#I haven’t had the balls to reblog but I might have to warn people it’s time to block the Hotchner fic tag…
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micallum · 2 years ago
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Not to give Laura shivers: but I’ve read a couple of Agent Hotchner fics that are 🔥 and I’m not a shit blogger so I’m going to have to reblog.
I mean… why do I get judged for this? That’s a whole entire man!
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thyme-in-a-bubble · 2 years ago
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thistle, part one
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a/n: I'm posting the next part in a few days, so you won't have to wait too long to find out what happens next ♡
summary: “A title that’s been true since the moment I was born, but there are also a few others that are just as real. I am a son, I am a brother, I am a soldier. I am still the exact same person you spoke to only yesterday. I haven’t changed one bit, so please don’t act like I have. Please, at least call me James.”
warnings: James Potter x reader, royal au, prince!James, servant!reader (lady's maid), forbidden romance, secret relationship, historical au (beginning of the 1920s), references to WW1, surely extremely historically inaccurate but this is just for fun, lovesick!James, weapons, grief, death, smut, kissing, attending a ball, dancing, pussyjob, penetrative sex, unprotected sex, dirty talk, creampie, cockwarming, oral
word count: 6148
∼ gentle reminder that feedback, but especially reblogs are the way you support writers on here ∽
masterlist | join my taglist
series masterlist - next part
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Marching up to the bespectacled man exiting the stables, his clothes all ruffled and dirtied from the ride he’d presumably just taken on this drizzly day, “excuse me, sir?” he slowed his trek at the sound of your soft voice, turning his head to look at you in surprise, “do you know the way to the servant's entrance? I seem to be a bit lost.”
“Um, yeah,” he blinked a second, taken aback by your question as he gave you a quick once over, “it’s just down that path,” he pointed towards the east side of the castle, “green door, can’t miss it.”
“Thank you,” you nodded, tightening your grip on your suitcase and began to move in that direction. 
“Are you new here?” he asked swiftly, halting your movements. 
“Kinda,” you said, “I’m the queen mother’s new lady’s maid.”
“Oh,” a genuine smile bloomed on his face, “I didn’t know grand-, I mean, her majesty Delilah was coming for a visit.” 
“Well, I’d imagine you as, I presume, a groundskeeper,” you guessed, squinting your eyes at the helpful stranger in front of you, “isn’t exactly first on the list of people who need to be notified of such things.” 
Choking out a small chuckle, neither confirming nor denying your guess, he simply glanced down at his muddy boots, “yeah, I guess you’re right.”
Looking back over your shoulder at the large castle looming over you, “I’m sorry, but I should really get going. Her majesty likes to freshen up quite a bit after a long trip such as this.” 
“Oh, yeah,” he exhaled, clearly not ready to part ways yet, “you go take care of that, I’ll see you around.”
“See you!” you shouted over your shoulder as you made your way towards the discreet green door. 
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“That’s pretty,” a smoky voice from out of nowhere made you jump and promptly stop your soft humming, dropping the small bouquet of wildflowers you had picked but a moment ago. Turning to see who else could be out here in the forest, you spotted the helpful figure from the day before, leaning against a tree.
“Jesus! You gave me a fright!” a hand came up to clutch your chest. 
“Sorry,” he smiled, shifting the bent hunting rifle that rested over his burly forearm. 
“It’s fine, no harm done,” you exhaled slowly, “just need to make my heartbeat understand that as well…”
Watching as you momentarily bent down to pick the dropped flowers off the forest floor, “you out on a walk I presume?” he pushed off the tree and stepped closer.
“Yeah, well,” you rose back up, “the weather finally cleared up, so I thought a bit of fresh air might do me well,” you said, gliding one of your cold hands down into your coat pockets, “plus I’ve heard so much about the grounds here, I wanted to see them for myself.” 
“They are quite something, aren’t they?” he smiled warmly down at you. 
Feeling heat begin to rise in your cheeks from his unwavering glare, you coughed lightly and glanced down at the humble bouquet clutched in your grasp, “and, um, you’re-”
“Hunting,” he filled in before you could manage to finish your guess.
“Oh, am I getting in your way?” worry filled your voice, imagining that bullets could start flying over your head as soon as a bird flew by, “is it safe for me to be out here? I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware-”
“Nah, you’re good,” he waved a reassuring hand, “I split up from the others a while ago and then when I heard you, I wandered even further away from the rest.”
“You followed me?” he noticed your eyes flicker down towards the weapon he was carrying. 
“I-, oh god,” he winced, scrunching his expression up in regret and bowing his head, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I am a stranger to you with a deadly firearm, not a harmless bunny rabbit,” you could literally see the imaginary whip he was punishing himself with, “I’m sorry I scared you, I’ll just go-”
“No!” flew out your lips before you had a chance to think, “It’s fine, you can stay if you want.” 
Gazing into your eyes a moment, he then exhaled, “thank you, miss.” 
“Y/l/n,” you told him, “my name is Y/n Y/l/n.”
“Y/n,” the corners of his lips curled up as he tasted your name on his tongue. 
“And your name?”
“James,” he said, then stressed, “just James.”
James… like the youngest of the two princes? You shouldn’t act too surprised; it was a common enough name after all. 
“Can I ask you something?” he spoke as you wordlessly agreed to go for a stroll together among the birch trees.  
“Sure.”
“How long have you been the queen mother’s lady’s maid? It’s just, I remember her previous one, the one she had before the war, and I feel like I would have noticed when you came along.”
“It’s been about 6 months now…” you answered rather sombrely. 
“You don’t sound pleased about that.”
“No,” you glanced in his direction to underline your statement, ���I love the job, don’t get me wrong, it’s just-,” you choked on the bitter fact and opted to say, “it’s complicated.”
“Is it too complicated for a man like me to comprehend?” he offered with a gentle smile. 
Letting a low sigh flow out, you spoke, “that previous one you remember?” he nodded in confirmation, “that was my mom.” You tried to ignore how your bottom lip began to quiver, “she had me out of wedlock and later in her life, so not many people knew about me. But her majesty Delilah did. She’d always been very fond of my mother, so she let me grow up there at Cudworth palace. She-,” you let out a shaky breath, still finding it difficult to vocalize, “she became ill a few years back, so her majesty made the decision to let me inherit the position. Made sure I was set up for a good life, I guess… My mother trained me for as long as she could till I was nothing short of flawless. It’s been 6 months… 6 months with the job and 6 months without her…”
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“Yes, I think the sapphires will do quite nicely for tonight,” Delilah purred as her weathered fingers brushed over the jewellery spread out in a presentational fashion on the vanity she sat at. 
Wrapping a silver lock around your finger, you carefully pinned the last piece in place, securing her intricate updo. Glancing at the finished product in the reflection, you then agreed, “sapphire it is,” plucking the precious stones off the doily-clad table and gently adorning her earlobes with them. 
“Beautiful work, dear,” Delilah gave your hand a small pat as you secured the last earring, momentarily catching your eye in the mirror. 
The dragon lady. That’s what people called her. Though, through all of your life, the intimidating queen mother had been nothing but kind to you. It was clear that she had a soft spot for you, though you’d never dare to confirm that suspicion.
“Thank you, madam,” a soft smile quickly warmed up your features as you checked her hair one last time, “I hear the prime minister will be attending dinner tonight.”
“Oh, well, I guess I couldn’t avoid him forever. Hopefully, they won’t seat him beside me this time, it was so awfully boring last time, kept on talking about cricket.” 
“Could always be sneaky and pretend that you can’t hear him,” you suggested with a sly grin. 
“Wouldn’t that be something,” her crow's feet framed eyes glinted with a youthful mischievous glow. 
Your shared giggle was interrupted as the door to her champers creaked open. Turning to look, you saw none than your helpful stranger.
“Grandma,” James simply sauntered in as if he owned the place, “I was wondering if you could-,” both his words and his brisk pace fell short as he spotted you, “oh, hi,” your presents promptly brought a fluttering smile to his lips. 
Just as you were about to speak up, your eyes wide enough to burst at his audacity, Delilah bellowed, “good lord, James, it’s been enough time, you really must shred that army brashness and start entering a room the way you were raised to. This is not a war room, it’s the castle’s peacock suite!”
“Right,” he chuckled lightly, his eyes never staying on his grandmother for long before flickering back to you, “sorry granny.”
Why was the groundskeeper referring to the queen mother his grandmother? It couldn’t be because-
“Y/n,” Delilah turned in her comfortable chair, “I don’t think you’ve been acquainted. This is my dear James,” she presented with an outstretched arm, “the youngest of my two grandsons.”
Swiftly averting your flabbergasted gaze, you curtsied timidly and gasped, “your highness,” your terrified eyes darting across the Persian rug. 
You’d only gotten to know the prince’s likeness through old paintings of him as a child. The battle-scared man standing before you now looked nothing like the bespeckled young royal captured in the portrait you’d passed countless times before. 
“It’s a pleasure to meet you miss,” he smiled warmly, bowing his head slightly at you in return. 
“Now,” Delilah reached for her cane and slowly pushed herself up to her feet, “what was it you needed?” 
“Yeah, um,” he thought for a second, seeming awfully distracted, “it was-… I’m sorry, I completely forgot what it was.”
“Well, maybe you’ll recall during dinner, my boy,” she slowly moved towards the door, “shall we go down?”
“You go ahead,” James gesticulated, “I just need Y/n to send a message down to the kitchen for me. We wouldn’t want them to hold back on the wine now that prime minister Ferrell is joining us.”
“Oh, bless you,” Delilah grinned before disappearing out of the room, “that’s why you’re my favourite.” 
Closing the heavy door behind the former monarch, James gently grabbed you by the elbow and guided you further into the room. Preparing yourself for the worst, you immediately promised, “I’ll go relay the message at once,” your head still bowed, not daring to look him in the eye. 
“You don’t really have to, I already sent word down an hour ago. I simply said that to get a moment alone with you,” he lowered himself in an effort to catch your cautious gaze, “Y/n,” breathing out your name as if it weighed a ton, “would you please look at me?”
Only momentarily flickering your eyes up to meet his, you blurted out, “forgive me, your majesty, I swear I didn’t know,” your heartbeat was so strong you could hear it pounding in your ears, “I would have never spoken to you in that manner if I knew who you were!”
“Please do not apologise,” goosebumps bloomed on your skin as you felt his fingers briefly caress your arm, “I was so grateful that you didn’t just stiffen up like everyone else, you talked to me like any other man. So, for that, I thank you and beg you to please not change it now that you know.”
“What? I-I couldn’t do that! It isn’t proper, it isn’t right!”
“Why not? You did it before.”
“Well, I didn’t know you were a prince before.”
“A title that’s been true since the moment I was born, but there are also a few others that are just as real. I am a son, I am a brother, I am a soldier. I am still the exact same person you spoke to only yesterday. I haven’t changed one bit, so please don’t act like I have. Please, at least call me James.”
“Your majesty, I couldn’t.”
“Why not, Y/n? It’s just my name, it’s not gonna bite you, didn’t before and I promise it won’t start doing it now.”
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“Thomas,” king Fleamont glanced up from his papers to address his eldest son, “we’ve invited a few eligible ladies for tonight. Please actually talk to them this time, don’t just sulk in the corner with your brother.”
“Christ,” James' brother groaned, “papa, I thought this ball was just a little get-together now that granny is in town. Must I truly have to be paraded around every chance there is?”
“If that’s what it takes for you to find a wife, yes,” his father said sternly, then returned his attention to the crisp newspaper.
Grumbling, Thomas slumped back, huffing beside his brother on the tufted couch, “let’s hope they at least push their tits up to the heavens above,” he muttered under his breath for only James’ ears to receive, “that might make it tolerable.”
Chuckling at his sibling’s pout, James then suggested, “since this is for grandmama, why don’t we extend the invitation to Y/n?”
Furrowing her brow over the small fluffy dog in her lap, Euphemia questioned her son’s bold idea, “who’s that?”
“Granny’s lady’s maid,” his words awoke a severe expression to all but one of his family member’s faces. 
“Why that’s a wonderful idea, James!” Delilah cheered, “she does indeed deserve a bit of fun.”
Leaning in closer, Thomas hissed in his brother’s ear, “have you gone quite mad? A servant at a ball? Look at a calendar, brother, it isn’t December yet.”
“She isn’t that bad,” James defended, a storm quickly brewing in his chest, “plus, you know, granny’s not that young anymore, it might be a great help for her to be there as support. Just as a precaution.” 
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“But I have nothing to wear!” you protested, “I didn’t bring a gown, let alone own one.”
“I know you don’t,” Delilah said calmly, not taking any of your blubbering to heart, “that’s why I had a few maids go through an old trunk of mine that I never brought with me to Cudworth,” she snapped her finger at the butler in the corner as he swiftly presented the dusty box he was balancing, “you are gonna wear this,” the top slipped off and you caught sight of the most stunning lavender beaded gown you’d ever beheld in your entire life. 
“Your Highness,” you marvelled at the way it sparkled in the low light, “I can’t wear that.”
“I know it’s not the latest fashion, but it’ll do a lot better than that frock you’ve got on now. I only remember wearing it once at a ball back in 1861.”
“I-…” you tried to protest, though nothing came out. 
“Y/n, this is not a proposition, you are gonna wear that gown and that is final.”
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“God, this soiree is even more ghastly than the last one,” Thomas glanced back over at the cluster of young women fanning themselves and batting their luscious eyelashes at the eligible heir, “you think people would notice if we sneaked off?”
Ever thankful that he didn’t receive the same level of unyielding attention, James cocked his brow at the man half-heartedly attempting to hide behind him, “I don’t think that’s an option, brother,” then snatched up two tall flutes of stary bubbles and handed one off, “here, have another glass of champagne.”
“Thanks, but I’m gonna need a lot more in order to survive the 12 dances I've been swindled into later tonight,” he pouted and took a large gulp. Just then, as the crown prince swallowed down the stinging carbonated beverage, he caught sight of the figure that appeared at the top of the wide staircase. “Wait,” he elbowed his brother, ushering him to glance in that direction, “who’s that?”
Recognising you immediately as you timidly ascended the grand steps, clutching onto the side of your lilac dress, lifting it off the tile so as to not have to trip over it, James uttered through his growing smile, “that’s Y/n,” and nothing whatsoever could stop his unwavering gaze.  
“Really?” he scoffed, “that’s the scullery maid?”
“That’s her…” James replied dreamily. 
“I gotta admit, in that dress, you could almost mistake her for a real princess.”
“Yeah…” James uttered softly, not hearing a word of what he had just agreed with. “Hold this, will you?” without looking, he handed his glass off to his brother and left his post as the crown prince's unofficial shield. 
“James!” Thomas hissed, standing there in alarm, one glass in each hand, not sure if he should follow or not, “where are you going? Don’t leave me alone! I’ll be swallowed whole!”
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Catching sight of James’ determined approach, you let out a deep and shaky exhale. 
“Y/n!” he smiled, coming to a jovial stop right in front of you, ignoring every merry man trying to catch his high-regarded attention. 
“Your highness-” you started, but his voice cut in, breaking your greeting in half. 
“James,” he corrected you, the glint in his eye promptly sending a shiver down your corseted spine.
“Good evening.”
“I hope it’s not too forward of me for saying this, but you look absolutely beautiful tonight.”
Your breath got caught in your throat as you blushed over his honeyed words, “thank you, your highness. Though I wouldn’t dare take any of the credit, this was all your grandmother’s doing. This is actually one of her old dresses,” you glanced down at the elegant gown, carefully playing with the skirt and presenting it. 
Looking over the fabric just as you did, his earnest words nearly didn’t catch your ears, “I wasn’t complimenting your dress…”
Blinking up into his warm eyes, you found yourself speechless, clueless of how to respond to such flattery by someone of his stature. 
“Would you care for a dance?” he asked unexpectedly, evidently not caring about the improper nature of the request, and looking at you as if you were the only person in the entire ballroom. 
“That’s very kind of you, your majesty, but I’m afraid I would just embarrass you,” you averted your gaze, “you see, I don’t know how.”
Briefly glancing back at his parents, checking to see if they were watching, James then grabbed your hand, it seeming so small and dainty in his, and uttered, “come with me,” discreetly guiding you out into one of the vacant side chambers. 
Following his lead, looking back over your shoulder in fear that someone might notice, it calmed you ever so slightly to see that everyone else was entirely enraptured by the dazzling event. 
Shutting the door behind you, his hand still holding yours, he gently turned you around to face him once more. Hearing the string quartet still loud and clear through the walls, the prince smiled, “so, miss Y/l/n,” asking you once more, now in a more private setting, “may I have the honour of this dance?”
Lifting the back of your hand up to give it a small peck, eye contact never wavering, you answered, “the honour would be mine,” blinking up at him through your lashes, “yes, yes you may.”
“Okay, so you just put your left hand right here,” he grabbed it and slid it up, past the many shiny medals adorning his chest, to rest upon his broad shoulder, “and keep the right one where it is,” you inhaled sharply as you felt his free palm slide into place on your waist.
“A-alright,” all the hairs on your body stood up at the intimate proximity, “and now?”
Your right hand entirely engulfed in his, he glided his thumb over it, delicately swiping over a few of your fingers, “now you just let me lead,” noticing how your jaw clenched, he reassured you, “don’t worry, love, it’s easy,” you felt your tense muscles begin to relax a bit at his deep soothing tone, “I’ll do all the hard work, you just trust me, yeah?”
“Yeah,” you offered him a small nod as he gently began to move, taking you with him as he fell into the song’s rhythm as if it was second nature to him. 
Simply swaying softly at first, it didn’t take long before he had you flowing to the music, slowly making your way deeper into the room, dancing further away from the lines of light the closed door cast. 
When you eventually felt him gain more confidence and move your body around freely, you followed the instinctual reflex to briefly glance down at your shoes. Feeling his hand let go of your waist momentarily, he whispered, “don't look at your feet,” and lifted your chin up so you could meet his gaze, “look right here.” 
Letting his finger drop back down into place, you felt his palm move and slide around to your lower back, drawing you in just a little bit closer. Feeling yourself disappear into the warm eyes veiled behind his spectacles, completely enraptured by his being and entranced by the way he moved you, you felt his hitched breath hit your skin as he leaned in close enough for your lips to graze against each other. 
But just as your eyelids fluttered close in anticipation of his eventual touch, the sound of the door, now a good ways away, creaking open halted your dance at once. 
“James?” you heard the crown prince call out, music now more vibrant as it didn’t have to travel through walls anymore to reach your ears, “you in here?”
Acting quickly, James pulled you around the corner and settled you into the little alcove there, pushing you up against the plate mail stature decorating the small corner and cloaking your figure with his own. His bulky frame swallowed nearly all of the starry light streaming in from the tall windows scattered around the chamber, causing you to be able to see him and only him. 
“Seriously brother, you have to get out here before pa realises that you’re gone!”
Disregarding his sibling’s warning, James stood his ground, completely enraptured and sharing your breath as he pressed himself up against your voluminous gown. You weren’t sure if it was because of the proximity or if your fingers simply followed the magnet calling them, but you found yourself pressing your palms against the silky fabric of his detailed jacket, feeling his taught abdomen expand with every shaky breath. 
Dilated pupils flickering down towards your lips, you found your own mirroring his, fearing that you might faint in the intensity of it all. 
His lips pressed against yours before you even had the chance to fathom that it was actually happening. The prince was kissing you. His lips were brushing against yours not in curiosity, but in genuine yearning.  
“Come on James, stop messing around, I know you’re in here!”
A small string of saliva followed as James reluctantly pulled back, thumbs brushing over each one of your cheeks as he stared deeply down into your hazy eyes. 
“Come to my room at midnight,” he whispered breathlessly, restraining himself to dive back in. 
“Your highness, I-”
“Please,” he interrupted desperately. 
You didn’t give yourself another moment to think before giving him an answer, being completely spellbound, you uttered, “yes.”
And with a bright smile, he let go of you and backed away, still staring as you had to reach out for support against the wall in order to not tumble back against the ornamental armor. 
“Just hold your horses, Thomas,” he called out to his frantic brother, eyes still locked with yours, “I’m coming!”
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Hearing the rapid beating of your heart thumping in your ears, you let out a shaky breath. It took you a long moment to finally mustered up the courage and let your fist come into contact with the prince’s door. 
Almost instantaneously was it ripped open as if James’ fingers themselves had already been mere inches from the silver knob, impatiently lying in wait like a lion on the hunt, the action was so swift that it startled you. 
Face lighting up as he saw you, nervously standing outside his chambers, he promptly grabbed onto your wrist and pulled you inside. 
As the door shut behind you, “h-hi,” you offered him a meek smile and stood in the dim room as if it was a china shop. 
Elatedly biting down on his plump bottom lip, he echoed, “hi,” sliding his fingers down to weave through your own. Using the hold as leverage, he gently pulled you in closer, his other palm ready to catch your cheek before confidently pressing his lips against yours. 
When he momentarily pulled away, you squeaked, “your majesty-,” hindering him from taking your lips once more.
“James,” he corrected you breathily, keeping his eyes shut and nuzzling his nose lightly against yours. 
“James…” you tried to keep your head levelled, “what am I doing here?”
“What do you mean? Do you not want to be here?” he took the hand still enveloped in his and pressed it against his chest, “here, with me?”
“I…” this was wrong. The list of punishable things to stray away from in your line of work was extensive, but this one was certainly at the top, “James…”
“Christ, that sounds good coming from your lips,” he groaned, seizing your lips again and flexing his fingers on the side of your head, lightly messing up your primly pinned hair. 
Feeling yourself melt under his touch, the kisses began to wander, scattering down your goosebump-ridden neck. 
“We…” your breathing was heavy and ragged, “we can’t… What if someone finds out?”
Pulling back, he gently shook his head, “they won’t,” dark eyes boring into your very soul. 
“But I can’t-… Y-you’re-…”
“I?”
“You are-…”
“I am just me… Just James,” he stared down at you, begging you to stay. 
“But-”
“I am yours,” he promised you earnestly, a hint of fear glinting in his golden eyes, “I am all yours.”
Choking down a sob, you then found yourself pulling him down for another kiss, letting his overwhelming vow sink in and dim that warning light pleading you not to venture any further. 
Soon clawing at the silky fabric of his jacket, your fingers caught in the two rows of shiny buttons, restraining yourself from just ripping them clean off. Letting out a quiet whimper as James suddenly detached from you, taking a step back, gazing down at your heaving form, not giving in as you reached out for him to return. 
Eyes fixed, his own fingers slowly found the buttons along his torso and began to undo them. Tilting his chin up, he watched you closely as he carefully unveiled every inch of himself to you. Moving your fingers up to mirror his actions, he swiftly spoke up, “wait, let me do it,” stopping you before you’d truly begun, “please.”
The wish made you suck in a breath in anticipation, slowly lowering your hands back down to either side of your skirt, clutching onto the heavy lavender fabric for support as you gave him a small nod. 
For a moment, you thought he was gonna bear it all to you right then and there, perhaps he did as well, but his fingers stilled right at the waistband of his underwear when only they remained. Blinking sluggishly as you tried to take in his breathtaking visage, in what felt like a millisecond, James had moved to be back into your proximity. Walking around to stand behind you, his fingers then began to work at the numerous buttons and laces, freeing you of the unusually extravagant ensemble. 
You hadn’t even noticed how you’d stopped breathing till his lips pressed against your exposed shoulder and let the first layer fall. 
Little by little, the weight you carried was lightened as he tossed more and more fabric to the cold floor, creating quite the poofy puddle. When the corset fell off, James quickly replaced the stiff restraining item with his large warm palms, feeling your waist through the last thin layer remaining, inhaling deeply against the back of your neck. 
Gently turning you around, he slid his hands up your sides, promptly lifting your arms to stay above your head. Not dropping his eyes from yours, he glided fingers down to gather up the material of your delicate chemise, only lifting it over your head when the whole length of it was bunched up in his fists. 
Not being able to wait any longer, you let your arms fall, draping them around his broad shoulders and pressing your bare body up against his, the palpable tent in his briefs twitching against your stomach at the contact. 
Kissing him deeply, you nearly didn’t register when he scooped you up into his arms, the action seeming so effortless for the prince. Thighs enveloping his hips, it was first your heel that attempted to rid him of his last remaining clothes, though when it only worked to push them an inch off his hips, you impatiently dropped a hand down to yank them down the rest of the way, letting him step out of them as his slow stride closed in on the plush bed on the opposite side of the chamber. 
Feeling the bedframe soon halt his footsteps, your lips didn’t fall from his as he leisurely turned and planted himself on the mattress, taking you with him still securely wedged against his body. 
With his hands already rooted on your rear end, now that he no longer needed to carry you, they started to explore your body, palming at every pillowy curve within his reach. It only took one measly little rock of your hips against his thighs for him to needily yank you forward, landing your sobbing centre directly on top of his hard length.
“Your highne-, James,” you whimpered, the intoxicating contact making you detach from his lips and hide your blushing cheeks in his sturdy shoulder, still reciprocating his forward actions and sliding your dripping heat all along his throbbing length. 
“Please, let me have you,” he groaned into your hair, his hot breath blowing back some of the unravelled hair framing your face, “let me feel your warmth,” he pressed a palm on the small of your back, making you arch it and causing all of the delicious pressure to always be directly on your buzzing little pearl, “just let me in, love,” his fingers caressed your spine as you moaned against his neck, bucking desperately against his hardness, “let me have you, let me have all of you just like you have me.”
Reaching down between your bodies, you grasped onto James’ cock and lifted up your trembling thighs, though his large palms swiftly scooped under you, granting you some more security as you swept the bulbous tip through your folds, parting the wet petals over and over again till your quivering hole was screaming for attention. And then, still with your face buried in the crook of his neck, you sank down, eyes rolling back in your skull as your creamy pussy slowly swallowed all of his length. 
“Fuck,” James cursed, his chest rapidly rising and falling underneath you. 
Clinging onto him for dear life, you slowly began to ride him, shakily bouncing in his lap. Lewd squelching noises reverberated off the palace walls as he let you find your rhythm, eventually finding a slow but intense pace, first raising yourself nearly completely off, till just the memory of his girth remained, and then slamming your hips down against his own so hard that it actually made you see stars with how deep he got. 
“Let me see that beautiful face of yours,” you felt his fingers come to rest on each side, in no way attempting to force your head back, simply pleading with you sweetly with every gentle sweep of his thumbs against your cheeks. Your hips faltered as you timidly crawled out of your hiding spot and blinked your heavy lids at him. 
The shyness eventually melted away as you registered the adoring look in his eye. Gradually resuming your hips moments, you watched as his head tilted back ever so slightly in pleasure and gaze down at you through his lashes, “there you go, darling,” you let out a loud moan as you felt his palm accompany his praise, swiftly landing it upon your bottom, encouraging your bouncing and causing you to get back on track that much faster. 
Rapidly nearing the end now that his soulful eyes were locked with yours, you found yourself completely lost in the euphoric feeling, eventually welcoming James’ desperate aid as he dug his fingers into your hips and rocked you in his lap, essentially just using your body as he would with his own fist at night, lifting you off with such ease and fucking into you till you were both absolutely wrecked by the perfectly synched orgasms that rocked your realities. Though still, even as the pace slowed, he still kept on bouncing you in his lap, pushing his load deeper within you with every needy thrust. 
Breathlessly, both of you still completely enveloped in each other, your arms sluggishly draped around his neck and his wrapped around your sweaty body, keeping you pressed up against him. 
Slowly blinking his eyes open and staring back at you through his glasses, which had long ago glided so far down his long nose that they were now on the verge of falling off, he sighed contently and pressed his forehead against yours.
“Promise that you’ll write to me,” he whispered, his deep rumble making your sensitive body tingle and your walls clamper down on his softening girth. 
First giving his nose a light nudge with yours, you then brushed your lips against his, rapidly developing the innocent peck into a kiss so passionate that the time might as well have stopped. 
“I will,” you breathed, feeling the most blissful of tears roll down your cheek, “I promise.” 
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“Y-your majesty!” you gasped, throwing your head back in ecstasy, nearly bumping your head against the doorframe you were balancing against. 
Detaching his lips from your swollen clit with a pop, he glanced up at you from his kneeling position and corrected, “James…” chuckling lightly as his fingers still clutched onto your dark skirt, bunching it up at your waist, “love, it’s been a whole year, thought you’d shake that habit by now.”
“Has it truly been a year already?” a shaky breath escaped your throat as he planted a kiss on your gleaming petals that was way too soft for how close he had you to the edge. 
“Happiest year of my life…” he beamed, right before diving back in, eating you out so as if someone could walk in and interrupt your fun at any moment, which was completely probable seeing as he hadn't waited for you to be behind closed doors for him to have a taste, simply whirled you around a corner and told you to be on lookout while he had his fun. 
“Fuck!” you weaved your fingers through his hair in an effort to keep him steady as the fireworks set off inside your belly, “James, I’m gonna-, don’t stop!” 
Bucking against his tongue as he stared up at your pleasure-filled face in awe, his mouth eventually eased into light pecks, loving the way your sensitive form jumped against his lips. Eventually rising back up to his feet, he pressed his slick-covered lips against yours and let your dress fall back down, covering the mess he had made. 
“Thank you,” he smiled brightly, lifting his thumb up to clean the glistening lower half of his face, swiping the finger over his chin only to bring it back up to his pillowy lips, licking the rest of your essence off and enjoying every last drop you’d given him.
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“…It was an automobile accident…”
“W-what?” James uttered breathlessly, haven not heard a word of what his father had said after the bomb had been dropped. 
Tightening his jaw in an effort to control his own unbearable emotions, the severe king repeated, keeping his voice clear and stern, “your brother, crown prince Thomas, died last night. The authorities found him this morning a few hours away from here, in his car, which had crashed, tumbled over completely. I don’t know how long he was out there, trapped beneath an entire ton of metal, waiting it out, all alone… I-…” he let out a shaky breath, momentarily closing his eyes in order to centre himself, “the funeral will be held on Monday. That should give people a chance to get here in time.”
“Monday…” James’ unfocused eyes flicked around the room as he tried and failed to breathe in a world without his big brother, “granny will be able to get here in that time… that’s-…” he noticed how his glasses were now completely fogged up by his agonising tears, “she-, she should be here…” 
“My dear boy, you know what this means, right?” he exhaled, trying to catch his son’s glistening eyes, “as of last night your life will never be the same. It’s time for you to step up as the next rightful heir to the crown.”
