#Wednesday isn’t a day as much as it’s a mood

[mollywog]

WIP Wednesday

Thank you for the tag @thelettersfromnoone!!

From When the Stars Align…

“Roses, really?” Peeta mutters under his breath.

Not softly enough because Odair hears him, “the flowers offend you?”

“Who sent them?”

Katniss plucks the card from the blooms, “Sir Crane.”

He scoffs, “just the unimaginative choice I’d expect from Seneca. Everyone sends roses,” he can tell by the slight upturn of her lips, Katniss agrees, though she stays silent.

“So what would you send?” Finnick queries.

Anyone who wants to share, join in!!

@endlessnightlock @waywardangel-wilds @goldenslumberowo @jhsgf82 @thesunpersists

[kentoxo]

friction | reader (f) x crush!nanami pt.7

pairing: reader (f) x crush!nanami

synopsis: [AU] you have always had a crush on nanami. since the day you were hired as his personal assistant, you've been right at his side combating numbers and making money within the finance department for the company you two worked for. but, things take a turn when nanami catches wind of your feelings, and rejects you. little did he know the weight of his mistake.

warnings: angst, heartbreak, sexual tension, jealousy (future smut)

a/n: im back!!! with part 7!!!! (i hope i tagged everyone who asked to be in the taglist). thank you all for your patience, and for your kind words from the last part! it brought up my mood entirely :) im sorry im so repetitive, but truly i am grateful. i hope this is well written (looked over it like 8 times)

all parts: pt.1, pt.2, pt.3, pt.4, pt.5, pt.6,

December | Tokyo, Japan | Wednesday 

It was around 2 A.M. when Haibara grudgingly entered the small speakeasy. 

It was a small, cozy bar inside the facade of a greasy burger joint, which Haibara gladly ordered from. He peeled the wrapping of his hot smash burger like a banana while making his way towards the back of the restaurant. The bar was separated with a curtain, and it was immensely dim. The only goers were a few guys in the corner, and Nanami at the bar itself. Haibara squinted through exhausted eyes about 4 empty cups near Nanami’s folded hands. 

Drunk, are we? He thought. 

Haibara casually laps at his greasy fingers, crumpling the wrapping paper with his other hand as he strolled over to Nanami. With a now somewhat clean hand, Haibara pats on Nanami’s shoulder. “You look like a loser, and I’m tired. Why don’t we call it a night right now and do this some other time?” 

“I can’t sleep,” Nanami begins quietly, wagging his finger in the air to beckon the bartender. “Please, two on the rocks.” 

“Whiskey? Tequila?” 

“Anejo, dark rum, please,” Nanami requests, bringing his hands up to his chin to rest on. He was pensive, but somewhat lost, as Haibara noticed the distance in his hazel orbs. It was unfamiliar, this version of Nanami. 

Haibara grimaces, already unenthused by the selection of drink, “we work in a few hours, you know. Are you sure we want to drink this much? Because I’m not.” He passes the crumpled burger paper to the waitress that came over.

“I’ve seen you come into work after getting black out drunk, and run on an hour's sleep. Sit.” Nanami grabs the seat next to him and pulls it out for Haibara. His close friend stares at him skeptically, but takes a seat. 

Haibara begins to take off his coat, the warmth of the bar melting him completely. Draping it over the back of his seat, he rubs his hands together, preparing himself for the night. “I’m never a responsible drunk, I can admit that. But you… this isn’t like you at all. What’s going on?”

Nanami emits a shaky sigh, trying his best to keep himself relaxed. But even slightly drunk, nothing to waive his nerves and the weight of his sporadic thoughts. “I feel like… I’m going crazy,” Nanami begins quietly, his eyes not daring to leave the bar. The two requested drinks make its presence known as they sat before the two men. “I just don’t understand why.” 

“Let’s start with what happened,” Haibara begins. You called Haibara, once again in tears while you explained what happened just a few hours ago at the steakhouse. You fall asleep with that same woe, allowing Haibara to nap for a few hours until Nanami calls him up. “Did something happen between you and Y/N?” 

Nanami raises his eyebrow, “how do you know?” 

Haibara’s tongue was too slick, “Y/N came back down by herself, and returned to the office because you gave her ‘extra work.’” 

“I could have, for all you knew,” Nanami huffs before taking his glass. 

“You came back down and didn’t say a single word,” Haibara grabs his own glass. “Whenever you were spoken to, you’d shake your head and say ‘repeat that.’” 

“All of a sudden you want to be meticulous,” Nanami murmurs before taking a sip of the dark brown booze. He looks up to meet Haibara’s eyes, which were stern and looking straight through Nanami. The blonde gives in, and carefully puts his cup down. “Y/N and I had a talk.” 

“Clearly.” Haibara downs his drink immediately. Might as well get drunk while Nanami was paying. He waves at the bartender and silently asks for another round. “Give me the rundown.” 

Nanami adjusts the collar of his crewneck, clearly becoming a bit shy, “No need for all of the details. Y/N, she um…- she confirmed the rumors regarding her feelings for me. They… aren’t just rumors.” 

