#Old blood fest

[amymor-theend]

My posters made for the annual metal festival Old blood fest🤘The organizer of this festival is the DIG ME NO GRAVE

[hannieween]

hell bent | yoon jeonghan

› pairings: yoon jeonghan x female reader › aus: demon hunter jeonghan, supernatural au, demon reader › genres: angst, fluff, smut (18+) › word count: 12.7k

› 🎧: this man – jxw

› special thanks to @gyuswhore who helped me proofreading this 🩵

› this is part 4 of the curse - hannieween fest

› warnings after the cut! READ THEM CAREFULLY 🗣️

› warnings: hurt/comfort! major character death scene (it's not described in great detail), resurrection, grief, injury, blood, alcohol consumption, smut with plot, sex dreams, unprotected p in v, creampie and pull-out method, corruption kink, exhibitionism, love making, jeonghan is down bad, breeding kink, oral sex, pussy drunk jeonghan, buff jeonghan. pet names: baby (hers)

› disclaimer: minors dni this post is intended for 18+ readers. have your age stated in your description and try not to look like a bot please 🙂

hell bent

JEONGHAN SAT ON THE GROUND FOR WHAT FELT LIKE AN ETERNITY. He stared at the horizon until the darkness dissolved and the sun rose. The weight in his arms increased as the seconds went by until he grew numb and cold in the morning mist.

He blinked when the sunlight started to hurt his eyes. His throat was sore and dry from screaming, and his fists were bloody. But that did not matter. All that mattered was gone. He looked down where you lay motionless in his arms. Cold and bloody.

Hours had dragged on, and the time to move was drawing near. But he feared that if he moved, reality would set in. He cupped your cheek, kissing your forehead before pressing his own on yours, and waited. He waited for you to open your eyes, to feel your take in a breath.

It was over.

He got up, carrying your limp body in his arms. Once on his feet, the weight of your body caused a deep blow to his chest.

You laid on the backseat of his car as he drove aimlessly until he found a place deserted enough to hide. A place to bury your body.

The hole he dug in the ground was surrounded by trees, small patches of grass that grew small flowers attracting butterflies in, and in the distance, he could hear the chirping of birds. You looked peacefully asleep once he laid you there.

It was over. The torture was over. The pain, the suffering, all of that. And for a small moment, he thought you were smiling.

When Jeonghan stumbled upon the headquarters, he did not even bother knocking, because they saw his car parked on the driveway of the old manor.

Seungcheol opened the door, a bewildered look on his face, mouth parted, brows drawn inward. “What happened to you?” he asked, stepping aside to let Jeonghan in.

Jeonghan hugged his arm to his body. “Is Joshua here?” he asked instead, hurrying to the hospital wing of the manor.

“What’s happening?” Joshua raised his head, standing up from the desk pushed to the far end of the long room. His gaze fell on Jeonghan and got to work in an instant. “Sit,” he motioned to one of the beds.

Jeonghan obliged, letting out a pained groan as he sat down. “I need a favor,” he forced out, sitting still as Joshua grabbed a pair of scissors, cutting through Jeonghan’s zipper hoodie to reveal the deep cut from the shoulder to the elbow.

“Tell me what happened to you,” Joshua asked softly, it sounded like a routine question. But Jeonghan knew it was genuine curiosity. Joshua sat down on a stool beside the bed, examining all the damage done.

“Seungcheol,” Jeonghan muttered. “I need you to do something for me.”

Seungcheol stood before the bed, placing his hands on his hips. “I’m listening.”

Jeonghan took in a breath, mustering the courage to speak as pain throbbed inside him. “In the outskirts of Veridian Bay, some three kilometres south, are three dead hunters.”

“Shit,” he hissed. “Demons? Were you with them?”

Jeonghan shook his head, swallowing hard. “I killed them.”

Both Joshua and Seungcheol stopped dead in their tracks. Hunter deaths were common, and they were just reported, families were contacted in some cases. But most of the time, they went unnoticed. But hunters killing other hunters was something out of the ordinary.

“Jeonghan, what happened?” Joshua asked slowly and with a tone laced with concern.

Jeonghan shuddered, shaking his head again. “I can’t,” he choked out. “I just need that taken care of. I couldn’t go back to get them.”

Seungcheol ran a palm on his face, and Jeonghan knew he would not let this go easily. But he just nodded and turned around to strut out of the hospital wing. “Consider it done.”

Jeonghan and Joshua waited quietly, sitting very still until the loud noise of the front door slamming shut announced that they were alone. In the distance, the roar of Seungcheol’s bike echoed throughout the clear of the vicinity, growing more and more distant as he drove away.

Joshua continued working, cleaning the wound on Jeonghan’s arm, sending glances to his face to both measure how much painJeonghan was experiencing and to wait for him to talk.

“They killed her,” Jeonghan croaked, closing his eyes as a painful shudder swarmed inside him, threatening to break his mind.

“The hunters?” Joshua murmured.

“They came for her, I couldn’t do anything. She was gone before I could get to her,” he whispered, his face contorting in pain from the first puncturing of the needle stitching his skin back together, and the image of you lying on the ground.

“It has been months since we last talked, Jeonghan,” Joshua mentioned, carefully closing one stitch. “What changed?”

Jeonghan shook his head, refusing to open his eyes. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me,” Joshua replied, his gentle tone easing some of the anxiousness in Jeonghan’s mind.

Jeonghan opened his eyes, finding his best friend sitting beside him. “Do you know anything about bonds?” he asked, waiting until Joshua nodded reluctantly. “Pacts, deals, promises… everything we were taught in training, you know that they are binding contracts with demons.”

Joshua frowned. “Did you make a pact with her?” he asked knowingly.

“Much worse,” Jeonghan replied, adding an empty smile that felt crazy to him. “She was bound to me and I to her since we were born.”

Joshua blinked a couple of times, tilting his head to one side and lowering his medical tools just a little. His gaze glided over the features of Jeonghan’s weary and dirty face, waiting for him to elaborate.

“You know,” Jeonghan asserted once his best friend remained quiet. “Did you know about this?”

Joshua sent his gaze upward, outlining the corners of the room pensively. “I’m never on the field, not like you and Seungcheol. I stay here, I patch all of you up and in the meantime, I hear the stories you bring from out there.”

“Please get to the point,” Jeonghan gritted, bracing himself for more physical pain as Joshua resumed stitching his arm up.

“I’ve heard stories, yeah,” Joshua mumbled, carefully adding another stitch. “When you told me about her, I just wondered about it. But you never showed up again, so I couldn’t tell you anything.”

Jeonghan sighed in resignation. “She is my soulmate,” he said, the word coming out with enough weight to make his heart protest in pain.

“How do you feel?” Joshua pulled back to take a surveying look.

“I buried her… She’s gone,” Jeonghan mumbled dejectedly, his gaze falling out of focus, lost in the distance. “She’s gone.”

The small patches of flowers surrounding the place where you lay, would they grow over you? Do you like flowers?

“Sounds like you cared about her,” Joshua whispered, finishing up the last stitch.

“Everything happened so fast,” Jeonghan went on, swallowing his tears. “I couldn’t get to her in time. I felt her pain. I felt the last beating of her heart.”

Joshua stopped, the pause was minimal, but it meant something. “You felt it?”

Jeonghan nodded in sharp, but tiny motions. “They tried to cut her wings,” he whispered in a near-crazed look flashing his eyes. Jeonghan was lost in the memory, trying to retrace every move he made upon finding you, but he could not remember what he did to those hunters.

“Jeonghan, what do you mean you felt it?” Joshua pressed, his tone more urgent and Jeonghan could tell that his friend was worried about him.

“The bond. We can sense each other through it,” he said, his voice breaking halfway through the sentence.

“But not anymore?” Joshua prodded, his tone gentle and cautious, fearing that his friend might be losing touch with reality.

“Not anymore,” Jeonghan breathed in, his chest stammering as he suppressed a sob, tears welling up in his eyes.

“And the bond?” Joshua lifted his gaze from the work he was doing, his tone rose in worry.

“It’s still there,” Jeonghan sniffled, crestfallen as tears rolled down his cheeks. “It’s still calling me to her, there’s just no receiving end.”

Joshua left his tools on the cart beside him, discarding the rags filthy with blood. He let out a heavy sigh, his shoulders going slack. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” he muttered, gently patting Jeonghan’s back, then bringing his hand to the back of his head, caressing as if to soothe him.

But there was nothing that could ever soothe Jeonghan’s pain. The emptiness inside him seemed to ache at its edges, his mind felt shaken with the reality he was thrust into. It seemed insane that it had been hours since he kissed you, eager with the prospect of starting fresh with you.

And now you were gone.

There was no point in cursing at life’s way to mock him anymore. Jeonghan thought this was the way he was paying for all the times he neglected you, all the times he hurt you. But the selfish part in him wished that life had given him the opportunity to say goodbye to you.

Jeonghan’s heart broke the night he lost you.

Despite everything that happened, he tried to move on. He convinced himself that life still went on and that you would have wanted him to move forward.

He kept your memory alive through small things. Some mornings he would go to a diner and order pancakes with syrup and bacon. When he was alone in his room, he would pretend you were there with him. He would imagine hearing your laugh, the small sounds you made when you slept.

It was the first month since you were gone. Jeonghan never had the opportunity to know what your favorite flowers were if you even liked receiving flowers. So he routinely left a different bouquet of flowers on the grave he made for you. He left lilies, the first time he went to visit you, one hand holding the bouquet, the other holding a bottle of rum.

He sat on the ground, leaning back against the trunk of a tree. The clear was quiet and dense with humidity, his senses stimulated by the smell of wet grass and dirt.

There was a peace that filled the emptiness inside him as he sat beside your grave. As though the bond could rest easy once he was there, even though there was no response from you.

Jeonghan grabbed the bottle with one hand around its neck and tipped a generous amount of rum in his mouth. Exhaling harshly, he wiped his chin with the back of his hand. “At least we have our answer, eh?” Jeonghan muttered glumly.

The next time he went there, some three weeks later, he brought you petunias. He thought that they would look good along with the wild chamomiles that were growing around you. This time he realized that he did not bring a bottle with him, and he did not need it. He just sat there, content with the peace that being near you brought him.

The third month you laid there, he brought you peonies. This time, he bought them with the memory of your glinting eyes the last and only time he saw you with joy and love glowing all around you.

He stood before the grave with his hands inside his pockets, looking at the ground adorned with flowers. “I don’t even know if you liked flowers,” he said, an empty smile curving his lips. “But I don’t know what else people leave on graves.”

With a tired sigh, he sat down on the ground, tucking his legs in a butterfly position. His fingers toyed with the grass growing in patches beneath him. The stillness of the clearing offered him the moment for reflection; he ventured again with questions about you. He never wondered about what the afterlife would look like, but sometimes he liked to think that there was some preternatural way you could listen to him.

“Shua saw me with flowers this morning,” he said, chuckling awkwardly. “He said nothing, just told me to come back before sundown. I think he’s known for a while that I come here to visit you.” He raised his gaze, finding the sunlight filtering through the thicket of the trees, bathing him. “He’s a good friend, I think you would like him.”

Jeonghan lowered his gaze to the flowers sitting on the ground. He propped one elbow on his knee, resting his chin on his fist. “I almost didn’t come here this time,” he muttered guiltily, filling his chest with air to try to push the ache inside him.

It was as though the mere thought of not coming here to visit you made the bond protest. When you were alive, it was the mad craving for you that did not allow him to stay away for long. Now, it was just a thing that pulsated inside him, calling for you.

He breathed in, filling his lungs with the humid air of the quiet forest, trying to gulp down the knot coiling around his throat. “I miss you,” he whispered to the ground, his eyes brimming with hot tears. “I wish I could go back and do things differently with you… I wish I hadn’t been so stupid.”

He stood up, dusting the dirt from his hands while contemplating whether he wanted to say goodbye to you or not. Instead, he turned and walked away from the clear, enjoying the chirping of the birds keeping you company as he returned home.

Jeonghan returned to the manor, where he had been living since that night. The smell of food distracted him before he went to his designated room, so he just walked to the kitchen, finding Joshua busy preparing dinner.

“You’re back,” Joshua muttered gently, but the look he sent was weary. “I thought you’d be gone for longer.”

“There was not much to do,” he muttered offhandedly.

Joshua set a plate on the small dining table motioning to Jeonghan to the chair. “That’s for you,” he said.

“Thanks,” Jeonghan replied, sitting down with a tired groan. He kept an eye on his friend, pacing around the kitchen of the old manor. “What’s up with you?”

“Just thinking,” Joshua muttered, serving a plate for himself, and sat down in front of Jeonghan, occupying a space on the table too. “Ever tried summoning her?”

Jeonghan’s eyes went wide, his heart stammering for a split second. “What?” he choked out.

Joshua took the fork into his mouth and nodded, munching his food with ease, as though he was having the most normal conversation on the planet. “Have you ever tried summoning her?” he repeated slowly.

“No,” he replied, his tone coming out like a question.

“Mmm, I see,” he said, taking his cup to drink with long and generous gulps.

“Why?” Jeonghan asked, but his friend kept drinking.

Joshua shrugged. “I just thought that you might’ve tried it at least once.”

“Why would I do that?” Jeonghan frowned, the ache palpitating strongly in his chest. “She’s gone.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it up like that,” Joshua replied, lowering his gaze in shame.

You wrapped your arms around his shoulders, leaning your cheek against the side of his head. The sighs slowly turned into moans, spilling out of your lips relentlessly as you rolled your hips on him, fucking him slowly. “Jeonghan,” your voice called.

“I know, baby,” he replied, enjoying the feeling he got whenever he was with you, it was bright and alive and dancing on his skin. “I feel it too,” he whispered.

You moved your hands to cup his face, pressing a hard kiss on his lips as you started moving your hips on him faster. “I love you,” you breathed.

Jeonghan moaned, wrapping you with his arms to flip the positions on the bed, pressing your body against the mattress. “I love you,” he replied, a shudder overpowering him, making him utter your name, over and over as he made love to you.

He pressed his body against the hard mattress, calling your name again as he woke up violently with an exasperated sigh. Rubbing his hands against his face, he shook himself from the merciless dream he had of you. “Gods,” he choked out, covering his face in shame, breathing hard against his hands. “Fuck, fuck!”

The hole in his chest pulsated painfully, desperately calling out to you to no end. As he closed his eyes, gathering himself, he saw you in the eye of his mind. Your sweet smile, every curve of your body.

It seemed a true tragedy that he could feel you in his dreams only. He felt your skin, he felt the bond responding to you the way it used to when you were alive. It was the first time he dreamed of you since you left, and he suspected it would not be the last.

This was his burden to bear. And he would have to endure it.

When Jeonghan first met you, he could not make sense of the pull he felt. His surroundings warped and everything focused on you, on your face, your eyes, even your smell. Jeonghan did not feel the very particular repulsion he always felt whenever he came in close contact with a demon.

But he wished to. He tried to force himself to recoil at the thought of you, after he met you. But everything inside him made him want to walk right back to that pub where you used to work. In the back of his mind, he saw the doors to the pub, the bar, he wanted to go there one more time and see you.

It felt wrong. It felt so dirty and sticky to even think about you without recoiling. But Jeonghan was strong-willed, and very diligent on his job, so he just kept himself to his business. Tracking and getting rid of demons. But somehow, he could not get near you again, even if everything in his life obligated him to track you, hunt you.

Time went on like this, his mind plagued with the morbid curiosity to go back to that pub and see you again. In his dreams, he saw your eyes, he heard your voice make out the same exact words you told him the night he met you. He heard your voice utter your name, the sound echoing in the back of his mind as he tried to continue with his life.

Until one night, when something unfortunate happened.

It was one of those sleepless nights, Jeonghan decided to go on a night watch out of town. He was tracking some demon activity he was informed of nights ago. This demon apparently had a pattern which was not a rarity, demons could tend to go for certain humans at a certain time, it was not weird.

But apparently, this demon liked to hunt a particular kind of human; humans that were either wanted criminals or suspects of a crime, people that liked transgressing against their own in the worst ways imaginable. And that was something worth noting to Jeonghan, it made this demon easy to catch.

Or at least, that is what he had thought.

Night after night, Jeonghan had no luck falling asleep and when he went out to track this demon, he had no luck focusing on the task at hand. He was on the verge of calling it a night, wanting to fall asleep in his car, or in the nearest motel he could find. Walking aimlessly on the side of the road, he realized that it would take him about twenty minutes to get to where he parked his car and sighed.

A small shiver ran down his spine as if the line of his back was being stroked with the tip of a paintbrush. His eyelids fluttered in response, and his chest felt strange, like overcome by a fuzzy sensation.

He needed to be alert, he thought. A demon was around, and he could sense it. Stopping his lazy gait, he sent his gaze to scope his surroundings, through the thicket of trees flanking the lonely road.

But as the feeling inside him returned, and more intensely, he realized that he was in danger. A rustle of leaves echoed at the other side of the road where he stood, and slowly, a figure emerged from the trees, it moved gracefully and gently. A pair of dark horns distorted the shadow.

As he reached for the knife strapped to his thigh, he realized that he only felt endangered because it was you who moved through the shadows of the forest. And he wanted to avoid you above all.

“I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever see you again,” your voice reached him like a gentle caress on his mind.

“What are you doing here?” Jeonghan said, not removing his fist from the handle of his knife. “Are you following me?”

You tilted your head to one side, a smirk spreading on your lips. “Why, are you afraid of me?” you mused, laughing lightly. But when he did not reply to your quip, you just shrugged. “I came out because I was craving a snack. But I think you might suffice.”

His fist tightened around the handle, his eyes quickly reading your stance, but you remained leaning on your side to the trunk of the tree.

“Relax, hunter,” you said, tossing your hair from your shoulder to your back and crossing your arms. “Have a little laugh, you look tense.”

Jeonghan stood his ground, lifting his chin to analyze you a bit further. “Did you kill any humans tonight?”

“No, not yet,” you picked your nails, trying to appear as uninterested in his questioning as possible, but your heart was running a mile per second. Being around Jeonghan was thrilling, it made you feel full in your chest and every nerve beneath your skin to call for him.

“But you will,” he said, realizing that it was you, the demon he was looking for. The demon that only fed on men that hurt women and children.

“Well, a girl’s gotta eat,” you sighed, pushing yourself off the tree and taking a step toward him.

He tensed up at that instant, one foot stepping back but then he decided to hold his ground, trying to resist walking away. You were dangerous, and he did not know what set you apart from other demons.

You ignored the fact that he still had a hand on his knife, and he was very much as lethal as you were. Taking some steps to where he stood still, you coiled one finger around a strand of hair, smiling when you realized that he was not afraid of you, but weary.

“You seem like you need a night off,” you pointed, coming closer to him to take a fuller look at his face, seeing the bags under his lifeless eyes, and the dry skin on his lips.

“Don’t come any closer,” Jeonghan warned, rigid with the question of why he could not make his muscles move in any direction.

“Or what?” you asked, standing in front of him. “Are you going to kill me, hunter?” you asked, your eyes glimmering in the dark, full of curiosity.

“If you take another step I might,” Jeonghan replied with certainty, something in him stirring with a strange fascination when you smiled at the clear warning.

“No, you won’t,” you countered, giving him one of those looks that made him feel more uneasy. “You’re not at full strength, you’re tired, and hungry. And worst of all, you feel like you can’t move, am I right?”

It was like you could read into his soul, he thought. Your words were like wildfire spreading inside him, it made his insides boil with rage. Part of him wondered why he was made this uncomfortable and angry at something one demon said. Demons spoke out of the need to lure hunters into a trap, and this was no different. But this trap seemed so tempting.

To drive your point further, you took another step, inches away from Jeonghan.

“I make you nervous,” you whispered, fascination glinting on your eyes as you wallowed. “What are you going to do, Jeonghan? You can’t run away, and you can’t attack me, so what’s your next move?”

His breathing shifted when his name fell from your lips. He had never felt this way, he realized. The quick pulse, the fluttering in his stomach, the shaky breathing, he knew how nervousness felt, but this was entirely new to him.

