#WELL THAT'S WHAT TRAUMA DOES Y'ALL | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

hyukascampfire · 5 months ago

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𝒯𝑂: 𝑆𝑂𝑀𝐸𝑂𝑁𝐸 𝐹𝑅𝑂𝑀 𝐴 𝑊𝐴𝑅𝑀 𝐶𝐿𝐼𝑀𝐴𝑇𝐸 ༉

𝓘N THIS STORY 〃 a life lived as a human among the fae is hard-earned. the folk are built of indescribable beauty, and of debauchery and mischief. for some, a life lived subservient to the folk is just fine; but to those who dream of something more, they would spend their lives clawing and biting to make it happen.

you, looking for a way to escape a life as a faerie’s human servant, put a new foot forward thinking that any life could be better than that. but, when your first assignment as a king’s spy is alongside a brooding, icy faerie man, you begin to wonder what your place in this foreign world really could be.

wc ➳ 17.5k

pairings faerie!taehyun x human!reader

warnings violence (stabbing... twice..), a dead animal appears in a scene, fem reader, mentions of past family trauma, cunnilingus, overstimulation, unprotected sex

playlists ⑊ yeonjun ˒ taehyun ˒ series

…🪶 ashlynn's note y'all. Y'ALL. I have so much in store for you. I was hunched over my desk writing this like a crazed scientist mixing their chemicals.

← ⑊ →

It’s more difficult than you had anticipated to keep your mouth shut about what had happened, but Taehyun stays quiet, so you do too. You make yourself useful, packing up with him, hoping to ease the palpable tension.

Insecurities whisper in your ears that the kiss was just… disappointing to him. It was your first kiss, anyway. The feel of his lips on yours is brutally seared into your mind. You hope your mouth harasses his mind as much as his does yours. You can’t let that fester for too long, though. You have a lot to do to become a useful spy. Your inadequacy is why you’re even here, traveling in silence next to Taehyun, heading north. You’re not sure why they decided to throw you to the wolves for your first assignment, but there has to be a reason. You can only throw yourself more fully into improving your skillset.

You decide on trying to cut the nagging tension with words. You’ve walked for hours with it looming in the air. But, it isn’t easy. You open your mouth to speak, closing it to rethink your words, and repeat a few times, before finally just saying, “What are we going to even be doing, when we reach the north?” You readjust your bag on your shoulders, its thick straps digging into the bone of your shoulder. The bag is heavier than it was yesterday. Everything is heavier today. Maybe it’s the realization that you’re progressing toward your dream, but it’s all hazier than you imagined it would be. Or, maybe, it’s the awful cold shoulder Taehyun is throwing at you.

“Do you know much about the Unseelie queen?” He asks.

You shake your head. You know that her kingdom is revered as the most fearsome in Faerie, and you know that they hold a special brew of distaste for humans. But, you do not know much more. Your school lessons had, for reasons you could infer, brushed over the ice kingdom only very briefly. The folk prefer that humans don’t see those sides of this world. Not for your peace of mind—but, because it keeps you complacent. It’s not like you don’t see it, anyway. You know the evils of this world well.

“You need to be careful when we get there. Things get rough for humans up there. You need to remember that you can’t trust the words that come from their mouths.”

How long until snow powders the ground? The scenery around you has already grown wintry—trees are sparse, and foliage is hardier. It all is so much more muted. Probably not too long.

“We’re going to be infiltrating The Queen’s Court. She’s always pledged allegiance to him, but The King wants eyes and ears in the north.”

The King thinks that she’s going behind his back? There’s more in this world that you are oblivious to than you imagined. You’ve been under the impression that the Northern Queen was starkly allegiant to The High King. It makes sense, though. There isn’t much incentive to keep humans in the know on faerie politics when you’re just here to be working bodies. “Does he have any reason to believe that?” you ask. It would be nice to have some more information.

Taehyun explains, “The Northern Court and High Court have had a history of tension. It’s why it became a tradition to send their children to intermingle with each other’s courts. However, the Queen hasn’t upheld that tradition for at least the past hundred years.” An extra chilly breeze licks at your cheeks, and you shiver. You are definitely making progress northward.

“So, he risks the lives of his heirs?” you ask, pursing your lips. If the northern court is supposed to be so vicious, you cannot imagine why The King would even consider it, especially if relations are supposed to be so strained.

“The Queen would not outright harm them. She values the power that his alliance gives her too much, and she would lose the war that would follow. She is the scheming type.” Taehyun tugs up the hood of his cloak to keep the wind from chapping his skin, and you do so with yours as well. “Which is why we’re going up there in the first place.”

You acknowledge his answer with a nod. The wind whips past you, and you have to fight it to keep your eyes open. You would appreciate the accompanying snowfall if it was not blowing wildly down on you and stinging your cheeks. With a flex of your fingers, you confirm that they’re still mobile, but they’re lethargic and locked up in the cold. A powdery layer of snow builds on the ground, and you curse it for the way it has your toes freezing through even your leather boots.

“Can,”—Your teeth chatter—“Can we get a fire going, or something?”

You catch a glimpse of his face under his hood as he turns to you. His nose and cheeks are rosy, but it seems that the cold affects him less than it does you. The snow is high enough now that you have to drag your feet through with each forward step. Is the rest of the way going to be like this? You might freeze to death, then.

“We’ve got a bit of time. Let’s get as far as we can, before stopping.”

You roll your eyes. Maybe he wants you to freeze to death, and then he could be freed from any trace of what had happened last night. You bring your hands to your mouth and let out warm puffs of air as if it would thaw out your poor hands and nose.

Your mouth struggles to even form words.“I would appreciate living to see tomorrow,” you say slowly. You still lace it with plenty of attitude.

Taehyun doesn’t respond.

❆

Taehyun curses as visibility wanes to only a few feet. All that lays in your path is whipping snow and haze.

Your boot catches on something beneath the snow, and you tumble. Frigid snow and ice shards greet you on the ground, biting your skin. Looking up, you find Taehyun gone. He has to be at least somewhere in the gray haze around you; it’s only been a few seconds. If you can’t find him, you’ll die here. That isn’t up for debate.

“Taehyun?” you shout, your voice muffled and carried away by the howling wind.

You stay where you are, but lift yourself from the ground. You can’t start wandering blindly, you’ll end up separating further from him.

He calls your name, but it’s distant.

“Here,” you say, “I’m over here!”

There are many ways that you do not want to die, but you especially do not want to die like this. Your throat tightens the longer he doesn’t respond.

“Taehyun?”

He appears through the veil of snow and haze. A cry erupts from your throat, your voice breaking with relief. He takes you by the arm and tugs you behind him wordlessly, searching for something.

“I thought I was dead,” you say to the air, but it mostly drowns you out.

“I know.” His voice is thick. “I did too.”

He finds whatever it is that he seems to be searching for, and you might cry as you recognize the rocky opening to be a cavemouth. You won’t be dying today, at least.

“I’m going to start a fire,” Taehyun announces only moments after you both duck under the low cavemouth and step into the refuge of the cave walls.

“You’ll get lost.” It’s true, but you also just cannot stand the idea of sitting in this cave alone for any extended amount of time. Your hand is barely visible in front of you, and it’s only getting darker as the blizzard grows thicker outside.

“I’ll be fine. You’re going to freeze to death without it,” he says, before he dips out, leaving you alone and shivering. He could’ve at least given you a second to protest.

You’re not usually too scared of the dark, but you do press your back to the wall, decorated with liverwort, and sit. Getting separated earlier nags at your mind. You have to remember that you aren’t safe. A line of work like this guarantees it. You could easily have become a body losing heat out in that flurry of wind and snow. You would’ve died before ever seeing the fruits of what you could make of yourself; would’ve died living an insignificant life. Some jaded part of you wonders what Taehyun might’ve felt if you had. Would he move on with this assignment without delay?

At least the wind is no longer circulating about the cave and producing the howl that has been haunting you. There are no such wintry winds to freeze up your extremities in here, but it’s still cold enough to have you shuddering and tucking your hands underneath your knees to ration your warmth.

Will you even be able to make it all the way to the Northern Court? You imagine telling Taehyun that you can’t handle it, or that you’re going back, and you imagine the look that would fall over his face. No. You’d become a statue of ice, frozen forever at a crossroads between a meaningless life and new beginnings, before that.

The cold beckons you to sleep, and the aching in your tired back and limbs say that sleep is a splendid idea, but you resist. You need to see him return so that you know that a fire will warm your aching bones to sleep. But you are so cold, and sleeping it away sounds so nice…

Your eyelids are heavy, and it’s harder to keep them open than it is to just let them fall. Your veins are sluggish with the cold.

When your head drops, you’re brought back to consciousness, but it’s so, so cold when you’re awake. It’s so cold that it burns. Even your lungs are slow and weary.

You are so cold that you can no longer shiver.

Something is muffled and shuffling beyond your huddle, but you can’t rally the energy to worry about it. You hang suspended between dream and consciousness. You want both so badly.

Taehyun curses. “I need you to stay awake,” He says. You can only muster a nod for him. Your eyes protest as you hold them open, watching Taehyun hastily sparking up a fire. He strikes rocks against each other, growing more frustrated each time a spark doesn’t catch. When one does, the flame starts slowly on the snow-wetted wood. Your skin tingles under the warmth radiating from it. The roiling flame is intense, having been cold for so long.

You bask in the fire’s flickering light. Movement comes easier to your limbs as you defrost. Taehyun produces a few hardy roots and skins them with a dagger that glints in the low light, then sets them to roast over the flame.

“How did you find those?” you say. It was hard to even walk out there, and you’re sure it had gotten worse while he was out. How would he even find them under the snowpiles, unless he knew where to look?

He gives you a long look, as if considering something. “Just got lucky digging through the snow while I was looking for the wood.”

That explanation doesn’t make sense; finding three subsurface roots underneath thick snow is different from finding hunks of wood protruding from it. It might be the truth, but you decide to ask, “Under the snow?”

Fire crackling is the only sound to fill the silent moment as he doesn’t answer. Well, if you weren't already iffy, you are now. He watches the flames prance around for a charged moment, the reflection of it shimmering in his dark eyes.

“I’m from the north,” he finally says. You frown. Why hadn’t he just said that in the first place?

“Is that why your ears aren’t pointed?” you ask, sitting up a bit. He pulls the roots, lightly toasted, off the fire.

His gaze rips away from the flame, landing on you. His eyes are a little too intense for such a simple question. “No,” he says. His behavior tickles a curious part of you; if you’re going to be on this assignment together for so many weeks, then it’s best to get to know each other. You also have been intensely curious about his ears from the moment you noticed their curvature. It’s odd to see fundamentally human features on a faerie.

You don’t mean to be overly invasive, though, and you feel bad for prodding so much as his face hardens. You hadn’t thought too much about why it might be a sensitive subject for him; you just wanted to satisfy your curiosity. You’re seconds from telling him that you like his ears, but he speaks before you can.

“My mother was human,” he says, his eyes trained on the cave floor in front of him. He’s half human? That’s why he’s so averse to mentioning his ears—he’s embarrassed by his human mother. You stew over that. If he dislikes his mother for her humanity, it explains how he has acted concerning you. You pity him, though. It would be difficult to belong anywhere with that specific mix of blood: humanity fears him, and Faerie does not treat half-blooded faeries as truly its own.

“She hid herself away when she found she was pregnant, and gave birth to me where she thought she would be safest. She knew what my father would do. He found her eventually. He killed her because she was dirt on his name. He couldn’t kill me, though.” Your stomach does a sickened flip. You know that, by faerie honor, he would have to raise Taehyun.

“I’m so sorry, Taehyun,” you say. He just presses his lips thin and hands you a roasted root to eat.

“I hated him for it more each day, so one day I took a blade to my ears and made sure I never resembled him again. At least, in that way.” Your heart lurches. The thought of him carving off the points of his ears to spite his dad… He had maimed himself, and you’ve been poking and prodding him about it. You wince.

You want to apologize again, but you have a feeling that he doesn’t want any more apologies, and you don’t know him well enough to comfort him in any meaningful way. Instead of saying something that you’re sure will ring hollow, you say, “The faerie that stole me from my parents was a seamstress. She wanted a human girl to work her shop for her, without having to pay wages like she would for a faerie. It was taxing work, even when I was this tall,”—you denote the height of a child six or seven years old with your hand—“Maybe she just didn’t know what it means to raise a human child, but she wasn’t the best replacement for parents. She knew that I needed to be fed at least regularly, and provided everything I needed for hygiene, but she didn’t know that I needed a mother. She gave me an education, and I know that humans here don’t usually get that. I’m grateful for it—I really, really am, but it’s just… The fact that it was more for her own benefit than out of the goodness of her heart…”

Taehyun listens, his eyes reflecting the oranges and yellows of the fire. You know that you’re rambling. “Sorry. What I’m trying to say is… I guess…” You hope the yellow glow of the flames is enough to disguise your embarrassment, and also that he doesn’t think you’re trying to upstage him. You just feel wretched for putting him in a position where he had to surrender such dark memories to you.

He doesn’t say anything, taking a root from the fire for himself and biting into it.

You bite into the fat, tuber-like root too, appreciating its nutty flavor, and you embrace the silence that grips the cave. Only the garbling of the fire speaks, but it is a comfortable quiet.

❆

The snowstorm must’ve died down while you slept, because the snow isn’t too much higher when you and Taehyun set back out the next day. It’s a bit of a drag to fight the mountains of snow it left with each step, but you don’t complain.

Sunlight shimmers off ice crystals and sends droplets down from snow-dusted branches and to your cheeks. Every breath into your lungs is crisp, but you have bundled yourself in the thermal clothing from the bag Taehyun had packed for you, so you’re mostly comfortable. At least your fingers and toes are mobile now.

Taehyun says that you have less than a day until you’re there. You repeat that like a mantra in your head as your feet ache with the strain of traveling so far by foot. He hasn’t said much else since, though, and you wonder if it has anything to do with last night’s topics of choice. His shoulders are as tense as his demeanor.

It’s getting boring walking for hours on end, and Taehyun isn’t the most talkative. The most you get for entertainment is your thoughts and watching the scenery change. So, you decide to put this time to use. You apply the silent walking technique that he had taught you despite how awfully your feet ache. It’s harder in the snow, but you’re better off knowing how to do it even in extraneous circumstances. You don’t know all that you’ll be facing in the north. Sliding your sword off your back, you realize how much it had been dragging your back down. No wonder your spine aches…. You practice swings and jabs, still sloppy with inexperience.

Taehyun hears you, and says over his shoulder, “Don’t push yourself today. You were close to freezing to death last night, just recharge your energy.”

Was it so bad? You know you had gotten pretty cold, but you feel fine now. “I was just exhausted, not freezing. We walked forever yesterday.”

You continue trying to get used to the weight of a sword in your hands.

Trees start coming fewer and farther between, and though the snow on the ground grows lower, it is crusted over in an icy layer that you have to break through with each step. Everything is sharper and more icy, less fluffy and light. Icicles drip from trees so sharp they could substitute for a weapon. You put away your sword; the ground is slick, and you’ll fall if you don’t think your steps through. You’ve got to be in the Northern Kingdom, now.

You walk like this for a while longer, only sparse trees and shrubbery, until an estate standing tall on the snowy flat peeks through the midday haze. An ancient and gnarled blackthorn tree sits proud on the estate’s grounds. Its spiny branches, bare of any fruit or leaf, twist among themselves. They remind you of impish claws.

Taehyun is heading straight for the estate.

“Are we about to meet somebody?” you ask, closing the distance between you with a little jog.

He shakes his head. “It’s my father’s residence.”

You stop, and he makes it a few steps ahead of you before he realizes. “We’re meeting your father?” you say. The thought turns your mouth to cotton. He had killed Taehyun’s human mother. Faerie hospitality doesn’t seem to mean much to him, and you don’t think he’ll like you much.

Taehyun’s brow creases. “What? No,” he says, looking back at the estate. “He’s been dead for a while.”

You reign in the relief that you feel, but that tidbit of information renders you curious again. Faeries don’t die of old age. How had he died? Is Taehyun pleased that he’s gone?

“Oh,” you say, not pushing it. You learned that lesson yesterday. “Good, ‘cause I’m not in any shape to be meeting anybody right now.” You drag your fingers through your knotty and tousled hair to make a statement. It’s wet in some places, where snowflakes found their way to your head and melted there. You’re sure it looks even worse than it feels. “Are we staying here, then?” You could use someplace to make yourself look less like you’ve just traveled three straight days, and it’s relatively optimistic that the sizable estate ahead of you has what you might need.

Taehyun hums in confirmation.

You approach the heavy ironwood front doors, and you gape at the wood interior and high ceilings. Nut-hatch’s humble cottage was more than the roaming life the wilder fae prefer, but it pales next to this. Charcoal-black banners hang down from the mezzanine and are embroidered with silver into a family crest that resembles the blackthorn tree that sits on the grounds outside.

“Who, exactly, was your father?” you ask, running fingers along the top of the dusty dining table that sits center of the estate. The sight of the empty chairs that encircle it is almost mournful.

Taehyun doesn’t answer, and when you look for him to see why, he is planted to the floor. A muscle feathers in his jaw as takes in the estate.

“He was general of The Queen’s guard. And, I guess, also a lord in her court.” There’s icy distance in his voice.

This is absolutely the estate of an esteemed general and lord if you’ve ever seen one.

“Anywhere for me to clean up?” you ask. You don’t want to intrude on whatever he’s dealing with returning here.

He nods, pointing up to the mezzanine floor where the walls are lined with doors. “There should be some stuff left over. You can use whatever you find.”

You follow him as he leads to a room. As you draw yourself a bath with water warmed over a fire stove, you cannot help but wonder what awful memories this place might hold for him in its ornate, wooden walls.

❆

Waking up in the warm sheets of a plush bed was a soothing balm for your aching joints and bones. Your hair is fresh and perfumed with the soaps and powdery-scented oils left over in the bathing room. You delighted in brushing out the tangles. The estate is full of pleasures that only the gentry could find mundane; you, on the other hand, are only left scheming how you might make this life your own.

You don’t see much of Taehyun all day, until he pokes into the bedroom you’re staying in and informs you that you’re attending Court tonight, and though you’ve known for a while now, a thick ball of nerves coils up in your stomach.

You unstring your travel bag, worrying that you’ll have to wear what you arrived here in, but Taehyun had packed accordingly. You tug out a mute dress, beige in color, and embroidered in the bodice and skirt of it with bronze threads. The short, puffed sleeves are pretty. There isn’t much to decorate yourself with, no pretty pins or silk shoes in the dressing tables or wardrobes, so you just wear your hair as it is and lace up your traveling boots for footwear. You find yourself in the mirror to be prettier than you’ve ever looked. Any dresses you’ve had access to in your life have been largely unspecial, and they marked you as a human servant. Even nakedness, in the land of Faerie, is more ornate than those kinds of dresses.

You hold the skirts of your dress up and above your feet so that it does not tread on wet snow and dirt as you and Taehyun leave the estate for Court. The knots in your stomach don’t let up any. You know you’ll stick out as a human, that’s a given, but you are deeply terrified you’re going to make a fool out of yourself by forgoing some unspoken faerie revel rule. You can’t compromise your assignment. Does Taehyun know you’ve never partied alongside the fae? Humans often attend faerie revels in the High King’s court, but are they even allowed to do so here?

Taehyun is dressed lavishly, clad in black from head to foot, and he wears a sleeved doublet encrusted with shimmering black beads and threads that glitter in the moon’s light. He wears the black fur pelt of some beast around the collar of his neck. He resembles entirely the son of a general. You feel plain, next to him.

“What do I do when we get there?” you ask, stepping around a puddle encased in a thin layer of cracked ice.

“The King wants to know if anything is going on, so you need to just listen. Look around a little, talk to people you think are interesting, and go from there.”

Sounds simple enough.

A thick forest surrounds the snowy flat that Taehyun’s estate sits on, and as you approach it, Taehyun says, “When we’re there, you can’t dance, no matter how badly you’ll want to.”

“I won’t.” You reassure him, but you’ll just run on the hope that Taehyun sticks near you. Faerie celebration is untamed, and if a human happens to dance among them, they will not be able to regain control over themselves until a faerie takes pity and pulls them out. That isn’t usually the case, though. The folk delight in seeing humans lose themselves to the abundance of faerie delights.

Taehyun accepts your answer, but he stops at one of the many wax-leaved holly trees and plucks a few jewel-red berries from their branches. Holly berries are faerie wards, and humans often carry a handful of them in their pockets to protect themselves from simple faerie glamours.

“I don’t have anywhere to keep them,” you say, taking the berries he drops into your hands. You feel around your dress to reaffirm that it doesn’t have any hidden pockets or pouches. None.

He produces a needle and some twine thread, offering it to you.

“What?” you say, a little lost. Obviously, he wants you to do something with it, because the berry’s juices would burn him, but you’re not exactly sure what.

“String the berries on it, and then I’ll show you.”

You purse your lips and do so as you continue on your way to the revel. Some squish as you do, but you tug them down the thread anyway. The thread seems long enough to wear as a necklace.

When you’re done stringing the berries, you look up to find that you’ve arrived. You admire how The Queen’s hall of revelries is not even a true hall, and is instead formed with tree trunks for walls and their branches for ceilings. Off-kilter faerie music twists and turns and floats alive in the air; the lilting flutes urge your limbs to move. Maybe it’ll be more difficult to stay off the dancing floor than you had initially anticipated.

Taking the strung berries from your hands, Taehyun gives you a look that you yet again cannot decipher before walking around you. He takes the top section of your hair into his hands.

“What are you doing?” you say.

He sections the hair into two and spins the pieces before pinning them in place. He continues fiddling with it for a bit, tugging something around and in between the hair, and then steps away. You feel your hair. He had pinned the hair into a half-updo with an ornamental hair comb and braided the berry string through it as a ward that doubles as a pretty hairstyle. It’s a fairly intricate hairstyle.

“How’d you learn to do hair?” you ask, spinning to face him.

He scratches the back of his neck. “It’s intuitive.”

You laugh a nose-crinkling laugh for the first time in a while and take him by the elbow to drag him toward the reverie ahead of you.

