“the One that got away.”

18+ |Desi|

[valkosdesidoll]

Guys why are my boys in my morning newspaper

[terriblesoup]

His woman

Summary: the after-event of this:

The door clicked softly behind them as they stepped into the quiet of their home, the echo of music and laughter from the banquet fading into stillness. She stood for a moment, her eyes lingering on him—his broad shoulders still wrapped in the dark suit jacket, the faint remnants of the evening’s glow on his face. in her chest, a warm, steady pride unfurled, this was her man. Sylus. Leader of Onichynus, the most dangerous soul in any hall or banquet, feared and revered alike. Yet here, within the quiet of their home, he was simply hers. Without a word, she stepped forward and gently brushed her fingers over the collar of his jacket, smoothing it once before carefully sliding it from his shoulders.

Sylus watched her with cautious tenderness, his brows slightly raised, a soft, fond question in his eyes. She didn’t speak—she didn’t need to. She folded his jacket with deliberate care, smoothing the fabric, and hung it on its wooden stand by the door. When she turned back to him, her expression was warm—glowing, almost—and she reached for his hand.

Her fingers slid between his, tentative yet sure, and she gave his hand the smallest tug. He followed her willingly. His lips curved into the faintest smile as she silently led him through the hallways lit by the soft amber glow of the sconces, the shadows following them like a secret only they shared. They walked slowly, as though savoring every step, every heartbeat.

In their bedroom, she turned to face him. For a moment, she stood still—just looking at him. Then, as though she could no longer contain the gentle storm inside her heart, she rose onto her toes and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Then another, and another, delicate as butterfly wings. Sylus blinked, surprised at first, then softened—his shoulders relaxing, his breath catching quietly.

“Everything alright?” he asked, voice low and touched with affection.

She didn’t answer right away. She only smiled and brushed a kiss at the corner of his jaw before whispering, “Go shower. I’ll be here.” Her tone was hushed, not command but promise.

He nodded, still a little puzzled but smiling, and disappeared into the bathroom. She sat on the edge of the bed, waiting, listening to the distant rhythm of water against tile. Her fingertips rested on the soft blanket, but her mind replayed the word she heard tonight—his woman. It fluttered in her chest like a heartbeat she never knew she longed for.

When he emerged, the door opened with a soft creak, steam curling past his shoulders. His hair was damp, clinging slightly to his neck. He rubbed the back of his head with a towel, unaware of how softly she watched him. He hadn’t even taken a full step into the room when she moved.

She crossed to him silently, barefoot on the cool floor. She lifted her hand and pressed a soft kiss to his shoulder, still warm from the shower. Then another to the back of his neck. He stilled, towel paused in his hands, breath catching. He turned slowly to face her, his eyes wide with quiet wonder.

She didn’t speak. She only reached for his hand, holding it gently in both of hers. Her thumb traced over the veins and tendons on the back of his hand, reverent, as though memorizing every line. Only then did she lift her gaze to his.

His expression melted—soft, almost aching with how much he adored her. He placed the towel aside and slipped an arm around her waist, pulling her closer until their chests nearly brushed. Their breaths mingled in the space between them. He lowered his head slightly, his forehead almost touching hers.

“You’re… very affectionate tonight,” he murmured with a faint, blissful smile. His voice was gentle, a quiet question hidden under the words. “Not that I’m complaining. Just… should I know why?”

She only shrugged softly and pressed three quick kisses to his cheek—each one softer than the last. He laughed under his breath, a quiet, stunned sound, letting her do as she pleased with a tenderness that made his heart ache.

He brushed a strand of hair from her face, his thumb lingering at her jaw. “Is this about what they called you tonight?” he asked, voice playful yet shy. “At the banquet.”

She paused. Then nodded—slowly, shyly, her cheeks warming. She didn’t notice the way his own face softened and pinked slightly, how his chest lifted with a breath he’d kept locked away.

“They called me…” she whispered, eyes dropping for a moment. “Your woman.”

Sylus lifted her chin gently so she’d look at him. His voice was low, sincere. “You are.”

She smiled, radiant and unguarded. “And you’re my man.”

His chest tightened, overflowing with something wordless and vast. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead—slow, lingering, as though making a vow. “I am your man,” he whispered against her skin. “As you are my woman. Always.”

She breathed in, then out, and rested her forehead against his collarbone, her arms sliding around his waist. He held her close, one hand at her back, the other cradling the back of her head. No more words were spoken—but their silence was full, brimming with love and the quiet promise of forever.

divders by @strangergraphics

[wallflowerwritesstuff]

to right a wrong

**

when a misunderstanding causes both you and Valko to walk on eggshells, Em becomes the voice of reason.

TW: implications of depression/mental health issues, implications of low self worth, implications of past self harm, implications of fear of abandonment

**

He never found out why you were sad. 

You refused to tell him, for some reason, but it had been weighing on him ever since he left your apartment. The apartment you had nearly refused to let him into the first time you met, but had somehow managed to become more of a home than his own place. 

“You alright?” 

He perked, peeking at the woman beside him. “Em,” he murmured, wondering how long she’d been there. “I, uh, yeah. Just thinking.”

She didn’t make a snarky comment or joke as usual, frowning slightly in a way that somehow reminded him of you. There were certain things about you both that had him at a loss sometimes, but the main difference was that while Em did smell nice, you made his head spin. 

You were addicting in every sense of the word, actually. 

Your smile, as rare as it was, always managed to stun him into silence. The way it gently touched your eyes before retreating behind closed lips that pressed thin.  

Your laugh had a similar effect. The sight managed to invoke something ugly in him—possessive and raw. He wanted the image and sound of you laughing to be just for his eyes, his concern mixing with greed and making something that would probably terrify anyone who wasn’t you. 

Because despite the wall you kept between the two of you, never had you rejected him. 

Open arms would be a stretch, but you’d given him food. Shelter. Concern hidden behind exasperated sighs and rolled eyes. 

So could anyone blame him for being so damn worried?  

“Is it about her?” Em questioned curiously, tapping him in the head with the file in her hand to get his attention. “The girl you’ve been visiting at night?” 

Valko didn’t deny it, canines digging into his lower lip. 

Em sighed. “She still down in the dumps?” 

“Yeah,” he sighed, dropping all attempts at professionalism. “Something is wrong and I know that…but she seems…” 

He trailed off, unsure of what you seemed.

You weren’t happy. That much was clear from watching you when you thought he wasn’t. You weren't entirely sad, either, though. It was almost like you were in a constant state of walking along a tightrope, unsure whether to continue across or remain where you'd managed to maintain balance.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, crossing his arms and deflating slightly.  

“Maybe ask her outright what’s going on? Or I can if you want?” 

“No.” 

A raised brow. 

“No?” she questioned, reminding you an awful lot of that doctor she was currently engaged to. 

“I don’t want to pry.”

“Maybe she needs you to.” 

He squinted. “I doubt that.” 

He’d grown up with too many women to believe that could be the solution to this issue. Space was important…more than anything else someone could give to a person attempting to make sense of the world around them. 

“Trust me. Just ask.” 

He did trust her. More than most people.

“What if I push a boundary?”

“You could never,” Em snorted. “You once felt bad for weeks because you ate my last piece of candy by accident.”

Valko heated in the cheeks. “You were so bummed about it and almost cried….” 

“And now I have a year's supply because of a certain someone,” she chuckled with a smile. “Well, a month, if I’m lucky. Hubby loves them, too. But back to the topic at hand…she probably wouldn’t mind sharing what’s wrong with you of all people. You might still think you’re practically strangers but she trusts you to a certain degree if she lets you into her apartment.” 

“You give me too much credit,” he sighed, sure his ears would have gone flat if they were visible. 

“What’s her favorite food?” 

“Empanadas with her mom’s homemade sauce on the side.” 

“Favorite thing to do?” 

“Listen to music and rain sounds.” 

“Any hobbies?” 

“She really likes researching flowers and arrangements,” he said with a slight smile at the thought. “But she has the worst luck with keeping them alive if not at the shop.” 

Em gave him a look that he couldn’t quite understand. 

He pouted. “I’m confused what any of this has to do with helping her, Em.”

“Of course you are,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “My point stands. Ask her. Be straightforward but sensitive.” 

Deciding that maybe a change in approach was indeed the way to go, he stood, palms pressed against his desk as he removed his glasses and began to remove his white coat. 

Em stood as well, eyes narrowing.

“Where are you going?” 

Valko folded the coat, placing his glasses on top of it. “To be straightforward but sensitive,” he said as if it were the most obvious answer in the world, Em calling to him about the deadline but only receiving the most infuriating answer in return. 

“I trust you!” 

**

Just ask was a lot easier to say than commit to. 

He’d been pacing outside your door for five minutes now, wondering how to approach the topic.

Would asking right away be too much? Should he make small talk first? No, that would seem insincere, wouldn’t it? He should just be honest and–

“Valko?” 

He paused in his pacing, turning to see you with a grocery bag in one hand, and a dripping umbrella in the other. The bottom of your jeans was still somewhat soaked, but you, thankfully, seemed bone dry. 

“Hey,” he whispered, walking toward you and talking the bag out of reflex.

You let him. 

“What are you doing here? It’s pouring out,” you said with a frown. “You’re lucky you didn’t get caught in the mess.”

Your concern was enough to make his heart flutter. Valko cleared his throat so it wouldn’t fly up and out of his throat. 

“I wanted to talk. To you.”

You scanned his face for any reason to be worried, but when you saw nothing but honesty, you nodded once. 

“And this couldn’t have been a text or phone call?” you joked lightly, pressing your thumb to the touchpad and opening the door. Valko grabbed it for you to let you go first, following you in and removing his shoes at the door. 

“I prefer face to face communication.” 

“Well…I suppose this is an improvement,” you said with a smile. “From you attempting to break in via my balcony.” 

Valko let out a breath of disbelief, his free hand resting on his chest. 

“I have never broken in.” 

You squinted at him, but you let it go for the time being in favor of dumping your umbrella into the kitchen sink. That last time you’d opened it and placed it in the bathtub, Valko had nearly had a heart attack. You had found it adorable, apparently, while he was trying to think of all the people to call to reverse your bad luck. 

“Want anything to drink?” 

You didn’t wait for his answer, seeming to be moving on auto pilot which was parts impressive and parts concerning. Exhausted wasn’t the word anymore…whatever you were feeling was obviously much deeper than that. 

“Whatevers easiest,” Valko said as he moved closer, leaning against the kitchen island as you boiled milk. In his cup was hot chocolate–the one with no marshmallows because it ruined the chocolate taste. He had expected you to call him childish the first time he mentioned it, but instead, you’d hummed thoughtfully and mentioned how you’d never paid much attention to the difference in taste. It was more something to do than something for enjoyment. 

In your cup was the opposite of his own…coffee. 

He hated the stuff, but with you, he found that the smell had become tolerable. It mixed perfectly with your scent even if he would prefer you not drink anything with caffeine so late into the day. 

He watched as you grabbed the handle of the pot, pouring the perfect amount of milk into each mug. 

He tried not to focus too hard on the fact that they were matching, in a way. 

“So,” you started as you moved to the island and placed his mug in front of him. You leaned against it as well, staring up at him curiously while cradling the mug in your hands. “What did you want to talk about that you would visit in such nasty weather?” 

Oh, right. His reason for showing up at your place and actually using the front door. 

Valko picked up the mug, sloshing the liquid from side to side as he forced the words he needed out. 

“Well…I just…I was curious about something.”

You nodded once, egging him on with a patience he didn’t feel he deserved. 

He was stalling and you probably knew that. Yet here you were, blowing on your coffee and waiting anyway. 

“I’m worried about you.”

There was no explosion. No rage or smashing of the mug at his feet. No warning about minding his business. 

Instead you straightened up and looked at him with wide eyes. 

“...pardon?” 

Your voice was softer than he’d ever heard, his heart clawing at his chest and throat to leap out of him and run off. 

“You always look so…tired. Or sad. Or like something is weighing on you. I didn’t want to ask at first because I was scared you’d think I was overstepping, but I found I felt more scared that you’d think I didn’t care at all.”

Valko cleared his throat, tugging on his tie slightly. 

“So I’m here because I want you to know that I do care. And I’m prepared to listen if you ever need or want me to.”

He’d said it. He’d said it out loud and now all he had to do was look up and see what sort of expression you were making–  

“Val…?”

“Yes.” He snapped his head up while he answered, noting the look on your face was much more neutral than expected. 

“If I told you that you were partially right…would you still want to hear me out?”

“Of course.” 

“And if I told you that what was weighing me down might involve you….even then?” 

His eyes widened. “Me? Did I do something?” 

“In a way,” you murmured, and he felt his heart shoot up to his ears. "but it is mostly my fault."

What the hell had he done to make you feel such negative emotions? How could he ever make up for it? 

“I’d…want to know even more, if I’m being honest.” 

You chewed on your lower lip, placing the mug down and opting to wring your hands instead. 

“...okay.” 

You held out a hand to him, amber eyes tracing over it and committing the sight to memory: the small scar across the lines of your palm. The one that matched just a bit lower on your wrist. 

He took it as carefully as he could manage, allowing you to lead him to the living room so you could sit on the couch. You didn’t let go of his hand even once both of you sat down, but he squeezed your hand in reassurance that he genuinely didn’t mind. 

In fact, he was nothing short of malfunctioning at the fact you didn’t hate him enough to avoid his touch entirely. 

“First things first, I was sad…but not because of anything you did. I don’t think you meant to do it which makes it all the more…embarrassing.” 

He noted how your voice wavered, as if a wave of shame hit you the moment the words escaped. 

“So…” Valko began, but you cut him off. 

“I've fallen for you.”

He froze. You let out a shaky exhale, as if in shock that you’d actually said it. 

“So much that I was scared you’d avoid me if you ever found out. So I kept it a secret. Lately. though, it has been a lot harder to hide. I don’t want to hide it. So I haven’t wanted to talk much because I might do what I'm doing now.” 

Valko waited for you to continue, but when you didn’t, he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in. 

“You like me.”

A bashful nod. 

“And you were scared I’d stop coming by if I knew?” 

Another nod. 

"So when you were 'sad' that was...?"

"Me trying very hard not to fall into some daydream that you might for some reason like me back," you said with a self-deprecating chuckle. "So please don't feel like you have to return my feelings."

He could hear how your hear slammed into your ribs in the same unforgiving rhythm as his own, skipping each time he got anywhere near your pulse. 

You were pulled into his arms before you could fully finish your sentence. He felt how you stopped breathing against him. He wondered if you were comfortable in his arms. If his warmth provided comfort. If how large he was made you feel safe rather than suffocated.

