#Hellish limbo

[amerasdreams]

examining the nuances of everything I did and said wrong interacting with people, I feel the impulse to punish myself. Stronger than before. Idk if this is the fault of the new "anti anxiety" medicine or something else, such as the combination of elements of the current situation or the increasing pressure that I must. Become successful in some way THIS YEAR before i get older (that is, enough money for a house.... when i fall apart so easily and fail at every interaction and everything I try to do, totally inadequate to absolutely everything, incl what I care about most. MUST but can't. )

[princeinsomniavoid]

I can't even think right now man I've just curled up into a ball and It hurts

[hxneylavendxr]

i need to stop fucking saying "LET'S GOOOOOO"

[greyias]

At last, I was finally able to get the objective master for one season. My long grind on Star Forge is over (until next season). Now I'm just debating if I have to max out the reputation track during the actual season in order to get the final achievement.

[eggs-can-draw]

About the scooped byakuya art: i think the robots realized he sucked and just left a bit early so he isn't as badly decomposed as michael would be. But he's still Very Not Alive but Not Quite Dead.

very fun way of saying he isnt bald/j they're all inside and realize "oh shit.....Oh Shiiiiit this is the wrong guy isnt it"

[howifeltabouthim]

You did not want to wait, and yet you nearly went mad waiting.

Siri Hustvedt, from The Blazing World

[lucasthelesbian]

When u wanna be wrecked but a certain someone is bein an adorable brat so u wanna wreck them. Sigh the struggles of life

[lenskij]

Dreamt that I got a B for this class. Unfortunately I woke up to a reality where the exam isn't even written yet.

[knifeslidez]

anyone else's anxiety make their whole body feel dead cold or is it just me

[aza-trash-can]

Awake enough to want to do smth

Tired enough to have no brain power to do anything

[giorno-plays-piano]

Safe Haven

Pairing: Mr. Crawling x reader

Warnings: canon-typical violence and gore (only a few mentions), pure fluff, Mr. Crawling being a cutie pie.

Words: 1k

Summary: Despite the horrors you saw in the other dimension, bringing one of them home actually seems like a good idea.

P.S. To all of you who love soft!yanderes, I recommend playing Homichiper IMMEDIATELY

_________

"I'm home. "

You turn the lock on the door, smiling from ear to ear when you hear hurried steps paired with a "clack" of a cane. Goodness, he's getting faster with every day, you think as you watch a walking giant wrapped into a fuzzy white bathrobe emerge from the corridor. His impossibly long hair is loose and a little damp, and for a second, it feels he came straight from a horror movie. It makes you laugh.

"Dear!"

He almost runs into you, his cane clicking aggressively against the floor, and you giggle like a schoolgirl on her first date. His embrace feels so warm, his gentle hands rubbing your back as he kisses the top of your head.

Everything about him feels like home.

"I cooked a potato soup," he breathes out, excited to share his little news, "and baked a meat pie! And then I read a book. And then me take bath..."

He gets a little red when he realizes his old speech patterns are getting back, but you're quick to divert his attention, dropping a kiss to his nose. Poor man gets even redder and kisses you, too, immediately helping you take off your coat and giggling with embarrassment. He's one weird gentleman but a gentleman, nonetheless.

"I'm glad you had a good day," you wink at him, picking up your grocery bag. Today, you bought his favorite tea, and you know how excited he will get to brew it himself.

When you escape a hollow, depraved world, even the simplest of things will make you weep. Once you have returned to your apartment, barely alive and scared to your wits' end, making a cup of tea felt like a miracle. It's hard to imagine how bizarre the whole concept seemed to poor Mr. Crawling, who probably ate nothing but human or monster remains for as long as he was there.

You no longer speak of what happened in the monster realm. Needless to say, it took some time to come to terms with your little adventure and its outcome being a giant skinny monster now inhabiting your apartment. Not that you were all that bothered with the latter... Especially when you realized Mr. Crawling was not, in fact, a monster.

When you think of it now, it seems kinda stupid on your part. You were turning into one of those creatures yourself the longer you stayed there, and yet, somehow, it didn't click your lovely monster partner was human once. That he, too, had been a lonely soul who got stuck in that hellish limbo and had to transform to survive.

It was a huge surprise when he actually started speaking human language after of couple of days at your place. You first thought you misheard him.

Of course, it took him a long time to remember what it's like to be human: you've spent months gently nudging him in that direction, talking to him like to a child, showing him books and cartoons, turning on music and doing pretty much anything to help him turn back into his older self. Mind you, you also had to keep working to sustain the both of you, given you had no other income, and do the chores because Mr Crawling was absolutely clueless what to do. He was more of an in-house cat than a person at the time.

Still, it felt liberating when your monster partner finally started regaining his human memories and habits. You probably won't ever forget when he crawled to you, reaching out shyly to squeeze your hands in his, and mumbled, "M-me think... me think me called Gabriel..."

"Enough salt?" He nudges you gently, and you blink, coming back to your senses. His meat pie is so good it's really not the time to be reminiscing of the past.

You cover his large pale hand with yours as you smile, "It's perfect."

Embarrassed, he nods, looking into his own plate as you take another bite, wondering how lucky you got. Who else could have not only left another dimension filled with unspeakable horrors but also dragged the cutest of them with you?

Fed up with you stalling, he bends over to you and drops a kiss to your nose once more, letting out a high-pitched giggle. His black hair close around you like a curtain: you didn't have the heart to tell him to cut it. Now that he has become almost completely human, you somehow miss his monster appearance.

"I love you," you say all of a sudden, unable to keep it to yourself. Enveloping him in a hug, you press your face into his chest, listening to the subtle beating of his heart he had lost once. His bathrobe feels fuzzy and warm on your skin.

He says nothing at all, but in a second, he gently lifts you up from the kitchen chair only to put you down on his lap: despite turning human, he still remains ridiculously tall and strong. Not that you complain, melting in his embrace as he rubs his nose against your temple, his tender hand on your back. Against all odds, there's nothing you dislike about him. Even putting aside all his heroic acts to protect you in the other world, he seems like a pure, gentle soul who would always prioritize your safety and comfort above all else. You can't understand why he chose to help you the moment he saw you, but you don't feel like it's important. All these months, your only mission was to give him home, to pay him back for everything he's done for your sake.

Yet, somehow, it feels like both of you found home in each other.

[heartshapedbubble]

Ello can I request a Norton Fools good x fem reader where she came across the blown up mines and sees Norton (in his hunter form) she’s scared at first but starts to recognise him and slowly starts to approach him reaching her hand up to cub his cheeks ( bro this man needs all the love! )

HOO BOY i agree tho... his release made me regain my interest in norton🫡🫡

[not to be a scum but i'm still open for sanrio emma comms btw😭😭]

fool's gold: imagine...⛏️

cut for length!

paying the bills has become a hellish cycle. break your back to pay off the expenses, relax for the following twenty-ish days, and be sent into frenzy again, not knowing if you're going to have a roof over your head tomorrow or not.

you found yourself hopelessly skimming through newspaper, looking for any job offer possible that would easen up the burden on your wallet. The paper was plastered with offers from bars, post offices and restaurants, but those were a always gamble. will you get your wage or not? and if you will, when? too much effort for something so high-risk.

at last, a small offer in the corner of the page caught your attention. pressed in miniscule letters, it said: MINE RESEARCH. EMPLOYEES URGENTLY NEEDED. EQUIPMENT PROVIDED. underneath the text, an attractive number: $15,000 payed off immediately after the job is done.

not only could this solve the rent for the following 3 months, you'd also have some money left for yourself! you rang the number the second you got home and successfully scored the job, due to the urgency of the situation.

it took you a day or two to start thinking about the job. what do you exactly need to know for mine research? probably at least some physical strength and stamina, you thought. surely it can't be too complex.

you arrived at the mine right on time, the sun slowly slipping back into the horizon to let the moon take center stage. to your dismay, you realized no one else applied for the job. maybe this wasn't a good idea after all? crawling through the narrow, rocky terrain all alone doesn't sound like the ideal scenario. no living being in sight, and 20 minutes have already went by.

still, that money is way too good to pass up. you picked up one of the yellow helmets piled up at the entrance, prayed to whatever god out there that your flashlight has enough power to last the following 2 hours and mindlessly rushed into the collapsing mine.

for the following 10 minutes, your sight unfocused while your mind took the lead, in front of and all around you just rocks and grime, shadows dispelled by the flashlight held by your hip like a lance. only after a good 5 minutes of running did you realize that you, in fact, have no idea what you're supposed to do. what qualifies as mine research? mining, inspecting the ores, measuring the surface?

all sweaty and breathless, the tunnel led you to a large room inside of the mine, the roof extending towards what seemed like a pitch black abyss. carts messily thrown around, bumpy and unpolished geodes laying all over the place, when was the last time a living being stepped foot into this mine? it made sense that such a large sum of money was needed to attract volunteers.

you carefully moved through the rubble, trying to avoid stepping onto pickaxes and shrapnel splayed all over the ground. since you forgot about the gloves your bare hand now held onto the unpromising terrain, the other firmly squeezing the only source of light in this limbo.

the surface grazing your hand now seems like it became... smoother? no longer does it cut and pierce your palms. it's bumpy, but at least you're not risking an infection anymore.

moving inch by inch in fear of falling, the stone below changes its form. you don't even pay attention to the fact that you're now grabbing onto cloth and that, below your palm, a steady pulse is faintly beating.

it's already too late when you realize that you're not alone, and the stone below you starts to take shape and morph until it extends towards the ceiling, now towering over you, slouched like a ragdoll.

complementing the cold shades of grey, a face emerges from the shadows. pale, with defined cheekbones, although malnourished. only his bust passes as human, as below his collarbones there's nothing but a mosaic of pebbles and boulders forming his torso, arms and legs. it - or he, perhaps - is breathing with struggle, coughs interrupting his wheezes here and there.

you feel a sense of dread overcoming you. you freeze on the spot, but he doesn't budge, either. lifeless except for the fact he's breathing and his heart ticks like a machine.

you draw back a step, and he lunges forward, seemingly still not used to this monstrous body of his. he could harm me with ease if he wanted to, a thought suddenly manifests in your mind, and with newfound bravery you inspect the cryptid like a sculpture. your hand grazes over his bumpy and unfinished hands, tugs at the remains of his clothes around his chest. he groans, in annoyance, you assume, but doesn't resist. you climb up a cart to reach his face, your fingers pinch his stubborn hairstrands, inspect the cavity in which his other eye once laid. in a moment of either stupidity or courage you roughly pinch his cheeks - they're cold to the touch, but it's funny how naturally does his intimidating face mush like a little boy's. kind of cute. after a minute of cooing to yourself two of his rocky fingers gently pinch your wrists and put them back to your sides, but his one foggy eye doesn't divert its gaze from yours.

perhaps the flashlight can last an hour more.. you've just began getting to know him, and the mystery of the mine and his origin still lay cold for you to discover.

[admiral-mason]

Ultra-Impact Part 5 (I need a better title for this shit lmfao)

Yes, I need better titles, so if anyone can give them then say so in the comments below

Idea based on @valeriele3's Live Stream post

0-4 0-5 << YOU ARE HERE 1-1

PRELUDE /// CLIMAX START THE HYPERDEATH

TIME TO PROVE YOURSELF.

As the horde of husks closed in, your confidence immediately dropped. No events in your life have ever prepared you to fight off a horde of hellish humanoids.

Immediately, both V1 and V2 started attacking the horde of husks, the former using some form of a sawblade launcher while the latter used his nailgun.

This drew most of the husks' attention to the machine duo, but a filth rushed towards you. You hesitated for too long, and it bit you on the arm.

"FUCKING- AAAGGGHHH-!!" In response, you haphazardly shot at it, firing two revolver rounds from your left revolver at its body. As its blood stained your clothes and arm, the pain rapidly dissipated.

DESTRUCTIVE + KILL

This also unfortunately drew the attention of a few more filth.

You moved away from them while shooting your revolvers, but as soon as you killed all but two of them, you couldn't fire any more rounds and instead resorted to punching them. Then you heard another one attempting to sneak up on you and you slapped it twice in the face with your revolver.

DESTRUCTIVE + KILL + BITCHSLAP + BITCHSLAP + KILL + KILL + KILL

"Huh, new style bonuses..." You then looked at your revolvers and noticed that they showed a 0 on their displays before the right one turned to 1, 2, 3, and so forth with the left one following behind right after.

However, you then had to dodge two crosses of projectiles and you saw the culprits: soldiers. As their blue right-arm cannons charged more projectiles, you shot one of them before parrying the other's projectiles back at him.

CHAOTIC + FRIENDLY FIRE + PARRY

Seeing no imminent danger, you watched V1 and V2 clear up the last hellish forces. However, more ended up spawning- and this time machines were involved.

Alongside the filths, strays, schisms, and soldiers were drones and streetcleaners. V1 and V2 went at it again; V1 used a coin to interrupt two strays preparing projectiles while V2 eradicated a group of filth with his knuckleblaster.

Not being caught in imminent danger, you wanted to try something. Rushing forward a bit and bringing your body mass to the ground, you slid forward akin to V1 and V2 when they did so. Getting back up, you slid towards V1's direction and shot up a drone before she parried it into a schism.

CHAOTIC + ASSISTED KILL + KILL

"Whoo, you're sliding! You're getting ahold of this already, dear godfather!" V1 exclaimed as she blew up a couple of strays with a rocket launcher before blowing up another group of filths with a malicious railcannon.

"Uh- actually I don't wanna be- OH SHIT!" You exclaimed as you heard an unparryable attack sound and barely avoided a streetcleaner's attack by sliding away, taking some damage in the process. Turns out that the fire could burn your clothes though, as evident as to how the right sleeve of your hoodie got burned off.

It was your favorite hoodie, the piece of clothing that stuck with you thick and thin, every time you wanted to warm up and sit on your chair to play games. Seeing its sleeve burned off left you absolutely pissed.

A primal rage you felt after dying to Gabriel so many times in 6-2 surfaced. "My fucking hoodie! DIE YOU FUCKING SON OF A BITCH!" You screamed in anger as you shot the streetcleaner with two revolver shots to its head before sliding up to it and punching it.

You then noticed two drones accompanied by four strays and two schisms attempt to assault you; you dodged the projectiles before parrying one into the group, killing the strays and severely harming the schisms. You repeated this with the drones, even sending one of them flying into the schisms as you did back while playing Limbo's stages.

Finally clearing up the dangers around you, you went off to help V1 and V2 mop up anyone remaining.

Your twitch chat found out a few minutes ago that apparently the stream can put your perspective on the stream from a message sent by the terminal:

TERMINAL_069: Greetings, mankind! I just want to mention that I can project your beloved human from their eyes! This way, we all can enjoy some quality entertainment: combat!

It the followed up with another message:

TERMINAL_069: Unfortunately, they cannot interact with you until I am placed into an actual terminal body. Oh! And an unrelated, but notable mention: if you wish to donate them money, do it. Each dollar donated equals a thousand points for new weapons to their arsenal!

Now, your chat and the terminal interacted while watching you fight like an action movie.

Brrrrrrtt: Yep everyone's fucked

feetusdeletussthenyeetus: He's in his villain arc

NaviaLover291: Oh my god I did not expect him to get ahold of themselves this quickly!

valeriele3 donated $10.00: "I hope this helps you [name]!"

TERMINAL_069: It will indeed, valeriele3!

johnifer donated $200.00: "I'm glad I pirated indie games to donate this, guys pirating indie games can do good!!!!"

