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yunarim · 1 year

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╰┈➤ summary : you and your reliable partner grim are the most famous interdimensional travelers under the Official Isekai Association. you're used to traveling into psychological thrillers and horrors. however, this time something goes wrong, and you suddenly turn into the protagonist of… an otome game?!

— characters : jade leech, leona kingscholar | kalim al-asim, azul ashengrotto | lilia vanrouge, idia shroud

⌞tags⌝ : gn reader, fluff at times, angst (i'm offering EXTRA angst and drama for lilia & idia for you today), mentions of death, idia's part being quite dark actually, BUT there's a happy ending (or i think so but feel free to allegorize as you please! :))

— w.c. : 14.8k+

⌞notes⌝ : thank you for reading everyone!! it was really fun to write, and now i'm off to the uni activities (let's hope i'll have more spare time than i think i will so i can be more active on tumblr). i even thought to make this fic a bit longer (up to 200+ pages or so?) but due to lack of time i just had to make it shorter :(( but i hope you had fun reading!! thank you for all the support you've shown ^^

“Oi henchman,” Grim poked at your cheek, a strong smell of tuna coming from him. “How much percent does that bat-guy have?”

“Bat-guy?..” You asked, a dim and dull voice coming from the pillow you buried your face into. “Do you mean Lilia Vanrouge?”

“Yeah, him,” Grim’s tail tickled your ear. “I’ve met him so many times during your previous walkthroughs it’s insane.”

“Huh? You’ve met him more than me?.. I believe I’ve encountered him thrice or so.”

“It’s like he was always there.”

The dismal mood which glued to you firmly happened to tremble slightly at Grim’s statement. If he has met Lilia continuously, then how in the world did you miss him? He was there occasionally, twice you’ve met him in Leona’s route, but other than that? Lilia Vanrouge resembled a mystery under a dark lacy veil.

“Tell me about him,” you requested. “His profile is pretty confusing.”

“How come?”

“First, the difficulty of his walkthrough is 100%.”

“Fugnya?!”

“Second, his traits are fairly… uncommon. Not to mention his age is unknown.”

“Shit,” Grim cursed. “Can’t believe how tough that Idia guy will be.”

“Don’t mention him. I’m not sure if I can survive Lilia’s route.”

“Survive,” Grim repeated, crawling under the blanket. “You haven’t used this word since we first landed in our first thriller. What, do you think that Lilia dude will kill you just because he’s a bat or something?”

You chuckled, making a strange noise, and thought to yourself that no, he won’t kill you for sure—you couldn’t die twice—but he will deprive you of your mental stability for certain. And with heart beating in blind anguish you tapped on Grim’s paw to feel less stressed out, turning to him.

“Okay so,” Grim sighed and started. “Be careful, henchman. I don’t think I’m ready to see your face after you complete his route. Dude’s dangerous.”

“Ha!”

As if you didn’t know that yourself.

You never knew where Lilia would appear. In Leona’s route you’ve met him just on a fortunate occasion, and not to mention your savings ran out to the point you had only basic transmigrator features left: to save the game and to load it, to see the indicator above people’s heads, to get auto-save once you finish another route, to be able to see person’s profile and such.

So you came up with another idea. Since Grim was the one who witnessed Lilia during every route you’ve passed, you requested help from him directly. That’s why he went to the school yard, and you decided to go to auditoriums.

Classes ended, and you started searching from the classroom where 3-E class lessons were, stumbling upon Trey Clover, who apparently was Lilia’s classmate. He was gathering his things, and now that you thought about it, ‘side’ characters also experienced strange emotions towards you. For instance, Floyd had to appear curious about you, once mentioning to Grim—which your partner told you not directly, but in his sleep—that he would love to make an acquaintance with you, because you somehow ‘fit Jade’s vibe’ or so.

You wondered how Clover would react and approached him.

“Good afternoon,” you said, stretching out your hand for a handshake. “I’m Yuu.”

“Hello.”

Trey smiled at you politely, but the look in his eyes appeared to possess an uncertain curiosity.

“I’m Trey Clover,” he said, accepting your handshake. “You are the directing student, right? You’re quite popular around here, but it’s always impossible to meet you, ha-ha.”

“Y-yes?.. Why is that?”

“Why are you popular, you mean?” You nodded. “We’ll… Lilia always talks about you. Which is interesting, he always wonders where you could be. It’s quite unusual for him.”

“Ha-ha, how peculiar… I also wonder where he is right now. Possibly you have an idea?”

“Oh? With how often he mentions you I thought you two are good friends. Or something more~”

You jolted, forcing a smile. Clover, of course, had no ill intentions, but his words were poisonous to you.

“How could we…”

“Somehow you two have the same energy…” Trey shook his head. “No, forgive me, I’m just talking to myself. Anyway, I don’t know where Lilia would be, but the club meetings should start soon. Maybe you should go and look—”

“Light Music Club class, right?”

“You sure you don’t know where he is?” Trey chuckled. “Sorry. Well then, I’ll get going. See you!”

“Yes… see you. Thank you.”

Strange. No matter how you looked at it, it was strange to the bone. Clover just confirmed what Grim saw — Lilia obviously entailed an unconcealed interest in you, provided he not just was there in other routes, but also talked about you. But what was the reason for him to do it? He didn’t know you, unless there was an error occurring in the system and ruining the whole story, but it certainly wasn’t anything. So why would he…

You opened the Light Music Club room’s door and glanced over it quickly, noticing Lilia wasn’t there. Alright, you had some time to sort out your thoughts alone before encountering Vanrouge in person, so you came in, closing the door, and observed the room. Music sheets were scattered everywhere quite chaotically, and dust particles were flowing under sunbeams breaking through the opened window.

“Hm, that one song…” You grabbed a music sheet, recognizing the song’s lyrics. “I think I saw it before.”

It certainly was a remix, something reminiscent of an old folk song you’ve heard once, transmigrating into a horror fantasy novel. It sounded quite romantic and nice, very light and joyful, something unostentatious that helped you during hard times. Horrors were always energy and emotion draining, but this song could bring you some sort of a rewind.

You smiled, seeing that not much changed in this version, but without any notes you couldn’t figure out for sure how it sounded, so the original tune just slipped out of your tongue.

Enjoying the sound and the light feeling in your chest, you finally managed to feel genuinely free and happy, just like Kalim wished for you to be, and you positioned yourself on the windowsill, seeing people down there on the school yard passing by.

“I remember like it’s yesterday,” you’ve sung, opening the system’s tools and checking Lilia’s profile. “When I was having hard time being lonely.”

Indeed, there was no age mentioned. How very strange, you thought, but also tried to remember how old you yourself were when you started wandering around the worlds, like a ghost haunting the mansion, finding no peace and always trying to reach for something significant.

“The unfamiliar atmosphere,” you’ve continued singing. “The fearful thrills, now I know…”

In fact, you didn’t know anything. An unpleasant pricking sensation in your heart caused you to stare at Lilia’s image for an uncertain amount of time.

“Including my immature heart…”

You knew the next line in the song, but thought it would be best to refrain from singing it, when you realized it didn’t suit you at the moment. No matter how hard you wanted to escape this place and let everyone be happy, you still couldn’t and—

“You made me to think of those as good memories~”

You blinked, hearing obviously not your own voice, and now that you noticed, didn’t Lilia’s profile image turned not so transparent as usual?..

“Hm? Why would you stop singing?”

A popped up system window abruptly closed at once, and you saw Lilia hanging upside down and floating midair just before you.

“What the.. Isn’t it the second floor?!”

“Now now,” Lilia sneaked into the room, plunging on the sofa, and looked at you with a sly smile, yet a kind and feignedly naive look in his eyes. “Sorry for scaring you! Although I’m not sure if I did, you don’t look like passing out.”

“And why would I?”

“Well, magicless humans don’t usually see people hanging upside down. I was ready to catch you if you fell out of the window.”

“Huh, thanks for your kindness I guess?.. And I believe I’m just not the person to be easily impressed.”

“Hmmm~” Lilia grinned at you. “Still, how wonderful that you know the original sound of the song. When I asked Cater and Kalim, they mentioned they never knew it was a remix in the first place.”

“Kalim…” You mumbled to yourself, not knowing that Lilia heard you, then shook your head. “Uhm, it’s a… popular song in my original world.”

You didn’t even remember the world you were born in. Was there any magic and you were the one to not be blessed—or cursed?—with this ability, or was it a completely magicless world in the first place?

Now matter how hard you’ve tried, you never managed to remember at least a glimpse.

“Oh really?” Lilia smirked. “How old are you, Yuu? It’s quite an old song.”

“I’m…”

Your physical age was the one at which you died, and after that you could refer as you pleased. At first there was a strict system which highly depended on an employee’s age, and there were tasks and stories requiring certainty, but as your bosses explained, there were not so many people ready for the horror stories, so they allowed people who were physically and externally old enough to buy appearance changing abilities.

As for you, a similar case happened once when you needed to appear a bit older than you looked. But other than that, how old were you actually, if you were to consider the years spent while traveling to other dimensions?

“I’m 18,” you replied. “And you?”

“I might appear younger than I actually am, so let the surprise remain till the end, what do you think?”

“O-okay?..”

Lilia giggled at how unsure yet accepting your answer was.

“What a beautiful song, really.”

“I believe so too,” you nodded. “But uhm, Lilia, could I ask you about something?”

“Go ahead!”

“Clover said that you… talk about me quite often. Is that true? Why would you do that?”

For a mere second the gleam in Lilia’s eyes disappeared, but you couldn’t say for sure what kind of emotion shadowed his face.

“Ha-ha, there’s something majestic about you. Makes me wonder if you’re really that cold and serious as you appear.”

“Excuse me?..”

“Ah, don’t get me wrong~” Vanrouge jumped off the sofa, then appeared before you in a flash, examining your face and making you flustered all of sudden. “Yes, that’s what I’m talking about. You seem so mournful and wintry at times, but we just exchanged fairly mixed emotions, didn’t we?”

“What do you mean by ‘mixed’?” You asked, averting your gaze.

“You show just a bit of emotion around certain people, so I wondered what it takes to make you smile.”

You knitted your brows together, glancing askance at him, and met Lilia’s widened in surprise eyes. You shrugged away the confusion grown in you and approached him, non-verbally asking if he was okay due to the sudden disturbance, but he quickly regained his composure.

“Sorry~” He smiled. “It’s just that you… No, nevermind.”

“You’re strange, Lilia Vanrouge.”

And again he looked as if the world was about to cease within a second, and with similar impetuosity disappeared.

“So are you,” he grinned. “In any case, I’m glad I finally found you. Make sure to be more careful when you go somewhere alone, okay? And don’t sit on windowsills.”

“What are you, my dad?” You chuckled, but the depth and a hint of despair stored in his eyes made you swallow your joke. “Okay, I will. Sorry for making you… worry?”

Just how strange Lilia was, really. Not only did he talk vaguely and in riddles, but also appeared to be worried about you, however what was the reason behind?

“Just stay ali… safe. That is enough for my ha—”

“Lilia, we came!! How about we— Huh?”

And the day couldn’t be worse than it already started. Kalim and another person, who you remembered to be Cater Diamond, also a member of Light Music Club, entered the room with Kalim abruptly stopping talking when he saw you.

“Oh, Yuu?” He approached you, taking your hands in his and causing you to bite your lip to not say anything. “Hello! I’m Kalim Al-Asim, but you can call me—”

“Kalim, yes?” You answered before him, making Kalim part his lips slightly before continuing.

“Yep!! But uhm, Yuu, why do you look so dreadful? You should smile, I know you look so bright when you do!”

Cater and Lilia blinked at him, when you couldn’t help yourself but actually reciprocate Kalim’s generously huge smile.

“See! You’re so cute, Yuu! Just as I’ve told you!”

“Yuu-chan is surely cute,” Cater said. “But uhm. How did you know that? I don’t think you two met before?”

“Right,” Lilia nodded. “I do wonder, too.”

“Oh,” Kalim gasped. “Actually, I don’t know… It just happened.”

You clenched your shirt in your hand, but didn’t stop smiling, not noticing Lilia staring at you.

And also his heart filling up just slightly.

You’ve started questioning if Lilia’s route was really that hard as the system calculated. He was openly showing his unconcealed interest for you, and also he was the one approaching and finding you everywhere before you could even think about searching for him yourself.

He was ready to help you with anything, and he also was quite willing to listen to what you could tell, when you came up with ideas of what you two might talk about. Creating the ways of starting conversations was the hardest part, as you really didn’t know what was safe to say and what wasn’t.

But what confused you the most was Lilia’s heart icon.

Normally it would fill up thrice, or just twice in Kalim’s case, but Lilia’s one was inconsistent, wavering and uncertain, as if he himself couldn’t decide what he should think of you. After that one talk you had in the Light Music Club’s room you saw that there was a liquid in his heart, and the day after it just…

Disappeared.

You never knew it could happen and at first you were scared you'd fail, then you felt a relief that maybe there was a mistake in the system and you’ll be sent to the office shortly, but you never were. The system indicators were absolutely fine and showed no errors occurred, so the problem was in Lilia himself.

You could just say something, and the liquid in his heart would fill up to its third, then say something not so very different or surprising, and it would dissolve again. You asked Grim whether he knew something, but he also didn’t, so now your main task was to figure out what the hell was happening.

Maybe that was that 100% of the difficulty level of his route, but it still seemed simple with how devoted Vanrouge was, always meeting you and spending time with you.

Not to mention Lilia was strange to the point you couldn’t comprehend how you should feel about him. In the previous walkthroughs you learnt lessons, you tried to change and came to the realization you’ll never be the same, you’ve become vulnerable to no good if you were about to enter another horror or thriller.

“Yuu?”

You raised your head when you heard Lilia’s voice above you. The heart was filled to its third, and Lilia bent over to look at the book you were reading.

“Oh,” he said, taking a seat beside you under the tree in the school yard. “Right, there’s a magic history exam coming up that you first years will take, correct?”

“Yeah,” you nodded. “I’ve been reading about Briar Valley’s war period.”

Lilia’s gaze turned more serious, which you’ve noticed, knowing he came from this country according to his profile, and didn’t want to pursue, so as to not recall unpleasant memories, but Lilia suddenly smiled and took the book you were holding in his hands.

“Okay let’s have a revision then!!”

“Huh?” You blinked. “But I haven’t read much and…”

“I’ll help, I’m good at history.”

“Alright…”

“So!” Lilia exclaimed. “Let’s see… What can you tell me about the pre-war period? The state of the people during the time.”

Despite how cheerful and friendly he tried to look, his eyes full of despair made you frown, but you tried to stay focused, and answered.

“Before the intervention happened,” you started. “The leadership of the Briar Valley took a number of political steps that attribute to the causes of the war, which are the nationalization of the means of production, banks and large-scale industry and the solution of the agrarian question in accordance with the program of the Briar Valley’s leadership, contrary to the interests of the landowners, which provoked the resistance of the previously ruling classes, who lost their property and…”

“Yuu,” Lilia interrupted you. “I see you’re quite knowledgeable and will definitely pass. But hm… Would you be so kind as to tell me what would you do if you were in common people’s shoes?”

“Me?” Your eyes widened. “Why?”

“Among people who lost everything and had nothing to do to escape this state were not so many people as calm as you are. So I’m quite…. Interested in your point of view.”

“I don’t think I can answer that?..”

“Alright, then… Let me rephrase that. If you were in the situation where you could save someone dear to you or save yourself, who would you choose?”

Lilia closed the book he was holding, and lowered his gaze, his pupils almost fading in a scary sorrow that slided down his eyes.

His route wasn’t just a simple one where he could just fall in love with you, or where you needed to fall in love with him — you still couldn’t. The feelings you’ve carried towards others weren’t love in its romantical way, as you thought, but your emotions that arose when communicating with Lilia resembled a huge ball of tangled multi-colored threads of different textures. Some were rough and even scabrous, like sandpaper, while others resembled flowing silk enveloping the mind and warming the heart.

And maybe that is precisely why his walkthrough happened to be so tough.

“Of course,” you looked straight up at him. “The dearest one. I’m not scared of dying.”

You looked at him in surprise when the liquid in his heart rose with a spring to the max, causing you to gasp and almost scream, but then something absolutely inadmissible happened.

His heart broke with a rattling sound, the liquid dissolved and disappeared, leaving just a glassy empty cracked vessel floating above his head.

“Lilia!!” You cried out, receiving a bitter smile from him.

What just happened?!

“Just as I thought, Yuu.”

“What do you mean?.. Are you alright?”

“Hm? Why would you ask that?”

“That was so sudden… Are you not satisfied with my answer?”

“This is not something I can enjoy for sure, don’t you think?” He chuckled. “But don’t worry, I just… I think I hoped you would choose yourself.”

“But… why?” You asked, your trembling hands being covered with Lilia’s steady ones. “I don’t understand. I won’t change my answer, but isn’t it only natural?”

“I think for kind people, such as you, it is. I would do that myself, there’s no denying. I already did once and… In any case,” he fixed a strand of your hair. “It just made me realize you probably don’t value your own life yourself.”

You looked at him confusedly.

“Why would you think so?”

“Who knows,” he shrugged. “But it’s quite… upsetting. You resemble them so much…”

Them? You wondered who he meant by referring like that, but it was a valuable clue in how to finish his route, which by now resembled not just a walkthrough of a silly otome game character, but an extremely confusing, yet holistic individual.

Them, huh. Then maybe… Was your purpose not to make Lilia fall in love with you, but something else? And what would that even be?

“I need to go,” Vanrouge suddenly dropped, standing up and looking at you, who grabbed his sleeve subconsciously without thinking. “Good luck on your exams, Yuu.”

“Lilia, wait!”

He paused for a moment, trying to find something particular in your eyes, and patted your head, demonstrating a deplorable smile.

“I hope you’ll manage to find something that will make you cherish yourself.”

You stared at his distant silhouette and did not notice how a single tear rolled down your left cheek, leaving behind a crooked wet path.

Lilia’s route was surely an uncommon one. You wanted to howl with how hard the difficulty level hit you, starting from Lilia following you and helping with anything to him ignoring and avoiding you. And you knew he did that because he also suspected something about you, not just because of the words you’ve said.

And it was confusing.

You couldn’t find him anywhere, no matter what. You even tried overcoming yourself and willingly approached Kalim to ask if he knew where Lilia was, but he surprisingly didn’t, leaving you with nothing but a cracking feeling in your chest after that little interaction.

In previous routes, even if there were pauses, like Leona was just busy dealing with something, they never avoided you for about three weeks in a row. You were going insane with how you actually wanted to understand what was wrong, to figure out feelings Lilia carried within his heart, why would the heart icon break, and who were they he mentioned.

Which is why you decided to bring him a bouquet of flowers you were going to pick yourself. It was nothing much, you would probably not be able to find him at all, but at least you wanted to give him something. If your idea fails, then alright, you’ll just pass him the bouquet through his classmates or clubmates.

You remembered the forest you went to in your first walkthrough, wanting to find a mushroom for Jade. The same landscape, the same dull and cold weather, you having no equipment—it felt almost nostalgic. You didn’t plan to go deep further, just to pick some flowers without reaching the cliff you fell off in Jade’s route.

Ah of course, it was storming and thundering right when you reached the forest.

You were shivering out of the cold wind and freezing raindrops, but there was no other choice. Not to mention there were also flowers that blossomed only in cold weather and should be picked only when it’s raining. Which is why you stubbornly went further, ignoring weather conditions, and found a small meadow surrounded by majestic firs.

There was no moon in the sky, given it was covered with dark clouds, and you lowered your head, discovering plenty of beautiful flowers and starting picking them. Both your clothes and hands were covered in dirt while you picked flowers, but you didn’t seem to care, opening the system tabs and checking the meaning of certain plants. You wanted to express your feelings in a correct way without misinterpreting anything and—

“Ouch,” you clicked your tongue. “You’re quite spiky, huh…”

You pulled out a tiny flower with thin petals, noticing an unexpectedly thick trunk with sharp thorns, and felt your finger slightly paralyzed.

“Shit…” You’ve whispered, checking out the system tab. “It’s…”

“Yuu!!”

You thought you’ve misheard, because the heavy rain was getting stronger, the wind mercilessly burned the skin with its sharp breaths and howls. But when you turned, trying to recognize the silhouette which you think appeared somewhere in front of you, you were thrown to the ground, being squeezed in a strong hug.

“H-huh…”

You were surprised, you really were, and yet you felt so weak and unsteady.

“You fool,” you recognized Lilia’s worried voice. “You idiot!!”

“You’re the one to talk,” you chuckled. “Avoiding me and then cursing me. What’s gotten into you?!”

“Just don’t go,” he demanded, tightening his grip on you, lying on top of you, who was still holding the flower. “Don’t go in the same way they did. Don’t die, Yuu. I’m begging…”

“Lilia… I’m not dying, see?”

“This flower…” You felt his lips somewhere in the crook of your neck. “Is poisonous.”

Which you already discovered when pricking and checking out the file the system provided you with. It really was, but you had saved the walkthrough before entering the forest and—

“I’m not letting you die here.”

“But that’s alright, given you’ve come. I was worried and—”

“Can you please worry about yourself for once?!”

You paused for a moment. Right, he didn’t know you couldn’t die in the first place.

But did it really matter? He reprimanded you, demanded you to cherish your life, yourself…

“Lilia, tell me… Did something happen to them, so now you correlate that case with mine?”

Vanrouge took your hand in his, frowning and placing a soft kiss on the place where you were pricked, and now it was you who started panicking.

“Idiot, if it’s poisonous, then you will!..”

“I won’t.” Lilia answered. “Faes are stronger than you, humans. This little flower won’t kill me.”

“There’s no need to worry about me, too.”

“You stupid!” He cried, cupping your face in his face. “Stupid Yuu. Your pupils are almost gone, you can’t even move your hands properly already. How come you’re so calm when you’re literally dying!?”

“Why would you care!!”

You clenched your hands into fists, curling your fingers into your palms as if shivering in pain, and exhaled painfully slowly, closing your eyes.

In fact, you knew. You’ve realized just as they’re not only characters of a game you’ve crushed into, they were more humanic then you yourself were. They’ve taught you different feelings.

But from the obsessive thoughts that you really melted the crust of thick ice that covered your true essence, capable of loving; you wanted to escape from these thoughts, the stubborn belief that putting on a mask of alienation and indifference was the most correct decision was about to disappear, had you only look in Lilia’s worried eyes.

While you wanted them to be not just game characters and experience different feelings, you also desired for yourself to be a doll without any bright emotions.

“Why would I, you ask? Really?” He whispered, laughing nervously. “Fine. You do resemble my first lover who died long long ago. Just like you’re about to do, they also pricked their finger and died from poison.”

You frowned, avoiding meeting his stare.

“And they also didn’t care about themselves. They wished for me to be happy, for me to be alive. And I was there, a fae who couldn’t die that easily, witnessing their death.”

“I’m sorry for your loss…”

“Shut it,” he leaned closer to you, but there was no warmth in his actions, and squeezed your hand, which you couldn’t feel anymore. “You’re not them. You’re… You don’t care about yourself to the very last second of your life. I wanted to prevent you from getting into trouble, because I was simply scared.”

“But who am I to you? Just another mere human, what did I do for you to worry so hard?”

“Something absolutely irrational,” he chuckled.

“What? Did I just remind you of your previous lover?”

“Quite the opposite. Remember when we talked about sacrifices?”

“Yes, what about that?”

He settled into a sitting position, taking off his jacket and pulling it over you, knowing that it was useless in this situation.

“You’ve said you’re not scared of dying. My first love also wasn’t. But they chose themselves.”

“And I chose the dearest one to me…”

“They pricked their finger when collecting flowers, because there was a legend that the flower could heal. They were already on the verge of death due to illness, but… They weren’t afraid to die, yet desperately searched for a way to live.”

“Lilia, I… I’m sorry.”

He sighed, pressing his forehead to yours.

“Don’t be. I couldn’t find the reason for you to treasure your life.”

You wanted to smile at him to avoid further discussion, but at the same time… You thought that you did.

It seemed to you that there was no point in denying it, and you closed your eyes sharply, hoping to blink away this strange feeling that you really wanted to live. To live and remember everything that happened, all the emotions and tingles in the chest.

“Every time… it feels like I'm learning a lesson…” You said vaguely. “To treasure small moments, to believe in myself and others, to smile genuinely, to let myself feel loved… And now, to treasure my life.”

“Ha,” Vanrouge chuckled. “Yuu, what kind of life did you live before that no one told you the things that make you human?”

Your smile was just as nebulous as your answer.

“I’m not sure if I was human before.”

“Huh?”

“Nevermind… Lilia, I… Even if I may sound stupid, please let me thank you for letting me know that I should treasure myself.”

One his smile, one his tight hold of your hand, and the bright light filling up his heart bursted out of it, enveloping you in it.

“So that was the purpose of your route, huh,” you laughed.

“Route?” He asked, drawing you closer to his chest.

“You know, I wasn’t scared of death because I can’t die twice. I would just… reload the game and start again. And now, since I’ve finished your route, I’ll get into another one. But you won’t remember that.”