❆

You stand eating fruity delicacies and glazed meats off banquet tables, to curb your anxieties. There is plenty to enjoy—throngs of faeries dancing like nobody's watching to the rich song of the fiddle, long tables surrounded by chatting folk and rendered full with the plumpest of fruits and blocks of various cheeses. You had worried that you would stick out as a human attending Court in the north, but you have quickly realized that most are more worried about sinking in the debauchery than ogling you. There are so many conversations to listen to, but you don’t have the slightest clue which to even begin with. The Queen does not make an appearance today, but you don’t know if she ever even does.

You stand here, though, because Taehyun suggested it was best you split off and try to cover the most you can. You’ve been trying your best to strain your ear, but it all blurs into Court jargon to you. You inspect each of your snacks for the poisons Taehyun had taught you. It’s not like anybody cared enough to poison you, but Faerie courts are fickle.

A tap on your shoulders has you turning around to face the most beautiful faerie man you have ever seen. His brown eyes twinkle under the chandeliers hanging from branches overhead as he regards you, as do the plethora of crystals sewn into his extravagant white get-up. You gulp down the last of the cheese block in your hand.

He smiles, the corners of his lips turned up in a cheeky tilt. “Are the snacks any good?” he says.

It feels a bit odd that he’d be worrying what a human thinks of the food, but you reply anyway, “The cheese is fantastic.”

He laughs, having just watched you gulp down the last bit of it. His honeyed laugh compels laughter from you, too. And, so quickly that you don’t notice it, the rest of the revelry fades around you.

“Do you want to dance?” he says, gesturing over at the whirling sea of faeries. He holds himself with grace, down to his posture.

Your lips tug down into a disappointed frown. There are quite a few things you’re better off not doing here, but that is what you should do the least. “I don’t think I should.”

His eyes flicker with understanding, but his smile doesn’t falter any. “I’ll pull you out if it becomes too much,” he says. “I promise you that.” He presses a pristine hand over his chest, right at his heart, in testament to his sincerity.

Well, his words are plain enough to know that he isn’t lying. But you’re not here to dance; you’re here to perform your duties.

He can tell that you’re not convinced as he studies your face. “We can always stay here and enjoy these,”—he pops a cube of cheese in his mouth, so his next words are muffled—“No problem.”

His quickness to compromise is unfamiliar to you.“Let’s have some cheese.” You try to emulate his smile with your mouth, but you’re sure it looks better on him because he throws his head back and laughs.

The more you study his features, the more you realize how reminiscent of a fox they are. “Can I ask your name, pretty?” he says. The sugary-sweet words taste good in your mouth, and they rot your inhibitions. You shouldn’t be sitting here twirling your hair. Where is Taehyun under this canopy of branches? You wonder if he’s catching any useful stuff. Guilt digs its claws at your skin.

You flounder and try to catch your name as it seems to slip away from your mind and into the air. You’re not always this ditzy, it’s just that his sharp eyes and mouth confuse you. You tell him your name.

“Are all human names as pretty as yours?” he says. He thinks your name is beautiful? Human names are unspirited and prone to repetition, not singular like a faerie name.

You’re not sure how to respond, so you deflect. “What’s your’s?”

His black hair slides over his eyes as he tilts his head, eyes alight. He wears so much on his face. You’re wary, though. Maybe he is cunning like the fox, maybe his face tells you a different story than his mind. You worry again why he is sitting here making conversation with you.

“Yeonjun,” he says, and you try to remember when he had gotten so close.

“Well, Yeonjun,” you say, trying his name in your mouth. “I’m not the most interesting, so if you’re looking for entertainment, I don’t think you’ll find too much here.”

His eyes roam your face for a few heartbeats. “I think you’re plenty interesting. Maybe the most interesting lady this court has had the pleasure of keeping.” His use of the word lady, addressing you, feels good in a bittersweet way. You’re a far cry from a lady, but the sound of it settles deep in your bones and warms you.

The way he sees your burning cheeks, and seems to delight in it, should alarm you. You know his words are saccharine. But, his attention is delicious. You find yourself hoping he’ll stay here and keep you company until the night is over.

“Okay, now I know you’ve got to be up to something,” you say.

He grins and, stepping back, says, “I’m going to go get something for you. Don’t move.” He slips through the gaps of chatting revelers before you can tell him that you won’t move; that you’ll be right here all night because you should be. Taehyun trusts that you’re doing your job. You sigh a breath, trying to force down the guilt that gnaws hungrily at you again.

You make an effort to tune your ears into the conversations around you. There was so much you could’ve missed in the time you spent talking to Yeonjun.

As you do, pair of frilly and silk-draped faerie girls, one with skin like white snow and crystalline wings at her back, and the other with hair inlaid with glittering strands of gold, approach the banquet table arm-in-arm. You hate the way their eyes land on you, and then on your awful dress. You hate the look they share, and the way one hoots at something the other says. Your skin burns with how you become something to laugh at.

You don’t notice Yeonjun’s return until he steps in front of you, his hands full with a bounty of bonbons and indulgences from various tables throughout the hall.

“I want you to try these,” he says. You shoot him a skeptical eye, raising a brow, to which he scoffs and says, “I just wanna know what you think. They’re my favorites.”

You take a sweetmeat and place it in your mouth. Your brows shoot up at its full, mallow flavor.

“You have a sweet tooth?” you ask, chomping on another.

“You could say that,” he says. The flip of his words and the facetious raise of his brows make you feel that he isn’t just talking about confectionaries. You squirm a bit under his heavy gaze.

You continue taste-testing the sweets he brought, but your mind keeps cruelly spinning the jeering of those faerie girls. You scorn your inadequacies; your inability to be a worthy spy, and your inability to ever fit in. It would be easier to act as one with the court and to coax out meaningful secrets if you look at least like you belong. However, Yeonjun seems like the only place you have to start.

“You meant what you said about pulling me out if it becomes too much?” you say.

Yeonjun doesn’t look at all taken aback by your words. He must’ve seen the way your eyes flickered over to the rambunctious dancefloor. “Of course. I won’t let you lose yourself, and nobody will touch a hair on your head.”

“Let’s dance,” you say, and giddiness blooms wide in your chest. Is dancing among the faeries as enchanting as it's said to be?

Here’s to finding out.

Yeonjun brings you to the dance floor, and he smiles down at you as you begin moving. Your limbs are heavy with hesitance. His hands find your waist, and the touch soaks up the stiffness right from you. Suddenly, you are alive in ways that you hadn’t known you could be before. Your boots slide over the packed earth, and he guides you to a rhythm that you can feel thrumming in your bloodstream. Yeonjun’s eyes are on your face. You can feel the other dancers all around you, and you brush up against some here and there, but you don’t mind much. You feel the music in your heartbeat. His fingertips dig divots into your skin, and it’s the only thing you can really feel.

He leans in over your shoulder. “I heard what they said. Do you want dresses? I can give you dresses more beautiful than those girls could dream of wearing.”

It takes the words a bit to cut through the fog in your head, but you narrow your eyes at him. “Is this one really so bad?”

He squeezes his eyes shut in a laugh, as if that were ridiculous, and then opens them to look you in your eyes. “Pretty, you’d look delightful even in your bare skin.” He tugs your bodies impossibly closer, melding them together into one spinning thing. “But, if what they said hurt you, I will give you whatever it is you ask for.”

Even in your hazy state, you know that doesn’t sound right. But, you don’t ask why he would bother with that, you only lose yourself further into his eyes. They devour you.

The music grows faster, and faster, and faster, coiling itself up and around your legs, willing them to dance for you. Yeonjun’s hands grab here and smoothe over there, exploring. Mapping.

“Do you love it?” he asks.

“Yes,” you breathe. Your head is swimming, crashing through the throes of waves, and the undercurrent of panic only thrills you into dancing more.

His eyes rove over you in a languid pass, before he kisses you like your lips are the sweet delicacies he so loves. You are as lost in his lips as you are the spirit of the dancefloor. His hot tongue explores and licks at your lips. The world swirls behind your eyes even as they are squeezed shut, but you welcome the dizzying nature of it. Your heart jumps from its cage in your chest as he brushes a hand along your collarbone, sliding it up the side of your neck, and then places it at the back of your head, pushing you further into his kiss. A vignette blurs your vision, lungs burning for air, but you can’t find it in you to care.

You’re abruptly pulled from the messy tangle of galavanting bodies. Like if someone were to just halt the Earth’s spinning on its axis, your body reels. Your mind comes back to you, but it’s scattered, and your heart pounds like drumbeat in your head.

Someone speaks. It’s Yeonjun’s voice. He situates you in between two of the pillar trees that make the walls of the hall, and you drag in the night air. It’s so fresh it burns your lungs a bit to breathe.

“I feel like shit,” you say. Your heart is still running amok in your chest.

He snorts. “Yeah, I bet. I’m sorry I didn’t notice that you were slipping earlier.”

You’re unsure how long you two danced, but the sky is breaking into day, so it had to have been for way longer than you remember. You groan. Taehyun has to be looking for you. Or, perhaps he left without you.

“Something wrong?” he asks, watching you recover.

“No, no, I’m fine,” you say. “Thank you for that. I’ve never done anything like it.”

His eyes crinkle. He really, really, is beautiful, down to the points of his ears. “You don’t need to thank me. Seeing you enjoy yourself like that was a sight for sore eyes.”

You laugh a little, looking out at the way the sun crests over the horizon from your little hiding spot. The breeze does wonders in brushing up on your blazing skin and placating it. The thrill still lingering in you makes you wonder if you could claim such a life for yourself.

The sound of Taehyun’s voice saying your name rips out that seedling of hope, and stomps it down into the ground. It was a useless hope, anyway. As he approaches you, Yeonjun nods his head in greeting. Taehyun’s face is drawn, but he bows low at the waist. It’s quite a formal greeting.

“It’s time to go,” Taehyun says, addressing you. His eyes are searching yours like he’s trying to find some answer in them. It seems he doesn’t find what he’s looking for.

A crooked smile tugs at Yeonjun’s lips. “Is she under your care?” he asks. It’s a less direct way of asking: does she belong to you?

Taehyun’s face morphs into something hard, but his words remain cordial. “Yes, she is.” You know he says it because it’s the best way to explain why a human would be attending Court, but for some reason, you had expected Taehyun to answer that a little differently.

Taehyun gives you a meaningful look and tilts his head to the side in a silent way to say let’s go. You curtsy a farewell to Yeonjun, letting a soft smile onto your lips before you depart with Taehyun. Yeonjun doesn’t say anything at all, but you feel his eyes following you.

You walk without words until you clear the hall and reach the forest, where the thicket can muffle your sensitive words and keep them just for you. “Did you find anything?” he says. His attention stays ahead, and his jaw is a bit strained. Here it comes; he saw you wasting time.

“Nobody around me was talking about anything other than gossip until I ran into him. His name is—”

“I know who he is.” Taehyun snaps. “Please, enlighten me. What did you learn of him?”

His words feel a bit like he’s spinning you a web. A trap. You don’t even have anything to offer him, because you hadn’t learned anything about Yeonjun.

“You made a promise to me. You promised you wouldn’t dance at all, and I find you dancing with The King’s son.” The world trembles underneath you at his words. You were flirting with a prince all night. You kissed a prince.

The dam of guilt and embarrassment and shame that has been filling you throughout the night crumbles and washes over you. “I didn’t mean to waste time, Taehyun. He just seemed like the most interesting person to talk to. I thought that maybe I could hear something interesting from him.” Your legs protest as you lift them to step over a tall bush. Dancing had exhausted you down to your marrow. “A prince seems like a pretty good place to find information, though.”

“Does kissing him entail hearing something interesting from him?” His words are spat, and when he looks at you, his eyes hold distaste. So he saw that, too.

You sigh. “I didn’t mean for that to happen, either.”

“You didn’t mean for it to happen,” he echoes, scoffing the words. “You are nowhere near serious about this. Why are you even here? Well, let me tell you this; you did not come here to suck the faces of pretty princes. This life is not yours.”

His words are everything you don’t want to hear, and they antagonize the anger in your chest where shame had previously sat. “It’s a little hard to do what you’re asking of me when you send me in looking like this,” you say, gesturing down at your get-up.

“This is about a dress?” Taehyun says. “You don’t need all that. They’re just putting on a show.” He doesn’t say them, but he dances delicately around the words: You’re human.

You get up in front of him so that he has no choice but to look at you. “You know that I’m going in there at a disadvantage! You know that I can’t just blend in, and it’s so much harder when I look like this.” You point your finger at him accusatorily. “And, did you even get anything? You’re sitting here, picking me apart, but really, what did you do?”

He doesn’t respond.

“Oh, that’s rich,” you say, tone mocking.

“The difference,”—he says his words slow—“Is that I didn’t use the night to enjoy myself in snacks and courting ladies.”

“That’s because you spent your night watching me,” you snap. If he was even trying to pick up information, he wouldn’t have had his eyes on you the whole time. “You just wanted to catch something to give me shit about. Can you not see any value in following this thread? If Yeonjun is the king’s son, and he’s taken interest in me, imagine what I can catch hanging around him.” The estate appears on the snow flat as you two clear the forest. The sun hangs well in the sky, now. Ugly hurt twists in your chest. Yeah, you could’ve been more alert, but you can easily turn whatever you’ve got going on into something.

Taehyun shakes his head at you. “I want you to remember this one thing, if you’re going to remember anything I tell you at all. The folk will never fail to make you into a spectacle. Your duties lie in The King, and only that.”

You walk the rest of the way to the estate, and then split off to your rooms, in an awful silence that sits itchy under your skin. It’s always silence, with Taehyun.

❆

Taehyun’s accusatory voice wakes you up from a hard slumber. You don’t have time to even blink out the sleep from your eyes as he roars, and you listen.

“You had him send you dresses?” There is a scorching flame blazing in his eyes, and they blister you.

“Huh?”

His face is pulled into a sneer. “You had the prince send you dresses because you decided you wanted pretty things? What are you doing?” He holds a silvery, glittering gown in one arm.

His words remind you of what Yeonjun had said to you last night, and you curse. How would he even know where to send them?

“I didn’t ask him to do anything,” you say, crossing your arms over your chest.

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m telling you that I didn’t, and I mean it! I didn’t ask him to send me dresses.” You slink out of the mess of a bed, the wood flooring cold under your feet.

“So a royal errand runner shows up at the door, with a pile of dresses directly addressed to you, and I’m supposed to believe that it’s random?”

“Why don’t you just believe me?” you ask, and the words sound pathetic even to you as they leave your mouth. “We’re supposed to be partners. You’re supposed to believe me.”

Rage dissolves from his face, but his features don’t soften. No, instead, they harden into stone. You almost wish they would twist back into fury. You can work with anger. But, whatever this thing that he does is, it leaves you unable to crack through his hardened exterior.

“Take your shit,” he growls, tossing the dress in his arm at you, and then spinning around without care of where it lands.

“I don’t want this, send it back to him,” you say. You go to throw the dress back at him, but his words stop you.

“I already sent them back.”

You watch him storm out. That means that the dress in your hands is not from Yeonjun; it is from Taehyun.

❆

You hold up the gown in front of you. Looking at the sheer material of it, embellished with beads and crystals that remind you of snowflakes in the sky, feels bitter. It only reminds you of the nasty terms you and Taehyun are on.

You haven’t seen him once today, and you assume you’re going to be heading to Court alone, too. All you can feel is resentment.

You go about getting ready with a ten-pound weight in your mind, and Taehyun is as absent as you had imagined he’d be when you leave the estate for Court. The walk feels a bit longer this time. Though you didn’t talk much last night, the presence of Taehyun just being there was enough to ground your nerves.

All is the same as last night in the hall. The tittering of folk and the lovely aroma of burning incense spices the air, and the music is just as inviting. You find that secluded spot Yeonjun had taken you last night when he pulled you out of the crowd and lean into the tree. Tonight, you’re going to just watch which faeries interact. The more you know about who associates with who, the more you’ll be able to dissect your priorities.

Your eyes fall over the throngs, and a majority you remember from last night, but some are new. These folk all have to be important in some capacity; they wouldn’t have a place in Court otherwise. If you look hard enough, maybe you can find who is the most important. It doesn’t help, though, that you’re not familiar with important figures in the Northern Court. Taehyun forgets that he was born into this Court, and you are a foreign human girl. You may be better off playing into your ability to lie; maybe you should spin up a good falsity and ask around with it.

You’re halfway to the crowd with the intent to poke around when Yeonjun steps into your line of vision. His wry smile is inviting, but you can’t do this again.

“You look beautiful tonight,” he says. “But, I don’t recognize that dress.” He looks you over.

“You didn’t tell me who you were, last night,” you say, crossing your arms.

Yeonjun’s suave falters. “Ah. He told you. Did he also not like me sending you those dresses? You sent them back.”

You pinch the bridge of your nose. “Please, I don’t appreciate being toyed with.”

His lips tug into the first frown you’ve seen worn on his ethereal face. “You wound me. I don’t just send gifts like that to anybody. I’m not toying with you. Not even a little bit.”

You’re not sure what to make of his words. He seems like the type that, even when his lips can not form the shape of lies, he would hide them in between the gaps of truths. But you do see sincerity shining in his eyes.

“I didn’t even get to see the dresses,” you say, relenting to the conversation. If he insists on making your company, you’ll entertain him. You wouldn’t dare shoo a prince away, anyway, and his words are a soothing balm to every thought that tugs at your mind.

“Did he give you this one?” he asks, looking down at the glittering thing.

You hum, nodding your head. You wonder if Taehyun has made it here tonight, or if he is even here at all. You’re going to put all your eggs in this basket. If it leads you nowhere, you’ll deal with that when you get there. You don’t know where else to start.

“They’re all yours, whenever you decide you want them. Just come and ask me, sweet thing. I’ll even send you more if you want.”

His words shoot a thrill through you, for whatever reason. It’s hard for you to imagine a life where those kinds of things can be given away so easily.

“Do you want to dance tonight?” He says. His fingers are warm against your skin as he takes your upper arm into his hand. Each time he rubs his thumb over the skin there, it makes you shiver more than it soothes you. You don’t remember much of the time you had spent dancing last night, but you do remember his kiss.

You really can’t do that. You need to do something that keeps you present so that you can pick up on stuff.

You tilt your head to one side and offer, “How about you show me around? I wanna see your hiding places. I know you’ve got some.” You smile a heart-felt smile; running around the hall and discovering the nooks and crannies Yeonjun hides away in actually sounds like fun. It’ll familiarize you with the layout of Court, as well.

Yeonjun agrees, his face lighting up. He brings you around to alcoves and hollows that you wouldn’t imagine even existed unless he was showing you. Leave it to a faerie to find little places to hide.

“How often do you come to the north?” you say. Taehyun had said that The King sends his heirs here for foreign relations. It must be why he’s here.

Yeonjun pauses his touring. “Most of the year. My father prefers me here, so he sends me out often.” You’re a bit taken aback by how generous he is with the information. You had expected to sly-foot it from him.

The King sounds like a paranoid, centuries-old man. Maybe you and Taehyun will find something in your time here that proves his fears right, though. It’s just as probable that tensions run deeper than you think.

“Why doesn’t he have The Queen send one of her children to his domain if it’s for diplomacy? It’s a bit strange that she swears fealty to him, but he’s the one sending his heirs out.” Also, why does he have you and Taehyun here, undercover, when his son is here already?

Yeonjun shushes you with a finger over his lips, and it reminds you that you can’t just say all that comes to your mind here. He doesn’t seem to take any offense, though.

“The Queen doesn’t send her children out as emissaries.” His words take on a rueful, bitter note. The look plastered on his face says what his words don’t: The King does, though.

Yeonjun is good company, and you don’t notice how night bleeds into day.

“I should probably go now,” you say. Your dress itches and your feet ache in a way that calls for the lush bed waiting for you back at the estate. The revelry is still very much alive and kicking, and the crowds haven’t even begun thinning, but they’re so drunk on pinot wines and faerie spirits that you doubt they even feel the toll the night is taking on their bodies.

He nods. “Let me walk you home?” He offers you an arm, his smile so very sweet. You would like nothing more than to have someone to accompany you on the trek home. The walk here had been dreadful in your loneliness.

You pretend to think about it for a minute, a teasing smile playing at your lips, before you say, “Why not?”

He swipes a baked good topped with sweet fig from a platter for the journey, and begins heading for an exit between trees.

“But!” you say, and he halts. Your eyes scan the crowd.

“What is it?” he asks, rejoining you.

“I need to find Taehyun.”

He offers you the delicacy in his hand. “Do you?”

“Yeah. I need to tell him if I’m going to be leaving.”

Yeonjun scoffs at that. He takes you by the arm and points out Taehyun in the crowd. He appears to be in conversation with a spindly, feather-skinned hob. “He’s right there. But, you’re not going to be doing all that. It’s not right that you have to report your every move to him. C’mon.” You know that he’s only saying it because he thinks that you’re Taehyun’s human servant, or something, but his words are simultaneously gratifying for your current woes.

Your laughs bounce off the darkwood trees as you walk shoulder-to-shoulder. Yeonjun has a way to him that makes you feel like you’re really living. Maybe you can let this hope fester. Maybe Yeonjun is genuinely courting you. And, you foolishly let yourself think, maybe you don’t need to be a spy to make something of yourself.

When you make it to the door of the estate, Yeonjun is behind you, peppering warm kisses up and down your neck. You pry yourself from him to open the door, and you stumble in. You then stagger up the stairs and to your room. Yeonjun doesn’t make it any easier, roaming his hands everywhere they shouldn’t be.

Yeonjun clicks the door shut behind himself, and your stomach drops seeing the unabated hunger written into his face as he turns and looks at you.

You fizzle under his gaze. “Thanks for walking me,” you say. “That walk is scary alone.”

“Turn around for me, pretty,” he says, his voice glazed with honey and sugary syrup. You do, heart thundering in your chest. Something in the deep pit of your mind feels guilt, but you don’t pay it enough mind to sort it out, you just suck in a breath and hold it as Yeonjun steps so close behind you that you can feel his breaths on your neck, and he starts working at the laces of your dress. He doesn’t lean forward and press any more kisses to your neck like you wish he would; he just undoes the ribbon, until the dress loosens on your body, and you have to hold it onto yourself. Should you drop it? Does he want you to drop it? Is he just toying with you?

A puff of air on your neck makes you shiver as he laughs softly, his face hovering over your shoulder. You wish you could see his face right now.

