[teepng]

ᨳ hello, is theodosia there? tell her to get back in the writer’s room! ﹫TEEPNG ──── she & her, twenties, black. nsfw & dc ahead. must be eighteen years old or older to follow. recommendation & occasional writing blog.

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[olivebowl]

DEVILS GOT YOUR NUMBER TONIGHT

matsukawa likes an audience, you like being listened to, and iwaizumi really should have hung up. (or— matsukawa answers the phone mid-shift at the pussy eating factory. iwaizumi stays on the line.)

MATSUKAWA ISSEI X FEM!READER ft. IWAIZUMI HAJIME | timeskip, friends with benefits (mattsun and reader use each purely for their bodies), smut, exhibitionism/voyeurism, phone sex, dubious consent in the beginning, third party listening, oral sex f receiving, fingering, vaginal sex, dirty talk, size kink, multiple orgasms, creampie, implied masturbation

word count: 3.7k

hi from marcel: my demons. MY DEMONS. @swordsteel picked iwa so he is here...... title from an mcr lyric (can you guess which ill give you a kiss)

it starts stupidly, like most good things do.

because everything with matsukawa issei starts stupidly.

he is between your thighs, hair mussed from your hands, mouth warm and lazy against you like he’s got nowhere else to be for the rest of his life. which is a lie. he had somewhere to be. he had told the boys he might meet up later, maybe, if he “felt like being social.”

you had known exactly what that meant.

so did he.

so did makki, probably, given the string of texts sitting unread on his lock screen.

you’re already half-melted into the mattress, one knee hooked over his shoulder, fingers twisted in the sheets because issei is being unfair about it. not rushed. not even particularly mean yet. just focused in that loose, maddening way he has, like he’s barely trying and still knows exactly how to make your spine turn to warm water.

his phone starts buzzing on the bed.

you glance over.

iwaizumi.

your stomach flips before issei even lifts his head.

he feels it.

of course he feels it.

his eyes flick up to yours from between your thighs, dark and amused.

“no,” you whisper, already smiling because you are a liar and a freak.

his mouth curves.

the phone keeps buzzing.

issei wipes his thumb slowly over the inside of your thigh, watching your face like he’s waiting for the part where you tell him not to.

you don’t.

so he reaches for his phone.

“issei,” you hiss, but there’s no heat in it. no real warning.

he answers with his mouth still shiny.

“yo.”

you slap both hands over your face.

because unlike makki, iwaizumi doesn’t immediately start laughing.

there’s just... a pause.

then hajime’s voice, low and normal and totally unaware of the crime scene he has stepped into. “you busy?”

issei looks directly at you.

you shake your head at him in horror and delight.

he licks his lips.

“little bit.”

“then why’d you answer?”

“’cause you called. i’m polite, iwa.”

“you sound weird.”

issei hums, and his thumb slides back over you, slow enough to make your legs tense.

you bite down on your knuckle.

“do i?”

another pause.

oh, hajime knows now.

you can hear the exact second he knows. the silence changes shape. gets heavier. more aware.

“... matsukawa.”

“yeah?”

“are you fucking around right now?”

issei’s smile is lazy and lethal.

“technically, my mouth’s occupied.”

you make the worst sound into your hand.

hajime goes dead silent.

not scandalised loud like oikawa. not delighted loud like makki.

silent.

issei’s brows lift like he’s fascinated.

then, with the calm of a man setting down a drink, he taps speaker and lays the phone flat on your stomach.

the cool edge of it makes you twitch.

you choke on a laugh, which turns into a gasp when he slides two fingers back into you, slow and deliberate.

“oh my god,” you breathe.

the phone is right there. resting on your stomach, speaker up, close enough that every little broken sound you make has nowhere to hide.

issei looks too pleased with himself.

“iwa,” he says casually, as if he is not knuckle-deep and watching your hips start to lift. “you still there?”

no answer.

issei’s fingers curl.

your back arches.

“hajime,” issei sings, awful and soft. “don’t be rude.”

“i’m here,” iwaizumi says, voice tight.

there it is.

not hanging up. not telling him to stop. not even pretending hard enough to hate this.

issei’s grin goes slow.

“yeah?” he murmurs. “you wanna be?”

the silence after that is fucking insane.

you stare at issei, wide-eyed, breath catching in little pieces as he keeps touching you. he’s not even going down on you anymore. he’s just watching. sitting between your legs with his cheek against your thigh, fingers moving steadily, gaze flicking between your face and the phone on your stomach like this is some kind of casual group activity.

“i asked you something,” issei says.

hajime exhales through his nose.

“... if she’s okay with it.”

your whole body tenses.

issei’s fingers pause.

not stop, exactly. just slow.

his eyes come to yours, humour gone thin for half a second. the real question underneath it.

you nod.

he waits.

“yeah,” you whisper. “i’m okay with it.”

issei’s smile comes back, softer first.

then worse.

“you hear that?”

“i heard,” hajime says.

his voice sounds different now. lower. rougher around the edges.

god help you.

issei kisses the inside of your knee. “good. then stay quiet if you’re gonna be shy about it.”

“fuck off,” hajime says, but it has no bite.

“mm. that isn’t very nice, hajime.”

you laugh, breathless, and issei rewards it by dragging his fingers just right.

your laugh snaps into a moan.

hajime makes a sound.

tiny. barely there.

but it is a sound.

issei hears it.

of course he does.

“oh?” he says.

“don’t.”

“didn’t say anything.”

“you were about to.”

“i was just thinking.”

“do that privately.”

issei’s fingers slow, and you whine before you can stop yourself.

he looks down at you with mock pity.

“see what you did? distracted me.”

“issei,” you complain.

“yeah, baby?”

he says it so casually. so warm. like he isn’t turning you into a trembling mess with his best friend listening.

“don’t stop.”

iwaizumi’s breath catches audibly.

issei’s eyes darken.

“bossy.”

“you’re being annoying.”

“i’m being generous.” his gaze flicks to the phone. “aren’t i, iwa?”

hajime says nothing.

issei laughs quietly.

“still there?”

“yeah.”

“quiet.”

“yeah.”

“you jerking off, boy scout?”

the silence is immediate and catastrophic.

your eyes go huge.

“issei.”

“what?” he asks, innocent as a knife. “it’s a question.”

hajime’s voice comes back strangled. “you’re a fucking asshole.”

“that wasn’t a no.”

“jesus christ.”

“that wasn’t either.”

you are going to die.

you are actually going to die in this bed because matsukawa issei cannot behave for five consecutive minutes and iwaizumi hajime apparently has a closet pervert streak big enough to qualify as a second apartment.

issei leans down and kisses you, right above where his fingers are still moving.

soft. terrible.

then he speaks, not to you this time.

“she’s so wet,” he says, conversationally. “you should feel this.”

your face burns so hot you think you might pass out.

hajime swears under his breath.

issei watches your reaction like he loves it.

“she likes when i talk about her,” he continues, still lazy, still cruelly calm. “acts embarrassed, but she gets tighter every time.”

you shake your head.

his fingers curl again.

your hips jerk.

“liar,” he murmurs to you.

“i hate you.”

“no, you don’t.”

“i might.”

“you’d miss me.”

“i’d miss your dick.”

“same thing.”

hajime makes another sound then, partly a laugh, half a curse. like he can’t believe he is hearing this. like he cannot believe he is not hanging up.

issei’s smile sharpens.

“there you go,” he says. “knew you were alive.”

“shut up.”

“nah. iwa, she’s trying so hard not to make noise.”

“don’t drag me into it.”

“you’re on speaker on her stomach. you dragged yourself in.”

“that was you.”

“you could hang up.”

nothing.

issei hums.

“thought so.”

then he lowers his mouth back to you.

and if the fingering was bad, this is worse.

because now he is showing off.

not in a clumsy way. not obvious and exaggerated. issei is too smooth for that, too confident in the exact way that makes him irritating. he just settles back between your thighs and eats you out like he knows hajime is listening to every wet sound, every shaky breath, every broken little syllable of his name you fail to swallow.

your hand flies into his hair.

the phone shifts on your stomach as you arch.

“careful,” issei murmurs against you, and the vibration makes your legs tremble. “don’t drop him.”

“i’m going to kill you,” you gasp.

“after?”

“maybe.”

he laughs into you.

hajime says nothing.

but he is breathing.

that’s the thing that gets you. the quiet on the other end isn’t empty anymore. it’s full of him. tense and controlled and too present. you can imagine him sitting somewhere with his jaw clenched, phone in one hand, the other maybe—

you whimper.

issei’s eyes flick up.

“oh, what was that?”

“shut up.”

“you thinking about him?”

you try to close your thighs, which is a mistake because his shoulders are there and he just spreads you open again.

“don’t hide now.”

“issei.”

“answer.”

your pulse is in your throat. “maybe.”

hajime curses.

issei grins against you.

“cute.”

then he stops talking and gets serious.

which is how you know you’re fucked.

he knows exactly how to pull you apart when he wants to. knows when to tease and when to shut up, when to give you pressure, when to back off just enough that your body chases him. his hands lock around your thighs, his mouth gets precise, and everything narrows down to heat and breath and the weight of the phone rising and falling with your stomach.

you come with hajime listening.

it’s not graceful.

it never is with issei when he’s showing off.

your back arches, one hand in his hair, the other clutching at the sheets, and the sound that leaves you is loud enough that you hear hajime inhale sharply through the speaker. issei doesn’t let up until you’re squirming, thighs trembling against his cheeks, voice breaking around a too-much little sob.

then he lifts his head.

slowly.

mouth wet.

eyes dark.

“good?” he asks.

you nod weakly.

“words.”

“i’m good.”

“yeah?”

“yeah.”

he pats your thigh once.

“great.”

then he grabs your hips and yanks you down the bed.

you squeal.

actually squeal.

because you’re overstimulated and boneless and he moves you like you weigh nothing, dragging you to the edge so suddenly that the phone nearly slides off your stomach. you catch it with one clumsy hand, laughing breathlessly even while your whole body is still shaking.

on speaker, hajime makes the craziest fucking sound.

not a full moan.

not a word.

just this punched-out, involuntary thing that tells on him so badly the room goes still for half a second.

issei freezes.

then looks at the phone.

then at you.

his smile becomes a war crime.

“iwa.”

“don’t.”

“that was cute.”

“don’t.”

“you liked that?”

“fuck you.”

“i’ll pencil you in.”

you laugh again, helpless, and hajime sounds like he might be suffering psychic damage.

issei stands at the end of the bed.

and yeah.

yeah, you forget how to speak for a second.

because he is tall. tall in that loose, lanky way that hides the sheer size of him until he is standing over you with your hips in his hands and his hair falling into his eyes. he drags you to the very edge, lifts your ass like it’s nothing, adjusts you until your legs are hooked just right.

the angle alone makes your stomach flip.

then he lays his cock over your lower stomach.

just rests there.

heavy and hard and obscene against your skin.

you stare down.

he does too.

“issei,” you breathe.

“i know.”

he loves this.

loves seeing it. loves the visual of how deep he’ll reach, how far up your body he can mark the promise of it before he even gets inside. it makes him smug in the worst way, quiet and satisfied and absolutely aware of what it does to you.

his thumb strokes your hip.

“look at that,” he murmurs.

hajime is dead silent.

issei tilts his head toward the phone.

“wish you were looking, iwa?”

“don’t be mean,” you manage.

“shame. i’m so good at it.”

hajime’s voice is rough when he says, “you’re evil.”

“little bit.”

“more than a little.”

“you’re still here.”

another pause.

then hajime says, very low, “yeah.”

oh.

oh, that gets everyone.

even issei’s expression flickers for a second, amusement giving way to something hotter. he looks down at you, brows raised like, you hearing this?

you nod, dazed.

“yeah,” issei says softly. “he is.”

then he slides into you.

you lose your breath.

fully.

it’s so deep at that angle that your hands fly to his wrists, nails digging in as he holds you up to meet him. your mouth opens, but nothing comes out at first. just a stunned little gasp that cracks at the edges when he bottoms out.

issei’s jaw tightens.

“fuck.”

hajime mutters something under his breath that you don’t catch.

issei catches it.

“what was that?”

“nothing.”

“liar.”

“keep going.”

the words are clipped. controlled. almost angry.

they make you clench so hard issei groans.

“oh, she liked that.”

“stop narrating everything,” hajime says.

“no.”

then he starts moving.

slow at first, because the angle is insane and because you are still sensitive from his mouth. deep, measured thrusts that push the air out of you every time, his hands firm under your ass, lifting you to meet him like he’s using your body exactly how he wants and making sure it ruins you properly.

the phone is still on you, slid down now to stick to the sweaty skin just below your tits.

you can feel the vibration of hajime’s breathing through the case.

it is obscene.

it is ridiculous.

it is so hot you almost can’t stand it.

issei talks through everything.

of course he does.

he tells you how good you feel, how tight, how pretty you look trying to take him like this. tells hajime how your face changes when he gets deep enough. how your thighs shake. how you get louder when you forget to be embarrassed.

and hajime just listens.

quiet.

too quiet.

until issei pushes.

“say something, iwa.”

“no.”

“why not?”

“because you’re already insufferable.”

“she wants to hear you.”

your eyes fly to his.

issei grins.

“you do.”

“i—”

he thrusts deep, and your words scatter.

“see?”

hajime’s voice is rough. “she okay?”

the question punches right through all the heat.

because it’s hajime, of course it is. repressed pervert or not, he still sounds like himself. grounded. careful. checking, even with his voice strained.

you swallow, breathless.

“yeah. i’m okay.”

“you sure?”

“yeah.”

issei’s expression softens for the smallest second.

then he ruins it by saying, “hear that? she’s okay. you can keep jerking off now, boy scout.”

“mattsun,” hajime snaps.

you make a sound that is half laugh, half moan.

issei’s grin comes back full force.

“there we go.”

“you’re going to hell.”

“probably. wanna come with?”

“not answering that.”

you are absolutely dissolving.

every thrust punches up into that deep, impossible place that makes your legs go useless. issei’s hands hold you steady, thumbs digging into the soft of your hips. your head tips back against the mattress, one hand fisted in the sheet, the other pressed weakly over the phone like you can somehow hide the sounds and keep hajime close at the same time.

issei notices.

“don’t cover him.”

“i’m not.”

“you are.”

“you’re annoying.”

“you love it.”

“you’re too deep.”

his hips slow immediately.

“too deep bad?”

you shake your head fast.

“no. good. just— fuck!”

“more words.”

“good,” you gasp. “it’s good.”

“yeah?” his voice goes warm and filthy. “you want more?”

you nod.

“say it.”

“more.”

hajime exhales sharply.

issei’s eyes glitter.

“oh, he liked that one.”

“i hate both of you,” you breathe.

“liar.”

then he gives you more.

not faster. deeper. meaner in that careful way that has your body going loose and desperate beneath him. the whole bed shifts with it, rhythm steady, your ass lifted in his hands, his cock hitting so deep that your vision goes blurry.

and then he says it.because he knows exactly when to.

“wanna come for iwa?”

you whine.

“yeah?” he asks, voice low. “wanna come while he jerks off to the sound of you getting fucked like this?”

hajime makes a strangled noise.

“issei.”

“what?”

“you’re— fuck.”

issei laughs, breathless and dark. you nod before you can think better of it.

issei’s gaze snaps back to you.

“please,” you whisper.

his hands tighten.

“please what?”

“make me come.”

“who for?”

you are gone. truly gone. no dignity. no shame. just heat and pressure and hajime’s breathing through the speaker.

“for haji.”

the silence after that is violent.

then hajime groans. low. wrecked. utterly ruined.

issei’s composure almost cracks.

almost.

“fuck,” he mutters. “good girl.”

he shifts one hand, keeping you lifted with the other, and gets his thumb on your clit.

that’s it. that’s the end of you.

the angle, the pressure, the phone, hajime’s barely contained sounds, issei’s voice talking you through it like he has all the time in the world. it all collapses at once.

you come hard enough that your voice breaks. hard enough that your whole body shakes in his hands, hips jerking uselessly as he keeps you exactly where he wants you. issei talks you through the entire thing, filthy and soft, telling you there you go, that’s it, let him hear you, while hajime swears on the other end like he’s trying not to fall apart too loudly.

issei follows not long after.

he holds you tight, thrusts going uneven, head tipping back with a groan that would be embarrassing if he were capable of shame. he comes deep, still standing at the edge of the bed, hands locked around you like he’s anchoring himself through it.

for a few seconds, no one says anything.

you are wrecked.

hajime is silent.

issei is breathing hard, staring down at where he’s still inside you with a lazy, satisfied look that makes you want to kick him if your legs worked.

then hajime says, flat and disbelieving, “are you fucking serious?”

issei doesn’t miss a beat. “nah. her name isn’t serious.”

hajime hangs up. immediately. the room goes dead quiet.

then you burst into exhausted laughter.

issei looks down at the phone, then at you, completely calm.

