#My kindle is frozen

[winterline13]

Sometimes all it takes to delve back into your childhood bookworm is to pull out the 14 yr old Kindle from your childhood with books long since forgotten but still loved

[coolattasclown]

um some funny kindling myth i thinks

a widely believed creation myth is that when the universe was born one of their gods sparked a fire which became their sun. But it was weak and very cold, and their planet Iru was frozen. So the gods added fuel, too much fuel, and scorched Iru until there was only black charred creatures left. In order to regulate this great fire they created the kindlings out of the ashes of Iru and taught them how to control it and use it wisely. There is a bit of truth to this story, there’s evidence of several colder periods of Iru’s history, and the abundance of oxygen on their planet made it easier for wildfires to spread. Plus, Kindlings can’t see very far into red on the color spectrum, being more adapted to see into the uv range instead, so a kindling might look red to a human but to them they are a kind of black- orangeish color.

Another little myth they had before more scientific research proved otherwise was based around why the sky was so empty at night. Because of the ancient civilization before them and their smokescreen around the solar system of the kindlings which i talked about a while back, there are almost no stars visible in Iru’s night sky other than light from their sun reflecting off of moons and planets. These were thought to be embers from the sun that were left after it went out at night. Of course in the modern age the kindlings know the sun doesn’t actually go out at night and the other planets and moons are not embers, but its still told to kids sometimes.

i think i also talked about this somewhere but one common ideology on Iru is that all kindlings are fuel for the same fire; they’re all working towards a shared future/purpose and the best way to keep a fire going strong is to share the work. They’re a very community driven species. Although I’m not sure how they would feel about the discovery of other stars, planets, and intelligent civilizations. And with Olmi, I think that idea of community and helping one another is a bit lost at the moment.

[fireya-x]

skin on skin

This one is for @the-californicationist's writing challenge! ❤️

【 AO3 Link (full tag list) || masterlist 】 ✦ John Price x Reader ✦ A surprise waits for John when he returns home earlier than you expected… ✦ 1.4k words ✦ tags/cw: smut, mutual masturbation, dirty talk, creampie

It just felt too fucking good, thinking about your husband’s cock, stretching you, nudging against your walls in all the right places – it had been too long; he had been gone for a week, seven excruciatingly long days without his touch – and your hand rubbing and pinching your swollen clit barely did anything to clench the need you had for him.

The explicit whispers spilling from your earbuds only fueled the fire, painting a scenario of what you so desperately craved.

The sight before him was something else. Almost divine.

You were lost in a haze of self-pleasure, sweating, your face distorted, lost in concentration as the blanket moved frantically where your hand worked against your cunt. It took maybe seconds before his pants felt too tight, his dick responding to the frantic breaths and whimpers that left your lips. 

You hadn’t noticed you were being watched, at least not for a while.

His gaze burned into you, dark and hungry, and as if suddenly very aware of a presence at the door, your eyes shot open. The sudden movement ripped the earbuds out of your ears, and your heart hammered against your chest as your eyes met his.

A wave of heat flooded your cheeks, but before any flicker of embarrassment could form, you saw the raw lust in his eyes. 

“Don’t stop on my account,” he murmured, dark and velvety, gently cupping his hardening length through the cargo pants he was wearing. The one thing you craved so severely, hidden only behind a thin layer of fabric.

He slowly stalked towards you, and with one swift motion, the blanket was gone, exposing your naked body and your hand, now frozen between your folds. A predatory smile spread on his lips as his eyes devoured every inch of you, lingering on the glistening wetness between your thighs. He couldn’t resist, and one large calloused hand closed around your breast, thumb brushing over your nipple, while the other worked at his belt buckle with practised ease.

“What’s gotten you so worked up, hm?”

“Been thinking about you,” you confessed, breathing heavily, your eyes not leaving his.

His smile widened. He captured the wrist that had been attending to your needs and brought it to his lips. He kissed your knuckles, then took your fingers into his mouth, sucking gently, swirling his tongue around each digit as if savouring the world’s most delicious meal.

Your whole body shivered, and the emptiness between your legs was a painful void, reminding you of what he could be giving you. “Fuck, John, I need you,” you whimpered, the words torn from your throat.

“I can see that.” He released your hand and placed it back between your thighs.

“Please.”

“You were doing just fine on your own.”

“Please.”

He tilted his head as if thinking about it. “No.” With both hands placed on your knees, he pulled your legs apart even wider. He walked around and stood where he got the best view. “Go on. Keep going.”

You were too lost in him now that he was finally there; you didn’t even remember the words to protest. Like a puppet on a string, controlled by his presence alone, your finger parted your folds for him to see, and with one finger, you began drawing little circles on your clit.

“Yes, like that. Just let me watch.”

His voice was the kindling you had needed before; without it, you were unable to get lost in the sensation. No story or audio could do what he did, pulling and pushing the strings that drove your body to pure euphoria, and he didn’t even have to touch you.

He stood before you, a towering figure consumed by lust. He began to stroke himself, the slow, deliberate rhythm mimicking your movements. Your eyes darted between the intensity of his gaze and the mesmerising movement of his hand on himself. His thumb brushed over the tip, drawing a groan from deep within his chest. “Yes, just like that,” he groaned, his eyes fixed on your hand working between your legs. “Fuck, you’re driving me insane.”

You increased the rhythm; your fingers moved faster, mirroring the frantic pace of his hand on his cock, your gaze holding his. “I was imagining your fingers here,” you confessed, your voice breathless, “imagining your mouth, your tongue…”

A guttural groan ripped from his throat. “Tell me,” he begged, “tell me what you were thinking about before...”

“You were…mmm,” you sucked in a breath as the pleasure built. “You had me bent over – fucking me so hard and deep I saw stars –”

“Fuck,” he hissed, his breath coming in ragged gasps. 

He suddenly moved, his body crushing yours, skin on skin, pressing you into the mattress. The heat radiating from him was intoxicating, a brand against your sensitised flesh. His face was buried in your neck, his breath hot and ragged against your ear, sending shivers down your spine. You hadn’t even noticed his shirt was gone; your senses were overwhelmed by him. The hard planes of his chest, slick with sweat, seared into you, his muscles flexing and shifting against your body. Your breasts were crushed against him, and your nipples tightened against the rasp of his chest hair.

You could feel everything - the strength of his arms on your sides, the wiry hair of his forearms tickling your skin, the frantic drumbeat of his heart echoing your own.

He ground his hips against you, once, twice; as if to test whether he could still move while keeping your body flush against his. “Come on, you can do it. Keep going. Faster.”

Your body was writhing, shaking; you could have sworn your clit must have been screaming at the abuse – the peak was right there, so painstakingly close –

“You can do it. Hm? You don’t need my cock.”

You felt his hips move against you; he was fucking his hand beneath him, pressing you both into the mattress. With each thrust, the tip of his hot length moved against the skin of your thigh like a burning brand, creating friction that had him panting into your ear. Your overstimulated nerves were crying for release, but you couldn’t reach it.

“I do!” You almost screamed, frustrated.

“No, you don’t.” 

The heat between your legs was unbearable, your entire being focused on the pleasure building within you. He leaned even closer, pressing a kiss against your temple. “You were so desperate, you would have fucked yourself without me here. So come on, do it.”

“Pleasepleaseplease…” you begged, your voice barely coherent.

“Yes, that’s it, dirty little thing. Mmm.”

You focused on nothing else but the moans in your ear, the touch of his cock against your thigh, his hips stuttering against yours, and the finger you had managed to somehow push into your aching hole.

“Come for me, love.” His lips brushed against your ear, and his teeth nipped at your lobe. A ragged moan ripped from his throat as he thrust hard, his body pressing against yours. The friction was unbearable, exquisite, pushing you over the precipice. “Be a good girl and come –”

Your world shattered. A searing wave of pleasure ripped through you, your body arching involuntarily, your stomach pressing hard against his. He groaned, a primal sound torn from his chest, as he felt the ripple of your orgasm against him. The involuntary clench of your muscles, the frantic thrum of your pulse against his skin, the moans caught in your lungs as your chest crashed against him.

He wasted no time sheathing himself inside you; the feeling of him filling you, stretching you, was almost too much to bear. He rode out your climax, the involuntary clenching of your walls around him a sweet torment that sent him spiralling over the edge. He spilled deep inside you, so hard he thought he might faint, a shuddering sigh escaping his lips as he finally came home.

“Hi,” you whispered after coming down from your high and as your hand threaded through his sweat-dampened hair. He pressed a kiss to your belly, then to your breasts, before finally meeting your gaze.

“Hey.”

“You’re home earlier than I thought.” You smiled, a soft, content smile that reached your eyes.

He shrugged, a playful smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. “Got myself a nice surprise.”

“Next time,” you teased, your fingers tightening in his hair, “just fuck me when I’m already begging for it?”

He chuckled, the sound a low rumble in his chest. He leaned down, brushing a stray strand of hair from your forehead. “Where’s the fun in that?” 

[urhoneycombwitch]

heated touch

Eddie Munson x Reader summer edition.

foreword: “but Lulu it’s not even summer yet how come you wrote a pool fic” okay first of all global warming. it’s absolutely summer rn. hush up and eat up. 👼

cw: R wears bikini top + skirt, Eddie is Down Bad™️, and is also touchstarved, brief use of the awkward miscommunication trope, R’s baby hairs mentioned but no color or texture, weed mention (Robin is a stoner canon change my mind u can’t), R uses sunscreen (no skin color mentioned), implied plus-sized reader

wc: 3.4k

___

It’s the first real, normal, non-apocalyptic summer that anyone can remember having in a long, long time. 

With the heat index at a sizzling 97 today, various members of the Party have taken over Steve’s half-shaded, half-pool extravaganza of a backyard. The kids are jumping in and out of the bright blue water, splashing and cackling, while you and Robin stretch out like house cats in a sunny patch of grass nearby.

You, mere yards away, in a swim top and sweet little pleated tennis skirt. All that lovely skin on display, glistening in the light. 

And Eddie is sulking, indoors, frozen with lovesickness. There’s condensation dripping from the forgotten can of beer in his left hand; through the window above the kitchen sink, Eddie observes the scene in mournful silence.

“Christ, you really are a pussy.”

Eddie whips around with a glare that would level a normal human being, shushing Steve with a panicked fierceness that only makes the guy chuckle harder at Eddie’s expense. 

“Y’know,” Steve continues with the insults, dipping into the fridge and reappearing with a Fanta and a shit-eating grin- “You might want to try leering like a creep from the garage window. That way no will hear you jack off-”

“Oh, shut the fuck up, Harrington.” Eddie interrupts with a grade-A scoff and eye roll combo, rivaling Steve’s own bitchiness. “Wasn’t your last successful date back in high school, like, six years ago when you had better hair?”

Steve doesn’t even flinch. With condescending sympathy, he sighs and shakes his head of (beautiful-even-when-wet, damn him) hair, snapping the soda can tab with a flourish. “Might wanna hurry up and make a move. Can’t suppress my charm forever just ‘cuz you’re too chicken to man up- it’s not natural to keep all of this hidden away.”

Steve gestures to the broad expanse of his golden chest, dark thicket of hair sitting proud, the scars that he seems to have no qualms over showing off criss-cross along the flex of muscle at his sides. 

Realistically, Eddie knows Steve wouldn’t go after you, not even as a joke. It would defy the honorable and unmentioned Bro Code they’ve lived by ever since Eddie almost died in an alternate hell dimension and Steve valiantly pulled him back topside. 

Teasing, though? It’s Harrington’s godgiven right- especially since Eddie’s so hopelessly in love. It’s almost too easy to get him riled up, to light a fire under his ass to maybe finally get the situation some forward movement. 

Flames lick at the kindling. Steve walks backwards, shooting Eddie one last finger gun and wink before rejoining the boisterous outdoors crowd. Through the crack Steve’s left in the sliding glass door, Eddie can hear that asshole’s cheery voice ring out- “Lookin’ good, ladies!”- and your subsequent peal of laughter. 

Eddie can feel the heat through the black denim at his ass, sweat rushing to prickle at his pits underneath the light layer of tanktop- the one with a high-necked collar and sides long enough to conceal most of his scars. 

Not that he’s trying to hide ‘em, perse... they’re just sensitive to the sun. Plus his black jeans have holes in them, so they totally count as summer attire. He’s basically wearing shorts right now. Steve can suck it.

“Suck it, Steve,” Eddie grits out to no one for good measure, before taking a steadying gulp of beer and stepping bravely out beyond the glass doors. 

It’s shockingly bright, sun bouncing off the surface of the pool and rendering Eddie momentarily blind; he shields his eyes with his free hand in time to catch the tail end of Sinclair’s mid-air somersault.

“Five,” Max calls out, lounging safely out of the splash zone, waves from Lucas’s cannonball lapping at her pink donut pool float. Thick black prescription sunglasses take up half her face, expression unmoved even as her boyfriend splutters in the deep end.

“Are you kidding?” Lucas is indignant as he huffs and treads water. “Gimme at least an eight. Did you even see the flip?” 

“I saw it.” Unimpressed, Max shrugs a freckled shoulder. While Lucas devolves into swearing out his complaints (already with one elbow planted on the concrete to get out and make another attempt at a higher score), Max zeros in on Eddie, one brow arched high in searing appraisal. “You gonna swim with your boots on, too?”

“I’m- shut up, Red. Nice donut.”

Max’s triumphant smirk confirms what Eddie already knows (he totally bombed that comeback), but if there’s one thing in the world Eddie’s good at, it’s Pretending. A trait forged and perfected over the years of being reigning Dungeon Master; it’s served him well during D&D sessions, and when running from the law. 

And it’s coming in handy now, too, as Eddie walks past Steve (half-snoozing in a lounger) and the table of Baby Byers and Wheeler Jr. (playing an intense game of Slapjack), pretending to be totally Normal and Chill as he approaches you and Robin, a ways off from the bustling pool.

Go with what you know, Eddie tells himself, because if he focuses for more than two seconds on the fact that you’re stretched prone, sunlight filtering through the big tree overhead and illuminating the soft curves of your thighs just visible under the Spandex hem of your skirt, he’s gonna have a pressing issue that will be anything but pretend.

Robin’s lying on her back on the beach towel next to yours, a tattered copy of Pride and Prejudice held up close, obscuring her field of vision. Using this to his advantage, Eddie crouches on his haunches, then leans in to press his cold can of beer to the tender arch of Robin’s bare foot.

She yelps, kicking out on instinct (which Eddie was expecting). He manages to take the brunt of the hit with a forearm block, but doesn’t see the paperback coming until it’s hitting the side of his face.

“Ow, christ, Buckley,” he moans, slumping to sit on Robin’s towel, hamming up the victim act for your sake and sympathy while Robin snatches up her book and gives him another solid thwack, pages fluttering.

At the commotion, you’d lifted your head from your arms, leaning into them now with the weight of your upper half. Eddie tries really, really valiantly to not stare at your swimsuit top (practically a bra), and instead distracts himself with the fact that you were giggling. At him. 

Give the boy an inch and he’ll take a mile, Wayne is wont to say of his nephew. Never been truer than now, as Eddie gets drunk off your attention and humors, crowding familiarly and rudely into Robin’s space just to piss her off more and to keep your twinkling-eyed focus.

“Yech.” Robin gags. “I’m not gonna sit here and watch you two flirt up close. I just ate lunch.”

Eddie’s worried that comment will embarrass you into pulling away but apparently, you’re not shying from the accusations of his affection anymore. 

A snort and a sardonic eye roll is what you dish back, and Eddie latches on, delighted to have a Shit Starter in Crime, pushing an honest hand to his chest in faux-shock- “Flirting? Me? I’d never. What an accusation. You’re getting crazier by the day, Buckley.”

The peal of laughter that ripples from you is like a song, vibrating the frequencies between Eddie’s ears, scrambling all the channels with its aching beauty.

Goddamn addictive, he thinks, as the white-out of his hearing fades back to normal. A light, warm wind rustles through the big oak overhead, leaves shushing together; allowing himself a glance at your stretched form, Eddie’s (un)luckily close enough to see the smattering of goosebumps rise on the skin of your arms. 

To observe the way sweat curls the baby hairs near your temple, at the nape of your neck. To see the little creases near the corner of your eyes as you close them, turning your face into the wind, a quiet expression of summer bliss on your face.

Eddie could sit here for hours like a (happy) creep just taking in every minute detail, but Robin starts bitching at him about the weed he still owes her from ages ago, poking her cold toes into the holes of his jeans, mischievous and irritating.

Eddie smacks at her ankles until she pulls them back, matching her argument point for point; it’s not about the weed, of which he’d gladly give- it’s about keeping that smile on your face even as you sit up to start digging through your nearby tote bag.

“And plus,” Robin’s saying, sticking a finger into the dimple of Eddie’s left cheek like the obnoxious little sister he never asked for, “You scratched the everliving hell out of my bike last month when you insisted you were sober enough to ride it home.”

“What’d you want me to do, drink and drive? Not very Just Say No Club of you.” Eddie is operating on autopilot with his responses, absorbed in the way your delicate fingers move inside the canvas of the bag. 

“I wanted the same thing that I currently. Want.” Two more ice-cold prods of her toes into the same spot of his exposed knee. “Three grams, pre-rolled, plus an apology.”

Eddie is about to give in with the promise of the rest of his sizable stash and a bike waxing regimine with his own spit thrown into the mix to get Robin off his case, when the sound of your voice cuts through the bickering. 

In your hand, held aloft and out between the three of you, is a bottle of sun lotion. Your focus is fixed on shaking displaced items back into your bag, not looking as you make a request:

“Babe, would you do my back?”

Eddie moves on instinct before he even has time to process the ask, reaching out towards the palm tree-printed plastic- but for some reason, Robin’s hand collides with his mid-air. Goddammit, Buckley. 

His annoyance at Robin quickly gives way to confusion, then roiling embarrassment as two sets of eyes whip to him, your mouth slightly parted in an o shape and Robin making a squeak of awkward alarm.

You were talking to Robin. Obviously, you were talking to your girl friend to rub you down with lotion. 

Jesus christ, Munson, get a grip.

Eddie lets go at the same time Robin and you draw back, the three of you stammering half-sentences over the thunk of the bottle hitting the ground.

“I meant- sorry, god, sorry, I meant Robin-”

“Fucking- jesus, of course you meant Robin, I’m sorry-”

“Oh god! I can do it! It’s fine!”

There’s a brief pause where all of you stare down at the bottle, as if it holds some great mystery of the world. Or is perhaps concealing a time-bending device that will let Eddie go back twenty seconds to kick himself in the head.

He’s just about to make some lame excuse to fuck off forever when Robin beats him to it, jumping up with a spastic, nervous energy. “Um. Steve’s calling me. So I gotta… see what that dingus wants. You’re good?”

This last part, directed at you; with a quick, reassuring nod, you say “I’m good.” 

Seemingly recouped from the whole debacle, you squint up at Robin- “Eddie’s got it,” and then fixing Eddie with a disarmingly beatific smile- “Right?”

It’s like looking into the sun. Eddie is pretty sure his neurons haven’t been firing properly ever since he caught a glimpse of your thighs earlier. By some miracle, he manages coherence- “Uh-huh. Yep. Right.”

“O-o-kay.” Robin lets the word expand, then gives a dorky two-finger salute and makes for the empty pool lounger next to a snoring Steve.

Then it’s just you and Eddie, blinking at each other from your seats on opposing towels, until you lean to pick up the bottle, this time handing it directly to him. 

An invitation, paired with a smile that still pulls at the corners of your mouth.

Someone jumps noisily into the pool, a few scattered cheers accompanying the crashing water. Red’s distant “Nine-five!” echoes through the backyard and this, of all things, spurs Eddie into unfreezing.

He takes the proffered lotion, shifting to kneel in the strip of grass not covered by either of your towels, waiting and watching for your approval. 

Like something out of a dream, you lower yourself face-down again, hands tucking themselves sweetly into the space between the hollows of your shoulders and the ground. Eyes half-lidded as Eddie scooches closer.

“Just on your back?” He asks, soft, like you’re a deer about to spook (although based on the way his hands are trembling, Eddie’s the more likely candidate for chickening out and running for the hills).

“Mhm. Please.”

Fumbling under your sidelong gaze, Eddie wiggles all the rings from his fingers, stuffing them into his pocket. 

“Too cold,” he explains, feeling fidgety from your eye contact, rubbing his hands together briskly to bring out the warmth and give them something to do other than shake.

Eddie pines for a cigarette, a quick burst of nicotine to steel his nerves. Instead, he picks up the sunscreen, squeezes a quarter-sized puddle into his left hand, and shifts to kneel close as he can without actually bumping his knees into your side.

The sunscreen is already warmed from being out in the heat of the day, so Eddie starts on your left shoulder. Dips his fingers into the puddle, spreads a thin layer on the blade of your shoulder, and rubs it in. 

At first, his touch is gentle and apprehensive, but when your eyes drift shut on the second pass of his fingers, Eddie gets a bit bolder. On your right shoulder, another layer of suncream goes on, but this time, Eddie lets his thumb slip into the grooves under your shoulder blade. 

He runs his thumb along the stripe of muscle next to your scapula, still with pressure light enough to feign keeping to his task, thrilled when you make a soft noise of satisfaction.

“I would’ve asked you, y’know.” 

Eddie pauses, hand resting at the top of your spine, the skin of your neck freshly glistening and tacky from his work. “Asked me what?”

“To do this.” You shrug a shoulder, pointing in a roundabout way at your back. “I just… I didn’t think you’d say yes.”

“Why the hell would I say no to this?” The words are out before Eddie can bite them back and find a much more cool and normal thing to say. He can feel your chuckle, the vibrations of it, the way it causes the muscles in your upper back to move.

Eddie tries to cover his lameness by refocusing on the mission he’s been given, like a heroic knight bestowed with a great honor by a fair maiden… on second thought, he’s got to cut out the fantasy metaphors. This situation is wild and tempting enough as-is without adding a potentially very horny layer to the mix.

“You can get under my top, if you want,” you murmur, lashes dark against your cheek in profile, voice all honeyed and fair-maiden-like. 

Eddie swallows hard. Distributes the rest of the lotion between two palms, rests them just below the black fabric, and then slides up. Underneath the top, your skin is the same- smooth and pliant and sweet. 

“Feels nice,” you whisper, eyes still closed in reverie, sounding sleepy and relaxed.

Eddie is entranced with the way your muscles move under his touch. He applies a bit more pressure to the mid-back area of your spine, dragging his thumbs down on either side. You make another noise, this one closer to a moan, and Eddie’s really glad he’s practiced at the skill of Boner Killer On Command because he wouldn’t dare sully the atmosphere with ill-timed arousal (though his limits are certainly being tested today).

“Sorry about the callouses,” he says, a bit of self-deprecation to fill the air because he’s gotta focus on something other than the way his hand fits perfectly in the center of your low back.

“S’okay. I like them, actually. You’re good with your hands.”

Not for the first time, Eddie is relieved that you’re not looking at him- his ears are burning, on their way to bright pink. Same with his cheeks. “Cool, yeah. That’s good. Um. I play guitar, y’know so… I get around.”

After cringing at himself, Eddie watches the apple of your cheek round upwards with a smile, a sharp flash of your teeth as you say, “I can tell.”

There’s an amiable quiet that falls over the two of you; in the background, splashes and chattering from the pool group float in the air, muted by the warm winds shushing through overhead branches. 

At one point, Eddie realizes he’s covered your whole back in sunscreen and is now just trailing his fingertips over the notches of your spine, starting low and ending near your neck, following the path down again in a loop. If you mind, you don’t say anything, seemingly sated by his touch. 

There’s an aching behind Eddie’s ribs. It squeezes at his heart, makes his next breath pinch- he wants to touch you like this all the time. He’s already hooked. 

All too soon, you’re peeling yourself from the blanket, sitting up with a sheepish smile. Eddie can’t tell if you’re getting shy on him from the touch alone, or if it’s the fact that he’s the one that’s been touching. 

Either way, if Eddie could find a more chill way to say “I’d like to do that every minute for the rest of my life if you’ll let me,” he’d say it to appease any worries you may have. 

Bare knees pulled to your chest, you gesture at the bottle still in Eddie’s hand. “I could… do you, if you wanted?”

Eddie scratches the back of his neck, through the heated curtain of curls. “Nah, that’s okay. My abs won’t be ready to debut until the end of summer. 1993.”

He’s expecting at least a chuckle out of you, but instead, he’s fixed with a kind, all-knowing look. 

The two of you are face to face, your shin close enough to brush Eddie’s ribs as you state, “Not a fan of the heat, are you.”

“What gave it away?” Eddie gestures animatedly at the humidity-fed frizz of his hair, then shakes his head like a wet dog. 

When you catch one of his curls between two fingers he freezes, heart slamming to a pause as you loop it around a knuckle.

“I have some deep conditioner at my place. Could help you out if you wanna come by some time.”

Mere inches from his cheek as you lean in, Eddie squeezes his eyes shut, trying to memorize how you smell- coconutty from the lotion, a bit sweaty, a faint hint of deodorant and the vanilla perfume you spray in the mornings. 

He’s never been this close before. 

He feels electric. Or more accurately, like he’s been electrocuted, and he’s waiting for you to restart his heart. 

“Does that sound good, Eddie? You, me, some hair care… maybe a movie? I can steal some from Family Video. I know a guy.”

At his ear now, your voice is low as you wrap a hand around the inside of Eddie’s arm- it’s his turn to break into goosebumps. “Oh yeah? Willing to steal for me already?”

This earns him a stellar laugh, head tipped back to show the curve of your perfect neck. You shove at him playfully, and he’s about to snap up your hand to bite as payback when your name is yelled from across the yard.

“Come on, we need another unbiased judge!” Max waves urgently from the pool as Lucas and Dustin get into an increasingly loud argument over the Olympic grading system. 

“Goddamn kids.” This comes out much more growly than Eddie intended; you just chuckle and squeeze his arm before pulling away to stand.

Eddie mourns the loss of your body heat until you extend a hand towards him, saying, “Let’s go humor our goddamn kids, and we can talk about dinner afterwards.”

It’s like your hand is made to fit inside Eddie’s. He follows close on your heels, heart thudding a steady, overjoyed rhythm once more. 

[reiderwriter]

hii!! can you do 49 and 68 please??? i love ur writing so much btw

prompts: #49 - "I'm so fucking obsessed with you." #68 - "Sit on my face."

A/N: Thank you for much for requesting! Munch Spencer for the win once again! Not to sound like a broken record, but I think I'm physically incapable of writing a smut that I dont somehow become obsessive over 🫡 I hope you like it!!

Warnings: possessive Spencer, oral sex (f receiving), multiple orgasms, alight come play, penetrative sex, creampie, just some very obsessive writing ngl. 18+ MINORS DNI (that means do not interact for those of you who still don't understand!!)

You weren't sure if you were going to give into him.

You know it'd taken a lot of courage for the man to ask you out, you'd seen first hand that he threw himself head first into relationships, and that meant he was entirely careful about kindling them.

But you'd been so shocked by Spencer Reid's admission that he was romantically interested in you that you'd all but gaped at him the entire time he stood there talking you through it.

After he'd finished, you still didn't know what to say, you just knew that your entire body was aflame with the words he'd dropped in the space between you, and you were vaguely aware that your phone had clattered to the floor, forgotten.

“Y/N, what do you say? Will you let me take you on a date? Please?”

He stood fidgeting in front of you and you almost apologised but your tongue still wouldn't move accurately.

You swallowed, and calmed your heart from the tempest it was running through in your chest to answer him.

“I need some time to think. We work together, it's going to be complicated and I want to make sure I think this through.” He'd politely agreed to that and seen himself out of your apartment, having appeared on your doorstep at near midnight on a work night.

And two weeks later, you were no closer to your answer.

But Spencer seemed to have grown bolder in his advances. He seemed to have taken your entire plight of never realising he was into you to heart, though. Because you sure as hell knew where he stood now.

He used every excuse to put his hands on you.

He came up behind you, putting his hands on your waist as he slid past you, moving you this way and that to arrive at his intended destination.