“Hm?” you pressed, tilting your head to one side as you nearly stood on your tiptoes to level with him. “Come on, no one’s going to judge you if you run away, and I won’t tell a soul,” you showed him a mischievous smile, one that he might have hated if it were not for the tight feeling invading him wholly.

As you stood before him, one thing became painfully clear to him: he was attracted to you. It was something simply physical, or that was what he tried to convince himself. Maybe it was your pretty face, your velvety tone, the grace in which you moved. Not only that, as he casted a look down to meet your face, he also had a glimpse of your frame and the thought of wanting to meet every curve of your body was alluring.

So alluring that he wanted to surrender to it.

At that, your eyes shone more intensely. Again, as though you had a secret line to his thoughts, and you just had discovered what he was thinking.

But you sighed with faux disappointment. “And here I thought you were fun,” you pouted in mockery. “Pity. I guess I’ll just go and have fun elsewhere,” you moved again, walking around his body once, as though taking another full look at him. “Bye, hunter.”

And then you sunk into the line of trees again, disappearing from his view. But his senses were already tuned and following you, so he could hear every step you took down the forest. And he could not help but take a step in your direction as well.

That night, he chased you down the forest, his heart beating in a frenzy, his mind blank but with only one intention. You started sprinting, laughing lightly when he kept with your pace and ran closely behind you.

When Jeonghan was finally within reach, he grabbed your arm, turning you around and messing up your step. You stumbled back against a tree, realizing that he had calculated this because his arms were caging you in on both of your sides.

Jeonghan brought a hand to your throat, his fingers pressing on your skin harshly, his strength subsiding once he felt your pulse. But his face, riddled with confusion and frustration at the same time, his mouth parted a little as he could not bring himself to say anything. His gaze swam over the features of your pretty face, stopping once on your eyes, your lips.

The moment was deadly quiet as you witnessed the fire inside him die down slowly once he came in contact with you, skin on skin. It was game over, you knew it, and Jeonghan did too. There was a quiet exchange of glances right before Jeonghan dipped his head and you closed your eyes, gulping on air as his lips met your own with a swift kiss.

What possessed him to do that, Jeonghan did not know, but he was not in the position to ask himself any more questions because he did it again. Kissing you now with abandon, his lips sinking in between yours, making out with you like he never had with anyone else. You moaned into the kiss, sending him into a frenzy.

It was as though you were both committing a crime, and none of you would say a word. You grabbed him by the flaps of the black leather jacket, pulling him impossibly closer to your body, the proximity making your chest feel fuller, your blood heating up.

He released his grip on your throat, his fingers sliding down your torso to undo the button of your blouse. The next moves were rushed, as though neither of you wanted to stop and question what you were about to do. And the forest around you stood silent too, being witness to the fateful deed.

In seconds, Jeonghan had you pressed against the trunk of the tree, your legs wrapped around his hips, your skirt hiked up your tummy, your chest naked and exposed to him. You sneaked a hand between your body and his, reaching for his hard cock to guide it to your entrance for him to sink inside you, making you feel every inch of his dick in one go.

The first stroke set your whole body aflame. Your mouth fell open, but no sound came out as Jeonghan wasted no time and started fucking you with hard thrusts, not giving you time to adjust to the stretch of his cock. The wind got knocked out of your lungs with sharp exhales, but you kept yourself angled for the merciless rutting, unable to look away from the fiery obsession growing inside him, showing on his face.

Neither of you said a thing, just kept looking at each other, unable to speak, or to look away. The feeling was exquisite, invading every inch of your body, tingling beneath your skin. Jeonghan’s eyes glazed over, his mouth parting slightly but he kept himself quiet, fucking you to get rid of the thing trying to rip his heart out.

And when you reached your orgasm, it was the best feeling you had ever experienced in your life. It had you finally moaning out his name, clenching around him as he too spilled himself inside you with hard thrusts.

That was the night that kickstarted the deep craving and obsession you had for each other, the push and pull that Jeonghan could not make sense of until the night you told him of the bond. That was the night that Jeonghan regretted for a long time until he lost you.

“Hey, are you there?”

Jeonghan lifted his head, snapping back to reality. He had been contemplating for hours, sitting in the kitchen with a mug of cold tea in his hands. His fingers had grown cold again. He cleared his throat and nodded. “Yeah, what’s up?”

Mingyu opened the fridge for the fifth time that day, just to close it again. “Wonwoo and I are going to a Halloween parade downtown, see if we catch something fun. Wanna come with us?”

Jeonghan did not know for how long he had been sitting there reminiscing about you. In his mind, Jeonghan could still feel your touch on his skin, so it was difficult for him to assimilate what he had just heard, so he nodded again, accepting the invitation. “Sure,” he croaked.

“‘Kay,” Mingyu smiled giddily with the triumph of getting Jeonghan out of the house. “See you in the garage in five minutes.”

The streets were full of nocturnal life. People came out with costumes of all kinds, some of them were recognizable to Jeonghan, and some were not. It was a small city where the headquarters were located, but Jeonghan was not surprised to see a lot of people gathering there for the Halloween parade.

Demons ran amok in places like this, they practically crawled into these types of events, and humans were easier prey in crowded places. It was also easier for demons to mask themselves.

“We should go, Mingyu,” Jeonghan said, moving through the crowd and using Mingyu as a shield.

“Maybe we could move to the sidelines,” Wonwoo suggested, walking behind Jeonghan. “It would be easier to stay alert like that, we don’t have to be in the thick of the crowd.”

“Have a little fun, you two,” Mingyu said. He was a person that could find the good side to nearly everything, even this damned job, Jeonghan thought.

“I’m going to take a breather,” Jeonghan said, trying to cut through the crowd.

“Gods, you are one ray of sunshine,” Mingyu tutted. “Come on, this way,” he motioned to one side of the multitude of people, where they could cross more efficiently.

Jeonghan followed, walking away from the sea of people, and starting to thread through it to get to the other side of the street when he felt it. It was a rush, tingling down from the back of his head to the rest of his spine. It left him speechless, breathless.

“Wait,” Jeonghan blurted, placing a hand on Mingyu’s shoulder.

“What is it?” he frowned, sending his gaze through the sea of faces. The muscles of his jaw twitched, and as he drew in a breath, he exhaled: “Demon.”

Jeonghan stood frozen, eyes fixated on the pavement. “No,” he uttered dejectedly, straightening up to catch his breath. Not just any demon. He searched through the mass of unknown eyes, the masks, the makeup, growing more and more desperate as the feeling returned caressing his back, making him shudder.

“Jeonghan, what is it?” Mingyu muttered beside him, squaring up his shoulders after noticing the shocked expression on his face.

Yoon Jeonghan would know your face anywhere. Not just that, but the way the very air seemed to change whenever you were near.

“Mingyu, stop,” he whispered, digging his fingers on the muscle to bring him to a halt.

Mingyu dropped his jaw slightly, ignoring Jeonghan’s direct order and made a motion to step into the crowd again, a hand reaching for the knife on his back.

“I said stop,” Jeonghan ordered at once, his tone firm and snappy.

You moved through the sea of people, your eyes swimming all over the place in true amazement, your mouth parting as you looked at the costumes that the people around you wore.

Jeonghan shuddered, unable to blink in fear you were an illusion. But Mingyu saw you too, he saw your wings in full display, brushing against the humans around you, and he saw your black horns curving back from the crown of your head.

You laughed when a man dressed in a killer clown costume jumped on you, trying to get a scare out of you but failing miserably. The sound of your laughter made Jeonghan weak, it made him want to dissolve into the pavement below his feet.

“What the fuck?” Mingyu whispered, looking at you and then back at Jeonghan. “She’s a demon, what are we waiting for?”

“She’s mine,” Jeonghan snapped but did not look away from you. He simply removed his hand from Mingyu’s shoulder and started to walk slowly towards you as you moved through the myriads of costumes, wide-eyed in amazement.

As he came closer, reality seemed more and more like a joke to him. He tried to convince himself that perhaps he was dreaming again. But there was no denying the bond pulsating stronger as he approached you.

“Nice wings,” a guy said in passing, catching your attention but only for a fleeting moment.

You made no reply, only continued looking at your surroundings, the lights mirroring your dark eyes, full of hunger, full of life. Dark eyes that glided all over Jeonghan’s frame as he stood in front of you, perplexed to the point he forgot speech, he forgot how to use his mouth.

“What are you supposed to be?” you asked, tilting your head to one side.

Jeonghan did not know what to reply, as he was unsure that you even knew that you spent the last three months three feet below ground. You looked as alive as the day he told you he loved you.

You died, I buried you. Jeonghan’s mind reeled over and over. Your heart stopped beating, I buried you.

“I’m… I…” Jeonghan whispered, not by choice, but by the inability to raise his voice higher.

Your eyes went over the features of his face, and he expected eagerly to see a glint of recognition in them, but you beat him to it. “Do I know you?” you asked, your voice soft and gentle with him, but you did not know that your question might have been like a dagger to his heart.

His heart caved in, and he took the pain as he had been taking it for the last three months that you were gone. “I don’t think so, no,” he finally said, his pulse quickening upon realizing that the sound of his voice made your pupils dilate.

His voice. A very distant memory, like trying to recall a lost dream upon waking up from a long nap. You studied him with your gaze one more time, trying to figure out why his face meant something to you.

Jeonghan saw his two companions through the corner of his eye, but he ignored them, knowing the reason why you also looked so wide-eyed. “Are you hungry?” he asked, and seeing your brow furrowing, he quickly added with a thumb pointing back. “There’s a diner down the street, far away from all this noise.”

And far away from any potential casualties.

“I suppose I don’t get a name,” you quipped, and shivers ran down his spine.

So he tried to figure out if that brought back any memories when he said: “Only if I get yours first.”

Your gaze went soft, your breathing quickening slightly but only for him to notice it. You did not know your name, and the realization shook you so hard that it made you dizzy. “Yeah, I think I’ll go with you. If you’re buying.”

At that, Jeonghan mustered up a light smile, seeing that although your memories were gone, you were still you. “Yeah, I’m buying.”

He cast a look back only to make sure that Mingyu had understood why Jeonghan had ordered him to stop. And there was a knowing look mirroring back in Mingyu’s eyes, as he needed no explanation. Jeonghan nodded to him and then motioned you to follow down the street where the diner was located.

As you walked in front of him, he got a view of your entire frame. The t-shirt you had worn the day that you died was torn on the back midway through, for when those hunters tried to cut your wings. The rest of your clothes were dirty too, black with traces of blood and dirt, adding to the illusion of a Halloween costume.

“This place is good. I’ve been here many times before,” Jeonghan lied, keeping an eye on you to see if you were keen on catching his lies. “The pancakes and syrup are delicious.”

“Pancakes and syrup?” your eyes flitted to his face and back to the diner as Jeonghan pushed the door open, holding it for you.

Jeonghan nodded in short motions, his heart deflating a little when he saw no evidence that you had caught his lie. “You’ll love it.”

“Mmn,” you hummed confusedly, following him like a puppy that has just found a knowing elder. “I believe you.”

Jeonghan motioned to a seat of one of the booths and you slid obediently, crossing your arms on the table. He flagged down one of the servers and ordered for you only, glancing your way back and forth, tearing his gaze away only when you noticed his eyes on you.

“Eh,” you began, scratching an invisible itch on the back of your hand when the server kept looking at you weirdly until she walked away.

“It’s your wings,” Jeonghan pointed at your large, membranous black wings with the tip of his nose. “They look too real for a Halloween costume.”

You pouted, giving one of your wings a look. “They are real,” you muttered, seemingly offended.

Jeonghan sighed, unable to tear his eyes away from you. I’m glad they are, I’m glad you are real, he wanted to say but the words never came. “Yeah, I know.”

“These are too,” you pointed to the black horns curving back from the crown of your head.

“I know,” Jeonghan muttered, leaning over with a curiosity that he could no longer try to shake off. “Can you try to hide them?” he asked.

Your eyes were windows to your mind because they widened in shock for an instant. “Is that possible?”

Jeonghan realized that he never asked you how you did it, so he nodded and thought of a reply quickly. “Imagine them gone.”

Instinctively, your eyes swam upwards, focusing for half a thought and then your horns dissipated from his vision. “Oh,” you muttered, smiling in small triumph. “Did I do it?”

He smiled with you, unbeknownst that he had not done that in months. “You did it,” he said, his chest finally feeling whole and warm. “Can you try with your wings now?”

“Mmmn,” you frowned, breathing in and then they were gone too. “Oh, that feels weird,” you muttered with a small giggle that sent chills down his spine.

“Two coffees and pancakes with syrup for the young lady,” the server chirped, aloof that you had gotten rid of your horns and wings completely, serving the order and then walking away.

“Thanks,” he muttered, expecting for your first bite.

You were aloof to his scrutiny, sinking your fork into your food and taking one bite. You had the reaction that Jeonghan had secretly been waiting for, your eyes widened, glinting as you released a pleased moan. “Wow,” you muttered, wasting no time and taking another bite.

“Is it good?” Jeonghan whispered, keeping his eyes on you as you ate eagerly.

“So good,” you mumbled, your cheeks stuffed with your favorite dish. “I like this.”

“I’m glad,” Jeonghan replied meaningfully, trying for a second time to see if that brought any memories back. After seeing your reaction, he had no doubt in mind that somehow you were miraculously brought back to him instead, he was full of questions now, and he knew it would not be a straight answer to every single one of them.

“Penny for your thoughts?” you raised your eyebrows just as you were about to take another bite from your food. When he remained motionless, you added: “We’re strangers, I know, but I know that look.”

“Eh?” he frowned.

“You know, when someone wants to say something but doesn’t have the guts to,” you shrugged. “I don’t know much about things, but I can be a really good listener, and…” you sneaked a glance at his face and back to your plate. “You seem familiar.”

Jeonghan saw some glimpse of hope, but he remained careful. Nothing could be this good in his life and you coming back to it had to be another joke somehow. “Where do you come from?” he asked.

You pursed your lips, dubious of how to reply but you just went with what you could make out from experience. “I actually don’t know,” you said with an awkward air. “I dug myself out of a hole in the ground.”

Jeonghan showed you a sad smile. “That seems like a weird experience,” he commented just to keep you talking.

And it worked. “Yeah, I guess nobody thought of double-checking to see if I was really dead,” you smiled lightly but sent a quick glance to verify if Jeonghan would understand your dry humour.

“Or maybe you’re just a very deep sleeper.”

That made you laugh, the sound bubbly and airy. It surprised you for a second, but Jeonghan caught that look on your face despite him being overridden with a deep sense of joy when he heard the sound coming out of your mouth.

Jeonghan tried to keep his facial expressions in check, but he was so mesmerized that it showed in his glinting eyes.

“What about you, stranger?” you asked, pushing the empty plate aside and propped one elbow on the table, resting your chin on your hand.

“What about me?” he asked uncomfortably, coughing to shake off the deep wonder he felt.

“Where do you come from?” you asked innocently, shifting slightly on your seat to mask that you were also uncomfortable by the sense of familiarity his face gave you.

“I come from a town very, very far away from here,” he responded.

“Are you not hungry? You didn’t eat,” you said, taking the cup of coffee to your lips to drink one large gulp, you recoiled immediately, putting the cup down and using that hand to cover your mouth.

“What?” Jeonghan asked, frowning upon knowing that reaction. It was a natural instinct to recoil from things that could burn, humans did it. But not demons. Demons could not get burned from a hot coffee, much less feel like recoiling instinctively.

“It’s hot,” you said, lifting your eyes to him in shame as your eyes watered slightly from the stinging pain.

“Did you get burned?” Jeonghan pressed in utter bewilderment.

“Well, yeah, that’s what happens when something is really, really hot!” your eyes widened.

Then you did something that only sent him further down his intrigue, reaching out to grab the sugar to add two spoons to your coffee. You did this naturally and without much thinking. It was as though your memories were lost, but things out of habit remained with you. He wondered then if that was how you had instinctively found him. He wondered how strongly you felt the bond.

“Well?” you asked, stirring your coffee with the spoon with gentleness. When he just raised his eyebrows, you added: “Aren’t you hungry?”

He cleared his throat awkwardly. “No, I’m not,” he replied, clasping his hands beneath his chin and propping his elbows on the table. “You?”

You nodded. “I’m full,” you replied contently.

Confusion gripped him again, making him furrow his brow. “You’re not hungry anymore?” he asked, knowing that you could take one full meal, and still be hungry for more. Because no meal could satiate your need to feed on souls.

But you nodded cutely. “Yep, full.”

Another glimpse of hope. Something Jeonghan desperately wanted to cling to. If you could burn yourself, and feel full after one meal… not only that, but you miraculously and quite literally crawled out of your grave.

“Do you remember what it felt like?” Jeonghan whispered, so quiet that for a second he feared you would not be capable of hearing him.

But you raised your eyes. “What?”

“When you woke up in that hole, do you remember what happened before that?”

You shook your head slowly. “Nope,” you pouted once more. “How do you know I don’t remember?” you inquired, tilting your head to one side.

“I uh,” Jeonghan leaned back on his seat, flagging the server to ask for the bill. “I guess you’re familiar too,” he said, showing you a tight smile.

“Mmph,” you looked at him for a long moment, thinking that his eyes, the glint in them made you think of a spark before a fire.

Jeonghan on the other side of the table, was beginning to mortify with the idea that your temporary death might have inched you closer to becoming human. The time you tried to become human was through soul starvation, something that was slowly killing you too. And he thought that maybe you were only able to come back because you remained part-demon. A half-mortal.

Jeonghan also suspected that it was him uttering your name in the middle of the night the detonator for your resurrection if he could even call it that. Summoning a demon was a whole ritual, but you were bound to him and him to you, so everything that he thought he knew about it was uncertain too.

“I guess I should thank you for the food,” you toyed with the edges of the table without looking at him. “But I also don’t know why you’re doing this for me.”

“You have nothing to thank me for,” he said, realizing that his throat had gone dry with his thinking, he felt breathless, and it was not only because it was hard for him to sit with the fact that you were back, but also because he now had to make a choice.

If he was right and you were half-human now, you were also unaware of the bond. Jeonghan was face to face with the opportunity to finally let you go, and set you free from this vicious cycle. You would not be subjected to a lifetime of misery with him, being chased for being who you are and being with a demon hunter like him.

But there was another problem: he made a promise to you.

“Are you okay?” you whispered.

“Yeah, yes I am,” he cleared his throat once again, he pulled out his wallet and left a bill on the table. “Listen, I’ll show you a place where you can stay for now, alright?”

Before you could answer, he stood up from the table and walked towards the door of the diner, making you follow him outside.

“Where are we going?” you asked, trying to keep up with his large steps.

“A place where you could be taken in, a shelter,” he eyed you as you walked beside him.

“Will I see you again?” you looked panicked for a second, fear creeping inside you at the thought of him disappearing.

“No,” he replied shortly, lowering his gaze to the ground as he led you through an alleyway, knowing that the shelter would be just across from it.

Jeonghan could honor his promise to you. He would not walk away from you, he would not let you go. That would make the bond grow peaceful and content, and that would make his suffering end at once.

One undeniable truth was that if he could walk away from you, there would be no danger around you. Sure, you were still half-demon, so that would eventually put a target on your back. But he could keep an eye on you from afar, make sure you’re making the right choices for yourself, as you always have.

That way, maybe you could continue to have the life you always wanted. Maybe, in time, you would find someone who would give you what he never could, maybe that someone would be able to love you the way you deserve.

“Right,” Jeonghan breathed, trying to ease the pain in his chest. “I’ll be going now,” he muttered, slowly turning around and walking down the empty alleyway, every step becoming more and more torturous to him.

You watched him walk, the movement of his body growing weaker as the distance grew. “Hey,” you called, but he did not stop. “Stranger!” you began approaching him, but his steps took him farther from you. “Stop!”

Jeonghan did, breathing raggedly. Breaking a promise was hard, and the pain was nearly lethal. He vaguely remembered you saying something about breaking promises made to demons, but the pain numbed him to his last nerve ending.

You quickly made your way over to him, noticing that his body was shaking uncontrollably. “Hey,” you sighed, gathering yourself.

