#I’m lucky that it’s November so still dark outside so I might just manage to get some sleep

[malachitezmeyka]

FUCK

I DID IT

I FUCKING DID IT

IT INVOLVED HAVING TO DOWNLOAD A BLOCKER APP SO I WOULDN’T BE TEMPTED TO GET DISTRACTED BY GOING ON TUMBLR OR PINTEREST OR WHATEVER, AND STAYING UP UNTIL 6 A.M, BUT I DID IT

I FINISHED CHAPTER 2 OF AIDIB

[ghostlywritten]

If Only I Had Stayed In The Shadows - Chapter Four

James Potter x OC

Words: 3,3k

Prologue  Chapter One  Chapter Two   Chapter Three

A few weeks passed and we soon had reached the second half of November. By now, it was snowing heavily on the Hogwarts grounds, footsteps barely printing the ground before it was filled with a new batch of the white powder.

The classrooms were thankfully warmed and for once I didn't wish the lessons to end to avoid going outside. Letters to and from the outside world had stopped unless it was a big emergency to let the poor owls rest. Lucky for me, I had sent the last letter for the year to my parents consisting of the message that I would not do an internship at the Hospital Wing in the near future (or at all, but pssh). Lucky because my parents wouldn't send our family owl back no matter how angry they would get. Thus, I wouldn't have to think about their wrath until Christmas break.

Madam Pomfrey - whom I started calling Poppy in my head after hearing Dumbledore call her that once - still got half of the small packages of sweets once a week without a word. The other half went into James' stomach, who insisted he could still maintain his abs with playing Quidditch.

Practice was a pain in the ass and the next game against Slytherin was not something anyone of us were looking forward to. Especially the Captain was annoying during the time before this game, insisting to have more sessions than normally scheduled.

It was usual for people to watch practice – mainly the respective partners or friends – but only the supportive – and therefor maniac – ones would stay outside in a blizzard-like weather like this. I tried sneaking off from time to time but James was always already there to intercept me in my escape route.

Imagine my surprise when I saw not only Marlene next to Alice but also Lily, huddled closely together on the stands between the other stranded ones.

"Alright Beaters up now, I'm gonna release the Bludgers. Try to improve your aim." Sirius und Frank grumbled as they stayed up on their brooms whilst the rest of us got down, breathing heavily. "We are probably going to have to play in a weather like this! So we better be prepared!" James yelled after them, releasing the Bludgers.

"Have you looked at the stands already?" I asked as I resisted the urge to huddle into him, choosing to just place myself behind him for wind protection.

"Yeah, I'm always on the look-out for the sneaky snakes," James replied with a smirk over his shoulder, causing my heart to leap slightly.

"A-alright…but have you also noticed a certain red-head up there to your right?" I leaned over just in time to see his eyes flicker towards that area.

"Yeah, I have noticed," he said with an indifferent tone.

I raised an eyebrow, waiting for a second, "…And?"

"And what?"

"That's it?"

"What do you mean?"

"You see the love of your life and all you have to say is 'Yeah, I have noticed'," I mimicked his voice, causing him to raise an eyebrow at me, "Didn't you promise that you wouldn't give up on her? I haven't seen you trying to pursue her in the past weeks."

James stayed quiet for a while, shouting an order towards the two Beaters. "James?"

The dark-haired boy sighed before he turned to face me, "And what about you? I haven't seen you try to get that internship, either."

"I have!"

"Leaving the sweets at her door is not trying."

"How do you know about that?" I asked surprised.

"I have my ways," he winked, "So what's going on?"

It was my turn to sigh this time, "...She is just been stressed and very unapproachable. Especially last week…," I hinted, watching his smile fade in realisation. It had been a full moon night. He cleared his throat awkwardly, "Well, you should maybe not try then anymore."

"….Oh? All of a sudden?"

"Yeah. And I'm not gonna try, either."

"What?" I stared at him in surprise, "What happened?"

"Nothing, I'm just sick of chasing something that seems unavailable," James said indifferently, "That promise was a dumb thing to do."

I swallowed slightly, wondering why I felt hurt about him breaking our promise. "Hey, listen," he appeased, noticing my expression, "I mean, I shouldn't have made you promise to keep asking her when it seems that she won't budge at all."

Nodding, I figured he was right. I wasn't really trying for good reason anyways. And he seemed to have realised that it wouldn't work out, either. But how…

"Why do you think that all of a sudden?"

"Er…," he scratched his neck, "I might have tried to persuade her to take you in." My eyes bulged. "What?!"

"Yeah…I kind of…had a slight – a very slight – suspicion why she wouldn't take you in as an intern," he started slowly, looking everywhere but at you, "And I offered a solution…but she still refused."

I stared at the shuffling boy in front of me, "You…tried to get that internship…for me?" My voice was almost breathless as I thought about what he had done more deeply; he had actually tried to find a solution for me despite his best friend's secret. "What- what was that suspicion?" I forced myself to ask, wondering what he would tell me.

"It doesn't really matter," he waved off quickly, "I just suggested to her to schedule your training periods around the…suspicion…yeah…and it didn't work."

…

I had the sudden strong urge to grab him by his Quidditch robes and kiss him senseless.

"Thank you, James," I said sincerely, blushing at my own thoughts, "Really…that's the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me." His cheeks already slightly flushed from the harsh wind reddened some more. "It's nothing."

"No, it's not nothing," I insisted, placing my hand on his arm. He didn't know I knew but I still wanted him to understand how important that was to me, "I'm really, really thankful, James."

"It didn't even work out, you don't have to be so embarrassing now," James tried to joke slightly, swallowing as he watched my beaming smile. Biting my lip, I forced to keep my arms down in order to not crush him into a hug, "Why are you staring at me like a creep?"

I shook my head with a grin, "I guess I'm just surprised what a sweet person you can be?" He spluttered slightly in protest, "Oh yes, Potter. Underneath all that prankster façade is a tiny, sweet boy…," I teased him before turning slightly serious, "who would do anything for his friends."

James puffed out his chest in pride, nodding, "I agree with the last part."

Laughing, I shook my head and let go of his arm. "I owe you something, siriusly."

"It didn't work out, though?" James questioned before shaking his head, "Nevermind, why am I complaining?" I laughed again as the Beaters went down, puffing heavily.

"Are we done yet?" Sirius huffed.

"Oh. Sorry, Padfoot! I didn't watch. Do it again!" James yelled over the wind, causing the two to groan in annoyance, "Hey, now. This is not the way to groan at your Captain!"

"Stop flirting then and pay attention!"

I was glad for the harsh wind now as it hid my tomato face. James chuckled slightly, "Sorry Pads. Couldn't resist."

"Oi, what the hell are you on about?" I grumbled, punching his arm.

"Ouch, woman," James complained, and I rolled my eyes, it wasn't even that hard of a hit, "I was just kidding. Now get your ass up there. It's time for an actual game!"

Needless to say, practice got us cold and sore after another hour, leaving us to yearn for nothing but a nice hot shower. I was about to head inside the lockers room, smiling tiredly at Marlene, Lily and Alice as they came up when James called me back to him.

Figuring he was just going to comment on my training session, I trudged back with curses muttered under my breath.

"Are you going to Slug's Party this weekend?" James asked outright and I blinked for a second in surprise at the sudden topic.

"Yeah, why?"

"Cool, let's go together then," he suggested, ruffling my hair with a quiet smirk as I stared at him dumbfounded.

"Ehm, what?" I mumbled; my words overshadowed by Marlene's shriek of 'WHAT', "Why?"

"Why not?" James asked back, leaving me slightly speechless when I had no argument against it either. "It's settled then. I will pick you up at the Common Room at eight."

"Alright," I muttered as he walked backwards towards the locker rooms, waving goodbye at me before he turned and went inside.

What just happened?

-

"I told you!" Marlene squealed, bouncing on her bed as we all got ready for the evening, "I told all your asses this would happen!"

I rolled my eyes as I shuffled into a plain blue dress, charmed to keep me warm and deciding to just leave my hair down for once.

"What do you mean?" Lily asked indifferently, looking stunning in her long red dress whilst she put on some earrings. She even managed to straighten her hair, which I still wondered why she would in the first place. I had straight hair, so I am a reliable source when I say it's boring.

"I mean," Marlene pressed, "That James Potter has actually started to look elsewhere for once. And his eyes are now set on Cecily!"

"You are being ridiculous," I said, trying to hide the tiny flush creeping up my cheeks, "He asked me as a friend. And you are still my date, you know?"

"Doesn't matter," the brown-haired beauty said dismissively, "It's the first step to romance. Pretending to be friends."

"Then why hasn't he ever tried to use that move on Lily?" I pointed out and she went quiet for a second, pondering on it before she said, "He's just dumb." A collective sigh resounded through the room. "I'm serious, though. Why is no one seeing this but me? It's so exciting, too. Cecily is finally getting a boyfriend!"

I sat down on my bed to put on my shoes, a tiny smile gracing my lips without my intention. "Look, how happy she is!" Marlene pointed at me almost accusingly as she looked at the others for confirmation.

"Oh, shut up already," I grumbled, embarrassed and she threw me a sleazy wink.

"Lily, what do you think?" she suddenly asked the too quiet girl in the back, who was absently fiddling with a chain in her hand.

"What?" she asked, blinking slightly.

I smiled. 'Who is the daydreaming one now?' "You need help with that?" I asked, ignoring Marlene's chatter in the background about my non-existent love life. Lily nodded, smiling back softly but stayed quiet otherwise.

"You must be relieved, too, Lils," Alice suddenly pointed out, appearing from the bathroom in a cute white dress, "With James finally stopping his pestering."

"Yes, for sure," Lily said but I noticed the usual fervour in her voice whenever she talked about James was missing, leaving it mellow. As I looked up, she was watching me through the mirror with a thoughtful expression.

"Everything alright?" I asked and she simply nodded, turning away with a 'Let's go'. Shrugging to myself, I followed the girls out towards the Common Room, fashionably late…I hated being late.

"Damn, what took you so long?" James greeted me with an eyeroll as he stood up from his hunched position with Sirius in front of the fireplace.

"Hello James. I'm fine, thank you. You look fancy yourself," I said sarcastically, and he gave me a peeved look, though his lips were twitching upwards.

"You would be the same if someone made you wait for half an hour, woman," he complained after the others greeted each other and we started heading towards the dungeons.

"I would still be polite in my greetings," I said poshly whilst wondering about the eager-looking Sirius peeking at us over James' shoulder.

"Oh yeah?"

"No. I would punch you for wasting my time." James laughed quietly, hooking my arm through his as we walked down the steps. "Hello Sirius, by the way."

Sirius perked up. "Hello to you too, dear Cecily. How are you feeling this fine evening?" he asked with a overly nasal tone.

"I'm feeling just splendid," I replied in the same voice. James made a face when I gave him a look. "This is how you greet someone, James."

"Please no," Sirius said in his normal tone, "It's the way purebloods greet each other."

"I was just going to say that reminded me of the way Slytherins talk," James laughed, causing some peers around us with green ties to glare in our direction.

"Or Ravenclaws when they recite something from the books in class," I added, and they nodded in agreement.

We entered Slughorn's class and I had to momentarily blink at the different sight from the usual dark interior. Every year Slughorn would change the décor and theme of the party although it would always be a little Christmas-like for a little thrill of anticipation. For me, it only reminded me of all the presents I had yet to shop for.

"Hello, my dear students," Slughorn greeted us with wide arms, ushering us inside, "My my, almost all my best students from Sixth Year at once!"

"Except for Marlene," I muttered, nudging the girl's shoulder teasingly and she slapped my arm painfully. Hey, she got here only because of me, I was allowed to poke fun at her for once. Her glare turned into a smirk when she noticed the arm hooked around James' and I looked away pointedly, ignoring her giggles at my red cheeks.

"Professor Slughorn, you have really outdone yourself with the decoration," Lily commented politely as the rest of us saw no point in making conversation with him and longingly stared at the food across the room instead.

"Finally," I muttered, grabbing myself a plate and handing one over to James to pile up something to eat. Marlene had slapped my hand away from anything edible throughout the whole day, insisting to keep my stomach from bloating to have a good figure for my dress. A dress that wasn't even tight-fitting.

"Someone's hungry," James remarked as he watched the pile on my plate grow higher and higher.

"Got a problem with a girl eating?" I asked with a raised eyebrow playfully and he grinned. "Not at all," he replied and put a cherry on top of my pile, causing us to chuckle.

We spent the first hour sitting down on one of the tables and chatting about nonsense as we ate, Slughorn occasionally fluttering past us, stopping for a quick talk and leaving as fast to attend to others. Looking around I was positive that there had never been so many people at one of his parties than this time around.

"He must be still looking for potential candidates for his trophy stand," James mused as if reading my thoughts. I noticed he did that a lot; knowing exactly what I was thinking.

"Hm, we must not be enough for him then," I commented. Sirius placed a hand over his heart dramatically, "How can you say that? We are lovely!"

"Lovely doesn't get you anywhere," James argued and puffed his chest out as I laughed, "Manliness does."

"Touché," Sirius agreed, puffing his chest out as well.

"You look like dumb idiots," I said with a shake of my head, still chuckling.

"Dumb and idiot mean the same," James said in a posh tone that would make a Ravenclaw proud.

"Two are better than one to describe your idiocy," I said, causing them splutter indignantly, "Oh hush. I'm just joking."

"You wound me still," Sirius said with a sniff.

The evening continued with the same light conversation and I couldn't help but settle in my position comfortably. Usually I would feel totally out of place in social circles like these, having a hard time to come up with mindless small talk, but it was somewhat easier with James on my side and Sirius on his respectively. The tables disappeared after a while to clear space for the dance floor, leaving me to mourn after the food that went with it.

"Now let's shag some legs!" Slughorn exclaimed enthusiastically. I choked on my drink whilst Sirius and James had a hard time keeping their laughter in as the music started blaring louder, soft classic music making space for some Wrock bands.

"Is that actually a real Muggle phrase?" Sirius asked between his barks of laughter whilst I watched Lily talk to Slughorn with a flustered face, probably trying to explain the right phrase to him. I bet you ten galleons that she was the one telling him about it in the first place.

"Something along the lines," I said with a small grin, rolling my eyes at the cackling boys next to me.

My feet were starting to ache from the heels Marlen had forced on me after a few more hours and I couldn't help but sigh in relief as James agreed to leave the slowly dwindling party close to midnight. "This was actually nice for once," James interrupted the sudden silence surrounding us, my ears still pounding from the too loud music.

"Yeah, it was way more fun than usual," I agreed.

"Was it because of me?" James asked with a wide grin and I rolled my eyes, bending down to get rid of my shoes to hide my blush. The dark-haired boy gave me his arm for support, and I sighed in relief as my aching feet hit the cool ground, immediately soothing my sore joints, "Wow, those heels were really high, weren't they? You are suddenly ten inches smaller."

"Oi, I'm not that small," I protested, looking back up only to have to crane my neck to see his crooked grin. "Oh, shut up," I mumbled, suddenly shy as I noticed how close we were standing. James chuckled softly before nudging me, "Come on, it's getting cold. Let's get you into the Common Room."

"You could lend me your robe like any gentlemen would," I pointed out and he gave me an affronted look, "And what about my freezing ass?" he asked in shock, causing me to laugh. I couldn't remember a time where I had laughed as much as this evening, my heart feeling light and floating around as if on clouds; an unusual but welcoming feeling.

Muttering a Heating Charm, I heard James sigh quietly in relief, apparently having felt really cold. "You know you are a wizard, right?" I asked him amused and he gave me look before grinning himself, looking away out of the window. We reached the Common Room, which was completely empty, and I would have almost automatically walked towards the fireplace if it hadn't been for the pure exhaustion from the evening catching up on me.

"You should sleep, we have class early in the morning," James said quietly as he watched my eyes droop every few seconds. He nudged me towards the staircase, "I can't carry you upstairs, the stairs are cursed."

I chuckled, walking up the way to the girls' dormitories as he stayed back, "It's not the staircase, it's the boys who are cursed."

"Cursed to fall at your feet," he added charmingly, smirking. I looked over my shoulder, shaking my head slightly. He had the most random bursts to flirt than anyone I had ever met before. "Good night, James," I simply said.

His brown eyes softened and for a second we stood there, staring at each other from across the room. I couldn't decipher anything from the distance, but it felt like something shifted in the atmosphere in that moment.

"Good night, Cec," he said faintly.

Chapter Five

[anauthore]

Escape From Halloweentown {Jack Skellington x Reader} CHAPTER 1

Summary: When a game of hide-and-seek goes wrong, you find yourself lost in the woods without a way home. Whether it be fate, or just dumb luck, you suddenly find yourself in a far bigger predicament than you ever thought you would be- and it’s not just because you can’t seem to find your little brother.

**Pairing: **Reader / Jack Skellington. A very slow burn fic.

NOTE: This is a full-length fanfic! If you don’t want to read chapter by chapter on tumblr, please use the following links to read in a different format / on a different website!

Wattpad | Quotev | AO3

Fic Below the Cut | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

You had thought the doors in the trees lead to a cozy, hollow trunk, or even just a black-filled void of some solid decorative substance. Of course, once you found yourself launched onto the ground in front of you, sprawled out after trying and failing to break your fall, you quickly came to realize that that obviously was not the case.

You grunted, wheezing in the air you’d just had knocked out of you. Once you managed to scramble to your feet, you brushed yourself off, picking the pebbles and other woodland debris from your stinging palms and knees. The inflicted areas burned, and you idly ran your fingertips over the little divots they’d made into your skin before you turned around to face the door. Or rather, doors.

They still were attached to the circle of trees you’d found in the beginning, all towering over you by miles as they stood stoic and unmoving as trees always are. Out of both a burning curiosity and an insatiable impulse, you reached forward toward the gleaming knob to twist it, yet it was as stiff as a board. You furrowed a brow, trying yet again, but it didn’t move.

It didn’t move.

You looked beyond the massive trunk in front of you and out toward the horizon, where the sun had just started to come up. The entirety of the sky was painted a fruitful orange, and despite the beauty of the picture, you were more confused than you’d ever been before. The sun, as warmth-emanating as it was, sat there, climbing in a direction opposite of where it had just been moments before.

You blinked. And then you blinked again.

And then you squeezed your eyes shut and clenched your fists, digging the ends of your nails into your palms to ground you with some semblance of pain.

It was almost too easy to convince yourself that everything you’d just experienced was, in fact, a dream- yet still you found yourself trying your hardest to cling to the façade. It definitely seemed more real than the reality that was currently right in front of your closed eyes in the moment.

You sighed, and when the sun didn’t revert back to the other side of you, and the doorknob still didn’t turn, you gave up. 

You turned on your heel, tentatively at first, but then started to walk away. You didn't know where you would end up, but using this newfound daylight for something other than trying to convince yourself you were crazy is the best you could do. You crunched browned leaves under your shoes, their steady rhythm keeping you going.

Crunch crunch crunch crunch…

You breathed in and out to the beat of your own footfalls, so lost in the monotony that you didn't even realize there had been a dirt path bare of grass and leaves before you. You'd been so focused on figuring out what had just happened that the transition into silence didn't even faze you, so when you finally did notice you were actually heading somewhere, you were surprised.

Your pace quickened, excitement coursing through your veins. Maybe there was a town nearby, or at the very least, someone's backyard. As long as you had somewhere to go, you could make it work. 

The trees started to thin, as did the grass and underbrush that had surrounded you nearly the entirety of your journey. The forest itself pushed back, and ahead you could make out gnarled buildings that curled and rose toward the grey sky. Although the architecture was odd, especially by modern standards, you couldn't help but smile. It was a town! There had to be people here that could help you, and if you were lucky enough, maybe you’d find someone who’d seen your brother.

The clouds fogged the distant towers, making it seem so far away. You didn’t let that deter you, however; you passed the opening in the trees and met a dull graveyard with twisted tombstones and gnarled wording carved into them. You furrowed a brow and stopped for a moment, taking in the sight before you. These stones were surely unlike any you’ve ever seen, the lettering curling in such a way that you couldn’t make out what it said other than the dates in which these people had died: 1743, 1820, 1789, 1650, etc, etc.

Your eyebrows raised and mouth parted to breath, surprise etched in your features. You didn’t live in the north, where the pilgrims settled and died as early as the 1600s, and you didn’t know of anywhere around that could remotely match these dates of death. It was astounding to you that there had been people living here during that time- and then your shock turned to wonderment. The headstones all had one thing in common, aside from the material they were made of; none of the dates had passed the mid-1900s. Where were you? And what kind of town looks like this, with old buildings and outdated graveyards?

Shaking off the oddness of the situation, you left the line of tombs, only glancing back a couple times to make sure that you’d seen the dates correctly. You trudged on until the blackened iron fence that enclosed the rest of the graveyard came into view, the gate pointed and an unmistakable jack-o-lantern etched into it’s bars. It was propped open, it’s bottom hinge broken and the butt of the gate sunk into the dirt. From the path, you could see stones, and eventually a cobble route that was indistinguishable from the stone archway and wall that closed in the uncanny town in all its glory.

The alleyways were mostly empty, save for an occasional statue you mistook as a person. There was no litter among the lines of houses; just empty trash cans, rusting bars on windows, and locked doors to accompany the already peculiar feeling of the place. In the distance, the crashing waves of the somehow-running fountain gave some life to the town center. This, of course, was one of your only indications that there were people here at all; why would the fountain be running if there wasn’t anyone to manage it? Everything was clean, too- so this place must be a town of hermits, with outdated traditions and their own ancestors in their graves.

You sighed, and noticed the sun still creeping over the horizon. It hadn’t taken you long at all to get here, and usually that would be a good thing, but now that you were perched on the fountain’s edge looking at the vastly differing houses around you, you weren’t so sure that this place would be of any help. If anything, you were scared. You very plainly not even a full-fledged adult yet, but here you were, in the middle of God knows where looking for your little brother where he didn’t seem to be.

Tears pricked at your eyes, and you instinctively sniffed to get rid of the stinging sensation. You were here for your brother, and no one else. That meant that, despite the scary situation, you would go door to door and ask for help if you had to. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

All the houses here were menacing in their own way, so, as you did when you chose a direction to walk in, you just turned toward a house and decided to walk toward it. You breathed in and made your way to this particular house’s stairs, stepping up one to plant three loud knocks on the front of a surprisingly sturdy wooden door.

You stared at the outside of the building. The windows didn’t have bars, like the others; instead, there were rotting boards covering the openings. The more that you looked at the exterior, the more you realized that there would be no way for any semblance of light to creep in, which made you raise an eyebrow in question. A moment more passed, and you knocked again, growing impatient with this empty village. Right as your knuckles brushed against the door for the third time, it swung open, revealing the dark interior and a tall, thin man clad in black standing before you.

“Yes?”

His voice was high, but it fell and rose as though it were a teen greeting her friend in a sing-songy way. You gave him a once-over, realizing that not only was this man inhabiting a house that could be compared to an abandoned lot, but he was also dressed as a vampire… in the middle of November.

“Uh, I was looking for my brother. Have you seen him?”

He had to squint to see you against the light of the outside, but even so you could tell he was looking you up and down. Though you had no idea what was going through his mind, you could tell that he was probably just as confused as you.

When he didn’t reply, you decided to elaborate; “We were playing in the forest, and he got lost. I don’t know if he ended up here, but could I at least use your phone? To tell my dad I’m safe. Mine’s dead, I can’t reach him.” You stopped yourself before you continued to ramble on, biting your tongue and hoping he could help you.

He didn’t say anything at first, and you thought that he might not respond at all. You opened your mouth to speak once more and the door closed in your face. You had no time to be shocked before it opened once more, creaking on its ancient hinges. He stepped back and gestured behind him, his cape draped over his arm as if he were Count Dracula.

You bowed your head and thanked him as you stepped into the very dimly lit room, the only source of light coming from an old lamp that sat in the corner of the room, which seemed to be nearly burnt out. You glanced about and saw that it wasn’t just this man’s costume that was vampire themed…

His décor was littered with Victorian era styles, a large coffin in the corner next to the lamp, slightly larger than the lopsided grandfather clock that sat next to it. It didn’t seem to be running, but you wouldn’t be able to tell even if it was. Wary, you seated yourself on the edge of the couch, hands folded in your lap as you watched the vampire-enthusiast close the door gently and look at you. Your eyes took a moment or so to adjust, but once they did, you realized that the interior of this place was nearly as dreary as the rest of the town.