TERMINAL_069: I don't know what that means, but if it helps [name] then it should be good!

Although slightly predictable and slow, you generally got ahold of how V1 and V2 fought, dodging and parrying every projectile known to man before revolver shots ensued. Your double revolvers especially helped since double the firepower meant that some enemies that took two shots to kill now went down with a single blast.

You also learned how to dash and ground slam, performing the former frequently to dodge various attacks while utilizing the latter to slam into a street cleaner.

0329: Better streaming than Disney plus

Adm!ra1-M4son: This shit fire!

bunniotomia: I hope Razor and Bennett are okay...

Once V1 killed the last husk, you three managed to recuperate a little bit.

"Whoo! Nice going, godfather!" She said. "A little bit more combat and your kill count will be like mine and V2's in no time!"

"Uh- actually I'm not sure why I'm called 'godfather,' could you just call me [name]?"

V1 thought about it for a bit before responding. "Okay!" She simply said, respecting your choice.

"You two done talking?" V2 said. "If so, then let's get on with it. Follow me" However, just as the three of you started moving, a familiar yellow, scrappy machine was suddenly teleported in front of you three.

The Swordsmachine.

It immediately ran towards V1 before firing its shotgun. The blast, instead of looking like small grainy pellets, looked like a goddamn explosion from your vision.

V1 dodged the shot before responding with her own shotgun and disrespecting the machine by punching it a few times before retreating. V2, meanwhile, took the distance and responded with a Screwdriver railcannon shot.

You couldn't do much aside from offering a few revolver shots here and there, but you did parry one of the Swordsmachine's sword swings when it got close to V1 and tried attacking her with its sword. This hit the tall-headed machine directly in the face.

DESTRUCTIVE + PARRY

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA-AHHH-ER." The machine screamed, visibly pissed off with how its blue eyes shifted to red. Now its target priority was you, and you barely managed to dodge its sword swing. After that, V1 tossed four coins into the air before hitting them with her electric railcannon. V2 performed the same tactic for additional damage.

This caused the Swordsmachine to scream in pain again, and you noticed how its right arm now lay on the floor along with its shotgun.

Seizing the opportunity, you slid over to the gun and snatched it while V1 and V2 caused more damage to it. Suddenly your dual revolvers were gone and another tutorial box revealed itself:

SHOTGUN: PRIMARY FIRE PIERCES WEAKER ENEMIES

A brief look at the gun showed that it was the blue variant or the core eject shotgun, the variant initially obtained when defeating the Swordsmachine for the first time in Ultrakill.

You had to stop admiring the gun and slide away because the Swordsmachine clearly wanted to end you.

It threw its sword at you, which you just barely dodged. You stopped sliding and decided to pull off a trick that your twitch chat taught you: projectile boosting.

You tried performing a pushing motion in front of the shotgun as you fired it, and sure enough, your screen froze and flashed white for a second before you saw a flaming, orange mass fly towards the Swordsmachine and hit it square in the head.

DESTRUCTIVE + PROJECTILE BOOST

This also caused the Swordsmachine to let out a scream as it fell to the floor, limp. Once you confirmed your safety, you looked over at the spot where your hoodie's right sleeve used to be before sighing a little.

"Hey, that was my kill!" V1 exclaimed before she noticed your shotgun. "Oh hey, nice! You're building up your own arsenal."

"...I'm becoming a true American, haha," you jokingly said to her response. "Okay, I'm assuming that the Swordsmachine was the last threat."

"Judging by me, likely so. Now, I say we head to Mondstadt first, since we're the closest nearby." V2 said, looking at the nation of freedom. "Unfortunately, I don't know how we'll purge Hell from this world, so until then, just shoot everything that tries to kill us."

"Alright, seems easy enough!" V1 said before she rushed on over in the direction of the nation. And then, shit cranked up from one hundred to two hundred.

Massive spikes rose from the ground, steadily enfolding and enveloping the city and the lake surrounding it. Dragonspine followed shortly after, and bloody red vein-like cascaded up the massive coverings, occasionally pulsating like a human heart.

And to top it all off, once the ground lay motionless, a familiar red elevator raised itself right ahead of you three. The lights turned on and the doors opened.

"...I guess we head in now?" You asked and the two machines nodded. The three of you stepped in and you saw the long drop downwards with no end in sight.

"...Hey, uh, do I take fall damage?" You asked in a slightly quivering tone. V2 simply responded with "I have no idea."

V1 then decided to carry you bridal-style out of all positions. "Don't worry, [name]! Since I don't suffer fall damage when I land, you shouldn't either! Now, in we go!"

"Waitwaitwait-whooOOAAAA!!" You screamed as V1 jumped down the elevator, with V2 jumping in soon behind.

0-5: START THE HYPERDEATH: COMPLETED

Taglist: @valeriele3, @bunniotomia, @feetusdeletussthenyeetus, @quantoom

[miraclewoozi]

HIGH FIDELITY, PT 2. -c.hs

getting back on the horse is hard, and failing to hit it off with the cute gamer guy you went for a drink with last night has the potential to be your love life’s last straw. but when up and coming rockstar VERNON unexpectedly canters into your life, you find yourself asking one very important question: do you have it in you to saddle up, one more time?

( PART ONE )

pair ; vernon x fem!reader.  content ; strangers to lovers.  up-and-coming musician!vernon x record store owner!reader.   fluff, angst, smut. (MINORS DNI). warnings ; drinking + alcohol is a big theme pretty much throughout. mentions of past relationship breakdowns. reader experiences a lot of stress, anxiety and feelings of doubt, reflected in self sabotage. mentions of sickness (acute). wc ; 12.2k ( ~38k total. ) disclaimer ; this fic was inspired by rob + liam in the series high fidelity and is therefore pretty influenced by the show. if you’ve watched it, you’ll probably see a lot of similarities! i just felt so drawn to vernon in this kind of role that i really wanted to try and put a spin on it. i do not claim that every idea behind this is original. notes ; been working on this one for a while. hope you enjoy it.<3

smut tags : making out. some groping. some 'first time together' shenanigans. oral (m rec) & ball sucking hehe. he has a big cock because i have an agenda to push. implied f rec oral. implied multiple rounds. PLEASE let me know if i’ve forgotten anything.

The clock on your bedside table reads somewhere between 4:00 and 5:00 in the morning when you resign from trying to fall asleep and force yourself to sit upright, fed up of tossing and turning between your now too-creased sheets, brain stuck in a foggy, hellish limbo. Your mind won’t shut down. Your body won’t rest. Birds are starting to chirp outside and you can hear them clear as whistles through the cheap window that doesn’t quite seal shut to your left. Your eyes squint in preparation as you reach for your lamp and flood the room in yellowish light, drawing your knees up to your chest. 

You’ve spent so much time in your own thoughts that you’ve begun to feel systemically unwell. Your stomach twists and aches, your eyes are so dry it hurts to even blink and there’s an ache behind them that started as an annoying throb, but has grown over the hours into a roaring flame. From the hairs on your head all the way down to your toes, you feel like you could burst. 

You wish you had it in you to cry. To let it out. Keeping this pent up is no doubt making you feel a hundred times worse, and you think it would be nice to feel something other than the endless swooping of the spiral you’re well and truly making your way down. Your alarms are going to go off in a few hours. I can’t let anyone see me like this, you think. I can’t work in this state. 

You throw ideas around in your head for a little while, thumbs tweaking over your phone as messages get typed, edited, deleted, and repeat. Part of you thinks maybe you could manage. Just tough it out and put on a brave face, because actually, what right do you have to be hiding away when you’re the one who ran out one of the nicest guys you’ve ever met? But you just know something will go wrong, even if you tell the boys that you need to camp out in the office for the day. When you need peace and quiet, you can never find it behind that creaky old door. When was the last time you got a full admin day without being called through to help with a problem or deal with a drama? And truly, the idea of facing the world right now makes you feel like you could be sick. 

Sick…

Could you—?

You’ve never enjoyed taking sick days, even on occasions where you’ve really needed them, when you’ve woken up feeling like you’re knocking at death’s door. Sometimes, you swear the guilt that it brings ends up making you feel ten times worse than whatever your ailment is doing to you in the first place. But your exhaustion lets impulse take hold and you’re already sending a message into your group chat with the boys before you can talk yourself out of it, biting the inside of your cheek as the little indicator pops up on your screen. Delivered. 

Well. You’re committed now, whether you like it or not. 

Not feeling so hot. I won’t be in today. Take it easy, I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Sorry. 

You pick your comforter up off the bed and wrap it around your shoulders like an extravagant, well-padded cape, trudging your way through the apartment until you’re stood, barefoot and cold, staring into the bright light of your refrigerator. Somehow in the seconds between pulling the handle and now, you’ve managed to forget what is what that you were hoping to find. More out of spite for how the bulbs are currently bleaching your retinas than because you want it, you pull the milk from its home in the cradle of the door and fix yourself a glass to take with you and put it on the coffee table back in your living room.

Without an ounce of grace, you throw yourself onto your couch: your head rests against the arm of the seat like you’re in the apartment of a sketchy therapist, and you’re wrapped up in your duvet as if it’s a sleeping bag, treating yourself to the luxury of a slightly different ceiling pattern to stare up at. And it could be the change of the room that finally manages to drag you under, or it could be the total fatigue of the emotional rollercoaster that has been your last twenty four hours…

But your glass of milk goes completely untouched as you eventually drift off, either way. 

Of course, it’s not for nearly long enough. Barely an hour after finally managing to fall asleep, your phone starts to vibrate harshly against your chest. You tap at the screen blindly, hoping to shut off what you assume is your alarm; when it’s still buzzing a few seconds later, you reluctantly open your eyes, fighting back a sob. It’s not your alarm – it’s an incoming call. Why would it be anything else?

“Hello?” You grumble, putting the phone on speaker and resting it on the couch cushion next to your head. The energy expenditure of holding the device up to your ear feels mammoth.

“Ohh, you sound terrible.” Seungkwan’s voice sounds more taunting than it does concerned, but you pin that down to a symptom of his over-familiarity. “You’re sick?”

“Yeah,” you sigh. “I’m sorry.”

“I heard there was something going around,” Seungkwan tells you. Great, you think. Good to know. Now go away. “Yeah – one of my cousins… ah, what did she say…”

“Hey, man, I really-...”

“That’s it. She said she was love sick.”

You sigh so hard you think it’s a miracle you don’t pass out.  

“Don’t–”

“You better make sure Vernon gives you plenty of Vitamin D, today,” he harps on. “It’s quite the disease. I heard it can really–”

“Seungkwan!” You snap, finally, grabbing your phone and barking straight into the microphone. He doesn’t need to know that you’re stretching the truth to its absolute limit, but you certainly won’t let him keep believing that you’re calling out just to get laid. “Knock it off, okay? I’ve been awake all night.” 

(You suppose you should be glad that that much really is true.)

He falls silent, and you don’t know if he totally believes you, but a few breaths later, you hear his voice through the speaker again. He’s softer, this time. Quieter.

“I’m sorry,” he starts, hesitating a moment before he goes on. “Try to get some rest, all right? I’ll swing by after work and check in with some food, and… if you need anything, just text me?”

You’re immediately overcome with guilt at the sharp change in his demeanour, and it does nothing to settle the way your insides are writhing inside you. You clear your throat and pull your duvet up to cover your face, squeezing your eyes tightly shut. 

“I will,” you mumble. “I’m sorry – thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” he says. You can hear the front door to his own apartment slam shut and his breaths pick up as he starts to rush down the stairwell of his building. “I’ll see you later.”

“Okay.”

“Hey–” he rushes, before you can hang up the call. “Rest up. Run a bath, drink plenty. Love you.”

You cringe a little, but not enough to stop you from saying it back. Sort of. 

“Yeah. You too.”

Nobody could ever accuse Seungkwan of not being a man of his word. As irritating as he can sometimes be, as determined as he is to get on your every last nerve, you’ve never known him fail to come through on a promise. 

Not long after 6:30pm, you hear a series of knocks at the front door of your apartment. You’ve managed to squeeze in odd shifts of sleep throughout the day and though your head is still in a mess, you feel significantly less irritable than you were this morning. Cleaner, as well. One of your (several) naps took place in the bath, where you laid there and let the hot water draw some of the anxieties clean out of you to float towards the ceiling amongst the lavender-scented steam. 

In the knowledge that Seungkwan’s expectations of you are quite literally zero, you don’t bother to fix the one leg of your sweatpants that’s rolled up before you heave yourself off the couch and go to let him inside. He stands in the doorway with a bag of takeout food in each hand, all wind-flushed cheeks and that brilliant smile, and you feel like your stomach settles almost straight away when you see him.

“How are you feeling?” he asks, toeing off his shoes as he comes inside and lets the door close behind him. He sets the bags down on top of the small table by your front door and cups your face in both of his hands, squeezing your cheeks and frowning down at you. “You look awful.”

“Wow, thanks,” you huff, squirming to get out of his grip. “I was going to say I feel a little better, but…”

“You look exhausted,” Seungkwan clarifies, picking up the bags once more and following you through to your living room as you start to walk away from him. “I’m sorry about earlier, I didn’t realise you were actually… this bad…”

“This is doing wonders for my ego,” you grumble. “Keep it coming. Really.”

“Oh, you know what I mean.”

“No, no. By all means, continue to kick a girl while she’s down. Super classy.”

Your best friend flops down onto your couch with an exaggerated huff at your petulance. You curl up in the armchair instead, bringing your knees up beneath you. 

“Do you think it was something you ate?” He asks, refusing to give into your bickering and changing the subject matter instead. 

You shrug your shoulders at him. “I don’t-... I mean, it was more of a head… thing?” 

He sucks his front teeth. “What, like a migraine?”

“Sort of?” 

“What do you mean, ‘sort of’?” He asks. “You’ve had a migraine before. Was it that or not?”

“Well, it’s difficult to-... It wasn’t exactly…”

“Okay.” 

Seungkwan interrupts you as you hesitate again, swinging his legs off the couch and resting his elbows on his thighs, leaning as far towards you as he can while still remaining seated. He wrings his hands, plays with his fingers, lips drawn forward in a stern-looking pout. 

“I thought something was up this morning on the phone, but I didn’t wanna push it because you sounded mad. Now I know something’s wrong with you. What’s going on?”

You swallow hard and cross your arms over your chest, dropping your gaze away from Seungkwan’s very intense one. 

“Nothing,” you lie. 

“Bullshit.”

“Seungkwan!” 

“I’m sorry,” he sighs, tipping his head forward and running his hands through his hair. He’s never been a coddler, always one to prefer the tough-love approach: it’s no surprise that he doesn’t appear any softer when he looks back at you. “But we both know that’s crap.”

You can feel your pulse starting to quicken the longer he stares you down. It’s as if he’s burning two great big holes into your head, laser-beams where his pupils ought to be. He’s the master of the hard stare, and you know he won’t move until he hears the truth. 

Maybe I should just tell him. Maybe it’ll help…

“Look, I don’t care how famous he thinks he’s gonna be, if Vernon upset you last night, I’ll kick his ass myself.”

And there are the alarm bells. In hindsight, maybe you should’ve seen this coming; it’s not that far of a reach, and given the few facts that he actually knows, you can’t blame Seungkwan for jumping to this conclusion. It’s quite effective in triggering you to speak up, too. (You think that maybe, this was on purpose. Attack where you’re likely to defend. He knows you like the back of his hand.) In an instant you’re sitting upright with your feet firmly on the floor and you’re shaking your head at him like a dog trying to get itself dry. 