“You’re so tense,” he says into your ear. He takes the top of the dress into his own hands, sliding them under yours. “Are you uncomfortable?”

“No,” you breathe. Your heart is thrumming in your chest and your neck so hard that you hear it in your ears, and maybe even he can, too. He rubs a thumb over the skin where the dress starts to slip.

“Tell me you want it.”

You suck in a breath. “I want it.”

He begins letting the dress down, and you let him. Chills rise on your skin, both at the cold that meets your skin as it is freed to the air, and at the kisses and scrapes of his teeth at your now exposed shoulder. “Yeah? You want me to make you feel good?” he says, and you can hear the tease in it. His words douse you in flame.

“Yes, Yeonjun, please,” you say, and it sounds pathetic to your ears. He makes it so hard to sound like the confident spy that you’ve been trying so hard to convince yourself that you are.

The dress droops lower and lower on you, releasing your skin in tantalizingly slow increments. He’s in no rush. He just continues to pamper your skin with his tongue, nipping your ear here and nibbling at your shoulder blade there. Your mind unravels a bit more with each.

The fabric finally pools at your ankles, and the both of you sit in an electrically charged moment.

“Turn around. Let me see you.”

When your eyes meet his, your breath catches at the way he takes you in, but mostly at the way his eyes come back up and fix on yours with such depth that you feel it in the way your heartbeat skips. You resist every urge to cover yourself, ignoring the tensing of your muscles that tell you that you should run and hide yourself away. You can’t believe that such a beautiful creature is devouring you with his eyes like this; like he wants you, like it doesn’t matter one bit to him that you are so much less than him. And maybe it should. He’s a prince. A prince of the king that you are supposed to be serving right now.

He guides you by an arm around your waist to the bed, and then stands at the foot of it, looking down on you with hazy eyes. Your stomach flips, and your knees and thighs are pressed together. He drags his bottom lip into his teeth.

“Open your legs, baby. I want to see how much you need me.” He reaches down, patting at your knee.

You hesitate, but slowly pry your knees apart, letting him see the mess that had been brewing there. The cold air immediately brushes at the wetness, and it makes you feel impossibly more exposed.

“Fuck,” he says, dragging out the word like a hiss. The raw, ravenous look in his eyes reaches deep into an unwanted part of you, that had for so long believed that you’re not worthy of anything like this. You know that you’re still not worthy of it, but you’ll happily bask in its warmth while you have it. “So wet,” he growls, eyeing your center without ceremony, as if those aren’t the most lewd words you’ve heard spoken aloud. “Pretty, you’re dripping all over your bedspread, and I haven’t even really touched you yet. Makes me wonder if you’ve ever even been touched before.”

Your cheeks flame the more he stands over the foot of the bed, lazily drinking you in. You haven’t. You had your first kiss in the woods somewhere a few days ago. Flashes of those memories plague you for a second, of bark on your skin and Taehyun’s hand in your hair, and that guilt that you can’t seem to place tugs at you again. You need to forget about it; Taehyun doesn’t seem too caught up on it, so why should you be? Where is Taehyun right now?

“Has he touched you? Did you let him put his hands on your skin,”—he brushes a whisper of a touch on your inner thigh, so close to your center, yet not actually paying any attention to it—“like this?” The rush that shoots up your spine is lethal. He draws such intense feelings from you with the simplest of touches in a way that borders on scary.

Oh, yeah. Yeonjun still thinks that you’re Taehyun’s human servant, or something. You decide to just lean into it. “Why would he?” you ask.

“Because I saw the way he looked at me yesterday,” he says, and the plush of the bed dips as he settles his knees into it. He hovers over you, notched between your thighs. You knew the truth behind that look, though. Taehyun was livid at you, at how you had shirked your duties and danced all night. You don’t know how to convey that to Yeonjun, though. Any explanation would just lead to more questions you couldn’t answer.

He plants a line of kisses up the length of your inner thigh, just where his hand had ghosted, and you wiggle your hips in anticipation as if it would move him any faster to where you need him most. It doesn’t, he only continues to antagonize your skin with his tongue and lips.

“Please,” you breathe. Yeonjun’s lazy eyes flick up to yours from his place between your legs, and the sight makes the blood in your veins sing.

“You want my mouth?” he says, sitting back up onto his knees and running a smooth hand from the wet patch of skin on your thigh up and over your hip bone, and then the softness of your stomach, and then he brushes a thumb over your breast. You struggle to breathe a bit as he does, and it’s exponentially harder to as his words ricochet in your ears, cutting through the fog of your mind.

“Yes,” you say. You can’t muster anything else. A satisfied, lopsided smile plays at his lips, and he lets his thumb over your nipple, rolling it.

“Do you realize how badly you’ve got me?” he muses. His gaze leaves your chest, opting for your eyes as he says it. “I want to give you everything you’ve ever wanted. I’ll do anything, if you ask it of me.” The alarm bells ringing in your ears sound more like music than warning. It should sound like too much; you’d met him yesterday. He’s a faerie, you’re a human. His words are cloying; he’s lying. He’s lying.

But, he can’t lie.

He settles his head down, a breath’s-width from providing you with relief from the burning that he so cruelly kindled there. “Here? You want my mouth here?” The words puff onto you. You can feel your ears reddening; he seems to enjoy seeing you debased. It’s like he wants to be the source of your ruination.

“Yes, right there,” you say, toes curling in anticipation. He hums, taking the back of your thighs into his hands and pressing them up. It leaves you even more exposed to him. When the first contact of his mouth to your cunt comes, it’s with a barely there roll of your clit with his tongue, but it spreads like alcohol through your system. You mewl as he holds eye contact as if entranced with the way you react to him, and swirls his tongue around it. Your hands find perch in his hair.

He is wholly overwhelming you: his hands dig divots into your thighs to hold you open for him to eat, his eyes make sure you’re watching as he does, the sound he makes into your cunt. You don’t know what else to do, other than squirm on the sheets and chant nonsensical words. The more his mouth consumes you, the more it consumes your thoughts, until you are tunnel-visioned, only able to feel his touches. He runs his tongue down, and you gasp as it prods at your entrance, but he brings it back up, and then suckles at your clit some more.

“More,” you say.

He detaches from you for only a moment, just to ask, “More what?”—he pushes your thighs further up, molding them to your body—“More this?” He pushes his tongue into you, and then out.

“Mhm!” you cry, digging your hands into his hair harder. He makes a low hum of satisfaction, slurping you up, lazed, as if you were a sweet sugarplum liqueur. A tense knot settles in your belly, sending your legs jittery even as he presses them, and your toes curling in the air. Your hips roll up and into the bed wildly, chasing that knot. “Yeonjun—”

Yeonjun knows what your cries mean, pulling from your hole, if only to suction his lips around your clit. It halts every thought and word in your mind, and the knot tightens so intensely with it that it snaps. You seize up in his hands and then explode in shakes and desperate whimpers. Your body rages, but your mind is suspended somewhere in the sky, removed from you. Yeonjun lavishes you through it, despite the way his tongue bumping into your sensitive spots has you jumping. His mouth follows your hips everywhere they go as you writhe to escape it; he isn’t letting you float down, he keeps your body on that high and builds on it. Your breaths come panted and whimpered.

“Slow—slow down, ‘jun,” you say, pushing at his head. When he pulls off of you, the sight of you all over his mouth draws a moan from you. His tongue swipes at his lips.

“You’re divine,” he purrs. “Did that feel good, sweet thing? Do you want more?” You lay, catching your breath, trying to let the waves of aftershock dissipate so that you can articulate yourself. You feel it still thrumming in the hollows of your bones. He skirts his thumb oh-so-lightly around your throbbing clit, and it’s no help in your efforts.

You nod. “I want to make you feel good, too.” You can’t fathom letting him please you like this without returning the favor. It would be so nice to see him fall apart, too.

“Yeah?” He drinks in your state. He stops circling his thumb to press it to your bud. You let out a surprised sound, your muscles coming back to life to jolt. He acts as though he’s thinking it over, but you can see the teasing lilt on his face. “Say my name again, pretty. It sounds loveliest on your tongue.”

“Yeonjun,” you indulge him. A content sparkle in his eyes tells you that he’s gonna give you what you want. He lets your thighs down, instead resting his weight on either side of your head, leaning down to capture your lips in a sultry kiss. He tugs your bottom lip into his mouth. The scrape of his teeth is dizzying. He’s freeing himself with one hand when he pulls back, and your spine tickles with anticipation until you see the look on his face.

Is he suddenly disgusted with you? You can feel the color drain from your skin as you ask, voice thin, “What?” He climbs off of you, and you could throw up. “What is it?”

“I think your friend is here,” he says, adjusting his clothes. Oh. Your mind wars between relief and terror knowing that, if Yeonjun knows Taehyun is here, Taehyun knows Yeonjun is here. Damn their superior hearing.

You curse. “Go,” you urge, slipping out of bed with sticky thighs and stumbling to the wardrobe to source a shift dress to slip into. Yeonjun thumbs your chin, tugging your face to him, and presses a parting kiss into your lips. It lingers on your lips as he lets out a soft laugh, shoving open the window and disappearing through it. You roll your eyes, finding the image of him clambering down the tree to escape quite humorous.

You clean up and settle into the bed. Is whatever you have going with Yeonjun sustainable? Echoes of Taehyun’s voice, vicious and tart, tell you that you should get it together; that you should nip this in the bud, and focus your energies elsewhere. You want so badly to make the little girl, snatched from her home, proud. You want to fulfill her dreams. But, you can’t shake yourself from whatever hold Yeonjun is securing over you. He so casually promises to give you everything you ever ask for; would you be stupid to ignore it? Is it naive to imagine that a man would say his words and mean it? A faerie, no less?

You sink further as sleep calls you. If Taehyun knows that Yeonjun was here, or what you had done with him, he doesn’t show up to chew you out for it. You wish he would.

❆

The next few days blur into hours of Court spent around Yeonjun and his courtly friends. You try to glean as much information as you can from it, but really, it’s mostly nothing of any importance. You begin to think that Taehyun is right; that you shouldn’t be sticking your nose into the business of a prince. If Yeonjun were to ever find out your reasons for even attending Court… Your stomach does a sickened flip. He might hate you for lying, maybe even begin thinking that you have been using him.

You really do like Yeonjun, though. It’s not just that he’s an interesting thread to follow; he treats you like you’re no different from him. Your bruised and beaten heart clings to him, hoping he’ll soothe over all the years you spent insignificant and unloved. If anything ever comes of all of your stolen nights and kisses, he’d have to know eventually. It can’t be shoved down forever, though you truly wish it could.

You sit at the ornamental vanity in your room, combing through your hair, when Taehyun makes an appearance at the door. You haven’t had even one conversation with him following the morning Yeonjun had those dresses sent to you.

“We’re not going to Court today,” he says, his arms crossed over his chest. His face is steely.

“Oh?” You place the boar bristle brush down. “What are we doing, then?”

He studies the room you’ve been staying in. It looks an awful lot like he’s searching for something. His eyes linger on the bed. “I think I got something last night. We’re going check it out. You’re gonna need your weapons.”

He’s gone from the room with that. The conversation was terse and majorly discourteous, but it’s the most you’ve seen of him in multiple days. You’ll take it. Maybe you’ll even have time to plead your case today, or some way to show him that you’ve been practicing your fighting stances and memorizing poisons on the days sleep doesn’t find you as easy.

You’ve armed yourself to the teeth by the time you meet Taehyun at the bottom of the stairs. He’s armed much lighter than you.

“Did I overdo it?” you say, slicing yourself some cheese to eat on bread.

He adjusts the blade sheathed at his hip, shaking his head. “That’s just fine.”

You frown and bite into your breakfast. What kind of information could he have gotten yesterday? The need for weapons worries you.

You like to think that you’ve adjusted to the chill of the north by now, but as you break through an untrodden forest with brambles catching your legs in each step, it does nip at your skin. You’re still only human, after all, no matter how hard you pretend yourself to be a faerie lady in the Court. You’re still only a spy, you’re reminded, as the two of you come across a mound of packed dirt sitting atop the snowy ground. It’s marked as an entrance only by a hole that looks hand-dug. You’ve lived long enough in Faerie to know that it’s more than just any old dirt hill or foxhole. The folk dwell in odd places like these.

“When we get in there, I need you to pretend that you’re a human servant. Can you do that for me?” he says. You’re unsettled, but you nod.

You head for the entrance first. It’s just big enough for you to slip a leg into, duck under, and wiggle in. The entrance opens up, and you’re sent sliding down a chute of twigs and dirt. It takes every bit of your willpower to not make a ruckus of shouts and gasps in your descent. When your feet meet the ground you stumble to steady yourself, you know you look a mess. Taehyun makes a much more graceful descent, and you explain away any mortification with the notion that Taehyun had been anticipating it.

A throaty voice hoots almost immediately, “So, great Lord Taehyun thinks to show his face at this honkey tonk?”

So, this is that kind of place, then. The reek of ale and wilder spirits tells you enough. What does he think he’ll learn from a place like this? Clearly, he’s known in this place, too. You’re always left with more questions about Taehyun than answers.

Taehyun doesn’t pay the barkeep any mind. “Fetch me a drink,” he says, before leaving you as he cuts through the measly crowd of revelers drowning in their merriments. You narrow your eyes and brew with distaste at his words, but you know he needs you to play the part of demure servant. You don’t know exactly why, but you can do it for him; you’d lived the role your whole life.

You scurry off, shoulders curled in, to the barkeeping hob that stands pouring foamy goblets of honey mead from barrel taps. He eyes you. “Pity you, girl,” he says. “That one’s a real brute.”

You infer that his words are about Taehyun. Really, you should just grab a drink and go, but curiosity compels you. The faerie laughs at the questions brimming in your eyes.

“A real, stone-cold killer,” he drawls, twisting open a different barrel. You resist the eye-roll tugging at your eyes. He’s just looking to entertain himself off of your human fright. You feign hesitance in your limbs when you accept the goblet full for Taehyun. He goes to fill another, from a third barrel. “The House of Blackthorn are all such a frightful bunch. The late Lord even more so, but he sowed a good seed of wicked into his son, regardless.” The worry you let your features into is real this time. There’s so little you know about Taehyun; this is the first you’ve ever heard of him that isn’t directly from his mouth. Should you be scared of Taehyun? Ice runs in his veins, sure, but you can scarcely imagine him as a brutal Lord.

“One mead for the Lord, and one sugar-sweet liqueur for the lady,” the hob says, handing the drinks to you. You offer him a meek, “Thank you.”

He shoots you an unsavory, toothy grin. “Welcome to The Hovel.”

You find Taehyun in conversation with a sweet-faced faerie boy who strums at a lute. Their conversation tapers off as you approach. You hand Taehyun’s drink off to him.

“You’re sure of it?” Taehyun says to the boy.

“Yup. Just last night,” the boy says. His waved mop of blonde hair moves as he nods. You see the cogs of Taehyun’s mind turning behind his eyes as the exchange comes to a close. So, the information he was following from last night came to fruition, then. You kick yourself for your lack of any real results.

“Who was that?” you ask, voice hushed. You tilt your head at the faerie as he rejoins the other musicians, and the stream of lute song intermingles with the other instruments once again. You pretend to sip from the drink the hob had given you for free, tipping it into the dirt when you think nobody is looking. You know it’s bad manners, especially in Faerie, but you have bigger fish to fry. Taehyun hadn’t paid that boy for that info, nor had he paid the tavernkeep for his drink. You recall the hob’s words of warning. They fear him.

He shakes his head. “Let’s get out of here, first.”

When fresh air meets your lungs, you realize how stale and muggy the air inside the little burrow is. You pull yourself out through the exit, following Taehyun. The two of you begin your battle against the wild forest again.

“So…?” you say.

It’s getting colder as night arrives. His breath puffs from his mouth, furling like smoke into the air as he says, “Apparently, there were some lackeys there last night asking around about me and a human girl in cahoots with The Prince.”

Your mind launches into a frenzy. Do they know that you’re spies? How would they even know? It’s not like the two of you have even done anything to garner any suspicion. Whoever has had their eyes on you and Taehyun has also noticed that you’re running around with Yeonjun. Is Yeonjun in danger? You gnaw at your cheeks. This person had to have been hovering around you two for days and days—not once had either of you noticed.

“Did you find out who it could’ve been?”

He shakes his head solemnly. You can tell he’s unseaming and picking apart every moment leading up to this one—you are, too. Nothing sticks out.

You freeze in your tracks. A pretty magpie sits dead on the forest ground, its blood decorating the snow in patches. No arrow pierces it, nor is it caught in any sort of trap. It lays with its little legs in the air. The imagery is unnerving.

“Poor thing,” you say, crouching down by it.

Taehyun pays you and the bird no mind, but you feel that something is off when he turns to you with his limbs and shoulders stiff. “What?” you ask.

His eyes survey the forest around you. He must be hearing something that you can’t. The hair on your skin prickles. Are you being watched? Taehyun narrows his eyes, looking over the surrounding forest for a few long moments, before continuing on his way, and so you decide that you should too, despite the feeling buzzing at the back of your neck.

Somebody comes crashing out of the foliage, securing your arms to your side before you can process that they’ve got you. They hold the point of a dagger to your chest.

Metal hisses as Taehyun frees the blade from his hip, but he doesn’t make any advancements. Your heart beats under the point of the weapon, chasing breaths as fear paralyzes your chest.

“A little birdie told me,”—your captor says from behind you—“that I’d find you two here.”

“Let go of her,” Taehyun says. He stands with so much restraint in his limbs.

A patronizing laugh hurts your eardrum with its proximity. He sounds like a cawing crow. “No, I don’t think I will, Lord.” He spits the title out like it is bitter in his mouth, letting the blade dig the littlest bit into your skin. You don’t even feel it with the way adrenaline buzzes in your gut, leaving your limbs shaky.

Taehyun can’t move, so you begin wiggling your fingers for your dagger. Fear chokes you.

“You won’t miss this one, right?” the man says. He uses the metal to point up at your face, before replacing it over your heart. You’ve almost made it to your thigh, and still, he hasn’t taken notice. “I’ll just get this over with, and then we can talk about this more comfortably.” You may throw up.

You bunch up the hem of your dress with the littlest of movements to free your thigh and slide out the dagger hidden there.

“Who told you where to find us?” asks Taehyun. Your palm is sweaty around the metal of the dagger, and you readjust your grip a few times, trying to muster the courage to swing it up.

“I told you already,”—the man readjusts his hold on you—“a little birdie.” There’s a sneer to his words. He points the tip of the dagger up to your chin, ghosting it down the column of your throat. Repressed whimpers of terror bubble to the surface.

“Shut up,” he spits.

Taehyun challenges him. “Do it, then.” Blood roars in your ears.

“You think I won’t?” your snatcher says.

“Do it,” Taehyun repeats, and you almost let your life flash before your eyes until you see that Taehyun is not looking at the man as he speaks; he’s looking at you. He’s telling you to do it. You tighten your grip on the dagger, before driving it behind you. It makes contact, and the faerie man bellows. You use his shock to free yourself.

You had driven the blade deep into the man’s shoulder. He thrashes, ruby-red blood inking his fingers as he holds the wound.

“Bitch!” he howls. “You’re fucking dead, anyway.”

What does that mean?

Taehyun plunges his sword through the faerie before you even notice he had approached, or ask the man what, exactly, he means. He drops to the floor, mouth filling with blood. You can see it when he opens his mouth to scream and is only able to burble. His own blood chokes him. Your fingertips feel numb, and so does your face.

Taehyun turns to you. “You did good.”

You did good? You don’t feel good.

You nod. “Thanks.”

Now, on the forest floor of white snow, lies both a dead faerie man and a dead magpie. You feel the sensation of his skin breaking under your dagger reverberating in your hands, twisting in your mind. His blood paints the ground a nauseating shade of death-red.

“Are you okay?” Taehyun asks, eyeing you.

“Yeah,” you say. “Yeah, I am.”

❆

You and Taehyun attend court the next day skittish. Taehyun delegates you a new role, now; make as big of a scene with Yeonjun as you possibly can. The goal is to throw attention to that, rather than to Taehyun as he continues snooping around.

It’s not hard to make a spectacle of you and Yeonjun when everybody is already noticing. He doesn’t hide the way he showers you with luxuries, nor does he want to. You can’t help but wonder why he’s making such a show out of it. At some point, his father will hear of him courting a human. Word flies fast in Faerie. You can’t imagine The King would be pleased.

A hand curls around your hip, and you know it’s Yeonjun’s.

“You weren’t here yesterday,” he says.

You frown. “No need to state the obvious.”

He laughs and thumbs your cheek, and you swear the butterflies that flutter in your stomach are nearly painful. “I missed you,” he says. His eyes glitter with the words. “Did you go somewhere with him?” he asks. You don’t miss the way the word him curls in his mouth, much like how a person of the court would speak of something more unfavorable in a sickly-sweet way, to keep up a mask of indifference.

“We just ran some errands.” You shrug it off. It isn’t the truth, but it also isn’t so far removed from it that you feel uncomfortable about lying to him. Lately, the guilt lays more heavily over you. With each dress and bejeweled trinket Yeonjun sends your way, the more you want to get this big lie out of the way. You should’ve done it before Taehyun set you out to do this; at least then, you could face him and not feel so deceitful. Is there a way to tell him that still conveys that you aren’t using him?

Yeonjun’s eyes flicker to your mouth, and back up to your eyes so quickly you could’ve missed it with a blink. “I see,” he muses. “I could take you under my care, you know. He wouldn’t have a say in any of it.”

Your expression sours a bit, and you know it’s not the reaction Yeonjun had expected if the look on his face says anything.

“I don’t want to just become a playtoy,” you say.

He looks taken aback. “You wouldn’t be a playtoy,” he says. “Ever.” He searches your eyes for something. “Why would you even think that?”

Because you’re a prince, you think. Because I’m a human. Because that’s all we are to your kind.

“Then why don’t we just stay as we are?” you say. There would be no real reason to even go through with such a thing—not when nothing would come of it. Princes of Faerie don’t marry humans. You’d become a mistress, and that’s being optimistic.

“Taehyun is not a good man,” Yeonjun says. His voice is stripped of its usual playful inflection. Why does everybody seem to keep telling you that? “I would feel better knowing that you’re safe.”

