Getting broken up with in the middle of the night was one thing, but having it be over a text message (all lowercase, no punctuation) was a whole new low. You knew it wasn’t going to last, but the suddenness of it was dreadful, as were the personal criticisms he decided to throw your way just to rub salt into the wound.
your bodys just not doing it for me anymore
we could still hook up if you want just hmu
but not in bethesda obvi lol
You weren’t sure what possessed him to say those things to you, but you had seen enough, so you blocked him.
Tear-stained and angry, you went outside to get some fresh air. You wrapped your blanket around you and stared up at the stars, trying to move on from that asshole as quickly as possible.
Suddenly, you heard John’s sliding door open up. You turned to look at him, and he seemed just as startled to see you there.
“Oh, hey… Hey,” he furrowed his brow, “What’s happened?”
You sniffled, trying to find your voice,
“Got dumped.”
“What? Just now? It’s midnight,” he sat next to you, “Did he just leave?”
You shook your head, dreading having to admit to the fact that you hadn’t even deserved a capital letter much less an in-person visit,
“Text message.”
You passed over your phone to let him experience the drama first-hand. As he read the messages, his face grew increasingly dark, almost scary. You couldn’t help but notice his attire while he read, and you felt insane for doing so. He was in running shorts and a cut-off tee shirt with some rock band’s logo fading and flaking on the front. You were supposed to be sad, but now you couldn’t stop staring at his very visible and extremely muscular arms and abs.
“You’re joking,” he handed you back the phone in disbelief.
You shook your head again and looked down at the tissue in your hands, trying to come up with something to say.
“What a fuckin’ wanker.”
You laughed, nodding, and he cracked a smile. You let his voice wash over you like a salve, healing the hurt another man had caused,
“Well, this calls for a bloody drink, don’t it?”
“Don’t think the bars will be open by the time I make it out,” you joked. You weren’t going out anywhere tonight.
“Wait here,” he said, ducking back into his apartment.
He reemerged with a bottle of Scotch whisky and two glasses, pouring one for you and then one for himself, each equally generous.
John tinked your glass and drank. You followed suit, albeit a bit more timidly.
It burned. Then it spiraled into oranges and vanilla and honey. And then it burned again. You tried not to, but you made a face, and said,
“Wow, it’s good. Thanks.”
“Strong, hm?” He purred softly, pleased with his choice.
“Yeah, but still good,” you insisted.
“Don’t worry about those messages, love. Your body is doing wonders just how it is. He wants your reaction.”
You tried not to let the compliment linger in your mind for too long, but it was stuck in there like popcorn in your teeth.
“I know,” you admitted, “And I wasn’t going to marry this guy or anything, but…”
“Still hurts.”
“Yeah.”
John was clipping and lighting a cigar to have with his drink, and you watched him as he worked. He still hadn’t bought that ashtray he’d promised, but he was using an old glass bowl for now. He smoked for a bit, sharing it with you wordlessly. Then, he took a long breath and gave you a droll look.
“What is the difference between a condom and a coffin?”
You laughed before he even gave you the punchline of the joke, shocked by its crudeness,
“What?”
“You come in one and leave in the other.”
“John!”
He snickered, listening to you laugh, turning a little red in the face as he did so.
“Alright, alright,” he prepared another one for you, “What can you spell with P, E, N, I, and S?”
You raised your eyebrows at him, and shrugged,
“Penis?”
He scoffed,
“Spine, you filthy thing.”
You stayed outside talking and telling jokes long enough to see the black starfield give way to a pale pink morning, and before you knew it, half a bottle of whisky was gone. John had certainly worked his magic in you, and by the time you said goodnight and climbed back into your bed, you’d forgotten why you’d even been wasting your tears on a jerk like that in the first place.
summary: kung lao would protect raiden at all costs
warnings: canon-typical violence :)
Kung Lao fell to the ground, blood spurting from his mouth as clutched his chest. Shang Tsung smirked and retracted the blades from Kung Lao’s chest and disappeared in a whirlwind of white as Kung Lao failed to get back to his feet. Behind him he could hear Raiden screaming his name out. The hat wielder struggled to keep his eyes open as he felt Raiden cradle him close. Through the blur, he could see tears falling from Raiden’s eyes as the champion pushed on Kung Lao’s chest frantically. Kung Lao brought his hand up to cradle Raiden’s and stared into those beautiful brown eyes.
“Kung Lao, stay awake! Liu Kang is coming with medical help, please!” Raiden said frantically, but Kung Lao could barely hear him, the world sounding a million miles under water. Instead, the hat wielder just reached his hand up to tuck a piece of loose hair behind Raiden’s ear. Raiden just choked on a sob, his hand coming up to cup Kung Lao’s cheek. Why were Raiden’s hands so bloody? Was he injured?
“Are you hurt? You should go get patched up.” His words were starting to slur as his consciousness started slipping from the waking world. Raiden said something in reply, but Kung Lao just heard some sort of mumble. The hat wielder stared up at Raiden as the world started to turn black in the edges of his vision. Even crying, Raiden still looked so beautiful, like an angel come from heaven. What had Kung Lao ever done to deserve someone like him?
