#And then what you THOUGHT was a clean kill turns into your own demise

[dixons-sunshine]

Was It The Boogeyman? | Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader

Summary: Soon upon your group’s arrival to Alexandria, a masked killer begun running loose. Having no idea who they could be, Rick started an investigation, one that lead you to realize that you could not always trust everyone, especially not people who seemed to be unsuspecting at first.

Genre: Halloween, Slasher themes.

Warnings: Swearing, blood, death, near-death, others I can’t think of right now.

Word count: 5.9k

A/N: For @ghostboneswrites2’s Halloween challenge! To be honest, I feel like this is not the best, and I feel like the plot is all over the place, but I hope you like it nonetheless!

A bloodcurdling scream rang through the air. Rushing towards the source of the chilling sound, you, Daryl and Rick came face to face with a woman named Sarah, who had rushed out of the pantry. The woman looked as pale as a ghost, her hands shaking as she clutched onto the notebook in her hands.

“They got her! The killer got Olivia!”

You pushed past the woman, and walked into the garage that doubled as both the pantry and the armoury. There, laying in a big puddle of her own crimson blood, was Olivia, the former caretaker of the weaponry in the armoury. Her glasses were shattered on the ground a few feet away from her body, and a chunk of her brunette hair laid next to the spectacles, drenched in the woman’s blood.

“Shit,” you muttered under your breath, taking a tentative step towards the body. However, before you could take another step, you were gently pulled back, the familiar cerulean eyes of your partner coming into view when you turned your head. “What’s wrong?” you inquired, your eyebrows furrowed together.

“We dun’ know how long she’s been dead,” he began, his eyes darting over to the lifeless corpse of the woman. “She can reanimate at any minute.”

That fact you knew. A lifeless corpse reanimating had been what had alerted you all to the murders that had been happening around the alleged ‘safe zone’ in the first place. Deanna’s husband, Reg, had been murdered in cold blood a few weeks prior, and his reanimated corpse had caused quite the uproar amongst the other inhabitants. Thankfully, there had been no casualties; that is, if you didn’t include the community’s leader’s broken heart.

Deanna Monroe had been absolutely crushed by the death of her husband. She had been the one to put him down after encountering his undead self, and your heart went out for the woman. She had been nothing but kind to your group since you all had set foot through the gates, and she didn’t deserve to suffer from such pain.

You were drawn from your thoughts by the sight of Daryl crouched over Olivia’s body, his knife disappearing into her skull, before being retracted once more. The metal of the deadly weapon sported a red colour as the crimson liquid dripped from the object down onto the floor below. However, the knife was soon cleaned off with Daryl’s trusty red rag, returning the weapon to its former state of cleanliness.

The sound of heavy footsteps walking into the garage got your attention. You turned around and saw Rick approach the part of the room that held the bloody, gruesome scene. Your leader’s blue eyes flickered between the corpse and the blood that surrounded it, before he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and pointer finger.

“This is death number three,” he said, frustration lacing his tone of voice. “Three deaths in two weeks.”

The Grimes man’s words rung true. Olivia’s unfortunate demise chalked up the death toll since the murderer made their debut to ‘three’. Reg had been killed first. Then a few days later, Pete Anderson’s life had been taken as well, his body being found near the infirmary. And now Olivia had joined them in the afterlife, too.

The killer’s pattern made no sense to you whatsoever. What did Reg, Pete and Olivia have in common for them to be murdered? How were they connected? What had they done to deserve a fate so cruel? Well, you knew what Pete Anderson had done to deserve it, but Reg and Olivia? It did not make a lick of sense to you.

With a deep sigh, you trudged forward and crouched down next to Olivia’s lifeless body, taking Daryl’s place as he stood up. Scanning over her body, you could quickly determine the method that had been used to kill her; strangulation, and then an odd looking stab wound through her chest. She had not been stabbed with a regular knife. Of that much you were completely certain. However, you could not decipher the weapon that had been used to pierce through the woman’s chest.

You glanced up at the two men. “She was strangled. And stabbed. There’s not really any telling which one got the job done, but the killer made sure to be thorough. They didn’t want her to survive this.”

“Christ,” Daryl muttered, shaking his head. “This killer’s sure got quite the way’a makin’ a lastin’ impression.”

“I just wish they’d choose something else to do it,” you mused aloud, your lips tugging into a grimace when your fingers traced over the clear-as-day blueish purple bruises that clearly depicted a handprint around the woman’s neck. Then, you stood up, crossing your arms over your chest. “This shit’s just inhumane.”

With a weary sigh, Rick shook his head and turned around, making his way out of the garage. You and Daryl shared a look, before the both of you simultaneously followed behind your leader, needing to know his thoughts on the matter. He had been your leader since the early days at the quarry, and even though Deanna Monroe still claimed official leadership over the Alexandrian safe zone, Rick had essentially taken over, and you would not have it any other way.

“Rick?” the archer’s voice rung out once the two of you had caught up with the Grimes man, effectively stopping him in his tracks. “What now?”

Another sigh left Rick’s mouth. He pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyebrows furrowed together as he gathered his thoughts. “I don’t know,” he admitted, his blue eyes flitting between you and Daryl.

“No luck on the investigation?” you questioned him.

Shortly after the death of Reg, and then Pete, Rick had implemented an investigation, one which only he and Michonne were a part of, to avoid drawing any suspicions towards what they were doing. More people being let in on the investigation could potentially spill the secret as to who exactly was actively looking for the murderer, therefore the investigators would be the murderer’s next targets, and nobody wanted that. The murderer certainly knew that people were looking for them, but they did not know who.

Rick shook his head in acknowledgement to your words. “Nothin’. This killer’s smart. I haven’t found anythin’,” he admitted without hesitation. “Michonne and I have been turnin’ this place upside down lookin’ for clues, but it’s like this killer doesn’t even exist afterwards. It’s like they just vanish into thin air.”

Taking Rick’s admission into consideration, Daryl slowly nodded. “Ya think it could be someone from the outside? Someone who could be sneakin’ in to do this?”

“It’s a possibility,” Rick agreed, “but probably unlikely. We have people keepin’ watch all hours of the day. It doesn’t seem likely that someone would manage to sneak in.”

“So basically, we’re still nowhere near finding out who the murderer is,” you concluded, a heavy sigh leaving your body. “Three casualties and still nothing. Not even a meaningless clue that could lead us in the right direction.”

Daryl placed a hand on your shoulder, his thumb rubbing against your clothed skin soothingly. He knew how stressed you were, and for good reason. Who’s to say that the murderer’s next victim wasn’t someone you cared for? Who’s to say the murderer’s next victim was not you? The archer did not even want to consider that last possibility.

Rick sent you a look of sympathy, understanding your frustrations towards the entire ordeal. However, he did not know how to ease your worries when he was unable to quench his own worries. You had every right to worry about this murderer. He certainly did not blame you in the slightest.

Suddenly, realization dawned on Rick, and he cleared his throat. “Actually, we did find somethin’,” he began, effectively recapturing both yours and Daryl’s attention. “There was a witness in Pete’s murder. They said that they saw someone walk away, and that the person was wearin’ a mask.”

“Well, that’s just great,” you voiced with a heavy sigh, crossing your arms over your chest.

“So what, this killer s’like some sort’a Boogeyman or somethin’?” Daryl inquired with a scoff. The whole situation had been weighing heavily on the archer’s shoulders since the first body had dropped a few weeks prior. It was only a matter of time until the unknown killer attacked once more, maybe even taking the life of somebody he truly cared for. He needed to find this vicious murderer, and fast.

“I mean, technically speaking, the killer’s kinda more like Ghostface,” you corrected him, your arms crossed over your chest.

“Ghostface?” Daryl echoed in confusion, his eyebrows furrowing. “What’s that?”

Your eyes flitted over to your partner. “Those killers from the Scream franchise?” When recognition did not dawn on the archer, you furthered your explanation. “You know, the movies with that terrifying white ghost-like mask? The Ghostface mask? The mask that the two killers wear in all the movies?” A few beats of silence passed. Sensing that nobody in the small group knew what you were talking about, you shook your head. “It doesn’t matter. Boogeyman is as good of a code name as any.”

Rick cleared his throat, diverting the attention back to the more important matter at hand. “So, this Boogeyman, they clearly only strike once they’re absolutely sure nobody else is around. Until we can come up with a concrete way to catch them once and for all, I think it’s best if nobody is alone. Perhaps groupin’ people together in houses could help.”

“Ain’t too sure folks ‘round here are gon’ take too kindly to that idea,” Daryl voiced, his eyes flickering between you and Rick.

Rick shrugged and looked at his found brother. “If they wanna stay safe, they’re gonna have to go with it, whether they like it or not.”

“You want me to ask Deanna to call a meeting so we can spread the word?” you asked, your eyes locking with those of your leader.

Rick shook his head. “No. Deanna’s not in the best mindset at the moment. She can’t make important calls like this right now. I’ll call it. In the meantime, you and Daryl clean up the body. No need to have people causin’ an uproar.”

“What do we tell people when they come lookin’ for her?” Daryl questioned gruffly.

Rick hesitated for a moment. “We don’t have anythin’ to hide. Tell them the truth.”

With that, Rick turned around and left, leaving you and Daryl alone in front of the garage. You exchanged a look with your partner, your eyes conveying more about how you felt than words could in that moment. However, you pushed your emotions aside for the time being. You had a job to do.

With a sigh, you turned around and stalked into the pantry, your sense of smell instantly being overpowered by the overwhelming stench of death that lingered in the air. You had to stop and close your eyes momentarily, both in an attempt to gather your thoughts and to not accidentally vomit at the gruesome sight in front of you. I’ve seen worse, you attempted to remind yourself. However, that did not seem to help at all.

The feeling of someone’s hand on your shoulder snapped you from your trance. Opening your eyes, you looked over your shoulder and locked eyes with your partner. He sent you a small, albeit strained smile, and you had to commend him for his efforts to calm you down.

“Ya dun’ gotta do this,” Daryl began, his tone of voice surprisingly soft and gentle. “I can handle it. Ya can go home.”

Almost instantly, you shook your head, before turning your head back to peer at Olivia’s lifeless corpse. “No, it’s okay. I wanna help.” You sighed and placed one of your hands over his larger one that still remained firmly on your shoulder. “I just wish we didn’t have to do this at all.”

Daryl leaned forward and pressed a tender kiss to the crown of your head. “I know,” he murmured into your hair. “It sucks, that’s for damn sure, but it won’t last forever. We’ll find the bastard that did this and take care’a ‘em. I promise ya that.”

You could not help the small smile that tugged at the corners of your lips. “Wow. That was a surprisingly positive outlook for a ‘glass half empty’ kinda person. Being the optimist is usually my approach. Who are you and what did you do to the Daryl Dixon I know and love?”

Daryl scoffed and rolled his eyes, but made no effort to move away just yet. “Yeah, yeah. Can’t always be the pessimist, can I? M’one negative outlook on somethin’ away from turnin’ into a professional grump.” When your giggle reached his ears, he smiled to himself. “Ya feel better?”

You turned around and looked at him. “About all of this?” For added emphasis, you motioned towards the body on the ground. “No. But I don’t feel like I’m gonna break down anymore, so I guess there’s that.”

“Ya can go if ya really need to. I seriously dun’ mind doin’ this myself.”

“No. I’m fine, I promise,” you reassured him. You took a few steps towards the lifeless Olivia, your expression turning grim once more. “I have to do this.”

Cleverly sensing that there was no point in arguing, Daryl nodded. “Alright. Let’s do this, then.”

“I’m telling you, I’m not gonna share my house with him! No way in hell!”

“Linda, I understand your frustrations, but—”

“You don’t understand a thing, lady!” Linda—an older lady you estimated to be in her sixties—cut you off abruptly, her dark brown eyes glaring daggers at you. “He’s the community slob! A miscreant! I’m not gonna allow a man like that in my home. Over my dead body.”

You let out a wary sigh at her declaration. Opting to not take the argument any further, for the sake of your slowly increasing anger, you simply sent a nod in her direction and walked off. Your fists were clenched at your sides, your lips pursed as you attempted to keep your raising frustrations at bay. Linda was not the first person to be frustrated at the new living arrangements being implemented around the Alexandrian safe zone, and you highly doubted that she would be the last. You just hoped you would be able to keep your cool.

It had been a week since the unfortunate death of Olivia. A town meeting had been called in Gabriel’s church a few hours after the discovery of her body, and the fear amongst the people had spiked once Rick had made it known that the community was unsafe at that moment in time, and to not wander around without someone at their sides. However, like Daryl had predicted, people did not like the idea of grouping together in houses, and it had not been instituted until somebody had been attacked by the mysterious masked killer—the Boogeyman—when they were alone in their own home.

Thankfully, the person had survived the ordeal. They did suffer from a stab wound and a broken leg, but they were relatively okay, and they had managed to provide your group with more information, meaning you all were one step closer to solving the case.

You walked down the street and met up with Daryl, who had just finished helping Tobin settle in with Aaron and Eric. He only had to take one look at you to realize that you were not having a good day.

“Bad day?” he asked rhetorically. He knew damn well how bad of a day you were having. The look you sent his way had him chuckling and raising his hands in surrender. “Sorry. Dumb question.” When you simply sent him a strained smile, his eyebrows furrowed. He gently grabbed your hand and held it in his, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “What’s wrong, Sweetheart?”

“Everything.” Whether you were being dramatic or not, you did not know, nor did you care. “From having to convince people to group up with people they’re not particularly fond of, to having to make sure that people actually listen and don’t try to sneak off back into their own homes, and having to look over my shoulder every few seconds because I’m terrified of the Boogeyman taking me next? Yeah, I am not having a good time.”

Daryl gave your hand another squeeze, a sympathetic look on his features. “M’so sorry, Sweetheart. I wish ya didn’t have to do none of it.” He took a deep breath, before continuing. “And the Boogeyman ain’t gon’ get their hands on ya. M’not gon’ let ‘em. I promise.”

You knew Daryl could not promise you that. Despite all the precautions that were being taken, despite every safety measure that was being implemented to up the difficulty for the killer to strike again, you knew deep down that it would not be enough. Murderers always found a way to work around any obstacle in their paths. If they wanted something, they would stop at nothing to get it. And this killer in particular was extremely careful and smart, so you knew it was only a matter of time until they struck once more.

“I know, but—”

Your words got cut off by a deafening scream. Both you and Daryl whipped around and scanned the area to locate the source of the chilling sound. It did not take long to do so. Another scream sounded through the air, and you could instantly locate where it was coming from—Gabriel’s church.

You took off in a dead sprint, Daryl following closely behind you, his crossbow loaded and ready to be fired at a moment’s notice. Whilst running, you met up with Michonne, Rick and Glenn. Without exchanging so much as a single word, you all burst into the church, weapons raised and pointed in front of you.

That moment was the first moment you saw the Boogeyman face-to-face. The mask the killer was wearing appeared to be a mix between the Ghostface mask and the Jason mask from Friday the 13th. They had blood splattered all over their mask and clothes, and Spencer’s lifeless body laid behind the killer. The murderer was stalking towards Jessie Anderson who was on the ground in front of them, the woman in question backing up fearfully, tears streaming from her eyes.

“No, please!” Jessie pleaded, sobs tearing through her body. “Please!”

A gunshot echoed through the air, just narrowly missing the Boogeyman’s body. That made the killer turn around, their body tensing up as they regarded your group that stood in front of them. Cleverly sensing that they were severly outnumbered, with nothing to defend themselves other than an odd looking knife, they made a run for the back door.

“Go! I’ll take care of Jessie. I’ll get her home. You all take care of the Boogeyman.”

With parting nods, Daryl, Rick, Glenn and Michonne instantly sprung into action, following behind the murderer. However, the killer pushed a bunch of furniture and objects as they ran, effectively slowing them down, but that did not stop the people in your group from bounding out the back door, in search of the long sought-after Boogeyman.

With the immediate threat out of the way for the time being, you rushed forward towards Jessie. You helped her up from the ground and onto one of the seats in the church. Taking a seat next to the clearly traumatized woman, you placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Jessie?” you began softly. However, the woman did not acknowledge you. It was as if your voice had not even reached her ears. The poor woman had seriously gone through it. “Jessie, you’re okay. They’re gone. They’re not gonna hurt you anymore.”

The Anderson woman closed her eyes and shook her head. “Spencer…” she started, her voice trembling as she spoke. “He—he’s dead. The Boogeyman killed him and… and…”

The woman could not even finish her sentence. She broke down into sobs and threw her arms around you unexpectedly. You tensed up momentarily, not expecting her to seek comfort in you. You and Jessie were not exactly close. In fact, Jessie Anderson was probably one of the few Alexandrians you had not been able to develop a big liking for. It was nothing personal towards the woman. You just were not particularly fond of her.

Snapping yourself from your thoughts, you slowly wrapped your arms around Jessie, rubbing her back soothingly. Despite your indifference towards the woman, you could not turn her away in a time of need. What had happened to her was beyond terrible, and it clearly had taken its toll on her.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that, Jessie,” you whispered to her. “You didn’t deserve to experience that.”

Jessie sniffled and pulled away from your embrace. “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry, too. You don’t deserve this either.”

Her words confused you. Your eyebrows furrowed together, but before you could say anything, Jessie lunged forward. The two of you tumbled to the ground, and the Anderson woman placed one of her hands over your mouth to muffle out any noises you made. She hastily reached forward and pulled a cloth from under one of the aisle seats, and brought it up to cover your nose and mouth.

A strange, foul-smelling stench filled your senses. You fought back against her hold, but Jessie had the clear upper hand. Your resistance against her hold grew weaker as the seconds ticked by on the metaphorical clock, until you felt too weak to fight back at all. Your arms fell limp at your sides and your eyes began to fall closed.

The last thing you saw before the darkness took over was the face of the blonde woman, her expression cold and filled with no remorse. And then…

Nothing.

You awoke to the smell of something completely foul under your nose. You shot awake with a loud gasp, your eyes being blinded by the harsh light of what appeared to be that of a… spotlight? Once your eyes had adjusted, and your mind had managed to catch up with you somewhat, you attempted to push yourself up, only to find that you could not do so. The same thing occurred with your legs. You were left completely immobile, except for your head.

“Well, well. Look who’s awake. Welcome back to the land of the living… Well, and the dead.”

The sound of a woman’s voice reached your ears. You snapped your head back up, and locked eyes with those of your captor; Jessie Anderson. If looks could kill, the woman would be long dead, for the glare you sent her way would be enough to incinerate her in seconds. However, looks did not possess the power to end one’s mortality, so you were completely powerless to do anything at that particular moment.

Jessie laughed at the glare on your face, the sound positively wicked. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, Y/N. You should be glad it was me that got to you. If it was her, she would have killed you instantly. She doesn’t really like you all that much.”

Jessie motioned to something on her left, and you followed her gaze. At first, you could not make out a thing, but once the person stepped into the light, you could not help the gasp that escaped your chest. There, standing right in front of you with the very weapon that had been used to kill all those people, was none other than the supposed leader of the community, Deanna Monroe.

“Deanna,” you muttered in surprise, your eyes widened as the older woman stepped forward, a sickeningly sweet smile on her face.

Deanna shrugged and stepped up next to Jessie. “Hello, Y/N.” When you did not dare say anything to her greeting, she chuckled. “This is the part where you say, ‘hi, Deanna’.”

“You…” You trailed off, your eyes flickering between Deanna and Jessie. “You both… You’re—”

“The Boogeyman?” Jessie cut you off, sharing a smile with Deanna, one that had shivers sprinting over your spine. “Yeah, we are. Well, technically speaking, we’re the Boogeymen. Or Boogeywomen. Whatever floats your boat, really.”

“You two killed all those people,” you voiced in a tone that spoke of disbelief.

Jessie chuckled wickedly. “Ding, ding, ding! You really are smart, huh?” she asked rhetorically, her tone mocking.

“But Pete, and Reg—Spencer…Why?”

The Anderson woman scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Pete? Believe me, that’s not really any love lost. But hey, it was fun to play the helpless woman for a while, I’ll tell you that. As for Reg, that was my mistake. I thought he was Eugene. Believe me, Deanna still hasn’t forgiven me for that.”

“And I won’t,” Deanna said firmly. “But we have a common goal. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, as they say.”

“And your son?” you inquired. Although you were interested to get some insight as to why these two seemingly harmless, friendly women would resort to cold-hearted killing, you were more so attempting to distract them by getting them monologuing, and it appeared to be working. If they were distracted, you would be able to free your hands from the duct tape securing it with the sharp edge of the bracelet, a gift from Carol, specifically gifted should you ever end up in a situation where you needed an inconspicuous sharp object. You truly treasured that woman, now more than ever.

A flash of remorse, of heartbreak, appeared in Deanna’s eyes, before she expertly schooled it with a blank, indifferent expression. “I didn’t want to do it. A mother never wants to do harm to her child in any way. But he saw Jessie place one of our weapons in Gabriel’s church to frame him for the killings, and he was already calling for Rick. I could not have him blow my partner’s cover, so I did what needed to be done.”

“But he was your son! How—how could you? How could you be so heartless?”

“Heartless?!” Deanna bellowed, her tone a stark difference from the usual kindness you had falsely grown to associate her with. “Do you wanna know what’s heartless? Having to hear that your youngest son’s life got cut short because of the people you brought in, people you thought could help change things for the better! Or having to live with the fact that even your own husband was beginning to trust your judgement! That he blamed you for everything that was going wrong! I was heartless by letting you people in! I was heartless because I wasn’t thinking about the people who had been under my care for years!”

Come on, you thought to yourself as you continued cutting away at the duct tape. Only a few more inches. “Oh, so we’re to blame? For everything? Even for your deranged, psychopath of a partner? Why did you have to offer up so much but all she did was kill her asshole husband?”

Jessie, suddenly being brought back into the spotlight, practically snarled at you. “You bitch—”

Snap! Your hands got freed from the harsh tightness of the duct tape. Without a moment of hesitation, you lunged towards Jessie, the sudden momentum miraculously snapping the duct tape securing your legs together. With your limbs freed and your mind on only one thing—to escape and find Daryl—you began to execute your plan. Take out Jessie, the one that was the main killer in all of this, and then Deanna, the brains behind the entire operation. Or at least, that’s what you suspected, anyway.

Due to having the element of surprise on your side this time, Jessie was relatively easy to take care of. You did not want to do it, only resorting to killing when absolutely necessary, not to mention the fact that Jessie had two boys as well, but you had to do it. You pushed the knife you had managed to swipe from her holster deep into her chest, watching the woman choke as she fell limp. She did not die, not instantly, but her wound rendered her unable to do anything. She was out of your way.

Pushing yourself off of the Anderson woman, you spun around to take care of Deanna. However, she was nowhere to be found. The only thing you could see was a door that was opened to the left. She must have fled, which proved your theory to be correct. She may have been the brains behind everything, but she could not do the killing herself. She needed somebody to do the dirty part for her, which meant that she would be easier to take care of.

Making sure to grasp the knife firmly, you rushed up the stairs and out of the building you were in, which you soon realized was the vacant building which doubled as a cell when needed. Clever, you thought as you looked around, hoping to spot the Monroe woman. You soon did, seeing her running down the street, back towards Gabriel’s church.

You took off in a dead sprint, your youth compared to Deanna’s granting you an advantage. You managed to catch up to her, tackling her to the ground right before she could reach the building. However, she let out a deafening scream, alerting everyone in the church to what was going on outside.

In an instant, everyone that had been partaking in, what you assumed to be, the meeting inside rushed out to see what the commotion was about. You winced as everyone’s eyes fell on you, and you knew that you were not in a particularly good spot at that moment. From their perspective, they could see their well loved and respected leader on the ground, screaming bloody murder, with one of the new and slightly feared members of the community on top of her, blood splattered all over her body whilst she had a knife against Deanna’s back.

Yeah, things were definitely not looking good for you.

“Help me!” Deanna yelled desperately, tears streaming from her eyes. “She’s gonna kill me! She’s the Boogeyman!”

You got off of the woman, raising your hands in surrender, although you still clutched the knife in your hand. You had seen your fair share of horror movies before. You would not be the person that dropped the knife to plead their innocence, only to get stabbed in the back by the actual bad guy. You definitely were not stupid enough for that.

Your breath got knocked out of your chest when your found family pushed towards the front of the crowd, their weapons raised and trained in front of them—at you. They did not truly believe Deanna’s claims, did they? Did they seriously have such little faith in your loyalty, in your beliefs to only kill when it was an absolute necessity? Did they truly not trust you?

“I’m not the killer,” you spoke carefully and slowly, your eyes locking with the familiar cerulean-coloured ones of your partner. He had his crossbow aimed at you, and it made your heart sink. “I’m not. Deanna is. And Jessie. They kidnapped me and revealed the whole thing.”

“That’s a lie!” Deanna cried out desperately. “She’s a liar! A murderer! She attacked Jessie and then chased after me when I walked in on her doing it! She’s a psychopath!”

“I’m not,” you insisted, attempting to keep your voice calm and even. It would not do you any good to fall to your knees and plead with them to believe you. “Jessie attacked me in the church after you all ran after the Boogeyman, after Deanna, and she dragged me down to that empty basement where you were kept, Rick.”

“She’s lying!” It was Deanna’s turn to insist. “She killed them all! Pete and Reg, and then she killed Olivia that day in the garage! She’s a cold-hearted murderer!”

Rick hummed and stepped forward. He slowly trailed his gun away from you, instead aiming it at the ground. “And Spencer? Who killed him, if she killed them all?”

