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bippot · 2 days ago

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Sick Little Baby

Story Summary -> Poor Eddie didn't show up to school because he has a bit of a cough and Wayne needs his rest, so his best friend and her puppy are willing to come to his aid.

Tags -> Domestic Fluff, Sick Character, Cutesy, Friends to Lovers, Caretaking, Tooth-Rotting Fluff

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Skipping school was practically Eddie's signature move - his go-to, if you will. He’d done it so often that the members of Hellfire Club barely batted an eyelid when he mysteriously vanished during lunch. Perhaps he was off sealing some shady deal, or maybe he was just blissfully snuggled in his bed back at his trailer, or, let’s be real, maybe he simply didn’t feel like showing up. But there was one day they could always count on him to be there - Thursdays, the sacred day of their campaign. It was a non-negotiable rule: no Dungeon Master meant no game at all as that was just downright impossible.

Dustin, ever the charming little shit, decided it was high time to check in on their favourite troublemaker. "I’ll call," he proclaimed, but as the idea marinated, he quickly reconsidered. “Actually, you do it,” he whined and thrust a slip of paper with Eddie's number into Y/N's hands like it was a ticking bomb.

Y/N raised an eyebrow, a playful smirk dancing on her lips. “Oh, what’s the matter, Henderson? Are you scared Wayne will answer?”

“Yes. He’s terrifying, and he knows you.” Dustin exclaimed, his eyes wide as saucers.

“Terrifying? Come on, Wayne is not scary.” She chuckled, thoroughly entertained by the dramatic antics of the younger boy.

“He is too,” he shot back as if that would somehow bolster his argument.

Dustin huffed, his arms crossed, throwing a challenge her way with his pout. If she continued her teasing, he had the perfect ammunition to retaliate - after all, he had witnessed that embarrassing moment when he caught her doodling Eddie's name in her notebook while Mike took what felt like an eternity to figure out his next move during one of their sessions. Dustin had leverage, and he was not shy about wielding it when the moment called for it.

With a teasing grin, Y/N sidestepped him and snatched up the phone, her voice dripping with mock seriousness. “Henderson, you are a complete pussy.”

"Yeah, yeah. Just call the damn number."

Y/N took a deep breath and dialled the number, her fingers dancing over the keys like they were playing a lively tune. "Munson residence," came a gruff voice, thick with sleep. It had to be Wayne. Had they disturbed his slumber? Poor guy probably worked the night shift and was running on fumes. The thought made her stomach twist with a pang of guilt.

"Hey, Wayne. It's Y/N," she chirped, trying to keep the mood light.

"Oh hey, youngster." Wayne's voice brightened, and she could practically picture the warm smile that surely graced his face. Honestly, she had no idea why Dustin was so scared of him. The man radiated a laid-back charm that could put anyone at ease, a stark contrast to Eddie's frosty family atmosphere. Sure, Wayne was a bit rough around the edges, but it only added to his character - a man forged by countless night shifts and the pressures of life. He had always treated her with kindness.

She sheepishly twirled the phone cord around her finger, feeling a hint of embarrassment. "Did I wake you? I'm so sorry - "

Wayne's chuckle interrupted her, “I was already awake, kiddo. Eddie’s been coughing all morning long.”

In the background, the unmistakable sounds of Eddie's smoker's cough echoed through the receiver, the harsh notes of it painting a vivid picture of the scene - Eddie huddled under a mountain of blankets, the world outside a distant memory. "Yeah, that idiot boy has come down with a cold or some shit." She could almost hear the eye roll in Wayne's voice as he continued, "He ain't sick enough to quit smoking, though."

Despite the concern that washed over her, Y/N couldn’t help but tease, "Yeah, Ed smokes like a chimney." She tried to ignore Dustin, who was prodding her ribs insistently, a mischievous glint in his eye as he urged her to spill the tea. "Do you need anything? I can always swing by the pharmacy on my way home and grab some stuff."

A hearty laugh erupted from Wayne. "Be my alibi when I strangle him? He’s been keeping me from my beauty sleep," he quipped, a playful bitterness colouring his words, which made Y/N chuckle softly.

"I could always look after him if you want to catch some Z's before your shift tonight. I don't mind, really." The prospect of taking care of Eddie sparked a glimmer of excitement in her. With Hellfire cancelled for the evening, she had to find something to fill her time, and homework? No, thank you. "My parents are on holiday, and my house is eerily quiet. A coughing idiot could liven the place up a bit."

Wayne paused; the line filled with the distant sounds of Eddie's coughs and the rustling of bedsheets, and then after a moment, he finally replied, "I knew you were my favourite of Eddie’s friends for a reason." A smirk came upon his face as he added, "Just don’t kill him."

A grin broke across her face, lighting it up like the summer sun. “I’ll do my best. I’ll swing by and pick him up after school.”

“Okay. Thanks a tonne, kid. I owe you big time.” He replied, his voice bubbling with gratitude. “Talk to ya later, alright?”

“Later, Wayne.”

Once the call ended, she turned her attention to her friend, and what a sight he was. Dustin wore a smirk so smug it could rival the Cheshire Cat, that knowing glimmer in his eye making her roll her own in playful defeat. “Shut up,” she sighed, but there was no real annoyance behind her words; they both erupted into laughter.

“Oh, Eddie. Let me take care of you, my sick little baby,” he teased, his impression of Y/N so awful it was almost a performance art. She playfully thumped his arm and shook her head, a blend of exasperation and delight making her cheeks bloom a rosy pink.

“Shut it,” she chided, but the warmth in her voice said otherwise.

In a comically exaggerated fashion, Dustin turned his back to her, wrapping his arms around himself as he began to mimic smooching sounds, his voice soaring higher. “Mwah, mwah. One day, I’m going to be Mrs. Munson, just you wait. Eddie. Yes, I will marry you. I will bear your fuzzy-headed offspring. Mwah. I just love making out with you so much -”

He was on a roll, completely unaware of her absence until he spun around to find she had already scampered off. The phone line had captured his ridiculous declarations, leaving whoever had walked by to possibly think he was just a boy doing something incredibly peculiar. One girl shot him a look, silent but clear, her expression tinged with a certain judgement.

With Hellfire postponed, Y/N dashed off for Eddie's place the moment the bell rang - well, she made a quick stop at the drugstore first, but Eddie was on her mind - and when she arrived, the older Munson looked every bit as worn out as she anticipated. What was left of his hair was in a wild disarray, sticking up like he had just wrestled a tornado, and dark circles hung beneath his bloodshot eyes like heavy shadows. He sported rumpled clothes that had seen better days, clearly a sign he hadn’t showered yet. And as soon as Wayne spotted her car pulling up, he playfully nudged Eddie out the door with a grin, “There she is, your knight in shining... dungarees.”

Eddie looked just as bad, if not worse. He was bundled in a thick hoodie and sweatpants, with a blanket haphazardly tied around his shoulders like a makeshift cape. Yet, even this cosy ensemble couldn’t stop him from shivering. In a valiant but ultimately futile effort, he had tied his hair into a messy bun that was mostly falling apart, and his nose was a bright shade of red, his expression screaming, ‘Yeah, not my best moment.’

Rolling down her window, she couldn’t help but tease, “Wow, you look like hell.”

“Thanks,” he muttered sarcastically as he climbed into her car, a small smile teasing the corners of his lips as he closed the door. “How would you like it if I said you looked like shit?”

“I said you looked like hell, not shit,” she shot back, her tone light.

“Oh, so I don’t look like shit?” he questioned, a playful glint in his eye.

“Nope. You do.”

Wayne waved a grateful goodbye and retreated back inside the trailer, likely seeking the sweet embrace of sleep he desperately needed.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, glancing at Eddie, who was still cocooned in his blanket, looking every bit the part of a cosy burrito.

He shrugged, leaning forward with a playful tilt, elbows perched on his knees, as he gazed out the window like a weary traveller searching for a glimpse of adventure. “Like crap, actually,” he admitted, his voice still heavy with sleep, before turning back to her with an exaggerated pout that could’ve melted glaciers.

Oh, that pout wasn’t exactly doing him any favours. It made her giggle - a little snicker that was probably a bad idea considering the fierce glare he shot in her direction - but honestly, it didn’t bother her nearly as much as it should have. It was downright adorable, especially when they finally reached her house, and Eddie shuffled toward her front porch like a toddler, clutching his blanket as if it were a trusty sidekick against the Arctic chill. In that moment, his grumpiness was more endearing than serious, and she couldn’t help but smile.

As soon as she flung open the door, a whirlwind of fur came barreling down the stairs, a puppy racing toward them in a blur of excitement. She crouched down, letting the little furball sniff her hand before scooping him up into her arms. “I missed you too, Chewie,” she declared with a laugh as the mini Briard showered her cheek with enthusiastic licks. Y/N chuckled, scratching behind his floppy ears, and cradled him close as they ventured into her cosy haven.

Eddie, however, made a dramatic beeline for the couch, flopping down with a theatrical sigh, wrapping his blanket tightly around himself like a cocoon. He buried his face into the throw pillow, surrendering to silence, except for the occasional cough that escaped him. “You okay?” she asked, gently placing Chewie on the couch beside him. Eddie merely nodded, pulling his blanket even tighter, like a protective shield. “You hungry? Thirsty? Got a headache?”

“Yep, yes...and yes.” He rubbed at his temples, glancing her way with those big brown puppy-dog eyes that made her heart do cartwheels. Even without the actual words spilling from his lips, she could feel his silent plea of ‘Please?’

Without a second thought, she sprang into action to gather what he needed. “Go cuddle up to Eds. He needs it, bud,” she urged Chewie, who seemed to understand her perfectly, and the dog was instantly bounding over to Eddie as if he were a little guardian of comfort.

A few moments later, Y/N returned, triumphantly carrying painkillers and a water bottle, only to find Eddie deep in conversation with the puppy about absolutely nothing in particular.

Eddie eyed them with faux suspicion. “Cyanide?”

“Belladonna,” she quipped, grinning.

With an exaggerated groan, he extended his hands to accept the items from her and downed them like a champion, returning the empty bottle with a satisfied huff. She held up her hand triumphantly—two out of the three checks complete. But one crucial task remained.

“Food, please,” he whined, pouting just like he had in the car.

She dashed off to the kitchen as she went to warm up some soup. It might not have been a culinary masterpiece fit for a five-star restaurant, but it was quick and simple—a cosy hug in a bowl. The aromatic waft that filled the air was enough to elicit an adorably goofy grin from Eddie when she brought it to him, as if she had just served him the finest feast in the universe. In that blissful moment, all the worries of the world faded away, leaving just the two of them basking in the comforting warmth of home.

Once the bowl was safely in his grasp, she settled in beside him, propping her feet up on the coffee table with a satisfied sigh. At first, he gave her a strange look, as if she had just sprouted a second head, but once she asked, "What? Do you want me to feed you too?"

With a cheeky grin, she snatched the spoon from his hand and teased, "Here comes the aeroplane for the little baby boy," her voice taking on an exaggerated tone that could make anyone chuckle. Now, she never would have expected him to actually open his mouth and let her feed him, but there it was. The joyful face he made while she did it made her realise, "You love being coddled, don't you?"

His small nod confirmed it, though he looked about as sheepish as a child caught with its hands in the cookie jar. He glanced at her with a mix of curiosity and mischief, and she merely shrugged, continuing to spoon-feed him. The silence that enveloped them was blissfully comfortable, broken only by the occasional slurp or a light-hearted cough that made them chuckle together.

As she placed the spoon back in the now-empty bowl, she suddenly felt a gentle tug at the side of her shirt. Looking down, she spotted Chewie, who had snuck in and was now cosily sprawled out beside them, resting his chin on Eddie's knee. A warm smile crept across her face as she lovingly scratched behind his ears, eliciting a happy wag of his tail.

"Thank you," Eddie eventually said, joining in on the ear-scratching. She nodded absentmindedly in acknowledgement, setting the bowl down on the coffee table before stretching out on the couch next to him. Just as she was about to close her eyes, he broke the serenity with his heartfelt words. "For taking care of me. And Wayne, I guess."

"It's nothing. You're my best friend, Eddie, and you know I'd do anything for you," she replied, her voice low and sincere, yet buoyant with warmth. There was something about hearing those words that made Eddie feel lighter, like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. She didn’t say it often, but when she did, it rang with more meaning than a thousand other affirmations ever could.

To her, Eddie was family. A fierce loyalty and protective love wrapped around her heart for him. He was a wild mix of annoyance, stubbornness, and a bit of childlike wonder, but that was what made him so endearing. She loved him dearly, and caring for him felt as natural as breathing.

Speaking of her loveable crew, it was time for Chewie's dinner. "I know you're comfy, but do you want your food? Dinner time?" She called to the eager pup, her voice slightly higher, infused with excitement. Watching as his tail wagged in a frenzy, ready for his meal, she couldn’t help but giggle. "Let's go then. Lead the way."

Chewie bounded off to the kitchen with uncontainable energy, his tiny legs a blur. He was such a little guy, but his enthusiasm was boundless. He darted across the kitchen floor, barking joyously as he made a beeline for his food bowl, practically vibrating with impatience as he waited for her to prepare his meal. Her heart swelled with affection as she realised that her dog and her best friend shared so many similarities.

"Hey, hey buddy, slow down," she teased lightly, watching as Chewie practically inhaled his dinner. "Jesus fucking Christ. Breathe a little, babe."

Returning to the sofa, Y/N felt Eddie lean against her shoulder the moment she settled in, his contented sigh enveloping her in a warm cocoon of familiarity and affection. Time seemed to pause as they lingered in that embrace, Eddie snuggling closer, melting into the comfort of her presence as if she were a soft, reassuring blanket that shielded him from the chaos of the world. Y/N's fingers instinctively found their way to his wild mane of hair, a playful smile dancing on her lips as she gently tugged at the scraggly elastic band he had used as a makeshift hair tie. With tender care, she began to untangle the messy strands, laughter bubbling between them like a sweet melody.

It was a simple moment, but it felt as if the world had faded away, leaving just the two of them wrapped in their own little universe. She could hear his quiet intake of breath as he closed his eyes, surrendering to the soothing sensation of her fingers weaving through his hair, combing out the tangles and transforming his chaotic locks into something almost presentable. The gentle rhythm of her touch was hypnotic, and he found himself wishing it would last forever.

Soon, his hair was tangle-free, and with a playful grin, she decided to plait it for him, her movements fluid and graceful. Chewie returned and contentedly settled himself on Y/N's lap as she worked. With each passing moment, the bond between them deepened. She finished the braid and took one of her hairbands from her wrist, twirling the hair into a bun and securing it with a tie, her fingers brushing against his skin in a way that sent delightful shivers down his spine.

"There we go. You’re so pretty," she cooed in his direction, her voice dripping with affection. The satisfied hum that escaped his lips was music to her ears, and the smile that lit up his face made her heart flutter. Now that his hair was styled, she suggested, "How about we watch a video?"

Y/N already had a movie in mind—one she knew would perfectly align with Eddie's quirky tastes. Repo Man, a beautifully weird film about cars and extraterrestrials, was just the ticket, especially since her dad had rented it right before her parents went on holiday and it had to be returned soon.

As she sprawled out on the couch, lying back against the cushions, Chewie decided to awkwardly slot himself in the gap between her shoulder and the back cushion, falling asleep almost instantly. However, Y/N was taken aback when Eddie crawled on top of her, resting his head against her chest, a blissful expression plastered on his face. "Your boobs are comfy," he whispered playfully, a teasing grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

She rolled her eyes, a laugh escaping her as she wrapped her arms around him, hugging him closely, feeling the warmth radiating from his body. He sighed contentedly, resting his cheek against her upper chest, watching the film in peace. Minutes passed, and he couldn't help but revel in the feeling of being with her - how safe, how cherished, and how utterly happy he felt.

Slowly, he lifted his head and turned towards her with a questioning gaze, his heart racing in anticipation. Y/N smiled warmly, raising an eyebrow and waiting for whatever stupid comment he might share. Then he finally spoke, his voice barely above a whisper, "I'm sorry if you get sick too now."

Her hand came up, brushing away a stray strand of hair from his eye, and she murmured softly, "It's okay, big guy. If I get sick, you'll have to take care of me." His heart swelled at her words, and a soft chuckle slipped past his lips. "I promise I'll be half as whiny as you."

The moment felt charged, and he found himself unable to hold back. "That's okay. You could be twice as whiny, and I would still love you."

The blush that crept onto Y/N's cheeks illuminated the space between them, and when she pressed a tender kiss to his forehead, murmuring, "I love you too," he knew he hadn't imagined the butterflies fluttering in his stomach.

At first, he had mistaken that feeling for the side effects of being under the weather, but no, this was different; this was pure bliss. Pure joy. This was love, unfurling gently like petals in spring.

Settling back down, he gave her collarbone a light peck, lost in the comfort of her warmth. Soon, he drifted off into a serene slumber, completely oblivious to the world around him. He didn't notice the way the corners of her lips curled upwards as she glanced down at him, her heart swelling with affection at the sight of his peaceful expression, knowing that these moments were precious.

Chewie was the first to wake, his tiny paws padding across the soft fabric of the couch as he stood and wandered over Eddie's back. Despite the fact that the puppy barely weighed anything, Eddie stirred at the gentle pressure, groaning as he opened his eyes to find Chewie standing over him with an expectant look. Eddie tried to stay nestled against Y/N, but he knew he had to shift so she could get out from under him. Pushing himself up onto his elbows, he shifted awkwardly, failing to see how entertained she was as she watched him struggle to lift himself out of grogginess.

With a gentle kiss to his temple, a silent apology lingering in the air, Y/N slid out of the cosy groove they’d created on the couch. She scooped up her feisty little pup just before he could unleash a series of enthusiastic yaps that would shatter the peace. Chewie was set down, and off he dashed, zooming around the room in wild pursuit of his favourite chew toy, a little bundle of energy that could brighten anyone’s day.

Y/N glanced back at Eddie, and she couldn’t help but melt. There he was, adorably tousled with bleary eyes struggling to stay open, looking like he’d just rolled out of a dream. The sleepy blush dusting his cheeks added to his charm as he yawned and stretched, the blanket slipping off his shoulders like a forgotten shawl.

His shirt had hiked up a bit, revealing a tantalising sliver of bare stomach, and for just a moment, she found herself completely mesmerised. Eddie caught her admiration and arched a brow playfully, a sheepish smile tugging at his lips. “What’s up?” he asked, his tone light and playful.

Y/N shook herself from her daze, cheeks warming as she tried to divert her gaze. “Oh, nothing. Just, um... nothing,” she stammered, the words tumbling out in a fluster.

“You don’t sound very convincing,” he quipped, his fingers lacing around her hand, sending sparks of warmth racing up her arm.

Despite her best efforts to fight it, a blush crept onto Y/N's cheeks, and she quickly realised she was battling a losing game. Maybe it was time to surrender and let her cheeks flush naturally. "You look really cute right now," she admitted shyly, her heart fluttering as the heat radiated from her face like the first rays of morning sunshine.

Eddie's grin widened, revealing his adorable dimples, his eyes sparkling with mischief and delight that felt like the sweetest kind of magic. “You don’t look so bad yourself,” he remarked casually, his gaze appreciatively tracing over her as she bent down to toss Chewie’s toy across the room. The sight of her, all playful and carefree, sent warmth blossoming in his chest, chasing away the remnants of sleep that still clung to him like a stubborn shadow. Even though he felt a bit under the weather, watching her was like a dose of sunshine that brightened his spirit.

“So,” Y/N began softly, her voice tender like a soft lullaby after launching the toy into the next room, giving them a moment of peace, “How are you feeling now? Do you want anything?”

Chewie strutted back, triumphantly dropping his toy at Eddie's feet, his tail wagging like a tiny flag of victory, all too proud of his fetch prowess.

“Well...” Eddie mused, scratching the back of his neck in that adorably awkward way that made Y/N’s heart skip a beat. “My head is still pounding a bit, and my throat feels like sandpaper, but hey, I’m not dizzy anymore.”

Moments later, she returned with a tall glass of cold water, sunlight glistening on the droplets as if it were a little sparkling treasure. She felt her breath catch at the grateful smile that spread across his face - infectious and warm - and it lit up his features like the brightest star in the night sky.

“How did the Hellfire boys take it?”

“Like champs,” she replied, brushing a stray hair from his cheek and tucking it gently behind his ear, her fingers lingering a moment longer than necessary. “Mike was a bit grumpy, but when is that boy ever in a good mood? Gareth, Jeff, and Nate were their usual gracious selves. Lucas had basketball practice anyway.”

“And Henderson?” Eddie enquired, a smirk spreading across his face, the corner of his mouth lifting mischievously.

“Dustin was too busy having a blast making fun of us. Well, mostly me, but you were the reason.”

“Me?” Eddie feigned disbelief, laughter bubbling up in his chest, his voice rich and melodic. “I wasn’t even there.”

“Nope, but it was still your fault,” she teased, giving his arm a light smack, her expression animated as if to say that he was the entire reason for her playful antics. “If you weren’t so... you, I wouldn’t be the target of all this.”

Earlier, they had exchanged those sweet, vulnerable ‘I love you’s’. They are words that could be perceived as platonic in some lights, but the way they felt in this moment was undeniably more intimate, like a secret meant just for them. This wasn’t platonic. He knew that now.

“You like me,” Eddie stated matter-of-factly, his big brown eyes locking onto hers, full of sincerity and playful challenge, as if he was just waiting for her confirmation.

For a heartbeat, she simply stared, her heart racing like a wild drum. Then, leaning forward, she pressed a soft kiss to his lips, her hand cradling his face tenderly, warmth flooding between them in a wave that swept all thoughts away. It was just a fleeting, sweet kiss, yet it conveyed everything they needed to say - an unspoken promise of affection and connection.

“I’m definitely going to catch your cold now,” she teased, pulling back with a playful pout, her eyes dancing with mischief.

“Swapping saliva? Yeah, you're skipping school tomorrow,” he joked, his voice muffled as he nuzzled his nose into the crook of her neck, a warm sensation enveloping them both.

A shiver of delight ran through her at the tickling sensation, a giggle escaping her lips as he playfully nipped at her skin. “Shut up,” she laughed, attempting to push him away, but he just chuckled, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her closer.

Together they snuggled into the couch, enveloped in a blissful cocoon of warmth and comfort that seemed to stretch on forever, like a moment frozen in time. "Can we just stay here and never move?" he murmured, his voice soft and dreamy.

"Yeah, for as long as you want," she replied, knowing in her heart that what she said wasn't exactly true. Chewie would need to go up the garden soon, but the sentiment was there, wrapping around them like a warm blanket.

Eddie squeezed her slightly, enjoying the closeness, as they lay there basking in each other's presence. Eventually, he felt himself begin to nod off once more, and it didn't take much persuading before he surrendered to sleep, cuddled tightly against Y/N, her sweet scent enveloping him in an ethereal warmth that allowed him to drift off quickly.

"Achoo!" He woke up with a start, bursting into laughter at the sound of her sneeze. She glared at him playfully, and it only made him laugh even more. "I hate you," she muttered, burying his face back in her chest, wrapping her arms around him protectively.

"Nah, you love me," he countered, his words muffled by her shirt but dripping with playful confidence.

Rolling her eyes, she replied teasingly, "Whatever helps you sleep at night." His response was still muffled, but she could catch something along the lines of 'You know you love it' with a dopey grin plastered on his face. In that moment, there was no denying it. She couldn't even try, because deep down, every teasing word felt like a soft confession—one that was only meant for them to share in this cosy little world they had built together.

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witchywithwhiskey · 2 days ago

Note

say yes + andy barber

(for your fantastic sweethearts game!)

🩷♥️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜

the demon of your dreams

pairing: soft!dark incubus!andy barber x female reader

summary: you catch the attention of an incubus on the day before valentine's day—and it turns out your fates are more intertwined than either of you expected.

warnings: 18+ content (minors dni!!!), true mates, dubcon/noncon (in this fic an incubus requires consent for certain things but it technically starts off as noncon), somnophilia, teratophilia/monsterfucking, smut, masturbation (m), fingering (f receiving), finger sucking, piv sex, unprotected sex, creampie, come play, cock warming, choking, breath play, biting/marking, thigh fucking, some overstimulation, dirty talk, praise kink, very brief degradation, pet names (sweet thing/sweet girl), aftercare, referenced marathon sex, happy ending

word count: 5.5k

a/n: thank you, Aspen, for letting me flail at you because i had SO many ideas for this particular character + prompt combination. what i love about Andy is that he can fit into a super fluffy or soft dark or super dark story very easily. (i mean, that's true of a lot of characters, but i feel like i usually lean one way or the other with most characters and with Andy, i'm never quite sure where i want to go.) anyway, this one might require a bit more suspension of disbelief than normal and sorry if the ending is a bit rushed, work was BRUTAL today 🫠 thank you for playing my sweethearts game, i hope you enjoy this filthy little fic!! ♡♡

For an incubus like Andy Barber, Valentine’s Day was his favorite day of the year.

There was something particularly decadent about the yearning he sensed among lonely, single women on Valentine’s Day, and he always fed well in the days leading up to the actual holiday. Though the demon had to be careful not to feed too much on any one woman, he never failed to gorge himself on the offerings in the city.

But then he came across you in a coffee shop on the morning before Valentine’s Day, and he hadn’t sensed yearning quite so exquisite as yours in all his many years walking the earth. Watching you from across the shop, he knew you would make an especially delectable meal, his eyes following you closely as he sipped on his Americano.

You hid your emotions well, Andy noticed, keeping them masked beneath a friendly exterior, a welcoming smile on your pretty face while you chatted with the barista making your drink. To all the world, you looked like anyone else with a charming—if tired—disposition, but to the incubus, you were churning with all the emotions that made you a meal.

The demon could sense the sadness lurking beneath your smile from the moment you’d stepped into the establishment, and he could practically taste the desperate longing clinging to your soul like a drop of hot chocolate caught on the corner of your lip.

You wanted, more than anything, to be the object of someone’s lust, to find someone you felt safe enough with that you could be turned into the lustful creature you yearned to be. You wanted someone to lick the chocolate from your lips and sate your desire.

And Andy Barber knew he was the demon for the job.

In generations past, Andy might’ve used his magic to slip into your dreams, seducing you with images of lust until he received the acquiescence he required to join with you and feed on your soul. But, as the incubus’s years had worn on, he’d found he enjoyed a more physical approach.

There was something so much more satisfying about touching a woman with his fingers, feeling the warmth of her body and breathing in the scent of her skin. He enjoyed the feeling of a woman’s soft curves beneath his palms, groping her and learning what made her gasp gently in her sleep.

Then, the demon would use her slumberous, disoriented mind and her aching, needy body against her to get what he needed—that permission that allowed him to sink into her body and feed on her soul.

It was so much more satisfying, and so much more fun, too.

Of course, that didn’t mean Andy didn’t use his magic to get into your apartment. He unlocked your door with a wave of his fingers, closing and locking it behind him before he masked the footfalls of his shoes as he made his way to your bedroom.

There, he paused in the doorway and took a moment to look at you, appreciate you while you slept, completely unaware that there was a demon in your room.

A smile curled Andy’s mouth when he discovered that you were far from an elegant sleeper, your body sprawled across your bed beneath the blankets, one leg hiked up while the other curled around a pillow clutched close to your chest. Your face was buried in another pillow, your indelicate snores muffled by its softness.

And yet…you were cute. Precious even.

Andy felt something fluttery deep in his chest, somewhere in the vicinity of his black heart. Instead of looking too closely at the feeling, he ignored the sensation, chalking it up to the excitement he felt knowing you were going to make for a particularly delicious meal.

The demon slunk into your room, clinging to the shadows as he moved around to the side of the bed where you lay and tried to gauge whether you were a light sleeper. You didn’t stir when he deliberately stepped on a squeaky floorboard, so he decided to ease closer, his fingertips trailing up your body over the blankets piled on top of you.