Haibara had to bite his lip to keep a smile from forming, “is that right?” Nanami’s eyes narrowed down at his glass, staring at the large ice cube slowly melting. The struggle to keep from smiling disappears when he realizes that this wasn’t Nanami. “I assume you rejected her? Like you always do.” 

Nanami grimaces, looking away as if trying to shield his expression from Haibara. It was almost like… he was lamenting all his decisions that led him to this point. “...I did.” 

“So, what’s wrong?” Haibara starts, his words emitted slowly as he wants to carefully tread this new side of his friend. “You aren’t interested in relationships, Kento. Was there something else that happened?” 

“N-no, it's… exactly that, actually,” Nanami hums, his tone ornate with perplexity. “I rejected her… and it has made me unsettled since.” 

“What makes you unsettled?” Haibara asks, curious over this new side of Nanami. “You can’t reciprocate her feelings, so you rejected her. She can’t blame you for being honest.” 

“A-and, that’s the thing, right?” Nanami runs a hand through his hair, closing his eyes a bit. He’s drunk, Haibara noted. “I was honest, and told her… not really politely, but I told her I did not feel the way she does. But now, I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“Alright, let’s make this easier for the both of us,” Haibara sharply interrupts. He slightly slams his glass down, gaining the eye contact of his dear friend. Guilty hazel eyes meet his own, but they don’t flicker away. “Just tell me what’s bothering you. Let it all out.” 

Nanami stares at him for a moment, fixing his eyes on each of Haibara’s. He could feel the pit in his stomach, working with the feeling of his drunkenness. His body felt hot, but goosebumps danced along his skin as though he was freezing. He could feel his cheeks warm, not just from the ethanol, but from his unaddressed feelings. Feelings that he’s not even aware of. Feelings he didn't even know he had. 

“I…” Nanami begins hesitantly. He downs another glass of liquor, a growl-like sigh leaving his dry lips. He was working up the courage to admit what was bothering him, but the conflict of why was keeping him silent. Haibara noticed this and quickly tapped his friend's shoulder. “Hm?” 

“Bartender,” Haibara calls, “two cups of absinthe, please.” 

Nanami lets out a chuckle, despite his feelings, “what do you know about absinthe?” 

“A lot, actually,” Haibara amuses him, “you’re not gonna get me fucked up without having at least one sweet thing.” 

“Absinthe is gonna fuck us completely,” Nanami replies, genuine laughter leaving him. A rare curse coming from Nanami. The two cups arrive, which both gentlemen take one. “You know it’s not that sweet… and it’s diluted.” 

“Just drink,” Haibara hisses, the two lifting their cups and downing the alcohol. They immediately cough, leaning against one another to suffer the coughing and the laughter that follows. “Shit, I always forget how strong it is.” 

Nanami covers his lips with a closed fist, laughter running around it, “it’s watered down for a reason.” 

After the sea of laughter calms, Haibara nudges Nanami. He could tell they were both tipsy, Nanami more so as he was here for an unknown amount of time before his arrival. “Please, tell me everything that’s bothering you. Better to get it out of your chest than keeping it in and suffering that.” 

Nanami gulps, but finds comfort in his friend's words. Haibara was right. He called him out here to do exactly that. And Nanami would feel worse if he dragged Haibara outside just to not confide in him. Carefully putting down his cup, he straightens his back and clears his throat. The liquid courage must not go to waste. 

“I mean… what am I bothered by?” Nanami whispers. The tip of his index rubbed along the rim of his glass. “We’ve grown up together, Yu. You’ve never seen me with a woman, nor was I ever really interested.” 

“But?” Haibara’s curiosity saunters with the alcohol in his system.

“I guess what really bothers me,” Nanami hums quietly, “is that of all the women I’ve met. From our school days, from outings, from work– it’s her. Why… is it her?” 

“Is it bad that it’s her?” 

“It’s not bad– not at all,” Nanami quickly says, “but how come I’ve become so taken by her? Without even realizing it? Am I that out of touch with my feelings?” 

Haibara chuckles at Nanami’s small panic, “it’s not that you’re out of touch with your feelings, Kento. You’ve never had these exact feelings to begin with, so this is foreign for you.” 

“But… as people, we aren’t that acquainted,” Nanami’s eyes lowered to his hands. “I don’t know anything about what she likes, her family, her hobbies. How can I like someone I know nothing about?” 

“Let me put it in a different perspective then,” Haibara suggests. “What are things that you like whenever you two work together?” 

Nanami looks up at Haibara and pauses for a moment. Then, his lips part, “I like that she always does things exactly as I request, even before I ask.” 

“She’s quite the assistant,” Haibara agrees. 

Nanami nods, “she is detailed in her work, extremely meticulous and doesn’t let any detail get past her.” He doesn’t pause at all this time, and keeps going. “She always knows what I like to have. I come into work knowing she has my cup of coffee, and wait for her to tell me what I want for lunch because I need not tell her.” 

Haibara fights off a smile. It was extremely relieving to see his friend finally like someone. It was almost destiny that life had kept his heart dormant until now. Until you. 

“I like that she’s honest without being rude,” Nanami says slowly, the ends of his lips forming a soft smile. "She has a sweet tooth, but she wanted to try my coffee after I confided its context to her.” 

“She has a good head on her shoulders,” Haibara concurs, encouraging him to keep talking about you. 