“rude.”

“you are the worst person alive.”

“he asked.”

“you are insane.”

“yeah.” he finally eases you back onto the bed with surprising gentleness, one hand sliding under your thigh so you don’t jolt too hard. “you good?”

you blink up at him, sweaty and ruined and still trying to recover from the fact that iwaizumi hajime just got dragged into this ecosystem and absolutely did not leave.

“yeah,” you mumble. “i’m good.”

“yeah?”

“mhm.”

“nice.”

he pulls out carefully, and you make a tiny miserable sound because everything is too much now. he kisses your knee like he’s apologising, which is offensive because he is not sorry.

then he grabs his phone.

you squint at him. “what are you doing?”

“checking if he blocked me.”

“did he?”

a pause. “no.”

“coward.”

“right?”

the phone buzzes once in his hand.

issei reads it and smiles.

“what?”

“iwa says he hates me.”

“you deserve it.”

“he also says to never call him again.”

“you answered his call.”

“i’ll remind him later.”

“don’t.”

“i won’t.”

“you absolutely will.”

“probably.”

you groan and cover your face.

issei tosses the phone aside and pats your thigh.

“okay. shower.”

“don’t boss me around after ruining my life.”

“you’re gross.”

your eyes snap open. “it’s your fault.”

“yeah.” he shrugs, shameless. “still gross.”

“i hate you.”

“no, you don’t.”

“i hate your friends.”

“no, you don’t.”

you stare at him and he grins.

“especially not haji.”

you grab a pillow and throw it at him. he catches it against his chest, laughing, then leans down to kiss your forehead like he has any right to be sweet after all of that.

“come on,” he says. “shower before makki finds out and the group chat becomes unlivable ’cause we left him out.”

olivebowl © 2026 — do not copy, translate, repost, or feed my works into ai ⁠⊰

[petrichorium]

qifrey doesn't mean to lurk. really, he doesn’t—he came to speak with oru, not creepily linger at a cracked door watching a clearly private moment—but he can hardly be blamed, he thinks, when you have a blade so close to the throat of his oldest and closest friend.

you sit perched on a stool at the base of the large stone archway. oru sits before you, settled between your legs; he’s leaned forward while you stare down with your fingers on his jaw.

your other thumb rests on the sharp edge of a metal razor. qifrey can’t look away as you guide oru’s face upward and to the side with a gentle hand, watching his friend’s eyes flutter closed and his shoulders slump in something like bliss.

you shift closer. the skirt you wear—a pretty blue and short enough to only just cover your knees with how you sit—falls gently open at a slit up your thigh, leaving the expanse of your leg open to the air. your stocking ends at mid-thigh, the slit so high it reveals even a three finger wide band of bare skin up above it.

qifrey’s mouth goes dry. oru eases further into you, all but laid in your lap. you tilt his head the other way, lifting your arm to get a better angle at the comparatively more awkward side. each time you move him is accompanied with a breathy word of praise which eases the tension on his face. now it’s your shirt which draws qifrey’s eye—white linen, tucked beneath the band of your skirt, gathered at the collar with a ribbon which you’ve loosened entirely to drape brazenly around your shoulders. it’s one of oru’s, qifrey realizes with a start as you move your elbow and he catches sight of the embroidery on the sleeves. something settles deep in his stomach.

you pull away briefly to examine your work. the little hum that you give out is only just loud enough to hear from where qifrey stands; he watches oru’s chest rise and fall with a returning sigh. he’s all but melted into your hold, like an attention-starved pup nosing for more pets. your finger finds his chin, lifting upward until you can run the blade you hold in your deft fingers across his throat.

his adam’s apple bobs in a swallow. you chide him gently, voice laced with warm humor, lifting the blade from his skin long enough for your free hand to find the back of his hair and tug in playful chastisement before returning to the task at hand.

finally you pull back for good. somehow it’s the little smile on your face—a languidly half-lidded look, lips soft, utterly enamored as oru blinks open his eyes—that has qifrey most abundantly aware that he’s trespassing. and yet he can’t pull away when you reach out with your free hand and stroke your thumb against oru’s cheek, giving a final little word of praise and then quietly ordering him to go rinse off.

he remains peeking through the door as oru obediently disappears into the washroom; hears you sigh lightly, watches you straighten upon your stool perch and raise an elegant hand to massage at your shoulder. the motion has you lifting your head towards the ceiling, exposing the slope of your neck; the loosened collar of oru’s stolen shirt shifts, falling lower until your cleavage nearly spills out, but you don’t bother to adjust it. why would you? you think you’re alone.

qifrey lunges back. now the shame settles in, hot and heavy deep in his chest. he’s careful not to close the door too quickly, but in his haste slams his knee directly into a pile of smooth river stones (surely part of whatever magic the pair of you have been working on) and sends them clattering to the ground. the curse that falls from his lips is involuntary; he’s glad his students aren’t nearby to overhear.

for a moment all is still. he feels his heart in his chest, rapid, as if it will flee and leave him behind. then your voice calls out, “qifrey?”

he supposes the word he’d just said must have solidly ruled out any of the girls.

he clears his throat. slowly, he opens the door—further than before, wider than his shoulders, revealing the full picture of the room to him.

you’ve fixed the shirt. its opened collar has been tied shut in a pretty bow, up over your shoulders. your leg, too, has fallen to tuck up against the stool with its twin; the drape of your skirt has settled over the bare skin of your thigh.

you tilt your head. “how long have you been waiting? did we miss your knock?”

“no, i hadn’t knocked yet.”

nodding, you finally stand from your position, reaching up and stretching easily. your back arches, arms thrust to the sky, a little noise passing your lips that has qifrey’s breath hitching. the glint of the razor still in your hand catches his eye—he can’t look away, enraptured by the sight of your fingers on the handle. it’s even more distracting up close.

“oru will be out in a moment. you can wait here for now. unless…” the tease in your tone has qifrey’s gaze jumping up to meet yours. you’re grinning, lifting up that blade in an offer. “you’re looking for a shave, too. you were awfully curious, hmm?”

[elysiumae]

🪒 clean-shaven.

⟢ pairing: olruggio x gn!reader

⟢ word count: 1.4k

⟢ tags: fluff, olruggio's beard is scratchy so he shaves for you

"Your beard is kind of scratchy."

Olruggio doesn't hear you properly, the first time you say it. To be fair, you mumble it against his mouth between kisses and teeth, and he's too busy trying to kiss you back without panting desperately into your mouth like some lovesick dog—which leaves him very little attention to focus on anything aside from the slow creep of your fingers beneath his shirt, the weight of your body pressing his into the sunbed. Your knee is between his legs, and Olruggio doesn't know whether to give thanks or pray for mercy. Gods.

"Mgh—wuh—what?" he manages when you pull back from him, just far enough for him to catch sight of the thin, glistening string of spit between your lips before it breaks. He nearly misses your second reply all over again. "My—"

"Beard. Goatee, if you want to be specific?" You draw back properly and Olruggio immediately mourns the space between you, the loss of your warmth. He's quickly placated though; your hand comes up to cup his cheek, thumb stroking maddeningly slow over the dark, uneven stubble along his jaw. "It sometimes leaves a bit of a rash on my face, after we kiss for too long."

It takes Olruggio a moment to comprehend your words—how can there possibly be such a thing as "kissing for too long"?—but gradually the fog in his head clears just enough for him to focus. So kissing him has been uncomfortable. Perhaps you never said anything because you didn't want to hurt his feelings, but that only makes Olruggio feel guiltier now. He gets so buried in his work that it's simply easier to maintain a beard than to stay clean-shaven. It never once occurred to him how it might feel against your skin.

The next morning, Olruggio wakes before you do. He clambers out of the hammock, painstakingly careful not to rouse you from your sleep, and pads barefoot over to the washbasin. He's about to reach for his facecloth when he catches sight of his own reflection in the small mirror hanging over it. Olruggio stares at it for a long while—the dark smudge of stubble shadowing his jaw, the slightly uneven patch at his chin. The careless scruff of a man who's stopped looking at himself too closely a long time ago.

Hm.

He glances back over his shoulder. You're still sleeping soundly in the hammock, blankets tangled around your bare legs, one arm dangling limply over the side. Fondness blooms quietly in Olruggio's chest, steaming erbe tea steeped in hot water, warmer than the morning sunlight pouring in through the upper window.

Then he turns back to the basin and crouches down to dig beneath the sink, rummaging through old tins and cracked cups until his fingers close around what he's looking for.

It's late morning by the time you awake. The instant your consciousness stirs, you become aware of the reason—the space in the hammock beside you is grievously empty, the blankets lacking in any trace of another's body heat. The loft and workshop, too, are disappointingly Olruggio-absent. So you stretch, expelling your sleepiness from your body with a long yawn, before reaching for your outer robe and climbing down the stairs. Olruggio's probably in the main wing of the atelier, preparing breakfast—though it might be closer to lunch, with the late hour you've awoken.

You shuffle across the catwalk, rubbing sleep from your eyes. Sure enough, when you push open the kitchen door, there he is: standing with his back to you, quietly humming as he whisks a bowl of eggs at the counter. Qifrey had mentioned heading to the Great Hall for some errand yesterday, and you can hear the apprentices' distant voices drifting down from upstairs—something about a mess and who's responsible for it. Perfect.

You creep up behind him—on your tiptoes, quiet as a mouse—before you slip your arms around his waist, pulling him back against you. Olruggio makes a startled sound, nearly dropping the whisk in his hand, and you lean in to kiss the side of his jaw before he can turn around. Your lips seek the familiar scratch of his jaw… but instead of stubble, your mouth meets smooth, bare skin.

Huh?

You scramble back so fast you nearly trip over your own feet, heart hammering in your chest. Is there an intruder in the atelier? Did Qifrey dye his hair black all of a sudden? Did you just accidentally kiss the wrong man? What—

"You scared the heck outta me!" Olruggio yelps, whirling around so quicklly a few flecks of yolk splatter onto the counter, whisk clutched protectively to his chest. His cheeks are stained pink, ripe as rose apples—and without the beard, there's nowhere for the colour to hide. "You—"

"What happened to you?" you cry, lifting a shaking finger to point it at him. "Who—who are you?"

Olruggio freezes for a second. His expression collapses into immediate offense in the next. "What do you mean, who am I?"

"You look like a completely different man!"

"I shaved!"

"You removed half your face!"

"I didn't remove—" he hisses, the nectarine-pink flush on his face deepening to a lurid crimson. Still, his hand flies to his cheek on instinct, as if checking to make sure the missing beard hasn't somehow taken a substantial portion of him with it. "It's the same face!"

You stare at him for a long moment, agape, before you take a step closer. Olruggio immediately glances away, chin ducking in an attempt to shy away from your attention, but still he lets you take his jaw in your hand. You tug his newly bared cheeks this way and that, tilting his face toward the light as if to confirm he isn't some imposter wearing Olruggio's skin.

The same nose, same blue eyes. The same soft, flustered mouth.

"You shaved," you say, disbelief seeping into your voice. "I've never seen you shaved before. What brought this on?"

Olruggio's face only gets redder, somehow.

"You mention you sometimes get a rash when you're kissing me," he mumbles under his breath, refusing to meet your eyes. His gaze stays doggedly fixed on some point past your shoulder—the windowsill, the kettle on the table, anywhere but your face. "I didn't want ya to have to put up with that anymore, so…"

The sentence trails off, swallowed by his embarrassment.

It's hard to do anything but stare at Olruggio. At the flush burning high on his cheeks, the clean shaven jaw he's so clearly self-conscious about. His hand twitches at where it's fallen at his side, as though he wants to reach up and touch it, and your chest fills suddenly with so much warmth it overflows, a bubbling spring that spills forth with no end.

Oh, he's impossible. You tug him in by the waist, ignoring the way Olruggio lets out something suspiciously close to a squawk. Impossible, and so, so lovely. Before he can squirm away you pull him firmly against you and bury your face in his soft chest. This close, you can feel everything—the rapid, rabbit-quick beat of his heart, his stuttering breath.

"Oh, Olly." His name alone feels like an endearment in your mouth. "When I said that, it didn't mean I disliked it. Actually, I'm rather fond of it—it's like a little mark I carry of you, after we've been together."

Olruggio blinks, expression slightly stupefied. "Really?"

"Yeah." You smile—soft, fond, perhaps just a little mischievious—before your fingers tug aside the collar of his shirt to rub at the fading crescent of teeth marks sitting low at his collarbone. "Besides, haven't I give you a few marks of my own, too?"

Whatever flush had dissipated from Olruggio's face races back up at once. "That's—that's different—"

You wind your arms around his neck this time, the faint edge of laughter still on your lips as you pull him down towards you again. Olruggio squeezes his eyes frantically shut. Just before your mouths can meet, however…

"I can't." You break away from him, laughing so hard you have to brace a hand against his chest just to stay upright. "I don't think I can stop laughing long enough to kiss you until you get your beard back, Olly."

His eyes go wide in alarm. "But that's going to take weeks—hey. Hey!"

[deltamel]

We are reaching the end of mermay. Quick, imagine mer!Vash with fangs or other sharp teefies. Now.....tell us your thoughts. 🤔📝

last day of may i'm cutting it close #procrastinationmoment but mer!vash with fangs............ i could never forget you 🤤

— mer!vash x reader

little human you sat on the big, flat rocks in the shallows of his home. vash's scarred tail swaying back and forth behind him where he's propped himself up at your feet—curiously prodding at the fleshy appendages. he makes these odd noises too, half-coo, half-gurgle and you're busy trying to decipher if they're a good or bad reaction when his lips peel back from his teeth.

"oh," you breath lowly at the rows of sharp teeth glinting in the low sunlight. you begin to gesture up at your own teeth. "are those..." vash's gaze flicks up to yours—wide, dark eyes so piercing you immediately trail off.

he doesn't speak, you've come to learn. whether by choice or by biology is still a mystery to you, but you've found you don't mind. not when he's this expressive—web ears twitching slightly as you hum another mindless noise when his wet fingers brush your ankle.

you just need to decode what his merman expressions mean and you'll be golden!

"by all means," you huff, vash's clawed fingers dragging dully over the top of your bare foot. "feel me up. weirdo."

your voice is embarrassingly affection, but it's not like vash knows that. hell, you don't even know his proper name—vash being the name of the cove below your house and you figured... well. you weren't thinking straight when you decided to name the merman who emerges from his shallows just to ogle your legs. you rarely are around vash.

sometimes it feels as though he understands you. other times, you may as well be talking to a fish.

quite literally.

vash veers forwards and water splashes up onto the rock you're sat on, his wide chest touching your feet. he peers at your shin with such intensity you can't help but laugh softly.

"must look weird to you, huh?" you wiggle your toes but vash doesn't startle. "i've been visiting you for months and you stare at my legs every time..." you laugh again. "you sure you're not bored yet?"

this time, however, vash leans forwards—teeth bared like a warning sign—towards the inside of your knee.

"vash what—" you try to jerk away from him but the hand on your foot suddenly tightens.

and for the first time since you started visited the cove, you feel fear. your gut swoops as those sharp teeth get closer and closer and oh god you really need your legs not like this please not like th—

oh.

it tickles. kind of.

the way vash drags only the tips of his teeth along the delicate skin. almost like he's tasting you—except there's no tongue involved to your great confusion.

he widens his jaw and the bottom teeth come into play. two sets of razor-sharp teeth scraping you so softly you would believe you're imagining it if not for the very real, very wet, very cold hand with an iron-clad grip on your foot.

you tug your bottom lip between your teeth.

"is this some kind of... is this a greeting? am i supposed to bite you back?"

vash makes another gurgling noise, his other hand landing on your other foot like shackle. his teeth creep up past your knee. you fight the reflex reaction to jam vash's chin with the limb as he rises up out of the water.

he's huge.

a fact that, while easy to forget, is difficult to reconcile with when all eight-to-nine-foot-something of him is threatening to... well. nibble you to death?

vash's teeth creep past your mid thigh, and drift inwards, nipping at the soft skin as he gets nearer and nearer to your core. you shift awkwardly on the rock, unsure exactly when you're supposed to stop him and not quite confident he'll even let you.

god knows you can't force him to do anything. including making him stop this peculiar, almost-tasting of your legs.

his webbed hands squeeze your feet once, twice.

you feel a wet nose brush against the gusset of your bikini bottoms when his teeth reach the top of your thigh and muffle a startled, utterly mortified moan at the sensation.

then, he's gone. backing out of your space with all the grace of a lithe cat.

vash makes what seems like it could be meaningful eye contact with you for a few long seconds and your mouth opens and closes around a soundless noise of confusion.

all before he turns tail and slips back into the water without a sound. leaving you alone in his home—and with an embarrassing warmth lingering in your gut you hope doesn't translate between your species.

it was just a custom, you try to convince yourself. not... not whatever my brain thinks he was doing. do mermaids even know what sex is anyway? probably not, right.

you shake your head and shamefully, just once, squeeze your thighs together for some relief before you rise from the rock and head home.

you'll return the custom tomorrow, you decide.