“Ha!” Lilia smirked. “I’ll never forget you, Yuu. And a fae can’t lie.”

You just smiled to him, enjoying his determination and managing to reciprocate his gentle touch, not feeling anything in your hand.

┆₊ ⊹ the song in lilia's part — nct u - from home

“Something’s not right, Yuu.”

“What?..”

Everything seemed quite alright to you. Your usual post-walkthrough experience, Grim nagging about something, another route to finish, another emotion to develop, you levitating in a strange void… Wait.

Void?

“Where are we?”

Usually you could witness such a sight when transferring into another world. Familiar empty arrays, slightly interrupted by multi-colored digital fibers, waves of supersonic flew around.

“Wait, Grim!! Look!”

You pointed at the loading bar, indicating another world loading progression, and grabbed Grim’s paw, drawing him closer, being flown away somewhere further.

“The fuck?”

“Oi, language,” you said. “But… What is going on? I haven’t finished Idia’s route! I haven’t even started it!”

“This is strange.”

But the profiles popped up, switching from one to another, and you noticed Idia’s one literally smashing into your face, causing you to gasp.

“Ugh!”

Before observing what the system tab introduced to you, you managed to look at Lilia’s ‘COMPLETED’ line which became common at this point, and, sighing, switched to Idia, gasping the second after.

No portrait, no information, everything being blurred or written in ??????

Nothing.

“I don’t understand what is going on,” you said. “At all!”

“I thought we’re transmigrating to another story.”

“The boss couldn’t just let us transfer to another dimension without introducing the details.”

“That little punk.”

“Hey, he’s our boss after all.”

“Little shit who let you suffer without any warning.”

“Grim…” You smiled at him. “Alright, is there any information available?”

“Nah. Nothing at all. But I guess we’re about to figure it out.”

A bright flash ripping out the space let you know that you were about to enter another (?) world, and held Grim closer to you, ready to witness what was about to happen.

And more importantly, what happened to Idia’s route?

Digital waves floated around Idia, breaking space and distorting it. Idia squinted in discomfort and because of the crackle of sparks in the processor of his computer, when a deafening explosion was heard, and space waves came out with distorted algorithms, system errors popped up every now and then, and Idia just growled in indignation.

“Uh, the hell?”

He rubbed his eyes with the dry fingers, discovering to his delight that the soda in the can hadn't spilled from the sudden rupture of the universe, and exhaled heavily with a creak, opening the profile that flashed in the system window.

Yuu.

No surname, no age, just an occupation — interdimensional traveler (genres: thriller & horror).

“Aaah…shit.”

Idia yawned, taking a cheese chip and biting it. While looking to improve his equipment and extract materials that could be used in Ortho's various gears, one day Idia stumbled upon a very strange glitch in the system.

At first he thought it was another error he could fix, but when system windows started popping up everywhere not just on his computer’s monitor, but in freaking reality, Idia realized he maybe perhaps possibly potentially very likely needed more sleep juuuuust a bit.

Idia chuckled, unimpressed, and quickly glanced over system tabs, seeing profiles of people of this college. Wha, how wonderful, he REALLY did want to see them, uh-huh— The hell?

“Not even dorm leaders,” Idia noticed, leafing through the files. “Riddle-shi would be so pissed off he wasn’t mentioned lmao.”

What a strange order. First Jade Leech, the second year of Octavinelle, then suddenly Leona Kingscholar, Kalim Al-Asim being next…

“Yoooo, Azul-shi?” Idia chuckled, stumbling upon his clubmate profile. “What kind of game is that lol.”

The more he checked, the more he was getting confused. Alright, it wasn’t the info that couldn’t be obtained at all, after all everyone knows that Al-Asim is an extremely wealthy family, and Kingscholar is even royalty, but what was the ‘DIFFICULTY LEVEL’ parameter?

“Damn Lilia-shi is impressive for sure,” Idia nodded to himself, pulling another chip out of the package. “100% difficulty, must be hard…. Not for me tho ofc~”

If there was a difficulty level in each profile, that was probably some sort of a game, right? So Idia thought before stumbling upon his own profile being blurred completely.

“Ayo the fuck?” He chuckled in disbelief. “That’s my name!!”

Unknown difficulty level? Well that’s obvious, given he’s the boss, the main character!!..

The main character? Wait a moment.

“Yuu,” Idia mumbled and repeated. “Yuu, huh. What the hell interdimensional traveler even means?”

Some time passed with Idia investigating who the hell you were in the first place, and couldn’t find anything.

He leaned to his PC, checking out the monitors, and noticed you on one of the cameras in the school. Uh-huh, so that's where you were…

Sipping the coffee Jade Leech brewed, you enjoyed the conversation you’ve had. Idia cringed at witnessing such an awkward situation, averting his gaze and not noticing the dismal look in your eyes.

“If Yuu-shi’s main genres are thriller and horror, does it mean we here live in one, too?” Idia muttered to himself. “No wait, isn’t it like, incredible discovery, scientific breakthrough? Shouldn’t I let the world know there are more universes we imagined, and here’s living proof?”

The ‘living proof’, you that would be, was currently heading out to Ramshackle, where Idia had no cameras, thus he just decided to create your profile himself, filling out the details according to the data he was obtaining.

“Ugh,” he cringed. “Feels awkward.”

It did. You were interesting enough to know you better, but huh—he wasn’t a fool to interact with you firsthand, right?! He promised to himself he wouldn’t obtain anything that would violate your privacy, and come to think of it, your every interaction with anyone wasn’t concealed from strangers’ eyes. You were on the school grounds, it was only natural he could overhear… Shit.

“I’m garbage,” he concluded, dropping his face in his hands and sighing with a heaviness in his chest. “But Yuu’s too strange.”

Idia couldn’t let himself get some sleep. Not when your activity suddenly went up almost at night and you headed to the freaking forest! What were you thinking, really?!

But wait.

“What is that thing…”

Idia leaned closer to the screen and gasped, noticing familiar flying system tabs around you. The camera he installed was too far away to see exactly what the tabs were portraying, but there was no denying that you brought those strange flying windows when landed here in Twisted Wonderland.

And again, there were no cameras in the forest, but Idia was waiting for you to come out. It’s not prohibited to enter the forest on your own, but given it was the school for magicians, they surely could protect themselves from anything happening, however you? You possessed no magic, and Idia already checked that—you were magicless to the bone—but didn’t you think it was at least reckless to go to the forest when it was dark and cold?

He thought you were stupid, really. You didn’t come out for some time, and when he was ready to drop his face on the keyboard and faint due to fatigue, sound sensors suddenly arose, and your scream was heard.

“What’s happening there?!”

He tried checking other cameras and found the one close to the further part of the forest, which demonstrated a view near the cliff, and noticed your figure, which appeared a bit distorted on the camera, always glitching and emitting flashy sparks.

“Yuu-shi is surely something,” Idia mumbled. “And… uh? Isn’t it Jade-shi?”

No way just WHAT WAS THAT thing above his head??

A heart-shaped icon filled to its half with a pink strange liquid.

“Isn’t it like,” Idia bit his lip, eyes widening in disbelief. “An otome game thing?”

No way. Literally no way.

If you were an interdimensional traveler, that meant Twisted Wonderland was just another world you’ve entered, a book-like story with the effect of full immersion from the first person perspective, your perspective, to be precise—yeah, he got that already. But weren’t your genres thriller and horror? So what’s with that cringey heart icon and the way Jade-shi looked at you?!

There must be an error in the system you’ve brought. And wait…

If Jade was listed the first in profiles, Idia being the last… didn’t it mean that he was about to be wooed by you?!

“Ha, you wish,” he laughed nervously, his heartbeat accelerating rapidly.

The nature of that icon was yet to be investigated. Did it appear instantly after your arrival? Idia stood up, stretching and hearing an unpleasant sound of his vertebrae cracking after sitting for so long, then made his way to the mirror and frowned. There was no icon or whatsoever.

Okay, then it did mean that the icon appeared only when you enter your love interests routes, right?

He himself was safe for a time being. Interested in what the hell was going on, yes indeed, but also scared.

Didn’t it mean he needed to fall in love with you to complete the mission? And hey, why was Jade-shi so calm about it? It was obvious something wasn’t right with you, so how could he believe you so easily? Moreover, why compete with others when there literally were figures like Leona-shi or Lilia-shi?

After you were rescued and headed over to Ramshackle, he closed his eyes and plunged on the bed, ready to howl in indignation.

Days passed, and a festival with the firework show you’ve prepared came. Idia didn’t care much, being able to watch right in his room, not to mention he possessed no interest at all, watching you getting on the rooftop instead.

Jade came not so long after, and when Idia thought it was still stupid to overhear you, but he needed that to figure out how to behave and what to do, the heart-shaped icon above Jade-shi’s head suddenly started glowing slightly, filling up with pink liquid to the max.

The icon started radiating bright light, and that was when he noticed how shocked you were, how your face became overshadowed with fear and agony, and frowned himself. You looked like an anime character at the denouement of the story, but that was right when he realized himself.

If the route was coming to an end, what was about to happen with him? Will he forget everything? Shit, that would complicate his research, no no no!!

The last thing he saw before the light filled his own room was your sad yet bright smile on the screen, and then the world went out.

“Ugh…”

When Idia woke up, he noticed a strange pricking feeling in his chest, then rushed to the PC.

“You gotta be kidding…”

Your image and a progress indicator under the photo suddenly popped up in front of him.

20% of completion.

He checked Jade Leech’s profile which already turned gray and unavailable to interact with anymore, but then Leona’s profile popped up, showing 0% of completion.

“So I… remember everything?”

A strange joy blossomed in his chest for a brief moment before a realization hit, notifying that he needed to continue investigating. And that he also still was one of the targets.

“Mkay,” he muttered, getting out of bed and crawling on the chair, feeling sleep deprived and hungry. Who cared about food anyway? “Let’s continue, Yuu-shi.”

What was his role in this game though? Well, he obviously meant to be the main character with extra imbalance abilities! But after waking up and remembering everything that happened, especially your unnaturally distorted gaze, he started questioning his own purpose in this charade.

“Haiz,” he chuckled, noticing how you already found Leona-shi. Was he sniffing you?! “Damn he’s surely feline…”

“The smell, not of magic, but similar. Also like that fish guy?”

Idia knitted brows together, wondering what could Leona know. It appeared Kingscholar didn’t remember anything about you at all, but still carried a feeling that you and Jade-shi already interacted.

“So he doesn’t know that’s a game,” Idia concluded, nodding to himself and adding the obtained info to his databases, his fingers flying above the keyboard. “Which makes Yuu-shi and me the only ones who know.”

Despite how proud he was for feeling himself being so special and extraordinary, he rolled up his sleeves and scratched his head in confusion, trying to form a logically adequate chain of events and arguments in order to come to an unambiguous decision as a result, but, alas, his attempts were unsuccessful.

What scared him the most was the possibility of being the last love interest. He remembered protagonists of otome games, mainly they were kind individuals with bright personalities, or with no personalities at all. He preferred the last ones, they were close to his own blank gloomy self, to feel himself being the main hero of the story, to insert his own thoughts into the walkthrough, but you?

You weren’t so overkindly and bubbly as he first you would. Your decisions were rational at first, and you perhaps were provided with no knowledge about how romance worked, judging by your slow progression, the majority of which happened because of the natural charm and characters being enchantingly attracted to you… or so he thought.

Idia howled when a stupid thought ran across his mind at the speed of light, piercing him through and screaming ‘Yuu-shi is really charming tho…’, and quickly brushed it off, shaking his head. Argh, that was all useless!! You were aiming for his heart, not the icon, but real heart, his real feelings and the ability to love. And to hell with you, he didn’t want to love you!!

He didn’t want to imagine what happens with him when you leave.

Locks of his hair scattered all over the table when Leona-shi suddenly kissed you in front of others. Oi, wasn’t it too much?!

Idia wondered if the smile with which you replied to Leona was really genuine, or was it a perfect act for you to escape his route freely?

Days passing from route to route felt like ages. After Leona the time consumed for completing was extending, and when Kalim’s walkthrough dropped, Idia wanted to ignore you at all cost.

He could understand your previous self with an extremely concealed demeanor, rational and logical thinking, a goal to finish everything and get back home—where was it, by the way?—but as for now, you’ve started experiencing transformations of your soul.

Your emotions became more open and vivid, your normally efficient and sensible ways of thinking were affected by a variety of feelings, which Idia himself was unable to distinguish. Was it the softness of your heart or an honest desire to open up? Ugh, normies things…

“Oi, isn’t his heart already full?!”

Idia checked the icon above Kalim’s head and gasped. Damn, the system that you’ve carried around here was surely impressive, demonstrating how feelings could work. Kalim-shi was most definitely full of love towards you, why hasn't his route finished already?

Apparently a strange thing called ‘feelings’ was the problem. Being in love with you but not allowing himself to express it because he refrained himself and wished for other people’s happiness in the first place? What a strange guy. If that would be Idia…

Wait, what would he do?

“Let your own heart decide.”

Idia tensed up.

You weren’t saying it for him, but the sharp cutting sensation that pierced his chest made Idia wince at the vagueness of his emotions, and he clenched the jacket in his fist.

Will there be any feelings left for him when you get on his route?

“Shit, what an absurd way of thinking,” he laughed at himself. What a fool.

He should have avoided you at all cost!!

But actually seeing you coming to his clubmate, the one he could consider a friend, and asking for boldly falling in love with him?! Yuu-shi, you’re extremely insane, huh?

Okay, that was your purpose all along—to make Azul fall in love with you—but argh!! Hugging in a narrow staff room?!

Idia averted his gaze, questioning your emotions. Were you just collecting people like toys, limited cards in your collection, to just leave casually when it’s over? He didn’t want to become one of them, to develop at least a tiny something towards you to be left all alone. Again.

At one point Idia thought it would be interesting to watch you interacting with Vil-shi, given how perfectly you played the role of being the protagonist, the one who attracted everyone.

Yes, it was for the best. It was the simplest way to think of you like that, a villain destroying everyone’s hearts.

So that he wouldn’t feel so lonely himself.

When Lilia’s route started, Idia has woken up with an insanely strong migraine making him slightly worried. The more walkthroughs you passed, the more he was feeling strange.

“I wonder if Azul-shi will remember what Yuu-shi told him…”

Maybe he actually should have gone and checked on him, but Idia quickly shrugged the thought off.

“Oh?”

Your image suddenly appeared to be too close to the camera he installed, and Idia wondered where you were, given you were sitting on a windowsill. Okay, Light Music Club’s room. And you were…

You were singing softly. Your voice was pleasant to hear, nothing out of the ordinary, but still fairly nice to enjoy. Not to mention your dreamy face yet shadowed with a glimpse of sadness… Why were you so gloomy at times anyway? Just play your role, ugh.

And Lilia-shi was also strange. According to him, you appeared to be resembling someone… What kind of Surrealistic Messenger experience was that, huh? What were you, a Nika?

You really had no logic left, going to the forest from your first walkthrough again, huh? And it rained heavily, too, but Idia couldn’t see what was happening there. But when the bright light started beaming through the trees, Idia exhaled freely.

It was also the moment he realized.

He was the next and the last route.

You stared at the black space, hearing almost nothing, and the familiarity got you thinking that all of the things happening you had already witnessed once. Just right when you landed here in Twisted Wonderland.

You tried outstretching your hand, meeting with a thud, and you chuckled to yourself, prying off the coffin lid and removing it from the hinges, taking one step out.

“Grim?”

“Henchman…”

Grim found you, who was wearing the ceremonial robe, and you two ended up bursting with hysterical laughter, when Crowley came and noticed you…

No way. No way it was just as on your first day of transmigrating here!!

Same people, same places, same events, same dialogues…

Same mirror proclaiming you’re magicless.

Everything was just the same!!

“Grim,” you whispered to him while Crowley was searching for the books to try figuring out where you came from. You always mentioned other worlds’ places in those kinds of situations, because your boss demanded you not say anything personal. “Check out if the status of the game has changed.”

“Got it.”

You saw Grim summoning the system interface, but a sudden abrupt flash made you close your eyes for a moment, and when you opened them, you saw tabs glitching and lagging around you, distorting the space.

“What the…”

“Hm?” Crowley turned to you, apparently scanning your face, but you couldn’t say for sure because of his mask. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, Crowley-sensei,” you smiled at him.

“Yuu!” Grim in your hands looked at you with widened eyes and whispered. “What’s happening with the system?!”

“I don’t know,” you answered with your lips only. “How’s the status?”

“Check it yourself…”

But before you could check, Crowley turned to you, proclaiming he can’t find the place you’ve come from. The very same scenario, you going to the Ramshackle, meeting with ghosts…

With only one small exception in the form of constantly sparkling elements of the system, alternately popping up here and there.

“Yuu, we haven’t got enough time for that. Check the genre!!!”

You instantly sank to your knees, unable to believe your eyes. Your heart thumped wildly in your chest, forcing you to turn to Grim, stunned.

“F-fantasy?..” You double-checked yourself, but then saw a window with all the profiles, their statuses still the same, Lilia being the last completed one. “But Idia’s route?..”

“And you asked me to watch my tongue,” Grim frowned. “That little shit you call our boss didn’t even leave us the way to contact him during walkthroughs!!! And what if something like that happens?!”

“It’s not about him, Grim,” you tried to recover, standing up and noticing little glitches flashing everywhere in the room. “Let’s try figuring out what we should do now.”

“Find that Idia guy and finish his route, what else, fugnya.”

You lowered your gaze.

Wasn’t it an opportunity given to you as a gift? If the genre switched from otome to fantasy, then there was no obligation to complete Idia’s route. No need to let him—and you—suffer, wasn’t it the only right thing to do?

You took a deep breath. You knew it wasn’t. Idia’s route was still marked as ‘IN PROGRESS’, meaning you still had to fulfill your duties, but also…

Wasn’t it a loophole?

“I know what you’re thinking,” Grim touched your hand with his paw. “I know you’re freaking tired of this shit, me too, but Yuu—”

“No, Grim,” you laughed at yourself, tears appearing in the corners of your eyes. “I can’t. I will not. Finish his route. Just… Let’s just enjoy the fantasy story which is supposed to be completed even without us interfering.”

Grim wasn’t sure. You yourself thought it was stupid, irresponsible, your boss will probably just drag you out of here so to reprimand—you didn’t care at all.

You wanted to avoid Idia Shroud at all costs.

Giving you credit, you actually succeeded in your desire to avoid Idia. But trouble does not come alone, and instead of Idia, who, surprisingly, couldn’t be found anywhere at all, you managed to repeatedly stumble upon people from previous routes.

But what you feared the most was the system distortion, glitches and lags.

The endless flickering of digital fibers, appearing in a chaotic pattern, pierced people. The color correction of the world broke down, jumping from exaggerated, poisonously bright colors to black-and-white scraps of space. The voices sometimes went into ultrasonics, causing you and Grim to wince in dislike. System windows danced around in a digital frenzy.

It all resembled the digital apocalypse. But even with those little ‘errors’ you could still interact with others.

But not with those who were the dearest to you.

“Y̸̘̒ũ̸ͅȗ̴͜-̷̹̎s̴͍͂ä̵̖́n̸̻̄.̵̨̚”

You turned to meet Jade’s usual polite smile, a hand on his chest.

“Jade?..” You were hesitant to speak with him at first, but a sudden mechanical corrupted voice managed to scare you. “Hello?..”

He tried saying something, but he did not move at all, not the slightest sigh, not a quivering gleam in his beautiful eyes—absolutely nothing. He was frozen.

You wanted to hurry and get someone’s help, but just when you ran away and turned for a moment to make sure he was still standing still—he wasn’t… He moved, returning to his usual routine, and turned to the suddenly approaching Riddle.

Something wasn’t right.

You were convinced of this when you stepped on Leona's tail in the botanical garden, completely forgetting about this event. His reaction was exactly the same—he was like a stone frozen in time, and, unlike Jade, not telling you anything, but the system windows were frantically jumping around his silhouette.

Kalim froze with a smile you grew to love on his face, and Azul, when he met you, apparently was going to kiss your wrist, but they all froze like broken dolls at the behest of the puppeteer.

And Lilia was nowhere to be seen at all.

“I don’t understand…”

You lamented, looking at the huge glitch, reminding you of black hole which was absorbing system tabs into itself, and you were sitting near it, outstretching your hand and feeling nothing at all.

You were immune to the system’s influence, how very ironical and—

“U-ugh…”

You turned to the voice’s source and gasped when a sudden flash of bright blue flickered before your eyes for a moment, then disappeared.

“Huh, I think I saw someone just now…”

You stood up from the grass field you were sitting on, and came closer to the tree in the school yard, hearing a ‘Eek!!!’ full of fear, and blinked twice.

“E-excuse me!!”

“Oh?..”

You saw a very tall figure hiding from you behind the tree and trying to cover his face with the hood of his hoodie.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” you mumbled. “I’m Yuu. Sorry for scaring you.”

“I-if you’re sorry, then just go!!..”

Blue flames billowed from under his hood in waves, and you were surprised at how sweet the man's voice was.

“W-what are you looking at?!”

“Your hair,” you said, spellbound. “It’s very beautiful.”

“U-ugh…”

The person took his hood off, and you parted your lips in surprise.

You stared amazed at the gold of his eyes, not understanding what you were so hooked on in him, but the non-standard of his beauty completely left you speechless, and a slight glimmer of blush was born on your cheeks.

“Ah!” You exclaimed, turning away. “I’m being so rude… It’s just you’re really good-looking.. Ugh, sorry.”

“S-stop it, I’m begging. I’m not, o-okay? Now go.”

“Okay, but… What is your name?”

“You don’t need to know it…”

You looked at him, pouting and lowering your gaze, when a pink hue on the tips of his hair went unnoticed by you.

“Alright… I’ll get going then. See you later?”

“Maybe never.”

The rudeness he demonstrated somehow didn’t sound so bitter, and you smiled at him, then walked away.

“Please never interact with me…” He muttered to himself, approaching the huge glitch. “I don’t want to be the next.”

After two weeks of such randomly non-random meetings, Idia realized that, apparently, according to the law of the protagonists of otome games, there was nowhere to escape from you.

Of course, he could not really understand why the hell everything around was suddenly covered with digital holes and errors, but obviously it was related to you.

He wanted to study them himself, but the cameras he set up around the college sometimes didn't capture the biggest system bugs, not to mention they constantly popped up wherever you were for a while. Apparently others couldn’t see the world glitching, and you yourself possessed no knowledge about those errors, so he just had to go out of his room.

Even though he managed not to reveal his name for a long time—he was extremely apprehensive that you would recognize him as your last remaining love interest and start going through his route—yet you were in no particular hurry to look for him.

Didn’t you… need to finish his route and come back home? Why were you blankly staring at all those errors and glitches and doing nothing?

Not to mention that you sincerely tried to get to know him personally, never once again asking his name.

You confronted him every time he needed to investigate another huge system error that had arisen, and you simply nodded silently, smiling. The first week really passed peacefully and calmly, until something unimaginable for his consciousness happened at the beginning of the second.

“Meow-meow~”

M-meow?..

Idia was walking to the place where another hole with errors appeared, and heard your voice—it was unmistakable yours. W-what in the world were you doing?..

What he saw shocked him.

You were stroking the ear of a kitten that laid in front of you and purred, playing with it and smiling radiantly.

“Y-Yuu-shi…”

“Oh? Ah, fiery-senpai.”

“T-that stupid name again… What are you d-doing?”

You smiled at him, taking the kitten in your hands and drawing him closer to his face, placing one little smooth on his nose.

“Isn’t it cute?”

Headshot!! Huge damage taken!! Apply a HP restoring potion!!

“C-cute…” He mumbled, his hair glowing bright red. “Y-yuu-shi is… UGHM.”

“Come here.”

You took his hand in yours and made him sit beside you. Just what the audacity you had!..

The cat started purring with more intensity when Idia touched it, and you giggled at how cute the scene looming before you was.

You didn’t want to escape this reality, even with an insane amount of bugs and errors corrupting the dimension.

For a month Idia was meeting you, approaching you more and more against (in fact, not really resisting) his will. You seemed like an absolutely normal person, and it was frightening. Shouldn't the universe travelers be... different? Non-standard, possess some kind of superpowers, or easily repair these interdimensional holes? You seemed to be the most ordinary person with completely natural human emotions. Your actions were dictated by curiosity, kindness and care. You brought Idia food more than once, showed photos of kittens, respected his personal boundaries and always left without asking what he was going to do alone.

It was unbearably hard. Feelings flourished in his chest, and every day, returning to his room, Idia flopped on the bed, clutching his jacket in his fist, and repeated how crazy he was.

Feelings ate him from the inside. How the hell was that shameless and stupid!! Wasn't love in otome built on the fact that the characters went through a string of dramatic events, experienced incredible adventures, scandals, breakups and emotional declines, and then tragically confessed their love to each other?

How the hell could he screw up his one and only task — not to fall in love with you at all costs, and eventually fail miserably, and even under such idiotic circumstances?!

How could he let you take his feelings and... understand them?

“I’m pathetic,” he laughed to himself, studying the data he obtained. “But Yuu won’t know…”

He will not allow that. Maybe.