"I like the way she pushes back her hair whenever she has to deal with a more tedious task. And the way she smiles whenever she finishes all of her work for the day."

Haibara was cheering for you in his mind.

"I like..." Nanami begins hesitantly. "...that she's my assistant, and nobody else's." Haibara felt his own feels warm from his admittance.

Nanami finally feels his body go completely hot, his chest taking on the most warmth. He could feel his smile tickle his own cheeks, insistently forcing him to cup his mouth. It was overwhelming– realizing that he was wrong this whole time. He lied to you when he rejected you, albeit his newly discovered feelings. His free hand cups his chest, feeling his heart pumping at a speed alien to him. 

“Yu,” Nanami begins quietly. He looks over at him, face suddenly pale, “I think I’m having a heart attack.” 

Haibara finally breaks, and starts laughing. He quickly wraps his arm around the blonde man. Haibara leans his forehead against Nanami’s, soothing his nerves from the simple gesture. “You’re not having a heart attack, Kento. You’re drunk and feeling things we both didn’t think you had.” 

Nanami nudges him off, rolling his eyes. “It wasn’t like I’d never like somebody,” Nanami huffs, bringing his cup to his lips to sip at the watered-down remaining alcohol. 

“I can’t even count in 20 hands how many women you’ve rejected in the many years that I’ve known you,” Haibara scoffs. “You are sculpted like a Greek god, and yet somehow you’ve managed to waste it until now.” 

Nanami shoves Haibara a bit, but chuckles escape his lips. Haibara joins him. It felt like to have such a heart-to-heart, especially with someone like Haibara. Nanami raises his hand to the bartender, pretending to sign a check in the air. “I’m so sorry for keeping us so late for my foolishness. But, thank you very much for being my friend, Yu. I know it hasn’t been easy, but I really appreciate it.” 

Haibara rolls his eyes, “you’re right; it has not been easy, and I deserve to be compensated.” He then laughs through already soft words. “But honestly, it’s no biggie. I’m glad that you actually feel comfortable enough to talk about this with me. You’re usually one to keep to yourself.” 

Nanami’s drunk smile remains, “that’s fair. But please feel free to call out if you don’t feel well rested. I can absolutely vouch that you had a family emergency.” 

Haibara held his chest, his eyes full of surprise, “the work-obsessed and policy-abiding Nanami is willing to lie for me? You really do love me.” 

The bartender comes with the check, and Nanami reaches into his pocket for his wallet. Although under the influence, Nanami couldn’t get rid of the smile on his face. “Yeah, well. I asked you to come out, so this is the least I could do.” 

Haibara watches as Nanami tosses his credit card onto the bill. “But I have no plans of leaving you on your own tomorrow. We gotta really seal the deal, and finally be finished with our clients.” 

Nanami nods in agreement, watching as the bartender returns and collects the closed bill. “You just reminded me that I should send an email to both Marketing and Sales to warn them about our new clients.” 

Haibara nods, “yeah, they’re a bit much, aren’t they? Especially with how they stared at Y/N at the restaurant. Weird pervs.” 

Nanami, without meeting Haibara’s eyes, says simply, “it was why I didn’t let Y/N assist me during this time. A bird informed me about their crude manner with women.”

Haibara chuckles, but immediately stops and looks over at Haibara. All the dots were connecting like the stars in the Big Dipper. “No wonder you kept mentioning that Takada shacho assigned you his assistants. I thought you kept saying it to boost your rep!” 

Nanami shows a cocky grin, “that’s a given. But, I didn’t want Y/N to be a victim of that. Especially now that I understand what I’m feeling– I don’t think I would have acted decent.” 

Through slurred words, Haibara chuckles, “you’re so whipped, Kent.” 

“Whipped?” Nanami looks over at his friend, innocently tilting his head in confusion like a pup. “What does that mean?” 

Haibara gets off from his seat, his body warm and stomach satisfied. He lifts off his coat from the seat, and begins to pull on the sleeves. “Come, I’ll tell you outside.” Nanami signs the check, and retrieves his credit card. 

Walking slowly behind Haibara, Nanami couldn’t help but feel something. It felt like the cross between relief and anticipation. Suddenly, he felt at ease about the future, almost as if his unrecognized worry was now washed away. He felt hopeful that he could remedy his mistake, and start something new… with you. 

Of course, that won’t be easy, as you were currently sleeping with a hollow, broken heart. 