“No, no, no, back it up,” you rush. “It’s nothing like that. He hasn’t done anyth-... God, it’s not him.”

“It better not be,” Seungkwan tells you. His voice still has that dark edge to it, and you’re not sure how exactly to stamp it out. “I’m serious. If he’s done anything-...”

“He hasn’t,” you say more firmly. After a couple slow breaths, you clasp your hands together, swallowing your pride. “The food’s gonna go cold. Go grab a couple glasses and-... whatever else from the kitchen—”

“Only if you tell me what’s happening,” he says, slowly pushing himself up to stand. 

You don’t assent with words, but you don’t have to. You look up at him and nod a couple of times and that’s all he needs. Seungkwan strides off through the doorway, leaving you to shakily exhale away the stress that is once again squeezing at your lungs.

Once the containers are laid out on the table, food is divided up, utensils are handed over and he’s poured you each out a glass of soda, Seungkwan sits back on the couch. He doesn’t prod you, or ask you again – he doesn’t need to. You know what he’s waiting for. Even so, he allows you a few mouthfuls of your dinner first: seeing as this is the first substantial thing you’ve eaten all day, you silently thank him for the generosity.

“All right,” you say, gulping down a few mouthfuls of your drink to re-lubricate your throat. “Okay. Fuck – you’re gonna wanna make yourself comfy for this.”

The only way he moves is to pick up one of the food cartons and settle it on his thigh. Oh, how you wish you were joking. But if he really doesn’t want to heed your warning…

“You know I went on that date the other week?” You ask, biting the inside of your cheek. Seungkwan nods at you, lifting a helping of noodles out of the carton.

“With the hitter and quitter,” he confirms. “I remember.”

“Right,” you say. “Well – okay, wait, no. That’s a bad start. He didn’t do anything either.”

“I mean…”

“Not the time.”

He lifts his free hand up in surrender and gestures for you to continue as he slurps his food into his mouth. You clear your throat, bouncing one leg so rapidly that the decorative candle holder on your mantelpiece starts to rattle. 

“So… it was before the date. I was on my way to the bar, walking down past-... that convenient store. You know the one Chan keeps going into ‘cause he’s got the hots for the person who works there on a Friday night? Yeah, I was walking down that way. Actually running on time for once, and-...” 

You falter, sucking a breath deep into your lungs. It causes your next words to come out more strained than they ought to. 

“I ran into Jaehyun...”

Seungkwan swallows just in time to prevent himself from choking on his mouthful of food, but his eyes still shoot wide and you think his chest convulses a little bit anyway. His is a name you haven’t mentioned in a while, but he clearly hasn’t forgotten who it belongs to.

Because, well… how could he ever forget? 

Your ex-partner. Jaehyun.

The ex-love-of-your-life, Jaehyun.

The man who asked you to marry him after three and a half years of dating only to leave you, heartbroken and alone, six months later because he wanted to travel the world and there was too much that you couldn’t bring yourself to leave behind, Jaehyun. 

How could Seungkwan forget when he had been one of the people who helped drag you through what was not only the worst break-up, but one of the worst times of your entire life? 

Aside from the other week, it’s been… nearly eighteen months since you saw him last. Almost a year since you let yourself talk about him. Even sitting in your own apartment with a box full of your favourite food in your hands, a sense of dread chills you from head to toe just going so far as to say his name. But you’ve started, now, so you might as well finish.

“…right outside that stupid fucking store.”

Your voice cracks when you say it and you hurry to set your dinner down on the floor to free up your shaking hands. You cup them over your mouth, closing your eyes and taking a couple of deep breaths. It helps enough for you to be able to continue, even if you still feel a bit like you’re drowning.

“I thought he…” Seungkwan starts, putting his own food down and slipping off the couch. He comes to sit on the arm of your chair and puts a hand around your shoulders, pulling you into his side. “When did-...?”

“Yeah, uh… apparently he moved back a couple weeks ago,” you swallow, leaning into your friend’s embrace. 

Seungkwan looks down at you and you look up at him, all misty-eyed and drained. There’s more. He knows there is, but now he waits for you patiently, giving you all the time in the world to get through this and to let it out and to lean on him. He doesn’t butt in. The quiet feels worse than the talking. 

“He’s with someone now. They, uh— they met in Paris. Just over a year ago.”

Seungkwan finally dares to make a noise and breathes out heavily, so loud that it’s almost a groan. 

“Y/n,” he sighs, tightening his hold around you. “Shit – I’m so sorry,”

You shrug, staring across the room to where your record player sits on top of a low cabinet, lid open, table collecting dust. 

“For months, I sat here feeling… fucking, sorry for myself,” you say, barely above a whisper. You swallow around the lump in your throat and shake your head. “This whole time, refusing to get back on the horse ‘cause I thought maybe-... but he was-…”

The room goes quiet again as you lose the words you want to say and Seungkwan just rubs small circles against your arm. The problem is that you know this doesn’t explain why you called out of work today. It doesn’t explain what happened last night, and you’re not sure where to begin with that either. Especially seeing as the last time your best friends saw you and Vernon, the sparks flying between you were nigh-on visible. 

“I thought I was handling it, you know?” You sigh, leaning harder into Seungkwan’s soft sweatshirt. “Like… yeah — it hurt… but I was okay? I guess. And then Vernon fucking… kissed me last night—“

“He— what?”

“Hang on — no, he… I wanted him to.” You fumble with a thread hanging off the sleeve of your t-shirt as you talk. Why is this all so difficult? At the same time, why does it feel so juvenile to say out loud? “I just… I don’t know…”

Your wall clock tick, tick, ticks away in yet another painful fall of silence. 

“How bad was he?” Seungkwan asks when you struggle to elaborate. 

You assume this is an attempt to shatter the gloomy atmosphere and lighten your mood a tiny bit; it works, you suppose, because despite yourself, you laugh drily. Not without nudging your shoulder into his ribs, though. He deserves it, and you won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that it does make you feel a little better.

“He wasn’t,” you groan. “Don’t—… you’re such an ass.” 

He pulls himself away from you at the sound of your laughter and moves to sit on the edge of your coffee table instead, careful not to disrupt any of your food while keeping himself close enough to you that he can hold both of your hands in his and soothe his thumbs over your palms.

“You freaked out on him, didn’t you?” 

He sees straight through you and truthfully, no part of you is surprised. No part of you tries to fight it, or reject his assumption, or even question why that’s the first explanation he leapt to. You just nod, looking to where your best friend’s fingers are currently the only things holding you together. 

“Ran out his apartment like the building was gonna burn down,” you sigh, still laughing but harshly now. He squeezes your hands gently, urging you to look up at him. You do, slowly. “It’s ruined everything.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Seungkwan tries, narrowing his eyes at you when you scoff your obvious disagreement. “No, seriously. Anyone can see the poor guy’s got it bad for you.”

“Even if that’s right, you didn’t see his face,” you say. “God, he isn’t gonna wanna look at me ever again.”

“Have you spoken to him today?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Maybe if you explain what happened–”

“Oh, sure,” you snort. “‘Hey, Vernon. Sorry for running out on you like a lunatic yesterday. I ran into my ex recently and when you kissed me, it reminded me of being with him and I got freaked out and had to dash. Hope you don’t mind.’ God.” 

You try to draw your hands back but Seungkwan just holds onto you tighter. “We’ll workshop it,” he says firmly. “Do you like him, or not?”

“Seungkwan–”

“That wasn’t an option.”

You scowl at him. “It’s not that easy.”

“It’s a yes or no question.”

“Yes,” you stress finally, groaning through it. “Yes – I do.”

Seungkwan’s face lights up for a second, his eyes sparkling, lips lifting. You’re half expecting him to say ‘I knew it’. Half expecting him to try and be all deep and philosophical and a little bit motherly, as he sometimes does, especially when you’re upset. He’s always been a sucker for a happy ending. But this isn’t a happy ending, you remind yourself, squaring your jaw. It’s past that, already. It isn’t going to happen, you just know it. 

“Stop being so fucking hard on yourself,” he tells you, squeezing your hands one last time before he lets go and moves back over to the couch so he can finish eating before his food goes cold. “If anyone can pull this off, it’s you.”

You’re not sure what’s in the air right now, but this has been one of the busiest weekends that you can remember. Both yesterday and today, almost as soon as the store opened, your first handful of customers came through. Apart from about an hour around lunchtime, you don’t think there have been any periods of time where you’ve not had someone milling around the shelves. It makes a nice change, really, from some of your weekend shifts – hours at a time where the dust starts to settle and hardly anyone disturbs the bell above the front door. But this means you’ve been in full customer-service mode basically all day, and you’re starting to feel exhausted from keeping up the persona.

Still. There’s only an hour or so left — you can push through, and when you get home, there’ll be a nice, hot bubble bath with your name written all over it.

The bell chimes again just as you finish serving a group of teenage girls. You watch them scurry away, excitedly giggling about their new albums and you look towards the door with a smile already plastered on, all ready to greet the new customer until your eyes lock with theirs.

A ‘hey, how’s it going?’ stops somewhere midway up your throat, a pathetic little ‘huh?’ sound escaping you in its place. You’re frozen all of a sudden; you and the man who just came in both stand perfectly still, staring at each other like a pair of bunnies in headlights. It takes you forever to register the strap wrapped around his fist, the purse that hangs just below his grip. My bag, you think to yourself, but the voice that narrates your thoughts is hushed for the first time ever, too. Everything in your head gets sucked away into a little vacuum. The only thing left is him.

“I-… thought you might want this back.” Vernon breaks the quiet first. Your throat runs dry. In a flash, the noise in your brain is as loud as it’s ever been and in amongst all the chaos of thoughts and questions and apologies, you can’t pick out the words you actually want to say. 

He slowly unravels the strap from around his hand and takes a few steps closer to you, inching towards the counter. 

“You don’t have to say anything,” he hurries to assure you. Your heart aches for how reserved and nervous he looks. It doesn’t suit him. You hate it. “It’s okay. I’m… really sorry, about the other night. I didn’t mean to—” A deep breath. “I’ll see you around.”

Vernon lays your bag so delicately on the wooden surface that you could be forgiven for thinking he was handling an explosive. Then, he takes one, two, three steps back, before turning and heading to the exit.  

“Wait—” you call out to him, finding your voice at the most critical time, right as his fingers curl around the door handle. “Wait—, please.”

He spins back around to face you as you slip out from behind the desk. His left brow lifts higher than the right but otherwise, he gives nothing away. He doesn’t even say anything as he stands there, pushing his hands deep into his pockets. 

You swallow around the golf ball sized lump taking residence in your throat and clasp your hands together in front of you, wringing and twisting and accidentally popping one of your knuckles in the process. “I shouldn’t have run out on you like that. It wasn’t fair.”

Vernon chews this over in his mind but ultimately just shrugs his shoulders at you. What is there to say? He surely agrees, but he seems so adamant to ensure you don’t feel bad about it happening that he just… says nothing. Again. It’s kind of maddening, even if you fully get why. 

“No, I mean it,” you try again. “It wasn’t you. It’s nothing you did.”

“We really don’t have to do the whole ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ thing,” Vernon offers, his cardboard-like posture softening. There’s even a little bit of a smile on his face, you think — but it’s not the kind of smile you’ve grown used to seeing on him. It doesn’t reach his eyes; he looks kind of like someone who has read their cards and accepted their fate. “Seriously. It’s okay.” 

“It’s not,” you stress, stepping closer to him again. You sigh deeply. There’s something almost relieving about the position you find yourself in. You suppose this really is crunch time; it’s now or never. “Can we… talk? About everything?”

“What? Here?” Vernon asks. 

You glance around the store, at the few people doing a very poor job of pretending to be minding their own business, and frown. He’s right. This isn’t the time, or the place. The problem is, you have a feeling that if you send him away, he may not decide to come back and listen to you. In his defence, why should he? He’s already done more than the decent thing and brought you back that which you abandoned in his apartment; several of your previous conquests would have shoved the bag and its contents either in the trash or the back of a closet somewhere. This is more than you could have hoped for. 

You hold a finger up to him and ask him to stay where he is, and though he looks a little bewildered at the gesture, he ultimately doesn’t move. You rush off out the back to the storeroom where you banished Chan an hour ago, on account of his raging hangover and your low tolerance for his whining about it; you’re genuinely surprised to find him working, and actually alphabetising the records you got in a few days ago like you asked him to.

“Hey. Can you do me a huge favour?” You ask, not announcing your arrival and subsequently scaring Chan out of his skin. He jolts as he hears your voice and claps a hand to his chest, exhaling hard. You don’t entertain his dramatics, though. There’s no time. “I need you to close today.”

“Huh?” He asks, still acting as if he’s trying to catch his breath. “I thought–”

“Please.” You wave him off, knowing he’s about to ask about the task you gave him. “We can look at this together tomorrow. You did great. It’s just an hour – is that okay?”

He chews the inside of his lip, almost looking disappointed. To be fair to him, he did look like he was in a groove when you appeared, but he doesn’t argue with you as he puts down the record in his hand and picks his phone up off the table to his right, silencing the catchy tune that was playing while he organised. 

“Of course it is,” he says, holding his hand out for your keys and starting to walk towards you. “Everything okay?”

“It-...” you start, faltering as you place the store keys in his waiting palm. Your default response was about to be ‘it’s fine’, but you’re trying harder these days to stop pretending, especially around him. So you swallow, nodding your head, flashing him a tight lipped smile. “I’m about to find out.”

“Oh? Is it…?”

A brief pause later, not before cringing at how predictable you’ve apparently become, you say, “yeah.”

Chan claps you on the shoulder as he skirts his way around you, leaning in to give you a sort of side-along hug on his way. You stretch your arm across his waist and pull him closer for a moment, trying to drive home how much you appreciate this. He doesn’t comment on the uncharacteristic display of affection, and you want to find out why, but Vernon isn’t going to wait around for you forever. 

“Go get him, tiger,” Chan whispers.

“I owe you, big time,” you promise. 

He winks at you before he disappears through the door and you follow him briefly, but as he does a round of checking in with your customers and making sure they don’t need any help, you hurry off to grab your jacket from the office.

Vernon is exactly where you left him when you come back out into the storefront, hands unmoved from where he stuffed them into his pockets earlier, rocking back and forth on his toes and looking around from wall to wall. You think perhaps he took your request slightly too literally and the fact that even his feet are in the same position as before you left is reminiscent of a puppy commanded to stay, but if anyone here is at liberty to start poking fun, you think that it certainly isn’t you. Instead of trying your luck, you lock the office door and walk up to him, returning his polite, yet slightly awkward smile.

“You’re not, like, super busy right now or anything, are you?” You ask him. 

His brows crease and his eyes shift side-to-side before they land back at you. He shakes his head.

“Did you maybe wanna… take a walk?” 

Vernon nods this time, still not moving or even pulling his hands out of his jeans. His elbows are locked out and the length of his arms means his shoulders are raised quite some way. He could not be more uncomfortable looking if he tried, but he doesn’t say no and nothing on his face gives away that he wants to reject your proposition, either, so you’re the one to take that tentative first step towards the door. When you do, he follows. 

You left the store at least ninety seconds ago and still, neither of you have said anything yet. Honestly, it’s taking all you’ve got not to just burst and let it all out; it’s building and building and your stomach feels tight, but it’s less of a knot and more like a tightly-coiled spring. His eyes are dipped to the ground, incredibly aware of every step he takes, in what you realise now are a gorgeous pair of platform boots tucked up beneath his baggy jeans. He’s at least an inch and a half taller than the last time you saw him. 