You'd found that a most annoying male trait in the past, but when Spencer attempted it, you practically leaned into his heat, shivering each time his hands brushed you.

He'd taken to brushing your hair out of your eyes as well, tucking it behind your ear in front of others, and, embarrassingly enough, tying it up for you with one of his own hair elastics.

You'd frozen in the moment as you leaned down to examine some footprints on a case, complaining your hair was in your face as he immediately came up behind you and began gently pulling it up himself.

His fingers moved skillfully, and felt soothing on your scalp as he made sure to get every hair.

You couldn't even say a word of thanks as you sat there wondering what the fuck had just happened, and if anyone else had been witness to it.

Luckily, no one had, and you could only contemplate it alone.

And contemplate it you did. In bed. In the shower. In your sleep. You couldn't stop contemplating it.

You couldn't seem to step over the boundary of professional working relationship to more, though.

So you weren't exactly surprised when he showed back up on your doorstep a month later.

“Spencer. Did something happen?” you breathed a slow sigh as you opened the door to see him standing there, still and tense, as if he was ready to spring an attack at any second.

“I'm obsessed with you.” His voice was low as he took a slow step forward, letting his gaze rest on your lips, and not moving it as he continued his path forward.

“I'm obsessed with you and I've tried to show you that for the last month, and god, please you have to please release me from this if you can't accept it.” He took another step closer and then he was in your apartment and closing the door behind him, blocking out the cold that had your nipples hardening. You assumed it was the cold.

“I think about how you would taste daily, how you would smell, how you would feel wrapped around me, the sounds you would make. I think about any other man getting close to you and I feel angry and sad and my chest physically aches.”

“I think about how I could make you happy, how you'd smile at me every morning,” his hand hesitantly reached up to tuck another stray hair behind your ear as he stuttered through yet another confession.

He was close now, so close your back was pressed against a wall as you resisted your chest meeting his.

“I will leave and never mention this or touch you again if you can't take that on, but if even one part of you thinks this is an experience you want…”

You finally looked into his eyes as your fingertips rushed forward to touch him, darting out to feel his chest and press yourself further into his warmth.

The physical confirmation must have been enough, as in moments his lips were dropping to meet your own in a sweet, but still strong kiss.

He moved achingly slowly as he wrapped his arms around you, pulling you further in to his atmosphere, taking each small caress as an indulgence, each run of your lips across his as a blessing coated in lust.

He went so luxuriously slow, that you had to be the one to pull him in closer, to give into the passion threatening to throttle you from inside out.

You tugged him back through your apartment to your bed, making sure to rid him of his coat as you went, lips still exploring each other as you did. His hands held you firmly, wrapping you up in a strong embrace even as you needed him to move faster, to touch, caress, tease, and pleasure you.

You pushed him away when your back hit another wall, only so you could get some air between you as you waited for the next logical step in the direction you were headed.

“Spencer, I want you to make love to me.” You always hated that phrase, feeling it was so cheesy and overly sentimental, and yet that was the only way you could describe what you wanted from him.

He looked at you and suddenly, it was as if a flip had switched inside him. His slow, discovering kisses became bruising and hot as he marked his way down your neck, eager to please and desperate to know all of you. Your body was another book Spencer needed to read, more knowledge for him to acquire and never forget, never let go of.

Gently raising you off the ground, he pinned you against the wall, as you wrapped your legs around his waist, feeling his notable arousal through his clothes. He began divesting you of yours, the casual t-shirt you'd slipped into after work being easy work for his hands, sweatpants following suit as he memorised every inch of flesh visible to him.

With two hands firmly cradling your ass, he made his way into your bedroom, and sat on the edge of the bed, you in hand. Your core rubbed over his cock, and a deep dissatisfaction crept up your body. You were empty and you wanted so badly for him to fill you.

Your need became a great force clawing at his clothes, rocking your hips into him needing as you scrambled button after button, wishing your hands would obey your mind.

He groaned under you, the sound catching you off-guard and flooding your panties even more. He caught your hips and steadied your pace as you worked yourself up to a high without ever having fully touched him.

“Y/N…” He breathed it out like a prayer and a curse combined, pushing your hips down tighter as he tried to put an end to your elicit movements.

“Y/N stop, I want…” His lips finally left your neck as he took a deep breath, opening his eyes to look directly into yours.

“Sit on my face.” It was a demand, one that wouldn't be ignored, and honestly, you weren't sure you wanted to ignore it.

He laid himself down more comfortably on the bed, pulling you down with him as he stroked small circles into your lower back.

His hands worked down until they reached the waistband of your panties, hooked a finger under them and slowly dragged them off your ass, forcing your hips up to get them further away from his prize.

“Please, Y/N. Please sit on my face.” You moaned at the request again, dropping one final messy kiss to his lips before climbing up and over his head.

You completed the job he started with your underwear, deciding to go the extra mile and discard your bra as well. He wrapped his hands around your thighs and shifted your cunt to better suit his own position, and you braced yourself as he pulled you closer to his devilish tongue.

The first swipe of it was so foreign that you almost bolted upright like a cat dropped into a bathtub. But he held you fast and pulled you right back down as he began his meal. He'd said his prayers, and now he was ready to indulge himself in the taste he'd been craving for the last month.

You braced your hands on the metal headboard of your bed, thankful that you lived alone as you knew there was no way of muffling the noises that were beginning to toll off your tongue.

Head thrown back in pleasure, it was all you could do to not beg him to never stop, to keep up your pleausure for eternity, even as he left himself unsatisfied and rock hard.

Everytike you pulled slightly back from the stimulation, he pulled you even further in, until you were sure he couldn't breath, his mouth and nose so lost in your heat and so intent on your pleasure.

You almost forgot it was his face below you, and started desperately riding him, grinding your clit into anything that would allow for some friction.

Every few minutes he came up for a larger breath, letting his fingers slip inside you as he explored your every reaction.

There was only so much you could take, and apparently tongue and fingers was just that step too far, as you let your body convulse over him.

He let you ride it out, drinking in every drop of juice that escaped you, finally getting that taste he'd become so obsessed with discovering.

When you finally pulled away, his lips and chin were slick with your arousal, and his face was awash with desire.

A tiny push had you on your back as he crawled up between your legs again, taking the time to unclassified his pants and pull them off, discarding them along eith the shirt you'd so painstakingly unbuttoned for him.

“I am going to make love to you, Y/N, and you are going to be mine. You'll always be mine.” His forehead rested against your own as he finally slid inside of you, sheathing his whole cock inside of you as it expanded with his intrusion, trying to find room for him.

He fit like a glove, provided the glove felt this fucking good, so warm and comforting to know he was filling you completely.

His thrusts began and you were almost overwhelmed by the sheer arousal he inspired in each heartbeat.

Wanton moans left your mouth as words failed you, tongue lolling about as you desperately wished he'd slip his head down to let you taste yourself on him.

“I love you so much, Y/N,” he said, tightening his grip on your hips so much you were sure his nails were going to leave tiny crescents carved into your very bones.

Your second orgasm snuck up on you, hips suddenly jolting up as if they'd a mind of their own, milking his cock as he whimpered at the sudden tightness.

“Y/N, I love you. I love you, I love you I love you so much,” the words were overwhelming as you struggled to speak through the after shocks of your climax, legs still twitching even as he spilled his seed inside of you.

“Now you're mine,” he whispered into your ear as he again found a stray lock of your hair and tugged it right back behind your ear, as if it would help you to see him that much clearer.

Your vision was already so filled with him though, that you were sure it would not matter how far he was or how obstructed your view, he would be the only thing you saw for the rest of your life.

Maybe you were a little obsessed with him as well.

[deepdarkdelights]

As You Wish | Yoongi x Reader

Pairing: Werewolf Yoongi x Reader

Word Count: 21k

Warnings: 18+, Spice but no Smut, Yandere, Obsession, Fear, Non-Consensual Kissing, Grieving, Passive Suicidality, MC experiences major depression, Non-Consensual Touching, Breaking and Entering, Stalking, Depictions of Gore, Blood, Technically Cannibalism? Loss of Spouse, Loss of Child, Forced Found Family, Hunting, Mass Death, Attempted Burning and the stake, MC is hit by a man (not Yoongi)

I do not condone the acts displayed in this story nor do I believe any members of BTS would actually engage in this type of behavior. This is simply written for entertainment purposes and should not be taken as a reflection of my own values, opinions, or morals. 

Preview: You couldn’t even scream when the door was ripped from its hinges, the beast breaking through it like it was wet parchment. You were petrified in place, hyperventilating and trembling at the sight of it. 

It was a giant wolf. It was covered from head to toe in midnight black fur although there were spots that seemed thinner than others that were littered in scars - slashes and bite wounds from what you could only imagine were others of its kind. It was larger than a horse with a head so huge it could bite your own clean off in one impressive snap. And then there were the eyes. They were glowing an ice cold silver in the dark with a glare that felt sharp enough to slice through you while a gnarled scar marred the fur and skin of its right eye.

A/N: I’m exhausted and grad school sucks but I really wanted to get this out for your guys. I hope you enjoy it, I spent way more time on it than I wanted to. I really thought it was only going to be 8k yet here we are…21k. Anyway, I miss all of you - sorry this is so long lol, this is SUPER UNEDITED. As usual, I can’t wait to see you in my inbox and comments, I love you and hope you enjoy 

The sweet scent of flowers greeted your nose as you cracked open the window for the first time in months. 

Despite the warmth of sunshine and the bright green strokes of grass outside, it very well could have still been winter. It felt as if no time had passed since that fateful day. In your heart, winter still raged on. There were gnarled, ice-coated branches there and a torrent of never-ending snow. It had frozen over since then. 

You carried this sense of numbness you had never thought you would be capable of, it was as if your very soul had been corroded by frostbite. Any love or passion or warmth had been snuffed out like a match in the dark. 

That was the thing about grief, it could change a person into something that was beyond recognition. And your grief was immeasurable. 

When you got married, you never imagined your husband would die within the first year. 

It truly had been a cruel winter that year. The two of you were making do with what food you had. He had always been so smart, planning out what you could have each day so that it would last until spring. The only problem was the fire wood. No one could have anticipated how cold it was going to be and if you hadn’t burned as much kindling as you did you were certain you would have frozen to death. 

You could still remember that gentle look he had given you before he left. The soft touch of his fingers to your cheek, the gentle kiss he left you with. He still had every ounce of charm he had had as a boy. He had always been kind and sweet to you. He was the gentlest man you had ever known. That was why his death hurt even more. 

You had been worried the minute he left, but as minutes bled into hours and the winter sun quickly disappeared behind the mountains you were frightened to the bone. He had only an ax and a knife with him. He brought no food and no more clothing than what was on his back. He was planning on making a short trip and if he didn’t come back right away the chances of him surviving the night were slim to none. 

His body was found the next day. 

Honestly, you didn’t remember that day all too well. Everything was a blur, you could faintly remember hearing the voices of a few men from the village, the feeling of your raw throat after screaming senselessly, and the surplus of food and supplies that were sent your way with small slips of paper that read: “Our condolences.” 

They wouldn’t let you see his body and that was something you would never forgive them for. You didn’t care how bad it was, you wanted to see him with your own eyes and you were never afforded that closure. But you had heard enough from hushed whispers outside. 

“Pieces,” they had said. 

He had been mauled to pieces. They couldn’t even find all of him and what was left of him had huge teeth marks raked through flesh. It was an animal attack. Just like you and your husband, they were hungry. 

And now you were all alone. You were a pariah, one that people pitied, but a pariah nonetheless. You would never be able to marry again, not that you wanted to, but no one would want a widow as their wife. That was the way of things, you were meant to live out the rest of your days in solitude. Nothing more than a sad story mother’s would tell their children as you passed through the markets in silence. Your story would become a warning for children not to wander off into the woods. Your tragedy would become a lesson. 

The only lesson that you had learned was that love meant pain. You had given yourself to someone entirely, and when they had parted from you, you were left with nothing. That was the danger of love, losing yourself. 

After months of wishing you had followed him out of this world, you were hit with the sudden clarity that you were being selfish. He had left to try and save the both of you, but here you were wasting the life he had given you. He had sacrificed himself in order for you to keep living for the both of you. 

Choosing to live was so much harder than choosing to die. 

You shoved those horrendous thoughts to the back of your mind as you traveled through your small cottage, prying open every stiff window that you passed by. Living meant starting with the little things, like getting your home in order. It didn’t feel the same without him, but at least now that it was warmer out you wouldn’t have to stay inside and constantly be reminded of his absence. 

You stripped your bed, gathered up the used linens, and scooped up piles of worn clothes from the floor before depositing them in the basket. You were distracting yourself, that much you were certain of. But any distraction was welcome, you couldn’t bear the silence filled thoughts of him any longer. 

You heaved the basket up onto your hip and made for the door, pausing as you were faced with the blooming greenery beyond the threshold. The breeze was cool, the air was fresh. The world was starting over once again, why was it so hard for you? 

You shook the troubling thought from your head, squared your shoulders, and took a deep breath. You could at least try. And so, you stepped outside for the first time in months and faced the world. It was almost like nothing changed. The birds still chirped, the insects sang, and the rush of the river called from a distance. 

That was the other thing about grief. While it felt like your world ended, in reality, it still rushed onward. 

The soft grass sunk beneath your feet and sprung back to life as you walked, your body tense as you approached the forest. You weren’t going in too far, it was just the edge where the trees were still spread out and not too thick. You just needed to get to the river. But you couldn’t deny the sense of paranoia that was set in your bones. This was where he died, where he was mauled and consumed by whatever inhabited the forest. It would make sense that whatever animal that had ended his life was still prowling in the shadows, waiting for its next meal. 

“Stop it,” You snapped at yourself, your voice hoarse from lack of use and louder in the soft sounds of nature. 

You weren’t going far, you were going to be safe. There was no reason to be so anxious when you wouldn’t be putting yourself in danger. You weren’t walking into the lion's den, you were doing laundry. 

Despite your scolding, you still snapped your head in every direction when you finally reached the river. You were unsettled by every little noise, hyper aware of everything that was going on around you. For a task that was so mundane, you felt so on edge. 

The rush of icy water against your hands was enough to help you focus on the task at hand. The river had finally unfrozen. While your husband and yourself frequently bathed in the river during the warmer months, you had no plans on doing that anytime soon lest you be chilled to the bone and catch your death. Maybe when you were younger you would have risked it all for a moment of fun. But you were older now, matured by time and tragedy. It was harder to have fun now. 

You threw the shirt you were washing on a rock beside you, the force of the toss resulting in a loud, wet slap. Your body bent forward under an oppressive imaginary weight as your icy fingers braced your face, a frustrated sigh leaving your lips causing your body to sink even further. 

Living for two people was going to be even harder than you thought. Even these simple, menial tasks felt exhausting. It had been a miracle you had been able to drag yourself out of bed, that you had made it outside, that you had even journeyed to the river. But those things should be easy, so why did they feel so hard? 

You felt weak.

Useless. 

Helpless. 

You couldn’t help but think had the roles been reversed, he would have been stronger than you. He would have mourned but he would have been able to survive. He would have been able to find another wife, he would have had the children he always wanted, and he could have been happy. It was hard to not feel like it should have been you, like you were just wasting the life he had given you. It was hard to not crumble beneath the crashing waves of grief that eroded your resolve. 

It was too hard. 

A high pitched whimper broke you out of your spiraling thoughts, your hands dropping to your lap and your head snapping to attention. You held your breath and pursed your lips, listening closely to try and hear the sound again. 

And there it was again. Although this time it was much louder and much longer. It sounded like something was in pain. And your curiosity got the better of you. 

You shifted your basket to the side and stood, gathering your skirts in one hand as you carefully lept from stone to stone as you crossed the river. Your heart raced as you slipped once then twice, the stones slick from the rushing water, but the cries were becoming louder and closer and you felt as if you had no other choice but to find out what they were coming from. 

Once you crossed the river, you moved slowly through the grass so as to not startle whatever it was that was frightened. Every now and then you would pause and hold your breath, listening intently for the creature's cries before following them once more. You could just barely make out the shape of the animal, its body concealed by a thick underbrush of branches, leaves, and thorns. 

You dropped down to your knees with abandon and blindly reached into the shrubbery. The cries were much louder now as the creature was startled by your invading hands. Thorns raked through your flesh as you grabbed hold of the small furry body and pulled, trying your hardest to gently remove the little animal. A loud cry made you stop, halting all of your progress. It looked like it was tangled up in something. 

You quickly moved on to your second plan and softly placed the animal back down before grabbing thorn laced branches and snapping them with your bare hands. You hissed in pain as blood beaded up from the small cuts that now decorated your palms. You couldn’t fathom where this sudden rush of determination came from or why you felt like you so desperately needed to do this. That same rush that came over you to find the animal was present and even stronger with the desire to free it. You felt it on some deeper level, that you just couldn’t leave it behind. 

There was a generous pile of branches beside you now and you could very clearly see what you were dealing with. It looked like a puppy. It was very small with soft chocolate brown fur, a short nose, and the cutest pointed ears. Its big brown eyes were welled up with tears, its tail tucked between its legs, and its entire body shook in fright. 

Your horror stricken gasp was muffled as you involuntarily covered your mouth in surprise. The poor pup was tangled up in a snare. The wire was cinched tightly around its hind leg, chest, and foreleg, cutting in so tightly that blood was visible on the metal. The poor thing had run right into the trap and was stuck. You could only hope that it wasn’t intended for the puppy, that it had run into some hunter’s trap purely by accident. 

Your already lacerated hands went straight back to work trying as you attempted to untangle the snare as gently as you could. You hissed as it sliced your palms but paused only a moment to wipe the blood off on your pinafore before continuing your work. By the time you had finally managed to undo the trap, beads of sweat clung to your neck and the sun had moved a decent way across the sky. 

“There you go,” You murmured, “you’re free.” 

The puppy, although now free, didn’t move. Its deep brown eyes stared up at you as it continued to whine, its entire body still shaking with unadulterated fright. 

“Can you walk?” You asked, sitting back on your calves to get a better look at the animal.

You were shocked when it responded, in a way. The puppy attempted to stand and then walk, but it only made it two steps with a clear limp before it collapsed flat on its belly with a yipe. 

“Of course you can’t, I’m sorry,” You cooed as you reached out. Your hand paused in midair, hesitating before trying to touch the puppy. It was probably a wild dog, so it was not a good idea to go touching an animal that very well could bite you, no matter how cute it was. 

The puppy, as if it had read your mind, answered for you by leaning forward and sniffing your fingers with a cold, wet nose, before lapping at them with its little tongue. It was like any other puppy then, it wasn’t aggressive yet. 

You chewed your lip in thought as you watched the pup. It wasn’t a good idea to take in stray animals, but it was injured and leaving it in the forest would be like ringing a dinner bell for all the predators in the area. All of the blood the pup and yourself had shed was certainly not helping. And then there was the crippling loneliness of your cottage. A dog would be good for that. It would be something to share the space with, something to break up the cacophonous silence. And, when it grows older, it would be good for protection as well. The benefits outweigh the negatives you selfishly refused to think of. 

With the pup’s approval, you lifted it up and cradled it into your side much like a mother would her child. You giggled in delight from the feeling of a wet nose burrowing its way into your shoulder and neck, sniffing the cloth of your dress and your skin like it was trying to become accustomed to you. 

You crossed the river even slower now on your way back, very aware of the precious animal you were protecting. When you stopped at the river bank, you gathered your abandoned laundry and placed the puppy in the basket. You didn’t really care about the dirt, grass, and blood that would inevitably stain the fabrics - afterall, they still needed to be cleaned and you had much more pressing issues to attend to. 

You walked back with a sudden urgency in your steps, a small trill of excitement buzzing in your being. After months of isolation and misery, something so small had brought you joy, something that had been unimaginable a few hours before. 

The pup was much calmer now, softly panting instead of crying as it laid in your basket of sheets, eyeing the world that passed by as you brought the two of you back to your cottage. When you made it inside, you shut the bottom half of the door, leaving the top half open to allow fresh air in without the risk of the pup wandering out and falling down the stone steps. When you placed the basket on the ground it nosed at the sheets for a moment before limping out of the basket. 

“No, no, no, stay right there,” You chided, gently scooting it back into the sheets, “you’ll hurt yourself worse if you do that.” 

You stayed a moment, locking eyes with the pup to ensure that it would stay and understand. When you were certain that it was calmed you finally turned your back and headed into the kitchen. You rummaged through the cabinets, searching for the healing salves and creams you knew had been there months before along with the strips of makeshift bandages. 

Within mere moments of turning your back on the puppy you were alerted once more by its cries. It had tried following you again but was now laying in a heap on the floor, tangled up in the sheet and crying from the pressure it applied on its wounds. 

You dropped the bandages and rushed to the pup, cooing as you picked it up and cradled it against your chest. The little thing was an escape artist, that was certain. 

You let out a deep sigh as an uncomfortable thought brewed in your mind. It was the only option that you could think of, even though it was terribly unpleasant. Before you could dwell too much you headed towards the back of the cottage where a single door was fixed into the frame. It stuck at your first pull but relented on the second, the hinges creaking in defeat as you entered the room. 

Any furniture that was in the room was coated with a thin layer of dust having gone undisturbed for months. That old wound in your heart was bleeding around the edges now, the pain of avoided thoughts bubbling back up to the surface. 

There was a crib against the far wall of the bedroom. 

You swiftly moved to the back of the room and gently placed the pup inside the crib. The sides were high enough that the injured dog would be unable to climb over and you were confident that this was the safest place for the poor thing. 

But even that knowledge couldn’t stop tears from pricking at the corner of your eyes as your hands subconsciously cradled your belly. Your pregnancy had been short lived. Losing your husband had been the catalyst to losing your child, but you couldn’t help but blame yourself. Even though the midwife had promised you it wasn’t your fault you couldn’t see how that could be true. If you had been stronger, if you had taken better care of yourself, you would have been able to save that last piece of him. 

If you hadn’t been pregnant, maybe things would have been different. Your husband would have stayed and you would have figured out how to make it through the rest of the winter. But you had been pregnant, he had left to find more resources because of that, and even though he sacrificed his life for you and your unborn child you hadn’t been able to save them. 

You couldn’t see how any of this wasn’t your fault when you were at the center of it all. 

The feeling of cool tears rolling down your cheeks shocked you back to reality. You weakly wiped the tears away, sniffed, and shook your head. You needed to clean yourself and the pup up, you had priorities. 

You rushed around the cottage, busying yourself with what needed to be done. You ran to the water pump and wet some rags, retrieved the salves and bandages, and grabbed a bowl of poultry meat for the dog. This was a welcome distraction. 

You were greeted by excited, squeaky barks when you returned to the abandoned nursery. The pup eagerly paced back and forth, its little tail wagging so hard its entire backside wiggled. You let out a gentle giggle before releasing it from the crib and sitting the two of you on the floor, pulling the pup into your lap and distracting it with a strip of meat while you assessed its injuries once more. 

You blinked once and then twice in confusion. You could have sworn the wounds had been much worse not more than half an hour ago. The slashes were still bloody and in need of tending to, but they were not the deep, gnarled gashes that had once needed stitching. You were either still out of your mind or this animal had the fastest healing time you had ever seen. 

It was much easier to believe that your mind was failing you. And so, you got to cleaning and wrapping the wounds. The pup was surprisingly well behaved, only whimpering every now and then as you touched a tender spot but it didn’t jerk away and did its best to stay still as it ate. The more time you spent with it, the more you realized it was much smarter and more aware than you had once thought. Everything about the little creature seemed eerily human when you thought about it too much. It was better to not think about it too hard. 

Trapped in your own mind, you hadn’t realized that you had finished your work. Not until you felt the gentle lap of a little tongue against the wounds that decorated your palms, jolting you back into the real world. 

You pulled your hands away with a pained hiss before reprimanding the puppy, “No, no, no, I don’t know where that mouth of yours has been. The last thing we need is an infection.”

The puppy whined in earnest and nosed at your palm once more before you pulled your hands away again and scooped the little thing back up into your arms. This way, it wouldn’t be able to mess with the cuts. 

After you tended to your palms, applying salve and wrapping them securely, you couldn’t help but notice the odd tingling you felt emanating from them. It was warm and fuzzy and completely unexplainable - your salves had never caused that sensation before. 

As time passed and the sun crossed over the sky before dipping beneath the horizon, the feeling became stronger until it was a pulse-like thrum causing your hands to tremble before steadily declining until it was nothing more than a memory. And an odd one at that. 

It was when you began to turn in for the night, that everything fell apart. 

You didn’t notice that the crickets had fallen silent nor that the wildlife of the forest had completely disappeared. You hadn’t noticed the hollow ringing that came from the wind slipping between the trees. It was the calm before the storm, and you had no idea what was coming. 

The candlelight was dim, casting soft ochre colored shadows over the wood and stone of the cottage. The puppy slept soundly in your arms. Everything was calm. 

That was of course until a howl fractured the peace. It was so loud you could have sworn you felt the floorboards shake as a rush of fright went down your spine. The soft lull of sleep was suddenly long forgotten. 

The pup in your arms stirred at the noise, its ears perking up and its head frozen in place as it recognized the sound. It was on high alert. It knew what was out there. 

You shakily stood and approached the door, the top portion of it still unlatched and swung outward.  Outside of the lamp affixed to the stone above the door, the forest was pitch black. You could barely make out the twisted shape of the trees and the brooke that had once been in sight was obscured. But, what was even stranger, was that you were certain that the shadows were moving. 

You tilted your head to the side, squinting your eyes as you tried to make out what exactly you were looking at. And then, it was close enough that the light bounced off of it and you were met with the horrifying sight of a set of bright silver eyes staring back at you from the dark. 

You were frozen in an instant. But once you realized those eyes were steadily coming closer with a hulking form attached, you acted on instinct, slamming the door shut and latching it closed. You could only hope that the door would hold against whatever that thing was. 

Your chest rose and fell with heavy pants as you became more and more unsettled. Why was it so quiet? Why couldn’t you hear something so big moving? Where was it? What direction was it coming from? Your back met the wall and your weak knees had you sliding down to the ground. 

Your entire body was shaking in pure terror. There was something out there, something massive and monstrous. You held the pup in your arms tighter, bringing it to your chest for comfort as well as protection. 

You yelped as a loud bang popped the eerie silence. Whatever it was, it was slamming its body alongside the cottage. But it wasn’t doing it mindlessly, like it thought it could break through the walls. It was purposeful, it was an attempt to frighten you and determine where you were. It was smart. 

You curled into yourself as it came closer. You could hear heavy, sharp pants in between the vicious snarls that it was making. It sounded wild, primal, and predatory. It was hunting. 

The pup in your arms began whining and wriggling around as it tried to escape your grasp and all it was doing for you was frightening you even more. All it was doing was making more noise, drawing more attention to itself. And you knew it had, the creature outside had gone silent. It was listening. 

And then chaos unraveled in seconds. 

You couldn’t even scream when the door was ripped from its hinges, the beast breaking through it like it was wet parchment. You were petrified in place, hyperventilating and trembling at the sight of it. 

It was a giant wolf. It was covered from head to toe in midnight black fur although there were spots that seemed thinner than others that were littered in scars - slashes and bite wounds from what you could only imagine were others of its kind. It was larger than a horse with a head so huge it could bite your own clean off in one impressive snap. And then there were the eyes. They were glowing an ice cold silver in the dark with a glare that felt sharp enough to slice through you while a gnarled scar marred the fur and skin of its right eye. 

Your body slowly began to slump to the ground, falling weak before the wolf. You looked like the perfect prey, like a rabbit that was so frightened its own heart had stopped. It seemed that the wolf thought similarly. It approached you slowly like it was still on the prowl as angry snarls left its gaping maw. You could feel your blood run cold as you caught sight of its enormous teeth, each one long enough that they could be made into daggers. Whatever this creature was, it was no mere wolf, it was something else entirely. 

Your hold on the pup was weakened as your chest and forehead met the ground, bending beneath the invisible weight of the wolf’s presence. From beneath the cover of your hair you could make out its large paws and hooked nails mere inches away from you. It was so close now that you could feel puffs of its hot breath disturb your hair and ghost over your neck. You were breaths away from death. 