“So, what did you want again, dear?”

You cleared your throat, nervousness coursing through you. “To use your phone, if that’s alright.”

He cocked a brow and glanced to the side, thinking before he responded in a hushed tone; “Let me see if I have one to use… just give me a moment.”

He was gone, around the corner and down what you thought was a hallway- it was too dark to really see anything, but you figured since he lived in this house, he had memorized its layout perfectly. You sighed, twiddling your thumbs as you waited, still thinking about the man’s obsession with the popularized blood-sucking creature.

 He returned, floating across his carpeted floor with no phone in hand. Trailing behind him were two shorter figures, both dressed the same as he was with long black capes and an equally dark robe. You couldn’t tell if they were related, or just friends, but they all seemed to have one thing in common; the idolization of the vampire. This, of course, worried you some. What if they were to try and suck your blood? Or maybe they were some sort of killer posse? If that were the case, though, then surely this town wouldn’t be as empty as it was. Surely, you thought, they’d already have done something to me by now.

The tallest one- the one which had answered the door for you- informed you that these were, indeed, his brothers. They were both shorter than he, albeit heavier and wider. You smiled half-heartedly as a greeting and looked back to the original.

“So, did you find a phone?”

“A phone? What’s that, Prince?” One of the brothers drawled, his voice as old and scratchy as the other’s.

“Well, no, I didn’t. But I know someone who can.” He elected to ignore the previous question and instead followed it up with a request from the other two; “Go get Jack. He’ll know what to do.”

With a curt nod, the brothers practically floated out of the front door, arms over their heads as a classic vampire would most likely do to shield themselves from the sunlight. The tallest stayed- Prince, he had been called. He didn’t sit down, as you were, nor did he really move from his standing place.. The silence in the room settled, thick and heavy, until you were so fed up with it that you decided you had to speak to preserve your own sanity.

“Uh, I like this room. It looks very nice- it’s really unique.” You smiled a thin-lipped smile and looked to him, gauging his reaction. He had already been staring at you- you chalked it up to him having not had guests in a long while. He nodded, not smiling when he responded; “I like it too.”

You didn’t like the tension, nor did you enjoy just sitting around, however you needed a phone. Or at the very least, someone more capable of getting you one than Prince. Summoning all your patience, you waited.

You were lucky that you didn’t have to wait very much longer. You’d been bouncing your leg and fiddling with the dead skin on your fingers the entire time, and you didn’t want to seem too nervous or scared. You had a feeling that it might’ve been rolling off you in waves, so you tried your best to stifle the urges. 

Your ears perked up after a minute or so more, alerted to a crunching sound outside of the door. Both you and Prince looked at it before it was pushed open by the shortest brother, who bumbled inside ungracefully, followed by his other similarly dressed family member. You looked passed him, expecting another vampire, or maybe even a normal human person, but what stood in the archway was so much more than what you were expecting.

It was a skeleton. 

[thefinalcinderella]

Kaze ga Tsuyoku Fuiteiru Chapter 8 - Winter Comes Again (Part 3)

I like how Kakeru seems like your typical “uwu I have a dark past and now I’m emo” sports anime protagonist but has a completely personality change when it comes to running

Full list of translations here

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After Chikusei-sou was introduced on the news, Kakeru and the others were frequently called out to on campus and in the shopping district, ranging from a casual “I saw you on TV!” or “Do your best!” to offers of “I’ll help out if you need a hand.”

However, there were no more applicants wanting to join the team, as expected; the rumor that Kiyose kept turning everyone away had probably spread through the school. Kakeru couldn’t help but hope that they wouldn’t give up and would come back to Chikusei-sou next spring.

The administrative preparations for the actual race were also underway, with Kiyose and Shindou taking the lead in making arrangements for the day.

In the Hakone Ekiden, each school placed people along the route. In addition to the people who handed out water at the fifteen-kilometer mark, it was advantageous to have someone relay information to the runners; it would be best if they could inform the athletes at each key point of the time differences with the schools running in front and behind them, and whether they should increase or decrease their pace.

The water providers had to run alongside the runners in order to hand out water. A complete novice would not be able to keep up with the runners' speed, so a certain level of running ability was desirable, and the short-distance runners of Kansei University’s track and field team graciously agreed to take on this role.

Kiyose and Shindou also discussed the personnel to be placed along the route. From among the students who had offered to help out, they picked those who lived near the course; they couldn’t put too much of a burden on them, since they had to round them up on New Year’s Day.

Even if they told the people of the shopping district not to come, they would probably rush over to support them, so they didn’t hesitate to include them in the number of people who would pass on information from the roadside.

In the leadup to the day of the Hakone Ekiden, Kiyose worked tirelessly on the details, not just for running but also for other tasks. Shindou assisted in negotiations with the university as well as communication with the Inter-University Athletic Union of Kanto, the organizer of the event. Hanako stood between the shopping district and the Kansei student volunteers; she efficiently gathered up people and informed the volunteers of their roles and the schedule on the day.

Kakeru was shocked at Hanako’s ability to handle the paperwork—he couldn’t have listened to the needs of that many people and coordinated everyone so that things ran smoothly. It seemed that she was even cutting down on her sleep to manage everything by herself so that Kakeru and the others could run the Hakone Ekiden without any problems.

It might have started with the fact that she liked the twins, but now Hanako seemed to be fascinated by the sport of track and field itself. She had become an indispensable asset to Chikusei-sou and frequently came by to discuss various matters.

“Hana-chan hangs out with us all the time. I wonder if she has any girl friends,” King suddenly said when Hanako wasn’t there, as though it had just occurred to him.

“She does,” Kakeru answered. For some reason, his voice was low.

Just the day before, Kakeru had seen Hanako in the school cafeteria: she had been laughing brightly as she ate lunch with a friend of the same sex.

Isn’t Katsuta-san putting off hanging out with her friends because she’s working for our sake? Kakeru felt irritated by King’s words, which were insensitive even though they weren’t meant to be offensive. And then he thought, “Huh?” Why am I getting so angry? Kakeru thought about it for a while and decided that it was because he was tired from training.

One night in early November, while eating dinner at Chikusei-sou, Hanako was reading out a report on the number and placement of the volunteers. Kiyose and Shindou mainly gave their opinions, which Hanako wrote down in a notebook.

I wonder if her feelings have gotten through to the twins, Kakeru wondered. The twins were busy shoveling dinner into their mouths, taking little notice of Hanako enthusiastically preparing for the Hakone Ekiden.

When they had finished the necessary discussions, Kiyose spoke.

“The Sunday after next, we’re participating in the Ageo City Half Marathon.”

“Where is this Ageo?” Musa asked.

“It’s in Saitama Prefecture. It’s a relatively big race with many citizens taking part as runners, and the schools participating in the Hakone Ekiden are invited. It’s good because we can join for free and it’s also a good way to practice on the road—we can get a good spot right behind the start line and experience running through a cheering crowd. It’s perfect, isn’t it?”

With the exception of Kakeru and Kiyose, none of them had participated in a race on a public road during their high school years. As a rehearsal for the Hakone Ekiden, the Ageo City Half Marathon was the perfect race, both in distance and date. Most of the schools that had been selected to participate in Hakone were also participating in Ageo.

It was the first time he would be running more than twenty kilometers on the road in a proper event. Given the chance to see the results of his training, Kakeru suddenly felt motivated; he was fine with laboriously training by himself, but Kakeru liked races where he could compete with other runners.

The twins, however, objected.

“The Sunday after next? We already have plans.”

“We’re forming an amateur soccer team with friends from our language class. We finally found someone to play against, so we’re going to the Tama riverside area to play.”

“Say you can’t do it,” Kiyose said.

“Then there won’t be enough people.”

“There’s still time to find a couple more people. Also, you’re playing soccer at a time when you have to train? What if you get injured? You’ve been slacking off lately.”

Kiyose too must have been steadily getting frustrated by the awkward atmosphere; he was condemning the twins in a harsh tone that he never used. Kakeru, not knowing what to do, raised and lowered his chopsticks in midair for no reason.

“Training this, training that, what’s the point in training so much?” Jouji roughly slammed down his bowl of miso soup. “It’s just like that Sakaki guy said: no matter how hard we work in Hakone, we won’t have enough members when spring comes.”

“He’s right,” Jouta said. “We’ve all been tricked by Haiji-san. We’ve been training our asses off every single day, like idiots.”

“Tricked?” Kiyose clacked his chopsticks. “When did I trick you?”

“You said it at the beginning, didn’t you! ‘With the power of all ten of us, we’ll reach the top of the sports world!’” Jouta shouted. “But that’s impossible. I did my research—no matter how much we try, we can’t beat Rikudou. We can’t win Hakone!”

Yeah, what they said, King blindly followed the twins’ lead. Kiyose seemed like he was going through his memories for a while.

“It’s true that I said we’re going to the top,” he nodded.

“See, Haiji-san’s a liar!” Jouji denounced him. There was an uproar around the dining table.

Musa asked Kakeru in a whisper, “Is it true that we cannot win no matter how hard we work?”

“Well…”

Kakeru was evasive, but Yuki, who valued theory, was merciless in that regard.

“To put it bluntly, it’s impossible. Our times prove that.”

“Good grief.” Nico-chan, sitting in his chair, gave a big stretch.

“It’s easy to guess how the race will unfold and which team will win if you look at the runners’ personal best times, and it’s impossible for that to be overturned unless something extreme happens. That might be one of the boring things about long-distance.”

“Hmm,” Prince said, reaching for the salad bowl with his chopsticks. “In baseball, soccer, basketball, or any other team sport, unless there is a huge difference in ability, you don’t know which team is going to win unless you try it. Is there that big a difference in ability between us and Rikudou?”

“There is.” Yuki, who seemed to have analyzed the data, flatly vouched for that once again. “Almost all the regulars at Rikudou are good enough to become aces at any other school. In addition, they have a big lineup of runners, and even the reserve runners who aren’t entered in Hakone—in other words, the second-string runners—would be very likely to rank higher than us if they were to run.”

“So, what you’re saying is that Rikudou University is a group of elite runners, and the best among them are our opponents?” Shindou said gloomily, his shoulders drooping.

“But depending on how you think about it, aren’t we lucky?” Prince said, chewing on lettuce. “Even though Rikudou’s second-strings are fast, they can’t participate in Hakone. We’re weak, but we can run in Hakone because we passed the qualifiers. Even if we don’t win, I think it’s worth more to be able to just be in Hakone.”

“There’s no point if we don’t win,” Jouji said.

“It’s a sport where the results are obvious, so what are we doing it for?” Jouta stared up at the ceiling.

Kakeru was indignant. “If you want to win, then this isn’t the time to be playing soccer,” he said, finally snapping at the twins. “You should train more and be in Ageo.”

“Ah, there goes Kakeru and his idealism again.”

“Didn’t we tell you that even if we wanted to train, we couldn’t bring ourselves to do it?” the twins counter-attacked together.

“So if you can’t win, you can’t run? So are you two gonna stop living just because you’re gonna die eventually?”

“We didn’t say that.”

“It’s the same thing—the same logic.”

“It's completely different. And don’t call that logic, you don’t even know what that means.”

“I do!”

“You don’t, you’re an animal who only knows how to run!”

“Let’s take this outside!”

“Why don’t we!?”

“Stop this now,” Kiyose said, but they didn’t listen.

Kakeru and the twins kicked their chairs away and stood, glaring at each other across the table. Musa pulled on the hem of Kakeru’s shirt, but Kakeru shook him off. It was a child’s quarrel, with the reason already forgotten and the argument confused. Yuki and Nico-chan watched the events unfold, grinning. Prince muttered in admiration, “Kakeru’s words about life and death earlier were an unusually clever expression.” King might have been close to the twins on an emotional level, but he pretended not to see, probably not wanting to get punched.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute!” Hanako put her hands out to desperately restrain Kakeru and twins, who looked like they were about to leave the kitchen at any second. “Calm down! Look, every Rikudou runner might come down with food poisoning on the day of the race, you know?”

The people of Chikusei-sou turned their attention to Hanako, who had raised her voice, but deflated at what she said.

“I don’t think that’s possible…” Musa said reservedly.

“Ultimately, we still can’t beat Rikudou in terms of ability, right?”

That’s not a good follow-up, Shindou sighed. However, thanks to Hanako, the tension between Kakeru and the twins, which had been about to burst, had nowhere else to go.

“Thanks for the food.”

The twins put their bowls in the sink. As they were about to return to their rooms, Kiyose called out to their backs.

“I did say that we’re going to the top. But by that, I didn’t mean winning. It might sound like an excuse, but…”

“We’re over it,” Jouji said, and the twins went upstairs. His voice held a mixture of rejection and resignation, which could be taken to mean that he didn’t want to hear Kiyose’s words, or that he wanted to stop fighting and practice as usual. Kakeru didn’t know what to do with his will to fight that had ended up not going anywhere, and he sullenly sank down into his chair.

“Umm, I’m going home now.” Perhaps unable to stand the awkward atmosphere, Hanako quickly stood. “Thank you for the meal.”

Kiyose stopped Hanako as she was about to put away the dishes and called to Kakeru, “Send Katsuta-san home.” Normally, the twins would walk Hanako back to Yaokatsu, but they were unlikely to come down again tonight. “It would be good for you to get some night air and cool your head.”

“I can go home by myself,” Hanako declined, but Kakeru said, “I’ll do it,” then stood up and went to put on his sneakers at the door.

In the kitchen, Yuki and Nico-chan were gossiping.

“Alone with Katsuta-san at night.”

“I hope the blood doesn’t rush to Kakeru’s head, if you know what I mean.”

“They are correct. What if Kakeru and the twins get into another fight over Hanako-san?” Musa criticized Kiyose.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Kiyose fended him off easily. “Just as he looks, Kakeru is a man who honors friendship deeply.”

Kakeru, of course, had no idea he was the topic of conversation, and he matched Hanako’s pace as they made their way towards the shopping district.

Kakeru almost never walked—if it was within walking distance, he preferred to run. Going to school and going to the shopping district were all part of jogging for him. Normally, he passed by these places so quickly that he never really took a look around.

It was so slow walking with Hanako that he didn’t know what to do with all the time on his hands, so his gaze roamed around, reading the nameplates illuminated by the street lights, looking at the fruit-covered mandarin tree branches sticking out into the road. Hanako was wearing a thin coat and a light purple scarf. It’s the color of akebia, Kakeru thought. He used to eat them a lot when he ran around and played in the hills and fields. His tongue recalled their taste, like very diluted sugar water.

“I was a bit surprised,” Hanako said. Her white breath spilled out of her mouth. Kakeru looked away.

“About what?”

“Even you guys fight.”

“Well, of course. We live together in a small apartment and we’re always running together. Someone’s always fighting about leaving hot water in the bucket for the bath, or smelling the socks that have been taken off after training.”

“Smelling socks?” Hanako laughed a little. “Who would do something like that?”

Jouji did. But Kakeru felt it was wrong to throw cold water on her feelings of love.

“I can’t tell you that,” he answered. Would this make it seem like I’m projecting? He worried, but there was no helping it.

“For some reason, I thought most long-distance runners were untalkative and patient.”

“I don’t know about that. I lose my temper easily, and the twins and King are pretty annoying.”

“Kurahara-kun, you’re one of the more mature ones, but I think everyone at Chikusei-sou is gentle and kind. I guess a patient personality really is suited for running long distances every day.” Hanako kicked a pebble that had been lying on the white line. “That’s why I was surprised that you guys were fighting, but also relieved. You can run twenty kilometers or so at a fast speed, and now you’re going to be in the Hakone Ekiden, and I keep thinking you're going further and further.”

Oh, Kakeru thought. She really does like the twins.

He secretly touched his chest. What is this? There was a shrieking pain in his chest, like when a cold drink soaked into your teeth—a pain like it was gradually swelling up around him, and heating up.

They turned the corner at the park and entered the shopping district, where fake autumn leaves hung from the street lights at both ends of the road, swaying in the wind. The day’s work had finished, and most of the stores had their shutters down.

From out of a half-shuttered small bookstore, three men who looked like high school students came bursting out, each of them carrying a large sports bag over their shoulder. All at once, they ran towards Soshigaya-Okura Station. After them, an old lady who was working as the shopkeeper ran into the street.

“Stop, thieves!” the old lady shouted and tried to run after them, but her slip-on sandals were no match for the legs of young men. The old lady looked at Kakeru and Hanako, who were standing stock still from surprise. Her eyes were filled with expectation.

Hanako seemed to come back to her senses.

“Kurahara-kun, go catch them.”

“Huh, me?”

“Go, go!”

The high schoolers were about fifty meters ahead of him, but he could still see them clearly because the shopping district was a straight line. Kakeru dashed off.

The high schoolers must have been relieved, knowing that the old lady would not chase after them, so they slowed down, but when they noticed Kakeru’s footsteps approaching, they shouted “Crap!” and began running with all their strength again.

However, they were carrying heavy bags and they were amateurs after all, and Kakeru was soon in range of them. Observing their running from behind, he thought, “I could catch them at any point if I feel like it.”

But, there were three of them. If he jumped at them alone, some of them would probably escape. Even if he hit them, it would be a bad idea to get into a violent situation right then.

The best thing to do would be to get them to give up running. Kakeru decided that and followed the three closely.

“Hey, you guys!” he called out to them as he ran. The three turned back with a start and sped up, panicked. But for Kakeru, it was like turtles going faster.

“I can easily chase you guys for thirty more kilometers at this pace, you know!” Kakeru said, not even out of breath.

“Who are you?” one of the high schoolers said, scared. Kakeru didn’t answer his question and tried to persuade them.

“Just stop this. Apologize and ask the old lady at the bookstore to forgive you.”

The station came into view. At the same time, he saw two uniformed police officers running towards them from the police box in front of the station.

“Stop right there!” the policemen shouted. They caught two of the high schoolers, holding them from the front. Kakeru had no choice but to grab the remaining one’s arm.

“Open your bags.”

The high schoolers seemed to have given up and meekly followed the policeman’s instructions, revealing a large number of stolen manga in their sports bags. They probably stole them to sell, not to read. Prince would be furious if he saw this, Kakeru thought.

“You did a good job. Come with us to the police box over there," the young policeman said, smiling from under his hat.

“No, I…” Kakeru said, but there were two officers and three shoplifters. He had no choice but to follow, still grabbing the high schooler’s arm.

“Kurahara-kuuun!”

He turned around and saw Hanako pedalling furiously on her bicycle, the old lady from the bookstore sitting on the back. It seemed that Hanako had called the police on her cellphone, and her message had been relayed to the police box. Kakeru thought it was problematic to have two people ride on the same bike, but the policemen pretended not to see.

The old lady climbed off the back of the bike.

“I heard that you’re a runner in the Hakone Ekiden. You have been a great help, thank you," she thanked Kakeru.

The high schoolers were going to be taken to the local police station in a police car. The old lady was going to accompany them to make her witness statement.

“You should come to the station too. You might get a certificate of thanks.”

It was a horrifying thing to be told, and Kakeru desperately declined. The policemen seemed disappointed, but Kakeru left without telling them his name. Hanako pushed her bike and followed.

“That was amazing, Kurahara-kun. The old lady at the bookstore was having a lot of trouble because there were so many shoplifters. She was very grateful that you chased after them for her.”

Kakeru walked, looking down. He hadn’t intended on doing a good deed, it was just that he was good at running—he only chased them because Hanako told him to catch them. It was the same reflex as a dog chasing a frisbee.

Hanako was delighted by Kakeru’s good deed like it was her own. Kakeru couldn’t breathe.

“I don’t know about that kind of thing,” Kakeru finally said to Hanako in a low voice. “I’ve shoplifted too. I don’t think it’s good or bad. I don’t really get it.”

Kakeru felt Hanako looking up at his profile in surprise.

“I don’t care about anything other than running. If I’m hungry, I shoplift. If I’m angry, I hit someone. You said Haiji-san and the others are gentle and kind, but I’m different, at the very least. Just as the twins said, I’m an animal who…”

“Animals don’t worry over not knowing right from wrong,” Hanako said quietly. “You’re too hard on yourself, Kurahara-kun. The old lady from the bookstore was grateful to you. Everyone at Chikusei-sou always has high hopes and trusts in your running. Why don’t you trust in that more?”

When they reached the front of Yaokatsu, Hanako waved her hand with a smile. “Thanks for sending me home. See you.” Kakeru watched Hanako disappear into the service entrance of Yaokatsu. His ears turned hot as he realized that he had raised his hand, as though drawn in by Hanako.

Trust the people around you, Katsuta-san said. Come to think of it, Haiji-san once told me to believe in myself more. I feel like what the two of them wanted to tell me was the same thing, in the end.

I fought with the twins again, Kakeru thought. He had clashed violently with TSU’s Sakaki and his high school track coach because they couldn’t understand each other. Kakeru got angry easily—running was an important act for him, and he spent almost all his time running. That was why he overreacted when his opinions clashed with others on the topic of running; it felt like his very existence was being denied.

But that’s no good, Kakeru thought. Anger was the flip side of fear and a lack of self-confidence.

He thought Kiyose and Hanako were telling him to “accept without fear” when they told him to “believe.” Accept himself as well as others.

Just running doesn’t make me strong. I have to control myself. Convey my heart with words, just like Haiji-san and Katsuta-san. Once again, Kakeru resolved to do just that.

Kakeru ran the whole way back to Chikusei-sou.

The next afternoon, a reporter from the local news section of the Yomiuri Shimbun came. Apparently, the old lady from the bookstore was so moved by what Kakeru did that she had called them. The newspaper decided that it would also serve as promotion for the Hakone Ekiden and decided to devote space on a page for it as a “nice little story.”

The twins forgot about their fight and were happy for him, saying, “That’s great, Kakeru.” Prince also praised Kakeru’s achievement, saying, “Shoplifting in bookstores is a crime that must be eradicated.” Yuki teased him, saying, “And you were finally alone with Katsuta-san too. Didn’t you have something to do before catching shoplifters?”

Kakeru didn’t turn the interview down. The article was published with the headline of “Kansei U Runner in Hakone Ekiden Catches Shoplifters” and a photo of Kakeru’s face.

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[jimlingss]

Sugar and Coffee [1]

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2

➜ Words: 3.8k

➜ Genres: 99.5% Fluff, 0.5% Angst, Pâtisserie school!AU

➜ Summary: It isn't hard to be a pâtisserie chef, but it's not a piece of cake either. It seems like for you in particular, life keeps throwing in one wrench after another. It always finds ways to make your sweets bitter. The cherry on top is Jeon Jungkook — a rival with a sensitive sweet tooth who always finds ways to complain about you.

cr.