Taglist: [Now Closed]

@blossomedfloweroflove @numblytemporary @everyoneandtheirmothers @animechick555 @inthedarkshadows000

@m-arj-1 @julk4e @hadassery @swoozleee @angxlsatvrn

@v1x3n @s-witch-bitch @furgusonn @watyousayin @thechaoticarchivist

@simp-manhwa @5sos-wdw @ffyona1214 @phantombaby @evangel44xxcds

@ukiyodestiny @jasminelee324 @eurydxceorphxus @moonlightazriel @s3rp3ntsssc0ve

@dusty-dweller @wifenanami @bokuatsubro @ayesayman @starry-eyed--dreamer

[celuere]

i bet zani knows just the right places in town to sneak off with you undisturbed since her work as part-bodyguard probably requires her to often get her clients to safety in case of dangerous situations. the zani brainrot is starting to take over. the devil works fast. but i work faster.

cw: fem!reader, semi-public, vaginal fingering this is kinda rushed and i’m tired alrnnwnrnsndnyisk

it happened to be a sunny day. actually- a sunny work day.

but the weather barely contributed anything to a relaxed work environment. an action getting called off, another client being ignorant of rinacitas rules- it was draining for poor zani. work is rarely draining for her.

so spotting you amidst the crowd that gathered around one of the various street performances after she- rather unkindly- bid farewell to her client (may he get stroke down during the next thunder storm), you might as well handed her the lottery on a silver platter.

originally you just wanted to take advantage of the great weather and get some errands done for the coming weekend but you always had a hard time walking by the street performance echoes or the various food stalls that you got a total of… one. singular errand done. a bit pitiful, isn’t it?

to be honest, the only reason you even stepped food outside the house today is that you felt the need to do something nice for your wife. with the carnival nearing, her hands are packed with all kinds of responsibilities, managing actions, guarding guests of the montelli family- the woman was barely home anymore. only coming home when you’ve long ago fallen into the land of dreams and leaving again at the first signs of the sun starting to rise. my god you missed her.

you barely winced when you suddenly felt a hand from behind brushing your hair out of your face „enjoying the show, mia caro?“, whisking a kiss right behind your ear, zani took a moment in to bathe in your scent. at least one thing that could lighten her mood.

it wasn’t rare to run into her during her work but you often refrained from directly approaching her when it did happen, „zani… you can say that… i didn’t know you were in the area today…“, your wife wasn’t often a fan of public affection. she thinks it‘s better reserved behind closed doors, but she placed that kiss onto the back of your hand nonetheless. wrapping an arm around your waist to slowly guide you away from the crowd.

„i was. but… complications with a new client rather forced me to cut my task here short… what about you? wanted to enjoy the weather?“, you ignored how she streets got quieter and quieter the more you ventured into the city.

„ah, yes… kind off. i decided to get some groceries done for the weekend while i‘m at it.“, with a soft smile, you lifted up the rather poorly stuffed bag in your hand. your spouse only raised an eyebrow as you came to a stop in an empty corner of the harbor. a beautiful view right on the glimmering ocean.

„groceries? didn’t we get those just this monday? amore, it‘s wednesday…“, she gave your cheek a slight squeeze, „at least take my wallet…“, not hesitating for one second, zani fished her portmonee from her pants and opened it, „how much do you need?“.

„nono-! h-honey, it’s not like that, please put the money away-!“.

she looked at like you were crazy.

„it‘s uh… sigh i actually wanted to buy some things to set up a nice dinner at home this weekend…“, you couldn’t help but feel a faint blush creeping up your cheeks at the forced confession, lying to her was no use anyways. she read you like the morning papers.

„a nice dinner, hm…?“, slowly she stuffed the wallet back into her pants, „tell me more…“, her teeth got a hold of the fingertip of her glove before pulling it straight off her hand. something tightened in your abdomen.

„i-i thought about maybe baking a- h-hold on what are you doing-?!“, your head almost frantically wiped around as your wife pushed a knee between your legs to part them and swiftly sneaked her hand underneath your sundress.

„oh, don’t mind me. keep on explaining.“, wetting her lips as she was already met with your arousal when she slipped her fingers into your slip, zani was barely moved by the possibility of you two getting caught with her fingers knuckles deep inside you. she might have a certain distaste for showing it publicly, but sneaking off to an almost abandoned street was something else. her logic not often made sense to you.

„h-hah…. I… I-I thought about maybe baking something together… l-like a… ngh… p-pizza…?“, her fingers circling your clit in slow, steady motions made it unnecessarily difficult for you to form a coherent sentence.

„baking together, hm…?“, as she deemed you slick enough, she sneaked her fingers inside of your already aching pussy, „amore, non smetti mai di sorprendermi…“

„love, you certainly never fail to surprise me…“

„o-oh-! w-well… hah… w-what can i say…? i miss my w-wife…“, you were probably getting fingers right now against the poor window of an elderly lady but that was long forgotten with the first curl of her fingers.

„the feeling is mutual, bellissima… but really, you don’t have to go all out for me like this…“, zani‘s shit day was already reduced to small afterthought in her brain. the way you clenched around her fingers with how you slammed your hand over your mouth to muffle your moans- you were lucky you aren’t home right now because the scenario of somebody catching her buried with her face between your legs out in the open was… not so appealing now that she thought about it.

„can‘t talk…? a pity…“, her fingertips rubbed against your most sensitive spot like it’s all they’ve ever done, watching you jolt with each curl of her fingers as your slickness coated your inner thighs. it was almost torture that she couldn’t lick you clean afterwards.

„stay quiet for me, darling… mhm… just like that… my, look at those hips riding my hand…“.

she had way too much fun. that smile deserved to be wiped off her face for good.

seeing you melt over her fingers was just the cure she needed for her mood. how you whimpered her name into her hand, gripping tightly into her shirt with the other. her own pants were getting annoying.