You couldn’t decide if you wanted to flee or embrace it as you had once desired. 

A soft whimper involuntarily escaped you as you waited, feeling the tip of its nose brush over your head as its snarls grew louder. A sudden loud yapping broke the tension. 

The pup was frantically barking at the wolf and lunging at it in a playful manner all the while standing in front of you like it was trying to protect you. The sight would have been comical had you not been on the brink of passing out. This tiny puppy was fiercely defending you against this monster. 

And, to your surprise, it was working. 

Once you gained the courage to raise your head you were met with the sight of the wolf’s intense gaze trained on the puppy. More specifically, its gaze was trained on the bandages covering its wounds. The wolf looked back at you, its hauntingly silver eyes making you flinch. It continued to stare at you for a long moment like it was contemplating something, that of which you were unaware of. But then its gaze hardened and its predatory stance relaxed. It had made its decision. 

Without another snarl or howl it nipped the pup by its scruff and began to carry it out of the cottage. It stopped for a moment once it had successfully squeezed out of the broken door frame and looked back at you, this too was a look that you were unable to decipher. It gave you a slow blink and then turned, carrying the pup back to the forest and disappearing into the darkness. 

It was in that moment that you finally realized that it had not been a dog you had rescued, but that wolf’s pup. 

And with that realization you completely collapsed to the floor and were dragged into a dark, dreamless, restless sleep. 

~~~~~~~

Yoongi had come to realize that there wasn’t much that you could do to discipline a two year old, especially a two year old that was a shifter. 

His daughter, Binna, had little control over her form and had a knack for slipping away and getting into trouble. That was something he could blame on his other pack members, specifically the youngest three. 

He huffed out a sigh as he carefully extracted twigs and leaves from her messy hair, flinging them back into the underbrush. She was the very definition of a wild child. And while it wasn’t uncommon for pups her age to be curious and adventurous, it was uncommon that she so readily welcomed and followed humans. 

Humans were dangerous, that was something he had tried his best to get her to understand but she simply couldn’t. She was too young to understand how they could hunt her and hurt her, far too young to realize what that meant, and far too young to understand that it was a human that had taken her mother away from them. 

Then again, she hadn’t known her mother all too well. That was evidenced by her clinging to any female shifter she had found and babbling out “mama” to the wrong mothers. She knew her mother was missing, but she couldn’t match the face to the name. He couldn’t really blame her all that much. Her mother had been amongst the best hunters and was oftentimes absent as she hunted for the pack’s survival. Yoongi was a defender, he was there to ensure the safety of everyone that resided within their territory. He was at the front lines. And because of that, his wife was often gone and he was almost always home. To his daughter, her mother was a faceless being. 

“Let me see,” He demanded firmly, trying to unwind the bandages that were already slipping from her skin. 

She nipped at his fingers playfully, her serrated canines gleaming as she giggled. Yoongi tried his best to suppress his smile, he was supposed to be upset with her. He sighed once more and grabbed the edge of the bandage and began to unwind it. 

“No,” She cried in a drawn out whine, “Mama gave me! Mama gave me!” 

Yoongi froze, startled as he registered her fractured speech. She thought that human in the cottage was her mother. 

He could see why she would think that, you had taken care of her after all. From what he had seen from the wounds he knew they came from a hunter's trap, snares made from silver that were so small they had clearly been designed for pups as no adult shifter would ever be able to be caught in that small a snare. It was clear that you had rescued his daughter and taken care of her in his absence. 

And for some reason, Yoongi could only press his lips together in a firm line and failed to correct his daughter. At the end of the day, she wasn’t necessarily wrong. 

Yoongi knew you.

He had known you for a while now. He had watched you the day you and your husband had moved in. The two of you had chosen a location that was incredibly close to their territory and so he scouted you out for days to ensure that you wouldn’t stumble too far from your home, to ensure that you weren’t a threat. 

He had thought you two were safe, and that was his biggest mistake. 

Yoongi would not say that he was enamored with you, but he was definitely interested in you. He had gone his entire life knowing to never trust a human, but as he observed he couldn’t help but be enthralled by your little human quirks. 

You were so blissfully unaware of his presence as he silently stalked you. Your husband, like his wife, was often gone during the day and you were left to amuse yourself. For someone of your age, you had this odd youthful aura about you. He would watch as you would jump into the brooke, spinning around and splashing with abandon not unlike his child would. 

That version of you that he knew though, that was long gone. Loss has aged you, hardened you. Even though you were completely ensnared by fright he could see the hollowness in your eyes when he had ripped your door from its hinges. 

The both of you had been irreparably changed by loss. 

And then there was the other problem. He was indebted to you and you were now in his care. While he refused to acknowledge any attachment he felt for you, he couldn’t deny the attraction. It was incredibly wrong considering his own disdain for humans, but he couldn’t help himself. There was something else there, this odd discomfort in his chest that demanded to be felt, a sour feeling in his stomach at the thought of your frightened face. 

This was not good. 

Contrary to popular belief, wolves do not mate for life. And as a shifter that was even more true. While many chose to bond to one another, it was not horribly uncommon to find a new mate if one were to leave or die. And, very rarely, there were intense bonds that made it so that you did mate for life. In the case of his wife, it was not that type of bond. Of course he was hurt, of course he missed her, but it was not the debilitating grief that you experienced. It was natural for his kind, evolutionary even.  

The attachment, this bond he felt for you paired with his daughter’s stubborn belief that you could be her mother made him make a decision far faster than he should have. 

You lost a husband, he lost a wife. An even trade. Why could you not fill those roles for each other? 

~~~~~~~

The following days were ones where you lived in a state of fright and confusion. 

When you awoke the next morning you were greeted by the feeling of the floor against your cheek and a stiff ache in your joints. Apparently, you had spent the night collapsed on the floor. 

When you finally mustered up the strength to stand there were several things that were brought to your attention. Firstly, that there was now a gaping hole in the wall from where your door had once stood. Secondly, the events that occurred the night before had not been a grief conjured hallucination. And thirdly, the pain in your hands had completely disappeared. 

Upon unwinding the bandages you were met with completely closed wounds and thin scars that looked years old. Your suspicions had been proven correct, that wolf and its pup were certainly not just animals not with the way a few stray licks had healed your palms. Your fingers trembled in fright at the realization before you grabbed another roll of bandages and wrapped them tightly in a panic. 

Out of sight, out of mind. 

You followed the same thought as you gathered up sheets, a cord, and pins with the intention to cover up the missing door to your cottage. 

Out of sight, out of mind. 

Unfortunately, that was not possible for you. Before you could even attempt to hang the sheets you were frozen in place a foot away from what was once the threshold. On the cobblestone porch was a carcass. You stared at it, dumb in shock as you tried to understand what you were looking at. It wasn’t a complete animal, it had been skinned and cleaned and left on your porch laying out on a thick piece of brown paper packaging. At first, you considered the possibility that it was another mourning gift from one of your neighbors in town but that was very quickly debunked. For one, they typically cooked the meat or met you at the door. And secondly, there were clear claw marks in the bone and large tooth impressions left behind. You had a sick feeling that you knew where this came from. But it didn’t make any sense, no wolf could clean a carcass like this - this was work done by human hands. 

Despite your conclusion, when you raised your head you were once more greeted by the sight of the wolf. He was much closer than he had been the first time you saw him the night before. He laid right by the end of the treeline - half of his body submerged in shade and the other half bathing in the golden glow of the early morning light. Those silver eyes were watching you intently, waiting to see what you would do next. 

That only confirmed your suspicions, he had brought it for you. It was a peace offering of sorts, a truce. In spite of that knowledge your hands still trembled when you grabbed a corner of the parchment and dragged the carcass past the threshold. The wolf’s alert and tense body almost immediately relaxed. It was like it was relieved. 

It stared after you for a moment longer, gave you a slow blink, and then rose and melted back into the forest - vanishing as if it hadn’t even been there in the first place. 

And so you hung your sheet, peeled the flesh from the bone of the carcass, and disposed of the remains. 

Out of sight, out of mind. 

~~~~~~~

When you woke the next day, the makeshift curtain was pulled to the side and wrapped around a bent hinge that was still mounted to the wall. Another thing you were certain wolves were incapable of. 

And there, on the stoop, laid a pile of wild berries and fruit on a small, clean cloth. And, not far away, the wolf was there once more. Although this time it was much closer, so close in fact that you could visibly make out the twisted scar around its eye. It was laying down, much like a dog would, with its large head raised in alert. Those silver eyes flicked slowly from the present and back to you three times, a clear signal that it was waiting for you to take them. It only relaxed when you brought them inside just like the day before. 

This pattern between the two of you persisted for several days to follow. And, no matter how you tried to forget what had happened that night, this creature was making it virtually impossible. It was ironic how you had once longed for company and were willing to settle for it from a dog but now that you had someone, well something, watching over you you were incredibly unnerved by the ordeal. But you couldn’t exactly shoo the hulking creature away. 

And so each day passed and more presents followed. One day it was bunches of wildflowers, another it was game of varying sizes, and another was a thick pelt that had been handcrafted into a blanket for the cold spring nights. You didn’t know how to exactly decline a gift from a mythical creature. Wouldn’t there be horrible repercussions for that? 

The urgency to put a stop to this odd arrangement became even more apparent when a gold pendant was left at your door and the wolf had crept so close that it was less than fifteen feet away. It was beginning to make your home its territory and now it was somehow stealing items you had only dreamed of affording when you were young. It was all too much. 

You wound the chain of the pendant around your fingers as you hesitantly crept down the stone steps. The creature perked up in interest, elevating its head again as you slowly approached it, your body shaking in fright in spite of your attempts to school yourself into a false confidence. 

“I-” You paused to clear your throat, “I can’t accept this. You’ve done more than enough for me, you’re forgiven.” 

It only cocked its head to the side in response. You were just a crazy woman talking to an animal, weren’t you?

“Here, take it,” You tried again, reaching out your palm to it as the chain caught the sun and glistened in the morning light. 

It was looking at you like you were dumb. 

“Fine,” You sighed, “I’ll just leave it here then and you can take it back to wherever you got it from.” 

You lightly tossed it onto the grass and turned your back on the creature before briskly walking back to your cottage. And, despite the haste in which you walked, you were no match for the massive wolf. 

A startled shriek left your lips as you felt a large, warm body bump against your side and thick fur rub up against your skin. Another shriek was forced past your lips when its tail wacked you on the backside like it had a mind of its own. 

Gold glinted in its teeth before the pendant was unceremoniously dropped on your stone steps, the placement much more haphazard than it had been that morning.

If this had happened a few days before, you were certain you would have been more frightened, but now your patience was far too thin and you were in desperate need for your privacy and a sense of normalcy. 

“If you’re going to keep bringing me things, at least let them be useful! Like a door, for instance. You know, that thing you ripped off of my home!” 

The wolf huffed in what almost sounded like an amused chuckle before rising and stalking towards you, crowding you up against the side of the cottage. Your heart pounded as you realized you had made a grave error, you were not the one in charge here. 

You clenched your eyes shut as you felt a warm puff of air over your face and a wet nose prod your cheek. You shook as you remembered the creature's giant fangs and huge body. You were certain now that it was going to eat you now that you had denied it, these were the repercussions that you feared.

What you hadn’t anticipated though, was the feeling of it pressing its head on top of yours and whining like an overgrown puppy. It was acting like you had hurt its feelings. You hesitantly cracked an eye open only to see this huge, scarred, wolf nuzzling your head and then your hands like it was begging for affection. 

A surprised laugh came straight from your chest as you shakily began to pet the wolf. The wolf that had previously been ready to kill you after you had accidentally kidnapped its child. 

“Alright, alright, cut it out!” You squealed, laughing hysterically as it began to lick you. You quickly froze when you realized that that was the first time you had laughed in months. It was the first time you had laughed since your husband had died. 

You gently pushed against the wolf’s large head as you side stepped around it, a frown now tugging down the corners of your mouth. It felt so wrong to be happy. 

Your companion noticed your swift shift in behavior. It ducked its head down and nosed at your back not all that gently as you stumbled forward. 

“Don’t you have a child you need to get back to?” You hissed, a sudden wave of irritation rushing over you. 

This wasn’t all that uncommon for you. The rapid changes in your emotions. It was easy to feel joy wither away to apathy, to frustration, to anger. Oftentimes you felt like you had no control over how you felt and it left you grasping at straws as you tried to hold yourself together. It was just so hard. 

“Go on, go home,” You sighed, flicking your hand in the general direction of the trees, “I don’t doubt that you’ll be back tomorrow anyways.” 

The wolf stared at you again, as it tended to, before purposefully bumping its large body against you once more and making for the forest. It hesitated for a moment, looking back over its shoulder to give you one last look, and then it was gone again. 

That was what you wanted, wasn't it? But if that were true then why did you hate the loneliness that you were left with so much? 

~~~~~~~

That morning, early in the morning, you were awoken by the sound of a hacksaw. 

For a brief moment, in the hazy grasp of sleep, you allowed yourself to settle back down when you realized it was just your husband getting an early start on the daily chores. 

But your husband was dead. 

With that sobering thought you jolted fully awake, gripping your blanket tightly in your hands and pulling it up over your mouth as you struggled to control your breathing. Your neighbors were out of the way and they rarely came to visit anymore outside of the kind supply drops they had provided you with throughout the rest of the winter. So, if it wasn’t them, then who was it? 

You rose and with the blanket still wrapped around you, you made for the door as quietly as you could. Once again, the curtain was pulled and fixed to the side like it usually was whenever your companion came to visit you. But the person that stood outside, mere steps away, was very clearly not the massive wolf you had come to know. 

You could only see him from the back, but he was very clearly a man. He was a decent height with longer, thick, raven hair that began to curl at the ends. From what you could see of him, you could make out stretches of porcelain skin. He was wearing a loose fit white top and he had rolled the sleeves up past his elbows exposing pale forearms with impressive veins and hands that looked like they had been carved from marble. 

Your cheeks grew warm as you realized you were spending far too much time appreciating his appearance rather than worrying about what this stranger's intentions with you and your home were. “What are you doing here?”

The man continued his work, sawing at the wood until the cut was complete before he responded. You then realized that he had been very aware of your presence the entire time, he had not been startled at all. 

“You asked for a door, did you not?” He replied, sarcasm tainting his words, as he brushed the sawdust from his hands and turned to look at you. 

His face was just as lovely as the rest of him. Dark brows, doll-like lips, and deep brown eyes that had the gentlest slope to them. He was beautiful, that was undeniable. 

But what was most apparent and most worrying, was the long scar that ran over his right eye. A scar that you had most definitely seen before. Your body stumbled backwards on instinct, trying its hardest to create more distance between the two of you. 

The man raised an eyebrow, a look of pure amusement etched into his features, “You weren’t afraid of me yesterday but you are now? You are a confusing little human, you know that?”

“You - that’s, that’s not possible!” You gasped, tightening your hold on your blanket. “What you’re insinuating is not possible!” 

He chuckled to himself, leaning his weight back on his hands as he dropped his chin down, “You want me to prove it to you? I could if you really wanted me to, I do like these clothes though so I’ll only do it if you give me a reason.” 

The thought of watching this man, creature, wolf, whatever he was burst out of his flesh and take on a different form was horrifying enough that you were certain you would faint at the very sight. Already you were shaken by the thought of this being possible, you didn’t know if you would be able to handle the sight. Not to mention that subtle innuendo that whenever he decided to take the form of a man again he would be as bare as the day he was born. It was all too much. 

“Please don’t!” You cried, “Don’t do that!”

“As you wish,” He nodded with a teasing smile as he turned back to the door in progress. “Perhaps some other time.”

“What is it exactly that you want from me, if you are who you say you are?” You asked. 

“I am responsible for you.” He said with a shrug, picking up the saw once more and continuing his work as if what he said made any sense at all. 

“No, you are not. No one is responsible for me, you owe me nothing.”

“I don’t? I would think I at least owe you a door, that is what you said after all, remember?” 

Heat rushed to your face in pure frustration and embarrassment. He was just as infuriating and insufferable as he was when he was an overgrown dog…that is of course if you were truly willing to believe in that sort of thing.  But how else could he have known about your request for the door? Why else would he believe he was responsible for you had you not saved his child’s life? Unless he were some creepy, stalking stranger, he would have no knowledge of these events. This man was the very thing your town hunted and was frightened of. 

“Just the door then? That’s all? You will leave after you’ve finished it and your debt will be repaid. You will leave me alone?” You asked. 

He paused for a moment, a confused expression taking over his face. He looked at you as if he realized he couldn’t comprehend what you were asking of him. “You confuse me.”

“I confuse you?” You laughed, “I woke up this morning to a strange man outside my home claiming to be something that up until this morning I didn’t believe in, who claims he is responsible for me and owes me when all I want is peace and privacy!”

“That, that confuses me.” He admitted. 

“What?!” You cried in exasperation. 

“How can someone who so clearly hates being alone also want to keep it that way?”

You wrapped your blanket around yourself tighter, as if that would somehow shield you from the sudden sense of exposure that washed over you. You were feeling vulnerable. You were feeling seen. 

“You humans are social creatures, not unlike my kind, yet when you need help, when you’re in distress, you push your pack away. It goes against every natural instinct that you have, it doesn’t make any sense.” He laughed with a shake of his head. 

“You are alone here, you have no one to protect you. I can keep you safe in every meaning of the word. Whether that means building you a door, forgive me by the way, or guarding your land. I want to protect you.” 

There was a gentle flutter in your heart, one that you desperately wanted to stomp out but were failing to do so. You hadn’t been affected by someone like this since your husband and you didn’t know if you should feel guilty about that. He was supposed to be the one allowed to move on, not you. These feelings weren’t supposed to be for you, they were supposed to pass. It was your job to mourn his loss; he was supposed to be your one and only love. These feelings were supposed to be wrong. So why, deep down, did you enjoy them? 

Instead of telling him to leave, to abandon his work and yourself, you made the mistake of giving him a chance. You made the mistake of entertaining him. 

“I don’t even know who you are,” You said with a laugh of disbelief. 

“Yoongi,” He smiled, a wolfish smile, “And you do know me, I’ve been here longer than you know.” 

That wasn’t the comforting sentiment that he was trying to make it be. Just how long had he been watching you? You were reluctant to linger on that thought much longer, so you moved on. 

“How long will this take you?” You asked, shuffling closer to his work. 

“Not long. Lucky you, you happened to pick a shifter whose trade is in woodworking.”

“A shifter? So, that’s what you are?” 

Yoongi pursed his lips, his brows furrowed, he was thinking. It was like he was still deciding if he could trust you or not. He was deciding just how much information he was willing to give up to you despite the fact that you had seen him in his other form. 

He nodded. 

“Are there…are there more of you?”

“Yes,” He reluctantly admitted, you had already seen his daughter after all. 

“Why is it that I have only met one of your kind now?”

“Because, we’re discreet. We have to be. You found my daughter in that hunter’s snare, remember?”

“Your daughter,” You echoed, “is she alright?” 

Yoongi practically preened at your concern. All you were doing was giving him validation, you could and would be a good mother to her. You could be a good mate for him. 

“Our kind heals fast, she’s already running around causing more trouble,” He chuckled, “but don’t be mistaken, I am grateful for what you did for her. You saved her life and you helped heal her. I owe you much more than you know.”

“I saved her life? You couldn’t mean…”

A grim look descended over his pretty features, a dark gaze settling in his eyes as he paused his work once more, his hands tightly gripping the tools they were holding. “That’s exactly what I mean. We have been hunted since the dawn of time. Woman, man, child, it makes no difference to them. Their entire goal is to eradicate us, they think we are abominations. It wasn’t enough that they took my wife, they tried to take my daughter as well.” 

Your heart ached in sympathy for him. You knew that feeling, the overwhelming wave of grief and pain that attempted to drown you in your suffering. You had lost your husband and a child, Yoongi was just as familiar with loss as you were. 

You crept closer to him, so close that you could feel the warmth that radiated off of his body like a stove. Hesitantly, you reached out to him and rested your hand on top of his. You could feel his grip go lax, his hand relaxing beneath your touch. 

“I know how terrible it can be to hear someone apologize and tell you that they know what you're going through, but I think this is one of those rare moments where it’s true.” You said. 

You could feel his gaze on you and the scarred skin of his hands beneath yours. He felt so incredibly close, this was the closest you had been to anyone in a while. You swallowed uncomfortably as you felt his hand turn over and the skin of his palm meet yours as his fingers laced their way in between yours. 

“My husband…he was killed this winter. I’ll never know what happened to him, or why it happened, but knowing that he’ll never be here again is the most painful thing I have ever felt. It’s indescribable.”

Yoongi tried his best to suppress the inappropriate smile that wanted to make its appearance known on his lips. You two truly did complete one another. You were two pieces of a puzzle that had not been intended to fit together, but had been carved up and forced together. You were altered, created for one another. He gave your hand a gentle squeeze, stroking his thumb down the curve where your palm met your finger in rhythmic swipes. 

“I know that feeling, I understand it well.”

I understand you, he wanted to say. 

“People like us, we should stick together. We can trust one another like no one else can.” He murmured, gently brushing up against your side. 

That was enough to wake you up from the dreamlike haze he had put you in. You stepped back, breaking your fingers away from his and holding your hand up to your chest. 

It was too soon, too much, you couldn’t be that close to someone, to a man nonetheless. You couldn’t trust him, you couldn’t trust anyone. 

Yoongi took a step forward and you took three back, retreating from the momentary comfort you had felt. But instead of looking dejected like you assumed he would, he looked determined, he looked sure of himself. And that only made you stumble back even more, stepping up your stone steps and into the house.

“I’ll leave you to your work.” 

This is what you did. Despite the entrapment you felt by your loneliness, it was familiar, it was right. The loneliness was easier. 

It was the only thing you knew you could hold on to for certain. 

~~~~~~~

In the days that followed, you became antsy to get out from beneath your visitor’s presence. 

You hurried past your uninvited guest, hoping that he wouldn’t notice you with his back turned to you. Your hopes were quickly dashed. 

“Where are you going?” He called over his shoulder. 

You came to a halt with an exasperated sigh, “Am I answering to you now?”

He only hummed in response and for a reason that you could not conceive, it lit you alight with agitation. “Where I go, is none of your concern!”

That caught his attention, his head slightly jerking to the side as he watched you from the corner of his eye. “It’s not safe out there, not when you’re alone.” 

“I was fully capable of finding my way through the forest before you got here, I seriously doubt that I have lost all sense of direction.”

“It’s not your sense of direction I’m worried about,” He sighed, “There’s more of my kind out there and more of your hunters - both of which would not bat an eye at a human getting caught in the crossfire.”

“It’s never been a problem before,”

“No, but it is now.” He said with a stern glare, his eyes not meeting your curious gaze, but instead staring into the distance. His shoulders were tense, his forearms flexed, he looked as if he was burdened with knowledge that he could not share. 

“Yoongi, what is that supposed to mean?” 

“Don’t wander off too far,” He deflected. 

You stayed for a moment, suddenly unsure as to what you should do. Moments before you were ready to get out from underneath his oppressive stare, but now you were intrigued. Yoongi had told you about the shared hatred between your species. The humans hunted the shifters and the shifters were reactionary killers. They followed an honor code closely and truly believed in an eye for an eye. So what had happened that now made it unsafe for you to traverse the woods when before it had never been a problem. Why would Yoongi’s kind attack you unprovoked?

Despite your stare, Yoongi was blatantly ignoring you, pretending that he didn’t notice you hadn’t left. That was enough to let you know that the conversation was over no matter how much you poked and prodded. 

Without another word, you left. Contrary to what Yoongi had believed, you wouldn’t be traveling too far. Your cottage and the shifter would not be in view, but you knew the way like the back of your hand. It was past the brook, and a good walk through the evergreens. What you were searching for was a small clearing. 

The trees lined the space in almost a perfect circle, something that appeared somewhat unnatural amidst the organic shapes of the woods. In the middle, there stood one weeping willow - completely out of place and the only one of its kind. And at the base of its gnarled roots was a simple stone with your husband's name carved into it. The earth was still turned, a reminder of just how fresh his death and the wounds they left behind on your heart were. 

You gently lowered yourself to the ground, your skirts folding beneath your knees as your fingers pressed into the dirt. You had often thought about crawling back to him, you had dreamed of being wrapped up in his warm embrace again, the two of you entwined and buried beneath a comforter of soil and flowers. In your dreams you were intertwined so tightly that years from now if anyone were to find you they wouldn’t be able to tell where you began and he ended. 

“Hello my love,” You whispered despite no one else being in the clearing. And of course, you were met with the silence, the ever present reminder that he had left you and that he was never coming back. 

You sniffled as your fingers smoothed down the fluffed dirt before digging into your basket and pulling out the prettiest wildflowers you could find with which you then began to arrange around the stone. You knew it wasn’t right to spend so much time here, you were holding on so dearly to someone that was gone and no matter how much love you held for him it would never be enough to revive him. 

When you were satisfied with your arrangement you allowed yourself to empty your eyes of the last of their tears before patting your cheeks dry with the edge of your pinafore. With clear eyes, you were now able to see a few things that you had missed before. 

Hanging from the boughs of the tree were several things. There were colored glass stars and moons that were strung up on several branches all of which varied in color and reflected the sun through them, casting brilliant shards of light over the earth. And, amongst those, were small wolves carved masterfully from wood. You slowly stood, your brows furrowed in confusion as you tapped one of the stars with a shaky finger. It swung back and an ethereal ringing sounded from within it. 

What were these doing here? At your husband’s grave? 

You looked back at the wooden wolves before you began to piece it together. Yoongi, he had a wife. Was this for her? Was this their version of funeral rites? But if that were true then she would have died recently, but why would she be buried here, where your husband had been killed and laid to rest? 

Your heart thumped, your palms began to sweat. 

No. No, you refused to believe it. 

Their words began to rush back to the forefront of your mind, “pieces,” and “consumed.” Your husband had been ripped apart and eaten, there was barely anything of him left behind. 

It was her, it had to have been her, she had been the one to kill him. But if that were true, then who had killed her? 

“I am responsible for you,” Yoongi’s words echoed through your mind. 

They had a code of honor, they believed in an eye for an eye. Or, a spouse for a spouse. 

You turned your back on the burial sight and balled your fists up before pressing them against your eyes. Out of sight out of mind. Out of sight out of mind. Out of sight out of mind.

Yoongi wouldn’t, Yoongi couldn’t. He wouldn’t do that to you, he wouldn’t take someone’s spouse from them, he wouldn’t make you feel the same pain that he did.

A rumble pulled you from your panicked thoughts, your breaths still fast and shallow. But what you thought had been the earth shaking, was something far more menacing. Across the clearing stood a wolf, a wolf that was not Yoongi. It was too small to be him and the fur was the wrong color. But the size alone told you that it was clearly a shifter and by the way it was looking at you, you were certain that you were in danger. 

You stood still, hoping that if you didn’t make any sudden movements he wouldn’t be provoked but you were sorely mistaken. You could see its muscles tensing up as it crouched low and shifted its weight back towards its hind legs like it was preparing to lunge. No matter what you did, it had already made its decision to kill you right where you stood. 

You hadn’t realized you were screaming until you felt the raw pain in your throat, your body acting on its own will to survive as you reeled backwards and hastily began to climb up the tree. If you were lucky, it couldn’t climb, but there was still a human inside of that creature - it was smart, you had seen Yoongi hunt you down before, after all. 

You shrieked in fright as you heard the mangy wolf approach, its large paws ripping through the ground as it raced towards you while all you could do was try and climb higher. Unfortunately, you weren’t fast enough. The wolf leaped and its massive teeth tore into your skirt and ripped you from the tree. For a moment, you were completely weightless - you were airborne. And in that brief moment of freedom, you were quickly grounded by reality when you came crashing down to the ground, your forehead just clipping the top of your husband’s headstone as you went rolling down into the grass. 

You knew what would come next. This time, the embrace of death would wrap around you. There was no getting around this. But what confused your shock ridden body even more was the pure dread you felt from the realization that you were going to die. You had once welcomed death, begged for her, prayed for her even, but now when you felt her looming over you you realized that you weren’t ready. 

You missed your husband, but you weren’t ready to join him. 

And, just as you felt the hot breath of the shifter mist over the back of your neck, it was just as quickly ripped away. 

There was a symphony of snarls that followed, the sound of flesh being torn, booming growls, then a pitiful whimper, and a loud snap. And then, all fell quiet. 

You were still dazed as you felt warm arms slip beneath your own, pulling you up into someone’s lap and pressing your body back against an even warmer, bare chest. Long fingers prodded at the warm blood that slid down your temple and a deep, frantic voice echoed in your ears - the words were unintelligible. 

“I told you not to wander off,” Yoongi said, his lips just beside the shell of your ear, the first words he had said that you could finally understand. 

“I told you,” He repeated, his voice wavering and full of emotion as he trailed off. 

You looked at him wearily, your head feeling much heavier than it had earlier. His eyes were wide, his pupils blown. The look on his face could only be described as haunting. He was cradling your face with both hands. His thumb stroked your cheek, but his eyes were trained on the weeping willow. He looked just as shaken as you had been before. 

That sinking feeling was back in your gut. The suspicions you had were coming back to your rattled brain. But still, you turned and wrapped your arms around his neck, collapsing your body against his completely as you felt yourself slipping away. 

He was calling your name, his voice panicked as he held you against him even tighter. You rested your chin on the pale stretch of skin of his shoulder and started back into the treeline. You were finding comfort in the man that you were almost certain was involved in your husband’s death. You were embracing the suspected killer of your husband. 

And in your delirium you caught sight of something out there, something you weren’t sure was even real. It looked like one of the clerics from town, his white robes reflecting the sun as he hastily retreated back into the cover of the trees. 

A bloodied, naked corpse laid where the mangy wolf once stood. 

You found comfort in a killer as a man of god ran away from the sight of the worst sin, murder. 