Baking is an art form. It takes more than just having ingredients and following a recipe. It’s the flavour, texture, taste, and the presentation. It’s knowing why when things go wrong and how to fix it. It’s knowing the right kinds of ingredients to pick, how much of each should be combined, what techniques and methods to use. Baking is therapy. Baking is scientific. It is art.   The ingredients are as follows: 

Fresh strawberries

Sponge cake

Sugar

Heavy cream

Vanilla extract

You slice the freshly washed strawberries into halves as the stand mixer whips the two cups of heavy cream and quarter cup of sugar into medium peaks. Once you’ve got your components prepared, you slice the cooled sponge cake into two layers and set the bottom layer on a cake board on the turning cake table. You spread the whipped cream evenly with an offset spatula and layer the strawberries with cream on top.    Afterwards, you place the other sponge cake on top and repeat the process.   You finish the shortcake with strawberries on top for decorative purposes and pipe flowers with a twelve inch piping bag.   “Very well done! Everyone give a round of applause for Y/N’s shortcake demonstration.”   The teacher claps and the students around the counter follow suit. “Now it’s time for the real test.”   She begins slicing the cake into pieces, but you’re not nervous whatsoever. You know you did a great job and your strawberry shortcake is worthy of salivating over. And as expected, while your classmates take careful bites and allow the flavour to linger on their tongue, there’s nothing but praise.   “Wow, the sponge cake is so soft and moist.”   “The cream is so smooth.”   “It’s so fluffy.”   “It’s melting in my mouth.”   Even the teacher is nodding as she eats. But of course—   “Isn’t it too sweet?”   Jeon Jungkook has his brows deeply furrowed with a soured expression like he bit into a fucking lemon. His fork is cleaned but he puts the utensil down with a noisy clank, not wanting another bite.    A muscle in your cheek twitches.   “Didn’t you say that last time?”   “Yeah.” He shrugs. “But you didn’t follow my advice. Obviously.”   “Maybe you just have sensitive teeth, Jonhson.”   “I don’t,” Jungkook deadpans, not appreciating how you pretend that you don’t know his name.   “I don’t see anyone else complaining.”   “Because they’re too nice to. If you can’t take criticism, then there’s nothing I can do, Y/N.”   There are eyes flickering around. This happens often enough that no one’s particularly surprised, but there’s still bated breath held amongst your classmates.    You open your mouth to retort. But the teacher eats with a thoughtful look, and then nods. “You’re right, Jungkook. You could lessen the sugar just a tad, Y/N. The strawberries are quite sweet this time around. Just goes to show that ingredients might always change, everyone!”   “Okay.” You force a smile. “I’ll make a note of it.”   “Alright class, now that we saw the demonstration, off you go! Watch that whipping cream! It shouldn’t be soft or hard peaks!”   Everyone turns to leave, but your glare connects with Jeon’s until he turns around all the way.    No matter what you make — Jeon Jungkook always complains that it’s too sweet.    He’s a fucking ass.   “What was up with that?” There are audible murmurs behind you. “I thought they were going to fight.”   “In the kitchen? No. Maybe outside — but you know how it is.”   “They still hate each other over the September incident?”   “Well Jeon almost got Y/N expelled….”   You turn around and once they realize they’ve been caught gossiping, they look away with big eyes and they quicken their hands. “So, uh, pass me the cream!”   “Y-Yeah.”   The teacher brings your attention back as she finishes marking the rubric. “Thanks for doing that demonstration for the whole class, Y/N. Job well done as usual. Just lessen the sweetness and you’re good to go.”   You’re given ninety five percent. Full marks lost because of that asshat.    You hope he can feel your glare on his backside.   Eventually class ends and with your station all cleaned, hands washed, and apron put aside, you leave.    Outside of the room, is the most handsome man on the planet waiting for you. The person who you love wholeheartedly. The person you’re most excited to see. Your person.   He’s dressed in a white turtleneck sweater that you got him last year for his birthday, black jeans, and that baby blue trench that’s always soft to the touch. His dark hair is brushed and he’s leaning against the wall casually. But the glimmer in his sheepish eyes betrays the nonchalant exterior he tries to put on.   And the corner of his plump lip pulls into a tender smile.   “Hey—oof!”   Laughter bubbles out of Seokjin’s mouth and his arms wrap around your frame after you quite literally leaped onto him. You barely manage to pull away from the man, having the strongest urge to stick to him forever.   “I missed you.”   You pout and he grins. “Missed you too, sweetheart.”   You lean in to kiss your boyfriend silly. He holds you by your waist and you greet his plump, soft lips that makes you melt in a chaste peck. After a moment, you break away and he wraps an arm around your shoulder. “Should we go?”   “Yeah.” Your steps sync together. “You won’t believe what happened to me today.”   “What happened? Tell me.”   The pair of you walk down the corridor together as the rest of the class continues to spill out. There are girls who caught sight of the heartwarming interaction and they hold their books to their chest as they sigh wistfully.    “God, I’m so jealous. I want to be in love too. When am I going to get a boyfriend?”   “At this rate, never.”   “Hey! Rude!”   “I’m kidding!” She giggles. “You just won’t get someone like Seokjin.”   “Let’s be real, no one is gonna get someone like Seokjin — he’s just...perfect.”   “They’re such a good couple, aren’t they? They’re gonna have such pretty…” Their voices fade, but Jungkook exits and hears their commentary. He turns to steal a glance at your backside down the hall.   Jungkook scoffs audibly.   “What?” Taehyung catches up to his best friend and swings an arm over his shoulder. The same-height brunette follows his line of sight and hums. “Jealous you’re not in a relationship?”   “As if. It’s just pathetic, is all.” Jungkook looks away and they make their own way to the dining hall.   “You really handed it to Y/N today.” Taehyung grins mischievously. “Like damn. I didn’t think her cake was half-bad. But you’re not scared it’s gonna come bite you in the ass, Kook? Y/N’s gonna hammer you down when it’s your turn for demonstration.”   “So what? Like she knows what she’s even doing.”   “Are you sure about that? She seems pretty decent at what she does to me.”   “Decent isn’t good enough,” he says blankly. “She thinks she’s the shit but she came here to follow her boyfriend.”   Taehyung whistles. “You still mad over September?”   “She just irks me. Always has.”   “Right, didn’t you guys go to high school together? You, Jin and her…”   “We never talked. Whatever, it’s not worth talking about and wasting our time. Hey, what’s on the menu for lunch?”   “You tell me. Jimin never texts us what’s new today. Dude just eats and then goes.”   “What class does he even have right now?”   “Bakery safety and sanitation.”   Jungkook grins, remembering just how nightmarish that class was. “Rip.”   The two of them turn the corner, moving the opposite way from you and Seokjin, and the hallway empties out. 

Anxiousness boils at the pit of your stomach. Today’s the day you’ve been waiting for ever since you found out your application was accepted into the institution and you were successfully enrolled. Whatever results appear, it might dictate where you’re headed in the near and far future. The experience that you gain in these two years will pave the path to your career after all.   “It’s today?” Moonbyul puts down her spoon. “Isn’t the paid internship in May? It’s only November.”   “The posting went up for us in November too,” Hani pipes up past a mouthful of eggs. “Remember?”   “Did it? It was so long ago, I forgot.”   “It was only last year.” Sandeul rolls his eyes. “You haven’t gotten that old.”   “I sure feel like it.”   “Well if anything, you sure look like it.”   “Umm, excuse me?”   “Okay, okay, guys,” Your boyfriend interrupts with a laugh. “You’re freaking out Y/N even more.”   They mutter apologies, but you smile. In an attempt to calm yourself down, you ask, “Where did you guys end up going?” After all, they’re a year ahead of you and they’ve been through the entire process. Any advice is helpful advice at this point.   “Sandeul and I got hired by a hotel,” Hani says, “The Marriott. It was a pretty sweet gig, kind of tough though. Out of the entire class, I think five of us went there in total, so we were pretty lucky that we knew each other. It was long hours, but I learned a lot.”   Sandeul scoffs. “Can’t say I did.”   “When do you ever learn?” Moonbyul bites back.   “My internship was at a private club,” Ken recalls, interjecting as the two of them argue again. “But all I baked was bread all day. It was awful.”   “Oh god.” You look to Seokjin. “What if I have to bake bread all day? I hate yeast.”   Jin laughs and he lifts his thumb to affectionately swipe at the corner of your mouth, getting the spaghetti sauce off your skin where you missed. “You’ll be fine. Promise. You’ll probably get hired at a catering company like I did. Or maybe a pastry shop.”   “God, I hope so.”   “Which did you apply to?” Hani asks, playing with her noodles.   “Just a bunch of them. Restaurants, catering companies, shops. I applied to I think ten.”   “Oh, you should be fine then.”   “But I heard sometimes they put you in ones you didn’t apply for.”   “That rarely happens. Don’t worry about it.” She bats the air with her hand, easing your worries a little more.   Your boyfriend smiles warmly. “See? Told you so.”   You nod and check the time. It’s five minutes to noon. And with that realization, you get up. “We should go.”   “Don’t they email you?” Sandeul asks, pulling himself away from his argument with Moonbyul and ignoring whatever half-hearted and playful insult she throws his way.   “Yeah, but the physical posting gets put up faster.” You’re jittery, hopping on both feet and Jin chuckles before he gets up too, taking your food tray and his to dump into the trash.   They wish you all the luck you need and you’re off with Seokjin by your side.   You’re excited and afraid, not exactly sure what to expect. You just hope you get your internship by the same catering company as the one Seokjin had. They liked him enough that they’ve ensured him a position after he graduates. If they hire you too and you do well enough, they’ll hire you back and you’ll get to work with him. It would be absolutely perfect.   You can already imagine it. A small apartment in the city. Working together. Coming home together. There’s not a better plan out there.   The hallway is crowded with lots of people pushing past to look at the posting. There are loud conversations, eager claps and cheers, to disappointed sighs and whines.    “Wait here, okay?” You turn to Jin, not wanting him to be stepped on or pushed by the crowd.    “I’ll be right here.” He squeezes your hand before letting go.    And you push past the horde of students. “Excuse me, excuse me. Sorry…”   “Aw man, I have my internship at a grocery store?! This sucks.” — “The hell is Dog World.” — “Oh my god, oh my god! I got into the East Wood Country Club! Fuck yes!”   Finally, you stumble out of the crowd to the very front. The list is grouped together by locations and you search your name on the paper posting. After an antagonizing minute, you find it. “Kim’s…..Wedding Cake Company….”   Blood drains from your face. It runs cold.   Jeon Jungkook is coming with you.   //   You stomp your foot and cross your arms. You’ve been pouting for the past hour. But you can’t help the distress — not when you were still unable to comprehend it. It was the worst news on Earth. You thought your eyes were wrong, that maybe the posting or printer made a mistake, but the email wasn’t any different either.   “I can’t believe I have to go with that jerk! It’s all ruined!”   “I know, baby.” Seokjin pouts with you, sympathizing with your situation. He pulls you in to plant a kiss at the top of your head. “But you’ll be okay. Promise.”   The way he says it calms your nerves, but that doesn’t mean you still aren’t frustrated to no end.   There was only one paid internship to be done. One that was supposed to pave your way, help with the rest of your career, teach you things that couldn’t be learned through lectures and classroom work. But your one shot is destroyed. In shambles. What should be a fantastic experience is going to be a dreadful one.   Why did things never go right for you?   “I just….I just really wanted to be hired at your company.” You look up at him, eyes stinging and glossy with tears that threaten to shed.    Your plans are ruined.   “It’s okay. You can always apply after graduation.”    “I know.” You sigh. “But of all people, why him?”   A few hours later, the pair of you catch up with your friends at the dining center for dinner, and they quickly notice the way you’re not necessarily jumping for joy, but rather grieving. “Not...good news, I presume?”   Moonbyul gasps. “Did you not get hired anywhere-OW!” She rubs the spot where Sandeul smacked the back of her head for being tactless.   “It’s not that,” you reassure them with a small smile. “My internship is at Kim’s Wedding Cake Company.”   Ken’s eyes are enlarged. “Oh shit.”   “Wedding cakes?!” Hani sharply inhales. “That’s brutal.”   “No, it’s not that either. I don’t mind. It’s just…” You steal a glimpse at your boyfriend. For one, you wanted to go where he went and secondly— “I’m with Jeon Jungkook.”   “Who?” Ken asks, brows furrowing.   “You know, the black haired kid,” Moonbyul says in an attempt to jog his memory.   But the man’s impassive expression doesn’t waver or alter. “You literally described at least a quarter of the population.”   “The one that looks like a rabbit, you idiot.” Hani makes grand gestures. “The deer-looking fellow. You know, the cute one.”   “Right!” He snaps his fingers, as if that was enough to remember him by.   You shake your head. “He’s not cute. He’s an ass. Steer clear territory.”   “Can’t you steer clear from him?” Sandeul asks before he slurps up his carbonara and then chews in his cheek. “There’s like what— four or five kids coming with you? You can probably avoid him if you wanted to.”   “No.” It dawns on you just how bad the circumstances are. “Apparently only two of us are going there. At least I didn’t see anyone else assigned to that place. It’s only going to be just him and I.”   “Yikes.”   “Not helping, Hani.” Seokjin gives her a look that makes her sheepish and mumble an apology. “It’s not going to be that bad.” He reaches for your hand underneath the table, a private place without the prying eyes of his friends. “It’s only for three months and it’s during summer. It won’t happen for quite some time.”   “Yeah.” You squeeze your hand tenderly with his.    It’s wondrous how effective Seokjin’s reassurance is. You feel like there’s no reason for you to be afraid, for you to dread the inevitability. He makes you feel like you could take on anything.   All plans have their obstacles. Maybe this is just yours. Things always have a way of working out after all. You’ll get your experience, do your internship without talking to him, and then apply where Jin will be working after. You just have a feeling — call it your intuition — that it’ll work out.   //   But you’re still somewhat unsettled. You wonder if there’s a way you could switch. At least it wouldn’t hurt to take your chances and ask, then you knew you tried and did all you could. So with a hopeful heart, you approach the office area and open the door. The secretary is gone from her desk, maybe gone to take a bathroom or coffee break, so you take a seat in the waiting area.   One second passes before you overhear a familiar voice that you’ve grown to detest.   “—don’t see how I’m qualified at all! I haven’t even learned about wedding cakes yet!” The frustration is tangible. “It’s a course for next year!”   “Then you’ll get a head start from your classmates, Jungkook.”   There’s an audible sigh and his voice becomes calmer. “Miss. Kang, please. I just don’t understand how I could be put in something I didn’t even apply for.”   “What do you want to do, Jungkook?”   “Pardon?”   “What is it that you want to do after you’ve gotten your diploma?”   “I want to be a chocolatier.” There’s a pause. “A Master Chocolatier. I want to compete in The World Chocolate Masters. That’s why I applied for Oliver’s and Tokyo Confectionery. Spending my time and my internship at a place that does chocolate is important to me. Not wedding cakes.”   “Well, you’re lucky then. I personally know the couple that runs Kim’s Wedding Cake Company. They’re good friends of mine and the man who runs the place with his wife is actually a chocolatier. He studied in Paris and has been in the industry for more than ten years. I feel like you could learn a lot from him, Jungkook. Remember, it’s not the place you go to, but the mentor that you have. Think it over. Give it a few days. If you still have concerns, we can talk about it.”   Jungkook huffs in exasperation and grabs his bag. He mutters a reluctant ‘thank you’ before leaving the office. He doesn’t take one look back but on his way out, he catches you staring straight at him in the waiting area. His steps slow but then he scoffs, looks away and walks out.   When you get a chance to talk to the lady organizing internships, it’s brief — she apologizes and tells you there’ll be no changes made. There’s no arguing, you know that much. Not when Jungkook quite literally tried every desperate plea in the book.   You end up leaving and at the same exact time, Jungkook exits the men’s locker area, changed back into his regular attire. The two of you nearly bump heads, running into each other.   “Are you following me?” he flat out asks when your eyes meet.   You raise a brow, freezing in the middle of the hallway. “Excuse me?”   “Are you following me,” he repeats with a sharp tongue, obviously still peeved over his previous interaction with Miss. Kang. But you don’t know why he’s putting it on you and making such outlandish accusations. There was absolutely no limit to his cockiness.   “Get your head out of your ass, Johnson. I don’t have the time or day to follow you around.”   “Then what are you doing here?”   “I don’t think I need to tell you where I am or what I do.”   “Whatever.” Jungkook rolls his eyes and brushes past you.   But you turn onto your heel and shout after him—   “Do you really think you’ll make it?”   “What?” He shifts around to glare. His thick brows are knitted, mouth downturned.   “Do you really think you’ll make it as a chocolatier?” You meet his eye and a smirk pulls on your features. A rush of air leaves your nose in a snort. “You? Really? You want to compete in The World Chocolate Masters? That’s cute.”   “At least I have actual ambitions and goals and I’m not here for the sake of my boyfriend.”   “Excuse me? What are you trying to say?”   “Don’t play dumb and act like you didn’t follow your little boyfriend here.”   “You don't know anything about me, Jeon.”   “I don’t? I know that you’re not passionate about baking, that’s for sure. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have fucking stolen—”   “Fuck you,” you spit. “I didn’t.”   “Yeah right.” Jungkook scoffs. “Get real, Y/N.”   He gets the last word. Jeon Jungkook turns around, walking away with his bag slung over his shoulder. You shout insults after him but he ignores it, making you look like the fool.   Tears sting your eyes and your teeth grit. He’s an asshole through and through. You don’t know why you even bother wasting your breath.    If Seokjin was the most patient, kindest person and the person that you love the most — then Jeon was the complete opposite. You will forever detest his very being.   //   Your hand is squeezed and you’re brought out of your thoughts.   “Babe? What’s wrong?”   You look to your boyfriend. That’s right — you love him and this man loves you. There’s nothing else that could ever matter more than this. “Nothing. I just had...a really long day today.”   Seokjin stops walking and spreads open his arms wide. He gestures to you. “Come here.”   A smile pulls into your features and you jump into him. Jin laughs, stumbling back as you cuddle into his chest. His arms wrap securely around your frame, shielding you from the cold, from the darkness of the night.   You feel safe.   “I love you.”   He hums and kisses the top of your head. You’re beginning to feel better already.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

kiss me in the d-a-r-k .epilogue.

november

masterlist

Warnings: dub con sex (oral, intercourse)

This is dark!(dad)Steve and explicit. 18+ only.

Summary: The reader is back at school but her wild summer can’t be forgotten.

Note: Um, did I do this? Like did I just write this and is it going to be more than one part? I just...okay, well, this is where life is taking me right now so here ya go! I really hope you enjoy. 💋

<3 Let me know what you think with a like or reblog or reply!

...

Everything was different and yet the same. No more English Lit, you were a Journalism major working hard towards your lifelong dream of typing for a living. Of capitalizing on the frustration of a blinking cursor as you tried to formulate a hook. After a summer of working weddings and overzealous parties, you were ready to hunker back down in your bookish university life.

Despite your shift in focus, Kylie was still very much a cornerstone of your campus life. You saw each other once a week, if you were lucky, twice. She messaged you almost daily, still grieving Taylor’s enlistment. You studied together and when you were particularly exasperated with her nagging, you let her drag you to one of her extracurricular get-togethers. 

You’d changed too. Still very much the honours student but a little less uptight. And you had a secret. A very big secret. One Kylie could never know. 

She had guessed, at least half of it. It didn’t take her much to catch on that you had finally taken the plunge. You’d finally lost your virginity. You weren’t sure if the sway of your hips had changed or your head was held a little higher, but she had guessed on your first day back in September. 

She’d beamed and bugged you for details. You were cautiously vague upon your recounting. She could never know that it had been with her own dad. You could only imagine her reaction. Never anything less than impulsive and dramatic, you knew the revelation would ensure the end of your friendship. And as one-sided as your relationship could be, it was preferable to being alone on campus.

As your communications class ended, you packed up along with the rest of the lecture hall. You were near the front as always. You folded up the small desk and shoved your books in your bag. You pulled on your harvest orange jacket as you glanced up to the front. Professor Barnes leaned on his desk as he talked with another student.

You hooked your bag over your shoulder and checked your phone as you descended the stairs to the front. Kylie’s message flashed in your vision and you swore. It had totally slipped your mind. Oh well, she could wait a couple minutes.

You neared the desk in the corner where the professor chattered with others and packed up his papers. You waited patiently as you looked up at the blank projection screen. Finally, you stepped up as the conversation ended and smiled up at him. His dark hair was limned with strands of silver, his blue eyes shone as he glanced over at you. You could have swooned, even if he was twenty years older than you. Hell, that hadn’t stopped you before.

“I wanted to sign up for that workshop,” You declared without greeting. Your nerves forced the words from your brain. “I have the form.”

You let your bag fall to your elbow and reached in to fish out the folded paper. You held it out to him and your cheek twitched as your smile threatened to fall.

“Great,” He took the form and placed it on top of the pile of essays. “I’m glad you’ve decided to do it. It will be a great experience, and seeing as you’re making up for lost time, it’ll help with that too.”

“Thanks,” You beamed. “I...I’m excited.”

He smiled and closed the folder over the papers and tucked them away. He rounded the desk as the last of the students filtered out the door. “Me, too. Your work is exceptional and I can only see it getting better.” He walked slowly towards the door beside you as he juggled his bag and pulled on his dark jacket. “Keep it up and you’ll be teaching this class in a few years. Or better, I might just see your name in the New Yorker.”

You giggled but killed it before it could turn pathetic. You preceded him into the hall as he waited for you to go ahead and he closed the door behind him. “Thanks, Professor.”

“I mean it,” He replied. “I made sure they approved your transfer. You had no place wasting away in Lit.” You smiled wider and he peeked over his shoulder and then at his watch. “Well, I’ll see you at the workshop. Monday morning.” He said. “Alas, I have a Friday night of marking to keep me company and no desire to leave it ‘til Saturday.”

“Okay, thank you, Professor,” You retreated as he turned halfway to head in the opposite direction. “Really. I’ll see you Monday.”

“Have a good night,” He winked and turned to stride down the hall as you mumbled your response. 

You watched him go and grasped the handle of your bag tightly. Shit. Okay. Stop. He was your professor. You shouldn’t make your questionable decisions a habit. Had you not learned last summer?

-

When you got to Kylie’s, you had to buzz twice. The dormitory door stuck and you barely managed to wrench it open before the lock clicked back in place. Your hands and face felt raw from the autumn wind as you climbed the stairs and the stuffy building smothered you. You knocked on her door; three other girls shared her flat and you could hear voices from within.

Marlo opened the door as she giggled to the girls in the kitchen to the right of her. She waved you in. You were there enough that they knew you by now. Shae stood in the doorway to the kitchen and they looked at each other knowingly.

“Hey,” Marlo finally stifled her scandalous trill. “Kylie’s just in her room…” She looked once more to Shae, “She’s got a visitor.”

Shae snickered. “Oh yes, her dad’s been lecturing her for twenty minutes... though I’d listen to any lecture he had for me.”

“Oh, yes, daddy,” Marlo returned. “Makes all these fratboys look like children.”

“Her dad?” Your face and heart fell. You peered down the hall to her door. It was open and you heard his voice. It was definitely him. “Maybe I should come back.”

“Nah, it’s fine, she’s tryna get him out ASAP as it is. She has a date with that Tristan guy.” Marlo mused.

“I thought his name was Troy.” Shae intoned.

“Whatever,” Marlo shrugged and nodded down the hall. “Go on and save her.”

The hallways seemed to get longer as you looked down the blue and grey carpet. The girls retreated back to the kitchen, the clink of glass jolted you. You slowly stepped forward and as you got closer you heard both Kylie and Steve. Steady, pleasant. They must’ve worked through whatever issue Steve had tucked in his back pocket.

You gulped and stepped up to the half-open door and knocked on it. They looked over in unison. For a moment the resemblance was stunning but faded away in an instant. Steve’s lips formed a crooked smirk and Kylie greeted you with her usual snarky brow.

“About time,” She crossed her arms.

“Class.” You returned sharply and reached into your bag. “Mind the state of it but here you go.”

You handed her your worn copy of Wuthering Heights and she took it with indifference and tossed it on her bed. 

“Hey,” Steve greeted, a hand on his hip as he flagrantly looked you up and down. “How’s it going?”

“Fine. Studying, you know.” You answered shortly as Kylie swiped up her phone.

“Dad, oh my god, are you staying here all night?” She whined as she looked up.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get out of your hair, just figured I’d check in while I was in the area,” Steve shook his head. “She thinks I don’t know but she’s got a boy coming over.”

“Dad!” Kylie fumed and lowered her phone.

“I’ll just be on my way too.” You assured her. “Midterms coming up.”

“Need a ride?” Steve offered swiftly. You glanced at Kylie but she didn’t seem to notice her father’s deft reply.

“I have a bus pass,” You said. “I’ll be fine.”

“Ah, let me drive you,” He insisted. “I miss the city.”

“Fine,” You accepted and Kylie was already back in her dms. 

“Okay, you guys, be safe,” She sat on the edge of her bed, “Love ya, dad.”

You lifted your brows and silently cursed her oblivion. You dared to look at Steve and he smiled triumphantly. In Kylie’s mind you’d already left so you turned and swept out the door. Easier to argue with him outside. He followed and you caught a glimpse of Marlo and Shae peeking out the kitchen as you opened the door. They gushed at the sight of Steve as he disappeared into the hall with you.