“Oh, sweets,” he sighed as he scented your hair, your neck, your cheeks. 

“What’re you–?” you choked out, chewing your lower lip to keep quiet. 

“I like you, too. So much that I was going a bit crazy trying to figure out why you weren’t talking to me.”  

Your nails dug into the front of his dress shirt as you processed his words. It was a feeling he’d love to get used to, but he tried not to get ahead of himself. 

“No bullshit?” 

He chuckled and pushed you back just enough to meet your eyes, inwardly pleased at your partially unfocused gaze. 

“No bullshit,” he promised, pressing his forehead against your own. “So tell me if this is too much too soon but I would really like to kiss you right about now,” he whispered. 

You nodded once, stiff and awestruck but more than willing. 

He leaned in, starting with a quick peck on your lips to test the waters. You repeated it back to him, eyes fluttering closed before opening to scan his expression for signs of discomfort. It was almost like a game, in a way, with each of you taking turns until the timing between kisses grew shorter. 

Before the hesitation was replaced with mutual desperation. 

One of his hands rested on the side of your neck, thumb pressed to your pulse and guiding you gently. The other rested on your lower back, moving to your hip and squeezing in a way that made you whimper. 

He pulled away with a small curse under his breath, noting how your eyes took longer to open, half lidded and dazed. 

“Fuck, you’re cute,” he said before leaning in again, this kiss fueled by every emotion that had prevented you both from doing this weeks. 

“Val,” you whispered weakly, pressing your lips to his again as your palms slid up his chest so your arms could loop around his neck. He groaned, your world tilting until you were on your back, staring up at him with a look that was practically begging him to keep going. 

And you both might have considered it if not for your stomach choosing that moment to let out a small growl of protest. 

Your face heated for a different reason as Valko turned his head away and snorted. 

“Shut up.” 

“Sweets…”v

Valko’s tongue swiped over his canines in one of the greatest debates of his life, but care for your needs far outweighed the need to claim you. 

“Valko,” you warned, smacking his chest with one hand before habitually rubbing the area in a soothing motion. Even while pouting, you didn’t want him actually hurt. 

For now. 

Leaning down to press a kiss to your nose, he shoved his face into your neck again and let out a deep breath to calm himself. You shuddered at the feeling. 

“Food first. You need to eat.” 

A grumble of agreement that had him smirking. 

You sucked in a breath when he bit you: enough for you to feel him but not enough to leave any marks just yet. 

“And when you’re done…” he started, licking the area to soothe it and enjoying the strained noise that left you. 

“my turn.” 

[xxsyluslittlecrowxx]

𝐁𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐁𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐬

[ 𝐒𝐲𝐥𝐮𝐬 ]

𝐚/𝐧 : This piece has lived quietly in my drafts for a long time — the kind of idea that lingers at the back of your mind and refuses to leave.

I kept circling back to this feeling: the horror, the quiet ache of realizing that someone you love might also be in love with a version of you that no longer exists — a past you, a myth, a memory that you yourself can no longer fully claim.

I kept thinking: if I were the MC, how would I really feel?

Even with all the warmth, the tenderness, the promises — wouldn't there still be fear? The fear that when he looks at you, he’s not really seeing you — but a ghost layered over your skin. Wouldn’t there be a selfishness, a desperation to be only yourself — and to be loved for that, fiercely and completely?

This was my way of exploring that contradiction: the guilt, the longing, the selfishness, the love. This was my MC’s truth — or at least the version of her who whispered it to me.

Tonight I thought: why leave it hidden? Why not share it?

So here it is.

Raw, and unedited.

(aka I wrote this on two hour commute)

𝐈𝐓 𝐈𝐒 𝐍𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐘 morning, but the sky remains black—caught in that uncertain hour when shadows reach their longest, and the city, exhausted by its own excess, surrenders at last to fatigue.

In the room behind her, all is quiet: a chair left half-turned from the desk, a glass of water sweating a thin halo onto the table, the bedsheets crumpled in mute testimony to a night of restless sleep.

She lies awake, as still as a child pretending slumber, her eyes already trained to the dim, colorless hush. Even breathing feels like an intrusion.

She is not alone.

Yet the loneliness is absolute.

There is warmth in the bed beside her, but it is the warmth of memory—an echo of presence, not its truth.

She listens, the way only those who have lived too long in silence can listen. She hears him: the deliberate, unhurried footfall upon old floorboards; the quiet click as the balcony door yields; the sigh of air—city-cold—brushing against the heat of his skin.

She could remain where she is, cocooned in fragile half-sleep, pretending safety. But his absence is an ache.

She rises, careful and quiet, the city’s pulse—Linkon’s iron heartbeat—steady and indifferent far below.

His shirt waits for her on the bed, white, too large. She slips it over her body, the gesture instinctive, childish, almost sacred; but the cotton cannot shield her from the tumult inside her own mind.

She does not rush.

For a long moment, she stands at the window, watching him through the glass—framed in the amber spill of streetlights, bathed in the sleepless glow of towers and neon.

He is shirtless, arms braced on the railing, a cigarette burning between his fingers, smoke rising in slow, uncertain spirals.

He exists in a liminal space—neither wholly present nor absent—a man suspended between stories, his own and hers, both ancient and devastatingly young.

The cold presses through the glass and she shivers. For an instant, she feels herself a ghost, haunting her own life—watching as two strangers play out a scene she only half-remembers.

She wonders if it is always like this, loving someone who remembers more than you do—someone who looks at you and sees not just the present, but the echo of another world.

She opens the door. The city’s breath meets her: sharp, metallic, almost clean. She steps onto the balcony, closing the door behind her with a careful reverence, soft as a prayer.

She is deliberate with her silence.

He does not turn—not yet.

She stands a little apart, close enough to feel the cold radiating from the iron railing, far enough that she cannot steal any of his warmth.

Below them, the city murmurs: tires hiss over wet asphalt, a siren wails, distant and raw, music seeps from a half-open window, blurred by distance.

Above, the stars are faint—outshone by light and memory alike.

She wonders if the dragon from the old legends—if he—misses the sight of an unobstructed sky.

She hides her hands in the sleeves, fingers curled against her pulse.

In stories, it is easy to believe that love and memory are the same thing.

But it isn’t so.

Not really.

She remembers fragments: a word in a language she never learned, the taste of rain on a foreign mouth, the ache of something that might once have been magic.

But these memories drift atop her consciousness, never settling.

They are not hers—not truly—not the way her own longing and hunger are hers, not the way the shiver on her skin is hers, now.

She listens to the way he breathes, slow and measured, as though practicing a patience she will never possess.

The smoke drifts toward her—strangely gentle.

He flicks ash from his cigarette. The gesture is weary, almost sorrowful.

Her eyes trace the lines of his back, the shadowed latticework of old scars. There is a story there—several, perhaps. She wonders, not for the first time, which wounds belong to the man before her, and which to the dragon he once was.

It is enough, for now, to stand here.

To watch the city. To be near him, and neither touch nor speak.

She lets the silence settle, thick and alive, between them.

The questions will come, but not yet.

Not yet.

Time loosens its grip.

The world beyond the balcony recedes: only the drone of distant traffic, the flicker of a passing tram, the electric hush that blankets Linkon before the hour of surrender. She studies the sprawl below—the indifferent lattice of streets, the way everything diminishes from above. It is a comfort and a cruelty.

She becomes sharply aware of her body: chilled concrete beneath her feet, the weight of his shirt ghosting her thighs, strands of hair clinging damp at her neck. Even her breath feels different here—measured, uncertain, as if she is borrowing lungs she has not yet earned.

He is near enough for his presence to shape the air, but not near enough to share his warmth. She wonders—foolishly, achingly—if he senses her standing here, or if he is lost in distances she can never cross.

He is the first to speak, his voice thickened by the sleep that never truly claimed him.

“Trouble sleeping?”

She does not answer at once. The question is gentle, but it is also an intrusion—a fissure in the silence she has woven around herself. There are a thousand ways she could reply; she settles for honesty, bare and unremarkable.

“Yes.” Her voice is soft, thin as the mist lifting from the city. The word hovers between them, incomplete, unsatisfying.

He nods, barely more than a movement, and brings the cigarette to his lips. The ember flares, then dims—a pulse, a heartbeat. He exhales, and the smoke dissolves into the dark, a private language she cannot decipher.

She knows about his sleeplessness.

She has watched him slip from their bed at the faintest disturbance, has counted his footfalls in the night—restless, caged by memory and worry. She knows, too, that he almost never speaks of it, as though naming the thing would make it more real.

She wonders what dreams keep him at bay—what images flicker behind his closed eyes, what old torments drive him into the cold dark. She imagines dragons writhing beneath mountains, fire and chain, the weight of prophecy like iron on his chest. She imagines a thousand other lives, each a locked room in an endless house he cannot abandon.

And her? What is it that wakes her?

Sometimes, it is nothing—just the faint unease of having forgotten something essential. Sometimes, it is a name murmured in a language she does not know. Sometimes, it is him: the shape of his shoulder beneath a sheet, the line of his jaw when he turns away, the unbearable gentleness with which he leaves her behind.

It is not always fear. Sometimes it is simply the longing to be seen—not for what she remembers, not for what he remembers of her, but for what she is now.

She watches him exhale another ribbon of smoke, his features drawn in profile—severe, exhausted. There is a nobility in the way he stands, as if enduring the ache of waking is a kind of penance.

A sudden, secret guilt blooms in her chest. She wants to ask why he never tells her his dreams, why sleep shuns him so easily. She wants to ask if it is her fault—if loving her, in this life, is a wound he cannot help but tend.

But she says nothing.

Instead, she tucks her fingers deeper into the sleeves of his shirt, grounding herself in the mundane: the softness of worn cotton, the press of her thumb against her palm, the wind tangling a stray lock against her cheek.

Her thoughts spiral.

She both envies and resents the myth that binds them—the love that stretches into shadow, the legends that sing of sorceress and dragon, chains and bargains, ruined kingdoms.

She should be proud—should feel honored to wear such a crown of memory.

But in truth, it sits heavy, ill-fitting, foreign.

There are moments, standing beside him in the blue hush before dawn, when she wishes she could unmake all of it.

There are moments she wishes he would forget.

There are moments she wishes she could.

A cold wind stirs the hem of her borrowed shirt. She draws her arms around herself—not to ward off the chill, but to gather her doubts close, to study them the way one studies old wounds: fascinated, repulsed, never certain if they will heal.

Sylus stubs his cigarette against the railing—the gesture weary, almost defeated. He looks at her, finally, and the full weight of his gaze makes her want to step back, to dissolve.

But she does not.

The silence is not empty; it is crowded with ghosts. Her own, and his.

She waits, not knowing what for.

Not yet.

The stars above them blink faintly, half-smothered behind a veil of drifting cloud.

The hour grows thinner, more fragile.

She wonders, in a dull, detached way, if the world will look different when the sun rises—if the ache coiled in her chest will burn itself out by daylight, or if it will only dig deeper, finding new corners of her to occupy.

She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, her movements slight, almost childish—like a girl scolded into stillness, yet unable to wholly obey.

There is a confession building inside her—shapeless, raw—clawing for a way out.

Her throat tightens. She swallows. She feels absurdly small, ludicrous in his shirt, barefoot and trembling not from the cold, but from the unbearable pressure of her own heart.

She does not look at him when she speaks.

Her voice is quiet, almost lost to the night.

"I wish..." she begins, faltering. Then—whether by courage or exhaustion—she forces the words out.

"I wish you would forget."

The confession slips into the darkness, soft as the smoke that had once risen from his hand.

She does not know if he truly hears it—or if he only senses the ripple, the rupture of something too long unsaid, breaking the fragile surface between them.

She feels more than sees his head turn—the slight tilt betraying surprise more than any spoken word could.

An eyebrow lifts—small, almost imperceptible—a quiet betrayal of confusion.

He studies her—not with anger, nor with hurt, but with the deep, impenetrable patience of a man who has lived too long with sorrow to be startled by it.

She presses her palms against the railing, fingers curling around the iron until they ache. She cannot bring herself to meet his eyes.

It would be so easy to explain—to spill out all the tangled knots of jealousy, longing, shame—but she does not.

Instead, she breathes, shallow and sharp, and says into the indifferent sprawl of the night:

"Is it selfish?"

The question hangs there—bare, absurd, like a wounded animal, too fragile to survive the asking.

She does not say what she means. She does not explain that she envies even her own shadow.

That she dreams, sometimes, of cutting away the myth like a rotted limb—so he might see her.

Only her.

Not the echo of the woman who once bargained with a dragon.

Sylus does not answer immediately.

His hand—now empty—hangs loosely at his side. His chest rises and falls with the slow, deliberate rhythm of a man either choosing his words with infinite care, or else choosing none at all.

The minutes stretch between them—elastic, unbearable.

She wonders if he will laugh. Or if he will pity her. She wonders which would wound her more.

Above them, the clouds part for a moment, and a single star pierces through—sharp, cold, indifferent.

In another lifetime, she might have believed it was a sign. Now, it is only a reminder of how far away everything truly is.

She waits for him to speak. Waits to be forgiven for wanting what she should not. Waits to be condemned for the selfishness she can no longer bury.

But he only watches her—silent, solemn—as if he sees not her words, but the entire storm of her soul, churning behind her lowered eyes.

And in that silence, something inside her—the final, trembling thread of restraint—begins to fray.

She breathes once—twice—and then the words spill from her, unbidden, almost angry with their own helplessness.

"Is it so selfish," she whispers, hoarse, "that I wish for you to forget her?"

The night seems to recoil, as if startled by her daring.

She grips the railing harder, the metal biting into her palms, grounding her in the moment she is desperate to flee.

"That when you look at me," she continues, her voice gaining a terrible, brittle urgency, "you don't see her? Don't see... that other life? That other me?"

The shame blooms hot under her skin. It is ridiculous. Infantile. She knows it.

And still, she cannot stop.

The words pile up, stumbling over each other, clumsy and exposed.

"I know you remember her," she says. "More clearly than I ever could. I know she loved you, and you—"

She falters, swallows hard.

"You loved her too."

She chances a glance at him.

Sylus remains still, utterly still, save for the slow, patient rise and fall of his breath. His crimson eyes—those strange, warm, inhuman eyes—hold her gaze with a gentleness so profound it almost feels like cruelty.

He betrays nothing: no judgment, no defense, no pity.

In those eyes, she sees herself—not as she wishes to be, but as she is: trembling, fearful, embarrassingly human.

