#{ *:･ﾟ✧ the past╰ and from the ashes i rose.

[deadsetobsessions]

Ghost King Phantom was an odd addition to the League. J’onn was often the last to find others odd but from the get-go, Phantom was the only quiet spot he’d have in his telepathic field. At first, it was off putting as most of the people that slipped beyond the reach of his immediate field tended to be villains and the like. But as Phantom remained in the Justice League, J’onn had come to learn to appreciate the calm spot in the turbulent sea of his friends’ and coworkers’ thoughts.

“You have taken to me faster than the others. Why is that?”

Phantom hummed purringly, another peculiar sound that J’onn had yet to see any of his human or alien heroes recreate with any success. They sat at their usual spot, face facing the cosmos and backs guarded by their friends. Plus, J’onn and Phantom could look directly into the sun without painfully loosing their sight.

“I guess I’ve always been fond of the stars. Of space, and everything in it. What about you? Why did we become friends so fast?”

J’onn shook his head, a human motion he’d learned a long time ago to imitate. “No, we became slower friends than most, as my telepathic abilities allow for easier communication and understanding of one another’s motives. With the exception of Batman but I have found he is often the exception to most expectations.”

“That checks out,” King Phantom laughed. “Well, I’m glad we became friends. It’s very cool to meet a Martian. Space is one of my Obsessions, you see.”

J’onn nodded. “I see. I am sorry that I am the only Martian you will meet.”

“You are?”

J’onn nodded again, slower. Sadder. His facial muscles, in this form, does not imitate human patterns well and he knew that most people could not pick out his emotions without his verbal expression.

Intuition tells J’onn that Phantom knew regardless.

“Would you mind telling me what happened?” His voice is gentle, the emotions that Phantom pushes at him are gentle and questing, but not demanding. It has been a long time since anyone has asked him of memories he clung to. And so, J’onn J’onzz speaks in the way that was natural to him, the way his people communicated.

With his mental voice flowing into Phantom’s head, J’onn tells him of the wonders that used to be his home. He provided images and sounds of how his home shone as the sun rose, how the shadows that fell when the sun dipped beneath the horizon felt as comforting as a Martian’s first telepathic cradle. He tells Phantom of his twin brother, grief and agony entwined in the memories of someone he had loved. He spoke of his wife and their daughter, and their cozy home on the windswept plains of Mars.

King Phantom sat still with him as the Watch-Tower moved along, around a king and his friend who was recounting the stagnant grief of his past.

J’onn tells him of the virus, borne of his twin’s hatred, and how he watched everything around him burn. How he had desperately tried to prevent his wife and daughter from using their telepathic abilities. He spoke of his failures. He wove together a tapestry of insanity and grief, built upon the burning bodies of his wife and their beloved daughter. He tells Phantom how the Mars now was just ashes and dust of his former home. How he could not look upon the planet and not see the shades of his wife and daughter and parents and friends, walking upon a barren planet that no longer held anything familiar to the last Martian.

Phantom had hummed again, a soothing rumble. Sadness dripped from the edges of his consciousness.

“If it was not for the Doctor, I would be dead and shattered.” J’onn spoke for the first time in three hours. “It is… less painful to live. I have purpose.”

“I am glad that you are not either of those things.” Phantom stood. “Come with me. I have to show you something.”

J’onn trusted Phantom, and thus followed the king into the glowing green portal.

They flew past many doors, Phantom often glancing at him before shaking his head and changing directions.

They stopped at a door that felt familiar. J’onn knew it from somewhere.

“Go ahead, open the door. But know that you can’t stay long. You don’t belong to this realm quite yet. Not for quite a while.” Phantom moves, hand gesturing towards the door without a knob.

“How..?”

“How else? You have telekinesis, don’t you?”

J’onn blinked. Right. He opened the door and- oh.

The door warped with the screaming storm of grief and love and oh-how-I’ve-missed-you that J’onn unleashed.

Because there in front of him were M’yri’ah and K’hym, his wife and daughter.

The door was an imitation of his home, back when he had not known true loss.

“Impossible,” he stumbled back.

“You are in the realm of the dead. You didn’t think the title of the Ghost King was for fun, did you, J’onn?” Phantom smiled and- a move J’onn would definitely engage in petty payback for, later after he’d gotten over the shock- pushed him flying right into the room.

M’yri’ah and K’hym cradled him with telepathic swirls of love and husband!-dad!-love-love-love-safe!

And J’onn shuddered and gathered the his world in his arms to say goodbye.

——

[lokisgoodgirl]

Mine, Utterly [Loki x Reader]

A link to my Masterlist is HERE Summary: After making Prince Loki a little jealous, he lays down the law on the eve of an important occasion. (w/c 2.1k) Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI. Smut. Minors DNI. Dirty talk, language.

Your hands hit the mattress and grasped at the silken sheets, as if that would save you.

“My Prince,” you gasped, breaths scorching against your lungs as he ripped the chiffon around your thighs.

All you’d done was smile at the guard. Okay, maybe flirt a little…just enough to rouse the jealousy Loki had suggested with a mischievous shine in his eyes before taking his place on the Royal banqueting dais.

A palm landed on your exposed ass cheek. Crying out, you shot a glance over your shoulder. Prince Loki stood, storms in his darkened eyes, the leather belt that had been slung across his chest now dangling from a fist. "You dare to make a god jealous?"

Your stomach dropped. What if it was a test; what if he was joking? But for all his antics, the Prince wasn’t known for his humour when it came to matters of the heart—or the flesh. He didn’t share, and as that thought sank in, the knuckles on the fist whitened. You inhaled sharply, grip tightening on the sheets.

Something struck your ass again, but this time it gripped. Loki’s back was pressed to yours. The emeralds studded into the intricately constructed doublet pinched through the thin fabric of your bodice as he whispered, “Perhaps I wasn’t clear that when you are mine, you are mine; utterly.”

His knuckles trailed down your bicep, those fingers that had been wet with your cum too many times to count in palace corridors and dark corners dancing across your skin. Those digits had fastened around your wrist and torn you away from the feasting hall, his obligations forgotten, and whisked you in an explosion of green light to the candlelit expanse of your own bedroom.

Now, Loki’s cock pressed through the layers of leather and velvet covering it right into the swell of your ass. It was a familiar feeling—but he’d always resisted. Only his fingers, his tongue, his words—that was the only relief he gave you over past months since your arrival at court. Never his pleasure—never his cock.

Norns, how you wanted to fuck him; wanted to ride him until his own name scattered on the wind like ash, feel him slam into your cunt until his brilliant mind was a blur of lines like wine spilled on parchment. You wondered how your name sounded on his lips when he came: staggered, gasping, choking for mercy.

His nose drew a line up your neck, inhaling at the pulse point like a hound. “You are mine, aren’t you?” he murmured.

In answer, your hand slid up his temple and knotted into Loki’s hair. A growl built in his throat, swelling your confidence in time with the heat throbbing between your legs. “No more, and no less, than you are mine, Loki Odinson.”

His teeth sank into your shoulder, just enough to make you squirm against his cock. He spun you around, tipping your over the edge of the mattress while he towered in a silhouette of black and forest green pulsating in amber flickers.

His fingers made quick work of the laces at his groin and then, his legendary, iron cock was in his hand. It was even more perfect that you’d dreamed. A well of saliva rose indelicately beneath your tongue. Loki stroked it, back and forth, as you watched: hypnotised.

“Tonight, I will show you what it is to be mine,” he said, low and thicker than molasses on a winter’s eve. “After that, I’m afraid you will be ruined for all others…” A devilish smirk lit at the corners of his mouth. Your heart pounded as you sat up on the bed, trying frantically to untangle the dress sprawled around your hips. Loki’s knees hit the mattress.

"Allow me," he said, before ripping the dress from your body in one, swift movement.

Your eyes widened as it fluttered to the floor. Only the corset remained. "My Prince…I," you said, attempting to keep the game fluid; but Loki pressed a finger to your lips with a hush. It was still warm from the friction of his cock.

"We have talked long enough, you and I. I would very much like to fuck you…" His eyebrows rose. "I will, fuck you. I will have you; utterly."

As the final syllable melted, so did his clothes. The emerald encrusted doublet was first, then the sigils of his station, then the boots and—oh, gods—the leather trousers.

Your chest tightened at the sight of him: carved like marble, the tremor of his muscle beneath taut skin as he rested back on his heels, thighs spread, enough to make you howl. Loki’s chin dipped to his chest, unbound hair falling around his milky shoulders like hot tar over battlements. His cheekbones flashed in pulsing candlelight as he said with a touch of malice, "I will not be kept waiting. Not anymore," but his eyes glinted.

You crawled the space between you and hoisted onto his lap. With your arms around his neck, your bare cunt pressed against the throb of his flesh, you couldn’t imagine it ever not being thus. And then, you kissed him; one sliding into the next like spring into summer, like night into day.

Loki’s kisses were a medley of ravenous restraint; morphing like his magic between complete desperation and tenderness. His hands cupped your ass, scooting you further up his lap. The tip of his cock rubbed against your slit.

"I want to consume you," he whispered, lips wet from your kisses. "And you will never be anothers."

"Never." A ragged moan ripped the air as you sank onto his length. Loki’s groan of pleasure was everything you’d dreamt of—a primal flash beneath the regal façade you wanted to tear at with your bare hands. His chin tipped back, nailing you with his dilated stare as his hips pushed up.

"Loki," you gasped, clutching at his back muscle. He was huge. The Prince bottomed out, teeth clenching. 

"You’ve no idea how much I craved this little cunt," he panted as your hands fisted in his hair. "How many times I’ve wanted to pin you against the wall and fuck you until all thoughts of other men were shaken from your mind forever."

The squelch of your pussy jammed with his cock punctuated every word. "How you’ve teased me, played with me; ruined me—all for the want of the Valhalla I knew would be between your legs."

Loki’s head fell back with broken cry of anguish as you clench around the root of his cock, dragging up before slamming down onto the meat of his thighs.

“Fuck, kvinne…now I find myself tricked…” he said, breathless. The god’s head rose, strands of sex damp hair plastered across his brow. "I want you more than ever."

His eyes narrowed, and then his lips collided to yours, tongue demanding entry with the sureness of a tide on the shore. His nails dug into the curve of your waist, guiding your hips. Every gyration made new sparks burst to life, sizzling from your clit to the deepest parts of your body and mind that had never been so alive.

“I will never be sated,” Loki growled, thrusting faster, “Never…never.” With a rumble, he flipped you onto your back. Loki’s lips worked down the hard sinews of your neck, sucking against supple skin, palming your breasts upward. He was possessed. Loki’s name was a chant in your throat, the absence of his cock inside you becoming unbearable.

"Fuck me," you whined, and Loki looked up from where he’d been distracted with your nipple between his teeth.

“Ruined for all others,” confirmed Loki, smirking. He crawled over your body, settling his legs on either side and drawing the leaking head of himself through your sopping folds. “Beg for it.”

You raised an eyebrow.

“Beg…my pretty, pretty whore.” Loki’s lips grazed across your cheek like wind through barley; a short, trembling sigh flooding your ear.

“Maybe you’re my whore, Odinson. Did you consider that?”

His thick cock twitched against your heat as he stared down at you with your perfectly styled hair mussed, your thighs spread, your lips bitten and stinging, before he whispered, “I consider everything.” Dark curls hung down either side of his jaw, framing the angle of his jawline as he licked his lips and settled into a cage around your head. The muscles of his forearms twitched with the effort of not fucking you into the mattress. The words bubbled in your throat, spilling forth before you could second guess them. “Well, if you’re my whore, then satisfy me.”

“Tell me you’re mine.” Those words shaped his tongue like summer storms. “And you will have everything you desire; always.”

You scraped hair back from his face, the beat of his heat thumping through his skin. His hips dragged against your clit, making your knees tighten around his ribs. “I’m yours,” you whispered, “Utterly.” Loki’s cock squeezed inside, and his face twisted in relief absolute. One of his hands flew to the ornate headboard; whacks of ancient wood against stone sounding with every thrust. His pubic hair dragged against your swollen clit, moans mingling with the fragrance of sweat and sex that clung to your bodies and rose like steam.

The god knew your body like you thought only you did, and every grip of his hands, shift of his hips, work of his mouth—you couldn’t catch your breath. His lust was the chop of waves, drowning you on the undertow of his strength, and scent and the hair brushing your lips as he fucked you. You never had a chance. Need scorched up your skin as climax broke. It flooded through your body, Loki’s name a rattle in your throat as his exhales of pleasure pounded in your ear. He hissed as fingernails dragged down the wide expanse of his back, the slide of his cock primal and wet, balls smacking against cum-slick skin.

The prince’s thrusts slowed, rocking you through the final threads of orgasm stringing you together. You gaped at him, heavy eyed and open mouthed as his torso rose between your legs, his palms splayed on your thighs, his abdomen flexing with every glacial, devastating thrust.

Loki’s head fell back, his black curls a sheet down the faint flush of pale skin.

The veins in his neck hardened, jaw clenched to the ceiling as deep lines settled on his brow. Your breath hitched.

Every glide of his cock was met by the gluttonous squelch of your cum. Loki rocked on his heels, guiding himself over the edge inside your perfect cunt.

“Gods,” he choked to the murals above the bed. And then, he came.

His face screwed up as the wave hit was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen. Loki’s groan trembled through your skin, beneath your flesh and vibrating your bones. His fingers tightened, and you knew that tomorrow your gown would hide the evidence of obsession marked in blue and purple shadows of devotion.

Devotion, you thought lazily as he gasped out the syllabled of your name and collapsed on your chest; meeting your lips with open mouthed enthusiasm.

Somewhere, a bell tolled. Loki sighed, slipping himself out of you with a mutter of irritation. He clicked his fingers, and the elaborate garb assembled on him like a blossom of ink. His lip curled. “The next time I see you, it will be in white.”

“Mmm…” “And yet they will have no clue what a fantastically depraved wretch for me that my intended is.” “I think they might know that already if the maids who caught you pleasuring me in the kitchens last week weren’t mute—and besides, perhaps they’ll just think my intended is a bad influence.”

“Gods, I hope so,” Loki murmured against your skin before biting your cheek softly, melting into a kiss. “Until tomorrow, then.” Loki drew away, his eyes serious but a small smile playing at his lips. “When you’re my wife, you shall never be rid of me.” “Gods, I hope so,” you echoed, and in the space of a heartbeat, Loki vanished.

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[inkedinshadows]

Until the Last Breath

Pairing: Azriel x reader

Summary: Azriel is injured in battle. Badly. You try everything you can to save your mate, but sometimes, it might still not be enough.

Warnings: heavy angst, blood and injuries, death

Word count: 4.3k

A/N: I finally finished it! My gosh, this was... a journey. And a real challenge. But I'm very satisfied with how it turned out. Huge thanks to Rae @illyrianbitch for giving me a first opinion on this, you're an angel and I love you 🫶🏻

Azriel had shut down his side of the bond. He always did when he went into battle so that you wouldn't feel his fatigue and his anger. His pain.

You hadn't sensed it. He had shut it down so well that when you heard Rhysand's voice in your head, you lost a few years off your life.

Azriel was hurt. They're taking him back to camp. Rhys paused, and you braced yourself. Y/N, it's… it's bad.

You raced past tents and injured soldiers, pushing people out of the way, not caring about the mud clinging to your shoes and shins. You were already calling out for a healer, and when you noticed one stopping in her tracks to look at you, you grabbed her hand and pulled her into a run.

But when you reached your tent, despite your slight panting, your breath caught in your throat.

Three soldiers had helped carry Azriel back, and as they walked past you to leave, they cast you sorrowful glances. But your eyes were fixed on your mate.

Azriel lay on his stomach on the table, his labored breathing echoing through the small space. He was covered in dirt and blood that wasn’t his own. But his wings…

The healer quickly walked up to him to assess the damage. Azriel didn't even open his eyes.

You were frozen in place. You couldn't move. What had once been majestic, powerful wings that Azriel had taken great pride in were now shredded to ribbons. You had seen him hurt before—he had taken arrows, ash-made and poisoned—but this… this was worse. So much worse than any other injury he had ever sustained.

Bile rose in your throat, but you pushed it down. You refused to let tears prick your eyes. You glanced at the healer as her hands hovered over the remnants of your mate's wings, then you finally took a step forward.

“Azriel?” you called, his name little more than a whisper. “Az?”

His eyes fluttered open and immediately settled on you. But they were glazed over with pain.

He tried to move, to lift a hand and reach out to you, opening his mouth to say something. A rasping breath was all that came out.

You were by his side in an instant. Ignoring the constant dripping of his blood on the ground, you crouched down in front of him and cupped his dirty face.

“Don't talk,” you murmured. “It's alright. We're going to save you. You understand? You won't get away from me that easily.”

The lie rolled off your tongue effortlessly, but Azriel knew better. Every breath was a struggle, each heartbeat a reminder of the agony that coursed through his veins. He couldn't feel his wings anymore. His whole back, actually. There was only pain—a blinding pain that threatened to overwhelm him and pull him under.

Your eyes found the healer's, and Azriel didn't need to see her to know she was shaking her head. He'd walked beside Death most of his life, had heard its call more times than he could count, and he knew he couldn't ignore that call any longer. The periodic dripping of his blood on the floor seemed to remind him of it, ticking away the few minutes he had left.

But a new determination settled onto your features. He was your mate. He was yours—yours to love, yours to have, and yours to save. And you would save him. There was no other option.

Standing back up, you grabbed the healer and dragged her to the other side of the tent. You avoided her gaze and that look of sorrow and resignation that only made you want to punch something.

“There must be something you can do,” you gritted out through clenched teeth. She wasn’t at fault for this, you knew, but she was a healer. It was her damn job to save lives. She had to save the most important one. “Anything.”

“He’s lost too much blood,” she replied calmly. “I can't save his wings.”

How could she remain so composed and professional when your whole world was shattering?

You glanced back at Azriel. Even though he couldn't hear what you and the healer were saying, he could tell you were trying to find a way to do the impossible.

He wanted to call you back to him. He needed you by his side in these last few moments. He clung to that thought, to the feel of your hands on his face just seconds ago, fighting against the darkness blurring the edges of his vision.

“Can you save him, though?” you asked, turning back toward the healer. Seeing Azriel like this, struggling just to keep his eyes open, was breaking your heart.

The healer looked confused, and you clenched your jaw. “Can you save him?” you repeated slowly, punctuating each word as if she couldn't understand you. “You said you can't save his wings. But can you save him?”

She finally caught on, and her gaze shifted back to your mate. Azriel didn't even strain to try and listen in on your conversation. He only wanted to ask you to hold him again, but his tongue was sandpaper in his mouth. He couldn't get the words out.

“Maybe,” the healer finally said. “But he's weak. It might not make a difference. He might not survive it.”

Maybe. You could work with a maybe. It was better than nothing.

“Alright, then.” You were already turning to walk back to Azriel. “Let's get to work.”

But the healer placed a gentle hand on your arm, stopping you. You gave her a questioning look.

“I…” She hesitated, glancing at Azriel. “I’ll have to cut them. But the chances of him surviving are still very low.”

You didn't let your heart drop. You didn't let yourself consider what that might mean. If Azriel survived, he might very well hate you for the rest of his life for forcing him to live without his wings. It was a selfish choice, but if the alternative was letting your mate die when there was still some sliver of hope… It wasn't really a choice. You would gladly endure his hatred if it meant he was still alive.

“Do it.”

The healer gave you a sharp nod. “I'll go get what I need.”

Azriel watched her leave, fighting to keep his heavy lids from closing. It would be so easy to just let go, to let the darkness claim him. It was where he had always belonged, and his shadows had gone already. No tendrils swirled around him, curling near his ear to whisper secrets and truths.

But you were still standing too far away from him. Still staring at the tent entrance where the healer had disappeared.

He tried to say your name, but a ragged cough racked his body, sending a new wave of pain through what was left of his wings. Everything hurt. Blood bubbled up from his lungs, its coppery taste filling his mouth as it trickled down his chin.

At last, you turned and raced to his side, grabbing a wet cloth to wipe it away. “I'm sorry,” you whispered. He didn't know what you were apologizing for. He was the sorry one—for failing you, for causing you this pain when he had promised he would never hurt you.

“The healer is coming back,” you continued. Your voice cracked despite your efforts to sound calm and steady. “She'll fix you. You'll be alright.”

You had always been a terrible liar. Azriel knew it, and you knew it too. Neither of you believed your words, but you both clung to them because you had nothing else to hold on to.

“Let me in,” you murmured. Your hands were on his face again, your thumbs gently brushing his cheeks without a care for the dirt smudged on them. “Open the bond, my love.”

Azriel shook his head as best he could, trying to speak again. He wasn't going to let you feel his agony, even if it was watered down through the bond. You were suffering too much already, and though he wanted to let that invisible thread stretch between you, he wouldn't put you through that ordeal.

“Azriel,” you pleaded, your voice trembling. Your eyes locked onto his, and you let him see the raw need to feel him in their depths. “Azriel, please…”

He looked at you for a long moment, but in the end, he let the wall come down. He needed to feel you too—his mate, his love, and right now, his only anchor to this world.

Relief flooded you as he finally opened his side of the bond and the love you shared flowed freely between you, weaving through your very souls. But with it came his pain.

It hit you like a punch to the gut, leaving you breathless. Azriel saw your eyes widen, heard the little gasp that escaped you, and was ready to shut you out once more. But as if sensing his intention, your trembling hands steadied on his cheeks.

“Don't,” you said firmly. “Let me share your burden.”

Sparing you from it was what he should have done. He shouldn't have let you feel it in the first place. Yet the selfish part of him wanted to keep the bond open, to feel your love and affection pouring into his straining heart—sweetness in the pain, warmth in the cold.

Even as you tried to hide it, panic rose inside you, twisting your gut and threatening to overwhelm you. Where was the healer? Your gaze darted to the entrance again and again, expecting her to walk in at any moment.