~~~~~~~

Yoongi’s watchful gaze never left you, even when you thought that you were away from prying eyes. When he said he wanted to protect you, that you were his responsibility, he meant it. 

It wasn’t safe for you to be alone this close to the woods and this far from town. Even though you chose to ignore this, he knew that he was right. He was oftentimes put on edge when he would think about the possibility of someone wandering through the woods and stumbling upon your cottage. And, even worse, he could imagine what someone would do when they found a beautiful woman, alone, in the middle of nowhere with help miles away. His paranoid suspicions had proven to be true with what happened days before. 

“Who was he?” You had asked when you had woken up. 

When you had slipped into unconsciousness he shifted once more, swinging you onto his back and racing back to your cottage. It would have been comical to try and watch his massive wolf form squeeze into your home while dragging your body inside, but in that moment Yoongi had trouble finding anything remotely amusing. He had been too frantic to switch back into his human skin and it took him several moments of concentration before he was able to do it. 

“He was no one,” He plainly said, his brows drawing together as he dabbed at the wound that split open your forehead. 

“You didn’t know him?”

“No,” He sighed, “He was just a nomad, a packless wolf. He must have caught your scent and tracked you down.”

“Was he going to eat me?”

You were met with a sickening silence as Yoongi pursed his lips and bandaged your cut. His silence was a clear answer. 

“But, I’m not an animal. There’s plenty of deer and rabbits…” You trailed off. 

Yoongi set down the roll of gauze and leaned towards you, cradling your face once more in his hands. “Humans and animals are not all that different, you eat, you sleep, you mate, and you both give chase. Many of my kind see yours and animals as one in the same. What only matters is the hunt.” 

Human, shifter, or hunter it didn’t matter, he had grown to trust no one outside of his pack. There were nefarious creatures at every corner, whether he was one of them was still to be decided. His behavior certainly appeared to be nefarious, to an outsider. 

He could hear the thrum of your heart in your chest and the quickening of your pulse as you digested his words. 

“Don’t be afraid of me, I would never hurt you. I just want to take care of you.” He murmured as he leaned in closer to you and pressed his lips to your forehead is a soft kiss that pulled a sharp breath into your chest. 

Since that day, Yoongi’s behavior has drastically changed. 

During the day he worked, far slower than what was normal or necessary, and he watched you fulfill your mundane tasks for the day. While they should have bored him, they did quite the opposite. Everything you did seemed so curious, enthralling even. He couldn’t explain this odd tether he had to you. The only thing that he did know, was that he had to be near you. Whatever this was, it had become far more than just a sense of duty he felt towards you. 

During the night, when the moon emerged, he would shift and watch from the shadows. He would watch you pull your curtain closed and float from room to room. He would sit as still as he possibly could and listen to your heart beat slow and your breathing even out as you fell asleep. He would sit in front of the gaping hole where your door once sat and he would keep watch, pride stirring in his chest as he protected you. 

It was during the night when his daughter would come to visit. Some nights he could hear four paws ripping through the earth as she excitedly ran up to him, other nights he would be greeted by the sound of two little human feet running through the grass. And sometimes, she would morph between the two forms, flickering between the two states like the unsteady wave of a flame. 

But, there was one constant with her. 

“Mama,” She would whisper, crawling on all fours up the steps. 

And every time he would nip her by her clothes and settle her back down in between his massive paws. 

It was a silent “not yet.” 

You were his responsibility, but his daughter wasn’t yours. Not yet at least. 

The three of you had unknowingly settled into a routine. And on the day that the door was finished, that pattern was finally disrupted. 

You had grown accustomed to Yoongi’s presence. If you were being truly honest, you would admit that you had grown to like him. You would never admit it to anyone but his presence had filled that hole in your heart that your husband had left behind. You knew that his saving you had caused this pivot in your emotions and in all honesty you were incredibly confused by them. 

Yoongi was kind and incredibly gentle in spite of how your initial meeting had gone. His voice was soft when he spoke to you, his smile reassuring, and the gentle touches calming. It was hard not to like him, and it was even harder to remember that he wasn’t human. 

But the reminders were there. The odd glow in the depths of his eyes, the wolfish smile, the predatory gaze you had caught sight of whenever he thought you weren’t looking and the looming suspicions you had about his implications in your husband’s untimely death. He was still a wolf, there was no denying that. But you approached it all with the same logic you tended to fall back on: out of sight, out of mind. It was simply easier to not think about it. That, as well as your traitorous feelings for him. 

The clouds came out of nowhere the day the door was finished. 

“No, no, no, no, no!” You cried as you frantically ran outside and towards your clothesline where you had hung all of your linens. 

Yoongi watched you dart in between the fluttering clothes and sheets as the rain slowly began to descend and the wind threatened to whip everything away. 

“Yoongi!” You called. 

The shiver that sent down his spine was strong. That was all it took for you to rattle him, just the mere sound of his name on your lips was world shattering. You didn’t know just how easily you could ruin him. 

“Yoongi, help me!” You called again, your voice stern this time. He thought it was cute when you tried to be in charge. 

There had been a definite shift in your relationship after he had killed that wolf for you. You had started inviting him inside for dinner, watching him work, and even spending the evenings with him outside, leaning up against the warm side of his wolf form. And in turn he would accompany you wherever you needed to go, keeping a close eye on you, and a firm hand on the small of your back. 

You had grown impossibly closer than you had ever thought you would be capable of. Hell, you hadn’t even questioned why he was wearing your husband’s clothes when you woke up - you weren’t even upset. You were beginning to feel alive again. 

The two of your hurriedly gathered the linens. Yoongi had turned it into a game, ripping items off of the line right before you could touch it like it was a race. In all honesty, he made you feel like a kid again. The both of you were laughing, stumbling over the laundry and bumping into each other as you raced inside. 

“You were supposed to help me, not compete with me!” You scolded him, dropping the sopping wet pile of laundry into your basket. 

“I can do both, dearest.”

Dearest. That had been a recent occurrence. It slipped from his lips one day, it had caused your heart to stutter and your blood to rush and ever since then he had not gone a single day without letting the term of endearment grace your ears. He loved seeing how flustered it would make you, the way he practically purred around the word. 

“Or, you could just be kind to me for once.”

“I’m always kind to you, have you not enjoyed the gifts I’ve brought you?” He asked, a faux pout on his pretty lips as he slowly stalked towards you. You could almost see the wolf in him when he did that, you could visualize the swing of his tail and the way his massive head would tip down as his glowing eyes locked in on you. It was there, in the swing of his walk and the taunt muscle of his shoulders. It was an ever present reminder that he was not like you. 

You backed up, almost coyly, as he approached. His broader steps quickly gain on your short, shuffled ones. The cold, spring breeze rushed over the exposed skin of your neck, the open doorway was now behind you. But, before you could rush outside and back into the rain and allow him to give chase, he reached behind you and jerked his arm back. In that instant you felt solid wood press against your back, the new door settling perfectly into the once empty frame and blocking off your exit. 

You let out a shaky breath as he leaned into you, his chest against yours as he raised his arm above your head. With one swift movement there was a click and then his arm settled by your waist and another click followed. He had locked the door behind you. You were trapped in your own home with the wolf. 

The silence that followed was deafening. 

Short breaths were passed between the two of you, both of you waiting for the other to make a move. Your lashes fluttered as your gaze traced the contours of his face. You often wondered if he knew just how lovely he was, scar and all. 

You swallowed harshly as you raised your hand to his face, your fingers trembling with desire before softly grazing the bottom of the scar. Yoongi’s eyes slipped shut as he moved forward allowing his face to lean into your touch, his body pressing impossibly closer to yours. 

“Yoongi,” You whispered. 

And with that one simple call of his name, he lunged and went in for the kill. His pretty lips collided with your own as his hand moved to cradle your jaw and tilt your head back with the force of his kiss. With your back against the door there was nowhere for you to go, but there was nowhere else that you wanted to be. 

You gasped as you felt his free hand slowly trail up your leg and over your hip before settling on your lower back and sharply pulling your hips against his. A pitiful whimper was passed from your lips to his from the sudden desire that was pooling in your lower abdomen. 

A moment of clarity came to you, your mind pushing past the haze of desire when you felt your feet leave the ground. Yoongi buried his face in the junction of your neck and shoulder, his lips and teeth making quick work of the skin there, as he walked. It was when you felt the soft cover of your bed beneath you that you realized what was happening. 

“Yoongi, wait -” You tried, but his movements did not falter. His fingers were making quick work of the laces at the back of your dress and he showed no sign of stopping any time soon. 

He looked desperate, like he was going to die if he could not have you and the only way to relieve himself of his pain was to unveil every inch of skin that you were concealing from him and each stretch that was exposed was just as quickly covered by kisses and nipped by sharp teeth. 

You couldn’t deny the attraction you had for him or the lust you were practically dripping with from his touch. But it felt like you were laying on a bed of needles when you were reminded of your late husband’s death as you were willingly laid down in your marriage bed with a man who was not your husband. 

“Please,” You gasped, gripping his shoulders, “not here.” 

That seemed to catch his attention as he finally stilled himself. From your position it looked like he was trying to gain some control over himself. His breathing was still heavy, but he had stopped touching you. He looked up at you slowly, his chin just barely brushing over your bare sternum. When he finally looked at you, you stopped breathing. His eyes were lit with moonlight, a silver glow emanating from their depths. 

He was more wolf than human in that moment, a creature that was acting purely on instinct. 

You cupped his cheek once more and while he flinched at first, he slowly relaxed beneath your touch. He was still eerily silent, and in that moment his behavior reminded you almost entirely of the first time you had met him when he was in his other skin, fully shifted into his wolf counterpart. It was those watchful eyes again, those eyes that held so much depth and awareness that it was startling. 

“I can’t, not here.” You repeated. 

He blinked slowly, once, twice, and then a third time as he cocked his head to the side. You felt a twinge of fear at that gaze and, shamefully, the rush of lust in your veins. Your body went lax as you allowed him to gather you in his arms once more. He was calmer now, his pace slower as he unlocked the front door and carried you into the night. You could see flickers of your Yoongi in him, his touch much softer as he laid you down in a bed of grass that has been permanently laid flat by the giant wolf that guarded your home. 

That night the sky was completely open, not a single cloud obscured the stars or the body of the full moon. It was utterly beautiful. Just as beautiful as the feeling of fresh dew on your back and just as beautiful as the sight of your breath crystalizing in the cold, spring air. But nothing was quite as beautiful as Yoongi. The way that his bitten lips parted with soft gasps and deep moans, the way that his porcelain skin shone beneath the moonlight, and the way that he struggled to part from your lips. It was the way that he would rather kiss you than breathe. Everything about him was beautiful. 

You had many regrets in your life, but this would never be one of them. Not when he held you like this, like you were the only person in the world that mattered. Everything about this was supposed to be wrong, unholy even, but that was what made it that more enjoyable. That was what made you tense your legs around his waist, curve your hips against his, and wrap your arms around the back of his neck - drawing him towards your pulse point where he had been nosing at, sucking, and kissing almost obsessively. 

When your body shook with pleasure, a rush of warmth and tingles spread beneath your skin, your back arched and your neck was bared. And before you could even realize what was to come, his teeth had already sunk into your neck and shoulder without hesitation accompanied by an almost animalistic growl. The pain was there, it forced a scream past your lips, but it mingled deliciously with the rush of pleasure that emanated from your very core. You gasped and shook, your vision blurring as you were assaulted by your senses, your nails digging into his shoulders. 

There it was again. 

There was a flash of white in the treeline. It was there for a moment before flickering out of sight as you felt yourself barely clinging to consciousness. 

You were being watched again, there was something or someone out there that was following you - watching you in your most vulnerable moments. 

You tried to get Yoongi’s attention but he was in a similar state, the both of you lazily holding onto one another and barely moving as you began to drift. Your lips moved but no words were spoken, your tongue felt heavy in your mouth, unable to form words.

Yoongi’s lips were stained with your blood, his eyes heavy lidded but now returned to their dark color that you knew and loved. You tried again to speak but found yourself unable to as he pressed his forehead against your own, his fingers brushing back your messy hair. 

The heavy lure of sleep was steadily pulling you under. You supposed it could wait until tomorrow. 

Out of sight, out of mind. 

~~~~~~~

When you woke up you were back in your bed and you were alone. 

The cottage was dark, the windows all closed and the curtains drawn tight. When your eyes fluttered open you had almost believed that it was still night, that you were still outside with Yoongi and you had only momentarily dozed off. But the familiar comfort of your blankets and pillows quickly dismissed those thoughts. 

Now wide awake with your sheets pooled around your waist, you could only wonder about where your wolf had gone. Had he left you already? Had he taken your words to heart when you told him that he was to leave when his service was finished? Had he abandoned you after you had shared your most intimate moments with him? What had you done?

You felt a sense of shame wash over you as you stumbled from your bed, dull aches throbbing at various points of your body that only reminded you of what had transpired the night before. Once you collected yourself you made your way to the door your wolf had crafted for you and when you grasped the handle and pulled, you were met with a locked door. 

Your face scrunched in confusion as you turned the lock the opposite way and moved the bar at the top of the door but when you tried it again it still would not budge. 

You had been locked in your own home like a canary in a cage. 

Your heart dropped into your stomach and your throat felt impossibly tight as tears began to brim in your eyes. You had trusted him and in turn he had trapped you. How foolish you were to think that you could trust another man and here you were, a betrayer of your husband’s memory.

You sat on the floor curled up by the foot of your bed with a weak grasp on your blanket around your shoulders. There was an unexpected heartbreak that demanded to be felt in your chest, how could you mourn someone who you never really truly knew? Yoongi wouldn’t even tell you about his family, where he came from, or his people. Your relationship, whatever it was, had been an uneven exchange and you had clung to him so quickly because you had been so lonely. It was unfair. 

You quickly swept away the tears from beneath your eyes when you heard a lock turn and light began to permeate the darkness as the door swung open. He came back. 

The gentle smile he had entered with melted away, a look of concern taking over his face. He crossed the room and you rushed to stand, your arms crossing over your chest to protect and soothe yourself. You flinched away from his touch as he attempted to cup your jaw, the look of hurt and confusion on his face only inspired anger. 

“Why are you crying? What’s wrong?” He asked, trying to bridge the distance between the two of you as he moved closer while you took to stepping around the bed. You needed to keep him away, you couldn’t be swayed by those gentle touches and kind looks. 

“You locked me up, Yoongi. Why would you do that?” You sniffled as you attempted to keep your voice strong and firm. 

“I didn’t lock you up-”

“Then why was the door locked? Why couldn’t I get out?” You asked, before leaning forward and grasping a cord that was strung around his neck and nestled beneath the fabric of his shirt. “Why do you have this?”

When you pulled the necklace out his hand shot out to grip your wrist in warning, but the damage had already been done. There was a key on his necklace, the key to your cage. 

“I’m protecting you.” He whispered, his tone deadly and his gaze dark with warning. “You saw what happened, it’s dangerous out there - I can’t trust anyone with you.”

“No, you can’t trust me,” You corrected him before jerking your hand out of his hold, “This is my home, Yoongi, my home! You have no right!”

“I have every right, you are mine!��� 

“I am not!” 

His eyes were burning again, he was having trouble keeping his anger in check and you weren’t helping in the slightest. His chest was heaving with every breath and his jaw was tense. You watched him take one long breath in and then out before his arm shot out as he grabbed you by the wound on your neck forcing a pained gasp from your throat. 

“I told you, I am responsible for you, I need to protect you. This means that you’re mine and that I’m yours, this is a bond that goes deeper than marriage, do you understand that?” 

Your lips trembled as emotion welled in your chest, that told you everything that you needed to know. 

“You killed him, didn’t you?”

The silence you were met with and the empty look in his eyes was more than enough to confirm. Yoongi had been your husband’s killer. You stumbled back and heaved, waving away his hands that tried to steady you as you felt sickness stir in your stomach. 

“How could you? Why? Why did you do it?!” You cried, your fingers shaking as they grazed your lips in pure shock. 

His hands were raised as he tried to step closer to you, it wasn’t a defensive position, it looked more like he was trying to calm a startled animal. 

“He killed my wife,” He said, his voice much gentler than you expected in your state. 

“He wouldn’t!”

“No, but he would kill an animal, wouldn’t he?” 

He stopped approaching you and you had stopped moving away, your body having locked up in a state of pure shock.Your silence was enough for him to continue. 

“By the time I got there he was already taking her pelt, she wasn’t even able to shift back.”

He had skinned her. He didn’t know there was a person inside of the wolf that he had killed, and he had skinned her. 

“I took what was owed to me, he killed her so I killed him and I don’t regret it. The only thing I regret is what that did to you and your child, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But I tried my best to give back to you what was taken. I can protect you, I can take care of you, I can give you children, and I can love you.”

His pupils were blown out, there was a look of pure desperation in his eyes. It was a look that made your heart shudder in your chest. 

There was a horrible ache in behind your ribs, it felt like it was on the verge of collapsing. It was undeniable that you cared for him, but the sickness that churned in your stomach was rivaling those feelings. You had never felt so betrayed before by anyone. You thought that he would have been different. 

You couldn’t even bear the thought of looking at him in the moment, it hurt too much and you knew how powerful those eyes of his were. You refused to be swayed at that moment. 

You knew that no amount of words you could say would force him to leave, so you did the next best thing and sprinted for the door. You barely made it a few steps before he lunged and grabbed you by your waist, picking you up with ease as you writhed in his hold. You turned into a feral animal, throwing yourself around wildly and scratching at any available skin you could find as you cried in shrill screams. 

“Stop fighting me!” He grunted, throwing you down on the mattress and pinning your wrists down at your sides as he pressed his knees into your kicking legs. “Calm down.” 

A scream of frustration burned your throat as your muscles strained under his firm grip. There was no use in fighting him, he was far stronger than you could ever hope to be. And so your body eventually tired itself out, your limbs going limp as you shook from a mixture of fatigue, fright, and dimming embers of anger. The skin beneath your eyes felt tight from all the crying you had done and the skin around your nails throbbed from the scratches you had carved into Yoongi’s forearms. But of course, those flesh wounds had already healed. 

You flinched as he released one of your wrists and stroked your face, indirectly drying your cheeks of their lingering tears. 

“You’re scared, now. Confused. But that’s alright, you’ll learn that I am the only one who can take care of you.”

You stayed silent and stubbornly turned your head to the side when he leant in to kiss you, but your actions did not deter him, he only laid a soft kiss to the corner of your mouth with a contented hum. 

“I’ll prove it to you, I can give you everything that you want.” He whispered beside your ear before he finally stood and the blood rushed back to your arms and legs. 

You scuttled backwards up the bed as he gave you one last lingering gaze and then he slipped out of the cottage and locked the door shut behind him. 

He had trapped you once again. 

~~~~~~~

You had laid there for a long time, frozen after what had transpired. Everything you thought that you knew has been completely and utterly wrong. It had all been a lie.

You slowly sat up and slid your palms into your lap. Your nails were stained with dark blood, you had hurt Yoongi afterall, not that it had mattered. To him, it had probably been no more irritating than a kitten’s scratch. You were once again reminded of his incredible inhuman nature.  

You needed to leave, now was your chance to escape him. It was an odd feeling that stirred in the back of your mind. The night before, there was nowhere else that you would rather be, and now you wanted to get as far away as possible. You wanted to run. 

With that thought in your mind you lept to your feet and made for the window. You knew that Yoongi would be able to find you, tracking you would be more of a game than a challenge. But if you left now, you would give yourself a head start. You would make for town and when you entered its boundaries it would be too risky for him to come after you. He wouldn’t be able to get you in either skin, the hulking form of that wolf far too obvious and the flesh of his human skin far too vulnerable when outnumbered. 

You pried open the shutters and undid the latch. You hiked up the skirt of your night dress, baring your skin to the cool breeze, and swung your legs out of the window and allowed your body to drop down. You needed to go, there was no more time for hesitation. 

Your dress was held tight in each fist as you began to run, the light fabric brushing over your legs as you moved. In that moment you had wished for a pair of shears to shorten it. 

A pitched howl echoed through the trees and your heart thrummed even harder in your chest. Your limbs froze on instinct and your ears rang with the sound of your blood rushing. It was too high of a tone to be him, you had heard the sounds he had made when he tore that other shifter to shreds. It wasn’t him but it was someone else. 

A small, dark, furry form shot out from the cover of the trees and darted through the clearing. Its pace was sure yet frantic, like it still didn't have control of its four limbs nor its speed. As it came closer you began to take cautious steps backward. You knew who that was, it was the pup. 

You watched in horror as the creature’s gait became wild and the pup began to trip over itself before the fur exploded from its skin and in its place was a little girl sprinting through the grass. 

There was no denying the impossibility of what you had seen, after all you had seen it with your own eyes. There was no forgetting this. 

“Mama!” She cried as she collided with your legs and displayed an impressive strength that was disproportionate to the size of her body, sending the both of you to the ground. The world turned sideways for a moment, and there it was once more. That flash of white that you had been seeing for weeks now. But it was closer this time, close enough that you recognized what it was. From the shape of the clothes on the fleeing form, you knew it was one of the clerics from the town. Has he been watching you all this time? 

“I missed you, mama,” She said, pulling your attention to her as she stared down at you with a pair of dark brown eyes that sent chills through your veins. She looked so much like her father. 

“Binna,” His voice shot through the air, “Remember what I said? Be gentle, you don’t want to hurt your mother.”

“Sorry!” She giggled as she pressed her cheek against your collarbone, her eyes fluttering shut and her long lashes casting shadows over the skin beneath her eyes. She wrapped her arms around your neck and hummed, the warmth from her body seeping into your skin. 

“Sorry, mama.” She repeated. 

You gently laid your hand over her back, your breaths still uneven as you pulled the two of you into a sitting position. “Sweetheart, I’m not your-“

“Binna, do you want to go see your room?” Yoongi asked, dropping down into a squat behind his daughter, his eyes on you as he spoke. 

Binna let out an excited hum of agreement, scrambling up onto two legs that still wobbled unsurely beneath her weight. You noticed that she was never completely stable in either skin she wore, it was like she was still trying to figure out how four legs and two legs worked. 

“Come on, dearest,” He said, holding his hand out to you. You sat there for a moment, stubbornly, but his gaze was unwavering and his body was as still as a statue. You knew there was no fighting him and he had played dirty by bringing his daughter into the equation. He knew that you wouldn’t want to start anything in front of her, the last thing that you wanted to do was frighten her. 

You let out an angry huff and rushed to stand without his help, storming past him and walking a few paces behind his small daughter who would toddle every now and then before bending over and trying to walk on all fours instead. 

As frustrated, frightened, and irritated as you were, you couldn’t deny the tug at your heart when you watched Binna crawl up the front steps of your home and scamper inside. You could hear the sound of her bare feet tapping against the wood floors and you couldn’t stop the resulting burn in your eyes. You had always wanted to hear that sound, you had always wanted a daughter of your own. 

But Binna wasn’t yours. 

But it was hard to long for that when you watched her disappear into the once empty nursery. You didn’t like what Yoongi was doing, he was messing with your head. He knew how badly you had wanted your child, how you had tirelessly grieved your husband, and now he was trying to patch everything together and force your lives to fit with one another. 

You knew that he could understand your loss, he had lost a wife after all. He would do anything to avoid that happening again, and if that meant locking you up while he was gone, then he would do that. But that wasn’t what you wanted. You had locked yourself up for months on end, turning your home into a mausoleum as you grieved the loss of the life you had once had. You refused to do that again. 

The door shut and the lock clicked. 

You heard him approach and then you felt his warmth as your back and his breath disturb the hair on your head. It wasn’t all that different from the first time that you had met. 

His fingers grazed your own and your hand twitched in response but you didn’t move. He intertwined your hands and pressed his forehead against the back of your head, breathing in your scent. 

“You have to let me go, Yoongi.” You whispered. 

He froze and a low, warning growl thrummed in his chest causing the hair on the back of your neck to raise. It didn’t matter what skin he was in, your body recognized him as the predator that he was. 

“No.” He simply said. 

“You’re not being fair -”

“I’ve been nothing but fair. I broke your door so I fixed it, I killed your husband and I gave you myself, you lost your child and I gave you Binna. I have been more than fair, so much so that I even gave you my love when you did not want it.” 

You ignored that last part, the love you felt for him causing a stabbing pain of betrayal in your heart. It wasn’t fair that you still felt the way you did about him after everything that he had done. After he had tricked you. 

“I am not Binna’s mother.”

He quickly hushed you, spinning you around by your shoulders and staring into your eyes, “She can hear you, she has very sensitive ears and a gentle heart, you don’t want to hurt her do you?”

You bit your lip in frustration, “It’s not fair to her mother.”

“You are her mother.” 

And that conversation was over, he wouldn’t hear any of your protests and you feared hurting Binna too much to continue to broach the subject. You were caught in between a rock and a hard place. And the worst thing was that it was hard not to love Binna. 

She was curious, mischievous, and sweet. She had been the same way when you discovered her as a pup, but you adored her even more this way. All she wanted was your attention, she was a little girl that was desperate to be loved by a mother. 

“Why did you leave?” She stumbled over the words, her little fingers twisted in the fabric of your skirt as you had started dinner, the light of the sunset cast over her eyes and bursts of silver shined in their reflection. 

You didn’t know how to respond. 

“Mama’s back now, you don’t have to worry about that baby.” Yoongi answered for you with a gentle smile as he pulled her onto his lap. 

“Forever?” She asked, staring at him with wide eyes full of wonder that only a child could possess.

“Forever,” He repeated, his eyes tracing over the profile of your face. 

The questions didn’t stop there. It was a full moon that night and Binna demanded to be outside. Yoongi had briefly told you before about their connection with the moon. It was almost religious, but even that wasn’t a good comparison. It was a part of them. 

“Shift.” Binna had commanded, tugging at your skirt again as she had quickly grown accustomed to. 

“I can’t Binna,” You explained, lowering yourself into the grass so that you were more level with her height. “I’m not like you, or your daddy.” 

Yoongi had stayed close to you all day, keeping a watchful eye on you to make sure that you wouldn’t try to leave them. 

