β₯ pairing: firefighter!sylus qin x pastry chef!reader
β₯ summary: βIt started with smoke, and a voice that made the panic go quiet. A firefighter who carries her out of the flames β and goes back in for her kitten. She just wanted to rebuild. Find somewhere new. Keep her kitten and herself safe. She didnβt expect him. She didnβt expect any of this. But the best things donβt always ask for permission. And falling in love, as it turns out, is no exception.β
β₯ genre: fluff + angst + smut (18+ mdni)
β₯ word count: 100k+ (I look away π«£ I am insane and not normal about sylus <3)
β₯ status: completed
β₯ warnings/tags: alternative universe, firefighter!lads au, idiots in love, mutual pining, strangers to friends to lovers, reader/mc experiencing a fire, smoke inhalation, mild hurt/comfort, thunderstorm, storms, slow burn, very long fic, emotional/sensitive!reader, playful banter, sylus the rage baiter. kitty and the lads shenanigans. slice of life, mutual masturbation, size difference. reader is shorter than sylus. reader is always audhd coded in my writing but anyone can read it. sylus is soft for reader, flirting/teasing, inexperienced/virgin!reader. dry humping, grinding, loss of virginity, unprotected sex, piv sex, soft!dom sylus, just in overall soft!sylus. sub!reader, vaginal fingering, oral (f!receiving), multiple orgasms, creampie, overstimulation, size kink, a bit of daddy kink oop!?, oral fixation, breeding kink, praise kink, pet names (kitten. sweetie. sweetheart etc.), pleasure dom!sylus, aftercare.
this goes without saying, but if you donβt like it donβt read it <3
AO3 β’ masterlist
San Francisco in the late evening had a particular kind of quiet that youβd never quite managed to find anywhere else.
Not silence β the city was never truly silent β but a settling. The way the fog rolled in from the bay and softened the edges of everything: the streetlights blurring gold, the distant clang of a cable car, the muffled laughter spilling out of a restaurant as its last table of the night lingered over wine. The hills that had punished your calves every single morning for three years now felt, somehow, gentler at this hour. Like the city was breathing out.
You loved it. You loved it in the way you loved all quiet, unhurried things β deeply and without apology.
Your feet were protesting by the time you turned onto your street, the particular ache of someone who had been standing since four in the morning settling into your shoes with cheerful vengeance. There was flour somewhere in your hair that youβd given up trying to locate around hour eleven, and your apron β abandoned on its hook at Miel β had probably taken most of the dayβs evidence with it, but your forearms still wore a fine dusting of it at the creases of your elbows, and there was a smear of raspberry coulis on the inside of your wrist that youβd missed in the wash-up.
You didnβt particularly mind.
Fourteen hours. A batch of croissants that had finally, finally cooperated after two failed attempts at laminating the dough. A birthday cake for a little girl named Sophie that had taken the better part of the afternoon and that you were quietly, fiercely proud of. A broken display stand, a near-miss with a tray of financiers, and Leah β your most senior employee and your closest best friend β singing along, off-key and without shame, to whatever was playing through the bakery speaker while she restocked the cases.
A good day, in other words. Tiring in the bone-deep way that only good days could be.
You climbed the front steps of your building, dug your keys from your bag, and let yourself in.
Mrs. Beaumontβs cats found you before youβd fully cleared the door.
βHi, babies,β you said, dropping to a crouch in the entryway with the automatic ease of someone who had done this every evening for two weeks now. Mochi wound himself around your ankles, motor already running; Biscuit regarded you from across the room with the specific aristocratic skepticism he reserved for anyone who wasnβt his actual owner. And then, picking her way carefully across the floor in her soft, rolling wobble β each step considered, each small paw placed with a deliberateness that you found endlessly endearing β came Stella.
βThere she is,β you said softly.
She blinked up at you with her mismatched eyes, one pale blue and one gold, and you reached down and let her sniff your fingers before scooping her up, very gently, the way you always did. She was white as fresh cream and had a personality that could only be described as aggressively curious. She was so small. Even for five months old, she was so small, her legs a little shorter than they should have been, her whole compact body fitting neatly against your palm. The vet had explained the dwarfism with calm, clinical kindness, and Mrs. Beaumont had received the news with the equanimity of a woman who had seen everything and loved her cats regardless β but you, the first time Stella had wobbled across the floor toward you instead of away, had felt something shift very quietly in your chest and had not fully shifted it back.