„there, there… good girl…“, pulling out her coated fingers, she made no drama about it and licked them clean with her tongue before putting the glove back on and handing your poor panting self a napkin to clean you up.

„mr. alberto urgently requested my presence in a few minutes, i‘ll accompany you back to the square and depart from there.“, you saw how she had to hide her chuckle as you glared up at her.

how convenient for her.

on your way back you didn’t dare mutter a single word, too embarrassed by how easily you folded for her just now, she didn’t tease you about it either.

placing a way too fast kiss on your forehead when you reached the townsquare, zani leaned in to your ear.

„i would like to see you already naked when i‘m coming home later.“

much to your disdain, she also left a heavy sum in your bag which you only noticed when she was out of sight. unbelievable.

[thedemoninme141]

Woeful Tooth. (set in the "Not A Bad Day" universe)

Summary: Wednesday doesn't want to go to the dentist.

Theme: FLUFF!!!

Pairings: Wednesday x Fem Reader. Theme: Fluff! Set in the "after dating" period.

Warnings: Root Canal?!?

Thanks for the insight @cobaltperun

You weren’t one to overthink—well, not much. But the subtle shift in Wednesday’s mood was undeniable. After dating her for months, you had come to learn every expression she wore, no matter how imperceptible it might seem to others.

And right now, something was wrong.

And while Wednesday Addams wasn’t exactly the conversational type, her words now came in curt whispers, that might not alarm anyone else, but it worried you.

In the past few days, her choices leaned exclusively toward soft foods like soups, puddings, and smoothies. And Wednesday eating puddings? That scared you.

“Mashed potatoes, Wednesday?” you asked, raising an eyebrow.

She leveled you with a glare. “They are not mashed potatoes. They are boiled tubers, pulverized into an unrecognizable state… much like most victims in my books. I find their texture fascinating.”

“You hate soft foods,” you countered, leaning forward. “Last week, you said pudding was ‘an insult to the human palate.’”

She didn’t respond, instead taking an excruciatingly slow bite, her jaw moving in a way that looked… wrong. She was chewing… carefully?

“Oh my god. You’re in pain,” you blurted, a mix of concern and frustration bubbling up.

Wednesday’s hand twitched, the only sign that you’d struck a nerve. “Your imagination is as dramatic as Enid’s wardrobe. I’m fine.”

“She’s not fine,” Enid chirped from her side of the table, “She’s been super moody these days.”

You shot her a look. “When isn’t she moody?”

“Good point.”

Wednesday stood abruptly, her chair scraping against the floor. “If this riveting discussion of my character flaws is over, I have more pressing matters to attend to.” Without another word, she strode off, leaving you and Enid.

You didn’t confront her again until later that evening in her dorm, “Alright, spill it.”

Wednesday raised a single eyebrow, still not looking at you. “I’ve spilled nothing.”

“You’re acting weird.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, weirder than usual. You’re always quiet but how did you get quieter than quiet? And don’t get me started on your sudden love affair with soft foods. Care to explain what’s going on?"

"Is this a lovers’ quarrel? Do I need to—" Enid just entered the room,

"Enid, no," you interrupted. "Enid, yes," Enid countered, smirking. You ignored her and turned back to Wednesday. "I’m serious. Tell me what’s wrong. You’ve been eating soft foods, avoiding anything crunchy, and barely talking. That’s not you.”

She didn’t respond.

“Wednesday.” Still nothing.

“Enid, start blasting pop music until she cracks.” You ordered,

"On it mam," Enid smirked going for her laptop.

At that, Wednesday sighed—an actual sigh—and turned to face you. “You are as relentless as the Grim Reaper, though far less charming.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Her lips twitched, almost imperceptibly. “If you must know, I’m experiencing a mild inconvenience. It’s nothing worth discussing.”

You tilted your head, studying her. “Define ‘mild.’”

“An intermittent, dull ache.”

“In English?”

She scowled. “A toothache.”

“Wait, you have a tooth problem?” Enid’s grin widened. “This is hilarious.”

“I fail to see the humor,” Wednesday deadpanned.

“I’m calling the dentist,” you announced.

“No, you are not.”

“Oh, yes, I am.”

“You’re being ridiculous.” She crossed her arms, “Pain builds character.”

“Pain builds cavities if you don’t deal with it,” you shot back.

She raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps I enjoy the pain. It’s a constant reminder of mortality, a delightful ache that—”

“Stop. Just stop,” you interrupted, pinching the bridge of your nose. “You’re not romanticizing a toothache right now.”

“You are overreacting,” she said coolly.

“And you’re underreacting!” you replied, unable to hold back any longer.

Enid laughed. “This is way better than the TV shows Yoko watches.”

You pointed a finger at Wednesday. “If you think I’m letting that tooth-problemed mouth anywhere near my things—” “What things?” Enid interrupted. You ignored her, focusing on Wednesday’s icy glare. “—then you’ve got another thing coming.” Wednesday stood abruptly, somehow towering over you despite her "height".

“I refuse to be dragged into some sterile torture chamber.”

“Oh, you’re being dragged, alright.”

You grabbed her hand, your grip firm despite her half-hearted attempts to wriggle free.