Deanna hesitated for a moment, before she mustered up a reply. “She—she must be working with someone! With Daryl, maybe! You’ve all seen how close they are.”

“Daryl was there with us when we found the Boogeyman in the church. And so was she,” Rick voiced, motioning towards you. “And we never said where we found Olivia’s body, just that we found her dead.” That was the final nail in the coffin. Rick raised his gun and aimed it at Deanna, and you could see the blood drain from her face. Rick cocked his gun and stepped forward, his eyes cold as he regarded the supposed kind-hearted leader of the safe zone. “Don’t try to fight or run. If you do, we will kill you.”

Everything was a blur after that. Rick and Michonne somehow managed to secure handcuffs and ‘arrested’ Deanna, taking her back to the basement she had run from in the first place. They had told you to go see Denise, and that they would take care of Jessie’s body, should she be dead. Heeding their advice, you let Daryl escort you to the infirmary, and waited for Denise to finish up with another patient before she could attend to you.

“Ya alright?” Daryl asked you, finally speaking up after everything that had hone down.

You shrugged. “I’m as okay as can be expected, I guess.” Then, needing to get the question out of the way, you spoke up again. “Did you really believe that what Deanna said was true? That I killed all those people.”

Daryl instantly shook his head. “Nah. I knew from the get go that ya were innocent.”

You frowned slightly at his words. “How?”

“‘Cause Ron came clean to me ‘bout it right before Deanna made that whole spectacle. Said he heard his mom and Deanna talk ‘bout killin’ Olivia right before we found the body. Was gon’ tell everyone, but I got cut short.”

“Then why did you point your crossbow at me?”

“To get yer attention. To get ya to see the code I was sendin’ ya, but ya wouldn’t look down at my hand,” he told you with a small smile. “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised, though. Ya had other things on yer mind.”

You sighed in relief. “Thank god you believed me. I thought Deanna was gonna get away with it.”

“Nah,” Daryl began. “Pretty sure none’a us believed her. We know ya wouldn’t do that. Hell, ya hesitate killin’ a rabbit. Yer too good for somethin’ as terrible as blatant murder.”

You smiled at him and leaned your head on his shoulder, sighing in contentment, being able to relax for the first time in weeks. The killers were caught, and you and your family were safe. You could sleep a little easier that night.

“We did it,” you mumbled, the exhaustion clear in your voice.

“Yeah,” Daryl voiced, pressing a soft kiss on top of your head. “Told ya we would.”

“Yeah, you did. Guess I should learn to listen to you more, huh?”

“It would pro’lly be for the best, yeah,” Daryl joked, chuckling when you punched his shoulder. “M’real glad yer safe, Sweetheart.”

“Me too,” you voiced. “Believe me, me too.” You nuzzled your face into Daryl’s shoulder. “I love you.”

A few beats of silence passed. “Love ya too, sweet girl. More than you’ll ever know.”

[levi-4uckerman]

hello I have a req :D Gojo tears up after yn gives him forehead kiss 🤭

ok anon bet

thank u for the req 💗 i put my own lil spin on it, i hope u still enjoy it!!!

〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️

Satoru Gojo hadn’t been the same since Suguru Geto’s untimely demise.

The consequences of his death aside, Satoru had lost something much bigger than just an old friend. Suguru was his confidante, now a stranger with all of his secrets.

Satoru had merely made sure that those secrets would never see the light of day. The depths of Suguru Geto’s depravity would, never again, see the light of day.

“Gojo? Helloooo? Are you listening?”

Baby blues flared to life, meeting your concerned gaze. He’d done it again, let his mind wander to… unsavory places. He forced a tight lipped smile. “Of course. You were telling me about, uh… your thing with the, uhm. Thing?”

“Have you been getting enough sleep lately?” You inquired lightly. You placed your hand gingerly against his milky skin, feeling for a fever. “You could be sick.”

Satoru took a deep breath and held it. You didn’t know. To you, he probably just seemed stressed. Out of it. You didn’t know that he hadn’t been sleeping, you didn’t know about the walking nightmare that his life had become after he killed his best friend.

“Here, come, let me heal you,” you said, ushering him into your office. “You obviously haven’t been healing yourself.”

He wondered idly if your technique reversal could heal wounds that even he couldn’t see.

Like the big, gaping hole in his chest.

The thrum of your technique filled him with warmth, made him feel lighter. You were always much more gentle with your power than Shoko, whose hands were always too rough and her prodding too deep. He dared even relax a bit as you fussed over him, healing various little wounds he’d incurred and forgotten about.

He noticed, suddenly, how close you’d gotten. You peered into his eyes and frowned at whatever you saw in them. “You have some ocular damage,” you said. “Have you been wearing your blindfold?”

For the first time in a long time, Satoru was speechless. He was too busy, too fixated on the way your genuine concern felt in his soul, settled warm within his belly. When was the last time someone cared?

“I know you’re sensitive about your eyes,” you continued, furrowed brows and all. “Did you… want to heal them yourself?”

He knew he probably should. And yet… you were so close to him. Your perfume smelled so nice. Your heartbeat, unnaturally audible yet oddly calming, so sweetly in his ears. Why… why couldn’t he tell you no?

“Nah,” he said, hoping to sound even a modicum like himself. “You do it.”

You pulled up a stool, stepping up so that the peaks of his snowy hair was about an inch or so lower than the top of your own head. You were so close that his breath tickled your face in a way that you were certain was less than decent. “The eyes are complex and sensitive organs,” you explained. “I need to be careful here.”

Satoru swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “Do what you have to do.”

And so, with a hand braced in each side of the strongest sorcerer’s head, you concentrated your technique on the most valuable eyes in the world.

In that moment, you realized something about your technique. You realized that, 1.) eyes were, in fact, windows to the soul. And 2.) you could do more with eyes than just clean them.

You saw it, him standing over Suguru’s body, the life leaving his crumpled form. You saw the blood trickling from beneath his former best friend, the way the world tilted as Satoru turned sharply and walked away forever. You saw it. You saw it all.

Warm, firm hands gripped your arms, pulling you from your thoughts. Satoru’s eyes were squeezed shut, his expression tense as he clung to you. His fingers tightened around your wrists, and without thinking, you tilted your face up and pressed your lips softly to his forehead. “I’m so sorry,” you whispered against his skin, making no effort to stop your technique from binding you together.

Breathing in your scent, Satoru’s breath hitched in his throat. He knew, then, exactly what had happened. Exactly what you had seen. He didn’t know how, and didn’t particularly care— because it felt so good for something to just be known without him having to explain it. He didn’t want to relive it. He didn’t want to talk about it. But god, did it feel good to be vulnerable about it. Before he realized what was happening, he felt the wetness on his cheeks. Warm, sticky wetness that clung to his snowy lashes. For a moment, he even thought that it was you crying.

Because he was the strongest, right? And the strongest didn’t…

“I’m so sorry,” you just repeated, pulling him closer to you.

“It’s oka—“

“It’s not,” you said, pulling away to look him in the eyes. Those big, dumb, beautiful eyes. “It’s not.”

And for once, in the tiny, cramped office/morgue that you shared with Shoko at Jujutsu High, Satoru felt like he could be something other than the strongest.

〰️〰️〰️〰️

i’m not great at writing angst/fluff/comfort like that hahaha but i love practice! 💗 hit me w ur requests and help me grow as a writer ✍️ 💕

[phramboise]

only lovers left alive — simon”ghost”rileyxfem!reader

Death, gore, MDNI, smut, established past relationship, vague comfort?, 3.3k words.

: you’ve been sleeping for long enough, and he always noticed. maybe you’ll not only love the winter days anymore.

...

A fish, and a man. Both on the surface of the dirty water, both reek of ammonia and disturbed flesh. Both rotting, and stomach inflated, but the man’s are clearer in sight, vivid. More violent, primal, disgusting. As if all the colour is dulled around for him to put on a show of his defeated stage. Skin unnaturally yellow, arms sprawled out, the body still intact with his skeleton in blisters. Deranged, a man who stains the water he’s in. And a fish. Both dead, but the fish saddens her more. Both are dead, and both by her, but the fish saddens her more. 

For she didn’t even notice it as she killed it, for love is violent and much kills, but she was young enough, or maybe such emotion is foreign, novel to her. She killed it anyhow. The fish obliges, tastes the attention, in a symbiotic affection with her. But it swims more around the edges on the tank as days go by, swims higher on the surface, until one fin lays smooth on its side, not moving, until it can’t swim straight, and until it dies. 

The man is still in the water, his face down. She can see what he would look like in a few weeks, that he would decompose slower in cold, no vultures around to dig on his skin. She can imagine the soapy glaze his flesh would have, and the green, and the violet. Hypothermia. Petrification. Bisection. And a hound, it’s mouth wet and sticky, dribbling in red and saliva. She can see the skeleton sneaking out the flesh as the hyenas around shake their furs, off the blood and the water. Loyal and starving, a rabid dog in need of someone to find its way back to —

Her machete, on the other hand, is very much so alive, painting red rivulets on the snow-white ground. Sharp colour stripes off the chrome, turns into a deep velvet on earth, her hair is soiled, and her body is covered in red splotches, on her knees as she eyes the handiwork, trying to stay conscious, alert. She kicks her feet to clean the bits of the man off herself too. A roar in her ears and her temples feel like it’s her brain that’s splintered with a machete inside, eyes twitch as she stares at the man’s gouged one. And she tries to cough it off, coughs and coughs until she starts to gag, looking away from the scenery which she is the master to. She rubs her palms, rips the dead man off his gloves for hers are soaked in blood. 

She’s better a gun than she is a person. Horror in her bane, she’s a better swordslayer than she is human. A little girl with fish food, or another with a rusty machete, she’s both. Can’t say she takes pride in neither, but the man doesn’t upset her in anyhow.

;;

It takes one more night to look up without a ceiling, before you get your way back, before the static of your comm buzzes again, the familiar voice, and the authority he embodies mercilessly. The Lieutenant. A pleasant sizzle follows his voice through, your eyes shot close as you feel through the gear with both hands to reach the radio, pressing the cold plastic to your ear. He disperses the smoke in your mind that dwells about the throes of your own demise, the thought of if this is how death will feel for you. He guides you, the way through the fuming howl of the tundra, becomes your sun chariot, your servant of peace and light, meeting you halfway, and when you encounter he doesn’t ask you to cradle you, does it naturally as he sees you. Sleight of hand, you don’t bother. You need a trace to make you believe in him, a keepsake of the times where he had done it so willingly. Something to hold you back to routine, to life. You’ve been sleeping long enough, he notices. He wakes you gently, rocks you kindly with hands you’re sure that has seen much more than yours did. But he wakes you kindly, a soothing hand lands on your nape, steadies you into this realm. You don’t pull back, and you don’t notice the build-up, the tension on you. But only the release.

You don’t know why you cry. He doesn’t say it to you between countless mantras over and over of how he thought he lost you, again, but you know it eases him to see an emotion on your face, and you feel it too, however ugly you think you wail. You need to breathe to cry. You breathe to cry. You said you don’t want him anymore, but no one would breathe in your scent like he survives on it with his head heavy on your shoulder, no one would kiss the dried blood on your brow and your matted hair. You know no one would blow warmth on your cold-stiff palms, not like he does. No one would waste himself, on you. No one would lend their blood to heat yours. You never said someone would anyway.

Adrenaline imperceptibly loses its grip on you, subsides and alters into pain. It creeps under your skin, trembles on your chin and prickles your eyes, making its presence known. Your step loses momentum as you lend your weight on him, and he grabs you with very capable hands.  

After wails turn into mulled cries, and they turn into woeful moans, he lifts your head off his chest, leans his forehead against yours, gives you a few breaths, gives your forehead a kiss, stays a few moments until your heart thumps steadily to his, then pulls back. He nods slowly as you loosen your grip on him. Pulls his mask down again, he walks you through the icy terrain in hasty affection, shelters you in the safehouse.

;

First thing he does after he settles you on the fur seat, is to take off the foreign gloves off your frostbite fingers, throws them in the rusty barrel’s fire, burns it clean. Blood sticks onto his fingers and he wastes no time taking his gloves out his pocket to wear it on your hands. Its lengthy fingers swallow yours, and you look down at the thick fabric that adorns your hands as he wipes the blood off your face. You notice he wears no gloves, and you wear his now. A silent compliance in the way you sit, you only hiss when the dried clots pull the strands of your hair as he drags the cloth slowly along your skin. He reaches, taking each hand of yours in his, examining carefully, running his fingers over the lines of your palms. A futile tremor goes through him as he kneels before you, letting out a slow, shaky sigh as he disrobes you off your soaked wet gear, clads you with his spare. He doesn’t ask for a thing in return, and you only watch the tail of his tattoo through the exposed skin of his wrist as his hands hover over your elbows. He lowers his gaze, frees his messed hair out his balaclava, his throat bobbing as he swallows. He bites his cheek in thought, and you slither your palm to his cheek. He goes still before he looks up at you, big brown eyes and fanned lashes melt golden under the fire burning at the middle of the room. He blinks, then his bare fingers skate between yours, interweaves his fingers through the gaps between your own, he nudges at the fabric that coats your wrist, pushing the cloth up with his nose so his lips meet the inside of your wrist. You let out a faint breath, and it flutters his hair as he lays his head gently on your thighs, sitting on the concrete.

You play around with the little beads of the metal of his dog tags, and he moves his unoccupied hand around the side of your leg, pressing his cheek further onto the warmth that slowly comes back to your body. Under your imperious gaze, he rests his eyes, and you sink back onto the mattress, finally breathing the way you should.

;;

The plume of the dusty covering tightens your nose, and you wake with the scent of the bitter miasma of the bloodied gloves in the fire, scorching the sticky liquid, churning in your nostrils. The air is heavy, and the interior is plain. The cold outside whispers through the uncaulked edges of the wooden window, and you rest your eyes a moment longer before searching for the abandon of Simon’s warmth,

Only to find him sitting on a log next to a woodpile outside, elbows nested against his knees, minding the floor as he smokes. Silent as you walk towards, you cut him off his smoke as you reach your hand over his shoulder, behind him. He twists around to watch you circle behind him, eyes on you as you slide your fingertips along his neck, not letting you out his sight as you sit on the smaller log next him.

His cigarette toys you between his lips, and you lean to brush your lips right above his jaw. He turns a bit more to your side, slides the log you sit on closer to his. And when you take his glove off your hand to give it to him, he only takes one to wear to the hand that’s not close to yours, and holds your bare hand with his unclothed one, then drapes his arm along your shoulders, that holds the cigarette. Moving it to your lips, eyes fixated on you, he has two vices again. You and the smoke. But you’re only here to get your only one back. Hand clasps the collar of his coat, this one is longer, a proper kiss, an impossibly slow caress on his cheek, closer to his lips this time. One that says thank you. You see his throat move when he hitches, leaves a long breath as he can’t contain it. He dulls the ember of the smoke in a second, then his hand finds your face, holding you to him by the pull of his arm threaded behind your shoulder. He steeples his fingers under your chin, moves his head, leans in, and stills when there’s only a breath’s width between your longing lips. And before he closes that, he looks at your expression. This close, you’re realer, truer, and ever so far still. Closed-eyed, waiting, wanting. He draws in your whine, holds it a second longer for his mind to never forget this moment too, along many others with you.  

How easily you got him wound up.

When he brings your lips together, his breath shudders. He surges forward, the cold tip of his nose digs on your cheek, and you taste your name as he groans it on your parting lips, hand on your chin winces, and reaches to your cheek, angling your head deeper onto him, his lips slip on yours without friction. Your hand on his collar falls down to his knee, and he turns fully towards you as you slither it up to his thigh, kissing as you hook your bare thumb around the clasp of his belt, feeling the band beneath the trousers. The rough surface sends frictions between your thighs when he pulls you towards him on the log you sit on, and you cling onto him tighter.

He parts with a sound of your wet lips separating, for a moment, brushes his thumbs on your gentle eyelids, warm cheeks. Searching for any sign on your face that disapproves, that doesn’t want this as much as he does. You only slip your cold palm under his t-shirt.

“God…”

A firm grip encircles your waist, and he scoops you bodily, rushes back in the one-room safehouse in tenacity.

You’ve been sleeping for long enough, and he always noticed. And a grasp, he pulls you forward, insistently rocks you off your sleep.

“Come here.”

Teeth on teeth, they clash and clatter and a candy floss tongue coats the cold, his arms finally find you. Both hugging you to him and soothing the windblow, but your skin is warm now, and you ache for a different fire. He devours your whiny hums, leads your hands slowly on where he wants it, where he knows you want to touch. The fire in the distance heats the side of your face and a shudder runs down your body as a soft noise escapes your lips, he keeps his eager lips on your neck, his shaky breath ruffles your hair as the hand on your back spreads his fingers, reaching to the bottom of his cloth on you, his thumb flicks the clasp of your bra, his little finger traces the waistband of your jeans, fumbling through skin and fabric. You help him, out his clothes, and stagger yourself forward to his broad chest. His eyes twinkle in the low light, and you feel your knuckles on where his belt meets his abdomen, running slowly towards, up his chest, then it’s not only knuckles, kissing as you move your hand up to his throat. He tilts his head as he takes you in, your hand with amused ardour, looking down at you, lips brushing your temple as he whispers your name onto your hair, a soft, breathy chuckle of surprise.

Until he misses your lips again, and when he does, he rises his hand to your jaw, turning your head up to him. Moving his hand back to your hair, and a little tug, he leans down.

He presses you forward without resistance from you, and you feel the worn mattress on your back, his kisses trail down your face as he follows down, feeling you with you, in a way that your past affairs feel like mockery to you. The arms around you move, are his fingers shaking?.. He’s tense, his cheek glides down your breast, plating a firm kiss on your chest, you hold onto his back and his hand dives down, under your jeans, feeling the cotton of your underwear. His forehead brushes against your jaw as he lets out a withering whimper, feeling your heat through your clothed core, pressing an open-mouthed kiss on the slick flush of your parted lips, rolling your bottom lip between his as he presses his open palm on your sopping cunt, pressing the heel of his palm on your swollen clit, tugging you in him, tugging your jeans down roughly, the button of it pops out and he almost rips the zipper, and he swallows your gasp, kisses you until your jaw can’t keep up.

Forever, just one more try than never. Maybe there is a way for you, not one of pleasantries, one without him if you try hard enough. For now, though, you stay engrained in the facets of his life, between whorls of his fingertips and everything else that caresses you of him. There is no way for you to leave, no way that you are not embedded in his devoid heart. His heartbeat mirrors yours and he has your breath to breathe in, and you feel it. You feel him everywhere, under the yellow hue of the barrel’s fire, under his body, over the lilting shadow on the wall, fingers deep inside you. Where his silhouette ends, yours begin, and he means it. Promises it, prays it, beneath honeyed words, in rhythmic intonation as he gives you every inch of his love. And you give such sweet noises that trickles down his earlobe, gently grazing with your teeth, drawing out antsy whimpers. “That’s it. That’s my girl.”

You were going to kill him one day. All with this exaltation he willingly offers at your feet, with the idolatry that evokes within him in your cashmere walls, if not with the way you suck him in, hold and pull his digits deep inside you. You overwhelm him, exhilarate him. “Aren’t you?”  

He keeps on, keeps on until you don’t feel like you are the ruler of your body, until you feel nothing but the transcendental bliss as you let out your high on his fingers, feel the coil in you arch, tighten and snap like harp strings. No one in the world has ever missed anyone like this. Lucky you.

He hums, and cradles his large palm on the side of your face, an unconscious spell moves and rests your head to it, he just smiles. He moves his drenched fingers along your lips, smears your essence on your parting lips, and invites his fingers in your warm mouth, threatening an oral fixation. Then he drags them out, pressing on your bottom lip, his wet fingers draw an invisible line that raises goosebumps on its way over your naked body, resting on the plush of your hip as he tastes you on your lips.

You nodded yes as he first asked you, and he acknowledges again. “You are… mmm… yes, you are.”

He keeps humming with his mouth slack on yours, entwining his hand along your thigh, switches your body on his. He’s not one to tell you with his words, to use and waste him, violate him softly, ruin him for anybody else as a kind coalescence of yours, but he tells you to “Keep going….  just­— fuck! Fuck, baby… keep going…”, an assuring gaze that is ice down your spine.  

And once, you heard as he thought you were sleeping, that he really, really, likes you. Very much, he added then. You grin at the memory, and how it picked this time for retrieval, thinking you never heard him. You clench yourself around his cock, steadying your palms on his shoulders, fuck him the way he tells you through the way his cut nails dig deeper onto your hips, reaching his palm along your spine as he pulls you toward him, kissing your lips, can’t keep sync as you ride him mercilessly. And you do, and you are.

—

He tells you things no one would dare say with their eyes open, and touches you, shows you yourself in a way you have never seen, all your beauty when the witnesses of your psyche are gone. Now, you feel the ghost of his touch along your back, fingertips massaging your nape, carding your hair, contemplating deeper. He lays beside you, pressing his nose on your shoulder blade as he steals a little kiss of your sumptuous skin.

“You asleep?”

-you take long enough before you decide to answer, so he just slips out an I love you.-

;;

Seeing snow lessening as the SUV drives away soothes her nerves. Watching an old man as he watches an old couple, hand in hand as they walk away. The strident, speedy bow of a violin, both pierces through her. Horses on a flatland, a singing smile and being someone’s Phaedra. Two coffee cups in one sink. Running around until the throat breathes sour, matching shapes on your childhood house’s ceiling, reading an old journal of yours. Two healthy fish in a full tank — mind alters the memories in coping. Balmy winter trees. Seconds and seasons. — like the day, just like the night. Like death, chasing them all. Like the never-ending games, all will end. You can’t hold the dying sun as it moves further away off your seat, but you can slant back in the backseat of the vehicle, looking at the driver’s seat, to him. Even better deal, you slide to the middle of the seat, resting your palm on the back of his seat, inch your face to his neck, and he drives. Breathe the vestiges of your scent off him in, press a placid smile on the tattoo of your initial under the fabric of his mask. Maybe you’ll not only love the winter days anymore.

[thatsatricky1]

† 𝕽𝖊𝖙𝖗𝖎𝖇𝖚𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓 † ‘Punishment’ chapter 𝟙

Synopsis: Y/n a once prodigy child, later on detective, finds herself working on the case of her brother’s murder, also a former detective himself. Leading down a long winding hole of crime, death, gore and mixed feelings she never thought would surface with all that was happening. Mixed feelings that should never even be entertained.

Pairing: Ateez Ot8 x AFAB (F) Reader

Genre: Crime, Horror, Mystery, Romance & Thriller.

Warnings: Blood, death, fire, physical violence, trauma.

Word count: 3,3k+

Disclaimer: This does not depict an accurate picture of Ateez and this is strictly fantasy.

Muffled whimpers of pain were the only sounds besides a light hissing noise in the air of the room. The once white marbled floors were tainted with random splatters of rich red blood. The furniture that had once been laid out in a meticulous way now were in a disheveled state.

“Would you like to know what gave it all away? What made it so painfully easy to understand exactly who did it?” A female voice called out from the opposite side of the now wrecked room.

The only response she got was a pained groan and a disgustingly wet choked noise. A mangled, bloody, injured male coiled in on himself as if he was still in a healthy enough state to protect himself from another brutal and violent attack if needed. It was obvious the injured man would not be able to defend himself anymore.

“You got cocky, not to mention how sloppy you’d been compared to the usual carefully, obsessively clean kills you’d done before.” She called out, sharp eyes drinking in the sight ahead of her.

The injured man gave no response, instead trying his best to move, though it was a feeble and pathetic attempt. Only managing to raise his upper body off the ground with one shaky arm, the other held against his stomach to put pressure against the bloody wound he’d gotten. His own legs laid useless beneath him.

“You were high on the feeling of being above anyone else, and that pride was really your demise. Seeing as you ended up being quite sloppy with this one, very messy I must say.” She continued criticising his past actions.

The injured male couldn’t continue holding his own weight up, back crashing into the wall behind him causing his head to knock quite harshly. His body reacting negatively to more pain as he dry heaved, only spit flinging past his lips no more vomit left to come up his throat and past his mouth. The vomit he’d expelled earlier laid just beside him.

“And don’t get me started on your trademark, god what a cliche. A playing card, really? It just screams never loved as a child. Not to mention how incredibly dumb it was for a former juvenile to leave a fingerprint on it, granted it was only half a thumb print but it was enough.” She mocked him further, enjoying knocking his pride down, embarrassing him.

The male’s body trembled slightly, whether from anger at the onslaught of embarrassment or pain of the wound inflicted upon him no one would know but himself but it could have well been both. He managed to turn his blurred gaze ahead at the woman, eyes scrunching in pain as he tried to speak but all that came out was a scratchy hoarse cough.

The female watching let out an amused laugh of the injured male’s misfortune. Something that had been coming for him for a long time now after what he had done.

“Too easy. Really it was childsplay in the end. I’d already figured it out months ago.” She revealed her knowledge of the man’s cruel actions had been discovered long ago.

The woman finally standing up from the modern slick white chair she’d sat in for under three minutes. Body still for only a moment before she took a step forward.

The injured man cowering away, which did not help as his back dug painfully into the wall behind him, trapped with nowhere to go but forwards, which was a waiting death sentence. Though his view was blurred he could tell she watched him with calculated eyes, as if ten steps ahead of him.

“Though I’d known for so long. I let you believe you were safe. Let you settle, drop your guard down. Make you believe that you’d actually gotten away with killing him and every victim before him.” She pushed on one slow step at a time.