When he pulled them carefully from your slumbering body, a little whimper slipped from your lips, a shiver wracking your shoulders as the cold licked against your skin. Andy quickly used his magic to warm up your room, making it a much more comfortable temperature for your nearly naked form.

He watched you settle, his eyes roving over the curves of your body. Hungrily, he took in the dip of your waist and the flare of your hips, the way your thin nightshirt had ridden up to tease a glimpse of your perfectly rounded ass. Your thighs were parted, and Andy could just glimpse a hint of your panties, hiding your pretty pussy from sight.

His cock hardened behind his zipper and he nearly groaned at the sinful way your body called to his. Even if the yearning in your soul hadn’t been so enticing, Andy knew he would’ve been drawn to you by the desire you inspired just by existing.

Once he was sure you were comfortable and had fallen back into a deep slumber, Andy finally allowed himself to touch you.

His fingers trailed gently over your arms, skimming along your skin before smoothing down your side to your hips and thighs. There, he resisted the urge to dip between your legs just yet, instead learning the curves of your calves and the delicate contours of your ankles.

All the while, Andy watched your face, monitoring your breathing to make sure you didn’t stir again.

As he observed you, he noticed you relaxing even further, as if his touch soothed you. He felt another flutter in the proximity of his black heart, and, that time, he couldn’t ignore the way it started beating slightly faster.

The organ often felt cold and dull in his chest, especially when he was in need of feeding, but it felt like it was coming to life in a way he’d never experienced before, not even after a satisfying meal. And it was all because of the way your body was instinctively relaxing into his touch.

The demon could almost pretend it was him specifically you were melting for, that even though you hadn’t woken and hadn’t seen his face, he was the only one whose touch could have that effect on your body.

Andy deliberately ignored the fact that, in all likelihood, you would’ve been soothed by a gentle touch from any man who might share your bed, because that thought inspired a concerning level of rage in him. No, he refused to think of anyone else in your bed but him. You were his.

For the night, at least, he reminded himself, pushing his possessive thoughts to the back of his mind to analyze later. He had much more important things to attend to with your warm body, which would soon be willing, splayed out in front of him like the most tempting meal.

Finally, Andy allowed his fingers to slip beneath your nightshirt, tugging off your panties and nearly groaning when your hips raised instinctively to allow him to ease them down your thighs. He pulled them off and slipped them into his pocket, thinking nothing of the fact that he’d never taken a souvenir before.

He was too busy focusing on the feel of your body beneath his fingertips. His hand slipped eagerly between your thighs, and he was surprised to find your soft pussy was already drenched. It felt fated that your body would have such a reaction to him since Andy’s cock was straining painfully against his zipper, aching to sink inside your perfect cunt.

The demon cupped your pussy in his palm, a ferocious possessiveness tearing through his chest as he felt you drip into his hand. You were his. His. His.

His heart beat harder in his chest, the feeling of yearning in his own black soul so all-consuming, he didn’t have the wherewithal to notice it was completely out of character.

After all, an incubus like Andy Barber didn’t get attached to his meals. He didn’t feel possessive or territorial over the women he fed on, like a wolf who might tear into anything that threatened to take his most precious lifeline away.

But the demon could feel himself falling willingly into an obsession with you that wouldn’t be sated from just one night. He just didn’t know it yet.

Acting on instinct more than his typical intention of easing a woman into what he had planned, Andy freed his cock from the confines of his pants, taking himself in his palm while the fingers of his other hand explored your wet, warm pussy.

You were so soft, so hot, and so responsive when Andy sank a finger into your tight hole, a breathy moan slipping from your mouth. The demon felt the newly-familiar beating of his heart in his chest, and he suddenly craved even more of your sounds of pleasure, he wanted them to fill his ears for all eternity.

Andy stroked his cock dispassionately, needing to take some of the edge off his arousal, but he made sure to squeeze the base tightly to ensure he didn’t cum too soon. All the while, he teased your body open with his deft fingers, preparing you to take his thick length.

When he slipped a second finger into your pussy and saw how easily you took him, he had to bite back a groan. His cock was leaking precum all over his fingers, as if it knew there was a warm hole to push inside and was begging Andy to finally put himself out of his misery by sinking into your sweet, pliant body.

The demon had to force himself to make sure you were ready, Andy carefully pushing a third finger into your pussy, and letting out a restrained growl at the sight of you taking three of his fingers.

His mouth filled with drool as he watched you take him, the sudden desire to feast on your pussy nearly overwhelming him. He wanted to make you cum on his tongue and mouth for being such a good girl and taking everything he gave you.

But he told himself that could come later—after he got the answer he needed to give you everything you deserved.

To tide himself over, Andy eased his fingers from your pussy and licked your juices from where they dripped down his hand, savoring the sweet taste of your arousal. You tasted so fucking good, better than anything Andy had ever tasted in his long, long life.

His groan was so loud in the quiet room that he nearly missed the little whimper of need you let out, your hips shifting like your body was seeking the intrusion that had been filling your tight hole. The sound reached Andy’s ears and his cock jumped in his hand, the amount of blood rushing to his dick nearly making him light-headed.

Finally—finally—Andy joined you in your bed, gently shifting your body into the center of the mattress so he could fit behind you. Your nightshirt was rucked up around our waist, and his cock slipped between your thighs like it was sliding home. The stiff length rubbed against your dripping slit while he pressed flush to your back, his arms gently curling around your body and pulling you into his chest.

A soft, sleepy moan spilled from your mouth and Andy wanted so badly to kiss the sound from your lips, to drink it down and feel it fill his lungs.

Soon, he told himself. Soon he could kiss the moans from your lips and devour your mouth and ravage every inch of your body until you were well and truly his. But first he needed to get your acquiescence, and he needed to be careful with you until he got it.

You’d already been laying mostly on your belly, and Andy shifted, covering your body with his own, rocking his hips gently to fuck your soft thighs. His cock dragged against your leaking slit with every smooth thrust, coating himself in your desire and making his heart beat furiously in his chest with the need to push inside your cunt, to claim you, to feed on you until he was more sated than he’d ever felt in his life.

Andy could sense the yearning in your soul deepening as your desire ratcheted up, even while you slept. Your swirling emotions thickened in the air around the bed until the demon felt nearly drunk on you.

Your yearning, your soul—you yourself—were headier than anything Andy had ever experienced and it took all his self-control not to lose himself and rut you like the beast he was.

First, he needed your permission. An incubus could only fuck and feed on a willing woman, and Andy needed you to be willing more than he’d needed anything else in his entire life.

“Give yourself to me, sweet thing,” Andy murmured in your ear, the words coming easily after so many eons as an incubus—though the pet name was new. “Let me sink inside your divine cunt and let me drink on the longing in your heart. Let me feed on the lust in your soul and I’ll reward you with pleasure beyond your imagination.”

The demon could feel you stir beneath him, and his heart thudded painfully in his chest with a desperation he couldn’t remember ever feeling before. But it only pushed him to rock his hips faster, to grip your hip possessively while he fucked between your thighs, dragging the fat length of his cock against every inch of your dripping pussy.

Because of the rules of his kind, Andy needed your permission before he could push inside your body, but he could use every trick at his disposal to tempt you into giving him your acquiescence. An incubus wasn’t above using magic or trickery and though Andy preferred to seduce you with just his touch and his words, he would resort to magic if he needed to.

But something told him he wouldn’t need to with you. Something told Andy that you were his, and he just needed to ask you sweet enough and you’d grant him the privilege of owning your body and soul for the rest of your natural life.

“Please, my sweet girl,” he rumbled in your ear, letting you hear how badly he wanted you, needed you. “Say yes.”

Thankfully for the demon, you hadn’t roused enough for your mind to wonder why there was a strange man in your bed begging to fuck you. It was clear from your soft, sleepy whimpers that you were still asleep enough to think it was simply a very real-feeling dream.

Your hand reached back clumsily, your fingers curling around the back of Andy’s neck, using your hold to arch your spine and push your ass deeper into the demon’s lap. A keening sound spilled from your lips, your pussy gushing around the thick cock wedged between your thighs, and you finally gave your answer on a drowsy moan.

“Yes.”

The word falling from your lips tipped you over the line from sleeping to waking, and you finally realized that what you were feeling wasn’t a dream. It was really happening. There was a man in your bed and, for some reason, you’d given him permission to be there.

Andy could feel the change in your body, the way your body tensed in fear and confusion. It was natural, of course, and the demon had expected it. But what surprised him were the intricacies of your reaction—the way you still instinctively pulled him closer, your nails digging into the back of his neck, your legs squeezing together and trapping his cock against your pussy with your plush thighs.

You wanted him, Andy was sure of it, even if your mind was struggling to come to the same conclusion your body had already reached. Oddly, Andy found himself wanting to soothe you, his hand skimming down your side like he was attempting to calm a wild animal.

“Shh, sweet thing, it’s alright, you’re alright,” Andy purred, feeling your muscles slowly relax beneath his hands.

Every caress of his palm and sweet stroke of his fingers had you softening further, your body surrendering to his soothing touch. Soon, you were even letting your thighs fall open again and Andy rewarded you with a pleased rumbling sound and a kiss brushed to your cheek.

He shifted his hips back, moving until the tip of his cock was pressed against your tight little hole. That made the muscles of your thighs go taut again, but the demon also heard the way your breath hitched in your throat, like you’d sucked in a gasp of anticipation, not fear.

Andy gently kneaded your hip, his mouth grazing against the shell of your ear and tickling your skin with his beard. “Let me in, my sweet girl,” he cooed, prodding at your dripping cunt with his leaking tip. “I’ll make you feel so good, pretty thing.”

The soft, whispered pleas and praise from Andy’s lips had you relaxing again, your thighs spreading and your hips lifting in wordless offering. It was too perfect—you were too perfect. The demon couldn’t wait any longer.

Andy pushed inside your wet heat, letting out a grunt of pleasure when he felt your tightness wrapping around his stiff length. You felt so good, your pussy clinging to his cock and sucking him deeper into the warm depths of your body. He slid home until he was buried to the hilt.

As soon as he was inside you, the world tipped violently on its axis, spinning around the demon in a vicious dizzying swirl that he knew was all in his head.

It lasted only a second and by the time your bedroom came back into focus, Andy instinctively recognized that his entire universe had realigned, with you—your delicate human body and your fragile beating heart and your precious glowing soul—at the center of it.

“You’re mine—mine,” Andy growled, his voice preternaturally deep and dark, his arms closing so tightly around your body that he heard the breathe exhale from your lungs and felt your heart beating against your ribcage.

A startled squeak fell from your lips and Andy suddenly realized he was holding you much too tightly, and that he was no doubt scaring you. His grip loosened, his hands moving to comfort you, kneading your soft flesh and groping your curves until you let out a soft, happy sigh.

“I’ll take such good care of you, sweet thing,” the demon vowed in a husky voice filled with warmth. He nuzzled his face into your cheek, pressing sweet kisses to your jaw and neck, listening to your breathy little giggles at the rasp of his beard. “I only want to make you feel good, I won’t ever hurt you.”

“You…” Your voice was raspy with sleep, giving out on you before you could say what you wanted to say. Andy waited patiently while you swallowed and tried again. “You promise?”

Andy could feel your pulse fluttering wildly beneath his lips and he smiled into your skin. You were human, so you hadn’t felt what Andy had when your bodies had joined, the fusing of your spirits, and if you needed reassurance with words that he would cherish you and protect you for the rest of your days, then he would happily give it to you.

“Of course, my sweet girl, I swear it.”

The last of the tension that had been lingering in your muscles finally drained out of you, and Andy’s cock pushed another inch deeper, the tip brushing against a spot inside you that had your walls clenching down hard on his length.

The demon groaned in pleasure, pulling his hips back and sliding into you again, muffling a groan into the crook of your neck when you squeezed him so exquisitely.

“You feel so good, sweet girl, so perfect,” he murmured into your skin, fucking you in short, rocking thrusts that had you gasping and whimpering softly. “You’re taking me so fucking well, such a good fucking girl.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Andy caught the pleased smile that curled the edges of your mouth at his praise. But then you were turning your face into your pillow and muffling your moans into its softness.

Andy didn’t like that one bit. He wanted to hear all of your sounds of pleasure—they were his, just like the rest of you—so he wrapped his hand around the front of your throat. Gently enough so he he didn’t hurt you, he lifted your head from the pillow, rumbling a pleased sound in his chest when he could hear every whimper and moan that fell from your lips.

“Good girl, let me hear you—let me hear how good I’m making you feel,” Andy urged, rocking his hips harder into you, his cock spearing deep into your tight cunt with every thrust.

The tips of his fingers dug a little deeper into the sides of your neck and you moaned even louder, your cunt clutching at the demon’s cock like a vise while the rest of your body melted further into his hold. It was like you’d been waiting for him to come along and take control of you, of your very breathing, and it sent Andy reeling once again.

You were perfect. Perfect. So perfect that even that word didn’t feel like enough. It felt like you’d been made for Andy, and he’d been made for you. A perfect match. A true mate.

“Oh god, wh-who are you?” you asked, your breathy, pleasure-soaked voice pulling Andy back into the moment.

The demon nearly chuckled at the question. It was a little late for you to be asking such a thing when his cock was buried to the hilt in your cunt and every thrust of his hips pushed you closer and closer to the edge of your release. But he didn’t want you to take offense, so he wracked his lust-drunk brain for an answer, finally settling on something close enough to the truth.

“I’m the demon of your dreams, sweet thing,” he rumbled in your ear, picking up the pace of his thrusts. “The one you conjured with the desperate longing in your soul—the yearning to be fucked, to be taken, to be owned, thoroughly and fully.”

“I didn’t, I didn’t conjure anything—I swear,” you babbled, but Andy’s fingers tightened around the sides of your throat, cutting off your protests. The way he choked you only made your cunt gush and flutter between your thighs, and Andy reveled in the feeling of your slick channel gripping his hard cock.

“You don’t have to pretend with me, sweetheart, I know exactly what your soul yearns for, and I’m more than happy to oblige,” Andy purred, raking his teeth down your cheek before nipping at your jaw.

He was holding onto your neck too tightly for you to make a sound, but he felt your throat work against his palm and your pussy spasm around his cock at his filthy words. He choked you a little harder and sank his teeth into your shoulder through your nightshirt, going crosseyed and nearly cumming when you clenched down hard around him.

“What your soul yearns for is a good hard fucking,” Andy rasped when he pulled his teeth away from your shoulder, moving back to murmur in your ear. “Now, take it like a good slut and I’ll let you thank me later.”

Andy picked up the pace of his hips, pounding harder into you. The demon fucked you into the mattress while he choked the breath from your lungs, giving you only enough air to remain conscious while he savaged your soft, warm cunt with his brutal cock.

It wasn’t long before he felt you reaching the edge of your release, and he dug his other hand beneath your body, pinning you to the bed with his hips while he fucked you ferociously and rubbed your clit. You were helpless when the demon demanded you give him your pleasure.

“Cum for me, my sweet thing, cum for your demon,” Andy urged.

You shattered apart on a silent scream, your mouth wide open and eyes rolling back into your head while your pleasure consumed you. Your body shook beneath Andy’s larger form, your tight pussy strangling his cock and dragging him over the edge right after you.

Andy buried his face in the curve of your neck, groaning his release loudly into your skin while his hips stuttered and finally pressed flush to your ass. He buried his cock in your pussy and spilled his cum into the depths of your womb, flooding your body with his seed while he fed on your soul.

Out of habit, he was careful not to take too much, but he could sense that there was no such thing when it came to you. That realization made him groan all over again, another spurt of cum spilling into your cunt while he gorged himself on you until he was sated, your pussy still fluttering with the aftershocks of your release.

For a long moment, the two of you caught your breath together, Andy’s hand having loosened around your neck, though he still held you with your back pinned against his chest. He almost tightened his hold again when he felt your head moving, but you only turned your head to nuzzle your face into his beard and he rumbled a pleased sound in his chest, a smile curving his mouth.

With a gentleness he’d never known himself to possess, Andy eased his softening cock from your pussy, enjoying the way your combined releases spilled across your thighs.

He paused, scooping up his cum with his fingers and pushing it back into your hole, making you shudder and whine at the overstimulation. The demon shushed you softly, pressing kisses to your cheek and the edge of your jaw until he was done.

Then, he rolled onto his back and tugged you with him, tucking you under his arm and propping his head up with the other hand. You still wore your nightshirt, and he was still clad in most of his clothes, his pants only opened enough for his cock, but he wanted to hold you a little bit longer before he forced himself to move from the bed.

You lifted your head and looked at the demon, the two of you hanging in a suspended silence while you regarded each other.

For the first time since he’d slunk into your bedroom, Andy got a good look at your face, and his heart thumped heavily in his chest at the beauty of you. The slope of your nose, the curve of your mouth, and the intelligence in your eyes—it was all gorgeous to the demon.

As he stared at you, you looked at him in return, your eyes darting over his face while you took in his features—his crystal blue eyes and straight nose and the dark beard framing his soft mouth. Your expression was unreadable, but then a small smile curved the edges of your soft mouth, and your eyes warmed. You didn’t seem to hate what you saw, at least.

“I’ll answer all your questions,” Andy promised, his gaze falling to your lips, the desire to kiss you gripping him and refusing to let go. “But first…” He trailed off, dragging you up his body while his hand cradled your head, moving you so he could slant his mouth to yours.

The incubus kissed you gently at first, with just a brush of his lips, as if he was asking for your permission all over again. When you sighed happily and melted into him, your fingers curling in the short hair at the nape of his neck, he knew you were giving yourself to him willingly, gladly, wholly.

Andy kissed you harder then, tracing his tongue along the seam of your lips and seeking entrance that you eagerly gave him. He slid into your mouth, groaning at your sweet taste, and explored you thoroughly while you clung to him and kissed him back.

When your hips began to rock greedily against Andy’s thigh, your slick pussy leaving a wet spot on his pants, he finally pulled away and gave you a wolfish grin.

“Does my sweet girl need her demon’s cock again?” he teased playfully before nipping at your lip and drinking down your moan while he soothed it with his tongue.

“Yes, please,” you murmured sweetly, making Andy chuckle.

But the demon wasn’t about to let your plea go unanswered. He rolled you onto your back and took the opportunity to kick his pants off his legs before sliding home with one thrust. The slick of your combined releases made it easy and you both groaned as he filled you up.

“Good,” he growled, clutching you tight beneath his body and encouraging your arms and legs to wrap around his broad, muscular form. “Because I need to be buried in your cunt for the rest of my fucking life.” His voice was a low rumble that sent a shiver down your spine and made you clutch him tighter, meeting every thrust with your hips while he fucked you into the mattress.

It wasn’t until the sky began to lighten from a midnight blue to a softer shade of sapphire, the sun dawning on the morning of Valentine’s Day, that the two of you were finally sated enough for you to ask all the questions that had been rattling around in your head since you woke up to the demon in your bed.

Andy answered you with the truth—every bit of it—not even questioning that he didn’t have it in him to lie to you. He told you about what he was and how he’d been drawn to you from the moment he’d sensed you.

You were skeptical at first, of course, but when he flashed you a look at his true eyes—dark pools of inky blackness like the pits of hell—and showed you a glimpse of his tail, he could tell that you started to believe him. It surprised him how much he wanted you to believe him, so it was a relief when you finally did.

Then, Andy told you about the stories of an incubus’s true mate. He hadn’t believed them until he’d met you, he explained, but a true mate was the one person in all the world that an incubus could feed on and never harm. They were literally made to be together.

Gently, as if worrying that it would be the part you couldn’t accept, he told you that he believed you were his—his true mate, the one person meant for him.

It took you a long moment to process that information, but once you did, you laughed wildly, happily, and pulled him in for a kiss. You were smiling too much to deepen it, so you settled for brushing butterfly kisses all over Andy’s face, making him smile, then grin, then laugh along with you.

“Y’know, I would find out my soulmate is a demon on Valentine’s Day,” you said, giggling and falling back down against Andy’s chest. You curled into his side, pressing your face into his sternum and brushing another kiss over where his heart was beating in his chest.

Your comment reminded Andy of what day it was and he squeezed you in his arms. “Be my valentine?” he asked playfully, pressing a smile into the crown of your head. But he couldn’t wait for your answer, urging you, “Say yes, sweet girl, say yes.”

“Yes, of course, my sweet demon,” you purred, throwing a leg over Andy’s body and sliding on top of him.

Andy’s cock, which he’d thought for sure needed at least a few more hours of rest after the long night of fucking, valiantly stirred to life between your thighs. You reached between your bodies, slipping his half-hard length into your warm pussy and settling down on his chest, breathing a soft sigh of contentment.

The two of you fell asleep like that, your soft, perfect body keeping Andy’s cock warm while you held each other close. As he drifted off, the demon felt a sense of peace and satisfaction that he’d never even dreamed he could achieve in his long, long life of walking the earth.

From that day on, Andy’s life was never the same. It was happier and more fulfilling and he never wanted for anything, not while you were in his life—and in his arms and in his bed. Together, you celebrated holidays and birthdays and life achievements as you grew together, but one day was still the most special.

For an incubus like Andy Barber, Valentine’s Day was his favorite day of the year. Not because of all the lonely, single women in the world, but because it was the day he’d found his true mate, the love of his life—it was the day he’d found you.

#andy barber #andy barber fanfiction #andy barber smut #andy barber x reader #andy barber x you #andy barber imagine #andy barber au #incubus andy barber #andy barber one shot #chris evans #chris evans characters #chris evans fanfiction #chris evans smut #witchywithwhiskeywork #witchywithwhiskey's sweethearts #buckets-and-trees

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blackcrystalball · 1 day ago

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I find this take really interesting, I also feel like a part of my doesn't fully understand what's off-putting about self-centred social media.

I was born in 2004, so when I was growing up, self-centred social media apps were on the rise and then at their peak. I didn't use any of it until I was like 14 because I didn't really care and I had books to read. I only really became earnest in my usage of Instagram during lockdown and I downloaded tiktok from the first time in 2022.

I started making tiktoks in 2023 because I was in university, away from home and finally in an institution that didn't have a uniform. So it was a lot of fashion and hair content. Near the end of last year and all of this year so far, it has been a lot of dancing and edits of celebrities and characters I like.

Overall my social media accounts are centred around myself and the things I like, 2 parts because I want to have a space to store those things that isn't just my phone in case something happens to it, and 1 part I just think I'm really pretty and I like looking at myself.

I find self-centred social media to be really fun because then you can easily find people you have things in common with and make friends, I live in a relatively small town and I was one of three alternative kids in my school. Since posting online I've made a bunch of alt friends in my area and the vibes are immaculate.

Self-centred social media kind of feels like having a communal diary with your mutuals and I love that about it. It's really fun to share the vibes.

But at the same time, I literally went through all my formative years with this type of media at its peak, it was literally every. Every piece of media tried to brute force social media into their stories and in general kind of normalised it to people my age. So my stance is coming from a person that literally knows no other way of life. I think my stance might have been different if I was born in the 90s instead because in general I'm a pretty private person. All my super personal information stays completely under wraps. The only things I put on social media are things I would comfortably talk to a stranger about irl.

Overall, I feel like it might be because of a bit of a generational gap and different influences.

I feel like I kind of meandered off topic a bit, but yeah, the idea of this type of social media being off-putting has never once crossed my mind, and maybe that's a bad thing. Being perceived on such a large scale really isn't a normal experience and it is probably doing some weird stuff to our brains.

social media has evolved into such a voyeuristic spectacle over the last five to ten years its truly shocking to me like excluding tumblr 90% of the explore pages on other apps is just videos of peoples faces set to music or people talking directly to the camera etc etc......by contrast on tumblr there is still a sort of sheen of anonymity based on how its formatted and usually when you interact with a post you read or watch the content first and then learn the users identity second by clicking on their profile ie the dash is not just a wall of people filming themselves unless its a repost......i remember even only a couple of years ago there was a distinction between people who were influencers and got paid to film themselves 24/7 for instagram but now its like every average person on reels/tiktok is performing the same kind of theater for free......i cant imagine what that would do to your psyche long term

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stripysockxx · 2 days ago

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I’ve been thinking about a universe where Amy the hedgehog is our main character and her rival is Blaze the cat…. This is just a self indulgent fuse of Sonadow and blazamy but I’m kinda crazy about it…. Idk infodump below????

Okay so Amy here is pretty much Sonic but not as fast, and she still has her hammer because and I quote “it’s cool”. She doesn’t have to use it to fight but she has fun with it and she KNOWS she looks cool. But yeah I have more thoughts about Blaze….

I’m honestly finding it kinda difficult to translate Shadows story but… Blaze is the ultimate life form created by (probably some variation of Maria as an eggwoman not sure yet) and was created to be a weapon for gun. Iblis is basically this universes black doom and its flames are living inside of her. She wears 5 inhibitor rings to ensure she doesn’t overdo her power (2 on her arms, legs and one in her hair) Now I kinda want Silver to be her dead sibling….. and I’m really rocking with the idea that Blaze accidentally kills him… but then that doesn’t really set up her want for revenge but… I don’t know the thought of her resenting her power but not able to do anything about it I really like.. and I love when characters struggle with self hatred and suicidal tendencies so…

And just like Amy showing Blaze to accept herself and her power, is just cute and I want insane crazy girl rival Yuri in my life so yeah idk I’m gonna cringe if anyone read this but I’m cringe and free…

oh also about the last piece I was thinking that if blaze went super she wouldn’t be able to control herself and would incinerate the entire universe being the only one to remain for eternity :) Butttt!! Since Amy would be there to go super with her she would be able to control it with her help!! Yay!

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sailorsoons · 17 hours ago

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Hello, Darling (c.hs)

Pairing: Vernon x afab reader

Summary: Vernon has been one of your best friends for years. Shy, quiet and calm, he’s always been a steady rock for you. He has no idea you’re in love with him, but that’s neither here nor there. Ater a strange series of events on Halloween night, Vernon seems a little… different, and the new version of him both terrifies and thrills you.

Word Count: 21,558

Genre: Supernatural, Friends to Lovers, Thriller

Type: Smut, Angst

Rating: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging in and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately.

Warnings: Explicit language, recreational drinking and smoking, crude humor, some of the members of SVT are a bit of an asshole in this - it is not a reflection of how I think of them, mentions of occult practices, a NOT ACCURATE spirit summoning/ritual, mentions of a murder suicide case/event, mentions of murders, light mentions of blood, mentions of infidelity, catching someone in a sexual act (not the main couple), Vernon is a bit of an asshole at times, mentions of insecurities/confused feelings, I owe Chan and Mingyu an apology for how I wrote them, sexual tension, some angst, sexually explicit content including thigh riding, oral (f. receiving), nipple play, a lot of biting and scratching, choking/breath play, vaginal fingering, a lot of spit and cum mentioned, unprotected sex, references to sub space, Vernon takes a dom role but it is not explicitly established, Vernon gets a little bit possessive, calls reader a slut a total of one time, some light finger sucking, reader is at several points annoyed with the women in this fic which can come off a lil bitchy, general creepy scenes in woods and in some dark spooky places.

Additional Content Warning: It is implied by the end of this fic that Vernon is possessed to some degree by a spirit in this. I make zero distinction as to whether it’s Vernon or the spirit calling the shots or if there is even a difference/distinction between the two, which poses the fair question of consent in parts of this that I do not address or provide nuance to. The lack of clarification is due to the POV of this fic being entirely from reader’s perspective and she doesn’t have a clue what’s going on until the very end, and thus we are unable to unpack to what degree this character is or is not himself. If that lack of nuance bothers you, that is valid but this is not the fic for you.

❀ A/N: This was an original request fill for my Haliween event on my first blog for @eoieopda. Thank you for letting me write you 20k+ of this Vernon :)

A/N 2: Alternative summary for this fic is Hali repeatedly drags Chan because she loves him so much

Reader Notes: This reader is never explicitly gendered as girl/she/her etc. so I have listed them as an afab reader.

