#Elegibility For Ration Card

[hwanchaesong]

↗🏢 Entering 3rd floor: One more and two more. Losing and winning. Bets and money thrown away like rags but nothing matters when the prize is on his lap. 🌌

🎧: Chase Atlantic - Obsessive

wc: 1.3k

genre & warnings: fluff, angst, suggestive, chaebol au, cursing, a game of poker (inaccurate representation), themes of luxury and higher society, a steamy kiss, mentions of marriage etc etc

a/n: this is a part of The Paradise Hotel series. if y'all want, you can read the other album inspired fics of other groups here.

Heart racing faster every time a second ticks away in the vintage wooden clock displayed in the corner of the luxurious room. 

The smoke that some bystanders blow somehow makes it harder for you to breathe, and maybe, you should’ve cut off the wine while you had the chance because it is now making your head dizzy.

Your eyes traveled to the dashing, well-dressed man seated in front of you, a hand on his chin like he’s thinking of something deep. His own orbs are focused on the table, more precisely, at the laid flop cards. 

You can’t help but roll your eyes at his feigned contemplation, rationality is not a trait of his, but rather his enemy. Impulsivity and arrogance are his friends, which is about to show themselves when the male makes eye contact with you, a devilish smirk on his glossy lips. 

“To make this dull game interesting,” he mutters confidently, his hands going over the plethora of purple and yellow chips, “let's raise the stakes.”

Multiple gasps were heard, the people who are watching the ongoing match of poker are in awe at the bold move. Surely, gambling a whopping 10,000 dollars is not a joke. You’re either crazy or poised, no in-between. 

The thing is, Beomgyu still has more money to bet, but the amount that he waged is all that you have.

You squint your eyes at him when he motioned for you to make your move. Oh, he’s playing a damning game, but you are a lioness yourself. Backing down from a challenge is not the right way to end your night. 

“I’ll take you on that.” you said, sliding your remaining chips in the middle of the table, "Call. All in."

The tension is palpable which can only be cut off with a saw, and you can’t help but regret meeting this vexing man in such a place.

It was supposed to be your getaway from the busy training life that you live in, being an heir for one of the largest corporations of the country isn’t exactly ideal, like what everyone says.

“You are one lucky child!”

“I wish I’m living the life you have.”

Fuck all that. Where’s the luck? And how dare they think that being born in an extravagant family equates to a happy one. 

You are nothing but a tool for them to make their company larger, bigger, and be the number one. A trophy that they can show around. Intelligent, beautiful, and manners as elegant as a swan, the perfect daughter that can make anyone swoon. 

But you despise the mask that you have to put on every time you face the crowd, you hate the attention from the onlookers who did nothing but to judge and gossip.

You wanted freedom, true happiness, a flash of dopamine.. those things you get in a thrilling match of poker.

You learned the game when you were 13. Out of your mind and going crazy from learning how to play the damn violin, then your music teacher suggested a fun activity that he'll let you enjoy during your free time.

That was when you discovered your hidden talent in.. well, gambling.

That was also when you discovered Choi fucking Beomgyu.

You've actually heard about him. Another one of those fortunate heirs but unlike you, he's rather conceited and selfish; that is according to the gossip.

And hell, he's good at playing poker. The only person who has defeated you, and you hated that with passion.

He looks like an idiot, handsome yes, but still an idiot in your eyes, and it annoys you to no end that this dimwit actually has enough brains to do mind games and do math.

So, here you are, provoked to actually accept a round of poker after he went and spouted how scared you were of him.

Instead of enjoying champagne and steak in the large yacht, you are sitting with your pride and a camouflaged bet on the line, praying to the gods out there to let you win this time.

Beomgyu checked his whole cards, clapping his hands afterwards and relaxing his figure on the sofa. Legs crossed and arms draped over the sofa back.

"Not too late to fold, darling." he utters, eyeing you like a hawk.

You scoffed, returning his sentiments, "No thanks, but you are free to do so."

He shrugged your comments, kind of telling you to 'suit yourself', opting to focus on the game when the dealer began to drop the turn and the river.

Your hand is shaky, staring at the pot while you recheck your cards at hand. It's good. Amazingly excellent. Luck and statistics are on your side.

Beomgyu must be bluffing that confident countenance.

"Miss and sir, it's time to show your hands." the dealer says, and you did the honor of showing yours first.

"Straight flush." you smirk at Beomgyu's surprised expression, but then your joy plummeted when he revealed his hand.

"Royal flush, baby."

The crowd roared, a seismic thrill from the close match of poker.

You close your eyes, gritting your teeth in anger, stopping yourself from cursing or doing anything remotely ungraceful. You just lost a game, you're not going to humiliate yourself further.

"I am getting all this... later." Beomgyu smiles wickedly, ushering the guards to make everyone in the room to leave and give you two privacy.

It is a public space, but his family's power and influence are not to be messed with. Thus, he must be obeyed at all costs.

Rushing footsteps are heard, then silence follows after the door has been shut.

You now opened your eyes, meeting his in a heated stare before asking for his demands, "What do you want? I'm telling you though, I'm not giving you any of my games anymore. Spare that."

"You are getting engaged, right?"

His question astounded you. Does the news really spread that fast?

"Who are you getting engaged with?" he resumed his interrogation, not moving an inch in his manspreading position that he assumed in the process of his inquiries.

"Heeseung. Lee Heeseung. Well, that's what I heard." you answered, avoiding eye contact with him.

You were shocked when he laughed aloud, peering at him incredulously, "What is your problem?"

"Lee Heeseung, that's low." he snickers, amused at the thought of you marrying his mortal nemesis, "Yeah, no. You're marrying me instead."

His declaration is a bomb, dropped on you suddenly and you are not quite sure on how to react but laugh awkwardly.

He is a man of impulsive decisions and foolishness, but this is way too far. A sick prank that he's brewing in order to entertain himself in his playground.

"I- Beomgyu. Do you hear yourself? Have you finally gone mad?" you asked, standing up from your seat, not willing to humor his bullshit anymore.

He wasn't speaking and you took that as your cue to remove yourself in this.. uncomfortable discussion.

"It was nice playing with you, get some rest while you're at it. Yeah?" you gave him a tight-lipped smile, proceeding to step away from the room but as you passed by him, you were forcefully pulled towards him.

You didn't have the chance to process the situation. One moment you're on your feet, then the next you're seated on his lap, his lips on yours while he holds you close to your body.

What's weird though, is that you didn't resist the kiss, you enjoy it.

You liked the way his lips molded into yours, nibbling on your lower lip and biting it rather harshly before licking the incoming bruise away. Pulling away from you to mumble against your lips.

"That bambi boy sucks, you should know better that I am far superior than him. Besides," he laid you down the cushions of the sofa, his electrifying fingers trailing on your sides, "you lost to me. Don't you want to play more rounds of poker with me until you're able to win at least a round?"

You let out an offended wheeze, your arms wrapping around his shoulders, "Choi Beomgyu," you whisper his name, your digits playing with the hair on the back of his neck, "Less talk, more action."

taglist:

@hyunjinheartbreakprince @lun4kazumii @once27 @purrplegyuu @yawnzsof @baeksofty @shakalakaboomboo

[taemcains]

your love is sunlight — cainlane

lane helps cain wash the blood off his wings and gets a thank you in return. ao3

cw: blood mentions

🎧 julia shortreed - broken wings

Pale golden light streams into Lane's shared room, falling on the soft carpet in a mosaic mirroring the elegant swirls on the balcony door. The picture of coziness it creates, along with the spread of reference books spilled like a domino of cards around her, brings her back to high school and days spent cramming for exams with the spring sunshine in North Carolina watching over her like a guardian.

The tremors of a door slamming shut on the ground floor dispel the mirage. Lane blinks hard, bringing herself back to Rotkov's eternal winter and her task, which is considerably more crucial and much more demanding than memorizing chemistry equations.

The Book and her notebook are each balanced precariously on her knees. Reference books lay further down from her, tossed away in rising frustration. Her wrist aches and her back has been steadily cramping from her abysmal posture, but she remains hunched over, picking up her trail of thought and leaving behind unnecessary memories to continue scrawling in her notebook.

Shadows pool on the floor, chasing away the imitation of home and warmth. Lane's head whips up to face the balcony, hair lashing against her back.

White obscures gold. It flashes once, painting the room cold before swerving to the back of the estate.

Real warmth bubbles up in her chest. Cain is back from his night patrol.

Lane spent all of ten minutes in the morning trying to inconspicuously grill the squad about his whereabouts before her mind grew disgusted by her pathetic state. Cain is an immortal. Whatever stalks the forest and whoever hides in the town should be, are, terrified of him. Worrying about someone who can handle himself, when she has a plethora of problems is fatuous. She resolved to put it out of her mind and surrender to the Book instead.

An hour later, huddled under every blanket and comforter looted from her room, the upholstered chair doing little to battle the cold, she muses. Why do you become so irrational when you… have someone? Her hand is unsteady, fingers trembling from the cold, but she makes a valiant effort to jot something down.

Anna shoots her the most judgmental glance she's received in her life. ‘Why are you freezing to death near the balcony when the bed is right there?’

Lane tries to shrug but she doubts the slight movement would be visible under ten layers of wool. ‘The cold will keep my mind awake. I could get a new perspective on the Book.’

Anna almost looks offended at how little thought Lane put into lying to her. She scoffs. ‘Is that what they're calling it now?’ She scowls at a distant spot in the sky, willing the extent of her disdainful glare to reach that angel wherever he is, before turning on her heel and leaving, muttering about ‘beautiful women falling for idiot men’ and ‘why do you never learn, Anna?’

Her mind doesn't linger too long on Anna, but circles him, as always, a whirlpool of memories and longings. She tried to choke down her worry along with mouthfuls of tea earlier, but it spews up with a redoubled vengeance. No matter how many times her exasperated mind reassures her of the angel's strength and safety, her heart refuses to quiet, pacing anxiously with a thump-thump-thump echoing through her very bones.

Are you satisfied? Everyone wants to know whether I even have a heart anymore but you keep it, toss it, and catch it with the dizzying speed of your changing whims. I don't miss that. But I miss you.

Admitting that she missed him was apparently the last straw for her mind, who was jeering at this display of yearning. Lane leapt to her feet, yanked around by the strings of her rational mind that was hard at work to erase this maudlin moment from her day. She climbed into bed, pulled the required materials to herself like a shield and lost herself in the arcane, her mind alight and awake, ready to beat her heart into submission.

Now she allows herself to exhale a shameful ‘I missed you’ to the knowing shadows of her room and let relief unfurl through her bloodstream like a ribbon.

All the romance novels and movies she'd gorged herself on in her teenage years with the relished humiliation of crawling back to an unfaithful lover, had painted love in pink, soft and bloodless. But for Lane, love is a violent intrusion, spinning her mind and heart out of control. If she'd known she would feel so foolish, she would've accumulated more experience, to chart cumulative data and predict the best response in any situation. But Cain's not like anyone she's ever met. He's not like anyone at all.

Plotting Cain would be an impossible task as he shifts a little every time she sees him, a kaleidoscope that never shows the same pattern twice. But won't he let her try? To map his impossibilities across a lifetime like counting stars in the night sky, the only futile task she wants to squander away her time on with the languidness of summer days slipping away.

Contrary to his own impossibility, he seems to have her entirely mapped out, tracing the rivers of her veins with his fingertips and the ridges of her spine with his eyes. She didn't have to ask. Cain understood her, like he once promised, and her working style which he condensed aptly as ‘You wouldn't look up from the Book unless there's a second apocalypse.’ So his wings blinked at her, sending her a sign.

Was he counting on her being able to glimpse the maelstrom of riddles behind every guileless movement of his? Delivered with a susurration of his wings, an order, a request, or the gentle luring of a lover: Come find me.

His wishes are clear, but Lane hesitates, out of her own warring desires. Her heart is almost halfway out the door, straining to settle sleepily against his voice, but her feet remain planted to the floor, roots extending through wood, bypassing time and space, sprouting out of her father's office.

Wood polish. Expensive leather. An angular man leaning over her seven-year-old self. ‘Please do not bother me when I'm working, Lane. Go see to your mother.’ Which was perhaps the greatest condemnation of all, her own father who could not see her mother's umbilical cord strangling her lovingly around her neck, a tie she could never rid of even two decades later.

The memory fractures. Warmth beckons her from the fissure and she follows as if ensorcelled. The press of a thigh to her own. The specter of fingers through her hair. The fracture widens. The tickling of feathers against the small of her back. Her father's office and her younger self preserved in contrition are swallowed into the dark.

The last fragments of the memory are brushed away by an ambrette voice that lifts her and carries her back to the body of her present self, gently setting her down in reality. Tendrils of him and his essence are already curled around her, sweetpea flowers budding around her neck, watching over her when he can't.

Glimpses of him in her memories don't appease her. Lately, even his fleeting touches, light enough to absolve him of intention, do nothing to sate the hunger roiling in her. Come find me.

Guided, or rather, misguided, by the reckless abandon that entangles with desire, Lane crosses the room and doesn't let herself hesitate to wrench the door open. Her eyes hone in on the ornate door at the far end of the hallway, quiet and anodyne.

The estate is still, the history of those hallowed halls, almost a physical presence draped heavy over her shoulders, watching as Lane's hushed footsteps ghost over the floor. She knows her efforts are in vain; he must've heard the click of her door opening, but it felt sacrilegious to stomp over in an estate teeming with revenants.

She comes to a standstill outside his door, heart awake and thrashing. He could probably hear it through the wood, no barrier fortified to the aching of her heart to be a plaything in his hands again. But he waits, lets her settle on going to him or turning away.

She knocks lightly.

‘Come in.’ His voice, smooth and even, with the barest drops of an emotion she couldn't identify, sends a trickle of reassurance down her chest.

Ominous that the creaking of the door is, when Lane peers inside, gingerly stepping past the threshold like an inexperienced thief, Cain is whole and unhurt, lips curving up as salve to her twinging unease. Her heart finally rests.

As relief streams through her blood, her eyes cascade down his figure intently. Silvery fabric molds to his skin, translucent where pearls of water trickle from the damp ends of his hair. Black slacks cling enticingly to his thighs, every slight shift flaunting the statuesque lines of his body. His wings flare, serrated edges silhouetted by daylight, a personal sunset.

Her eyes widen. Cain, who was watching her riveted gaze with a touch of satisfaction pulling up the corner of his mouth, interjected smoothly. ‘It's not mine. A spawn was found close to city lines.’

‘Is that what you were busy with all morning?’ She asks, alarm fading into distraction. Blood lashed against white wings, macabre and ethereal. Offsetting, Lane thinks, no, enhancing temptation, disoriented by her own strange desires.

‘Yes.’ His voice dips, softness melting it. ‘Were you alone for long?’

‘No,’ she answers absentmindedly, eyes transfixed to the startlingly intimate sight of his bare feet. Unarmoured like this, without the chainmail of his condescending sneer and paradoxical words, he seems closer than ever. Like she would only need to reach out for her fingertips to graze soft skin and sculpted muscle, obscured to the rest by shadows and secrets.

Appeased, he turns to the side, pushing back his drenched sleeves around his elbow. Only then does the room start to come together in snatches. Clothes strewn across the carpeted floor, his jacket a bloodied heap by the balcony, transponder thrown on the bedside table. A basin with murky water seated on the dresser, a rag dangling haphazardly from it. Precise to him, messy to others. Not unlike the owner himself, she thinks.

Satisfied with her appraisal, she peeks over at him. Leaning over the basin, rag coiled loosely around his hand, he looks half sunken in a dream. Only the rustling of his wings betray his restlessness.

Her spine is yanked straight by a part of her, a phantom cerebrum spawned to gauge and dissect every shift in his body and every quirk of his mouth. Cain would never allow himself to be so absent. Her heart screeches with alarm, and her mind reluctantly allows the theatrics, admitting the oddness of his behavior.

‘Cain?’ she calls quietly.

Regret follows almost immediately. At the most inopportune moment, she realizes she has no idea how to proceed when he responds. Cain has always taken care of her in his own absurd way, the experience irksome even as the memory fills her empty soul with sunlight. But Lane could hardly care for herself, much less an immortal.

His lashes flutter, moth wings skimming his skin as he blinks out of his daze. ‘Sorry, I was lost in thought.’ His eyes clear, latches clicking shut inside him. ‘I should clean my wings.’ They flick, avouching his words. ‘Not exactly the amorous activity you were envisioning, I'm sure.’

Her eyes narrow but they cannot lance metal. He meets her scouring gaze with calculated repose. His shoulders sink, memories imploding within, then return to their usual assured set, dust settling in the span of a blink.

Only a second, but it's enough for Lane to pry at the chips in his marmoreal mask. She sighs softly as slivers of his bare face come into view. He's… tired. So, so tired. Abandoned by heaven, shunned by earth, untouchable on his altar of divinity. Angel, priest, soldier. Beautiful as a statue, but who dares to touch him? Who can he hold?

Sensing the weight of her thoughts, he straightens imperceptibly, shuttering off any weakness.

Even now, after hurting and helping and licking their wounds, they still hesitate, circling each other like sharks scenting blood, the instinct to hurt before getting hurt honed and layered like second skin, excruciating to rip off. But they can't keep holding onto an infected limb that devours the rest of the body. Years of violent instinct wars with a fragile, blossoming ache.

The words spill out of her lips, noxious blood evanescing, her first breath without her own violence pressing down on her sweet and fresh. ‘Let me help.’

His eyes snap back to hers and lock their gazes. Narrowed, assessing, wary, they're as entrancing as ever. He sighs, the same side emerging victorious in him. ‘I'll give you a chance to back out. I'm warning you now that your arms will ache for the next week.’

‘I won't come complaining to you,’ she says dryly, the secret curve of his mouth sending a flurry of warmth through her.

He follows her lead, effortlessly carrying the basin to an empty spot in the center of the room, sunlight casting the illusion of warmth on the rug. He sets it down and folds himself into a cross-legged posture, somehow elegant even while sitting on the floor.