“I love you, Raiden. I love you so much.” It was barely a mumble, so quiet that Kung Lao wasn’t even sure he had said it until the Earthrealm champion brought Kung Lao up to kiss him desperately, not caring that he could taste blood. Kung Lao closed his eyes and smiled as the last vestiges of his consciousness slipped from the world.
Fuck, everything hurt. Kung Lao’s head pounded, his heartbeat pounding in his ears, his body felt exhausted, as if he had run a marathon just a second before, and he could barely breathe. Something was in his mouth, and Kung Lao tried to lift his arm up to remove it. But, he couldn’t move. He felt so heavy, even his eyelids. He let out a groan as a shooting pain went through his chest.
Something clutched onto his hand, something warm and calloused that he had felt explore his body countless times. Raiden. Kung Lao clutched onto the hand, not daring to let go of it as sleep overtook his mind once again.
The next time woke up, Kung Lao peeled his eyelids open, the world blurry and bright as he tried to blink his vision back into focus. He looked to his right to find Raiden sitting right next to him, gripping onto his hand so tight like Kung Lao might slip away at any moment. The hat wielder looked around a bit more, and was he in a hospital? He tried to sit up, but the blooming pain in his chest forced him to stay still and remain in his position. But it seemed that Raiden heard Kung Lao’s pained grunt, and his eyes opened.
Even with dark circles underneath his red and puffy eyes, messed-up hair, and dirty clothes, Raiden still looked gorgeous, like he came straight from a painting. The Earthrealm champion started tearing up at the sight of Kung Lao’s open eyes, and Kung Lao squeezed his partner’s hand, trying to comfort the other. There was still something in his mouth forcing him to breathe, but something told Kung Lao that he wouldn’t have enough energy in his body to try and breathe by himself anyway.
Raiden spent the next few minutes sobbing and placing kisses on the back of Kung Lao’s hand, but he calmed down after a bit, shaky breaths and ugly sniffles.
“You idiot. You shouldn’t have jumped in front of me.” Raiden mumbled. Kung Lao wanted to retort, but with the tube in his mouth, he couldn’t say anything and could only listen to Raiden.
“That was reckless. Stupid. Don’t you know how distraught we all were. We all thought you had died. Liu Kang disappeared when he delivered you to the hospital, looking terrified. Kenshi and Johnny haven’t been the same. Kung Jin can barely sleep knowing you’re in the hospital. And…and I thought I lost you. Don’t ever do that again.” Raiden started crying again, and Kung Lao stayed looking at Raiden. He did not regret his decision to sacrifice his life. He would never let Shang Tsung hurt Raiden.
“And, and, how could you tell me you loved me when I didn’t have the chance! You-I-I love you so much, Kung Lao. It would’ve destroyed me if you died before I got to tell you.”
Despite the pain and his body screaming, Kung Lao sat up in his head and brought Raiden close, resting their foreheads together and trying to say that he loved Raiden so much. He would love Raiden until the end of time. He would protect Raiden with his body, heart, and soul. He would give his whole life to Raiden if it meant Raiden got to live.
Raiden just lifted his hand to rest on the back of Kung Lao’s neck, and they stayed like that for a few minutes. And as Raiden whispered ‘I love you’ over and over again, Kung Lao closed his eyes and fell asleep knowing that he was loved.
for fluffuary day 10, "secret language." minor spoilers for a side conversation with karlach in act 3 (in the lower city graveyard).
tialha is a wood elf bard who loves her giant buff fire girlfriend very much.
“Taters,” Karlach murmured, almost lost under the clanking of her greaves as she rocked back to standing with a parting caress to her mother’s headstone. She couldn’t feel it when Tialha pressed a hand to her back, not through the armor and all the underlayers, but she could feel it, in that humming way she was always aware of where the rest of their merry band of infected bastards was.
“Taters?” she asked, voice equally hushed. Suddenly it occurred to Karlach—maybe Tia had someone buried here, too. She’d lived in the Gate for a while, apparently, and landed somewhere between Astarion and Halsin on the old as balls scale that elves measured their lives by. Plenty of time to have loved and lost. Maybe someday soon, she’d stand here over Karlach’s grave with her hands clasped in that famed elven stoicism.
The engine hitched and sputtered in her chest like a caught breath, or a muffled sob. Gods, it wasn’t fucking fair.
“Meant ‘I love you’ in the Cliffgate household,” Karlach said, instead of anything self-pitying. Plenty of time for being sorry when she croaked. “I can’t even remember how it started anymore. Lost family lore.”
Older than she was, probably. Mum had liked to nuzzle against Dad’s horn in the mornings, before they left for work, drop a kiss and a soft Taters on the ridge of his ear.