Azriel coughed once more, another trickle of blood spilling from his lips. You wiped it away quickly, but you knew more would come. You knew he needed help before it was too late.

“Hold on, my love,” you whispered as you leaned closer. “Just a little longer and then you'll be fine.”

“Li–” His voice was so feeble, interrupted by another fit of cough before he could even finish the word. “Liar…”

Before desperation could root itself in you, the healer finally came back. She placed an array of tools on a smaller table next to the one where Azriel lay, and you looked up at her, hope battling against dread.

Surely, she would get to work. Surely, she would cut off what was left of his wings and save him, and then he would hate you, but he would be alive and that was all that truly mattered.

An older healer walked in. Azriel caught only a glimpse of her from the corner of his eye, but the table with the tools was close enough for him to see what had been placed on top. He had seen enough clippings during his years at Windhaven to know what was about to happen.

Despair twisted his gut, adding to his pain and his fear. If losing his wings meant he had a chance of survival, would he take it? Would a life without his wings really be life?

Suddenly, he was back in his father's dungeon, a helpless child who couldn't fly even though his very blood longed for the skies. Then your face emerged from his memory. Your smile, your bright eyes, all the moments together, the life you had built over the centuries.

Could he do it? Could he give up his wings for his mate? Give up one love for another?

He didn't know what he would choose. But he never got to choose.

“You didn't tell me he was in such bad condition,” the older healer said, giving the younger one a sharp look. “There's nothing we can do here.”

The world seemed to tilt on its axis. You weren't sure you were still breathing as you stared at them, disbelief and anger building inside you.

“What do you mean there's nothing you can do?”

The older healer turned her gaze to you. Her stern features softened for only a second before she sighed. “He lost too much blood.”

Her hands glowed a faint yellow light as they hovered over the torn membranes of Azriel’s wings. She placed one on his back, and though her touch was warm and gentle, Azriel had to bite back a scream. The pain was blinding, sharp enough to steal what little breath he had left. And whatever she was trying to do… it wasn't working.

“His heart is beating too slowly already,” she stated, pulling her hand back. Azriel let his head fall against the table once more, his breaths shallow and ragged. “My apprentice shouldn't have given you false hope.”

Rising back to your feet, you turned to the younger healer. She'd said there were low chances, but chances nonetheless.

False hope.

The words echoed in your mind, cold and final like a death sentence. Azriel’s death sentence.

Your hands balled into fists at your sides. The apprentice backed away a step, well aware of the raging fury that you didn't bother to conceal as it kept building inside you. But before you could do anything, Azriel groaned, and your attention snapped back to him. He reached out with a shaking hand, the movement slow and agonizing, yet he wrapped his fingers around your wrist.

“It’s alright…” he rasped, his voice barely a whisper.

It wasn’t alright. But to him, this was just confirmation. He had known it would be his end the moment those soldiers had picked him up, broken and bleeding, from the battlefield. He was holding on, barely, just for you. To see your face, to hear your voice, to feel your love one last time. But he was so tired, and the darkness was pressing in, and now the healers had spoken aloud what he had already understood.

“No,” you snapped. “No, it’s not alright, Azriel.”

You regretted yanking your hand free the instant you saw the flicker of pain on his face. Guilt surged through you, and you dropped to your knees before him again, taking his scarred hand in yours. Gently, you brought it to your lips and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. “I’m sorry,” you murmured. “I’m so sorry, my love. I just…”

Your voice broke, the words dying on your tongue. You couldn’t stop the tears then, and they rolled down your cheeks in waves. A terror unlike anything you had ever felt clutched your stomach, and you clung to the mating bond as though you were the one who needed a lifeline.

Neither of you noticed the two healers leave, probably to give you some privacy. Your sobs drowned out the clashing of the battle just a mile away from camp, each of them hitting Azriel like a stab in the heart. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what you were going through. For him, it would be over soon. But for you, it would last much longer. He didn’t want to contemplate the possibility of living in a world where you had died, and yet you had to suffer through the same thing because he hadn’t been fast enough to avoid an attack from behind.

He wished it didn’t have to be this way. He wished he could go back in time and turn around one second earlier, or stay with you, in this world, forever. But no matter how much he tried to hold onto life and will his heart to keep beating, he was growing tired. The little strength he had left faltered and diminished with each passing second, and you were still crying and sobbing, still grasping his hand as though it could save him.

“My love…” he croaked before being interrupted by yet another cough. You blinked, lips wobbling as you tried to stop your crying long enough to hear his weak voice. But even without the usual light in his hazel eyes, you still understood what he was about to say.

“No,” you said before he could even start. “Don’t say goodbye, Az.”

You shook your head, and your hands moved to cup his face once more. He closed his eyes, as if feeling your touch was all he wanted.

“Don’t leave me,” you pleaded. You kept pulling on the bond between your souls as though it would keep him here, silently praying and begging the Mother not to take him from you. “You can’t leave me… please, my love, I still need you.”

Azriel felt your desperate tugs on the bond, but all he could do was send his love down the bridge to you. He couldn’t feel his body anymore. There were only your delicate hands on his cheeks, and though he was so damn tired, he opened his eyes to look at you one last time.

“I’ll always be with you,” he whispered hoarsely. He couldn’t even lift his arm to point to your chest, to the heart he had cherished and cradled for centuries, the heart he knew was now breaking, just like his own. “I’ll always be in your heart.”

“Please,” you repeated. It was the only thing you could do—hold on to the childish hope that pleading would mean something. “I can't lose you, I… I can't…”

Right then, a gentle hand pressed against the walls of your mental shield. You let it come down, expecting to hear Rhysand’s voice, but it was Feyre who spoke into your mind.

How is he?

You almost let out a hysterical laugh at the absurdity of the question, but when you answered, your voice sounded as broken as you felt. Forget the battle and get over here. All of you. He’s not… he’s…

You couldn’t bring yourself to say it, even now. But Feyre understood, and you could hear the pained note in her voice as she said, We’re coming.

“You have to be strong,” Azriel murmured. It was just a whisper, barely audible, and it drained him to speak, but he needed to reassure you, to make sure you were as alright as you could be. He’d seen your eyes glaze over for a few seconds and knew you’d talked to either Rhys or Feyre. They’d probably be here soon, and they’d take care of you in a way he couldn’t anymore.

A sob shook your whole body. “No,” you replied. “No, just… no.”

You weren’t sure what you were trying to refuse—his plea to be strong, the inevitability of what was about to happen, the unfairness of it all? Did it even matter anymore?

Azriel grasped at the little life left inside of him. His body was already floating on a cloud, and the beautiful features of your face—the lines he knew like the back of his hand—were nothing more than a confused blur. He couldn’t hold on anymore, and he knew it.

“I love you…” he managed to rasp out. He wanted those to be his last words to you. The only words that had ever mattered.

You could see the way his eyes grew distant, the light slowly abandoning them. “I love you too.” Your voice broke as you said them, desperation clawing at your insides like a living beast, sharp nails digging deep into you until nothing else was left. “I love you, but please… please, stay with me.”

You tried to meet his gaze, but he wouldn’t look at you. He didn’t have enough strength.

“Stay with me…”

His eyes fluttered close.

“Please, my love… stay with me.”

His heart stopped beating.

“Please…”

And you felt the mating bond shatter.

Six people rushed into the tent just as you cried out in pain, despair, and heart-wrenching loss. Your screams and wails carried through the whole camp, maybe even the battlefield and the world at large.

Your family knew then. They had come too late.

A clattering sound echoed as Cassian dropped his helmet and then fell to his knees, his wings slumped on the ground and heartbreak written on his dirty face. Mor began sobbing, wrapped in Rhysand’s arms as tears streamed down their faces. Amren brought a hand to her mouth, her eyes shining. Nesta looked like she was about to throw up, but she silently knelt next to her mate and drew him close to her side. Only then did they both start crying.

You didn’t notice any of it. You didn’t notice Feyre approaching you slowly, weeping like all the others and yet trying what she could to be there for you.

“Y/N…” she called gently, reaching out to you.

You shook off the hand she laid on your shoulder as if the touch had singed you. “No,” you growled, the sound more animalistic than anything. Your hands were still on Azriel’s cheeks, and you had no intention of letting go. “Don’t.”

He would open his eyes soon. Your mate wouldn’t abandon you. Not like this. Not when there was still so much more you had to experience together. The centuries you had had with him weren’t enough. You wanted—needed, craved—more, and Azriel would open his eyes, and he would tell you that it was alright, that he would heal and you would keep trying to have the family you both dreamed of.

The minutes passed. Your cries got louder and more desperate, drowning out any sound that came from the rest of your family. You were barely aware of their presence. You were waiting for Azriel to open his eyes.

But he didn’t. You reached for the bond in your soul only to find broken shards of what once was a golden connection built on love and understanding and mutual respect.

He was really gone.

Your Azriel.

Your mate.

Dead.

Dead.

You must have said the word aloud because Feyre reached for you again. Your head snapped up, ready to lash out at her again, to yell at her and everyone else to leave you alone because how could they ever understand what you were going through? How could they ever understand what it meant to lose the love of your life?

But it wasn’t Feyre that was now standing next to you. She had retreated back to where the others stood, her hand clasped with Nesta’s as the two sisters held each other close and wept together.

“Y/N.” Cassian’s voice cracked, but his hand on your shoulder was steady as he crouched down in front of you. “Come here.”

He pried you away from Azriel and pulled you into a hug, even as you fought him. You didn’t want his touch, didn’t want anything that wasn’t hearing Azriel’s breathing and feeling the mating bond come back to life.

You screeched and struggled against his embrace, hands fisting to push him away, to hit him for a reason not even you understood, hoping it would bring you some wicked kind of comfort. But Cassian didn’t let go. He kept his strong arms around you, and the little fight you had left soon disappeared.

You collapsed against him, slumping against his chest as if life had been drained from you too. Maybe it had. Maybe you wouldn’t mind if it did. Your tears soaked into Cassian’s bloodied leathers, your sobs muffled by his embrace.

“I know,” was all he murmured. You could feel his own tears fall on your hair as he tucked you close and rested his cheek on your head. “I know…”

Somehow, the simple acknowledgement of what you were going through soothed you. Just a tiny bit. Enough for you to choke out, “I can’t do this without him, Cass.”

His hand rubbed slow circles over your back. If he was trying to get you to stop shaking, he was failing miserably.

“It’s alright,” he replied quietly. “You don’t have to figure it out now.”

It was reassuring knowing you didn’t have to. Cassian was giving you a chance to grieve, to let it all out, to scream and cry and sob because he knew you needed it. 

So you did.

Emptiness grew inside you until it threatened to swallow you whole, and you let it. You didn’t have to figure it out now. You didn’t want to. You could just let yourself feel, even if it killed you. A part of you had already died, and, just like Azriel, you would never get it back. You would never be whole again.

“We had so many plans,” you whispered. Someone was sniffling, but you couldn’t tell if it was Cassian, someone else, or maybe even you. “I thought… I thought we’d have many more centuries together.”

Cassian’s arms tightened around your trembling form, but before he could reply, another pair of arms slid around you both. You didn’t bother lifting your head to see who it was.

“We all did,” Mor said, her voice weak and broken. “But we’ll be alright, Y/N.”

Shuffling steps drew closer, and then you couldn’t tell who was where, but you still sensed all your friends gathering together to hold you and each other close.

We’ll be alright. You weren’t sure you would ever be alright, not without half of your heart and soul, but… we. Mor had said “we”, not “you”.

You had lost your mate, but they had loved Azriel too. They had lost a brother, a friend, and they were suffering just like you. With you.

“We’ll be alright.” Rhys. Somewhere to your left.

You finally opened your eyes and found him staring at Azriel, still on the table. You couldn’t bring yourself to look at your mate.

“In time,” Rhys murmured. His teary eyes found yours, a quiet understanding in them. “But not now.”

For you, it was most likely never. Without Azriel, the future was black and empty. There was nothing to look forward to. You couldn’t face it without him, and you didn’t want to. But you didn’t have to figure it out now.

For now, you let yourself grieve.

2nd a/n: how do writers kill off their characters? Writing this destroyed me. Now I know why SJM always finds way to bring them back to life... my soft little heart longs for a HEA whenever I write, so I'm never doing this again (maybe idk)

General taglist: @mrsjna @navyblue-eternity @paintedbyshadows @highladyandromeda @starswholistenanddreamsanswered @azrielsmate3 @mollygetssherlockcoffee @mirandasidefics @tinystarfishgalaxy @cynthiesjmxazrielslover @anarchiii @readinggeeklmao @anneas11 @azrielslittleslut @lilah-asteria @aaahhh0127 @lorosette @azrielsrealmate @pey2618 @mellowmusings @k8r123-blog @daughterofthemoons-stuff @minnieoo @saltedcoffeescotch @georgiadixon

@booksbypisces i know you asked me to tag you in this months ago. Hope you're still interested! I didn't think it'd take this long 🫣

[r3starttt]

A CHOICE

PAIRING: Act 2. Caitlyn x reader

SUMMARY: Combat scene with Ambessa but with caitlyn and more romantic cs ughh...

CW: soft sex ig. fingering. I think that's it, this is kinda boring

TAGLIST: @Kaimythically @lewd-alien @greysontheidiot @jolyne @sapphic-ovaries @tlouloser @prwttiestbunny @visobsession @kiki5gigi @thesevi0lentdelights @lvlymicha @stickycherritart @rob1nbuckl3ys @femininologies @dinakisser @viajeros--sin--destino @GodessAgrona @patronagrona

The room reeked of sweat and frustration, a fitting backdrop to the shift between you and Caitlyn. Once the principled enforcer driven by justice, Caitlyn had become something you barely recognized, something that mirrored the things you had both mocked in others. War had done that—it twisted ideals, reshaped alliances, and blurred the lines between hero and villain.

You weren’t exempt from its grasp either.

You weren’t on anyone’s side anymore, and if that made you selfish, so be it. All sides had their vendettas cloaked in the guise of justice, and trust had long since dissolved into ash.

The only constant left in your life was Caitlyn, and even she seemed to slip further from your reach with each passing day. Still, she was all you had left, and you clung to that tether as tightly as you could.

Ambessa stood nearby, her towering frame casting a shadow over the training room. She had a presence that demanded obedience, her sharp eyes studying every move you and Caitlyn made. Her judgment hung heavy in the air, fueling Caitlyn’s relentless determination. The younger woman was eager to prove herself—desperate to show she was more than the pretty face people often dismissed her as.

“Again,” Ambessa’s voice boomed, authoritative and cold.

Caitlyn didn’t hesitate. She lunged, and within seconds, you were on your back, her weight pressing down on you. An annoyed groan escaped your lips as you met her gaze. There was no triumph in her eyes, just an unspoken apology that felt like a slap in the face.

She had pinned you down four times already, and she didn’t seem to care that it was staged, that you were holding back to give her an edge.

“This is the fourth time you’ve lost,” she muttered, her tone quiet but cutting. The faintest hint of a smirk tugged at her lips, a deliberate attempt to needle you. You were doing too much, and a lie like this was one Caitlyn would never be able to hold on for so long.

You shoved her off and rose to your feet, brushing the dust from your uniform. “Aren’t you exhausted?” you asked, frowning as you reached for the long training sticks.

“No,” she said firmly, shaking her head. Her confidence was unyielding, but the subtle tremor in her stance betrayed her. She was tiring, but she’d never admit it. Not in front of Ambessa.

You rolled your shoulders, loosening the tension building in your muscles, and tossed her a stick.

She caught it effortlessly, though her brows furrowed as she examined the weapon.

“Isn’t this what we’re here for?” Ambessa stepped past, her hand brushing your shoulder. “Don’t disappoint me,” she said, her voice low enough that only you could hear. Then she left the room, leaving the two of you to your duel.

Caitlyn frowned, her fingers tightening around the stick as she moved into a defensive stance. Her eyes narrowed, scanning you for any sign of weakness.

She dodged your first strike with a fluid step to the side, her frown returning as she countered with a quick jab to your arm. The impact stung, yet, with the adrenaline of it all, you barely flinched.

You shifted your stance, testing her defenses. Her movements were agile but predictable, and you exploited that, pressing her with a flurry of strikes that forced her to retreat. She tried to parry, but your blows grew heavier, faster. The sound of wood colliding echoed in the room, each clash a reminder of how far you both had come— how far you had fallen.

You gritted your teeth and feigned an opening, luring her in. When she lunged, you sidestepped, your stick sweeping low to catch her behind the knee. Inmediatelly, you shot again, pivoting and landing a strike on her shoulder. She winced but didn’t yield, pressing forward with a renewed ferocity.

The tension between you was palpable, each movement charged with so much—frustration, pride, it was complicated. You weren’t just fighting for dominance; you were fighting to hold onto the fragile thread that bound you together. Caitlyn’s determination was admirable, but you could see the cracks forming beneath her resolve.

Caitlyn moved with a desperation that mirrored your own, though her strikes lacked the precision and control you'd honed over countless battles. It was frustrating—not her lack of skill but the raw determination she wielded like a weapon. She had something to prove, and even as she pushed herself past her limits, you could see beneath.

Ambessa stood like a sentinel on the sidelines, her sharp gaze dissecting every move. You felt her judgment weighing heavily on you both, a silent reminder of why you were here.

She’d orchestrated this fight, thrust you into Caitlyn’s orbit once again after convincing her to become a commander. It wasn’t loyalty or trust that kept you by Caitlyn’s side now—it was survival. War had made enemies of everyone, and holding onto her, flawed as she was, felt like the only tether to a life that wasn’t entirely consumed by violence.

Caitlyn lunged, her movements fueled by frustration more than strategy. You parried her blow with ease, countering with a sweep of your stick that forced her back. She stumbled but recovered quickly, her brow furrowing as she adjusted her stance.

You didn’t rise to her bait. Instead, you pressed forward, your strikes gaining momentum. She dodged the first few but couldn’t keep up with your relentless pace.

Finally, your stick connected with her side, and she yelped, her expression twisting into a mix of pain and anger.

Before she could recover, you closed the distance between you, slamming her back against the wall. The force of the impact knocked the wind out of her, and her stick clattered to the ground.

For a moment, the fight was over. Her breathing was uneven, her chest rising and falling as she stared at you blankly.

And yet, despite it all, you couldn’t bring yourself to finish her. Even as you disarmed her, you hesitated.

Her breathing was ragged, her eyes locked on yours, but there was no surrender in her gaze. Only defiance.

You released her, letting your stick fall to the floor beside hers. She stayed against the wall for a moment, her gaze distant as she tried to regain her bearings.

Ambessa’s steps cut through the silence. “Is this enough?” you asked, turning to face her.

Ambessa gave a curt nod, her expression unreadable. “I hope so. Kiramman, do better next time. And you—one victory means nothing.” With that, she turned on her heel and left, the door closing with a decisive thud behind her.

Caitlyn slid down the wall, her movements slow and heavy, until she came to rest on the cold floor. She drew her knees close to her chest, one hand pressing firmly against her side. Her breath came uneven and shallow, each exhale barely audible. She didn’t speak. You crouched in front of her, setting the bundle of sticks aside. “Did I hurt you?” Your voice softened, words deliberate.

She shook her head, but her gaze never lifted. “I’m fine... just tired,” she murmured, her voice frayed and fragile, like it might disappear if she spoke any louder.

You frowned, unconvinced, studying the strain etched across her face. “You sure?”

Her nod came again, mechanical, unconvincing. The tension in her hand betrayed her, fingers digging into her side as if she could smother the pain through sheer will.

“Lay down,” you said, firm but gentle. “You need to rest.”

Her lips parted in protest, though the words carried no weight. “I can’t just... lay here,” she muttered, struggling to push herself upright. The attempt lasted only a heartbeat before a soft groan slipped from her lips, her body folding under the effort.

You scoffed lightly, standing and extending your hand. “No? Then come on.”

She shook her head, stubborn as ever. “I’m fine,” she repeated, but the hollowness of her tone betrayed her once again.

With a sigh, you knelt beside her. Your gaze softened, the sharp edges of impatience giving way to concern. “Come closer,” you said, quiet but insistent.

For a moment, she hesitated, then obeyed. Her movements were sluggish, every inch forward laced with reluctance. Her hands trembled as they left her side, her shoulders heavy with the weight of exhaustion. The moment your hands found her, warmth against her cool skin, she stilled. Her head dipped forward, her breath steadying as if surrendering to your care.

“This will hurt, but it’ll help,” you warned, brushing her uniform aside just enough to place your hand where hers had been. Her muscles were tense, coiled like steel beneath your fingers. You pressed gently but firmly, seeking the knot of pain she couldn’t hide.

Her sharp inhale cut through the silence, a quiet hiss of discomfort. Still, she nodded, letting you know you’d found it.

Your touch was careful, each motion slow and deliberate, coaxing the tension free. Her body softened under your hands, her breathing evening out with each pass. The furrow in her brow smoothed, and her grip on the pain began to wane.

“There,” you murmured after a time, pulling back.

Caitlyn sat straighter, her movements measured. She exhaled a breath she seemed to have been holding, her eyes finally meeting yours. “Thank you,” she said, her voice subdued but sincere.

You stood, brushing your hands together as if to clear away the weight of her pain. “Mhm... I’ll need more than a thank you for all this, Kiramman,” you teased, extending your hand to help her up.

Her lips twitched, a faint smirk breaking through her weariness. “Kiramman?” she echoed, an edge of curiosity in her tone.

You nodded, tugging her to her feet before letting her hand fall away. She studied you for a beat, the faint crease of a frown touching her features. Her silence was telling, and so was yours. Her last name had rarely, if ever, passed your lips, and the air between you now seemed charged with the acknowledgment of it.

Her smirk returned, wider now, her gaze sharpening with mischief. “You have a choice,” she said, her voice low, her confidence cutting through the quiet.

You scoffed, rolling your eyes. “I don’t.”

“You do,” she countered, stepping closer. Her hand brushed lightly against your waist, a deliberate gesture that sent the air around you rippling with unspoken meaning.