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next part
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© 2023 thyme-in-a-bubble 
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hoshinoyozora · 2 years ago
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Customs of a Married Couple
🖤 Pairing: Yandere! Rollo Flamm x Female! Reader
💛 Word Count: 0,9k+
❤ Warnings: Manipulative MC, suggestive theme
[Edited]
Do not re-upload my writing to another website or use it without my permission. Also, don’t ask for a sequel unless I like the story enough to write one. Please reblog so other people can see my stories!
***
I’ve never watched Hunchback nor have I watched the masquerade event yet, so my knowledge of Rollo is shaky at best.
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You were a forbidden fruit.
Deep down, Rollo knew you had an ulterior motive for seducing him. You harbored no real love for him, and your passion was ambiguous at best. He’d called you out on it, of course, but you were a determined woman by any means. You flashed your cleavage through the carefully loosened uniform when you bent down, you lingered on his collarbone when you massaged him, and you were bold enough to offer to go down on him for an ‘extra relaxation’.
All because of your one and only ambition; to be rich. To be powerful. To be influential.
Through the background check he had on you, it was quite easy to imagine you as this poor child, admiring the latest dresses displayed in the shops or the wealthy ladies that strutted around the streets. So, you decided that you wanted to be like them one day.
Unfortunately, you didn’t choose the ‘right’ option to claw your way to the top through hard work like he secretly wished. Instead, you used your feminine charms to prey on him, your master and secret lover.
Rollo had tried to resist you. He truly did. But you were stronger than him despite being physically weaker, and when you touched him, he thought that it must be what Heaven on Earth felt like.
“Rough day?”
It was another secret meeting at night, in a not-so-secret place. You came to his room with your maid uniform on, because you quickly found out that he loved seeing you in it. Rollo considered it as his biggest embarrassment yet, if not humiliation. How his eyes would glance at your breasts and imagine squeezing them, or how they’d linger on your butt and imagine bending you over his desk. And you’d smirk knowingly, and had he didn’t exercise what little of self-control he had within him, he would’ve allowed you to grope his bulging crotch when you both were alone in the office.
“You haven’t answered me yet.”
Presently, you were wearing lingerie underneath your uniform, as you usually did during your rendezvouses. It was black, and it barely covered your private part, and, as you slowly unbuttoned the uniform, your chest. Rollo gulped, still unable to rid himself of the virginal shyness despite seeing and experiencing your body for the umpteenth time.
“O-of course it is. You know I deal with the household too, and it’s almost a full time job.”
You hummed and crawled to the bed so you could unbutton his shirt, butt jutting out in the air seductively.
“Then, let me help you unwind.” Slowly, you guided one of his hands to your breast and urged him to fondle it as if it was a stress ball. “I’m sure you must be stressed with the paperwork all day.”
Hours passed in groans, pants, and moans. You’d long drifted off to Dreamland, while Rollo was still awake in his thoughts. It wasn’t uncommon for him to be the last one to sleep, but tonight, he was contemplating something. You. Your motive. Your relationship. Rollo didn’t think he could hide it anymore, and he didn’t think you were satisfied with all the extra money he’d furtively given you too. How could you be powerful and influential if you remained a lowly servant? You might already be those things to him, judging by how easily he succumbed to his lust with your touches and whispers alone, but other people wouldn’t hold the same opinion.
And besides, how could he let you prance around and interact with other men? It didn’t matter if they loved you or not. You were his, in every sense of the word. Your body, mind, soul, and gaze.
It had to stop. Everything that was hidden in the shadows must come to light somehow, and Rollo would like it if it was under his terms.
As expected, his family wasn’t pleased to know that he chose to marry you, a mere maid, out of the many pious and dignified women they’d offered to him. You, too, weren’t very pleased to know about the hasty wedding he’d notified you of one morning. But Rollo didn’t care much about their feelings, not even yours, and more about the wedding which would surely atone for his nightly sins with you and officiate your bond together. All this would accumulate to the daily routine where he’d be free to take you anytime he wanted, without fearing for people’s judgment.
“What do you mean I’m not allowed to talk to my male friends?! They’re my friends!”
“And they are male, no?”
Rollo fixed his clothes in front of the mirror and watched you stammer on the bed. For the first time, you were left speechless. Not even his scathing remark about your shamelessness back then managed to fluster you this much.
“T-that’s not fair! How could you do that?! I’m your wife!”
“Exactly. You’re my wife, and therefore,” He spun and gripped your chin, lifting it until he was glaring at your eyes. “I have the right to decide on what kind of things you should and shouldn’t do.”
You were a forbidden fruit that he’d bitten in a night of curiosity, shame, and obsession.
Deep down, Rollo knew you had an ulterior motive for seducing him. You harbored no real love for him, and your passion was ambiguous at best.
All because of your one and only ambition; to be rich. To be powerful. To be influential.
And, through your marriage to him, he’d given you exactly just that; wealth. Power. Influence.
So, why were you complaining now? After all, you were officially his, in every sense of the word. Your body, mind, soul, and gaze.
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astrque · 3 years ago
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GETTING ME THROUGH THE NIGHT › 𝕳. 𝕸.
pairing: hope mikaelson x fem!reader
summary: while waiting at the airport for your flight home, you and hope exchange some steamy texts.
warnings: sexting in public.
MASTERLIST⠀/⠀TAGLIST⠀/⠀REQUESTS
likes, comments and reblogs are greatly appreciated <33
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𝗠𝗜𝗡𝗢𝗥𝗦 𝗗𝗢 𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗧⁺¹⁸
you sat wearily at your airport gate, trying not to think about the long flight ahead of you and the fact that you wouldn’t get to see hope at the end of it, not until tomorrow. your flight home had already been quite late in the evening, but the busy holiday travel had delayed it to be a little over two hours later than your original departure time, and flying later and then driving the extra hour or so from the airport to your apartment sounded like too much on top of everything else for the night. you had already texted hope and let her know of the change of plans, and had started looking for available rooms at nearby hotels for once you’d landed back home, when another text from hope arrived.
❛ hey, i thought you might like to know i’m not wearing any underwear 😏 ❜
the stress from the current flying situation had you slightly flustered and anxious and unable to know how to reply, but a moment later another text came in.
❛ with you coming home tomorrow instead, it gives me a chance to do all the laundry i haven’t done while you’ve been gone so all our things are in the wash 😅 ❜
despite the travel stress — and the slight exasperation from knowing your girlfriend hadn’t done the laundry while you were gone — the reply you ended up typing out and sending surprised even you.
❛ i could have some fun with this. ❜
you leaned back against your seat, staring down at the text you'd just sent and wondering where it had come from. you didn’t have much time to think about it before you got a reply back.
❛ oh? what are you thinking? ❜
as if someone else had taken over, you typed out another reply.
❛ are you comfortable with doing what i say? ❜
what were you doing ? whatever it was, the seed had been planted, and a bright idea had sprouted in your otherwise overworked and tired mind.
❛ there’s, like, 45, minutes to kill while waiting for the wash, so... ❜
your heartbeat suddenly picking up, you bent over your phone, carefully typing each letter out and hoping no one around you could see what you were doing.
❛ can you be a good girl and play with yourself for me? just rub your clit and see how wet you get. ❜
you felt your face flush as you quickly looked over your message for typos, and laid your phone on your lap face down after you’d sent the text, only picking it up again after hearing hope's special text tone after what felt like forever.
❛ LITTLE ONE 😳🥵🥵 ❜
you felt yourself blush even harder, half regretting the last text but also slightly proud you’d been able to evoke such a response from hope.
the slightly proud emotion ended up winning out, with hope's next text that arrived.
❛ i think that can definitely be arranged though. you little minx. ❜
you took a quick look around at your immediate surroundings — a handful of people had gathered around the waiting area of your gate, but there was still a while before they were set to board and no one had sat down next to you — so you sent a quick reply.
❛ good girl. ❜
the wait for the next text felt like it took forever, and as soon as your phone went off with hope's special tone, you grabbed for it.
❛ i’m going to use the balls too, since it’s been a while. if it’s okay with you. ❜
you sat up a bit straighter in your seat. it had been a while since you’d broken out those toys, usually reserved for hope's practices that involved a lot of moving around and practicing for a new routine, so the balls' intended use could be satisfied, and made only better since you were the only ones who knew about them.
❛ absolutely, hope. ❜
you sat back in your seat once more, looking up to check the board at your gate to see that there was still a good amount of time before boarding and takeoff. a few more people had gathered at the gate, but it was still relatively quiet — and, still, no one had decided to sit by you.
you waited patiently for the next text, reaching for your phone again as soon as it went off.
❛ the balls are in and i'm playing with myself. it feels so good. ❜
you ignored the shiver that went down your spine at reading the words, quickly typing out your next reply.
❛ i bet it does. do you have your batteries charged for your other toy? ❜
you took a quick look around to make sure you were still in your own world with your girlfriend while you waited for the next reply — which was slightly delayed, understandably.
❛ i do! can i play with myself with that now? ❜
the telling someone else what to do thing was exciting you more than you were expecting — as you were usually the one on the opposite end of this.
❛ yes, but keep the balls in. i want you soaked for me. ❜
your phone went face down on your leg once more, and you tried to calm your rapidly beating heart between replies, the excitement from what was happening making you realize that your own panties had gotten slightly damp. you rubbed your thighs together as inconspicuously as possible, quickly forgetting everything else as the next text came in.
❛ it feels so good to play with myself like this for you. ❜
you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding and wrote out your response.
❛ good girl. now i want you to find a corner of something to rub up against. ❜
you looked up just as a family of four sat in the row of chairs in front of you and blushed slightly, setting your phone on your leg face down almost guiltily. you were still excited, but couldn’t help feeling the tiny bit of guilt? shame? whatever it was that was creeping up on you, due to the texts. you quickly pushed it down with the next text.
❛ mm, fuck, i can’t move, this position feels too good ❜
you bit your lip.
❛ good girl. ❜
you looked up after sending your next text and were a bit surprised to see the flight time had been changed yet again, and boarding would actually begin soon. you wondered if you’d be able to finish before you boarded lest you leave hope hanging.
❛ fuck, the vibrator is right on my clit and one of the balls is right on my gspot. it feels sooooo good ❜
you were used to normally hearing hope's filthy mouth in person, so while it was different to hear it in texts, it wasn’t completely unwelcomed.
❛ i bet you look wonderful all turned on for me ❜
an image of hope lying in bed, flushed and spread out on your bed, her hand between her legs and her head thrown back against the pillow, little moans and whimpers coming from her mouth as she played with herself came to your mind and you had to clear your throat and cross your legs, trying not to blush at the sudden little fantasy your mind had given you. you seemed to go unnoticed, thankfully.
you were still blushing when the next text arrived.
❛ am i allowed to come? i'm getting close ❜
you considered replying no, not until you got home tomorrow and could make hope come yourself, but decided against that — despite tucking it away for another opportunity.
❛ since i won’t be back tonight to make you come myself, yes. but make it count. ❜
you found that you were enjoying being in charge here, telling your girlfriend what to do, and filed it away that it was something you'd maybe like to try more often in your sex lives. there would be time to think about it on the flight in a while; for now, the next message had arrived.
❛ i'm gonna see if i can make myself squirt, for you ❜
your face immediately flushed at this text; hope's secret talent had accidentally been discovered recently and had become your new private joke.
you debated over your next message for a moment, typing out your reply.
❛ if you’re comfortable, mind showing me? ❜
the next message took a bit longer to arrive, and you had no idea what it meant at first.
❛ uhhh.... ❜
you quickly began working out a reply — a combo of an apology for asking what you had asked but also what had happened — when you were interrupted by a photo message notification. curiously — and cautiously, you opened it, and immediately felt yourself blush again.
hope's vibrator and pair of kegel balls were sitting in a small puddle, the outline visible against the towel she’d laid beneath herself. she��had squirted.
you had to take a moment to compose yourself before replying.
❛ fuck, hope 🥵🥵 ❜
after sending that, you scrolled back up slightly to look at the picture again, feeling yourself get even more wet — belatedly realizing you were soaked at this point.
you were cut off as another text arrived, and scrolled back down to read it.
❛ that was really fucking hot, you telling me what to do. see what you made me do? 😏 ❜
you cleared your throat again, composing yourself to write a reply.
❛ it was, and i do. we need to try that in real life sometime. ❜
you sent the message and looked up, and felt your heart leap at the message that boarding would begin in five minutes. you felt good that you had been able to finish the session with hope, even though you’d now have to deal with wet panties on the flight. and the flight in general.
you looked down to your phone screen just as hope's new message arrived.
❛ please, like you’d be able to boss me around in bed in real life, baby. but sure, we could try it. tomorrow after you get home, maybe 😏 ❜
you felt your heart flutter.
❛ that sounds fun. i hate to leave it there, but boarding is about to begin, so i need to go now. ❜
just as you sent the text, the announcement for the a boarders to start lining up was given. you watched as the handful of a’s lined up — including the family that had sat in the row of seats in front of you — until hope's next message came.
❛ alright, safe flight. love you, text me when you land. ❜
you quickly wrote your own reply.
❛ love you too, and will do! ❜
you sent the text and stood up, just as the a boarders finished with ticketing and boarding. despite being busy with your family, you had been ready as soon as your check in time had come, so you’d managed to snag a b boarding ticket. you closed out of your texts with hope and flipped to the page open on your phone that had your boarding pass, getting it ready to be scanned.
as you waited in line to board, your thoughts moved from between safe flight vibes, your and hope's messages, and the comforting if not bittersweet thoughts of having to check into a motel room still miles from home instead of going straight home to hope.
it would be a long night, but hope had helped you get through the first part of it.
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whisperlullaby · 4 years ago
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Just Say It And I’m Yours-Ch.1
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Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader
Warnings: Language, stalking ish themes
Words: 1490
Summary: Steve is considering retiring from being Captain America. He doesn’t remember why he took the shield or what it means for him anymore. Then he met you. 
A/N: First and foremost I am SO SORRY FOR BEING SO SHIT AT SUMMARIES. I just don’t want to give anything away. Second, this is my first series! So like, comment, reblog, let me know you want to see more of this. This story is going to start in Steve’s perspective and switch to the readers. I’ll let you guys know when the POV is shifting so no worries. So, this first chapter is told through Steve. Third, if I missed any warnings please let me know. Last but most CERTAINTLY not least, a very VERY special thanks to @river-soul​ for reading through this and assuring me it was a good first chapter. I am so grateful for you. Let me know what you think! (Gif by @navybrat817 )
“Steve, she's getting married tomorrow,” Bucky solemnly states as he puts a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “If you’re going to do something you better do it soon.” 
“I know Buck, but what could I say to her? I haven’t been able to tell her how I feel about her for years.” Steve looked out over the lake, his eyes pricking with tears. “She made her decision.” 
“You’re an idiot. You’ve been in love with her since you first saw her. If you don’t tell her, she’s going to make the biggest mistake of her life. We both know that,” Bucky sighed, raking a hand over his face. “I know she loves you. You need to talk to her. She can’t marry him Steve, you know the second she does she’ll be gone forever. The person you knew reduced to, whatever this shell of a person is.”
Steve rubbed the back of his neck and looked down where the water was gently lapping against the shore. After a few moments, he heard Bucky make his way back to the lodge. As the small waves ebbed and flowed against the shallow shore Steve thought about you and how he was an absolute coward back when you were a big part of his life. 
One and a half years ago
Steve was sketching at Marine Park in Brooklyn during golden hour when everything seemed to glow. He needed a break from his Captain America responsibilities and every time he put his charcoal to the paper everything seemed to melt away. The world was vastly different since he came out of the ice and he felt his heart swell thinking about all the fights he had to endure in order to restore some semblance of peace in the universe. He was happy that he had his best friend back, cleared of the mind control Hydra put in him and he made so many new friends and a family in The Avengers. Yet, as he drew out the skyline on the thick white paper, he couldn’t help but feel like he was still missing something. He knew he needed a break from his duties to figure it out constantly being pulled into a fight was a great distraction, but he knew he needed to figure out what brought meaning to his life. The decision to take time off gnawed at Steve like a dog to a bone, who was he if he wasn’t Captain America?
Steve heard you before he saw you, picking up the fierce tone you were using made him glad he wasn’t on the receiving end of your reprimand. Steve looked up to see you wedged in between a woman and her dog and a man probably twice your size towering over you, trying to be intimidating. The fact you stepped forward refusing to back down made Steve smile, oddly fond of your bravery. The commotion you were making drew a small crowd and Steve felt a strange pull to join the group to be close to you. 
“Who the fuck do you think you are? Following this poor woman around like a stalker,” You yelled, poking your finger in his chest. “Did you think she was being coy when she told you to stop following her? Was that some deranged invitation to keep on top of her the rest of the world is unaware of?”
Steve could tell that you were not about to back down as you protected the other woman. The fire in your eyes was something Steve was familiar with in himself before he went into the ice. He noticed the man ball his hands into fists and before you could react he had pulled back to hit you. Steve jumped in and caught the punch, inches from your face.
“You’re gonna want to walk away pal before you make things worse for yourself.” 
Steve’s voice was low in warning. When he glanced over at you, you looked up at him almost offended that he had stepped in. Before Steve could say anything you returned your gaze to the other man and swiftly kneed him in the balls. 
“Stop following women you fucking asshole,” you admonished as the man crumpled to the ground in pain. “I know you probably have a hard time listening to women when they say no because there is just a bunch of empty space where your brain is supposed to be, but maybe take this as a warning.” 
Steve watched you slack jawed as you flagged down a police officer to give a statement to. He observed you as you spoke with the other woman, who was visibly shaken by the incident, with such genuine concern and kindness. He couldn’t stop looking at you as you soothed her with gentle touches and quiet whispers. Steve waited for his turn to speak with the officers regarding the incident, after which the man was taken into custody. When Steve turned around you were walking towards him. 
“Umm thanks for catching the punch,” you said with a shrug. “I could have taken him though.” 
Steve let out a soft chuckle. 
“Well I wouldn’t be much of a superhero if I stood around and let a civilian get clocked for defending someone.”
You cocked your eyebrow at him and crossed your arms. 
“Yeah but you’re not in the suit, which means you’re off duty. Either way I’m grateful, I have a job interview tomorrow and can’t really show up with a black eye. It wouldn’t really say ‘hire me I’m even tempered and have a keen ability to moderate conflict in a calm respectful manner.’ ”
Steve smiled, letting out a sigh as he cast his eyes to the ground.
 “Oh sweetheart I’m always on duty, comes with the territory.” 
He looked up to see you watching him with kindness and understanding.
“I’m sure that must be a very heavy burden to carry,” You sighed. “I hope you can take a vacation or something soon. It looks like you might need one.”
To say Steve was enamored by you would be the understatement of the century. In the brief time he had spent with you, he had noticed that you were fierce, kind, honest, compassionate, and absolutely stunning. He found himself physically having to shake his head to keep from staring at you.
“I’m Steve,” he blurted out. “I feel like you already know that though. It was really nice of you to say that. Sometimes I only see myself as Captain America, no vacation days in sight.” 
Steve chuckled as you rolled your eyes at him.
“Y/N, and I mean it. You shouldn’t feel like you’re always on duty.”  
You pointed your finger at his chest.
“Besides, I’m a tough girl, I can handle myself. You should trust people a bit more Rogers.” 
You gave Steve a cheeky grin and started walking away.
Steve scrambled to follow you, not ready to have your conversation end.
“So, job interview? What do you do?” 
Steve easily kept your stride. When you chuckled Steve swore his heart skipped a beat.
“Would you believe I’m a victim advocate? I have an interview with the state prosecutor. I make sure anyone who has experienced trauma of any sort is represented and protected during court cases and criminal trials,” you stated proudly. 
“After what I just witnessed, I would have been more surprised if you told me you were an accountant.” Steve joked. “Would it be okay if I walked you wherever you’re going? I know you can handle yourself but I’d like to make sure you don’t leave a trail of broken men in your wake.”
You snorted out laughter. 
“Yeah wouldn’t want to get put away for attacking more skeezy men. That sounds great Captain, thank you.”
Steve smiled and kept asking you questions on your walk. He had this need to know everything he could about you since you blew into his life like a sunshower. When Steve got you back to your apartment the sun was just setting.
“Well Rogers, it’s been an interesting day,” you say, nonchalantly fiddling with your keys.
“I’ll say, I didn’t think my day would consist of watching someone stand up for another woman who almost got punched, then kneeing the guy in the balls.” 
Steve smiled.
“I am pleasantly surprised with the way my day turned out,” he told you.
“Well there’s a lot more where that came from if you stick with me Cap.” 
You smirked at Steve grabbing his sketchbook. 
“Here’s my number, if you ever need a little extra adventure in your life, call me,” you said. 
With that you turned the key in the lock and pushed yourself inside the apartment. Steve was left to stand staring at your closed door. He didn’t know what force drove you into his life but knowing you for those few hours made him feel more alive than he had in years.
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angellbarnes · 4 years ago
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Forgotten Love - part six: no longer one of them
chapter summary: the truth will set you free, if it doesn't kill you first. The team interrogates you and your past.
pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader
words: 2.3k
warnings: language, mentions of torture, needles
A/N: sorry it's been a while but finally got around to finishing this chapter. Pls like, comment and reblog as always! :)🤍
series masterlist
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You look around the blank, boxy room. Then down at your hands, where your wrists are chained to a table. Then down at your ankles, where they are chained to the chair you’re sitting on. It’s been at least thirty minutes since you were left in here by yourself, struggling in your restraints. Your breathing becomes rugged and you can’t hold down the panic rising within, no matter how hard you try. Even closing your eyes, all you see are them. In a sudden rush of emotion you manage to yank yourself free from each chain and stand, pushing the chair from behind you and sending flying back, hitting the wall and crashing to the floor. You look up to the wall opposite, noticing your disheveled reflection in the mirror, fists balled up tight. A one-way mirror, no doubt.
“No, no, no, no, no.” You repeat to yourself. Your hands fly to your hair, raking through it and grabbing while your chest heaves and your head spins. Steadying yourself with the table for a moment to calm yourself as best you can. You tread carefully towards the door but stop in your tracks, physically frozen in place as you try and place how many footsteps are heading towards you now.
There are seven of them. Three, you notice, stay at the door whilst the others carry on, presumably to whatever room is behind that mirror.
The door opens.
“What in the-” Fury begins, seeing you standing before him and noticing the mess you’d left. “Let me see your hands.” He brings up a gun that seems to glare straight at you, as if to say there’s no getting out of this. So, you show your hands.
Tony and Nat are behind him and Natasha walks to the chair that is on its side, picks it up and sets it back down at the table, then motions stoically for you to sit back down.
“Take a seat. We’re gonna be here for a while. And before you try anything stupid, don’t.” Fury states. You sit back down and suddenly notice the dryness of your mouth and throat.
The three of them now stand before you, looming over like the shadows of your past.
“There’s a lot to unpack here, so I suggest we start with whatever the hell just happened upstairs.” Tony begins. His face is forbidding, as are the others, and his arms are crossed.
You remain silent.
“This is the part where you start talking.” Your gaze shifts to meet a single, harsh eye. God knows he only needs one to get the job done.
“I-”
“What Barnes said. Was it true? Did you help torture him as the Winter Soldier?” Natasha’s voice is demanding, needing.
“No.” You say, finally mustering up a word. “Well, yes. No and yes.”
“What do you mean no and yes?” Fury leans forward on the table.
“Not exactly.”
“Cut the crap. Did you, at any point, help HYDRA in torturing Bucky?”
Silence. Then,
“Yes.” It came out as a broken whisper.
Behind the glass, Bucky takes in a sharp breath. Deep down he knew it was true, but that didn’t stop him from wanting it not to be.
Someone begins walking towards the door from the opposite room. Steve enters and switches out with Tony. Steve looks more disappointed than anything, which makes your heart ache more.
“Why? Why were you with them?”
“Steve-”
“Just answer the question.” Steve closes his eyes in exasperation, letting his head fall forward. He can barely look at you.
“I was alone, back when I joined.” You begin. “At the time I was sheltering in an abandoned warehouse that was half blown to pieces. They found me. I was vulnerable and they knew it. So they took me in, fed me, gave me a roof over my head, a proper one. I thought they were good people, at first.” You’re looking down at your lap as you speak, not wanting to risk looking anyone in the eye.
“And how do we know this isn’t some bullshit story you’ve made up to get us to sympathise with you?” Nat chimes in, brows knit together by the thread of betrayal.
“For all we know you could still be one of them. Feeding everything back to them since you got here. Is that what you’ve been doing? Gaining our trust in order to have inside information? This whole goddamn time.” Steve is angry. More than you’ve seen him before. But it’s not the kind of anger that him and Tony might share when the other gets on their nerves, no. This anger is the one that comes from deep within you, that only shows when you’ve been stabbed deep enough in the back for it to come seeping out all crimson red.
“No, it’s not like that. I’m done with HYDRA, I promise.”
“Well that promise doesn’t mean much to us.” Fury comments.
“I know. But it’s all I have.”
Fury holds his fingers up to his ear. “Hill, bring it in.” A moment after Fury’s request she is heading round and into the room. She passes him a folded piece of paper.
“This,” he begins to unfold it. “was surprisingly easy to find. Inside a book? Really?” He leans onto the table and slides the paper forwards. You are now face to face with yourself; the file page you'd retrieved from the first mission. You rub your hands together, as if hoping for a genie to appear so you could wish for this to have never happened.
“That’s not me. Well, it is me. But it’s not who I am. The person you’ve come to know since I joined this team is the real me. I’m not that person.” You look back down at the photograph of your deadened self. “Anymore.”
“Care to explain?” Nat asks.
“After a while with HYDRA, I realised that some others from the rooms near me were being taken somewhere else. I didn’t know where, though; they wouldn’t tell us. Eventually I was the only one left, and none of the others had come back yet.” Your throat is dryer than ever. “They took me to a room. A dark one. And they sat me in a chair. Strapped me down. I could hear some screams from neighbouring rooms but they dismissed it, said people were hurt and they were treating them. They were lying, of course, but at the time I was naive enough to believe them. They stuck a needle in my arm and released an acidically blue liquid into my bloodstream. At first it was excruciating. It felt as though someone was searing my veins as it moved from my arm and into my chest, then up my neck and down my torso. Then it was everywhere. My mind was so clouded with pain, until it just… stopped. I felt numb. And after that, HYDRA turned me into their own personal weapon. Because I was their success. I was the one who survived. They had used a different serum on all twelve of us, trying to find one that worked. And it finally did. At first I felt special to have been the one that survived. Proud, even. But soon it turned into something more sinister, and I realised how lucky the others were…”
The silence in the room is deafening. To a point where you have to start shuffling in your seat just to rid it. It’s hard to gage anyone’s emotions at this point. Natasha leaves, silently, without glancing back. Though she doesn’t head towards the others behind the mirror, she walks away in the opposite direction. Your heart hangs heavy in your chest with the thought of having hurt her this much.
“So, you’re telling me, the serum we found on that mission last week hasn’t just been created? They’d already figured it out and used it on you?” Steve’s question is spoken as more of a statement, everyone already knowing the answer.
“Yes.” You whisper.
“And that’s where these powers came from? The serum?”
“Yes.”
“Another supersoldier. ‘Cause we don’t have enough of those.” Fury scoffs. “And why do they always have to come from HYDRA?”
“The serum made you stronger and faster. But it doesn’t explain your extra power. Where did that come from?” Steve interrogates.
“The serum as well.” Your voice is weak and strained by guilt as you speak. “When they were recreating it they also… experimented with it. Once they knew they perfected the original serum they started tampering with additional elements and quantities. It wasn’t until me when one of them worked. The serum they’d created managed to grip on to certain sensory nerves and cells and increased the sensitivity, or… something about exteroreceptors, maybe? I can’t exactly remember the science of it all-”
“So, just like that, we’re supposed to trust you?” Steve cuts you off, his vigilant tone as unnerving as his stare.
“Send Barnes in.” Fury motions to agent Hill, who exits the room, only to return with him: the one person you thought could get you out of this situation.
Bucky keeps his head down, making sure to avoid any eye contact. You desperately want to yell the truth at everyone - the whole truth - but you know that wouldn’t be wise. Especially since they’re already sceptical of everything that’s coming from your deceiving lips. They would never believe that. He would never believe it.
Not until he remembers it all.
“Bucky, do you know if this is the truth?” Hill cautiously asks him.
“No.”
“No, you don’t know, or no, it isn’t the truth?” Fury inquires.
“No, I don’t know.” He states, finally looking up and meeting your gaze. You can see the hurt in his eyes. It’s evident that these newly found memories haven’t treated him well. Especially since he’d started to take a liking to you, which he never let be known. He didn’t know what to make of it when he began to feel a strange, but strong, pull towards you. As if there was some invisible string that was pulling, connecting, the two of you together.
It frayed and snapped as soon as he remembered.
But knowing that he’d felt it in the first place makes his head hurt all the more.
“So, number 12, what is your real name?” Fury looks straight into your eyes, almost burning through your skull with his intensity.
“And don’t even think about lying to us again.” Steve snarls. You hesitate for a moment, drawing heavy breaths.
“My real name- my real name is Y/N Y/L/N.”
“Let’s put it to the test, shall we?” Fury proposes.
A few moments later, you’re being hooked up to a lie detector by Bruce. He then sits diagonal to you with the polygraph machine in front of him.
“We’re set.” He states.
“Perfect. Let’s get started, shall we?” Tony is now back in the room. A full house.
They don’t hesitate with the questions, getting straight into it, yes or no.
“Before you joined this team, were you a HYDRA agent?” Hill begins with. There is no way for you to escape this, no stopping the rollercoaster from plunging down as you reach the top.
“Yes.”
“An assassin?”
“Yes.”
“Do you still work for them?” Steve’s turn.
“No.”
“Do you still associate yourself with them in any way?”
“No.”
“Are you in contact with them?” Tony asks.
“No.”
“Do you plan on going back to them? Becoming one of them again?” Steve begins again.
“No.” You answer through gritted teeth now.
“Bruce?” Fury chimes in, and all heads turn to him, as he reads the coloured lines on the paper.
“She’s telling the truth so far.” He confirms.
The questions, the interrogating, it continues for several more minutes. Questions like: Are you loyal to this team? Are you really here to make good of your past? Is that life with HYDRA over for good?