“What?” Jeonghan forced out, his voice quivering as he tried to stop the tremors. He was growing feverish, but as you closed the distance, he could regain some of his composure.

“I can’t let you go,” you frowned, unable to comprehend why you were so intrigued by him.

Jeonghan laughed dazedly, it was a mad laugh but not at you, but directed towards life and its crazy way to mock him. “You must,” he replied, the feeling coiling in his throat nearly strangled him. “Go to the shelter. They’ll take you in. You could start a life far away from this fucking mess.”

“Start a life?” you parroted again. “I don’t know my name, or who I am. Don’t go. Please?”

Jeonghan searched your eyes one more time. If he could not keep his promise, then at least he would give you back your name before walking away from you once and for all. “Your name…” he choked out your name, falling on his knees from the numbing pain he felt.

“That’s my name?” you whispered, trying to keep him on his feet, but he was growing heavy in your arms. “What’s yours?”

Jeonghan shook his head slowly, his eyes glazing over as he started to lose consciousness. “No,” whispered. “Go, forget me. Forget all this.”

“Please,” you insisted. Grabbing his face as he knelt in front of you, seeing his dark eyes, his soft lips. “I know you. I know I do,” you muttered, kneeling down so you could see him face to face.

He sighed, grabbing one of your hands and pressing it gently against his cheek, closing his eyes briefly. “My name is Yoon Jeonghan,” he muttered, bracing himself for the merciless thrill of the bond snapping in place one more time.

You sucked in a breath, your body tensing as the familiar feeling returned to your bones, coursing through your veins. “Jeonghan,” you breathed.

Jeonghan kept his eyes closed but shuddered as you uttered his name, choking back a sob. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, afraid of opening his eyes. “I promised I wouldn’t walk away from you,” he slurred the words, feeling lightheaded as his forehead fell forward, bumping with yours. “I’m sorry…”

“Jeonghan,” you whispered, your hands cradling his face shifted slightly in their place, feeling his skin.

He held his breath out of fear that you might reject the bond as he did to you many months ago. He wished to keep you there for a second longer, your forehead pressed to his, even if his lucidity waned, verging closer to passing out.

But then, you ran the pad of your thumb over his bottom lip softly, making him pull back slightly, opening his eyes to see your face. Something had changed. In your eyes he found the familiarity in them, you knew him.

He whispered your name carefully, fearful. “Baby?” he breathed, right before his head lolled to one side, his body following it to the ground, where he lost consciousness.

Jeonghan woke up abruptly, disorientated. The ceiling was one he had never seen before and that induced him into a panic that pushed him to sit on the bed where he lay. Lightheaded, he understood after some seconds that he was in a motel room. And that he was completely alone.

Had he been dreaming all this time? He rose from the bed going around it to look for traces of you. But he found nothing. Breathing fitfully, he took his hands to his head, forcing himself to focus.

The door clicked softly and was pushed open cautiously. As you entered the room, you sneaked a look directly at the bed, expecting to find Jeonghan still in his sleep, your gaze swam across the room, falling upon Jeonghan, who stood frozen directly parallel to you.

“Ah, you’re awake,” you chirped, entering the room and closing the door behind you. You had half expected to find the room empty if Jeonghan had woken up alone while you went to grab something to eat.

Jeonghan remained rigid, looking at you as though afraid he might wake up from a dream again. His breathing was ragged, and his vision began to blur.

“I hope you don’t mind I took your wallet,” you said, leaving a paper bag on the chair as you removed the zipper hoodie from your shoulders. “And your hoodie.”

“Wh-what—how…” Jeonghan breathed, shaking with so many emotions at the same time it was hard to focus, it was hard for him to command the muscles of his mouth to demand the answers he needed to know.

You approached him carefully, rubbing your hands together as though anxious. “You passed out last night,” you explained, though that was obvious to him, he did not need you to say that. “And I took you here because I don’t know where you live. And I don’t have a home.”

Jeonghan took in a breath sharply, tears spilling from his eyes as he listened to your voice. He raised one hand slowly, carefully meeting your cheek to make sure you were not an illusion.

You began to worry, your eyebrows pinching together. “Was I gone too long?” you asked meaningfully, understanding that he was in shock.

Jeonghan nodded slowly, the pain in his heart pulsating when you grabbed his hand on your cheek, pressing it against your skin before you wrapped an arm around his torso, so he did the same, hugging you tightly to his body.

“I’m sorry,” you cooed softly, trying to swallow your tears as he sobbed in your arms.

“I missed you,” he muttered, his body wrapping you completely, his face hiding on the curve of your neck, his arms grabbing you tightly to the point the air started to leave your lungs.

Your heart deflated upon hearing the raw sadness in his voice. “I know,” you whispered, feeling the bond deep inside you pulsating, feeling everything he felt during these months of your absence.

“I buried you,” he whispered, shaking uncontrollably, his fingers curled around your clothes, trying to hold onto you to never let you go again.

You caressed his back gently as he shook with sobs. “I’m sorry,” you said, feeling guilty for the pain he endured while you were gone.

Jeonghan grabbed your face, still finding it hard to believe that you were there, and you were fine. “How?” he asked, his voice waning over the emotions coiling in his throat.

“I don’t know,” you whispered, circling his neck with your hands as he moved to press a long kiss on your forehead.

It did not matter, all the explanations in the world would fall short of explaining the relief Jeonghan felt. 

“I’m sorry you had to go through this,” you said, knowing that there would be no resolution to this.

“It’s okay now,” he replied, pressing his forehead on yours.

“Jeonghan,” you muttered, pulling back to see his face before asking: “Tell me what happened, please.”

He went rigid with pain in an instant, but he nodded slowly, moving to sit down on the foot of the bed to avoid growing weak in his stance. You sat beside him, reaching for his hand as though you could not keep your hands to yourself.

“Do you remember the hunters?” he asked, waiting for your confirmation and he proceeded when you nodded silently. “And do you… remember what they did to you?”

Your gaze fell out of focus as you tried to conjure the memory of the moment before your death. The memories were fragments of pain and worry; you remembered some things, and those were enough. “Yes,” you said.

Jeonghan bristled in pain slightly, but continued despite it. “You were gone for three months,” he explained, the pain from your absence still felt recent, the wound still fresh. It was baffling to him that you were now here, as though nothing had happened.

“How am I back?” you asked slowly, furrowing your brow slightly. “What did you do, Jeonghan?”

He understood at once that you were worried about what he could have done for you to return scatheless, or so you thought.

“I…” he lowered his gaze, growing ashamed of himself. “I think I summoned you in my sleep.”

“Is that possible?” you asked. “I thought you needed to do a ritual to summon me.”

 “That’s the thing,” he raised his gaze again, shifting on the bed so he could face you better. “I don’t think that applies to people like us. I didn’t need to do a ritual, I just needed to call for you.”

“So you’re telling me that you did not say my name once for three months?”

Shame returned to his face, nodding silently without looking at your eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said, his bottom lip trembling slightly. “I just couldn’t—it hurt so much,” he sighed, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Hey,” you whispered, bringing a hand to cup his cheek, forcing his brown eyes to meet yours. “It’s okay,” you showed him a light smile. “You did what you had to do.”

His eyebrows pinched softly. “Can you forgive me?” he whispered.

You sat on your knees beside him, grabbing his face fully with your hands. “There is nothing to forgive, Jeonghan,” you said warmly, pushing his long bangs away from his face. “I’m fine, and I’m here thanks to you.”

He wrapped his arms around your waist to bring you down with him to the bed. “I can’t believe that you’re back,” he said with a tiny tone. “I thought I would never see you again.”

Meanwhile, you were still trying to digest the fact that he lived through three months of mourning and guilt, while you just closed your eyes and woke up in a clearing with flowers around you. Confused, but with one thought in mind: follow the thing that pulled you to him.

Jeonghan caressed the side of your face with the back of his fingers, looking at you longingly as the pain inside him deflated slowly. “You’re half human now,” he told you, remembering the look on your face the night before.

You nodded, enjoying the gentle shivers that his touch gave you. “It feels funny,” you giggled slightly. “I’m weaker now.”

Jeonghan mirrored your smile, his fingers trailing down to grab your chin. “I guess I should be careful with you now,” he whispered, meeting your lips with his own.

The kiss ignited every single inch of your skin, drawing out a small moan from you. And for Jeonghan, it felt like he was coming back to life too, his lips searching for yours hungrily, emitting a small grunt into your mouth that only made you want more. 

“Jeonghan,” you breathed when he stopped kissing you, but his lips lingered on yours.

“I missed you,” he replied in kind, his lips brushing against yours softly.

You moved your hand to caress his chest over the black t-shirt he wore. “Do you want to show me?” you mumbled, pressing a tender kiss on his lips.

He moved his hand from your chin to cradle your cheek, looking into your eyes. Jeonghan lost count of the times he wished to be this close to you again, to feel the warmth of your skin, to breathe in your scent. Unable to break away from you, he pressed your body to the mattress, climbing on top of you while kissing your lips hungrily.

You made a muffled sound on his lips, grabbing his face to pull him as close as possible to you. Kissing Jeonghan still felt electrifying, now that you were part-human. You were still able to sense him through the bond. Everything was the same except that your senses were slightly dimmed.

“What’s that?” Jeonghan mumbled between kisses.

“It feels different,” you breathed, grabbing his shoulders, feeling the edge of his collarbone with the pads of your thumbs.

“Different, how?” he asked, his gaze coasting over the features of your pretty face.

“Like the stronger part of me is numb,” you said, showing him a meek smile when the explanation felt ridiculous to you. But your smile faded, the glint in your eyes dimming a little. “I can’t see your soul anymore.”

Jeonghan tensed slightly on top of you. “You could see my soul?”

You nodded slowly, ashamed that you never told him while you were able to see that fiery flame dancing inside him. “Sorry,” you whispered.

“It’s okay,” he replied in kind, realizing the reason behind the weird looks you would give him, you could see through him quite literally. “I wonder how many other things will be different now,” he said.

You would probably age closer to a normal rate now. You were part-human, you could fill your tummy with human food, and you were at risk of falling sick like humans but the probability of that could be minimal.

“You still like me, right?” you asked with a playful giggle.

Jeonghan rolled his eyes, smiling with you. “Unfortunately, yes. I do,” he mumbled, lacing his words with sarcasm.

“How much?” you teased, enjoying that despite you were no longer able to see his soul, he was still an open book to you.

“Shut up,” he said, leaning over to press a tender kiss on your lips, muffling the sound of your giggle. “I love you,” he mumbled.

You closed your eyes, shuddering at the sound of his voice, the bond responding to it like a bolt of lightning shooting through you. “I love you more,” you replied sweetly, still grabbing his face with your hands.

At that, Jeonghan could have sworn that the pain he endured without you was cured. He released a groan into the kiss, his lips diving deeper into yours, only breaking away when your hands slipped beneath his t-shirt, and he helped you take it off.

He followed your body when you sat up on the bed to take your t-shirt off, and he quickly moved to take your jeans and panties just so he could have you wholly naked before him. There was no rush to relieve the pressure growing inside him, he just wanted to appreciate every curve of your body, to leave kisses on every inch of your warm skin.

And you could see that need in his eyes, it was visible how much he missed you. He stood on his knees before you, looking at you for one long moment. Your heart squeezed for him when you realized that, while you were delighted to explore the changes in your now partially human form, he was healing from the grief he felt when you were gone.

“Jeonghan,” you called, snapping him from the train of thoughts reeling in his mind. His eyes met yours. “Come here,” you said, raising your arms to wrap him in them when he pressed his bare chest against yours.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

“It’s okay,” you replied, parting your legs so he could slot his hips between them. You grabbed his cheek as he left one kiss on yours. “I love you.”

“I love you,” he gasped, moving his lips to leave a trail of kisses on your jawline, and your throat, humming when he realized that the scent of your skin remained the same. He delighted in the taste of your skin when he ran his tongue on one of your breasts, wrapping his lips around your pebbled nipple to tease it a little, just to hear the sweet sound of your moans.

“Jeonghan,” you sighed, bringing a hand to grab a fistful of his dark hair.

He hummed softly, his breath fanning on your bumpy skin as he moved to lick your other nipple, kissing it and grazing it lightly with his teeth. He pressed his lips on your sternum, resuming his trail of kisses down until he sank between your legs.

“Fuck,” you breathed, finding out that despite you were not at full power as you were, you were still very much sensitive. Your skin prickled when his hands slipped beneath your thighs, holding you as he placed the first kiss of many on your inner thigh.

Propping yourself on your elbows to look at him, he raised his eyes too, meeting yours right before licking a generous stripe on your folds. A shudder invaded you, reaching every nerve ending in your body, tearing apart your self-control. Your head lolled back, a pleased sigh escaping your lips as he worked his mouth on your pussy, practically making out with it.

The sensation was near-euphoric. It made your mind go blank. It left you breathless in an instant. You suddenly felt the weight of your absence, as if your body was gently reminding you that you had gone without his touch, even if you had not been aware of it. But a part of you was sure that you never wanted to go another day without his caress.

“Jeonghan,” you called breathily, running your fingers through his long hair, letting his tongue lap between your folds, drinking you in with raw moans.

Your orgasm came fast, faster than you wanted. Your jaw went slack with a loud moan, shuddering hard as he continued eating your pussy out, watching you come undone with lewd gasps until you let your body fall back on the mattress to enjoy the short aftershocks of your climax.

When he climbed back on top of you to kiss your mouth, you moaned when you tased yourself on his lips. Reaching for the belt of his jeans, you swiftly finished undressing him, not hiding how badly you needed him.

“Hey,” he breathed, touching the tip of your nose with his own. Your eyes met his as he lowered his bare body on yours, pressing his chest against yours.

You sighed, skin prickling when you felt his hard dick on your lower tummy as he kissed you again. “Jeonghan,” you moaned into the kiss. “Hurry.”

He obliged, smiling lightly at you before sneaking his hand between your pressed bodies, grabbing his fully hard cock to guide it to your pussy. His eyes swam all over the features of your face, nudging the bulbous head of his cock in your pooling entrance.

Your mouth parted, eyes widening in anticipation when you felt him. “Please,” you mouthed, bracing yourself for the electrifying feeling.

He swallowed hard, starting to sink inside you tortuously slow, delighting himself with the look on your face, the way a gasp left your mouth. You instinctively parted your legs for him, lifting your knees to your chest for him to push inside you to the hilt, and when he did, he released a raw moan.

Jeonghan pulled his hips back, to then push his cock in your walls slowly, as if testing you. He looked at you as he sheathed his cock inside you making you feel every raw inch, the vein in the underside of his shaft, the bulbous cockhead. He breathed out a broken moan, his face contorting in pleasure.

Jeonghan moved his hips, setting a faster pace on top of you when he made sure you had adjusted to the stretch of his cock. The smacking sounds of skin against skin became louder as he quite literally pounded on you, knocking the air out of your lungs with short gasps.

“Jeonghan,” you breathed, squeezing your eyes shut as you swore that you would burst from the pleasure building inside you.

As though on command, he slowed down the rutting of his hips. He breathed fitfully against your lips, leaning his forehead on yours as he kept his thrusts gentle on you, massaging your walls slowly with his cock. “You feel so good,” he whispered, swallowing hard.

“You too,” you sighed, feeling his scarred chest with your palms, keeping your knees up for him to sink his cock deeper inside you. “So good.”

Jeonghan shook slightly, lifting his hips so his cock slipped out of you, paused, and then sheathed himself back inside you, making you feel the length of his cock, every ridge beneath his bulbous cockhead, the warmth of the base of his cock. He smiled when you moaned, gritting your teeth to hold out for him, but pleasure consumed you quickly.

“Baby,” he whispered, framing your head with his arms before leaning to kiss you. “I love you.”

It felt like his dreams came alive to haunt him in real life because for a split second, he was fearful again that this might not be real. But you moaned into the kiss, holding his shoulders with your hands to keep yourself in control. “I love you,” you breathed.

He locked his lips with yours, moaning into the kiss, keeping his thrusts at the same pace that was pushing you to the edge.

“I’m close,” you gasped, pinching your eyebrows almost involuntarily.

Jeonghan planted a loving kiss on your cheek. “Let go, baby,” he whispered. “I’ll come after you.”

“Come with me?” you mumbled.

He smiled at you. “We need to be careful now,” he whispered, pushing his lips against yours tenderly.

“I don’t want to,” you said in defiance, caressing the line of his back until your hands reached his ass, palming him as he pushed his cock inside you.

He laughed lightly, ignoring your feeble attempt at trapping him with your hands. “Do you want me to come inside you?”

You nodded eagerly, unable to speak up, keeping yourself angled for his cock massaging your walls. 

Jeonghan knew he had struck a weak point for you. He kissed you again, this time swiftly and chastely. “You wicked thing,” he breathed, pressing another kiss. “Want me to stuff you full of my cum?”

“Fuck, yes, yes, please,” you closed your eyes, inching closer to your orgasm.

He gave you an airy laugh, and you would have paid attention to it if it were not for the merciless shudder consuming you wholly. You cried out loudly as waves of pleasure washed over you, the pleasure so intense that your eyes brimmed with tears. “Jeonghan…”

Jeonghan reached to grab your hands, lacing your fingers with his, and putting them above your head as the pace of his thrusts became faster, harder. He moaned your name, making you think that he was coming with you, stuffing you full of his cum.

But then he pulled out with a raw groan, pushing his forehead against yours as he came on your tummy, ropes of warm cum spilling on your skin, dripping on your sides, trickling down your skin.

Not giving you the opportunity to protest, he kissed you. But you whined impishly in his mouth, making him laugh and press your hands on the pillows with more strength, easily overpowering you.

He stopped kissing you, pausing to look at your face. Once he saw you pouting, he started to laugh, his chest shaking against yours.

You tried to ignore what the sound of his laughter did to you. “You pulled out!” you whined, trying to free your hands from his grasp.

“We don’t know what could happen now that you’re human,” he replied with a dazzling smile.

Maybe he was right, but you just wanted to see that smile, to hear that laugh again so you continued with your childish act. “So what?”

He gave you an airy chuckle. “So what if I get you pregnant? Is that what you want?” he asked, but then something inside him shifted with the realization that it might be something you wanted.

“Maybe,” you replied, your gaze dimming but then you shook your head. “One day. Perhaps. I don’t know.”

He thought of coming up with a quippy response, but the feeling in his chest would not allow him. “Let’s get cleaned up,” he muttered.

After showering, Jeonghan sat at the foot of the bed, half-dressed and drying his long hair with a towel. He raised his eyes as you exited the tiny bathroom of the motel room, approaching him to stand between his parted knees.

“I bought us breakfast. With your money,” you smirked, putting your hands on his shoulders.

Jeonghan’s features broke into a smile. “That sounds great,” he replied, leaving aside the towel and grabbing one of your hands to press a kiss on your knuckles.

Then he gave you a look. One that spoke of months of thinking about you every day, of thinking about what he could have done with you. Life seemed so fragile to him, so fleeting after he lost you, that he kept thinking of the things he would have done differently. And now, you stood before him, a dream come true, the one wish he asked life to grant him.

“What?” you mumbled.

Jeonghan blinked repeatedly when you brought your hand to his forehead, pushing his bangs away. He smiled. “Do you like flowers?” 

› author's note: so this kind of just happened. i am obsessed with these two 😭 and can you guys believe that i wrote my first major character death scene ever because of this series? insane

toodles

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© RIGHTS RESERVED TO HANNIEWEEN I DO NOT ALLOW TRANSLATIONS, CONTINUATIONS, REIMAGINATIONS OF MY WORKS OR THEIR REPOSTING ON OTHER WEBSITES.

[thatnonameuser]

abt ur yandere twst au; do darlings get kidnapped for ransom? For example: would people kidnap Leona’s darling in order to get ransom (they’d be killed instead)?

Want a rich yandere to freak the fuck out the moment they realise their darling is missing and give you more money than you know what to do with, which is actually a bluff, because you’re actually going to die from extensive torture once their darling is safe? Kidnap their darling, your wallet and grave will thank you.

But yes, it does happen. Which is why wealthy yanderes take very severe precautions.