You held Grim closer to you, exhaling fresh air while sitting on the bench—which was unusual for you, who could be easily spotted on the grass or windowsill—and took a sip of a cup of hot chocolate. It was already February declaring its rights, and deepened in your thoughts.

The world was half destroyed. Multi-colored digital errors were no longer just popping up alternately anywhere, but were actively integrated into the structure, into the very subcortex of the world. The forest near the school was replaced by a digitized version, black holes in space that no one saw except you replaced entire rooms and even buildings.

To be honest, it just looked disgusting.

Previous emotional draining routes were completed, and now, when you yourself wanted to avoid Idia Shroud’s one at all cost, because you were simply scared, Idia decided to become quieter than water and lower than grass.

The information you’ve acquired was rather dull and sullen — Idia was known for being a complete shut-in, an introverted person who usually never comes out of his room. Impudently pouncing into his personal space, Ignihyde dormitory, seemed somewhat violent to you, especially taking into account that you needed to receive his love.

You wanted to respect his privacy, but also wanted to know what kind of person he is.

And just when you wanted to think about avoiding asking anyone from your previous walkthroughs, Lilia appeared before you, floating midair and smiling rather cheekily, causing you to almost spit your drink.

But more importantly, he seemed extremely alive, unlike others.

“Ugh, uh…” You coughed. “Li… Vanrouge.”

“Hm? What’s with the sudden coldness?”

“Sudden?..” You echoed, furrowing your brows. “Oh, I’m sorry, it’s just we haven’t talked much before…”

Lilia took your hand, the one that was holding Grim, who expressed an annoyed sound and stared at Vanrouge, and placed a smooch on the finger you’ve pricked in his route.

“Is that how you greet me after having all that life and death type of conversation?”

You jolted, abruptly standing up and almost dropping Grim from your lap, to which Lilia only laughed.

“You remember?!” You screamed, noticing you drew too much attention, and lowered your voice. “But how?”

“Remember I told you I’ll never forget? This is why.”

“N-no, wait… I mean, others have only tiny glimpses of memories about me, but they don’t have entire routes stored in their minds!! Not to mention they’re… Ugh.”

“Calm down, Yuu. To be honest, I’m not sure how it works, either. Tell me more about your case, we’ll figure something out. Maybe you haven’t finished my, hmmm, route, you said?”

You summoned the system tab that got almost sunk into the black hole, which Lilia couldn’t see, and checked twice and even thrice — ‘COMPLETED’ were written in caps.

“I have,” you said.

“That Idia guy’s profile also opened,” Grim mentioned.

“Idia?” Lilia repeated. “He’s your next target?”

“Target… Yes, you can say so… Do you know anything about him?”

“Quite a lot of information I normally wouldn’t share, but in your case…” Lilia frowned. “But Yuu, will you go home after finishing?”

“I… Don’t have home,” you explained. “I’ll return back to the office where I’ll be appointed to another story. But before that I’ll ask why in the world did I land here, Twisted Wonderland is not our main genre.”

“Where were you before?”

“Better not ask,” Grim advised, to which you nodded. “Nothing good.”

“Makes me want to ask more!” Lilia giggled. “But alright. Even though I don’t really want to let you go, considering I’m extremely worried about your safety… I believe you should go and ask what caused the error. As for Idia Shroud…”

You and Grim saw system tabs randomly popping up and glitching, to which Lilia tilted his head, but you shook yours, gesturing to him to continue speaking.

“He’s a nice kid, actually. A twisted one, as we all here are, but I sense no ill feelings radiating from him. He has a rather complicated personality, so I suggest you be patient.”

“Twisted, hm,” you nodded, trying to ignore glitch intensification.

“His family works under an organization dealing with phantoms and blot research. So make sure to—”

“Good morning, Lilia Vanrouge-san, Yuu-san, Grim-san!”

A robotic cheerful voice greeted you, and you stared at the appeared humanoid with… was that fire on his head?.. Wait a second.

“Oho~” Lilia smirked. “Morning, little Shroud.”

Little Shroud?.. Did Idia have a brother?

“Good morning,” you greeted him. “And you’re?”

“Ortho Shroud!” A child humanoid introduced himself. “Nice to meet you, Yuu-san!”

“How can we be of help?” Lilia asked.

“I’m sorry for interrupting, but I need to talk to Yuu-san and Grim-san directly.”

“Oh, then you should know that I’m not leaving Yuu’s side. So if you want to talk, please don’t mind me, but I won’t leave~”

“I’m afraid I can allow that,” Ortho replied cheerfully.

You tried standing up, but staggered and changed glances with Grim, who also felt dizzy and out of place for a moment, before Ortho pulled up a tablet, which suddenly started floating on itself.

“U-uhm…” A voice was heard, coming from the tablet. “E-excuse me, Lilia-shi… B-but I need to t-talk to them… alone.”

And with that you and Grim suddenly fainted, surrounded by light sparkles and glitches flooding the space, not noticing Ortho catching you and Lilia’s furious stare.

You tried opening your eyes, and managed to do that after a minute of trying, glitches still sparkling everywhere, but not as bright as it was before.

You found yourself on a bed in an unknown place dominated by bright blue hues, you could hear the tapping of fingers on the keyboard, the faint noise of processors, and you were no longer sure if the space distortion was due to the system, or it was local computers.

“Uh…” You mumbled, trying to sit on your bed, and observed the place, noticing a figure of someone tapping on the keyboard.

You looked closely, recognizing familiar fire-like bright blue hair and gray clothes the person was wearing.

“Excuse me,” you said, drawing the person's attention and making the figure startle in shock, turning to you at once. “Huh?”

“Y-Y-Yuu-shi!!”

“F-fiery-senpai.”

He pulled up the collar of the turtleneck that was sticking out from under the gray robes and covered his mouth, looking away from you.

“Um… I’m Idia Shroud.”

You smiled weakly to yourself, actually suspecting it before, but knowing that the person you grew to love like happened to be Idia was excruciatingly painful.

It was continuous, endless torment.

Grim told you every day that you, dear little Yuu, are just a fool with a glitch in your head, since you fell in love with that ‘fiery-senpai’ so irrevocably for being just a person. The world was falling apart, and you refused to end the game, running away from solving the problem like a small child, and you understood this very well, continuing to run in circles.

“Ah!!” You exclaimed, standing up and approaching him, making Idia squeak and almost run away from you. “Oh, I’m sorry for startling you. It’s just… Actually, wait, where am I? Where’s Grim?”

“Grim-shi is sleeping in the room next door, m-my little brother Ortho assisting him. D-don’t worry…”

“That’s good…” You smiled to yourself, feeling a little relieved your partner was okay. “But still, where are we?”

“Did they just need to leave that to me RIGHT WHEN I’m in the middle of my research, ugh…” He muttered to himself, then cleared his throat. “You’re at STYX. You p-probably don’t know what it is, since you’re… Nevermind. D-dont worry, we need to run a few tests and will return you back to the NRC.”

“Sounds not like something I shouldn’t be worried about, to be honest,” you chuckled. “What kind of tests? And why me? Lilia said you study, ergh… blot here. I don’t know what that is.”

“Tch, why me…” He mumbled to himself again. “Y-yeah, Lilia-shi surely mentioned something he shouldn’t have, b-but you have no relation to blot. At least physically..”

“Look,”

You came closer to him, quickly glancing over his features and suddenly getting flustered. Despite his gloomy look and huge eye bags, he appeared to be quite cute and good-looking. You never thought your last ‘love interest’ would look like that, not to mention him having such a shy personality.

And now, knowing that the fiery-senpai you grew to like was Idia all that time, didn’t make it easier.

Everything will end once you win his heart.

And it was breaking yours.

You dramatically imitated fainting, causing Idia to jolt, and exclaimed.

“You suddenly faint,” you said, then came over to the bed you were laying on, and sat on it. “Then you wake up in an unfamiliar place…”

You came closer to him, not daring to touch him, and ended up just staring right in his golden eyes.

“... And found yourself alone in a room with a complete stranger.” You said, averting your gaze. “Quite handsome, though.”

Idia in front of you bit his lip, trying his best to ignore your compliment.

“What would my reaction be?”

“C-confusion?..”

“Right, that,” you confirmed. “So please be so kind as to explain what is happening and how I can be of help.”

“Alright…” He sighed heavily. “Follow me.”

You nodded, following his tall figure and enjoying how the fire of which his hair consisted was shimmering, however noticing one little but important detail.

There was no heart icon.

To be completely honest, you really were charming.

Idia was amazed at how easy it was to have a conversation with you and how charmingly your lips curved into a soft smile. He hated every second of the new day, realizing that the research is being delayed, and he has to run an infinite number of tests.

He could not clearly distinguish between your natural coquetry and acting (of the justice of which he was no longer so sure). You yourself were a very gentle and understanding person, calmly accepting the peculiarities of his personality, but still, despite all the promises that you made to others in their routes (at least those that he managed to hear), you seemed to still hold back myself.

Wouldn't you like to return to where you came from as soon as possible? Why did your face tremble in unbearable sadness every time he happily announced that there were not many tests left and that you would be released soon? Of course, you had to charm him, grab him right by the heart and make him yours, but why did your voice become so desperately dreary every time he closed the door to your room, and you wished him peaceful dreams and asked him not to work late?

The tests, in fact, at first were simple questionnaires, from which it was impossible to extract anything intelligible. Therefore, subsequently, Idia had to move on to more difficult tests for you, which turned out to be simulations of reality.

The distorted images of all those whose routes you have already completed, have told you terrible things, betrayed you and hoped to break you. Usually it was possible to check the accumulation of blot and magical energy this way, but since you did not possess it, it was checked how negative emotions affected you.

And you... seemed to remain unshakable and believed them to the end, forcing the images of people dear to you to be erased automatically.

Idia wasn't really interested in your involvement in the blot in the first place—it was just a cover. He was personally interested in knowing your essence in more detail, who, or maybe what you really were.

And why did you cling so desperately to those whose routes were already completed.

“Yuu!!”

“Don’t come any closer!”

You heard Grim burst into your room, ignoring his attempts to stop you, but the erratic system bugs were doing their own dance, preventing Grim from getting close to you.

“The fuck you’re doing?!”

You chuckled, tapping on the keyboard, and turned to him for a mere second.

“Trying to let our dear beloved system know that I won’t finish Idia’s route.”

“Yuu, get yourself together!! Ain’t no way you can just casually crack the system we’ve been workin’ with for who knows how many years so far!!”

“AND DO I LOOK LIKE I CARE?!”

“Yuu!”

You tried to make changes to the system code of this world, sweat streamed down your neck, electricity flashed bright flashes here and there, almost setting Grim's tail on fire, and as soon as you got to the very core, swallowing tears and ignoring Grim's screams, in the system something exploded, pushing you away from the interface and spawning digital corruption.

“Yuu!..”

You. Failed.

Today Idia planned to show you the Underworld to see what would happen. Apparently you had a save option, so he was about to make a hint for you, so you would save the game progress and reload in case something happens.

“I-It’s me, Idia…”

He knocked on the door, but no answer was heard. Normally you would reply with a cheerful ‘Come in!', but today you remained silent, making him slightly worried.

He opened the door nevertheless and found you, wrapped in blankets and sniffing.

“Yuu-shi?” He asked, coming closer to you but not too close, and saw you slowly turning to him. “O-oi, are you okay?”

“Ugh… who…”

You looked at him from under your brows, your eyelids were as if poured with lead, and your cheeks burned like a red-hot swing. Idia carefully bent over you, not daring to stretch out his hand for a long time, but your hoarse breathing forced him to press his hand to your forehead and gasp.

“You’re burning, Yuu-shi!”

“Idia?..”

“Y-yes, are you okay— Huh?!”

You weakly tugged at his sleeve, but from the unstable position and the effect of surprise, he fell on you.

This is the most classic otome scene ever, damn it!!

But, unlike the typical plot of an otome game, the scene wasn't particularly romantic. The promised butterflies didn’t hover in his stomach, and you looked really sick. You covered your mouth with a blanket and opened your eyes, trying to peer into the gold of the eyes in front of you with a cloudy gaze, forcing Idia to fluster.

“Your hair…” You muttered. “Warm.”

“O-of course it’s warm… Yuu-shi?!”

You smoothed a strand of his fiery hair and smiled weakly, clinging to the desired warmth and not noticing how the tips of his hair turned pink.

Shit, it was, like, REALLY bad. Did you just have to be so cute and vulnerable right when he wanted to ignore the feelings blossoming in his chest?! Argh, you really!!

“I’m sorry,” you mumbled, taking his hand he offered to hold onto, not even realizing it himself, and tried standing up. “We’ve got important work to do today… Let’s go.”

“But you don’t look well, Yuu-shi…”

“It’s nothing,” you smiled, standing up and releasing his hand, already missing the warmth. “I know it's partly your idea, but you're still following someone's orders, right?”

“Uh,” he averted his gaze. “W-well, yes…”

“He-he,” you smiled, embracing yourself and feeling a little cold. “I know the feeling when no one asks you what you want to do. So let’s finish early, and I won’t disturb you anymore.”

You left the room, turning around for a second and meeting his stunned gaze.

You really DID care about him.

He chuckled at the last thing you’ve said, knowing that you needed him to escape this place, both STYX and Twisted Wonderland, but found it funny how you tried to cover it. Even if you didn’t look like you were lying in the first place.

The path to the underworld was unbearably long, and your body apparently refused to listen to you, the limbs seemed to take on a life of their own, and Idia saw a sharp flicker of the system windows around you, intensifying as you descended lower and lower.

“What do I need to do when we get there?” You asked, grabbing his hand, because you couldn’t even walk properly.

“Yuu-shi… E-excuse me.”

He put your hand on his shoulder, helping you move around, although you didn't walk long enough because you weren't very comfortable.

“I appreciate your concern,” you giggled and just took his hand in yours, interweaving fingers. “But that would be enough. Thank you, Idia.”

He felt stupid, feeling the unbearable heat of your body, and at the same time knowing that he contributed to your sudden illness, and he could not do anything about it.

He was an egoist to whom you showed nothing but kindness and understanding.

“Yuu-shi, uhm… Excuse me for a moment.”

System windows flickered and flew around you in a chaotic order, among which Idia somehow managed to grab the right one, and stood behind you, trying to hit the flickering button in time. He leaned closer to you, curls of his hair falling on your chest, and you blushed, turning your face to him.

“Idia?..”

“Argh, I’m s-sorry!! Please bear with me a little more…”

“Why bearing?” You leaned closer to him, feeling his heart stopping for a moment. “I enjoy spending time with you, really.”

“D-don’t say nonsense, Yuu-shi. Why would you love spending time with the one w-who, uhm, kidnapped you?”

“I might have questioned that, but… Maybe because your research can help me too. I think. And also…”

You looked at him, his hand frozen midair and his lips slightly parted.

Were you about to kiss him?

His heart skipped a beat when he realized that… No, it was SO irrational!! He was avoiding you (not really, actually) like a plague, he tried his best to not catch feelings for you! It would be a total game over if you would kiss him now, the system will admit he has fallen in love, and you will just leave, but!..

But you shook your head, smiling at him bitterly, and continued walking.

And what was the sudden sadness and void in his heart?

He managed to save the game for you and wondered if it was okay, given he was the one who did it, not you.

You finally reached the destination, and Idia felt a headache piercing his head, other people’s profiles popping up here and there randomly, and you frowned.

“Idia, wait,” you said, reaching out for one of the tabs and typing something there. “Shit, I have no currency left…”

“I can help.”

He still held your hand to prevent you from falling, seeing how hard you were shivering, and couldn’t dare to meet your shocked gaze.

“How in the world…”

“I don’t know either,” he mumbled. “It just… I know n-not only you’re not from this world, I know your purpose…”

“Did you avoid me on purpose because you knew?..”

“Y-yes,” he admitted and turned away. “But it’s not like you’ll love me for real.”

“You… Listen to me, Idia.”

You turned to him, ignoring the persistently jumping system windows and the gradually dissolving universe. The howl of phantoms from under your feet was terrifying and disturbing, but you clung to Idia, looking at him with tears in your eyes.

“This is undoubtedly the most freakingly insane route I’m trying to finish,” you confirmed. “But… Do I look like I want this to end? Like I want you to suffer when I’m gone?”

“Y-Yuu-shi…”

“I don’t want to go,” you admitted. “I don’t want to leave you! Not when I’m… developing feelings for you.”

“You…”

“The route is over once not only the person, but I also recognize and accept something for myself. And just so you know, you have no heart above you…”

“Yuu-shi, sorry for saying stupid things, but…” He inhaled sharply. “My heart is not above my head, but in my chest. Yours too.”

You giggled.

“Ha-ha… It is quite endearing, I must s… say.”

“Yuu-shi?”

“I’m okay,” you said. “It’s just… What are those howls?”

“... It’s phantoms. The ones my family and I study,” he answered. “They’re… not people anymore.”

“Not… anymore. Idia!!”

“W-what?!”

You sank to your knees, touching the cold surface of the gates to the underworld, and gasped, paralyzed.

It was just the same when you yourself first died.

“Yuu-shi, don’t come any closer!!”

“Idia,” you turned to him. “Do you… work here often? Do you interact with those phantoms often?”

“I do,” he answered. “Why?..”

“Ha-ha… I think… I just realized the real reason why you can see the system too.”

“WHAT?!”

“You know… I once was a normal person, just like you are. A part of a story, though I don’t even remember the genre it had. More likely a slice of life? I died young, rescuing a kitten. You can already assume that it was Grim… And you’re right. And somehow we both ended up being recruited for the Isekai Association program.”

“So not… everyone could enter?”

“As he explained, only those who possess certain qualities and personality traits can be hired. And as for you, I think because you’re close to death, you manage to see everything happening..”

“He?..”

You frowned.

“Is there a way to open the gates?”

“Don’t even think about it. I’m being serious, Yuu-shi.”

“So there is, and apparently you know it,” you smiled at him with a craziness he despised.

How could you even think about something so dangerous as…

“Well then, open it. Right. Now. I’m being serious just as you are.”

“I won’t.”

“I will put it to an end. You also don’t want your world to suffer because of me, right?! You see those glitches, the system almost absorbed everything!! How could you—”

“How could you just think only of yourself!”

You bit your lip, looking straight at him, his hair iridescent from blue to enraged orange, almost crimson.

“Listen, I’m being only logical!! Here, I hear death itself. Are you worried about me? I really appreciate it, but oh please, I won’t die that easily. In fact, all that I need to do is to jump right there as many times as I can, maybe that he will finally bring me to the office and at least interrogate…”

“He again.. No, Yuu, I WON’T let you.”

“Ha,” you laughed bitterly, drawing him to yourself and pressing your forehead to his, closing your eyes and summoning the system tabs.

Your forehead burned with heat, your breath hitched so hard that Idia himself heard it trembling, and watched in a daze as his memory was converted into system windows. He wanted to break out of your strong grip, but you already found the right scoreboard and smiled sadly, biting your lip.

“Sorry,” you mumbled, closing your eyes. “I didn’t want to manipulate you like that… Now, say it, Idia Shroud.”

His body moved against his will, his lips trembled, and as if not in his voice, a desperate ‘Gate to The Underworld’ broke from them.

The heavy massive gates opened, and Idia, having regained control over his movements, numbly turned away from you, but did not calculate that one inaccurate movement, and he felt the cold of the grave with his back.

“IDIA!!”

Dark hands, greedily clinging to his limbs, mercilessly pulled him into the abyss. Without hesitation, you rushed after him, your heart was pounding wildly in your chest, trying to escape, and the tears instantly dried up on your cheeks from the cold, leaving icy paths on them.

“Yuu!!”

Grim voice was heard, and the second after you felt him grabbing on your sleeve.

“Grim, no, get out of here, I’ll end this alone!!”

“You stupid little shit,” Grim cursed. “We’re partners!!”

“But Grim! Let me go! I must rescue him!!!”

“Ain’t no way you’re excluding me, you idiot! What are you going to do anyway?! He’s dying!”

You refused to let go of Idia’s hand you managed to grab, and saw him opening his eye for a mere moment before closing it, losing consciousness.

“Do you believe me, Grim?”

“Of course I do, you foolish henchman!”

“Then let me go, okay? Believe me, I’m not letting die nor you or Idia.”

Grim hesitated for a moment before nodding to you.

“‘Kay… And Yuu.”

“Yes?”

“Be careful just in case, ok? I mean, you’ll always be my most loyal henchman in every dimension existing, but now you look more ergh, soft or something? I mean, humans before you usually couldn’t stand a second in horrors and… Shit.”

“You don’t want to lose me,” you concluded, drawing Grim closer to you and enveloping him in a hug.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” he sighed. “Might get used to that soft side of yours.”

“Is it bad?”

“Nah,” he hugged your arm in response. “But it could have been better if you gave me more tuna cans daily.”

“Shut up.”

He let go of you, and you summoned the system tab, not really seeing anything in this mess, but bit your lip and typed the code, clicking ‘ENTER’ and shouting out.

“Judge Flamm!!”

Suddenly, the whole space seemed to flow into an absolutely intangible shell, the digital pieces of the universe peeled off, and you found yourself in a familiar office, which was a small room with a cozy fireplace against the wall.

“Yuu.”

An insanely beautiful person with dim green eyes looked at you with a strictness you never knew he could possess before, and offered you a cup of tea, which you declined.

“I thought I made it clear you’re not allowed to use that code.”

“It was an emergency, Judge Flamm.”

“I don’t see anything urgent.”

“Ha!” You stood up, spilling the tea and ignoring Flamm’s intense gaze fixed on you. “First transferring me and Grim to an otome game, then letting my last love interest die! Nothing urgent, really?”

You grabbed him by the collar, pulling him towards you, meeting the inexplicable emotion in his eyes, and grinned.

“You… Judge Flamm, before I actually blew the hell out of here, bring him back to life!!”

“Yuu, you’re saying nonsensical things.”

“Hell with you then…”

“You know there’s always a price to pay for all of your desires.”

“Want to see a hellfire so much?” You smirked. “I’ll show you that. You… Did I ever ask for life like that?! Wandering around like a ghost!”

“But you didn’t die. You did it only once, and now…”

“WHY? WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!”

“BECAUSE I—” He closed his eyes. “Forget it. I can’t let you work in this state. This world is broken anyway.”

“Ha, so you first bring me there against my will, not introducing me to the details, then I start developing emotions and feelings I never knew I needed, and now? Now you’re telling me I can’t keep working like that? Don’t try to fool me, Judge Flamm! Just name your price.”

“That merman surely taught you— Ha-ha. Great then. Hear the price.”

He grabbed your chin, drawing your face closer to his, and smirked.

“Your own life. And not just one, but all the lives you have. All the countless lives for all of the stories you needed to fix, and you;ll be stuck in that Twisted Wonderland world forever!!”

You narrowed your eyes and burst into laughter.

“Great! Take it all. I don’t care.”

“Yuu…”

“Take it,” you repeated. “Take it, Judge… No. Take it, Rollo.”

He hissed, escaping from your grasp and approaching the fireplace, pulling out a blue flower burning in the fire.

“You’ll regret your decision.”

“Oh believe me I won’t,” you said. “I will enjoy my one and only life I will have from now on. Finally.”

Rollo, casting a heavy and ambiguous look at you, breathed life into a flower burning with a blue flame, and put it in your hand, looking away and biting his lip. A spectacle that you never expected to see even in your wildest dreams unfolded in front of you, and Flamm, forcing out a weak awkward smile, pushed you into the digital abyss, whispering something in parting, but you could not make out what exactly.

“See you later, Yuu.”

He said, clutching a burning scarlet flower in his hand and falling after you.

“Yuu!!”

“Y-Yuu-shi!!”

You slowly opened your eyes, coughing up gunpowder from your throat, and looked at the two silhouettes looming over you with a hazy look. But you didn’t have time to orient yourself and come to your senses, when suddenly they swooped down on you with hugs and squeezed them tightly.

“You insane punk!!” Grim cried. “I’ll never ask for extra tuna cans if you’re going to throw yourself into the abyss once more! You stupid little—”

“G-grim-shi, let Yuu-shi rest a little and—”

“Idia… You’re alive…”

“T-thanks to you and—”

Tears welled up in your eyes, but you leaned towards Idia and clung to him in a soft kiss, ignoring Grim's dissatisfied sighs from the side and the uncertain sounds that Idia made. Laughing through kiss, you clung to Idia even stronger, and he, not sharing your fun, grew bolder, picking up your lips.

“Y-Yuu-shi,” he whispered when parted. “What did you do?..”

“Uhm,” you giggled nervously. “Exchanged my countless lives on your but only one?”

“YOU WHAT?!”

“Ah, Grim!!” You lamented. “I forgot to ask for your opinion… But I kinda think… Judge Flamm let us live only this one remaining life…”

“Do I look like I care?!” He punched you slightly. “I’m more impressed that you’ve managed to convince HIM out of all bosses! He’s an insane one!”

“Why do I think there's so much to be told?” Idia mumbled.

“Don’t worry,” you smiled. “Let’s get back to NRC and I’ll explain everything to you and then to others. They certainly deserve an explanation…”

“But explain everything to me first in all details,” he said, standing up and helping you out. “I’m your t-true route, after all.”