“But…” She said, her words trailing off as her face furrowed in confusion, “It was white.”

You were confused but a quick look at Yoongi cleared that up. His gaze was glassy like he was remembering something, something that he didn’t want to think about. Binna must have meant her mother, she must have seen her before she left. Her pelt must have been white. 

Yoongi cleared his throat after a moment, “I think it’s time for bed.” 

Binna, even though she was a shifter, was still a child. She whined in protest and went limp as Yoongi scooped her up in his arms and held onto your hand, guiding the two of you back into the house. 

The door shut, the lock clicked. 

The both of you cleaned Binna up together, her feet and hands dirty from struggling to crawl in her human form and her hair a mess of twigs and leaves. She had laughed as she watched the pile of leaves grow beside the basin and attempted to jump into it like it were a much bigger leaf pile than it really was. 

And when she was clean, fed, and tired, she crawled into the center of the bed and reached her arms out for you. Your heart ached again. As soon as you laid down she was curled into your side, her little arms curled into her chest as she pressed her nose against the bite mark on your shoulder, taking in deep breaths.

The lamps in the room were snuffed out one by one, the room becoming progressively darker until it was completely plunged in darkness and only the gleam of silver eyes at the foot of the bed were visible. The bed dipped beneath Yoongi’s weight as he climbed in, laying on the other side of the bed behind his daughter. When he laid down he rolled over, wrapping his arm around the two of you and pulling you in closer to him. 

Binna hummed a happy noise, burrowing deeper into your shoulder and burying herself beneath your blankets. 

“What is she doing?” You asked, the first time you had spoken a direct question to Yoongi since that morning. 

“You smell like me, it’s how we identify each other. She feels safe with you.” He explained. 

“So that’s why you did it.” You said, a bitter edge to your words as you smoothed your hand over Binna’s freshly washed hair. “She doesn’t know any better.”

“That’s not true. She chose you, and so did I. She knew you were safe, that’s why she let you take her that day. And this,” His fingers ghosted over the mark sending chills down your spine, “was purely for my own selfish benefit. I wanted everyone to know that you’re mine.” 

“You didn’t even give me the choice.”

“I love you, and I know that you love me.” 

You remained quiet, not willing to agree or disagree with him. It was hard to make sense of madness, whether that be Yoongi’s or your own. 

