer any longer, hm?” he asks. 
And you nod once again. “Gods, yes, please. I need you, Aemond.”
You don’t have to beg him any longer. He undoes the laces in the front of his breeches and pulls out his throbbing cock, painfully hard and aching to be buried inside of you. It’s slightly curved and thick, and if you have to guess, you’d say that you need both hands to pleasure him, and even then there’d still be a bit of him that would be left abandoned. 
Aemond wastes no time in lining himself up with your entrance, pushing into you as you both moan in unison. You don’t expect him to set up a merciless pace almost immediately upon fully bottoming out, but you’re not disappointed either. 
While you’ve been able to talk before, he’s quickly reduced you to a whimpering and whining mess, relishing in the delicious burning of accommodating his sheer size. 
“Does it help?” your twin asks through gritted teeth, desperately trying to keep his sounds of pleasure at bay. But you’ve been fucked into a stupor by him already, not even able to keep your eyes open. “Mh-mh,” you hum. 
Putting some of his weight onto you, Aemond’s hand finds your throat like the most treasured necklace you only take off to sleep, taking up the entirety of your neck and leaving no room for you to shift even the slightest. 
It was subtle at first, but the merciless pace slowly changes into something more determined, his hips rolling with each thrust as if he wants to make sure the tip of his cock really brushes your sweet spot every time. He’s seemingly spurred on by the way you’ve lost all inhibitions, not that the fluid allowed you to have any in the first place, and the wanton moans that spill past your lips. 
One of your hands grabs his wrist, keeping his hand around your throat, while the other finds solace on his shoulder, gripping it tightly. Your nails dig into his alabaster skin, and you’re sure that crescent shaped marks will bloom there not long after, staking your claim on him. 
“But you need more,” Aemond grunts, and you can’t do more than whimper a pathetic string of yesses. “The only thing that will truly help you is for me to fill you up with my seed, to breed you.”
Your head tips back in plain bliss, and you’re not sparing one thought to the possible repercussions of him putting a child in you. If anything, there is something buried deeply inside of you that has waited for this moment. You have waited for this moment. You grew up thinking you’d marry your twin one day, only for the rising tensions inside of the family to force you to marry your nephew instead as the final straw to mend the chasm. 
Aemond’s stamina doesn’t seem to be able to handle the way your body reacts to him and his words – not when a renewed wave of your arousal drips from your cunt at the mere thought of you carrying his child. It’s running thin, ready to burst at any given moment, hence he brings a deft finger to your pearl, rubbing it with frantic movements that should bring you to peak just in time with him. 
The pressure brought to your pearl has your body squirming, not anticipating it and the shiver of pleasure that comes with it. You arch your back and moan, yet a tight squeeze of your throat is enough to bring your attention back to him.
“Do you want that?” he pants, dark blown eyes fixed with yours. “Want me to put a babe in you?” It might be his way to ask for your reassurance, and while your body’s reaction should be enough with your walls clenching around him so tightly, he stills wants to hear your voice. 
Your cheeks grow hot as his words finally seem to settle in your hazed mind, a whiny ‘yes’ slipping past your lips. “Fill me up, Aemond… please. I want it,” you all but beg, your voice croaked with him squeezing your throat. 
The confession flips a switch inside of you that allows you to let go, your body shattering beneath Aemond with a pathetic whine. He relishes in the way your walls flutter and spasm all over him, utterly mesmerized as relief etches itself into your features. 
With a groan, the first wanton sound of pleasure you’ve heard of him, Aemond spends himself inside of you. He connects your lips in a heated kiss that has you swallowing down each grunt and groan he unleashes. Working you both through the blissful highs, his hips only stop once he’s sure he’s fucked his seed as deep as possible, determined to put a child in you. 
Aemond topples over into the vacant space next to you, his breeches soaked with your arousal and his chest heaving with his breaths. 
The sudden loss of friction makes you whine at first, but is quickly overshadowed by the feeling of relief. “Thank you,” you whisper through heavy breaths, turning your head to look at him. 
“I won’t leave now,” he says softly, although there is a linger of mischief in his voice. “I would be remiss not to aid my sister in her hour of utmost desperation… so, I shall stay the night just to make sure you really get through it.”
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Aemond Taglist: @persephonerinyes @dr-aegon @schniiipsel @thekinslayed @baizzhu @legitalicat
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r--kt · 1 month
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Do you like Kakashi's dogs? Let's talk about why there are eight of them.
another example of naruto's ✨cultural code✨
contents | the eight dog warriors chronicles · legacy · eight confucian virtues. also look at the cuties love them sm
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Naruto Vol. 10 CH 90
[ one dog is wonderful, I'm saying as the owner of a sweet little york terrier. two dogs are good, they won't be bored together. three dogs? yeah, cool! how are you going to walk them though? four? yes... look, maybe we have to draw the line h- wha- EIGHT? Excuse Me!? ]
surely, it's worth starting with the fact that eight is a lucky number in Japanese culture — everybody watched Hachi. of course, this is not the only cultural detail where the eight is mentioned. I want to pay special attention to a thing that I didn't know about until I googled it, and this is clearly what Kishimoto was doing homage to with Kakashi's eight ninken.
The Eight Dog Warriors Chronicles
Better known as Nansō Satomi Hakkenden. and it's not just some kind of book, it's a novel, consisting of 106 booklets written by Kyokutei Bakin in XIX century. Hakkenden is considered the largest novel in the history of Japanese Literature. this is one of the main representatives of the gesaku genre, which includes works of a frivolous, joking, silly nature. further I will emphasize a few more times how damn popular this work is and how often it is reflected in culture.
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here are some illustrations for these books
now let's talk about the plot. It's weird, but it's weird at samurai-dogs-story level so stay here.
In brief, the story tells about the commander Satomi Yoshizane, whose native lands were attacked by the army of a man, whose forces surpassed those of Satomi, and the samurai in despair swore to a dog named Yatsufusa that the dog would get his beloved daughter Fuse as a wife if he chewed that man's throat. surprisingly, the dog not only understood the owner, but also fulfilled his wish! after that the commander refused to keep the promise. however, Fuse, true to her word of honor, went with Yatsufusa to the mountains and became his wife. upon learning that his daughter was pregnant, Satomi, in a rage, sent a samurai to kill Yatsufusa and bring Fuse home. she stood up for the dog anyways and died with him. at that moment, eight pearls with hieroglyphs that denoted the foundations of Confucian virtue burst out of her womb. (...cheers for mythology, I guess)
Soon, eight dog warriors who were Fuse's spiritual children were born in different parts of Awa province. after going through hardships, they got together and became vassals of the Satomi clan, then won the battle, and soon reached peace.
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some more illustrations made by Utagawa Kuniyoshi. from left to right: Inukawa Sōsuke (the dog warrior), Inumura Daikaku (the dog warrior), Princess Fuse (their mother).
the novel mainly tells about each individual warrior dog and his shenanigans in a funny adventurous way. huge fame has led to excerpts from Hakkenden being staged at the Kabuki Theater and mentioned in the anime and manga, such as Inuyasha, Dragon Ball, as it turned out, Naruto and so on. there's also a lot of films and video games.
The eight virtues
these are loyalty, filial piety, benevolence, love, honesty, justice, harmony, and peace.
they relate more to Chinese culture, but basically Hakkenden was inspired by it too. since I did not read the whole novel, I would still like to mention at least the values on which it is based, and which were embedded in the symbolism of this story. It's quite interesting to apply this to Kakashi's dogs. gives them more weight and depth.
It is also interesting to note that the reason why Fuse gave birth to dogs was also that her father was cursed earlier in the story in a way that his descendants would become depraved like dogs. in Japanese culture, dogs embody the duality of character: the same mentioned filth and depravity, and devotion and bravery. so as samurai. but this is a different conversation, more related to Kakashi and his dog poetry.
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Did you get here? Here's an additional discovery for you✨
Pakkun's name (パックン) is derived from the Japanese onomatopoeia “pakupaku” (パクパク) which reflects the sound of munching.
Kakashi, that's very sweet of you.
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thank you for reading this to the end ♡
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fatesundress · 1 year
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⭑ for the love that used to be here. tom riddle x reader
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summary. you and tom are the only muggle-borns in slytherin, until one day he isn’t.
tags. angst, afab reader who is referred to as a witch a few times and rooms with girls but i don't think i ever use she/her pronouns or say the word girl/woman, biggest warning is that this is SO long (idk what compelled me to write a year 1 – post-hogwarts fic but here we are twenty thousand damn words later), blood purity and bigotry, dumbledore is greatly offended by the bonding of two orphans until he can capitalise on it, frequent wwii mentions (specifically the blitz), book clerk tom, MURDERER TOM… ministry reader, kissing, smut once they’re 21/22 May all the minors in the room exit at once, more angst, sad ending kinda, me spreading a very personal and very nefarious tom riddle agenda that is canon to ME but probably only like two other people
note. i need a shower and an exorcism after writing this shit. i'm exhausted. i don't even remember half of it. but i'm also SO stoked, this is my little (very large, frankly) 100 followers celebration! i've only been on here for about a month and the love has been so crazy so thank you mwah mwah mwah ♡
word count. 21.8k (i know... i KNOW)
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You learn quickly that your shade of green is not the same as theirs. The rest of them are emeralds, even at that age — they glitter with their parent’s polish. You are flotsam, sea-sick, envy green; the putrid boiling stuff that brews in your cauldron when you look away for a second too long, and, really, it’s more of a stain than a colour at all. There is a fraction of a second where you find something powerful in that. You are not an easy thing to remove. And then it’s gone, because they want to so badly.
You learn, with a bit less tact, that you doesn’t actually mean just you; that it’s you and him whether you like it or not.
He evidently does not.
“It has to be completely fine,” Tom says to you in Potions, his voice small then but just as practised.
You narrow your eyes. “‘Scuse me?”
“I said the powder has to be completely fine.”
“I heard you completely fine. I know how to read.”
He stares blankly at you before returning to his own station, and that’s that.
It isn’t unheard of for muggle-borns to be sorted into Slytherin, so you’ve been told, but one glance around your common room and you can see it’s pretty damn rare.
There’s Tom Riddle, there’s you, and there’s a seventh-year girl whose knuckles are always white like she’s spent so long with her hands balled into fists that they don’t know how to do anything else. Tom Riddle is a prat, the girl is too old and unapproachable even if she wasn’t, and you are very good at being alone.
That decides it. Flotsam still floats.
Everything is — fine. It’s fine for months; you have no one and need no one and sometimes you catch a jinx in the back of Charms that zips your mouth shut or bends a foot the wrong way (a cruel reminder of how much more these people know than you) and your broom occasionally pivots so sharply the Flying professor has to stop you from careening into a wall and breaking enough bones for a week’s worth of Skele-Gro, but it’s fine. 
…It’s just that he’s insufferable.
The boy is eleven years old and he speaks like he’s stealing glances at an invisible lexicon between every word, more refined than any of the orphans you grew up with which makes you wonder which sort he’s surrounded by, and you take it upon yourself to theorise in passing if you could ever scare him badly enough his real voice would slip and he might just appear human for once.
Only it becomes clear when you’re stirring awake in the Hospital Wing after a mysterious bout of dragon pox (conveniently, all the pureblood children developed an immunity after catching it young) has rendered you bed-ridden and pockmarked, that you don’t think anything can scare Tom Riddle. He’s suffering just as well in the bed beside yours to keep the contagion to the two of you, and he’s all cold, eddied rage under sallow skin and beetling bones. 
“They’re going to kill you,” he says after three days of silence, when the room is dusted in moonlight so thin it’s like squinting through cinema noise or mohair fluff to try to see him.
You blink at the vague shape of him. “What?”
“If you don’t hurt them back, eventually, they’ll just kill you.”
In hindsight, it’s an assumption so hastily bleak only a scared child could make it.
I want to hurt them, you try to say, but for what follows you cannot: I want to hurt them but I’m not good enough to do it.
You roll over and pretend to sleep, and in the morning, you hurt them anyway.
It’s Avery who’s unlucky enough to be the first to test you when you’re three assignments behind in Transfiguration, still a bit groggy from your last dose of Gorsemoor Elixir, and actually, physically green. He tugs your hair and stings your cheek with the promise of “bringing a bit of colour back to your face” and it’s sort of funny how banal it is compared to the other transgressions you’ve been dealt — that this is the thing that makes you bare your teeth, grip your wand in a hand that still can’t hold half of it, and send Avery flying across the room with a Knockback Jinx.
Tom sits with you in the Great Hall for dinner that night, and he never really stops.
You practise spells by the Black Lake between classes and he’s anything but kind about the ordeal, but you teach each other. You end your days with singe prints and sore wrists and you often take more damage than he does, but sometimes, as spring settles in with warm tones (apple and jade and moss — all the greens you’d never imagined), you leave with less bruises than he does. It hardly feels like friendship. It feels much more like purpose.
When summer comes you don’t write to him, and you don’t expect he will either. You don’t suppose you’ve actually written a letter in your life. Instead you try new wand movements under your quilt every night and wait for August’s departure on a big red train.
You sit together when the day does come. He asks you if you’ve been practising. You frown and tell him you’re not allowed to use magic outside of school.
Second year is nothing but monotonous, antiquated theoretics. Most everyone complains. You don’t see why they should — they’re already aeons ahead of you — but that means you finally have a chance to catch up in your less-than-school-sanctioned meetings with Tom while the rest remain practically stationary. 
Deputy Headmaster and Transfiguration professor Albus Dumbledore is imperceptibly less soft with you than he was last year when you make the apparently poor decision to sit beside Tom on the first day, and you file the subtle shift in demeanour into some mental cabinet to review later.
You find workarounds with the librarian, Madam Palles, inclined to sympathy for the poor, orphaned muggle-borns to grant relatively unfettered daytime access to the Restricted Section so long as you keep it tidy and none of the books leave the library. That’s where things get a bit more interesting.
For a month you remain innocuous as can be. You browse through rare historical tombs and foreign biographies that would charge more galleons than you can conceptualise, and you never leave so much as a tea stain on the parchment. You smile at the Madam when you return the key each night, and walk back to the dungeons with your hands behind your back. It is, of course, totally unrelated that a month is what it takes for Tom to master the third-year curriculum’s Doubling Charm. An entirely separate affair when you meet him in the most secluded alcove of the library, slip him the key, and stifle your grin as he duplicates it perfectly. 