The silence stretches—not empty, but dense with his attention, the kind that sees past flesh and voice and straight into marrow. It frightens her. It shames her more than any spoken answer could have.

And yet—somehow—it makes her speak on, desperate to fill the void she herself has opened.

"I don't even know if I have the right to ask you," she says, and now her words spill faster, harsher, as if she can outrun the rawness of them, "because I—I remember things too. Flashes. Dreams. But they don't feel like mine. They feel like someone else's life stitched into me."

Her chest aches with the effort of saying it aloud.

She presses forward, reckless now, breathless:

"And I know you loved her. How could you not? She was... she was strong. Brave. Someone worth remembering."

A humorless laugh breaks from her lips—a dry, brittle thing. "Not like me."

The night presses closer, and the city lights smear themselves across her vision.

"I'm not her," she says, softer now, barely more than a breath. "I never will be."

She knows she is unraveling. Knows it is shameful, childish. Knows he deserves better than this crumbling thing she has become in front of him.

And still—somewhere deep beneath the spiral, deeper than pride, deeper than fear—a fragile plea begins to beat its wings:

see me, please see me.

She looks at him again—and it is unbearable.

The way Sylus stands there: not interrupting, not reaching for her, not turning away.

There is something terrifying about how completely he is listening.

Not merely with his ears—but with the whole of himself, the way ancient things listen to prayers whispered into the dirt.

She feels, absurdly, that he is reading a book written in a language even he cannot name—the book of her heart—and that he will read to the very last page without looking away.

And because he says nothing—because he gives her the terrible mercy of that silence—she feels her confession rise to its inevitable end, trembling and raw.

"I just..." she says, one final breath, one final surrender, "I just wish..."

She swallows hard, the words catching painfully—

"...that when you looked at me..."

"...you only saw me."

The last syllable barely makes it past her lips before silence folds back around them, heavier now, dense and trembling.

For a moment, he does not move.

The city hums below, an indifferent witness. The wind nudges at the hem of her borrowed shirt. Somewhere far off, a siren cuts briefly through the quiet, then fades.

And then— without a word— Sylus pushes away from the railing.

Not abrupt. Not rushed.

He moves as if the decision had already been made long before she ever spoke.

In two measured steps, he stands before her—close enough that she can feel the heat radiating from his skin, the faint scent of smoke and something darker, something ineffably him.

She lifts her eyes to him without meaning to—caught, helpless, as if bound by some old, unspoken spell.

For a beat, he only looks at her.

And there is something in his gaze—something steady, exasperating, fond—that makes the back of her throat ache.

Slowly, he reaches out.

His fingers brush against her temple, feather-light. She almost flinches—not from fear, but from the unbearable gentleness of it.

He tucks a loose strand of her hair behind her ear, his knuckles grazing the flushed line of her cheek.

"Kitten," he says—low, amused, achingly tender—the word curling around her like a tether, like a prayer.

Only her. Only ever her.

His touch shifts downward, fingers finding the collar of his shirt where it has slipped haphazardly off her shoulder.

With an absent care that wounds her more deeply than any grand declarations could, he adjusts it, drawing the fabric up to shield her, smoothing it along her skin with quiet, almost ceremonial reverence.

The night feels suspended. Every breath between them counts and echoes.

A familiar, insufferable smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth—though his eyes, those impossible crimson eyes, remain devastatingly earnest.

"As if I could ever see anything else," he murmurs, the words spoken like an oath, like a certainty carved into bone.

He says it so simply, so easily, it steals the breath from her lungs.

As if the idea of loving anyone—or anything—but the woman before him is absurd beyond imagining.

His hand lingers at her collarbone, not possessive, but protective, grounding her.

The smirk fades, softens into something else—something almost sorrowful.

"You’re the only one I see," he says, quieter now, as if confessing a truth too precious for daylight. "You're the only one who’s ever been real."

There is no grand gesture, no sweeping promises. Only him—standing there in the half-light, scarred and smiling crookedly, telling her, in the only language he has ever truly spoken, that she is enough.

More than enough.

Her throat tightens painfully.

The contradictions inside her—the yearning, the shame, the desperate need to be seen—do not vanish. They do not resolve into something neat and clean.

But they shift, just slightly, as if he has reached into the center of her turmoil and, with a single, clumsy touch, made it bearable.

She wants to cry, but the tears do not come.

Instead, she does the only thing she can: she leans into him, forehead resting against the steady plane of his chest, breathing him in until the dizziness eases.

Above them, the sky is beginning to pale at the edges—a fragile seam of light splitting the darkness.

But here, in this moment, the night still belongs to them.

And for the first time in a long time, she lets herself believe:

Maybe it is not so selfish, after all, to want to be loved for who you are now. Maybe it is not selfish to want to be seen, and still be chosen.

Maybe love—real love—is nothing but the stubborn act of choosing. Again and again. Despite the myths. Despite the memories. Despite the inevitable forgetting that time demands.

And Sylus, standing there with that maddening, tender smile— had chosen her.

Not once. Not a thousand years ago.

Now.

Always now.

— © 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓 𝐛𝐲 𝐒𝐲𝐥𝐮𝐬 𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐂𝐫𝐨𝐰

[scftcxlxb]

LADS boys seeing MC in her element back home/ vacationing to ur home country 

anons request: had an idea for a short story/ plot line for a post that I thought was interesting but ofc ur not obligated to do it if you don’t like it or if you don’t take suggestions, My idea was like the lads characters seeing and reacting to you in your element aka ur home country, and I mean like HOME so like bargaining in the markets, being urself, speaking ur language, and stuff, being mesmerised, attracted etc. like seeing you speak your language in your element in your home country? Thanks for reading and considering ❤️😋😋

pairing: ladsxreader

tw: none, just fluff,

a/n: hi anon this ask is so cutesy i love the idea of them seeing you just in ur element makes me miss my own home country a lot i did make this vague so u can insert your own cultural customs and stuff thanks for the ask again :) also for requestes ill try to do them, but im still very new to this, soooo just be patient with me :) i actually dont know what i was cooking up but hope you enjoy lol

xavier

The debrief said international, low-threat, indefinite duration. That was all Xavier had bothered to read before he fell back asleep against the jet's window, snoring softly with his hood pulled up. He'd been up until four watching a drama he swore he'd only watch "one more episode" of, and now his body was paying the price — slumped, boneless, one earbud dangling out of his hoodie.

touch down in 20 minutes, the pilot's voice crackled.

You'd been half-asleep yourself until you reached for your passport and your boarding pass slipped loose. You caught it out of habit. Read it out of boredom.

Then read it again.

The airport code. The little flag icon. The name of the city printed in the alphabet you hadn't seen on official paper in years.

"Xav." You shook his shoulder. Nothing. "Xav." You shook harder. "XAVIER."

He startled awake so violently his hood fell back off his head. "Wha— hazard? Where's the—"

"We're going to my country." Your voice cracked on the last word. "Xav, this is my home."

That woke him up properly. He blinked at you — at your hands trembling around a boarding pass, at the way your whole body had gone electric in a way he'd never seen outside of a fight — and something in his chest went soft and sharp all at once. Xavier's seen a lot of skies in his time, but never you under one that was actually yours. He doesn't get homesick. He isn't sure he's allowed to. But watching you light up like every constellation had rearranged itself just for you — that, he understood completely.

"I can't wait, my star," he said, giving you a weak, sleepy smile, but his hand was already finding yours.

⋅ ⋆ ⋅

You did. You showed him street food carts and the particular chaos of your mother tongue as you haggled and joked and slipped into your first language like slipping into warm water. Xavier followed a half-step behind, quiet as always, but watching — soft-eyed, completely in awe, like he couldn't quite believe this version of you had been waiting inside you the whole time.

On your last night you took him to a shadow-puppet theatre tucked behind a night market, the kind of place tourists never find because it isn't listed anywhere, it's just known. The show was old — older than the country's borders, older than most gods people still prayed to — a folk epic about a river spirit who fell in love with a mortal woman and, unable to bear watching her grow old while he stayed young forever, begged the sky to either age him or take his immortality away entirely. The sky refused both. Love was never measured by matching lifespans, the narrator intoned, only by whether you chose to stay. The river spirit chose to stay by her side anyway, mortal lifetime after mortal lifetime, meeting her again in every reincarnation, never explaining why he already loved her before they'd even spoken.

Xavier went very, very still.

You felt it before you saw it — his hand tightening around yours, not painfully, just permanently, like a knot being tied. You glanced up at him in the low lantern-light and found him leaning forward, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on the screen like it held the answer to a question he'd been too afraid to ask the stars directly.

"Xav?" you whispered.

"I'm okay." His voice was thick. "I just—" He stopped. Started again. "I think I needed to hear that a river can love a girl for one lifetime or a hundred, and it isn't the length that matters."

You didn't know exactly what memory or fear that story had reached inside him and touched, but you knew Xavier well enough not to push. You just laid your head on his shoulder and let him hold your hand like a tether for the rest of the show.

Back in Linkon, you caught him three nights later at 3am on the couch, blue light from his phone washing over his face, seventeen tabs deep into your country's mythology. When you padded downstairs for water and raised an eyebrow at him, he didn't even look sheepish.

"There's a whole legend about the constellation that guards travelers," he said, patting the seat beside him without looking away from the screen. "It sounds like something my ancestors would've told stories about. Come here, I want to show you."

The boy who reads the stars for a living, learning to read yours instead. If that isn't devotion, nothing is.

⊹₊ ⋆ ⋅☆⋅ ⋆ ₊⊹

✦ zayne

Zayne had been to your country before — three medical conferences, one charity surgical mission, a handful of case studies he still cited in lectures. He knew the skyline of the capital, the good coffee near the university hospital, the exact walk from his hotel to the conference center. What he didn't know was you, here. He'd only ever met you in Linkon.

So when he mentioned, almost offhand, that he had another trip scheduled — a conference, and a follow-up visit to a pediatric ward he'd operated at years ago — and you went quiet in that particular way that meant you were trying not to want something too much, he didn't need you to say it.

"Pack your things," he said simply. "You're coming with me."

You'd been homesick for months and hadn't wanted to burden him with it. Zayne, predictably, had noticed anyway. He notices everything. He simply doesn't always say so.

At the airport you were vibrating with a kind of joy he'd rarely seen from you — gripping his arm, narrating an itinerary he had no time to actually do, apologizing immediately after for "being too much." He just looked down at you, something unbearably fond behind his glasses.

"Don't apologize for being excited," he said. "I like seeing you this happy and excited."

⋅ ⋆ ⋅

The hospital visit came first — always work before pleasure, that was Zayne's rhythm, precise as a suture line. The children he'd operated on years ago had grown taller, louder, and the moment he stepped into the ward they descended on him in a wave that made the unflappable Dr. Zayne visibly overwhelmed, hands raised slightly like he wasn't sure which small person to address first.

You stepped in without thinking. Crouched to their height, spoke in your mother tongue — one at a time, one at a time, he can only understand one language, be patient with him — and something about the cadence of it, the total ease in your voice, made Zayne go quiet in the doorway.

He had heard you speak your language before. A word here, a curse dropped under your breath, a lullaby half-remembered. He had never heard you speak it like this — fluent, unhesitating, fully yourself in a way Linkon never quite let you be. It undid something in his chest that he usually kept very carefully stitched shut.

Zayne feels things enormously. It's precisely why he's spent a lifetime training himself not to show it — surgeons who feel too visibly don't survive their first year. But watching you translate for him, watching a room full of children realize their doctor's girlfriend was one of them, watching them erupt into cheers because the man who saved their lives had chosen someone who understood exactly where they came from — Zayne had to excuse himself for a moment under the pretense of checking a chart. He was not checking a chart. He needed thirty seconds where no one could see his face.

When he found you again, he laced his fingers through yours without a word and simply held on, tighter than necessary.

⋅ ⋆ ⋅

Two days later, once his obligations were finally cleared, you dragged him to a dessert stall you'd been dreaming about since the plane touched down — a syrup-soaked, rose-scented thing that Zayne, who has never once turned down a sweet treat in his life, was already leaning in before you'd even set it down.

"Open," you instructed, spoon raised.

He opened his mouth eagerly, no hesitation at all. Then his eyes went wide.

"...that's genuinely good," he admitted, startled, already leaning in for a second bite before you could offer it.

By the time you left, he'd bought a full box "for research purposes" and was — quietly, privately, only for you to see — smiling the entire walk back to the hotel.

"Thank you for today," he said, forehead resting briefly against yours. "I don't think I understood what home meant to you until I watched you have one."

"Anywhere with you is home too," you murmured.

"Then let's build one everywhere you love," he said, and kissed your forehead like a promise written in careful, controlled ink.

⊹₊ ⋆ ⋅☆⋅ ⋆ ₊⊹

✦ rafayel

Rafayel had only ever seen your country in pictures — pulled up late at night while hunting for inspiration for a new painting, saved in some folder he'd never admit existed.

He wanted to know it from up close instead.

You stepped off the plane into a wall of noise and heat and color and your whole posture changed — shoulders back, chin up, a bounce in your step you didn't have anywhere else in the world. You were already pointing things out before your feet had properly hit the ground, narrating the names of trees and streets you passed like he'd asked for a botany lecture, and Rafayel was watching you with a huge, helpless grin.

"Excited, cutie?"

You barely heard him, too busy yapping about the flora.

"Look at you," he said, watching you light up over a literal tree, "all cute and happy. It's nice to see." He meant it — genuinely, helplessly — but he also couldn't resist a jab. "Why can't you look at me the same way you look at that completely normal-looking tree?" he pouted, one hand pressed to his chest like you'd wounded him.

"Raf, please," you said, laughing, dragging him along by the sleeve while he kept up a running, wounded commentary about losing to local flora the entire cab ride to the hotel.

You'd built an itinerary with the precision of a woman reclaiming lost time: Tuesday for your favorite restaurants, the streets you used to play in, the corners of the city that belonged to no one but your childhood self. Wednesday for the museums and temples and every painting-worthy inch of architecture Rafayel had been begging to see in person — his day, entirely, because you knew exactly what your boyfriend needed to feel like this trip belonged to him too.

⋅ ⋆ ⋅

Tuesday, you talked. Endlessly, joyfully, switching between languages mid-sentence without noticing, joking with locals, laughing at things that didn't fully translate. Rafayel — who has spent centuries feeling like an outsider even among his own people, half-human, half-something the sea never lets him forget — recognized the specific comfort of belonging on your face immediately. It reminded him, achingly, of the rare moments he lets himself think about the ocean as home instead of inheritance.