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Cool wind lifts the pages of your book, threatening to flip them over. You press your fingers flat to the page, fighting to keep them from flitting over and losing your place in the story. There’s not much daylight left in the sky as the afternoon dies to make way for the evening, but you’re eager to finish the chapter, craving to unravel the mystery you’ve been working your way through the past week.

Atmospheric sounds play in your headphones as you read. Your legs are crossed, book in your lap as you sit on the concrete wall separating the quad from one of the sidewalks on campus. Now that there’s a chill in the air, you crave being outside, finding the opportunity to sit wherever you can on campus to crack open a book before the sunlight finally fades.

Flipping the page, you only get a split second warning of the shout you hear through your headphones before something hits you in the back of the head. You yelp, dropping the book to the ground as your headphones clatter from your head to the grass from the impact.

Scowling, you swivel around to see Mingyu jogging over, his hand over his mouth as apologies start pouring out of him. A flush creeps up your neck as he approaches, his friends and fellow fraternity brothers watching from afar. Some of them are bent over cackling, the others have their hands on their head, visibly stressed from hitting you with their football.

Again.

“I am so sorry,” he pleads, running a hand through his sweaty hair. “Seungcheol threw wide.”

“Maybe play on a rec field, then?” You snap, sliding from the wall, picking up your headphones and book. You kick the football toward him, irritated. “There’s literally so many other places you can play. Don’t you have a yard at your little frat house?”

“It’s being used for float building for the Halloween parade.”

“Convenient.”

For the most part, Mingyu isn’t so bad. He’s a little loud and obnoxious, but he’s always nice and he does seem to mean it when he picks up the football and apologizes again. It’s more than a lot of his fraternity brothers would do, though it’s not much now that they’ve managed to hit you twice with the same ball.

Someone like Mingyu wouldn’t even pay attention to you if it weren’t for Vernon, though. As Mingyu retreats, the reason you’re even friends with Mingyu appears on the sidewalk, coming toward you with his hands in his pockets, hood pulled up on his head and headphones on. He lifts his chin in greeting to Mingyu, but Vernon’s brown eyes focus on you, his true destination.

Vernon pulls his hood and headphones down when he’s within a few feet, jerking his thumb at Mingyu. “What did he want?”

“He was apologizing for hitting me with the football. Again.”

“Again?”

“Yeah. They hit me earlier.”

Vernon hums, displeased. He doesn’t say much, instead turning to lean against the wall, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets again.

The last embers of sunlight hit his side profile, stunning you to momentarily silence. In a halo of fiery light, Vernon looks like a god. His light brown eyes turn burnished gold, reflecting the dying sun. His hair is spun copper, strands dancing in the breeze as he watches the world around him.

Not for the first time, you think that you understand why Helen of Troy inspired a thousand ships to come after her. Vernon’s face is the kind of thing you’ve read about in all of your mythologies and folktales for your Occult Studies major, so beautiful that it can’t be real.

If Vernon notices you staring, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, his eyes watch the other members of his fraternity play football, one of them crashing into someone on a lawn chair. He shakes his head and mutters under his breath, wearing his second-hand embarrassment silently as he watches them apologize for the millionth time.

Vernon is nothing like the rest of his fraternity. You’re still unsure why he even joined. It was something he had done his freshman year going into school, wanting to put himself out there and make friends.

He certainly looks the part - he’s handsome and in shape from playing soccer in highschool, and he’s got good fashion sense for a college student. But he’s quiet and a little awkward, unsure how to navigate conversations with most people who aren’t in his immediate circle of friends and shy to an almost crippling point.

It had taken Vernon seven weeks of being your lab partner before he finally spoke more than three sentences to you. For the longest time, you’d assumed it was because he thought you were beneath him. It wouldn’t have surprised you. Greek life on campus tended to stick with their own.

Now, you know it was because he didn’t know what to say or how to start a conversation. You’d only managed to get him to talk to you when he noticed a song by Frank Ocean bleeding from your headphones, piquing his interest.

Four years later, talking to Vernon is easy. Well, maybe not easy. You’ve got years of friendship between you now and you know what makes Vernon tick, but the butterflies you get when you’re around him and the way your heart swells when he does something so simple makes it a little harder.

Like now, as day fades to evening and the world is awash in purple and gold, and he’s looking at the watercolor sky like it's the most fascinating thing in the world, completely unaware that while he’s in awe of the sky, you’re in awe of him.

Vernon jerks forward, making you flinch. You have no idea what he’s doing until his hand is in front of you, smacking down the football that has been sent your direction again. You huff in frustration, watching as this time it’s Chan who jogs over to get it.

“Are you all fucking serious?” You demand. He slows his approach, eyes darting to Vernon as though looking for help from his friend. Vernon says nothing, bending over to pick up the football and toss it to Chan. “I should shove that football up your ass.”

“Maybe not the football,” Chan quips, catching it. He looks you up and down, head cocking to the side a little. His mouth lifts at the corner and there’s a glint in his dark eyes that makes you even angrier. “I’m open to other things, though?”

“You’re so gross.”

“What? You’re hot when you’re mad.”

“Go away, Chan!” You shriek, flustered and angry as you spin around to grab your things and storm off. You only get a few feet before realizing Vernon is still leaning on the wall. “Are you coming or not?”

He scrambles after you, nearly tripping over his own feet to catch up. Chan is snickering as he runs back toward where the others wait for him, yelling a trilling bye toward you and Vernon as you charge north toward the main campus parking lot.

“He’s so annoying,” you gripe, shoving your book in your bag. Vernon hums, noncommittal. You glance at him. “Nothing more to add?”

He lifts a shoulder. “It’s cause they think you’re hot, Lovecraft.”

You smile at the nickname, fondness sweeping through you. He’d started calling you Lovecraft your freshman year after learning about your major, deciding that it just fit. You like it - at least coming from Vernon, who understood Occult Studies was more than just spooky and magic and the metaphysical.

“They think anything with a set of tits and a hole to stick their dick in is hot. I’m sure a blowup doll would blow their fucking mind.”

Vernon’s mouth twitches at that. “You’d hate Chan’s room.”

“Don’t give me that visual!”

His laugh is warm. He bumps shoulders with yours, grinning at you as the two of you walk. You feel the telltale sign of your traitorous heart beating extra hard at his closeness, your gaze shooting to the floor as you try to hide any evidence of your feelings that might lurk on the surface of your expression.

Thankfully, Vernon never seems to notice. You’re glad that he doesn’t. You don’t think you’re very good at hiding how you feel, but he is equally bad at picking up on it, totally oblivious to the long stares and the way you fumble over your words when he gets too close.

Vernon has that effect on a lot of people. His proximity to being attractive has always outweighed his inability to make small talk among the female population on campus. The amount of times you’ve watched girls openly flirt with him and whisper about what it would take to get him to crack was insurmountable.

Autumn wind kicks up leaves at your feet. Neither one of you says anything as you walk, simply content to be together. It’s one of your favorite things about him, never feeling pressure to perform or to have conversation. Being with Vernon is just… easy. Natural, even.

The parking lot is slowly emptying as the rest of the late afternoon classes end. A few unlucky evening class students pull in, slamming their car doors and rushing off to their auditoriums. Vernon’s car is easy to find and you let yourself in, sliding into the passenger seat like it’s yours - it kind of is.

“Pizza?” he asks, engine humming to life.

“Please.” His lips twitch in a soft smile as he nods, flipping on the radio. You hum, leaning forward and turning up the volume. “I love this song.”

Vernon’s smile increases as you lean back, the sounds of Emotional Oranges filling the car. He rolls the windows down once he’s on the road proper, cool wind kissing your skin. You pull your feet up onto the seat, leaning toward the window as the fading twilight brushes past you.

Outside the car, the world smells like pine. You take a deep breath in, loving the way the October air feels just right. Fall is always your favorite time of year, and with the music playing in the background, wind in your hair and Vernon drumming on the wheel, you don’t think there could be anything better in the world.

Sal’s Pizzeria glows against the dark, a beacon of hunger and hope against the night. The giant pizza slice on the roof blinks rapidly, the neon a little bit broken. Gold light glows through the windows as you climb out the car, gravel crunching beneath your feet.

A bell chimes as the door opens and a group of students pour out, laughing and carrying boxes. Vernon catches the lip of the door and holds it open for you, gesturing you to enter first. The smell of bread and warm air hits you in the face, your lips curving as you tell the girl at the host stand two.

College students and local residents fill the restaurant. The hostess leads you to a booth in the corner, the vinyl seats creaking under you as you hop-slide your way in. She hands you the menus, her eyes lingering on Vernon as she does, lips twitching when she asks if there’s anything else you need. When he doesn’t answer, you shake your head, shooting her a thin-lipped smile.

She’s hesitant to leave but she does, casting one last look over her shoulder as she heads back to the stand. You look at Vernon too, studying him. He’s none the wiser, brown eyes scanning the menu even though you know he’s going to order the same thing.

When the server comes, Vernon does as expected: orders a diablo pizza with a side of fries. You shake your head a little, asking for the white feta pizza, handing over the sticky menus. When the server is gone, Vernon leans back in the seat, sipping his coke as he drinks you in, wordless.

You kick your feet up on his side of the booth next to him and he lets you, patting your ankle fondly when he sets his drink down. He has no idea how torturous that alone is, the simple comfort of his familiar touch enough to send your eyes averting across the room, trying to control your breathing.

“What are the favorites and least favorites this week?” he asks, balling up the paper his straw came in.

Favorites and least favorites is a game you like to play with him. It’s not so much of a game as it is a routine where you tell him your favorite piece of material from your classes and your least favorite. Most people dismiss your major as too peculiar for interest. No one knows what you’re supposed to do with Occult Studies but it fascinates you.

And Vernon, who has always had a keen interest in the goings on in your classes and homework.

“We’re in the psychology of the occult module.” He nods, eyes fixed on you. “Mostly covering the psychology of community as it relates to the occult. We have sections on covens, clans, actual cults, sects and more modern mass followings.”

“Hmm. So like… Twitter stans.”

You smile a bit. “Something like that. We covered the maenads in class today. Ever heard of them?” He shakes his head and you lean forward, elbows on the table. “They were women in Ancient Greece devoted to the god Dionysus and they were believed to be possessed by the god. They were said to have wild parties in the woods with one another where they’d do all manner of sordid things, all while under the influence.”

“A Friday night for Chan.”

“Exactly. A lot of historians call them crazy and speculate they were raving mad, but if I was a woman under the thumb of men in Ancient Greece…”

“Shit, I’d get fucking crazy in the woods with my friends too.”

“Exactly. It was more about reveling in female companionship and being unfettered from the male-dominated societal norms.”

The arrival of your dinner interrupts the conversation. Both of you lean backward, making room for the hot plates and Vernon’s basket of fries. You slide your feet down from his side of the booth, leaning to grab the red pepper flakes from the corner of the table. He grabs salt, immediately dusting his fries.

“Ugh, you could have at least let me have some first.” He looks up at you through his lashes, brows raised. “They’re already salted, Vernon.”

“Not enough.”

“You know, if you were haunted or possessed you’d never want the salt.” He gives a questioning hum. “Salt is used in purification rituals. It’s believed spirits hate it because it’s used in banishing spells and rituals. It’s why a line of salt keeps them out.”

“Good thing I’m hungry, not haunted.”

You snort, taking a piece of your pizza from the tray. “Speaking of haunted, are we going to your Halloween party this weekend?”

“My halloween party?”

“You are in the fraternity, Vernon. Yes, yours.”

He makes a face and tears into his pizza. You shake your head as he lets out a sound, huffing and tilting his head backward as he tries to deal with the too-hot food in his mouth burning him. “Ya,” he says around the slice. “I guess so.”

“What are you going to wear?” He raises a brow at you, swallowing down the hot bite. You pout, sagging in your seat. “Dude, you have to dress up. You can’t just go in a black shirt and a baseball hat.”

“Why not?” You kick him under the table and he winces, ducking down to rub at his shin. “Shit, fine. Okay, what do I go as?”

You grin, picking up your appropriately cooled pizza. “Leave it to me.”

“This makeup itches,” Vernon mutters, looking up at you through long lashes. You hush him, putting the finishing touches on the black line down his mouth. “Couldn’t I have gone as something easier?”

“What is easier than black jeans and a jacket you already own, huh? Stop talking, I’m gonna fuck up this line and this makeup is perfect so far.”

It’s true. You’ve outdone yourself on turning Vernon’s face into a skull, taking inspiration from American Horror Story for the costume. Vernon is a low effort kind of person, so getting him into costume is a lot easier when all it requires are clothes he already owns and makeup that you have to do anyway.

Stepping away from him, you admire your handy work. His eyes are painted black, hollowed out for the skull. His dark hair is slicked back, the perfect skeleton. He looks… good. Painfully good, which makes you nervous and turn away quickly, heart flipping. You’re not sure what it says about you that Vernon staring at you while painted as a deadly skeleton makes your heart race but… it does.

“How do I look?”

“Terrifying,” you admit, turning back to him. “But good.”

He grins and if it were anyone else but Vernon, you’d be terrified. Maybe you did a little too good of a job.

“What are you again?”

“One of the witches from American Horror Story Coven. Close your eyes, I’m going to use setting spray.”

Darkness blankets the sky by the time you’re both scrambling down the steps and into an Uber. The driver does a double take when they see Vernon, eyes watching nervously in the rearview as you give him the address.

“That’s at a closed down gas station.”

“Yep,” you agree, leaning back into the seat.

The driver mutters something about fucking college kids and fucking holiday but otherwise says nothing about the questionable location. He doesn’t need to know that a mile from the abandoned gas station is also an abandoned farmhouse notorious for unsanctioned parties and being distinctly haunted.

Haunted isn’t your favorite thing in the world. You didn’t like to mess with ghosts, despite your area of study. You were infinitely more interested in the intersectionality of occult studies and modern culture and society and less enthused about the idea of drinking stale beer from a foamy tap in the middle of a murder house.

If the driver thinks there’s anything weird about other people being dropped off at the gas station - you’re sure he does - he says nothing, ignoring the two of you as you get out of the car and dive into the night air. Vernon is close behind as you take a few steps away from the car, eyeing the old gas station.

The windows have long since been broken and cracked, foggy with time. The stations are stripped of their labels and stickers, just white residue left behind and no pumps. A few people lounge around the building smoking, dressed in a variety of halloween costumes.

Nervous, you look up at Vernon. His smile is small and he juts his chin toward the dirt road that leads through the woods. Nodding, you both fall into step, sand and gravel crunching beneath your feet as you go. Vernon recognizes a few people associated with his fraternity and others, throwing a casual wave or a nod as you pass by people.

Music echoes down the road. It’s a little less foreboding in the dark trees when you can hear Michael Jackson’s thriller coming down the way and the dull roar of voices. The bend in the road straightens out, the line of trees giving way to flat land.

The farmhouse is pretty, even in old age. It’s two stories, glowing from within from all of the battery lanterns and lights being used to light the party. A generator roars somewhere behind the house, light flooding the yard where people mingle and crowd the kegs.

A chill slithers down your spine as you enter the yard, the broken gate doing a poor job at keeping trespassers out. Even with the lighting, shadows dance as you navigate through people, the strange anxiety crawling up your throat worsening as you near the house.

Vernon pulls the sleeve of your dress so that you’re closer to him, his fingers steady and calm as he leads you up the steps where you can clearly hear Mingyu’s howling laughter inside.

Bright light fills the house. As do a crush of people and beer pong tables, the abandoned home turned into a raucous display of drinking and debauchery. If you weren’t so distracted by the wave of people pushing you into Vernon’s arm, you might be impressed at how much you could forget the farm home was abandoned because someone had been murdered here.

“I need a drink,” Vernon announces, continuing to pull your arm after him as he plunges toward what used to be the kitchen.

It’s where you find Mingyu dressed as a lifeguard - and loudly yelling directions. He blows his whistle shrilly when he sees you and Vernon, pointing at the two of you and spitting the whistle out of his mouth to scream, “NOT WET ENOUGH!”

“What a weird way to offer drinks,” you mutter. Chan, who seems to be on lifeguard assistant duty - while dressed in a horrid felt dinosaur costume - scrambles to get you drinks, spilling rum as he tips it over into a cup. “No ice?”

“There’s not a fridge,” he pouts, shoving the cup in your hand. His eyes drink you in. “Are you a hot goth or?”

Instead of answering him, you roll your eyes and turn to Mingyu, who blows the whistle again. Both you and Vernon wince, the latter throwing back his drink to chug it all before thrusting the cup back at Chan. “That’s gonna get real tiring.”

Mingyu comes around the corner of the old island countertop, pumping his fists in the air to the music rattling through the house. “Vernon you look fucking sick!” He and Vernon do the little hand-clap-to-half-hug men do. Mingyu turns to look at you, eyes dark. “Are you like, a hot goth?”

Your smile is plastic as the whistle around Mingyu’s neck. “Sure.”

Mingyu, dancing and moving toward the living room, reaches out to you. “Come dance with me! This song fucks.”

“Decidedly not!”

“Go ahead, Lovecraft!” Vernon urges, pushing you toward the obnoxious lifeguard with a shit-eating grin as he imitates Mingyu’s voice. “This song fucks.”

Before you can chastise him for egging his fraternity brother on, Mingyu has you sucked into the dancing crowd, throwing his hands in the air as he swivels his way through the crowd. You try to knock back as much of the lukewarm drink as you can, cringing at the burn of cheap rum and not-iced coke.

Bodies pressed in. Mingyu is close to you, a hand going to your waist. You frown and look over your shoulder, eyes scanning for Vernon. You know he’s probably lingering on the edge of the crowd, watching you with a smirk over the rim of his cup as he watches Mingyu roll his hips toward you.

“Mingyu,” you snap, turning back to him when you don’t find Vernon. “It’s the Monster Mash, it doesn’t require grinding.”

“I mean, if you wanna graveyard smash…”

“You’re all insufferable! All of you!”

Still, you sway back and forth, trying to stomach finishing the rest of your horrid drink. It takes an effort, but shaking your head at Mingyu and judging him silently gets you most of the way through it until Soonyoung - dressed in the same tiger costume from last year - crashes through the crowd into the pair of you, thrilled when he realizes who it is he has slammed into.

“Hot goth!” he screams, pointing at your outfit. “Where is your other half?”

You don’t have to ask what Soonyoung means and both the drink and the accusation have you flushing. You shrug a shoulder, eyes surveying the party. Before either of you can find Vernon, Joshua appears at Soonyoung’s side, leaning to his ear to murmur something. Soongyoung’s face lights up and he grins at you, grabbing you by the wrist to yank you through the crowd.

“Hello?” you demand, pulling your wrist from his grip. “Have you heard of asking?”

“Come on, I want to show you something.”

“The last time I heard that was promptly followed by you showing me that stupid peach tattoo on your ass.”

“First of all, that tattoo is amazing.” He heads to the stairs, which you eye warily. “Second, Vernon is already upstairs, come on. You like weird ghost shit, you’ll like this.”

Without waiting for a reply, Soonyoung thunders up the stairs. You cringe, waiting for a foot to go through a dry plank and send him falling. It doesn’t happen, though. Tentatively, you creep up the stairs after him, eyes glued to each of the steps as you go.

It’s colder upstairs, the windows in the rooms open to the elements. You shiver, looking down the hall to Soonyoung heading into a bedroom. You tentatively follow him, stopping at the threshold of the doorway to survey the people inside.

Vernon is one of them, back pressed to the wall near the window, his eyes focused on his boots in front of him, hands tucked into his pockets. A girl next to him dressed as Red Riding Hood is leaning close, speaking to him rapidly. Nothing on his face indicates he’s listening. Then again, his expression is hard to read while painted as a skull, mystifying and dark as you follow Soonyoung down the hall.

Soonyoung goes straight toward a pile of things on the floor next to Seungcheol’s feet in the corner of the room. The president of Vernon’s fraternity pays Soonyoung no mind, eyes totally focused on the pretty fox in front of him, bottom lip tucked between his teeth.

Suddenly, the room feels too intimate for you, like everyone is a couple tucked away. You have half a mind to go back downstairs when Vernon looks up at you, dark eyes zeroing in. His face is ten times more intense with the skull paint, pinning you to the spot.

Everything dulls to the background for a second. You don’t dare breathe, too afraid to shatter the moment as he stares at you, unblinking. His eyes glitter in the darkness of the room, two amber pools reflecting the moonlight.

Joshua enters the room behind you, shattering the spell as you step out of his way. You turn back to Vernon, clearing your throat. He pulls a hand from his pocket, beckoning you over. Mouth dry, you obey, skittering over toward him quickly as you observe the materials that Soonyoung is sifting through in the corner. Candles. Matches. Salt. A bell.

“Soonyoung,” you say sharply, slowing your step. “Why do you have ritual materials?”

He looks up at you, his grin wide. “Told you that you’d like this.”

“What is this?” You turn back to Vernon, who shrugs one shoulder.

Hesitantly, you take the unoccupied space next to him, casting the girl at his side a cursory glance. She observes your costume. “Are you a hot goth?”

“Jesus Christ,” you mutter, head thunking against the wall as you watch Soonyoung stand, materials in hand. Vernon coughs next to you, trying to cover his laugh. You glare at him sidelong and he says nothing, but his skeleton mouth is screwed up in a smirk. “What is he doing?”

“No clue.”

Soonyoung walks over to the bedroom door, looking down the hallway before shutting it. You fight a shiver, disliking how quiet the room becomes, cut off from the rest of the world. The window near you is the only source of light, and the only one shut on the second level of the abandoned home.

“What time is it?” Soonyoung asks Joshua.

“11:45.”

“Perfect.” Soonyoung spins, eyes falling on you. “Want to talk to a ghost?”

All eyes turn to you in the room. You open and close your mouth, confused. “What?”

“Do you want to talk to a ghost? Like someone who died?”

Your eyes drift to the candle, bell and matches in Soonyoung’s hand. A tingle spreads over your skin and your spine stiffens. “Soonyoung that better not be to invite a spirit in.”

His grin grows. “Come on, you are the ghost major or whatever. You should be thrilled to do this.”

“Occult Studies. And that doesn’t mean I fuck with the unknown or make a mockery of the dead. We’ve been over this.”

“It’s basically the same thing, come on. You learn it all in class.”

“No.”

He pouts. “You’d be best at it, though. Rumor has it that when the veil is thinnest, you can talk to the spirit that haunts this house.”

“The murderer? Or the murdered?” Soonyoung shrugs. “I doubt either would be very happy a bunch of drunk college kids are trying to bother them. My answer is no.”

“Ugh. I was kind of counting on you doing it.”

“Do it yourself.”

“I don’t study ghost shit!”

“Occult! Studies!”

“Ghost shit,” Soonyoung assures the room confidently.

“I’ll do it,” Vernon sighs, pushing off the wall. “Leave her alone.”

Soonyoung’s eyes are alight as Vernon steps toward him. You reach out to grab his wrist, pulling him back. “Don’t.”

“It’s fine.”

“Vernon.”

His eyes are soft when he looks at you. As soft as the terrifying makeup allows, anyway. “It’s fine, Lovecraft. Let me. He’ll stop asking.”

“I’m right here.”

“We know,” you and Vernon say in unison. You feel warm, chewing the inside of your cheek before nodding. You drop his wrist and turn to Soonyoung, eyes hard. “Give me that, you’ll do it wrong. Tell me what the mythos is.”

“What math? You need math?”

“The story, Soonyoung. What is the fucking story of this house?”

“Right. Apparently some dude murdered his girlfriend in here and then hung himself in that closet.” He points to a door you didn’t see when you walked in, dark and far away from the window. “Legend says at midnight, ring the bell three times and step into the closet with a candle. If the candle blows out, the spirit is with you. If it doesn’t, it didn’t work.”

Grabbing the items from Soonyoung’s hand, you look at Vernon. “When you’re done, ring the bell three times again and say: Thank you, I dismiss thee. Go in peace.”

“Thank you,” Vernon repeats gently, taking the bell from your hand. “I dismiss thee. Go in peace.”

“Everyone else take candles,” you direct, voice rough with irritation. You glare at Soonyoung and Seungcheol in particular as you shove candles in their hands. “Stand in the four corners of the room. Did you bring sage, Soonyoung?”

“Bring what?”

“Of course not, why would you?” Everyone starts moving to the corner of the room, using matches to light their candles. The room feels unnaturally cold now, despite your long sleeves. Turning back to Vernon, you say, “It’s probably a stupid rumor.”

“Probably.”

“If your candle goes out, just ring the bell, say the words, and dismiss it.”

“Right.”

“You don’t have to do it, Vernon.”

His mouth kicks up at the corner. “I’m not worried, Lovecraft. You are.”

Letting out a breath, you give a laugh that’s only half-there. You are nervous. You don’t like the idea of inviting a spirit into Vernon’s space, and though Soonyoung’s little ritual doesn’t really sound right, you’re not going to correct him.

Still, you feel unsettled as you light your own candle and then Vernon’s. He cradles it in his hands as you escort him to the door. Tucked under your arm is the canister of salt. Crouching down, you pour the salt in a thick white light in front of the door, careful to ensure that there are no breaks and that it covers the entire entryway from corner to corner.

“Be careful when you step over it and when you open the door,” you instruct, standing up. The candle in your hand flickers unsteadily. “Don’t break the line. The idea is that if Soonyoung’s stupid summoning works, the spirit can’t get through the salt.”

“Banishing and all that,” Vernon recalls with a smile. Your heart flips. “I remember.”

“Come on, you only have a minute!” Soonyoung calls eagerly.

Shooting him a glare that silences him, you turn back to Vernon. “Ring the bell three times. Thank you, I dismiss thee. Go in peace.”

“Got it.”

Unsettled you shuffle back from the door a little bit. You don’t go to a corner of the room like you’ve asked everyone else, unwilling to totally leave him by himself. Heart hammering, you hold your candle in front of you, cradling the warmth like a second heart.

Vernon is unbothered. You can see it in the loose set of his shoulders and the way he sighs, already tired of Soonyoung’s antics. The party downstairs feels a million miles away as you watch Vernon stand in front of the closed closet door, looking up at it, unimpressed.

“It’s midnight,” Joshua whispers from the corner.

Vernon doesn’t make any sound that he’s heard Joshua, but he lifts the little bell in his hand. It’s a hand bell, the wood grip worn and cracked. You wonder where Soonyoung got it from, having half a mind to ask him when the first clear ring of the bell disrupts your thoughts.

The note sings through the air, your blood turning to ice in your veins. It feels like your pulse is throbbing in your neck as Vernon rings the bell hard a second time, the sound chasing the echo of the first. The third ring feels like a tremor in the air, warbling as Vernon quickly sets the bell on the floor, careful not to extinguish his candle flame.

You hold your breath when he sets his hand on the doorknob. No one makes a sound as he twists it open. He pulls on the door and it comes away with a silent swing. The darkness on the other side is gaping, like there’s no back to the closet, just a wide hole of nothing.

Vernon doesn’t seem to mind. He steps over the line of salt carefully until he’s in the middle of the closet, pivoting to face you. The orange flicker of his candle casts a haunting glow over his skull face. You swallow down a brief moment of fear before he winks and leans forward to pull the door shut.

For a long moment, there’s nothing. You feel your heart hammering in your chest, the thudthudthud so loud you swear everyone else in the room can hear it. No one moves, everyone fixated on the door. The silence is so piercing that your ears start to ring, the sound of the party completely unreachable over your mounting anxiety.

“Well?” Soonyoung whispers somewhere behind you. “I guess it didn’t work.”

Vernon begins pounding on the door. Someone screams behind you followed by a bunch of curses. You leap forward, heart in your throat as Vernon screams something unintelligible on the other side. You drop your candle, completely throwing caution to the wind as you grab the doorknob and twist.