“I mean you must have felt like a god when you, a nobody good for nothing less than average serial killer, managed to kill a detective. But what you forgot to think about or maybe even look into was what department he was from, more importantly if he had any relatives.” She continued but now stood in front of him, standing above him.

The injured man winced as he craned his head upwards to look at her. Yet all he got in return was an amused look, humored by his obvious pain caused by no other than herself. Silently moving to crouch in front of him, his gaze following her.

“You killed L/n B/n exactly nine months two hundred and seventy four days ago, that’s nine months and one day. That’s exactly how long I’ve been waiting to return the favour, to show you exactly how he felt in his last moments.” The amused look she wore was wiped away.

“Unfortunately for you, you killed my brother. More unfortunate for you I am a really good fucking detective. So was my brother, you just caught him by surprise with a dirty trick. You killed him for your own sick twisted pleasure not thinking of the consequences. Not thinking you’d get caught. But you did. And now, now you get to experience the very same torturous pain you inflicted on my brother.”

Her tone not wavering nor changing in tone as her hand moved to grasp the man’s chin tightly so his gaze could not stray from hers. His eyes wide in panic and disbelief. Tears welling and pooling in his eyes at the realisation he’s been toyed with this whole time.

She tugged him closer by his chin watching the way he held back a noise that still gurgled in his throat.

“You wouldn’t. You can’t. It’s against your code/ You can’t kill me.” The man croaked out, a crazed mocking smile he showed with blood smeared across the obnoxiously white teeth he had. A feeble last attempt. Fake smugness on his face as he desperately hoped to not die.

“Maybe I would have let you just rot in prison, of course before you killed my brother in cold blood. But now? Now it’s different. I’m starting with you, and I will work my way through the disgusting organisation you serial killers have managed to build up. There might be corruption in the justice system, but I’m not one of them. I will not let you go unpunished.” Her response was sharp and to the point.

Her grip on his chin disappeared causing his head to drop from the exhaustion of blood loss he’d had, though not enough to die. Moving to stand up, she continued staring down at him.

“This is your punishment Kim Do. May you rot in hell and never find peace.” Y/n spoke her final words to her brothers murderer.

Turning away from him while pulling a metal lighter out of her pocket.

Kim Do manages to look up using all his strength, eyes glancing at the lighter, before moving to see her watching something, his eyes following her gaze to the kitchen from the open living room.

“No, no, no, no. You can’t do this to me. I AM KIM DO. YOU CAN’T DO THIS. I AM A FUCKING GOD.” Kim Do panicked sobbing now yelling angrily at the fact he was about to die. How he’d not noticed the smell of gas in the air this whole time, that she’d managed to turn his stove on through their fighting at one stage. That he’d been bested.

Y/n only walked away from the manic man who sobbed and yelled out till she made it to the door, pushing it open wordlessly. Taking a far step outwards before facing him again.

Kim Do heaving now as he stared her down, she opened the cover of the metal lighter absentmindedly toying with him as she tapped it lightly. Kim Do’s hand that had been held against his wound on his stomach falling to the ground with no more point to trying to stop the bleeding.

Whatever was at the tip of Kim Do’s tongue that he wanted to say never got the chance to leave his lips as Y/n finally lit the lighter, chucking it into the house while shutting the door with a slam. Kim Do’s scream of terror covered by the sound of chemicals reacting and exploding in twisted flames.

Y/n body relaxed in on itself, her body feeling a slight sense of peacefulness after nine months. Body warming up at the sudden high temperatures admitted even through the door. Taking a few more steps back.

Turning on her heels to make a swift and hidden exit, thoughts working in overdrive knowing she was long from finishing her personal mission. This organisation would go down, even if it would cost her own life as she did so. She had avenged her brother but she wasn’t done. She wanted revenge for every life lost to the hands of serial killers in Seoul. Y/n wanted retribution.

Drip

The obnoxious sound of water from the kitchen sink continued dripping from a pushed back much needed repair through the otherwise silent apartment besides the steady ticking of a clock.

Y/n sat at her dining room table, silently sitting on a plush chair moving to grab a wet makeup cloth remover. Swiping it across her cheek, the white slowly turned into a rich red wine colour as the blood that had splattered onto her face may have been dreier but was still too fresh to have oxidised into a rusty brown.

Her gaze however never strayed from the photo framed on the wall. It was a picture taken two nearly three years ago. Her grandfather, grandmother, brother and her, stuck in a frozen image.

The photograph had been taken in the elderly resident center where her grandmother had been placed for better 24/7 care. It had been taken at a moment where her grandmother had a clear moment which was rare and few in between. Remembering her husband and two grandchildren. Each one of the four smiling in delight at the camera that had been held by a hard working health care worker who used it to photograph the pure moment.

Her grip on the wet makeup wipe squeezing as she continued staring. Letting her eyes finally close, taking a deep breath in, letting go of the wipe that dropped onto the dining room table. Only the sound of the dripping tap and rhythmic ticking of the clock being present in the lonely house, one that used to be so full of life.

Only opening her eyes when her body relaxed, her eyes no longer on the framed photo and instead gazed down at her table. A blurry photo laid right next to the now dirty wet wipe.

“You have no idea what’s coming for you.” Y/n’s voice echoed through the empty living room dried blood from the one punch Kim Do had got on her dry now flaking against her nose and lip, gaze unmoving from the blurred photo.

The photo was of a dull building. A building people would pass by without a second thought. To others it was just some office building like any other, but it wasn’t just that. No, that was all just an illusion. A farce. For an ugly, horror filled organisation.

“Kim Do died.” Wooyoung declared as he walked into the room, seven pairs of eyes settling on him as he did so.

“You mean, Kim Do the guy who was likely going to get caught or die in the hands of one of his victims defending themselves against him since he was becoming sloppy?” Yeosang scoffed out from where he was sat on a black velvet couch, picking at his nails in boredom.

“Hilariously he died from a gas leak explosion. The disclosed file from the firestation explained the cause of the gas leak was from his stove. Though, the firestation was fast enough to get the fire under control so only Kim Do died and other residents in the building survived.” Wooyoung explained what he’d found out.

“At least we won’t have to deal with hearing his aggraving voice in the next meeting anymore.” Jongho hummed out from where he sat on the other black velvet couch polishing one of his many knives in his collection.

“God that guy would not shut up about the fact he killed a detective and got away with it.” San groaned out in annoyance, rubbing his face at the memories of Kim Do smugly mentioning it at least twice every time he showed up at a meeting.

“Maybe he didn’t get away with it.” Hongjoong finally spoke from where he stood facing the large window outlooking the city of Seoul.

“Pretty sure he did if any of his boring monologues about it went.” Yunho piped up, crossing his arms leaning against a pool table in the living room.

“Just a thought.” Hongjoong hummed out, absentmindedly tapping his finger against his belt.

The seven others watched him closely wanting to know what was going on in their leader's head.

Taking steady steps, Y/n continued her path down the long hallway. The building had a modern vibe to it like most office buildings in Seoul these days. With random objects, paintings and such brightening up the place. But it was the least of her concern.

“Like I said earlier, I’ll go check out all the fire exits and make sure the fire alarms are properly installed and still working along with the sprinkler systems. You will make sure all of the security cameras are in working order and don’t forget to check out the security office.” A man in his late 40s addressed Y/n, clearly fed up with his job and was counting down the days of retirement.

Y/n only nodded, not bothering to respond as they separated paths. It was child’s play as an undercover detective to easily fake job experience and go undercover with random jobs to help with cases. This may have been an overuse of her job perks but that wasn’t going to stop her. She could easily make up a plausible excuse later on.

Moving towards the elevator, Y/n moved her hand up, fingernails cased in black nail polish that was already chipping away with time, tugging her medical mask slightly more upwards to cover the bridge of her nose properly, the lower part of her face hidden with a baseball cap with the company logo on it covering most of the upper side of her face.

Clicking the upper elevator button, she stood silently, not having to wait long for the doors to open up. Stepping into the sleek and clean elevator and pressing the button for the tenth floor where she knew the security surveillance room was located.

Watching the numbers climbing higher and higher only for the elevator to slow down and stop at the eighth floor. Y/n making sure her body didn’t tense, muscles relaxed. Eye’s watching as the metal doors start opening again revealing two young men.

One slightly shorter than the other with light brown hair, wearing grey/blue washed out jeans that was held by a toned down studded belt, with a beige sleeveless shirt tucked into it and beige arm sleeves with a black see through jacket on top of it.

The taller of the two had jet black hair, most of his fringe being pushed back but also partially against his forehead, wearing plain black jean’s with a black leather belt to match, a tight black button up shirt tucked in with an also black leather jacket. An all black outfit.

Not particularly office coded dressing then again dress code was different in any working environment and she’d already seen multiple people wearing more than interesting and odd outfits today in the building.

Taking a step to the side so there was enough space for the men to enter, they took the opportunity to step in. The shorter of the two moved to stand in the center while the taller stood to the side of him.

“Could you press the eleventh floor button please.” The shorter spoke out causing her gaze to move to him, standing side by side. Y/n just giving a slight nod in answer, hand grazing the already lit up tenth floor button going to the right slightly to press the eleventh floor button.

Hongjoong’s gaze focusing on her fingers noting the black nail polish that needed to be redone soon from the way it was already chipping, his own fingers twitching at his sides, his fingernails freshly painted the night beforehand.

“More repairs?” The taller asked out as the elevator doors started to close causing Y/n to shift her gaze over to him now.

“Is there any more repairs to be done in the building, I could have sworn they were finished.” He gave more context to his question causing her to shake her head moving to look in front at the metal doors again.

“No, we are here to double check the safety on the fire exits, that the sprinklers are in working order in case of an emergency and that the security cameras are in working order.” Y/n sharply responded, tone never wavering as she explained why the ‘company’ was there today. Voice slightly muffled by the material of her mask.

The taller letting out a hum at this, eyeing the barely visible face. Though all three of their attention was stolen by the elevator opening again on the tenth level. Y/n swiftly making pace as she left the elevator not turning to give them a last glance instead making her way towards the security room that she currently mapped out in her head.

“Interesting.” Hongjoong muttered eyes glued to her figure leaving. Seonghwa only let out a small hum in agreement, his own eyes fixed on her departing figure as well, both only looking away when the doors closed.

Closing the security room door after excusing the security guard for ‘maintenance’ purposes, Y/n grabbed the dark brown leather rolling chair pulling it back so she could sit comfortably on it.

Hand shooting out towards the keypad flicking through camera channels seeing as not all the hundreds of camera angles could fit on the display screens. Finger pausing in its scrolling as her eyes landed on the middle security screen where it showed the eleventh floor hallway, a clear view of the elevator as it opens up.

The two men from before stepping out, a sort of smug confident aura encasing the two in the way they walked down the hallway. The shorter of the two taking his time to look up at the camera as if knowing who sat on the other side watching.

Flashing the camera a curious look with an amused quirk against his lips as he gazed at it. Eyes never leaving it until the two walked past. Y/n hand automatically flicking to the next camera watching the backs of the two men, leaning forwards slightly from the brown leather chair.

“Kim Hongjoong and Park Seonghwa.” Y/n whispered out into the otherwise empty room with only her present revealing to know one she knew exactly who the two men had been. Her tone dripping with distaste.

“You have no idea just how difficult your lives will become very soon, along with every person you work with. Enjoy the peace and secrecy you believe you own for now. It won’t last long.”

Finishing her monologue she spoke to herself, Y/n got to work accessing past security video footage from multiple floors, placing a thumb drive down against the black stained wood of the desk she sat at.

Prologue | Chapter one | Chapter two

𝔗𝔞𝔤𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱: @hecateslittlewitchling

(Comment, message or Inbox me to be added to taglist)

𝔖𝔢𝔯𝔦𝔢𝔰 𝔪𝔞𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱: click here

[destiny-in-the-universe]

if you could see me (in the shadows of my history) [DannyMay 2024: Invisibility]

Night had begun to set in Amity Park which, of course, led to Danny patrolling the streets; this time, he chose to go alone- having already transformed into his ghostly persona, flying above the buildings to get a better view but things seemed quiet tonight. Perhaps a little too much. 

A crisp, chill wind nipped at his hair, and he instinctively shivered for half a second, only to realize the weather didn’t affect him as badly as it did before the accident. As he made another circle around, he suddenly became keenly aware that something - or rather someone - was on his tail. Right as Phantom went to turn around, a small wisp of cold breath escaped his lips; he groaned in annoyance but of course, he had to deal with the matter at hand. 

He had a duty to uphold. 

The ghost wasn’t someone he recognized, but Phantom fired an ectoplasmic blast - a warning - at his opponent. 

“And here I thought you were going to make it a night to remember!” Phantom grinned, narrowly dodging an attack from the ghost who suddenly decided he would make a good snack. “Woah, easy!” 

His irises flashed an even brighter green, firing another shot - concentrating his energy into a ball before flinging it hard toward the ghost which appeared more animalistic in nature. The pair were equally on the offensive, although Phantom was more determined in capturing his foe than truly causing harm- easily gliding and dodging the attacks but things could never be that easy. 

As per usual, the city hero had been too focused on the ghost to notice anything else. 

He startled suddenly when a laser beam shot his way, cursing in alarm- narrowly managing to dodge before a quiet gasp escaped him. 

“Huntress?” Phantom gaped, only to scowl as he avoided being whipped from behind by the tail of his ghostly opponent. “Look, now is a really bad time! I’m trying to capture this ghost, if you couldn’t tell!”

The Red Huntress herself glared at him, only to sneer, “and let you get away? I don’t think so!”

Phantom sighed as he whipped out the Fenton Thermos, quickly ensnaring the incoming ghost and then focusing his attention on Valerie the Red Huntress- trying to reason with her, not wanting anything to escalate when it wasn’t necessary. 

“C’mon, I’m sure you’ve got better things to do!” He exclaimed, readying his hands to fire ectoplasma near Valerie- at least give him a chance in taking off. 

Apparently, she was hot on his trail - no matter what he did - and Phantom sped faster, quickening his pace to make sure he could make it somewhere he could change back; the huntress would never target a civilian, but that didn’t stop his heart from thundering loudly in his chest- unable to prevent the gnawing fear she might actually hurt him.

Would she keep trying if she knew the truth? 

Phantom slowed down when he felt she was out of sight, taking in a forced gulp of air but it seemed Fate had it out for him today. Before he could make sense of what happened, he let out a startled, albeit strangled, cry as he was knocked against the ground; the hero thrashed in discomfort, attempting to escape the net that kept him pinned down - panic seizing his lungs for half a second, wondering if this would surely be his own demise. 

“Finally gotcha, ghost!”

Had he been human, he would’ve felt his face drain of color - attempting to call his powers and make a clean getaway. This couldn’t end like this. 

Not now. 

“Wait-” He pleaded, taking in deep but slow breaths and concentrating on his abilities- anything to escape the net ensnaring him. “Valerie, please.”

The Red Huntress readied her gun, keeping it pointed in Phantom’s direction before she paused, “the hell’s wrong with you? And how the hell do you know my name, scum?” 

“You don’t understand- I’m on your side here!” He exclaimed, but seeing her charge the gun - something which would surely kill him - made him flinch; Phantom watched with bated breath before- now.

He didn’t wait for her reaction, immediately turning invisible and phasing out of the net.

As much he wanted to try and make peace with Valerie, that had been terrifying. 

Just how much longer would he have to remain in the shadows before he felt comfortable making himself known? 

Only time would tell. 

Word Count: 738

[kvailyang]

The battle began suddenly. Too suddenly. Kuai and Bi-Han knew who they were fighting against. However, Tomas didn't recognize the attacker. He didn't know he was from the Netherrealm. Smoke's mind was filled with thoughts that weren't even his own, as if someone took control of his body. Using his last strength, Tomas teleported himself away from his comrades to avoid harming them.

Meanwhile, Kuai and Bi-Han defended themselves against the relentless attacks of the Ghost, who was trying to kill them both. The brothers decided to act in unison, deflecting Scorpion's attacks simultaneously, not allowing him to attack either of them. Kuai was about to freeze the Specterr, but he threw a dagger on a chain, hitting Cryomancer right in the eye. Kuai screamed in pain and recoiled from both, clutching his face.

"Kuai!" he exclaimed, turning back to Scorpion and impaling him with his icy sword. The sword pierced deeply into Hanzo's body, enough to immobilize him. Immediately after the sword vaporized, the Specter teleported away from the brothers, warning them that he would return.

After the battle, Han immediately ran to Kuai, helping him up. There was a scar on the younger one's face, still bleeding. With effort, Kuai stood up.

"Shirai Ryu scum will pay" — Bi-Han said coldly. "I will personally track him down."

Bi-Han and Kuai looked around, checking for any surprises in the area. To their surprise, everything was clean, except...

"Where's Smoke?" Bi-Han asked. "If that idiot ran away again, I'll leave him here."

"I'm sure he's nearby. He couldn't have gone far."

Wounded, Both decided to leave this dark alley before someone caught them here again. Jumping from rooftop to rooftop, the brothers made their way to the "Little China" district. It was night, so few people would see them here.

Both cryomancers discussed their plan to find Smoke, trying to figure out where he could have gone. The question was just how to search for him. Smoke was renowned as one of the best spies in the clan, alongside Cyrax. Finding him wouldn't be an easy task. It would be even harder to understand what was happening to him.

While Kuai speculated about what could have happened to Tomas, Bi-Han silently nodded, then interrupted his brother, stopping in his tracks.

"I don't know what will happen next. We're being hunted, and who knows how it will end. But I want to warn you right away. Whatever happens, I will always be on your side."

His brother's words echoed in Kuai’s head. What did he mean by that?

"I don't understand what you're..." Tundra began, tilting his head in confusion.

"Scorpion won't stop until he finishes us. He believes we're responsible for his family's demise. He won't listen to reason. We can only fight. Or die."

The younger one nodded, mentally preparing for future battles with Hanzo. The brothers set out again to find their missing brother, while someone watched over them. Someone they had known for a long time but were unaware of his presence.

"Unit LK-4D4 reporting. Objects located. Safe mode deactivated," he monotoned, turning off the microphone on his control panel.

[masquenoire]

@gnarledbite​ found you HERE...

Well, tonight had been a real shitshow. What was supposed to have been a quick clean-out turned out to be more than Roman had bargained for, the group of thugs encroaching on his turf backed up with some real killer artillery. Definitely not some run-of-the-mill gang looking to pick up some parking meter change; it had been a trap and Roman charged in with all guns blazing only to end up against a firing squad himself. Kind of impressive actually, the simplicity of the scheme in which to draw Roman Sionis onto the street for an easy kill. Targeting his dealers and disrupting the flow of narcotics had been one thing but the joy of making an example out of the culprits, now they knew he'd find that irresistable. Roman would have smiled had he still had the strength. Scarface knew him better than he knew himself, the vicious little wooden bastard. However, Roman could only swallow, feeling oddly thirsty despite the strong taste of blood upon his tongue. He’s bleeding out fast and knows it, unable to repress a shudder at his impending demise. Then again it might have been his body beginning to convulse - already he could feel the cold, dark fingers of death reaching out for him like so many others had been claimed tonight. Speaking of Death, the bastard was already hovering over his corpse. It wasn't Scarface, much to his surprise. The odd, scratching voice that reached his dimming ears didn't carry the gloating words he'd been expecting, of luring him out onto his own turf that would now belong to him. Similarly the dark frame kneeling above his corpse wasn't chubby like the Ventriloquist Scarface had dubbed his puppet - this newcomer was thin and lanky, their silhouette so tall that overhead lights were blotted out, fanning behind the top of their head like some sort of nightmarish halo. He'd never put much stock into religion but in that moment, it looked like an awful lot like the Angel of Death had come for him. Or so he'd thought. Death didn't ask how badly you wanted to live, saying that your luck hadn't run out just yet. Roman swallowed again, coughing wetly as he struggled to get a better look at his saviour's face. It wasn't Batman or any of the other morons stupid enough to try saving the crime lord's life and with a bullet lodged in his lung, even the Bat wouldn't have been able to perform any miracles at this point. Well, fuck. What else did he have to lose? Roman figured the other person wasn't asking out of the goodness of their little heart, that payment would be involved one way or the other but right now he didn't have the time or energy to lay out the terms of any contracts, the fires of his hot blood now growing cold and dim. "... F-fuck it. Do what you c-can, n' I'll m-make it w-w-worth your w-while..." Roman spits, his words trailing off as a violent hacking fit overcomes him. The crime lord sighs as his strength gives out, jaw going slack as he fights bitterly to maintain eye contact until his last breath. He wasn't ready to leave this life yet, especially not by the hand of some two-bit chump he didn't even know the name of.

[phantasmaw]

♢*   —   @kmmba ​ /  𝐆𝐎𝐃 𝐎𝐅 𝐖𝐀𝐑: 𝐑𝐀𝐆𝐍𝐀𝐑𝐎𝐊 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒 

❝ defy your prophecy at your own peril. ❞

   〈✟*〉 ┊  His own galloping heartbeat thunders in his ears as he stares in muted terror at the desolation wrought where the skeleton of a village once stood. The world began in a burst of light upon divine command. Now, one would end in the same way. A small world, an echo of one, the ashes of one– but a world nonetheless, no more than the smoking after image left behind in a blast radius. He blinks both dust and sorrow from his eyes. He doesn’t need to cry for the wasteland yawning down in the valley. He’s done that once before, when his own fire had ravaged the fertile farmland and gutted homes with a terrible vengeance, when the heat had boiled flesh and prayers into the final offering of incense that would blow away with the spring winds. At the time, he hadn’t known if he wept for the unlucky few to stand in the way of the self-righteous cleansing or the suicide of his innocence. Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not covet. Two birds, one stone, heaped onto an altar that once served as the bed for a little angel bound by nothing but his own fear. 

     Twelve years for the earth to reclaim this corner of the countryside back to itself, new vegetation fertilized by ashes that could not be swept away by maelstrom or fair-weather breeze. Gone in an instant.

      The heart that does not belong to him squeezes tight inside his chest. 

      Gael doesn’t turn to look at the god when he addresses him. He doesn’t need to gaze upon that stolid face to know eyes as desolate as the circle of nothing scorching away all traces of life will stare back at him. His brother already drowned in those bottomless pools of apathy. He was not keen on chasing Crane down another path leading into a demise and a mantle to uptake. He was already his brother’s keeper. Perhaps that was the prophecy this exalted one spoke of with such hollowness. If that was the case….

      A strained laugh falls, stiflingly loud in this place where birds no longer sang. “There is no peril for me to become a prodigal.” Not anymore. Not now that the original prodigal had returned to dust, heart safely tucked away in the ribcage of his keeper. My selfish  little brother never liked leaving me with much choice on what to do with myself in his absence, you know? “I would be rewarded for leaving things as they are.”

     But a man who did not accept the gift of love would never understand what he meant. And did he pity this affectionless god? Did he loathe? Gael scrubs puffy eyes and laughs again. It’s just too fitting that his brother spent so much time with a being that had never once honored all the thoughts and feelings poured out at his feet without need of reciprocation.  They were fitting for each other. A god with no capacity and a heart hemorrhaging for everyone that would never drink from its overflowing fountain.  

      It could have ended differently. You had all the power to leave, but you didn’t. 

      The observation no longer angers him. It only makes him ache. There hadn’t been a need to come back. Yet he had, hoping against hope that something would remain, that he could deliver the message gasped out on dying dregs. Because of course, even four years after their reunion, Crane did not think of him in the last moments he had left. He thought only of the messes Gael would have to clean up for him. Even the act of passing away hadn’t absolved Crane of his sins or the covetous nature of that which had given him life: the tumor shaped like a heart carried in the body of the kin left behind, again, again, again. This would make a perfect grave for it. Surely a being with this much power could tear his chest open and seal away this unbearable burden beneath the wastelands. 

     No. No, he could not. 

      “I am my brother’s keeper.” He could not say what it was, then, if not prophecy. It wouldn’t matter. Whatever it may be, it lightens the weight on his chest and allows him to speak freely. “You… overcompensate the same way he did.” Smothering everything, devastation left in absence. “I loved him and he didn’t care. He loved you and you didn’t care.” His hands tremble as he lowers them back to his sides. He has not felt this free since he first melted that shackle off his ankle. “Not even the weeds defy their prophecy. Who are you to think that I would?”

[screamingatanemptyroom]

“I have come to end your reign of terror!”

The doors burst open and the Hero, Edward, stormed through into the throne room. He raced forward, sword held high, and determination in his eyes.

Until his gaze met mine.

As I calmly slid the dagger into the Emperor’s heart, taking his life.

The Hero's sword fell to the ground with a muffled clang. He stepped closer, his eyes staring disbelievingly at the scene before him. I smiled at him, and though it was a sad smile it was a smile nonetheless.

“Hello, Edward.” I gently pulled my dagger from the dead body of the Emperor and wiped it on his royal robe to clean it. “Long time no see.”

“…” The silence between us dragged on, he continued staring, not talking. It was every bit as uncomfortable as I thought it would be to see him again.

This is why I tried to kill the emperor BEFORE the hero returned.

“Nothing to say to me? Even after all this time?” There was a desperate lightheartedness to my tone, as if hoping he would join in, hoping he would play along.

“Why?” The question was whispered, but it hurt as deeply as a sword cut.

“Why, what?” I jokingly asked. “Is it about my outfit?” I gestured down at my tattered dress. “Not sure what the protocol is for dressing up to kill the ruler, but I didn’t have much choice at the time… they don’t give you many outfit choices in prison.”

Edward didn’t laugh at my poor attempt at humor. He continued to stare at me, horrified.