Yes, yes, and yes.
“Did you assist in the torture of a Seargent James Barnes whilst you were a part of HYDRA?” Fury reads from a sheet, making sure to leave no stone unturned. A stone that it feels as if he just threw at your stomach. You force your eyes upwards and to Bucky’s, brimming with sadness.
“Yes.” Your answer feels so sour against your tongue. You pry your eyes away and they fall to the floor once more.
“All true.” Bruce confirms once more.
“But-”
“Last question.” Fury walks forward. “How did you manage to get through our system, without us finding any trace of who you really are?” He speaks slowly, deeply, sounding like he has gravel in his throat.
“The old me was classed as dead. I had nothing to my name, not even a life. And HYDRA didn’t make it their first priority to give me one. So, technically I was no one. It wasn’t that hard to create a completely new person. A clean slate, if you will.”
Everyone’s faces are stern, yet utterly mindfucked. No one knows what to think. Fury stands tall and motions his head to the door whilst looking at the others. Everyone exits the room in a disappointed silence.
Bucky is the last to leave. He stands, with his arms crossed and brows furrowed, directly in front of where you sit. The prolonged eye-contact is laced with an unknown, but oddly familiar,  tension.
“Bucky, I-” As soon as you begin to speak he follows after the others and shuts and locks the door behind him.
Once again, you’re left with just yourself in the vacant room, besides the company of the chair, table and your infinite, anxiety-ridden thoughts of what the hell is going to happen to you now.
•••
Taglist:
@buckysjuicyplums @901seconds @walkwithfluffyangels @infernal-fire @ohashley101 @mrs-fanfiction-2001 @buckys2thicc @freigeistundanderes
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readyplayerhobi · 4 years ago
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Jung Hoseok and the Magic to Happiness | 06 | End
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; Hufflepuff Teacher!Hoseok x Reader
; Genre: Fluff, angst, smut
; Word Count: 7.5k
; Warnings: Penetrative sex, potion influence (? what’s the correct term here), unprotected sex (kinda), creampie, Hoseok licks his fingers...
; Synopsis: An unexpected issue with your Ministry of Magic job leads to you taking the role of Transfiguration Professor at Hogwarts. It’s here that you meet your best friend’s younger brother for the first time in years, the Hufflepuff Head of House, Jung Hoseok. While you contend with seeing him once again, Hoseok tries to show you that he’s very much a man and no longer the gangly teenager you once knew.
; A/N: Final chapter! We’re finally here. I bet you didn’t think I’d actually finish this series, haha. Two series down though! SO...I’m very rusty with smut. I haven’t written it since like...October so please be gentle with me! I hope you all enjoy this chapter and have liked reading this series! Please reblog it so others can find it and send me comments/reviews/feedback via an ask or by reblogging this! :D I love to read them all and your support has helped to encourage me to keep going.
Last Chapter ; 
-
Surprisingly, you don’t see Hoseok for a few days after the Winter Solstice Ball. He’s not present at any of the meals, nor do you see him around the castle either. It simultaneously confuses and concerns you as you worry that he’s feeling too awkward to be around you.
Seokjin, at a pre-Christmas meal at his house, had tried to confirm that he wasn’t avoiding you but instead was simply busy with preparing the magical creatures for the Christmas break. There were exchanges with other schools around the world that occurred at Christmas, meaning that Hoseok was constantly travelling with his creatures and taking custody of the foreign creatures which would be used for the next semester. 
You’d viewed that with suspicion as you didn’t recall Hoseok nor Jisoo telling you that, but it did seem like a logical reason. Chaeyoung had backed the argument at the time, her mouth half full of roasted turkey. Given your suspicions about their involvement in trying to get Hoseok and you into a relationship had caused you to watch her suspiciously though.
It was only when Jimin, who had also been present for the meal, had confirmed it with a nod of his head that you’d finally believed them. As far as you knew, Jimin had no involvement and he’d genuinely fascinated with how close the two of you had been at the ball.
So even though it made you feel a little paranoid at his sudden absence after the kiss, you chose to trust your friends and believe what they said. You were already concerned about how to just interact with him when you saw him, you certainly didn’t need to obsess over the fact he ‘might’ be avoiding you.
Instead of letting your mind focus on that though, you instead throw yourself into any work you can do. The Christmas break sees most students gone and only a handful remaining behind. Some of those were because they wanted to continue studying or they didn’t want to leave their friends, others were because they didn’t have a stable home to go back to.
It made your heartache to know that some of your students had such poor home lives but it wasn’t something you could do anything about. Instead, you help to organise visits to Hogsmeade for the students so they can get to enjoy some of their break by just having fun and experiencing some of the Christmas cheer.
You’d also got through all the essays that you had to mark and the first month of the new semester had already been carefully planned out for when the students all returned. This meant that you’d done nearly all your work though and there were only so many books you could read without getting bored.
So you offered your services to the other professor’s who had remained behind, figuring that you could help them out while also reducing your boredom. This is why you were currently in the potion storeroom doing a stocktake; recording how many of each ingredient was left, if there were any that were running low or had run out completely, what potions were stored away and how much of each one.
It wasn’t the most interesting job but it helped to take your mind off things and you felt a little useful at least. You’d only been doing it for half-an-hour before you’d quickly realised why no one liked to do this job, though. The storeroom was bigger than it initially appeared and contained multiple shelving units, with each shelf packed full of ingredients, potions and spare potion-making ingredients.
There was a stale smell to the air which mingled with the faint remnants of potions that had been created in the many cauldrons that littered the room. Alongside that, there was so much dust in the room that you genuinely wondered if anyone used this place. Whilst you weren’t one to advocate using magic for stuff that you could just do by hand, there was no reason to not just do a quick cleaning spell in here.
Then again, you’ve never been amazing at potions so maybe that kind of spell might do something to one of the ingredients. So you just carry on, occasionally sneezing whenever you cause a small dust cloud to appear.
You end up so in the zone that you don’t hear the door open and close, nor the soft footfalls of someone walking in closer. This means you shriek in surprise when you hear your name in a familiar, low voice. Jerking forwards, you knock into the shelves in front of you and wince at the sound of glass hitting each other as bottles wobble dangerously.
“Shit!” Cursing, you miss the bottle with a mother-of-pearl sheen that teeters from the top shelf dangerously. Hoseok, obviously concerned with how he’d surprised you, rushes forward to help stabilise the bottles that are on the verge of smashing all around you.
As he grabs one that’s rolling towards the edge, you reach out to stop another one at the exact moment the top bottle drops. It hits your hand hard, bouncing before hitting the shelving unit and shattering. The potion inside splatters all over you, Hoseok and the shelf. Spiralled steams immediately begin to rise from where it impacts and you vaguely remember that amortentia looks like this.
But then you’re cursing loudly, sputtering as you get a mouthful of it. Without meaning to, you swallow it all and cringe as you feel it slide down your throat. The sound of Hoseok choking causes you to look over and you realise he’s got a mouthful of it as well, his face pinched as he sticks his tongue out from the taste of it.
“What was that?” He asks, blinking rapidly before wiping away what has splashed onto his face. For such a small bottle, it had managed to almost everywhere and even some stray strands of his hair were wet; steam rising slowly.
“If I remember my potions correctly...amortentia.” You say, lips twisting as you stare up at the top of the unit. Why this potion had been stored up there was beyond you as there was nothing else up there but dust. At least no other bottles had broken.
“Ah,” He muses before pausing, eyes widening as something clicks in his head. “Wait, isn’t that the love potion thing?”
“It doesn’t cause people to fall in love. If you remember back to your own potions lessons, no potion is capable of causing true love. Instead, it causes intense infatuation or obsess-oh…” Now your own eyes widen as you stare directly into Hoseok’s, warmth curling within your gut and rushing through your veins until your whole body feels hot.
Almost instantly, the two of you look away from each other. Coughing awkwardly, you shift to the other side of the storeroom, a hand pressed to your cheeks in a futile effort to cool them. Instead, they just feel even warmer.
What happened if two people took it? Especially if those two people already liked each other anyway? Did it just negate itself?
The slow burn within you said no and you let out a shaky breath, resting your forehead against the cool wood of the unit next to you.
“I’m sorry...I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought you heard me coming in...I wasn’t being quiet or anything.” Hoseok mutters and you glance over, noting the rosy pink gracing the apples of his cheeks. You wonder if it’s because he feels embarrassed or if it’s because he’s experiencing the same, intense feelings that you are.
Inhaling deeply, you tried to calm yourself only to realise that all you could smell was Hoseok. His scent was so strong that it was like he was standing right next to you instead of being on the other side of the room. Almost immediately, you knew it was the potion.
From what you remembered, amortentia caused those feelings for whoever administered it. Considering neither you nor Hoseok had been the one to serve it, you would’ve thought that it would just negate itself. Instead, it seems to have decided that you’ve both administered it to each other.
“It’s okay, don’t worry about it. I was too deep into my work,” Giving him a nervous laugh, you try to reassure him so he doesn’t get too worried that he’s done something wrong. “How come you’re here? I haven’t seen you in days.”
“Err, yeah...sorry. I’ve been really busy. I forgot to tell you that we usually start doing magical creature exchanges around Christmas to help educate our students on foreign creatures while also allowing other nations to learn about our creatures. It’s been a little hectic as I’ve been exchanging hippogriff’s, bowtruckles and nifflers with Castelobruxo in Brazil. Which as you can imagine has been a little stressful because I think I’ve almost lost about six niffler’s and almost lost a hand to one of the hippogriff’s.” He turns away from you to tidy up some of the shelves, missing your sigh of relief as you realise everyone has been right.
He hadn’t been avoiding you.
“I’m finished now though, for the moment. It took me longer than I liked as the fire slugs we got from Castelobruxo have been continuously burning their cages but I have that completely fixed now. I thought that I’d come to find you as we haven’t talked in a few days and I got told you were here. So...here I am.” Giving you a weak smile, Hoseok turns to look at you while shrugging.
He looks slightly uncomfortable now; a sheen on his golden tan skin while his face looks redder than normal. His hands grasp at nothing on his sides and you find yourself hyper fixated on them. Have you ever really noticed how long and slender his fingers are? 
Almost immediately, you imagine those fingers somewhere else and almost moan out loud as you clench inner muscles around nothing. Was this a normal side effect of amortentia? You didn’t know what was happening and you weren’t the best at potions so this was all foreign to you.
At least you’d come to terms with the fact that you were attracted to him and would like to perhaps try a relationship. Otherwise, this would’ve been even more awkward. Not that he knew that yet, which is probably why he’s looking a little distressed.
You don’t feel that it’s the best moment to blurt that out though. Sure, it would reduce any uncomfortableness between you both but was it a good idea to admit you find him attractive too when you’re both suffering the effects of amortentia?
Probably not.
“It’s okay, don’t worry about it. A few of the others told me that you’d be busy doing this. I didn’t even know that magical creature exchange was a thing!” Cheerfully, you smile at him when he glances at you.
“Still, I should have told you. I’m really sorry.” He mumbles, reaching out to gently brush a scratchy pouch idly. His insistence at apologising causes you to smile and shake your head amused at how genuinely remorseful he is that he’d forgotten to tell you this one thing.
“Honestly, it’s fine. It’s your job, don’t say sorry for doing your job, okay? You’re a great caretaker for the magical creatures and I’m not surprised you forgot to mention it to me. I don’t tell you stuff about my job all the time because you don’t need to know it! So don’t stress.” Reaching for the checklist that you’d been running through earlier, you note down the broken amortentia potion with a small reprimand for the untidy storeroom.
As such, you don’t see the way Hoseok’s face twists as he forces himself to remain quiet.
The two of you remain silent for the next five minutes or so with you attempting to carry on counting the ingredients and potions on the shelves while Hoseok merely lingers in the background. He was so cute.
It would have been a comfortable silence between you both, like you always had with him, if not for the lingering awkwardness of the untalked kiss and the flaring desire of the potion. Shifting awkwardly, your thighs squeeze together in an attempt to relieve some pressure. It doesn’t work and you have to stifle a groan at the small sharp jolt of pleasure.
“Merlin,” Hoseok whispers, causing you to open your eyes and look over at him. His face is even more flushed and you note a slight sheen to his skin as if he’s too hot. If he’s even remotely as warm as you are then it’s entirely understandable and you wonder what you look like to him.
Blowing out a breath, he attempts to fan his face before pinching some of his shirt and pulling at it to get some cooler air. You can tell it doesn’t work because you’ve been subconsciously doing that for the last minute and all it’s done is cause you to imagine Hoseok’s lips brushing along your chest instead of the poor imitation of a breeze.
What finally tipped you over the edge to deciding you’d done enough counting today was yet another glance over to Hoseok. His tall and lithe form has been almost hidden beneath his robes all this time, but an uncomfortable shift causes him to reveal more of his body.
You weren’t normally such a blatant person but you couldn’t help the way your eyes drag down his body, taking in every crease in his crisp white button-up. The key moment that told you to get out of the room now was when your eyes trailed even further below, taking in the leather of his belt.
And the obvious tent in his trousers.
Swallowing so hard that you choke, you quickly move towards the door. The rush of blood throbbing in your ears drowns out Hoseok’s call of surprise, your focus solely on getting out of the overwhelmingly hot room.
The room with the man you’d very recently had decided you were attracted to both romantically and sexually. Not a good combo when you were almost burning from within with lust for him, especially when you know he’s turned on right now.
Running a hand down your face as you rush through the corridors, you can’t stop the quiet groan that leaves your mouth as you do so. Your clothes feel too tight for your body, almost suffocating and the aching need for fingers or something more between your legs is becoming unbearable. 
“Y/N, wait!” Finally, Hoseok’s voice breaks through, causing you to falter as you almost pause. Even shouting, his voice is low and sends shivers through your body. A tiny whine escapes and you push forwards, almost jogging now in your effort to get back to your quarters.
Maybe a shower would get rid of this. A very cold shower, or a cold bath. You’d make a potion to counteract it but you’re nowhere near good enough to combat an advanced potion like that. 
As your door finally comes into view, and for a moment you marvel at how fast you’ve managed to move from the dungeons that house the potions classroom and the store you’d been working into your quarters.
Not quite fast enough though as Hoseok’s long legs finally let him catch up, his hand reaching out and gently grasping at your arm. He’s touching you through multiple layers of clothing and yet your skin is almost burning, the desire to have him against your bare skin stronger than ever.
You get the feeling that he’s experiencing the same as he suddenly retracts his hand, almost as if he’d burned it and lets out a hiss. The sound is sibilant and low, his breath escaping him quick and you feel a strong urge to hear it once more. 
Still, he doesn’t let his surprise or shock stop him. A look at his face shows you that his expression is a mix of concern and worry beneath the flushed cheeks of lust and glassy eyes of desire. 
“I’m sorry, did I do something? I didn’t mean to if I did. Please don’t run away from me!” He begs, one hand moving out towards you almost like it has a mind of its own. The way he looks at it, with a scowl like it’s doing something wrong, almost makes you laugh as you can understand his frustration.
You’ve had to stop yourself from reaching out to him at least twice now.
Instead, you give him a tense smile and try to ignore the fact that he’s standing a little awkwardly. It takes far more effort than you’d like to not look down because you know it’s because he has an erection that is probably uncomfortable. Something he likely doesn’t want to bring attention to.
“Don’t worry, it’s okay. I promise. I just...I just needed to get out of that room, you know.” You let your words trail off awkwardly, fidgeting with your hands and trying desperately not to look at his crotch. As usual, though, the temptation to look was made all the stronger by your knowledge that you couldn’t just ogle his groin openly.
“Ah...yeah, er, right. It was quite...quite warm.” He pauses in his sentence though, looking a little conflicted and you follow where his eyes are staring. Right down to your chest, which is currently covered by a soft, cream-coloured jumper that you’d happily pulled on this morning.
It feels more than a little stifling right now though.
As soon as he registers where he’s looking, he sputters and starts to resemble a tomato. An absurdly handsome, tall tomato. The longer you let your thoughts linger there then the more stupid they begin to become.
Still, his blatant want fuels your potion addled senses and you start to speak without thinking.
“Do you like me? Romantically and sexually, you know? I’m pretty sure you do. I’m sorry that I didn’t realise, I’m dumb apparently. I know you’ve been trying to subtly tell me for ages now but I finally did! And I liked our kiss and I really want to do it again. Actually, I wanna do more than kiss you-” Hoseok cuts you off by reaching out for your hand, his fingers slightly calloused but still so damn soft.
And hot against you.
“Yes. I like you, a lot. More than you probably realise. I just didn’t want to push you or make you feel awkward-” Now it’s your turn to interrupt him, twisting your fingers until you can thread them through Hoseok’s.
A slight tug has him following you with wide eyes, the door to your classroom being pushed open and closed as soon as he’s inside. Without another word, you push him up against the wood while grasping at his shirt to tug him closer.
Your lips connect with ease and this time, it’s nothing like the previous kiss. Where that was chaste, this had the flames of lust burning deep within and you moaned out as Hoseok licked into your mouth, stoking that heat within you even further. 
Pressing yourself to his body, you let one hand trail along his shirt and sigh as you finally get to confirm that he is exactly as lean and toned as you’d initially thought. Your touch causes him to shiver, breaking away from your lips to press open-mouthed kisses to your jawline almost desperately.
“Hoseok,” Whispering into his ear, you let your other hand run your fingers through his hair before tugging on some of the black strands. “Ah, please.”
You’re not sure what you’re asking him but you don’t care either. Anything he can give you, you’ll take. 
His fingertips scorch your skin as he lets them dance over your waist, slipping beneath your jumper with a hunger he can only show. As he does so, he captures your mouth once more and kisses you with such passion and strength that you’re momentarily left breathless.
Trying to kiss him back with equal fervour while your fingers move to unbutton his shirt, losing grip on them as you refuse to move away to look down. It causes him to laugh into it, the sound pleasant and light, before he gently pushes your hands away.
Pulling away from the kiss, he presses his forehead against your own and gives a breathy smile. Glassy eyes and dilated pupils greet you while his breath hits your skin with each puff as he tries to centre himself. And then he almost looks sad; his brow creasing and the corners of his lips turning down.
“We shouldn’t...not like this. I...I really want, oh fuck I want you so bad. But this wasn’t how I imagined...you deserve better. More romantic or some-” Reaching up, you gently place a finger on his lips to quiet him. He does so instantly and you’re pleased that he doesn’t look annoyed at your interruption.
“It’s not what I imagined either but I’m not turning it down. If anything, I’m glad that potion is helping to bolster my confidence because I doubt I’d have got the courage to do anything. So, please, don’t worry about me. I want you and I’m fully aware of myself. All that potion is doing is bolstering my feelings.” You hadn’t known if that was something he was worried about and you wanted to soothe any fears he might have.
It’d be understandable because part of you is also worried that he’s only doing this because the amortentia potion is fuelling an insatiable need within. The way his eyes widen at your words before his whole body relaxes let’s you know that has been a concern of his, causing you to smile, and reach up to cup his cheeks before pulling him into a quick kiss.
“Now, please carry on and don’t stress. We’ll talk properly after, okay?” Hoseok nods and you bite your lip, trying not to laugh at how eager he looks once more. 
He doesn’t kiss you again though, instead turning and tugging on your hand. Brows rising, you follow him before watching in astonishment as he sweeps your desk clear of any papers or stationery. Part of you wants to complain, but the thought instantly vanishes when he backs you up until you can feel the solid wood against the backs of your thighs.
“Hoseok! My desk? Seriously?” Giggling, you glance around your classroom and feel a little scandalised. The door to your quarters is only a few metres away but he has an almost playful look in his eyes when he grins back at you. You’d protest doing something like this in your classroom louder if it wasn’t for the fact that you were desperate for him.
He doesn’t respond to those comments though, instead reaching out and ghosting his fingers over your cheek. It makes you shiver as you feel that touch all over.
“Once more...you want this, right? You’d want this even without the potion influence?” You wonder how much amortentia addles the mind but you reason to yourself that you’ve thought about this with him for the last week. About him between your thighs, deep inside you and pleasing you.
“I want it. I’ll want it after, too.” Purposefully lowering your voice, you look at him from beneath your lashes before reaching out and hooking your fingers around his belt. Now he’s the one laughing, the sound low and husky as he lets you pull him forward.
As if you’re magnetically attracted, your lips meet his once more and you sigh into his mouth as he pressed himself against you. Whimpering, you slide your hands around his waist and try to pull him closer. A wiggle on the hard surface has Hoseok’s erection pressing onto your clit, causing you to moan out.
He mirrors the noise, the sound hoarse from his throat and you find yourself grinding against him as well as you can. It doesn’t quite work as you have nothing to brace your legs with but neither of you seems to mind. Thankfully though, Hoseok seems to understand and begins a slow roll of his hips that drives you wild.
But it’s not enough though and you shift away from him, dragging your hands down his front and enjoying the way he moans as your nails scrape through his shirt. Reaching his belt, you fumble to undo it and frown in frustration as you struggle with it.
“Let me,” Hoseok says, undoing the buckle with practised ease and slipping the leather through the meal. The sound of it sparks something inside you, causing you to writhe on the desk and beg him to hurry up. A quirk of his lips tells you that he’s amused at your insistence.
Before he does anything else though, he reaches forward and pushes your skirt along your thighs. The soft material only adds to the overstimulation of your already wired body, causing goosebumps to form all over. 
His fingertips on the freshly exposed skin feel even better though, the sensitive skin of your inner thighs sparking fireworks of pleasure and delight at his touch. Letting your head fall back, you just let yourself focus on the feelings and whine softly, pussy clenching around nothing. 
Under normal circumstances, you would want to explore all of Hoseok and have the favour returned in full. You’d want the full experience with plenty of foreplay; his mouth and fingers delving into places that only he’s allowed to see.
You’re too desperate though and you pull your skirt up, shifting until you’re laying back on the desk and trying to tug your underwear off. It’s hard to do on the desk though and you’re thankful when Hoseok takes over, his fingers hooking into the soft material and then you’re feeling cool air.
“Fuck.” He curses, eyes focused solely between your legs. You’re almost embarrassed to realise how wet you are, the underwear in his hands sporting a prominent damp batch that has a shiny spot you can see even from here. 
Being this close to him and now being half-naked, you want him more than ever and you try to grasp at his wrist, needing him to touch you down there. Anything you can get, you’ll take. Hoseok lets you take his hand, guiding his fingers until they’re pressing against the hardened nub of your clit.
The sound you let out is obscenely loud as you move his hand until he’s touching you in just the right way to send arrows of pleasure through your body. Letting go, you let him carry on and enjoy the heat of him on you, sighing in relief at finally getting what you wanted.
It’s not enough though and you try to shift your hips, lifting them in an attempt to line his fingers with your entrance. He can tell what you’re trying to do though and grins, the expression causing his cheeks to rise while his eyes sparkle down at you.
“Do you just want to do it? You’re already really wet.” He asks, raising a brow and you nod quickly. You don’t want to waste any more time and the thought of having his cock in you is more than you can bear. It doesn’t stop you from whining in displeasure as he takes his hand away to finish undoing his trousers.
To try and combat that, you let your fingers take over from where he was. You know your body better than anyone and almost instantly you’ve got a good rhythm going. The sight of him before you, cheeks flushed with his hair looking ruffled and his shirt creased, is unbelievably erotic.
Unzipping his trousers, he pushes them down his thighs alongside his underwear. You don’t even get to see what kind he wears but you find that you don’t care. Beneath the ends of his white button-up shirt, a prominent erection stands proudly towards you. The tip is swollen and red, unsurprising given how long he’s had it for now.
He’s not the longest, nor the thickest, but you don’t care. Hoseok’s cock is quite possibly the most perfect thing you’ve seen at that moment and all you want is for him to be inside you.
Before you can vocalise that though, he’s suddenly grabbing his wand before his trousers fall to the floor. Resting the tip on your belly, he mutters a quick spell and you realise that he’s got more control of himself than you do as he’d remembered to cast a contraceptive spell. A second spell on both you and him protects you from any diseases or infections, after which he practically throws his wand to the side.
You’d protest his lack of care about something so fragile but you can’t bring yourself to care when he moves forward, letting the tip of cock rest against your pussy. The weight, almost surprising given how it defies gravity, is delightful on your clit and he presses it down, moving in a slow roll that has you sighing.
More wetness coats your pussy, which in turn coats him and you grasp one of his hands. Linking your fingers together, you pull him a little closer and mewl as he slides against the sensitive bundle of nerves once more.
“Please, Hoseok. Please” You beg, causing him to smile with satisfaction. 
Placing his free hand on your left leg, he pushes it up a little and out to the side, stretching you open a little more for him. Shivering as the air cools the slick excitement between your legs, you go to protest. It’s cut off though by the feeling of him penetrating you, the blunt head of his cock slipping into you with minimal resistance thanks to how wet you’ve gotten.
Moaning loudly, your eyes close as he stretches you with each inch. It’s been a long time since you’ve slept with anyone and the ragged cry Hoseok pulls from you is directly caused by how good he feels inside you. It’s like you can feel every inch of him as he slides deeper within, the nerves in your walls firing sparks of pleasure continuously until he finally bottoms out.
For a moment, the two of you simply stay in position and bask in the beautiful feeling. You’re panting a little and trying to resist the urge to shift your hips to encourage him to move. One glance at Hoseok tells you to let him move at his own pace.
His face is pinched, brows knitted together and his jaw looking sharper than ever as he clenches his teeth. The fingers wrapped in yours squeeze tightly and after a few seconds, he lets out a guttural groan that sounds as if it was ripped from his gut.
“Shit...Merlin’s beard, you’re so...I don’t know if I’m going to last,” He admits, his cheeks burning redder than ever. “I’m sorry if I don’t. I’ve imagined...this is…” 
Grunting, he slowly pulls out before sliding back into you with one fluid motion of his hips. A broken cry escapes your mouth at the pleasure and you reach down to rub at your clit. You’re just as desperate as he is to orgasm, to feel him thick inside you as you convulse around him while waves of pleasure leave you boneless.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. Just...move. Please.” You reassure him, trying to smile before your eyes roll back into your head at the second thrust. Still, your words let him gain some confidence and he continues to move in slow and steady snaps of his hips, each drag of his cock better than the last.
Lifting onto your elbows, you risk a glance down to take in the sight of him thrusting into you. His cock is soaked with your wetness and you realise suddenly that it’s causing lewd sounds every time he moves. You’d be embarrassed at it but the sound is strangely erotic to you; the knowledge that he’s caused you to become this wet and experience this much pleasure intoxicating.
The two of you don’t speak for a minute or so after that, far too caught up in just enjoying yourselves and all the feelings that course through your bodies. You suppose the potion is a little to blame for the almost selfish nature of the sex, but there’s also more than enough longing and desire on his side mixing with eagerness and attraction on your own.
“Fuck, I think-I think I’m gonna cum.” Hoseok pants out, his whole chest moving as he gasps out from the strenuous effort of sex. His face has a sheen to it and the damper patches on his white shirt indicate how much he’s sweating from it. Probably also a little from just how warm you’d both ended up.
Moaning out in response, you tip your head back against the cool wood of your desk and let your hand do its work. The combination of his cock inside you and your fingers playing on your clit blend together perfectly and you writhe wildly.
“Ah...shit.” His entire body going rigid as he pushes into you as far as he can get. Watching him, you cry out at how beautiful and sexy he looks as he orgasms; his jaw tightly clenched to show off that beautiful line of bone while the tendons in his neck strain. The hand entwined with yours squeezes harder than ever and he seems to just inside you in tiny movements, almost like he’s extending his pleasure without wasting too much effort.
You can feel the subtle twitch of his cock deep within you and the knowledge that he’s orgasming inside you has your fingers swirling on your clit harder and faster than before. Tightening your inner muscles, you relish in the strangled moan Hoseok lets out and the increase of feeling.
Not long after he lets out a final sigh, deeper than anything else, and he strokes his free hand down your thigh. It’s almost an encouraging touch and even though he’s finished, he moves in you with a slow and lazy stroke. The slight wince he has tells you that he’s probably a little overstimulated but he doesn’t complain and you cry out as your whole body tenses up.
Back bowing and head pressing into the desk, you tighten your eyes closed as high pitched whines and breathes escape your throat. Hips rolling in a circular motion, you continue to stroke at the sensitive bundle of nerves between your legs until the sensation becomes too much. Pulling your hand away, you’re surprised when Hoseok grabs at it suddenly.
He slips out of you, his cock rapidly becoming flaccid nows that’s had his fill and you shift at the sensation of liquid that’s slightly thicker than your excitement beginning to leak from you. The knowledge that it’s come from him is surprisingly arousing and you try to push the thought away.
Something not helped by the fact that Hoseok takes the fingers that had been so busy with your clit and licks them clean, groaning out quietly as he finally gets to taste you. It’s probably not the way he imagined doing it, but Merlin, it’s certainly an attractive way.
“That was good,” He finally says, letting your hand drop and you miss the feel of his tongue already. “Better than I’ve ever imagined...and I imagined it a lot.”
He’s flushed from the intense exercise but the bashful look to his eyes tells you that some of that pink tinge is also from his shyness. You can’t help but grin at the fact he’s getting quiet after just fucking you so hard on your desk.
Sitting up slowly, you stretch and enjoy the satisfying feeling of multiple muscles in your body and the overall sense of contentment that washes through you. Reaching forward, you wrap your arms around his neck after he’s tugged his trousers and underwear back up before kissing him gently.
“How flattering, Professor Jung. I feel honoured.” There’s a hint of teasing in your voice but you keep it light enough to know that you’re not being mean to him. Instead, you’re pleased by his admission that he’s thought of you sexually. Perhaps you don’t want to know about what his teenage fantasies were but you’ll happily accept his adult fantasies.
It works to make him snort a laugh and shake his head, stroking his hands along your waist.
“And as amazing as the sex was...I’m feeling a little tired and sore from the desk. So let’s take this into my quarters, shall we?” Pushing him, you hop off the desk and let your skirt fall back into place. It’s creased now and there’s likely wet stains on the back alongside what will eventually become semen stains too.
Hoseok doesn’t follow you as you move towards the door leading to your bedroom, causing you to turn and give him an arched brow in question. Opening the door without looking at it, you smile brightly before winking.