You discover Christmas break is your favourite time of the year. Nearly all the purebloods go home. The Slytherin dormitories are effectively halved.
It’s two weeks of earnest, uninterrupted work and sleep without fear of waking up with jelly legs or whiskers.
Madam Palles, most nights, makes a slight, drowsy effort of searching the library for leftover students before she casts the lights out and closes the door. Then, it belongs to you and Tom.
You’re splayed rather ridiculously over one of the big reading chairs on Christmas Eve, Lore of Godelot in hand, enthralled by a chapter detailing his controlled use of Fiendfyre through the power of the Elder Wand.
Tom is cross-legged and sat straight, his brows furrowed in concentration.
“What’ve you got?” you ask, leaning over to answer your own question.
Tom as good as rolls his eyes, holding up the book to give you an easier look.
“Magick Moste Evile?” You scrunch your nose. “Bit much, don’t you think?”
“It’s the stuff they’ll never teach us.”
“I wonder why.”
He steals a glance at your own book and smiles in that smug way that makes you want to slap him.
“What, Tom?”
He shrugs. “You might want to know you’re reading stories about the author.”
You look down. Lore of — Godelot wrote Magick Moste Evile? 
It shouldn’t really be surprising. Three chapters ago your book was recounting his months in Yugoslavia grave-robbing magical burial sites.
“Whatever,” you mumble, “It’s just a biography. Least I’m not reading the words out of his mouth.”
“Well, they’d be out of his quill.”
“Oh my God, Tom, shut up.”
All good things must come to an end. Term resumes and your hackles are back up. 
Abraxas Malfoy, Antonin Dolohov, Walburga Black and the best of the worst of your house have returned, sleek-haired and insatiable and deranged, truly, in such a manner that you don’t think you can be blamed for the instinct you feel every time you pass them to lunge like a wild predator or run like wild prey. All Tom does, though (and so you follow, because he’s standing with you and who has ever done that?) is meet their gazes with equal assuredness. He never seems bothered. He never seems animal. You are still all hammering heart and heavy lungs, and you are learning not to see the world through the eyes of someone who’s only ever had their fists to fight. You have magic, you remember. You’re good at it. You could hurt them, if you really wanted.
Not much is different that summer than the last. The war is hard. The food is hard to chew. You chip a tooth. You’re too afraid to fix it with the Trace on you, but you still smile because you will, and everyone seems put off by that. What is there to smile about? 
You suppose, for them, it’s a question with few answers. 
For you — you’re back on a big red train musing about the functions of muggle warfare with Tom Riddle, chucking a useless card from a chocolate frog out the window and moaning about how you wasted the sickle you found under your seat.
He’s gotten very good at ignoring your theatrics and going right back to whatever it was he was talking about. And you note, unrelatedly, he almost looks like he’s learned how to open the windows at Wool’s. (You dare not suggest he’s doing something so ludicrous as sitting in the sun too, but this is a start.)
Dippet, or the Minister, or whoever it is that’s in charge of the practicality of the curriculum, has become fractionally less stupid in the last three months.
You don’t have to rely on nights in the Restricted Section or weekends at the Black Lake to actually learn something anymore. Of course, without the assistance of those illicit extracurriculars, you wouldn’t be able to match up to your peers the way you are this year, but it’s nice to duel with dummies instead of motioning your wand vaguely over a desk, and you and Tom still climb the notice boards in rapid succession. 
They hate you for it. One of your roommates makes a pointed effort each night to glare at you from her bed like those jelly legs are back on the table, Orion Black (two years younger but just as nasty as his cousin) nearly trips you on your way to Divination, Abraxas Malfoy develops what you think borders on obsession with Tom, and for once it feels almost offhand to not care about any of it.
You’re beginning to think even at its best, Hogwarts is remarkably insufficient. This leads you to books mercifully unrestricted so you can read about a few of the other magical schools for comparison. Beauxbatons is renowned for providing most of the worlds alchemical developments, Uagadou’s early propensity for wandless magic makes it unfathomably more practical than Hogwarts, Durmstrang (though you scoff at their violent anti-muggle sentiment) teaches the Dark Arts as something beneficial rather than unforgivable, and — what do you learn here? Even with the hair’s-breadth of magical leniency you’ve been allowed this year, it’s no surprise so few recognizable names in wizarding history are Hogwarts alumni.
“Let me have a look at that,” you say to Tom one evening, when he’s peering once more over the pages of Magick Moste Evile. He’s a purveyor of knowledge in all forms, but he always seems to come back to Godelot in the end.
He raises a brow, handing it to you like your intrigue doubles his. “No more reservations?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. I’m only curious.”
“Curiosity—”
“Killed the damn cat, I know.” You glare at him through the pages. “I think that’s you, in this case though, since you’re the one in love with the bloody thing.”
He shakes his head as he reclines in the low light of the Restricted Section, muttering something that sounds like “ridiculous,” or “querulous,” or something else unimaginably fucking annoying.
You might be wrong. Retract your last quip and expunge it. If Tom’s in love with any book, it’s the behemoth dictionary he’s been spitting stupid adjectives out of since he was eleven.
But Godelot’s musings on the Dark Arts are fascinating enough that you can understand the appeal. He’s no wordsmith, and you appreciate that in a way you’re sure Tom deems regrettable, but his points are straightforward but thoughtful in such a way you can read in them how he was guided by the Elder Wand through everything he did. There’s a stream-of-consciousness to them. Something doctrinal you’re surprised to enjoy for all the obligatory English creed they washed your mouth with at the orphanage.
“Find what you’re looking for?” Tom asks, combing with little interest through the tomb you’d put down in favour of his.
“I’m not looking for anything. I’m just…” You sigh. It’s almost painful to say. “I think you were right, and — oh, shut up, don’t look at me like that — I don’t think we’re learning anything here. Not really; not as much as they do at other schools.”
“Of course,” he says blankly. “Hence this.”
This — restricted books and furtive duels — should not be necessary. 
“You know that’s not gonna be enough. For the rest of them, maybe, but not us.”
He tenses how he always does at the reminder of his difference. And you get it. Sometimes in moments like these you forget the reason you’re here in the first place. It isn’t just the rebellious divertissement of two academically eager students, it’s… survival. What future do you have as a penniless orphan in wartorn London? What future do you have as a muggle-born Slytherin who’s apt with a wand when there are a thousand more your age, just as skilled and twice as pure? 
It isn’t enough to be as good as them. You have to best them, and you have to do it forever.
The night stumbles into an exhaustive silence because you both know it’s true and it’s a bit too heavy right now. The answer isn’t in this room. Just you. Just him. So you sit in the dark and you stare through that muffled nighttime noise playing tricks on your eyes. The worst of the world can wait until morning. 
The worst of the world has impeccable timing.
A fault of both sides of the coin; the muggle world is a travesty and the wizarding world is just a bit fucking late, really.
So there’s the newspaper. It’s October first and the date reads September tenth. School owls are a joke and you can’t afford anything better.
And it’s a dirty, ashen grey. It smudges your green if you ever had it at all. You were born to this and you will return to it always.
BOMB’S HAVOC IN CROWDED PUBLIC SHELTER
MOTHERS AND CHILDREN AMONG THE CASUALTIES
DAMAGE CONSIDERABLE, BUT SPIRITS UNBROKEN
All you can hope to do is pass the paper to Tom and wonder without words what you’ll go home to.
The answer is very little when the summer clouds your vision with dust and you stand dumbly with your suitcase in front of nothing at all. You’d tried your best until your departure to keep up with muggle news, but it had remained, routinely, a month behind with the owls. By the time June arrived you were still holding your breath through May. Tom had attempted to reason with Dippet for summer lodgings at the school but you were both denied in light of the exquisite mercy — the bombs have stopped! The Blitz has ended! Go back to the aftermath and make do with the craters.
It’s a bit ironic that Tom’s orphanage survived and yours didn’t. At least you can finally see what all the fuss is about.
In truth, it’s more strange than anything. You feel unreasonably like you’re impeding on a part of him that has never belonged to you (if any of him does); that place where you intersect but never draw attention to. You remind yourself you had no choice in the matter. The system puts you where it wants to, and these days the options are slim. But it’s — the walls are amber-black tile and plaster, lined with sanitary-smelling hospital beds and a cupboard per room. Per room, you think; you’ve got one of those now, and with only one girl to share it with. 
You figure the reason for the extra space is probably not one you want to know.
Anyway, you don’t actually see Tom for two days. The caretakers bring you a tray of dinner that’s vaguely warm and a bit too salty and you sleep off the debris you think you breathed in that morning, half-sated and sun-tired.
But then you do see him, and he’s in these funny uniform shorts and a thick blazer and your greeting is an offhand joke about the scandal of his knees that he doesn’t seem to appreciate. He eyes your muggle clothes while you wait for your own set and you know you really don’t have any room to judge. 
He doesn’t, or at least doesn’t say he minds your relocation.
You spend half the summer waking up in the middle of the night to acquaint yourselves with the London tube stations, and the other half in whatever crevices of the orphanage you aren’t harangued by Mrs Cole every five seconds, which are far and few between. She seems to have decided fourteen is old enough an age to worry about your intentions unchaperoned, like it’s the bloody 1800’s, and admonishes you and Tom relentlessly despite only ever finding you quietly buried in useless books. 
You begin to miss Madam Palles and her invaluable pity. Everyone’s an orphan here. No one’s sorry.
“What’s his deal?” you ask one stuffy afternoon, reclining in your creaking seat to prop your legs on the desk.
Tom knocks them off (he’s so well-mannered that you sometimes push these little gestures of impropriety just to bother him) and glances at the target of your question. Some broad, blond boy who skitters down the corridor a shade paler than he arrived. You’ve yet to properly introduce yourself to anyone you don’t have to, so names are muddy when you try to apply them to faces.
He shrugs, but there’s a flash of something in his expression you’re fascinated to realise is unfamiliar. “He’s an imbecile.”
“...Riiiiight, but that isn’t a proper answer.”
You smile. Legs return to table. Timeworn Oxfords muddy the surface. Tom scowls. 
“There was an altercation last year,” he says tersely, “he’s rather fixated on the matter.”
“An altercation.”
“Very good, that is what I said.”
You narrow your eyes and he sweeps your legs off the desk again, gaze catching the unmistakable ribbon of an old bullied scar on your shin. 
“And I suppose you’re above such incidents,” he muses.
You cross your arms and huff. He always wins games like these.
You’re grateful when you return to Hogwarts in one piece after your final night of summer is spent underground, and the certainty of knowing where you’ll rest your head for the next ten months cannot be understated. 
But the worst thing has happened, and you blame it on the flicker of a moment where you missed Madam Palles like it was some jubilant, accidental curse to ever miss anyone. A foreign thing you remind yourself never to do again. 
She’s only gone and jinxed the locks to the Restricted Section so they cry like newborn Mandrakes when Tom’s replica key clicks in place.
For a second you both stand there looking stupidly at each other. Getting caught was a fear two years ago; you’d almost forgotten it was still possible.
Tom is quicker to collect himself. He grabs you by the arm and casts a Disillusionment Charm, and you don’t burst running out of the library like two blurry suncatchers reflecting the candlelight as your instinct heeds; you cling to the shelves and you slither silently to the door. (You’ll make a joke about it when you can breathe.)
Madam Palles the Traitor comes heaving into the library in her nightgown, a blinding blue light baubled at the end of her wand, and it’s really just theatrical at this point to use Lumos bloody Maxima when the basic spell would do the job just fine.
“Has she suspected us the whole time?” you say on gasp once you’ve made it to the dungeons.
“Perhaps someone else has,” Tom suggests.
“What? Malfoy?”
You think it’s a good first guess. It could have been any of the Slytherins, upon consideration, but Malfoy seemed most fixated on Tom last year and it wouldn’t surprise you to learn he’d been observant enough to follow you to the library and notice you don’t leave with the other students.
But Tom quashes the idea. “I’m doubtful. Malfoy is attentive, but Madam Palles is hardly partial to him.” (He had, in second year, set one of her books on fire while studying offensive spells.) “I suspect it was someone with more influence.”
Only no one has more influence than Abraxas Malfoy. The rest of the Slytherins follow him like lost pups. But then Tom might mean —
“A professor?”
“It may be.” He says it like he’s already decided his suspect.
He is, as always, and ever-infuriatingly, correct.
It’s that file you tucked away for later, reoccurring when you return to Transfiguration in the morning like a second epiphany: Dumbledore.
He assigns the term’s seating arrangements, which he’s never done before, and there’s something in his tone when he pairs you with Rosier that feels intentionally like not pairing you with Tom. You don’t think it’s paranoia clouding your better judgement, and by the way Tom’s gaze hardens as he takes his seat beside Malfoy, neither does he.
Dumbledore is suspicious for a number of reasons. He disappears for weeks at a time. The Prophet writes articles on his sightings in Austria and France like he’s an endling beast. He’s being sighted in Austria and France — two notable countries in Grindelwald’s ongoing war. Perhaps ancillary, you’ve decided the charmed glass repositories he uses to hold his old artefacts are the same ones encasing the least permissible books in the Restricted Section. And if that isn’t paranoia (which, you’re willing to admit, it may be) then you assume he has them so proudly on display because he wants you to know.
You consider it a warning.
Tom does not.
“Just give it up,” you hiss over a game of wizard’s chess, “I bet we’ve read every book in there twice already anyway.”
His jaw ticks as the sole indicator of his annoyance, and he takes your rook. You scowl.
“Tom, that man thinks you’re devil-spawn. You know he’s just waiting for an opportunity to catch you doing something wrong.”
“So?”
It sounds so petulant you think he’s been possessed by his eleven-year-old self. Then you think he was a lot wiser at eleven.
“So?” You make an aggressive move with your knight. “So don’t give him one!”
He stares at the board and his breath is just a trace sharper and you hate that you know him like this and no one else. You wonder if he knows you like that too, but resolve with ease that he does not. You’re hard frowns and lewd jokes and trousers torn at the knee to bare scars with stories you wish you could forget. There’s no mystery there. Tom is nothing but — gordian knots and fixed expressions and little patterns to learn like the rules of this stupid game between you. You must know Tom Riddle by every atom or not at all. And that isn’t a choice, really. You’ve never known anyone else.
“Are you stupid, Tom?”
You glance at the board. He’s got Check. A terrible, true answer.
“No,” you finish. “Then don’t act like it.”