“You think so?” you asked, your tone flat but your gaze steady on hers.

“I know so,” Caitlyn whispered, her words a challenge as her face hovered close to yours. Her eyes flicked briefly to your lips, then back to your own.

Your smile tilted, equal parts playful and defiant. “I don’t,” you repeated, stepping back and breaking her grip. You reached for the water bottle, taking a deliberate sip, ignoring her lingering gaze.

“So, you’re just going to ignore me now?” Her arms slid around your waist from behind, her touch light but persistent. She rested her head against your back, her body swaying slightly as if to disarm you with her childlike ease. You glanced over your shoulder, raising a brow.

“What do you want me to say?” you asked, your voice calm, though her closeness stirred something unspoken in the quiet between you.

Her breath caught for a moment, but then she let out a soft huff, her grip tightening briefly before she released you. She stepped back, her silence filled with the weight of a thousand words unspoken.

And yet, you knew better than to believe it was over.

Your hand reached for hers before she could retreat any further. Her eyes flickered up to meet yours, wary yet undeniably drawn to you, as though your touch was the only thing grounding her.

You stepped closer, closing the space between you, and for a moment, neither of you moved.

Her lips parted as though she was about to argue, but instead, she fell silent. Her fingers brushing your chest, tentative at first, before sliding up toward your neck.

Seconds after you felt her digits threading through your hair, pulling you closer with a subtle urgency that betrayed her earlier distance. And you followed, like you're used to.

The rhythm between your lips guided urgency, desperation. Her breaths mingling with whining and gasping. Even now there was a fight for dominance, trying to prove each other a worth none of you had to.

And so the kiss breaks, a mutual eyeing to prove this is real and is mutual. Caitlyn feels your lips hovering, the quiet gasps for air almost turning into moans hitting her skin fervently.

She diggs into your shoulders, taking the chance to slip her tongue through your lips. And as you're used by now, the action is reciprocated by your saliva mixing with hers.

Mingling breaths coming in shallow gasps as you deepened the kiss, your hands exploring the somehow familiar curve of her body, the softness of her skin.

Your hands roamed down her back, pulling her closer, pressing her pelvis against you before sliding your digits beneath the red fabric of her uniform, fighting to undo her pants.

The task was easy, a somehow known ritual between both. Your fingers slid with ease, cupping at her pussy before rubbing your digits up and down her wet folds. Your hand behind her lower back to savour on her skin, hold her in place like you're always doing for her.

Her arms came to wrap around your shoulders, tangling her fingers on your hair while her face came to hid at your neck. The sweat on your faces enveloping each other's warmth with each move.

Her quiet whimpers felt perfect against your skin, like it was meant to be this way. And for once you allowed yourself to hold onto her as well, enjoy the pleasure of having her like this.

Caitlyn let herself be vulnerable once more, no longer fighting or hesitating but simply letting you hold her.

"Shh... feels good?" Your fingers brushed over her clit before finally circling over it, gentle, slow. Caitlyn murmured a quiet acknowledgment, pressing herself closer to you- pressing your body closer to her.

You left your thumb circling over her clit, just sensing her wet, teasing at her hole before thrusting your middle finger inside her. An overlapped gasp at how she swallowed you, how her hips followed you to get more depth, more friction.

"Look at me." Her head suddenly tilted back. Nails digging at your chin as she forced you to obbey her command- another usual between you two.

Her eyebrows were slightly curved, teeth gap showing through her parted lips. Your thrust growing faster each second until you took the chance to use your ring finger too.

You could see it on her chest, sense on how tight she was, hear the squeal with each thrust- she needed this as much as you.

Her lips begged for yours. Blue eyes eating you until her nails digged too deep- enough to make you hiss. And so, her tongue met yours once again, teeth clashing in a sloppy kiss, giving each other the privilege of the quiet gasps, low whines and quite heavy pants every time your fingers pumped into her pussy with more force. The palm of your hand hitting on her clit every time.

It never stops, not even when her lips part and break the kiss. Her hand going down to your wrists while her head tilts back. "Stop..." you whisper in a weak command, needing her to cum on your fingers, still pumping into her pussy. "Cait... please." You would scream at her and return all the anger she's let on you. But how she looks, with the sweat still on her face, some small hair sticking to her forehead. The warmth of her hand around you while her legs can barely hold it. Your fingers trapped between her thighs and her wet, under her underwear- so trapped and growing harder to move them. She's letting herself enjoy the moment, no talking but just quiet touching and gasping between both to guide each other.

Because she knows no one could ever understand and touch and feel like you.

And for once, getting to enjoy that silent admission- it blinds you into just pleading her to not be an ass once more.

Which she obbeys, drenching your fingers before she's holding onto you once again. Ragid breathing and a stupid smile on her face.

[cabinetofquriosities]

A F***ing Trial

Agatha x Rio x Reader

Warnings: sex pollen-like story and SO. MUCH. SMUT.

Reblog this if you like it 🖤

Agatha and Rio were already awake once you rose from your exhausted slumber.

After barely surviving the last trial that cut your group down to three, you had conked out by the fire. Your entire body was sore and your emotions in a frenzy. The night’s sleep helped your body and mind. You were still sad about your other coven members, but you also didn’t know them before meeting them three days prior.

Agatha, though. You had met her years ago in Westfield. She finally snapped out of the Scarlet Witch’s spell and found you. She had a list provided by another member of the new coven and your name was on it.

You had no clue you had any magic at all until Agatha tested you. Granted, throwing a chair at someone wasn’t the safest way of testing them, but it worked in your case. You flinched and the chair burst into flames, falling to ash as it hit you. You were a fire witch. A protector.

However, you were a fire witch who could only use your powers that one time. After that, it was as if you had a block. Agatha had thrown other things at you as her way of “helping”, though you wondered if she just wanted an excuse for a bit of violence. Nothing. Books and a wooden spoon bounced off of your head.

“Well, we’re just going to have to see what unlocks you,” she said.

The road was brutal and unforgiving, killing one witch per trial. It scared you to know that the next three could do the same to the remaining witches, yourself included.

Rio seemed strangely unaffected by the death surrounding them. Agatha did as well, but seemed a bit more sensitive to it than her ex. You had been a crying mess after the first loss. Now you were just afraid.

You had grown attached to the two other witches. Agatha was captivating. She was intensely ambitious to the point of selfishness, but also contained multitudes. You could see the layers of her emotions peeking through every now and then. She was larger than life and spellbinding. Rio, meanwhile, had more teeth. She was aggressive and passionate. While she seemed detached at times, she had this insatiable desire to live life to the fullest. It was as if she were new to it. Little did you know, she was out of practice when it came to feeling genuine attachment to people and being among the living.

You could tell straight away that the two had a long history. The tension was thick, hanging heavily in the air. The rest of your now deceased coven could feel it too.

When you woke up alone, the two surviving coven members were nowhere to be found. You walked out a bit into the woods, looking for them. You stopped short at the sight of Rio being pinned against a tree by Agatha.

Rio was smirking at the other woman as if to challenge her. Agatha leaned in, biting at Rio’s lips. Her thigh was pressed against her core, grinding against her leather pants. Rio smiled as she craned her head back against the trunk of the tree. Agatha’s hand let her wrist go and slid down her front, dipping beneath her waistband. Rio let out a gasp, earning a smug smile and arched brow from Agatha.

You tried to sneak away, but accidentally stepped on a twig, the snap alerting the couple to your presence. They both looked at you, making the blood in your body rise to your cheeks.

Your fingertips suddenly sparked, the magic you were previously unable to access now activating with arousal. You had always repressed your desires in the past, having been raised in a strict religious family. You had been intimidate with a partner in the past, but it was all very vanilla.

Agatha noticed your hands burning with fire, her mind working to decipher what that could mean about your power.

“I… uh, sorry,” you said, quickly retreating back to the fire, jumping when the flame surged on the burnt out logs.

You could hear Rio laughing mockingly in the distance.

A few minutes later, the pair found you. Rio sat next to you with that same smirk from before while Agatha barely even looked at you. Her eyes fell on the newly lit fire.

“Interesting,” she said, her face illuminated by the glow.

“I’ll say,” Rio said, her hand resting on your knee.

The moment Rio touched you, the fire grew in intensity. Agatha’s eyes widened, looking both alarmed and excited about what this meant.

“I guess we finally found your spark,” Agatha said, giving you a sly smile.

Two small flames jumped out of the fire, catching on the dirt in a way that wasn’t physically possible. A trail ignited, two lines of fire forming and spreading out. Agatha’s fascination turned to worry.

“Alright… enough spark, let’s pull it back…” she said nervously.

“I’m not doing anything!” you said, your heart racing.

The fire formed a path, the flames staying in two controlled lines that led them to a tower in the distance. Rio tilted her head, toying with a flower she bloomed from her hand.

“Well, I guess we know whose trial this is,” she said.

Your heart was in your throat. Your power was still so unpredictable. You had used it once in self defense on a chair and once just moments ago. You watched as the two other women led the way. Agatha turned around, regarding you before speaking.

“You can do this. The road wouldn’t be calling you if you couldn’t. Let’s go.”

She spun back around, dramatically flipping her coat with no regard for the flames. You took a moment to steel yourself before following them.

The path led to a tower made of ice. The walls reflected the moonlight, giving it a glow against the backdrop of the sky. The door had a stained glass portrait of the full moon with fire surrounding it.

You pushed the door open and stepped through, expecting the usual costume change. You looked at Agatha and Rio to see that they were naked. Agatha looked nonplussed while Rio had a wolfish smile. Looking down, you were mortified to see your own naked body with one addition.

“Well, I didn’t know you were packing more than magical heat…” Agatha purred, looking down at the sizable dick that had been bestowed upon you.

“No, I… I don’t have… the road did it!” you said, shocked at your new anatomy.

“Well, the road has wonderful taste,” she replied as you tried covering it with your hands.

“Enough admiring, we should find the challenge,” Rio said, looking you up and down once more before searching your surroundings.

The ceiling was out of your sight, positioned at the very top of the massive tower. There were portraits lining the circular frozen walls. They were lined up like film, carvings of stone with bodies in different positions. The floor was cushioned and covered in silk sheets and decadent pillows.

You walked along the wall, finally distracted enough to examine the room. You touched a wall and felt the cold against your fingertips. You stepped back to the center with Agatha and Rio. Once you were all in the middle of the room, an ice hourglass began to slowly fill with water, the cube on top melting as time passed. A shelf emerged with four icicles attached. A circle of low burning fire surrounded the coven as the timer began.

Something resembling snow fell from the ceiling, breaking into a fog the three of you breathed in. Your heart began to race and you felt a flush burning your cheeks. There was an iron frame that appeared over one of the portraits. It was a carving of two people entangled in the missionary position.

You noticed the other two women struggling to keep their focus. Their pupils dilated and focused on you. You looked down and saw where all of your blood had rushed to.

Agatha looked up at the carving.

“I think we know what your trial is,” Agatha said, her voice a bit raspy, “Little miss purity has to discover a few things.”

You would have been resistant if you had been with anyone else, but the two other women had been present in your dreams since the beginning of the road.

“Wait, what?”

“You heard her, firestarter,” Rio said, stalking up to you.

A thin sheen of sweat covered her body, causing a layer of goosebumps to break out. She looked like she was about to consume you.

“I know you feel it too. That need rushing through you?” she said, leaning in to whisper into your ear.

“The air of arousal,” Agatha said, her body nearly shivering with desire, “That’s what we breathed in. If we don’t satiate it, it can kill you. Are you okay with this?”

Agatha actually seemed to care about how you felt about this, despite the irresistible lust taking her over.

“Yes,” you said eagerly before you could stop yourself, “I wanted it before.”

You turned to Rio, who was standing an inch from you, her hands running along your arms. You pulled her into a kiss, the heat within you passing the point of no return. Rio fell back, pulling you with her. You landed over her, catching yourself with your hands. Seeing her beneath you like this was more intense than you could imagine.

Rio reached between you, her hand wrapping around your cock. Her touch sent a shock through you, the flames of the circle rising a bit. You lowered your hips down as she guided you into her. You both gasped at the sensation. Your eyes squeezed shut at the overwhelming feeling.

“Move,” Rio ordered.

You opened your eyes and locked onto hers. You slowly moved your hips, getting used to the motion. You let out a whine as you began to speed up. Rio rolled her hips with yours, bucking and grinding against you. You didn’t know what else to do but thrust. She reached down again and began playing with her own clit. Her cunt squeezed around you as her mouth fell open into a moan. The flames grew another foot. An icicle fell from the shelf, crashing against the floor. There were three left.

You could hear a cranking sound as the portraits spun around the room, the frame now over a carving of a woman riding a man. Rio sat up, about to top you when Agatha interrupted.

“You already got one,” Agatha said to Rio.

She nearly tackled you to the floor, pinning your wrists on either side of your head. She straddled you, grinding herself along the side of your cock. You squirmed, your breath shaking at the feeling of her wet lips massaging you. She reached down and positioned you before sinking down onto you. She threw her head back, her long hair falling down her back. Her chest was shamelessly pushed out as she moved. Her hips rocked and circled, leaving you without a thought in your mind. You bucked up, drawing a gasp from her. She took you by the wrists and guided them over her breasts. You held onto her as you fucked her, your back arching off of the cushioned floor. You sat up, kissing and sucking at her neck. Her arms encircled you, her hand tangled in your hair as she held you to her throat. You moaned against her skin as she rode you.

“Fuck… fuck, fuck, fuck…” Agatha whispered as she moved faster.

Suddenly, she tensed up, her body freezing her into a vision of pleasure. Her mouth hung open, her eyes squeezing shut. Her slick walls pulsed around you, making you shudder with your own orgasm. Another icicle fell as the fire grew again. You were still terribly hard in a way that was painful.

The whirring of the portraits snapped you from your haze. The one that was picked made your pulse quicken. You could see it had the same effect on your coven members. Rio smiled and Agatha looked you up and down.

Something inside of you took hold. You grabbed Agatha by the waist, flipping her onto her hands and knees. You looked at Rio, saying, “Move.”

Rio didn’t have to be told twice. She sat and opened her legs in front of Agatha. You checked the time, the hourglass half full. Sweat trickled down your face, the magic nearly driving you insane.

You moved to your knees behind Agatha, reaching down and grabbing her by the hair. She let out a shocked moan as you pulled her tresses before slamming into her. You shoved her head down into Rio’s pussy.

Her mouth immediately went to work, drawing hitches and sighs from Rio. You grabbed her by the hip with your free hand and pulled her into each thrust. The sound of moans, the wet sounds of Agatha’s mouth exploring Rio, and your thighs slapping against Agatha’s ass filled the tower. You felt a feral need to make her cum. Your hand went from her hair to her back. You dug your nails in and scratched down over its arch. You could feel the way Agatha reacted to it, knowing then that Agatha had a submissive side.

“Slap her,” Rio growled, “She loves it.”

You reared back, your hand coming down against her ass with a force. Agatha let out a wild cry against Rio’s warmth. She then went back to sucking on Rio’s clit, earning higher and higher moans. You knew she was close and also knew how to help Agatha to catch her up. You reached your arm around her and played with the sensitive bundle of nerves.

“Ah! Fuck, yes!” she cried out, pressing her cheek to Rio’s inner thigh before returning to her.

The two women’s moans rose in pitch until all three of you broke. You fell forward, catching yourself on your hands before crushing Agatha. You could hear the shattering of another icicle as it fell. One left. The flames were several feet high and licking at the walls.

The carvings spun one last time. This one was more confusing than the others. Two women, lying one on top of the other facing the sky. The man was inside of one while the other held her.

“Ah, I see,” Rio said.

She guided Agatha as she laid down. Rio lay under her, her front pressing against her back. They were stacked on one another, waiting for you. You looked at the hourglass and saw how close you were to the end of your time.

You were on your knees when you held Agatha’s hips and thrusted into her. Her head fell back against Rio’s shoulder. You took no time for foreplay. You fucked her with abandon before pulling out of her, earning a violent glare.

You then slid into Rio, fucking her with the same force. She kissed and marked Agatha, her neck one big bruise. Your hands covered her breasts, pinching and tugging at them. She leaned down and kissed Agatha, pouring all of the hidden desire you had been harboring for her into it. You pulled out of Rio and sank back into Agatha, a whimper escaping her lips driving you absolutely insane.

She screamed as her cunt strangled you, her body spasming with her climax. You looked at her wild hair and her blissed out face. You wanted to remember this forever.

You then sank into Rio, pulling an animalistic growl from her that slightly scared you. Your thighs ached as you sped your thrusts, angling to find the part of Rio that made her scream. She shook and shrieked as she came with you following soon after, the pleasure blinding you for a moment.

The fire shot up, reaching the top of the tower as the final icicle fell. The walls melted down, water falling and rolling down to the ground. The carvings fell from the melted walls into the dirt. The hourglass filled and broke before disintegrating into a puddle. The fire that had been emanating from your magic returned to your hands. You looked down and your clothes were back and your member was gone.

“Well,” Agatha said, standing on wobbly legs before dusting herself off, “Good job, team.”

Rio snorted with a laugh, getting up and offering you a hand. You took it and walked with them, now knowing the trip down the road would be much more fun.

Thank you for reading! Reblog this if you liked it 🖤

[mischiefmanagers]

Eris Vanserra Fic Rec Library 🍁❤️‍🔥

these fics are a mix of Eris x reader, Eris x OC, and a few general Eris fics with no pairing. if you've never read an Eris fic before, I highly recommend starting with the first rec below (gust & flame) because that fic made me fall in love with him. enjoy ✨

🌼 personal favorite 🥀 angst 💞 fluff 🔥 smut

by @invisibleanonymousmonsters

gust & flame (series) 🥀💞🌼

by @theostrophywife

here in your arms. 💞

like you wanna be loved 💞

by @acourtofmenandthirst

The Fox & The Hound 💞

by @leafsandstarlight

Destiny's Battleground (series) 🥀💞🔥

In Spite of Our Differences (series) 🥀💞🔥🌼

Great Rite 🔥

The Prince of Blood

by @profound-imagination

Finding Home 💞

Rose Gardens

by @munsons-hellfire

Happiness in the Heart 🥀💞

by @sweetcarolina-24

Scorched Shadows

by @azrielbrainrot

Fire on Fire

Mind Over Matter 🥀

by @danikamariewrites

Rescue 💞🥀

Fake Sleeper 💞

Peace 💞

Seekers 💞🌼

Did You Just Say No?

Song of Death

Starfall Revelations 🥀💞

Guilt 🥀💞

Kisses 💞

by @redbleedingrose

Till the End of Time 💞🥀

Pretty? 🥀💞

by @b0xerdancer-writes

It Wasn't Supposed to Happen Like This 🥀💞

by @thisblogisaboutabook

Bad Idea, Right? 🥀🔥

by @azsazz

Cherries, Juniper, and Orange Slices 💞

Fire & Water 🥀🔥

by @honeybeefae

Cauldron Fated 💞🥀🔥🌼

Forgotten Ties 🥀

Valentine's Mini Fic 💞

A Court of Wings & Fire (series) 🥀

Past and Present 🥀💞

Coronation Day 💞

Potions 🔥🌼

by @we-were-beautiful

The Fox and the Hounds 💞

by @bubbles-for-all-of-us

My little flame 💞

Her 🌼

My tears ricochet 🥀

by @2thestars-andbeyond

The Fire That Burns Within (series) 💞🥀🔥

by @simkaswriting

What if…Eris had danced with y/n instead?

by @jeannineee

Daylight 🥀💞

Breeding 🔥

by @jdeclerc

a brother's intervention 🥀

by @azrielsdove

Playing With Fire 🥀🔥Azriel x Reader x Eris

by @cassiefromhell

Unexpected 💞🥀🔥Azriel x Reader x Eris

by @fieldofdaisiies

Late Again 🥀

Brother 🥀💞 no pairing

Falling 💞🌼

by @azrielsoulmate

Covered in you 💞

by @cupidojenphrodite

Morning After 🔥

by @acourtofwhatthefuck

Loose Lips 🥀🔥

by @thelov3lybookworm

Remember me? (series) 💞🥀 from Rhysand x Reader to Eris x Reader

Bloodshed 🥀💞

Not what I expected 🥀💞🌼

by @fineghkst

How Eris acts around his mate 💞

by @ladyescapism

fractured bonds 🥀

by @clairebear08

Woven 🥀

Use Me 🔥

by @historiaxvanserra

If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power 🥀🌼

I Am Not a Martyr, I'm a Problem

by @shadowdaddies

Autumn's Eden 💞

Bramble 💞

by @azrielslightintheshadows

Fake love. 🥀

by @crypticandmachiavellianaugustine

Sweet Nothings 💞🌼

by @readychilledwine

Death of Peace of Mind 🥀🔥🌼

Safe Haven 💞

Relief

Unconditional 💞

Leap 💞🌼

Kissed By Fire

Lapcat 🔥

Pack Mentality 💞

Tainted Love 🥀

by @throneofsmut

Bound In Flames (series) 🥀💞🔥

by @parkerslatte

Overlooked 🥀🌼

Warm Me Up 💞🔥

by @prythianpages

Like An Angel 💞

Cruel, Wicked Thing

by @saphirered

Frozen lake 🔥💞

by @thehighladywrites

Professor Eris 🥀💞🔥

by @thevanserrras

Breaking Point 🥀

Den of Foxes 🥀💞

Happy Equinox at Last 💞

Wake Up 🥀💞 Azriel x Reader x Eris

Petty 🥀💞

by @secret-third-thing

Never An Honest Word 🥀 no pairing

by @nocasdatsgay

From the Ashes, the Wildflowers Grow (series) 🥀💞🔥🌼

by @lucienforhighking

Hounds of Love 💞

Dancing 💞🔥

by @callmeblaire

when fire and ice dance

by @moonlightazriel

Symphonies 💞

When no one hears your calls 🥀💞

by @sellyoursoulforagoodfic

Monstrous Secrets 🥀💞

by @florencemtrash

Flame, Shadow, Beast 🥀💞 Azriel x Reader x Eris

by @serpentandlily

Sly Fox, Dumb Bunny (series) 🌼

Last Solstice 🥀💞🌼

by @fever-fluff

Unconditional

by @yearning-for-autumn

Would That I

[smellysluna]

Chapter Two | Again, And Again, And You

Chapter Two: A Fresh Start

Pairing: Sung Jinwoo x Reader

Word Count: 5,5k

Summary:

You've lived through countless timelines—each one shaped by monsters, magic, and the unbearable weight of knowing too much. Until you wake up in a version of reality where none of that ever happened. No dungeons. No deaths. Just high school… and him. Sung Jinwoo—quiet, intense, and impossibly familiar—is here too, and maybe this time, it'll be you who changes his world.

