#I wrote my first fic

[readwritealldayallnight]

It didn’t matter how long or short you were apart, Simon always brought something back for you

After each and every one of his deployments, though all you ever asked for was for him to return to you in one piece, he would find you a small souvenir, a token, a postcard, or some sort of little trinket from whichever corner of the glove he found himself in this time, keeping it near and dear to him until his feet were back on familiar ground and he could put it in your familiar hands

You had told him that it wasn’t necessary, but when he simply blinked and ask you if it made you happy, your reply was an instantaneous ‘yes’, to which he replied ‘then yes, it is necessary’

You loved and treasured all of them, multiple shelves throughout your shared flat adorned with the items that reminded you of the fact that he was always being reminded of you wherever he went

It didn’t take very long for Simon to become enamoured with your reactions each time he presented you with his newest find, wondering if whatever he picked out would make you gasp and cover your mouth, make you roll your eyes and smirk, make you laugh and squeeze his arm, each time was a guessing game that had his heart skipping a beat or two in anticipation

Soon enough, he decided he didn’t really need deployments as an excuse to surprise you, or any reason really, other than to see you smile

And so, trips to the supermarket made by Simon alone more often than not began including cupcakes in your favourite flavour

He’d come back from the mailbox and drop a single flower from someone else’s garden onto the table in front of you

Your nearly finished perfumes and lipsticks would magically find themselves replenished

But being Simon, his gifts didn’t always need to be extravagant

On the rarer occasions when he was only on base for a day, he’d often bring you back something simpler, if not sillier, like a paper clip or a sticky note with a terribly drawn doodle he’d stick to your forehead (god forbid he ever bring home a bullet casing, bragging about how he was thinking about you while he practiced shooting loads today-)

Sometimes he’d bring home a book he saw laying around the common room he thought you might enjoy

Other times he might walk into a room and notice you eyeing the hoodie he’s wearing, pulling it over his head without hesitation and offering it to you before you could even think to ask

Most of the time though, Simon was great at bringing home takeaway for dinner, a favourite sight of yours to behold as he walked through the door of the flat

Empty handed or not, so long as he was home with you , you were happy

[writeouswriter]

My followers: And is this “writing” you’ve been “working on” in the room with us right now?

[setmeatopthepyre]

Third Act [ now also on Ao3]

They've just evacuated the last of the factory workers when Incident Command calls for total evacuation. Structural integrity can no longer be guaranteed, everybody out. Eddie, who has their patient's other arm draped over his shoulders as they help the man limp to the nearest ambulance, grins at Buck. "Now that's what I call perfect timing."

"Yeah," Buck agrees, maybe a beat too slow, distracted by the number on the turnouts that just darted past them. The name under the 217 started with the wrong letter, the person's shoulders too narrow, height not quite right. Not that he's looking. Not that he's been looking. Not that it would matter if he was. With the enormity of the factory and the spread of the fire they have on their hands, the chances of running into a particular individual are small. Besides, if he's here, he's more than likely at the other end of the staging area, with the helicopters that are being refueled and awaiting instruction. Not that Buck's been looking. Or paying attention to any of that. At all.

They've just handed over their patient to the paramedics when their radios crackle to life once more, this time to confirm that all first responders who had entered the building are safe and accounted for.

"Thank God."

Buck turns to find Bobby has come up behind them, has clapped a hand on Eddie's shoulder, a relieved smile lighting up his face under his helmet. And. Yeah. Buck smiles with him, feels terrible for a moment for being so preoccupied when he should just be damn grateful for how their day - night, now - has panned out. Despite the enormous structure, despite how fast the fire spread, despite the upgrade from a three to a four alarm fire when it became incredibly clear the building was not up to code, despite the flammable materials housed in the far end of the structure, (despite the whir of helicopter blades overhead reminding Buck of him, despite the way he had to force himself not to stop and listen when a headcount for the 217 went out over the radio) they got everyone out alive. Some of the factory workers were in critical condition, others would be touch-and-go for a while, but they got them out alive and that was all any of them could ask for.

Perhaps it was too big an ask.

There had been a few moments in Buck's life in which he'd wondered if the universe had it out for him, was just waiting for him to be happy, let down his guard a little, so that it could pull the rug out from under him and send him sprawling. Choking on breadsticks on Valentine's Day. Choking on blood at his own welcome back party. Choking on his own nickname in his own loft as. As he walked out the door.

It feels like he's choking again. Buck watches the faces around him fall when dispatch tells them they were wrong, that there's still two people inside, on the top floor. When the IC responds that there's nothing to be done, the lower floors are ready to cave in, it's too unsafe. When a familiar voice crackles over the radio, saying there's a chance, if they land a helicopter on the roof, get the last two people out from there. That he'll do it.

"Absolutely not, firefighter pilot Kinard. That roof is ready to go any minute now, and you want to land a bird on it? That's a suicide mission. Stand down, that's an order."

There's a static crackle, as if someone, as if he, is weighing his options before he speaks. Buck doesn't breathe. Doesn't think he could if he wanted to.

"If there's any chance they can be saved, I have to try."

And Bobby meets his eyes, still tries, "Buck-", but they both know there's no version of this moment in which Buck doesn't grimace apologetically, doesn't turn, doesn't run faster than he's ever ran before.

He's gone, long strides, lungs burning, everyone and everything he passes a blur. He bumps into someone, yells "Sorry!", he thinks, isn't actually sure that's what he does, eyes set on the rotor blades looming dark against the orange cast of the fire in the distance. It's hard to tell if they're moving, what with how the light shifts in the dark, what with how his vision has become narrowed to that single point, and the dull roar in his ears could be his own blood pounding, could be the commotion that comes with a scene like this, could the be panic rising like bile in his throat.

For one insane moment, he thinks he can hear the sweeping crescendo of an orchestra, thinks, hysterically, like sprinting through an airport in the third act of a romcom. Thinks, I should tell Tommy. Realizes what he's hearing is that dull roar shifting into the high whine of rotor blades gaining momentum and thinks, Oh, god, Tommy. And then, in a blink, he's fighting the dust in his eyes and being buffeted by wind and his hands find purchase on the titanium hull and he's hauling himself inside.

With the wind gone, it's like he's suspended in stillness for a moment. Stillness, not silence, because helicopters are loud and the sound is everywhere, like a physical sensation. Or maybe that's just how it feels to be in close proximity with Tommy again. Tommy, who is staring straight ahead, punching buttons, flipping a switch, and Buck isn't sure Tommy's even aware of his presence until Tommy's reaching back, headset in hand, not looking at him at all, gaze still firmly on the dashboard.

Even when Buck has the headset on, the roar of the engine finally dropping away, Tommy doesn't acknowledge him immediately. The set of his shoulders is stiff, determined, defensive. He lets out a sigh. "What are you doing here, Buck?"

Buck carefully ignores the name, ignores the way Tommy still can't look at him. Squares his shoulders, even if Tommy can't see it. "I'm going with you."

There is a moment in which Tommy doesn't respond, simply finishes the last of his pre-flight checks. When he speaks, his voice is carefully deadpan. "You know we're probably going to die out there."

Buck can't help it, shoots back before he can think about it. "Figured this way I can prove I want you to be my last."

It works. Finally, Tommy turns. Meets his eyes. Breathes out. "Evan."

And Buck knows it's a ridiculous moment to smile, but it's like a weight falls away from him and he can feel his chest expand in a way it hasn't been able to since "See you around, Buck."

"Like you said," he amends. "If there's a chance at all, I have to try."

Buck doesn't think he's imagining the spark of hope in Tommy's eyes, the twitch of a smile, before Tommy turns back to his controls and the ground falls away beneath them.

[jesuistrestriste]

art is such a pillow humper exactly

mhmm mhmm mhm

that guy ruins blankets, pillows, sweatshirts, you name it.

it’s like a habit he picked up; when he gets himself off he has to be humping something. it’s like an itch he’s gotta scratch.

he swears up and down that the movement just makes it feel 10x better because it’s more ‘immersive’, but it’s really just a way for him to get out his pent-up sexual frustration. it brings such relief, he can’t really explain it.

he loves laying on his stomach and burying his face into one of his pillows before helplessly shoving his other one between his shaking thighs. and then he’s rolling his hips into it slowly, smoothly, for just a minute or so— then it always quickly dissolves into merciless rutting. his cock throbbing and drooling as he fucks the plushness like he’s really buried between a pair of thighs.

and he moans like a needy animal when he’s doing this little routine, whines and muffled high-pitched whimpers punctuating each thrust as he gets closer and closer to orgasm. his eyes roll completely to the back of his head.

at the last second, right when he’s teetering on the edge, he’ll always start to babble little phrases and words like he’s whispering into someone’s ear to prepare them to be filled with his seed. “it’s comin—“ and “i’m almost there, i’m right there” and “oh yes, yes yes yeah fuck yeah—“

art usually sobs out his release, biting his lip and clutching the object being soaked with his spend like it’s a lifeline until the aftershocks leave him feeling sensitive and prickly and overheated.

he’ll flip over onto his back and catch his breath, and then will toss whatever inanimate object he just violated into the washing machine.

rinse and repeat, and rinse and repeat. literally.

he’s a dirty, dirty, dirty boy.

[changbunnies]

Revelation (18+)

♡ Pairing: Vampire Priest!Jeongin x Fem!Reader

♡ Genre: very loosely inspired by midnight mass (tv), horror themes, vampire / human relationship, smut, possibly dead dove? read the warnings carefully and come to ur own conclusion on what you're willing to read before engaging pls :')

♡ Word Count: 4k

♡ Summary: The suspiciously young and extremely handsome priest of your small-town church has a very big secret– and it's not until he's sinking his fangs into your neck that you discover what exactly that secret is.

♡ General Warnings: usage of typical vampire abilities (increased senses, strength, etc), descriptions of blood, religious themes (specifically catholicism focused), references to religious guilt + shame, reader does not trust jeongin at all (for good reason lol), very blatant manipulation, cult vibes? jeongin basically has the whole town under his thumb so. do with that what you will lol

♡ Smut Warnings: dubcon, vampire venom that acts as an aphrodisiac, sexual acts inside a church (specifically in a confessional booth), some gendered language (dirty + good girl), dom/sub dynamics, dom!jeongin, biting + blood drinking, thigh riding, fingering (f rec), a lil bit of praise kink, corruption kink?

♡ Notes: this is possibly niche but well. the vampire priest concept lives rent free in my head thanks to midnight mass, and innie said he wanted to be a priest + he'd definitely be a sexy vampire so here we are lmao. and sorry i'm suddenly posting out of age order for my late kinktober fics but i ended up finishing this before the other members i still have left :')

♡ Disclaimer: please read responsibly, and remember that this work is fiction and meant strictly for imaginative fun. the idols used in fics are more accurately faceclaims and personality outlines for imaginary characters, and should not be interpreted as factual representations of existing people.

There's something that isn't right about your local church's head priest. Firstly, his age doesn't make sense; who on God's green earth becomes a priest in their 20s?

At least, you assume that's around how old Father Yang, who notably prefers to be called Jeongin, is– you've never been told, and you've never asked, but he certainly doesn't look any older than that.

Secondly, why are his sermons always at night? In all the towns you've ever lived in, in all the churches you've ever frequented, this is the first time you've ever experienced your standard, weekly Sunday service routinely happening at 9 p.m.

And thirdly, why is it that everyone who meets with him for confession comes back looking delirious and.. euphoric, almost? You don't get it– sure, confessing your sins is freeing; asking for and receiving God's forgiveness is among the best feelings that can be experienced if you're a devout believer, but still.

Something about all of it just doesn't sit right with you– and to make matters worse, you seem to be the only person in town suspicious of him. You're new to town, have only been here a handful of months, so you get it– you're the outsider, you don't know him like they do, et cetera, et cetera.

But how can not a single other person in town be bothered by how strange it all is? There has to be an explanation– you don't know what it is, and you don't know why you're the only one who seems to care, but there must be a reason.

It's Sunday again, and you spend the entire sermon watching Jeongin like a hawk, trying to catch any sign as to what it is about him that has all these people so enraptured. And while it's not necessarily wrong for him to be, another thing that strikes you is that he's easily the most casually dressed yet stylish priest you've ever met.

He wears the standard clergy vest and rabat, as he should, but over it is a leather jacket, and he wears denim blue jeans instead of dress pants. His shoes are sleek and polished, he has pretty, ornate rings decorating his fingers, has expertly styled slicked hair and silver earrings dangling from his pierced ears.

Again, it's not necessarily wrong, but it's definitely something you wouldn't think a priest's Sunday best would entail. And maybe that's only because the priests in your life have only ever been old, and didn't put much thought into style, but maybe that's what people like about him?

Maybe it makes him seem more down to earth and approachable; maybe it's easier to confess your sins when, outstanding devotion to God aside, he seems like as ordinary a person as any other. Of course, that's logically always the case, but some priests have an intimidating "holier-than-thou" attitude about them, and it certainly helps Jeongin's case that he seemingly makes an effort to not give off that vibe.

And admittedly, he's charming– there's something so uniquely handsome about the way he smiles while preaching God's word, how his eyes twinkle while he recites a scripture and relates it back to a point he made several minutes prior; you can't deny that it's enthralling.

But when he looks over the attendees lined in the pews, it always feels like he's looking straight through you, seeing to the depths of your soul and laying it bare. It gives you chills, honestly; makes you feel exposed in a way that's indescribable; like with a glance alone, he knows all your secrets, your every sin, down to their most minute details.

It's near midnight when his sermon ends; you stay seated in the backmost pew to the left, brows furrowed as everyone shakes his hand or hugs him, thanking him for another "terrific service." It's so bizarre– and it's not until the last of the congregation exits the small, wooden church that you begin to rise from your seat.

Though you're sure the church carries electricity and that the lights can be flicked on, the priest never does so– he always uses candles, casting a warm yellow glow on the dingy, white wood of the walls. It casts more shadows, gives the place an almost unsettling air– and when he turns to you, just as he's closing the Bible in his hand and setting it down, it sends a shiver through you.

"You're still here," Jeongin smiles at you from where he stands before the altar, centralized at the head of the church. It's a kind enough one, but you don't trust it; you can't shake the feeling that something lies beneath it– something abberant and dark that you can't place, but are certain is there.

"Do you wish to confess?" he asks, motions to the confessional booth with his hand as he tilts his head. "No," you answer, perhaps too quickly– and his smile grows ever so slightly, as if he's amused. At least, that's how you perceive his expression; and it makes you narrow your eyes at him, the distrust that radiates off you certainly palpable.

Your opinion of him is no secret, really; and he can tell you're scrutinizing him, trying to catch him in whatever act you think he's playing– it won't work, but it does humor him that you're trying. He doesn't know what sort of wild conclusions you've come to about him, but if you see anything, it'll be because he himself wanted you to see it– until then, you won't learn a single thing about who he truly is.

"Is there a reason you're still here then?" Jeongin questions next, and you swallow, hesitant to answer. Admittedly, you only stuck around in case someone did decide to go confess to him– you intended to eavesdrop, to try to listen in and find out what's really going on behind closed curtains.

It would've been massively immoral, but you would've confessed and asked for forgiveness later– privately, that is. You have no intention of seeking the Father's help in such matters, given how little trust you have towards him.

But still, despite the fact that you were willing to sneak around and listen to private conversations, you aren't entirely willing to lie in the house of God– so after some internal grappling with yourself on what you should and shouldn't do in this position, on what is right and wrong, you end up admitting the truth.

"I don't trust you," you tell Jeongin plainly, and you can swear you see him trying to suppress a smirk.

"I'm aware," he says, so matter of fact that it almost sends you reeling. And it's not that you were so disillusioned into thinking you weren't being obvious; you know very well that you weren't being the most covert in your suspicion of him– it's how unbothered and amused by it he seems to be that really gets you.

Shouldn't he be offended? Question your reasoning? Try immediately to dispel your doubts and clear up any misconceptions you may have? Instead, he seems more than ready to just accept it for what it is– even seems entertained by it.

"Does it not bother you that I don't trust you?" you ask, and he almost laughs as he shakes his head. "No. There's no reason for it to," he answers simply; and before you can ask why, or what he means, he's already answering– you suspect he could already tell you were going to press him on the matter.

"God teaches us to love one another. So even if you do not love me, or trust me, I love you, just as God instructs me to," Jeongin smiles as he speaks, and again, your brows furrow. It's a perfect answer, really– but it feels.. inorganic, almost rehearsed.

And the glimmer in his eye throws you off; it doesn't feel like the pure, honest delight you'd see on a priest putting God's word into practice. It feels mischievous, deceitful– like he doesn't believe an ounce of what he's saying, but he wants you to believe that he does.

"I know what you're thinking," he says, and you swallow, stiffening where you stand as he continues, "And if you really want to know what goes on during confession, want to see for yourself what it is I do to help the people who look to me, I can show you."

If you're being entirely honest, the offer is tempting; and strangely, it also makes you feel.. bad, almost– makes you second guess yourself. Because if he's freely offering like this, surely it can't be whatever you've been making it out to be in your head.

There's no way he'd out himself, and whatever it is he does, just to gain the trust of one person out of hundreds who doesn't believe his pure intentions. And maybe the other townsfolk really do trust him for good reason; maybe you've just been examining the situation and looking at Jeongin and the church in the wrong light.

Maybe you've been blowing everything out of proportion with obscene assumptions, and maybe he really is just a good priest. Maybe he makes you feel so seen, heard, and whole, that all your worldly problems melt away, feel trivial and light in comparison to God's plan for you.

Because after all, you are the outlier here. You're the only one in the whole town that doesn't trust him; and surely that means you're the one in the wrong. Jeongin does things differently than you're used to, but that doesn't mean he's inherently bad. And maybe you should confess– ask God to forgive you for not being receptive to the word of one of His servants.

Jeongin smiles when you concede and start to slowly step your way to the confessional. You pull back the curtain, step inside and prepare to sit in the small, wooden booth seat, but you quickly realize he's followed you inside. You gasp as you turn around, back pressing against the intricately carved hardwood window of the booth as he closes you in.

"Sh-Shouldn't you be on the other side?" you ask, much too meek for your liking. It's a cramped fit given that the booth is only meant to fit a single person on either side at a time; it makes you unconsciously hold your breath as you're effectively caged inside the booth with him– nowhere to go, and nothing you can do but stare at him, bewildered.

"No," he answers as quick and simple as before, his smile once again growing ever so slightly. And maybe you could push him, try to dart past him if you manage to successfully make him topple back, but you feel frozen– because even in the dark, barely lit confessional you're in, you're certain that you see his dull canines become long, pearly white fangs.

"Don't worry, it will only hurt for a second," he assures you as he brings his hands to your arms, gripping them just below your shoulder as he leans towards you. You shudder, his breath fanning your ear as he inches towards your neck, "but after that– it's bliss."

You feel the sharp points of his teeth poke at your skin, and it makes you gasp as your head tilts to the side, making room for him to sink his fangs into your flesh. Instinctively, your hands search for something to grab; you end up reaching for his shoulders, twisting your hands in his leather jacket to ground yourself as his sharp teeth pierce into your neck.

Your legs wobble, and he forces one of his own between your thighs, uses it to keep you upright as he drinks from you. And there is pain, but it really is only for a second, just like he said it’d be– within seconds it melts away, and oh, you instantly understand.

It’s much, much more than bliss– it’s ecstasy, it’s rhapsody, it’s the greatest pleasure you’ve ever felt. Spreading from your neck to every last nerve ending in your body, every atom of your body becomes alight with euphoria as his bite sends tingles throughout you, raising goosebumps along your skin.

You cry out, an embarrassingly loud sound that you barely recognize as your own voice as one of your hands finds its way to his head. Your fingers thread into his hair, hold him to your neck as if you don't want him to ever separate from you– and to be fair, maybe you don't.

It feels so good, so exhilarating, intoxicating, that you almost don't want the sensation to ever end. Jeongin meanwhile lets out delighted hums, eventually slowly retracting his fangs to latch his lips around the sensitive, bruising skin, his tongue lapping away at the blood that pours from the two little marks left behind.

The beating of your heart quickens, breaths quickly growing labored as the inexplicable want continues to seep into your veins. Your thighs tremble as tension builds deep in your gut, and they try to press together to seek relief, but Jeongin's leg stays firmly nestled between yours, preventing it.

And were you not so utterly blissed out, maybe the incessant, desperate throbbing of your pussy would make you feel ashamed– but all you can think about is the deep seated desire overtaking every receptor, every tiny cell, every molecule within you, as if the very chemistry that makes up your being has been altered for Jeongin alone.

Unable to resist, you rut against his thigh, entirely shameless and feverish– because it's all you have access to, all you can do to relieve the growing ache between your legs. It’s sinful, your growing lust is– and the last place you should ever be doing this is inside of a church; but you’re too far gone to care, too gripped by the need for stimulation.

Jeongin lets go of your arms, reaches between your bodies to hike up your church gown, giving you easier access to his lean, muscular thigh. He’s gracious, tugs your soaked panties to the side so your clit can catch on the denim of his jeans– and the delicious friction makes you moan for him, loud and sweet. 

He pulls away from your neck to watch your desperate humping, eyes gleaming with mischievous satisfaction as he watches you pleasure yourself on his thigh. His eyes are perfectly adapted to seeing in the low light, and so he can easily see every little detail of you– from the mess your pussy leaves behind on his jeans, to the sweat beginning to drip down your temple, to the trembling of your bottom lip before you tuck it between your teeth. 

And when he smiles at you now, it’s like the fox that got the rabbit; even in the extremely dim candle light you can see the way your blood coats his lips, messily dripping from the corners of his mouth and down his chin. His dark eyes are gleaming– because he has you ensnared, and you both know there’s no going back. 

You untangle your fingers from his hair, and you watch as he reaches for your falling hand, grabbing your wrist and bringing it to his mouth. He holds your gaze as he kisses over the pulsing vein, and it makes your breath hitch, the blood on his mouth smearing over the surface of your skin, staining it crimson. 

“Should I bite you here too?” he asks, placing another kiss over your vein before he shoots you a grin full of fang, “you’re so delicious– I want to taste you even more.” You gasp and squirm as Jeongin presses the tips of his bared fangs against your skin– not quite biting just yet, but it’s enough to spread another wave of tingles over your body. 

“Yes, bite me, please!” you cry, voice almost frantic in its urgency– and you can see the corners of Jeongin’s lips twisting into a devious smile before he’s obliging, burying his fangs deep into your wrist within an instant. You wince, your fingers clenching as he squeezes your wrist in his hand, keeping it tightly pressed to his mouth. 