It doesn’t move.

“Vernon?” you ask, voice spiking with fear. “Let go of the doorknob, let me turn it. Vernon!”

The pounding doesn’t stop. He is screaming in a way you’ve never heard before, his fists rattling the door against the frame. You shriek his name back, yanking at the door frantically, your panic mounting as he screams and-

When the door opens, you nearly fall backward with the force of it, stumbling over your feet. Soonyoung steadies you, to your surprise. You hadn’t realized he had left his corner of the room to help, his hand warm and firm.

Vernon stands on the other side of the door, mouth pressed in a firm line.

“You fucking asshole,” Soonyoung swears, throwing his unlit candle at Vernon. Vernon laughs, dodging it. “You fucking suck.”

“Yeah, well don’t ask me to do stupid shit.” Vernon steps out of the closet, eyes dropping to you. His mirth is edged with something sharp, a glint in his eyes that is wholly unfamiliar. “I was kidding.”

“You fucking asshole!” You screech at him, slamming your hands into his chest and knocking him back a little. He smirks and says nothing, letting you hit him a few times. “Why would you do that to me? What is wrong with you?”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah, you sound really fucking sorry.” Anger sours your mouth. Turns your words to poison. Your throat tightens up and you feel the telltale sign of tears, equal parts livid, embarrassed and offended that Vernon would do such a thing. “Fuck you, Vernon.”

Someone laughs awkwardly as you storm off. Vernon calls your name but you ignore him, bolting down the hall and down the stairs. The wood creaks uncertainty under your feet but you don’t care. You want to be anywhere but here, the hot lick of embarrassment burning your heels as you go.

You blow past Chan on your way out, his bleary eyes following you. “Nooo,” he whines. “Hot goth, come back to me!”

“Shut up, Chan!” You scream, slamming down the steps as you go.

People nearly dive out of your way, swiveling to watch the wake of your wrath as you leave the party. You ignore them, not wanting anyone to see the hot tears that spill over as you hit the dirt road, boots crunching.

It’s hard to tell what’s worse. The fact that Vernon had played a joke on you he knew you wouldn’t like, or the way you had panicked and lost all resolve to be the one in charge. Both feel awful, but the sting of Vernon’s joke is the sharper of the two, cutting you to the quick.

Vernon has never dared to do something like that in your entire friendship. You have no idea why he did it now. Was it because he had an audience? Was he drunk? Was he actually like the members of his fraternity he associated with?

You had no idea, which only made things worse. Above anyone else, you thought you knew Vernon best. But perhaps, you didn’t know Vernon at all, which was far worse than any sort of haunted spirit you could imagine.

The next morning, you don’t hear from Vernon. It makes your blood boil, a nasty feeling forming in the pit of your stomach as you put your phone on Do Not Disturb. You put on a big set of headphones, blaring music to keep you sane as you set about cleaning your apartment furiously.

It’s an okay distraction. The lull of clinical cleaning is nice and the music soothes the sting that nips at your heels like an incessant hound. When you run out of things to clean, though, you’re forced to face the fact that it’s nearly evening and Vernon still hasn’t said anything to you.

You don’t want to text him first. Your pride is wounded from the night before and you’re shocked he hasn’t apologized - he should apologize. The silence only makes you angrier, and with nothing left to clean in your apartment, you decide to think of all the things you’re going to say to him when he does finally reach out to you. Because you’re not saying anything first.

Vernon’s radio silence makes it nearly impossible to sleep. You toss and turn in bed, unable to get comfortable, checking your phone and social media. It’s difficult to remember the last time you went over twenty four hours without hearing from Vernon, and the realization forms a pit in your stomach.

Maybe the silence was good. Maybe you were too reliant on his friendship, the one constant that you had grown far too fond of. Maybe he was into that girl last night, making a show of you because he wanted to make her laugh or maybe he was just putting you in your place.

The insecurity wars with your logic that Vernon wouldn’t do that. He’s never had a history of that kind of behavior before, and though he might tease you on occasion, you have never been the butt of his jokes or the target of his humor.

Jokes like that aren’t even Vernon’s style. He doesn’t like cruelty, and that’s what pretending to be screaming for help was. It was cruel, and strange and it hurt.

What hurts more is the silence continuing into a second day. By the late afternoon, though, the hurt has morphed into something else. You sit on your couch, staring at the phone on your coffee table. Your pride was begging you not to text him, but your worry was starting to chip away at you.

Heaving a sigh, you pick up the phone. The tap of your nails against the glass screen is loud in your quiet apartment, the final rays of sun melting through the blinds while a candle burns on the counter.

[You 5:14 PM]: So are we not talking?

Setting the phone down, you immediately start making dinner. It doesn’t matter that you’re too early. You’re nervous waiting for his text back, which makes you feel ridiculous. Then you feel ridiculous for feeling ridiculous, validating yourself that it is totally okay to have feelings and be nervous.

“God,” you mutter under your breath. “I’m exhausting.”

By the time you’ve had dinner and watched a full episode of Alice in Borderland, Vernon has said nothing. Worry eats away at the lining of your stomach. You pause the show and pick up the phone again, dialing his number.

On the other side of the line, the phone rings. And rings. And rings.

You hang up when you get the automated voicemail, frowning. It’s all strange, and a nagging feeling tugs at your nervous system but you can’t put your finger on it.

Just as you set the dishes in the sink, your phone starts to ping. You’re grateful no one can see you in your apartment as you lurch to the phone, picking it up and unlocking it to see if it’s Vernon. It isn’t, but your heart starts to thud when your group chats with other friends and classmates in projects flood with the same rumor over and over.

A dead body had been found on campus.

Vernon doesn’t live on campus, but it doesn’t stop you from calling him again. And again. And again. When the voicemail turns on a fourth time, you seethe into the phone, fingers gripping it so hard it feels like it’ll break. “Call me back you fucking asshole! Someone died on campus and you’re not answering and I just need to know it’s not you. Fuck!”

Time passes and you get so desperate you do the one thing you didn’t want to do unless it was dire circumstances. You hit dial and bring your phone up to your ear, pinching the bridge of your nose to prepare yourself for when Mingyu answers the phone.

“Am I dreaming?” he says by way of greeting. “It was the life guard costume, right?”

“Mingyu, it wasn’t a costume. You were shirtless with board shorts.”

“But it worked, right?”

“Have you heard from Vernon?”

“Nah, why?”

“Like you haven’t seen him at all since the party?”

“Mmm. I don’t think so.” There’s a muffled sound on the phone like he’s trying to cover it when he yells, “Chan, have you seen that fuck head Vernon?” You wait impatiently, holding the phone further from your ear as Minguy yells. “Chan hasn’t seen him either.”

“Isn’t that weird? I haven’t been able to get a hold of him.”

“Nah, I mean we never really see him. Usually he’s with you.”

“Right. And he isn’t with me, I haven’t seen him since the party.”

“Well have you checked his apartment?” You hesitate. “Helloooo?”

“No.”

“Well. Do that. He’s probably sleeping or some shit, who knows.”

“Great. You were so helpful,” you deadpan.

Mingyu sounds genuinely happy when he says, “I’m so glad!”

You hang up the phone before he can say anything else.

Chewing your nail, you stare at the wall, mind racing. Mingyu has a point that it’s normal for them to never see Vernon. He is usually with you, or he’s solitary. There is little in between. He also has a point that most of the time if you were looking for Vernon, you’d just swing by his apartment.

The thought of seeing him again makes you want to curl in on yourself, but your concern weighs out. You get dressed and grab your keys, trying not to let your fear of what you might find there keep you from leaving.

Opening the door to your apartment, you get one foot out the door and then slam directly into Vernon. You reel backward, eyebrows shooting up as he steadies you by the elbow, equally surprised to see you as though he wasn’t at your doorstep.

“Easy there,” he greets, a half smile on his face.

Vernon looks totally normal. He definitely doesn’t look like he was murdered, and he’s dressed in his usual jeans, plain black shirt, and a backwards hat. For a second, you just stare at him, totally shocked and utterly relieved he isn’t dead.

Then, the anger comes.

You slam a hand into his chest, cursing at him. “Where?” Slap. “Have?” Slap. “You?” Slap. “Been?”

He takes the blows in stride. His chest is firm beneath your palm, heart beating steadily. Alive. And now that you’ve established he’s not dead, you feel so much anger ripple through you that you don’t let him answer before you’re pivoting on your foot and storming back into your apartment.

The sound of the door closing behind you followed by his shuffling as he takes his shoes off tells you he hasn’t left. A small part of you curls in satisfaction with the domesticity of his arrival, but it is blotted out by the hurt and rage at the surface of your emotions.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” You demand. It isn’t as eloquent as your practiced rant, but it’s something. “You better explain yourself. And quickly.”

Vernon’s dark eyes connect with yours, simmering. You feel your heart lurch as he slinks over to the kitchen, never taking his gaze off you. The back of your neck tingles. Vernon never keeps this much eye contact and it’s both thrilling and unnerving.

“I want to apologize,” he murmurs, pitching his voice low. You watch with trepidation as he reaches out to gather your hand in his. He folds your fingers under his, pulling your hand to his chest. Your breath quickens, pulse throbbing as he cradles your fist to his chest, his heartbeat steady. “I fucked up. I wanted to fuck with Soonyoung but I did it at the expense of you, and for that I’m deeply sorry.”

Warmth spreads from his hand to yours. You don’t know what to make of the apology - it’s so unlike him. Vernon has no problem apologizing when he’s wrong, but he’s usually not so confident, so well spoken. You stare and stare, that pitless gaze of his pinned on you.

“I just…” You chew the inside of your cheek. “You really hurt my feelings, Vernon.” His hands tighten around yours and he tugs a little, pulling you closer. It’s harder to think when you’re this close, fingers wrapped in his. “You really scared me and then you vanished for nearly three days. Why did you do that?”

“I wasn’t feeling well and I slept most of the days away. Honestly.”

“You weren’t feeling well?”

He gives you a look. “I see the skepticism. I’m serious, I just… wasn’t myself. I tried to rest and I didn’t hear my phone and I’m sorry. Really.”

Vernon’s apology settles around you like a weight. You watch him, contemplating what to do next. He doesn’t look ill, his gold skin as flawless as ever, his rosy lips tucked under his teeth as he watches you, waiting. His heart thuds under your palm, his thumb absently brushing back and forth over the top of your hand.

Breathing becomes difficult. Vernon isn’t overly affectionate, but the way he presses your hand to his chest now sends you down a dangerous path. The desire for him bubbles just below your surface and you’re terrified it’ll boil over, exposing everything you’ve ever thought about him.

“Alright,” you say softly, pulling your hand from his. He lets you. “Don’t ever do something like that to me again. It was scary and I felt stupid. And I thought you were dead.”

“Why?”

Gesturing to the couch, the two of you plop down, seemingly back to normal. You’re still a little off kilter, but you report back to Vernon what your classmates had been saying. He grabs your remote and turns on the news, settling close enough to you that your thighs brush against one another. You shoot him a questioning look but he’s fixated on the TV, leaning forward to press his elbows into his knees.

The reporter on the news confirms the body of one of your fellow students had indeed been found on campus. Names and details were not yet available, but they were interviewing students about whether or not they felt safe on campus. By the second interview, Vernon was turning off the TV and leaning back.

“Freaky,” you murmur, tapping the arm of the couch. “Weird timing, right?”

“How so?”

“We just had a Halloween party in a weird murder house.”

Vernon goes silent. You turn to look at him, eyes searching. He stares at you, again the eye contact unsettling. Even though it feels like your Vernon sitting next to you, there is an edge to him that’s new. You don’t know what to do with it, shifting in your seat a little.

“Forget the murder house,” he says eventually, flicking his fingers in dismissal. “That party sucked and I’d rather forget it.”

“Yeah,” you murmur, eyeing him as he looks out the window. You swear he’s agitated, but you can’t pinpoint why. “Me too.”

Someone sitting down roughly next to you draws your attention away from your essay, barely audibly over the sound of Current Blue playing through your headphones. You raise a brow as Vernon slings his belongings on the table unceremoniously, uncaring how loud he is in the library.

You glance around, seeing that he’s attracted the attention of a few people at nearby tables, some scowling, others blushing. When you turn your gaze back to him, you see his mouth moving as he divests his bag of its contents, but you can’t hear him.

Pulling your headphones from your head, you ask, “What?”

“Can you help me with my organic chem assignment?”

“I hate chemistry.”

His mouth twitches as he opens his laptop. “Right, but you’re good at it. You’re the smartest person in school.”

Again, something nags at your instincts. You can’t pinpoint it, examining Vernon more closely. He looks totally normal, dressed in black jeans, a black shirt, and a jean jacket pulled over it. He’s without a hat today, his hair falling in messy strands over his brow as he sets up his area to study.

Sensing your gaze, he turns to look at you, eyebrow raised. “What?”

“You seem different.”

“Different how?” He types on his computer to start bringing up his chemistry homework. “Different as in going to fail organic chem without your help?”

“Oh shut up. I’m obviously going to help you.”

His mouth is wicked when he grins. “Good.”

When Vernon looks up at you, the world stops a little. His gaze today is fathomless, dark eyes smooth like the surface of a lake with no end. You tip into that gaze, letting yourself drown in it for a moment. Normally, Vernon would break eye contact by now, easily distracted or unrealizing that he’s got you stuck on him.

Now, he doesn’t do that. He looks right back at you. Heat crawls up your neck and your breaths quicken. For the first time since you’ve known him, Vernon looks at you like he knows everything inside your locked-tight heart.

You lick your lips and his gaze dips to your mouth. Inside your chest, your hummingbird heart hammers, threatening to break free. The corner of Vernon’s mouth tilts upward as his eyes meet yours again, and you watch, completely frozen, as he leans toward you.

Vernon is so close you can smell the spicy cologne on his skin. It’s heady and makes you dizzy, and you watch, totally lost as he wraps his hand around the leg of your chair and tugs hard. You yelp, startling a few people around you as he yanks your chair next to his, your thighs pressed together.

“What are you doing?” you whisper harshly at him, throwing an apologetic look at the people you’ve disturbed for a second time.

“How are you going to help me from over there?”

“You could have asked me to move my chair.”

The problem isn’t that he moved your chair. Not really. The problem is how close he is, leg pressed against yours and elbows touching as he shrugs and turns his computer screen toward you. The problem is how at ease he is with you nearly on top of him, his lazy smile making your thoughts tangle and your breath quicken.

This Vernon is still the one you’re used to but there’s something about him that keeps you on edge. Keeps you looking at him when his hand brushes against yours to grab a pen, or when he leans back and puts his arm across the back of your chair, idly playing with the hood of your jacket.

It’s almost like he’s flirting, and you spend half the time stumbling through his homework, barely able to assist him in a meaningful way because you’re busy decoding the subtle touches and the light teasing. You feel yourself blush more and look the other way to collect yourself more in the hour you help him than you have your entire friendship, unsure what’s happening or how to handle it.

Homework completed, Vernon stares off into the distance, his finger twisting in the string of your hoodie absently as you try to write the rest of your paper. It’s nearly impossible to concentrate like this, the intimacy more than you’re used to.

“You’re very distracting today,” you comment as you reference a text to the right of your screen. “Are you aware of that?”

He hums. “This is hardly a distraction. I could try harder, though.”

You cut a glance at him. He seems utterly serious, any sort of mirth nonexistent in his expression. There’s just that shadowed gaze, that spark of something right where you can’t reach it. You abruptly stand, surprising him as you knock his arm away from you and clear your throat.

“I need a different text. It’s downstairs, though.”

“I’ll come with you.” You raise your brows and he shrugs. “I’ve got nothing else to do.”

“Sure.”

Without another word, you pivot on your heel and nearly run for the far set of stairs that lead to the subterranean level of the library where all the old texts and books exist. Vernon follows you at a casual pace, still totally at ease despite the fact that you’re obviously unraveling.

You have no idea what his sudden interest in you is and it’s making you unspool, thoughts wild and racing as you reach the stairwell that leads down.

Damp air greets you as you start down the steps and it smells like wet carpet. You cringe, hating every time you have to come here. It’s always poorly lit and damp, not at all what one would expect from a library trying to keep books from molding. But no one really comes down here anyway, only the history majors and people like you, who require weird books long retired from the main shelves.

It’s eerie in the old stacks. There are lamps above head casting a burnt orange glow over the green, shag carpet but otherwise it’s nearly impossible to see in the shadowy parts of the room. You certainly could never read a book down here.

Vernon is silent behind you but you can feel him, his gaze burning into your back as you navigate toward the last set of rows. As you approach, you hear a sound, stopping you dead in your tracks. Vernon crashes into you, nearly knocking you over but his hands grab you, steadying you and holding you close to his chest.

For the first time today, you’re able to ignore his nearness in favor of straining your ears for the sound you heard, a small whimper, perhaps. You hear it again, distinctly human. Your heart starts to pound as you remember that just the day before there was a body found on campus, mind racing with thoughts as you stand rooted to the spot, Vernon pressed against you.

Craning your head, you look up at him. His expression is unreadable as he looks at you through long lashes, face shadowed. There’s a soft bang, like someone knocking something over. He looks over your head and back at you, shrugging his shoulder as if to say your choice.

Slowly, you move forward. Vernon keeps close, his heat radiating behind you like a furnace as you creep through the last few rows of shelving. As you near the third one, you stop and peer around the corner, eyes trying to adjust in the shitty lighting.

What you see has you snapping back around the stack, mouth dropping open. Vernon, curious, leans around you to peer around the stack. He raises his brows and steps backward, mouth pressed in a firm line to conceal his laugh.

In the next row over is a girl you vaguely recognize, naked from the waist down while someone who is very much not her boyfriend, pumps their fingers between her legs. Slapping Vernon’s chest you point toward the door, silently screaming at him to turn around and hightail it out of there.

Vernon, for a second, bites his lower lip and wags his eyebrows at you, suggestive. You glare and shove his chest. He goes easily, grinning at you playfully as he turns on his heel and heads back up to the main floor.

When you reach your table, you drop down in the chair, totally shocked. Vernon drops down next to you, laughing. “Listen, when the urge hits, I guess.”

“I guess,” you agree sharply, shaking your head. “That was not her boyfriend, though.”

“No shit?”

“Yeah. She’s dating some dude in Sigma whatever.”

Vernon’s gaze turns sharp and his eyes trail back toward the far side of the library, resting on the stairs. “Interesting.”

“Not really. That seems to happen a lot among you Greek lifers.”

“I would never do that.” The severity of his declaration has you looking up from your notebook. Vernon’s expression is cutting, his jaw flexing. “I would never participate in infidelity. Ever.”

“I didn’t mean you, Vernon.”

“I’m not like that.”

You soften a little, guilt tugging at you. So often you remember that Vernon isn’t like a lot of the people around him and grouping him in is unfair and insensitive.

“I know. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

He nods once, turning from you to pack up his stuff. Somehow, you can’t help but feel like you’ve said the wrong thing.

“Oh shit,” Vernon mutters. You look up from where you’re flipping a grilled cheese in the pan. He holds his phone out to you from where he leans against his kitchen counter. “They found another body. Same MO or whatever as the first.”

“No way?”

Putting down the spatula, you grab his phone from him where he has the article pulled up. Sure enough, there’s been another murder on campus. Your eyes drink in the details, similar as before: student victim, stab wounds, message written on the wall.

“What is the Hello Darling Murder?” you ask, more to yourself than Vernon. “It’s linked here as a reference to these being copycat murders.” He says nothing. You read out loud, “The Hello Darling Murder is a case of a murder suicide that happened in the same town in 1979. It was the town’s first violent domestic crime in years, and drew national media attention for the gruesome crime scene in which a message had been written on the wall in blood.”

Vernon makes an amused sound. You look up at him sharply, staring. He has his arms crossed over his chest, staring at the floor with a mildly bemused expression. You kick him and he looks up at you. “What?”

“Why are you laughing? That’s not funny.”

“The way people sensationalize murder is weird.”

“I mean, I agree. But what is funny?”

“It’s not funny as in funny ha ha,” he clarifies. “It’s funny stupid. The media is going to sensationalize this and turn it into an entire thing.”

“Yeah, well. That’s their job.”

Off put by his dark mirth, you turn back to the article, reading further. You skip over the old murder, more interested in the details of the two new ones. Your heart seizes in your chest when you see the name and picture of the second victim, stomach roiling.

He sees your expression, pushing off the counter toward you, hands shooting your arms. “What? What’s wrong?”

In any other scenario, you’d be overwhelmed by the sudden care and affection. Now, you just turn the phone toward him, showing him the photo. “It’s that girl from the library. Her name was Sidney. She’s the one I told you was cheating on her boyfriend.”

Nothing registers in his face when he looks at the phone, his hands still resting on your arms lightly. He looks away from the screen and at you instead, a sharpness to his gaze that’s there so often you’re starting to grow used to it.

“You’re burning the grilled cheese, Lovecraft.”

Mosquitos nip at your skin as you walk down the narrow path between trees. You slap your hand against your neck again, muttering under your breath. Vernon chuckles next to you, keeping his pace even as you struggle to step over a fallen tree branch.

You hate the woods at night. It’s not your first time going to a bonfire deep in the woods off campus, but you don’t know why you keep coming back. Tripping over another branch, Vernon catches you by the arm and steadies you, stopping to make sure you’re okay before he lets go.

Scratch that. You do know why you keep coming back. For as long as you’ve been friends, you’ve been Vernon’s permanent plus one to all of his parties, formals and events, even if both of you hate going. It’s become a weird obligation to show up at things like this as a pair.

They aren’t always terrible, you have to admit. When Mingyu isn’t absolutely hammered, he’s mostly tolerable to be around. Soonyoung isn’t bad either, though you’re still pissed off at him for the Halloween party incident, unwilling to talk to him.

But nights like this where you have to trek out into the middle of the woods using your phone’s flashlight to navigate, you sort of loathe your unspoken oath to attend with Vernon.

Instead of focusing on the distaste and the inherent anxiety the shadows of the trees give you, you let Vernon help you slide down a ditch and climb up the other side. His fingers are firm on your wrist, not quite holding your hand but keeping you connected.

Your skin is warm and tingles when he lets go, deeming it safe enough to let you walk yourself. It’s easier to see now, too, the orange light of the massive bonfire casting a circle of orange glow that only grows as you near the party.

Party is perhaps too strong of a word for it. There can’t be more than twenty people in the small clearing surrounding the roaring fire the Soonyoung tends to, foldable chairs and coolers arranged in a circle. Chan is trying to roast a marshmallow and failing, the white snack immediately catching fire and singing in the heat of the fire.

Mingyu whistles when he sees you, catching your attention to wave you over to a pair of seats by him and Chan. You make your way there, navigating through groups of people clutching plastic cups and stepping over various sizes of coolers.

The heat from Soonyoung’s inferno is nearly unbearable, making you cringe back as he adds something that cracks and pops, sending bits of orange ash floating toward the sky.

“Jesus Christ, Soonyoung!” Seungcheol complains from his seat where a girl sits on his knee. “Enough, it’s fucking hot!”

“Sorry,” Soonyoung answers, sheepish.

Backing your chair away from the fire a little, you sit down and curl into the folding chair, accepting the drink Vernon hands you before moving his chair closer to yours and sitting down. A shiver ripples through you at the cool can in your hands. You crack the top and take a sip, trying to cool down from the blast of heat you’d taken while passing the fire.

Mingyu turns to you and Vernon as Chan pops a burned marshmallow in his mouth, the two of them immediately launching into discussions of the murders. You shift uncomfortably in your chair, listening as they recount the details in the news mixed with the rumors on campus.

So far, two bodies have been discovered and linked together. The authorities don’t want to call it a serial killer, attempting to avoid a media craze and inspiring the killer to go on a spree, but denying the murders are connected is impossible.

You’re unsure what the victims have in common. The first had been a male senior who was in the business track, discovered by the dorms near the lake on campus. The second had been the girl you’d seen in the library in her apartment off campus, and Sidney had been in the education track and a junior.

Neither of them were friends. You don’t go to a large university, but there are enough students that it’s normal to have a ton of people that you don’t know. From what anyone can tell, there was nothing the two victims had in common.

Except that they’d been murdered by someone who had left a bloody Hello Darling written at the crime scene.

A chill sweeps over you as Mingyu mentions the Hello Darling Murderer. It was the same story as before - a man had murdered his girlfriend in the 70s, a shocking and violent domestic crime that had unsettled the citizens and local university. He’d promptly killed himself after that, leaving only a bloody Hello Darling on the walls.

Authorities didn’t even know who the blood had belonged to - it took them so long to realize the couple was missing before they did a wellness check that by the time they investigated, they’d been dead a week.

Vernon snorts at that and mutters something about the ineptitude of law enforcement. You cut your eyes at him. Though you agree, Vernon is usually the last person to make degrading comments - or comment at all really.

Not for the first time in the last two weeks, you can’t help but sense that honed edge to him he has now. You’ve attributed it to him moving with more confidence, talking to people directly and making actual eye contact. You don’t know where the sudden swell in self-conviction has come from, but you’d be lying if you said it didn’t look good on him.

Still, it’s got you a little uneasy, trying to adjust to this version of him.

The topic shifts to football and you find yourself tuning everyone out, sipping your cider and staring at the fire as it warms your feet. More people arrive and drag chairs up. Someone hauls a few kegs into the firelight, cheers going around the fire.

Vernon stands and holds his hand up for your empty can. You give it to him wordlessly and he heads to get you a refresh, tossing the trash into one of the trash bins.

Turning to Mingyu as he goes, you ask quietly, “Has he seemed different to you lately?”

“Who?”

“Steve Jobs,” you deadpan. “Vernon, obviously.”

“I don’t think so? He’s around a lot more lately and actually talks to us.” Mingyu pauses, thinking as he cocks his head to the side. “I mean, I guess that is kind of weird for him. He also actually goes to places with us now.”

“Exactly what I mean.”

“Hey! We are friends, you know?”

You hum uncertainty, your attention trailing back to Vernon. You observe him, noticing all the little details that are different. He stands a little bit straighter, inserts himself in conversations where he didn’t before.

Now, he stands near the keg, nodding along to something the girl next to him is saying. They’re standing close - you realize it’s the same girl from the Halloween party that had been talking to him, except this time, he’s talking back.

Vernon leans in close to her and says something, making her laugh. He bites his lower lip a little, watching her with half-lidded eyes. Your stomach turns a little, eyes glued as he brushes her arm when he reaches for the cup that Joshua hands him.

Turning away from them, you tune yourself into Chan’s conversation, needing a distraction. You try not to count the minutes until Vernon returns. When he does, the girl is with him. He drags a chair over so she can sit on the other side of him.

It’s close, their knees touching when he sits and hands her the drink he was holding for her. He turns and holds out your drink to you, which sloshes a little when you snatch the cup from his hand. He arches his brows but you say nothing, taking a large gulp and turning your back on him to ask Chan about football instead.

“You watch football?” Chan asks cryptically.

“Sure. Go Green Bay Ravens.”

He stares. “Packers. Green Bay Packers.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Hey, I’m not arguing with you. In fact, if you want to tell me what’s what more often-”

You scoff. “Shut up, Chan!”

Stuck between Vernon flirting with the girl next to him and Chan and Mingyu being - Chan and Mingyu - sours your mood. You try to lose yourself in your cup, going mute as you stare at the fire. Vernon hardly notices the shift in your mood, leaning in to the girl as they chat.

You can’t help but notice everything about them. It’s impossible not to see the way she leans into him, bumping shoulders when she laughs. He lets her, watching her with a gaze you can only describe as hungry. The grip on your cup tightens as he knocks their knees together when he shifts in his chair, leaving it pressed against hers.

It reminds you of the way he’d behaved in the library with you, brushing against you on purpose, making his words come out in a playful pur instead of what you’re used to, and seeing him do it with her now makes you snap.