Safe? He thinks Taehyun would hurt you? “I’m okay, Yeonjun,” you say, if only to placate him. He doesn’t look convinced at all. “He treats me well,” you laugh. You meet his hand on your cheek with your own, curling it around his. While he doesn’t know the truth of everything, or why you stay with Taehyun in the first place, it stitches some old wounds inside you seeing that he cares for you.

His jaw tightens. “My offer will still stand if you ever decide otherwise.”

He brushes his thumb at the plush of your bottom lip. Your mind goes fuzzy. When he presses it fully to your lips, you suck his thumb into your mouth, tasting the imprint of his fingerprint with rolls of your tongue around it. He looks as though he could moan standing there watching you, so you make a point of not losing contact with his eyes. You feel multiple burning stares on you, but you shove them out.

He watches your tongue and his gaze comes alive with hunger, tugging your lower lip down before taking your chin into a hold and molding his lips to yours. His kiss conveys every thought plaguing his mind in its raw nature.

Their eyes are on you; so many eyes are. You know they look, but for the first time, you don’t falter under the weight. He tastes like broken shackles and weightless limbs. He tastes like salvation.

He roams his hands dangerously. When your mouths part, despite your shortage of oxygen, you say, “I’m sure you had many courtly ladies to entertain in my absence.” Your head buzzes.

You’ve never seen Yeonjun so much as interact with another woman, but you still worry that he doesn’t only have eyes for you.

His face turns sly again. “They’re honestly all quite dull.”

Maybe, one day, you’ll join those ranks. You remind yourself that you won’t be here forever—that this moment in time is finite. Hopefully, you won’t be here long enough to see that happen. You’re not sure your self-worth could handle that hit.

“Are you really so superficial?” you ask. You stay playful in your tone, peeling from him to waltz toward an entree table. He follows. The way he trails you like a puppy on a leash does a bit to bloat your ego, despite your worries. “What’s so special about me?” It’s cheap, you know, but you crave his praise. You’ve found yourself thriving off of Yeonjun’s sweet words like oxygen. The question had been plaguing your mind since he had first spoken to you, anyway.

He looks as if he can’t articulate what he’s thinking. Or, maybe, he’s just concocting some words that’ll sound nice to your ears. “This life has become tiring. It drains you, and I am surrounded by it. Endlessly.” He pops a treat off a platter into his mouth. “You’re like a breath of spring air to my lungs.”

You’re his distraction. He saw a human and decided it would be the biggest spectacle he could find to distract from his princely woes. You draw back. What do the faeries in this court think of you? Do they snicker when you turn your back? Do they laugh to see you think that you’re more than just entertainment to him? Does he join them?

“What’s wrong?” Yeonjun asks, seeing the way you retract into yourself. “What is it?”

You have to keep this act up; the well-being of your mission relies on it. You should’ve never gotten your feelings so entangled.

“Because I’m human?”

A frown etches into his porcelain face. “No. Maybe at first, but…”—he releases a measured breath—“No.” Selfishly, you’re thankful that his kind can’t lie.

You and Yeonjun find the dancefloor, more packed with cavorting faeries each day, and you accept the distraction from your dreary thoughts. The wild nature of it strips you of such things, leaving you bare to just your happier feelings. It leaves you just as breathless as the first time had. You kick and whirl and flail your limbs freely.

When Yeonjun inevitably tugs you from your trance and out of the throng of folk, you’re dazed. Exhausted. Your hands itch to be all over him.

“Breathe,” he reminds you, smoothing over the wild tousle that your hair had become. You focus on steadying your erratic breaths. “You’re a wild one,” he says, a pleased grin on his lips. The flush on his cheeks mirrors your own, despite his teasing.

You lean into him to support your legs of jelly. You must’ve danced for hours.

Yeonjun looks down at you, and his features are soft. “You wanna rest?” You nod. He laughs and then takes your hands into his. He guides you away from the soiree, out from the canopy of trees, but not toward Taehyun’s estate. You don’t question where he leads you, even as cold air makes you realize how bare this dress leaves your arms, even as the unfamiliar path catches at the hem of your dress. He notices how you don’t care to lift it from the ground, snorting, before lifting you into his arms.

“Woah!” you protest, feet off the ground in seconds. “I can walk.”

“Ah, but, only a fool would let a pretty lady like you soil her dress in the dirt.”

You scowl at him, but it doesn’t change the way your belly swoops. He treats you so delicately.

He carries you until you arrive at a mini palace that is no doubt royal—it towers over any surrounding trees. And, you had thought you had seen luxury. This is luxury. This is a life spent fed off of only crystal spoons. You admire the lush interior as he carries you into the palace.

“This is where you stay?” you say.

He hums, and you can feel the rumble of it in his chest. “For one half of the year, this is my home.”

You notice how utterly empty it is. You had expected advisors and permanent guards and bustling servants. “It must get lonely here.”

“I prefer it here,” he says. You can sympathize with that. You had spent the entirety of your life in the land of summer, but you had found more warmth than ever here in the north. This place was supposed to be a death sentence for humans, and though you had briefly met the danger that the north could present yesterday, you almost dread leaving. Maybe you just need more time, and then you’ll be so overtaken by fear that it’ll make it easy.

Yeonjun carries you through a door, and into what you assume is his room. A bed so large it would swallow up a third of the room you’re staying at in Taehyun’s estate sits in the middle of his room. He sets you down onto its velvety, rose-petal coverlet, before he climbs in next to you, propping himself up onto an elbow so he can admire you.

Your skin sighs as he rubs sweet circles over your bare shoulder with the pad of his thumb. The two of you settle into a long, comfortable silence.

“Do you believe that I don’t care for you?” he asks into the quiet. Do you hear hurt in his words?

You meet his gaze and struggle to find words. Is it wrong to lie, just because you can?

Your hesitance tells him enough. His fingers on your skin stop. “I am not so shallow, if you actually meant that.” Your words from earlier must’ve been gnawing at him.

“It’s not that,” you say, avoiding contact with his eyes. It was exactly that. He doesn’t allow you to look away from him, sitting up to cut straight back into your vision.

“What is it, then?”

Your heart thrums. You want to tell him that you’re a liar, and that he should spit in your face and tell you to get out. You want to ask him if he’d still care for you the way he does if he knew your truth. You want to ask him if there’s any way that this can play out where the both of you end up together and unscathed. Your mind beckons you to ask him about every little doubt that has harassed your mind concerning him so that he can comfort you and assure you that they are just doubts.

You ask none of those.

“How can I show you?” he says. He climbs over you, knees straddling each side of your legs. “What would it take to prove to you that I mean it when I tell you that you make my heart ache? What will it take to make you become mine?” He lines a kiss up on your forehead, and then your cheek, and then onto the corner of your mouth. “This?” he asks, and then he hikes up the length of your dress, bunching all the fabric above your hips. He draws back so that he can plant a kiss on your clit, and he makes sure you’re looking at him while he does it. “Or is it this?”

You breathe in the sensation, gasping his name like prayer and making room for him between your thighs.

“Is that what it is, pretty? You need me to make love to you? I can do that,” he says. “I can do that, no problem.”

He works at his clothes with one hand and brushes touches to your cunt with the other. Eventually, his needlessly extravagant Court shirt is off, and he’s holding your hip down as he prods the tip of a finger at your entrance. Your hole flutters in anticipation, his eyes catch it, and he breaks into a lousy grin. He finally begins pushing the finger into you, watching as you gasp at the way he curls into you.

Pleasure whorls in your belly, rendering you increasingly dumber. “I need you,” you say. The muscles in his arm strain as he fingers you, and his black hair falls into his face with the movements. Your heart clenches.

“Slow down, baby. I need to do this, you’re not ready for me yet,” he says, pressing a soft kiss into your temple. “I want to make you feel good.” He slides another finger in, and you suppose he’s right, because it stretches you. He pumps and curls the both of them, and you dig your nails into his forearm as it all starts building in your belly.

Yeonjun tugs his lip into his mouth, biting it, as he watches you grow restless under his fingers. Your peak feels so close, but his pace is so leisurely that you’re worried you’ll never reach it, as if caught in a limbo of torturous delight. “Faster,” you cry. “Faster, please.” It amuses him, and he abandons his casual pace for sloppy curls that have you whimpering into the air of his bedroom.

“Yes, yes, yes!” A crescendo looms over you, until it crashes and your back is arching off the bed and you’re making embarrassing sounds. You dig crescents into Yeonjun’s arm when he continues to finger you. Your insides protest his stimulation, tugging and clenching tight in a way that borders tastefully on discomfort.

“Fuck,” you hear Yeonjun say through the haze. “Just like that. Doesn’t it feel good?” he purrs. His fingers plow you through this peak, hurling you toward another one brutally. “I know it does; you’re clenching around my fingers so hard.”

Your hand covers your face. His words are lewd, and he says them like it’s nothing. It makes your insides burn. You can tell that the orgasm he beckons you into with each deliberate thrust is going to be explosive, frantically squeezing your thighs around his arm to staunch the intensity of his movements. Wet sounds punctuate each curl of his fingers. You can hardly believe that those sounds are coming from you.

“You want another one?” he says. You only answer him with pathetic whimpers. “Keep making those pretty noises for me.”

You do, and he rewards you with his thumb on your clit. It drives you utterly wild. The blend of his fingers inside you and each bump against your nerves is exactly what you need to explode, and so you do, bucking. You’re worried he’s going to try and have you cum again when his fingers don’t stop, but he brings you down gently with small swirls.

You catch your breath while Yeonjun adjusts you on the bed, tugging you down by your hips and sliding one of his thinner pillows under the bottom of your spine in a way that lifts your bottom half into the air. You laugh through ragged breaths; it feels a tad ridiculous.

“What’s that for?”

He massages your inner thigh, soft humor twinkling in his eyes, but also so much more. “You’ll see,” he says. He hovers over you, bracing his weight into one arm at the side of your head so he can look right into your face. His free arm lines the tip of him up with you. Before making any moves to slide into you, he kisses you and takes your bottom lip with him as he pulls back. It exhilarates you; everything he’s ever done to you is exhilarating. You’re swept into a ripwave of emotion. Do you deserve all this? Is this life yours?

His hand rests on your hip, brushing over your hipbone with great gentleness, as he pushes into you. It’s slow and full of peppered kisses all over your face and neck, and then he’s in you to the hilt, and then he’s pulling back out of you so that you’re just so empty, but of course, with just a thrust he’s filling you back up. He falls into a swift pace, but each time he ruts up into you, it’s calculated and well-placed. Maybe it’s the pillow, or perhaps it’s just expertise, but he’s plunging into a sickeningly soft spot inside of you that makes your legs that are locked around his waist shake each time. Your eyes flutter close, but your mouth drops open in a soundless moan.

“No, open your eyes. Look at me. Do you feel it? Do you feel my love for you?” he says, voice raw. “Is this what you needed?”

Yes, this is exactly what you need. You feel so far removed from yourself that you can’t even feel your hurt or worries. You nod your head frantically.

“Please, open your eyes,” he repeats, pleading in his tone. His face is right in front of yours when you do. His eyes flicker between both of yours. The intimacy of it is as consuming as the flames licking your insides, winding you up so tight that you might explode into a ball of blazing fire. The rolls of his hips turn into short, needy ruts. His mouth drops open, but he won’t close his eyes. He wants to watch you.

“Yeonjun—” you breathe. Your muscles are tense all over, especially in your core, where he winds you tighter. The impending orgasm whispers into your ear that it will swallow you whole in its wake, and you believe it; you can’t breathe.

“I know,” he says. When you squeak, face screwing up, Yeonjun reads you like letters on paper. “I know, it feels so good.” He’s just as much of a mess as you, panting while his free hand grabs at each of your curves to ground himself. You hold back your climax; it’s so hot in your belly that you fear how it’s going to wreck you. The hair on your skin prickles and rises.

He feels how tightly you clamp down on him. “C’mon, pretty.”

Your nails rake paths down his biceps. “I can’t” you gasp. “Can’t—”

“Yes, you can.”

Warm tears pool in the corners of your eyes and you shake your head. You do everything you can to urge it back; wriggling under him to escape his thrusts, pushing at his chest, biting into your poor lip until you fear it’ll bleed. Pressure builds all over you, your eyes burn and your muscles burn, like a thousand pounds of ecstasy pressing on each square inch of you and begging to be released.

“Stop running from it,” he says, pushing your hips into the mattress, pinning them so that he can deliver pointed thrusts up into that place that is so sensitive. It works wonders. “Let go, baby. Let it happen; I promise you it’ll feel so good.”

You crumble, crying out into the air and clenching wildly around Yeonjun.

“Yes, fuck!” he growls. He’s chasing his own peak now, leaving you no time to breathe through your own.

You chant his name.

“Squeezing me so good—you’re driving me up the fucking walls, pretty.”

The sounds he rips from you are errant the more he pistons into you, and your hair sticks to your neck. For the third time, you cum, circling him in your arms and keeping him close while you try your best to ride this one out.

With the encouragement of you sporadically tightening around him, he stills over you, abdomen tensing up, before cumming into you, producing strangled sighs. He collapses down to his elbows and drops his head into your neck, delivering shallow rolls as he rides it out. Breaths puff onto your skin as he peppers warm kisses over every inch of your exposed skin. He stays like this, intertwined with you, for a while, lazily delivering thrusts until you’re both able to breathe fully again.

When he pulls out of you, you feel him dripping from you. You should’ve told him to pull out; you must have no fears. It’s hard to worry too much about that, though, with the way he’s looking at your cunt as if the sight of his seed oozing from you was like nothing he’d ever seen before. He takes your ankle into his hand from where it hovers in the air, dusting a smooth and chocolatey kiss there.

“Do you see now?” he asks, bringing his eyes up to yours.

“Yeah,” you say. “I do.”

…🪶 ashlynn's note there she is! I wanna see who y'all are more attached to this far.

﹙🏷️ ﹚ @lvrs-street2mmorrow , @soohashits if your tag isn't working, check the mentions part of your settings!

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elaemae · 8 months ago

Text

The premium version of human is here to wreck house, mfs.

[Twst x Obeyme!AFAB!reader]

CHP. 1.1: The start of the Blood Rose Tyrant.

Thank you, my amazing readers, for all the likes, comments, and reblogs🥹 It makes so happy, like– almost nothing can top the joy of seeing y'all liked my work :)

Btw, If you have any questions about my tagging and/or literally anything you wanna ask me bout the fic, just reach out to me and I'll try my best to answer you.😊

CW: Cursing, Idk what else... There's also the pronoun schtick I've been yapping about since pr. 1. (i.e MC will get mistaken for a pretty guy a lot -Mc is AFAB referred to as they/them- because the NRC cast have come to expect only boys to be in the school. Excluding the paintings ofc.)

(My pic)

Fun fact: While all of your ornaments act as containers to very *nom*-able amounts of magic, such a thing can be dangerous as it may give away your location if you need to hide or run away from someone.

Therefore, all of them were cast with a special spell developed by Solomon that makes it so that people can't sense that magic unless they're really close to you physically.

(Not to mention, only exceptional mages can actually have the hope of picking up on that magic as your all jewelry were also cast with a heavy magical concealment blessing from both Micheal and Luke.)

• • •

'What the hell is this?'

You think as you fiddled with the fancy pouch in your hands.

You had opened the gift box to find the pouch containing some basic skincare products and just went; ( •_•)..?

Like– What the hell? Who does that?? Are they saying that you're ugly and needed to start taking care of your face?! Well excuse you, I'll have you know –whomever you are– that this face was approved by Asmodeus himself you rude lil' shi—

*Ehem*

So like any sane person is supposed to do in that situation, you checked if the products were cursed or charmed and then pocketed it to maybe sell it in the future for some cash. (Lovely gift but you were taught never to use/ingest things given to you by strangers.)

Leaving the infirmary, you venture into the botanical garden, hoping you'd find some edible plants that you and Yuu can nibble on until you can procure other food options and some all important moneh. (Ugh, if only that damn crow didn't escape and hide away from you, you would've extorted his cowardly-ass and bought some food instead of needing to resort to this bs.)

'Trying to find a stone in a long abandoned mine is simply a fools errand.'

You thought as you absent-mindedly skipped past a certain tall, dark, and handsome man with horns, unknowing of the look of pure curiosity pointed at your back as you continued your musings.

'But oh well, they wanted to try so they might as well be those fools.'

You're not gonna stop them if they wanna try to fix things even though you've mostly stabilized the situation. (Not that they know.)

Damn, you also need to go to the library later so that you can learn what changes you'd need to do in order to adapt and know the problems you'd likely experience in this world.

Knowing yourself and your history for being a magnet of chaos, It'd probably involve almost dying more times than you have fingers and unearthing some deeply-buried soul-crushing trauma in which the only thing you'll get in return are the friends you've made along the way.

Aside from that though, you'd need to gain yourself a foothold in this society.

Preferably, there would be a lot of rich and influential people in this school to suck up to, but if those aren't enough then maybe you can venture into industries where you can kiss-ass in peace.

As much as you'd love to be optimistic, Crowley is the almost literal embodiment of a dead-beat dad barely pays child-support and your own search for a way home may take years before coming to fruition.

Tsk. You can feel your stress levels transcending the mortal plane of existence again as you can already envision the figurative mountain-range you'd need to climb just to achieve stability in this place.

$°\•m°n.. p/€∆$3.. H€\₱ m£...

Times like these just make you wanna curl up onto the floor in a fetal position and let the earth consume you whole.

Oh! And you also need to obtain a stronger blackmail material against Crowley to make sure he won't try anything remotely against you.

'Hmm... But maybe...'

You think as you took a quick and discreet glance to a security camera that had been "coincidentally" pointed at you.

Well, not really a coincidence.

If the mf behind these creepy-ass cameras —that have been watching you since your arrival here, mind you—, can lend you a hand then that would be the optimal outcome. There are a lot of security cameras after all...

Though there's also a large possibility that the fucker wanted you dead because of either boredom, simple bloodlust, money, vengeance (for some reason), your organs or all of the above.

You sighed as you entered the botanical garden, telling yourself to just worry about that later and focus on finding food.

If you get in trouble for taking plants here, you'll just throw Crowley under the bus. (figuratively and literally if he decides to be a bitch about it.)

• • • •

Yuu, Grim, Ace, and Deuce stumbled out of the mirror, finally away from the creepy forest and back into the college.

They all flinched and turned their heads back when they heard a dramatic 'Tsktsktsk–' from behind them.

"Well well well~ Look who finally decided to show up at–"

*checks imaginary wrist watch*

"46 minutes past midnight.. Huh.. If you all got any curfew for your dorms then you're both toast. Can't believe y'all spent more than five hours looking for a single rock..."

You said, referring to the two first years who flinched under your words and judgemental eyes.

"You all look like shit by the way."

Yuu awkwardly scratched their head.

"Thanks?"

*Sigh...*

"You're welcome, bbg."

"Just hurry up and give that rock to the fuckin crow already so that you all can spare the world from having to witness anymore of your gross, sweaty, homeless-lookin selves."

Deuce shrunk even further behind Yuu. (funny because Yuu was at least half-a-head shorter.)

Ace meanwhile, has too much ego to not say anything back.

"We wouldn't be looking like this if you at least helped!" He snarked.

"Why should I?"

You Dwayne-the-rock-Johnson raised your eyebrow at him.

"I don't owe any of you a smidgen of literally anything so why should I help?"

It wasn't a question, but a statement. Because why should you help? They should be grateful you even talked Crowley out of expelling them immediately. Not that they know but still...

But of course, audacity is gonna audacity. Because, Ace really had the nerve to look offended by your words, as if you weren't saying something as truthful as the sky being blue, the grass being green, and your ass being a literal masterpiece from god.

"Don't even try to pass off the blame, Weasley-wannabe. I know it, you know it, your mom knows it, your dad if you have one, your entire bloodline and your non-existent cow knows it, there's literally no point."

Ace literally almost snarled at you like a damn dog, pft– That's what he gets from pissing you off by existing earlier.

"Oh shut up!"

He then looked like he was about to start a rant of how unfair his life was and how he totally didn't deserve any of this and blahblahblahblahblah–

You swear on Diavolo and Luci's fruity man-boobs, you'll hang this bitch upside down like a bat if you had to hear another complaint about things being unfair for him.

What about you? or Yuu? Isn't life more cruel and unfair to you two? Taking you both away from loved ones and shoving you into a world where you two need to fight for a temporary sanctuary as you both try to go home with no real proof you'll actually be able to make it back?

Isn't life more unfair to you? Right when you almost finally achieved the start of your happy ending.. You were taken away from the people that you fought tooth and nail to be with.. And now, they're all too far away for you to reach... again.

Deuce elbowed Ace, thankfully making the jab to the ribs painful for the annoying ginger.

You dramatically sighed again, turning to Yuu and Deuce.

"Remember kids, don't copy Ace's attitude okay? Lest you want to end up single and with no bitches for the rest of your life."

Ace's right eye twitched erratically, shouting at you to shut up and to stop messing with him.

• • • • •

Talking with the crow is an annoying affair as expected. At least now, Yuu is finally an official learner of the school. Even if they're just half-a-student with the loud talking cat. (That kinda reminds you of Mammon, now that you think of it. Also very funny because the cat's name is grim of all things..)

Oh, and you're a prefect now. You're definitely going to make that everyone's problem. Hehehehehe~

"So the abandoned dorm we were supposed to live in is fixed now? How? Hasn't it only been like– a day?"

You ominously beamed at the question, releasing a sinister little giggle that caused Ace, Deuce, and the now wide-awake Grim to subconsciously shiver while Yuu refrained from asking further questions and just wisely snickered instead.

Unseen by everyone, you sent a quick devious little smile to a wall where a certain electrical device was mounted, biting down a snort when you saw the security camera suddenly snap into another direction, as if it was a person embarrassed that they got caught by someone they were staring at.

You then had to hold back a cackle as you remembered how easily this newly made stalker friend of yours snitched on the headmaster, like– you literally didn't even do anything, the flustered boy just gave you the blackmail material that you needed. Well, maybe you did corner him a little bit by using his own electronics against him but you're pretty sure he enjoyed it for some reason if the way he literally blurted out 'mommy-' at you was anything to go by—

Haha, the benefits of having a hacker as a fren :3

• • • •

Kicking away the two idiots and telling them to go back to their dorms already, you dragged Yuu inside the now newly fixed dorm.