“Well? Do you want me to be alone in my bed?” Turning away from him, you quickly pull off your shirt and throw it out of the door for him to see. It’s only seconds before you hear the sound of him following quickly, causing you to smile to yourself.
-
Yawning widely, you stretch out your arms and almost hit Hoseok in the face. Toes brushing against his leg as you do so, he lets out a laugh that’s more movement than sound. The rumble of his chest beneath your cheek is comforting and you sigh deeply in contentment. It had been only half an hour or so since you’d had sex and what was likely only three hours since you’d both fucked the first time.
You had to give Hoseok credit; he knew exactly what he was doing.
Just the thought of the frantic sex on your desk had you heating up in dual embarrassment and desire. Embarrassment because...well it was your desk! In your classroom. How were you ever going to look at the table without remembering what had happened on top of it?
The desire was a more obvious, and expected, emotion though. Experiencing that again would be very welcomed on your behalf and you suspected that Hoseok would be just as open to it.
Nuzzling your head into him, you took in a deep breath to get a concentrated dose of Hoseok mixed with sex. It was a heady scent and you squeeze your thighs, feeling the wetness that was still there. 
Despite the horny monster he’s released, you feel a sense of tired contentment between you both. Hoseok hasn’t said anything since you’d both collapsed onto the bed after a rigorous second round and you hadn’t wanted to interrupt it yet. It was nice to just enjoy the tired aftermath of sex without the pressure of talking anything out.
Even if you knew that you both had to.
As if he can tell what you’re thinking, Hoseok takes a deep breath that has your head rising.
“I didn’t intend for...well for this. I swear,” He says, his voice a little nervous and you can tell he’s uncertain about how you’re going to respond now the potion has run its course. “I’m sorry for knocking the potion over, it was stupid of me.”
Pushing up onto your elbow, you reach up and place a finger against his lips to stop him from saying anything else. He looks at you, his cheeks adorably full from this angle and his eyes dark while he waits for you to say whatever you’re thinking.
What you’re thinking is that his lips are so soft beneath your fingertip, plush and swollen from the frantic kisses. Before you can think of anything else, you shift forward until you’re kissing him once more, the movement slow enough for him to stop it if he didn’t want to.
He lets you though, one hand coming up to cup the back of your neck in support, and opening his mouth to deepen it. A quiet moan leaves your throat as you slant your mouth against his, tilting your head to find the perfect angle and shivering as he slips his tongue into your willing mouth. 
Any hint of a conversation disappears between you both, his free hand running down your naked back in a slow stroke that’s so sensual it has you quivering. But you know that he understands that you’re not annoyed at him; actually the exact opposite.
Pulling away, you lick at your lips and note the unfiltered lust in his eyes as he watches you do so, before smiling at him. Brushing some of his dark hair away from his face, admiring just how handsome he was.
“Don’t worry about it, honestly. I was fully aware of myself and wanted it. I already told you that and I meant it. The potion just helped me to get over my inhibitions. Trust me, I was already considering this after the Winter Solstice Ball. I just didn’t know how to get over the hurdle of being nervous about it.” Now it’s his turn to comfort you, his fingertips tracing across your face in a featherlight touch.
It’s almost painfully tender and the sparkling warmth in his eyes tells you that there’s something much deeper there for him. But you don’t push and he doesn’t spill. He’ll tell you when he’s comfortable with it, and you’ll be there to hear it.
Instead, he opens up with an entirely different kind of vulnerability. The confidence he’s shown so far disappears and you note fondly that it makes him look younger. Something he’d probably hate you saying.
You’ve finally figured out why he never likes conversation about the age difference between you both, at least.
“Really? Do you really mean that? I mean, about considering it?” Hoseok sounds awkward, his voice pitching higher than normal at one point and causing him to cough while his cheeks darken. The urge to coo is unbelievable.
“Yes, I mean it. I was a little taken aback when I first came here and I saw how much you’d changed since I’d last seen you. But you became one of my closest friends and the last few weeks has had me looking at you...in a slightly different light. You were...unreal at the ball and it made me realise a lot of things. And the kiss spurred that on, too. I talked with Jisoo and she helped me to see that...you’re not just her little brother. I’d been putting that label on you in an attempt to keep you at arm’s length, but I don’t want that now. I don’t need to, because I’ve accepted that I find you attractive and I would be open to more if you wanted it.” The words fall from your mouth in a rush, taking advantage of the confidence you had to get this out.
“I want it.” You don’t even get to say anything else because Hoseok interrupts you with those three simple words, the syllables fast as his enthusiasm takes over. Snorting quietly, you kiss his cheek affectionately and enjoy it when it pinkens once more.
“Someone’s eager.” Teasing him, you roll onto your back and let out a sigh as you stare up at the blank ceiling. There’s a slight chill in the air, common in such an old castle as Hogwarts, but you feel your nipples pebble from it. Shuddering, you go to tug the blanket over your naked body and Hoseok’s.
“I’ve been waiting for this for a while, so yeah. But we can talk about that more later if you want?” Looking over at him, you smile at the happiness on his face and note how he seems so much lighter than before. The knowledge that you’ve done this to him is a little overwhelming, causing you to let out a sudden breath.
And then you notice that he’s not only happy in the metaphorical sense but also in the physical sense, a prodding against your thigh causing you to peek under the blanket. Sure enough, his well-endowed erection was very prominent against you.
Raising an eyebrow, you look up at Hoseok with a mix of exasperation, amusement and admiration.
“Already? Three times in an evening?” Now Hoseok is the one smirking, the palm of his hand pressing flat against your stomach before slowly creeping down your body. The low lying flame of desire that had settled burns back to life now and you subtly wriggle in your bed, thighs opening as your body tries to get those long fingers where you want them.
“One of the benefits of a younger man,” Wiggling his brows, he grins when you chuckle before pushing at his chest. “If our age difference is ever mentioned again then I want this to be the thing you remember most.”
And with that, he flashes his teeth in a mischievous smile before disappearing under the blanket, ignoring your shriek of laughter at how his fingers tickle. That laughter soon dissolves into a moan when he reaches his destination though and as you grasp his hair tightly, glad that you finally took the plunge and realised what a wonderful man Jung Hoseok is.
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tobi-momo · 3 years ago
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nobody seemed to hear us, but we said it.
PROLOGUE | MASTERLIST | CHAPTER 02
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— synopsis. back from Miyagi for a simple month, a welcome back party reignites the one relationship he wasn’t expecting. yours. it was obvious you hadn’t forgotten about what happened in high school, neither did he, but maybe he could mend the relationship back together. could he?
— warnings. cursing | drinking | implications of smoking (not from any of the characters, not depicted either) | kinda poor writing
— word count. 1.3k+
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The alcohol was boring. The bitter taste of the IPA he took occasional sips of made his tongue sour and his eyes squint in annoyance. Everyone around him had been enjoying the event a lot more than him, he could see from the blaring music and the dancing and the shot-taking in the background of it all. It was boring. It was all so boring.
He nonchalantly shook girls off of his arm as they try to prop their breasts up and caress his bicep, “just wanting to dance”, and he rolled his eyes at the comments that his teammates (Koganegawa) throw at him, telling him he needs to lighten up, or he just needs to drink a little more to loosen out a bit.
“C’mon, Tsukki, just one dance?” A random girl had pleaded while hanging off his arm. Her lip poked out in a pout and her cheeks were red from the alcohol, but there was nothing in her eyes. He wondered if he had missed the gleam of desire or the sharp tint of lust in her pupils, but one glance confirmed that she just wanted to be with somebody for the night. He figured she was probably lonely, something he would never admit to.
“I’m good.” He returned his sights to the wall in front of him, half-covered in bouncing people and red Dixie cups being held in tight hands. He felt her hand slack down and her eyes roll, a grunt of irritation seeping into his hearing as she left. It was probably for the better, though.
He looked around briefly, only seeing his teammates either jumping around—Kyoutani, who grumped on the chair across the room—or people he had never seen in his life that just wanted to have a good time. If he didn’t see anyone he had met prior to leaving, what was the point of being here at all?
That was when he realized the hotel room got a little crowded as people kept entering, and he wondered if they might get kicked out if this continued. As he leaned against the wall, he questioned himself. He liked to do that. Maybe he should just leave. Although it would be a hard task, squeezing himself between sweaty bodies and he knew he’s probably going to get whipped in the face with hair and a couple of arms, but the air was getting too hot and he couldn’t breathe the same way with all the smoke in the air. So he got off against the wall and placed his half-empty beer bottle down on the dresser beside him, taking his jacket away from hanging on his arm and puts his arms through the sleeves, turning his torso sideways to walk out of the crowd with his body still intact. He cracked the door open, which surprisingly, there was no one before him in the hallway before he shut it behind him.
He could breathe again.
It was refreshing, even though the air wasn’t exactly chilly, it felt nice going down his esophagus and clearing his lungs. All he had to do was find his mother’s place, now. He walked down the hallway towards the elevator, pressing the L button before he backed up against the wall and waited for the doors to slide closed.
He wasn’t expecting anyone to stick their hand through the metal gates, but nevertheless, unexpected things happen all the time in the life of Tsukishima Kei, like the one time Kyoutani tripped over his shoelaces during practice before he jumped up to hit the ball, falling on his face in front of the whole team. He chuckled at that. The person who had been stumbling inside the metal box was heaving, frantically picking up their stuff as what he guessed they dropped just now—he wasn’t paying attention as he recalled a certain memory.
“Shit,” they whispered as they bent down to pick their phone up off the ground. They stood up after grabbing what they needed and flattened their clothes, then leaned against the elevator frame. He looked over with a newfound curiosity, his head tilted to the side while his eyes scanned over what they were wearing. Nothing extravagant, he noted as his eyes scooted upwards.
It was only when they lifted their head to say sorry that he lost his train of thought. Completely stumped, was he. Eyes wide with his breath slowed down almost to a complete stop, he stared.
And so did you.
• • • • • •
“You promise to love me forever, Tsukki?” You question with your hands carrying his, your eyes beading with excitement. He looked at you like he was nervous and he didn’t know what to say, his fingers curling in your palms and sweating a bit. Though, when he looked at you, he couldn’t stop the way your smile bled into his veins and rushed through his entire body, placing one of his own on his face.
He takes a deep breath and readjusts himself in your grip, “I promise!” He shouts it with determination, relishing in your giggles and throwing your hands up in the air with him.
The adults that surrounded you two, his parents and yours, clapped for you as if it were a link in matrimony. They cheered and laughed with you, praising you both for “being the luckiest people on Earth”. He smiles again, believing every word they said all the while holding your hand in his.
Lucky. Was that really what you were?
“Shit,” you mumbled again, only this time it came out as if you hadn’t seen something for a long time. He supposed he couldn’t blame you for that. “Ah, Tsukishima,” you marked awkwardly, dealing with the shocked stare he handed to you. “What-what are you doing here?” You stuttered over your words with an inhale as you get a grip on the event that just had to happen right now.
“Party.” He uttered out.
“What? You, a party? No way,” you offered a smile.
“Uh, I was just leaving,” he clarified, finally getting a grip on his vocal cords. “What floor?”
“Oh, just the Lobby, I’m heading home.” Your head turned back to the wall before you, waiting for the doors to close again.
“You still live here?” He muttered, a confused brow creasing his skin.
“Huh?” You turned your head again as the doors shut, thankfully not hard enough to cause whiplash, “yeah, I do. Pretty boring, right?” You chuckled it off, your lungs suffocating in the uncomfortable atmosphere. “I just haven’t had anywhere to go since college, so. But!” You raised a finger, not to let him jump to conclusions. “I have my own home. The market here is pretty cheap and I didn’t want to live with my mom.”
He nodded in understanding, finally allowing his neck to guide his head face-forward.
“What about you? I heard you joined a professional volleyball team, I’ve seen you on TV.”
“You’ve watched me play?” Even if your faces were turned away from each other, you knew exactly what his face looked like at that exact moment. You cursed yourself for it.
“Only a little bit, when I don’t have anything else to watch.” Did that come off as mean?
“I see. Well—”
The elevator dinged and the doors glided open with a crowd on the other side, rushing inside the box. You both dashed out of it, observing the rest of the passengers press practically all the buttons there was on the dashboard and argue over what food they wanted for dinner. Your heads slowly reclined back to each other, the same thing dressing both of your features. People.
A smug smile quirked the corners of his lips up before he turned around, walking towards the exit of the building. You slightly frowned at his hurry to get away from you, this feeling of something unresolved rising in your stomach.
“Hey,” you called over, watching his body halt and switch directions. “Wanna have a couple drinks?” You asked politely, raising your shoulders, “catch up?”
He nodded. Maybe the beer won’t taste that bad, he thought to himself while he waited for your legs to line up with his.
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—author's note. HI IM SO SORRY FOR THE LATE UPDATE AND THE FIRST CHAPTER TOO 😩 ive been swamped in school work and im just trying to get caught up. im trying to make this story as captivating as possible, (yes i havent finished writing it, im that impulsive) so dont be afraid to send me suggestions! (i already have one and y/n is an artist 😌 - painter to clarify)
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TAGLIST IN REBLOG —
fill out this form or send an ask to be a part of the taglist!
(reblogs are appreciated)
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garfieldsladybird · 3 years ago
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MORE ABOUT MYSELF ➪☟︎
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garfieldsladybird. this blog is a safe space for everyone. i do not have an age setting, so all are welcome!! requests for blurbs are currently open, i’ll try my best with them. dms and asks are always open to talk! — boundaries.
what im up too. — my dog finn <33.
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hello, welcome to my blog!! im garfield or ladybird, up to you. you can call me garfy or birdy tho.
I’m genderfluid. 16. bisexual. Intp-t. stoner. Cabin 13, Hades child. slytherclaw/raverin- now Hufflepuff.
♈︎ aries, ♏︎ scorpio, ♊︎ gemini.
when i said i was a theater kid, I didn’t realize what a theater kid was. I’m not a fucking theater kid. nothing wrong with them though, just had a bad experience :|
in my free time; reading. playing the sims! (i wish that was true) reading on this app, Ao3, or wattpad. i love music and dancing! and hanging out with my friends! also smoking.
i would rather be alone than hang out with people. In my opinion, im like a popular loner :)
— future; i want to get into editing, like film work. i want to do something like being a camera man, making the movie come to life with good transitions, lighting, and scenery… idk if that makes sense but I want to do that. I also really want to be a paramedic EMT and/or a firefighter, maybe even a cop.
— other things; im a great procrastinator. maladaptive daydreamer. and i also deal with anxiety. I do not have a therapist to talk to yet so that’s fun. but wii ball!
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🦄 — fandoms im in; anything i write for man— harry potter, includes the marauders era and tom era, etc. im also into marvel, twilight, peaky blinders, the witcher, the 100, stranger things, umbrella academy, teen wolf, sex education, psych, 911 & 911: lone star, Hawaii Five-0, Wednesday series, Glee, the rookie.
📖 — my books/dr’s; i have an acc for my books which are technically my dr’s but I look at them as my books. @bugsvenom. I have lots of books :)) i haven’t started any of them.
🎧 — my favorite artists -> billie eilish! Eminem! Tyler, The Creator! SZA! twenty one pilots! queen! — garfields playlist!! I have multiple playlists. ( <- im just talkin abt em)
👀 — my fav youtubers; Dylan is in trouble!! Brittany Broski!! Trisha Paytas!! Tana Mongeau!! Jeff FM!! Boze vs the World, Sturniolo Triplets, Dez Games, Rebal D, Xenoshot, Erick Khan, Courtreezy, Onyebabyyy, Madisyn Brown, Squidinkidink. Dropouts podcast.&& The Graham Norton Show!! — i also love asmr <33
📺 — favorite shows/movies: Psych. 911 & 911: Lone star. teen wolf. Jumanji 1&2. The witcher. The Spiderwick Chronicles. Alice in borderland.
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this blog is used for a lot of things. i try writing but it’s difficult and so i would say i’ve had writers block for a long time. i have some writing posted but to me, it’s not the best.
warning — most of my writing includes smoking marijuana.
— i am a stoner. your local pothead started in nov 2021, and I do have permission. ask questions if you want too or need too!! — the high algorithm. <- (questions that have been answered)
i joined here in 2021, new years time so technically, i’ve been here since 2022 started. im usually always here, but school is also happening so im here but at the same time im not.
since i don’t write a lot, i usually just post me talking or i reblog a much of peoples works. i reblog anything i like.
I also make commentaries on any type of show or thing I’m watching. the thing is with commentaries is I don’t necessarily explain the scene, I just write my thoughts about it, and I might put the episode of the show too.
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‎© 𝗀𝖺𝗋𝖿𝗂𝖾𝗅𝖽𝗌𝗅𝖺𝖽y𝖻𝗂𝗋𝖽.
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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 4 years ago
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scopaesthesia 👁️ chapter 2
Warnings: nonconsensual sex, death, murder, violence, stalking, paranoia, blood, gore, and other warnings to be added
This is dark!Bucky Barnes with a likelihood off dark!Steve Rogers as well and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.
Summary: Your stalker gets closer.
Note: Alright, things are ramping up. As always, mind the warnings and take care of yourselves.
Thank you. Love you guys!
As always, if you can, please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3
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You didn't sleep much. Shallow spurts laced with fear. Your dreams when they came were vague but horrifying. A shadow, a voice, the feeling of being watched. Always.
You were roused by a creak. You'd left your door half-open last night. 
You sat up, the curtains drawn, and looked around. You rubbed your temple and pushed the covers away from you. You pulled down the hem of your tee and dragged your feet across the room. You elbowed the door open and stepped into the hall.
You looked around the corner into the living room. Bucky sat on the couch where you’d left him the night before. He cradled the tablet on his thigh as he yawned and flicked the screen. 
“Did you sleep at all?” You asked, your throat dry and scratchy. 
“You?” He asked as he looked up. “I just sent the audio into forensics for review. We might be able to run analysis on his voice and they’re working on tracing the call.”
“And what do I do?” You crossed your arms.
“What you’ve been doing,” he set the tablet on the coffee table and stood. He stretched his arms above him, the metal plates of his left contracting as he lowered it. “As far as we know, he has no idea about us. I came in the back and to be honest, as a civilian, you react before you think. He called you to make sure you were still here. To reassure himself that not all was lost.”
“How do you know this? Do you deal with this often?”
“Well, no, I deal with assassins and spies more often but… well, I can’t divulge the extent of our intelligence. I can only say that what we found sets him on par with my usual work.”
“Wouldn’t it be safer if I actually knew what was going on?” You prodded.
“No, trust me. You know what you need to.” He said staunchly.
You poked the inside of your cheek with your tongue and shrugged. “You want a coffee?”
“If you’re making some,” he rubbed his nose as he watched you cross the room, “I’ll leave before you but… I’ll be around.”
“Like last night?” You challenged.
“That’s on me. I shouldn’t have been so careless but the next time he calls, you won’t be alone.”
“Apparently I haven’t been for a while,” you said. “If he has my number, what else does he have?”
“Think about what you have. You have me and the whole of S.H.I.E.L.D. behind you,” he reproached. “And let me tell you, when I’m given a mission, I complete it.”
“I want to believe you,” you said as you took out the canister of coffee, “I really do.”
👁️
You were distracted on your way to work. The voice lingered in your head, the words. The necklace bouncing over the collar of your coat was barely a comfort. What would Bucky do if the killer appeared right then? Could he get to your fast enough? He said he’d be close, watching, but was he closer than your stalker?
You picked a ball of lint from your glove as you ran up the station steps and onto the street. Once you were at work you could forget. You’d be surrounded by people; co-workers, clients, and the occasional messenger. For once, the ringing phone welcomed you. You knew what awaited you on the other end; an appointment to be made or a transfer to another part of the office. Simple.
Your boss, Mr. Drousseau, was often first to the office. He was unlocking the door as you rounded the corner. He cradled a vase of flowers against him, his briefcase clutched in his hand, as he twisted the key and tried to open the door with his other arm. You rushed forward as the door threatened to fall shut again.
“Here,” you grabbed the door and he blinked at you in surprise. “I got it.”
He grunted and wrenched his key out before stepping inside. You followed as he crossed to your desk and plunked the vase down. He flicked a petal from his shoulder as he turned back to you.
“What are those?” You looked at the long-stemmed tulips; out of season and no doubt expensive. “Is your wife--?”
“Some carrier just handed them off,” He set his briefcase on a chair in the waiting area and took off his long jacket. “They’ve got your name on them?”
“What?” You neared the desk and took the card. Your name was scrawled in slanted letters on the front. You placed your bag beside the vase and carefully opened the card. “I don’t know who--”
You almost dropped the cardstock but instead closed it again. Your cheek twitched as you looked up at Drousseau and tapped the card with your fingernail. 
“A surprise from my father,” you lied. “He lives so far away…”
“Mmm,” Drousseau nodded as he hung his jacket. “Well, next time, tell him to have them sent to you directly.”
“Sure. Yeah, sorry,” you kept the card between two fingers as you unzipped your coat. “I’ll send you a copy of today’s roster.”
He grumbled as he grabbed his briefcase and jingled his keys as he went to his office door. He paused as he unlocked the door. “Coffee.” He said. “Espresso if you’re feeling particularly generous.”
You smiled at his back and let out a sigh only when his door closed behind him. He saw you as a glorified barista and didn’t seem to realise that you organised the chaos of his own success. Without you, he wouldn’t know which way was up. Well, he might learn that soon enough.
You slipped out of your coat and hung it. You pinched the card and shuddered as you carefully opened it again. There were no words on the inside. Only a stark, red splotch. You ran your thumb over it and the edge flaked away. It couldn’t be… blood. 
But what else would it be? Who else would send them?
You closed the card and crumpled it in your hand. Panic squeezed your heart and you raced to the paper shredder hidden behind the copier. You flicked the switch and fed the card into the machine. The grind of the blade echoed your stomach. You hadn’t eaten that morning; you couldn’t.
You looked down at the flower dangling from your neck. You spoke to it quietly. “He sent flowers,” you felt crazy, like you were talking to yourself, “What does that mean?”
Your phone vibe in your bag on the desk and you stepped past your chair. You fished around for your cell and pulled it out.
‘It means he’s trying to scare you,’ Bucky’s text flashed across the screen, quickly followed by another. ‘Don’t let him. I’m here.’
You shook your hand and didn’t reply. You put your phone face down on your desk and touched your temples. You weren’t sure that anyone, even Bucky, could keep you safe.
👁️
It was only the flowers that day. You spent much of your working hours watching the door. You watched over your shoulder on your way home, convinced that every fellow pedestrian and passenger was a monster. When you got to your apartment, you locked the door and checked every inch of your apartment. 
As you paced, your phone shook. You stared at it until it stilled and then it began again. You answered it shakily and let out a long breath as Bucky’s voice rose from the speaker.
“You’re not responding to me. You can’t do that. I need to make certain you’re safe at all times. That’s my job. You understand?” He chided.
“You have the bug, don’t you? You can hear everything.” You sat and fidgeted on the couch. “And you’re close. You’d know if anyone… if anyone…”
“Yes, but you’re cooperation only helps, alright?” He said. “I know you’re scared but right now he’s just playing games. He’s trying to make you do something stupid so don’t do that. You’re doing exactly what he wants; you’re panicking.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” you hissed, “That’s the point.”
“Go to your window. The one away from the street in your bedroom.” He said.
“What?”
“Just do it and look up a few floors.”
You sniffed and stood up. You went to your room and rounded the bed. You pulled aside the curtain and searched the brick building just across the alley. A small glint came through a window only three floors up. You heard a tap on the other end; the sound of metal on glass.
“See. I’m close. You’re safe. He won’t get any closer than me. I promise.” He said.
“Oh, uh,” you stepped back from the window. “Okay. I… thank you.”
“It’s my job,” he said, “And yours is to get some rest. You’re no good exhausted. That’s what he wants.”
“Okay,” you mumbled.
The line clicked and you sat on the foot of your bed. You dropped your phone to the mattress and took a breath. You got up slowly and went to the bathroom. You closed the door and looked at yourself in the mirror. You unclasped the necklace and hung it from the cabinet handle to keep from losing it. You undressed blindly and let your clothes heap on the floor.
The rings of the shower curtain chimed as you pulled it open and placed the stopper in the drain. You turned the faucet until it steam and stepped into the rising flood. You stretched before you lowered yourself down into the tub. Your stiff muscles loosened and you felt the day float away.
Just a moment of peace before it would all come back. Just a moment to yourself.
👁️
The next morning was unusually sunny though the night had been little different. Despite your fatigue, sleep was still elusive. Even when you did manage to dose, it was shallow and unsatisfying. You woke with a weight in the back of your head and finished two cups of coffee before you readied for your last day of work before the weekend.
The tulips remained on your desk. You’d forgotten about them even with the stream of compliments on the bouquet. You’d offered it to several coworkers but had met only with polite refusal. You sat and set yourself up as Drousseau shuffled around in his office. 
Your first call of the day was easy enough. One of Drousseau’s oldest clients needed to be patched through. You hit transfer but before you could put the phone down, it rang again. You hit answer and gave your usual greeting.
“You like the flowers?” The same, eerie voice as two nights before. “They made me think of you.”
“What?” You breathed as you pushed yourself away from the desk and your chair rolled back until the spiral cord was taut. “What do you--”
“You’re not the rose type. You’re so sweet. So pure, baby girl.” He continued as your stomach plummeted. You looked around at the flurry of activity around you; the whir of the copier, the clacking of keys, the quiet chatter of employees. It was surreal. “Someone like you in a world like this is made to be used.”
“I don’t know what you want from me. I’m at work. You can’t call here--” Your cell vibed beside your keyboard as you tried to keep your voice down.
“I can do whatever I want, baby girl. I have done everything I want when I want… except you… no, you need to wait. It has to be the right way.” He snarled. “Yes, soon. You will be ready soon.”
“Please--”
The line went dead as your cell began to buzz incessantly. You slammed down the receiver and grabbed your mobile as it shook. You stood and looked around. No one seemed to notice your distress. You stormed off to the restroom and closed yourself in. You slid your finger across the screen and held it to your ear.
“Bucky?” You croaked.
“It’s me.” He confirmed. “You alright? That him?”
“Y-yes,” you trembled as you braced the sink. “He said… he said soon. Bucky, he’s going to kill me. I know it.”
“Shhhh, please, take a breath.” He coaxed. “And count, like I showed you.”
“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” you whined. “Please, I can’t do this.”
“Breathe,” he ordered, “One…” He began to count as you stared in the mirror. You nodded in time until your breaths evened out and you huffed into the phone. “Good, good. Now, you have to act like everything is alright. Stay at work. You’re safe there.”
“And… after?”
“You know I’ll be there. I already am, alright? I know everyone who walks through that door, honey. You trust me?”
Your lashes fluttered and you let go of the sink. ‘Honey.’ Your mind lingered on that word but you quickly shrugged it off.
“I do,” you said, “You’ll protect me.”
“I will,” he assured you. “This creep is no match for me.”
“Yeah,” you murmured, “Okay. I’m alright. I gotta go back.”
“Alright,” he said softly. “I’ll be here.”
👁️
When work was done, you didn’t go directly to the subway. You needed to sleep and you needed to forget. There was one way to do both; alcohol. Just down the block was a liquor store. You’d grab a bottle of wine and be on your way. A brief detour before you could hide once more in your boxlike apartment.
You crossed the street and a figure caught in the corner of your eye. You reached into your pocket and pulled out your phone as you turned down the sidewalk. You held up the cell and angled it so you could see the reflection over your shoulder. There was a man a few feet behind; he was tall but walking slowly with his head down, a hood casting shadows over his face. You slowly lowered your phone and squeezed until you thought it would break.
You neared the door of the shop. You knew he was still there. You dipped through the door and the chirp of the sensor made your flinch. You quickly flitted to the back aisle of scotch and whiskey and peered back to the front. The man in the hoodie passed the window but peered back at you as he did.
“A man,” you pulled out the necklace from beneath your jacket, “There’s a man following me. I saw him.”
Your phone quaked and you dropped the necklace. You fumbled with your cell and pretended to browse the aged malts. 
“I see him but I can’t see his face.” Bucky said. 
“I didn’t either. What do I do?”
“Stay calm. What are you even doing?”
“I was… gonna get some wine.” You went to the aisle of imports and scanned the shelves. “That’s all.”
“Well, get whatever and go home. Don’t worry about this creep. I’ll deal with him.” Bucky said. “He’s probably not even our guy, just another dirtbag.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just buy your wine and get to the train.” He hung up bluntly and you sighed.
You grabbed a cabernet and went to the counter. You paid and hid the bottle in your bucket bag. You reluctantly pushed through the door and swiftly turned down the street. The man was behind you. You checked again with your phone, this time with your camera on. You snapped a pic over your shoulder and quickly tucked it into your sleeve.
You looked up and saw another hooded man heading towards you. You almost tripped as he passed you and recognized Bucky’s short stubble poking out. You didn’t stop as a commotion rose behind you.
“Watch it,” Bucky growled. No response and you ran across the street. 
You hurried on and stopped at the corner to look back. Bucky stood with arms crossed against the front of a convenience store and the other man was gone. He nodded and pushed himself away from the chipped brick. You turned back and raced to the subway.
Home, home, home. Just get home.
👁️
Your apartment was already dark when you got home. The days grew shorter and shorter as the winter threatened to storm down on the city. You plopped your bottle of wine on the counter and kicked off your shoes. You hung your bag and coat from the rack and checked your phone.
‘Text when home.’ Bucky’s message seared into your vision.
You sent your response and uncorked the bottle. You poured yourself a glass and carried it to the living room with your cell. You left them on the coffee table as you went to change. You dumped your blouse, skirt, and thick stockings into the hamper along with your bra and panties. You took the necklace off and set it on your night table.
You pulled on a pair of pajama bottoms and an old tee. You scooped up the necklace and took it with you into the front room. You hung it from the lamp beside the couch and took a gulp of wine as you searched for something to watch. The alcohol burned your hungry stomach.
A knock came at the door and you nearly choked as you set your glass down. You peered through the hole. It was Bucky. You unlocked the door and pulled it open.
“What are you doing here?”
“That was pretty creepy,” he said as he stepped past you without welcome. “Wanted to make sure you were okay. I’ve cased the entire building. Didn’t see him around.”
“You think he would’ve followed me here? You said it was likely not him.”
“Maybe not but the guy was leery enough to follow you to the store,” Bucky went to the window and looked out. “You need to tell me when you change your plans.”