Your king glances at you and you nod. He falls. The game is resigned.
Tom acts stupid.
Dumbledore knows.
It all happens very fast.
You strike Tom harder in the arm with Confringo than is likely necessary that night, and he returns the favour with a Knockback Jinx that thrusts you into the shallows of the Black Lake.
You gasp. The cold water feels like it’s swallowing you whole when it strikes, an envelope sealed around you and licked shut for good measure. Everything holds to you, and it’s fucking November. Your senses are so overwhelmed that you forget to murder Tom the instant you sink in. You forget to do much of anything.
You wade trembling out of the lake when sense returns and Tom huffs, peeling off his robe to treat the burn on his arm.
“You—idi—iot,” you mutter, trying to find the incantation for a warming charm but the words get stuck between your chattering teeth. “You stole a re… stricted book.”
Tom glares daggers at you between his poor healing job and you scowl, mincing through the grass and grabbing his arm. “Fucking imbec-cile…”
You’ve done enough damage that if he were anyone else you’d be proud of yourself, and somehow, simultaneously, if he were anyone else you’d be able to manage a pinch of guilt. But he’s Tom, and you know him by every atom, so you cannot be proud, and he’s Tom — he retaliated by tossing you in freezing water and now your clothes are clinging sodden and heavy to every inch of you, so you certainly can’t be guilty either.
“I borrowed it,” he says tightly. As if that means anything at all. And then he takes his robe and drapes it spiritlessly over your shoulders. “You could attempt communication before curses.”
“I could attempt communication,” you scoff, uttering a charm to partially close the gash on Tom’s arm, “Fucking h-hypocrite. I did communicate. You lied.”
“I —”
“Omitted information? Withheld the truth? Watch your mouth or I’ll steal your fucking dictionary, Riddle.”
You swear a great deal when you’re cold and mad, apparently.
“I won’t be caught.” His calm is infuriating. “It would hardly earn expulsion regardless.”
��It doesn’t matter! He knows it’s you! He was staring at you all class!”
“So nothing novel then.”
“D’you want me to blast you again?”
His lips form a flat line. No. That’s what you thought.
You sigh, clutching his robes in your fists to quell your trembling. “What’d you take, anyway? We never touch the encased stuff.”
That is, you assume, why Dumbledore was vexed enough about the whole thing to mention it in class today. A highly valuable book has gone missing, from a repository you dare conclude belongs to him, and he has to pretend all the while not to know it’s Tom who took it. You are out of the question. Theirs is some delicate vendetta you can’t begin to unfurl.
“Nothing anyone should miss,” Tom says, a complete non-answer as he stops to murmur a warming charm you could probably manage yourself by now.
“Tom.”
“It was an encyclopaedia. It’s entirely in Runes. I suspect it will take months for me to decipher.”
“God’s sake,” you groan. He really is exhausting. “I think Dumbledore’l take his chances and loot your dorm before that happens.”
Tom wipes a stray droplet of water from your cheek. His fingers are soft. “We should return. You look half-drowned.”
“I am half-drowned, dickhead.”
And you accost him in hushed tones the whole walk back. Runes, Tom, really? Threw me in the damn lake over a Runic Encyclopaedia? He accosts you just the same; You burned me first.
It does, in fact, take Tom months to decipher the Runes, and he’s quite secretive about it. He won’t let you see the book, won’t tell you what it’s about, won’t indulge your queries on how far he’s gotten or if it’s worth the way Dumbledore bores his eyes into the pair of you in the Great Hall with nothing but the glass of his spectacles to soften his censure. You consider — well — you consider taking your chances and looting his dormitory.
The day everything changes starts the same as any. 
You muse over breakfast about muggle news and how the way Tom holds his wand when he casts defensive spells is too sharp when it should be circular. He argues. You soften the criticism by telling him his offensive magic is stellar but you’ll always beat him in defence if he doesn’t swallow his damn pride and listen to you for once. (So, really, you soften it very little.) He doesn’t take Divination so you don’t see him until Herbology that afternoon and he’s silent enough during the hour you share with your wormwood plant that you know he’s done it sometime between breakfast and now. 
Tom has cracked the book.
It’s late spring and the night takes longer to settle than it did in the winter. Errant sunbeams still sparkle on the water when you meet him by the lake, and it’s warm enough to forgo a coat.
“Are you going to tell me what it’s about now?” you ask without preamble, arms crossed over your chest as he approaches.
He hands you the book like it’s worth something to you without his explanation, but you’re intelligent enough to gather something from the illustrations of two twined snakes embroidering the cover.
“I should have suspected it sooner,” Tom says before you can comment. “By the way Dumbledore acted when I told him… I should have known he would have wanted to keep it from me.”
“Tom, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“It’s an Encyclopaedia on Parseltongue and its known speakers.”
You flip through the pages and none of it means anything. “Parseltongue?”
“The language of serpents,” Tom supplies, and the two of you walk along the edge of the forest. “It’s almost exclusively hereditary.”
“Okay, so, what — you’re trying to learn it anyway?”
“I have no need.”
You frown. “You… you already know it.”
“I always have,” he says, and there’s something almost unrestrained in his voice. He’s proud in a new light, and it takes you a moment to understand and you’re not sure why exactly it makes your heart sink, but —
“You’re not muggle-born.”
“No, I’m not. And Dumbledore knows.”
“So, he —” You try not to sound crushed because why should you be? Why should it matter that he isn’t some exact reflection of you? He’s at your side, he’s still there, he’ll always be there — “How does he know?”
“When he came to Wool’s to inform me I'd been accepted at Hogwarts. I hadn’t known anything, certainly not that speaking to snakes is emphatically rare, so I asked him. He said it was ‘not a peculiar gift.’ Perhaps to keep my interest at a minimum.”
“Why would he lie?”
“Because it isn’t just that I’m of magical blood. I’m a descendant of Salazar Slytherin.”
You can’t be faulted for laughing. It’s not often Tom makes jokes, let alone funny ones.
“That’s good, Tom. Morgana used to have tea with my great-great-hundredth-great-grandmother, so that works out nice.”
He sighs, taking your hand and leading you further into the woods.
“Are you trying to murder me?”
“I might.”
“You’d be the first suspect.”
“No, I wouldn’t. You’ve far too many enemies.”
Not by choice, you start to scold, and then he stops, not so far into the Forbidden Forest that you’re afraid, but far enough you understand this is not something he’d chance showing you in the open.
He closes his eyes and whispers, and it’s — decidedly not English. And you know the sound of a few other languages, at least; this doesn’t sound like words at all. His consonants are pointed, his S’s stretched, the syllables repetitive but separated by a difference in cadence someone less perceptive might not notice. 
It shouldn’t be surprising; it’s exactly what he told you, but it startles you how much it reminds you of a snake.
“Tom?” you murmur, unsure at the prospect of speaking some ancient, unknown language into the air of the Forbidden Forest, and, underneath that, still reeling with the knowledge that this is real at all.  You’ve pinched yourself a few times to make sure.
There’s a low susurration in the grass, wet with dew that catches the moonlight, and you gasp, clinging to Tom’s arm when you see the blades part in helices for the space of an adder.
“It’s all right,” Tom says softly, almost elsewhere, his eyes zeroed in on the snake. “It won’t hurt you.”
You’re still by the balance of his arm and some petrifying awe as he extends a hand to the grass and the adder coils around it, weaving upward to his shoulder.
“Oh my God. Oh my God, Tom.”
The adder points its beady gaze at you, and Tom whispers something else in that strange language before it retreats in agreement or compliance or whatever could come close to expression on the face of a fucking snake, and maybe you’re dreaming this despite your pinching. Maybe you’ve lost your mind.
“Hope you didn’t just tell it to bite me,” you try, and it comes out half-choked.
He smiles. It’s partly for you and partly for this venomous little thing on his shoulder, and that’s a bit startling. Tom Riddle smiles for adders and you and not much else. 
“Should I?”
And all you manage, for whatever reason, is, “Don’t be like them now that you’re not like me.”
It’s out before you can stop it, welling from a small, scared place that embarrasses you to return to. A hospital bed when you were eleven. The walls of a bedroom ravaged by bombs.
Tom’s smile fades. “We’re nothing like them.”
The thing is, neither of you know that’s the day that changes everything.
You celebrate your fifteenth birthday in the Deathday ballroom with Tom, a stolen dinner pastry, a green candle, and a few sad ghosts. You try to learn how to dance. Tom thinks it’s silly. You tell him that’s only because he’s upset he keeps stepping on your toes.
Summer blisters when it comes.
Some of the children take jobs as mail-sorters and steelworkers and you clasp for whatever you’re (one) allowed and (two) capable of, which isn’t much. You’re both old enough at the end of the day to explore London on your own, opting to spend as much time away from the orphanage as Mrs Cole allots, but you only have knuts and pennies and you warn Tom it would be unwise to swindle muggles and risk a letter from the Ministry. So you work where you’re needed and you eat the rationed nonsense you always do and you miss Hogwarts terribly. It’s much the same: you’re together, you’re hungry, and you’re nothing like them. 
And then it’s different: Tom makes Slytherin Prefect, is suddenly tall, and you wonder in fleeting moments if his face has always suited him this well.
A stupid remark. You fervently ignore it.
Fifth year begins and you have almost the same number of electives as you do core classes, Tom has duties in his new role that take much of his spare time, and despite popular belief, you and him are not a mitotic entity, so this splits you up more often than it had in previous years. Which is fine. You still have plenty of things to talk about during meals and between duels, and you reckon you’ll share DADA until you graduate.
But in his absence, your attentions are forced elsewhere, and you should be grateful they land on something potentially promising.
It’s like Transfiguration just clicks for you this year. You’ve never been the greatest at Transformation (importantly though, you’ve also remained far from the worst), but fifth year launches you into Vanishment and something about that feels like a perfect equation. There are no complicated half-numerals and objects stuck between inanimacy and being — just unmaking the made. Nothing or not. You’re fucking excellent at it. You glean the theoretics fast and then the practise comes like breathing. Even the purebloods struggle as you Vanish Dumbledore’s Conjured garden snakes in brilliant tendrils of light. You exult unabashedly when you brush past them on the way out of class — who was it that didn’t belong in Slytherin?
You say the same to Tom and he rolls his eyes, but the amusement is there.
“Think you can talk to my snakes for me?” you tease, nudging him on the path to Hogsmeade.
“If they’re yours, I doubt they have anything worth discussing.”
And Dumbledore is… a hue nearer to the man you remember from first year. He praises your improvement and smiles when you can’t hide your giddiness as if equally impressed.
He doesn’t shelve people the way Slughorn does (you’re dismayed to find Tom has been invited to join the Slug Club and you have not) but you think if he did you’d be rapidly climbing your way to the top. Maybe get put in one of those neat little repositories he keeps all his best treasures in.
Dumbledore does, however, offer additional assignments for those who are interested, and tasks you with a few if you’re up to the challenge.
You always are.
The Tom-Dumbledore-Encyclopaedia debacle is apparently either resolved, or your part in it forgotten. 
Tom humours you when you’re both singed at the fingers from duelling, yours dipped in the lake while he buries his in the cold moss, about how Abraxas takes the seat beside him at every Slug Club dinner. He tells you he pretends to be very interested in the Malfoy’s business affairs and their stock in the Bulgarian Quidditch team’s win this coming spring. He tells you he finds it amusing to let Abraxas think he can make Tom his pet. Tom says he considers searching for Salazar Slytherin’s fabled Chamber of Secrets and showing Abraxas what a real pet looks like. You smack him in the arm.
He’s had an ego forever. He just has a few too many reasons for it now.
And maybe that’s why you push harder in Transfiguration, dedicate the majority of your studies to it, spend your Saturday nights scrutinising advanced techniques while Tom makes nice with Potions experts and politics with people who don’t even know what he is but like him anyway. It’s patronising, of course — borderline fetishistic; not a real like — but it scares you. Tom Riddle would not allow himself to be anyone’s pretty mudblood show pony if he didn’t have an ulterior motive.
Everything changes but the observable truth that he is still insufferable.
You’re lucky to see him twice a week if it isn’t in class, and the way it starts is so slow you don’t even fully understand what’s happening until Christmas break when Abraxas stays a few extra days and leaves by Dippet’s Floo instead of the train.
You don’t dare ask where Tom has vanished to in that time or why the hell Abraxas Malfoy would willingly subject himself to unnecessarily extended time at school with all his lackeys gone, and it isn’t because you don’t want to. It’s because he won’t tell you himself. It’s because you’re terrified the answer will feel like a broken promise, and you’ve come to realise (it’s been there for so long; such an obvious, tiny thing that you’ve never stopped to really dissect it) that it’s quite difficult to know someone at every atom and not love them a little bit.
You’re suddenly aware of the risk of it: you love him like an inextricable piece of yourself, and, well, you’ve seen war. You know what amputation looks like. You’ve seen the remains of structures designed to stand forever, and you’re strong like them — casts and gauze in all the weak spots because you remember the pain of breaking them �� but those were blows dealt without the complication of loving the bombs behind them.
Tom is the green on your robes, the dragon pox tinge you sometimes think never truly faded when you look in the mirror too long, and all the shades you never imagined. Apple, jade, moss. The beginnings of emerald. (No, he couldn’t be that.) 
You wonder what the world would look like if he stole those colours back, and it’s much worse than some brutal decimation; it would leave you with too much. You would just be you without him.
So you love him into June like you always do, and you pluck his Prefect badge off on the last day of school and tell him it makes you jealous like a joke when it’s half-true. 
It’s raining when you walk to the train together, miserable for what should be summer but not at all remarkable in Scotland. Tom wipes it from your cheek. Your wrists are sore from vanishing bits and bobbles all night while you still can, never truly prepared for three months without magic, and you curl into your seat as soon as you’re in it. Tom wakes you up when you arrive back in London, startling you to find that you fell asleep at all.
It rains a lot that summer. There’s nothing much to see in the city and you can’t get anywhere else (you note: the Trace cares little about broomsticks but you can’t afford one of your own and flying might be the only thing Tom is bad at) so you’re stuck to the library again with a noseful of old paper and a certain prose that magical literature cannot replicate. You theorise a lifetime of reckoning with the mundane forces one to be more creative.
Perhaps it’s the cold that makes you sick. Perhaps it’s the state of your meals. Either way, your final weeks before sixth year are hell. Biblical, blazing hell.