The two of you needed to talk about a few things and arrangements..

• • • •

Quickly opening the door in hopes that the fucker that was banging on it gets mash-dabbed face-first, you saw nothing but disappointment as the bastard — Ace — had actually moved away from the door in an impressive display of intuition and spidey-sense before you had even wretched the door open.

"What the fuck do you want, you ugly punyeta?"

It hasn't even been a few hours since this mf parted ways with you and Yuu, so what could be the problem now?

. .. . . . . ..

"No, you're sleeping on the couch."

"What?! But why?!! There are perfectly good rooms here!"

"All the other rooms besides the one we're using are still unfurnished. The beds in them are yet to be assembled and the floors are dusty because of the quick renovations." Yuu stated, rubbing the bridge of their nose.

"Ughhhhh! Just let me squeeze in, I promise I won't take up too much space!"

"Nice try but no."

"Tch, You're all so stingy and inhospitable.."

"Yuu, Do you hear that?" You said, theatrically cupping your ear with a hand.

"Yes, It seems that a forever virgin is talking." Yuu answered with a smirk.

"Hey!"

"Sorry, you oompa-loompa lookin ass— we unfortunately can't understand the language of people who can't pull."

"You guys are the worst."

"Thanks bbg." you and Yuu paused.

"Pft–"

"Oh dear~ It seems you're starting to take after me."

"Indeed it seems." Yuu replied, even subconsciously copying the fancy accent you used.

"Oh no, you're multiplying. :0"

"Haha, we're still dragging you to apologize to your Housewarden later."

"Aww shucks.."

← Pr.7 | Chapter List | Chp. 1.2 →

Thanks for reading this far, my amazing readers ＼⁠(⁠^⁠o⁠^⁠)⁠／

Pls don't forget to reblog and like, it really helps me so much <3

Taglist;

@f0uerleafedcl0ver @a-traveling-void-human @leviathans-tail-scales @nimko @solarixstar @sugarrush-blush @im-in-love-with-fairytales @irisxiel @meigalaxy @nightw-izhu @refridgeratorplus @moonieper @certified-twst-simp @immakittybear @iris-arcadia @caprinaesprout @mc-glare-is-king

Pls if I forgot to tag someone, pls tell me..

Tumblr is fuckin with me again.

Reminder; Just tell me if y'all wanna be added to the permanent taglist.

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stevie-petey · 1 year ago

Text

episode three: holly, jolly

Jonathan, your Jonathan, would never do this. He tries to approach you again but you find yourself stumbling back, knocking against Steve’s chest. Hurt flashes in his eyes, you’ve never flinched at Jonathan’s touch, but what he did has changed everything. Steve places a hand on your shoulder. “See, you can tell that he knows it was wrong, but that’s the thing about perverts. It’s hard-wired into them. They just can’t help themselves.” He begins tearing up the pictures, and you can’t believe Jonathan of all people is making you agree with Harrington, yet here you are.

summary: you and jonathan talk it out and things are better (spoiler alert: they aren't), you somehow end up agreeing with steve harrington ?? then you have a minor breakdown in front of the kids and once again fail to prevent them from experiencing more trauma.

rating: general, slight cursing.

warnings: cursing, use of the word “slut”, fem!reader, use of y/n, and description of a dead body. this chapter is pure angst, steve is steve, jonathan is jonathan, and... well. we know how this episode ends.

words: 6.2k

before you swing in: hello ! i'm currently in the early stages of chapter 5, and it's a loooong chapter, so i figured i'd treat y'all to this one before taking my time with updating. this chapter was a bit difficult in terms of bug and jonathan, but i promise that they'll have more time later to really figure out why they keep clashing - for better or for worse lol. if their relationship feels stilted: that's why ! after all, season 1 is literally titled: we don't talk about it or have the time. the title has immense meaning for the overall tone of season 1 (and the song for the series shhh). anyways, enjoy <3

The next day you bike to school alone, not bothering to see if Jonathan’s car will pick you up as usual.

The two of you have never fought before, at least not like this. From the moment you met him when you were twelve, there has never been a time where the two of you haven’t been on the same page. You’ve been in sync from the moment you met.

Now it feels like everything is off between the two of you. It feels as if the tiny planet you live on is now off kilter, angled ever so slightly now, rotating out of sync. The change is almost imperceptible, but it’s there. You can feel it.

Last night just proved that there’s something wrong with your relationship with Jonathan, but you can’t figure out what.

Jonathan has never yelled at you before, and you’ve never turned your back on him; then again, he’s also never kept anything from you. While he didn’t admit it last night, you know him. He was hiding something from you last night and it frightens you that he seems too ashamed to tell you what it is.

You trust him, you do, but the guilt you saw in his eyes makes you uneasy.

As you walk the school hallway towards your locker, you overhear some girls from your English class talking about Steve and Nancy. You normally wouldn’t eavesdrop on such a conversation, but the girls were talking obnoxiously loud and by the tone of their voice, they weren’t being kind about what they were saying.

“I heard Harrington got little Miss Wheeler to sleep with him.” One of the girls giggles, looking around to make sure no one is listening.

“What a slut!” Her friend sneers.

You clear your throat loudly, making sure they hear it, and send a glare their way. “Well, aren’t you guys just peachy?”

The girls lower their eyes and shift uncomfortably, which pleases you. Good. They should feel bad. What does it matter if Nancy slept with Harrington? It’s always the girls who get labeled the slut, never the man who has slept with more girls than classes he’s passed.

Typical.

You roll your eyes at them and continue towards your locker, spotting the couple in question up ahead. Your locker is a few down from Nancy’s and usually you’ve been able to avoid their gross lovey-dovey sessions in the mornings since Jonathan is always running late, but since you didn’t ride with him, you’re forced to deal with two hormonal teens who you don’t necessarily like.

“Hey, Henderson!”

Steve stops you as you walk past, causing you to look up in confusion. “Yeah?”

“How’s Byers doing? Ya know, with everything going on?”

You stare at him, trying to figure out what the punchline is supposed to be. Steve may not be a massive dick, but he’s still a dick, and you can’t imagine he’d ever ask about Jonathan given the fact that he can’t even remember Will’s name.

“He’s… dealing.” You say, uncomfortable with the entire conversation.

Steve nods, letting out a slight hum. “Well, tell your guy that any friend of Henderson’s is a friend of mine.” He sends a wink Nancy’s way, and it’s then that you figure out what he’s doing. He’s playing the nice guy card, trying to impress her with his “generosity”, and you’ve had enough of idiotic and emotionally constipated men these last 24 hours.

“Funny, I don’t tell my friends to get fucked, yet here we are: get fucked, Harrington.” Steve’s eyes widen at your words, taken aback, and Nancy goes to say something but you cut her off. “You sure know how to pick ‘em, Nancy. Why don’t you ask him why everyone’s staring at you? I’m sure it’ll be a thrilling conversation.”

You shove past the two of them and make your way to class.

–

You don’t see Jonathan for your next three classes, which only makes your shitty day worse. Not only have you guys never fought before, but you’ve never done the silent treatment either. As far as you can tell, there’s no reason for him not to be in class today besides your fight the night before.

When it’s your lunch hour you try to find him, because at this point you just want to put it all behind you and move on to focus on Will. You never got the chance to tell Jonathan about El last night, you hadn’t had the time to before things blew up.

You wait at your usual corner of the lunchroom for Jonathan, but he never appears. You sigh in defeat and pick at your meal, which honestly looks more like prison food than anything else, trying to figure out what you should do next.

While you’re thinking, Carol’s obnoxious moans carry through the lunchroom. “Oh, Steve! Steeeve!”

Tommy joins in now, banging the table to get a bigger reaction. You see Steve trying not to smile at their antics, but it’s obvious to everyone how uncomfortable Nancy is. You feel pity for her, she deserves better than Harrington and his immature friends. Then again, you suppose she chose this for herself the second she started dating him.

King Steve has never hidden who he is.

You watch as Steve says something to appease her, but something catches Nancy’s eye and she turns to face it. Curious, you turn as well and spot Jonathan staring right back at her. They share a look, one that you can’t decipher, and you feel something twist within your stomach.

It’s not jealousy, at least, not in that way. Jonathan is your only real friend in Hawkins (the kids don’t count, you recognize how embarrassing that is), and you’ve never had to share him before. Clearly Nancy has taken an interest in him of some sort and Jonathan, being ever the private person, has allowed her to, so you just have to swallow down your pride and accept it.

Besides, you did always tell Jonathan that the two of you needed more friends.

Taking a deep breath to will your nerves away, you ditch your lunch and follow after Jonathan. Screw whatever silent treatment is in place, he’s your best friend and you honestly don’t think it’s possible for you to ever be angry at him. It just isn’t in your nature.

For better or for worse, you could never hate Jonathan Byers.

You catch Jonathan as he’s leaving the photo developing room. He’s holding some pictures in his hands but quickly hides them away when he sees you.

“Y/N, hi.”

You ignore the voice in the back of your head telling you that something’s wrong, that he’s still acting weird with you, but you ignore it because you just want some normalcy in your life. You need your best friend. “Hey,”

“Look, I’m so sorry for what I said last night…”

You brush him off, “It’s okay, I promise.”

Jonathan huffs at you, exasperated as always whenever you let people get away with things that they shouldn’t. “No, it’s not okay. You’ve been nothing short of amazing and I was the dick who yelled at you for it.”

The two of you are walking out of the school as you talk, and you let out a weak laugh. “I guess you were pretty awful, huh?”

He doesn’t laugh along with you, instead shaking his head in shame. “You didn’t deserve that, not after all you’ve done for me and my mom. I was lying through my teeth last night, you are family, Y/N.”

“I appreciate the sentiment, but it’s genuinely okay-”

“Bug, I was a dick. End of discussion. I just… sometimes it feels like I don’t deserve your help, you do so much for us. I let it get to me last night, and I’ll never stop apologizing for it.”

You don’t know what to say, caught off guard by the vulnerability. “Just… don’t do that again, alright? If something is bothering you I’d rather you tell me about it than take your frustration out on me.”

“Deal.”

“Anything else on your mind?”

Jonathan thinks for a moment and you can tell he’s trying to word whatever is on his mind correctly. “While I know you’ve always loved to help, there’s some things that I have to do on my own, okay? Will, my mom… they’re my responsibility, not yours. I mean, not in a bad way-”

“Hey, I understand. I need to back off a bit, I recognize that now. I’m sorry, bee.” You kick at a rock in the parking lot, “so we’ve got ourselves a deal?”

The boy gives you a quizzical look and you laugh at him, extending your hand. When he grabs it, you turn the hold into a handshake. “I’ll calm down my fretting antics and you’ll come to me about whatever is on your mind, no matter what; we don’t hide anything from each other.”

The slight smile Jonathan briefly had on his face vanishes. He pales slightly and quickly releases your hand. “Right.”

You eye him. “Bee, what aren’t you telling me?”

Caught up in conversation, you and Jonathan don’t see Steve and his gang resting against his car until it’s too late.

“Hey, man.” Steve approaches, effectively ending your conversation with Jonathan. He glances at you. “Henderson, good to see you again.”

“I highly doubt it.”

“What’s going on?” Jonathan asks, putting himself between you and Steve.

“Nicole here was telling us about your work.”

Confused, you look at Jonathan. “What, did you start another photo series or something?”

Steve laughs coldly. “You could say that.”

Jonathan ignores him and pulls you close behind him, ducking his head down to whisper into your ear, “it’s not what it looks like, trust me.”

“Bee, what-”

“Henderson, want to take a look with us as, you know, connoisseurs of art?”

You look at Steve now, more confused than ever, but you feel a slight sense of dread. You know that whatever photo he’s about to pull out will be bad. You know it’ll be connected to Jonathan’s behavior last night, to the guilt he’s been carrying, to the way he hid the same pictures from you not even ten minutes ago.

You look back to Jonathan now, silently pleading with him for more of an explanation, but he averts his eyes. Exhaling deeply, you face Steve. “Show me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jonathan says, trying to walk away, but Tommy grabs at his backpack.

“Hey!” You run up to Tommy and start pulling at the bag, but the guy is twice your size and easily wins, accidentally flinging you to the ground.

Jonathan runs over to check on you. “Y/N!”

At the same time, Steve berates his friend. “Woah, Tommy, easy man! Henderson isn’t who we’re here for, leave her out of this.”

Both boys crouch next to you and offer you a hand, but you bat them away. You’re irritated and confused and pissed the fuck off at both of them right now for vastly different reasons. You pick yourself up and brush away some dirt that got on your jeans. “Show me the photos, Jonathan.”

He looks at you, hurt. “Do you not trust me?”

“Do you trust me?” Your words hang in the air.

Steve is now right behind you. “Oh man he’s like, totally trembling. He must really have something to hide.”

Jonathan tries to step closer to you, but Steve is now the one who blocks him. You watch silently as he unzips Jonathan’s bag and pulls out the photos, ignoring the pleading look that your friend sends your way. You trust Jonathan more than anyone else in this world, but something doesn’t feel right.

The photos are tame at first, though admittedly creepy. They’re all still shots of Steve and his friends from the night before, you recognize the famous pool that the whole school talks about when it comes to Harrington’s parties.

“Your boyfriend is a creep, Y/N.” Steve says, nudging you with his shoulder as he continues to flick through the pictures.

“He isn’t my-”

“I was looking for my brother.”

Jonathan’s words make you freeze. “You went looking for Will without me?”

Steve says something else, but you don’t catch it. You stare at Jonathan, hurt that he’d search for Will without even telling you first. He’s his brother, you understand that, but what would you do if Jonathan went missing too?

Nancy then appears, causing Jonathan to finally look up to catch your eye, but he quickly looks away. “Here’s the starring lady!”

She laughs nervously. “What?”

Carol explains what was going on, and you’re too upset to speak. There’s too many thoughts going through your mind, but when Carol flashes you a picture of Nancy, naked, it takes everything in you not to throw up.

Jonathan, your Jonathan, would never do this.

He tries to approach you again but you find yourself stumbling back, knocking against Steve’s chest. Hurt flashes in his eyes, you’ve never flinched at Jonathan’s touch, but what he did has changed everything.

Steve places a hand on your shoulder. “See, you can tell that he knows it was wrong, but that’s the thing about perverts. It’s hard-wired into them. They just can’t help themselves.”

He begins tearing up the pictures, and you can’t believe Jonathan of all people is making you agree with Harrington, yet here you are.

Nancy is his girlfriend, and even outside of that, Jonathan had no right taking pictures of her naked without her consent. You agree with Steve’s actions, but then the camera comes into play. He reaches for Jonathan’s camera, causing him to dive forward to stop anything from happening to it, and it’s finally what breaks you from your shock.

You react as well, shoving past Steve to try and get to the camera first, but it’s no use. He beats you to it, Carol now holding you back as she digs her claws into your skin. Jonathan is being held back by Tommy, and all the two of you can do is watch helplessly as Steve dangles the camera high in the air.

What Jonathan did was wrong, there’s no denying that, but you know how long it took him to save up for the thing. How many awful shifts he picked up at the theater to pay for it, adamantly refusing any money both you and Joyce offered him to help pay for it.

This camera was his and his alone. Paid for with his own money, bought for his own enjoyment, his pride and joy.

“Here you go, man.” Without even hesitating, Steve lets the camera fall to the ground.

You gasp, watching as the lens shatters and you crouch down to try and piece it back together. Your hands are shaking, you don’t know what to feel right now, but with how badly your hands shake, it’s no use trying to fix the camera; you need something to distract yourself with.

Jonathan and Nancy join you on the ground, but you’re too overwhelmed to really notice them. The combination of emotions leaves you wondering if you’re about to cry, throw up, or both. It’s only when Nancy begins snatching up the torn pictures that you acknowledge her presence.

You grab her hand and catch her eye, “I’m so, so sorry.”

She doesn’t respond, only giving you a slightly confused look, and you recognize how stupid it is that you feel the need to apologize for Jonathan’s actions. You aren’t his keeper, and until now you never even considered he’d do something like this, and yet the guilt creeps in. You open your mouth to say something else, but Steve calls her over to join them and she leaves.

Jonathan is still next to you, remaining silent even after Nancy’s departure. You can feel his eyes on you as you continue to fumble with the broken camera pieces as a gust of wind blows away the remaining photo shreds.

“Shit!” A shard of glass from the lens cuts your finger, drawing blood.

“Bug, let me-” Jonathan grabs at your hand to inspect the cut, but you pull away harshly.

“Don’t touch me!”

“Y/N…” The hurt look on his face is almost enough to make you crack, but the blood drips from your finger and falls onto a picture that somehow didn’t blow away. You look at it, seeing the outline of Nancy’s back in the photo, her beautiful side profile perfectly captured.

The urge to throw up returns.

“You’re hurt, let me look at it.” Jonathan pleads, his voice soft, with more empathy than he’s ever shown you these last few days. It’s as if last night never happened. As if you’re some idiot who is always ready and willing to come crawling back to those who discard you whenever they please.

In a way, you suppose that you are.

You hate it.

Jonathan tries to grab your hand again but you stand up before he can. “I said don’t touch me.”

He tries to grab you once more but again you pull away. Your brain is a mess right now trying to comprehend everything that happened within the last fifteen minutes. You look down at the broken camera pieces still laying on the ground, its glass reflecting in the late afternoon light.

Those photos of Nancy…

God, you’re an idiot.

“Nancy is the reason you were such an asshole to me last night, isn’t she?”

“Y/N, those photos-”

“You knew that the second I looked at you I’d know you’d done something terrible.”

Jonathan is silent beside you, but you don’t need to hear whatever excuse he’ll give you to know that you’re right. Instead of telling you what he did last night, he kicked you out of his home in a guilt-crazed daze, saying horrible things to you that he can never take back.

Instead of being honest with you, he had been a goddamn coward who hurt you in the cruelest way possible.

Jonathan runs a hand through his hair in frustration. “Look, you know I’ve never been able to lie to you-”

“So naturally you resorted to screaming at me and saying we aren’t family-”

“I regret what I said, but how was I supposed to tell you about the photos if I don’t even know why I took them in the first place?”

You start pacing around the parking lot, too overwhelmed to stay put. Jonathan’s words only confuse and upset you more. In the midst of your frantic pacing the cut on your finger begins to bleed more, which causes you to wince and catch Jonathan’s attention.

“Bug, you’re in pain,” his voice is gentle now, the worried crease between his brows now prominent in a way that you’ve always found cute. “I’m not just going to stand around while you’re hurt. Let me help.”

Unfortunately for Jonathan, his words only piss you off more.

“You’re not just going to stand around while I’m hurt? That’s fucking rich coming from you, Jonathan.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“This entire week I’ve been hurting! I mean,” you let out a laugh laced with tears threatening to spill out. “I lost Will too, did you ever consider that? And I understand he’s your brother and I would lose my mind if anything ever happened to Dustin, but I’ve done nothing but love and support you through this shit show and you haven’t even asked how I’m holding up. I mean, what kind of best friend does that?”

Shame washes over Jonathan. “I didn’t think-”

“I’ve been exhausting myself trying to help and not once have I considered it a burden because I’m doing this for Will, for you. I’m doing what any decent person is supposed to do, and I’m not asking for praise or-or for a reward but holy fuck, Jonathan! I mean, I understand now that maybe I was bit too much but,”

You’re yelling at him now, all the frustration you’ve been swallowing down these last few days now spills out. “At least treat me like a human being! I mean, the stunt you pulled last night was such bullshit and I was ready to excuse your actions because you’re my best friend and you’re hurting, but then you hide those damn photos from me? Scream at me like I’m some pathetic fucking child because you’re too ashamed of your own actions? We don’t lie to each other.”

Jonathan steps towards you and it isn’t until he’s cradling your head in his hands to wipe away your tears do you realize you’re crying. He’s so tender, gently wiping the tears as they fall, and you feel weak against him, closing your eyes as you soak up the affection.

“Bug…” His voice cracks, not knowing what else to say.

You open your eyes now. “You went looking for Will without me… did you even think about what your mom would do if you disappeared too? What I would do if you disappeared?”

“I…”

“And Nancy…” you pull away so that he’s no longer touching you. “That was a line I never thought you would cross. And to lie to me about it, I just… why?”

Jonathan shakes his head, a few tears of his own now beginning to fall. “I don’t know.”

There’s nothing else you can say; you’ve drained all your energy. A headache is beginning to form and with the parking lot clearing out, indicating the end of the school day, you know you need to leave for work soon.

Normally when you look at Jonathan, you feel a sense of security, but now all you feel is dread. His shoulders are hunched, the bags under his eyes darker than ever, and at this moment you’re not sure you know who he is anymore. It terrifies the shit out of you.

“I should go,” you wipe your nose with your sleeve, side stepping Jonathan as you start walking towards the bike stand.

“You’re leaving?” There’s fear in his voice, and you can hear the undertones of are you leaving me, too?

“I have to work tonight, so I need to-”

“Let me drive you then, it’s cold and-and we can talk more about this-”

He follows you to your bike and you feel such pity for him. You know he’s right about needing to talk more, but all you want right now is to crawl into bed and pretend that this whole week has been a dream. A horrible, awful dream.

You offer Jonathan your hand, the cut on your finger no longer bleeding, and intertwine your fingers with his. “I want to be alone right now, okay? Please, just give me some time.”

He wants to argue with you, you can see it in his eyes, but just like you know him better than anyone else, he knows you just as well. He knows there’s no use trying to change your mind when you get like this; when the feelings become too much and solitude is your only solution. It's happened before in the past, but never with him.

All he can do is wait for you to come back when you're ready.

“Okay, I can do that.”

You squeeze his hand, like you always do, before you let go and bike away.

He watches as you leave.

–

Tonight’s shift is another slow one, which you’re grateful for.

It was just last week that Jonathan had been driving you, Will, and Dustin to school. You’d been singing some song on the radio and the November air had a slight nostalgia of August warmth. Will and Dustin complained about your singing as you wailed on, Jonathan eventually joining in so that the two younger boys could only cover their ears with their hands and groan in annoyance.

Now Will is gone, taking the August warmth with him and leaving behind only November cold that leaves your bones feeling raw.

The laughter is gone, and now you’re afraid that your best friend is gone as well.

You come home to an empty house, a note on the kitchen counter informing you that your mother is at her knitting club and that Dustin is off with his friends.