“Your friend,” Vernon starts finally, pausing before he continues.  “Is he always so… you know?”

“What did he say?” You ask, peeking over to him. Trust Chan to start getting —

He hurries to shake his head. “Nothing. He just… kept looking at me. In a weird way, like…”

“Like he knows something you don’t, and he’s not gonna tell you, but he wants you to know that he knows it anyway?” You supply.

“Yeah— exactly like that.”

“Mm. That’s just… Chan.”

“Huh.”

“It’s worse when they’re together,” you say. He breathes out a chuckle and you feel his elbow bump into your upper arm. The distance he put between you when you fell into step outside the store has reduced, you realise now; you’re not sure when, or if it was on purpose. Did he move closer once you started speaking? Was it just so he could hear you better? Or…

Either way, despite being side-by-side, he still feels a hundred miles away from you. This isn’t enough.

“You get used to them, though,” you add, trying to stay on track. “I swear.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Jokes aside, he still won’t look at you for longer than a few seconds, which tugs at something deep in your chest. Discomfort clings to you, and even if it does seem like you’re making some progress, you can still feel unease radiating off him. A cheap laugh at the expense of your friends who aren’t here to defend themselves won’t fix that which you took a wrecking ball to a few nights ago. This needs to be heartfelt and genuine, and more importantly it needs to come out right. 

But when you open your mouth to speak, still searching your brain for the right way to explain why you acted the way you did, there’s nothing. 

How wonderful would it be for the perfect explanation to just tumble from your lips calmly and evenly, and for it to make everything okay? But the reality is that your throat runs dry as petrol fumes make their way through your parted lips. You hold your tongue again just a second later, sighing quietly. 

You’re starting to feel like a lost cause when Vernon breaks the silence for you, again. He slows his steps to a halt when he eventually says, “so.”

“So,” you repeat, freezing mid-stride as you go completely tense. It’s like you’re staring into oblivion’s wide open mouth. “I-… don’t really know where to start. I’m sorry.”

“The beginning’s usually pretty good?” He offers.

You nod. “How much did you want to know?”

“Whatever you’re comfortable with telling me.”

If anyone on this Earth deserves a medal for their patience, it’s Vernon. You still haven’t turned to face him yet, your eyes fixated on the traffic signal some fifty yards away from you and you’re pretty sure if someone poked you too hard, you’d shatter into a million tiny pieces. But, as impossible as it seems all the while you try to get your thoughts in a reasonable order, you manage to swallow your nerves. 

It’s crunch time. It’s now or never.

The explanation you give him is messy. Disjointed. But once you start, it becomes difficult to stop: you end up sparing very little detail and circle back on yourself no less than three times. You tell him about how you were engaged and about the breakup, the run-in, your shitty date, gesturing with your hands to emphasise the most important parts. When you start to move again, Vernon makes his steps bigger until he’s walking alongside you. He never interrupts you. He acknowledges every sentence when you pause for breath. Encourages you to keep going when you fall over your words. 

“… and—... I guess I just lost my head. But it wasn’t your fault.” You swallow hard before you continue, “I’m… really sorry.”

He nods slowly, taking his time to digest everything.

“Don’t be,” he says, lightly bumping into your side. It’s a very small reassurance that he’s not going to walk away, but it means much more to you than you’re sure he meant it to. “I get it.”

“I—”

“No, like. I get it.” 

“Yeah?” You ask, only understanding when you catch the very pointed look in his eyes. 

“For sure.”

Of course, it makes sense. Vernon’s young. Attractive. Nice. Talented. He must have been with people before. Hell, you think he surely leaves a trail of broken hearts everywhere he goes. He gets it. 

“We dated for like… five? Years. Her name was Nari,” he tells you. 

A few seconds later, you watch him start to shrug off his jacket on one side and expose one of his toned arms to you. You’re about to tell him he doesn’t need to air his dirty laundry out if he doesn’t want to when he twists at his elbow; you catch sight of a tattoo you remember having seen the night he wore that black singlet on stage. Two lily flowers blooming up the inside of his bicep. 

It’s so pretty. Intricate. The line work is beautiful, the petals shaded with hundreds of little dots. You wanted to ask about it that night, but you never found the right chance, and now—

Lily?

It takes you longer than you’re willing to admit to join the dots, but when the penny finally drops, so does your jaw. Vernon slides back into his sleeve with a big, entertained smile and a little shrug. 

“Mhm.”

“Oh my God?”

“I know.”

It’s not that you’re laughing, per se. This isn’t your baggage to laugh at, no matter how unbothered Vernon seems to be by what he’s just revealed. But you do rub your hand over your face and cover your lips, shaking your head in disbelief as a breath that contains the edges of a bemused chuckle escapes you. Thankfully, he doesn’t seem to mind; if anything, it appears to give him a boost to keep talking.

“I got that on our third anniversary,” he goes on to explain. “A couple years later… She called it quits. Turns out there was another guy. I thought about lasering it, but… apparently that hurts worse than getting the tattoo in the first place, so…”

“That’s…”

“It’s whatever,” Vernon says, shaking his head. “They’re my mom’s favourite flowers too. That’s what almost everyone else thinks it’s for.”

You haven’t looked back up at his face since the unveiling, not until now. When your eyes meet again, Vernon tilts his head in the direction you’re walking and continues down the street, spinning now so he’s walking backwards but still facing you. “I just mean... It’s okay. I get it.”

The moment you’ve caught up to him and you’re back by his side, he turns to face front, just in time to avoid a collision with a streetlamp. The lingering awkwardness starts to fade to nothing; you can see it in the way he holds himself, and you can feel it in the way you do, too. Everything relaxes. Your neck, your shoulders, your fists. It all ebbs away. 

“It really wasn’t anything you did,” you clarify once more. 

“So you keep telling me,” Vernon quips, tips of his ears turning pinker by the moment. “It’s okay, I swear. Do you want me to walk you home?”

You accept his offer and lead him down a side-street, picking up a completely unrelated conversation now to purify the air. Before you really know it (what was that everyone always said about time flying?), you come to a stop outside your building. Vernon’s sentence fades away when you stop moving; instead he stills, glancing sideways, and you nod confirmation at him with a lopsided smile. 

“This is me,” you say, reaching into your back pocket for your keys. “So…”

“So,” Vernon echoes, glancing around again. “Can I like, lay my cards out, real quick?”

You nod. 

“I like you.” He shrugs, now toying with the leather bracelet around his wrist. “Like, a lot. But…”

But. You feel like you should have seen this coming. But. But. Of course there’s a— 

“I’ve got some shows coming up out of town and I need to see some family, I’m not gonna be here from tomorrow for like, three weeks...”

Oh. 

Well. On one hand, it’s not what you thought. It’s not a flat-out rejection. It’s not a shut down. On the other? You bite the inside of your cheek and look at your hands, playing with your keys to keep them busy. Under any other lens, three weeks isn’t really a very long time at all. You’re pretty sure that the milk you bought yesterday is going to last longer than that. But three weeks… this early into things? 

That’s longer than you’ve even known him.  

“… and I thought, if you wanted — I could… take you out. When I get back. For real. Maybe.”

Oh.

“Like…?”

“Like… on a date,” he confirms, rubbing the back of his neck. “One where I’m not like… fresh off stage and all gross and shit.”

Relief replaces anxiety on both his face and yours when you let out a quiet laugh. 

“I’d really like that,” you say, twitching fingers suddenly still. “Yeah.”

“I’m not asking you to like, wait around, or anything,” he says as he pulls his phone out of his pocket, fumbles with it, and just barely manages to soften the fall with the toe of his boot before it lands screen-up on the concrete. “We’ll just see how it goes. And it gives you some time to… deal with things. Whatever you’ve gotta do.”

You nod, crossing your arms over your chest as he bends low to pick his phone back up, smoothing his thumb over the small scuff on the protective case. It seems remarkably undamaged otherwise. 

“And if you’re still interested, then…”

“Interested?” You ask with a small grin. 

“Aren’t you?” Vernon asks.

“I—...” You think about playing coy, but when he’s been so open with you about where his head’s at, it feels so silly and childish to bother pretending. That playful ‘I might be’ gets swallowed back. Instead – “Yeah. I am.”

“Cool. Then we’ll figure it out. At your pace, okay?” 

“Okay.”

He grabs his earphones out of his other pocket, slides one in, and is about to step back away from you when you do something you don’t really expect yourself to. Something you’ve never done to a man you can barely even say you’re ‘seeing’. You close the space between you and, as if to lock in your words, push forward onto your toes to press a kiss to his cheek. 

“Thank you,” you say when you fall back down to your heels. If he wasn’t so dumbstruck, you feel like he’d be about to ask what you were thanking him for; as it stands though, he’s frozen, blushing, and the only reason you can tell he’s still alive is because he can’t stop blinking at you. “For… giving me another chance.”

He still can’t quite find his voice, so Vernon just shakes his head, clearing his throat. (No need, he wants to say.) Alas, his lips just open and close soundlessly.

“I’ll see you in a few weeks,” you supply for him. He takes in a deep, mind-clearing breath and nods his head.

“I’ll see you in a few weeks.”

You see the apples of his cheeks lift as he presses his thumb against his phone screen and restarts whatever song he was listening to when he walked into your store. A brilliant smile consumes his face. It only grows as he turns away from you and walks off down the street. 

For a second, you think it’s all very smooth. Movie-like, even.

Then, he stumbles over a crack in the pavement. When he glances back to pray you didn’t watch it happen, he catches you snickering into your fist. He shakes his head and continues on, leaving you to fumble with your key in the lock before you finally let yourself inside.

You overslept. 

Sort of. You heard your alarm go off straight away but you might have snoozed it, and when you heard it sound for a second time, you turned it off completely, telling yourself that you just needed one more minute. You just wanted to rest your eyes for a few more seconds. There wasn’t any danger of you going back to sleep.

Twenty minutes later, you practically fell off your mattress in a panic when you realised that there had, in fact, been a big fucking danger. 

You were still able to wash up well and make it to work on time, but you had to sacrifice your morning coffee stop after seeing that the queue at the register was going to take too long. For years, you’ve refused to consider yourself to be the kind of person who relies heavily on a caffeine kick first thing in the morning, but today? It’s barely ten thirty and you’re seriously flagging: like you’ve never known what energy is, like you’ll never feel it again. 

(You blame the fact that when you first looked at your phone today before rolling back over, there was no ‘good morning :)’ text to entice you out of bed. But you’re trying really hard not to think about why that is, nor why it was such a deciding factor.)

So, when the bell above your shop door jingles and you’re forced to stand upright (a change your back doesn’t thank you for when it has to readjust from the previous hunched position you had adopted over the countertop), you groan quietly. Nonetheless, your tired eyes crease at the corners as you smile at whoever it is that’s come across the threshold.

After a second, your eyes refocus; when you can finally make out their features, it’s as if someone gives you a shot of adrenaline.

“Oh my God,” You say breathlessly, brushing your hair back and moving to stand up fully unsupported. “I thought you weren’t back until Friday?”

“Change of plans,” Vernon grins, scratching the back of his neck. “We drove through the night. I got home like… an hour ago.”

This is the first time you’ve ever seen him dressed down, and hell, does he look incredible. Gone are the ripped jeans, scuffed boots, the leather jackets and chunky rings. Grey sweatpants and an oversized white hoodie (alternatively: the brightest outfit you’ve witnessed him in thus far) drown him, blurring out his usually so distinct frame. You pin both of these things as the reasons you hardly recognised him when your eyes were refusing to cooperate. Paired with what Seungkwan would call ‘dad-sneakers’ and completed by messy hair and tired, soft eyes?

If you could jump his bones right here, right now… God, you would. 

“But hey, it’s nice to see you, too,” he adds facetiously.

“Quiet down,” you groan, fighting the urge to run over and envelop him in a hug. You’re not sure that he’d mind if you did, but you also don’t quite know if you’re ‘there’, yet. “Obviously it’s good to-...”

His arms, both of which have been stuck behind his back since he arrived, now move around to the front, revealing to you a takeout cup and a little brown box from the coffee shop down the street. 

“Oh, shit. It is so good to see you.”

Vernon laughs, coming closer until he can set them both down on the counter. “If it’s wrong, Seungkwan gave me your order, so.”

You start to wonder how on Earth your employee and your… Vernon managed to have this conversation without you knowing. Does Seungkwan have his number? Did they happen across each other on one of their socials? Did Vernon call into the store while you were out in the bathroom a little while ago and ask? But whatever happened, you quickly stop caring to find out: popping the lid off your cup, the aroma of your favourite coffee immediately fills your senses. It’s so overwhelming that you think you might start to cry.

“Oh my God. You’re the best,” you sigh, wrapping your fingers around the cup and taking a long sip, eyes rolling back into your head. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Vernon laughs, rolling up his sleeves before folding his toned forearms over his chest. “I got you a-... okay, they only had those gluten free brownies in, and I’ll be honest, I don’t know if they taste the same as the normal ones but… like, he said you hadn’t eaten today and I know you said you liked brownies before, — if you don’t like those ones, it’s okay! I can go back, it’s–”

He trails off, cheeks turning pink when you tilt your head to one side and feel your brow go soft. He asks, “why… are you looking at me like that?”

“You’re so cute,” you say, putting the cup down gently so as not to splash your drink all over the counter. 

“Huh?”

“You really didn’t have to…”

“I wanted to,” Vernon says, shaking his head. 

You almost definitely hear a floorboard creak and quiet shushing sound from just around the corner towards the back room. You don’t call out your eavesdropping friends for trying to listen in on your conversation, though: it barely even crosses your mind. Besides... you can’t take your eyes off Vernon, even if you wanted to. He looks so soft. Like he needs to sleep for a whole twenty four hours, and he must feel like it too, but he came here first. 

“So,” he starts, tapping his right thumb against the inside of his left elbow. (The reason why he came so quickly starts to become evident. He just couldn’t wait to ask.) “You don’t have to commit to anything right now…” The silver of one of his rings glints with every tiny movement. “…but, I was just wondering–”

Smiling at him over the top of your coffee cup, it feels like your heart could burst.

“I was just… wondering… if you’d thought any more about letting me take you out?”

You’ve been texting him almost every day since he left. He’s sent you a hundred and one pictures of statues and cool buildings and nice looking food and the sky, and far more animals than you think you’ve ever actually seen in real life. You’ve spoken to him about your strange customers. What’s going on with your friends. Sent him recommendations for songs that you discovered on obscure albums that you pulled out to play over the speakers. 

One night after one of his shows, he called you. He was a little bit drunk at the time, chilling in his hotel room with a pizza as he informed you that he’d snuck out of an after-party super early but couldn’t get to sleep. With an audible pout, he went on to confess that he was feeling kind of lonely, that he just wanted to hear your voice: one thing led to another and you stayed up talking to him until he passed out at nearly 4 o’clock in the morning.

To put it simply… 

“I’d still really like that,” you say. It’s incredible to you that you can see every one of his features brighten up. 

“Okay,” he breathes, unwinding his arms and pushing his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants now instead. “Okay, cool. I’ll… text you later? We’ll figure something out?”

“All right,” you agree. “Now go rest up, okay?”

He laughs as he swears that he’ll go back home and get some sleep, and with that, Vernon takes his leave. You’re once again alone, but this time you have a drink that could only hope to make you feel as energised as he does, and a treat nowhere near as sweet as him. 

You aren’t complaining, though, and neither are the two men that miraculously reappear the moment the door closes again. 