You fed all three of them, tidied the water bowls, ate some left overs from last night and made yourself a cup of tea that you drank standing at the kitchen window watching the fog thicken over the rooftops.
Then you showered, changed into your softest pajamas, and sat on the sofa for approximately seven minutes before your body voted unanimously for unconsciousness.
The candle on the side table was still burning when you fell asleep.
It was vanilla-scented β a gift from your mother, sent in a box with a note that said for ambience, sweetheart, your apartment looks too sterile in photos. It needs to be cozier β and it threw a warm, amber light across the room that was genuinely lovely and that youβd fully intended to blow out after your tea.
You forgot.
And Stella, as it turned out, had been watching the flame with great interest for some time.
β§βΛ βΎ. βΛβ‘β‘
You woke to the smoke alarm.
For a long, disoriented moment you simply lay there, blinking at the ceiling, your brain cycling slowly through the fog of deep sleep trying to locate the source of the sound. Fire alarm, it supplied eventually, with the unhurried authority of a thought that had not yet grasped the full weight of its own message. Fire alarm meansβ
The smell hit you.
You were off the sofa before you were fully conscious, your feet hitting the floor and your body moving on pure animal instinct while your mind scrambled to catch up. The living room was so wrong. The air was wrong, thick and grey at the edges, and the curtain was a tongue of orange that climbed the wall with terrifying enthusiasm, eating upward like it was hungry, like it had been waiting.
Your stomach dropped straight through the floor.
βMochi,β you said, and then louder, sharper, your voice finding itself fast: βMochi. Biscuit. Come here ββ
The older cats were easier. Mochi, the fat tabby, came when called out of sheer automatic habit; Biscuit had already retreated to the bathroom at the far end of the hallway, which had the good sense to be away from the smoke. You scooped them both β one tucked under each arm, Mochi yowling his protest directly into your ear β and got them out into the corridor, setting them down near the stairwell where a neighbor already hovering in their doorway immediately stepped in.
βIs there anyone elseββ
βStella.β You were already turning back. βSmall, white kitten, she canβt move fast, I have toββ
βYou cannot go back in thereββ
But your body was already making the decision.
You went back in.
The smoke hit you immediately β thicker than it had been thirty seconds ago, lower, meaner, the kind that got into your throat and stayed there. You dropped to a crouch and pulled your shirt up over your nose and it helped, barely, the cotton filtering almost nothing.
βStella,β you called. Your voice came out wrong already, rougher than it should have been. βStella, baby, where are youββ
Nothing. No small white shape. No wobbling little figure picking her way toward you.
You pressed further in, past the doorframe, staying low, your free hand trailing the wall. The heat from the living room was enormous now β a physical pressure against your face and arms, your skin prickling with it. Through the smoke you could see the glow of the fire painting the walls amber and orange, consuming the curtain completely, beginning to crawl across the ceiling.
βStella.β Louder. Desperate. Your voice cracked on the second syllable and didnβt recover. βPlease, please come out, pleaseββ
The smoke found your lungs then. Really found them.
The cough started low and became immediately violent β your whole body seizing around it, your eyes flooding, the wall the only thing keeping you upright as your knees went uncertain beneath you. You couldnβt get a clean breath. Every inhale brought more of it, thick and chemical and hot, and your vision was starting to swim at the edges in a way that frightened you more than the fire did because you recognized it, distantly, as your body beginning to lose the argument.
βStellaββ The word dissolved into coughing again. You pressed your forehead against the wall, tried to breathe slow, tried to think. She was here. She had to be here. She was small and scared and she couldnβt run fast and you were not leaving without her, you were notβ
Your legs buckled.
You caught yourself on the doorframe with both hands, barely, your arms shaking with the effort of it. The smoke alarm was still screaming overhead. The glow from the living room was getting brighter. You were crouched in a burning hallway and you couldnβt stand up properly and you still couldnβt find her and the panic was enormous now, shapeless and roaring, drowning out everything elseβ
The hallway door burst open.
Boots on the floor. Radio crackling. And then a figure in full gear was moving through the smoke toward you with a speed that made no concession whatsoever to the conditions β not slowing, not hesitating, crossing the distance between you in seconds and dropping to his knees right beside you.