[yuridiot]

doctor just prescribed me music really loud

[bfbkg]

bakugou x reader. a 1.6k drabble. cw: established relationship, fluff.

it was only a little argument. today was supposed to be a date day with your boyfriend, smoothies and a walk around the park. have a picnic, magazine shopping and he wanted to get new running trainers. though before you left out he started rushing you, knowing you had to finish up this work call and you act terribly under pressure. that caused you to shout and caused him to be snappy so now you’re sitting in this smoothie shop in dead silence.

it’s silent treatment on both sides. you told the cashier what smoothie you wanted, he said his and then he tapped his card. you sat down at this big ten seater table with a few other people dotted on it while bakugou sat at the head of the table. you didn’t want to sit on the cute one on one couples seats by the window where you would be forced to look at his face, so big table you go.

you stay seated with your arms crossed when bakugou gets up again to collect your two smoothies. he puts your pink berry one on the table in front of you and he dumps himself in his seat. still with no words uttered. you pull out your book as you sip. he pulls out his phone, answering emails and reading work reports.

it’s needed silence, that’s for sure. any moment now you’ll touch your foot with his or he’ll pull your chair closer to his. he’ll mumble sorry first or maybe this time you will and you can continue your day being the loved up couple you usually are. he hasn’t even offered if you want to taste his smoothie yet… well you haven’t offered him either. but any second now, any second someone will.

you peer at him over your book. you sigh a little. it’s hot out today, so he’s in a white vest and these navy shorts. biceps golden and thick. thighs thick and golden. he’s perched his black designer sunglasses to the top of his head which only pushes all of his hair back with it. he’s devastatingly gorgeous. his forehead, pretty nose and pouty lips. he’s frowning at whatever he’s reading, leaning his elbows onto his knees so he can get to typing. a huff at the end.

“is that the berry blast? i was thinking of getting that one?”

you look towards the voice, landing on a handsome guy standing on the opposite side of your table. he’s just walked in, also dressed for the weather with his cap, basic white shirt and shorts.

you’re still unsure if he was talking to you and you see bakugou, out of the corner of your eye, look up to the man.

“is it nice?” he repeats. the man is slightly shy, scratching the back of his head. he’s clearly nervous now he’s got your attention as he shuffles from foot to foot. keeps crossing his arms then lets go. you can tell he’s around your age and he’s not not your type. but also you’re not sure if he’s flirting with you or not. can he not see your boyfriend right there?

“oh, yeah it is. it’s my first time trying it,” you reply dryly, pressing your thumb in between the pages of your book so you don’t lose your spot.

the man’s eyes light up at your response and now bakugou looks at him directly. is this random man flirting with his girlfriend in front of him? is he invisible? does he look like a fucking dickhead?

the man nods in response to you, paying bakugou no mind. he’s so enamoured by you he doesn’t feel the boiling confusion brewing beside you.

“ah cool. i think i’ll give it a try,” he sniffs, looking at your book, then your dress. you can see him figuring out what to comment on next.

bakugou adjusts his posture. leans back in his seat, spreads his legs and holds up his smoothie.

“this green shit is good too. you should give it a try,” katsuki pushes and as if the guy is just finding out he’s there, he rapidly nods his head. looking from you to bakugou and trying to bring the conversation back to you and him.

“right, thanks man.”

then he’s looking back at you, giving you all his attention completely. 

you hear bakugou swear under his breath. it all makes you want to laugh at his expense.

“i came in here and i had to talk to you, i thought you were gorgeous. i love the dress,” he rushes, “i was wondering if i could get your number or insta?”

you give him a sweet smile, shaking your head lightly. you point your thumb in the direction of bakugou, “that’s my boyfriend. sorry.”

bakugou raises his eyebrows at the man, holding up his hand with a sarcastic wave.

“i don’t let her give her number to men that want to date her.”

you giggle at your boyfriend’s stupidity, your first giggle of the day actually and it causes the corner of bakugou’s lips to quiver with the urge to smile.

though looking back at your new admirer, you both slowly see the light drain from his eyes. his shoulders slump next. he’s obvious in the way he stares at bakugou’s arms and he blinks as if he might recognise him from somewhere.

“oh shit… i didn’t think… loads of people on this table and i thought everyone was sitting alone. fuck, sorry guys.”

bakugou’s gritting his teeth, “no fuckin’ social awareness.”

you kick his foot under the table, “no it’s okay, thank you though!”

once the man apologises again, spinning around to leave the shop completely, bakugou has already dragged your chair beside his, metal chair legs clacking together. he shoves his phone in his pocket and takes your hand with his now free one.

you giggle at the touch. there’s no way anyone doesn’t think you’re a couple now. in fact, you get a few stares from the other smoothie drinkers on the table.

“i’m sorry for the shit earlier,” he blurts, “i’m not all over you for a minute and someone already tries to take you from me. what the actual fuck?”

bakugou huffs to himself, practically trying to pull you to sit onto his lap so nobody can mistake what you are to each other. what else does he need to do? tattoo you on his arm? he’s already done that actually. your eyes, your name, your birth flower.

“i’m sorry too but we were seated far apart, doing separate things and not talking.” you grin at him and he just looks at your lips. it’s been far too long since he’s kissed them. “fair assessment i think.”

“‘course you think that. gonna stamp my name on your forehead,” he mutters, kissing the corner of your lips. 

bakugou’s not one for pda, but it’s needed when people are trying to drag you from under his nose.

“this should keep you on your toes. remind you that everyone wants me,” you joke but bakugou blinks at you. looks at you then looks away. 

he agrees, in fact, it makes him sit up straight and kiss you on your mouth again, in the middle of this random smoothie shop.

“i said i was sorry,” he huffs, holding your hand to his waist. “wanna try mine?”

you nod, “i’ve been waiting for you to ask!”

you put the straw to your smoothie by his lips so he can try yours.

“yours is better than mine,” you whine and bakugou chuckles.

“wanna swap?”

“you sure?”

“y’know i don’t mind.”

you take bakugou’s green smoothie while he holds your pink one. you eye his throat as he tajes three big gulps, the smoothie sinking away faster than your previous sips.

“thanks for buying them, ‘ki.”

bakugou smiles at you, gold tooth shining in the sunlight pouring through the windows. “i wouldn’t have heard the end of it if i let you pay while we were fightin’.”

you huff, “we weren’t fighting! it was a disagreement in communication styles.”

“yeah, we had a fight about that,” then he looks at your outfit with warm eyes, ones you welcome, unlike the random guy before. “your dress is pretty, baby. you look pretty today. i didn’t say that before.”

“thank you. you look sexy, always do.”

you swipe his sunglasses off his head, plopping them onto your face. 

“you’re gonna have to give them back when we get outside,” he tells you but he can’t help his grin, now unable to see your eyes.

“i forgot mine because you were rushing me!” 

bakugou rolls his eyes, albeit playfully. “look in your bag.”

“i didn’t put them in here,” you say but still you do. you unzip and pull it open, dipping your hand in and immediately frowning, “did you put them in here or am i going crazy?”

“you’re goin’ crazy,” bakugou stands up, brushing off his shorts and reaching for your hand. you stay seated in his sunglasses, your designer ones he bought you for your birthday in your hands.

“katsuki!”

“you’re not crazy, i put them in there when you were shoutin’ that you didn’t wanna go out with me anymore,” he nudges his head in the direction of the door, “let’s go, ‘wanna walk in the park.”

“you’re so annoying,” you tell him but you love it when he interlinks his fingers with yours, letting you walk out the shop first, smoothie in hand.

“love you too. now pass my glasses.”

reblogs and comments are appreciated. thanks!

[elysiumae]

🚿 exposure therapy.

⟢ pairing: qifrey x gn!reader

⟢ word count: 3.2k

⟢ tags: showering together, reader sucks qifrey's cock, allusions to qifrey and reader being apprentices together, fluff

⟢ a/n: the way this was more fluff than porn. forn 😭 it was also I think my first time writing the suck suck. also you can see me losing my motivation towards the end. pwp but one p is better than the other and it's not the porn.

Qifrey doesn't like water.

It's one of the first things you'd learned about him, back when you were still apprentices—discernible in the way he'd flinched when someone accidenttally knocked over a basin in the dining hall, water spilling over his hands and lap. You don't remember anything about the book you'd been reading across from him, then—only how his pale, pinched face had somehow become more pale and pinched as he stared down at himself, and subsequently, the startling blue of his eye when he'd glanced up at your proffered handkerchief, then you—his first acknowledgment of you after pointedly ignoring your existence for the past month you'd been apprentices together.

You'd asked Olruggio about it, later. He'd been evasive at first, but after your shameless pestering and unsubtle curiosity he'd finally relented. Terribly ironic had been your first thought, for a budding witch so intent on mastering water magic. The second thought that had followed had been somewhat more practically, if a little private.

How does he shower?

"Like any other regular person," Qifrey told you much later, laughing quietly as he did, long after you'd moved into his atelier as a fully qualified witch and the relationship between the two of you had settled into something difficult to define solely with words. He'd looked amused, as if one of his apprentices had just asked an especially silly question. "Why? Did you think I didn't shower at all?"

"Perhaps," you'd admitted with a shrug, suddenly feeling somewhat silly. "I thought you might have had some secret cleaning spell you kept all to yourself—that, or you cleaned yourself with your tongue, like a cat."

A snort had escaped him at that—warm, startled, a little undignified—and you found yourself thinking, almost helplessly, that you wanted to keep hearing that sound, for as long as he would allow you to.

You'd proceeded to intently question his bathing habits after that, each query more absurd than the last. By the end of it, Qifrey had been laughing near uncontrollably into his hand, shaking his head as he looked at you. "Why are you so curious about this topic?" he'd asked, eye flashing with faint amusement. "Do you want me to show you?"

You'd been entirely certain, at the time, that he'd meant it as a joke. But you'd reached across the table to take his hand and said yes anyway, watched the way his breath caught at your answer. One thing had led to another, and then the two of you had stumbled through the atelier half-fumbling and half-kissing, clothes discarded piece by piece until you'd ended up tangled with him beneath warm steam and running water.

Now, joining Qifrey in the shower is one of your favourite pastimes. Getting him there, however, is a whole different story.

"Qifrey." You stand over his bed, one hand cocked loosely on your hip as honeyed sunlight streams in through the far window. "Qifrey, c'mon."

He only curls tighter on his side beneath the covers, retreating into them like a garden snail withdrawing into its shell. Nothing emerges from the blankets aside for a string of unintelligible sounds—soft, muffled protests lost to the stuffing of his pillow. You bite back a smile. He's always like this in the mornings before he's properly awake—petulant, unwilling to leave the warmth of the bed, and even more reluctant to step anywhere near the shower. In moments like these, you catch glimpses of the child you'd once grown up with; a strange contrast to the composed, inscrutable master he presents himself as to everyone else. Now, he's nothing more than a sleepy, sulking creature—burrowing beneath the blankets in hopes you'll give up and let him stay there forever.

You like it, though. You like being able to see him like this: soft-edged with sleep and grumbling in a way so few people ever do.

"Qifrey," you say again, more coaxing this time as you sit on the edge of the bed, mattress creaking faintly beneath your weight. Your fingers comb gently over the hair covering his bad eye. "You're going to be late taking the girls to the Great Hall if you don't get up now."

There's a pause. Then, slowly, he pushes himself upright, blankets pooling in the cradle of his lap. His pale hair sticks out in every direction, hopelessly tousled around the sharp lines of his face, while his rumpled nightclothes hang just loose enough for the collar to slip off one bare shoulder. Still sleep-soft and warm from bed. He looks like he's been dragged straight out of a dream.

One blue eye—the same shade as the cloudless sky outside—cracks open to peer at you through the tangled mess of his hair. Qifrey always looks softer without his glasses. Younger, somehow. He also looks deeply aggrieved at being awake, though, so you lean forward to press a kiss to his temple, his cheek, and then the softening corner of his mouth.

"…hrgm," he says. But he looks less put-out about it, now.

"I'll shower with you." You already had, earlier that morning, when you'd dragged yourself from both the bed and the warmth of his arms to start breakfast and deal with the laundry, but you don't particularly mind doing it again. Rising to your feet, you begin undoing the fastenings of your robe as you move towards the washroom, letting your outer layers slip from your shoulders and to the floor behind you as you go. "Don't keep me waiting too long, hmm?"

You turn the corner just in time to hear the quiet fwump of Qifrey reluctantly dragging himself upright from the bed. It's followed a moment later by the sound of socked feet against wooden floorboards, uneven and sluggish with sleep.

"Manipulative," you hear him mumble, from somewhere behind you.

You smile to yourself as you fetch the bar of soap from the counter—calendula and rosemary and mint—before turning towards the vapour bubble hanging from the ceiling. The device had been modified years ago by Olruggio, miniature heating spells etched carefully into the upper and lower trays with a searneedle wand so the water stays comfortably warm no matter the weather. Qifrey had tried baths before, but being so completely surrounded by water had reminded him too much of the box he'd been found in. Showers were easier and allowed him to step away the moment it became too much.

You check the little dials along its side. You'd already used it earlier that morning, so the water heats almost immediately at your touch. Warm.

Steam is already curling lazily through the room by the time you begin peeling off the rest of your clothes. A few moments later, Qifrey appears in the doorway, wearing the mournful expression of a man being walked to his own execution. It eases slightly, though, when he sees you shrugging off your shift, soft linen slipping from your fingers to land by your feet in a crumpled heap.

It's a little strange, but you've never been shy about Qifrey seeing you like this. Never felt the need for it. You bend over to tug off the scant remainder of your clothes, kicking them off to join your discarded shift, before stepping under the warm spray. Water cascades over your shoulders and back in soft streams of steam and heat. You glance back at Qifrey in silent invitation, wiggling your fingers coyly at him.

Qifrey squints at you for a long moment before he sighs. Then, with the long-suffering air of someone resigning himself to fate, he begins to take off his own clothes.

There's not much for him to remove—only the oversized tunic he'd slept in that is nothing like, thankfully, the elaborately collared shirts he usually wears. You love seeing them on him, loathe fumbling with the accursed straps as he laughs, the sound vibrating beneath your fingertips. This one comes off easily when he tugs it over his head, and it's followed quickly by his trousers, discarded in an untidy heap next to yours.

When he's as naked as you are, he finally steps under the spray with you. You notice the way Qifrey stiffens the instant the water hits his back: shoulders drawing taut, breath hitching faintly, lips pressing tight for the briefest second. It's subtle, barely perceptible, but you notice. You always have. It's the same thing every time,

You reach up to fiddle with the vapour bubble, carefully lowering the water pressure until the spray softens to a gentle patter, then coaxing a little more warmth into the steam. "Too much?"

Qifrey shakes his head. "No, no." A slow exhale passes between his lips as he presses himself more firmly against you, leaning into your warmth like a flower turning to the sun. He nuzzles into the crook of your neck, swallowing. "Just… just the usual."

"Mm. Let me help, then."

You tug him closer by the waist until there's no space left between your bodies, warm steam curling around the two of you as you tilt your head to kiss him gently. Qifrey sinks into it almost immediately, damp lashes fluttering against your cheeks until they fall still. You move your mouth slow and unhurried against his—fingers gently cradling his jaw, thumb rubbing slow circles over the quickening pulse of his inner wrist—giving him something else to focus on besides the water running softly over the two of you. Qifrey's fingers curl tighter against your waist, damp hair brushing your forehead every time he leans deeper into the kiss with a quiet sigh.

Slowly, you let your hands wander wherever the water does—over the bare expanse of his back, the notches of his spine, the sharp jut of his hipbone, coaxing his mind to focus on you instead, the closeness of your bodies, your touch. Qifrey lets out a shuddering breath against the wet curve of your shoulder. He melts into you, soft and pliant under the hot water, the same way sugar cubes dissolve into warm tea.

You reach for the bar of soap, lathering it up carefully between your palms until thick suds gather, and Qifrey cracks open one eye to watch. The whole bathroom smells pleasantly of flowers and herbs.

You start with his hair. Qifrey lowers his head for you instinctively, eye slipping shut again as you work the lather into the pale strands, fingers combing gently through wet tangles. The water will rinse it clean soon enough, so you move on to his shoulders instead, pressing a soft kiss to each to coax them into loosening before you continue. Down his arms, across his chest. Qifrey trembles faintly when your fingertips brush across his nipples—soft pink-brown against shower-flushed skin—and you have to bite back the urge to lean in and put your mouth on them. Instead, your hands continue tracing the lines of his body, nails scratching lightly over the soft plane of his stomach before gliding lower, following the shape of his hips and the long line of his legs.

Here, you have to crouch down to reach the rest of him. The water runs in rivulets over his thighs, his lean calves, his narrow ankles. You're about to start when you feel a hand at your shoulder, long fingers closing over your upper arm to tug you back up.