“I really don’t need a ride.” You sighed. “I appreciate the offer though.”

“Oh, come on, why are you being so cold? I know it’s been a while but...well...I missed you.” He descended the stairs behind you. “Didn’t expect to see you but I’m visiting and I can’t help but check up on Kylie.”

“I…” You turned down the next flight and huffed. “I just wanna forget about whatever it was that happened in the summer, okay? Kylie’s my friend and if she found out--”

“If she was gonna find out, she would’ve by now,” He caught your arm as you made to turn again and he pushed you up against the wall. “She won’t know. It’s fine. It was all very...natural. Didn’t it feel right?”

You looked away. Your face burned as you thought about that last night. The things you’d done with him. The sheer pleasure of his touch. The epiphany of the savage physicality. Those scene’s you had replayed in your head, and not just with him, though it had only been a reality with him.

“Steve--”

“Is there a boy? Hmm? It doesn’t bother me. You should explore your sexuality.” He cradled your face and ran his thumb over your chin. “Use what I taught you.”

“Stop.” You caught his hand. “We can’t--”

He smirked again. “So there hasn’t been anyone else.”

“No,” You answered the statement. He knew. He always read you so well. “Okay.”

He considered you for a moment. “But you’ve thought about it? About others?”

You lowered your head in defeat. He didn’t need your confirmation; he knew that too.

“So...you wanna come see my suite? It’s a nice hotel...balcony, hot tub, great view...better with you.” His breath was hot as he leaned in and you finally looked up at him.

“Goddamn it.” You cursed him just before he pressed his lips to yours.

-

The guilt wasn't enough to change your mind once your surrender was given. Why should you feel bad anyway? Kylie always ditched you for guys and she'd never know. And so it couldn't hurt her.

Steve's hand kept you distracted from your second thoughts. He gripped your thigh as he drove as he steered with one hand. You were the same nervous girl, this time barely more than a virgin. One night hadn't been enough to dissolve your natural timidity. One night could never be enough.

You stared at his fingers and your heart stuttered. You thought of all the ways he had touched you; the ways he had yet to touch you. Shit, what were you doing? Had you not promised yourself it was a one time thing? Was Kylie not your friend? Steve not her father?

The world blurred with your doubts and soon you followed Steve through the front doors of upscale hotel. Surely the man in his pressed suit didn't belong with the bookish student. Someone was bound to notice you. But this was New York and people didn't care about others or their scandals; not without a touch of fame.

"Wait, why are you in the city anyway?" You asked as the elevator doors shut.

"I got a friend down here. I had some business down this way and he asked me to hang around for a few days so we could catch up." He slipped his arm around you. "And of course I thought of you. The chance we might run into each other again."

"Oh," You said dumbly. You stepped off the elevator and he led you to a door at the end of the hall. "I...I don't know if I can do this."

"Fair enough but tell me something." He stopped and drew his arm away from your shoulders. "Did I hurt you last time? Did you not enjoy it? What is so wrong about us?"

You turned to him and searched his face. You shrugged, speechless.

"It's just sex. Whatever the circumstances, we're not doing anything wrong. We're two adults, we're attracted to each other. That's all it needs to be." He took out his room key and flicked the card with his finger. "So, you coming in?"

You looked at the door and swallowed. If you said no, you'd have to find your way home from there. You doubted he intended to drive you anywhere if you refused. Regardless, you couldn't deny the longing deep inside. These doubts were a poor mask for your real desires.

He unlocked his door and again waited for you to enter first. His suite was bigger than the boxy apartment you’d leased off-campus. He closed the door behind him as he followed you inside. You kept your distance and crossed to the large windows that overlooked the blinking and blaring city. You stared down at the distant streets as he moved around behind you.

“You gonna stay a while?” He teased and you turned to look at him as he removed his jacket and then his finely tailored blazer. You slowly unbuttoned your peacoat as he knelt to open the minifridge. “You wanna drink? Maybe it’ll help you relax.”

“I am relaxed,” The squeak in your voice was wholly unconvincing. He smiled and pulled out a small bottle of wine. 

“Sure,” He crossed to the small kitchenette and pulled out two wineglasses. He emptied the bottle into both. “So, you got into journalism after all?”

He took both glasses and neared you. He handed you one as he sipped from the other.

“Yeah. It’s...better,” You smelled the dry wine before you tasted it. “Not so repetitive.”

“Mmm,” He sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed the empty space beside him. You sat tentatively and nursed your wine. “That’s good.”

His hand crawled over to your thigh and he drained the last of his wine. You stared at yours as he squeezed and you downed it as quickly as you could to still the nerves whirring in your stomach. You almost choked as you did and he removed his hand to take your empty glass. He stood and placed them on the small table on the other end of the room.

“So...anything in particular you wanted to try?” He smirked as he turned back to you. 

You shook your head shyly as the wine gathered warmly in your cheeks. He chuckled as he resumed his place next to you. He cradled your face as he turned to you and leaned in. 

“You’re so sweet.” He kissed you and you let him. He pulled away for a moment and rubbed the tip of his nose against yours. “I haven’t stopped thinking of you. I can’t stop…”

“Steve,” You warned and he pecked your lips again.

“I’m not being sentimental,” He breathed, “I think about you when I’m alone. Horny. I imagine you’re there with me...do you think of me?”

You lowered your lashes tellingly. He chuckled and kissed you again. His tongue pushed past your lips as he devoured you and his hand explored the curves of breast and stomach. You forgot about your reluctance. Forgot about the guilt. About Kylie and what she would think. He was right, she’d never know.

He finally pulled away, his blue eyes dilated and hungry. “I want you naked.” He rasped. “Then I want you to undress me.” His hand hovered just along your waist. “Can you do that, sweetie?”

You pulled your wool sweater over your head as you stood. The wine swirled your vision. A single glass and you were tipsy already. You should’ve eaten before class. You turned to him as you untangled yourself from the wool and revealed the slouchy tee hidden beneath. He smiled up at you and took the sweater. He rubbed it between his thumbs before tossing it away.

You knelt awkwardly as you untied your boots and set them aside. How very unsexy it was as you balled your socks up together. He kicked off his shoes too and you focused on your task. You tore your tee off as you turned back to him and his eyes never left you; they clung to your hands as you worked at the layers. Admired the plain grey bra that cupped your tits despite its fraying straps.

You pulled down your jeans and he hummed in delight. The front of his pants twitched and he leaned back on his hands as he watched. As you stood, your tits threatened to spill out. You unhooked your bra and dropped it behind you and tucked your thumbs under your panties, drawing forth the last of your courage.

“Sweetie, I just don’t know how you don’t have the boys lined up,” He purred. “Look at you.”

You couldn’t help your smile. You rolled your panties down and kicked them away. As you stood up straight, he rose and stepped closer. His fingers grazed the bare skin along your hip. 

“My turn,” He intoned.

You reached up, almost without thinking, and your fingers clumsily worked at his buttons. You pulled the hem free of his pants and when it was entirely loose you pushed it down his broad shoulders. He let you as he watched silently. You looked up at him and realized you were chewing your lip anxiously. You stopped yourself and he admired your lips.

“Keep going,” He urged.

You freed him of the expensive shirt and let it crumple on the floor. You unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his fly swiftly, yoyouru fingers working more deftly as the tickle stirred between your legs. You pushed his pants down his thick legs. Twice your age and in better shape, you marvelled. 

He stepped out of the trousers and your hand absently grazed his bulge. You gasped and he shivered at your touch. You peeked up at him as you grasped the elastic of his briefs. He grinned and nodded. You bit your lip again and he reached up to drag his thumb along it. You tugged his briefs down and slowly lowered your eyes as you uncovered his cock. 

You backed away and took in the whole of him. What were you doing?

He sat down on the bed again and his cock bobbed against his stomach. He beckoned you closer with two fingers and he fell onto his back. “Get up here,” He tapped his chest.

“What?” You crawled up beside him.

“Here,” He repeated. “I’ve been dying to taste you again.”

You blanched. You were unsure. Last time, he had been in control. You’d been on your back and his face was buried between your thighs. You just had to lay there; let your instincts take over. You shakily climbed up the mattress and looked over at him as he licked his lips.

He helped you as you carefully positioned yourself over him, your knees on either side of his head. It was awkward for you. His eyes clung to your pussy and he pulled you down impatiently. His tongue delved along your folds and you squeaked in surprise. 

He flicked along your clit and back down as he drank you in. You relaxed as he lapped at you and his hands snaked around your thighs. He kneaded them and suckled on your clit as the electricity gathered in a pinpoint. You moaned and arched your back as you longed for more. He tended to you more fervently and groaned. 

You spread your fingers over his golden hair and leaned into him. The currents travelled along your back and thighs as your breath hitched. You were soon grinding against his face as you felt your orgasm mounting. You threw your head back and let out a long moan as you came, your entire being shook at the sudden waves of ecstasy. His fingertips pressed into your thighs and he hummed in delight below you.

Your hips twitched one last time and you glanced down at him. You lifted yourself on your knees as you blinked at him numbly. “Are you okay?” You gasped.

“I’m in heaven,” He assured you as he drew circles along the back of your thighs. He slipped a hand down and you looked back as he gripped his cock. “Move back. I can’t wait any longer.”

Your lips parted; breathless, stunned. Your body worked without your consent. Like it wasn’t yours at all but his to play with as he would. You lowered yourself over him and his cock brushed against your wet pussy. He shuddered and wiped his glistening lips as he watched you intently.

You reached beneath you and stroked him. His eyes widened in surprised delight. You angled him towards your entrance. Your muscles tensed hungrily as his tip pressed against you. You sank onto him slowly and held your breath. It wasn’t so painful as the first time. Of course, after your first time, it had been much easier. He had fucked you until it was too easy.

As he bottomed out you let out an airy moan and he echoed you. He reached up to play with your tits, his thumbs circled your nipples as his eyes roved the rest of your body. “Fuck, your still so fucking tight.” He pushed your tits together and moaned again.

You rocked your hips carefully. You relished the feel of him. The fullness. You hadn’t realized how much you’d wanted to feel it again. His hands fell to your hips and he guided you. Steady, slow. He watched your pussy move along his cock and his eyes darkened with unadulturated lust. You pressed your palms to his chest and sped up just a little. Your clit rubbed deliciously against him.

“Oh, sweetie,” He purred. “I fucking missed this.”

He took your hands and pulled them over his shoulders as he sat up. You hooked your arms around him as he grabbed your ass and led your motion. You bounced in his lap, the friction between your sweaty bodies seared your flesh. You panted as he guided you faster and faster. He plunged into you over and over and your walls clung to him.

A pathetic stream of moans and groans escaped you as you felt the bloom again. You hugged him tighter and he bowed his head to nibble at your tits. You quaked as you came harder than before. He pulled his head away and grabbed the back of your head as he pressed his lips to yours again.

He parted and whispered against your skin. “I’m gonna cum, sweetie. Can I cum on your tits?”

You nodded and he tapped your ass. You climbed off of him and knelt before him as his breaths were interspersed with heady groans. 

“Help me, sweetie.” 

He took your hand and wrapped your fingers around his cock. He led your first stroke than let go. He watched as your hand glided up and down his length and he clutched the blankets beneath him as he grunted. His cum shot across your chest and neck and his body trembled in his rapture.

You pulled away your hand, slick with his cum, and sat back on your heels as you hung your head. The afterglow didn’t last long as you stared at your glistening palm. You were so weak; so selfish.

“Sweetie,” Steve reached down and lifted your chin with two fingers. “Don’t do that to yourself. You’re beautiful, you deserve to be admired.” He grabbed your elbow and helped you stand. “Come here.” 

He pulled you close and fell back with you across the bed. He embraced you as his cum cooled between your chests. Your heart beat furiously against him and you closed your eyes. He sighed and ran his fingers along your hair.

“I’m here ‘til next Friday,” He said. “Lots of time to get caught up.”

[conduitandconjurer]

(So if you ever wanted to learn how Klaus would be as a parent, please enjoy this snippet from a Discord rp with the OC Ana, written by @blackmxgickwoman​ !!!! )

Diego Owns My Soul  🗡🗡11/24/2020

She hates this new school. The teachers are boring. The kids are rude. And frankly, Ana would rather be anywhere but there. It's not hard to get out. Permission to go to the bathroom. Phase. Out the wall, off to wherever. Today, she's snagged some snacks from a convenience store and found her way to  the local library where she can manage to learn things she's actually interested in. All she has to do is get back to school on time and no one will know. Unfortunately for her, someone's noticed and called her father to let him know that...Ana's disappeared from school. Again.

(っ◔◡◔)っ ♥ Klaus ♥11/25/2020

Klaus is still getting used to having to answer the phone.  He's still getting used to accounting for anyone beyond himself, in a world in which he no longer has addiction to fall back upon as an armor, a numbing mechanism, a way to enforce boundaries he's never been granted.  He's still getting used to having a preteen daughter who needs him, but, he thinks, when the labyrinthine maze of his brain allows him to think in a linear fashion, he's not doing so badly.  This truancy thing, however....that's the bit he can't surmount. Yes, he can find Ana even when she phases, but he knows from experience that a too authoritarian parental hand only produces resentment and further rebellion.  So he hangs up his cell--furbished for him by Five, the only real father figure Klaus himself has ever had--sighs, drags his palms down his face, and emits the sort of sound that usually only comes out of a constipated goat. "Fuuuuuuuuuu-CK," he whisper-shrieks, stands and finds his Converse, and goes out into the RUDELY cold November afternoon toward his daughter's usual haunts.

Diego Owns My Soul  🗡🗡11/27/2020

The library is luckily not as busy as normal. Ana prefers it that way. Quiet, empty....it's like her own little world. Tucked away in probably the least visited corner of the library, she's tucked in a dark space reading through medieval building methods, eating hot cheetos and at peace. Every so often, she glances at the clock to check the time and peeps around to make sure no one's coming. It's during one of those times that she spots him coming up the stairs.  "Shit...." she whispers under her breath quickly gathering her stuff and scurrying down an aisle opposite his direction. She's just got to keep away from her father and get to the door and she'll have plenty of time to get away. She can do that. Easy. Right?

(っ◔◡◔)っ ♥ Klaus ♥11/30/2020

Klaus's whole lovely fey face scrunches up in to an expression of utter consternation.  "ANA!" he scream-whispers, stops and stomps a Converse-clad food. "ANA. Shit...."  But he didn't spend every year of his life from 17 on in the streets and in various drug dens without learning how to run very quickly and very erratically.  "Scuse me, sorry, nice reading choice...pardon.....scuse me--!" he apologizes profusely while weaving through the stacks and taking a shortcut outside and up the fire escape. "OH, you little SHIT!" he hisses as he books it toward where she ran.

Diego Owns My Soul  🗡🗡11/30/2020

She hears the commotion rather than sees it and doesn’t let up. She does have the advantage that she can run through the bookshelves and takes advantage of that before taking off down the stairs and out the front.  Okay, maybe she shouldn’t have ran. Now that she’s outside and thinking, she’s starting to realize that might not have been the best option. But she doesn’t feel like getting in trouble yet or going back to school so....what else was she supposed to do. Looking around, she decides to run across the street to the drugstore. Maybe she can bide her time in there and he’ll leave. If she’s lucky.

(っ◔◡◔)っ ♥ Klaus ♥Today at 4:34 PM

"I CAN STILL SEE YOU!" comes Klaus's exasperated cry, as he spins and gives chase back down the stairs. "HHAHHHH, fuck! And I do cardio, Jesus on a Pogostick!"

Panting, forced to yield simply to her younger age, he gives hot pursuit--and finds himself rolling across the dashboard of a car crossing the street. He hops off. "PLEASE! Go ahead, man, I CRAVE the favor!" he snaps at the bewildered driver, finishing it off with an "up your ass" gesture before limping on across the street.  He pauses, hip jutted out, and jiggles a leg while examining the row of shops. What would I do? he ponders, sort of grimly accepting that this is some karmic payback for shit he pulled at Ana's age.  Drugstore. Drugstore. . Candy, junk food, cigarettes.  Certain otc meds that offer a cheap high.  Useless trinkets that bring stupid levels of joy, like hair ties, magazines, and cheap nail polish.  Yep.  He hops in, on one foot. "Ana," he addresses the entire blinking, confused store, "I'm not gonna yell at you, or anything. Can we just t . . . talk? Sorry. Hi. No, no autographs. No, please. Daughter stuff. Scuse me."  He darts down an aisle. "Come on, honey, please. " He blinks at himself. While he's no stranger to giving affectionate terms and pet names, that "honey" slid out so naturally that it alarms him.  Paternal instinct? In MY psyche? More likely than you'd think....

Diego Owns My Soul  🗡🗡Today at 4:54 PM

Honestly, all of this has just been....too much for Ana. She hates that she's been forced to change her entire life. She hates her school. She hates all of this and she knows that Klaus is trying to look out for her. Knows he's trying to dad her but honestly....he's not that good at it and she doesn't need a parent. She can look out for herself. She can find for herself. SHe's good. She's fine. Settling in a corner, she pulls out the book she'd swiped to start reading when she hears his voice again. Well, shit.  Looking around, she spots the employees only door and knows that there's definitely a back door through there. All she has to do is get from one end to the other without him seeing her. At least, like this, she doesn't think he can actually catch her. She doesn't think he knows how to actually touch a ghost. She hopes he doesn't. Standing, she takes a moment to make sure the coast was clear and starts to sneak in the other direction hoping he doesn't notice her from wherever he is in the store.  Maybe it's time for her to just....say okay and face up. She'll have to get in trouble and he's not giving up on her. Sighing, she sneaks up behind him and crosses her arms. "I'm not going to school."

(っ◔◡◔)っ ♥ Klaus ♥Today at 5:15 PM

"HOH, CHR...ist...!" He jumps a mile, thanks PTSD, and slowly pivots to face her.

"...yeah, I figured."  Yes, he's bad at it.  At consistency, and obligation.  But nobody tries harder to love someone in his orbit than Klaus, and hopefully that makes up for some of his failings.  "But that's not ......that's not a dealbreaker...for me, okay?"  He glances around, at the gathering crowd. God.  All through his childhood, there was always a gawking audience of two kinds: the ghosts, and the Academy's unbalanced, devoted fans.  Privacy, boundaries, they're unobtainable to him, and therefore, sacred. He pulls out his phone and texts her:  [Do you wanna go talk about this somewhere else?] 

[peaches-of-1]

Day 5 | Gingerbread

Black!Reader x BTS

You weren’t sure if this was really the best job for you seeing as it included talking to people a lot and explaining in excruciating detail how things went even though there was clear instruction on the back. What was worse were the children who tried to eat the Christmas display even though there was a sign that said, “DO NOT EAT” in red glitter letters. Parents wouldn’t even try to stop them.

Still, you needed a job since you lost yours recently for not accepting the creepy and borderline stalker advances of your boss’s son. So here you were in a clear apron and green sweater with comfy jeans and Converse on working in the newest addition to BigHit, its café. Unlike most corporate cafés, BigHit Café was not attached to the main office building of BigHit Entertainment. Instead, the dark wood and green marbled setting was near Han River.

This means it was where a lot of families came to visit as well as beautiful couples, not to mention foreigners and bloggers. It was a very varied clientele, so you were usually very busy. Especially today.

Because you were “one of the best workers”, the manager decided you’d be here during today’s LIVE episode of Run BTS which would be a competition to build the best gingerbread house within the span of 90 minutes. You had spent all day yesterday decorating the café to look like such a sweetened dwelling on the outside.

Today, you were in your Christmas attire and one of the judges of the competition along with a lucky fan and another co-worker. There were more cameras than usual, and you saw the seven beautifully exhausted idols walk through the door in their own holiday merch. Jungkook’s gray sweater had a picture of their logo filled in with a green and red vertical ombre. J-Hope was wearing the same one underneath his thick padded coat.

Jin’s and Jimin’s sweaters were that of the logo surrounded by a wreath. Because of Suga’s new significant other being Jewish, he was wearing the Hanukkah version, a blue sweater with a silver and lighter blue ombre BTS logo. Namjoon and Tae were the only ones wearing the Kwanzaa versions. It warmed your heart that the boys were doing their best to support all the holidays that ARMY might celebrate.

You were wearing the Kwanzaa one today, of course. That was one of the perks working here was that BigHit merch was part of your uniform, so you got one free shirt/sweater a month. It was also the reason why the aprons were clear, so that patrons could see what you were wearing and ask where they could get it.

Of course...you needed more than one shirt a month, so you had to buy merch in order to be in uniform. But like, other than bills what else were you gonna be spending your money on? BTS merch, duh.

Anyways, the fact that you were wearing the green version of the Kwanzaa sweater and Namjoon was wearing the black version got you a polite smile from him. Taehyung stood in front of you as you greeted the group and their managers...as if he wanted to say something. However, the young man stayed silent until he was called to get his makeup touched up.

Maybe you were just being paranoid or hyperaware, but it seemed like the guys were talking about you. However, they were nothing but professional. You and your co-worker brought out the now cooled down trays of gingerbread that had already been cut into the proper shapes. The very excited fan helped to uncover the selection of candies they could use on their houses.

“Can I use the cute employee too? I think she’d make my house look the best.” J-Hope said, a smile on his voice.

You looked over to Kara who was always getting hit on, but it soon clicked that he was looking at your face. That very same face soon got heated cheeks because what? Was J-Hope hitting on you? Nooooo. No. He was just playing around.

“That’s cheating to put something already so beautiful next to whatever you make, hyung.” Jimin replied with a giggle.

Jin then added, “Leave the pretty girl alone. She’s just doing her job. Besides, she should only be paired with someone who is almost as attractive as she is.”

Jungkook gasped loudly, “Oh, hyung, you just admitted that you think she’s more attractive than yourself. You’re just as bad as the others.”

The oldest member blushed, “I just, what I meant was--” he looked over at you and bowed. “I am sorry.”

“It’s ok. It’s fine.”  You replied and couldn’t help but feel your cheeks.

Taehyung blurted out, “We have matching sweaters!” with no follow up.

“Oh, look what you’re doing. You’re embarrassing her.” Suga said and then looked at you. “What is your name?”

“Y-Y/N.” You stuttered out. “Please call me Y/N.” You said with a bow and pointed to your name tag.

He said that he had already read your name tag, but just wanted to hear me say it. Your heart felt like it was just about ready to explode with all of their kind compliments as they began to focus on the competition. Even though you had thought you’d be judges, you were simply there to help the guys and do touch ups so that they weren’t horrible. The public would be voting on them tomorrow.

Was there even fridge space for three finished gingerbread houses? Each young man was basing it on whatever they wanted. The thing they were having the most trouble with was putting the pieces together. Even when a building went up, it would crash seconds later because of too much or too little frosting. You were called in when they had broken a piece past repair.

They could call on any employee or the fan to help up to three times, and it felt like your name was the one being called all 9 times. However, Kara was helping Hobi with his roofing and the fan gave team JinKook inspiration to do a Bt21 themed house. Kookie got excited and started trying to create the characters out of marshmallows and frosting while Jin decorated the actual house.

“Y/N-nim!” Jimin called sweetly. “Can you help me with something?”

You walked over and asked what they needed help with. He wanted to know how to do the dripping icicles on the roofing, so I started to do it for him.

“No, no, no. Show me how to do it, please.” He said, his grin becoming more mischievous by the second.

Taehyung smiled, “I’ll work on the gingerbread man. I need green frosting.”

He got up to do so while Suga asked me how the front was already. You told him it was very neatly done before showing Jimin how to get the pointed dripping effect using some of the discarded bits of spiced cookie to pipe out some examples.

“You are really good at this, Y/N-nim~” The mochi like blonde said with smiley eyes.

“Thank you. I think you have the hang of it, so I will leave you to it.” You gave a bow and then went towards Kara before being called by Namjoon who had his hand up.

If this was another broken gingerbread person, you were going to just tell him to glue it with frosting. Kara gave you a cheeky head nod to go to them. You felt bad for the fan as she was supposed to be the center of attention for this event.