And just as before, within seconds the sharp sting dulls and ebbs into incomparable pleasure, goosebumps spreading over every inch of your heated skin. Faintly, you can see your blood dribble past his lips, slowly flowing down the length of your forearm before it drips to the floor of the booth. 

You can just barely see his tongue licking over his bite, doing his best to collect all the blood that spills from you, and it's mesmerizing– especially when he brings his fingers to your arm to swipe up what his tongue misses. Your stomach flutters as you watch him separate from your wrist and bring his bloodied fingers to his mouth; they're so long, so pretty and enticing– you want them.

Jeongin can see it in your eyes– how brazenly you stare at his fingers, how your eyes follow every move he makes with them. You're still panting, sweating, chest heaving from the exertion, but the rutting of your hips has faltered; and he grins as he gazes at you. You're once again left with the feeling that he sees through you– that all it takes is a glance for him to know everything you're thinking.

"You want them? Want me to stuff your cunt full with my fingers? Make you cum all over them?" he asks, entirely rhetorical; he already knows the answer. And he likes the way you writhe over the question, how you gasp over the sinful words he so freely spills in such a sacred place, your ears positively burning.

Even if your face didn't obviously show your desires, you don't think you'd be able to deny them; you've never wanted anything as badly as you want this, want him. It should make your gut twist with shame, because deep down you know this is wrong, know that you shouldn't want him to touch you as badly as you do– but the craving for Jeongin to bring you pleasure is almost primal, so deep and innate that your rational mind can't even hope to fight against it.

Slowly, almost playfully, he trails his fingertips over your thigh, and the anticipation is enough to make you unconsciously hold your breath. "You're so fucking messy," Jeongin says as he brushes his fingers over your soaking, sensitive clit, "so wet– you're a dirty girl, huh?"

You want to whine, want to shake your head and vehemently deny that you're dirty, attest to being a good, honest, and God fearing– but you're so overcome with your desire for him to touch you, that you don't. Instead you agree, concede that you are dirty, and messy, and that you want him more explicitly than you feel your own words could ever attest.

How easily you agree to being dirty seems to please him– and with a light chuckle, he slips his hand further down while carefully removing his leg from between your thighs. You wobble a bit when the support of his leg is gone, but he's quick to wrap an arm around you to hold you, effortlessly keeping you upright with the strength innate to who, or rather what, he is.

The cool, silver band that he wears on his pinky makes you jolt when it touches your feverishly hot thigh, and he chuckles again as he spreads your folds with his fingers. You're dripping for him, so slick with arousal that it hardly takes any effort at all for Jeongin's fingers to become coated with your juices.

You rock your hips against his hand, wordlessly begging him to give you what it is you crave most. "Oh look at you, so impatient, so desperate," he laughs as he presses the pads of his fingers to your hole, delighting in the way you look at him with glassy eyes and pinched brows.

It's obscene how badly you want him; you've never felt this needy, never been rendered so desperate for stimulation– and you're in a confessional of all places. This is the very last place on earth you should feel this way, or be doing something like this, and yet the shame you should feel is far from your mind– because all you can think about is your need for his beautiful fingers to fill you up and dull the throbbing ache between your legs.

Jeongin coos when you start to beg for his fingers, a rambling string of "please," and "want it, want you," and "need it so bad." You can tell how much satisfaction it gives him, and if your mind weren't so hazy from desire you'd certainly feel embarrassment build and twist from deep in your gut– but any such feelings are silenced by your body's need for his touch, by your craving for the sensations that only he can grant you.

It takes your breath away when he easily sinks two fingers inside you, thrusting them in and out slowly until he curls and bends them to find the spot that makes you see stars. "That's it, there you go," he grins when he finds it. He watches your eyes roll back, your hands clutching at his jacket as he continues to press the tips of his fingers into your most sensitive spot.

He returns to your neck, sucking at the sensitive skin and nipping it with sharp teeth before he kisses and licks over the bruises he leaves behind. He applies pressure to your swollen clit with his thumb while relentlessly targeting your spot, an easy task for him thanks to the length of his fingers, and his hold on you tightens when the shaking in your legs grows more intense.

You're so, so close, and Jeongin can tell too– not just from how your pussy pulses and squeezes around his fingers, but because he can hear the loud, erratic thumping of your heart, as well as the rush of blood pulsing in your veins. "C'mon, let go– cum, you can do it, cum for me," he urges, speaking softly against the shell of your ear while swirling his thumb over your clit.

"There you go, good girl, just like that," he praises as you string out a loud succession of whimpers, your thighs closing tight around his hand as your high finally takes you. Your world feels like it’s spinning, your heartbeat ringing in your ears as you ride out your high, your release gushing messily around his fingers.

His hand stays in place until your thighs untense, and he’s careful as he slips his fingers out of you, though you can’t help but shiver and whine from the sensitivity regardless. You're unsteady on your feet following your orgasm, but Jeongin makes sure you don't fall over; he keeps his grip on your firm, carefully helps you turn away from where you were pressed against the carved window to sit in the booth's only seat.

He wipes the sweat from your forehead after you sit, leans down to fix and smooth over the skirt of your church gown as you try your best to collect your breath and calm your racing heart. He's reverted back to his kindly priest persona it seems– you can tell by the warm smile he offers when you look at him, his sharp fangs fully retracted.

Still, bits of your blood remain smeared over his lips– clear evidence that he isn't the saintly man he portrays himself to be. You watch breathlessly as Jeongin licks the last of it from his lips before he pulls back the curtain of the confessional booth.

He offers you his hand after it seems like you've recovered enough to stand again; your own hand trembles as you accept it, and with his assistance, you rise carefully from your seat.

You're a bit dizzy when you stand, equal parts consequence of blood loss and the euphoria still lingering and tingling in your veins, but you're otherwise steady; and he smiles as he squeezes your hand in his, the other coming to rest on the small of your back as you take your first step out of the booth.

"Come back to confession again sometime," Jeongin says with his characteristically deceitful, charming smile, knowing full well that you will. Humans always find the sensation of his venom irresistible, always become addicted to it once they've felt it– and you'll be no different. "I'll be waiting for you."

[pricetagged]

melrose

It started on the Inverbreck line. Eleven stations from Mildart to Dencarron before reaching the terminal station. Although, 'station' was being generous. It was more of a bramble-cracked podium and perpetually-closed ticket desk. Just two tracks bisected by a lone, dead-end platform; the only line that connected the town to the rest of the world. It was quiet. Dreary. (Dangerous, dark-) You catch the eye of something lonely and dangerous. Or, Vampire!Johnny AU.

CW: dark, MDNI. Stalking, harassment, kidnapping, noncon (of the enthralled kind) -> heavy dubcon (of the 'gives in' variety), blood, somno, basically 10k of build-up lol.

---------------

There was something on your chest.

Something heavy. Oppressive. A parasomnia made flesh; given form, pressing blunt and hard into your ribs. Bruising - capillaries bursting red and purple under the weight of the suffocating spirit.

Through fluttering, heavy eyes you caught the barest movement. Great, hulking, shadowy; a hypnopompic hallucination of what should be a man, but couldn't - (no- too big-). Your pulse fluttered quick and rabbity under the cage of your chest - stark, white bone and gristle and peach-soft flesh held still under the nightmare. Fuseli-esque and twisted, all garish blues and crimsons. Like someone had smudged paint on a corpse; some ghoulish mortician's joke.

A little grey here, two flashes of lapis, a great smear of scarlet dripping like sangria from the mouth.

It spoke.

"Ahm sorry, bonnie," it washed humid over your face. Hypnotic and rotten, you trembled under the gravel of its voice. "I just- ah had tae - fuck-"

It cut off with a groan, low and rich, slick lips smacking over slick teeth. The noise burrowed in, writhing under your flesh until you itched (not human, not natural, no no no, please-) but you couldn't move. All will and resolution scattered like ash in the wind as you just- couldn't- move. You felt the hysterical laughter bubble up in your chest but gave no voice to it. Limbs pinned to something soft and head-feverish, you could only peer through hazy, bleary eyes at the thing in front of you.

"Shh," it soothed as a whine escaped you, slurred and stumbling as something lifted you up, set you just right against the pillows. Soft satins and susurrus whispers hushed you, sent you spinning as thoughts slipped away like smoke in your hands. "Shh, it's alright. I've got ye, yer here now. Ah waited- I just- don't move."

(Move?)

Something wormed through, some undaunted, tenacious little thought-

I know that voice.

Your heart quickened.

Eyes fluttering wildly, you lifted your leaden head off the pillow. You saw him as through a veil -yes- yes, it was him-. The thoughts rooted like weeds, choking and constricting your already tight chest. Broad-shouldered and hirsute. Those piercing, animal eyes. That overgrown hair. That eerie, Cheshire grin with too-sharp teeth.

Johnny. The man from the train.

Your timorous, quick little breaths got caught in your loose, slack jaw. Synapses flared and died, useless under the force of this preternatural lull; terror struck hard and withered on the vine. Your thoughts raced, tripped and twisted until-

Your head drooped back, broken lily lolling on the stalk as everything went black.

----------- It started on the Inverbreck line.

Eleven stations from Mildart to Dencarron before reaching the terminal station. Although, 'station' was being generous. It was more of a bramble-cracked podium and perpetually-closed ticket desk. Just two tracks bisected by a lone, dead-end platform; the only line that connected the town to the rest of the world.

It was quiet. Dreary. (Dangerous, dark-)

The crisp, night air soothed your flushed cheeks, sharp and clear after the mustiness of the carriage. It was busiest closer to the city, bodies pressed tight. Stifling and hot, sweating under layers of Christmas jumpers and scarves as the train rattled down the tracks. People got jostled; you bumped into others. It was expected. Normal, really. Except-

Except it was always him.

He was hardly subtle, what being close to 6ft and broad as a brick house. He split the crowd with his mere presence, physicality turned to armour as people shuffled away from his bulk and closer to the doors.

And his eyes.

Cyan blue and too-bright. They swept the carriage, unblinking, until they landed on you. Constricted. Canicular. You felt the weight of his gaze like a net, heavy and abrasive, as your neck prickled and your throat went dry.

"Excuse me," he murmured, breath fanning hot against the shell of your ear. (Too close, too close-) His stubble tickled your cheek as he leaned in. "Tight squeeze, eh?"

There was a flittering pressure. A spasm of the fingers, surely, as his hand brushed your hip. He dug in hard to the plushness, gripping like he wanted to bury his fingers below layers of wool and acrylic until he gouged out space for himself below muscle and viscera. Just for a hairsplit-second. Lightning-quick, you yelped, murmured apologies to the censorious old woman next to you, and jerked away (not far enough).

"Sorry, lamb," he rasped - still so fucking close - and pressed in tight. "That wasnae the pole, was it."

You felt him behind you, bracketing you close to the grab bar. An ogre at your back and a crowd of apathy at your front. You scanned the carriage, too, wide-eyed and twitching but no- no. You wouldn't find help here. Bored, pallid faces. Some wind-flushed, some dry-lipped. All staring listlessly at their phones, watching the town turn to countryside out the window. The gentle rattle of the wheels on the track. The muted, jingling riffs and chords of Christmas music filtering through someone's headphones. Would anyone glance up, sense the twitching of your whiskers and take pity? A teenager fidgeting with a Magic Eight Ball caught your eye: 'All signs point to no!'

He was quick for someone so big. Your split-second glance cost you time to shoulder past the crowd, instead letting him step close enough to kick your bambi-legs wide and slip in between. You looked down past your hitching chest to see that he had planted one heavy, scuffed boot between your feet, the other boxing in your left leg. So close that his sole left marks, great black, sooty smears, all over the edge of your cute little shoes. 'At least they're waterproof; easier to clean'. The thought fizzled up like a sad sparkler.

The humidity of the carriage had you sweating- you and the crowd. The windows dripped with condensation, steam rising and revealing the fingerprints and traced messages of earlier passengers. Ella <3 Jason! Call Bilal: (+47)746775303. Merry Xmas! Smiley faces and swirls looked back at you, mocking you with their bland eyes and dripping curlicues. Your heavy overcoat hung over your shoulders and your fingers slipped, clammy, over the handles of the carrier bags in your grip.

And yet-

You felt cold where he pressed against you. Chilled from the back of your neck, down your spine and further, lower. Even through the denim pressed tight from your inner thigh to ankle where he'd bullied his way between your legs with sheer audacity and the confidence that you couldn't -wouldn't- move. That you wouldn't make a scene. Even his arms caged you in, one arched high above you, loose-gripped on the handrail above your head. The other twisted around your arm to grab at the same pole you held in a white-knuckled grip. Your shiver pushed you further into him, sliding against his thick, sturdy body.

Until it was cut short, ice down your spine freezing any further movement. There, at the base of your spine you felt it. Hard. Firm. Pressing against you with every swing and sway of the carriage. With every shift of his weight.

No.

No, it wasn't-

"That's naw the pole either, hen."

Your thoughts stuck, wheels skating uselessly over ice. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Dinnae be sorry. It's fer you," he breathed over you, voice rumbling low. "I know ye can help me with it. It's all achin', see-"

"What the fuck." Finally, some heads turned your way.

You didn't stop to apologise, didn't even look at anyone in your path as you rushed to the doors. The more distance you cleared, the more your thoughts whirred and buzzed. Swarmed, even, in a thick miasmic cloud that you ran from as much as you ran from him. Why didn't you call for help? Why didn't you get off at the first stop? Why did you let him box you in and-

Funny, you sought to shame yourself more than him.

The cold air outside slapped your face, clearing away the clutter rattling around in your skull. The peace was worth the extra taxi fare.

-------------

A week or two followed and you slowly began to feel comfortable on the train again. Slowly stopped looking for him in the crowd.

The pieces fit together like a clumsy mosaic; jagged and sharp, blending together to create a colourful facsimile of The Incident. You’d been calling it that – capital T, capital I: The Incident. Scared to give power to it, to speak it aloud and rip back the veil to reveal the sham lurking underneath. It was easier that way, easier to swallow. Opprobrium turned soft; a sugar-coated bitter pill.

Otherwise, what? Admit that some nasty, hulking beast nosed its way into your warren and forced you to squirrel away? No, no. It was just an Incident born of cramped space and holiday stress.

Still, you found yourself shuffling head-down to the nearest seats. Avoided blue eyes and broad shoulders. Until-

Until he was there again. Sniffed you out; caught your scent and followed you right to the seat. Same train, same carriage, same time. 18.47 to Inverbreck.

You saw him before he saw you. At least, you thought so. Jacket stretched tight across the breadth of his back, head turning lazily like a bird of prey. Tall, powerful, but a little wan. It was strange, this cocksure walk and strong stance spattered with a slight clamminess. The harsh fluorescent light seemed to strip him of colour; washed-out tan, icy eyes, dark circles. The dark stubble on his jaw and slightly grown-out hair altogether made him look…sad. Scraggly. Like some stray dog hunched in a doorway. Down on his luck, hungry and- (and ravenous. Cadaverous, even. Not quite right; no wind-flushed cheeks or vitality of the flesh. Sucked dry, taut and pallid and gaunt-).

-and he caught your eye. Fuck. Mouth stretched wide over stark, white teeth. The cat who caught the canary.

Neither of you blinked as he shouldered his way over, planted himself at your front. You didn’t have the presence of mind to look away initially, caught in the snare of his gaze. You gave first, blinking away (blinking away tears) and looking down. Scruff bared.

“Thought I’d scared ye off. But you’re made of stronger stuff, aren’t ye?” He licked his lips, mouth parting as the words sat behind his too-sharp teeth. So white, so pointed, so strange. It had you leaning closer, head tilting back as if to peer inside. “Couldnae stay away.”

Confusion cut the chord, sent you crashing back down and shaking. Is he talking about me or himself?

On second thought, did it matter what you thought? Like Aesop’s wolf, he had seen his shadow and mistaken it for truth.

You will filled with a sudden fury, buzzing across your skin and steeling your spine. Your mouth twisted, chewing over the words that you wanted to spit at him. The audacity to approach you again, affable as an old acquaintance! To box you in, to use his body as a threat. Power etched in every line; like a study oak, strong roots branching up to solid trunk and thick arms. But-

He was just a man, right? Just a man on a train.

“Well, kindly resist the urge in the future,” Your voice came out sharp, if lacking a little steadiness. “Let me pass, or I'm calling the inspector.”

You gathered your handbag, reaching for the pole to hoist yourself up and hoping that momentum would force him to move aside.

Foolish.

His thick-knuckled, clammy hand clamped around yours like a vice as you crashed into his chest. The friendly smile on his face warped into a terrible grimace, anger and confusion warring until they were bested by a calm that sent a shiver down your spine.

“Dinnae be like that, lamb,” his voice pitched low like rolling timber. It was pleasant, actually, shiver turning to shudder as your anger melted. Fight, flight or fawn? It seemed that you’d turned to ‘freeze’. Deer in the headlights, his hypnotic blue eyes bored into yours as you sought desperately for the anger -the fear- that you should be feeling. “Why don’t ye sit back down?”

The gentle chug-chug of the train over the tracks echoed the tattoo beating of your heart. The gentle sway and snick of sliding wheels soothed you, turning your mind static-y and slow.

You lowered yourself into the seat.

He smiled again, bright and happy, and you smiled right back.

He was handsome. So silly of you not to notice before! You had twisted him into some kind of scurrilous wretch, had built him up into a beastly bugbear ready to gobble you up and spit out the bones. What a funny thought. You laughed a little to yourself. Wicked imagination ye’ve got there, lamb. Clever.

You blinked drunkenly. You hadn’t seen his lips move.

He must’ve seen how your tongue lay heavy in your mouth, how your eyebrows tried to furrow together but couldn’t (-so heavy-) and drew the back of his knuckles across your cheek. So soft. Coarse, dark hair and callouses tickled at your peach fuzz, scraping lightly against the softness of your jaw.

You leaned into it, eyes drooping as your head drooped forward too.

“There’s a good girl. Feels nice when ye let it, aye?” his voice was thick, catching on the consonants and rumbling them out. He cradled your slack jaw, fingers digging in deep enough to bruise. Pulling your head back to look him in the eye was as easy as tugging at a marionette’s string. “Bet ye’d let me do more. Look at ye, fuckin’ beggin’ me to. Drooling an’ everything.”

His thumb swiped across your slack chin as two thick, blunt fingers forced their way past your lips. You felt yourself gag, retching as he pressed on the back of your tongue until his digits were slick. Something cried out in the back of your mind, shame and censure making itself pitifully known, but you swatted it away as you drooled around his hand. You felt a rough drag as he withdrew, catching on your blunt little teeth and pressing hard enough to leave imprints on his flesh.

You never even thought of biting down.

Enthralled, you watched him raise his hand to his face, slick fingers glistening under fluorescent lights like dayspring dew. One beat- another- he studied it, then you. A sommelier, taking in the aroma. Then, eyes blown wide, blue swallowed by black, he sucked his fingers into his mouth. Base, vulgar, vile, he groaned low and sucked hard. Smacking, esurient sounds echoed in the carriage and sent blood rushing to your face (-why-?)

“Fucking delicious,” his voice was gravel. “Taste better than ye smell, and ye smell divine.”

He leaned down low, crowding you against the back of the chair. You could do nothing but watch the rest of the carriage fade away until all you could see was him. He stood before you like an eclipse brought low, caging you between his bulky forearms as he whispered in your ear. Warning sirens flared up in your mind -predator! Wrong, unnatural, no!- but you heard them only as distant, tinkling bells.

Crouched low, he ran his nose down your neck and across your collarbones.

“Fuck, can smell yer cunt droolin’, too, under all those layers,” His exhale was throaty. Mournful, even. And, with one final inhale, desperate and harsh, he backed away shaking his head.

The train gave a hard jolt, rattling your skull against the window.

Your face was wet? Why was it-? You swiped at your damp cheeks as black spots danced across your vision.

You heard him laugh, low and mean, as he exited at the platform.

-------------- You didn’t remember walking home that evening. Didn’t remember anything until the next morning after a night of fitful, restless sleep. December days crept slowly, a sort of liminal space calendar counting down until the January blues. It was bleak; feeling the biting cold and watching boisterous festivities from the outside, like a child staring longingly through the window. Little matchstick girl, alone and out in the snow.

And you felt every inch the urchin as you stared in your foggy mirror, skin dry and eyes-puffy. There was a certain malheur to your gaze, a dimness of the light and vitality that should be there. Doleful and red-rimmed, you watched yourself blink. Watched yourself go through the motions. Run the tap, rinse your face. Grab the toothbrush and open wide-

It clattered in the sink, toothpaste smeared on the porcelain like impasto on a canvas. An impressionist streak of your scrambled thoughts.

Ceramic caught in a knuckle-cracking grip you hunched over the sink. Your breath came quick and your arms shook. Match-struck, fingers burned- the memory hit you like flare. The heat of it seared from the inside, white-hot and sickening. You gagged, spitting up in the sink as your eyes streamed.

It was the most alive you’d looked all morning.

The days followed with the static quality of a snow globe. Changes in routine were ephemeral, fleeting. Instead, snow fleeced down and swirled over twinkling lights and gingerbread houses. Inverbreck glowed merrily, strings of tinsel and candy-cane cards decorating the usually austere grey brickwork. A Presbyterian town turned to postcard, severity melting like marshmallows in chocolate. It was cheery, beautiful even, but spoiled. Someone had grabbed the bauble and shook too hard. Picturesque and trapped, you could only tap at the glass.

You stared through the frost-pricked window panes of a beautiful confectioner shop. MALLON AND MOYE, EST. 1849. Rich velvet and stained mahogany strained under boxes of chocolate and sweets. Their arms laden with little sugar flowers and candied fruit, you watched as cheery cherub-cheeked children skipped after frazzled parents. Quaint Victorian greetings stared up at you from the display, red-breasted robins and penny-farthings brought to mind a fellow miser. ‘Solitary as an oyster’, you and Ebenezer Scrooge. Bah, humbug. But, you weren’t quite that bitter yet. No.

Perhaps it was time to message some friends or family back home.

Something prickled at your neck, a needle-like warning. Whipping around, you saw only shoppers and tourists turning snow to sludge as they trudged along Main Street. Still, a chill remained, crawling over your chest and down your arms until your were goosebumped and shivery.

Then, you saw him.