"Hey," he murmurs. Qifrey's voice is soft, slightly hoarse when he peers down at you. "You don't have to. I can do that myself."

You look up at him, blinking away scattered droplets of falling water. Qifrey's face is flushed—perhaps from the heat or your hands, perhaps both. His eye is bright in the dim light of the bathroom, darting back and forth from your face uncertainly like he still hasn't decided whether he wants you to stop or keep touching him forever. His lower lip catches briefly between his teeth.

You have the sudden urge to reach up and tug it free with your thumb, to suck it into your own mouth and kiss him until that hesitant expression dissolves into something else completely. But you are already on your knees, supplicant before him, and so you simply smile and kiss the side of his knee. Qifrey shivers.

"I want to," you say, simply. "Besides, I'm down here already."

You kiss his other knee, too, just because you can. A quiet breath escapes Qifrey as you start to lather up his legs properly, careful to remain gentle as you work the soap over his calves, his shins. You can feel him watching you as you do.

By the time you reach his thighs, you notice. His cock, soft when you'd first stepped into the shower together, has thickened up somewhat. Not fully hard, but stirring with interest despite the heat and water and everything else. You wrap your soapy fingers around him and he sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth.

"What's this, hm?"

Qifrey exhales slowly—a shaky, half-laugh caught somewhere in the back of his throat. "How else am I supposed to react with your hands all over me like that?"

You laugh quietly at the faint strain in his voice. His hips twitch ever so slightly towards you when your thumb sweeps lazily over the tip, spreading the drop of slickness you find there. The flush on his cheeks has deepened, crawling down his neck. Smiling, you settle properly on your knees, warm water cascading over your shoulders, and guide his cock into your mouth.

Qifrey lets out a quiet sound, caught somewhere between a gasp and a groan. His hand finds the side of your head, fingers curling through the damp strands—winding loosely, but not pulling or pushing. It's not as comfortable as some erotic catalogues make it out to be. Water seems to run endlessly into your eyes and your knees are beginning to ache where they're pressed against the tessellated tiles. But you care less about your pleasure and more about the way you can feel him tremble under your palms, the way his quiet pants become audible as they echo off the slick walls. You trace your tongue over the tip and he shudders. There's no taste of him yet—not with the water washing away every trace of him in the shower—only the faint remnants of soap still clinging on his skin. You want more than that. You want him.

You take him deeper, slow and deliberate, letting your tongue press flat along the underside. His breath stutters above you. You take your time, unhurriedly, feeling him grow heavier in your mouth, the way his thighs tense beneath your free hand. The water continues to fall around you both, but Qifrey doesn't seem to notice it at all. He lets out a quiet moan, one hand tightening ever so slightly in your hair while the other braces flat against the wall behind him.

"Hah…"

You pull out until only the tip remains, dragging the flat of your tongue over the head before suckling lightly there. Qifrey chokes softly. The faint salt of his precome coats your tongue and you hum happily, glance up through your lashes. His lips are parted, chest rising and falling too fast, eye squeezed tight. You frown. He's not looking at you.

You curl one hand around his knee for balance and swallow him down further, gagging lightly when the head nudges the back of your throat. Qifrey makes a strangled sound—half a moan and half your name.

"W-Wait—"

His knees buckle with a gasp that sounds suspiciously like a curse. He nearly falls—would have, if the wall hadn't been there to catch him. You let him slip out of your mouth with a soft pop, laughing quietly as he sags against the damp tiles, chest heaving, panting.

"You—"

"Watch the language, love." The endearment slips out before you can stop it, a prisoner making a run for it. You nibble at his hip, hope it's enough to keep him from noticing. "What if the girls were to hear, hmm?"

Qifrey huffs a breathless laugh, his head tipping back against the wet tiles. "That's the least of my concerns when—" His voice breaks into a whine when you take him in your hand again, stroking lightly, idly. "—mgh—when this is happening right in front me…"

You grin up at him, slow and a little wicked, before you slip him into your mouth again. This time, you keep one hand wrapped around his thigh—keeping him close close—while the other strokes where your mouth can't quite fit. You work him deeper and deeper, patient but with a focused intent, until the head nudges against the sensitive back of your throat again. The familiar urge to gag rises but you force yourself to breathe through your nose, relax your jaw to take him deeper still, until he slips past the last resistance and into the tight confines of your throat.

Qifrey's whole body shivers, toes curling against the wet tiles. His head tips forward then back, like he can't bear to look at you but also can't bring himself to look away. Look, you want to say. Look at me.

Your mouth is currently full, however, so you have no choice but to settle for other means. You dig your nails lightly into the back of his thigh—not enough to hurt, just to get his attention—and when his head dips down, you look up at him through your lashes. His eye finds yours, hazy and glassy and dark as ink, just as you hum around him. The vibration pulls a sound from his chest—something desperate, almost broken—and his hips jerk forward before he can stop himself.

Qifrey arches off the wall with a shuddering cry—one hand scrabbling against the slick tiles while the other tightens fractionally in your hair. His pleasure spills hot across your tongue, and you have to resist the urge to close your eyes to savour the taste. You want to watch him, and watch him you do—the way his mouth falls open, the way his eye squeezes then flutters half-open, how his chest heaves like he's forgotten how to breathe. He's flushed all the way down his pretty neck, white hair plastered to his forehead, dark with water. His lips part around something that might be your name.

Beautiful. He's so damn beautiful.

You swallow slowly, one last time, only pulling back when Qifrey's grip in your hair loosens and his thighs stop shaking. Your calves ache ever so slightly when you get back to your feet, but when you pull him into a kiss and he moans at the taste of himself on your tongue, all of it seems to fade away. Much in the same way you hope it does, for him.

When you finally pull back, you smile at the dazed look on his face. "Come on," you murmur, leaning in to kiss him one more time before reaching for the soap again. "Let's get you cleaned up for real this time."

[elysiumae]

drag path.

⟢ pairing: qifrey x gn!reader

⟢ word count: 9.6k

⟢ tags: master x apprentice relationship, eventual exmaster!qifrey x brimmedhat!reader, ambiguous age gap, reader's age is undefined, mentions of self-harm (reader), allusions to vague qifrey x olruggio, lowkey codependency, reader has subtle yandere-ish tendencies if you squint, spoilers for manga (please let me know if there are any more tags i should add this is my first time writing content like *gestures*)

"The selfishness behind my reason for taking on pupils made me ill. But they'd never have to know that. So I decided that I would put every fiber of my being towards becoming a good educator. Only now do I realise just how foolish that, too, was." Qifrey takes on an apprentice to keep the silverwood at bay. It works, until it doesn't.

⟢ chapters: one | two | three

I. THERE BENEATH

drag path (n): a visible, often continuous trail, mark or disturbance left behind on a surface by an object or person being dragged

Qifrey had told himself it was fine.

The memory-erasure spell Olruggio concocted had worked beautifully, despite the circumstances. His friend's eyes had gone blank for only a moment, and in the next, they'd been taken ahold of by a deep sleep. The sort of sleep that was gentle and kind, even as the silverwood's pale branches writhed and recoiled in remonstration. And when Olruggio awoke, the sun was setting over the lake, and there was no evidence of what had transpired; only the familiar tilt of Qifrey's hat, a dark ribbon rippling in the wind, and the frayed ends of his tassel brushing Olruggio's shoulder.

That had been three years ago.

Now, Qifrey stands at the window of an unfamiliar room in a newly built house that will one day be his atelier, somewhere out in the Naakiwan Downs, east-northeast of the Kahln. The land stretches endlessly before him—open plains rolling into each another until they dissolve into the distant horizon, vast swathes of pale grasses beneath a blue sky that seems to go on forever. It rarely rains out here, on the Zozah Peninsula. An atelier, of his own, under the open sky.

One part of his promise, kept.

But he's not foolish enough to hope that his distance from the Great Hall—from Olruggio—will not give rise to problems of their own. Traveling alone had done nothing but proven that even that minute solace was enough for the silverwood to take root once more. And Qifrey would rather die than let his dearest friend's sacrifices have been made in vain.

He needs to stay on the edge. Unsettled. Uneasy. The moment he stops feeling as though the world is pressing in on him, so will the silverwood.

Beldaruit used to hover. For some reason, Qifrey remembers that with uncomfortable clarity. The sage's pale smoke-grey eyes would track him wherever he moved through the magic workshops of the Great Hall—never overt or intrusive, yet always there. And greater than his control over conjuring magic was his talent for conjuring nonsensical excuses, ones that he would use to check on the condition of Qifrey's health and mind.

You work too hard, Beldaruit would say in that airy, almost absentminded tone—so lighthearted it could almost be mistaken as jest. And Qifrey would roll his eyes, dismiss his concerns, and Beldaruit would worry anyway.

Perhaps that's what he needs. Someone to worry about. Someone whose concerns and matters would keep him tethered to the present, too busy to fall into the quiet where the tree could spread its roots.

An apprentice, then.

He finds you one afternoon as ordinary as any other. It's raining when he reaches the port town of Havso—a steady patter that turns the cobblestones slick and darkens the wood of every dock and doorway. For all the precision Qifrey has honed over water, getting wet remains an irritation he's never quite outgrown, and the sound of rain prickles at his awareness like a thousand fine needles, impossible to ignore. He hurries through the narrow streets, searching the shops—for a new cast iron pot to replace the one that had cracked last week, some twine for binding dried herbs, other small sundries—when he sees you.

The canvas awning you're huddled beneath is doing almost nothing at all—not to protect you from the cold spring rain, or from the sharp, biting winds sweeping in from the coast. Water drips steadily from the hem of your smock, your hair plastered in wet strings to your narrow cheeks. Despite this, you don't move.

Qifrey doesn't mean to stop. But he does.

You look up when his shadow falls over you. He takes the edge of his cloak, the water dispelling spell inked discretely beneath its hem, and sweeps it in a gentle arc above your head. The rain above you curves away. Your eyes widen ever so slightly, your gaze tracing the water trickling off the air as though sliding off an invisible dome, before you look back at him again.

"I don't like getting wet," Qifrey says, in manner of explanation.

You simply stare. For a moment, Qifrey wonders if you speak the common tongue at all—it's not uncommon for sailors from foreign kingdoms to abandon unwanted children in port towns like this—or if you're simply mute.

"You're soaked," he tries again, more gently this time. "Do you have anywhere to go?"

Silence stretches in the space between each of his heartbeats. The rain patters, fingertips dancing along the boundary he's drawn. Then, you shake your head.

So you do understand him. Qifrey should have guessed—children like you are a dime a dozen here, orphans, strays, the overlooked and unclaimed. No one would notice if one or more vanished from the edges of the docks.

Convenient, a colder part of him supplies. You are old enough to comprehend, young enough to be malleable, and compared to an apprentice born into a family of witches, you won't know enough of magic—and by extension, the silverwood—to ask questions that he doesn't want or know how to explain.

He takes you in.

The first few weeks are easier than he expects. You come to him with no poor habits to unlearn—no stubborn rune-drawing tendencies, no theoretical 'shortcuts' circulated by some of the lazier professors in the Great Hall. Teaching you is like working on a blank sheet of parchment. You simply watch what he does and try to do the same. And when you fail—which is often—you do not seem to be affected or frustrated. You simply do it again.

The only real issue is that you have never learned to write. Qifrey watches your hand wobble across the parchment—leaving dark splotches in some places, lines breaking off in others. Your fingers wrap around the ink wand like a stick you've picked off the ground, all knuckles and no finesse.

Qifrey lets out a quiet sigh.

"Your grip is wrong."

You look up at him, uncomprehending. Qifrey sighs again and hesitates, just briefly, before he steps closer and leans down. His hand slides over your fingers, carefully adjusting each one until the wand rests properly between them, the tip hovering just above the parchment.

"Like that."

The moment he releases you, however, your grip tightens again reflexively. The wood of the ink wand creaks faintly in protest. He quickly takes your hand again.

"Gently," he murmurs. "Like holding a robin's egg."

Qifrey guides your hand across the parchment. A straight line. A square. A circle. Your hand relaxes under his, just a little.

"Just like that," he says, and lets go. You look at the ink wand in your hand. "Now, try again."

You practice until the sun goes down.

He teaches you the basics. The three basic components that make up every spell, the five elemental sigils for fire, wind, water, earth and light. The keystones that govern a spell's direction and strength and purpose, how the sizes of the rings can affect its range and potency. Everything he says, you memorise. And everything he teaches you, you practice until you can reproduce it by heart.

After only about a few months of training, Qifrey dares to say that you've reached the standard that most witches your age who've grown up around magic would be at. The rate at which you're learning is… unexpected, to say the least. He should be pleased. Any decent teacher would be.

Qifrey tells himself this as he watches you inscribe a heating spell along the belly of a copper kettle. It's a reasonably complex problem for a beginner—the spell must conjure heat but not fire, be stable enough to maintain an even boil, hot enough to warm but not so fierce as to warp or melt the metal. It's a careful balance of precision and power that tends to elude most newcomers to spellcasting.

You hand him the kettle when you finish. Qifrey pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and lifts it up to his good eye, turning it slightly in the flickering light coming from the fireplace. The dispersion keystones are neatly drawn, arranged around the central fire sigil in two concentric circles. The limiting keystones sit where they should, too—balanced on either side, ready to dampen the spell the moment the heat climbs too high.

"Good," Qifrey says at last. The word feels thinner than it should be. He lingers a moment longer than necessary, as if searching for some flaw to justify a correction, but finds none. "We'll be able to use this to brew tea in the mornings, now."

You nod once at his assessment from where you're watching him by the kitchen table, then ask, "What next?"

There is no flicker of pride. No satisfaction in your work, no pause to take in what you've done. Just a simple what next, as if each perfected spell is nothing more than a marker on a long road you don't care much to tread on.

The first thin root of worry pushes through the soil of his chest.

Qifrey tries to keep his distance at first. He really does. A master-apprentice relationship only needs to go so deep for one to learn and the other to worry, and too much closeness would be counterproductive in his attempts to keep the silverwood at bay. He buys you all sorts of magical books and supplies you with wands and ink when you need it. He cooks, too, warm and filling meals that nourish the body and are rich in nutrients, until the hollowness in your cheeks softens, replaced by a healthier, rounded plumpness. He corrects your glyphs when he spots mistakes and guides your hand when your lines falter. It barely assauges the guilt in his chest.

You don't make it easier for him. Through no fault of your own, he knows, and yet somehow, that only makes it worse. You don't seek him out for any needs outside of your magic studies, never ask for anything, and eat exactly what he puts in front of you without comment. You wake up at dawn to start the tea kettle, and from there you start practicing magic without ceasing until he has to firmly tell you to go to bed.

There are no tantrums, no complaints, no childish demands for attention or affection. Surely, even children must have their preferences. Trinkets they like, foods they refuse to eat. But you are quiet and serious and wrong in a way that he cannot name, and Qifrey finds himself watching you much the same way Beldaruit had once watched him.

"You don't have to keep doing that," he tells you one evening. You're hunched over the kitchen with a half-empty cup of water, the parchment in front of you crowded with dozens of identical glyphs. The fire sigil that you'd just traced over in water glistens for a moment, then fades as the parchment slowly dries. You must have drawn the same glyph at least a hundred times now.

You don't look up, dipping your wand in water again. "My circles aren't perfectly round yet."

"You don't have to master everything in a single day. You could take a break."

"Why?"

Qifrey doesn't have an answer for that. Or rather, it's perhaps that he has too many. Because you look tired but refuse to admit it. Because your hands will cramp if you keep going. Because watching you work yourself into the ground makes me feel something too similar to what I used to feel for Olruggio, and that scares me.

"It was only a suggestion."

You consider it for a moment, and then turn back to your parchment. Qifrey sighs, pushing aside his robes to lower himself into the chair across from you.

"Do you have any reason for learning magic?"

You rotate your wrist once in the air before setting the wand's nib to parchment. "You asked me to."

"That's my reason, not yours."

"It's the only one I have."

Qifrey watches your hand move across the paper, and something in his chest tightens. This arrangement is supposed to be simple—selfish, yes, but simple. You are supposed to ask things of him, to need him in small, manageable ways that keep him worried just enough about your progress and studies without causing him too much concern. You have done exactly just that.

And yet here he is, worrying about you constantly for a completely different reason.

He thinks of Beldaruit's gentle gaze, the soft curl of smoke illusions coaxed into being on nights when sleep proved treacherous, when the memories of darkness and rain pounding unceasingly against metal and claustrophobia set in. He remembers Olruggio's warm smile and even warmer eyes, the ribbon on his hat that Qifrey still touches sometimes in the dark, tracing the multiple preservation sigils he's inked onto the silk.

His reminder to never forget, to never grow complacent.

"Take a break," he says again, and this time, there's something in his voice that makes you stop.