He didn’t look at you in the eye as he asked, “I um, we are not sure what to do. I’m pretty sure we won’t be getting first place, but it just looks bad.”

“So just a general help?” You giggled.

“Yes, please.” He replied, scratching the back of his neck, getting frosting on it.

You just handed him a napkin and quickly fixed up the roof to let them put candies on dots placed on the empty shingles. It was the 500th time you had been doing it this holiday season, and it was just November. Him and J-Hope thanked you before you went back and sooner or later, time was up.

Then it was time for voting. The sloppiest of the three houses was the one Namjoon and Hobi made since they didn’t have artists in their groups. The BT21 house had collapsed halfway through, so JinKook quickly made a simplified but still amazing house to present.

Still, it was too simple compared to the others. The one that Suga, Jimin, and V made together was the perfect mix of the two houses. That’s the one that ended up winning.

The prize was a Christmas themed date with the fan. They were glad to get to know her better and ended up leaving with her. The others had to help clean up. You’d be putting their houses up for sale for an auction and the money would go to UNICEF. The winners had well hidden pouts behind their smiles, wishing they had lost instead while the losers were glad because they got to spend more time with you.

They kept asking if you needed help with things and to let them do things instead. However, Namjoon kept eating the candy he was supposed to be putting away. He gave you such a charming smile in return, you didn’t care that he was chomping away on inventory. It seemed that he was a nervous eater.

“I’ve been craving this taste for a long time, too.” He said and then helped to keep the door open while you put his house into the fridge.

It wasn’t long until you and Kara were bowing to the four remaining idols. There were gift bags for the both of you, and you were glad to get such compensation for a stressful overtime. Both of you were sure to go fast asleep since this was all you had to do today.

You wanted to go through your bag first. CDs, signed mini poster, a Christmas Cooky, and...a KKT. After typing it into your phone, you nearly chucked your phone across the room. One by one, the boys greeted you and asked if you would date them, all seven of them.

[alleiradayne]

Part I - Lesson Learned

Characters: Jared Padalecki, Me, Clif Kosterman Warnings: None, only fluff and mild angst here Word Count: 3,108 A/N: Assume all parties are single and absolutely no spouse hate!

In another minute, I’d have gone to bed.

In five minutes, I’d have passed out.

And in the morning, I’d have seen the post on Instagram and been pissed at myself all over again. 2016 might have repeated itself had I not learned my lesson the hard way that year.

Instead I sat in the chair at the desk of my hotel room, phone in hand, and flipped through every social media platform I had. I searched tags and pictures and an endless stream of fan accounts until I found that for which I willingly sacrificed sleep.

#spnfamily @jarpad Jared and me @ Sneaky Pete’s!

“Ugh, Sneaky Pete’s?! Really?!”

If you can’t tell, I’m not fond of that bar. Every time I’ve been there, someone starts a fight. Something about alcohol and open stripper poles enraging people.

But Jared was there. Though I desperately needed sleep, I wanted to meet him outside of the con. Just once. Just to get that sort of selfie with him. You know, blurry, half-drunk, overexposed, and hair in my face with his perfection right next to my hot mess. That selfie.

The handle of the hotel door clicked before I realized I’d left my chair, tossed on my N7 hoodie, and shut off the lights.

“What am I doing?”

Silly question. I knew exactly what I was doing. Stalking a celebrity. Yup. Real healthy. I know. An endless tirade of chastising thoughts raced through my mind as I walked down the hallway to the elevator. An eternity passed while I waited, and twice I nearly turned back for my room. But when the bell sounded and a door opened, I darted in and smashed the button for the main floor.

In the lobby, I rushed to a side door and avoided any eye contact. If I had looked at anyone, they would know what I was up to. They would know I was leaving my hotel to go to a bar because a celebrity I wanted to meet was there and that I had stalked him on social media. They would know the second they looked at me, with my red cheeks and wide eyes. Yeah, she’s on a mission. A creepy fanatic’s mission.

The cold November air hit my face with such force, it sucked the breath from my lungs. Again, so lost in thought, I’d lost track of myself. It happens from time to time. I get so caught up in my brain, I forget where I am. Usually it's because I’m planning out another piece of writing, whether it’s my novel or fanfiction. Better not think about that too much or your dumbass will end up telling him about it. If you’re even lucky enough to meet him…

I scoffed loud enough to scare a dog and their human as I passed. Should have taken a Lyft. But nope. I had not plan that far ahead. Too impulsive. And by the time I got to the bar my feet screamed for relief, not because of the long walk, but because I’d been on them all day. Saturday at a Supernatural convention is long. The Saturday Night Special had been entirely worth it though. I’d never look at Rob Benedict the same way ever again.

At the door, I handed the guy taking cover a ten-dollar bill, and I barely heard him over the music as he asked for my wrist to stamp. Not that I paid him much attention either. I had a mission. Unfortunately, Minneapolis complicated finding a 6’4” brown-haired, broad-shouldered guy. Loads of men fit that bill there, what with the plentiful Scandinavian population.

Through the entry, I scanned the crowd as I headed to the bar on my right. To my left, stripper poles stood in a line on their platforms, every single one packed with far too many people. Though I laughed at the idea of Jared on a stripper pole in a packed bar, I knew better. He might be silly, but he sure as hell wasn’t dumb enough to do that in public.

With the bar three people deep, I forced my way to the front, a few well-placed elbows and crushed toes parting the throng. The bartender, a harried woman who tried to put on her best smile, took my order, ran off for a glass and the bottle of scotch, and poured my drink. I avoided eye contact again as two men—boys, really, they looked barely old enough to be in the place—on my right tried to get my attention with terrible pickup lines that involved my drink. Not that I could hear them. Bass deep enough to shake the building thumped terrible party music accompanied by terrible lighting and shitty vocals.

Did I mention I hate Sneaky Pete’s?

I emerged from the crowded bar and headed for the stairs, still scanning for a set of shoulders above the sea of heads. When I saw nothing of note, I took the stairs to the speakeasy basement to find it nearly dead.

Nearly.

A few booths sat occupied, couples and smaller groups that wanted to escape the insanity of the main level, music muted to a dull roar. An older man sat by himself sipping a drink at the end if the bar nearest me. And the bartender—a woman about my age—talked with him. She’d get an extra tip with that sort of attention.

With a sigh, I turned back for the stairs, but something out of the corner of my eye stopped me. I looked over my shoulder, then turned back around as I spotted them. At the far end of the bar sat two people, one with long brown hair, and the other bald.

You know, leading up to that point, I never thought it would happen. From the second I’d left my hotel room, I imagined getting to the bar, getting a drink, sipping it down as I walked through the place once, maybe twice, then leaving.

But there at the bottom of the stairs I stared, dead-eyed, at Jared Padalecki.

At the back of his head.

Close enough.

My feet refused to move, though I desperately wanted them to. There were a great many things I wanted to do. But for the life of me, in that first moment, I balked. And it wouldn't be the last time. I damn near ran back up the stairs and out the front door.

But then Clif nudged Jared and pointed my way. He turned and spotted me, and Christ, I'll never forget that smile or his awkward wave. I'll never understand what about him then had managed to ease my nerves, but he had, and one foot stepped in front of the other until I passed him.

“Hey, Cliffy.”

Jared cackled as Clif leaned from his stool and hugged me. “She clearly knows the rules.”

“Get in good with the body guard, right?” I said as we parted. When I turned to Jared, I managed to keep my shit together as he hugged me in turn. “Nice to meet you. Again.”

Parted, he asked, “Were you here last year? What’s your name?” He motioned to the stool Clif had vacated.

By the end of this, you’re going to hate me. I hesitated yet again before taking a seat. “Jeanna,” I replied as I sat down. “And yes, I was here last year with my sister. We bought the very last J2 op Friday morning.”

“Well, then it was meant to be,” Jared teased. “Is that Jeanna with a G or a J?”

A long pull from my drink eased my nerves. That he even thought to ask that question set my heart racing “A J. We were J4 in that photo op. My sister is Jessica.”

“J4, I love it,” he said with a laugh. “So, how was the Special?”

“Rob kissed me,” I blurted.

Jared rolled his eyes, not missing a beat. “Rob can be a cheeky fucker sometimes,” he said. “How did he manage that?”

“They set up a sort of ‘pit’ area in the big aisles on both sides of the theater,” I said as I air-quoted. “A new friend and I stood the whole show. I got some amazing pictures.”

“You’ll have to show me after you get them cleaned up,” Jared insisted. “Twitter?”

“I’d love to…” I started as I looked around the bar. The conversation had started so well and had continued so easily, buy my confidence slipped. It was too good to be true. I had missed something, a sign or a phrase. Clif would escort me away any second. “I’m sorry, I should probably leave you alone. I don’t want to take up your personal time. You’ll be up to your eyeballs in fans tomorrow, and I’ll see you plenty then anyway—”

Before I slipped from my stool, Jared reached out with an unsteady hand but stopped short of touching me. “You don’t have to. You’re not bothering me. Not like there’s a million people trying to get my attention.”

I eased back onto the stool as I thought. I had imagined meeting Jared in public on occasion. But that simple fantasy usually consisted of a short greeting, getting that selfie, and then being on my way. Never in a million years would I have guessed that I’d have him all to myself for a personal conversation. “Are you sure? I mean, like I said, I’ll see you all day tomorrow. I’m in VIP, I have your solo photo op, I have your meet and greet—”

“You bought all that?” he asked.

“Damn straight I did, I love—”

Yeah, I usually say I love Jared Padalecki. But not to his ridiculously gorgeous face. “I uh… you’re my favorite.”

I’d tell you that Jared blushed when he regarded his beer, sipped from it. But the dimly lit bar masked his face in angular shadows so dark, I’d never know. “It’s okay, Jeanna,” he started. “You’re my favorite, too.”

“Wow. Thanks,” I retorted as I sipped from my drink. “I get it, I made it weird. Don’t rub it in. I’m not exactly… it’s not every day I get meet someone like you.”

Jared laughed through his nose as he spun the bottle of his beer on the bar between his thumb and middle finger. “Not many celebrities in the Twin Cities?”

For a moment, I stared at him, unsure of what to say. When he stared back with his easy smile and perfect hair curled behind his ears, I understood. “You are probably aware of this, but, you’re not just some random celebrity, Jared. You’re… you’re an incredibly important person to me. To a lot of people. Your compassion and empathy for people knows no bounds. You’re so selfless, I don’t know how you do it. I’d be exhausted all the time.”

Jared’s smile fell and I resisted the urge to scream, to take it all back the second the words were out of my mouth. Too late, Jared capitalized on the moment. “I appreciate your honesty,” he commented. His hand moved for my shoulder once more, but as before, he hesitated. “I’m… flattered to have had such a positive impact on people’s lives.”

“Good,” I stated, “you deserve it.”

I could have died a happy woman right then and there as Jared smiled in the wake of my words.

If I told you everything we talked about that evening, you'd have a novel on your hands, and a boring one at that. Sure, we flirted here and there, but I quickly understood that Jared was the type of person who truly meets people. He wants to learn everything he can about them before parting ways, take something profound, new, defining with him when he leaves. I told him about things I never imagined I would have—including my ideal final season for the show, complete with angels, demons, monsters, sex (not with monsters), love, and for once, a real shot at peace. Retirement. On a beach somewhere in Texas with a cooler full of Margie. As much as he liked the idea, he confirmed my suspicions. Sam and Dean’s story does not end on a beach with girlfriends (or angel boyfriends) and a cooler full of Wisconsin's fictional pride.

It was one o’clock before I even thought to check the time. We had talked for two uninterrupted hours. And as much as I wanted to stay, I needed to be back up at seven for my much-anticipated Sunday.

But before I said any sort of goodbye, I grabbed a napkin and my sharpie—always carry a sharpie with you at cons, just in case—and wrote down my number. When I slid it to him, Jared picked it up and squinted at it.

“I didn’t even have to ask,” he joked.

“Oh, gimme a fucking break, dude, you’re swimming in pussy,” I retorted.

With a crooked smile, he shook his head. “Not really. Do you think I do this,” he paused as he gestured between us, “all the time?”

“With that face and your body, I would,” I said. “Not to mention your heart and brilliant brain, too. You make conversation too easy.”

A distinct shade of pink slashed across his nose, distinguishable despite the dark shadows on his face. I waited for another witty retort, but nothing came. He simply stared at me, eyes searching mine with an intensity that rendered me speechless.

I had told Jared things about myself most people in my life did not know. And as I sat there, staring at him, I realized that Jared understood that. When he hesitated to touch me for a third time, I spoke. “Are you… scared?”

“Maybe a little,” he mused. “I can promise you, this isn’t something I normally do. Spending this much time with a fan… never struck me as a good idea.”

“And now that you have?” I asked.

Finally, his hand enveloped mine where it sat on the bar. “I'll say this. You’re a natural at meeting celebrities. You played it cool even though you were nervous. You talked to me like I was just… another person. And that’s incredibly refreshing.”

“You make it sound like most fans are cra—”

He shook his head, vehement in his disagreement. “No. You’re not. Ya’ll are amazing and generous and so full of love. I would never disparage any of you. Most engagements with fans, either at a con or out in the wild, are short or in a… sort of controlled or contained system. It’s kind of sterile. It sounds ridiculous when I put words to it, but there’s little margin for error and that’s intentional.”

“So, you’re saying it’s almost scientifically curated to go well,” I offered.

“Almost is the key word. There’s a reason Cliffy follows us everywhere,” Jared added with a coy smirk. “But more often than not, what we need is someone to take care of a crying fan because, if Jensen and I or any of the other cast had to handle that on our own every time it happened, we’d lose our minds.”

I recalled the first time I had met anyone from the show. “I thought I was going to throw up after I met Misha a couple years ago.”

Jared laughed his dorky cackle as he said, “Misha gets that reaction a lot.”

“He was all hands…”

“Oh, I am so sorry.”

“No, it was wonderful.”

Again, Jared cackled as if I’d said some sort of perverted innuendo. With his hand still on mine, he took it from the bar and held it. “See, that right there, that's... oh, how gross, I don’t want to say you’re ‘different’ and make this fucking weird. But… I don’t know, I’m not explaining myself very well.”

“I won’t let it go to my head,” I started, “But I think I get it. This’ll sound weird, too, and it might creep you out, but I’ve always imagined my personality was very similar to yours. I’ve always imagined that, at the very least, were we to have worked together on a set, we would have become really good friends.”

“You’re not wrong,” Jared started, “And it’s not weird. We could be friends.”

I tried. I wanted nothing more than to walk away from that night remembering the perfection of our conversation up to that point. But when disappointment contorted my smile, Jared saw it, and winced. When I started to talk, he spoke over me. “I didn’t mean it like that. We could be friends, sure. But…”

His voice trailed off as he thought, eyes listing to the bar. “But?” I asked.

“But I’m guessing at this point you were hoping for more than that.”

What constituted as “more”? Best friends? Friends with benefits? Long-distance lovers? “Look, I gave you my number as a hail mary.”

“What?”

Despite the seriousness of the conversation, I couldn’t resist the joke. “It’s a sports term. Like, slam dunk or…”

He grinned as he said, “Ball handler?”

I never thought I’d ever hear my laugh mixed solely with Jared’s. But laugh we did, singing a song I wanted to play it on repeat forever. I had to drop another joke to hear it again, to commit it to memory. With my pithy line readied, I sucked in a breath between laughs and spoke.

Not a single word made it past my lips, for Jared’s landed on mine with such sudden insistence, I froze. His massive hand warmed my cheek, fingers slipping into my hair, and he pressed harder, as if to remind me of what he had done. It worked, but not how either of us had wanted.

I promise, I’ll make up for how ridiculously I behaved here. When I squirmed away from him, I hated myself. I ended the kiss as quickly as it had started, slipped from his arms and off the barstool to race to the stairs. He didn’t follow me. And I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to see the dejection on his face that I knew was there.

I was up the stairs and through the front door in seconds. I wasted no time heading straight back to my hotel, oblivious to the chilly November drizzle. Incessant ridicule ran through my head, berating myself for being rude, for being a bitch, for being just downright mean. And for passing up on spending a night with someone I knew that, without a doubt, would treat me with nothing but respect.

How fitting then that, when my phone rang, I answered it without thinking.

Tags: @atc74 @hannahindie @bevans87 @meganwinchester1999 @plaided-ani-on-hiatus @oneshoeshort @jonogueira @andkatiethings @elfinmox @wonderfulworldofwinchester @princessofthefandomrealm @just-another-busyfangirl 

Feedback is more than welcome! If you want to get in on the tag list, send me an ask!

[presumenothing]

or: the one without ray.

(AO3)

i.

“Goood mohrning, Norman–!” Emma calls out as she comes racing into the dining hall, carrying Phil on her back while Thoma and Lannion hang off her like hyperactive limpets.

“Morning, Emma,” Norman replies, smiling helplessly at her daily antics, although that’s pretty much all the attention he can spare. Managing breakfast preparations for this many children (all thirty-six of them, now, after Conny was adopted yesterday) isn’t really something easily done alone.

Emma must realise this too, because she sets Phil down with a harried apology and runs over. “Ah, sorry, sorry! I keep forgetting we’re the oldest now, and there’s only the two of us, too…”

That much hasn’t changed, really: it’s always just been the two of them, for as long as he can remember.

Norman shakes his head, still smiling. “Don’t worry about it, Gilda helped.”

“I had to, didn’t I!” Gilda sniffs as she passes by them with the milk jug, but soon enough she’s smiling again as Emma takes the jug from her with laughing apologies.

Because this is Gracefield House – it’s the only home Emma and he have ever known, and it’s family.

Norman can’t wish for anything more.

–

β.

“Good morning,” comes the voice through the wall microphone, to no response: the sole occupant of the room remains unmoving on his bed, and it’s impossible to tell if his eyes are even open, behind his fringe and the arm slung over his face.

(A burst of silent chatter behind the window. Still uncooperative? – isn’t that as ever – why do the higher-ups even insist on – you’ve seen the test results and besides he’s apparently the child of – )

“I can practically hear you guys arguing back there. Stop dallying and give me whatever mind-numbing exercises you’ve got planned already, I’m sure you haven’t got all day.”

Pause.

“Very well. I’ll send the test instructions in along with your breakfast, 13D2A.”

His face is still almost completely hidden, but beneath that arm there’s the mocking curve of a smile. “I see you finally took my suggestion, Doctor.”

“Unnecessary as it is,” comes the faintly reproachful response. “I do respect you far more than enough to address you by name, you know.”

“Now who’s being unnecessary, hm.” A quick swing, legs now dangling off the side of the bed, and he looks directly up into the camera. “Really, there’s no need to pretend at treating me like a human when you don’t see me as one, is there?”

–

iii.

“Today, huh.” Emma tangles her fingers with his. “I still can’t believe it.”

“Yeah.” Norman shakes his head. “Neither can I, it still doesn’t feel real at all.”

They’re sitting together in the shade of the solitary tree in front of the house, the rough bark solid against their backs. It’s a rarely-occupied spot, with everyone preferring the full sunshine of the garden or the nooks and crannies of the forest, but no one comes to bother them either. Phil and Sherry wave madly as they race past, to Gilda’s loud dismay, and Norman manages a smile as he waves back.

Being adopted, leaving the house, saying goodbye to Emma and the others – it’s nothing new, he’d known this day would come eventually since the first time they had been old enough to bid farewell to a departing sibling, and yet…

Norman’s gaze travels from the house to the grounds, every inch of it familiar to him: the forest they both know like the back of their hands, save for the gate and fence they’ve always stayed away from.

The infirmary window that he’d spent so many days looking out of, first wistfully at everyone playing outdoors then laughingly at Emma’s messages communicated by charades and oversized letters on drawing paper after Mama had evicted her from visiting for the fourth time in a row.

And there, just out of sight – the open field behind the dining hall where Emma had tried (if not quite succeeded) at pulling off a birthday surprise for him months ago.

Emma squeezes his hand, and he wonders if she’s thinking of the same things. “I’m happy for you, Norman. Really, I am.”

“Thank you,” he answers sincerely, and Emma smiles sunnily at him before letting go.

“What’ll your new family be like, you think?” she muses, her usual cheer restored. “I bet they’ve got to be super intellectual, to adopt someone like you! Like, a whole house of geniuses, maybe.”

Norman laughs despite himself. “I wonder, huh.”

It doesn’t feel real, he thinks again.

(He’ll recall this thought, not too much later, and think in all painful irony if only – )

–

δ.

Honestly, if he’d known that getting shipped out would only result in him being transferred here to this hellhole, without an outdoors to speak of, or even access to a library despite its obviously restricted choice in books – maybe he’d have worked harder to improve his scores back at the house, instead of letting himself be shipped out at ten.

…oh, who’s he kidding. Absolutely not.

He’d never had any way of definitively confirming the reality he remembered, but nevertheless he’d been careful never to get too attached to any of the other children, which hadn’t been a difficult task in the end. Some of them had been more likeable (or at least less irritating) than the others, yes, but that’d been about it.

No one he’d felt drawn to, no one he would’ve been compelled to save from an uncertain doom, and he’d been –

He’s glad for that. He is.

–

v.

Something’s off about this.

Norman doesn’t know what, not just yet, but he’s beginning to see the vague outlines of it already.

Outwardly there is nothing particularly wrong. Mama is still her usual kind self, and just because he’s being asked to help with some kind of research instead of just going to a regular home doesn’t necessarily make this entire adoption a sham. His genius is one of a kind, Norman knows that even without the proof of his test scores – it’s hardly out of the question that someone from the outside would take notice.

But this man, this Peter Ratri, is harmless only in the same way that Norman himself is: until they decide to stop being so.

His palm is not cold with sweat when he reaches out for the handshake, but Norman almost feels like it should be.

“Sorry, just… one last thing, if you don’t mind?” Norman asks as he lets go, and of course he gets a nod in return – they are supposed to be a happily adopted guardian and child, after all, even if Norman’s already waiting for the other shoe to drop as he turns around.

“Thank you for taking care of me all this time,” he says with a sincerity that’s not entirely feigned, to the woman who’s raised him all these years, to whatever end this is. “Mama. Will you help me take care of Emma, please?”

“Of course, Norman. You didn’t need to ask,” she answers without even a flicker in her expression, and that –

That’s what confirms it for him, of all things.

–

ζ.

“I do wish you’d applied yourself more, you foolish child,” tuts a voice just as everything goes dark, except not in the voice he knows it was but another one that only ever echoes in his memory and –

He lurches upright, awake, gasping.

01:18, the LED display blinks in a muted taunt, and R– he presses his forehead hard enough to hurt against the unyielding plastic.

Wishes that the damned thing would tick for once, just loud enough to drown out the humming echo of that tune still ringing in his ears.

–

vii.

He has to save Emma.

He needs to get out of here, needs to get back to the house and warn Emma, to help her escape, to break right in and bring her out – anything. Everything.

It’s the one thing that’s been sharply bright on his mind ever since they arrived at the gate and he saw the truth in the unmoving glare of Mama’s eyes, a burning coal he’d clenched his fists around as he’d been led to this room with its impenetrable locks, a scream he hears instead of the words:

“Hello, Norman. Welcome to Lambda.”

–

θ.

“Hello, 13D2A,” comes an unfamiliar voice over the speaker, some uncertain waver in the words, and he raises an eyebrow.

It’s happened before, the senior researchers vanishing off elsewhere and leaving the rookies with the daily drudgery, and from long observation he’s concluded fairly decisively that it always coincides with the arrival of a new lab rat.

Yes, correlation is not causation, yada yada, whatever. He wouldn’t have cared, anyway, except that it’s certainly never happened to this extent.

Junior researchers are one thing, but this voice barely sounds that much older than he himself does, which means that it’s something – someone – extraordinary enough to have drawn the attention of everyone with any importance. Not that he’s curious, of course.

Because he isn’t.

…dammit.

–

ix.

In another place, in another time, Norman would’ve been willing to play the slow route. Other people use the same testing equipment too, that much is obvious, and there’s not many places to secret away messages where the cameras can’t see but still more than enough. Slow, yes, but so much more safe.

He doesn’t have time for safe.

They’re already lucky that he was shipped out in November, far before his birthday, but still he’s got only months left until Emma’s, and Norman doesn’t have time.