Wednesday was his day, and he'd clearly been saving up requests for weeks. He wanted to wear the traditional clothing, eat the real food instead of his and your clumsy attempts at recreating it back in Linkon, and stand in front of every mural and sculpture he'd only ever seen photographed. You took him to the shop first, helping him into hand-embroidered robes the color of pomegranate and gold, and it would be an understatement to say he loved it.

"Wow, cutie," he said, hands smoothing over the fabric at your waist, completely reverent, "you look out of this world."

"Not too bad yourself, Raf," you said, taking in your already-beautiful boyfriend somehow managing to look even better dressed in your culture's colors — which you genuinely hadn't thought possible until right that second.

He wouldn't stop touching the embroidery for the rest of the afternoon, running his thumb along the stitching like he was trying to memorize the technique by feel alone. Once you got to the museum proper he all but forgot you existed for a solid ten minutes — dragging you by the wrist from painting to painting, talking fast and a little breathless about brushwork and pigment, pointing out gold leaf work he swore predated half of what people back home called "innovation," hands sketching shapes in the air because he physically couldn't help himself. You'd never seen him nerd out quite like this, not even in his own atelier, and watching him fall in love with a piece of you that had nothing to do with him made your chest ache in the best way.

By the end of the day he'd bought a fresh sketchbook from the museum gift shop, muttering something about his usual one running out of pages faster than expected. Every sketch in it, without exception, somehow ended up being you.

⊹₊ ⋆ ⋅☆⋅ ⋆ ₊⊹

✦ sylus

Sylus, leader of Onychinus, has done business on every continent and in more shadowed corners of the world than most governments know exist. He's met people from your country before. Knows fragments of your language — enough to charm, enough to unsettle, never enough to let anyone underestimate him.

He also, apparently, bought a property there over a year ago. Before the two of you were even official. Just in case.

It came out on an ordinary night — you scrolling through a friend's travel photos, a small, private ache in your chest you tried to swallow before he noticed.

He noticed.

"Homesick, kitten?"

"...A little," you admitted, curling into his side.

He didn't say much. Just held you until you fell asleep. By the time you woke up, the private jet was already fueled.

"Pack a suitcase," he said, far too casually for a man who'd apparently rearranged his entire week overnight.

⋅ ⋆ ⋅

The house he'd bought sat on a hillside above the old quarter, all pale stone and dark wood shutters, courtyards stacked with fig trees, a rooftop terrace that caught the whole skyline at sunset. It was, unmistakably, too much — the kind of gift that comes with strings even when Sylus insists it doesn't.

"Sylus, I can't accept this," you said, trying to shove the keys back into his hand.

"You already did," he said, smug and immovable as ever, "the second I decided you were mine to spoil."

You were too jet-lagged to properly argue. That would come later.

⋅ ⋆ ⋅

The next morning you came across a small market, vendors shouting over each other in your native language, trying to lure people to their stalls. One of them zeroed in on you immediately — draping a scarf around your neck before you could protest, steering you toward a mirror to admire how it looked against your skin.

"Well hello, my darling — care for a scarf? Premium quality, and that colour matches your skin tone perfectly," he said, already sensing a sale.

"How much?" Sylus asked, stepping in behind you.

The number the shopkeeper quoted was almost laughable — the kind of price only a "not quite local anymore" accent gets charged.

"That's too much, I can get a better price elsewhere," you said in your own language, straight to the shopkeeper, before switching back to add out loud, "£30 is all I'm taking this for," arms crossed in total conviction.

Sylus went quiet beside you, delighted, watching you try to haggle for what you were fairly sure was the first time in your life — normally this was your mother's job, or your older sibling's, never yours.

Thirty minutes in, you were still arguing. Sylus had that insufferable little smirk on his face the entire time, watching his kitten bare her claws. When the shopkeeper still wouldn't budge, you finally snapped, switching fully back into your language: "Your clothes are cheap and tacky anyway, no one's going to buy from you," and dragged Sylus away from the stall, empty-handed and seething.

⋅ ⋆ ⋅

You couldn't let it go. "That man yesterday infuriated me," you grumbled the next morning. "All I wanted was a fair price and he wouldn't budge."

"I could get you a good price, kitten, if you're that hung up on it," Sylus offered.

"No — I want to do it myself. I've watched my family haggle my whole life, I just never got to try."

He loved that about you, your stubborn independence — even if, privately, he thought yesterday's attempt had been a tragedy. So he leaned down and murmured a few tactical pointers in your ear before you went back: start low enough that there's real room to move, keep your face neutral no matter what he counters with, and be ready to actually walk away — that's what gets the price down, not the number itself.

"You're back again," the shopkeeper said, unimpressed.

"Of course. Couldn't stop thinking about that scarf," you said, chin up.

Sylus's tips fresh in your mind, you opened absurdly low: "I'll take it for £10," you said in your language, utterly convinced.

The shopkeeper looked personally offended. "£60, or nothing — I'm being generous here," he shot back, clearly thinking he could still take you for a fool.

Sylus leaned in, murmuring against your ear, "Don't worry, kitten, this is part of the game."

"£20," you countered. "Aren't I one of your own? I'm not a tourist, am I?" — leaning hard into the guilt trip, and watching it land.

"...That's true," the shopkeeper admitted, some of the fight draining out of him. "You are one of us."

"You wouldn't sell it to a local at that price. What would you actually charge one of your own?"

He sighed. "£20."

"Then I'll take it for £20," you said, already handing over the money before he could reconsider.

You dragged Sylus away practically vibrating, gushing the whole walk back about your first successful haggle, ego thoroughly inflated.

"Well done, kitten. Your first deal," he said, dry as ever — but he was, in fact, unbearably proud. Sylus gets what he wants out of people through charm and careful pressure applied at exactly the right moment — it's more or less his entire business model — and watching you do the same thing, cold and sharp and completely unbothered in a language that wasn't his, felt like watching someone speak his native tongue for the first time. Hands on your hips, thoroughly pleased with yourself over a £20 scarf, you'd never looked more like his kind of trouble.

"Remind me never to let you sit in on one of my deals," he said. "You'd talk me out of my own profit."

"Maybe I want to," you said, still riding the high.

"Mm." He kissed the crown of your head. "Then I'd let you."

⊹₊ ⋆ ⋅☆⋅ ⋆ ₊⊹

✦ caleb

With Caleb, it was different from the start. You'd been adopted as a young child, and for most of your childhood your country of origin was less a place than a question mark — a blank space you filled in with guesses every time you caught your reflection looking different from everyone around you. You were curious about it for as long as you could remember, but it took years before you worked up the nerve to actually ask.

Grandma Josephine was the one who finally told you the truth of where you came from, patiently, over a kitchen table, answering every question you had and the dozen more you asked after that. And once you knew the name of the country, you couldn't let it go — you told Caleb, half-embarrassed, that you wanted to learn the language. All of it, properly. Not just a few phrases for a party trick, but actually learn it.

Caleb didn't blink. He just started studying alongside you that same week.

You two spent years on it — clumsy pronunciation, flashcards taped to the bathroom mirror, Caleb butchering tones so badly in the beginning that you'd both end up in tears laughing instead of practicing. But you kept at it, both of you, long after the novelty should have worn off, until one day you realized you were actually fluent — properly, comfortably fluent — and Caleb wasn't far behind you.

It happened on an ordinary night, curled into his side with the TV on low, that you finally said out loud what you'd been circling around for months: you wanted to go there. See it in person. Not just the language anymore, but the actual place.

"Then let's go," Caleb said instantly, like it was the easiest decision in the world. "I'll fly us there myself."

He had you packed and an itinerary drafted within days — real, authentic food at the top of every list, clearly done with the years of your and his failed home-cooked attempts back in Linkon still fresh in his memory. The flight over was smooth, steady, exactly what you'd expect from your favorite pilot showing off a little for the occasion. By the time you stepped out of the airport into the warm evening air, all you could do was stare — the skyline, the smell of the streets, weather that felt like it had been waiting for you specifically.

⋅ ⋆ ⋅

The next day you finally got to explore properly. It was overwhelming in the best way — loud, fast, a little disorienting even for you — and when you two got turned around looking for a train station, you were the one who stepped up and asked a local for directions in your own language, understood every word of the answer, and even walked away with a restaurant recommendation for good measure.

"Pip, you're amazing," Caleb said, delighted, watching you navigate the train station like you'd never left. He wasn't exaggerating for your benefit, either — years of late-night study sessions and butchered pronunciation had led to this, watching you thrive in a place you'd once known almost nothing about.

"I told you I was fluent," you said, smug, practically strutting toward the platform.

"You told me. I just didn't believe you'd be this smooth about it," he teased, slinging an arm around your shoulders. "Kind of unfair, honestly. I'm supposed to be the pilot. I'm supposed to be the one who knows how to get us places."

"You got us here," you pointed out. "I'm just getting us to lunch."

The lunch spot the stranger recommended turned out to be a tiny family-run place three streets over, no sign, no menu in any language but yours — the kind of restaurant that exists purely on word of mouth between people who already belong there. Caleb ordered by pointing enthusiastically at whatever you were eating, mangling the dish's name so badly the owner laughed out loud and corrected him twice, patient and delighted, before finally giving up and just patting his shoulder like he'd adopted him on the spot.

"I love it here," Caleb said around a mouthful of food that was clearly too spicy for him, eyes watering, refusing to admit defeat. "I love — ow — I love that everyone just, like. Feeds you. Adopts you. No questions."

"That's just how it is," you said, sliding your water toward him without a word.

"No, I mean it though." He set his fork down, suddenly more serious than the moment called for. "You spent your whole life not knowing this part of yourself. And now you're just — fluent. In the language, in the food, in knowing which street to turn down. You did that. Grandma Josephine helped, sure, but you're the one who kept showing up to learn even when it was hard and you had every excuse to give up."

You blinked at him, throat suddenly tight. "Caleb—"

"I'm just saying I'm proud of you," he said, easy and warm, already reaching over to steal a piece of your food like the moment hadn't just cracked something open in your chest. "Also, incredibly attracted to you right now, for the record. Bilingual Pip ordering street food like a local is doing something to me."

"You're ridiculous."

"I'm in love," he corrected, grinning. "There's a difference."

That evening he insisted on one more stop before the hotel — a night market you hadn't even mentioned, one he'd apparently found and researched himself weeks ago without telling you, tucked between two apartment blocks and lit end to end in paper lanterns. A woman selling hand-painted kites recognized the regional dialect the second you spoke and lit up, launching into a story about her grandfather who'd made kites the same way for sixty years. You translated for Caleb in real time, and he listened to every word like it was the most important flight briefing of his life.

"Buy one," he said suddenly.

"What?"

"The kite. Buy it. We're flying it tomorrow before we leave, I don't care if I have to reroute the whole trip." He was already grinning at the woman, giving her an enthusiastic, badly-accented thank-you that made her laugh again. "I want a piece of this place to bring home. And I want it to be something you picked, because everything today has been you finally getting to be all of yourself at once, and I don't want to forget what that looked like."

You bought the kite. The next morning, on a hill just outside the city with the whole skyline spread out gold and hazy below you, Caleb ran it into the wind like a kid, whooping when it finally caught, turning back to grab you by the waist and spin you both around until you were dizzy and laughing and thoroughly convinced you'd never loved anyone this much in your life.

"Home looks good on you, Pip," he said, breathless, forehead against yours. "I hope you know I'd learn a hundred more languages just to keep hearing you talk about it."

⊹₊ ⋆ ⋅☆⋅ ⋆ ₊⊹

✦ valko

Valko has never needed the lecture on why home matters. He runs with a pack, quite literally — raised on a hierarchy built out of loyalty instead of blood, on the instinct to circle around whoever's yours and keep them safe without being asked. It's not so different, he'd tell you, from what you grew up with. Family is family whether it howls or not.

So when you finally worked up the courage to admit how much you missed your country — half-expecting to have to explain it, the way some of the others initially needed it explained — he just nodded, slow and understanding, like you'd told him something about yourself he'd already clocked weeks ago.

"You don't have to justify wanting to go back to your pack," he said simply. "I'd never ask you to."

Pack. You'd never thought of your family that way before, but hearing him say it — easy, matter-of-fact, like it was the most natural translation in the world — made something in your chest loosen.

He didn't turn it into a production. No grand itinerary, no dramatic gesture — just quiet, steady logistics handled without fuss, because Valko's love has always looked like showing up rather than performing. Before you'd even booked the flights, he was already asking to learn a few basic phrases — not tourist phrases, but the ones that mattered. How do I say thank you to your mother. How do I ask your grandfather how he's feeling. How do I tell your cousins my name.

⋅ ⋆ ⋅

The strange thing was, once you landed, Valko barely looked at a single landmark. He'd glance politely at whatever monument or view you pointed out, nod, and then his attention would drift straight back to whoever was in the room — the way your mother refilled everyone's plate before her own, the pecking order between your older cousins, which aunt secretly ran the whole household despite never raising her voice. He read family dynamics the way other people read a map, fluent in it instantly, because it was a language he already spoke fluently back home.

"Your family runs it a lot like my pack does," he told you one night, quiet, almost amazed. "The oldest look after the youngest without being told to. Everyone eats before anyone leaves the table. Nobody's really in charge, but everyone knows exactly who to listen to."

"Is that a compliment?"

"It's the highest compliment I have," he said simply.

He started sharing pack stories back, unprompted — who'd raised him, who he'd fought to protect, the strange found-family logic that had shaped him just as much as blood shapes you. Your grandmother, delighted to have a captive audience, traded him story for story across the kitchen table for hours, neither of you needing much translation once the two of them found their rhythm.

By day three he'd stopped asking whether he could help around the house and just started doing it — hauling in groceries before anyone noticed they were missing, fixing a wobbling table leg your father had complained about for a decade, appearing at your grandmother's elbow the second she so much as reached for a heavy pot. Your youngest cousins adopted him within the hour, dragging him outside for a game that seemed to have no rules beyond "chase Valko," which he submitted to with the patient good humor of someone used to being climbed on by things smaller than him.

One of them — barely seven, all elbows and nerve — took one look at his size, his quiet, and his permanently serious expression, and decided, very firmly, that he was terrifying.

"Is he mad?" she whispered to you, hiding half behind your leg.

Valko, crouched a respectful distance away, heard her anyway. Instead of getting louder or more animated to prove otherwise, he just lowered himself the rest of the way to the ground, folded his hands in his lap, and waited — patient as anything, letting her come to him instead of the other way around.

"I'm not mad," he said, gently. "I'm actually pretty easy to win over. Ask your cousin."

