#HE MURDERED THE PERSON IN THE WORLD HE LOVED MOST AND SPENT FOUR HUNDRED YEARS BUILDING A BETTER VERSION OUT OF THAT GUY'S BONES

[terezis]

belos is the most villain of all time. i’m obsessed. who is doing it like that guy. “upstanding christian man” who becomes so twisted by delusions of grandeur that he becomes the literal devil and he still thinks he’s the good guy. he possessed the corpse of a god. he is made of goo. he carved and scarified magical glyphs into his own body. he bit raine. when he was defeated he tried to lie his way out of the loss by pretending the power of friendship saved him and then proceeded to get curb-stomped to death by an amputee, a non-binary band geek, and a raccoon. what a fucking mad lad

[ladyartemesia]

All I Want For Christmas is You

Pairing: Kim Taehyung x Female Reader

Summary: When Park Jimin is unable to escort his precious sister through the gauntlet of corporate holiday galas, he blackmails his best friend Taehyung into being her chaperone. After all, who better to safeguard his headstrong sibling than a man who would never want her for himself? (She and Tae have spent the better part of a decade mutually disliking each other, and that’s putting it mildly.) Yet, even the best laid plans may go awry at Christmas and Kim Taehyung is about to discover that the girl he never wanted has become a temptation he cannot resist...

Genre: Comedy • Fluff  • Smut

Tropes: Brother’s Best Friend (Reader is Jimin’s Sister) • Enemies-to-Lovers

Collab: This work is part of the Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tropes Collab featuring original holiday themed works by @ppersonna • @xjoonchildx  • @underthejoon • @yeojaa​ • @untaemedqueen • and @snackhobi

Word Count: 17K (I know—I am shocked too honestly)

Rating: Explicit (18+)

Warnings: suggestive photographs • mention of accidentally being hit with a baseball • hints of jealousy and possessiveness • light tit slapping • explicit sexual content • m/f oral sex • consensual unprotected sex (shield it before you yield it y’all) • Viola’s mirror kink makes yet another appearance •

Acknowledgements:

To @ppersonna​ (Lindy) @underthejoon​ (Fal) and @xjoonchildx​ (Ana) you guys are my heart. Your support, willingness to read (and re-read) and give honest feedback made this fic special. Your friendship is my daily dose of awesome. Truly, I love you.

To @untaemedqueen​ (D) all of the above applies to you, but I owe you a little something extra for the LITERAL HOURS you spent in the doc with me. This fic would not be here without you. You kept me moving. You inspired me. You were amazing. Thank you so very much. This story is lovingly dedicated to you. 

To @hobi-gif​ for being the most thorough and incredible beta reader and for having all the important girl chats with me. I think you learned more about my past than you wanted... Either way you made this story better and I am profoundly grateful for the hours of time you spent. I have removed all the Hope-No-No words in your honor. 

To @lemonjoonah​ as always, you knew EXACTLY what I needed to tweak to make this story work. (Gotta pass that Lemon Litmus Test or no dice lol.) My lovely soul twin. You’re a bloomin’ rockstar. 

Please Picture This Taehyung:

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Yes. Because you absolutely owe me.”

“Then send me a bill, not your unmanageable harpy of a sister.”

Jimin raised a single unimpressed brow. 

“Kim Taehyung. It was exactly five years ago today that I carried your drunken naked ass two miles in the rain after you set your clothes on fire and sprained your ankle at that Beta Phi party.” He paused dramatically. “Do you remember what you said to me that night? After I deleted several pictures off phones and paid off half the party to keep it out of the papers?”

The man in question shifted uncomfortably.

“That incident is a bit hazy in my memory. I’m not sure I recall—”

“Jiminie—you’re the best and I—I owe… you. I owe you the most, Jiminie. I do—I owe you a favor—one BIG favor—anything you ask… Even though... I actually like being naked. I don’t think we need clothes. We should all be naked. Everyone. Then there would be world peace.”

Taehyung’s jaw dropped. 

“You RECORDED IT?!”

Jimin grinned, sliding his phone back into his pocket.

“Naturally. And I had it all ready to go—just in case you needed extra convincing.” He crossed his arms and fixed his best friend of nearly fifteen years with a triumphant smirk. “I’m calling in that favor today, Taehyung. Now are you a man of your word or not?”

“He did WHAT?!”

Your mother winced. 

“Jimin was... uncomfortable leaving you alone for the holiday season. He normally accompanies you to the galas but this year—”

“This year I was going to go alone and finally build my reputation as an asset to this family!”

Park Soomin sighed as she watched her daughter pace fiercely around the living room of their luxury suite. 

“No one doubts that you’re an asset, but… in light of recent events...”

Rage and embarrassment flared up in your chest before you could stop them. 

“This is about Milo… isn’t it?”

The silence that greeted your statement was confirmation enough. 

“Are you ever going to trust me again?” you whispered. 

“Oh sweetheart... it isn’t you we don’t trust...”

Tears burned at the corner of your eyes, but you ruthlessly blinked them back. 

You would play along with their humiliating schemes. 

For now.

“So which one of Jimin’s Ivy League brat pack did he blackmail into babysitting me? 

For the first time in the entirety of the conversation, your mother looked truly nervous. 

“Kim Taehyung.”

You tripped over your own feet and face-planted into the sofa. 

“Jungkook, I need to look into faking my own death. Nothing too over the top. Just a tasteful disappearance—”

The man in question could barely restrain his grin. 

“You don’t pay me nearly enough to deal with your mother in the event of your tragic demise and miraculous resurrection.”

“I could pay you more.”

“Or,” Jungkook replied with a heavy dose of judgment coloring his tone, “you could put on this ridiculous tie and stop trying to weasel out of it.”

“Sometimes I wonder why I pay you at all,” Taehyung growled, yanking the tie from the younger man’s grasp. “Clearly I’m not the one in charge.”

“Your words, sir, not mine. Now shall we go over the details and itinerary?”

If Jeon Jungkook wasn’t the best executive aide in the city (and one of his closest friends) Tae would have drop-kicked him right then and there.

“Could you at least try to look like you’re not enjoying this?”

“I’m sorry, sir. It was insensitive of me to ignore your suffering in this delicate time. The trauma of escorting a beautiful woman to a series of glorified buffets weighs heavily upon you.”

Taehyung tightened the tie so aggressively, he almost strangled himself.

“Beautiful woman?!” he wheezed. “We’re talking about the girl who showed up to our formal graduation party looking like she just escaped from Azkaban.”

Jungkook bit the inside of his cheek thoughtfully. 

“Tae… how long has it been since you’ve actually seen Ms. Park?” 

“Seen? Maybe three—four years.”

The heir-apparent of Kim Holdings avoided the public end of corporate culture like the plague, preferring to leave the requisite schmoozing to his personable cousin, Kim Seokjin. 

However, he had crossed paths with his adolescent nemesis in... other ways. 

Taehyung was romancing a lovely young socialite who suddenly ghosted him after someone told her that he wanted at least eight naturally-birthed children. 

Soon after, your favorite charity received an anonymous 30,000 dollar donation requesting that you be featured in the dunk tank for an upcoming benefit carnival and then the same anonymous patron paid for at least fifteen little league teams to attend. 

In retaliation, someone petitioned the National Aviary Society (chaired by a very influential senator’s wife that no one ever refused if they wanted their permits to go through) to make Taehyung the MC at their annual awards ceremony—knowing full well he was allergic to birds (not dangerously allergic—just enough to be miserable).  

Taehyung had sniffled and sneezed through approximately one hundred parrots, parakeets, and other assorted fowl until he was ready to commit murder. 

The last several years had been littered with similar incidents of the two of you taking thinly veiled potshots at one another. 

“I can’t imagine she’s changed very much,” Taehyung bit off absently. His mind was abruptly consumed by how he could get revenge for those demonic birds. 

He didn’t notice the smile creeping over Jungkook’s face. 

“No, sir. I’m sure she hasn’t changed at all.”

Taehyung had only ever had the wind knocked out of him once before. 

He was Dionysia High School’s star pitcher for three seasons and during one particularly tense game against JY Prep, Lim Jaebeom whacked a line drive right into his solar plexus. 

That’s how it felt to look up and see you at the top of the stairs. 

In his head, you were still the mischievous imp from his childhood. Every prank he played was directed at the fierce little fiend with braids and braces who’d knocked him and his date into the university fountain while experimenting with her friend’s skateboard. 

But she was gone… and in her place was something far more dangerous. 

A woman. 

Silken fabric wrapped tightly over curves you definitely didn’t have four years ago. That wild hair had been tamed into shining waves and pinned elegantly at the nape of your neck. The wicked slit that traveled all the way up your thigh teased a smooth shapely leg that all but demanded the viewer fantasize about running their hand up the length of it. 

Suddenly it was very clear why Park Jimin wouldn’t let his sister venture into the corporate cesspool alone. 

Because the sight of you could make a man desperate. 

Betrayal—of all things—slowly crept over Taehyung as you descended toward him like some sort of angel floating down from the heavens. 

His mind went blank. Just watching the seductive shift of your hips as you swayed ever closer felt like a violation of his friendship with Jimin. He could feel the judgmental stares of an imaginary Bro-Code Council boring into him from on high. 

“I see you’ve recovered from your memorable tenure as the Aviary Society’s Master of Ceremonies.”

And just like that the brat was back. 

Taehyung breathed a hefty sigh of relief, secretly thrilled to be in familiar territory with you. 

“Naturally I was delighted to help Senator Mitchell’s wife. In fact, Mitchell’s office just fast tracked all my pending permit requests for the new year.” He tilted forward, coming into your space a bit. “I should really send you a thank you card.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you scowled, breezing past him like an indignant queen. 

Tae could practically see the steam pouring out of your ears. 

“Of course not,” he chuckled.

The first gala of the holiday season was an extravagant annual affair hosted by Min Corp., a Seoul based investment firm that commanded billions in assets. This year, the theme of the event was the Joseon Dynasty and the entire ballroom had been gloriously transformed into a stunning celebration of the Min family’s royal heritage. 

Attendees were gifted their own traditional fan, each uniquely crafted by artisans from Damyang. Taehyung’s was all black with bold silver calligraphy while yours was a beautiful bamboo and silk piece decorated with pomegranate trees. 

You had already whacked three people with it by the time dinner was served. 

“It really is a pity these fell out of fashion,” you lamented. “They’re quite useful.”

“You are deranged,” Taehyung mumbled, massaging his temples in exasperation. 

“Nonsense. I only fanned those who deserved it.”

“Harkins?”

“He was staring at my rack for a solid minute.”

Taehyung could hardly blame the man, it was a battle he himself was losing after all, but Harkins was twice your age and married—therefore his ogling was in especially poor taste. 

“Okay... What about Kang?” 

“He was verbally abusing one of the waitstaff.” 

“Alright, fair enough, but why on earth would you go after sweet old Mrs. O’Malley?”

“She was about to grab your ass.”

Taehyung’s mouth dropped open.

“She’s eighty-five!”

“And still kickin’ apparently.” You shook your head in disgust. “As if I’d whack an eighty-five year-old woman for anything less than non-consensual touching.”

“I- I- mean—surely you must be mistaken,” he coughed. 

“Oh, there’s no mistake. That nasty old crone is a serial offender. She likes to play it off as dementia, but she’s as sharp as a tack. Last year she got a whole handful of Jimin. Honestly, I’d call the police on her, but the commissioner is her grandson so I doubt I’d get very far.”

Taehyung turned to the woman in question just in time to see her totter lecherously toward Jung Hoseok, fingers already twitching in anticipation. 

“Is nothing sacred?” he mused hollowly. 

You shrugged. 

“Many people who accumulate as much as our families have start believing that they are entitled to whatever strikes their fancy.” Your eyes met his with a hint of bemusement. “Surely you should be used to this sort of thing by now?”

“Yes, but I was hardly expecting it from little old ladies!”

The remainder of dinner was a terse affair where you pretended he didn’t exist for the entire meal and he in turn pretended that the spunky young heiress seated to his right was the most darling creature to ever walk the earth. By dessert she was ready to get married and you were ready to vomit. 

Afterward, Taehyung found himself quickly converted to your views on fan usefulness as you began strolling through the crowd intent on strengthening your family’s corporate ties. 

“Kim Taehyung,” you ground out through clenched teeth, “how am I supposed to do business if you keep stabbing everyone I speak to!”

���I don’t know what you’re implying. I’m simply not used to carrying one of these. I may have accidentally grazed a few overzealous individuals—”

“My last three conversations have been rudely disrupted by the blunt end of that accused fan.”

Taehyung crossed his arms smugly. 

“And what of it? Jimin sent me along to keep an eye on you and the gentlemen in question were hardly behaving themselves. No one has to put their hand in my back or lean that close to me when they’re talking business.” 

“That’s because no one wants to get that close to you,” you replied sweetly. “You’re gross.” 

A devastating grin slid slowly over his features as he leaned forward to whisper in your ear. 

“I can think of several women who might disagree.”

He just barely caught the hitch in your breath before- 

“Like who? Miss Blushes-and-Giggles from dinner?”

“Jealous?” Taehyung drawled cockily. 

“Only in your dreams, Kim.” Then, with a deliberate flick of your fan, you turned your back to him. “I’m headed for the ladies room. Do yourself a favor and don’t follow me in.”

It was twenty minutes before Taehyung realized that you slipped out the back entrance of the restroom. 

It took another ten for him to locate you on the balcony flirting outrageously with Min Yoongi. 

The young heir of Min Corp. was just leaning closer to whisper sweet nothings in your ear when a black fan slid right in between the two of you. 

“Lovely weather we’re having,” Taehyung observed cheerfully. His eyes bounced between you and Yoongi with barely concealed fury and you let out a miserable groan. 

“Mr. Kim,” Yoongi cleared his throat significantly. “What an… unexpected surprise.”

Frustration clawed at your chest as your overbearing guardian nodded smugly in response. 

It was time to teach him—and Jimin—a lesson. 

“Yoongi,” you sighed, sliding your hand pointedly through the crook of his arm, “I’m not feeling at all well. Would you perhaps… escort me home?”

Taehyung suddenly looked as if he’d swallowed a live octopus. 

Yoongi grinned, clearly thrilled with the prospect of simultaneously spending more time with you and irritating Taehyung. 

“It would be my pleasure.”

“Jimin is gonna kill me,” Taehyung grumbled as he watched Min Yoongi help you into the passenger seat of his Aston Martin. 

An ugly green feeling he refused to identify twisted sharply in his gut when you smiled coyly at the other man. 

“This is ridiculous,” he snarled to no one in particular before yanking his phone out of his pocket. 

Jungkook picked up on the second ring. 

“Sir?”

“I need you to drive to Ms. Park’s apartment and tell me if she goes in alone or if Min Yoongi goes in with her.”

“You want me to what?!” 

“Just do it!” he snapped, downing an entire glass of champagne before signaling his own driver. 

Fifteen minutes later his phone vibrated from the car seat next to him. 

1 New Message from: Jungkook

Her building has four separate entrances. Which one do I watch? 

Taehyung could practically feel the vein pulsing in his forehead as he scrolled through his contacts. 

You picked up on the fourth ring. 

“Hello?”

“Where are you?”

“Oh it’s you… Wait—how did you get this number?”

“Jimin. Obviously. Now please answer the question.”

“Oh a ‘please.’ Who knew you had manners?”

“Answer the question, Park. I’m tired.”

The distinct sound of a zipper unzipping carried through the speaker. 

“I’m at home, of course. Where else would I be? I just got here like a minute ago.”

He had a sudden vision of Min Yoongi helping you out of your dress. His grip on the phone tightened. 

“Are you alone?”

You snorted. 

“I don’t see how that is any of your business.”

Taehyung saw red. 

“I’m coming over.”

There was a loud crash and several colorful words in at least three different languages. 

“Wha- No! I’m trying to go to bed!”

“With who?!”

“With myself, you idiot!”

“Prove it!”

“Fine! I will!”

The line disconnected and Taehyung swore loudly. He was just about to direct the driver to your building when his phone went off again. 

1 New Message from: Park Gremlin 

He almost choked on his tongue. 

You were clearly in the middle of undressing and—in your irritation—probably hadn’t looked too carefully at the picture you sent.  

At first glance it was simply a shot of your empty room (presumably “proof” that you were alone) but you neglected to consider the floor-length mirror hanging in the far corner…

A mirror that showed you angrily holding up your phone with your gown pooled deliciously around your waist and the soft round swells of your breasts strapped into lacy red lingerie. 

You were exquisite. 

A fierce, hot sensation gripped him ruthlessly, and this time there was no mistaking it. 

Desire. 

Your phone lit up on the bed where you tossed it after snapping a photo for your tightly-wound man nanny. 

1 New Message from: Kim Grinch 

I didn’t know you liked Van Gogh. 

Your head tilted in confusion. 

There was a Van Gogh print in your room, but he couldn’t have seen it because it was behind you when-

Oh NO.

You gasped, scrolling back up to confirm what deep down you already knew to be true. 

… You just sent Kim Taehyung a topless mirror selfie. 

Several miles away, smiling smugly in the backseat of his town car, Taehyung was sure he could almost hear you screaming. 

“Good morning, sir. Which would you like first; the bad news or the worse news?”

Taehyung groaned from underneath his covers. 

“Don’t you ever knock? I could have a woman up here.”

“You’ve never brought a woman up here.”

“Is that the bad news?” Taehyung yawned. 

“No,” Jungkook tossed a small stack of newspapers and printed digital articles into his lap, “this is the bad news.”

Pictures of you, Min Yoongi, and even himself were splashed over the front pages of all of them. 

PARK ANGEL TRADES ONE CORPORATE HEIR FOR ANOTHER AT MIN GALA

WHO WILL WIN THE PARK ANGEL’S HEART? KIM TAEHYUNG OR MIN YOONGI? LET US KNOW IN THE COMMENTS

NEW ROMANCE ALERT? PARK ANGEL LEAVES JOSEON BALL WITH MIN SCION 

“The Park Angel?” 

“That’s what the media calls her... The public is rather fascinated with her actually.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Taehyung mumbled. 

“Of course not, sir. It’s a great mystery.”

As usual, Taehyung chose to ignore his aide’s lethal snark and pressed on to the matter at hand. 

“This is a flaming disaster.”

“Oh I don’t know. I really appreciated the picture of you staring on forlornly while she and Yoongi climbed into the Aston Martin. Takes a real gift to capture all that drama in a single frame.”

“Which one was that?!” 

“It’s right under the MAN DOWN: PARK ANGEL LEAVES KIM TAEHYUNG HEARTBROKEN headline.”

Tae ran his hand down over his face in exasperation. 

“I’m surprised my mother hasn’t called.”

“She has. Twice.”

“I don’t suppose that’s the ‘worse news’ is it?”

“No.”

“Of course it isn’t. I’m never that lucky.” He collapsed backwards into his pillows with a beleaguered huff. “Go ahead then. Tell me.”

“Park Jimin is on the line for you right now.”

After a small eternity on the phone with Jimin (assuring him that NO Min Yoongi had not despoiled his precious sister and YES he would definitely do better next time), Taehyung was forced to attend an impromptu brunch with his mother. It took considerable effort, but he was eventually able to convince her that you were neither breaking his heart nor expecting his child. 

By the time he arrived to collect you for this evening’s event, Taehyung was already sick of hearing your name (he’d spoken it no less than three hundred times since Jungkook woke him this morning).

You were in much the same boat as Taehyung, having spent most of the afternoon pacifying Jimin and clearing up your own mother’s romantic delusions regarding the Min and Kim heirs respectively. 

Tonight’s gala was a Victorian Christmas Ball thrown by the National Literary Fund and the entire venue had been transformed into a Charles Dickens fever dream. 

Unlike the Min Gala (whose theme was guarded like a state secret every year) the Literary Fund’s tribute to A Christmas Carol was tradition and you were dressed accordingly in a custom corset gown with gorgeous detailing. 

Every second of effort it took to lace yourself into the monstrosity was worth the look on Taehyung’s face the moment you slipped off your cape. 

“Something wrong, Mr. Kim?”

Taehyung was desperately trying to look literally anywhere but your chest, where said corset was serving up your breasts like a debauched buffet. 

Jimin. Think of Jimin. Think of what Jimin will do to you. Think of how much trouble she’s caused-

He peeked again.

I would pay a million dollars to suck those tits. 

“Nothing at all,” his voice cracked. 

The itinerary for the evening included performances by a local children’s choir, a traditional waltz, and—of course—dinner.

You both managed to get along without snapping at each other during the choral performance, but as two of the largest donors to the Children’s Literacy Initiative, neither of you could escape being drawn into the waltz. 

The energetic socialite who Taehyung flirted with over dinner the previous night eventually lured him onto the floor while you graciously accepted an invitation from a lovely older gentleman who chaired the Fund’s event committee. 

For the first few movements, you were thoroughly enjoying yourself. Mr. Lee was charming, respectful, and still an excellent dancer despite his advanced age. It wasn’t until a familiar sound caught your attention that the lightness in your chest suddenly felt heavy...

Taehyung was laughing. 

You heard him do so many times over the years, and in each instance, the carefree magic of it never failed to make your heart flutter. 

But now he was smiling down at the pretty little heiress and laughing for her… and the flutter in your chest was accompanied by something else. 

Something that felt an awful lot like longing. 

“Does he know you look at him like that?” Mr. Lee asked quietly. 

Your eyes flew guiltily to his, but it was too late. The old man had caught a glimpse of the secret you buried deeply for more than a decade; so deeply, in fact, there were times you almost forgot it yourself...

Almost. 

“No,” you whispered, “he has no idea.” 

Disaster struck at dinner. 

Taehyung quite liked dancing with the lovely Miss Something-or-Other. She was sweet and funny and (unlike with you) he wasn’t constantly torn between agitation and raging inappropriate lust in her presence. 

The cold shoulder you offered him when he took his seat seemed even more frigid than usual and he spent half the meal wondering what he’d done to earn your amplified disdain when suddenly—

Your hand smacked down on his wrist, seizing it in a vise-like grip. 

Taehyung nearly choked on his steak and was about to give you a searing set-down over your spontaneous grabby-ness when he noticed your expression. 

“What’s wrong?” he whispered, leaning forward in concern. 

“I-I need—” 

It looked as if you were in some sort of physical pain and Taehyung was rapidly becoming worried. 

“I need your help,” you finally managed to whimper and the next thing he knew, you were dragging him away from the table and into one of the secluded alcoves near the main entrance hall. 

“Is there anyone around? Can anyone see us?” The look on your face bordered on unhinged. 

“No. There’s no one. Park, are you okay? What’s going on I—”

“I need you to unlace my dress,” you hissed frantically. 

At that moment, a bomb could have gone off and Taehyung wouldn’t have blinked. 

You, however, were completely preoccupied with your own distress and therefore oblivious to his. 

“My earring broke during dinner and fell down there and now it’s stabbing me—”

Your eyes were beginning to tear. Taehyung remained frozen, still trying to figure out whether or not this was a lucid dream. 

“—it’s definitely pierced the skin and there’s a possibility I’m gonna start bleeding through the fabric—”

The mention of blood snapped him out of his daze somewhat. 

“A-Alright. Just turn around—brace yourself on that wall.”

You quickly did as you were told and Taehyung began to tug fruitlessly at the ties cross-crossing your back.

“Why won’t this—”

His fingers fumbled over the knots, desperately trying to loosen them, but they simply wouldn’t budge. 

“I can’t—I can’t get it. Whoever helped you into this thing made sure you weren’t getting out of it.” 

You whined in frustration and the earring shifted a bit in response. 

There was only one other way to fix this (and you would almost rather be in pain). 

“Taehyung I—” you turned to face him again, forcing your eyes shut before reluctantly doing what had to be done “... I need you to reach down the front of my dress and get it.”

He blinked. Twice. 

“I’m sorry—What did you just—”

“Please, Tae,” you whispered desperately, letting your lip tremble in a way he had never been able to resist, “it hurts…”

He gulped. 

His eyes dropped to the matter at hand.

This is fine. Everything’s fine. She’s in pain, right? You’re basically a doctor right now. You’re just going slide your hand in between the most mouthwatering pair of breasts you’ve ever seen and then—

Taehyung’s manic inner monologue was interrupted by the sound of his own moan. He immediately faked a coughing fit to cover it and prayed you hadn’t noticed. 

(You hadn’t. You were actively being stabbed.) 

“I can’t believe I’m actually doing this,” he muttered, curling his fingers over the scalloped edge of the bodice. 