Wonderful. Your brother has once again gone off on some adventure without informing you first. What a lovely addition to your already horrible day.

You call the Wheeler’s first, hoping that maybe you don’t have to bike around the entire town to find the little shit, but like always: you’re mistaken.

“I’m sorry, but the boys went out biking right after school.”

“Oh, lovely then. Thanks, Mrs. Wheeler, have a good night.”

“You too, dear!”

As soon as you hang up, you allow yourself a moment to just scream. The headache that formed during your fight with Jonathan hasn’t left, you’re tired, you have so much homework that you’re too afraid to even look at, and you still have no idea who El is or what she really knows about Will.

And now you have to bike all around Hawkins to find said girl, because there’s no way the morons have listened to your orders to stay put with her.

You check Lucas’ house first, but Erica tells you that they aren’t there and requests that you inform Lucas that her lying fee has been raised to $5.

“That’s a bit steep, don’t you think?”

“Do you wanna pay?”

“Good point, have a good night then Erica.”

You then search around the middle school, but there’s no sign of them anywhere. After another thirty minutes of nothing, you finally give in to your hunch and bike to the Byers. You’re not sure if Jonathan will be home, but your idiot brother may need you, so you just have to suck it up and check.

Ultimately you’re glad you do, because as you ride up the driveway you see the boys circling around El.

“Why did you bring us here?”

“I have a better question Mike, why did you bring us here?” None of the kids had noticed your arrival, so they all jump at your voice.

Dustin’s face goes pale. “Y/N! What-what are you doing here?”

“I’ve been looking for you little assholes for an hour now,” you park your bike and step closer to the kids. “Why do you never listen to me when I tell you guys to keep me updated, huh? Do I have a giant sign on my head that says ‘hey, ignore me and treat me like utter shit!’, is that it?”

No one responds, too stunned by your words. You never cuss at them, and apart from last night, they don’t think they’ve ever seen you so angry before.

“I’m just so sick and tired of people treating me like I’m some throwaway toy, just casting me aside and forgetting about me until it’s convenient. I have feelings too, isn’t that a wild concept? I mean, who knew Y/N Henderson had any real emotions behind her pathetic need to help everyone around her!”

Dustin can hear the hurt in your voice and knows that this isn’t just about them sneaking off. You’re upset about something else, someone hurt you and he needs to know who, so he softly asks, “Y/N, what happened?”

You spin around to face him. “Nothing! That’s what happened! None of you told me anything, everyone has just decided to keep me out of the loop because god forbid I deserve any honesty after years of being there for you guys-”

“Okay, this is definitely about Jonathan then.” Lucas mumbles, which Mike nods in agreement to.

“This is not about Jonathan-” The sound of sirens cuts you off.

Everyone freezes, and your heart stops. This is Hawkins, where nothing ever happens; cops don’t just go flying down the street late at night.

You know, even before you can fully comprehend how, that it’s Will. You can feel it; the sirens are for him, the precious boy you’ve come to love like your own brother.

Then, to confirm your fears, an ambulance follows behind the line of cop cars, and you feel your entire world shatter.

“Will…” Mike exhales, and the second the name leaves his lips everyone scrambles for their bikes to follow the cars.

You know you shouldn’t, you know this won’t end well, but it’s Will. Maybe he’s alive, maybe he simply got lost in the woods and has been wandering around the last three days or so. There’s so many other possibilities, an endless array of explanations, and yet…

Your legs feel heavy as you pedal after the kids. You know that, no matter what you guys end up finding, that nothing will ever be the same again. As you follow, the route you take begins to look familiar, back when you and Jonathan would spend your summers exploring the forest and its surroundings.

The quarry.

Suddenly you can’t breathe. “I… I can’t-”

“Y/N, we have to see if it’s Will!” Dustin calls behind him, too eager to realize exactly where you guys are going.

If you could just warn them, maybe speed up to block their paths, you could convince them to turn around, but it’s too late. The five of you arrive at the quarry’s edge and toss your bikes behind the fire truck. You see the firemen in the water, sloshing around for something, and you realize what they’re doing a second too late.

Immediately you begin to pull the kids away, not wanting them to see what you desperately hope you’re wrong about, but you’re too late. “Guys, get away from the truck, we shouldn’t be here-”

You’re always too fucking late.

“Please, we need to leave,” your voice shakes as you try to shield the kids from the sight of Will’s body being pulled from the water.

Mike pulls away from you. “No, it’s not Will. It can’t be.”

“Mike…”

The firemen lift the raft up higher and the light lands on Will’s lifeless body, and you feel a piece of you die. He’s always been the smallest of the boys, but as the men lift his dead body out of the water, he’s never looked so small. Will is gone; he’s taken all the light with him.

Dustin reaches for your hand and is the first to start crying. You pull him into your chest as he sobs. Lucas looks over at you, a silent acceptance in his eyes. “It’s Will. It’s really Will.”

You grab the boy and pull him into you as well, the two of them now crying as you hold them. All you can do right is hold your boys, staring off into space as you feel them shake with grief against you. This isn’t real.

From the corner of your eye you see El approaching Mike, and you’re too numb to warn her against it. “Mike…”

“‘Mike’? ‘Mike,’ what?” He slaps her hand away, which causes you to become alert. He’s hurting, you know Mike loved Will more than anyone else, but he’ll only hurt himself more if he pushes everyone away.

“Mike, I know you’re upset-”

He faces you, a betrayed look in his eyes. “Upset? She was supposed to help us find him alive. She said he was alive!” he turns to El now, “why did you lie to us? What’s wrong with you?”

As he yells at the girl you hear his own tears beginning to form, and as you hold his friends, you lean closer to Mike and use your other hand to console him, but he begins to run away.

Dustin and Lucas watch helplessly as their friend leaves, you all call after him but are ignored. They beg him to stay, too scared to be separated once more now that Will is gone, but Mike doesn’t listen. He grabs his bike, leaving you and the boys alone with El.

She looks at you, tears in her eyes and a pleading look on her face. She’s looking to you for reassurance, to console her and tell her that everything will be okay with Mike, that he’ll forgive her, but you can’t.

You also feel betrayed by the girl. You don’t think she was lying, in a sense, but then how can she explain Will’s dead body 50 feet away? El promised you and the boys that Will was alive, but he’s not.

Tears start to fall down her face. “Y/N?”

You’re sure that when you look back on this moment later, you will have wished that you had done something braver, something more kind to the terrified girl, but you don’t. Instead of wrapping her into your arms alongside Lucas and Dustin, you give El a curt shake of your head, dismissing her.

It hurts to watch her leave, and you’re ashamed of yourself, but then Dustin lets out another sob while Lucas tightens his hold around you, and you know that you’ve made the right choice for now. You don’t know El or her intentions, but her actions have hurt the people you love the most, and right now you have to put them first.

You let the boys cry, barely registering anything else.

–

Later, much later, after getting Lucas home and tucking Dustin into bed, you finally allow yourself to grieve. You lay in your bed, staring at the framed drawing on your desk that Will had made you for your birthday this year. It was a sweet gift, having drawn you as a princess in one of their DnD campaigns with your sword and shield. Jonathan stands next to you in the picture, holding his own sword and wearing a crown, while Will and the boys are next to him, dressed in their own armor.

In the picture the six of you are facing a dragon, but there’s a smile on all of your faces as you fight the creature together. You, Jonathan, and your boys; together, there’s nothing that you guys cannot defeat.

It’s your favorite drawing of Will’s.

And now it’s your last drawing from him.

The tears come slowly at first, then all at once. You find yourself hunched over, letting out anguished sobs as you mourn for the boy, for Jonathan and Joyce, for your brother and his friends. You mourn for the Byers losing a child, a brother. You mourn for your brother’s now tainted childhood. He’s too young, they all are too young to be experiencing such a loss.

Will was too young.

You cry until there’s nothing left within you, and yet the sobs still wrack against your body long after the tears have dried up. It’s a pain like no else.

Then, as you’re finally beginning to calm down, you hear a knock at your window.

You get up and fling your curtain open to find Jonathan on the other side.

Neither of you say anything as you open the window and let him in. Once he’s inside the two of you face each other, unmoving and silent for what feels like years. There’s still a tension there from earlier, though this afternoon feels like decades ago. Jonathan stares at you, a guarded and unsure look on his face, as though he’s afraid that if he breaks in front of you that you’ll push him away.

Instead, you surprise him by throwing yourself against his chest and into his arms.

You’re not sure who begins to cry first, but it doesn’t matter. His cries only make you cry harder, having never seen your best friend this heartbroken before, and it’s all so fucking unfair. He doesn’t deserve this, no one does, but especially not Jonathan. He loved his brother so much, with such an intensity that rivaled your own love for Dustin.

Jonathan pulls away a bit so that he can look at you; tears stream down his face. “He’s gone, bug.”

“Bee,” you don’t know what more to say. What can you even say? While it feels like your heart has been ripped from your chest along with your bones, you know it only feels worse for Jonathan. No words could ever soothe that ache.

“He’s gone,”

You grab at his jacket and gently guide him so that you sit on your bed. “Jonathan, look at me.” It takes some coaxing, but eventually he listens. “I’m here, okay? I’m here.”

Your voice cracks at the end, your own grief getting in the way, but it’s all you can say right now. You’re not sure how else to phrase it, how else to tell him that even if everything and everyone else is gone, you’re still here. You’ll never, ever leave him, especially not when he needs you the most now.

Despite the vague words, Jonathan nods, always able to understand you, and he rests his head against your shoulder as the two of you cry. Faintly you can hear Dustin’s cries through the wall, but you leave him alone. You know he needs to process this alone, just like you needed to, just like Jonathan had before coming here.

Tomorrow you’ll comfort your brother, you’ll bake the cookies that Joyce loves, and tonight will pass. A day must always end. This day will end, and tomorrow will come. Then, you’ll face this together with everyone you love.

For now, your best friend needs you, so you let him cry into your shoulder and you run your nails against his scalp and whisper soothing words. Fuck whatever is going on between the two of you.

Will is dead. The best of you, the purest of you, is dead.

⌑ series masterlist

⌑ if you would like to be added/removed from my taglist, just let me know :)

⌑ taglist - @siriuslysmoking @sheisjoeschateau

#steve harrington x henderson!reader #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #stranger things #steve harrington fanfic #stranger things rewrite #slowburn #angst #wdtai #m's writing #jonathan my beloved...#i promise he gets better guys #and steve was valid for his reaction to jonathans pics of nancy yall can argue with a wall #and the ending :(#the trauma these kids go through so young is insane

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absolutelynotsanebaby · 1 month ago

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Okay, so I've seen a lot of posts on the "should Morro have stayed dead or should he have been given a redemption arc" and all that and I just kind of wanted to share my thoughts on the topic. I don't think his canon ending is bad, in fact there's a lot I like about it. It's a tragedy and a very good one at that. The way it ends with him and Wu, and with the whole "you can only save those who wish to be saved" quote? That's poignant, that has narrative weight. I think to say that it's bad is to ignore a lot of what makes Morro a good character. He's a reflection of Wu as a teacher, his teachings, and he's a foil to Kai specifically. He shows us why Wu works better now, and why he teaches the way he does. A large component of what makes his story have depth isn't just that he died young and was traumatized it's that he continued a cycle of trauma on with Lloyd (and Cole, if you considered that he dies indirectly due to Morro's actions but that's another topic). He's a bad person, he did really bad things, that's part of who he is. But, I think it's a misstep to call him irredeemable. I think that misses the point of his character entirely actually, like severely. Morro isn't irredeemable, he shows that he's capable of growth in the very scene he dies in! That's part of the tragedy too! It's not a 'hot-take' to miss the point of a character because it's the cool fandom opinion of the month actually. I know people are frustrated at the fandom misogyny in how people talk about Morro vs. Harumi and I agree, it is frustrating, but y'all are just spreading around just plain bad takes and that's getting frustrating.

On the topic of missteps, as much as I do like it, I also think it was a misstep in how DOTD handled Morro. In general DOTD has some interesting ideas and concepts but is overall flat and under-cooked. Morro's part in it isn't excluded from that. DOTD brings him back, it shows that he is extremely capable of change and growth, and understanding (which is something you guys like to ignore too, actually). Then, it has him just leave again, die and I understand why but I think it's very genuinely sad in a way I don't think was intended, or well done. I think it backtracks on the narrative weight his conclusion in Possessed had. Possessions' ending for him is sad but it has depth and weight. DOTD just brings him back for fan service, and again, just has him die, and it's because he wants to. I understand they were going for a "at peace" kind of approach with him but it just falls flat in my opinion. If they were going to bring him back, and I know this is kind of a debated topic, I think they should've just kept him. And everyone who says that he wouldn't be capable of change for that is dead-wrong, the show proves it, and just because you don't like it doesn't make it bad. In terms of how it's handled in fanon, I think it's a mixed bag. Some people do it really well, faithful to his character but other times I think he just gets hit with the fanonization beam really hard. Sometimes you see his woobification of him based on the trauma and death he went through, and that erases what makes him and any sort of possible redemption or relationships with him interesting. I think people tend to miss the idea that a redemption is both not something a character has to 'deserve' (because redemption doesn't equal forgiveness) and also something a character has to work towards. The idea a redemption has to be deserved (as a moral concept not a narrative concept), instead of something worked towards by the character presents in people downplaying his actions and effects, but also in people acting like redemption is inherently reductive to his character because he's bad guys, he's a bad guy guys. Bad guys don't deserve redemption guys (/sarcastic). To be entirely real, I do think redemption can and does have a place in his writing. You can't look at how he acted at the end of possession and DOTD and tell me otherwise. Redemption in fiction at the end of the day is a narrative device and trope, and how a character is written informs their development. Additionally, I think some of you guys take his "you can only save those who want to be saved" way way too literally. That, too, is tragic and it's not because it's right. When characters speak, nine times out of ten, you're not supposed to baselessly accept and internalize what they say as correct and true. Was it true when Cole said he wasn't a ninja after dying in the same season? Was it true when Kai said he deserves to be the green ninja, just because he said it? Come on. Also, just, I think sometimes this fandom needs to accept different people find different things appealing and cathartic. It's okay to prefer a tragedy, but it's also okay to prefer the idea of him redeeming himself (because it takes work) and healing. There's this whole argument about whether or not saying he should've gotten a redemption arc (kind of a stupid question to begin with, in my opinion) but at the end of the day, it's already done. Also, both ends of the spectrum can have the most frustrating takes on him, and yeah I'm going to be annoyed and salty about it if you couldn't already tell. Anyways, there's no proper point to this because it's really just be ranting about several things I find really frustrating about how people handle this topic, so take it as you will. You can disagree, but I'm not saying his ending is bad nor that his tragedy is bad. In fact if you disagree I encourage that this fandom is way too prone to just parroting each others (mostly bigger blogs) opinions and not their own personal ones, so yeah.

#lego ninjago #ninjago #morro wu #morro ninjago #ninjago meta #ig?#blah blah #baby's.thoughts #anyways kinda nervous to post this too but i think i get to complain actually #long ass ramble rant post hitting send at. 11:00pm.

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ponderingmoonlight · 23 hours ago

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Your Arranged Marriage Series

Part 2: Geto Suguru

Word Count: 3k

Synopsis: You’ve always carried the weight of the Zenin name, struggling to live up to a family legacy that crushes more than it elevates. When your father demands you marry one of the few special-grade sorcerers at Jujutsu High or suffer a punishment too brutal to consider, you almost give up. Until Geto Suguru makes that decicion for you...

Warnings: reader is a member of the Zenin family so a lot of trauma lol, physical abuse, so much drama but a ton of fluff in the end, Suguru is our husband y'all

„(y/n).“

It started out like any other normal day at jujutsu high. Going to the classroom with Nanami and Yu, giving it all you’ve got despite the fact that you didn’t make it past grade 3 since you’ve started studying here, meeting up with Suguru and Satoru during break.

It’s been a comfortable life, more than you could have ever asked for. After all, you are none other than the daughter of the Zenin clan’s leader. The one who’s supposed to carry on a family of strong jujutsu sorcerers.

You. A grade 3.

“I gave you more than enough time to develop. Fuck, I even arranged you attending that cursed school!”

A rough slap that doesn’t even hurt anymore, your skin so adjusted to the sting that you felt nothing but numbness.

“Are you too dumb to understand the whole clan relies on your lousy self?”

He grabbed your hair and yanked you upwards again, forced you to stare straight into his dead eyes.

“If you aren’t capable of becoming a decent jujutsu sorcerer, you’ll have to marry one. Maybe your children will be of use.”

Your…children? Marrying someone back at jujutsu high? What a ridiculous thought, after all, you’re still way too young for something like this-

“I’ll give you three months. Three months to find a man who is a special grade jujutsu sorcerer. Three months until you have to get married.”

“But…There are only three special grade sorcerers!”, you protested out of instinct, only to get your mouth forcefully shut by another ruthless slap from your father that felt like breaking your nose.

“Seduce them. That’s the least you can do.”

Seduce them. Your gaze drifted towards Satoru and Suguru more than once, wondering if you’d ever dare to make a move on them. They greeted you so friendly, supported you as good as possible. Suguru started giving you training sessions after each and every rough day, taught you on a regular basis in order for you to become stronger.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, (y/n). Even though you’re a Zenin, you don’t have to be a special grade sorcerer”, he spoke softly while lifting you off the ground.

“Easy to say when you’re a special grade yourself…”, you muttered, careful to avoid his gentle gaze.

Suguru has always been to good for this world. Looking out for you when no one else does, supporting you through everything the best he can. Yes, Suguru Geto is the kind of husband every girl you ask for, the boy you’ve kept you’re eye on since the first time he spoke to you.

But asking him out, let alone proposing to him for the sake of your own well-being and your lousy family? You could never do that.

No, Suguru deserves way better than you. What if he thinks you only want him because of his title? What if your father digs his mighty claws into him? There’s no way in hell you’ll ever allow that.

Even if this means directing your father’s anger towards you.

“I’ve been waiting long enough, (y/n).”

His cold voice cuts through the cheerful air and interrupts even Satoru from saying another playful word. All pairs of eyes are suddenly set on you.

Those of your father included.

“Why didn’t I hear from my daughter those past weeks, huh?”

The blood in your veins freezes immediately, all color draining from your face. This is bad, very very bad. You thought you had more time, one more weeks until you’re due. Your father made it more than clear that he’s expecting a husband from you the next time both of you meet.

And you have to offer nothing but yourself.

“I didn’t make it”, you finally mutter.

“You disappoint me all over again. You’ve had one job, (y/n). Only one job.”

He steps towards you, cold eyes glaring you straight into the ground. No, not in front of your friends, not when Suguru stands right next to you-

But before you’re even able to protest, your father grabs your uniform and yanks you towards him, your feet dangling in the air.

“You useless piece of shit”, he screams on top of his lungs while shaking your, forcing every little bit of air out of your lungs.

“Too dumb to get better than grade 3 and finding a husband who’s a special grade? Maybe I should kill you right here on the spot, huh?”

Your father’s grip on your uniform tightens, his furious eyes darkening. The world starts to blur as you gasp, struggling to breathe, but then-

“Let her go.”

The command is quiet, cold. Suguru steps forward, his face calm but his eyes blazing with a determination that makes your father pause. Suguru's hand is on your father’s arm in a flash, prying his fingers off you with a force that leaves no room for resistance.

“What do you think you’re doing?”, your father hisses, venom lacing his words.

Suguru's gaze doesn’t waver.

"If you’re so insistent on a husband for her, then you’ll have one. I’ll marry her. I’m the special grade you’re asking for."

A hush falls over the room, even Satoru, who usually has a comment for everything, is left speechless. The weight of Suguru’s words hangs heavy in the air, settling over you with a mix of relief and fear. This isn’t what you wanted for him. This isn’t what he deserves. But no word of protest escapes your lips, not when your father’s eyes still linger over you dreadfully. What a coward you are, ruining Suguru’s life to safe your own.

After what feels like forever, your father scoffs, but there’s a glimmer of approval in his gaze. Of course, he’s aware of Suguru Geto’s status, the boy who isn’t part of the big jujutsu sorcerer families but still holds breath-taking skills. A pretty good match, a promise to the future.

“Fine,” he sneers.

“But if I see her slipping, she’ll answer to me.”

With that, he storms away, leaving silence and a chill in his wake.

You don’t even dare to look at Suguru, embarrassment now swallowing you whole. This can’t be true, has to be one of your countless nightmares. Your father basically forcing Suguru to marry you while you stand next to him, doing nothing but watching?

“Hey, are you alright?”, he questions before gently placing his hand on your shoulder.

“You…You don’t have to do this. I need to find another way-“

“By marrying another special grade sorcerer? You know that Satoru and I are your only options here at jujutsu high? I can allow him to hurt you.”

“I…I just need to get stronger”, you press out.

“You need to accept my help. Please, let me do this for you. I can’t stand the idea of you getting hurt by your father.”

“But that means marrying me. That means marrying into that family, that you won’t be able to leave. I…I can’t ask for something like this. We can’t do this.”

You feel like throwing up any given minute, the sudden wave of emotions making you feel dizzy. What are you supposed to do? Why didn’t you try harder? There has to be a way out of this, a way to avoid ruining Suguru’s life together with yours.

But to be honest, your head is empty. There isn’t a single potential solution you didn’t think through already, no way out you didn’t try over those past weeks.

You are too weak to meet your father’s standards on your own and Suguru is the only way for this arranged marriage to involve someone decent. What if your father decides to find a husband for you?

A dry cough escapes your lips while you try to stop yourself from puking.

Is marrying Suguru really the only way?

-after the ceremony-

The evening is still, blanketed in a quiet Suguru and you can feel as the last traces of daylight fade from the sky. Soft candlelight fills the room, casting a gentle, muted glow on the walls - a stark contrast to the earlier chaos of the ceremony. Despite the festivities, the muted joy, and the unspoken words from family and friends, the reality of this arrangement sits heavy in your chest, and a kind of emptiness clings to you like your skin.

Suguru stands across from you, his tall frame outlined by the flickering light. He looks so calm, so composed, as he usually does, but the gentleness in his eyes now holds something deeper, something unreadable. He’s here, bound to you, tied to the Zenin family and all of its darkness and expectations, and it’s a thought that makes your stomach twist with guilt.