Lane follows suit, kneeling behind him on the plush carpet. She ties her hair back into a loose knot and pulls back her sleeves, goosebumps arising on her exposed skin immediately. She shivers, body noting the frigidity of his room while she herself is enraptured by the angel.

This close to him, the diaphanous material of his shirt coyly divulges flashes of his body. The slope of his shoulder blade. A channel down his lower back. The sylphlike curve of his waist. Lane exhales slowly, expelling the need to touch him and trace his skin. The intoxicating heat radiating off him doesn't abate the desire to drape herself over his back and see what he'd do.

‘Having second thoughts? Maybe your delicate arms hurt already?’

She rolls her eyes, abruptly breaking through for air. The same person who tenderly drowns her in the thick, languid ocean of desire also hauls her out of it with his infuriating quips.

He slides the basin over to her in reparation.

Experimentally dipping her fingers into the basin, she sighs with relief at the lukewarm water. She dunks the rag in, drenches it, and pauses, water dripping rhythmically onto the floor, lapped up by the carpet. How sensitive are his wings? She remembers the library incident with a quivering in her stomach, the idea of her touch making him still heady more than any wine or pomegranate juice. How hard can she use the rag on them?

His voice is glazed with amusement. ‘This feels familiar. Now is the time to ask me if I'm gloating.’

That settles it. ‘Why should I when I know the answer?’ she replies as she presses the rag to the base of his wing agonizingly gently. He jerks, the beginnings of a low gasp escaping past his teeth before he quiets, wings flaring.

Lane bites her lip to rein in a smirk, throat going dry at the noise and where else she'd like to hear it, again and again.

‘Have it your way, then. Is this payback for that time in the library?’ he retorts, shoulders unnaturally tense.

‘What do you mean?’ she says lightly, carefully moving the rag from the base to the top. His wings rustle and flick, but settle quietly.

A light laugh floats through the air, melding seamlessly with this impossible afternoon.

Cain stays quiet as she works her way through the large expanse, occasionally trembling as she grazes certain spots. She makes mental notes of them, for future reference. Or for leverage.

Her nose wrinkles as she nears the tip of his wing. Spawn gore clumps to the feathers, a sickly sweet smell emanating from the blood.

Cain almost whirls around at her first cough. ‘I'll deal with the rest. You've done enough.’

She waves him off. Before she could think it over again, her hand cups his shoulder, turning him away. A tremor goes through her at her boldness, the heat of his muscle and bone against her fingers warming her entire arm.

‘You reek,’ she says airily, only to douse the incalescence of his gaze, burning her more than his skin as she touched him like she had the right to.

‘Who came to whose room?’

A gradual undoing, Lane watches as her own hands cast magic, turning back time, water swilling blood from his wings, leaching them pure and white.

She retraces her path, returning to the base of his wings where stubborn flecks of blood linger on the feathers. Faltering for just a second, she discards the rag. Her fingers, a gentler heir, glide over the plumage, outsing sanguine settlers.

Cain arches like a cat, allowing himself a muffled moan before rebounding, curving into her. A shuddering breath is the only movement she shows. His back barely brushes her front, the faint contact sparking a riot in her head, one side chanting lean in close, closer, the other pull away I can't breathe anymore.

As the sun drops lower into the sky, in tandem he sinks lower onto her, the silky strands of his hair chilling her chin, the weight of his body warm and comforting. His initial wariness washed away with the blood, he's as cozy and relaxed as a housecat dozing in a patch of sunlight.

Disappointment unfurls petals inside her chest as the last of the blood is wiped away, wings gleaming in the sunlight. Enveloped by him, his body, his scent; sweet and faintly musky, entirely him with the effect it had of wanting to fall headlong into his lies, time has no meaning. The world waiting with ravenous jaws holds no importance when he's quiet and boneless in her arms.

‘Cain?’ she whispers, unsure if he's awake.

‘Hmm?’

Her toes curl into the carpet. His usual liquid smooth voice has been rendered low and thick, drowsiness dipping his tone.

She hesitates. Is it worth jolting him from his place against her—as it should be, her heart croons— for her selfish desire of wanting to look at him?

Ironically, it's her indecision that awakens him, alertness seeping back in. He slips out of her hold, a gentle thief escaping into the night, and turns to face her. ‘What is it?’ he asks, traces of worry playing in his voice.

I wish I could look at you when I want to without searching for an excuse. I wish you would keep being near to me. I want you to keep seeing me.

‘Nothing,’ she bites out, frustrated with herself, eyes catching on an anomaly in the blinding purity of snow. ‘There's dried blood crusted in your hair.’

He sighs, mindlessly patting his hair, completely missing the spot.

‘Let me,’ she interrupts quietly, pieces falling into place, desire breathing her wishes to life.

He eyes her curiously. Whatever he finds makes his mouth twitch and obediently lower his head, submitting to the ministrations of her fingers. A thrill fires through her like an arrow. She quite likes the idea of him bowed and hazy-eyed in front of her.

Her fingers ease into silken strands, white and gold playing on her skin. They trail unwillingly, longing to linger and straighten the wisps hanging over his eyes for him. She flicks the rusty flakes off, careful to not tug at the strands.

Hyperaware of every steady inhale and exhale of his, her own breathing wavers, growing shallow. She attempts to veer her attention back to his hair, instead of the proximity of her chest to his face, when his arm curves around her waist, long fingers splaying out, burning her from rib to hip.

Before she could steady herself to this, him, his thumb traces the jut of her rib. All coherent thought dissipates. Heat whirls up her insides. His fingers trail teasingly over the curve of her waist before stilling on her hip, and she wishes with sudden, fervent clarity that he would play on her skin. Be so familiar to him that he would reach for her to ease his restlessness, her hipbone echoing his music, instead of an undeserving slab of wood.

‘Your knees must hurt. Sit.’ He sounds from below her, words almost breathed into her throat. His voice lowers, a surrender just between them. ‘I can bow down for you.’

She lowers her eyes to his. A misstep. Hazy from sleep, sharp in the corners, sunlight sands down his usual jagged gaze and wicked smirk, turning him into a visage of heaven. Angelic, she thinks for the first time since she awoke to him, both at the rift and at the estate.

Cain has always been inhumanely beautiful from the moment she saw him glowing like an impossible mirage amidst blood and snow, but his beauty is almost unbearable now that she's seen the planes of that same untouchable face contort in anger, slacken in tiredness, soften in fondness. Every feature has been slashed into her mind since their first meeting, but he's a mystery she'll never tire of. She studies each detail with the same fascination as the first time.

Gold clings to every lash with the devotion of the sea returning to sand. Dawn rises in his eyes, the only place where she looks forward to sunrise. Cheekbones like cliffs, sweetpea pink lips. Twin moles wink at her from below his eye and cheek, a taunt mirrored in his eyes: What will you do now?

He tilts his head up, her hand that lay forgotten in his hair sliding down like rain. Brow bone, cheekbone, till the base of her palm curves against his jaw.

She's holding his face in her hand. What will you do now?

Her eyes hesitatingly find his again. The same eyes that speared into her being, trying to unravel her before she could undo him, that held and kept all his secrets, now betray him and look at her with undisguised tenderness. His gaze is the only mirror she can stand to look at herself anymore, her callousness and apathy smoothed over by his affection.

She loops her free arm around his neck, feeling his shoulders tense in surprise. In no reality will she come out of this unscathed. But would it be worth being hurt by these same hands that hold so gently?

Her eyes flit to his lips. Oh, but it would be worth being condemned to hell by this mouth. His lips part, luring her in before the din of doors slamming and a chorus of intermingling voices shatters their retreat.

Lane is off the floor and three feet away from him before he could even blink. His tenderness ripples into a scowl. His eyes glint a lurid red as he rises to his feet.

‘I should go,’ she says hastily, impatient to curse every member of the squad and then pore over every second of this afternoon before it dissipates like a dream.

‘And where are you rushing off to?’ he asks, notes of ire lurking in his voice.

She raises an eyebrow. ‘My room. I don't think the General will be pleased about me spending quality time with you instead of working.’

His mouth curls in derision. ‘If Dmitry's concern is incompetence, you're the least of his problems.’

His tone gives her pause. The second she tilts her head, his cool nonchalance snaps back into place, clicking shut with the finality of a lock.

‘I'll get going,’ she echoes before her heart could rope her into some foolish scheme. ‘Will you go to sleep now?’

‘Yes.’ He pauses, eyes sliding to her, lingering on her exposed collarbone. His voice lowers, softens, a snake coiling around flesh and she feels his words like he whispered them onto her skin. ‘Will you miss this opening?’

Her heart jolts. He can't possibly be…?

‘To watch me sleep again.’ He tilts his head innocuously, the effect offset by his growing smirk. ‘What were you thinking?’

Entirely unhelpfully, her mind bestows her with a visual. She thinks of him asleep, cheek pillowed by his arm, lashes casting needle-thin shadows, his ever-furrowed brows relaxed and a physical burn flares to life under her ribs.

She knits her brow in irritation, saving face too late, hastening to leave. The Cain who curved into her like the moon, who she'd christened angelic had fallen asleep, dreaming in some crevice of his mind. The one who stands in front of her, challenge highlighted in every plane of his face, is familiar, familiar and dangerous, familiar in a sense that she could hardly guess his next thought.

Just as her hand wraps around the door handle, she senses his searing presence behind her. Her body reacts instinctively, gearing up. Cain sends all of her emergency responses into overdrive, fight, flight, and fight speeding and crashing at the junction of her mind. All thoughts come to a screeching halt, leaving only expectant silence, air thrumming with possibilities. A discordant note or a lilting melody?

His fingers curl around her wrist, a gossamer touch. He lowers his head while raising her wrist, night falling as the moon rises to meet as a sunset, as a kiss. His cool breath snakes across her skin, travelling the course set by her veins, the faint brushes of his lips blissful torture.

A marionette in his hands, he angles her wrist to his mouth, setting the stage. The first act: the bite of his teeth against her pulse.

Her shoulders seize and she bites her lip, the blooming pain-pleasure shoving a gasp back inside her mouth. He presses, so gently, an invisible divot to savor and linger over at night, an ephemeral mark of him on her skin.

Can he feel her hand trembling? Her knees will give out if he continues.

In answer, in tender defiance, he scrapes his teeth across her pulse point, shrapnel and velvet, mouth feverishly hot, teeth deliciously sharp. Her spine jerks, pulled by his strings, aching to lean against his body. A low noise escapes her before she could haul it inside.

He halts, knowing when to coax with hardly a look, pulling her along to freefall into desire, another line they can never uncross, and when to let her be. He presses a full kiss to soothe her skin, before the curtain falls with a delicate graze of his lips over the faded cut on her palm.

He pulls back and she blinks as the world rushes in, both the celebrated principal actress and the dazed, breathless audience. He lowers her wrist gently, fingers falling away like the night. ‘Thank you,’ he says quietly with no trace of the smugness she was expecting.

She could hardly remember what she replied or how she stole away into the hallway. Half her mind still trembling in that room with him, the other half lazily waking up from a pleasant dream, she muses as she stumbles to her room.

The weight of the emptiness in her soul is always lurking, always ready to drag her into nothingness. Being around others only seems to chip away the remnants of her soul clinging to her insides; their strained laughter, easy anger and human hope shattered mirror shards reflecting the humanity long gouged out of her. You are not like us. Each irregular mosaic amplified till the message was deafening. You are not like us!

But as she stood in the hallway, vision golden with dust motes swirling around in a lazy waltz in the ballroom of sunlight, her soul is… silent. Not clamoring in its depleted state, begging to find its stolen half and fill it up. Cain's mere presence lifts this particular veil of half death, making her heart pumping in lazy disinterest startle awake, having to work overtime to make up for her lungs slacking.

Though she was the one who wished to lighten his burden today, it seemed he was imbuing her with his own life force with every touch. A thirst for life, and just not survival, gasped for air within her, only to see him again, to touch him again and make him tremble.

The corner of her mouth twitches as she turns the handle.

She has to find a way to get him back for that kiss.

[eff4freddie]

After She Left | Three

Words: 5.3k

You have your first tutoring session with Ellie, while Joel goes out on patrol. It goes reasonably well, flower penises not withstanding.

Chapter warnings: descriptions of a panic attack, canon-typical violence, slooooow burn

Two | Series Masterlist | Four

He was really trying, but there were just some things he was struggling to get used to. It seemed like Ellie had adapted perfectly back to life in a community, having grown up in a QZ, but Joel was finding it hard. There were just always people around. People who smiled and greeted him with a nod, people who asked him how his day had been and seemed genuinely interested in the answer, people who weren’t trying to take his stuff, kill him, kill his daughter. He wanted to trust it, could see the way Tommy’s pink cheeks had filled out from the lack of stress, examined his own features in the mirror and saw the way his mouth permanently turned down, felt the way his jaw clicked and rolled in its joint from the strain of the last twenty or so years. There was something uncomfortable in how comfortable everything was. He was trying to find the reason, and starting to suspect it was him.

Tommy had put him on patrols, figuring this was the best of Joel’s skills available to Jackson. His patrol partner, Guillaume, was French-Canadian and fancy as fuck by comparison, had spent some time in the French Foreign Legion before coming back to Canada right before the outbreak, and he was both disciplined and elegant in a way that Joel admired and found intimidating. He could barely pronounce the man’s name, let alone make conversation. Joel had never been to Canada. Had heard it was pretty, always wanted to visit the Rockies, but first there was school and then there was Sarah and then there was everything that came after that. Guillaume was, if Joel had to guess, at least ten years younger, maybe closer to fifteen. Joel could tell by the way he didn’t groan when pulling himself up out of a crouch.

But still, out here beyond the wall, he felt more himself then stuck behind it. Even if the QZ, in his smuggling days, he’d felt hemmed in and suburban stuck in his tiny apartment, had jumped at the chance to venture out. It wasn’t just about the ration cards, or survival, even if it might have started out that way. Something in him, the dormant wolf he guessed, liked the open space, liked the prowling and the protecting, felt the pulse of Jackson’s neck between his teeth.

Guillaume was up ahead, Joel’s horse following his as they worked the perimeter. Joel’s mind was wondering, thinking back to Ellie in that little schoolhouse, wondering how long before she got itchy feet too, when he realised the other man had stopped.

‘What is it, Gollum?’ Joel asked, the hair raising on the back of his neck.

‘Someone has been here,’ Guillaume said, in a whisper. ‘The dirt has been disturbed.’

Joel followed the younger man’s eye and could indeed see that there were patches of ground, indentations in the long grass.

‘We should track ‘em,’ Joel said, scanning the treeline. Up ahead, maybe thirty paces, he spotted a broken tree branch at roughly shoulder height. Wordlessly he pointed it out to Guillaume, who nodded.

‘Dismount?’ Joel asked, watching the younger man reach for the knife strapped to his thigh. Guillaume nodded again, making a gesture with his hand Joel couldn’t quite figure out, but assumed it meant shut up ya fuckin’ hillbilly and stop tryina blow our cover.

The two men, despite their size and, in Joel’s case, age, could be surprisingly quiet. They covered the 30 paces to the treeline in a matter of seconds, their footsteps lost to the sound of the wind in the trees. Joel could feel his breath coming in tight and cold across his chest, his own knife gripped in his hand now, hoping he still had the strength in his hands, that his knuckles weren’t so swollen, so chipped, that he couldn’t do damage with them if he needed to. He swallowed, hard, his eyes on Guillaume’s six as the light faded under the canopy.

Another ten paces, a bent tree branch, a couple of light footsteps in the undergrowth. All of it indicated someone had been here recently, the wind not yet having erased the evidence. They were about a 40-minute ride from Jackson, maybe a day and a half’s walk, but there was nothing to indicate whether the person was coming towards them or moving away. In the silence Joel heard his ears ringing, crouching slightly, coiled tight like a spring.

Guillaume waved to him, indicating more tracks veering off to the right, but Joel had found his own set, moving in a straight line further into the trees. He peered into the encroaching darkness, the thicket of underbrush and density of the trunks consuming any light. Neither of them had brought a torch for a daytime patrol.

Reconvening, Guillaume and Joel silently discussed, using their hands and mouthing the words into the air between them, whether the tracks belonged to the same person. Guillaume believed that they did, that this person had doubled back, perhaps become disoriented, delirious, maybe even bitten. Joel was less sure, not willing to rule out a second person, maybe even a third. Guillaume wanted to continue to follow the trail, gesturing impatiently for Joel to follow, but Joel had one eye on the horses, tied up and exposed just on the treeline, felt like if it was more than one person they would need a few patrolmen to work the line.

Guillaume sighed, exasperated, the creaking trees absorbing the sound. With his hands, Joel offered to write the report in the logbook. That seemed to appease the younger man, somewhat.

--

You rolled your shoulders, heard the little crinkle of the muscles as they stretched around the base of your skull. You’d been thinking about it, probably too much, all the things you were going to teach Ellie. Armed with a couple of textbooks and a patchy memory of your own classes, you’d already decided you were going to start with history, maybe talk to her about some of the bigger battles, having the sense that this would be up her alley. If she liked that, maybe you could get her reading some of the books you’d scrounged over the years, managed to beg for if you knew patrols were heading into formerly suburban areas. You didn’t need much, just a couple of the classics. You had a vision, a dream, of Ellie reading War and Peace, or even Crime and Punishment. You knew she’d like them if she had the context, if she could sit still long enough.

You made your way to the Miller house, your arms carrying the lesson you’d spent all night planning in your head. You weren’t going to go too hard too early on the academic stuff, you were going to figure out what she liked. You didn’t want it to be super formal, super structured, but you still wanted to balance the need for academics against the need to make it interesting, engaging enough that she stuck it out. You remembered your little sister was a great reader, had bemoaned the lack of books in the QZ.

Ellie opened the door, her bare feet padding down the hallway as she beckoned you in over her shoulder.

‘Hey, I’m just having lunch, come in,’ she said, casually as she disappeared around the corner.