You look at him for a long moment, head tilting slightly to the side. It reminds Qifrey vaguely of a sparrow. Finally, you speak.

"You're worried," you say, as though you're making an observation. Qifrey forces a smile.

"I'm your master. It's what I'm supposed to do."

You glance down at your parchment once more. For a moment he thinks you might refuse, ignore his words and go right back to practicing, but then you set your wand down next to the paper and push your chair back, legs scraping along the slate flagstones.

"I'll continue tomorrow," you announce, without looking at him.

"Good," he says in response, and the two of you sit in silence at the kitchen table, undisturbed except for the crackling of the fireplace, and Qifrey has to remember how to breathe without counting the spaces between each one.

Hearthglen Village is about a few furlongs from the atelier, more often than not in need of small, persistent fixes, and thusly, the ideal place for you to practice using magic after passing the Pentacle of Proving's second test. Qifrey walks beside you through the small handful of thatched cottages scattered through the patchwork quilt of farmfields, returning the villagers' greetings with easy familiarity. It's always good to maintain good relations with the unknowing, especially those living nearby.

Eventually, the two of you arrive in front of the client who'd requested Qifrey's services. The problem is simple: a farmer's irrigation ditch has gone haywire somehow, and now his turnips are drowning in mud. Qifrey could fix it alone in ten minutes, but that isn't the point. He nods towards the field, giving you an encouraging pat on the shoulder.

"Go on."

You hesitate only for a moment before you go, hovering tentatively over the knee deep muck with your sylph shoes as you float out to the irrigation ditch. Your expression is reminiscent of a wet cat's—vaguely displeased, faintly affronted, as though the world has committed a personal offense by being this unpleasant. Qifrey has to hold back a smile.

In the meantime, Qifrey chats with the farmer as you work—something about the summer heat this year, the stubbornness of the soil—but he makes sure to never let you slip from his sights. You're already at the ditch, hat bobbing as you hover over the mud. He can almost picture your hand beneath the shelter of your cloak: fingers wrapped around the wand, drawing those precise lines that you'd practiced over and over again with unswerving confidence.

He's listening to a rundown of this year's cabbage harvest when a faint rumble echoes across the field. The earth shifts, groaning as though rousing from a long slumber, and then the water starts to move. Mud loosens and starts to drain from the fields, revealing the green leaves of the turnips peeking out through the soil once more. It's quickly replaced by a steady stream of clear water.

The farmer's face brightens with relief. He claps his hands together with a delighted laugh, already turning to call out his thanks as you drift back over to the solid ground of the path, the hem of your cloak splattered with drying mud. You don't smile back; instead you wipe the faint sheen of sweat from your brow and look to Qifrey for approval.

He pushes his glasses up and nods once. "Well done."

You accept his verdict the same way you accept everything else—quietly, without visible pride or disappointment. The farmer tries to press a basket overflowing with all variety of squash into your hands and your eyes find Qifrey's like you aren't sure what to do with gratitude. He takes it for you.

"They're a natural," the farmer nudges Qifrey as he moves to leave. "Where'd you find a talent like that?" Despite the surge of pride that races through him, he hesitates.

"They found me," Qifrey says, instead.

More villagers request your help over the course of the afternoon. A family's goat wandered into a small ravine, a child's kite got stuck in a tree. You lift the frantically bleating animal to safety with a levitating spell, and coax the wind into tugging the kite loose from an elm's tangled branches while the village children gather to watch you work with eyes full of wonder. The girl bounces on her heels as the toy finally drifts down into your waiting hand, and you hand it over without a smile.

The child hugs your legs anyway. You stand there awkwardly, arms glued to your sides, and Qifrey has to look away before he laughs.

Hours later, after the last request has been fulfilled and the sun is low enough to turn the clouds a warm ombre-ochre, you and Qifrey decide to walk home, the path stretching before you like a pale ribbon through the fields. You walk next to him in silence, as you always do, fingers stained with smudges of black ink and clay soil.

"You did well today," he says.

"Thank you."

"But."

You glance at him then. Just a slight flicker of the eyes, darting sideways and upwards. You've learned, by now, that your master is far from straightforward around topics that are necessary but difficult to broach.

"But?"

"But magic doesn't seem to make you happy," he finishes.

You neither deny nor confirm it. Your steps just slow slightly against the gravel scattered on the path, stones crunching beneath the soles of your boots. For a while, there is only the sound of the wind moving through the wheat fields.

Eventually, you speak.

"Does it have to?"

Qifrey thinks about that. About the way you've perfected every spell he's taught you but never once asked to learn any out of your own desire. About how you can spend hours, days, drawing circles and lines over and over again simply because he tells you to. About how quickly you've become good at magic—and how little of it seems to belong to you.

"It doesn't have to," Qifrey says, at last. He's cast all sorts of magic in his life, spells that have burned and hollowed, ones that have scarred and pained him beyond what any physical wound can. Not all of it was joy. Not all of it was kind.

Yet.

"But you should find a reason. To desire magic, I mean."

You glance at him, eyes briefly searching, as though weighing the shape of his words, their meaning. He licks his lips, suddenly dry.

"Magic is meant to grant wishes of the people," he says, more gently now. "To bless them. That includes yourself." His lips press together, smile half-formed before faltering, and the wind moves through the fields, rustling restlessly through the long grass. "I—I hope you can learn magic not because I tell you to, but because you want to."

The last sentence escapes him in a rush, as though forced from his lungs with some sort of wind dispelling spell. The thought settles heavy in his chest again, the silverwood shuddering. For all his care—for all the effort he's poured into teaching you properly, responsibly—one truth remains unchanged: Qifrey had taken you in because he needed an apprentice. Not out of kindness. Not out of any noble intent he can comfortably name.

He doesn't know what he would say if you ever asked him why. Any lie would feel too great a disservice to the one person he'd thrust this fate upon, and the truth feels brittle, insufficient—something that would fracture the moment he speaks it aloud.

But you never have. Sometimes, he suspects that you already know.

The remainder of the walk back passes in silence. The sky fades from sienna to lavender before deepening to a dark indigo. One by one, the first stars emerge at the very top of the firmament, their light faint and trembling. You say nothing, and Qifrey tells himself to give you time—you need space to process things, and pressuring you would only make you retreat further into yourself, like a snail hiding in its own shell.

The atelier comes into view at the end of the lane, its windows dark. Qifrey steps ahead, undoing the sealing glyphs on the door. It swings open with a soft creak, and he pauses, holding it ajar for you to step through.

You don't.

He turns back to see you standing a step behind the threshold, gaze lowered to the path at your feet, as though something he cannot see there has snared your attention and taken it captive. Qifrey frowns, head tilting.

"Apprentice?"

You don't answer immediately, hands in your pockets, the tip of your boot scuffing the ground. Then, quietly—

"I want to cure Master."

For a moment, Qifrey forgets how to breathe. He can only stare at you, mouth slightly parted. The words fail to catch despite him having nothing to say. Your voice had been small, careful—like you'd been turning the words over in your mouth for miles, smoothing their edges so they wouldn't cut your tongue on the way out. Of all the things he'd imagined you might say, this had never even been within his considerations.

He grips the door handle a little more firmly for support. The brass carvings bite its patterns into his skin of his palm.

"Cure me," he repeats, dumbly.

"Yes." You nod, the movement slow, as if hesitant in your admission. "The headaches that you try to hide from me. And your right eye, too," you add, pointing at the side of his face covered by his hair, as if he might not know the one. "You touch it when you think I'm not watching, but it seems like it hurts."

Qifrey didn't realise you'd noticed. He thought he'd been careful.

"I thought I asked you," he says, more quietly, more unsteadily now, "to want something for yourself."

"I don't like seeing Master in pain."

Qifrey’s grip on the door falters. Something tightens in his chest—perhaps the silverwood, perhaps something else, so sharp it cuts him open like a blade, and yet he doesn't know whether he wants to let go. For so long, he's been waiting—for you to want something, to reach beyond instruction, to claim even the smallest piece of magic for your own.

And you have.

Qifrey exhales slowly, the sound thin against the quiet of the evening. For once, there is no ready answer waiting behind his teeth. He thinks of Olruggio's face, the path to salvation he'd offered Qifrey paved with the pieces of his own memory. He thinks of the tree growing inside of him, its roots tangled in his ribs, its branches seeking the sun through where his eye once used to be.

Healing magic is a direct alteration of the body, and every form of body alteration is forbidden—banned on the Day of the Pact, enforced by the Knights Moralis with iron and fire. And even if it wasn't, the silverwood is not merely an illness. There is no cure for what grows inside of him.

But you don't know any of that.

So Qifrey smiles softly. Releases his death grip on the door, pulling away to rest a hand on top of your head, the same way Beldaruit used to do for him.

"That's very kind of you," he says.

Your expression doesn't change, but the tautness in your shoulders loosens just a fraction, as if you'd been bracing for him to laugh at you, to dismiss your dream as a fool's flight and fancy. Instead, he pushes the door open wider and gestures you inside.

"Come on," Qifrey tells you, swallowing the sudden thickness lodged in his throat. "Wash up. I'll make squash stew for dinner."

You nod and disappear up the steps to the second floor. Your footsteps fade quickly, and soon Qifrey's ears pick up the sound of running water, of the bath being filled.

He remains in the doorway a moment longer, one hand braced against the frame, the other lifting—almost unconsciously—to brush over where his right eye used to be, featherlight. The motion is familiar, thoughtless. Almost habitual.

But he's been exposed, now. A deprecating laugh escapes him, the wisps of it slipping between his teeth. It's only now, Qifrey thinks, that he's beginning to realise just how foolish he'd been.

He's fallen into the pit that he'd dug with his own two hands.

Sleep eludes Qifrey that night.

He lies on his back, one arm thrown over his forehead, the other resting on his chest. Beneath skin and bone, the cage of his ribs, the silverwood pulses its slow, patient rhythm, waiting. The ceiling above him is indistinguishable in the dark, but he's stared at it so many sleepless nights that he can recall to memory the grain of every plank, the small water stain in the corner that faintly resembles a bird in flight.

Just above him, in the room upstairs, you are sleeping soundly—or he hopes so, at least. Belly full of squash stew, dreaming of pleasant things. That you are warm and resting, and that, for once, you are not pushing yourself past the point of sense simply because he asked it of you.

I want to cure Master.

Qifrey turns onto his side, facing the wall. His pillowcase smells faintly of lavender—scented sachets you'd made last week, making use of some aromatics a village herbalist had given you for your help. He'd accepted one when you'd offered it, almost without thinking, assuming that it was thoughtful but practical gesture.

Now, the scent lingers like smoke.

Beldaruit used to say that the best apprentices were the ones who could surprise you. Qifrey always assumed he meant talent, insight, some brilliant intuition that no one else could replicate. Someone who could make teachers lean forward in their seats and think, that's the one.

But here, lying in his bed, your words from hours ago still sitting warm in his chest, he wonders if the old man had meant something else entirely.

Qifrey pushes out a breath, the tip of his tongue pressing behind his teeth. You will learn about the forbidden magic, eventually. Every witch does—and as your master, it will be his responsibility to teach you about it. Some things are too dangerous. Some lines cannot be crossed. All magic that is drawn on the human body or affects the human body is outlawed.

And that includes healing magic.

You will learn that, and then you will not ask too many questions about why his eye cannot be fixed. Eventually, you will move on and find another, better wish.

But for now, Qifrey takes your words and folds them carefully, tucking them away into the furthest corner of his heart where the silverwood cannot reach. He closes his one good eye and waits for the sun to rise once again. And when it does, Qifrey will greet you in the kitchen downstairs with a cup of hot tea and a smile, he will teach you combination sigils and binding spells, and he will never bring it up again.

Because some wishes are too heavy to be said aloud, and some teachers are too selfish to let them go.

Summer slips unnoticed into autumn, and autumn, in turn, yields to winter. Qifrey teaches you to crochet, then to knit—awkward at first, fingers too stiff around the slumbersheep yarn until Qifrey takes your hands and guides you through the movements, much in the same way he does when teaching you spells. He shows you how to tend to the heating spells that keep the house warm without burning it down, how to summon precise gusts of wind to blow snow off the atelier's sloping roofs. And the months pass just as the weather changes—gradual, inevitable, marked only in hindsight by the shift in the air, the thinning of light.

And as you grow older, Qifrey finds the distance he once tried so carefully to maintain eroded by the same unrelenting tide. Bit by bit, day by day—until one morning he wakes up and realises he cannot quite remember what it feels like to not have you there.

It's not something that changes overnight. Instead, it is a thousand small, mundane things—the way his hand moves without thinking to drop two cubes of sugar into your teacup, the copper kettle with your heating spell whistling behind him on the stove. You're at the basin with your sleeves rolled up to your elbows, washing a skillet faintly smelling of bacon while a brushbuddy dozes on your shoulder. Everything is good, and everything is warm.

This is dangerous, Qifrey thinks. And then he thinks it again, because the first time hadn't been enough to make him stop.

The morning he's forced to confront it comes without warning. Quietly, unassumingly, a thief in the night.

Qifrey notices that something is different the moment he steps into the quiet of the kitchen. The kettle is cold, and the matching cups that a travelling potter had made for you sit upturned on the counter, untouched from where you'd set them aside to dry last night. He stands in the doorway for a moment, listening. The atelier breathes around him like an extension of his own body—the soft creak of timber settling, the low whisper of wind along the eaves—but beneath it, nothing. No quiet patter of footsteps in the floor upstairs. No water running in the washroom.

Perhaps you're sleeping in, he tells himself. The idea is almost pleasant. You never do; you're always awake before him, tea already steeped, moving around the kitchen to prepare breakfast—presence slipped so easily into his morning routine that he'd stopped noticing it altogether.

Qifrey sets the kettle to heat, before rummaging for the battered tin of tea leaves in the overhead shelf. He prepares a cup for you, placing it at the chair that has become yours in all but name, and sits across it with his own. The brew's a little more astringent than he's used to—steeped a touch too long, perhaps—but he drinks it anyway, idly sorting through the neglected stack of mail from the council.

The sun climbs higher in the sky. Light spills through the kitchen window, between the gap in the curtains, inching slowly across the table to catch on the rim of your untouched cup. Qifrey looks through the latest spell you've been working on: an attempt at replicating his Palm Dragon Teacup. He makes small suggestions in the margins, noting down more efficient arrangements and combinations of keystones, ideas for refining its precision. Still, it's good work. Your work is always good.

More time passes. He finally completes drafting a letter to the Great Hall—something about independent ateliers and watchful eyes—and sends it off before picking up a book about complex fire spells. Qifrey thumbs through the pages slowly, more out of idleness than focus, pausing every now and then when something catches his eye. A variation making use of the stabilising keystone. A more efficient heat-dispersal glyph. He dog-ears about six different pages with the intention of showing them to you later, when he looks up and realises that your tea has long gone cold.

Qifrey closes his book, sets it aside, and heads for the stairs.

Your bedroom door is closed.

That isn't surprising to Qifrey. You've always been a private person by nature, and you're even moreso protective of your few possessions, your personal space. Qifrey learned early on not to intrude without invitation or cause.

But your diversion from routine is… odd. Surely you will forgive his worry.

Qifrey hesitates, knuckles hovering over the wood of your door, before he knocks. "Apprentice?"

No answer.

He knocks again, a little sharper this time. "It's past noon. If you want to sleep in, just let me know, alright? You deserve the rest."

Still no answer.

The thin thread of unease tightens around his chest.

"I'm coming in."

The door swings open easily beneath his hand. The room that he steps into is familiar and empty. Your blankets are carefully folded at the foot of the bed, your traveling cloak absent from its hook by the window. And your sylph shoes, the ones that he'd helped you mend just last week, are missing from their place next to the dresser.

Qifrey stands in the center of the room, the air suddenly going very, very still. The silverwood in his chest trembles.

Calm down, he tells himself firmly. Your bed is made—your absence must be deliberate. There must be some sort of explanation. Perhaps you wanted a taste of mischief, to act your age for once. Perhaps you snuck out to one of the nearby villagers, Hearthglen or Azmar, to meet people, make friends. Be normal. You mentioned the daughter of Azmar's baker last week. He recalls a girl your age with flour on her apron who'd been fascinated with your magic. Perhaps you've gone to pay her a visit.

He turns slowly, forcing his gaze to move along with him. Your ink wands are in a little cup on your table, textbooks sitting in rows on the shelf where they belong. Encyclopedias, histories, grimoires he'd deemed safe for for your learning. Nothing out of place. He's about to leave the room, fetch a guidance orb just to make sure that you're alright, when—

Something small and furtive shifts between a gap in the books. The brushbuddy's tail twitches into view before it darts back into the narrow space behind, as though caught somewhere it shouldn't be.

Qifrey frowns.

He reaches up and pulls the entire front row of volumes aside, setting them down on the table with a heavy thump. Dust stirs in the air. Behind them sits another, shorter stack of books, tucked neatly out of sight. Aside from him, there isn't another occupant in this atelier for you to hide things from. Which means you meant to conceal this deliberately. From him.