I’ve mentioned before that Kalim’s father has taken some very morally black methods to protect his darling and his kids from kidnappers. (here if you’re interested). But if a darling is kidnapped for ransom and their lives are threatened, the kidnapper better have the entire universe on their side because they’re as good as dead.

Yanderes don’t mess around. They’ll pay whatever fee they have to, nothing is too high. But as soon as the darling’s safe, the yandere will stain their hands in blood. 

So at the trade off for the darling, expect that once you’re back in their arms, the kidnapper is dead. Deader than dead, not even a shred remains. If the yandere doesn’t kill them, then they hire assassins. If they do kill them, then it’s just that much worse for the kidnapper. They’re not getting out of this alive.

Also because I’m feeling nice. Enjoy some semi-imagines with the rich boys of TWST having MC get kidnapped and their reaction to it.

Leona Kingscholar

Pissed. Very pissed. He may not be king but that doesn’t excuse the guards not doing their god damn jobs and keeping you safe. (He will be more angry if he finds out that Falena’s wife didn’t get kidnapped and you did, just throwing gasoline onto the fire.) And to make matters worse, they’re threatening to kill you. Well, they’re fucking dead.

Leona may be angry but he’s still smart. He isn’t risking letting anything happen to you, so he’ll play along until he can guarantee that you’re safe before killing whoever had the balls to kidnap you. And since he’s a prince, he can bend the law to get you back. The beastman’s coming for you himself, and he’ll turn anyone that threatens you to grains of sand under his palm. 

After he gets you back, he’s not going to let you out of his sight. And if he has to, he’s always going to be nearby. His rage hasn’t calmed down at all either. Plain and simple, you’re his and anyone that gets in the way of that deserves a slow death, and the fact that he nearly lost you is weighing on him. 

Before getting you back - Furious, ready to kill and reduce whoever's stolen you to sand.

After getting you back - Still angry, you're not leaving his sight or going near anyone that's not him.

Kalim Al-Asim

Sunshine boy’s panicking. Like completely panicking. He’s been kidnapped before and (while that’s a can of worms for another day), you haven’t gone through something so scary before. To him, he thinks that  you must be so terrified, surrounded by strangers that want to hurt you for something as shallow as money.

So after Jamil calms him down enough to think rationally, he begs for his help to save you. After all, you’re in terrible danger and he’s ready to throw as much money as he has to save you if need be but he doesn’t want to risk them trying again in the future. Plus he’s the hair of the Asim family, he might get kidnapped or killed too and then who will protect you.

So sending assassins is to foil their operation, and bring you home is the best bet. And they’re the best money can buy.

You’ll probably be a little shaken when you come home, and a little bit of kidnapper blood might be on your skin, but it's nothing a nice bath and a fest won't cure. Just expect to constantly be followed around by a team of at least six bodyguards. Or maybe Najma. Just know that Kalim is considering taking after dear old dad.

Before getting you back - Kalim's worried to death about not seeing you again. Or you getting hurt. 

After getting you back - He's gone over-protective not allowing you to ever go missing or get hurt ever again. He'll take the morally gray way out if he needs to, but he can’t bear to risk losing you.

Vil Schoenheit

If he gets stress wrinkles because of this, he’ll make sure that the kidnappers suffer even more. Vil’s used to threats of kidnapping, the fact the imbeciles actually went through with it is brave. Incredibly stupid, but brave. Regardless, he’s losing his mind with worry and anger. His fans are deranged, he’s worried for your safety. 

To Vil’s benefit, he has Rook. And Rook’s UM is basically goated when it comes to locating someone not meant to be found. So obviously, Rook goes to get you with orders from Vil to bring your kidnappers back with you for him to deal with. 

Vil will do his best to keep this crisis away from the media. He doesn’t need for you to be mobbed by the press, so expect a delightful trip to an isolated, relaxing and aesthetically pleasing vacation somewhere in the Shaftlands to protect you. But that relaxing little trip, is also so he can torture those imbeciles for the rest of their miserable little lives. He may not like portraying a villain but he’ll be one if he’s pushed. Besides, Rook will happily take care of the bodies. 

He’ll calm down after you’re out of harm's way, but anticipate that he won't ever let you out in public without him or someone he trusts with you.

Before getting you back - Pissed with a poker face. He’s worried for your well-being, and if a hair is harmed on your head, he’ll snap.

After getting you back - He’ll calm down, but he’ll start to be very protective. Don’t ask him about the screams you might hear in the basement of where you’re staying when he’s not with you, it’s nothing important.

Neige LeBlanche

One of the prices of fame. Neige is horrified that someone would try to take you to take advantage of him. Honestly, he would have rather been the one whose life was held on the line than have you brought into the mess. Neige has never been more scared in his entire life.

Obviously, he’ll get you back. Hand off the money and everything, but he’s not happy about those ‘villains’ going unpunished for scaring you like that. As soon as he’s sure that you’ll be safe and sound. He’ll go to the press to tell his heartbreaking story.

So que the imminent waterworks to the paparazzi. After all, he knows they’ll be immediately moved. Neige’s most precious one, his darling, had their life threatened and he was terrified that he wouldn’t get you back before it’s too late. 

His fans do the rest. 

On the impromptu vacation Neige took you on to help you recover from the experience, (or more specifically, the trip to a very isolated location where you both can be alone with no kidnappers in sight) Neige will receive some ‘fan mail’ with the remains of the perpetrators. He won’t show you though, you’ve been through so much recently. 

Before getting you back - He's so scared for you. You're his princess he can't bear to lose you for even a second. So having you gone is a nightmare.

After getting you back - Relieved. He's so happy to have you back. You're never leaving his side again. He's a little peeved that someone tried to disrupt your happily ever after, but they’re no longer breathing so who cares. 

Idia Shroud

Panic attack. Instant Panic attack, Ortho better have Baymax functions because he’s gonna pass out in panic. How the hell did this even happen?! He has drones following you constantly! 

After he has his panic attack, he’s burning red in anger. How dare they?! How fucking dare they?! He’s putting all his energy into figuring out every last thing about your kidnappers’ lives. He’ll find you, obviously. And then he’ll send S.T.Y.X after them to return you home while he ruins their entire lives. Then he'll kill those noobs so that he sends a message.

As soon as you’re back, he’s a sobbing wreck. He’s already lost Ortho, he can’t lose you too. You won’t be leaving his room while he has his pity party. And you probably shouldn’t because it’ll just make him feel even worse. Comfort him a bit, will ya?

Before getting you back - A whirlwind of panic and anger. He’s in doxxing mode, man. Your kidnappers better be prepared to suffer for a while, before he gets merciful and kills them.

After getting you back - Tears, so many tears. And he’ll be a koala with how clingy he’ll be. 

Malleus Draconia

Whichever kidnapper thought this was a good idea needs to get their brain checked because it’s currently missing. The exact second Malleus realizes the danger you’re in, he’s turning into a dragon to find and save you and then kill the kidnappers in a raging inferno. Forget stopping to plan or temporarily co-operating, the man’s gone to find you before the ransom letter hits the floor. (Sure there’s the threat of iron, but he doesn’t care you’re in danger.)

In a word, he’s furious. In a lot of words, he’s so angry that a category five hurricane has started outside to reflect his rage. If even a hair is missing from your head, he’s probably going to lose it. Gotta love that he’s enchanted all your jewelry to serve as tracking devices. Because he’s there in under an hour, burning your kidnappers to death till nothing remains. After that, it’s back home to put you into a tower so heavily fortified and reinforced that a fly couldn’t accidentally get through the door. 

Once you’re safe, the sadness kicks in. He can’t bear to lose you ever. So the fact that he let his guard down enough to nearly let you be killed is breaking him. His entire purpose is to protect and love you, and he’s failed in that, so please do your best to reassure him that you’re not going to leave him, he’s had a hard ten minutes. 

Oh, but don’t expect to go outside for the next year though once you do. He’s not exactly under the impression that you won’t be taken from him again. So he’s going to be even more clingy and protective.

Before getting you back - Angry, infuriated, vengeful. He's killing someone today and it's going to be one or all of your kidnappers. 

After getting you back - Sad dragon hours. He's craving reassurance and your love to make himself feel better. Give him cuddles, please.

[captain-joongz]

summer recap/favourite fics/fic recommendations for the first half of 2024!

Pretty flushed by @holybibly

♡ 2 parts, wolf!hwa x rabbit!reader x wolf!joong, a/b/o, smut smut smut, a little dark

Industry baby by @kitten4sannie

♡ mingi x reader x joong, rock band au, cuckold play, bf!mingi and bandmate!joong

Arriba! + Freak! by @teeskzagain

♡ f!reader x joong, yunho, san, woo and mingi, college au, a lot of smut, sex under the influence, ateez are absolute pervs, "the boardgame made us do it"

7 minutes of compensation by @k-hotchoisan

♡ hwa x f!reader x yunho, frat!teez, threesome

in the wings by @sanjoongie

♡ rapppers hwa and joong x f!reader, backstage pass, smut, double penetration, groupie au

Case: It's you by @potatomountain

♡ ot8 x f!reader, e2l, police au, workplace romance, investigative and horny ;)

Inception by @remedyx

♡ a repeat from the last list, but it's sooo good, go check it out!!

The happiest girl in the world by @holybibly

♡ camboy!hwa x f!reader, private call, smut, streamer x fan au

February filth fest 2024 day 13: Uniform by @sanjoongie

♡ new captain!hwa x former captain!reader, mutiny au, scifi, mean dom hwa, humiliation and degradation

February filth fest 2024 day 21: aphrodisiacs/overstim by @sanjoongie

♡ alien!joong x human!reader, alien poison as an aphrodisiac, oviposition

Ugh, as if by @ennysbookstore + Ugh, as if - bonus

♡ punk!joong x f!reader, joong works with leather, cute and hot, joong helps reader overcome insomnia with some good old-fashioned orgasms

Look after you by @mingigoo

♡ musician!joong x nurse!reader, a little angsty, but with a sweet ending, smut

Plug & Play by @bangtanintotheroom

♡ guitarist!joong x f!reader, rock band au, s2l, backstage sex, reader is horny and hongjoong is hot

this ask by @nateezfics

♡ sex with angry joong, bratty reader

Honey and blood by @nateezfics

♡ vampire!joong x maid!reader, dark but sweet, smut with feels

10:11 : féconder by @yeosgoa

♡ assistant!joong x witch!reader, academia au, accidental aphrodisiacs, desperate joong under the influence of a sex potion

cross my heart by @doitforbangchan

♡ brother's best friend!joong x f!reader, dark, yandere joong, he's very manipulative, dubcon/noncon, sex under the influence

February filth fest 2024 day 4: public sex by @sanjoongie

♡ cowboy!san x wise woman!reader, wild west au, san is injured, san is head over heels for reader, save a horse ride a cowboy ;)

no hesitation by @daemour

♡ fratboy!san x f!reader, bff2l, college party au, misunderstandings, fools in love, smut

February filth fest 2024 day 23: breeding kink by @sanjoongie

♡ kitty hybrid!woo x f!reader, rut sex, cumplay, bratty woo

deliver us from evil by @holybibly

♡ priest!woo (or is he???) x f!reader, hierophilia, sacrilege, church sex, very dark, rough sex and humiliation

IT's You by @shinestarhwaa

♡ debate team au, college au, e2l, mean woo, rough sex

Right here by @0097linersb

♡ bff!woo x f!reader, pervy woo who wants to fuck his bff, very sexually frustrated reader

My library | BTS fic recs

[xxanaduwrites]

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚ a residue series installment ˚ ୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

teachin’ a lesson

✎ elementary-teacher!reader (miss.honey) x biker!benny 🏍️

summary: in which benny teaches the newbies a lesson ‘bout messin’ with his honey….😤 + a super cute ending ofc 💋

warnings: an absolute smack fest, the whole shabang: bar fight, dudes being creeps, talks of violence, blood, & injury. hyperventilating & shaking. unwanted advances :(

author’s note: another angst piece. couldn’t help myself…but this will be ending with a certain request i keep receiving ;) this is from the goin’ steady segment which can be found on da main hive, so they are fully dating here for time line & context purposes…or are they? 👀

word count: 4.2k

💌 requests are open, send ‘em honey 💋

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

You were at the club when it happened. It being something you could only daydream about. Something you never actually expected to come tumbling out of Benny’s pretty pillowy lips.

It was a regular day — as regular as one could ever be at the club. The boys were havin’ a meeting and of course Benny dragged you along. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to go. Hey — you’d been to plenty of meetings. Yet, your two cents only became required when the other guys' old ladies were involved, and today wasn’t one of those days. Being the only lady currently on the premises, you dropped your backpack on the bar, the sound of your keychains reverberating around the space with a chorus of clanks. A chorus you hadn’t noticed caught the eye of some other bikers mulling around. In your defense, you were far too focused on your man, his baby blue eyes drooping down at you with a precious pout to match.

“M’sorry, honey,” he said suddenly, eyes trained on you as y’sat your sweet butt on one of the nearby bar stools.

His apology took you by surprise, and your fingers which were now fiddling about on the zippers of your backpack paused momentarily. “For wha?” You asked, tilting your head to observe him.

“Takin’ y’here. Not bringin’ y’straight home,” he admitted, in the midst of flagging over the bartender with a flick of his finger. “Shouldn’t take too long though.”

You sighed. “S’fine, Benny. S’not like I can’t make myself busy,” you reasoned, motioning to your backpack in front of you that held all your work supplies. “Stap it with t’pologizing.”

It wasn’t Benny’s fault that he had a meeting to be at fresh after school hours. It was more your fault for not knowing how to drive. But you knew he didn’t care so much about that. He cared more about making sure you were safe and spending as much time with you as possible. And those rides well — they assured all of that. He didn’t have to worry about you waitin’ to take a random bus full of creeps. Didn’t have to wonder about the next time he’d be seeing you because surely it would be every day on your morning and afternoon drives, right?

So be it. Here you were, and you wouldn’t complain — no. You wanted to be with Benny just as much. And besides, the more time you spent at home, the more your parents were concerning you with their honey business, keeping you away from the lesson planning you really needed to do. Benny — bless his heart — was such a good sport with that. Giving you the space you needed — well while simultaneously taking it all up. You couldn’t deny how much you adored being perched next to him, tucked in a booth at Rosie’s diner, his arm slung around your shoulder. His pretty blue eyes would stare at you so intently, watching every little move you made and god was it so hard to concentrate sometimes. Yet, he made you feel so comfortable. Too comfortable, uncoiling the ball of stress that’d become you anytime you found yourself swapping or changing plans. He was so good. So attentive. Oh the thought alone was making your cheeks dust pink.

A brow raised in intrigue as he popped a fresh cig in his mouth, his smile curving around the cylinder too perfectly. “Wha?” He asked, catching the not-so-subtle shift in your features, now doused in burnin’ love.

“S’nothin’.” You shrugged and bit down on your lip, the taste of your vanilla honey lip gloss hitting your taste buds.

“Hmmm,” he hummed, eyeing you up and down for a second. A second that proved he knew it wasn’t nothing. Knew it was very much something. But, he wasn’t gonna find out. No, not with the bartender finally sauntering over and putting your conversation to a halt.

“Hay, you two,” the man greeted. Marty to be exact. He swiped a dishrag over his shoulder and dropped his hands on the counter in front of him before asking. “What’ll it be? The usual whiskey and shirley?” He asked, knowing both of your orders by heart.

“Nah, a beer’s fine,” he replied, his answer taking you by a hint of surprise, but you figured it was because he was taking you home right after. Home to your mother and father. But you didn’t want to assume. You knew Benny was well — Benny. That he didn’t care what anybody thought about him. Could give two shits about it. Yet, when it came to you — oh he couldn’t stand anyone that thought less of you. Sure, he’d still be drinking, but he hadn’t picked the harder option of the two, and hey — you understood. I mean it wasn’t like you’d be here for the night, hanging out, shooting the shit, and playing pool like a normal weekend. Hell — it was the middle of the week. An absolute bummer to say the least. “Honey?” He summoned you, swiping you right out of your thoughts.

You blinked. Once. Twice. Shook your head even, making your dangling earrings shimmy about. “Hm, yeah?”

“Y’alright?” Benny asked, his leather clad arm snaking around your back, calloused fingers hugging your side.

“M’fine. Sorry, didn’t mean to miss what y’said,'' you replied sheepishly, mind wandering all over the place. “What y’say anyways, hm?”

Benny bit down a smile then, enjoying the way your litftle nose scrunched up in pure thought. “‘Tender askin’ for your order,” he reminded.

“Oh, right! Ya, I’ll just have a plain ale, Marty.” You told him, motioning your hand about. Delicate fingers traced the air, pink ballet slipper polish doing its usual dance on your nails.

“Y’sure your alright?” Benny asked again, clearly unconvinced as Marty left you two with a solid nod, already working on your order. Benny was really good at reading you. Too good. The more he spent time with you, the easier it was for him to understand you. Knowing that you were a quite talkative and bubbly person, always so attentive to what everybody was saying, it was unusual for you to be so out of touch.

“M’sure, baby. Just thinkin’ ‘bout my plans, y’know?” You assured him, opening up your daily planner simultaneously. A vibrant array of colorful sticky pads and gelly pens jumped off the pages as you flipped through to your desired date.

“I see, I see,” Benny’s lips turned up soundly, the sight of your school books always getting a kick out of him. You were just too cute with your pretty pens and neat cursive, pencils always sticking out of your sunny updo. The passion you put in your work always felt so reminiscent of the way he felt ridin’. It was hard not to love you the most when you were in your element. “Meetin’ starting soon, so I’ll leave ya to it, Honey. But M’gonna take a piss quick. Be back for my drink.” He told you, but then asked, “Y’watch?”

“Course,” you smiled up at him, as his fingers trailed across your back, leaving your hold. And then he was off and across the room, saying something to Johnny before excusing himself completely. And you — you had your nose in your books, skimming the pages with precision, tuning out the rest of the world around you. So much so that you hadn’t noticed the drinks in front of you nor the ogglings newbies eating up your form until you did.

“Wha’s a lil’thing like you doin’, ere’?” One asked, perched to your left, an elbow knocking over your pencil case.

Before you could reply another took purchase on your right, caging you in. The stranger picked up one of your colorful pens and chuckled. “Y’know this ain’t the library, right sweet’eart?” He mused, a warm breath reeking of alcohol hitting your neck and tickling your nose.

“I —“ you began, but got cut off immediately by the original guy. The one on the left of this supposed sandwich you were entrapped in.

“S’no use Hank. Whad’a she know besides this frilly shit, aye,” he laughed, degradindly. “Y’wanna know somethin’ rough, somethin’ real, sweet’eart? Gotta itch y’need to scratch?”

You felt small. So small against these men, that you usually — oddly enough felt tall around. But no, these men weren’t your boys. Just men. Some trickling back from war. Most spawned from new chapters, doped up on things you’d never seen before. Doped up on an image and level that you didn’t know. A level you’d never match. And they didn’t like that, no — not one bit. You in your sweet savory appearance was no match against these rowdy men that didn’t know better. Didn’t know the club the way you did. The way Johnny did. The way Brucie did. The way Benny, Cal, Corky, Wahoo, Cockroach, and Zipco did. Even Funny Sonny!

“I — M’good. No thank ya,” you managed out, still startled by this whole display.

“Ahh, c’mom…know y’need it. S’just a lil’scrtach,” one of them kept going. Which one you weren’t sure, but whoever it was wasn’t taking no for an answer. Suddenly a rough hand was grabbing you and before you could react the stool went spinning around. Your vision blurred in an instant, a yelp escaping you at the contact. The bar became a fizzy of light and color, deep mahogany wood meshing into the cottony blend of your clouded eyes…

Pop!

If it weren’t for a bar of bikers being present, you would’ve thought a balloon had popped in front of your eyes, maybe even a bag of popcorn. But no — it was the man, the man who had just grabbed you, and now as your hand braced the bar behind you, your stool settled down, your vision evening out, you could see him. As clear as day, he was smack on the ground. Flat on his back. Face being knocked about. Back and forth. Up and down. Fists to skin against bone. Fists — upon your further inspection and descent across the man’s form — to be Benny. Your Benny. Pinning the man down and going at him in full force.