Notes:

I— I think I went overboard with the length of this chapter I mean like— ... just enjoy

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The world felt different when you woke up.

Not in a way you could explain—everything was where it should be, everything looked the same. The sun rose like it always had, painting gold across the ceiling of your room. 

And yet, your chest felt hollow. As if you'd just surfaced from drowning.

You sat up in bed, a sharp inhale cutting through your lungs. Your hands trembled slightly as you touched your face, half-expecting to see blood, ash, or time etched into your skin. But you were young.

You were… young.

You stumbled to the mirror and stared.

The person staring back at you was barely seventeen. No shadows under her eyes. No scars on her neck. No weight of a thousand lives hanging from her shoulders.

You blinked rapidly, as if to wake up again. But this was the dream. Or rather, the end of it.

The world had been reset.

He’d done it.

Sung Jinwoo had done it.

You didn’t cry—not right away. But your knees gave out slowly, and you sat there on the floor, heart pounding like a drum, repeating one truth over and over:

You’re free.

At first, you didn’t try to find him.

You told yourself he wouldn’t remember. That this life was his reward. That he deserved peace without the weight of old memories.

But still… a part of you wanted to see him. Just once. To confirm that he was okay. That he still existed. That it hadn’t all been a dream you made up in the space between lifetimes.

So, you enrolled in the same middle school.

Sliding into the role of a transfer student wasn’t new to you. A few forged documents, a timely uniform delivery, and voilà—new student, perfectly ordinary. You’d even knocked your age down to fifteen on paper. Technically, you were almost seventeen, but what were a couple of years between friends? It wasn’t like anyone was going to card you in homeroom.

Besides, you were already ancient compared to everyone else. Maybe not in body, but mentally? Please. After a few dozen lifetimes, you were basically the wise old sage in a room full of toddlers. If anyone asked, you just had an “old soul.” They didn’t need to know it came with the emotional baggage of a thousand respawns and a suspiciously encyclopedic knowledge of stock market crashes.

Enrolling in middle school felt like sitting through an onboarding presentation for a company you'd already secretly run twice. You knew the rhythm, the roles, the script—even if everyone else thought this was your first day on the job.

A crisp uniform, a clean transcript, and your real name on the roster—check, check, and check.

Sung Jinwoo had already sparked a school-wide glow-up rumor before you stepped foot in class.

He used to be awkward, they said. Kind of forgettable, quiet in a way that made people skim past him in the hallway. But something had shifted.

He came back after summer with cleaner hair, straighter posture.

Suddenly, people realized he was hot.

Like, surprise lead-role-in-a-drama hot.

His smile was easy now. His voice low and warm. Rolled-up sleeves. That thing guys do where they lean back in chairs just enough to look effortlessly cool without actually falling.

He helped teachers carry supplies. He saved a bee from a classroom once, apparently. People said he smelled like clean laundry and citrus and the sun.

Even the guys loved him.

“Bro, I’m not gonna lie,” one classmate had said loudly once, voice carrying across the lunch tables, “we thought you were just, like… a weird shut-in last year. We were so wrong. I’m sorry.”

Jinwoo had just laughed, easy and warm, and clapped him on the back like it really wasn’t a big deal.

It made him even more likable.

Because that was the thing—he didn’t act like someone who’d suddenly realized he was hot. He just was. And somehow, that made people fall even harder.

Girls confessed to him. Often.

Sometimes it was a letter slipped into his locker, folded with trembling care. Sometimes it was a bento left on his desk, wrapped in pastel cloth with a note tucked beneath. A few were bold enough to ask him face-to-face—he always looked surprised when they did. Not because he didn’t expect it, maybe, but because he genuinely didn’t know how to react.

He wasn’t cold. Just… unreadable. He’d thank them, bow slightly, offer a soft smile that somehow didn’t give anything away. And then he’d return to whatever he was doing—scribbling in the margins of his notebook, sipping his strawberry milk, or talking to the guys. Sometimes they’d walk away giggling. Sometimes in tears. It wasn’t clear if he was just oblivious or expertly polite, but either way, nothing stuck.

Until the day you walked in.

It was morning—barely past 9:00.

A math class in full swing, the room draped in fluorescent chill and the quiet scratch of pencils. The teacher’s voice filled the space in low, practiced rhythm, chalk tapping steadily against the board. Outside, the sunlight was pale and clear, leaking through the windows in sharp, angled beams.

And then the door clicked open.

It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t nervous.

Just… smooth. Deliberate. The kind of entrance that didn’t need permission. You stepped in with a quiet sort of confidence, your bag slung over one shoulder, uniform crisp, expression unreadable. Composed in a way teenagers rarely were. 

You didn’t look around for approval.

You just scanned the room once, calm and quiet, the kind of quiet that made people straighten up without knowing why. You nodded when the teacher finally noticed you standing there—a slight tilt of the head, perfectly polite—and stepped aside like you hadn’t just walked into the middle of a math lesson, like this wasn’t two months too late for transfers.

The chalk stuttered on the board. The teacher cleared his throat. “Ah—yes.” A pause. “Everyone, please welcome our new student, (y/n).”

Chairs creaked. Neck cranes followed you. A ripple of whispers. Half-curious, half-nervous energy filled the air.

“Please find a seat.”

And across the room, Jinwoo—half-slouched in his seat, pen resting against his lower lip—looked up.

He blinked.

Like something inside him had missed a step.

For a second, just a second, something flickered across his face. Not surprise. Not interest. Just… confusion. That sharp, uncanny déjà vu with no image attached—only a feeling. A breath held in the dark.

He’d never seen you before.

And yet—something about you tugged at him.

A flicker. A scent of familiarity buried deep under layers of time and dust and forgotten things. He shoved the thought down immediately. It was impossible.

You walked past him—two rows back, your steps soft, unhurried.

He followed the sound without meaning to.

Jinwoo blinked again.

Then, very carefully, leaned back in his chair, tapped his pen twice against his notebook, and muttered under his breath:

“…No way.”

He caught himself a second later, eyes darting to check if anyone had heard.

Then—quick recovery.

He straightened slightly. Pushed his bangs back. Sat there like the embodiment of casual disinterest, the boy too cool to be caught off guard.

Too cool.

Like someone who’d practiced smoldering in the mirror but was now deeply unsure what to do with his hands.

You caught his eye, just briefly, as you scanned the room for a seat.

He looked away immediately. Not too fast. Just… mildly interested in the far wall, apparently.

But after that—

You felt it.

His gaze, brushing over you more than once. Lingering when you weren’t looking.

Not with curiosity.

With confusion.

Recognition.

Like a name that danced just out of reach.

Like a face he should know, but couldn't place—a phantom glimpse from the past. Every time his eyes lingered on you, that sensation crept back. Stronger. More insistent. Unsettling.

You didn’t expect to cause a stir.

At least, that was the plan.

But apparently, mastering the art of not trying was the secret to suddenly becoming the main character.

First, the grades.

Then, the moment you effortlessly corrected a teacher. Graceful. Polite. A tilt of the head, a glint in your eye that said, I’m right—and I’m not even trying to be smug about it.

It started off harmless enough.

Third-period history. The room hummed with the familiar buzz of the late morning sun spilling across desks. The air was warm, thick with the chatter of half-listening students and the teacher’s monotone lecture on post-war reforms.

You were taking notes quietly—head down, pen gliding smoothly—until he said it:

“And of course, women didn’t really play a role in those reforms. Most of them stayed at home. The important decisions were all made by men.”

The words hung in the air for a second. Just long enough.

You blinked. Looked up.

A soft click of your pen stopping. No drama. No raised voice. Just a slight shift in your posture as you lowered your hand and spoke up.

“Excuse me, sir,” you said, calm and even. Not rude. Just… precise. “I think that’s not entirely accurate.”

The room stilled.

Mr. Han blinked over his glasses, clearly surprised that anyone had spoken—especially the new girl.

You tilted your head, like you were still weighing how best to phrase it, before speaking with calm certainty:

“Several female activists were instrumental in shaping the educational reforms and labor policies during that time. Especially in Seoul and Busan. Kim Bok-dong, for example, continued her advocacy even post-war. Also, the Women’s Union had seats at the negotiating table in 1946.”

You didn’t smile exactly—but there was something in your expression. A light behind your eyes. Confident, without needing to flex it. Like this was just a fact, not a fight.

There was a pause.

A long one.

A pencil rolled off someone’s desk. A chair creaked. Somewhere in the back, a girl made a sound like she’d just witnessed a plot twist in a drama.

Mr. Han cleared his throat.

“Yes. That’s… a good point,” he said slowly, adjusting his collar. “I stand corrected.”

You nodded, jotting something else down in your notes like nothing had happened.

But something had.

Two rows ahead, Sung Jinwoo blinked slowly, the faint scratch of his pencil stopping mid-word.

He hadn’t been paying full attention—his gaze had been half out the window, half on the margin doodles in his notebook—but your voice had cut clean through the hum of classroom monotony. Calm. Precise. Just a little sharp at the edges, like the glint of a blade in sunlight.

New girl. Hair tucked behind one ear, eyes still focused on your notebook. As if none of it had mattered. As if a whole classroom hadn’t just silently re-evaluated you in real time. The girl next to you was staring. Someone two seats down had actually scooted closer.

But you? Unbothered.

Jinwoo’s gaze lingered.

There was… something.

Not familiarity exactly. But weight. Like gravity in reverse. The kind that pulls at memory, tugging on something buried under centuries of silence and blood and shadows.

The way you’d held the room just now—it reminded him of her.

The Founder.

The one who'd stood tall even when monarchs threatened war. The one who'd never bowed.

The one he’d never figured out.

But that was impossible.

She was gone. Had to be.

He was the only one cursed to remember.

He shook the thought from his head like mist from his shoulders, turning back to his notes.

It didn’t make sense.

Just another strange feeling in a life full of them.

Still…

His pen tapped against the margin once. Twice.

Then he scribbled something down that wasn’t related to history at all.

Your name.

He wasn’t even sure he’d meant to write it.

But there it was.

And the smallest crease formed between his brows.

What had started as a quiet correction soon spread like wildfire.

You hadn’t raised your voice. You hadn’t even looked smug.

But you’d dismantled a teacher’s outdated view with the elegance of someone flipping a chess piece onto a checkmate square. And you did it with a grace that made the girls around you swoon.

“I think I stopped breathing,” someone whispered to her friend outside the classroom. “She didn’t even flinch.”

From there, it snowballed.

People admired your calm. The way you carried yourself like you knew exactly who you were. Your quiet confidence, the way you listened—actually listened—and spoke like your words mattered. Like theirs did too.

Before long, you started noticing a shift. Girls who usually stuck to their own groups were suddenly finding excuses to hang around, like they were magnetically drawn to whatever vibe you were giving off. No one was trying too hard—they just wanted a bit of your coolness to rub off.

The whole thing still felt a little surreal. A few weeks ago, you’d just been the new girl—the one slipping into class unnoticed, blending into the background. Now, you had a group of girls who were, for lack of a better word, attached to you. They weren’t bad, though. In fact, they were kind of fun. They’d drag you along to lunch, chat about the latest drama, and occasionally ask for your opinion on the most important issues, like which lip gloss had the best scent or whether the cafeteria’s pizza was worth the risk of food poisoning.

Today, they were gathered around your desk, laughing about something one of them had said—some story about a teacher who accidentally wore mismatched socks to class. You found yourself grinning without even thinking about it. There was something so effortlessly easy about the way they included you, like you’d always belonged here.

“You know,” one of them said, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear, “I don’t know how you do it. You’re so chill. I mean, way chill. It’s like you’re just, I dunno, above all the drama, you know?”

You laughed, half-embarrassed, half-flattered. “I wouldn’t say above it. Just… trying to survive it.”

“Survive? Girl, you’ve mastered it,” another chimed in, nudging you playfully. “I swear, you’ve got this whole ‘cool, collected vibe’ going on. It’s like you’re a movie star or something.”

You blinked, unsure how to respond. It had been a while since anyone said something like that to you, especially not with such earnestness. Was it really that obvious? You’d always figured you were just… trying not to screw things up. In some strange way, you were almost relieved. You were just so tired of being the outsider.

"I don't know," you said, glancing out the window for a second, a little too aware of how your words sounded. "I guess... I’m just happy I can finally be, I don’t know, normal for once."

They all stared at you for a second, as if the idea was so foreign that they didn’t know how to respond. And then they laughed. Not in a mean way, just a soft, understanding laugh.

"Girl, you’re like way past normal," one of them teased, and you swatted her arm lightly, laughing along.

But there was something warm about hearing it. Maybe you didn’t need to be anything extraordinary. Maybe, for the first time in a long time, you could just be yourself.

It wasn’t a bad way to be.

The bell rang for the end of lunch, a mix of relief and slight reluctance hanging in the air as everyone packed up their things. You, however, were still caught in a bubble of conversation, a few girls chatting animatedly around you as you all made your way to your next class.

For a moment, it felt almost like before—like you were part of the group but still slightly outside it. You could feel their eyes on you sometimes, the way they’d smile at you like you were a little secret they were all proud to keep. But there was something different about it now. You weren’t just the new girl anymore. You were... someone they all wanted to be near.

It wasn’t a bad thing.

And yet, as the laughter died down and the group started to disperse, you caught a glimpse of someone at the edge of the hallway, leaning against the wall, arms crossed. Jinwoo. His presence, always so quiet, still seemed to draw attention.

He wasn’t quite looking at you, but you could feel it—a pull, like his gaze was hovering just on the edge of your peripheral. His eyes flicked to you briefly, but then he quickly turned away, scribbling something in his notebook as if it was the most important thing in the world.

You weren’t sure why it made your stomach tighten, or why your pulse seemed to quicken as you walked past him.

It wasn’t that you hadn’t seen him around before. He was the school’s “heartthrob,” after all. Everyone knew who he was. But this? The strange tension that seemed to hang between you and him whenever your paths crossed—this was new.

You stepped around him, almost brushing past him, the faint scent of his cologne mingling with the hallway’s stale air.

For a moment, neither of you said anything. The world continued on around you—students chatting, shoes scuffing against the linoleum—but it felt like everything slowed down.

He shifted, turning slightly, as if deciding whether or not to speak. And then, just as you were about to move on, you heard his voice.

“Hey,” he said, the single syllable low and almost hesitant.

You stopped, caught off guard by the sound of his voice. It was strange—almost like he'd been practicing saying it to you in his head, over and over, before actually letting the word slip out.

You turned, trying to keep your expression neutral. "Yeah?"

There was a beat of silence. Jinwoo seemed like he wanted to say more—something else was on the tip of his tongue—but instead, he just gave a small shrug. "Never mind," he muttered, and with that, he turned back toward the hallway, his shoulders tense as if he’d said something he wasn’t ready to say.

You stood there for a second, blinking in the sudden awkwardness of it all. His footsteps echoed as he walked away, and you couldn’t help but wonder what had almost spilled out.

But before you could dwell too long on the thought, you were pulled into another conversation by one of the girls from your group, and Jinwoo’s strange, brief interaction was lost in the noise of the crowd.

Because while Jinwoo had become the school’s heartthrob, you had become something else entirely—mysterious, magnetic, untouchable.

The girls didn’t leave you alone.

You were always surrounded. Walking anywhere alone required a strategy.

And Jinwoo?

He looked like he wanted to say something.

He’d lean forward, hesitate. Start to stand. Then pause as someone asked you a question or grabbed your sleeve to drag you to lunch.

He’d sit back like nothing happened. Scribble something in his notebook that wasn’t schoolwork. Bite the inside of his cheek like he was annoyed with himself.

Like he knew you.

Like he’d met you in a dream, once, and the memory had just now caught up.

And still… nothing happened.

Until one afternoon during break—

It wasn’t a dramatic escape. Just you, slipping away while the girls weren’t paying attention.

The school rooftop had always been… yours. Not officially, of course. Just in that quiet, unspoken way places become sacred. It was where the noise below couldn't reach. Where people weren’t buzzing around you with expectations or praise.

Where you could breathe.

You leaned against the railing, arms resting atop it, eyes cast over the schoolyard far below. The spring breeze was light, brushing against your skin with a gentle sway.

You let yourself just be.

No running. No fighting. No pretending.

You were starting to get used to the feeling.

Just the faint sound of distant laughter from the classrooms below, the wind rustling through the trees, the gentle hum of life continuing like the world hadn't ended again and again.

You closed your eyes for a second. Felt the sun warm your face.

This was something you never got to enjoy before. Not really. Not with everything you had to become.

Unknowing to you somewhere from the courtyard, he saw you.

He’d been laughing at some dumb joke Sungil cracked—something about the cafeteria milk again—and his eyes drifted lazily toward the sky.

And there you were.

On the rooftop.

At first, he didn’t think much of it.

You were always slipping away lately, weren’t you?

But there was something about the way you stood. The stillness in your shoulders. The calm. Like someone who’d earned it.

His mind flickered to that moment in class.  

The way you spoke to the teacher—controlled, sharp, like you’d negotiated boardroom wars before.  

The confidence. The dry wit.  

Your name.

It had nagged him when he first heard it. Felt oddly familiar. But he’d brushed it off.

Coincidence, he’d told himself.

But now, watching you from below, everything clicked.

You weren’t a classmate he remembered having in high school.  

He knew this place. Knew the names. Knew who lived and who died.  

But you? You didn’t belong here.

And yet… you were here.

His chest tightened.

No. It couldn’t be. Could it?

He was supposed to be the only one. That was the price to pay.

But those eyes...  

Those familiar knowing eyes. The ones that used to make him hesitate even when he was the strongest hunter alive. Like you were seeing something he hadn’t caught up to yet.

He stood so abruptly that the contents of his lunchbox went everywhere.

“I—uh, bathroom,” he said quickly, already turning.

“Again?” Sungil snorted. “You good, man?”

Jinwoo didn’t answer. He was halfway to the stairwell already.

He didn’t know how fast he was going—only that his legs carried him up two flights of stairs like muscle memory had kicked in from another life. The closer he got, the more erratic his heart pounded, not from the run, but from the what if.

What if it’s really her? What if I’m not the only one anymore?

His hand hit the door before he could slow down.

Your eyes flicked to the door before he could even burst through it.

He looked out of breath. Wild-eyed. Like he’d run from something—or toward something—he couldn’t quite believe.

And you just smiled.

The same calm smile you’d given him a lifetime ago, back when everything had been louder, heavier, soaked in shadows.

“I was starting to think you’d never notice,” you said softly.

Jinwoo froze.  

His mouth opened like he was going to say something—but nothing came out. Just stunned silence. The kind where the world shifts under your feet.

There you were.  

The queen of that former world.  

The founder of the most powerful guild in Korea.  

The girl who protected him in ways he didn’t understand during the war.  

The woman who stayed when everyone else turned their backs.

Now here, in a school uniform and wind in your hair, looking at him like no time had passed at all.

He laughed—but it came out hollow, overwhelmed.

“How...?” he finally managed, voice rough.

“How are you—why do you—?”

But he couldn’t even finish the questions. Because how does anyone ask something like that?

How does he ask the past why it followed you here?

And how were you supposed to answer?

You exhaled, softly. Not as if you’d been holding your breath, but like your lungs didn’t quite know how to fill themselves properly. Like you were learning again. Like the weight in your chest was finally being seen by someone else.

You didn’t answer right away. Just looked past him, eyes settling somewhere in the distance—on the soft sprawl of the city below, or maybe a memory that lived just above the skyline.

“It’s hard to explain,” you said after a long moment. “And I’ve never... I’ve never said it out loud before.”

Jinwoo didn’t interrupt. Didn’t press.

He just waited, steady as stone, and softer than anyone else had ever been.

Your hands tightened on the railing, knuckles pale. “I don’t know about you. But to me… Time just… reset. Over and over again. I always woke up in my bedroom. Same ceiling. Same air. Same parents calling me down for breakfast like nothing had changed.”

You smiled, but it was hollow. It ghosted across your lips like something you didn’t believe in anymore.

“The first few times, I thought I was crazy. I mean, who wouldn't? One moment I’m dead, and then it’s morning again. The same morning. The same goddamn birds chirping outside my window.”

Jinwoo’s fingers curled into his palms.

You looked at him, something quiet flickering behind your eyes. “And it didn’t stop. No matter what I did. No matter how far I ran or who I saved or who I lost. Time just... snapped back. Like it was mocking me. Like I wasn’t enough.”

Your voice began to tremble at the edges, like a surface cracking.

“At first, I thought maybe I could fix it. That there was a point. That if I just made the right choices…” 

You laughed—but it broke halfway out of you. Became something else. Something brittle and wet.

“But then… it just kept getting worse. The gates opened sooner. The monsters got stronger. And then—” You shook your head.

“And then Jeju happened,” you said softly, your words barely above a whisper.

Jinwoo felt his breath catch. 

He remembered the insistence you had on him joining the force. “Just a hunch”, you had said.

“I don’t… I don’t really talk about it,” you murmured. “I haven’t. Not in any of my lives. Not once. I just—” You laughed a little, but it broke into a sharp inhale. “I thought maybe if I ignored it hard enough, it would stop existing.”