You smiled at him, taking his hand in yours and letting Grim rest on your shoulders.

“You are!”

A sudden piercing feeling pricked your chest, as if crimson fire spreading within, but it soon disappeared, erasing all your worries.

Maybe you were an otome expert all this time, after all?

— tag-list : @coffee-or-hot-cocoa @red-viewe @68thsposts @cerisescherries

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #jade x reader #leona x reader #kalim x reader #azul x reader #lilia x reader #idia x reader

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whoslai · 1 year

Text

Off The Menu - Lee Heeseung (Chapter 1)

genre: angst, fluff, slow-ish burn, eventual smut!! (you’re responsible for what you consume, read at your own risk)

warnings: none?? reader has anxiety/social anxiety and a few insecurities here and here. major slice of life for you peeps

send me an ask if you’d like to be tagged! thank you to all my new followers, you guys are amazing for supporting me. please interact and give me as much feedback as you’d like (don’t be an ass tho, no need to spread negativity.

not proof read, sorry for any typos in advance.

word count: 3.3k

link to series masterlist or whatever

next chapter

Chapter 1: “Hey, lol.”

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼✼　 ҉✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼✼　 ҉ 　

Fall wasn’t your favorite season. From the stress of studying for finals to worrying about flight tickets back home when winter rolled around, you were never the biggest fan of the autumn months. With the combination of your busy schedule and your failure to get a refill on your anxiety medication, you felt immensely overwhelmed. Another thing to note was how lonely it got; Your family was across the country. Going to school in California was a conscious decision of yours, but you didn’t consider how tiresome it’d get not experiencing the warm embrace of a loved one in your times of need. To even take a trip back home would take you nearly 2 days, and that was simply not a risk you were willing to take with how dingy your car was.

Your Friday’s typically consisted of this: Breakfast at the café off campus, lectures from 9 am to 12 pm, lunch at 12:30 pm accompanied with a small break, occasional seminars for an hour or so, then you were done. You’d usually study for a little while, but there were no promises. Being a second year psych student had its pros and cons; Less free time throughout the weekdays but completely free weekends. Though the pros outweigh the cons, you could use a bit more time to yourself throughout the week. As you were far from home, you had to make completely new friends. The vibe in California was completely different. You spent the entirety of your first year in your dorm in online school due to your school’s strict precautions against the pandemic, so you’d be stripped of the chance of branching out. While you weren’t the only one who went through this, it was 10x harder for you to go back to normal; Social anxiety had been something you’d struggled with all your life. The fear you felt when in big crowds, when being assigned to group projects, even merely walking to your class on campus…really…sucked. Tasked with the responsibility of your own finances, health insurance was something you simply couldn’t afford. Therefore, you hadn’t been on your meds for God knows how long. But anyway, you wouldn’t stay on such a depressing topic.

Moving on, you had the weekend to yourself. You’d finished your last lecture around 2 pm and made your way back to your dorm. Fortunately, your roommate hadn’t made it back from her classes, so you had the space all to yourself. You locked the door behind you and took a breath of fresh air.

“Finally.” You sighed to yourself, plopping down onto your bed. Shoes were thrown about and you laid in your bed, indulging in the feeling of relief. But, as expected, it was cut short almost immediately.

Multiple knocks were sounded upon the door. It was nobody but Ningning, your lab partner in Abnormal Psych Stats 2. She was a sweet girl, she truly was. However, she always found a way to be overbearing. But you appreciate her as she was the only reason you ever left your room.

You slowly but surely got up to open the door, greeted by Ningning with a big smile.

“Y/N, were you lying down?” She asked, leaning against the door frame.

“I was, but now I’m up. Come, come.” You told her, moving out of the way so she could come in.

She walked in, closing the door behind her and sat on your bed as you spruced up your desk.

You glanced over at her, noticing that she was biting her lip and she only ever did that when she was holding back from saying something.

“Oh God, what is it?” You groaned, knowing she was about to say something outlandish.

She smiled and sat up, “Okay, don’t be mad but I booked us two tickets at this restaurant over in Malibu. Yes, I know it’s a long drive BUT…it’s worth it. Please tell me you’ll come with me, pleaseeeee…”

You sighed, rubbing your jaw, “I can’t.” Her smile faded, turning into a frown, “I don’t have the funds for that. I just planned on grabbing a meal from the dining hall…I’m trying to save up for a plane ticket.”

She shook her head, “Don’t worry about the costs, I’ll pay, it’ll be my treat. I wasn’t in town on your birthday and I want to make up for my absence. As your best, and ONLY friend, it’s my job to treat you. So, what do you say?”

You sighed to yourself, again. You hadn’t planned on doing anything tonight. You really were looking forward to having some down time to just relax and catch up on some shows. You also weren’t the type to depend on someone to pay for your meal, but one time wouldn’t hurt, right?

“Alright. Fine. When?” You asked her, stacking papers atop of each other.

“Today, tonight, let’s leave before 6 pm since our reservation is at 8:00.” She said, “I figured we could stay the night? If we left by 6 and got there at 7:30 ish, we could check into our reservation and stay at a nearby hotel. It’d be nice to take a break and be on our own for a while.”

You nodded, ‘That sounds nice…but costly? Where’s all this money coming from, Ningning?”

She smiled, “Let’s just say…my job is treating me well. Now, pack a bag, be ready by 5.” She hurried up and kissed your cheek as she made her way out of your room, closing the door behind you.

So, a trip. A mini girls trip for a night. You were excited, actually. It’s been a while since you had a chance to take a break. You’ve never been to Malibu either. This should be fun.

Later on, you finished packing a small bag with a few essentials. You changed into an outfit you thought fit the Malibu vibe: A black halter top with beige flowy pants and matching back sandals. You clipped a mango-ish colored flower into your hair after you slicked it back into a ponytail and grabbed your bag. You touched yourself up a bit before walking out of your dorm and made your way down the hall. You knocked on Ningning’s dorm and waited for her to open it.

Once she did, she met you with a smile and walked out with her bag, locking the door behind her. “You look so cute, Y/N. We’re going to have so much fun, trust me.”

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You two soon made it to the restaurant with not a lot of time to spare as it was 8:00 on the dot. Ningning quickly found a parking spot and you both agreed to find a hotel after you ate.

From the outside looking in, the restaurant was beautiful. It was right beside a beach with a beautiful view of the ocean; Moonshadows Malibu was its name, it truly was something you thought you’d never see in real life. As you two made your way inside, you were hit by the aroma of vanilla and solemn music, only adding to the overall dreamy vibe. A pretty lady at the front greeted you both with a wide smile. She held up two shell necklaces, “Would you ladies like a necklace?” Ningning looked at you before quickly nodding, holding her hands out to grab them. She gave you one as she slipped hers on her head and you followed after her, placing the necklace around your neck.

“We reserved a seat for two?” Ningning remarked towards the lady.

The girl nodded, “What’s the name?”

“Ning Yi Zhuo..” Nigning replied, nodding.

The girl nodded, “Okay, follow me.” She showed you both to the deck of the restaurant, seated outside right above the sand and beside the ocean. You were in awe at how beautiful the sunset was. Ningning thanked the girl as she placed down menus and told you both that your waiter would be over soon.

“It’s so pretty in Malibu…” You sighed, looking at the ocean.

“I grew up right next door to Malibu, actually. I always enjoyed coming here on vacation, such a nice place. Anyway,” She laughed, “What are you getting to drink? I brought my fake just in case…”

You smiled, shaking your head, “I don’t drink, Ningning. You’re always pressuring me to drink.”

She scoffed, “Peer pressure? I’d never!”

You rolled your eyes, “Sure. I’ll probably just get water, I’m trying to be healthier.”

“Aw, okay. I love that for you, but I’m still going to get a Pina Colada.” She sighed, pretending to jut her lip out at you.

You shook your head and looked down at your menu, suddenly feeling your heart dropping. The prices were high! The cheapest thing you saw was $20!

“Jesus, Ningning! These prices are literally so unrealistic.” You told her.

She shrugged, “You pay for the quality, not quantity. They honestly have some of the best food in Malibu, trust me. How about we both share an appetizer and then worry about the entrees later? Sounds good?”

“Okay, well, at least I'll pay for your gas. Deal?” You asked.

“Oh hell yeah, you can definitely pay for my gas.” She nodded to herself.

You closed your menu and took your phone out, capturing some photos of the ocean for later. You wanted to savor the moment. As the sun began to dip below the horizon, casting a warm golden glow over the beach, the waves lapped gently against the shore. The sky was painted in shades of pink and orange, while the clouds seemed to catch fire with the last rays of daylight. A few seagulls flew overhead, their silhouettes dark against the vibrant sky. The air was filled with the salty scent of the sea and the distant sound of laughter and music. It was a moment of peace and beauty that seemed to suspend time, as if the world had paused to take in the breathtaking scene before it.

Only, your attention was stricken as you heard Ningning whisper something. You looked back at her and her eyes were wide and signaling to the side of you; A waiter. Your heart skipped a beat as he drew closer, his smile dazzling and his eyes sparkling. He was even more handsome up close, with strong, chiseled features and a confident demeanor. You felt a sudden burst of nervous energy, unsure of how to act in the presence of such beauty. His voice was smooth and charming as he greeted you both. You felt an immense struggle to keep your composure. It was clear that he had an effect on you, and you simply couldn't help but wonder if he felt the same way.

“Evening, ladies…” The young man greeted you both, “Can I get you guys started with anything to drink?”

Ningning eagerly nodded, “You most certainly can…Y/N?” Hearing your name snapped you out of your mini trance and you looked at her in confusion. She widened her eyes at you, signaling for you to talk.

“I’ll just get some water for now.” You told him, clearing your throat.

He nodded, “Water it is…” A small smile crept on his face as he glanced back up at you and playfully remarked, “But I’ve got a feeling you might want something a little stronger later on.”

You couldn't help but feel a bit flustered by his comment, but you managed to laugh it off. "We'll see about that," you replied, trying to hide your growing attraction to him. Ningning, on the other hand, was not as subtle.

"Oh, I think we definitely will," she said with a grin, winking at the waiter. You shot her a look, but she just shrugged innocently, “I’d like a Piña Colada, extra coconut.”

The waiter chuckled, clearly enjoying the attention. "I'll keep that in mind," he said before taking your orders and walking away. Ningning leaned in, a mischievous glint in her eye.

"He's cute, isn't he?" she whispered.

You rolled your eyes, but couldn't deny that she was right. "Yeah, he is," you admitted, feeling a flush rise to your cheeks.

“He was soooo flirting with you, Y/N.” She laughed, “It’s time you got some action, anyway. 19 and still a virgin? Unheard of.” You shook your head, trying to brush off her comment. But deep down, you couldn't help but wonder if there was some truth to it. You couldn't wait to see what the rest of the night had in store.

As the night progressed, you and Ningning chatted about a multitude of topics. Life, college, boys, parties, homework, etc. You were glad you went out with her, it was just the breath of fresh air you had been needing these past few weeks.

Oh, and of course, you’d stolen some glances at the waiter. When he brought back your drinks, he made sure to place yours down first even though Ningning was obviously positioned in front of your water.

One thing he did that made his interest almost completely obvious was when he leaned down on the table to speak to you when you knew he could hear you just fine as he was merely a few inches away. You wouldn’t say you were flirting back. Although Ningning was urging you to do so, flirting wasn’t something you were familiar with. Why would a guy flirt with you of all people? Especially as your much prettier friend sat across from you. For all you knew, he simply could have wanted a nice tip. You wouldn’t entertain him much, you came to get a break from campus, not to find a fling.

Ningning turned her attention back to you when he walked away to retrieve you both some refills, “He wants you.”

You didn’t respond to her comment, choosing to turn your attention to the last sushi roll instead. You rinsed it down with the last morsel of your water, sighing internally when he came back.

“One filet mignon for Ms. Lily,” He said, placing down your food, “And a scottish Salad for-”

“Lily?” Ningning laughed, confused at the name he referred to you as.

He looked up at her as he placed her food down, “Lily Flower, in your hair,” He glanced up at you, “It’s cute, by the way.”

You awkwardly nodded, “Thanks…”

He smiled and rubbed his hands together, “Well, I’ll be around. Call me if you guys need anything. I hope you enjoy your food.”

“Will do.” Ningning said, “One thing before you go…” He nodded in acknowledgment, licking his lips. “You single?”

The waiter chuckled, clearly amused by Ningning's boldness. "I am, actually," he replied, his eyes flickering over to you for a moment.

Ningning grinned. "Good to know," she said, winking at him. "We'll keep that in mind."

As he walked away, you couldn't help but feel a little jealous of your friend's flirtatiousness. But deep down, you knew that there was something between you and the waiter, something that went beyond just a passing attraction.

As you ate your meal, you found yourself stealing glances at him, meeting your eyes with his own whenever he walked by, feeling a rush of excitement every time he flashed you a smile. Finally, as the meal came to a close, he brought over the bill and once again flashed you a charming grin. "I hope you enjoyed everything," he said, his eyes sparkling. You couldn't help but smile back, feeling a little shy under his gaze.

"It was great, thank you," you replied, trying to sound casual, knowing damn well that you were nearly shitting your pants under his intense gaze.

He nodded, walking away to leave you both to the bill. Ningning shook her head, “If you don’t write your number down on this bill, I’m genuinely never taking you out ever again. This is a threat.”

You couldn't help but laugh at Ningning's threat, feeling a little embarrassed at how obvious your attraction to the waiter had been. But she was right, you knew that you couldn't let this opportunity slip away. As you saw the waiter returning to take the bill, you nervously scribbled down your phone number onto a small napkin, placing it beside the bill. You hoped that he wouldn't notice until you left as you didn’t want to make anything awkward. As he collected the bill, you tried to act casual, but your heart was racing with anticipation. You watched as he glanced down at the paper with your phone number on it, and you couldn't help but wonder what he was thinking. Was he interested in you too? Or was this just wishful thinking on your part?

“Thank you ladies, have a nice night.” He said as you both got up. Ningning nudged you to say something but you urged her out of the restaurant, wanting to abort immediately. However, just before you walked out of the door, you looked back at him once more. You saw that he tucked the paper into his pocket without a word, but then he glanced back at you with a small smile, and you felt a surge of hope. Maybe there was something there after all.

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You two made your way into town with the windows down, allowing the breeze to brush through as you listened to the radio. You pointed out a nearby hotel that looked nice, actually. Pool, multiple floors, adequate priced rooms. It wouldn’t hurt to stay for one night in a nice hotel, afterall, you only live once.

Ningning found a parking spot and you helped her carry her bag in as she made her way to the front to pay for the room. She made small talk in the elevator but you truthfully found yourself checking your phone to see if he had texted. It was already late, nearing 1 am. Surely the restaurant wasn’t open this late. Maybe he only smiled at you out of courtesy, afterall, Ningning had left a nice tip.

As you entered the hotel room, you couldn't help but feel a little disappointed that you hadn't heard from the waiter. Maybe it was a mistake to put yourself out there like that, to give him your number so readily. Maybe he wasn't interested after all.

Ningning caught the look on your face and immediately knew what was going on. "Hey, don't worry about it," she said, giving you a comforting pat on the back. "Maybe he's just busy or something. You'll hear from him soon enough."

You nodded, trying to shake off your disappointment. "Yeah, you're right," you said, forcing a smile. "Let's just enjoy the night." Ningning nodded in agreement, and the two of you settled in for the night, enjoying the comfortable beds and the peace and quiet of the hotel room.

But as you lay in bed, your mind kept wandering back to the waiter. Amidst all of the doubt you held within your mind, you couldn't help but wonder what he was doing, where he was, and if he was thinking about you too. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but you couldn't help but feel like there was something there, something that was worth pursuing.

As you placed your phone down on the nightstand beside you, it vibrated. Your heart dropped, surely…a family member wasn’t texting you at 3 in the morning, right? You took a deep breath, glancing to your side to see Ningning asleep. You reached for your phone, feeling a mix of excitement and nervousness as you saw the notification; An unsaved number. Your heart leapt in your chest as you opened the message, feeling a rush of relief and joy when you saw the text.

+1 424-936-2945: “Hey, lol.”

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authors note: i hope you guys liked this first part of my ongoing series. i was kinda writing outta my ass. i got this out sooner than i thought i would so, yeah! anyway, let me know how you guys liked it and feel free to send in any thoughts you have. i hope to write this series in you guyses vision, not my own. reblog, likes, and comments are all appreciated haha. lmk if u wanna be tagged in the next chapter.

@voidbeomgyu

#enhypen smut #enhypen #enhypen ff #lee heeseung smut #heeseung smut #heeseung fluff #heeseung angst #heeseung ff #enha #heeseung x reader #enhypen x reader #enhypen imagine

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unloved-cadillac · 1 year

Text

Extra Help. (Alhaitham x Reader)

Summary: sexy time with Alhaitham.

Hi everyone. Caddy here. Hope you guys enjoy this one. Got some more fics ready to be published with new characters that I started writing for. Thanks for all your support for the past 2 and a half years. I love every single one of you <3

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Things were quiet in the House of Daena. Less than 10 people were around, reading, researching and writing. You were no different. A particular problem required mindless research and now it started to get on your nerves. Running your hands through your hair, you lean back in your chair and gently exhale. ‘I can feel my body giving out already.’ You think to yourself, closing your eyes.

“But, Scribe Alhaitham. How do we proceed with these documents?” You hear a scholar ask, making you open your eyes and look around. Your eyes land on a man in his usual Akademiya uniform and the other he was talking to.

“Complete them. You’ll get your answers in the 117th aisle. It’ll take some time so get someone to help you. I got some other things to do.” Alhaitham says making the scholar walk away, past you. You watch him go to said aisle then turn your attention back to the Akademiya’s scribe.

He was quite pleasing to the eye, one can admit. You had a few conversations with him in the past and to say his mind was filled with interesting thoughts and ways was an understatement. His outlook on life was one of a simple one but it wasn’t to everyone’s liking. Maybe that’s why he was disliked. Geniuses were lunatics in the eyes of fools.

Smiling to yourself, you look back at your books and continue to study.

Time went by fairly quickly. People began to leave the library and now it was just you and the scribe. You looked up to see the time and it was past dinnertime. “What?” You say to yourself quite loudly making Alhaitham look at you. He knew you. Y/n L/n. One of the few people who could hold a conversation without making it unbearable.

Closing your book, you begin to pack up your things when his voice echoes.

“You were here till quite late, Y/n.” He says, making you abruptly stop. “Scribe Alhaitham. Yes, I had a lot of work to do.” You say and he nods. “For who?”

You walk to him and show him the papers from your peers. He takes it and briefly reads over it. “This took you more than two hours?” He asks and you frown. “Unfortunately not all of us are as gifted as the great scribe.” You take the paper back and put it in your bag. Alhaitham remains quiet and you take it as your que to leave. “Goodnight, Scribe Alhaitham.” You say and begin to walk away.

“Y/n.”

He calls and you stop. His voice. Him saying your name just did something to you. Shaking off those thoughts you look at him. “Yeah?”

“I can help you. If you ask.”

You raise your eyebrows at him and a small smile paints your face. “Really?” He nods and motions for you to come to him. You oblige and pull up a chair to sit next to him. “Luckily there’s not much left to do but I would appreciate any input you have.” You say as you begin to take out the papers.

Alhaitham watches you shuffle everything around and notices how jittery you were.

“The guy who gave me this assignment said that these books won’t be much help and that he looked around but obviously he didn’t look hard enough. I mean, you said it yourself, it shouldn't have taken more than two hours.”

You continue as you flip through your notes.

“You talk a lot.” Alhaitham suddenly says and you look at him a little shocked. “Oh. I’m sorry. I must be really tired. I’m losing my mind a bit.” You jokingly say and tuck your hair behind your ear.

“Stress. It can cause uneasiness in the mind and body.” He says and you meet his eyes. You’re quiet as you think. He is too. After a short amount of time, he leans towards you and then gets one of your papers in his hand and leans back. You exhale a breath you were holding and close your legs, trying to stop the beating down there and watch him read.

“This is your summary, yes?”

“Yes.”

“You got everything down that you need. And some extra information that isn’t as needed as the rest. What else do you need?”

You wet your bottom lip to stop the dryness and clear your throat. “Um, I don’t think I need anything else.”

Alhaitham looks at you, a faint glint in his visible eye. “Are you sure?” He asks as he leans a bit closer. “Nothing I can do?”

Hugging your bag, you blink at him and also lean closer. You close your eyes and wait for his lips to touch yours but it never comes. So you open your eyes and look at him. “I’m not doing anything until you tell me.” He says and you nod. “Tell me what you want me to do, Y/n.” He softly says.

“Kiss me.” You breathily say and his lips are on yours in a heartbeat. Moaning as the kiss deepens, you throw your bag to the side and hug his neck. His kneeling on the ground but isn’t for long as you push yourself into him and straddle him.

Alhaitham’s hands make its way up your skirt and under your panties, softly squeezing the flesh there. You break the kiss to let out a moan and his lips are on your neck as you do.

“More?” He mumbles against your neck for you to hear and you nod. Alhaitham quickly leaves your neck and looks at your face. “Say it.”

“More, Alhaitham. Please.” You whisper and he’s quick to undo his belt and lifts your skirt up. You help by moving your panties to the side and he feels the wetness of your cunt with his tip. A soft groan is sounded from his throat when he makes contact with it but you couldn’t wait any longer.

Leaning up and taking his cock in your hand, you guide him into you making you bite your lip from moaning too loud.

“ ‘Haitham. Too big.” You whimper and he puts his fingers to your mouth. “Spit.” He commands and you obey him and let a good amount of saliva be on his hands.

He rubs the remainder of his cock and gently pushes you down on him. “Fuck.” He whispers and leans up to kiss you. Alhaithams hands remain on your waist and start setting a rhythm for you both.

Back and forth on his waist, your clit gets friction from your panties, overstimulating yourself. You grip his shoulders, face falling on the side of his head.

“I’m getting close.” You whisper and Alhaitham stops, making you snap out of euphoria.

“Alhaitham?” You call and he gently pries you off his cock.

You were confused and embarrassed when he stopped. You hadn’t had a cock in you for so long it made it fast for you to reach your climax. But then Alhaitham held you and lifted you both off the ground and planted you on his desk.

He leans down and takes off your panties and spreads your lips wide open for him to see.

Your flushed face became even redder when he looked at your pulsing cunt.

Suddenly, you feel his lips on your clit and tongue dancing on and all around it. You threw your head back and moaned, surprised at the feeling. Your hands made their way to his grey locks and his hands held your thighs. He only focused on your clit and he knew exactly what he was doing.

Alhaitham french kisses you until he decides enough is enough and gets up to plant his wet kisses on your lips. He takes his cock and slams into you making you suddenly jerk at the force. Alhaitham doesn’t waste time in wrapping your legs around his waist and mercifully thrusts into you.

He swallows your moans while feeling your walls grip around him. The table is shaking, papers are falling and all you could think about it cumming.

“Cum when I say.” Alhaitham says against your lips and you nod as his pace gets faster. He takes nine hand and reaches between you to rub your swollen clit making you grip him.

Your knot in your stomach gets tighter and you rack your nails across his back.

“C-Close!” You say and he shakes his head. “Wait.”

You bite your lip hard to control yourself but he was fucking you too good and too much for you not to cum.

“ ‘Haitham! Please!” You say and he has a hand around your waist, pulling you closer.