It took her the better part of an afternoon to fully believe it. By evening she'd claimed his shoulders as her preferred seat for the rest of the trip, one small fist gripping his hair like reins, entirely unbothered by the fact that she'd called him scary that same morning. Watching your six-foot, permanently stoic boyfriend get bossed around by a seven-year-old with complete, cheerful obedience did something to your heart you weren't fully prepared for.

By the end of the week he knew every name in the house — not just the adults, but every cousin, every nickname, which grandparent preferred which nickname and which one hated theirs. He helped your grandfather to his chair every evening without being asked twice. He sat through your grandmother's longest stories without once checking the time.

The night before you left, watching your whole family crowd around the table one last time, laughing too loud and talking over each other in a language he'd only just started to learn, Valko went quiet in a different way than usual — jaw tight, eyes a little too bright.

"You okay?" you murmured.

"Yeah." His voice was rougher than he meant it to be. "It's just — this is exactly what I'd want for a pack of my own, someday. Watching you have it already, watching them already love you this much, it's—" He stopped, cleared his throat. "It's a lot. Good. But a lot."

At one point your uncle, sizing him up the way protective uncles do everywhere, asked bluntly through you whether Valko would look after you the way family should. Valko didn't wait for the translation.

"Always," he said — plain, immediate, a single word that needed no dialect to land.

Your uncle understood him just fine. By the time you left, he wasn't a guest anymore. He was just Valko — cousin-approved, grandmother-fed, fully and permanently folded into the family, the same way he'd have folded any one of them into his pack without a second thought.

Different language. Different word for it. Same love, exactly.

⊹₊ ⋆ ⋅☆⋅ ⋆ ₊⊹

thanks again anon this was really fun to write hope you enjoyed reading it lol i tried my best lol

[gracebyandra]

Gojo tries the Tinder Prank on you

"Heyy! guess what? I found Shoko on Tinder!!"

"What?"

"Yeah, can you believe it?! She said she never would because it was so lame, but she's a liar!!!"

"Well, her choice."

"What?? That's it?!"

"Nice try, Gojo."

"You never let me prank you!!!"

But all he got in response was a thumbs up. He paused, suddenly uneasy. Were you actually mad at him? Had he messed up? Were you finally done with him being too much?

Shit, shit, shit.

"Baby I'm sorry, it was a stupid prank. I won't do it again. Please don't be mad at me! Forgive me!"

"It's okay. It's not about the prank, it doesn't really bother me."

And it didn't, not really. He always gave himself away before the punchline landed. Shoko, of all people? Your best friend who tells you everything, like every little detail of her life? Plus Gojo, if he really wanted, was too smart to get caught that easily. But this time, you decided to let it play out a little longer.

"You sound down? Did I do something? Talk to me, please."

"It's just... lately I feel like you don't love me anymore."

No reply came for a few seconds. Had he caught on? Was he playing along?

"What? Are you serious? I don't love you?? Like that's even possible! Shit! How long have you been feeling this way? Why didn't you tell me sooner?? This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life, and that's saying something coming from me."

Oh no. This was spiraling. Abort mission. Tell him it was a prank.

“I was just pranking you!!”

Before you could say more, he typed again.

"No, we're talking face to face. I can't let you think I don't love you, not even for a second. I'm coming over."

"Satoru, it really was a prank!! You don't have to come over. I'm fine!!"

Everything you typed somehow came out sounding like a lie.

"I'll be there in 10."

Oh god. Satoru rarely got serious like this. The last time was when your drink got spiked. And once before, when some guy crowded your space and it turned ugly after you pushed him off. You remember those times when he gets so protective. The one where the goofy, golden-retriever energy switched off completely, and something sharper, unhinged and dangerous, takes its place.

You paced your living room, trying to figure out how to convince him it was nothing. This was exactly why you never pranked him: your pranks always spun out of control. You didn't have his gift for keeping things light, harmless, like Gojo did; a fun story to laugh about later.

Then the doorbell rang. You opened it to find Satoru, a smile on his face, but his eyes were dead serious, sweeping over you like he was assessing every single reaction..

"Hi," you said first, eager to clear things up.

He leaned down, kissed you softly, and stepped inside anyway.

"Sit down, baby. We're going to have a long talk." His voice had lost its usual sing-song lightness, dropped into something low and deep.

Your eyes widened. It did warm your heart knowing how much it mattered to him and it also spoke to you how much he loved you that he has to make sure you know it. But it seemed you did not realise yet just how far he'd go to prove it.

"Satoru, it's really sweet, but it was seriously..."

"Baby." He smiled, but it wasn't happy; it was the look of a man furious with himself for giving you any reason to doubt him. "Sit."

Okay. You sat. That low tone did something to you, and you hated how much. Why did he have to be so hot even now?

Satoru was hot. There was no debating that. But he could shift between cute and commanding without missing a beat, in and out of bed. One moment he is whimpering and moaning. Next minute he had you screaming as he chuckled and whispered absolutely filthy things in your ears with a smirk. Then kiss you soft and slow, whispering how much he loved you. He held both extremes at once, effortlessly, and it left something restless and hungry twisting in your stomach every time.

He knelt in front of you, took your hands gently, and brought them to his lips, pressing a slow kiss to your knuckles with a sigh, like he was working out exactly how to make you understand.

"You look tired. Did you even rest..." You were cut off by his lips against yours, a soft shush silencing you. Right. He was in business mode.

"Now tell me. Did I ever do anything that made you feel bad? Anything, even something small, baby, I want to know."

You swallowed hard. A gorgeous man, your boyfriend, kneeling in front of you, hands wrapped around yours, completely locked onto your face like he was reading every flicker of emotion in it. It should not have been turning you on. And yet. Not your fault Gojo looked like this: gentle hands, dark eyes, muscles straining against a tight black t-shirt, that usual bright blue gaze gone a shade darker, laser-focused on your eyes, looking straight into your soul.

"No. You've never done anything like that. Ever."

Your voice came out steady, certain, and his eyes lit with quiet pride at having gotten that right, at least.

"Then did someone say something to you? Give me their names, baby."

Oh, holy shit. That dark edge in his voice, the way he kept pressing soft kisses to your hand even as his eyes flickered with something closer to violence, like love and murder were sitting in the same breath. Something was deeply wrong with you, because you were into it.

"You're really hot right now," you blurted.

His brows furrowed before he laughed. "Don't distract me, sweetheart. Give me the names."

You sighed and finally met his eyes.

"Okay, so, I have this boyfriend who pranks me constantly, and I finally decided to get him back. I'd just seen this tiktok where the girl gets insecure because her boyfriend's been busy with work, so I used that on you. I figured you'd worry a little, I'd reassure you, and that would be it. I did not expect this. And now I swear it's my first and last time pranking you. I didn't expect you to go all serious.” 

You pulled him up onto the couch and settled into his lap, his hands sliding automatically to your waist as he listened, still watching you like he was reading straight through to the truth underneath.

You cupped his face and leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. "I don't doubt you. Never did. You show me through everything you do, and you tell me through everything you say. You take care of me, cook for me, spoil me with ridiculous gifts, never tell me no, somehow always end up matching my outfits and act like it's a coincidence because we're 'soulmates.' You protect me and kind of get that crazy look in your eyes like you end someone for hurting me.

You paused waiting to see if he would say something to that but he just smirked, not accepting or denying anything. But he didn't have to. You could feel exactly how far he'd go for you radiating off him. And god, it made you ache.

You leaned in and kissed him again, softer this time, murmuring against his lips. "And I know it because you dropped everything to come make sure I felt loved. But baby, I really was just pranking you. Turns out I'm terrible at it."

Satoru laughed and pulled you flush against him. "Fine, I believe you. Just had to be sure. You're the most important thing in my life."

"Mine too. I love you."

You kissed him again, deeper this time. One second you were in his lap. The next, you were flat on the couch with him hovering over you.

His voice dropped to a low, smooth murmur. "I still need to make sure you know how much I love you. I should show you properly, right? His lips pulled into that lazy smirk like he had absolutely filthy thoughts in his mind “So there's absolutely no doubt left. Just in case."

His eyes gone darker for entirely different reasons now as they roamed all over your body underneath him, and your heart suddenly pounding wildly, helpless against him. Exactly where you want to be,

God, maybe you should prank him more often. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have soooo many drafts I am just editing and posting them now! Let me know if you have any requests, especially for hurt/comfort or fluff!

Do you want a part 2? hehehehehehe

Yes! You want the next part (Ask nicely & maybe I'll think about it)

No (How dare you)

Voting ended onJul 30

[desiore]

sliding your card to him.

"just the check, please."

sylus's low voice makes you perk up from where you're eating the last bites of your dessert. mischief bubbles in your chest. you set down your fork and start rummaging through your bag.

"what are you doing?" sylus asks, eyebrow arching.

you can practically hear his thoughts. he's definitely wondering why you've decided to look through your bag after he asked for the check. the two of you have had this conversation many times before. he'll pay for any and all of your dates, regardless if you're planning to use the card he had given you.

you give him an innocuous smile. "just looking for my phone." you casually excuse yourself. sylus easily lets his suspicions go, especially since the waiter has arrived with the check.

you've seen videos of people handing their partner's cash or their card to see their reactions. even though you know how sylus would react, you would never pass up the chance to prank him. so, as you grab your phone, you also grab your personal credit card, keeping the card hidden in your hand.

taking out his wallet, sylus gives a cursory glance at the receipt, and you make your move.

with the low lights of the restaurant, all you can see is sylus's amused smirk as your hand scoots over towards him. you lift your hand and beneath it is your credit card. you watch, amused, as sylus's smirk falls. without even looking away from the receipt book, he flicks the card back towards you. you let out a gasping laugh at his actions.

sylus places his card in the book, closes it, and hands it to the waiter. he turns back towards you and playfully tsks at you.

"you know better, darling." his low drawl combined with the amusement in his red eyes makes you laugh a little harder.

"do i?" you crone out, fluttering your eyelashes playfully.

"even if don't—" sylus's eyes go half-lidded a bit. "—i can certainly teach you once more."

it seems a long night awaits you and you definitely cannot wait.

[deepspace-daydreams]

The same as yesterday

Valko x f!reader, established relationship, fluff

tw: mentions of weight

It’s Saturday morning. You’re still in your pajamas as you sit on the countertop and watch Valko preparing breakfast. He’s only wearing sweatpants – the grey ones that look dangerously good on him and always make you a bit weak in the knees – and his hair is a total mess, and yet, you swear he has never looked more attractive than in this kind of domestic setting. He’s humming quietly to himself as he flips another pancake (chocolate because what else?), then sets it onto the stack of already cooked pancakes once it’s ready. 

You watch him for a moment and sigh quietly, your gaze flickering down to your thighs. “I think I gained weight,” you say absent-mindedly. 

Valko looks up from the pan, his golden eyes narrowing slightly as he takes in the way you’re examining your legs. He remains silent for a moment, but eventually, he simply says “Okay” and shifts his attention back to the pancakes in front of him. 

“Okay?” you echo. “That’s it?”

“Am I supposed to say something else?”

You blink. That’s not exactly the reaction you’d been expecting. People usually were quick to judge when topics like weight were involved, and it felt a little strange not to get a dismissive reply. “I… don’t know.”

Valko sets the spatula down and lowers the heat before walking over to you. His hands find your hips, his touch warm even through the fabric of your shirt, as he stands between your knees and looks at you. His expression is soft, yet alert. “I don’t think I understand the problem here, sweetheart.”

You sigh again. “Of course you don’t.”

“Then try to explain it to me, hm?”

“Sometimes…” You shrug, a little helpless because you don’t really know how to put it into words without sounding like an insecure mess. “Sometimes, people just don’t feel particularly pretty.”

Valko’s gaze remains on your face as his hands start rubbing your hips in small, soothing motions. “So,” he replies, “you don’t feel pretty because you put on a little weight? Am I understanding this correctly?”

“Mhm.”

He nods, considering what you said with a seriousness as if you’d just given him fundamental business advice. Then, after a few moments of silence, he raises his hand and gently cradles your cheek in his warm palm. “That’s rough.”

He’s not dismissing how you feel, not showering you with meaningless, shallow compliments or trying to convince you that you’re being ridiculous. Instead, he just holds you and acknowledges your pain. 

You blink up at him through your lashes. “So?”

“So?”

“You’re not going to say anything else?”

Valko pauses for a moment as he tries to figure out your expectations. You look at him like a part of you already knows that he’s going to agree with you any second now – that a little weight gain makes you less attractive. But he just shakes his head, a smile lighting up his features as he reaches up to brush a stray strand of hair from your forehead. “I think you’re trying to convince me that you’re an entirely different person now.”

You frown. “What do you mean?”

“You imply that you’re less pretty than yesterday,” he replies. “But all I see is the same woman who fell asleep on me yesterday because she insisted on finishing the movie.”

“The movie was boring,” you try to defend yourself. 

Valko grins. “Yeah. It was. But your snoring was quite endearing.”

You gasp. “I don’t snore!”

“You do. Just a little bit, though.”

“I don’t,” you protest again but this time, you can’t suppress a laugh. Valko’s grin softens into a smile again. “Your laugh is still the same as yesterday.”

“Valko…”

“And you still look adorable with bedhead.”

“Stop-“

Valko leans in and lightly presses his forehead against yours, and your protests die down almost immediately. He nudges your nose with his. “But most importantly, you’re still the woman I want to spend my life with. Why would I suddenly stop finding you pretty?”

You try to turn your head away to avoid his gaze but he gently stops you. “Even if I gained twenty pounds?”

Valko nuzzles your cheek. “Then I’d have twenty more pounds of girlfriend to cuddle.”

At that, you giggle. “That was the worst answer ever.”

“Aww, really? I think it was quite good.”

“You’re impossible.”

“Mhm,” Valko hums in response. “And yet, you were very insisting of snuggling me this morning.”

He wraps his arms around your waist and gently pulls you forward until your forehead rests against your shoulder and he can hug you properly. “You’re my person, sweetheart,” he mumbles into your hair. “That’s not going to chance because of a number on a scale, okay?”

You breathe in his familiar scent, the last bit of tension finally draining from your shoulders. His arms around you feel like home. A soft sigh escapes you, this time out of pure relief, as you bury your face a little deeper into the crook of his neck. “Thank you,” you murmur against his skin. 

“Always,” he replies softly, then presses a tender kiss to the crown of your head. For a few quiet heartbeats, the two of you stay like this, wrapped up in each other’s arms as the nagging voices in the back of your mind finally quieten down and eventually shut up entirely.