‘Not mac and cheese I hope?’ you asked, wondering if Joel was here too, if he would hear your little joke, maybe give you another one of those lopsided smirks.

‘Nah, don’t think we’ll do that shit again for a real long time,’ Ellie said, smiling as she spooned porridge into her bowl. ‘You want some?’

‘I already ate, thanks though,’ you said.

Ellie nodded her head, half listening.

‘S’cool you’re doing this for me,’ she said, and you smiled at her.

‘Of course.’

‘Joel said it’s important,’ she went on.

‘I agree,’ you said.

‘Now that it’s not just about…surviving.’

You paused, watching her for a moment. She seemed sad, just for a second, for as long as she could tolerate, before she was shovelling rolled oats into her mouth. ‘I gotta wonder why bother, though,’ she said, and she was looking at you now, chewing but with her eyes glued to yours, watching your reaction.

‘Education is always important,’ you said, and she swallowed so she could interrupt you.

‘Yeah but like, what for? I’m gonna do patrols as soon as I’m old enough, and you don’t need books for that.’

‘You could do more than patrols, though, Ellie, and really it’s important to be thoughtful, and to think critically, if you’re going to plan out an expedition or keep yourself safe.’

‘Joel’s been teaching me that for ages,’ she said, as though this was the definitive answer on the topic. You swallowed.

‘I guess the thing is… life would be pretty dull if all you did was patrols, and you didn’t take the time to be…’ Human. You wanted to say human. To be a person. So many people you’d met over the years had forgotten that part. You knew the dangers of it, the cruelty it allowed. ‘…to think, and to use your mind in a different way.’

She considered you for a second.

‘I’ve met some really dumb people, they didn’t think at all.’ She chewed, and you let her mull it over. ‘I don’t wanna be like them,’ she concluded. You nodded your head, opening the book in front of you. Good enough.

--

Back in Jackson the noise of the main street, the laughter and play of the kids, the chatter of women and men standing out on the street, the construction of the new town hall, all of it assaulted Joel’s ears enough that it made it impossible to concentrate. He wanted to get back to the stables, dismount and tend to the horses, then find Tommy as fast as he could.

He found his brother outside the mess hall chewing on an apple. He saw his brother’s expression shift as he rounded on him.

‘Tommy,’ Joel started, gripping his brother by the arm and pulling him to stand more upright, more at attention.

‘Whassgoanon?’ Tommy asked, around a mouthful, seeing the urgency on Joel’s face.

‘Tracks, we found tracks, me and Gollum.’

‘Comin’ere?’ Tommy asked, and Joel shook his head.

‘Don’t know, not sure, hard to tell. Didn’t find anyone, just tracks and some branches. Gollum wanted to try and track ‘em but I said we needed to come back, bring back more men.’

‘You think it was more than one?’

‘Not sure, Gollum didn’t think so but didn’t make sense, what he was sayin’. About a person maybe getting lost, how could he tell that just from the ground?’

‘He was in the army out in France,’ Tommy said, wiping his mouth.

‘This ain’t France,’ Joel grunted.

‘So, you didn’t try and track them?’ Tommy asked, and watched as Joel shook his head. ‘Could have been someone in trouble.’

‘Coulda been a pack of raiders, or an infected.’

‘You heard nothin’?’ Tommy asked, and Joel shook his head again.

‘Looked like fresh tracks, though,’ he said.

Tommy regarded him carefully, noticing now for the first time the worried look in Joel’s eye, the way he was fidgeting, his impatience.

‘You know you coulda tried to find out more,’ Tommy suggested, gently, and watched as his big brother’s eyes darkened.

‘You weren’t out there, you didn’t know. It felt wrong, is all.’ Joel said. ‘We coulda been outnumbered, we coulda been shot in the back of the head never even seen it coming.’

Tommy considered this, considered his brother, what he must have seen, what he must have gone through to get here, to bring Ellie with him, keep her alive. He hadn’t asked what happened to Tess, hadn’t pressed for the details. He knew that his brother would give them to him if he felt like it, and that Tommy would probably wait forever.

‘Brother, it’s OK if you ah…if you’re not…’

‘I’m doin’ fine, just don’t want to go running off after a pack of raiders because Gollum don’t reckon there’s a threat.’

‘I get that,’ Tommy said.

‘So you comin’ or what?’ Joel asked, finding it hard to stand in one place all of a sudden.

‘To look at some branches and some dirt however many miles outside these walls?’ Tommy asked, and saw the way Joel’s eyes were darting around, back to the stables, over to the gates. ‘Nah, brother, if they’re out there they ain’t getting’ in here.’

‘Just wanted backup, thought it would be better,’ Joel said. He could feel heat on his cheeks, his tummy twisting and unsettled in a strange way.

‘Y’know she’s safe here,’ Tommy said, and Joel grunted, tired of the conversation, of being condescended to by his idiot brother, soft after years of living behind a secure gate.

‘I know it,’ he said, not bothering to hide the frustration in his voice. ‘Told ya I was fine.’

--

Ellie was getting tired even though you’d only been working for two or so hours, the light turning golden as the afternoon settled in. You’d sat her up at the kitchen table but now you realised she was feeling restless, that the walls were closing in on her. You’d been going over World War I, in the lead up to the Great Depression, but she was struggling with all the different countries and you’d started to realise you maybe needed to get her an atlas first. It wasn’t the first time you’d been confronted with trying to teach the whole of human history to kids without any frame of reference with which to understand. But you persisted, because they needed to know it, because they were going to carry the history of the world in their words and their stories, because without them knowing, without them holding it, humanity would finally be wiped clear.

‘Maybe let’s switch it up,’ you said to Ellie, who was slumping over on her forearms, her chin resting in her hands.

‘Yes please,’ she said.

‘How about we do some botany?’ you asked, and she couldn’t hide her disappointment.

‘What’s that mean?’ she asked, barely raising her head.

‘It means let’s go sit outside, sit in the sun for a while.’

The Miller house was one of the originals in Jackson, which meant that it still had a little fenced area out back, where years and years ago someone might have been able to grill while watching their kids play under a sprinkler on a hot day. It also meant, though, that it was overgrown, the plants long having gone to seed, the grass thick and wild. You sat with Ellie on the edge of the porch, looking out at the weeds and the wildflowers. It reminded you of her.

‘Ok, so let’s talk about how plants pollenate,’ you said, picking a flower and dropping it into Ellie’s hands. ‘The thing about plants is that they need each other to grow. Flowers reproduce like humans do, so that means they need…’

‘Wait,’ Ellie said, her face incredulous. ‘Are you saying flowers have penises?’

‘Umm…well kind of?’ you said, trying to be serious as she broke out into fits of giggles.

‘This whole yard is full of dicks?’

‘Stamens,’ you said, and Ellie grinned again. ‘And other flowers make umm, well kind of like eggs I guess, that need the pollen that the stamen produce.’

‘This is sick,’ Ellie said, and you were trying not to grin at her, the warmth of the sun on your skin making you forget that you were supposed to be the serious adult in this situation.

‘It’s nature, Ellie.’

‘So out there right now,’ Ellie said, gesturing again to the yard, ‘is a plant orgy?’

You paused.

‘I mean…’ you started, and it was enough for Ellie to see that she was right, and she was howling then, doubled over with giggles.

‘Grossssssss,’ she said, and you were again reminded of how young she was, how exposed to such terrors in so many ways and so innocent of others.

‘I haven’t told you the best bit,’ you said, about to regret it but going for it anyway. ‘The pollen can’t easily get to the eggs without help, so things like bees or beetles or sometimes animals pass by the flowers and spread it around.’

‘Oh my god it’s a floral threesome,’ Ellie said, and you were trying not to giggle now, Ellie’s laughter creating little bubbles of joy in the air between you such that you couldn’t resist them, let them envelope you.

‘Are you learning anything right now?’ you asked, and Ellie shook her head.

‘Just that the world’s more fucked up than I thought,’ she said. You sighed.

‘What about cordyceps?’ she asked, suddenly, and you saw her pull on her sleeve. ‘Is that like…is that an orgy too? Inside people?’

Her face was serious now, and you felt the conversation shift.

‘No, fungus is what they actually call asexual, it doesn’t do the pollen thing, it does spores.’

Ellie considered this for a moment, and you watched the cogs turn in her head. ‘That seems right,’ she said, eventually. ‘There’s nothing sexy about those clicking motherfuckers.’

‘Ok, language,’ you said, and she glared at you, offended. ‘Sorry but I am here to do a job.’

‘I’m right though,’ she said, crushing the flower you’d given her in her fingers, rubbing the pollen between her palms, rolling it into a kind of paste.

--

Joel was not fine. Down at the mess hall he kept seeing Gollum and his younger friends, the bunch of them huddled over a map of the area, tracing the river up by the dam to see if they could work out where a person might wonder if they got lost. It was stupid, Joel knew any person coming up this way was coming because they had heard of the fabled safe haven beyond the gates, where the infected couldn’t tread and where raiders were kept at bay. Where there was safety and children and the world was going on, this tiny little piece of heaven that would surely welcome any comers brave enough to walk their way up to it.

He chewed his dinner like it had personally insulted him, wondering briefly where Ellie was. Wasn’t like her to miss dinner, but she was also starting to make some of her own friends, arcing away from him in that way that teenage girls do, and he was fighting down the panic, the searing abandonment, to let her go and be at home here, to find herself a place. Everything that had gone down in Salt Lake was to give her this, a chance at a future, at a normal life. He wasn’t going to mess it up now just because he missed her.

He'd been thinking of her the moment Guillaume said he wanted to keep going, knew in his bones, in his sinew, that if they were set upon he wouldn’t be fast enough, wouldn’t be able to get back to Jackson on his own, to warn the town, to send it into lockdown. Guillaume had a chance, but not if there were more than a handful of them and not if Joel had already fallen. Joel knew that his body and Guillaume’s would be lost to the mud they’d be left in when they were slaughtered where they stood. Then it would be on to Jackson, to Ellie and Tommy and Maria asleep in their beds.

He felt it starting to grip him, the tight little hand of panic wrapping itself up in his lower intestine and tugging, the shift in his heartrate sending tremors into his hands. Ellie tucked up in her bed thinking her dad was out there protecting her, not knowing the walls were being breached as she slept. Joel tried to swallow, found that his throat was too dry, dropped his spoon onto his plate and reached up to pull at his collar, give himself some room. Ellie’s blood seeping into her sheets, her last gasping breath wondering where her daddy was. Joel coughed, felt like his throat was closing, his ears ringing loud enough to drown out the mess hall around him. Blood on his shirt and on his arms, hands held tight and firm over punctured skin.

Joel stood up so fast he nearly kicked his chair over, the food turning sour in his gut as he strode out of the mess hall. Time to get air, time to get home, time to find Ellie and put her safe in the house, stand by the door and stop anyone from entering. He got home in record time, his heart thumping hard and insistent in his chest. He just needed to see her for a second, make sure she was alright, and then he would be able to breathe again.

Pulling open his front door hard enough to take it off the hinges, he called for her, his voice bouncing down the hall. He called again, his boots thumping into the living room, finding it empty, feeling his mind starting to unravel, his thoughts whirring faster than he could catch them. He tried again, preparing to take to the stairs when he heard the backdoor swinging open.

‘You finally home old man?’ she called, and he turned towards it, his legs carrying him in the direction of her voice before he’d even really thought about it.

‘Ellie?’ he called again, rounding the corner to find her standing, bare foot and smiling in the last of the afternoon light.

‘You eat already?’ she asked, and he felt the slack return to his muscles, the breath expand again into the bottom of his lungs. He felt shaky and woozy, wanted to sit down and also pull her to him, check her over just to try and ease his racing mind.

‘I could go and get something,’ you called from over her shoulder, and Joel felt his stomach drop, again, peering around his daughter as he saw you perched on the edge of the porch, a textbook in your lap and a notepad on the ground in front of you, covered in Ellie’s scrawl.

‘Hi Joel,’ you said, when he came into view. You waved to him, shyly, and tried very hard not to take it personally when he just panted in your general direction.

‘You’re being weird,’ Ellie observed, and Joel turned his eyes back to her. His heart was still racing, his hands still trembling, but he was home and so was Ellie, and now so were you, and he had interrupted a moment of innocence, a moment ripped from the future he had bought for Ellie with blood, and he was a fool and a coward and a very, very tired one at that.

‘Ate already, but you guys keep learnin’,’ he said, his voice gravelly and unsure. He rested his hand on his chest, right at the base of his sternum, and tried to breathe into it.

‘You OK?’ you asked, moving to stand up, but he held his hands up to you.

‘No, stay,’ he said, moving back from the door and into the house, his feet carrying him into the kitchen. ‘I won’t threaten to cook for you, let me go back to the mess and get you somethin’. Both of you somethin’.’

After he was gone, Ellie turned to you.

‘He was being weird,’ she repeated.

--

Joel sat on the couch in the living room, listening to you and Ellie chat. You’d been at his place almost all day, teaching and entertaining his girl, and you didn’t seem to be tired at all. Joel was exhausted, his bones creaking. He still felt out of sorts, a knot in his stomach at the thought of someone prowling outside the walls. He had to remember what Tommy had said, that they weren’t going to get in unless invited. He had to put trust in other people to believe it, though, and he’d learned long ago that’s not how you stay alive.

He heard Ellie giggling again, and he tuned back in to your conversation.

‘Does Joel know about the plant dicks?’ Ellie was asking, and he was up and heading in.

‘Do I know about the what?’ he asked, and he turned to you, saw that you were furiously blushing. You’d both finished your stew, were now just sitting at the table, Ellie leaning all the way back on her chair.

‘Flowers have dicks and they’re constantly orgy-ing each other,’ Ellie said.

‘Orgy’s not a verb,’ you said, because you were going to make this conversation educational if it fucking killed you.

‘What the hell you girls been doin’ all day?’ Joel asked, pretending to be offended. Ellie laughed, seeing through it immediately.

‘Nothin’ you need to worry about anymore, old man,’ she said, and she laughed again when Joel swatted her comment away. You couldn’t help noticing, because you were trained to watch, that Ellie started dropping her g’s when Joel was around.

Joel pulled out a chair and sat down beside you, glancing down at the books piled up, now closed, on the table.

‘She been good to ya today?’ he asked you, nodding his head towards Ellie.

‘She did a great job,’ you said, really meaning it. ‘I didn’t expect to be here so long, I’m sorry if I’ve overstayed.’

He waved this comment away, too.

‘Happy to have you here looking after her, feel better knowin’ she’s got someone here.’

‘I’m sittin’ right here y’know,’ Ellie said, and you turned to her.

‘Sorry, I used to hate when the adults talked about me like I wasn’t there, that’s my bad,’ you said. She nodded at you, accepting your apology.

‘Canna go see Dina?’ she asked Joel, and he nodded.

‘It’s late, don’t be long,’ he called after her, but she was already up and heading down the hall.

‘She really did do well today,’ you said to him, and he nodded at you.

‘She’s a bright girl,’ he replied. You heard the front door slam, taking it as your cue to leave.

‘Wait,’ Joel said, reaching out and nearly taking your arm, stopping himself just in time. ‘I wanted to…ask you somethin’.’

‘Course,’ you said, sitting back down.

‘You ever get…I mean you work in that schoolhouse, and it’s so…the whole place here it’s just like…’

He was floundering, and he knew it, and he couldn’t stop it.

‘I had a hard time when I first got here,’ you said, throwing him a lifeline that he snatched up, held fast to his chest. ‘It felt like…I don’t know, like a mirage?’

Joel nodded. ‘Keep waitin’ to wake up, back in some forest somewhere.’

‘Yeah, I remember that,’ you said. ‘I mean it’s been a while, but I remember that feeling. Not being able to trust it.’

You watched as Joel stared down at his own hands, picking at the cuticles. You sensed he wanted to say more, and also that he wasn’t going to allow himself to. You waited.

 ‘I felt like that, in your schoolhouse,’ he said, trying to explain in a way that would make sense, hoping you would understand enough that he didn’t have to say it out loud. ‘Took me back to before. Couldn’t believe my eyes, felt like time travel. Would have spun me out ‘cept you were there.’

‘What did I do?’ you asked, surprised.

‘Don’t rightly know, but you did it,’ he said, simply.

‘In the schoolhouse, you felt like it was before? It felt too normal?’ you asked, and he nodded.

‘Too comfortable,’ he agreed.

‘Give it time, maybe?’ you suggested.

‘Just want her to do good here,’ he said, and you knew he meant Ellie, and that he was keeping you here at his kitchen table, telling you this, so that you would come back, so that you would keep trying for her. You didn’t know what he’d done to get her here, but you knew it must have been terrible because it couldn’t have been anything else, and now he was asking you to make it worth it, and you were surprised by how fervently you wanted to.

‘She will, and you will too,’ you said, and you realised you’d reached out and put your hand on his, and that his eyes had travelled to yours, and now you were gazing at each other, a little bit of shock on both of your faces at the electricity pumping out of your hand and into his skin, at the weight and the heat of it. Joel felt it travelling up his arm and into his chest, felt it start to cauterise a wound he hadn’t realised he was carrying. He cleared his throat, and you pulled back, sliding your hand to your chair and sitting on it lest it reached out to this man in front of you of its own accord again.

‘Didn’t mean to lay all that on ya,’ he said, feeling exposed, suddenly. Shy. You were too warm and too kind and too close in his kitchen. He’d just meant to thank you. Now he was stumblin’ over his words.

‘It’s OK,’ you said, feeling the shift in him, again, the way he was closing off. ‘But I better get going, I’m on the wall tomorrow.’

‘Yeah? You do that, too?’

‘I do, I like it. I feel like I’m helping, like I’m maybe keeping people safe.’ You were standing, gathering your books into your arms. Joel stood, too, his full height and his full breadth expanding into the air around you. ‘Never seen much, sometimes a clicker or two, one time thought it was a man coming up on all fours. Turned out to be a badger.’ Joel grinned, huffing out a quiet laugh.

‘They can be ferocious.’