“Sorry, I-- It wasn’t far so I thought--”
“If you’re as scared as you’re acting, you’ll get your shit together and listen to me.” He closed the blinds. “You take a detour like that and that’s trouble for both of us.”
He rounded the armchair and neared the coffee table. He ran a metal finger around the rim of your glass. “Hope it was worth it.”
“I’m sorry,” you said again, “I didn’t mean to--”
“You need something, you tell me. I’ll take care of it.” He interrupted. “You go anywhere, you clear it with me. We’re not fucking around anymore.”
“Bucky, I…” you pouted. “I didn’t--”
“Look, I’m not mad but I have to be strict. We don’t have room for mistakes.” He neared you and his face softened. “It’s for your own good, honey.”
You stared at him and reached to the collar of his jacket. He unzipped it and backed away to hang it over your own. You frowned.
“I already sent in an incident report. The Director said I should keep close watch tonight. Just in case.”
“Oh,” you watched him unlace his boots. “I… Okay?”
“I don’t mean to crowd you but better safe than sorry.” He stood.
“Right,” you sidled past him, “You want any wine?”
“Nah,” he waved you off, “Stuff doesn’t really do anything for me.”
You nodded and went back to the couch. You sat and hit continue watching. You picked at your fingernail anxiously. Bucky sat on the other side of the couch and groaned. He stretched his fingers and they cracked loudly.
“You hungry? I can order something? I don’t feel much like cooking.” You offered.
“If you’re hungry,” he shrugged. “You must be.”
You played with your phone and set it down to take another drink. “You like Chinese?”
“Sure,” he said, “Whatever you want, honey.”
You grabbed your phone and tried to hide your discomfort. Were you just rattled from the hooded creep? Paranoid because your life had turned into a murder mystery? Or was this man crossing a line?
You opened up the app and scrolled to the meal for two. You confirmed the order and put your phone on the arm of the couch. “About half an hour,” you said.
You looked over as Bucky reached up to the lamp and played with the necklace. He slowly retracted his hand and chuckled.
“You know, you talk in your sleep,” he chuckled. “Necklace picks it up sometimes.”
“I do?” You wondered.
“Nothing really. Doesn’t really make sense.” He smirked. “But… it’s kinda funny.”
“Oh,” you sat back. You wanted another mouthful of wine but you were already almost done your first glass. “Weird.”
You crossed your arms and looked at the television. Everything was weird. The murders, your stalker, and even this man they sent to protect you. It was all just a little off and that scared you even more.
👁️
When the food arrived, Bucky got up to answer the door. You ate at the coffee table and finished your second glass of wine. The alcohol helped your appetite and for the first time in days, you managed to eat more than a few bites. Bucky didn’t need any help as he threw back fried rice and back ribs.
You cleaned up after and tossed the containers in the trash. You were a little tipsy as you flopped onto the couch and rated your meal on the app. Bucky filled your glass for you and returned the bottle to the kitchen before taking his place once more. You thanked him and took a sip.
“Thought you weren’t exactly happy about this,” you raised the glass.
“I can’t blame you. Hell, if I could get anything out of it, I’d have a glass of my own.” He mused. “So, the phone call, we need to go over what he said to you. Obviously, I couldn’t hear it.”
“Right now?” You set your glass down.
“Before I forget,” he reached into his pocket and took out his own phone. He opened up the notepad. “Doesn’t have to be exact.”
“He didn’t say… much…” You began and you regretted the two glasses of wine. “He said I… I was pure… and that…” Your cheeks burned and you felt the flutter of nerves, “He wants to use me and…” You swallowed as your lips quivered, “He said soon. That he would do something soon.”
You grabbed your wine and drank deeply. 
“That’s all. That’s all he said.” You put the glass down and held your head. “I don’t know what to do.”
“You’re doing all you can,” his hand settled gently on your back and you winced. He rubbed lightly as he shifted closer and placed his phone on the table. “And you got me.”
“Yeah, but I-- I don’t know if you can stop him.” You looked at him as tears blurred your vision. “And I don’t know what I did to make him do all this. He’s killed others because of me and… And how am I supposed to live with that?”
“He did that, not you,” Bucky insisted, “It’s not your fault--”
Your phone slipped from the arm of the couch suddenly as it vibrated. Bucky’s hand dropped away as you took your cell. You held up the flashing screen. There was no number, not even ‘Private’ or ‘Unknown’. Just the two icons; answer or ignore.
You hovered your thumb over the latter and Bucky stopped you. He shook his head as you looked at him. “Answer it.”
You grimaced and he let you go. He moved away from you and you hesitated. You hit answer and the screen lit up. It was a video call. You saw a white ceiling and heard the muffled sobbing of a woman. Goosebumps rose on your skin as the camera moved erratically and the colours blurred together and cleared to form the image of a woman’s face.
She had a gag in her mouth, tied in place by a black piece of fabric. Tears stained her cheeks as she squirmed. 
“Baby girl,” the voice spoke from offscreen as a gloved hand appeared holding a knife. It dragged the edge down the woman’s cheek as she squealed. “She’s nothing. Nothing compared to you.”
You were frozen, weighed down with dread and fear as you sat gaping at the screen.
“I’ll show you…” He turned the knife. “Show you that she can never be you. That there is only you.”
The hand moved so fast and drew a sudden line of red across the woman’s throat. The cut gushed as the woman choked on the gag and her own blood. The sickening noise of her death filled your ears and the man moaned your name. The screen went black and you dropped your phone.
“Oh my god,” you gasped as you shook violently and the alcohol bubbled in your stomach, “Oh my god, oh my god.” 
You stood dizzily and fell back on the couch. Bucky touched your arm and you pulled away as you bent over the side of the couch at the sudden revolt inside of you. You wretched onto the hardwood as tears spilled from your eyes. Your body contracted as you were overwhelmed in fear and revulsion.
“Oh my god,” you cried, “Oh my god…” 
Bucky pulled you back to him and stretched his arm over your shoulders. He hushed you as he hugged you to him and rocked you back and forth.
“You’re okay, honey. There was nothing you could do,” he said, “Shh, calm down. Breathe…” He caressed your head as he held you, “Just breathe. I’m here.”
532 notes · View notes
professorrw · 4 years ago
Text
Study Break, a Peter Parker One-Shot
Pairing: gn reader x Peter Parker
Warnings: fluff, swearing
A/N: Happy birthday to Tom Holland! This was a request I got on AO3! I’ve only watched Spider-Man Homecoming once and it was when it first came out so I don’t remember much but I tried my best! My requests are open! Please like, comment, and reblog! If you want to be tagged in my works let me know!
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“Ugh. I’m going to fail. I’m going to fail, that’s what’s going to happen. I’m not going to get the credits. All that time in class was wasted.” You huff and lay your head on the library desk.
“You won’t fail Y/N. You’re doing pretty well, we just have a few more things to go over.” Your boyfriend Peter puts his hand on your back and pats it in an attempt to make you feel better. Although his touch was comforting it wasn’t going to help you on exams.
“We’ve been sitting here for hours. My head is full of all this stuff I need to know and it feels like it’s about to explode.”
“I have an idea. How about we go roller skating and then get milkshakes? We can take a little break, let your brain rest, and then get back to it.”
You roll your head over to look at him. His eyebrows are raised and his hands are out to the side making a gesture that says, “how about it?”
“That actually sounds fun. I haven’t skated in forever though, I’ll probably fall on my face.” You were just about ready to give up, to throw in the towel but Peter wasn’t going to rest until you were sure you would get a good grade.
“I’m sure you’ll do fine. Now get up and stretch those legs.” Peter lightly jumps on the balls of his feet, making him look like a kid that just got told he was going to get ice cream.
You pack up your stuff and shove it into your backpack before you leave. It was seven o’clock at night and the sky was getting gradually darker. You really had been studying for hours. You left right after lunch and had been at the library ever since.
You walk to the roller rink that’s a few blocks down. As you got closer you saw on the retro-style sign that it was 80’s night. You stepped into the carpeted building and went to the front desk. The cashier was an older woman and she was dressed perfectly in the 80’s style. Her hair was teased and she was wearing huge neon hoops.
The rink was designed to be like a disco, the lights were turned off and pink, blue, and green lights shining on the walls and wooden floor. Cyndi Lauper played over the speakers, completing the atmosphere.
You both laced up your skates and entered the rink together. You were definitely rusty and nearly fell as soon as you stood. Peter struggled to suppress his laughter as he glided ahead of you. You gripped the side of the divider as you found your footing and followed Peter.
There weren’t many other people there, a few kids and their parents and some couples skating together. Peter skated in a circle back to you and grabbed your hand. The song changed to a slower song and Peter pulled you a little bit closer.
You skated side by side around the dimly lit rink. “This is pretty fun, I have to admit.”
“I know right? I’m glad we got the chance to come. I’ve wanted to take you on a date here for a while but couldn’t find the right time to ask.” He rubbed the back of his neck and a shy smile appeared on his face. He was such a cutie no matter what.
You felt confident enough to try to do a spin. You picked up a little speed and started turning. You really thought you were going to do it but not a second later your feet seem to slip out from under you and you fall. You lie on the ground on your back dying from laughter. You weren’t even embarrassed, you were genuinely having a good time. 
Peter was quick to rush to your side and as soon as he knew you were okay he dissolved into a fit of laughter. You were both laughing so hard you were wheezing and clutching your sides. 
“Oh-Oh! Help me- Help me up!” Tears were forming in the corners of your eyes and Peter was not doing any better. He grabbed onto your arm in an effort to pull you up but ended up on his butt too. That just made both of you laugh even harder, making you look like fools. You were having too much fun to even care that people were staring at you.
You stayed for a while longer, gaining a bruised ass but having a great time in general. There was a retro diner joined with the roller rink so you headed next door to get milkshakes and fries. You slid into the red booth in the corner and ordered your food.
“Thank you Peter. I really needed this break.” You reached across the table to hold his hand. 
He gave it a squeeze, “I thought you might. I’m glad you liked it.” He leaned forward and kissed you across the table. You were interrupted by your waitress setting down your plate of fries right between you and putting your milkshakes to the side. 
You dug into the comfort food, dipping your fries into your milkshake, which was your favorite flavor. You and Peter continued to joke and talk, avoiding the subject of exams. Once your glasses and plate were empty you left.
It was around nine so Peter walked you home. You arrived on the doorsteps of your apartment complex in a few minutes. 
“Goodnight handsome.” You pressed a kiss to Peter’s red cheeks. He always got flustered when you complimented him like that.
“G-goodnight. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
You turned to go in but Peter stood rooted in his spot. He wasn’t going to leave until you properly kissed him. You rolled your eyes and pressed your lips to his before finally waving goodbye. He grinned once more and then headed home.
Taglist: @bellamy1998​ 
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suchalonelysunflower · 4 years ago
Text
A Dance Of Thorns (c.h)
Where The Roses Bloom - Chapter 4
Pairing: Stable Lad! Calum Hood x Princess! Reader
Summary: Welcome to the masquerade to celebrate Your Royal Highness engagement. How many surprises can one night hold?
Warnings: Angst, Drama and Smut. Language, mentions of alcohol and abuse. Some grammatical mistakes (English is not my first language, I’m sorry!)
Word Count: 12.3 k
Author’s note: by far the longest chapter I’ve written but anything for the drama ✨ I would love to hear your thoughts on this 🥰 Remember that Reblogs, Feedback, Comments and Likes are very important! You have no idea how much they help me 💕 Hope you like it and Happy Reading 🦋🌻✨
My materialist // wanna be part of my tag list?
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Series Materialist || prologue || chapter one || chapter two || chapter three || chapter five || chapter six || chapter seven || epilogue
A month has gone by since the first time you saw King Luke Hemmings and you found out that you are supposed to marry him in less than a few weeks. And ever since that moment, you have invested every little free time you have into trying to stop that from happening.
You spent your afternoons sitting down at the library, reading book after book that might contain some kind of information to let you escape that awful deal. But every book you read said the same thing “A King’s promise may never be broken by law”
Still, that didn’t stop you.
Calum was also helping in every way he could. In the afternoons on his free days, he would go to the public library in town, searching for anything that could help your situation. He would spend hours reading about foreign laws that could give you at least some kind of leverage. He would ask around, hoping some kind of gossip might help you win something against your father, but until now all your tries gave little to no satisfaction.
At night, Calum would climb the castle’s walls to your window. It was the only way you could spend some time together and share hushed conversations since your father forbade you to go out without a proper companion.
He would lay with you in your bed, curled up together as he told you stories about faraway lands his father once told him, all in attempts to distract your mind from the reality you were facing every time the sun came out. He would kiss you goodnight as you fell asleep in his arms, letting the beat of his heart work as the symphony of your dreams. You would whisper “I love you’s” in the darkest of the room, letting them get lost in the stars as they shined down on you.
Every night you would go to sleep with Calum around your arms, but when the sun came up all traces of him disappeared with the moon. Well, everything but the white rose he left on your dresser along with the promise of keep fighting for you, no matter how long it took.
And with the sun it came the charade. You acted as the most obedient daughter you could ever think of. You attended your lessons, you didn’t speak out of place and obliged to every activity that surrounded the wedding, whether it was about flowers, food, decorations… things you couldn’t care less about since you were determined no to marry the King.
King Luke was not a bad person, on the contrary, he was one of the few people you could have a conversation with besides Sir Michael. Many afternoons they would accompany you in the library, never commenting about the books you chose to read as they sat in silence one in front of the other, immersed in their reading or their hushed conversations.
You learned to find a friend in Luke, someone that could have at least the same amount of trust you once had with your brother. He would make you laugh and he’d tell you everything you wanted to know about him, it was so easy and somewhat comforting to know that you were not as alone as you felt. But that did not mean that he had your full trust.
After Ashton took your father’s side in this dilemma, leaving you alone in a marriage you wanted no part of, you lost every ounce of trust you once held in your heart. And even though Ashton did try to make it better, to apologize for the way he treated you; you did not let him go near you. Every time you found yourself alone with him, you ignored his every move, and if you were in the company of others you didn’t even dignify him with a glance. You knew you might be a little harsh on him, and all of this hurt you as well, more than you would care to admit. But if your father learned about you and Calum… who else could’ve told him if not your brother?
Out of all the people who could betray you, you never expected Ashton to be one of them and you let him know that, no matter how much you needed your brother with you. If he declared your death with this marriage before you were sent away, then he’d be dead to you as well.
You were not going to give up, not even with the ceremony breathing on the back of your neck. There must be a way where you could break this engagement, something that could give you your freedom again.
The ceremony was scheduled one day before your twenty-first birthday, one day before you gained your independence as a royal as the law said it, one day before you could refuse the King’s requests with total liberty. Your father had planned this well, you must admit at least that. But if there was a way where you could delay the wedding… somehow make it past your birthday without getting married, then you would be able to get away.
But that task was more difficult than you have anticipated since your father was in charge of your schedule, everything was going smoothly and at perfect timing. There was nothing that you could do to delay the event.
“I need you to hold your breath for me, Your Highness”
For example right now, as the seamstresses adjusted the corset of your white dress to your body, your mind was reciting the laws again, trying to find some plothole that could be beneficial for you.
The grip you had in the chair tightened as they tied the corset on your back, helping you get into the skirt afterward. You didn’t say a word as the seamstresses chattered among them. You ignored the comments regarding your future marriage, or how beautiful your children will look if they look just like the King, or how lucky you were to be marrying into a rich kingdom.
“You will look beautiful on your wedding day, Your Highness,” The oldest lady said with a dreamy sigh “Your lover will not know what hit him”
“But my love will not be the one waiting at the end of the altar” You wanted to say, to scream at them for keeping up with the lie. You didn’t love Luke, you could never love him the way you love Calum. But Calum was not your fiance, he was just a secret.
You kept the tears at bay as you let them work over your dress, not daring to breathe too loud so you wouldn’t call their attention. They didn’t know that you were dying in the middle of a sea of white fabric and soft silk.
“There,” The young lady exclaimed as she finished the last touch of your veil, placing it carefully on your head “Oh, Your Highness. You look like a dream”
A dream trapped in a nightmare indeed.
You observed your reflection in the nearest window. You didn’t look like a child anymore; no, in front of you was the reflection of a woman, of a bride about to be sent to the slaughter of her liberty. A clockwork tragedy waiting to happen.
The white contrasted with your skin and hair, making you glow with the candlelight. It made you look more mature, more like a royal than you ever felt before. It was a beautiful work, but none of this ever felt right.
“You look just like your mother” The words of the older lady took your breath away. The memory of your mother’s face was already fading in your mind, you remember she was beautiful, but you couldn’t make the color of her eyes or the sound of her voice anymore.
“She would be so proud of you, Your Highness”
Would she? Would she have wanted this for you? If she were here, would she care or would she take your father’s side? Oh, what would you give to listen to one last piece of advice from her. To feel her embrace one more time, for her to tell you that everything would be okay.
You haven’t really felt the absence of your mother hit you as hard as of now because maybe with your mother here you wouldn’t feel so scared.
“Oh, don’t cry, princess” You didn’t even notice the tears running down your face until the lady pointed out “This is a happy occasion! There needn’t be any tears”
Only if she knew…
You accepted the silk handkerchief and dried your tears without saying anything, letting them help you out of your wedding gown as you tried on another one.
This was a black dress with roses embroidered along with the skirt and neckline. It was lighter than the wedding dress but the fabric was more delicate. The somber aspect of the dress, along with its sophistication, made you think of it as a better choice for your wedding day.
“Your father was very kind to host a party to celebrate your engagement, Your Highness. This is a perfect dress for the occasion”
You knew by now that none of your father’s actions could be considered kind. He organized this masquerade ball for his own benefit.
The King of RoseWood invited representatives of all the neighboring kingdoms and alliances that Ashton helped build, to the castle for a magical night of dancing and fun. But you knew he just wanted to parade the match you and Luke made in front of the world.
He wanted to show power, the kind of which someone would look at him and say “This is a man that demands respect” When in reality all he did was abuse his power and intimidate the ones closest to him.
The masquerade served as a punishment rather than a delight. He would put you under the spotlight and expect you to smile while he knows you’re dying on the inside. He will parade you around the room with the story of a good and lovable daughter, the little Princess that’s living the dream of a magical life in the arms of the man you love all thanks to the father whom she loved with all her heart.
He knew that this was all bullshit, and he rejoiced in the fact that you hated every single minute of it.
“The dress is absolutely stunning, Your Highness” Continued the older lady “What a lovely idea you had when deciding to use one of your mother’s old gowns and make it new again”
You gave her a small smile. It was a lovely idea, but not for the reasons they might think. This dress represented much more than just your mother and your wish of having her close in a moment like this. It represented going against your father in ways that only he could understand; it represented your heritage, how you didn’t forget who truly loved you and taught you how to be strong; it represented the image of the rebellion you set upon yourself, a sign that screamed “I will not stop even if you try”
It represented you.
“There is only one detail missing…” The young lady walked over to the dresser only to grab something delicate in her hands before presenting it to you: The mask.
Soft and made out of silk and with golden broderies across the eyes, the mask hid half of your face perfectly. If not for the tiara you must wear on your head, nobody would’ve been able to recognize who you were.
How ironic was it that in the night where you should be the center of attention, you wanted nothing more than to disappear.
*
The night was clear, all the stars and constellations were visible from where you were standing in front of your window. Your hands were touching the soft stones of the window frame as you tried to count your breaths.
You couldn’t help but look for him in the gardens, hoping you could see him waiting for you under your window, asking you to come to the tree where your meetings were held before everything went wrong. It’s only been a couple of days but you missed him, and with the way, he consumes all your thoughts it was almost impossible not to.
But he was not coming tonight, your father made sure that the help was not invited to the party since it was such an important event to make it “common”, so your meeting will have to wait until tomorrow.
Still, you imagined how it would be like if he were to attend the ball. You dreamt about his smile, how his eyes would shine once he spotted you standing there at the top of the stairs as he waited for you at the end of it. You wondered if he would like the dress and you wished you could show it to him.
You sighed as you imagined his hand taking yours, guiding you to the middle of the ballroom, and starting dancing with you as if nobody were watching. It’s been so long since your last dance with him and you couldn’t help but laugh at the memory of his clumsy feet stepping over yours in an attempt to teach you how to dance for your first ball.
Calum was always like that, caring and selfless until he couldn’t give anymore. That is one of the many things why you loved him, why you would never stop loving him.
But now you were forced to pretend to love someone else in front of strangers and people who didn’t care about you enough to notice how much you were hurting. The glamour of the night might hide it, but you know that there was only one person who you would much rather spend the night with; the only person who would not be there tonight.
“Y/N?” A voice called from outside your room, waking up from your dreams as you heard them knocking softly on the door “Are you ready to go?”
You pushed yourself from the window with a deep sigh, grabbing the mask that was laying on top of the bed before walking towards the door and opening it with an emotionless expression.
There, Ashton was waiting for you, pacing the hall until he heard the wooden door open. His whole body froze as his lips parted for a second when he took your appearance.
“You-” He said, choking up a little bit as he shook his head for a moment, thinking he might’ve seen a ghost “You look just like her…”
You were not expecting that comment. You knew the dress would affect your father, but you didn’t imagine it would have that kind of effect on Ashton.
But now, as he stood in front of you with wide, watering eyes and the faintest hint of a smile, you realized that you might not be the only one who misses your mother.
Ashton knew her longer, he used to spend every single moment with her along with you when you were nothing more than a child. When she died, you didn’t quite grasp the concept of death, but Ashton was the one who took it way harder. But, as a prince, he was not allowed to break down as any other normal kid would do when they lose a parent who was dear to them. No, he had to maintain his image and at the same time took it upon himself to raise you as your mother would.
He was the only loving family you’ve ever known. But he was also the only person who had ever broken your heart.
You looked at him with a sense of pity and understanding.
“I wanted to feel her with me tonight” You told him, these being the first words you exchanged with Ashton in a long time.
You noticed this also affected him. His eyebrows raised slightly and he took one step towards you, still bargaining with your feelings towards him.
Ashton took your hand in his, covering it completely as he softly spoke.
“You are her spitting image, Y/N/N. She has always been with you and lived through you. Everything you do reminds me of her and I promise you she would be proud of the beautiful, brave woman you’ve become”
His words struck you more than they probably should have. Ashton was never the one who spoke freely about your mother, not since you stopped needing him as much. He always kept that part to himself unless you asked.
He thought so highly of your mother and now he was comparing her to you. For some reason, this served as no comfort, but rather it angered you. Not because you didn’t think your mother was a horrible person, but because you thought that maybe if they - your father and Ashton - loved you as much as they loved her, you wouldn’t have to be in this position.
“The only difference is that mother’s family did not sell her for marriage,” You said bitterly, pulling your hand from Ashton’s grip as you saw hurt flash through his eyes.
“Y/N-“
“She loved our father, Ashton” You cried “For some reason she loved him and she married for love. Why can’t you let me do the same? Why can’t you help me and let me be happy? Am I to be trapped forever in a loveless marriage just because of the greed of this kingdom's leaders? I don’t even know what alliances we are keeping! In what world is it fair that I have to sacrifice my spirit just to please your egos?”
“You know it’s not like that-“
“For you, maybe! But you know exactly what father is doing and why he is doing it and you are taking his side! Ashton, you are just as guilty as he is” Your truth was spilling out of your mouth with nothing but desperation.
You wanted your brother to know how you were feeling, how much you were willing to fight for your freedom. For weeks you’ve been holding these words out of pride and pettiness, but you cannot go a day longer without letting him know just how much this is affecting you.
“I can’t trust you, Ash, and I can’t pretend that we are going to be okay after all of this no matter what happens in the end. You broke my heart, and I don’t think you understand to what extent”
Ashton stood in front of you with his head low “You hate me”
“I’m disappointed” You admitted, knowing you will have a hard time trying to hate your brother.
“Y/N, I’m just trying to do what’s best for the kingdom. What’s best for you!” He excused “You will be safe in the Vail, you’ll be a Queen and I know King Luke will treat you right. You have to understand that this is hard for me, too. But I can’t be here to protect you-“
“Protect me?” You interrupted him “Protect me from what?” He stayed quiet “Ashton?”
“Your Highnesses?” A guard called from the end of the hall “The King awaits”
*
“Announcing Prince Ashton Irwin, Heir to the Throne of RoseWood, and Princess Y/N Irwin, Future Queen of the Vail”
Wilsburg’s voice ran across the ballroom accompanied with two stumps of his scepter, calling everyone’s attention as you and Ashton descended the staircase together, claiming your rightful titles as everyone’s heads turned around to see you.
You kept your head high with every step you gave. All eyes were on you but you were not able to recognize anyone as their faces were covered with masks of every form, color, texture, and shape.
When you reached the end of the staircase, you and Ashton walked together to the center of the room where your father was standing with a winning smile plastered on his face. You were never prone to violence, but the feeling of wanting to punch your father in the face and erase that smile grew every minute.
You stood in front of your father and his court and gave him a courtesy in sign of respect. Your father’s eyes met yours once you stood straight again, and you couldn’t deny the feeling of pride that overwhelmed you when you saw the pure disgust in them as he took a glance at what you were wearing, knowing that this time he couldn’t do anything about it.
“My children,” He said with fake tenderness as he opened his arms in welcome.
It was so easy for him to fool the people who surrounded him, making everyone believe he was a good, caring, and loving father. But you could see clearly through his mask, no matter how much he tried to hide it - this time literally as his masks covered most of his face - he will never look at you with an ounce of love.
“King Luke Hemmings from the Vail and his loyal advisor, Sir Michael Clifford from Chesthire” Wilsburg announced, saving you from your father’s stare as the attention shifted back to the staircase where Luke and Michael were.
They walked next to each other, his movements identical as they elegantly descended into the party. They were both wearing the shades of blue that represented their Kingdom, each of them with matching masks that made them look regal, undoubtedly showcasing their royal status and importance.
Luke spotted your little broken family in the middle of the room, smiling a little bit and nodding towards you as he and Michael approached you with ease while the guests made way for them.
“Your Majesty” Luke bowed to your father, but his attention did not linger on him as much because soon his eyes were on you.
You noticed how blue his eyes looked under the mask, his blond curls falling perfectly to his shoulders and making him look like an actual angel.
“Princess,” He said, bowing just enough to capture your hand in his and bringing it to his lips, softly kissing your knuckles.
“Your Majesty,” You greeted him with courtesy, thankful that at least you’ll have some friendly faces in the crowd. “Sir Clifford. I must say you look very elegant today,”
You caught a glimpse of blush under the young guard’s mask, his green eyes sparkled at the compliment. His outfit was not as elegant as Luke’s, but his hair was pushed back in a short ponytail at the ends of his neck making him look like a prince.
“One can only try, Your Highness” He answered with a dashing smile “But, surely, no beauty compares to you, Princess. People should envy your exterior as well as your kind heart. My King is a lucky man” He said, looking back at Luke who was already smiling at him.
King Richard cleared his throat loudly, making the three of you turn your attention to him. His jaw was tight as he showed a smile to the other monarch.
“Now that the guest of honor has arrived,” Your father said with a loud, authority tone “Let the festivity begin!”
The small orchestra that worked under your father’s orders started to play lovely symphonies the minute those words came out of their King’s mouth. The other guests soon resumed their previous chatter and quickly got lost in the celebratory atmosphere, some grabbing drinks while others started dancing along with the soft melodies.
You stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, fidgeting with your fingers as you watched how your father called Ashton’s attention and took him aside for a talk. Your eyes roamed across the room, feeling out of place as you caught glimpses of people passing by, not knowing anyone as they proceeded to ignore you.
You thought about how this will be your life from now on. How you will end up alone in some party you don’t feel comfortable in just to please the aesthetics of how a royal should be. People will not be interested in you, only your title, and they will judge you, envy you, hate you, and take advantage of you for it. You will not be Y/N anymore, you won’t have the chance to. You will be a Queen and that’s all people will want to know as you will be pushed away into someone’s shadow.
“Not much of a social butterfly, I see” You heard Luke comment next to you, leaning over to your side so he could whisper in your ear.
You gave him a small smile, “I was never really fond of parties,” You admitted quietly “Which is ironic, given that I always wanted to attend these kinds of gathering when I was a child”
Luke laughed softly, “I believe that is because you don’t know how to properly have fun at a party” He chuckled once he saw your confused gaze “Michael, have you seen Lady Thompson today?”
Michael, who was standing in front of you, smiled as his gaze followed Luke’s “I cannot believe she came here after the scandal”
“The scandal?” You asked, trying to see whom they were talking about.
“Oh, yes. Haven’t you heard?” Luke asked casually “Her poodle caught a case of hair eating fleas, and once they left the poor dog bald, they went for the main of hair Lady Thompson used to brag about”
Yours parted your lips in shock, but Michael continued “Not only that, but I heard she’s telling everyone how her hair grew back in just a few hours by putting some kind of magical mud she found near the river end”
Finally, your gaze fell into the person they were discussing and you furrowed your eyebrows.
“That’s not Lady Thompson, her name is Lady Judith from the Mountains of Chaversty” Your eyes fell back on Luke and Michael, who were trying to suppress a laugh “You are mocking me…”
“Not at all, Princess,” Luke said with a chuckle “We are just teaching you how to have fun”
“When we were kids, we used to sneak into the palace’s parties and hide under tables watching people pass and creating narratives about their lives” Michael explained “We started with a simple sentence, and then we created the most outrageous stories from them. The one who could come up with the craziest storyline would win”
“And somehow, I always ended up losing,” Luke smiled as Michael shrugged.
“It’s not my fault that you lack creativity,”
You smiled fondly at their teasing banter. You were amazed at how titles were forgotten when they were just talking to one another, it seemed so simple to them to call each other by their name as if they were normal people. And seeing that, somehow, made you feel less alone.
They taught you how to play in between their anecdotes and inside jokes, but you didn’t feel left out as you remember Luke’s words about Michael and how much he means to him. It was their little thing, their little moment in time that they could share with none other than each other, and still were kind enough to share some of that with you.
You spend a few hours playing the game and laughing along with them as they found you a worthy opponent with how many crazy stories you could pull out of your mind in an instant. One of the rules was that you couldn’t tell real names nor real gossips about those people to keep their integrity and the innocence of the game, so all your thoughts and outraged comments were taken lightly with fun. You even won a couple of times.