You bit your lip, desperately trying to hold back any reaction, but when his knuckle brushed the pebbled tip of your nipple, you gasped. 

Oh.

His hand stuttered, lingering a moment too long over the tight little peak as his gaze suddenly shot up to meet yours. Both of you had been studiously avoiding eye contact, yet now it was as if neither of you could look away. 

Taehyung wet his lips reflexively. 

“It’s too tight,” he whispered, “I need more leverage.” 

Then his arm wrapped over the curve of your lower back and he drew you tightly against him, anchoring your hips just enough to fully slip his hand between your body and the corset. 

You were so warm.

So soft...

“I can feel it,” he grunted, “but I can’t get a good grip on it.” 

His mouth pressed into a tight line as he leaned forward, bringing your back up against the wall. You let out a little squeak and his eyes darted briefly down to your mouth before he spoke again. 

“Hold on to me.”  

You nodded and wordlessly slid your arms around his waist.

If you concentrated hard enough, you could almost pretend that this wasn’t one of the most erotic moments of your life. 

You could almost pretend that it meant nothing. 

Your mind was spinning wildly, wondering what he was thinking, wondering if he noticed how strangely you were breathing or how hard your heart was beating...

“I’ve got it,” he murmured. Shivers shot down your spine at the dark timbre of his voice. 

He was so close. You could feel every word he spoke brushing softly against your skin. 

“On ‘three’ I’m going to pull it out… Are you ready?”

You drew in a final steadying breath. 

“Do it.”

He nodded. 

“One… Two… Three—”

Taehyung yanked his hand back and several things happened at once. 

Your breasts bounced almost entirely out of the corset. 

The decorative clasps on the front of your gown tangled with the buttons on his shirt and when he pulled back, three of them went flying off like stray bullets. 

And finally, the corset didn’t relinquish Taehyung’s hand quite quickly enough and, as a result, you toppled forward and crashed down on top of him, smashing your newly bare breasts to his newly bare chest. 

It could have been ten seconds or ten hours that passed by while the two of you lay there, breathing heavily in a pile of confused arousal when—

“... Is… everything alright here?”

You both looked up to find a thoroughly scandalized member of the waitstaff standing over you. 

Taehyung saw his life flash before his eyes—ending (of course) with Jimin murdering him for this. 

He gulped again. 

“I can explain.” 

It was decided—for the sake of appearances—that you would both leave the venue (immediately) in separate vehicles. 

Taehyung dropped a cool three hundred in crisp bills on the unfortunate waiter in order to help him ‘forget’ whatever he may or may not have seen. 

Neither of you spoke another word to each other in the ten minutes it took to bribe all the appropriate parties, gather your coats, and call for two separate town cars. 

Something had happened when he touched you; a subtle shift in the precarious balance of your relationship that you both felt keenly, but could not possibly begin to define. 

Taehyung barely even remembered climbing into the back of a vehicle. His body was firing on auto-pilot after the sensory overload of the last half hour. It wasn’t until he was nearly home that he realized he was still holding onto your earring. 

His mind began to wander as he examined the troublesome bauble in his palm. It was a striking piece; deceptively complex and unexpectedly beautiful. 

Just like you.

He told himself that the heat pooling low in his belly was anger—that the strange anxiousness to be near you was simply a desire for retribution—that it was merely platonic curiosity that left his hands aching to explore the rest of your curves. 

Lies.

… and pitifully transparent ones at that. 

Still, he clung to them desperately out of self-preservation. 

The gentle hum of his phone suddenly disturbed Taehyung’s silent contemplation. 

1 New Message from: Park Gremlin 

I made it home safely. 

Taehyung’s fingers were typing a reply before he could properly consider the consequence of his actions. 

To: Park Gremlin

I require proof… like last time. 

He nearly threw the phone the moment he sent it, running his hands down over his face in disbelief. 

You’re playing with fire, Kim Taehyung. 

And he was burning up already. He had no business sending you texts like that. Maybe you wouldn’t catch it. Maybe he could just-

The phone went off again and it was embarrassing how quickly he scrambled to open your response. 

His heart stuttered in his chest. His breathing ceased entirely-

And he knew—he knew—there was no coming back from this.

At first glance the photo was nearly identical to the shot you sent him last night. Same room, same angle… 

same mirror.

Yet this time, the reflection was quite different. 

The temptress in the glass wore nothing but that sinfully delicious corset and a pair of silky lace thigh highs, each accented with a green satin bow. 

He wanted to rip them off with his teeth. 

 “Oh Taehyung,” he whispered, as a dark wave primitive longing tore through him, “you are in so much trouble.”

Across town (buried beneath a pile of blankets) you were still struggling to process the boldness of your own actions when his response lit up your screen. 

1 New Message from: Kim Grinch

Green is my favorite color. 

“WHERE IS HE—”

Taehyung awoke to a series of crashes and shouts echoing from the floor below him. 

Jungkook was already seated in the corner of the room reading a newspaper. 

“Good morning, sir,” he said without looking up. “Would you like the bad news or the worse news?”

Suddenly the french doors of his bedroom slammed open and one very irate Park Jimin stormed through. 

“I swear I should have seen this coming. The two of you have always been obsessed with each other, but I never imagined—”

Taehyung’s eyes widened guiltily. He quickly schooled his features into a confused glare. 

“Jimin, I’ve only been awake for fifteen seconds. What the hell are you talking about?!”

Another stack of newspapers hit his lap and this time the pictures were mostly of him with his shirt ripped halfway down his chest. 

KIM HEIR AND PARK ANGEL CAUSE AN OLD-FASHIONED SCANDAL AT VICTORIAN BALL

FORGET MISTLETOE: KIM TAEHYUNG DISCOVERED UNDER THE PARK ANGEL AT CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION

NAUGHTY NOEL? PARK ANGEL’S STEAMY AFFAIR WITH CORPORATE PRINCE 

PARK ANGEL TOPS KIM TAEHYUNG’S CHRISTMAS TREE

He winced a bit at that last one. 

“You have ten seconds to explain before I start throwing things.”

Taehyung opened his mouth to do just that, but he was interrupted when his mother marched into the room waving the same articles that Jimin had just thrown at him. 

“KIM TAEHYUNG I raised you better than this! How could you!? That poor girl!”

“Mother!” he squeaked, yanking his blanket up over his chest like a frightened debutante. 

Jungkook began surreptitiously filming the whole debacle from the corner. 

“Indeed,” Jimin added darkly, crossing his arms over his chest, “how could you?”

Taehyung sighed heavily. 

“Is anyone else going to come charging into my bedroom?”

“Just answer me once and for all, is she pregnant?” 

“WHAT?!” 

“NO! Mother! Oh my—”

“Why does your mom think my little sister is pregnant?!”

Taehyung waved his arms wildly in exasperation. 

“My mom thinks everyone is pregnant! You know this!”

Jungkook could no longer contain his hysterical cackling. He very nearly fell off the chair trying to hold it all in. 

“Mr. Jeon,” Taehyung ground out irritably, “if it’s not too much trouble, could you please escort everyone out of my bedroom so I can get dressed!” 

“So you see—I was basically like a doctor,” Taehyung finished emphatically. 

He spent the past twenty minutes explaining to the entire table (which now included both you and your mother) why it was necessary to shove his hand down the front of your dress. 

Park Soomin had shown up at his door looking for answers (and dragging you behind her like a sacrificial lamb) about three minutes after Jimin. 

You had taken one look at Jimin’s murderous expression and insisted that the situation be evaluated over breakfast at the cafe down the street (where there were lots of witnesses). 

Which was how you, Taehyung, Jimin, and both your mothers ended up discussing your cleavage over coffee in a public restaurant. 

Jimin was the first to break. It was a few snorts at first, but he was basically in tears by the end of it, wheezing about how he never doubted Taehyung for a second and holding on to his sides from laughing too hard. 

Taehyung’s gaze met yours for a brief, heated exchange. He conveniently forgot to mention your slightly-less-than-explainable ‘check-in’ texts, but their existence was palpable in the air between you. 

“I think I’ll take a walk,” you muttered, excusing yourself from the complicated atmosphere at the table. 

Taehyung’s eyes lingered on you a tad too long as you wandered away, a fact that wasn’t missed by either of your mothers.

“Just a few more events and you can go back to not seeing her at all,” Jimin chuckled, patting him on the back. 

“Yeah,” Taehyung answered with a tight smile. “That’s… great.”

The cafe had a lovely little balcony area decorated with all sorts of comforting Christmas foliage. It was far more inviting than the awkward conversation and confusing stares you and Taehyung had been trading all morning. 

For the first time in the nearly fifteen years of your relationship (such as it was) you didn’t know where you stood with him… and it bothered you more than you cared to admit. 

Taehyung had always been important to you, whether you wanted him to be or not. He mattered—effortlessly—from the first moment you met him and continued to do so without regard for your sanity. 

Whatever was building between you now would almost certainly bring change… though what kind of change was anyone’s guess. 

It was hard to imagine the years ahead without the strange excitement he always brought to your life, but some things were simply out of your control…

“I never thought I’d see you here.”

A profoundly unpleasant feeling (something similar to falling through the ice on a frozen pond) overtook you. 

“Milo.” Even saying his name felt gross. You sighed. “What is so strange about seeing me here?”

The man in question blushed in a way you once found irresistible. 

“I looked for you everywhere. All your usual places—”

“I avoided them.”

I avoided you. 

Milo nodded. 

“I—I figured.” 

He took a step closer and you instinctively moved back. The hurt in his eyes was unmistakable, but you had long since become immune. 

“What are you doing?” you hissed angrily. “I thought I made myself clear the last time we spoke.”

“Yes, but—” his hand reached out to curl over your forearm and you recoiled, “you didn’t give me a chance to explain—”

“Excuse me.” 

You both turned to see Kim Taehyung with his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at Milo like he was a roach that crawled across his dinner plate. 

“Your mother sent me to come find you. She wants to leave.” 

You nodded and moved to pull away, but Milo’s grip tightened on your arm. 

“No—please if you just give me a minute—”

“That is enough,” Taehyung snarled, seizing the other man’s hand and forcibly removing it from your person. He angled his body between the two of you protectively. “I think it’s time for you to go.”

Milo’s eyes narrowed. 

“You’re Kim Taehyung. I read all about you in the papers this morning.” His lips twisted into an ugly sneer as he addressed you. “You really think you’re better off with him if that’s the way he treats you?”

Taehyung tensed menacingly beside you, but you laid a gentle hand on his arm to calm him. 

“None of that is any of your concern.” Your gaze rose to meet his defiantly. “Nothing about me is your concern anymore.”

Milo’s eyes fell to where your palm rested on the other man’s sleeve, noticing the way you both unconsciously leaned toward one another. 

“This isn’t over,” he muttered, storming off. 

After he was gone, you let out a breath you hadn’t known you were holding. 

“Thank you,” you whispered (though you couldn’t resist adding), “I could have handled it myself of course…”

Taehyung laughed. 

“Oh I know. I was at that party where you knocked out Tyler Jung for grabbing your ass.” 

You grinned. 

“I’d forgotten about that.”

“Well I’m sure Tyler hasn’t.” 

(He neglected to mention that he split Tyler’s lip behind the library the next day, just to make sure it was extra memorable for him.) 

“I wish I could forget about Milo.”

“... Are you still in love with him?” 

The words tasted like ash in his mouth. 

“No.” You smiled softly. “I’m not sure I was ever in love with him actually. It’s more—” you sighed, “—embarrassment… wounded pride.”

Taehyung tilted his head curiously and you found yourself continuing. 

“In the beginning, he was very playful and charming—and obviously handsome. He reminded me so much of—”

you. 

You cleared your throat. 

“Anyway… I was quite taken with him at first. I didn’t suspect any ulterior motives.” You shrugged, trying to hold back the unpleasant emotions that always threatened to overrun you in moments like this. “I just thought he liked me.”

Taehyung’s eyes filled with sympathy and understanding as you spoke. It felt oddly natural to open up to him this way. 

“Jimin is very protective of me—with good reason it turns out. He was suspicious of Milo and hired people to do some discreet digging.”

Your hands wrapped around your body for both warmth and comfort. 

“Milo’s family owns several companies, just like ours, but they’re all struggling. His father sent him to me hoping that he would eventually get compromising information… a sex tape or photographs—something of that nature. They intended to blackmail Jimin into doing business with them.”

Taehyung felt his jaw clench painfully. Fury, hot and profound, rolled through him. 

“I should kill him.”

You shook your head, amused in spite of yourself. 

“That’s exactly what Jimin said.”

“He has good instincts.”

“Scum like Milo aren’t worth it,” you chuckled. “He never got what he wanted… but I was still mortified. I felt like such a fool for believing him.”

“No,” Taehyung’s hands slid up to cup your shoulders, “it’s not foolish to believe that someone cared for you.”

It would be so easy to care for you. 

“Besides…” his eyes fell briefly to your lips as he searched for the right words, “I saw the way he looked at you and—even though he’s clearly a terrible person—I believe his feelings may have been genuine.”

You nodded. 

“That’s what he keeps trying to tell me—that he did have bad intentions, but ended up falling for me anyway.” You shook your head. “As If I could believe a word he says.”

The silence between you stretched comfortably. Taehyung sensed you had more to say, so he waited until you were ready to voice it. 

“I think that’s why I’m so sensitive about handling things on my own lately… and just now even. I want to prove to everyone—to myself—that I’m not a liability.”

“Hey,” he whispered, tipping your chin up till your gazes met, “no one thinks you’re a liability. And even if you are capable, no one should have to fight their own battles all the time—especially when they’re emotionally compromised…” His thumb gently brushed away the small tear that escaped down the curve of your cheek. “That’s the benefit of having people who care about you.”

“... Like you?” 

The words left you so softly, you could almost imagine they were still in your head where they likely should have stayed. 

Taehyung’s eyes widened in surprise. His gaze became even more intent and you ceased breathing altogether. After a moment his lips parted as if he was about to speak- 

“What’s going on, guys?”

You both jerked back at the sound of your brother’s voice. He was standing in the entrance to the balcony, gaze darting suspiciously between the two of you. 

Taehyung was a bit dazed, but you were always quicker on your feet. 

“I ran into Milo… Tae was calming me down.”

Jimin’s eyes hardened immediately. 

“Where is he?”

“Long gone,” you mumbled, ambling over to the familiar warmth of his arms. “I just want to go home.” 

The Black and White Ball was one of the most coveted invitations of the holiday season. 

The dress code was quite strict (all black or all white—no exceptions) and it was one of the few events where people actually arrived in limousines. 

Taehyung loathed limousines. He felt absurdly pretentious pulling up to your building in such a gauche ride, but traditions and appearances meant too much in his world to simply disregard them. 

His ensemble for the evening was a beautifully tailored black suit with hand-stitched baroque detailing. Oddly, he found himself wondering what you would think of it... 

“You look like a vampire.”

Taehyung turned at the sound of your voice and was struck, yet again, by how incredibly beautiful you were. 

You had chosen to wear white, donning an exquisite gown with delicate pearl beading and a daring sweetheart neckline that molded perfectly to your frame. 

If he looked like a vampire, you were surely an angel. 

Still…

Angel or not, he couldn’t let that comment pass. 

“I think I’m offended.”

“I can’t imagine why. After all, loads of women are attracted to Nosferatu.”

Taehyung’s eyes narrowed. 

“There are so many sexy vampires in popular culture, but you just had to lump me in with the creepy bald one...”

You shrugged playfully. 

“I wouldn’t want you to think I was going soft.”

A wicked grin danced over your lips as you strolled past him regally—just as you had many times before... 

This time, however, he let his eyes linger a little longer on the view. 

Lord have mercy. 

“Of course not,” he coughed. 

“You’re what?!”

You rolled your eyes.

Tonight had been going rather well. 

The two of you formed a mutual unspoken agreement to pretend that your last encounter on the balcony (and on the phone) had never happened and (despite the heated glances you occasionally traded) the bickering and playful banter characteristic of your relationship had all but returned to normal...

Until Taehyung learned of your participation in the evening’s main event. 

“I told you, I’m part of the date auction this year.”

“Does your brother know about this?!”

“I didn’t see any reason to bother him with it.” You were suddenly preoccupied with your nails. 

“Woman,” Taehyung sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, “are you trying to make my life difficult?”

“No, I’m just naturally gifted in that respect.”

You turned and began making your way to the front, but Taehyung was hot on your heels and clearly not ready to let the matter rest. 

“I cannot believe you’re actually going through with this! It’s not 1810, you know. We shouldn’t just auction off women for dates—”

“You’re absolutely right, Tae Tae.” You brushed a condescending pat over his cheek. “Nowadays we auction off the men too.”

Then you sauntered off to join the rest of the participating women—and men—backstage, leaving Taehyung to stew about the entire situation from the crowd. 

“As you know, all proceeds from tonight’s auction go to fight childhood hunger right here in our city. For legal purposes, I must advise all bidders that you are only bidding on the company of the individual in question.”

Taehyung shook his head. “Jimin is probably going to kill me for this.”

“If you place the winning bid, then you and your date will receive two VIP tickets to the Governor's Winter Wonderland Gala which comes with a variety of amenities including; a luxury limousine service, one of the private and famously romantic Winter Wonderland dinner experiences—”

His eyes fluttered shut. “Jimin is definitely gonna kill me for this.” 

“—unlimited free drinks, ten complimentary tickets for each of the grand prize raffles, photos with the Governor and his family, along with many more surprises!”

Taehyung grabbed a champagne flute from a nearby waiter and downed it in one go. 

“And now for our first date of the evening! Mr. Jackson Wang!” 

Jackson went for a cool six grand because no one was brave enough to outbid his girlfriend. 

After him, the beautiful Manoban heiress and her handsome cousin Kim Namjoon went for twelve grand each.

Jung Hoseok started a frenzied bidding war between two young socialites and Mrs. O’Malley. He ended up going to the lovely Ms. Ana Fallon for a staggering twenty thousand dollars. 

Taehyung’s own cousin, Kim Seokjin, paid a jaw-dropping twenty-one thousand dollars for Lin Yuna, the young CEO of Lin Cosmetics. (Taehyung made a mental note to ask him about that later.) 

Then it was your turn. 

“The next lady on our list needs no introduction. The lovely Park Angel has graciously agreed to a date with one lucky bidder tonight! Who will it be? Do I hear ten thousand?”

“Ten thousand.”

Taehyung swung his head toward the first bidder and breathed a sigh of relief. 

Tam Martin, one of your best friends and very gay. 

“Eleven thousand.”

“Twelve thousand.”

“Fifteen.”

“Sixteen thousand dollars.”

“Seventeen thousand.”

“Eighteen.”

Taehyung was having trouble keeping up with all the bidders. His ears were starting to ring again and a strange unpleasant nausea was building in his stomach. 

“Twenty thousand.”

“Twenty-five thousand.”

“Thirty thousand!”

At the sound of the last bidder’s voice, you noticeably paled. Your eyes flew to Taehyung’s and immediately he knew exactly who it was. 

Milo.

Before he could even react to the new information, another voice joined the fray. 

“Forty thousand.”

Min Yoongi smiled smugly from the other side of the room and even had the audacity to throw you a wink. 

You smiled shyly at the young heir’s boldness and Taehyung felt something downright unholy rise up in his chest. 

No. 

Milo was still bidding. 

“Fifty thousand dollars.”

Not her. 

“Sixty,” Yoongi countered.

She’s mine. 

Suddenly Taehyung was on his feet. 

“One hundred thousand dollars!” 

The silence in the backseat of your limousine was deafening. 

Tension charged the air like an electric current as the significance of the last hour weighed heavily between you. 

The spacious luxury vehicle allowed you to sit facing one another. Taehyung’s eyes were focused on his hands, but you were looking at him—letting your mind run wild with speculation. 

And hope. 

Part of you was still there, on the stage, watching him stand up and bid a fortune for the pleasure of your company. 

His gaze was so fierce when he spoke, like an ancient emperor calling out his decree for the people to obey. 

You dreamed about him bidding on you when you signed up for the auction (even before Jimin bullied him into accompanying you). You let yourself imagine him speaking out again and again till the others stepped back—

Yet you never dared hope for it. 

However, the last several days marked an unexpected turning point in your relationship. 

For years, you and he were like magnets with a too-similar charge, but something had shifted irrevocably between you, and somehow your stubborn similarities became opposites that could not resist their attraction. 

Kim Taehyung was one of the wealthiest men in the city…

But he didn’t need to buy your heart. 

It had always been his, even if you didn’t want to admit it. 

He had claimed you tonight—and every single soul in that ballroom knew it. 

The next move was yours and you intended to make it. 

“Mmm,” you hissed a bit, bringing your hand to rest just below your breasts. 

Taehyung’s gaze flew up in concern. 

“Is everything alright?”

“Yes, it’s just that scratch from the earring,” your fingers rubbed gingerly at the spot, drawing his focus to it, “it still stings.”

“Oh… I—” he shook his head, “I didn’t realize it was that bad.”

“Do you want to see?” 

Taehyung’s eyes rose slowly to yours. 

You watched the subtle rise and fall of his chest as he considered your words. Anticipation vibrated through your blood like notes struck on a piano—

Then he nodded...

And you both were lost. 

Trembling fingers slid the zipper down the side of your gown. The dress itself was a marvel of physics designed to support you without the need for a bra. 

Taehyung drew in an impossibly deep breath as the fabric drifted to your waist, baring the perfect mounds of your breasts to him entirely. 

“Here,” you whispered, pointing to a small red mark just under the curve of your left one. 

He bit back a moan. 

“I—I see. That looks… painful.” His fingers dug into the seat beside him. “Is there anything I can do to help?” 

You nodded. 

“Kiss it better.”

Taehyung felt the air knock out of his lungs like a sucker punch. 

This must have been how Adam felt when Eve offered him the forbidden fruit all those millennia ago. 

He knew he shouldn’t—

but he could never deny you. 

“Of course.”

You watched as his tongue darted out to wet his lips. He looked like a man possessed and you reveled in the power of it. 

It was for you. 

He wanted you. 

Your back arched up the slightest bit, beckoning to him—offering him a taste of what he was so desperately craving. 

Touch me… please. 

Large palms landed on either side of your thighs, bracing him on the seat beneath you. The tip of his nose teased the delicate line of your collar bone and he swore violently under his breath. 

Then his lips were on your skin and your mind went blank. 

“Taehyung—“ you moaned. 

Hot open-mouthed kisses spread over the soft swell of your breast and you gasped— shuddering helplessly as a fierce wave of pleasure tore through you.

Sweet merciful heavens. 

Over the years you imagined a moment like this thousands of times in your head—only to discover now that you had pitifully underestimated both his passion and his skill. 

You had dreamed of a quiet fire—but he had unleashed an inferno. 

The lewd sounds of his mouth nipping and sucking at your tender flesh filled the small space around you as he poured himself into each obscene contact—stopping briefly to flick his tongue over the taunt peak of your nipple. You trembled breathlessly at the sharp snap of sensation, letting your head fall back against the seat as you buried your fingers in his soft curls. 

“T-Tae—”

Finally his mouth fastened over the tiny scratch, and the kiss deepened. You knew what he was doing, what the result of his efforts would be—

He was marking you. 

And you wanted it. 

Oh how you wanted it. 

Suddenly the car took a sharp turn, causing Taehyung to lose his grip on the seat. His arms wrapped around your torso for balance, dragging you fully against him.

“Does it feel better, Angel?” he growled. 

You nodded frantically and he nipped at the underside of your breast. 

“Speak up.”  

“Yes, Taehyung,” you whimpered, “it feels so much better.” 

“Mmmm,” he hummed, brushing his mouth along the sensitive column of your neck. “Who knew you could be such a good girl?”

Then his hand came up to grip your chin, turning it so your lips were almost against his—

“Madame. We’ve arrived.”

The driver’s voice cut over your senses like a shard of ice. 

Taehyung jerked backward and immediately buried his face in his hands. 

Your fingers hastily yanked your dress up and you stumbled out of the car in a daze, letting your feet carry you forward until you collapsed on top of your bed. 

Did we just...

You hadn’t even begun to collect your thoughts when your phone buzzed from inside your purse. 

1 New Message from: Taehyung 🙄🥴🙈

I need to know you made it safely to your room. 

You grinned. 

Greedy boy. 

Back in the limousine, the boy in question was nervously tapping the corner of his phone against his chin as he waited for your reply. 