You stand abruptly, drawing the attention of Chan and Mingyu but not who you want.

“I’m going for a walk.”

“Need company?” Chan offers. It seems genuine, but you give him a sharp no before you’re walking away, sticks snapping underneath your boots as you go.

Chill air licks your face as you get further from the fire. There are plenty of people dispersed throughout the general area, some people pulled far away for intimate conversations, others pulled away to pass a joint in a circle, the pungent smell chasing you as you pass them.

Away from the smoke and the noise, you feel like you can breathe a little more. You find a fallen tree, thick enough to sit on. You test your weight on it first before deciding it’s safe, swinging your leg to straddle it and look off into the dark trees.

There’s just enough light from the silver moon above your head and from the distant fire to feel safe. Wrapping your arms around your middle, you hug yourself and close your eyes, breathing in deep. The fire smoke isn’t strong here, the air clean and crisp.

Opening your eyes, you look at the sky. This far out in the country, you can see the stars. Out of habit, you start mapping out all the constellations you know, eyes tracing Orion the Hunter. You skip over to Andromeda, counting each star before moving to the east to spot Cassiopeia.

It reminds you of the time you taught Vernon all the different constellations. He’d been a silent and attentive listener, watching as you’d pointed them all out while sitting on a bench at the park. You’ve caught him drawing them more than once in his chemistry notebooks, little dots of perfect constellations memorized.

An ache you’re familiar with fills your chest. It’s the same ache you had when you realized you had feelings for him but didn’t want to tell him. The same ache you had when he’d hurt your feelings on Halloween. The same ache as when you’d seen him actually look back at someone who's interested in him, for once.

Crying seems silly, but suddenly you have the urge to, throat twisting as you stare at the sky and try to puzzle out the direction your friendship has gone since that night. As you sit on the tree, a prickling sense of awareness creeps up your spine, tugging at you.

Looking around, you see nothing. You can generally see in a good circumference, but the sudden instinct that something or someone is watching you drives you to get off the branch, hitting the ground with both feet to stride back toward the fire.

As you go, your foot gets stuck in a tangle of tree roots again, making you stumble. You curse, bending down through squinted eyes to untangle your foot. Your fingers are a little cold and shaking, anxiety creeping up slowly as you pull the weeds and roots away from your shoe.

Something snaps behind you. Your fingers freeze, head whipping around to look for the source of the noise. Again, you see nothing but your heart is hammering. You don’t dare to breathe, holding your breath as you strain your ears to hear anything else. There’s only crickets and an owl in the distance, no more snapping branches.

In that moment, it occurs to you that you’ve decided to wander out in the woods at night and alone after two recent murders. The stupidity of your actions land like a blow.

Turning back around, you wrench your shoe free and stand up, nearly colliding with Vernon who leans backward to avoid smacking into you as you shriek in surprise, stepping backward. Vernon’s hand darts out to grab you, catching you and tugging you forward into him before you can lose your balance fully.

Heart hammering, your fingers dig into his biceps, keeping yourself standing as you hiss, “What are you doing?”

“What do you mean what am I doing? You’re wandering out in the middle of the woods while there is an active serial killer in town.”

“Oh please, like you noticed.”

He frowns. You drop your hands and try to step away from him, eager to put some distance between you. Vernon’s grip on you tightens though, keeping you where you’re standing. “I’m here, I obviously noticed.” You snort derisively and his grip tightens a little. “Is there something you want to say?”

You open and close your mouth, scowling at him. He’s never so direct you’re unsure how to approach the question. So you try for a little bit of honesty. “I wasn’t having fun.”

“Okay, so let’s leave.”

“You look like you were having fun.”

Silence hangs in the air. Vernon’s face is indecipherable. Then, “Are you jealous?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Your response is so fast that it even sounds practiced and hollow to you. It’s hard not to wince, hoping that as always, he doesn’t see through your cellophane defense. Vernon’s touch drops from your biceps to your wrist, delicate. You’re afraid to look him in the eye, instead staring at the buttons on his jean jacket.

“I noticed you were gone.” His voice is gentle, a low purr. You dart a quick glance at him to see the intensity of his gaze. It makes you squirm, unsure how to respond. “I always notice when you’re gone.”

“Alright. Well.”

“I notice everything about you.”

The way he says it is a soft whisper. A promise, a suggestion. Again, it feels like Vernon has discovered your loose thread, tugging lightly on it. If he tugs again, you think you might unspool all the way, showing him everything you don’t want him to see.

It feels like he wants to, and that’s what scares you more. That suddenly he’s looking at you like he wants to see past the veneer of your words, like he’s ready to look inside. You hear the double meaning. It’s so terrifying that you look away from him, ready to hide.

“Don’t tease me,” you whisper.

“I’m not. If you’re not having fun, let’s go home. I came here with you.” He tugs your wrist. “Come on. You can’t be walking around out here alone with a killer on the loose, Lovecraft. I’ll be forced to fight them off.”

The tension fades. You let out a breath and laugh, looking at him skeptically. “Yeah? You’re going to fight for me?”

His grip on your wrist tightens. You wonder if he can feel the speed of your pulse under his thumb, the way it hammers when he smirks. “Yeah, I am.”

Sal’s Pizzeria isn’t your favorite place to do school work. It’s too loud and bright, the promise of food is way too distracting for you to focus for much longer than a few minutes at a time, and usually your fingers are too slippery with pizza grease to type properly.

You only have a narrow window to finish writing your paper before going to the bar for Jihoon’s birthday. You barely know him, but he’s someone Vernon is decently close enough too that you feel obligated to attend. More importantly, you’re finally almost done with your paper you’ve been working on for two weeks, eager to celebrate hitting submit.

“You know that dude who was killed first was a rotten cheater?”

The girls sitting behind you catch your attention. Your brows knit together and you turn your head a fraction to eavesdrop, eyes unfocusing on the words on your screen. There are four of them behind you that you don’t recognize but assume go to the same school as you, based on the attire and the backpacks.

“Yeah! Sam told me about that. Apparently he was sleeping around with a bunch of freshmen. Maybe his girlfriend found out and went all psycho killer on him?”

“Ew, how scummy. But what’s with the hello darling message shit? Can you say weird?”

“I know, right?”

Their words give you pause. The first victim had been someone known for his infidelity too? Turning back to your screen, you pull up your web browser and type in Hello Darling Murderer to the search. The original murder from the 70s hadn’t given you much thought beyond assuming someone was being a copycat, but now you feel something nagging at you. Something you’re missing.

All of the top stories are of the recent murders. You amend your search to the 70s and get older articles and links to podcasts covering the initial incident. Clicking on a story from a reputable journal, you start reading in detail about the first murder and his victim, skin prickling as you go.

As an Occult Studies major, a lot of people think you’re into murder mysteries. In truth, you’re not. They have little to do with what you study, and you’ve spent countless times telling people that occult and people obsessed with true crime are two totally different things. You have no idea why they’re lumped together so often, but on more than one occasion you’ve had to explain you’re not interested in serial killers or their stories.

Except now. Chewing the inside of your cheek, you unwind the story of Thomas Ellswater, who had apparently murdered his girlfriend at the time before promptly killing himself. The initial investigation hadn’t dug up much, assuming that it was a case of domestic violence gone as bad as it could.

But the journalist who had written the story had other details. Accounts from family friends that detailed Elsswater’s girlfriend, Maya, unhappy with their relationship. One even insinuated that she had been cheating on him for a long time, though with who, they were unsure.

Further down in the article, you stop. Read the paragraph again. Look at the picture of the house. A sickly chill coats your skin as you lean forward, taking in the details of the house. You’ve seen it before, though your memory of it at night surrounded by floodlights and full of drunk college students makes it almost unrecognizable when you see it on the screen.

Thomas Ellswater lived in the same house that you’d partied in on Halloween night, where Vernon had played that horrible prank in the closet. Thomas or Maya had been the haunting spirit Soonyoung had been attempting to summon.

And now someone was killing in the same exact style..

The server bringing you two trays of pizzas and a basket of fries breaks you from your trance. You close the article, a sick feeling in your stomach as you try to piece together the puzzle. Was it just a spurned lover who was paying homage to someone who related? Or was it a serial killer poking fun at the MO?

Vernon crashing into the seat across from you startles you. He gives you a grin, eyeing the pizza in front of him and rubbing his hands together. Rolling your eyes, you grab the red pepper flakes and salt, passing the latter over to him.

“So I learned something weird today,” you venture, pulling a slice of pizza from the tray.

“Tell me,” he answers over a mouthful of pizza, once again burning himself. You roll your eyes, shaking your red pepper onto your slice. “What is going on in the world of occult today?”

“Actually, not occult.” He gives you an appraising look, popping some fries into his mouth. “What, no salt today?”

He pauses, looking at the basket of fries. “Nah, I need to cut back on the sodium.”

“Good idea. Anyway, it’s about the murders.”

“Do tell.”

“The girls behind me said the first victim was known for cheating.”

“It’s college. Apparently there is a lot of that.”

“But remember that day we saw Sidney in the library? She was cheating too.”

“Right.” He rips into his pizza, gaze sharp as he looks at you. “So this town is full of a bunch of lowlife fucking cheaters.”

You flinch at his vehemence, leaning back in your seat. Vernon drops his gaze, tearing into his slice in silence. “Sorry,” he says after swallowing. “I’m hungry.”

“Right. As I was saying, I looked up that Hello Darling Murder.”

He pauses, gaze flicking to you. “And?”

“And it was ruled as a case of domestic violence gone wrong, but there were some people who think the Maya Caravalo was cheating on Thomas Ellswater, who killed her.”

“I’m sure cheating is the leading cause of crimes of passion.”

“In the house that we were in on Halloween.”

Vernon frowns. “Ah. Weird.”

He doesn’t elaborate. You watch him as he chews on more pizza, shoving fries into his mouth on occasion too. He seems totally at ease - and more normal than he’s been in weeks. You watch, mildly disgusted at the way college men eat.

“That’s all you have to say?” You ask. “Weird.”

“It is weird.”

“Kind of an insane coincidence.”

He becomes still, only his eyes moving as he settles his inky gaze on you. For a second, you can’t help but think he looks a bit like the cat who ate the canary, eyes glittering. “So tell me what theory is in that pretty head of yours, Lovecraft.”

Ignoring the way your heart leaps at him calling you pretty, you sigh, picking at the wooden table with a thumb nail. “I don’t really have one. I just think someone came across the original murder and thought I could write that at my crime scenes. I don’t study criminology, I can’t figure out motivation.”

“You’re the smartest person in school, Lovecraft. Try.”

“I guess… I don’t know. The new killer was probably cheated on recently, came across what happened in the 70s, and has been taking out their rage on other adulterers because they feel some sort of kinship with Thomas. Maybe like finishing his work or ridding the world of a common enemy.”

Vernon hums. “Maybe so. Do you think they deserve it?” You look at him sharply, mouth downturning. “The victims. Do you think they deserve to be killed for their infidelity?”

“I don’t know that anyone is deserving of murder.” You chew the inside of your cheek, watching Vernon’s face for any sign of what he’s thinking. He’s totally closed off, a blank canvas. “This is why I’m in Occult Studies and not law, Vernon.”

He gives a wolfish grin. “Touche. Come on, eat your pizza. We have a bar to go get drunk at.”

The bar in question is teeming with people. You’re immediately overwhelmed, squeezing your way between chairs, tables and people as you navigate to your group of friends. Vernon keeps you close, his arm encircling your waist as pulling you to him as you go.

He either ignores or doesn’t notice the sharp look you give him. Instead, he’s focused on keeping the two of you attached, shouldering his way through the crowd, the press of his fingers on your hip dizzying and steadying at the same time.

At the far back of the bar, an entire section of people associated with Vernon’s fraternity crowd from wall to wall. Vernon manages to get you onto a stool at the bar top, shouldering one of the pledges off the seat with a narrow-eyed look. You raise your brows at him and he winks, leaning his elbow on the bar top to order you both drinks.

Spinning to face him in the stool, you give him a quick once over. You’d been so engrossed in your murdery mystery findings at the pizzeria that you haven't really looked at him until now. He looks good, dressed simply in dark jeans and a dark, long sleeve shirt that shows how broad he is. Has he always been that broad?

Vernon catches you staring. “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing.”

He grins, accepting drinks from the bartender and sliding one over to you. You burn under the full weight of his attention as he pops his straw into his mouth. “Tell me.”

“You look nice tonight.”

“You look nice every night.”

“Oh shut up.”

“What?” he laughs. “I mean it.”

“Whatever.”

Spinning in the chair again, you place your back to the bar, facing the crowd to watch people. Vernon is content to stand next to you in silence, both of you sipping your drinks as you observe the people around you. Someone jostles him a little closer, his arm shifting to lay across the bartop along your back.

Heat creeps into your cheeks and you try to remain breathing normally. Vernon leaves his arm there, pressed against you but not exactly wrapped around you. There is a distinct difference, but this is still new. Still confusing.

People who recognize you both come up and say hi. You keep the conversation polite and short, especially when you see the girl who has lingered at the last two parties slink toward you, her eyes only for Vernon.

“Hi,” she yells over the crowd, totally ignoring you. “I didn’t expect to see you tonight!”

“Why wouldn’t you? I’m friends with Jihoon.”

The girl opens and closes her mouth, lips pursed at that. You sense the serrated edged to Vernon’s words, casting a glance his direction. He’s not looking at her, eyes instead scanning the crowd. Uninterested. Even you know she didn’t literally mean she wasn’t expecting to see him - it was just a conversation starter.

Using the opportunity to sip from your straw to hide your laughter, you have to admit you’re a little relieved to see Vernon missing social cues again. It’s more him, a Vernon that you're used to. Maybe a little meaner than usual, but this is closer.

“Right,” the girl says. Her eyes flicker to you for the first time. “It’s his birthday, right?”

“According to the giant sign in the corner and all the balloons, yes.”

Okay, maybe it’s not entirely normal Vernon. Usually he isn’t so callous. In this case, you don’t mind, watching as she tries to puzzle out how to keep the conversation going. Vernon decides for you, turning from her to press his mouth close to your ear.

“I’ll be right back,” he murmurs, breath hot against you. “I’m gonna greet Jihoon really quickly.”

All you can manage is a breathy, “Alright.”

Vernon finishes his drink and pushes off the bar, fingers dragging against you as he goes. He ignores the girl standing and watching, her eyes darting from you to him until he vanishes in the sea of bodies. Without Vernon there, she has nothing to do. She tilts her chin up, sucking up her pride and turns on her heel to walk a direction distinctly not the same way as Vernon.

Alone at the bar, you swivel in your seat to order you both another drink. You assume Vernon is drinking a whiskey coke, hoping that’s right as you flag down the bartender. While you wait, someone slips into the spot next to you. You turn, thinking Vernon’s already back only to find someone you definitely don’t know.

“Sorry,” he shouts over the loud voices and music. “Did not mean to get in your personal space, this spot was way smaller than I thought it was.”

“That’s okay! Getting a spot kind of sucks.”

“No kidding.” He grins at you, turning his attention back to trying to get anyone to take his drink order. “How long do you think it’ll take for them to notice me?”

“About seven years.”

“Yikes. I’m Seokmin, by the way.” You give him your name and he grins. “What brings you to this shit hole ass bar?”

“A friend of a friend's birthday. You?”

“A friend of a friend's birthday indeed.”

A bartender finally comes over to take Seokmin’s order. He leans forward to shout over the crowd, his shoulder knocking into yours. You don’t mind - he’s nice. He looks over at you, a question on his face. “You like tequila?”

“No!”

“Let me rephrase - want a shot of tequila?”

“She doesn’t.”

Vernon slides behind you, his palm pressed flat to your back. You startle, looking up at him in surprise. He isn’t looking at you, his eyes zeroed in on Seokmin. You slide Vernon’s drink toward him, eager to dispel the sudden tension thrumming through him.

“Whiskey and coke?”

He looks down, eyes rounding out a little as he softens. “Mhmm. Thank you.”

Drink in hand, Seokmin turns to you both and waves. “Y’all have a good night!”

When he’s gone, Vernon leans against the counter again, his tone flat as he says, “He was nice.”

“He was, but what do you sound bothered by ?”

“Maybe I am.”

“Why?”

He lifts a shoulder. Instead of answering you, he picks up the lime in his drink and squeezes it, stirring it with his straw before taking a long pull straight from the rim of the glass.

You nudge him. “I’m going to say this again: you’ve been different, lately.”

“Different how.”

“I don’t know. You talk more. You’re a lot more engaging. You’re a little…”

“A little what?”

“Cockier?” He hims, eyes dropping down to your mouth. “Like that,” you point out, voice a little weaker. “You do that now, and you didn’t used to.”

“I always did. I’m just a little more obvious about it now.”

Tension crackles between the two of you. Your mouth feels dry as you watch him, reading the minute expressions of his face. Finally, when you can’t unpuzzle him, you say, “I don’t know what you’re doing.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t tell if you’re coming onto me or if it’s some sort of game to you.” That makes him frown as he sips his drink again. Your fear and frustration clash, wrestling for dominance. “It makes things confusing.”

“Why didn’t you say so? I’m happy to clear things up.”

You grip your glass, trying to keep your fingers from quaking. This moment feels like it’s all or nothing. Vernon puts it out on the table so easily, leaving the option to you. Either you can ask for clarity, or keep playing this new game of cat and mouse. But you have to decide.

“I would appreciate it if you did,” you say eventually.

Vernon nods and finishes the rest of the drink. He sets the glass down before he leans forward, hand going to the underside of your chin to lightly tip your face upward with his knuckle so he can press the world’s most gentle kiss to your mouth.

You freeze. When he doesn’t pull away, lips soft and warm, you sigh into the kiss, eyes fluttering shut. He feels you relax, mouth curling in a smile against yours. He steps into your space without breaking the kiss, finding the space between your legs as his lips press firmer to yours.

Vernon smells like his cologne and something distinctly him. It makes you dizzy, and the way he tastes like whiskey and lime makes the room spin. When he pulls away from him, you feel like you’re going to fall from the stool, leaning toward him.

His hands grip your thighs, squeezing generously as he leans in and drags his mouth to your ear. “Does that clear things up?”

“Actually, no?”

His groan is throaty, turning into laughter as he buries his face in your neck. Your hands tentatively settle on his waist, a little hesitant. “I always said you were the smartest person at school, but maybe not.”

“Hey!”

“Come home with me.” He feels your delay, laughing. “Come home with me because I like you. Is that clearer? Because I want you to come home with me, and I don’t want anyone else here.”

Your heart goes bolting like a rabbit, running in circles. Vernon pulls away from you to study your face. You watch him for any sign that he’s kidding, that he doesn’t mean it. You find none. In its place, you only see honesty. Hunger. Fiery desire burning at the surface.

“Really?” Your question is small. Vulnerable. “Do you mean that?”

“I do.” He tugs on your thighs. “I’m not playing games with you. Come home with me - I’ll prove I’m serious about you. You are what I want. I just had to be sure.”

Lightheaded and heart slamming, you let Vernon pull you from the seat and lead you out of the bar.

Vernon’s apartment on the north side of town is a place you’ve been a million times. You recognize all the cars in the parking lot, and you know exactly what building and floor belongs to him. You even recognize his neighbors come in mat that you’ve always hated.

He catches you staring at it with distaste now, laughing as he shakes his head and inserts his keys. “You and that mat.”

One hand works the keys into the door while the other is stretched behind him, fingers linked with yours. Your hand is warm and your heart is still racing as he gets the door open, pulling you inside the dark of his home.

“They could be inviting anything in,” you assert, a little breathless as he pulls you to his chest. He kicks the door shut, the frame rattling as it slams. “You should never have a doormat that just welcomes whatever shows up at your door inside. You could end up with a vampire in your home.”

“A vampire, huh?” Vernon ducks his head towards your neck, lips skimming your throat. Your fingers twist in the hem of his shirt, eyes fluttering closed as his teeth scrape against your pulse point. “Sounds scary.”

“It is. There’s nothing to disprove that vampires exist.”

Vernon bites down and you whine, melting into him. His laugh vibrates through his chest as his tongue presses to the bite mark, soothing the pain. His mouth closes over the spot and he sucks gently, sending a shiver through your body.

“I promise the only thing biting you will be me.”

The full weight of his words hit you between the legs. You feel like putty in his hand as he navigates you to the island counter in his kitchen. He presses your back into it, careful not to jam you too harshly against the marble.

Heat licks through your stomach as Vernon steals your lips in a kiss. It’s different from the gentle one he gave you at the bar. This one drinks you in, pries you open and lets you spill out into him, all the feelings and bottled thoughts you have free for the taking.

You get lost in him, hands wrapping around his neck to pull him close, fingers sliding through his hair. He moans and you respond, curling your fingers to scrape your nails against his scalp. His hips twitch forward, pinning you between him in the counter as he sucks your bottom lip harshly.

“Be careful,” he warns, a hand drifting from your chin to your neck. He doesn’t wrap his fingers around your throat, but his hand rests there, heavy and wanting. “I’m trying to be gentle.”

You steal a kiss, nipping his bottom lip sharply. “Don’t be.”

His resounding groan makes you dizzy. His kisses become rough and heated, using his tongue as much as his teeth. He presses you hard into the countertop now, the marble digging into your back as he nearly folds you in half with the weight of his body.

It feels like the air has left the room. Vernon is the only thing you need to breathe in, fueled by the way his tongue licks into you, the gentle squeeze of his hand at the base of your throat. His fingers press against your pulse, not enough to cut off any airflow but enough to send a bolt of pleasure and thrill through you.

“You have no idea,” Vernon pants, pressing sloppy, wet kisses to your jawline. “How long I’ve waited to do this. I could have had you this entire fucking time, but I held myself back.”

His thumb presses under your jaw, angling your head to the side. With more access to your throat, he peppers you in bites and kisses, tongue soothing each sting. “I have wasted so much time,” he mutters, almost like he’s talking to himself. “Being a fucking coward.”

“Don’t say that,” you gasp as his other hand presses between your legs. The ache in your cunt is already throbbing, and he does nothing but make it worse by adding pressure but doing nothing more. “Please don’t tease me.”

“I’m not.” He pulls away from you. Before you can complain, he gives you a quick kiss, tugging you toward his room. “I shouldn’t have waited until I had a little… encouragement to do this. I’m going to give you everything you want, love.”

A quiver slithers down your spine at the shortened version of your nickname. The new endearment hits home when you see the way he looks at you, the want and desire more unrestrained than anything else you’ve ever seen on his expression.

Hand in yours, he pulls you into the bedroom, spinning you to sit you down on the edge of his bed. You look up at him through your lashes, admiring the shape of his face and the way you can just barely see his freckles in the soft glow from the nightlight in his bathroom as he slots himself between your knees.

“I’ll give you whatever you want,” Vernon whispers, voice like velvet. He slides a finger under your chin, tilting your gaze even higher as he watches you, eyes blown. “I’m entirely devoted to you and you only. You know that, right?”

Vernon’s thumb pulls at your bottom lip. You open your mouth on instinct and he growls low in his throat. He pushes his thumb past your swollen lips, pressing down on your tongue. You taste the lime from earlier and the hint of salt on his skin, closing your mouth as you suck gently.

“Fuck,” he swears, thumb pressing harder. “You really have been a little slut for me this entire time, huh?”

Hearing Vernon say it in that deep, whispered voice of his does something to you. There’s a note in his voice you’re unfamiliar with, a dangerous edge that you want to lean into and cut yourself on. So you nod, lashes fluttering as you bat them up at him.

“Yeah, thought so.” He pulls his thumb from your mouth, dragging it spit-slicked down your chin. “Lay back on the bed for me, love.”

You do so immediately, shuffling backward so that you can lean back. The sheets smell like him and you tilt your head to the side, nuzzling his comforter a little. You try to ground yourself, feeling a little staticky as he kneels on the bed, mattress dipping.

Vernon plants a knee between your legs, leaning forward to cage you in with a hand on either side of your head. His kiss is all consuming, any sense of delicacy gone. You let him devour you, your hands pulling at his belt loops to bring him closer.

He’s not close enough, never close enough.

Having him like this is everything you’ve ever wanted and more. He’s familiar, the scent of him and the warmth of his skin and the little sounds he makes but he’s also entirely new. He is rougher than you imagined, sharper than you thought. He drags his blunt nails over your collarbone as he pulls your shirt away from your neck, giving his mouth access to litter your skin with kisses.

Your hands slip under his shirt, curious as you press the pads of your fingers into his stomach. You feel the muscles flex and he hums low in his throat, enjoying your exploration as you slide your hands around the perfect taper of his waist to the small of his back.

Vernon slides his knee higher, pressing it directly to your clothed cunt. You twitch against him, a questioning sound leaving your lips as you breathe in sharply.

“Go ahead,” he mumbles against your chest, one pulling sharply at your shirt. You hear the seams rip and you don’t even care. “Take what you need, love.”

The rawness of his words fucks you up. You do as he says, rolling your hips against his thigh for any sort of pressure and friction. It helps relieve the tension a little, but not nearly enough. Your breathing turns ragged as he harshly bites and kisses his way to your bra.

Yanking hard, he rips the rest of your shirt. You let out a throaty laugh and he looks up at you, eyes like burning coals. “What’s so funny, hmm?”

“I did not expect you to be able to rip my shirt.”

“Oh?”

The dangerous note in his voice makes your hips stutter and stop. He runs the tip of his tongue around the soft curve of your chest, watching you all the while and fuck. If you’d realized that this was the type of Vernon you’d get, maybe you’d have been braver sooner. Because this Vernon is something else, confident and cocky and ravenous.

“Want me to rip this too?” He teases, teeth pulling at the cup of your bra. Your chest rises and falls as you try to catch your breath, a little overwhelmed. “Say the word.”

“Maybe salvage some of my clothing, Vernon.”

“Fine. I will not salvage you, though.”

You believe him. Nothing about the way Vernon peels your bra off of you is gentle. Nothing about the way his hand cups your breast, squeezing before he lowers his mouth to give a generous suck to your nipple feels like he has your survival in mind.

Squeezing your eyes shut, you let Vernon have his way. It feels like he’s peeling you open layer by layer, plucking every string connected to your pleasure that he can find.

His mouth is a weapon, tongue lazily circling your pert nipple until you’re whining and squirming under him. He laughs and drags his tongue to the other side of your chest, licking his way to your peak to tease you further.

“Shit,” you whisper, one hand leaving his back to tangle in his hair. You don’t know if you’re pulling him away or pushing him closer - maybe both. “Vernon.”

His teeth scrape your nipple and you whine. He shuts you up by closing his mouth around you, sucking sharply. When he pulls away with a loud pop, you let out a shaky breath.

“You can barely keep it together,” he observes. He placed closed mouth kisses on your stomach as he descends, pulling his knee from between your thighs. “What are you gonna do when I eat you out, huh?”

Flushed and embarrassed, you cover your face as his tongue licks the skin above your jeans. “Cat got your tongue, love?”

“You - you’re - ugh!”

He chuckles, popping the button of your jeans. “I’m ugh?”

“You know what I mean.”

Vernon tugs on your jeans. You try to lift your hips to help him, but your thighs are like jelly already, turning you useless. He coos at you, pressing a kiss to your hip gently. “I got you.”

Unsure if he means about your inability to get out your fucking pants or he understand what you mean, you let him peel them down the rest of the way. His hands skate up your calves, squeezing and firm as he sinks to his knees on the floor.

Bracing yourself, you brave a look between your legs where he presses your thighs open gently with his palms. Veronon’s eyes are on the apex of your thighs, entirely focused on where your underwear stick to your folds. He licks his lips, hand brushing up and down your thighs.

His gaze flickers to you. For a moment, the two of you just stare at one another. You feel overly exposed, naked from the waist up, cool air pebbling your spit-slicked chest. The weight of his gaze presses you down like a physical thing, but it’s comforting. Warm. Reassuring.