“You’ll see it eventually, this is what you wanted.”

~~~~~~~

When you woke the next morning, you immediately knew that something was wrong. 

Firstly, Yoongi was gone. The spot on the bed that used to be your husband’s was cold, he had been gone for a while. Secondly, Binna was curled into the corner of the room, hiding beneath a blanket as she shook. And when you looked closer, you could see the tip of a snout and a still tail peeking out from beneath the blanket. She was frightened. Thirdly, there was smoke in the air, something was burning. 

You stumbled out of bed when there was a pounding on the door. 

“Open the door!” A man yelled, the door knob shaking as he tried to open it himself. Your instincts were screaming at you that something was wrong. 

“Open up, and pay for your crimes!” He yelled again, this time throwing his weight against the door. 

That couldn’t be right? Crimes?

You crept closer to the front window, the wood shutters were pulled shut but there was a crack that you had peered through, unnoticed, many times before. This time, the sight that you were met with was horrific. There was a large, angry crowd with torches outside - illuminating the pitch black field around your home. 

You had heard of these events before, but never had you considered that you would become the victim of one, not when you were so isolated from the town. But it was happening now and you needed to act fast. 

You rushed to the corner where Binna hid and scooped her up into your arms blanket and all. Her snout sniffed at your bite wound before she began to settle down. You ran to the nursery and to the very back of the room where the crib sat. You gripped it with one hand and with a strength you didn’t know that you possessed you pulled it aside. Your heart pounded and your breath was coming in harsh pants as you moved to the window. 

“Binna,” You whispered, forcing yourself to make your voice as soft and soothing as you could. You had one priority right now and that was to get her safe. You had seen what those hunters were capable of before. “I need you to run as fast as you can, and I need you to find your daddy. Don’t stop running until you're safe, don’t stop no matter what you hear.”

Binna stared back at you, her ears perked up as her glossy silver eyes poured into your very soul. Binna was a little girl, but she was smarter than any human child. You trusted her. 

A loud thwack sounded from the front door, a sound that you weren’t all that unfamiliar with - it was the sound of an ax striking the door. Your motions became faster and more panicked than before, your nails ripping at the bottom of the window that groaned as you forced it open. You grunted and with one more hard push, it popped and raised and there was enough room that Binna could slide through. 

“Don’t stop running, be very brave.” You whispered before pressing a quick kiss to the space between her ears and lowering her as close to the ground as you could. And then, her body left your hand and her dark fur disappeared into the night. You could only hope that she could find help on time. 

You had a terrible feeling that you weren’t going to make it out of this. 

A loud crack and sharp splintering sounded from the front door and then the thud of boots entered the kitchen. You stayed as quiet as you could but you knew there was no hiding and you needed to buy Binna time. 

You slid an oil lamp off of the dresser and hid by the door, waiting for it to open. The boots approached quickly, they didn’t want to give you time to get away and they were hunting you down. This was nothing like the way Yoongi had hunted you, it was un-practiced, frantic, amateur. 

When the door to the nursery slammed open you brought the lamp down on the back of the man’s head and sent him crashing to the ground as blood pooled onto the wood. But when you darted out into the hallway, there was already someone else waiting for you. 

You swung the lamp towards him with a scream but he dodged, grabbing your wrists and bending them in such a way that a sharp scream echoed through the cottage as you lost your grip and the lamp shattered upon impact with the ground. 

The man from the nursery was up and moving and now he was behind you, pulling rope from his belt. 

“You fucking bitch!” He yelled, and before you could move he had punched you clean across your face, sending you sprawling on the ground. 

You could taste blood in your mouth as he straddled you from behind, wrapping the rope around your hands. 

“Get off of me!” You screamed, wriggling desperately but to no avail. All it earned you was another strike to your head that made your vision blurry and spotted. 

When you came to, you were being dragged out of your house. The door that Yoongi had painstakingly crafted was shattered. 

And, as soon as the three of you were outside, torches were thrown and the house was lit aflame. 

“No!” You screamed, guttural sounds that ripped through your throat. “No, no, no!”

Your husband had built that house. It was the only thing that you had left of him. It was yours, it was where you were supposed to make a family and grow old together. And now that dream, that life, was being burned to the ground. 

It was absolute chaos. 

The smell of smoke burned in your nose and made your eyes tear up on reflex. When you had thought of all the ways that you could possibly die, you had never considered this as an option. You wriggled violently in your bonds like a wild animal trapped in a snare. The rope was digging into your wrists leaving behind raw, bloody wounds. There was no escape, but you couldn’t help but try. If you didn’t free yourself, then this would be it. 

There had been a time where you craved nothing more than to be reunited with your deceased lover, but when faced with the frightening reality of death you wanted nothing more than to live. 

Violent, raw screams tore through your throat as you were held down to the ground. There were hands everywhere, gripping your shoulders, your legs, and one in particular that was knotted in your hair. 

“Silence, witch!” A man yelled, pressing down on your neck and forcing your face into the dirt. 

“Witch? Witch?!” You shrieked, another manic scream breaking up your words as you writhed against the ground. 

You could hear the murmurs of the crowd that surrounded you and with a strained eye you could see nearly the entire town gathered around you and the men that held you captive. It was clear what this was, but you didn’t want to believe it. You didn’t want to believe that your own kind would turn on you like this. But that seemed to be your plight, those you tried to trust always turned out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. 

The hand that was wound in your hair tightened its grasp spurring a pained gasp from you as they began to drag you. You could only desperately writhe in the dirt as you were pulled closer to the crowd. You were certainly a sight, your hair a deranged mess, filled with leaves and twigs with dirt smeared down your cheeks and staining the tips of your fingers. Their rough treatment of you had only served to make you appear as the very thing they feared. The thing they were accusing you of being. 

You finally came to a stop in front of the town elder, the men behind you forcing you into an upright position on your knees, your arms still painfully stretched behind your back. 

The elder looked at you in what could only be described as disgust. 

“Behold, the witch who has brought a curse upon our village,” He spoke, his voice raspy and low, causing silence to descend over the group in order to hear him. 

“I am no witch-“

“Quiet!” The man behind you yelled before delivering a harsh smack to the side of your head, forcing it to snap to the side as you cried in pain. 

“The accused has brought death to all of your doors. She who murdered her unborn child in a covenant with the devil and brought those beasts to our home, and she who slayed her husband to feed those wretched demons and seal their bond to her will continue to slaughter us where we stand. What say you, shall we stand by and allow this to happen?” The elder said, opening his arms to the crowd who voiced their agreement.

This was the man who had known you since you were a child, the very man who had approved your courtship with your husband, the same man that married the both of you. This was the man that would ultimately kill you. 

Yoongi was right, humans were horrible creatures.

Your body had gone limp, your head rolling forward as if your neck could no longer bear the weight of it. Desperate, wounded cries burst from your lips. You had not killed your baby, you had not killed your husband, but there was nothing you could say to change their minds. They had already made their decision. 

“The punishment for these crimes shall be paid by that of which you are familiar,” The elder said, gesturing to a horrifying sight looming behind him, “Hellfire.” 

You couldn’t hear the screams that burned your throat, you could only feel them. There was a loud ringing in your ears and the feeling of your feet and shoulders digging into the ground as you were dragged toward the stake and unlit pyre before you. 

They were going to burn you alive. 

Your cries for help were left unanswered, there was not a single look of empathy on anyone in the crowd. He had truly convinced them all that the deaths that had plagued the town were because of you. They believed you were the one that had brought the shifters upon them even though that didn’t make sense, they had been there long before you and longer than they realized. But there was no getting through to them. What the elder spoke was considered divine nature.

You sounded like a wounded animal, horrific sobs and screams shaking your body as you were tied to the stake. Nausea swirled in your stomach and your heart pounded, the fear that you felt was indescribable. 

Vaguely, you understood that you were mumbling something repeatedly under your breath which was not helping your perception with the crowd. It looked like you were trying to cast a curse upon them. And if you could, you would. 

But what you were saying was far from that. All you could brokenly whisper was, “I did not kill my baby.” 

The scent of smoke became even stronger and from in between layers of your hair, you could see a torch flickering. The flames wavered, almost teasingly in nature, like it was deciding whether or not it would engulf you in its fiery embrace. Ultimately, that would not be its decision. 

“Return from whence you came, witch,” The man before you spoke, and with the crook of the elder’s finger, he lit the pyre.

Heat licked at your feet and ankles as the fire slowly but surely crept up the logs and branches piled around you. This would be a long, slow, tortuous end to your life and that was what they wanted. They wanted to put all of their rage, pain, and hatred onto you and they would make certain you experienced the full extent of their wrath. 

Tears rolled down your cheeks as you accepted your fate. You cried as you watched the flames lap at the edges of your skirt - eating away at the hem. In a matter of seconds it would eat the fabric away and begin charing flesh and bone. 

But it was when you lost all hope, that fate decided to play yet another trick on you. 

Frantic cries were coming from the crowd and when you raised your head you were shocked by the sight of six massive wolves emerging from the trees. It took no time for you to realize that they were just like Yoongi. Binna had made it back to them, she had gotten them to come and help you and thankfully she was nowhere in sight. 

The crowd pressed in closer to the elder, who’s face had gone gray at the sight of the wolves, as the six shifters surrounded them, corralling them all into one place. 

In the midst of the madness, you hadn’t noticed the presence behind you until you felt your ropes loosening. 

It was Yoongi. 

The fire was searing both of your clothes yet he remained, slicing through your bonds with deft hands. He had come for you, he had saved you. 

The moment your bonds slid from your hands he wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you from the stake and pyre, the two of you sinking down to the ground in each other’s embrace. 

“Yoongi,” You choked, your lungs thick with smoke and ash. 

“Shh,” he hushed you, “just breathe, breathe for me sweetheart, just like that.” 

His hand came to rest on your chest while he guided yours to his, taking in exaggerated breaths so that you could follow him. 

Yoongi was many things: your husband's killer, your captor, your protector, and lastly - your savior. It was impossible for you to describe what you felt for him as it was no longer black and white. If there was anything you did believe, it was that nothing was ever that simple. There are many truths and many lies, it all was dependent on what you wanted to believe. 

You coughed again, the force of it shaking your entire body as Yoongi pulled you into himself tighter. You were in his lap, chest to chest, with his nose buried in your hair. You could feel him breathing in your scent, a growl radiating through his chest when he realized it had been tainted by smoke and other men. 

“I thought I lost you too,” he sighed before pressing a desperate kiss to your temple and then your cheek. He treated you like you were the most precious thing in the world. 

“Help us!” That raspy voice called out to you again. 

You slowly turned your head to face the elder who had placed himself in the middle of the crowd, using the bodies of his people to shield him from the wolves that were steadily circling them.

Help them. 

Help them? 

Help them?!

You cocked your head to the side, a look of bewilderment and rage taking over your features. Why should you help them? After what they had done to you? After what they had accused you of? 

Humans were horrible. You didn’t need them, after all, you much preferred to be alone. 

You didn’t need other humans. 

“Yoongi?” You whispered, maintaining eye contact with the elder. 

“Yes?” He leaned forward, his lips brushing against the shell of your ear. 

“Kill them all.”

You felt his warm finger trace the curve of your jaw before turning your face in his direction. He looked down at you in a mix of adoration and excitement before leaning in and pressing his lips against yours in a hard kiss. 

“As you wish,” He murmured before setting you down on the ground and joining his brothers. 

In a matter of seconds he burst free from his skin, a giant wolf in his place alongside the tattered remains of his clothes. The crowd screamed in fright from the sight of his transformation and then from the massive fangs of seven wolves. 

You sat there, knees drawn into your chest as you watched Yoongi carve his way through the crowd and toward the elder. And, with great ease, he forced the man to the ground and ripped his head clean from his shoulders. A large spurt of blood soared through the smoggy air, painting the grass a vibrant color. 

You watched on as several more people were felled by the shifters, their gruesome screams quieted by large jaws and hooked claws. 

You were numb, you couldn’t find it in yourself to care about their lives that were swiftly ended - their souls ripped from their bodies.

You craned your neck back and stared up at the full moon, eyes dull, red, and finally dry as more gurgled screams were silenced. 

Out of sight, out of mind. 

[moodymisty]

Based off this post sorry I fucking HAD to

Warnings: Vaguely NSFW, Sicarius walking in on you and Guilliman

Why must all his men break protocol? Sicarius wonders if the Codex is merely kindling to them, if they are so willing to break the sacred rules so easily.

Titus, Uriel, and now new men of second company have decided to be a pain. He only hopes reporting this to Guilliman himself will prove to be enough of a threat to his men and whip them all back into shape; Both current and future troublemakers.

In his frustrations, so wrapped up in his own mind on how to deal with this consistent issue, he fails to do a proper knock at Guilliman’s door. Instead he simply walks in, slamming the controls with more force than needed.

Within moments he freezes, as a musky, heavy smell hits his nose and the full noises of the room echo in his ears without the soundproofing in the way.

“Roboute!”

You squeal, hands wrapped tight in the short crop of Guilliman’s thin blonde hair. Most of his head and face are obscured by your skirt- and thighs, which wrap around his head like a vice. The holotable is on but unused, symbols placed randomly from your accidental touches as you sit on the edge.

Sicarius stands frozen, unable to will his body to move as his ears are suddenly filled with the sounds of you and his primarch’s moans- accompanied by then odd, wet sounds of whatever his mouth was doing. What is only two seconds is plenty to him, given how fast his mind moves in comparison to a baseline.

He… was aware of all the basics of sex and reproduction, but the intricacies of pleasure beyond that were spotty at best. He had no need to delve into such useless things, unlike some other, less proper Astartes.

He was also unaware you could do such things with your mouth.

How beneath a primarch’s holy stature; Guilliman’s words have guided armies but now he’s on his knees in penance and using his tongue like its just a-

A loud scream rips through your throat as you spot him and sit up, and Sicarius’ two seconds of internal thought is interrupted as you see him frozen in the doorway with a hand still on the door’s controls.

Guilliman of course is instantly on the defensive hearing your scream, rising to his feet- and removing his hand from his trousers - before reaching for his blade.

Until he realizes it’s Sicarius.

Guilliman relaxes with an angry look on his face; Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand before using the same hand spread flat outward to try and shield some of you from Sicarius, and reserve some of your modesty, while you adjust your clothes.

“Did your time in the warp remove your ability to announce yourself before entering, Captain Sicarius?”

Sicarius is angry at his primarch now, and has zero care for you behind him hot faced and attempting to cover yourself to some level of decency.

“I, I did not think it was needed, my primarch. I have an urgent issue that needs addressing.”

Guilliman angrily breaths through his nose, and Sicarius can see the veins in his neck.

“Go. Leave. Whatever you came here for I am sure it can wait until we both forget this encounter ever happened.”

They are both painfully aware that each other have eidetic memories, but they can only hope this moment somehow slips from their minds.

“Yes, my primarch.”

Sicarius finally manages to get his armor to move, and Guilliman sighs. Sicarius swiftly takes two steps backwards and closes the door, facing it at it closes.

He stands there for a moment, the image of his primarch on his knees between the legs of a simple baseline, and a hand doing something in his trousers is seared into his mind. Why is his primarch doing such things when there is work to be done?

“Are you alright Captain Sicarius?”

A marine says as he walks by, looking at his dead expression as Sicarius turns to face him. He points the door.

“Is Primarch Guilliman busy-“ Sicarius quickly speaks, cutting him off.

“Yes he is busy, do not disturb him.”

Sicarius has a far off stare that makes the random Astartes look at him oddly.

“I need to leave. Do not go in.”

Sicarius walks off, rubbing his hair with his gauntlet and grumbling to himself.

[diejager]

could you maybe do more of the Phoenix series or is that discontinued? But if you're still working on it can you maybe do something like monster TF 141 use hunter as a heater? Ik if it doesn't make any sense but like monster TF 141 are on a mission and its horribly cold and they're actually cold so hunter just walks up and turns into a phoenix? and just starts heating up the room 141 is in. idk I just have had this idea in my head for a while

Cw: human heating, tell me if I missed any. Note: Nope! It’s still on going, well, at least the original Au of the Phoenix hybrid!reader spinoff.

“I’ll have a bloody word with the tosser who sent us here,” Soap hissed, body wracked with tremors as he breathed into his mittened hands, hoping that the small bit of heat would warm him just a bit more than the failing heating system of their Siberian  safehouse.

They had planed to rest and warm up their temporary residence while Price took Ghost and you to survey the area, all warmly covered but mostly immune to such cold temperature. A dragon rarely needed anything other than the beating fire in their heart, kindled and powerful; a wraith, long since dead, had no worry about feeling cold or warm, only hunger and anger; and a phoenix, whose body was stuck in a perpetual cycle of life and death, had no fear of being cold when they were an embodiment of life’s fire. 

It was only natural that Price took the only people who could withstand the harshness of Siberia for a long and careful inspection when the others would freeze and shake in their thick boots and warm coats. They safehouse looked old, surfaces covered in a thin layer of dust, shelves filled with canned food - both expired and unexpired- and walls and floors as frozen as the loud winds blowing against the thick windows. It wasn’t much of a surprise that something would malfunction, the soviet era building left to appear rotten and forgotten to fit it’s intended use, and it seemed to lack any sort of upkeep. 

“We’re freezing our arses off in here!” Soap growled out, leaning closer to Gaz’s side to steal more warmth from under his wing, the soft feathers all ruffled, “Can’t even-”

Crunch

The two perked up, hands immediately reaching for their weapons, bodies tense and ready for a fire fight until your head popped in, huffing about the melted snow soaking your clothes. They jumped to their feet, running to your side for a lick of warmth that oozed off your skin. You froze at the grabbing hands, pulling you to the cold sofa and pushed under a mass of groaning and moaning bodies, happily soaking in your fire.

“Let me- ” you squirmed between them, shuffling out from under them to stretch your arms and back.

The four watched your neck crack with a wince, flames erupting from your feet, wild and bright embers licking at your skin until it engulfed you in a fiery blaze. It was both too hot to touch and too strong to approach, a fire that would threaten to burn if they touched you. It worked to protect you from an early death while you shifted into the majestic bird you were, a gentle flame in the form of orange and yellow feathers, softer than any silk and warmer than any suns. 

In your place stood a phoenix, lashes fluttering while your flapped your wings, stretched backwards to scratch the itch from the lack of use. You cooed, preening under their awed expressions before you flew back in your prior position, body heat growing hotter and hotter, strong enough to warm up the entire room. 

“Thank you, Hunter,” Gaz smiled at you, a sweet and grateful grin that made your feathers shyly ruffle up.

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[revelboo]

My Rodimus figure broke :( maybe something with Rodimus accidentally hurting himself doing something dumb and we comfort him?

Attractive Today Pt 3

MTMTE Rodimus x Reader

• Servos curling under into fists, he has to remind himself to keep smiling. Keep playing the clueless goof, because he can feel his spark crackling with his outlier ability and knows that if he lets that anger take over, he might not be able to stop. Might hurt someone. Again. Putting some space between himself and Brainstorm so he won’t be as tempted since the scientist isn’t all that concerned about the chaos he’s caused or the suffering. Some of the bots on board had never dealt with humans before Rung’s had blipped into existence on his desk amid the parts for the model so he was assembling. And it’s easy to not care, when it’s just a nameless little organic.

• Walking from one end of the desk you’re trapped on, you turn and make another circuit. Finally beginning to calm after Rodimus had explained that no, his kind, Cybertronians, don’t eat humans. He could have been lying, but he’d honestly looked so distraught about it that you believe him that the one eyed, robotic death chicken had lied to you. Your new roommate hasn’t had any explanation for how you’d gotten stuck on their ship, though. But he’d said he’d try to figure it out and despite yourself, you want to trust him. Lost in space and far from home, just gone without a trace. His quarters have a large window that you’re trying your hardest to not look at, because that vast emptiness just cracks your fear wide open. The night sky at home had never bothered you one bit, but knowing there’s nothing beyond the walls of the ship? It makes you want to scream.

• Returning to his quarters without any real solutions or answers, his servos flex. As much as he hated it, he’d sided with Magnus and Megs that they continue on rather than trying to backtrack and find the humans to return them home. He’s not sure how to tell the little human waiting in his quarters for him that you’re not going home. At least not for a long time. You’re still where he left you when he opens the door, little head turning his way. And that guilt and anger kindles about his spark, until he’s frozen in place. Because not now. Those expectant eyes are staring at him and he wonders how many of Brainstorm’s accidents hadn’t been so lucky. How many hadn’t survived.

• Big, red, and pointy isn’t moving, just standing there in the doorway before one of his hands reaches and his servos slam against the wall, head lowering. Moving closer, you watch him begin to shiver, servos flexing and almost clawing the wall. “Hey? You okay?” You call out, because if you didn’t know better, it looks like the big, alien robot is having some kind of nervous breakdown. Bright blue optics find you and there is something like panic on his too human face. You know that feeling, know what it’s like to drown in your own head as your breath catches.

• Don’t do it. Keep it together. It’s a losing battle as that anger churns and feeds the fear of what he’s capable of if he doesn’t get it together. Can feel his temperature starting to climb, feels his plating crackling with the threat of flames. Needs to go, find somewhere with no one around, no one to hurt. Then he realizes you’re talking to him. Telling him about your family and your dog, and it’s so random it snags at him. Gives him something to focus on, just the sound of your voice softly talking to him. Talking him through the danger you aren’t even aware you’re in. Leaning on the wall, he stares at you, meets your eyes. Wants to come closer and pick you up, because you’re saving him without even knowing it, but can’t move yet. Can’t risk it.

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[nouearth]

an internship at wayne interprises. (part ii)

bruce wayne x male reader headcanons

part i.

warnings: smut, age gap, bottom reader, breeding, virgin!reader, top!bruce, established relationship, lowkey kind of fluffy, bruce is falling in love.

a/n: aaaand it's finally here! i hope you all enjoy the long awaited part two! i was watching american psycho recently and bruh, i forgot how hot he looked in it. like. i want to run my tongue all over him.

—as intimidating as bruce was, he never found the courage, or time really, to isolate you from your responsibilities.

—was it cowardliness that he was faced with? or was it that returning feeling that churned in his stomach, swelled in his chest, until it made him rethink the thoughts he’s had of you?

—guilt. he never felt it when he was jerking off to your pictures, which have become a daily routine now. 

—but it returned in powerful marches, ached at the center of his heart, ridiculing him for thinking about his employee in such a crude, exploitive way.

—he always felt it when he saw you first thing in the morning, working quietly, mindlessly as your body had begun to become used to the caffeine.

—like wind chimes, you moved around people - around the wind - not with them, as you made your way to the break room. 

—three packets of sugar and two spoons of creamer normally kept you awake, but the frozen pocket pizza in the toaster oven was the real source of your energy. 

—bruce winced as he silently watched you from afar. you yawned, rubbed your eyes as the heat from the toaster oven warmed the surrounding area.

—jesus, no wonder you’re always so tired. look at the shit you’re eating.

—the march of soldiers, rioting against guilt, roared, and he was reminded of his privilege immediately after. a butler that had been providing him three nutritious meals a day since birth, and a garden of wealth that allowed him to afford a home gym with the best equipment; it was all handed to him and while he did his best to give back to the city, it was never enough to pacify the war zone of his chest. he was a person, a wealthy person, but a person nonetheless.

—you were a person.

—though ironically enough, he came to the the image of you hungrily licking the grease off your fingers when you were finished with breakfast later that night.

—there was always something new about you that he would fixate on when his hand met his cock, stroking it with a glorious amount of lube until it dried. 

—though he never fretted, because your lips, your face, your nose - everything about you - milked him until the fresh stock of cum had become the only slime that layered his softening erection.

—like bruce’s nights, you’ve begun infiltrating the routine of his mornings now.

—or rather, bruce began infiltrating yours after he visited you in the break room for the first time.

—good morning, mister wayne…

—oh, new intern, right? your name was…?

—he always feigned his disinterest because he liked hearing your name come out of your handsome mouth.

—(m/n), sir…

—it sounded beautiful. the softness of your voice kindled a tenderness in bruce and it could’ve cradled him to sleep had the coffee from the break room not been so disgusting and cheap.

—the third time, he memorized the pattern you spoke in. your voice always trailed off at the end of a sentence as if it had been stolen by a criminal.

—it’s (m/n), sir…

—he wished he could be that somebody.

—the fifth time, he’d gotten used to the watery aftertaste of the coffee.

—wait, don’t tell me. your name rhymes with…

—and when you laughed because bruce was completely off by a mile, he saw a glimpse of your soul that had been sheltered by intimidation and anxiety.

—he learned he wanted to become a part of your life when he took you out for lunch.

—long overdue, but i usually take my interns out for lunch.

—bruce usually didn’t.

—oh—mister wayne, i don’t think that’s necessary… i already packed lunch.

—great! you don’t have to pack for tomorrow then.

—wait, but i haven’t set up the meeting with—

—i’ll get someone on it—already made reservations, c’mon.

—he’d learned so much about you that day, then the following, and the next; your upbringing, your hopes and dreams, your downfalls, it felt like he was walking on water with the way you willingly opened more of yourself every consecutive day.

—he could listen to you talk for hours, become poisoned by it if your voice was liquid, and bruce accepted that risk when he made another routine to invite you for lunch.

—previous nights were as followed: he stroked his cock to you, breathing heavily into the memory of your cologne, the wrinkles of your shirt, the curl of your lips when he made a joke.

—since he’d gotten to know you as more than a stained selfie, more than the meek statue that stood in the corner; instead of feeding himself with the thoughts of you that derived from pure lust, the reality of his nights had shifted.

—he stroked himself, that never changed. but he closed his eyes, breathing until he could see the ghost of you by his side.

—your shared bodies tensed into one another as his body curved forward into the arc of your back when he pushed in for the first time. you reached back to hold his thigh, pausing his thrusts because you needed to adjust, because you wanted to feel all of him in complete comfort.

—it was intimacy.

—it only melted - your body - when bruce kissed the shell of your ear, telling you that he’ll continue once you were ready. you let him in, sprouted for him like a bud in spring, and felt all of him swell larger inside of you with a whimper.

—it was vulnerability.

—he made sure you were touched, palming your erection as he rocked his own into your bud. from the nape of your neck to the hill of your back, he blessed you in the wet of his mouth, battling the sweat that had gathered on your body to see who would claim the vacancy of your body.

—he made sure to make you feel safe, drowning you in affection with his low voice, with the bridge that had constructed between your soul and his as he thrusted deeper, connected into you when he pressed into a spot that had the heavy air memorize every letter of bruce’s name.

—and finally crossed when he filled you with all of his endearment towards you, heavy and thick in combative sequence. he never pulled away in fret of losing the sentiment—in fret of losing you. 

—it was love.

—from then on, bruce was devoted to melt the frost that had shielded you, just as you had melted his.

—because he was going to protect you now.

—the guilt that had been egging the shelter of his heart wilted in the pit of his stomach when he kissed you for the first time.

—and then completely died when you kissed him back. 

—your arms were around his neck, and his were around your waist. you and bruce slow danced to the tune of his favorite song, in the middle of his living room, and so did your lips when he leaned in again.

—it never progressed further than that, despite the ache in bruce’s pants yelling at him to. he wanted to savor every moment with you, in case he happened to chase you away like he did with the others.

—you were special, and bruce held you like the rarest gem on earth for the first time that night.

—again, when he visited you in mornings to drive you to work.

—again, on nights where you were too tired to drive back to your apartment.

—again, after morning meetings were over and every businessmen and women left the vicinity upon the announcement of food catering a few floors down.

—and then again, when bruce’s thoughts had become a reality.

—b-bruce, ngh…

—you reached back to his thigh like in his thoughts, carefully maneuvering and pacing his thrusts into you. your breath stained deep into the cover of his pillow when bruce applied his weight into you, fitting his broad body to the dip of your back.

—i got you, hm? —nice and slow…

—his voice tickled your nape, soothing it with chaste kisses when your muscles tensed, and you breathed harder into the pillow when you let his thigh go, freeing him to do as he pleased. the warmth of your breath fogged your skin as his girth opened you to a profound feeling you’ve been too intimidated to discover

—faster, please…

—he was humored, not because you were embarrassing like the flush of your skin thought, but because you were still the same person he’d met months ago, appeased by it. you were calmed by an assurance, a kiss to your shoulder then your lips, yet your body only continued to bloom with roses. 

—you’re still so polite even when we’ve done so many things together…

—bruce pressed deeper into you, panting in your ear as he delivered on your timid demands. he knew you now—read you like a book. you were too afraid to ask for anything despite becoming so vulnerable with each other, and he made sure that you were safe with him.

—your requests were silent sans the moans that have escaped, but he heard every single one of them. his hips drove into you harder for a few rhythms, then excruciating slower to coerce a plea out of you—to pull your beautiful moans along with desperation.

—he wanted to hear you, pulling himself completely out of your bud.

—f-fuuuuck, bruce! please—i need you, please.

—more, he needed to hear you want him as much as he’d been wanting you. his arms wrapped around your waist, and his fingers curled over your cock. it provided a friction, a hole for you to press into as his fist was sandwiched between your body and the bed, and you took the opportunity to desperately thrust into it.

—secretly, you’d hope to thrust yourself back onto his cock.

—but again, he knew you; silently observant and logical, and he raised his hips back, avoiding the desperate grinds of your bottom.

—how badly do you need me, hm? —how bad do you want me?

—bruce needed to hear it, to compel a truth to his prophecy. his hand unwrapped around you and you were left desperately grinding into the soft fabric of his sheets with a whine. they were music to his ears, and the drips of his cock dribbled over the curve of your bottom as if they were notes to a stave, to the sound of your torment.

—i-i need you, please…

—he exhaled.

—so bad.

—he gulped.

—so fucking bad…

—he throbbed.

—mister wayne… —please…

—bruce’s two worlds had collided: his previous thoughts of you rocketed into the current with a cloudy explosion, and he succumbed. you looked back at him with glassy orbs, sweat running down the side of your face, and bruce was overwhelmed by the beauty our deepest desires. how quickly it could destroy the barrier that we’ve built, how quickly he could destroy yours and unfurl your vulnerabilities when he finally drove himself back in one long and smooth thrust. 

—f-fuuuuck...

—it was continuous. you wouldn’t admit it, but he knew you preferred being filled like this. he notified the curl of your fingers, clutching at whatever you could to fulfill the aching need to grasp onto something.

—god—

—hard when bruce came down, but slow and affectionate when he pulled out. you felt every thick inch sliding in and out of you. at times, you would purposely tighten in fear of losing bruce, but his thrusts reminded you that you wouldn’t.

—bruce reminded you again when his lips suckled on your shoulder.

—i’m close, (m/n)…

—when his hand stroked your aching cock.

—m-me too…

—and when bruce pushed all of his sweaty weight onto you with one hard thrust.

—shit, shit—

—the boiling feeling in his stomach unfurled inside of you to release his devotion in heavy, white loads. they filled you with heat, spreading thick within you as bruce slowly rocked himself weakly, squeezing every ounce of his love into you until you could feel it yourself.

—bruce—

—your eyes rolled back and you could feel the thick of his cum dripping out of you and down your legs the more he plunged into your hole, and it didn’t take very long for you to come undone yourself. the seam of your mouth kept your moans contained as you blasted bruce’s fist and the sheets with your affection, and it wasn’t until his hand came down to pump you that you exhaled a staggered, breathless groan. the drips came out heavy, sticky, and you rocked into bruce’s fist until they spread themselves thin onto your pelvis, over your cock, and stained deep into the sheets.

—as you both lay breathless, bruce remained on top, puzzled into you as he found comfort in your muscles loosening like the flaccid of your length. he continued playing with your soft flesh, squeezing and spreading the layer of seed that covered his hand, and chuckled when you silently squirmed. 

—not away from him like he’d thought, but back into him.

—because he was your guardian now.

nouearth. please do not repost, plagiarize, or translate my works. and if you like this story, please reblog and leave a like!

[deliciousangelfestival]

We're Not Okay - 2

Character: Bucky x veterinarian!Female Reader

Summary: Two people, each carrying their own trauma, find themselves in a place where they can begin to heal their wounds and mend their hearts together.

Words Count: 3,400

Chapter 1 , Chapter 2 , -

Main Masterlist || If you enjoy my work, please consider buying me a coffee on Ko-fi 🙏🏻

By the way, I publish my book Arrogant Ex Husband in Kindle. 👉 Now available on e-Kindle Amazon! << here's the link.

Thank you to everyone who has read this chapter. Leave a comment and Reblog, please. I'd love to hear your thoughts. ❤️

After witnessing the strangest thing last night, you struggled to sleep once you returned to your room. The morning light crept in, and despite the restless night, you felt oddly well-rested. You made your way to the dining room, where you spotted Dr. Jane Foster, the other veterinarian at the conservation.

Jane, who also owned the place, had been a scientist before falling in love with animals—thanks to the influence of her husband, Thor Odinson. Thor, the tallest man you’d ever met and full of boundless energy, traveled across the country to rescue and care for animals.

Jane smiled and waved for you to sit beside her. You joined her at the table, and she leaned in with curiosity.

“So, I heard we got a new guest,” she said, referring to your latest arrival.

“Yup,” you replied, nodding. A flicker of realization crossed your face as you remembered Bucky hadn’t shown up for breakfast.

At that moment, Mandy, the cook, appeared with your usual breakfast: scrambled eggs, bacon, and potato wedges with mayonnaise on the side. She set the plate down without a word.

“Thanks, Mandy,” you said warmly.

She gave you a brief nod, her face as impassive as ever. Mandy wasn’t one for talking, but her actions spoke volumes. The fact that she brought you food without waiting for you to ask made you feel appreciated. She added in her thick Russian accent, “The new kid already grabbed his food and went outside.”

You paused mid-motion, the forkful of scrambled eggs hovering just before your mouth. “Really?” Turning in your seat, you glanced toward the window. Sure enough, Bucky was sitting in front of the wolf’s cage—the same as last night.

Quickly finishing your breakfast and draining your glass of water, you stood. “Sorry, Jane, I need to talk to him.”

“Go ahead,” Jane said with an understanding smile before taking another sip of her coffee.

Grabbing your winter jacket from the coat rack, you slipped it on as you headed for the door. The chill in the air hit you instantly, and you frowned when you noticed Bucky wasn’t wearing a jacket. Didn’t he feel the cold?

The thought worried you. If anything happened to him, the conservation could lose its much-needed sponsor. As you got closer, you saw Bucky sitting cross-legged on the ground, his gaze locked with the white wolf’s. You hesitated, watching the scene unfold. The wolf, normally skittish and aggressive, seemed at peace—almost transfixed by him.

How was he doing that?

You’d been treating the wolf ever since she arrived, but no matter what you did, she remained guarded and wary. Yet here she was, calm in Bucky’s presence.

Quietly, you approached them, your boots crunching softly against the frozen ground. Without saying a word, you draped your jacket over Bucky’s shoulders. He flinched slightly at the sudden weight but didn’t turn to look at you.

“She trusts you,” you said softly, breaking the silence.

Bucky’s head dipped slightly, and his jaw tensed as though he hadn’t realized anyone was there. His first instinct seemed to be leaving—his posture stiffened, and he made a slight movement to rise.

“Wait,” you said quickly, holding up your hands in a gesture of peace. “I don’t know why you’re afraid of me. Please… stay.”