“Oh — Benny!” You hollered in distress when the man got a swing at him suddenly, your feet planting down on the ground in an instant without a second thought.

Of course, to your dismay, you didn’t get far. An arm materialized around your waist in an instant and pulled you back to them. And if it wasn’t for the familiar fringes of a certain jacket swinging against your sides — sparkly jewels of your own design shining in your peripheral vision — you would have fought. “S’not safe for ya, Cuz. Let ‘em at it,” Funny Sonny mumbled in your ear, the sound of his voice relaxing you as much as it could. Grateful to be in the arms of someone you knew instead of that of a strange man had you slipping without a second thought.

Eyes darting all around, your gaze lost Benny in the shuffle of it all. To the looks of it, all the newbies darted after Benny after the first swing and well — the oldies were not having that. Not one bit. What you’d come to learn later was that Benny had already been trudging across the way with a look to kill, his fist connecting with the man’s face not even a second after the man grabbed you. Another second that could’ve been too late upon anyone else’s action. Punch after punch, blow after blow, you could see them. All of them. Johnny in a wrestle with one guy, Brucie trying to block Marty and bar from any advances, Cal holding another up against a nearby wall by the collar, Zipco swiping a rando out with one hit and then sipping his beer ever-so casually, Corky and Wahoo slamming around with these other two guys near the pool table — a ball of two cracking in the process, and Cockroach being Cockroach.

With too much to process, you tried to remain steady against Sonny, but your tremblin’ became obvious. Too obvious to him under his dirt driven finger tips. “Sh, S’all good. They’ll cool down,” he assured. Of course he was right.

Breathless and exhausted, one by one the men broke apart. Panting with their hands on their knees. And then there was Benny, the last of the bunch — still pulling throws at the man under him, face soaked in a deep crimson, what features could be present?

“Benny — aye, Benny…’nough,” Johnny was calling him, pulling him up by his feet like a rag doll. “Y’lesson learned.” He mumbled in Benny’s ears hoping it would do the trick.

Benny only wrenched forward just a bit, Johnny’s hand flattening against his chest to keep him in place. Instead of keeping the physical assault going, he opted to be vocal. “Y’stay ‘way from my wife, y’here?” He spit out ever-so suddenly. Too suddenly that if Sonny wasn’t holding you back you would have fallen to the floor in complete and utter shock. Wife? Wife! Had he really just said what you thought he said? “If I see ya ever lift a finger, even look in ‘er direction again, i’ll kill ya.” He gritted out, sending a stillness across the club.

“I —“ the man choked on the ground, trying to get his words out, but failing with a breathless huff. “I did—didn’t —“

“We uh — we didn’t know she was y’wife, man. Sorry,” the other dude that had been flanked at your side earlier spoke up, who you assumed to be Hank confirming that your ears had in fact been working. That you hadn’t been imagining things after all. He had said what you thought he said, and now well — now you didn’t know what to do with yourself.

“Now y’do,” he grumbled, and with one last look down at the crimson smeared man below him, he made his statement known with a solid spit.

The show was over as soon as it came, Benny turning out of Johnny’s hold. Johnny patted him on the back before he walked away. Away towards you. Only you. Johnny was saying something. Making an announcement of sorts about you when Sonny’s grip on you was released. Without a word you fumbled into Benny’s side, your makeup coded face smudging into his vest jacket as his arm curled around you. So warm. So protective. You couldn’t help but keep your eyes snapped closed as you made your way outdoors, the sound of the bar door swinging confirming your relocation. His boots stopped scruffing against the pavement and your ballet flats planted as soon as he did.

You turned in his hold, pawing, gripping at him. An unusual display of yourself before him, detached from the strong independent bubble you’d built around yourself. But he took you in. Into his hold as you snuggled deeply into his chest, practically crawling inside his colors with the two sides draped over your shoulders. His strong arms wrapped around your back without a second thought, pulling you in further, deeper, closer. Yet, you never felt close enough. Not like this that is….

“M’right ‘ere, baby. Right ‘ere.” He mumbled into the honeydew mop of curls at the top of your head.

“Aye were — he was s’close to…to…” you stammered into his chest. “an — and my p—pens..”

“I kno — I,” Benny grimaced, words catching in his throat by your addition. “Wha’ ‘bout your pens, baby?” Instead of replying you just nuzzled your face further into his chest. “Hm?” He pushed, worn fingers threading fallen strands of your hair out of your face so he could look at you. “Y’tell ya Benny, Honey?”

Looking up at him, your eyes glossed over, a light sniffle escaping you. You were too stunned to cry, but shaken enough to feel emotional all over. “One of ‘em p—pushed my pencil case o—over. Think some of ‘em f—fell behind the bar. Saw my fav—favorite pink one…” you hiccuped, words all over the place but coherent enough for Benny to understand what you were stammering about.

He found your worry over your school supplies to be real wholesome. Here you were coming off of the high of almost being attacked, and you were more worried about your work than yourself. Just went to show how much passion you put into your craft, and oh did he just love you for that.

He had to suppress a laugh, had to stop himself from smiling when you were clearly so upset. “M’sure Marty will find it, baby.” He bit down on his lip soundly and then added, “Not, I’ll buy ya a whole bunch a’new ones. Y’never realize ya lost one, yeah?”

“Y—yeah,” you nodded, the smooth skin of your face moving against his warm palms.

He knew you wouldn’t have lost one to begin with. Not if he was there. Not if he hadn’t left ya for just a minute. Not if he would’ve been more claimin’ near the bar, holding you closer. Kissin’ ya before he walked away. His biggest fears had come to fusion. The thoughts of you being creeped on were always on his mind, and yet here he was. At the club. A place he felt safe in. A place he thought you’d be safest in. Of course there weren’t any thoughts behind those baby blue eyes of his when it came to making them know you were his. He never had to after all. It was obvious in the way he looked at you. Everybody knew — well everyone before the newbies came along. And the newbies, who he’d hoped would be better than that towards the ladies, proved to be otherwise.

You tiny fingers reached up, splaying over his large hands in solace and breaking his thoughts tenfold. “How’s y’hands?” You asked, urging them lower so you could inspect them.

His knuckles were battered and bruised. Raw to the touch and he didn’t even flinch when your fingers ghosted over his burning skin. “M’fine,” he assured you, and he was fine. As fine as he could be. Barely a scratch on his face was present, just a small splash of blood dried up on the bridge of his nose. Blood of the other guy who’d been sputtering below him.

“Wha’ about you? Tha’ bastard didn’t grab ya too hard, did ‘e?” He gritted, his fingers meticulously trailing down your sides and pawing at the edges of your shirt.

“Nah, nah,” you shook your head in earnest. “S’quick, couldn’t even leave a dent.”

“Tha’ right?” he double checked, pleased to know he swooped in just in time.

“Mhm,” you hummed, your finger finding a lone string from one of his patches, clearly losing its stitch. You twirled the material ‘round your little finger, making a note to patch it up for him later on. “Y’gonna tell me wha’ that was all ‘bout anyways?” You began, not giving much context on the matter, but not thinking you had to. The elephant in the room — well now outside — was obvious. Far too obvious to ignore.

“‘Bout what?” He asked innocently, blue eyes sparkling so much that he had to look down and busy himself with his pocket. Paw out a new cigarette to stop himself from giving you a look that would reveal it all. “Had to teach ‘em a lesson. Learned from the best.” He mused, drawing a cheeky smile out of you with his obvious flirting.

But your thoughts gnawed at you, so much so that your lips tightened into a thin line. “Y’know….” you trailed off, a shyness taking over you. You kept your eyes on the string, finding it easier to talk about such a matter this way. “The whole bein’ married thang…M’not your wife, y’know?” You shrugged casually as if it wasn’t such a life changing notion.

“I know…” he mumbled just as nonchalantly. Too nonchalantly, you figured the entire conversation was canned. Never to be open again, but no — to your surprise he kept it open. “Not yet at least…” he mused and your heart lurched in your chest. Catapulted even. No one ever saw Benny as the marryin’ type. One to settle down and start a life. But here he was, pitchin’ just that in a beat. A beat that had you questionin’ for a second or two if he was messing with ya.

“Benny…” you warned, a twinkle dotting your eye as a smirk managed to scoot through your lips. “Y’Wouldn't dare pull my leg, would ya?” You asked, nibble fingers pulling out his lighter and hitting the end of his cig for him.

“Nah…Nah. M’serious,” he exhaled, a cloud of smoke swirling around you two, making y’dizzy. Looked like you were gonna need a smoke now too. Was perfect timing truly, catching him trying to rip off one his rings from his swollen fingers, the cigarette dangly dangerous from his lips. Swallowing the lump that was forming in your throat from eyeing his action, your mind buzzing about with assumption, you didn’t hesitate to shakily draw the cylinder from his lips, taking your own drag of the thing. “Fuckin’ hell…” he groaned, almost losing his patience until his pinky ring slid off with one last nudge. “‘Ere,” he motioned then to your vacant finger. A finger you hadn't realized was itching for a ring longer than anticipated. Longer than your childhood daydreams could ever imagine. “Y’wanna get hitched, baby?”

Too stunned to speak, your cheeks dusted the same shade of bright pink, mirroring your pretty pen tossed behind the bar somewhere. Holding out your hand to him, you nodded in confirmation. Making it known to him that you wanted this. Wanted him.

“S’not pretty…” he huffed, slipping the bulky thing on your little finger. “but, it’ll do f’now. Until I get ya a betta one.”

“Oh Benny, no!” You chirped, cheeks hurting from smiling so hard at the comically large ring. “S’perfect. So perfect!” You assured him, popping the cig back in his mouth before wrapping your arms around his neck in pure excitement. You couldn’t care less about one of those big rocks. A flashy piece your fellow teachers would come in with just to flaunt. Money didn’t matter to you like that, not as much as love. And you loved the fact you’d be wearing a piece of Benny’s jewelry on your finger. A symbol of himself practically adorned to you. It was beautiful. So beautiful.

His eyes widened in shock, a laugh escaping against an unusually big grin, reverberating against your chest like the sweetest song. “Now who’s the one pulling legs?” He joked, dropping the cigarette you’d been sharing to the ground and putting it out with his boot.

“Oh shut it,” you mused, pulling him down by the collar of his shirt for a kiss which he obliged. His lips molded against yours like honey — thick, sweet, and oh-so smooth. And he was all over you, buzzing you up from head to toe, stinging your neck with peppering kisses as his hands grabbed your behind like he was kneading the dough of a honey bun. In his defense you were his honey bun, and now you’d always be by law. By marriage. By love. And god did you two just love eachother so. Kept whispering it into the smokey air like a decree.

You didn’t know how long you’d been out there, but you figured it was a while. Enough time for Johnny to have a stern talking to the other guys about you. About the rest of their girls and wives and whatever other woman stepped into the club. There’d be no going after any gal like that, no matter who they were. End of story as far as Johnny was concerned. And now Johnny was sauntering outside for a cigarette, figuring you two were long gone. But no — you were leaning against Benny as he mused sweet nothings into your ear, a broad smile stretching across your sweet face making Johnny certain that you were alright.

“Aye Johnny,” Benny called the man only a few feet over, a burning orange dowsing his features in a glow as he lit up his own cylinder.

“Yeah, kid?” He raised a brow, giving Benny his attention as he took a fresh drag.

“Think y’can get that Father down ‘ere for Honey n’ me?” He asked earnestly.

Johnny squinted in the afternoon sun, blinking once, twice to digest Benny’s seriousness. “Hitchin’ a ride?” Johnny reviewed subtly, not trying to stir the obvious to the newbies inside that thought otherwise.

“Somethin’ like that,” Benny hinted, you confirming the notion just as fast. For a second time that afternoon, your pink ballet slipper nails danced in the air, but this time with a funky new addition to the mix.

And Johnny couldn’t help but huff out a laugh, delighted at such a sight. Knowing as sure as shit that he’d do everything in his power to make sure the two of you were happy. Cause Benny was family, and now you’d be too. Calling Father? ‘Course he would. He’d be crazy not to as far as his daughters were concerned. Couldn’t wait to tell them that their favorite teacher would be their brand new auntie. They’d be jumping up and down for sure.

“I’ll give ‘im a ring,” Johnny confirmed like a big ol’ fairy godfather.

And there, outside the bar after a crazy afternoon of swinging fists, it was settled.

Sure as shit — you’d be the future Mrs. Cross after all. And hey — maybe that bastard biker was right about one thing. You had an itch to scratch for sure. One that required filling your notepads and planners with your sweet swirly cursive, your new name etched into the thin sheets with your favorite pink pen….

Mrs. Cross. Mrs. Cross.

Mrs. Cross. <3

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

author’s note: these bees are engaged !! 🐝💍🐝

big ty to @zablife for being such a doll & inspiring the iconic mrs. cross cursive. x 💋🫶

my requests are open for ONLY miss honey x benny cross works + any convos about these two in general. don’t be shy honey, i’m all for yapping in the asks.

+ don’t forget to comment if you’d like be added to “da bee hive” (my version of da tag list)

smoochies. all da love xanadu 💋

da bee hive 🐝

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[sweetlywriting]

Allegiance

Feyd Rautha x Reader

Part one Part two

Warnings-Dune II spoilers, minor violence, enemies to mutual respect to fiancés(?)

Synopsis- Your planet is rich in horticulture and resources but faces the growing fear of imperialism from other houses. A solution presents itself when you are offered to marry their heir to house Harkonnen, Feyd Rautha.

You entered into the colosseum-esque arena, fascinated with the way the sun cast a veil of black and white onto everything within its grasp. It was subduing, and you felt as though you were in an old imperial painting-where all was colorless but the expressions of the people in them.

“I’m sure you’ll enjoy this. Feyd Rautha wanted you to arrive today so you would be able to see the show” The Baron said in his mangled voice, gesturing a pale hand towards you.

“I am honored to be in attendance Baron, especially on such an important day.” You said, musing on how it was rather generous for the Na-Baron to allot your visit on his own birthday.

You were excited, no one had told you quite what the entertainment was but you could imagine great performances and exotic animals in the Na-barons name. A lighter part of you also wished to see what he looked like, how he held himself, the tone of his voice-though surely upon the prospect of marriage it was rational to take into consideration.

A crease began along your mouth as three staggering men in chains were pushed into the arena along with who you could only assume was the Na-baron. Your temperament quickly changed realizing the entertainment was a fight to the death. The discontent grew seeing that two of the weren’t even truly conscious, stumbling and flailing. ‘A cowards move’ you thought pursing your lips.

You felt more foreign than ever, closely observing the calm and jovial nature of the Harkonnens around you, cheering at the calamity. It frustrated and confused you deeply, unable to stand the senseless violence. The intense smell of blood lust made your eyes water and their rims turn a bloodshot red. Why would your house choose you for him? Your home planet and house was far smaller than Geidi Prime but held traditions of peace and neutrality strong. Yet your family wanted you to marry this man? Live on this planet? With these people?

You turned to your attendant and motioned them to sit beside you.

“What were they thinking sending us here?” You whispered softly in your foreign tongue to them.

“The future of our planet my lady.” They whispered back, head down.

You felt uneasy, but understood that without some influence or power your house would soon slip into irrelevance or face threat from stronger houses. You wore the duty only for the love of your people.

You were snapped out of your reflection when the crowd started to roar again, the bodies of three atreides prisoners lay limp on the floor while the Na-Baron raised his bloodied weapon in victory. Bile rose to your throat. ‘How very difficult this will be’ you thought.

***

A banquet was held for the Na-Barons birthday and you were glad that there was no loss of life involved in simple meals and dance.

You roamed in a corner of the large room, dreading having to present yourself and your gift to the Harkonnens, wary of their violent nature, but it seemed the Na-Baron had beat you to it.

“Lady y/n” The Na-Baron said as he approached you. Up close you couldn’t deny that he was frustratingly handsome with sculpted features, tall gait, and skin like the white marble only seen in Kouros sculptures.

“Na-baron” You said, bowing lightly and offering your hand.

He took it, but rather than shake like on your home planet he kissed it. A polite gesture, but a bit rougher than you would have liked. His teeth grazed your hand, and left light marks. You tried to smile and brush the thought of getting some painful infection on foreign planet over something this irritatingly trivial.

“Call me Feyd. I heard you made it in time to see the Arena festivities” he said with a wolffish grin.

“Yes.” You said curtly, knowing if he asked how felt about them you would not be able to lie.

“Did you enjoy them?”

“I . . . thought it was rather brazen, an unecessary power play. All know your house is very strong and affluent, why spill more blood to reinforce something all know to be true.” You said this slowly, choosing your words carefully and hoping to sound more flattering than judgmental and unhappy with the injustice.

His smile dissipated and you could tell this was not the answer he wanted or expected, and a part of you feared the same fate of the Atreides prisoners would befall you. Luckily he seemed to find it humorous and laughed.

“No one has ever told me such an odd thing. Pity for prisoners! Very curious lady y/n, very curious.”

Perhaps he was interested, but you could still see venom where you hurt his pride and aroused his anger. You didn’t miss his arm clutching the sheath of his dagger as he laughed, and the way his smirk was more of a snarl now.

“I do not mean to disdain your traditions, I simply don’t quite understand them.” You said mildly when his laughter had faded.

“It’s alright. I like honesty and I like you too.” His eyes glimmered with malice and charm.

“It is true you have come as a prospective bride, yes?” He said.

“Yes. . . I have brought you a gift” You said, firmly thinking of the kind but worn face you your people as you rehearsed the proposal speech in your head. You motioned for one of your attendants to bring a sachetel with a cluster of flowers inside. You felt less reassured about your gift knowing Feyd’s character but presented it nonetheless.

“This is a heliolaris flower, it blooms yellow even in extreme conditions and without the light of the sun. It will hold its color even through the conditions of your planets black sun. Its species was created specifically for you and Giedi Prime. My planet is minor but we have plants that hold powerful miracles and arable land beyond compare. If you went through with our alliance . . . All of that would be yours too”

He peered inquisitively at the plant. He seemed unsure by the gift and your proposal but it only took a minute before his snake-like manner returned.

“I will plant these flowers. If they bloom in color as you say before the fortnight I will marry you, if not you will surrender your life to the arena that you so seem to despise.”

[starcharmed]

JEKYLL AND HIDE

summary: when your boyfriend starts acting oddly, you believe that something may be wrong with him. only to find out that the "oddness" came from a product of something else entirely...

cw: mentions of blood, brief mentions of death, odd(?) pacing, semi-rushed ending, not proofread well, possible ooc (first time writing) | wc: 2.1k | taglist: @tetrachrxmacy, @aphrodict, @akutasoda

for the @/stellaronhvnters stellaween fest! the prompt i chose was doppelgänger

“yingxing?” whispering into the night, the shadow of your lover creeping from the doorway. if not for the moonlight making shadows around the outline of his hair, you would’ve thought it was someone else completely. “yingxing what are you doing up? it’s late.”

“...i’m sorry. i had a nightmare.” yingxing stalked over to the bed to sit on the edge, turning his head to scrutinize you, “woke up thirsty.” with a simple glance at your tired expression, he pursed his lips, “you should be asleep.”

“couldn’t sleep, bed got cold.” yingxing hummed in response, sliding in beside you rigidly. dipping into the mattress, you felt his investigative peer at your form; however, he didn’t comment anything else before turning on his side. frowning at the lack of affection you reached a hand out to run through his hair, an inexplicable habit. 

the bed was still cold even after he had gotten back in it.