The nurses aren’t sure what it is — another influenza epidemic you’re the first in the orphanage to catch — but they isolate you immediately and there’s not much care they can offer. 
You hear Tom arguing with one of them outside your door but can’t make out the words. Everything is dizzy, sweaty, halfway to unconsciousness but without its relief. You’d take dragon pox over this.
Some days later (though you can’t be sure because it feels like bloody centuries), he’s at your bedside, and you think even if you were lucid enough to ask what horrible thing he’d done to change the nurses’ minds, you wouldn’t. 
But you know he’s not beyond breaking wizarding law, because he’s muttering healing spells with a hand to your damp forehead, and you hazily find yourself reaching for him, trying to shake your head no.
“Not allowed,” you mumble. Your throat is sore and your nose is stuffy. You sound terrible and you probably look worse.
Tom is slightly blurry but you think he’s staring at you. You know if he is it’s with the utmost incredulity.
“Not allowed,” he repeats slowly. It’s very easy to picture him clenching his jaw. “I wonder, if the Trace is so exact that it can detect all forms of magic, it can’t also detect malady. You’re burning — and I’m to consider whether saving your life might be illegal?”
He’s angry. He’s angrier than you’ve seen in a long time; and you can actually see it now. His magic courses through you and your vision clears, bit by bit, until your depth perception steadies and you realise he’s closer than you thought. His jaw is, in fact, clenched.
You move to catch his wrist and manage it this time. “Tom.”
“Don’t argue,” he says thinly.
“You’ll get sick.”
His face is far too neutral for the way his fingers stroke your damp cheek. “Hm. Then it’s a good thing you’d break the law for me too.”
Of course he’s right — you love him. Which makes it a good thing he doesn’t get sick.
Some of the younger children do. The fever comes overnight for a girl who wasn’t in the orphanage last year, and it takes her by the next.
When you get back on the train to Hogwarts, the virus is circulating Britain and you’re livid. 
What Tom said is true; you consider the Trace’s precision and the details of the laws on underage magic — how one of the technicalities is that a young witch or wizard may be absolved of the consequences if the circumstances are life-threatening. You think about how it supposedly doesn’t care about broom-riding or Portkeys or Floo travel, and if the Trace is that complex, surely it understands sickness.
You only wonder if the Ministry would understand it. There haven’t been any epidemics in the wizarding world since Gorsemoor cured dragon pox in the sixteenth century, and when there isn’t healing magic there are antidotes and Pepper-Ups and herbs that muggles simply don’t have. The fatality of a fever of all things is not something you imagine could be comprehended by the sort of people who sent you and Tom back to London in the wake of the Blitz.
Of course, the Ministry hasn't written to you, you haven’t been forced in front of a representative from the Improper Use office, and you have no real reason to be upset.
You are regardless. 
It shouldn’t even be a thought: you immolating into oblivion protesting rescue because one of you might get in trouble for it.
A world you’ve never much cared for is blanketed in ash and its people are dying and you can’t help them. A girl is dead. You’ll return next summer and there will certainly be more.
Life is for the magical, you find. The muggles can burn.
It’s what makes you start to panic this year, knowing you’ve only got one more after it. You have no idea what you’re going to do after school, and it doesn’t help that Tom doesn’t appear to share the sentiment. He’s got Head Boy in the bag and when he isn’t with you he’s with Abraxas, who can surely provide him connections if whatever game Tom is playing at works (and you have no doubt it will), but it’s like you said in third year: that isn’t enough for you.
You remember with a small ache that you no longer means you and him.
And then — it makes sense. You feel incredibly stupid.
“You told him, didn’t you?” you ask Tom the first opportunity you can get him alone, in the glum blue light of the Deathday ballroom on your way back from supper.
He sighs like it’s a conversation he’d hoped to put off for longer. “You’re referring to Abraxas, I presume?”
“You’re referring to — yes, you prick, I’m referring to Abraxas. Of course I’m referring to Abraxas, or are there others? Dolohov and Nott seem unusually enthralled by you, now that I think about it.”
“And for a reason I’m supposed to be aware of, this is an error on my part. Should I be apologising?”
“Why did you tell him, Tom?!”
“Why?” he deadpans.
You throw your hands up. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
“Shall I provide you with my itinerary as well? Would you accompany me as I tour the third-years around Hogsmeade? Or can you do me the favour of trusting me to make my own decisions with the nature of my ancestry?”
“You’re keeping something from me and there’s a reason,” you say, stepping closer to him, “and forgive me if I want to know what it is when you were willing to tell me you’re the Heir of Slytherin and you can talk to snakes. What — what could possibly be bigger than that?”
Tom returns your approach with one of his own. His eyes are steady, dark, thick with lashes and you can’t reminisce on the details of the rest of him because that would be strange for a friend to do. Stranger to do it now, when you’re angry with him and there’s two sleeping ghosts in the corner and he’s framed by deep indigoes like the ripples in the Black Lake and — you’re doing it anyway.
To be short, he’s close, he’s very beautiful, and sometimes you despise him.
“Trust me,” he says again, without the derision of the last time. “This will change things for us.”
You frown, but it’s a weak upset in contrast to the explosion you came in here willing to make. There were at least twenty questions you meant to ask and you only managed one.
You are not his keeper. You know that. 
“Change them for the better, Tom,” you say on a sigh.
He blinks, and you think he’ll respond with a nod or a slightly offended ‘of course’ but he does not. He blinks and he just keeps looking at you. It’s disarming. It probably resembles the way you often look at him. There’s a rationale somewhere; you never see each other anymore, life is so incredibly busy, maybe he’s forgotten what you look like.
And he does nod, finally, but he does it with his thumb brushing the corner of your lip.
What? Sorry. What’s going on?
He pulls it away like he’s heard you. “You had something.”
You’re almost positive you did not.
Transfiguration this year brings Conjuration, which is an advanced and welcome distraction, and even more exciting when you consider no longer having to Vanish things you have no idea how to bring back. Dumbledore’s is one of three N.E.W.T classes you’re taking — Defence Against the Dark Arts and Alchemy besides. It’s easily your favourite.
You share it with eleven other Slytherins and twelve Ravenclaws. Four of them are muggle-born, and it’s hard to describe the ease you feel among them because you don’t think you’ve ever had anything resembling ease with anyone but Tom.
Your schedule is more crammed than it’s ever been, but it’s good. Two of the Ravenclaw girls invite you to Hogsmeade every other weekend, you share butterbeers when you can afford one, you study until you collapse, you take Dumbledore’s extra assignments and consider trying out for Chaser on one of your more restless evenings before waking up in the morning and resolving there is such as thing as too much of a good thing. Best not to get ahead of yourself.
Your contentment is remedied quickly.
Someone is found unresponsive in the dungeons. Dippet makes an announcement at breakfast that the boy isn’t dead, rather, petrified. No one is quite sure the cause, but the Headmaster warns a few minor precautions, suggests a buddy system, and says that after dinner studying should remain in everyone’s respective common rooms rather than the courtyards or library.
You know next to nothing about petrification, but the victim is muggle-born, and you suspect it was the result of a poorly performed statue curse by one of the many blood zealots in your house. The whole thing makes you hold onto your wand a smidge tighter, but you’re adamant not to let it drive you to paranoia like it would have a few years ago.
Tom nods at your theory when you manage to escape to the Black Lake together in November.
“That isn’t unreasonable,” he says. High praise.
You sink into the moss, sighing. “Do you think there’ll be more?”
He looks out onto the lake, the lapping waves, the crystalline beads that furrow them, midnight algae and flotsam you don’t think you belong to anymore.
You peer up at his silhouette in the dark. “Do you think whoever did it will do it again, I mean?”
“I don’t know,” he says finally, and after another pause: “but I don’t think it would be you.”
“How’s that?”
“No one would be senseless enough to try.”
And he sinks beside you with that, breath shaping the cold in steady, rhythmic clouds while yours are scattered. His robes brush yours and you take his arm with a sleepy hum, tracing patterns in the stars until your eyes feel heavy and he insists on taking you back to your dormitories.
One of the Ravenclaw girls, Marigold Wright, distracts you with a spare blue scarf and an invitation to her next Quidditch match. You watch from the stands and cheer as she catches the snitch to beat Gryffindor.
It’s a bit strange — having a distraction — having a friend. Mari is kind, smart, a good study partner who’s as keen on stepping into the advanced theoretics of Human Transfiguration a year early as you are. She’s funny in a vulgar way, introduces you to all her friends, shows you the best way to sneak into the kitchens, and you sometimes wonder if she was sorted wrong, but — her methods are creative, and she’s definitely intelligent. She’s also definitely not Tom.
You see less and less of him and more of her, Dumbledore, the Ravenclaw common room and the pages of progressive Transfiguration methodologies. He sees less of you and more of Abraxas, Dolohov and Nott and all the other purebloods, Slughorn’s soirées and Prefect meetings that cut into meals.
It happens again.
Second floor lavatory. A girl called Myrtle Warren. She isn’t petrified.
There’s a vigil the following week and her parents are there, two muggles whose sobs wrack the Great Hall even as the students clear out. Flowers descend from the charmed ceiling, little bluebells and white chrysanthemums.
You cry that night. You can’t remember the last time you cried.
This time, you don’t have to seek Tom out. He catches you on your way back from Alchemy and brings you to the Deathday ballroom with a melancholy glance in your direction that you don't hesitate to follow. You realise it’s an odd place to continue to end up in, but no one else goes there and you suppose that makes it yours.
You’ve seen Tom skinny and sickly and olive green, but today his eyes are circled with veined violets and the lack of summer sun this year has whittled him grey once more. He’s still beautiful. He’ll always be beautiful. But he’s tired and — sad — and for the six years you’ve known him you aren’t quite sure what to do with that.
You don’t spend too long pondering it. You just hug him with the dawning newness of a thing like that; a thing you’ve never done, and never really thought to do. (You ask yourself in bewilderment how you’ve never thought to do it before.)
He’s warm. He’s uncertain. He doesn’t reciprocate immediately. 
And then he does, and you understand without caveats or concerns that you stopped having a choice in your destruction the moment you chose him. He’s home, and that’s going to ruin you one day.
Your arms tighten around him and his around you, the rhythm of his breath holding you to earth when you begin to float away. Nothing makes sense in this moment but the mercy that in all the death you’ve seen, you swear to God you’ll never see his. As long as you’re alive, he must be too.
And there’s something to be said about the innate self-slaughter of loving a person (of loving Tom Riddle, especially): that it’ll cleave you in two, that you’ll say feeble things in his embrace that you should be above saying, like ‘I’m scared’, that his hand will find the back of your head and he'll tell you he knows, that that should not feel like enough but it will be. You’ll clasp your hands under black robes and hold this singular embrace together by the faulty adhesive of your fingers. Maybe you’ll cry again, like your body can suddenly comprehend its capacity for it and is making up for lost time.
The first sign that something is wrong, more than the obvious grievance of the death itself, is the Ministry’s happy acceptance of Rubeus Hagrid as the culprit.
The boy is maybe fourteen years old, half-blood — half human, mind — and no one has a bad word to say about him other than he likes to keep eccentric pets. Which leads you to wonder what pet he possessed with the ability to petrify one student and kill another and what cause he’d have for it in the first place besides two terrible, miraculous accidents.
That question draws an even stranger path. Mari says over butterbeers (on her, bless her soul) that she read somewhere years ago that Gorgons can induce petrification, but that she doesn’t remember much else.
One of the boys in DADA says that his father’s an auror, and heard from him that Hagrid’s pet was some sort of arachnid. Tom deducts five points from his house after class with a scowl on his pale face, muttering about conspiracy.
The second sign that something is wrong is that only one of those things would need to be true for the entire case on Hagrid to be called into question. If Mari’s memory serves right, how the hell did Hagrid come into ownership of a Gorgon? (Could Gorgons even be owned?) If the auror’s son is worth your credence, then what species of arachnid is capable of petrification?
You take to the library.
Unsure of where to begin and hesitant to draw attention, your research lingers into Christmas break and stalls some of your extracurriculars in Transfiguration. Tom is busy enough not to notice the new step in your routine, and you’re grateful not to have him breathing down your back, telling you you’re looking in the wrong places or you shouldn’t be looking at all.
The third sign is the end. 
You wish to retract it all. There are time-turners and memory charms and potions that could dizzy you enough to manipulate the truth; there is anything but this. You’d suffer the consequences for the bliss of loving him with one more day before the ruin — you’d write it down to remember through the fog: look at him, duel him without wanting to hurt him, kiss him to know that you did it at least once, have him, be had. You never will again.
He’d shown you the adder. He’d joked about the Chamber of Secrets. He’d spent months disappearing with Abraxas, earning the trust of the sons of the Sacred Twenty Eight. 
And he’d killed Myrtle Warren.
So it’s statue curses and Gorgons and Tom — speaking to serpents when no one else can, buttressed by pureblood boys who want people like you dead.
Don’t become like them now that you’re not like me.
He’s something else entirely.
What do you do in a moment like this? Panting into an empty library at a revelation you wish you could unknow, fingers digging into the hickory of your desk — another memory carved among the initials and hearts; how do you stand from your chair and leave like the world outside this room is the same as it was when you entered? There’s nothing to orbit. You are cosmic debris, tea dregs in a barren cup, flotsam.
You stand; and you tell no one. Not even Tom.
His presence in your life is so infrequent that you don’t even have to come up with excuses for your distance until three weeks after your discovery when you’re paired together in DADA to practise stretching jinxes. 
You almost laugh. He’s standing beside you, tall (lanky like he was when he was a boy if you look long enough) and serious, and you love him without knowing who he is anymore. You’ve skirted corners to avoid him and sat with Mari during lunch and breakfast like he’s some scorned lover to escape confrontation from and not someone who held you through a grief inflicted by his hand. 
“You look tired,” he says, inspecting the daisy you’d been tasked to elongate.
You glance at him. You are tired. It’s exhaustive, bone-deep, aching like nothing you’ve ever known, and maybe that’s why you can look at him and smile sadly instead of thrashing against his chest screaming for what he did. You suppose it happens enough in your head to satisfy. When you can sleep, you sleep to the thought of it. The waking moments are just blank.
“Mhm,” you hum, transfiguring the daisy stem back to its regular length.
Tom observes it with curious eyes. “You’re getting good at that.”
“I’ve been good at it.”
His lips turn, a small frown before he puts it away. You make the observation that he’s tired too; there are still bags under his eyes and his hands tremble ever-so-slightly with his wand when he loosens his grip on it.