“Do it.” Is all it took for him today to let you burst and he cums deep inside you at the same time. His softly groans into your ear and you hold him as you ride out your high. You close your eyes and hum as you feel his lips on your neck.

~~~~

“Y/n! Y/n!!” A voice urgently calls you and you open your eyes and look up.

“Marishka? What..?” You rub your eyes and slowly get up from the table you were studying at.

“I was looking all over for you. Have you any idea what the time is?” Marishka says and you look at the clock. “Almost one, apparently.” You say and shake your head. What just happened? Were you..asleep?

“No matter how many times I tell you not to overwork you just go ahead and do it anyway. Honestly if it wasn’t for scribe Alhaitham I wouldn’t have found you.”

You perk up at the sound of his name. “Scribe Alhaitham? What did he do?” You ask.

I walked past him on the way here and ask if he saw you anywhere. He told me you were sleeping here and not to disturb you and handed me the paper you were working on.”

Furrowing your eyebrows you look around the desk to see the books you had gone and just your bag neatly next to you. “I didn’t complete that paper.”

Marishka tilts her head. “But he told me it was. Anyway, that was two hours ago. I need to get you home. Come on.”

Marishka helps pack your things and you walk with her home. When you enter your bedroom, you sit on your bed and hold your head. That dream. How were you going to face him now? Maybe ignoring him would be best. But you couldn’t get the feel of his hands on your skin, his lips on your sensitive neck or his cock deep in you.

Shaking your head you get ready for bed but a knock disturbs you. When you answer it, the man who invaded your headspace, stood.

“May I come in?”

——————————————————————————

“I need him. And his co-”

🖤🤍Thanks for reading🤍🖤

-Caddy.

#alhaitham x reader #alhaitham genshin #genshin impact fiction #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact #alhaitham #alhaitham genshin impact #alhaitham fanfic #genshin smut

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prongsfish · 3 months

Note

we need more bartylus thoughts 🙏

YEAHHHHHH BARTYLUSSS!!!!

i am a full supporter of the “i want non-angsty bartylus!” movement because i agree but i also am personally mostly invested in doomed ships. like the fact that i even believe they ever recognised their feelings for each other is more than most of my ships HAHA so you’ll all have to excuse me if i usually write them tragically.

my bartylus is encapsulated by a midwest emo song. not like a specific one, just the general vibes of a midwest emo song. that’s what they are to me.

though! i do have some happy-ish bartylus thoughts. i like the idea that barty is fluent in french through coming from a family in politics, it seems like the kind of thing he’d be taught, and i imagine that they often speak in french to each other when they want less people to be able to understand them. like if regulus is particularly upset or stressed, he goes to barty and they speak in french because it just feels safer (and vice versa!!). i feel like they’d both be vulnerable with each other in a way they never could be with anybody else, they’re both struggle a lot with emotions but they’re each others’ safe spaces in that way. they just get each other, they really value solidarity.

a lot of people are scared of them, because they’re both very intimidating people. a lot of people also question how they’re even compatible, but in truth, the way they present to the general public is quite different to how they truly are in private, so a lot of people take them at face value as just “scary loud guy” and “scary quiet guy”. they could care less what people think about them and just keep to themselves, it doesn’t matter either way to them.

i think they were always very close, ever since they met, and some of their other friends would feel kind of left out. like, “why are they so inseparable and i’m just on the outside? what makes it different between them?” but then eventually barty and regulus get together and everyone’s like “ohhhhhhhhhhh. right” HAHA it’s not like they weren’t super close with evan, pandora, and dorcas- more just that barty and reg were always just one degree MORE. that whole group is super codependent and tightly knit, any normal person would think they were all insanely obsessed with each other, but even from their inner perspectives bartylus were extra close.

they’re also very much creatures of habit in my mind. barty is a bit more of a wild card, but there’s still a method to his madness, and there are clear patterns in his behaviour. regulus is full routine. he hates everything he can’t control, and when he CAN control something, he CONTROLSSSS it. barty finds it cute and makes fun of him, sometimes he’ll joke about messing things up for him but he’d never genuinely do that to him because he knows regulus would actually just break down. if you want you can take that as then being autistic, i don’t really write characters as explicitly neurodivergent but it often filters through just because i project my own thought processes onto characters LMAOO

that’s all i’ve got for now i think… i love them so much though thank you for the excuse to ramble about them. they’re constantly on my mind i tell you

#a #bartylus #regulus black #barty crouch jr

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builtbybrokenbells · 11 months

Text

Gold Dust Woman | xiv

Apologies and confessions lead to a climactic end for Gold Dust Woman.

Read part thirteen here

Listen while reading: the chain - fleetwood mac (other songs mentioned but not really important to the story)

Pairing: Jake Kiszka x f!reader, Sam Kiszka x f!reader, Danny Wagner x OC

Word Count: 15k

Warnings: SMUT 18+, unprotected sex, semi-public sex, oral (f!receiving), touch of voyeurism, biting, lots of dirty talk, brief mention of spitting, touch of degradation, drinking, swearing, angst, arguing, breakups, crying, insecurity, self doubt, feelings of regret, anger, lots of fluff near the end 🫶🏻, sorry if I miss any!!

The last chapter 😭 these last few months of writing this story has been absolutely spectacular for me. the love and support and engagement I’ve received from you all has been mind blowing, and I’m so thankful for each and every one of you. Without you guys, Gold Dust Woman would be nothing. So thank you from the bottom of my heart, and I really hope that you enjoy the ending as much as I did. As always, be kind, enjoy, and don’t mind any grammar mistakes 🫶🏻🫶🏻 (very lightly edited so please forgive me 😁)

“Sam,” You sighed, setting your coffee cup down with a shaking hand. “We have to talk.” You said, much less hesitation about your choices, now. It seemed like clarity had become you the minute you had realized Jake was the best person for you. You knew it was true, mostly because you had not felt one shred of anxiety that even came close to what you had been feeling all day. No, you weren’t excited to break Sam’s heart, but you were certainly less apprehensive about it than you were with Jake.

“That doesn’t sound good,” he said, stress already showing in his features. You managed a small smile, your stomach sick at the knowledge you would effectively have to go through two breakups in a single day.

“No, I guess it isn’t.” You said, moving to take a seat on the couch. “Sit with me?”

“Yeah, okay.” He whispered, sitting down beside you. You ran your hands over the fabric of your jeans, drawing in a long breath as you tried to settle your thoughts. Eventually, you looked over at him, noticing the sadness in his eyes before you even spoke a word. It killed you knowing that you had to be the bad guy despite months of trying to figure out how to end up the hero. The sad truth was, in the entanglement you had all found yourselves in, nobody could be the hero, yet you all seemed to fall somewhere under the victim category. So much suffering, yet no one to blame or save you from the pain.

“I love you, Sam.” You started, making sure that despite the impending doom, he knew that you still had so much love for him in your heart. Just because you were not going to be his forever did not mean that he wasn’t holding on to a huge part of you. “And I have for a really long time.”

“I know, y/n. I love you, too.” He said, watching expectantly as he prepared for the worst possible outcome of the conversation. You leaned back into the cushions, exhausted from the days events already, comforted none by the knowledge that it would only get worse from there. You reached out, grabbing his hand in your own and giving it a gentle squeeze.

“There’s a saying that’s always stuck out to me,” you explained, tone quiet and as relaxed as possible. “If you don’t receive the love from the ones meant to love you, you’ll spend the rest of your life searching for it. I feel like up until now, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. I’ve been looking for so long that I’m starting to go blind, and I’m missing the entire point of being alive.” You laughed at your own stupidity, finding your search for love quite comical in the moment. You had spent a lifetime trying to find something that you never really believed in, and now that two blatant contradictions to your disbelief happened to be staring you in the face, you had no idea how to address it. “I don’t remember who said it, but it’s always stuck with me. I always thought it was you, Sammy. I really did. I wish it was, because it kills me to do this to you, but it’s not.”

“Oh,” he breathed, nodding his head slowly as he absorbed the information you were giving him. It was a heavy hit, especially after you had stormed into the room with such excitement to see him, but he managed to persevere.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, hoping to catch his eye to show him you were being genuine.

“You don’t have to be, Princess.” He assured you, letting out a long sigh. He could be all but mad at you, for he had made the bed that you were forcing him to lie in. “I knew the risks, and it was worth it. It was always worth it, for you.” He said, looking up to meet your face. “Y/n, I meant every single thing I said to you over the last few months; I care that you’re happy, and if this will make you happy, I can live with it.”

“You have no idea how badly I wish that it could’ve been us. I see Danny and Dylan, and I’m so envious that I never got to have that with you. It’s been so hard since the very beginning… I just feel like I never got to have you the way I wanted to.” You felt the tears brimming in your eyes once again, unsure if you could make it through the conversation without cracking. Everything hurt, and you had no idea how to stop it. Sometimes, you believed as though pain was the only thing you knew how to feel. “I love you so much Sam, and I’m lucky that I got the chance to have you at all, even if it was different than how I pictured it. These last few months were beautiful, and they taught me so much. Even if it didn’t work out the way we hoped does not mean it meant nothing to me.” Your cheeks were soaked with the admissions of your guilt, tears falling at an unprecedented rate and showing no signs of stopping. You couldn’t control it, and at this point, you didn’t really care to. Sorrow was heavy in the air, constantly following you and making home even when you tried so hard to keep it out. There was no shame in displaying your heart to him, because that’s all you knew how to do, anymore.

“Hey, come on.” He pleaded, reaching up to wipe your cheeks clean. “Don’t waste all of those tears on me. God knows I don’t deserve it.” He said, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear.

“You do, Sam. You deserve the world, and I wish that I could have given it to you.” You cried, leaning into his touch in hopes that it would take away some of the pain. “Maybe I could have loved you better if I loved myself more. I might have found the courage to say something sooner, and we could be living in the universe where we’re happy and everything is okay.”

“This isn’t your fault, y/n.” He said, fighting back tears of his own. “It’s mine; I should have said something sooner, I should have fought harder, or maybe I never should have put you in a position like this at all. I guess it doesn’t really matter, now. The war is over, and you can stop fighting. You’re tired, and I’ve known it for a while. I’m sorry that I let things go this far. You can blame whoever you want, but please stop blaming yourself.” He moved ever so slightly closer to you, grabbing your face gently between his hands. “If this is going to make you the happiest, I would never be upset at you for it. You deserve every bit of happiness this world has to offer. You always try and give it to everyone else, but it’s your turn, baby. You get to enjoy it, and you don’t have to worry about me.” He wiped your face clean once more, the soft touch warming your soul and soothing the pain. You wished so badly to make everyone happy, to settle the problem with no casualties, but it was just not possible. Someone had to hurt, or all of you would hurt. There was no winning, and in a way, everyone lost at least something along the way.

“In another world, Sammy.” You said, recalling the daydreams you and him had shared in the past. They seemed so close, so real, but you didn’t want to reach for them anymore. Your arms were tired of searching for something that might never be found, and if they were, you knew they would not have been able to compare to the fairytale world that you had created in your mind. “We’d have the house, the dogs, and the rest of our lives.”

“I’ll be dreaming of that world forever,” he said, a sad smile crossing his lips. “Just make sure that he treats you right, because you deserve it, and you make sure that he knows he’s the luckiest man to ever walk this earth. If he doesn’t realize that, then I’ll remind him myself.”

“Thank you for understanding. Thank you for not hating me.” You sniffled, already so burnt out from the whirlwind of emotion the day had thrown at you.

“Hate you?” He scoffed, a smile on his face despite tears welling in his eyes. “There is no possible way that I could ever hate you, y/n. You’re my best friend above anything else, and you’ve given me a lifetime’s worth of happiness in just a few months. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but I could never make one as big as that.”

“I could never hate you either, Sammy. I hope that when this all settles, we can still be friends. I don’t want to live a life without you in it.”

“Of course we can. It’s going to suck at first, and it’s going to hurt, but we’ll get through it. We can get through anything.” He promised. “Thank you for being honest, and thank you for giving me the best few months of my entire life.”

“Thank you, Sam. You showed me how beautiful this life can be when you’re looking in the right places, and you helped me more than you can ever imagine.” You said, reaching out to brush the hair from his face. You let your thumb drift over the soft skin on his cheek, feeling better than you had in days. You hated hurting him, but you knew that it was what you had to do; Sam was your best friend, someone you loved to be around and loved making memories with, but in the long term, it just wasn’t right. You could have a good life with him, a great one, even, but you feared that it paled in comparison to the life you could live with Jake. Sam was comfortable, familiar, and fantastic all the same. He would make a phenomenal partner, but you knew he would be suited best for someone else. Jake was what you needed, what you craved for the future, and you knew he was exactly what your heart wanted. The truth lied within the fact that you were aching all over after walking away from him, and now that you knew you were walking away from Sam, you felt lighter than you ever had before. It did not feel good to hurt him, but it felt good to free yourself from the chains that your entanglement was tying you down with, and it felt good to finally be certain in your own decisions.

“You did too, Princess.” He mumbled, closing his eyes to hold back his tears. “Like I said before, if you ever change your mind, I’ll be here. I’d wait for you forever if I had to. If you ever decide to try again, I promise I’ll do it right, next time.” He said, turning his head slightly to press a kiss to your thumb.

“It has nothing to do with rights and wrongs, Sammy. I made just as many mistakes as anyone else. Don’t punish yourself for it, because we were all doing what we thought was best.” He nodded, hearing your words and trying his best to adhere to the request. “Thank you for everything.” You said once again, making sure your gratitude was clearly expressed.

“I assume you have to go deliver the good news, now?” He asked, eyes glistening with an emotion you had never seen from him before. It was killing you to cause him such suffering, but it was for the best, and in years to come you hoped to look back on this rough patch and have all of you laugh at your own stupidity.

“Yeah, I guess so.” You sighed, ready to make amends with Jake but not ready to leave Sam. “One last kiss, for old times sake?” You asked, a shred of hope in your voice. He chuckled at your question, drawing you in to him without another word. The kiss was soft, sweet yet sad all the same. It was a celebration as much as it was a goodbye. When you parted, sadness lingered on both of your faces, but there was also relief in knowing that the struggle was over. As much as he was mourning the fact that he couldn’t have you, he respected your choice, and he knew that with time he could heal the wounds he collected from the battle. The dance that you had been doing was only worsening them, and with proper care, the scars might be so light that you would never guess they existed in the first place. “I love you, Sam. I think I will for the rest of my life. A piece of me will always belong to you.”

“Me too, y/n. I love you, and I hope that even after it’s all said and done, you don’t forget that.”

“Never.” You promised, placing another kiss to his cheek, this time. “I’ll see you soon, Sammy.”

“I hope so,” he said, grabbing your hand and giving it a gentle squeeze before rising to his feet. He gave a small wave goodbye before disappearing out of the room. You took in a long breath, but stood despite your body begging you not to. You were terrified to face the world after inflicting so much damage on another, and more so, you were terrified of rejection from Jake. After hurting him so badly, you would understand if he never wanted to speak to you again. You hoped that it was not the case as you broke into the hallway, headed straight for the direction of his dressing room, because you feared that him turning you down would effectively turn you to dust.

You stopped in front of his door, no more hesitation present in your mind as you knocked on the door. You waited for something, but received nothing. There was not even a hint that there was life inside the room. You swore under your breath as you raised your hand to knock again. You listened intently, wondering if you might be able to hear a movement beyond the door, but there wasn’t a thing that signalled that he was inside. You tried not to let the disappointment take over, but it was creeping up on you faster with every second that passed. You worried that you had effectively driven the final nail in the coffin, that you had pushed him just a little too far and now there was no way to recover from the hurt you had caused. You took a step back from the door as you continued deliberating your next move. You looked down the hallway, feeling like you had stumbled upon the key to the grand prize. Josh was walking towards you, mindless and uncaring of his surroundings.

You stepped towards him, cutting him off before he could make it any further and startling him with the suddenness. “Josh,” you greeted, trying to keep your frantic mind away from the public eye.

“Gold Dust Woman,” he greeted, slowly looking over your face. “You don’t look very good.”

“No,” you chuckled, knowing his observation barely scratched the surface “guess I don’t.” You sighed, wondering how to word your question to showcase the importance of your need for an answer. “Is Jake in his room? O-or do you know where he is? I really need to talk to him.” Your nervousness slipped out in your stutter, and he was quick to catch on to it.

“Uh, no, he’s not in his room.” He said, a note of sympathy in his eyes. “He’s in pretty bad shape, y/n. I think it’s best to leave things be for now.” If your heart could shatter any more, it did just that at the sound of his words.

“I know I fucked up, Josh. I just need to talk to him and make it right.” You whispered.

“Listen,” he sighed, placing his hand on your shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze “you’re my best friend, but he’s my brother. I know that you didn’t want to hurt him, and I know it was never your intention, but he needs some time to heal. Sometimes it’s better to just let it go and move forward.” His sympathy felt like a punch in the face, but his misunderstanding of your intent was even worse.

“No, Josh, I’m not trying to coddle him because I broke his heart, I’m telling you that I fucked up. I made the biggest mistake of my life, and I need to make it right. I’m not trying to put a bandaid on a bullet hole, I need to tell him that I was wrong.” You rushed your words, looking over his confused expression. You gave a nervous gulp, not wanting to speak the obvious but knowing that it would be the only way he understood your intent. “I just broke up with Sam. I was wrong, Josh, and I need to say it before it’s too late.” You were desperate in your explanation, hoping that now he could see what you were trying to tell him. His eyebrows raised, lips parting slightly in shock at your words. “This whole thing is a mess, and I know that I’m at fault, but I’m trying to do the right thing. I need to do right by him, Josh. I swear I’m not trying to hurt him any more.”

“Oh, wow.” He said, processing the information you had thrown at him.

“I know, and you can hate me for hurting them; god knows I deserve it, but he deserves the truth. He deserves everything good in this world and I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try. I know he’s your brother, and I know you’re trying to protect him, and I’m so grateful that he has someone as good as you to look out for him, but please, if he’s in your room just let me see him.”

“I don’t hate you, y/n. I just wish I could solve it for everyone, take the pain away, even. You’re all family, and this is incredibly confusing and frustrating, but I do not hate you.” He clarified, moving forward to pull you into a hug. “You’re sure?”

“More than anything else in the whole world.” You assured him, holding him tightly as if it would ease your hurt. His arms were familiar, but strange in the sense that you knew it was not him you were supposed to be hugging.

“I’ll let him know you’re looking for him.” He said, giving you a reassuring pat on the back.

“Thank you,” you said, but it held little weight in comparison to the relief you felt at his words.

“I think Aaron’s looking for you,” he nodded in the direction of the manager who was quickly approaching the pair of you. “Probably time for soundcheck.”

“Fuck sakes.” You sighed, turning to see for yourself. Josh was right, Aaron was talking to you before he was even in earshot, ordering your presence on stage. As much as you loved your job, you seemed to despise it more than anything in that moment. You looked back at Josh, giving him another silent thanks with your eyes before walking away. You went right to the stage, ignoring any other attempts at initiating conversation from anyone else passing by. Dylan was sitting at the drum set, tapping out a small beat while Riley was soloing on his bass guitar. Not even the sight of your best friends could break you from your misery; tears were still begging to be shed, only worsening when you picked up your own instrument. “Let’s get this over with.” You muttered, uttering a small check into the mic to make sure it was on.

“You seem chipper today.” Dylan noted, begging to catch a glimpse of your face so she could judge what type of poor mood you were in. “Left this morning before I even woke up. Felt like a cheap tinder date.” You let out a small chuckle at her joke, but opted not to respond as you tuned your strings to your liking. Without any warning, you let out a loud strum on the strings, kicking on your distortion pedal as you stepped towards the mic and let out a shout.

As if it were muscle memory, as soon as she heard the sound, Dylan joined in on the drums. Riley followed suit, singing into his own microphone alongside of you. You proceeded with the song, singing the lyrics with all of the emotion you were holding in your heart. Riley allowed you to sing the verses and the chorus, only joining in every so often when he felt the need to accentuate your impact. When the solo came around, you looked only at the floor as your hands did all of the work. As you finished, you leaned forward to sing the last few lines, ending the most passionate rendition of ‘Them Bones’ by Alice in Chains you had ever performed.

“So we’re angry, today.” Dylan said, catching her breath as she rested her arms for a moment.

“We’re everything today, Dylan.” You corrected, switching to your clean setting. “Try Little Wing.”

“You got it.” She said, waiting for you to begin. You played around with the Wah pedal, making sure your tone was right before you started the melodic intro. You couldn’t look out to the seats, knowing that there was only two bodies watching this time around. It killed you to know you had hurt the brothers enough that they felt as though they couldn’t even watch your rehearsal. Your chest was aching, wondering if you had truly fucked everything up as badly as you believed you did.

The cry of your guitar was similar to the one of your soul, echoing through the empty air just to return back and strike you in the face. Your eyes were still blurred with tears of defeat, but you refused to let any more fall. The weakness you had displayed within the last few hours left you shocked that you hadn’t crumbled to the ground in a mess of your former self, yet. You felt like you could, and you definitely wanted to, but you knew you had to keep going for just a little while longer. Your bones ached with exhaustion and your body was begging for a moment of peace, yet you continued on as if nothing was wrong. It was your best defence mechanism, and your only one. If you stopped now, you would never get back up again. As tempting as it was, giving up was not an option until you settled the score with Jake and did everything you could to make things right again.

Dylan drummed along with your playing and Riley was near perfect in his timing, but when you stepped up to sing, your fingers slipped from their position. An off note rang through the air, covered by your voice and quick work at recovery. You made it through the lyrics with no other mishaps, but when the outro came around, you seemed to completely lose your train of thought midway through. You let out a slur of curses, angry at yourself and the instrument for not doing what you wanted it to do. “All good, y/n.” Dylan tried to mediate, knowing your temper all too well. “Can try it again if you want.”

“No, just move on.” You shook your head, starting into another riff. You only chose to play it as a way to prove to yourself you still had the talent, but you couldn’t seem to get the right sound from your guitar that you were hoping for. You tried it a few more times, but couldn’t find the right rhythm for the outcome you wanted. “Fuck!” You exploded, your moment of anger catching you off-guard and echoing through the microphone. You practically ripped the strap from your body, slamming the guitar onto the stand and walking away without another word. Dylan nor Riley felt the need to call you back, knowing that your time on stage had come to an end for the time being. Forcing you to pick the guitar back up would only result in a catastrophic mess, and they were not willing to risk another Gibson guitar being shattered on the floor of a stage.

You walked around the corner, ignoring Aaron’s persistent complaints about your short lived soundcheck, and headed straight to your dressing room. The door slammed behind you with enough force to knock the building down and you collapsed on your couch without any care for your childish display. You put your head in your hands, hoping to hold the tears in for good, but they still seemed to find away around the strength in which your palms were pressed to your face. You felt like the world was ending, the sky crashing down and the earth cracking below you. After so long playing with fire, you had finally succumbed to the fatal burns of your own mistakes. You had hurt the two people you loved most, and you knew nothing about how to fix it, or even if you could mend the damage you had done.

You reached to your purse that was lazily discarded on the floor, rummaging around before finding a few single-shot bottles of whiskey. You took one and swallowed it down, ignoring the sting that settled in your chest, for it was much more pleasant than how you were already feeling. You dumped the other two into the coffee cup that Sam had given you, the liquid just reaching the brim of the cup. You took two long sips from it, uncaring of the unpleasant taste. You made it halfway through the brew before the knocking began. If you had to choose your least favourite sound, that would be at the top of your list. You ignored it the first few times, but it had eventually gotten so loud and persistent that you could no longer tune it out.

You swung the door open, met with the face of your stylist. “Told you we’d be spending lots of time together, today.” She said, opting to ignore your clear distress.

“Kind of in the middle of something.” You said, furrowing your eyebrows at her disregard for the scene.

“Moping around your dressing room?” She questioned, raising an eyebrow as she waited for an answer. When you remained silent, she stepped inside. “Let’s get you cleaned up and brand new, again.” She said, kicking the door shut behind her. She motioned for you to sit in your chair, to which you obeyed. She was a strong personality, one that was hard to adjust to, but you loved her. Much like everyone else on tour, she was family, and unlike everyone else, she wasn’t one to feed into your bullshit. “Get it all out now,” she said, looking to you as she took a seat on the arm of your couch.

“You want me to cry on command?” You questioned, confused about her motive.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I want.” She nodded, crossing her arms over her chest. You felt like you were being graded on your misery, and it was a very confusing feeling. So confusing, that you almost seemed to be distracted from your poor mood.

“I… I think I’m okay, now.” You said, certain that the tears had finally run dry.

“You better be sure, because once I start, I can’t have you crying all of my hard work away.” You wanted to argue with her, but somehow the blunt words seemed to snap you out of your previous state of mind. Actually, you found them quite funny. She approached you after pulling a few things from her bag, giving you ample opportunity to double back on your word. She kneeled in front of you, bringing a makeup wipe to your face as she softly removed any physical reminders of your hurt. “I told you not to let them steal your shine, Gold Dust Woman.”