—

“are you hungry?” pressing a chaste kiss to a pallid cheek, you slid over a plate of freshly cut strawberries and cherries - which you couldn’t tell were unripened - while squeezing his shoulder affectionately. “i’m still making pancakes, but here’s something sweet to tie you over until then, okay?”

yingxing looked disinterested in your words, hand hovering over the strawberry slices before quickly plucking up a cherry. without a second thought he popped the entire thing in his mouth, swallowing it without even blinking.

oh, okay. 

with an awkward pat to his shoulder, you returned to tend to the other food. yinxing was quiet the entire morning, oddly enough. going without giving you morning forehead kisses, not offering to fix dinner like he normally does, hell, he didn’t even spare you a glance when you screamed the other day because a small pool of hair dye looked like blood.

speaking of hair dye…

when the hell did yingxing decide to dye his hair?

it wasn’t as white as it used to be. now sporting a more grey hue, the roots borderning black instead of an ashen. and to make matters worse, the sight of the spot of not-blood in the bathroom looks like he had done it sporadically. it was odd, having to take on the product of an inattentive change between the both of you. you barely existed to him anymore, only being spoken to if he needed reminders of your outings or activities together. 

you didn’t want to ask. in fact, you were honestly nervous to. if he switched personalities overnight just a week ago, there’s no solid idea of how he would react if you questioned that. perhaps you should just keep your mouth shut instead of bringing it over breakfast. it would be better for both of you. 

but, alas, sometimes you cannot keep things in if they’re already about to burst at the seams.

the absolute second that the question of “are you okay?” left your mouth, it was as if the old yingxing had returned. long gone was the robotic man that had been walking aimlessly around your house for the past month. the tenderness in his voice filling to the brim again, his cold hands squeezing yours and providing just enough warmth that for a second, you’d believe that maybe the observations you’d made were just a figment of your imagination.

for a second, though.

as soon as his eyes met yours, there was a different aura within the air. his smile was more forced as his eyes crinkled around the edges just enough to tell you that you needed to let it go. it was nothing but a one-time thing, even though you knew it wasn’t. his attitude was a product of stress brought from a nightmare, which was odd because when he normally has them he doesn’t comment on them so as to not stress you out. the weird movements were apart of cramping his hand from hitting it on one of his projects in his office; a product of “an accident”, even though he hadn’t been in it in days as to have a break.

but it was okay, he was okay, you were okay; everything was okay.

night took over the sky quicker that day. the quiet doing nothing more than fueling your nervousness as yingxing slept beside you, an arm around your waist as his mouth parted open, breathing softly.

yingxing never wrapped his arm around your waist. it was always both of his arms, never just one.

in fact, it was the warmth brought on by his embraces that often made you feel as if a warm blanket was draped over your shoulders. kissing your temples as you cooked, swaying back and forth with his arms around your waist as you both danced silently, hums of affection as his hands guided yours when you helped him build his sketched creations. you missed the warmth that he brung, now stuck to withstand the cold.

yingxing seemed to notice the distance growing between both of you, trying to substitute his thin paper for wooden flecks to keep the fire aflame. straying to edges, spurned kisses pressed to cheeks, unwanted touches of so-called affection being something to look forward to everyday.

wonderful, really.

it was still worrying, as if you were living with an entirely different person. 

the more you thought about it, the more you felt uneasy. you knew it was stupid to assume anything was actually okay at this point, but you had a guy in your house that wasn’t even your partner; at least as far as you could tell. 

yingxing didn’t have this super, secret evil twin as much as you knew about him. but the idea of somebody secretly taking his place, or even the pipeline of scenarios in your head of someone wearing his skin…

it scared you. 

getting up as carefully as you could, you crept to the bathroom. opening and closing the door - cursing under your breath when it creaked - you flipped on the light near the sink, staring at where you had seen the blood hair dye. the spot on the tile floor was clean, but you could still envision it perfectly. 

it was hair dye. it was hair dye.

nothing else, nothing more.

it was the knock on the bathroom door that made your heart stop.

“babe?” yingxing never called you babe, it was always sweetheart, “are you okay?”

“just had to use the bathroom.” the lie was shaky. by the way he went quiet, you’re sure he knew it, too. “don’t worry about it, i’ll be back.” why the hell was he following you around like a lost kitten? the one time he decides to actually check up on you is the worst, what a shocker.

“oh. do you need my help?”

swear.

“what?”

a pause.

“i’m sorry, that was odd of me to say.” oh, you think?

the silence was laughable, honestly. one person two people who didn’t even know how to properly communicate with another each other. clearing your voice, you cracked open the door to peek at him.

jeez, his eyes.

it was as if a darkened glass orb was crushed and shifted into two circular shapes. a kaleidoscope of mixed emotions all scattered into one. the darkened colors of maroon twisting with blues of dark greens, his pupils nothing but ink blotches on the canvas. stray bristles mixed within the irises to give them a highlighted countenance. alas, its his eyes were the only thing worth much note on his face. they even appeared as a cheap replica of that belonging to an oil painting. 

“i’m sorry.”

the echoed words rung throughout your head, as if they were a church bell and you were the quiet nave. you hated how you cracked the door back open on pure impulse, the tone in his voice drawing you in to comfort him by pure memory. he sounded sad. you hated when yingxing was sad.

but this wasn’t yingxing, remember?

“why?” asking quietly, the door creaked again as it was stopped by his foot.

yingxing stepped back, as if to give you enough space to squeeze back into the bedroom, “for being distant. for not being myself recently.”

funny timing for an apology, huh. 

“that’s okay.” universe, you hope he couldn’t tell your smile wasn’t as forced as it was within the darkness. “you had that nightmare, remember?” grabbing his hand in yours, you tried not to flinch at the sheer chill that shot up through your body once you grabbed it. “not your fault.”

whoever wrote your part in this script was at risk of getting their neck wrung. why couldn’t you be the possible-but-almost-certain imposter? it would’ve been easier than playing the naive rat that wasn’t aware of the rat looming on the kitchen counter. 

yingxing didn’t say anything, allowing you to lead him back to the bed. “we can just worry about this all tomorrow, okay? it’s late. we can walk to the café and get coffee like we do every monday morning.” you froze when yingxing stopped, the backs of your knees hitting the bed’s corner. “yingxing?” 

those eyes bore into you as he moved his hand out of your grasp, staring at you. the clouds hide away the moon from the sight, leaving you squinting to make out his silhouette. a hoarse right was mumbled under his breath as he slid onto the side of his bed; the movement not as stiff as it was yesterday. you followed suit, doing your utmost not to shake as you pulled the duvet further up your body.

you and yingxing went out on wednesdays for coffee, not mondays.

—

the universe had decided that you deserved a break, so when you woke up to the sound of heavy rain on your windows, you nearly jumped for joy. at least now you wouldn’t have to deal with the onslaught of questions from the barista about why you and yinxing were two days earlier than normal, and you wouldn’t have to stomach the latter’s stares. 

but on the downside, you were now stuck with a yinxing you weren’t even positive was yingxing. perhaps your previous doubts were factual. this wasn’t your boyfriend and you’ve been living with something someone completely random. 

oh god…you let him sleep in your bed. even if you weren’t aware, the point still stands.

“are you okay?”

its his voice pulled you up and over the wave that nearly drowned you in your thoughts, the saccharine tone making your teeth ache. how could it pretend that nothing was wrong? was it simply emotionless?

or had it not had enough human experience to learn how to produce them?

“fine”, you choked out, wincing as the sting of the seasoning on your takeout hit the back of your throat. “sorry, the food's just a bit spicy.” yingxing seemed to take the response in a positive light, or positive as in not questioning your response. 

and more silence. great.

it had become unnerving, not welcoming. as much as you’d not like to listen to not-yingxing's voice grating your ears like nails on a chalkboard. a grater with a sharp blade – oh.

blade. not-yingxing shall be dubbed blade.

but if you were to pull it out of your side, you’re sure that you’d only bleed out. left in your own misery of not letting everything try to stick back together like glue. lifting your head to look at blade, you noticed that he was staring at you. was he a mind reader as well? just your luck, something to dig into your thoughts and expose them in front of yourself. 

“would you like to see him?”

a pause. 

the air seemed to get thicker as your utensils almost slipped out of your hand. rearranged your grip, you swallowed; the salvia hitting your dry throat and going down harshly. “i’m sorry?”

“i asked you if you’d like to see him.” blade tilted his head at you, questioningly. “surely you do not believe that i’ve not read you?”

you felt your stomach twist in disgusting ways when blade stood up, eyes still on you as he moved to the doorway. “come with me.” fading, fading, fading down the hall and into yingxing’s office.

the office that hadn’t been occupied since blade appeared.

scrambling up from the table you brushed past blade, whose footsteps stopped, and you swore you heard a chuckle bubbling out of his throat. shaking as you reached for the door handle, you closed your eyes and twisted the knob. opening to gaze within the room, you felt your blood run cold in your body.

and you screamed.

[hd-erised]

Here is the complete anonymous masterlist for the 2024 @hd-erised fest!

Reveals will be on Sunday, January 5th, so there's half a week left for you to catch up on all the submissions you might have missed and leave comments for our fabulous creators before reveals!

Art:

Brewed Awakenings for @jessixaluci [T]

The Case of the Mysterious Baker for @sorrybutblog [G]

Ceilings. for @karamelised [M]

Us, again? for @nv-md [M]

Unemployed and On Guard for @makeitp1nk [T]

No One but Me for justlikewriting [M]

Stolen Glances for @dodgerkedavra [T]

Hauntingly Familiar for @moonflower-rose [T]

Fic + Art:

A Dragon to Call Mine for @annanother-thing [E, ~24,000]

Fic:

Where Starlight Falls for @citrusses [E, ~33,700]

The magic concealing Sirius’s Last Will and Testament doesn’t reveal the full extent of Harry’s inheritance until two years after the war. When it does, it turns out that Harry has inherited more than just the Black Family vault—he’s inherited the family’s magic, too. He just has to find it first. And he needs Draco Malfoy’s help to do it.

Runaway Train for @lqtraintracks [E, ~18,100]

Harry was already keen to figure out what’s been causing a series of disturbances in the London Underground before Draco Malfoy showed up acting suspicious. Two explosions, several very confused Muggles, and a cloud of mysterious sticky powder later, Harry and Malfoy can’t seem to keep their hands off each other. Can Harry shag his way to the answer to all of his questions? Seems unlikely, but what can a man do but try?

At Night All Birds Are Black for IzRoan [E, ~51,800]

Harry loves being an Auror—the long hours, adrenaline-fuelled chases, and even the paperwork. But when a haunting leads to his suspension, he’s forced to continue his investigation in secret. As he unravels the murder of a young girl, he turns to the one person he never expected he’d need: Draco Malfoy.

The Melting Point of Wax for @vukovich [M, ~10,500]

Harry Potter is many things: captain of the Chudley Cannons, the fun uncle, a good enough friend, comfortable in the life he’s built for himself. Comfortable, that is, until a risque broom advertisement and a rumor about a fellow athlete come together to send him spiralling into the world of high-stakes broom racing, high-flying turtles, and the chaos of falling in love.

Body and Soul for @a-sentimental-man [M, ~22,200]

When the headaches became worse and it got more and more difficult for Draco to work, he was left with no other choice but to recognise his stupid problem exactly for what it was. Even if that meant realising that the best, or perhaps even only, solution could solely come from one person: the one person he hadn’t seen for months, the one person he was still in love with. The one person who should never know. Because, clearly, Harry would never be able to give Draco what he needed anyway.

The Pain From an Old Wound for @sharperthan [T, ~31,100]

Getting hit with a mysterious blood curse is all in a day’s work for Harry Potter. Having to work with his former colleague, rival, bully, and boyfriend, is not. Harry’s not sure which is going to do him in first: the curse sucking his magic dry, or Draco Malfoy, as frustrating, condescending, and painfully attractive as he’s always been.

The Most Splendid Thing for @sleepstxtic [E, ~61,200]

Star Quidditch rivals Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter become accidentally bonded. They still hate each other, but now it’s untenable to leave each other’s sides—and my, but it feels oh so good to touch. They’re either going to murder one another, or fall in love. OR: A story in which Draco finally allows himself happiness, and Harry finally learns that he deserves to be whole.

Borealis Green for @faiell [E, ~47,200]

Draco left Harry on the night of their first kiss, when they were eighteen. Ten years later, Harry, now Deputy Lead of the Norwegian Aurors, barges back into Draco’s life at the Ministry, seeking his help—both personal and professional—for a case, to re-capture Rodolphus Lestrange and Augustus Rookwood. Turns out that Draco couldn’t really get over Harry, either.

Don’t Fear the Reaper for @thehoneybeet [E, ~36,900]

Harry anticipates it’s Luna or maybe Hermione at Grimmauld Place, here to rouse him out of purgatorial listlessness once again. Instead, Harry finds an opinionated crow, a scroll with his name on it, and one exhaustingly persistent Draco Malfoy, who insists that Harry is his latest soul to Reap. The only problem is…Harry’s still alive. Or so he thought.  Quote: Learning how to live takes a whole life, and, which may surprise you more, it takes a whole life to learn how to die. - Seneca

Sub rosa for @hoko-onchi-writes [E, ~37,100]

After the tragic and unexpected death of his mother, Draco Malfoy’s quiet life as Potions Master, Head of Slytherin, and Hogwarts professor gets upended—first by the manifestation of mysterious and inexplicable magic, and then by the revelation of an inheritance deliberately hidden from him his entire life.

Bare Moon Rising for xErised [E, ~15,500]

Potter moved towards him, sticking his hand out. “If that’s the case, we’re both doing it. You do the nude Tornados calendar, and I’ll do the Auror one. Most sales wins.”  Oh no.  “Are you backing out already?” Potter leaned in closer, voice dropping to a whisper. “Finally admitting that mine’s bigger than yours, then? Or do you want to cop a feel first?”  Charities could bugger off. Nothing good ever came of them, really.

Fighting the Chill for @bicholsdrarrysideblog [M, ~25,400]

What should have been an average and dull day for Draco Malfoy, turned rather south when he’s attacked in the middle of Diagon Alley.

palindrome for @threading-fate [E, ~25,800]

“Why did you let me kiss you?” Potter smirks.  “That’s not how I remember it. Why did you let me kiss you?”  “I’m stuck in a time loop. You’re not going to remember, so,” Draco’s tongue drags, calcified around the words. “Why not.”  Potter’s brows furrow but the smile stays intact. “That’s the best you could come up with?”

A Soft Place to Fall for @epitomereally [E, ~142,500]

When Harry arrives for his first year teaching at Hogwarts and is struck with a bizarre malignance, how on earth is he supposed to react when Draco Malfoy suddenly cares?

All These Winding Threads for @amomorii [E, ~35,400]

The tides of Draco’s accidental magic pull him under and leave him gasping. There’s a hungry ache that sits deep in his bones, growing worse every day. Soon it’s all he’ll be, a starving skeleton clawing at its throat.  He needs a solution. Unfortunately, that solution looks an awful lot like Harry Potter. 

Second Chance Resort for @elizah321[E, ~42,800]

A holiday forced on him by his friends after the latest in a long string of failed relationships might be a chance for Harry to relax, but all that is thrown up in the air by the appearance of one newly divorced Draco Malfoy. Mainly because they had been together almost fifteen years ago before Draco broke it off to marry the woman his mother chose for him… Feat. a matchmaking hotel, a spa day, an all-knowing Weasley, and friends who do try their best, but can get a little distracted.

Seven-and-sixpence for @oknowkiss [E, ~35,700]

The entire plan of Harry’s life had been defeat evil, become an Auror, marry Ginny. Not necessarily in that order, but it seemed to be going that way, the first two managed and the third in easy limbo. He can be better, though. He can be more. Draco will see to it.

Slip Slidin’ Your Way (In a Land of Fire and Ice) for @frm9pm [T, ~9,800]

How does a war-scarred young wizard recuperate and create a new identity? Harry opens himself to the magic of the land. Draco learns to wonder at the humblest of creatures. Years later, Magigeologist Evan Jameson and Malacologist Derek Black begin an enthusiastic correspondence. They’re in for a shock when they finally meet. Or: Science nerds go to Iceland and fall in love. Or: Why should kelp have all the fun?

Pillar of Salt for @agentmoppet [E, ~62,200]

From the lake in the Room of Hidden Things, Draco knows three things: 1. Mirror universes exist, and he’s going to find the best one—the one where he did the right thing. 2. Harry Potter and him are awfully cosy in some of these other universes, whereas Potter in real life is starting to act very odd around him indeed. 3. Draco’s reflection—the mirror version of him, the worst version of him—seems to be growing crueler. And stronger.

Prescription for @fantalfart [G, ~2,600]

Draco couldn’t say he hated his job, not really. In fact, he loved it⁠—and wasn’t that something surprising, a Malfoy being a Healer, when most of them hadn’t worked a day in their lives?—and most of all, he loved knowing that he was helping people heal, above anything else. (And if there was a part of him that craved the normalcy of something that helped instead of what he had been taught to do his entire life? Well. That was between himself and his journal when he remembered to write in it.) (And maybe there was another reason too.)

Old love don’t rust for @drarrydoodles [E, ~20,600]

“Why do you keep coming?” Malfoy asked at last. Harry mulled over the question. For a moment he debated trying to turn the tables and asking Malfoy the very same thing. But this time he didn’t want to hold back. “Because I can’t stop,” Harry said.

Equipoise for khalulu [T, ~88,200]

Ten years of peace have settled over the wizarding world, leaving Harry Potter feeling strangely adrift. Teaching Defense at Hogwarts is fine and all, but when mysterious magical blackouts start sweeping across the country, he can’t help but jump at the chance to investigate. It would be the perfect outlet for his restless energy - if he didn’t suddenly find himself tangled up in an elaborate charade, pretending to date the Prophet’s most illustrious journalist, Draco Malfoy. Between hunting down the cause of the blackouts and maintaining their ruse, Harry’s beginning to think that peacetime might actually be trickier - and far more surprising - than he’d bargained for.

Victory Lap for @traylalascrisis [E, ~4,700]

“I wasn’t sure if you’d want to eat first.” For emphasis, he pinches the skin at my waist. I want to cover myself in him. I want to roll in him like a dog. I want to devolve on top of him. And he wants me to sit nicely and use a knife and fork first?

My Mate for veradubhghoill [E, ~26,300]

Harry is a new Alpha and Draco is his Omega Healer. Draco wants to help Harry but Draco struggles to control himself whenever he is around.And Harry wants to breed Draco. Desperately so.Things come to a head when Draco and Harry become trapped with one another. Draco doesn't have his suppressant and it sends them both into heat.While they wait for help, will Draco be able to avoid being claimed by Harry? Does he even want to avoid it? Harry is gorgeous and strong, and Draco would love to have him as a mate. He just can't fathom a world where Harry Potter willingly chooses him.

Just a little liquid luck for @shiftylinguini [E, ~5,400]

Tracking the movement of Potter’s eyes, Draco runs a greasy finger over the thickest of his scars. “You like them, don’t you? Pervert.”Potter tosses his head back, jostling the mass of his curly fringe from his forehead. “I bet you were into scars long before you had any of your own, Malfoy.”Yes, Draco wants to say. I want to lick yours. What he says instead is, “Fuck you.”“Fuck you,” Potter echoes, putting the same pregnant emphasis on the F.Draco bites his lower lip, wrestling down the rise of euphoria. “Your turn,” he says. “Take that off.”

As Luck Would Have It for @smehur [E, ~12,800]

In Sixth-Year, Harry and Draco both win a vial of Felix Felicis from Slughorn and, under its influence, have sex in the Room of Requirement. In the aftermath, can Draco and Harry navigate their respective roles in the war, while grappling with their burgeoning feelings for each other?

In a Year's Turning for @maraudersaffair [E, ~89,400]

It’s been nine years. Surely, Harry can handle Draco being back—for Teddy’s sake.

Storm's Eye for @jtimu [M, ~12,400]

Harry's surprised that Draco didn't have wards up preventing mortally wounded former school mates-turned-ghosted work fellows from bursting into his house.In Harry's addled mind, this seems like a great opening line to say to Draco's gobsmacked face. He doesn't get that far, though.

housewarming for @garagepaperback [E, ~6,000]

First, they had to decide where to live. It worked, until it didn’t.

Go Up to Gilead for @tessacrowley [E, ~106,700]

Harry Potter’s sense of purpose drops dead with Voldemort. So does Draco Malfoy’s freedom.Nine years later, Harry’s still a soldier. Draco’s still a sacrifice. Harry’s going to die in his Auror uniform, andDraco doesn’t deserve to live.But when the clock runs out on Draco’s sentence, a new one starts ticking.As it was, so it will be: they’ll survive together, or not at all.

do you (one) better for @legendrarry [M, ~4,200]

Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor Harry Potter abruptly loses his Favourite Hogwarts Professor title to none other than Potions Professor Draco Malfoy. He swears it’s fine, really, but the feelings boiling within him say otherwise. Until Poppy Longbottom, Pansy and Neville’s hellion daughter, forces Hogwarts faculty and staff to engage in a very controversial Pureblood family tradition.