Why?

Qifrey ignores the cold uncertainty in his chest, picking up the first book. Medical journal. Second. Herbal remedies of the Southern Continent. Third, an encyclopedia on human anatomy, although only the section on ophthalmology is bookmarked, annotated so densely that barely any margin is left untouched. The rest of the books are of a similar vein.

Only the last one is different—a notebook, worn pages filled with a cramped but script that he would recognise anywhere. The rest are filled with sketches—plants that even he doesn't recognise at first glance, roots and leaves and bulbs rendered with careful attention to detail. Analgesic properties. Toxic in high doses. Antispasmodic. Causes hallucinations.

He flips through more rapidly, pulse quickening, but the later pages only get worse.

Burn, left forearm. Applied tincture from ground monoceros horn and milkwort. Moderate pain reduction, mild nausea. Bruise, right knee. Poultice from steeped elderwood and nightpoppy. Significant pain relief, but results in complete loss of sensation and movement in area. Lasts three hours. Burn—

Qifrey's vision blurs. His other hand grips the edge of your chair, knuckles white, breath coming out sharp and shallow as he forces himself to breathe. You've been hurting yourself. On purpose. Testing remedies for… for—

He doesn't dare to let that thought complete itself. He turns the pages quickly, skimming past entries until he reaches the last one. The ink is smudged where the parchment presses together, as if you'd jotted it down and closed it in a hurry. It's still faintly wet.

There is a rough sketch of silvery stems and thin, needle-like leaves. Spineneedles, you've labelled them. Your notes crowd the margins: potent pain-relieving properties. Possible long-term restorative effects. Grows only in steep valleys inhabited by winged serpentines, venom necessary for germination. And below it—

Kestrel's Maw, eight furlongs north of atelier. Serpentines least active at dusk and dawn.

Qifrey feels his blood turn to ice in his veins. Outside the window, the sun hangs high in the cold winter sky, almost at its zenith—long past dawn, past any reasonable margin of safety. It's far too late. You should have been back hours ago. No, worse—you should have never gone at all, risking your life for such foolish, pointless endeavours. You should have been in this very room, sleeping soundly beneath the blankets, unharmed and safe and under Qifrey's protective eye. Instead—

He'd flown over Kestrel's Maw once, years ago. He still remembers the way the cliffs drop away into nothing, wind screaming through the narrow ravines, strong enough to throw even an experienced witch off balance. And the serpentines there are especially aggressive—great, winged creatures with beaks like drawn swords—nesting in the crevices where the spineneedles grow.

And that's where you've gone.

I'm responsible for this, Qifrey thinks numbly, and the words are a realisation as much as an accusation aimed at himself. I did this. I made you this way. I wanted someone to worry about, and now—

The image comes to him, unbidden: your body, broken at the base of the ravine. Impaled by sharp spikes at the bottom, limbs twisted at unnatural angles. Cloak ripped and dark with blood, flesh torn from your bones by monstrous beaks. And your face—that quiet, serious, earnest face—pale, chest still, eyes open yet blank and vacant and unseeing and—

No.

No.

Qifrey runs. He doesn't think. He doesn't allow himself to. The door is too far—he shoves your shutters open and throws himself out of the second floor window, into the harsh midday sunlight. For a second, wind rushes up to meet him, flailing, falling—before the sylph seal beneath his feet flares. And then he's airborne, rising too fast but not fast enough, the wind tearing at his hair, the fragile control he's forcing himself to hold together.

Please, not them, is all he can think as he hurtles through the sky. Not my apprentice. Not them. I'll do anything. Please, please, please—

He doesn't know who he's begging, only that he'll beg anything, bargain everything—if it means that you're still alive when he arrives.

Even from a distance, the ravine makes for an unnerving sight. The karst pinnacles spear upwards as though they seek to pierce the sky, like the vicious teeth of some enormous, long-dead beast. Qifrey had forgotten how sharp they were, every edge honed to something hostile. Even the light falls strangely, splintered by stone so that shadows fall where they shouldn't, fractured into shifting planes that make depth and distance difficult to judge.

He clears the plains beneath him with unmatched speed, wind tearing past him—

—and then, he sees you.

You're clinging to a narrow outcropping perhaps fifty feet below the cliff's edge, body pressed close to the rock wall as though trying to become one with it yourself. Your sylph shoes are missing from one foot, and there's a long rend in your cloak. You aren't moving—only holding on, just barely—feet perilously close to the edge of a fatal, yawning drop below.

Above you, three winged serpentines circle patiently in the air. Their beaks hang slightly open, tongues flickering you as if tasting the air—your blood, your fear, the inevitability of what's next. The only mercy here is that they're not attacking. They are waiting, drawing it out. The same way a cat toys with a mouse it already knows cannot escape.

Qifrey doesn't stop or slow. He dives.

The wind screams past his ears, rising to a fever pitch as he plummets. His palm quire slips into his hand by instinct alone, wand flying over the paper in sharp, practiced strokes before he can even spare a thought as to who might be watching.

The spell takes shape in a single breath. Water wrenches itself from the air, the thin moisture caught in wind and stone, surging upwards into a coiling mass until it takes shape—a great, fluid dragon, its body twisting through the open air with a roar that echoes throughout the entire length of the gorge.

Two serpentines are caught in its jaws almost immediately, their cries cut short amidst the sound of snapping wing and bone. The third shrieks, veering sharply away before wheeling back, beak gaping in fury—but Qifrey is already moving, one arm wrapping around your waist and tearing you off the cliff face, hauling you bodily into the open air. You make a quiet sound in the back of your throat—the closest to afraid he's ever heard you—fingers gripping at the front of his shirt.

"Master—"

"Don't call me that right now."

The serpentines shriek behind him, rallying. Qifrey presses the sylph seal on his boots together, the weight of you unwieldy and palpable in his arms, and flies home.

You don't speak on the way back. Neither does he.

The atelier rises into view at the edge of the fields, its familiar shape cutting through the blur of wind and motion. He lands harder than he intends, knees buckling for a second before he forces himself forward—half-carrying, half-dragging you through the front door. Your cup remains where he left it, untouched on the kitchen table, and he sets you down onto the chair—the same one he'd been sitting in just an hour prior, drinking tea and so, so oblivious—more roughly than he intends.

You don't complain. You never do. The same way you never protest, never ask, never tell him anything—

Qifrey turns away. His hands are shaking. He wrenches open the drawers, rifling through them with none of his usual care, yanking out bandages, salves, clean gauzes. Something clenches in his chest like a fist, squeezing, tight, so tight.

"What were you thinking?" he snaps. He almost doesn't recognise his own voice—low and taut and cutting. "Going to such a dangerous place—alone—without telling anyone—without asking—"

He finds the antiseptic, shoved into the back of a drawer. His fingers slip on the stopper, trembling faintly.

"You could have died. Do you understand that? You could have died. Those creatures—they could have—" Sent you plummeting down the cliff. Eaten you. Torn you to pieces. He can't bring himself to finish the sentence. The images they conjure are too much to bear.

He whirls around again, still not quite looking at your face, and takes your left arm. The cuts are worse up close—long, ragged scratches that split skin, dried blood flaking at the edges. Your palms and fingers are raw and abraded from where you must have clung to the sharp rock.

Qifrey dabs at them with more force than necessary. You flinch just once, before going still again.

"Rash. Reckless. Stupid." The words spill out of him like water from a broken dam. They're sharp enough to wound, meant to hurt, and he knows this even as he says them but cannot bring himself to stop. "I didn't teach you that. I taught you to think, to assess, not throw yourself off cliffs for—for worthless plants—"

"Master—"

"I said don't." Hearing that title alone makes him want to scream. "Don't call me that now. You don't have any right to when you—"

"It's Master's fault."

The words land like a slap. Qifrey turns to look at you—one hand frozen over a roll of bandages, the echo of them stinging—only to find your mouth drawn taut in a stubborn line. And your eyes, those quiet, watchful eyes that have always followed him so carefully, are hard with something he's never seen in them before. Not guilt. Not shame. Something closer to accusation.

As though he is the one who has wronged you.

"Oh, it's my fault," he repeats, his voice rising sharply on its own, an unpleasant mixture of anger and incredulity. "I didn't tell you to sneak out without telling me. I didn't tell you to seek out winged beasts you have no experience fighting. I didn't tell you to—"

"Yes, because Master never tells me anything—"

"For good reason!" He throws his hands up, the dishcloth—stained with your blood—twisting taut between his white knuckled fingers. Qifrey wants to shake you. Maybe tear his hair out. Another part of him—a smaller, quieter part—wants to lock you in this atelier and throw away the key forever, just to make sure that you are safe. "There are things I don't tell you because they are dangerous, things that I am trying—I have been trying—to protect you from—"

"I don't need to be protected like a child—"

"Then stop acting like one!" Qifrey is shouting now. He knows that he is shouting. He can't stop. "Sneaking around behind my back, hiding books in your room, burning and cutting yourself, putting yourself in mortal danger for a cure that doesn't exist!"

Your obstinate expression only darkens further. "Master can't know for certain—"

"I do!" His hands come down hard on the tabletop, and you flinch. Your teacup jumps, porcelain clattering as it tips. Cold tea spills across the gingham patterns. "I know because—" Because he's already been to the Tower of Memories, and he knows that what ails him is no illness or curse. "—because I've already read every book, tried every remedy—I know that there is no cure! There is no cure, and there will never be, so stop trying to throw your life away for something so—"

"I won't!"

Something in Qifrey snaps.

"If you're so unwilling to listen to me," he says, his voice suddenly cold and flat, in a way that doesn't belong to him, "then maybe you should no longer be my apprentice."

The moment those words leave his mouth, Qifrey knows at once that he would do anything to take them back—tear them out of the air, swallow them whole even if they cut his throat to ribbons—but the damage is already done.

You go very still. The anger doesn't leave you, not entirely, but something beneath it fractures—hairline cracks spiderwebbing across thin river ice. Your mouth works soundlessly, shaping around words that don't make it out, before pressing into a thin, bloodless line.

When he dares a glance up again, your lashes are wet. You're not crying—you never have, not in front of him, at least—but your eyes are bright, too bright now, in a way that feels dangerously close. Your lower lip wobbles only once before you sink your teeth into it and force it still.

Qifrey hates water. The sound of rain makes his chest tight, and the feeling of being wet makes his skin crawl. He hates the way it blurs the fading remnants of his vision, the way it soaks through his clothes and leeches the heat from his bones, the way it reminds him of things he's forgotten and things he wishes he could forget.

But this—this—is worse.

Qifrey's hands falter, then drop back to his sides. Why had they even been raised in the first place? The kitchen is too quiet now, empty except for the phantom ghosts of your anger and his, the steady drip of tea from the table's edge, forming a puddle on the flagstones beneath. He feels exhausted all of a sudden—wrung dry and scraped hollow.

It's only then that he notices the bag. Your hand—the other one, still dirty and bleeding—is curled around a small pouch of cloth, pressed so tightly against your chest that your knuckles have gone white. Even after everything, you are still clinging to it. Still trying, desperately, to keep it safe.

"Give me the bag," he says.

Your eyes jump to Qifrey's face. You glance down at the bag, as though just only remembering thtat it's there, before your fingers tighten around it again, spine curving over it protectively. Hesitation flickers across your expression for a brief second, before you give a small, stubborn shake of the head.

No.

Qifrey sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth, patience fraying, before he reins himself in forcefully. He's done more than enough damage, today. "I won't—I'm not going to do anything to it," he says, trying to sound reassuring, more gentle. He doesn't know if he succeeds. "Just—please. Give me the bag."

You stare at him for a moment longer, as though wordlessly weighing whether you can trust his words. Then, slowly, reluctantly—you loosen your death grip on the pouch and hold it out.

It's surprisingly light in his hand, once he takes it. Almost as though it holds nothing inside at all. His fingers, still faintly numb and tacky with your blood, fumble with the drawstrings as he pulls them loose. He looks inside.

A handful of silver leaves lie scattered across the bottom of the pouch. Thin and gleaming, each one shaped like a sewing needle. Spineneedles. Carefully gathered, but so few of them—barely enough to brew a single thumb-sized vial of tincture.

Yet the mere sight of them is enough to strip all the anger from him in an instant. Qifrey stares down into the pouch, the thin scatter of silver leaves there glinting faintly like stars in the night sky, and feels something inside him give way.

He isn't angry with you. He's never been angry with you. The one whom Qifrey is so unbearably angry with, so deeply ashamed of—is himself. Because the only reason you did any of this—pushed yourself to such lengths, put yourself in harm's way—is because he let you believe he could be cured. He'd smiled and selfishly kept the words you'd uttered that day close to his heart, like a precious treasure, and in doing so, he'd unwittingly sent you hurtling straight into danger's embrace.

A slow, quiet breath escapes him. Qifrey slowly lets himself sink to his knees in front of your chair, suddenly weary in a way that he cannot quite name.

You shift at the movement, glancing down at him with something uncertain in your expression, unsure of his moods.

"…Master?"

He sets the pouch on the table and carefully takes your hands in his. You try to tug them back to your chest on instinct but he holds on to your wrists, gentle but insistent. Qifrey turns them over, palms out, your fingers curling slightly, and looks at the small, round marks he's never looked close enough to notice before. Burn scars. Old and new, layered together, a wordless record of every time you had pressed pain into your own body in search of something that might help him.

His throat closes around the words he doesn't have.

"Thank you," is all he can say, in the end. Even then, it feels inadequate. "For trying to cure me. For going to such lengths to ease my pain." Qifrey pauses, his thumb brushing over a half-healed scab on your knuckle. "But it… it won't work."

You look at him, then. The defiance has receded from your eyes, leaving behind a thin, wavering uncertainty in its place. "How can Master be so sure it will not work?"

Because I've already tried everything. Because I read about it in the Tower, and I know the truth. Because the problem isn't my eye or the headaches—it is the tree growing inside of me, the parasite that will kill me if I stop worrying, if I stop hurting, if I let myself be happy for even a moment.

But Qifrey cannot say that. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. His fingers drift down unconsciously to brush the ribbon trailing from the top of his hat.

"Because, like I said, I've tried every remedy in existence." He shakes his head with a defeated smile, squeezing your hands. "Nothing works. And it only hurts me more—more than my eye or any headache—to see my beloved apprentice put themself in danger for my sake."

You go still, fingers curling loosely under his own.

"I should be the one protecting you," he continues. "Not the other way around. That—that's the whole point of having an apprentice." Qifrey almost laughs at that, the line of his mouth twisting into the shape of a half-formed, self-deprecating smile. Oh, he was so, so foolish. "I'm supposed to keep you safe. And yet, here you are, throwing yourself into danger for me."

His gaze drops back to your hands, the small scars scattered across your skin.

"I'm content," Qifrey says quietly. "With what I have now. The atelier. You." And as the words leave him, he realises that they are not merely for your sake—they are true, plain and simple. "The pain is small in comparison."

You don't speak for a moment. The afternoon light has shifted, turning golden and syrupy, pooling on the floor between you like liquid honey. Qifrey can hear the sound of his own heartbeat in the silence, a slow, steady march in his ears.

"But I don't like to see Master in pain."

Your voice is small, but matter-of-fact. You say it in the same way you might state an obvious truth, such as fire is hot and water is clear and the sun rises in the east. As if it's simply a fact of the universe that you dislike seeing him in pain—and therefore, you must do something about it.

Qifrey's heart clenches, a sharp and sudden thing. Before he can think better of it he's already leaning forward to gather you into his arms. It's the first time he's ever hugged you, he realises distantly. He's held you when you were learning to use sylph shoes for the first time, guided your hand and wand through careful strokes, rested a light hand on your head once or twice—but never anything like this. Never returned even a fraction of the quiet comfort you've given him simply by being there. Some master he's been.

You go stiff for a moment against his chest, caught off guard by the suddenness of the gesture. A few breaths pass before your shoulders loosen, ever so slightly, and then your forehead dips, coming to rest slowly against the line of his collarbone. And your hands, one half-bandaged and the other still dirty with smeared blood and dirt, come up to grip tentatively at the back of his shirt.

When had you become so precious to him?

He closes his one good eye and presses his face into the top of your head, ignoring the way his glasses push up on the bridge of his nose. Your hair smells faintly of lemon verbena and soap. "Don't do something so dangerous again, alright?" His voice comes out muffled, even to his own ears. "Promise me."

There's a long pause. Then: "I don't want to give up, Master."

Qifrey sighs, something between an amused sigh and weary acceptance. Clearly, it'd been wishful thinking at best to hope otherwise, and the fault for it lies squarely with him. He draws back just enough to look at you. Your fingers tighten in his shirt.