Just as the world starts to feel entirely still and perfect, a sweet, familiar scent hits your nose, followed by a telltale wisp of smoke rising from the stove. 

You lift your head, blinking over his shoulder. “Valko?”

“Mhm?”

“I think your extra portion of girlfriend cuddles just sacrificed a pancake.”

Valko freezes. He glances over his shoulder at the pan, lets out a quiet curse that immediately makes you giggle, and spins around. With a quick motion, he grabs the spatula and rescues the slightly-too-dark pancake from the heat. He inspects the charred chocolate pancake, winces, and then turns back to you with a sheepish grin. “Well. Extra flavor, I guess. Now get off the counter, sweetheart, before the rest of them get cold.”

You shake your head with a smile as you slide down from the countertop to grab forks. The day has barely begun, but the heavy weight in your chest is entirely gone, replaced by the warm, quiet certainty that you are exactly where you belong.

Thank you for reading! 🫶🏻 Feedback and reblogs would mean a lot to me.

[josiewinters1999]

I feel too often Loki is written as a suave, dashing, charming, and alluringly dark love interest.

As a very very long time Loki apologist and Loki fangirl... I saw with all the love in my heart but...

Loki is a fucking loser LMAO.

Yes, he can be charming and talk his way into or out of any situation. But he's also selfish and childish and spoiled. He's a prince for norn's sake!

I like when Loki fics let that petulant and ridiculous side of him shine through. Let him be a whiny bitch who doesn't take reader's feelings into consideration, and then regrets it later. Let him get jealous and start a petty ass argument for no reason. Let him make mistakes or say rude things he doesn't mean.

LET LOKI BE A SHIT.

He is the OG shit. I love when he's difficult and petty and just plain pathetic. It's part of his charm!

[laurefindele]

── oblivious

ꨄ︎ alpha valko x beta non-mc x alpha mc

ꨄ︎ summary: You always assumed you were just the supportive Beta third wheel to Mei and Valko's inevitable Alpha power-couple romance. Turns out, you were wrong.

ꨄ︎ cw: fem!reader, non-mc reader, a/b/o, college/university au, oblivious reader, beta!reader, alpha!valko, alpha!mc, mc is mei, fluff, possibly ooc valko, alpha/beta relationship, unbeta'd, unedited

ꨄ︎ a/n: guys… i've fallen for the valko propaganda 😭 anyway, please note that his characterization in this fic is purely based on the 3 minute trailer that we got 🥹 also non mc x mc because wth, she's hot and the new fit is 🔥

ꨄ︎ lads masterlist ꨄ︎ AO3

Being a Beta definitely had its perks. 

You didn't have to deal with heats, ruts, or the overwhelming biological urges that governed the lives of Alphas and Omegas. The only downside was that you were practically scent-blind to pheromones, which meant you had to rely strictly on visual cues to realize that your two best friends were hopelessly, undeniably in love with each other.

Yes, that was the only explanation that made sense.

You were currently sprawled on a plush, impossibly expensive velvet sofa in the middle of Valko’s penthouse.

As the sole heir to Eoncore Tech, Valko’s college living situation was less "dorm room" and more "billionaire's high-rise playground," complete with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city and experimental tech prototypes scattered across every surface.

"Okay, but listen, if we overclock the core processors on the new VR rig…whoa!"

Valko, who had been pacing excitedly while rambling about the latest tech he was working on, suddenly tripped over a tangled mess of fiber-optic cables. His arms flailed wildly, his glasses flying off his face as he plummeted toward the glass coffee table.

Before you could even flinch, Mei was there.

The female Alpha moved with terrifying speed, catching Valko by the back of his designer hoodie then hauling his tall, broad frame upright with one hand like he was a stray kitten.

"Careful, idiot," Mei grumbled. She didn't let go of his hoodie right away, eyes locking onto his flushed face.

"Ah... right. Thanks, Mei," Valko chuckled nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. He looked like a massive, clumsy golden retriever who had just bumped into a glass door. He beamed at her, and the raw, unspoken Alpha energy between them felt so thick and intimate that you felt guilty just for watching. 

You sighed fondly, picking up your textbook. 

It was beautiful, really. 

Two incredibly powerful Alphas, one a grounded, protective force of nature, and the other a brilliant, obscenely wealthy, loveable dork. They were a perfect match. You were just lucky they let their token Beta friend hang out in their penthouse to use the ultra-fast Wi-Fi.

Mei finally let go of Valko and walked over to you. She silently placed a plate of perfectly sliced fruit on the table in front of you, a soft, almost imperceptible gentleness softening her features when she looked your way.

"Thanks, Mei," you smiled.

Valko immediately scrambled over, nearly tripping again, to drop a brand-new, unreleased Eoncore smart tablet into your lap. 

"I had the engineering team install that specific reading app you like! The screen adjusts to your retinas so you don't get headaches while studying!"

"Valko, this is worth more than my car," you said, staring at the sleek device.

"It's just a prototype! Consider it... beta testing," he said, winking proudly at his own pun.

You looked between the two of them. They had flanked you again, standing on either side of the sofa, looking down at you with undivided attention. Even without being able to smell their pheromones, the territorial, possessive aura in the room was suffocating. 

They were practically vibrating.

They must be getting ready to court each other, you thought. They’re so tense. I’m totally ruining the mood.

You closed your textbook and carefully placed the ridiculously expensive tablet on the table. 

"You know what, guys? I think I'm gonna head out. I have a lot of reading to do, and I really want to give you two the apartment to yourselves tonight."

Both Alphas froze. 

Valko blinked, his brain clearly struggling to process the statement.

"Give us the apartment?" Mei repeated, eyebrows furrowed. "Why?"

"Well, you know," you gestured between them with an encouraging smile. "You two have been circling each other for months. The whole ‘Alpha power couple’ thing is great, and I fully support it, but you don't have to keep pretending to hang out with me just to spend time together. You should just establish your pack already!"

Silence fell over the penthouse. 

Both Alphas stared at you then, they slowly turned to stare at each other.

"You think..." Valko started, his voice dropping slightly "You think Mei and I want to mate... with each other?"

"Well, yeah! You're always paying for our dinners, and Mei is always physically guarding us in public. You're constantly scenting the furniture around, which I can't smell, by the way, but I'm not blind. I know how Alpha courtships work!"

"We're scenting you," Mei stated bluntly, pinching the bridge of her nose. "We scent everything you touch so no other Alphas come near you. I'm guarding you. Valko is buying things for you."

You paused, your brain short-circuiting. 

"Me? But… but I'm a Beta."

"Yeah, a Beta that we are entirely obsessed with," Valko blurted out, his cheeks burning. He practically threw himself onto the sofa next to you, looking like a panicked billionaire puppy. "We don't want to mate with each other! I mean, Mei is great, but she terrifies me! We want you. We've thought of you as our mate since sophomore year!"

Your mouth fell open. 

"Wait. Both of you? But..."

"Did you really think," Mei said softly, sitting on your other side and boxing you in perfectly between their warm, solid frames, "that the heir to Eoncore Tech and I spend every single day following you around just to get to each other?"

"I thought I was the supportive third wheel!" you defended, your face flushing hot.

"You're the entire vehicle," Valko groaned, dramatically resting his forehead on your shoulder. "Please tell me you don't actually want to leave. Because if you do, I'm going to have to panic-buy the building you live in just so I have an excuse to be your landlord, and the paperwork is a nightmare."

Mei reached out, gently but firmly taking your hand, her thumb brushing over your knuckles. 

"Stay," she murmured, a quiet, possessive plea in her tone. "Study here with your pack."

ꨄ︎ a/n: i also don't remember if i ever wrote a purely fluff fic for other lis...

ꨄ︎ taglist: @seraphineash, @loreleis-world, @tinuvieloflemuria, @thehyperfixationgirly (if i missed someone who requested to be perma-tagged, please lmk and i'm sorry 😭)

likes, reblogs, and comments are greatly appreciated! hope you guys enjoyed reading!

[cumchiato]

୨୧ — Valko was sprawled on his stomach, one arm dangling off the edge of the bed, hair an absolute disaster, ears twitching occasionally at sounds only he could hear. His tail had escaped the covers sometime in the night and lay flopped over your legs like a furry anchor.

It wagged once. Twice. Even in sleep, some part of him always knew you were there.

You'd been awake for an hour already- crept out at an ungodly time to execute your master plan, then slipped back in to wait. The apartment smelled like vanilla and sugar and slightly burnt frosting (you'd scraped off the evidence), and the living room was housing a mountain of wrapped presents you'd been secretly hoarding for weeks.

His nose twitched.

There it is.

You watched his brow furrow, still mostly asleep, processing the unusual scent data. His tail started wagging faster. Then his ears perked up- one, then the other, swiveling toward the bedroom door like little radar dishes.

“Mmrph” A grumble. His arm reached out blindly, patting the mattress until he found your thigh and latched on,  “Why's it smell like... cake?”

“Good morning to you too.”

One golden eye cracked open. Then the other. He squinted at you suspiciously, clearly not trusting his own senses this early, “‘S not my birthday.”

“It literally is.”

He buried his face back into the pillow, “Birthdays are for people who age. I refuse. I'm eternal.”

You snorted and scratched behind one ear. His whole body went boneless, a low rumble building in his chest.

Cheater, he thought hazily. Using the ears against me. 

“Made you a cake,” you said in the sweetest fucking voice. 

His head lifted. Both ears now at full attention, pointed directly at you with laser focus.

“…What kind?”

“Chocolate. Three layers. Homemade buttercream… There may also be irresponsible amounts of presents. That leather jacket you've been staring at for six months? Those limited edition headphones that sold out in three minutes?" You grinned. "Oh, and I contacted that artist you like for a custom commission- it won't be ready for weeks so you're getting an IOU with a badly drawn wolf on it. Don't judge my art skills."

His tail was going insane now- hard enough to shake the bed. But his face was doing that thing where he tried to look cool and unaffected and was failing spectacularly.

She remembered, he thought, something warm and overwhelming expanding in his chest. Every stupid little thing I mentioned once. She was listening. She planned this. For me.

You didn't get to finish the sentence.

Valko moved fast and suddenly you were pinned beneath him, his weight pressing you into the mattress, his face inches from yours.

“You,” he said roughly, “are so annoying.”

“Rude. I made you cake-“

“The most annoying person I've ever met.” He kissed your forehead. “Insufferable even.” Your nose. “Absolutely unbearable.” The corner of your mouth. 

You cupped his face in both hands.

“Happy birthday, my little wolfie.”

He made a small, undignified sound. His tail drooped. His ears flattened.

And then he buried his face in your neck, arms wrapping around you tight enough to squeeze the air from your lungs, and just... stayed there. Breathing you in.

You held him tighter, scratching at the base of his ears as his whole body melted against yours.

His tail started wagging again- slower, softer.

Best day, he thought. Best person. Gonna marry her. 

“So,” you finally said, breaking the silence, “wanna see your presents? Orrrr is it still too early?”

He bit your shoulder. Not hard. Just enough to make you yelp.

“Five more minutes.” He lifted his head, flashing that sharp grin- still slightly watery but getting cockier, “Then presents. Then cake. Then I'm gonna show you exactly how grateful I am. Repeatedly.”

“...It's eight AM.”

“And? I've got all day. You gave me three layers. That's at least three rounds.”

“That math doesn't-“

He dropped back down, pressing a kiss to your pulse point, “My birthday. My math.” 

[deepspacenova]

Draped in Devotion

He pauses then, studying your reflection with a slight curl of his lip, a sharp contrast to the intensity in his gleaming scarlet irises. “Want to know which of these jewels is the best treasure I’ve ever gotten?”

➻➻ ABOUT | 1800 words. sylus x gn!reader.

➻➻ TAGS | emotional hurt/comfort. light angst. insecurity. fluff. flirting. affection. words of affirmation. self-indulgent.

NOTE: My writer's block for my kinktober series is so bad I cried earlier today lol.. SO i decided to switch gears and popped this out instead. A combo of my interpretation of the upcoming 4 star card as well as my intense need for sylus' comfort rn xoxo

The dress doesn’t sit right.

You feel it the moment you look in the mirror, the way the emerald satin catches the light wrong, how it hugs your ribs and your thighs in the right places, but it somehow still feels shapeless.

Your first four dress attempts already lie discarded on the bathroom floor in a shimmery heap of defeat. You tug at the bodice, press a hand over your waist, tilt your head, add the black, elbow-length gloves that pair with it, fiddle with your hair to make it fall around your face differently.

Nothing helps.

The reflection continues to stare back in judgment. You, a statue of frustration and half-pinned hair, brows pinched, eyes dim.

The door opens behind you.

“Almost ready, sweetie?” Sylus’ smooth voice echoes in the tiled room.

You meet his gaze in the mirror and see he’s leaning against the door frame, his red shirt buttoned only three-quarters of the way up, his camel-colored jacket draped loosely around his shoulders. Handsome and confident. Effortlessly put together. He always is.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” You force a smile, drop your hands from your sides. “Maybe you should just go without me. I can stay at the base tonight, play that new game with Luke.”

He hums low, crossing the room in a few unhurried strides until he’s behind you, his reflection standing tall and determined while yours seems to shrink and pale in comparison. “I'm afraid that won’t do tonight." He bumps his chin into the crown of your head playfully. “They’ll be expecting their biggest donor.”

“Exactly," you affirm with a small shrug. “That’s why you should go.”

Sylus’ lips curve with a secret smile. “Hm, no. See, that’s the problem.” He reaches out and gently strokes a loose lock of hair near your temple, focusing his gaze on the strands. “The donation was anonymous, but their 'mysterious benefactor' has made you his stand-in, kitten.”

Your mouth opens, closes. “You… What?”

"Well.. there's no way Skye the humble fruit vendor would be chosen as the stand-in for someone who's sponsored an entire wing of Linkon's newest museum."

"Sylus!"

“Don’t look at me like that,” he chides gently, brushing a finger along the seam of your satin glove. “You signed the papers.”

“You didn't let me read the papers!”

He pauses for a few seconds, then meets your eyes again with a mischievous grin. “Oops."

Sylus steps back a bit as you turn away from the mirror, exhaling through your nose as your frustration builds again. The frustration isn't at him, really, but at the ache in your chest and the memory of your drab, out-of-place reflection. “This dress doesn’t belong on me.” The words spill out before you can swallow them. “None of them do. I’ve tried four so far, and I still look—”

“Like yourself,” Sylus finishes quietly. The amusement from before has been wiped from his face; this time, his smile is affectionate, sincere.