“Laurel… You’re alive? …But why …Why would you kill your own father?”

I smiled sadly. “It’s a long story.”

_____________________

3 years earlier.

“Your marriage has been determined, Laurel.” My father, the emperor, stared down at me with a cool gaze. Despite me being his only child, he had no parental affection in his eyes, only calculation.

He had judged my worth, and I was always found lacking.

“Oh really, that’s interesting.” I stared down at my hands, rather than looking at him. It was a small act, and one that I knew would annoy him, similar to my nonchalant tone.

“Don’t be childish!” He snapped, and I grinned to myself. He hated when he lost control of his emotions before I did in an argument. Which is exactly why I goaded him into it. It was nice, these small victories, these tiny moments of revenge.

“I apologize.” I took a step back, figuratively, and gave a curtsy as a physical sign of my apology and he responded with a disgruntled nod. “Who am I to be married to?” I asked, as if I didn’t know the answer to the question.

“The Hero.” Was the Emperor’s terse answer. “The man that the mages brought over from another realm.”

I forced a look of mild shock onto my face. “The Hero? He’s a foreigner! We know nothing about him!”

I know everything about him.

“The prophecy states that he will be king. The only way to ensure that without losing my line is to give him your hand in marriage. Marry him, bear his children, and my grandchildren will sit on the throne one day.”

My hand squeezed into a fist by my side, hidden in the folds of my gown.

I wanted to kill him.

Protect your precious line. Protect your precious throne. It all ends in bloodshed in the end. The Hero will betray us both, and your head will roll on the streets of the Capitol.

I let a smile flow naturally onto my face at the thought of the surprise in his eyes when they cut off his head. He had never believed, right up until the moment of his death, that the Hero would truly betray him.

“Of course, Father. I will do my duty. I will protect this kingdom.”

Just not in the way you think.

I was dismissed, and turned to go back to my rooms. My mind was racing, as it had ever since I woke up that morning. When I had realized the truth:

I had been reborn.

Rebirth was not unheard of in this world. There were at least three documented cases prior to mine. The Mages taught us that when the world events were altered in a way that would lead to the destruction of all, the magic that existed in all things would work to repair the event that led to its demise. The individual with the most likely power to influence events back on course would keep their memories, but the rest of the world would start over.

I had apparently been chosen, and given the chance to remake my fate.

I arrived at my rooms, and sat down my the fireplace, my head in my hands.

“Princess?” My maid Alberta stepped forward, concerned.  I waved her off.

“Sorry, I need to think.”

“Of course.” She gave me a look of pity as she walked out, likely thinking of me as a poor princess who had just been told she was to marry a strange foreigner.

Unfortunately, my worries were quite a bit bigger than that.

Once I was alone, I leaned back in my chair, and thought through my memories.

_____________________

I had married the Hero. A political marriage, a cold marriage. He had hated me, hated being forced to marry me, hated the need to have me to “legitimize” his claim to the throne.

He refused to touch me, refused a true marriage, refused the possibility of children. I tried to compromise, see his perspective, get him to see that I was just as much of a prisoner of this deal as he was. But there was no discussion, no compromise. There was only anger and bitterness.

Two and a half years later, he had me declared barren. My lack of ability to bear heirs made me a laughingstock.

I told my father the truth. That the marriage hadn’t been consecrated. That I was not at fault.

He condemned me anyways. I had failed to make the marriage work either way, it made no difference whether it was through my failure to charm him or of my body to bear children. It was a political move, and his only choice, according to him.

My husband the hero. My father the emperor. They hated each other, but worked together to smear my name and reputation. My fake marriage was annulled. I was banished to a “convent.” Which was truly just a prison at the top of the tower. From my perch I watched them play their political games. Watched the people rise up with discontent.

The Hero betrayed the Emperor. Beheaded him in the courtyard outside my tower. But as he declared himself the new emperor, but his attention was distracted. He didn’t stand a chance against the Dark Lord who took advantage of his inattentiveness and invaded the Capitol.  

And the whole world burned.

My last memory was that of fire and pain. I had not left my prison room for months, and my last memory was staring out my window as I burned to death, wishing I could be free. Wishing I had a chance to make different choices.

Wishing I could kill the men who had betrayed and imprisoned me, only to destroy the world they had fought over like a child’s toy.

And then I woke up, eighteen again, on the day I was informed of my upcoming marriage to the Hero.

With shaking hands I drew out a timeline on a piece of parchment, and held it before me.

In one week the Hero would return from his quest, and be informed of our marriage.

In six months he and I would be wed.

In three years the world would be destroyed.

I had three years to change my fate. To save the world.

First, I needed power.

_____________________

I traveled to the Mage’s tower. It was a short carriage ride away, I made the excuse that I was visiting my mother’s grave, which happened to be very close to my true desitination. After a brief prayer at her tombstone, I made my way into the tower. I had been there very infrequently in my past life, but with a few lucky guesses I found the entrance to the Receiving Room.

Standing outside the doors, I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. I didn’t have very many good memories of the Mages.

An apolitical group that wielded great power, they served a higher purpose that no one quite understood. They were the ones who transported the Hero here. They were the ones who were supposed to help him fight off the Dark Lord.

They were the first ones to fall.

I knocked on the door.

After a brief pause, the doors opened. A small child, around seven or eight years old, wearing an apprentice robe stood silently in the doorway, awaiting my words.

“Please let them know that the princess is here to see the Superior.”

"But..." The child’s eyes widened. “No one is allowed to see him!”

I had expected this answer. “Pass along a message, and when he asks to see me, I’ll be here.”

“What message?”

I smiled, and whispered in the apprentice’s ear. “Tell him I saw him die.”

His face turned pale, and he stumbled back, slamming the doors behind him as he retreated back into the tower. I stood in the hallway, staring at the ceiling, feeling exhausted. I had been in a constant state of tension since I woke up this morning, and I wasn’t nearly ready to relax just yet.

After a few moments, the door opened again. The young boy gestured for me to follow, his face oddly blank. The fear in his eyes had disappeared, and a mild confusion had replaced it. He led me inwards through the tower. I looked around, curious. The main hall was mostly bare, other than luxurious carpet, a few comfortable chairs and multiple bookcases filled with books. The walls themselves were engraved with dark faded letters, the otherworldly language written in swirls and slashes. I couldn’t read it, but the closer I looked at it, the more I felt a sense of apprehension. I wasn’t meant to read it.

I looked away. I already knew more than I should. I didn’t want any further forbidden knowledge.

We arrived at a large golden door. The child placed his hand on the door, a light shining from his palm. Within moments the door opened itself. The apprentice gestured for me to enter the inner room, turning away as he did so.

“I don’t know why she’s allowed… no one is allowed to see the Superior.” He whispered as he walked away.

I watched him move, considering his words.

“A memory spell.” A voice spoke up, calm, focused, and vaguely familiar. “The less the boy remembers, the safer for him.”

“How kind of you.” I stared after the child. “How much would I give to know less than I do.”

“I doubt that is true.” The voice was amused. “You would surrender what little control over your fate you have?”

“True.” I chuckled. “If we are all to burn, at least I’ll walk knowingly into the flames.”

“...Come in, Princess.”

I entered the room. It was dark, barely lit by candles along the walls. The flickering light revealed a single figure in the room, covered head to toe in a golden robe.

I curtseyed, keeping proper distance. “Your Eminence.”

He waved a hand, I got a glimpse of pale skin underneath the robe, of younger hands than I expected. “Leave the titles. You may call me Richard if you call me anything.”

“Then call me Laurel.”

“So Laurel…” His robed head was turned in my direction. “You are reborn.”

It was not a question.

“I am.” I did not lie. I needed him for my plans.

“Did you really see me die?” His voice only held mild curiosity for the gravity of the question he asked.

“I saw the world destroyed by the Dark Lord.”

He sucked in a breath, stunned. “Are you sure? Are you sure it was the Dark Lord?” He was very focused, intense, much different then asking about his own demise.

“I heard him calling out in the streets as the world burned.” It was all I could say, the memory was still hard for me to bear.

“… I see. And the Hero?”

“Pursued power, betrayed his oath.”

“… What of your fate?”

“Me?” I laughed, it was an angry bitter sound. “I was used, discarded and destroyed as a pawn of minimal worth.”

“And this time?” His tone was calm once more.

“I wish to control the game.” I smiled at him. “And for that, I need power.”

I felt a shadow pass over me and with a muttered apology, a hand was placed on my head. After a few moments I could feel him stiffen with surprise as he pulled away. “You have Potential?”

“The highest. The king tested me, and then concealed the results. Me having power would only make his plans more difficult.”

“That is… genuinely unexpected.” His voice reflected his words. “You have surprised me more than once today, Laurel.”

“Doesn’t happen often?”

“I can’t remember the last time.” He seemed to take it in stride. I let out a breath, relieved, and continued on with my request.

“I need to learn magic.”

“… Will you tell me why?”

I shrugged. “Depends, do you want the truth or a lie?”

“Hmm… Very well.”

“What?” My jaw dropped. I had been prepared to argue much more than this.

He laughed again, and again the sound was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it. “Do you want  me to say no?”

“No, but… I had so many arguments prepared.” I sighed. “I guess I’ll live without saying them.”

“I’m sure they were spectacular.”  His wry tone made me laugh again. “We can begin lessons tomorrow.”

“Who will you send to teach me?” I thought through the elders I knew, and worried. “Will they be trustworthy.”

“I very much hope so, since I’ll be teaching you myself.”

“What?”

“I’m the only one I can trust, given the future you saw.” He turned away, walking towards one of the bookshelves barely lit by a candle in the corner of the room. “Besides, I haven’t had this much fun in a while.” He returned, holding out a book. I took it, again noting his hands appeared young, much younger than I had ever clocked the Superior to be. “Read this. It will give you the basis to begin reaching your power tomorrow.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet, Laurel… we may still yet see the world destroyed. I can only hope and trust that the Magic chose right when they chose you to be reborn.”

“That makes two of us, Richard. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I looked him up and down. “You may have to wear something less conspicuous.”

I couldn’t see his face, but I could tell he was smiling. “Sure. I’ll even wave the normal trumpet procession while I’m at it.”

I left the Mage’s tower, feeling hopeful for the first time all day.

I had a plan.

_____________________

It was storming as my carriage rode towards the castle. I sat in my seat, ignoring my worried maid, contemplating my plans.

First, Magic.

Second, I needed to deal with the Hero.

I would have a a week before I met him, but I would need to think of the right approach to take with him. In my last lifetime I had been cautious but friendly, hoping to make the best of a bad situation. During our marriage I had tried to build a bridge between us, but it all came to nothing in the end. By the last days before I was banished, I simply was numb and cold, to him and everyone else.

This time I didn’t even know if I could feign kindness to him.

At least I had some time to prepare…

CRASH!

The carriage halted to a sudden stop. I flew forward, catching myself on the seat facing me. I checked to make sure that Alberta was safe, and reassuring myself she was unharmed, I leaned outside the window.

“What’s going on?”

“Sorry Your Highness, we almost hit someone! They’re laying out here, on the road!”

“…Are they dead?”

“No.” The guard’s voice was cautious. “He’s moving.”

Something in his voice caught my attention. I grasped a knife in the hidden hilt in my skirt, and jumped outside the carriage. The rain wet my hair and clothes, my dress was stained at the edges in the mud, my shoes caught on the rugged stones. I felt unbalanced, unsafe, but some instinct was driving me closer.

“Your Highness!” At first I thought the guard was scolding me for my thoughtless action, but then I heard something deeper in his tone. “You need to see this.”

I walked forward, balancing carefully in the uneven terrain. As I moved closer, familiar features became visible in the rain.

I stopped in my tracks, only a short space away, and I stared silently.

“Your Highness?” The guard repeated himself, but I didn’t answer. I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, could barely breathe.

I thought I would have more time.

His hair, a golden tone, was flattened by rain and stained with blood, stuck to a too pale forehead. His features were even, handsome, his face had caught the eyes of most of the noble women in the kingdom. Their jealousy had made things all too easy for my disownment to happen, the concept of an infertile woman being married to the handsome Hero had smoothed out an otherwise tense political decision for my father and the Hero.

His eyes were closed, but I knew that if they were open they would be a brilliant bright shade of blue. I knew the eyes so well, I saw them in my nightmares each night.

The man who killed the emperor.

The man who lost the world.

The man from another realm.

My husband in another life.

The Hero.

I stared down as his pale bloody body on the ground, soaking in the rain and mud, and felt an overwhelming urge.

I wanted to kill him.

To tear him limb to limb. To cut out his cold eyes. To force him to feel fear, to feel helpless as I took everything from him. To trap him, helpless in a space as the world burns around him.

As I watched him, I could feel the heat of the flames from my death on my back. My soul trapped in the fire that took my life.

I relaxed my hand off the hilt of the knife, opening my fingers one by one.  I needed the hero. I needed him alive.

Until I was powerful enough to not need him anymore.

“Pick him up.” I ordered the guard.

“… But…”

“It’s the Hero.” At my simple words he sucked in a shocked breath and hurried to comply. As he was lifted up, I reached out my hand, brushing his hair from his face. I was checking for wounds, to assess the severity of his damage, but at the gesture, his eyes fluttered open, startling me.

“Who…?” His voice was hoarse, confused. It was the weakest I had ever seen him, but I felt no pity.  I only wished he was in more pain.

“You’re safe now. Rest.” I spoke in my calmest, most comforting tones. I needed him to view me as an ally. The question was only if I could succeed. I moved my hand, and ran it through my hair, pushing back the rain-soaked strands. His eyes widened in shock.

“Beautiful.” He murmured, his eyes fluttering shut once more.

I tried not to recoil in disgust. “Take him to the carriage.” As the guard carried him away, I took care not to touch him again. I would have to get my thoughts straight before he woke up.

It would be difficult to smile in the face of someone I hated. But I can do it.

I climbed back in and gave the signal to continue.  The carriage moved forward, carrying the princess and the hero, and as it passed, the woody path faded back into darkness once more.

Back to the castle.

Back to my prison.

Towards a future that I knew waited.

Betrayal. Lies. Destruction.

I would face it all.

And I would win.

The hero busts through the door and says “I have come to end your reign of terror!” Just as you put a dagger through the emperor’s heart.

[skelswritingcorner]

A random thing I wrote for Patchouli's Revenge which is sliiightly horny but doesn't go into smut territory

A/N: This is mostly just a random excerpt that I'm unsure of where it would be placed in the story, but probably happens later on. Also, this was mostly written for worldbuilding purposes. Story below the cut!

Warnings: Names of sexual acts, implied assault from Patchouli's past.

“Absorbing a god’s essence is done through a consumptive act,” Patchouli looked at Fennel.

“What are those consumptive acts?”

She ran a finger around the rim of the jar, half-full with crystals purple and pink, “It depends. This,” she held the jar and brought it to him, “is crystalized essence. It’s vomited out when under extreme stress by a god. They have to be cleaned before the possibility of someone consuming it can be thought of. It’s consumed just like any food.”

“However,” Patchouli grabbed one of the essences with her index finger and thumb, “there are other ways, including carnal acts. Acts such as cunnilingus, fellatio,  a heavy makeout session, or something else which I shall not mention. All parties must consent, however, or the essence cannot be transferred.”

Fennel’s cheeks flushed a pink hue from his thoughts, “What about the crystalized essences?”

“Puked out, even if it’s hidden in food.”

“This mostly applies with mortals, however. For gods, some differences apply.” Making a throat slitting motion on herself, she explains. “If one god kills another god, then the essence can be consumed entirely. A dead god cannot regenerate their essence.”

“The other way is through pregnancy, and then breastfeeding. This is meant to help the new god create their own essence, which it can then regenerate. Consumed essence slowly turns into the consumer’s essence over time.”

Patchouli put the jar down, lidding it. Fennel crossed his arms, lost in thought.

“Did you ever kill a god? Consume their essence?”

She paused, clenching a fist. “Why else did I run away from home? At least he can no longer hurt anyone again.”

Fennel’s eyes widened, absorbing the meaning behind those words. She killed someone who was abusing her. That must’ve been her breaking point, what led her to run away with her sister’s assistance. He deduced, but what happens to the essence consumed by a mortal?

“You must have a question, I can tell. Mortals must be careful when consuming essences, as too much consumed at once can lead to madness or their demise. Along with that, the essence remains that of the god they got it from. I don’t know what abilities a mortal gains from consuming a god’s essence other than a telepathic link between the god.”

She got up, walking up to the shelf and putting the jar in its original spot.

“Would you… let me absorb your essence?” Fennel asked.

Patchouli was silent, but based on how red her face got her mind was scrambling for an answer. Likely meaning her mind immediately went to the carnal acts and not the crystalized essence she has a good amount of. Is this something involving her feelings? Fennel knew he had feelings the moment he met Patchouli proper, but wasn’t sure if she felt the same after they got to know each other.

He remembered the first time he met her, before she joined the agency. It was when she took off her veil, showing her face to anyone outside the clergy for years. That was when he first fell for her. It’s been three months since then, and his feelings since then have swelled.

When Patchouli turned around, her face was completely red. “My apologies, I forgot about the crystalized essence. I assume that’s what you meant?”

Fennel nodded, “Unless you really want to fuck, yes.”

His words made her blush harder. His bluntness right now will either be the end of him, or the beginning of something new. Fennel’s not going to be the first one to fuck a god, and he sure won’t be the last person to.

Patchouli put something in Fennel’s hand, it was mostly purple with bits of pink. Oh. Guess neither are going that route.

“I think… I think it’s for the best if you consume the crystalized essence before we do that. Uh, I haven’t done that before. Also, it’s easier to figure out how much essence is consumed.”

“And neither have I. Well, down the hatch.” Fennel ingested the essence.

“It’ll take a bit for the essence to take effect. It’s best that we wait twenty-four hours to see how the amount you consumed reacts.” Patchouli informed him.

“Well,” Fennel walked to the room’s door, “if that’s the case, then I’m going to head back home. See you tomorrow, Patch.”

Once the door closed, and Patchouli confirmed that he was indeed gone, she flopped to her bed. The thoughts going on in her head will likely keep her up for a long time.

[msookyspooky]

I now need severen with a hunter s.o imagine bc HOLY FUCK.

Severen be like "yeah, they're a hunter, but they'e hot!"

Hunter s.o; He has committed atrocities but I've decided that they are apart of him and I think they're funny."

Bro, the sexual tension would be out the roof!! Basically take Spuffy and make it 80s, Western Gothic and gritty as hell. Loves it. 🖤😏👀

Severen with a Vampire Hunter S/O

- Who knows why you hunt vampires but you would definitely have to be morally gray to overlook Severen's.....Everything. Probably break the law as well bc the police are not any help and you're not getting anywhere following the law while hunting down vampires.

- Everything about Severen is chaotic. He never shy's away from danger and probably gets bored really fast after living for like 130 years. So the minute you surprised him by holding the blade of an axe to the nape of his neck, letting him know full well you knew what he was, and that you were there to cut his head off...Fear wasn't really the emotion he was feeling at that moment.

- You both inconvenienced each other for a short while. He was entirely too powerful to kill outright. However, you were aware of his weaknesses and used them to your full advantage; His own cockiness and the Sun. You used a lot of rigged up traps and always tried to lure him out close to sunrise to have him retreating and cursing up a storm the minute the sun started coming up. Multiple times he had you cornered and the sun saved your ass, much to his dismay. He always promised he'd get you the next night, you promised the same thing to him.

- Seeing you with a glare directed at him and a weapon in hand had him excited and eager every single night. He thought you were hot as hell and didn't hide that fact. He practically rushed out of the camper just to go see what you had in store for him that night while his family shook their heads.

- He loved your cat and mouse game and didn't hesitate to make sexual innuendos towards you hunting him down.

- "After me again, killer? I'm startin' to think ya got a crush on me. Ya sure my heads the only thing you want?" He'd comment with a flirty smirk while mocking you. You would always get flustered and deny it.

- Definitely developed a crush on you. Fast. He had heart eyes for you from almost day one. It wasn't often he was the one being hunted. He found it kind of flattering, especially with you making him your main target.

- (This man has a primal kink and both of you hunting each other down and fighting each other has him hard as a brick istg-)

- He held back on you, secretly not wanting your game to end and he didn't want to turn you either. He found you the most interesting little human he'd met in a long time. You were smart too! Trying to outmaunever him and be one step ahead. It became a fun challenge to beat whatever trap you had and get to you as the winning prize. He is the master at cheating and definitely would see your obvious trap with a grin and set up his own to lure you out of hiding.

- You both kept score at this point of who beat who on what night.

- Eventually the cats out of the bag when they have to leave that area. He shows up in a solemn mood and doesn't even try to fight you or to outmaunever you baiting him; Which confused you and brought you out of hiding. It comes out that he was holding back on you this whole time because he likes you...You had to come clean that you knew where they were resting during the day and didn't do anything for the same reasons.

- It was obvious you both liked each other despite technically being 'enemies'. You found him hilarious, he found you fascinating (And hot). You both realize you can help each other. He can help you know where others like him are and you can help him weed out the competition (More vampires = Less food = More risk of being caught = Their own demise.)

- You still hunt vampires but you make an exception with him and his family (As long as they don't hunt yours. That was definitely a truce that had to be reached.)

- You didn't travel with them bc you still couldn't watch them kill humans despite really liking Severen and overlooking his crimes against humanity. But you all definitely kept in touch and ran into each other whenever you got a tip from Severen of where a vampire being a pain in their ass was staying at.

- He ain't letting you go alone. Watching you massacre a vampire, blood caked on you and a predatory look in your eyes had him turned on beyond belief and both of you celebrating on any surface nearby. 👀💦

- Teaches you a thing or two on killing.

- He always got in a shitty mood whenever you had to leave or he had to leave. Only seeing each other here and there. He will 100% be trying to convince you to let him turn you and be Blade or Selene instead of Buffy or Van Helsing.

[reidjumpers]

would you ever write something along the line of the minimal loss episode reimagined. so instead of emily being in the ep it’s the reader and spence has the biggest crush on her. it kills him knowing that she’s getting hit and bruised. yeah i don’t know if you would do it but i love that idea.

GUESS WHAT I really love this idea too so I tried to rewrite Minimal Loss reimagined. Please emphasize on tried.

“Which one of you is the FBI agent?”

Spencer could feel his blood run cold at the question Benjamin Cyrus fired at him and you. He subtly glanced towards your direction, pressing his lips and tried his best to maintain his composure. He watched you shift on your seat a little bit, eyeing the gun on Cyrus’s hand intensely.

“Why do you think one of us is an FBI agent?” Spencer furrowed his eyebrows in faux confusion.

“God will forgive me for what I must do,” Cyrus said calmly. Too calmly. Spencer gulped as he heard the clicking sound of his gun. He caught the sight of you gaping and eyes widened in horror as a gun aimed against his head.

“I- I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“One of you does. Who is it?”

“Me,” your voice was firm, slicing through the thick tension. Spencer slowly turned his head towards you with a wide eye. You glared at him with an eye that screamed don’t you dare at him, determination and fear swirled together in your eyes made him shiver. He could feel dread and helplessness slowly sinking in. “It was me.”

Cyrus lowered his gun that aimed at Spencer, slowly turned his direction towards you. Spencer shot you a glare and silently demanded you for explanation at your stupid sacrifice. You had just deflated your own fear and bargained for your safety in order to save him. There was a bitter taste curled and overwhelmed him at the tip of his tongue upon knowing he couldn’t do anything to diffuse the situation.

Spencer let his shoulder sink a little bit as Cyrus silently holstered his gun into his pants, allowing himself a brief relief upon knowing that he didn’t have to watch your demise today. It took everything inside him not to jump and inserted himself in between you and Cyrus as he yanked you to the ground by hair and a sound of your pained whimper filled the room. He couldn’t even bring himself to flinch when a rifle aimed towards him as his eyes fixated on the sight of you being dragged across the room.

“I told you not to put me in this position!” Cyrus snarked, releasing his hold on you and slammed you to the concrete floor. Spencer bit the inside of his cheeks and could feel the tip of his fingertips go frozen as dread and fear pumped rapidly into his system.

The sound of you being slapped filled the room made him flinch a little bit. He glanced briefly towards the rifle against him, giving him a brief break from the horrifying sight before him. Spencer could feel anger and disappointment filled him with the knowledge that he couldn’t do anything besides watching you being beaten mercilessly by Cyrus. It was supposed to be him. It was supposed to be him who took all the beating instead of you. You were everything good left in the world and you are a living reminder that there are lights and hope in life despite all the horror and worst face of humanity he was constantly being contaminated with.

What would he do if you were gone then? The brief horrifying thought flashed before his eyes as he watched Cyrus slammed your defenseless body into the ground again. He could feel hot tears prickling in his eyes at the thought of living his life in void and helplessness if you ceased to exist before his eyes. Spencer collapsed his balled fist into his lap as the realization that he couldn’t live without you washed through him.

Spencer squeezed his eyes shut as your body was slammed against the wall and hit the mirror, refusing to picture the sharp shard of glass cutting your skin.

“Proverb 23rd tells us that bloods and wounds cleanse out evil,” Cyrus recited as he yanked you by the collar again and slammed you against the wall. Spencer could feel anger and disdain boiled inside him as he watched your body helplessly fall into the floor after the impact of your collision with the wall.

“I can take it,” you said with a firm voice. Spencer caught your eyes briefly as your eyes flickered in between him and Cyrus that stood in between you and him.