“This is a violation of my autonomy,” she hissed as you pulled her toward the door. “You’ll thank me later.” “You’re insufferable,” Wednesday muttered. “I love you too,” you replied Behind you, Enid called out, “WHAT THINGS?”

"This place reeks of mundanity," Wednesday muttered. You sighed, gripping her hand, which she allowed but did not return. "Wednesday, it’s a dentist’s office, not a dungeon." "I would prefer the dungeon," she replied dryly. Before you could respond, you heard the assistant's voice, "Wednesday Addams?" "That’s us," you said, standing and tugging Wednesday up with you.

"Well, I have some good news and some bad news," The dentist began. "Start with the bad," Wednesday said flatly. "Your tooth isn’t just decayed—it’s broken."

You blinked. "Broken? What do you mean broken?"

"It looks like it was fractured with blunt force—something hard enough to crack it deep into the root. That’s likely why you’ve been in so much pain."

You whipped around to face her. "Blunt force? What the hell, Wednesday? What did you do?"

Wednesday’s eyes flicked to you, her expression carefully blank. "Nothing of note."

"Wednesday…"

"I fail to see how this line of questioning is relevant," she replied.

You opened your mouth to press further, but the dentist interjected. "I understand this might be a surprise, but for now, let’s focus on treatment. We’ll start with a root canal to clean out the infection and save the tooth. It’s a multi-step process, so today we’ll address the infection and prep the area. Afterward, we’ll schedule a follow-up to place a crown and finalize the procedure."

You sighed, realizing this wasn’t the time or place to interrogate Wednesday. "Fine. Let’s just get it fixed."

The dentist nodded. "Alright, Wednesday, I’ll numb the area first, and then we’ll get started."

Wednesday didn’t even flinch as the needle approached. Instead, she shot you a pointed glance, as if daring you to comment. "She’s handling this easily," The dentist remarked as she drilled the decay. "Most people squirm a little." "Wednesday doesn’t squirm," you muttered, half in admiration, half in exasperation.

After about half an hour, the dentist stepped back, wiping her hands. "That’s the worst of it done. I’ve placed a temporary filling, but she’ll need to return for the crown placement. I’ll schedule the next appointment before you leave."

"Thanks, Doc," you said, relieved.

"Avoid eating anything hard or chewy until the permanent crown is in place. And no blunt force trauma to your mouth, please."

You shot Wednesday a look. She remained silent.

The bus ride back to Nevermore was quiet, You sat beside Wednesday, leaning your head against her shoulder, exhaustion finally catching up to you. "That wasn’t so bad," you murmured sleepily, your eyes drifting shut.

Wednesday didn’t respond, her gaze fixed straight ahead. But as the minutes ticked by, her eyes softened, shifting down to you. Your breathing was slow and even, your face peaceful against her shoulder.

Beating those boys in Weathervane, who Enid mentioned had made comments about you, was worth it. Even if it had cost her a tooth.

[Author's note: Trying to improve my one-shot writings more, how do you feel about this one? You guys can consider this is set in "Not A Bad Day"s universe, prolly after you two started dating, maybe I can write a one set on how Wednesday asked you out]

MORE ONESHOTS HERE--->WORKLIST

[deadlynavigation]

Hello again! how are you? I hope your well, I wanted to give you another request about Male Wednesday, if it's not too much to ask, can you make an NSFW alphabet and an scenario (nsfw too) for Male Wednesday? I hope my order doesn't bother you or be strange... I'll wait for you!

NSFW Alphabet: W.A.

Warnings: mentions of: smut, obviously. knives to the throat, choking, necks snapping, temp play, blindfolds, graves, limping, edging, basically Wednesday Addams.

Author’s Note: thank you for the request babe! and your patience 😭 this is my halloween treat for you guys, hope yall enjoy. i was also thinking of adding a taglist- would anyone be interested in that? lmk

Wednesday is once again aged up, same as previous fics if not a little older.

Navigation

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

Wednesday would be pretty standoffish after sex. He’s new to the whole emotional intimacy thing, and it’s going to take a couple tries before he perfects it. After a few minutes of brooding, though, he’ll shower you in affection. Baths, massages, kisses, whatever you want from him. Princess treatment.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

His neck is by far his favorite part of himself. He’s not a vain person - he has better things to focus on. But he is in shape and dammit if his neck doesn’t clearly display that. Wednesday loves how his neck could end his life at any moment, especially when you choke him.

On you, your legs are by far his favorite. They’re absolutely beautiful. He can drag his hands up your leg and feel the goosebumps form, your breath hitching.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

Inside or on your stomach. There’s no in-between. He likes the feeling of marking his territory, even though he belongs to you more than you could ever belong to him. The feeling of total connection is nice too. And if he finishes on your stomach, he loves to look down at the reminder of what you do to him.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Hold a knife to his neck. Do it. This man will get so turned on. The fact that he’s with such a deadly woman? Who’s not afraid to handle a weapon? In the bedroom? Wednesday could cum with that knowledge alone.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

Wednesday is kind of experienced. He was socially awkward as a teen and into young adulthood, so he missed out on a lot of opportunities. But as an adult, he built up his portfolio enough to know how to make you see stars.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