You caught his eyes across the street, watched as the crowds parted around him as naturally as if he were a streetlamp. Your breath caught in your chest, frigid and jagged, like it had turned to ice in your lungs. You felt it cracking, ribs straining and head-light until you blinked away myodesopsia and inhaled, thin and reedy, through your nose. 'Muscae volitantes', you recalled - 'flying flies' in a Latin pleonasm that couldn't quite capture the speed and scale of the pestilent little black spots. The lights above your danced and blurred a dizzying ballet until you closed your eyes hard. When you opened them, he was gone.

Calm bit hard at you like sleet before sluicing off again. At home that night it melted away completely.

Slipped into your bag was a Christmas Card. The outside, a two jolly little oysters walking the beaches of Dover, holly scattered around the greeting. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU, MAY WE SOON MEET AGAIN. A Victorian card from the confectioner's display. Inside held only two words. Your name, and 'Johnny'.

You threw it in the fire, and turned away with shaking hands.

If you’d stayed to watch, you would’ve seen the way the flames shirked and withered around his name.

------------

“Love, all you’ve got is a name- no surname, at that- and a description of half the fellas in Scotland. I’m sorry, but unless he does something threatening there’s nothing we can do.”

“So, what, I just have to wait for him to do something worse? That’s- really? He can just grab women in trains and follow them around the city and-“

“Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it. You said he grabbed your hip and that you see him in and around your train route. There’s not much to follow-up with here. Unless you want to make another report.”

“No-I,” an image stained your mind, pitch black and iniquitous. A great black blob seeping across the slate of your mind. You imagined submitting a complaint, imagined them reviewing the grainy CCTV footage to see you placid and starry-eyed as he fingered your open mouth. That same mouth that twisted and hesitated in the station now. “You know what? Never mind.”

Time ticked on as if through treacle. Slow and syrupy, you felt trapped in monotony and unable to shake the feeling of something dripping down your spine.

After the Christmas card you started to see him more and more. Just flashes here and there – a man on the other side of the platform; a mohawk in the city crowd; a pair of bright blue eyes peering at you from the bushes outside. That one scared you the most, heart seizing and strangling the air from your chest until the headlights from a passing car reflected in its gaze. Just eye-shine. Tapetum lucidum, the tapestry of light that blanketed the retina in a crystalline coverlet. Likely a neighbour’s cat or some other nocturnal creature. Creature of the night, aye.

Your shaking hands pulled hard at the curtains, shutting out peeping eyes and pernicious thoughts.

Seeing him back on the train was almost a relief. ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ was an adage applicable only to those with enough friends and frivolity to nip anxiety in the bud.

For you, it bloomed like frost-bitten bluebells in the snow. Neither daunted nor distracted by the slate-grey sky or biting cold, it persisted. Thrived, even. Every raucous gaggle of friends and merrymakers reminded you that you were alone (solitary, vulnerable-). A choice dictated by economics and independence; the choking, nebulous tendrils of regret only twisted across your skull at times like these.

Like right now, right as he got on the very same stop as you and hovered just by the doors. Trying to ignore him was like trying to ignore a solar flare. You knew that you shouldn’t look -it was bad for you, dangerous even- but oh, so tempting. Even if you resisted the urge, abstained from looking with Eremitic restraint, you would still get burned. Closing your eyes, looking away – it was futile. Like a cynosure, luminous and warm in your peripheral you just couldn’t resist. A slight turn of the head, a small flutter of the lashes and there-

He wasn’t looking at you.

Shock, confusion, and a squirming, pathetic vein of disappointment slapped you like cold water to the face. You huffed out a breath that didn’t taste like relief and adjusted your grip on the railing. This was good. Great, actually. Maybe he’d been caught, maybe the police had actually done their job and issued a warning, maybe-

Maybe someone else had caught his eye.

The bitter, carbolic bile coating your throat wasn’t envy. No, no. It was dread. Dread that another poor thing had stolen tickled his fancy. You wouldn’t wish that on anyone. It was terrifying. It made you feel disgusting, pulled apart and laid bare at the whim of this covetous dog. He followed you for scraps, slobbered all over your hand when you let him close. Would probably hump your leg if you let him.

You let the passing countryside hush the discordant tumble of your thoughts. This was good. A Good Thing.

The rowdy press of football fans to your right snapped the elastic band in your mind. You’d stretched it too far, too thin -all him and the rolling pastures outside- and left yourself tired and worn. You hitched your bag tighter over your shoulder and stepped further to the bar. A panel up above confirmed you had three more stops to go. Three more stops until you could break down in your own home, pull apart the cotton stuffing of your thoughts and stitch up the mess anew.

“Hey, girlie. You got the time?”

The rolling pixels of the announcement board seemed to stick. There was a small patch on the bottom left that needed repairing, all green and black static.

“She’s away wi' it,” A loud, performative laugh. “Hello? You awake, love? Got the time or what?”

Blinking stupidly, you glanced to the right to see a mean, pointed face arching his eyebrow at you.

“Me?”

“Hardly asking the emergency stop button, am I?”

Flustered and on the spot you dug through your pockets for your phone. Another time, another place and you’d have told them to fuck off, sick of being belittled and bullied by crude, churlish men. But you’d had enough trouble on trains to last a lifetime.

“Hold on a sec,” you mumbled as you felt them pressing closer, pack animals closing in on the limping gazelle.

You could hear your pulse in your ears, beating hard and resonant as a drum and you cursed yourself. Cursed him, leaving you unable to tell danger from refuge. Your senses were broken, skin prickling at the slightest sound and hands shaking at a glance. All situational awareness shattered into smithereens and now, here you were, fingers slipping and trembling in your pocket as you tried to reach for your phone.

“Ah wouldnae bother if I were you.”

You froze. Swallowed down the lump in your throat and looked up through pricking eyes.

“You-” the sentence died in the cradle, feeble and spluttering as you trailed down the length of his arm. Right down to where it was clamped hard around the wrist of the man who had his hand halfway in your handbag.

Under the flickering lights of the carriage he looked ghastly. Positively ghoulish. Fluorescence sapped any lustre from his flesh, making him look deeply unwell. Wan and sunken and furious. His nostrils flared like a destrier, only there was no steam or heat to his exhale. It chilled to the point of burning, bright white. White as his eyes around pin-prick pupils. His dark stubble painted a grisly penumbra on the stark canvas of his face. You trailed your eyes down, down the dull stretch of his straining throat. You watched him swallow, eyes bobbing with the pulse of his Adam's apple.

"Take it easy, mate. Just a misunderstanding, aye?" you saw the dawning awareness in the man's eyes, the sudden apprehension of his low-rank on the trophic level. Big man brought low; mesopredator in the gaze of an apex species.

"Let me make it clear, then. Get yer hand away tae fuck before I remove it," the words rushed out in a cavernous growl, rumbled so low that you felt them belly-deep.

"Jesus, dial it down a bit," the man shuffled his feet, shifted his gaze between his you and his mate. As if you'd help him. As if you had any power here.

He tried to pull his hand back, straining against stone, before your unwelcome paladin hauled him in close. His thick, coarse hands looked strangely attenuated, blunt fingernails seemingly sharp as talons as the stranger winced and struggled. Johnny leaned down, looming like a vulture over scraps, as he brought himself cheek-to-cheek with his stunned quarry.

And you, too, were stunned. Hand still tucked in your pocket, phone loose in your feeble grasp. You watched, unwilling observer, as his face stretched into a horrifying rictus grin exposing pale gums and dripping teeth. His whisper chilled you to the marrow, scratching and harsh like a knife over bone.

"You live in Harnoch, right? Except, yer no gonnae get off at that stop. Yer getting' off at the next one, you and yer mate, and yer gonna take a nice long stroll down the darkest road ye can find until I find ye later."

Whether fear or thrall, you weren't sure. You just watched, etherised, as the pair shambled off, muttering to themselves and glancing back at the "psycho fuckin' bastard" panting over your crown.

You watched yourself through the reflection on the window, waxen and stiff as a mannequin. Maybe he'd get you to turn your head, dig his fingers into your cheeks and make you smile as he puppeted you to his whim. Hollow little marionette, you couldn't even feel the panic that had a cold sweat breaking across your forehead. Instead, you just felt the slow glide of his strong jaw as he hunched over you like a starving bandog. His stocky, powerful arms fettered over yours, curling into your ribs until you were held tight against his broad chest. Territorial aggression turned saccharine (artificial as aspartame).

"You need me, see," he licked at his chops. Breathed a miasmic lull over the racing of your heart. "Poor wee lamb."

You sunk into it, into the somniferous sway of the carriage under your feet and the man at your back. Later, you'd call it shock. A simple case of tachycardia restricting your blood flow, rabbit-quick heart flitting faster than you could process. Weakness, sweating, anxiety. Just a quirk of the circulatory system.

"I don't," your voice cracked, cut off the conclusion to your sentence. You wanted to scream it, 'I don't need you', but the words felt malformed. "I- You didn't need to do that."

"'Course I did," you could almost believe that you were lovers, the way he nuzzled into your neck. Would believe it, except for the hunger in his voice and the shudder ripping down your spine. "It's nice tae have a starter before the main course."

Stock-still, you felt his rough tongue lave across your neck. You couldn't see him in the window, but you felt him. Felt every, menacing inch of his bulk as he groaned softly into your vulnerable throat. A single, watery tear slipped over your lash-line. Traitorous, exiguous fluid. And of course, he caught it. Dug his thumb in and lapped it right up like the salt from your neck.

"Aw, didnae mean it like that. Dinnae cry, now," he cooed at you. Petted over your hair as he whispered trite, deceptive comforts in your ear. "Ye'll only drive me mad, and I already have plans fer tonight."

You sucked in a shuddering breath as the wheels screeched over the tracks. Commuters shouldered past you as the doors swooshed open, apathetic to the stilted tableau - a facsimile of a lover's embrace- playing out by the exit. With a lingering, wet kiss on your neck and a hard squeeze, he was gone.

That evening, you sobbed hard and choking into your pillow until it was sodden with tears and sweat.

Something scratched and tapped at your window all night, forcing you into an insomnious candlelit vigil. A pastiche of midnight mass, you cried out prayers like ritual devotions until the lambent quiescence of dawn. Trembling and over-tired, you snatched back the curtain to see only the swaying, overgrown branch of the elder tree outside your window.

Despite it no longer fruiting, you pretended the red smear on the pane was just juice from its berries.

-----------------

The next time you saw him he was hearty and hale. Flushed and plump and healthy. Whatever it was that brought colour to his cheeks also put a spring in his step. Made him bolder, cheekier. An out-and-out scoundrel untouched by shame. He was always with you, right until the last few stops as the carriage grew emptier and emptier.

It was a game to him, seeing how far he could push before reproach. How far he could poke and prod at you until time or circumstance put him to shend.

At the busier stations, he pressed close and rocked with the motion of the train, all the while muttering filth in a discursive stream right into your ear. You were his 'poor wee lamb', bleating plaintively to the deaf ears of the rest of the herd. Too busy, too wrapped up in their own lives to notice the wolf that had ambled in in their clothing just to snap you up in his cavernous maw. He stayed that way, roving hands and rabelaisian growls forcing you to bite back squeals and tears as you endured his rough attentions.

He stayed that way even as the crowd grew sparser and sparser, something digging into your lower back as he grabbed at your hips. As he pretended that his clumsy gropes were only due to the jerking of the train.

Sometimes he'd talk to you like you were a real person, all chit-chat and greetings. He'd ask about your day and ramble through your silences. The chatter scared you more than any of the aberrant, salacious refuse he'd spew in your ear. Scared you more because it revealed how deeply unstable he was. Lonely, too.

A very dangerous combination.

"Made any New Year Resolutions yet, lamb?" this time he had you backed into the gangway, eyes dilated by more than just the dim light. "Want tae hear mine?"

Your lips were pressed so tight together that he had to struggle to slip his thumb in between. He tugged it down as he trilled out a falsetto "Yes, Johnny" in a parody of your voice.

"There ye go. Such a good listener," he patted at your cheek just slightly too soft to be a slap. "Ah've actually got a load, but I'll tell you the important ones. First one is to spend more time wi' loved ones. Been on my own fer a while, see, and ah don't think it's been too good for the mental health."

He knocked at the side of his head. There, under the shaggy growth of his dark hair was a shiny patch of skin. Pale and misshapen, like some kind of nebulous scar stretching across his temple. "Can start tae get all kind of strange ideas on yer own. Of course, you'd know all about that in that big empty house of yours."

He laughed at the way you startled, arctic eyes warm with sick amusement. Like having the ugly truth stare right back at you. You turned away from his nasty, knowing smirk.

"Second one is tae eat healthier. Been takin' in all kinds of muck, recently, tryna be restrained and all. But maybe it's no right to deny myself. Wouldnae want to have an accident, go really wild and do something that ah'd come to regret," he trailed off slowly at that, fingers stroking softly against your fluttering pulse. He swallowed hard, teeth glinting strangely under the fluorescent lights as he whispered more to himself than to you. "Just a wee bite, though, a little taste- wouldnae hurt much."

The chiming of the service announcement broke the spell.

With a strangled growl, he backed away fast enough to jostle those behind him. He shouldered roughly past them, earning you a few dirty looks as you stared blankly into the crowd.

How much you had changed in a matter of weeks. Stupid, placid thing. Getting yourself followed and felt-up after every other shift. Must be gagging for it. Desperate.

The thoughts sliced in like a penknife through wood. You + Johnny. And there you were, stripped of your bark and forced to endure the winter. Periderm torn off and leaking sap all over the floor of the carriage. Dripping it all the way home, 'Come and get me!' it seemed to say. 'I can't fight back'. Maybe someone would take pity on you, wrap you up from the cold and give you a chance to recover.

You huffed out a bitter laugh.

Maybe someone would dig deeper, peel back layers of phellem until you were weak and sticky and malleable.

It was more than pessimism. Beyond that entirely. The isolation, your job. The long commute and the melancholic ooze of wintery mist and fog. It permeated your mind, muddied you with the mucinous carcinoma of malism. And you didn't put up much of a fight, no. Why should you, when previous cries for help went unanswered? When you weren't safe on your own or in a crowd?

When the only person who checked in on you with any regularity was your stalker.

True to form, he was there the next night. And the next. On the train and in your dreams. Twisting, writhing, fever-hot nightmares that left you shaking and soaking wet. Lounging back on your pillows, supine and debauched. The profligate portrait of a ruined odalisque. In the palace of your mind you cried out for his touch. His attention. You could admit, in winding abstract corridors, that you were cold. You were lonely. There was something grotesque within you. Some ugly, hungry wretch that warped every whispered perversion and stolen touch into something soft. Something like tenderness.

You tamped it down. Smothered it, snuffed it out in the cruel, brumal light of day.

Still, you could no longer attribute the shakiness of your legs and quickening of your heart only to terror.

It escalated. He stayed longer on the train. Followed you to the empty train station and hovered like a poisonous pea-soup fog. On the nights when you were joined by a few work-weary stragglers he turned truculent. Swaggered around the platform and stared down anyone who so much glanced your way. Belligerent, and bulky enough to back it up, he soon drove away any well-meaning concern until you were cut-off. Cloistered and isolated under the procyon sky; stranded under the cold, dispassionate light of stars and constellations far above.

He was looking ill again. Ashen as he sat under the flickering lamplight on a lonely bench. You hesitated, feet dragging against damp concrete as you considered your escape. You swallowed at the sight of his wolfish grin, legs spread wide and shoulders lax against the wind-worn slats of his seat. No matter what, you would be forced to brush past as you found the exit gate.

You could only hear the soft buzzing of the streetlight and your own quickening breaths.

The flitting light cut through the fog, scratches of yellow on white illuminating every dust mote and jerky exhale. Yours, of course, not his. No, the air was perfectly still around him. Preternaturally so, like the powdery specks of station detritus were suspended under his thrall. He tilted his head at you, dark eyebrow raising and eyes - just for a second- glowing blue. Pure blue, no hint of pupil or white. Chatoyant and unsettling, surely some kind of refractive error. Surely.

You stepped closer.

The dull, squelch of your boots over slushy, grey puddles seemed embarrassingly loud. You had the impression that this was wrong somehow. That you were a simple, unworldly creature, announcing herself with an unsteady gait. Too naïve to know that she should stay still, duck down in the grass and hide until more interesting prey ambled past. Still, against all instinct and reason, you stepped closer.

"C'mon, lamb. Yer acting like ye know I'll bite."

You faltered slightly. "I-I think that you phrased that wrong."

He just grinned in response. Oh Johnny, what big teeth you have-

Sitting in the bench didn't diminish his stature. You'd thought, foolishly, that you would somehow have the high-ground advantage. That you could push your shoulders back and stride past him, slumped in the bench. You'd failed to account for his sheer mass, the menacing strength packed into layers of muscle and meat. Thick, bulky thighs looked wider as he sat, bulging over the slats. He hooked his elbows over the back, flexing the broad expanse of his chest. He swallowed up the space, stretching his legs out until they were right in front of you. Not a barrier, really. You could walk around them. Step over, if needs be. And yet-

You stopped, a hairsbreadth away.

A bead of sweat rolled down your temple. You saw his eyes follow it, pupils wide and black and hungry.

Words caught in your throat, dissolving under the churning waves of adrenaline coursing through your bloodstream. He must have noticed the slight tremble in your fingers, the way your exhales furled choppily in the frigid, oppressive air. Mouth dry, you licked your lips. A single, flaking piece of skin peeled up and, without thinking, you bit down. Tore it up, petal shredded until it wept a perfect crimson teardrop.

His head tilted sharply, nostrils flaring.

He scoffed, voice pitched low enough to burn. Friction, rumbling and coarse, scratched at the back of your neck. "And ye expect me not tae eat you up."

"I- What?"

"You expect tae walk away, expect me no tae eat you right up."

You reacted too slowly, limbs opiate-heavy and mind blank. You didn't even see him move.

--------------

And now there was something on your chest.

Coming-to was like wandering through a dark, drizzling mist with only a dying candle as your guide. It was humid, both clammy and altogether too-hot; the air felt suffocating. Like you couldn't get enough to fill your lungs. Whatever did filter through was marshy with the scent of earth and acid, sweat and musk. You'd gag if you could, the tang of warm copper pennies making you wrinkle your nose. And what a pyrrhic relief, that you could wrinkle your nose!

You tried again as something hot and stinging streamed over your flushed cheeks. Your fingertips ached with the need to swipe at it, smear it away and fan at the oppressive heat. A fool's hope.

You felt something viscid and sticky cooling on your skin. Senses came back slowly. First smell, now touch. Sound followed, sly and slow and vulpine. A fox, dancing just behind the treeline, chittering and smug as it slipped from sight. Maybe your eyes were open, but you just couldn't see? Perhaps your mind thought it a blessing - a mercy- to spare you the sight of the thing buried in your throat. Because that's where the sound was coming from.

Wet, greedy suckling mixed with heady moans. Something slick and rhythmic. Tension wound taut to pluck at low, indulgent notes and tristful exhales. A sinner's lament over a ruined fast; greed and guilt turned to fragrant wine atop the spoiled refectory of your body.

A tiny, sorrowful cry pierced out from your chest.

"Shh, just let me- ye have no idea how good you fuckin' taste," he was panting, breathless. You felt every harsh exhale against the stickiness of your nape. "Just need tae get-"

He trailed off with a choked groan. The slick sounds sped up, faster and faster as his breathing stuttered, and a sickening realisation cut through the fog. He nuzzled into your neck and It was just too much - the disgusting, heady noise, the tickling of his hair against your ear. The heavy press of his thighs atop your waist, and the pulsing ache of your throat. You lay there, corpse-heavy, as he drank from your neck and slated his lust. His bloodlust. The thought sliced like a sharp thorn.

It must have made you jerk slightly, barbed synapses firing and twisting in your hemorrhaging thoughts. He noticed. Hushed you with sickening sweetness and cradled your face with tacky fingertips (the noises weren't stopping, why weren't they stopping-).

"Havenae forgotten about you, lamb."

He trailed his fingers over your cheeks, a traitorous comfort, until he reached your eyes. Butterfly-soft he swiped at the lids until they fluttered. You noted with some panic how cold he felt, how waxen his flesh felt against yours. Not human, not natural; the inversion of a wake. You lay prone and exsanguinated on the bed with the wraith peering over. Only the wet drag of flesh on flesh above convinced you that this was real. There was no hysterical hallucination that would bring you this low, no psychosomatic stress response that could conjure an apparition of this kind.

Yet, acceptance was wily. It slipped through the haze of your marshy thoughts and hovered phosphorescent just out of reach. You ached to follow it, to reach out and grab this sickly little portent and swallow it whole.

But you couldn't.

Poor thing, how could you? Lying belly-up and throat ripped open.

(So you sank into it).

It must have sweetened you somehow, those balmy notes of submission sighing through your bloodstream. An ambrosia for the vaurien. You felt as soon as it hit his tongue because he cursed. Snarled out a 'fuck!' in a way that was almost angry, and curled over you like a dog. Like a filthy, slavering beast atop the spoils of the hunt. Something splattered across your stomach and you realised with shame that you were naked.

Your vision came back muted. Diplopia stretched and warped your already lagging senses, sending the room-spinning to a dizzying tilt. At first he was more shadow than man. A horrifying phantasm of wicked, grasping want. You had never seen a face so hungry, so unsatiable, after a feast. He was naked as you were, but that was no relief. A terrible, lupine grin slashed across his face as his eyes met yours, whites and iris swallowed by the pitch-black bleeding of his pupils.

And yet, you tried desperately to read something soft there. Some small hint of tenderness or pity- why else would he bring you home? Strip you bare to lay you on a bed of satin? And yes -there. There was a slight wetness to his feverish gaze. A flickering, greedy hope hiding behind his appetites.

"Dinnae hide away," he must have read the horror on your face. The way you impotently strained to turn. "You're in me now. Part of me. Not much else left tae hide."

It was meant to be comfort, a reverent whisper in a raw, aching tone, but it left you feverous. You felt shivery, head packed with cotton wool and eyes still so heavy. (Inside him? You were, weren't you). Ripe little pomegranate glittering in ruby and just oh-so-tempting.

He was inside you too, you realised only just now. He had dogged your routines, scratched out a space for himself in your mind. Scratched deeper and deeper, burrowing in until you were pulpy and hollow. A necrotizing fasciitis spread from the very first time he kicked your legs open and groped at your soft flesh.

You were spread now, too. Rough, calloused hands caught on the goosebumps of your thighs, tickling slightly all the way down to your ankles.