“I think I stole my own shine, Rachel.”

“Mhm,” she shook her head, dabbing away the mascara stains from under your eye. “Whoever stole it needs to give me my girl back, because this is not the Gold Dust Woman I know.”

“I know.” You agreed, solemnly cementing her words in truth.

“We’re gonna make you look beautiful, and then hopefully your mind will follow suit. Sometimes you just need a little break from the world.” She was right, and usually your time spent with her was a break from the real world. She put you in a suit of armour with her work, turning you into a version of yourself you barely believed to be real. You hoped that once she dressed you in your stage clothes, you could find the confidence to make it through the rest of the night. She was like a mother in the way she cared; firm yet comforting, and unwilling to put up with any bullshit. Neither of you seemed to talk much about any troubles, but she always seemed to make you feel better just by being in your company.

Once your face was clean, she took extra time to soothe the puffiness from all of the crying. When she began to apply makeup, she used a gentle touch and utmost concentration. She didn’t break her focus until she was certain that she had perfected the look. She guided you to your clothes, allowing you to dress yourself before she fine tuned any details. You were clad in a gold tank top, elegant and beautiful in its simplicity. It was filled with very tiny, reflective sequins that from afar seemed to blend into one. It was low cut, the neckline lax and swooping down as it settled on itself. It stopped just above your navel, the material loose and comfortable to move in. She picked a pair of leather pants that flared at the bottom but stayed very form fitting above the knee. She pinned your shirt in place before moving on to your hair. She touched up her earlier work but didn’t change much, leaving it hang freely over your shoulders before spraying it with hairspray.

“How do you feel?” She asked, voice quiet as she stepped out of your view of the mirror. You inspected your reflection, wondering if the woman staring back at you was truly you, or just an imposter begging you to believe it. You couldn’t tell for a second that you had been such a mess only a short time before. Your eyes were painted dark and prominent, standing out even further by the accent of gold eyeliner she had trailed down your face. She had made gold tears with the makeup, so subtle that you could miss it, yet shining just perfectly under the light.

“You deserve a raise,” you breathed, leaning closer to inspect yourself even further. She crouched down, now the same height as you and staring into the mirror with you.

“Even when you cry, y/n, it’s made of gold.” She whispered, looking to your face with a small smile on her lips. “Bring back my Gold Dust Woman. Show them that you’re worth more than all of that pain.”

“Thank you, Rachel.” You said, feeling more gratitude for her than you could even comprehend. The relationship between an artist and a stylist is nearly incomprehensible; no, you did not share the darkest of your secrets with her, but she most often saw the most vulnerable and intimate parts of you. She was projecting your inner self outwardly, and to do so, she needed to know you wholly. She was phenomenal at her job, and you were eternally grateful for her.

“Don’t thank me yet.” She said, standing once again. “Put my work to good use, then we’ll have time for gratitude.” You chuckled at her bold persona, nodding in agreement. She straightened the gold chains around your neck before slipping out of the room in silence. You waited until her footsteps faded away until you moved out of your chair, finding a shred of courage to move towards the hallway yourself.

You peered into the open area, timid to find the bodies that occupied it. You leaned against the doorframe, finding Riley and Dylan only a few feet away from the stage. You could hear the soft lull of Jake’s guitar calling to you, begging you to go and watch him work his magic. You took a few steps forward towards your bandmates, sneaking up behind them and shocking them with your presence. “Hey,” you uttered, remorseful about your blatant disregard for the soundcheck earlier. Dylan tuned her head to look at you, softened by your shy expression. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

“It’s okay,” she said, knowing that there was nothing you could do about it now. “Just don’t do it tonight.”

“Of course not,” you assured her, sneaking into the small space between her and Riley.

“You okay, now?” He asked, turning his head to look down at you.

“Yeah, much better.” You nodded.

“That’s all that matters.” He said, slipping an arm around your waist. Dylan did the same, a silent show of agreement. You slung you arms around their shoulders, finding it easier to stand with the strength of their support. You knew that no matter what happened, you had plenty of love coming your way. You had a world full of friends who would give anything to make you smile and go to the ends of the earth to take away the sadness. Grateful was not a strong enough word to express how you felt about them, and you wished you could be better at showing it. Your hope was that when the storm settled from loving the Kiszka’s, the world would appear easier to understand and navigate.

You watched the stage from the sideline, noticing immediately that you were on the same side as Jake normally took post on. It was hard to notice anyone or anything else when he was around because his presence took up all of the space in a room. He was beautiful, kind and generous beyond measure, and you were so close to having him forever. You were foolish to let him slip through your fingers once, and you would be damned to ever let it happen again. He was the earth you stood on, the sky above, and the air you breathed. Jake was everything, and you were an idiot for ever thinking otherwise. You felt entranced as you watched his fingers graze the fretboard, pulled in by his talent and suffocated by his beauty. Before you even knew it, the song had came to an end and the boys were walking away from the instruments.

You thought that this was your chance to get Jake by himself for a moment. As he walked towards you, head turned towards the ground, you broke free of the hold your bandmates had on you. You stepped to the side, landing a few feet in front of Jake in hopes to stop him from going any further. He looked up, surprised at your presence. He looked worse than you had ever seen him; his eyes were tired, bloodshot as if he’d spent the afternoon in the same state you had been. At the sight of you, he did not smile, nor did he give you any hint that he was happy to see you. You could not blame him, because if you were in his shoes, you would never want to speak to you again. Still, you persevered in hopes that you could change the situation for the better despite your heart begging you to run and hide.

“Jake,” you whispered, holding his gaze for as long as he would allow it. “Can I talk to you for a second? Please?”

“Y/n,” he sighed, pain rising in his features the longer he was in your company. “I just need some time, okay?”

“No, Jake, I swear-“

“Please,” he cut you off, clearly not knowing what you were trying to tell him. “Just give me a few days, then I promise we can try the friends thing.” He mumbled, averting his gaze away from you. You wanted to scream your love from him so loudly that it shattered the windows and lived inside the walls forever, to show the world how much he meant to you and how apologetic you were for not realizing it sooner, but you seemed frozen in your place. The rejection was not unexpected, but it was debilitating.

“No, I just need-“ you tried again, but his hand landed on your bicep, giving it a gentle squeeze of reassurance before he stepped past you and continued down the hall. You turned, watching him appear smaller and smaller before he eventually turned into a room and disappeared from sight completely. You thought you were going to be sick, broken underneath the weight of the love you were carrying for him. As much as you wanted to chase after him, you knew it was best to let him come to you in his own time. Still, even if you knew it was for the best did not make the fact easy to choke down.

You looked over to your bandmates, noticing that they had been watching the interaction unfold in hopes of discovering the source of your misery. You let out a long sigh, shrugging your shoulders as if to tell them you didn’t know any more than they did. Dylan nodded her head towards her dressing room, silently asking if you wanted to wait with her until it was time to perform. You have a solemn nod, letting her lead the way. When the three of you were together in her dressing room, door closed and locking out any unwanted listeners, she finally felt comfortable enough to pry some information for you. You explained to the two about the events of the day, biting back tears as you spoke. When you made it to the end of your sad story, the shock on their faces was too much to bear. You closed your eyes, leaning your head on the back of the couch while you tried to forget about the sadness that seemed to make permanent home in your head.

“So, how are you going to tell him?” Dylan asked, now at the hands of the stylist who had recently been in your own company.

“Have to get him to talk to me first, don’t you think?”

“No,” her answer was simple.

“How am I supposed to tell someone I love them without talking to them?” You rolled your eyes, sipping on the drink Riley had grabbed for you. A little liquid courage could get you through anything, or that’s what you always thought. This time, it seemed different. The anxiety stemming from your predicament with Jake seemed too large to calm with any sort of substance. You weren’t worried about superficialities, nor surface level scars that would fade into nothing; this was the love of your life, someone who you wanted to spend forever with, and you were terrified you had lost him for good.

“Do you forget that we’re in a band?” Riley asked, looking over at you with a hint of humour in his eye. He was tipsy, but he was just as enthralled in the conversation as Dylan. “We write about our feelings for a living. Sing him a song, dumbass.” You reached over, smacking his arm gently as you both dissolved into a fit of laughter. The more time you spent with the two, the more the dread seemed to float away. It was still lingering, but it seemed much less daunting with them in your company.

“What song should I sing?” You asked, tracing circles into the fabric of your pants to distract yourself from your fear.

“That one’s on you,” Riley said. “I’m not the one confessing my love for him.”

“Maybe you should, I think you two would be awfully cute together.” Dylan teased, hidden behind Rachel as she had her face painted with stage makeup.

“I’ll let her shoot her shot, first. If she fucks up, though…” Riley trailed off, slowly turning his gaze towards you. “You better watch out.” Another chorus of laughter echoed through the room at his words. After the excitement died down, you drifted away into your thoughts, thinking of the best way to express your feelings for him. After a few moments, an idea surfaced in the mess of self-doubt that seemed impossible to pass up.

“I got it.” You announced, a small smile breaking out on your lips. Riley leaned over, giving you a pat on the back as a way to say he was proud of you.

And thus began the longest wait of your entire life.

The minutes seemed to pass with the length of an hour, and the hours felt like eternities. You drank, trying to settle the nerves in yours stomach, and tapped your foot against the floors to rid yourself of the jitters. Riley left the room to allow Dylan to get changed, and eventually Rachel left to tend to his stage outfit. The small talk had between you and your drummer was nearly painful, both of you knowing that you were completely uninvested in any of the topics at hand. You were nearly vibrating by the time Aaron knocked on the dressing room door, bursting at the seams with anticipation of getting on stage. You joined together at the side of the stage, listening to Aaron’s short instructions to ensure the performance would run smoothly.

When he motioned for you to start, you have a nod and a prayer for enough confidence to get through the night. When you appeared in front of the crowd, you were met with cheers and applause, fuelling your ego only enough for you to pick up your guitar. Dylan sat behind her drums, a blinding smile on her lips as she started a slow beat on the kick drum to set the mood. “How’s everyone doing tonight?” Riley asked, met with a cheer of an excitement from the audience. He looked over to you, laughing at the sound.

“We’re Gold Dust Woman, and we’re so excited to spend the evening with you all. Here’s a song we wrote about being drunk…” you said, looking to Riley for a moment “and in love.” You started a familiar riff, one that had been circling around the internet after your first performance of the song. You knew that once the tour finished up, it would be first on the list of songs to record.

The longer you played, the more confident you felt in your own ability. You found yourself intermittently checking over your shoulder, looking to see if the boys were watching you from their usual spot. At first, there was only Josh and Danny observing from the sidelines. Halfway through the set, Sam made an appearance, looking beautiful in his stage clothes and makeup. Your heart ached at the sight, but when he caught your eye and gave you a reassuring smile, you felt on top of the world. The weight lifted from you ever so slightly just by knowing he did not hold any resentment towards you. There was only one more loose end that needed tying, and you had put your entire faith in the idea that Jake would be willing to watch your performance that night.

When you got down to the last three songs, you were tired and dejected, ready to pack up your things and stitch up your wounds. Jake had not yet made an appearance, and you were beginning to believe he would not leave his room until the second he was needed on stage. You couldn’t blame him, but you so desperately wanted to blame someone, which ultimately landed you back in your initial position. All of the self-doubt and insecurities flooded back in, giving your hands a nervous tremor as you played the solo of your second to last song. Riley sang softly over your playing, distracting the crowd from any potential mishaps your fingers may have caused. You finished with a small outro, trying to zone in on your fretboard to avoid any further mistakes. You finished with a smile, happy that you finished at all.

You looked back over your shoulder, knowing that you would be met with another staggering rejection, yet needing to check anyway. Your heart nearly erupted from your chest and your breath caught in your throat. Your head was swimming with adoration as your eyes landed on the fourth body that finally joined the crowd. He caught your gaze, the same intense emotion taking hold of him in an instant. You struggled to break from the state, wishing to stay lost in his eyes for the rest of time. His lips upturned in the corner, not quite smiling at you, but acknowledging that he was invested in you. You managed to shake your head free from the overwhelming fear, looking to Riley in hopes he could communicate with you wordlessly. You nodded your head in his direction, silently asking if you could switch positions. He caught on immediately, making it seem like the interaction was planned all along as he moved towards you.

You gave him a high five as you passed, trying to make the switch as relaxed as possible. “Alright, we’ve got one more song for you tonight, and it’s a very special one to me.” You said, tuning down your top string. “If you know it, sing it with me. I think I might need some help to get through it.” You encouraged, tuning your bottom string. You casted a look back towards Dylan, a hopeful smile on your lips. She gave you a grin with all of the support she could muster in her features. She gave you a drum roll, hiking anticipation until you began playing.

You began the infamous introduction, the first cluster of notes immediately sending a surge of excitement through the room. Dylan joined in, giving you a steady beat, and Riley bit back a smile as he plucked the top string of his bass.

“Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise

Running in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies” Riley sang with you, your voices harmonizing alongside the crowd’s excited voices. You took a step back, playing a small part on the guitar before leading him into the chorus. Before you began, you looked over at the group of boys watching your performance. You caught Jake’s eye, holding him captive as you sang directly to him.

“And if you don’t love me now,

You will never love me again

I can still hear you saying

You would never break the chain” you sang, powerful and with clear intent. Jakes head cocked to the side, his eyebrow raising in disbelief as he watched your blatant display of emotion. You sang the chorus once more before breaking your gaze, focusing on your hands to regain your composure. You could feel the rhythm in your heart, the beat of the drum rattling your bones and the bass pounding in your ears. If you could keep your focus on the music, you could finish the song. You continued repeating it in your head until you believed it.

“Listen to the wind blow, down comes the night

Running in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies

Break the silence, damn the dark, damn the light” you looked to Riley, allowing him to lead you back into the chorus. He sang alone while you echoed his words back to him. He let you sing the next one, switching roles so he could echo you. You looked back at the side stage, the shine of tears in your eye as you saw the look of anger begin to form on Jake’s face. You continued singing, only stopping so he could play the bass line leading up to the solo. On his second run through, you began picking the bottom strings, speeding your pace the longer you played. You took a step back from the mic, losing yourself to the tune. You let your head fall back, eyes closed as your hands guided you through the process of the solo. When it came time to sing again, you were overcome with a sudden burst of energy.

“Chain keep us together!” You shouted into the microphone, looking to Riley as you did so.

“Running in the shadows!” He sang back, watching you to see when you would start again. You repeated your line, more passion than the last time, and he copied your energy. You grinned, walking over to him before singing again. He stepped to the side, allowing you to join him at his microphone. He faced you, playing at you as you did the same to him.

“Chain keep us together!”

“Running in the shadows!” You sang into the same mic, face to face as you played your instruments. The passion was electric, igniting your heart and your soul as it only increased further. You looked past Riley, catching Jake’s gaze one last time before singing the line once more. Dylan let out a loud bang on the drums, stopping the song entirely and filling the air with silence. After a second, everyone erupted into cheers. Dylan stood behind her drum set, raising her arms in the air in triumph. You looked back at her, laughing at her antics.

“Thank you, and goodnight!” Riley yelled into the microphone. You waved out at the crowd, slipping your strap over your shoulder and handing it off to a sound tech waiting for you just off the stage. You were breathless, barely able to thank the group for their endless compliments on your performance. You were stopped before you could move any further, frozen in your tracks by a body that stepped in front of you. You looked up, meeting Jakes angry eyes while fear settled in your stomach. Both of you were too caught up in the flurry of emotion to care about your surroundings, ignoring Aaron’s warning of the boys 45 minute timer until they got on stage.

Jake reached out, placing a hand on your upper arm as he guided you away from the group and towards your dressing room. He pushed the door shut behind him, looking to you as he waited for an explanation. You were at a loss for words, not expecting your performance to catch his attention so efficiently. “What the fuck was that, y/n?” He asked, his stare burning into you and his tone harsh. You opened your mouth to speak, but couldn’t seem to find anything meaningful to say. “You break up with me, tell me you’re in love with my brother, and then you get up on stage and pull a stunt like that? I have no idea what you want from me. If you want Sam, then have him, but you need to give me some time to get over you!”

“I was wrong!” You blurred out, panic stricken and desperate for him to slow down. “I don’t want you to get over me because I was wrong, Jake!” He paused, completely still as his expression shifted. He was frozen, eyes glossed over with disbelief as he processed your words.

“What?” His voice was quiet now, approaching you with utmost caution as if he was afraid to scare you away.

“I love you, Jake, and I was wrong.” You whispered, taking a step closer to him. “I was so wrong, and I know I can’t take back the pain I’ve already caused, but I can’t let you go. I love you. Three months ago, I loved you. In a year from now, I’ll still love you. When I’m eighty years old and watching the world happen around me from my front porch, I will still be thinking about how much I love you. It’s the type of love that’s forever, and I know that I will never feel this way for anyone else in my entire life. I’m so sorry for not seeing it sooner, and for walking away, or for thinking that there might be something happier for me somewhere else, but it’s just not true. You are everything Jake, and I am certain of that. You wouldn’t listen to me earlier, but I needed to tell you. I couldn’t live with myself if I just let you go.”

He watched you, head tilted to the side slightly as he absorbed your confession. His lips were parted slightly, in awe at the profound nature of your words. As nervous as you were, you couldn’t help but admire him. The beauty that he was surrounded with was indescribable; the way his eyebrows furrowed as he tried to process his thoughts, the glimmer in his eye that gave you a shred of hope, all of it. He was breathtaking, and you couldn’t believe that you had the opportunity to love him at all. You wanted to step forward, to be so close to him that you never had to worry about distance again, but you were afraid. You awaited the invitation, your body yearning to be in his arms and addicted to the memory of his touch.

“I know that this has been hard, and we’ve messed up, but I don’t want to make mistakes with anyone else, Jake. I would be happier struggling with you than I would be if I was comfortable with someone else. I don’t know how to love, or what it really means to love someone so completely and selflessly, but I know that I feel it for you, and god do I know that you feel it for me. I’ve never been so loved in my entire life, and I never want to let it go. You love the parts of me that I thought would always be unlovable. You loved me so much even knowing that you could get hurt, and you loved me even while I was hurting you. I’ve never really been in love like this before, but I know that this is what it’s supposed to be like.” You rambled, confessing every thought that crossed your mind. You hoped that it was enough, because you couldn’t fathom the thought of watching him walk away.

“A-are you sure?” He asked, seeming like he wanted to reach out for you but worried that it might be some kind of sick joke.

“I am more sure than I’ve ever been before.” You whispered, gravitating towards him despite your brain telling you to stop.

“100 percent?” He asked again, also leaning closer as he asked.

“A million percent, Jake.” The pain that was on his face seemed to vanish at your assurance. Without another word, he stepped forward, so close to you that it made your head spin. He grabbed your face in his hands, leaning down and kissing you with every ounce of love he could muster. You flung your arms around his torso, pulling him as close as possible. You wished you could live in the moment of euphoria forever, knowing that nothing in your life could ever top the feeling of loving him freely. He broke away from you, his face still dangerously close to your own. He pressed another soft kiss to your lips as a way of thanking you for coming back, but he had no need to thank you for anything.

You slipped your hands under his suit jacket, desperate to be closer but unsure of how to do it. He laughed at you, your cold hands shocking his warm skin. You looked up at him, hearts dancing in your eyes as you lost yourself in his expression of elation. “You meant everything?” He mumbled, looking over your face and soaking in every detail.

“I will scream it from every rooftop in the world if I have to. If that’s what it takes for you to understand how much you mean to me, I’d do it a hundred times over again.” His eyes were speaking words that only your soul could understand, pulling you in further and making you fall even further in love. “When I left earlier, I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I had made a huge mistake. I came inside to to talk to Sam, and I couldn’t do it. It’s always been you, even if I was too stupid to see it.” You said, feeling choked up just at the thought of leaving him. “I’m so sorry, Jake. I know I can’t take it back but I hope that I can make it up to you with enough time.” He let his thumb drift over your cheek, shaking his head before you even finished speaking.

“No apologies, angel. It doesn’t matter anymore, what matters is that you’re here with me, now.” You smiled, unable to contain your excitement any longer. His lips were still close enough to your own that you could feel him start to smile, too. Without warning, he moved his hands, crouching down slightly and anchoring them on the back of your thighs. In one swift motion, he picked you up off the floor. You let out a shriek of surprise as you wrapped your legs around him and threw your arms around his neck to steady yourself. He laughed at the sound, making sure to hold you tightly so you knew there was no fear of falling. But, as long as you were with Jake, you were well aware that you would never have to fear falling unless it was in love, because he was always waiting to catch you.

“So this is it? We get to be happy, now?” You asked, looking down at him. It was almost too fantastic to be true, but you knew that it had to be, because no dream could make you feel as good as you did in that moment.

“I think so,” He breathed, grinning up at you with the same happiness in his heart. You closed your eyes, overwhelmed by the moment and unable to hold back any emotion trying to push through. A tear rolled down your cheek, which he was quick to spot. “Why are you crying, baby?” He asked, concern thick in his voice. “There’s no need for tears, anymore.”

“I’m just happy,” you said, voice shaking as you spoke. “I’m so happy, Jake. I never thought I could be this happy. I’ve spent my whole life trying to be something more than what I was born with, more than what I was ever given, but all of the work never seemed to make any sense because I still went home feeling the same way. I don’t feel like that, now. For the first time in my life, things feel perfectly right.” And it was true; you had searched forever, always coming out empty handed and wondering if you would ever find the thing you wanted most. Now, it was in front of you, and with a promise of forever. It was almost too much to take, but you were trying your hardest to accept it.

He moved to the couch, sitting down while being cautious of not dropping you. Once you were settled in his lap, he brought a hand to your face and wiped away any fallen tears. “It can be like this forever, y/n.” He whispered, tucking your hair behind your ear. “I promise I will love you as long as you want me to, and long after that. You are my heart and my soul, and everything worthwhile. I want to be everything you need, whenever you need it.”

“You’ve already given me the whole world, Jake.” You said, bringing your hand to his cheek. “You’ve given me more than I ever thought I could have.”

“And I’ll keep giving until I can’t give any more.” He said, drawing you closer to him and resting his head in the crook of your neck. “I’ll give you whatever your heart desires, Gold Dust Woman. All I ever wanted to do was make you happy.”

“Happy doesn’t even come close to what you do for me.” You said, running a hand through his hair. He placed a kiss to the skin on your neck, pulling away only for a second before beginning to move upwards. He kissed a trail to your lips, the final kiss nearly too sweet to break. You held him to you, settling your other hand on his shoulder to support yourself.

It only took a moment for the passion to catch up to you, weeks of being deprived of each other taking its toll and begging you to submit to the temptation. His fingertips ghosting over the exposed skin of your back was enough to drive you to insanity, and the intoxication from his kiss made it impossible to resist him. You gave an involuntary grind of your hips against him, your body’s natural response to the feeling of his touch. He tightened his grip on you as his breath caught in his throat, desperate for anything more than what you were already doing. He pulled you down on him, his erection pressing into your heat and sending a wave of arousal through you. You let out a small whimper into his mouth, sending him feral in an instant. His arms travelled up your body, sneaking under your shirt and begging to pull it off of you.

You parted from him, breathless with stars dancing in your eyes. “Jake, we don’t have time.”

“We have plenty of time,” he assured you, refusing to back down. He could see the worry in your eye, but he was certain in his statement. “Don’t you trust me by now, Gold Dust Woman?” The nickname was like pure ecstasy to you, settling deep in your chest and making home like it had always belonged there.

“Of course I do.” You said, regretful for ever doubting him. You lifted your arms, allowing him to discard your shirt with little care. He brought his mouth to your collarbone, starting softly with kisses as he unhooked your bra with expert precision. He let that fall to the ground, too, not concerned with anything other than getting your clothes off. He brought a hand to your breast, the cold air of the room stinging your skin but the warmth of his touch offsetting the harshness. He let his thumb drift over your nipple, sucking marks into your collarbones as if he was trying to cement the reality of his victory. He moved his mouth downwards, focusing on your other nipple with his tongue.