His own doing and still you flicker with some relentless hope that he's drowning in regret.
“Sorry,” you say. A ridiculous thing. Do you intend to slowly push him from your life with weak disinterest and diverging academic avenues? As if he were something extricable. He’d never let you.
You’ll have to confront him, and that’s a revelation that holds its weight on your chest until you think you'll suffocate under it.
You’re in the blue light of the Deathday ballroom with a face you've never worn before when it happens, deep into spring, and you know then that you were wrong all those years ago.
He sees all of you.
Takes you in in the flash of a second and maybe it’s your quivering jaw that reveals you or the flint of betrayal in your eyes waiting to be struck and lit. Yes, you were wrong — Tom Riddle knows you at every atom too.
“Are you going to let me explain?" he asks before any hello. His jaw is tight but there’s nothing else to go on to judge his disposition. He's settling into impassivity like an animal drawing its shell. You will not be allowed in if you're going to make it hurt, and you might be the only one who can.
“Explain," you copy with a hard exhale, “Just tell me it wasn’t you. That’s all there is to say."
He stares at you. There’s nothing there.
“Tell me, Tom.”
Your breath catches on an automatic please but you don’t want to offer him that.
“I cannot.”
Then make me forget, you want to scream. Let it be summer. Let us work for pennies and breadcrumbs and be no one together.
It’s late winter and it’s too cold.
“You killed her,” you say quietly.
“If I told you I did not wish for it, would you even believe me?”
“What are you… so it was an accident?”
“There was — an opportunity presented itself that may never have come again; that does not mean I don’t find the nature of it regrettable.”
“Regrettable.” You’re laughing or crying or both, and you must look unwell. Halfway out of your mind.
He’s so composed in the face of it that it only makes you more incensed.
“You told me to change things —”
“You killed someone! Can you understand that?”
“You nearly died,” he hisses, “and if I am to apologise for recognizing it only as the first of many times, I will not. If I am to apologise for doing whatever is necessary to prevent it, I will not. The hand we were dealt will not be the hand we die to — so yes, I understand it. And one day so will you.”
“Don't," you spit, and your anger must look pathetic under your welling tears. “Don't you dare tell me that this was for me.”
“Do you want me to lie?”
“What could her death possibly bring me, Tom?”
“Her death is the first step to —”
“God, stop dancing around the fucking question!” Both hands have wound their way to your head, clutching at your skull like the brain matter might spill through one of the cracks he’s wearing down. “Just… tell me.”
“You recall Godelot's work," he says stiffly. The question of it takes you by surprise, peels the moment back like the rim of a fruit and you're left uncertain.
All you can do is nod, arms falling to cross over your chest.
“There was one form of magic he refused quite concisely to impart. I searched the Restricted Section for days, and under Dumbledore's watch that was not an easy thing to do."
You stole from him, you're urged to remind him, but it's something you'd say with a nudge of annoyance and a roll of your eyes. Such admonishment is small and far away.
“I found it at last in one of the repositories," he goes on, “Secrets of the Darkest Art."
“...What?"
“It's called a Horcrux,” he says. “Murder, by nature, splits the soul. The Horcrux simply makes use of the act; puts the soul fragment into something imperishable so that it is protected, rather than abandoned. In turn, your life cannot be taken. By malady, by magic, by sword — the vessel is destroyed but the soul lives on.”
You blink, feeling dizzy. “Myrtle was the sacrifice.”
“Myrtle was there,” Tom remedies.
“How lucky for you.”
“The circumstances could be ameliorated if one were to be made for you. I would have preferred it be someone who deserves it.”
“For — you’d do it again? Again, Tom?”
His brows crease, and even his upset seems contrived. There’s this barricade he’s placed that you, in all your infallible knowing of him, cannot puncture. It’s agony to begin to question what he could possibly be keeping from you in a confession like this.
“You killed someone, Tom. You — I would never ask you to do that. I would never live at the cost of someone else."
“No, you would not,” he agrees, though he shakes his head like it’s incredulous of you. “Do you think, even if I knew it were certain,  a summons from the Ministry would have stopped me from saving you this summer? Do you suppose the threat of punishment would cause me to waver at that moment? I know it would not hinder you. So, you have your lines and I have mine — you never needed to ask.”
And now it hurts. The emptiness clears and you can't stand yourself for crying, but you do. It comes out in ragged, breathless sobs, clasped behind your palm as you turn away from him. 
You've loved him since you were eleven. It's always been you two — it was always supposed to be you two. What is there to say to him? He's blurring in your periphery like in the midst of your sickness, and there's nothing he can do to heal you this time. Your vision will clear and Myrtle Warren will still be dead. He'll still be a stranger in the face of the boy you love. 
“Why," you whine, a wet, hollow stain in your voice you've never cried enough to hear before. “Myrtle was — wasn't — uh —" You swallow, hysterics severing your words. You can't really think right now. Your body wobbles and your head feels puffy and hot. This might be shock. 
Tom scowls like it irritates him to watch you push yourself, like this is just the unfortunate effect of you depleting your energy in a duel, not eating correctly, treating yourself carelessly. 
Of course you can't stand or talk or think. You're you, contemplating a life without him.
“Sit," he says in frustration. You smack his hand away when he reaches for you, but the world has turned a shade darker and you're slipping into it. 
He tugs a chair towards you with a silent charge and a reprimand, and your body doesn’t possess the wherewithal not to collapse into it the second it’s under you.
After a moment you can speak again, shaking hands steadied by your knees. “Did you… did you think I wouldn't find out? You know, the only thing that can petrify someone besides a serpent is a Gorgon. And — where would Rubeus Hagrid have found one of those?"
“I thought I would have time.”
“To come up with a good lie? Something I’d sympathise with?”
He bites his cheek. “Evidently the particulars matter little to you.”
Fuck him. “Fuck you.”
“Very cogent.”
“No, fuck you, Tom. We could have — we only had a year left and then we could — we could've done anything we wanted." You're crying again. You don't have the energy to be embarrassed. “And you chose this."
He’s indignant as he steps closer. “With what money? For what life? We are better than all of them and it’s never mattered. It never will; you know that. You told me that. You’re angry now, but you must know the truth of it. I would not forsake you. I would not lose you.”
You blink up at him, mouth stuck with some cottony feeling and cheeks stiff from crying.
“You have lost me, Tom."
He stills as if suspended. Some maceration must follow but it doesn’t.
You stand on weak legs to look him in the eyes. You wonder if he can see the love in yours. You wonder if he knows you will walk away despite it. (Of course he does. You’ve never lied to him.) 
You think about how his fingers seem to always find their way to your cheek and you put yours to his. The bone there is sharp, but the skin is soft. Boyish. 
There isn't a word for a goodbye like this. It shouldn't exist and so it doesn't. You just leave.
You fail your N.E.W.T courses. Quite spectacularly.
Mari sits beside you on the train with a soothing hand on your shoulder, and doesn’t ask what’s rendered you into a comatose husk since March. There’s no crying. You chew numbly on soft caramels from the trolley and stare out the window onto the hills.
That summer is spent in your bedroom unless you’re forced elsewhere. A new girl with skin so white it’s nearly translucent sleeps in the bed beside yours, taking meals on trays like you did in your first days here, tracing the cracks in the tiles, humming to herself in the dark. She makes you feel less pathetic for doing much the same. 
You’d been right in your assumption that there would be more dead upon your return, and wrong that there would be more empty rooms. There are always more orphans being made.
And then you receive a letter. It isn’t delivered by owl (only for secrecy, you assume, because there are no muggles who’d be writing to you) but it’s stamped with a vaguely familiar crest. Not Hogwarts’ waxen seal, but something undoubtedly magical. A cockroach and a cup, you think, squinting. Transfiguration.
You tear the envelope open and pull the letter out.
It’s from Dumbledore. Some of it melds together, but the key words stand out.
Spoken to Dippet… Exceptional promise… N.E.W.Ts… May be reconsidered… Upon dispensation… Be well.
Be well.
You are not. You are something half-drowned and half-burned, never enough of one to quell the effects of the other. Sunlight is sparse through your side of the orphanage. On the radio, they warn a pattern of one bomb every second hour. The only other warning is the sound when they fly overhead, and if you can’t run fast enough —
You write your answer in a crowded tube station with a spotty ballpoint pen. Tom is there, looking between you, the dust, and your shaking hands as if to say: tell me I was wrong.
Some of your letter melds together but the key words stand out.
Thank you, Sir. Whatever you need.
It’s a shock that you live to seventh year. It’s a shock that you do it without him — though he watches, and in his gaze you feel regressed. You’re alive, yes, but there’s something there… his dead weight, death-grip; his haunting. They always speak of the dead as something heavy. Something that holds onto you even after it’s gone.
You find that to be true.
Dippet’s condition that you remain in Dumbledore’s N.E.W.T class is that you achieve more than the standard requirement. Essentially, your final exam will be much harder than everyone else's: Human Transfiguration, mastery of petty Transformation (through the means of Wizard’s Chess pieces), Conjuration and Vanishment of various delicate objects — all done nonverbally.
Even Dumbledore seems sceptical, but it translates to more rigorous practise rather than resignation, assignments he doesn’t even task to Mari, though she’s just as good, and you can’t begin to understand why he cares so much. 
“I’ll entrust you with these while I’m away,” he says before Christmas break, sliding a sheet of parchment your way with a flick of his wand.
You frown, unfolding it. His instructions are always short now — you’ve learned to decode his meaning well enough without much exposition. 
Teacup to gerbil — to cat, and inverse.
Inanimatus Conjurus spell (cockroach and cup, as instructed) to be Vanished when perfected.
Study Antar’s Doctrine. Miss Wright will act as your partner.
Due February.
It’s far too much to be done in that time. “Sir?”
Dumbledore lugs a messenger bag over his shoulder that appears small, but he carries it in such a way you suspect it’s magically extended. He smiles wistfully, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. “You know, I often regret how much this war asks of me. A consequence of my own doing.”
Right — Grindelwald. Sometimes you forget between awaiting the next muggle paper. War is everywhere.
You nod. “I hope… Good luck, Sir.”
Another half-smile as he twists open a jar of Floo Powder, and then he shakes his head with something you almost decipher as amusement. A brittle sort. Tired. “Good luck to you.”
And then he’s gone, in a swath of green flames that do nothing to inspire any desire for Floo travel in you.
Antar’s Doctrine is simultaneously prosaic and grandiose. They read like excerpts of a journal and you yawn into them over your morning tea, stirring amongst the first-years, who are the only people at the Slytherin table you can stand to sit with. Your blood status is apparently nullified by your age, and the worst they do is look at you funny. You aren’t sure what Abraxas’s — Tom’s (the new hierarchy never fails to stagger you) — lackeys would do if you sat with the other seventh-years instead. A part of you longs to know. They certainly don’t bother you in class the way they used to, you aren’t tripped in the corridors, but you wonder how far Tom’s influence can stretch. He is the Heir of Slytherin, and he’s earned them. But you are nothing.
You’d like it if he would let them hurt you. You think the incentive would be enough to hurt him back. And God — God, you want to. You want to hurt him almost as much as you want him.
You practise through the doctrine with Mari, as Dumbledore directed. When you’re able to sever Antar’s egotism from his abilities, you can see why Dumbledore would recommend his book to you. It feels like slipping through a crack in glass without shattering the whole thing. You weave in and back out, and Mari grins when she returns from the shape of a teapot to her body without you needing to utter a word to do it.
In the back of your mind, you’re aware what you’re doing is nearly unprecedented. It’s spring, you’re months away from eighteen, muggle-born, and mastering nonverbal Human Transfiguration like it’s a Softening Charm. Mari tells you you’re the smartest person she’s ever met. It makes your cheeks go hot to hear such open praise, worse when you snap out of the thought that you believe her.
Grindelwald falls. The school celebrates in whispers until the evidence is in front of them — Dumbledore, returned without a scar, a new wand in his hand — and then they’re cheers. The feast that night is a great one, and he toasts to you from the end of the staff table, a discreet tilt of his cup before he takes a sip and returns to converse with Professor Merrythought.
You take from your own, and your eyes land on Tom, spine of his goblet tight in his hand. He’s looking at you like you’ve affronted him somehow. You could laugh — by choosing Dumbledore. Of course. As if it was a choice at all.
But if it bothers him… if it feels anything at all like the betrayal you felt, then — good.
You drink, and don’t look away.
By the time your N.E.W.T.s arrive you have a renewed confidence that you’ll succeed, even with the obstacle of performing each exam wordlessly.
There are only twelve students who came out of your sixth year class, so to divide resources for the tests is no grand task. You’re given a Wizard’s Chess set, a desk with assorted vases and goblets, an intricate epergne (you had to whisper to Mari to learn its name), and a Ministry worker borrowed like some laboratory mouse. You suppose it makes sense, though — you’re all capable enough of Human Transfiguration not to mutilate anyone, and performing on a classmate could obfuscate the results. It’s far easier to Transfigure someone you know than someone you don’t.
You start with the chess set, Dumbledore and the Ministry worker observing you as you turn pawns to knights and rooks to kings, the minutiae of the pieces drawing sweat to your brow. They change, and change, and change, and you don’t mutter an incantation once. The Ministry worker puts the set away and directs you to the glass. You Switch the vases with the goblets, Vanish them, and Conjure them again. The Ministry worker takes notes. Dumbledore nods affirmatively at you and you can exhale. The epergne is the hardest; so kitschy and elaborate you don’t know where to start when you’re tasked to Transform it into an animal. 
An animal — like that isn’t the vaguest instruction you’ve ever received.
You look at it on the desk, mirrors and glass and gold on protracted arms, and you go for the first thing you think of because the Ministry worker is staring at you like you’re inept and you see it in his eyes — this is the muggle-born one, this one can’t do it. 
You’re better than them. You can do it forever.
The epergne spins at the dip of your wand, and emerges more than an animal. A big glass tank appears in its place, round and gold-rimmed, water lapping at the sides. Inside it is a jellyfish. Emerald green, bobbing, tentacles and oral arms coiling against the glass like the limbs of the epergne had spanned its centre.
The Ministry worker swallows. Dumbledore smiles.
“And — and back?” the worker says, like that will be the thing that stops you.
You point again, mouth tight with irritation, and reverse the Transformation. A droplet of water smacks your face and you’re lucky to be so hot you can disguise it as sweat. You suspect even an error that small would cost you a mark.