There are only a couple positions Wednesday isn’t okay with - if you bring a new one up, he’s mostly down to do it. He does have preferences, though. You riding him will never get old. He has the perfect view from below, taking in every expression and sigh. It also takes any expectations off of him, leaving the bulk of the work for someone else. Don’t worry, he’ll make it up to you later 😏

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

Wednesday isn’t a fan of humor in daily life, and you can bet that translates into the bedroom. He doesn’t lack all sense of emotion, though. He transforms into a simp in every sense of the word once his back hits the bedsheets, making comments every so often simply to bring a smile to your face. Overall very serious.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

He’s not just rich, he’s hygenic. Wednesday definitely has a studio booked at least twice a month for simple care down there, just to keep everything in check. He knows you love his cleanliness too, so he keeps it up.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

It depends on the day. If Wednesday had gotten off from a long day of work and is in a bad mood, it’s fast and aggressive and not intimate in the least. But if he’s content with the day and in a somewhat calm mood, you’d best believe his eyes will make you melt in the middle of getting eaten out.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

Wednesday prefers not to. Why would he when there are so many other things to do? But if he’s feeling really desperate, or if you’ve been on a trip for the past couple days, he’ll bang out a quickie just to relieve the tension. It doesn’t mean anything if you aren’t there, in his opinion.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

We’ve already talked about the knives, but that’s just scraping the surface. He’d be into temperature play, especially with half-melted candles, enjoying the way you recoil ever so slightly before arching into the warmth. The blindfold would be a big hit too, a mockup of a silent grave.

L = Location (favorite places to do the dirty)

The bedroom is the preferred area for him, but he’s more than willing to change it up. Has done and will do it in the graveyard for some adventure, but a dark bathtub is an instant spark of intimacy for him.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

If you pick up any weapon whatsoever and show that you know your way around it, he’s bricked. Your body draped in lingerie is a turn on too - he appreciates fine craftsmanship.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Any sort of sharing is a no. You are his, and he is yours, and to him, that is sacred.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Wednesday is a giver in every sense of the word. He loves looking up at you from between your thighs, letting out a slow moan and watching you squirm. He doesn’t really go for receiving, but if you’re offering, he won’t refuse.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

Again, depends on your moods. A bad mood generally means a quick release of rage, and a good mood means slow, peaceful lovemaking. He’s down to switch it up depending on what you’re both looking for that day though.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

He loves them - they serve their purpose well enough. Wednesday likes to take his time with you, but he’ll never say no to having you.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

Sometimes he’s open to taking risks, but not often. He tends to stick to the classics, what he knows works. He wants to please and be pleased, and anything that comes in the way of that (like a failed risk) is merely a disposable burden.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

Wednesday is the type of man to have so much control over his stamina that it makes you question his mental state. Seriously, if he has his way with you, you won’t be able to walk for days because of the sheer amount of rounds he carries you through. He likes having that control over himself, and isn’t afraid to use it to the fullest.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

Nope. Toys are something he avoids; they just aren’t appealing to him. You’re more than enough for him, and he makes that known every time you bring it up.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Teasing is popular with you guys. Especially if either one has provoked the other. You flirted with someone else, and checked to make sure he was watching? You playfully avoided him, only sparing light touches to his chest? He can and will drag one singular orgasm out for hours.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Wednesday isn’t afraid to express himself, and this shows in bed. Soft moans will fall from his lips, as well as slurred words of encouragement. He doesn’t see a reason to hide the enjoyment that you caused.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

“Proud of yourself?” You call over your shoulder as you limp towards the closet.

“Very,” Wednesday replies as he watches early morning light paint your body. He’s relaxed against the bed frame, a smirk slightly tilting his swollen lips.

“Wednesday.” You reply sternly. There’s no way you’re getting dressed for the day with what your lover did to you last night; at least, not without help.

“I’m coming, cara mia.” Wednesday chuckles as he lifts himself from the bed and towards where you have parked yourself. He leans down to you, his mouth positioned just over your ears. “Where do you need me?”

Your heart stutters, his voice echoing in your mind. God, how you want this man. “Too early for seduction. I need a shirt.” You mumble before you end up even more sore than you already are.

Wednesday laughs softly before grabbing your waist and guiding you back to the bed. “I beg to differ, dove.”

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

Wednesday is packing. Full-on, grazing your cervix, causing a little bump in your belly, rendering your legs useless. You almost fainted the first time you saw his cock, to be completely honest. He knows exactly how big he is and how that affects you, too, and that’s the infuriating part: he knows exactly what to say about it to get you worked up.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

Normally, his drive is pretty average. But whenever you are around him, his drive peaks, and he is desperate for you whenever you want to have him. He can hold his ground though and pretend he has no interest in having sex if he wants to tease, though.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards

Wednesday wouldn’t even think about sleeping before you’re taken care of and drifting off. But after that, he’s out like a light. The physical exertion and emotional intimacy exhausts him, but once he’s gotten a good amount of sleep and a wake-up call with your kisses, he’s ready to do it all over again.

[storiesandthoughtsf1]

Love for the race (desire for the chase) - Chapter 1

Pairing: Max Verstappen x teammate!reader

Summary: Pre-season testing couldn't come fast enough, because you had finally made it to Formula 1. It was everything you had ever wanted, nothing was going to ruin your mood now. Not even your idiotic teammate.