You can barely look at him as he steps closer, and the silence stretches, each heartbeat a drumbeat of regret echoing in your mind. How you could let things get this far, why did your weakness led you to this night where Suguru is forced to bear a burden that should have never been his? And all of this while he looks so handsome in that dark blue suit.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” you finally murmur, your voice small, almost inaudible.

The words tremble out of you as a flood of emotions swells within, too much to keep contained. Your voice breaks as you continue.

“Suguru, I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t… I didn’t want this for you.”

“(Y/n),” he says softly, reaching out to you, his hand hovering just above your shoulder as if asking permission to comfort you.

You close your eyes, ashamed, willing yourself not to break down, not to let him see just how torn apart you feel. But his hand gently settles on your shoulder, and it’s enough to dissolve whatever flimsy resolve you had left.

A sob escapes before you can stop it, and the weight of everything, your father, the impossible expectations, the years of feeling like not being good enough and now this forced bond, comes crashing down. Your knees start to give way, and you sink to the floor, unable to hold it in anymore.

“I never wanted this for you,” you whisper between shallow breaths, looking down as you feel tears streak down your face.

“You deserve…you deserve someone better, someone who doesn’t drag you into this horrible family, into this endless cycle of cruelty and control. I should have stopped you, I should have trained harder, should have been…better…”

Suguru kneels beside you, one hand gently resting on your back as the other moves to tilt your face up to his. His touch is tender, his gaze unwavering, and he watches you as if you’re the only person in the world who matters.

“I chose this,” he says firmly, his voice steady, a calm assurance anchoring every word.

“(Y/n), you have to understand that I’m here because I want to be here. I’m not doing this because of your father, or even for him. I did this because I couldn’t stand the thought of you suffering any longer. Because I… I’ve wanted to be by your side for a long time.”

The intensity of his words shakes you into a completely different direction. You blink hasty against the coat of tears in your eyes, stunned as his confession begins to sink in. Him…wanting to be by your side for a long time?

“I’ve loved you for years, (y/n),” he continues, his voice softer now, but still steady.

“I don’t know when it started. Maybe it was the way you never gave up, even when everyone seemed to be against you, or maybe it was the way you always cared about others, even if they couldn’t see it. You have this strength that you don’t even realize. And I fell in love with that strength, with your kindness, your resilience. I fell in love with you.”

Suguru’s words hang in the air, filling the quiet with an overwhelming warmth. Your mind races, trying to comprehend what he’s saying, how he could feel that way, how he could possibly think of you with such admiration. Is it a cruel joke, a nightmare, maybe? How could a man like Suguru Geto ever love someone like you? You can’t meet his gaze, your heart pounding, his confession echoing in your mind.

“You…you’re saying that you…”

The words falter, disbelief woven through them. You’ll never be good enough for a man like him. You, the lousiest member of the Zenin clan, a grade 3 sorcerer while he’s a special grade. Him who is popular wherever he goes, who has countless girls secretly keeping up with his tracks while you always lived in the shadows back at jujutsu high.

He…he loves you?

“Yes,” he whispers, his thumb gently brushing a stray tear from your cheek.

“I’ve dreamed of being with you, (y/n). I wished for a future together, one where we could be together without any of this mess, without your father’s interference, without any expectations from anyone but ourselves. I wanted us to grow into that future slowly, to experience life together on our own terms. But maybe fate had something else in mind.”

His words are steady, but there’s a hint of sorrow in them, an echo of the hope for something simpler, something kinder. You can see that he had imagined a different path for the two of you, one free of constraints and family legacies, a journey that would’ve let him show you his love in its purest form.

“But Suguru,” you begin, choking back the tears.

“This family, my family, will try to use you. They’ll see your strength and skill as a means to control, a way to fulfill their ambitions. They’ll tie you to this name, weigh you down with the same expectations they forced on me. The only reason for our marriage is the fact that they expect my future children to fill the void my uselessness left.”

Suguru’s gaze hardens slightly, a flicker of defiance breaking through his usual calm.

“Let them try. I’m not afraid of the Zenin family. I don’t want you to worry about that. And if they think they can manipulate me, they’re wrong.”

His hand finds yours, fingers lacing together with a gentle squeeze.

“I am here because I want to be here. Not because I owe them anything, or because I’m part of their plan, let alone because I pity you. And no matter what they say or do, my loyalty is to you, and you alone.”

A wave of emotion surges up in your chest again, but this time it’s not guilt or shame. It’s relief, gratitude, and a kind of hesitant joy that Suguru’s love is real, not just something forced by circumstance. You gaze down at your entwined hands, gaping at the warmth of his skin, the reassurance in his touch and a new sense of calm fills the room.

“Can you forgive me?” you whisper, your voice barely audible.

“For dragging you into this mess, for… everything?”

Suguru’s hand lifts to cup your face, his fingers tracing your jaw with a softness you never experienced before.

“There’s nothing to forgive. If anything, you gave me a way to protect you, a chance to stand beside you. I can’t think of anything I’d want more.”

Slowly, he leans forward, his forehead resting gently against yours, and you close your eyes, feeling the weight of his presence, the steady rhythm of his breathing matching your own. The world outside slowly but surely fades away, leaving only the two of you, together in this fragile, newfound peace.

“(Y/n),” he murmurs, his breath warm against your skin.

“Let’s make this ours. This life, this future… we can shape it however we want. Let’s find happiness on our terms, not theirs.”

Tears spill over again, but this time, they’re different - softer, lighter, filled with joy instead of dread. It’s as if Suguru’s words have lifted something from you, a burden that you’d carried for too long. For the first time, you allow yourself to imagine a future without fear, a future where you and Suguru can build something beautiful together.

You nod slowly, still overwhelmed, but there’s a quiet strength blooming inside you, the beginnings of hope.

“I’d like that,” you whisper.

“I’d like that a lot.”

Suguru’s arms wrap around you ever so gently, pulling you close, his embrace steady and unwavering. You allow yourself to relax against him, finally surrendering to the comfort he offers, allowing yourself to feel safe in his arms. Oh, it feels so much better than it did those countless times in you imagination. Not even in your dreams, you allowed yourself the dangerous thought of being by his side. And now? Now this man is your husband, not because he has to, but because he wanted to.

Minutes pass, the silence comfortable, his fingers gently running through your hair as he holds you. Finally, you pull back slightly, meeting his gaze, and you can’t help but notice the faint smile on his lips - a smile that seems to hold promises, a shared understanding that goes beyond words.

“We’ll take this one step at a time,” he says. We’ll face whatever comes our way together. I don’t care what your father or the Zenin clan throws at us. They don’t define us.”

You nod, a faint smile breaking through the lingering sadness.

“I think I’m starting to believe that too…Maybe.”

Suguru’s smile widens, and he presses a gentle kiss to your forehead, his lips lingering for a moment before he pulls back.

“We’ll make it work,” he assures you, his voice a soothing balm to your soul.

Tags:

@arehzhera @ploylulla @tzubaki @beatrexworld @kenstarsworld

@hellkaiserinphoenix @lauv4chuuya @sindela @kayleegomez @sunshine7queen

@magalimachete @gatitam @idontknow1123 @creative1writings @sanicsmut

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@ynackerman9499 @keepghostly @froufrousnowman @tomiokathedepresso @gojosrealwife

@coffeeluvr96 @mahi-tamashi @weebotaku21 @chaoticwinnercupcake @lees-chaotic-brain

@risuola @sugurulefttesticle @wordskeeper @baku2345 @polarbvnny

@ruixrei @bam-bam-bam-bame-blog @lavenderdrxp @localhehecat @alicerhr

@sugu-love @belovedvamp @wifenanami @chilichopsticks @dlwlrmas-world

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@maximumuzuamy @sparklykeylime

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star-anise · 6 months ago

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So, Easy Beauty by Chloé Cooper-Jones is not by any means a straightforward tale of the specific traumas and experiences of being a disabled woman. In many ways, it's an examination of how holding onto those traumas too tightly can keep you not just from positive chances for connection and experience, but understanding when your choices and behaviours are hurting other people.

But. It does talk about the trauma. And specifically, this splinter I've spent months now slowly drawing out of my soul, because this never happened to me except for the version of it that did happen to me. In her case, it was a conversation with a friend in high school:

I approached him in the library of our school. He was studying for a geometry test. He saw me, closed his notebook, and smiled. “I feel like,” he said, teasing me, “there might be something you want to talk to me about.” I told him yes, there was, and I said that I wanted to go to the homecoming dance with him and would he take me. “Of course,” he said. Relief flooded through me so quickly it turned my stomach. “But,” he continued, “there’s something very important I need to talk to you about first.” He proceeded to tell me that our female friends had been pressuring him for weeks to ask me to the dance, not wanting me to feel left out. “They love you,” he said, “but they pity you and their pity won't help you in the world.” I can, to this day, recall the exact even tone in his voice, his smile. He reached across the table and took my hand. “I want to tell you something as your friend,” he said. “I want to protect you. When you ask a man like me on a date, you put us in a bad position.” He was still smiling; I was having a cute delusion and was in need of his loving, if uncomfortable, correction. “It’s just the truth,” Jim said. “No man will want to date you unless he, too, is desperate or ugly.”

What I've felt, since I was very young, was this sense not just that no one would ever love me, but that I was so pitiful, so unlovable, such a complete failure of femininity, that expressing interest in another person was tantamount to forcing them to pity-fuck me. And how could I do something that horrible to them?

Well, at least in the years since then, I've learned that actually people feel no compunction about rejecting me!

I have almost always felt like such a complete failure at femininity, to the point that discussions about the female experience feel hypnotically surreal, because these things never happen to me. Y'all get catcalled and hit on? I'm struggling to dredge up memories of experiencing that firsthand. I grew up with grownups always warning me about men who'd want me for sex but didn't actually love me, and now I'm like... being wanted for sex? What's that like? I have literally ten seconds of experience of my desire for someone else being something that excited and interested them.

This is my own personal neurosis, not a prescription for widespread behaviour. But I've always kind of hated when people talk about slowburn romances and stories with pining as "two idiots in love" because on a visceral level, it doesn't feel stupid to me to believe you're repulsive and nobody will ever want you. It has always felt like the natural and obvious conclusion to enter adulthood with.

Up until two weeks ago I've always been very careful to describe my feelings about my body as part of me being crazy--I hate the way I look, I don't like seeing or hearing recordings of myself, I think I'm not pretty. Because obviously that means I'm actively working to rid myself of those emotions and attitudes! I've got it handled! I've admitted that I have a problem!

And that's because I always had it locked away in my heart that if I tried to make a factual claim about being ugly, people would say "No you're not!" just to make me feel better, and then I would never ever know if anyone who found me attractive really meant it, or if they were just doing it out of pity.

That is crazy. That's holding onto the lesson of that fucking shitbag who found Chloé attractive and fuckable two months fucking later once he got over himself. That's sitting around waiting for someone to come climb up into my unfuckable tower and do all the work of establishing a relationship themselves. That's lesbian sheep behaviour.

It's only just begun to feel possible that I could begin to take steps to seek people out and express interest in them, instead of holding perfectly still and making someone else do all the heavy lifting to get to me, when I haven't even made it known I wanted them to.

But this doesn't get talked about as part of "the female experience". When men talk about women's experiences in the dating market, they absolutely never mean women like me. Why bother with the experiences of women they wouldn't want to fuck anyway? It's not like we're people or some shit like that.

#staranise original #body image tw #ableism tw #feminist discourse #easy beauty #chloé cooper jones

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penvisions · 8 months ago

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by the grit of sandpaper {chapter 2}

Pairing: Jackson! Joel Miller x Patrol Partner! Reader

Chapter Summary: It goes without saying that your first overnight patrol in years happens to be with Joel Miller. But the conversation doesn't flow easily like it normally does, with your haywire emotions and his unintentional eavesdropping...

Word Count: 7.5k

Warnings: canon typical violence, canon typical language, illusions to past death, illusions to past trauma, blood, hurtful language, town gossip, rumors, negative feelings, pining, unrequited feelings, joel a little daft in this, reader is a little daft in this, heart of gold joel, carpenter joel, woodworking joel, artisan joel, patrol partnership, mild injuries, reader snaps at joel, lots of feelings, slight angst, hurt and comfort, joel miller's hands need their own warning, jealousy, three (3) instances of joel miller gently touching reader, intentional flirting, unintentional flirting, casual intimacy, urges to kiss joel miller get their own warning, protective joel, minor injuries, fluff, this is so unbelievably soft, reader is described as smaller than joel (bc c'mon), reader has a commonly used nickname but no assigned name, joel and reader pov

A/N: i just really got caught up in these two after work yesterday. i hope this chapter reads as well as the first one, i'm super nervous bc i want to keep it soft, but i did say there was slight angst in this! love y'all ♡

ao3 link || series masterlist || main masterlist || ko-fi

You were minding your own business walking back from the mess hall when you caught wind of the conversation.

It was a hushed thing, between two people right outside of the turn for the main street. Two women standing close to each other. You had been passing them by when your ears caught your nickname. And then your real one.

“Olive? What kind of grown woman willingly goes by such a silly nickname.” One quiet voice uttered.

“Tommy Miller gave it to her, on account of the trees in her backyard. Surprised she even knows what to do with them.” Another one, both of them faintly familiar. While Jackson was small, only a few hundred people, it was easy to recognize them. They were the ones you often heard while helping out with the gardens, offering trade with the owners as you all shared the spoils of your own personal ones tended to in backyards.

You knew you were intent on pulling your own weight to support and protect the town. Having been grateful for stumbling across the safe haven it provided all those years ago now. Partaking in the patrol rotation and helping out with anything around the town. You had made a life here, one that you had always wanted to try and salvage from the wreckage of the world.

But that didn’t stop people from being people. Rumors and gossip spreading as quickly as the virus that forced the world into small communities like this one. You just happened to be the star in the most recent bout, it seems.

“Yeah, but she does bring them to the markets and trade, so she’s not all that daft.”

“She’s going on the overnight patrol. With Joel Miller.” A whispered reveal, as if it was a death sentence, something that couldn’t be spoken at a regular volume lest it manifest into something.

“Hopefully she doesn’t get-“

“He’s so much more capable, they already saddle him with her for two of his mornings shifts.”

“And now they’re putting her with him for one of the most important ones, what are they thinking.”

“She’s a dear, truly, but she’s going to lose it. Just like she did all those years ago.”

“If she’s the only one that comes back…”

“Marsha, hush, you can’t speak that way. He’s capable enough for the both of them.”

Oh, they weren’t just talking about mundane stuff. They were talking about that. Your chest tightened as you realized they didn’t have any faith in your skills, in the risks you took every time you went beyond the gates to ensure their safety.

Turning back the way you came, not able to face walking past the two women huddled close together and talking so casually about the things that kept you up at night and made sleep hard to come by. You walked straight into a broad chest smelling far too familiar. Smelling like Joel. A grunt that sounded way too baritone and way too close sprung into the evening air at the contact much like your wheezing gasp.

“Woah there, sweetheart, where’s the fire?” Large hands skimmed over your back, arms encasing you, and making you feel a little light-headed, righting your balance as you began to waver from the sudden contact. Oh no, not that honeyed drawl, not that voice, not that tender nickname, not him, not now.

Your composure was already slipping, and you didn’t think you could hold on to what little you had left if he were to ask you if you were alright. The need, the want to answer his questions always winning out.

But you couldn’t, not this time.

“I-I’m fine, just forgot- something.”

“Hey.” And you stopped trying to step back. His hands came up from around your arms where he had grabbed you, cradling your face and tilting you to look at him. His features were softened, the wrinkles beside his eyes and in his forehead creased as he looked you over, making sure you were okay. But you weren’t and you didn’t want him to know. Spurred on by the sound of two voices that had caused all this rounding onto the street, you ignored the fluttering of your heart, the way your breath had caught in your throat, the way he had been touching you and fled.

“See you to-tomorrow!” You managed to squeak out as you stepped away from him, avoiding looking at him directly, his arms falling back to his sides. You weren’t sure if he was trying to catch your eyes, not raising them past his chest as you walked around him. His gaze was heavy on you, following you as you took off down the street in a roundabout way to get back to the streets lined with houses.

“Tommy, please.” Your voice was small, an imitation of what it normally sounded like, and Joel stopped in his tracks. He had a bag of things for Maria, for his brother that he had wanted to drop off before retiring for the night. He tried to quiet his breathing, standing as still as a statue in the back part of the hallway of their house, your voice carrying in from the open sliding door that led out to the sunroom.

He had just run into you down by the shops, or more accurately you had run into him. Literally. His mind had blanked at the feel of your body against his own, the soft press of you up against his chest, the feel of your warm breath fanning over the skin of his neck. And not for the first time, he thought of how well you would fit into him. How well his body could wrap around yours.

He had noticed that while around town you were hesitant to let anyone so much as clap a hand over your shoulder. Aside from the children, whose hands you gladly held with kind smiles and whose arms you welcomed around your shoulders with laughter. Tommy and Maria being the only ones he had witnessed you embracing in quick hugs.

He was always so careful with you, not allowing for direct contact to linger. It always made his heart thunder in his ears, and he wasn’t sure if you were okay with it, the casual touching. You never shied away from him, from the skimming of his fingers against your own or the more recent indulgences he had given into with the touch of his hand or the touch of his lips to minor injuries. He wasn’t ashamed to admit it delighted him to see the way your lashes fluttered and the feel of your breath hitching. He was a man after all, and he was one who was a fool for the jittery feelings you stirred in him. Even if he worried for them at the same time.

“Olive, you can’t let their words get to you.” His brother’s voice was calm, assuring you of the worries you shared with the man.

“But they’re right, Tommy!” Your voice rose to the highest volume Joel had ever heard and then wavered to nothing. More hiccups and sniffling sounding through the door. A particularly harsh hiccup sounded, startling him as he realized you were crying. Chest tight, Joel couldn’t even picture it. The thought of tears running down your upset face steeled his heart. He clenched his hands tight over the handle of the bag in his grip as he heard the shuffle of movement. He couldn’t see through the glass for the curtain fluttering in the evening breeze.

Joel was turning on his heel as your sniffles grew into sobs, moving as quietly as he could back through the house. He set the bag atop the kitchen counter and closed the front door behind him as gently as he could to not garner your or his brother’s attention. He had already heard more than he had meant to, the sound of your distressed voice beckoning him to you as he felt the need to console you. To make whatever it was better.

He knew you had been acting off earlier, just moments ago. From your wild eyes to the way you had been so distracted, the stutter to your voice.

But you were a private person, indulging him in his silly, earnest questions while out on patrol. But this?

This was something you definitely would not someone overhearing, and he respected that. He knew all too well the things people kept to themselves, things that were never exposed to the light of day, spoke of in front of others. And he didn’t want to betray the trust you seemed to have in him by hiding behind a curtain while you fell apart in front of someone who already knew of your struggles and ghosts.

He only hoped that one day…you would feel safe enough and comfortable enough with him to help you shoulder their weight. Because he knew not every patrol went smoothly, how could they, when the whole point of them was to keep up with any possible threats.

Once back in his own home, he found Ellie fast asleep on the couch with a movie playing on the modest television and a sketchbook dangling from her fingers. He removed his boots and then his coat, catching a whiff of the scent of you on his clothing. Light, slightly floral, sweet. You must’ve been tending to the garden he knew you kept in your yard earlier that day. Or baking something like you were apt to do.

With a sigh, he turned off the movie and closed the sketchbook to set it atop the table in front of the couch before moving into the kitchen. The slice of pie you had given him the other day was somehow still in the container you had fumbled for. Ellie must’ve known it was from you because she hadn’t said anything or tried to steal it. Knowing Joel liked to enjoy the treats you shared with him in the evenings with a cup of coffee.

So, he did, as he sat in his work room and began to sketch out some simple designs. He would fill your whole kitchen with whatever you wanted if it meant he would never have to encounter your tears again.

“They- they said I’m going to get him killed, that I shouldn’t even be on the no-normal patrol rotation.”

“It’s okay, everything’s going to be okay.” Tommy tried to console you, taking in the situation and your words a best he could. But you had rushed through them, explaining in bits and pieces. You were emotionally charged, worked up, and nearly trembling. You thought you had worked through this, at least enough to be okay on the day-to-day front. But those two women, Marsha and her friend, had taken you back to the wave of everything as if it had just happened.

You were scared. Because they were right, you were dangerous. There was the very real possibility that you could cause harm to Joel, and you didn’t even want to begin to entertain thoughts like that. He…he was good and you didn’t want to be the cause of the man’s downfall. A promise to his brother to fill a spot on patrol spiraling into the current situation and it hadn’t even happened yet. It was supposed to, first thing in the morning.

“No, it’s not, Tommy. Everyone in town thinks I’m going to get him killed. That I got Aiden killed.” The name was foreign falling from your lips after not speaking it for so long. It was something you hadn’t been able to do since that patrol so many years ago now. “I ca-can’t stomach the thought of him getting injured because of me, because I’m not good enough to protect him. He does so much more for this town, he’s important. He deserves someone alongside him that will be a help not a hindrance.”

“You listen to me, and you hear me,” Tommy’s voice was firm, wide eyes focused and mouth a thin line as he spoke to you. Soft undercurrents of assurance in his tone. And you knew what he was about to say. It was always the same thing, the same sentiment, reassurance that it hadn’t been your fault. It had just been the circumstances, the world operating as it tended to do now. Unfairly. “Honey, it wasn’t your fault that those people found you. You cover your tracks well, hey, you do, okay?”

“I had been so focused on him, I didn’t, Tommy I didn’t hear them come up on us. Not their horses, not their footsteps, I didn’t even hear the gunshot until he was falling over.” Footsteps on the wooden floor thudding as you pacing back and forth, arms crossed over your chest and shaking your head in the way that you did when the thoughts got too overwhelming.

“But it wasn’t your fault. It was a messy situation, they happen. Hey, honey, they happen even to the best of us.” Tommy reached for you, standing from the chair he had taken beside you when you arrived in a flurry. Ushering you to the sun room at the back of the first floor, furthest away from the main bedroom upstairs. Maria had been in bed all day, not feeling well and had finally found the peace of sleep after an early dinner. His arms were wrapping around you and you allowed him to pull you into his chest, face pressing into his sweater.