He was slow, more gentle than you'd ever imagined him to be. This creature of rapacious appetites, who plucked you from the tree before you were even ripe. Now, he took his time, drank in the sight of you just as he had supped at your blood. You were shaking, an involuntary response to his careful groping. To his strange, lukewarm flesh. You felt simultaneously trapped and out of body - a sick, amytal fugue. A chemical sedation by sight, smell, and his strange thrall. Even the scent of him, musky and rich, seemed to fill your lungs and choke out resistance.

You couldn't see how he slid down your body, couldn't lift your head and follow his path. Instead you watched the sickly photism left by his strong palms. You knew where he was headed, sparks alighting a roadmap from your bare things to your core, and you squeezed your eyes shut. All that you could do. You heard nothing but the whisper of rough hands against soft skin, and his heavy breathing mixing with yours. He lost patience; you noticed the slight growl catching in his throat a fraction before he squeezed hard. A slurred cry slipped past your lips-

"Shh, be patient. Ah have tae be careful, havenae done this since before," His voice was rueful, some note of loss spoiling the low burr of desire.

It made you open your eyes, curiosity slipping past horror, until you could see his face hovering in the dark. There was a horrible, jagged edge to his handsome features. Strangely shorn hair, skin dull and etiolated. Those shining, expressive eyes. Like something grown in the uncanny valley - it made you blink back tears.

"Ah mightn't have needed to try so hard, then. You might'nae have played so coy," He continued. Deluded, you wanted to scream. But, your neck prickled, noticed some shadows in the humour. Memories and pain. With it came the barest flicker of vitality on his face before it was gone, replaced by something that lurked in dark corners.

He distracted himself with more reverent, disgusting touches, hushing you as whines clawed their way out with kitten-strength. You trembled in your unnatural prison, bound and silent as he spread your legs so wide that they burned. He forced himself in between, stocky thighs keeping yours open to his gaze.

Cool touch replaced cool air as he grazed your bared cunt, softly at first. More petting than a touch, the width of his hand covered you entirely. Were you not already, it would have sent you reeling. Dizzy with the thought of his breadth, the rough contrast of his hand against you sensitive inner flesh. He sucked in a harsh breath and you felt his fingers flex slightly. Something within you knew that he was holding back bruising strength.

"So fuckin' cute," You blinked, realising that he was looking down as he spoke. He spread his fingers, opening you entirely to his greedy, pitch-dark eyes. Your face burned, hot at the feeling and at the filth he uttered as he shifted closer. "Already knew you were pretty, but I didnae know you'd look so fuckin' cute like this. Poor wee lamb, she's aching, isn't she? Can see she's cryin' for me."

You didn't respond. Couldn't- not with your heavy, leaden tongue. The rawness of his voice scraped over you, made you shiver in a way that he mistook for desire. When you tried to give voice, to rail against his insidious assertions, all you could muster was a feeble cry.

That too, he took as his; your body, your blood, your voice.

"Dinnae fuss- ah'll make it good for ye. Just need tae keep a handle on my strength, see. Cannae have ye writhing around," he must have caught your pitiful glare, the furrow of your wide, limpid eyes, as his face softened. Just a fraction, a little oil poured over jagged deadwood.

It slicked his words, all arrogance, confidence. Assuredness ."Ah've taken the edge off already. Didnae plan on grabbing you tonight, but ah've no been able to hunt since that night."

His words dripped over you like tar, filling in the blanks and empty spaces. It's funny, his explicit assertion - the murder, committed in your name- made you want to freeze. The contradiction crashed over you, made you kick slightly - just a smidge. A feeble little flaring of deadened synapses, but you did it. the tingling in you fingertips now felt more like hope.

(You doggedly ignored the tingling in your stomach).

"Ye've done something to me, I just-. There was nothing there after," he gestured to his head, shook the thought off like a rabid dog. Even through the tangle of his hair you could see it, that strange pale keloid spidering across- "after- but now there's you. Smelled ye on that train from the very front carriage. Fuckin' ripe - sweatin' up under yer coat, actin' so shy."

He grinned down at you. Silly little lamb, it seemed to say, who's afraid of the big bad wolf?

I am - your fingers twitched against the sheets.

Your legs, though- they stayed spread open. An asthenic sprawl, leaving you open to inspection and touch and invasion. A moth pinned to a hobbyist's board, entirely thrall to his will. It prickled over you, stifling heat building with every stroke of his hands. They'd returned to your core to find a slight wetness, slicking the way for his thick fingers to probe deeper. You saw his nostrils flare, the flick of his tongue against his - too long, too sharp- canines.

"Naughty wee thing, tryin tae get my mouth down there," there was a wickedness to the tilt of his lips, the low tease of his voice. He pressed his thumb hard into your thigh until the flesh ached and dimpled. You felt your frantic, fitful pulse fluttering underneath. His voice dropped lower. "If I bit you there, I wouldnae stop."

You sighed out relief when he let you go, only for your breath to hitch as he slapped your pussy. Hard. An admonishment for your perceived allurement.

He shushed you as he soothed it, broad hand feeling warmer and warmer as he stroked. A parasitic heat, spreading from you to him, and back again. It made you confused, discarnate. Some formless being laid out for him, striped of all but flesh. You moaned - mournful, dizzy- as he pressed one thick digit inside. The slight catch of his rough skin, the drag of his coarse knuckle inside sent you spinning. Pulsing, body crying for more as your mind struggled to catch up.

He knew. Rewarded your plangent cries with another finger. He stretched you wide, your thin delicate entrance throbbing around him until the slick dripped down his wrist.

"Look at that," the squelch of his hand made you whine, desire murky with shame. He tapped at your clit, just a little flick against the pebbled flesh. "Havenae even touched you here yet, and just look at you."

You wanted to writhe, to twist away from the pleasure-pain of his steady circling. But you couldn't. couldn't do anything more than lie there and endure it. You felt your thighs begin to shake, nerves twitching and seizing until finally - finally - you could cry out-

"-please, please I can't-"

"You fuckin' will," he growled it, thumb never breaking pace as he curled his fingers inside, hitting that spot that made you see stars.

It hurt, body clenching hard under an unnatural lull. You wanted to stretch out, arch back and curl your toes-

Instead, you sobbed.

Wrung out, mind-spinning and body twitching. Wetness cooling on your dewy, sensitive flesh - your cunt, your stomach, your neck. It all made you sob, a post-orgasmic ataxia. A night terror in waking.

He grabbed your face with his hand, still wet with your slick. Pressed hard into the plump cheeks until your mouth opened. You blinked blearily up at him, docile and trembling.

"You need me too, don't you?" Dumbstruck, you just looked up. There was something wild to his eyes, lust and hunger and something…empty. You could still see little drying flecks around his mouth, rust on snow. "Say it, ye need me."

You could blame it on whatever powers he wielded. On how you lay fallow. Ploughed yet unseeded at his touch.

"I-," your voice came out scratchy. Weak. "I need you."

He forced you to say it again, to bleat it out for him as he panted above you. Every whispered plea was like looking in a mirror that he held before you. Glassy-eyed, you stared back at your own loneliness.

It really was just you, and this thing. It started to settle, the basest of notions. You needed him-

(wasn't there something else niggling at the back of your mind-?)

"Yeah, ye do. It's why you've been walking around by yerself. Begging for someone tae snap you up. Lucky it was me."

(Lucky for whom?)

It didn't matter. He wasn't yet sated. How could he be, this creature of appetite? Gluttonous, greedy, gorging thing. A walking perversion; sin turned gourmand.

Your helium thoughts flew off like balloons - snip, snip, snip - with the snick of his slick teeth like scissors. He lapped at your neck once more, snuffed into it and groaned. You felt him against your entrance, crude, blunt cock sliding clumsily between your folds until it notched home. You couldn't see it, but the feeling had you whining plaintively in the cage of his arms. It was obscene; some ithyphallic nightmare of too-large flesh.

And then he pressed in.

Slowly at first, your body still wound too tight to accept him comfortably. But he made a space for himself, rocked his hips and hitched a thigh high over his bulky shoulder so that he could watch the way you squeezed. You clenched at the graze of his teeth against your neck, a horrible little thrill making you cry as he took you apart on his cock. Every thrust had you trembling, sent you sliding up the sheets and closer to his dripping maw.

But, oh- he had you trapped. Thrust up towards his teeth, or squirming down harder on his cock. An impossible choice, but you tried to make it. Poor thing.

Until you had no choice. Until his hips thrust harder, sucked in with an obscene squelching that had you gritting your teeth. His hot, slick tongue grew rougher until you felt a sting. Shameful, unending suckling filled the room and you felt your eyes flutter heavy once more.

Limp, placid, despoiled. Your body was in service to a slavering parasite. It infected you, this predaceous desire. Made you hot and sick in equal turns. Your core ached, clit throbbing as you slurred out your pleas. To stop, to keep going, to make you come, to leave you alone-

You felt his hand, now closer to your temperature. He dragged it across your slack lips, before digging it into your eyelid and tugging cruelly upwards.

"There ye are," he rasped, mean and breathless. "Cannae have ye driftin' off again. Not until-"

You were shivering again, fire burning deep inside but yet so cold. Clammy. Thoughts came hazy as an oil lamp flickering in the fog. It blanketed you, left you dreamy and carefree (and wrong- wake up-).

Still, he didn't stop, cruel thrusts and sharp teeth, until you felt like you'd float away. You felt him so deep, heard him groaning as he lost his pace and fumbled around your clit until you wriggled uselessly -'good girl, don' fight it, just need ye t-' and came. Stars danced across your vision, obscuring his ferine grimace, and you let them. Decarnate, you sagged into the sheets. Felt the soft tickle of his coarse hair on your chest as he kissed you frantically - finally.

It was nasty. All copper-tinge and spit and tongue. He licked into your open mouth as his hips stuttered, and with a choked moan he came.

He didn't move at first, just crushed you under his (-corpse-heavy-) bulk. You felt sticky and raw where he was buried inside, thick globs of come leaking out and mixing with the slick on the ruined bedsheets. You whined as he pulled out, a soft little 'ah' that he swallowed up with another cruel kiss.

"One day, ah'll have every single part of you," he whispered it like a promise. A constrictive, binding geas that sent your heart racing in your tight chest.

Unable to move, unable to answer you just let a tear slip over your lashline. Lacrima for a rain-laden rose; you drooped against the pillows. Under him.

Forever.

--------------

'Shee droopeth in her minde, As, nipt by an ungracious winde, Dothe some faire lillye flowre.'

massive thanks to stelle, gougie, bwuh, three, and woolie for listening to me whine about this for the past three weeks. probs wouldn't have posyed without your support <3

[hiding-under-the-willow]

He's so horrible and scary and sad. And so obviously I love him and he's my favorite <3

@silverskye13 Your horrid little knight

[luna-the-cretar]

Me whenever I’m at work and can’t write at that moment: I must write RIGHT NOW. If I don’t write I will DIE

Me, when I’m at home and can write: what are words

[wandixx]

"There is only so much you can for the dead" part 2

continuation to this, I should probably make an original title at some point

trigger warnings: graphic describtion of Danny's death

Moments of blissed, deadly stillness felt unfairly short. It was less than blink of an eye, less than a drop of darkness after he asked Team for the last time to leave and before he woke up, in exactly same state that he was when portal spat him out. He could barely perceive his limbs, and what he could, was consumed by agonising pain.

Fuck, he hated Death Days. Absolutely horrible experience.

His nerves were on fire, electricity dancing and burning across them. His veins and lungs and nostrils and ears and stomach and eyes and mouth and every little crevice of his body was filled with ectoplasm, like liquid fire and evaporated ice, drowning him at every attempted breath. He was crushed by an unimaginable weight, at the same time as his body exploded. He was just coherent enough to feel his bones breaking, cells bursting, his very molecules being rearranged and destroyed and rebuilt but not coherent enough to tell if his scream was anything louder than a whimper.

He was in the middle of the crowd that screamed louder than he could handle, as if every person who ever got to Ghost Zone used this exact moment to let out all of their anguish, hands dragging and pulling and squeezing and brushing at every inch of his skin. He was alone like no one was ever before, in silence that was deafening. He could be stomped to death any second without anyone turning his head, and so separate from everything that he could be only existing being.

He couldn’t help but wait for Death, merciless and brutal, whose twisted children invaded his bed time stories since he could understood words, whose corrupted children he was taught to hate. She was hideous and horrifying, but against everything, she was familiar and he wanted, needed, to see one intimate face in the situation that was so wrong, wrong, wrong. He waited for her to rip his last breath away so everything would stop.

If he had a scrap of himself that could feel worse, it’d cry when he felt her getting away from him, slipping between the fingers that were both tense and limp, impossible to control but possible to feel, broken and twitching. She was getting away but pain wasn’t lessening, maybe even getting worse, to the point where it was only thing that filled his brain.

And then it all stopped. No pain, not even any left over typical to how injuries worked, just a moment of weird pressure against his palm (just like the button), that soon stopped too.

He was in his human form, but in the hazmat he wore just before the accident. Something was wrong about it all. Something in his body made it feel like not his. Something in his chest was too light and too quiet and some intrusive thought made him want to claw on his rib cage until he ripped it open and realized what was missing.

Breathing seemed to easy, enough that he got lightheaded. It got a lot harder when he realized.

He couldn’t feel his core.

Before he managed to come to terms with that, there was a gentle pressure on his hand again.

And the pain returned.

*-*-*

Danny didn't wake up abruptly, with a choked scream and phantom burns. He also didn't wake up slowly, not in the nice, relaxed way at least, when the line between dream and reality is blurred beyond recognition. He woke up in pain, feeling like he wasn't even sleeping before, just… somewhere else while his body was destroying itself again for what felt like decades.

It took some effort to connect with his body after he woke up. To be able to move even a finger. Even longer, to open his eyes. Actual ages to sit up without urge to scream.

After seeing the absolute wreckage of the room, he kinda wished it took him longer. It looked like a warzone. Electrical burns on the walls and ceiling, random puddles of bubbling ectoplasm eating away anything they touched like an acid, and what little stuff there was before, was almost all broken beyond recognition, either by whatever force was doing its thing during his death day show or ecto. When he looked at it a bit more, it seemed to go in spiral around him.

It was kinda sad that the cookies went to waste like that. He was curious who brought them in though.

Thank fucking Ancients that Team listened to him and nobody was there when the whole mess was going down. They would probably join him on the other side of the veil otherwise.

He saw it all only because of his ghost enhanced in dark vision (thank Ancients he stayed in the ghost form) because apparently his Death Day shorted out both main electrical circuit and the emergency one. Thankfully, according to his ears, it only reached this and rooms next to him, instead of the whole Mountain.

Fuck. He really hoped Robin gave him some sort of back-up back-up room because otherwise he was dead. Or well, dead-er.

He rolled out of the bed, barely catching himself from smacking on the floor like a sack of potatoes. Though some would argue he didn’t catch himself if only his face didn’t fall to the floor like the sack of potatoes.

Only then he caught sight of big, ecto-green circle that embed itself into the wall right over the bed. It had familiar vibes. Really familiar…

He had to tell the Team about it yesterday.

*-*-*

M'gann was sitting on the needles, just like everyone else. Sure, Phantom asked them to forget about him and essentially ignore whatever was happening to him, but there was no way they'd actually be able to do it. Case in point, first time alarms about shorting out of the electrical circuit in the room. They run there so fast that they had door open to see what was wrong before the absolute onslaught of electricity and ectoplasm and something else turned off the alarms thirty seconds later. Truth be told, they couldn’t do much, not without risking becoming second ghostly member of the Team, they’ve been there and ready. Conner tried to come in anyway, with his invulnerability and such, but they had to drag him out when despite extensive dodging he got hit five times by the time he got two steps into the room. Also, there wasn’t really anything he could do to help.

So they just spent last almost twenty hours alternating between different things to keep themselves occupied enough to not fall asleep and distract themselves from quilt but not enough to not be able to drop it at the moments notice if it was needed. First plan was to nap in shifts if it was necessary but it quickly became apparent that sleep was impossible with how worried everyone was and when M'gann proposed to just shut down their brains with her powers, everyone got really defensive. Well, no was no. So they just sat, at the moment in awkward silence because every topic that wasn't Phantom felt too inane and every topic that was Phantom felt too… just no. No name for why, just no.

M'gann was about to get up to make another batch of peanut butter and oatmeal snacks that took few minutes to make and could be dropped at any second, when Conner practically jumped in his seat, tilting his head to hear better. Robin perked up from whatever he was doing on his wrist computer at the same time.

"Phantom left the room!” they exclaimed at the same time, jumping out of their seats.

This head start didn’t matter by the time everyone ran or flew out to the corridor, racing against clock to the room where they left Phantom. It didn’t seems so before, but now M’gann just cursed their past selves for not waiting somewhere closer. There wasn’t really any place where they could stay instead, unless they set camp right outside his door, but it still. They should be there five minutes ago, like Wally, who obviously run off.

They heard Wally speaking before they’ve seen him.

“Hey, hey calm down. It’s fine, they’ll be there in a second, just chill. They’re right after me, whatever happened, we’ll help you in just a moment, you don’t have to run. You’re barely standing. Phantom, calm down”

M’gann barely made it around the corner and she thought she had seen Kaldur actually smacking into the wall. He brushed it off.

Phantom looked beyond rough. It seemed like Wally, who had ghost’s arm across his shoulders, was only thing holding him up. His feet were firmly on the ground, not in his usual way, when he looked just a breeze away from flying, but in this fully human way, which was unsettling. His face was gray instead of his usual almost tan, eyes wide and terrified.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he muttered, not looking at anyone in particular “I’m sorry, I’m sorry”

“Phantom, it’s fine. It’s fine, we know about the room, it’s fine,” Robin said, trying to placate him. It didn’t quite work. Ghost was on the verge of hyperventilating, which was a bit weird to see on someone for who breathing was voluntary.

“It’s not about room”

“I’m sure it’s fine anyway”

“It’s anything but. I’m sorry-”

“Shut up and tell us what happened if you’re so sure we will be pissed”

“Artemis!”

“Portal”

“What about it?”

“Portal is what killed me.”

M’gann didn’t like how the whole situation looked before, but it suddenly became much worse.

“My Death Day made another one”

[cheezritsu]

Reo Mikage is looking down at you. He has a smile meant to be charming, a smile that belongs to a prince, and it’s aimed at you. You narrow your eyes suspiciously.

“Yes?” You say, presumptuously. The charming smile doesn’t falter.

“I didn’t know I needed something just to talk to you. Is there a line? Do I need a number?” He looks around facetiously but still good natured. Like you’re in on the joke. Like you’re friends.

Reo Mikage is in your class. He’s rich—stupid, filthy rich, so he can afford to be smart. You cannot afford to be dumb. Funny how that works. You doubt this has ever occurred to him.

What has probably also not occurred to Reo Mikage is that he is the last person who should approaching you. There’s eyes peering around every corner at the once secluded interaction. Girls whispering in gaggles, boys who climbed over each other on the picnic benches, even the people that Reo left behind at his lunch table have now circled behind him, watching as he shone his benevolent smile down upon you, a lowly commoner of Hakuho high.

They’re not entranced because it’s Reo, they’re entranced because it’s you. There are two universally known facts about you: one, you hate rich people and two, you hate boys.

And now, in the goddamn quad in broad daylight the living, breathing center of that cursed venn diagram decided to speak to you like you were friends.

“Bro, what?”

Oh, did you say that out loud? Laughter echoes through the quad. His smile does slip now, wavering as it pulls down into uncertainty. His brow furrows.

“I’m sorry?”

“What do you need?”

“Like I said,” his tone isn’t as sweet now. It’s kinda nice that he’s dropping the prince act a little. “Does someone need a reason to just talk to you?”

“I think everyone does? People don’t really just talk to hear themselves talk. Well,” you give him a judgemental once over. “You actually might.”

A ripple of shock takes the makeshift audience. Reo’s face creases even further, annoyance settling in the cracks of his once perfect visage.

You have no trouble admitting that; Reo has hair and eyes like the pansies the school still has planted in the front gates. His tresses look petal soft, too, and his hands are probably the same way. Smooth from knowing nothing of hard work. Long lashes like boys are blessed to have, lips people want smiling in their direction or saying their name. That’s the problem with Reo Mikage; he’s like the boys in the books you read cover to cover. Perfect and pretty, with no use in the outside world. No use in your world, where you live. You could confidently and stupidly use frilly language to describe him because he was as good as fiction to you.

But, you could admit this frustrated flesh and blood expression did wonders on your brain.

“You’re awfully judgmental.”

Your eyes fall the to words below you. “That tends to happen when you’re judged in the first place.”

This is the moment it happens. Something flickers across your face and Reo, who is making your space his business, sees it. A deep, deep anxiety. Sadness he can’t measure.

You snap your book closed, and it releases you both from that moment. You look up again with ferocity. “What do you want, Reo Mikage?”

He doesn’t even know. His friends behind him are snickering at his failure, a failure you’re aware of but shouldn’t be. Can’t be. You’re weren’t even close to ear shot. He was supposed to come over here and charm you, to pacify you as a way to pacify his own boredom, and that just didn’t happen.

Your defiant eyes travel around the quad at the onlookers who know that Reo Mikage was struck speechless by some no name girl in their class and something stutters in his chest.

He’s proud? Yeah, he’s proud of you. He knew you were quiet and generally avoidant, so to hear you spit back words at him made him giddy.

Finally, someone has guts.

The bell chimes and there’s a palpable disappointment. You keep staring him down, waiting for him to move. Reo straightens up, scratching the back of his head.

“Guess we better head in, huh?”

“I guess you should.”

The way you get up is strangely animated to him. You jump up into a crouch, then straighten your legs until you reach your full height. He’s still taller, but you feel bigger. Like you take up more space than him.

You walk right by him. You tense when you’re shoulder to shoulder, and stay that way as you disappear into the building.

“What a bitch,” one of his buddies mumbles, the snickers bouncing around his little group like an echo. Reo turns his head sharply.

Takahashi’s eyes are wide like saucers as an actual glare is pointed at him. “And why would you say that?”

“Uh,” he stutters. “B-because she was rude?”

“So that makes her a bitch?”

“Yes?”

Reo scoffs. “And men who call women bitches for no reason, what do you call them?”

There’s a terse silence that befalls the group as Reo marches back into class. They don’t follow. Instead of an army of footsteps, all Reo can hear is his solitary shoes clicking further away from the scene.