‘Thank you!’ you exclaimed. ‘Everyone laughed at me, but you want a badger running around Jackson? No, you do not.’

Joel was laughing now, buoyed somewhat by your indignation. ‘No ma’am,’ he said, smiling warmly at you in a way that made your tummy flip.

‘You got the day off?’ you asked, and he nodded. ‘What’re you gonna do with your time?’

His smile faltered. He wasn’t entirely sure, if he was honest. You sensed his hesitation, kicking yourself for prying. ‘That’ll help,’ you said, ‘if you can get a hobby, find something you like, it’ll feel normal quicker. Doesn’t have to be for anyone but you, you already do enough.’

‘Used to like whittlin’, I guess,’ he said. ‘Been a while, probably cut my damn finger off.’

‘That sounds great,’ you replied. ‘Relaxing.’

Your arms were getting tired from the books, but you didn’t want to go just yet, not until he was feeling better, not until you’d managed to get the slightly haunted look off his face. He was nodding at you, but he still seemed unsure. ‘If you wanna, I could use some figurines for the classroom,’ you said, thinking wildly.

‘Oh yeah?’ he said, and you nodded your head.

‘Tried to teach them about the ocean last week. You know how hard it is to describe a whale to kids that haven’t seen anything bigger than whatever they can catch in the lake?’

Joel was smiling again, now, and you felt the warmth of it on your face. ‘No pressure, though,’ you raced to say, suddenly worried you’d accidentally given him another job.

He shook his head, dismissing your concerns. ‘Might need to start smaller than a whale,’ he said. ‘Seein’ as how I’d need a whole lot of wood.’

‘I’ll take whatever you can give me,’ you said. ‘Any sea creature you can. Just please, not a flower. I’ve heard enough about flower penises for a long while.’

He laughed, then, a big boisterous full-sized thing. It set your heart racing, pulled a smile onto your lips. You heard Ellie’s laughter in it, saw her smile as you sat on the back porch in the last light of the afternoon. You saw the wildflowers and the long grass in it, the shock of gold against a perfectly blue sky.

Taglist (let me know if you'd like me to add you) @harriedandharassed

@vickie5446

@kaseyconnour

@orcasoul

@missladym1981

@spacesoutdaydreamer

@tangled-tumbler-blog-blog

[perfectsunlight]

01 ━━━ THE WAY THINGS GO

warnings: minor angst.

word count: 2.3k

synopsis: your ex-wife receives an invite to your wedding, but will she let you say "i do" for a second time?

masterlist | next

when the leaves grow green and the cherry blossoms bloom, soyeon remembers your wedding. however, she wasn’t expecting that reminder six months earlier, and this time it wasn’t a reminder of the past.

the ceo furrowed her eyebrows as she flipped over the white envelope that had been addressed to her as “jeon soyeon” and not “ceo jeon.” did her mother send her a late birthday card? or was it something from a friend?

a pit formed in her stomach when she recognized the handwriting. it was yours.

the woman’s fingers trembled slightly as she gently opened the invitation, and prayed to every god in the sky that it wasn’t true. she hoped that the non-formal addressing and the color scheme meant anything but the thoughts running through her head.

the elegant script on the invitation danced before her eyes, adorned with black and white lettering. the weight of the revelation caused her chest to tighten and the air inside her lungs to disappear. 

you were getting re-married. 

it had been 5 years since the divorce. had you really moved on?

as she read the details of the upcoming ceremony, soyeon couldn't shake the mixture of disbelief and subtle pain that twisted in her stomach. 

on top of that, you were marrying a man who happened to be an old school friend of yours. he was always the only person who had been closer to you than she was.

with a heavy heart, she traced the letters of your name on the invitation, feeling the ink under her fingertips as she remembered the way her name looked next to yours all those years ago. 

she thought about reaching for her phone, dialing your number and demanding an explanation from you. but the rational ceo within her prevailed, reminding her that the past was just that—a chapter closed and done, sealed with the ink of divorce papers.

yet, in the solitude of her office, surrounded by the trappings of success, soyeon couldn't escape the way this single white envelope had made her feel. the memories of your love that once bloomed like the blossoms outside her window did in early may were now juxtaposed against the harsh reality of a future that no longer included her.

with a sigh, she folded the invitation, holding it in her hands as if the act itself could contain the storm of emotions brewing deep inside her. she had so much left to say to you, but she didn’t even want to bother trying at this point. 

you were getting re-married, and she would have to accept the fact that you no longer were in love with her. 

she gently placed the envelope against the side of her desk lamp, not wanting to throw it away, but also not knowing exactly what to do with it either.

her gaze lingered on the invitation, her mind oscillating between the urge to confront the past and the wisdom of letting it rest. she wrestled with the conflicting desires, knowing very well that your happiness was all she ever wanted, but also hating that your happiness was no longer coming from her.

but soyeon knew that it hadn’t been coming from her for years now.

the ceo knew she couldn't change the course of your life or the feelings that led to this moment. the realization stung, but it also carried a quiet strength—a reminder that she had weathered storms before, and this, too, was just another tempest to endure.

as she leaned back in her chair, she allowed herself a moment of reflection. her eyes briefly glanced at the scenery outside her window. autumn leaves were falling, symbolizing the true arrival of the fall season. the tiniest smile tugged at the corners of her lips as she watched them dance in the wind.

it reminded her of the first time she met you.

the air outside was cold, and on that day specifically, soyeon remembered thinking she could feel the brisk touch of winter lurking in the breeze. it was a day much like this one, with leaves in hues of amber and gold painting the path beneath her feet. the crunching sound echoed with each step as she approached cube’s headquarters.

her breath escaped in visible puffs before she entered the warm heating from the establishment. a soft beep announced her arrival as she made her way to the elevator. once her feet carried her to the practice room, her eyes scanned the figures of the other girls there, searching for a face she had only seen in photographs and the youtube videos she watched for over 50 hours.

there was soojin, the master of the stage. shuhua and yuqi, the loud ones. miyeon and minnie, the two aces up soyeon’s sleeve.

and then there was you.

you, the newcomer whose presence was anticipated for weeks. you, with a burning passion that seemed to radiate like the winter sun filtering through the frosted windows of the practice room. you, with an undeniable presence that made you stand out even among the most talented ensembles.

when yuqi mentioned that she had a cousin who was, as she said, “even better than me”, the leader raised her eyebrows, intrigued by the idea that there was another who was at the same level of talent. 

it wasn't long before soyeon found you.

jeon soyeon probably spent hours watching videos of you, consumed and captivated with everything you did. cube wanted to cap the group at six members, but soyeon begged for them to let you in. 

she presented a compelling case, illustrating how your unique talents and energy would enrich the ensemble, creating a harmonious blend that surpassed the limitations of a predefined vision. you, in her eyes, were the vital piece needed to complete the puzzle she envisioned.

after much persuasion, the company relented, granting you a place within the group lineup.

the girls paused in their dance routine, their attention turning towards the doorway that signaled their leader’s arrival.

soyeon felt a mixture of responsibility and eagerness. as the leader, it was her role to guide and nurture the talents within the group, and your arrival brought both the challenge and the potential for something extraordinary. she remembered the way the stress felt on her young shoulders at the time, but there was something that changed in that very next moment.

the way your eyes met hers for the first time was something she’d never forget. 

soyeon had never seen such soft irises.

it was a bit awkward at first, especially since she remembered that your korean vocabulary was very limited at the time. you actually mentioned to her once that you spent the flight to incheon memorizing korean phrases.

you just simply smiled, and soyeon remembered thinking you were the best thing she’d ever seen.

the ringing of her office phone snapped her back to reality, where the responsibilities of being a leader and the demands of the industry pressed upon her. soyeon shook off the remnants of the memory, though the warmth of your smile lingered in her thoughts.

with a composed demeanor, she answered the phone, her ceo mode immediately activated. it was a flurry of discussions, decisions, and planning for the upcoming schedule. the music industry moved at a relentless pace, and soyeon had proven time and time again that she was an immovable force.

but truth be told, she didn’t really process half of what the other person was saying. matter of fact, she was running on autopilot even after work when she was in the back of her all black suv returning home.

the home you once lived in. 

the ceo punched in the code for the door with a heavy sigh, being met with the dark and quiet space. she was used to the lack of life that lingered in her home. as she took her shoes off and placed her bag down, the wedding invitation slipped and landed onto the floor.

soyeon didn’t remember slipping it in there. or maybe she did, and couldn’t remember? her mind had been a mess all day, and with the shake of her head she gently picked it up and placed it on the nearby tabletop.

she wandered into the living room, where subtle traces of your life together still lingered. the color of the walls you had chosen was still the same. soyeon didn’t have the time to change them after you left. it felt like too much work for something that meant nothing.

at least, to her the color didn’t mean anything. you were the only thing that mattered.

the brief thought of you painting the walls of your new home that same shade of cream entered her mind. it didn’t sit well with her at all.

to be honest, the divorce never sat well with her either. but at the time, she was too prideful to admit that losing you would mean losing everything.

soyeon’s eyes wandered to the empty mantle, where empty command hooks still remained. you would be decorating the house around this time of the year. she never understood why you needed to cover every square inch of your shared home with holiday decor, but it made you happy and she never questioned it.

the ceo made her way up the stairs and into the bedroom and into her bathroom. she remembered the days you’d yell at her to go shower before laying in bed, and for a moment she could remember your laughter at the sight of her laying in bed all sweaty after a long day of practice.

she stood in the bathroom, the echoes of your playful banter ringing in her ears. soyeon's gaze fell on the shower, a space that had witnessed both the mundane routines and the intimate moments of your shared life. she hated the tiles when you insisted on buying them for the house. she couldn't help but smile wistfully at the memory of your insistence on those particular tiles. 

you had argued that they added a touch of character to the bathroom, and now after all these years, standing amidst the steam and droplets, she had to admit that you were right.

with a contemplative sigh, soyeon turned to face the water, allowing it to cascade over her tired shoulders. the familiar sound of water against tile was soothing to her. it was her only source of solace nowadays. she was too old to party, too mature for clubbing, and far too busy to find a new hobby.

it reminded her of the times when you would always call to tell her about something new you had learned every day. she didn’t know how you did it, but you always seemed to constantly be doing ten things at once.

the ceo reached for her shampoo bottle, the same brand she had been using ever since you complemented its scent all those years ago. she always told you she was just a creature of habit, and that she liked it because she had it for so long.

but she never mentioned the other truth to it. maybe she should have. perhaps it would have made you feel even an ounce more appreciated than you did when you were married to her. 

eventually she stepped out of the shower and changed into comfortable loungewear. her hair was still wet as it left small impressions on her white shirt, and for a fleeting moment she could hear you yelling at her to just blow dry it. 

she never listened to you before. perhaps she should have listened to you, not just about tiles and wet hair.

the former idol made her way to the bookshelf in the hallway beside her bedroom. soyeon had developed a habit of reading every night before bed (thanks to you), but she never read anything but her manga. 

soyeon's eyes wandered over the titles, each one she had read over numerous times and yet still enjoyed it. but tonight, she didn’t feel like reading her usual choices.

she reached for one that held a particularly special place in her heart—the novel you had recommended during one of your late-night conversations. as she held the book in her hands, the cover brought back a flood of memories.

you used to pick so many different books that you thought would resonate with her, begging her to pick up literature of “more value” for once instead of a picture book. eventually, you gave up on making her read something different and just stored the numerous novels on the shelf next to soyeon’s comics.

but tonight she would finally listen to you for once.

fahrenheit 451. a book you refused to put down all those years ago.

she traced the spine of the book with her fingers, reminiscing about the nights you spent discussing the intricacies of the plot, dissecting the characters' motivations, and sharing the emotions the story stirred within you. the book, a tangible artifact of the intellectual intimacy you once held, now felt both comforting and achingly distant.

as she gently thumbed through the pages, a small, forgotten object slipped out and landed on her feet. it was a bookmark—a simple yet profound reminder of your shared history. soyeon gently picked it up, her twitching fingers tracing the edges. 

it was your old wedding invitation, elegantly adorned with the details of a day that had once symbolized the union of your lives.

soyeon just stared at the bookmark you had used, her mind flooded with emotions. if it was any other day, maybe she wouldn’t feel like this. maybe she’d brush it off with a small smile and move onto reading the book without any problems.

but after seeing your new wedding invitation this morning, she couldn’t escape the feeling gnawing in her chest. 

water droplets landed on the small piece of paper—perhaps remnants from her wet hair, or maybe they were the silent traces of tears that had escaped her eyes. whichever it might have been, soyeon only knew one thing was for certain.

she should have listened to you. 

[kadavernagh]

TIMING: During the goo clean up efforts LOCATION: Around Worm Row PARTIES: @kadavernagh & @banisheed SUMMARY: After the discovery that their screams could free people from the goo, Regan asks for Siobhan's help to do this safely. Siobhan would never pass up this opportunity and it has nothing to do with helping anyone.

Siobhan didn’t know where Regan’s sore spots were, but she’d climbed up and now it was heads butting, horns clacking on the side of a mountain.

There had already been a couple dozen in the morgue. People “rescued” from the goo that trapped them for so long by well-intended humans with clumsy pickaxes and hammers. There were successes, too – reunions celebrated and a trail of ambulances rushing to hydrate and feed those who were extracted. Regan’s scream was more akin to one of those fumbling, blunt instruments rather than the fine elegance of one of her scalpels. She would not put others in the hospital and especially not the morgue. But Siobhan could get people out, and safely. She possessed the experience and weathered practice. She just might murder them on purpose when they were free and gave her their credit card information.

She refused to wear the coat. Refused to wear a turtleneck or anything else Siobhan had a history of needling at. She was an adult and would look the part. So Regan was form-fitting today in black jeans and a light, olive jacket (that might have reminded her of a certain someone's eyes), as if Siobhan wouldn’t still sink her claws into the attire and pick the strands apart. She always seemed to know exactly what to say to get a rise out of Regan.

They were going to start with Dewlap Street, which had enough moose sightings that they could blame the beasts if anyone got suspicious. Regan knew she was close to the other banshee when her skin itched, and she wished to rake it off of her bones. Siobhan probably would have liked that. Regan suspected that even if she couldn’t sense her, Siobhan was not someone who was possible to overlook. Especially–

“That’s… is that my coat?” For a minute, all Regan could do was stare dumbly at the puffy winter coat covering every inch of Siobhan. No, almost every inch. Her lower half looked suspiciously nude under there. Regan had come with retorts in mind to every predictable thing Siobhan could say, but somehow she managed to be completely disarming. Regan finally found her tongue, though it was busy batting down a frustrated screech. Maddening. “You think you’re hilarious, don’t you?” Okay, sure, it was winter. And cold. But that wasn’t why Siobhan was wearing that coat. “As you can see, I don’t need a coat. So I’m not – I do not care. I don’t. Do what you want. Not that you need my permission. You would do what you wish anyway. You are not hilarious, by the way. I don’t care if you think that, either.” Regan loosened her grit teeth. This was what not caring looked like. 

Her tone stayed short. “Can you scream under all of that coat? That’s why we’re here.” Not a kidnapping. A blanket of hardened goo had washed over the street like a dark wave and freeze dried. Several clumps rose above the mat of mineral, and at least some of them probably had people inside of them, like the world’s worst (best?) chocolate-covered raisins. Regan could feel no death inside. If anyone was in there, they were in the same stasis as Teagan and many others. Siobhan was no doubt thinking about how easy it would be to extort them.

It was stupid. Being here, willingly, with the woman who had wanted to kidnap her to Ireland. But Regan sensed that things had changed – not Siobhan’s desire to leave as soon as possible, but she was rational enough to recognize that a willing departure was better for everyone. And she would afford Regan the small amount of time requested, so long as she knew the intention was clear: they would leave, and they would leave soon. She was nearly ready now, wasn’t she? The thought of tearful goodbyes sent a shockwave of revulsion through her. If Siobhan decided to whisk her off right now, so be it. In its own way it would have been a kindness.

But Regan didn’t think that would happen. And if her presence here meant Siobhan wouldn’t be cracking peoples’ skulls open instead of just vibrating the goo off their scalps, then she would be here. Though her own might crack open. Regan pointed to one of the goo lumps. “Just get started so we can free them and part ways.”

Siobhan’s beauty was a contestable fact. Her striking red and black wings were gone and her skin was marred in a grotesque fashion; flesh transformed to a swamp of linear bubbles and baby-pink overgrowth. The overall appearance wasn’t that of a battle torn woman or one that possessed a quaint story for a small scar—a slip on a wet rock by the bed of a lake in Killarney—but of wrongness. A look that urged more looks, staring, scrutinizing, snickering. So, it was of the utmost importance to make sure Regan never saw; that annoying brain of hers would spew more annoying retorts about it. Her beauty couldn’t be contested if it was always false. Her glamors worked double-time—one for her eyes, a larger one across her body—but she always dressed as if there was nothing to hide. 

This time, the goal was simple: puffy winter coat, seasonally inappropriate heels that accentuated the curve of her glamored calves, and the show-stopper hidden underneath… “Hello, Regan.” And her name was Regan, as Siobhan learned when she entered her details into one of her scam websites claiming to ‘unsubscribe’ from emojis. It wasn’t insulting that she’d been so foolishly wrong, or that Regan didn’t correct her, but that when she’d Googled her name she discovered that Regan was–of all things–a doctor. Her tiny brain had gone to medical school and came out the other end. Then again, Siobhan was also a doctor, thanks to a few promises and forgeries, so perhaps that was also the case for Regan. She’d ask. “No ‘how are you’ or ‘how was your day’?” She grinned, following Regan’s annoyance with her own unbidden glee. “What? This?” Siobhan looked down at her winter coat as if it was her first time seeing it, poking at the segmented puffs. “Oh.” She waved her hand in the air, smiling lopsidedly because it was funny and she was hilarious. “This old thing…I’ve had it for ages. Sorry, did you think I was emulating you? With your embarrassing fashion sense?”