He was desperate to know you again, like the weeks of separation had made you strangers. If he could, he would have spent the entire night with you in your dressing room, but he knew he had to make quick work in order to finish before he was expected on stage. With the vulgar noises rolling off of your tongue, he knew it would not be difficult to do. You were deprived just the same as he was, just as desperate to be touched and just as eager for an orgasm. He let his teeth sink into your nipple, sending a shiver down your spine and a gasp from your lips. You could feel him smile against you, cockiness returning so quickly that you doubted it ever left. He moved his hands to your hips, prompting you to stand so he could take your pants off, too.

You did as he pleased, allowing him the honour of undoing the button and removing the fabric to reveal what he’d been missing so much. You kicked the pants to the side, leaving yourself almost completely exposed and accessible. He sat on the edge of the couch, practically drooling at the thought of having you wrapped around him again. His eyes raked over your body, his jaw hard set as if he was a predator eyeing its prey. Romantic Jake was long gone, and you were more than okay with that; you loved him, and you were joyous over the knowledge that he was yours and you were his, but you were desperate to be fucked. You would never tell him, knowing that it would only fuel his already strong ego, but he was the only one who could do it right. He settled his hand on your hip, drawing you in and bringing his mouth back to your skin. He admired you only for a moment before turning you around. He let his hand trail over your ass in silent admiration before placing a kiss there, too. Instead of pulling away like you expected, he sunk his teeth into the skin with intent to make you quiver under the touch.

He did just that, the sensation causing you to jump and shy away from the unexpected moment. He let out a chuckle as he pulled away, unapologetic for his actions. He let his finer trail under the band of your underwear, drawing the elastic back slightly and snapping it against your skin. You wanted to complain, to chastise him for the teasing, but you were enjoying it too much to care. You were willing to take anything and everything that he was willing to give. He hooked his fingers through the sides and pulled that fabric away from you too, leaving you fully naked and at his disposal. “Do you know how much I missed seeing you like this?” His voice was low, husky and filled with lust. You thought you might be able to get off on the sound alone. He spun you around again so you were facing him, looking down as you anticipated his next move. “Do you, sweetheart?”

“Yes, sir.” You nodded, feeling his fingers ghosting over your thighs. You shivered under the touch, wondering if he was possessed by his own sexual desire, or if it felt so good solely because of how much you loved him.

“Did you miss me, angel?”

“So badly,” you sighed, watching him with hearts dancing in your eyes. He let out a hum of approval, loving the sound of your shameless desperation. He reached down, placing his hand behind your knee, slow with his touch so he wouldn’t catch you off guard. You allowed him to guide your leg so your foot was resting on the cushion beside his thigh. He leaned forward, dusting kisses over the inside of your thigh, lost in the haze of desire that had quickly filled the room. He brought his hand to your cunt, letting his fingers run through you to get a better understanding of how much you wanted him. His jaw clenched at the pool of arousal, nearly insane from the thought of you being his and his alone. He trailed his finger to your clit, rubbing agonizingly slow circles as he watched your face. He was aching to see the look of pleasure, the one in which your eyebrows knotted together and your lips parted, shamelessly crazy for everything he was doing to you. Sometimes, it kept him alive even more than the most basic of things like food and water.

“Did she miss me, too?” He purred, looking up to you with the far-away smile that let you know he was no longer thinking about conversing with you. Even if you hated to admit it, you had grown to love it so deeply that it made your chest ache when you thought of it for too long.

“Why don’t you find out?” You asked, trying to focus on anything other than his rose tinted cheeks and glossy stare. As much as you wanted to, you knew you would never hold any real power in the bedroom with Jake. Or, perhaps you held all of it, and you would never know the difference.

“Talking back to me, angel?” He asked, adding more pressure with his fingers.

“Never, baby.” You breathed the lie so easily he could almost believe it was the truth. Almost being the keyword, but he missed you too much to punish you, and he didn’t have enough time to do so, anyway.

“Come here,” he muttered, making a move to guide your leg over his shoulder. A whine slipped through your lips before he ever put his mouth on you, deriving pleasure from the idea of his tongue alone. His eyes fluttered up to meet your face before he proceeded any further, amazed by the sound and intrigued by the cause. “You want me that bad, baby?” He asked, raising an eyebrow. Your face tinted red with embarrassment, but he was having none of it. “Don’t be shy, sweetheart. I want to hear all of those filthy fucking noises.” The end of his sentence was resembling a growl; his excitement was nearly unbearable and he was unable to hide it from you.

“Please, Jake. I need you so fucking bad.” You pleaded, your fingers already knotted in his hair with anticipation for his next move. His eyes fluttered closed, the words settling in his soul and already beginning to heal the wounds he’d collected from the days events. He couldn’t wait any longer, too pent up after being without you for so long. He guided your hips forward to meet his mouth, his tongue immediately landing on the sensitive bud he’d been teasing just moments before. In lieu of any formalities, he slipped two fingers inside of you, making it a mission to bring you to a climax as quick as possible.

A sharp moan sounded through the room, making home in the foundation of the walls to leave a permanent reminder of what had happened behind the closed door. His fingers stayed at a steady pace, pumping into you in time with the movement of his tongue. You couldn’t help but tug at his hair, needing more than he could possibly ever give you. At least, you thought it would be impossible to give, but Jake always managed to find a way. Your eyes were screwed shut as you bit down on your tongue, hoping to stay as silent as possible so nobody would know what was happening inside the room. His tongue was still laced with unholy energy, You were certain of it. There was no human that could possibly hold so much power within such simple movements. He was sent from the devil to turn you evil, too, and you didn’t care. Even if he was corrupt, or if the touch was woven with hidden intent, you would succumb to the temptation every time. Jake as an entity was much too powerful to resist, and you would be okay with it even if it was death you were suffering at his hands.

Your breathing was labored, chest heaving in hopes of catching up on the air he was stealing directly from your lungs. A thin layer of sweat had already begun to form on your forehead, your body so willing to give in to him with so little persuasion. It was always like that with Jake; it seemed as though he never even had to try to turn you into a mess because you were willing to do it as soon as he walked into a room. A raspy cry tore through you, already feeling an orgasm creeping up on you. It had been so long that you were surprised it even took him this long to get you there. You thought maybe he was savouring the moment, because Jake had to the ability to make you come undone in seconds. No matter what it was, you couldn’t find the strength to complain about it. You were so grateful for anything he was willing to give you, even if he chose to deny you an orgasm for the entire night.

That strength was not within him, though, and he was just as desperate for your climax as you were. He sped his tongue, matching the pace with his fingers, hoping that with a little encouragement you would come undone right then and there. You swore under your breath, holding his head for support in fear that your legs would give out from under you. He hummed against you, showing his own pleasure from your enjoyment. You felt the knot tightening in your belly, the burn almost too intense to ignore. You wished to drag it out a little longer, but you couldn’t hold back. It was partially due to your need for a release, but mostly because you could not deny him of his wish. He asked so little of you that you felt guilty even thinking of refusing him anything did want.

“Fuck, Jake.” You let out a shaky breath, feeling your muscles tense and your walls clench around his fingers. He did nothing but continue working at you, keeping a steady pace and continuous movement. Your fingers tightened against the strands of his hair, keeping you grounded as the world started to spin. You couldn’t even manage another word before the orgasm washed over you with a ferocious intensity. He tightened his grip on you, making sure you would not stumble and fall to the ground. You managed his name through the waves of pleasure, singing it like a hymn. Jake was the god you prayed to and the devil you feared. He was the angels watching over you and the sins you committed. He was everything and anything all at once, and although it was confusing, it was euphoric to be in the company of someone so magnificent. You hoped that you would never have to see a lifetime without him.

He slowly pulled away from you, making sure you were steady before removing your leg from his shoulder. With a shaky hand, you loosened your grip on his hair and moved it to his shoulder, supporting yourself with his help. “How was that, angel?” He asked, looking up at you. Your orgasm was glistening on his chin, like a trophy of the vulgarity you two had just engaged in.

“It was so good, baby.” You sighed, already recovered and ready for more. He stood, hands never leaving you as he did so. He wasn’t willing to stop touching you because he had spent the entire day believing he would never get the chance again. He guided you towards the chair placed in front of the vanity mirror. He unbuttoned his pants, only pulling them down to his knees before sitting in the chair. He wasn’t a fan of the time crunch, yet he was grateful for it all the same. It allowed him to give in to the temptation of you without needing any further excuses. He was certain that if he had to wait any longer, he might die from the agony alone.

He spit into his hand, stroking himself for a moment before reaching out for you and guiding you towards him. With your back to him and your legs on either side of his, he lined himself up with your entrance. “Waited so long for this, beautiful. You have no idea how many times I thought about having you like this again.” He murmured, lips just hovering over your ear. You took the intiative and lowered yourself onto him, both of you hissing in pleasure at the feeling after going so long without it.

“Just like this?” You asked, slowly gyrating your hips. He let out a hum of agreement, too lost in the pleasure to verbally express his feelings. “Did you touch yourself while you thought of me, Jacob?” You pressed, tone growing more firm the longer you spoke. His eyes snapped open, shocked that such a question had come from your mouth. “Hmm?” There was a fire in his pupil, like you had ignited a part of him he never knew existed.

“I don’t remember you being such a whore,” he said the word so sweetly, like it was far from insulting. But, being a whore for Jake was nowhere near insulting, and you would proudly admit to it any day of the week.

“Maybe you bring out the worst in me.” You hummed, looking forward and into the mirror, watching his face intently as the pleasure began to take over. “You didn’t answer my question, baby.”

“I did,” he groaned, your slow pace pushing him to the brink of insanity. You could feel him throbbing inside of you, desperate for more but willing to take what you were offering just so he could be close to you. “Every fucking night.” His fingers were burning into your hip, brandishing it with marks that would turn purple within minutes. He slipped his hand to the front of you, letting his middle finger find your clit so he could continue his torment. “Did you think of me when you were touching yourself?” He asked, eyes flickering up to your reflection.

“All of the time,” you sighed, leaning your head back to rest on his shoulder. He brought his free hand to your face, grabbing your cheeks between his fingers and forcing you to look back at the mirror.

“Keep watching, angel. Don’t miss all of the fun.” He said, pulling your earlobe between his teeth. You felt a flutter in your stomach, a warning from your body that it was going to explode if he didn’t slow down. “See how pretty you look with my cock inside of you?” Your hips stuttered, thrown off course by the vulgarity of his statement. “Don’t you think so?”

“Y-yes, sir.” You whimpered, weak from the tone of voice he was using. It was filled with power, yet coddling you at the same time. It was intoxicating, and you were a complete fool for him, eager to stay drunk off of it forever.

“Fuck you feel good,” he hissed, turning his head inwards to place a kiss to your neck. “Could fuck you all day.”

“We have the rest of our lives.” You whispered, barely realizing the weight of your words until the movement in his hands stuttered. He smiled against you as if you had given him the most wonderful gift in the world.

“We have the rest of our lives,” he agreed, trailing kisses from your neck to your shoulder. He dropped his hand from your face, bringing it to your breast as he rolled your nipple between his fingers. You arched your back at the feeling, only allowing him to thrust in even deeper as you came back down on him. You let out a whine, the tip of his cock brushing against your cervix in a painful type of pleasure. He sped his fingers, knowing that as much as he wished to keep fucking you all night, he would need to leave soon. He felt you clench around him, your legs shaking as you tried to keep your pace steady. “Are you going to cum for me, sweet girl?” He muttered, eyes flickering up to watch the reflection. “Do you want to cum for me?”

“G-god yes,” you stuttered, holding on to his arm for extra support. He took in a long breath in attempt to calm himself, feeling dangerously close to the edge, too.

“Okay, baby. Want to watch you while you cum on my cock.” He encouraged, gaze focused on your face in the mirror. “Be a good girl for me.” He whispered, speeding his fingers ever so slightly. That was all you needed to come undone, head spinning with no real thoughts as your body vibrated against his hold. Your eyes were squeezed shut, his name stuck on your lips like it was the only thing you knew how to say. His jaw was clenched, knowing that he couldn’t hold on any longer, feral from the noises you were making for him. “That’s it,” he hummed, letting out a groan through gritted teeth.

When you started to relax against him, he took his window of opportunity and brought both of his hands to your hips. He pulled you down on him, forceful and loving all at the same time. You let out a yelp, all of your nerves still tingling with the ghost of pleasure. You leaned forward, grabbing on to the edge of the table to hold yourself steady while he fucked into you. It only took him a few moments to catch up, his orgasm long overdue and just as intense as your own. He spilled into you, muttering curses as he fucked his own release back into you. After a moment, he tapered his movements to a halt. You both sat there together for a moment, breathless and scared to move in fear of ruining the moment.

Eventually, he carefully stood, moving his hand to catch any potential mess as he pulled out of you. You sighed, disappointed at the loss of contact once he was fully parted from you. “Come on, let’s get cleaned up.” He said, motioning his head towards the bathroom.

“Yeah, okay.” You breathed, following after him to erase any evidence of the sinful activities you had engaged in. Once you finished, you searched your room for the clothes you had arrived in that morning, finding them in a pile on the floor. You slipped on the sweatpants and the t-shirt, a smile permanently stuck on your lips as you turned to face him.

“What are you smiling about?” He said, teasing you while knowing he had the same one on his own face.

“You,”

“Me, too.” He said, taking a step towards you. “I love you so much, y/n.” He mumbled, taking your face between his hands.

“I love you, Jake.” You said, wrapping your arms around him to pull him into a hug. He did the same, holding you just as tight.

“So, uh, maybe I should have asked sooner…” he started, pulling back so he could look down at your face. You watched him, wondering what could possibly be floating around in his brain. “Would you… would you like to be my girlfriend, maybe?” You laughed at his nervous stature, feeling a blush spread across your cheeks to match his own.

“I would love nothing more, Jacob.” You giggled, elated at the childish glee that overwhelmed his expression. He leaned down, placing a small kiss on your lips. Just as he did so, a knock sounded on your door. “Showtime,” You chucked.

“Showtime,” he agreed, hesitant to let you go, almost as if he was scared you wouldn’t be here once he got off stage.

“Go, I’ll be waiting for you right here when you’re done.” You said, urging him to listen to Aaron’s instruction. He nodded, leaning down and placing another short-lived kiss on your lips.

“Okay,” he sighed, moving away and towards the door. Just as he opened it, he looked back at you for a moment. “Thank you for sharing your secrets with me, Gold Dust Woman. They were far better than I ever imagined.” You laughed at his words, feeling the happy tears begging to make another appearance.

“It was a pleasure sharing them with you, Jake. Now go on, you’re going to do great tonight.” You shooed him away.

“I love you.”

“I love you.” You replied, blowing him a kiss. His eyes sparkled with adoration as he reached out, pretending to catch it. He then proceeded to pretend to shove it in his pocket before turning away.

“That’s my good luck charm.” He said, but he was gone before you could reply.

Slowly, you made your way towards the door and out into the hallway. Dylan was sitting on the side stage, looking back at your room with a hopeful expression. You gave her a nod and a thumbs up, barely able to contain your glee. She grinned, ecstatic at the news and already wanting to know all about it. You approached her, standing by her side as you looked out at the stage. She was caught up in Danny, who was sitting eagerly behind his drums, and you were caught up in Jake, who was already strumming away at his guitar. Even Sam, who was across the stage, had a smile on his face, knowing that he would be alright. The world seemed okay, and that was something you were eternally grateful for. You never pictured things turning out so perfectly, but even the most brutal of storms left a rainbow shining brightly in the sky.

You wrapped an arm around Dylan, your chest finally free from the aching pain that had been ravishing it for weeks. As you watched Jake, you knew that there was no doubt in your decision to love him. There was something eternal about the two of you, like when the oceans meet the rivers, and when the river meets the sand, leading you all across the earth until you find water once more. It was similar to how the day turned into dusk, only for the midnight skies to turn blue once again. An endless cycle that was the only permanent comfort in life. You could love Jake in every lifetime and never grow tired of it, and at the very end, you would still feel like you could love him even more than you already had. You would share every secret and untold story, and hope to make every memory and experience with him as beautiful as humanly possible. He was your lesson, the one you had been dreading for so long, but you were so grateful that you opened your mind for long enough to learn it.

He was your forever, and you were his Gold Dust Woman, just like it was always meant to be.

GOLD DUST WOMAN

TAGLIST: @itsdannysworld @gretavansara @jaketlove @laneygvf @freefallthoughts @psychedelicsprinkles @idontwannabeherenow @joshysgirl @sanguinebats @objectsinspvce @klarxtr @sinarainbows @jakesmustache @gvfpal @hellowgoodbye @profitofthedune

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corn-fanfiction · 10 months

Text

SAVIOUR COMPLEX (Mark Hoffman x F!Reader) (PT. 7)

(PT. 6)

Rated: M

TAGS: language/past abuse/Mark Hoffman being a c*p/reader's life is maybe becoming less normal/Mark is protective bc it's his job but he's also problematic/because he's a c*p/Detective Gibson is his own tw/kissy kissy

**NOTE: Hey guys. Thank you so much for interaction with this fic, and I’m seeing a lot of new followers. I love that!! But I really need to stress right now how I do not support/endorse C*stas M*ndylor as a person or his opinions. He’s racist and I enjoy and only enjoy Mark Hoffman’s character. If you are a C*stas Stan, I highly encourage you to maybe cease interacting with this fic.**

“To say that this looks bad is an understatement.”

Mark scoffs and paces the Chief’s office.

“Don’t be dramatic.”

“No, let’s go over everything that’s happened tonight. You breach protocol by taking your case out on a date, you bring her to an active crime scene where her boyfriend has just died in a Jigsaw trap, and you are in the FBI’s sights! How is that dramatic?”

“Ex.”

Chief is stunned, baffled and befuddled. “Excuse me?”

“Ex boyfriend.”

“Are you-“ Chief sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “You’re pulling my leg, right? This is a joke. This has to be a joke because I know you're not this stupid.”

“Watch it.”

“No, fuck it. You’re off her case and you’re suspended until I can figure out what the fuck to do with you. Turn in your badge and gun.”

Mark stares him down. He doesn’t move.

“Do it, or we’re gonna have a scene.”

Mark grinds his teeth, his jaw ticks. He’s holding air that he refuses to sigh away as he slams his sidearm and his badge down on the Chief’s desk.

“Who’s my replacement? I assume whoever it is has her next door in interrogation, right?”

“Questioning.”

“Don’t fucking split hairs with me right now.”

Before the Chief has a chance to respond, the heavy metal doors to the interrogation hall open and close. Mark throws the office door open and sees you passing. He gives you a comforting hand but then leaves when he hears a snort from Gibson. He turns on him and Gibson either isn’t expecting it or doesn’t think Mark will actually put hands on him. On both fronts, he’s wrong, because Mark grabs him by his collar and holds him with shaking arms.

“What the fuck is your problem, Gibson!?”

Gibson pushes Mark’s arms from his chest and shoves him. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to send the message.

“I’m doing my job, Hoffman. Don’t forget, you’re a suspect too, and in danger of ‘reassignment’. Right?”

Gibson huffs and adjusts his shirt. Mark points a finger at his chest.

“You better keep your nose outta things before something happens to it.”

“Is that a threat?”

Mark is about to let him know that yes, it is a threat, when he feels a hand on his arm. He whips around and there you are, staring up at him with empty, dark eyes that are pooling with tears. God, you look ragged, traumatized- you are.

“Mark, come on, please. Please, let’s just go home. Please.”

He softens at your plea. He’ll do anything for you right now, and that includes walking away from this fight. He gives Gibson a final mean look and guides you out of the station and takes you home.

Now, he’s staring out the window of your bedroom as you’re curled against him in sleep, one arm tucked under your head and the other draped across you. He realizes that he probably shouldn’t have even brought you here, but rather have taken you back to his place. You need familiarity, sure, but whoever had been stalking you could still be after you.

That was something else you didn’t know. When you and Mark had arrived on the scene and he saw Ted’s body, it was apparent that it wasn’t…fresh. Of course, he knew that Gibson had to have shown you the photos but there’s no way you were in a state to notice that detail. And it looked like more than a couple days. The death was old…older than the day someone showed up outside your window.

He pulls you closer. Not only is someone imitating Jigsaw- him, not only had that person killed Ted, but they were likely the one stalking you.

It isn’t far fetched to think there’s another Jigsaw copycat; after all, that’s how he got the gig. The difference is that John and Amanda are both dead, and neither of them can handle this so Mark can focus on you. Mark racks his brain to shake loose any possible suspects. Everyone with any hand near Jigsaw is dead except him…and Jill. Christ, what if this is all Jill? Jealous because he has you and she has no one?

But Jill doesn’t have the physical strength to manage this on her own, and Mark’s watched her long enough to know she lives a solitary life. So no, Jill may be possible, but highly unlikely.

It has to be someone you know, or someone who knows him and his feelings towards you. It would be too large a coincidence for it to be a random copycat.

Who? Who?

The good news is that if he's suspended, he has plenty of time to find out.

There’s a banging on the door the next morning. You immediately jump and press your back to the headboard. Mark stands, reaches for his gun and then curses when he remembers he turned it in the night before.

You look up at him in a panic and he raises a calming hand. He glances at the window- nobody there. Goes down the hall and grabs a knife from the kitchen.

A peek out the front window reveals Gibson at the door, tapping his foot, looking around, checking his watch. Mark curses and opens the door, subtly setting the knife on the kitchen counter.

Gibson stops, looks Mark up and down, then cracks a smile.

“Jesus. Wasted no time, I see.”

Mark scowls and his grip on the door tightens. “Careful, Gibson. There’s no cameras here.”

Gibson looks over Mark’s shoulder and into the apartment.

“She around?”

“Yes, she’s in bed, and very fucking traumatized from the shake-down you gave her. That make you feel big, Gibson? Harassing a woman who’s being stalked and just saw her ex-boyfriend murdered?”

“Just doing my job. You know all about that.”

Before Mark can get another word out, you come up behind him, now having donned some pants and a cardigan.

“Detective Gibson. What a…well, whatever it is. What do you need?”

Gibson smiles at you, self-satisfied.

“I’m taking over your case. And with the recent danger, we think it’s best we put you in a safe house.”

Your eyes widen and you push your way past Hoffman who puts a hand on your shoulder. You shrug him off.

“Fuck that! You and your precinct already upheaved my life with this protection bullshit, now you wanna take me away from my job, my apartment? And for what? Jigsaw very clearly has no problem with me!”

“Yeah. Wonder why that is.”

Mark watches as you turn red.

“Besides, not like you’re leaving much behind.”

Mark barely has time to grab you when you lunge for Gibson, who leans away with a chuckle.

“Easy. I can always still take you in by force.”

“Fuck off, no you can’t,” Mark bites. “She can deny if she wants to.”

“Yeah, but that don’t look too good either, does it? Got a reason to stay away from the police?”

“Aside from the fact they’re batting 1,000 when it comes to harassment?”

Gibson looks from you to Mark.

“You don’t seem to mind too much.”

“That’s it-”

Mark is out the door before you can stop him and he slugs Gibson in the jaw. The younger detective stumbles back into the yard and Mark looms over him.

“Get the fuck outta here. And unless you have a warrant, you can tell the chief to shove this whole thing up his ass.”

Gibson stands and spits some blood into the grass.

“Your ass is out, Hoffman. You hear me? You’re fucked!” Gibson shouts and returns to his cruiser, stepping into the driver’s seat and retrieving his walkie-talkie. You run out to get Mark.

“Mark, what the fuck?!”

Mark sighs, shakes out his hand, turns to you. “I’m sorry. I- I can’t stand that prick. He was asking for it.”

“Yeah, no kidding! He was egging you on and you gave him exactly what he wanted. You could lose your job!”

“Nah,” Mark says, shaking his head and heading back inside. You follow him.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll have a word with the Chief, pay some penance, do crossing duty or something for a few weeks. Shit like this happens all the time.”

Mark goes to your freezer and grabs a bag of peas to cradle against his knuckles. When he faces you again, you’re leaning against the counter, chewing on your lip, staring at the imitation marble.

“What?” he inquires.

“Nothing.”

“No, what are you thinking?”

He watches as you splay your hand against the countertop, moving your fingers back and forth. He moves to stand next to you, moves his head to be closer to yours. Nudges you.

“Come on. Let me in.”

You sigh. “I don’t know what’s happening anymore. I don’t think I’m in danger. Or maybe I am. I don’t really care. But…maybe it’s best if we took a break? Just until the dust settles?”

Mark’s heart plummets into his gut and his eyes search yours, his head unmoving.

“You want that?”

“No. No, I really don’t. But I’ll be fine, and you can’t lose your job.”

Because it’s all I have.

Well, that was before he had you.

“Let Gibson take over my case. Once it dies he’ll get bored, I bet. I’m willing to wait.”

You finally meet his eyes and your hand finds his on the counter.

“What if I’m not?” he mutters, his lips so close to yours.

“I mean, I never really pegged you for a patient man. But…”

It’s like you can’t help yourself. Your lips come up to meet his and his hand gently cups your jaw.

Another kiss. One deeper and warmer. Before there can be a third that leads to something more, you pull away and Mark sighs.

“Maybe it’ll die out fast, you know?”

Mark nods at the refrigerator.

“Maybe.”

“Hey,” you say, tilting his face towards you. “Look at me. It’ll be fine. Distance and fondness and all that.”

“I don’t think I can get any fonder, honestly.”

He watches in pain as your eyes flutter through that small confession and a smile pulls at your lips.

“Well, just hold on to it, then. And phones exist, you know?”

He dips down for a kiss on your cheek.

“So do midnight rendezvouses. And windows.”

“Come on,” you gently push against his chest. “Just think of how nice it’ll be when this all passes. Maybe my bed will see some action other than cuddling all night long, hm?”

Mark groans. “God, why would you say something like that when you’re trying to rush me out the door?”

“If I was rushing, you’d be gone already. I’m stalling, actually.”

Another kiss. Then one on the forehead.

“Alright. Go makeup with the asshole outside. Apologize to the Chief. Help kids cross the street or something. I’ll see you soon.”

Mark grinds his teeth but submits, laying the peas on the counter.

“Sorry for defrosting those.”

You smile reassuringly, and it does help him feel like things will be okay. “Maybe we'll eat them next time.”

#mark hoffman #saw fanfic #mark hoffman x reader #angst #fanfiction #saw franchise

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ejzah · 6 months