The smile Vernon leaves on your face doesn’t falter for the rest of your day.

You suppose a big part of the reason you haven’t dated anyone in a while is because you can’t stand the ‘talking stage’. That weird little limbo where you’re never sure if it’s too early to make certain jokes, where you’re checking and second-guessing all your texts, where you can’t figure out if someone’s really into you or if they’re just blowing up your phone to pass the time. The awkward small talk. The ‘getting to know each other’ part. The ‘why haven’t they replied yet — was it something I said?’ anxiety. 

Thankfully, with Vernon, that’s not really something you have to worry about. 

While he was away, you learned that he’s the kind of guy who just spews random facts at you in the middle of his day and then forgets to check his messages for three hours. Sometimes those facts are interesting things about himself. Other times, you’ve known him to shoot you a text just to announce [ just found out tigers have striped skin as well as fur. wild ].

(On one such occasion, Chan caught you giggling at your phone in the middle of a quiet Thursday afternoon, zooming in on a picture of Vernon’s heart shaped birthmark. This put a swift end to checking your messages while you’re at work.)

[ btw, im allergic to peanuts ], he told you one evening. Completely unprompted, just after dinner time. You spilled half of your glass of juice down your front in panic when you put two and two together and scrambled to ask him if he was okay. [ near miss, dw about it! just felt important haha ], he replied, and your response was just a picture of your newly stained t-shirt and a request for him to never do that to you again. 

He can drive — at least, he has his licence — but he doesn’t have a car. He chooses public transport, and he tells you that it’s because he likes not having to worry about fuel prices and it’s ‘healing’ to zone out of reality on the train until he reaches his stop. He tells you that he came up with the melody and two verses of one of his favourite original songs on the bus to his parents house, and one time, he dropped a giant cockroach on a class field trip to the zoo because it tickled when it crawled over his palm and he didn’t like it. 

(You later discovered that this piece of information was triggered by the appearance of a large bug in his shower.)

Last night, as you settled into bed after a whole evening of back and forth, he told you that he has all five of the top scores at the piano game in the arcade downtown, and that he has an approximate 75% success rate on claw machines. When you replied saying you hadn’t been to an arcade in about two years, he was horrified. Enough to send 7 broken heart emojis back to back, as individual messages. [ shakespeare himself couldnt write a tragedy that sad ], he said. 

But, harrowed as he was by your admission, it did give him an idea. 

That idea is exactly how you end up standing side-by-side at a basketball shootout game on Friday night. It’s how he ends up winning one of those cute reversible octopuses — true enough, on a claw machine — which he gives to you immediately. It’s how you watch him hunch over a pinball machine for twenty five minutes before he loses his ball, how you end up tied after four games of air hockey, at which point he calls it quits while citing a ‘cramping hand’.

It’s also how you deliver his ass to him in not one, but two rounds of bowling.

“All right — all right,” Vernon laughs, holding both his hands up in defeat as your final ball takes out all ten pins at the end of the alley. “You made your point. Damn.”

You shrug your shoulders as you walk back in his direction, picking up your glass from the table and sipping your soda through your straw. 

(Though the arcade has an entire menu of cocktails, some of which you’ve never even heard of, the thought of navigating an evening alone with him under the influence of alcohol was totally unappealing after last time. Thankfully, Vernon agreed. You quietly think that being stone cold sober has made tonight even more enjoyable.)

“I told you,” you say when you finally sit down. He puts an arm around your shoulders straight away. Naturally, like it’s instinct. Like it’s a position he’s adopted a few hundred times before. “I’m undefeated.”

“We’ll see,” he says, tapping out a rhythm on the ball of your shoulder. “I still think you just got lucky.”

“So,” Vernon says once your leisurely stroll back lands you outside his place, kicking the toe of his left sneaker into the concrete. “What… are the chances that I get a do-over?”

You blink at him a few times, tilting your head. “What do you mean, a do-over?” 

Does he not think this went well? Gods, it’s probably the best first date you’ve ever had, but what on Earth else could he mean by that? Did you say something earlier, and not realise? Has he not had fun? What does he m–

“I got these new coffee beans,” he says. “While I was away — and I figured something out with the-… the machine? So— ”

Ah. There he is.

You smirk at him, patting the outside of his bicep and rolling your eyes. When you glance down, Vernon is pulling out his key, thumbing over the ridges down the one side. He reaches for the door, happy to take your teasing as confirmation that yes, you’ll come up. Yes, he gets his ‘do-over’...

…but leave it to you to fall for the world’s dorkiest rockstar. 

As he slips the key into his apartment door, there’s a steady pressure against the small of your back: the same one that’s been there ever since he gestured for you to step out of the elevator before him. One of his palms rests over the fabric of your t-shirt and you feel weirdly tingly because of it. He gently guides you inside once the door falls open and doesn’t move away when it’s locked again behind him. 

With an anticipatory shiver, you turn around to face him. You make a point to leave just a matter of inches between your chests. To have your eyes soft, patiently waiting.

Vernon’s hands are - for the first time ever - cold when his fingers hesitantly come up to either side of your face, tilting your head up so that he can see you better, unobstructed by any shadows. You gasp at the contrast between them and your flushed, warm cheeks. He swallows thickly at the sound.

“Is this… okay?” he asks, gaze darting between the space separating your eyes from your lips. “We can slow it down, if you want. I just—...”

Your own hands find home against his chest in response, fingers curling into the muscle beneath them. Not harshly, definitely not so much that it could hurt — just enough that it makes him puff himself up a little bigger. Enough to make him square his shoulders as he drags a thumb over the corner of your mouth. 

“Vernon,” you say quietly, pressing him backwards. Balling his t-shirt into your fists, you send him stumbling over his own feet before his shoulders find the wood of the front door. A quiet grunt escapes him on impact, but he just holds you closer. “Shut up ‘n’ kiss me. Please.”

Clumsiness aside, the moment he obediently ducks his head and presses his smiling mouth to yours, you feel weightless. Even when you tilt forward onto your toes to meet him halfway, it’s as if you’re not even touching the ground anymore: clouds beneath your feet have you floating. Everything about it is so very different from the last time.

It’s so much easier. Not just for you, either – you can feel it from him as well. Your collective baggage has been left out in the hall, barricading the door, shutting out the hesitation and nervousness and leaving you together, wholly alone, to just… be.

Vernon gets increasingly more brave as the seconds tick by. When you separate for air, his head tilts the other way, lips a little parted, hot breaths fanning over your skin as he meets you again, and again, and again. It’s the perfect give and take. Firm one second, waiting for you to chase him the next. The soft sounds he starts to make are amplified as his tongue presses against your bottom lip: he tests the waters, groaning into the heat of your mouth when you so happily invite him into it. He drinks you up for all you’re worth. 

One of your hands uncurls from his chest and moves up to his head instead, threading into his hair at the top of his neck. It feels just as soft as it’s always looked, sliding through your fingers. A gentle pull makes him whine. He draws away from you. His lips are pink and shine with the gloss you touched up in the elevator’s mirror, his lids are heavy, his pupils blown, and looking up at him feels like staring into the sun; you physically can’t keep your eyes open, but it’s so hard to look away. 

You tuck yourself into his neck as a compromise, laying gentle pecks everywhere you can reach. His aftershave leaves a bitter taste on your tongue as you touch the tip to a stretch of skin just beneath the harsh cut of his jawline, but the way he shudders and drops his hold down to your waist makes the sting in the back of your mouth all worth it. You only stop when one of his hands sinks lower still and he squeezes at your ass, making your eyes roll back.

He mistakes your surprise for hesitation, though.

“Is this… okay?” he asks, tipping his head back and pressing his crown into the door. Though he doesn’t withdraw his palm from your backside, he also doesn’t pinch at you again. You press your hips backwards, pushing into his touch to encourage him, with this green light he starts to knead at your cheek over the top of your skirt.

“You have no idea how hard it is to keep my hands to myself around you, do you?” You say, slipping one up the hem of his t-shirt as if to prove your point, splaying your fingers out over his stomach. 

He takes a shallow breath, hovering with it in his lungs, holding back from saying something. You get there before he can.

“I want you,” you say certainly, pulling back from where you’ve been nestled into his shoulder so that you can look him in the eyes again. He releases that breath and his face flushes when his eyes find yours, moving both of his hands back up to your waist, tightly gripping at you as if his life depends on it as he nods. 

“I just… I really don’t wanna mess this up,” he adds quietly. “I—”

When you kiss him again, hoping to further assure that you’re just as into this as he is, he reciprocates, sure. You can tell straight away that there’s a little less bite though — a stiffness to him. He doesn’t relax into you the same way he did a few minutes ago. 

“What’s wrong?” you ask, falling back onto your heels. Is this because of the way things went last time, or are you going too fast for him? Selfishly, you hadn’t considered that could be a barrier. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want, you know that right? It’s okay.”

You make to step away from Vernon, unwinding your arms from around him to give him some space but he refuses to let you go too far. His hold on you is just as firm as ever.

“Trust me, I want to,” he says. “It’s just–...”

You stay silent, waiting for him to finish. He chews at his bottom lip, his blush deepening right in front of your eyes. To try and steady him, you lay one of your palms over each of his biceps, saying, “Whatever it is – it’s all right.”

“I just… haven’t been with anyone since…”

And when you laugh, it’s not at him (at least, not for the reason a fly on the wall might initially assume). You drop your forehead down onto the muscle of his chest, feeling his heart’s erratic rhythm underneath his clothes as you loop one arm back up around his neck.

“I thought you were about to tell me something awful,” you chide him through your giggles, lightly swatting at his shoulder. He starts to loosen up beneath you, his own body beginning to shake with laughter too. Those strong arms pull you flush against him, the gentle shift of his weight from one foot to another rocking you both side-to-side. “Like– like you were secretly married or you realised you didn’t actually like me, or something. Jesus.”

He stays quiet for another few seconds, but even without speaking, you can feel how he shakes his head above you. You look back up at his face and brush his hair out of his eyes, fingers lingering on his brow when you’re done.

“It’s okay,” you tell him for the third time. The last wisps of anxiety start to fade from his eyes, replaced with the same look he’s been wearing since he showed up at your apartment door earlier this evening. “I don’t care — I promise, I’ll go easy on you.”

The kiss that follows lands hard and with it, Vernon succeeds in wiping your brain empty. You can barely remember what you were even giggling about a few seconds later. 

“Don’t want you to go easy,” he insists against your lips. Then, he’s wallowing up your breathy sighs as he licks into your mouth again, pressing your tongue with his own, reminding you that he’s absolutely not incompetent, just rusty. 

When you make it into his bedroom, confessions and various articles of your clothing forgotten out in the hallway, you separate from each other long enough for you to be able to to lay one hand on his bare chest and push him down onto the mattress. He bounces on the foam and pushes up on one elbow, watching as you sink down to your knees and press kisses down his stomach while your hands deftly take care of the button on his jeans. 

“Tell me if you want me to stop, okay?” You say to him as he lifts his hips up and lets you pull both his jeans and his boxers down in one sharp movement. 

“M’not gonna want you to,” he laughs breathlessly, pushing a hand through his hair as he kicks the remainder of his clothes all the way off and nudges them away to the side. “But yeah. Okay.”

He looks so pretty like this and you can’t help but think he’s even prettier when the first time you curl your fingers around his length, his jaw falls slack and his fingers curl into the bedding underneath him. You drink him in and he watches you do it; your mouth is watering, desperate to feel him press down on your tongue, and you feel a pull towards him that you’ve never felt towards anyone before. 

“God,” you whisper, shuffling on your knees to get a little closer. 

“Okay?” Vernon asks. He tilts his head to the side and you nod up at him.

“Just… had a feeling you’d be…” you trail off, tugging a few times to feel its thickness in your fingers. Why are you mesmerised by it, a little? What the hell has gotten into you? “But it’s actually bigger, and—”

He laughs quietly and falls back onto the bed, crossing an arm over his eyes. “Shut up,” he groans. 

“Yes, sir.”

You lean towards him and gather saliva on your tongue, dragging it from base to tip before closing your lips around the head. He gasps softly and holds onto his next breath, angling his head back further; you give a satisfied hum and slide a little further down. 

The glide is made smoother by the spit your tongue left behind and that which mixes with his pre-cum in your mouth. As you start to bob up and down, some dribbles out past your lips so you start to move your hand, too, smearing the mess all over his cock. When it bumps the back of your throat — and on assessment, you realise there’s daylight between your lips and your fist — you squeeze your eyes closed and whimper softly, holding him in place while you adjust before you can take him deeper. 

“Fuck— just like that,” he gasps out in a shattered groan when you start to move a little more fluidly, no longer too intimidated by your gag reflex preventing him from slipping down your throat. Your hand and your mouth work in tandem to get him riled. Every sound he makes feels like someone injects lust straight into your veins. When you look up at him from between your dewy lashes, you ponder that you’d watch him fall apart from this angle a hundred times a night forever and still not get bored. 

Your jaw starts to ache from the thickness of having him in your mouth and the way he’s restraining himself from fucking his hips up to meet you tells you that he’s too polite to ask you for more. You suck harshly one last time before pulling away with a ‘pop’, using only your hand to pump his length as you shift down to gently suck one of his balls into your mouth. 

The sound he makes is so fucking melodic. You think he’s made a similar one before when he lifts into a falsetto, and you’ve never felt more powerful than you do right now. Knowing you have someone with such a commanding presence eating out of your palm could really do something dangerous to your ego. It’s a bit of a miracle, therefore, that you recognise his desperate tapping at your shoulder, but the second you feel it you settle back from him, looking up at his impossibly tense abs and his blissed-out face.

You catch on quickly and feel your features split into a grin at the realisation. When it takes him a second, you know it’s because he’s still trying to remember the mechanisms it takes to breathe. Bless his heart. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, pushing himself to sit upright and running a hand through his hair. “It-… fuck, that was so…”

“What happened to ‘I don’t want you to go easy’ huh?” you tease, resting your chin on the top of his left thigh, grinning up at him. 

“I’m gonna come if you keep going like that,” he chuckles, shaking his head in disbelief at himself. “And trust me — I want to, but…” He swallows hard. “Not yet.”

You nod slowly up at him, starting to get up off the floor. You stop in your tracks when he says, “I’ve gotta taste you first. Please.”

Maybe it speaks too much to the quality of some of your previous lovers, but his desperation takes you a bit by surprise. You blink at him, ignoring how your thighs burn with the position you’ve frozen in. 

“If— that’s okay?” He adds. “I’ve… been thinking about it? A lot. Especially since-”

“Shut up,” you breathe, finally standing all the way up. He shuffles back further onto the bed and you quickly move to straddle across his hips, one hand coming up to hold his jaw in place when you’re in place. “Of course it’s okay.”

You lean in for an impossibly needy kiss, only breaking away when you physically can’t breathe anymore. Vernon’s eyes flutter open at the same time as yours do and as you reach behind yourself with one hand to unclasp your bra, he looks at you like you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to him.  

(He tells you that you are no fewer than three times before you fall asleep a few hours later.)

thank u so much for reading, i hope you enjoyed it! as always, likes, reblogs, comments & feedback are so so appreciated. there's approx a scene and a half left for part 3 and then we're all done with this baby! stay tuned for that, coming soon.<3 p.s. no i will not apologise to jaehyun, this is what he gets for making me feel insane. thanks !