Step one of her plan had worked marvelously; step two was a less subtle performance. Siobhan first took in Regan’s appearance: basic black jeans which hugged a body that was not to scoff at, an understated olive jacket which complimented both her pale colors and her figure. She looked reasonable and if Siobhan was also being reasonable, she’d say she looked good. Thankfully, ‘reasonable’ had taken a long sabbatical from Siobhan’s mind. “You look like you walked out of a TJ Maxx catalog.” Siobhan shifted her weight. “Did you go into a department store and decide to pick the clothes off the first mannequin you looked at? And what are those jeans? Do you plan on asphyxiating your legs?” Step two sliced through the wave that threatened it; smooth sailing now.

Step three had delighted Siobhan so thoroughly that she skipped on her way over, silently thankful that Regan hadn’t seen her childish delight. “Can you walk in those jeans?” Siobhan began fanning herself. “Actually, before we get on with it…it’s quite hot…Do you mind if I just…” Across the empty street—except for the lumpy goo bodies—the sound of Siobhan’s zipper whistled like a flute. Revealing itself underneath the mass of puffy heat insulated fabric was a turtleneck—a sensible fashion choice turned sensual. Modified with a cut across its chest to show off her cleavage, which was also modified (by the right kind of bra) to be pushed up and together in a fashion that was not at all obliging to comfort or exercise. The turtleneck dress ended immodestly; just barely covering her thighs. The only thing that bothered Siobhan about it was that she’d had to order it in one of those dreadful neutral tones that Regan seemed to like. Step three demanded that level of dedication. In these blissful moments of a well-executed annoyance, Siobhan had completely forgotten what they came here for; she’d been ready to walk away now, having accomplished what she truly set out to do. “Alright then, which lump did you point at? This one?” 

“I hate you,” Regan spat, even knowing she wasn’t even allowed as much, and that Siobhan knew it, too. Regan didn’t need to hear more about how she was a tiny infant child who could not control herself. She had heard enough of that in her 7 years there. “You know my name. Congratulations. How long did it take you? They want you back so much they neglected to tell you the name of the banshee you were supposed to capture. Have you considered that?” Regan’s attempt to be nonchalant was once again through grit teeth. Siobhan would never be similarly incensed, she was sure. How ironic that it was the near-perfect banshee straining to return and the feelings-filled failure who went kicking and screaming. “TJ Maxx has good deals. Am I supposed to be offended?” That, at least, was more confusing than insulting. “I am adequately limber; my legs do not choke. Stop concerning yourself with my jeans. What are you–” 

Before Regan could ask about where Siobhan’s hand (and her slender fingers, and her perfect nails) was going, the answer was freed by the zipper. And underneath was one of the strangest turtlenecks she had ever seen. Could it even be called that? Regan’s eyes scanned the beige fabric and inevitably bullseye’d on the cut-out perfectly framing even more perfect breasts. Then, when she managed to breathe again, down to the suggestive contours of Siobhan’s thighs, her shins. Regan was too proud to tolerate mockery – but the longer she looked at Siobhan standing there, her dark eyes searching for something coming to life on Regan’s face, the less she saw this as mockery at all.

Siobhan was waiting. Waiting for a reaction. It was for show. All of Siobhan was for show. Regan knew it. And that made it easier to wrap a fist around any irritation bubbling up. Siobhan, who oozed with sultry appeal and carried decades of experience Regan could only wish she had… reeked of desperation. And the harder she tried, the less opaque this became. And that… well, that was only sad. Finally, Regan tilted her head and gave Siobhan a hardened look. “How does it feel? Knowing that your entire future predicates on me? If I am so pathetic as to inspire this, then what does that make you?”

She would waste no more time on this. Regan pointed to the lump in the goo again. “That one. It’s big. I think there may be multiple people trapped in there, if they’re people at all.” It could have been a car or something. Or a car with multiple people in it. “Show me how it’s done. I’m sure you don’t mind.”

Siobhan’s joy was stripped from her. Risen by the tide of Regan’s annoyance���“I hate you”—which served only to prove that Siobhan had won. Won what? One battle in the perpetual game that her life was; one moment to solidify her superiority; one scrap of time, inconsequential, to prove to someone that she was something. What she’d won didn’t matter so much as she’d won it. And then, swept away by Regan’s astuteness—“...then what does that make you”—her glee sunk. Suddenly she felt silly, small, and then angry. “It makes me sexy,” she sneered, wincing at the immature edge to her voice. The image of a slipping mountain goat flashed through her mind; she shook it away. “They would take me back without you,” Siobhan said, puffing her chest out. Then she thought about how mountain goats don’t really slip, do they, but the one in her head just couldn’t stop—it must have been defective; she shook her head. “It’s simply quicker with you. That’s all. You don’t…” She jabbed her finger at the drab Regan—nothing which commanded respect, nothing which demanded attention.

Siobhan marched up to the lump. She could have screamed just once, delicately cracking the layers to leave the inside undamaged; she could have screamed once and ended the agony that was interacting with Regan Kavanagh; she could have been done in a minute. Instead, she smiled at her audience of goo and screamed as if blowing out a candle; the dainty bend of her body, the casual burst of her monstrous voice. A peel of goo shattered, one mostly-even layer. The rest was unmarred, unbothered, unquestionably representative of a fact that she would meticulously shove into Regan’s plain face. She screamed again like a territorial lion; curling into herself, fists quivering. The same quantity of goo shattered. And thus began dozens of screams, in dozens of ways, all bringing her exactly the result she controlled them to. Underneath the goo was a car, revealing in chunks the family trapped inside. Siobhan could have freed them but instead, chiseled around their bodies. When the sight was obvious—two smaller bodies, in the back seat clutching each other and one in the front, diving across the console—Siobhan stepped aside with a grin. 

“Well, that was enough observation, wasn’t it? Wouldn’t you like to try, Regan?” She knew she couldn’t; she knew if she tried, she’d kill them. “You’re a doctor, right? You help people?” Siobhan didn’t know where Regan’s sore spots were, but she’d climbed up and now it was heads butting, horns clacking on the side of a mountain. “Of course, if you’d like to admit that you’re inexperienced—that you’re a child who needs an adult to help you—of course…” Siobhan touched her bare chest. “I could take over again. But you’re so smart, aren’t you? You went to medical school, didn’t you? You know so, so much, right?”

“Quicker by a couple of centuries, maybe,” Regan said, perhaps more confident than she should be. They had gone back and forth so many times, a string pulled taut, she couldn’t keep track of who had the actual power here. Siobhan could threaten those Regan cared about and knew Regan would never do the same back (if Siobhan even cared for someone). Regan could make things impossibly difficult, necessitating force from Siobhan that she was positive would be easier said than done when an international flight was involved. So she could, and did, push back, delaying them for months. Because she could. Siobhan could puff herself up all she wanted. Regan was coming to understand that she was the ticket to Siobhan’s future. And that was power, was it not? Or would it loop all the way back to threats, the cycle fated to repeat? It hadn’t yet. The way Siobhan’s words fell with her face – blink and you’ll miss it – spoke more than any threat.

So now she would puff up. Had it been another banshee’s performance, and not delaying saving people, Regan might have found it beautiful (and jealousy seethed no matter what). But because it was Siobhan, it was dreadful, and too long, and the changes in pitch were annoying, and did she really have to have her back so straight, such perfect form? Cliodhna would have been proud. That made her lungs boil. Regan would never amount to this. Not in three years and not in three hundred years. A failure. “Show off,” Regan muttered. But there was no one else she was showing off to. Regan’s envy had an edge. “I must be worth the effort then, huh? You took a long time; are you slowing down in your old age? I value efficiency.” Wouldn’t you like to try? If her lungs boiled before, now they seared with ire she had to forcibly bite back; Siobhan knew that if Regan attempted to try this, the very people they were here to save would become her victims. They would shatter with the ooze like they had never even existed. Would their insides be stiff, too, exploding into millions of pieces? Would she find tiny fragments of bone in her hair? 

Regan had no argument, no rebuttal. She could only think about the people who had been trapped in that car dying to her scream. She stared at the vehicle. It was blue or black, difficult to tell with patches of goo still clinging to the metal in a few spots, and she looked inside, spotting three precious lives. Regan’s mouth went dry and moved automatically. She had to say it. “I did not bring you here because I enjoy your company. You know you have to do it.”

But the longer she watched Siobhan preen, watched that carnivorous grin stretch across her flawless face, the clearer all of this became. Siobhan was right about two things, actually (which was unfortunate – and she was not a leanbh, that wasn’t one of the two). Regan shook herself free of her doubt… and the insult. While they remained in Wicked’s Rest, she had a grip on Siobhan just as Siobhan had a grip on her. That taut string was looking more like a pair of handcuffs right now. Realization crept onto her face just as it had into her mind. “You’re right, I am a doctor. I help people.” The words thudded through her, echoing as if she were hollow and sounding bigger than they made her feel. It was somehow both an act of defiance and submission that Regan turned her back to the other banshee (and was it so wrong to hope Siobhan saw it only as the former?). Her eyes and thoughts zeroed in on the car. Siobhan didn’t matter. She didn’t. Regan didn’t honor her with a glance over the shoulder. “I think I do know a thing or two.”

Between the hardened goo and the screams, the car’s windows had been shattered, and Regan was able to carefully worm her arm in and wrench open the door, giving her easy access to the three people trapped inside. They were dazed, their faces pale and bodies thin, mirrors of the dead but in a way even Regan didn’t like. They blinked their eyes at her like she was nothing but a blur in the light. Regan kicked into her white coat mentality. Yes. Yes, she did know. She knew what Siobhan did not. Regan kneeled by the door, goo crumbs under her boots, and she rested a hand on the driver’s knee. “You’re okay. Right now at–” No, wrong script. “Ahem. I’m a doctor. I’m here to help. We got you out of here, and we’re going to get you medical attention. Can you speak?” The man’s voice was gargled at first, but slowly he enunciated his name. John? No, it was Jan. “Good. Stay put.” Like he had a choice; his legs probably wouldn’t function right now. 

Regan trotted triumphantly past Siobhan (puffed up a little, fine). She dialed an ambulance, told them they might as well send more over here and be ready. And bring ear plugs (insulting as they were). Why? No reason. Regan turned, raising a brow at the woman who had lived so long but knew so little that mattered. “You can’t expect me to leave the country when there are others stuck, can you?” What was it that Jade said helped here, in situations like this? It was foolish, but – ah, yes, positive reinforcement. No, she decided; she couldn’t do it. Siobhan would need to figure it out herself.

Showing herself to be allergic to fun yet again, Regan brushed Siobhan’s game aside. Siobhan’s display of superiority might have awed any banshee that knew better, but Regan wasn’t one of them. Begrudgingly, Siobhan screamed and wailed and freed wide-eyed humans from their goo prisons. And she watched with a narrowed gaze as the pathetic, shivering creatures looked not at her and her ample cleavage, but to Regan, and her strange authority—to her title of “doctor”. Again and again she watched relief twinkle in wet eyes, followed by the frantic nodding of heads to the steady drone of Regan’s voice. Whatever it meant to be a doctor, beyond a few papers, it seemed to be embodied in Regan beyond Siobhan’s comprehension. Siobhan zipped up her winter coat, turning her mind to efficiency. She screamed, she was doing the work to free them, yet it was Regan who was helping. Words of gratitude ripe for the taking—plump ‘thank you’s and ‘I owe you’s—fluttered in the air; Regan didn’t take them. 

It occurred to Siobhan that Regan didn’t intend to gain anything. That, perhaps, something was being done out of—and Siobhan detested the word—goodness. That Regan might have been good; not strong, not fun, not a proper banshee, not fashionable, not mature, but good. Where had she learned that? From her grandmother? Why hadn’t her own grandmother taught her anything about goodness? Why couldn’t she do this? The idea of—and she did really hate the word—goodness made Siobhan’s stomach clench. The little mountain goat in her mind tumbled down as Siobhan ran through the list of possible people Regan could have learned this unfair skill from. Was it fake? It must have been fake. There’s no such thing as a good person, is there?

When the humans finally left their goo, full of newfound fears of sticky substances and closed spaces, a special confidence held their frail minds together: they had been helped by Dr. Regan Kavanagh. 

[juliet-caramelmacchiato]

HOUSE OF CARDS

Pairing: Kim Namjoon/fem oc

Genre: Mystery/ fantasy/ investigation

Summary: Who destroyed the garden of the King of clubs?

Who caused the death of the Queen of spades?

Who broke the fragile order of the world, putting at risk the life of not one, but two sovereigns?

In a situation were anyone could be involved, the only one able to judge is too blinded by his own grief to be rational. The last remaining solution, then, seems to look for help from the outside. From someone who could determine once and for all the real culprit.

Word count: 2.9

****************************************************

CHAPTER 1

When the young woman arrived at her usual bench on the bank of the Han river, an unexpected surprise was waiting for her.

Who forgot a deck of cards?

Tilting her head, she sat eyeing the object with curiosity. If at a first glance it appeared to be a normal container for cards, to a more attentive scrutiny she recognised that the box seemed like it was made of metal, edged with gold and engraved with elegant patterns alongside the surface.

It didn't look like a common box. It must have been quite precious, given its workmanship. But then who could have left it there, on a simple bench? She got a little nearer, forgetting the leather notebook hidden in her bag which, at that point, would have already been on her thighs in normal circumstances. Her impatient fingers moved without her consent bringing her to grab the valuable object, when her fingertips met the rough consistency of paper instead of the coldness of metal. Furrowing her brows, she turned the box upside down. A message had been glued on the bottom and the young woman could do nothing but read its content with burning curiosity.

Can you solve this riddle?

WHO BROKE THE SWORD OF THE KING OF SPADES?

The Jack of spades bursts suddenly before the king shouting: "My lord, your sword has been broken in half!" Who could have done it? None of the sovereigns left his kingdom during the week but everyone seemed to have a motive.

The King of hearts could have seeked revenge because the King of spades had tried to conquer part of his territory.

The King of clubs had insisted on having one of his weapons to prune his garden, never receiving an answer.

The King of diamonds seemed to be the only one without a reason, but he was notably amicable with the King of hearts.

Who is the culprit?

If you think you know the answer, remove the corresponding card and place it on top of the box. If your answer is correct, something unexpected might happen!

The young lady tilted her head. A riddle? No, it looked more like a mystery. Biting her bottom lip, she read the question two times more, before opening the box. The cards, to her surprise, were made of metal as well. A pale metal similar to white gold, smoothed to perfection in an opaque texture where the details of the symbols were painted with a varnish as black as pitch and as red as blood. With cautious fingers, she extracted the right half of the deck, glancing through every card until she met the one she was looking for. Putting away the precious content in its bed of crimson silk, she closed the box and laid the card on the lid.

Yes, she thought she picked the right answer.

And, for a moment, nothing happened. The woman raised her eyes on the river, gazing around her to find the street and her surroundings completely deserted. She made a move to leave the box on the bench when a blinding ray of light departed from the card under her fingers.

From that ray, the light spread in an embrace that surrounded her completely. It was then that she lost consciousness.

-We're doomed.

-It was a terrible idea!

-But it was your idea, you idiot!

-But you agreed with me! And it was you who called Hoseok-hyung!

-Can you stop? The damage is already done now.

-Are you kidding? We have to send her back at all costs! He will kill us the moment he sees her!

-Show some respect.

-Don't be a suck-up now, Jungkook. You know he lost his mind, it's pointless to deny it. He will kill us, it's a fact.

-Can't we just... I don't know... swap her?

-She's not a figurine, Jungkook! And we already used too much energy to bring her here, we don't have enough even to take her back, let alone bring another human after her!

The young woman batted her eyelids. When her eyes focused on what was surrounding her, she furrowed her brows. That wasn't the white ceiling of her room. Actually, it seemed like there wasn't a ceiling at all. Above her, a dark hole was surrounded by heavy drapes of crimson fabric which fell to the four corners of her vision. Batting her eyes once more, she recognised it as a canopy.

A canopy?

Where was she?

-Silence, she's awake.

The woman raised her head, realising only then that she was laying on a bed that was twice as big as hers covered by a brocade sheet, embroidered with a thread that looked like it was made of pure gold. Grazing the precious material with her hand, she lifted her body to a sitting position, avidly studying the environment surrounding her. The walls of the room were covered in a golden wallpaper crossed by a chess motif and decorated by numerous oil paintings as big as a person, which depicted what looked like scenes from a royal court. A marble writing desk, a wooden cabinet painted in gold supporting a candlestick, covered in gold itself, were however the only furniture in the room. And, finally, her eyes landed on the three figures standing in front of the bed, occupied by watching her with a mixture of expectancy and weariness.

-Ehm... Hello?- she murmured with a raspy voice. The figures remained frozen in place with cautious pupils pointed at her. They were three good looking young men, dressed in a similar fashion but with slightly different colours. All three in fact were wearing the chest pieces of an armour, topped by light shoulder straps of the same solid metal and ending on a pair of sleek trousers and polished leather boots.

-Could you please tell me where am I?- she went on then, staring at the young men one at a time since they didn't seem inclined to speak. It was then that the first to the right, the one who seemed the oldest amongst the three and wore a golden armour rimmed with red, seemed to snap out of his stupor.

-Oh, well, we... you... you found the cards, right?- he stammered, running his eyes from her to his companions, who looked at him anxiously. The woman, after a moment in thought, nodded. He swallowed, then, forcing himself to bring his gaze back to her.

-And you solved the riddle, correct?

Nodding once more, the woman studied the restlessness in the gaze of the speaker, who seemed to reach some sort of decision with himself, judging by the growing determination in the expression painted on his face.

-Why did you choose the Jack of Spades?

His companions turned to him with confused eyes while he concentrated his attention on her only.

-Hyung!

-She's here now. The best we can do is see if she can be of any help- he replied curtly to the taller one, who wore a black armour rimmed with silver.

-Help? For what?

The attention of the three warriors returned on her as soon as she opened her mouth, while she was staring at them with joined brows. The oldest, after throwing a reprimanding glance at his companions, started speaking once again.

-This is a matter that we will explain later. Now, please, answer: why did you choose the Jack of spades?