You wipe it away. A strange thing happens; you imagine Tom brushing the water from your cheek at the Black Lake. You imagine his fingers in the rain.
The Ministry worker steps closer with a shameless frown. He tells you to turn his hair red. You do. He regards himself in the mirror and scribbles something down. He tells you to turn it back. You do. To grow him a beard, to change his clothes, to make him taller, shorter, this and that — all read from a list he does not appear enthused to recite. You do it all.
He shakes Dumbledore’s hand when it’s done, duplicates his notes for him to keep, and follows the other Ministry workers through the fireplace when everyone’s exams are finished.
You find out you’ve passed with an Outstanding on your birthday.
Mari drags you to the Three Broomsticks to celebrate, butterbeers on her. (They always are.)
“Can’t believe we’re about to graduate,” she says into her cup, froth on her upper lip.
You sigh into your own, partially giddy and mostly nervous.
Mari squeezes your face between her thumb and finger so your frown is puckered. “Chin up, genius. You’ll be excellent.”
You push her hand away but can’t help a small smile. “Outstanding,” you correct.
“Outstanding!” She bursts out laughing. “Bloody ego on you now…”
“Well, I am the smartest person you know.”
“I take that back.”
She pushes out of her chair with a slightly inebriated wobble. “Going to the loo. Don’t touch my chips.”
Your hands raise in surrender, and you steal only one when she’s gone.
You aren’t the only ones here to celebrate. (Your birthday and your mutual achievement, yes, but the Three Broomsticks is filled wall-to-wall with seventh years drinking their final nights at school away.) There’s music charmed to reach every corner, even yours at the little alcove hidden from plain sight. It’s nice to watch from here — the stumbling, the kisses meant for mouths that land drunkenly on cheeks and noses, the barkeeps that roll their eyes as soon as they turn away from all the newly adult customers, not yet learned or careless in their drinking manners.
It is not nice to be occluded from plain sight in such a way that you don’t notice Tom Riddle until he’s inches away from your table. It is not nice that no one else notices either.
On instinct you don’t make any impressive exit. He slides into the booth next to you and your brain short circuits for a moment at the warm familiarity of his presence beside you. Then it occurs that it’s been more than a year since this was remotely commonplace — that you cannot forget the reason why.
There’s not much time to decide whether you want to be vicious or indifferent or to debate on past precedent which would bother him more. You haven’t attacked him despite being concealed enough to do it unnoticed, and you haven’t shoved furiously out of the other side of the booth.
Indifferent it is. 
“Can I help you?”
“You’re causing quite the stir,” he says, taking one of Mari’s chips.
You’re allowed. It’s infuriating when he does it.
“Am I?”
“It’s enough to fail a N.E.W.T level class and be expressly petitioned back, but to have a special criteria set for your exams and manage an O on top of it all…” He inclines his head as if to appreciate your face so close after so long. You should not let him. “You are incomprehensible. It terrifies them.”
“They’re afraid of the wrong mudblood, then, aren’t they?”
Indifference effaced. You’re angry.
He seems to have come prepared, and shrugs your scorn off like a scarf you would have forced him to wear winters ago. “Of course, they have no reason to suspect Dumbledore might have ulterior motives.”
Ulterior — you certainly hope he isn’t suggesting this is based on anything but your merit, but then — you couldn’t begin to understand why Dumbledore cared so much, could you? You’d made brief inspections of his disdain for Tom in second year, his waning shades of kindness and the matter of his stolen encyclopaedia, but you hadn’t… you hadn’t thought at all about how his dedication to your progress only begun after you’d stopped sharing a class with Tom, how it had developed as you began to drift from one another in fifth year and accelerated in sixth after the first petrification and Myrtle’s death. How Tom had worn you down with a weighted glare at Dumbledore’s little toast.
It wasn’t because you had chosen Dumbledore, you realise. It was because Dumbledore had chosen you.
“Why don’t you worry about your pets, Riddle?” you snarl, “I’m sure there are bigger problems with your lot than my exam results.”
Something in his face shifts at the name. You swell with distorted pride.
He mends the reaction by looking you over in more detail, his features schooled into something he must know you can’t deduce. You try not to squirm under the intensity of it.
He reaches almost mindlessly for your collar (there is nothing mindless about it, you’re sure) and smooths the fabric gently with his fingers. “I always liked you in this colour.”
You blink. His thumb just barely brushes against the skin of your neck before retreating, and your mouth falls open.
“Don’t do that,” you say. Truly a sad attempt. Your repulsion is more with yourself than him, and that’s not at all right.
Where is Mari?
“Your friend was at the bar, last I saw her.”
You stare at him with wild eyes. How the hell — ?
“You were always easy to read,” he supplies, and leans in so you can follow his line of sight to the tiniest sliver of the bar visible between two columns, where Mari looks deeply engaged in conversation with Leo Ndiaye, one of the Gryffindor Chasers.
You take a sharp, exasperated breath at her antics. She might be more in love with the competition than the boy himself. They’d never last without Quidditch to bind them, but you can’t fault her for wanting a bit of fun.
“Well then —” 
Right. Tom hasn’t actually moved away. You turn and his face is just there.
His eyes dart forthwith to your mouth, and — no. No, he won’t be doing that and neither will you.
“...I’m off to bed.” Stop talking to him like he’s your friend, you think miserably. Stop looking at him like he’s your —
“That would be wise.”
He’s still looking at your lips.
No one else is looking at you at all.
It could exist in just this moment, you deliberate; separate from everything else.
Except nothing about Tom exists in its own moment. He’s all over you all the time, skin and bone and soul. You hope you still have a place in the broken fragments of his.
“So I’ll be going now,” you say again.
“I haven’t protested.”
But he’s leaning in, and he has to know that’s impedance enough.
“But you will.”
His lips touch yours. “Yes, I will.”
You grab him by his shirt and you’re kissing him. You’re kissing each other like either of you know what the hell it means to kiss anyone, but you’ve learned the rest together, haven’t you? Your noses bump and you don’t care. You just need to kiss him, and — God, you make some noise against his mouth and the hand cupping your face spreads to capture more of you, greedy and wayward — he needs to kiss you too. It’s a horrible thing to know. It leads you to pose too many questions.
The need must have begun as want, and when did the want begin? How long has he looked at you and wondered what you’d feel like to kiss, touch, mark? (He’ll never have the latter. You swear that.)
You’re pulling away in intervals. “You don’t have me, you know.”
“I know,” he responds, lips on the corner of yours.
“You still lost me.”
“I know.”
“I hate you.”
He pauses for a moment. “I know.”
You kiss him again. Long and soft, memorising his cupid’s bow and the tip of his tongue, and when one of his hands moves to your waist you part from him like you’ve been burned.
“I —” You resist the urge to touch a finger to your lips, standing abruptly from the table and adjusting your shirt. Your body feels like an evolutionarily faulty vessel, too easy to please, though you can’t imagine it responding to anyone else this way. Or perhaps your mind is the problem. Not wired well enough to resist an evidently bad thing. “Goodnight, Tom.”
You thought there wasn’t a word for your goodbye, but that’s it. So simple it sinks you. Goodnight, Tom. I’ll dream of a morning where I wake up beside you, but you won’t be there.
He grabs your hand before you can go, licking his lips and it haunts you to think he’s savouring you. It stings a place deep in your chest you’d spent all year trying to heal.
“My door is always open,” he says.
He lets you go.
You graduate with Mari’s hand in yours, and you aren’t afraid.
Dumbledore requests that you stay for the summer to help him prepare for the first year’s curriculum in the fall. It’s a ridiculous opportunity for someone your age — free lodgings and a stellar impression on your resume, and — you can only accept it with an ire you haven’t felt since the spread of influenza in muggle Britain.
If he’s offering you lodgings now, he could have done it all along.
It sends you down a horrible train of thought while you move your things from the Slytherin dormitories to a little chamber a few doors down from the staff room; Tom will be removed from Wool’s this year. Will he stay at Malfoy Manor? But Tom is still publicly muggle-born — Abraxas’s parents would never allow it. Will he find a job, a flat? Will he swindle muggles once he turns eighteen and the Trace is no longer an obstruction?
You think of him often. You think of his offer.
My door is always open.
Plenty of doors are open to you now. Why should you want to go back to his?
Still, the Second World War ends in November and you feel like you can breathe at a depth you never could before. The school doesn’t celebrate like it did with Grindelwald. No one but you seems to care at all.
It’s a tempting door.
The year passes in a blur of graded papers and lessons Dumbledore sometimes involves you in and sometimes does not. Most of the first-years care little for you, but there are two Slytherin muggle-borns who look at you like a new sun to orbit. Everything is worth it for that.
You see Mari when you can, and find she’s training with the Italian Quidditch team, who apparently are smart enough to care more about skill than blood. She says she misses the complexities of Transfiguration, but any career in it was always going to be yours. Smartest person she knows, she reiterates. Biggest ego too.
The next summer Dumbledore informs you of a posting at the Ministry. Something small with a smaller wage. He emphasises the weight of his personal recommendation, but that you won’t be respected unless you claw tooth and nail for it. You don’t take long to consider a chance to make an actual income with an actual career doing something muggle-borns simply don’t do before you’re nodding assuredly and asking him what you need.
Better clothes are first, and all you can afford until further notice. You take to Gladrags with intent to purchase for the first time in your five years of wandering in the shop with eyes bigger than your wallet, and the owner looks at you with distrust when you slide her your sickles.
The Ministry job is truly, infinitesimally, insignificant. 
It’s far down in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. You’re a glorified secretary, and you recall the few times you’d worked as a mail-sorter during the war. It’s some sick irony that you’ve landed yourself in a pile of paper once more.
But the money, though offensively scant to someone with better options (and it’s infuriating the options you deserve), is more than you’ve ever had, and within the next year you’re able to leave the castle and take a cheap room at an inn in Hogsmeade. You’re close enough to Dumbledore to aid him when he needs you, but far enough to feel like your school days are departed, and you need not worry about memories lurching unexpectedly at every corridor. 
A sick part of you still reaches for your mouth sometimes to remember what it felt like to be kissed. That part of you wishes for Tom. You could kiss him into oblivion. You could find a way to make it hurt him back.
My door is always open.
Then you’ll slam it bloody closed.
Mari invites you to her first professional game and you cheer for her in the stands, a green, white, and red scarf around your neck in place of her old blue.
She wins and you get drinks in a muggle pub. You kiss a man at the bar. You go home with him. His hair is dark, but not dark enough. His lips are soft, but the shape is wrong. He makes you feel good, but you wonder if in another life, the dream is true; you roll over in the morning to Tom beside you, and he makes you feel better.
When you can find time between the monotonous demands of your job, you’re in the Transfiguration classroom, staying behind to help the Slytherin muggle-borns with their Switching spells.
It’s one stupid accident the next fall that changes things.
A muggle bank has been robbed, and whatever idiotic, panicked witch or wizard was behind it apparently found themselves incapable of getting the deed done with a simple Imperius Curse (you can’t imagine, based on the scene, that they’re above Unforgivables), and somehow ended up leaving the building half-charred and teeming with at least six bank tellers Transformed into birds, two chirping into the floor tiles with broken wings.
“Renauld’s on it, though,” your coworker says when the news finds your department.
“Renauld?”
He’s a year older than you, a pureblood with parents in high places, and endlessly fucking hopeless.
“Well, yeah —”
You push out from your desk, files fluttering behind you. “Renauld will expose the whole damn wizarding world if he touches that building.”
“But McCormack sent him.”
“Where is it?”
“I… McCormack said that —”
“Where is it, Flack?”
“Um. Um, near King William, I think. Moorgate or, um —”
That’s good enough. You toss the Floo Powder into the fireplace and go.
The place is a mess. You don’t even have to look for it. There’s some ward around the street, bouncing muggles away like an invisible end to a map they don’t even register is there. At least that’s handled right.
But you slip through it and curse under your breath at the muggles trapped inside the wards. They’re like fish prodding at the dome of their bowl, and some run up to you demanding explanations when they see you unaffected by it. You brush them off — Obliviation is not your strong-suit — though you do shout at a pair of DMAC wizards uselessly standing guard outside the bank.
“What the hell are you doing?” you ask on approach. “Renauld’s supposed to handle the inside, yeah? You deal with fixing them.”
You point toward the frantic muggles, and the officials just regard you with vague confusion at your presence. “Renauld said —”
“Oh my God! Fix. The muggles.”
You afford nothing else before pushing past them to enter the bank.
It’s quite impressive, actually; Renauld, the result of generations of foolproof breeding, is waving his wand around like he’s just stepped out of Olivanders for the first time.
“Heal their wings,” you say without greeting.
Renauld jumps. “What? What are you doing here?”
“Heal their damn wings. They’re easier than human limbs and healing magic’s the only thing you aren’t completely shit at.”
“Who authorised you?” he hisses.
“I did.”
In hindsight, it should have gone horrifically wrong. Your wand could have been taken and your life might have been over in all ways that matter, flung back into the muggle world where you’ve always been told you belong.
But Renauld vouches for you. You Transform the walls, you fix the burns, you mend the bank to something presentable. A muggle robbery — dangerous, financially tragic, but believable. And your suggestion to heal the injured bank tellers in their animal forms might be the thing that saved them. When Renauld mends their wings and regenerates their blood, you Untransfigure them, and the other DMAC officials alter their memories with haste.
You were completely out of line and utterly right.
It isn’t something people like you are allotted.
Your probation period is dreadful. You hide in your room at the inn most days, Vanishing little stained panes on your window to feel the warm breeze of air before you Conjure them again. You help grade papers, though Dumbledore is displeased with you and the night is a silent one. He assures you curtly that he’s doing his best with the Ministry to amend this.
And… he does.
With Renauld’s help and the corroboration of the other DMAC officials, you’re back at work by the start of the school year.
It’s a slow process — almost eight months of meaningless paperwork — before the next incident occurs and you’re hectically ushered to the scene like a belated understudy. And then it happens again. And again. And again.
There’s really no choice but to promote you.
Your heroics are torn from a Gryffindor cloth, so says Flack. You urge him never to say such a thing again.
By your twenty-first birthday, you think about Tom almost exclusively in your sleep. You’re much too busy to think about him anywhere else.
The summer is warm and Hogsmeade is lively. You’ve vacated your room at the inn for a little house on the outskirts of the village, decorating it how you like — discovering what you like. You’d never had a chance to find out before.