1 New Message from: Angel 🤬🥵😅

Oh? But you saw me walk in… and I’m already in bed.

Taehyung growled in frustration. 

She would be a tease. 

To: Angel 🤬🥵😅

I tend to worry. Put my mind at ease. 

He shook his head. 

I have officially gone insane. 

The phone buzzed again. 

1 New Message from: Angel 🤬🥵😅

Well… We can’t have that can we… 

Taehyung literally felt the whine tear out of him as he opened the picture. 

Your gorgeous body (the body he’d had his hands and mouth on for one glorious minute) was nestled decadently atop a pile of fluffy blue blankets and wrapped in nothing but a tiny silk robe. 

The neck gaped open just enough to show off the pretty red marks he left on the delectable curve of your breast. 

He groaned, biting down hard on his bottom lip.

To: Angel 🤬🥵😅

That's all I get after I made the pain go away? Good girls send real proof, Angel

The screen lit up again almost immediately. 

1 New Message from: Angel 🤬🥵😅

Guess I’m not such a good girl after all...

Jimin came tearing through the Kim Manor front gate at precisely 7 AM—only to find Jungkook camped out at the entrance with several outdoor space heaters and a giant mug of hot chocolate.

“He told you not to let me in, didn’t he?”

Jungkook took a long satisfying sip of his cocoa. 

“I hope you don’t feel singled out, sir. I’m not allowed to let his mother in either.”

“I need to talk to him.”

“Of course, Mr. Park, let me just pull up his schedule—”

“I need to talk to him now.”

“I’m afraid Mr. Kim is booked solid for the morning.”

Jimin stomped his foot like a petulant child. 

“I know he’s up there.”

Jungkook grinned. 

“You’re welcome to climb the trellis and check. I promise not to stop you if you make it all the way up.”

“COME DOWN HERE AND FACE ME YOU COWARD!” Jimin shouted at the top of his lungs. 

Jungkook took another long pull of his drink. 

“Might I inquire as to the reason for your visit today, sir?”

“The reason for my visit,” Jimin yanked out his phone and angrily began typing into the search bar, “is that your boss paid ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS for my sister at a date auction last night and I want to know what the hell is going on between them!”

The article Jimin pulled up (DEVILISH KIM TAEHYUNG BUYS HIMSELF A $100,000 ANGEL) featured an image of the two of you entering the Black and White Ball. Your head was thrown back in laughter and Taehyung was grinning down at you as if you’d personally hung all the stars in the sky for him. 

A genuine smile crept over Jungkook’s face as he studied the photograph. 

“That’s quite a headline.” He handed Jimin’s phone back. “Have you asked your sister about it?”

“No, I swung by earlier, but she wasn’t home so—” His eyes widened. “Oh my—is she—”

Jimin suddenly took off running for the trellis, and Jungkook scrambled out of his chair to chase him. 

“KIM TAEHYUNG IF MY SISTER IS IN THAT ROOM—”

He was already three feet off the ground when Jungkook yanked him back. 

“I thought you said I could climb the trellis!”

“Yes,” Jungkook wheezed, “but I didn’t think you’d actually do it!” That trellis is a hundred years old! A few more feet and I’d be scraping you off the antique brickwork!”

Jimin scowled and crossed his arms. 

“Are you by any chance open to bribes?”

“Normally yes, but Tae promised to double my Christmas bonus if I didn’t accept them today.”

Jimin continued to eye the trellis speculatively, clearly willing to take his chances. Jungkook sighed and rubbed his forehead. 

“Mr. Park, I promise you… He came home alone last night. In fact, they both returned earlier than usual because your sister had a 7 AM finance meeting.” He paused significantly to glance at his watch. “Which is probably where she is right now.”

“Oh… Well.”

Jungkook bit his lip to hold back a snort and Jimin’s eyes narrowed. 

“He has to come down eventually.”

“One would think.”

The young Park heir glanced toward Taehyung’s window again just in time to see the man in question dart back behind the curtains. 

"I KNOW YOU'RE AWAKE, KIM TAEHYUNG, YOU PHILANDERING SLEAZE BAG!" 

Jimin made another jump for the trellis and this time Jungkook caught him in mid-air. 

“Sir, I’m sure it was just the maid!”

“It’s not the maid! I’d know that raggedy mop of his anywhere!”

Jungkook was out of breath at this point. Park Jimin might be small, but he was fierce. 

“Perhaps it’s best if you took a moment to collect yourself,” he grunted. “There’s a lovely new spa down the street and they sent Taehyung two free deluxe packages.”

Jimin stopped struggling. 

“Oh?”

Five minutes later, Jungkook sighed deeply and fished his phone out of his back pocket. 

“He’s gone, sir.”

“Excellent work, Jungkook. I never doubted you for a second.”

“However…”

“... However?”

“I had to give him your spa passes.”

“YOU DID WHAT?!”

“Are you headed for a gala or the guillotine?”

Taehyung rolled his eyes. 

“I don’t pay extra for commentary.”

“It’s complimentary, sir.”

The Kim heir tugged absently at the material of his absurdly expensive evening wear. 

Why do these events always have to be so uncomfortable? 

“Seriously, Tae… you seem,” the young aide searched for the right words, “unusually tense.”

Taehyung’s mind flashed back to three nights ago when he had his mouth wrapped around your breast. 

“Not at all,” he coughed, loosening the collar of his shirt. 

Jungkook bit his lip.

“Is this about Ms. Park, sir?”

The cufflinks Taehyung was attempting to fasten suddenly went flying across the room and hit a lamp. 

Both men winced. 

“I think that was your grandmother’s.”

Taehyung sighed. 

“I admit there have been… some developments.”

Jungkook nodded nonchalantly, trying to disguise the fact that he was internally frothing at the mouth for details. 

“... Such as?”

Taehyung gulped. 

“It started out rather innocently I suppose…” he cleared his throat, “but there may have been some suggestive photographs.”

“There may have been? Are you not sure?”

Taehyung colored guiltily. 

“Well—”

“Do you need me to check for you, sir? I have an art history degree.”

“Absolutely not.”

Jungkook grinned. 

“That’s what I thought.”

Taehyung yanked his tie out of the younger man’s hand. 

“Things have… escalated a bit.”

“Escalated how?”

I licked her tit in the back of a limo.

“Physically.”

It was everything Jungkook could do to maintain a straight face. 

“That’s… shocking.”

“Then why don’t you seem shocked?” Taehyung grumbled. 

A small smile played across Jungkook’s lips as he pointedly ignored the elder man’s observation.

“So what are you going to do, sir?”

Taehyung was silent for a long moment. 

“I honestly have no idea.”

Watching you walk toward him was an experience.  

Taehyung wondered absently if this was how it would be from now on; if for the rest of his life just the sight of you would be enough to scatter his mind and his pulse and even the way he breathed. 

Your dress tonight was deadly. 

It was a decadent red satin halter that clung to every curve. The truly wicked detail, however, was a daring slit that ran the entire length of your leg. 

Taehyung was certain he was going to trip over his own tongue at some point if he looked directly at you for too long. 

Oh help. 

Memories of your previous encounter flooded his senses. Every second you were getting closer and he didn’t know what to do—what to say. 

So he didn’t say anything at all. 

Not a word when you reached the bottom of the stairs. Nothing but silence as he opened the door of the limo for you. More silence and no eye contact as he settled into the seat across from yours—

And you tolerated that for about three minutes. 

“I never thought I’d see the day when Kim Taehyung didn’t have a comment about something. Perhaps I should mark this down on my calendar.”

The words were lightly spoken, but you were shaking on the inside. The last time the two of you were alone together he had your dress around your waist and you were moaning his name. Now he wasn’t talking and you were torn between panic and irritation. 

Taehyung, however, latched onto your passive barb like a lifeline. 

“Is that a hint of sarcasm I hear from the benevolent Park Angel?” He grinned. “Surely not.”

“Red is not a particularly angelic color. Perhaps I’m feeling feisty today.”

Taehyung leaned back in his seat and indulged himself in a thorough examination of your outfit. The urge to run his hands over the satin-covered lines of your body was nearly unbearable. He curled his fingers into fists to keep them from doing just that. 

She is definitely trying to kill me. 

“Should I be worried?”

Now it was your turn to grin. 

“I guess we’ll find out.”

The Governor’s Winter Wonderland Gala was by far the most extravagant event of the holiday season. Tickets cost a small fortune and sold out almost immediately. 

But it was well worth the price of admission.

Thousands of lights sparkled overhead as you made your way through the great hall of Governor Kim’s mansion. 

It was like stepping into a fairytale. 

Taehyung couldn’t take his eyes off you. The sheer wonder in your expression was breathtaking. 

You were breathtaking.  

“Governor Kim, it is such an honor to finally meet you.”

The Governor was a handsome man in his early fifties with a smile that was every bit as lethal as it had been twenty-five years ago. 

“The honor is all mine, Ms. Park. I trust my nephew is treating you well.”

Your eyes widened. 

“N-nephew?”

Taehyung shrugged. 

“I don’t really talk about it much.” 

The Governor chuckled and you cleared your throat to cover your nervousness. 

“Yes, he’s been a very capable escort.”

“Is that so?” Governor Kim smiled charmingly. “Well if it doesn’t work out, my son Seokjin is still single—”

“Thank you, Uncle. It was lovely to see you as always.”

You squeaked as Taehyung placed his hand firmly on the curve of your back and practically dragged you away. 

The Governor just shook his head and laughed. 

“Oh kid, you’ve got it bad.”

Everywhere you looked there was beauty. 

Whoever planned the gala this year had truly gone above and beyond. Surrounded on all sides by glittering trees and snowy vignettes, it was easy to be swept away in the festive magic of the evening. 

All in all (despite some initial awkwardness), you were having a fantastic time...

Until she showed up. 

“Kim Taehyung! Is that you?”

Every single hair on your body stood on end, but before you could determine the source of the shrill squealing, you found yourself being nudged aside by a blinding golden gown and some very high heels. 

“Aubrey,” Taehyung grunted as five-and-half feet of gorgeous wrapped herself around him like a clinging vine. “Long time no see.”

“Not since that vacation in Aspen,” she giggled. “We had quite a time, didn’t we Tae Tae!”

Suddenly you had the most unholy urge to slap the spray tan right off this woman. 

Instead, you plastered on a vibrant smile and placed your hand on Taehyung’s sleeve.

“Um. Excuse me, Tae Tae, perhaps you could introduce us?”

Taehyung looked as if he’d just been served raw fire ants for dinner. 

“Yes. Of course. This is—”

“Aubrey Alicia St. Valentine,” she interrupted with a smug little smirk. “Taehyung and I go way back.” Her expression grew just the slightest bit tighter. “And you are?”

“His date,” you deadpanned. 

“Aubrey,” Taehyung cleared his throat, “I’d like you to meet Ms. Park she’s—”

“Oh my goodness! You’re Jimin’s little sister aren't you!” Aubrey slapped her hand over his chest and he winced. “That is so precious of you to take her around like this!”

Your eyebrows raised right up into your hairline and Taehyung groaned. 

“Yes, he was kind enough to sign me out of the nursery for the evening.” You offered them both a painfully vacant nod. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I see one of my play-dates near the buffet.”

Then you turned on your heel and sauntered off without another word. 

Taehyung moved to follow you, but Aubrey curled her fingers into the crook of his arm and pulled him back. 

“Oh let her go, Tae. You and I have so much catching up to do.”

Taehyung pointedly removed her hand from his elbow. 

“Some other time perhaps.” 

Aubrey pouted prettily. 

“You’re not running off after her are you? She’s a big girl, she can take care of herself.”

Taehyung crossed his arms and fixed her with a knowing look. 

“Funny... that’s not what you were implying a moment ago.”

“A moment ago I didn’t have you all to myself. Now I do.” She had the decency to blush. “Perhaps I got a bit jealous.”

“You don’t say.” His eyes continued to search the crowd for any sign of you. 

“It seems I had good reason to be,” she murmured quietly. 

“Aubrey... Listen I—”

She cut him off with a finger to his lips.

“Don’t bother Tae Tae. I’m petty, but I’ve never been pathetic.”

He grinned. 

“Never.”

The lady sighed and gave him a heated once over.

“What a shame.”

Then she strolled off with a rueful smile. 

“You know what I don’t understand?”

You turn to find Min Yoongi leaning casually against a nearby column. He looked absurdly handsome as always, but his grin was just the slightest bit mischievous. 

“What don’t you understand, Mr. Min?”

The question was clearly a bait, but you were still fuming from your earlier encounter with Ms. St. Valentine and therefore desperately in need of a distraction. 

Yoongi pushed off the column and lazily made his way toward you.

“I don’t understand how a man pays a hundred thousand dollars for an evening with the most beautiful woman in the city, and then leaves her all by herself.” He leaned forward with a playful grin. “Perhaps you could enlighten me?”

Oh he’s good. 

You made a show of tapping your chin thoughtfully. 

“I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for that one.”

Yoongi sighed and shook his head. 

“Couldn’t be me.”

You laughed then. He really was a delightful man. In fact, if you still had your heart, you might have considered letting him take a shot at it. 

Alas. 

You tilted your head speculatively. 

Surely there was no need to brush away good company...

After all, no one else is interested in spending time with me. 

“Since my escort is otherwise occupied, perhaps you could join me for dinner?”

Yoongi held out his hand. 

“I’d be delighted.”

Taehyung wandered around the mansion for nearly forty-five minutes looking for his date.  

Panic was just starting to build in his chest when he finally spotted you

—at his private dining table with Min Yoongi. 

It was everything he could do not to storm over and yank the other man out of his seat by the lapels. 

Alright, Angel. If this is the game you want to play… then let’s play. 

Taehyung felt his anger rise with every step, but he ruthlessly suppressed any sign of it and instead adopted a charming smile. 

“Min, I didn’t expect to find you here. What a… delightful surprise.”

Yoongi’s expression was just a shade too satisfied. Taehyung could already feel his blood pressure beginning to skyrocket. 

“Yes, Ms. Park believed that you were otherwise occupied and invited me to share the meal with her.”

“I see,” Taehyung practically snarled. “However,” his gaze landed heavily on you, “since I paid for this table, I hope you won’t mind if I join you as well?”

You avoided looking at him up to this point, but now you were choking on your wine

“Easy there, Angel,” Taehyung murmured as he pulled up a seat extremely close to yours—so close that your thighs were nearly touching. 

Oh boy. 

Over the next several minutes Yoongi continued to flirt openly and you continued to smile prettily and pretend Taehyung wasn’t there (which naturally infuriated him). 

You should have known he wouldn’t let you get away with such behavior so easily. 

This was Kim Taehyung, after all, and if there was anything that could be counted on when it came to your shared history, it was that one (or both) of you was always ready to escalate. 

You had just offered the young Min heir yet another flowery compliment when you felt Taehyung make his move. 

Two warm fingers slid under the silken slit of your dress, coming to rest possessively over the soft flesh of your inner thigh. 

You squeaked and nearly spat up your drink. 

Taehyung leaned forward in fake concern, wrapping his arm around you as if to offer aid. 

“Are you alright?”

His hand continued to move significantly beneath your gown, but his face was the picture of innocence. 

You glared. 

“Just fine, thank you.”

A slow grin crept across his features as he began to trace soft intimate patterns over your skin.  

On the other side of the table, Yoongi tilted his head in genuine solicitude. “Are you sure?”

You nodded sharply. 

Satisfied, he resumed speaking about whatever it was he’d been saying—though you couldn’t understand a word of it at this point because the torturous strokes Taehyung was leisurely drawing over your thighs were moving closer to your center with each passing second. 

Yet you made no move to stop him. 

You should have. 

You should have slapped his touch away—rebuked him for his boldness—

But you didn’t. 

So he just kept nodding and smiling while Yoongi spoke, even as his fingers teased you with the maddening persistence of a man who knew very well what he was doing. 

You gasped aloud when he finally brushed the pad of his thumb over the thin cotton of your panties. 

“T-Taehyung—” 

“Hmm?” he turned to you, seemingly surprised by your attention (it was—after all—the first time you’d addressed him since the beginning of the meal).

“Could you pass me the salt,” you sputtered (hoping to cover the fact that you moaned his name involuntarily). Unfortunately, Taehyung seemed wholly aware of your ruse, offering you the salt shaker with a superior smirk.

You seriously considered stabbing him with a fork. 

However, before you could carry out any bloodthirsty plans, he pressed his fingers directly over your clit and your eyes rolled back in your head

“Oh my g—” you bit your lip stubbornly, “this lamb is just so good.” 

Sweet mother of macaroons, he is too skilled at this. 

You shoveled another bite into your mouth to cover your whine as Taehyung began to rub tight little circles over your sweet spot. 

Across the table, Yoongi nodded in blissful unawareness. 

“Yes, I agree, the lamb is excellent—very tender.”

Taehyung took advantage of the momentary distraction to slip beneath the fabric of your undergarment. 

Your fork clattered to your plate and your hand came up to cover your mouth as he began running his fingers up and down your soaked slit.

It was everything you could do to hold back your depraved whimpering. 

“I can’t wait to taste it,” Taehyung replied, flicking your clit in a way that guaranteed he wasn’t referring to the lamb. 

At this point Yoongi seemed to notice you were in some sort of distress. He wiped his mouth with his napkin and leaned forward. 

“Ms. Park, are you well?”

Taehyung chose that moment to sink his finger into the welcoming heat of your pussy. 

“Yes,” you almost sobbed, “I’m-I’m very well—thank you.”

“Excellent,” Yoongi smiled as he rose to his feet. “If you’re feeling up to it, perhaps you could favor me with a dance?”

Several attendees were already making their way to the center of the floor and the orchestra was beginning to play.

Your entire body, however, was vibrating like a plucked harp string and Taehyung was still brushing back and forth against your clit, driving you toward a release that promised to be explosive. 

There was no way—simply no way—that you would be capable of hiding it. 

“Yes! I would love to dance with you,” you squeaked, grabbing hold of Taehyung’s wrist frantically. The feel of him pulling out of your sopping core was nearly enough to have you coming right there. 

Thankfully, Yoongi remained utterly oblivious to the debauchery unfolding beneath the table. He took your hand and helped you to your feet with an eager smile (and it was a good thing too because your legs were still shaking). 

When the two of you reached the dance floor, you turned back for the briefest instant—

just long enough to meet Taehyung’s heated gaze as his lips closed over the finger he buried in your cunt. 

Emotions were a funny thing. 

They impacted your judgement, affected your body, altered your behavior… 

And occasionally eroded your common sense. 

Sitting alone in the corner of the Governor’s ballroom, Kim Taehyung found himself experiencing a full spectrum of emotional side-effects. 

His hands clenched as he watched Min Yoongi spin you around the floor. 

His heart pounded every time he caught a flash of your shapely leg peeking through the slit in your gown. 

His blood boiled when you threw your head back and laughed at something the other man said.��

It was difficult to pinpoint which emotion was to blame for each of these reactions. There were certainly a number of them boiling over in his subconscious. 

Frustration—

I didn’t even want to talk to Aubrey! How are you acting like anything she said was my fault?!

Rage—  

Why is challenging people to duels illegal? I would fight Min Yoongi at dawn. I would fight Min Yoongi now. 

Jealousy—

You asked her to dance while my fingers were in her pussy. We are not the same. 

But perhaps the most persistent—the most overwhelming— emotion twisting through him was longing. 

You and Taehyung spent nearly four years apart, and he was so desperate to be near you—even then—that he resorted to childish pranks in order to remain a part of your life. 

He hadn’t recognized his actions or desires for what they were. He hadn’t realized what you meant to him...

But now, after spending the last several days with your hand on his arm and your laughter in his ear, he could no longer imagine spending another moment without you. 

Everything seemed to crystallize as he watched you laughing and dancing in the arms of another man. 

Uncertainty became clear. Complications became simple. 

And when he saw Min Yoongi’s hand slide dangerously close to the perfect swell of your backside—

Emotion became action.

“Mind if I cut in?”

It wasn’t a question really. Taehyung was already shouldering his rival out of the way and pulling you into his arms. 

“Taehyung,” you hissed, shooting the bewildered Yoongi an apologetic look over his shoulder, “what are you doing? This is so rude—”

“You’re absolutely right,” he agreed, sweeping you through the couples on the floor with practiced ease. “It is unpardonably rude to steal someone else’s date. He’s lucky all I did was steal you back.”

Your mouth dropped open. 

“Oh? So you finally remembered that I was your date?”

Taehyung’s grip on the curve of your waist became a shade rougher as he pulled you through the next turn. 

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means—” you stepped forward vigorously, nearly smashing your body into his, “—that you spent forty-five minutes with Aubrey Alicia St. Valentine when you were supposed to be having dinner with me!”

Taehyung growled and yanked you flush against him. 

“I spent forty-five minutes looking for you while you were giving away my table to Min Yoongi!”

The two of you sailed through the next several movements glaring at one another before you snapped again. 

“None of this would have happened if you had just told Aubrey St. Spray Tan that you were with me—”

“I did!”

“Instead, you let her call me a baby!”

“What let? Aubrey is a grown woman!”

“But—”

“And—you stormed off before I could say anything, so how would you know what I let?”

“You didn’t come after me!”

“Yes actually I did—but she grabbed my arm!”

“Really? Well what else did she grab?”

Taehyung abruptly realized how silent everything around you had become. 

People were staring—and not even discreetly— just full on staring with their mouths hanging open. 

Well that’s great. 

Taehyung’s hand closed around yours and you suddenly found yourself being marched across the dance floor at a breakneck pace.

“What are you doing?”

“Continuing this discussion in private.”

“We can’t just go somewhere private in the Governor’s mansion!” you sputtered, struggling to keep up with his larger strides. 

“You mean in my uncle’s house? Yes—actually we can—and we will.”

Taehyung proved to be a man of his word, dragging you past two security guards and into the roped off section of the manor with nothing more than a nod. 

The residential wing of the Governor’s home was beautifully decorated with traditional Korean artistic touches—all of which you were unable to appreciate while Taehyung was speed walking you through the halls. 

After a surprising amount of turns and archways, he yanked open an ornate wooden door with the words Reflection Suite written on a plaque above it in beautiful calligraphy. 

You almost giggled when you got a look inside. 

On the surface it was a tastefully furnished guest room with a simple cherry wood desk and a cozy double bed set in an elegant matching frame.

However—

The ceiling and one full wall were nothing but massive mirrors. 

Reflection suite indeed. 

The door slammed shut and Taehyung rounded on you with a stormy expression—though you weren’t waiting on him to fire the first volley.

“This is definitely going to get us in trouble.”

“I told you, I can go wherever I want in this house. It’s fine.”

“Then why did you take us here?”

“Because you were shouting—”

“I was shouting?! You were shouting I just—”

Suddenly your back was against the wall and Taehyung’s mouth was on yours. 

He hadn’t brought you here for this. When he grabbed your hand, he was only trying to get away from the crowds. He told himself that he needed privacy so you could talk—so he could clarify things. 

But the minute the door closed and you flared up again in all your magnificent rage, he was lost. 

He had to kiss you then. 

You were so lovely. So fierce. So wildly irresistible and he was too utterly smitten to fight the need to be near you—to be with you in every way that he could—for a single second more. 

The shock of Kim Taehyung pressing his lips to yours lasted about two full seconds—and then there was nothing but ravenous insatiable need. 

Finally. 

Everything was him. 

Everything was this—this sweet indescribable ignition of a desire that spanned years. You moaned eagerly against his mouth in wanton delight. After a decade of sparks, you were more than ready to burn. 

“Taehyung—”

His name poured out of you like a prayer. You needed him everywhere and miraculously he seemed to understand—

Not that he was prepared to be polite about it. 

“Where’s that smart mouth now, Angel?” he growled, tangling his hands in your hair to expose the tender column of your throat. “Nothing to say?”

Your only answer was a desperate whine as he spread hot-open mouthed kisses down the soft skin of your neck all the way to your collarbone.

Now was not the time for patience. He would be tender with you later. You absolutely deserved soft sweet caresses and slow leisurely love making and he was absolutely going to give them to you—every day if you’d let him. 

But not today. 

The minute his mouth encountered the barrier of your dress, he gripped onto the sides and yanked it down to your waist.

“You knew just what you were doing in the back of that limo, you little brat,” he hissed, taking one swollen nipple into his mouth and tormenting it with his tongue.

“Tae-ahhh!” Your back arched involuntarily in ruthless pleasure. 