“Exactly,” you mutter, spreading your arms out and dropping them at your sides. “That’s the problem.”

Sylus pauses at your words, tilts his head back in surprise, and looks you over. It's a slow and deliberate perusal. Lingering on every detail of you from your wrists to your collarbone and even your shoulders and ears, before his study ends at your eyes.

You're captivated by the heat in them, turning the dark scarlet irises into the red of molten lava. Just as you prepare for him to say something seductive, some double entendre that would leave you blushing and bashful and take your mind off your worries, if only for a few minutes, Sylus reaches out to brush a thumb along your jaw, holds up his pointer finger, and strides out of the bathroom.

You blink at the doorway. “Sylus?”

No answer. Just the fading sound of his footsteps down the hall.

You sigh, reaching for your phone. The screen lights up with a notification about the event and reminds you just how little time you have left.

If people are going to be looking at you tonight because of the donation, because of him, maybe you could at least make the most of it by distracting them all with some makeup. A darker eye, maybe, something bold. You lean toward the mirror, sweeping shadow across your lids, focusing on the small, controlled motions instead of the gnawing anxiety in your chest.

By the time you’re done, you almost feel composed again. Until you see him reappear in the mirror.

Sylus stands in the doorway, hands full. Velvet boxes of various colours, shapes, and sizes, rest in his palms and even between his fingers. Without a word he walks up behind you and starts setting them down. His arms come up on either side of you to open one, two, three… until there are at least a dozen jewelry boxes open and gleaming in front of you.

You blink, unable to tear your eyes away from the sight. “What are you doing? What is all this?”

Your gaze lands on a necklace of pearls, each orb the size of your fingertip, surrounded by a halo of small diamonds. You hover a hand over it, afraid you'll soil its value with just your touch. “I can’t-”

“You can, kitten,” he interrupts, abrupt and assertive, picking up the necklace that had just caught your eye and laying it gently across your throat.

"Sylus, this-"

“This,” he says, talking right over you as he clasps it at your nape, “was acquired from the vault of an embezzler in Skyhaven." He rubs a finger over the clasp as the cold kiss of the pearls settles against your skin. “They’re worth about five hundred thousand Linkon gold. Maybe more now that I've determined these are Lemurian pearls.”

You swallow, eyes wide in the mirror.

He reaches for another box, revealing a diamond bracelet shaped like a constellation of stars. “This was a thank you gift," he murmurs, sliding the delicate strand over your glove, his lowered head brushing the apple of his cheek against yours. "For stealing a few priceless artifacts from Chansia."

You tilt your head, meeting his gaze in the mirror. “You stole them?”

“And gave them back." He nods, lips curving. “To their rightful owners. An island off the coast.”

The next box holds an intricate ring of interlocking platinum vines. “From a black market auction in the N109 Zone. Nearly started a riot getting it.” He slides it over your middle finger, letting his lips oh so casually brush against your open neck. “Probably worth more than all of Linkon's museums combined.”

He keeps going. Another necklace from the usurper of a small country in the north. A hairpin carved from meteoric crystal. A small brooch shaped like a snowflake from Snowcrest. Each piece comes with a story that's dangerous, wicked, and yet still shaped by Sylus' unique sense of altruism.

By the time he’s done, you’re dripping in treasures, and your reflection in the mirror looks like a painting of a royal in a gallery. The emerald silk of your dress glimmers beneath cascades of silver, diamond, and pearl.

You're draped in the kind of beauty you associate with artwork, not people.

Through it all, Sylus has continued to stand behind you, inlaying you with some of the world's most beautiful and sought-after jewelry like a live model. His touches are soft and reassuring, knuckles grazing your arms, lips pressing kisses into your hair, collarbone, the shell of your ear.

"That's strange." His hands come to rest lightly on your shoulders, voice wavering and raspy. "These all look much more dull than I remember.”

You lean back, your back meeting his chest as the words catch you off guard. He’s watching you, really watching you, the rubies in his eyes bright and alive.

“Everything you wear belongs on you,” he continues, quiet but firm. “Because you belong anywhere you choose to be. Even in a room full of ignorant people, trying to measure your worth by what’s on your body.” He leans closer as if imparting a secret, his palm sliding over your waist. “Let them try. They’ll never get close.”

He pauses then, studying your reflection with something soft and affectionate curling at the corner of his mouth. “Want to know which of these jewels is the best treasure I’ve ever gotten?”

You're caught between laughter and disbelief. “Which one?”

He takes your gloved hand, turns it over gently, and presses his lips to the top of a ring gleaming there, the gesture elegant, almost courtly. But when he looks up again, his eyes catch yours in the mirror, and he leans in, lips brushing your temple with a feather-light kiss as he whispers, “This one.”

The words melt into you, and you almost forget to breathe for a moment around the lump that's formed in your throat. His reflection, close and steady behind you, anchors you there.

“Take them off, and you’d still have the same eyes,” he murmurs after a beat. “The same voice. The same stubborn, so very human heart that somehow deemed me worthy of holding it.”

You laugh softly, a little watery, and shake your head. “Only sometimes.”

His smile deepens. “Then let me make the most of one of those rare occasions then. Don't hide yourself from the world tonight.”

His hands settle at your waist. “Now. Look.”

You do.

The person staring back doesn’t look lost anymore. They look… determined. Powerful. Even a little… intimidating. The emerald dress suddenly makes sense, like it was waiting for this exact moment to come alive.

Sylus meets your gaze through the reflection. “You see it now, don’t you?”

“See what?”

“That there’s nothing I could put on you,” he says with a voice like smoke, “that could ever make you worth more than you already are.”

And when he turns your head to slot his lips against yours, you believe him.

➻➻ MASTERLIST

[kissandtellus]

Beggin’ on your knees: LADS LI begging for your forgiveness

Synopsis: The LI’s have said something to you they instantly regret. Cue the most groveling, pathetic, lovesick apology you’ve ever seen.

Warnings: Fluff, Hurt to Comfort, Angst, Description of medical issues, description of wounds, they are pretty pathetic ya’ll.

A/n: This was another commission from the lovely @moonlitnycto! This was for my Christmas Commission deal i have going on right now! Spots are still open!

˖᯽ ݁˖ Xavier

The mission was supposed to be simple, extract intel, minimal engagement with Wanderers. But of course, you had to improvise.

Xavier watches from the tactical feed, jaw locked tight as you ignore his direct order to fall back, charging headfirst into enemy sightlines instead. His knuckles whiten around the comm unit.

“What was that?" His voice cracks through the earpiece, sharp enough to make you flinch mid-stride. “Do you enjoy being a liability? Or are you just determined to get yourself killed?"

Silence. Even the static in your comm feels heavy.

Then, worse, the choked sound of your breath hitching.

Regret drowns him before the mission even debriefs.

Xavier cornered you in the armory the second you were alone, his palm slamming the locker beside your head.

“I didn’t mean—" His voice breaks, raw with frustration, At himself. “You know I didn’t—.”

You finally meet his eyes. And his breath stutters.

“You meant it," you say softly. “That’s the problem."

The moment your words Xavier’s knees hit the floor like a man sentenced to death.

His hands fist in the fabric of your mission pants, forehead pressing into your stomach as his breath comes ragged and unsteady.

“I hate myself when you look at me like that," he grits out, voice muffled against your uniform shirt. “Like I’m just another person who doesn’t see you."

His fingers tremble where they grip you.

“I see you. Every reckless, brilliant inch." He takes a harsh inhale. “And I’d burn the world before I let my own pride make you doubt it again."

You slide your fingers through his hair, gently at first. Then your grip tightens until his pretty blue eyes flicker up to meet yours. The regret there is volcanic, but you don’t let him look away.

“You want to make it up to me?" you question, thumb brushing the scar on his cheekbone. The one you stitched up after his last reckless charge. “Then listen next time. Trust me like I trust you.”

His jaw flexes, but he doesn’t argue. You lean down, your lips a breath from his. “I’m stronger than you think. Nothing is going to keep me from you. In this lifetime, or the next.”

You seal the confession with a kiss.

˖᯽ ݁˖ Rafayel

The air in the studio was thick with tension, the scent of paint thinner sharp in your nose as you stood frozen under Rafayel’s glare. He was pissed.

"You lied to me." His voice was dangerously calm.

You swallowed hard. "Rafayel, I didn't—"

"Don't." His hand sliced through the air, cutting you off. "I trusted you. I told you things. Things I've never told anyone and the whole time, you were just—what? Playing along? Waiting to report back to them?”

‘Them’ was the Unicorn Operatives. It was never in-detail things. But Rafayel was still a person of interest for your organization.

Your stomach dropped. This wasn’t about some minor mistake, this was about everything, The secret mission, the hidden agenda, the lies woven into your time together.

"I had to," you insisted, stepping forward. "It wasn’t about you-”

"Of course it wasn’t!" he exploded, voice cracking. "Nothing ever is, is it? Not my art, not my trust. Not even this." His gesture between you two was vicious. "Was any of it real?"

The second the words left his mouth, his face twisted with regret.

You saw it, the flicker of pain in his eyes, the way his fists clenched like he wanted to take it back. But the damage was done. The silence between you was deafening.

And then, quieter, broken: "...Get out."

He froze, the sound of your sharp inhale like a physical blow. When your eyes began to water, the sight sent a lance of guilt and regret through him.

He'd wanted to hurt you with his callous words, to channel his anger into something that would leave you as wounded as he felt. But now, watching the tears well up in your eyes, all he felt was sickening remorse.

His throat tightened. The urge to take it all back clawed at his chest like a wild animal. To apologize, to comfort you, to go back to the way things were.

His knees folded with the weight of his regret. He fell to the ground before you, grasping your hands tightly as if fearing you'd slip away.

"Don't cry," he pleaded, each word a tight whisper. "Please, please don't cry.” His fingers clenched around your wrists, desperate, as if he could anchor you with touch alone.

"I didn't mean it," he insisted, desperation coloring his voice. "I was angry, I was hurt, but I didn’t mean a damn word."

A tear rolled down your cheek, but a small, reluctant smile tugged at your lips as he clung to your hands like a sinner at prayer.

You sniffled, wiping your face with the back of your hand. "If you really want to make it up to me..."

Rafayel nodded frantically, ready to agree to anything. "Name it."

You pointed at the scattered sketches and paint tubes across the studio floor, his earlier outburst had sent them flying. "...You clean this up."

His mouth fell open slightly.

You tilted your head. "And..." You pause for effect. "...You make me hot chocolate. With whipped cream."

Rafayel blinked once, then exhaled a shaky laugh, pressing his forehead against your knuckles in sheer relief. "Deal," he mumbled.

You nudged him with your knee. "And marshmallows."

He groaned dramatically, but his grip on your hands tightened, like he never wanted to let go again. "Fine. But only because you're cute when you cry."

You scowled. "Rafayel.*"

He grinned, already scrambling to his feet. "Kidding! Mostly."

˖᯽ ݁˖ Zayne

The hospital room is too bright, too sterile. The rhythmic beep of the cardiac monitor a mocking counterpoint to the furious pounding of your own pulse. Zayne stands at the foot of the bed, his white coat pristine, his knuckles bone-white where they grip the railing.

"How long?" His voice is quiet. “How long have you been having arrhythmias and didn't—" He chokes on the words, his composure fracturing. “Didn't tell me?"

You flinch. The truth lodges in your throat like glass. Three months of hiding skipped beats, of biting back gasps when your heart stuttered mid-mission, of pretending the black spots in your vision weren't getting worse.

Zayne reads the answer in your silence.

“Do you have any idea—" He cuts himself off, jaw working. When he speaks again, it's with a cold, clinical precision that cuts deeper than any shout. “You're my patient first. Always. If you can't trust me with that, then what are we even—"

He stops. Catches himself too late.

The unspoken words hang between you like a death sentence: ‘Then what are we even doing?’

The second they leave his mouth, regret floods his features. He reaches for you.

But you're already turning away, swallowing the bile rising in your throat.

Because the worst part? He's right. And now neither of you can pretend otherwise.

The apology comes hours later, whispered into your hair as he holds you through the worst of the episode, his tears hot against your shoulder.

Zayne holds you in his arms as the episode passes, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat a steadying counterpoint to the ragged thudding of your own. His tears are hot against your shoulder, his fingers trembling as they trace your spine. He whispers apologies against your hair.

"I didn't—I didn't mean—"

He sighs, his grip tightening. You feel the fight go out of him, replaced by a raw vulnerability that's rare in him.

"I don't want to lose you," he breathes. "That's all. I just don't want to lose you."

You turn into him, burying your face in the safety of his chest. You can feel the steady thrum of his heart against your cheek, the rise and fall of his breathing, the way his fingers trace patterns on your back, as if committing the curves and planes of your body to memory.

For a moment, you let yourself forget the world outside this hospital room, the looming specter of your illness, the arguments and apologies that still linger between you. Here, wrapped in his arms, you're not patient and doctor.

You're just the two of you.

“Just stay with me…hurts more when your gone…” Your body shakes with a cut off sob. Zayne just tightens his grip on you.

“Always.”

˖᯽ ݁˖ Caleb

The argument had been brewing for week. Ever since Caleb came back from that last deep-space mission with the neural chip embedded behind his ear. At first, it was little things. The way his eyes glitched violet for half a second when he laughed, how he’d sometimes stare at the wall like he was listening to something you couldn’t hear.

But tonight? Tonight it all snapped.

“You don’t get to shut me out like this!" you shout, slamming your palm against his chest. “That thing in your head is changing you, and you’re just-just letting it!”

Caleb's jaw tenses, his pupils flickering with that unnatural glow as he steps closer.

“Maybe I like the upgrade," he sneers, voice colliding with a coldness that doesn’t sound like him. “Maybe I’m tired of playing the dumb, lovestruck boy when the Fleet needs me sharp."

The second the words leave his mouth, his whole body goes rigid, his expression collapsing into horror as he reaches for you.”

“Wait—Pips, I didn’t—"

But you’re already backing away, your eyes burning with tears.

The second your footsteps echo down the hallway, Caleb’s entire body jerks like he’s been shocked awake. His breath is coming in ragged gasps as the artificial glow behind his eyes flickers and dies. The chip’s cold influence fractures, leaving only your Caleb.

“No—no no no—”

His knees hit the floor so hard the impact reverberates up his thighs, but he doesn’t care. He’s already scrambling after you, his Evol flaring wildly as he slides the last few feet on his knees, colliding with your legs like a man begging for mercy. His arms lock around your waist, his face pressing into your stomach with a broken, wet gasp.