From time to time, people came to congratulate you and Luke on your engagement. You were glad to know that they could never notice how uncomfortable you looked thanks to the mask, but you were one hundred percent sure that he and Michael noticed how your posture changed and how you tensed at the mention of the wedding. Luckily, they brushed it off and carried on like it was nothing.
Sometime later, Luke went to grab some drinks for you and him, leaving you alone with Michael who quickly started a conversation with you about sword fighting and training.
You were too immersed in the conversation that you didn’t notice a person standing behind you until they cleared their throat.
“Pardon me, Your Highness,” You heard someone say. The familiarity of that voice sent shivers down your body and made your throat dry the second you heard it.
You turned around in a fast movement that made the skirt of your dress appear like it was floating above the floor. Your breath got caught up in your chest as you were suddenly hyper-aware of every inhale and exhale your body made the moment your eyes met his.
There he was, hiding under a white mask that matched his white and gold suit that once belonged to his father. There he was, standing in front of you and hiding in plain sight as his brown eyes were set on yours, taking you in as he let out a sigh in amazement.
“Calum…” You wanted to call him by his name out loud, to jump into his arms as you let the tears that were gathering in your eyes fall free from the happiness you were feeling at that moment. The kind of happiness only he could bring with such ease; the kind of happiness that you longed to experience all your life as long as he was next to you.
But you couldn't say that, you couldn’t blow his cover like that. If they found out he sneaked into the party, they would surely put him in the dungeon for god knows how long. He took a lot of risks coming here, and one word from you might throw that all away.
Instead, Calum noticed your hesitant shock, so he smiled softly as he said.
“Will you give me the greatest honor and pleasure of sharing one dance with me, Your Highness?”
You wanted to answer immediately, but according to the protocols a woman always needs their partner's permission to dance with a stranger. But Luke was not your real partner and Calum was not a stranger. You could feel your heart wanting to jump out of your chest from how strongly it was beating, but you couldn't identify if it was beating out of excitement or fear.
You looked over to Michael who was already staring at you with a curious gaze. He could easily see the unsaid pleading inside your eyes as you fought with the need to take this stranger’s hands in yours. The green-eyed man looked over between the two of you and was able to connect the dots in an instant.
Then, he simply smiled understandingly as he said “Just another secret between us, Princess” Looking at you like the way he did the morning you eavesdropped on your father’s conversation with Luke.
You let out a breath of relief as you nodded, silently thanking him as you watched him walk away just a little bit to give you and Calum enough privacy.
When you turned back to Calum, he looked as relieved as you felt, kindly offering his hand to you.
“May I take this dance, my rose?”
“You may”
Calum took your hand in his, kissing your knuckles as he softly guided you to the middle of the dance floor where several other couples were waiting for the next piece to start.
He placed a hand to your waist, stocking his fingers slowly over the fabric and bringing you closer to him as he held your hand with his other one. You blushed as you placed your free hand on his shoulder, squeezing it lightly to encourage him.
You both understood how recklessly dangerous this was; to be dancing in front of everyone as your fiance stood somewhere in the room, probably wondering where you were, and with your father and brother at such a close distance. But neither of you cared when your eyes met again through the masks.
You didn’t care about the risks as long as you were holding each other like this; when you finally felt free inside the cage.
A sweet melody filled the air, but you were too focused on Calum to even listen. You only realized the dance has started when you felt his fingers grace your waist tightly as he spun you around with delicacy, taking the lead as you followed his steps with care.
Memories of your first dance together flooded your mind and you couldn’t help but smile. You were only children back then, now it seems like another life.
“You learned how to dance…” You said fondly in a hushed tone, a blush covering your cheeks as you heard him softly chuckle at your comment.
“I had to. I didn’t want to embarrass myself the next time we’d dance”
“You knew there would’ve been the next time back then?”
“I always hoped I’d get to dance with you again after that night” He admitted, his eyes never leaving yours “You are the only one who I’d like to dance with all my life”
His feet moved carefully around your dress, following the other couples as they spun and changed places with their partners placing their hands together between their two bodies. A classical dance made for lovers, for one must never leave their partner’s eyes as they spin and turn just to fall back into their arms again.
It was slow at first, building its tempo as more instruments were added to the melody, making it enchanting, haunting as they took over the room with an admirable strength that only a feeling of utter power could describe as beautiful. It was supposed to represent passion and how it can dominate you, slowly and then all at once before you even realize it was there.
“You look absolutely beautiful, my rose,” He said once his hand was placed to your lower back, pulling you closer to him as you let your hand wander just inches from the back of his neck. “You always knew how to put flowers to shame, but tonight you look just as radiant as the moon itself”
“Calum…”
“Shh,” He whispered, “Let me tell you my truth while I still can, my love. For if this is one of the last times I shall see you, let me relish on how beautiful you are. Let me tell you all the compliments in the world and see me fall short since no compliment could ever be enough to capture just how enchanting you are”
You tugged on the hand that was holding yours.
“Why do I feel like you’re saying goodbye?”
“I’m not” Calum answered quickly “That’s the last thing I’ll ever do. But seeing you tonight just reminded me that I don’t tell you how much you mean to me. And I promise you that when we get out of this situation, I promise that I’ll tell you every day of my life”
“When,” You thought “Not if, but when. It’s just a matter of time”
To know that Calum hasn’t given up on you, on your love, meant the world to you. Most of the time you felt like you were battling alone as if no one was listening. But he was right there with you, even if you couldn’t see him or be with him all the time. He still hasn’t given up on you.
You felt it right there; the love. He was risking everything for you, to see you and be with you in the night where you’re supposed to celebrate your engagement. He broke every rule for a moment with you, knowing that you would do the same for him.
The music kept going, the crescendo was at its peak. Calum grabbed you with both his hands on your waist and picked you up as he turned around, placing you back on the ground to your initial position of one of your hands intertwined while the other rested on his shoulder and your lower back.
You giggled like children as he put you down, pretending the world didn’t exist as you swayed to the music. Tonight, you were a young couple enjoying their first dance together and loving every minute of it. Nothing else mattered.
You didn’t feel the stares of the guests or Ashton’s careful gaze as he tried to decipher who you were dancing with. You didn’t hear the whispers or notice how Luke hid his smile in his drink as he handed the other to Michael who looked at you in complicity. You didn’t see where your father has run off to, but you didn’t care.
You were in love. You were dancing with the love of your life; letting him guide your steps carefully as the crescendo started to go down and his grip on you tightened, not wanting to let go of this moment.
“I love you” Calum whispered just loud enough for you to hear.
You smiled like the sun “You are risking a lot by saying that here”
He shook his head “And I’ll risk even more if I have to. I cannot go a day without telling you I love you, my rose. Even if they throw me in the dungeon, I’ll find my way to you”
“Don’t say things like that,” You warned him as the melody started to fade “I’ll be damned if I lose you, Calum. This was reckless enough from both of our parts”
“And yet, you’re still dancing with me” He smiled as his movements started to slow down “My love for you is as reckless as it is endless, Y/N, and if I have to risk myself a thousand times; if I have to die a thousand times to love you freely then so be it. All of that will be worth it as long as you say it back”
You stare at him with tears in your eyes as the song reaches its end.
“I love you”
Calum stopped completely, letting go of his grip on your back but still holding your hand on his.
“And just like that, everything is worth it,” He said, placing a kiss on the back of your hand.
You smiled at him, chuckling through the unshed tears as you pondered in disbelief at just how lucky you are to love him and be loved by him.
“I’ll see you soon,” He said with a bow of his head.
“Aren’t you going to stay?” You knew you sounded a little desperate, but he just got here and, even though it was a little selfish on your part, you wanted him here just a little bit longer if possible.
Calum smiled “Only with the promise of another dance, my rose”
You nodded gracefully as Calum bowed once again before you watched him disappear into the crowd.
Your smile was still evident in your face as you gathered yourself and started to back up into the crowd, maybe try to find Luke to keep appearances until Calum asks for another dance.
“What a promising young man. Isn’t he, Y/N?”
The blood in your veins froze when you heard your father’s voice from behind you. You stood still, hoping you misheard him or mistaken him for another person that was passing by.
“Say, do we know him by any chance?” King Richard said with a mocking interest that made you want to run away right in that instant to find Calum and ask him to hide somewhere.
Instead, you turned around, and as calmly as you could, you answered:
“I’m afraid not, father. He didn’t tell me his name before nor after our dance”
“Didn’t I tell you never to talk to strangers, little Princess?”
He stood in front of you with a wicked smirk, not really waiting for an answer as he puffed his chest, showcasing the Kingdom’s shiny emblem on his fancy attire.
Your father lived for the adoration and fear of his subjects; he relished in your fear towards him for many years now, watching with delight as you submit to him out of fear or hope for any kind of attention he could show you. He adored the power he had over you, on how easy it was just to mess with your life as you’d allowed him to. And now, as you looked into his eyes you could see the fun he was having watching you tremble under his gaze, fearing that he might’ve discovered you.
The King looked you up and down and smirked as he announced “I believe it’s time for a father and daughter dance!”
The people who were gathering around the two of you started clapping and cheering as your father looked at you with a pleased gaze. You watched as the couples who were getting ready for the next dance suddenly left and were now standing to the side, anxiously waiting for the Princess and the King to have a sentimental moment.
From the corner of your eye, you caught a glimpse of Ashton who was making his way to the center of the room, pushing people as he tried to get to you; on the opposite end of the room, Luke drifted his gaze between you and Michael with a hint of worry in his eyes. Calum was nowhere to be found as your eyes searched for him in the crowd and you couldn’t help but feel scared for him.
King Richard ran out of patience. He grabbed your hand in what seemed a delicate touch, but only you could feel how his nails dug in the skin of your hand, forcefully pulling you to the dancefloor.
You felt disgusted as his hand gripped your waist, snapping his fingers to the musicians with his other hand before gripping your wrist and holding it high.
When the music started, he moved you around the dancefloor in stiff circles; there was no delicacy, no softness in his touch as he dragged you at the rhythm of one of the sweetest melodies you’ve heard.
“That dress does not belong to you�� Your father whispered in between a smile. A tone of warning lacing his every word.
You felt the buckle of your knees weakened your step, but you didn’t dare move your eyes from his.
Too long you’ve been under his domain, living in fear of his next move whenever you were left alone with him. The bruises healed but the scars remain as your memory recalled the moments where he would get so mad at you just for being there, how he hated you just for looking like her.
All the pain, self-doubt, hatred, and fear he put you through… all the times you let him win because you didn’t think it could ever become worse… it all came crashing down into a feeling of anger and resentment that only served to give you strength for your next words.
“I don’t know what you are talking about, father” You defied him with fake ignorance “This is my dress. My mother left it for me. Don’t you like it?”
King Richard locked his jaw, his eyes spitting fire as you held his stare without moving an inch as you danced through the room.
“I know what you’re doing, Y/N,” He said with a wicked smile “And you won’t win. You can’t”
He laughed maliciously as he saw the shocked look in your eyes.
“Did you really think I wasn’t going to find out what you were doing in the library this past few weeks?”
Your heart stopped at the statement, feeling weak as he got you figured it out. But how? How could he know unless someone told him? Someone who knew what you were looking for…
The color drained from your face as you stuttered “I-I don’t know what-”
“Don’t play stupid, you insolent child” His grip on your wrist tightened, hurting you in front of everyone without raising any suspicion “I have eyes everywhere, ears in every wall of this goddamned castle and you think you can outsmart me by hiding in the library and looking through the books of laws? But you still haven’t found what you’re looking for, correct?” He asked, smiling as he saw how you frowned at the truth “And I’ll make sure you never will. My plans will not be ruined by a weak little girl”
“Plans?” You asked suddenly, realizing that he overshared something he might’ve not supposed to say “What are you-?” You started, before everything became clear, remembering Ashton’s words from a few hours prior “The wedding, the alliance… That’s all just a trick, isn’t it? You need something from them, from Luke…”
You smiled to yourself as you saw your father speechless for the first time.
“You need me,” You stated as a matter of factly “And you know that I won’t ever help you voluntarily, that’s why you are forcing everyone to do this. You know I can stop you, you know there is a way to stop all of this and you’re afraid…”
His fingers dug into your skin with force, leaving red marks that will become bruises, but you didn’t even flinch.
“You don’t want to play games with me, child” King Richard said, all niceties dropped from his face “I am the King!”
“And I’m not scared of you!” You smiled with sufficiency “Look around, father. You want to play? Let's do it. Hurt me in front of all these people, let them see how their monarch loves his daughter. You cannot hurt me here”
A sense of pride came over you as you finally stood up for yourself to your father. You finally saw a flash of fear pass by his eyes as he scanned the room and saw all the eyes on him.
“I will stop you”
But then, the King smiled like the devil.
“I’d like to see you try. Stop the music!” He suddenly yelled, making all the guests flinch at the sound of his voice.
Your movements came to a stop, but the grip he had on your hand just became tighter and tighter, crushing your bones as you tried to get rid of his touch.
“My daughter, Princess Y/N, just had the most wonderful idea!” He announced to the crowd as you looked at him in shock while he smiled “She told me she cannot wait to be married, just like any other lady” He joked, making the guest laugh at you.
Your father cupped your face by the chin, applying pressure on it so you wouldn’t be able to say a word as he exclaimed:
“And who am I to deny anything to my beautiful, beautiful little princess? The wedding ceremony will take place in two days! And you are all more than invited!”
The crowd cheered and clapped as you felt sick to your stomach. Two days?! How are you going to stop everything in only two days?
You released yourself from your father’s grip, tears clouding your eyes as you saw the winning smirk on his face.
“I warned you not to play games, little rose”
You stood in horror as you watched your father disappear into the crowd, accepting congratulations on your behalf and laughing with the other guest at your “eagerness” of getting married already.
“Y/N?” You heard Ashton said and he placed a hand on your shoulder “Are you-?”
You felt your breathing start to pick up, short and fast exhales came with almost no intake of air to your lungs. You were getting dizzy, disoriented as you analyzed the situation.
It was so fast… too fast. It all happened too fast.
“Y/N-” Ashton tried again, but you shook yourself from his touch.
“For fuck’s sake leave me alone!” You half-whispered, half yelled as you picked up your skirt and ran away from the ballroom.
The sound of your heels clicking on the floor was drowned by the sound of your breathless sobbing as you desperately looked for a way out of the castle.
You couldn’t stay here anymore. You needed to find Calum, see if he’s okay, and just leave. But with every step you took your worry grew stronger as thoughts of Calum hurt flashed through your head.
“Rose,” He said. Your father called you rose. He knew. He knew! And you couldn’t find Calum.
“Y/N!” A voice called from behind you, the sound of their heels coming closer as you tried to get away from there “Y/N, wait!”
You were almost at the door leading to the gardens, just a few steps from freedom when you felt a hand grip your arm, making you stop.
Luke stood there in front of you, almost breathless as his eyes filled with worry when he saw your tear-filled eyes and your trembling lip trying its hardest to suppress a cry.
Without thinking it twice, the young King pulled you into a hug. You were shocked at first but eventually, you relaxed in his arms as he let you cry onto his chest, hearing muffled apologies in between sobs.
“It’s okay,” He said softly, looking to his side to find Michael catching up with them at a distance “It’s okay”
“No!” You cried “No, it’s not! Luke I-” You stopped as the words of your father filled your brain “I have eyes everywhere, ears in every wall…”
You grabbed onto Luke’s hand and guided him outside the palace, looking over your shoulder in case someone tried to approach you.
“Tell Michael to stay at the entrance,” You told him.
Luke nodded as he signaled Michael to stay where he was, letting you take him away to the entrance of the woods where you were somewhat hidden from the palace while still being able to see it from where you were standing.
“What is going on?” Luke asked calmly “Why are we hiding? Why did you tell your father you wanted to marry this soon? I-”
“I didn’t do it! You have to believe me in this, Luke. Please” You begged “He is trying to hurt me, to hurt you! I didn’t want any of this to happen, please believe me that I had no idea that would happen”
Luke sighed, placing both his hands on your shoulders to try and calm you down “I believe you”
“You do?”
He nodded with a soft smile.
“Yeah, this is the first time I heard you say my name so I know this is serious,” Luke said “Why is he trying to hurt you?”
You didn’t answer, how could you? You trusted Luke, but did you trust him enough? How in the world would you tell your fiance that you are in love with someone else and that your father wants to punish you for it, that this whole charade of lies was created for dangerous means, and that he might also be in danger?
After a while, Luke asked softly:
“Is it because you love another, don’t you?” You froze, eyes filled with fear as you looked at him “It’s hard to pretend not to love someone when you’re close to them. I could see it while you were dancing with him, because it was him, wasn’t it? The man who owns your heart?”
You lowered your head, eyes filling with tears as you whispered “Luke-”
“It’s okay, love” He reassured, caressing your face and cupping your cheeks so you would look at him “I knew from the start that you belonged to another, and tonight I recognized that look, that complicit smile you only find in those whose life complete yours in a way where you didn’t think it was possible. I have never seen you as happy as you were dancing with him. You truly love him, do you?”
“More than anything” You answered without a doubt.
“And he surely loves you. It was more than obvious from the way he couldn’t stop looking at you throughout the dance. He’s a lucky man, and he knows how to give himself entirely to you. I don’t think I have ever seen a man so in love before”
“You sure know a lot about love, Luke,” You said surprising him “You know just as much as a man who is or has been in love before”
He chuckled lightly “That’s because you’re not the only one with a heart owned by another, Princess”
Luke averted his gaze back to the castle, a nostalgic cloud covering his baby blue eyes.
“Is your love waiting for you at home?” You asked softly, not wanting to intrude.
He chuckled softly before his expression changed from dreamy, to worry, to sad, you pretended you didn’t notice how his eyes became glossy from the tears.
“He’s the only home I’ve ever known…”
Then, you understood. Luke was not looking at the castle; he was looking at the person guarding the entrance, commanded by his King.
Your heart filled with an indescribable joy as you took your hand and placed it on Luke’s cheek, softly wiping a tear that started to roll down.
“I guess we are both stuck in this, huh?” He laughed, looking at you in the way only a strong bond could describe.
“But you don’t have to be,” He said, “Your love, do you know where he is?”
You started to shake your head, but then you remembered something.
“I think I might have an idea”
“Go to him.” Luke encouraged, kissing your knuckles before letting go of your hand “Michael and I will cover this entrance, I’ll tell everyone who asks that we were together talking and walking through the gardens the whole night so no one gets suspicious”
You could almost cry of relief at his words. You jumped into his arms and placed a kiss on his cheek while muttering a small “Thank you” before you started running through the woods, knowing exactly where to go and hoping that he’ll be there.
*
“Calum!” You sighed with relief, finally feeling like you could breathe when you saw him in front of your tree.
You took your chances coming here, not knowing if he was going to be waiting here or if he was somehow captured by your father's orders.
On your way to your secret place, your heart could not stop racing, the countless tragic possibilities flooded your mind as you ran through the woods, not caring if some parts of your dress got ripped because of your careless moving.
But there he was, sitting in one of the roots that were visible from the surface. He was not wearing his mask as he fiddled with it between his fingers until the moment he saw you.
“Y/N!” He breathed, getting up from his improvised seat and running towards you, involving you in a tight embrace. Only then, wrapped in your arms you understood Luke’s words.
Only there you felt truly at home.
“I thought something happened to you” You cried into his chest as you felt his hand soothe you while caressing your back “My father…”
“I know,” He said, placing a small kiss on the top of your head “When he announced the ceremony I could see a couple of guards coming my way, I had no choice but run”
Your whole body shook in terror when he said that. Now you knew your father was planning on hurting Calum now that he knew who he was. Unless he’d always known…
“Hey, hey, hey,” He said when he felt you cry again “It’s okay, my love. I got away, didn’t I?”
“Now, but you know what he’s capable of doing, Cal. You saw what he did at the party! He moved the wedding closer because he knew we’ve been searching for ways to stop it. He knows who you are and if anything- if anything happens to you, I-”
“Nothing is going to happen to me, okay?” Calum stated, pulling you away from him just enough so he could see your face and cup your cheeks with his hands “I will not let anything happen to me or you, I promise. I will be there for you, Y/N, always”
You nodded but still felt a cloud of darkness surrounding you. You trusted Calum more than anyone, but this might be the first promise that he might not fulfill. Your father is a powerful man that reigned by inflicting fear into his people and respect by his equals basing himself with lies.
If he could turn your world upside down with just a couple of words… what would he do to Calum?
“How did you know I was here?” Calum asked, trying to lighten the mood when he noticed you spacing out in sorrow.
You chuckled, lowering your gaze to the floor “I had a hunch”
“Were you followed?”
“No, Luke and Michael stayed to watch the entrance and the surroundings” Calum looked at you puzzled “We can trust them, it’s okay. Luke doesn’t want to marry me either”
“What a fool-”
“He doesn’t want to marry me because, like me, he is in love with someone else,” You said with a smile that quickly disappeared with your next thought “And now we’ll both be trapped in a marriage where we’ll be forced to be away from the ones we truly love”
“Then don’t marry him,” Calum said in a breath.
You rolled your eyes “Is not that easy, Calum. You know that-”
“That a King’s promise may never be broken. But what if the King promised something that can’t be possible?”
His tone was questioning, almost as if he wasn’t sure of what he was saying either and he was just thinking at the top of his head.
“Love, what are you-?”
“What if you couldn’t marry the King because you’re already married?” He asked, more certain this time.
You were about to answer him with another question, trying to understand what he was trying to say. But he continued, trying to explain himself better.
“You know the law commands that no one should remarry while still being married to another partner. What if- what if we get married first? That way-”
“That way the King’s promise will be null” You finished for him “Because the bride he promised is a married woman who cannot go over the law… Calum, that’s genius but how-?”
“I thought about it for a while when I came over the statement that ruled that no law should cancel another”
You looked at him confused, but with a smile showing on your face “And you’re telling me this now?”
He looked nervous.
“I-I didn’t want to put that pressure on you. It is a huge risk, not to mention a lot of responsibility as well, and I didn’t want to pressure you into marrying me if you weren’t sure you wanted that. I thought we could find another way out before the ceremony, so I kept it a secret for some time. I admit I was afraid of how you might react”
You answered him with a tearful chuckle as you jumped into his arms and crashed your lips to his as you caught him by surprise.
It was impossible to deny the happiness you felt as he responded to the kiss as eagerly as you, wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you closer to him.
“If you thought for a second that I would ever say no to that, then you might not know who you’re asking for her hand in marriage,” You said, smiling against his lips, chasing them into another kiss as a complete feeling of euphoria came over you.
Calum smiled, wrapping his arms around the back of your thighs and picking you up as he spun you around, laughing along with you as your giggles could be heard from all around the woods, for you just made him the happiest man on earth.
“If we are going to do this,” He said as he put you down “Let me do this properly”
You felt your eyes filled with happy tears as you watched Calum get down on one knee in front of you. Smiling at you with bright brown eyes that shined like the stars from Orion above.
“Y/N,” He started “My love, my rose. God knows this is not the way I planned this; in my dreams we are sailing away to a new land, traveling the world as we share our dreams and make them come true before our eyes. In my dreams I had a ring to give you, a pretty speech prepared, and a thousand lights to illuminate the way you looked, bringing the start to shame.
But I have no ring, and the words that are coming out of my mouth come straight from my heart. But the moon does shine on you, my love and you’ve never looked so beautiful as you do.
I cannot offer much. I’m no royal nor do I own stacks of land that could be ever worthy of you, my love. I cannot offer you a house, I cannot offer you fancy dresses or expensive jewelry, I cannot give you the kind of life royalty deserves. But I can give you all my love as we made the world our home. Because all I need, Y/N, to live a happy life is for you to be by my side if you let me.
I knew I wanted to marry you since the moment I saw you standing in that pile of dirt when we were nothing more than children venturing in a world filled with adult problems. I knew I loved you then, even before I knew what love is. And, if you let me, it would be my honor to love you for the rest of my life. Will you marry me, my rose?”
You tearfully nodded, covering your mouth with your hands as you tried to prevent a sob from getting out.
“Yes,” You said softly before repeating it loudly “Yes!”
In an instant, you threw yourself into Calum’s arms, wrapping your arms around his neck as he held you by your waist, helping you straddle his lap, one leg at each side of his hips, as he pushed your skirt to the sides so you’d be closer and more comfortable.
You wasted no time in pressing your lips against his, letting your hands play with his hair as he rocked your bodies together, deepening the kiss as far as you’d let him.
A little moan escaped your mouth when you felt his tongue press against your bottom lip. Calum took this opportunity to capture every sound you made as you granted him more access, parting your lips slightly and letting him explore more of you as you got drunk with his touch.
“Say it again” He begged, his lips now leaving kisses along your jaw as your fingers tangled and tugged on his hair, making him groan against your skin.
“Yes,” You whispered breathlessly.
You felt your skin on fire every time his lips trailed along your jaw and neck, kissing it gently as you melted against him. It wasn’t something new, you’ve kissed like this before and stopped before it turned into something else, but there was something about tonight.
You didn’t know if it was the proposal, the adrenaline, or the simple need of being together now more than ever since your future is still uncertain. But every single kiss, every sound, every move… it just made you crave it even more.
“Calum…” You breathed, tugging his hair to bring him even closer to you.
He muffled a groan into your neck, letting the smell of your perfume intoxicate him as you moved your hips closer to him, “Love, don’t do that” He whispered, almost begging you to stop as he knocked his forehead with yours “You know that if this goes any further, I might not be able to stop”
You’ve been intimate before, only not like this. It wasn’t uncommon for you to lay next to each other, whether it was on our bed or in the clear spot next to the tree. You would explore your bodies with soft touches and lingering kisses that always felt like the start of something but that never lead to anything other than whispered confessions and soft makeout sessions.
The need was always there, you both felt it before, but this time you had no intention of stopping.
“Then don’t,” You said softly, looking into Calum’s eyes as he raised his eyebrows in shock.
“Y/N…”
“Don’t stop, Calum, please” You whined, moving your hips again to gain some kind of friction between the layers of fabric as you felt how his cock hardened in his pants “I want it. I want you”
Calum stopped your movements altogether, holding your hips with one hand as the other one cupped one side of your face, making you look at him when he asked.
“Y/N, are you sure about this?” His breath was heavy, but his eyes were determined as he gazed into yours “We don’t have to do anything if you’re not one hundred percent-”
You placed your fingers on the top of his lips to silence him.
“I was yours since the day we met.” You whispered, a soft smile illuminating your face “I was yours the day I told you I love you. I was yours when we danced tonight and I’ll be yours forever for the rest of my life. Make me your wife, Calum. Be mine and make me yours again”
Something shifted in Calum’s eyes at the sound of your words as lust settled all over them. He wasted no time in pulling you closer to him, capturing your lips in a much more heated kiss.
It was entirely different from whatever you’ve experienced before with him. This kiss was sloppy, a mixture of tongues and teeth as he bit your bottom lip. The sounds that came from both of you died in your throats as you desperately acted upon your desires.
You pulled apart for one minute as you took the top part of your dress, throwing it god knows where as you tried to untie the knots of your corset. Calum took it upon himself to start kissing your neck again, this time with more freedom to roam across your collarbone. “Let me,” He said softly after a while, letting his hands take over yours as they started to undo the knots one by one.
Once you were free, you felt Calum’s hands cup your breasts, massaging them as you moaned softly, still moving your hips with a more steady and fast rhythm against his groin looking for some sort of release.
“Y/N,” Calum moaned, taking his hands off your breast down to your hips, halting your movements once again “Lay down for me, my love” He whispered, kissing your earlobe as you felt goosebumps all over your body.
Calum took off his suit jacket, laying it on the floor so you’d be more comfortable. You sat back on your elbows as you watched him take off his shirt, leaving him with his chest exposed to you.
Your eyes widened at the sight of him shirtless on top of you. You’ve seen him shirtless before, but the context is different now that you can admire his well-defined abs under the moonlight. You couldn’t resist letting your fingers caress his chest with barely-there touches over his muscles and nipples, making him let out a breathy moan as soon as you did.
But before you could go any further, he grabbed you softly by the wrist.
“Not yet, Princess,” He said, lust laced in every word as he let your hand go to start working on getting you out of that skirt and underwear.
He worked quickly, leaving you completely bare in front of him. You felt his eyes on you and your first instinct was to cover yourself even though shame was the last thing in your mind right now. Despite that initial response, you felt safe with him, the safest you felt in years.
Calum smirked playfully, shaking his head as he grabbed both your hands in his and pinning them over your head “Don’t hide from me, my love” He said, lips hovering over yours but never touching them as he started kissing the spot under your ear, leaving you breathless in a second.
You closed your eyes and let yourself drift in pleasure as you felt Calum’s lips trail down to your breasts, kissing each one of them softly around the pebbled nipples, sucking and biting them as you felt your arousal grow with every new sensation.
Once he felt satisfied with the way you were moaning, he started kissing along your chest and down to your stomach, leaving a trail of fiery kisses until he stopped before reaching your core.
Calum let go of your hands which immediately flew to his hair when he started kissing the inside of your thighs, getting closer but not close enough to where you needed him most.
“Calum,” You moaned, feeling his breath over your entrance.
“Say it again,” He asked, kissing your right leg as his hands wandered over to your ass, lifting you up slightly and bringing you closer to him “Say yes, again”
“Yes.” You said in one breath.
“Again” He demanded softly, kissing you over your mound.
“Yes.”
“Again”
“Yes, oh...”
No sounds came out of your mouth as he placed his lips over your clit, kissing it softly at first before starting to lightly suck on it. You then felt him lick a long stripe up your center, making you shiver each time as he always ended up at your clit, gathering your arousal in his tongue and moaning at the taste, sending glorious vibrations up to your core. He smiles when he feels you tug on his hair with every breathy moaned you let out, letting him know that you were enjoying this as much as he was.
Soon, you felt his fingers trace along your folds up and down, stopping at your entrance a couple of times before he pushed the first finger inside, making you both moan at the feeling.
Then, a finger became two as Calum started to move them inside and out of your tight hole at a fast pace while his lips remained attached to your clit, licking and sucking over it until you reached your first climax of the night.
Calum licked you through your orgasm, lapping on your arousal until he heard you whine thanks to the oversensitivity. Then, he pulled himself up, kissing a trail from your stomach to your lips.
You were seeing stars behind your eyelids as you tasted yourself on his tongue, moaning as you felt his hard, clothed cock brush over your sensitive core.