"If you have any ideas," he says at last, the words coming together with reluctant resignation, "tell me first. Before you do anything. We'll experiment together—here, in the atelier, where it's safe." His eye narrows slightly, a faint edge of sternness threading through the softness. "I won't stop you from trying. But I'm not going to lose you to a cliff face or anything else, and there will be no forbidden magic. Do you understand?"

You hold his gaze. For a moment your expression is unreadable—eyes too much like mirrors, reflecting too much of him back at himself, too clearly, too honestly. Then, slowly, you nod.

"Okay."

"Good." The word leaves him more easily than expected, as though some heavy weight has finally been lifted from his shoulders. Qifrey pulls you in again, a brief but quieter second embrace, before he lets you go and leans back. Even with the space between you now, the residual warmth of you lingers, settling into the hollow places between his ribs like sunlight.

"I'll make dinner tonight," he announces, getting to his feet. "You should get some rest. But first—let me finish treating your arms."

"Okay."

You hold your arms out obediently. He takes them, careful as though he's handling some priceless, irreplaceable magical artifact, tutting softly under his breath at the state of you. The cuts, the burns, the bruising—he tends to each with attentive hands, and insists on drawing you a bath of milk and herbs as he works, all while you squirm and offer half-hearted rejections in protest.

Somewhere in his chest, the silverwood stirs.

a/n: i cannot believe that some of my best writing this year might have been for yet another white haired man voiced by joshua waters in en who is also competing in the depression olympics. the only difference is that qifrey is a twink and i only found out about him three days ago before proceeding to bash out ten thousand words for him despite not really blorbo-ing him. am i denial or do i need the asylum 😔 n e ways i hope you enjoy! please don't crucify me for the age gap or the eventual problematic student teacher relationship </3

[lvmimis]

the cums of liberation

[ohummhi]

(panties soaked through) God he's so fucking nice to me

[fairycosmos]

music songs and lyrics. its just unbelievable

[segamascott]

[nkogneatho]

chest hair!!!! thigh hair!!! bush!!! armpit hair!!!

[kashimew]

my real honest truth is that hardly anyone in gachiakuta shaves. not even tamsy is 100% bald it crawls up a little bit. they’re all bush embracers and it applies to their partner too.

[tteokdoroki]

🛞 TAKING SPACE ✩  aang .ᐟ

🏁 pit stop ! 𖦹 aang has always taken up space, in your heart, your mind and amongst the things that you own. he's larger than life and perhaps, larger than what you can physically take. (6K)

🏁 safety car ! ⋆ not safe for work ⋆ smut ⋆ eighteen plus only. aang the last airbender, sorta canon compliant, characters are adults, established relationships, size kink, strength kink, condescension, fingering ( f!receiving ), just the tip, unprotected sex, cumming inside, he glows when he cums. avatar aang, fem reader.

🏁  team radio ! ⋆ hey ... hi ... what started out as a little silly thought turned into something very crazy. so very crazy. this is for @peachversace with a little help from @bfbkg at the end hehe !! aang is so fine guys im gonna tear my teeth out. anyways i rlly hope u like mwah sorry for any typos !! click for more. 

── © tteokdoroki ╱ 2026.

aang has always taken up space.

if you were to try and pinpoint the exact centre of the solar system, you would probably start with him. his personality glows, like the golden delicious flicker of sunlight on your skin as it wades through tree leaves and breaks through a canopy with ease. if a planet were to die because the sun stopped burning, you think you’d feel the same if aang suddenly went away. the two are comparable. objectively. 

he regards strangers with the same amount of kindness as a child with no clue on how the world works would. wide eyed, uncaring — a friend of a friend until there is a reason to find someone an enemy. one might say that it’s his greatest weapon, another, his fatal flaw. aang’s larger-than-life smile, all teeth and dazzled eyes, is the glue that keeps you all together, the one person that seals the space as though it were some kind of bonding. the same space he takes up. his heart is large with room for all, including you, always you. even if it took time to see beyond the blinding light and notice.

aang takes up physical space too. 

you have no idea when you started having to crane your neck up to get a glimpse of him. when the short boy, with the wildest dreams and weight of everything on his shoulders, started towering over you without looking down at you. you can’t remember when he turned stocky, and his shoulders broadened to rival the wingspan of those who feel just as at home in the sky as he does. it’s hard to place when his welcomed hugs stopped feeling like a warm kiss from the sun and started stoking the same level of heat deep within as if someone had thrown coal onto a fire and left it to burn into ash for the wind. if aang were to hug you now, you’d only be able to think about his size, and how it could crush you. with all that muscle and all that strength — it fills you with greed.

vacancy and blankness become common themes in your mind whenever the avatar dares to be near. he leans down to your height, an easy going smile slanted onto his lips with the type of carelessness that comes with throwing caution into the wind too many times to count. “hm?” he’ll often say, as though the added height makes it harder to hear and aang is always so keen to listen, clinging onto your every word as though it’s ancient scripture. you’ve never had this problem before, not growing up glued to his side and watching him become the world’s hero — at least you think. 

perhaps your heart has always fluttered for him like petals in a breeze.

it’s just worse. now that you know each other intimately. 

aang takes up space.

the tent you’ve set up for the night feels cramped, fit for a bird who doesn’t dare fly free. what one might call a prison, another would call a dwelling for something precious. the width of his shoulders, down to the angular taper of his torso are somehow large enough to shield the bare bones of your body from any one who may happen to pass by. you feel sheltered underneath him, daunted by his mountainous shape that seems to cast a shadow over you — one where you can hide the quiver in your bottom lip, not from fear but from anticipation. a root in your lungs that intermingled with the bronchial trees that help you breathe. the root then florets and flutters, bringing a pleasant tingle south of where your mind grows misty as though a cool fog has broken over a calm body of water. 

it’s all because of how…thickset and strapping he’s become. 

your dainty fingers traverse the mountainous man like an explorer trying to reach the top, you feel the way the jus les in aang’s back ripple and interlock underneath his clothes that strain to keep him contained. he peers down at you with a kind of … alluring patience. the fact that he’s willing to wait, won’t use his strength against you, worsens the lurch of lust in your lower stomach and between your thighs which part to make room for his waistline. through the smog that clouds your sensibilities, you manage to take a peek at the avatar, let your gaze fall over the edge to admire the sights of his plush heaving chest and the sky blue arrowhead markings that he wears proudly on his sleeves — you can’t believe how beautiful he is. that he’s yours. that he puts his shoes next to your own when he steps into your home, that he’s got a favourite pillow on his side of the bed that you share, that he—!

“are you sure you want to do this?” his voice breaks through the clouds like a striking ray of sunshine ready to ghost its warmth over your skin. when you blink, aang is already looking, already analysing you the way one would read over their favourite passage in a book to make sure they hadn’t missed anything. he drinks in the details of your visage, the breathless part of your lips and the dilation to your sparkling eyes — there’s hunger within them, an appetite only aang has the ability to appease. he knows the answer to his question before he’s even asked it, unspoken as the words hang his perfect pearly white teeth. hooked there like they’re the keys to your heart.  

“aang,” your heart, that organ of yours — the one that keeps you alive and present and in the moment. it skips a beat, enough to make you notice but not enough to make you worry. it won’t beat out of your chest, you won’t die of a heartache if the way he looks at you doesn’t kill you first. something out of history, something timeless to be admired for generations to come. you wait for your heartbeat to settle under the nightly ambience outside of your tent, though you’re sure aang might have picked up on it already. “i said yes.” 

he leans away from you to shrug off a flurry of orange and yellow fabrics — revealing a battle scarred and well-carved body. there’s so many colours within aang, the sun, the sky at golden hour, the brilliant blue of the morning, the stormy grey whirling in his eyes. he could be a painting, a work of art they’d speak of for millennia to come… but he’s yours. taming up space in your mind as though he hasn’t a dime of rent to pay.

there were times where you’d hesitate to reach out and touch the avatar, to smooth over the sketching of his scars in the middle of his chest. now you’re sure, certain, pressing your fingers into it because it has to mean something. you have to affect him as much as he affects you. 

“aang.” you repeat all the letters of his name, seriousness stirred between them — blending like honey in milk.

an infallible, perhaps teetering on the edge of omniscient, beam breaks out on the smooth canvas of the avatar’s face. no longer youthful like you remember, but older, handsomely aged like a brew perfected over time. “if you’re positive.” he says, cheerful — so maybe a little childlike, tongue darting out to playfully nip your fingers that now cup his chin. wagging his clean shaven head from side to side.

so handsome, there’s barely enough room in your head to think anything else in the world could be this pretty.

you almost forget that you’re bare. naked as the day you were born. you shudder when aang’s bare hand presses firm against your sternum — warm because, of course, he’s the avatar who can bend the elements at his skilled will. it’s heated a touch, but still goosebumps rise on your skin in a tidal wave, and your nipples harden into whipped peaks. aang ignores them in search of something more, not that he doesn’t want to take his time with you. you’re just undeniable, you’ve been waiting all day for more than intimately placed touches and soft lips against your forehead. there’s more he intends to give to you. 

the avatar finds your slick entrance with the kind of practised ease only a man in love would possess. there’s no need for guidance when he can effortlessly find the points and spots that have you dulcetly drawling his name as though it’s one of your prized possessions. a best kept secret. a hidden treasure. two digits, thick and calloused, slide in with little to no resistance and curl almost instantly in search for your sweet spot — pressing down hard on the gooey nub nestled further along your walls. for the whole duration, aang waits for your silent please, consent for more, with baited breath. his lungs full of enough anticipatory air to give birth to a thunderstorm.

that’s all the sign he needs to navigate further south, follow the pulse of your blood flow to the aching buzz hardening in your clit. cheekily, the avatar tacks the pad of his thumb to the pleasure button, brushing it from side to side, round and round in tight circles — launching you into the stratosphere with what feels like a gust of blistering hot wind. meanwhile, his deft fingers between pudgy thighs get to work — the pace aang begins with reflects exactly who he is, unyielding and unpredictable. the intensity doesn’t build slow, it’s rapid akin to that of a dangerous river sectional. though his movements are not rushed, the flex of his wrist aids the two digits scissoring you open for the stretch that’s yet to come.

your entrance grows sappy and filthy around what manages to fit inside — filling you and dragging along your molten ichorous walls, so hot you’d put a fire bender to shame. the little squeaks  that escape you, airy and feather light layer messily over lewd squelching sounds echoing from between your shaky legs that tremble as though the earth has decided to split in two. grey eyes start to glimmer, mimicking the moonshine through nightly cloud cover, and a wry grin splinters on the avatar’s soft lips — a result of your precious cunt, making a spectacle around aang’s fingers. rippling and drooling down arrow shaped tattoos that twist around the length of his muscled arm and wrist. 

aang maps you out, travelling your gooey walls as though he’s trying to rediscover a place he once called home. familiar. welcoming. like discovering a new island, he pinions against pleasure spots lining your walls that you’d never be able to reach without him . although your tightness presents as resistance, the manner in which you paw at his wrist in a quiet plea for more and anything further to placate the twist in your gut, tells aang that you want this. need this. soaring high, aang flies you to new heights of ecstasy — sets your body adrift, floating above cloud nine.

he’s mesmerised, watching his favourite view, the squeeze of your cunt around him to prevent escape. each time his digits pump in and out of you, you cutely clench at the knuckle, as if to stop him from going too far. under the candle light, the avatar can’t help but flux into the giddy feeling like a slow drip of pale candle wax pooling at the base of its holder. simply knowing that he is the one making your pussy gush, translucent essence sliding down the length of your swollen slit and into the rustling fabrics below, licks his ego. stokes it like coals on a flame. 

“so wet here, so soft.” aang makes a sort of chuffing noise against your hairline, swooping down to level flat against the flooring of your tent. chest to chest, hearts beating in sync as though they’re drums following a similar tune. though aang’s voice dips low, the baritone register winding ropes within your lower stomach,  his intonation is cheery — bright like the sun at noon. “pretty baby, just look at you chasin’ it.” 

your hips twitch upwards at the avid taunting, called upon by his convincing siren’s song. you wonder if he’s bending your body in the same way he does with the four elements because you arch your back into the centre of him, magnetised by the lull of his heart beating for you. 

“someone’s impatient, easy baby.” neither mean nor gentle, aang divulges objective fact — sweat settling into the smile lines that bracket his subtle smirk. his teasing is as relentless as the press of his digits against the one special spot that clears your mind completely. he gives, gifting you another slab of arcadia until it stacks high to come tumbling down because aang has always been so, so kind. your quivering hole stretches wide over the broad stroke of his fingers, clear and sticky essence a glimmering glaze over them, wetter and wetter by the second beside you can’t stop bucking against their force. 

you point him in the right direction as he navigates your ecstasy, helping him erratically assault your pussy even though the avatar is more than capable of crumbling you like precious stone. but you burn everywhere, in your pelvis and your muscles pulled tight with the tension of holding back — flames burn at the oxygen nurturing your lungs and if aang weren’t the center star that boils to a billion degrees, the heat in your face would be enough to rival him. 

a dopey, delirious smile creates a habitat amongst your sweat-slicked features — carved against them like ancient scripture on stone only a man such as aang has the skill to decipher. “been waiting all day...” waiting for more than just hands under clothes. more than just yearning gazes swapped between the motions of your friends. “please, please, please. need you more…” the plea tastes like desperation against the tip of your tongue, the kind you only feel when your whole world is about to cave in, the sort that brings a tear to your eyes with the same sharp rapidness of a tidal boar. 

aang grounds you, soothes you, becomes the very force that brings you back to land out of fear the waters may wash you away. he takes up that space around your heart that knocks the beat down to a level that’s sustainable. with sweltering kisses marked against your hairline, chaste balmy from his own layer of perspiration, appearing almost like a second skin.  in response, a heatwave crashes through your body like a desert breeze — particles of unadulterated lust and hunger catching on the high points of your body. 

the back of the avatar’s head is clammy where you reach to it for leverage, crossing your arms at the back of his head. you bring the hardline of aang’s body against you, his stomach meeting yours with a wet slap because so much arousal has pooled there. his cock, leaky, hard and monstrous, rocks against soft flesh — jumping between you both like a glaring warning sign because he is just so big. 

“i don’t want to hurt you, might not be ready yet.” he says with the same restraint as a child being told to wait until after dinner for a sweet treat. aang is good, he regards you gently as though you’re something that might fracture with too much pressure — yet he knows what you can take, how much you can endure for the sake of losing yourself to him for a little while. just like his body on top of yours, aang’s large palm slots perfectly against your pussy — the seat of his palm grinding against your puffy clit alongside the rhythm of his thrusting fingers. nirvana begins to flash behind your eyes, blurting your vision as you blink up at him meekly. 

you like the burn. the stretch. the pain that comes with taking aang and he reads it in your darkening eyes, open like a book.

“it won’t hurt,” you argue back, though your words carry no weight. they taper into a cottony sigh, whisked away from the night’s breeze — icy against your temperate skin. sweat drops from his shoulders to your chest, glueing him to you. he’s a solid mass on top of you, contrary to the silky webbing of your mound, ruined beneath his fingers that work you unrelentingly. pleasure breaks through you like the sun rising above the horizon, highlighting the glow of your body as an orgasm nears. “please don’t make me wait, aang…”

aang chuckles, the weight of it carried by whirling winds and his fingers leave you for just a moment, an empty hole waiting to be filled – trembling without him. seamlessly, his delicate caress glides over your throbbing mound, growing cold and slick as time passes by. strings of clear, tarry elixir pruriently prevents his touch from straying too far from where you need him most. “you’re so pretty when you say please.” he exhales through his nose in a serene gust, spreading his fingers to watch your arousal web amidst them.

“aang–!”