The woman remained silent for a moment. The three men didn't seem hostile towards her, otherwise it was likely that the swords fastened at their belts would have been already at her throat. Apparently, she was very far from home. Maybe, even very far from Seoul. The only solution appeared to be accommodating to their requests.

-Even if every king seemed to have a potential motive, none of them could physically be at the place of the "crime". The last one to see the sword had been the Jack of spades. And he was the one announcing its breakage as well. All the elements, hence, point at him as guilty.

The young woman paused, carefully observing the answer in the faces of the three men. The oldest had lowered his head, nodding to himself. The second at the center, dressed in a crimson armour rimmed with gold, studied her with weariness but also with a spark of curiosity. The last one, finally, kept his gaze glued to the floor, as if he felt ashamed of something. It was only then that she noticed them: the symbols that were inlaid in the chest pieces on the left half. Exactly above their hearts.

A diamond on the golden armour of the first one.

A heart on the crimson one of the second.

And finally a sort of arrow on the black one of the last.

-Why would he have broken the sword of his king?

The woman brought her gaze back on the oldest, who was staring at her with ajar eyelids and a tense jaw. Starting to twist a lock of hair on her finger, she lowered her glance.

-I don't posses enough elements to determine that. Many reasons could exist, in a realistic context. He could have secretly betrayed his lord or, considering that the most logical suspect would be the King of hearts, he could have used the broken sword as an excuse to start an attack and conquer the lands that they desired. I don't have enough clues to be sure, but the circumstances are clear.

The young man observed her in silence for what felt like minutes. Then, nodding, he turned to his companions.

-She's the right one for this situation. She will discover the truth- he claimed, causing the man in the black armour to take a step forward making his hair, long enough to reach his cheekbones, fly around him.

-But hyung-

-On this note, may I know for what purpose I'm here?

Three pair of eyes landed on her, while tense and weary expressions painted their faces. It was again the oldest who started talking with a hint of nervousness in his voice.

-It is quite a delicate matter, but we were in need of someone able to look at the elements from an outside perspective. You see, we find ourselves in a-

The sentence was abruptly cut by a mellifluous, angelic intonation that resembled the melody of a hummingbird. The voice that began to echo in the room sounded like it belonged to an unearthly creature, for never in her life the young lady had heard anything as graceful and as sweet to the ear.

-Taeeeeeeeeeee Taeeeeeeeeee!

The dragging of the vowels in childish vocalisations caused the three men to widen their eyes in panicked stupor, while looking at each other incapable of uttering a sound.

-Oh no... we are doomed...

-I am doomed!- whispered the conceited young warrior in the crimson armour, his big eyes surrounded by thick lashes intent on studying the walls in search of something. The woman understood what it was when, sitting on the edge of the bed, she noticed that one of the paintings was moving.

It wasn't a painting.

It was a mirror.

And in it the woman saw the most ethereal visage that her gaze had ever met in her whole life. Soft lips on a perfect oval, accentuated by high cheekbones and glimmering eyes as limpid as dew and as seductive as the devil's claws. Those predatory and dangerously teasing eyes stared intensely at the warrior in the crimson armour, while his mouth raised in a entertained smile.

-Tae Tae, what are you scheming behind my back?

When the woman was finally able to tear her eyes away from the hypnotic lineaments of the face in the mirror, she noticed the detail that should have been the most glaring. Upon the silvery strands on his head, resided a crown. The jewel appeared to be entirely made of ruby, judging by the transparency of its tips, which culminated in peaks of pure gold in the shape of hearts.

-I... don't... I...- the young man in the crimson armour, or Tae based on the words of the ethereal presence, bent himself in a low bow as his sweat began to run on his face.

-You didn't bring a human here, in our world, without telling me, did you?

The angelic voice had maintained its teasing flavour, but the woman couldn't avoid to notice how it's tone had fallen of a few octaves, nearing more to a playful threat. Tae must have had perceived the same, because he hardened his trembling lips. And it was at that moment that the wooden door, decorated by golden wisps, was suddenly shovelled, showing a new presence to the room.

-What the hell did you do?

The sentence was spit by a young man with pale complexion and an impassive face, if it wasn't for the burning fire hidden behind his dark pupils. On his onyx locks laid a crown similar to the one on the man in the mirror, but his was covered in gold and surmounted by rubies in the shape of diamonds. His chest was enveloped by a double-breasted jacket scattered with geometric patterns where gold and crimson meshed together, with a notable predominance of the first in the majority of the details. On his shoulders, at last, rested a heavy cape made of gold brocade, which fell to his hips and on which a big diamond shaped brooch was pinned.

-My lord, I...

The warrior in the golden armour kneeled promptly before the king, lowering his head as a tense expression molded his face.

-You what? You brought here a human releasing such a wave of energy that all the four kingdoms felt it. May I know what the hell was going through your brain, Hoseok? The balance in our world is already so fra-

The voice of the king died in his throat as soon as he lifted his gaze on the human in question, who was still silently sitting at the edge of the bed observing the scene, waiting. What could she do? She didn't have any other place to go to. Escaping wasn't an option. Not with three armed warriors and a very angry king. Because of that, all she could do was being a silent spectator.

-What did you do?- whispered the pale king, contemplating the face of the woman as if it belonged to a ghost.

-It was an accident. We wanted to take a random human who could solve... this situation. We didn't expect... her- Hoseok rushed to reply, still humbly kneeling before the king. The latter, though, seemed incapable to move his gaze from her, as he began to shake his head.

-We are dead. You better pray that he won't come here right now, because if he sees her he will kill us all. He will lose his mind for good.

-For the jewels of the crown, the resemblance is stunning!

The young woman jumped on her spot when the angelic voice suddenly appeared right next to her ear. Turning to her side, in fact, she found herself a few centimetres away from the ethereal face that a few moments earlier was in the mirror and that was then studying her with genuine fascination in his shining eyes.

-Oh, forgive me! You are not used to this things. Thanks to the mirrors, I can appear wherever I want, but to you this must be something unexplainable. But now tell me, what's your name, sweet dove? And why do you wear your hair at this length? It is unusual for humans in this time. It kind of looks like you-

-Jimin.

The entrancing man turned placidly until he met the cold expression of the king standing.

-What is it, Yoongi? Let me have some fun! We're going to die anyway! He will find out about her sooner or later.

Those words seemed to hit a sore spot in the sovereign, who visibly contracted his jaw while stepping forward toward the kneeling man beside her. The latter, she noticed, was dressed exactly in the same way as the king standing, but his jacket presented a sequence of heart shaped patterns, where the alternation of gold and red resulted in the prevalence of the second one. His cape, in fact, was painted in scarlet and on it a pin in the shape of a heart was displayed.

The young woman, sifting through the room, analysed the clothing of each of the presents. Furrowing her brows, she tensed her mouth.

It couldn't be.

They couldn't really be...

-Tell me, human. Do you know why you are here?

Her eyes were once again captivated by the face of the crimson king, who was staring at her with a hint of amusement on his lips.

-I don't. I am yet to be told that- she answered with a dry tone, looking at the man with weariness. At that, he tilted his head with a smile that was reeking of fake sorry and began to play with a strand of her hair, whose length reached the surface of the bed.

-Oh, poor baby! You were brought here against your will, kept in a strange room without a hint of explanation! You must be so scared!

When the human was about to open her mouth, though, a sound similar to a thunder erupted in the room. The air, in a second, seemed to disappear from the lungs of all attendants, as the noise of doors closing violently got nearer. And the woman saw tense jaws, panicked eyes and gulping throats every moment that was passing.

-Oh... finally some fun...- murmured the mellifluous voice in her ear. When the door to the room was forcefully shovelled, at last, it was as if winter had suddenly appeared.

-Who released that wave of energy?

[betbuddyai]

How AI Strategies Are Changing the Way We Play Baccarat Forever

Baccarat, a timeless casino game known for its elegance and simplicity, has seen a transformative evolution with the integration of artificial intelligence (AI). Traditionally a game of chance, baccarat has become a field where strategy, data analysis, and technology converge. The introduction of AI into this classic card game has not only changed how players approach the game but also how casinos manage and present it. In this article, we delve into how AI strategies are revolutionizing baccarat and why the Baccarat Game AI Strategy is becoming an essential tool for modern players.

A Brief Overview of Baccarat

Baccarat originated in Italy during the 15th century and has since grown into one of the most popular casino games globally. The game’s rules are straightforward: players bet on either the "Player" hand, the "Banker" hand, or a tie. The hand closest to a total of nine wins. Despite its simplicity, baccarat has long been associated with sophistication and high stakes, making it a favorite among elite gamblers.

What sets baccarat apart is its reliance on luck rather than skill. Unlike poker or blackjack, there’s little room for traditional strategy. However, with the rise of AI, even a game as luck-dependent as baccarat is experiencing a strategic revolution.

What Is Baccarat Game AI Strategy?

A baccarat game AI strategy refers to the use of artificial intelligence to analyze game patterns, predict outcomes, and optimize betting strategies. AI employs machine learning algorithms and data analysis to provide players with actionable insights. These strategies are designed to increase the likelihood of favorable outcomes by identifying trends and statistical anomalies that human players might overlook.

AI strategies are powered by large datasets that include historical game results, betting patterns, and player behaviors. With these datasets, AI systems can generate predictions, helping players make more informed decisions.

The Role of AI in Modern Baccarat

1. Data Analysis at Unprecedented Levels

AI excels at processing vast amounts of data in real-time. In baccarat, this means analyzing past hands, identifying patterns, and predicting potential outcomes. While the game’s rules ensure that each hand is independent, AI can detect subtle trends over time, offering players an edge.

For example, AI tools can analyze thousands of baccarat games to identify when certain betting strategies, such as the Martingale or Paroli system, are most effective. These insights allow players to adapt their approach dynamically, reducing losses and capitalizing on winning streaks.

2. Real-Time Decision Making

One of the most significant advantages of a baccarat game AI strategy is its ability to provide real-time advice. Many AI-driven platforms or apps can suggest optimal bets during live games, guiding players step by step. These systems calculate the probability of each possible outcome and recommend bets accordingly.

For instance, if the AI detects that the "Banker" hand has statistically higher odds of winning in specific scenarios, it will suggest placing bets there. This immediate guidance helps players avoid emotional decisions and focus on data-driven strategies.

3. Pattern Recognition

Despite the game’s inherent randomness, many players believe in streaks—such as the "Banker" winning multiple times in a row. AI systems can validate or debunk such patterns by analyzing historical data. This capability allows players to approach the game more rationally rather than relying on gut feelings or superstitions.

4. Enhanced Player Experience

AI not only benefits players but also enhances the overall baccarat experience. Online casinos are increasingly adopting AI to personalize gameplay, offering tailored betting advice, custom game interfaces, and even AI-powered dealers. These innovations make the game more engaging and accessible for a broader audience.

Benefits of Using AI Strategies in Baccarat

1. Increased Winning Potential

AI strategies provide players with tools to maximize their chances of success. By identifying optimal betting patterns and strategies, AI reduces the reliance on luck and increases the role of calculated decision-making.

2. Minimized Losses

Every gambler knows that losses are an inevitable part of the game. However, AI strategies help minimize these losses by advising players when to quit, adjust their bets, or switch strategies. This financial discipline is especially valuable for novice players.

3. Accessibility for Beginners

Baccarat has long been intimidating for new players due to its association with high stakes and experienced gamblers. AI levels the playing field by offering beginner-friendly tools that simplify strategy and improve confidence.

4. Fair Play and Transparency

AI can also promote fair play by monitoring game integrity. Casinos use AI systems to detect irregularities and ensure that all players have a fair gaming experience. This fosters trust between players and casinos, enhancing the game’s reputation.

How Casinos Are Responding to AI Strategies

While players benefit from AI strategies, casinos are not sitting idly by. They are also leveraging AI to improve operations and counteract potential abuses. For instance:

Game Fairness: Casinos use AI to monitor gameplay and detect cheating or collusion.

Dynamic Odds: AI helps casinos adjust payout rates and odds to maintain profitability.

Enhanced Player Engagement: AI-driven personalization keeps players engaged by tailoring game recommendations and promotions.

This symbiotic relationship between players and casinos ensures that AI remains a tool for innovation rather than exploitation.

Popular AI Tools for Baccarat Strategies

Several AI tools and platforms are available to help players implement baccarat game AI strategies. These tools range from mobile apps to advanced desktop software. Some popular features include:

Real-Time Prediction Models: Provide live betting advice based on current game data.

Simulation Engines: Allow players to test various strategies in virtual environments before applying them in real games.

Performance Tracking: Help players analyze their betting history to refine their approach.

When choosing an AI tool, players should prioritize platforms with proven track records, user-friendly interfaces, and robust data security measures.

The Future of Baccarat and AI

The integration of AI into baccarat is just the beginning. As technology continues to advance, we can expect even more sophisticated tools and strategies. Here are some potential developments:

Virtual Reality (VR) Integration: AI-powered baccarat games in VR environments could offer players an immersive casino experience from the comfort of their homes.

Advanced Predictive Models: Future AI systems may incorporate deeper layers of machine learning to offer even more accurate predictions.

Social AI Features: Multiplayer baccarat games with AI-driven insights could create a more interactive and competitive atmosphere.

Final Thoughts

The Baccarat Game AI Strategy is revolutionizing how we approach this classic casino game. By combining data-driven insights, real-time guidance, and enhanced personalization, AI is making baccarat more strategic and accessible than ever before. Whether you’re a seasoned player or a newcomer, embracing AI strategies can elevate your game and open new possibilities.

As we continue to explore the potential of AI in baccarat, one thing is clear: the future of this iconic game is bright, innovative, and undeniably exciting. Whether at the casino or online, AI is ensuring that baccarat remains at the forefront of gaming innovation.

[jargonautical]

A meeting at the museum

ALFRISCOMBE’S TOWN MUSEUM is easily the nicest site any of the team have ever worked on, especially compared to the bland university campus most of them have recently been transplanted from. In a former life it was the vicarage, built in the same pale streaked granite as the magistrates’ court and the imposing town hall at the top of the main street, and gifted to the council under covenant ‘for the good of the townspeople’ in 1921. It retains much of its original grand character, including the famous sweeping curve of the double staircase rising up from the entrance hall. It’s a happy place to work, something above and beyond just the aesthetic. There are both grander and prettier buildings in Alfriscombe but this one somehow generates a glow of contentment in its inhabitants, as if over the centuries the house has absorbed happy memories into the very brickwork and releases them back into the air bit by bit.

The cleaners may roll their eyes sometimes, hearing the praise heaped on the house, but it’s more indulgent than exasperated. That eternal gloss on the banisters, the glowing patterns on the floor tiles in the hall, it’s not invisible midnight pixies making that happen. A building this old demands sustained and expert effort to make sure it shines. But they’re every bit as happy as the office personnel, seeing their efforts rewarded every day by the smiles and appreciative comments of the occupants and by the responsive glow of the building itself as they bring it to life.

Today in particular the house seems determined to put on the best possible show. Just yesterday the glass panes of the side porch and inner door received a thorough cleaning using an old-fashioned concoction of vinegar, newspaper, and elbow grease, encouraging this morning’s broad sunshine to flood though into the hall and highlight the tiles to perfection. Off to the right, on either side of a little fireplace, two upholstered armchairs in a deep red velvet invite guests to wait in elegant comfort. There’s no fire laid there today, not with the weather turned so warm recently; a tasteful arrangement of dried flowers in shades of pink occupies the tiny iron grate instead.  To the left of the door a rotating team of volunteers man the front desk in a pokey cubbyhole where the cloakroom once would have been, dispensing old-fashioned paper tickets and taking payment under the flirtatious gaze of a marble bust depicting ‘Miss Amelia Waldron aged 18yrs on the occasion of her coming out’.

Despite its small size the museum contains some impressive collections. A former son of Alfriscombe donated a significant proportion of the artefacts during his career as an Egyptologist, a collection stretching across the whole ground floor of the east wing. On the other side of the house there are smaller displays of Alfriscombe’s own history, from eighteenth century watercolours of the fishing boats on the harbour through to Second World War gas masks and ration cards.

Upstairs, the prehistoric collection is richly populated by finds from the caverns under the top end of town, a tourist attraction in its own right. It’s been less popular in recent years, there only being so many flint scraps and mammoth molars you can look at before you head for the gift shop, but the word is it’s about to receive some very significant new exhibits.

Today’s visitor is yet to appear to appreciate the museum’s delights, despite having been informed that the briefing is scheduled to begin promptly at a quarter past ten. The tall clock beside the door is showing a few minutes after the hour already, and the welcoming committee have been ready and waiting since a quarter to.

Raj fidgets by the door, peering out periodically to see whether there’s any sign of someone coming up the drive. ‘I know we didn’t think he’d be bang on time, but this is ridiculous. What’s the plan if he doesn’t show?’

The second member of the committee is feeling less welcoming by the second. Jonas has one anxious eye on the clock, conscious that he’s already going to be late for the daily site security meeting - not that he likes attending the blasted things and there are never any surprises, but by God does management ever make a fuss if you’re not there on time.

‘Give it ’til ten past and then I’ll have to pack up and take the kit back to the office.’ he announces. ‘You’ll just have to start without him.’

The kit under discussion is a hastily assembled photo set up; backdrop screen, lighting rig, camera and tripod in one corner, along with the triply-secure laptop and the special printer, a small but disproportionately heavy box in yellowing plastic that transfers images to plastic cards. Dragging it down here and getting it all set up just right was, to be frank, a massive pain in the arse, but their instructions were clear. Every possible effort must be made to smooth this particular consultant’s way into the building and on to the project, and if this means bringing the entire set up down to the hall to save the man the bother of climbing a couple of flights of stairs then so be it.

With precisely one minute to go before Jonas makes good on his threat, Mr Mainder at last strolls through the door. Reports varied as to what to expect, ranging from local gossip about a harmless middle-aged shopkeeper, through to shady and possibly criminal dealer in artefacts - this from overheard fragments of the Archchancellor’s embittered rant on his most recent visit.