He’s already noticed the carefulness with which they handle him, beyond even what might be warranted by his still-perfect scores, and maybe that preferential treatment will hold here, too.

“The boy who was brought by in the hallway earlier, when I was doing the last few tests…” he begins, toying idly with the Rubik’s Cube in his hand, and it’s hardly specific but there’s no need to clarify.

Norman can count on one hand the number of other humans he’s seen here, let alone a child instead of another scientist, and that profile is already burned into memory: black hair reaching down to the collar of a shirt not too different from his own, hand tucked into his pocket in a slouch, the almost-familiar look in his eye.

It’d been only a glimpse, only from the side, and Norman has never been one to trust his instincts over logic – he’s always left that to Emma.

But for some reason, he has a feeling, indescribable as it is certain.

Emma would’ve said to trust it.

Norman sets down the finished cube with a faint click. “What’s his name? He’s another of your study subjects, isn’t he, Doctor?”

There’s a long pause before the answer comes, almost a sigh. “Yes, he is. Has been for quite a while now, really.”

“Can I meet him? Just to talk. You see, I was always around other children back at the house, and in a new environment without that… it’s a bit hard to keep performing at my best. I’m sure you understand.” Norman looks directly up at the camera for the first time since his arrival, and smiles. “So, what’s his name?”

–

κ.

“You want me to– what? Babysit another of your test subjects for you?” He dumps the last set of completed questions in the tray, and doesn’t bother to watch it retract again. “Sounds like that should be your job, Doctor.”

“Perhaps,” says the same old voice, not that he’d call its return reassuring in any context. “But Norman’s not that much younger than you, actually. I believe you must have seen him the other day, in the central test chamber…?”

The image comes to mind in a second: pale white hair, light cream shirt under a vest, a black line of numbers stark on his neck.

Along with the recollection of stark disbelief at this being the new test subject they’d all been so excited about.

“He looks like a strong wind could blow him over if it tried.” Wouldn’t have to try very hard, even. “Is this an attempt to socialise me or something? Because I can assure you, that’s not gonna do anything, you can save the effort.”

There’s a faint but genuinely amused laugh from over the speakers. “Not at all. The two of you are close enough in age and ability that it’s only sensible to encourage interaction, if you’re both amenable to the idea. At the very least, it’ll alleviate some of that boredom you keep complaining of.”

He snorts. “While also being an extra opportunity for you lot to collect data, conveniently enough.”

There’s no answer, but the soft hiss of static is almost a shrug.

And, well. He is bored out of his mind, after all.

He looks back up at the camera, hanging in expectant silence, and crosses his arms. “Alright, but only on one condition.”

–––––––––––

Λ.

Norman’s in the midst of setting down the last piece on the chessboard when someone strides in like they’ve been owed a massive favour – which is a pretty impressive feat, being escorted by a pair of researchers and all.

“Nice scarf,” Norman comments with a mild glance.

And it is: a vivid shade of sky blue, comfortable against all the sterile white, even if its wearer grimaces like he’s still getting used to the weight of it. Nevertheless the reply is drought-dry, and that’s almost expected too, somehow. “It’s called fashion, you should try it sometime.”

If he’s conscious of the surveillance at all he doesn’t show it, only tilts his head to the left when Norman holds out his closed fists.

Norman turns his right hand over, uncurls his fingers to show the black king.

“Tch.” He reaches over to take the piece, and Norman turns his palm, makes it a handshake instead.

“Nice to meet you, Ray. I’m Norman.”

“Whatever, white king. Shut up and play already,” he grouses, pulling his hand back, but this –

     ( – this, at least, feels real.)

[sraawrats]

🦇🎃Kana’s Halloween Hangover Rec List🎃🦇

Love Halloween? Not ready for it to be over? No worries! Old and new, these are some of my favorite spooky, suspenseful, and supernatural Kylux reads--perfect for drawing out your favorite month a little longer!

which is 100% why i’m posting this on november 1st, definitely not because i didnt manage to finish it before yesterday. nope, not at all

My Baby’s a Devil in the Bedroom | @callmelyss

- E - 4/5 chapters, 14 645 words - “Oh, obviously.” Kylo let out a shaky laugh and ran both hands through his hair. “Wait, no, you’re serious. You’re a fucking demon.”

“Well, yes, not to put too fine a point on it.” Hux smiled, clearly pleased with himself at the joke. “Or more accurately, I’m a succubus. A sex demon.”

—

Kylo has an unusual squatter. He's pretty fine with it. -

This fic is seriously amazing. It’s a super fun idea, the dialogue is hilarious, and it perfectly balances the sweetness and humor with angst/intrigue. Plus, I’m absolutely taken with snarky, smug, candy-tasting succubus Hux <3 <3

strange phenomenon | @brawlite, @kyluxtrashcompactor

- E - 8/8 chapters, 65 756 words - Kylo Ren is haunted by recent tragedy. He answers an ad posted by one Armitage Hux for a roommate, and he thinks a fresh start will help him begin to heal. He brings next to nothing with him from the past when he moves in.Or so he thinks. -

This fic is wonderfully suspenseful, and perfect if you’re looking for something to keep you on the edge of your seat. I also had a lot of Han feels when reading this one. Overall it’s just really nicely well-rounded with heartfelt and genuine characterizations, good spooks, and some searing sexual tension.

Something Wicked | @marlonbookcase

- G - 7/7 chapters, 22 514 words -  Kylo and Armitage have been friends since they were kids. Now in university, they run a semi-popular YouTube channel called "London Below" where they investigate all sorts of haunted and paranormal happenings in and around London and try to answer the question, are ghosts real? When they take on the mysterious and tragic case of the Pendle Witches, they come face to face with the spirit world in a way they never have before. Will they make it out of Pendle alive? Are ghosts real? And most importantly, does Armitage return Kylo's affections? -

I love Buzzfeed Unsolved. I love Kylux. I love this fic. A lot. As it says in the description, it’s not an exact Unsolved AU, but it really captured the format/feel of the “paranormal investigator” genre, so if you’re a fan of that, you’ll love this. Bonus points for some mutual pining and sugary fluff 👀👀

Second Spring, First Fall | @huxandthehound

- T - 5/? chapters, 7 018 words -  Nothing brings people together quite like the holidays. Well, maybe not Halloween... After a scare, Hux has to confront his neighbor. Lucky for him, Kylo might be a little sweeter than his tricks let on. -

A cute multi-chap made of Huxloween prompt fills! Lighthearted, but it’s still got that Halloween spirit. Plus I’ve got a soft spot for sweet modern AU Kylo :))

Some Strange and Unnerving Events | @longstoryshortikilledhim

- E - 10/10 chapters, 158 815 words -  As a boy in a dreary school on the moors, Kylo Ren had only one friend, a red-headed boy whose sharp tongue and wit drew Kylo to him. But that friend was taken from him. Now grown, Kylo goes into the service of the master of Stormfield Hall, the enigmatic Lord Arkanis, who is seeking a tutor for his charge. Kylo's past will come rushing back to him, both in his new employer and some unusual circumstances that bring to the fore powers that Kylo thought long-suppressed. -

This fic hit me like a ton of bricks. This fic hit me like TWO tons of bricks. Start this one when you’re ready to be feeling it for a few days afterwards. It’s an incredible historical AU with magic and a great murder mystery--it basically pushes, like, all of my buttons. And it’s /genuinely/ spooky, I had to start keeping a light on while I read it. Oh, and it features definitely my favorite Millicent ever. If you’ve got the time for something long, go for this one.

Reach Out in the Darkness | unicornsandbutane

- E - 2/2 chapters, 9 321 words - Having spent a decent amount of time researching the history and folklore of Arkanis, Cadet Hux strikes out one chilly evening in search of some legendary creature that's supposed to be extremely powerful. If the myths aren't true, all he's wasted is time. But, if they are based in some actual fact, then what a boon such an entity would be to his cause. He doesn't know what he will find, but he is prepared for any (absolutely ANY) eventuality. -

Tentacle monster Kylo. I am unapologetic. It’s really good.

Witchfeather | Whatever21ism

- E - 14/? chapters, 16 015 words - Armitage Hux is a new witch trying to establish himself in a new town. One day he goes out seeking a familiar, particularly a cat, somehow instead he ends up with a raven who is much more than they appear to be. -

A favorite of mine! Apothecary witch Hux & his crow familiar Kylo. There’s some really nice worldbuilding and crow Kylo is super cute. Possibly abandoned, but defs worth checking out what’s there & showing the author some love.

First Order Investigations | @mistresseast

- Unrated - series, 3 works, 58 094 words, incomplete - Hux and Phasma have been running First Order Investigations since high school, and Dr. Snoke's metaphysical research graduate program seemed like the perfect opportunity to pursue their interests under the protective umbrella of academia. Unfortunately, that meant allowing Snoke's personal project, a taciturn medium named Kylo Ren, to join their team. Hux and Kylo mix like oil and water, or, more accurately, like fire and gasoline, and Hux is convinced that working effectively with Kylo is absolutely impossible. They hate each other, and Hux is content to leave it that way.

But then, a case in the sweltering heat of South Carolina begins to change things between them, and Hux finds himself questioning not only Kylo's feelings, but his own as well. -

Paranormal Investigator AU of the highest quality. The detail and thought put into each investigation site is incredible. I love this fic to pieces, and if you like ghost stories, you will too.

Undead | @heyktula, @splinteredscript

- E - series, 2 works, 6 855 words, incomplete - They’ve been circling around each other for years. Kylo Ren, the most powerful vampire in Supreme Leader Snoke’s house, and Armitage Hux, the human liaison between the world of mortals and that of eternal darkness. Baiting, taunting, the cord between them growing ever tighter.Sooner or later, one of them is going to snap. -

A lovely and dark vampire AU~~ Gives off some real classic Kylux vibes, and is an absolute pleasure to read :D

Fixer Upper | @irisparry

- T - 5/7 chapters, 10 034 words - When Armitage Hux starts with First Order estate agents, he thinks the house on Alderaan Drive is an insult, a patronising set of training wheels for the new boy. He is ... not correct. -

Adorable haunted house AU! I love both of their characterizations in this one, especially shy, grumpy ghost Kylo~

Hair of the Dog That Bit You | @theweddingofthefoxes

- M - 9/9 chapters, 21 597 words -  Ren owns a popular tavern, and Armitage is a respected physician in town and the surrounding villages. Their years-long friendship will survive anything -- even the bite of a werewolf. Won't it? -

Full disclosure, I haven’t actually finished this one-- I have a tendency to get distracted unless I finish something in one sitting, rip. But I remember being SUPER stoked about starting it, and anything by weddingofthefoxes is guaranteed to be a treat, so I’m putting it on here anyway :D tbh now that I’m thinking about it again I’ll probably finish it tonight.

The Eldritch Effect | @generallyhuxurious

- E - 17/17 chapters, 67 899 words - For the last three years Major Donal A. Hux, formerly of the British Army's Parachute Regiment, and Kylo Ren, estranged son of US Defence Secretary Leia Organa, have been tooling around North America investigating "weirdness"- and they're plenty weird themselves. Their latest tip off is leading them towards a haunting in rural Alabama. But first they need to make a stop in Trinity, South Carolina... -

A real goofy Paranormal Investigators AU that I super love (but I also need to catch up on rip). It’s an American Gothic AU, but you don’t need to have any knowledge of the show to follow along (I don’t). It also comes with a series of oneshots set in the universe but outside the main plotline, so when you finish the fic and inevitably want more, you’re covered ;)

blackbird, fly | @acroamatica

- M - 19 265 words - One sunny afternoon in the mountains of Washington state, Ben Organa-Solo walked out into the woods.

He never came home.

Six years later, a journalist specialising in missing-persons cold cases decides to follow his footsteps and see where they might lead. -

This is a sad beautiful horror AU that is very close to my heart. The writing is just gorgeous and the suspense is beautifully done. Also, it about doubled the amount of emotions already attached to the song Blackbird for me (I still get a little heart-squeeze every time I hear it)

what’s real or isn’t | @brawlite

- E - 12/12 chapters, 57 398 words - Hux's new house is not haunted. It isn't. -

Super surreal haunted house AU. There’s also monster sex. This is definitely a staple of spooky Kylux fics :D

How to Kill a Living Thing | hedgerowhag

- E - 10/10 chapters, 25 394 words - It starts like any other horror movie: a young man moves into a strange old house full of relics of the past and becomes haunted by some strange entity. However, Ren doesn't find the monster that he expects. -

This one has got some of the most stunning, spooky visuals I’ve ever read. I could picture every scene and character so clearly. Plus, I love Hux’s characterization--he’s kind of a shit, and it’s beautiful.

Twenty-Six Weeks | @vmprsm

- E (eventually) - series, 4 works, 28 539 words, probably complete - Two mature adults need to do two things: live an a house with a stranger for six months, and keep their secrets to themselves. How hard could that be?

Apparently very. -

The author made a point of trying not to give too much away in the summary/tags, so I won’t either :D I’ll just say it’s one of my favorites, and definitely worth a read if you haven’t already~~

The Brief Wondrous Return of Vampire Boy | @hollyhark

- T - 21 190 words - Two days before Halloween, Hux hears a rumor that Ben Solo is back in town. While Hux does not believe the sensational version-- that his estranged childhood friend/enemy escaped from an asylum and is out for revenge --he is left on edge as to how to proceed. -

One of my favorite Halloween fics; it really encompasses the feel of fall/Halloween but also, like, good ol’ ~teenage bullshit~. There’s a lot of creepy Snoke stuff, some dealing with the fallout, and a nice hopeful ending :))

Ghost Encounters of the Hux Kind | carefulren

- T - 9/9 chapters, 25 610 words - Kylo purchases an old, abandoned house in order to get away from his family. He just wants the chance to be alone for a while, and he considers this house as the start of his new, isolated freedom.

Everything is going as smoothly as possible, until it's not.

Perhaps, Kylo isn't living alone after all.-

A sweet and soft ghost  story AU. I adore the ending <3 <3 

Spookylux Huxloween 2018 | @nofootprintsinsalt

- T - series, 31 works, 36 896 words, complete - Huxloween 2018 - 31 benarmie fics in 31 days -

A series of benarmie fluff/horror for the Huxloween prompts this year! These were so so fun to read throughout the month and I adore the little universe that develops as they go on :))

Of Our Time | @ezlebe

- E - 15 297 words - “Do you know how many people would think it’s weird you walk around in the day?”

Hux grits his teeth in vain against an uncanny sensation, his own words digging and clawing up his throat to leave behind the taste of blood and bitterness thick on his tongue. “I could care less. I was made this way before there were movies – before fucking Stroker. Call me a demon if it makes you feel better.” -

I only read this really recently, and I was BLOWN AWAY. Seriously, this packs so much into 15k--it’s got feels, it’s got lore, it’s got steamy smut. What more could one ask for?

Shiver The Whole Night Through | @theweddingofthefoxes

- T- 5/5 chapters, 7 977 words - Ren's always loved hunting, so when he's told his paid time off won't roll over into the next year, he decides to take a week, get his gun and rent a cabin in the woods. But it takes no time at all for the hunter to become the hunted. -

This one’s very accurately tagged “Mind Games,” which really made it stand out to me--I do love a good spooky woods story~~

The Ghost Under My Bed | @longstoryshortikilledhim

- E - 19 525 words - Amateur witch, aspiring actor and full-time family fuckup Ben Solo discovers that his house is being haunted. Best part? His very own poltergeist, Armitage Hux, is kinda cute. Worst part? Well. He's dead. -

THIS IS THE SWEETEST GHOST STORY. I love it so so much. The sweetness of their relationship set against the sad backdrop of both of their histories gives this one a really unique feel. And the ending is guaranteed to give you the warm fuzzies <3

--

aaaand that’s all, folks! Lord, this post turned into a behemoth lmao. I just. really love supernatural stuff. (on that note, if anyone has read/written anything even tangentially spooky/supernatural, feel free to send it my way. I will happily give it a read ;)))

Happy reading! ^_^

[ontherockswithsalt]

A Made Man

/1/ /2/ /3/ /4/ /5/ /6/ /7/ /8/ /9/ /10/ /11/ /12/ /13/ /14/ /15/

A/N: EEEEE JAMIE!!!!!1 That’s what partners do, you guys. Enjoy a new chapter!

Chapter 16.

“Hey man, you wanna grab a couple drinks?” I push closed my locker and turn to Vinny where he sits on the bench tying the laces of his sneakers.

“Definitely,” he mutters. “After that tour, more like a couple pitchers.”

Exhaling a laugh, I stretch my arms into my leather jacket. Even my muscles feel done for the day, beat from an exhausting week on patrol. “Sounds good. I'll see you out there.”

It's rare that Vinny and I spend time together outside of work. When he first transferred to the 12th precinct last year, we didn't exactly see eye to eye when it came to how we did things on the job. But considering the rough Harlem sector he used to patrol, I chalk it up to different styles and we've come to appreciate the dynamic over the last several months.

But still, the job is one of the few things we have in common. So I'm not quite sure why I feel compelled to let Vinny in on the news of my relationship with Noble. It's not that I'm putting off telling my family. It's just something about Vinny, cool-headed and laid back but still a strong partner, makes me wish he knew.

Hanging back against the hallway of the precinct, I swipe through my phone while I wait. I send off a text to Noble: Happy hour. Talk to you tonight just before Vinny rounds the corner.

“Let's hit it, Reagan.”

We head out the door and make our way down the block. “Let’s skip Murphy’s, though,” I tell him.

“Not feeling it?”

I shrug, sinking my hands into the pockets of my jacket and wait at the crosswalk. “Even when you’re off duty over there, it’s like… people still wanna talk shop, you know?”

“Yeah, alright,” he agrees. “There’s a place over on Ninth we can shoot some pool.”

It’s an easy agreement and we head west, our pace picking up with the brisk November wind that cuts through the side street.

It isn’t long before we get to the tucked away tavern. With a subtle scan, I check that I don’t see anyone I know while I wait at the bar to start a tab.

At the back of the pub, there’s a pool table, dimly lit in the glow of green neon and lucky for us, unoccupied. The bartender meets us there to set a pitcher of amber lager and two pint glasses on the nearest table.

“Anything else I can get you guys?” She wonders as she tips the last glass against the pitcher and pours.

“We're good, Allie,” Vinny assures her as he reaches into the table for the rack and starts to collect the balls into it. “But I want you to check back in a minute because my boy Jamie over here is about to lose and I think it's gonna be hard on him so he might-- y'know, need a little support.”

With a shake of her head, she smiles. “Oh really?”

“And then I'll need a high five,” he adds, proudly.

I have to scoff as I peer up to choose my pool cue.

She hums, as if to humor him but manages to giggle anyway. “I'll see what I can do.”

Then she heads back to the bar and I make sure Vinny catches me rolling my eyes as I meet him at the table.

“It never stops, huh?” I tease him, but by now I’m used to his persistent flirting with any halfway attractive woman he comes in contact with.

“What, you think I can turn it off and on? Just accept me for who I am, Reagan.” Back and forth, he slides the balls across the green felt and carefully lifts the rack. “One day, you'll reap the rewards of my wingman efforts. Wanna break?”

I cough out, amused, and scoop up the cue ball. “Sure.” Positioning myself at the end of the table, I line up my first shot. “Speaking of that--” I start just before swiftly knocking the end of my pool cue against the ball which clacks hard into the triangle and sends all the other balls scattering. Two solids find a pocket and I make my way around to ponder another shot. “I gotta give you a heads up in the off-chance my brother decides to question you. But if he ever asks, you and I went to Miami for a weekend.”

Vinny tilts his head while he takes a drink. He swallows hard and arches an eyebrow at me. “We did?”

“I told him we did.”

He chuckles, obviously amused that I would ever attempt to pull one over on my family and include him in the lie. “What’s the story there?”

I glance over at him across the table, pressing my lips together in hesitation. Fuck, it’s all gonna come out, I know it.

“Oh shit, tell me.” His dark eyes light up once he realizes whatever the story involves, it’s anything but innocent. “What'd you do in Miami?”

“My family knew I went, but they got all suspicious about why, so I just told them I went with you to visit some friends.”

“So who were you really with?”

All I can manage is a deep inhale as I lean over to take another shot.

“Come on, Reagan.” He grins, excited the more I resist confessing. “You roped me in on it, so I gotta know. What, is she from our house or something?”

“No--”

“Is she married?”

“No.”

“Does she work for IA?”

“No, not--”

“Yo, is she in high school?”

“No! Vin--” And then I sputter a surprised laugh and rub a hand across my eyes. I let out a weary groan and shake my head. “It’s not like that.”

“Alright, so what’s with the cover-up?”

I step back from the table and reach for my pint glass. “He--” I begin, glancing at him over the rim. “--isn’t any of those things.” Then I tilt the beer to my lips and down a hard gulp.

It takes him a second. An averted glance, the slight twitch of one eyebrow, before he gradually lifts his chin in realization. Then he tips it down and his brow creases when he looks at me to confirm, “Oh, like that?”

I exhale a breathy laugh. “Yeah, like that.”

He nods, taking a moment for a sip of his beer too, then presses his lips together. “Alright, alright--” he repeats, still nodding, then he looks at me. “I didn’t know.”

A blameless shrug lifts my shoulders. “How would you know?”

His head cocks as if to recall some sort of indicator, but he just mirrors my shrug.

I manage a nervous glance away and chew on my lip muttering, “So…now you know.”

“A good guy?”

The simple question surprises me, seeming to push away some of the weight sinking through my chest. “Yeah. Yeah, for sure.”

“Nice, Reagan,” he comes closer and smacks the back of his hand against my shoulder, seeming to deflate a little in relief. “You had me thinking you took a hostage across state lines or something.”

“No,” I chuckle.

“So I take it your family doesn’t know.”

“No one really knows,” I tell him, then gesture to the pool table. “You’re up.”

“No one?”

“Not really, no.” I hang back in the pub chair with my beer while Vinny takes his shot.

“Wait.” He straightens up to watch the striped eleven sink into the side pocket. “No one knows about him, or no one knows… about you?”

My brows pull together as I consider it. “Both, I guess.”

“Oh, damn.”

I laugh. “Yeah, it's complicated.”

“Well hey.” He holds up his hands in affirmation, tipping out the pool cue. “I got your back brother, you know that. I'm just glad you could tell me. I'll corroborate the Miami story if it comes to that.”

I can't help but smile as I grasp my beer and glance down. “I appreciate it.”

Backing up, her turns and leans in for another turn. “So what’s his deal? Do I know him?”

“No, he lives in Florida.”

“How’d you meet him?” He misses his shot and makes his way over for his beer.

Inhaling deep, I sit back in my chair. “That's the complicated part.”

“I'm all in now, Reagan. Tell me.”

I glance up, across the bar just to ensure no one else is within earshot. Then I pass a hand across nervous lips and scratch my jawline. “Last year when I was working UC. But I can't tell you the whole story.”

Vinny’s eyebrows jump and he comes closer to the table. “Wait, what?”

Stepping down off my chair, I turn for my pool cue that's against the wall. “It's my turn.”

“Bro.” He groans. He stops me before I head to the pool table and murmurs, “You telling me he's in WitSec?”

“I didn't say that.”

“Yeah but I know the gist of that undercover you did. You met him here but he lives in Miami now? Come on.”

“Alright yes, he's in WitSec,” I offer a hushed confirmation before I turn away for my shot. “That's why I can't say anything.”

“Oh shit.” He tries to contain some sort of noisy reaction as he mutters into his fist. “Reagan!”

I look back at him and spread my hands before I lean over the ledge of the table.

“I think I'm gonna order a couple shots,” he announces.

***

It's a fairly easy win in the game against Vinny. He tries to blame it on being distracted with too many questions but really he's just all talk when it comes to his pool technique.

He makes good on two shots of Johnny Walker and we retire to the pub table with pitcher number two.

“Well it sounds to me like you really like him,” he reasons.

“Of course I do.”

“I'm just saying. If this were nothing but a hook-up you wouldn't be telling me.”

I swallow another gulp from my beer and consider it. “I guess so.”

“Which is why I'm questioning what you're gonna do, man.”