“I spent hours—days even—wanting to get my hands on these perfect tits.” He licked the other nipple obscenely, squeezing the soft mound till it bulged through his fingers. “And you offered me the barest taste with that coy little grin, knowing it wouldn’t be enough—” 

He reared back and landed a firm slap on both breasts and you screamed.

It was so so good. 

“Look at them now,” he murmured, “so swollen and needy and mine.”

If any other man had said those words, you would have cut his heart out with a butter knife. 

But you had always belonged to this man body and soul, and to hear him acknowledge it so primitively felt like the sweetest vindication. 

“Yes!” you sobbed.

The affirmation only inflamed him further. He teased and fondled the tender flesh till you were shaking.

Your fingers curled into the soft waves of his hair as he indulged himself. He looked so ridiculously good sucking your nipple, moaning lewdly with his eyes pressed shut in cathartic bliss. 

“This is all your fault, Angel,” he groaned. “You just don’t know how to behave.”

His hands gripped the curve of your backside, lifting you right off the floor and into his arms. Your mouths fused together heatedly as he carried you to the bed, and you giggled against him when his words finally processed. 

“You’ve been saying that for years.” 

“It’s been true for years,” he muttered, pulling one of your legs up around him so he could grind against your cunt while you kissed. 

Your fingers tugged at the buttons of his shirt, tearing them off when they didn’t unhook fast enough. You waited too long to be with him like this to care about anything other than the feel of his skin against your own.

“Impatient, are we?” he chuckled, bringing his lips around to nip at your ear. 

“You’re one to talk,” you shot back, yanking the ruined garment right off his shoulder just so you could sink your teeth into it. 

Taehyung moaned loudly, snapping his hips against yours with an involuntary jerk.

“You really are such a brat,” he hissed, fisting his hands in the satin length of your skirt. “Let’s see how fierce you are with my tongue in your pussy—”

His words were so filthy and raw, yet they stoked a frenzied need in your belly like nothing you had ever encountered. 

“This dress is evil,” he snarled, fumbling with the zipper for a moment before switching to a more destructive tactic. “It has tormented me all night and now it’s in my way.”

The stitching proved no match for his resolve, and—after a few vigorous tugs—he ripped it apart from the slit on up, leaving you covered in nothing but the thin cotton underwear he had breached earlier that evening. 

After disposing of your shredded gown, Taehyung paused for a moment just to take in the sight of you. 

“What a perfect little angel,” he taunted playfully, snapping the band of your lingerie against your hips with a cocky grin. 

Then he brushed his nose right up against the sopping fabric and inhaled deeply. “You smell just like heaven,” he growled before licking you right through the cloth, “and you taste even better.”

The sensations twisting through your body were merciless. You needed more or you were going to shake apart. 

“Taehyung please,” you whined, pressing against him shamelessly.

“Oh a please?” he chuckled, throwing your own words from the first night back at you. “Who knew you had manners?”

You would have screamed in frustration, but he cut you off with an open mouthed kiss right over the wettest part of your panties.

“Perhaps I can make a good girl of you yet,” he chuckled, as you opened yourself wider to encourage him. 

You nodded frantically, letting out another moan when he yanked the flimsy little scrap of lace down your legs—smearing a line of arousal over your thighs.

“So messy,” he tsked, tapping his finger right above your knee where the naughty little streak ended. “What am I going to do with you?” 

Then he pressed his tongue over the shiny trail of slick and licked it right off. 

You gasped loudly and his lascivious smirk was almost beautiful enough to make up for all of the shameless teasing. 

Almost. 

"You want my mouth, pretty Angel?” he whispered, letting the words brush maddeningly against your folds. “You want me to feed on this sweet little cunt?”

Every cell in your body cried out for release. He already edged you under the table at dinner and now he was determined to unravel you entirely. You would say anything—do anything. 

"Please—" you whispered.

"Please who?" 

Normally you met his arrogance with a cutting riposte, but an entire evening of methodical torment had left you beyond desperate. 

"Please Taehyung,” you begged needily. 

He grinned. 

“That’s right, Angel. Kim Taehyung. Not Min Yoongi or any other pathetic trust fund prick that’s panting for a taste of this pussy.” His eyes fastened on yours significantly. “You belong to me.”

Then his tongue licked a flat stripe over your glistening slit and you sagged onto the bed in relief—only to be thrown back into oblivion when his lips closed over your clit. 

Your body arched involuntarily as a ruthless wave of pleasure tore through you. Your eyes and mouth flew open in a silent scream and it was in that moment you remembered exactly where you were. 

Underneath a giant mirror. 

The passionate woman staring down at you was nearly unrecognizable. Her body was littered with her lover’s marks. Her hands gripped feverishly into the sheets beneath her—-

And Kim Taehyung was kneeling between her thighs, suckling on her weeping cunt with obscene satisfaction. 

It was the sexiest thing you had ever seen in your life. 

Your hands reached down to tangle in his hair, using it for leverage as you ground against his face. 

Then suddenly his grip on your legs tightened and his tongue plunged roughly into your trembling core. 

“Tae—ahh oh my—I can’t—”

The sensation was so intense that your hips bucked violently. You could not keep still. You were charging towards an explosion and your body was shaking itself apart. 

The noises tearing from you were incoherent. Everything around you focused in on the juncture of your thighs where Taehyung was licking inside of you again and again until—

You shattered. 

And the force of it nearly bent your back in half. 

Delirious sobs poured from your lips as he worked you through it, letting the obscene flood of your cum soak his face. 

The sight of him slowly lapping at the release between your folds, was unspeakably erotic. He ran his hands in soothing circles over your skin while you twitched and fluttered back down from your high. 

Then he was kissing you again. 

It was softer this time, but you felt truly depraved—and instantly obsessed—with the taste of yourself in his mouth—on his skin.

You could barely understand this ravenous hunger. You’d just found relief, yet you were already reaching for more. 

Your hands snaked down and wrapped around his still covered cock and he hissed in ragged pleasure. 

“So eager,” he gasped, as you pushed him back against the headboard—but you didn’t have time to bother with his teasing.

You were gonna blow Kim Taehyung into space. 

He bit his lip when you yanked down his pants and boxers together, freeing his arousal with stunning efficiency. 

It was almost unfair to discover that his cock was every bit as beautiful as he was.

“Of course,” you muttered. 

The sultry smirk he shot you in return had your cunt flooding all over again.

“You think Min Yoongi has a cock like mine?”

“I don’t think about Min Yoongi’s cock,” you retorted, wrapping your hand around his length, “you’ve always been the biggest dick I’ve ever met.” 

“I knew you thought about my dick,” he groaned as you began to work up and down the swollen shaft. 

After a moment, his hand slid over your chin to grip your hair, drawing you forward till your lips were almost touching. 

“I wonder what this pretty mouth can do,” he whispered. 

You gasped against him and he smiled. 

“Do you know how often I pictured your lips around my cock, Angel?”

You mewled shamelessly and he growled, cupping your cheek as your hands continued to service him. 

“Do you know how often I imagined this perfect throat stuffed full of my cum?” 

His palm slid down to lightly grip the soft flesh of your neck and you shuddered against him with a needy whimper. 

“I know you could suck me so good, Angel. I’ve wanted it for so so long...”

Your mouth actually watered with anticipation. 

The desire to be good for him—to give him whatever he asked for—consumed you. 

Taehyung let his head fall back against the headboard with a groan at the first brush of your lips along his shaft. His hips rutted involuntarily as your tongue wrapped around the tip and you hummed with pleasure at his enthusiastic response. 

After a moment you slid him into the welcoming heat of your mouth, taking him in as far as you could in one stroke. His jaw dropped open and his entire body jerked forward. 

“Yes, that’s it, Angel—feels so good.”

His praise was addictive. 

You loved that you could bring him to this. You loved to see the haughty Kim Taehyung coming apart as you sucked him. 

It made you feel beautiful—powerful even—and you reveled in every second of it. 

Your eyes were starting to tear. His length began to throb and pulse against your tongue and you knew he was close—so close you could almost taste him—

Yet suddenly he was pulling you back and you whined pitifully at the loss. 

Taehyung chuckled, dragging you toward him till your dripping core slid across his cock.

“I’m not coming before I get inside that pretty little pussy,” he swore, working your hips over his sex till it was drenched in arousal. 

The crass words filled you with the fiercest, most incredible want and you clenched reflexively against him in response. 

“Is that what you want?” Taehyung whispered as he bore you back into the mattress, pinning both your wrists above your head. “You want me to fill your empty little cunt?”

You did. 

You wanted it so so bad. 

“Please.”

Taehyung gently lowered himself closer to you, resting his forehead intimately against yours as he lined up his cock at your entrance. 

“Are you sure, Angel? Because there’s no going back after this... If you give yourself to me, then you’re mine—and I’ll fight tooth and nail to keep you.”

“Taehyung, you idiot,”—a tender smile spread over your face as you wrapped your arms around his neck—“... I’ve always been yours.”

He swore violently—letting the slight tremble in his voice betray just how deeply your words affected him. 

Then his fingers tightened on the soft flesh of your hip and he filled you to the hilt with one delicious thrust. 

There was a moment—the smallest space in time—where your eyes locked together and everything seemed to suspend; a strange perfect calm before a monumental storm. 

Then your world caught fire. 

Taehyung drove himself into you with passionate fury, letting years of denial fuel the insatiable rhythm of his strokes. 

Every time he told himself no. Every time he held himself back—

Every bit of it burned away as you screamed his name. 

The feel of him was indescribable. 

You imagined it too many times to count, yet your dreams fell pitifully short of the visceral reality. 

He was bloomin’ magnificent. 

Your fingers clawed up and down his back, desperate to hold on to something while he pounded into your g-spot like an animal. 

“This tiny cunt is the tightest thing I’ve ever had around my cock,” he gasped and you whined needily at his praise. “Like it was made for me—” his hand came up to grip your breast, “like you were made for me.”

“Yes—”

Taehyung’s need seemed to amplify with every whimper and moan that fell from your lips. The feelings you sparked in him were fierce and unapologetically primitive.

He would go to war for you—build a fortress for you—fight a dragon if one dared come close. 

You were his. 

And he felt like a savage every time you cried out for more. 

Suddenly an unexpected movement in his periphery caught his attention.

He’d been so consumed with the extraordinary rush of claiming you that he’d forgotten—

This guest room was thirty-five percent mirrors. 

And now… he couldn’t look away. 

The sight of your bodies tangling together in headless bliss played out before him like a scene from his most debauched and forbidden fantasies. His reflection grinned back at him in fascinated ecstasy while his beloved nemesis lost herself in the pleasure of his cock.

Something dark and wild began to burn in his chest as he studied the lovers in the glass. 

“Look at you, Angel,” he whispered softly, “you really are perfect.”

Then he pulled out of your core and you whined bitterly in protest, chasing his body to rid yourself of the sudden unacceptable emptiness. 

“Still so needy,” he taunted, gripping your hips and flipping you on your stomach before you could even think to protest.

“I want you to watch that pretty angel in the mirror come on my cock,” he groaned, plunging back into you from behind. 

The new angle was somehow impossibly deeper and your body shook as another wave of pleasure overtook it. 

Your fingers clawed into the mattress for purchase as he pistoned into your trembling mound. 

Only Kim Taehyung could rail you like a whore while he worshiped you like a queen. 

He gave you a moment to adjust before drawing your body back against his chest. His arm wrapped over your stomach as he slowly eased your legs apart, unfolding the lewd tableau of your bodies joined together for the voyeuristic gaze of the glass.   

“Look at yourself, Angel,” he growled, mesmerized by the way your breasts bounced with every thrust. “Look at how well you're taking me.” 

Then his fingers slid down to rub your clit and you screamed. 

“Tae! Ah-ahh!”

The pleasure building within you now was violent. You were coiling too tightly, too fast—

“That’s right Angel. Take it all.”

Your eyes locked with his in the mirror for the briefest instant.

And then you flew apart. 

Taehyung threw his head back with a carnal moan as you clamped down around him. His body was hurtling toward its own release with reckless speed. 

“I’m close,” he panted, “where can I come?”

“Come inside me please,” you begged, and Taehyung’s eyes widened in frenzied lust. 

“That’s what you want? Huh?” his thrusts became rougher as he chased his relief, “You want me to fill this puffy little pussy with my cum?”

“Yes, I want it so bad—“ you sobbed. 

“Sweet Angel,” he groaned, gripping at your breasts as he pulled you tighter against him. 

Then he met your gaze in the mirror again. 

“I want everything with you; a home—a family—your body in my arms every morning when I wake up—” his voice trembled, “I want it all.” 

The raw vulnerability in his eyes nearly broke you.

“Tae,” you gasped softly, too overcome with joy to manage anything else. 

His mouth pressed hungrily against the curve of your shoulder. You could feel his cock throbbing in your core as he bent you forward, pounding into your sex with exquisite precision. 

"Stay with me, Angel,” he whispered. His thrusts became erratic as he neared his high. “I don’t want to live without you anymore.”

The glorious thrill of his words tore over your senses with euphoric brutality. Your walls tightened greedily around his cock and the taunt cord of pleasure finally snapped. 

He came with a broken groan, flooding the welcoming heat of your womb with his release. 

“KIM TAEHYUNG!”

The sound of his name being shouted by the absolute last person in the world whose voice he wanted to hear woke Taehyung from a dead sleep.  

His eyes widened in panic as he began yanking pillows and covers from all over the bed in a frenzied attempt to hide—

The doors to his bedroom flew open with a resounding crash. 

“Jimin,” he squeaked, trying to look as casual as possible next to a giant pile of bedding. “What uh—what brings you here at—” his eyes darted to the clock on the wall, “—7:30 in the morning?”

Then he frowned. 

“And how the hell did you get past Jungkook?”

Jimin’s murderous expression broke momentarily to allow for a smug grin. 

“Kendra.”

Kendra Jackson was Jimin’s executive aide. She was fierce, capable, intelligent—

And insanely gorgeous. 

Taehyung groaned. 

Poor Jungkookie never stood a chance. 

To the surprise of absolutely no one, yet another newspaper landed on Taehyung’s lap.

KIM HEIR BRINGS NAUGHTY ANGEL HOME FOR CHRISTMAS

Underneath the headline was a picture of you and Taehyung (dressed in clothes you stole from Jin’s childhood bedroom) kissing passionately against the side entrance of the Governor’s mansion. 

One of your legs was wrapped around his waist and he was clearly grabbing your ass. 

“Ah… well you see the camera distorts everything from this angle—and-and the lighting is bad so it’s not really what it looks like—”

“Is that so? Cause it looks like you’ve got your tongue down my baby sister’s throat!”

“Okay—okay,” Taehyung massaged his forehead nervously, “so maybe it’s sort of what it looks like but—”

“I’ll kill you.”

“No wait—” he held up his hands to delay an already advancing Jimin. 

“Why should I wait?!”

“Because—”

“—I trusted you with the most important person in the world to me—”

“The situation is just not that simple.” 

“—and you grabbed her ass in public!”

“Admittedly not my finest hour.”

“So you tell me right now—”

“But you don’t understand it’s—”

“—Why the hell would I wait?!”

“BECAUSE I’M IN LOVE WITH HER!”

For a moment there was absolute silence. 

Then your head popped out from the massive pile of bedding. 

“Really?”

Jimin’s mouth fell open. 

Taehyung groaned again. 

“As usual, your timing is impeccable.”

You rolled your eyes, ignoring his comment.

“Are you really in love with me?”

“Of course I’m in love with you! What part of I want you to have my children did you not understand?!” 

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Jimin choked. 

“That’s not the same thing!”

“It is for me!”

A radiant smile lit up your face. 

“I’m in love with you too.”

Taehyung’s expression softened. 

“Angel I—”

Then you were kissing and Jimin swung around with a horrified shout.

“Oh! No no no—Come on!”

He stumbled out of the room, hands firmly clamped over his eyes. 

“This is not over, Kim Taehyung!” the scandalized young Park heir howled in exasperation… but there was a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. 

Back in the bedroom, Taehyung shook his head at Jimin’s ridiculous caterwauling. 

“No, it’s not over,” he laughed, pulling you deeper into the comfort of his arms. “It’s only just begun.”

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my story. 

This baby took FOR-EVER to write. I started it in November and literally worked on it a little every day. 

If you enjoyed it— even just a tiny bit—please consider taking a moment to leave me some feedback. It is so incredibly uplifting and rewarding to hear reader thoughts and reactions to my work.

I promise to treasure every word like gold. It took a lot to bring this story to life. Your kind words would mean the world to me.

[weaselle]

WHY is is SO hard for adult humans to just leave animals alone!?

Just saw a clip of someone trying to get some pics with some feral pigs, and if that isn’t the height of stupid idk what is. Like, these pigs were 100 to 400 hundred pounds each, no fences, no fear of humans, and there were like ten of them. And believe me when I say, if that warning nip had broken skin or knocked her down, being literally eaten alive could easily have been the last thing that happened to her. Like who the fuck sees a bunch of large animals whose most famous attribute is their ravenous hunger and willingness to eat literally anything on the planet, and decides to go stand in the middle of a crowd of them? FARM pigs eat the farmers experienced in dealing with them semi-regularly -- a woman in Russia was killed by her pigs in 2019, and a farmer in Oregon was almost completely devoured by his pigs in 2012. smh

I’m a dog walker, and I have to stop people doing stupid shit with the dogs all the time. Like people will literally try to walk right through my pack of eight dogs. Last week I was loading the dogs back into the van after the walk and I turned around just in time to see a guy in the car next to me had rolled down his window and was reaching out to pet one of the dogs on the head while my back was turned.

That dog weighs 80 pounds and spent his first 4 years of life as a street dog in LA, and he hates strangers touching his head. Which I think is totally reasonable. But he’s got fluffy hair like a poodle and people (usually white men, our society is really failing white men in a way that makes them a danger to themselves and others, I’m telling you) will just suddenly step forward and reach for his face with no warning.

I’ve got another dog I walk that people will sometimes try to brush past or godsforbid pet, let’s call her Jenny. Jenny is a good dog, but she wants everyone in the world to leave her the fuck alone. She really really hates being touched at all. By anyone. I walk her 3 times a week and we have an understanding: she’s super well behaved on our walks, and I very carefully get her leash on and off without so much as accidentally brushing a finger against her ear (which I’ve done, it’s not a good time). I think her owner can touch the dog, but she got married four years ago and Jenny still growls at her husband to demand he leave her alone.

The first thing she does when accidentally touched is scream like she’s being murdered and flinch away, she’s not really a danger in public, but a big part of her not being a danger in public is she’s always on a leash and under my control, keeping her out of physical contact with people. She doesn’t bark or growl at people or other dogs that pass by us or anything. You can stand an inch away from her and it’s fine as long as you leave her alone. But what am I supposed to do when somebody just walks right up and tries to put their hands on her!? Especially if I’m like, bent down picking up poop with one hand and holding onto an entire pack of dogs with the other.

If you touch her without permission she could easily decide to bite the shit out of you and I can’t say I’d blame her. As far as I’m concerned touching without permission is a bite-able offense. Right? But also, that kind of thing can get a dog taken away and killed by the authorities, so reaching for her face without asking is not only risking your hand, but it’s also risking my job and her whole life. Just don’t!

Like, for the love of all that’s holy just leave animals alone! Why is this such a hard concept? If you love dogs, go hang out with a dog you already know, or at least ask the person in control of the dog if they can be pet before you go shoving your hand at their pointiest parts.

And forget about touching or being near wild animals, no, literally forget about them, think about something else. 

[ghostmartyr]

SnK 131 Thoughts

Eren what the fuck.

Like.

What in the actual fuck, my dude.

There are parts of this that make sense.

Then there are the parts that absolutely do not, and it’s all wrapped up in this chapter where, as previous chapter posts predicted, people are screaming and dying.

Since that’s pretty much the majority of the content, I guess we have the luxury of a short post that almost entirely focuses on Eren.

With added Annie and Armin. They can go at the start, I guess. They exist, they are cute if you’re into that, they’re also dumb and mopey if you’re into that, Paths make for a great radio, and just generally

WHAT THE FUCK, EREN.

Did I already talk about Rebellion? Is that a thing I did in these past few months? -checks- Damn it. Not that the well can’t be visited again, since it’s very obviously appropriate, but twice in two months starts to look like the laziness that is indeed threatening to take me.

-spins the wheel-

Okay then, let’s talk about Anakin Skywalker.

Cool dude. Rad kid. Born into slavery. Freed from slavery by a dude with magical plot magic who immediately dies. Inherits dude’s desire for him to follow the leanings of the religious sect responsible for plot magic. Has hormones and has a meltdown over having hormones, and also feelings, and proceeds to protect everything he loves so hard that it burns to the ground while someone he eventually throws into a pit laughs maniacally in the background.

It’s mainly that last part that is arguably relevant to today.

Anakin is terrified of losing his wife in childbirth. Instead of contacting a doctor, he decides that it’s best to rely on himself. Plus shady mentor. His fear turns into a longing for a power to destroy that fear, and the combination drives him to the Dark Side. When he starts demolishing the very things he wanted to protect, he digs in deeper. For twenty years, he kills, and kills, and kills, because he can’t admit he was wrong.

(Clone Wars is a good show, if anyone is interested. It fleshes the emotional weight of the script out, and makes the horror and tragedy stab you in the heart.)

I can’t say that I entirely hate this for Eren. I don’t particularly like how it’s been presented, but that might just be the part of me that looks at the “GENOCIDE IS THE ONLY OPTION” button lit up on his forehead and finds it so fundamentally disagreeable that I haven’t been looking at it even when the plot tells me that’s what it is.

Here’s the thing: Genocide is presented as a feasible course of action all throughout this series. From Zeke, from Marley, from Paradis; whoever’s pitch you want to listen to, a conclusion everyone always comes to is that it would be easier if all of these people causing problems would just die.

They can make that happen. They have the technology.

Marley is a cesspit. The moral cost means nothing to them.

Zeke is abused, traumatized, and molded into thinking death is a mercy.

Floch survives, and teaches himself that the evil he lives through needs to be repaid in full.

Kill, kill, kill. If something stands in your way, murder it.

This is a concept of horror to the characters who are establishing the moral center of the tale. They’ve killed people. They’ve fought to the death against people who would gladly see them die. The titans are their victimized kin, and all they can do for the greater good is put them down.

They’re tiny humans trapped in a cage, and they’re just trying to get out. Whenever they try, their jailers try to eat them. That is forever what Paradis is attempting, and whenever they do try to lessen the amount of violence in their tactics, they get fucked over by the plot. As much as the story can, it’s thrown the main Paradis cast into the light of being innocent victims who are just trying to defend themselves.

The whole series is a study in the damage genocide has caused.

Nothing excuses it.

There is no motive that justifies this scale of premeditated violence.

There is the fear that one day the people who belong to you will be victims, and the only way to stop them from being victims is to make victims of everyone else. Kill or be killed.

In self-defense.

Defending from an attack that might never come.

Genocide is not an option that has ever deserved a seat at the table.

Why don’t we just kill everyone off?

Why not erase everyone’s memories of it?

Why not continue to use this power to herd everyone into our vision of what the world should be like?

Why not say that we deserve life so much more than any other living creature on the planet?

The entire story tells us why.

From the very first chapter, we’re exposed to the violence and terror of an uncaring world devouring anyone unfortunate enough to be on the outskirts of what supposedly greater people have decided is most important. Eren’s entire home is destroyed because some children kick down a wall. The people in the core of those same walls are disturbed, but send out their lesser to be fed to the monsters so that they can continue living.

Karl Fritz locks everyone away on an island and tells them the world has ended.

Anyone who is too curious, or too interested in beginning a new world, is killed. They’re robbed of their memories or their life. The remaining Ackermans are alive because they were too far away from the true history of the world to actually know anything.

Marley, the whipping boy of the Eldian Empire, finds its escape through Karl’s mercy, and immediately mimics the way of life that has caused them so much pain. Titans continue to run rampant in the world, simply with different reins. They redefine what’s acceptable based on who’s pulling the trigger.

Every single major plot point comes back to the ruin that perpetrating genocide has conceived.

Nothing is fixed by saving Marley from Eldia. Marley chooses to renew the evil.

Nothing is fixed by Karl walking away from the world. He just picks on smaller targets.

Nothing is fixed by pretending this is a solution.

The series’ history is a cycle of people grabbing power and tormenting their enemies with it. It shows no sign of stopping. It takes Paradis a hundred years, but they go from a blank slate of a starting point to producing someone ready to destroy the world.