Of Stolen Glass and Burning Clover for @saintgarbanzo [E, ~27,800]

A week long international conference. A political scandal? A Malfoy beside the fruit tarts.

Baker's Modern Wands for @starquestingfordrarry [E, ~43,600]

At Baker's Modern Wands Lavender Brown is starting a revolution, Draco Malfoy is trying his best, and Harry Potter is really annoyed about it all.

Kiss Me, Fuck Me, Love Me for @doingthechachaslide [E, ~5,100]

Harry and Draco are running very late—they’ve got shirts to find, puppies to save, and champagne to buy.They’re also terribly, ridiculously, extraordinarily in love.

Equally Cursed and Blessed for @thecouchsofa [E, ~18,200]

Harry's back at Hogwarts to attempt his final year, again. This time he's sure there'll be no shenanigans. Well. Maybe there'll be a few.

[moon-ayyye]

Not that I have any experience or idea, but crime lord work seems to take up a fuck tonne of time. So Jason, fresh off the boat and setting up his gang, wouldn't have time to do shit. Doesn't reveal himself to the bats purely because any time he even steps away, his operations fall apart in some looney tunes ass way. It's a curse (and a blessing. You know what the fuck I'm about with the bats and Jason)

Setting up supply lines and cutting off drugs from competitors? Shit takes so long that Chemo drops before Jason makes a move against the bats. He doesn't really feel sad that Dick is dead, and so he decides to focus up on his operation instead and he'll handle the joker once he gets there. That's future Jason's bullshit to sort out

Titans Tower? Please. Kate was on maternity leave and nobody in this bitch knows how to handle computers like she did. His hair grew even whiter trying to wrangle that whole clown fest. The little bastard will be fucked up by someone else eventually, why deal with that child when there are plenty of other children (middle aged men and women) he needs to deal with?

Brothers in Blood? Mark's reports say he has a mole he needs to get rid of, and some of the kids down the block are trying to spy on Black Mask, so he needs to shut that shit down real quick. He's not expanding to New York. Who cares what they think of Dick? He's got better things to do than reach out

Date night? Rose doesn't have time for that. Some asshole kept comparing her to Deathstroke, and Jason kneecapped him. She's skipping straight to dessert.

Rose joining would increase efficiency because nobody wants to deal with a pent up and frustrated Ravager or Red Hood. They were too busy to have sex for a week and ended up destroying 3 city blocks trying to take down Black mask. They stole his desk, obviously.

He stops wearing his helmet because if he has to deal with this shit, he needs his henchmen to see the disappointment on his face. It actually reduces issues by 20%. Being in your 40's and having a 19 year old look at you like you're a particularly stupid child was a surprisingly good deterrant to fucking up. Who could've guessed?

[hsvh-hp]

Erised 2024 Fic Rec List!

I wanted to put this forward before @hd-erised reveals to maximize the blindness of my recs for this year’s fest!

These were my favourites among those up for offer, in order of posting (note, this is fic only - every single piece of art was gorgeous and is worth looking at it): 

✨ Runaway Train (18k)

This is a cool fic. I can’t think of a better word to describe it. Right from the get-go, the reader is strapped in alongside Harry and we are on a journey. The title fits the feeling of that perfectly. I was not expecting the end result of the mystery, and I mean that in a way that left me with a sense of wonder. It’s so incredibly original. 

I also love a Draco who isn’t afraid post-war of appreciating old magic. There’s nuance in his separation between that which is bad and good! Also, I’m a sucker for when the conflict or tension in a Drarry fic is Harry and Draco versus something else, not them against each other. They make such a great team when allowed! 

✨ At Night All Birds are Black (51k)

This fic put a lump in my throat at the end. The first thing I think about when I consider this fic is the resolution because it brought everything together so beautifully. 

I don’t want to spoil since this is a case fic, but it was just so captivating! The lore and worldbuilding were just incredible. 

✨ Body and Soul (22k)

I find myself rather fussy about both soul mark and creature fics. This one explored the comorbidity of two such things in such interesting fashion that it hit the notes for me! There was also just enough angst to hurt, and the happy ending made it very worth the pain. Bonus points for magical/Healing theory and using framing as a narrative device!

✨ The Pain From an Old Wound (30k)

When it comes to magical theory and case fics, this one continued the trend of me being fed this Erised season. The nature of inheritances and wizarding culture are more tropes that I am very picky about, although this fic did it in a way I enjoy. 

It delved into other tropes that I thoroughly enjoy but don’t see very often in fic, like including things about Malfoy Manor, a bigger role for Narcissa, and (because I don’t want to spoil) THAT SOLUTION to how Draco solves the blood curse placed on Harry. Also, I must mention that I very much enjoyed Ron as a socialite! 

✨ A Soft Place to Fall (142k)

Although the word count on this one was initially daunting, I became very quickly glad that it would take me multiple days to savour and enjoy this fic. It hit so many notes for me that I don’t even really know where to begin. 

The magical theory (again, fed) was incredible, and how it tied in with trauma and healing for Harry. I found it subversive in the sense that it touched upon trauma post-war that I don’t usually see, focusing more on his childhood than the war itself (although of course that is not forgotten). 

It also features a Professors-but-not-Professors AU, with Healer Draco and Harry teaching physical ed. I always enjoy Healer Draco anyway, but I loved seeing the non-explicit ways that he has changed his life since the war. He’s great with the students who end up in the hospital wing. He had a hand in physical ed being offered at Hogwarts, as well as the fact that Muggle sports were incorporated. When he realizes that something is off about Harry (following an incident), he puts aside their initial tension in order to fulfill his Oath. It’s completely organic that he truly begins to care. That is never brought into question for the reader (Harry takes some convincing, but what do you do lol). 

Other things I loved: ZACHARIAS SMITH (it’s possible!), the students (they are so cute), and Harry’s relationship to his trauma and how he learns to love himself. And, of course, it goes without saying, how Harry and Draco grow together. This will be a go-to comfort fic for me, in future. 

✨ Seven-and-sixpence (35k)

There are some tropes that are very difficult for me, infidelity (although it is NOT between Draco and Harry here) and open endings among them. HOWEVER, sometimes a fic will come along with those tropes on offer and I will be pleasantly surprised! 

This fic was that for me. There was something about Harry having such a deep need that going to Draco regardless of his current relationship that really spoke to me. And as for Draco, this is pretty much the only way I like him portrayed when he doesn’t feel worthy of Harry. He’ll still take him, and he’ll build him up, and then his sense of inadequacy only increases because if he didn’t deserve him to start, he certainly doesn’t now. I really enjoyed the complexity of that. 

✨ Prescription (2k)

In contrast to the previous one, very sweet! Also a perfect bite size. Draco is Harry’s favourite Healer, and they go from there. ❤️

✨ Old love don’t rust (20k)

A case fic, although the case (however interesting!) is merely the backdrop. I thoroughly enjoyed the non-linear narrative, and how Harry and Draco’s history was gradually built while they’re dealing with coming back together in a tense, high-stakes sort of way.

I struggle generally with ‘getting back together’ fics, since I have a hard time seeing them letting go of each other once they have a hold, although to me it’s very understandable that life gets in the way, especially when you’re young and just getting started. This was handled in a satisfying way to me. 

✨ Equipoise (88k)

More magical theory! And another case fic! I love case fics when magic itself has something to do with the solution, as well as magical creatures being included. The way magic itself as a quantity is handled in this fic had me spinning up theories and hitting Next Chapter through to the end. The secondary plot, based on a creative play with Unbreakable Vows, was also a nail biter. Poor Harry, but thank god Draco was willing to help him out. 

✨ Victory Lap (4k)

There’s a lot of story here for under 5000 words! The Wizengamot case that Draco was sequestered for is HELLA interesting, and seeing as I’m always a hungry sucker for Established Drarry, Draco and Harry’s reunion was a lovely (and hot) read. 

✨ As Luck Would Have It (12k)

I am very weak for canon divergence Drarry, especially in 6th year. Do you want Half-Blood Prince, but Draco and Harry are weird and unable to stay away from each other? Do you like it when the canon plot is changed in interesting and creative ways, and comes up to an exciting conclusion? Well, I do, so I loved this fic, and if you do, you’ll love it too. 

✨ Storm’s Eye (12k)

The chemistry is on point here, the lore/theory intriguing, and the race against time palpable. I’m a sucker for Draco being protective of Harry, and of calling him ‘love’ and ‘darling’ so naturally. I melted every time (and so did Harry lol). Extremely satisfying. 

✨ Kiss Me, Fuck Me, Love Me (5k)

Yay, more non-linear narrative! This is another thing I am being fed on this year. 

The fic balances being sweet, hot, and funny perfectly and creates an explosion as Harry and Draco ride out the last night of their mutual pining and the first night of their relationship on New Year’s Eve! I realized while reading this that my favourite kind of Drarry mutual pining is when it’s their friends who are suffering, not so much them, lol. Pansy and Ron’s individual theatrics about Harry and Draco was hilarious. 

So those were my favourites! I'm very excited for reveals to find out who the authors are! ❤️💚

[citrusses]

Thank you dear @sitp-recs @wolfpants @garagepaperback @kamaela for tagging me. My year was infinitely richer because of all of you❣️It really seems like I was writing this for 2023 ten minutes ago, but somehow I did publish 6 fics in that interval. I also started binding fics (thank you to the ethereal @epitomereally for showing me the ropes, ps this is a tag for you). I read so many beautiful words and yet not as many as I would have liked, and I got to spend lots of time with fandom friends both through screens and in person (gardens, parks, cozy wine bars and accidental matching outfits I adore you).

In 2024 I wrote:

Gemini in Retrograde (T, 38k)

Kidfic fest. How long will it take Scorpius to start pounding beers after finding himself in his father’s body? The answer will not surprise you.

Permanent (M, 13k)

Dronarry. Draco wants to kiss Harry. Or maybe Ron. But definitely not David.

The only way forward (T, 3k)

31 microfics of May, served a la carte or prix fixe.

Crush (E, 8k)

Harry trips on his untied shoelaces, falls onto Draco’s dick.

Alpha and Omega. And Omega (E, 6k)

Me, once upon a time: A/B/O is fine it’s just not for me.

Also me: this fic.

The Pain From an Old Wound (T, 30K)

Erised. Harry sure hopes this blood curse doesn't awaken anything in him!

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday and that 2025 brings you joy. @greattemptation @jtimu @hoko-onchi-writes @yiiiiiiiikes25 @sorrybutblog @phoenixortheflame @houndsinhades @oknowkiss @sweatersinthesummer @haxkattpress @littlewinnow and everyone else who sees this please share your years if you’d like!

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

by: Beck Levy

“Maybe now vocalists will finally start bringing their own mics,” I tweeted in the first days of March 2020. My virtual audience was mostly friends I met by participating in subcultures in and adjacent to the DIY tendency of hardcore punk rock. In those early days, we on the cultural fringes shared a sense that the pandemic, in its capacity as a social intervention, could meaningfully disrupt the oppressive ruling order.

When I booked and played shows before COVID-19 hit, I tried to harness energy and rally when crisis arose. Touring band is lost on the road? I was ready to DJ to keep people from leaving between sets. No one came to unlock the club? Let’s play in the parking lot. The last show I’d played, just weeks earlier during Mardi Gras, was on a trailer being pulled by a dump truck. We’re responsive to shifting circumstances, right?

I couldn’t get a clear look at the new terrain through the brutal haze of my first-wave infection. I was disoriented, waking up breathless, fevered, delirious from nightmares about drowning in my own blood. I could not fathom taking any action that would contribute to COVID-19 circulating, and my symptoms made me believe I would be a risk to my community. With home tests scarce, every flare had me conceiving of myself as though I might be a biological weapon.

Friends texted their fears to me frantically: “Is music over? Are shows done?” I thought back to informal and unconventional gigs, the freedom and potentiality those moments held, and reassured my friends, sequestered in our separate biomes. I said and believed: “Music always finds a way, youth culture always finds a way, underground culture always finds a way.”

Slowly, reimagined, remote, and socially-distanced events returned. In lieu of Jazz Fest, New Orleans radio station WWOZ charmed us with “festing in place” on the airwaves. I did a solo set in a virtual anniversary showcase for my old record label. Another friend live streamed a show from a cavernous church. I’d guessed performances mediated by technology might salt the wound, but desperate for connection, I treasured those experiences.

I watched my place in the world creep away from me. There were rumors of scandalous secret shows during lockdown. But the first real sign was pictures on Instagram of people traveling and touring again. Scroll to that last image: a row of COVID-19 tests, all negative, smug. Or positive, chagrined but only a little; a mismatch to the scale of: “For fun I traveled as a disease vector and personally participated in the proliferation of an airborne pathogen that can kill or maim.” Was it a character limit? A limitation of character?

The world passed me by, carouseling through normalization phases, like COVID-19 tests phasing their way out of tour posts. I watched scenes regroup from my new vantage point in biopolitical exile. Pandemic gloom catalyzed a spate of reunions, which is wholesome and beautiful except for the fact that at least one band knowingly toured with a member who tested positive.

Was I overreacting? While COVID-19 left me with an immune system that attacks my body, my mind attacked itself with this question. I’d traded amps for this mental feedback loop. The counterargument was implicit: people need unfettered access to music more than we need safety.

Live music came back. It just didn’t bring me with it.

I didn’t see a critical mass of bookers, venues, or bands advocating for COVID-19 safety with measures like outdoor shows, improved ventilation, livestream options, or just adding tests and masks to the earplug bin at the door. Some hand disinfectant; a little hygiene theater at conventional venues. The will just wasn’t there. I thought our deal was fuck the state, we’ll do it our way. I found myself slipping through the subcultural safety net that exists for outcasts who are slipping through the cracks of mass culture and late capitalism.

Of course, punk was already inaccessible to some. And I actually believe a certain amount of gatekeeping is necessary to protect punk from posers, jerks, and cops. But among the nebulous community clustered around shows, the sexism and racism people have experienced has always been very real, to the tune of entire zines, books, films about that exclusion. I monitored my heartbreak, critically. Resource-scarce, informal, and underground operations often exist at a quagmire of conflicting access needs. Was the sting of betrayal just this painful because it affected me, directly? Can the subaltern mosh?

There was a brief period where my baseline had plateaued, and I enjoyed medium-functionality between flares. Clinging to my modest recovery, a memorial service was my first congregant risk. That was the last time I tried to play guitar. I got the twisties, psychic vertigo from grief and from the contradiction of my setting and my experience, but the band played on, complete with a brass section. And at that otherwise beautiful event, I was ceremoniously reinfected by an asymptomatic tuba player. My health has been steadily deteriorating ever since.

Isolation is hard: it can feel like rejection, it can feel real personal. I struggled to adapt. I know I can have a persecution complex, but I also know I’m materially being made surplus. So what do I tell the complex? Are people being thoughtless, or do they explicitly not give a fuck about immunocompromised people like me?

Life is never totally safe, danger is often exciting, sometimes risk is the point. I know that. I’m not (just) a joyless scold. In the era of potentially deadly airborne pathogens, we’re playing with other lives when we make “individual” health decisions—I thought we’d learned that, but there was no such reckoning.

Punks accepted the sociological production of the end of the pandemic, moving in lockstep with the state, sacrificing medically vulnerable people on the altar of pleasure, just as the state had sacrificed us on the altar of capital. I thought our ingenuity would create new forms of shows. Instead, it exposed our limits under duress. To quote the band Allergic to Bullshit, “If this is what we’re for, this is what we’ll get.”

Maybe my shock seems naïve—after all, there’s a difference between “subculture” and “counterculture”—but there’s a reason I expected better. There are visionaries with love, passion, and fearlessness who organize shows in strip malls, caves, skateparks, churches, parking garages; shows with immediacy like distributing free Narcan, and conviction, like benefits toward Palestinian liberation. I await, with diminishing faith, the eruption of that tendency in the bioethical arena.

Since immune ableism is hegemonic, congregating is a question of building a realistic threat model, making decisions with people who are directly impacted by your actions, and taking all possible precautions. I’m encouraged by radical formations with accessibility modifications, particularly those connecting social abandonment, climate crisis, and genocide. I see this reflected in art book fairs that require masking, outdoor Shabbatot, test-first leftist reading groups. Queer and drag events are making adjustments. Mask blocs and clean air clubs collaborate, with limited resources, to make spaces more accessible. These are people who insist on collective health, demanding freedom to live and breathe clean air.

For those of us with severe Long COVID, exclusion from live music represents a profound loss of humanity. This disconnection feeds into my daily despair; in medical terms, my depersonalization/derealization. Having hoped this crisis would push us closer to communism than complacency, I feel whiplash, what Naomi Klein calls “political vertigo.” Millions of Americans with Long COVID have disappeared from the workforce. Data on the underground music scene are unavailable. It’s hard to count ghosts. I’ve wanted to ask: Have you noticed that some of us are gone? Do you ever miss us?

Four years later, I still can’t even make it to a well-filtered show. My last recreational outing ended in hospitalization from merely ascending a steep hill. I hear about shows from my roommate, the only person I see, who is also the only masked person at them. I tell myself I could try to go to an outdoor gig one day, maybe, if my governing health planets aligned. Instead of being an active musician, I pretend I’m like Jandek, a reclusive genius, but really I’m too clumsy and unfocused to play at home.

I do what I do with everything: act like I’m in a different world. It’s not difficult, because I am. The Well do their thing out there, I do mine in here. I moved across the country in search of better healthcare and, homebound, routinely forget I’m not still in New Orleans. Either way I am inside. I gave up and I don’t fight the world leaving me behind. I am back here, rolling the boulder of my body up steep hills.

In spite of everything, I’m glad shows continue. It’s bittersweet comfort knowing freaks are getting raucous in basements, with noise made by other freaks, sprayed with wet yells, aggressively jostling with teens; in a reprieve from control, experiencing music together. I’d die for your right to do that. And thanks to you, I just might.

[hannieween]

✧ one year of hannieween! ✧

hannieween is turning a year old!

as a way to celebrate this blog turning one year old, I decided to make a kinktober special all about jeonghan since it's his birthday month, it's the month this blog turns one year old and halloween is coming up! (hence hannie + halloween)

so please do enjoy what i have prepared for you guys, i have been working on this for a minute for us to cherish our hannie and the month of kinktober 🙂‍↕️

since i write lengthy fics, i made the decision to post one per each week of october (so five posts in total), starting from october 1st

here are this year's hannieween fest fics!

lights out chapter 5 › pegging, cuckholding, spitroasting

gang leader hannie › dumbification, spit kink, degradation kink, voyeurism

demon hunter hannie — navi post › hate fucking, breath play, humiliation kink

loser hannie › corruption kink, toys, overstimulation, exhibitionism

vampire hannie › dubcon, blood play

if you would like to be tagged in the upcoming posts, please do say so through a comment here in this post, or send me an ask and i will tag you

that is it from me for now, i wish you all one very productive and healthy kinktober,

toodles!

[mindbreak]

Destrudo - One Shot

2.9K Words

Tw: noncon, sadism, dacryphilia, stalking, obsession, mention of rotting limbs (shigi takes your leg on accident), blood (reader bites Shigi), light mindbreak if you squint.

Tags: Shigaraki x Reviving Quirk! Fem! Reader

This is a pure work of fiction. I do not condone any of the actions that take place within this fiction in real life. Minors DO NOT interact. No Age in Bio will be blocked.

There’s something about you that makes Shigaraki’s skin itch. From the moment he saw you, there was the urge to destroy. Like a trigger, you set him off. Maybe it was your smile, or the way you stood so high and mighty as you called yourself the ‘hero of heros’, or maybe it was how quickly you had risen in the ranks earning yourself a place at AllMight’s side. Whatever it was, one thing was clear;

He wanted to break you.