The man now approaching quite frankly defies both of those neat pigeonholes. Tall, dark - well, two out of three isn’t bad. Rather than handsome, his face is better described as ‘interesting’; high cheekbones and a wide mouth hint at Slavic ancestry somewhere down the line, and the bridge of his nose kinks in a way that suggests it’s been broken more than once in his lifetime. A neat four-day beard is a strange contrast to his hair, clipped short apparently at random and showing all the signs of wanting to curl if just given enough leeway. Deep-set eyes are clouded blue-grey, the colour of flint. A shade over six feet tall and lean with it, with shadowed hints of tattoos and a hint of muscle under his long-sleeved shirt suggesting he’s in halfway decent shape for a man his age. What that age actually might be is harder to pin down; he could be anything from a weathered thirty-something to an incredibly well-preserved fifty.

He halts on the threshold and takes in the scene in the hall; Jonas glowering with one guilty hand already on the release catch of the tripod, and Raj hovering with an uncertain smile. After a moment’s hesitation he accepts the offered handshake, and those clouded eyes brighten momentarily. Raj catches himself checking out his other hand, inexplicably cheered to see no wedding ring. He can’t help but feel a spontaneous surge of attraction, however difficult the man is being. For all that he’s dressed for a day’s work down in his shop he moves and stands like someone who’d be entirely at home with a blade in his hand and a horse under him. That kind of confidence is a powerful draw.

Jonas, less impressed, gestures for Mainder to hurry up and be photographed for his security pass. He does so, flipping the tails of his coat out from behind him and settling on the plastic chair with the leisurely air of royalty deigning to sit for a formal portrait. At least he’s cooperating for this part, and a suitable image is quickly captured and transferred to the laptop for it to do its thing. Meanwhile Mainder rises and submits without complaint to being scanned and patted down, obligingly raising both arms to shoulder-level to facilitate the latter, all with a faint smile on his face.

He isn’t carrying anything remotely like a weapon - in fact he isn’t carrying anything at all, not a wallet or a mobile phone or even a set of house keys. Polite attempts at small talk falter under that flint stare and the half-smile. He answers readily enough, but it’s all one-word answers establishing that yes, he’s been to the museum before; no, he didn’t drive here and yes, it’s certainly a lovely day. It’s very much a relief when the printer rattles to life and disgorges his pass, the laminated image faithfully like him but at the same time strangely unlike, and forever fixed in that same unsettling smile. At last, with the clock now showing twenty-three minutes past ten, he’s finally ready. He thanks Jonas with solemn courtesy, even as he drops the rectangle of plastic into the pocket of his coat like he’s forgotten its purpose already.

[tambourineophelia]

cn: body image talk

it's so annoying how I cannot get over certain body shapes that are not at all in the cards with my own body. I KNOW I physically cannot reach this slender, graceful elegance so many gorgeous women have, because my bones are not in the right places, my legs won't ever look long and slim because well, they just aren't long in proportion to my body, but I CANNOT stop feeling like it's a fault

I rationally know I am small but I don't ever believe I really look it, just because of my bone structure and proportions, and I can't perceive my body properly? I feel like a soft, round blob always, like all clothes make me look bigger, like i can never make them look how i want, and I can't bring it into my consciousness that it's only because of my rib cage, my shoulders, my hips, and not because I am not looking after my body enough

[zoydraft]

Approachable Hand Disruption

Hand disruption can be intimidating but if you're thoughtful it can enrich gameplay, even for novice players. I'm going to look at a handful of cards, and use them to illustrate some of the impact they can have on an environment, and new players specifically.

Thoughtseize is elegant (almost Pilfer level), but it's not the friendliest to casual players. Hand disruption is a skill-intensive mechanic. It tilts games away from players who don't know how to make the most of it, or who run weaker cards instead, aware of their inability to maximize the card. That 2 life cost can also scare folks away. That's not even getting into the modality of targeting yourself. Yet, I run it anyway. I'll come back to why later.

Full post also available on CubeCobra

Hymn to Tourach was one of the first cards in the Cube Tutor (RIP) Top Cards list that really rubbed me the wrong way as a new player. It wasn't the potential for land denial and subsequent non-games. Cube designers understand that aspect of the card.

I doubt this is a common reaction, but when I saw the word random I asked, "how?" It's a really simple thing, but suddenly I was distracted by the logistics of executing the spell, instead of focusing on the game. It's worse than that, because you aren't the one doing it, you're compelling your opponent to discard. As an enfranchised player it's trivial but when you're still learning you have enough on your mind. Under-defined procedures can add to mental load.

On the other hand, I love Zyym. He's a nightmare for the same reason that I don't like Hymn to Tourach, but there's one huge advantage: he's fun and engaging for both players. I don't believe accessibility needs to be a set of rules, it's more about being tactful in where you make allowances.

Let's compare Kitesail Freebooter, Duress, Virus Beetle, and Mind Rot, ignoring power level. The sorceries make the disruption the entirety of the effect which doubles down on the skill-intensive nature. New players will not play these or will play them poorly. In contrast, the creatures could fit in an environment where having a 1/2 flyer or an artifact that can chump block adds value. These cards offer a gentle on-ramp to hand disruption, where it's not completely boom-or-bust based on your skill level.

The other axis here is that Kitesail Freebooter and Duress are opt-in mechanics. You are deciding to play them and take on the challenge of disrupting your opponents card. Virus Beetle and Mind Rot work the other way, where it's being forced on your opponent. Being hit with a Mind Rot is not nearly as skill-testing as casting Duress, but it's still an effect that players are not electing to try, which can make it less enjoyable.

Where Kitesail Freebooter doesn't shine is the possibility of revealing a hand with all creatures. In a perfect world there would be a variant I could point to that hit any non-land. Mesmeric Fiend and Brain Maggot suffer from having all but useless bodies, and you need to protect them for the effect to persist.

If you're going to miss, you might be happier with Inquisition of Kozilek. I would run this over Duress if I only had one. I don't have a strong sense of why, but I suspect it leads to less feel-bads, maybe related to the expectation that you aren't getting something huge.

After all that you may be surprised that I run Thoughtseize and a whole suite of other hand disruption effects. Partly I'm just rationalizing including cards I like, but I think these cards are important to include because they offer players the opportunity to get better in two specific ways.

The obvious one first: how are you going to get better at hand disruption if you never play hand disruption?

More importantly, I think these cards invite you to learn to play around opponents. You're not obligated to think about the cards that were revealed, but you probably will. The same is true for Gitaxian Probe, and Urza and Mishra's Baubles. Thinking about playing around known information is a good first step towards playing around unknown information. It also pushes players towards trying to understand their opponent's gameplan, and how they can best attack it.

Hand disruption can play an vital role even in beginner-friendly cubes, but it will work better with thoughtful inclusions. It's an important part of Black's colour pie, it's an interesting mechanic, and maybe most importantly: it encourages richer gameplay.

Card of the day? Kitesail Freebooter, no doubt.

[carolineandrew1]

How to Choose The Best Tailor in london?

Tailoring has always been an art and it always requires creation in work. Caroline Andrew is one of the popular suit makers in London, more widely considered as a bespoke tailor in Kensington. Caroline has been honoured and praised by Vanity Fair, she was also named ‘The One To Watch’. She was awarded ‘The Bright Young Thing’ by Mayfair Times London 2020. Caroline has mastered flair-cutting London traditional suits. She always makes the perfect suit according to her client’s demands and details. Every minor to major detail is noticed and implied by her.

Choose a Purpose

Caroline Andrew, a Men’s Tailor London, is the only female tailor who has been awarded for her remarkable work and her craft in the suits. Her showroom includes a master tailor and professional cutters to crave different designs and flairs on suits and to create her signature house style. Caroline makes suits for both men and women. You can find wedding suits, business suits, modern suits, casual suits, formal suits, shirts, and other accessories for both men and women in Caroline Andrew’s shop. The shirt and accessories are to compliment the bespoke look given by her suits. Her bespoke suits flaunt your personality and physique.

Communication Skills & Experience

Caroline Andrew’s great responsibility of creating traditional suits with an elegant modern touch comprehensively shows her experience of work in the field of fabric and suits. Caroline always keeps in touch with her clients during work to get every detail of client’s demands. Her communication skills with her clients always give them enough space to ask for more. She makes semi-stitched suits in 2–3 weeks, and then she tries them on her client to give the final fitting after remarking. This tells a lot about her communication skills with her clients. Most importantly, she is always open to her client’s suggestions.

Seek Recommendations

At a such young age, Caroline has achieved much popularity for her work. The fabric, design, style, colour, and any other details they want in their suits are directly discussed with Caroline. She makes flawless and stunning customized suits that speak for the client’s personality. She gives her clients the best attires they want according to their demanded measurements. Besides the customize suits, clients also take ideas from Caroline to give suggestions for their suits to make them more stylish. Caroline is the only tailor that is widely recommended in Kennington for best-tailored shirts in Kensington.

Shop Around

Caroline Andrew not only specializes in bespoke suit-making but she offers many accessories. In her dope styling outfits and clothes, she offers safari jackets for women and men, sweaters, jackets, shirts, scarves, bows & ties, pocket squares, brooches, garment bags, masks, and gift cards. She prepares a bespoke suit within 6 to 8 weeks. And there is one more benefit unlike other shops and boutiques, Caroline has a wide range her accessories. There are unlimited options for fabric, buttons, and colours since she orders them from their respective makers.

Examine Their Work & Cost

Caroline has various professionals to perform various tasks that result in perfection. Caroline Andrew offers budget-oriented suits for her clients. The rich quality of her garments speaks for themselves and that does not cost too much. She provides the best quality possible at an affordable and rational price. Her suit’s fabric contains the finest quality, the designs are bespoke, the style is unique, and the price is rational. What else can you ask for? Caroline Andrew’s suits are long-lasting and reflect the passions of her work. The charm and elegance of the suits never fail to capture the attention.

Customer Satisfaction

London is known for its traditionally crafted British suits, and tuxedos, every kind of suit is stitched and worn widely in London. Among the great designers of Europe who flaunt your personality and physique with their designs, Caroline Andrew has carved her name also. Caroline Andrew, a female tailor in London, is accomplished and flaunts the excellence in her suits. She is the best bespoke tailor in London, proficient in the hand-made craft of traditional British suiting. Her bespoke suits are demanded all over the world. She never fails to satisfy her customers with her overwhelming suits. She graduated from the London College Of Fashion to serve better in the field of fashion, and satisfy her customers.

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[finishinglinepress]

FLP POETRY BOOK OF THE DAY: Falling Into the Diaspora by MaryAnn L. Miller

ADVANCE ORDER:

https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/falling-into-the-diaspora-by-maryann-l-miller/

MaryAnn L. Miller was born in Western Pennsylvania the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Some of her early memories are listening to the casualty lists on the radio, playing with ration cards, and parents rushing to close the curtains during air raid blackouts. The story of Princess Mafalda of Savoy was happening in Italy at that same time. Miller’s mother was named after the Princess, one of many Italian immigrants scattered throughout the Diaspora, perhaps aware of the suffering of their relatives remaining in Europe, but unable to change the horrors of Hitler and the Third Reich.

PRAISE FOR Falling Into the Diaspora by MaryAnn L. Miller

Under the dual skies of Italy and Western Pennsylvania, these poems take us on the journey of two Mafalda’s and the push and pull of their seemingly diametrically opposed lives. But what we find are the very human commonalities of suffering, joy, and, in particular, the small and large moments in every life, onto which reckoning seems to hinge. Miller is a keen and astute student of history, both the personal and the public, and shows us a glimpse into a world pulsating with the delights of arias, princesses, love, sun-warmed figs, grapevines, and Puccini as well as the trials small town struggles, desperation, the quotidian and royalty under siege. Fact and fable mingle with the careless hopes and desperate dreams that provide a portrait of lives’ worth knowing– and for our own betterment, taking to heart and learning a lesson or two from along the way.

–Michelle Reale, Author of Blood Memory: Prose Poems, and Confini: Poems of Refugees in Sicily

Falling Into the Diaspora is more than a poetry collection, it’s a book of poems— a long story plotted into poetry. What a brilliant idea, taking Princess Mafalda of Savoy and collating her with a mother “… a vindictive raven, flying out of a coal mine in Western Pennsylvania.” Mafalda met a bitter end in Buchenwald, and Miller takes us back and forth across time, mixing the elegant with the colloquial, to mesh history with present time. It’s rare to find a conceit so arresting and managed so flawlessly. This writer knows that structure is the way to grip us tight. Yes, Miller’s breath is on every page—witty, painful, original. She has written a masterwork.

–Grace Cavalieri, Maryland Poet Laureate

Don’t be fooled by its title, MaryAnn L. Miller’s book is about tyranny and rebellion braided by the powers of fate, mystery and a deep abiding respect for personal history that leaves readers captivated. Small miracles are elevated to milestones in the story of immigration and assimilation with characters like Miss Reed who “… kept my mother’s name on a slip of silk paper inside her maiden bra.” The Midwife’s Tambourine morphs into a mandala with “… a history in blood and water that will not change.” Miller is deeply engaged with the world of our mothers and conveys her pursuit with brilliant and precise lyricism that leaves an indelible impression.

–Maria Lisella, Author of Thieves in the Family, Academy of American Poets

Please share/please repost #flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #poetry #read #poetrybook #poems #history

[vlesociety]

Up Ration Card Apply Process 2021 - With Income Certificate FCS UP

Up Ration Card Apply Process 2021 – With Income Certificate FCS UP

राशन कार्ड (Ration Card) How to Apply Ration Card Through CSC Digital Seva, CSC Ration Card राशन कार्ड भारत सरकार! एवं राज्य सरकार द्वारा जारी किया जाने वाला एक फैमिली दस्तावेज है जो भारत के प्रत्येक राज्य के पात्र एवं गरीबी रेखा से निचे जीवन यापन करने वाले परिवारों को जारी किया जाता है! जिसमे उस परिवार के सभी सदस्यों का नाम व उनकी उम्र व मुखिया से सम्बन्ध आदि का लेखा जोखा रिकॉर्ड किया जाता है!…

[red-writes]

Peek-a-boo

step-sis Yelena x reader

content contains: stepcest, fingering.

red’s note: I’m horny for this woman..also I’m sorry about the last line I rlly didn’t know what to put lmao

The first time was an accident.

You'd snuck a few bags of chips up to your room at 3 am for fuel while you cram studied for your exam later that day. You thought she was crying, you planned on cheering her up with your snacks and cuddles but when you peeked through the small crack of the door, she wasn't crying.

Her head tossed back as a soft moan was muffled by the t-shirt she held up between her teeth. Her fingers slid in and out of her soaked cunt, she was so wet her juices stained the pink sheets underneath her. You could've sworn her eyes caught yours through the small crack and you gasped, running as fast as you could to your room and locking yourself inside. You dumped the snacks on top of your pile of waiting notes and you climbed into bed, pulling the covers over your head as you shut your eyes and pressed your legs together, your cunt ached and you couldn't get the image of your sister out of your head. You wanted to see her again.

So you did.

It was almost like every night she was pleasuring herself. You found your ‘curiosity’ had grown into way more than just ‘wondering how other girls masturbated’ it became an insatiable lust for your older sister. She looked so pretty, so soft and sweet. You went from simply observing her, to actively touching yourself to her right outside her door. You rationalized the way your clumsy fingers rubbed over your clit as just being a one time thing, you wouldn't do it again.

But you did.

In fact, it’d become a nightly ritual for you. Your parents slept early and it made creeping out of your room easy. But tonight wasn't as easy as you first thought it would be. Your sister’s lights were off, making it hard to see anything, you creaked the door open a little more, hoping the light from the hallway would allow you to see more. But you saw nothing?

Suddenly, from behind you, you heard her speak.

“Waiting for someone?”

You practically jumped out of your skin. She chuckled at your reaction and brushed past you into the room where she flickered the lights on.

“Come in, I think we need to talk” she tells you and you naw at your lip in worry, she knows doesn't she? You were fucked. You did as you were told and shut the door behind you. She sat on the bed whilst you awkwardly stood near the door.

“What-” your voice cracked, “What did you want to speak about exactly?” you asked and she hummed in thought.

“Hmm perhaps why you've been spying on me every night?” her voice is accusatory and that causes you to enter denial mode.

“W-well..I’m not- it’s just that-” you can hardly come up with a proper excuse for your actions. Your words get caught up in your throat and you can seem to speak

“If you're trying to come up with some half-baked lie, then save it” she says and her expression softens when she sees the tears gathering in your eyes.

“Please don't tell mom and dad! If you do they'll realize that I like-” “That you like girls?” she finishes and you nod. Yelena is a dick, that’s something she’ll own up to, but shed never out someone. She notices you beginning to panic she pats her lap and encourages you to come sit in it. You shuffle over to the bed and take a seat in her lap, you bury your face in her chest and she rubs soft circles on your back.

“I like girls too” she admits and your head is popping up from resting on her chest.

“really? is it okay for me to..to like you?” you ask, in fear of her response. She pets your head and nods.

“I like you too sis”

+

You're shaking. Yelena’s room is always so cold. Being completely naked in it didn't help either. After she’s discarded her last piece of clothing she climbs onto the bed with you and your eyes are definitely fucking her. She looks so good, flat yet elegant chest on display for you. Her nipples were already pert and hard. Your eyes trailed down further, her flat tummy led down to the soft patch of furry pubes. You felt your own cunt pulsing at the sight of your sexy older sister.

“Okay, let's just start with a simple kiss”

Warm hands find your cheeks as you're slowly pulled into her, your eyes close and your lips gently press against each other in a feather light kiss. You can feel her breath against your lips, you rest your hands on her hips and pull her in closer and the kiss gets more and more heated, you’re pushed backwards and your back hits the bed with a soft thud.

The kiss breaks finally and you’re panting, lungs grateful for the oxygen. Her hands caress the sides of your breasts before squeezing them in her palms, you gasp softly and she grins at you before taking one of your nipples into her mouth and sucking on it gently. You moan softly as your hands card through her short blonde hair. One of her hands trails down your tummy, circling your belly button a few times before dipping under the waistband of your underwear.