“Calum,” You whimpered as he pulled away from his lips to let his head fall to your side, kissing your neck with zeal.
“Tell me what you want, my love” He whispered in your ear, making your whole body shiver under him as he kissed your cheeks tenderly “Tell me what you want and I’ll give you the world”
“You, only you”
He smiled, prompting himself onto his elbows to kiss your lips again.
“I’m yours”
It took no time for Calum to get rid of his pants and thrust into you, letting you adjust to the new feeling as he kissed the pain away while he started to thrust slowly into you. His hand cupped your face as he kissed you over and over again until you begged him to speed up the pace, letting the sting of pain become one of pleasure every time Calum moved his hips into you, hitting every spot with ease.
You became one big pile of tangled limbs and shared pleasure, moaning and groaning your feelings of ecstasy as you held each other as close as you could. One hand caressing your sides while you alternated between playing with his hair and dragging your fingers down his back, feeling every muscle work as you wrapped your legs around him, letting him deeper and deeper each time.
You got drunk with the sound of each other’s moans as you reached your climax. Calum swears he’s never heard a more beautiful sound than his name falling from your lips in total bliss as you clenched around his cock, making his thrusts slow down as he came with the taste of your name still on his lips.
"I love you," He said with a smile as wide as the sky, pulling you closer against his naked body "God, how I love you, my rose"
You kissed his lips softly, humming an "I love you" in between a content smile before saying:
"Calum?"
"Yes, my love?"
"Thank you for loving me"
You woke up sometime later, still wrapped around his arms as his jacket covered you both from the cold night. You let out a breath of relief as you realized that the moon was still high up in the sky, meaning that you still had a few hours before having to go back to the castle.
Calum slept peacefully next to you, holding you close as he let his chin rest above your head. You kissed his Adam's apple and softly giggled when he pulled you closer to his chest, you knew that you would always be safely wrapped around his arms and there was no other place you’d rather stay than with him.
It was almost incredible to believe that by tomorrow night you’d finally become husband and wife and that this will be your life forevermore.
No more castles, no more parties, no more dangers nor royalty duties. You will be together, finally be free.
.
.
Tags: @iknowyouthinkimbulletproof @mystic-232 @talksoprettyjjx @theshyspy @hoodhoran @flaneurcth @notinthesameguey @bubblegum18 @irwin-fletcher-ash @just-here-to-escape-from-reality @1980holland @wiiildflowerrr @hoplessromantic727 @fivesecondsofonedirection @another-lonely-heart @aabc5sauce @dudethisiswhyyoudonthavefriends @major5sosstan @myloverboyash @nicebasscalum @calumspupils @secretsicanthideanymore @the-ghost-of-ashley @alltimesos @girlwhosimps @wontlastimokwiththat @yeah-and69 @fckingpernico @multistann @averageantichrist @a-darneddarling @tpwkcth @f-mu @kindahumanbutalsoinsane @lemonswizzle
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wing-ed-thing · 4 years ago
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Why Not? (Might Guy x Pregnant!Reader)
Request: “I just wanna read about gai finding out his partner is pregnant. I feel like gai likes kids a lot and he would be excited and might be one of the best days of his life 😭” but I didn’t read the “partner” part... 👉🏽👈🏽
Word Count: 1,173
Tags/Warnings: Implied sexual themes
Notes: I accidentally misread/misremembered the request by @closetsocialist so I ended up making two versions of this fic. The right interpretation is posted.
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Throughout your entire twenty-six year friendship, or more accurately, acquaintanceship, you never expected that you’d have an intimate relationship of any sort with Might Guy. Of course, this isn’t to say you haven’t thought about it before, but never in a million years had you ever thought you’d wake up hungover in Guy’s bed. After all, you were happily single and not one for one night stands. Guy was never that kind of person either, but apparently the both of you changed your minds quickly after a few too many sake.
Unfortunately, you remembered that morning clearly. You had stared at each other with wide eyes. Your fellow Jounin practically burrowed into his bed as you scrambled to change, a sheet still wrapped around your bare body. You left his apartment with a speed you didn’t know that you were capable of. Wordless.
For a month and a half, you made it a point to push that morning out of your memory. But now as you kneeled over your toilet, you couldn’t help but feel dread in the pit of your stomach. The dread moved up your system and you became sick again. There wasn’t a lot about this situation that you were confident in, but one thing you knew for sure was that you were pregnant.
“Retiring?” The Godaime repeated slowly. You nodded, standing stiffly at attention in the center of her office. She blinked at you a few times, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her desk. Lady Hokage spoke your name. “This is the height of your career.” She said simply in disbelief.
“I just think it’s time for a change of pace.” You promptly put, but Tsunade was not convinced. Her eyes narrowed.
“What happened?” She pried. You nearly began to sweat under her heated gaze.
“Nothing at all, Lady Hokage. This is my decision, that’s all.”
And it was. After your years of service to your country, retiring to the countryside with the child you carried didn’t seem so bad. Many shinobi never made it to parenthood after all, so you thought that perhaps your pregnancy was a sign.
You expected more prying, but Tsunade only hummed, looking down towards her desk as she penned a few things down. Silence. You stood quietly in my spot, diverting your attention to random items around the room. Papers, books, boxes, scrolls… You took a step back and Tsunade remained focused on her writings.
“Shall I dismiss myself, Lady Hokage?”
“Ah, yes. See yourself out.” She waved her hand at you. But as you turned to leave, she spoke your name. You pivoted. Her eyes bore into you.
“We do offer maternity leave.” You inwardly cringed. Of course she knew and there was no use lying to her.
“I don’t want it to become a big deal.” You spoke with pursed lips. Tsunade frowned.
“Guy-san is going to find out eventually.” You could have curled up into a ball right there. You didn’t even bother asking how she knew. It wouldn’t have mattered. Tsunade aligned her stack of papers with a tap. “Well, when you decide to come back you’ll have your position waiting for you.” You bowed respectfully.
“That is very kind and generous of you, my Lady. But I do not foresee myself coming back.” In her wisdom and to your relief, Tsunade did not comment on the situation further and dismissed you.
You wouldn’t see her for another seven months, not until the arrival of your baby. The first features you noticed about your son were his massive eyebrows. You probably should have known, given who his father is, but Might Guy lingered far from your mind as you gazed upon the face of your newborn child. You mentally counted your son’s fingers, then his toes. Sitting in your room in the maternity ward, that was all you could bring yourself to do. You wiped away the little bit of dribble that escaped his mouth.
Then a clamor came from the hallway. Then a crash followed by a loud apology. The noise woke your baby, causing him to cry out. And before you knew it, Might Guy stood in your doorway, a large bruise developing on his head. You locked eyes as your child continued to cry.
“Where have you been?” Guy asked, approaching your bed as you immediately began to try to soothe your child. You shushed him, causing Guy to place a hand over his mouth. “Where have you been?” He repeated in a hushed tone.
“I’m retired, Guy.” You told him, slowly but surely getting your son to calm down. Apparently, he was as easy going as his father. “Didn’t Tsunade tell you?”
“Well, of course she told us, but you’ve been gone for…” Guy paused to mentally do the math.
“About nine months?” You questioned, the swaddle falling from around your baby’s face. You could see it in Guy’s face.
“Yeah…” Guy spoke softly, focused on your son. “Ever since…” His eyes shot up to yours. You looked at him expectantly with eyebrows raised, almost spelling out the conclusion in your expression. Guy opened his mouth to speak before closing it again. “Is… is he… m-”
“Yes.” You cut him off before he could finish. You rolled your eyes. “But I fully intend on raising him on my own.” Guy’s forehead crinkled.
“Why-”
“Listen,” You looked at him sternly in the eye. A scowl tugged on the corners of your lips. Fierce independence sparked in your eyes, poorly hidden by a fabricated air of indifference. “You don’t have to do anything. I get it, you don’t want any responsibility and I’m not giving it to yo-”
“No!” Guy interjected with a certain amount of urgency, before once again covering his mouth. “I mean, I want to help. I want to be involved.”
And suddenly, your plans to retire by yourself into the countryside with your son drifted away. You looked around the room, then at your child’s father. Never had you expected that in a situation like this, the father would want to be involved. Apparently, you sorely underestimated Might Guy.
“You what?” You blinked. Your son wriggled in your arms.
“I mean you tell me what you’re comfortable with, but I want to help.” He told you with as much seriousness as you’d ever seen Guy have. “I want to be in his life. I want to be a dad.” You scoffed.
“What?” You laughed bitterly in disbelief. “Look, you don’t have to humor me-”
“I’m not humoring you.”
“You just learned that you had a kid! People don’t make decisions like this just like that.” A certain amount of sourness bled into your tone.
Guy laid a hand on your arm. “If you’d let me, I want to be in this with you. You don’t have to and I know that this is new. But I’m absolutely sure. Please, let me be involved.” You paused, not particularly expecting this response. You took a deep inhale before exhaling forcefully.
“Sure, why not?”
Notes: I’d like to add that I’m not a NSFW writer. The beginning of this wasn’t very detailed and integral to what I wanted to write. Please do not request one night stand stories. Thank you.
Thank you to everyone who liked, reblogged, and followed. Your support means so much and is greatly appreciated.
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vivianweasley · 4 years ago
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Someone Better (Prologue)
Pairing: Draco Malfoy X Reader, Fred Weasley X Reader
Summary: You always thought that Draco was the one for you, but the war changed everything. After the war, you were trying to find yourself, but Fred Weasley seemed to find you first.
Warnings: angst, mentions of blood, war, anxiety, poor writing
Word count: 1.2K
A/N: Hi guys! So I’m making this into a series. I don’t know if anyone would want to read the whole series but I will still keep writing it lol. Part 1 is angsty but the rest would probably all be fluff? Also, Fred is going to be in the next part! Oh and I was listening to “Dynasty” by Miia while writing this part. Anyways, hope you guys would like it:)
Chapter 1  Chapter 2  Epilogue
Please do NOT repost my work or translate it on another site without permission! Thank you! Reblogs and comments are always welcomed:)
~
You guess people could say that you and Draco Malfoy were what the muggles would call high school sweethearts.
You and Draco grew up together since your parents were friends.
But you two weren’t always friends. You could still remember when you two first met, you both rolled your eyes at each other. You even made fun of him the entire second year for falling off his broom during quidditch.
You two bickered and fought, but you’ve never separated from each other. You would always eat, go to your classes, and do your school work together. And before you could know, a feeling other than friendship started to grow in your hearts.
One month before the Yule ball, Draco confessed his feelings to you and you were overjoyed that your feeling for him were reciprocated. You then went to the Yule ball as his date and his girlfriend. While he was holding you and you two were dancing the night away, you thought the rest of your life was probably going to be like this, without a doubt.
During fifth year, you even joined Umbridge’s Inquisitorial Squad with Draco, even though you’ve never agreed with anything that pink toad had to say. When the Weasley twins blew up the school with fireworks, you even cheered a bit when no one could see you. But Draco wasn’t so happy that day. He held you in his arms and complained about the incident for hours. 
At that time, you never even thought about being with anyone else. Draco Malfoy was there with you for your entire childhood and almost your entire adolescence. So of course he was going to be with you for the rest your life, right?
But real life wasn’t some romantic comedies. High school sweethearts would eventually take on separate paths. And the one for you turned out to be just another passer-by in your life. And Merlin, you all knew there was a war coming.
Beginning from sixth year, you felt like Draco was turning into a different person. During the summer, he didn’t come visit you and he didn’t even write to you.
What was worse was that even your parents told you to stay away from him. You were scared and you started to lose sleep. How could you sleep peacefully when you were constantly worrying about that something bad might happen?
You thought going back to school and finally seeing him could help alleviate your anxiety, but you were wrong. Draco started to avoid you and sometimes he would even skip classes. Even when you two were finally facing each other, he still didn’t talk much and he sounded so cold, so distant.
Every time when you asked him if everything was alright, he would always shrug it off and say that everything’s fine. But you could see for yourself. You could see he was getting skinnier and skinnier. His already pale skin was turning into a sickly grey tone and everyone could see the dark circles under his tired eyes. Yet he refused to tell you anything, leaving you to keep torturing yourself with all the anxiety and terribly vivid imaginations in your mind.
Then you saw the dark mark on his arm. Your breathing stopped for a few seconds. It all made sense now. Your parents were friends with the Malfoys, but they were no death eaters. So it made sense for them to tell you to stay away from Draco. 
You were so scared. Not because he was a death eater, but because you were afraid that something bad would happen to him. You felt like you were counting down everyday, until one day he would finally leave you forever.
And one day, what you feared finally came true. You heard people talking in the Great Hall that Draco and Harry Potter was dueling in the sixth floor boy’s bathroom. They said Potter almost killed Draco. They said that Draco was lying in a pool of blood and there were several long and deep cuts on his body. If Snape didn’t find him on time, he would be dead within a few minutes. 
You ran to the hospital wing as fast as you could, but Madam Pomfrey didn’t allow anyone to visit. So you just waited outside.
You didn’t know how long you’ve waited. It seemed like it was already evening and maybe even pass dinner time. It was a few hours, but you felt like you’ve waited for years.
When Draco finally walked out, you ran to hug him. You were very careful and gentle for you were afraid that his wounds might rip apart again. You buried your face in his chest, trying to feel his heart beat, his warmth, everything that could prove that he was still alive.
“Draco, what did you do? Why would Potter do this to you?”
The hand that was gently rubbing your back stopped abruptly, “Y/N, I...”
You knew he was trying to come up with an excuse again and you just couldn’t take this anymore. You dragged him to a deserted hallway, “What are you doing lately, Draco? Please, please just tell me! Do you know how worried I am for you?” Your hand were gripping tightly on his arm for you were afraid that he might run away again.
He sighed, “I can’t tell you. You could be in danger. You could die. Do you understand?”
“I already feel like I’m dying.” You weren’t lying. It has been month that you haven’t ate properly or slept without tossing and turning for hours. Even when you did fall asleep, you were having nightmares about terrible things happening to Draco. But he was too occupied by that thing that he couldn’t tell you, and failed to notice that you were also hurting.
“Draco, I know this is about You-Know-Who, but you don’t have to face this alone. We can face this together! We can think of a way together! There has to be another way!” Tears were forming in your eyes, but you managed to keep them at bay. You wanted to look like a logical person who can face those problems with him.
“No Y/N...There’s no other way.” He broke free from your grip, “If I don’t do this, my family...even you...you could all be dead! He chose me, Y/N, I have to do this!”
His body was trembling and his eyes were red, looking like he was also trying to hold back his tears. 
You have secretly followed him before and saw him crying in the bathroom, but you cowered at that time. You didn’t walk over to him and give him a hug because you knew he didn’t like to show his vulnerability to anyone.
But you hugged him this time, trying to make up for all the times before that he has cried alone. He hugged you too and for a moment you thought everything was finally fine, that he was finally going to open up to you, that you could finally face this together. But after the longest minute in your life, you just heard him say, “I’m sorry Y/N...but I...we can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry...you...you deserve someone better.”
And before you could even understand what he meant, he just let go of you and walked away. 
That was it, the end of the relationship that you thought would last a life time.
And it took you years to finally begin to understand what it meant for someone as proud as Draco Malfoy to say something like “you deserve someone better”.
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feralphoenix · 4 years ago
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HOWMST BELL THE CAT? - A treatise on one aspect of how the Pale King sealed the Radiance
sup hollow knight fandom, i’m back with the picante takes again after having Noticed A Thing.
as with my previous essays i’ll put this guy up on dreamwidth later for accessibility purposes, since my layout text may be too small for high-res pc users. i will attach that in a reblog at a later point.
CONTENT WARNINGS FOR TONIGHT’S PROGRAM: This essay discusses canon-typical body horror and bodily boundary violations, with some side mentions of colonialism.
all game screencaps are mine. the screencap of the wiki is from the “developer notes” (style guide) section of the “cut content” page.
ALSO: if youre from a christian cultural upbringing (whether currently practicing, agnostic/secular, or atheist now), understand that some of what i’m discussing here may challenge you. if thinking thru the implications of this particular part of hollow knight worldbuilding/lore is distressing for you, PLEASE only approach this essay when youre in a safe mindset & open to listening, and ask the help of a therapist or anti-racism teacher/mentor to help you process your thoughts & feelings. just like keep in mind that youre listening to an ethnoreligiously marginalized person and please be respectful here or wherever else youre discussing this dang essay, ty
HOWMST BELL THE CAT? - A treatise on one aspect of how the Pale King sealed the Radiance
We understand more or less how the Pale King’s plan was supposed to work. Stuff Radiance into a no-thoughts-head-empty and silent Pure Vessel to trap, isolate, and silence her, both putting an end to the Infection and killing her for good. Stick that vessel in the Black Egg, which harnesses Void BS to both keep the vessel alive indefinitely and to cover Hallownest (and its neighbors) in a time-defying stasis so that the Pale King could successfully hoard his favorite shiny FOREVER, threatened by nothing. Then put a seal on the Black Egg to prevent anyone from getting inside and harming said vessel while it’s strung up and helpless. And THEN, put protective seals on the anchors (the Dreamers) to the Black Egg seal to protect them from any external harm: The stasis means the Dreamers won't die of old age or starvation.
All in all, a pretty foolproof plan!
...except that the Dreamers are still vulnerable to having their minds breached with the moths’ magic... and the Pale King failed to take into account that his Pure Vessel was a person actually and the amount of toxic stress his training/upbringing put on them made them REALLY POORLY SUITED FOR THEIR JOB... and also that killing 99% of his million children and turning the Abyss into a landfill for baby corpses would take enough of an emotional toll on his wife and #1 enabler the White Lady that she would walk out on him, ensuring he’d only ever have one shot at this whole deal...
Basically it’s the sort of plan that an emotionally constipated, low-empathy sort of guy who pours all his points into INT and has a big fat zero for WIS might think is foolproof. It has big holes in it that the Pale King did not consider to be big holes until he got owned by the various consequences of his actions and fell down said big holes, making the shocked pikachu face all the while. Rip in die, my guy.
Anyway, there’s a lot of incidental information scattered about the game that gives us more insight into the stages of TPK’s plan. Looking at Monomon’s notes in the Archive suggests that she was probably involved in designing the Black Egg; the hidden room in the Weavers’ den points to their being the ones to blueprint the Dreamer seal; the White Palace’s hidden rooms reveal both TPK’s morbid fascination with the Void and his mea culpa wrt his motives and the Path of Pain is certainly suggestive of a lot of things. The White Lady tells us straight out that she walked out on the Pale King because she wanted no part in a second vessel batch, but how TPK didn’t handle that is only revealed via map design and some incidental dialogue from the Old Stag.
This stuff presents us with, if not a full picture, then at least a decent connect-the-dots of certain aspects of crater politics and Pale Court drama at the time, and how exactly TPK’s plan came together.
But there is still one glaring question that these cookie crumbs do not provide us an answer to:
Who shall bell the cat?
How did TPK et al manage to stuff Radiance into Hollow in the first place?
This is the subject of a lot of memes and jokes within the fandom because it's so absurd. Radiance fuckin hates that dude! She’s probably gonna be pretty wary of him considering how he stole her people in the first place! And considering the anti-colonialism slant of the writing - beyond the general sympathetic view Team Cherry gives of each indigenous bug society, Seer makes it very clear that Radiance has very good reason to take violent action against Hallownest - the answer is probably not something like “she’s just that stupid” or “she rolled a crit fail”.
Well... I have an idea of how TPK managed to get Radiance in there. It raises about as many questions as it answers, mind, but it may be someplace to start.
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[desc: the hollow knight's entry in the hunter’s journal. top text/ghost’s comment reads: “Fully grown Vessel, carrying the plague’s heart within its body.” bottom text/hunter’s comment says: “The old King of Hallownest... he must have been desperate to save his crumbling little world. The sacrifices he imposed on others... all for nothing.”]
Here we have Hollow’s bestiary entry. Most of what we’re concerned with here is the top text, which says the seal has literally trapped Radiance inside their body. (First of all, ew, TPK.)
We already knew Radiance is literally actually inside Hollow, though: The Infection is leaking out of their body, and to get to fight Radiance, Ghost has to go traipsing into their sibling’s mind. So what’s significant about that here?
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[desc: screencap of the outside of the black egg temple, post-infected crossroads. there are large infection blobs in the foreground and background, connected to each other by veins that come from inside the temple.]
The infection blobs are weird and get weirder if you kill enough Lightseeds for the Hunter to tell you their origin story, i.e. that the literal actual sun has been having a very long bad day and cried a lot, and some of the liquid coalesced into living flesh, and some of that living flesh took on a mind of its own to become Lightseeds. (Hollow Knight is a WILD place.)
Lightseeds are Radiance’s accidental children and share a lot of her traits: They are harmless creatures that try to avoid conflict if possible but if pushed will get creative and find ways to fight regardless of their physical limitations. (For the Lightseeds this involves hiding inside Broken Vessel’s corpse and puppeting it around to try to stab you.) They even have her same distinctive yell. And according to the Hunter, they’re born from the infection blobs. These enemies only ever appear in the Ancient Basin, which both Radiance and the Void have ransacked, and in the Infected Crossroads.
The infection blobs are connected to and sort of a weird extension of Radiance because the Infection itself is sort of a weird extension of Radiance. In the game’s internal style guide Team Cherry explains that the Infection started as an accident, not her original intention but what happened when Hallownest tried to block her out.
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[desc: screencap from the wiki of style notes attached to seer that describe a sketch of radiance’s finalized backstory. text reads: “The moth tribe were (perhaps) descended from Radiance. However, the King convinced them somehow to seal Radiance away. I guess so he could rule Hallownest with his singular vision, as a god/monarch with no other gods. The moths sealed Radiance away by forgetting about her. Hallownest was born and flourished. However, the memory of Radiance lingered (eg [sic] the statue at hallownest’s crown) and soon she began to reappear in dreams and starting [sic] exerting influence. The King and the bugs of Hallownest resisted this memory/power and it started to manifest as the Infection. Thus the first attempt to seal Radiance failed, and the King had to try another method - the Vessel.” emphasis mine.]
Some fans have posited the blobs as deposits of pupa juice, but given Team Cherry's description of the Infection’s origins I don’t know how likely that is. Since the Void also sticks its squamous tentacles into things via veiny looking things and the Nightmare’s Heart has similar veiny nonsense in the Nightmare Realm, I wonder if it isn’t just a Meddly God Shit thing in general.
Whatever the case, the blobs are very much connected to/a part of Radiance.
And when you’re hanging around them, you will notice two things: They pulse like they’re part of a circulatory system, and you can hear Radiance's heartbeat emanating from them.
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[desc: screencap of the game’s title screen with the infected menu theme in use: a glowing orange ball at the center of a lot of black tendony webbing.]
Let’s also think of the Infected menu theme, which you unlock after getting either of the endings where Ghost takes over from Hollow and absorbs Radiance out of them. Ghost is infected and then sealed inside the Black Egg in Hollow's place. It’s suggested by the animation’s staging that Radiance briefly struggles to get out of Ghost after absorbed but is ultimately stuck in them, at which point the seal is reestablished.
If you haven’t used the Infected menu theme yourself, the... interesting thing about it is that it moves organically. The light ball expands and contracts - y’know, sort of like a living organ - and so does the black webby stuff around it.
Also, Radiance’s heartbeat is included in the theme's ambiance.
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[desc: hollow’s bestiary entry again]
To cut to the chase, this part of Hollow’s bestiary entry that says “the plague’s heart”? I don’t think that’s just Ghost/Team Cherry being poetic. I think there’s a good chance it’s LITERAL.
I think TPK is the sort of person who could cram a native woman’s literal living beating heart inside his own child’s body so they can use it as... say, a focus to absorb and trap her mind/spirit inside their body, too. Mr. No Cost Too Great is capable of a lot in the name of keeping other people’s claws off his Big Shiny kingdom. This is kind of his whole brand.
But also, like, yuck.
This fits the worldbuilding too; generally speaking Hollow Knight is Body Horror City. Also there’s the case of Grimm: While he and Radiance are loose counterparts at best with WILDLY disparate outlooks and ethoses, his existence serves as precedent that a Higher Being’s heart specifically can be separate from the rest of them.
As I said before, though, this DOES raise as many questions as it answers. If this is another piece in the puzzle of how TPK belled the cat, we’re now left wondering how he got Radiance’s heart to use as Hollow's focus to begin with.
We know he has access to the Dream Realm because that’s ultimately where he hid when Hollow’s seal failed, but who did he send to do the stealing and how did they get away with it? (TPK certainly wouldn’t have gone; his own life’s the one cost too great for him to willingly pay.) Was Radiance’s heart separate from her like the Nightmare’s Heart, or was it a part of her body? (I think the latter is more likely just from her personality; Grimm’s hidden heart makes sense because of how he keeps even his own servants at arm’s length emotionally, whereas Radiance is all heart all the time. I think this makes more sense with their equal opposites schtick too. But this would make for a WAY riskier mission.)
I can imagine all kinds of possibilities. None of them are definitive, but the thing they have in common is that they are all Awful... and how on-brand that is for Hollow Knight as a whole is, maybe, the most persuasive argument for It’s Literally Actually Her Real Physical Heart there could be.
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slimy-vore-bog · 4 years ago
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Consuming Curiosity
Disclaimer: all my work is non-sexual N/SF/W interaction is not appreciated
Hi, this was the story I was talking about... It’s kinda boring, but it’s probably the last thing I’m going to be posting for a long time.
Um... This AU is a little weird to explain. At least, how I came up with it. It’s basically a pokémon AU with size-shifters and safe vore. I have a few posts about it, so if you want to read some about they are there. You don’t necessarily have to, but it can help.
Though, a couple thing to note outside of that is:
The confession in this story was written before s2 ep5
Luz has a flashlight, despite flash being a thing. So let’s just say that’s what the light around trainers are in caves.
The title is supposed to be silly, not serious.
I’m going to say a few more things under read more, just to avoid spoilers (for season 1) but here’s a summary:
Amity tells Luz she's a size-shifter, before asking to eat her, but Luz isn't too comfortable with the idea when it’s brought up.
Ao3 (sorry, you’re going to have to copy paste this, unless you check out my reblog to main) https://archiveofourown.org/works/32602456
Spoiler warning: I do talk briefly about s2 ep 5 on Ao3
Word Count: 7.4 k
It’s not a big spoiler, but in this AU Amity has never threatened Luz’s life, because she has never snuck into the school pretending to be an abomination. The duel also wouldn’t put Luz herself in harms way as much.
Also I use the word “fearmongering”, but I’m not sure it’s the right word, so feel free to correct me.
That was kinda the last thing I wanted to note... So onto the story.
***
Luz looked around, as her and Amity walked along the small forest path. A thought suddenly hit her. “You know, it’s really quiet out here! I thought there would be more people and pokémon training!”
Amity looked over at her unsurely. “Yeah, uh, that was why I took you here.” She glanced away. “For the quiet, I mean… And we’re not there yet, but I have something I want to talk about with you.” She locked eyes with Luz for a few seconds, but she couldn’t keep the eye contact. “I don’t want anybody else to overhear it.” She turned her head from side to side, before she walked off the path.
Luz’s curiosity was instantly piqued. A secret? More about Amity’s past? She jogged up to Amity, unsure where to start with her questions, or if she should keep them to herself a while. Amity did say we weren’t actually there yet. She pushed her questions down for the moment, but her curiosity about the girl was still strongly on her mind.
¨¨
Amity led Luz to a large clearing, before glancing over at her. “I think this place is quiet enough.” She said it more to herself than Luz. “I’m sorry it might take a while before I’m ready to talk about this.” She took her bag off her shoulders, placing her poké balls it, before slowly walked out into the clearing.
Luz looked out at the different sorts of plant life. There were a few trees starting to spread out into the open space, but they were still just saplings and small enough for any herbivorous pokémon to eat them and others to accidentally trample them. A few giant thistles were starting to bloom here and there, and a few bushes had snuck in too.
She stepped out into the clearings too, the grass nearly went up to her knees; she noticed how oddly beautiful the place was. There was something wild about it, it wasn’t a flower meadow or anything, but it still had a strong natural beauty. The thistles were blossoming pretty purple flowers and the sky was clear today, shining on everything in the gorgeous way. Luz looked over at Amity, as a thought popped into her mind. This would be the perfect place for a love confession.
Luz shook her head. Why would I want a love confession from Amity? She felt her heart sped up a little as she looked over at her friend. Why would Amity even give me one? We’re just friends. But the ‘what if?’ made her heart beat way faster than it should.
Amity looked over at Luz, when they were only a few feet apart. She took a deep breath, before she let out a strained sigh. “I’m…” she hesitated again, before she decided to spit it out. “I’m a size-shifter.”
Luz’s eyes widened in surprise, for a second feeling lured into a trap, before she shook her head. “You are?!” She took a step back, instantly feeling the fear creep back into her. “You’re dangerous?” she didn’t manage to cut herself off before she saw the pain on Amity’s face. It’s still Amity, why am I acting like this? “Don’t size-shifters eat people?”
Amity already looked like she was about to cry. “No!” she shouted at Luz. “Luz, why would you think I would kill someone?” She looked away from Luz.
Luz’s eyes widened once again. “I’m sorry! But I don’t really understand.” She thought back to all she had been taught about size-shifters. They are dangerous, they will eat you and don’t trust them. Luz had a realization she should have had a long time ago. It’s not actually true. It’s fearmongering! Luz’s brow furrowed. It feels like a strange thing to lie about. “Can you explain?”
Amity looked tired. “I guess I have to… You’re not going to get the right answer from anybody else.” She took another deep breath. “I know everybody always talks about how we are all murderous cannibals, but it’s not true.” Amity held her breath for a moment, looking unsure. “And I know there’s sometimes footage of it and ‘the rescues’, but-”
Luz cut her off. “Wait, the footage isn’t fake?” That had been her first thought after thinking it was fearmongering. She hadn’t ever wanted to believe the footage was real, but the way Amity said it and hesitated to say it made her think it was real. “So-” Luz was about to take a step back, before she shook her head. “But… Wait.” Luz couldn’t wrap her head around it. “How can the rescues be faked? And how do the people stay alive?”