“I don't know what to do,” I concede.

“Why don't you talk to your sister?”

With an absent nod, I pause a beat. “I've thought about it.”

“Would it be bad news if he left the program?”

“I think there will always be a threat. His guys are locked up but… Those ties run deep, you know? There's always someone out there who would try to be some kinda a hero.”

He nods and sniffs a soft laugh. “You wanna move to Miami then?”

I smile. “No.”

“So you do long distance for a while,” he decides and I appreciate the content, albeit temporary, resolution.

“Yeah. So far, so good.”

“Would I like him?” Vinny wonders.

“I think you'd like him.”

“I wanna know about him. What's his name? What's his deal?”

I let a smirk sit on my face a minute while I think about how much to reveal to my partner. “His name's Nick.”

“Alright.” He nods, knowing that's not his real name but he has to go with it. “Does Nick know your dad's the PC?”

I clear my throat and nod. “He knows pretty much everything.”

“Man, I'm not gonna lie. This is…” And then he trails off while he considers it.

“It's fucking… stupid.”

A rumbling laugh sputters in our throats before the both of us crack up.

Vinny shakes his head. “No, he must be some guy, that's all.”

I down what's left in my pint glass and breathe out hard. “He must be,” I muse.

“I gotta meet the guy who can make Jamie Reagan this stupid.”

Nodding in acceptance of that, my laugh tapers off. “Maybe you will.”

He reaches over and slaps a hand on the side of my arm.

I set my glass down with a thud on the table and stretch back my shoulders. “See now you don't have the competition anymore when you're trying to get girl's numbers on patrol but they only want to talk to me.”

“You can get the fuck out.” He points his glass at me, a sideways smile curving on his cheek. “Ain't no competition. I don't care if you're off the market or not.”

“We'll see what Allie has to say about that.” I slide off my chair and start to make my way over to the bar.

“No, see I'm playing the long game with Allie,” he calls out.

Arching a skeptical brow back at him, I give him a phony nod as if I believe him. “Let me know how that goes, partner.”

[ayearofpike]

The Wicked Heart

Pocket Books, 1993 244 pages, 16 chapters + epilogue ISBN 0-671-74511-5 LOC: CPB Box no. 1195 vol. 8 OCLC: 29202142 Released November 1, 1993 (per B&N)

When Sheila Hardolt’s best friend doesn’t show up for school one Friday, she’s worried and goes to her house to check on her. Her friend isn’t home — but on her pillow there’s a small white card with a swastika. The card connects Sheila with a detective conducting the investigation into the disappearances of other girls in the area. When it turns up at a house where two teenagers have been killed, Sheila fears but suspects the worst. What she doesn’t realize is that she already knows who the murderer is, and in fact she’s been asking him for help in solving the case.

I don’t remember much about this book, but I have a vague memory of not liking it. Maybe it’s because the premise of being compelled to do something against your will by the ghost of old relatives is so creepy. But just maybe it’s because I understood even as a teenager the thing that bothered me the most on this re-read: that dehumanizing Nazis to some degree delegitimizes the very real horrors that humans can inflict on others. I’m not going so far as to call Pike a Hitler apologist, but turning the leader of the SS into a literal devil and associating his party’s symbols with an unrelated evil fifty years on paints over the observable, physical evils and ills perpetrated by people in Germany and Europe leading up to and during WWII. And yes, painting over with black is still painting over.

Like, I don’t even really want to summarize this book, which will maybe make me keep it short. I’ll do the briefest rundown I can while sharing relevant points. First, Pike is back to multiple viewpoints, which he hasn’t done very much recently. We get Sheila’s perspective, but we also follow the killer, Dusty Shame, who is compelled by a mysterious whisper in his sleep to target and slaughter innocents. The book starts, in fact, with him killing Sheila’s best friend and burying her in a cave in the desert. This makes three murders, and each time the whisper eases up, but for a briefer and briefer respite until it returns. He somehow figures that if he gets to six, he’ll be done and can rest.

Sheila is Dusty’s friend and chemistry lab partner, and they comment on her friend missing class and how unusual that is, but she’s got another, bigger, problem. Namely, her boyfriend Matt thinks they should break up. And like, come the fuck on, but OK, Sheila doesn’t know the story yet, I’ll give her a pass. But she engineers “bumping into him” in the parking lot, and as they talk she gets so overwhelmed that he agrees to drive her home. Instead, though, she has him drive to her friend’s house, where they break in and find the card and call the cops. A detective immediately comes over, and even though he won’t say why it’s pretty obvious that the card is a clue connecting this house to other similar cases. He mentions two names that nobody recognizes, but Sheila is determined to help him crack the case. Pike’s kid detectives strike again!

Meanwhile Dusty already needs another victim. He uses an online service called Einstein (because Prodigy was already taken) to get close to innocent and inexperienced girls and track them down. He doesn’t mind talking to his mom about it — she’s got early-onset Alzheimer’s, and he’s pretty vague about his intentions, but it’s still creepy. The one he chooses for this particular night has let slip that her parents will be out late, so he sneaks into her house and nails the sleeping girl in the temple with a ballpeen hammer. Only the bedroom light flicks on and his actual target is standing in the doorway. He tackles her, but she bites him and shakes free, running for the door. He manages to stop her with words, and then stabs her in the heart with a switchblade which has appeared out of nowhere, and then scrams without cleaning up after himself because there was screaming and too much blood and he’ll get caught. Instead, he races as though compelled to an unmarked grave just outside an old cemetery, where he spends the night in pain and fear and terror.

Next morning, Sheila tracks down the parents of the first two girls, who let on about the Einstein membership. She calls the detective with this clue, and learns about the previous night’s murders. But the detective wants to know more about how the service works, and Sheila remembers that Dusty is a big time user, so she enlists his help to talk to the officer. They go to his house and meet his 14-year-old daughter, an innocent if there ever was one. Dusty hangs out with her while Sheila and the detective talk about an old case on the books with a similar MO: young girls missing from their beds with a swastika card on their pillow, six in all, just after the war. He wants her to talk to the detective who was on that case, because he had some mystical feelings about it and she might have a more open mind and get him to talk more freely than the modern police. But he dissuades her from taking Dusty, because he is sad and shy and might preempt the old detective from saying certain things.

So she takes Matt instead. And, yeah, the detective might get mad, but it’s probably a good idea to have a friend you trust when you’re an 18-year-old girl driving an hour and a half to meet someone new. What the hell, 1993. The detective is a WWII vet who actually met Heinrich Himmler and his (invented for this story) mistress Olga Scheimer. He tells this whole history of their rising through the ranks and manipulating power to be cruel, and how they reveled in the capture and death of innocents. The rationale, he says, is that they’ve opened themselves to evil and now only exist as empty vessels for the ills of whatever supernatural terror to act through. And, like, I appreciate the need to tap into something beyond the mundane for the teen horror book market, but like I said up top, this does something to undersell how horrible it can be when a group of human beings devalues another group so completely as to decide they should be exterminated. As though instead of a policy handed down and agreed to by so many involved, it was the subliminal efforts of one devil.

But anyway, the old detective encounters them only at the end of the war, when they’ve been captured by the Allies and are up for interrogation. Scheimer catches his eye and suddenly he wants to have her, kill the other guards and take her away, kind of like another evil vessel we’ve met before. But he prays for good and the urge desists, upon which Himmler kills himself with cyanide. And because he’s dead and she wasn’t officially affiliated with the power structure, the military lets her go so that she can safely take care of her daughter. Upon which she moves to Los Angeles.

A year later there are mysterious disappearances and swastika cards, and yet Old Detective is the only one who makes the connection. Maybe because he was the only American in the room when she was captured, coincidentally. He goes to talk to her, they shoot the shit, but he never formally accuses her of anything because they both know he has no evidence. At least not until she pulls a knife and tries to kill him in front of her toddler, which gives him no choice but to shoot her. He takes the kid home with him and tries to give her a normal life, but as soon as it’s learned that he shot her mom, he loses his job and social services or whatever it was in the 1940s takes the kid away. He was able to track her as far as an adoptive family, but after the dad killed the mom and then himself, she disappeared. Old Detective assumes that she changed her name to dissociate herself from the shame of her sordid background.

And as soon as he says the word, it all clicks into place for Sheila. She knows she has to find Dusty and she has to do it fast, so she jumps in her car and totally bails on Matt and Old Detective. And she thinks she knows who the next victim will be, and that it’s going to be tonight, so she doesn’t go right to Dusty’s house.

Young Mr. Shame is, in fact, hearing the whispers again already, in dreams of a cockroach who threatens to bite off his ear. It’s real enough to wake him — to find his actual mom biting his actual ear. He knocks her off and pins her down, smothering her with a pillow for a moment, before realizing what he’s doing. So instead of his mom, he needs to find an innocent, and he knows just where she lives already. The detective’s daughter is so psyched to be going out with a high school senior that she doesn’t notice the blood on his ear and hand. She doesn’t notice when they get on the freeway, or when they head toward the desert. In fact, she doesn’t notice much until he essentially flat-out says he’s going to kill her. Lucky for her, Sheila is already on their tail.

They end up at the desert cave, and Sheila gets Dusty to pause long enough to hear about his problem with the voices, including the cockroach who bit his ear and it tying to his mom. She’s actually met his mom, and realizes that the evil has another empty vessel to speak through — after all, Dusty only hears the whisper at home in his bed. She tells him about his grandmother, and tries to help him shake off the darkness that’s taking him over. But he doesn’t want to hear it. He just wants six. So she talks him into swapping her out for the detective’s daughter.

Before he can pull the trigger, Matt and Old Detective show up. They’ve gone to Dusty’s house and found his mother dead in his bed ... guess he was a little too vigorous beating her back. The live-in help isn’t surprised: she’s known Dusty is a bad seed for a while and has actually followed him to the cave in the desert, and is able to guide the others to it. Their arrival really only buys a few minutes, but it’s enough for Sheila to convince Dusty that she actually does care about him, that she wants him to find some help and get good again. And that — the simple validation of care, of having a friend — is what Dusty needs to apologize for his misdeeds and then shoot himself in the head, thus ending the cycle of the wicked heart and the empty vessel.

I have to admit that the book wasn’t as disturbing as I remembered it being. But I think maybe I misremembered the gore of the murders. Today it’s disturbing for a whole new reason. Like, remember when Nazis were bad? Now they’re coming out of the woodwork again, and I have to read this shit that says maybe they only did evil because they were possessed? Fuck you, The Wicked Heart.

[sussex-nature-lover]

Sunday 27th December 2020

What Have We Seen?

♦ outside links indicated by bold type - not affiliated to this blog

When I was a little girl, as an only child, my Christmas Day evening and the days afterwards were spent diligently writing. It was all about the Thank You cards and filling in my new diary (remember them?) This year the house has been equally quiet, just me and Crow and it set me thinking that as I’ve been using this Blog as a kind of journal, documenting our weekly life, I should try and make a definitive list of all the birds we’ve seen in our Sussex garden and on our walks straight out of the front door, all within half an hour’s gentle amble. I’m going to include birds seen flying overhead as well as in the trees and on the ground.

As of the 30 November 2020 update, the British lists of species seen stands at 622, so we have a very long way to go.

The UK List from the British Ornithologists’ Union - check the site for further qualifications on the categories below.

Now yesterday was a super exciting day for us here and we didn’t even leave the house. It wasn’t to do with forgotten Christmas presents or stuffing ourselves with left overs either.

I’d got this Blog entry partly drafted out (and annoyingly lost everything I wrote earlier, so am having to start again, boo hoo) but I’m going to take the opportunity to start at the end instead of the beginning.

You might remember that last week I reported seeing a Tree Creeper for the first time. I used an illustration as I just didn’t manage to get a photo. After a shout out on Twitter two friends supplied me with personal pictures and said I could use them. Here’s one and the other will be showcased again soon. It’s great to be able to use friends’ photos if I haven’t got one rather than rely on the reference sites.

Tree Creeper in Sefton Park by Dave Edwards ‘ Lifelong LFC Fan. Proud Scouser. Lakeland walker, lover of all wildlife. Photography lover’ Thanks Dave

Yesterday morning I was looking out of a front bedroom window and could tell there was a huge amount of activity in the field across the lane (Babs the Buzzard’s Field) but this time it was tiny activity, dwarfed by the Rooks and Crows over there.

First off there was a big flock of Pied Wagtails. I’d guesstimate more than 20. The most I’ve ever seen before (in Real Life) would be eight or nine. They were really, really busy little birds. Lovely.

They’re quite hard to make out and were over a fair area. I just wanted to offer a bit of proof I hadn’t seen about four and told a Fisherman’s Tale.

Peer closely and they are there I promise

Then I noticed that right at the back along the tree line where the Deer usually linger, what might have been leaves blowing in the wind, was actually something totally different.

I do believe (and my Guru will soon put me right if I’m mistaken) that there was a huge number of both Redwing (above) and Fieldfare (below) - the so called Winter Thrushes.

Link includes video which gives you more of an idea what I saw.

They were hard to snap as well because they were so active, leaping up on the wing and dancing about.

What I’ve lost in clarity I’ve gained by showing scale

We’ve never seen either of these birds for ourselves before, so that’s another first - three within a week or thereabouts.

BUT...We weren’t done yet - brace yourselves.

I was on the phone to Ms NW tE and didn’t have the binoculars to hand. A huge bird caught my eye. The Heron? Oooh, no, TWO huge birds and then a third smaller bird flying behind.

I managed to get a very poor photo with which to tease my Guru. I actually gave him the pic that looked like a spec of dust on the screen, but he knows my modus operandi by now and politely enquired if I had anything a little better? Tee Hee.

Still not the best, but I offered up what I have. Through a process of enquiry and thought, we identified what the two large birds are. See Link Here.

RECONNECTING PEOPLE AND LANDSCAPES

A group of private landowners and nature conservation organisations are working together to help the white stork return home to South East England for the first time in several hundred years.

These large birds, symbolic of rebirth, are native to the British Isles and evidence suggests that they were once widely distributed. Whilst it is unclear why this spectacular and sociable bird failed to survive in Britain, it is likely that a combination of habitat loss, over-hunting and targeted persecution all contributed to their decline. A contributory factor may be that it was persecuted in the English Civil War for being associated with rebellion. The white stork is a migratory bird species, and there have been many sightings in the UK over recent years, but conservationists identified that the species would need a helping hand to re-establish a breeding population in Britain.

Read more at The White Stork Project

I think we agreed there’s no doubt as the project is 4-5 miles away by road and a friend from another nearby village also confirmed sightings here last week (of several, circling) I wish I’d known.

To say that I am BEYOND EXCITED (yes - shouting, sorry) is an understatement. This was our first sighting and now we know, we’ll definitely be on the look out. Sometimes I find it hard to identify a new bird because it just doesn’t occur to me that I’m going to see something unusual - which is odd because I do know the science and always advise other people that you just don’t know what’s out there. My mind boggles at all the spottings I’ve missed because I wasn’t looking out at the right time...but then sometimes you just get lucky.

I’ve only ever seen a Stork in real life once before and that was in South Africa. I’ll embarrass myself here and confess that neither of us thought it was real. We came straight out of the Lodge (in the open Land Rover) with our Ranger and Tracker and there it was. We actually thought someone had made a giant painted cut out as some kind of way marker.

Saddle Billed Stork at 5′ approx, the tallest Stork in the world, with a wing span of between 8-9′ Incredible. Click link for all the details

To be fair to us that was in the fairly early days of our interest in bird watching and they are usually shy and somewhat reclusive.

So that’s four new to us sightings within a week or 10 days. What an end to the year that is, not that it’s over yet. I’ll sign off now and start over on the full Sightings Blog that I’d written earlier. Back to Square One it is.

LOCAL NEWS:

Just down the lane this morning. The post and wire fence on the right is where I took the Goldfinch photos in the Summer. Luckily our house is on a slope down from the village towards this point. Apparently the roads all around are flooded, some can’t be used at all and it goes as far as St Leonard’s (towards the coast)

Photo Credit: a fellow villager

And a couple of villages along, a friend’s view at the end of the garden - there is no river there as a rule.

Photo credit: friend * permission has been requested. Will remove if not forthcoming

NOTE FROM LAST NIGHT’S KITCHEN:

I was quite the Domestic Goddess. We have some beautiful large Majool Dates. They were £4 for two packs on offer from Morrisons.

I really recommend you read that link.

I made a slit in them and inserted a Pistachio Nut and drizzled some melted dark chocolate over them, sprinkling it before it set with some more finely chopped nuts.

I was also prepping on the off-chance our power got cut off later because of Storm Bella revving up outside. There’s been some awful flooding around the country and I could hear high winds. I slept with ear plugs in last night, which did help, but woke about 6ish and my goodness it was still raging. There are rail and road disruptions all over and goodness knows what it was like out at sea. A friend said around Brixham container ships and an empty cruise liner were clinging in close to shore for what shelter they could get. It’s around 9am as I type and it just about seems to be calming down here.

More weather reports.

I’d got some cous cous with mixed spices and so we made that up, steamed some plain potatoes to make into a potato salad with chives from the freezer and have been making my favourite olive and preserved lemon Tagine recipe, which has been marinating for a day already.

I got that all ready for an emergency reserve supper but as it happened we were ok. The camping stove was on standby, but it wasn’t needed. Phew. Pity the hundreds of people who did lose power though

Decoration from the Standen Courtyard Christmas Trees

a colourful hand crafted tree with leaves and blossom - very cheery for a dull day

Today’s Carol from the Vienna Boys’ Choir

with the London Symphony Orchestra 

‘Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly’

[kpopandcream]

Moon Day - VI

Pairing: Dongmin x Reader & Yoongi x Reader

Genre: Fluff, Angst, Humour.

Warnings: Strong language, Implied smut, some dark themes.

Jungkook told you about Min Yoongi many times. How he didn’t take to strangers. How he preferred to stay unknown. How he thrived in the underbelly of society where he could do what he wanted without anyone caring. Yet, after many short talks about him, all of that information still seemed to land on deaf ears. You couldn’t remember a single thing about him except for his name, which landed you in a puddle full of milk and under a confused stare.

Word Count: 5.5k

Part: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Masterlist

Your feet dragged you to the familiar shop Ahro had taken you to a while ago where you’d decided to get all of your mid-day snacks from. By mid-day, you meant the half hour break you had between you class that ended at six thirty p.m. and the one that started at seven. You were exhausted, this week being particularly heavy. With exams coming up soon, every class was loading more work on you and you mostly just wanted to lie down and sleep for an eon. There was no such luck, however, due to this unsettling building of pressure in your chest. You didn’t understand why you felt like someone had been slowly inflating a balloon in the pit of your stomach and you didn’t appreciate it either. It made your head hazy and your thinking unclear and you only seemed to operate on the most basic level. Even memorization was difficult for you.

So, when you managed to make your way to the shop, you were more than desperate to have some quality food that would take your mind off everything for a few moments. With earbuds jammed in and your music the slightest bit louder than usual, you stuck your hands into your coat pocket and waited patiently in line. November was a terrible time. It was either too cold or too hot but all the heaters were working in this establishment and soon, you felt the cool sweat start on the palms of your hands. Begrudgingly, you began to remove your bag when a large hand clasped your shoulder.

Loudly yelping over your music, you jumped up and turned to the owner of the hand, letting out an exasperated sigh at that. The immediate fear stilled in your heart after a few moments and you picked your bag off the floor, embarrassed completely that you had yelled so loudly in public. Yoongi didn’t quite take this approach, simply laughing and offering to hold your bag so you could take off your jacket.

“Scare easily?” he asked, looking behind you to see how fast the line was moving before glancing back down at you. You simply shook off your coat, redness in your cheeks not fading as you reached for your bag with a nod. He handed it to you with a light smile, rings of black circling both eyes that crinkled the slightest bit at the ends. Slowly, you regained your composure and the beating of your heart subsided.

“What are you doing here?” you asked lightly, trying to act natural. Yoongi simply shrugged, eyes attaching themselves to the boards scrawled with food names and prices.

“I don’t want to cook tonight so I’m getting dinner.” He squinted as he did so before asking for you to read the third entry from the left and you chuckled, obliging. He added that he forgot his glasses at work but he didn’t want to go back and get them and you chuckled at that, knowing you’d feel the same way.

“From here though?” You ran your eyes over the menu and frowned, knowing none of these would be satisfying enough for yourself, much less someone who probably ate more than you. With a frown, you glanced at his arms, which were clung to by a tight, white turtleneck. The contrast of his hair and his shirt made him look paler than before and you thought it added to how sickly he looked as he nodded in response.

Your hand came to wrap around his wrist and, upon feeling the bones in it, you frowned deeply. “Are you eating enough?”

There was a look of shock in his eyes as he blinked at you and you wondered why he was so surprised. He said he had been eating just fine but he skirted around your eyes. Pressing your lips together, knowing your place, you murmured a small ‘okay’ and decided against saying anything more. He sparked up another conversation just as quickly, taking out his wallet as you were both next in line.

“I really do think you’re following me, by the way.” He said it so nonchalantly, as if he genuinely just wanted to press your buttons. With a narrow of your eyes, you opened your mouth, incredulous.

“If I recall correctly,” you started, pointing your finger up as you reached for your wallet with your other hand, “you walked in after me so doesn’t that mean you followed me?”

He clicked his tongue at you, shaking his head. As some of his hair moved into his eyes, he reached his hand up to fix it, pouting his bottom lip out. “Those are just specifics I don’t necessarily want to get into.”

“Ah,” you breathed, chuckling a little and he gave you a small smile. If you weren’t so tired, you might have continued and berated him further but you decided against it. He asked you what you were getting and you murmured a generic hot chocolate, never being one for coffee or anything really hard. He gave you a small look, the both of you moving forward in line.

“Don’t like coffee?”

“Never have,” you chimed, fidgeting with the small change you had in your pocket, “probably never will.”

He made a small sound at that, seemingly perplexed as he muttered, “never would have guessed.”

When you tried to question him why, he simply brushed it saying most university students liked coffee. It was a general statement and you probably would have said the same thing so you let it slide. As the person in front of you left and the man behind the counter called you up, you motioned for Yoongi to go first. Slowly, he accepted and you listened to him order, listing his sandwich and a large coffee and then your drink. You almost protested but he was already paying so you decided against it. Though it was mildly annoying, it also meant that you could spend your coins another day and wouldn’t have to go looking through your old piggy banks at home for more. Plus, it was really, very kind of him.

“Wow, fancy music producer,” you drawled, getting out of line quickly to get beside him. He looked mildly embarrassed and you couldn’t pinpoint why but he covered it quickly with a dumb shrug of his shoulders and a jokingly smug smile.

“What can I say? I take pity on those of lower stature.”

A laugh escaped your mouth, your brain being able to register the joke and the further embarrassment spreading onto his cheeks. You gave him a firm look, trying not to giggle through your sentence as you murmured, “that’s offensive, you shouldn’t say that to people you hardly know.”

“I’m sorry.” He was immediate but it didn’t seem insincere just rather odd coming out of his mouth. Slowly, as you spoke about work and school and the camera around his neck while you waited for your food and drinks to be made, you realized you had him all wrong.

At first, he seemed so cold and disinterested, as if no one and nothing mattered. He really was one of those underbelly of society people who lived so far under the radar, no one even knew he existed. It wasn’t like he was doing that for mystery purposes- to be that guy everyone knew about but didn’t really know, like Gatsby or any famous literary man. He just preferred to be left alone, quite content to leave people alone themselves.

Yet, he was so full of passion. You would never admit it to anyone but you were enamoured by how in love he was with what he did. The photographs in his camera and the art he created in his music were so important to him that even a few sentences hearing about it made you understand how greatly he loved it. Many people were meant to do certain things but only find out so late in the game. You marvelled at how lucky he was to have found his calling so young and to still be as warm as the freshly brewed cup of hot chocolate now in your hands.

The both of you had stopped at an empty table to fix your coats around your bodies, cups placed firmly on the table and his sandwich now in his small bag. You were adjusting your collar, just ending an idea on how hard editing photos were, remembering a slight tidbit of looking over Taehyung’s shoulder while he worked away on his laptop. Yoongi was intently listening along, agreeing and not at the same time, always having two sides of the story for you. He picked your brain until the both of you were comfortable enough to go back outside and brave the cold and then he stopped, asking what felt like a final question.