βHey.β His voice came through the visor, low and immediate, and there was a quality to it that cut right through the roaring in your head β the kind of calm that simply existed, that didnβt negotiate with chaos, that arrived and took up all the space the panic had been using. His gloved hand came to your shoulder. βHey. Look at me.β
You tried. Your eyes were streaming and your lungs were burning and your legs were still refusing to cooperate but you tried.
βThe kittenββ It came out as barely a rasp. βSheβs still in there, she canβt move fast, she has dwarfism, she hides lowββ
βWhat does she look like.β
Not a question. A lifeline.
βWhite,β you managed, between coughs. βAll white. One blue eye, one gold. Please, sheβs so little, she doesnβt β she doesnβt understandββ Another cough tore through you, your whole body shaking with it, and this time your grip on the doorframe slipped completely.
He caught you before you hit the floor.
One arm beneath your knees, one at your back, and you were up β lifted clean and fully off the ground in one motion, tucked against his chest before youβd fully registered what was happening. You made a sound of protest that came out as more coughing, your hands gripping the front of his gear weakly, and he adjusted his hold without comment, his grip absolutely certain, the kind of secure that didnβt ask you how you felt about it.
βWaitββ you started, between shuddering breaths.
βIβll get her,β he said. Flat. Unarguable. The most unshakeable four words you had ever heard. βBut youβre coming out first.β
He was already moving. Long, even strides back down the hall, angling your face away from the worst of the smoke, shielding you with the bulk of his body. His hand came briefly to the back of your head, pressing your face into his shoulder, away from the air you couldnβt breathe β and the gesture was so deliberate, so careful, that something in your chest cracked quietly open alongside the panic.
The stairwell door. The stairs, fast. Another figure in gear passing you on the way up, voices coordinating above you, the buildingβs alarm still screaming.
And then the night air, cold and clean, flooding into your lungs like water into a dry riverbed.
You coughed through it, great gasping coughs, your whole body shuddering with relief and with the aftermath of the smoke. He carried you clear of the entrance before he set you down, slowly, carefully, on the front steps β one hand staying at your arm until he was sure your legs would hold. They held. Barely.
You looked up at him. The visor reflected the red and white of the trucks at the curb. His grip at your arm loosened, but didnβt disappear.
βStay here,β he said.
Your throat was raw. You managed one word.
βPlease.β
Just that. He understood it completely.
He held your gaze through the visor for a beat longer than necessary.
Then he turned, and walked back into the burning building without a momentβs hesitation.
β§βΛ βΎ. βΛβ‘β‘
The next four minutes were the longest of your life.
You sat on the cold stone step in your pajamas β soft cotton shorts and a worn oversized tee that said MIEL across the chest in faded pink letters β with your arms wrapped around your knees and your eyes fixed on the door heβd disappeared through. The street outside was lit up red and white, two fire trucks angled at the curb, more figures in gear moving with that same particular controlled urgency. A paramedic appeared at your elbow and tried to get you to move further back, and you did, a little, just enough to technically comply, but you kept your eyes on the door.
Someone put a blanket around your shoulders. You didnβt feel it.
Sheβs so little, you thought, and the thought had a specific texture to it, a tightness behind your sternum that had nothing to do with the smoke youβd inhaled and everything to do with the image of Stella wobbling between pieces of furniture, her small uncertain gait, the way she always tilted her head at you when you called her name like she was giving the question serious consideration before committing to an answer.
Please, you thought at the door. Please.
And then he came out.
He came out the way heβd gone in β unhurried, deliberate β and cradled against his chest, small and white and very much alive, was Stella.
The sound you made was embarrassing. You were dimly aware of that even as you made it β a soft, undignified noise somewhere between a gasp and a sob β and then you were crossing the distance between you and him, the blanket falling off your shoulders, your arms already reaching.
βOh,β you breathed. βOh, thank you β thank youββ
Stella, characteristically, seemed unbothered. She was blinking at you with her mismatched eyes, her tiny white nose twitching, apparently of the opinion that being carried through a burning building by a large man in fireproof gear was simply another thing on the agenda of this evening.
βShe was under the bathroom sink,β he said. βSecond shelf.β
βOf course she was.β You laughed, wet and wobbly, pressing your face briefly against the top of Stellaβs small head. βOf course. Thatβs her spot.β
And then β because it was over, because she was safe, because the adrenaline was finally metabolizing into something softer and more complicated β your eyes filled.
You blinked hard. Refused to cry in front of a stranger. Succeeded only partially.