“I hate it. I hate the chip, I hate what it’s doing to me!” His fingers dig into your back, clinging like you’re the only thing grounding him. “Please, please don’t let it take you away from me too. I’ll ripit out myself.”

His voice cracks, and for the first time since the implant, you feel him shake.

You sink down, wrapping your arms around his trembling shoulders to pull him against you. His tears are hot and shaky against your skin. You've seen him through so many things, but this is different. He's usually so strong, so resilient, but this feels like the weight of every battle finally breaking him.

“Hey, hey," you whisper, one hand cupping his jaw with gentle ferocity. “It's you. You're still you, do you hear me?"

Caleb leans into your touch like a kicked puppy. You gently wipe away his tears and give him a smile. “You can make it up to me by helping me with that model plane. The chip can take away a lot from you. But it can't take away your hyperfixation on those planes.”

Your teasing makes Caleb let out a wet chuckle and sniffle. “Yeah…please?”

You kiss his flushed cheek and stand with him. The over 6ft man leans on you like a cane. You’ve always been his support, and always will.

˖᯽ ݁˖ Sylus

The door to the penthouse slams open with enough force to make the windows rattle. Sylus strides in, his usually impeccable posture rigid with barely restrained fury. You trail behind him, limping, clutching your bleeding forearm but he doesn’t turn to check on you.

Not yet. His hands clench at his sides, the leather creaking ominously.

“Sit," he snaps, gesturing sharply to the leather couch.

You flinch but obey, sinking onto the cool material with a hiss of pain. The wound isn’t life-threatening, just a deep graze from a stray bullet, but the blood has seeped through your sleeve, staining the fabric a stark, accusing red.

Silently, Sylus retrieves the medkit from the side cabinet. When he kneels in front of you, his face is carefully blank, except for his eyes. His irises burn with a simmering, scarlet intensity, the glow pulsing in time with his rapid breaths.

He doesn’t speak as he peels back your sleeve, revealing the angry, jagged gash beneath. His touch is strict, antiseptic swabs, pressure, bandages but his fingers tremble. Just once. A fracture in his composure.

“You could have died."

The words crack like a whip. You look up, startled, but he isn’t looking at you. His jaw works, his gaze fixed on the bloody gauze in his hands.

“And for what? A stakeout?” It’s spoken in a venomous whisper. “You’re reckless. Stupid. You don’t—"

He stops.

Sylus drops the gauze. His hands fly to your face, cupping your cheeks with a desperation that steals your breath. His thumbs brush over your skin, tracing invisible wounds as if reassuring himself you're whole. “I can't—" His voice breaks. If I lost you—"

There is a moment of silence as he cradles your face. He falls to his knees.

Not the controlled, graceful descent of a man who kneels only to dominate, but a collapse. A surrender.

“Forgive me," he rasps, eyes desperately searching for your own.

He presses his forehead against your knees, his breathing ragged. The anger has evaporated, leaving only raw, unfiltered terror in its wake. Terror of you, for you.

“I didn't mean it." The words are muffled against your skin, his fingers digging into your thighs like the bullet may re-aninate and take you from him again. “Fuck. Fuck. I never should have—"

His shoulders shake. Just once. He looks up.And you see it: the wet, furious gleam in his crimson eyes. You can’t move. You’ve been wounded far beyond this simple bullet wound.

But this time, it had been on HIS watch.

“Tell me you hate me," he demands, "Tell me you’ll never forgive me. Anything. Just—" His fingers tighten. “Don’t lie there like you’re already gone."

You reach out, brushing a tear from his cheek with your thumb. He flinches, like your touch burns.

“Sylus," you whisper.

That’s all it takes. He crumbles. And for the first time in his life, the most dangerous man in the N109 Zone begs.

Tag List: @chaemaire @purplemooned @vvi-vi @partypoison00 @l0st1nthedark @varpaat @boulder @space-trashlordd @hilliserose @rubylescent @joyfulyouthlover @lilacsandhysteria @cheezeandkrackers @zayneslover @slave-of-heaven @ladyanonreader @kiyadeleine @emowitchwithatwist @nixia1107-blog @aishabbbb @lordbugs @poisonivyae @embetie @mock-kett @nanamisgirly @imsaemi @exe-toby @rhickah @slutforsnowcrow423 @kageyaxaa @pumpk1n-gurl @anothergojostan @luvqi @juha18indeepspace @imhwajaez @matcha-m0chi @idiotboop @pomegranatesnapples @ajyoursgirl @raendarkfaerie @patchesofwork @diejager @goddessofeverything

[kenpisces]

it’s rush hour, you’re having an anxiety attack and a white-haired stranger shares his earphones with you.

the 7:43 pm train is a beast with too many limbs, all of them sharp and pressing. you’re wedged between a woman with a backpack the size of a small country and a man who hasn’t discovered deodorant, and the air is thick with the smell of coffee breath and damp wool. the train lurches and you stumble, a hand shooting out to grab the overhead rail, but you miss and your knuckles brush against the chest of someone standing directly in front of you.

“easy there,” a voice says, low and amused.

you look up… and up.

he’s so stupidly tall. white hair that defies the fluorescent lighting, sunglasses perched on his nose even though the sun is down, and a smile that’s too relaxed. he’s so close you can smell his cologne— something expensive and clean, sandalwood maybe, cutting through the subway stench like it doesn’t belong here. he doesn’t belong here.

“sorry,” you mumble, trying to shrink yourself smaller, but there’s nowhere to go. the train is a sardine can and you’re all fish.

the crowd surges as more people cram in at the next stop. his chest presses against your shoulder now, and your back is flush with the backpack woman. your heart starts doing something unpleasant. a flutter, then a pound, then a rhythm that feels wrong. your palms are sweating. the air isn’t reaching your lungs the way it should.

breathe. it’s just a train. you’ll be at your stop in—

but your stop is fifteen minutes away and fifteen minutes feels like an hour when your ribs are a cage tightening around your lungs. your vision swims at the edges. you squeeze your eyes shut.

your heart stutters, then sprints. palms go clammy. the fluorescent lights buzz too loud. the train screeches on its tracks. your chest tightens, throat narrows, and you know what’s coming, the familiar rising tide you can’t push back down.

“hey.” the voice comes from above you, cutting through the noise. “you okay?”

you shake your head, barely. your breathing has gone shallow, ragged. you try to count things like you’re supposed to— five things you can see— but all you see is him now, because he’s bent down a little, and your eyes catch on the blue seas instead of his eyes.

“hey, hey, it’s okay,” he murmurs, and his voice has lost its playful edge, softened into something gentler. “you’re gonna breathe with me, yeah?”

you can’t answer. the sound of your own gasping is humiliating, echoing in your ears. people are probably noticing. the train lurches again and you stumble, but his hand finds your elbow, steadying you without gripping too hard.

then he pulls something from his ear, the tiny bud pinched between his thumb and forefinger, and before you can process what’s happening, he’s tucking it into your ear.

sound floods in. bright, bubbly synth, a familiar beat, and then your brain hiccups. your breath catches for a completely different reason.

it’s beyoncé, b’day era beyoncé, the 2000s nostalgia hits you like a truck, and against every screaming nerve in your body, a surprised little laugh bubbles out of you, half-hysterical but sure.

you look up at him properly for the first time. he does nothing to hide the amused tilt of his lips. he’s grinning, head cocked, like he’s delighted you’re laughing.

“what?” he says, voice raised just enough over the music. “don’t judge. this album is a masterpiece.”

“no—no, it’s just—” you huff a shaky breath, but the vise around your ribs has loosened. the music thumps along, steady and confident, filling the space where panic was seconds ago. “i wasn’t expecting this.”

“expectations are boring,” he says simply, and the earphone wire connects the two of you, tethering you to earth. his thumb still rests lightly on your inner elbow.

the train announces the next stop. you don’t catch the name, too focused on the way his mouth quirks as destiny’s child fades into rihanna. umbrella. you almost laugh again.

you focus on the songs. on his closeness, which no longer feels suffocating but strangely protective, a wall between you and the rest of the packed car. his shoulder blocks someone’s jostling elbow. his tall frame shields you from the press of bodies. you breathe.

eventually, the familiar chime sounds for your station. you reach up to pull the earphone out, but his hand stops yours gently.

“leave it,” he says.

you open your mouth to argue, but the doors slide open and he steps off with you, still connected by the thin white wire.

you walk a few paces before it sinks in. you stop. he stops with you, oblivious to the commuters streaming around you both.

“was this… your stop?” you ask, already knowing the answer.

he tilts his head, smile turning sheepish, almost boyish. “not even close.”

something warm blooms in your chest, utterly different from the earlier tightness. you reach up and carefully pull the earphone out, the tinny sound of gwen stefani fading as you hand it back.

“thank you,” you say. your voice comes out steadier than you feel. “for… all of that. i’m sorry you missed your stop.”

“worth it,” he says easily, and the word carries a weight that makes your stomach flip. “i’m satoru, by the way. gojo satoru.”

before you can overthink it, you rise on your toes and press a kiss to his cheek. his skin is warm and smooth and you catch another hit of that sugar-sweet scent before you drop back down, face heating.

his eyebrows shoot up. he pushes his sunglasses up and his grin goes from charming to dangerous in a heartbeat.

“oh,” he breathes, touching his cheek with exaggerated wonder. “oh, i’m definitely getting your number now.”

“yeah,” you say, and you’re smiling, still a little shaky. “yeah, okay.”

he pulls out his phone, unlocks it with a casual swipe of his thumb, and hands it over. you type in your number with fingers that only tremble a little. when you hand it back, he texts you immediately, and your phone buzzes with a message that’s just:

if i send you my 2000s pop playlist, do you promise not to judge my deep cuts

you look up at him, standing there in the middle of the subway platform with his sunglasses and his questionable taste in music and his impossible kindness, and you think maybe rush hour isn’t always so bad.

[rafayelbiter]

that's it. I've had ENOUGJ

ICANT TAKE IT ANYMORE.if infold doesn't want valko, the indian muslims welcome him with open arms!!!! FROM NOW ON HE IS ONE OF US!!!!

his name is now VALIUDDIN PARVEZ KHAN. plz be respectful to him & address using huzoor, sahab, or janaab only. he has gone for umrah inshallah he come back with all hairs intact ameen🙏 KHUDAHAFIZ.

(ps image clearly isn't AI cause i suck at editing)

[dishoneykisses]

A Reminder!

1. If the Chinese government wanted to shut down Infold, it would have done so already, so everything is fine.

2. If there were any issues between the company and the government, they wouldn’t have held the event.

3. Infold won’t say anything during Anime Expo to avoid any problems

4. July 7 is a day of national mourning and respect. Holding large commercial events on that day is considered a very serious lack of respect.

5. Our friends around the world are speaking loud and clear: We want Valko back!

6. We must stand firm despite Infold’s silence until July 8–9. We can do it! 💪🏽

[nonactivecave]

You can take it, pup... 𑣲⋆

masterlist + rules ! valko x fem!reader ⟢ cw: titty fucking, 'pup' petname, nonmc!reader, messy orgasm, swearing, mild praise; very short, no plot just smut. minors DNI ⟢ this was just a way for me to get the idea out of my head and turn my sadness into anything more pleasant; enjoy!

“Ah— fuck, pup… squeeze ‘em for me, yeah? Just a little more,” he whispered, hands gripping the top of the headboard.

The wood groaned and splintered slightly under his white-knuckled grip, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. You couldn’t hear it; you couldn’t see. All that existed was the heavy weight pinning your body down, the crushing warmth between your breasts, and the slick, relentless slide of Valko’s cock, sliding between them. Each desperate thrust brushed the leaking tip right against your parted lips. He straddled your stomach, hovering just enough to control the agonisingly slow pace before driving down hard once more.

Your hands throbbed with a dull ache from squeezing your breasts together, straining to make the channel as narrow and tight as possible. You knew exactly how much he craved the restriction. Precum slicked your skin, painting your chest, pooling at your collarbones, and smearing all the way up to your neck. He was relentless, driven by a desperate edge, his deep grunts mixing with breathless whimpers as his hips thrust roughly against you. The sheer volume of wetness was obscene, making his length slide with effortless ease and causing his eyes to roll back in pleasure. Beads of sweat rolled down his temples, dampening the short crops of his burgundy hair from the intense exertion.

It had started the way it always did, with the two of you tangled on the couch the moment he walked through the door from work. He still had his glasses on when you decided to turn up the heat. Valko was completely powerless against you. It was a warm, sunny afternoon, and you’d been walking around in a tight camisole that pushed your breasts up without any effort at all. He worshipped every single inch of your body, but that specific view? It had him twitching in his trousers instantly.

Which was exactly how you’d ended up here: pinned to the mattress, your boyfriend straddling your torso and fucking your tits. A perfectly ruined, utterly flawless evening.

“Val…” you whimpered softly, eyes rolling back.

Your lips parted a little, and the blunt head of his length slid in, stopping right before your teeth. The deep, vibrating moan that tore from his throat made your entire body buzz. You were aching just as intensely, heat dripping down your thighs while your pussy clenched helplessly around empty space.

“A bit more, pup. You can take it,” he rasped, looking down at you. The usual gold of his eyes had burned down to a dark, heavy amber, his pupils completely blown out. “Awh, do your hands hurt? It’s okay, just a little longer,” he cooed reassuringly, while your whole body shook from the rough, trembling rhythm of his hips.

His tail swooped down, brushing lazily across your bare thighs. You whimpered at the sensation, goosebumps erupting instantly as the soft fur rippled against your sensitised skin. He continued to slide in and out of the tight space you held for him, his balls tightening painfully as the friction pushed him closer to the edge.

“Pup… fuck… oh— babe…” he groaned desperately, his abdominal muscles locking up. Truth be told, and he really didn't want to fight it anyway, the overwhelming crest of his orgasm completely shattered his control.

A low howl tore from his chest, echoing through the bedroom and probably across all of Linkon, as he shot his load across your chest and face. Thick, burning-hot ropes of cum splattered against your skin. You gasped, squeezing your eyes tightly shut to avoid the risk of another eye infection. The heavy warmth spilled everywhere while he rode out the peak of the high, finally slumping forward until his head rested heavily against the wall above the headboard.

“My pup… look at you,” he whispered a long moment later. His eyes fluttered open, tracking down to look at you with a crooked, exhausted smile as he panted for breath.

His fingers reached down, tracing the contour of your face to smear a few stray drops across your skin. You never minded the mess; you always took it perfectly, entirely content with how completely he used you. Covered in his cum, you looked like a masterpiece. And looking down at you now, he already couldn't wait to stuff you full of it next.

taglist: @fangsgrr