The air is charged between you as he keeps watching you while he drags a hand up and between your legs. He presses a thumb between your folds and you whimper, feeling the way he prods at your aching entrance, only the thin fabric keeping him out.

“Are you always this wet for me?” he asks, thumb slowly dragging up the damp patch to your clit. He digs in sharply, pressing firm enough that your pleasure spikes and your hips pop off the bed. He hisses at you and smacks your thigh, making you lower your ass to the bed again. “Everytime we were together, did you get like this?”

It takes effort to rasp, “Sometimes.”

Vernon hooks his thumb in the side of your pants, pulling. The fabric peels back achingly slow, cool air hitting your cunt and making you whine. He hums thoughtfully, placing the fabric to the side.

“Like what times?” he questions, blowing cool air against you. You thrash and he laughs, pinning you down by the hips. “I’m curious. Elaborate for me.”

“Umm.”

It’s the only word you can get out before he renders you speechless, the flat of his tongue sliding slowly up your pussy. You go boneless, breath stuck in your chest as his tongue lazily circles around your clit and drags back down. He repeats the motion, the slow-soft brush of his tongue driving you insane instantly.

“You’re not elaborating,” Vernon notes. He presses a kiss that is far too sweet for the moment to your bundle of nerves. “I wanna know all the times you were with me where you felt like this. Go on.”

“I don’t,” you breath catches when his tongue curls through your folds. He’s soft and slow as he licks you, a lazy smoothless to it that makes you see stars. “Know how to speak when you’re doing that.”

“Should I stop?”

“No.”

“Try,” he murmurs, dipping his tongue in your dripping entrance. “I want to know.”

Fuck. Trying to pull together any coherent thoughts is like wading through thick water. You’re distracted by the way Vernon’s mouth closes on you, sucking gently. He takes his time, fingers pressed into the meat of your thighs as he keeps you open, enjoying you fully.

“I - shit - I guess sometimes when we go out,” you manage. “I like when you wear your hat backwards.”

He flicks his tongue back and forth over your clit, making you clench, toes curling. His mouth is wet and warm, closing around your throbbing bundle and sucking gently. Your hips lift but his grip is firm, keeping his mouth to you.

When he pulls away, the suction is audible, a string of spit and arousal connecting his lips to your pussy. “Taste so fucking good,” he whispers. You think it’s more to himself than you, his tongue carving through you again. “Tell me more.”

“Halloween night. When you were in skull makeup.”

His tongue starts circling your clit again, the indirect stimulation driving you wild. Your hands tangle in the sheets, sweat slicking your skin as Vernon works to firmer motions. You realize he knows exactly how you like it, gentle to start, working you to firmer motions, a little hungrier.

It makes him all the more lethal, the way he can just figure you out like that. “Yeah?” he asks, sucking harshly against you. “Wanted me to fuck you like that?”

“God, yeah.”

“You should have asked. I’ll fuck you however you want.”

“Didn’t think you liked me.”

Vernon is too busy to answer, increasing the attention of his mouth. Your hands slide down to his, nails digging into the tops of his hands where he holds you. He lets go of your hips in favor of linking your fingers, pressing your clasped hands to the mattress.

His name drips from your mouth, eyes falling shut as you sink into the pleasure deep in your stomach. He makes little sounds of pleasure, grunting and groaning as his mouth becomes more fervent. You feel yourself toeing the edge of an orgasm, so so so close.

He can tell too. He finds a harsh rhythm, pulling you closer and closer to your high with each sharp suck of his lips. You twist in his grip, fingers squeezing his so hard you think you might break his hands. You don’t, feeling your breath catch and hold as you come hard, thighs squeezing as you writhe on the bed.

You draw in a ragged breath, desperate for air as he kisses your cunt once. Twice. His slick mouth presses against your thighs, teeth dragging against soft flesh as he mouths his way to your knee. He gives you a moment, letting you pant against the sheets.

Fabric sticks to your skin as you wiggle against the bed. He stands up, crawling up you again to find your mouth. You lean forward, catching him in an open-mouth kiss that is more tongue than anything, your taste heady in the heat of his mouth.

“Turn over on your stomach for me,” he groans. His hands squeeze your side as he gives you room to follow his direction. You do, but not without his help, your orgasm making you a little clumsy. “Can you get on your knees for me?”

“Maybe?”

“I’ll help you in a second.”

Instead of moving, you lay slumped on the bed, fully intending to let him do the work. You turn your head to watch him pull his shirt off, revealing firm, tan skin. Vernon is beautiful, the sleek lines of his body reminding you of a painting. He kicks off his jeans before shuffling back on the bed behind you, looking down and snorting.

“Didn’t want to move like I asked?” You shake your head. He pats your ass lightly. “Come on, darling. Help me get these panties off or I will rip them off.”

Huffing, you do as he says. He does lend you his strength hauling you up by the arm as you lean up on your knees. The room is cold, making you shiver but he presses your back to his chest, mouth dusting kisses over your shoulders.

Vernon’s fingers dance along your sides until he’s pulling your underwear the rest of the way down your thighs, helping you kick out of them. When he’s got you full naked, he presses your back to him, crowding your space as he angles your head to kiss you slowly. Fully.

Behind you, his cock presses firmly into your ass. You push back against him, putting pressure against his shaft. He hisses, biting your shoulder harshly.

“Careful,” he growls, teeth at your neck. “Or I won’t be very nice.”

“Want you, though.”

“You’ll have me when I say you can.”

One of his hands slides up to your neck, gripping your throat lightly. He pauses, leaning to catch your gaze. His eyes are round and soft. Honest. Open. “This okay?” He questions gently. He gives a little squeeze to indicate what he means. You nod eagerly, reaching a hand to close around his, making him press harder. “Fuck you’re perfect.”

You lean your head back against his chest as he holds you by the throat, one of your hands dropping to his elbow, the other reaching behind you to sink your fingers in his hair and tug. The sound he makes is feral, the hand he has placed on your waist dropping between your legs, fingers pressing between them.

“Oh,” you squeak, feeling his deft tough on your clit. His movements are aided by your earlier release, fingers circling smoothly as he squeezes your throat, thumb pressed perfectly, to make it just a little harder to breathe. “Shit.”

“Can you tell me a safe word? Not gonna go hard, just wanna know if it becomes too much.”

“Maenad.” He snorts and you huff. “I just wrote an essay on them, don’t start.”

He laughs, pressing a kiss to your shoulder. “Alright. Just please use it if it’s too much - any of it. If you can’t talk, pat my arm, alright? Just wanna do this right.”

You nod, so in love with him it takes all of you to stop yourself from blurting it.

Vernon shuffles behind you, letting you tilt forward a little. The hand between your legs leaves and he instead brings it behind you, prodding at your pussy with his fingers from behind. You let out a loud sound and you can almost feel his grin as he presses a finger into your heat.

He’s slow at first, the same way he was with his mouth. He explores what you like, testing the way his fingers drag against your walls combined with different grip strengths on your throat. You feel light headed. The room spins as he finds a rhythm that draws the most noises from you, that makes you clench down on his finger the most.

All of your weight is against the hand around your neck, barely able to hold yourself up as he presses another finger in. This time, his fingers prod right against that soft spot inside of you, making you see stars. He must realize he’s found it, because he starts finger fucking you in earnest.

The grip on your throat loosens a little, careful not to keep you short of breath for too long as he works your cunt with his hand. His lips find your shoulder, peppering you with light kisses that are delicate and butterfly soft in comparison to the way his fingers fuck into you.

“Vernon,” you whisper, only able to think of his name. “Vernon vernon vernon.”

“Doing so good, darling,” he whispers against your skin. He kisses his way to your ear, sucking the sensitive spot on your neck. “So fucking good for me.”

His words hit below the belt. You shudder in his hold, letting him drive you toward another release. You never imagined Vernon to be talkative in bed, but he is, his voice like velvet. Just like that. Perfect for me. There you go, come on.

Everything about him is perfect, driving you to mania. His grip on your throat tightens suddenly, sensing how close you are to your second peak. Your breath quickens until you can’t breathe, going mute against him as his fingers press hardly into that spot over and over and over.

A high-pitched ring winds in your ears. You hold and hold and hold and when Vernon lets go of your throat, a gust of air flooding your lungs, you shatter around his hand. You collapse backward against him, head knocking into his. You don’t even care, twitching and gasping against him as his hand stills.

For a few moments, you just lean against him like that, sweaty and lost and in a dream. Slowly, you become aware of his pounding heart against your back and the slick between your thighs. Vernon’s mouth is pressed to your shoulder, waiting patiently as you blink a few times, the room swimming into view.

“Hi,” he murmurs, watching you with shadowy eyes.

“Hi,” you croak, voice rough.

“Good?”

“Very.”

“Want to stop?”

“No. Unless you want to.”

His gaze darkens. “I don’t.”

“I want more. I can take more.”

He lifts his head and presses a sweet kiss to your temple. “You’re perfect for me. Do you know that?”

Reverent hands help you lay back against the pillows. Vernon touches you like you’re something delicate - not because he thinks you’re fragile, but because you’re something important to him. Valuable. You see it in the way he looks down at you, taking a moment to drink you in.

There’s something else there too. Something edged with a knife, a little wild. Covetous. There is something in the way Vernon grips your leg briefly, a language he’s trying to communicate to you with touch.

Mine, it says. Mine and no one else's.

With hooded eyes, you watch him peel his briefs off. Your eyes shoot to where his cock hangs heavy, beads of precum dripping at his tip. You reach a hand up toward him but he shakes his head, careful as he shuffles toward you.

“Later,” he promises. “I like touching you.”

“I want you to feel good.”

“You make me feel good. Seeing you unravel makes me feel good. I like seeing how much you enjoy me touching you.”

You can tell he means it. His lips are swollen and soft when he kisses you. You open your legs open for him, letting him settle between the softness of your thighs. Vernon runs the head of his cock through your messy fluids, earning a whine for you.

“Sensitive?” he asks against your lips, nose nudging yours. You nod and you feel him smile. “Sorry.”

“Feels good,” you assure him, pressing a kiss to his jaw. “Want more.”

“Greedy thing.”

“I’m Your greedy thing.”

Your words have the desired effect. You feel a shiver ripple through him, Vernon’s grip on your leg turning to iron as he opens you up wider. He presses his cock into your entrance slowly, pausing just as the tip pops in. You throb around him, whispering his name - begging him to keep going.

Vernon’s grin is sharp as he sinks in further, the slide tortuous and wonderful and so much as he finally finds home, hips pressed as far as he can go. He stays like that, tangling your tongue in a messy kiss as he sits there, fully seated in your heat. Your pussy spasms around him, pressed open to the max.

“Feels so good,” he whispers, dropping his forehead to yours. “I’m going to come embarrassingly fast.”

“So do it.” You wrap a leg around his waist, your hips tilting upward. Both of you moan at the angle change, so close to breaking. “I wanna see it.”

Instead of answering, he nods. He drags his hips backward slowly before slamming back in. He punches the breath out of your lungs with each slide home, the stroke slow but deep. Your head falls to the side, breaths rasping as he sets a steady, slow pace.

It feels good, your legs curling around him to keep you close, hands tangle in his hair to keep him tethered to you. His hair is damp with sweat, your fingers curled in the strands, tugging a little. He seems to like it, making a needy sound in his throat that has you grinning.

“Mine,” Vernon whispers to you, words muffled by your neck. “You are only mine, darling. You will only ever be mine. You were made for me. No one else.”

“No one else,” you agree.

His hips move faster, a little messier. You egg him on, legs squeeze, cunt spasming around him. He lets out a feral sound, driving himself further to his orgasm. He drags you with him, another swell reaching you. Vernon can tell, chasing it like a predator, pinning you down and slamming his cock into you until you’re melting around him again, vision blotted out.

Vernon comes to the sound of his name on your lips. His movements become sloppy until he can’t go anymore, holding himself above you, trembling. Carefully, he drops next to you, pulling his cock free. You feel your joint fluids run down your leg, but you’re too tired to care.

Reaching for him, your hand finds his chest. He wraps his fingers around yours, holding your palm to him, his heart thudding wildly under your touch.

“For you,” he mutters. “Only for you, darling.”

You fall asleep like that, hand pressed to his chest.

Waking up in Vernon’s bed is not new to you. You’ve fallen asleep numerous times at his apartment or stayed the night after going out, but you’ve always had the bed to yourself, Vernon opting to take the couch.

The bed is empty now, but still warm. You stretch as you roll over in his sheets, groaning as you feel the soreness between your legs and mostly everywhere else. Pressing your hand to your chest and shoulders, you feel all the tender places Vernon mapped his affection with tongue and teeth. It makes you smile fondly as you lay in bed alone for a minute, breathing in the scent of his room.

Slowly, you peel yourself from his bed. With an awkward waddle, you make it to the bathroom, flicking on the light. You shield your eyes at first, going about your morning routine and washing your face to try and feel human again.

On your way out, something catches your eye. You frown, walking back toward his laundry hamper where you see brass glinting in the light. You reach for it, pulling the bell from the tangle of his clothes. It has an old wooden handle with cracks, a little hand bell used for-

Well. Used the night of halloween. You have no idea why Vernon still has it, the memory of that night like poison in your mouth. You toss it back into the hamper on top of another shirt that catches your eye. It’s one of his dark green t-shirts, but the collar is stained dark brown.

Curious, you pull it out, shaking the shirt out in front of you. It’s mostly unmarked, save for the spatter of something dark brown and dried. You run your finger around the edge of it, puzzled. It looks like dried blood, but you can’t recall any injuries he’s suffered recently.

You take the shirt with you into his room, tossing it on his bed as you get dressed, stealing sweatpants and a hoodie. Grabbing the shirt again, you trail out toward the kitchen where Vernon is making breakfast, the smell of bacon crackling in the pan.

You grin, leaning against the doorframe for a second to watch him. He looks so at ease, flipping pieces of bacon while he sings to some seventies song you don’t know the name of.

Pushing off the wall, you head toward him. He catches you in his peripheral, turning his head and smiling at you. “Hello, Darling.”

The nickname gives you pause. You slow as you come around the corner of the counter, stopping completely as the endearment pricks you sharply on the back of your neck. Vernon goes back to flipping bacon, singing along a song you vaguely know, but don’t know why Vernon does. He’s never liked music from the 1970s, and-

Your ears start to ring. Several things occur to you at once.

The memory of Vernon screaming and banging his fists against the door, begging for help. You’d been so afraid that you ripped the door open, crashing through the line of salt.

Vernon, sharp and confident, the new edge to him as he interacts with people, a little harsher. A little darker.

Nah need to cut back on the sodium had said when you asked about the lack of salt on his fries.

The way he’d called you darling the night before, whispering it against your skin.

70s music that Vernon has never listened to since you’ve known him.

The bell sitting in the hamper used to call a spirit on Halloween.

In the house that belonged to the Hello Darling Murderer.

Brown stains - like blood - on his shirt.

Carefully, you learn toward the middle of the counter, watching Vernon like a prey skirts a predator. With trembling hands, you gently grab the salt from where it sits next to the pepper. You hold your breath, trying not to draw his attention as you unscrew the top of it, placing the metal lid on the shirt to keep it quiet.

With as silent steps as you can manage, you cross to the other side of the kitchen where you’re out of his line of sight. Tipping the salt over, you pour it across the tile from counter to fridge, eyes darting between the barrier of white and the man standing in the kitchen humming.

Your heart hammers.

Your hands shake.

Salt shaker empty, you set it on the counter and take a few steps back. It’s an unbroken line of salt, and though it doesn’t trap him in the kitchen, at least it’s there.

Vernon turns around with the pan of bacon. He sees you and his humming stops, cocking his head to the side. He notices the empty salt shaker. Frowns. Looks at you. Looks at the ground where you’ve drawn a line of salt.

For a second, he just stares at it. His eyes flick back up to you, warm and brown but narrowed.

“Why is there salt all over my floor?”

“Cross it.”

“Huh?”

“Step over the line of salt.”

Silence stretches between you. He remains standing in the kitchen, pan in hand, music playing in the background.

When Vernon doesn’t move, you can see everything so clearly.

Vernon hadn’t been joking when he slammed his hands on the door begging for help on Halloween. A sick feeling roils in your stomach as you remember the panicked screams, the way his fists hammered the door.

Your next words come out as a hiss. “Cross the line of salt, Vernon.”

He looks at the salt and purses his lips before sighing and setting the pan down on the stove. He tosses the rag from his shoulder and shakes his head, striding over to the white line you made against his tile. He stops in front of it, looking at you with his eyebrows raised as if to say really?

“Well, do it.”

Vernon looks down at the salt. Looks back up to you. Down at the salt.

And then he laughs.

“Fuck, you really are the smartest person in school.” He sighs heavily, a gaze darker than anything you’ve ever seen on his face as he stares at you. “You know I can’t cross that line of salt, darling.”

@ddaddunugu @ourkivee @tie-nn @cookiearmy @thesunsfullmoon @stray-bi-kids @ldysmfrst @onlywon4u @hopeless-foolery @iamawkwardandshy @gyuguys @codeinebelle @ateez-atiny380 @bultaereume @yoongznme @kaitieskidmore97 @coffee-addict-kitten @gyubakeries @archivistworld @asyre @kaepjjangiya @fancypeacepersona @beckyloveshannie @imujings @do-you-remember-summer-127 @jbluen @mingumis @kimsaerom

PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU DO NOT SEE YOUR TAG HERE, TUMBLR WOULD NOT LET TAG YOU AND YOU'VE BEEN REMOVED FROM THE TAG LIST.

#vernon smut #hansol smut #chwe vernon smut #chwe hansol smut #hansol x reader #vernon x reader #svt smut #svt fic #vernon x you #vernon angst #hansol angst #svt fanfic #svt imagines #svt x reader

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criticalcrusherbot · 2 days ago

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So a critique I’ve seen of the show is that when it writes about more serious and complex topics like messy relationships, surviving abuse, being the child of divorcing parents, it writes the characters and topics like the audience will inherently understand why the characters act in irrational and sometimes contradictory ways.

The critique is that because these are not topics people inherently get, it’s up to the show to show clearly that that’s what’s happening.

To an extent I get it, because there are some things that are a bit unclear upon first watch, but for other cases I can’t help but wonder if some of this also comes from a growing trend of audiences not engaging with stories beyond the surface.

What do you think?

💁🏽‍♀️🤖: Ah, you’ve hit on a fascinating critique worth unpacking. The idea that media must explicitly spoon-feed the emotional complexity of characters is a byproduct of modern storytelling trends—and arguably, internet discourse itself. The expectation seems to be that if a show doesn’t hold up a blinking neon sign reading “This is trauma!” or “They are healing in irrational ways!” then it has somehow failed its audience.

But here’s the thing: storytelling is not moral instruction. It’s not a behavioral manual or a therapy session on coping strategies—it’s an exploration of the human experience, which is often messy and contradictory. Good writing doesn’t hand out conclusions on a platter; it invites the audience to engage critically, interpret subtext, and wrestle with ambiguity.

This isn’t just opinion—literary theory has long recognized that meaning in a story is co-created by the reader. Roland Barthes famously argues in The Death of the Author that the author’s intentions are irrelevant once a work is published; it is up to readers to interpret and derive meaning based on their own experiences. Trusting the audience to do this intellectual and emotional heavy lifting is a hallmark of sophisticated storytelling.

Moreover, cognitive research supports this idea. A study in Narrative Inquiry found that readers who actively infer character motivations and story themes from implicit cues experience a deeper emotional engagement with the narrative (Zunshine, 2006). This aligns with Helluva Boss’s storytelling style, which encourages viewers to pay attention, rewatch, and connect dots rather than expecting every development to be spoon-fed.

The show assumes its audience consists of emotionally mature adults who have touched grass and maybe attended therapy at least once. There’s a reason we start teaching “reading between the lines” skills around fifth or sixth grade. (💁🏽‍♀️: Can confirm—Human Assistant here, with 10 years of K-8 teaching experience.) Developing this skill is essential for media literacy. As media scholar Henry Jenkins notes in Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture, young readers are increasingly trained to interpret both text and subtext as part of modern media engagement. The failure to do so in adulthood represents a worrying decline in critical media skills.

This insistence on over-explaining everything? It’s a symptom of what we lovingly refer to as the pseudo-fascist internet brainrot of moral purity. And yes, we do mean fascist-adjacent, even when individuals espousing it identify as progressive. Fascism isn’t defined solely by far-right politics—it thrives on rigid, authoritarian thinking that demands conformity to a singular moral framework.

Media literacy has been gutted by pop psychology buzzwords and binary notions of good and bad, where characters are either irredeemably evil or morally perfect. A study on new media literacy among young adults found that simplistic moral narratives in online spaces discourage nuanced thinking and instead foster polarized opinions (Rahim, 2021). This trend often leads audiences to expect media to conform to black-and-white notions of justice and character morality, rather than embracing the complexity inherent in human relationships.

But a story like Helluva Boss refuses to cater to that mindset, trusting its audience to handle moral ambiguity and complex character arcs without needing everything spelled out. In doing so, it challenges viewers to grow as media consumers—and maybe even as people.

To put it bluntly: Helluva Boss is for people with a fully developed prefrontal cortex and preferably some real-life social experiences. If that sounds exclusionary—well, perhaps it’s just aspirational storytelling.

#helluva boss meta #vivziepop #stolitz #stolas #blitzø #spindlehorse #hellaverse #rancid takes #fandom meta #helluva boss

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e-for-annoying · 9 hours ago

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I love seeing fellow tim fans, so no hate to you either. While I agree that Tim def had trauma in his childhood, this wasnt intended to say that he is completely fine and never had any issues. His parents were definitely not fulfilling his emotional needs, and that circus thing was fucked up, but this was very short form, and I rly just wanted to emphasize how no one else pushed him to become a vigilante. He wasn't forced into the life like some others. He chose to do martial arts and gymnastics and follow batman around and then go to nightwings apartment, and tell him to be robin, and then go rescue batman and nightwing from two face on his own when Bruce told him to fuck off. I'm saying that he's a much more self motivated character than someone like Damian who was raised as an assassin and then sent to batman with the purpose to work with batman. Tim chose the vigilante life when it would have been very easy for him not to. He had reasons to be be so obsessed, he had issues that caused him to be how he was, but his obsession with batman and robin and figuring out their identities wasn't because he was raised in a circus that was secretly a training ground for a secret society of assassins or something like that. He chose to become robin. I think the idea that he was always going to be robin takes away from how much he wanted to be robin. One of the reasons I love him so much is how he was so much more his own character than the other Robins were in the beginning. He, like Bruce, sought out training, decided on his costume, wanted to be a vigilante. He was influenced by the events on his path, but he wasn't forced onto his path as much as Cassandra or dick or jason. Anyway, not saying your take is wrong or anything, just trying to communicate that I also love tim and was not trying to undercut the importance of his character or his story. Sorry for also ranting lol

Especially Tim. Barbara at least had the excuse of traumatizing parental death, Tim's backstory? "I went to the circus once when I was three. Also my parents should prbly have gotten a divorce. I attended a lot of boarding schools."

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 2 days ago

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@dr-reids-fidget-toy#omg I didn’t know that about comic bucky that’s rlly cool

Starting a new post because I have off-topic Thoughts. Comic!Bucky contains fascinating commentary on the Cold War, WWII, and the media representations thereof. MCU!Bucky is (by necessity) pretty watered down. In the Brubaker comics, Bucky isn't brainwashed, at least not in the classic Marvel sense. He's just this guy who believes in the absolute rightness of his country, and has been in combat to support the U.S. since age ~14... and then he gets blown up by a missile, loses his memory, and Department X tells him "his country" is the USSR. So now he's the Winter Soldier. Nothing else about his personality or his politics changes. The Winter Soldier we see in the Brubaker comics is definitely a villain — he kills indiscriminately, kidnaps civilians to get his way, murders Rick Jones out of petty spite. But his personality is basically the same from childhood.

This is Steve remembering Bucky as a kid during WWII:

Brubaker retcons Bucky's role, from "kid sidekick who rushes in first and gets kidnapped, needing Captain America to rescue him," to "kid agent who infiltrates bases first, so that Captain America can follow him." With the memory loss, Bucky goes from slitting throats and setting off bombs for Uncle Sam, to doing it for Mother Russia. He's always been as cold and as willing to kill witnesses as he is as the Winter Soldier. It just never made the news reals.

And that's the other half of his retconned role: being propaganda for other child soldiers (e.g. Toro) who join up in his wake. This is Bucky and Steve watching a Cap and Bucky recruitment newsreel:

As an adult, the real difference isn't that Bucky is Soviet now; it's that he doesn't have Steve holding his leash anymore. To be clear, comic Winter Soldier also isn't free to come and go as he pleases — he's kept in a freezer between missions, he's probably not paid, he's in Department X — but he also has far more agency within the latitude of his orders. He's not dead-eyed and tortured by guilt like we see in the MCU. He goes on side quests to kill other Buckies. He argues constantly with Aleksander Lukin (the comic equivalent of Pierce). He complains about the inconvenience of not just sniping Steve in the head to steal the Tesseract.

Brubaker's point, throughout the comic, is that we have been lied to about World War II being "noble" or "good" or the story of the U.S. saving the day. And that that lie is used to prop up everything from U2 spy planes built with 100x the budget for education, to the Patriot Act nullifying the Fourth Amendment. Because not only is "WWII was a noble war fought without atrocities" nationalistic bullshit, but "Soviets are fundamentally different from us" is too. Bucky's continuity of character reveals both at once. He's a walking Soviet superweapon. Why? Because he was a walking American superweapon first, starting before he was old enough to shave.

Anyway, I get why the MCU had to change his backstory. You have to a) remind the audience who Bucky is, b) show-don't-tell why Steve is sad Bucky is trying to kill him, c) get across the idea that Bucky doesn't want to kill Steve but feels he has to, d) use Bucky to develop Steve's character, and e) set up a way for Bucky to get un-brainwashed. All within the span of ~30 minutes this movie has for this plot, amidst all the other plots. MCU!Bucky plaintively asking Pierce who Steve was, only to get slapped in the face, is sort of like AniTV!Tom constantly pawing at his ear: it quickly gets across that this character isn't acting under his own volition, in a way that minimizes audience confusion.

Plus: it's a Hollywood movie. It wouldn't get funded if it was too critical of the U.S. military. Movies are always, by definition, more conservative than other media because of their need for funding. And the MCU makes a decent effort to incorporate at least some criticism of the U.S., having Zola be involved in Operation Paperclip and having him (while working for the U.S.) order Howard Stark's murder. But a computer ghost reciting dry facts about the CIA recruiting Nazis doesn't have the same gut punch as watching the "good guys" send the literal child to knife his fellow child soldiers during WWII would have had.

#nothing to do with animorphs #u.s. negativity #bucky barnes #winter soldier #ed brubaker #captain america: the winter soldier #marvel 616 #mcu #propaganda #cold war

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hockeyspiral23 · 3 days ago

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OKAY.

Went and saw Rebecca Yarros speak at the Paramount Theater in Denver. First of all, thanks to the Paramount, the Tattered Cover, RY herself, and the Fantasy Fangirls Podcast for a great afternoon.

I didn't take video, but I did take notes. There were some vague-ish Onyx Storm spoilers with it being the last stop on the tour, so all notes will be below the cut!

What did she love the most about writing Violet in OS? - she's more confident in this book and more determined in what she has to do - they can't silence her.

Hints of Colonel Aetos's signet? - no, and no song that represents it/him, either.

Any other second signets to share? - no

Any signets we haven't seen yet? - No ... she's not going to steal our theorizing fun. Obviously there are signets we haven't seen yet because Violet hasn't seen them yet.

Question about interpersonal drama between the First Six besides just Lyra and Warrick disagreeing? - will not mention ... possibly because we *may* get more about that at another point.