[chaifootsteps]

[colormepurplex2]

The Demon Is In The Details | Sweet, Sweet Soul

↳ Demon!Jimin x Human!f.Reader ⤜ Crossroads Demon AU, Accidental Enthrallment ⤜ Rating: MA 🔞 ⤜ WC: 9,928 ⚠️ Crass language, soul sucking, dick piercing, cock sucking, kissing, biting, mild nipple play/biting/there is blood involved, blood drinking, face fucking, hair pulling, choking, body worship, enthrallment/instant infatuation, begging, vaginal sex, creampie, cum play/eating, insatiable lust, lost soul, demon metamorphosis

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You’re not sure what you expected—but, a lavish bedroom complete with a four-poster bed and sitting area with plush upholstered furniture wasn’t it. It all feels so…human. You can almost pretend like you are just on an extended vacation, staying at some ritzy hotel.

“So, this is where demons live, huh?” You try not to let too much sarcasm thread into your words. “Was expecting more fire and brimstone and less velvet and lace,” you say, plucking at the lacy fringe of the canopy drapes that are pulled back on the bed.

The demon sniffs, his chin turning up in mild indignation. “Fire and brimstone? What utter nonsense,” he mutters, but you can tell he’s just sure to be loud enough for you to hear.

That prickles a bit. It’s not like you’re precisely well-versed on the whole demon thing. Are you supposed to know that demons enjoy the lap of luxury instead of broiling in sulfuric pits of steaming sludge? Everything you’ve ever read, heard, or been taught hinges on the idea that demons are hellish monsters that dwell in Hell. And considering Hell is supposed to be a place of fire and brimstone, well, put two and two together, and you don’t think your assumption is a stretch.

“Is this even Hell?” you ask.

Red eyes cut your way, and the demon’s top lip curls in disgust. “This is a hell, yes.”

“A hell?”

“Mm,” he hums lightly in acknowledgement. “One of many.”

Many? Interesting. “Like the different circles?”

The demon sighs, his red eyes rolling in annoyance. “Whatever it is you think you may know, forget it. There are no ‘circles’, no pits—unless you count the sanguine pits, but you probably don’t want to go there,” his top teeth sink into his bottom lip for a moment, his eyes turning mischievous, “or maybe you do. Another day, perhaps. Anyway, this is the…Inferna is the best human word to use to describe it. But, you may call it home, considering that is exactly what it is now; your home.” He chuckles, but you think it’s a poor joke.

“Home. Okay, sure, very funny.” The sarcasm helps to bolster your mood a bit, knowing that you can still spit words with at least a little venom.

That’s all you’ve been able to think about since the understanding of what was happening dawned on you. The fear of not being able to think for yourself, that your free will and ability to think would be stripped from you, and you’d become nothing more than some mindless demon slut.

The fact you’re able to hold this conversation is promising. But you are curious. With the deal settled between this demon and Dominique, you feel like you’ve been put in an ambiguous limbo of sorts. Dominique’s deal included you, but as she said, it wasn’t your own deal.

So, do you even have a deal with this demon? But, before you can express your curiosity further, a loud knock echoes from the double doors on the other side of the sitting area that you hadn’t noticed before.

“This should be fun,” the demon says, and it almost seems like he’s…pouting? “Come in.”

The doors swing open on a blast of hot air. Clouds of grey-blue smoke curl through the space before dissipating and revealing what you can only describe as evil incarnate. At least, that’s the feeling you get, like happiness and joy can not exist in the presence of this being. Your energy immediately wanes, so much so that it makes your knees weak.

Pitch-colored eyes set in an angular face framed by thick, inky hair give way to taught lips drawn in a severe line. His body is hidden by the billowing folds of a robe that seems made of gossamer and iron, with its constant shifting in the room's ambient lighting.

A voice as deep as the darkest chasm in the ocean and just as cold hisses through the room. “What have we here? A pet?”

“Dark Lord,” the demon at your side says, bending at the waist and bowing deeply. He straightens, casting a quick glance in your direction. “A pleasant mistake is all, My Lord. A soul come to me by the blundering of a supposed friend.”

“More fiend than a friend, it seems, if the result is this.” A smirk curls the pale pink lips of the man—demon?—standing in the doorway.

You want to jump to Dominique’s defense and argue that she’s not the fiend here, but a scathing look from the male at your side silences anything you might have mustered in protest. The look on his face says opening your mouth is probably the last thing you want to do right now. Whoever this ‘Dark Lord’ is, even the demon laying claim to your soul is intimidated by him.

“Very well,” the newcomer says before sucking in a deep, drawing breath as if scenting the very air around him. “Yes, yes, I think she’ll do well. A strong spirit, but not so strong that she won’t break. Perhaps…you might find it in you to share.”

“Share?” The word is gritted out between clamped teeth, stilted and forced. “Of course, if that is what you desire.”

“Please, Jimin, I aim only to tease you,” the being chuckles, wafting a hand complete with blackened nails and spidery purple veins. The billowing robes bend and sway with the act, stirring long shadows along the walls to either side of the doors. “Keep the little mouse. Enjoy the luxury of a pure soul for once. You’ve earned it.”

With that, he turns to leave, vanishing in a swirl of grey that disappears as the doors swing closed once more. Even though he’s gone, there is one thing that he left behind. A word. Or more so, a name.

Jimin.

“So, Jimin, huh?”

A low growl rumbles from the demon before his ruby eyes slice your way. “You will not use that name.”

Despite your lack of belief in demons and all the abracadabra nonsense prior to this, you’ve read enough to know there can be power behind knowing a demon’s name. However, you’re not sure how much power there is. But you’re willing to find out.

“What’s the matter, Jimin—” you twist the name with emphasis, “—don’t like it when someone might have power over you, Jimin? It is a taste of your own medicine, perhaps, Jimin?”

You part your lips, tongue poised to continue your taunting tirade, but in a flash, a warm, rigid hand is clamped over your mouth. Fire burns in the deep recesses of Jimin’s eyes. It's not just a pseudo-flame trick of the light, either. Real flames dance within the blood-colored irises. They undulate and grow brighter with each rise and fall of his chest until you’re certain smoke is going to start pouring out of his ears at any moment.

“You know, I thought I quite enjoyed your fiery spirit. But now, I’m not so sure. Maybe just a little tweak, a little taste, and you’ll…be…just…right.” As he says the words, drawn out and slow, you feel a little tug in the center of your chest.

The feeling starts out light, barely a string’s caress between your breasts. But gradually, it turns into a thick line of yarn that you’d swear was slowly unraveling your soul the way it would from a skein. There is an ebbing clarity, a fleeting thought that this is something you’re certain you should be resisting.

But you can’t seem to tear yourself away from staring into those flaming depths. Simply a moth drawn to the flame, heedless of the blaze threatening to engulf you.

His body presses against yours, hard and hot in contrast to your soft and freezing. The fact your body is chilled right to the bone only registers now. The trembling starts at the tips of your fingers and toes before your entire body shudders against his. Yet, you still can’t will yourself to look away.

“W-what are y-yo…you do-doing to…to me?”

The words sound hollow to your ears, thin and thready, like a weak pulse compared to the hammering of your heart that’s forcing your blood to woosh with staccato punches. The edges of your vision darken, and you struggle to blink or look away, to do anything to break the fevered contact.

“Perfect,” Jimin purrs, the sound registering the second before whatever is holding you in place diminishes, and you slump forward. Strong arms cradle your body, an arm sliding under the backs of your knees to lift you bridal style. Whereas your eyes wouldn’t close before, they now refuse to open. The darkness, such a contrast to the fire you were captured by before, makes your eyes ache and water. You can feel the trails of your tears cut through your hairline and blend with the perspiration gathering there.

Hot and cold. Light and dark. It’s hard to tell up from down at this point—warring emotions, seemingly endless confusion. You feel like you’re floating weightless in an abyss, though distinctly aware of how your body curls against smooth silk covering warm flesh.

With a sigh, you find the strength to open your eyes, meeting those crimson rings once more. Except, this time, there is no fear…no confusion…only peace, deeply rooted and infinitely spread through every fiber of your being.

You can see yourself reflected in those endless, vermillion depths. And what you see is…different; still you…but different—hungrier, a feral tinge that you know should frighten you.

😈😈😈

Jimin

The taste of your soul still lingers in Jimin’s mouth, making saliva pool under his tongue. It was the tiniest taste, just a sampling of what’s to come. But, fuck, if it didn’t make his cock hard and his chest ache from the restraint he used to hold himself from draining you completely dry while sucking the marrow right from your bones.

You are quite possibly the most exquisite creature he has ever laid eyes on, much less had the pleasure of savoring. His anger at Yoongi is quickly dissipating, replaced by the erotic thrum of the call of your soul. It beckons him to drink more, to devour you completely.

Jimin didn’t want to do this so soon. He’d intended to drag this out as much as possible, playing a game with his own constraint to see how long he could withstand your allure. This is Yoongi’s fault. If the Dark Lord hadn’t come in here sniffing around things that were not his, letting things as precious as names slip, Jimin wouldn’t have been so forced to jump the gun.

He had little choice in it, he’s sure. If you had continued to twist his name with your perfect lips, you would have indeed begun to wield the power behind it. With each additional drop of his name, he felt the knot forming at the base of his spine. The one that triggers his survival instincts and forces his hand.

Perhaps it’s for the best, he thinks, as he effortlessly carts your limp body over to the bed and lays you out. Your head lolls from side to side, eyes fluttering as they adjust to what Jimin knows must be an unpleasant ache deep in your psyche. It might be millennia since he became forsaken, but the memory of how it felt has not diminished.

Not that he’s going to let that happen to you. As it is, he’s undecided on how this is going to play out in the end. He has a deal with your friend that you will remain unharmed, and sucking out your soul until you become a demon doesn’t necessarily harm you. It’s mildly uncomfortable, but all together, not exactly harmful. Well, not to you physically, at least. That’s not saying much for you emotionally…spiritually.

Dominique should have been more precise in her demands—unharmed can mean anything. Though, he knows there could be room for argument that he was being deceptive. He shrugs to himself. He’s a demon…it’s to be expected. Words hold all the power. They are Jimin’s preferred weapon of choice for a reason. It’s why he’s so good at what he does, why Yoongi bestowed the crossroads task upon him all those centuries ago. Yes, if your so-called friend had truly cared, she should have been far more specific in her request and should have read between the lines before offering her blood and sealing your fate.

Jimin looks down on you from beside the bed as you slowly regain your senses. He has to adjust himself in his trousers, his arousal growing with each barely audible mewl that whimpers from your lips. If he were a lesser demon, he might not be able to keep himself from pouncing in your weakened state. As much as Jimin likes to dominate, he’d be curious to see what comes naturally now that a part of you resides in him.

“Mmm,” you moan softly.

Your eyes slide closed once more before finally popping open, wide and full of clarity. They find his, and what Jimin sees there has his whole body going taut with anticipation. You look like a feral wolf about to spring on an unsuspecting rabbit, and Jimin just so happens to be said rabbit. If you keep looking at him that way, perhaps he won’t mind being the prey for once.

“Whoa,” Jimin chuckles as you lurch upright in the bed, swinging an arm wildly in his direction, fingers hooked into claws. “Give yourself a minute.”

There is a thick, sultriness to your voice that wasn’t there before as you say, “I…I feel—I want…what did you do to me?” You bring the hand you swung at him up in front of your face, flipping it from front to back again and again as if somehow you’ll be able to physically see the change in yourself.

“Only what I’m entitled to.”

Your eyes snap to his, sharp and calculating. He’s intentionally cryptic, but he knows you can see straight through his deliberately obtuse response.

“Entitled to? The deal was for you not to harm me!” you snarl, teeth barred in his direction. Jimin decides it’s a cute look on you, like a stray kitten gearing up for a hissing match. Too bad for you, Jimin’s trained in the prowess of being a lion.

“You are unharmed,” he snaps back, eyes flashing.

You cringe, and Jimin almost wants to take it back. But that won’t do. No, not for what he has planned for you. As appealing as your defiance is…no, Jimin needs this far too much.

He realizes just how hungry he is.

Absolutely, ravenous. And he knows exactly what he wants to satiate the ache.

You mutter something under your breath, and if Jimin didn’t have the super hearing of a demon, he’d surely miss it. “Why am I so gods damned horny? Now is not the time to be jonesing for a joyride on a monster dick.”

“I think now is precisely the time to be, as you say, ‘jonesing for a joyride on a monster dick’.”

The surprise on your face is second only to the way your heart lurches in your chest, so intense that Jimin can distinctly hear the upbeat roar it launches into at his words. Both make Jimin feel powerful, in vastly different ways. Your lips form an enticing tiny opening as you gape at him, and the blood rushing through your body notches up the pulsing thrum he knows you can feel spiking through your clit now. The mere notion of riding a dick has your body primed and aching already.

“What did you say?”

“I merely repeated what you said. I don’t typically fuck on the first date, but seeing as how this isn’t a usual first…I think I can make an exception.”

In fact, Jimin is almost sure that if he doesn’t find himself in one of your holes in the next five minutes, he might make a fool of himself, similar to something a teenage human boy might experience. Typically, he doesn’t get to enjoy the tender confines of a human, not unless it’s part of the demon deal they make—which, thanks to the influx of paranormal romance stories out there, has increased somewhat in the last handful of decades.

The tip of your tongue pokes out and absently moves over the roundness of your bottom lip. “I don’t know if I understand what you’re saying.”

That’s cute; you trying to play it off like Jimin’s proclamation didn’t just create a wave pool in your panties. He can smell it, the light, tangy scent of your arousal. It blooms in the air as you shift to your knees on the bed; you’re unknowingly filling Jimin’s lungs with the smell of your dripping cunt.

He takes a deep, appreciative breath and allows a moment of tense silence to hang in the air between you. The thread snaps, thin as gauze. You’re on him in the next instant, one hand fisting in his hair and the other ripping at the buttons on his shirt. Your knees slide over the silk of the duvet as you simultaneously pull Jimin until his thighs knock the side of the bed and your front is pressed to his.

“Take your clothes off,” Jimin states, and you immediately stop your frantic groping of him and begin to shed your own clothes. “Bare yourself to me.” Jimin’s top lip quivers as his mouth forms around the commands, power bubbling in his veins as the small piece of you burns his insides; pain-laced pleasure threads through his every fiber, and he wants more.

Jimin follows your movements, watching as you strip off your long-sleeved shirt, tossing it aimlessly to the side before doing the same with your bra. You roll back onto your ass and kick your legs out in front of you across the bed and tear at the zipper and button on your jeans. It’s cute, the way you snarl and hiss at the offending denim as you wrestle it, along with your panties, down your legs. You finally kick free of them and, in the process, send a cloud of your heady arousal right into Jimin’s nose.

It’s enough to make him feral. The moment your last article of clothing falls to the floor, you splay yourself back on the bed, knees wide and arms extending above your head. Like a present, freshly unwrapped, and his to play with. Your hooded gaze meets his, like a challenge daring him to let his eyes drink their fill; and, oh boy, do they.

You are utterly divine. Jimin wants nothing more than to lick and kiss every inch of your striking skin, starting with the tender flesh behind your ear and ending with the points of your toes, mapping out your body like the temple that it is. Your nipples are tight peaks straining toward the ceiling, and your pussy lips are already slick and swollen with want; you paint the picture of perfect sexual carnality.

Jimin watches as your mouth tries to form his name. When it doesn’t come, a line forms between your brows, and you manage to gruff out a different word instead, “Demon.” It’s nowhere near as seductive as his name, but he’ll consider it a term of endearment all the same.