Only stragglers are left in the hallways. Sometimes when he’s walking to the football club after class duties, it’s this quiet around the school, but he’s never really noticed. He’s always too busy talking to someone, or on the phone, or humming contentedly with daydreams in his head.

The black and white color scheme is so sterile. Trophies line this hallway, along with staff photos and class reps for this school year. Class 1-4’s reps were a pair of honor students, a boy and a girl who nearly had the same bangs. They smiled prettily back at Reo as he stepped closer to inspect the bulletin board.

He barely knew their names. He had been chosen as class rep, but declined because of football. Not enough time, couldn’t rise to the occasion like he should have. “Mikages don’t half ass anything. They excel at everything.”

Reo hadn’t even run as rep. Didn’t even raise his hand before everyone decided it should be him. He remembered the count being near unanimous on the boys side. Save for two votes.

One was the guy who ended up being rep. Reo cocks his head at the photo: Tadashi Morimoto. He has a flipoy middle part like Reo, but with more texture. Brown hair and eyes. Handsome, but typically so. A good rep.

You were the other vote against him.

Reo puffs out his chest. Perhaps you are judgemental, but the good kind. Maybe he should trust you, because your judgments prove right. Maybe Reo could learn from you.

He thinks he already has.

[sanjifucker42069]

OPLA!Sanji x Reader - Blowin'

Word Count: 4.6k

I cut down some of the less, y’know, important stuff (the plot lol)

Warnings: oral sex (m!receiving), fem!reader, awkward first times, awkward af, the reader is a dipshit. I’m ngl this isn’t one of those cute first time fics where virgin!reader is suddenly a sex goddess, you are legitimately an idiot. As usual, written with a plus size!reader in mind.

Sanji finds out you’re a virgin. You suck his dick. Congrats!

Sanji was going to fucking lose it. Out of all the possible scenarios Sanji never once considered Nami would take you out to a bar to pick up guys. He brooded as he nursed his drink, Zoro rolling his eyes at the display. Sanji just growled. Usopp looked between them.

"How about another round? 'Nother milk Lu? Hey Sanji, why don't you come with me? I saw some hot chicks up at the bar."

Sanji just shook his head brooding. He looked to where you stood with Nami, laughing at some guy's jokes. He felt stupid at how jealous he felt.

"Hey, Sanj, man. Nami isn't gonna reciprocate y'know?" Usopp offered lightheartedly. Zoro scoffed from next to him. 

"It's not about Nami for once."

---

When Sanji's eyes found you again he saw you alone with the same guy, nursing a drink. Now that Nami was gone he could see the atmosphere had changed, you didn't seem happy like before. He watched as the guy said something and you shrugged halfheartedly. The guy then proceeded to wrap his arm around you. Sanji had known you long enough to see how uncomfortable you looked. Anger flared in his chest. The final straw was seeing the guy trying to tug you out of the booth to leave. You looked so defeated, it hurt. He began stalking his way to your booth.

"C'mon sweetcheeks, let's leave this dump."

"I'm good thanks, I should get back to my friends."

"I already told you bitch, we're going. I didn't spend all this time fucking around to go home empty handed. You're lucky I even stayed once your hot friend left. I'm doing you a favour, so hurry the fuck up."

"No, I really don't want to." You began, the man snarled, grabbing your wrist.

"It wasn't a question. You owe me. I don't go for ugly, but a hole's a hole, and from the back you're probably passable."

You had tears in your eyes from embarrassment. This whole trip was a bad idea. You wish Nami would come back. As the man tugged on your wrist harder you heard that gorgeous voice ring out. You tried to hide your face so Sanji wouldn't see the tears in your eyes. That last thing you wanted was for the crew to think you're weak.

"That's no way to win hearts Sunshine. So uncouth, and frankly, disgusting behaviour."

"Who the fuck are you? How about you mind your own business?"

"And watch such a beautiful lady be treated that way?"

"Beautiful lady my ass. The only thing you can know for sure about girls like this is that their pretty pussy is untouched." The man barked out a laugh causing you to wince. He snaked his other arm to cup your breast over your dress. You saw something flash in Sanji's eyes. "And I know I'm gonna really enjoy these."  

You squirmed, before biting the man. He howled in pain, releasing his hold on you. You quickly made your escape, rushing to cling to Usopp and Luffy, crying. You felt pathetic. Embarrassed that all eyes were on you.

Sanji saw red. You blinked back tears as you called out to him. Sanji was protective of all of you, but he seemed especially so of you. You knew it was because he saw you as some kind of little sister. "It's okay Sanji. Really, let's just go home. Please."

"No." He fixed the drunk man with a freezing gaze. "You dare touch someone so out of your league? I asked you nicely to piss off, but now I'm going to fucking kill you."

Before you could react Sanji had kicked the man in the chest. You watched as he began ruthlessly kicking and stomping the man, muttering profanities and sentences you couldn't understand. With a final stomp he huffed. Zoro finally pried Sanji away. You saw Nami returning, fuming. If you weren't so traumatised by the night you would have laughed at how Zoro pried Nami away too, holding the two brawlers by the scruff as they fought against it, looking like wet cats.

You don't remember how you got home. You remember Usopp covering you in his coat and dragging you out of the bar. You remember apologising to Usopp, crying that you needed to go back. The last thing you remember was Luffy running to join you, scooping you up and starting the walk back to the Going Merry, you, falling asleep in his rubbery arms.

---

"Ah my dear, you're finally awake. I made you something to eat."

You smiled tightly at him, thanking him. The way you played with your food tugged at his heartstrings. You looked so mournful. He pulled up a chair, sitting backwards on it, gripping the backrest. 

"C'mon lovely, don't make me have to feed you myself." He winked. Your lips twitched upwards performatively. Sanji frowned. "Look (name) about last night-"

"I'm sorry."

Confusion. "What?"

You cringed inward. "I'm....I'm sorry I ruined everyone's night."

"You didn't ruin anyone's night, that good for nothing prick did. Don't understand why you'd even go for a guy like that to be honest." He added bitterly. You frowned.

"I wouldn't normally. Everything moved so fast. He seemed nice...It was too late before I realised it's because he wanted Nami." Silence. "Once Nami left, I, well, I didn't want to cause a scene."

"So, what? You were just going to let him take advantage of you?"

You jolted, shocked. "No! No, I- there was no way he was going to-” 

“(Name), love, I know you can be a bit naive but-”

Your voice was small. “He said so himself! He..." you trailed off. "He didn't 'go for ugly girls'. And besides…he was right."

Sanji frowned, angry at the world. How could anyone make you believe that you weren't beautiful? That you didn't deserve some guy trying to take advantage of you? He took a deep breath, steadying his resolve

“There's no such thing as an ugly girl (name), and if there was, I can assure you you're not one of them.”

“Not that.” Sanji took in how you winced, trying to make yourself seem smaller.

What?

Sanji felt the wind knocked out of him.

You're a virgin?" He asked, clearly shocked. You bristled with embarrassment.

"Well...yeah, but I understand how it works! It's not such a big deal, I mean...I've just, I've never had the chance."

"Have you ever...y'know, at all? Not even a handy?" You shook your head. He flushed, you were completely pure.

He felt slightly sick at how his perverted thoughts twisted that. He could be your first, ruin you for all other partners. He could be the one to take your innocence. His cock twitched at the thought. Shame flooded him. You were his friend, his, admittedly, very cute friend. He shouldn't be thinking about you this way. His mind was racing with all the obscene thoughts he'd ever had, the deviant things he dreamed of. He was disgusting. You were too innocent, he'd felt guilty before, but now he felt like he was defiling you just by thinking about you.

You took his silence as pity and pointedly looked away from him, taking a deep breath.

"It's not like I don't want to. I do. But, ugh, it's so silly...no one has ever shown any interest. I'm not exactly a goddess like Nami."

"Darling, I don't believe no one has ever shown interest." He offered a smile. Gods if you only knew how badly he ached for you. How hard you made him. Now wasn't the time for him to blow your friendship over him thinking with his dick. You were being vulnerable.

"I don't need your pity Sanji. It's okay. You don't have to give me the 'everyone's beautiful in their own way' speech. There's more to me than my lack of experience! I'm a good fighter! I have talents, I don't need to be pretty. Just, sometimes, it'd be nice.". 

This wouldn't do. He had to try to fix this. He took your small hands in his, trying not to lose his breath at how warm they felt. Swinging them lightly, he stared into your eyes.

“You are a beautiful girl, you deserve way better than some kind of bastard like that. Men are pigs (name), you shouldn't trust any of them."

"I trust you."

Sanji froze. You peaked up at him shyly. He looked conflicted, and that caused you to smile sadly, misinterpreting the look. You withdrew your hands, fiddling with them in your lap. "I didn't mean that you should take one for the team Ji, I just meant that, well, I trust you. I don't think you're a pig."

"You shouldn't trust me." He lowered his voice. You stared at him, clearly taken aback. "I'm just as bad."

"No, you-"

"No. I'm an absolute pig darling. You aren't that dense surely."

You frowned. "Sure you flirt a lot with other girls, but that's just you! It's charming, non-threatening. I don't see you acting like-"

"I flirt with you too!" He tried, clearly exasperated. You smiled.

"Exactly! You make cute comments to me, and call me cute things like darling, but you're just naturally flirty."

Sanji groaned. Your smile slowly faltered. Sanji screwed his eyes shut. "I'm not 'just naturally flirty'...I mean, I am, I suppose, but I'm actually trying to flirt with you. I thought you were just being polite, but are you really that dense?"

"I....you are?"

"Are you kidding me?!"

"But, I'm..." You gestured to yourself. "You're more friendly than flirty to me?" 

"You're too innocent, it's not like I could just waltz right up and tell you that I think you're hot, can I?" He bristled. 

You felt electricity surge down your spine. Hot? Sanji thought you were hot? Sanji? 

Sanji took your silence as disgust. "See! That's exactly why I couldn't tell you."

"You think I'm hot?" He nodded. Your grin spread, hurting your blushing cheeks. Your eyes sparkling. "You think I'M hot?!"

"Yes, okay!" He sounded almost angry.

"Sanji, you're gorgeous! I'm too awkward. Too fat. Too plain. I'm not a model or some kind of beauty. And you're telling me someone as handsome as you, thinks I'm attractive!? And I-"

You stopped, really thinking about what he said. "Innocent? I....well I suppose. I'm not that innocent though."

Sanji's nostrils flared. "Not that innocent? Please love! You prance around in those low-cut tops and shorts in front of everyone, thinking that they ain't gonna go ballistic? You're too trusting of men, thinking that we aren't all beasts inside."

You laughed, still riding the high of his praise. Sanji snarled, banging his fist on the kitchen table. "No! It's true. You think someone doesn't see the way your tits look and salivate? You don't think you would make anyone insane? You don't think I got so fucking hard when you told me you're a virgin?"

He froze, blood turning to ice, clearly regretting blurting out that last bit. You stared at him, eyes round with wonder. He avoided your gaze, cringing at what you said next.

"I...I make you hard?".

"I'm sorry (name), that was very ungentlemanly of me. I didn't mean to say that last part." 

"But you did." He felt warm hands prying his open and playing with his fingers. He flitted his eyes up to see your face red, staring at him with your eyes practically sparkling with mirth. "God, I've wanted you to fuck me for ages, and now you're telling me you've actually wanted to this whole time?"

Sanji stiffened, cock twitching. He ached painfully. He felt parched, throat burning. This had to be a joke. "You...what?"

"Yeah. Fuck. I, mean, the clothing was purposeful at first, I wanted you to notice me. I had no idea it was working though, haha!"

"WHAT!?"

"Yeah, I thought you knew? You never noticed I only wore those kinds of clothes when you were around? You never noticed how I tried to cling to you in the kitchen? I just assumed you knew and thought I was gross, so I pulled back." You laughed. "Did you seriously think that because I'm a virgin I can't think sexually?"

"But you've never-"

"You've never said anything raunchy to me like you do to other girls. I thought you saw me as a little sister. It'd be weird if someone you saw like family told you they want to suck your dick."

"Fuck." He hissed. 

"Oh this is too good! Have I been torturing you?" You laughed, running a hand up his arm. "You must be so frustrated."

"You have no idea." 

"I could help you." 

Sanji groaned. "You can't say things like that."

"Oh." You pulled back, back to being timid. Even if it was at his expense, Sanji felt the loss of your confident persona. Fuck he really was a masochist, wasn't he? "I, um, I'd need you to guide me. But if you did want help, I'd like to be the one."

"God, you have no idea what you're doing to me." He heard you giggle lightly. He opened his eyes to see you biting your lip, staring up at him through thick lashes, a blush adorning your chubby cheeks. He throbbed.

"You could show me? I promise I'll be gentle! Please Sanji? Can I pretty please touch your dick?"

Sanji felt like he was going to explode from how cute you were. 

"Fuck. Please."

You squealed in excitement, jumping up from the table, both his arms in hand. He wanted to laugh at how innocent you looked, but instead he felt a lump in his throat. You didn't notice, pulling the seated man into an awkward, crushing hug.

"C'mon! C'mon what are you waiting for? Let's go!" 

"Go where?" He laughed at your eagerness. "In case you haven't noticed darling, we aren't exactly alone."

The way you deflated was comical. What wasn't was the wicked glint that formed in your eyes. Sanji gulped, that was never a good sign. He watched as you quickly dashed out of the kitchen. Sanji looked around, confused. Minutes passed. He got up from the table, moving over to the kitchen island, hiding his lower half behind the counter, lest one of the crew wandered in. He sighed, willing his boner away. 

Bang!

The door flew open. Sanji jumped. There you stood frantically in the doorway. Your hair a mess, breathing heavy, and that wicked glint set on him. He watched as you closed the kitchen door, taking a chair and boarding the door. You grinned, stalking towards him.

No. There's no way.

"We aren't going to be disturbed." You were practically vibrating in excitement.

"What? No. Not in the kitchen. We. Eat. Here." Sanji hissed. You peeked up at him, lip pouting. 

"Please? I'll make sure there's no mess left." You pleaded. 

No mess? Sanji closed his eyes and groaned when he realised what you meant. You were going to be the death of him. When he opened his eyes you were in front of him, staring at him shyly. He startled.

"Can I kiss you? Or is that too far?"

Too far? He wanted to cry. You really had no idea what you were doing to him. He bent down. You grinned. He wrapped an arm around the back of your head, pulling you closer. You tipped your head up. He smiled softly before placing his lips on top of yours.

Your lips locked together like the last piece of a puzzle. You sighed, eyes flitting closed. You pushed further against him, trying desperately to pull him closer. He tasted like cigarettes but you didn't mind, an addictive taste for an addictive man. You wanted more of him. You kissed him feverishly, reluctantly pulling back for air. You stared at the taller man through lidded eyes. He gazed down at you lovingly, a blush high on his cheeks. His blue eyes studied your face closely. 

Sanji laughed as with both hands you pulled his face back for another kiss. His skin was hot, your hands now cold against his cheeks. You tasted sweet and he wanted to devour you so badly. You were too cute. He felt you pull him closer to you. You were kissing and sucking at his lips before you felt it. Sanji bit back a groan, feeling your hips brush against him. He felt pure embarrassment as he heard your breath hitch, pulling away. He opened his mouth to protest but was cut off by a groan as you experimentally pushed your hips against him harder.

"Oh my gods." He heard you whisper against him. He froze. "Oh my gods it's so-"

"We can stop if it's too much dar-LING!"

He squeaked as he felt both your hands rake down his chest, you humming contently as you kept yourself pressed against him. He felt overwhelmed at how eager you were. He'd never had someone so upfront in wanting to touch him. His cocked throbbed. You mewled lightly, causing another throb.

"Oh my god it moves?" You giggled. He cracked a smile back. You were so innocent.

Sanji had made one crucial mistake though. That was thinking that just because you were inexperienced, that meant you would be submissive. He felt you cage him against the countertop, the wood digging into his ass, your hands on him. It wasn't that he didn't like it, the dissonance was making him dizzy. He felt your hands find purchase on his waist. You breathed out a dreamy sigh.

"God your waist is so fucking tiny."

Sanji bristled with embarrassment. He tried to address it without upsetting you. "Love, that's not exactly what I want to hear."

You giggled. "I can't help it, it's so hot. You could kick my ass if you wanted, but holy fuck you're just letting me feel you up. Gods I've seen you fight, I've seen how thick your legs are, but fuck your waist is so little."

Sanji hissed. He'd never experienced anything like this before. Your hands migrated upwards, resting on his pecs. Your slow pace was driving him insane.

"Can I?" You gestured to his shirt.

"Fuck, love, I'd love to, but maybe when we have somewhere more private okay? Don't want to be too unclothed if someone tries to come in. Same with you okay? Don't want anyone to see something so gorgeous." He smiled at you. You nodded your head, practically buzzing at the idea of this happening again. He winked at you. "You could take off something else though."

Sanji was shocked and delighted at how quickly you dropped to your knees. You began playing with his belt, figuring out how the clasp worked. Sanji scrunched his eyes shut. Fuck, you were so eager! He never would’ve expected it to go like this. Despite your eagerness you were so gentle, as if you were afraid of touching him. He was going to prompt you, but instead you softly pulled his zipper down and began drawing the fabric down till it sat mid thigh.

Oh, fuck. There he was, huh?

You looked at his clothed cock, studying It like it was some kind of strange bug. You wanted to laugh at the comparison. Above you Sanji was flushed, embarrassed by your staring. You ran a finger over the bulge. He hissed, his dick jumping lightly. You couldn't help the giggle that bubbled out of your throat. 

"What?"

"It's so cute the way it jumps."

"Maybe this was a mistake."

"No no no! I promise I'll be good. Can I, um... do I?"

"Just...hah...do what you think is right. I'll...correct you."

Sanji let out an undignified squeak as he felt you lightly grab the clothed bulge. You massaged it, feeling what you could, watching with curiosity how the man above you writhed. Exploratively, you moved your hand further back, cupping his balls through the fabric. The friction of the fabric against bare skin was pure torture.

"Oh shit!" Sanji whined. You withdraw your hand like it burnt. "That's, god, that's really sensitive okay? You're killing me sweetheart."

"Sorry." You mumbled, placing a kiss to his bare thigh. The "strange bug" jumped again. You began peppering more kisses to his thigh. Once you reached the inside of his thigh you breathed deeply, he smelt musky, it made your mouth water. Experimentally, you licked the inside of his thigh. Sanji's thigh tensed. You licked upwards in long stripes until you reached the leg of his underwear. You gave a quick moment of hesitation before you blew air over the bulge. Sanji hissed. Smiling, you placed a kiss directly over the top of his bulge. 

"Did you just kiss my dick?"

"Mmhmm. Watch, I'll do it again." You placed an open mouth wet kiss over Sanji's clothed cock. The man above you threw his head back, whining softly. The fabric was dampened with a mix of your spit and something else. You saw how taut the fabric had become. You cooed. "That looks like it hurts." 

Sanji nodded. You looked up at him.

"Can I take them off?"

He shuddered. "Fuck. Please (name)."

With curiosity you began dragging the wet underwear down his hips, settling them at his mid thigh. His musky scent overpowered you, and you watched with fascination as Sanji's cock slapped against his stomach. Looking up at him you saw how tight his eyes were scrunched, knuckles gripping the countertop. You noticed how he shivered lightly at the exposure. Sanji's cock stood, large, imposing, and leaking. You breathed out a curse. It looked gorgeous, just like him, long and lithe. His happy trail led to a neat little patch of dark hair. You salivated. Eyes drawing to your prize, you winced at how red and angry the head looked.

Sanji thought he was going to kill you when he felt you tap his cockhead like a microphone. Instead he bucked his hips away, humiliation colouring his face. "Stop that! I know you don't know what you're doing, but please use your brain dearest." 

You mumbled an apology before rubbing your hands together, trying to warm them. He watched as you wrapped a hand around his dick before moaning lowly. You studied him, absolutely enraptured, as you gave a test pump. The man above you crumbled. 

"Do you always get this way?"

"No." He panted.

"Just for me?" You tried sultry, trying to muster up some quote from a smutty novel you once read. Sanji peeked one eye open before groaning.

"No." His voice was strained, breathing heavy. You tried pumping him, but the rhythm was sloppy. "N-no. You're...it's a lot right now. I'm not used to it being this slow…or clumsy."

"Do you like it?" You looked up at him with wide eyes.

"Unfortunately." He muttered. With a burst of pride you tried pumping him harder. Sanji squealed, grabbing your hand. "Fuck (name), I really need you to spit in your hand. Th-that's painful."

"Oh...sorry." You offered. Sanji watched as you perversely spit in your hand, wrapping the digits back around his cock. You tried setting a rhythm, it was sloppy, but you focused on giving him consistent squeezing pressure. Sanji moaned lowly at the squeezing, hips rocking. 

Soon you reached a steady rhythm. You watched with bated breath before you slowed down. Sanji began to whine from the loss, only to keen loudly as he felt your lips enclose his cockhead. He began spluttering, eyes rolled backwards. He'd take anything right now, fuck he wanted to cum so bad. He sucked in a breath.

"No teeth, okay love?" 

You laughed, the vibrations tickling him in the best way. He moaned, trying desperately to not fuck your face. His eyes were so tightly scrunched.

You slowly forced yourself further down his length, squeezing the base. Sanji swore. You froze, taking a deep breath through your nose. When he didn't stop you, you continued your devotion. 

"Ack!" You choked, throat burning. You felt Sanji's hand patting your head. You retreated off him, coughing.

"Darling don't take more than you can okay. We don't want you to choke now."

You gazed up at him, eyes wet and throat hoarse. "Let me try again!" 

Your raspy voice made Sanji quiver, but the way you looked up at him, absolutely wrecked, made him burn. As quickly as he noticed it, it ended, and you unceremoniously inhaled his cock. He could feel you try to smile. 

"Fuck!" His voice was high as you sucked hard, adding your tongue to flatten against the underside of his cock. "(Name)! Baby, fuck, I-"

"Hey why won't the door open?" Zoro's voice rang through the wood. Sanji stilled, holding your head. The two of you looked at each other frozen. Sanji tried clearing his throat. 

"If you keep making noise out there, I'm gonna explode, Mosshead!"

You snorted, trying hard to not laugh. 'Yeah you're gonna explode,' you inwardly snickered. 

"Whatever shitty waiter." 

Silence. Sanji looked down at you. "Darling, maybe we should stop. It's okay, we can try again another day." He froze at the frustrated look that overtook your features. "Fuck." He whispered.