“I should’ve been looking! I should have been more aware…”

“Shh, it’s okay, the patrol is going to go okay.” He rested his chin on the crown of your head and felt your hands tangle in the front of his clothing. “Everything is going to be okay.”

“You, ah, you…been okay?” Joel tried to break the uncharacteristically tense silence in an easy move, with a relatively harmless question. He had been up all night, wondering and worrying about this being the first longer route with you. Not that he didn’t trust in your skills and ability, but that he didn’t trust in the secrecy around why you didn’t do the longer routes. Of the things he overheard in his brother’s house just last night. Tommy had claimed that if he was to know, it had to come from you. That it wasn’t the younger man’s story to tell and Joel was trying to respect that.

And if that hadn’t sent alarm bells to rumble low in his mind, then your behavior this morning would’ve.

You hadn’t been at your house when he went to pick you up, the windows dark and the door locked. He had knocked, thinking maybe you had overslept. He had found you at the stables, cursing at the clasps of the saddle that weren’t cooperating with your ministrations to secure them. The way that you jumped when he cleared his throat and greeted you, wide eyes settling on him and body tense as if having expected someone else. Someone you had to protect yourself against, if the hand flying to your holstered gun was any indication.

Definitely concerning.

The sound of twin sets of hooves the only sound for the last fifteen miles or so. You had been content, or as well as could be considering the circumstances, beside him. Wide-brimmed hat drawn low to shadow over most of your face, body on a constant swivel as you took in the new to you surroundings. The landscape covered in autumnal tones. It was beautiful, the warm reds, oranges, and yellows of the changing trees. But it was also deadly, threats hidden within the lush tree line, just over the rolling hills, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.

“Been okay.” Was your short answer, not feeling like you knew how to hold a causal conversation anymore. Not since seeing the man’s craft had cropped up in his brother’s home and the way in which he had denied your part in the idea. That paired with the anxiety of being so far out from the settlement wasn’t sitting well. “You been okay?”

“Yeah, of course. Just busy, you know?”

“You hardly ever take a moment, see you and hear talk of you bouncing around so much. Everyone must really appreciate you willing to help. The skills you have, they mean so much. They allow us a better chance to not just survive, but to live.” You wished he could see it, the way children would stare transfixed as him and Tommy led a team of people through creating things the way that they did. From foundations to frames, tiling roofs and securing windows into place. It meant growth, the ability to rebuild, it meant anticipation of the future beyond just a few days. And he helped to provide that for the settlement with the use of his hands and the skills comprised in his head.

He only hummed in response, as if he was disbelieving of the sentiment behind your words.

And then, of course:

“Is…is there a reason why you don’t do the overnight routes?” It was a cautious one, though you could hear the undertones of concerns that coated his polite curiosity. And undercurrent of worry in his beautiful eyes that had turned amber in the sunlight you caught sight of with a quick glance when he had continued to speak.

But his question was ill timed, everything too raw in you to indulge in it at the moment.

“Joel, that’s none of your business.” You felt the easy smile fade from your face as you turned away from the man. You ignored the inclination to face him, feeling the weight of his eyes watch the way you squared your shoulders. Searching for signs of something you weren’t quite sure of. You were always willing to chat with him, about everyday stuff and the heavier stuff should one of you need to vent or rant. Never talking about it back inside the walls and surrounded by the people you went out to protect. But this?

You couldn’t. It was too much, and you know your voice had turned hard, sharp.

“Shit, I’m sorry- we just, normally you’re okay with my questions. I didn’t mean to overstep a line.”

“Well, you did. Just drop it, okay?”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, I didn’t-“

“I get it, just, stop please.” Snapping the reigns, you clicked your tongue to get Lowry to pick up the pace of her hooves. Moving ahead, following the path that was slowly coming back to you as the event you tried to block cropped up in your mind piece by piece.

“Okay.”

It was easy, comfortable to be beside him even in uncharted territory and land new to you after so many years. Because despite the rough start to the day, having reached the proverbial fork in the road that would take you farther from Jackson you had been in so long, it was easy to feel like things might just be okay with him mounted on his own horse ahead of you.

Even despite his rather invasive question.

You felt bad for snapping at him, for being too caught up in your own mind to enjoy the time beside him.

He was always so busy around town, but out here on patrol; he was yours.

His attention not being pulled in endless directions of so many who looked to him for help and advice, for his opinion on something or other. He was so willing to take the time and fix, mend, build, repair, anything that people called on him for. He had just been trying to do the same here, now. Ensuring you were okay. Because you knew your behavior wasn’t normal. You had jumped when seeing him this morning in the stables. You hadn’t taken the offered thermos, not wanting the caffeine to make you even more jittery paired with your anxiety and nervousness. And it was silly because you knew he meant well.

He couldn’t have known the question was a landmine.

He couldn’t have known it was the one, seemingly simple question that you were unable to answer him.

He had fallen quiet since you asked him to drop it. And you felt bad. There was tension about him, in his broad shoulders and the grip of his hands on the reigns in front of him. His legs shifting more than normal as the muscles tensed and relaxed in a pattern you couldn’t quite make out. You had bothered him, with your sharp words. And you worried that you had broken some part of what this was.

“Hey, Joel?”

A huff.

“Did you finish all the coffee?”

“No, got your thermos right here.” He patted the bag attached to the saddle. You couldn’t have known he meant that it was truly your thermos. Always nestled between his own and Ellie’s, in the cabinet, in the drying rack next to the sink. Yours, and not just while on patrols.

“May I please have it?” Nerves alight, you chanced a glance. He had to have been lost in his own head, his eyes coming back to the present slowly as he cast them toward you.

“Only because you asked so nicely, sweetheart.” He leaned down to retrieve it, holding it out to you. You were careful not to brush your fingers against his own. Thinking that maybe he hadn’t been too comfortable with the casual touching that seemed to have grown in occurrence, even if he had called on you and pressed his lips to your wounded head. Undeserving of the attention he had deigned to give you, you didn’t want him to think you were doing it on purpose. Trying to impinge on his personal space in such an intimate way.

“You-your from Texas, right?” Of course you were stuttering, nervous to interact with him, to try and bridge the divide you had caused. But you still tried, not wanting to lose the dynamic you two shared, even if you had been in your head. Even if you had no intention of physical contact, you still yearned for the easy conversations you two shared.

“Right.”

“Did you see a big change between the seasons?”

He seemed to deflate, the tension in his body ebbing just as the quick beat of your heart did as he turned to look at you for the first time in hours. Calming, reacting to each other, softening in the wake of what had happened.

The village was just as you remembered, as the horses came up on a hill looking over it. It was small, a collection of long abandoned houses and businesses on the cusp of the national park that once boasted large crowds and endless visitors who came to enjoy the views. The mountains surrounding it were breathtaking, covered in the changes of the season. Looking for all the world a quaint little getaway.

Another hour and you found yourself working silently beside Joel to clear the buildings, searching for anything that could be of use for the town, for its inhabitants.

Another hour and you found yourself stood in the kitchen of a small house, rustling through the cabinets in search of whatever may be hidden within them. With a delighted hum, your fingers wrapped around the soft casing of canvas and you pulled it out from within the depths of the one you had crouched down to inspect. Joel’s jacket hushed as he turned to you at the sound, his eyes watching, ever vigilant and ready to strike sound something be wrong.

But nothing was wrong, you leaned back on your heels as you pulled the object out into the light of your flashlight. It was a canvas pouch, rolled up and secured with leather straps that had seemed to stand the test of time and decay.

“Oh my gosh, Joel!” You looked up at him with a pleased grin, teeth flashing at him as you did so. Giddy with the discovery. You set it down over your thighs and unfastened the straps, rolling out the canvas to reveal beautifully crafted handles nestled into small, slim pockets. His steps were quiet as he moved closer, shining his own flashlight onto the find. With nimble fingers you shut your own off and tucked it into the internal pocket of your dark green jacket, pulling one of the handles carefully from where it rested to reveal a sheathed chef’s knife.

The sheath was a little worse for wear, the plastic cover faded and brittle, but when you removed it, the blade proved to be in pristine condition if a little dull.

“Joel, these knives are so beautiful.” Your words were practically a purr as you checked the others to find them nearly perfect. The whole set. Each blade crafted beautifully with a wavy design of darker metal inlaid into a lighter one, the blunt side fading from dark to light. “These are classic Japanese crafted, perfectly balanced. A bit dull, but with some care and a good sharpening block they would be as good as new.”

“Oh, so you didn’t just dabble in the kitchen then.”

“Hmm?”

“You were a chef, weren’t you?”

“Oh, um, yes. But that doesn’t mean much these days, so I tend to downplay it.” You stood, the pouch rolled back up and secured.

“You let me go on about jarred tomato sauce and cereal.”

“I meant it when I said those were balanced meals, I swear!”

“Uh-huh, sure you did. Entertainin’ me, is what you were doin’.” He was delighting in the friendly banter, no true hurt or dismay in his words if the upturn of his lips on one side was an indication. The smirk allowed for that endearing dimple to appear in the pocket of his right cheek, much like his brother’s.

“Joel, no offense, but hush. Food is food.” You tried to make it seem like you hadn’t meant any harm, because you hadn’t. Food was food, back then and even more so now. It was a way to survive, important and so scarce a necessity these days. The abundance of it within the settlement still something that amazed you. The ingenuity of people to create and cultivate agriculture as a base function of humanity and community.

“I’d bet my left arm you didn’t used to think like that. Back when we had the choice between organic and fresh to mass produced and cheap.”

“Hey! Junk food was important too! You know how many times I had a family sized bag of chips for dinner?”

“No, sweetheart, how many?”

“At least twice a week.” Flicking your hand with two fingers raised up, you couldn’t help the bubble of laughter that sprung up from your chest. Fighting the wide smile threatening to break out on your face at the faux shock he displayed with a hand to his chest and a roll of his eyes.

“Which ones?” His brown eyes glittered in the shine of his flashlight, following your movement toward your bag left atop the couch.

“I was rather fond of sour cream and cheddar.” You could practically taste the tang of the sour cream on your tongue as you made room in your pack for the pouch of knives.

“I was a salt and vinegar man, myself.”

You just pinned him with a teasing look, one eyebrow raised up in question.

“That’s just gross, Joel.”

“And there she is, the food critic I knew you were.”

“Go to sleep, mister judgement. I’ll take the first watch.” You stuck your tongue out at him, waving him away with your hands as you settled on the couch and leaned back into the dusty cushions. His chuckle was the only response as he retreated to the only room in the house, the bed springs creaking as he settled into an equally dusty mattress.

You were already back in the saddle on Lowry and moving when it happened. Joel was adjusting the saddle on his own horse and hadn’t heard the shuffle of the leaves. The tree line was just a few yards away. And a trio of infected had just breached the end of it.

“Joel! On your six!” You shouted, reaching for your shotgun slung over your back. Joel was reaching for his own laid out atop the saddle when the horse whinnied, kicking her front legs out at the infected. He reached for the reigns, quickly trying to console the amped up horse when he was knocked to the ground. Your shot missed, his horse freaking out too much and you worried for Joel on the ground.

Your own horse began to fidget, but you calmed her with soft whispers and a quick pat to her neck.

Rolling away to avoid being trampled on, one of the Infected left caught sight of him at the movement.

You were too busy leaning heavily to the left to get a good aim at the other two as they began to tear into the throat of his horse, cutting off the distressed cries of the creature. Heavy body thudding to the ground, you fired two headshots before searching for Joel. But he was blocked from your view by the downed creature.

Careening your body over the side of your own horse until you were practically hanging from the side of it with your feet secure in the stirrups, you used gravity to aid you in getting a clear view. Your middle burned with the effort as you tried to get vision of the man fighting against the Infected that had him pinned to the ground. When you did, your mouth went dry. The claws of the Infected had managed to rake down one of his cheeks, blood bright. Breathing in, you aimed and fired.

The shrieking of the figure fell silent, and its body went limp.

Grunting, Joel shoved it off of him and scrambled back away from it with a heaving chest. He looked over his shoulder toward you, his eyes nearly black from the adrenaline, his plush lips parted as he tried to get enough air in his lungs. Eyes frantically looking him over, you could see the split in his lip from the distance.

Slinging the shotgun back over your shoulder, you dismounted and rushed to his side. Your hands reached everywhere they could as you tried to sus out any more injuries. The intention to keep them to yourself short lived and fruitless. Joel was just staring at you, no words coming from him, only the sound of his panting breath as he pushed himself up on his arms.

“Are you okay? You didn’t hurt your back when you fell? Kiana didn’t step on you or kick you, did she?”

The questions flowed from you in quick succession, not giving the man a chance to answer any of them as you twisted to take a kerchief from your back pocket and began to dab at his cheek as lightly as you could. He let out a low hiss as the skin throbbed, but he let you do it anyway.

“I’m okay,” He finally croaked, sitting up completely when a few tears spilled from your lash line. One of his hands cradled your face, thumb brushing them away. “It’s okay, sweetheart, you did good.”

Through your tears, you worked at getting the blood cleared from his cheek, moving to focus on his split lip and the drops of blood that had trailed down his chin. He let you, his hand falling from your own face to your shoulder, anchoring him close. When you managed to wipe away what you could you sighed, blinking the tears from your eyes as best you could.

His eyes were so soft when you looked into them, watching. Your breath stalled for the barest of moments as you wondered if he would wear the same open expression right before a kiss. Heat flooded your face as you realized you had dug your other hand into the soft curls at the back of his head to help keep him steady and his eyes dilated at the sound. Your sore body protested as you leaned in impossibly closer, chest brushing against his.

The long travel had magnified the scent of him, cedar and sweat dizzying this close to him and it made you want to bury yourself in his arms. To burrow into him and just stay there, enjoying in the warmth and safety you felt when around him.

His eyes fluttered closed at the gentle press of your lips to the scratch on his cheek, tension leaking out of his own sore muscles at the feel. Nose brushing against his own, you were suddenly overcome with the urge to press your other hand to his chest and press him back to the ground, to straddle his thighs and show him how much he was beginning to mean to you. But that would be far too forward.

Heartbeat tittering, your eyes roved over his face, gauging his reaction to the uncharacteristic display. His face was so handsome, the trimmed scruff dusting his cheeks a mix of silver and gray complimenting the tan of his weathered skin decorated with sparse freckles, a patch vaguely resembling a heart low near his chin. And you fleetingly pressed your lips to it, unable to resist. The muscle in his jaw twitched at the pressure, but he didn’t move otherwise, eyes still closed shut.

Despite the journey from the day before and an overnight stay in an abandoned building, you still smelled faintly of the woody, floral scent. It was stronger due to the tense situation of a few moments ago, lingering in the sweat you had felt bead up along the back of your neck and the small of your back.

He seemed to breathe it in, his inhale catching in his throat when you couldn’t help the temptation of pressing your lips to where his bottom one was split in a chaste kiss, caught up in mingling of your scents and the effect he was having on you being so close.

“There,” You breathed against him, fingers clenching around the curls in your grip, surprised he hadn’t jerked away from the rather inappropriate move. His eyes remained shut, as you leaned back to look over the entirety of his face. You felt a nervous flutter of warmth low in your middle, mirroring the words he had whispered to you in your kitchen just a few days ago. “All better.”

Your body was alight with the feel of his body behind you. His chest bumping into your back on every jaunt of Lowry moving over the terrain. You hadn’t been able to look directly at him, keeping your eyes downcast in embarrassment as you had helped him up from where he had fallen. Your hands small in his as you had done so, but immediately dropping the contact once he had been back up on his feet.

It had been silent for a long pause, no words coming from either of you as he gathered what he could from the saddle of the downed horse and you adjusted your own belongings to make room. Lowry had been rather worked up, deservedly so at seeing her friend and own patrol partner taken out in such a gruesome way. The beginning of the journey back to Jackson started off on foot, you on one side of her and Joel on the other, guiding her back at her own pace.

But somewhere after the first couple of hours, you had begun to drag your feet. The adrenaline of the morning waning and leaving you utterly exhausted. That’s how you found yourself seated in the front of the saddle on your horse, Joel’s firm body behind you. His height, even while seated, allowed for every other breath to rustle the hair atop your head. The wide brimmed hat you donned while on patrol hanging from the front of the saddle so as to not bump him or obstruct his vision.

But he kept his hands to himself, save for when he gripped your hips when the horse tipped your combine gravity on the errant downslope of the route.

“Get some rest,” Joel’s words were a haze as you twisted to wave a parting at him. Safely back within the walls of the settlement and having completed the patrol write up. The loss of a horse something you were sure wouldn’t be overlooked, even in light of how it happened. You could’ve saved her, but had been too slow to find aim. But the only thing on your mind right now was a warm bath to wash away the day and then the comfort of your bed.

“You too, Joel.” You turned back to face forward, feet carrying you slowly even if the desire to be unconscious was a strong pull to pick up the pace toward your home.

“Hey, Olive?” Hesitant, the sound of your nickname was in his voice.

“Yes?” You pivoted once more, taking in the way he was looking at you. Concern in his dark eyes and softening his features. The feel of his lips sparking through you as you lingered on them. But you pushed it down, knowing it was one-sided and would always be so. He didn’t see you like that, couldn’t see you like that with all the attention he got from around town. So many other people to entertain and you were just another.

“You can always talk to me, you know, about anything. I’ll always listen to what you have to say.”

“Yeah,” The denial of you suggesting the cutting board washed over you, deflating you even more so in the late afternoon. “But I wouldn’t want everyone to think we do talk. Seemed pretty keen on hiding it from your brother the other day.”

“That- that wasn’t why I said it was my idea.” His jaw jumped, the muscle clenching and unclenching, his hands mimicking the motion at his sides. A heavy sigh deflated his own chest. “I was…embarrassed because it was the first one I made. It-it wasn’t very good.”

“Joel, everything you make is well done.” You assured even as you turned from him and walked away.

“I’m so glad you came back okay from that long patrol, Joel. We would’ve missed your amazing hands.”

Joel tried his best to tune the woman out, Marsha liked to ramble to him when he called on her to fix things in her house. She was about his age, an appropriate age. Headed the gardens and yearly plantings, helped out in the mess hall, and tried to help Tommy keep up with the holidays in order to make the town feel a little more comforted. But today, her words felt weird. Like a backhanded comment to something he intended to figure out. Because it felt like it was about you rather than just a well-meaning sentiment.

“Excuse me, ma’am?” Joel tried to keep his voice even, tempered. But he could feel tingles of anxiety come to life in his chest.

“Oh, I’m just saying, everyone was rather shocked that you got stuck with Olive for Teton. She hasn’t been on anything other than her two morning routines in, gosh, such a long time n-“ He surged up from where he had been underneath the sink. The steady beading of water from the cracked pipe measuring the tense passage of time as he stood to his full height. The wrench in his hand pressed into his stomach as he placed his hands on his hip and looked directly at the woman who had been hovering over him as he worked. She had been idly peaking potatoes on the counter beside the sink, making sure to stick close to him like she tended to do when he was in her home.

But she had fallen quiet at the direct attention, a flush visible on the tips of her ears and the swell of her cheeks.

“Did you say ‘stuck with Olive’? Because I can assure you, she’s capable enough to not be talked about that way.” His brow furrowed as his lips tugged downward in a frown, unsure where this woman got the gall to sling around talk of you like this. To him, of all people. He wasn’t completely daft, he knew the women around town fawned over him. Both the younger ones like yourself and those closer to his own age and beyond. But he ignored it, because he wasn’t here for that, his heart didn’t soften for just anyone. And the woman in front of him was bad mouthing the one it had without him even realizing.

“I just meant that- since she’s so much younger and doesn’t have as much experience as you-“

“Hold on, lemme stop you right there.” Joel held out a hand, the wrench acting as a barrier between their bodies. “Olive is more than capable of being my partner on patrol. It don’t matter what her experience is compared to my own. And I don’t like the insinuation of her not being anything other than a hardworking person who willingly puts her life on the line for this town.”

“She just- there was an incident a while ago-“

“I don’t care what happened a while ago, she’s good to me now.” Anger flared, tinging his eyes into the deep, dark tone of fresh brewed coffee. His grip around the wrench was pulling the muscles in his hand, causing an ache that was becoming far too familiar a sensation. But he kept his focus on the woman in front of him, the one who had felt like it was okay to talk about you in such a way in his company, to him.

He was always polite, always lending an ear to what the people of the town wanted to say, allowing for easy conversation most of the time, but this was something he wouldn’t allow and the tone of his voice had shifted. It was assertive and left no room for interpretation that he didn’t share the sentiment of the woman in front of him. And then he thought back to the other night before the route in question.

Tommy had been consoling you, telling you to ignore the things people were saying about you, the rumors that had cropped up once your name had been added next to his on the assignment sheet. This woman had apparently been the cause of your tears, the fuel to your already present insecurities flaring and making you close in on yourself. This woman had taken the teasing jokes, sweet laughter, soft smiles, and easy-going conversation typical of time spent with you and stolen it from him. Tainted the air so badly that you had been decidedly not yourself on the last patrol and so wound up that you had snapped at him.

“She’s done nothing to deserve the way you’re speaking about her, and I would like you to apologize.”

“Joel, I- I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would upset you.” Her eyes shifted frantically over his face, realizing that she had offended him with her casual words. “I was saying that-“

“Not to me, to her.” He cut off her words with rough ones of his own. Past the point of caring about being polite and heeding everything the town needed his help with at the moment. All he cared about right now was you, and how you had been singled out as the most recent subject of town gossip. He tried to tamp it and he had gotten fairly good at keeping his frustrations to himself. Ellie being the recipient when she was particularly stubborn and bull headed, but she got that from him too. From traveling with him for as long as it had taken them, their entire journey now allowing for them to explore the softer and kinder parts of themselves within the safety of the settlement.

But right now? Joel felt like he was back outside of them, the need to protect and eradicate any perceived threat strong. Thrumming in him as he felt like what was his was being singled out and targeted.

“But-“

“We clear?”

Marsha squeaked out an affirmative, her hands wringing around each other over her middle. Without a glance toward the open cupboards beneath the sink, Joel gathered his toolbox laid open beside them and his flashlight.

“Need a new pipe, nothing else I can do at the moment. Tommy will be by before nightfall with a replacement.”

He didn’t bid her goodbye as he walked through the front of her house and out the front door. Leaving the shell-shocked woman standing in her kitchen with her heart beating rapidly in her chest at his rather uncharacteristic display of anger.

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