“There was a lot of silly nonsense in our house,” she added, and somewhere in the back of her mind—vivid, like a real echo instead of just a memory—she heard her own small voice squealing with delight, the way she always did when Dad picked her up and tossed her toward the ceiling. “My mates used to say we had our own personal language. I guess I’m the last remaining speaker.”
The leather of Tialha’s gloves made a little squeaking noise when it rubbed against the plate armor, just to the side of Karlach’s spine. Her circlet clinked when she rested her forehead gently on the ridges of Karlach’s pauldrons. “When I was very small,” she said, still quiet but not nearly as solemn—now there was a rich warmth in her voice, and the tone set a calming slither through Karlach’s stomach, like a swallow from a warm mug of tea. “My mother and father had to leave me on occasion—it wasn’t unusual, in our enclave. Wood elves tend towards communal child-rearing. But they always told me, when I heard a turtle dove, it was because they missed me, and they’d asked the birds to pass along the message.”
It wasn’t magic—her tadpole was blessedly still, and Tia’s voice lacked the echoing reverb it took on when she started to use her words in the bending-reality-to-her-whims way—but even so Karlach could see it like it was her own memory: teeny toddling Tialha, splayed out in a forest clearing, maybe rumpled and grass-stained from chasing a gaggle of other elven kids, looking to the trees every time she heard a dove call.
“That’s fuckin’ precious, babe,” she said, looping an arm around the dip of Tia’s waist. “Did they really? Y’know, ask the birds to talk to you and all.”
“I haven’t a clue,” Tia said, and tipped her head back to beam up at Karlach. The warm-tea feeling spread into her fingers. “I hadn’t learned to speak with animals back then. But I did learn—oh, goodness, it’s been a while…”
She brought her hands to her mouth, cupped like she was holding a marching horn, and with a little crinkle in her brow she whistled; when she fluttered her fingers it made a sweet vibrato, the sound swooping like diving birds—like a turtle dove.
(Through the tadpole she felt the sparks of flickering awareness from where Astarion and Wyll had wandered off further into the cemetery, pacing through the rows, and swore she heard a snide nonverbal weirdos as the boys went back to whatever they were doing.)
“So that’s Thildran for ‘I love you’?” Karlach asked.
“Mm-hmm.” Tialha always had to stand on her toes for this, and Karlach always had to stoop, which was exactly as comfortable as it didn’t sound in armor, but it was worth it; Tia brushed a gentle kiss over her mouth, her cheek, and then rested her temple against the bridge of Karlach’s nose. When she closed her eyes and breathed she could smell Tia’s perfume, even over the stink of hot metal.
“Taters,” Karlach whispered.
“I’m a quick learner,” Tia said, sunlight in the smile she pressed to Karlach’s jaw. “I’ll teach you mine if you teach me yours.”
—
Two days later and knee-deep in sewer sludge, Karlach looked up when a soft whistle echoed off the tunnel walls. Not birdsong, but she could see Tialha grin as she did it again—four low whistles.
Karlach beamed in return and blew a kiss, and giggled shamelessly when Tia caught it.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Four & Hyrule & Legend & Sky & Time & Twilight & Warriors & Wild & Wind (Linked Universe), Twilight (Linked Universe) & Uli (Legend of Zelda)
Characters: Four (Linked Universe), Hyrule (Linked Universe), Legend (Linked Universe), Sky (Linked Universe), Time (Linked Universe), Twilight (Linked Universe), Warriors (Linked Universe), Wild (Linked Universe), Wind (Linked Universe), Uli (Legend of Zelda)
Additional Tags: Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), Fluffuary | Fluffy February 2024, Snow, Festivals, Clothing, Snowball Fight, Good Sibling Twilight (Linked Universe), Time (Linked Universe) is a Little Shit, Domestic Fluff, Homecoming, Legend (Linked Universe) is a Little Shit, Ordon Village (Legend of Zelda)
Series: Part 1 of 29 Days of Warm Fuzzies||Fluffuary 2024
Summary:
The heroes are in Ordon for a snowfall festival. Twilight helps them put on customary clothes.
____
alrighty have some twi fluff to make up twi whump XD
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Loki (TV 2021), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Loki/Mobius M. Mobius
Characters: Loki (Marvel), Mobius M. Mobius, TVA crew (mentioned)
Additional Tags: Fluffuary 2024, Post-Season/Series 02, Mostly Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Fix-It, Fluff, Fluff and Feels, Mobius is a supportive boyfriend, crying in the rain, happy tears, kinda sensory overload, but not really, Cuddling, a little bit of magic, don't ask me how they managed to get Loki out of the tree, it's not important
Series: Part 1 of Lokius Fluffuary 2024
Summary:
Everyone—B-15, Casey, and O.B.—had been so excited to see Loki back in their company, beyond relieved that their plan had worked. But seeing that Loki needed more time to adjust, they'd returned to the TVA, leaving him to Mobius, who patiently waited while Loki stood there and took in everything he'd been missing for so long.
After Loki is released from the heart of the multiverse tree, he takes some time to appreciate everything around him. Even the less-than-perfect things.