You leaned your weight forward against the railing, your shoulders trembling.

“I told myself it didn’t matter. That I’d moved past it. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.”

Jinwoo stepped forward, slowly—carefully. The rooftop wind moved around him like it knew not to interrupt.

You didn’t look at him.

“I remember the smell first. That’s always how it starts. Rot. Blood. Salt in the air. Like the sea was crying too.”

A pause.

“And then the screaming. I can’t forget the screaming. I still hear it when I sleep.”

His hands hovered near your back, unsure. Like he wanted to touch but didn’t want to break the moment.

“I wasn’t even on Jeju,” you whispered, turning slightly toward him now, eyes wide and far away. “I wasn’t one of the hunters. I was just… in a boardroom. Watching.”

Jinwoo’s throat tightened. He just stood there, arms stiff at his sides as the wind swept the rooftop.

“I saw it all. Every feed. Every scream. I watched the lines go dead. I watched people I knew blink out like they were nothing.”

Your eyes met his. Wet. Unflinching.

“And then they came for us.”

You tried to keep the tears back, but your shoulders betrayed you, trembling like a glass that had held too much for too long.

“They weren’t supposed to make it off the island. That’s what we thought. But they did. They crossed the sea like it was nothing. The cities weren’t ready. I wasn’t ready.”

Your knees gave out—but he caught you. Instinctively. Easily. 

Your body stiffened for a second—but then you sagged into him. Gave in. His arms wrapped around you tightly, like he could hold you together with sheer will. Your face pressed to his chest, and your hands clutched at his sleeves like lifelines.

You clutched at the fabric of his uniform. “I didn’t even try to run. I froze. I just—stood there, staring out the window, watching people screaming in the streets. And when I saw it… when I saw it coming for me…”

Your body jolted as you broke. Sharp, silent sobs racking through your chest.

Jinwoo tightened his hold. One hand on your back. One cradling the back of your head. Steady. Anchoring.

He felt the tremble of your breath. The way you tried to be quiet, like your pain was an inconvenience. Like you were used to being alone with it.

“It was so fast,” you gasped. “But I still remember every second. I remember the glass shattering. I remember its claws. I remember thinking—this can’t be how it ends. Not again. Not like this.”

Jinwoo’s heart shattered.

And then you collapsed fully into him, and the weight of it spilled out.

Tears soaked his shirt. But he didn’t move. Didn’t flinch.

He just held you. Like the world had ended in your arms, and he was the only piece left holding you to it.

He held you tighter.

“And Kamish,” you choked. “Kamish destroyed the world once. Not just a city, not just a squad—the world. I watched from behind screens, from underground shelters, from bunkers that were supposed to be safe. And every time, we thought we were prepared. We never were.”

You looked up, eyes red, voice barely audible. “I tried, Jinwoo. In some lives, I became a hunter. I thought maybe if I just… knew enough, trained enough, I could do something. Anything. But I wasn’t strong. I didn’t make a difference. I just kept watching the world end.”

Your legs folded beneath you, but this time Jinwoo followed you down, holding you even as the rooftop's cold bit through your skin. You cried harder now, like something ancient inside you was finally breaking open.

He didn’t speak. His jaw was tight. His eyes burned.

Because this—

This wasn’t a pain he could fight.

Not with blades. Not with power.

You had been alone. You had carried it all with you.

And now, shaking in his arms, you were finally letting someone see it.

He held you tighter, tucked your shaking frame into his arms like a vow.

“I’m here,” he murmured, so quietly it almost got lost in the wind. “I’m here.”

He pulled back only slightly, enough to look at you, to study the tear-streaked lines of your face. Even now—eyes red, shoulders trembling—you looked so… innocent. So light. How could someone so weighed down still look like freedom?

“I’m not going anywhere.”

You shattered again.

Sobs that cracked something in the air.

Sobs that sounded like a locked door finally being opened from the inside.

Jinwoo kept his jaw tight, eyes burning. He’d thought he was alone. That he was the only one cursed to remember the horrors of what came before. But you—god, you had remembered everything. And you hadn’t even asked for it.

He’d never understood it before, not fully. Not even when he met you the first time. Why you looked at him the way you did. Why you spoke like someone who had nothing left to fear.

But now he knew.

And something inside him shifted.

No more.

Not ever again.

Not if he could help it.

Then—

Ding.

The shrill chime of the school bell rang through the rooftop silence, jarring against the stillness that had wrapped itself around you both like a fragile cocoon. You pulled back slowly, your hands unclenching from his sleeves, your breath still trembling against the place where your face had been buried in his chest.

“I… I need to go to the bathroom,” you said quietly, not quite meeting his eyes.

Jinwoo nodded, though his throat was too tight to speak. He watched as you walked away, your steps still a little unsteady, the wind tugging gently at your sleeves like it didn’t want to let you go.

And then you were gone.

He made it to class a few minutes later, the teacher already speaking, his voice a dull drone against Jinwoo’s pulse still thrumming in his ears.

You came in shortly after.

Eyes dry. No trace of red.

No puffiness, no shine. Nothing.

Your face was calm.

Your smile soft, easy—like you hadn’t just shattered in his arms minutes ago. Like you hadn’t cracked open and bled every secret from behind your ribs.

For a second, he wondered if he had imagined it. If somehow, he had projected the weight he felt onto you.

But then—he looked down.

There, on his uniform. The faint but unmistakable mark.

Tear stains, darkened into the fabric over his heart.

You had cried.

And the evidence of it was his to carry now.

He stared at the mark, and looked over his shoulder. You shot him an easy smile across the room, and something inside him twisted.

How many times had you done this before?

How many lifetimes had you broken like that, in silence?

How many tears had fallen that no one ever saw, because you wiped them away before they reached the surface?

His chest felt heavy. Drenched in a grief that wasn’t just his own.

You had been alone for so long.

Too long.

And if he wanted to restore what the world had taken from you—

That light, that freedom in your smile—

He knew he’d have to leave you alone again.

Just for a little while.

But he promised himself—

He wouldn’t take long.

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Taglist: #open

@snowy-violet @minh907 @o-qi-shisme @shineinouzen15 @awwwia @hannya-writes @tanspostsblog @lovelyevil @misakicchi @gina239 @livelaughlovekuni

[summerrivera777777]

So I saw Sinners fell completey in love with Remmick <3 😩

Sinners: “The Devil’s Lamb” 
Part 1: Let Him In

Summer was alone in the house again, barefoot on the hardwood floor, the hem of her nightgown whispering around her ankles like an old prayer. The air was thick with the scent of burning wax and old books—her father’s sermon tapes still played like ghosts in the corners of the room. “The devil walks like a man, but you’ll know him by the way he makes you feel…”

She ignored the voice. She always did.

Her fingers drifted to the silver cross nestled between her breasts, the chain warm from her skin. It was the only thing her father ever gave her that felt like hers.

And that’s when the first knock came.

Three slow, uneven pounds against the old front door.

She froze.

The town was quiet this time of the day —nothing but crickets and the low hum of cicadas in the dark. This wasn’t a neighbor. This wasn’t human.

She opened the door.

The man standing there looked like he’d crawled out of hell. His skin was blistered, smoke trailing from every inch of exposed flesh. His shirt was torn, soaked in blood. His lips were cracked, and when he looked up at her, his eyes—green, glowing, ancient—pleaded without a word.

“Help me,” he rasped. “Sun got me… please…”

Summer, trembling, stepped back and let him in.

She didn’t ask herself why.

He stumbled inside, falling to his knees just beyond the threshold, hands clutching the wood like it burned. When she reached for him, his skin hissed where her fingers touched. He didn’t flinch. He just breathed her in like salvation.

Then came the second knock.

This one was hard. Urgent.

She opened the door to find a man—tall, brown-skinned, sweat beading down his temple, gun drawn and ready.

“I’m tracking someone,” he said. White male. Medium build. Looks... wrong?”

“You’d know if you saw him. He burns in daylight. He’s not… right.”

Summer blinked slowly. Her voice came out like velvet. “I haven’t seen anyone.” Summer blinked. The voice in her head screamed yes. But her lips said: “No one’s here but me.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “If you see him—run. He’s not what he looks like. You understand me?”

A pause. He stared at her, like he could smell the lie. But she just smiled, sweet and disarming.

The man cursed under his breath, turned, and left.

She closed the door.

When she turned around, the stranger the man she let in was standing now. was sitting in her father’s old sermon chair,

The wounds were gone.

His back was straight.

And his smile was inhuman.

blood soaking through the worn leather, steam still rising off his skin. Her father was at his feet—throat torn, eyes open. Dead.

Summer didn’t scream.

The man—no, the creature—smiled. Fangs flashed like ivory sabers in the candlelight. Claws. Eyes like burning red emeralds.

“You let me in,” he said, voice low and lilting. Not Southern anymore. Irish. Deep and old. “Most don’t.”

“My father said monsters would try to charm their way past the door,” she said, voice flat.

“Then he was right.”

She backed up. Her cross swung between her breasts.

Her trembling fingers reached for it, but he was already on his feet.

“I hate those things,” he muttered.

With a sudden motion, he ripped the cross from her chest, the chain snapping like thread. The cool metal left a red scratch between her breasts.

He leaned in, nose brushing her neck. “You smell like purity... like wine that’s never been sipped.”

“Let’s see,” he murmured, his eyes roaming over her like fire licking at paper, “just how much of a sinner you really are.”

She stood her ground.

“You gonna kill me?” she asked.

The vampire rose to his feet, slow, deliberate. His shirt clung to his body, wet with blood and ash. His eyes drank her in.

He smiled—hungry and unholy.

“No,” he said, stepping closer. “Not yet.”

His hand lingered against her collarbone.

“I’ve tasted centuries,” he whispered. “Kings. Whores. Martyrs. But you… you smell like something that’s never been touched.”

Summer didn’t step back.

She stepped forward.

“In the name of the Father,” she whispered, tears in her eyes, “forgive me.”

He laughed. Low. Wicked. Not kind.

“Too late for that, dove.”

Then his hand was in her hair, and she was dragged forward—not gently, but with purpose, the breath stolen from her lungs. His mouth crashed into hers, lips bruising, tongue forcing its way past hers like a storm through stained glass. She whimpered, but he didn’t pull away.

He groaned like it hurt to touch her. Like she burned him from the inside out.

“You’ve no idea what you just invited in.”

Her nightgown ripped like tissue in his hands. One vicious pull, and the fabric was gone—her bare body exposed to the flickering candlelight, to the creature that stood over her with his chest heaving and fangs glinting.

She shivered.

He smiled.

“Scared?” he rasped.

Summer shook her head. Her breath came fast, uneven. “No.”

“Liar.”

He shoved her back against the wall, her bare shoulder slamming against the wood hard enough to sting. She gasped, eyes wide, but he was already on her—grinding against her, teeth at her throat, clawed fingers bruising her thighs as he forced them open.

“You wanted a monster,” he snarled. “You get one.”

She cried out as he grabbed her hips and lifted her like she weighed nothing, impaling her on his cock in one brutal thrust. No warning. No tenderness. Just possession.

She screamed—and he groaned, deep and primal, biting down hard on her shoulder as he bottomed out inside her.

“Fuck,” he growled, head thrown back. “You’re so tight it hurts.”

He didn’t wait. Didn’t slow.

He fucked her.

Hard. Fast. Cruel.

The wall shook behind her. Wood creaked. Candlelight flickered as her body bounced against him, as he took her like something owed, like her very soul was beneath his skin now.

“You let me in,” he hissed against her neck, fangs dragging lower. “You think that cross was gonna save you?”

She clawed at his back, moaning, sobbing, her body betraying her with every clench, every slick cry of pleasure.

“You think you were pure?” he snarled, thrusting harder. “You were waiting for me.”

Summer’s head fell back, tears streaking her cheeks—but her mouth opened in a scream as she shattered, her orgasm ripping through her like a damnation.

He wasn’t done.

He bit her.

Right where her neck met her shoulder—hard. Deep. She screamed again, more in ecstasy than pain, as her blood spilled into his mouth and he moaned, grinding into her as he drank.

“Sweet little thing,” he groaned. “You taste like guilt and grace.”

He came inside her with a snarl, hips slamming forward as his nails dug into her thighs, his body trembling against hers, still feeding, still moving until she was limp in his arms.

And even then, he didn’t let her go.

Not yet.

Not ever.

[villainousauthor]

Hero's hands clutched the bouquet of roses with a grip strong enough to snap the thorny stems as they opened the trashcan.

Without so much as a ceremonial look, they dumped the offending red flowers quickly, shoving them down.

This was the third bouquet to show up on their doorstep in the past week, even more elaborate than the last two. It seems Villain was trying every combination of flowers until they figured out Hero's favorite.

Hero's nose curls in disgust. People were dying and suffering in the streets because of Villain's tyranny, and yet they sent Hero petty gifts like a lover or admirer.

It must be another way to taunt them, to mess with their head. Another way to show that Villain knows where they live, could leave anything at their doorstep any time they want. There's no guarantee Hero won't come home to find Villain themselves on their door, lethal smile on their face, weapon behind their back.

Biting back the fear, Hero refuses to react to any of these displays. Each bouquet left at their home is quickly and methodically disposed of, as if without a thought.

Of course, this feigned indifference only spurs Villain on even more. Soon, the gifts are being left daily, as if begging for a reaction. Hero can feel the increasing agitation in Villain's actions. More flowers, jewels, trinkets, and baubles. All in the trash. It's only a matter of time before something has to give, but Hero refuses to give in.

More gifts, punctuated by more violence in the city. A pretty necklace that catches the light ever so, followed by an entire neighborhood reduced to ash. Different flowers this time, more pointless deaths.

After one particularly long day spent pulling more people out of rubble, they return home to see the front door completely bare. A first in weeks. For just a moment they feel hopeful that maybe Villain had gotten bored, hope that is quickly squashed when they enter their home.

Every surface, window, shelf, or tabletop in their home is lined with large blossoming flowers. Orchids this time. Hundreds of them, the room is filled with the fragrant smell. Villain is escalating, showing Hero there's no true barrier stopping Villain from coming after them whenever they choose.

Their phone rings, breaking Hero out of their stupor. It's an unknown number, but they already know who it is, a deep, uncomfortable feeling swirling in their gut, the hairs on their neck raised. Still, they find themselves answering anyways.

Villain's voice crackles through the screen, low and amused.

"So what do you think of my gift? Are orchids your flower of choice, or are these going into the trash as well?"

Hero forgets how to speak for a moment, floundering to come up with a response. Villain doesn't give them a moment, continuing to speak in that same saccharine tone.

"You know, the color of flowers holds meaning, red orchids in particular-"

"I don't give a shit about the meaning." Finally finding their voice, Hero cuts them off suddenly. "How'd you even get into my house?" They try to keep their voice steady, even.

Tsking through the other side, Villain completely ignores their question. "You should care. Do you think the gifts I send have no significance?"

"The significance is obviously to upset me." Hero rolls their eyes as they speak, despite the fear in their stomach. They wring their hands, wanting to hang up, but something stops them. "To scare me, threaten me."

Villain sighs, voice sounding particularly raspy through the line. "You really are so foolish if you think that's what this is about." They speak in a low rumble as they continue. "Have I not been ardent enough in my affections?"

Hero's stomach is a mess of warmth and anxiety. They feel a pinch of pain as they dig their fingernails into their palms. They take a steadying breath before speaking again.

"Stop pretending there's any point to this other than to intimidate. Stop pretending you're some lovesick admirer." They bite, ending the call before Villain can come up with another retort. Before they can cause more confusion in Hero's mind.

Moving with efficency, Hero begins to grab as many vases as possible, to shove them into the trash, as many will fit. They pause though, upon the largest bouquet on the table.

There's a note attached, wrapped around it with silky ribbon. With a shaking hand, Hero reaches for the note, opening with a sense of dread.

There, written in sickening, half dried blood, is simple line.

I love you.

[diejager]

how does a (monster AU) phoenix! reader sound? ...I kinda imagine 141 (except price) getting a heart attack when reader takes a bullet and bursts into flames and then a heap of ash, and then (im pulling a harry potter description of pheonix but its ur choice) the most ugly bird or something pokes their head out of the ashes and they're like '...oh'.

I remember watching Fawkes burning and turning to ash before he popped his head out. So adorable.

Ashes Cw: burning, death, rebirth, tell me if I missed any.

Ghost knew when someone was lying, able to sniff out a liar within a mile. Your dimmer smile, shorter laughter and exhaiusted expression, nothing seemed to make your days better than a warm bump of tea once or twice a day to sooth the ache in your bones and the strain in your muscles. He’d approach you with a clear mind, wanting to get to the bottom of your sickness, why you’d occasionally cough, voice weak and breathy until it cracked. You told him you were fine, that it was just the weather affecting you, but he’d seen this kind of sickness before, a cold that sunk into the bones and clogged every sinuses with intent —sick and vulnerable.

He wasn’t alone in this thought, Alejandro and Gaz shared similar doubts, coming forth to Price with their fears rather than sneaking around like he did, but Price had waved them off, telling them that it was a seasonal thing, you got sick from time to time and rose back from it as if death failed to catch you. This did not seem like something simple and mundane, Ghost could see death follow you like it followed him, it was ever present, so much so that Alejandro and Horangi - the two with the weakest nose out of the four - could smell it ooze off you like a dark miasma plaguing your body.

It seemed as if the both of you shared something that the others weren’t privy to, a low whisper in the dark that they failed to catch or the secret you shared through confidentiality higher than even a colonel. The captain knew you before you joined them, forming a tight connection through past trauma and fuck ups. Perhaps that’s why Price seemed almost chipper about your saddening state.

It seemed that Ghost was kept in as much darkness as the rest, the higher ups had kept it hidden from him, from König and from Alejandro who should’ve had the jurisdiction to have access to your documents. Especially after seeing you burst into flames after being shot in the neck by a surviving sniper (Ghost was quick to shoot him down), body gone in a coud of ash and dusted feathers. He panicked, but he wasn’t the only one to rush towards what remained of you. Despite their panicked mumbles and frantic thoughts, Price had reassured them that it was normal, that you were still alive —all they had to do was wait a few seconds for you to reappear.

Appear you did, a small, ashen head, beak the length of a child’s thumb, small ad brittle, big, rounded eyes blinked at them, narrowed in confusion until you called, a tiny croon from a chick’s throat. You shuffled your way through the mess, featherless wings flapping as you hopped towards Price, who quickly met you half way, picking you up with one nimble swoop.

“Look at you,” Price cooed, pressing his thumb to your forehead, feeling the soft, newly grown feathers that glowed white, “About time you burned, yeah?”

“Fuckin’ hell,” it was the only thing he could answer with when his mind was building up these theories, every little thought in his head went to understand what and how you were made. It was as close as Soap’s Steamin’ bloody Jesus or König’s dumbfounded Was.

“Is that why you told us not to worry, Captain?” Gaz’s ability to think clearly in adrenaline-inducing moments was a blessing, able to restrain his unending thoughts to connect two together and conjure up a sentence - a few words, a mumble or a plea - to understand whatever happened to you. “What happened?”

Price let out a deep rumble, a laugh from his belly, deep and amused, a striking contrast to their worried frowns. He handled you softly, petting and pinching at the young feathers growing on you while he turned you around, showing them how Price held you with such careful ease and soothing smile. Ghost doubted that Price didn’t have any prior experience in caring for you, seeing how loving he was with you —like a lover caring for his sickened, or a dragon guarding his treasure, Ghost wasn’t sure which one was right.

“Hunter’s a phoenix, “ he smiled softly, eyes gleaming with too much glee, a silent laugh at their sudden bewilderment, approaching you slowly to admire you themselves. “They burst to flames every three years or so, the last one was around five years ago- long overdue for a reset.”

Soap and Horangi were the first to attempt to touch you, the excited dog and the curious feline, tentatively poking at you with a finger until you pecked it, annoyed by their incessant jabbing. You let out a shrill cry from your throat, small and hilariously fierce for something so small and fragile. You crawled to the ends of Price’s fingers, wings flapping to urge them to pick you up instead of pointing a finger and cooing at you as if you were an exotic animal. You somewhat were —exotic, that is.

“A wee thang, aye, Cap?” Soap awed, cradling you in his palms, you weighted so little, as light as a feather on Gaz’s wing.

“Ugly as a rat too,” Horangi snickered, making light of the situation that had made their hearts stop.

You screeched, shaking your head wildly at him, his shoulders bobbing while you showed how offended you felt by acting out, an angry, little chick putting on a show of aggression and courage. His dark thoughts receded, Ghost’s fears and demons falling back into the depths of his mind when his eyes met your beady ones, round and doe-eyed, your age shining through the innocence of a newly-hatched. It made him wonder how you’d look once your feathers grew out, would you be as majestic as the stories portrayed phoenix did, with your great wings and great strength, feathers bathed in the sun’s warm embrace and tipped with the power of undying flames of power. Phoenixes were seen as symbols of immortality, resurrection —of life and death. Untouchable by death and favoured by life, you would live in a cycle of ashes and flames, embers cracking until it softened to flickers, a soft, gentle flame ready to yield to nature.

Taglist: @craxy-person @crowbird @dead-cipher @iwannabealocalcryptid @iizx7y @mxtokko @yeetusspagheetus @capricorn-anon @perfectus-in-morte @sae1kie @yeoldedumbslut @tallmanlover @distracteddragoness @vxnilla-hxrddrugs @konigsblog @havoc973 @angelcakes-22 @cassiecasluciluce @ramadiiiisme @ramblingsofachaoticthinker @ki-cant-spel @im-making-an-effort @love-dove-noora @jinxxangel13 @daisychainsinknots @0alk0msan @mul-pi @danielle143

[shadyfestivalperfection]

Hey guys! This is the old master list and wouldn’t be used anymore. Use this one to view the updated and new master list

✨OLD MASTER LIST✨

1. AVENGERS: THE CREATOR

Summery: What if there was a seventh avenger? It’s no ordinary person but the creator of the infinity stones. Y/n is the universes most powerful being who created those stones to protect the universe and the multiverse. She is then recruited to join the Avengers initiative. Does she accept or reject the offer? What happens when her past enemy appears and destroy what she has created?