He chuckles, gripping your ankles and using a flex of strength to flip you around and position you on the bed just how he wants you. Your head hangs off the edge, hands raising in surprise to brace on his hips. Your chest rises and falls in quick succession, your breathing so harsh he can feel the thick exhale of your breath through the linen of his trousers.

“I’ll show you ‘demon’,” Jimin purrs seductively.

The button on his pants pops under his thumb, and the zipper slides down swiftly. Before Jimin can push them down, you’re hooking your fingers into the waistband of his pants and shoving them down. It’s an awkward angle for you; with your arms bent how they are, you only get them down his thighs. But, it’s enough. With a sway of his hips, Jimin gets his pants to drop to around his ankles.

He could use his power to disrobe instantly, but he finds this far more entertaining. Jimin revels in the slack-jawed look on your face as you take in his rigid length protruding in front of your face. The piercing in the tip glints in the ambient light, the first pearly string of his arousal already beaded and webbing along the silver ring.

Placing a thumb against your bottom lip, Jimin gently pries your jaw open until you’re stretched wide enough he can tease the tip of his cock inside. Your chest convulses, nostrils flaring as you continue to suck in greedy breaths through your nose, considering your mouth is growing fuller by the second as he continues to feed himself into the hot, wet confines. Using twin fistfuls of your violet hair, he holds you steady.

You swallow around him, the contracting of your throat sending tingles down Jimin’s spine and making his balls draw up as his whole body shudders. His control slips the tiniest bit, siphoning a sliver of your soul. It slams into him, causing him to jerk forward and drive even further into your throat, cutting off your air.

“Fuck!” Jimin roars, his eyes squeezing shut as he denies his body the release that nearly swept him away. This can’t be over yet; he’s just getting started.

😈😈😈

You gag, effectively choking on his cock as his pelvis presses flush against your chin, and you can feel his heavy balls crowd in close to your nose. There was a moment there, where you felt connected to him in a way that should scare you, but a different kind of fear quickly replaced that feeling. Panic looms heavy in your chest as your lungs protest the lack of air, but you can’t bring yourself to shove Jimin away.

It’s infuriating to be able to think his name but not be able to utter it aloud. “F-fuck you,” you rasp when he finally withdraws. Saliva strings from your parted lips to the glistening head and shaft of his cock, the tip heavily leaking pearlescent drops that mix with the glossy strands. His cloying taste lingers, and you want nothing more than to stretch your neck up and scoop those milky beads away with your tongue.

Every second since Jimin did whatever he did to you, you’ve barely had a hold on your desire to burrow into him, get beneath his skin, and pick away at his insides until you figure out how he ticks. You want to be inside of him and have him inside of you, anything to diminish what feels like a miles-deep trench between the two of you.

You’ve never felt such a visceral desire to fuck. It’s not that you’re a prude; if anything, you would consider yourself to have a healthy sexual appetite. However, this is different. This is you wholly and utterly wrecked, wanting Jimin in all possible ways.

“Oh, I plan to. But first—” Jimin teases, a wicked grin curling his plush lips. He forces you to watch upside down as he finishes disrobing. With each additional inch of flawless porcelain flesh he reveals, you grow wetter until you’re a whimpering, slick mess staring at his naked body, “—you’re going to choke on my cock some more while I taste that pussy.”

Jimin’s dirty words are like gasoline in your veins, and his hands slapping against the insides of your thighs to pry them open is the match. Heat boils beneath your skin, sweat beads and pools between your breasts, and glides down the slope of your neck to tickle your hairline.

Your mouth is open, and your tongue sticks out flat in welcome as Jimin juts his hips forward. The thick length of his cock slides past your lips, velvety smooth and tasting faintly of hot metal. His body molds along the front of yours, slick chest resting against your stomach.

The warm fan of his breath hits a second before the molten lick of his tongue slides from your clit to the cleft of your ass, his hands gripping the meat on the back of your thighs to raise your hips. Your scream at that initial contact is muffled by the thickness of his cock in your throat. Jimin buries himself in your esophagus, pistoning his hips in and out so relentlessly that you only manage tiny gasping breaths.

He doesn’t let up, pounding into your mouth with manic abandon. You have to brace your hands against his thighs, fingers digging into the muscles and nails leaving deep, crescent divots in the flesh. Sensations assault you from both ends as Jimin buries his face between your thighs.

Jimin feasts like a man—demon—starved. His tongue swirls, slides, and dips in intervals between his lips sucking and teeth dragging. Pleasure builds, starting at the base of your spine and moving up until even your tongue writhing on the underside of Jimin’s cock feels like a direct line to your clit.

“Mmf–uh!” you garble a moan that ramps into a shriek as your orgasm barrels through you.

“That’s right,” Jimin murmurs into the wet folds of your pussy, “cum all over my face and tongue, just like that.” He continues to lap at you, suckling and humming his delight.

He grunts and moans a litany of guttural words you can’t understand before emptying himself down your throat. Hips stuttering against your face, he throbs in your mouth, his piercing sliding along the roof of your mouth as he begins to pull out.

You lick your numb lips and work your aching jaw when Jimin fully withdraws from your mouth, but not before gripping the base of his swollen cock and tapping it against your tongue a few times, smearing his still-leaking arousal across your lips. You know you should feel mildly degraded, being used as a proverbial cum rag, but if anything, it turns you on even more.

“Fuck.” The word comes out like a whimper, your body clenching in the aftermath of one of the most intense orgasms you’ve ever experienced.

Jimin chuckles, “I’m getting to that part.”

“What are you doing to me?” you ask breathlessly. It’s not a question you expect an answer to, more a rhetorical musing that drifts from your muddled brain. So, it surprises you when Jimin steps back and cradles your upside-down face between his hands, lifting your face until it’s inches from his.

His scarlet eyes have taken on a golden ring around the edges. They pulse in tandem with each of his breaths. “I’ve laid claim to you is what I’ve done. And before you even think about spouting off about the deal, being that you are to remain unharmed, you are. You can feel it, you know I’m speaking the truth. My claim on your soul has nothing to do with your well-being. If anything, you are now stronger and more resilient than you’ve ever been before.”

He’s right. You can feel it in your bones. Not just their additional strength but the way your muscles cling to them, and you’re sure they would neither snap nor tear no matter how far you bend them. You are no longer the delicate mortal you once were. And you’re not sure if you care, either.

If anything, the strength is addicting.

You. Want. More.

“More,” you tell Jimin. “I need more. Please.”

You’re pretty sure you would do anything at this point for another taste, another dose of whatever this is that’s now zinging beneath your skin. Jimin drops his hold on your face and stretches his arms in the air above his head, lithe body stretching in all its glory before you.

It’s rapturous watching the way his body moves. Wanting to see the vision of him properly, you roll over and push up onto your knees. Jimin slowly brings his arms back down, threading his fingers together in front of him and pushing his palms out. The distinct crack of his knuckles sends chills down your spine.

A predatory glint catches in his eyes, eliciting another visceral response from your body, this one of desire. Not caring how desperate you seem, you once again throw yourself at him, hands gripping and tugging until you’ve wrestled him on top of you on the bed. He lands in the valley between your thighs, and you wrap your legs around him, holding him in place.

“Tell me your name,” Jimin whispers in command, lips brushing over yours.

It forms on the tip of your tongue, your impulse to give him exactly what he wants. But, perhaps you’re not as far gone as you thought because you are able to resist this. Slowly, you shake your head, and a sly grin forms on your face.

“No.”

Jimin’s brow pinches and his top lip curls in what you’ve realized is a tell, indicating that his patience is thinning. You roll your hips against his, thrilled by how the action makes the line between his brows disappear, and his lips pop open with a soft grunt.

“You’re not the only one that’s clever here, Demon. If I can’t use your name, you won’t have mine.”

You can see the challenge in his eyes, the pure delight at the prospect of the battle ahead. “So be it, little mouse, but be warned: you’ll break long before I do.”

His mouth covers yours, silencing any protest you might have made to his statement. The vehement denial turns fleeting the instant his tongue presses between your lips and invades your mouth.

The tangy taste of your own arousal mixes with the intoxicating natural heat of the demon himself. He tastes like blood and ash but also like a crisp drink of water after days in the desert, both your salvation and your demise.

“Ah!” you yelp as Jimin fists a hand into your hair and cranes your head back, breaking the kiss and exposing the length of your neck to him.

“Pay close attention, pet. You don’t want to miss a second of this.” His words are murmured, so soft against your skin as he says them between open-mouthed kisses along the column of your throat.

With every press of his mouth, his hips swivel in lazy circles that rub the thick shaft of his desire over your clit. It’s just enough pressure to drive you mad but not nearly enough to give you what you truly want.

Jimin takes first one nipple and then the other into the wet lock of his lips, lashing the pert tip with his tongue. The hand that was tugging your hair loosens, sliding down the side of your face before clasping around your neck like a five-fingered necklace.

You can feel the moment he begins to squeeze with his fingers and thumb, as they are so precisely placed on either side of your neck that they press against your jugulars. It creates a subtle pounding in your head, a lightheadedness that makes you hyper-aware of the way his teeth scrape over the tender flesh of your right breast before lightly piercing the skin.

A moan comes out in place of a scream as your body gives in to the depraved pleasure. This shouldn’t feel as good as it does, but it’s like Jimin is turning your entire body into one giant, throbbing erogenous zone. Pain is no longer something your body tries to pull away from. Instead, you find yourself arching your back so the points of his teeth pierce your flesh once more.

“F-fuck!” 

You can feel the heat of your blood pooling between your breasts for a moment before Jimin is lapping it up the same way he was licking at your pussy just moments ago. The sharp scent of hot copper punches the air when Jimin lifts his face and laughs, the sound dark and gravelly.

Peering down the slope of your nose the best you can, you catch a glimpse of his face before he dives back down to once again ravish the tight buds of your nipples. But that one glimpse is enough to paint a vivid picture of Jimin bathed in your blood, red eyes ringed in black, crimson smeared at the corners of his mouth, coating the tips of his teeth as he opened his mouth to laugh.

It does something to you, something primal and instinctive. Your body goes limp under him as your muscles coil before you snap. You throw your weight into him, shoving up with your hips and using the hold you have with your legs wrapped around him to your advantage. One moment, Jimin is buried between the mounds of your breasts, feasting on the tiny rivulets of crimson from his bites, and the next, he’s beneath you with a pleasant surprise on his bloody face.

“Look at you,” Jimin croons, his hands landing firmly on your hips. Using his hold, he undulates your hips, forcing the wet slit of your cunt to rub along the length of his dick, the ring in the tip catching on the hood of your clit with every pass. “You’re making a mess all over my cock.”

Bracing yourself on his chest, you let his hands encourage your hips with ease, luxuriating in the silky glide between your thighs. You’re relatively certain with just a few more minutes of this, and you could get yourself off, Jimin’s own pleasure be damned. But, it seems he picks up on that, and with a scoff, he uses his grip on your hips to force your body still.

“Don’t be an asshole!” you whine, digging your nails into the muscles of his chest. His dusky nipples stand out, and without thinking about it, you lean down and capture one between your teeth the same way he did yours. The skin pulls tight, and you love the sharp sound Jimin makes; something between a moan and a grunt.

A fist buries in your hair, and your head snaps back as Jimin wrenches you up, your teeth snicking free from his nipple. Black blood oozes from around the small rip in the bud, filling the hollow between his pecs and the notch at the base of his throat. The wound closes right before your eyes, sealing closed almost instantly. “Look at this mess. Clean it up,” Jimin growls low in his throat, the words barely above a whisper.

You immediately stick out your tongue, and with the grip on the back of your head, Jimin guides your mouth down to his chest. His blood is hot and thick, tasting strongly of rich spices, like the fiery notes of a mulled wine. You feel unhinged, so completely removed from who you were before Dom buried that little box in the woods. Maybe it’s delirium, and you’ve snapped, or perhaps this is just who you’ve always been…whatever it is, you can’t seem to stop.

Lips swollen and covered in demon blood, you leave a trail of macabre kisses up the length of Jimin’s neck before covering your mouth with his once again. The mix of your blood and his is heady and addicting, the perfect match of iron and spice.

“Why can’t I stop?” you whisper against Jimin’s lips, not giving him time to answer before you’re licking into his mouth again. “Why don’t I want to stop?”

😈😈😈

Jimin

You’re not the only one who doesn’t want to stop. It’s never been like this for Jimin before. He’s never once experienced something so raw and carnal. He is wholly and utterly fucked. Or, well, he will be in just…one…moment.

“Be a good girl and give us what we both want,” he commands you, using his grip on your hair to pull your lips off of his. “Ride my cock, and don’t stop until I tell you to.”

Jimin watches as you rear up, head cocked back because of his continued grip on your hair, reach between your thighs, and wrap your fingers around his rigid length. You stroke your hand up, thumb toying with the ring there, before sliding down. Continuing, you work your hand from root to tip a few more times until Jimin is sure he might explode.

The command to stop fucking around and start fucking him is on the tip of his tongue when you finally comply. You take him in one swift plummet, impaling yourself on his cock with a strangled cry that echoes through the room.

Cracks form in the dried blood around Jimin’s mouth. He can feel it pull and tug as his lips part with a groan. Your body moves over his, hips and tits bouncing. Loosening his hand in your hair, he slides it down at the same time he brings his other up. You fit perfectly in his hands, and the soft mounds of your breasts mold around his fingers as he squeezes them appreciatively.

“I can f-feel you so deep.” You’re mewling, panting and whining, the sounds a symphony of eroticism and pleasure to Jimin’s ears.

The bite marks on your chest have stopped bleeding, but Jimin still appreciates the way the dried crimson smears of his feasting look under his hands. Everything about your body drives him crazy and turns him into a barely-restrained animal.

The only reason he hasn’t shoved you face down on the bed and rutted you like a beast is because he wants to enjoy you a little bit longer before completely destroying you. He knows he would lose control of his abilities, gobbling down the rest of your soul in one gulp.

“Look at you, taking my cock so perfectly,” he grunts, digging his heels in and flexing his hips up as you drop down, forcing himself even deeper. You keen, increasing your pace as he continues to meet you stroke for stroke. Slipping his hands down, one latches on your hip, and the other presses to your lower belly, thumb finding your clit and swirling in precise circles.

“I, uh, fuck! I’m going to—”

The cresting of your orgasm cuts off your words. Your body shudders with the release, walls intensely contracting around his cock. Warmth floods Jimin’s body. He can feel every pulse of your body as if it’s begging for a reward.

Keeping his hold on you, he redoubles his effort, pistoning his hips into you at a manic pace. His thumb continues its assault on your clit, earning him delightful whimpers and moans from you.

“Give me another one. Fuck!” he grunts. Tears streak down your cheeks at the overstimulation, but your body gives him exactly what he wants by clamping down on his cock with your next orgasm.

Jimin can feel the way his tip pulses and his shaft grows engorged before his body succumbs to the pleasure, and he explodes, filling you so completely that torrents of cum leak from around his cock and string across his pelvis and your thighs.

The release rips his control to shreds and before Jimin can stop himself, he’s taking another hefty draft of your soul. It settles along the fibers of his being, coating his insides as thoroughly as he just coated yours.

There is no regret or remorse for the accidental slip. Jimin luxuriates in the euphoric aftermath. Post-soul sucking is nearly as good as post-orgasm, and he just so happened to experience both in the span of mere seconds. Reaching with one of his hands, he scoops a thick drop of cum up with his finger and lifts it to your mouth.