“how about i make you cum?” he volunteers, and you despite the steamroll of fog starting to cloud your mind, you fail to miss the playful lilt that clings to his every word. it’s more of a statement than a suggestion, with aang riding the clouds between your thoughts, there’s no room to argue either. he acts first, on the same kind of brave impulse you’ve seen from him in battle many times before, delivering a few sappy love taps to your unattended sex. toying with you through a guise of a half-lidded smile that lures you into feeling safe.

he discerns your swollen clit from equally swollen folds once more, a muddlement of sin to be solved by one of the most powerful beings on earth, and draws his name across the hood of the sensitive little nub — drawing back the extra skin just to press your own slick into it. your back peels away from the tent’s flooring from where sweat had gathered to cleave the skin to it, trembling and twitching as you bow into aang, invade his space, crawl into it for sanctuary. though, in this safety net – you find yourself pincered, caught between his lips that descend upon yours and the lengthy, agile pointers that act with the alacrity of the sky’s breath. aang licks into your mouth briskier than your brain can keep up, stealing every soft breath and shackly snuffle that lays underneath your tongue. he tastes you like he’s losing a memory he wants to keep, tracking your flavour in your breezy breath before you have the sense to plead for more.

in due time, he’ll give it to you.

he’ll instimulate the careful crease between your brows and the petulant little pout that drags down the corners of your mouth even as you meet his with the same balance of the elements. harmonious and restorative all at once. he kisses you like it’ll heal him, the dulling phantom ache in his scars, the mass of loss in his past and the burdens of the future. you take it all to your lungs, inhale it into the space within your vital organs because pain like his should never be borne alone.

even still, the avatar hisses with a mix of awed ail when your nails break carmine crescent moons against the blue sails of his arrowhead tattoos. you grasp at his sinewy forearms for stability, something grounding like a plant taking root in new soils, and clench around dexterous digits that once more reclaim the claggy path of your ruined insides. whilst you howl like a storm’s winds and chase the seed of pleasure flourishing within your bubbling tummy – aang has a vision, like one of those who have walked the same path before him, casting imagery of hurricanes pulled from skies and storm clouds torn to little tufts in the name of you. 

because he loves you. 

your struggling, shuddering thighs and aerated gasps. the way you hold onto him like a lifeline as your orgasm brings you right to the edge of balance – the pendulum threatening to knock you off. aang’s fingers twist and brush amongst your sensitivity and it’s not long before all the pleasure that had been building crumbles under the tidal wave of arousal that crashes through you. “let go for me, baby,” he whispers earnestly against your cupid’s bow, hoping that it coaxes you along and unties the tightness lingering there. “there you go, good girl…” 

his words undo you like your binding holding you together never existed, weakened by time and attention. the care aang takes to bring you to heaven pushes you into release, one that has your juices splashing down the length of aang’s burly arms as though he’s squeezed a ripened fruit. all at once, you seize beneath him and gush into his palm seat, quaking through aftershocks where your cunt is the epicentre. he finds your mouth, fallen open in a whiney mewl, and wheedles you into a soothing wet kiss where tongue’s tangle and breathing draws ragged like the sharp edge of an earth-bended mountain.

once you’re calm, reduced to the gentle rock of a boat on the very water aang controls, your needy screams retreat too. everything melting  into soft pants and a dreamy gaze through your droopy eyelids. 

your appetite remains unruly, however.

“wan’ more.” you mumble in a quiet wisp – demanding, nearing playful. a challenge laying in the candle light like a trap for the avatar, plans barely concealed by the mirth swirling in your clearing, glassy eyes.

in their reflection, aang sees himself. body worn but spirit never tired of the games you play with one another. he heedily lowers you back to the flooring of the tent, arranges you neatly amongst fur pelts and blankets that soften like his leer on you.a picturesque view, skin shining like the surface of silk, thighs sticky with your body’s syrup, bare chest heaving like you’ve got oxygen to spare. you’re so beautiful it's easy to give into you. if there were any weakness the avatar were to possess, it would be you.

silence, bearable and conservant, is born between your bodies. it steals space, not unkindly, because you know aang’s quiet  gives way to his next actions, the plan he’ll take to bring you to bliss once more. his large palms, coarse from weathering the elements, span down your being again – through the valley of your breasts, down your sternum and into the soft fleshiness of your tummy.

“you’re sure?” he laughs, holding breath under his tongue. even as he questions you, aang shuffles onto his haunches to shred the last of his dignity – the fabric of his pants whirring across the tent.

your vision stoops low, following the arrows that point to the one thing you’ve been craving all evening. to say the avatar is … gifted… would be an under estimation – his shaft is ample in both size and weight, dripping from the dull tip and seedy slit, slightly curved with balls that are pink and plump. ripe with seed. you feel your stomach twitch underneath his touch and he does too – as though its preparing to take his size fully. grey eyes darken with a storm of lust once you find aang’s face again – merriment dawning on his features.

“you’ve asked me that a million times already,” you huff, cadence carrying petulance. “you don’t think i can handle you, avatar?’

he shakes his head. “i know what you can handle, i pay attention to your limits.” he says it like he knows something you don’t, a trick up his metaphorical sleeve to be unveiled the further this game advances. your move. it reads.

crawling over you once more, broad upper body blocking out the world and a slender waist shuffles between your thighs. aang is at your neck this time, gently nipping at your neck to leave his mark in the same manner that you’ve left one on his heart. saliva soothes the crease of his teeth indented into your skin, warm and distracting while the hands once at your stomach press into the lissome fat at your hips – manhandling you in the position he desires most. 

there’s no space between you know, not even a millimetre, ardent flesh bonding and soon to become one. the beat of your heart links like the next note of a song, nipples brushing sensitively as they harden under the night air. aang throws your legs over his wide-set shoulders, spreading you open and parting the webs of slick glueing together your swollen folds. a warm, gooey pressure burns against your entrance, his hips jutting forward to run his cock through the length of your slit – the sensation is not unwelcome, the slight sting of pain feels just like returning home after a long journey. where everything aches and nothing seems to settle.

his tip dully breaks through the translucent netting gathering at your entrance, gradually filling you inch by inch until you physically feel swole just from the tip. you flutter around him weakly, once for every throb of his girth against your nociceptive ridges.

only half of what he has makes it in, and even then, you experience the kind of fullness that comes with that of a full moon. hard to ignore, a sight to behold. you lift your lower half, circling your hips down to swallow what he offers, because too much is never enough and you have always been greedy when it comes to aang.

he’s a hero to the world, barely something you get to keep sacred and to yourself.

it’s hard to miss, impossible not to notice and aang bucks forward ever so slightly, rewarding you with more stretch, more burn, more of his cock. you suction around the rippling pang and clasp the back of his damp neck while your body accommodates for his size. “aang…m-more!’ your voice is raw, throat bobbing from the delighted tears you’ve been holding back and the avatar’s strong hands lift your lips higher, hoping it’ll alleviate the ache for more.

“baby, you’re being so greedy tonight, what’s with that?” the question slips into the sudden torrid atmosphere, though it’s amused – sitting behind a smile you can’t see ( it blurs as you sniffle ), aang groans. fractured, lust living between the cracks. “just take this much for now,” he doesn’t bottom out, only thrusts shallowly, letting the sweltersome head of his cock nudge your ribbed walls. “can’t give you all of my cock… have to be somewhere you can get help if it goes wrong,” 

that should be enough to destroy you.

aang fucks you half way down his length all whilst caging you in, his sweet mouse caught in a trap, pushing and pulling from your adorably selfish hole – beginning a sensual, swing to his own hips. you feel the wiry muscle of his thighs crook against your ass as the avatar practically puts you through the bedding. in your mind, aang makes up the middle of the universe, yet to him, your pleasure becomes the heart of his – he uses the strength bursting from his biceps to jerk you back and forth on what plugs you full. 

he is not rough, but focused, relishing in the juices you baste him in – smearing your juices along his hard stomach, where it pools against his tattoos and his belly button. the force he uses to roll into you lulls a symphony of whiney bleats from between your wet and kiss swollen lips, a sweet song that mingles with the soft slap of skin on skin filling your tent.

your body threatens to break once more, your arms like a loose neck tie around his thick throat and your shaky  hands finding purchase on his clean shaken head. all you can do is sink into him, let him overrule your body, taking it over— mind, body and soul. in return, he frees a hand to angles in your roots like the winds rushing through your hair, hugging you close so that you never fade away. even then he kisses you as though the world has taken you from him, too much all at once, overwhelming you with the curve of his tongue breaching realms beyond your pearly white teeth. aang tastes you, and tastes you, lips balmy  moving against yours with such vigor it nearly distracts you from the intensity of his thrusts.

where aang usually carries the scent of freshly cut grass and freedom – the fragrance twists into something more profane, the husk from your cunt and the sweat evaporating on your skin from how frequently it all meets. the atmosphere tingles with his devotion to you. 

your calves start to tingle where they violently shake on aang’s shoulders, every part of you spasms even down to your cunt that wraps around him like a vice. you feel ravaged, fractured, pathetically split open on his thickness even though it’s still only half. 

it doesn’t matter how you thrash and whine in a desperate effort to swallow another inch, aang remains sturdy above you. immovable. where the blankets and pelts begin to slip from the motion of your bodies working together, the avatar allows his mouth to cover you – silken spit drying against your breasts that bounce from passionate motion. he acts with the motion of a starved man who cannot go a second without another meal, tongue circling your areolas at a speed that matches the feverish punch of his weighty girth against your g-spot.

you cannot imagine a world without aang in it, without aang’s presence filling every corner like the sunrise in an empty room. kisses golden and glowing. the way he looks down at you like you’re worth a war and regards you with cool toned eyes that feel free of burden when you’re in view – draws you closer to a peak. there are so many feelings in aang’s eyes, slithering between your bodies, he fills you with more with each rut of his hips into yours, a creamy and lewd ring frothing around what doesn’t fit inside. 

“y-you’re so good,” you babble him earnestly, losing breath to his intensity, pussy pulsating over the prominent veins and ridges twirling around aang’s chubby girth. his thrusts pull and push at your spongy insides – bumping against pleasure spots you didn’t even know you had. “c-can you please just…give me more…?”

“you’re so needy, baby,” aang circles an arm around your waist and leans back on his haunches. his knees resting pelts whilst he manoeuvres himself  in a kneeling position. this time, he is able to bottom out fully, unexpectedly. he hits the hilt with a low, rumbling sound against the crown of your head – as if finally being sheathed inside of you has pulled him to pieces before you.“how’s this? d-deeper? fuller?”

in this new position, you’re sure you’ve crossed over to the spirit world. the new pressure is blinding, the assault on your g-spot is constant and mimics the ever-turning of the planet you live on. if you could, you’d cry out for the aid of a spirit but instead, through the lasciviousness lodged in your throat, his name is born like a prayer on your lips. “a-aang!”

“yeah, i know,” he mutters, overcome with emotion, eyes on you everywhere. the angelic contortions of your face, the drip of nectar from your hypersensitive cunt to his balls. everywhere.  “gods i know, you’re practically choking me out down there. that’s nice… so nice.”

your eyes become misty and aang’s voice becomes a murky strain, breaths of exertion coasting over your heated face as he strikes up an almost bullying, breezy pace to his slender hips as they pummel into your sex. now, he is able to hit deep — twist and turn your gummy organs up and drag over the sensitive ridges you can’t reach normally.

clawing at aang’s neck, you use the last of your vigour to grind against him. futile but sweet. your second release borders on pain since you’re spread over him, dull head of his cock near kissing the entrance to your womb. you asked for this, now you’re slumped and weak in his lap. a pathetic ragdoll that’s loved more than it’s toyed with. neither of you mind the fade in your endurance, after all the support and care you’ve given to aang through his hardest moments – he adores being able to return the favour like this. watch himself bulge in your tummy whilst your mind slips away from you. watch the faint part of your lips as you cry his praises and flit of your lashes whilst you attempt to hold his gaze.

“you like it better like this, i know.” aang coos, tone not too far off from wonder. lilt a little more than condescending. without disparaging his strength, he hauls you back and forth on his soiled shaft, a crude mix of precum and the sweet nectar your cunt drools helping him glide through your tightness.   “when i…. move you up and down up and down… there we go,” for the millionth time that night, he laughs. pure and bright, sparking your nerve endings. that’s when you gush, when the chord of tension snaps and you begin to violently convulse with your second orgasm.

he leans an arm past your back to steady himself with balls of air at his finger tips, other hand jumping up to span into the curve of your spine whilst you keen into him. wailing high like whistling winds. “you’re so cute when you’re cumming.” he purrs, boyishly devoted to your pleasure  just as you reach the summit on the mountain, your peak, squirting all the way down aang’s thickness. 

the world around you blurs as though water has mixed with wet paint used to capture darling memories,. a scream rips through you and burns at the fraying edges of your voice. clear streams of arousal shoot from your sluice sex and dampen the pelts, soak aang to the bone – nearly forcing his drowning dick out of you.

his rhythm barely wavers; not even when he is chasing both of your releases, running with the wind as his tip nudges against your pleasure spot over and over. moans rising in octave with every step he takes closer to orgasm.

for a moment, you think, your presence fills aang with as much light and life as he does with you. 

a thumb winds down to your clit with a brand new purpose, noting the aftershocks running through you that bring him his own sense of euphoria. he’s careful with you now, gently jerking you in his lap while his thoughts turn blank, mind crowded with thoughts of only you.  “so small… compared to me. it’s adorable, god, you really are —!” when aang cums, his forehead falls to yours, grey eyes brimming with a glowing blue that extends to the tattoos painted permanently into his body. he glows bright, a beacon of love in the night. then he hiccups, airy and low, succumbing to your shuddering warmth – ecstasy twisting through him like a tornado that’s grown over time. “perfect.”

opaque white shoots into you in viscous ropes, clinging to your wet walls – gathering in a frothy ring at your entrance. none of it is wasted, the avatar insistent on plugging you full. he finds sanctuary in the curve of your neck, breathy curses tattooed into your skin which tickle pleasantly. aang keeps you in his arms before exhaustion settles into your bones and his body threatens to cop out completely—  he just about manages to land on his side before his weight crushes you.

a pregnant silence takes up space in the tenant. tender as your weary eyes meet and heart rates slow to a standstill. aang’s face creases with adoring attachment, triumphant and adoring and childish. you don’t need words to know that he loves you, that he would give up anything to stay right here with you.

i love you.

it comes easy, reciprocating – you find his fingers in your heap of lips and brush a kiss against them so briskly one might mistake your light affection for a breeze.

i love you always.

aang takes up space, in your room next to your things. in your mind where all your best memories lie. and most importantly, in your heart.

end ! likes are appreciated, but just liking doesn’t do much on tumblr! to support and motivate myself and other writers, reply, reblog and comment if you'd like to see more!! — asks are open to thirsts and thoughts! join my taglist ! love you!

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © TTEOKDOROKI 2020-26. all fanfics & layouts belong to me. do not copy, repost, translate, feed into ai, or recommend elsewhere.

[wadigrove]

“and then he—zuko, honey, stop for a second,” you laugh, though the sound comes out softer than you mean it to, already dissolving into something fond the moment your hands slide up around his neck. your fingers curl there, warm against his skin, trying—failing—to hold him still.

zuko only hums in response, the sound low and pleased, like he doesn’t quite believe you mean it. his smile presses into your skin, barely there but unmistakable, and he leans in closer instead of pulling away. his nose brushes along your pulse, slow, deliberate, like he’s mapping you out by touch alone, like he’s reacquainting himself with something he’s been away from too long.

“i’m not doing anything,” he murmurs, voice warm and rough in that quiet way that always undoes you. his hand slides along your side and then—light, teasing—he pokes at your waist, right where he knows it will make you react.

you gasp a little, a soft, startled giggle slipping out before you can stop it, your grip tightening around him as if that might ground you, might stop him from continuing.

it doesn’t.

he looks at you, just for a second, lifting his head enough for you to catch it properly—the way he’s softened. there’s no tension in his jaw, no crease between his brows, no weight sitting heavy behind his eyes. his hair is loose, falling around his face in dark, easy strands, catching the low light like ink touched by gold. he looks like a patch of sunlight filtered through warmth, something gentle and alive, something that belongs to quiet evenings instead of council chambers.

it hits you all at once, that contrast.

this is the same man who sits on a throne carved from history, who listens to advisors and generals, who carries treaties and reforms and the future of a nation in his hands. the same man who spends long hours in rooms filled with expectation, who wears his crown like it’s both a duty and a promise. you’ve seen him tired lately—more than he lets on. seen the way his shoulders hold tension even when he thinks no one is looking, the way his voice dips just slightly at the end of the day, worn but still steady.

but here—

here, he is just yours.

and soft.

and so, so warm.

his forehead brushes your jaw, his lips following after, slow and unhurried as he presses small, lingering kisses into your skin. your neck, your cheek, the corner of your mouth—each one like he’s reminding himself you’re real, that you’re here, that this moment belongs to him.

“just… i missed you, my darling,” he murmurs, and there’s something quieter beneath it now. something honest, almost fragile in its simplicity. his arms come around you more fully, pulling you in until there’s no space left between you, like he needs the closeness, like he’s been without it for too long.

your heart stutters, then steadies, then blooms—warm and full, like a flame catching again after being left to dim. you tilt your head slightly, giving him space, letting your hand slide up into his hair, threading through it gently, holding him there as much as he holds you.

“i missed you too,” you whisper back, your voice softer now, matching his, meeting him in that same quiet space.

he stills just enough for you to find his lips.

the kiss is gentle at first, almost tentative, like he’s savoring it, like he doesn’t want to rush something he’s been craving. his hand comes up to cradle your face, thumb brushing lightly along your cheek, grounding himself in the moment. and then he leans in just a little more, deepening it—not urgent, not overwhelming, just… present. warm. steady.

like him.

when he pulls back, it’s only by a breath, his forehead resting against yours, eyes half-lidded and soft in a way that makes your chest ache.

and for a moment, the world outside doesn’t exist.

no throne. no council. no weight of anything waiting for him beyond this room.

just him, and you, and the quiet warmth he’s been holding onto all day—

finally allowed to come home.