His heart fell into the bottom of his stomach like a heavy sandbag. He knew what you meant from your firm stares alone. You only said that to reassure him and signal the team outside not to come in a rush. It was a minimal loss situation, Spencer had concluded. He drew a sharp breath as he mentally prepared himself for a situation where he couldn’t possibly save everyone and had to accept however many people he could save while others perished.

Spencer glanced up to meet your eyes again before Cyrus moved to block his sight. He furrowed his eyebrows at the sight of your eyes screaming I’m fine, I’m okay at him with blood flowing freely from your broken nose. Dread settled painfully in his bones that the possibility of the team having to choose between your life or his was too close than he liked.

He blinked his eyes to shoo away the tears that threatened to fall. He couldn’t afford it. He couldn’t risk blowing up another cover that guaranteed his life when you had sacrificed yours for him.

Cyrus beat and slapped you for another round with disdain painted clearly on his face. “Pride comes before the fall,” he said as he punched your stomach and slammed you to the floor, thinking you were antagonizing him as you repeatedly said you could take it. Spencer let out a relieved sigh as Cyrus took a step back from you and left you shaking with pain on the ground, instructed Cristopher to tie you up and took you upstairs.

Not today, he reassured himself. Forcing himself to be satisfied and grateful for your spared life. Not today.

***

Spencer had just successfully coaxed Cyrus into testing the negotiator for the FBI and proving them that they were not a liar and ensuring your safety. Disgust and anger brewing at the pit of his stomach every time Cyrus glanced his eyes towards him. He somewhat marveled at the plain trust Cyrus gave him effortlessly. The memory of him beating you hadn’t left his mind, still painted fresh and clear as if it still happened before his eyes. He had to mentally restrain himself from glaring in disgust at the thought of Cyrus molesting a child and beating you up until bloody and bruised.

“What is it, Christopher?” Cyrus addressed his man that had been trying to shot down Spencer’s suggestion regarding the situation. Only then Spencer turned his attention fully at him who had been pacing around in agitation repeatedly.

“Some of them had been talking about leaving,” he sighed.

“Leaving?” Cyrus pressed his lips together as Christopher affirmed his question. Spencer balled his fist and hid it inside the pocket of his pants as he waited in antagonizing anticipation with whatever next step Cyrus would take. “Wake the baby. Let’s get them meet the orphan that they made.”

Spencer nodded mutely at Cyrus’s decision. He let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding this whole time, letting himself loose a little bit and allowed himself to feel relief washed through him. Cyrus had taken the big bait and he had ensured your safety with his lies and negotiation skill. It was the least thing he could do after what you did for him.

He knew he would be damned if he couldn’t get you out of his god forsaken place alive. For now he just has to give and surrender with whatever fate is waiting for him into the hands of the team waiting outside. He took one longing glance outside from the window, wishing that he would be staring into the starless sky with you right now.

***

Spencer watched from the back silently as the members of the cult filled the empty chair inside the chapel one by one. What was once an empty and quiet chapel now buzzing with life and the air was stale and raked with fear. The negotiation test went as smoothly as Spencer could wished for. He heard Rossi rattling out your identity to Cyrus in exchange for your safety from a speaker phone as they released the orphan into the team outside.

You emerged from the opposite end of the chapel, a swarm of children and women pushed through from behind you. Spencer stared and watched the way the sunlight that slips through the chapel window fell into your skin. The glowing sunlight from behind your back casted a halo behind your figure. He noticed that your blood had been cleaned up and there were a few specks of dried blood on the collar of your shirt. Some newly formed bruises littered your face, angry and red and was a painful sight to behold. He hated it.

Cyrus was listing out names from the list he had written the day before as Spencer slowly made his way towards you. Everyone’s attention was focused on their leader calling out the names on the altar, but Spencer’s focus was solely on you. Your eyes were watching Cyrus solemnly as you leaned yourself into the wall to support your weight.

Spencer lifted his hand to touch your face and stopped midair before he realized a tad bit too late. His finger twitched painfully with a burning desire to feel you underneath his fingertips, but he couldn’t risk another round of beating and blowing up plans that had been rolling quite smoothly so far.

Guilt surged inside him like the sea, disdain and bitterness brewing and threatening to explode from the bottom of his stomach. He could feel himself dying a little bit inside at the frightening state you were in, all because you were sacrificing your life for him. For his sake when he wasn’t even sure he deserved it.

You finally acknowledged his presence and spared him a glance. Your eyebrows furrowed together in distress and Spencer had to restrain himself from the temptation to put his thumb in between your eyebrows and smoothen out your stress wrinkle between your eyebrows. If he could take away all your pain, he would.

“He looks pissed,” you whisper-yelling at him. Spencer couldn’t bring himself to respond to your words. Even after you took the downfall and hard beatings for him, you still think about other’s well-being instead of yours.

You took another glance towards him from the lack of response from his part. Your eyes scanned his face briefly before your lips twitched into a soft, reassuring smile. “I’m okay. It’s not as bad as it looks.”

Spencer shook his head, refusing to believe your words. “I’m so sorry,” he croaked, his voice hoarse and full of regret scratching his throat painfully.

“No, no,” you shook your head and quickly squashed his apology. “No apologies. We both know one of us has to take it.”

“But why should it be you?” Spencer hissed through his greeted teeth. His distress and agitation, and overall emotions that he had been trying to tuck and buried it away seeped into the surface. He could feel his mask cracking and threatened to be broken, and he was thankful for the roaring voice of Cyrus listing out names that masked his own. “Why should it be you? Why couldn’t it be me?”

“He had a gun against your head, Reid!” you hissed back with an equal amount of emotions laced on your voice. “I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t let them kill you. I know they would kill you first if one of us refused to answer. I can’t, Spencer, I—” you took a sharp breath and glanced away from his prying wide eyes. He could hear your voice wavering and your eyes glossed with tears. “Look at the people he’s releasing.”

“It’s the one who failed the loyalty test,” he observed. The previous slip of emotions was being put to the back of his mind again as he noticed the new fact he just found. “I’ll get word to the team, wait for the sign from outside indicating what time the raid will come.”

You stared at him with a wide eye, confusion and fear swirled together. You looked so vulnerable and small like that, like a polished porcelain that could crumble into dust anytime. Spencer nodded firmly and gave you a reassuring smile, silently asking you to believe him. He almost jolted with surprise when you grabbed his hand and squeezed it tightly and briefly, understanding what he was trying to do.

“Be careful,” you whispered.

He nodded and turned away to make his way to Cyrus, not believing himself to utter any single words without breaking down. He was determined to make sure you were safe and would make it out alive, whatever it takes.

“Told her she shouldn’t have blinded you like that,” Spencer told Cyrus with a faux exasperation and disappointment. He shuddered when Cyrus nodded sympathetically.

“To either of us,” he corrected him sympathetically, which made Spencer want to do nothing but curl up in disgust. Cyrus jerked his chin towards your direction and addressed Christopher, “Bring her back.”

Spencer watched you being dragged up by your upper arms into wherever they were keeping you. He forcefully gulped and shook away the lump of dread on his throat, disbanding it as soon as it was formed. His eyes were apologetic and yours were nothing but filled with determination and forced bravery.

Those who had failed for the test were ushered out of the farm through the front door. Spencer mentally counted the amount of people who walked out into a guaranteed safety, relieved that it held a much greater amount that he had prepared. It was only a matter of saving the rest and finding a way in for the team to bring you and him out of this place.

Cyrus was making his final and last negotiation call with Rossi, asking for a fried chicken and its sides for their last supper and the presence of media to document his sacrifice to God. A suicide attempt to bring down himself and his faithful fanatic followers was a more appealing option to him rather than surrender himself to the authority apparently. It was obvious from the first time Spencer stepped into the building, but it still didn’t fail to fill him with dread and fear.

“I’m always looking for signs of things to come,” Spencer explained to Christopher with a polite smile after he demanded how he had known Cyrus’s plan of final act of sacrifice all along. He maintained his gaze firmly and silently wishing that the team would catch his words through the parable microphone planted outside. It would be his only hope and way for them to come in.

***

Thick smog and fire blinded his sight and blocked his way. Spencer stumbled upon a block of brunt wooden log as Morgan dragged his limping body outside the chapel. Cyrus was dead, but Jesse had finished his suicide mission by blowing up the chapel and the rest of the building. He could hear sirens blaring outside and faint sounds of wails and fearful screams mixed together in the air.

The thought of you trapped inside the building flashed before his eyes for a moment. He didn’t have a moment to glance back to make sure about your whereabouts as he kept coughing and stumbling, Morgan’s grip still firm on his upper hand to drag him outside into safety. Fear started to paralyze his body that he nearly fell into the concrete fall face first. He just needed to see you, to make sure you were safe.

He didn’t know that the sight of armed soldiers and police cars could bring an immense amount of comfort for him. Spencer nearly cried at the overwhelming relief that he was out unharmed, slipped by the last strand of his hair from his ultimate demise. But he couldn’t allow himself to be relieved and comfortable before he knew where you were. Before he knew if you were safe.

“Spencer!” your voice came faintly in between the chaotic sirens and the sound of angry fire eating up the chapel. “Morgan!”

Spencer watched you squirm out of Emily’s embrace, running limpy towards him. He knew he had burst into tears as soon as his eyes landed on you, safe, alive, although littered with bruises and dried blood on your shirt. His shoulders sank and shook as your arms wrapped around him tightly, all the horror, fear, and dread that he didn’t allow himself to feel in the past few days before had rushed into him and knocked all the air out of his lungs.

Relief and comfort of knowing you were safe in his arms was a breath of fresh air for his burned lungs. Usually he would squirm at the thought of touching someone, but the steady rise of your chest as you breath against him overcame all the unfortunate uncomfortable thoughts that came with the activity of hugging someone.

“You’re safe,” Spencer gasped as he released you from his embrace. He was aware that everyone was watching him hugging you and he fought all the mortification that slowly crept up his cheeks. He tried to mask it away as being a relief to find his coworker made it out alive from the sticky hostage situation.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” you reassured him with one last firm squeeze on his arms. He wanted nothing but to pull you into his arms again, shield you for any harms lurking in the outside world. The anger that had been forgotten on the back of his mind surged inside him again. But he had to be satisfied with only one final squeeze as you parted from him to be checked by the paramedics.

The flight back to Quantico was quiet and a peaceful one. Everyone was winding up and breathing from the horror of the case that just wrapped up. Spencer tried his best to distract his mind with his book, burrowed in the furthest corner of the jet as the comforting and steady hum of the jet lulled him to sleep.

You slipped into the empty seat right across from him. A weak smile and a timid greeting were exchanged between you and silence followed right after. Spencer knew what conversation would follow after this, and he didn’t want to face it just yet. He had stopped reading from the moment you took the seat and watched him with careful eyes, but he still put up the act in the hope it would steer you away from bursting his bubble.

It did not. Spencer didn’t put up a fight as you gently took his book away from his hands and placed it gently on the table.

“I need you to listen to me,” you started with a firm voice. You were wearing the nice lilac shirt that Spencer liked, and the bruises on your face had started to heal and fade away. “What Cyrus did to me is not your fault. It was my decision and I would do it again.”

Spencer opened his mouth to say something, but you tilted your head with your lips pressing together, discouraging him to counter your statement. He took a sharp breath and shook his head.

“Do you hear me?” your voice was softer this time. Your hands silently reached for his and held them gently. Your thumb made a soothing pattern on his knuckles, a reassuring and determined smile was on your face. Spencer couldn’t look away even if he wanted to. “Do you hear me, Spencer? I will do it again. It wasn’t your fault. It was my decision.”

“I know,” he answered finally.

“Thank you.”

“Please know that I will do the same for you.”

His words had caught you off guard. You stared briefly before nodding, patting the top of his hand gently with your hand as you gave him a really bright smile. Spencer let himself sink further into the comfortable leather seat and let relief washed through him again. Everything will be okay.

[murderlite]

it   was   supposed   to   be   a   dinner   based   on   business.   something   elegant   ,   yet   professional with delicious food to bind it all together.   debbie   honestly   had   no   clue   what   kind   of   business   hannibal   had   with   this   man   ,   but   she   was   happy   to   make   an   appearance   as   the   perfect   partner   ,   all smiles   &   beautiful   ━━   the   perfect   accessory   to   an   already   perfect   &   wealthy   man.   it   didn't   always   start   out   that   way   ,   but   she'll   do   just   about   anything   for   him   ,   his   true   nature being revealed to her only   evoking   a   love   she   never   thought   possible   ,   one   she   intends   to   cling   on   to   for   as   long   as   she   can.   forever   ,   hopefully.   unfortunately   for   then   ,   dinner   is   to   be   cancelled   prematurely   when   debbie   had   decided   it   was   best   to   give   said   guest   a   swift   &   quick   demise.   her   temper   has   always   been   her   worst   weakness   ,   but   so   is   her   intolerance   for   manners   ,   &   this   guest   had   none   to   speak   of   whatsoever   ,   proving   that   to   debbie   the   moment   hannibal   excused   himself   from   the   table.   when   her   husband   approaches   her   to   remove   the   knife   ,   she   doesn't   budge   &   she   doesn't   struggle.   she   merely   allows   it   to   happen   as   she   watches   him   closely   ,   her   facial   expression   flat   ,   but   her   heart   beats   wildly   from   the   adrenaline   of   the   kill   ,   the   way   he   so   gently   wipes   her   fingers   clean.   ❝ . . . he   was   speaking   rudely   of   you.   it   was   getting   rather   annoying.   ❞   a   pout   appears   then   ,   her   head   turning   to   the   now   dead   guest   ,   blood   pooling   around   him. she smirks   ❝   you   don't   expect   me   to   just   sit   there   &   allow   that   to   happen   in   your   own   home   ,   do   you   ?   i   was   only   defending   your   honor.   i   hope   you're   not   too   angry   with   me   ,   darling   .   .   .   ❞

hannibal gazes down at the man on the floor, clearly dead, several stab wounds to his abdomen bleeding onto the floor of hannibal's dining room. brow quirks at the mess, the body, before he looks expectantly up towards debbie. the knife she holds in her hand is dripping red, her hand not much cleaner. there's a look in her eyes that hannibal has seen several times before. the man takes a breath, setting down the three plates he had previously meant to serve in favor of grabbing a towel, taking the knife sticky with blood away from her gently before beginning to clean the same stuff from her skin. 'darling,' hannibal playfully scolds, cleaning off her fingers. 'could this have not waited until after dessert?' @murderlite.

[thefanficmonster]

An Impostor In Love

Sequel to ‘Love For The Faceless’ (’Body Reveal’)

Corpse Husband x Reader (Female)

Warnings: Swearing (maybe)

Genre: Fluff

Summary: Rae can’t stay mad at her best friends forever. Them being absolutely adorable doesn’t help her ‘pissed off’ act either. Y/N’s outing Corpse like she’s a human lie detector. Corpse is gushing about her every second word that comes out of his mouth. And the rest of the lobby are getting one hell of a kick out of the Among Us romantic comedy - An Impostor In Love

Requested but, once again, not in a typical way. I honestly wasn’t expecting all the positive feedback I got for Love For The Faceless (Body Reveal). I was star-struck! You guys are so amazing I have no words to describe just how much I love you all! Thank you for everything! This story is for all of you 🥰🥰🥰

“Mr. and Mrs. ‘Totally not dating’ have entered the call!“ Sean announces when I hop into the Discord call to play Among Us with the usual gang. I hear Corpse’s laugh from down the hall, bringing a smile to my face.

We’ve gotten used to playing in this arrangement, a few rooms away from each other, ever since we moved in together - Corpse is in his recording room and I am in our shared bedroom. When one dies, they go in the other’s room to troll them. I’m usually the one dead, but that’s besides the point.

“Hi everyone!“ I say in my typical cheery tone before kicking it done a few notches, making it an octave deeper just to say: “Hi Rae.”

The whole lobby laughs, they all know what I’m trying to do here. Everyone’s aware this is the first time Rae is in the same call and lobby as Corpse and I after you-know-which incident. Sure, I’ve been poking sticks at her, waving a white flag and admitting I was wrong several times by now. Who knew my sweetheart best friend could act so cold? I know it’s a front. I know she’s fighting to stay mad. There’s a ton of pressure on her to finally forgive us, but she’s been holding up better than I would be if I were in her situation.

I honestly felt, and still feel, slightly guilty. I know best friends are supposed to tell each other everything. They are supposed to be the first ones to know whatever’s going on in each other’s lives. And I know I broke one of the main rules of friendships, but the decision wasn’t only mine to make. I’m sure she understands where I’m coming from, she’s just giving me and Corpse a hard time.

“Hello, Y/N.” She replies, her tone strictly formal.

“Progress, people! Progress!“ I say joyously, the smile turning into a grin 

“Don’t worry, babe. We’ll get her eventually.“ Corpse reassures me as he’s done for the past week or two. He knew I wasn’t as unbothered by Rae’s anger towards me as I tried to appear - a pro and simultaneously a con of living with someone: they pick up on everything about you. You become as familiar to them as the back of their hand.

“I know, I know.“ I giggle, “She’ll cave.“

“Yeah, good luck with that.“ Rae has dropped the formal tone, now sounding like a stubborn child which is something I’m way more familiar with. I’ve dealt with her tantrums and childish outbursts - I don’t know which number it is, but it’s somewhere in the rule book of friendships - and I at least the approximate meaning behind it. 

Ken puts an end to our friendly, stick-poking, sorta one-sided banter, ushering us to start the game. We all oblige, muting our mics and getting our heads in the game as though we’re about to enter an actual warzone with upmost stealth.

To my dismay, the screen flashes ‘Crewmate’. I head out of cafeteria to do my task in Weapons, staying weary of anyone within my proximity. Once I’m done, I head on down to Shields and complete my task there as well. I cringe when I’m done, knowing my last three tasks are in Electrical. Like, the fuck kind of luck do I have?

I make my way through the halls, running into Sykkuno and we circle around each other a few times to show we’re safe before we each continue our own way. I enter Electrical and.....oh Felix is dead. And oh lookie who’s right there...

I report the body before the impostor can and we all unmute our mics.

“Found him in Electrical.“ I say nonchalantly, “Didn’t see anyone in there though.“ 

“Anyone sus?“ Sean asks

We say our ‘no’s and ‘I don’t know’s and skip the vote. I’m smirking to myself as I head back down to Electrical. Walking in, I see the same person as before - Rae. I stop dead in my tracks and we just stare at each other for a few seconds before she comes towards me, circling me twice, bumping visors with me and venting out of the room.

“You’re welcome.“ I mumble, smiling widely.

I finish my tasks and leave Electrical just as Corpse enters our bedroom, giving me this tired-parent look like he’s half disappointed and half amused. “You just threw the game, didn’t you? Don’t lie.” He raises his eyebrows, fully adopting his parent role.

I giggle, shaking my head, sending him the briefest of glances before my eyes fixate on the screen in utter shock - Sean just killed me. Oh, for fuck’s sake...

“I was gonna come clean eventually, but I guess they won’t hear it from me now.“ I shrug, lifting my laptop and setting it aside so Corpse can join me on the bed. I snuggle up to him immediately, drawn to him as though he’s a human magnet.

“Who was it?“ He asks me, running his hands through my hair in a soothing manner.

I frown, pulling away from his chest to look him in the eyes, “Wait, how did you know I threw the game if you don’t know who I threw it for?”

He smirks, shrugging, “I didn’t know. You were smiling downright evilly when I came in so I just assumed.” He boops my nose. “And you ratted yourself out.”

I narrow my eyes at him, blowing some air out my nose - a gesture that has become my only way of showing anger towards him. I literally can’t even voice when I’m upset with him cause the grudge lasts like .5 seconds. I let him get away with more than he should.

Seeing as how I can’t argue to his statement, I lean back into his chest and pull out my phone to pass the time while I pretend to give him the silent treatment. Among my notifications is one for Rae’s stream. I smile and tap it, being taken to her YouTube channel and her live stream.

Just when the stream loads, Rae finds my dead body in Storage.

“Oh, nooooooo! Y/N!“ She wines as she goes over to it, “Sean must’ve killed her.” She reports the body and unmutes herself in game, “The body’s in Storage. I was on my way to call an emergency meeting cause I saw Sean vent in Security.”

“WHAT?!“ Sean exclaims in shock, “I didn’t! Rae’s lying. I swear I didn’t! I wasn’t even in Security!“

“Sean has been following me around this whole time. Just saying.“ Ken joins the discussion, throwing even more suspicion on Sean.

“We gotta vote someone.“ Charlie says, “Might as well be the most sus person at the moment.“

The voting results show all the little astronaut icons on Sean except his which is on Rae. Sean gets launched into space and the game continues. Having muted her mic in-game, Rae speaks up: “Y/N has been avenged. No one kills my best friend.”

I’m staring at my phone screen, eyes wide, eyebrows raised, a huge smile on my face. I take a glance at Corpse out of the corner of my eye and see he’s just as pleasantly surprised as I am.

“For those of you asking if I’m still mad at her and Corpse, the answer’s no. Actually, I think I was never mad. I was just in shock and a little hurt that I wasn’t made aware sooner.“ Rae says as she keeps wandering around the map, “Then I realized not talking to my best friend hurt more than the betrayal, you know. The only reason I still pretend is because it’s really funny to see her trying to soften me up.“ She laughs, “But yeah. I don’t know what I’d do without her or Corpse in my life. I love them both and love them even more together. My best friends are dating, I still can’t wrap my brain around that! They are sooo cute, you guys! I wish they posted more content of them together. I’m literally simping over their relationship! But shh, don’t tell em I said that.”

I laugh, overjoyed by what I just heard. I knew she couldn’t still be mad at us. I know she has every right to be, but she’s too sweet to actually hold a grudge against anyone ever.

I suddenly want nothing more than to give her an enormous hug and hold onto her for as long as she’d let me. I just now realize how lonely it feels to have never hugged your best friend because you haven’t hung out together in person. The only reason Rae now knows what I look like is because I sent her a full body picture of myself as one of my sad attempts to get her to start talking to us again. We have never met in person, and that thought kills me. It makes me impatient for this pandemic to end even more than before. 

“Told you there was nothing to worry about.“ Corpse’s arms tighten their hold on my body, pulling me even closer which I didn’t know was possible. The most fulfilling and endearing feeling - being in the arms of a loved one. Being held so close and so tightly that you feel like you’re untouchable. Like you two can’t be hurt by anything in the world as long as you have each other.

“Yeah, you were right.“ I sigh in content, putting my phone down and covering his hands with mine, our rings clinking quietly when they touch.

“As usual...“ he whispers theatrically with his lips against my hair.

I playfully roll my eyes, catching glimpse of the screen showing Rae’s demise. 

“Oh no, they caught her.“ I say, a bit disappointed she didn’t win and more than a bit responsible for her defeat.

I somehow manage to convince myself to get untangled from Corpse’s embrace and join the new round. I hear him groan as I settle my computer in my lap, unmuting my mic.

“See ya, kitten.“ Corpse kisses my temple, standing up.

“Oh my God, you two are too cute.“ Poki says sweetly, having heard what Corpse said to me.

“SIMP!“ Sean and Felix shout in unison causing the whole lobby to laugh. Corpse is as red as Rae’s avatar as he exists our room, running down the hallway.

“Ok, ok, ok. Hold on. I have to address this. I really hadn’t stepped foot in Security, let alone vented in there. Rae why were you lying?“ Sean’s voice cuts through the teasing directed towards Corpse and I.

“While we’re on that topic...“ Felix speaks up as well, making me break out in a nervous sweat, “Y/N, you literally saw Rae kill me, but you said you didn’t see anyone.“ He laughs, “Not gonna lie, I was a bit pissed.“

The call falls silent for about five seconds until Rae and I speak simultaneously.

“I was avenging Y/N.“

“I was helping Rae.“

Silence follows our statements, not for long though, as our friends break out in amused laughter.

“Fuck’s sake, you two make a good team.“ Sean says through genuine laughter which Rae and I soon join him in.

Felix and Sean and the rest of the lobby forgive us for throwing the game from both the crewmate and impostor’s side and we move onto another round. This time I have only one task in Electrical which I leave for last as always. I don’t feel like dying right from the get-go. I start by doing the card swipe in Admin and then the fuel task in Storage. As I make my way to Upper Engine, Corpse leaves Electrical, falling in step with me. I immediately get nervous, but still make my way to where I’m supposed to go, hoping he’d go his own way eventually. 

I stay wary of my boyfriend as I do my task, praying he won’t take my head off. When the task is finished, I find I’m trapped in the room with the doors shut. And Corpse right there. With every right and opportunity to kill me and vent. No one would know. No one saw us. 

That nervous sweat is back. 

I’m counting my last seconds of being alive.

And it happens...

A body is reported

“Oh than you so so so much! Corpse was gonna kill me in Upper Engine!“ I don’t let the person who reported the body speak, thanking them for my survival. “I was sure I was a goner.“

“Babe, come on now. You know I wouldn’t kill you even if I was an impostor. I love you too much.“ Corpse hurries to defend himself, “I’m following you around to keep you safe.“

I can tell he’s capping, but I have no concrete proof. He knows I’m onto him. His best bet is having me killed by the other impostor. He might have been capping the majority of his defense, but I know he won’t kill me.

“I’ll vote for myself because of that one.“ I mumble

The vote is skipped except the one vote I placed on myself and the round continues. I follow Corpse around the whole time, making sure he’s completing tasks - not that I can be 100% certain he’s actually completing them.

All is well until we walk into Admin and find Felix there, uploading data. Corpse, dead-ass, goes up to him and kills him, reporting the body right afterwards.