You don’t hesitate, wrapping your tongue around the offered digit. The moan you release is soft and sweet. Jimin drags you down, capturing your mouth once more in a devouring kiss.

He’s wholly and utterly satiated…for now.

He only hopes you’ll be as amiable to his new revelation because he’s finally made up his mind. Jimin plans to keep you…no matter what he has to do, no matter the words he’ll have to twist or who he will need to manipulate.

You will be his…

Forever.

😈😈😈

You try to resist Jimin as the weeks pass by, but your resolve is as formidable as wet paper. You’ve lost count of the times you’ve had him inside of you—welcomed him within the confines of your body and subsequently fed him slivers of your soul.

After a while, you begin to seek it out…hungry for his touch or rousing him with your lips around his cock, swallowing whatever he’ll give you. It’s unclear where the line was or when you crossed it, but here you are…lost in some in-between limbo.

You roll over, shoving away from Jimin’s naked body, and slide off the bed, his taste still clinging to your tongue. You’re still feeling the aftereffects of whatever just happened. Whatever it was, it wasn’t sex. At least, not regular sex. It was something…just something else.

Each time, it feels like a whole new experience. He shows you something you never thought possible and has you so wrung out you forget to question it. You can still feel him inside you, not just the phantom girth of his cock, but somewhere deeper. It’s like he’s permanently etched onto your bones now. As weird as that sounds, it’s exactly how it feels.

Crossing the expanse of his room, you stare at yourself in the mirror above an ornate chaise. You prod a finger beneath your eye, pulling the bottom lid down. No matter how much you poke and rub, the distinct red ring circling your pupil doesn’t go away.

From what little Jimin has told you over the weeks about what’s happening, you understand that you’re now a few pieces of your soul lighter. He assured you that you’re unharmed and as long as things go well, then when the deal with Dominique is complete, your soul will be restored…if you want it to be. Those were his exact—cryptic—words.

If you want it to be?

“What is that supposed to mean?” you ask, not for the first time.

Jimin shrugs, not having to ask you what you mean because somehow he has this innate ability to just know what’s on your mind. His nonchalance as he lounges against a mound of pillows on the bed grates. He’s acting like a cat that’s gotten the cream…and you suppose, maybe he has.

“It means exactly what it means.”

Dropping your hand from your face, you turn and bracket your bare hips with your hands, eyes narrowing in his direction. His answers are nonanswers, and no matter how much you try to muster anger at him over it…it doesn’t come.

You’re frustrated, yes. But anger isn’t something you’re able to grasp right now for some reason, and that should make you even more angry…yet, it’s as if you’re incapable of mustering one ounce of vitriol.

“Why can’t I get mad at you?” you ask instead of pressing your previous question, hoping maybe he’ll afford you some semblance of an acceptable answer.

Jimin laughs softly. “Because you don’t want to. And before you open that pretty mouth of yours to tell me differently…think really hard about it, and you’ll see that I am right. You love being here. Dare I say you might even love me.”

Now you’re the one laughing, though it’s a bit more hollow than you intend. “That’s absurd.” You taste the lie on your tongue as soon as you say it. “Go to hell,” you mutter under your breath.

“Already here, sweetheart.” Jimin slinks off the bed, very reminiscent of the way a serpent moves, all smooth lines and sinuous fluidity. “You’ll find some new clothes in the chifferobe. Get dressed unless you want to go to your little rendezvous like that.” His eyes sweep your naked body, and you can feel the intensity at which they smolder.

To avoid potentially missing your meet up with Dom, you rip your gaze from his and approach the aforementioned wardrobe. Within, you find an entire arsenal of clothes, all in your sizes. That’s one thing you’ve grown to really enjoy: the pure magic of the endless possibilities. You can have anything you want as long as it doesn’t go against Jimin’s wants and desires.

 You may have put on a fashion show or two at the expense of Jimin’s powers. With a simple snap of his fingers, he'd manifest it for you no matter how ridiculous the garment. It’s helped to pass the time. Between the endless fucking and having nothing better to do, well…

It’s been a month since that fateful night with your best friend at the crossroads. A lot can happen in a month. A lot that you’d never have expected. The muttered assurances and pleas you made to one another before you left with Jimin linger in your mind. Her promise to find a way to free you, your unfailing belief and assurance that she would and could do it.

And now? Well, now…you’re not so sure. Should you want to escape your ten-year fate? Probably. Do you? The jury is still out. There is one thing you do know, though. Every day you spend here with Jimin is one more day you get to enjoy the power and grace of whatever connection there is between you. You get to lose yourself in the contours and planes of his impossibly immaculate body; whether it’s human or not, you’ve decided you don’t really care because it just feels too fucking good.

The red ring in your eyes is a small price to pay in the grand scheme of it all. Your fingers flick over some of the newer garments, taking in the sleek feel of silk and the soft brush of leather. Everything in here exudes sex. Something you might have once been embarrassed by, but not now.

Grabbing an off-the-shoulder emerald silk top, you pair it with a simple pair of black jeans. The thick-soled Docs you wore the night of the deal go on after you pull on a pair of socks. The lilac of your hair has remained despite the numerous times you’ve washed it over the last month. Jimin just chuckled and fingered a lock of your hair when you asked him about it, saying something about how much he likes the color on you.

You’ve chalked it up to a flex of his power. After the first week of oddities, you stopped questioning it. The bathing chamber connected to his room offers a variety of luxury products, none of them ever seem to run out. Jimin enjoys soaking in a bath, something you’ve done with him more than a handful of times after a rough but fun session. Sessions such as dirtying up his sheets—which are always pristine and clean once more with just a flick of his wrist.

That little taste of power may make you no longer eager to escape your situation. Who you were before, the responsibilities you held, the people in your life…they all seem like a dream now, hazy and unclear. With the exception of Dominique, of course.

You’re excited to see your friend, but that’s about as far as your enthusiasm goes. Sighing, you turn to face Jimin. Who, in the span of however long it took you to get ready, has cleaned the entire room and dressed himself in a suit similar to the one he wore the night you met him.

His black hair is mussed in a way that looks sexy, tendrils falling from the coif to frame his ruby-colored eyes. Eyes that you have lost yourself in countless times and that are starting to mirror your own. You watch as a cherry lollipop appears in his hand, the wrapper already gone. It shouldn’t be so seductive, the way he using his tongue to seat the candy past his teeth. But you’re desperately turned on by the display.

“Fuck you,” you gruff, knowing he’ll deny you if you proposition him for a quickie before the meeting because it’s never just a quickie with Jimin. No, he turns anything into a full-blown, hour-long experience. Not that you’re complaining.

“Don’t pout…or do. I like the way it makes your lips poke out.” Jimin gestures toward you with the lollipop. “I’ll make it up to you when we return, little mouse. Promise.” He pops the stick into his mouth once more and then holds out his hand to you, one eyebrow raising in silent command.

It doesn’t hurt, necessarily, sliding through the space between Jimin’s world and the other—the one you used to call home. Used to? You’re not sure when that became the distinction.

The moment your feet find the solid ground of the crossroads clearing, you anticipate a forlorn feeling or for an intense desire for salvation to slam into you. Only, it doesn’t come. But maybe seeing Dominique will be the key; unlock the floodgates or something.

She appears a few minutes later. The sound of her boots crunching through the underbrush draws your eyes to the two trees across the clearing through which you followed her just a month ago.

Dominique yells your name before breaking out into a run. Jimin squeezes your fingers where his hand is still wrapped around yours. In all the time you’ve been with him, you still haven’t given him your name. But, now…he knows.

Irritation colors your insides. You snatch your hand from his, earning a soft chuckle from him, and try to plaster on a smile as Dom closes the distance and throws her arms around your neck.

“Oh my gods, oh my gods, oh my gods,” she chants, voice on the verge of hysterics. “Let me,” she begs, her hands sliding to your shoulders so she can hold you at arm's length. Her eyes sweep you from head to toe, clearly checking to make sure you’re unharmed.

“Not a hair out of place, I believe, is what you said,” Jimin says coyly. “Even the color is the same.”

Dominique ignores him, keeping her focus on you. “Your eyes,” she whispers. “What happened to your eyes?”

“Side effect of my time there.” You shrug. “I’m okay, Dom, really.”

When you were first taken, that would have felt like a lie. Now, however, it’s so far from that. You are okay—more than. You glance at Jimin over your shoulder, trying to gauge whether or not he’s listening. He’s absently twirling the lollipop's stick and humming softly, seemingly wholly tuned out.

Still, you let Dominique pull you further away. She pitches her voice low, pulling you in for another hug to disguise the fact she pushes her mouth close to your ear and whispers, “I’ve figured it out. Grann knows a way we can entrap the demon. All I need is his true name. Do you know it?”

You’ve been able to say it for the last two weeks now since Jimin lifted the demand for you not to use it, but for some reason, you don’t want to tell her, so it doesn’t feel like a betrayal. You subtly shake your head. “Sorry.”

“Fuck. Okay. I know you didn't ask for this, but you're handling this better than I thought you would. I mean, I was prepared for something like this for me, but you had no idea what would happen. Not that I think you’re handling it better than I would…I just, yeah, I’m glad you’re alive.”

Dominique pulls back a little so she can look into your eyes but still remain close. The skin around her eyes is darker, her hair a bit disheveled and the purple strands completely faded and washed out. She looks tired, exhausted, really. But what she just said sparks something in you, tickles a niggling you had in the back of your mind from a month ago that resurfaces now. She was prepared for something like this for herself? Interesting. Before you can think further on the matter, Dom sighs heavily, and your attention draws back to her tired expression.

You pause for a beat, waiting for the concern and love for your friend to come crashing down on you. Much like your anger, it doesn’t so much as tickle through your mind. If anything, you’re feeling restless and eager to finish up this meeting and return to Jimin’s quarters in the Obsidian Fortress. Quarters that, you realize now, feel more like home than Dominique’s arms do.

“Maybe I can try, though. For next time.” You try to offer her somewhat of a reassuring smile, but you’re not sure it lands. Her eyes flick over your face, searching…for what, you’re unsure. Whatever she finds there, though, must satisfy her enough that she nods.

“I’ve missed you,” she whispers.

“I’ve missed you, too, Dom. You need to take care of yourself. Can’t rescue me if you can barely keep your feet.”

😈😈😈

Jimin

“...rescue me…”

Jimin admits he was barely paying attention. His own fault, really. But those two words ring in his ears as if you’d shouted them for the entire world to hear. He had really thought you were coming around, enjoying your time with him.

But this? You’re still maintaining some sort of fantasy where your little witchy friend comes to your rescue? Oh, that makes Jimin’s blood boil. How dare you. He’s done nothing but satisfy your every gods damned need and desire.

His plan for forever jumps right to the forefront of his mind. Apparently, he can’t continue to dawdle over this. It’s time to make his move, consequences be damned.

Jimin watches as you giggle and chat with your friend, completely unaware of the fury brewing a few feet away from you. He hopes you’re enjoying yourself because this will be the last time you ever do this again.

The hour drags by. But, when it’s finally time to say goodbye, it doesn’t take much effort on his part. If he hadn’t overheard the little bit of your conversation earlier, he’d almost think you were coming to him willingly—eager, even.

After the fifth time Jimin tasted your soul, he found it hard to read you. Your mind was closed to him; otherwise, he would shove right in and scour it for any morsel of information. Clearly, he’s coddled you too much. So unbecoming of a demon, and there’s only one way he can think to rectify his folly and move forward with his plan all at once…one way—or demon, more precisely—that can give him what he wants; the deal with Dominique be damned.

😈😈😈

It feels right, sliding your hand into Jimin’s. You give Dominique one final, half-hearted wave, and then your breath is stolen by the sensation of falling. It sweeps through your belly, and when you blink, you expect to see Jimin’s lavish room, but instead, you’re somewhere else, somewhere colder and more bleak.

“Where are we?” you ask.

“Jimin, what a pleasant surprise,” comes a dark, familiar voice behind you. Chills cascade down your spine, replacing the confusion from seconds before. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

Jimin tightens his grip on your hand and turns, pulling you with him to face the same being from the first day you were brought to this realm. “I have a favor to ask.”

Coal-black eyes meet yours, and they widen in surprised delight. “My, my, Jimin, you’ve been busy, haven’t you? And yet, her soul is still mostly intact. Restraint and commitment, I’m impressed. What’s the favor?”

“I want to keep her.”

“Keep me?” you ask, startled by this revelation. 

Ignoring you, Jimin continues, “Forever. Dissolve my deal, make her mine in all ways.”

“Interesting,” the dark figure coos. “So very interesting.” With a swirl of dark fabric and smoke, he’s standing before you, so close you can see the purple-black pallor around his eyes and the fine points of his teeth as he smiles. “Mm, I’m intrigued. What’s brought about this request?”

Jimin opens his mouth but closes it again before clearing his throat and tightening his grip on your hand. “I’ve taken a liking to…her.”

“More than a liking, it seems,” Dark Lord chuckles. “Though, it doesn’t seem like you really need my interference. She seems willing enough.”

“What?” Jimin asks, finally looking at you for the first time since pulling you here. “But, I heard—”

“What she wanted the human to hear.”

A long, pale finger hooks under your chin and angles your head, tilting your face from side to side. “Yes, quite willing. Isn’t that so, kitten? Ah-ah, don’t lie to us.”

“Yes,” you whisper.

“If she’s a willing soul, then there is no need for protection. By that account, the deal is void,” he continues, slowly examining your face. “All you need to do is take it all…every drop of her willing soul.”

Without responding, Jimin whisks you away. You suddenly find yourself standing in the middle of Jimin’s room, with him standing right in front of you and his eyes boring into yours so intently.

“Say it.”

“Say what?” you ask.

Jimin gathers you against his chest, arms banding around your waist. “Tell me he’s right.”

“He’s right, Jimin. I’m willing. I-I don’t know…what happened, or when…maybe you’ve manipulated me somehow, and this is all your doing—but, fuck, somehow he’s right.”

His reply is hesitant, uncertain, “You want to be with me?”

Instead of reassuring him once again, you turn the question back on him. “Only if you want to be with me. Tell me I’m more than just part of a demon deal, that I’m not some coveted prize that you’re going to toss away in ten years.”

“No, no, I’d never do that. Even if I had to force you, I’d have never let you go.” At least he has the sense to look sheepish at admitting he’d use force if necessary.

“Wouldn’t that have hurt you somehow, breaking the deal?” Worry creases your brow, even at the mere thought.

Jimin shrugs, pulling you impossibly closer. His warm breath fans over your face as he says, “What’s a few years of punishment in the sanguine pits for breaking a deal compared to an eternity with you?”

You can’t help but laugh softly, shaking your head at the crazy turn of events. “So, what now?” you ask, voice a little shaky at the sudden prospect of what he might say.

“Say it again,” he requests, breathy and fervent in his need to hear it once more, just to be sure.

It comes naturally now, saying precisely what you want.

“I’m willing.”

Jimin responds by cupping your face in his hands and slanting his mouth over yours. You recognize it the instant he starts to sip from your soul. With deep, long swallows, Jimin pulls at that little place inside you…and you let him.

You open yourself to him, accepting this as your fate. Maybe he truly did manipulate you and took away your free will all those weeks ago, but right now, in this moment, you can’t bring yourself to care. Because it feels right…this feels right.

“Sweet, sweet soul,” Jimin murmurs against your mouth. He’s greedy, tongue and lips working as he continues to taste you through the last few drops. “You’re now mine forever, little mouse.”

With eyes of vermillion and honey, you come alive…perhaps for the first time in your life.

All because your friend buried a box.

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