When you looked up, he was taking off his helmet.
You werenβt prepared for that.
He was incredibly handsome.
That was the thought that arrived first, and it arrived without apology. Unreasonably, almost unfairly handsome β all clean sharp angles and a jawline that had no business existing on a person who had just walked out of a burning building, the silver hair falling loose from the helmet slightly damp at the temples, catching the red and white light of the trucks in a way that made it look almost luminous. And his eyes β red, a deep extraordinary red, like a garnet held up to a flame β found Stella immediately. Found you, specifically, with a directness that made the breath youβd only just recovered feel suddenly scarce again.
And he was tall. Considerably, almost unreasonably tall. With the helmet off and the bulk of the gear still on his shoulders, he had the kind of frame that made the space around him rearrange itself slightly, the kind that you registered not just visually but physically β a shift in the air, a gravitational awareness.
You became suddenly very aware that you were standing in the street at β you checked the clock on someoneβs phone nearby β eleven forty-seven at night, in cotton pajama shorts, holding a small wobbly kitten, with tear tracks on your cheeks.
βHi,β you said, which was perhaps the least adequate thing you had ever said in your life.
Something moved at the corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile. Something that looked more like someone who was trying to restrain himself from smirking with amusement.
βHi,β he said.
βIββ You adjusted Stella against your chest. She began to purr, apparently delighted with herself. βThank you. I mean it. I β sheβs β thank you.β You were running out of words. You were running out of everything. βI donβt even know your name.β
He looked at you for a moment the way he had in the hallway β that brief, assessing pause that somehow managed to feel less like evaluation and more like attention.
βSylus,β he said.
You nodded. Filed it somewhere careful. Somewhere youβd find it again.
βThank you, Sylus,β you said softly.
He held your gaze for a beat longer than was strictly necessary.
Then one of his colleagues appeared at his shoulder β shorter, purple-haired, with the particular energy of someone who had noticed something and was actively enjoying it β and said something into his ear that made Sylusβs jaw shift in a way that looked very much like suppressed irritation.
βRafayel,β Sylus said, with the tone of someone pronouncing a sentence.
βIβm just saying,β the colleague said, and his grin was absolutely incorrigible, βyou were in there a while for aββ
βGo check the perimeter.β
Rafayel looked at you, looked at Sylus, and looked extremely pleased with himself. βRight. Perimeter. Absolutely. Very important.β He backed away with the energy of a man who had already won something. βTake your time.β
You looked back at Sylus.
Sylus looked back at you with the expression of someone who had made peace with his colleagues being exactly who they were and had simply incorporated that peace into his daily existence.
βYou should have the paramedics check you over,β he said. βSmoke inhalation.β
βIβm alright.β
βThatβs for them to confirm.β He said it without inflection, but it landed less like a command and more like β something else. Something that sat just adjacent to concern and didnβt quite announce itself.
You nodded. Held Stella a little closer.
He put his helmet back on β the deliberate, practiced motion of it, the way his hands moved with the ease of long repetition β and then he paused, and for one suspended second he looked at you again over his shoulder.
βKeep her away from candles,β he said.
You laughed β a real one, surprised out of you.
βI will,β you said. βI really, really will.β
He turned away. Back toward the building, back toward the colleagues and the crackling radios and the controlled, purposeful world he occupied with such extraordinary ease.
You stood in the street in your pajamas with your kitten and watched him go and thought, with the particular clarity of a mind that has just been thoroughly rattled and is now reassembling itself:
Oh.
Oh, thatβs going to be a problem.
β§βΛ βΎ. βΛβ‘β‘
Stella purred against your chest, unconcerned.
The city moved around you, indifferent, the way it always did.
You looked at the door heβd walked back through.
You thought about red eyes finding yours through smoke-thick air. About a voice that made the panic subside for a little bit. About the way heβd said Iβll get her like it was the simplest thing β like it was simply the thing that needed to be done and therefore he would do it.
You pressed your face against the top of Stellaβs head again.
βDonβt tell anyone,β you told her quietly.
She blinked her little eyes at you.
Said nothing and kept your secret.