He could recall the first time he feeling it, the insatiable urge to break you down. You had called yourself “Revival”, a rather corny name he had thought but one that seemed to describe your quirk well. Your quirk that seemed to directly oppose his own. He had done his research on you, your mother having been born with the ability to heal and your father born with a quirk that involved repair, you had somehow been gifted the powerful mixture of both. You had initially made a name for yourself in the recovery and rescue fields, with your most notable feat being the recovery of burned down Forrests. However, after an incident where you were able to completely reverse the effects of one of his victims, people regarded you as a top ranking hero who was ‘immune’ to the Leader of the League of Villains.

People loved you. You gave them hope. Even All Might regarded you as a great and powerful hero and, that made his skin crawl.

His hatred had quickly become a fixation, and he began to behave more recklessly to garner your attention. Attacking civilians with hopes you’d show up, destroying buildings, and Forrests to test the limitations of your quirk. He would never truly leave the scene of the crime, always just a ways away, watching you.

Sometimes he’d go so far as to follow you afterwards, his skin crawling as All Might would place his hands on your shoulder after a long day, laughing about how amazing you were.

Were you fucking him? Disgusting. You’d probably fuck anything if you were fucking that old bat.

He hated watching others touch you, sometimes he’d find himself biting his lip until it bled while you laughed at a table full of hero’s, all of you gathered and drinking together. So fucking chummy with one another.

What would your face look like if you knew he were just a mere few feet away? What would your reaction be if he were the one touching you?

When he voiced his thoughts to the other members, they didn’t seem to understand him in the slightest.

“Aww, Shigi you’re in love!” Toga exclaimed excitedly. Twice seemed to agree, before calling him some insult in a separate voice. “You should just fuck her already and get it over with.” Dabi notes, nonchalantly.

“Don’t be such a brute, he should try and buy her flowers. I’m sure she’ll love it.” Toga adds, blushing crimson as she begins to go on and on about how good being in love feels.

“I don’t love her…” Shigaraki gripes, trying to silence the now rowdy bar as they all descend into their usual chaos. Dabi, the only sane one at the moment, shoves his hands in his pockets before leaning against the counter next to Shigi. “Listen, I don’t care about whatever feelings you have towards that hero but, it’s getting creepy how often you talk about her. Whatever you want to do, just get it over with so we can get back to the mission. I’m not here for any love fest.” He advises.

That’s how he ended up here, in your home, sitting on your couch and waiting for you to come home, like some crazy obsessed boyfriend.

At first he was uncertain, he had followed you home many times but, he had never actually broken in.

However, it quickly dissipated and was replaced with hatred as he observed the various pictures and certificates along the walls. You had pictures with your family, and awards from various parts of your life. It reminded him of just how much he couldn’t stand you. You, the ever-so-privileged, to be fortunate enough to live this happy little life of yours.

He wanted to snatch it all away from you.

The faint click of the door alerts him of your arrival, and his head snaps up to find you staring back at him in horror.

The next set of events are a bit of a blur, as he immediately stands to his feet to chase you down, somehow knocking you too your feet and slamming the door shut, and locking it behind him. You had tried to fight him, but the moment his hands grabbed your legs, it was over. You could only scream in agony as your leg began to rot and fall away.

Shigi was stunned for a moment, his eyes wide as he watched the tears stream down your face as you mourned your now lost limb. He had known he was fucked in the head, but right now as he watched you try and crawl away, his cock twitching in excitement, he knew something had been very wrong with him.

"So you aren't completely immune to me..." He says, more to himself than to you with an amused grin on his face.

He doesn't chase you, you're too hysteric to think logically, immediately trying to bring back your own leg when you realize that the rotting is spreading further and further, reaching your knee.

While you make quick work of bringing back your leg, he digs in his pockets for his gloves, sliding them on his hands while humming casually.

"W- why are you doing this?" You ask, confused and distraught.

He doesn't answer, only reaching for a syringe that he bought with him with a newfound sense of pride.

"Try not to fight to much..." is all he says, before sticking the needle into your neck, and everything fades to black.

When you come to, it’s pitch black inside your home. Not even the moons fluorescent light shines through the void that engulfs your living space. You can tell you’re in your room though, as the familiar firmness of your mattress keeps your warm from the otherwise chilling air.

If not for the throbbing feeling in your leg, you’d have assumed the prior events had only been a nightmare, but, unfortunately for you this all was very very real and the man who lay watching you with his arm across your abdomen and his crimson eyes boring into the side of your face was no figment of your imagination.

“You’re awake? Finally, I was starting to thing I had injected you with too much…”

Is all he says as you try to pry him off of you, only for you to realize that your arms and legs are tied to the posts.

“Please…whatever it is I did to end up on your bad side…I apologize.” You say, eyes watering in a desperate attempt to pull sympathy from him. You may have been a hero but you healed, helped rebuild buildings, and worked on rescuing civilians. Your quirk wasn’t built for combat, Allmight had sought you out for your abilities sure, but as a sidekick, you were still just learning the ropes in terms of fighting bad guys! You were in no way capable of handling the league of villains leader, at least you thought so.

Your tears only served to excite him

“Yes, this is exactly what I wanted to see..” he uttered in complete fascination, “Cry harder for me, sweet girl.”

Your body physically recoils when you feel something firm pressing into your side.

Was he getting off on this?

“You..You’re sick!” You spit at him, a wave of disgust and anger washing over you as you seethe at him through hot tears. “Let me g- mmh!”

You’re silenced by his mouth pressing against yours, a gloved hand gripping your throat tight enough to block your air ways forcing you to instinctively try and gasp for air.

He makes an attempt to slip his slimy wet tongue into your mouth and—

CHOMP.

“Fuck!” He hisses, pulling back from you. “I’m bleeding..” he announces to you, annoyed and angry as if he weren’t literally trying to force himself on you.

You want to make a smart remark but before you could say anything his hands were in your pants, prying you open with his fingers.

“I was trying to be nice to you, ya know. Wanted to ease you into it.” He gripes while you bite at your lip, trying to close your legs but to no avail.

“But if you keep acting like a little bitch, I’ll just rip you open. I can make this feel good for you or painful..I’ll cum either way” He threatens.

You can’t hide the way your face twists in disgust, nausea overtaking you as he starts to massage your clit sloppily and unskilled. Was this some kind of sick joke? There was no way he’d make you feel good no matter how gentle or shitty he was to you. Still…you weren’t foolish enough to pick a fight with someone while you had no way to defend yourself. You could only hope that one of your hero friends would stop by to save you.

Shigaraki takes your silence as an agreement of compliance (it is) and makes a second attempt at kissing you, this time the taste of metal invading your senses as his blood gets in your mouth. He doesn’t remove his fingers from your heat, only adjusting them so they’re not so uncomfortable.

His movements are slow and methodical, shifting every so often while he watches for a reaction from you. His fingers twist and curl until he finds a particular spot that makes you moan in his mouth.

“Cute..” his whispers against your lips, his face just a few centimeters from yours as he rubs against that same spot a few more times. “Can you hear that?” He asks, drawing your attention to the wet sounds coming from below your waist, “You’re so wet from just a few fingers.”

You turn away from him, biting your lip to try prevent yourself from making anymore involuntary sounds. “I-it’s a Biological response. That…that doesn’t mean I’m enjoying this.” You try to explain. But the smirk radiating off his face, tells you that he doesn’t believe you…or care.

He starts to press into that spot harder, kissing at your neck and leaving little bites on your shoulder. “I guess I’m not the only sick one. You claim to hate this, but you’re dripping down my fingers.” He taunts, “How would your precious Allmight feel if he knew you were getting off on his enemies fingers? Do you think he’d get rid of you?”

You don’t answer. Instead you try and place your focus anywhere else, on anything else. But his constant chatter won’t allow your mind to wander for long.

“Fuck, I want to feel you…”

His hand leaves your sex, and for a moment there’s shuffling beside you. The sound of zippers and clothes dropping being the only thing to fill the otherwise silent room. You had hoping if you just let him do what he wanted, he would get it over with quickly.

But Shigaraki had no intention of letting you stay silent the entire time. He slipped his gloves off, making sure he was in full view and your heart rate picks up instantly as the thought of him touching you fills you with newfound paranoia.

He’s careful this time though, letting his fingers graze over your clothes and watching as they disintegrate beneath his touch, leaving only a cool sensation ghosting in their wake.

You whimper when he’s got you down to your underwear, shuddering in the silence while he plays with the hem of your panties. You flinch at the contact, and he almost laughs.

“Careful, if you move too much, you might lose your leg again..” he warns playfully, though you don’t find anything about what he says to be funny at all.

He observes your lower half for a moment longer before speaking again. “Your leg did heal nicely though. I wonder…if I were to keep breaking away at you, could you keep putting yourself back together?”

His curiosity was scaring you. You didn’t know yourself and you didn’t want him trying to find out the answer.

“T- Tomura…”

His eyes seem to hone in on you, he never expected his name to leave your lips, but he liked the sound. Something he made a mental note of for later.

Ever the oblivious to your future misfortune, you only cared about placing his mind else where. “A- Are you going to put that inside me?” You asked, raising your head, only to take in his naked form. He was a lot more muscular than you had expected, still fairly thin but in a lean kind of way, as if he had been training.

There were scars along his pale skin, ones that trailed down his abdomen leading to his—

“Do you mean my dick?” He says, a little too confidently as he places himself between your legs.

You only nod in reply, disgusted with yourself.

If the circumstances had been different, you would have rolled your eyes...but this was a moment of desperation. If you didn't keep him entertained, he would clearly find ways to entertain himself. Horrifying ways that would only end in suffering for you.

"I want to hear you say it...ask me to put it in." he says, his mouth getting closer to your loins, kissing at your inner thigh.

A larger part of you wanted to pull away, but you knew better. He had slipped his gloves back on, somewhere in the midst of your little interaction, and had his lips kissing dangerously close to your pussy. It was better this than him testing the limits of your quirk.

"Go on...Beg me for my dick..."

He swipes his tongue up your bare slit, it's warm but leaves a cold and wet feeling after. He doesn't stop there, his cracked lips kissing your bundle of nerves, before he circles it with his tongue.

Its foreign feeling at first, and strange, but you can't stop the way your breath picks up as he licks at your most sensitive parts. The fact that you're even giving him a reaction fills you with shame. You just want this to be over.

"Pl-please put your dick in me.." you say, your own voice just barely above a whisper in an attempt to mask the fact that your voice sounds a little less like your own right now.

"Hmm? What was that? I didn't hear you..."

You were embarrassed and overstimulated, and there was a strange feeling starting to build up in your tummy from his tongue on you. As sloppy as it was, he was learning your body quickly, and that was terrifying.

"Please...Tomura...Put your dick in me.." You say, louder this time.

"You want it?"

"Y-es.."

He smiles a genuine smile, and had you have known what he was thinking, you may have fought him a little harder.

He brings his face back to yours, his hands on either side of your head and his length nestled between your folds and twitching in excitement. "Kiss me..." He commands, but he sounds breathless, needy almost.

You do as you are told, despite your skin crawling, despite the bile that's building in your throat, despite the alarm bells going off inside your head.

The kiss felt different than the first.... the first was experimental, curious. This one was greedy, like he intended to take something with it.

"Mm..MM" Your wrists twist at the restraints as the tip of his cock pushes past your folds, pressing into your innards and spreading your walls apart.

"Relax a little for me baby..." he growls, hips stuttering as he feels how tight you are. He groans when his balls finally slap against your cunt, bottoming out inside you.

For a moment you're in disbelief, you try to scan through memories, trying to find something that would make sense of the situation you're in right now. Searching for anything that would explain why he was doing this to you.

Meanwhile, Tomura was pulling back his hips to fuck into you again. You moan as he sets a slow pace as if he's savoring the feeling of you.

You're made to feel every inch of him as he pressed into you deep. "Fffuck.." you curse under your breath, as the girth of him grinds into your gspot.

You can feel the build in your stomach again, and your walls start to spasm around his dick.

"That's right, cum for me pretty girl..." he says, picking up his pace, snapping his hips forward. You can't think anymore, not that you want to anyway. He thrusts once, then again, and suddenly your coming undone, your limbs shaking as an orgasm wracks throughout your entire body.

He talks you through your orgasm, whispering about how good of a whore you are, about how your body was made for him, how you were made for him, about how he's known all along that you were his.

It scares you when he says those things but, it scares you even more that you're starting to believe him.

______________________________________________________

Authors note: Hope people like the one-shot. Again english isn't my first language so I apologize for any grammar or spelling errors. This isn't meant to be anything serious or align with any part of the recent storyline in anyway. Just something I wanted to write. If there needs to be more tags or warnings, I'll be sure to add them. Hope it is well received. Again, I don't condone any of the acts depicted here in real life. Minors DO NOT interact or Follow. No Age in Bio will be Blocked (I'll get to checking my following soon). Thank you to anyone who does like the stuff I write.

[hrizantemy]

me when i hear people defend feyre attacking the lady of autumn by saying she didn’t mean to/beron was her intended target: … how … how is that better?

like okay we all hate beron but he’s still a high lord, still someone you invited to form an alliance/negotiate with diplomatically. in a court where you are a guest might i add. you are a child they all saw practically naked two days ago, now playing house with a man (sorry, male) who willingly or otherwise tormented them for the better part of half a century .. because he gave you a pretty crown? how does one expect these old ass fae to not be condescending or reluctant? i’d have asked her to let the adults do the talking if she was piping in every two seconds telling me what to think and how to act.

the high lords’ meeting is my roman empire because it’s one of those instances where you have to let your jaw hit the floor because in what world - except one where sjm expects everyone to love her blorbo’s for all their correct opinions and positions - did any of that work?? with no consequences?? in fact they’re rewarded for their behaviour: tarquin rescinds the blood rubies, everyone’s chiming in about how they knew rhysand was the good guy all along, no one cares about the high lord who is why they’re all free rn (okay feyre broke the curse — tamlin’s curse. tamlin killed amarantha. he is why rhysand is free to rewrite history and the others have a future) i’m surprised there wasn’t a scene where the lady of autumn apologises to feyre for being in the way of her attack smh

This is one of the reasons I cannot like Feyre. The justification that she “didn’t mean to” attack the Lady of Autumn or that “Beron was her intended target” makes absolutely no sense and, frankly, makes the situation worse. How is it any better that her recklessness and inability to control her powers led to an innocent woman nearly being killed? The Lady of Autumn was already a victim of Beron’s abuse and violence, and Feyre—who should, of all people, understand the trauma of being hurt or manipulated by powerful individuals—just becomes another threat to her. How is that defensible in any way?

Even if Beron was her intended target, that doesn’t excuse the collateral damage of almost killing someone who was completely uninvolved in the fight. Feyre’s powers are vast, yes, but she constantly wields them with this mix of entitlement and carelessness that makes her more of a liability than a hero. It’s one thing to make mistakes; it’s another to make catastrophic ones and have people excuse them as if the consequences don’t matter.

And let’s be real—Feyre is never held accountable for these actions. The narrative either brushes it off or turns it into another moment for someone to coddle her and tell her how amazing she is. Meanwhile, the Lady of Autumn is left to fend for herself, as usual, trapped in her abusive marriage, and probably now terrified of Feyre as well. The complete lack of responsibility Feyre takes—or is made to take—for her actions is one of the biggest reasons I can’t root for her. She’s not a savior; she’s a wrecking ball with a savior complex.

The entire High Lords meeting was, without question, a complete disaster. It was supposed to be this grand gathering where the courts would come together to ally against Hybern, but instead, it devolved into petty squabbles, veiled insults, and outright hostility. Rhysand, for all his posturing as the most “progressive” High Lord, walked into the meeting with an attitude so smug it practically dared the others to disagree with him. Tamlin, true to form, took the bait and immediately turned the whole thing into a personal grievance fest. Beron was his usual insufferable self, Helion was flirting, and everyone else seemed more interested in holding grudges than actually saving the world.

Nobody trusted anyone, and honestly, who could blame them? These are the same people who’ve been at each other’s throats for centuries, and now they’re supposed to just shake hands and work together? Rhysand’s attempts at diplomacy mostly amounted to thinly veiled threats, Feyre’s speeches did little to inspire confidence. It was all spiraling into chaos.

And then came Nesta.

Nesta, who was barely even acknowledged as part of the delegation. Nesta, who didn’t care about politics, alliances, or playing nice. Nesta, who was so angry, so filled with righteous fury, that her words cut through the nonsense like a blade. When she stood up and spoke about what Hybern had done, about what they would do if the High Lords didn’t put aside their differences and act, she commanded the room. She didn’t appeal to their egos or try to manipulate them; she just told the truth in the most raw, unflinching way possible.

Her speech wasn’t about Rhysand’s court, or Tamlin’s grudges, or Beron’s smug indifference. It was about the people who would suffer and die if they didn’t unite. It was about the horrors she had witnessed and endured. It was about the cost of their pride and their inaction. And for the first time in the entire meeting, there was silence.

That speech was the turning point. It was the reason the High Lords agreed to set aside their centuries of animosity and work together. Not because of Feyre’s attempts to “inspire” them, not because of Rhysand’s threats, but because Nesta Archeron reminded them of what was at stake.

And here’s the kicker: even after she was the one who secured the alliances they needed, the credit still went elsewhere. Feyre, Rhysand, and their crew walked away looking like the saviors, while Nesta was left on the sidelines again. The meeting may have been a mess, but Nesta was the only reason it wasn’t an outright failure.

Bonus mention: My man Thesan was the only unproblematic one at that entire meeting. He showed up, minding his own business, probably thinking, “I am a healer, not a referee for this soap opera.” While everyone else was busy airing centuries of dirty laundry, Thesan was out here like, “So… about that war threatening all our lives?”

He didn’t come for the drama, didn’t throw unnecessary shade, and managed to keep his court from looking like an absolute circus. Honestly, if I were him, I would’ve been this close to kicking the entire Night Court delegation out.

If anyone deserved to walk out of that meeting with dignity, it was Thesan. The man probably, sat down with a glass of wine after, and said, “Never again.”

[drarryspecificrecsdaily]

2024.08.20

Complete fics posted on AO3 this day

1. devotion (my blood sings with your voice) by @lupinflowrs [M, 2k]

►draco and harry love each other so, so much that it's hard to put into words. harry tries to.

2. Kitchen dancing to bad 90’s music by Big_dog_energy [?, 19k]

►When Draco gets injured in his animagus form, he’s forced to live with Harry Potter until he recuperates. What ensues is the most unlikely friendship—and then romance— the Wizarding World has ever seen. /// Featuring a snide, sassy Draco, a soft, domestic post-war world and Harry Potter with PTSD medication in his bedside drawer and flowers on his windowsill.

3. Made for Duty by @pixiedunhoff [E, 11k]

►A one night stand will entwine the futures of Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy forever.

4. The No Divorce Clause by @coffeedrgn87 [E, 144k]

►Haunted by the war’s aftermath, Harry Potter flees his old life, searching for peace in far-flung corners of Europe. But peace proves elusive when he unexpectedly crosses paths with Draco Malfoy. In a world where magic lingers just beneath the surface, their journey takes them through enchanted cities and ancient secrets, testing the boundaries between rivalry and something far deeper. With unresolved tension crackling between them, Harry and Draco face a slow-burning connection that neither can ignore. As they navigate heartbreak, danger, and the shadows of their past, they’ll discover that the hardest battle isn’t always against dark wizards—it’s against the walls they've built around their hearts.

5. you cannot save people, you can only love them by falconns [T, 3k]

►[...] They aren't supposed to find safety in each other, but that's what it feels like. He feels like a place Harry didn't think even existed anymore.

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Fest/Exchange

1. The only thing worse than heartbreak is Vermont by @jtimu [E, 31k] --- ART by @girlcave

►In the aftermath of a failed relationship, Draco Malfoy found himself with three things. His pride (tattered), Theo's luggage (stolen), and an all-inclusive couples' vacation package to Vermont (awful). ★ Drarry Mini Bang | @drarry-mini-bang

2. Seeker Practice by @poljupci [E, 1k]

►Harry Potter is a good Seeker. The fact that catching their snitch of a soulmark gets both of them all hot and bothered is just some extra incentive. ★ HP Soulmates Fest 2024 | @hp-soulmates