“IT’S CORPSE!“ I don’t give him a chance to start his brainwashing of the rest of the players. “Felix, this is my redemption for leaving your death unavenged last round.“

“Yeah, it’s me.“ Corpse laughs, that adorable laugh of his melting me despite the need to stay strong and carry out my argument, “Just vote me out so I can go troll Y/N.“

“Sounds like a plan to me.“ Ken says, the remainder of the crewmates, and the impostor probably, agreeing with him.

The votes are put in, all on Corpse obviously, and he is sent off into space. Not even five seconds later I hear his footsteps approaching. 

I look up when he pops his head in the room and says, “I have come to annoy you to death with my love for you.”

I can’t help but laugh, shaking my head. The things this man does to me are insane. It’s insane that I let him. 

It’s amazing, really. We’re amazing.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I pat the spot on the bed next to me, “I’ll allow it. But only cause I love you too.”

@susceptible-but-siriusexual  @simonsbluee  @save-the-sky  @hacker-ghost  @itsminniekat  @bi-andready-tocry  @imtiredaffff  @jazzkaurtheglorious  @hereforbeebo  @fandomgirl17  @chrysanthykios  @maehemscorpyus  @loraleiix  @letsloveimagines  @annshit  @i-cant-choose-a-username-help  @enigmaticmaze  @divine-artemis

[nightwishesworld]

Life of Death

You’re gonna need tissues for this one folks! A huge thank you to @addictedtodinosaurs for allowing me to write this wonderful headcannon! Hope you guys enjoy!

Warning: Angst. Whole lot of angst 

It hasn’t even been a day since Alcina’s world collapsed. Ethan Winters managed to flee Castle Dimitrescu with his life and topple the hierarchy Mother Miranda worked so hard to achieve. Everyone is gone; Angie, Moreau's house, Mother Miranda, even her baby brother Karl. They never stood a chance after the fall of the great Mother Miranda. Without her protection, they were left helpless. Of course, Ethan only saw them all as monsters; filthy bloodthirsty creatures that needed to be slain. That’s all anyone ever saw them as. They’re different so that must mean they’re wrong. They’re abnormally different from anything I’d ever seen so that automatically means they’re evil.

But they’re still a family. Lucky for Alcina, she never let herself depend on anyone other than herself. Well, except for her daughters.

She was wandering around the ruins of the castle in search of them. They were nowhere to be found since Ethan escaped. It was a grueling task but obviously, one that needed to be done. They need their mother’s tender love and care to nurse them back to health.

Cassandra was the first to be found. Naturally, she was found within the comfort of her basement. Where else would that silly girl be hiding? Just like Daniela, her bleeding seemed to have majorly stopped on its own. So all that was left for Alcina to do was bathe her and bandage her wounds. Alcina carried her upstairs to her bedroom slowly and carefully to not make her feel any sicker to her stomach. From there she bathed her and wrapped whatever wounds she had in delicate cloth before putting her to rest in her bed. Alcina tousled her wet hair before leaving in search of the rest of her brood.

Daniela was the easiest to find. She was left lying face down in the parlor soaked in a pool of her own blood. Her body was riddled with bullet holes to the point where her abdomen resembled Swiss Cheese. Alcina was quick to scoop her up and bring her upstairs to tend to her wounds. Until she got Daniela in the bath she used the ends of her dress to put pressure on her abdomen. Just like Cassandra, her bleeding seemed to have majorly stopped on its own. So all that was left for Alcina to do was bathe her and bandage her wounds.

Picking each individual bullet out of her body was an uphill battle, but Alcina was the eventual victor. Even better, she managed to not disturb her youngest’s slumber as she patched her up. Daniela was now free to rest as much as she needed in the sanctuary of her mother’s bed.

“What a mess we’re left with, hm? Don’t you worry about a thing my little Tasmanian Devil, Mother’s here now. I’ll protect you.”

The girls remained motionless as Alcina tucked Daniela in next to her sister.

Alcina watched as her little bundles of joy rested comfortably under the warm blankets and plush pillows. They look so sweet and at peace. It was rare for the matriarch to see them like this, but it always brought a smile to her face.

“You just rest now, my lovelies. I’m going to go find your sister so she can rest easy as well.” Alcina bends down and kisses each daughter on the forehead. “I’ll be right back.”

It took a few hours of searching to find her eldest daughter. Doing countless laps around the castle finally brought Alcina to explore the labyrinth of hidden passageways. There were a few times when said passageways brought her right back up to her bedroom. She wasn’t complaining too much though. Every time it happened she simply checked on her girls and reminded them how much she loves them.

Bela was by far the hardest to find. The sounds of scurrying behind a row of bookcases alerted Alcina to her presence. Following a single passageway eventually led Alcina to find the blonde buried from the chest down in rubble. The tunnel had collapsed from then on.

Alcina made quick work of removing the rock and rubble from her daughter's body. Rats fled back into their holes as she did so. The eldest Dimitrescu never moved even an inch. It took a while, but Alcina did manage to get her out in one piece. She whispered promises of a warm bath and offered to deep clean the dirt and dust out of her hair.

Bela couldn’t respond but Alcina knew she heard her. She could still sense her. She could sense all of them. They’re just weak, that’s all. They need as much rest as they can get.

It’s late evening by the time all three girls are bathed and tucked into bed. They were dressed in clean clothes and had their bandages changed again before Alcina crawled carefully into bed with them. She made sure to be extra careful when nudging them out of the way so she was in the middle; Bela on one side and Cassandra and Daniela on the other. Her arms wrapped around them all snugly.

It reminds Alcina of all the times the girls would burst into her room when they were little during a thunderstorm. All four of them would cuddle up just like this under the covers and either sing to them or read them a story.

“Tomorrow is a new day, my loves. We will start anew and we’ll be stronger than ever. I hope you sleep peacefully.”

The next morning comes slowly for Alcina. It’s quiet for once as the girls aren’t awake to cause mischief. Aching in her back and arms keeps her from stretching out. She smiled when she feels the girls are still snuggled up close to her.

“Good morning my darlings,” she says with a yawn. “How are we feeling today?”

Alcina kisses each daughter on the cheek and chooses not to notice how much more pale they were this morning. And certainly doesn’t recognize how stiff they were. She simply chalks it up to sleeping uncomfortably. After all, even she woke up with an aching back. Her arms wrapped around them must have really bothered them.

“It’s alright, girls. Take all the time you need to recover. You’ve been through quite the ordeal and need as much rest as you can get. I understand that. Mommy will be waiting for you right here to wake up. I’ll be the first thing you see when you open your bleary little eyes.”

The family lounged for the better half of the morning. Alcina takes her time stroking the hair of each of her girls’ hair and whispers words of comfort to them. “You’re so brave, my loves. And so strong; stronger than Mommy could ever hope to be.”

She notices a rather putrid smell coming from Daniela. One not caused by uncleanliness or a rotten meal, but something else entirely. Her immediate response is to change her bandages again, but can’t help but notice how pale Daniela had become overnight. Her lips were turning a shade of blue and the rest of her skin looked sickly. So did Cassandra and Daniela. Perhaps this is worse than simply recovering from injuries? Maybe....maybe they really were-

Alcina shook her head. They’ll wake up. Of course, they’ll wake up! They just need to rest extra long before they can really start to recover. So what if they get worse before they get better? At the end of the day, all that matters is that they do wake up. Then it’s smooth sailing from there.

The silence is suffocating. She feels the chill in her blood, coldness bringing the synapses of her brain to a standstill. Part of it is a pain, but one Alcina can endure. One she has to endure; for the sake of her daughters.

While she waited, Alcina called for a maid, the only one left, to fetch some documents from her private study that needed her attention.

They didn’t actually need her attention, of course. With the demise of Mother Miranda, the document's importance was nullified. But Alcina Dimitrescu is not the type of person to just sit around and do nothing. Especially when there are so many important things to do.

As soon as the maid steps into the room she understands what’s happening. She went through something strikingly similar when she had her miscarriage some years ago. Reality is a cruel plane of existence. Especially when you lose someone you loved suffering it with. It’s plain to see that her mistress is grieving her losses and she doesn’t have the heart to break whatever fantasies Lady Dimitrescu has built-in her head.

Instead, she chooses to play along. Delusional or not this was still Lady Dimitrescu, the woman will kill her if she tells her anything other than what she wants to hear. She gives a kind smile and curtsy to her Mistress and simply dies as she’s asked.

“Shall I fetch you some wine, My Lady?”

Alcina thought about it for a moment. It has been over 24 hours since she last fed and she was certainly craving sustenance. But ultimately decides against it in favor of her daughters.

“No. Keep what we have left safe for when my daughters wake. They’ll need their strength more than I’ll need mine.”

The maid waits a minute before trying again. She looks over at the girls still laying in bed. It’s obvious they are no longer there. She could smell the evidence of that from across the room.

“Very well, Lady Dimitrescu. I could send up a platter of-“

“Enough,” Alcina shouts but quickly catches herself from continuing. The girls don’t need to be disturbed by such a trivial matter. “Go make yourself useful and clean my daughters’ rooms. They’ll want them spotless when they wake up.”

The maid simply bows her head. “Of course, my Lady. Please forgive me.”

The next two weeks went on like this before the maid had enough. She wanted to help her mistress, she truly did, but there was nothing left for her here anymore. The last scraps of human food were officially gone and there was no reason to trek down to the village and come all the way back when she could just as easily take up residence down there. It was a gut-wrenching decision but it had to be done. She tried her best for Lady Dimitrescu and that’s all that mattered.

She slipped away in the dead of night. Normally the Lady would have any escapees hunted down and dragged back up to the castle only to be thrown in the basement. But there was no one to do that anymore. Heisenberg and his pack of lycans had perished long ago, even before the Lady’s daughters, and the Lady was too drained of emotions to care. Too weak to chase after her.

Alcina’s daughters are her everything. Every day she lived for them. She lived because of them.

Alcina took great pride in her tall stature. She is the image of beauty and elegance. The only real flaw in her design is its role in hunting down prey. You’d have to be blind or stupid to not see her coming after you. Even with her much larger strides, she wouldn’t be able to keep up. And Alcina Dimitrescu does not run. Prey is not worth running for.

So she depends on her daughters to hunt for her. They’re much more suited for the job; so young, and clever, and agile. They are her cubs and her, their lioness, too old to keep up with the hunting party.

Alcina looks at her girls and sees them as they truly are; dead. Lifeless corpses. Their bodies are decaying and cold. She has been changing the bed sheets every morning to keep away the maggots but failed to stop all of them. The smell of death is noxious even with all the windows open because Bela said she wanted to feel the crisp winter breeze.

“My girls,” Alcina sobs. “What have I done to you?”

She collapses at their bedside and finally allows herself to break down.

But looking up at them she still feels them. She can still feel their arms wrap around her shoulders as she cries. The smell of paint is still on Cassandra’s cloak and Daniela was sitting on the floor right next to her. The short ends of red hair tickled Alcina’s cheek. If they were truly gone, how is it she can still feel Bela kiss the top of her head and wrap her arms around her neck in an embrace?

“I never should have done this. How can I be so selfish? I never should have turned you to suffer as I have.” A new wave of tears blurred her vision. “What kind of mother am I?”

She knows she doesn’t have long now. How can she bring herself to care? Everyone she ever cared about was already gone. What’s the point of trying to survive without her dearest family, especially when she’s so close to being reunited. Alcina wiggles her way back under the covers and pulls her daughters close once more. She’s crying in earnest now, happy that her pain is almost over. Even now she can see her daughters playing together, maybe even with Uncle Karl somewhere in the far off distance.

A smile spreads to Alcina’s lips as she closes her eyes and simply waits for her turn to join in on the fun.

[feliix]

Perfect Score ↠ Han Jisung

↠ Jisung x Reader (feat. Felix)

↠ Genre: Fluff, Angst, Smut, Fake Dating!AU, Childhood Friends to Lovers

↠ Rating: M (18+)

↠ Word Count: 14.9k

↠ Summary: As you return home to work at your local coffee shop, you’re swarmed with couples coming in on lovey-dovey on dates. You’ve always hated the idea of love, but it’s Jisung’s mission to make you change your mind in just two weeks time.

↠ Warnings: idiots 2 lovers, mutual pining, unprotected sex, fingering, soft sex, language, light mentions of marking, mentions of bad past relationships

“That's disgusting.”

You grimace in the most subtle way as you watch the man across the shop press a gentle kiss on the cheek of the woman next to him. For some reason your shop is packed with couples this evening. Not that you’ve been counting, but they’re probably the 50th overly lovey-dovey pair that you’ve seen this just this shift alone. 

To say ‘love’ isn’t really your thing isn’t too far from the truth. Every time you’ve been burned by someone in the past has only made your hope about love deteriorate. Relationships suck. Already been there, done that, and you don’t plan on doing it again.

You’ve always stuck by the same theory; relationships either lead to heartbreak or marriage. And even still, marriage may still end in heartbreak, so what’s the point?

“Stop being so dramatic,” Jisung laughs, pulling you out of your thoughts as he rounds the corner. He’s just in time to catch your snide remark, surely it won’t be the last one you’ll make tonight though. He had just run to the back to get you a fresh package of cups after using up all the stock in the front.

Tonight is busy to say the least. The sun has already set, and it’s the afternoon rush when everyone comes in for their second daily dose of caffeine. And it’s definitely necessary – especially on a day as hot and exhausting as this one. It’s the third day that its been over 100º in a row and the humidity is doing a real number to your hair.

“It’s not dramatic,” you sigh, leaning on the counter behind you as Jisung maneuvers around you, placing the cups on the shelf underneath. In your mind it absolutely isnt. Its a mystery why all these people need to publicly display their affection in a coffee shop anyway...

It’s just the two of you on the schedule tonight. Your boss has always been kind of an asshole, just leaving 2 kids in their early twenties to run the shop by themselves while he went off to do god knows what. There's always been an aching suspicion that he just goes to the bar across the street, since his car is still parked behind the shop but he’s always nowhere to be found. That’s okay though, it's better than him looming over your shoulder and criticizing your technique the whole shift.

“Yeah, whatever you say,” Jisung shakes his head.

In stark contrast to yourself, Han Jisung is quite the hopeless romantic. So much so that he tends to search for love in all the wrong places. Maybe a better way to describe it is that Jisung has a series of flings. He’s not shy to test the waters of any girl he comes across – and there are many, many waters that he’s tested. Lucky you gets to hear all about each one, being his friend and all.

But to your good friend’s demise, his ‘relationships’ never end up working out for very long. Theres always some kind of fatal flaw that’s a means to an end. Whether it was Jisung’s fault or the girls,  it’s always confused you why he could never hold onto something longer than a couple months. Jisung is a great guy, it didn’t make sense.

So great that you have been best friends with him for as long as you could remember. It all started that time in pre-k, where you poured a shovel of sand on his head in the sandbox. Initially, it did make him cry, but he got over it eventually. Ever since, he’s been right by your side, sandy hair and all.

“How much longer,” your eyes roll back in your head, neglecting to look at the watch on your wrist in fear that your shift has a significant amount of time left. The night has been dragging on since you stepped foot in the door and heard the little jingle as it opened. You wouldn’t be surprised if you’d only made it through half your shift thus far.

“Just under an hour. Want to start the closing checklist so we can get outta here?” Jisung offers, reaching for the rag and sanitation bucket at the end of the counter.

Nodding your head, you follow his plan – beginning your mission to clean like a speed demon so you can leave no later than at 8 o’clock on the dot. 

Luckily, closing tonight goes as smoothly as it possibly can. You and Jisung are ready to get out of there at 8 on the dot, thanks to your determination to mop like a mad woman and stock the front as fast as humanly possible. 

The air outside feels crisper than usual. Maybe its because you’ve been locked up in a small room that smells like coffee beans for 10 hours, but you’ll never get enough of the night air. 

“So what are we doing tonight?”Jisung asks, his fingers adjusting the headband that sits just above his forehead.

“I was planning on going home and getting some rest…” you trail off, avoiding eye contact with him. Jisung always goes out after your weekend shifts and never lets up on convincing you to tag along. So you can’t look at him, his eyes are much too convincing make contact with, and you are beyond exhausted from working a double today.

“Gah you’re so boring,” he teases, stopping in his tracks in the center of the parking lot to ruffle the hair on top of your head, “it was an early night we should do something.”

With a deep sigh, you stop as well, smoothing down your hair as a pout forms on your lips. The suggestive smirk settling across Jisung’s face is telling; he knows he’s about to get his way before you have the chance to turn him down or fish for another excuse. So you tilt your head, subtly rolling your eyes as you wait for him to explain what his big plans for tonight are.

“I’ll be at your house by 9.”

Accepting defeat, you shoot him a thumbs up before turning to get into your car. Asking any more questions would take away any time you had to wash up – and smelling like coffee beans any longer is going to drive you up a wall since it hasn't already.

It doesn’t take much time for you to rush home and get ready, and before you know it Jisung is there to pick you up. Only a few minutes late, but that’s just par for the course and right on time in Jisung terms. 

The car ride to your destination feels like a blur with how exhausted you are. So when you end up at your favorite boba spot, you immediately perk up. Those tapioca pearls always manage to give you a second wind.

But when Jisung decides to take a seat at one of the round tables just outside the shop instead of getting back in the car you know somethings up. You were expecting to hop back in the passenger seat of his car, maybe listen to some music for a while and drive around to kill time. 

Initially he doesn’t say much. His legs just bounce hyperactively while he fidgits with the straw of his drink. It’s almost like he’s waiting for you to speak up; his eyes staring down at the cup in front of him instead of sipping from it, lip caught between his teeth.

The energy is off. Not only did you expect to hang out and do something adventurous like Jisung normally would, but now you’re watching his cheeks grow red while avoiding conversation.

Awkward silence becoming too much to bear, you take matters into your own hands. “So how are things going with that girl?”

“Oh yeah,” he sighs, his fingertips drumming along the surface of the table, “she didn’t really work out.”

Unsurprised by his response, you just nod along. Its always to expect since he’s the pickiest person you’ve ever met. His last relationship ended because he thought the girl breathed too loudly. The girl before that had an annoying laugh, and then the one before that didn’t like cheesecake. There always seems to be a laundry list of deal-breakers tied along to each one of Jisung’s relationships, and that is something you’ll always expect.

“You’re probably better off.”

You don’t think much of the words before they leave your lips. Relationships are a ton of work, and you’ve never understood the point of to putting all your effort into something like that. There is a way to just be happy on your own, you know.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” his eyebrows furrowing in response, hands gripping his thighs in anticipation

“You know what I think,” you tilt your heat matter-of-factly, “relationships are kind of just a waste of time.”

“What is with you and all this ‘anti-love’ stuff anyway, Y/N?”

Now thats a response that you are not prepared for. The question catches you off guard, a boba bubble almost catching in your throat leaving you a coughing mess. Jisung chuckles at your discomfort, waiting patiently for you to get it all out and just answer his question, as uncomfortable as it is. 

“I’ve wasted too much time with too many dead-beat guys to even think about love,” you sigh again, your coughing fit subsiding as you reach for your cup once again.

“Not every guy is a dead-beat.”

His words carry a harsh bite to them, almost as if he finds you’ve said offensive. It burns his ego a bit, assuming that you’re grouping him in with all the guys you’ve been with in the past. Which is strange, Jisung should know that he’s different. For one, you’ve never dated him before and two, if he was such a dead-beat you wouldn’t have kept him around for so long.

You aren’t able to talk to guys, or most people for that matter, in the same way that you talk to Jisung. He’s the one you rant about all the assholes to. He knows all the shit that you don’t tell anyone else, he’s like your own personal human diary. Secrets are always safe with him, it's not like he has anyone who would listen to the gossip even if he wanted to tell.

After a minute of silence his expression changes, Jisung’s eyes squinting at you in that ‘I have a crazy idea’ type of way. It’s a look that you haven’t seen very often, and you can’t say that you’ll ever get used to it. 

“Okay then I’ll make you a deal,” he proposes, a glimmering look in his eye that made you somewhat nervous. You never know what you are getting with Jisung, but most of the time his ‘deals’ are on the crazier side.

“What is it?” You still ask although you’re a bit nervous to hear his answer. If his plan is to set you up with one of his delinquent friends or something–

“Be my girlfriend.”

Your eyes widen as the words fall from his tongue, confusion taking over your expression as a small chuckle slips past his lips. Instinctively your stomach tightens, the air around you now feeling a bit heaver each second time ticks on. He can't be serious…

“Your what?”

“Two weeks is all I’m asking for. Be my girlfriend for just two weeks, and I’ll show you that love isn’t as shitty as you think it is.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me” you shake your head, a disbelieving smile stretching wide across your face.

“C’mon Y/N,” he challenges, “it’s two weeks of your life, what else do you have to do? I think it could be fun.”

The quirk of his eyebrow and quick squint of his eyes grabs your attention. He’s serious about this, scarily serious, and you aren’t quite sure how to react to that.

“What’s in it for you?” Your chin falls into your palm as you stare at him, waiting for his response.

“Well for one,” he starts, a sigh leaving his lips, “if it works then I won’t have to listen to you complain about how much relationships suck anymore.”

Just when you don't think you can roll your eyes any further into the back of your head, your own actions surprise you. If looks could kill, the one you’re giving him right now would surely take him out. He doesn’t pay much mind to it though, he’s used to your sass and just shrugs it off.

“This is an awful idea,” you glare at him as if it will change his mind. You’re certain this experiment of his would not change your own. Love sucked, and that was that.

“Two weeks,” his voice carries a taunting tone, his eyebrows wiggling to entice you into his plan. He isn’t going to give up on this easily, you know Jisung. And Jisung always gets his way.

“Fine,” you huff, “two weeks and that’s it. And if my mind isn’t changed you owe me 3 more of these,” you say, picking up your boba from the table and shaking it at eye-level for emphasis.

His bottom lip catches between his teeth, satisfied with your response. He isn’t exactly sure how he’ll manage to pull this off, but he’s definitely up for the challenge.

“We start tomorrow at 8, I’ll pick you up after work.”

Crossing your arms over the table, you bury your head in your arms. This is going to be the most interesting two weeks of your entire life.

“Wait, you're like dating dating the Han Jisung?” Felix’s jaw drops, excitement prevalent on his face as you spill about your night with Jisung.

Felix is the only person in your life that understood your hatred for relationships, other than Jisung of course. Not that he shares the hatred himself, he’s just heard enough about how much you despise being in one to know just how you felt. He’s only heard about it every day for the past several summers.

Felix is your best friend, other than Jisung of course. He’s also the only person in this world that you could bear to work with on a Saturday morning. 

“That's the plan,” you sigh fiddling with the containers on the counter. It’s pretty slow for a Saturday morning, only a handful of customers have come in so far and it's already 11 am.

That’s the thing about working at a coffee shop – and it sucks when it's busy, and it sucks even more when it's slow. At least it isn't a terrible job, you at least have Jisung and Felix to keep you company and that's always worthwhile.

“And for the record,” you turn to look at Felix, a grin still evident on his face, “I don’t think this is gonna change my mind about the love stuff.”

“You know how Jisung is,” his eyebrow lifts, “so you never know. Maybe something could happen.” 

If anyone was surprised that you were dating someone, fake relationship or not, it would be Felix. On top of that, you’re dating Han Jisung. As in, the same Jisung that ended a 3-month relationship last year because the girl ‘smelled too much like peaches’ and it was ‘too good to be true.’ And now that you’re the one stuck with him for the next 14 days, it is only a matter of time until he finds the deal-breaking trait that turns him away from you.

“Okay no, that's exactly why this is only two weeks. If I know Jisung, he’ll be over it before the 2 weeks even ends.”

“Whatever you say,” the pitch of his voice is raised teasingly. You can tell he doesn’t believe this will be just a ‘two-week thing’ by the funny little look on his face. You hate that look, and you hate how Felix always seems to be right.

Subsequently Felix sees a lot of things that you aren’t able to see for yourself. You’ve grown up with Jisung, grown accustomed to his unique mannerisms and behaviors without even noticing. Felix, on the other hand, has a different point of view. 

He’s not in it like you are, so gets to see the way Jisung looks at you; the way he hangs on each and every word that leaves your mouth with a sparkle in his eye. He notices that Jisung longs to make you laugh. And he watches the toothy grin each that grows on your face each time a chuckle breaks through your lips. Felix notices every behavior that you see as nothing more than ‘friendly.’ But who is he to say? So, for now, the information remains tucked away and stored in his mind for a later date.

Your fingers drum on the clean marble countertop beside you, leaning against it as you wait for a customer to come in. All this time with nothing to do is really doing wonders for your imagination; thinking about what Jisung has planned for the two of you to do tonight. Nothing special, you hope, he really doesn’t need to go all out for this. 

The lack of customers and silence that's fallen among the shop is just making it easier for your mind to wander off. It was beginning to make you sick how much you were thinking about Jisung and nothing has even happened yet. It's not like you have any reason to be nervous, but keeping all these thoughts trapped in your thick skull is starting to give you a headache

“He’s picking me up after work.” You blurt it out without thinking much about it. No one is here, you might as well lay it all out there for Felix to know since there's nothing better to do.

“He’s picking you up? Like you’re going on a date?”

“Shut upppp,” your eyes roll at his teasing nature, growing slightly embarrassed by how giddy the thought of this ‘date’ is making him, and you for that matter. It’s just Jisung. And you are just hanging out like you do every other night. There's nothing different about tonight and you’ll be able to prove that to yourself and Felix by the next time you see him.