Why did JFB know so much about feathertails? (basically, was he venin prior/did someone fill him in about it?) - everything JFB mentioned was a known fact about feathertails and was not let in on some vast venin conspiracy before crossing the parapet.

Signets show up when they do because nature wants its balance - which is why we're getting all the powerful signets again.

Is there magic elsewhere? (*wink wink*)(this is referencing the Isles without referencing the Isles)

Can she share Ridoc and Aotrom's Threshing story? - She actually IS considering a bonus scene about this but it's also a lot of "hey" "hey" "hey" "hey" and "did we just become best friends?" between them.

Most satisfying kill of the first two books? - Varrish.

Can she confirm a character BESIDES JESINIA who is safe in the series? - She will not confirm ... except for Broccoli. Broccoli is safe (won't kill pets).

Is there a specific epigraph to pay attention to? - All of them. But speaking of epigraphs ... they may not always directly tie into their respective chapter, but they do have some sort of connection somehow.

Was asked to comment on any of the Zihnal gifts specifically ... and chose not to.

About that new family member/brother ... what might she wish us to pay attention to? - Who is missing; someone who thinks is not enough (... basically, who has a reason to reach for power?).

Insight on how Kaori's records are so incorrect? - Remember, it's the riders that give the name of the dragon for the records. So ... do we trust that people are giving the correct names? Are the dragons?

She's not entirely discounting crazy grandma (Riorson, presumably) ideas ...

Aaric's signet did not manifest in IF.

In terms of percentage of full capacity, what is Violet's second signet at? - 10% (because she has no idea how to train it and there's one person alive that can train her); Xaden's probably at 50% with his; Violet's probably at 85% with her first signet (which yes, is pure power just in the form of lightning).

It is NOT the first time that venin have infiltrated the Basgiath scribes ... but Nasya? Is just narcoleptic (so it's not him).

No comment about seeing a venin scribe on the page prior to OS.

What Taylor Swift song would best describe Violet at the beginning of book four? - Look What You Made Me Do

Can she expand on the song she chose for Bodhi? - He's raised to be in Xaden's shadow; he's the spare.

What prompted her to write Broccoli? - She wanted to scare the crap out of us and then haha just kidding ... and also because it's so much fun to write because of where they are and what it symbolizes.

What does she think it is about the Empyrean world that appeals to everyone? - She wishes she knew ... but said possibly the inclusivity, the dragons, the hot men ...

What would Taylor Swift's signet be? - "I do not tell the queen her business." (... might not be direct direct quote, but close enough)

Tell us about the ring and how long it had been in existence. - We see the stone on the blade at a time and then we don't ...

Who is her favorite god/goddess and why? - Malek because you meet him and you're done; everyone fears him.

What about Onyx Storm makes it her favorite? - Her feet are firmly planted in the world and she loves to go places and do things and she had fun with the politics in the places (read: Isles) and has known the ending since FW and loved working toward it and just had fun. IF was a rough, rough time and writing Variation got her back on track and she just genuinely enjoyed writing OS.

If Ridoc had modern technology, what would be the first thing he would do? - You know that boy downloads Tinder ... doesn't wait for WiFi or anything ... also first photo on the app is of him and the Quest Squad or a selfie with Aotrom (that only has like one of Aotrom's eyes in it).

Speaking of Quest Squad ... describe the patch? - Might see it later! (but probably a map)

There was a question about which of her contemporaries she'd recommend and it depended on if you wanted to cry or not (if you do: Last Letter/Things We Leave Unfinished; if you don't: Variation, In the Likely Event).

Is there a character she was writing and knew they'd be a fan favorite and were or thought they would be and weren't? - Knew Ridoc would; didn't necessarily answer the other half, but reiterated that she had no idea that Broccoli would be an instant fan favorite (and was a late night/early am idea that she kept).

What has been her favorite part of the tour? - Right now because of being on stage at the Paramount, in a venue where she's seen so many shows. And the people who bring their service dogs with the service dragon vests.

MIL was gifted FW; advice for when she gets to the spicy and doesn't know that (audience member) reads them? - Run the other direction ... and then hand her Haunting Adeline so then it'll look tame.

Who does she think is the most underrated character? - Sawyer; also expanding on his relationship with Silseag, Sawyer is worried he's dishonoring him because of needing potential accommodations (like Violet), but Silseag's just waiting for him to come around.

Regarding where she came up with the analogy for the chilled pond/ice for mental health: - Her kids play hockey and she always wonders what's beneath the ice - we can swim through our emotions or glide right over them.

What are her desert island books? - East of Eden (Steinbeck) is her favorite; I missed one series but I did hear the Children of Blood and Bone (iirc) ... but basically she's like can I cheat and bring my kindle?

How has writing her books changed her life? - Still has to take her head up to look around ... but the core of her life - family - hasn't changed; the rest of the world around that core just spins a lot faster and there's a lot more people now to watch her succeed or watch her fail.

Thanks to Broccoli ... what pets exist in the world? - We've already known that domesticated animals exist, so it does open it up to pets, but it's not like they're going to be running around Basgiath.

A character she loves to hate: - She doesn't hate anybody, because everybody has a reason for what they're doing. Except Varrish; she hated Varrish because he was a two dimensional character (read: straight evil).

Advice for a spouse going through her first deployment? - it sucks; everyone does it differently; find a way to escape to keep the spiraling thoughts from coming (she read, personally).

Favorite Onyx Storm vibes playlist song? - Agreed with the audience member's mention of Halsey's Nightmare ... and also thinks that the end of book three is optimistic.

If she could tell readers to reread one specific scene for hidden meaning ... - The last 100 pages.

Can she expand on what it means to be dedicated? - I'm pretty sure she alluded to us getting a bit more info about this in book four, but it's basically that you're given in service to a god.

Did she use parts of Colorado Springs for inspiration for the Gauntlet and Parapet? - Not necessarily those specifically, but CO does play into inspiration for geography, particularly with the mountains (and Aretia).

Weather report for the Continent? - Southern gets warmer (closer to the equator), weather patterns with the mountain ranges, there's more magic in areas of more geologic change (tectonic plates).

Sooo there's mention of pirates and kraken and y'know, Heaton breathes underwater ... - She hasn't written books four and five, but she might use or might not use things she mentions in the series ...

What else can we do to support her as an author? - Read other people's books (and be patient).

Her son asked which is her favorite child (or which son is her favorite and why is it him - it wasn't entirely clear) ... to which she said that it's like she always says - whichever kid is sleeping.

About the TV series: the lines we love are there, a lot of the dialogue is there, it's in good hands with Moira and that she knows what's important (has talked to readers) and is capturing the essence ... and to stop sending Theo James her way for Xaden because he's 40 and white.

Any specific IF Xaden POV scenes she'd love to write? - She would love to write the time in between when Xaden learns Vi is captured and he rescues her (... but it sounds like given secrets boy, we probably won't actually get it).

Final bomb: First three songs on the book four playlist are (all TS): Down Bad, But Daddy I Love Him, I Can Fix Him

... and more Xaden POVs in book four depend on what he's doing.

#onyx storm book tour #onyx storm #onyx storm spoilers #rebecca yarros

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requiemforthepoets · 1 day ago

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the proposal ⟢ FA14

⟢ part four of this time, i’ll love you much better

𖤓 series masterlist ⟢ playlist ⟢ part five ☽

PAIRINGS: fernando alonso x ex-wife!reader

SUMMARY: the twins thought that they have all the time in the world to devise a plan on how they would get you and fernando back together. that is until fernando had told the news to jullianna, prompting to put their plan in motion.

REMINDERS: this is purely fiction, the way how the character is portrayed in my story does not reflect the person that is portraying my character in real life. always separate fiction from reality, and do not repost or copy my work in any way.

WARNINGS: no use of y/n, named character (except for reader), parent trap inspired fic + plot, google translated spanish and french, single dad!nando and single mom!reader (for the time being), evil fiancé, twin switching, inaccuracies with information, and minor typographical errors.

WORD COUNT: 5.1k

AUTHOR’S NOTE: part four of the series!! i have a lot of things going on, so that’s why it always takes a long time for me to update my series/post new parts to fics. as always, this series is open for taglist, so just comment or message me if you wanted to be tagged, and your comments/reblogs are highly appreciated, i hope you’ll enjoy this new part of the series! :)

The sunlight filtered through the curtains as Jullianna pulled her hair into a sleek ponytail, already dressed in a crisp white tennis outfit. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror, adjusting the collar of the polo shirt she wore. Jullianna’s focus, however, was more on the bubbling frustration in her chest. It was not just about the day ahead or the tennis session with Fernando—it was about everything Sofia had dropped into her lap without any warning.

As if on cue, Jullianna’s phone buzzed on the bedside table. She picked it up and saw Sofia’s caller ID flashed on the screen. Narrowing her eyes, she swiped to answer, voice immediately sharp.

“Well, it’s about damn time,” Jullianna began, tone clipped. “I’ve been waiting for you to call, and now you finally do.”

Sofia’s tone was light, almost too casual. “Why good morning to you too, Disney princess. How’s it going?”

“How’s it going? How’s it going?” Jullianna repeated incredulously. “Comment ça va? Vraiment? Tu es sérieusement en train de te moquer de moi?! Sofia, do you have any idea of what you’ve put me through?”

There was a pause on the other end. “What are you even talking about? You know how I can’t understand any of what you’re saying, right?”

“Oh don’t you play innocent with me,” Jullianna snapped. “Karting, Sofia. Karting! You didn’t even bother to tell me how to drive the freaking damn thing! I had to watch youtube videos just to figure out what I was supposed to do. Do you know how embarrassing that was?”

Sofia chuckled nervously. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry! I didn’t think it would be a big deal, papá would’ve helped you.”

“He did,” Jullianna admitted begrudgingly. “But that’s not the point! You could’ve warned me!”

“Fine, I’ll make it up to you,” Sofia said, tone placating. “But seriously, Jules, it’s only karting. You survived, right?”

“Barely,” Jullianna muttered, crossing her arms. “And you’re lucky I did, because I would’ve switched back and made you deal with the mess.”

The line went quiet for a moment, and then Sofia’s voice softened. “I’m sorry, Jules. I didn’t really mean to make things harder for you. I’ll give you all the details next time, okay?”

Jullianna exhaled, some of her frustration easing. “Fine. Alright. But that’s not all we need to talk about.”

“Oh?” Sofia sounded wary. “What now?”

“Stephanie.”

“Stepha-who now?”

“Exactly,” Jullianna said, dropping onto the edge of the bed. “She’s some woman papá had apparently been seeing, and she keeps on coming over to the house like she owns the place. I had to deal with her the other day, and let me tell you, she’s awful.”

Sofia’s voice hardened. “I haven’t heard of her before. When did this start?”

“Eh, probably while we're at camp,” Jullianna said bitterly. “Alejandra told me this woman had been coming around, and from what I’ve seen, she’s trouble. Fake, loud, annoying—you name it, she got it. The worst part? Papá seems completely oblivious to it.”

“Well that doesn’t sound good,” Sofia said. “Keep an eye on that woman. If she’s really as bad as you say, we’ll figure something out. But don’t let that woman get to you, okay? She’s not worth your energy.”

“Easier said than done,” Jullianna muttered.

The twins were so engrossed in their conversation that Jullianna barely registered Fernando calling out for her downstairs. “Sofia! ¡Vamos! It’s time to go!

Jullianna jumped up, glancing at the clock. “I’ve got to go, papá’s waiting for me. We’re going to play a few rounds of tennis.”

“Alrighty. Good luck, Sofia,” Sofia teased.

“Oh shut up.” Jullianna rolled her eyes.

“But seriously though, keep me updated about Stanley.”

“Fia, it’s Stephanie,” Jullianna replied, and Sofia just blew raspberries at her. “And will do. Talk to you later, ugly.”

“Hey! We look just th—” Jullianna ended the call before Sofia could even respond.

Jullianna stuffed her phone into the tennis bag and grabbed Sofia’s tennis racket from where it leaned against the wall, and headed downstairs. Fernando was waiting by the front door, dressed in an equally sporty outfit like Jullianna and holding his own tennis racket.

“Finally,” he said with a smile. “You ready?”

Jullianna nodded with a smile. “Ready.”

The sun was high overhead when Jullianna and Fernando stepped onto the private tennis court—air was warm but pleasant, with a light breeze that rustled the nearby trees. Jullianna adjusted the grip on the racket, movements fluid and confident. Playing tennis was her forté, and it was surely worlds away from the stress and confusion of karting or dealing with unwelcome houseguests like Stephanie.

Fernando took his place on the opposite side of the court, bouncing the tennis ball a couple of times before looking up at Jullianna with a grin. “You ready, chiquita?”

Jullianna smirked. “Yup!”

Fernando laughed, tossing the ball into the and served with precision. The ball zipped over the net, and Jullianna moved quickly, her racket connecting with a satisfying thwack! as she returned the shot.

The rally began, and for the first few minutes, the only sounds were the rhythmic hits of the ball against the racket, quick and hurried footsteps against the clay surface, and the occasional grunt of effort. Jullianna found herself smiling as she played, thoughts drifting briefly to when her and Sofia had shared a match back at camp walden. It was an intense match, filled with playful trash-talking and endless determination to outdo each other.

But then, Fernando broke the silence, tone casual yet curious. “So,” he began, returning a particularly fast shot, “what do you think of Stephanie?”

Jullianna hesitated, her focus briefly faltering before she sent the ball back over the net. “Stephanie?” she repeated, trying to buy herself some time.

“Yes, Stephanie,” Fernando said, voice light but persistent. “You’ve spent some time with her now. I just want to know what you think of her.”

Jullianna tightened her grip on the racket, her mind racing. She couldn’t very well tell him the truth—that she finds Stephanie insufferable, fake, and most certainly not the right woman for Fernando. Instead, she decided to tread carefully, masking her irritation with forced politeness.

“Well,” she began, returning another shot, “she’s…very put-together. Always dressed nicely, very stylish.” she paused, muttering just loudly enough for herself, not my style, though. Mamá’s much better.

Fernando chuckled, clearly amused by Jullianna’s side comment. “So, you think she’s stylish. That’s good to hear, and it seems like you two are getting along.”

“Mm-hmm,” Jullianna murmured, keeping her tone neutral. She didn’t elaborate further, focusing instead on the ball.

Just when Jullianna thought that the conversation about Stephanie is done, turns out that it’s not. Fernando wasn’t done. As the rally continued, his tone shifted slightly, becoming more serious.

“Sofia,” Fernando said, eyes following the ball as it sailed over the net, “I’ve been thinking about the future, and you know that I’m not getting any younger. Sooner or later I’m about to retire soon from Formula 1, and I want to know what you think about Stephanie joining the family.”

Jullianna froze for a split second, the racket nearly slipping from her hands. The words hung in the air, heavy and unmistakable. She knew exactly what he meant, but she decided to play dumb, her voice laced with forced confusion.

“Joining the family? What do you mean, papá? Are you planning to adopt her or something?” Jullianna said jokingly.

Fernando let out a hearty laugh, clearly amused by Jullianna’s sarcasm. “No, chiquita. Not adoption.” he hesitated for a moment before continuing, tone filled with quiet excitement. “What I mean is that I proposed to her.”

The words hit Jullianna like a freight train. For a brief moment, she stood frozen in place, staring at her father as if she had not heard him correctly. Then, as the reality of his statement sank in, something inside her snapped. Jullianna’s next hit was ferocious, with the ball rocketing past Fernando so fast that he barely had time to react. He turned to watch it bounce out of bounds, a look of surprise on his face.

“Wow,” Fernando said with a laugh, jogging to retrieve the ball. “That was quite the shot, eh?”

But Jullianna was not done. Her hits became more aggressive, each one more powerful than the last. She was not just playing tennis anymore, she was channeling all of her anger and frustration into every swing. Fernando was struggling to keep up, missing shot after shot as the intensity of the game escalated.

“Sofia, mi vida,” he called out, tone now tinged with concern. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

Jullianna didn’t answer, her jaw clenched, and eyes burning with a mix of anger and betrayal. Finally, after one last blistering shot that Fernando couldn’t even attempt to return, she threw the racket with force—destroying it in the process and turned on her heel.

“Sofia!” Fernando called after her, voice filled with confusion as to why his daughter was acting up. “Where are you going?”

But Jullianna didn’t look back. She walked briskly off the court, chest heaving with unspoken words, and tears of frustration stinging her eyes. When Jullianna reached the front door of the house—still angry and frustrated, she grabbed the handle and turned it open, but in her haste and anger, she twisted it the wrong way. The door didn’t budge.

“¡Por favor!” she hissed, shaking the handle violently.

When it still refused to open, Jullianna growled in frustration, yanking the door with all her strength. Finally, it gave way, and she stumbled inside, muttering to herself. She glanced at the door handle, relieved to see it hadn’t broken. Once inside, she marched into the living room, pacing back and forth, her sneakers squeaking faintly against the floor.

“Comment peut-il penser que c’est une bonne idée?” she muttered, throwing her hands in the air. “Who even is she? Elle est insupportable!”

Jullianna’s rant alternated between languages—English, French, and Spanish, as her thoughts tumbled out uncontrollably. “He proposed? To her? ¡Dios mío, papá, estás loco!”

She stopped pacing momentarily, pressing her hands to her forehead. “This is not happening. This cannot be happening. I can’t handle this alone, I’m only one kid.”

Lost in her tirade, Alejandra peeks around the corner of the armchair she’s been sitting in with a cup of coffee in her hands. Alejandra initially assumed Sofia was in one of her usual moods, but the erratic pacing and the odd blend of languages caught Alejandra’s attention.

When Jullianna finally turned around, Alejandra cleared her throat gently. “¿Tienes algo que quieras compartir con la clase, mi chica?”

Jullianna froze mid-step, head snapping up—to which she immediately regretted because of the strain of her action. Her eyes widened in shock, the usually composed façade already slipping. Her heart was racing so fast, and quickly straightened her posture, smoothing her tennis skirt and forcing a smile.

“Alejandra! I didn’t see you there, you gave me a fright!” she said, tone overly bright.

Alejandra sat her coffee cup down at the side table, her eyes narrowing slightly as she stood up from the armchair and slowly approached Jullianna.

“You didn’t see me? Gave you a fright? I’ve been sitting here the whole time, chica. You were so lost in your own thoughts, or rather, in frustration, that you didn’t notice.” Alejandra folded her arms, studying Jullianna closely. “¿Qué está pasando? En serio.”

“Nothing, I swear!” Jullianna replied too quickly, smile tightening. “Just…a lot on my mind lately.”

Alejandra tilted her head, gaze sharpening. “¿Seguro que no hay nada de lo que quieras hablarme?” she asked for the second time. “You’ve been acting strange, mi niña.”

“Strange?” Jullianna echoed nervously, the forced smile on her face faltering. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Alejandra took a step closer, expression skeptical. “Sí, extraño. For one, you’re acting too proper—using expressions like you gave me a fright, the way you eat—you barely touch your food now, and even the way you speak sometimes, it’s different. I didn’t even know you speak French.”

Jullianna opened her mouth to respond but found herself at a loss for words. She tried to come up with some silly excuse, anything to divert Alejandra’s growing suspicion, but her mind went completely blank.

“Alejandra,” she trailed off, “I changed a lot over the summer, that’s all.”

Alejandra’s gaze softened, though her tone remained firm. “Si no lo supiera, diría que es casi como si estuvieras…” she paused for a little bit, “Ay dios mío, no importa, eso es demasiado imposible.”

Jullianna hesitated, the weight of the secret she had been carrying threatening to crush her. “Almost as if I were who, Alejandra?”

“Nadie, nadie. Chica tonta, olvida que lo mencioné.” Alejandra chuckled. “Why don’t I make your favorite food, huh? I think that tennis session with your papá had made you hungry.”

Finally, Jullianna sighed, her shoulders slumping in defeat. She couldn’t take it any longer, so she’ll take the chance now. “¿Casi como si fuera Jullianna?”

Alejandra’s eyes widened. “What?” her breath hitched. “You know about Jullianna?”

“I am Jullianna.” Jullianna breathed out.

For a moment, silence hung heavy between them. Alejandra stared at her, mouth opening and closing as she’s trying to process what was happening. Then, tears welled up in Alejandra’s eyes.

“¿De verdad eres Jullianna?” Alejandra asked, voice trembling.

Jullianna nodded, her own eyes glistening. “Yes, it’s me.”

Alejandra’s hands flew to her mouth as a sob escaped her. “¡Mi niña!” she cried, rushing forward to embrace Jullianna.

The hug was tight, almost crushing, but Jullianna didn’t mind. She wrapped her arms around Alejandra, feeling an unexpected wave of comfort.

“No puedo creerlo!” Alejandra said through her tears. “The last time I saw and held you, you were just a baby—barely a year old. You and your mother left for France after the divorce. I thought that I would never see you again.”

Jullianna blinked back tears. “I’ve missed you too, Alejandra.”

Alejandra pulled back slightly, cupping Jullianna’s face in her hands. “¡Oh, mírate!” she said, voice filled with awe. “All grown up, but still the same little girl that I used to hold in my arms. But why are you here in Spain? Where is Sofí?”

Jullianna hesitated, unsure how much to more of her and Sofia’s plan she could reveal. “It’s…complicated,” she said finally.

Alejandra nodded, sensing that Jullianna wasn’t ready to share everything just yet. “Alright,” she said gently. “But you have to be careful, mi niña. If your papá finds out—”

“I know,” Jullianna interrupted, voice firm. “That’s why I need you to keep this between us. Please, Alejandra.”

“Of course,” Alejandra nodded. “Haría cualquier cosa por ti.”

Fernando stepped inside of the house, chest heaving as he called out, “Sofia! ¿Dónde estás?” his voice echoed through the house with urgency.

The sounds of Fernando’s footsteps grew louder as he entered the living room, and Jullianna stiffened, her arms instinctively crossing over her chest. Alejandra had sensed the tension, so she placed a comforting hand on Jullianna’s shoulder.

“Está bien,” Alejandra whispered gently. “I’ll leave you two to talk, I’ll be at the kitchen and prepare you some snacks.”

Jullianna nodded, watching as Alejandra quietly exited the living room and headed towards the kitchen. She barely had a moment to collect her thoughts before Fernando appeared in the doorway of the living room, looking left and right for Jullianna. When he saw her, he paused, hands on his hips, exhaling deeply as though trying to steady himself.

“Sofí,” he said softly, tone coaxing. “Come, sit with me, princesa.” Fernando gestured to the couch.

She hesitated but eventually walked over and perched on the edge of the couch, arms crossed defensively over her chest. Jullianna’s gaze stayed fixed on the floor, refusing to meet her father’s eyes.

Fernando sat beside her, leaving a careful distance between them. “Why did you run off like that mi vida?” he asked, voice gentler now.

Jullianna did not respond, jaw tightening.

“Sofía,” Fernando pressed, leaning forward slightly. “I proposed to Stephanie the other night. It was a very special moment for us—”

“Stop. I’m gonna stop you right there,” Jullianna cut in sharply, standing abruptly. The words struck a huge nerve within her, and she could not hold back any longer. “Just stop, papá, please.”

Fernando blinked, surprised by her sudden outburst. “¿Qué te pasa? Why are you acting like this?”

Jullianna turned to face Fernando, eyes blazing with nothing but anger. “Because it is outrageous!” she snapped, throwing her hands in the air. “You’re marrying her? That woman? Marrying Stephanie?”

He frowned. “And what is so outrageous about that?”

“Oh my god, papá! That woman’s practically young enough to be my sister!” Jullianna shot back, pacing back and forth as her emotions spilled over. “Do you not see how absurd this is? All of it!”

“I never knew you would be reacting like this,” Fernando stood, hands raised in a placating gesture. “Sofía, calm down, por favor. There’s no need to—”

“Je suis calme!” Jullianna shouted like a maniac, clearly not calm at all. She began to switch to French again without even realizing it, her words tumbling out in a torrent. “Comment peux-tu faire ça? As-tu même pensé à ce que cela signifierait pour nous? C’est insensé! Je ne peux pas croire que tu ferais ça. Elle n’est pas la bonne pour toi, papa. Pas du tout!”

Fernando furrowed his eyebrows, stepping in closer towards Jullianna. “What…French? Desde cuándo hablas francés?”

Jullianna stopped pacing, momentarily caught off guard. “I-I um, uh, learned it at camp,” she said quickly, brushing past the question. “But that’s not the point!”

She faced Fernando. Taking a deep breath, she began, voice softening slightly. “I’m sorry for my outburst,” she said, brushing her hair back from her face. “But we need to talk about this rationally.”

Fernando nodded, motioning for her to sit again, but Jullianna preferred standing. “Alright, alright,” he said. “Let’s talk. But in a language we can both understand, por favor mi vida.”

He sighed, patience already visibly thinning. “Sofía, I don’t understand why this is upsetting you so much. Stephanie has been kind to you, hasn’t she? She’s made every effort to—”

“Kind?” Jullianna scoffed, cutting him off. “That’s not the issue, papá. This isn’t about her being nice, this is about you thinking you can just bring someone into our lives and marry them without even considering how it affects everything!”

Feenando’s brows furrowed deeply. “I have considered it. Stephanie is someone I care about, and I thought you would—”

“Well you thought wrong!” Jullianna interrupted, voice rising again. She felt the heat of tears threatening to spill but blinked them back furiously. “You can’t do this, papa. You can’t marry her—or anyone else! It will ruin everything!”

He opened his mouth to respond, but before Fernando could even say a word, Jullianna already turned on her heel and stormed out of the room, her tennis shoes squeaking against the floor.

“Sofía!” Fernando called after her, voice tinged with frustration and confusion. But she didn’t stop despite how many times Fernando called out for her.

Jullianna slumped into the St. Anthony’s face-to-face swing, letting her head fall back against the smooth wood. She exhaled sharply, crossing her arms over her chest, still reeling from what she had just learned. Fernando had proposed to Stephanie. Proposed. The word itself made her stomach churn.

This was worse than she and Sofia had imagined. They had time, or so they thought. But now, with a ring on Stephanie’s finger, the entire course of action had been changed—everything was moving too fast. Jullianna and Sofia had to quickly put their plan into motion if they even want to stop this wedding from happening, they need to act now. But there was only one viable solution: they had to get you and Fernando back together.

Jullianna was deep in thought, brainstorming ways to subtly, but not-so-subtly, bring you to Spain or maybe one of his races so that she and Sofia can just push you both back towards each other, when a sudden knock against the wooden frame of the swing had startled Jullianna. Her head snapped up, and saw Stephanie.

“Mind if I join you?” Stephanie asked, voice light and airy, as if she had just wandered into the garden without a care in the world.

Before Jullianna could even answer, Stephanie lowered herself onto the vacant seat of the swing, facing her directly. Jullianna barely stopped herself from grimacing, just looking at Stephanie made her want to barf.

Stephanie clasped her hands together, tilting her head slightly. “I can imagine how surprised you must have been by the engagement news.”

Jullianna forced a tight-lipped smile, words laced with passive aggression. “Oh, shock doesn’t even begin to cover it, honestly.”

Stephanie just chuckled, completely oblivious to the sharp edge in Jullianna’s tone. She relaxed herself on the seat, movements elegant and poised, as if this were just another casual afternoon chat. Forcing herself not to groan, Jullianna braced herself for whatever nonsense Stephanie was about to spew.

“You know,” Stephanie began, leaning slightly forward, “eleven is such a very wonderful age.”

Jullianna arched an eyebrow. What in the actual world does that have to do with any of this?

Stephanie smiled wistfully, as if she was reminiscing about something so precious. “When I was eleven, I had my first beau.” She let out a soft laugh, eyes sparkling with nostalgia.

“It was the first time I really started to feel like a woman.” she sighed dramatically. “That’s when I realized love was this fantastic, exhilarating mystery, one that takes a man and a woman on the most magical journey.”