“Are you going home?”

You looked out the window, huffing at how dark it had gotten and muttering, “no. I have class.”

He saw the way your shoulders dropped and furrowed his eyebrows, following your gaze. His coat was long and ended just above his knees in a deep brown colour. He looked better than you expected him to, much fancier than you’d seen ever before with dark jeans and black boots. The look simultaneously fit him and didn’t, making him older and somehow more unattainable. The way your heart sank was unnatural but he took your mind off of that easily, spinning his words into another question.

“You’re really going to walk back in the dark?” There was concern written in his tone and the small lines that filled the space between his brows, which offset you. He’d been kinder than usual today and, while you were grateful for it, you didn’t understand what you’d done to deserve it. As you confirmed his suspicion, he frowned, raising his arm. Moving his sleeves, he looked at the watch on his wrist before humming, “which way is your school?”

“Just down this street and to the left.” You pointed out the window, not very fond of remembering street names or proper directions. Yoongi followed your hand movements with a nod, looking back at you with a slight determination.

“Well, I need my glasses anyways and my studio is near there so, if you wouldn’t mind, I’ll walk with you?” This was something he left very open ended and you knew you had every right to say no. The thing was that you didn’t particularly want to. You found his words pulling you in at every turn, trying to show you something your mind didn’t understand. It was the way he moved even that made you want to know so much more and so, the nod of your head came so naturally.

“I thought you were too lazy to go back for them,” you said, picking up the strings of his sentence to push a conversation. You were now walking towards your school and there had been a lulled silence filled with the passing cars and ringing streetcar bells. Yoongi looked down at you, hands firmly in his pockets and seemingly lost in his head.

“Hmm? Oh. Yeah, I mean, it might not be the smartest idea to leave them behind. They’re my only pair and what if I have to drive somewhere in the middle of the night or something?” He shrugged, giving you a small smile and you snorted.

“Drive where?”

His mouth curled into an uncertain frown. You watched as his lips hardly stretched as he spoke, keeping them in a tight circle. It was odd but it was simultaneously something you’d never seen before. He didn’t need to open his mouth to speak and still, his voice was loud enough to be heard over the street din.

“To get food or something. Midnight snacks aren’t a thing; in my house, we have meals.” His voice was hardly animated and somehow, that made his statement the slightest bit amusing. He showed you his gums in his smile as you chuckled lightly, shaking your head and calling him an idiot.

Receiving another one of these smiles held your heart in such warm content, you never wanted to leave. Something about Yoongi made you feel like you were in another era, where your whole life was drastically changed and people were aliens. It was upsettingly comforting but you still wanted to lay there for a few moments in the just falling snow and orange lights of downtown and speak to him as if you were the oldest friends there ever were- as you were always meant to.

Snow was caught in his hair and you were sure it was in yours too, your hands coming up to fix the hat around your ears. He flicked at a ring on your hands, making a metallic click resonate near your ears and you went to look at it. He seemed fond of the jewelry, something old in his stare and you explained where you’d gotten it from.

“It’s an infinity ring,” you started, eyeing the small, glittering diamonds on the top of the band, “I don’t remember who gave it to me but I’ve been wearing it everyday for the past few years. It’s even got my initials here.”

You took it off to show him the inside of the band and he gingerly grasped the ring, handling it with more care than you ever have. It looked so small and thin in his hands, like it could get swallowed in the sea of lines that were drawn across them. He looked at the tiny inscription with a faint sadness, handing it back to you while murmuring, “it’s very special.”

“Mmm,” you hummed, sliding it back onto your finger before reaching for your phone. Yoongi was oddly silent, not even breathing as loud as before but you embraced it. Sliding your finger down the screen, you checked your messages before returning the device to your pocket. There weren’t any messages from Dongmin and it was upsetting because it’d been radio silence for the whole day. You wanted any sign of him to pop up across your screen but there was no such luck and you were so tempted to give into the urge to text him first.

“Who was that? Your background,” he clarified, seeing the hint of confusion on your lips and you found an acute smile forming. You resisted the urge to show him the picture again and explain exactly what had been happening and simply settled on giving Dongmin’s name and who he was to you (though that was a little difficult). You first decided on friend and then took it back and then attempted at saying something more but shook your head. Nothing fit.

An uncomfortable chuckle fell through his lips, eyes now trained ahead into the snowy night, orange orbs illuminating every flake that was falling slow enough to melt just before they hit the ground. “What does that mean?”

“Well, we’ve been friends for a long time but we’re going out on this date thing, I think? Soon? I don’t know, it’s all kind of confusing,” you admitted, frowning lightly and pushing some of your falling hair out of your face. He simply hummed at this and you gathered that it was hard for him to comment on this. To return the favour, you asked about his own love life but this made him laugh bitterly.

“No, I’m not seeing anyone. There’s been no one interesting.”

His words seemed so deadly harsh and it set you on edge. Searching for a way to make light of it, you nodded, crooning, “the tunes are the only relationship you need.”

To this, he nodded and pink formed in his cheeks. Together, you chuckled at the terrible joke and neared the large lights that surrounded your campus. Regretfully, the two of you said your goodnights at the opened metal gates that guarded the entrance path to the main building. It was almost like two teenagers parting after their first date, unsure of whether to hug or not but you led him into one. The way his arms wrapped around you made you feel so unbelievably safe, like you’d created a home and it had stayed hollow for so long until you came and lit your candle again. A part of you didn’t want to let go but you knew you had to, releasing him so reluctantly. As he took his steps away, you waved and called after him.

“Tell your dog I said hello!”

Pausing in his tracks, he turned to be half facing you and hardly shouted over the wind that began to pick up, “how do you know about Holly?”

“D- didn’t you tell me?” This unsettling feeling crawled up your spine and rested right at the base of your head, tingling unnaturally. You could’ve sworn he had but when he shook his head, you were entirely discouraged. It made no sense how you knew but you tried to blame it on Jungkook’s stories. It seemed practical enough but the words that played in your head about Holly weren’t Jungkook’s. They were Yoongi’s tone and culture,  mimicking the comforting sound of tires over an unpaved road.

At this, Yoongi simply furrowed his eyebrows together and accepted this response. You were too far away to see the look in his eyes but assumed it was somewhat unbelieving. However, he simply waved his goodnight again, reaching into his bag for clunky headphones that he fixed over his ears. You watched him walk and turn a corner- watched until he was out of sight and ignored the growing uncertainty in your chest. Yet, before you could mull over it for longer than you needed to, the alarm on your phone sounded and you cursed, running so you wouldn’t be late to your class.

Dongmin’s hands were shaking almost as he walked into the store you worked at, carrying two paper bags filled with food. He waved hello to your coworkers, who seemed enamoured with his smile so he tried hard to flash it at them. The doubt in your heart built more as you walked up to your manager, asking where you were. When he pointed him to the backroom and placed a large hand on his shoulder to lead him to you, Dongmin’s heart picked up. He was a dreadfully worrisome person, dwelling on worst case scenarios and really not wanting you to hate him for showing up so suddenly.

Yet, as he made his way through the winding path to find you animatedly speaking to one of your coworkers as you rummaged through your bag, his heart calmed. The worry still existed but in an excited way- one that would be erased by your grin. He couldn’t deny that he was inevitably going to fall for you, from the moment you opened your mouth to speak to him. He didn’t know when it happened- at what point in the first year of knowing each other that he began to cling to every word you said or every smile you tossed his way. He didn’t necessarily regret this decision though, somehow content to have waited so long to obtain what he always wanted. He just regretted not being able to build up the courage to say something to you.

“Y/n,” your manager boomed, drowning out the words you were saying to your friend and the both of you turned around, eyes locking with yours as he continued with, “you have a visitor.”

“Dongmin,” you grinned, placing down whatever was in your hands as you came to wrap your arms around him. His arms worked as they always did, squeezing the top of your body as yours fit around his waist comfortably. The weight of your head against his chest comforted him and he was no longer as unsettled as before, happy he came to visit.

“Why are you here?”

With a lift of his arm, you laid your eyes on the bags of food. Excitement as well as gratefulness flooded your cheeks and eyes, fitting into his as you grasped them from him. “For me?”

“Well, now you’ve got to share,” the coworker mused, opening her hand to see the contents of one bag. He almost protested, wanting to eat lunch together but you were quicker, clicking your tongue as you sheltered the bags from her.

“As if,” you crooned, bringing the brown paper bags to eye level and happily humming, “this is for me only. Hence the special delivery.”

Dongmin chuckled at that, grabbing them from your hands easily, knowing exactly how to get between your fingers and make you drop what you’re holding. “I’m eating too.”

You frowned, sighing lightly as you moved back to your bag to shoulder it. “That’s depressing. Kind of wanted to eat lunch alone.”

“Buy it yourself then,” he shot back quickly and you simply chuckled, looking at your manager before asking if you could leave the store. He allowed it reluctantly, reminding you to be back in half an hour and you obliged perfectly, even shooting him a flashy smile. The two of you rushed out of the store together, walking much faster out than he had walking in but he didn’t mind. The more time he could spend with just you seemed like the better option.

As you two found a seat, Dongmin listened as you chatted his ear off. There was nothing annoying about how fast your words were spilling out of your mouth. Some of your words would be mispronounced and he’d prey upon it before you groaned for him to shut up so you could continue and he’d smile, clearly amused. You continued to ramble on, leaning into him for comfort as your eyes scanned the food court seats. You went to your tiptoes to see over some heads and he couldn’t help but find it absolutely adorable as you pointed for a seat across the large canyon that was the food court. He followed you as you grasped his hand to lead him to where he saw, hands clutching those stupid paper bags so tight.

He called you short in the process and you huffed at him, narrowing your eyes before turning your head quickly, the ends of your hair that were caught in a high knot grazed his chin. He hated how much he found your little quirks enticing, undeniably living in the way your facial expressions changed in an instant and how you went back to talking like nothing was more comfortable for you. Coming to the table, you let go of his hand and it hurt the slightest bit but he knew he could always reach out again and slide his fingers between yours.

You seemed so comfortable with each other, which wasn’t ideal for most people but it was what he wanted most. Adventure and excessive fun were exhausting to him. He preferred staying home, having a pillow to sleep on and a person in his arms- it was what he wanted more than anything and he knew you followed the sentiment. Once, you’d spoken about this in a moment of weakness, him lying in your bed much too late at night. You ran your fingers through his hair and whispered this was all you wanted as you looked him dead in the eye. You didn’t remember it the next day, claiming the alcohol got the best of you but he never let it down. It was all he wanted too and murmured that back to you. You were so close that night, sometimes he wanted to take it all back and plant one on you then and there but… he just couldn’t.

Often, Dongmin called himself a coward and that was one of the prime moments he would remind himself of. Yet, being across from you now stilled this in his head and he was so happy to right there, close enough to touch and hold. As you ripped open the bag, your eyes lit up and he felt the relaxation seep into his bones at the sound of you calling this your favourite fast food. He knew but he couldn’t help but be proud he could elicit such a radiant smile by doing something so simple.

“You know, all of my coworkers are going to think we’re dating now,” you pointed out, raising your eyebrows as if that was supposed to set him off. This never really bothered him when he first thought about bringing you food. It did just dawn on him that it might make you uncomfortable and he was scared to ask, not wanting to know the answer.

“I know,” he hummed, pausing before reluctantly asking, “does that bother you?”

You shrugged, biting down on your lip as you unwrapped your chicken burger and reached for a mayonnaise package. “No, but it’s a wrong conception of us.”

“Doesn’t have to be,” he pointed out lightly, taking to his own food and biting down on a fry. You simply gave him a fixed look, unsure of what to say and obviously flustered.

“Y- yeah, but- but we’ve never gone out on a date,” you attempted, looking down at your food instead of at him. The growing rosiness of your cheeks made him smile slightly; just knowing he could make you feel this way so easily caught his heart in a web.

“We can. We will, right?” He asked mostly for confirmation but the bubble of worry showed up so quickly, it was almost hard to swallow it down. You were drinking from a terribly thin staw, pursing your lips together with a quick nod.

“Yeah, of course,” you said all too quickly as you swallowed, placing your drink down. Dongmin’s mind gave up on its racing then, slowing for a short break. It seemed you were both eager, which caused his being to find comfort. He was happy you were both excited to see each other like this, to take a step forward, to become something you’d both been wishing for, hopefully.

“Well, anyways,” you hummed, taking the discussion in another direction to relieve some of the energy. You picked up a fry and began to talk about a weird meeting with a Min Yoongi, stating how you remembered a dog of his. Half of Dongmin wanted to repress the jealousy that built in his chest and the other wanted to probe you more to see how much you truly remembered.

This scared him more than it should have. What did you know and how did you know it? Your mind worked in ways he couldn’t trace, always being mindful of big events but giving you back small, stupid details like a dog or a greeting. He listened as you twisted the ring around your finger and murmured something about feeling like you were missing something.

“It’s just so weird,” you admitted, pressing your lips together and avoiding his gaze to look far off, “sometimes I feel like I’ve got it all back from the accident but then stuff like this happens and I wonder… I wonder if that’s true.”

Dongmin slowly picked at his food, not knowing what the right thing to say here was but landing on, “it all comes back with time. I don’t know how much you’re missing or if you’re missing anything at all but I’d give it to you in a heartbeat if I could. I know how hard it is.”

You smiled at him, finally meeting his eyes and everything about you was malleable here, where your whole being was laid bare before him. He didn’t dare touch a piece of you, so afraid he would bend and mark you up so he tore his gaze from you. Your hand found its place on top of his and she whispered a thank you across the small table.

The way you two fit together was inevitable, he found. His legs were pressed against yours under the small divider and the spaces between his fingers fit yours perfectly. It was a mystery how it’d taken so long but somehow, you had been conspired together. The irony of realizing this not only so late but in a crowded food court where there were more than a thousand people there was not lost on him. He knew it was ridiculous to feel like you were the only two people in a moment but that was unfortunately the truth. He was happy and perhaps you were the source of that all.

“Maybe I don’t want all my memory back,” you murmured to him, clearly still stuck on this. He pressed you for more information and you simply shrugged, eating with your free hand. “Sometimes, I wonder if my lost memory is just my body doing me a favour; like everything would be ruined if I did know it.”

“You don’t know if there even are any lost memories,” he chimed, knowing that was entirely false. You simply clicked your tongue, saying how that was irrelevant to the point you were making but seemingly taking this to heart as you continued.

“I just mean… maybe there’s something I’m not supposed to know and that’s why I haven’t gained it back yet. What if a force of nature that knows better than I do is trying to protect me and I’m just going against it?”

Dongmin huffed, trying to discourage you as he muttered, “do you really believe in all of that?”

“Well, it works in Shakespeare so why shouldn’t an imbalance in life work for me too?” You were always quick to retort, bringing up relatively irrelevant points to support your points. Dongmin simply shook his head, trying to find a response to that but he couldn’t. So, he decided on genericism, hoping it would be the best way to go.

“If you were meant to know, you would,” he attempted, looking at you so intently for any trace of a doubt in his words. However, you seemed content to take this to heart as well and relaxed in your seat. You wanted someone to tell you that you were right and maybe you should stop working towards discovering everything to fix your worried heart. He couldn’t deny you of that.

After an array of conversations that stemmed from there, leading from this morbid conversation to brighter and better things, the two of you were sat there simply holding each others hands, leaning so far in to each other that the table seemed so unnecessary as a separation. It had lulled between you but neither of you reached for your phones, Dongmin choosing to study the lines on your face as you closed your eyes and breathed easily.

“Dongmin?” you murmured over the din, not opening your eyes at all but they fluttered.

“Hmm?”

“Does this count for that day you planned for us to go on?” Your question was hesitant, the crease in your brows forming slowly. His hand reached out to massage it away, noticing how his touch erased the worry and how his words eased the tension in your mouth.

“God, no. Not even close.” He wanted to be kind about this but he couldn’t. There was no way a simple lunch with fast food on your thirty minute break from work would ever be the date to win your and he couldn’t believe you would ever assume that. Though, maybe it was how candid you both had been that made you feel this way and that comforted him slightly.

A bright smile spread across your features, eyes flicking open to meet his as you leaned away slightly. “Good.”

“Good?” he repeated, amused and you tried to cover up your excitement but to no avail. He’d seen how enthusiastic you were and he wasn’t going to let it down, poking at a cheek that was turning red.

“What?” you hissed, trying to play it off so hard. You shrugged off his finger, raising your shoulder to get it off and he simply grinned, shaking his head.

“Nothing,” he hummed, hands retreating and working at collecting the garbage lying around on the table, “just glad I brought you lunch.”

Teasingly, you joined in at helping him, getting up to throw it out as you muttered, “okay, you sap.”

He snorted as you walked away, watching the way you moved and feeling so content. These few moments, where he could pretend none of his problems or yours existed made his being lighter. The beating in his chest became regular, his breathing settled, and he felt at peace with himself. He could only hope he gave you this same comfort, in any way he could.

A/N: god this took me forever to write and I am so sorry. I keep trying to stick to my Saturday schedule but it’s been so hard for me lately to manage school, my family, and my writing. This is also the slightest bit shorter but I promise these are all building to somewhere so! Please look out for the rest of this story! I hope you enjoyed seeing into Dongmin’s head today and I will see you with the next one! Have an amazing day/night/afternoon!

[kalosstarters]

Ficlet: A November Morning

Summary: Just a normal morning in the Moreau household

Words: 1390

Rated: T for sexual implications

A/N: Yay, after a month long break I managed to make myself to write again! I have @modeststroke (our conversation about the “drastic measures” and the lockscreen photo quote you gave me inspired this) and also @11random-person11‘s fall related ask to thank for that; they gave me this idea. Just a fair warning (because I have a lot of new followers etc): this story will include married Alain and Mairin (I imagine Alain is 28 and Mairin 23 here) and a lot of fluffiness (and possibly a slightly OOC Alain because Alain is hard to write) so if that is not your piece of cake, do not read. 

It was a chilly November morning. Not cold enough to snow, but the wind was blowing harshly, and it was still dark outside even though it was closer to 8 am. That was exactly the kind of morning when Mairin absolutely hated getting up from the warmth of her bed. She knew she should raise soon, because the little bundle in the room next to hers would require her attention, but the bed felt so much more comfortable in that moment. She growled audibly when the dark haired man next to her moved in his sleep and pulled the huge cover on them in a way that Mairin’s right foot was left uncovered in the cool air. To annoy her even more, he removed his warm arm from her torso, leaving her even colder. 

This made the young woman exclaim: “Alain!” “Mm?” she could hear a mumble coming from under the covers. “It’s cold! Don’t do that!” “Do what?” “Steal my covers and… and take your arm off me.”

Alain just smiled at her, and she blushed slightly at her confession; despite being married for a couple of years now, sometimes she still found it hard to believe the man next to her really was her husband. Their relationship had had a rough start; getting involved with Team Flare’s awful plans, fighting against legendary Pokémon, and so on, but after that they had finally learned to communicate and share their feelings better while searching for key and mega stones together. After that Mairin had left to travel around the world on her own, and when she returned, they started another journey through their home region so Mairin could participate in the Kalos league. During that time their friendship grew even deeper, and it became hard to deny something was going on between them. Fast forward 7 years, and the two of them were married, sharing a house and… something, or someone else that was still sleeping in the other room. 

That someone, the few months old baby girl who had inherited her father’s hair and mother’s eyes, usually woke up at least a couple of times per night, but this morning she had been suspiciously quiet, and Mairin was thankful for that. It was rare the young mother got enough sleep at nights and that caused her to sometimes snap even at Chespie, who had been nothing but helpful towards her. Sometimes he had even voluntarily popped out of his Pokéball in the middle of the night to soothe the baby girl so his trainer would get some sleep, and the chesnaught had discovered that on those days she acted notably nicer towards everyone, and usually gave him his favorite foods and some extra grooming as a reward. 

Mairin wondered if Chespie had again woken up to take care of the baby, and made a mental note to tell her starter how wonderful he was when they’d train later that day. Then she yawned and pulled the covers properly back on her, realizing how cold her foot was, and her poor husband flinched when she touched his ankle with the said foot as she turned towards him. 

“Wow, woman, you are freezing cold. Do we need to get Charizard to melt you?” the man tried joking. 

“No, but I do know something else we could do to warm me up,” she answered suggestively and raised her eyebrow at Alain. 

“No, Mairin. She might wake up any moment now and we don’t want to be doing /that/ when it happens. Besides, I thought you were still tired.”

“I’m not tired when you’re right there,” she tried, but accepted the fact that she would have to be happy with simply cuddling that morning. 

They were like that for a moment, but suddenly Alain seemed to remember something, and he reached for Mairin’s phone that was resting on the small table on his side of the bed.

“Hey, aren’t you supposed to have a breakfast meeting with Bonnie today? She wanted to discuss the current situation at your gym and I’m pretty sure she mentioned Saturday, 10 o’clock when we saw her…”

“Oh. I guess you’re right… But hey, it’s Bonnie, she will understand... Besides, it’s not like she’s super strict about the schedule anyway,” Mairin tried to make up an excuse to stay in the bed for a bit longer. She was lucky to have her friend as her boss, because as a gym leader and a mother of an infant things didn’t always go as smoothly as they could have.

While Mairin was still thinking about her friend, Alain pressed the button on the bottom of her phone to check the clock from the lockscreen. Suddenly his face got a surprised and also amused expression when he registered what exactly he was looking at. Mairin had never showed this picture to him. 

“I’m your… I’m your lock screen?!” he asked, amusement clear in his voice. Mairin’s lockscreen photo had been taken during their honeymoon visit to Cyllage City, and in the photo, Alain was lying on the beach with a slightly annoyed look on his face (“the weather is too hot for me!” he had complained), Charizard fanning him with her huge wings. It definitely wasn’t the best photo Mairin had of him, but maybe that’s why it was so amusing to Alain; the photo choice told him something about his wife’s sense of humor. 

“You weren’t supposed to see that!” Mairin yelled in shock and reached to take her phone from him. 

“Oh no, I will not just give it to you after what I just saw,” he said with a rare, playful tone, “you will have to take it!”

He stretched the hand in which he held the phone as far from the redhead as possible, and she had to raise from her warm spot to get it. Soon she was sitting on Alain’s lap, pinning him so he wouldn’t be able to get farther from her. That was a mistake, though; Alain was so much bigger than her that it wasn’t hard for him to push her (nicely) off him, and it was his turn to pin her. He lowered his head closer to hers, and she could feel his breath when he whispered: “I’m gonna give this back to you if you say that I’m the best husband ever… And also the best mega evolution guru you know. This is a revenge for the cold foot and the photo!”

“You dork, you /are/ the best mega evolution guru I know.” Mairin rolled her eyes.

“What about Professor Sycamore then?” Alain asked, but she barely heard it.

“And when it comes to being the best husband,” she continued like she hadn’t been interrupted at all, “’best’ is a difficult concept, but I wouldn’t want to be married with anyone else.” 

“Good answer,” Alain whispered, and his lips were now even closer to hers. Slowly he closed the rest of the space between them, but right when their lips touched, a small cry could be heard from the baby’s room. 

“Ohhh Mari, you picked the best possible time to wake up…” Mairin groaned, having really wished she could have this rare moment with her husband, but pushed him lightly off her and went to pick the little girl up. When she returned with her, she saw Alain was now sitting on his side of the bed, still under the warm covers, looking at his small family fondly. Mairin sat next to him, and let him give the baby a kiss on her forehead.

“Hey, little princess, did you sleep well?” he baby talked to the little girl, and that elicited a small laugh from Mairin. Since when had her husband been this soft? She lifted Mari on his lap, and got under the covers herself, one of her arms around her family. It wasn’t long before the young mother was contently sleeping against Alain’s shoulder, and Alain didn’t dare to wake her up, instead texting with his one free hand to Bonnie that she wouldn’t show up in time. The Kalos Champion would make fun of her when they’d meet, he knew that, but he thought Mairin deserved to have this moment. And finally, he accepted that he deserved it as well. They had truly gone a long way.