You sucked harshly causing Sanji to bite his hand hard to avoid screaming. He felt you try swallowing, watched as tears pricked your eyes. You didn't slow down on your work, sucking harshly and hands wandering. You grabbed a fistful of his asscheek, other hand tracing circles on his inner thigh. You felt him tensing, quivering. His hand reached for your neck, trying to coax you off. He was so close.

"Oh god!" Sanji gasped. "Baby I'm gonna cum, you need to hop off-AH!" 

You sucked harder, milking the man through his orgasm. It was like music the way he spluttered and grabbed the back of your head, nails scratching your scalp. You felt hot, thick liquid painting your throat. It wasn't pleasant, but fuck his reactions were. Some dribbled out of the corner of your mouth and Sanji wiped it away with a thumb, a fucked out expression on his features. He pulled his softened cock out of your mouth, and watched, breathless as you swallowed his seed. You made a grimace afterwards causing the man to laugh.

"Was it okay?" You asked, shyness taking over you. 

"You're lucky I don't mind a bit of torture. It was good for a first try." He gave you that flirty grin and a wink. "I think you need more practice though."

You laughed, outstretching a hand so he could help you up. You tried stretching your legs, noting the numb pain in your knees. You wrapped your arms around his middle. "Was I that bad?"

Sanji pulled his underwear and pants back up, zipping his pants closed. He pulled you closer. "Nah, you're just something else entirely. Silly." Kiss. "Torturous." Kiss. "And I am smitten with you."

"We've wasted enough time, better get back to it." You smiled against his lips. 

"I'd love to pay you back."

"Later loverboy, we're gonna have the whole crew in here soon if we don't hurry."

"I'm so glad there's a later."

You winked, straightening your clothes and heading for the door. You stopped, turning to stare at the man.

"For you baby? Always. Oh, can you make souffle?"

"What? Why?"

"I told the guys we were making a souffle and needed the kitchen completely silent."

Sanji laughed. You definitely kept him on his toes.

-----------

I'm not going to lie, some of this is coloured by my first time hahaha! I am an incredibly awkward person, and yes I did also once tell a guy how cute I thought it was when dicks jump. He also told me I was fucked for that ha!

[stanpinesdykewife]

How do you feel about breeding kink ? Kinda a request for Stan/reader haha

HELLO thanks for sending this in! so i've never been a big breeder (breeding kink enjoyer) but you and several others are really into it so i finally gave it a shot!!! enjoy! and check out my friend's breeding kink fic at the bottom if you're into this :) under the cut:

knock knock stan/reader (fem!reader) (unless you're me and can ignore the gender implications of "mommy") pre/during/post-canon/unspecified smut, 1954 words (bonus: fic rec at the bottom)

It starts out like the normal, mostly-vanilla sex you usually have with Stan.

You two go out, get tipsy, come home, and make it through approximately half an episode of your joint show before slipping into a sloppy makeout. It's not exactly routine, but it's expected, and it's a hit for a reason. Sex with Stan is good, full stop. Which is why you’re always surprised when something new comes along that makes it even better.

“Hngh—Fuck,” you choke out, your voice catching behind your teeth as Stan sinks into you. You're on your back, staring with bleary eyes at the sight of Stan's flushed face above you. He's sitting on his heels with your ankles on his shoulders, his hands holding firmly at your plush hips as he grinds into you. “Fuck. God, please.”

“Told you you'd have to beg for it this time, didn't I?” Stan chuckles, stroking over your soft skin with his thumbs. He sounds gentle, but he's grinding into you hard, enough that each forward roll of his hips has your whole body rocking with it. He'd been fucking you so hard earlier, so good, but he does this thing sometimes—he stops altogether to get you talking. He loves when you talk to him. “Go on, then, sweetheart. You want it, right?”

“Y-Yeah,” you say, stuttering at another press of his dick into you. You gasp when he pulls back, drawing out only halfway before grinding in again. Your voice is wobbly when you say, “Yes, yeah. I want it, please fuck me, oh, fuck—I wanna come. Wanna make you come in me.”

You know, even through the haze in your mind and the growing blush on Stan's face, that that's a normal thing for you to say. It never gets old, and it's never untrue. Asking Stan to come in you always feels really fucking good. You're having a really good night.

“I know, baby. You want me to fill you up,” Stan says, full-on smiling down at you. His eyes are warm and a little unfocused as he draws out again, then pushes in, keeping that same romantic rhythm he's had since slowing down. His voice is low, almost drowsy, when he adds, “You want it to stay there, too? Want it to take?”

“Wh—Huh?” you ask, your mind a little preoccupied to register all the words coming out of his mouth. You're a little too busy staring at him, at his dark eyes, his crooked grin, then lower, to the hair on his chest leading down to his belly. Stan huffs out a good-natured laugh at your obvious spacing out.

“You always ask me to come inside.” When your gaze finally wanders back up to his, he's already staring at you. Stan chuckles again and adjusts his grip on your body, unintentionally hiking your hips up a little. He clarifies, “It's almost like you want me to knock you up.”

Your jaw drops open at that. A new wave of heat curls in your abdomen, making your fingers twitch, and your legs suddenly tense. Stan was half-joking, you know he was, but it's too late to pitch him a laugh and play into it. His brows raise, and you can practically see the gears turn in his head when you blink at him in mild shock.

Then the light bulb clicks on, and Stan's expression brightens in the way it always does when he learns something new about your body. Despite yourself, you smile, too, a flustered giggle bouncing from your throat when you realize he's about to pounce.

“W-Wait, I didn't—” You have no clue what excuse you were going to give to clear your name of a kink you didn't even know you had, but Stan interrupts you so you don't have to find out. You squeal when he suddenly grabs you by the thighs and adjusts your body, manhandling you into a new position. “Stan—!”

“You like that, huh,” he snickers, not unkind, as he shuffles himself up onto his knees without pulling out. One of your legs almost falls off his shoulders, but Stan quickly corrects it before snatching a pillow from your left and shoving it under your hips. He leans forward slightly, asking you again, “You want me to knock you up?”

Before you can answer, Stan gives you the first proper thrust he's given you in a while. Your back arches as you moan, your hips automatically rocking up into his as he starts a steady pace. Your hands grip the sheets, and you try to stave off the mild embarrassment in your chest. You try to welcome the excitement instead, growing warm in your stomach, making you tremble.

“That's right, honey. Feels good, don't it? Gonna put a baby in you.” The humor in Stan's voice fades slowly, overtaken by his little grunts as he fucks into you. You moan at one particular angle, Stan's dick pressing perfectly up against that spot in your pussy that makes your legs shake, and Stan chases it. He leans forward, over you, making your voice pitch higher and higher. He groans, “Fuck, so wet. You're all nice and warm for me, sugar. Perfect for my spunk.”

“Ugh, don't—ah—call it that,” you huff out, voice cracking in the middle as Stan picks up speed.

“Whaddya want me to call it?” he laughs. “My come? My kids?”

“Fuck,” you moan, like the breath's been punched out of you. Stan's hips stutter, and something in the air shifts. He groans, leans forward more, and soon your body is bent deeply at the waist with your legs hooked over his shoulders, your knees close to your chest. You don't know what this position is called. A breeding press? A mating press? The specifics are lost on you as you open your eyes, blinking up at Stan's handsome, flushed face.

He’s breathing deeply above you, his hot breath mingling with yours as he plants his hands on either side of you. Stan’s been teasing you all this time, but all of a sudden it doesn't feel so lighthearted anymore. Stan pauses when you meet his eyes. Shifts his weight on his knees.

“C-Can…” You swallow around the words. You're fucking salivating. You look at Stan shyly, through your lashes, and find the courage to ask, “Can you please put your kids in me?”

“Holy Moses,” Stan says, and then he's kissing you, all sloppy and heated and so fucking turned-on. You moan into his mouth when he starts pumping into you again, fucking his hips down into yours, and this angle is so fucking good you can't believe you've never tried it with him before, holy fuck. Stan is so deep inside you, pistoning his hips so hard he's fucking you right into the mattress with each thrust.

“Ah, ah, fuck, yes—” you gasp, breaking the kiss. Stan groans against your open mouth before pulling away, his eyes screwed shut as he presses his forehead to yours.

“Fuck, that’s hot,” he grunts, shifting so his forearms are caging your head, holding up his weight. “Gonna fucking fill you up, gonna make you have my fucking kids—Fuck, I'm already close.”

“Yes, yes, please,” you whine, voice strained as you reach up to grab hold of something, anything, to keep you grounded. You feel like you're floating, so warm and dizzy at the thought of Stan filling you to the brim, and your hands somehow find their way up into Stan's hair. He groans again when you tug, and gives you a particularly rough thrust that makes you gasp. “Ah, shit—! Yes, I want it, want you to come in me, fill me up—”

“Yeah, just take my fucking load, baby, just take it,” he breathes, somehow much more intelligible than you are even as his hips start fucking into you unevenly, losing their rhythm. But Stan's thrusts get harder, his dick reaching deeper into your ready cunt, so deep you swear you can feel his precome leaking into your cervix, or maybe the thought of it is just so good that you're making shit up. But you snap back to reality at Stan mutters, his voice gruff, “Gonna come so deep in you, sweetheart—Hah, fuck, that's—Gonna make you a fuckin' mommy.”

You're coming, an intense orgasm rolling through you and forcing one loud, drawn-out moan from deep in your throat as Stan fucks into you with a few more frantic thrusts. You're gasping, cursing when you can spare the breath, and then you're whining high in your throat as Stan presses as deep as he can fucking go. His voice catches for a moment. Then he groans, long and loud, right into your face as he comes deep in you. It's so hot, literally, you can feel the heat blooming in your fucking cunt, can feel the way his thick dick twitches with its release.

“Fuck—Fuck,” Stan swears, shifting again so he can slide one hand to your hip. He hikes it up and shuffles closer on his knees, sighing once his lungs have the capacity. You're still catching your breath, still dizzy with warmth and post-orgasmic bliss as you think of that pocket of come being plugged inside you by Stan's softening dick. Stan breathes deeply in, then out. He’s still riding the tail end of his orgasm when he murmurs, “You okay?”

“Mm. Yeah,” you manage, carefully unwinding your fingers from his hair. When Stan can lift his head to look at you, his face is red with exertion. There's some drool slipping out the corner of his mouth, and you try a smile. “You?”

“Yeah,” he says, but he sounds distracted. He studies your features, reading your expression, and whatever you managed of a half-smile drops.

“What?” you ask. But then Stan nudges his hips back, just an inch, and slowly presses into you again. Your breath hitches in your throat, your hands flying to his shoulders to grip him there. “What are you—Ah, ah, fuck.”

You feel exactly what he does. Stan's come is slick in you, it always is, but the new connotations add so much to the warm, wet pool within your body. Stan grinds into you, getting your thighs and his abdomen slick with your come, then pulls out again. When he pushes back in, you both moan at how fucking easy it is. There's no resistance. His come is sticking the way, making it easier for him to fuck you.

Stan is still breathing deep, but another smile plays on his lips. He’s close enough that he only has to tilt his head slightly to kiss you, but it's chaste nonetheless. His grin is bright and affectionate. But it isn't quite innocent.

“You wanna try for another?” he chuckles, his hand smoothing over your skin to dip between your bodies, to press gently, reverently against your stomach. You jolt at the touch, but eventually your hips start rocking into him. Stan doesn't move. You're intoxicated by the thought of him keeping you like this, pinned beneath him, full of his come and plugged by his dick as he brings you to the edge with his fingers.

“Ah, shit—Fuck. Yeah,” you say, the corners of your mouth rising up to match Stan's grin. You play along easier this time. “Yeah. Please. As many times as it takes, right?”

“Gotta knock you up somehow,” Stan says, keeping eye contact with you, his voice oozing with affection. You chuckle at him. What a softie. Then his fingers press a little harder on your stomach, then dip lower, lower, to really touch you, and your mouth drops into a moan instead. “Gonna be such a good mommy.”

You're having a great night.

(inspo from Family Planning by burberryali, which dropped super recently and helped a lot while i learned to write this!!! if you like breeding and fluff and stan in general... which i know you do... this fic is for you! show it some love!!)

[lovesickeros]

☆ even the gods bleed

{☆} characters furina, neuvillette {☆} notes cult au, imposter au, multi-chapter, gender neutral reader {☆} warnings blood, injury, light angst {☆} word count 2.3k

What was justice?

Focalors had asked herself that question many times during the long nights she spends awake pouring over the prophecy of a dead God, words replaying in her mind like a broken record until the sun rose like a blooming flower.

She was the God of Justice, an Archon, yet she herself lacked the answer to such a simple and yet so very complex question.

How does one define what is just and what is not? How does she know that what she believes to be just is right? Is it justice if one being alone may sway the scales of justice on a whim? What justice is there to be found in the cold, watery grave that awaits her nation?

She does not know.

Perhaps she may never know.

What she does know, at least, is that this is not justice.

It is a mockery of it.

She stands before the bloodied, broken body like the judge, her sword held so tightly in her hand her fingers feel stiff, a dull ache adding to the weight of what she's seen. For a long, horrible moment she almost thinks they are dead – something she would have reveled in, only a day prior – before she sees the subtle rise and fall of their chest. Breathing, but barely.

The rain felt heavier upon her shoulders at the realization – she was not sure if it was in relief or horror.

Her nails dig into her palm, mind stuck somewhere between that abject horror and confusion so palpable she swore she could hear the gears in her head turning.

For a long, silent moment as she stares upon the body beneath the heavy rain..she wonders if this is how it all ends instead. If the world itself will simply crumple in on itself and cease – without its heart, it will wither, after all – long before the waters ever swallow her nation whole.

Because, try as she might to rationalize it, for every drop of rain that hits her like pins and needles, soaking her down to the bone..the body of the imposter is completely dry. Even the water pooling along the stones dares not to leave so much as a splotch against their ragged, torn clothes.

She remembers the meeting so very clearly, and she thinks she is a fool to not have noticed sooner – the Creator upon their gilded throne, finger pointed in accusation at the visage far too similar to their own. The imposter. She remembers the lilt of their voice as they called for their death as easily as one would speak of the weather – and to no one other then herself would she admit the spark of fear it had ignited within her. Because beneath the divine charade there was a sick enjoyment in the way they looked upon the imposter – like a bug beneath their shoe.

She understands, now.

She had thought that perhaps finally – finally – she could do right by her people, by her Creator, if she rid Teyvat of this..intrusion.

Now she sees herself as what it all really is – blind lambs following the herder.

Perhaps she would be considered a heretic under the eyes of the law – beneath the weight of justice, heavy as the heart that bears its sins. Perhaps this is a mistake, one she would come to regret.

But for now, she sheathes her blade with unsteady hands, the sound making her ears ring – for what she had almost done, what she had already done – as she stumbles like a newborn lamb towards the broken body of..

..What, exactly? Human? Divine? She is not so sure what to call them. Creator? No. The name is bitter upon her tongue, now, burning like liquid flame down her throat.

Where once she had spoken it in reverence and admiration, it felt hollow and empty, now.

Her vision wavers as she kneels down against the rain soaked stones, the rain upon her back growing heavier as she reaches a shaky hand forth – and for a moment, however brief, she feels the weight of expectation, of a title she fears she may never live up to, wash away with the waters that fall from the heavens.

The bruises and blood smeared across their skin are like strokes of a paintbrush, their body the canvas from which such horrid art is created. It makes her ill.

Doubt wavers her composure briefly – her position is already unsteady. She has never been seen as an equal to many of the other Archons. Her own people do not see her as their Archon, but an actor in a grand play that they shall simply toss aside and replace like a broken doll the moment she bores them.

What does she have left to lose?

She reaches out again, her hand settling onto their shoulder and turning them onto their back. She..isn't sure what to do, actually. She's never been particularly physically capable – she tended to avoid fights, even if she oft provoked them – and she was certainly no healer.

Yet what choice does she have but to march on anyway? She is in the heart of the city, it is far more dangerous here then anywhere else..she had little time to make her move.

Fontaine was, after all, a nation founded on the principle of justice. To know an injustice has been made against the most Divine..the entire nation was in a frenzy.

Her eyes dart around nervously, hands clasped tight on their shoulders and her lips drawn into a taut line – someone would notice her absence. One of the Archons would point out her absence in the coordination of the search.

Her options were just as limited as her time – she couldn't just take them out of the city. Security was tight, and as much as she fancied herself an escape artist – Neuvillette could hardly keep her in one place for too long – she doubted she could do the same with the limp body of the imposter in tow.

..The Palais Mermonia it was, then.

Her room had a secret entrance that few knew about, and even fewer would dare to traverse. She just..had to hide them there for a bit and hope Neuvillette wouldn't notice anything different.

Probably.

Still, there was the problem of actually..transporting the body. As grim as it sounded. Her only solace was the fact she didn't have to worry about them catching a cold, at least, and their breaths were still audible, if only barely. So she had to resort to some..unexpected methods.

Seeing the limp form of, well, the imposter – she'd really have to ask for something else to call them when they woke up – stuck in a bubble of hydro wasn't exactly on her bucket list.

Then again, neither was treason.

Well, first time for everything, right?

It wasn't breaking the law if no one else knew about it.

..Neuvillette didn't have to know about it, really. It was fine.

She could, of course, technically try to talk some sense into Neuvillette – he'd listen to her, right? She thought she was pretty close with him..but he was also the one person more obsessed with justice then she was. Such a stickler for the law..so maybe she's breaking a few, it's fine.

But he was also pretty devout, as much as he tried to keep his worship private – with Focalors around, nothing was really secret. Maybe she could get him to settle down long enough to prove it.

..How was she going to prove it?

An exaggerated groan escaped her lips as she led the bubbled imposter – she really wished she didn't have to resort to that, it would be a lot a more awkward to explain then dragging the body around – through the winding streets of Fontaine. She's just glad she's already memorized the entire city like the back of her hand..and a little dramatics went a long way. People listened when the Hydro Archon spoke, and she was suddenly very, very glad for that fact, even if they treated her more like a mascot then a God.

And partially because she, maybe, just a little..stole a few documents detailing the layout and a little personal exploration of her own – but what Neuvillette didn't know couldn't hurt him!

After what felt like hours, though was really no more then half an hour at best, she'd managed to drag herself – soaked to the bone with rain – and the conveniently bubbled imposter up through the secret entrance and into her room.

The perceived safety, as flimsy as it was, was..comforting. Until she heard the rustle of fabric, the clearing of a throat and the pop of a bubble as she, in her surprise, popped it – and then the thud of the imposter hitting the floor.

She felt a bit of regret about that part, at least, wincing.

"Lady Furina." His voice was as sharp and cool as she remembered it always being – like fresh spring water, she'd heard it described. Soothing. It did not feeling very soothing right about now.

She turned sharply on her heel, a forced smile tugging at her lips on reflex, every muscle in her body tensed – she probably looked like a wet cat right about now, soaked with rain, but that was the last thing on her mind.

"Do you mind explaining what, exactly, you did?" Not what you're doing, she notes – what she did. He was mad. Oh, she was really in for a scolding now. She twiddled her thumbs, laughing weakly, though it quickly dies out at the awkward, tense silence.

"Well, you see – it's rather complicated! I can– I can explain." Her attempts to diffuse are met with a raised brow and the sharp tap of his cane. Every single thought is plagued with the urge to run, but the unsteady breathes of the 'imposter' keep her rooted in place. "Well?"

She was sweating bullets, her nails digging into her palm as she scrambled for any excuse that could warrant her not getting hauled off and scolded thoroughly at best – she was coming up empty. How was she supposed to prove that the 'imposter' was very much not what the 'Creator' said they were? Their unconscious body was doing no one any favors, certainly.

"The Creator is lying," She blurts out, immediately regretting her impulsiveness when she feels the sudden weight of his stare – the piercing hues of his eyes that remind her just who is the strongest between them. It is not her, she knows. It never has been. "You can see for yourself! Don't you trust me, Neuvillette–?"

Her voice is cut off by the sharp click of his cane as he strides across the room in only a few steps, his height making her feel like a child about to scolded. She hated it, but she grit her teeth through the exchange. She reminded herself that this was for the sake of the 'imposter' and any affront to her ego was..tolerable.

To her credit, too, she didn't immediately lash out when she saw him poke at their body with his cane, turning them onto their back – she wanted too, though. She considered it, but the thought was quickly shot down when his stare turned back upon her, and she felt frozen in place again, her tongue a heavy weight in her mouth.

Yet she couldn't shake the sudden tenseness to his shoulders, his brows furrowed and a distant look to his eyes. It was..haunting, in a way.

She knows it well, she realizes. The realization and acceptance, the crumbling of every solid foundation you've ever known – leaving you to flounder in the waves, alone and afraid.

The gentleness in which he picks up the limp body surprises her though, his cane set aside. The rain howls like a horrid storm outside, but she cannot focus on anything but the furrow of their brows, the soft noise that escapes their lips.

"I trust that you know that this must stay between us," His voice is soft, like the gentle lap of waves against the shore, as he sets their body down against the bed, his hand lingering against their cheek with something almost like reverence – and if her eyes do not deceive her, affection. "Lady Furina."

She does not hesitate to agree.

"Well– well of course!" She huffs, crossing her arms over her chest and frowning at the feeling of her wet clothes clinging to her skin, a heavy weight that feels like it's dragging her down. "Just what do you take me for?"

He doesn't deign to respond.

It only makes her fume more.

Not that he seems to notice, unbuttoning his heavy outerwear and tossing it on the bed, rolling up his sleeves and focusing on the injured– er..yeah, she really needed a new name for them. Calling them imposter felt wrong.

"So long as you understand, then we will have no problems." She huffs again, pouting and puffing up her cheeks, sitting down on the other end of the bed with only an occasional glance towards him as he worked at peeling away the ragged clothes and examining the injuries marring their skin.

She suddenly felt out of place.

..What was she supposed to be doing?

As if noticing her sudden quietness, Neuvillette sighed, his back turned to her though his attention very much falling upon her. She really hated the feeling like she was being dissected whenever he looked at her. It was unnerving. She doesn't know how anyone else handles it..

"If you are so eager to do something, Lady Furina, then please have something brought up for when our..guest awakens. They will need to recover their strength."

Finally! Something she can do. She perks up, her heels clicking on the floorboards as she darts out like a bullet, unable to stay still for so much as a moment.

Neuvillette, for his part..

Feels an odd sense of serenity as he stares upon the troubled features of the..guest. A peace that lessens the burdens upon his shoulders, the weight of a nation upon his back.

He cannot hear the rain, anymore.

..It must have stopped.