Nothing suggests that another hundred years won’t do the same.

We have seen this all before. The only difference is that Eren is trying to commit to a large enough scale that no one alive will have the kind of grudges that will produce this fuckery.

It is vile.

This is not a defensible course of action. Some things are simply wrong, and even without morality coming into play, we’ve spent years reading an object lesson in the consequences of this behavior.

This horror is where Eren comes from.

Eren is not special.

He is a normal human born into this world.

His actions are ones that any other person could duplicate.

Not easily, and not without a great deal of coincidence, but nothing about Eren makes this a choice that only he can make. His power is borrowed, and no matter how he dies, that death means there will be a next person in line.

He isn’t ending a fucking thing. He’s become a cog in the machine that broke him.

So that’s the starting point. Even if killing younglings did have a logical undercurrent, no. No, no, a million times no. Eren chooses this. Eren causes this. Eren picks genocide without anyone putting a gun to his head. Eren picks genocide when he has access to a power that could easily discourage anyone from attacking his home for years.

He chooses to murder people.

Because he’s afraid, and because he can.

Then we get to what I find infinitely more interesting:

Eren doesn’t want this.

In the present day, we have an Eren who no longer has a body, and what amounts to a hallucination of his younger self, dreaming of a world hidden away in a book. His physical self has its eyes closed, and his younger self looks more alive than Eren has in ages. He isn’t looking at the damage he causes, just the open sky.

In the past, we have Eren bawling apologies to a boy he meets once. We have an Eren who realizes that this world is one that has let him down, and that, completely outside protecting his home, is what makes him want it gone.

This doesn’t just happen.

Eren wants it to happen.

Eren looks at this world that wants him and everyone like him dead, and he wants it to be like the book. No mention of other people -- other people aren’t in the outside world anymore. Just beautiful scenery, and the freedom to enjoy it.

He can’t have that, and it hurts. He’s been through Annie, Reiner, and Bertolt. He’s lost friends and seen even more people die protecting him. He’s lost limbs and sleep and sanity to see a world beyond the walls.

It’s a world that wants nothing to do with him.

And Eren, who has rejected that line of thinking since he was a child, rejects the entire world.

He can’t dress it up.

Deep down, he doesn’t like the world he’s going to destroy.

He’s known for four years that he’s going to end countless lives.

He walks off Paradis’ ship knowing that.

But when he sees this world, he does want it gone.

Knowing what he’s going to do is one thing; seeing the beginning of a reason for it is what drives him to his knees. It isn’t some strange inevitability of the future. He’s the one who does this, and behind every bit of love for his friends and Paradis, there’s the knowledge that this world, where so many people live lives just like his, is one he’d liked better in a dream where none of them existed.

And that is where the plot thread loses me.

Not because any of this is something that I find particularly outlandish. There’s a plain, hysterical logic to it, and a small fraction of identifying with that logic has Eren in tears.

Eren does this.

There is no evidence of him wanting it.

He sees the shadow of want in himself, and he freaks out.

Eren of the present is dissociating so hard I don’t view his childhood hallucinations as a stable mind choosing something.

Eren of the past is continually horrified that this is going to happen.

If I had a tablet, this is where there would be a bad drawing of present Eren and past Eren, linked by an unstable line of red question marks.

I don’t have a tablet.

I do have Paint.

In the immortal words of an angry fictional nine-year-old, “If you don’t fight, we can’t win.”

In the immortal words of a very sad fictional nineteen-year-old, “I don’t know when in the future it will happen... But I... am going to kill every one of these people...”

Eren going full villain is a choice, I guess. It’s not a very interesting one. As previously stated, we know what happens in this world when people do a genocide. We also know what happens when the walls go marching. We are now watching a genocide as the walls go marching. There are no revelations here. There’s death and gloom.

I mean this as sincerely as I can: This, on its face, is boring.

Eren is just the latest person killing people for Reasons.

There is very little reason to be invested in that as a plot. As a character drama, there are tears to be shed and hearts to be torn asunder, but as a basic plot??? This has nothing in it.

I don’t personally believe we’ve come this far for nothing, so I apply my magnifying glass where I choose, and where I choose is the part where I believe this all slips:

Eren takes his visions as an inevitability.

He has the conversation with himself, counting out the lives. Paradis versus the world. In a simple game of numbers, the world should win, and he knows that.

Presenting our problem.

Eren can’t accept a future where Paradis, and Eldians, are sacrificed for the world. Paradis is his home, and he’s spent his life fighting for Eldians to be free, even if he doesn’t know them by that name for most of it. In the case of Paradis v World, Paradis wins out. It’s wrong and it’s terrible, and Zeke’s plan means less dead bodies, but he can’t let go of Paradis.

A binary is presented. Paradis can live, or the rest of the world can. Pick one.

Except that’s stupid.

Following this, Eren leans so far into that choice that he does what he can to manufacture an impossibility of any other results. He makes Paradis a priority. He makes Paradis an international concern, not simply a Marley one. He has the power to knock back any assault on the island they can make, but he still goes on offense.

Paradis dies

World dies

That is not the choice. It is the choice Eren locks himself into, but frankly, he doesn’t even try before he jumps at the genocide route.

As a story thing, whatever. Valid, I guess. Let the protagonist’s own misconceptions break him.

As an Eren thing, it falls short of working.

He’s clearly being torn apart by what he’s going to do.

He’s a protagonist who enters the story yelling about people never winning if they don’t enter the ring.

Eren sees a vision of him destroying the world, thinks on it, and effectively goes, “seems legit,” and cries himself to sleep feeling sad about it.

Eren.

You can have your characters fail. You can have them drop their principles one by one until there’s nothing left. You can have their character development be entirely negative. You do not have to have your hero be a Hero.

Eren is appalled by his own feelings, and walking around the world like a zombie. He sees himself ending the world, and plays it back over and over again, never questioning that this is exactly what he’s going to do.

But when he finally starts, there’s not even a trace of this conflict. His eyes light up at the amazing sight he believes is waiting for him. He spits his defiance at Zeke for even suggesting the sterilization plan. He’s still a zombie in every human interaction that happens with his flesh body, but he goes about his plan with an unconcerned ruthlessness that is disconnected from the humanity Eren has spent the whole story personifying.

Arguably, Sasha dying is the tipping point, and that’s where he fully commits, and blah blah blah stuff.

Only defiance, and not bending to anyone else’s will, is the key trait of the Attack Titan. It’s the key trait of Eren. To keep fighting well beyond sense.

This plan’s inception comes from Eren yielding to the inevitable.

He’s going to kill these people.

There is no choice to it, it’s simply what’s going to happen.

Eren has always had a choice. He might not like the options, or know what’s right, but he has always, always known that the decisions he makes are his.

The story is making the case that Eren buys into inevitability so completely that he denies himself freedom.

That isn’t uninteresting, but we don’t see that. We don’t see what convinces Eren that it’s no use fighting. He chooses to save a boy, and his memories of the boy don’t change. Big deal. That’s one kid in four years of choices. As a proof of concept, it’s weak, and it’s weaker still because Eren makes the choice to save him.

None of this was inevitable, but we approach Eren’s actions from the perspective of there being no way out. Maybe if we had even more flashbacks to him trying to change things, and a play-by-play of him slowly realizing that nothing he does changes what he sees --

But even then, if Eren doesn’t want to kill people, he’s allowed not to. He’s allowed to continue working with his friends. He could have told any of them, at any point, that this was an upcoming problem. He’s always trusted Armin’s mind.

Eren hides himself away with his problems and tells himself he can’t fight this.

Bullshit.

I’ve made this argument before, about Historia and Ymir:

If you’re going to have a character renege on a core of their personal identity so completely, you need to put in the legwork of showing how it happens. Otherwise there’s no reason to trust anything the story tells you, and the grand illusion falls to pieces.

The character work in this series has always been solid, even when everything down to the art hasn’t.

This doesn’t quite work.

There’s a compelling case. There’s a viewable logic that pretends to be believable.

The internal consistency is still off. Something’s wrong here, and if it turns out to be the character ball being dropped in the final inning... really, that’s just such a waste. Personal preference colors all of this, obviously, but if this is the whole truth of the matter, it’s boring.

“I still want to believe... that there’s still a world we don’t know about yet out there... past the walls.”

C’mon, Armin. Earn your fandom hatred. Be right one more time.

We’re not done yet.

[roddyretrograde]

I don't know why Peyton wanted lucas so badly especially in s5 after all that drama with his character I think she would have been over his shit by the end and definitely wouldn't have agreed to a phone Proposal

To me it never made sense why after all the crap he pulled she just went back to him

I feel like she would have outgrown his drama and selfishness

At 19 years old he wanted to get married because they had a long distance relationship

Instead of working on it and being understanding he just expects her to marry him and that would have solved all the problems

His lack of maturity should have been a red flag to anyone especially Peyton by now she's better then that

I feel like the writers wrote her as if she was rewarding his behavior by agreeing to marry him in s6 instead of just saying no and decided that he wasn't the one for her and she could do better

ONE HUNDRED PERCENT. Seasons four and five make Peyton into this Lucas-loving-pod-person that lets a man literally say he HATES HER and she paints a whole damn mural and runs back into his arms.

You might like my posts here and here! But honestly, the show did Peyton so damn dirty by trying to force Leyton. I honestly don't believe that Peyton would have come back from LA in season five, tbh. You know how much trauma she experienced in Tree Hill? Two dead moms, being shot in the school shooting, stalked, tied up, almost raped and murdered by Ian Banks.

And then people say Lucas is the best thing that ever happened to her? He went to prom alone and spent it with another girl that was willing to give him attention when his girlfriend was heartbroken. BROOKE, who I honestly believes love Peyton the most in the whole world, is the one that knew she'd never skip prom and went to check on her.

Lucas pulls Peyton away from the only family she ever had in the finale of season six?? She gives up her DREAM and abandons Red Bedroom for him?? He gaslights the shit out of her constantly, he ran straight to his ex-girlfriend in New York after Peyton just asked for more time before getting married, he blames her for their break-up after she said didn't say no, just lets wait???

He's a trash person, and they made Peyton pine for him when she could've had JAKE FUCKING JAGIELSKI who always treated her like a person first, and thought she deserved better always. Who she wanted to marry at seventeen years old because she wanted to be a family with him and Jenny!!

Imagine the life she would have had with Jake, Jenny and Brooke as her forever people? She would have been always supported in her job, she would probably have been urged to get some therapy and mental health help, she would have been such a good mom to Jenny and had more kids, and she would have never had any garbage boy-crazy fights with her best friend and sister.

You're so right, Leyton is so out of character for all of Peyton's growth - and it was because Mark Schwann wrote Lucas as a self-insert and he LITERALLY had a crush on a girl in high-school named Peyton Sawyer which is SKETCHY af.

And on that note, do you actually think Peyton would have liked Luke's book? He literally used her name and her trauma to make a buck, and released it to the whole damn world?? You know how triggering to her PTSD that would be? Oh and that time in season 4 where he told her stop being scared after a man literally broke into her house, put all the pictures from his stalking up in her bedroom and tried to force himself on her.

Lucas and Leyton are a disgrace. I hate Leyton.

[rockislandadultreads]

Reluctant Allies: Enemies Team Up: a reading list

Steel Crow Saga by Paul Krueger

Four destinies collide in a unique fantasy world of war and wonders, where empire is won with enchanted steel and magical animal companions fight alongside their masters in battle. A soldier with a curse Tala lost her family to the empress’s army and has spent her life avenging them in battle. But the empress’s crimes don’t haunt her half as much as the crimes Tala has committed against the laws of magic... and her own flesh and blood. A prince with a debt Jimuro has inherited the ashes of an empire. Now that the revolution has brought down his kingdom, he must depend on Tala to bring him home safe. But it was his army who murdered her family. Now Tala will be his redemption—or his downfall. A detective with a grudge Xiulan is an eccentric, pipe-smoking detective who can solve any mystery—but the biggest mystery of all is her true identity. She’s a princess in disguise, and she plans to secure her throne by presenting her father with the ultimate prize: the world’s most wanted prince. A thief with a broken heart Lee is a small-time criminal who lives by only one law: Leave them before they leave you. But when Princess Xiulan asks her to be her partner in crime—and offers her a magical animal companion as a reward—she can’t say no, and soon finds she doesn’t want to leave the princess behind. This band of rogues and royals should all be enemies, but they unite for a common purpose: to defeat an unstoppable killer who defies the laws of magic. In this battle, they will forge unexpected bonds of friendship and love that will change their lives—and begin to change the world.

Deception Cove by Owen Laukkanen

Former US Marine Jess Winslow reenters civilian life a new widow, with little more to her name than a falling-down house, a medical discharge for PTSD, and a loyal dog named Lucy. The only thing she actually cares about is that dog, a black-and-white pit bull mix who helps her cope with the devastating memories of her time in Afghanistan. After fifteen years — nearly half his life — in state prison, Mason Burke owns one set of clothes, a wallet, and a photo of Lucy, the service dog he trained while behind bars. Seeking a fresh start, he sets out for Deception Cove, Washington, where the dog now lives. As soon as Mason knocks on Jess's door, he finds himself in the middle of a standoff between the widow and the deputy county sheriff. When Jess's late husband piloted his final "fishing" expedition, he stole and stashed a valuable package from his drug dealer associates. Now the package is gone, and the sheriff's department has seized Jess's dearest possession — her dog. Unless Jess turns over the missing goods, Lucy will be destroyed. The last thing Mason wants is to be dragged back into the criminal world. The last thing Jess wants is to trust a stranger. But neither of them can leave a friend, the only good thing in either of their lives, in danger. To rescue Lucy, they'll have to forge an uneasy alliance. And to avoid becoming collateral damage in someone else's private war, they have to fight back — and find a way to conquer their doubts and fears.

Kingdom of Exiles by Maxym M. Martineau

Exiled beast charmer Leena Edenfrell is in deep trouble. Empty pockets forced her to sell her beloved magical beasts on the black market—an offense punishable by death—and now there's a price on her head. With the realm's most talented murderer-for-hire nipping at her heels, Leena makes him an offer he can't refuse: powerful mythical creatures in exchange for her life. If only it were that simple. Unbeknownst to Leena, the undying ones are bound by magic to complete their contracts, and Noc cannot risk his brotherhood of assassins...not even to save the woman he can no longer live without.

Winter of Ice and Iron by Rachel Neumeier

In this gorgeous, dark fantasy in the spirit of Jacqueline Carey, a princess and a duke must protect the people of their nations when a terrible threat leaves everyone in danger. With the Mad King of Emmer in the north and the vicious King of Pohorir in the east, Kehara Raehema knows her country is in a vulnerable position. She never expected to give up everything she loves to save her people, but when the Mad King’s fury leaves her land in danger, she has no choice but to try any stratagem that might buy time for her people to prepare for war—no matter the personal cost. Hundreds of miles away, the pitiless Wolf Duke of Pohorir, Innisth Eanete, dreams of breaking his people and his province free of the king he despises. But he has no way to make that happen—until chance unexpectedly leaves Kehara on his doorstep and at his mercy. Yet in a land where immanent spirits inhabit the earth, political disaster is not the greatest peril one can face. Now, as the year rushes toward the dangerous midwinter, Kehera and Innisth find themselves unwilling allies, and their joined strength is all that stands between the peoples of the Four Kingdoms and utter catastrophe.

[marril96]

Ain’t Nothing But a Number

Pairing: Rowena x reader

Summary: Dean’s unsolicited comment about your and Rowena’s relationship pushes you over the edge.

Editor: @miss-moon-guardian

*****

"Y/N, isn't…" Dean cleared his throat. Sucked in a breath, eyes roaming everywhere, far away from you. Then, in a moment of courage that made you freeze up for you knew — you knew, and, gods, you hated it. You hated it with your entire being — what was to come, they locked with yours, and he said, "Isn't she a bit too old for you?"

You supposed you shouldn't have been surprised. Dean had never been Rowena's biggest fan. He hadn't been yours, either — you being a witch, her protégé at that, didn't win you any favors. But still.

But still.

With Rowena's friendship with Sam, you thought the elder Winchester would be fonder of her. Just a tad. A teeny-tiny bit. That he would stop with the snide comments and start treating her — any, by extension, you — like a person.

Which he had, for a while, but now he was looking at her as if she'd just murdered an innocent person right in front of him and wiped her bloody hands on his shirt. All because you'd admitted to having recently started dating her.

Sam, for his part, had the decency to look uncomfortable by his brother's behavior. He'd reacted to the news well, breaking out a smile and congratulating you both. Heartily. Honestly. From the bottom of his heart.

Dean, on the other hand, had gone quiet.

If only he'd stayed quiet.

You'd learned a long time ago people who had nothing good to say had no qualms about saying it out loud and directly to your face. It was the same everywhere you went, with everyone you came across. Comments that, at first glance, came across as those of kindness, but the more you thought about them, you'd come to realize it was nothing but condescension masked as concern. Inappropriate, uncomfortable comments. Unacceptable. Out of line.

Comments about your relationship.

You were no fool; you knew what it looked like from the outside. An almost-four-hundred-year-old witch and a young girl. The witch who'd spent the majority of her life taking advantage of people, using them up until they were dry of whatever it was she needed and then tossing them aside like trash. Killing them without a shred of remorse. And now she was dating you.

Rowena had fully earned her reputation, a part of her still beaming with pride at her accomplishments, but it still wasn't okay. Neither of you needed advice, especially the unsolicited kind. No one knew what your relationship was like but the two of you. None of those people lived in your house, slept in your bed. What gave them the right to judge something they didn't — couldn't possibly — understand?

Worse than the comments were the looks that followed them. Pity. Doubt. Disgust. Minds no doubt imagining things — pictures — they had no right to think about. It always made you feel dirty, the way they would look at you; as if you were a child being taken advantage of by an older woman. A middle schooler seduced by her teacher, promised the world in exchange for intimacy.

That was all they saw. An old woman and a child. An abuser and a victim.

Not a single one of those busybodies stopped to consider your feelings and needs. Not a single one of them tried to look at you as you were — a woman, fully grown, capable of making her own decisions. A woman who'd chosen her path, who had fallen in love with one of the most powerful witches in the world and was lucky enough as to have her feelings returned. Who was raging — silently, inside herself — at every unwanted comment and sideways glance.

You glared at Dean with the intensity of a thousand suns, and it took willpower to push your bursting magic down, to restrain it for all it wanted was to roam free and destroy everything in its path. Destroy him for being just like everyone else despite everything he'd seen, everything he'd lived.

"Why the fuck do you care?" It came out harsher than it sounded in your head, but, gods, it felt good to say it, to let it out.

You were done keeping quiet.

You were done letting outsiders have an opinion about your relationship.

Dean flinched, startled by the outburst. He raised his hands in a placating manner. "I don't—"

"Why the fuck does anyone care?" you cut him off, face burning, magic churning in your blood. "Is there a sign on my forehead saying 'I Wanna Hear Your Opinions About My Relationship?'"

"Y/N—" Sam tried, to no avail. There were too many suppressed emotions. Too many words that begged to be left out, refusing to be silenced again.

"What is it with people who think I care about what they think? It's my relationship! I'm the one dating her!"

You were the one holding her when she needed comfort. You were the one making her laugh. The one kissing her just for the fun of it, because you felt like it, because you could — finally, after years of dreaming of it. The one holding her hand, playing with her hair, calling her cute names she would kill anyone else for daring to utter in her presence.

Rowena had chosen you, and you couldn't have been happier about it.

"I'm a grown woman!" you yelled. "Stop treating me like a fucking child! What I do is none of your business."

Who I fuck is none of your business.

You'd said the same to your family, and to all the friends who turned their noses up upon finding out about you and Rowena. You were an adult. They had a right to their opinions, and you had a right to not hear them. They didn't have to like your decision — all you asked was that they respect it.

If they cared — truly, genuinely cared — about you, they would.

Dean sighed. Gulped. Cleared his throat. "I wasn't—I didn't mean it like that."

No one ever meant it. Whatever it was they said, however uncomfortable they looked as the revelation of you and Rowena set in, they never meant it. Not a single word, spoken clearly, was ever as it sounded. No — you were exaggerating. You were making up drama where there wasn't any. Causing trouble because, well, you were young, too young to know better.

Too young to date a woman over three centuries your senior.

Right.

You shot Dean one of those looks that could kill if you wanted it to, stolen from Rowena. A glare so intense, you hoped it came across as intimidating as intended. "Then don't say it like that."

"I'm not gonna say anything anymore," he said, taking a swig of his beer.

"That's a first," Rowena quipped.

The hunter rolled his eyes.

Tension lifted from your shoulders. Muscles, taut and tight just a moment ago, free of the pressure. You breathed out in relief.

The worst had passed. The secret was out, words were exchanged, and now you could be at peace. You and Rowena no longer had to hide your linked hands. You no longer had to pull apart and pretend nothing had happened if someone were to walk in on an intimate moment.

You could be yourselves.

You could smile and laugh and be happy in this world rather than hide in its fringes.

The day passed in relative silence. As you and Rowena worked on research, flipping through dusty books and skimming words in faded ink, you caught the Winchesters sneaking a few glances, all averted the moment either of you looked up. It was more curiosity than disapproval; it wasn't always that their allies hooked up — and took it seriously, at that. It wasn't always that Rowena MacLeod, of all people, held someone's hand and laughed at their bad jokes.

It was new. It was weird. And, despite the initial shock, by the end of the day Dean seemed completely on board with it.

You were glad. Finally, you could breathe easily, without fearing judgment. Without fearing the next dirty look or wicked whispers the moment you turned your back.

Yes, Rowena was significantly older. No, she wasn't too old for you. She wasn't too evil, or too unreliable, or too cold-hearted to know what love, true love, was.

She was just perfect.

And you loved her for it.

*****

Tags: @werewolfbarbie @oswinthestrange @songofthecagedmoose @apurdyfulmind @getthesalt-sam @metallihca @salembitchtrials @jay-eris @hellsmother @elizabeth-effie @shadowgirl-vsb @rowenaswife @wonderifshelikesroses @xfireandsin @liddell-alien @hotdiggitydammit @lae-lae @darkhumorsblog @angel7376 @cherrypierowena @evil-regal-vampiress @hellbentredhead @angel-e-v-a @a-queen-and-her-throne @carryon-doctor-lock @fangirlxwritesx67 @theeasterbilby @midnight-lestrange @osterhagen @impala-1979​ @gracib16​

[sambergscott]

i'll promise that i'll love you for the rest of my life

one giving the other flowers, as requested by @rosalitadiazz AGES ago, also dedicated to @397bartonstreet for the initial idea of amy sleeping in/just being the best and @nine-niall for helping with the marriage highlight reel.... and for making me listen to heartbreak weather on repeat for the last few days and coming up with this title

happy anniversary to jake and amy!!! (also since the ep aired 2 years ago today i'm not *technically* late thank u very much)

One million, fifty one thousand and two hundred minutes after marrying Amy Santiago (or, two years), every moment is as wonderful as day one. He still feels the same rush of excitement when he sees her waiting by their car at the end of a shift, the same swell of pride when she introduces him to someone as her husband, the same “oh my god we’re actually married” moment when he catches her rings glinting in the sunlight. It’s been the best one million, fifty one thousand and two hundred minutes of his life. And while he appreciates every single second they have together, knowing how in their line of work things can change all too easy, their second anniversary presents the perfect opportunity to remind her that everyday he gets to be with someone as amazing as her is crazy to him.

He has flowers, a handmade card, he even hoovered and she’s still asleep.

She never sleeps this late.

Everyone knows she’s the morning person in their relationship and he’s the Get Out Of Bed After Snoozing The Alarm Seventeen Times person. They live together, share a car, and yet most mornings he ends up riding the Subway, squashed between an old woman and a nerdy looking guy who smells like he hasn’t showered in a week, Amy rolling her eyes when he gets to work mid-briefing. The rare days she can get him out of bed early usually involve some kind of bribery using food and/or sex.

The point is, he’s supposed to be the one sleeping in past 11 AM, but ever since their doctor prescribed Clomid to help stimulate ovulation and boost their chances of making a baby, their roles have been totally reversed like Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis in Freaky Friday.

Pregnant Amy falls asleep anywhere and everywhere. The couch, the car, the cleaning cupboard at work when she was trying to find some Nuclear-strength cleaner to remove the stench of Charles’ lunch from the air before she hurled again.