Mari visits when she can once you have your fireplace connected to the Floo Network (you yourself prefer Apparating) but her name is slowly working its way from the Italian papers to the British ones, and she has so much to tell you there isn’t possibly enough time in her days to tell it. There’s also the matter of Leo Ndiaye, who has, recently, gotten on one knee and proposed to her. If there had been a bet on them ending up together, you would have been out enough galleons to put you in debt.
After especially gruesome days at work, you and a few colleagues make a habit of getting sherries at the Siren’s Tail, complaining that sometimes the nature of your work is akin to an auror’s but without the notoriety and pay.
“Oh, please,” says Emilia Alves, twirling her straw, “have you seen the shit the aurors are up to lately? I’d rather be a blimmin’ Unspeakable.”
“You’d have to be able to keep your mouth shut for that, Alves.”
Emilia punches Renauld in the arm.
“What are the aurors up to?” Flack asks.
“I dunno much. There was a murder all the way in Albania, s’posedly. Reeked of dark magic.”
“Nothing new,” you join, and then frown. “Why’s our Ministry dealing with it though?”
“I dunno. I got word from Hillicker that the Albanians didn’t know what to make of the mess. They’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Hillicker’s not a source,” Renauld scoffs.
“Yeah? Why don’t you ask your daddy for something better?”
“Alves, I’ll have you know —”
You lean in over the counter. “What do you mean they’ve never seen anything like it?”
She grins. “Why? Storming a bank robbery wasn’t exciting enough for you?”
You roll your eyes, taking a drink.
That ought to be the end of it. One extraordinarily lucky incident to push you up the career ladder was rare enough — there is absolutely no way digging around a case that has nothing to do with you or your department could ever end well.
But something about it itches.
You make nice with Hillicker. She’s a year younger than you and far too kind for her own good, and she gushes freely about her husband’s work as an auror (they must be a perfect match for him to gush freely about it with her). It’s a bit manipulative. You have no excellent excuse for it, but… ambition, and all that, you suppose. Flack’s Gryffindor theory is studded with holes.
You are green, through and through.
Emilia’s updates are meaningless when you garner so much information that you’ve already heard everything she has to say over drinks, and at this point her and Hillicker might be a step behind you. Emilia still only knows about Albania; peppery little details of half a story. Hillicker discusses an assortment of murders with no real string between them, and Dumbledore regards you with cool heeding when you bring up the matter with him.
You see him little nowadays but you’ve never been close in any true sense, traces of resentment budding over the years like rainwater collects on glass until the stream finally slips.
You visit Hogwarts mostly for your Slytherins, fourteen or fifteen now, unafraid of the distinction of their blood.
And then there’s one night after you turn twenty-two where drinks take place at yours for a change, Mari and Leo included and happily wed. You have no sherries but your ale is just as well, and it’s only you and Renauld who are sober by the time everyone else is vanishing into the fireplace and going home.
That makes it much worse when you sleep together. 
There’s no excuse of having had a glass too many — so sorry, I’ll be on my way then, and him stumbling over his trousers to get out of your hair. Of course, he does that anyway, scratching the nape of his neck when he reaches your doorway in the morning.
“Thanks for the — well, you have a nice home — I do think I should —”
“Yes.”
“Right.”
“Oh!” He turns around at the last second. “Er — I know you’ve become a tad obsessed with… Hillicker mentioned another, anyway. Hepzibah something. Killed by her own elf, the aurors suspect.”
“Oh,” you echo, sheets pulled up to your shoulders. “Thanks, Renauld.”
“I thought you might like to know. Don’t be daft about it.”
You’re incredibly daft about it.
There’s something reminiscent about Albania in this case that wasn’t there with the others. The tide of dark magic ebbing across the scene, the cherry-picked information released in the Prophet, the claim of an old, dumb House Elf who poisoned her mistress like the Albanian peasant killed in some insoluble accident. 
The itch exacerbates.
You see him in your dreams again. He peers over Runes in a stolen encyclopaedia, he whispers to an adder on his shoulder, he kisses the corner of your mouth and it isn’t enough. He kills you, again and again. You kill him too.
You wake up and he isn’t there.
It’s a new low when you’re invited to the Hillicker’s anniversary dinner and you end up digging through the drawers of their study halfway through the night.
The Albania file offers nearly nothing. There was the charred residue of dark magic imprinted on a hollow tree in the fields of the peasant’s hamlet, but nothing detailing more than a blank imprint of the Killing Curse in his eyes. Still, you tuck the knowledge away for the file of one Hebzibah Smith, whose tea did indeed have traces of poison, but whose den was also ripe with a layer of darkness that didn’t line up with the Ministry’s tale of senile elf.
And then there’s the forgotten matter of her being a purveyor of ancestral artefacts. The file doesn’t recount whether any are missing, since the woman was wise enough not to proclaim all her possessions to the world, but it’s something. A scratch.
You travel to Albania that Christmas. The neighbours in the peasant’s hamlet have skewed memories, so they provide little help, but the man’s house was left almost untouched.
You tear the place apart and Transfigure it back together when you’re done.
All you find, in the end, is a scrap of an old envelope in a suitcase.
R.R
It could be that it’s old. The cursive seems ancient enough. But you swear the letters have the distinct shape of quill ink — too artful for any pen — and maybe that wouldn’t matter if it weren’t for half a wax seal stuck to the torn edge of the envelope. Stained but silver, the barest hint of two ribbons, a crest, and the letter H.
You return to Hogwarts posthaste.
It’s snowing in the courtyards and you waddle with a duotang under one arm to pretend you’re here for something scholarly, an array of excuses prepared in case you run into Dumbledore, but you don’t.
The Grey Lady is as beautiful as she’s rumoured to be. 
You ask her about her mother, and she’s silent, an expression on her face like you’ve struck her.
“Is it found?” she whispers. The snow floats through her.
Your heart hammers as you consider how to approach this. She thinks you know more than you do, which means there’s something to know.
“Yes,” you say. And you dare further with the context you know, “In Albania.”
“Oh,” she hums. “Oh…”
And if she means to say more she doesn’t seem able, washing away through the balusters, then the walls. You think of your house ghost and what he did to her, and you feel sorry for a second.
Madam Palles expels you from the library the moment you find what you’re looking for, and you rush past a throng of staring students to the staff room fireplace. It’s too far a walk to the border of the castle wards to Apparate. You bite back the preemptive sickness, get swallowed by the flames, and go home.
There are blanks to fill in but you do it easily. Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem. Hepzibah Smith and her assortment of unregistered artefacts. The stain of dark magic. Something so rare not even the aurors recognized it.
But you do, because he told you.
You wonder on your search to find him what object he used when he killed Myrtle Warren. Nothing special, you think — maybe even the closest thing he could find. These murders involved more preparation. He got to mark them however he wanted.
It’s almost disappointing to find him here. In a little flat over Knockturn Alley with a view of charmed coalsmoke and the brick wall of another shop. 
It’s as tidy as his room at Wool’s, the only dirt the irremediable age of the building itself. The whole place looks almost slanted, large enough only for the bare necessities; a kitchen, a toilet, a bedroom that looks more like a closet, and a study/dining room/den you can’t imagine he hosts many gatherings in. You rescind the mere thought. Whatever gatherings Tom Riddle is having these days, you’re sure you can’t begin to imagine at all.
You wait, legs crossed on an old loveseat, fiddling with your wand.
The door clicks open when the snow has turned to hail and there’s no light but the few scattered candles you’d lit on the mantelpiece. 
It strikes you only when he’s standing before you that it’s his birthday.
You’re in Tom Riddle’s flat, on his birthday, adorned by the orange glow of half-melted candles, and you know everything.
He eyes you carefully, a hint of surprise at the sight of you after four years that even he needs a second to recover from. And then he's even, inscrutable Riddle again, and you dare to think, come back.
“I placed wards," he says, hanging his bag on a rack by the wall.
“I thought your door was always open.”
You see his posture change from just his silhouette.
“Wards never work in Knockturn,” you offer additionally, “not really. There's too much conflicting magic; one border cuts into another; leaves a little sliver behind if you’re smart enough to find it. You should know that." 
He turns to you. You take in a moment to acknowledge how he's changed. It's hard to see in the curtained moonlight, and it seems unreasonable to imagine he’s grown, but you think he has. An inch taller, perhaps. Two. Maybe the dress shoes. His arms are bigger under his button-down, but not enough to consider him muscular. His black hair isn't as perfect as you remember, and you suspect a long day of work undoes his curls. You always liked him better that way in school, after a night duel at the Black Lake, his robes askew and his hair a mess. Evidence that you were the only one to dishevel him. Now you were — what? Did he even think of you anymore? Yes. You'd always think of each other.
“Duly noted. What are you here for?” He tries your surname like a foreign language.
You cross your arms, and you're acutely aware that he's observing your changes too. You're not the matchstick witch he once knew. Your emotions are cultured now, taut to mirror his. You wear dull, formal grey, and that glowing green tinge that should be gleaming on you is under a thick carapace. That’s for Mari, Flack, Emilia — even Renauld. Not for Tom.
You wonder if he knows it was Dumbledore who put in the word that got you this uniform. You wonder if he resents you for it.
“There’s been talk at the Ministry," you say finally, “A string of murders. Whispers of something — some dark magic they don’t understand. And you know they're careful about things like that after Grindelwald."
“A string of murders... Hm. That might imply you understand a connective thread. Is there some sort of accusation being made?”
“Oh, I'm sure you'd be flattered by accusations. There’s not enough there, as it stands. Just whispers." You sink more comfortably in the seat and the springs make a concerning sound. “But I know you."
His hard, sharp gaze falters for a moment. You watch the flames dance behind him, the firelight playing against the lines of his shoulders, and feel your heart skip a beat. “Who else is speculating?"
“No one." Your fingers brush over the book spines on the coffee table. “I guess their attention hasn't been drawn to a book clerk yet, even if you have taken residency... here." You say it with no shortage of disapproval. 
Knockturn was never where Tom belonged. You'd once imagined a flat together in muggle London, taking the telephone booth to the Ministry together, changing the world together. It's a wish that's a lifetime away now.
“Is this a warning? I assure you, I don’t need the condescension.”
“I'm not warning you," you scoff, “I — I'm seeing you. God knows I'll probably never get the chance to do that again once you get yourself locked up in Azkaban, which you will." 
You sound exasperated. You sound half-pleading. “What are you doing, Tom? Is this — this is really what you want?"
“Yes."
You shake your head. “I don't believe that." And then some of that fiery spit returns to you, and you feel like a child again, stuck in the London tube stations holding his hand at every plane that flew overhead, scowling that you needed his reassurance. Scowling that you were afraid.
“Well, your conjecture is ever-appreciated. Shall I lend you mine? Shall I congratulate you on your revolutionary position at the Ministry? Or is it Dumbledore I should afford my thanks?”
“I earned this,” you hiss.
“You deserve it,” he amends. “But do not lie to yourself and pretend that’s why you have it.”
“Fuck you.”
He smiles. “There you are.”
“I don’t need your congratulations, Riddle. Dumbledore doesn’t need your damn thanks. But,” you say, biting back the snarl that wants out, “you could thank me. After all, I could turn to the Ministry any minute with the truth of your heritage. I could tell them about Myrtle, the Horcrux — Horcruxes.”
The humour dissolves from his face and you despise the immense glee it brings you.
“Oh, did you think I didn’t know? Didn’t understand the connective thread? You are sentimental under all that… fucking posturing, you know. I’m sure it’s all very romantic to you — making Horcruxes out of Hogwarts artefacts. Shame it’s such an insult to your intelligence.”
“Very good,” he says after a long, terse silence. You’re sure he’s thinking just the opposite.
You hum, meddling with your nails. “So what’s your plan?”
“I’d need a Vow for that.”
You laugh. “I’m not that desperate.”
“You’re also not an auror, are you?” He tilts his head appraisingly. “And yet you’ve found your way here.”
“How many do you plan to make? How many people do you plan to kill?”
“A Vow.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Tea, then? Biscuits?”
“Oh, I shouldn’t. I read in the paper the other day about a poor old woman who had her tea poisoned.”
“Hm. Terrible shame.”
Your fist clenches around your wand. “Is it paying off well, Riddle? It must be a good life if you’re willing to split your soul to hell and back to have more of it.”
He smiles at the barb in your words. “You never were good with subtlety.”
“I wasn’t trying to be subtle. This place is horrific.”
“I was referring to your inability to see more than what’s directly in front of you.”
“Oh, really? And what more should I see than a boy who’s very good at getting weak men to bow and do very little else? I’d try to see the bigger picture, but I reckon it wouldn’t fit in here.”
Tom regards you colourlessly. You are slate, Ministry-grey, impermeable like palace portcullis. 
“I suppose I should have killed you.” He says it with the nonchalance of a forgotten chore. He says it like you’re a stain. 
He doesn’t say it like he feels any terrible urgency to remove you; and you think, this time, you’d feel more powerful if he did. You think it’s far more debilitating to sit here and be looked at like he regrets wanting you alive more than he wants you dead.
“Yes,” you concur, “I suppose you should have.” 
You place your wand down on the table and scoot your chair away for good measure. “It’s never too late to rectify your mistakes.”
Tom, for a moment, looks surprised. That makes you feel powerful. You’d take more of that.
“You have wandless magic,” he tries. A weak recovery.
“Scout’s honour, Riddle.”
He doesn’t move for a moment, then fixes his wand in his hand and rises, doused in the same inscrutable calm that always used to drive you mad. Now something in you gleams with the knowledge that he only ever looks like this when he’s trying not to look like anything at all.
He steps closer and it gleams brighter. It trembles inside you and you know, distantly, that this is insane. You’re weighing your life on a childhood trust that was shattered years ago, and you don’t think you’ve ever been that good at faith, but he’s approaching you and that gleam you feel is reflected in his eyes and you just… know. Your spilled blood once crawled with his. There’s no undoing that. Half of you is made of the other.
“I should have killed you,” he repeats.
It’s a murmur. Stilted. Angry, even. Angry that you made him this and there’s no fucking rectifying it — what a joke that is. What an immensely you thing to suggest.
“Yes,” you agree.
It’s a breath. Low. Proud, even. Proud that you’re his only mistake and he’s going to make it again.