[obsessive-evie]

you’re pretty is all

pairing: Kate Martin + fem!oc

word count: 3.2k

warnings: smut, explicit language

“I-, I can’t, please, I can’t, you can’t keep doing this to me,” Kate pants into my mouth, a blushing smile on her face, clearly embarrassed at the needy tone her own voice took on.

You see, we have recently discovered that Kate cannot handle praise. At. All.

It happened one day on accident, I was just going to one of her games like normal, a pretty rough game against South Carolina I must admit, but Iowa pulled through, Kate being the highest scorer instead of Caitlin for once. She had jogged over to where I was leaning against the walls of the stadium bleachers, a wide smile on her face the moment she noticed where I was. She had barely finished talking to the media, still dodging reporters with cameras on her way over to me.

I immediately wrapped my arms around her head of course, standing on my tiptoes to kiss the side of her head. Her head was buried in my neck, her heavy breathing and warm body pressed against my own. “You did so good baby, oh my god,” I said in her ear before pulling away, my hands still on her neck. Her face now held a different kind of look in her eye. What once was pink from the exertion of the game was now speckled darker with with red, her eyes holding a look of almost uncertainty in them. She opens her mouth like she’s going to speak, but nothing comes out.

She looks bashful, almost shocked, as she keeps trying to form words through her smile. A few laughs escape instead, so she breaks eye contact, and pulls me back into her arms, hiding her face in my neck.

I don’t bring it up until later, taking it as she was just overwhelmed in the post-win high.

But the more I thought about it, the more my brain needed to know why she looked so, flustered? Now I had had my theories about her liking praise, the few times I was more in control featuring a heavy adoration note, and less than a possessive or rough route, but I wanted to test my theory.

“I’m serious i’m so proud of you Kate, you played so well,” I say in the passenger seat of her car as she drives us back to her apartment, her hand in mine on the center console. We’re stopped at a long red, the large Iowa intersections taking far too long in any other circumstance, but i’m thankful for it now as I get to watch her head duck down in an attempt at hiding while a large smile plays on her face, one she’s clearly trying to hide. Her face flushes red again, and that’s when I knew I was on the right track.

Throughout the course of the next few days, I continued to shower my girlfriend with excess praise and compliments, relishing in every blush, smile, giggle, and hidden face. Everything from playing with her freshly washed hair while we talked about the game later that night, making her shift herself from laying on my chest to her kissing my neck to hide her red face when I started to delve into her high score. Not just that, but when she aced a math test a few days later, I went above and beyond in telling her how proud I was (she ended up telling me to shut up with a red face and half hidden smile, her large hand coming to cover half of her face).

The first time I called her pretty girl, I knew damn well what I was doing.

I was sitting on the bathroom counter as she curled her hair, just admiring her beauty and features. She was focused on not burning herself, but when she put the iron down and caught my eyes, she smiled, a puzzled look on her face. “What?” she asked while moving closer, her hands coming to my thighs, rubbing up and down my leggings as she laughed slightly. I shook my head, not wanting to admit anything yet, so naturally she moved closer, leaning into my personal space.

I shake my head while laughing, moving myself to kiss her lips with smiles on our faces. I break the gentle kiss to say, “My pretty girl.” Her reaction is immediate, her face flushes pink high on her cheekbones and ears, she tries to hold back an even larger smile which causes her nose to twitch slightly too. My hands cradle her jaw on each side before she plants her forehead on my chest, me sitting on the counter being one of the few positions she can do so.

I can feel her breathing slightly pick up, making me laugh again. She shakes her head in my chest with a small groan before picking it up, and moving back over to where she was standing, holding back a smile and a red face.

So it does work.

My plan was to see how long it would take for her to crack, or melt, either one worked for me. So when the day came where I was fed up with her being so stupidly strong willed, I decided to bombard her all day long.

I kissed every inch of her face when we woke up that morning, telling her how beautiful she is, even throwing in a my beautiful girl before getting out of bed to shower (she asked to join, but I don’t think I could handle seeing her naked and not get on my knees, which would ruin my whole plan).

I even hyped her up a little more the usual when we got ready to go out to dinner. When I would usually just call her my hot girlfriend and poke her biceps or abs, I made show of saying how good she looked, even throwing in a wolf whistle for good measure to get that pretty blush I adored. Now don’t get me wrong, she did look damn good, but it was a little exaggerated when she walked out in a gray tank and jeans, her hair up in a high ponytail with a dusting of makeup on her face highlighting her natural features.

I got the blush that I wanted, as well as an eye roll as she deflected by kissing me on the lips.

It was only after we had a few drinks at a nice italian restaurant that she even acknowledged my praises.

I had called her “so fuckin pretty” after taking some photos of her at our secluded table, to which she responded, “I can’t with you, you know that?” with an eye roll. “I just love my incredibly hot girlfriend, and I wanna tell her, what’s so wrong with that?” I replied. She just shook her head and said, “You’re so down bad for me.” Of course I nodded my head enthusiastically and took more photos.

By the time we were home on the couch, still in our going out clothes and makeup, I was determined to make her crack.

I was seated straddling her lap, her hands unbashfully on my ass and hips (a personal fav of hers as she put it), while mine were moving between her jaw and neck, not deciding which one I liked better. My tongue was in her mouth when my hand just barely squeezed her neck, not choking or anything, but enough for her to moan out in surprise. She pulled away for air, her face flushed and lips bitten a dark shade of pink. God she really was pretty.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” I whispered before going back in for more kisses. Her hands now gripped my hips harder, pulling me down onto her thigh, causing pleasure to shoot up into me. She did it again at the same time she pushed her thigh up, the thought of the strong muscle beneath me only adding to my pleasure. This time i’m the one that pulls away to say, “God you’re so good to me, you’re so fucking pretty baby,” while smiling. Hopefully this is the fatal blow that will make her crack.

I’m right.

“I-, I can’t, please, I can’t, you can’t keep doing this to me,” Kate pants into my mouth, a blushing smile on her face, clearly embarrassed at the needy tone her own voice took on. Her bright blue-green eyes plead up at me, coercing my body and soul into her. I stay quiet, hoping to urge her to fill the silence. “I mean it, you have no idea what that does to me I-,” she pauses, taking a deep breath, breaking our eye contact, “I can’t, just-“ I cut her desperate words off with a kiss, needing to feel those pretty lips on mine again. She kisses me back with fervor, gripping my ass and hip impossibly tighter, her hands almost painfully doing so.

Our lips continue to move with a melting passion, each of us letting out occasional moans as we move closer and closer to the fires burning bright in our cores. I break the kiss and a string of warm spit still keeps us connected. I move to kiss her cheek gently, the restraint and stark contrast from the aggressive kissing almost making me shake. Kissing softly down her jawline, stopping just above her ear to whisper, “My pretty baby,” the hand that was resting on her neck squeezing slightly.

Now being possessive wasn’t particularly new for us, Kate liked to show me off and I the same, but we were never directly possessive. So i I guess it caught her off guard when I accentuated the my part.

“Oh my god,” she half says half whines as I smirk, continuing my pursuit of kisses down her neck and onto her exposed collarbones. I manage to get her tank top off, so of course she had to even the score and get me out of my shirt (it was bunched up around my bra anyways). Kissing down her chest, removing the clasp of her bra one handed, pulling her ripped jeans down, those were all easy. But resisting the urge to abandon my teasing and fuck her senseless once I got her in just her underwear was not easy. At all.

I too was stripped down to my shorts and lacy black bralette, my mouth still slowly trailing down her body, gently kissing and biting. My hands explored her hips and thighs the lower I got, the sucking on her chest and nipples making the strong muscles twitch slightly. Every time I pulled away from her warm body to breathe or look at her, I let out a string of praises or minor possessiveness.

The lower I got, the more she squirmed at my words. What would’ve probably only made her blush before this is now making her pant. For example, “God you’re so good baby,” made her let out a particularly desperate moan, her hand coming to the back of my head as I sucked on her nipple.

Something I did know about Kate however, is that she got particularly embarrassed when I went down on her. She had a habit of covering her face with her hands, a pillow, or biting her lips to hold back the moans that only urged me on. She also had a habit of closing her eyes or looking away, especially the more orgasms I gave her, because she had a tendency to cry.

The first time I made her cry in bed, I panicked, thinking something was wrong. It was after a particularly hard loss, a tiring and brutal game against LSU, and I decided she could use an orgasm or two after that. By the time I was getting her closer and closer to her third, I thought that I was crazy when I caught a glimpse of shiny eyes before she covered them with the crook of her elbow again. Amping her up for her fourth however, was when I was for sure that her moans were turning into almost sobs. My heart dropped, thinking I had taken it too far. Of course I immediately removed my head from her pussy and cradled her face with my hands, trying to remove her own from her face.

All I had received in return was a rushed out explanation, “No, no, please don’t stop I’m fine I swear just-“ she had said before I cut her off. “Baby you’re crying you’re clearly not fine what’s wrong was it too much? I’m sorry love I-“ this time it was my turn to be cut off.

“No, no this just happens ok I’m fine just I swear to god if you don’t make me cum these tears will be for real,” she choked out, the waterworks of frustration starting back up again. I had kissed her salty lips quickly before giving her a fourth orgasm, watching as the tears flowed freely once I had held her hand down on her hip. Back then I had watched in awe as her pretty face was streaked with tear tracks, trying to test my luck with a fifth orgasm right after her fourth. Unfortunately her sobs became mumbled words of, “No I can’t i c-can’t too much I can’t please I can’t,” while pushing my head away from her dripping cunt.

Now I’m determined to see those rare tears again.

Hopefully my teasing combined with her newfound appreciation for praise would be enough.

I stand corrected.

After sucking on her thighs for too long, Kate had relented and quietly asked me to touch her. I had removed her soaked panties slowly, kissing every inch of her legs they went down. This is when she would typically look away or look for a pillow to hide in, but thanks to our position on our barren couch, she had no choice but to look at me as I made contact with her wet pussy.

I started out slow by circling her clit and pushing a single finger into her, crooking it slightly. “Keep your eyes on me pretty girl,” I said, making her move her hand from shaking by her thigh to holding the back of my head, keeping my tongue on her as she whines.

Throwing out other praises and you’re so pretty darling, or, you look so fucking good like this, so wet baby made Kate only moan and whine louder, her hand coming to cover her mouth. I get minutes into pumping two fingers into her before I notice she’s gone muffled, so I take her hand away from her mouth by her wrist, and hold it onto the couch with my thumb on her pulse point gently.

“C’mon baby let me hear you, I know you can do it,” I say, watching as she tries to keep quiet by biting her lip, tears beginning to form in her eyes. I decide to push her further.

At the same time I curl my fingers up into her g spot, I suck on her clit hard, all while simultaneously pushing on her lower stomach. This makes her let out a loud and whiny moan, stirring things inside me when she tightens her hold on my hair. The tears begin to flow now, almost making me let up on my assault. Almost.

I keep alternating between sucking on her clit and pushing on her stomach, my fingers keeping pace inside her. “Oh my god,” she panted out, the telltale signs of my girlfriend’s incoming orgasm starting as her breathing picks up. I keep going, never relenting, even when her strong hips try to lift up off the couch, forcing me to wrap my arms around her hips and thighs, pinning her in place.

I take a small breather to say, “you’re close baby, I know it, why don’t you cum for me yeah? god you’re doing so well love.” She throws her head back and whines, a high and needy thing that makes me speed up my hand, even though my wrist is starting to cramp.

Her breathing deepens, sobs worsen, thick hot tears rolling down her cheeks as her strong thighs clamp around my head. Pushing on her lower stomach always seems to do the trick, something about external g spot stimulation? Either way, she’s coming on my tongue with my name in her mouth, combined with many other things I can’t hear because of her thighs over my ears.

Her whole body shakes and twitches, her hips lifting in an arch, her hand holds my hair almost painfully tight to her cunt, not like I was leaving anyways. Her heavy breathing doesn’t slow as I push through what I think is the longest orgasm I’ve ever given her. And trust me, giving head was considered one of my special skills. Wonder if I could put THAT on a job resume?

I slow my fingers inside of her, as well as the lapping of my tongue when I think i’ve stretched that out as long as I could. Her eyes are closed now, breathing slowing, her thighs loosened around my head, allowing me to pull away for air. I slowly remove my fingers from her cunt, causing her hips to twitch again, making me laugh. I suck her excess slick off my fingers, relishing in the way she tastes. Maybe I’m smug, but the fucked out look on my girlfriend’s face as she opens her eyes is totally deserving of a mini victory lap.

I stand up from my position on the floor, my knees cracking on the way up from the way I was kneeling. I kiss my way up her hips and stomach gently, small pecks up her warm body, making my way to her face. The tear stained face I kiss every inch of, something I had started after the first time she cried, a mix of guilt and tenderness I felt for her compelling me to do so. When I finally reach her lips, I swipe my thumb under her eyes, cleaning off any more salty tears or cum. Unfortunately for Kate, going from eating pussy to kissing cheeks means mixing of bodily fluids.

A self confident smile on my face, I kiss my girl on the lips finally, her once limp mouth curving up into a small smile. I pull away, taking in her disbelieving expression. “Where the hell did that come from?” she asks, shaking her head slightly against my lips. “You’re pretty,” is all I say in response.

[bitterie-sweetie]

Fake it til you make it

Pairing: Jeonghan x reader Genre: fluff, fake dating WC: 6.5k Warnings: alcohol A/N: yes it's about vday buuut it's actually for @syuperseventeen's bdayyy!!! surprise surprise! happy birthday nat, i hope this year is even better and filled with many things to look forward to <3

Your Valentine’s date with Jeonghan is coming up and yet the only thing on your mind is how to break up with him. Of course breaking up with someone is difficult, but you’d argue that what’s more difficult is breaking up with someone you never even dated.

Jeonghan is a prankster. 

Growing up, you’d often be on the receiving end of his pranks at school. Third grade “initiation” had you drenched in water after he told you to pin a cup against the wall with a straw, and in ninth grade you had tears streaming down your face after eating an entire scoop of wasabi—not the matcha ice cream he said it was. Then there was the time he did something to make your first crush hate you, which, in hindsight, was a good thing because the guy turned out to be a total asshole. 

It wasn’t Jeonghan’s fault entirely when you were too willing to fall for his pranks because being the target of a prank meant having his attention, and that’s something that you wanted. Jeonghan had a way of making everyone feel special, and his attention was a limelight that you never wanted to step out of. 

Honestly, you might’ve kept up with it if he kept going. But then that fateful day came and it was like you were suddenly on his side, working with him instead of being the victim to his antics, and you’d say that that’s what has kept the two of you together after all these years. 

Well, at least until now.

“Hey,” you greet in a rush, looking around the table at everyone and seeing that you’re truly the last one to arrive. Usually, you’d give that place to Lee Chan; he’s the most popular of your friend group and almost always has a prior appointment to your meetups. “Sorry I’m late. My train was delayed and—oh, did you already order for me?” 

Jeonghan slides a sealed bubble tea across the table and sets it in front of your seat—the one empty chair right beside him, no less. When you glance at him questioningly he shrugs and tilts his head towards the crowd at the front. “The line was too long so I ordered yours with mine. Hope you’re feeling like your usual today.” 

Indeed, the sticker on the cup shows that it’s your go-to order. “Aw, that’s so sweet of you. Thanks, babe.” 

Today’s meet up with your friend group is the first of the year and it’s also the first time you’re seeing everyone since Chan’s wedding… including Jeonghan. You would’ve spent Christmas and New Year’s with him had he not cancelled on you, and now that bit of distance has manifested into a larger uncertainty for you over the past while. Even now, the ‘babe’ seemed to come out awkwardly, sticking to your throat.

“Wow, you guys are actually disgusting. I hope you know that.” Seungkwan makes a face at you, and beside him, Soonyoung nods a few times in agreement. 

You plaster on a smile. “It’s okay to just say you’re jealous.” 

The only response you get is an eye-roll from Soonyoung, and then everyone moves on, thankfully. Mingyu asks you what you’ve been up to so you talk about your recent promotion at work and some new habits you’ve started in the new year, and when you sense that the conversation is starting to approach the territory of your future with Jeonghan, you gently steer it towards Chan. After all, he’s the one that got married just a few months ago, and you know he would never miss the chance to talk about his amazing honeymoon and how great this new chapter of his life is going.

There is truly nothing like adult friendships and its quarterly updates. 

Once there’s a bit of a lull in the conversation, Jeonghan turns to you. “What are you doing this week?” 

“Oh, this week?” Your heart speeds up tenfold at the uncertainty of what might come next. “Hmm well, it’s Valentine’s Day.” 

“Yeah, exactly.” He nods and much to your relief, there’s a hint of a smile at the corner of his lips. “So I’ll see you for our date then?” 

“Of course, babe.” 

“Can’t you guys do this somewhere else?” Soonyoung says as he stares daggers in your direction. You totally understand and sympathize with that though; today you’re turning up the sweetness more than usual to compensate for the distance you actually feel, unfortunately at the expense of your friends.

Jeonghan completely ignores Soonyoung’s complaint and doesn’t even look his way. “That’s good,” he says, leaning back in his seat and almost looking relieved at your answer. “I was afraid my darling might not have time for me anymore.”

“What? No way. Did you have anything in mind for our date?” 

“Hmm, yes but it’s a surprise. I’ll text you the details later.” 

“Well, uh, I have to run,” Chan says, slowly getting up from his seat. The rest of you hardly bat an eye, having gotten too used to his busy schedule. “It was nice seeing everyone. You guys should come over for my housewarming once everything is set up.” 

Mingyu stands up too. “Oh, I actually have to go too; got a dinner with Wonwoo later.” 

…On second thought, perhaps you overcompensated a bit too much with the cringe. Soonyoung and Seungkwan leave soon after getting a call from their roommate, Seokmin, and then it’s just you and Jeonghan at the table. Still seated side by side, your arm occasionally brushing against his. 

“How have you really been?” he asks in a low voice. 

“Decent, I guess, despite the winter blues and all. It’s pretty much what I said earlier.” You shrug when he remains silent. “Why do you ask? Do I look depressed or something?”   

“No,” he shakes his head with a laugh, “not depressed, exactly, but I wanted to see if you’re as sad as I am about not seeing each other in so long.” Then he leans in a bit closer, as if to whisper a secret. “I missed you, darling.”

It’s times like this when you feel like he’s toeing the line. There’s a small smile lingering on his lips and a softer look in his eyes, not at all like the overdone sweetness to the point of sarcasm from before, but you can never tell if he really means what he says or if this is just part of the act. 

Regardless, it makes your face feel hot and it makes you unable to look directly at him. 

“Oh… yeah,” you say, trying to make a quick recovery. “It’s too bad we missed out on the holidays but at least we get Valentine’s Day.” 

“Yup, that’s exactly why I have something special in mind for that day. I want to make it up to you, darling.” 

You give him a smile and then go to take a sip of your drink, and that’s pretty much the end of the conversation. Despite saying he misses you, it’s interesting how he doesn’t explain why he bailed on the holidays in the first place, and you don’t know whether you should ask about it at this point.

Or if you should even be curious about such a thing. 

Jeonghan pulls you out of your thoughts with a brush of his hand on yours. “It’s getting dark. Let’s head out?” 

You agree and then let him hold your hand, lace his fingers with yours, and then lead you out of the shop. He doesn’t let go until you cross the parking lot and get to his car. It’s strange, you think. You can’t seem to recall the last time the two of you held hands so naturally like this especially when there’s no one else around. 

In fact, when the two of you are alone, the sickening sweetness is always toned down but not completely dropped. Now, Jeonghan’s smiles are softer around the edges like they’re less exaggerated, less of a performance, and when he calls you darling, his voice is quieter and isn’t at all coated in the sticky honey you’re used to. When he hugs you goodbye at your door, it’s a loose hug and almost has a degree of uncertainty. 

Jeonghan steps back but lingers just for a second. “I’ll see you in a few days for our date, darling.”

“Of course,” you put on a smile, “I can’t wait, babe.” 

He waits until you get into your building before giving a little wave and then heading on his way. 

After you close the door behind you and collapse onto your bed, you heave a sigh and finally let the smile slip from your lips. So there would be a Valentine’s date this year after all; the anticipation makes your heart speed up the slightest but at the same time makes you all the more anxious. You thought that he really would end things today, and if not, that you should be the one to do so. But seeing him after so long, feeling the way the warmth of his touch lingers on your skin, basking in the brightness of his smiles, you simply couldn’t utter those words. 

Perhaps Valentine’s Day wouldn’t be the right time to do it either, or maybe your date won’t end up happening for whatever reason. You know that this is something you have to do, but the question is how exactly would you go about doing it? Because there is one major problem. 

You’re not dating Jeonghan at all. 

One moment in high school is what started this whole thing.

It was eleventh grade drama class—which Jeonghan thought would be fun to take as an elective—that resulted in the two of you being cast in the school play. Although neither of you landed a role that was remotely close to important, Jeonghan decided to have fun with it and improvise during your one minute of screen time and that somehow turned your insignificant cameos into a beautiful romance that had the audience rooting for you. 

And that very moment somehow managed to embed itself so deeply in your relationship with Jeonghan that it became a long running joke to this day. 

Today you’re sitting across from Soonyoung and Seungkwan again, with Mingyu beside you this time. Almost an exact replica of last week’s meetup, but Chan already has plans and Jeonghan is very obviously missing—something Soonyoung points out immediately.

“Wow, no Jeonghan today?” he says loudly even before the hostess is out of earshot. The people at the two tables nearby glance in your direction and you start to regret coming here at all. “We really won this one. Y/N, we should do this more often.” 

You definitely should not. “Um, yeah. Totally.” 

Last week’s meeting with your friends is what gave you the idea to consult with them about your situation. You first suggested the idea to Mingyu, and then used the prospect of free food to get Soonyoung and Seungkwan to come out, and naturally, Chan is busy so it ends up being the four of you at brunch. Which is better on your wallet, you think. You get the feeling that this quarterly meetup can totally happen more often if you were to make this offer every time. 

As for what you’re about to ask… well, truthfully, you still don’t know if you should even do it. You’ve gone so many years without saying a word that it’d simply be odd to ask now, plus you would run the risk of making everything weird. But if you don’t do it, you would only end up making it weird anyway because how much longer can you go on pretending?

Besides, it’s not only you and Jeonghan who are prolonging this inside joke for way longer than it should’ve lasted. All of your friends should be in on it if they treat the two of you like a couple too. 