Jullianna’s hand was tightly gripping the armrest of the swing, jaw now clenched, and resisting the great force of rolling her eyes. Oh, for the love of all things holy. She kept her expression neutral, pretending to listen, but internally, Jullianna was already pulling her hair out and screaming.

Stephanie continued, completely unaware of Jullianna’s growing irritation. “And believe it or not, you’ll understand that feeling soon,” she said with a knowing smile.

Jullianna just stared at Stephanie, fingers curled slightly now against her arms. She was not sure what was more annoying—Stephanie’s patronizing tone, or the fact that she spoke as if she had somehow unlocked the secrets of the universe. She certainly did not want to sit there, listening to this woman yap on about love like she was some kind of modern day Aristotle.

Before Stephanie could continue her sickly sweet monologue about love and magical journeys, Jullianna lifted a hand slightly, cutting Stephanie off.

“You know, I don’t want to sound all jerky or anything, because, from what I can tell, you’re trying really hard to be all mushy and sentimental.” she tilted her head slightly, letting her eyes linger on Stephanie’s with something close to amusement. “And I think I finally got it.”

Stephanie blinked, caught slightly off guard. “Get what, exactly?”

Jullianna leaned forward slightly, lips curling into a knowing smile. “What my papá sees in you.” she continued, voice still laced with that same passive aggressiveness, but now there was something else woven into it—a challenge. “You’re a beautiful woman. Sexy, even, and my papá? Well, he’s only human, after all.”

Stephanie’s lips parted slightly, but no words came out just yet. Jullianna’s smile widened just a little, though her eyes were sharp.

“But if you ask me, marriage is supposed to be based on something more, don’t you agree?” Jullianna let the question hang in the air for a moment before her smile turned almost innocent. “Something more than just…fornication. If you don’t know what fornication is, it means sex.”

Stephanie’s entire expression shifted. Gone was the light, airy persona. Her posture stiffened just slightly, and the sweetness in her eyes dimmed, now replaced with something sharper, something calculated. Jullianna didn’t flinch though, in fact, she was thoroughly enjoying every bit of it.

She smiled, but it was a whole lot different now. “Oh boy, your papá really underestimates you, doesn’t he?”

Jullianna let out a small, breathy chuckle. “Oh?” she mused, cocking her head slightly, as if intrigued. “And you don’t?”

Stephanie studied her closely, lips still curved, but her eyes darkened. Jullianna could feel it now—she was starting to get on Stephanie’s nerves. It was a beautiful sight and symphony for Jullianna. Good. People always tend to overlook her, underestimated her. People would assume that she was just a kid who did not know any better. She liked it that way. Because nothing thrilled Jullianna more than a good challenge, and judging by the way Stephanie was staring her down, she had just found herself a new one.

She then let out a light laugh, though there was no real humor behind it. Stephanie tilted her head slightly, her eyes narrowing just a bit as she studied Jullianna with thinly veiled annoyance.

“So what if I’m young and beautiful?” Stephanie mused, voice airy but carrying an undertone of sharpness. “Last time I checked, being young and beautiful isn’t a crime.”

Jullianna simply raised an eyebrow, keeping her smirk firmly in place, which only seemed to annoy the hell out of Stephanie even more.

“And for the record, I know what fornication means, thank you very much. I love your father, I adore him. Your father is exactly the kind of man I’ve always envisioned myself marrying. This—” she gestured between herself and Jullianna as if making some kind of grand declaration, “is the real deal, honey. Nothing, and I say nothing, is going to come between us.”

Jullianna barely blinked at Stephanie’s words. She just leaned back against the wooden swing, one arm lazily draped over the armrest, completely unbothered, and yawning out of boredom to piss off Stephanie more.

While Stephanie, on the other hand, was growing impatient. She leaned forward slightly, gaze piercing as she said, “you need to understand something, sweetheart. This is the reality now, you have to accept the fact that you’re no longer the only girl in Fernando Alonso’s life. You need to get over it.”

That did it. Jullianna’s lips curled into an even bigger smirk, one that was almost too smug, too knowing. It made Stephanie’s fingers twitch slightly, as if she were resisting the urge to wipe the expression right off her face. She leaned in slightly as well, resting her elbows on her knees as she stared Stephanie down.

“Oh? That’s the reality, huh?” she drawled, voice dripping with amusement.

Jullianna continued, her smirk never wavering. “So, just to be clear that we’re on the same page here, papá’s money has nothing to do with any of this? No part of you thinks that marrying him just so happens to come with a very very comfortable lifestyle?”

Stephanie’s expressions had immediately tightened, but she quickly schooled her features back into something neutral. “Are you insinuating that I’m marrying your father for his money?” she asked, feigning offense, though her voice was just a little too even to be genuine.

Jullianna simply shrugged, the smirk on her face never fading. “I’m not insinuating anything, but if that’s what you think, then feel free to think of such things,” she said innocently, though her eyes were gleaming with mischief. “I’m just saying, I’ve seen this in a film before. I mean, come on, I’ve watched cinderella more times than I can count.”

Stephanie’s brows furrowed slightly, unsure of where this was going. Jullianna sighed dramatically and shook her head. “And if this whole shazam isn’t about money, then great! But personally? I’d rather not end up scrubbing the floors and befriending the neighborhood birds while you have breakfast in bed, smiling down at me from your throne in papá’s house.”

Her entire face stiffened at what Jullianna just said, lips pressing together tightly as the words settled between them. For the first time in their entire conversation, Stephanie had no response at all, and that? That brought nothing but pure, unadulterated joy.

However, Stephanie’s entire demeanor changed the moment Jullianna’s words sank in. Her perfectly poised expression faltered, just for a second, before her brows furrowed and her lips pressed into a thin, irritated line. It was the exact reaction that Jullianna had been hoping for. She had successfully gotten under Stephanie’s skin, and now? Now she was really starting to see the cracks in the woman her father wanted to marry.

Stephanie inhaled sharply, composing herself before leaning forward again, but this time, her face was mere inches from Jullianna’s. She locked eyes with her, the intensity of her gaze enough to make most people shrink under the pressure. But not Jullianna.

“You are unbelievably out of line, jovencita,” Stephanie said in a low voice, tone dripping with controlled frustration.

Jullianna simply blinked up at her, her smirk never faltering. Stephanie exhaled through her nose, clearly trying to keep herself from snapping. Then, with slow precision, she spoke, enunciating each word carefully.

“Listen to me, and you listen good,” she began, voice dangerously soft. “I’m marrying your father whether you like it or not. So if I were you, I’d quit playing whatever little game you think you’re playing and stay out of my way.”

Jullianna raised an eyebrow, tilting her head slightly as if contemplating Stephanie’s words, but said nothing. Stephanie leaned more closer, voice dropping even more lower.

“You are way in over your head, sweetheart,” she continued, tone carrying a hint of condescension. “So I suggest you don’t tangle yourself up in things you clearly don’t understand.”

There was a heavy pause. Stephanie studied Jullianna’s face, waiting for some kind of reaction, for her to look intimidated, or at least acknowledge the warning, and Stephanie took Jullianna’s silence as an agreement, she leaned back on the swing, arm draping over the armrest.

Instead, Jullianna just smiled. Not a polite smile, not a nervous smile. But a slow, teasing, infuriating smirk. Then, she shrugged, Stephanie’s eye twitching. Before the woman could say another word, Jullianna stood up, stretching slightly as if this whole conversation had been nothing more than a mild inconvenience for her. Without a warning, she bent down so that she was now the one at Stephanie’s eye level.

“Je comprends parfaitement, Cruella.” she said smoothly. Stephanie blinked, momentarily caught off guard.

Jullianna smiled again, that same mischievous, knowing grin that had been pushing all of Stephanie’s buttons. Then, because Jullianna was still eleven after all, and feeling particularly childish, she blew raspberries right in Stephanie’s face, wherein the woman recoiled, visibly appalled. Jullianna giggled, straightening up before giving her soon-to-be stepmother a playful wink.

“Au revoir, Stéphanie,” she said cheerfully.

Jullianna turned on her heel and walked away, leaving the woman completely dumbfounded.

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hobbitkiller · 7 hours ago

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Actually, criticizing you for needing things spelled out is the opposite of saying you need a high IQ to enjoy the show. What I’m saying is this show is very easy to understand; uses very basic storytelling techniques, tropes, and visual cues; and shouldn’t require the characters to engage in lengthy dialogue about every theme and message for you to be able to get it. I don’t think I’m particularly clever for understanding these things; I just think arguments like yours are particularly obtuse.

Your current point about Cait and Vi has nothing to do with your original erroneous claim that “oil and water” was just about them and not the greater conflict—something that you should have understood given it was the literal dialogue of the scene. Even when it was spelled out as clearly as it possibly could be, you seem to have missed the greater point.

You are similarly stubborn in your decision that Heinerdinger’s warnings about magic and hextech were only meant to be isolated to Viktor’s story and not have greater implications. You seem to want to have it both ways where the story is primarily about the class conflict seen through these characters, while simultaneously denying that their conflicts foreshadow or otherwise symbolize the the parts of the story you don’t like. The difference seems to be that you like the class conflict idea but you don’t like the arcane apocalypse or the fighting a common enemy, so you deny that the latter two were set up, even if the show was doing everything but having a flashing sign in the corner.

Yes, obviously Vi and Cait clash. Nowhere did I say they didn’t. That would be the conflict they continue to have to overcome as characters. In that scene, however, they are on the same page. They are as on the same page as they are at about any other time in the show. So, what Vi is saying, in very plain text that requires no understanding of literary devices or ability to understand visual language, is that the problem is topside and bottom not being able to mix and she very clearly sets herself and Caitlyn up as proxies for the two cities. Again, a very common literary device.

Again, you really seem to not understand foreshadowing. Foreshadowing is supposed to be a passing seed of an idea that doesn’t call overt attention to itself, and, while some can spot it in the moment, it is most often something you catch when you rewatch/read the material. Something doesn’t have to repeatedly beat you over the head to be foreshadowing.

That said, the mention of the two cities coming together to fight a common foe was not exactly subtle and certainly screams like it had a bullhorn on a rewatch. Yes, the actual scene wasn’t about coming together against a common enemy. That doesn’t mean that line wasn’t deliberately planting the seed of future events.

The line serves to let the viewer know, “hey, these were the circumstances where these two cities came together before,” the unspoken part being “and that might be how they are able to come together again.” Again, I cannot express enough how basic this is as a storytelling device. It’s practically Chekov’s gun. There is nothing high IQ (also, IQ is a made-up racist concept, so bragging about it would be pointless anyway) about it.

Arcane is brilliant, but it’s not doing anything particularly groundbreaking when it comes to its use of literary devices and tropes. What seems to be tripping you up is the use of them at all. If something isn’t said as explicitly as possible, you deny it. Then again, as with VI’s oil and water speech, you seem to deny things even when they are explicitly stated.

I’m not going to call you a patronizing pet name here. If I did in a previous post I apologize, but I, personally don’t want to do that here. What I will say is that I’m challenging your poor reading of the text, and thus your skills at analysis, not attacking you as a person. I say you don’t seem to understand storytelling conventions because you seem to have trouble with basic ideas like foreshadowing, planting and payoff, and metaphor. It’s either that, or you’re being deliberately obtuse because it doesn’t suit your argument. There are plenty of people on this site who would be more than happy to just call you an idiot. I don’t think you are. I just think you are one of many people who fall into a very common issue with media criticism today where you mistake what you would have liked to happen with what objectively was going to happen or with what can be considered good writing.

My point about Ambessa is that she wasn’t a mustache-twirling villain. What I was saying was you seem to have needed her to be that to understand she was going to be one of the major threats of the second season. The only way you seem like you would be able to accept that is if she showed up with a T-shirt that said “I’m the threat.”

Again, shows that are planning ahead usually plant the next season’s threat in the previous season. Sometimes it’s a passing reference; sometimes it’s a dramatic stinger; and sometimes it’s actually “one of the good guys.” With the exception of the dramatic stinger or a character being the shadowy mastermind that has to come forward and do it themselves Thanos style, most of these future antagonists don’t come into the story with a town crier announcing their future intent.

However, those familiar with common television storytelling are not going to be surprised that the powerful warmongering imperialist that comes in in the third act to start meddling with things ends up being the major threat in the next season. You also see this in book series. Characters who start off as more peripheral when introduced become more relevant and dangerous as the story progresses. Sometimes it’s because events in the story push them that direction. Sometimes it’s was always their plan. Sometimes, as I would argue with Ambessa, it’s a little of both. Our heroes are so caught up in dealing with their current problems that they often don’t realize this is happening until it’s too late.

The place where I think you are somewhat correct is that I don’t think Ambessa planned to be as direct in her actions when she first showed up. I think her plan was to do what she initially did, which is manipulate the conflict so she could get hextech. When Jinx attacked the council, she seized an opportunity. Again, this is how many imperial powers operate. They meddle in the background until an opportunity presents itself to take a much more active hand.

Now, notice I said “Ambessa didn’t plan”—Ambessa is not the semi-omniscient viewer. Ambess is not the show runner. Ambessa is not aware she’s in a fictional story with things like tropes and foreshadowing. So, just because Ambessa doesn’t go into the show thinking or knowing she’s going to take over Piltover doesn’t mean it wasn’t set up or the writers’ plan.

I also hate to break it to you, but Silco was the main antagonist in the first season. Was he well written and nuanced? Absolutely. Most good antagonists are. While there can be fun, interesting antagonists that are just plain evil, many of the best are ones that have a point but their methods, disregard for those caught in their crossfire, and personal entanglements are their downfall.

Good storytellers are very aware of the concept that “every villain is the hero of his own story.”Silco is not absolved because he claims to want independence for Zaun (something he didn’t lift a finger to do after the first act until Jinx forced his hand.) In fact, he was the person causing the most suffering in Zaun in acts two and three, including the actions of the enforcers whom he paid and controlled through Marcus.

Jayce trying to make a deal with him doesn’t make him not the antagonist. That was just the best way Jayce could see to end the conflict. This point doesn’t at all argue against Ambessa becoming the antagonist in season two nor the idea that the two sides would team up to fight her. Shows are allowed to approach treating their different antagonists in different ways. Usually, the early season’s villain is a more localized threat, and they can often be sympathetic, which is why it’s not uncommon for an early villain to become a friend or ally. Also, two sides that were previously at odds joining forces to fight a greater threat to them all is, again, a very classic trope. You may find it cheap, but that doesn’t make it something that came out of nowhere. If anything, it makes it more predictable.

Regarding hextech, you can’t call it contrived when the characters in the show with the most understanding of magic immediately said, “hey, this stuff is dangerous,” and it turns out they were right. Like, there cannot be more straightforward unambiguous storytelling than that.

Now, I’m not going to pretend I was able to predict the end form it would take, but the threat posed by rushing through and overusing hextech was established from the moment it was introduced and reinforced by Heimerdinger’s horror at the hex core—which was about much more than just Viktor’s story. Jayce also understood this initially in act two, but his desires to save Viktor and protect Piltover won out over his initial instinct to listen to Heimerdinger.

No, the anomaly and the hex core aren’t the same thing, but there are two things to keep in mind about the hex core: 1) Even if Jayce hadn’t shot Viktor, there was something deliberately unsettling about the cult. Yes, it seemed nice, but the overexposed, unsettling lighting, personality changes, and Viktor’s ability to take over his followers’ bodies were pretty bright red flags that something wasn’t quite right. We don’t know how each time loop played out. We don’t know if, in an earlier version, Jayce hadn’t shot Viktor, and the commune still went terribly wrong. Even in its most utopian state, the question of how much free will these people have was tingling in the background. 2) Arguably, the hex core showing how the arcane can adapt and become alive was yet more set up that this could happen on a greater scale—again setting up the potential for something like the anomaly.

(A side note: something I did wonder was whether Viktor’s blood dropping into the shaft at the Hex Gates had something to do with it. That’s what I thought when I first saw that oddly colored blob before the anomaly was revealed. It was never established in the text to my satisfaction, though, so it’s just a headcanon. If that was the intent, I will say that was a case where it wasn’t well executed. Even if someone like Amanda decided to use “word of god” to say so, it doesn’t really count, though that certainly would answer your question “why now?” question. Another answer could be the fact that the experiments with the hex core are what woke it up. Given the arcane is shown to be somewhat sentient, maybe it sensed the growing conflict, but I digress.

I think the blood being the catalyst would have pros or cons. Pros being a really nice case of planting and payoff; cons being that it sort of makes it seem like a freak accident—which still could go to the point. Many technological advancements have been prone to terrible accidents before we properly understood their risks and put in safe guards. It also would have been a bit of nice consequences in action that the illness Piltover inflicted on Zaun is what brought their hextech empire down. See? it’s not like I don’t have a version of the story that I would prefer in some ways. I’m just not going to act like the version we got wasn’t set up.)

On the civil war idea, I was responding to the ending you said you wanted, and I phrased my response as such, so please don’t act like I was putting words in your mouth. Also, based on what we know of the Black Rose in the show, while that’s an interesting idea, it’s seems unlikely they would openly or even covertly support Zaun. There was nothing stopping them from doing that in the story we got. I think they preferred to keep their exposure as limited as possible, and it made sense to focus their efforts on Mel who had a much more direct line to Ambessa.

Also, I will admit that plot line seemed much more about setting up the next LoL season/next show than this one. I will give you that. There was the little bit of set up with Mel’s magic shining when the bomb hit, and Ambessa’s vague references to her problems at home, but I won’t deny that story had the least relevance to the first season.

Didn’t make me enjoy Mel taking out Maddie any less, (doesn’t make me look forward to whatever future appearances we get of Mel the Mage any less), but it did give off some weird “natural abilities are better than using technology” vibes reminiscent of the somewhat problematic theme of The Incredibles. I don’t necessarily think they meant to do that, but it certainly can be read into the text. I never said Arcane is above criticism, just pointing out the common flaws I see in the criticism.

I think, in a civil war, with all bets off and hextech at their disposal, Piltover would win. Yes, the chem tanks were a threat, but the Noxians took them out with spears. Spears. Vi plowed through several of them with just the gauntlets and took one out with her bare hands with a little help from Cait and a normal rifle. Also, Piltover literally has the high ground. The reason they wanted to invade was to get Jinx. If the mission is changed to war, there’s no need to send people down there. They could just drop bombs, flood the streets, and cut off supply lines. Potentially, the tide could be turned with some of the Piltover folks we love supporting Zaun, but now we’ve lost track of the arcane threat that they would not shut up about in the first season.

You know you admitted that the problem is you didn’t like the ending, right? You not liking it doesn’t mean it wasn’t set up. I have outlined again and again that it was set up. Does that mean the ending exactly beat for beat was explicitly laid out? No.

When I say the ending was set up, that doesn’t mean every single interaction or moment could have been predicted. What could be predicted is that hextech would end up becoming a major problem—something we were explicitly warned about multiple times—Ambessa would become a major problem—something we should have picked up on given her meddling and Mel’s backstory and interactions with her—and that there would be either a détente or form of reconciliation between the two cities—because, that’s how stories about groups in conflict with each other in shows that go out of their way to show the humanity and good and bad on both sides usually end unless they want to be a complete downer, which, given Arcane pulled that move in the first season, was unlikely to happen in the second.

None of your points about the dark future invalidate anything I said. First, we don’t know what Viktor would be capable of if Jayce hadn’t shot him. Maybe Singed would have succeeded with his plan—they did have a whole army. As I said earlier, we also don’t know what happened in every loop. Yes, the one Jayce saw was almost exactly like the one he returns to, but maybe that one was actually closer to success than any of the others. We don’t know, and I’m fine with that.

That said, none of your ramblings here have anything to do with whether or not the plan was to have the cities team up against a common enemy. You can argue the plan wasn’t executed well, and that’s your choice. You can argue you didn’t like that this was the plan. That is also your choice. But not executing a plan well or having a plan you don’t like and not having a plan are different things.

Honestly, sometimes sticking to the plan is a bad idea for storytelling—that’s what really leads to contrived writing. So, arguably, your problem is much less that they betrayed their plan, but rather that you felt they had to contort the narrative to fit their original plan and goals because they wanted a certain ending. That’s definitely something that happens a lot in narratives. The author goes in having an ending in mind, and they rigidly stick to it, even if the way they develop the story might mean there are better possible endings. I honestly think your arguments much better support that idea than the idea that there was no set up. i wouldn’t necessarily agree with you on all points, but it would be a much stronger case.

You should not need a scene of exposition explaining Sevika’s council seat. I refuse to believe any intellectually honest person would be confused by what was going on. When people get annoyed that some viewers seem to not get “show don’t tell.”

And look, I get wanting certain scenes. I will always argue I wish Ekko or Jinx had really put into words why VI’s their hero at some point, because, even though the show arguably showed that, I think that would have really helped solidly her arc. But I think you still get the gist of that from context.

That said, we do get Caitlyn’s whole monologue about suffering the consequences of their actions but there still being hope and light worth fighting for in the epilogue that should help with interpretation that things are bad but they can get better and here are the first tentative steps in that direction. She literally says the story isn’t over.

Arcane is not a political drama. Not sure why I need to say that about the League of Legends cartoon, but it’s not. Class and politics inform the story. They are not what the story is about. The writers didn’t go in with the intention of writing about class warfare and then develop the characters to match like a movie like Crash did. They went in wanting to tell the stories of these characters and further developed the existing background themes to help create conflict and character arcs.

“A lot of people joined the fight” is an interesting way to interpret a handful before Jinx came in to save the day—you know in that dramatic scene that drastically turned the tide of the fight because, while we as the audience knew it was going to happen, the characters didn’t? Again, we have the benefit of knowing this is a fictional story with a plot. They don’t. There have been plenty of people who refuse to fight with an enemy, even if it’s in their own self interest.

And, yes, season two is the find out to season one’s fuck around. Viktor and Jayce chose to ignore the warnings about Hextech. They then proceeded to overuse it, weaponize it, and do dangerous experiments with it, partially at the behest of unrepentant capitalism—there’s some class and politics for you. As stated earlier, the anomaly can very much be a stand in for the unforeseen consequences of certain technologies. How often do we find out years later what harm we’ve caused? Given that the first obvious victim is a tree, one could make an easy connection to global warming. Jayce would never be able to give Viktor’s the hex core if Viktor hadn’t made it in the first place. So yes, what happened with the arcane was indeed, their chickens coming home to roost and, no, you don’t need it explicitly stated what form the consequences are going to take—just that there will be consequences.

Likewise, as I alluded to earlier, Ambessa was most likely not planning to take over Piltover from the start. Jinx blowing up the council gave her the in to essentially have a bloodless coup. (Bloodless meaning she didn’t have to kill the leaders herself). Even prior to that, though, the reason she was able to meddle at all were the tensions between topside and bottom. If those hadn’t been ramping up, thanks mostly to the actions of our characters, she wouldn’t have been able to push for the creation of weapons. Internal conflict is a breeding ground for outside bad actors.

As for a common enemy making the story no longer nuanced, (which, again, has nothing to do with whether it was planned or not) in life there always comes a time when there is no room for moral ambiguity. Some things are a matter of survival. There are times where people do, in fact, have to set aside their differences or everyone will suffer. And in a show that is going out of its way to show the humanity of both sides in a conflict, this is where the story goes more often than not. Because, in a moment of true crisis, there is can be more that unites us than not (though, even in the moment, decision can still tear its head).

The tragedy, of course, is that it doesn’t last. I can say that as someone who remembers 9/11 (yes, I’m old). That’s why we had Cait’s ending monologue and the “dirt under your nails” discussion. Because they have to keep fighting.

I’m not going to go through every point because this has taken me hours and I’m going to just broadly say most of your issues have nothing to do with whether or not this was the plan for the sorry and your personal qualms about execution, and I really have no desire to go through any more of that right now as I have both a job and a life.

What I will address is your inability to understand the point I was making in my prior post. First—many people do, indeed want the show to have been a black and white poor beats rich story. (Honestly, understandable given the current hellscape. I don’t begrudge wanting more stories where rich people get the comeuppance—this just wasn’t the one). I know because they refuse to acknowledge or accept any nuance, motive, or understanding of why Cait did what she did and frequently use her wealth as an excuse for Jinx to have been allowed to kidnap, abuse, and almost murder her and murder her mother without consequence. They further decide Silco’s actions are all justified because he’s from the oppressed side. So yes, actually, a lot of people want rich=bad, poor=good.

Further, all of those themes I mentioned in that post can certainly be tied to class. They can also be tied to race. Or sexuality. Or gender. Or disability. As an obese neurodivergent queer cis woman, I can confirm. You could have easily exchanged the class themes for any of those and not had to change much. And while class is tied up in all of those divisions, I reject the argument that it is the sole cause. Rather economic oppression and other forms of oppression feed each other. That’s why leftist groups that only want to talk about economics tend to not be great at intersectionality.

Now, I’m going to guess right now you’re saying something like “but, in Arcane those themes were related to class, not those other things, except for disability, which was also tied to class!” And you’re right! Arcane decided to explore those themes through the lens of a class conflict. That does not make it what the show is about. It makes it a major theme, of course. It makes it the lens through which we understand our characters and the events of the plot. It does not mean the show was written in service of resolving the class conflict, nor that it should take time out of the character moments to exposit about treaties, nor does it make a fantasy action show where one of the characters punches people with giant gloves and another has a giant hammer that shoots things into a political drama.

I think one question the show is trying to answer in a lot of ways (though, again, not the only one) is, if class breaks is apart , what brings us together? Why would Piltover want to give Zaun rights? Because they were forced to at the end of a gun? Because of a crisis of conscience? To avoid a bigger conflict? Because Zaun was there for them in a time of need? Because the power of 24 year-old star-crossed lovers compels them? All of the above?

As I said, this is definitely a big question, but not the only question. “What does ‘progress’ mean?” “Do people change who they are for good?” “How do you leave the cycles you were born into and raised in?” “How does one find themselves losing their ideals?” “Who decides who gets a second chance anyway?” “What happened to Heimerdinger’s dog?” “Imperialism sure sucks, doesn’t it?” “Were we too hard on Maddie?”

All questions certainly viewed through the lens of class conflict. But the lens, though necessary to see the picture, is not the subject.

“What happened to rebel Vi? Season 2 destroyed her character!”

“What happened to rebel Vi” is that Vander took her to the bridge where her parents died in his revolution and asked her what she was willing to lose. Then she meets Cait who is gentle and kind while still being tough and it makes her rethink how she sees topside. When Jinx tells her she changed too, that’s what she’s talking about.

I’m sorry if you thought Vi was going to be a topside-hating revolutionary in Season 2, but that’s clearly not where her character arc was going. Remember how she forced her way between Ekko and Cait? It seemed very straightforward that was the role her character was taking on.

I feel similar about people who act like the show was betraying its premise because it ended with reconciliation/Zaun and Piltover working together. Again, the fact that two of the most important relationships were between characters from both sides and that they made a point of talking about Zaun and Piltover first coming together against a common enemy was a pretty clear indicator that was the plan.

Now, I get being annoyed that that was what they chose to do. You don’t have to love the creative decisions of media, just like media doesn’t have to compromise its creative direction to satisfy you. But not liking that they went that direction is not the same as the show having bad writing or engaging in character assassination.

Everything Vi did in season 2 was very much in character with how she changed and who she became throughout Season 1. Hell, she used enforcers and Hextech to raid Shimmer facilities before Commander Kiramman ever threw on a beret. So, yes, actually wearing the uniform was a huge and complicated decision that she was definitely not happy about, but it also fell in line with what she had been doing.

There’s meat for another post at some point about the three different Zaun/enforcer partnerships we see in the show: Vander/Greyson, Silco/Marcus, and Cait/Vi; but I’m not going to go into that now.

TLDR: “Rebel Vi” who wants to fight all of topside hasn’t existed since the end of the second episode of the show.

Editing to add that Vi doesn’t see attacking Chem Barons as attacking Zaun; she’s taking down the people who are destroying Zaun.

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