Amity paused. “I don’t know exactly how the biology behind size-shifters work, but we can swallow people alive safely.” Amity had to think about her second question. “They aren’t exactly ‘faked’, but they aren’t what they seem.” Amity’s face suddenly fell into a sad grimace. “Haven’t you noticed that the size-shifters never hesitate to spit the people back up? If I was an attempted murderer; I wouldn’t just spit people up because I was asked to.” She shook her head. “My point is that size-shifters aren’t worse than anybody else.”
Luz had another question on her mind. “But… Why would they want to eat people, if it gets them in trouble?” It wasn’t like she had a problem with breaking unfair rules; she lived with a criminal who was broke laws, pretty fair and unfair. “What do they gain from it?” It wasn’t even a meal, since they wouldn’t be trying to kill the person.
Amity avoided Luz’s gaze. “Uh… I have heard it feels comforting, in a way.” She glanced over at Luz for a second. “But I have never really… I’ve never tried it, so I don’t know if it’s worth getting in trouble over.” Amity quickly changed the topic away from eating people. “But I really want to try holding you in my hands…” She looked expectantly at Luz. “Can I do that?”
Luz smiled, already feeling a lot more at ease. “Sure!”
Amity’s shoulders untensed, before she grew to a size where Luz was barely the size of her index finger. She carefully sat down and lowered her hand to the ground.
Luz looked at it for a couple seconds, intimidated by Amity’s new size, before she climbed up on her hand with an exaggerated huff. She could feel as Amity raised her up and closer to her.
Amity sat like that for a while, as they didn’t say anything to each other. She gently brushed Luz’s back with her finger, making Luz flinch in surprise. “Sorry,” apologized Amity, as she quickly pulled her finger away. “You’re just so…” she tried to come up with a good word that wasn’t ‘cute’, “small.” She gently grabbed Luz’s hand in her fingers, letting it rest on top her finger; it couldn’t even reach across the slimmest part of it. “It feels strange to hold you.”
Luz kept looking into her giant eyes. “It’s really strange to be held too.” She looked down at the ground. “You’re really big when you’re a giant…” Amity felt a little too big to be real in her mind. “I mean, obviously, but you’re so big, it doesn’t really feel possible.” She talked absentmindedly, as she leaned onto Amity’s finger, which twitched under her touch. “I’m not even the size of this finger.” Luz tried to wrestle it downwards, but it barely budged. “I’m not even as strong as your finger!”
Amity raised an eyebrow. “Did you expect to be?”
Luz shook her head. “Not really, but it’s still weird.” She leaned down on her finger again, but this time she just felt like lying down. “Man, today has already been a day, huh?” She chuckled. “My brain feels just as mushy as when I first got here…” She took a moment to take it all in, narrating some of her thoughts out loud. “You’re a size-shifters. Size-shifters eat people, but not really, so people fear and hate you guys for no reason…” Her brow furrowed. “I got scared of you too. I’m sorry.” She had a better idea of how much it must have hurt Amity to hear her freak out and call her dangerous after the whole explanation.
Amity ignored the last part of it. “Yeah, today has already been a lot.” Or maybe she didn’t… It was part of her day that she thought she was about to lose Luz as a friend from how she had reacted. She moved her finger away from Luz lowering her down to rest her arms in her lap. She sighed. “I don’t think it was all on you… Maybe I should have explained everything and if you caught on it wouldn’t be as bad.”
Luz felt even worse for her. “No, it’s not at all your fault; I didn’t wait to hear you out.” She looked up at Amity. “I should have trusted that you would never hurt me.” It was even strange, because she would have completely trusted Amity with her life just before she told Luz her secret. Why was my first thought she was tricking me? “I trust you so much and I promise that we are still friends!”
Amity gave her a small smile, and Luz was happy that her reassurance worked. “Thanks.”
It was silent between them after that.
Amity carefully stroked Luz’s hair in the silence, and Luz found it calming. She liked knowing that there was nothing wrong between them and neither of them hated each other over what had just happened. But it was strange with the sudden affection from Amity’s side. She usually veered away from physical contact with Luz. Maybe she just doesn’t like it when others touch her? Luz felt a bit conflicted. I hope it isn’t for a bad reason.
Amity shifted her fingers to brush Luz’s back instead, but her head was filled with other thoughts. It had been bugging her from when she picked Luz up in her hands, but it was even worse after Luz had told her that she trusted her. She couldn’t stop thinking about swallowing Luz alive. Her brain kept shouting at her that Luz needed to get somewhere safe, despite the lack of danger. I guess I know why others do it despite the risk now. She stared down at Luz, wishing she could just shove her into her mouth without scaring her. Should I bring the idea up? She decided not to.
Luz relaxed, as Amity stroked her back, but she did seem to be a little distracted. She decided not to ask about it. It wasn’t like she always paid attention when she was with people. She could get a little lost in her daydreams about her favorite shows and books from time to time. But what type of thoughts would Amity get lost in? Luz straightened her back, immediately changing her mind about not asking. “What are you thinking about?”
Amity hesitated. “I’m trying to figure something out…” She shifted her hands a bit, before she stroked Luz again. She looked like she wanted to say something more, but changed her mind about what. “It’s annoying.” That was what she left it at.
Luz tilted her head. “What are you trying to figure out? Oh! Maybe I can help?”
Amity laughed. “You could, but that is also the problem… It could solve it too.”
“That sounds like some weird cryptic riddle… Sooo what do you mean by that?” Luz watched her, while she thought about what to say next.
Amity tried to pick her words carefully. I think I should ease her more into it… maybe it won’t startle her as bad? “It’s just that… Hmm, no…” Saying it like that would be more ominous. Imagine hearing that… She shook her head. ‘I think have figured out why other size-shifters want to risk swallowing people whole’. Even thinking it to herself made her shiver. “I’m thinking about how it feels to swallow a person whole.” Amity watched Luz’s face for a reaction, but she didn’t see any fear yet, though she did make a face. “It has to feel good, right?” She tried to avoid the fact that she knew that was not the reason others did it, until she saw Luz’s reaction.
Luz felt a bit weirded out by her, but she decided it was better not to judge her too harshly. Maybe it’s some weird feeling she gets when she’s giant. “So… you were trying to ask if you can swallow me whole?”
Amity’s fingers twitched a little closer around Luz, before she nodded. “And, actually… I think I have figured out why-” she stopped herself abruptly. “I mean, not in a scary dangerous way, but I think I have figured out why other size-shifters risk so much to do this.” She paused again, as she watched Luz intently, making Luz squirm. “I don’t know why, but holding you like this makes me feel like I need to keep you safe from everything and never let anyone or anything get to you. And the same feeling is screaming at me to eat you.”
Amity was being a little overdramatic, but so were her thoughts. Or at least the feelings it gave her. It pressed heavily in on her mind, as she stared down at the relatively tiny girl in her hands. She tried to calm the thoughts, in case Luz said no, by reminding herself that if anybody or thing did try to hurt, she could still protect her normally. It obviously didn’t help, but that was also maybe part of the fact that she, even without the strange feelings, wanted to try swallowing Luz whole.
Luz smiled uncomfortably, glancing down towards the ground. It wasn’t as much a lack of trust, as it was an ‘I don’t want to be swallowed alive’. “Well, uh,” she laughed anxiously, “I mean… it’s nice that you want to protect me, but-” she wondered how to say it. “I think you should just put me down and we can go back.”
Luz could see Amity’s mood drop, before she replied. “I guess that would solve it too…” She placed Luz down on the ground, going back to her regular height, holding a hand to her forehead. “Okay, now I’m confused.” She stared at Luz with a weirded out look on her face.
Luz could guess what the problem was. “Maybe it takes a while for the feelings to disappear?” she guessed, hoping she was right. Or I would just have to deal with being swallowed alive. She shivered, trying not to feel too disgusted with the idea. “Wait, what if the feeling stays forever? Even after you’ve eaten me and let me back out?”
Amity’s eyes widened. I would not be able to handle that! Was what Luz said actually possible? It sounded like it. What if I eat Luz and never let her out? She wanted to get away from her ‘protective’ thoughts immediately. Her mind filled up with horrible images and scenarios. Both of them dying of hunger from neither being able to eat. Or her eating something and getting her stomach to work again. Her thoughts started spiraling into more horrible scenarios.
Luz noticed Amity’s distress, but she had no idea how to help. “It probably won’t! Uh…” Luz looked around, trying to find something to talk about that could distract Amity. “Sunny!” Luz grabbed one of her poké balls from her belt, sending the pokémon out. “Look at Sunny, hasn’t she gotten stronger?” Her shiny Luxio’s fur sparkled in the light, as Sunny looked up at Luz, before rubbing her head against her. “Can you go over to Amity?”
She listened, turning around to see Amity still looking alarmed. Sunny looked surprised, before she used her head to guide Amity’s hand to pet her.
Amity looked down at Luz’s pokémon, letting her shoulders untense a little. The thoughts were calming down a lot faster than she thought they would, both the eating ones and the anxious ones. She felt the thoughts about swallowing Luz slowly disappear. There were still memories of the thoughts when she looked at Luz, but nothing like what she had just felt. It was more like having said something completely seriously in a dream and then waking up to it being completely ridiculous. Amity smiled. “Thanks…”
“No problem!” Luz was happy everything had resolved itself so fast. She wouldn’t really know how else to fix this. “Sorry for bringing… that… up.” She hadn’t expected Amity to react like that at all, but now she could see how it would be worrying. “I promise I wasn’t trying to scare you.”
Amity petted Sunny for a bit. “It’s okay now.” A conflicted expression fell on her face. “I just felt like it was what was going to happen.” She sighed. “But luckily it wasn’t.”
It was strange… It was supposed to be a comforting feeling after she had swallowed Luz, so why did the thought of doing that so easily panic her? But then again… She wasn’t giant anymore, and she had just feared having thoughts about swallowing Luz for the rest of her life… And then thought about her death.
Luz looked at Sunny, as her pokémon walked back to her. It was good that Luz’s pokémon didn’t hold a grudge. It was good that Luz didn’t either, or she and Amity could never have been friends. She smiled at Amity as a strange feeling made her heart sped up again, like it had when she had thought about how oddly perfect for romance the place seemed.
Amity smiled back, before she spoke. “Well, we should probably be heading back.”
Luz looked at Amity unsurely. “So, you don’t want to try eating me?”
Amity looked a bit uncomfortable. “I’m not sure… Why are you asking? I thought you didn’t want me to do that?”
Luz returned her pokémon to her poké ball. “I did, but… I mean, how can I not be a little curious?” It seemed scary at first, but there was something about it that intrigued her. Even if she had to dig to find it. “It’s crazy that it’s actually possible to be eaten safely!” A thought suddenly hit Luz. “But, if you haven’t eaten anybody before, how do you know it’s safe? It’s not very obvious when seeing the footage of it.”
Amity shrugged. “It’s usually a thing only size-shifters know about. I don’t think other people would be so open to hear us out.”
“I guess that makes sense…” Luz hesitated. “But do you want to try it?” She felt a little hesitant herself, but maybe she could at least try it, just to see what it would feel like. Maybe it could be interesting?
Amity gave it another second of thought. If Luz wants me to, I guess she doesn’t think it’s that bad? And Amity had no reason to be scared. She wasn’t going to live with the urge to eat her forever, it would disappear after a few minutes. She made her decision. “Yes.”
Without any warning, Luz closed the distance between them with a hug.
Amity froze in Luz’s embrace. “Why are you hugging me?” It didn’t make any sense; Luz was doing something for her, so why did she also get a hug? At the same time, the closeness threw Amity’s heart into high-gear.
Luz felt Amity freeze in her arms, as she squeezed her tightly. She let go of her, seeing how red her face had gotten, before she replied. “I felt like you needed it.” Luz stared at Amity’s face, unsure of how to process her blushing. “And I wanted to hug you.” She took a step back from her. What do I do about her blushing? It wasn’t really hitting her what it meant, but she knew it would in a moment, because it was right there in her head. How should I react?
Luz is staring at me. Amity felt a rush of anxiety. She has figured it out. “Uh, well, I was supposed to grow, so I’ll just do that now.” She backed away from Luz, growing back to her biggest height again.
Luz stared up at Amity, as the words her mind was searching for fell into place. Amity has a crush on me. Luz couldn’t figure out what to do about it. Was she supposed to tell Amity that she knew or keep quiet about until she decided to confess? Would that make it more awkward? She played the scenario out in her mind. If I told somebody I had a crush on them and they- her thoughts were abruptly cut short as she was pulled up into the air. She shouted in surprise. “Amity!”
Amity gave Luz a fake smile. “Sorry, I’m just really impatient right now.” She was hoping Luz hadn’t guessed anything at all and that she could distract her. What exactly do I do, if she has guessed it? Wasn’t she supposed to let Luz know that she liked her as more than a friend? It doesn’t feel right yet…
Amity shifted her hands, so Luz could sit in them. “At least ask if you can pick me up.” She took a second to figure out what she had been thinking about, before she fell back into her thoughts. If somebody knew I had a crush on them, would I like them to tell me they knew or not? She tried to figure it out, but she didn’t know how Amity felt about it. “What would you do if you knew somebody had a crush on you?” Maybe that was enough to let Amity know that she knew.
Amity felt her pulse quicken even more. “Tell them.” She wasn’t sure she would have answered that, if it wasn’t glaringly obvious Luz had figured it out, but she needed to hear it from Luz’s mouth.
Luz could sense how uncomfortable Amity was. She already knew that I figured it out… That’s why she’s acting so much weirder. “Uh… well… I think-” she corrected herself, “-I know you have a crush on me.” Luz felt her heart pound quicker in her chest. “And… I think I might have feelings for you too?” Luz looked away from Amity. “You know… The first thing I thought of when we got here was that this place would be perfect for a love confession.”
Amity stared down at Luz, wide-eyed, before she blinked. She looked around the clearing, before she laughed. “It kind of is.”
Both of them stayed quiet for a few seconds.
Amity felt the feelings of wanting to eat Luz slip back in through her worry about her not returning her feelings. “So we both like each other…” she stated to herself, feeling unsure. Everything about this whole day seemed fake. First, she had actually told Luz she was a size-shifter, Luz had agreed to let herself get eaten and now… Now Luz had told her she had feelings for her. “Would it be weird, if I swallowed you whole now?”
Luz smiled awkwardly. “Not any weirder than it would be any other time.” She hesitated again. “But I would like it if I could get more eased into it.” Luz felt a bit embarrassed to ask, because of the absurdity of the situation. “Could you hold your mouth open, so I can look inside first?”
“Sure.” Amity raised her up in front of her face, opening her mouth wide.
Luz couldn’t stop herself from flinching back at the sight of it. Her teeth were way too big for Luz not to imagine her accidently getting something caught in between them and crushed. The sight of her throat was even more unnerving, with the thought of her having to go down it. Luz shivered from both thoughts, before she managed to calm herself down. Relax, nothing’s going to go wrong.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t expected it to be scary, but she thought her curiosity would have made it less scary. Still, she didn’t want to not try it. “I-” she cleared her throat to avoid her voice shaking, “I meant so I could lean in.”
Amity shifted Luz closer to her mouth after she said that.
Luz once again had to take a moment to convince herself everything was going to be okay, before she held onto Amity’s teeth and leaned into her mouth. Nothing’s going to be bitten off. She could feel the heat of Amity’s breath against her face, but it luckily didn’t smell bad.
Amity moved her tongue moved away from Luz’s hands, confusing her. “Uh, you know, if you want to swallow me whole, you have to touch me with your tongue.”
She could see that Amity hesitated, before she relaxed her tongue.
Luz cringed slightly, as the warm wet tongue hit her hands, but she relaxed shortly after. It’s not that gross, just a little weird. Luz let Amity drag her tongue up her arms, as she watched. I wonder if I taste like anything? She pushed her tongue back down when she was about to lick at her face. “I still need to look!” she called out, trying to make it clear she wasn’t that bothered by it and actually found it a little amusing.
Luz moved her hands on top of Amity’s tongue. It felt strange how it twitched under her hands, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Luz suddenly threw herself back out of Amity’s mouth. “Oh! Wait!” She took her poké balls of her belt shoving them in her bag. “Can you take this?” She left her flashlight on her belt, just in case she wanted to look around.
Amity carefully picked the bag out of her hands, before placing it by her own. “I thought something was wrong.”
Luz shook her head. “No, everything is fine! I just thought… I mean, you could get hurt, if I lost something in there.”  She decided not to dwell on it. “Can you open up again?”
Amity did as she was told.
Luz leaned back in on her tongue, looking at Amity’s throat. The sight made her shiver, just like before, but it still wasn’t enough to make her back out of trying this.
Amity was having a bit of a different experience.
She couldn’t figure out why Luz tasted like she did. It wasn’t at all how she would have imagined a person to taste. She had expected them to maybe be a tiny bit salty, if they were sweating, but Luz tasted like her skin was made of sugar. She liked it, but it also weirded her out at the same time. Maybe this is just how people taste to size-shifters? She shifted her tongue under Luz’s hands, trying to get a bit more of her taste…It’s kind of like having a living piece of candy. She felt even weirder about it after that thought.
Luz turned her head to look at Amity’s teeth. The ones farthest in were the size of both her hands curled into fists. She leaned in a little farther, pushing herself up on her toes, to see if her assumption was right. She rested her elbows on Amity’s tongue, comparing the size of her fist to her teeth. Wow, they are! I am really tiny compared to her…
Luz felt a bit unsure of what to do now. Do I want to get swallowed yet? Her gaze fell on her throat. Something in her was telling her that she should tell Amity to stop, but she knew it was just her very rational fear of being eaten.
She sighed, before she relaxed her legs, sliding a bit backwards. Should I let Amity shove me in or crawl in myself? But she felt Amity pull her back out after a second to close her mouth.
Amity looked at her, but Luz couldn’t really read her expression. “Uh…” Amity started unsurely, “can I eat you now?”
Luz shrugged. “Sure, I’m done looking around.” She felt weird about phrasing it like that, but it didn’t matter too much.
Amity gently picked Luz up with her other hand, but put her back down when she saw her confused expression. “What?” she asked carefully.
“Nothing! I kinda thought I would be climbing into your mouth again, but this works too.” Amity nodded, picking her up once again. But Luz couldn’t help feeling a little uncomfortable with it. It can’t be not more uncomfortable than climbing in on my own…
Amity held her pinched between her fingers, still feeling that strange need for protecting Luz by eating her. Yet she also thought about how to do it. Should I tilt my head back and lower her in? She had no idea what she should do, but she felt that there was a right way to do it, even if there probably wasn’t. Would Luz find it weird or even scary? Her mind was getting impatient with her, yelling at her that it didn’t matter as long as she got Luz safe. Amity tilted her head back, hoping she didn’t look stupid doing that, before she opened her mouth.
Luz felt her heart pound quicker, but not in a good way, as Amity brought her legs down towards her mouth. Why is this so much scarier? She looked down into her mouth, feeling a much stronger shiver at the sight of Amity’s throat. She pulled her legs back, as she felt the jolt of fear. “Amity, wait! Give me a moment.” I just need a second to calm down and then everything is going to be fine.
Amity closed her mouth again reluctantly. Her mind was screaming to eat Luz even more severely than before, while she tried to push the thoughts down. She’s scared to be eaten; I won’t do this if she doesn’t want to. Yet that didn’t seem to calm down the thoughts at all. Either that, or it calmed down such a little bit, she could barely feel the difference.
Luz held her hand over her heart, feeling her heart beating under it. Should I back out? With how her heart was thumping; she strongly considered it. She looked at Amity, as she imagined going down the other girl’s throat. “Uh…” she didn’t know how to voice her sudden fright. “Just a moment more.”
Amity already felt let down. “Please…” She stopped herself, not wanting to make Luz feel like she didn’t have a choice. “Sorry.”
She was about to place Luz back on the ground, when she shouted, “Wait!” making Amity stop. “I still want to try it, I’m just scared.” It was pretty clear, giving how she was shaking. “I can do this; I don’t think it’s going to be as scary after I’ve tried it.” Luz looked up at Amity unsurely, fiddling with her hands. “Maybe it’s kinda the same fear that comes from anything scary.” She gestured something with her hands, but Amity wasn’t sure what she meant, or if it even meant anything. “Maybe a roller coaster or trying to climb a really high rock-climbing wall. Something that’s terrifying the first few times, but after that it’s fun?”
Luz could feel her heart still pounding away in her chest, but both not wanting to let Amity down and grasping on to that little bit of curiosity, she knew she had to do it. “Maybe those two aren’t the best comparisons, and it probably won’t be ‘fun’ in the same way, but you know what I mean.”
Amity smiled at Luz’s comparison, before she tried to figure out how to make Luz more comfortable. “You didn’t feel as scared when you were looking around my mouth yourself…” she thought out loud. “Would it help if you climbed in on your own?” Amity realized she was still holding Luz the way she had been before, putting her back down to sit in her hand.
Luz watched Amity’s mouth, feeling an uncertain chill run down her spine. “I think so?” It would feel better than being lowered in.
Amity opened her mouth again.
Luz didn’t waste any time, afraid to back out if she waited for too long. She pulled herself up using Amity’s teeth as fast as she could, feeling a little shove on her feet from Amity. Amity closed her mouth as soon as Luz was inside.
Amity grimaced at the feeling of Luz’s clothes against her tongue, as it sucked the moisture from her mouth. She felt embarrassed about having to roll Luz around her mouth before she could swallow her. Should I swallow her head first her get her to turn around? Amity wasn’t sure what would be best. She couldn’t picture what would be easier for both her and Luz. I guess I should just focus on getting her soaked enough to go down. With how Luz tasted, she guessed it wouldn’t take too long.
Luz squeezed her eyes shut, despite the darkness, as she felt Amity’s tongue move around underneath her. She couldn’t stop herself from feeling like she was a piece of candy. She felt Amity’s teeth grab her foot, before she swallowed the saliva around her. Despite her foot in between Amity’s teeth; she let her shoulders untense for a moment, feeling a little bit less scared. Everything is fine. She tried to reassure herself. Amity isn’t trying to scare me.
Amity could feel Luz becoming less tense, realizing that she was still scared, as she could feel her rapid heartbeat against her tongue. She didn’t know what to do… How scared was Luz? Should I let Luz back out? She didn’t want to at all. She swallowed around Luz again.
Luz squirmed uncomfortably, as her clothes became more and more drenched in drool. Her body was once again pressed up into the roof of Amity’s mouth. She felt the saliva disappear from around her, before she was lowered down again and pushed around.
Amity thought about how to swallow Luz again. Does it matter to her? Luz felt scared, but would one way be less scary? She hesitantly opened her mouth back up, hoping Luz wouldn’t mind needing to get back in.
Luz could feel a change in light behind her shut eyes, before she was pulled back out of her mouth. She uncertainly opened her eyes, seeing the string of drool between her and Amity, before she tried to slurp it in, before licking it away. She couldn’t keep herself from grimacing in disgust. That’s so gross. Both how it looked and how it sounded made her cringe and shut her eyes again.
Amity noticed Luz’s discomfort, feeling incredibly embarrassed. “Uh… I was wondering if you cared how I swallowed you?” She used her free hand to briefly scratch the back of her head. “I mean, head first or feet first?”
Luz opened her eyes hesitantly. Did she care? She pictured both ways. Being swallowed head first would probably be really uncomfortable… But is feet first any better? She tried to picture it. It doesn’t sound like it… But that was more about the whole being eaten thing not being very pleasant. At least I won’t be upside-down… “Uh… Feet first?” Luz knew that meant she couldn’t avoid Amity putting her in her mouth, unless she wanted to try turning around in her mouth herself, but she might as well let Amity do it. Maybe it won’t be as scary now. “And I’m okay with you putting me in your mouth.”
Amity’s brow furrowed. If she’s changes her mind, I can stop. She shifted her hands to hold Luz differently, deciding not to do what she did earlier. She lifted her hand up to her mouth, letting Luz’s legs slip inside, before she quickly, but gently, pushed the rest of her inside.
Luz didn’t get as much time to be scared as Amity pushed her in a lot quicker than she had tried to lower her in.
Amity’s tongue flipped her on her stomach, before she tilted her head back.
Luz’s fear sparked back up, as she slid backwards. Calm down; it’s not going to be that bad. She tried to keep that in mind while her legs slipped into Amity’s throat, before her tongue squeezed her down into it and her feet and lower legs slid down into her esophagus.
Amity felt her brain scream a loud ‘Finally!’, as she swallowed for the first time. But she could also feel how hard and rapid Luz’s heart was beating. She didn’t let herself dwell on it, as she swallowed again. She’ll tell me, if she wants to back out.
The tongue around Luz squash her up into her palate, shoving more of her into her throat. Luz wriggled, trying to feel less squished. It was a lot tighter than she would have thought.
Luz felt Amity swallow again, as her waist was pulled into her throat. Only her arms were still on her tongue, as the rest of her was falling into her throat, but she didn’t feel as scared as she did before. It’s okay… She comforted herself. It’s not that bad. Amity’s throat pulled on her, as she was squashed down farther.
As Luz felt the crushing pressure around her chest, she realized she should have taking a deep breath before Amity had swallowed her this far in. I can’t breathe. She could gasp a little bit of breath in, when she really tried, but it wasn’t easy.
Amity stopped swallowing, when she felt Luz wriggles become more intense. Oh… should I have let her out? It was too late for that now. She swallowed Luz’s arms and hands in one gulp, feeling jumbled, as feelings of worry and joy mixed in her head. I’m not supposed to be happy while Luz scared. But that didn’t stop that part of her from feeling like she had done something good.
Luz hated how tight Amity’s throat squeezed her, as she was pushed down. She couldn’t catch her breath at all. She wasn’t too worried about it, but it wasn’t pleasant. It felt like trying to dive to the other end of a small pool, except everything around her was crushing her and she couldn’t go up for a breath when she felt like it was too much.
Amity felt Luz slide down her throat, as her worry grew instead of lessened. Did I hurt her? She tried to swallow again, wanting to get Luz down faster, but she didn’t know if it would work.
Luz was eventually squeezed into Amity’s stomach, sliding down to the bottom of it. She began panting for breath, finally feeling the pressure of Amity’s throat let go.
Amity didn’t know exactly what to do. Luz didn’t seem like she was scared… She wasn’t screaming or fighting against her. “Uh… Luz?” she started hesitantly, “what was wrong earlier?”
Luz took another deep breath, appreciating her ability to breathe a lot more than she usually did. “I couldn’t breathe.”
It was quiet between them again.
Amity sat for too long trying to figure out what to say, before Luz spoke up again. “So uh… How does this whole thing feel?” There was a sharp jab from inside her stomach. “It better be as good as you thought.”
Amity couldn’t stop herself from laughing. “I don’t think it is.” She focused more on her question. “But it’s… something. I think I liked it more when I had you in my mouth, but at least now I don’t have those irritating thoughts about needing to swallow you.” She held a hand over her stomach, unsure of how to feel. “You taste like sugar.”
Luz stared up into the darkness around her. “Oh…” she muttered. “So I do taste like something. You know, I was actually thinking about that when you tried to lick my face the first time.” She felt around for the flashlight on her belt, before she got a hold of it, and turned it on, blinding herself for a few seconds. “Argh!” she shouted. That was stupid.
Amity immediately called out to her, before Luz interrupted her panic. “Don’t worry! I just blinded myself with my flashlight…” She slowly opened her eyes again, turning the brightness of the light down, looking around.
There wasn’t as much room as she had thought there would be, but she was more focused on how the walls around seemed oddly still. I guess that makes sense… Luz stared at the pink wrinkly walls around her. “Hmm…” I wonder what would happen if she ate something? “Do you really not know that much about size-shifter biology?” Luz wasn’t going to let herself possibly die inside Amity’s stomach just for an experiment either way, but she was curious. “What would happen if you ate something while I was in here?”
“I don’t know.” Amity made a weird squeaky noise. “And I don’t really want to find out.” She was quiet for bit, before she thought of something else. “Though I know that if you had eaten me and you ate something I would be safe… But it’s different.”
“Oh…” Luz wondered what Amity meant by that, but she probably didn’t know. “And I don’t want to try anything! I was just hoping you knew what would happen.” She shined the light up towards the entrance of Amity’s stomach, immediately distracting her from the conversation. Luz felt a strong chill run through her, despite the warmth of the body around her. “I am really inside your stomach…” Around Luz were layers of muscles and fat, and skin… and she was just sitting there, inside Amity, completely invisible to everything… Except for Luxrays, but they would only find her if they were looking for her. The thought wasn’t scary, as much as it was fascinating. I would really be completely safe in here… She could hide from everything if she wanted. Not that she did, but the idea of such a quiet place just with Amity… She felt a sting of disappointment. “I wish you wouldn’t get in trouble over stuff like this…”
Amity didn’t know how Luz came to that conclusion, but she agreed. “I know…” She brushed her hand over her stomach, despite knowing Luz couldn’t feel it. This was one of the only things that affected Amity and had all her life, besides her parents. She had never been one to break rules or get in trouble and she didn’t care that she could only use ground type pokémon for the rest of her life. Golett or Golurk weren’t the worst pokémon she could think of training. But being a size-shifter with the rules that were set in place? She was almost breaking rules just by existing ever since she was born. “It’s really hard.”
Neither of them knew how to continue the conversation from there.
Amity heaved a deep sigh. “I think I’m going to let you out now.”
Luz felt like it was a little soon for all the stress, but she didn’t have any objections. “Okay.”
¨¨
Amity had thought it would have been a lot harder to get Luz back up, but it barely took any longer than swallowing her, and it was far from as painful as vomiting normally got.
For Luz, it didn’t feel worse than first having been swallowed.
Luz slipped into Amity’s hands, before she was placed down on the ground, looking over where Amity had placed their bags. She cringed, imagining get Amity’s drool all over it too, but she knew she had to pick it up somehow. She didn’t really want to ask Amity to carry it.
Luz couldn’t stop feeling a bit awkward. She tried to avoid looking at Amity, as her face heated up. “Uh… I think we glossed a little bit over the fact that we both like each other?”
Amity seemed shy too. “Yeah…”
Luz headed back to where they had come from, picking up her bag. “Let’s just go back.” She yawned. “I’m really tired…” she mumbled, before she continued. “Maybe we can figure it out on the way back.”
Amity yawned too, but Luz was pretty sure it was because she had yawned. “Uh, yeah, we can do that.”
***
Thanks a lot for reading! I would really appreciate if you liked this story, if you enjoyed reading it!
Have an awesome day! <3
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