The waiter comes by to take your orders, and you try not to wince at the entire list that comes out of Soonyoung and Seungkwan’s mouths. Mingyu gets the least, seemingly knowing that something is up if the worried glances he throws your way is anything to go by. 

Once the waiter leaves, that’s when the small talk stops and all eyes turn to you.

“So what did you want to talk about?” Soonyoung asks with a goofy grin. “Since Jeonghan’s not here, does that mean you need help with Valentine’s Day plans or something?” 

Beside him, Seungkwan has the complete opposite expression as he eyes you warily between sips of his americano.

You take a huge swig of water like it’s liquid courage, and then go for it. “This is going to sound weird…” you start, trying not to notice the way Seungkwan tenses up as if bracing for your words, “but I wanted to ask you guys what my relationship with Jeonghan is.” 

Silence. Complete, dead silence. 

Soonyoung freezes like he’s in a photograph while Seungkwan’s hand holding his americano hangs in mid air as a drop of the drink dribbles down the side of his lip. 

“Sorry, what?” It’s Soonyoung who recovers first. “I think I heard that wrong.” 

You shake your head. “Just tell me.” 

“You’re asking us what your relationship with your own boyfriend is?” 

“Boyfriend—exactly!” You have to hold back all the thoughts you have on the topic. “Yeah, that’s what I mean. So you think he’s my boyfriend? That we’re dating?” 

Soonyoung frowns but it’s Seungkwan who answers, exasperated. “Y/N, what are you trying to say here? Are you trying to say you guys broke up? Or do you think we don’t know you well enough and this is a test? Can you say whatever it is directly—” 

“Jeonghan and I aren’t together.”

There, you said it. Your biggest secret is out.

It should make you relieved to finally let out the secret you’ve been harbouring for years or it should at least alleviate some of the weight on your chest, but it doesn’t. The silence in the wake of your confession only closes in on you and makes it all the more suffocating.

“Any—anymore?”

“No. We were never together.”

The bit of silence from earlier repeats itself. Maybe you should become a speaker or presenter with your ability to draw such reactions from a crowd.

Seungkwan noisily sets down his drink and then leans forward with a frown. He’s still in denial, that much is obvious, and he narrows his eyes as he asks, “Is this a joke? A hidden camera? Are you trying to prank us like Jeonghan—”

“No, I’m completely serious. It’s really not what it seems, and this is why I’m asking you guys what you see us as because at this point I don’t even know the answer myself.” 

With a deep breath, you tell them the truth about this entire thing.

You tell them about the high school play and your impromptu acting, and how that led for the two of you to become the famous couple at school afterwards. Sure, it might’ve been a good thing because that meant your acting was believable. But to two people who were interested in just about anything except love at that age, it was annoying and gross. 

After the show when the shippers wouldn’t stop, the two of you decided to do what you do best—pull a prank. You spent that Valentine’s Day together as a joke and acted extra disgusting to mock couples while making fun of how stupid people were to believe whatever you showed them. In twelfth grade, the two of you did the same for Valentine’s Day and then even went to prom together as a joke. 

In recent years, however, the annual joke of a Valentine’s Day date has turned into his Christmas and your Lunar New Year, his cousin’s graduation, your coworker’s housewarming, and Lee Chan’s wedding. It’s made you on a texting basis with his sister and it’s made him familiar with all your favourite food spots and go-to orders. It’s turned him into someone who’s simultaneously as distant as an acquaintance yet closer than a best friend. 

And so, here you are, living an entire lie because you and Jeonghan had the whole world fooled.

“That’s insane,” Soonyoung says when you finally finish the story, unable to look your way and instead, stares into his drink with how mind blown he is.

Seungkwan, on the other hand, remains a bit skeptical. “Okay, but then what was with all that PDA?All the kissing? Is this some sort of situationship?” 

“Oh, um.” Immediately you can feel your cheeks heating up. You didn’t think this far at all but now it seems like the entire truth will have to come out. “All of it was fake. We’ve… never actually kissed.” 

That drama class has taught you more than you needed to know about manipulating angles and the audience’s perception, and Jeonghan is very good at it. Your fake kisses were often just a trick of the angle or occasionally using the thumb trick, and having seen the evidence captured in photos over the years, you know how convincing it can look.

Now, it’s embarrassing to admit for reasons you never would’ve imagined. Admitting to pulling a childish prank like this is one thing, but the realization that you and Jeonghan have faked it for so long without ever once making it real has you feeling almost dejected.

“I always knew Jeonghan was crazy but I didn’t know he’d be *this* crazy.” Soonyoung now has his head in his hands and is staring off into space. “This is the most insane story I’ve ever heard. I’m not sure if I should be happy for you or sad.” 

You give a wry smile. “Yeah, well, I get why you would think we were together though. You met us in college and wouldn’t have known about what happened in the past so I guess there would never be a reason to question it.” 

Beside you, Mingyu clears his throat and you turn to look at him. He’s been so quiet throughout your story that you were too busy focusing on the reactions of the other two, but looking at him now, his reaction is entirely different. Mingyu isn’t as surprised as he is concerned. “Actually, Y/N, a few years ago…” he says hesitantly, “there was a time when I asked him if you were actually dating.” 

“You did? What did he say?”

“He didn’t deny it.”

“Well, we all know how he loves to be ambiguous and leave things a mystery.”

Mingyu shakes his head. “No—see, that’s what I thought too, but it was different that time. At first he didn’t deny it, but when I pushed a bit more, he said that you’re dating. In actual words and with the most serious look I’ve ever seen on his face.” 

This is news to you. You always assumed that they were all in on the joke and would’ve never guessed that anyone actually asked Jeonghan, but the fact that he answered that way is all the more baffling. 

“I don’t get it. Why would he tell you that?” 

“Yeah, so,” Soonyoung says, “from then on we all thought that was fully confirmed, and he never said or implied otherwise.” 

“Right…”

Mingyu nudges you gently. “Y/N, are you telling us about this now because you’re planning on stopping the act? Has it been bothering you? Or did something happen?” 

“Is that why you wanted to tell us today?” Soonyoung lets out a dramatic gasp and leans all the back in his chair, hands over his mouth. “Don’t tell me—are you going to stop the act because you have a crush on someone?”

“What? No, definitely not. It’s not that, it’s—” 

Here’s the next part of your big secret being revealed, something you weren’t entirely ready for but you tell yourself that this needs to happen. 

It’s because of your feelings for Jeonghan. Your very real, very genuine feelings that have nothing to do with this prank.

Truthfully, you can’t pinpoint when you started feeling this way, much like you’re not sure how this joke was able to stick around for so long. It could be the most recent development—when your friend tried to convince you to hop on a dating app, all you could think about was how wrong it felt because you already had Jeonghan. Or maybe it was the Valentine’s Day just before college graduation when he leaned in so closely you thought he was going to kiss you, for real this time, and then only realizing much later that you were disappointed that it wasn’t real. 

Or perhaps it started way back, to the time he asked you to prom—he said he didn’t have a date only for you to later find out he’d already rejected two promposals from other people. All for your fake relationship, supposedly.

And now, for you, what has started as a harmless prank has turned into something much more than that over the years. 

Everyone looks like they're at a loss for words after that part, and even Soonyoung has lost his enthusiasm after hearing it. “Shit, that’s…” he starts. “Okay, yeah, I’m definitely sad for you.” 

Seungkwan and Mingyu have similar sentiments but you wave them off, eager to lighten the mood again after such heavy topics. The food on the table has been long finished and you’re beginning to feel like you’re overstaying your welcome when there’s a crowd waiting at the front of the restaurant. “It’s fine, it’s whatever. I just wanted to get this off my chest today so that I can figure things out before I see him in a few days.” 

A while later, you finish paying and then all head out together. 

The conversation continues to replay itself in your head, and you realize there is one thing you’re curious about. You turn to Mingyu. “By the way—Mingyu, why *did* you ask Jeonghan if we were actually dating?”

Mingyu stops mid-stride and freezes like a deer in headlights, clearly not expecting your question at all. “I—um, I was asking for a friend.” 

“A friend?”

“Yeah, Chan.” He nods a few times in a row. “I thought Chan had a crush on you and I was trying to help him out.”

Strange, seeing as you’ve probably interacted with Chan the least among your friend group. He’s simply too booked and busy to hang out with you, and has been all throughout your college years together. 

Oh, and he’s married.

“Like, before he met his wife?” you ask.

Soonyoung starts to cough furiously from where he is a few steps ahead while Mingyu’s cheeks redden the slightest bit. 

You vaguely remember the first time the two of you did this, and how it wasn’t anything like how it’s going now. 

Tonight is the night you’re supposed to go on your date with Jeonghan, and you’ve been buzzing with nerves since the night before. You have no idea what to expect for tonight since all he told you about it was to show up at his apartment, and that in itself was slightly concerning as you’ve never been to his home before nor has he been so secretive about any plans. Usually the two of you would be going to a casual place or would have the schedule shared ahead of time if it was a more formal event that needed preparation. 

Jeonghan buzzes you in when you arrive and before you can say you’ll wait for him in the lobby, he tells you to go up to his unit. Again, a bit strange. You do as he asks though, and then even go to knock on the door when there’s no sign of him coming out.

When he opens the door and steps aside, that’s when everything clicks—you’re not here so that he can get his car and take you to your date location. This *is* the date location.

Beyond the doorway, you can see that his apartment is completely decorated. Rose petals line the sides of the hall and lead to the dining table, covered in a deep red tablecloth and perfectly set for your meal. Beside it, a large bouquet of roses rests at the center of the sideboard surrounded by a row of flickering candles which light up the space.

Even without knowing what his home normally looks like, it’s obvious that all this would’ve taken a lot of effort to set up.

“Jeonghan, why did you prepare all this?”

He gives you a dazzling smile. “Because my darling deserves the best, of course. I told you I was going to make it up to you for cancelling Christmas.” 

“Babe, that’s too sweet of you. You really didn’t have to.” You try to return his smile but it doesn’t come easy when this whole situation is overwhelming. Then you let him take your coat and then guide you to the dining table where everything is set up. 

Only when you’re seated do you realize that his response doesn’t answer your question at all. 

The scent of the roses fill the room and looking at them gives you a pang in your heart. This is what the two of you used to make fun of—these big, romantic gestures, and the couples that willingly eat them up. Now it’s as if the tables have turned and you don’t know what to think. 

If this were in public, in front of your friends or other people, you would’ve said that it was another funny gesture that Jeonghan put up for the sake of making them cringe. Because the two of you were the perfect joking, prankster couple, right? 

Now that it’s just you and him here, it confuses you as to why he’s going to such lengths for a joke when it’s something that no one else would see, when there’s no audience to watch his performance. 

You watch as Jeonghan busies himself in the kitchen, serving the food that he’s prepared and pouring the wine into glasses while glancing your way every once in a while. He looks pleased, you note, and he should be if he got his space to look this beautiful. But you can sense that there’s something else too, almost like a nervousness that sits on his shoulder every time he breezes past you and makes eye contact for the briefest second.

After everything is ready, he finally takes a seat across from you and the dinner begins.

Making small talk is easy at first; you comment on your surprise at this type of date, talk about how cold it’s been lately and how it sucks that your company is forcing you to go back into the office. You ask him how his holiday went and how his family has been, and mention how cute his sister’s new puppy is after seeing a post about it on her social media. 

You know you’re just delaying the inevitable. Somehow you get the feeling he knows it too, judging by the way his answers are shorter than usual and how your conversation feels so superficial. So this time after there’s a lull in the conversation, you decide to go for it.

"Jeonghan, um…"

"Hmm?" He looks at you and waits for you to continue, but you don't. Or rather, you can't. "Ah, you're going to comment on how good this is, right?" he says instead, as if supplying you with a way out.

You're all too eager to grab onto it. "Wow, you read my mind." An enthusiastic nod, a slight look of surprise. "It's amazing. Did you make all this yourself?"

Jeonghan shakes his head and then follows up with a sheepish smile. "Partly. The rest is store bought."

Another nod, and then it just ends there again. Seated in this spot with the soft lighting of flickering candles cast against the wall and the heat of Jeonghan's gaze on you, the feeling of discomfort only grows. It's hard to remember what the two of you were like before, during the days when everything seemed so silly–when each move was a clearly defined act between two actors and the world was your stage. And most importantly, when each smile he showed you didn't send your stomach into somersaults or your mind into a loop of second guessing. 

The air is so heavy and stifling that you grab your glass and down a large gulp of the wine. At least when you're drinking, you wouldn’t have to speak, whether that might be responding to him in a way that gives away all of your thoughts, or completely spilling them out yourself. Maybe the alcohol will also drown out some of your anxieties and–

"Hey, slow down." Jeonghan glances at you with worry. "We have all night."

You set the glass down, albeit a bit reluctantly. "Right, sorry. This wine is just so good."

Yet another lie, but what's one more at this point? The wine is much too sour and leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. You would've much preferred a soda or bubble tea, and drinking something fancy like this during such a fancy occasion makes you feel like you're pretending to be someone you're not.

Which is exactly what you're doing, isn't it? You've been living a lie this entire time.

You briefly wonder if Jeonghan feels the same way—the two of you have never properly spent time alone in complete privacy, and to have your first time be in such a formal atmosphere must feel strange. But if he's uncomfortable, he makes no sign of showing it. Or maybe he's always been the better actor of the two of you.

“You know, since you mentioned seasonal depression, I was thinking that for Christmas this year we should go somewhere. Somewhere warm and sunny to get away from the cold.”

“Oh, this year?” you repeat stupidly when you can’t quite believe what you’re hearing. Jeonghan wants to continue this thing? And here you were, thinking that he was about to end it at any moment for the past few months. “Um, yeah. That would be nice.” 

“Or it could be a fall trip. Your parents have been wanting to go see the leaves change colour, right?” 

There’s no hint of sarcasm on his face and no playful twinkle in his eye, and even though no one can read him very well, you know enough to tell that he’s being serious. You also know that what he’s saying makes no sense at all.

“Right, yeah. They’ve been wanting to do that.” 

“Y/N, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” you reply automatically, and then reach for another long gulp of your drink. “Yup, all good.”

Jeonghan frowns, a tiny crease appearing between his brows. “Are you sure? If you want to talk about it, I’m here to listen.” 

It’s strange, the way he looks at you. Jeonghan, who dances around questions and deflects easily with humour and only shows people what he wants them to see, now has worry filling his eyes as he waits for you to continue. As if he *knows*.

You doubt Soonyoung and Seungkwan would have spilled your secret so easily, but there’s a great possibility that the two of them would be unable to act normal around him after what they learned, and unintentionally hint at the truth. Then there’s the other possibility that Jeonghan knew way before any of this. Because maybe he—

No, you don’t want to think about that.

“It’s just that,” you say, having to force yourself to pause and slow down your thoughts before something terrible comes spewing out. A slow inhale, a shaky exhale. “Why are we here, Jeonghan?”

His frown deepens, but now it’s turned into confusion. “What do you mean?”

“What are we doing? This date has been nice, but I’m just very confused over why you put so much effort into this when there’s no one else around to see it. Weren’t we doing all of this as a joke? As a prank? Pretending to be a couple so that we can fool the world since that’s exactly what they wanted to see, but joke’s on them because we’re not?” 

Jeonghan watches you silently with an unreadable look on his face. “Is that how you feel?”

“’Well, yes, because isn’t that the truth? And now, we’ve been doing so much together that it doesn’t feel like a joke anymore. How can it be when your mom is offering to give me homemade side dishes? Or—or when Chan’s wife was there, smiling at us on her wedding day like she wished we’d be just as happy as they are?” You pause to look at him and then proceed to look away. “How long are we going to continue lying to the world? Because I can’t stand the guilt.”

The last part of that may be true, but it’s not the full truth. 

“Yeah, you’re right. We don’t have to keep doing this.”

“W—what?” You stare at him, dumbfounded. 

Jeonghan sighs deeply and then meets your eyes, but then quickly looks away. “Yeah, we should’ve left this in high school. The joke has kind of gotten old, hasn’t it?” 

You have no idea what he means by any of that, but it feels like you’re better off not knowing. The tension in the air is thick, and even when you imagined your fake breakup hundreds of times in your head, this is not something you could have predicted. It’s as you’re on a precipice, and one wrong move will delete all those years, all that time you spent with him. 

And the worst part is that you don’t even want to break up.

“Jeonghan, look. I know all of this is supposed to be a joke, but why is it that it feels like you really do care?” One last deep breath before you make the jump. “And why is it that I *want* you to care?” 

That has him stunned for a second, so much that the expression is obvious on his face in a way that almost never happens. 

“Wait, what? I do care. No, I get that we started all this for fun back then, but that’s not how I feel about it now. Everything we’ve done is real—trust me, I wouldn’t have brought you to my family if that wasn’t the case. And I never thought I was lying to them. It’s exaggerated, yes, and much too dramatic, but I’m not a good enough actor where all that can be based on a complete lie.” 

You braced yourself for the final blow, only to be completely confused over his words. “What are you saying?” 

“Y/N, it’s always been real to me. All of it.” 

“But—but I thought you wanted to stop all this when you cancelled our plans for Christmas. Why did you do that?”

Jeonghan opens his mouth a little but then closes it again. “Do you remember last year at Chan’s wedding when you caught the bouquet?” 

You nod but don’t hide your confusion about where this is going.

“After you caught it, everyone was looking at you… and then at me. It was like they all expected us to be next, because well,” he shrugs, “everyone thought we were together. And that’s when I realized that this is more than simply feeling like it’s real. We were turning it into something real.”

“So you called off Christmas because you wanted to stop doing this? Because you hated how it was becoming real?” 

“No,” Jeonghan shakes his head. “The opposite. I was afraid of how much I liked that it felt real. That day at the wedding, I—I wanted to kiss you for real, Y/N. Not have to fake it.” 

“Oh…”

“If we did meet up for Christmas, I don’t know what might’ve happened. I thought it was safer to stay away for a bit and gather my thoughts.” He hesitates slightly and you can see the pained smile he has on. “But one day into the holidays and I was already regretting my decision.” 

You don’t know what to say to that. Your mind is hardly listening anymore when it keeps on repeating Jeonghan’s words like a broken record, screaming to you that it’s real, that all of it is real. That you’re not the only one who’s been feeling this way, and that you won’t need to stage a fake breakup for your fake relationship. 

“Are you okay?” he asks, breaking you out of your thoughts.

“I’m just—are you sure all this is real? Jeonghan, are you being serious?”

He breaks into a tender smile. “Don’t you remember? I already answered you back then, Y/N.”

“What do you mean?” 

“You asked me if I’d be your darling, even if thousands of miles may separate us, even if—” 

“—if the paths we walk may crumble,” you finish off. “Or something like that. I actually have no idea what we said back then.”

Those were the lines in the play that you did back in high school, the very lines that the two of you conjured out of thin air one day and the very moment that started this whole thing. 

“Yeah, that,” he says softly.

“Hmm, so, babe,” you put on your usual mockingly sweet tone, repeating the line that you said on stage many years ago, “are you going to kiss me?” 

Jeonghan holds back a smile like he can’t contain his happiness, and follows with his line without missing a beat. “If that’s what my darling wants.”

The smile only widens when he gets up from his seat and you go to meet him halfway, and it’s the last thing you see when he leans in closer and closer. Jeonghan gently slides his thumb between his lips and yours as he closes the distance, like how it was done the very first time, but this time you can feel it as he slowly moves it away. 

Then you’re kissing him, actually kissing him for real for the first time. His lips are soft and warm, and the bit of hesitance between you seems to completely melt away as you wrap your arms around him and he pulls you closer. You let yourself drown in his scent, the warmth of his touch, and the loud pounding of your heart now that you no longer have to be paying attention to the reactions of the people around you. Nothing else matters anymore, all that matters is what you have now.

You spend the rest of the night catching up, whether that’d be stories over the years of shared memories, or creating new memories to make up for the lost time. He tells you he loves you and that the trip suggestions were very much real, and the two of you laugh over how you’ve become the exact couple you once mocked. It’s easy to understand them now though, you think as Jeonghan gives you a sleepy smile as you’re cuddled up on the couch.

“Oh yeah, I wanted to ask something,” you say, and he looks at you in alarm at your abruptness. “Why did you tell Mingyu that we were together?”

Jeonghan stays silent for a bit, narrowing his eyes as if having difficulty recalling what you’re talking about. Then he finally answers. “Oh that?” He chuckles. “That was because I didn’t want him to think he had a chance with you.”

[messervixen]

Lily should have survived.

“Harry was saved by his mother’s love-“ Let me stop you right there.

I present to you: James Fleamont Potter.

You’re telling me that James didn’t love Lily and Harry enough to evoke the ancient love magic that Lily saved Harry with?

Mr. “Had an ego the size of a lake but a heart to match it?”

He loved both of them so much that he literally died trying to give them a chance to escape and that wasn’t enough?

I don’t buy it.

The only semi-logical explanation I can come up with is that he didn’t have his wand and maybe you can’t do something like that wand-less but did Lily have her wand?

Even then we’re talking about a guy who literally became an illegal animagus at the ripe age of 15.

He also loves and cares for people so deeply and it was LOVE MAGIC.

Look me in the eyes and tell me James Potter couldn’t have just saved BOTH of them without his wand.

Exactly, you can’t.

Honestly I could go on about all of the reasons James and Lily dying didn’t even make sense.

This is just another thing that makes me question why they died the way they did.

Them dying on an order mission would’ve been more realistic. There were just too many plot holes in them dying in Godric’s Hollow.

In conclusion, the ending of the first war didn’t make sense. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

Edit:

Guys this post is not that serious I just mean that everything about what happened that night and the explanation for all of it felt like a stretch and kinda vague to me 😭

Even with the stuff about James not having a choice. Like yeah Voldemort didn’t verbally give him the option to back off but James still made the choice to try and hold him off.

Also James was a Pureblood and Voldemort made it known that he would spare them if they didn’t fight him because his whole thing was blood purity.

So like the “Lily was given a choice” still feels so vague to me.

Also Voldemort making the promise to Snape feels weird. Snape asked him not to kill Lily but Voldemort said that he wouldn’t as long as she didn’t get in his way. And Lily did get in his way of killing Harry so he didn’t break that promise by killing her.

Yeah he probably could’ve just knocked her out or something but he still didn’t break any promises.

And the whole reason Snape joined Dumbledore before the end of the first war is because he didn’t think Lily would just let Voldemort kill her son. He didn’t make an unbreakable vow or anything so Snape knew that Voldemort would probably kill Lily.