The rest of you shift flies by – it always does when you work with Felix. Before you know it, the closing checklist is coming to an end, only a few steps left before you can finally get out of here. The clock had just turned to 7:55 pm, but Jisung still isn’t here. Not that you’re expecting him to be on time or anything, this is still the same Jisung you have always known.

What you aren’t familiar with is the nervous butterflies fluttering around in your tummy as the clock approaches 8 pm.  What are you even nervous about? It isn’t a blind date, other than the fact that you have no idea what you’re doing. And it isn’t even a date. It’s Jisung for crying out loud.

Speaking of the devil, the chimes in the front of the shop ring as Jisung passes through the doorway. You don’t see who it is at first, your back turns to the door as you sweep behind the counter. The chimes ringing at this time of night do trigger your fight or flight instincts though, ready to turn to whoever is approaching and give them a dirty look for coming in this close to closing time.

But once you turn around and see Jisung standing in the doorway with a bouquet of sunflowers, your tension quickly subsides. You swear that you can feel your heart skip a beat, heat rising to your cheeks as you try your hardest to form a coherent sentence. It's okay that you aren’t able to, though, the surprised look on your face is enough for his smile to light up the room.

“I’m here to pick up the pretty girl with the espresso stain on her shirt,” he chuckles, his bottom lip catching between his teeth nervously.

Tonight he’s dressed a lot nicer than usual comfy attire; a nice shirt with a pair of dark jeans that hug his slim figure. His hair is a lot lighter too – a vast change from the midnight black strands that normally frame his face. He’s really going all out for this thing – and right now all that you’re wearing a pair of running shorts and a t-shirt with coffee stains down the front.

When you look to your right, Felix is just as stunned as you are. Frozen in his spot as his jaw practically sweeps the floor, he looks at you with wide eyes, his eyebrows raised as a smug expression crosses his face. For a second you contemplate asking him if he’s all set to finish the closing checklist on his own, but before you’re able to speak up he’s already shooing the two of you out the door.

With a goofy grin displayed across his face, Jisung hands you the bundle of flowers, tied together with a delicate white ribbon. You mumble a thank you, still stunned that he showed up here looking like that to take you out tonight. So he is the romantic type, note taken.

“You like nice,” you gulp nervously. It already feels like a date and you haven’t even left the parking lot yet. If this is how things are going to start you had an exciting 13 more days ahead of you...

“So do you,” he smirks, his eyes wandering down to the small brown stains littering your shirt. Eyes narrowing, you read the expression crossing his face – of course, he’s joking. “I brought you some fresh clothes to change into don’t worry.”

Relief rushes through your body as the words leave his lips, followed by a slight pull on your heart strings. Knowing he took the time to think about bringing you something else to wear so you didn’t have to sit in your coffee scented clothes all night made you feel warm in the strangest way. He’s thoughtful, and it's weirding you out – but in a good way.

“So, where are we even going?”

“You’ll see.”

A vague yet interesting, and very on-brand response from Jisung. He’s always been a fan of surprises – as long as he’s not on the receiving end.

The drive to your destination drags on forever. You aren’t quite sure how long you’ve been on your way; between your agile back seat changing of clothes, which you are surprisingly skilled at, and the anticipation coursing through your veins, you’ve lost track of time. All you know is that you’ve been driving along the backroads of your area for at least 15 minutes, and there is nothing around you to indicate that your destination is near.

“This is it.” The car pulls into a small dirt parking lot, dimly lit by some dingy street lights that aren’t doing a very good job at their primary function. It's pretty hard to see what’s around you, no matter how hard you squint and press your forehead to the window to get a better look.

“Where are we?” The question leaves your lips in a worried fashion. Trees surround the parking lot on all three-sides, while the road you've pulled in from occupies the fourth-side. You’re hesitant to get out of the car, but as Jisung rounds the front and opens the door for you, you’re on your way out. He motions for you to hold on as he pops the trunk – returning with a blanket and a reusable shopping bag filled with god knows what.

He still hasn’t given an answer to your question though, and you still aren’t quite sure where you are. If It was lighter out you assume it would be beautiful here, all the greenery dark and shadows hovering over you from the trees.

The bright light from his cell phone flashlight lights up the way, a path on your right

“Hell no,” your arms cross over your chest as you stand still in your place. He’s out of his mind if he thinks you’re going into the woods this late at night. You’ve seen enough horror films, stuff like this never ends well.

“C’mon, it’s not as bad as it looks,” Jisung laughs at your pouting manner, amusement filling his system as you glue your feet to the ground of the parking lot. His puppy dog eyes plead for you to follow him, a hand outreaching in your direction for the taking. You contemplate it for a moment, your eyes narrowing as you ponder the possible outcomes of the situation before you.

“Fine,” you huff as you take his hand in yours.

His hand feels different in yours this time. His long fingers lacing between your smaller ones in the perfect fit that you’ve neglected to notice before. You’ve held his hand before, platonically though. This time it’s platonic too though, right? It’s just a date. A platonic date between two friends. Two friends who are dating on a two week trial period. So yes, it is strictly platonic. Right?

The dirt path doesn’t drag on for too long, but the sounds of bugs ticking and twigs breaking beneath your feet is enough to startle you. Every scared and breathy gasp that  leaves your mouth is followed by a small fit of laughter from Jisung. At least one of you is amused.

But the dirt path soon turns rocky, a clearing becoming more and more noticeable as Jisung’s flashlight brightens the way ahead of you. The rows of trees come to an end as the ground flattens, a giant slab of rock lying beneath your feet. Out ahead of you is completely dark, and until you approach the darkness you don’t notice that you’re just a few yards away from the edge of a cliff. A river lies below the edge, the sound of water rushing fills your ears and calms your nerves. It is quiet out here, peaceful and without distraction.

Jisung stands back as you admire the scenery around you – your own phone flashlight now out and panning around to look at the view. It’s beautiful out here, nothing to worry about but the sounds of the water and whatever Jisung is doing behind you…

You couldn’t have zoned out for more than 2 minutes, but once you turn back around to face him a picnic blanket lies on the ground before you. Snacks scatter the extent of the fabric, a few candles placed in the center

“You really went all out for this, huh?” A nervous laugh leaves your lips before you swallow harshly. Never in your life has a guy ever gone all out like this for you. A late-night picnic at a secret location, fixed with all of your favorite snacks and some candles for ambiance.

“Had to,” he smiles, “it’s our first date.”

You join him on the blanket, grabbing for a bag of popcorn as you sit down. Maybe relationships wouldn’t suck so much if all men treated you like this…

But it’s just Jisung. Jisung who already knows all your favorite things to eat. He’s just trying to be convincing – to prove to you that men take you on dates, do nice things. But stuff like this never lasts. Two weeks from now you’ll be going back to the same old Jisung and Y/N friendship that you’ve always had.

The conversation goes on as normal tonight, he doesn’t make any moves (as expected, it’s Jisung) and you enjoy the view and calm atmosphere with your fake but not so fake boyfriend. You stay out on the cliff for a few more hours before he takes you home. Jisung put a lot of effort into making tonight special, and you appreciate him for that. But even after all his effort, you know that real relationships aren’t like this.

Every guy you’ve dated would try to woo you over in the beginning too. They call it the honeymoon stage for a reason. Things are always great in the beginning, lavish gifts and dates, loving gestures. That kind of thing never lasts. Soon the effort runs out, the guy gets bored of putting the work in, and they end up sleeping with your freshman year roommate. Well, at least that's how it is for you.

The bundle of sunflowers Jisung gave to you earlier on in the night sits on the end table next to your bed. Each time you look at them all you can picture is the goofy grin he sported as he stood at the entrance of the coffee shop. It replays in your mind like a movie. How he dressed up all spiffy just to take you out. How he took you to a spot only he knew about, somewhere so off-site and serene that he knew you’d remain uninterrupted. You can’t help but wonder if he’s using the same old tricks on you that he does to other girls though. If he only knew about that place because he’s taken someone there before.

Not that it matters though, you aren’t his real girlfriend. You’re just on a trial period. But for some reason the thought that he might have brought another girl to the same spot before doesn’t sit well with you.

“Sooooo,” Felix teases, letting his chin fall into his palm as he leans on the counter before him, “how was your date with Y/N?”

Jisung chuckles at his nosiness, he’s sure you’ve already told Felix all about it. There are no secrets left between you two. Even sometimes Jisung felt like the odd man out when you’re all together.

“It was good.”

Jisung keeps his answer short, leaving the rest up to his imagination. He isn’t one to kiss and tell – or to not kiss and tell. Keeping his private life all to himself is something he takes pride in, things are just better that way.

“Just good?” Felix challenges, knowing there is much more that he’s leaving out. His eyes narrow as he waits for his response. You haven’t told him anything about last night, not even where you went after he picked you up. Things are radio silent on your end, which left Felix dying to know what actually happened on your ‘date that wasn't a real date.’

Jisung glances back at him, contemplating whether or not he should spill the beans. It would be kind of nice to have someone else to confide in. Especially since it's always you on the receiving end of his secrets; however, this may be the one secret that you don’t know of.

He chews on his bottom lip pensively, if anyone knows what’s on your mind, it would be Felix. Not that Jisung would ever want to pry, there's just no indication of how you feel about last night, or about him. Before Jisung can even open his mouth to speak, a knowing smirk is spread wide across Felix’s face. It’s that kind of look that makes him nervous – he knows something.

“You like her don’t you,” he muses, rubbing his hands together smooths as the words catch in the air. It’s out there now – and it’s obvious. Well, maybe not obvious, but it's clear as day to Felix – and that is more than enough to make Jisung worry.

“I don’t,” Jisung denies the other boy’s claim, his willpower too strong to give in.

“Oh yeah? So why do you self sabotage every one of your relationships then?”

The words catch Jisung off guard; his jaw clenching harshly as an annoyed breath is forced out of his nostrils. He wants to deny the claim once again, but he can’t bring himself to keep brushing off these feelings that have had a grip on him ever since he was young.

Felix is right too. He does sabotage each relationship that comes his way. Jisung goes out of his way to find something wrong with each girl he dates. He can never admit it to himself, but in the back of his mind, he knows that it's the fact that none of those girls are you. None of the girls he’s ever met could ever match up to all that you are. In his mind, you held the perfect score, and no one else had ever come close.

“It’s written all over your face every time you look at her you know.”

There's no way he’s that obvious... Did his feelings show that much whenever he was around you?

“What do you mean?” Jisung clarifies, the small once of hope bearing weight in his chest that Felix will follow up with a ‘just kidding’ or change the subject. Only the silence that falls on the room is enough of a response for Jisung to get the clue. 

“Just please don’t tell her,” he avoids eye contact with the other boy, hand gripping harshly on the countertop as he stares down at the black and white checkered tile. “I just wanted to see if I could change her mind – about the love stuff, you know?”

The second you find out about Jisung’s feelings all bets would be off. There’s no way you’d let your little arrangement continue, not if either of you could end up hurt. And he knows you only agreed to this because there is nothing between you romantically, it was a deal between two friends. The second feelings get involved, everything gets all mushy and confusing, and Jisung can’t lose you.

Felix bears his weight on the counter behind him, leaning comfortably on the cool glass. “Believe me, I want her to be done with that ‘I hate love thing’ just as much as you do,” he sighs, looking around momentarily before he clears his throat. “Want me to be honest?”

“Please.”

“I think you might be the only one who can change her mind.”

Jisung’s heart skips a beat once the words leave Felix’s mouth. Blood rushes to his ears, pumping like a snare drum as he considers his thoughts. His stomach begins to twist as he considers it, almost confused about what Felix means, but not willing to accept it. You only agreed to fake-date him, you still hate love.

A comfortable silence fills the air, Felix watching him as his lips roll between his teeth, deep in thought. Change your mind. The words repeat in Jisungs head like a broken record. That’s what he’s trying to do, all for the right reasons of course. So that you don’t  have to be so miserable about it anymore. 

But behind those selfless reasons are several smaller, selfish ones. He gets to be with you as more than a friend now, and although it’s nothing more than some kind of test run, he can’t help but feel like this can be something more too. It’d be crazy to ignore the feeling he has deep in his chest, and maybe it's a sign not to.

“Like you think…” Jisung gulps, clearing his throat as the words stutter out of his mouth, “I could get her to fall for me?”

The lack of response that Felix gives is ominous, but the raise of his eyebrows and toothy grin forming on his face needs no words to tell. 

If anyone is to change your mind, it’ll be Jisung.

That night Jisung took you to the drive-in movies. To be quite honest, you couldn’t really recall what was playing, some Pixar film with bugs as the main character if you could remember it correctly. You were far too distracted laughing with Jisung, watching as young kids played around on a grassy patch near his car. The giggles that left his lips each time the little girl waved to him were music to your ears. You never noticed how much he loved kids, how good he was with them.

The image of his hands clasped together as he fawned over the little girl, picking dandelions in the grass and racing to place them by your feet was burned into your memory. The boxy grin that graced his face all night long. The way his eyes squinted from his cheeks, pushing up as he smiled so big. The whispers of the word ‘cute’ each time her pigtails bounced while she toddled away.

Missing the movie doesn't disappoint you. If anything, the memories you've saved from tonight are more than enough.

The next night you were unable to go out, the shop was so busy that you were not able to leave until an hour and a half after your shift was supposed to end. Some punk kid dropped a cup of iced coffee on the floor on his way out and decided it would be best to leave it there without cleaning anything up or letting you know. Maybe if it hadn’t been so busy then you would have noticed the spill before it dried up and there were coffee stains stuck to the tile floors.

Naturally, you spent a good 15 minutes trying to mop up all the stickiness on the floor. But to your luck, Jisung is working with you that night. Once all the customers left the shop he hooked his phone up to the speakers, grabbed your hands, and danced you around the shop. Well, it was supposed to be dancing but it probably looked more like Jisung swinging your arms as you attempted to not trip over your own feet.

It makes up for not getting to go out though, and you’d take a night like that over a fancy dinner any chance you got. 

It’s been 12 days since you became Jisung‘s girlfriend, and as the remaining days decreased, so did your hatred for love. Each night he planned something special. The real kicker was the texts that you get once he makes it home from dropping you off every night. A simple ‘I had a great time tonight’ was enough to make your heart swell and heat rise to your cheeks.

And as you notice your hatred for love and relationships leaving you, you notice another feeling enter your system. Or several feelings…

Things are getting just as sticky as the night when two frappuccinos splattered all over the shop floor, whipped cream and all. Spending time with Jisung like this is bringing some things to the surface you didn’t know were buried in the first place.

Every night that you spent with Jisung over the past 12 days allowed you to see him in a new light. You got to see him on a different level than just friends. You got to see what every girl that fawns over Jisung experiences.

Something about your friendship never let you jump past that barrier. You only see him as a dear friend of yours. Nothing more and nothing less. And now the issue is that...you aren’t sure how you’ll ever go back to see him as such.

You like Jisung as more than a friend, that's for sure. And you know because of that things will never be able to go back to the way they once were.

Maybe you're reading too much into it, but your gut is telling you that you aren't the only one feeling this way.

The feeling of butterflies that pound in your stomach each time you meet eyes with him has to be reciprocated. There is just no way you can be feeling this way and he isn’t.

This isn’t like the feelings you’ve caught for any guy before, this is something else. Every night when you go home you lay in bed, staring at your ceiling with a dumb grin on your face as you think about your time together, about him. About the way his black curly hair falls in front of his eyes each time he looks down and how his smile lights up every room he was in.

These things that you were so blind to before can’t escape your thoughts, and it makes you wonder how many times or things you’ve looked over that make you melt, just like you are right now.

But in just 2 days, this trial-boyfriend period will be over, and you’ll have to go back to being just friends. Each day, each hour, each minute that approaches feels heavier and heavier. Anxiety floods your system each time you think about things being over, or that this arrangement you have isn’t even real.

When you think about the growing feelings you have for him, you honestly can't imagine what your life will be like any other way. What it would be like going back to just hanging out here and there. And what it would be like

You can’t even fathom thinking about what it would be like hearing him talk about another girl again. It makes you sick thinking that there's going to be someone after you, because in just 5 days this will be all over, and you’ll go back to being the girl best friend, nothing more.

Maybe it’s just wishful thinking that Jisung has more feelings for you too. But the glimmer in his eyes as his bangs brush out of his eyes and they land on you tells a different story. When he looks at you it feels like you are the only two people on earth. He sees nothing else but you, and the way your eyes sparkle back at him.

Each day you spend with Jisung after that feels like a wrench tightening the screws of your heart. 14 days is just not enough.

“Earth to Y/N,” Felix says waving a hand in your face.

You must have zoned out, for god knows how long.

“Thinking about Jisung?”

“What?” you immediately straighten your posture and brush yourself off before responding, “N-no…I’m just thinking.”

“Right,” the sarcasm drips from his lips, not sparing you any time to save yourself as he turns away, beginning to wipe off the tables in the front.

For personal reasons, you’ve kept Felix out of the loop during this whole “fake-boyfriend Jisung” thing. It’s better if you keep your feelings to yourself until you figure them out. And although it feels really really strange not giving Felix the intel on what’s going on in your life, you know it’s for your own good.

Once you put what is in your head out into the world, you can’t take it back. And what if all these things that you’re feeling is just a part of the honeymoon-phase. If that even existed anyway… But if all these feelings for Jisung are due to him trying to woo you and change your mind, everything will just fade away as things return back to normal. And then you’ll be left loving him in silence while you watch him blow through relationships like a leaf blows through the wind.

Something in you tells you that this isn't the case, but the small shadow of doubt in the back of your mind keeps you from talking to your best friend about it anyway.

The thing is, you don't have to tell Felix for him to know. Every time Jisung picks you up from work to take you out you shine. Your smile spreads so wide he’s afraid your cheeks will tear. The nervous shake of your fingers as you grab for your belongings as you head out the door doesn’t go unnoticed in Felix’s eyes. He knows you too well to look over things like this, he just wanted to wait for you to say something first.

But now that you aren’t, Felix has decided to take matters into his own hands, asking you about it himself.

“Felix,” you start, waiting for his attention before you pull out a stool, sitting down and motioning for him to follow suit. Quickly he does, a questioning but knowing look evident on his face as the stool squeaks under him. “You know how this thing between Jisung and I is just an experiment or whatever?”

He nods in response, his hand quickly falling into his palm as he listens intently to your words.

“I think I messed up.” Your head is buried in your arms, laid over the tabletop in embarrassment.

“What do you mean?”

His question is more for clarification, he wants to hear you say it yourself. Felix knows that you’re gonna tell him that you’ve already caught feelings. He sees it coming from a mile away, you confirming it is just the icing on the cake.

“Don’t make me say it,” you whine, neglecting to pick your head up and look at him. You can feel the grin on his face. You know he's smirking at you right now, doing his best to hold back a laugh. Finally, you over the ‘I hate love and relationships suck’ thing.

“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” he sings, quite obviously teasing you while another deep sigh echoes from your chest. You manage to pick your head up, leaning onto your elbows with your chin caught between your palms as you face him.

“I like him.”

It comes out as a whisper, but Felix hears it loud and clear. If you didn’t know better, you’d assume that the smile on his face can't grow any larger, but it does. He jumps up from his chair in victory, doing a funny dance with his arms whooping in the air to celebrate. You’re confused as to why, but you’re too far in your own thoughts to pay it any mind; your head just sinks back into your arms as your forehead presses against the cold metal table beneath you.

“I knew it,” Felix smiles, his happy dance subsiding as he positions himself back down across from you. “I knew this fake dating thing was gonna work.

“Yeah well it really worked, because now I have feelings for a guy that’s never gonna reciprocate them for me.” Your tone is laced with sarcasm, a disappointing ring sounding off on each of your words. You’re too embarrassed to look at the boy sitting before you, worried that if you do all the emotions you’ve been holding onto for so long will spill over and stain your stone-cold image; one you’ve maintained for far too long.

But Felix is your best friend. The only one that you should be comfortable being vulnerable about your feelings for Jisung with; for some reason all you can’t bring yourself to be. Before you can get a grip on your emotions tears are streaming down your face and falling onto the cold metal surface under you in small puddles. 

A sympathetic sigh leaves Felix’s lips as he tries to gain your attention, “Hey.”

Inhaling deeply, you face him – mascara strewn across your face in black streaks and eyes nearly bloodshot. You’ve held this in for far too long. Only a double would tire you out and exhaust you enough to cry on the clock. Thank god it’s a rainy day, no customers ever come in on rainy days.

Or at least, no customers usually come in on rainy days. It's not until you hear the bells on the front door ring that you’re wiping your eyes, whipping around to greet whoever was entering.

And then you see him, standing there as he shakes out his umbrella, a bouquet of sunflowers in his hand.

And he sees you; mascara running down your face and tears staining your cheeks. He’s early. Your stomach turns at the sight of him, emotions not stable enough to handle carry a normal conversation like  

“Y/N,” his voice is quiet, worry dripping in his tone as your name leaves his lips. But you can’t face him right now, not like this.

Your feet move faster than you mind, standing up and rushing to the back to avoid him. Jisung doesn’t follow you, just stands there and watches you walk away, solemn and worried that he’s done something. 

It’s not until Felix is rising from his seat and pacing over to him that he’s brought back to reality.

“Jisung...” he starts, hands coming up slowly to console him, “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be here right now.”

“Wh-what’s wrong?” His lip worries between his teeth, eyes glossy as he stares at the door you just closed behind you. He’s looking at it intently, mind flooding with worry, wishing so badly that the door will just fly open, and you’ll tell him what was going on. In the back of his mind, he knows that you won’t, at least not for now. Talking about emotions has never been your strong suit, and chances of that changing at this moment are at an all-time low.

Felix is unsure how to answer him, caught in between not wanting to lie and keeping your feelings private. He can’t speak for you; but he’s scared that saying nothing could just make this whole situation worse.

His mouth gapes as he searches for a response to his question, lips opening and closing while he hums to himself.

The umbrella hanging from Jisung’s hand drops with a crash, starling Felix as he jumps at the sudden sound. But before he is even able to speak, the bell to the front door is ringing again, and Jisung is walking away into the pouring rain.

The next day you wake up feeling numb. You’ve received several texts from Jisung the night before, none of which you have the energy to reply to or even look at for that matter.

The guilt riddling your body has become too much for you to handle. You left work last night without even saying goodbye to Felix. He’s a good enough friend and coworker to know that what you’re going through is more important than working the counter at an coffee shop. 

After Jisung left, Felix came back and let you know; he almost had to break down the door to the backroom in order for you to let him in. He told you to go home, get some rest and that you’d talk tomorrow.

But after waking up the last thing you want to do is talk about Jisung, it hurts enough just thinking about him.

Every time you thought about how your arrangement was supposed to end in just a few days you felt sick. You have worked so hard to open up just to build your walls back up again. And now you’re back at square one.

When you agreed to be Jisung’s girlfriend you did not expect to fall for him like this. He’s Jisung for god’s sake. He’s your personal diary, he’s the one who knows all the shit that nobody else does. And he’s the only one that listens to all the dumb shit you have to say that no one else cares about.

Feelings ruin everything. Love sucks, and you knew this before you agreed. You agreed under the circumstances that Jisung could show you that relationships could be fun; not under the circumstances that he would make you fall in love with him,

And the more that you think about it, maybe you were always in love with him. Maybe you always had these feelings for him, but they were trapped in the tight bonds of friendship that your subconscious never let you out.

But none of that even mattered now. The deal had to be off, and you need to distance yourself from Jisung before you are hurt any worse. The longer this goes on the worse that you are going to feel when it's all over.

How are you supposed to go back to normal after this? Like is Jisung thinking that showing you how amazing relationships are, you won't fall for him or something? Or does his true plan consist of making you fall in love with him, just to string you along like every other girl he's dated?

You’re trapped in the never-ending spiraling thoughts, soiling your image of Jisung with each new theory that crosses your mind. None of them are good. All of them paint him as a player, as someone who just used you.

But the little thump in your heart when you notice the sunflowers placed on your bedside table wants your mind to change. Your heart wants you to believe that Jisung feels something too, that throughout this arrangement he has seen a different side to you too – that he’s fallen for you just like you have for him.

It's a knock at your door that guides you out of your thoughts. The repetitive tapping at your front door that drags you out of bed. And when you check your peephole and it's no one else, but your small blonde best friend standing on your doorstep that has relief rushing through your system.

The door cracks open, Felix standing there with an umbrella in his hand – even though it was nearly 100º with clear skies.

“Why are you still in your pajamas? It's noon.”

Suddenly, he pushes past you and invites himself into to your living room. Plopping down on your couch, Felix makes himself comfortable as he waits for you to join. You spin on your heels, an exhausted breath leaving your mouth as you pace over to him, plopping down on the next cushion over.

“Why the umbrella?” Your brow furrows as he hands it over. You take it though, still confused behind the meaning of the object that you're holding and where it came from.

“It’s Jisung’s.”

You nearly drop it as his name leaves his lips. The name causes your stomach to tighten, mouth-drying instantly as emotions well behind your eyes.

“Why?” Is all you can mutter out. Why was he giving it to you, why is he here, and why did he have it?

“You need to bring it back to him.” He says sternly, his eyes locked on you as he waits for you to look back at him. But you’re too focused on the umbrella placed gently in your hands, tracing your finger over every wire and the soft rubber handle.

“I can’t.” Your words come out in a whisper, breath light and airy as you sigh, sinking your body back into the couch cushions. Giving the umbrella back to Jisung will mean that you have to go see him. And if you see him, he’s going to want to talk to you about last night, then question you about why you haven’t been returning his texts. No. You will not be giving Jisung his umbrella back.