He froze, his expression guarded, but his body relaxed ever so slightly. Though he didn’t move, it was clear he was still undecided. You noticed his shoulders shift as if weighing your words, but something made him stay rooted in place.

You took a cautious step closer, keeping your tone soft. “I’ve worked with her for months, and she’s never let her guard down like this. Not for anyone… except you.”

His eyes flicked toward you briefly before returning to the wolf. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to give you hope.

“It’s nice to see her looking more lively,” you said, gesturing to the wolf. “Do you want to help me feed her?”

Bucky’s expression softened, and for the first time, his eyes lit up. He nodded.

You grabbed a small bucket of food and motioned for him to follow. Together, you entered the enclosure, your boots crunching softly against the frozen ground. The wolf’s ears perked up slightly, but she stayed calm, her trust in Bucky unwavering.

As you worked, the sound of laughter carried over from a group of volunteers by the sea lion pen. Their cheerful voices and playful banter created a sharp contrast to the quiet atmosphere surrounding you and Bucky.

He glanced toward the volunteers, his steps slowing. You noticed the way his gaze lingered on them—on their laughter, their freedom. His longing was almost tangible, though he said nothing.

Pausing by the wolf, you broke the silence. “Everyone here seems so carefree,” you began, crouching down to check the wolf’s injured leg. “But we all have something in common.” You glanced at him. “Just like you.”

Bucky’s eyes shifted toward you, quiet but attentive.

You straightened and nodded toward Steve, a blonde volunteer who was currently lobbing a snowball at one of the others. “See him? He ran away from home because his father abused him.”

Then you gestured toward Natasha, the red-haired girl dodging the snowball with a grin. “And her—don’t be fooled by her friendliness. She’s trained in martial arts. She came here after breaking her ankle in a fight, which ruined her career and crushed her spirit.”

“And me,” you added quietly.

The air grew still. You hesitated, then met Bucky’s gaze.

“I’m what you’d call a bargain kid,” you said, a bitter edge in your voice. “My mom was a prostitute at the club my father owned. When I got older, I went looking for her, thinking I’d find some kind of connection. But reality doesn’t work that way. She didn’t even acknowledge me—just saw me as a way to get a green card.”

You paused, the weight of your words hanging between you. “This is why I prefer animals. Did you know a duck will adopt orphaned ducklings without a second thought?” You glanced at him with a faint smile.

Bucky’s brow furrowed, his lips pressing together. He didn’t respond, but his silence didn’t feel empty. You knew he was listening.

“How can a mother not want to meet her own daughter?” you muttered, more to yourself than him.

He remained quiet, his gaze fixed on you with a mix of understanding and something you couldn’t quite name.

You straightened and continued, your tone softening. “What I’m trying to say is… it’s not just you who’s been hurt here. All of us look okay on the outside, but we’re carrying deep wounds too.” You held his gaze. “I hope you don’t feel like an outcast. Just try—a little.”

Bucky didn’t say anything, but after a moment, he gave a small nod. It wasn’t much, but it was enough.

The white wolf nudged her nose against Bucky’s hand, drawing your attention back to her. Her gentle persistence seemed to be asking for more food. Bucky obliged, reaching into the bucket and handing her another piece.

You crossed your arms and smirked. “I’m so jealous,” you said, watching the wolf’s trust in him.

Bucky glanced at you, a faint flicker of a smile ghosting across his lips before it disappeared again.

🐺🐺🐺🐺

As time passed, the sky grew darker, and everyone gathered in the dining room. The warm glow of the lights reflected a sense of comfort as you entered and spotted Thor seated beside his wife, Jane. His large presence was hard to miss, his booming laugh echoing through the space.

You approached their table, a friendly smile on your face. “Thor, Jane,” you greeted. “Did you guys bring your son with you?”

Thor grinned broadly. “Yup, we did,” he replied, then paused, glancing around. “Wait… where is he?”

Before anyone could answer, the sound of a child crying filled the room. Mandy appeared at the doorway, holding the hand of a tearful Tom. The seven-year-old’s cheeks were red, and his cries were loud enough to draw attention.

“Huwaaah!” Tom sobbed as Mandy guided him forward.

Thor’s expression softened immediately, and he stood, scooping his son up effortlessly and placing him on his broad shoulder. “What made my big man cry, huh?” he asked, gently bouncing Tom to cheer him up.

Tom sniffled, his small hands gripping Thor’s shoulder. He pouted dramatically, his lip jutting out as he glanced between you and Jane. “I got ignored,” he said, his voice wobbling.

“Who ignored you?” Jane asked, her brows furrowing slightly as she reached out to smooth Tom’s hair.

Tom pointed with a small finger in the direction of the door. “Him. When I asked if I could touch the wolf.”

Thor’s booming laugh filled the room. “Buddy, I told you the wolf was off-limits,” he said, ruffling Tom’s hair affectionately.

Before Tom could argue, the dining room door swung open, and a gust of cold air swept inside, making everyone shiver. Standing in the doorway was Bucky, his figure silhouetted against the dim light outside.

Tom’s eyes widened in recognition. “That’s him! He ignored me!” he declared, pointing at Bucky with a glare.

The three adults exchanged glances, unsure how to approach the situation. None of them dared to criticize Bucky outright, given that he was the primary sponsor of the conservation.

Bucky’s gaze shifted to Tom. He hesitated, then slowly pulled out his phone. After a moment of typing, he turned the screen toward the boy. The message read: “I’m sorry.”

You stepped in to ease the tension, crouching slightly to Tom’s level. “Tom, his name is Bucky. And he can’t speak,” you explained gently.

Tom’s face fell in realization. He blinked, unsure how to process the information. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t know.”

Bucky shook his head and began typing again. When he finished, he held the phone up for Tom to see. “It’s okay. Do you want to play with the wolf tomorrow?”

Tom’s expression lit up. “I can?” he asked, his earlier tears forgotten.

Bucky nodded, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

You blinked in surprise. Bucky inviting Tom to interact with the wolf was unexpected. Then, he turned toward Thor and Jane, typing another message. He held the phone out to them: “My name is James Buchanan Barnes. But you can call me Bucky. I’m sorry for the late introduction. Nice to meet you.”

Thor’s grin widened, and he extended a hand. “Same here, Bucky. Nice to meet you!” he said, his voice booming with warmth.

Jane gave Bucky a kind smile. “It’s nice to meet you too,” she said softly.

With the formalities done, Bucky nodded politely before moving toward another table. His steps were hesitant at first, but as the volunteers murmured their quiet greetings and understanding glances, he seemed to relax.

You watched him from a distance, your heart feeling lighter. The change in Bucky’s demeanor was subtle but meaningful. It was as though the morning conversation between you had nudged him toward opening up, even if only a little.

You smiled faintly, reassured. It wasn’t just about keeping your promise to the Barnes family. Deep down, you also hoped that Bucky could heal from his pain.

🐺🐺🐺🐺

The next morning, Bucky kept his promise and brought Tom to see the white wolf. To everyone’s amazement, the wolf, usually wary and reserved, behaved almost like a domesticated dog. Her tail wagged gently, and she let Tom stroke her fur without flinching.

You stood nearby, watching in disbelief. “That’s… pretty impossible,” you muttered under your breath. “She’s a wild animal.” Yet, here she was, acting as though she’d known Bucky and Tom forever.

Tom giggled, his small hands brushing over the wolf’s soft coat. “She’s so nice! Can I name her?” he asked excitedly.

Bucky gave him a slight nod, the faintest hint of a smile tugging at his lips.

Before you could respond, the static buzz of your walkie-talkie interrupted the moment. A voice crackled through, tense and urgent: “We’ve got a situation. The red panda is missing.”

You let out a frustrated sigh and pressed the button. “Understood. I’m on it.”

Bucky turned his gaze to you, his eyes sharp with curiosity and concern. The subtle lift of his brow asked the question his voice couldn’t: What’s going on?

You glanced at him. “It happens more than you’d think. People try to steal exotic animals all the time,” you explained, your tone heavy with resignation.

As if on cue, Thor appeared, striding purposefully out of the building with a shotgun slung over his shoulder. His jaw was set, and his expression radiated determination. He climbed into the driver’s seat of a rugged SUV, clearly ready for action.

You turned to Bucky. “Could you take Tom back to Mandy?”

Bucky nodded without hesitation. His gaze shifted to Tom, and with a small gesture, he guided the boy toward the dining hall.

You crouched to Tom’s eye level before they left, your voice softening. “Your dad’s going to catch the bad guys so fast, you won’t even have time to miss me,” you said with a wink.

Tom nodded, wide-eyed but reassured, gripping Bucky’s hand as they walked away.

With a deep breath, you straightened and sprinted toward Thor’s vehicle. The cold morning air stung your lungs, but you didn’t slow down. Jumping into the passenger seat, you barely had time to buckle in before Thor hit the gas, the SUV roaring to life.

A sense of urgency filled the air as the vehicle sped down the dirt road. You were fully focused on the mission, driven by your love for the animals and your determination to protect them.

Meanwhile, back near the enclosure, Bucky paused. His steps slowed as he watched you disappear into the distance, your figure growing smaller as you ran toward danger without hesitation. Something about your selflessness struck him deeply.

For the first time in what felt like forever, Bucky felt an unfamiliar spark. A desire to act—not out of obligation, but out of a need to help, to protect.

By the way, I publish my book Arrogant Ex Husband in Kindle. 👉 Now available on e-Kindle Amazon! << here's the link.

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[frostgears]

port leave

the slap rings loud in the half-empty food court. your face smarts, your eyes water, and your handler's other hand, the one holding her cone of frozen yogurt, doesn't even bobble.

"if your audio didn't pick up 'no', pretty thing," she continues, "then maybe we need to get it serviced. it'll be a shame about the rest of your port leave."

you sense movement and then see: the large bearded man at the next table over. he steps between your seats, interposing.

"miss, are you all right? i just saw her hit you. do you need me to call the cops?"

your handler sighs a sigh born of professional weariness. she puts her yogurt on the table.

"sir, you need to step back. step back slowly."

"the hell i will! you just slapped her! right in front of me!"

"sir. seriously. put your hands down. step back. it is not a 'her' like you think you know. ignore the cute little skirt; it is not a person, it is a weapon system…"

she's talking to him the way she talks to you.

"…you've probably never seen one out of its armor, i get it, i'm not in uniform either, it's my day off. but sometimes these things get confused about the difference between cran-apple juice, avgas, and blood, and they need a reminder of where they are…"

sing-song, reassuring.

"…i'm just going to reach for my service ID here. all above board. again, please don't make any sudden movements…"

"you're sick, lady," the man growls, as he pulls something from his pocket.

you don't wait to find out what. by his next blink, your teeth are at his throat.

"shit! stand down!" your handler shouts. "position 4!"

by your own next blink, you are kneeling at her feet.

there's a large blob on the floor, but it's irrelevant. you have eyes only for your handler.

if you were wearing wings, you'd fan them a little bit. she likes that.

you remain in position 4, hanging on your handler's every word. there's a glow of heat kindling between your legs.

"just a cell phone," she mutters. "hell, sir, i told you, no sudden movements. keep this pressed to your neck, it's clean, just bought it, she didn't get deep."

"somebody," she yells at the gathering crowd, "go get mall security or something. this man needs first aid, and we don't want to risk moving him."

you do not move or signal. you are not somebody. you will hold position 4 until given other orders. you remain in position 4 until all the explanations are done, all the mess is cleaned up. there are stares. you're used to them.

then your handler gazes down at you. your eyes lock to hers.

"you need to listen, pretty thing, when i tell you we're not going back to base yet…"

the heat between your legs grows.

"…now i've got to get another scarf. and i still want to swing by that place with the cute bags… the rest of your leave is cancelled, obviously. maybe shouldn't have even tried. but when we're back at base, i'm for sure gonna need to blow off some steam."

her expression flicks from tired to sharp, hungry. it's all you can do not to squirm, until, finally, she says,

"at ease." □

[papasbaseball]

The Wizard x Reader (Wonderful Wonderful Girl) | Chapter 13

Pairing: Wizard x F!Reader

Rating: !!!Explicit!!!

Warnings: Power Imbalance, Boss/Employee Relationship, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Sexual Content

Summary: Being a maid in the Royal Palace of Oz is not half so bad. Despite the meager wages, everything else is provided for you for an honest day's work. It can be unnerving working for the most powerful man in Oz, but you are able to avoid him most of the time. This changes during Lurlinemas, your paths soon becoming inextricably intertwined.

Word Count: 2,697 of 34,907

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AO3 Link

The cabin is just as small inside as it looks outside, if not smaller. Whatever poor hunter owns this lodge has seen fit to only furnish it with a small, hard-looking bed, a burnished black cookstove, a chamberpot, and a straight-back wooden chair. Pelts of past kills litter the floor in front of the fireplace, different hues of fur making a motley. One of them has strayed to the bedside, a makeshift rug for cold feet on a frozen morning. I don't notice any of it at first as we fumble our way into the cabin, my lips pressed against the Wizard’s in a kiss, eager to get warm.

While the shack provides shelter from the wind, it is just as freezing inside as it is without. I break from the kiss, gasping for air.

"It's cold," I whisper. Our breath steams the air between us.

"Yeah," he says. "Yes, yes... I can fix that." He breaks from the embrace and we make our first assessment of the cabin. Amidst our bad luck, it seems serendipitous that there is already cut wood by the fireplace and matches on the mantle. Up here, one didn't rely on someone else to chop their wood and ship it in. The cabin's owner probably had the foresight to keep some stocked to save labor after a hard and cold hunt. The Wizard tosses some on the fireplace grate and I come over to rearrange the logs.

"It's better this way," I say as I stuff some kindling in between the rough wood.

"I've built fires before," he objects, grabbing the matches for me.

"Yeah?" I say. The match strikes easily and I hold it to the kindling until it catches.

"When I was younger," he says, "traveling with the fair. The little kids... they'd make us go pick up sticks and branches from nearby woods… or dry corn husks if there were no woods."

I get up from my crouched position, satisfied that the kindling is now catching some of the larger pieces. "When was that?" I ask. "The dark ages?"

He chuckles at that but takes me in his arms. “C’mere,” he says. His hands already feel warmer from the fire. One grips my jaw as he bends down to kiss me. There is a pleasant hunger to the kiss – a hunger that had been simmering for the past month, waiting for me to come and feed it – one that I hadn't noticed before. My own warming hands slide up and around his neck – or at least the one good hand I had. He gets the message, scooping me off the floor so I can wrap my legs around him. If Esmet or Emily had caught us like this, what kind of scandal would it have caused? I can picture them there, in the doorway of the Wizard’s bedroom, mouths agape, having the misfortunate timing to come in and tidy something that could have been left for later.

"You taste so good," he says between kisses. "Do you know that?" His kisses stray from my lips, up my jaw, and down to my neck. I gasp as he sucks gently on a tender spot of skin that makes me aware of how my core was pressed against his hips.

"Fuck," I whisper.

He groans as he brings his face back to mine. There is a hint of laughter in his voice as he says, "Yes, I am trying to get to that." He kisses me again. "If that's alright with you? Don't want to get slapped again."

The memory of him lying in the snow ready to give up and die almost seems funny now as the fireplace is heating us through. Even the Lynx that tried to kill me lying dead outside has me laughing. "You didn't like it?" I tease, caressing the cheek where I had smacked him. A smile spreads across my lips.

"Why don't I show you what I do like?" he says, giving me a quick peck.

"Okay."

He lowers us to the animal-pelt-covered floor, carefully laying me beneath him. In the glow of the firelight, I see how his carefully styled hair has become a mess from the wind and snow and all the awful events of today. What once had been styled to perfection – a bit of the Emerald City that had never left him – was now returning to its natural texture with white strands stuck to his temple from melted snow, pieces in disarray like a wild animal. The fire lights the amber of his tiger eyes and warm skin as he pushes my snow-damp skirt up to reveal the cold flesh of thighs and legs. He removes his overcoat, keeping the predatory look on me as he shrugs out of it, less weighed down. I do the same, glad that the flames are there to replace the warmth.

His hands hook around the tops of my thighs, dragging me closer. Even after jumping from a moving train and walking a mile in the snow, he is still able to drag and move me as if I were a rag doll. The thought causes me to press my thighs together, but he quickly pulls them back apart. His fingertips skim up my legs and hook into the hem of my underwear. He pulls them off with quick jerks under my hips and down my legs. They vanish into the darkness of the cabin near the bed where he throws them.

I press my thighs back together again. There is a warning look of frustration in his eyes as he forces them apart again, splaying palms that cover the entire inside of my thighs and pressing down into the soft fur of the pelts. His head ducks below the folds of my pushed-up skirt and I yelp at the shock of lips and tongue that places a sharp kiss against my sex. The sensation is foreign as he licks and kisses and bites, obscured by the pile of skirts on my stomach, every move a surprise. I want to squirm away, thinking how lewd I must look naked before his eyes, but he presses harder, creeping his hands up until my hips can't even leave the floor.

"Your Wonderfulness," I breathe. I squeal as he latches onto my clit, letting his tongue flicker over the sensitive bundle of nerves. Obscenities flow freely from my mouth as I endure the torture, my hips locked under an iron grip. With each flick of his tongue I can feel myself becoming wetter, whether from his mouth or my arousal, I cannot tell. He pulls away from his onslaught to lap at the fresh nectar of his work and I moan, begging for the cruelty of his tongue against my clit again. He’s unresponsive to my pleas, taking his time to penetrate and tease in ways that won't satisfy.

I lay there groaning, writhing my upper body and gripping handfuls of fur, begging him as he wracks pleasure from me. It is pleasurable, yes, but it never gets me close enough to coming. What he likes most seems to be the way that I cry and thrash under his tongue and teeth and eventually, fingers. Sweet Oz, those fingers. They're so much thicker than they look. It only takes two of his to stretch me to the fullness that three of mine would. I think I might be able to endure it if it was just his fingers filling me up, but he takes sadistic pleasure in letting his mouth continue to work on the sensitive bundle of nerves while his fingers press so far into me, taking their time to caress as if in no particular hurry.

"Your Wonderfulness," I groan.

He surfaces for air, his fingers still dragging lazily within me. "Just, Oscar, doll."

Blood rushes to my cheeks as I try out the inappropriately familiar name. "Oscar," I breathe.

"There's a good girl," he grins. "Was there something you needed?"

"Please," I beg him.

"Hmm?" he asks. "Please what? I am trying here… to please." His fingers crook up fluttering rapidly into a sensitive spot that makes me cry. They stop just as soon as they start, going back to sliding in and out languorously. Oh! I could smack him again just for that!

"I need more," I say.

"Yes? More like this?" his thumb teases against my clit with the two fingers anchored against the pleasurable point within me. "Or more?" His hand stops just when I think that I'm close to the tension building.

"Fuck! Yes! All of it!" I whine. "I need to come! I want to come!"

"You’re really needy, you know that?" He sighs. "And what about me? What do I get out of it?"

"Oscar, please. Please fuck me." I'm starting to think that he's going to get up from the furs altogether and leave me aching with need, but those words set something off in him.

His eyes go cold, and he straightens himself into a kneeling position. Belt is undone, followed by pants, none of them tossed aside to preserve body heat. When he pulls his cock free I can feel my stomach drop just looking at the size of it. He strokes it once and then twice, covering it in my juices from his fingers, and then pulls me beneath him.

There must be a glint of fear in my eyes because he shushes me, saying, "Hey… We'll go slow. I'm not going to hurt you." With one arm propped up, he uses the other to guide the tip, pressing it against my entrance. It's big enough that with the first push of pressure, nothing happens. His free hand has to spread me, taking time to play with my clit in between pushing so that the pain doesn't become too much. It still stings, and I can feel every vein and inch of him as he slides deeper and deeper. True to his word, he goes slow, and after what feels like an eternity, I groan as the head of his cock nestles behind my cervix, bottoming out within me.

He kisses me, letting us rest in the burning stretch as I feel myself clench around him, desperate to regain any ounce of comfort. "You're doing so good," he whispers against my lips. "My wonderful, wonderful girl." He rocks his hips against me to test the depth. "You are so tight, I could just-" his right arm hooks under my knee, pressing my knee to my arm. Like magic, I feel him slip even deeper into me.

"Oscar!" I gasp. He pulls out just enough to give a shallow thrust and as he bottoms out again. I can feel it in my stomach, a sort of sickly but delicious feeling of being stretched and claimed so thoroughly.

His rhythm is gentle at first, allowing me to get used to the feeling of being torn open again and again. I wrap my good hand behind his neck, pulling him in to kiss sweetly in return for his gentleness. Biting his lip earns me a harder thrust and a moan as he presses my left leg up to my chest. Our tongues mingle as he picks up speed, muffling my cries caused by the way his hips are now snapping into me.

"I should have fucked you the day I lost my cufflinks," he says, his voice uneven from the effort. "Thought about it. You... You would have looked so pretty on my bed, bent over for me."

I moan at that, picturing one of his large hands tangled in my braids while mine twisted and ruined his fresh mint sheets. The way that I’m wailing now, I can only imagine he would have had to cover my mouth to stop half the palace from hearing us.

He dips his head to nip and suck at my collarbone and I can't help but to yelp as he picks up speed. "Or on the dance floor. Should have taught Fiyero a lesson about who you belong to. Had you scream my name." He changes the angle of his hips and every thrust now seems to focus in on the hazy pleasure.

"Oscar!" I cry.

"Yes, doll," he says. "Just like that. You're doing so good. Just for me. Only me."

I can feel the tension within me winding, the lust of being claimed by him only hastening the climax. Him. Only him.

He must feel the way my walls are tightening around his cock, because he slows his pace. His hips angle back and the thread of tension is lost. "Not yet,” he says.

I groan, pleading with him to satisfy the gnawing hunger. He responds by pulling out and flipping me onto my stomach, pulling my hips up into the air. I try to prop myself up, but the sting in my right wrist collapses me, my collarbone and cheek thumping into the soft fur of a pelt, the fire warming my face. He lines himself up and pushes in making me squeal. It was as if he had started all over again, my pussy as tight as it was when we started in this new position. His grip is firm on my hips as his cock sinks into me again and again, claiming my body. Between the clinking of his belt buckle and the rustle of my crinoline, I can hear the obscene echo of his hips rhythmically meeting mine. The clapping lands thickly on the ears, skin meeting skin down to the bone, so deep that I am being stretched beyond what I thought was possible.

He lets go of one of my hips, wrapping his hand around my throat to bring me upright. His lips crush against my ear, mustache prickling the sensitive skin, and I can hear his breath coming ragged. "I'd do this every night... Make you mine... Is that what you want? To be my wonderful girl and take this cock?" The change in angle has him hitting the spot within me that makes my vision go spotty, the tightness nearly unbearable.

"Yes," I gasp. "Yes... Fuck. I want to be your wonderful girl, Oscar. Please..."

As if reading my mind the hand that was on my hip travels down the crease of my thigh until it finds my clit, swollen and wet. He presses lightly on it, careful not to overdo it and I feel so close to the precipice. "Beg," he says.

"Please, Oscar. Please, Please, I've been a good girl."

He angles my head to the side, crushing my lips into a kiss as he circles the swollen bundle of nerves with his fingertip. The band within me snaps and waves of pleasure breaks over me. If it weren't for the fact that he is holding me up by the throat, I would have collapsed from the way my legs are shaking. His thrusts falter and soon I can feel the warmth of his seed spilling into me. He pushes into me a few more times, fucking his spend deeper, and then we both topple onto the furs, his chest pressed against my back.

"Christ..." he pants. "Fuck... God, you're beautiful." He kisses my neck, struggling to breathe between each one.

I cling to his arm that is holding me to him with my good hand, savoring the tight embrace that I had so long denied myself. "I'm sorry I slapped you," I say.

"No... No... That's okay. If I’d known you wanted to do this… Well, I would have gotten out of the snow sooner," he laughs.

I place a kiss on his wrist as a thank you and then turn in his arms to face him, pushing him so that he lays down on the pelts. Resting my head against his chest, I say, "We're going to have to find some way to get out of here."

I can hear the lullaby of his heartbeat and the rumble in his chest as he shushes me and says, "That's a tomorrow problem, sweetheart… And I still need to fuck you a few more times before we leave."

[farwayloner]

"Sweet Gardenia": The Bloom 🌺❄

Bi-Han X Cold!Reader

WARNINGS:

F!Reader, Pre-MK1 Campaign, No use of Y/N, Kinda slowburn, Overworking, a lot of flower metaphors, Mention of Starvation Tomas slander :( , Reader being stubborn, Bi-Han being soft.

For a better experience, listen to this song while reading. :)

A/N Note: THIS IS MY FIRST FANFIC. ANY FEEDBACK IS APPRECIATED.

Seriously, this is the third time I've had to re-make this. I accidentally uploaded it first then I deleted it by accident.

This took forever to write! But thank you to my friend Gutsie for the feedback :)

I have had other projects that include writing so this not my first writing project.

A part 2 could come out if I have the motivation.

I might open a request page if not.

Expect many metaphors! I use a dictionary to enhance the words I occupy! Yeah i'm so good⁉️

My native language is not English, expect countless grammatical errors.

Enjoy!

-🌺

Gardenias, flowers that flourish and bloom with an inmense amount of rain, letting them bloom to fulfill their entire potential. Keeping their beauty far away from the sun, in solitude and coldness to fullfill the promise under the white shining moon. In a way to sink down back to the roots.

That is how you can describe yourself as, instead of broken piece of glass lying in a withered flower field that you truly knew you were.

A delicate flower, pushed to the edge by a will of steel. If not, a withered away chrysanrhemum.

You had endless ideas of what you could describe yourself. A total failure.

You saw in yourself a weed that needed to be pulled away by grief, to wither away. And stop existing.

That is what you only wanted. You had fulfilled your potential and that is what mattered the most. What more is there to this garden of existence? Your heart will still be locked away.. a cold persona taking it's place as a façade.. Hiding the true self you have inside. The frozen you, the one that needed to be thawed.

Yet here you were.. The grandmistress of a rising clan, built from the ground and already in the riches spectrum. It was nothing, but honest work.

A work fueled by your frustration of the past events, it already bloomed into success.

Under many stacks of paperwork, graced by the finest silks and materials.. You were yet unhappy. A productive life and success made your way, yet most would call you ungrateful, insecure..

Or ambitious.

You always kept up most nights if you didn't have the exhaustion to fall asleep instantly after a long day of working, to keep the utmost pace of your life. Yet you never slept. Never rested as if you were a.. stubborn camellia.

No one to walk beside you. This wealth made you more than unhappy. But no one was worthy of your affections. Other gardens tried to kindle with you and it caused you to push more away.

In younger years, you were a root that needed to grow, in a healthier way. Winding vines only made you slowly wither away, taking what you had at your sleeve.

Your heart. Locking it down tightly and never opening it again, for the sake of your happiness.

This pace would rather destroy what you have built rather than strengthen the bond.

You were going to last as long as a bee at this pace.

"It is not enough." You always thought to yourself.. keeping it deep inside the roots of your existence. It would forever be locked there until someone pulled the weeds.

A cold heart like yours isn't deserving of love.

That's what you always convinced yourself.

Undeserving.

Not enough.

Reassurance wasn't enough.

It never was.

-🌺

You stood beside your quarter's window, a view right to the beautiful-tended to garden and those foolish blood-colored gardenias outside your window.

They seemed to be communicating in a way to you, enjoying the calming sun as they bloomed and enjoyed the last clutches of autumn. As if their secret passion would let them survive the soon coming winter.

"Beautiful. Yet foolish." You muttered to yourself. Even after being alone, you kept to yourself.

Patience is key.

Flowers were always a fascination to you, you had decorated the gardens with many beautiful flowers that bloom around all year, but those gardenias.. they couldn't stay through the winter.

It only reminded you of yourself.

You knew that those flowers were beautiful, the red color was one of the most beautiful. Yet you felt jealousy at the bloody flowers. You wouldn't indulge in those.. passions that they are meaning to, love.. partnership. The thought made you scowl, your façade falling apart.

Your clan was utmost important. The only sense of independence you had at the moment after escaping your planter's clutches, it gave you the position you have now. And you couldn't afford to lose it.

Ever.

Yet those frivolous arranged marriage proposals arrived each day at her clan's gates. How foolish to think that she would accept them. They only want her power, and her wealth. It only makes your patience wither away.

With a sigh, you returned back to work. Yet your thoughts kept going back and then. Was love truly deserving of one like you? Or that façade would bring you nowhere near a friendship?

You wouldn't indulge in those senses.. yet. As none have ever captured your heart after it has been locked away. The way to thaw it is unsure to you as well.

This continuous delusional thoughts kept you away from your work. You wouldn't tie yourself until your demise over a man who does not appreciate you. It would be a quick demise.

Yet,

You are losing hope on expanding the power and control you have over the lands. Even as you keep overworking yourself. You will have no other choice to marry the leader of another influential clan. It would be the true bad end.

But it is not alright to give up, yet. As hope will start. Winter is starting to arrive and it always arises new opportunities.

And your thoughts will always keep you to the bloody-colored flowers that mean passion and secret love. A visible furrow of eyebrows and scowled appeared on your face. You could already hear your mother scolding you due to the

"Not lady-like mannerisms".....

You really started to hate red.

-❄

The Lin Kuei.

A formidable yet stealthy warrior ninja clan that specializes in defending Earthrealm.

It's former grandmaster, had been very influential on the up-rise of the Lin Kuei. And brought it to the highest-bloom point.

Even at a low-profile state, the clan bloomed into a successful amount of wealth and power.

But the grandmaster's first-born son: Bi-Han, a snowdrop in a human mantle that was trained his entire childhood to become the grandmaster.

He did not seem to have his father's ideals.

He matured earlier than expected in a will of steel. Cold, calculating and unforgiving. Commonly referenced to a demon in human skin. His childhood being something he is ashamed off.

Bi-Han resents his father for his harsh treatment during his roots: Being referenced that weaknesses are a horrible mistake, relationships and friendships will only be distractions and cause weaknesses.

"Weaknesses are failures. Failures are unacceptable and you know of it." The former grandmaster's words were imprinted in Bi-Han's head. A common echo of reminder in those roots of his. How he resented that.. doddering-old man.

Bi-Han's frustration often caused him to snap at his brothers, who didn't receive the harsh training their father gave to him. Yet he felt guilty at his usual hurting words, but his duties and stress would be constantly eating him inside.

After the former grandmaster withered away, Bi-Han had taken the mantle of his father, wanting to bloom the Lin Kuei into a better glory than to protect Earthrealm.

No time for friendships, relationships.

Or his brothers.

His duty was the most important aspect in his life, trained for it since his birth. Having to constantly work on financial situations, scold recruits and warriors for the unsatisfactory performances. It was a harsh job.

But these recruits needed a vine to pull them back together. To teach them a lesson,

That they wouldn't forget.

Yet here was Bi-Han, in the cold winter of Articka, sharing a meal under the shining moon with his brothers.

He barely made time to "discuss duties" with them. But due to the accomodate weather and temperature, he made an up-most exception. Not that he would admit.

Bi-Han was deep in his thoughts, while his brothers enjoyed the steaming buns right in-front of him placed on the dinner table.

Though he made an attempt to ignore the simple delicasies. Bi-Han's concentrated gaze was staring right into the soul of a newly-grown nearby tree,that increased snow started to fall from.

He had a work-loaded week, and now he could enjoy respite digesting steaming buns with his brothers. A quiet respite if he could just enjoy it.

"Winter is very close by and times will get harsher." Bi-Han though to himself. Even after mastering Cryomancy, he must prepare for the harsh climate.

Not only for himself, but for the rest of Lin Kuei warriors.

Bi-Han was brought out of his thoughts when his blood-brother, Kuai Liang, spoke to catch his attention.

"I was analizing the climate. I apologise for the distractions." Bi-Han tried to dismiss the subject with a wave of his hand.

He despised being seen as vulnerable. As if he was compared to a flower. Bi-Han scowled at the thought.

"Continue, Kuai Liang." Bi-Han said coldly, staring with thorns of long-frozen impatience at his adopted brother: Tomas, for a second.

Then back at Kuai Liang. With the same gaze.

Kuai Liang cleared his throat, his high body warmth due to his Pyromancy abilities, was now warming the garden of the conversation.

The frozen flowers showed cracks and they shattered due to the unusual cold. Which Bi-Han managed to ignore with no hesitation.

"Now that you have become grandmaster,

I believe that someone could join to command the Lin Kuei by your side, Brother." Kuai Liang sounded slightly hesitant.

Bi-Han raised an eyebrow. His icy malice fading by the moment.

"Explain yourself, Kuai Liang." Bi-Han crossed his arms with a questioning look, any more nonsense and he would explode, as a caterpillar out of it's metamorphosis phase. A resentment about to push out in an avalanche.

"..." Kuai Liang sighed.

"A partner by your side... Someone to be there.. emotionally and physically." Kuai Liang sounded more confident. Bi-Han allowed himself to root a strange.. considering glint in his eyes.

But before Bi-Han could respond with a snarky comment as usual, Tomas chided in.

"By what he means, is a wife by your side, Bi-Han." Bi-Han stood up abruptly, startling the two brothers.

Bi-Han glared at the both of them, and more harshly at Tomas. His tone was meant to bite deeply.

"Dismiss that nonsense, Tomas!" Bi-Han said while pointing a finger to the two of them.

"You know nothing of what is good for me."

Bi-Han directed his finger to himself.

"Only I do."

After the harsh snap, Bi-Han sat back down and digged into a steaming bun. His gaze moving away from the brothers.

Kuai Liang gave a "I am used to this" stare, and then gazed assuringly at Tomas who seemed taken aback.

Kuai Liang stood up and approached Bi-Han, placing a warm hand on his shoulder.

"Brother.. It could give the clan more glory. The freedom you truly want it to have.. It is not a weakness, but a benefit." Kuai Liang said reassuringly while Bi-Han only responded with an unamused stare.

Then Bi-Han looked down, considering.

"The Lin Kuei requires my focus more than anything else." His tone was more composed.

"Any weakness or distraction will cause failure." Bi-Han continued still composed, the iceberg seemed about to break. "And all types of failure are unacceptable."

Tomas went in to defend Kuai Liang. His tone more.. Desperate and he gulped afterwards.

"Bi-Han, I am aware that you are seeking perfection.. yet you fear failure more than everything else." Tomas tried to reassure Bi-Han, but the latter responded with a glare and a slam on the table.

He had enough.

"Hold that tongue if you wish to keep it, Tomas." Bi-Han said very harshly. "I have no intentions of discussing this." Bi-Han left the icy gardens.. Leaving Tomas and Kuai Liang with disappointment.

Bi-Han was sat down on his office.. Feeling guilty after snapping again to his brothers. On that same damn chair that he always hunched over and got all his back pains from. How he'd wish to freeze it, and throw it to somewhere else to be never seen.

How he'd wish he'd get out of his head those foolish delusional thoughts. To stop snapping at his brothers and not consider Kuai Liang's proposal.

Bi-Han really thought.. Is he really ache-ing for a love he probably doesn't even know he really requires? Or.. deserves.

If he did, he only wished for a loyal partner.

A woman fit to his needs.. Not someone weak, someone who had a will of steel similar to his. A gaze that defies nature. Someone who he would trust entirely, to the point of worship. Yet he didn't wish to show it as a weakness.

He wanted to nurture those seeds if he did manage to get attached. He knew it was unlikely, but all he wished is for the new blossoms to open.

Appearances were everything.

It truly made him want to rip everything apart.

But his duties are always the up-most important. Nothing will change his ways.

Maybe another day, another life or another moment, he could indulge in those thoughts. But for now, the Lin Kuei were up-most important.

Even if it cost him everything.

-🌺

You held in your hands yet another rejected arranged marriage proposal.

The sun had fallen, and the sweet breeze of the evening had turned to the strong yet comforting mantle that arrived each winter.

Yet another clan has tried to bring down yours after you rejected their arranged marriage proposal.

It is not a surprise either. It has happened way too many times to count.

"These power-hungry fools." You knew you had no chance at this point. You had to marry into a clan and bloom ever more.

As a clan leader, your duties were always destined to benefit your future and not handle the past.

Yet you had to find the proper one.

You decided to check onto the many arranged marriage deals.. many were asking for 75% of revenue from your clan. That made you wince.

You have denied the blossom of any deep feelings, causing many of your stress and emotional unhappiness.

The gardenias outside your window didn't have the "positive" aura they once had. As if the cold winter had affected their once up-bright bloom.

Reminded you of someone.

And it kept you intrigued, contemplating the idea to investigate flowers once you have cleared your duties out of your schedule.

You will never catch a break at this point.

But for the sake of the clan, you will start to meet the one who will thaw that frozen flower within you.

To find the only worthy one, but only time would tell.

Once dawn arrived,

You would be ready to let the seeds grow.

For your sake.

-❄

The Lin Kuei temple was bustling with noise of the recruits trying to blossom their fighting techniques. On the quieter side,

Bi-Han was working on his office, handling important matters that were very indeed important, but not very important enough to mention. When Sektor entered his office with a paper on his hands. Bi-Han welcomed him in with only a stare and let him speak,