Note

Hi! How are you? I'm so glad to see you're still writing for LA. I'm a big fan of your fics. And as I was randomly thiking about Densi, I was thinking we never got to see Kensi ask Callen and Sam to walk her down the aisle. I was wondering if you could write it? Especially Callen/Kensi because I love their friendship. Thanks again for taking the time to write wonderful stories! :)

A/N: Dear anon, so sorry for the delay (my constant anthem). Thank you for your kind words and continued support!

***

Going to the Chapel

“No, no, I don’t actually have the wedding date yet, I’m it trying to get an idea of how much catering for between one hundred and two hundred people would be. Um, I’m not sure about that,” Kensi said, tugging on her bottom lip as the caterer on the other end of the line continued to ask questions she didn’t have the answers to. “Right. I suppose I should figure that out first. Yes. Thank you so much for your time.”

She hung up, rubbing her temples. There was another hour of her life gone with no results to show for it.

“I take it wedding planning is going well,” Callen commented from beside her. His sarcastic delivery made her crack the tiniest hint of a smile. She’d almost forgotten he and Sam were in the bullpen with her.

“At this point, I’m beginning to think Deeks was right and we should have just eloped. Would have been so much easier. And less stressful.”

“I remember when Michelle and I got married. We had a tiny ceremony and reception and it still took a couple months to plan. Trying to accommodate relatives was probably the hardest part,” Sam shared knowingly.

“Oh my god, yes!” Kensi groaned. “I love Roberta, but she has so many opinions, and even though my mom is less vocal about it, I know she has just as many. Deeks spent two hours convincing his mom that we did not need crystal centerpieces to give all the guests or beef prime rib.”

“Well, we’re here to support you guys however we can,” Sam offered. “Especially if it means we get this wedding on the road.

“I will help with everything but folding napkins,” Callen specified, nodding significantly when Sam gave him an odd look.

“Actually,” Kensi hesitated. She’d been debating the whole walking down the aisle issue for months. Did she ask her mom or walk alone? Just skip it altogether?

“There is something I wanted to ask you,” she finished before she could lose the nerve again. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to though.”

“Why, is it something weird?” Callen asked. “I also draw the line at helping pick out lingerie.”

“Oh my god, no. I swear you get ten times worse when Deeks isn’t around,” Kensi said, making a face. “No, I was wondering if you and Sam would consider walking me down the aisle.”

“You want us to give you away?” Sam said, sounding surprised.

“I like to look at it more like being transported to the next stage of my life.”

“Wow, wedding planning really has screwed with your brain.

Kensi jabbed her elbow in Callen’s direction, and he moved to the side, chuckling.

“I’m serious. I was going to ask Granger before he passed.” She paused, blinking away the sudden tears in her eyes. When she spoke again, her voice betrayed a slight shakiness. “You know, since he knew my dad and he turned out to be a pretty good mentor.”

“Granger would have hated that,” Callen predicted.

“Yeah, but he wouldn’t have let anyone else do it. The man had a soft spot for sure,” Sam added. He nodded to Kensi, his expression compassionate. “I’m sorry Don couldn’t be here to walk you down that aisle.”

“I think he would be happy to know it’s two of the best men in my life,” Kensi told them honestly.

“Well, after that I don’t think we can say no,” Callen said softly.

“Definitely not.”

Kensi stood to give each of them a hug, lingering a moment in Sam’s comforting strength. “Thank you.”

“We show up for family. But “two of the best”?” Sam pointed out, feigning offense. “Not the best.”

“Only because you’ll be leading me to the very best man in my life,” Kensi said.

“Smitten,” Callen sighed, shaking his head.

“Yep, she stood no chance against the curly blonde hair and blue eyes,” Sam lamented.

Kensi just rolled her eyes, secretly enjoying their teasing.

***

A/N: I hope that was ok. It’s very rare for me to write a fic that doesn’t include even a tiny bit of Deeks.

Thanks for the prompt!

#ncis la fanfiction #kensi blye #Callen and Sam #mentions of Deeks #fluff #anonymous prompt #ejzah fanfiction

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eleanorfenyxwrites · 1 year

Text

Outta Time

So @littlesmartart and I discovered that we both love Orville Peck, and I decided it might be nice to write Western Cowboy shit that isn't the Brokeback Mountain AU so here's this 😂 Inspired by Orville Peck's song 'Outta Time' from the album Bronco (Jess came up with the plot, I wrote it, and she's drawn art to go along with it for the visual that's directly inspired by the song [and that was all I had in mind for this before she came up with the plot lol]!)

--//--

It was, perhaps, foolishness on Meng Yao’s part to think that Huaisang was telling him nothing but the unvarnished truth when he’d invited him to head out West with him for a luxury vacation, set to last the entirety of their summer break.

“It’ll be like one of those fancy retreats silly rich people go on!” he’d insisted (as if he isn’t mind-bogglingly ridiculous and wealthier than Meng Yao could ever hope of being [considering he’s only just recently been forced to accept he’ll never see a single iota of his father’s support, emotionally or financially]). “Trust me!”

Mistake number 1 had been saying, “Alright A-Sang, I trust you.”

Mistake number 2 : being a man of his word.

Within a month of receiving Huaisang’s invitation, summer arrives with rolling peals of thunder heralding oppressive humidity and swarms of mosquitos. Meng Yao, a man of his word as stated, dutifully packs most of his belongings into a suitcase that weighs far less than the upper limit of the airline’s luggage weight restriction and navigates the pair of them through the airport with minimal stress, mainly thanks to not allowing Huaisang to be in charge of anything at all.

He chats with Huaisang on and off throughout their flight to keep himself distracted from the fact that he’s leaving behind everything he’s ever known to spend three months in the middle of bumfuck nowhere at his only friend’s brother's ranch, which Huaisang had only told him the full truth about yesterday, after it was already far too late to gracefully back out. Meng Yao’s promised luxury vacation destination is apparently in actuality a cattle ranch that Huaisang’s brother apparently runs mostly to keep himself in shape and avoid the stress of city life that had given him a heart attack at the ripe old age of 27 a few years back. (It is, by far, the weirdest ‘so I have this older brother’ story that Meng Yao has ever heard.)

“So this brother of yours –” Meng Yao finally caves and asks about an hour before final descent.

“Uh-huh?”

“He just…up and left New York. For Montana?”

“Yep,” Huaisang pops the ‘p’ and flicks to the next page in his magazine, unbothered, “After his heart attack he said he wanted to see some mountains and get some actual fresh air if he was just going to die soon anyway, it really dramatic and maudlin, which he never is, I was so proud. Only it turns out it was exactly what he needed to not die, so after a while he decided he would just stay out there for good. He bought the house and the land and some horses to give himself something to do besides stare at the sky all day, and then he was still kind of bored so he bought some cattle.”

Naturally. As one does.

“And now he’s…a cattle rancher. From New York City.”

Huaisang laughs and finally looks up from his magazine to smile at Meng Yao like ‘oh you sweet little thing’ in the way Meng Yao kind of hates, but Huaisang does it to everyone so he can’t really take too much offense.

“Yes, Yaoyao, you’ll understand when you meet him! Da-ge’s never really been a city guy, not like us. It suits him much better to be out here, especially since his best friend moved out here to help him out. Xichen-ge treats it like a meditation retreat but with a lot more mucking out stalls. He says even that part’s therapeutic, but I’m just going to take his word on that one, ‘cause ew.”

“Uh-huh.”

Huaisang leaves him to consider just what the hell he’s gotten himself into for the rest of the flight, and then they’re navigating their way (ridiculously easily) through the rinky-dink airport hardly bigger than a parking garage, the sky beyond the terminal windows blue blue blue where it stretches on forever in every direction.

“Da-ge!”

Meng Yao barely manages to snag Huaisang’s duffel when his friend flings it off his shoulder to go sprinting across the 3-carousel baggage claim, the fastest Meng Yao has ever seen him move. It’s a distinct relief that Meng Yao can use juggling their bags as an excuse to approach at a much more respectable pace; he needs the extra time to truly digest what he’s seeing.

Huaisang, as a former-model-turned-fasion-designer who happily calls himself a fruit at every opportunity, is one of the daintiest men Meng Yao has ever met. He’d even go so far as to call him a dandy, if pressed, and fully supports his friend’s decision to call himself every ‘emasculating’ label under the sun with obvious relish. He can’t deny that at least some of his confusion as to his best friend’s mysterious older brother’s chosen lifestyle stemmed from picturing someone like Huaisang, if perhaps a little taller.

He’s not confused anymore.

The man who catches Huaisang midair and swings him in a circle before setting him back on his feet would never be asked to grace the runways of New York — not because he isn’t beautiful enough to make Meng Yao’s fingers twitch for his camera to capture the way the sun cuts across his weather-tanned face, but because no one has ever heard of a fashion model who was roughly 6’7” and perhaps 300 pounds of solid, clearly functional muscle.

Huaisang’s brother towers over everyone else in the building that Meng Yao can see (and he can see most of them, re: rinky-dink airport in the middle of bumfuck Montana), and when he looks over the heads of the few people between Meng Yao and the exit their eyes lock instantly.

“A-Sang, be nicer to your friend,” Meng Yao can hear from here, a bass rumble that Does Things to his chest. “Go get your bag, don’t make your guest carry your shit or he’ll think I never taught you decent manners. Go on.”

Huaisang flutters back over and takes his bag with an unapologetic grin. Meng Yao finishes taking the ten-odd steps necessary for the brother to stick his hand out with a wry little smirk and say, “Hey, I’m Mingjue.”

“Meng Yao,” he replies and slides his hand into Mingjue’s dry, work-calloused palm.

“Welcome to big sky country, A-Yao,” Mingjue replies with a widening smile, a flash of straight white teeth and a dimple hiding under his mustache, and Meng Yao regrets to say that he’s thoroughly fucked.

–//–

The land unfolds around them as they drive down straight roads at an almost leisurely pace through miles and miles of…nothing.

Not nothing, Meng Yao supposes, but long gone are the corridors of towering skyscrapers, the lingering miasma of so many people living together in tight quarters, everyone building up up up to stack ever-more people into the same few square miles. Meng Yao understands, suddenly, why Mingjue had come here and stayed. He doesn’t think he has it in him to eschew all the conveniences of New York City for the open country, but someone like Mingjue seems like the type to appreciate having the space to…expand. To be bigger than life and have the room to do it in. He certainly feels larger than life at the moment as he details for Huaisang all the comings and goings on the ranch since he’d last visited, as he talks about the horses and his cattle and the monsoon rains they’d apparently only just missed that had finally turned everything summer-green.

Meng Yao sits on the bench seat of Mingjue’s beat up old pickup truck and watches the sparse scattering of fluffy white clouds drift over more sky than he’s ever seen in his life and he gets it.

He hasn’t gotten nearly enough of his fill of marveling (subtly) over the view by the time they pull off the road onto a dirt road that Huaisang tells him is actually Mingjue’s driveway, but he contents himself with the knowledge that they’re here for three months, he’ll have plenty of time to appreciate the view later. They rattle over a few metal grates Mingjue explains are cattle guards to keep the animals from escaping the ranch should they manage to break out of their pastures, and Meng Yao isn’t a child so he doesn’t exclaim about how fucking huge the cattle are some distance away from the road where they’re grazing (but he certainly rethinks his half-baked desire to see them up close anytime soon).

“Home sweet home,” Mingjue announces when they reach the end of the lane after another mile or two and opens his door with a creak. Meng Yao leans forward to look up at the house through his lashes and must not be able to control his expression as much as he’d prefer as Huaisang chuckles at him a little, nudging him in the side with his pointy little elbow.

“Told you it was nice,” he chirps and slides across the seat to get out on the driver’s side. “Da-ge be careful!” he trills, his nervous fretting muffled as he scurries around to the bed of the truck. Meng Yao doesn’t pay attention to their bickering or the scuffle of hard-soled boots on dirt, though his attention is snagged at least a bit by the sound of Mingjue laughing at whatever he’s just done to make Huaisang whine at him.

The house is beautiful, is the thing. Somehow he hadn’t thought that it would be, perhaps owing to how many times he’s listened to Huaisang complain about his brother’s lack of taste for anything even remotely fashionable. He should really stop assuming things about Mingjue, he supposes, considering he’s currently scored 0 for 2, and he hates to lose.

He gets out of the car, finally, to better appreciate white-washed wood paneling just beginning to show hints of weathering, blue shutters clearly freshly painted the same shade of the sky overhead with the front door painted to match. There are rocking chairs on the wraparound porch, clearly well-loved if the flattened, sun-faded cushions on them are anything to judge by, positioned to face west. He has a sudden mental image of Mingjue sitting out here in the evenings to watch the sunset over the mountains looming in the distance and has to shake himself all over once (discreetly) to keep from sticking himself in the chair next to him in this little pastoral fantasy. That’s just making it weird.

“You want the grand tour or you wanna settle in?” Mingjue asks; Meng Yao doesn’t jump to find himself standing next to his host he hadn’t heard approaching, but he does feel suddenly…shy in a way he’s definitely not used to. He tilts his head enough to squint up at Mingjue, the sun too bright in his eyes, and finds to his dismay that he’s still just as handsome as he’d been an hour ago.

“I want you to give him the tour!” Huaisang calls from where he’s petting a horse (an actual horse, but are they supposed to be that tall??) that’s come up to the fence at the other end of the front yard, such as it is, to duck down and nose at Huaisang like an old friend.

“I don’t care what you want, you little brat,” Mingjue calls back. “And don’t you dare give that beast whatever candy you’ve got in your pockets, do you know how long it took to train him out of biting people who didn’t give him any after you left?!”

Meng Yao hides a smile behind his hand and finds himself mostly glad that there’s someone else around now to be the recipient of Huaisang’s incessant whining when he’s really putting on a performance. He clears his throat a little and schools his expression back towards pleasant neutrality when Mingjue looks down at him again, clearly unwilling to entertain his brother’s antics a moment longer than necessary.

“I think I’d like to settle in first,” he allows himself to say, and is perhaps mildly startled when Mingjue doesn’t question it, when he simply nods and lets Meng Yao be that tiny bit selfish.

“Come on in then, your room’s upstairs.”

Meng Yao follows Mingjue inside out of the sun and finds himself surrounded by an eclectic mix of antiques and modern minimalism; framed photos and bric-a-brac piled up in out-of-the-way corners of sleek monochrome shelves hemmed in on every side by enormous, dense furniture of the sort that reminds him of a time at least half a century ago, if not longer. The result is antiquated in a charming way with enough touches of modernity that he doesn’t think Mingjue is necessarily out of touch, just pragmatic about his home. If something old will still do, why replace it? It’s a mentality Meng Yao can appreciate, and he finds himself smiling a little again as he trails behind Mingjue up the stairs and down the short hallway to the room in the back corner.

“Here you go,” Mingjue says and slings both Meng Yao’s and Huaisang’s bags off his shoulder, which is precisely when Meng Yao realizes he’d been carrying their luggage in one hand like it weighs nothing. He notices it, allows himself two seconds to admire it, and promptly tucks that little tidbit away for future consideration. Later.

“I’ll be around, just holler if you need anything. I’m sure A-Sang will be in to bother you once he’s finished saying hi to the herd, I’ll let you enjoy the quiet while you’ve got it.”

“Thanks, Mingjue,” Meng Yao says with a smile, and it might be a moment of wishful thinking, or just his imagination, but he swears he sees Mingjue’s gaze drop to his mouth for a beat too long before the man nods and retreats. Meng Yao has no way to know if the flush on the back of Mingjue’s neck is from the sun or, maybe, something else.

–//–

Huaisang does come inside eventually, and though he has his own unpacking to do Meng Yao isn’t surprised at all when his friend comes to his room first to flop onto his bed and promptly make himself at home to start bugging him.

(He wouldn’t want or expect anything different.)

As Meng Yao hangs up shirts and trousers with far more care than they probably need, Huaisang regales him with stories from other trips to the ranch and a quick run-down of the personalities of the horses Mingjue keeps, both his own and some he boards for others who can’t keep their own animals for whatever reason. Meng Yao makes enough leading, noncommittal noises to keep his friend chattering as he settles in, though the chatter becomes decidedly less pleasant as far as background noise goes when Huaisang starts talking about getting Meng Yao to socialize.

Within moments it’s clear he already has a plan on how to do so, because of course he does, and of course it’s some stranger’s houseparty where Meng Yao will know absolutely no one at all.

“Absolutely not, Huaisang,” he says tartly, but of course Huaisang only takes that as an invitation to persuade him.

“This isn’t like parties back home, A-Yao, I promise!” he wheedles. Meng Yao just goes on unpacking his meager belongings into the antique dresser in the corner of his room that holds a window overlooking the equipment-littered space between the back porch and the horse barn, and he very pointedly does not rise to Huaisang’s bait. He’s still not immune to his best friend’s cajoling and they both know it, but he feels the need to deny him a little longer for the sake of his pride, if nothing else.

“Nothing here is like home, Huaisang, your argument is invalid,” he replies blithely and debates the merit of hanging his undershirts in the too-big closet with the rest of his clothes, rather than folding them up into a too-big drawer where they’ll just look sad on their own.

“Okay point taken, but seriously! You’ll have a nice time, it’ll be chill, I swear. Xichen-ge is coming, and he never goes anywhere things will get out of hand!”

A party tempting enough to interest Huaisang is typically guaranteed to be anything but ‘chill’, he doesn’t point out, but…well. Meng Yao had just said it himself — nothing here so far is like what they’ve come from, maybe Huaisang’s different here too. Maybe a party’s really not such a bad idea. And if it is, Mingjue, having already overheard Huaisang mentioning the party on his way past Meng Yao’s room with a load of clean laundry in his arms, has already made it very clear that he’s happy to either loan them his truck for the night or else drive them himself. Considering Meng Yao has no interest in drinking so much he wouldn’t be able to drive (because he, unlike his best friend, is a very functional city gay who can drive, thank you very much) it’s a guaranteed exit strategy, should he feel the need to escape.

Meng Yao ignores Huaisang’s pleading eyes for a few moments longer simply for the fun of it as he slides his undershirts onto clattering plastic hangers, and only smiles once his back is turned as Huaisang shouts his delight when Meng Yao sighs, “Well…I guess I’ve got nowhere better to go.”

–//–

This time, Huaisang did tell him the unvarnished truth.

It’s clear from the moment they pull up in the warm violet twilight that this party is nothing like the ones they frequent back home. It’s in someone’s actual house, for one, which he supposes isn’t too strange when not being hosted in a city made entirely of apartments and highrises, but the house itself is in the middle of a giant patch of…nothing. It’s just a house on a dirt lot full of pickup trucks in various stages of rusting, with lights strung everywhere possible on the wraparound porch (except that it’s not really a porch so much as it is a prefabricated metal roof over part of the patch of dirt and sparse grass ‘yard’). He’s pretty sure he even sees a barn lit up the same way some few hundred feet behind the house, but he can’t get a good look at it from here and decides to put it out of his mind.

“Let me know if you end up needing the truck,” Mingjue says over the sound of twanging guitar coming from someone’s massive speakers as they hop down (well he steps down out of the truck like he’s just crossing a threshold; Meng Yao and Huaisang are too vertically challenged to get down out of the thing without at least a little hop). “I’m gonna head in to grab a beer, you two want anything?”

“We’re good, da-ge!” Huaisang chirps, already eyeing up a cluster of guys all dressed nearly identically in tight jeans and threadbare flannels with the sleeves cut off and the resulting gaping holes fraying artlessly, with the main differentiating factor between them being if they’re wearing cowboy hats or baseball caps. Meng Yao glances between his options — Huaisang’s all-too-familiar thirsting over extremely lackluster men who don’t deserve him and Mingjue’s retreating figure carving a path through the crowd — and decides to take his chances with the latter, though he hangs back a little to give Mingjue space.

The house, when he steps inside, at least smells pretty much like what he’s used to at parties. Too many competing colognes and perfumes, the sticky sweetness of alcohol, and the haze of cigarette smoke are almost comforting like this, even as he promptly gets lost amongst the sprawling, dimly-lit rooms crowded with strangers nursing beers or chatting (read: feeling) each other up in dim corners. He finds a staircase in the middle of the house and uses it to orient himself as he wanders in several clockwise circles until he’s mapped out the living room, the den, the kitchen where he snags a beer from the 6’5” cowboy (he’s assuming he’s a cowboy based on the hat and the whole ‘house party on a farm in Montana’ thing) standing at the keg, the door to the back ‘porch’ that’s about as porch-like as the one out front, and an overcrowded room that seems to serve no purpose but to be a place to play beer pong.

He’s just circled his way back to the front door near the stairs once again when he finds his path blocked by someone turned away from him; someone broad and tall and wearing pale blue, which just seems like a mistake when any moment could end in spilled beer and flustered mopping up with a crumpled handful of napkins, perhaps even the removal of said shirt to get it in the upstairs bathroom sink to soak out the stain before it sets —

Alright so it’s been a while and a man has needs, especially when surrounded by ridiculously tall beefcakes on every side. Sue him.

Rather than spilling his shitty beer on this guy to see if he can get him to take his shirt off, Meng Yao clears his throat and taps the guy on his waist once, just the lightest touch of two fingers to body-warmed cotton, and the guy turns smoothly, an apology already on his lips.

“Oh, excuse me,” he says, hardly audible over the music jangling from the beer pong room. Meng Yao tilts his head back a bit — and then a bit more — to meet the guy’s gaze and he’s startled to find he’s also Asian. It takes him roughly three seconds to put two-and-two together when the guy smiles at him like he knows him and ducks down to talk a little closer. Meng Yao makes a conscious decision to stay very still to let him do it.

“Might you be Meng Yao?” he asks and Meng Yao can only nod dumbly. “Mingjue sent me to find you, would you like to come sit with us? Da-ge’s great for commandeering the couch at these things.”

Sitting down sounds great, Meng Yao thinks, especially when the crowd shifts enough for him to catch sight of the ratty old sofa in the living room to find Mingjue currently occupying it alone, manspread more than far enough to make it clear that no one else is sitting on that couch unless he invites them (and he doesn’t look like he’s in a particularly inviting mood).

“Are you sure?” Meng Yao asks, wary, but the man (who must be Mingjue’s best friend, Xichen) just smiles at him again and tips his head in that direction, gesturing vaguely with one of his bottles of beer as if for emphasis.

“Of course! Come on, you’ve had a long day of traveling and I wanted to apologize for not being able to meet you at the house this afternoon. Just sit with us for a while, we’ll introduce you around later if you want us to.”

Meng Yao finds it a pretty tough proposition to say no to so he just nods again and gestures with his own beer (in a stereotypical red Solo cup he’d been amused to receive) for Xichen to lead the way. It isn’t so far that Meng Yao worries about losing him in the crowd, really, but he doesn’t let that stop him from hooking an index finger through the center back belt loop on Xichen’s skin-tight jeans, ‘just in case’. Xichen simply smiles at him over his shoulder as they pass through the nearly-black front hallway and into the scarcely-brighter living room, red Christmas lights around the ceiling and the overhead bulb in the kitchen through the other doorway the only lighting for the entire room.

“Hey, there you are,” Mingjue says as they approach, and though he swings one knee closer to straight in front of himself to manspread a little less he leaves his arm slung casually along the top of the back cushions, reaching up with his free hand to snag the beer Xichen had brought for him and taking a swig of it as Xichen joins him.

On the opposite end of the couch.

Meng Yao hides behind a sip of his own flat beer quickly warming to room temperature as he contemplates the small (small) space between them and, between one disappointing sip and the next, decides he’s feeling reckless enough after a long day of new things and the freedom of traveling so many miles from home that he’s just going to go for it, and fuck the consequences.

Xichen slings his arm over the rest of the back of the couch, fingertips brushing lightly against Mingjue’s elbow where they overlap. Meng Yao sits down right in between them, settles in, and pointedly ignores the way the tired old couch springs squeak in protest of their combined weight and how he seems to pull the other two in like a magnet. It’s like gravity, centers of balance shifting and leaning inwards into his orbit, the pair of them bracketing him on either side, parentheses made of denim and muscle and smiling mouths that he pretends not to notice creeping closer as they keep finding excuses to lean in closer over the course of the next few minutes, not at all subtle. They drift in, in, in to talk to him over the music until they’re both practically kissing him on the cheeks just to be heard as they chat about nothing much at all.

Meng Yao finishes his beer and lets Xichen take the empty cup from him to set aside, and when he leans back in even closer than a moment before, Meng Yao offers him a coy little smile of the sort that’s weakened tougher men than Xichen seems to be and drops his newly-freed hand on his knee, mirroring the caress on Mingjue’s knee with his free hand on the other side.

It would be more than accurate to say that Xichen melts like butter — melts so obviously, in fact, that Mingjue laughs at him, hides it in Meng Yao’s shoulder, and seems to need no further excuse to just set up camp there so he can start nuzzling the tip of his nose into the crook of Meng Yao’s neck until he’s shivering pleasantly and feeling very much like the cat that got the cream.

Huaisang was right — this has never happened to him in New York, but he’s perfectly happy that it’s happening to him now.

–//–

Nie Huaisang isn’t the type to say ‘I told you so’ in so many words, mostly because he doesn’t actually say what he’s really thinking in the first place.

But if he were the type, he’d be saying it right now to anyone who would listen as he sips at a beer some jumped-up bull rider pressed into his hand with enough flustered used-to-be-definitely-absolutely-straight-but-now-he’s-confused flirting that Huaisang had given him an extra kiss or three to apologize for giving him a little sexuality crisis.

Maybe it’s weird for him to be so pleased to see his brother and his brother’s live-in-something tag teaming Huaisang’s own best friend, but, well. Meng Yao works way too hard for very little in return, and Huaisang thinks he deserves nice things. He’s certainly not immune to the ample charms of his brother’s farmer/rancher neighbors at least for a hazy summer, and he’d known that Meng Yao wouldn’t be able to resist either no matter how many fuck-off-I’m-totally-independent vibes he gives off when they’re back home.

Naturally if Meng Yao weren’t interested in sex Huaisang would leave him alone about it, but since he’s not he’d known perfectly well that there would be no resisting not one but two handsome men who could throw him over their shoulders as easily as they do bales of hay or sheep that need shearing. So, to that effect — the scene in front of him. Huaisang watches just long enough to see Xichen turn Meng Yao’s face to his with a gentle finger under his chin to coax him in for a kiss where they’re snuggled up all three together on the couch and then makes his escape to find his own fun for the night.

It’s already looking like it’s going to be quite the summer, and Huaisang basks in the pleasure of a plan well-executed with no one the wiser.

#the untamed fanfic #3zun #Modern AU #Orville Peck Cinematic Universe #officially the name of this universe (because there will definitely be more) lol #3zun but make them cattle ranchers because why not #Nie Mingjue #Meng Yao #Lan Xichen #Nie Huaisang

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