She could sleep all day if he let her and he quite easily could. She looks so peaceful and cute and free from the stresses of her family asking why they waited so long (well, long for Santiago standards) to start a family. Plus, the messy hair and tiny bit of drool on her chin are impossibly endearing in the way only she can be.

He smiles and wraps his arms around her, resting his head on his shoulder, his hands - like his thoughts - drifting to her growing bump as they inevitably always do.

This time next year they’ll be celebrating with their little boy or girl, telling them all about the insane, magical day that was May 15th 2018. Of course, it might be some time before they can fully grasp the TV-worthy drama of the creepy phone call, the bomb in the vent, the ex-boyfriend proposing - twice! - and the wall of Amy photos, but they will sure as dammit know how beautiful their mom looked in her dress and how happy their dad was when Grandpa Holt finally announced them as husband and wife.

“Can’t breathe,” his wife squeaks, finally awake. “Arms too tight.”

“Oops. Sorry, babe.” He kisses her by way of apology; sometimes when he gets to thinking about that day, about seeing her walk down the shredded paper aisle under the glow of fairy lights, surrounded by the very people who watched them fall in love, he kind of forgets where he is and what he’s doing.

She’s always had that intoxicating effect on him. That’s never gonna change.

“Time is it?” She yawns, stretching her arms above her head.

“Twenty five to,” he pauses to brace himself for her reaction, “...twelve.”

“Twelve?” Horrified, she moves to get out of bed and yeah, he knows her so well. “Let me go,” she huffs in frustration when he forms a barrier to keep her from leaving.

“No can do, Santiago,” he says authoritatively. “You’ve been working yourself to the bone and you’re pregnant. You need to rest. We’ve both got the day off, our dinner reservations aren’t until 8. Just let your husband take care of you for a couple of hours.”

She chews on her lower lip, making her contemplative face that he recognises from sitting opposite her for so many years, preferring watching her piece together the leads in a case rather than work on his own. “Fine,” she eventually concedes. “Happy anniversary, by the way.”

“Happy anniversary,” he returns the sentiment, kissing her again because, well, he can, one of the perks of marrying Amy Santiago (alongside a perfectly organised sock drawer and getting to hang out with the best person in the world 24 sevs). “I got you these,” he adds, procuring the daffodil bouquet he found online.

“Jake,” she sighs dreamily, placing the flowers on her nightstand. “They’re beautiful. And my favourites.”

“I know,” he smirks. He may not be Santiago level smart, but he’s smart when it comes to all things Santiago. “Also made you this.” He hands over the card.

She opens it, instantly tearing up at his sweet message inside, the dam bursting when she notices the scrawled message written with his wrong hand from their unborn baby. “Mine sucks in comparison,” she laments, passing him his card before locking her eyes back on the words ‘happy anniversary to the world’s best mama’.

“It does not suck,” he reassures her, clutching it to his chest. “I’m going to savour it for all times. I want to be buried with it.”

She rolls her eyes, drying her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I thought you wanted to be buried with your original copy of Die Hard.”

“OK, Die Hard and your card. Rhymes for a reason, Ames.”

“You’re such a dork,” she responds, stifling her laughter. “Can’t believe I’ve been married to you for two full years.”

“I know.” He grins. “What was your favourite part?”

Her eyes glimmer with excitement and love and memories of their first anniversary before things turned upside down. “Are you suggesting we do a marriage highlight reel à la NBA inside stuff?”

“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting. I’ll go first. NUMBER FIVE,” he yells in his spot on Ahmad Rashad impression, earning a giggle from his wife. “Number five is that dress you wore on my birthday. Your butt looked the bomb in it.”

“Thanks, babe.” Two years in, she’s used to the constant “your butt is the bomb” comments, often uttered at the most inappropriate of times like when she stands up to brief the squad or play soccer with her brothers, much to her chagrin and their delight.

“Number four,” she quickly moves on. “The time you taught me to play Mario Party and I beat Wario on the first try.”

“That was my worst moment,” he groans.

“And that’s why it’s my best.”

He sighs, considers debating it, engaging in the classic back-and-forth that is the very foundation of their relationship, but it’s moot. She was way better than him. Santiago’s learn fast. It’s in their genes or something. And despite the crushing disappointment when she beat Wario with ease and dork danced her way to the kitchen to grab them both an orange soda, it was still a very fun night and a worthy moment in the highlight reel.

“Number Three. The York murder.”

Immediate understanding spreads across Amy’s face, but he explains anyway.

“I spent three days working that case and you just came in, saw the board and solved it right away.”

“I’m very smart,” she jokes lightheartedly.

“You are,” he agrees, his voice coming out softer and sincerer than even he imagined. “I love that about you. I love your brain. I love how good you are at your job, at figuring out puzzles. I love that you listen to NPR and know so much about the font Helvetica and have read, like, a million books. I love that you do a crossword every night and I love how proud you look when you give me a sports clue and I actually get it right. I love cheering you on at Trivia Nights even when Kylie can’t stop glaring at me. How lucky am I to have the smartest wife in the world?”

Touched, she can barely compile her thoughts to reveal her Number Two.

“The night at Shaw’s, at Hitchcock’s second divorce party, your speech, the way you kissed me, the way you were so gentle when we got home,” she sniffles. “It was special and made me feel so loved and if I say anymore I’m going to cry again, so you go.”

He chuckles knowingly. The pregnancy hormones have been making her extra emotional lately, they can’t even watch commercials anymore without her fully weeping. And while last year Pam and her twisted bowels interrupted before they could get to Number One, this year Number One is obvious. Clear as day. And there’s no one to interrupt.

He pretends to think about it for a minute (because he will always love teasing her, married or not). Only when she grabs his arm and digs her nails into his skin does he put both their hands on her bump and smiles. “Obviously this little guy or gal is Number One.”

She smiles back at him, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.

His own face falls. “Ames?”

“It’s been a hard year, hasn’t it?” She sighs, thinking back to calendars and fertility appointments and the strict no nacho policy.

“Yeah,” he says, “it has. But this next year is gonna be the best one yet.”

“I mean... We’re probably not going to sleep a lot.”

“You might not sleep a lot but I sure will,” he teases, his words falling flat. “Just kidding, babe. Obviously I’m going to get up for all the feeds and diaper changes and whatever else this kid throws at us. Gonna be there for you both. No matter what.”

The pregnancy hormones strike again and she starts crying and, honestly, he can’t wait for this baby to get out, for more reasons than one.

“BRB, I’ll go make your favourite breakfast to make you feel better, don’t grow anymore body parts while I’m gone.”

He returns seven minutes later with pancakes, a ton of fruit, decaf coffee and another kiss. He climbs back into bed, devours his own Nutella pancakes and posts his favourite blurry, drunk on Champagne and love selfie from their makeshift wedding reception at Shaw’s, on Insta with a caption about how he promises he’s gonna love her for the rest of his life.

And he keeps that promise.

[a-man-for-hire-and-his-archives]

Following Fetch Phillips

Discover the adventures of Fetch Phillips, the protagonist of The Last Smile in Sunder City and Dead Man in a Ditch, a former soldier turned PI who tries to help the fantasy creatures whose lives he's ruined in a world that's lost its magic.

I'm Fetch Phillips, just like it says on the window. There are a few things you should know before you hire me: 1. Sobriety costs extra. 2. My services are confidential - the cops can never make me talk. 3. I don't work for humans.

It's nothing personal - I'm human myself. But after what happened, Humans don't need my help. Not like every other creature who had the magic ripped out of them when the Coda came...

I just want one real case. One chance to do something good.

Because it's my fault the magic is never coming back.

Praise for The Last Smile in Sunder City

"This off-piste detective story set in a magical world, now in meltdown, has verve and charm in abundance and a rough diamond hero with quite a story to tell.In short, an actor's dramatic voice has found a pen which can write" - Andrew Caldecott, author of Rotherweird

"The first instalment of an effortlessly readable series that could be the illegitimate love child of Terry Pratchett and Dashiell Hammett" - Kirkus

"[A] standout debut . . . winningly combining the grit of Chinatown with the quirky charm of Harry Potter, this series opener is sure to have readers coming back for more" - Publishers Weekly

Luke Arnold was born in Australia and has spent the last decade acting his way around the world, playing iconic roles such as Long John Silver in the Emmy-winning Black Sails and his award-winning turn as Michael Hutchence in the INXS mini-series Never Tear Us Apart. When he isn't performing, Luke is a screenwriter, director, novelist and ambassador for Save the Children Australia.

The Last Smile in Sunder City - Luke Arnold

Fetch Phillips fought on the wrong side of a war between humans and magical creatures. Now he works on the streets of Sunder City, taking what odd jobs he can while trying to help those whose lives he ruined. His first case is to find a the missing Professor Rye, a four-hundred-year-old vampire. In a world without magic, most vamps have already crumbled into dust, but Fetch is happy to go looking for some dirt with pointed teeth if it gets him his drinking money. Then, when a young siren disappears, Fetch finds out that this dark world still hides some monsters - and he'd better clean up his act before they come into the light.

Dead Man in a Ditch - Luke Arnold

Fetch Philips has nothing left to believe in. Which is why he's surprised when the people of Sunder City start to believe in him... Rumour has it that Fetch is only one who can bring magic back into the world. So when a man is murdered in a way that can only be explained as magical, Fetch is brought in on the case. A case which just might unearth things best left buried...

Source: Hachette Australia

[imaginesmai]

Ivar - Checkmate

This was requested so long ago I honestly lost track. It was by an anon, who wanted X from the Angst Alphabet with no detailed description. Hope you like it! 

Warnings: brief, very brief hints of rape.

Plot: Ivar hasn’t always been the murderous king we know. There was a spark initiating the fire.

Despite what some might have thought, he did not consider himself to have multiple personalities. Instead, he was like a many sided coin, or perhaps a puzzle, hundreds of different pieces fitting together to make a perfect whole, to make the man that he was. Pieces that he just so happened to fit perfectly with you by his side, always watching his back and hugging his front.

For polite and formal company, he was Prince Ivar, a man who cared about his subjects and who could go on and one about the different political aspects of running a kingdom. He knew all the social niceties and customs that came with being part of the upper class, even if most of the foreigners thought that the vikings didn’t have manners. He had a way with words that won over even the coldest of ambassadors, his natural charm soon getting king Harald to sing a trade agreement that seven generations of his family had been refusing for the last four hundred years. He sat in on a council meetings, voicing his opinions and commanding the attacks. He was a husband, of beautiful princess Y/N Y/L/N, the future king of Norway.

They called him ‘Ivar the boneless’, a heartless monster; but truth was, he had never killed anyone. He only sent other people to do so, because he hadn’t feel the need to do so. Ivar still had to stain his hands with blood, to see a man’s life flashing through his eyes in a last exhale. His brothers were much more violent than him. Ubbe had killed in a battle ruthlessly and Hvitserk had slaughtered wives and kids in front of their parents; not to talk about Bjorn, who had the permanent smell of death in his clothes.

But not Ivar. He only knew the love that you brought him.

When you changed the pillows for him, so that he was more comfortable, he saw the world he wanted to live in. When you kissed his forehead everytime you passed by, and actually spent some time listening to his plans and showing interest, his heart grew big with love just for you. In the way you ran your hand absentmindedly through his locks, he found the will to live and to conquer the world just for you. Or in how you helped other that had nothing, which made him want to be a better person. But if there was a thing that he loved, though, was the feeling of you dozing off on his lap after a rough day.

That night was different, because in your eyes were dried tears and in his ears still sounded your broken sobs. Your hands were clenched in his tunic, and your body was still shaking with aftershock. Sigurd, staring at you in the doorway, with his arms crossed. Ubbe, sitting by the fireplace sneaking pity glances at you. Hvitserk, not touching his food but playing with it. His mother, sitting beside him and rubbing his arm. They weren’t supposed to be there, but you were already their queen.

Without saying a word, Ivar passed your sleeping form to his mother and took off.

He crawled through the city, to the forest until the cabin in the woods. He staked his prey through the darkness, allowing the newest side of him to take control, the nameless mask that was so full of hatred that it could consume the world withering the planet into a dull husk. His target was unaware of his approach, unknowingly bringing its own demise upon by taking the shortcut through the dark path.

The knife on his hands should have been heavy, but it gave him an oddly comforting feeling. The one he had been searching all day.

It was not a moment later that he saw his chance, the man he was pursuing leaning down to take a log that had fallen from his hands. Without missing a beat, he fell on him like a lion on his prey, placing his gloved hand over the man’s mouth to muffle the expected yells. Raising the knife so the silver blade glimmered in the moon’s cold light, he waited as its body stiffened against his own, the condemned man’s breathing coming in terrified pants. Tightening his grip on his prey, Ivar leaned forward and whispered his messaged.

“This is for her”

With a silent roar, Ivar plunged the knife into the man’s stomach, his glove growing warm and wet with his blood as he twisted the knife. He expected instant guilt, regret or even fear. But a pleasant feeling grew in his stomach, as if the last piece of the puzzle had finally fixed itself.

“This is for her, for her. This is for her”

When he finally let the body fall, the knife still embedded into his abdomen, his target’s blood had already dried, caking the front of his clothes in a rust coloured splatter. For a few moments, he stared at the dead man before him. He had just killed a man, another human being. With his hands.

He was glad.

Although the side of him that always thought about how you might feel because of his actions was screaming at him, the blood thirst screamed louder, and he found himself dragging the tip of the knife against the man’s cheek.

It did not take him long to reach the edge of Kattegat, dragging himself between the shadows and in silence. The town was quiet, sleeping and unsuspected of the first murder of Ivar Ragnarson. He felt blood on his hands, on his knees and under his nails, but that didn’t stop him from smiling the whole way to your rooms.

All thoughts of sleep were banished from his mind as he entered his room and saw the slumbering form of his wife. Aslaug, always waiting and knowing, nodded shortly at her younger son and let your sleeping body rest on your side while she exited the room. His brothers were far gone, and silence embraced Ivar one more.

Crossing to the other side of the room, he paused as a whimper tore itself from your throat, filling him with the desire to reach out and hold you, to comfort you in a way you had yet to let him. Instead, he stepped away, folding his arms across his chest as he watched you, the noises fading away. Ivar knew it was necessary, the separation, because his touch would just make it a thousand times worse at least for now, even if he hated.

He knew what you were dreaming about, and it killed him to know that, even if you did allow him to be there, to hold you until the nightmare passed, he could never change the events of the past. He could never go back to that single morning when you had needed him the most, when he should have been there and not making stupid peace deals with traders. He could not chance the fact that he had failed you, had broken his promise to never let anyone hurt you.

The clothes torn apart sat by the fire, waiting for your permission to be burnt. Ivar notice his tunic wrapped around your body, and clenched his jaw. He touched his cheek with sticky fingers.

He could never change that another man had stolen what you had given to him, and only him, in your wedding night. And, no one could have foreseen Ivar becoming the most ruthless killer of all Vikings in the dark of the night.

Because no one would ever hurt his queen while he was alive.

Vikings Tags:

@worldisadirtyplace​

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[fanyiyimdzs]

Mo Dao Zu Shi

Masterpost

“Everyone rejoice, Wei Wuxian is dead!”

Only a day after the end of the siege of the Burial Mounds, news of Wei Wuxian’s demise had already sprouted wings and flown to every corner of the cultivation world, sweeping the land even faster than the flames of war.

For a period afterwards, everyone, from wandering cultivators to those of the mightiest and most prestigious of clans, discussed how the Four Great Houses commanded thousands into the siege.

“Rejoice, rejoice! Say, which hero dealt the finishing blow to the Old Master of Yiling?”

“Who else could it be? His brother, Chief Jiang Cheng of the Yunmeng Jiang Clan!  He and the houses of the other three Great Clans, the Lanling Jin Clan, the Gusu Lan Clan, and the Qinghe Nie Clan, led the charge. Clan Chief Jiang killed his own brother and destroyed his lair for the good of us all. The Burial Mounds are gone!”

“Good riddance. Wei Wuxian deserved it.”

Immediately, someone applauded and shouted, “Exactly! He thoroughly deserved it! If the Jiang Clan hadn’t taken him in and raised him, this Wei Ying would have spent his whole life as a worthless vagrant. What else is there to say? The old Chief Jiang raised him like his own son, yet he betrayed them and made an enemy of everyone. Not only did he humiliate the Jiang Clan, he killed nearly all of his clanmates! He’s the definition of an ungrateful, treacherous bastard!”

“Not only that, Jiang Cheng tolerated that arrogant, up-jumped servant for ages. If it were me, I wouldn’t have just stabbed him when he defected. I would have obliterated him and anyone who followed him on the spot! Or else how would he have had the opportunity to do all those insane, vile things? Even if you grew up with him and loved him like a brother, you can’t show people like him any mercy.

“But that’s not what I heard. I thought one of his evil tricks backfired and he was shredded to pieces by those ghosts of his. Some say that they bit and tore at him so viciously that by the end of it, his body was no more than a slurry of flesh and bone dust.”

A man howled with laugher. “That’s karma! I’ve always said that his little horde of ghosts was like a pack of rabid dogs, gnawing and tearing at anyone in sight. In the end, they tore apart their master. Serves him right!”

“To be honest though, if it weren’t for young Chief Jiang’s knowledge of the Old Yiling Master’s weaknesses, the siege of the Burial Mounds might not have succeeded. Don’t forget what kinds of things Wei Wuxian has at his disposal. Don’t you remember when he annihilated more than 3,000 highly trained cultivators?”

“Wasn’t it 5,000?”

“3,000 or 5,000, one or the other. I think 5,000’s more likely.”

“It really was a murderous frenzy...”

“Before he died, he destroyed the Yin Tiger Tally,* so I suppose he did redeem himself a little bit. Otherwise, with that evil thing lurking around, his legacy would be even more despicable.”

As the words “Yin Tiger Tally” were spoken, silence abruptly fell, as though everyone had become suddenly preoccupied.

A few moments later, someone sighed regretfully and said, “Aye, this Wei Wuxian....back in the day he was a promising cultivator from a good background, and not without high merits. When he was young, what a glorious, free spirit! How exactly he wound up on this road...”

With this change of topic, the discussion became loud and boisterous once again.

“It just goes to show that cultivators have to stay on the proper path. Taking up demonic cultivation, “free spirit,” pah! Sounds to me like he was arrogant and egomaniacal. Heh, and what was the result?”

The speaker’s voice grew sonorous and forceful. “A bloody death and a defiled corpse!”

“But it wasn’t only demonic cultivation that killed him. At the end of the day, it was also his horrible personality and rotten character. Everywhere he went, people despised him. Whether they were good or bad people themselves, everyone bore a grudge against him. It was bound to come back and bite him in the ass sooner or later.”

Once dead and buried, Wei Wuxian’s reputation was set. Everyone’s opinions were much the same, whatever the differences in the details. If someone had the temerity to voice an alternative view, they were immediately met with such fierce opposition that it was rapidly extinguished.

But within everyone’s hearts, there was one niggling worry they couldn’t quite put to bed.

Wei Wuxian was supposed to have died at the Burial Mounds, but since then, not a single person had been able to summon him. His soul had, in a word, vanished.

Perhaps it had been shredded and devoured with his body. Or perhaps, it had escaped.

If the first was true, everyone would, of course, be happy and gratified. Yet the Old Master of Yiling could drown the earth and overturn the heavens, move mountains and drain seas—or at least, so the stories said. It would have been nothing to a man like him to resist a mere summons. If, in the future, he wanted to reclaim his place, if he snatched a new body and was reborn, all the hundred clans, perhaps the whole race of man, would inevitably be met with a more rabid and hateful vengeance than mortals had yet witnessed. The world would sink into black, bloody terror, annihilating all virtue, righteousness, and justice.

Consequently, the big clans set a hundred and twenty stone beasts atop the Burial Mounds to guard against Wei Wuxian’s possible return. They performed soul summoning rituals at a nervous regularity, investigated any and all reports of stolen bodies, and searched all the lands and seas for anything strange that might herald the coming nightmare. 

The first year, all was quiet and peaceful.

The second year, all was quiet and peaceful.

The third year, all was quiet and peaceful.

For thirteen years, all was quiet and peaceful. 

Gradually, people began to think that perhaps Wei Wuxian wasn’t quite as great or as powerful as the legends said. Perhaps his soul had been annihilated. 

Even if he had once been able to topple the clouds and call the rain, there had to come a day when he was the one being toppled.

No one could be revered and hated like some dark god for all eternity. Stories were just stories, after all.

________________________________

Translation notes:

* A tiger tally is a historical artifact that was used in Ancient China to securely deliver military commands. The tally had two matching halves, one kept by the local authorities and the other by the king or emperor. The Yin Tiger Tally (阴虎符) is based on this artifact, which is why I have chosen to translate it this way.

The “yin” part signals the object’s association with dark energy. Unfortunately, there is no good way to translate the word “yin (阴)” into English due to its conceptual richness and place in traditional Chinese religious and philosophical beliefs, but it’s the same “yin” as in “yin-yang (阴).”  

Next chapter

Masterpost

[trulycertain]

I’m going to talk about which ending I chose for Blood & Wine. And oh my, I might have some unpopular opinions on this. *sigh* This is critical of both Syanna and Dettlaff, both of whose characters I enjoy, sorta by necessity.

All right: I killed Dettlaff, and Syanna lived. Now, some people seem to portray Syanna as a bigger danger than Dettlaff, and while I can understand personal dislike of her... just looking at the maths, the idea that she’s more dangerous than him is utterly confusing to me. I understand that she and Dettlaff are meant to be dark mirrors of each other (heck, just look at the excellent dress senses, colour co-ordination is always Dramatically Significant Serious Business). And yes, I promise I understand that fantasy narratives and tragedy tropes are not meant to map onto real-life morality and criminal justice (crikey, I would not want to live in Geralt’s world). And I find them both fascinating characters and enjoy them. And I want to nick their costumes.

But putting ‘em side by side:

Syanna was definitely morally reprehensible. And yes, I do think she was using Dettlaff from the beginning - or rather that she was never in love with him. Attracted to him, at the start, maybe. And yes, she let cruelty make her cruel - but isn’t that a major thing in Witcher ‘verse? Heck, even Geralt does that sometimes, and can be a difficult person, and has killed people who have abused him. But yes, she was a murdering ransacking bandit who signed off on people raping and pillaging, and that was the biggest crime that stood out to me. And yes, she’s shown to be able to manipulate the hell out of people and be a bit of a tyrant, which is a bloody dangerous sort of power. (This is as consistent as Dettlaff’s “angry rage mode” backstory - even as a kid, she manipulated a peer into killing his brother.) The four murders with an attempt at a fifth? Not good. Not good at all. But heck, at least there it was more of a direct, “they mistreated me.” All right and a good way of solving your problems? Nope. Could I get my head round it? Moreso than “I’ll just chuck my rage at an entire city, including women and children, most of whom haven’t done anything to me, to make a point.” 

Dettlaff has always been Angry, much like Syanna. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I understand “screw humanity, they’re horrible, I’m going to go and live in the woods” (mood)... but he goes far beyond that. He already was getting his claws out and barely holding onto control over someone pushing in front of him in a queue (same, mate, but I don’t nearly murder ‘em). Even Regis, who has a “#1 Dettlaff Fan” shirt and little accompanying foam claw and always puts people on a pedestal, admits that Syanna probably snuck out because Dettlaff wouldn’t have understood a breakup and would have flown into a terrifying rage, and implies this happens often. Nothing about that relationship was healthy. We then see Dettlaff tearing through an entire goddamn bandit camp (much like Regis and Geralt, not saying that’s just Dettlaff) when he thinks they’ve kidnapped his former lover, just at the idea of it. We’ve seen his constantly escalating fury; the city is just the latest victim of it. Regis has already spent a long time at this point trying to show him that humans are equals, are people (the Humanist ring), and the sacking of Beauclair still happens on Dettlaff’s orders. So what happens the next time Dettlaff gets pissed off - and he gets pissed off a lot - looking at patterns? Another city? An attempt at a country?

Both Syanna and Dettlaff seem like they’ve snapped, due to going through some horrific things. Both essentially view people as disposable, which is the major way Dettlaff is a foil for Regis (they have a lot of similarities otherwise; I also suspect this is why Regis, in particular, had to be the one to finish him off - it made emotional as well as worldbuilding sense, in a tragic sort of way). I suspect even in the reconciliation ending, Syanna can’t be trusted, and should probably spend forever in a dungeon or, in the screwed-up feudalistic justice system of Beauclair, die. 