You suck in a breath as her fingers run up and down your slit, her thumb brushes over your clit and you’re biting your lip to suppress the moan. She kisses your chest and leaves a trail of kisses up your check until she pecks your cheek.

“You ever play with yourself sis?” She asks, voice whispering directly into your ear causing a shiver to run down your spine. You nod and she rewards you with another touch to your clit. You whine and a plea for more is already resting on the tip of your tongue.

“What do you think about?”

Her fingers begin rubbing gentle circles over your aching clit, your mind becomes almost too cloudy with lust to respond, all you can think about was feeling more, more of her.

“Sissy, wanna tell me what you think about when you stroke your pretty pussy?” She asks again and this you open your mouth in response and let out a strained,

“You.”

“Good girl.”

Her fingers inch downwards until they meet your entrance, they slowly push inside and she chuckles as your eyes widen. Pleasure stirs in your gut as her fingers sink themselves inside of you. You’re trembling, mouth hanging open as your sister presses a kiss your cheek, her fingers thrusting upwards against your g-spot.

“It- feels good!” You moan and yelena’s chuckling, smugness written all over her face all the while her own wetness presses against your thigh. You squeeze your eyes shut as her finger’s speed up, pressing against your sweet spot ruthlessly only to laugh at your fucked out face.

“Feels good? Yeah? You wanna cum on my fingers pretty? Hm?” Yelena asks as she presses hot kisses against your cool, sweat slicked forehead.

You nod dumbly, words falling out of your mouth incoherently as you near your high. Her thumb teases your clit yet again and you’re cumming undone before you know it, cunt squeezing down on her fingers as you cream on them. You grab at the sheets as you ride out your high.

Her fingers slowly come to a halt before she pulls them out. She sucks on them before giving you a kiss.

“Let’s get you cleaned up” she says, helping you sit up.

“What? What about you?” You ask and she smiles placing a soft kiss to your cheek.

“Let’s see what happens in the shower.”

[jeonfiles]

better left unsaid - jjk

genre: angst, rebounds

pairings: jungkook x reader (ft. namjoon)

warnings: arguing, alcohol, profanity, break ups, light smut, use of drugs, jungkook is a fucking dick, jungkook has major attachment issues, toxic relationships, oc cries a lot, namjoon has a heart of gold, unrequited love

synopsis: you knew you shouldnt have given him that second chance, not the third or the fourth either. no matter how much you try he always slithers his way underneath your sheets, arms wrapped around you.

word count: 2.7k

music: into your arms, so it ends?, you will fade, thinkin bout you, julia, my insecurities not yours, fuck u, goodluck, my dear i will think of you

note: uhh ive never written a y/n fic so bare with me, if u listen to the music you’ll be able to feel the story a lot more so yeah if u have time u should, not proof read

Light coming through the cracks of the blinds, making you squint your eyes when the daylight beams into your eyes, head resting on the kitchen island Looking up, you saw the clock ticking on the wall, 11:32 am.

You had stayed up till 5 am, waiting for him to come home, but seemingly, he never did. Reaching for your phone, you saw 4 missed calls from the one and only,

Jeon Jungkook, saved in your phone as “Koo <3″, Rows of messages too, all from the same contact.

Koo <3 [05:34 am]

baby pkck me up pleseee

im so wsated

Koo <3 [06.46am]

dont be mad at me jsut pick me up

i dont knw hewere the fuck i am

i love you

Koo <3 [07:31 am]

i got a rde home i’ll be home by 12

i need to talk to someone frsit

im sorry if i woke ypu dont be worried

You took a few moments to collect your thoughts, but there wasn’t much to collect. This whole thing, was a routine by now.

Standing up to make yourself a cup of coffee, you could literally not feel your own backside, you were so sore from the barstool you had been sitting on all night, and it made you groan in pain.

Two coffee cups right beside the kitchen sink, which you couldn’t bring yourself to clean up, because it was from the last time you had coffee together, which was 2 weeks ago.

The inside of the cup had a coffee crust at the top, and both your lip tint marks on the outside.

When you finish your cup of coffee while watching a bad telenovela, you go sit in your favorite chair and pull out a few books from the backpack hanging on the chair next to you, getting ready to get some studying done.

For a few seconds you imagine Jungkook hanging over your shoulder laughing at the way you write your A-s and R-s, or the way you always sign your homework at the bottom of the page.

And when you open them, there’s no one there. The only sound is from the refrigerator, making refrigerator noises.

You had met Jungkook 3 years ago, when you were at college orientation, senior year of high school. He also wanted to attend Yonsei, just like you.

And when he whispered to you about how bored he was, you couldn’t help but giggle, and then you got yelled at.

It was worth it though, because everyone was jealous of you afterwards,the  Jeon Jungkook had talked to you.

Jungkook was an all-rounder as they called it; great physique, intelligent, charismatic and great at sports.

And god, he had a beautiful face, and such a filthy mouth, and it didn’t go long before you gave in to his seductive ways and slept with him. The morning after, he wasn’t in bed with you, and your heart sank.

Luckily, he was in the kitchen making you breakfast.

It was all bliss from there, showering you with love, gifts and kisses for two years, and you even ended up moving in together.

And now? You barely remember what he sounds like, smells like and is like.

A distant memory, just as distant as him.

Your train of thought was suddenly interrupted as you heard 3 knocks on your door. The exact same way he had always knocked when he had forgotten (or lost) his keys.

And even though you should have let him suffer a little, you rushed to the door to open it, and in front of you, was your biggest nightmare.

It was your love, crying his eyes out, bleeding from one of many cuts on his face, looking nearly dead. He collapsed into your arms, and you could only utter a few words, along the lines of:

“How could you do this to us?”

As he was laying curled up in a ball on the couch, face plastered up, ice bag on his knee, wrapped up in a blanket, you realized. this was your que to cry.

So, you did. You cried in silence, sitting across the room from him. You weren’t mad at him for coming home late, or getting in another fight, probably the 5th just these past months, you had gotten used to that by now.

There was a whole other reason that made you cry.

He smelled like Victorias Secret Bombshell, you recognized the scent because it used to be your favorite,  however, now you’ve moved onto something less sweet, and more elegant, like Caroline Herrera.

He smelled like someone who wasn’t you, his girlfriend.

He smelled like another girl.

It didn’t hurt as much as you thought it would. Maybe because the Jungkook that had come home to you that morning wasn’t your Jungkook.

Your Jungkook was varsity jackets, star of the american football team (which your school was known for), selfless and humorous, and he would always take care of you.

Your Jungkook was not ungroomed hair, cigarettes and worsening grades. He was not cold and lifeless, and he would never make you cry.

Despite this, you were carding your fingers though his hair, thumb wiping away the blood on his lips while he was sound asleep as you slowly fell asleep next to him.

Maybe it was time to let him go. 

Maybe.

You woke a few hours later from your phone vibrating.

Kim Namjoon (school) [07:01 pm]

Hey Y/N! Have you started working on the statistics assignment?

If you haven’t, would you be interested in meeting at the library tomorrow? You’re really smart and i’m kinda struggling ://

You [07:03 pm]

i finished it yesterday, but if you buy me coffee i’ll come help you hehe

Kim Namjoon (school) [07:04 pm]

You’re the best, I’ll bring you a machiatto!! :D

Maybe it would be nice for you to get out of the house, even though you hate the thought of it, and you would much rather just swim in your own sorrow.

But you did go out the next day, and you helped Namjoon get a decent grade, enough to pass with good margines, he thanked you by taking you out for ramen at a convenial store not too far away.

You thanked him for the ramen with a trip to the museum, and he thanked you for the museum trip with a picnic in the park at night, which led you to crying over Jungkook in his embrace, telling him every single little detail.

He made you realize it was time to let Jungkook go and make room for new people to enter your life.

You went home that night, and you found Jungkook passed out on the couch, and you could genuienly feel your chest tighten. Soft features which stood out under the moonlight glow, disheveled brown locks which hung down in his eyes.

He was gorgeous, until you saw the credit card on the table next to three bottles of soju and an empty beer can on the floor. And you knew what he had used the credit card for, though you didn’t want to say it out loud.

You cleaned everything up, and you threw the residue of the white powder right in the trash can, and you recycled his bottles and cans before finally, nudging him to wake up.

“Jungkook, wake up.” You spat coldly, or at least you attempted to.

He groaned, rubbing his eyes before opening his eyes, and s huge smile on his face. “Y/N, you’re home!” He reached to kiss you, but you backed away.

“Y/N?” Jungkook questioned, he didn’t quite understand what your intentions were.

“Don’t try anything Jungkook. This was your last chance, and you fucked it up, again.” The room turned ice cold. “I’m getting you help Jungkook, you need help. And then...”

He understood what kind of help you meant, and since he had now sobered up, he agreed, nodding. “And then...?” 

“And then.” Your words were ludged in your throat. “And then I’m leaving you.”

His whole face dropped, smile turned into the frowniest frown you had ever seen, and it was all silent before his lower lip starts trembling, and his eyes start turning glassy.

“It’s alright. Sorry for burdening you.” Was all he could say before tears rushed down his cheeks, and he started shaking.

So you did what you always had done, and you wrapped your arms around him, head resting on your chest as he sobbed.

“Is there anyone else?” he cried out before another wave of sobs hit him.

This exact question made your stomach hurt, and your throat burn. You really had no idea.

Or you did, but you didn’t want to.

You loved Jungkook so much, but you couldn’t be with him in this state. So you did what every rational person would do in this situation.

“Yeah.”

You lied.

“Oh ok. I don’t have the right to be mad do I?”

You shake your head no.

“I love you Y/N. I’m sorry I’m so messed up.”

“It’s ok.” was all he said before he fell asleep in your arms again.

That night you slither your way out of his embrace and you pack your suitcase in the dark, bringing all your essentials, trying to be as quiet as possible so you didn’t wake Jungkook.

Packing enough for two weeks or so, you make the bed and leave your t-shirt “accidentally” in the bathroom, and you make sure all his clothes are folded, and then you sort his pencil case, throwing out old pens and worn out erasers.

You leave a grocery list on the counter, and you tuck him in good under the blankets after you took his jeans and socks off so he could sleep comfortably.

You placed his vitamins and medicine by the refrigerator so he’ll see it when he goes to grab something to eat. 

Puffed up pillows, a pair of sweatpants, t-shirt and underwear is now placed neatly on his bed. Then you walk into the kitchen again, and you see Jungkook still sound asleep, sniffling a little still.

There’s one last thing, and it makes you cry. It makes you sob so loud you cover your mouth and muffle the sound you make. Sinking to the floor, your whole body is in contact with the cold tiles.

Only a year ago you could never imagine yourself even shedding a single tear over something as small as this, but here you were, on the edge of a panic attack.

Two worn out, matching couple mugs still placed by the counter. one if the first things you two had bought together, as well as the necklace hanging around your neck.

Finally, you stopped crying and started cleaning the mugs, lip trembling as you dried them and placed them in the back of the cabinet.

You unhooked your necklace and laid it down on the counter, and the biggest lump formed in your throat.

Actually, there’s a little detail you forget. 

You kiss Jungkook on the forehead and leave a note on the coffee table.

“Dear Jungkook,

If you want to make this up to me (this does not mean a new chance!!) you call the number at the bottom of the page. No matter what happens, I’ll always have room for you in my heart. You even have your own little VIP lobby in there. And - if it’s urgent, call. I still care for you, and I always have. You were the best boyfriend I’ve had, but good things always come to and end, don’t they? Anyways, I’m tired so this letter fucking sucks, but deep down you know how much I love you. Remember to get groceries, shower, get fresh air and study. If I forgot something you can keep it, as long as you call the number and tell them you’re my friend. They’ll help you love. Try and get a part time job too, your student loan and your dad’s money won’t last forever. Good luck Koo. Hwaiting!!

-L/N Y/N <33″

You cringe when you think of the letter’s contents, before you roll out your suitcase out of the front door, whispering a faint “Goodnight Love.” as you close and lock the door behind you.

Standing by the elevator, you cry again. This time, louder, but you still reach for your phone and type out a text to the newly edited contact in your phone.

You [02:13 am]

coming outside now, im a crying mess and im super cold, is your car heated?

sorry for making you wait btw :((

Joonie <3 [02:13 am]

dont worry about the crying part, i’ll hold you. and yeah car is heated, so waiting here wasnt all that bad. you ready for this?

You  [02:14 am]

i have no idea but i cant stay here any longer and i trust you sooo

lets start our new chapter. eh?

4 months later...

He had been good to you, great even.

You had been on expensive dates, picnics, had heart to heart conversations, and he’d been so understanding.

Today, it was your 2 month anniversary, and he had asked you on a magnificent date, which he had planned every second of.

At the end of the day, you told him how you don’t love him. He said it was alright. Namjoon loved you, so much, yet he understood you needed time.

You went to sleep that day, warm in Namjoon’s embrace, wondering how Jungkook was doing. 

You felt bad, but you missed Jungkook.

You were both with someone new now, and you knew he was in good hands with someone stable enough to care for him.

Before your eyes closed shut, you shed a few quiet tears and hoped that you’d fall in love with Namjoon soon, and deep down you knew you would.

[celticcrossanon]

Tarot check on Sussexes

Yesterday, I did a reading on the Sussexes and would like to submit it for interest.

Note that I use a specific deck and system that does not read cards as upright or reversed but rather as well or ill dignified, depending on the surrounding cards and the card itself. I also use a specific spread that I have devised, based on the shape of a pentagram. (A card that often appears in my readings on them is the 7 of swords, indicating that their problems are a trap of their own making caused by their thinking patterns.)

Path they are on:  9 Swords (Cruelty).  Mind dominated by insatiable desires.  Agony of mind. Despair. Hopelessness.  Worry. Suffering. Loss. Illness. Malice. Pain. Burden. Oppression. Subtlety and craft. Lying. Shame. (Not well dignified in this spread, but if so ... Obedience. Faithfulness. Patience. Unselfishness.) Eek! They are not in a good space, but the potential to become a better person through suffering is always an option for them. Note that, in my experience, people in toxic unhappy relationships come to accept it as their normal. He is cut off from family, friends, country, his life so she has become his reference point. Any problems they have, they blame on others.

Destination (or their goal): Empress (III).  Love. Beauty. Happiness. Pleasure. Success. Fruitfulness. Good fortune. Graciousness. Elegance. Gentleness.  (But not well dignified in this spread, so elements of the card that emerge are: Dissipation. Debauchery. Idleness. Sensuality.) She seems to have embraced the 'earth mother' image alongside her usual bag of tricks, so this card here does not surprise me. Note that in some tarot decks this card can mean pregnancy, so perhaps they are trying for more children in the mould of Angelina Jolie! Note also the contradiction between the first two cards: her 'truth' and reality!

Surrounding (their environment):  5 Swords (Defeat). Intellect weakened by sentiment. Loss. Malice. Spite. Weakness. Slander. Failure. Anxiety. Poverty. Dishonour. Trouble. Grieving after pain. Ties. Separator of friends. A busybody. Cruel yet cowardly, evil speaking. (No positive aspects to this card.) I interpret this card here as this is the energy they put out and thus the kind of energy they attract. They also seem obssessed with their critics online, from the rational and fair to the rabid crazies, instead of seeing the context of how others get the same or much worse, accepting that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages of free speech, and ignoring them as any reasonable person would do. But other tarot readers see the Tower looming for them, and rumours abound about financial problems ...

Others (people in their lives): The Magus (I). Creative force in action. Skill. Wisdom. Adroitness. Elasticity. Craft. Cunning. Deceit. Theft. Sometimes occult wisdom or power. Messages. Business transactions. (Not well dignified in this spread so underlying meaning: Learning or intelligence interfering with the matter in hand.) I get a picture of Meghan on her phone giving instructions to and spewing word salad to the large number of people they employ! Something I picked up in other readings that I also see in this card here is that they depend on others for everything, and ultimately that is where the biggest trouble is going to come from. Betrayal? Another law suit? Their short time as working royals showed that they are not good with working with staff, and even though American employees may be different from Brits and Commonwealth folk, everyone has a limit!

Coming up (what happens next): Lust (XI). Courage. Strength. Energy. Use of magical power. Control of the life force. Great love affair. Resort to magic. (No negative aspects to this card, which is usually numbered differently and called Strength in most tarot decks.)  This is intriguing here. An affair? Resorting to some vodoo magic?! Some more bold public outings/'appearances' from Meghan? Comes across as a very Meghan card to me ... e.g. The Bench was shredded by critics and was a complete failure in sales, but there she is forcing it on to the public, not to make money but because darn it, it is a 'bestseller' and she cannot see past that (my opinion).

Secret (something they are hiding or is hidden from them but influencing them): 7 Swords (Futility). The mind is confused and undecided.  Unstable effort. Vaccilation. Vain striving against opposition too poweful. Partial success by giving up on the brink of winning through lack of energy.  Fascination with display. Journey by land. Untrustworthy person.  Here it is again - the Sussex card! My interpration here is that they sabotage themselves, and the meanings speak for themselves. An intriguing possibility of another pseudo 'royal tour', but somewhere overseas this time, or maybe they will have to make an unplanned trip to the UK?

Jumper card: The Aeon (XX). Final decision concerning the past. New current for the future. Always represents the taking of a definite step. (Usually called Judgement in tarot decks.) Perhaps this card means that 'the consquences of Megxit still loom large over them' . But, remember the awful Oprah interview When Prince Phillip was in hospital? I believe that the Queen has serious health problems. Are they going to do something to finally alienate their last 'friend' in his family?

Summary: Expect more of the same from the Sussexes ... more drama, more publicity 'tours' , more business deals and bandwaggoning partnerships, more attacking others, more staff problems, more victimhood ...! Possibility of another child, more lies exposed, financial problems, some kind of final break with the royal family, an affair, public trashing from former staff or friends or family ...