Crossing his arms over his chest. His gaze unamused as prepared to hear Sektor's usual ramblings.

"Well then." Bi-Han said slightly impatient.

"Grandmaster.. I assume you had accepted Kuai Liang's proposal?" Sektor said calmly as he placed the paper on Bi-Han's desk, letting him inspect the paper.

Bi-Han quirked an eyebrow.

"This, is a clan that Cyrax and I have been observing for the past 3 months." Sektor explained calmly once again, with backups of evidence slipping by. "Their financial debates and the way they continuously continue to grow is outstanding." Sektor looked Bi-Han, asking for approval on to keep rambling.

"...Very well. Keep explaining." Bi-Han's tone was one of interest. He inspected the paper, and nodded as Sektor spoke.

The lower part of the paper read as:

'The only way to affiliate as such is for the current leaders of the clans to conclude a marriage.' Bi-Han furrowed his eyebrows and then looked at Sektor who continued on rambling about how the clan's leader intellect was one of "other realms".

Yet, Sektor continued to explain.

"It is run by a woman. We haven't managed to collect any information from her. But from what we have.. investigated, is that she is a formidable business-partner.

It would make her intellect run the financial parts, and your strength to run the troops."

"This plan would make the clan bloom intensively, Grandmaster." Sektor added,

As if trying to convince him. Sektor stood tall, a hand to his chest. He was loyal to his Grandmaster, no matter what.

Then grew another sentence asking for Bi-Han's approval. Snapping Bi-Han out of his considering thoughts.

"This is a chance we can't afford to lose."

Bi-Han thought for a moment. He knows he can't refuse. Yet Sektor's proposal echo'ed on Bi-Han's head.

This could be the greater chance for the Lin Kuei to have the freedom it deserves. Growing inmensively in power would bring it to what he always envisioned..

And to... accept Kuai Liang's proposal.. He wasn't completely against it.

It was perfect.

Bi-Han placed the paper back down on the desk and signed it.

"Very well. I will be looking forward to meet this.. Grandmistress." Bi-Han said with stoicness laced with unusual interest and handed it to Sektor.

"Send it to the Grandmistress of that clan and report if she accepts an arrangement." Bi-Han continued, he was shivering with anticipation.

This was the best chance he had gotten this far.

And winter had just started. And soon after, it would all bloom.

But together, perhaps, two steel willed lives like a gardenia and an icy snowdrop might shape their lives and their clans into a sturdy netherrock, undestructible and strong.

Only if the meeting went the right path, that was. Only time would tell if an alliance could bloom where only distrust once reigned supreme, or if these two flowers were destined to remain tied forever, until their demise.

Bi-Han couldn't wait.

-🌺

"Lin Kuei?" You repeated your advisor's words with a scowl.

"You are naming it as if it was stupid. It is not, my lady." Your advisor said reassuringly.

"This traditional Chinese clan is a very low-profiled one. Truly focusing on strength and power." You gazed at the signed paper by the grandmaster, Bi-Han.

Ninjas, you thought. Even though it referred at the members as "warriors."

How old-fashioned. Yet, the accidental grunt that you let out at the word was worth it.

This was going to be.. unusual unlike the other clans that have sent you arrangement proposals.

The Lin Kuei's grandmaster wanted to marry you. Like everyone else. You had to check what he required.. And what he was proposing in return.

He required 25% of your revenue. Acceptable, since the other clans required around 30% or higher. Which this situation caused an unusual tingle in your stomach.

...He required your skills? He didn't specify in the file. It seems it was not even written by himself.

And he was offering in return..

25% revenue of the Lin Kuei's profits... decent, yet acceptable.

Yet other thing caught your eye.

A grandmistress role, a chair-man position in the Lin Kuei... This was strange,

Indeed.

Most clans that came to offer, offered you a rather high rank and role, but none as high as to be an equal with the leader.

This caught your interest, indeed.

"A grab." You mumbled to yourself. Catching your advisor's attention.

You gazed back at your advisor, who was waiting for your opinion on the matter.

You blinked a few times from the lack of sleep. How long ago did you change your pillow's case..?

Whatever.

"My interest peaked. Do tell me more." You said a bit commanding, yet softly. You gazed back at the paper.

This paper had arrived by chance, unlike the many others that arrived at the clan's gates.

This one appeared on your window. The one that had direct view to those.. foolish gardenias.

Those.. Lin Kuei ninjas must have snuck here, how amusing.

You had to call your advisor for information on the matter. This Lin Kuei. Not open to the public eye.. no registry on your clan's archives.. The only way to gain information is having a meeting with the clan leader or a representative.

"The Lin Kuei's grandmaster is said to be a monster. Cold and unforgiving." Your advisor said with a hesitant voice.

"But as you have told me countless times.. You are not forbidden to marry and not blossom any feelings, my lady." You gazed back your advisor.

True words, as long as you helped your clan not falter by any means..

You would.

You stayed silent as your advisor continued to explain many of the benefits.

"I will keep it in mind." You replied with a calm conposture. "Send a messenger. I will have a.. peaceful meeting with this.. Bi-Han." His name sounded bitter on your tongue.

You had to meet a cold yeti, and you weren't afraid.

Only for the sake of your clan.

"Let's prepare some buns. I haven't ate in a few days." You said unamusingly.

Your advisor seemed worried.. You have not ate steamed buns in days..

Or you have not ate in days.

How foolish.

Let's hope winter doesn't crush the lilacs of your excitement.

Which you so try to deny.

-❄|🌺

The weather was.. emotional dropping to say the least.

The sky a neutral shade of gray smoke, a comforting aura yet taunting with the idea of possible rain.

You considered this weather to be the most.. relaxing. Yet productive. You mostly took days off on this type of weather, considering it a day for full respite.

Even if it quadripled your paperwork.

You were excited to say the least. You prepared your appearance decently. Because after the most work-loaded of days, your face would be puffy and tired.

Yet it was the perfect weather to start a meeting.

The wind was practically non-existent,

And you were preparing to meet the Lin Kuei's grandmaster. An optimal preparation was put in place. While you watched the gardeners arrange the many well-kept flowers..

Including those foolish blood-colored gardenias.

They were pretty to say the least.

Flowers were always a fascination to you. A visual break from the un-aesthetics of the common wither of winter and deterioration.

Yet winter had already arrived.. seeing how most of the beautiful trees had no leaves left in the roots.. The past dealings of autumn had left a temporal mark in their spare.

It gave you more than enough confidence to head through the meeting.

You were dressed rather formally, the room that you had prepared for the meeting was open, a large frame with direct access to the main gardens.

It was embroided with a dark-tone of high quality oak. With tall bookcases covering the walls of the room.

The room's large frame's purpose was only to gaze at which had withered away and which had survived winter's embrace.

Yet your attention kept away at that damned garden. How to not survive a winter?

Life is dependant on will and skill. Even those who do not possess skill survive through will alone. Otherwise, no will, pure skill.

What a blossom of thoughts had been keeping away the matters that needed to seed their way to your brain.

Your attention was called, chiding it away from your gaze to the mostly red-colored garden.

The room was finished.

And as you gazed at the many flowers,

As long as you kept denying it,

You could not deny your liking for the red gardenias.

But other flowers had your affections as well.

The room was ready and a table was placed, a chair on either sides. You took the one that had a view to the door and left the remaining one for the grandmaster. Purposelly doing so for the view, and sake of the well-kept garden.

It was a small but thoughtful detail.. Maybe ambitious?

You were never the type of person to show off the things in your pockets.

You sat down in the chair and prepared the documments that you wanted to present, in-case the meeting was successful and the idea of an arrange marriage was successful.

If the so-called "monster" was keen to your ideals or not.

You had a tea set on another table in the room in-case he was in the mood for a steaming cup of tea, many flavors and spices to keep it to his liking.

Your advisor went to encourage you.. The past meetings with other clan leaders were.. unsuccesful and awkward.

He had arrived.

But as you continued to gaze at the garden and the tea set somewhere along the room.. You decided that your idea was gonna take place first.

Bi-Han had arrived at the clan gates, Kuai Liang by his side.

Kuai Liang sighed seeing Bi-Han's confidence.

"I never imagined to see the day where you would try to conquer a woman's affections." Kuai Liang stared at Bi-Han who was gazing at the arquitecture of the place.

Bi-Han was unamused visibly by Kuai Liang's remark.

"Silence. It is for our good." Bi-Han's tone was composed, not meaning to hurt Kuai Liang.

Yet he re-directed his gaze to Kuai Liang with a nod.

"We shall enter. I am sure the grandmistress might be waiting for us." Bi-Han walked inside and Kuai Liang followed silently.

But Kuai Liang did not fail to notice the excitement laced in his tone, yet the raise in his eyebrows.

One of the clan members greeted them with a bow and leaded them to the meeting room..

And once Bi-Han opened the door...

You weren't there.

Kuai Liang and Bi-Han stepped inside in confusion. Was this the wrong room had they just entered?

The room seemed to be set up for a meeting and the scenery of the garden seemed appealing to the eyes.

They were in the according room.

Then they saw a figure, she entered the building with flowers on her hands, placing them with the spices sitting beside the multiple flavors of tea.

Her stance not faltering her resting face seemed unamused, to say the least.

There you were. You were grabbing the roses and jasmine flowers to give the tea flavors more variety.

It hurt your heart to cut off some of the bloomed delicacies, but for the sake of the meeting it was optimal.

You had to address them.. No time to slack.

You cleared your throat and turned to face the two masked men.

"Welcome.. I was not informed of an.. advisor." You said composed while re-directing your gaze to Kuai Liang. "Must we start?"

Kuai Liang bowed his head. "Grandmistress, you are mistaken. I am simply accompanying my brother." You nodded,

noticing of Bi-Han's lack of response and the penetrating stare he was pointing at you.

You stayed silent gazing at them for a few seconds then you gazed back at the tea.

"Tea? Most foreign flavors I have at my disposal." You said calmly as you looked for approval to prepare some tea.

Courtesy at it's finest. Tea was a great start.

"Pu'erh. With Mantao." Bi-Han said coldly, but composed. These were the only words he had said so far,

Meanwhile he stood beside Kuai Liang, who didn't seem to have much faith on Bi-Han.

"No, Thank you for the offer." Kuai Liang said gruffly yet friendly.

You nodded at their words, placing the boiling water into cups and starting to add the bags of tea.

You prepared some tea for yourself as well, Chamomille.. meant to calm your nerves in-case of any disagreement or anything that would stress you.

You brewed the tea and placed it on the table, placing the Pu'erh teacup with a spice of Mantao honey on Bi-Han's side of the table and your chamomille teacup on the side you were destined to sit.

Decent so far. A show of courtesy shown by your part.

"Please, sit down so we can begin." You say down calmly and composed. Your face showing calmness,

But a frigid composture that "can't" be cracked.

You gazed at Kuai Liang who was still standing.

"I apologise for the lack of seating. I was informed that this meeting would be entirely confidential." You let out a sigh at your words.

Kuai Liang hesitated.

"No need to apologise. I wasn't aware of my compa-" Kuai Liang was shut by Bi-Han's gaze.

Bi-Han had his mask on, so did Kuai Liang. But Kuai Liang knew that Bi-Han was scowling under the mask.

After all, Bi-Han had "convinced" him. In reality, obligated him. If not, Bi-Han would have dealt with this matter himself.

Bi-Han wanted none to know this.

He would be hysterical if his brother wasn't there to watch. He would ever not, admit that fact.

Bi-Han sat down, while Kuai Liang was standing awkwardly beside.

The yellow one's eyebrows were furrowed? No.. those were only the marks due to the constant frowning on his part. And Bi-Han seemed to have met the same predicament.

Bi-Han's eyebrows were relaxed. But his eyes, with a stern look were focused entirely on you, as if judging you. You started to speak, gazing back with a tone of admission. As if to show respect.

Shall it start.

"I am curious of the fact that a low-profiled clan seeks an alliance with one as mine." You crossed your arms over your chest. Bi-Han's gaze still piercing.

"The Lin Kuei especializes in stealth, force and commitment." Bi-Han didn't even acknowledge his tea.

The steam slowly fading away as the room's temperature went down by the minute.

You nodded at his words. He didn't mention power once. Most of the clan leaders mentioned how successful their clans were, yet the Lin Kuei were thriving with a health and development unlike any others and a humble response had surprised you.

"...It is great to hear. My advisor had informed me of the achievings of your clan." You drank the chamomille.. The soft yet strong flavor making you relax.

Meanwhile Bi-Han..

Bi-Han was feeling.. concerned. The Lin Kuei never had any sort of meetings like this in the past. His father had met his mother during a skirmish, saving her life and taking her in to the Lin Kuei.

As long as he knew, it was a tale that his mother used to tell him and his brothers to fall asleep.

"Foolish. That old man surely kidnapped and forced her against her will." Bi-Han's thoughts were always aggressive, to no surprise.

Yet Bi-Han stared at you as you spoke over the documents, speaking about possible benefits and the downfalls that could be caused.

He appreciated your determination for your duty.

It was rare to not see leaders slack off and live off their wealth. Yet you took that, threw it on the ground and set it on fire.

Your will was fascinating to Bi-Han. Even if he wouldn't show it. He kept his piercing stare.

You continued to speak, thinking that Bi-Han had absolutely no interest.

You kept your conversation. You seemed to be speaking alone as Bi-Han only gave back nods and barely spoken words. It unfuriated you yet it seemed to be progressing well.

"I am affirming that this agreement will not only bring power. Prosperity and humility are the most important aspect of a clan. Peace through framework is preferable than an endless chase of power."

You said calmly. Noticing how Bi-Han's gaze darkened.

He instantly furrowed his eyebrows.

"Power brings respect. More power no conflicts to being with." Bi-Han's tone was unintentionally harsher.

You narrowed your eyes.

"Power is not by any means a weapon. A word that exists on your mind to cause you ambition." You sighed.

"It is a true sense of strength that must be taken care off, carefully."

Bi-Han notably got more and more furious. It was obvious he was attempting to hold his composture in.

Kuai Liang seemed concerned too,

but knew nothing would calm his brother's rage.

It didn't stop Bi-Han.

"You work off weakness."

Bi-Han's true speech had risen up.

"Might alone will bring the 'humility' and 'prosperity' you seek. Only through wars and struggle." He continued.

"And if you are against violence then you are not fit to work with the Lin Kuei. Simple as that is."

Bi-Han spat out coldly. The disagreement had escalated.

You could barely keep your snarky remarks from your composture.

You had to end this.

"I am aware that the Lin Kuei work off might and power alone." You stood up abruptly.

Bi-Han's eyebrows both raised. It was a funny sight, to say the least.

"I was expecting a façade to get in my good side, grandmaster" You stared directly to in-between his eyebrows.

Your tone meant to show disappointment in the outcome of this meeting.

"Yet you have only shown your true colors."

Kuai Liang seemed panicked, looking at Bi-Han in a way to tell him to salvage this.

"This meeting is concluded. Leave."

You left to the gardens.. Passing by the red gardenias and letting out a grunt.

Even this garden was enough to fuel your anger.

You headed into the outsides of your clan..

In a way to soothe your nerves..

To the hidden forest glade within.

No distractions.

-🌺|❄

Bi-Han was distraught to say the least.

He had managed to ruin the chance to win the woman's affections and approval.

Now he had fully-lost the chance to gain it.

This could affect the Lin Kuei in a sort of way? If she decided to become an enemy.

Bi-Han simply stayed sat, he realized that he did not gaze even once at the cold tea in front of him.

He had been unintentionally having a lack of respect.

He hated this.

"Brother." Kuai Liang spoke after a minute of awkward silence. "If you don't go after her- You might lose your chance." Kuai Liang was nervous.

He had seen the entire disagreement pass by like a mannequin.. It hurt seeing how Bi-Han was messing it all over and not being able to intervene.

Bi-Han looked up at Kuai Liang.

"I suppose so." Bi-Han stared to the gardens, the multiple colored gardens with varieties he had not seen at the Lin Kuei..

A high-quantity of flowers that grow in gardens with higher temperature.

He had never seen a lotus flower. Only from the pictures his mother had shown him.

"Beautiful". He thought.

Bi-Han remembered the many topics his mother used to ramble about.

Flowers, especially.

He had acquired a great knowledge for gardening due to his mother's teaching.

He couldn't help but reminisce.

"Bi-Han, dear. Come here." Bi-Han heard his mother's voice call him out of the training with his brothers.

He would get scolded for leaving, but spending time with his mother was more important to him than anything.

"Come here." Bi-Han's mother took Bi-Han lithe form in his arms. She held a book and sat beside flowers on the well-tended to gardens in the snowy terrain that the Lin Kuei temple resided in.

Bi-Han was in for a long teaching.

"That, is a roseroot. Grows only in the highest of places. We occasionally place some of the leaves on our dishes." Bi-Han let himself root out a face of disgust and his mother chuckled. She stared lovingly to Bi-Han's interest.

She knew a break from his harsh training might do him well.

Bi-Han gazed at the droopy flowers close to his mother and then back at her.

"Oh? Those are Galanthus. Also known as Snowdrops, dear. You will see them all year, they surely love the snow."

Bi-Han paid attention to the entirety of his mother's teachings.

If Bi-Han couldn't admit it, he had such knowledge for such things as flowers. Which he would call "weak."

Now all he had left for the memory was his mother's flora research in the Lin Kuei's archives.

He would make usage of it one day.

He was sure of it.

Bi-Han was shook out of his memory and noticed Kuai Liang staring at him disapprovingly.

"Brother! You have to find her!" Kuai Liang seemed more desperate. Unusual due to his mastered patience at his brother's stubborness.

Bi-Han nodded and stood up. Running after the ominous clan leader.

He would make ammends.

It was for his clan after all.

You were sat in a tree trunk. The smokey gray sky still haunting your patience and you façade slowly dropping out. Your face in your hands.

Your hands felt like burning steel.

It hurt.

What did go wrong? You gave the up-most courtesy that you learnt over your entire life.

You knew respect was something primal, necessary for every lifetime interaction. Yet any fools that spoke to you were lacking of such formality.

Were you too cold? Maybe it could be cause.

He stared at you as if you were garbage,

A lifeless doll.

Like everyone else.

Your fury was undeniable.

As long as you kept it inside that locked heart, and no one tried opening to see the one memory hidden inside, it would maintain the peace you always kept.

You must not fracture.

This was only one of the many meetings that were to come.

This wouldn't let you down even once.

The rooted façade would not fall apart.

Yet you felt the icy presence behind you. You did not move an inch but his menacing aura was enough to sent a shiver down your spine.

Letting yourself bloom a sigh.

Your trail was left right open it seems,

He was here.

-❄|🌺

Bi-Han stared at the woman in front of him.

He knew that sneaking behind her while she tried to keep her emotional turmoil at bay would only cause her even more distress,

But he wouldn't be caught yet.

He only heard your voice besides the sounds of the harsh wind.

"Have you come here to taunt me? I am not emotionally available for yet another pointless debate." You said gruffly.

Fighting the tears that were trying to come out.

"No. I only wish to.. make ammends." Bi-Han said a bit hesitantly.

You stared up in confusion.

"Yet another scheme to make me fall. Your ways of treason are not affordable." You let out, meaning to bite.

Bi-Han sighed.

He knew he could not deal with an emotional woman that tried to hold her rage.

"There are other ways we can join together. Other than power." Bi-Han said quite lowly.

He wanted to make it clear.

"I wish the best for the Lin Kuei. And I have observed that you have the same ideal for your clan." You stared confused,

Not knowing where he was heading to in the conversation.

"I wish to make a change in the contract."

You nodded at his request. Raising your eyebrows.

"No marriage ceremony?" You said confidently, guessing that was his idea. He seemed uncomfortable at the idea of a wedding.

His shoulders tensed, he sighed.

"No. I want your clan to join the Lin Kuei. As a branch." You seemed more furious at that.

You could not take this lightly.

"I would not wish such fate to my clan. I blossomed day and night for such path." You said coldly.

Your emotions rising up once again.

"I am still offering the chair-man position. You and I will be equal. You will remain as a grandmistress." Bi-Han said,

His gaze looking at you with a convincing glint.

"I am not against the idea." Bi-Han sighed at your words. He had to knock some sense into you, but he would not yell.

You were a stubborn mess to deal with.

"So be it." The grandmaster said with a huff.

"To clear your stubborn soul that you possess, let's have a fight." Bi-Han stepped back and put himself into a ready'ed battle stance.

You had not put your self-defense abilities to the test in a long time. Approximately around last summer.

Yet you were confident. A good match, isolated?

No unwanted attention would be brought here.

Just what you wanted.

Bi-Han noticed by the determined glint on your gaze as you stood up from the trunk you previously turmoiled on.

You were ready.

And you were ready to blow off every steam you needed.

A mean of justice that would not be forgotten by him. A way to break the world and the law of your heart.

A broken heart once filled with tenderness.

Would that break his rule? Surely not. But it would be an amazing way to de-stress.

You were panting heavily, so was Bi-Han.

This spar quickly transformed into "who can break eachother's nose first." You weren't against the idea but the experience that Bi-Han had at hand-to-hand kombat was higher than yours.

You could tell he was going easy on you.

You hated it.

The trees shaked as a foul amount of punches were exchanged. Bi-Han covering his fits in ice to catch you more off guard.

You tried to not break your composture seeing that he was a cryomancer.

You could not hold back the scowl that you blossomed out of your face.

No way you're losing this.

You ducked and evaded most of his "pulled-punches". Though your emotions remained turmoiled, you mind was only on the battle. Even with the heavy drag of your heart.

Everything was dragged away by the wind.

Two souls connect as one only for such intense fight.

Their eyes connected and with that one glance..

It was finished.

You fell down to the ground exhausted.

Bi-Han offered his hand to help you stand up.

"I understimated you, woman." He said panting, with a barely noticeable tone of admiration.

You gazed up at him for a few seconds, narrowing your eyes as you took his hand to help you.

"I am glad we have made the ammends you wished. Yet, I am not convinced by your proposal."

You didn't want your clan to be disregarded as a branch inside the Lin Kuei.

"Then, we shall meet at dawn tomorrow. A meeting to the Lin Kuei temple will take place." Bi-Han said with his back turned to you.

"I will be waiting, grandmistress." Bi-Han said lowly but softly and left the glade.

"Very well..." You said hesitantly.

As for all that mattered... Nothing did.

Tomorrow you would see if everything was worth it, or to throw it away.

This Bi-Han had fished your attention. And you couldn't escape from it.

But it was enough.

As long as it helped you too..

You were more than happy to let your heart blossom for just that man.

Even if you were delusional enough.

🌺|❄

Not the cliffhanger, but yeah.

This is too long for my liking.

(I'll try to upload this to AO3 as well..)

A part 2 is guaranteed! No idea when it'll come out though. 😭

This took forever to write and any reblogs are appreciated! Feedback is also to be accepted, don't be shy :D

Thank you so much for reading :)

-Shigu 💖

[scoutswritingcorner]

Heaven Says You Are In Danger

Lucifer Morningstar x GN!Reader

TW:HORROR AND DARK THEMES. Lucifer is not nice. He is mean and scary in this. You have been warned. Possessive behavior, talks about religion, choking, breaking bones. 

A/N: I WANT TO SAY I HAVE BEEN RESEARCHING ALL THIS CAUSE I  DONT KNOW SHIT. PLeASE BARE WITH ME. Once again a big thank you to my Lovely, @kurosstuff!!

You walked through the dark forest, flashlight in hand as you walked down the beaten path that mother nature was slowly reclaiming. The winds and rain started to pick up almost unnaturally which wasn’t your first concern. If you stayed out this much longer, your equipment was going to get soaked and there’s no use in having a backpack that was soaking wet weighing you down. You covered your eyes and looked around, allowing your flashlight to illuminate through the darkness easily. Your flashlight landed on an old broken statue of what looked like an angel, walking closer to it you noticed the lack of wings and how the statue almost seemed familiar but you couldn’t quite put your finger on it. Was that supposed to represent Archangel Michael?

You shook your head and followed the path behind the statue walking up to a door, you looked at it confused, your flashlight shining on the words, “Church of Saint Michael, guidance and Protection is around the corner.” You shook your head at the silly words but pushed open the heavy doors before making your way inside. You were being extra careful to close them behind you, so there were no chances of wolves or bears or whatever was in the woods could get you. You looked around the old church, expecting the roof to have holes and the place to be completely ransacked but everything to be seemingly in perfect condition. Well..everything except for the few pews that had been knocked down and a few sticks had made its way inside. You slowly walked around the place making sure there were no animals or surprises waiting for you before you even settled down for the night.

After making sure everything was cleared you put your bag down and go through it to find warmer clothes and your supplies to at least start a fire. There was nothing to be afraid about changing into different clothes in a church- especially an empty church at that but you hide behind a pillar just to calm your anxious mind, as you pulled your soaking wet shirt over your head that’s when you heard it, the smooth yet deep voice sent a thousand razor sharp pricks down your spine and caused you to freeze up. “Changing in the middle of Church?” It echoed around the church causing you to grab your flashlight and flash it around the empty room, one arm covering your chest as you tried to calm yourself but you didn’t see anyone else. You held the flashlight in your mouth as you put the new shirt on, it was your imagination right? You were anxious and it was your mind playing a trick on you.

You walked around once more and checked between every pew whilst collecting all of the random twigs and sticks you could, sitting down in front of your bag you started to collect the sticks in a small bundle before you, searching around for the firestarter and kindling, did you forget it in your car? The same car that was a two day hike from this location? You growled and grabbed your flashlight to look around thinking you had misplaced it but as you got up a soft thud hit the floor before the firestarter slid across the floor. You watched it and started to feel your hands tremble, your gaze snapped up to see a pair of eyes watching you as you slowly moved the flashlight on the walls but you couldn’t manage to fully shine the light on whatever that thing was, you were so fucking scared. 

“Go on Little Lamb..get warm for me. You wanted to seek salvation from the rain and you’ve found it..do not be afraid. I’m simply..watching.”  The voice called out, you couldn’t move towards the firestarter, why was it paralyzing you? “oh..my poor lamb frozen in fear..it’s okay, I don’t bite. Go on, take it. I found it just for you.” You swallowed down the fear and anxiety that was telling you to just run out of there. Slowly crouching down you reached over, grabbing the firestarter and quickly lighting the small campfire you made trying to ignore how the eyes watched you from the darkness. Come morning, you’d be out of here. Just focus on warming up. “Don’t ignore me, Little Lamb…come on can I not hear your voice?” You gulped and shook your head moving to lay your soaking wet clothes around the growing fire. “Such a shame..maybe I can figure it out in other ways.”  The voice cooed out before the eyes disappeared completely leaving you alone in the darkness.

You sit in silence for what felt like hours before you gulped down any fear, “Who are you? You can’t be Saint Michael..or God..” You called out into the darkness afraid of what would happen next. “Who am I?”  The voice called out as footsteps echoed around you before a singular apple rolled in front of you, “..Do you have any guesses?”  You stared at the apple for a moment racking your brain before it hit you, “Seems like you figured it out, Little Lamb. Say it. Say. My. Name.” The voice hissed out as your mouth went dry, your heart hitting your chest and with every breath you took it felt suffocating. “You’re…Lucifer.” You watched as the fire went out and clawed hands grabbed your throat pushing you down onto the ground. Flashlight flickering as a dark chuckle left his lips, sharp teeth on full display as you got a good look at his face.

The pale skin, the rosy red cheeks, the way his golden eyes glowed in the darkness. “Such a smart lamb you are. You’re cuter up close too..maybe I should drag you down into hell with me and make you all mine. My little human..my lamb.” He growled out his snake like tongue licking at the rows of fangs as he started to slowly squeeze your neck. You gasped and teared up, this is not how you wanted to die. “Oh no more tears, Lamb..you're safe here with me..God can’t save you now..he doesn’t care to listen.” You closed your eyes before the suffocating squeeze of his hands around your neck disappeared and he cradled your face, softly cooing at you. Like he wasn’t just choking you out five seconds ago, his face unnaturally close to yours. He smelled like a campfire and..apple cinnamon? Well apples were-..are his thing. 

“What do you want from me?” You sobbed out flinching from how close his sharp talon-like nails were close to your eyes. He clicked his tongue and held your head still in his iron-like grip, you couldn’t fight him off if you tried. “I think you already know what I want, Lamb..I want you to worship me like you worship God and I promise..not to lead you astray, my own little Bishop.” He cooed out his soft voice giving you a sense of comfort yet a part of you yelled to fight back, claw at his eyes and run out of the church. Those eyes couldn’t be trusted, not when they are looking past you..deep into your soul. You clenched your jaw, his thumbs soothingly rubbing at your jawline unconsciously making you slowly unclench your jaw, “All I need is an answer, Lamb and I’ll make your dreams come true..even the ones that you're pushing away from the forefront of your mind..” You felt your face heat up at that but let out a calming breath as you tried to ignore how his soft voice sent shivers down your spine as you opened your mouth watching his eyes light up in glee as you whispered out a soft, “..yes..” His red pupils dilated even more as he stared down at you, like he had just won one last prize.

“Good..Now there is one last thing for you to do for me, little lamb. You think you can handle that?” His thumbs moved down to force your lips into a smile as he chuckled as he looked down at you..was he undressing you with his eyes? The thought sparked something aflame deep inside of you as you watched as bright red horns protruded from his head. You blinked and tried to look away but found it harder than it seemed, your eyes kept drifting back to his. Allowing your eyes to finally get used to the darkness surrounding you both, as you got a good look at him your eyes widened in horror as your heart threatened to beat out of your chest. He was too perfect.

He was the first fallen angel, it was to be suspected. It was too much, you needed to run. Forget everything in this place and run, in a flash you had snagged the flashlight and smashed it across his head, easily backing up as you tried to escape. The flashlight immediately shattered as glowing golden blood dripped down onto the floor below, a loud shaking snarl echoed through the chamber. Scrambling to your feet you tried to beeline it for the doors but suddenly a fallen pew moved slamming into your legs and making you fall face first onto the stone floor. A sickening crack filled the air before your senses were filled with the familiar metallic taste of your own blood. 

You coughed and spit out the blood whimpering before you felt two clawed hands wrap around your ankles and pull you back closer to him. “Now now, Little Lamb. There is no reason to be attacking your God.” He snarled out easily snapping one of your ankles in half, his smile growing as he heard your sobs and screams. “You aren’t my god.” You replied between tears before his clawed hands wrapped around your neck squeezing easily cutting off your oxygen. “I am and you will obey me as such. He won’t listen to you. I will. Think about it, Lamb.” He let go of your neck allowing you to gasp and choke for air, sobbing out as you tried to claw away pathetically. 

“What is it that you want, Lamb? Do you not want to be my Bishop..do you not want to worship me?” He pulled you back towards him, “I want to go home- please..I just want to go home.” You laid your head on your arms, you could feel your own sanity slipping. The whispers in your head got louder, you could just let go..he’d take care of you right? He promised you. “But you are home, Lamb..” He purred out and easily pulled you to sit up onto his lap, “You are my Bishop..my sole worshiper and I take care of my people.” His lips brushed against your ear as one of his hands cupped your jaw, he could sense your doubt and he hated it. 

“Tell me…does your god listen to you when you call for him?” He asked, watching as you sobbed out shaking your head, making him click his tongue in thought, his eyes scanning your blood and tear stained face. “But I will..I’ll listen to your every whim and desire..to your plea for a better life. All you have to do for me, Lamb..is..submit. Tell me your mine, my favorite little Bishop.”  His hand tilted your face towards him, “I will never ignore you..never throw you to the side like that FALSE idol has, my sweet lamb.” You had stopped crying by now, hands shakily clinging to his arms, “Just..give in, Little Lamb.” His voice sent a shiver down your spine as you slowly nodded at his words, his thumb rubbing your bottom lip.

“Now..one last test for you, Lamb..are you ready?” He asked as you stared up into those golden eyes, those perfect golden eyes that felt like you were staring into hell itself. “Let me have one taste, Lamb..”  You looked at him confused, raising your head up towards him as his serpentine tongue licked at his teeth. Oh..Oh..that kind of tasting.

A/N: Sorry for the cliffhanger. I might do a part two where it’s just smut but I wanted to make this part purely horror esque. Let me know if you guys want a part two.

[hufflepuffwritingstuff2]

Sticky Situation- Part 9

Part 8

Hero woke up in an all-too-familiar situation. Inside a pod, squeezed in with expanding foam from all sides, not to mention a large, heavy gag made up of too many layers. This pod felt different somehow. For one thing, the foam was ice-cold, which would’ve been nice if it wasn’t being used as a restraint. Through the little window, they could see that they had been moved to an operating room of some kind. In addition, they could see some kind of tube connecting their pod to another one directly across from them.

A door opened, and Assistant came into view, being roughly escorted by henchmen on either side. They had been gagged just as heavily, and their wrists had been secured with industrial tape. Scientist came in next, followed by Supervillain.

“Nice to see you again, Hero,” Scientist said in a chipper voice.

“Unlike your usual arrangements, we’ve placed you inside a device that will allow us to extract your cryogenic essence. Imagine yourself as a little ice battery. You’ll power the participant inside the pod across from you, giving them a share of your abilities. Of course, this is all theoretical. Accidents can happen, which is why we need to take every precaution. Enter our first volunteer!”

The henchmen wrangled Assistant into the other pod, ignoring their very muffled screams. Hero’s eyes went wide.

“MMMM!! MM-MM!” they protested at the top of their lungs.

The sound barely carried out of their packed mouth. Scientist giggled, shaking their head.

“This is happening, Hero, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” Supervillain said, “begin Operation Worker Bee 0-0-1.”

Scientist nodded. The pod door was closed, and expanding foam was dispensed into the small space. Assistant screamed, thrashing around as much as they could. Fear shone in their watery eyes.

Scientist’s finger hovered over a large, hexagonal button. The button that could either give Assistant Hero’s powers, or more likely than not, turn them into a frosty corpse. Something snapped inside Hero, and fire kindled in their eyes. Frost rapidly spread over the pod, obscuring Hero’s face from view. A few moments later, and the entire device shattered in all directions. When the dust settled, Hero stood in the center of the mess, glaring daggers at Supervillain.

Scientist tapped Supervillain’s shoulder nervously.

“They- they’re not supposed to do that,” they said quietly.

Something glinted in Supervillain’s eyes.

“Well, you finally learned how to=“

An ice beam cut Supervillain off, sending them into the wall.

Scientist stood frozen for a moment, before snapping out of it.

“Uh, agents… agents!! Take care of Hero… now!!”

Hero tapped the gag with their finger, letting ice spread through the whole thing until it turned cold and brittle. They spat out the remainder of the frozen, rubbery substance. Scientist watched it shatter on the floor.

“Let. Them. Go.” Hero growled.

One of the henchmen came up from behind Hero, taser in hand. Hero grabbed it with an icy fist, flipping it around and jamming it in the poor soul’s gut. The henchman screamed as they crumpled to the floor. The other henchman? Hero only had to give them a murderous look and they were bolting from the room.

Hero stalked over to Scientist, icy energy in their fists. Scientist scrambled back until their back hit a wall. Hero breathed frost in their face.

“I said. Let them go.”

Scientist nodded, their glasses foggy from Hero’s cold proximity. They scurried over to Assistant’s pod and pressed the button that would release them.

Assistant tumbled out, whimpering. Hero caught them and removed their gag.

“You okay?” Hero asked.

“Be-beh-“

“What? What is it?”

“BEHIND YOU!”

Hero whirled around much too late. Supervillain knocked them back with a punch. Hero sailed across the room into another wall.

“Do you know why I’m a beekeeper, Hero?” Supervillain asked, stalking toward them.

Hero sat up in a daze, their head pounding and spinning.

“Because I hold the life of the hive in my hands,” Supervillain said, “you may think you’re in control, but-“

Supervillain yanked Hero up by their neck, squeezing. Hero gasped for air, grasping at Supervillain’s hand.

“-I’ve always been in charge here.”

Darkness encroached on the edges of Hero’s vision. They just had time to see Assistant approach with a needle before Supervillain dropped them unceremoniously to the ground.

Supervillain rounded on Assistant, but there was already a syringe in their shoulder.

“Oh Assistant,” Supervillain drawled, yanking the drug from their skin, “you really think that dosage will stop me?”

Assistant staggered back. Hero wobbled to their feet. Supervillain prepared to strike their cousin, when they stumbled.

“I-I didn’t expect Hero’s dosage to stop you at all,” Assistant said, “but I thought, maybe, the entire vial would?”

“Are you insane!?” Supervillain slurred, dropping to the floor, “you could kill me!”

“Well, uh, the good news is, Scientist can save you?” Assistant offered uncertainly.

Hero nodded, striding up and towering above Supervillain.

“Funny thing about bees, Supervillain,” Hero said darkly, “if enough of them sting you, the venom could prove lethal.”

Supervillain glared up at them just before their eyes fluttered shut.

“Nice save,” Hero said.

They looked down at Supervillain’s form.

“You didn’t really- I mean- are they gonna…?”

“No,” Assistant laughed, “I only gave enough to knock them out for a couple hours. I just wanted them to feel as afraid as I did these past few days.”

Hero blinked, then smirked.

“You cunning little trickster,” they said.

Alarms rang out throughout the room, and probably throughout the rest of Organization’s building. Oh, right, that henchman that got away.

“You ready?” Hero asked.

“For what?” Assistant asked back.

Hero handed Assistant the taser they had taken.

“For a fight,” Hero said.

Part 10

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