Characters: Avengers x f! Reader

Chapter 1: The Loki problem

Chapter 2: The woman behind the stones

Chapter 3: Unveiling the past

Chapter 4: The weight of the tesseract

Chapter 5: Into the heart of SHIELD

Chapter 6: Curiosity

Chapter 7: Unraveling the past

Chapter 8: The Battle of New York

Chapter 9: The road not taken

Chapter 10: The path chosen

Chapter 11: The past unfolded

Chapter 12: The price of power

Chapter 13: Welcome to Wakanda

Chapter 14: A war that never ended

Chapter 15: A birthday interrupted

Chapter 16: Bloodline’s last keeper

Chapter 17: The lost chamber

Chapter 18: The truth beneath the ruins

Chapter 19:The crimson sky

Chapter 20: The truth in ashes

Chapter 21: A fractured bond

Chapter 22: A house without a home

Chapter 23: Why come for me?

Status: Completed

2. Promises we didn’t expect

Summery: Y/n is the head of surgery and Sebastian is the chairman of the hospital. Y/n is in desperate need of money to repay the dept her parents had taken from gangsters before they had died. On the other hand Sebastian is being forced to get married to Katherine Light who is a very successful business woman. To avoid it, he is in need to find a fake wife. What happens when Y/n and Sebastian get into a marriage of convenience? Will this fake relationship ignite to a real one?

Characters: Chairman!Sebastian Stan x f!Surgeon! Reader

Chapter 1: Y/n L/n

Chapter 2: Sebastian Stan

Chapter 3: Y/n L/n

Chapter 4: Sebastian Stan

Chapter 5: Y/n L/n

Chapter 6: Sebastian Stan

Chapter 7: Y/n L/n

Chapter 8: Sebastian Stan

Chapter 9: Y/n L/n

Chapter 10: Sebastian Stan

Chapter 11: Y/n L/n

Chapter 12: Sebastian Stan

Chapter 13: Y/n L/n

Chapter 14: Sebastian Stan

Chapter 15: Y/n L/n

Chapter 16: Sebastian Stan

Chapter 17: Y/n L/n

Chapter 18: Sebastian Stan

Chapter 19: Y/n L/n

Epilogue

Status: Completed

3. The forever you forgot

Summery: A six year old girl named Nadia Barnes born with a condition called 65 roses uncovers the story on how her dad-Bucky Barnes met her missing mother by narrating her the story and nothing remains the same after Nadia finds out the truth about her mother.

Characters: Bucky Barnes x f!Reader

Note:This story is based on the movie ‘Hi papa’. This story is like what if Bucky Barnes was in this situation that the male and female lead faced in the movie ‘Hi papa’. To be honest I am absolutely obsessed with this movie and I could help but write a Bucky Barnes version of it. I would totally recommend everyone to watch this movie and get some tissues with you before you start watching.

Chapter 1: Late Nights and Fairy tales

Chapter 2: You Promised Me

Chapter 3: We Met again

Chapter 4: Love, Lies and Truth

Chapter 5: Trust me, love

Chapter 6: A Daughter Born, A Dream Broken

Chapter 7: Unspoken Grief

Chapter 8: A Familiar Knock

Chapter 9: The Waves Of Life

Chapter 10: Drunken Confessions

Chapter 11: Fragments Of Memories

Chapter 12: A Heart’s Resolve

Status: Completed

3. Love, Lies And Loki

Summery: Some short fics in a day in a life of Loki and his precious girlfriend Y/n.

Characters: Loki x girlfriend!reader

Note: All characters except Loki are mine!

1.Coffee, Chaos and a God in Pyjamas 🔹 Loki has been living on Earth for a year now, quietly enjoying life with a mortal partner who loves him just as he is. The story is filled with lazy mornings, shared coffee, Loki learning how to cook (and failing hilariously) 🔹

2. A Tail of Misfortune 🔹 A spell gone wrong turns Loki into a cat for 48 hours. 🔹

3.The Cold Never Bothered Him Anyway 🔹Loki was rarely bothered by the winter cold, but Y/n, it bothers her.🔹

4. Stargazing With A God 🔹 Loki creates an illusion of the Asgardian night sky on the rooftop of their apartment building. They lay together, pointing out constellations and sharing stories. 🔹

5. The Trickster’s Love Language 🔹Loki doesn’t say “I love you” easily, but he shows it in illusions, mischief, fierce protectiveness, and quiet gestures. One cozy weekend, Y/n begins to decode his love language piece by piece.🔹

6. The Trickster vs The Twins 🔹Twins Maya and Miles are baby sat by their auntie Y/n and uncle Loki while their parents are on a 2 day trip🔹

7. Turkey, Tension and Truth Bombs 🔹Y/n’s parents invite Y/n and her boyfriend Loki to thanksgiving dinner at their place.🔹

8. The Thunder Between Us 🔹Thor and Y/n become close when he comes to stay with them for a few days making Loki jealous🔹

9. The Enchanted Gift (Part 2 of ‘A Tail Of Misfortune’) 🔹Loki gifts Y/n a kitten that looked exactly like him when he turned into a cat. And that cat is just as magical as Loki🔹

10. In A Blink Of A Star 🔹Loki takes care of Y/n after she gets into a car accident🔹

11. Of Mead, Magic And Meeting Royalty 🔹Loki takes Y/n to New Asgard and meets Thor and Brunnhilde🔹

12. Four Years Of Forever 🔹Loki proposes to Y/n on their anniversary.🔹

13. Union Of Realms And Heart (Part 2 of Four Years of Forever) 🔹Loki and Y/n’s wedding day is here!🔹

14. Even Gods Catch Colds 🔹Loki catches a Midgardian cold🔹

15. Mirror, Mirror 🔹Y/N tries on a new outfit designed by herself for an event where Loki is also attending, but doesn’t feel confident in it. She tries to hide her insecurity, but Loki notices immediately. He takes her aside, sits her down, and gently unpacks what’s bothering his wife.🔹 (requested!)

16. Doppelgänger 🔹Y/N and Loki meet Loki’s Doppelgänger, Jonathan Pine (From ‘The Night Manager’) during their vacation in Italy. Y/N tells Loki how much Jonathan looks like him. Loki denies it. The couple goes on an adventure to help Jonathan defeat a villain.🔹 (requested!)

17. Domestic(ish) Bliss 🔹Grocery, IKEA furniture and laundry mess🔹

18. Across the Veil: A Tale of Mischief and Trust 🔹 A temporal rift causes two Lokis and two Y/Ns from separate multiverses to accidentally switch places. Earth-616 Loki lands in Earth-314 and meets a regal, ethereal goddess of trust—Y/N. Meanwhile, Earth-314 Loki lands in the chaotic, contemporary Earth-616 and meets the more human, sarcastic, fashion-savvy Y/N. 🔹(requested!)

19.Drunken Mischief and Divine Patience 🔹Y/n takes Loki to the club and ends up getting drunk.🔹

20. Yours, Always 🔹You and Loki have the most amazing sex since they both got married🔹 (requested!)

21. Memory Lane 🔹 Loki and Y/n take the memory lane down to the time where they first met.🔹

22. The Coldest Heart 🔹 Loki struggles with his Jotunn heritage. His ice powers sometimes flare up unpredictably, and he fears that he will hurt Y/N. He doesn’t want to let anyone see how much he fears his own nature, especially Y/N. 🔹

23. Little Mischiefs 🔹 Y/n is expecting!!🔹

24. Little Mischief P-2🔹First Kick, Baby shower and weird cravings!🔹

Status: Ongoing! (Never ending…)

4.The Roommate Rulebook

Summery: When a campus housing glitch sticks you with Peter Parker as your roommate, things start rocky—he’s always disappearing, hogs the shower, and leaves weird bruises and tech parts around. But as late-night ramen turns into real conversations and comfort, you slowly start to fall for him… only to discover he’s hiding a much bigger secret than you imagined.

Characters: College!Peter Parker (T.H.) x College!F!Reader

Note: All characters except Peter Parker, Ned, MJ and Dr. Ock are mine!

Chapter 1: The Glich

Chapter 2: Late Night Secrets

Chapter 3: Ceiling Secrets

Chapter 4: The Fever Reveal

Chapter 5: Webs And Whispers

Chapter 6: The Dress, The Threat, The Truth

Chapter 7: The Night The Music Stopped

Chapter 8: The Price of Being Spider-Man

Chapter 9: While You Were Sleeping

Chapter 10: Back To Us

Status: Completed

5. Oneshots

▫️Beneath His Smile

Summery: Y/n Rogers a detective in the NYPD and also the wife of one and only Steve Rogers investigates the brutal murder of her ex and colleague, her world begins to unravel as she investigates alongside her partner Vincent Calloway. She stumbles upon chilling evidence that points to an unthinkable suspect-her own husband.

Characters: Yandere!Steve Rogers x Detective!female reader

Warning: Dark Obsession, Yandere, Murder

Note: All the characters except Steve Rogers are mine.

▫️The Black Viper’s Heart

Summery: A mafia gang called The Phantom Vipers attack Tony Stark and his wife-Y/n on their third wedding anniversary Gala. What happens when Tony finds out that Y/n is not only a software engineer but also an ex-assassin called The Black Viper….

Characters: Husband!Tony Stark x ex-assassin!wife! Female reader

Note: All characters except The Avengers are mine!

▫️One Letter At A Time

Summery: Sam reads the letters you wrote for him before your death.

Characters: Sam Wilson x dead!Female reader

Note: All characters except Sam Wilson are mine

▫️Fifth Time’s The Charm~

Summery: Every date gets interrupted before they can steal the deal. By the fifth one, they’re both so wounded up, it turns explosive-in the best way

Characters: Bucky Barnes x F!reader

Vibes/warning: Sexual tension, mutual pining, flirty banter, interrupted make out sessions, smut, tension building.

Note: All characters except y/n are not mine

▫️Beneath The Parisian Sky

Summery: Bucky and Y/n celebrate their honeymoon in Paris.

Characters: Bucky Barnes x f!reader

Warning: Smut.

Note: All characters except Bucky are mine! Another attempt of writing smut

▫️The Girl Who Looked Like Home

<Couldn’t add a GIF because I reached the limit>

Summery: After Steve Rogers disappears in the 1940s, his fiancée Y/n L/n writes him a heartfelt letter every year from 1945 to 1990, refusing to accept his death. Decades later, her niece Venus discovers the letters and delivers them to Steve, who survived frozen in time. As Steve reads Y/n’s final words, he visits her grave — only to encounter a young woman who looks exactly like the love he lost.

Characters: Steve Rogers x f!reader

Note: All characters except Steve and Natasha are mine!

Part 2/Epilogue: The Sketchbook: “In Another Life I Knew You”

▫️Sanctum Shenanigans

<Couldn’t add a GIF because I reached the limit>

Summery: After accidentally lighting your previous magical mentor’s library on fire (it was only a small inferno, thank you), you’re sent to train under the reluctant Doctor Stephen Strange at the Sanctum Sanctorum. What starts as a clash of egos turns into a chaotic, hilarious, and oddly heartwarming partnership… especially when the Cloak of Levitation takes a shine to you.

Characters: Dr. Stephan Strange x f!Reader

Note: All Characters except y/n are not mine!

▫️Family: Assembled

❝❣︎ᴀ sᴛᴀʀᴋ ғᴀᴍɪʟʏ sɪᴛᴄᴏᴍ❣︎❞

Summery: When Iron Man hangs up the suit, he trades battles for bedtime stories. Join Tony Stark, his brilliant wife Y/n, their web-slinging son Peter, and chaos queen Liliana as they navigate high-tech parenting, sibling shenanigans, and family life—with love, laughter, and the occasional glitter explosion

Characters: Tony Stark x f!Reader

Note: All Characters except Lilliana and Y/n are not mine

▫️So Be It….

<Couldn’t add a GIF because I reached the limit>

Summery: Bucky gets jealous when he sees Y/n’s co-worker Crew Lincoln flirted with his precious girlfriend.

Characters: Yandere Bucky Barnes x girlfriends!reader

Warning: Dark Obsession, Yandere, Murder

Note: All the characters except Bucky Barnes are mine.

▫️Tiny Sorceress

<Couldn’t add a GIF because I reached the limit>

Summery: Bucky and Sam take care of Y/n who accidentally turned herself into an eight month old baby.

Characters: Bucky Barnes x Sorceress!Girlfriend! Reader

Note: All the characters except Y/n are not mine.

▫️Mr. Flirtbot 3000

<Couldn’t add a GIF and link because I reached the limit>

Summery: Tony Stark had always been a genius, a billionaire, and a flirt—but never had he expected to fall so deeply for his best friend, Y/N, the one person who saw through his bravado. From their college days at MIT to working side by side in the Tower, their bond had always been unshakable—until Y/N’s abusive relationship threatens to tear everything apart.

Characters: Tony stark x bestfriend!f! Reader

Warning: Domestic violence, abuse, mentions of death, smut

Note: All characters except Atlas Everett are not mine!

▫️“You Already Had Me”

<Couldn’t add a GIF and link because I reached the limit>

Summery: From surviving captivity in Afghanistan to fighting side by side as Avengers, Y/N and Tony navigate trauma, healing, and a love that grows quietly through sketchbooks, rooftop sunsets, and sleepless nights. As their bond deepens, unspoken feelings come to light, culminating in a heartfelt proposal that redefines everything between them.

Characters: Tony stark x f!reader

Note: All characters except Y/n are not mine.

[moonlight-joy]

Whispers of Fire

Fandom: House of Dragon

Summary: You are a healer with Valyrian roots, summoned to Dragonstone to tend to Daemon after a battle. Your forbidden past with him resurfaces when you realize that he still carries a dragon’s flame for you, even as he fights to stay loyal to Rhaenyra.

Pairing: Reader/Daemon Targaryen

The summons to Dragonstone arrived just after dawn. You had barely finished tending to a village boy’s fever when the raven’s sharp talons scraped across your windowsill. The parchment was sealed with the sigil of House Targaryen, its weight pressing heavily in your hands.

Prince Daemon Targaryen requires your presence.

You read the words over and over, your heart pounding like dragon wings against your ribs. It had been years since you last saw him—years since you left King’s Landing behind, escaping the whispers and the shame. You thought you had buried the past in the ashes of your old life. Yet here you were, summoned back to the man who once set your soul ablaze.

Daemon. Your dragon. Your ruin.

The journey to Dragonstone was quiet, the sea mist clinging to your skin as the castle loomed ahead, dark and imposing. By the time you reached the keep, night had fallen, casting long shadows across the stone halls. You were led to a chamber lit by flickering torches, the scent of fire and salt thick in the air.

And there he was.

Daemon sat near the hearth, a goblet of wine in his hand, his silver hair tousled and his tunic stained with blood. His violet eyes flicked up as you entered, narrowing with recognition. For a moment, neither of you spoke, the weight of the past hanging between you like a specter.

“You haven’t changed,” he said at last, his voice low and rough. “Still stubborn as ever.”

You swallowed hard, forcing yourself to meet his gaze. “And you’re still reckless,” you replied, your voice steady despite the tremor in your chest. “Some things never change.”

His lips quirked into a smirk, but there was no humor in it. “Like you and me?”

The words hung in the air, laden with unspoken memories. You shook your head, stepping closer to examine the gash on his arm. “You shouldn’t be drinking,” you said, your healer’s instincts taking over. “It’ll slow the healing.”

Daemon chuckled, a dark, bitter sound. “I’ve survived worse.”

“And you’ll keep surviving if you listen to me.”

Your fingers brushed his skin as you cleaned the wound, and he tensed beneath your touch. The silence stretched between you, heavy with everything left unsaid.

“Why did you leave?” he asked suddenly, his voice quieter now. “You never gave me a reason.”

You stilled, your heart aching at the rawness in his tone. “Because I had to.”

“That’s not an answer.”

You set down the cloth, meeting his gaze once more. “And what answer would have satisfied you, Daemon? That I couldn’t bear to be your secret any longer? That I knew I would never be more than your fleeting desire?”

His jaw clenched, and for a moment, you saw the fire in his eyes—the same fire that had drawn you to him all those years ago.

“You were never a secret to me,” he said softly. “You were my everything.”

Your breath caught, the confession striking you like a blade. “And yet you married her.”

“Duty,” he whispered. “It was always duty.”

You stepped back, shaking your head. “And what am I, then? A distraction from your duty?”

Daemon rose from his chair, closing the distance between you in two swift steps. His hand cupped your cheek, his touch both familiar and foreign. “You were never a distraction. You were the only thing that ever felt real.”

The air between you crackled with tension, the years of separation melting away as desire flared to life once more. You knew you should pull away—that you should walk out of the room and never look back. But you couldn’t. Not when he looked at you like that, as though you were the only thing keeping him tethered to this world.

“Daemon…” you whispered, your resolve crumbling.

His lips crashed against yours, the kiss searing and desperate. It was a kiss filled with longing, anger, and regret—a kiss that spoke of all the years you had lost. Your hands tangled in his hair, pulling him closer as his arms wrapped around you, holding you as though he feared you might vanish again.

When he pulled back, his forehead rested against yours, his breath ragged. “Say it,” he murmured. “Tell me you still feel it.”

Your heart thundered in your chest, every part of you screaming the truth. “I never stopped.”

The room blurred around you as Daemon lifted you into his arms, carrying you to the bed. The weight of his body pressed against yours, his lips trailing down your neck, leaving a path of fire in their wake. His hands were rough and calloused, yet they touched you with reverence, as though he were rediscovering something sacred.

“You’re mine,” he whispered against your skin, his voice a plea and a promise. “You’ve always been mine.”

“And you’re mine,” you replied, your fingers tracing the scars on his chest. “No matter how much we try to deny it.”

His mouth found yours again, the kiss slower this time—deeper, more deliberate. He tasted of wine and smoke, a reminder of the man you had once loved and the dragon he had become.

Clothes fell away, forgotten on the floor as your bodies pressed together, skin against skin. Daemon’s touch was both familiar and foreign, each caress reigniting the fire that had never truly faded.

As he moved within you, the world faded away, leaving only the two of you—two souls bound by fire and fate.

Afterward, you lay tangled together, the weight of reality slowly settling back over you. Daemon traced lazy circles on your skin, his expression softer than you had ever seen it.

“What happens now?” you asked quietly, your voice laced with uncertainty.

He sighed, pressing a kiss to your temple. “We figure it out. Together.”

“And her?” you whispered, the unspoken name hanging between you.

Daemon’s jaw tightened, but he nodded. “Rhaenyra is my queen. But you… you’re my heart.”

Tears pricked at your eyes as you cupped his face, forcing him to meet your gaze. “Then don’t let me go again.”

“I won’t,” he promised, his voice fierce with conviction. “I swear it.”

In that moment, you knew that no matter the cost, you and Daemon would always be bound by the flames of your past. And as long as there was fire, there was hope.

The whispers of fire between you would never fade.

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[jiarkives]

julia’s favorites ! (v)

♡ - fluff ; ♤ - angst ; ♕ - nsfw ; ☆ - series

jujutsu kaisen

♡♤ throughout heaven and earth - gojo satoru

♡ drunken angel - nanami kento

↳ @chuluoyi

♡ sleepy!megumi x shy!reader - fushiguro megumi

↳ @just-jordie-things

~

top gun maverick

♕ slow ride - jake ‘hangman’ seresin

↳ @vivwritesfics

~

marauders

☆ time warp - james potter

↳ @astonishment

☆ what we were, what we are - james potter, sirius black

↳ @jimblejamblewritings

♤♡ opening about past sa (tw!) - remus lupin, sirius black (poly!)

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♤♡ temper tantrum from draco - sirius black (cbbh universe)

↳ @ellecdc

♡ blurb - james potter, remus lupin, sirius black (poly!)

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♤♡ say don’t go - james potter

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~

a court of thorns and roses

☆ suspicious - azriel

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↳ @blog-of-a-multitude-of-fandoms

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♡ cassian: the annoying brother - azriel ft. platonic!cassian

♡♤ use somebody - azriel ft. platonic!lucien

♡♤ capture the mate - azriel, pregnant!reader

♡ i know something you don’t know - azriel ft. platonic!cassian

♡ snapshots of time - azriel ft. platonic!cassian

♡ your little hand’s wrapped aorund my finger - azriel ft. platonic!cassian

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~

dc

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♕ divider — @bunnysrph

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

A Curse [Chapter 11: Westchester]

A/N: Only 1 chapter left 🪄

Series summary: You are an aspiring actress. Aegon is a washed-up and disenchanted agent…at least until he sees something special in you. But within paradisical seaside Los Angeles you find terrible dangers and temptations, secrets and lies. Maybe Aegon’s right; maybe the City of Angels really is a curse.

Chapter warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), age-gap situationship, illness/death/hospital stuff, a Targ family gathering!

Word count: 6.2k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Tagging: @lauraneedstochill @mrs-starkgaryen @chattylurker @neithriddle @ecstaticactus, more in comments! 🥰

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In the darkness of your nightscape bedroom—plumes of neon and incandescence floating beyond the window like man-made stars—you read Becca’s Instagram posts and blog entries about how brave Aegon has been in the wake of his diagnosis, and between the lines of course is her courage too: the caretaker, the self-sacrificial curator, the saintly hands his demise has been entrusted into, his long slow disintegration until only the bones are left, no memories, no dreams, no future and no past.

The last weeks of August float away like a balloon, carried high and quick into a sky that is dizzyingly hot and so bright it stings the eyes. On sidewalks, you hide under the shade of palm trees. On lunch dates with Chloe—running lines, trying perplexing new foods like escargot and sea urchin, giggling over celebrity gossip—you ask for tables inside or under the refuge of patio umbrellas. Each night in your apartment that Aegon now pays your half of the rent for, religiously deposited in your bank account by Brandon at a least one full week before it’s due, you lie in the bathtub reading the movie script or books on the Gilded Age until the water turns lukewarm and steam glistens on your skin; and into these infinitesimal black-ink worlds you disappear, a new name, a distant time, a different man who has stitched himself to you with dissolving threads.