“Y/N,” your name leaves his mouth gently, a sigh following it before he reaches for you, rubbing your arm comfortingly before continuing, “I think you need to talk to him.”

“Felix you know I can’t do that.”

You’re serious in your words. Not that you don’t want to talk to Jisung. You most definitely want to – and if you could, you would. But you can’t. There are too many emotions involved. The wound is fresh and seeing him would be rubbing salt right into it.

“Y/N,” he sighs, this time more forceful, like he’s trying to get something across to you but it's going right over your head. “Talk to him. Please.”

“You know I’m going to end up hurt if I do.” Tears well in your eyes as the words croak from your throat. It's dry and scratchy, full of fear and anxiety.

“I think you’d be surprised,” he mumbles, his eyes instantly widening on realizing the words that just escaped. Eyes wide with confusion, you’re begging him to go on, but if he does then Jisung won’t be the only one in deep shit right now. It's not up to Felix to tell you what he knows this time. 

“What do you mean I’ll be surprised?”

“I have to go,” he stands instantly, motioning to the umbrella, “and you need to bring this back.”

With a slight ruffle to your hair, Felix is giving you a supporting smile and waving goodbye. And you’re left alone once again – just you and Jisung’s blue umbrella.

It takes a lot of courage to get ready today. You make sure to take your sweet time rummaging through your closet, flipping through articles of clothing for the better half of an hour. At the end, you opt to go with a pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt. There isn't enough energy in your body to put on anything else, and you know you’ll just want to curl back up in bed once you get home. Sweatpants are safe, and safe is just what you need.

No makeup today either. If things are anything like you’re expecting, your makeup will just end up ruined anyway. It's your better judgment to shower though, you’ve neglected to take one after work last night; opting to just bury yourself under your covers as soon as you got back. But today is a new day. And with a fresh shower and your comfiest pair of sweatpants, you are about as ready as you’ll ever be to get your heart broken into a billion pieces. 

Umbrella in hand, you step out onto your front steps, relishing in your last few moments of ignorant bliss before making your way to Jisung’s. You immediately regret your wardrobe decision as the sun beats down on your frame, the humidity making you feel sticky and gross – your favorite pants are  no match for this heat.

But you’re on your way to your destination anyway, the drive feeling longer and more drawn out than normal. Jisung didn’t live that far away from you, but the ride there still felt like an eternity with each theoretical scenario passing your mind. 

Dragging your feet, you make your way to the front steps of his house. You’ve been here a million times, but today is different. From now on, every time you drive past this place all you’ll know is heartache.

You brush yourself off, taking a deep breath before bringing your hand up and pushing the doorbell. The sudden ringing sound startles you, even though you have every indication that it’s coming – you’re just too nervous and jumpy for your own good.

Footsteps approach the door, your stomach tightening more and more with the muffled pitter-patter of footsteps. You’re praying to God that it’s his mom, hoping that Jisung just so happens to be out – even though his car is in plain sight parked just a few meters away from you. Wishful thinking, you suppose.

When the door to his house opens, you struggle to maintain your composure. He’s dressed similarly to you; a pair of sweats and an old sports t-shirt that has definitely seen better days.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

His eyes are sunken in, dark circles dragging underneath his eyes and his lips pulled downwards. He looks like a sad puppy, his dark hair all scruffy and sticking up in each direction – probably from him running his hands through it so many times. 

“I came to give you this,” you extend the umbrella out before you. He nods before taking hold of it, his hand far at the opposite end making sure not to keep his distance. The more you look at him, the more sorry you feel for dodging his texts. He looks like he hasn’t slept a wink, and you’re afraid it’s all because of you.

“Oh...uh, thanks,” he struggles to make eye contact with you, looking down at the object in his hand. 

It’s awkward, uncomfortable, and you can’t seem to find the words to say to break this strange tension between the two of you. He’s acting weird, shifting his weight back and forth but not moving away to close the door. His mind is racing once again – contemplating whether or not to just invite you in or leave it at that.

But with every aching bone in his body, he musters up the courage to lift his head, looking you directly in the eyes. Their dark like his, definitely from the lack of sleep you had the night before. Your mouth is turned downward too; hands fiddling together to try and distract yourself.

“D-Do you wanna come in?” He stutters, stepping aside slowly as he gestures towards his house. He suddenly worries when you don’t respond right away, taking a second to contemplate if this is a good idea or not. Ripping off the band-aid is never easy, but it needs to be done.

“Sure,” is the word that you decide on – hoping that it doesn’t make you seem disinterested or too desperate to talk. Maybe he’s just being kind though. Maybe it’s an empty offer, something that you say when you’re trying to be nice, but subconsciously hope that they won’t take you up on it. Like when you offer to share your food with someone, but you’re really hungry. You do it to be nice, not because you actually want to split the delicious looking burger and fries on your plate.

He leads you inside and to his bedroom. It looks the same as always, but it feels different. It still smells like him though, the comforting woodsy scent of pine and mahogany that he always reaches for. But that comforting scent is anything but comfortable. You’re frozen in place, unsure if you should sit on his bed and make yourself at home, much like every other time in the past. For now you just stand in the doorframe, waiting for him to tell you to take a seat, just like any polite guest would. A guest. You have never felt like a guest in his home before, or around Jisung in general. But that imaginary wall between the two of you is standing tall and sturdy, and suddenly the two of you are reverted back to being strangers.

You watch as he toys with something on his desk, his fingers dancing from object to object and sifting through papers to look busy. The point of it – unknown to you but to him, he’s buying time. Trying to think of the first thing to say, what to ask, or if you even wanted to talk. Maybe you only agreed to come inside to be nice. Maybe you were too worried about hurting his feelings if you said no. But alas, here you are, standing awkwardly in his doorway as he shuffles around his room, his brain flooding with thoughts – but his mouth can not form them into audible words.

“I’m sorry for ignoring your texts.”

Your voice catches his attention, dropping whatever paper he’s looking at now and turning his gaze to you. You’re sunken into yourself, your chest thumping with anxiety as his eyes begin to wander your frame. Not in a ‘I’m checking you out’ manner though; more of a ‘you look so sad and I don’t know what to say to you right now’ kind of way. 

It’s true though, he doesn’t know what to say – which is why he’s staring at you, hoping the right words would just pop up and he didn’t have to use any brain-power at all. He doesn’t want to say ‘it's okay,’ because it's not. You never ignore his texts, and that alone tells him enough about what's going on. You are upset at him.

“What did I do wrong, Y/N?”

His words sound accusatory but his tone is soft, gentle and full of worry. Eyes swollen and looking like they are about to fill to the brim with tears, his sight is focused on you; now not able to look away.

“I-I don’t know…”

Your answer is honest. You don’t know if his intentions are dirty. Yeah, that’s what you thought initially, but looking at him with such hurt written all over his face tells a different story. 

Jisung is silent, unsure of what more he can do or say to make you talk to him. He can’t force you to open up, he never has and he never will – that’s always been his rule. Everything you’ve shared with him has been on your own terms and conditions. Jisung has always been here to be your listening ear, but he never prys.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

His voice is soft, eyes full of sympathy as he holds himself together. Those were the words he has been looking for. Now the ball is in your court and you’ll have to be the one leading the conversation. It’s just what he needed to figure this shit out.

“I-I don’t know.”

“Y/N,” he sighs as he drops himself down onto the mattress, “I shouldn’t have to say this for you to know it, but you know you can talk to me about anything, right?”

You do know that. You really, really do. But this time things are different. Is he expecting you to just come out and speak your truth like there won’t be consequences? No, he won’t push you to tell him anything you don’t want to. But the worry in his eyes and clammy hands are begging for you to just let it out so he can stop being in the dark.

You sigh out an ‘okay’ before sitting down beside him. 

Rip the band-aid off Y/N. Quick and painless.

His eyes narrow, almost to a squint, staring right through you in hopes of reading your thoughts. Your expression is nothing but blank as you try your best to gain some sort of composure. Do you just speak up and spill your guts? The words replay in your mind over and over until your thoughts are beat down and misshapen. 

You can picture his face when you say it; disgusted with a trace of disappointment and some confusion spread into the mix. Or maybe he’ll laugh at how pathetic you were, catching feelings for your fake boyfriend.

That’s it. There’s no way you can tell him. It would be much easier to just get up and leave. Tell him to pretend like none of this ever happened and that you needed some time to cool off. A few months maybe, or maybe you could just ghost him entirely. 

“Y/N?”

The sound of his voice breaks you out of your toxic thoughts, and his chocolate brown eyes bring you back down to earth. You can’t just leave him in the dust. He’s looking at you like you’re the only thing that exists. Things will be okay, right?

“Sorry, sorry,” you exhale deeply as you calm your thoughts; shifting the nasty scenarios out and accepting that whatever happens after this conversation is your fate. 

“Jisung, I-I guess I wasn’t expecting this boyfriend-girlfriend thing we’re doing to go like this.”

His brow quirks at your words, confusion riddling his expression as his eyes narrow. With a tilt of his head, he’s pushing you to continue, visibly riddled with your choice of words.

“Swear you’ll be honest when I ask you this?” You question him, your hand moving closer to his as you lean in slightly. He’s like a magnet, you can’t help yourself from moving closer; even though the proximity of the two of you is clouding your thoughts and you can feel your heart beginning to swell.

He nods in response to your question, his eyes full of concern as he waits for you to continue, “Why did you ask me to do this thing?”

He knows that a question like this was coming, only if he could have prepared for it. But he didn’t, so his throat is left dry and scratchy as his mouth opens, only to stutter a bit before closing it back up. No coherent thoughts or words are able to escape his lips, just nonsense mumbling that caught himself off guard.

With a deep breath, he closes his eyes, regaining his composure before he can face you again. He agreed to be honest, and if honesty is what you want, honesty is that you’ll get.

“I’m sorry.” That’s all that he can say. 

Oh no. This is exactly what you were expecting before you came here. He’s gonna tell you that he didn’t mean to mess with your emotions, that he felt you catching feelings and got carried away. That he’s sorry that he ruined your friendship and played you like a violin all at once.

“Me too.”

You don’t know why you’re apologizing, but you are. It feels wrong. Absolutely utterly, and undoubtedly wrong. Apologizing for your own feelings is not something that you are okay with. Especially when he made you fall for him like this. Okay so maybe thinking that is giving him too much power, but who the hell takes you out on dates for nearly 2 weeks straight just to laugh about it later. How can he expect you to not catch feelings for him? With his deep voice and fluffy hair that always hangs in front of his eyes, that little giggle he has when he finds something amusing. Everything about him was attractive. And you’ve fallen for it all. Hard.

“Wait, why are you sorry?”

A scoff escapes your mouth unintentionally, but it’s well deserved. “For being the idiot to fall for a guy that was playing her, I guess.”

You can’t look at him any longer, so your eyes fall to your lap, staring at your chipped nail polish and dirty fingernails instead of reading whatever dumb expression he has now. But if you just took a second to look up, you’d notice the widening of his eyes, how his fingers are beginning to shake and his mouth gape. 

“Wh-What?”

“Don’t make me say it again Jisung, I don’t feel like sounding stupid one more time.”

“No no I heard you, it's just,” his eyes slam shut, angry at himself that he let things get this far without keeping you in the loop. 

You’ve been telling him that you hate love for years now. After hearing it so many times, he’d just given up on the thought of you. Maybe if he said something before you went through all those shitty guys things could have been different. But he’s let this go on for far too long, and now you’re the one that was paying the price. 

“Y/N I have feelings for you.”

Your neck nearly breaks with how fast your head snaps up. He’s the one looking away now, his cheeks a bit rosy as he tries to hide himself. He isn’t doing a very good job though, his hair is only shadowing his eyes and you can clearly see the way he’s nervously chewing on his lip; a cute habit you have grown fond of these past couple of weeks.

If he didn’t look like he does right now, you’d assume he was messing around. But you know Jisung. You know his small little gestures and what they mean by now. You know when he’s being serious and when he’s telling a lie. He can look someone dead in the eye and lie to them, but when he tells the truth, he becomes shy and worried that he’s said the wrong thing. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” You ask softly, gently reaching for his hand. The subtle contact makes him flinch, reacting by pulling your hand away. But his eyes meet your sympathetic ones, sparkling just like they always do, and he knows what he wants.

Jisung’s hand reaches back for yours, lacing his fingers through yours before giving your hand a light squeeze. “You hate relationships,” he chuckles lightly, the mood of the room instantly shifting as the laughter leaves his lips. 

“I hated the ones that weren’t with you,” you correct him, but your voice comes across as just a whisper. He’s close enough to hear though, a blushing grin forming on his face as you shyly look away. His heart flutters when he hears it, a million butterflies erupting in his tummy all at once.

“I hated the ones that weren’t with you too,” he coos, his eyes wide and sparkling as he looks at you with such adoration. 

Time moves in slow motion as his hand meets your cheek, your eyes look deeply into his chocolate ones as he moves in closer. As your eyelids flutter shut his tongue runs across his bottom lip, wetting the surface before closing the distance between you. Finally.

And in that moment you’re at peace. Everything you thought you’ve ever hated, love, relationships, and maybe Jisung for a hot second, are the only things that you long for. The 14 days don’t have to be over, and your days no longer have to be counted. When you’re with Jisung you’re happy, you’re comfortable, and you're confident that he can give you what you have always deserved – but have never gotten. 

His lips move against yours in slow, languid motions, his large hands holding you close like he’s holding on for dear life. But you won’t leave even if you want to, not now, not after all this. 

Slowly, Jisung shifts his weight and you move in succession. He’s laying you down on his bed, gently climbing over you without breaking the kiss. Things are becoming more heated now, you can feel it as his hungry lips devour your own. Your chest heaves up to meet his, your back arching off the mattress as his hands begin to scour your body. The heat pooling in between your legs is growing, an aching sensation overwhelming your core as your own hands reach up to rake through his long, fluffy hair. And you can tell he wants you too, the thin fabric of his sweatpants doing little to conceal the growing erection pressing against your thigh. 

You can’t help but let out a steep moan as his hips begin to grind into yours. Needy groans fall past his lips and onto yours as you roll your hips upwards to meet his small ruts. 

In a leisurely motion, Jisung’s body is moving upwards, his knee finding a place between your legs as he brings himself up to a kneeling position. You chase his lips the entire way there, sitting up straight to be sure the contact doesn’t vanish, too consumed by your need for him to leave his lips.

And then his needy hands are running along the waistband of your sweats, fiddling with the tie before breaking your heated kiss. “Is this okay?” His words come out in a whisper, his eyes searching yours for any signs of doubt, but all he sees is lust.

“Yes,” you confirm, out of breath from making-out for so long without coming up for air. The lightheaded feeling taking over you goes unnoticed though, and quite frankly you’re too caught up in Jisung to care.

Quickly, he rids you of your pants, looking back up at you for confirmation about your underwear. With an affirmative nod he’s removing those too, leaving you completely bare from the waist down as he stands over you fully clothed.

But soon he’s ridding himself of his own clothing, his shirt being pulled at the nape of his neck as he discards it across the room. He’s leaning back down to you, hungry for the feeling of your lips. He misses it, even though it's been less than a minute since he’s last felt your smooth lips on his. 

You won’t open your eyes to see, but with the shuffling movements and shaky connection between your mouths you can tell Jisung is stripping himself of any remaining clothing he has on. He’s needy, unable to wait any longer to get down to business, he’s already waited long enough.

You’re the one who breaks the kiss this time, too curious to see what he’s sporting down below for your own good. But you are not disappointed once you see it – he’s long and girthy; the pigment a shade or two darker from his skin tone than the rest of his body.  Your thoughts are wandering, wondering what it's like to have him inside of you; dreaming about what he feels like. Arousal pools at your core, mouth salivating as your daydreams linger.

“Like what you see?” Jisung chuckles. You barely notice that you’ve been staring, eyes wide and focused on the hardened dick before you, which is probably a bit uncomfortable for him. 

“Sorry!” You cringe at yourself lightly, covering your eyes in embarrassment in fear that you just ruined the mood you’ve worked too hard to create.

“Don’t apologise,” he smiles as he grabs your wrists, moving them away from your round eyes. Scrunching your nose in displeasure, you catch your lip in between your teeth, mentally face palming at how weird you’re being.

He couldn’t blame you though, it was taking everything in him not to gawk at you. It was the first time you’ve seen eachother naked. Bathing suits did little for your imagination, not that you had even thought about Jisung this way before.

But he eases your nerves by coming down face level with you, reaching for your shirt and pulling it up over your head. You look at him with wide eyes, taking in each part of him as he caresses your body gently. He’s in awe of you like this. So relieved that you’re finally his, that he has you like this.

Nimble fingers dance down your body, landing at your core as he runs one up your slit, collecting your arousal on his fingertip. An impressed smirk grows slowly on his face, “I can’t believe you’re this wet already,” he hums. “All for me.” 

His eyes remain focused on your center, devouring it with his eyes as his hands hold steady on your thighs. You can’t help but grow slightly embarrassed, dripping with arousal so early on though he’s barely touched you. A lump forms in your throat causing you to swallow thickly – this doesn’t go unnoticed by Jisung.

A concerned expression crosses his face, brow furrowing as he moves his hands upward to settle on your waist. “Hey,” his voice is soft, gentle and full of worry, “everything okay?” 

“Just nervous,” you answer, a fake smile showing on your face to try and combat your own emotions.

It is no secret that Jisung is a bit more experienced than you are in bed. He knows that, you know that, and that is enough to turn you into a nervous wreck. Leave it to your own thoughts to ruin the moment.

“We don’t have to…”

“No!” Your voice comes out a little too eager, a bit loud, shocking Jisung. His eyes widen in response, body jolting from the impact of your tone. “No,” you say more gently this time, “I want to.”

You did want to – you just have to get over your own nerves first. Lucily, Jisung didn’t mind and was willing to guide you through it.

With a reassuring smile plastered across his face, he laces his fingers through yours. As you lock eyes, you nod him onward, giving him the go-ahead to continue. He moves languidly, his fingers moving back down to trace your slit once more. The sensation makes you tense, the nerves tingling through your body making it difficult for you to calm down. 

But with a reassuring squeeze of his hand to yours, you’re taking a deep breath. Closing your eyes as you lie your head backwards onto his pillowcase. The smell of him consumes you, relaxing you effectively as his fingers meet the entrance of your core.

Shivers run through your body as he dips one finger inside. Your arousal acts as a natural lube, letting his finger glide gracefully into you. You gasp at the sensation, eyes rolling back into your head as he begins caressing your walls. His finger moves swiftly in and out of your core, his other hand still locked with yours to guide you through.

With your body finally relaxing, Jisung is able to add another finger into the mix. The extra pressure makes you shudder for a moment, taking a little to adjust to the greater size inside of you. Thankfully the mild discomfort subsides, and he’s able to pump his fingers in and out once more. 

He’s making sure to watch each of your expressions, growing harder and harder just from watching your face contort in bliss. With each of his movements you bite down harder onto your lip, focusing on him and him only. 

“You’re doing so well,” he praises as his thumb rubs circles over your hand soothing you. You can feel your heart swell at his words, heat beginning to rise to your cheeks. 

In one swift motion, Jisung begins to separate his fingers, stretching your walls as his digits move in scissor-like motions inside you. “Fuck,” you mumble, hips jutting forward in reaction. 

A steep moan leaving your lips as he brings his fingers back together, just to extend them once more. Your body is quickly getting used to the pressure, begging for more as you roll your hips.

He can sense that you’re eager from your movements alone. With one final squeeze, his hand is leaving yours. The empty feeling in your palm is unpleasant. But once you open your eyes and notice he’s using it to palm himself, his fingers groping around his length and beginning to pump slowly, that empty feeling is replaced with something else. 

Your mouth salivates with desire, hungry for the feeling of him inside of you. He’s aroused you enough, and you’re too eager to feel him for your own good.

“Jisung,” you moan, “fuck me please.”

His cock jumps in reaction to your words, his chest heaving as his breath catches in his throat. Never in his life did he expect to hear those words come out of your mouth – but he wouldn't mind hearing it again.

“Hmm?” He hums, knowing damn well what you said but being greedy enough to pretend that he didn’t. You whine in response, your legs shaking on the bed in a mini temper-tantrum.

“Please,” you drag out, “please fuck me.”

Your words are music to his ears. He removes his fingers from your dripping cunt, grabbing the backs of your knees to pull you closer to him and hike your legs up over his hips.

“Anything for you.”

Complying to your wish, he lines the tip of his cock up with your entrance. The feeling of his smooth head against your core is enough to make you moan, your head thrown back to expose the soft skin of your neck.

Jisung takes this as an opportunity to leave his own mark behind, leaning down to attach his lips to your skin. You gasp as his teeth graze your skin, his plump lips sucking harshly before his tongue is swiping over the area to soothe it. 

But your eyes open once he’s beginning to pull away to look at you. His eyes are dark, full of lust mixed with adoration, a sigh of relief leaving his chest as he gazes down at you under him. There’s a lot going on in his head right now. Of all the emotions swirling around, the thing he’s most focused on is how lucky he is to have you.

And before you know it, he’s leaning down. Pressing a chaste kiss to your lips, making you smile. One more kiss is left on your forehead before he's pulling back, securing the position of your legs on his hips. 

And then he’s realigning himself with your core, pushing past your entrance and slowly descending into the depths of your pussy. He’s moving slowly, taking his time as he thrusts into you. The delicious stretch is unfamiliar, but it's not uncomfortable – like you were made just for him. A simultaneous groan leaves your lips as he bottoms out, the tip of his cock pressing deep into you on a spot that’s gone untouched. 

He hums a sigh of contempt before pulling back, only to rock his hips into you once again. Your velvety walls welcome him delightedly, soft whimpers leaving your lips once he bottoms out again.

“Y/N,” your name leaves his lips in a low grunt, the bones of his pelvis driving into your skin as he begins to pick up his pace. In reaction you clench down on him, orgasm beginning to loom overhead with each movement of his hips.

Desire fills your senses as you roll your hips over to meet his thrusts. His movements are slow and intentional, making sure to bottom out each time to watch you squirm over his dick. He loves how your jaw drops each time his tip presses against your g-spot, knowing just when he hits it each time.

Jisung’s teeth are barred, sweat gathering at his brow as his dark fluffy hair sticks to his face. He’s trying to hold himself back, the overwhelming urge to finish just in reach, but he doesn’t want to stop. So his hands roam your body to try and distract him, his palms caressing up the sides of your torso as your back bridges into him. The feeling of hot breath fans over your face with each sigh he lets out. 

But the tightening knot in your stomach is threatening to snap with every movement of his hips. It's getting harder and harder to hold on with the power of his thrusts growing stronger.

“Jisung,” you whine, “so close” your hands find his back, fingernails dragging down his spine in attempts to ground yourself. Jisung’s face contorts as your nails pierce his skin, leaving lines of red scratches down the length of his posterior.

The stretch from his length and his rhythmic motions sends your senses into overdrive. Squeezing your eyes shut and grasping onto the sheets underneath you, you can taste the brink of your orgasm. Jisung is focused; his grip on your thighs strong and his face contorted with bliss. But all you can think about is how stupid you could have been if you had decided to just cut him out. What matters is that you’re here with him now, and the thought of that is enough to push you over the edge. 

Your breath hitches in your throat, stomach twisting and turning as your pussy throbs repeatedly around his member. Emotions running high, three words almost slip past your lips, but with the small amount of strength you can muster up, you hold them back. Another time, some time that isn't so lust filled like this one.

Jisung’s thrusts are growing sloppy. His grip on your legs tightening as his lip is caught between his teeth. And with just a few quick thrusts, he’s coming undone inside of you. White, hot spurts of cum paint your walls, filling you up and making you feel so unbelievably full. 

You’ve always felt close to Jisung – he knew everything about you and vice versa; but this time was different. The way his hands settled on your legs, bringing them down gently after finishing. How his eyes are becoming so soft as he looks at you, a lazy grin pulling at his lips. You’ve never felt closer to Jisung as you do in the moment. As his body collapses next to yours, pulling you in and holding you close as you recover from your highs, you’re completely at peace.

“Sorry I got carried away, I guess I should have asked if you’re on birth control still,” he laughs, burying his face into the crook of your neck. 

“Don’t worry, I am,” you chuckle alongside him.

Your naked bodies tangle together, his leg weaving its way through yours to be as close to you as possible. He’s intoxicated by you, closing his eyes as he rests against your body in complete bliss. Now that he has you this close he never wants to let go; and neither do you.

“Can I tell you something?” His voice is soft, whisper like but still holding confidence; his tone never falters.

“Anything.”

“I love you, Y/N.”

Butterflies erupt in your tummy, your heart thudding in your chest as heat rises to your cheeks. He loves you. It's not that friendship kind of love anymore; it's the relationship kind. The same kind that makes your heart skip a beat and body riddle with every emotion in the book. The kind that keeps you up all night thinking about – but also helps you fall asleep, knowing he’ll be there in the morning.

And all of a sudden it seems so stupid that you were fighting those words back in the heat of the moment just a few minutes ago. He felt it too, you always knew that.

“I love you, Jisung.”

Being in love is a dumb concept. All guys suck, relationships are stupid and love is a social construct that you didn’t feel like conforming to. There was absolutely no one that you would waste your time on, until Jisung came around. What you had been looking for your entire life has always been right infront of your eyes – you were just too dumb to see it.

Maybe love is alright, after all.

‘Perfect Score’ is copyright 2020-2021 @chaangbin, all rights reserved. Please do not repost on any platform or translate without permission.

↠ A/N this fic has been rewritten/reconcepted from my previous BTS fic Crush Culture.