But while Syanna is just one person, and one un-powered person is pretty inefficient at sneaking about and murdering everyone and takes a long time to do it, to the point she manipulated Dettlaff into doing it because he’s essentially a walking WMD...

Detlaff can take down twenty people like it’s nothing in a few swipes, sometimes kills too fast to be visible, and nearly killed Geralt, canonically one of the best Witchers out there. Syanna may be as screwed up as him, but crikey, Dettlaff is legions more dangerous.

And while you can argue that Syanna is the Stregobor here - engineers a situation, uses people as pawns to justify a grievance - the last time Geralt encountered the Curse of the Black Sun, far more people died because he refused to choose the Lesser Evil. In this context, if he doesn’t want to cause civil unrest and risk an ally (Anna) becoming a tyrant, if he wants to make sure fewer people die, and if he’s going on the numbers? Yeah, Syanna is the Lesser Evil. Still pretty darn evil, but... less likely to level a town if someone pisses her off. Sometimes there’s no choice but an upsetting one.

In addition: Someone might say, “What about Regis? He changed. He used to be a right shit, by his own admission. What if that’s Dettlaff in fifty years, or a hundred, or so?” And aye, true - but I think Regis' case was mostly luck. He didn’t run into another, very done higher vampire in his right-shit days, or an exceptional Witcher. I suspect if Geralt hadn’t been about -300 at that point and he’d run into Hedonistic-Shit Regis, well... Yeah, Regis would still have ended up in ashy pieces rethinking his life choices. It was just sheer luck it was a bunch of villagers instead (and poetic justice, I guess). Also, it sounds like Regis’ Humanism took a long time, but was evidently started and some way along by the time he crawled out of the grave, and he’d decided to give up drinking the Ribena of Doom. We don’t see anything that unambiguous with Dettlaff. Dettlaff does, however, have a cooler coat.

[ghostmartyr]

SnK 127 Thoughts

“Let us speak for 46 pages about how we still don’t actually have any real plan, we’re just all very against genocide (except Magath and Yelena) and very upset and feel like we should be doing something.”

The characters are sort of doing my job for me this month.

Maybe this whole post should just be illicit screencaps from Crunchyroll with me providing links and saying, ‘and here’s the panel that makes the point I whined about in this post here.’

That would probably provide more entertainment than whatever I’m about to come up with.

-sees the amount of swearing in the first section-

Hm.

First off, fuck Magath.

Like no, I’m sorry. This is not about what happened 2000 years ago. You know what it’s about? It’s about Marley sending in child soldiers to assault and rob a land that had caused literally no problems for 100 years. It’s about Marley doing this despite being aware of its own history, being that their personal hero collaborated with the First King of Paradis to make Marley’s independence possible.

You want to talk about history, Magath?

Jean isn’t the one who sounds like a child.

Jean is reacting to actual pain that he has experienced in his lifetime thanks to Magath’s very intentional military strategies.

Magath is blaming Jean and everyone else on the island for being born.

That is not equivalent.

That is not remotely equivalent, and while Eren is being a fucking bastard about it, Jean’s right. Eren has the power, means, and will to do all of this because of what Magath and Marley did to Paradis.

Magath doesn’t recognize Eldians as people.

The Eldian Empire was bad.

No one except Floch is disputing that. That is how you know that it is bad.

Marley, as well as the rest of the world, has been free from the Eldian Empire for over a hundred years, and in that time, all they have done is take every horrible thing about the Eldian Empire and exploit it for their own gains.

Magath doesn’t get to be angry that he lives off the backs of abused, brainwashed children that he treats like crap.

Years ago, the Eldian Empire was the worst terror in the world.

A year ago, it was Marley.

Now, it happens to be Eren.

And you know, I’ve been actively against pretty much everything Eren’s done. His plan, if he has one, has mostly managed to make everyone angry and get a lot of people killed who weren’t even involved in the beginning. He gets his head blown off close enough to his brother that he doesn’t die. That’s how the beginning stages of him committing genocide goes. He betrays his friends, makes his besties from childhood feel like crap, and honestly has just been a dick to pretty much everyone.

But at least Eren’s indiscriminate murder has the decency to actually be indiscriminate.

Marley takes children it despises and turns them into their willing slaves for the promise of a better life they have no intent of dispensing. They take these children, and full of hatred for the very ability, demand that they shorten their lifespan and murder people to prove that they’re a “good Eldian” who deserves to live.

Marley is why people can stomach rooting for Eren.

Because Marley is such an abomination that it almost feels worth it to destroy the world if it means Marley’s gone too.

Hell, I’m with Hange. There’s not an avenue where I accept genocide as a way to deal with any of this.

But if someone wanted to burn Magath alive, and we spent a dozen pages gloriously detailing his flesh curling off his bones, it would make me happy.

That’s a more dignified death than he’s given any of the children he’s forced into Marley’s wars.

He does not have the fucking moral high ground.

He's the one Jean should have punched. There is not a single person around that campfire that he has not damaged deeply, and noticing that Gabi is a little girl and he cares when she is in pain does not magically remove that.

Fuck Marley. Fuck Magath.

Grow the fuck up and stop viewing genocide as an acceptable response, you fucking halfwit child. You are the individual who saw four children off on their solitary mission to murder thousands of people. Two of them are dead. Two of them are deeply traumatized, with one of them wishing he had died.

But oh yes, Magath. You’re the victim, here.

Because you baited one angry idiot with the power of a god into destroying part of a city you didn’t give a damn about.

Truly, your justice is a thing to aspire to.

Perhaps Eren taking notes is the real reason we’re here.

Motherfucking fuck I hate Marley. I hate that Eren’s put any of these characters in the position where they have to put up with this shit for the sake of civility. I don’t have a problem with the Warriors. I don’t have a problem with the Survey Corps. I don’t have a problem with the kidlets. Hi Onyankopon, sorry about your life. Yelena has many problems, but she’s also attractive, so I don’t mind as much.

Magath, though.

Pieck, just eat him. Everyone’s too depressed to really throw down over it at this point, and the two small ones are so deeply traumatized that one more body really isn’t going to make much of a dent.

Jean’s clearly the star of this chapter, and a good deal of that comes from the potent hopelessness hovering over him like a rain cloud.

He can point to how bad everyone is at talking things out like it’s the key to the entire mystery, but the long list of problems Jean offers at the beginning of the chapter are still present. Unless they have a way to talk to every person in the world out of their (at this point, rather justified) fear and anger, Paradis and Eldians around the world are very much screwed.

Paradis has forever been running out of time against the hatred the rest of the world has for them.

They do have to fight against what Eren’s doing, and talking instead of blowing each other’s heads off is a good start, but it’s a good start thousands of years after the worst possible one.

And the last time they tried to talk to Eren, Armin punched him, and that was the most productive thing to come out of it.

Jean being the everyman who recognizes the heart of an average person because he is one has been a great tool. It’s still great, here. He wants to close his ears to all of this. He wants, desperately, to run away, because there is no good solution that doesn’t end in death.

When he joins the Survey Corps, they at least have Eren as a brand of hope. They can believe that years of the same tactics and bodies piling up won’t end the same way.

Joining this squad is all about stopping Eren, and despite having figured out their next course of action, no one has yet to provide a real idea.

Genocide is wrong, so you stand up and try to stop it.

That’s the only plan they have.

The Scouts from Paradis don’t even have the promise of saving the people they love if they stop Eren. Annie, Pieck, Gabi, Reiner, Falco... they have a home. The world might forget to hate them. They might get to go home and have a life after this.

The people sitting on the other side of the fire are fucking screwed. They’re fighting entirely for their principles.

...Also Yelena is here.

I do like Yelena.

She’s not the worst, because this manga has too many horrible people in it, but she’s delightfully terrible. I especially like how the fact that she’s actually from Marley hardly gives her any pause.

I do so like Yelena.

It’s a beautiful sentiment.

After all, everyone’s drunk on something.

If you can just save the world, what does the rest matter? What do the crimes that kept you awake at night mean, when you’ve accomplished something so miraculous? All the good deeds cleanse the rottenness, and maybe then the world rights itself and you can breathe again.

...Hey wait, where’s Reiner’s reaction shot to finding out Gabi killed Sasha?

...Did he even know Sasha was dead?

But I guess we’re doing Marco angst.

Wow. Marco angst in 2020.

I think my favorite thing about this chapter (outside of the fact that Mikasa still hates Annie and it makes me giggly because wow Mikasa) is that Annie does absolutely nothing while Jean’s beating the crap out of Reiner.

My less favorite thing is I’ve stopped enjoying Reiner getting the crap beaten out of him. It’s been done, and... really the kid just needs to have not been born into this particular life. Watching Jean beat him bloody is. not cathartic. It’s really just awful.

Annie dodging with her food is glorious, though.

Because while Jean beating up Reiner over Marco is sad and kind of miserable, Annie watching someone beat up Reiner after the years she spent putting up with Reiner and Bertolt brings it back to almost funny.

Until you look at Reiner’s face and go back to feeling bad.

-turns page back to Annie getting out of the way-

Much better.

Truly, I love Annie.

Her forgiveness status is interesting, though. I think besides Marco, she enjoyed more of the kills she’s responsible for than anyone feels a need to dig up.

She’s also been more alone than most of the others in the wagons, and essentially spent four years imprisoned for her crimes.

I’m not surprised she asked, because she’s Annie, but I’m a bit surprised we don’t have an answer yet. Probably too close to the end of the chapter to open up that can of worms.

If it makes everyone feel better, I think we know for a fact that Mikasa will never forgive Annie for anything, even if it only displays itself as petty brandishing of weapons every time they make eye contact.

It’s not even a ship thing.

I just love that Annie is the one person Mikasa can’t stand. They’ve been in one chapter together and Mikasa’s already pulling out swords. These two shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near each other. It’s perfection.

Then we get to plot complications that really don’t register as complications because like. Yeah, you guys need something to do while you figure out what the hell you’re doing.

Because you don’t actually have a real plan, just so we’re clear.

Killing Eren would result in all those Wall Titans operating under their own power.

That is not fundamentally less destructive.

Killing Eren has a nice ring to it, but much like talking to Eren, it does not solve any of the other problems looming ahead.

So you enjoy your little subplot with Floch!

It’s one of the last times your combined competence will have any meaning.

-looks over at Kiyomi-

Honest question, but why are you alive if Floch dislikes you enough to hold you hostage? If Eren’s gonna kill everyone, shouldn’t Floch be following suit and just do his Floch thing of murdering every slight inconvenience?

We’re in the boring stages of the finale right now.

No clear plan for either side to contend with. No real progress in any direction because the tiny squabbles are just a delaying tactic for the massive squabble that no one has an answer to. None of any of this chapter really matters except for clearing the air.

Which is not a useless investment, it’s just not very exciting.

At this point, no excitement is allowed, because there’s that One Huge Thing, and the entire story hinges on it. Maybe someone will die on the way to dealing with it, but that’s all the drama we’re going to get until we find out enough about the plot to have a future worth rooting for.

Right now, there is no good outcome for the people we’ve watched fight for 127 chapters.

Pulling a story along with that weight is hard, and I can feel my brain turning itself off until we’re back to a point where the story is permitted to address the stegosaurus in the room.

One more month.

Again.

Until something happens and we all regret everything.

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

The End of Year Awards Are Back... and This Time, It’s Personal!

And so we approach the end of 2020, the year that never really began. On paper, at least, it looked incredibly promising. There were lots of great movies slated to come out; culture seemed slightly less paucity-riddled and pointless than usual; good things were in the air. Then COVID happened, and basically fucked everything. Actually, that’s not quite true: my personal year has been fucking spectacular. I’m in a long-term relationship with a gorgeous woman for the first time in forever- no more abrupt trysts and stolen moments for yer humble narrator: I’ve got a sumptuously plus-size lady-friend who actually wants to spend substantial amounts of time me (and has knockers you could sled down, were you so inclined). I also started a Youtube channel where I upload performances of magic tricks I’ve designed and a few people seem to quite like it. Oh, and I’ve written four novels, with a fifth well on its way to completion. Unfortunately, that’s my life, not the life of our civilisation and culture as a whole. The fact that bugger all happened in that makes this end-of-year round-up a little hard to write. With that in mind, I’m going to hand out the gongs for 2020, but I’m also going to do my usual dodge of giving end-of-year awards to things that I discovered in 2020, even if they came out the year, decade or century before. It’s not like any right-minded person gives a hoot about my opinion anyway. Right then, everyone clear on the rules? Then let’s roll up our sleeves and plunge elbow deep into the fetid trough of our decaying society to ferret out the best and worst of the Things That Humans Have Done Recently.

The ‘I Like It Because It Confused Thick People’ Award for Best High-Concept Sci-Fi Movie... … Goes to the sterling Tenet, a spy film that used entropy inversion and symmetric, opposite-direction timelines within the same physical space the way most spy films use hacking and guns. Christopher Nolan films are always intricately constructed and meticulously-executed, but this one must have had Japanese Master Puzzle-Box Makers crying into their breakfast cereal. Is breakfast cereal a thing in Japan? I honestly I have no idea. For some reason, all I can imagine is a sort of dry kedgeree where all the ingredients that aren’t rice have been removed. But I digress. For all its intricacy, Tenet is actually really easy to follow once you’ve grasped the basic premise that there’s a machine that lets people move backwards through time, and that this makes them appear to move in reverse to the rest of the world while they perceive the rest of the world as moving in reverse. Nolan maintains a mastery of cinematic visual language that makes even the most abstruse concept easy to wrap your head around. Nonetheless, following Tenet’s release, dumb people took to the Internet on mass to complain that the film was confusing and stupid, never once realising that their inability to conceptualise time in non-linear ways was their own failing, not Nolan’s. I find that refreshing. It’s nice to see a sci-fi film that’s actually made for smart-cookie sci-fi fans and doesn’t give a hoot if it alienate thickos.

The Award for Most Inexplicably Compelling Web Comic… … Goes to Questionable Content. I originally started reading Questionable Content because I’d heard that the female lead and love interest was a plus size lassie and that shit’s my jam. However, the art style makes everyone look like a skinny indie-type, regardless of their actual, in-universe size, so it doesn’t do much to titillate my Fat Admiring Titillation Centres. And yet, I’m over five hundred ‘episodes’ in and still reading. The thing is, I couldn’t tell you why for the life of me. Maybe it’s the hope that the art style will evolve to the point where the people look like actual human beings with different body types (but then, why would I care unless I was invested for some other reason). Maybe it’s the fact that when I get one of the many, many obscure band or pop culture references, I feel a little buzz of kinship with the writer. Maybe it’s the fact that it takes place in a universe where robots and superheroes are things that regularly happen, yet most of the strips are just normal people chatting shit in a coffee shop and the slice-of-life narrative/sci-fi setting appeals to my sense of juxtaposition. I don’t know, but I find it really compelling to the extent that I’ve pissed away entire days reading it. I have a horrible feeling that it’s a short step from this to really angsty hentai. If I start singing the praises of that, somebody please shoot me in the crotch.

The ‘Forest Gump Debating Peter Andre’ Award For Most Sustained or Elongated Instance of Stupidity… … Goes to Donald Trump. I was tempted just to award this gong to his entire presidency, but that wasn’t just stupid: it was also venal, corrupt, horrifying and punctuated by terrible moments of low cunning. So, instead, this award goes to his ‘soup’ rant. For those of you who missed it, the former President of the United States spent a really, really long time (in the run-up to the election) wittering on about protestors throwing cans of soup at police. What was dumb and weird about it was that he appeared to be extolling the virtues of soup as a siege weapon, going into really specific detail about how it was better than a brick because it could be thrown with more force, finishing with the utterance that protestors would just argue that “this is just soup for my family” if they were caught with the cans… which is phrased wrong in such a subtle and inhuman way it’s hard to imagine that anyone actually ever said it, at least in those words. I have no idea if protestors in America were throwing soup cans at police (which would be entirely justified considering how many innocent people American police have murdered in cold blood quite recently) or if this was a fantasy dreamed up by the former president in the cloudcuckooland that is his diseased little brain. Either way, the connected rant was balls deep in dumb.

The Most Disturbing Unintentional Impression of Vincent Price Award… … Goes to the narrator from One Step Beyond, a Twilight Zone-esque anthology of weirdness that purports to be based on true events and has to be seen to be believed. The stories are oft-disturbing instances of spooky-inflected human drama and can occasionally be quite disconcerting… until they’re book-ended by a dude who sounds like Vincent Price reading a children’s book in a really earnest voice. It’s weird and no, it didn’t hit our screens in Space Year 2020, it dates back to Ye Olden Times of the 1950s or 60s, when men were men, women were women and technincolour was a distant dream that could get you strung up for witchcraft. Nonetheless, I only encountered it this year, so it’s getting its prize. I warned you I was going to pull this shit, but you foolish fools didn’t listen.

The ‘It’s Not Gay If I Don’t Clench’ Award for Cognitive Dissonance… … Goes to Amazon Prime, the content-making branch of evil, tax-dodging, anti-monopoly-law-breaking megalith Amazon. You see, while Big Daddy Amazon is off being incredibly sinister and worrying, like a shifty vampire hanging off the economy’s throat, the creative people at Amazon Prime are busy making or acquiring some of the flat-out best TV ever committed to a streaming-service, from the extra-weird slice of fun-pie that is The Tick, to the entertainingly horrifying cultural dissection of The Boys to the utterly unique Carnival Row, to the superbly adapted American Gods. It’s a bit like discovering that Geoffrey Dahlmer single-handedly created a body of artistic work to rival Vincent Van Gogh’s when he wasn’t pouring acid onto the brains of emotionally vulnerable young adults. It gives me a headache.

The Clint Eastwood Award for Most Effective Older Gentlemen… … Goes to Joe Biden, for unseating dipshit in chief Donald Trump with the casual badassery of a Wild West gunslinger shooting a baddy (probably played by Leonardo Di Caprio) in the balls. I mean, he’s not the best Prez America could ask for but a) as a Brit I don’t have to care and b) anyone who ousts Trump gets mad props from me.

The ‘It’s a Pity Everything Else is Shit Now’ Award for Best New Ongoing Series… … Goes to my own Youtube series, Victor The Magician, in which I claim to be a reality-hopping, interdimensional wizard on an endless quest to… perform magic, basically. I’ll admit that the quality is super-variable (Youtube algorithms and their constant demand for fresh content be a harsh mistress, etc., etc.). However, when I’m good, I’m really good. If you’re looking for a punch-line other than the fact that this whole bit is a self-promoting plug, it’s this: my Youtube series really was the best thing to come out this year. Not because I’m great or anything, just by default. A promising year really did turn into a cultural wasteland the moment COVIDius Rex reared its scaly head.

The Zombie Ian Curtis Award for Most Crushing Disappointment… … Goes to Rick and Morty Series 4. As I think I’ve said before, it was still good, but it just didn’t reach the dizzy heights of nihilistic lunacy achieved in series 1-3. I think the problem is that the audience is meant to learn something from Rick’s poor choices, even if he doesn’t, because the creators saw the amazing success of Bojack Horseman and decided they wanted a slice of that sweet, tangy deconstructionist pie. It worked up to a point in the climax of Series 3, but having made their point, the showrunners probably should have moved onto a different point. They forgot that the appeal of Rick Sanchez is his combination of ‘entertaining car-crash of a human being’ and ‘unstoppable superbeing’. Push him through an arc and you risk breaking the thing that makes him and the show so endlessly watchable. Rick, unlike Bojack, just wasn’t built for heavy introspection. Also, the team hired on new writers who were less than familiar with the characters, setting and subtext, and that’s always an invitation to disaster.

The Special Sir Mixalot Award for Posteriority… ...Goes to… my girlfriend and glamorous assistant, Mystic Miss Terri, who’s arse is gorgeous and majestic.

The ‘Are They STILL Making That?’ Award for a Show You Forgot Existed And is Now Back… … Goes to Supernatural, which never technically went away and whose final series is apparently being broadcast on one of the 4 channels (though who knows which one, any more), It’s kind of nice to realise it’s still out there and be reminded that there are still people who care deeply about what happens to it. It’s like when you remember ‘oh yeah, [insert cute animal here] actually exists and isn’t just an internet meme. That’s nice’. Also, it’s good to see Jared Padelacki working steadily. It can’t be easy to find acting gigs when most producers just want to shoot you and mount your antlers over a fireplace.

The Irritating Magician Award for Something That Just Won’t Fuck Off… ...Goes to this blog entry, which is three pages long in Word. Good grief. Bye y’all! See you next year, assuming that the last few days of 2020 don’t culminate in a civilisation-destroying attack by giant space-ants. If that seems worryingly specific, let’s just say that- as Leonard Cohen would say “I’ve seen the future and, brother, it is murder”… by giant space-ants.

[bellemorte180]

If I Die Before I Wake: Chapter Two

Vengeance is defined as punishment or retribution for a wrong committed against another. A single curse could derail and weaken the most powerful being in the world. A single massacre could take the entire world in one go; but it could centuries to execute the perfect vengeance.

Chapter Two

Mystic Falls April 2010

The mansion was huge and falling to pieces. Yet, Klaus saw its potential. For the last hundred and forty five years, he had to live without Caroline. In order to feel as though she was still with him, he tried to see the world as she would have; a difficulty because he didn't have the light that she did. She would have looked at that run down home and took it on as a project. She would make it beautiful; commanding the reconstruction as though she was the captain of a ship. Klaus knew that he would make it their home for the short time after she was returned to him.

After he broke his curse in Spain and then murdered his father, Klaus built her an entire city to call their home. Perhaps one day they would return to New Orleans but Mystic Falls would have to due for a small while. Freya had collected massive amounts of information in the last century and he knew that Caroline would be weak at first and it would be best if she rested before taking her place as his queen. In truth, Klaus had not been king since he lost her and it would take him some time before he was able to let Caroline out of his sight before he could take on that responsibility right away.

So a mansion would due for a time. She would put her stamp on it and that brought a smile to Klaus's features. He could already see her now; commanding the compelled construction workers to make everything perfect. Caroline was nothing if not a perfectionist.

Making such plans in his mind, Klas needed to actually see her. He spent decades in New Orleans after he lost her, never really leaving her side; contacting every witch he knew but few were helpful. It wasn't until he massacred an entire coven in the heart of the French Quarter that he handed over the keys to the city to Marcel, along with the remainder of his daggered family and his wife, and fled with Freya in search of something; anything that would help him.

Since then he would only return once a year to have a glimpse of her.

Klaus passed the builders and architects and made his way to the basement of the house and saw the five coffins that lined the back wall. He completely bypassed his mothers' and touched the ones belonging to his siblings lightly. When he reached Caroline's, he opened the lid and gazed down at her perfect face. It wasn't gray or decayed; it was as perfect as it was the day he saw her at the summer festival in the small village over a thousand years ago. She looked as though she was sleeping but it was wrong. Caroline always had a small smile playing at her lips when in the deepest of slumbers. She would moaned and toss in her sleep. This perfect stillness was not the wife he slept beside for eight hundred years. Klaus leaned down and kissed her forehead, saving the scent of her.

“Soon Sweetheart. Soon I will have you back in my arms.” He inhaled her scent again and listened as the stairs creaked behind him. He pulled backed and touched her head one last time before closing the coffin. “Hello Elijah.”

“Niklaus.” The older of the two replied. Klaus turned and saw his brother standing at the base of the stairs. He looked impeccable, in a fresh cut suit and nothing out of place. Klaus wasn't surprised. His brother always had a taste for best of fashion. “I see the rest of the family is in-tacked and I am pleased to see that you have not driven a white oak stake through Kol's heart.”

“Do not mention his name to me.” Klaus hissed.

“Nine decades and you still hold it against him.”

“How would you know, you abandoned me when I put the dagger in his heart.” Elijah just shook his head. “He would have woken her with those objects that coven was collecting. He would have brought her back but it wouldn't have been her Elijah; just some demon wearing her face.” He remembered hearing that there might have been a way for Caroline to wake from her slumber but when Freya explained the consequences to Elijah, Klaus set out to stop his brother from putting out Caroline's light completely.

“You were loosing your touch with humanity Klaus. We wanted nothing more to bring Caroline back in order to fix our family. He was wrong to go about it in such a manner but we were desperate.” Elijah looked at his younger brother and saw the same torment that plagued him since that fateful day in 1864 when Caroline crumbled, blood spewing from her lips as she fell into a never ending sleep. “I never really left you Niklaus. Who do you think helped Freya when she had a lead? Who stood by her side hunting down answers when you couldn't?”