Tom kisses you. It’s a murder of its own kind. You kiss him back, and — you were always going to kill each other like this, weren’t you? It’s you and him whether you like it or not.
There should be no love in it. You know that. Love is far behind the both of you, stifled in a gasp at the back of your throat on your eighteenth birthday and the soft, selfish hands of a seventeen year old boy. This is mutual destruction. Spite and teeth and skin that’s cold under your fingers.
He was your first in everything but this.
You push back at him and feel the hunger, the need in him, like a flame as he kisses you deeper and harder, and you find yourself losing yourself to it all over again, like you're back in the dark alcove of a pub where you told him goodbye, pushing to extend the juncture. And then he lets out a hitched, gravelly sound; not a moan but enough to make you shudder.
You pull him onto the sofa and crawl onto his lap.
“How long?” he asks thickly.
You don’t have to ask what he means. You bite against his neck, nails under his shirt as you struggle to pop the buttons open. There must be a violence in all your want for him because if there isn't it's just loss. It's just another thing you'll give him without taking anything back. 
“Sixth year," you pant, “in the Deathday ballroom when we fought for the first time. You — ah — you put your thumb on my mouth. Since then."
You hear a sharp intake of breath, and his hand moves up your back to pull you impossibly closer. His voice is ragged. “Should I tell you how long I’ve wanted you?"
You shudder a breath. “Since —" And it's a bit hard to talk with the way he's rolling your hips — “Since when?"
His lips twitch into a mirthless smile, hands spanning your thighs as you start to rock against him. “When you burned me, and I sent you into the lake." 
You swallow, agonised by the slow pace his grip forces you to keep when all you want to do is go faster. 
“Your uniform was terribly wet,” he says, mouth tracing your jaw. “Did I ever apologise for that?"
“N-no.”
He tuts, the hushed sound warm and deadly on your neck. “Bad manners. I must have been distracted."
Oh. Oh, you think. It seems pointless to flush in the position you're in now, but the knowledge that he wanted you then and you hadn't even known is... all the more devastating. 
But you shiver at the question of how he’d wanted you, in what amount of detail, in what precise way. You almost want to ask. See it for yourself. 
You don't think you'd manage the words. He’s hard underneath you and your head wants to lull toward his shoulder but a big hand holds you from one side of your jaw down the length of your neck, his tongue laving up the other. Instead you’re balanced only by his hands and his mouth, rolling against him because it’s all you can do like this.
He’s marking you, you realise with a gasp, and your fingers bury in his hair to remove his mouth from its descending assault on your collar. Not that. You’d sworn against that.
Your fingers return to his buttons and he copies you by finding yours, pulling at the fabric tucked into your trousers until it’s discarded entirely. You press your hands to the planes of his chest and watch him, your mouth agape as his eyes linger on your chest.
His heart is pounding and he must know you’re about to comment on it because his lips are on yours again and he adjusts his position and your fingers dig into his shoulders at the delicious new feeling of him pressing into your thigh. 
You move for his belt. He moves for your zipper. It’s some sort of race, whatever you’re doing, and you’re at an unfair advantage when you’re still fumbling with his buckle when his hand is already carving a slow path to the band of your underwear. You're scalding under the journey of it, little stars pricking you under every new inch he explores.
He dips in and your eyes wrench shut, grasping frantically for his wrist.
“Shh,” he says softly, caressing your cheek with his spare hand, thumb finding your mouth how it did all those years ago and you want to curse him. The fucker knows exactly what he’s doing.
You shake your head, chest rising with heavy breaths as you return to his belt and scrabble to unbuckle it.
“So tense,” he murmurs. The hand at your cheek draws over your lower lip before it falls to your back to hold you closer. “Rest now.”
And his fingers trace you where you want him most, brushing past your clit as he pulls his face back to watch you.
You sink into the feeling, still swaying on his lap, a half-efforted attempt at finding friction in the hardness between his legs that feels fruitless because it won't be enough until he's inside. Your hand just grips onto the fabric of his unzipped trousers and stays there. It’s a pause. An obstacle on your path to him that you need just a moment to recover from before you’ll make him feel just like this. Better. Worse. It’s hard to tell which is which.
He’s stroking at you now, pleased by the way you lurch against him with every touch.
You have to recover, you have to make it even, you have to… you…
A finger presses inside and you moan.
“You came back to me,” he whispers, close enough to be kissing you but there’s just the stutter of his breath. It's a fucking religious thing to say, the way he does it.
“Doesn’t make me yours,” you breathe.
He shakes his head. “I know. You’ll still take it though, won’t you?”
Oh, fuck.
He makes a sound of approval. “Good.”
Good. Fine. Your hands slip from his zipper to the meat of his thighs, pushing yourself forward so the shape of him is firmer against you, and Tom slips another finger in.
You’ll take it, won’t you? Yes. 
Maybe you don’t need to tear him at the seams (though you want to) to make it even. Maybe this is punishment enough. That he can have you like this and it still won’t make you his, that he’ll give you everything and you’ll lap at it with half the greed he possesses.
You ride his hand, clutching his shoulders, rocking your hips. You take all of it, and it builds something delirious inside you, that it’s him doing this, his perfect fingers, the shape of his lips, the soft dark of his hair when you find your hands in it again. The feeling makes you stutter, and he has to move you by the waist himself to keep the momentum when you can't do it yourself.
He’s painfully stiff, pushing up against you with a degree of self-control that feels like it can only end disastrously for the both of you, and you start smattering kisses down his cheek. You tilt his head back and lick a stripe down his neck. Rest now, you'd say if you could.
But he adds a third finger and your head falls, a cry planted in his collar when you come, and you don't think you say anything.
Tom holds your legs steady, guiding you through it like this is just another one of his studies. You are what he knows better than anything else, and still he wants to learn more.
“Look at you,” he mutters, dipping you back to press his lips down your chest, unclasping your bra while you’re still breaking, the sensation swelling again when he takes a nipple into his mouth.
“Tom,” you try to say. Your mouth is the sticky sort of dry that words refuse to come out of.
“Will you give me more?”
Give, not take. You fuss into a stolen kiss, grappling again with his trousers, pulling them down until you can palm him through his boxers.
He hisses, gripping your wrist like he hadn’t just done the same to you, and then he’s pulling you up and off the couch, trousers discarded with what must be magic because you blink and they’re gone. Greedy boy. (You have no room to judge.) Your back is to the wall an instant before his fingers are on you again, pushing your underwear down your thighs until it falls at your feet like they despised to ever part from you.
You arch to feel him press against your stomach, pushing off the wall so that you can meld to him but he just closes in on you to do it himself.
He goads the heat from you when his fingers push in again, still wet, coiling how you like, where you like —
“Want you,” you protest shakily, hand on his abdomen.
That must kill him a little, because he curses under his breath (a thing he never does) and the immediate absence of his touch is cruel when he goes to free himself from his boxers. You reach for him without thinking as he does, and he pins your hand beside you when your fingers so much as graze the length of him.
You sound frail, but you have to ask. “Is this how you wanted me?”
A cruder version of you would go on. Is this how you pictured it? Taking me against a wall? Have you waited for it all this time?
And you don’t belong to him but you’re so incomprehensibly, contradictorily his. You’ll want him forever. He could do anything, and you’d be his. You could haunt him into his lonely eternity, and he’d be yours. Then, you suppose — haunting him makes him yours by principle.
Maybe you already do.
Tom practically growls into your mouth, pressing against you and — God, it’s skin on skin. He's right there. You could push forward and —
He slides in. You cry out at the feel of him inside you, the angle of it like this.
“I wanted you,” he says lowly, your legs wrapped around him, “everywhere.”
You’re gripping him so tight you think he’ll bleed under your nails and somehow you still feel on the brink of collapse when he thrusts deeper.
“I thought mostly of your mouth,” he rasps. “It felt depraved to imagine it wrapped around me, but then I thought of you splayed out before me instead. That maybe you’d like it if it was my mouth on you.”
You whimper.
“Would you like that?” he asks, hands spanning your hips to snap them into his, like you are a piece removed from him he seeks to reattach.
If you wanted to answer you couldn’t. You’re clinging to him and the rising surge inside you, carved between your legs like something sweltering and unfixable. It rushes in and he pulls out of you. He pushes in and you cry for the release of it, the moment the wave lurches over the edge, but he won’t let you have it.
“But,” he says, and your eyes want to roll back at how heavy his restraint is, callous in the tone of his voice, some leash at his neck he must tug himself lest you take it from him — “If I knew how well you’d take me like this, I would have thought of it much more.”
Taking him, again — you don’t feel at all like that’s what’s happening. You feel possessed. You are buoyant in his arms: his and his and his.
“You can — uh — you can — ”
"Hm?" He brushes down the slope of your brow, your cheek, back to the edge of your mouth, wiping a trail of saliva from your chin. “Poor thing.”
And he slams into you again, drawing a mewl from you that slices your unfinished thought.
You clench around him, flames wild and fluttering at every contact of his skin on yours, and there are too many to count. Too many points where they intersect, just some blend of bodies connected at every curve.
“You’re going to give me more,” he says, like it’s an epiphany when you already told him you would.
You remember then. What you meant to say. “You can take me too.”
You feel him twitch inside you, his pace stilling for a moment, and the thumb on your lip slips into your mouth. Your lips close around him and he curses again.
He fucks you with a finger in your mouth and his teeth clamped over your shoulder, soothing the sting with his tongue. His pace is too slow when he drags his free hand between your legs, but you understand its purpose well enough that the mere recognition almost destroys you. 
He’s patient in bringing you to the edge because there's time here. A slow agony that severs you from the rest of the world until it splits you down the middle. And he may not ever have it again.
You have to promise yourself he’ll never have it again.
But the movement of his fingers against the same spot he’s hitting inside you is too much at once, and you won’t last. You drool around his thumb. You let him mark you. You can see on his neck you’ve marked him too. And you hope impossibly there’s a scar. You hope the little death you coax from him claims him as yours for eternity, keeps him even when you're gone. You tighten, lurch for the edge, and make him mortal once more.
Tom holds you there, your cries reverberating as he sinks another finger in your mouth, and then he’s gasping at your neck, peeling back to look you in the eyes when he spills into you. Your eyes screw together and he releases the sounds you make by holding you by the jaw instead.
“Look at me,” he says, and for the strained need in it you do.
You come down to earth and you kiss him, wetness dripping down your thighs as he pins you to this moment. You love him. You’ll always love him.
He’s still inside you when he’s secure enough to bring you to his bed, only removing himself from you when you’re safely in his sheets, legs surrendering their grip on his waist as you pull apart. You pant into the cold linen of his pillow. Everything smells like him. There’s something empty now; the reason you came today; the reason you left four years ago.
You love him and it isn’t enough. Not even to look at him, the sleepy hint of the boy you knew in his eyes, and know that he loves you too.
“Goodnight, Tom,” you say, finding home in the warmth of his chest.
You’ll dream of a morning where you wake up beside him, but you won’t be there.
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yoonia · 23 days
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Ever A Never After — story masterpost
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⟶ Title | Ever a Never After (adaptation from Enchanted movie) ⟶ Summary | Growing up in the fairy tale land, your whole life seems to have been written perfectly in the books, with the picturesque life and the Prince Charming that you can see yourself having your happily ever after with. But your entire world turns upside down when you are suddenly sent into a whole new world, a different kind of universe where happily ever after doesn’t exist. Thrust into a new challenge and shown a new side of life, you find yourself standing in a crossroad. When the moment arises, would you find your way back home to your true love, or is the universe trying to show you that sometimes happy endings don’t have to be written so perfectly?
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⟶ Pairings | Jungkook x female reader; Seokjin x female reader ⟶ Genre | Strangers to lovers!au, Fairy tale retelling!au, Angst, Smut ⟶ Ratings & Warnings | +18 / M for Mature; specific warnings will be added accordingly on each published chapters ⟶ Status / Current word count / Total word count | ONGOING; latest update: [teaser] Ever A Never After: Act 1 (April 25th, 2024) - n/a words of n/a words  ⟶ Main Masterlist | Mailbox | Feedback | Ko-fi | Music companion
⟶ Special Taglist: Ever A Never After
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⟶ Story Note | Written in 2nd person POV (in case you’re new to my writing, I don’t use ‘y/n’ coding as all of my lead characters are considered as OCs). In place of the coding, you’ll find a blank space as her name. Please also note that our main character/reader insert for this story has her own nickname that will be used in the scenes. While the story is adapted from the movie, Enchanted, with some characters and places that were mentioned in the movie added into this story, I will be adding changes in the story settings, characters’ names and background stories to fit the plot. That being said, as someone who has never set foot in the land of America, forgive me if there are some inaccuracies in the details that are being added here. I hope that doesn’t change your reading experience with the story.
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⟶ Chapters
⇢ Act One. Andalasia, The Maiden, and The Dream Prince [“It’s you. The boy I saw in my dreams.” “It’s me. Your Prince Charming.” | Word count: — | Chapter Teaser]
⇢ Act Two. The Alter World and The Saviour [“I need to find my way back to the castle.” “What castle?” “Why, of course, I’m talking about Andalasia.” “Huh, right. Why don’t I just call you an Uber?” | Word count: — | Chapter Teaser]
⇢ Act Three. Fairy Tales and Bittersweet Endings [“You forgot to say the part where you lived happily ever after.” “Happily ever after? That thing doesn’t exist, not in the real world.” | Word count: — | Chapter Teaser]
⇢ Act Four. The Ball for The Kings and Queens and Dragons [“There is a ball for the Queen and Kings at the start of spring. Shall we go together?” “As your Prince Charming, I’ll be happy to escort you.” | Word count: — | Chapter Teaser]
⇢ Act Five. Prince Charming and a Happily Never After [“Look at how the tables have turned, as now I have in my hand the Prince who is supposed to protect the princess.” “Come along now, dear. You wouldn’t want to miss the ending.” | Word count: — | Chapter Teaser]
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⟶ Author’s Note | Originally commissioned by @pinkbtsarmy | It’s finally here! I’m so sorry for taking so long with this one. Thank you so much for commissioning me and for your endless support. As mentioned in our last talk, there will be some changes from the original prompt/details that I’ve made to make the story work better, but I hope you’ll be able to enjoy it still. I have decided to release this one as a mini-series to present the timeline more appropriately and make the storyline work. Have fun reading!
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girlscience · 3 months
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unrelated to the panic of grad school, I am making an oc because I was smacked in the face with the adventuring bug last night
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