β§βΛ βΎ. βΛβ‘β‘
read the rest on ao3 <3
bonus: this is stella trying to bite yβalls phones
I wonder if you wish for a different daughter instead of me. - user jay says on medium/twenty - silas melvin/@/eternaldroplets on twitter/if my body could speak - blythe baird/mother - maia baia/home is not a country; "mama" - safia elhillo/acts of desperation - megan nolan
As a single child, the characterization of single childs not being able to share their things pisses me off so much. We do share our things we aren't some mean old ladies that can't share things. This is such an ass stereotype and I absolutely HATE it.
I think I might be the one they've based that stereotype on. I'm oddly possessive of my things and don't really like sharing them. Especially things that I like to eat, read or wear. This one time I had this ugly as hell pyjama set that I LOVED wore till it had holes in it and my mom gave it to some other child and I saw her wearing it and started crying. Honestly, I don't even like people sleeping next to me (idk I just CAN'T fall asleep if I have someone sleeping next to me.)
Now that doesn't mean that I'm going to kick a child off the galaxy if they want to eat the chocolate that I'm eating. I'll share it. But I WILL be like "aw man. :/" in my head.
By the way, Rudyard Kipling- the man who wrote the Jungle Book- was actually a firm supporter of British colonialism. In fact, he is the one who gave the world the phrase "The White Man's Burden" in his 1899 poem of the same title.
Imagine the betrayal I felt as a child who grew up with The Jungle Book cartoons and books.
A 17-year-old boy, Surya Pratap, went to wish his friend on Eid. Instead of being welcomed, he was allegedly surrounded by a group of boys who forced him to watch a goat being slaughtered. When he refused, they allegedly stabbed him. When he tried to escape, they chased him down and stabbed him multiple times.
The most horrifying part is that these weren't strangers.These were people he considered friends. The very people he trusted are accused of turning on him in the most brutal way imaginable.
I just want to know how the defenders of secularism are going to justify this now with yet another ridiculous excuse.
a body count not as in homicide nor as in sexuality but as in the trail of people from my childhood and adolescence i shouldβve been a better friend to and taken better care of but i was too busy being caught up in my own heartache to recognize their own and therefore our relationship tapered off in an extremely unsatisfying way that continuously manifests itself as a thrumming sense of grief in my chest. anyway which restaurant chains have the best free pre-meal bread?
I drew Ma Sita today,and i figured why not talk about her
(The art shown above is my own)
Whenever we hear about Sita,we are shown a picture of this docile wronged woman; or an obedient wife. However,such portrayals are quite far from the truth.
Her portrayals:
The Valmiki Ramayana portrays Sita as someone well versed in the Vedas, someone who knows all about warfare(as seen from her conversation with Hanuman) and how a kingdom runs.
She is a loyal woman. Choosing to follow her husband,Rama on his exile. She knew well that he would also follow her wherever she went,and he did. When she was abducted by Ravana.
The Uttara kanda Ramayana,in which Rama exiled Sita after they return,is believed to be a later interpolation. As it is not mentioned in the Baal Kanda,the Mahabharata,nor in any old temple carvings.
In the Adbhuta Ramayana,it is Sita who kills Ravana and his army. You can read the verses here
The Sita Upanishad,one of the Shakta Upanishads exalts Sita as the Parabrahman.
Man my bad phone camera isn't really doing the work justiceπ₯². Also DOMS pencil colours are the WORST when it comes to blending; as you can see. I messed up the hair a bit. I've been trying to experiment with colours and creating lights and shadows and this one didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. I wonder if shading it a bit darker will fix itπ€
I think this is my first time in a long while actually doing a female subject. The work is ofc heavily inspired by pre existing art on Pinterest, especially this one. Please don't hesitate to give me tips to improve :)
if i ever write a full blown pirate au series for poly ateez with elements of royalty and fantasy, would anyone even want to read it? esp if it doesn't have smut and is suggestive at most?
asking bc i am not sure if we are still interested in ateez as pirates. or in reading series. or in reading anything that is longer than idk. 10k. which isn't long at all. 10k is literally one or two bites. or in reading anything that does not contain smut. i know you all are smut hoes and you can't convince me otherwise. it is truly truly a shame that y'all don't give anything that does not have smut a chance.
would you read a novel-sized pirate au poly ateez fic?
hell yes. (click only if you can commit. i have one helluva idea)
no (novel size is too lengthy and you prefer sth shorter)
no (you are not interested in poly pairing)
no (you do not read anything that has no smut) (no judgement π₯)
baratheonpilled
kianamaiart
romaincrisis
origamiaround
pixelskylines
izzy806