Klaus looked down at the ground and gripped the wood of the coffin. Elijah stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder. He knew the torment that Klaus was feeling. He listened to Freya's every word when she told him how erratic Klaus had become. Then in the 1950s, his brother fell off the face of the earth completely, going into seclusion with only Freya and Marcel having access to him.

“We are almost there. The last piece of the puzzle is here in Mystic Falls. We will collect her and come the full moon, everything will be as it should be. Caroline will be awake and the two of you will be as you always have been.” Klaus looked at his brother in the eye and Elijah could see tears in them. He remembered the howls of agony Klaus had screamed for weeks and months on end when Caroline first fell.

“All I want is Caroline. What do you want?”

“I want my family reunited Niklaus. I want what we had in New Orleans before this mess landed on our doorstep. I want Rebekah to find love again. Kol to be well, Kol.” Elijah signed. “And I want to see that look in your eyes every time Caroline steps into a room. I want to hear her laughter ring through our home as she scolds you for something you have done.” That made Klaus smile. Caroline was never one to hold back her thoughts and she was the only one who could get away with it. As quickly as the smile came, it vanished.

“Fine.” Klaus stalked away from him and opened Rebekah's coffin. He grabbed the dagger and pulled it out of her chest. “Time to wake up little sister.” He looked at Elijah and handed him the dagger. “Tell her I'm sorry. Tell her that I will make it right.” He looked at the other two coffins. “Wake Kol but tell him I'm still furious with him. Bloody hell, wake Finn too if you must.”

*

Damon was pissed. Furious. He had not felt anger like this in a very long time. What could she have possibly been thinking? Going to see Katherine? When Stefan realized that she was gone and that Bonnie was missing as well, they went into a frenzy. Had Klaus come to town and snatched her under their noses? When they flashed through the town and into the woods, finding Bonnie alone by the tomb, Damon realized that Elena was stupid enough to go down there alone searching for answers.

“She could have killed you and she would have for shits and giggles!” Damon hissed at her as he slammed the door of his chevy camaro. Elena narrowed her eyes and ran her hands through her long brown hair in frustration. She followed him out of the car, not noticing if Stefan and Bonnie got out as well. Damon has been furious since they found Bonnie and herself. Stefan ran to her side, checking to see if she was well but it was Damon's furious blue eyes that she saw. Elena couldn't explain it but Damon's fury, infuriated her with equal measure. While she loved Stefan with her entire heart, there was something about Damon that lit her veins on fire.

“I needed answers Damon. We have found nothing on Klaus other than whispers. There are vampires out there that believe he is nothing more than a legend!” Elena yelled back. “If he is coming after me I want to know why! Katherine is the only person we know who has met him! She knows why he is coming to Mystic Falls and I think she was about to tell me what he wants with me before you rudely pulled me out of the tomb!”

“It doesn't matter why he wants you! The only thing that matters is that he is not going to get to you! At least he won't if you stay under our protection!” Damon practically yelled. “Whatever Katherine did to piss off the oldest vampire in all creation is something she can pay for; you're not paying for her sins Elena!”

“Damon.” Stefan tried to cut in but Elena cut him off completely.

“She said I was the doppelganger! I don't know what that means but he tried to drain her of her blood in order to break some curse! He did it again in 1702! He has a pattern and now he is coming for someone who looks like me!”

“Well if you would listen to me maybe he won't even get near you!”

“Damon.”

“He wants to get his wife back!”

“Damon”

“I don't care what he wants!”

“Damon!”

“What!” Damon snapped and looked at Stefan. The younger Salvator brother just pointed to the boarding house and Damon's eyes widened. Something was off and they could sense that someone was inside. Someone they didn't know. Damon flashed to stand in front of Elena. “Do not leave my side.” Elena nodded but grabbed Stefan's hand.

Slowly, all four of them approached the front door. Both Stefan and Damon where shielding Elena while they left Bonnie completely unguarded. Damon pushed the door open and reviled the living room and the big fireplace on the other end. Once they entered the boarding house, they noticed that there was a man seated in one of he leather chairs in front of the fire place. His legs were stretched out and a glass of bourbon in his hand. Beside him stood a tall blonde woman with short blond hair.

“It is rather reckless to leave a vampire's home open. Word of advice; put the title into a human's name.” The woman spoke gently and they all could tell that, despite the massive power that radiated from her, she wasn't a vampire. The man who took one last sip of bourbon before tossing it into the fire, was; and an extremely old one at that. Damon thought of the feeling he had when he met Rose and realized that she had been an infant compared the man before them.

“And it is rather rude to keep guest waiting.” The man stated and stood. He was tall but not overbearingly so. His blonde hair was kept short and he wore a dark Henley paired with an expensive pair of jeans. Silver chains hung from his neck and a devilish smirk haunted his lips.

“It is when you're expecting them.” Stefan replied and that smirk on the other man's lips grew wide. He seemed amused and that nerved the rest of them. “You, we were not expecting.”

“Rippah!” Both Damon and Stefan froze. It was clear that they had not expected for anyone else to be aware of that part of Stefan's personality. He had been not fallen from the band wagon in decades and most of the people who knew that side of him were dead. “I apologize. I supposed I should introduce myself. The name is Klaus.” While none of them were surprised at this news, their eyes widened slightly. “Ah, you've heard of me. Fantastic.”

“Niklaus.” He turned to the blonde woman whose arms were crossed. She smirked at him and raised her eyebrow in question.

“My apologizes. Let me introduce my sister Freya.” Freya moved towards Klaus, her spiked heeled boots hit the hardwood floor. Standing side by side, the rest could see the familiar resemblance. “Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, I believe I will take what I came for. Step aside boys if you please.” Neither Damon nor Stefan were willing to back down and simply let Klaus take Elena. They both flashed towards the intruders but neither made it. Freya didn't even flick her wrist and both vampires went flying towards opposite walls; their bodies being pinned against the wood. Neither could move and Freya made it appear effortless. “Ah, yes. I wouldn't get in her way. My sister is a powerful witch and don't let that flawless skin fool you, she is a millennia old.”

The smirk returned and Klaus stepped forward, making his way towards the remaining girls. His movements were predatory and stalking. Both Damon and Stefan struggled against their invisible bonds; neither succeeded in breaking free. Elena's heartbeat increased, her blood pounding through her veins as Klaus got closer. She couldn't help but take a few steps back, almost stumbling as she went. Klaus got closer and closer, the manic smirk playing at his lips. He was only steps away. Closer and closer....

And he completely bypassed Elena.

Klaus didn't spare her a glance. Instead he stood directly in front of Bonnie and gazed down at her.

“You have no idea how long I've searched for you little witch. I need you to cast a little spell for me.”

*

New Orleans December 1914

Freya's heart beat rapidly in her chest. Her breathing was heavy and her eyes flickered around the abandoned building as she laid on the floor. Her palms were flat against the ground and her back arched to see the three men now glaring down at her. Bodies littered the floor and in the center of the now dead coven was the brother who found her. The brother whose face she first saw when she awoke nearly a year prior.

Kol laid in the center as his skin turned gray and a dagger stuck in his chest. She told him that it wouldn't work; that dark magic was not the way to break the spell. Yet, he didn't trust her and was going to trust the coven he played around with. Kol loved witches and it was for that reason Klaus pulled that dagger from his chest in the first place. He needed a witch and Kol knew the most about them; but now he was going to do something that would ruin everything. Freya wanted one thing, a family and Kol was getting impatient. He was about to do something that would be irreversible. If Freya had not run to Elijah, completely aware that he had no idea of who she really was, everything would have been lost.

Now she looked up to Klaus, whose long black coat was covered in blood, Elijah and Marcel. The two latter ones seemed uneasy but Klaus's extreme violence and complete massacre of the only coven who seemed to be willing to help him. Klaus bent down in order to be eye level with her. He reached out and took Freya's neck into his hand and slammed her into the wall behind her. He pressed himself against her, smearing blood on her white lace dress, and whispered in her ear.

“Now tell me why I just slaughtered the coven who was close to waking my wife on the mere word of a witch I've never met?” His tone was deadly and Freya could see his eyes turning yellow. She had heard stories of the wolf that lived beneath his skin and now she was mere inches from his teeth. “Leave nothing out.”

“Kol wanted to use dark magic to rise Caroline. He needed special objects; dark objects. Objects that were cursed.” Klaus's gripped tightened. “Using those objects may have awoken her but it wouldn't have been her, not really. It would have been something else wearing her face. Your wife would have been completely gone.”

“Kol wouldn't do that. Caroline was like a sister to him.”

“The coven thought they could change the formula for the spell. Similar to how your mother did when she changed Qetsiyah's immortality spell when she turned you into vampires.” A brief look of confusion crossed his face, never having heard the ancient greek name before. “Another spell. Another story. Kol was obsessed with it. He thought he could guide the witches into tampering with the sleeping spell put on Caroline.”

“Would it have worked?”

“No.” Klaus dropped her and Freya gripped her neck; coughing. Klaus flashed towards Elijah and Marcel. The three conversed, as though they were deciding her fate. She couldn't help but look at the dead bodies of the witches who hid her; who saved her even if it was only temporary. Freya moved to stand, bracing herself against the wall as Klaus looked at her again. If Klaus was going to kill her, at least this death would be better than the fate that awaited her elsewhere. “I can help you.”

“And how may that be?”

“I'm an expert in sleeping spells; having been the victim of one.” This peaked, not only Klaus's interest but Elijah's as well. “I was raised by my aunt Dahlia. A very powerful witch. She became obsessed with immortality when.....it doesn't matter. She found a way to grow our power but it requires us to sleep for a hundred year and only one year awake.”

“Can you wake Caroline?” His voice was fragile and she could see the wheels turning in his head. Could he stand to only have one year with her while she slept for a hundred? It would be better than the current misery he had now and better than some fake monster wearing her skin; but it wasn't the eternity he promised her as they ran from Mikael.

“No.” She saw the fury cross his face. It looked as though he was about to strike. “But I know who can. The spell, I've glanced at it in the grimoire of the witch who casted it. The spell was very specific. The only way for it to be broken, truly broken and for Caroline to rise would be for the witch who cast the spell or a daughter of her bloodline to undo the spell.”

“So I need a descendant of Emily Bennett's?”

“Yes. I can help you find her but I'm running out of time.” Klaus looked at her curiously. “The coven was hiding me and studying me. Kol found the coffin I rested in. Stole me away while Dahlia slumbered. He thought he could use me to wake Caroline. However, my year is almost up and Dahlia will find me to curse me back to sleep with her.”

“Not seeing how that is my problem.”

“Niklaus.” Elijah warned. Klaus rolled his eyes and waived for Freya to continue.

“If you want my help. If you want my knowledge on sleeping spells and how to break them, I am going need more than two weeks time. The only way to break my curse is to kill the one who casted it.” Klaus was about to jump in and call her a liar but Elijah stopped him with a warning look. “I know what you're thinking, Emily Bennett is dead but spell upon Caroline still holds. Dahlia uses connective magic. Meaning, any spells she casts break with her death. The Bennetts all draw their magic from their ancestors dead or alive, much like the witches here in New Orleans. Emily may have died but her spell would hold strong unless there was a witch to break it.”

“Perhaps I should track down the entire line of Bennetts and kill them all. No bloodline, no magic. Although, I have tried to find the last of the Bennetts and they are well hidden. Another little trick of Emily's and the doppelgangers is suppose.” Klaus hissed. It was only months after he lost Caroline that he discovered who cast the spell and who was behind it. Yet, it was as though all the Bennetts vanished. The ones in Salem burned and it appeared the rest just...never existed. Someone was hiding them from him and he was furious that he never thought more on it.

“You could but do you want to risk that? Do want to risk killing them all and having none left to wake her?” She had him and she knew it. Marcel stepped forward and placed a white gloved hand on Klaus's shoulder. He whispered something, causing Klaus to nod.

“If I kill this Dahlia, you'll spend the years you were meant to be asleep, helping me find the witch and anything else needed to wake her.” Freya nodded, giving her vow. “Very well then. It appears I have some witch hunting to do and two weeks to do it.” He looked at her again, as though he was really seeing her for the first time. “Who are you?”

“Freya. Freya Mikaelson.”

*

Mystic Falls April 2010

“I'm not doing any spells for you.” Bonnie hissed. Her eyes narrowed and her fist balled; nails digging into the palm of her hand. She tried to cause the vessels in his brain to pop, over and over again just like she had done to Damon at least a hundred times. Yet, it appeared as though it didn't work on him or the pain just didn't faze him. Bonnie supposed it was the other witch blocking her spells. “You have your own witch. Have her do it.”

“Now, now, don't be hasty. Your ancestor, Emily cast a spell and it appears only someone of her bloodline can undo. Which is why I need you.” Klaus stated in a matter of fact tone. To him the choice was obvious. “I need you to wake Caroline from her slumber and all will be right with the world.”

“I refuse to wake a murderous vampire, especially if she was your wife.” Klaus smirked at her. It was unnerving and caused Bonnie to panic. There was mania behind those ancient eyes and she saw the shift of something inside of him. Bonnie wished she asked more about the curse that Elena stated he broke in the 1700s. He wasn't just the average vampire. He was something more. Something more terrifying than she had every seen.

“Looks like someone has done their homework. Yes, Caroline is my wife and my entire reason for existing. And if you think she is murderous, she is, but trust me, my sweet little witch, when I tell you that she is the one who tamed me. Caroline's worst days are my best.” Klaus leaned in and whispered to her. “I am the demon monsters have nightmares of.”

Suddenly he was away from her and both Damon and Stefan screamed. Klaus had Elena in his arms. His eyes changed completely and his fangs bared out. He savagely bit into Elena's neck, ripping and tearing. She screamed, the pain was excruciating. Bonnie tried to lunge forward but an invisible barrier prevented her from reaching them. She glanced at Freya who seemed to have not moved at all yet Bonnie could feel her magic beating against her. Soon, Klaus dropped, a still alive but injured Elena to the ground.

“Doppelganger blood. Taste the same as the rest of them.” Klaus's lips and chin were covered in blood. The blood ran down his chin and to his neck. He smiled and Bonnie could see that his teeth were covered in the same red liquid that was seeping from Elena's neck. “Let me tell you witch how this will go. Refuse to help me, I kill your friend. I will slaughter her and drain her of her blood just like I had with her ancestor. Then I will bite both of those vampires hanging on the wall and have you watch as they die a slow, hallucinating death from my wolf's venom. But you, you have the worst punishment of all.”

“And what would that be?”

“Well once all your friends are dead, I will naturally slaughter what is left of your family. I then will hold you until you break down and undo the spell. If you try to run, I will hunt you down just like I spent the last five hundred years seeking Katerina. Ask her for tips and advice on what a life on the run from me is like. If you continue to be stubborn, I will find someone to take you over and over again until you bare a child. A child that I would raise as my own for the soul purpose of waking my wife.”

“You really are a monster.” Bonnie whispered out, horrified. She had thought that Damon was evil but he was nothing compared to what stood in front of her. He was child's play and she wanted nothing more than to go back to the days when they were scared of the vampires hidden away in that tomb. She would rather have a picnic with Katherine than spend another second with Klaus.

“I'm the original monster. Do we have a deal?” Bonnie nodded. “Perfect! Freya is going to stay behind. She has Emily's old grimoire, I'm sure you will find it fascinating. She will teach you everything you need to know about the spell. When does it need to be preformed?”

“At the full moon.” Freya replied in an almost bored tone. “Five days.”

“Splendid. I do hope you're a fast study.” Klaus turned to his sister. “Freya, please drop Salvator the younger please, I need a sign of good faith.” Freya did just that and Stefan crashed to the floor. Klaus took him by the shoulders and peered deeply into his eyes. “Remember me.” Stefan staggered backwards and slid down the wall; a thousand memories rushing back to him at once. Damon cried out, wondering what Klaus had done. If he didn't believe his eyes, he would say that his brother had been compelled, but that wasn't possible, was it? “Now, leverage.” He bent down to Elena and picked her off the floor; throwing her over his shoulder. “I'll be keeping this one. You know, to keep you in line.”

Klaus was out the door before anyone could say anything at all...and Elena was gone.

[aphrodites-law]

My Favorite

Trope: Soulmate marks.

Twist: Lexa doesn’t have one. Clarke does.

2/? - (Part 1)

~

A week passed at the hotel, but while Lexa glanced into the sitting room each time she walked by it, she never saw Clarke again. She went back and forth between the hotel and her apartment, putting her boxes away while the windows remained opened wide and the smell of paint slowly faded. Eventually she checked out of Griffin Hotel, where Jake gave her a cheery look before sending her off with a basket of fresh fruit from the breakfast buffet - a welcome gift, he’d said.

With her first classes to plan and organize, Lexa spent most of her time with her nose in her books and binders. She used the rest of it to familiarize herself with Polis, where she picked up a few habits in a matter of days. There was the grocery store with the peanut-butter pretzels that melted in her mouth, the bicycle path that cut through the park, and the coffee shop owned by Raven Reyes.

Raven ran a tight ship and was as welcoming as she was fascinating. Her two loves were space and food, and evidently she had combined them with great success. Her shop, Coffee on the Moon, was exactly what it sounded like - the best damn coffee Lexa had had in a uniquely decorated setting. The coffee machines were themed like space crafts, which Lexa had noticed were wildly popular with kids (and perhaps even more adults); the walls were painted in swaths of silvers and dark blues; and the art hung up was courtesy of local artists. In the display case, well-garnished sandwiches made with local produce rarely lasted the day, if even the rush of lunch hour.

Raven seemed to know everyone and everything, an unsurprising fact given her infectious energy. One morning, Raven had come into her shop without her prosthetic leg on account of the pain, she had shared casually, but not once in the following hour had Lexa heard her complain. She was an admirable woman, and Lexa was particularly fascinated by how quickly she had charmed Anya.

Anya, who wouldn’t admit to feeling lonely while her daughter was at summer camp, had surprised Lexa with a visit that had turned into a week-long stay. She’d met Raven quickly enough, and immediately Lexa had noticed the change in her demeanor. Usually always on her guard, Anya had seemed to... soften around the edges in a matter of minutes. It was clear to Lexa that Raven had caught Anya’s eye, not only with her wit but also her ability to run such a good business.

Unfortunately for Anya, who didn’t like to be surprised by her own feelings, she dealt with attraction rather poorly. That is, she’d be ready to snap if Lexa so much as implied there was something there. Lexa, however, could understand her need for caution: Anya was a working mother who would soon leave back to her home, hours away. It was hard to envision this relationship having a future.

And, surely, it would have remained that way had Raven not suddenly noticed the tattoo on Anya’s wrist and shown off her own: a depiction of the moon with the logo of her coffee shop covering the words she’d had since birth.

“Got it at twenty-five when my boyfriend of ten years dumped me for some chick he didn’t even know,” she explained.

When Lexa looked toward Anya then, she knew her friend’s interest was piqued for good. It was rare to meet anyone who had willingly tattooed their mark like Anya had. 

“A decade gone to dust because some skinny redhead told him what he’d always hoped to hear,” Raven revealed with a snort.

“So you don’t believe in the mark?” Anya asked cautiously.

“Oh, I do.”

As equally confused as her best friend, Lexa invited Raven to sit with them at their table. 

“I just don’t think the way we go about it works,” Raven elaborated. “Just because you meet - it doesn’t have to mean you’re right for each other at that exact moment, you know?”

“Or at all,” Lexa muttered.

“Well, I do think there’s truth to it,” Raven admitted. “It’s fucking beautiful, really, if we just see it as it is, but we have a messy approach.”

Lexa shook her head. “It’s just always seemed like... Do you love the person because of who they are, or do you love them because the words on your wrist tell you to?"

Raven smirked, like she had asked herself the same question a hundred times before. To do so aloud, however, was bold. “The way I see it? Just because your souls are bonded, doesn’t mean the relationship doesn’t need work. Sure, most movies show us it's happily ever after once the first words are uttered, but in reality the words are just the beginning. It's not easy to go from perfect stranger to soul-tied, you know?"

Anya rolled her eyes. "Cry me a river."

Raven shrugged. "If it weren't so taboo to admit you're unhappy with your soulmate, maybe some would realize it's because they're taking it for granted. My friend, Bellamy - his soulmate was this broody chick who straight up punched him for sleeping with her friend. Insulted the shit out of him; word for word the string of insults that wrap around his wrist four times. Anyway, she didn't give a shit when he showed her. Took them three years to meet again, and then another three to even like each other. Now they're expecting their first kid. But I think the best thing they did was to grow as people. The mark showed them the possibility for something life-changing was there - but they'd have to work for it first."

Lexa glanced at Anya, who had yet to look away from Raven.

"Look, I know it's fucked how you're treated," Raven continued, "but I don't think the mark itself is to be blamed. I mean, I think it was designed as a way to make life a little easier, that's all. But then… I don't know, most civilizations blew it out of proportion and turned it into something else. Decided that those who have it are better than those who don't - and backed up their points by turning the exceptions into the rule. That people without a mark are going to steal your jewelry or murder your kids one day, just because this one markless dude some thousands of years ago happened to be an ax murderer. Everyone loves to forget that ancient Egypt worshipped the Markless. They believed that they were in control of their own fate - freer. And don't get me started on the Greeks! They had whole temples dedicated to them. There's a reason the statues of their Gods didn't have marks, but nobody likes to bring that up.”

“Moral superiority is one hell of a drug,” Anya shrugged.

Raven chuckled. “I don't think anyone is better than anyone; it's just a bunch of people trying to be happy."

"Well, you're definitely an exception,” Lexa sighed. “I’ve been reminded of my place in the world enough times to know that.”

Raven was about to reply when the door to the shop opened. When Lexa saw that it was Clarke who had just walked in, her heart jumped in her throat.

“You’re back!” Raven exclaimed before getting up to pull Clarke into a hug. “How was it? How’s your mom?”

Clarke grinned in the embrace before pulling back to sign something. Lexa watched with rapt attention, trying hard to follow the movement of Clarke’s hands, but understanding none of her language in the end. She watched as Raven tipped her head back and laughed.

“Classic Abby Griffin.”

Clarke then pulled out a heavy paper bag from her backpack and gifted it to her friend, who immediately looked inside.

“Yes!” Raven turned to Anya and Lexa. “Best goddamn blueberry pierogi in the country!”

Clarke looked toward them as well and gave Lexa a small wave.

“You’ve met?” Raven asked. 

Clarke quickly signed something. Raven blinked, then burst out laughing.

“Oh fine, just go, you idiot.”

Clarke bit her lip before dashing toward the coffee shop’s restroom. Anya got up as well.

“I’ll be right back,” she excused herself.

Alone with Raven, who was now counting the pierogi in the bag, Lexa’s curiosity got to her.

“Are you good friends?”

Raven turned to her and nodded. “Clarke and I got each other through everything. There wouldn’t be a Coffee on the Moon without her.”

Lexa found incredible strength in Raven’s ability to be so open. “I wouldn’t be here without Anya,” she admitted in turn.

“How long have you known each other?”

“Since college. Anya... just helped me believe that I was more than the missing part.”

Raven’s face fell. “Shit. I’m really sorry."

Lexa shook her head. “It’s fine. Just made me who I am today.”

“No, it’s not fine. You know - Polis doesn’t tolerate that. We have each other’s backs here, mark or no mark. I think you’ll notice when you start teaching the kids. They really give me hope.”

Lexa smiled. “I look forward to it.”

Clarke and Anya came back from the restroom together, not exactly chatting but... Lexa could tell they’d communicated something to each other by the small smile on Clarke’s face. Anya sat back down at the table while Clarke signed something to Raven.

“Oh okay,” Raven answered. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Clarke nodded before she glanced once more at Lexa, mouthed ‘bye’, and left the shop. 

Raven turned to the table. “Okay, well, I need to put the pierogi in the fridge and make some calls, but let me know if you need anything.”

Lexa sat back in her chair with a sigh. She watched Anya pick up her cup of coffee and then smirk.

“She doesn’t have one.”

Lexa frowned slowly. “What?”

Anya chuckled, then took a sip of her coffee. “You’re so obvious, you know? I figured I’d check when she washed her hands.”

Lexa immediately sat up, hope blossoming dangerously in her chest. “She... doesn’t have-”

“Nope.”

Lexa worried her bottom lip before grabbing her phone. Anya didn’t seem fazed in the least.

“Are you buying a hundred books on sign language?”

Lexa swiped something on her screen. “Yep.”

-

Part three