Now you are in Chinatown with Aegon, and the ember-colored oscars are murderous and darting back and forth as he skims his fingers across the top of the tank, and you have devoured your moo goo gai pan but Aegon has barely touched his boneless spare ribs. His is listless and distracted. Strands of sandy blonde hair are falling out of their gel to rest across his forehead. There are dark shadows like smudges of ash under his eyes. Your own eyes are adorned with shimmering dusty rose powder to match your sundress, three shades blended together, all by Urban Decay: Liar, Stolen, Right Time.

“I really think you should see a doctor,” you tell Aegon, not for the first time.

“I might,” he says absently, still tormenting the oscars.

“It can only help at this point. They could confirm the diagnosis and get you on a treatment plan. I’ve been researching it and there are drugs that suppress tremors, and physical therapy, and antidepressants...and oh, these things called ‘dopamine agonists’ that are good for motor functions...and they even have Huntington’s support groups!”

Aegon sighs.

“If you make an appointment, I’ll go with you,” you say. “Any day, any time, I don’t care, I’ll go. I’ll reschedule whatever else I have on my calendar.” Workouts with your personal trainer, meetings with your dialect coach, calls with Dusty or Santi or anyone else from the film, outings with Chloe, a life that is growing abundant and bright like a full moon.

“Maybe.” Then Aegon studies his Chinese zodiac calendar, an attempt to change the subject. And you’ll let him; you don’t want to spend the time you have left arguing. “What year were you born?” he asks, as if you’ve never had this conversation before. “Which animals is yours?”

And instead of being offended, frustrated, startled, you just force a smile and hold up your hands in the shape of claws. “I’m a dragon, Aegon.”

He leans in close to read the description: You are eccentric and your life complex. You have a very passionate nature and abundant health. Then he laughs. “Oh yeah, of course you are. Sounds just like you.”

“And you’re a horse.”

“Do you like horses?”

“I like one,” you say, and Aegon grins and offers you a forkful of his boneless spare ribs, dripping viscous red sauce like bad blood.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s Saturday, August 30th, and the wedding is exactly one week away. The Targaryens are throwing a bon voyage party for Aegon at their Malibu beach house, something planned a month in advance, although it has a certain somberness to it now. Alicent keeps dabbing at her large dark eyes with a green handkerchief, collecting herself, crumpling into tears again. Guests are murmuring gravely about their vague, archaic memories of Viserys: Saw him in a wheelchair a few times...then he just disappeared...never really asked...a Hollywood legend like that...wanted to respect his privacy...such a lovely family...how awful they’re going through this all over again.

Aegon has dispatched Becca to ready the new house in Houston, a project that she is posting about on Instagram with great frequency and euphoric triumph; she has been given a vital task. If she suspects his true motivations for wanting her two time zones and 1,500 miles away, she gives no indications of it. In Becca’s absence—and much to your own surprise—you are Aegon’s plus one on this hot, golden afternoon as salt-smelling wind blows in off the Pacific Ocean and children splash in the pool.

As your floral yellow sundress billows and the breeze tangles your hair, you smile and chat with the series of guests that Aegon introduces you to, distant relatives, industry people, the new agent he keeps trying to offload you onto, a bookish young woman named Kristen who is perfectly polite and surely very knowledgeable and yet not the one you want. Kristen didn’t agree to sign you when no one else would. Kristen didn’t put her knuckles into the wall of a Beverly Hills mansion for you.

Several of the party guests recognize you from the Maroon 5 music video and congratulate you on your starring role in your upcoming indie movie, which has just been publicly announced. Each time the conversation drifts towards Aegon—his misfortunate diagnosis, his exodus to Texas—he steers it back to you. He doesn’t want to talk about himself, of course, or his situation, or the fate that awaits him in Houston, and that’s part of it; but he’s also proud of you. He’s taking full advantage of one of his last chances to advocate for you. He’s going down swinging.

Now Aegon is eating hors d’oeuvres with his other recent clients, Steve, Fatima, and Angus, all of whom have found new agents with Aegon’s assistance, and you are sitting on the ledge of the swimming pool with the hem of your dress tucked under your thighs and your legs submerged to the knees. Helaena has children, which isn’t something Aegon ever mentioned before; there are four of them, wreaking havoc in the pool as they play volleyball with their friends, hurling a beach ball back and forth over a miniature net. You are keeping score for them and serving as the cheerleader, which is much preferrable to making small talk with self-important industry executives or listening to people sigh over how selfless Becca is for assuming this burden.

Aemond wanders over to you, dressed in his version of casual: a full suit, but beige instead of black or navy. He doesn’t say anything. He observes the kids playing for a while, though you have the sense he isn’t really seeing them. You peek covertly at the scar that cuts down the left side of his grim face, and you remember what Aegon told you about Viserys: He’s the reason my mother still has nightmares. He’s the reason Aemond lost his eye.

“You’ll watch out for him, right?” you say anxiously to Aemond. “Even when he’s in Texas?”

He gives you an impatient look, like you’re stupid for asking. “I’ll always make sure he’s taken care of. There’s nowhere he could run that would be far enough to keep me away.”

You are relieved. “Good.” You glance over at Aegon to check on him; he is still mingling with his former clients, and he seems happy. Then you find Alicent in the crowd. She is ever-encircled by Helaena and Daeron, who appear to be trying to distract her. The beach house is besieged by blue balloons. A DJ is playing artists that you recognize from Aegon’s extensive Spotify playlist: Alanis Morissette, Pearl Jam, Third Eye Blind, the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

“I really wish he’d see a doctor,” Aemond says after a while, his voice low to be discrete. “We have great specialists here at Cedars-Sinai.”

“He has an appointment on Wednesday morning. I finally got him to make one.”

Aemond stares down at you, mystified, suspicious. “Who are you?”

“What do you mean? I’m a client.”

“Yes, I know that,” Aemond says; again, like you might be a little slow. “Why do you always know what he’s up to? Why does he care what you think? He doesn’t care what anybody thinks.”

You aren’t sure how to answer. You avoid the question by lobbing away the beach ball when a child’s spike sends it hurtling at you.

“He talks about you a lot,” Aemond says. “He insists that you’re a good actress. He asks me to help you. And then he forgets that he asked, and he asks again.”

“I don’t know why he cares what I think.”

“Sure you don’t.” Aemond’s brow is furrowed and his eyes narrowed: one real, one eternally unseeing. “Are you going with him on Wednesday?”

“I am,” you admit.

“Give me your phone.”

You comply immediately, digging it out of your floral Patricia Nash purse. Aemond Targaryen is not an easy man to refuse. He types something quickly as he stands beside the pool. One of the children giggles as they swim up to the edge and splash him with chlorinated water, wetting his beige suit and brown leather Gucci shoes. Aemond sighs irritably.

“I put myself in as a contact,” Aemond says when he returns your phone. “After his appointment, call me and tell me everything the doctor said.”

“Okay.” Aegon probably wouldn’t approve of that, but it’s good for him.

Then Aemond does something unexpected. He reaches out to you, and for a second you instinctively flinch away, but his hand is gentle; Aemond’s palm settles on the back of your neck, and you blink up at him, bewildered. “I’m sorry you’re losing him too,” Aemond says, soft and strangely tender. Then he swipes something off his right cheek and leaves, weaving through the crowd to join his mother, who is pretending to fret over a rapidly melting ice sculpture—a Texas Longhorn—so she won’t have to think about Aegon instead.

A child is tugging at you, grappling for your hand with slippery, dripping fingers and then trying to drag you into the pool. “Come swimming!” a little girl, maybe eight or nine years old, is crowing with a missing-baby-teeth grin. “We’re going to play Marco Polo. You can be the person who shouts Marco! and tries to find us.”

You laugh. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t have a swimsuit. I didn’t know this was a pool party.” Aegon neglected to mention that part.

“Please?” she begs, and now the other children are joining in, a chorus of reckless encouragement. You have the impression they aren’t often able to cajole the adults into playing with them. And the little girl looks so much like Aegon—same eyes, same hair—that you find yourself thinking: When he’s gone, will there really be nothing left of him? Is that possible?

“Alright, I’m coming in!” you announce, and the kids cheer. You shove your purse far enough away from the pool that your phone should be safe, and then you slide off the ledge and into the water: brisk blue currents that thrash as the children flee away from you, giggling as they hug the curved cement corners, poised to bolt again if you venture towards them.

“Now close your eyes,” the little girl demands, and you cover them with your palms. You feel her shoving you and it takes you a few seconds to realize what she wants: for you to spin around. You do this as quickly as you can until you are completely disoriented, stumbling, blind, laughing as you reach out with your eyes squeezed shut, your yellow sundress flowing around you in the cool water like the fanlike fins of a koi fish.

“Marco,” you say.

“Polo!” the children yell, and then squeal as you lunge for them. Waves swell through the pool, water droplets from their kicking feet spray across your face. There’s sun on your bare shoulders as your legs traverse the rough concrete floor in slow motion, your steps heavy and silent. You can hear adults muttering in scandalized disapproval: Who is that? What’s wrong with her?

“Marco?” you call out again.

“Polo!” a gaggle of children hurl back, too many; the voices seem to come from everywhere. You can’t pinpoint a direction, so you choose one at random and dive.

“Marco!” you shout, then yelp as you bump into the side of the pool and stun yourself.

Someone grabs your outstretched hands. “Polo,” Aegon says, and you open your eyes to see him kneeling at the edge of the water. “What the hell are you doing?” he asks, but he’s smiling; he helps you scramble back up onto the ledge of the pool.

“They wanted me to play with them.”

“You could have said no.”

“I can never say no to kids. They walk all over me.”

“You’re too nice.”

“I’ve heard that before.” Though it doesn’t sound so much like a criticism when Aegon says it. He sits down beside you on the ledge of the pool and lets his legs dangle in the water; he has kicked off his flip-flops to rest haphazardly beside your tan wedges. He is wearing white cargo shorts and a powder blue short-sleeve Oxford that is at least a size too big for him. He’s losing weight, you think, forlorn. He’s disappearing.

Helaena arrives with a towel—very thick and soft, doubtlessly expensive—and gives it to you. She is one of the few party guests who do not seem horrified by your antics; instead, she titters and tells the children not to entrap you again, that you’ll play with them later. They resume their game of Marco Polo with a new blind explorer. As you wrap the towel around your shoulders, Aegon takes a corner and uses it to dry your face. Then he gazes out over the patio towards the Pacific Ocean, ignoring the children. He never really interacts with kids, you’ve noticed; even when he watches them with a transfixed sort of wonder, he keeps an expanse of space between them like an alcoholic trying to stay away from the drink.

“You could have done IVF,” you say, and Aegon looks at you, eyebrows raised, a how did you know what I was thinking? sort of expression. “They can screen the embryos for chromosomal defects and only implant the ones that are healthy. So you’d know the baby wouldn’t have Huntington’s.”

Aegon shrugs, kicking his feet beneath the rippling crystalline line of the water. “I think that takes a lot of trust, you know?”

You aren’t sure what he means. “To do IVF?”

“To leave a kid with someone,” he clarifies. “If I’m going to be out of the picture in a few years, I’d have to feel really confident that the mother would be the kind of person I’d trust to raise the child the right way. Not use them as a prop or something. Not raise them to be fucked up like I am.” Or like Becca is, he leaves unsaid.

And although it is ludicrous and forbidden and impossible, instantly you are doing math in your head: I’ll be done filming by winter, we could start trying in the spring. You always envisioned doing it the other way around, chasing dreams in your twenties, settling down in your thirties, but if Aegon doesn’t have much time left...

You turn to him, searching. But Aegon is in his own world, oblivious to your uninvited machinations. Of course he wouldn’t expect any discussions of the two of you staying together. You’ve already offered. He’s already declined. Now the song on the stereo is Keith Urban’s You’ll Think Of Me, and Aegon’s oceanic blue eyes begin to glisten. Everyone is crying today, you think.

“This was your dad’s favorite song,” you say gently.

Aegon nods. “Did I tell you that?”

“You did.”

He chuckles bleakly. “Fuck, I don’t even remember.” He wipes his eyes with the heel of one hand, and you wish you could touch him; but everyone at this party knows he’s getting married in a week, and to a woman who definitely isn’t you. “When I was really young, my dad was always telling us: You are Targaryens. You have to be extraordinary. You have to be extraordinary. And to me, that meant inhuman, or unnatural, or something else that I would always be incapable of. What about the real people? What about all the people like me, we were just supposed to vanish into cubicles somewhere, or hate ourselves enough to change our bodies, our faces, our souls? No, I couldn’t stomach that. Then my dad got sick, and for the first time he tried to understand us, and we had a few good years. Then he was gone again. But it was so goddamn slow.”

You are desperate to touch him, to console him. “Just because Viserys became a monster doesn’t mean you will. Just because he was a curse to your family doesn’t mean that’s how I’d feel about you.”

Aegon swipes at his eyes again, then brightens. He pretends he hasn’t heard you. “You’re coming to the wedding, right? I told Brando to send you money for the plane ticket.”

You spent it on eyeshadow palettes and books about the Gilded Age. “I don’t think so.”

“I really want you to be there.”

“You want me to watch you standing at the end of the aisle, and then Becca frolicking to meet you in her perfect Instagram-worthy dress, and then you exchanging adorable vows and kissing while people whistle and applaud, and then I’ll endure a whole night of celebrating your wedded bliss on the beach, all so you can get a glimpse of me in the crowd and maybe talk to me for five minutes before I fly back here alone, devastated that I’ll never get to see you again?”

“Yeah,” Aegon says.

“That’s an insane idea.”

Aegon throws his arms wide, exasperated. “It might be! I have a brain disease!”

“And why would I do that?” you demand. “Because I’m so happy for you and Becca?”

“No, because I’m doing you a favor,” he hisses, sudden hushed vitriol. “Because I am sparing you from everything that will happen next.”

I want to be there. I want it to be me. You shake your head, your throat burning. “I can’t watch you marry her.”

“Okay,” Aegon relents. “It’s fine. Sunshine, it’s fine. I don’t want to fight with you.” What he means is: I don’t want to waste the time we have left.

And for a moment he rests his head on your shoulder—your pulse thudding hot and red and feverish, pool water dripping from your hair—not caring who sees.

~~~~~~~~~~

“I don’t want to be here,” he says.

“I know, Aegon.” The exam room at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills is sunlit but cold, curtains drawn back from the glass walls, frigid air conditioning gusting through the vents. Your eyeshadow is a dark blue to match your sundress: Equilibrium by Natasha Denona, Madness by Urban Decay. You take Aegon’s hand and hold it tightly. He is perched restlessly on the edge of the exam table; you are standing beside him, too anxious to sit in the requisite chair for a spouse or a parent, and of course you are neither of these things.

The doctor returns, knocking politely before opening the door. He closes it behind him as he enters the room. He’s in his early-fifties, pudgy, receding reddish hair and pale skin that has been turned pink by too much time spent in the sun. He is a family man—he’s already mentioned his wife and kids several times, you imagine the desk in his office must be adorned with their ever-smiling photographs—and an unassuming, slightly nervous disposition. He’s one of the best neurologists on the West Coast. When he heard Aegon’s last name, he fit him in immediately.

Dr. Gallagher turns the computer screen towards you and brings up images from the MRI scan. He takes his pen out of the pocket of his white coat and uses it to point at the bluish specter of Aegon’s brain. His voice is soothing, sympathetic, practiced in delivering bad news. “Unfortunately, what we’re seeing here is consistent with what I would expect to find in a patient with Huntington’s disease that has progressed to the moderate stage.” His pen leaps between pertinent locations. “There is already some striatal atrophy visible, and slight frontal horn dilatation as the brain matter around it shrinks. A lot of the time, we can’t even see that on scans in people who’ve been recently diagnosed. But you...” He looks at Aegon, gives him a soft subtle nod, casual catastrophic confirmation. “You’ve had symptoms for a while, as we discussed.”

“Yeah,” Aegon says quietly. You’re still clasping his hand, like he’ll vanish if you let go.

“I’m very sorry,” Dr. Gallagher tells him.

“Not your fault, doc.”

“But there is some good news,” Dr. Gallagher says. “Now that you’re in treatment, we can get you set up with a regimen that will alleviate your symptoms as much as possible. There are prescriptions—and I’ll go over each of those with you, so you understand what they are and the possible side effects—and also excellent therapists who have experience working with patients like you, Aegon. We want to keep your quality of life intact for as long as we possibly can.”

“I’m moving to Houston,” Aegon replies, and for some reason every time he says this you feel the loss of it all over again, as if you don’t already know, as if he’s not almost gone.

“Texas, huh?” Dr. Gallagher says, like he doesn’t understand why anyone would want to spend their final years there but is determined not to be judgmental about it. “Well, best wishes to you! I have some very capable colleagues at Houston Methodist, I’ll reach out to them and transfer your records over so you won’t have to worry about any of that once you get settled in.”

“Thank you,” Aegon says, quiet, distant. Dr. Gallagher glances at you curiously; he keeps doing that. Aegon didn’t introduce you. You didn’t introduce yourself. What are you supposed to say? You aren’t his wife. You aren’t even his fiancée or his girlfriend. You’re a mistress, and soon you’ll be nobody. Better to let the gaps remain unfilled. “How long?” Aegon asks after a while. “I mean, I know it can be unpredictable, but...”

Dr. Gallagher sighs and contemplates the MRI results again. “It really is impossible to say for sure. You said your father passed away at fifty-five?”

Aegon nods. “Ten years after he was diagnosed. And he must have gotten it from his dad. My grandmother lived to be really old and was healthy up until the last few months, but my grandfather died in a car accident, and that would have been before any symptoms were obvious.”

Dr. Gallagher considers this. “So we have multiple generations of the gene being passed down patrilineally, which does exacerbate anticipation. And with these MRI results and the symptoms you’re already experiencing...memory loss, involuntary movements, difficulty working and driving, problems with sleep, loss of appetite...” He shrugs, an acknowledgement of fate’s unknowable design. Then he looks at Aegon with eyes that are deeply apologetic. “I do suspect it will be relatively quick. You’ll probably have another year or two that are decent. And then...”

“And then,” Aegon echoes bitterly, not a question but an agreement. No one knows this better than he does.

“I think you’ll see forty.” Dr. Gallagher steals another glimpse of the MRI results. “But not much beyond that.”

“Okay,” Aegon says, trying to be stoic. And then, gingerly but very deliberately, he untangles his hand from yours.

At an In-N-Out Burger down the street, Aegon pays in cash, a habit he got into not just so Becca can’t track where he is; it’s so that if she asks where he’s been and he can’t remember, she won’t think he’s purposefully lying when he tells her the wrong places. You sit together in a quiet corner booth slurping your Cherry Cokes and picking at your burgers and Animal-Style fries, the silence both heavy and weak, anemic, listless, immovable. Aegon is typing around on his phone. You are trying to imagine what the world will feel like without him in it.

“Forty is good,” Aegon says abruptly. “You know, Becca will still be in her thirties. She’ll definitely be able to marry some other guy and have kids.”

“Aegon,” you begin, but he cuts you off.

“I wouldn’t want to waste away for a long time anyway. I hope I don’t make it past forty.”

“Aegon,” you plead. “The doctor said you could have a few good years left, so shouldn’t you spend those here with your family?” And with me?

Aegon stands up and slides his iPhone into the pocket of his shorts. “My Uber is outside.”

“Your what?” You are alarmed. “I can drive you back to your office, it’s not that out of the way for me—”

“No, I should go.” He gathers up his barely-touched food and stuffs it in a trashcan.

“Aegon...”

“I’ve been really selfish,” he says hurriedly, like if he doesn’t get it out now he might not ever. “I’ve been holding on to you because you make me feel better, and because I didn’t want it to be over, but I...now I have to do the right thing. And this is definitely the right thing.”

“You don’t have to go yet—”

“You’ll be taken care of,” Aegon says. “The people working on your movie...they’re legit. They’re trustworthy. And you can always call Brando or Aemond, they know they’re supposed to take care of you, they’ll get you anything you need, money, a place to live, help navigating the industry, whatever. And Kristen will be your new agent.”

“I don’t want another agent.”

“I set you up as well as I possibly could have,” Aegon tells you, curt, clinical. “And now it’s September, and I’m leaving Los Angeles. That was the deal. I never promised you more than that. I explicitly warned you there would never be more than that.”

“But...” But I didn’t love you then.

“Don’t make this any harder. Say goodbye and move on.”

“Goodbye, Aegon,” you reply, unconvincingly, not meaning it. But it must be enough; he walks out of the In-N-Out Burger, and through the clear glass of the windows you watch him climb into a stranger’s car, and you think numbly, because it seems so impossible: I’ll never see him again?

You stay in the booth for a long time, sipping your Cherry Coke as tears well up in your eyes and spill over, ceaseless rivulets you dab away with napkins that your eyeshadow turns from pure white to a smudged watery blue. Then when you leave and start your shimmering gold Honda Accord, you call Aemond. He listens intently, asks a number of highly technical medical questions you can’t answer, and gets impatient. You apologize, your voice breaking. Aemond sighs, says he’s sorry, tells you with a strangled tension in his own words that he has to go and will call back in a few days to check on you. You’re his new pet, after all; Aegon has assigned you to a different Targaryen, a new agent, a life still orbiting his gravity even in his absence.

At home, your apartment is empty. Jace is at one of his PhD classes. You don’t turn the tv on, you don’t listen to any music. You lie down on the living room couch as afternoon light slants in through the windows and the muffled sounds of Harbor Gateway bleed in through the walls: car horns, shrieking sirens, pedestrians’ shouts, revving engines, stereos and their rumbling bass beats. You can’t stand this, the knowledge that life continues on uninterrupted for everyone else. Becca will get to keep Aegon for years. His family can fly east to Houston to visit him. He is only dead to you.

You pick up your phone and call him. Aegon answers after a few rings; he is startled, like he hadn’t expected to ever hear from you again, like something bad must have happened: your car broke down and you’re stranded on the side of the freeway, you got heat sickness and are trapped in a store somewhere. He says: “Hey, are you alright?”

“I miss you so much and you’re not even gone yet.”

There’s a pause that feels much longer than it is. “Are you at home?”

“Yeah,” you reply, a quivering whisper.

“Okay,” Aegon says, gentle, warm, like you’re friends again and always will be. Due north in his office in Elysian Park where there is no more work left to be done, you can hear his chair scrape against the scuffed hardwood floor as he pushes it out from his desk. “I’ll be there in about a half hour.”

“Okay. Bye.” You hang up, mop the tears from your face, and begin getting ready.

When Aegon knocks, you answer the door in your pajamas, no illusions of propriety: just a L.A. Dodgers t-shirt, black sweatpants, and nothing underneath. Aegon does not pretend to be any more noble. He is through the doorway—swiftly, soundlessly, like a shadow—and then he’s here in the sunlit living room lifting away your shirt and kissing you, deep and wordless, as you stumble together towards your bedroom, you staggering out of your sweatpants as he yanks them down to the floor, you fumbling with the buttons of his green short-sleeve Oxford shirt, and you wonder: Did Becca fasten these buttons this morning? Is that why he didn’t miss one?

“Oh, thank God,” Aegon sighs when he knows he’ll be able to do it, that his body is not yet a stranger to him entirely, and as you sink into the mattress his weight settles on top of you, opening you, filling you, not disappeared yet, not long-lost like a childhood dream that turns to cynicism, only warm and sweet and real. And just like the times before, when you believe you won’t be able to finish with him, you’re wrong. Your eyes brim with tears, like Aegon knows happens when it’s good, and as he whisks them away he murmurs: “Find somebody who does this for you.”

“There’s no one else.”

“Find somebody you love.”

“I love you, Aegon.”

“You can’t, you can’t,” he moans, like he knows it’s hopeless, like he’s already lost the same war.

Not just once, but twice, and then you are exhausted—your muscles unraveled from your bones, your resistance crumbling like eons-old earth—and the world is quiet and fading, used condoms in the trashcan beside your nightstand, the sheets damp with sweat, and you’ll never have him like this again. You’ll never have anything like this again. Daylight, weakening from yellow to gold to amber to blood, pours in through the window and cascades across your bed.

“Remember me like this, okay?” Aegon whispers, kissing you one last time: lips, forehead, the apple of your cheek. “Now look away.”

You turn to the window where sunlight beckons, leaving him in darkness. You hear the bedroom door click shut as he leaves.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s Saturday, September 6th, the wedding day. You have nothing planned. This is a mistake, although it isn’t exactly your fault; filming starts on Monday so everyone has this weekend off as one last respite, Chloe’s parents are in town for a visit, Baela is wrapping up the new Yorgos Lanthimos movie in Paris. You wake up ridiculously early, groggy and miserable. You wander aimlessly around the apartment. You glower at the red-ink note in the box on the calendar: Aegon’s wedding. You stare at the vase of dried sunflowers and feel like crying.

You open Instagram and scroll blindly; the blue-white glow hurts your bloodshot eyes. Becca has posted numerous stories in the past twenty-four hours, which is typical: Pinterest-worthy plates of food, teasing glimpses of her dress and shoes, selfies with her friends and family. There is a wheezing Pekingese in the background of one of her videos from the luxurious hotel suite, and you think, rather disparagingly: She flew her dogs to the Caribbean?

What’s not-so-typical is that Aegon has posted an Instagram story too, something he doesn’t do often. After several minutes of deliberation, and against your better judgment, you click on superstargaryen’s story. It’s 4 a.m. here, so 7 a.m. on Turks and Caicos. The sun has already risen there. And Aegon’s story is a simple photo of the sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean, as if taken from a balcony. There is no caption and no frivolous emojis: a ring, a bouquet, toasting champagne glasses, a cartoonish yellow couple. Instead, there is only a song added, a fifteen-second snippet that plays on a loop each time you re-watch the story, which you do about ten times. The song is Hard To Concentrate by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

And instantly, you are there again, the night after you shot the music video in Beverly Hills, the night after Aegon saved you: flying in his convertible southbound on the 110, streetlights and headlights and neon that cut through the indigo ink of the world, Aegon’s hair flying, his right hand on the steering wheel, bruises on his knuckles, a ghost of a smile on his lips as he keeps looking over at you, as if he’s feeling the same things you are: This is right, this is real, I want this forever.

I have to be there, you realize abruptly, like a lightning strike or the jolt of an earthquake. I have to try to change his mind.

You close Instagram, open Google, search for flights from LAX to Turks and Caicos. You find one with two seats left, both in First Class. My parents are going to kill me, you think, and then put them on your credit card. You get Jace’s full name and date of birth from the driver’s license in his wallet, which he left on the kitchen counter.

You go to Baela’s bedroom and shake Jace awake. He glares at you blearily from beneath chaotic dark curls. “What do you want?” he groans.

“Do you have a passport?”

“Yeah...?”

“I have to fly to Turks and Caicos.”

“What? Where...?”

“It’s for a wedding. I don’t want to go alone. Will you go with me?”

You wait for him to say no. Instead, Jace mulls it over and then drags himself upright, rubbing his eyes and yawning. “Turks and Caicos...that’s in the Caribbean, right?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s a long flight. When are you leaving?”

“In twenty minutes. I already called the Uber.”

Jace blinks a few times, then stands up. “Island vibes,” he mutters in a Jamaican accent as he shuffles off towards the bathroom.

You throw some essentials in a carry-on bag: toiletries, makeup, clothes, TOMS wedges. The only wedding-appropriate dress you have that’s clean is the electric yellow gown you wore to the Maroon 5 music video red carpet premiere. You yank it off the hanger and stuff it in your suitcase. Jace rolls his luggage into the living room just as the Uber is pulling up outside. You urge the driver to hurry as you glide northwest on the 405 towards Westchester, home to Los Angeles International Airport. It’s early enough that traffic is thin, and the lines are short at the TSA security checkpoint. Jace is momentarily stopped for further inspection; he accidentally left a vape pen in his pocket.

Will we make it there before the wedding starts?

At the gate, passengers are already lining up to board the plane. You check the time on your phone and do some quick math. It’s currently 5:30 a.m. here in California. If your flight leaves on time, you’ll be in the air at 6:00. Turks and Caicos is three hours ahead in Eastern Standard Time, so that would be 9:00 a.m. The flight is almost nine hours long, including a brief layover in Atlanta, which means—if everything goes perfectly—you’ll touch down at Providenciales International Airport shortly before 6:00 p.m. The wedding ceremony begins at 6:30, sunset on the beach, very romantic.

“It’s going to be close,” you tell Jace as he slurps on a venti-sized Lavender Crème Frappuccino from an airport Starbucks.

It’s going to be very close.

[hopingforrainydays]

a game of hearts - part two | d. malfoy

pairing: draco malfoy x fem!reader

warnings: quite literally none this time (ok maybe a twinge of angst, but it's worth it), a lil hurt/comfort

word count: 1.8k

summary: part two to this post. after finding out your relationship was built on a sick lie, you struggle to move on. but it's not just you that is suffering

author’s note: this is an optional ending for those of you (including me) that needed a happy ending for these babies

masterlist

requests are open!

--

The night of the Astronomy Tower plagued your thoughts. Every detail of those final moments–his broken demeanor, the rawness of his voice, the scent of his cologne as you left–clung to you. It was an endless torture. A part of you considered whether you had been wrong to turn him away. There’s a sort of bliss in ignorance, after all, and perhaps if you had just let it all slide, you would be fine. The both of you would’ve been fine.

Draco had a way with words; they could drip with honey, sick and sweet, when he wanted them to. He would’ve coaxed the pain and worry from you. Gently. Slowly. He’d explain, give an excuse, and you’d believe him, because it was much easier that way.

The rational part of you knew that could never be. You could not be ignorant. You could not sit content with the knowledge that he did not care for you as you cared for him, that you were the star of some twisted game. But you weren’t content now, either, and you hated to admit you missed him dearly.

Time would heal you. It would have to, because you didn’t have another choice.

You ignored him for days. It wasn’t easy. Draco took up space–even when he wasn’t speaking, even when he was across the room, even when you weren’t looking at him. You could still feel him. Watching. Waiting. Wanting.

You refused to give in. You didn’t acknowledge him when he passed you in the corridors, didn’t turn your head when you felt his stare burning into you during lessons. When he left a letter on your pillow–how he got it there, you didn’t know, and you didn’t care–you didn’t read it. 

For days, you stared at that letter, now propped up on your desk. For days, you fought off the urge to tear it open and take it all in. A quick, impulsive toss to the fireplace of the common room burned that temptation away, allowing you to walk away before the ashes had even settled.

But Draco Malfoy was nothing if not persistent.

It was late when you found him waiting for you outside your common room. The halls were empty, the castle hushed, the only sound being your quiet footsteps as you approached the entrance. You had hoped to slip inside unnoticed, but the moment he stepped out of the shadows, you knew that wasn’t going to happen.

“Please,” he said. His voice was rough, like he hadn’t spoken in hours. Or maybe days.

You halted, hands curling into fists at your sides. A bitterness rose in your throat, flooding your mouth with a venom you hadn’t expected. “Go away, Draco.”

“No.” The word was firm, resolute. His jaw tightened, his shoulders squared, but his eyes–his eyes gave him away. As much as it pained you to look at him, really look at him, you found no arrogance there. No challenge. Only desperation. “Not until you listen.”

Your heart twisted, for just a moment, and you found yourself caught between your anger and need for him. You forced your voice to stay cold. “I’ve already heard enough.”

“Then let me say something you haven’t heard.”

You wanted to walk past him. You should have. But something in his voice–something raw, something real, something reminding you so much of that other night–kept you rooted in place. So you sighed, crossing your arms. “Fine. Talk.”

He inhaled, sharp, as if bracing himself. “I was a coward.”

Caught off guard by the admission, you blink. “Oh, really? Took you this long to figure that out?”

He flinched, but nodded. “I deserve that.” He dragged a hand through his hair, exhaling shakily. “I didn’t tell you about the bet because I was afraid. At first, I told myself it didn’t matter, that it wasn’t serious, that I could just end it before–” He cut himself off, shaking his head. “But then I got to know you. And everything changed.”

“How convenient,” you scoffed.

“It’s not,” he said fiercely. “It’s not convenient. If it were, I wouldn’t be standing here, begging you to believe me.”

You swallowed hard, but your voice didn’t waver. “Then why didn’t you tell me? If you really cared, if it really wasn’t just a game anymore, why didn’t you tell me?”

Draco looked away, jaw tight. “Because I was afraid of losing you.”

You let out a hollow laugh. “Well, congratulations. You lost me anyway.”

His head snapped back to you, his face contorted in something like pain. “I know.” His voice dropped, barely above a whisper. “And I hate myself for it.”

Silence stretched between you. You should have walked away. You should have ended this conversation before it could carve any deeper wounds. But something about the way he was looking at you—like you were slipping through his fingers and he was powerless to stop it—kept you there.

“Tell me what I can do,” he said suddenly. His voice was desperate, his hands trembling at his sides. “Tell me how to fix this. Tell me what it takes to make you believe me, and I’ll do it.”

You stared at him, your heart pounding. “You can’t just fix this, Draco.”

“I can try.” His voice cracked. “If you let me.”

You shook your head, forcing down the lump in your throat. “It’s not that simple.”

“Then make it complicated.” He took a step forward, then another, as if afraid you’d run. “Hate me. Make me work for it. Make me suffer. But don’t—” His breath hitched. “Don’t walk away. Please.”

You had never seen him like this before. Draco Malfoy didn’t beg. He didn’t plead. He didn’t wear his heart on his sleeve like this, bare and vulnerable and real. And that terrified you.

You turned your face away, trying to gather your thoughts, trying to ignore the way your chest ached at the sight of him. “You don’t deserve another chance.”

“I know,” he murmured. “But if you ever—if there’s even the smallest part of you that still—” He broke off, exhaling shakily. “Just say the word, and I’ll spend however long it takes proving to you that I mean it.”

You closed your eyes. I don’t forgive you.

The words were on the tip of your tongue, but you couldn’t say them. Because even now, even after everything, some foolish part of you still wanted to believe him.

So you swallowed hard, opened your eyes, and whispered, “Then prove it.”

Draco inhaled sharply, like you had just handed him salvation.

And maybe, just maybe, you had. Because he didn’t waste time.

It started small—a quiet determination in the way he carried himself around you, in the way he refused to let his guilt be the only thing between you. He didn’t beg. He didn’t push. But he didn’t disappear either.

He showed up.

He walked you to class when you didn’t tell him to leave. He sat beside you in the library, silent, patient, waiting. He spoke to Blaise and Pansy in hushed, clipped tones, and though you never knew what was said, they never mentioned the bet again—not in your presence, not in whispers, not in looks thrown your way when they thought you weren’t watching.

The first time he truly surprised you was the night you couldn’t sleep, your thoughts a restless storm. You had taken to wandering, drifting through the castle halls, your feet carrying you without direction.

Draco was waiting on the Astronomy Tower.

"How did you know?" you asked, folding your arms as you found him leaning against the stone railing, staring out into the vast sky.

"Because this is where you go when you’re lost," he said simply, turning to look at you. "It’s where I go, too."

You hesitated, but eventually, you stepped forward, standing beside him. The silence stretched between you, not uncomfortable, but heavy with unspoken words.

"You don’t have to forgive me," he murmured after a while. "But I need you to know that I’m not going anywhere. That I don’t care how long it takes—I’ll prove it to you every day if I have to."

You turned to face him, and for the first time in weeks, you didn’t see the boy who had broken you. You saw the boy who was trying to put you back together.

"Okay," you whispered.

Draco exhaled, something almost like relief softening his features. He didn’t reach for you. He didn’t push. He just stood there, steady, unwavering.

And as hard as you had fought it before, you let yourself believe that maybe—just maybe—he meant it.

The next few weeks were slow, cautious, but not stagnant. Draco kept his word. He didn’t press, didn’t ask for more than you were willing to give. Instead, he was simply there—walking beside you, speaking to you when you let him, waiting with a patience that both irritated and endeared you.

Then, one evening, as you lingered in the library well past curfew, you found him waiting just outside the doors. It had become routine, this quiet companionship, but tonight felt different.

"You should be in bed," he said, a small smirk curling at his lips, though his tone lacked its usual teasing edge.

"So should you."

Draco huffed a small laugh, then hesitated. "Walk with me?"

You nodded. The castle was quiet at this hour, the only sound the soft echo of your footsteps against the stone. It wasn’t until you reached the Astronomy Tower—your place, his place—that he finally spoke again.

"I know I can’t change what I did," he said, voice careful, deliberate. "I know I hurt you, and I’ll regret that for the rest of my life. But I also know that I love you. And if you’ll have me, if you can give me another chance, I swear I won’t waste it."

You swallowed hard, his words settling deep in your chest. Fear warred with something softer, something hopeful. You had spent so long bracing yourself for another lie, another betrayal. But Draco wasn’t just asking for forgiveness. He was asking for you.

It wasn’t hard for you to admit: you were ready to say yes.

Taking a slow breath, you reached for his hand, threading your fingers through his. His sharp inhale, the way his grip tightened ever so slightly, sent a shiver down your spine.

"Okay," you murmured, the word barely above a whisper. "I’ll give you another chance."

Draco’s eyes searched yours, disbelief warring with something dangerously close to joy. Then, hesitantly, as if giving you time to pull away, he cupped your cheek, his touch warm against your skin.

"I won’t let you regret this," he promised. And this time, you believed him.

--

buy me a coffee

[myjjongie]

CHAPTER THIRTYTHREE.ᐟ ── MEN AINT SHIT

SYNOPSIS: you and jay have been at each others throats for the whole time you've been enrolled at decelis university. the reason for the rivalry in question? the #1 rank on the academic leaderboard in the university. you went through your whole high school life being #1 on the academic leaderboard. you meet jay, who also had the same upbringing in high school. things then start to turn into a constant battle. leaving you constantly in second place and jay in first place every rank update.

word count; 1,192

exiting the bathroom you spotted keeho and the others standing by the door. the crowd long gone, only leaving a few stragglers in the venue. taking hold of ningning’s hand, you quickly walked over to them.

“okay i’m ready!” your voice was cheerful—excitement evident in your body.

you weren’t a hundred percent if jay truly did feel the same way as you. but as you recalled everything up until this moment. there was no way he wasn’t. or at least jay might have something for you.

leaving the venue you headed straight for the backstage exit. laughing with your friends distracting yourself from your growing nervousness. before reaching the exit area you stopped everyone.

“okay. to run over the plan. i’m gonna tell jay that jake is taking sunghoon home. so there’s no room for me to fit in the car. i’ll then ask jay for a ride home cause of that. that sounds reasonable right?” you slowly began to overthink your excuse.

“you’ll be fine. i’m sure he won’t even think too much on it.” keeho replied.

“ugh. i’m so nervous!”

“girl. i’m nervous for you!” ningning excitedly clung to your arm.

“just know if he says no. i’m aiming a nuke straight on his forehead.” ningning looked at you seriously, causing you to laugh.

“oh i’m so so loved!” you exclaimed hugging her this time.

chatting a bit more before focusing back on the task, you notice a familiar head of blonde hair. excited to see beomgyu, you ran up to him.

“beomgyu! you guys did so well!”

beomgyu turned around flashing you a big smile. “yn! i’m so glad you got to come. and thank you! it means so much to me!”

“oh before i keep talking. these are my friends! keeho, jake, ningning and sunoo!”

“it’s nice to meet you all!” beomgyu flashed everyone a cheeky smile before focusing on you again.

“uh real quick. do you know where jay is by any chance?”

“hmmm yeah. he should be back stage still. you can enter by the way. don’t worry about getting flagged down, i don’t think the staff will mind.”

“thank you so much! everyone else if inside as well right?”

“yeah they should be.”

you smiled at beomgyu once again, before leaving for the stage entrance. before leaving, the others were quick to reassure you they would be fine. they all wished you luck before you entered the back stage.

walking through the hallway, you were a bit lost. that wasn’t until you bumped into taerae.

“taerae!”

“hey yn!” he happily called out to you.

“i just saw beomgyu outside but again i just wanna say, you guys were awesome!”

“thank you! it was honestly so surreal. so what brings you back here?”

“um. i’m actually looking for jay!”

“ooh i see.” taerae raised an eyebrow at you. his reaction caused your cheeks to heat up. you waved your hand at him denying what he was thinking. even though he was probably right.

“beomgyu said he was back here. but i don’t see him.” you let off a soft pout.

“oh he’s actually at the stage. packing away his oh so precious guitar.”

“thank you taerae! we’ll chat more later okay?” you were quick to bolt off to the stage before taerae could respond. not wanting to waste another second.

once you made it past the curtains, you immediately recognized the light washed jean jacket jay wore. guitar in his hand, while the case was settled behind him on the stage. your cheeks rose as a smile grew on your face.

before you could even make it down the steps, you noticed a girl talking to him. you hesitated for a second as you watched them. she had beautiful ash blonde hair, styled in a way that made her adorable even from far away. for some reason she look familiar, yet you were too focused on the both of them. you couldn’t help but eye the way she smiled at him, to then notice the way he smiled back at her.

your heart ached at the feeling. you were subtly confused on why he was talking so earnestly to another girl. did you misunderstand his actions? you quickly denied your thoughts as a simple overreaction, but then you saw something else. jay handed his phone to her. you felt your heart drop.

you then saw the girl type in her number on his phone. that’s when you fully realized what was going on between them. not wanting to witness another second of it you turned away, immediately bolting down the hall to leave. as you ran you bumped into someone, the person happened to call out your name. yet you drowned out everything, only the scene of jay and that mysterious girl lingered.

luckily jake and the others were still outside—taking the chance to get to know beomgyu. the first person to notice your distress was jake. stopping his conversation, he walked up to you. hands placed on your arms to help you catch your breath.

“what happened. i thought you went to—“

you quickly cut jake off. “i wanna go home” was all you could breathe out. your head hung low as bit back the tears forming. jake watched you, heading turning to the others utterly confused.

“yn what happened—“ this time keeho was the one to speak up.

“can you guys. please. please just take me home…” your voice subtly cracked this time. noticing this, they all said their goodbyes to beomgyu. except for you.

to caught up in your own head to even acknowledge him, all while tears threatened to fall from your eyes. you faintly heard him ask about you. jake replied to him, telling beomgyu you would reach out later. not wanting to stress you out anymore than you looked, beomgyu let you go.

the walk to the car was silent, no one wanting to ask what happened. not in fear of how you reacted earlier, just worried that maybe jay did reject you.

even when you reached your apartment you didn’t say anything. you felt like you got rejected without even trying to tell him. as you excited the car, you weakly waved bye to everyone. before walking away from the car, keeho called out to you.

“yn.. are you okay? what happened?” you looked at keeho, eyes tired as slight tears pricked the corner of your eyes.

“i. i’ll tell you all later. i need a couple hours to myself..”

keeho’s smile held worry in it, scanning your face once more. “just. please reach out to us. we’re all worried…”

“i will.” you tried your best to smile. yet it felt so insincere, maybe it looked insincere too.

turning away from the car you headed up to your apartment. your steps were heavy, as if you were dragging yourself along. finally making it inside you headed straight for your bed. still in your outfit, you crawled into the bed. pulling the comforter over yourself as you curled up.

then slowly the tears began to form. the rest of that night you softly cried to yourself over everything you saw.

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a.note; now before you come at me with pitch forks and shit. just think about how i warned yall. i told yall i was gonna be evil. and i did just that. but dw, it won’t be for long :3

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