Warnings: Max being an asshole ngl lol, christian horner unfortunately because I need the team principal for the storyline

Word count: 1,3K

Author's notes: Welcome to my new enemies to lovers series!! I can't wait to share this story with you guys I really love what I have so far! Chapters will for sure get longer from now on, this was just the start to set the mood. Please note that this is a work of fiction and should be treated as such. Not all characters are real, because I don't know the rbr team enough for that lol. Your race engineer Robin might also low-key be based on Robin Scherbatsky, because I was watching himym while I was working on this :) Also please note that English isn’t my first language!

If just you had known what your first year racing in Formula 1 would be like. How you bit by bit had to realise what you had thought maybe hadn’t been the whole truth. But there was one thing you knew for sure, Max Verstappen was one complicated man.

Wednesday, 21st February 2024Bahrain International Circuit, Sahkir, Bahrain

The whole circus that was Formula 1 was finally back, new rookies, plenty of familiar faces, and everyone in between filling the pitlane and paddock. The Red Bull garage was buzzing with life once again, pre-season testing finally having started up. The big change for them? Max Verstappen had gotten a new teammate. But it wasn’t just any new teammate, no, it was the first woman the sport had seen in decades. A 24 year old woman that Red Bull had gotten a hold of over the winter, as she had shown great promise in the feeder series. You. And you very well knew this year wouldn’t be easy, far from it actually. Not only as the first woman in too long, but also as Max Verstappen’s teammate. The reputation Red Bull had wasn’t subtle, and you knew it would be a challenge to drive alongside the Dutchman. But a challenge you couldn’t wait for. 

Today was your first day in the car. You had just finished your first long stint, the car parked in the garage. As you climbed out of the car, you still felt the adrenaline rush course through you. Your very first time on track in this year’s Formula 1 car, and it had felt beyond anything you had ever imagined. Faster than you had ever imagined. You exited the car with a huge smile on your face, slowly beginning to take off your helmet so you could go debrief with your race engineer Robin. 

The sight of the entire garage moving around in sync made you smile, the disbelief of you actually having made it to Formula 1 still apparent. Yet here you were, with your whole team. Your team. You looked around as you walked towards Robin, and saw your team principal Christian Horner stand in the garage too. Right beside your teammate.

Max was seated on a chair in front of the screens that showed your lap time data. As you pulled off your helmet you caught the sight of him, his arms crossed as he stared at the screen in front of him with a harsh look on his face. But you tore your eyes off of him, figuring he must be looking at some data.

  “She’s fast.” One of the engineers said with an impressed look on his face, nodding approvingly at your lap times. The triumph on your face had been unmistakable as you had stepped out of your car, and in fact you didn’t need anyone to tell you that you had nailed it, because you very well knew. Everyone knew. 

Max’s leg bounced rapidly as he sat on the chair, arms crossed and his jaw locked tight. He had never been the type to give away much through his facial expressions, but the way his eyes lingered now on the data screens told a different story. 

So while the garage buzzed with activity and chatter from the mechanics and engineers, you were so caught up in it that you hadn’t seen the look on your teammate’s face that brought a deep contrast to the rest of the people there. You were focused on the electric atmosphere that your last stint had formed, smiling at your mechanics who all greeted you with comments of approval. Totally unaware of how the sight of you soaking in that praise, your head held high with that infectious smile, itched him like a splinter he couldn’t ignore. 

  “Fast doesn’t mean ready.” The words left his lips before he could stop them, or even think of what he had just uttered. Even though they were directed at the engineer seated right beside him, the engineer who had called you fast to begin with, his comment had been loud enough to catch the attention of others. Most importantly, you. 

Suddenly all sound in the garage died out. Like everything came to a halt as if time stood still. Your head turned to look in Max’s direction, watching how he still looked at the screen in front of him.. His brows were furrowed, arms still crossed, with his legs spread widely apart. You, halfway through pulling off your last glove, paused in your steps as you glanced at him. Taking in the weight of his remark. 

  “Sorry, what was that?” You spoke up, much to just about everyone’s surprise. The tension in the garage was heavy now, as if everyone were holding their breath. Waiting to see what would happen next.

Max finally glanced your way, his expression sharp and clearly unapologetic. He leaned back in his chair, vaguely gesturing at the screen in front of him. It made your blood boil.

  “You heard me. Quick lap times don’t mean much when you’re all over the place in the corners like that. You’re lucky it’s testing, not a race.” His voice was cold, blue eyes piercing their way straight into your soul. Your stomach twisted at his words, but you fought to keep your expression neutral. This was your very first day, and you weren’t about to get on everyone’s bad side for getting into a fight with their reigning world champion. Even when he acted disrespectfully.

  “I didn’t feel lucky out there, just fast.” You said, your pulse loud in your ears. Yet your exterior was kept calm, and while your words were indeed stern, they didn’t display anger. “I’m not here to give you an easy time, and I’m not afraid to push harder”

The workers around you exchanged uneasy glances at the situation unfolding right in front of them. Max moved in his seat on the chair, leaning further back and resting his one elbow on the armrest. He shrugged.

  “Being fast won’t do you any good when it matters. You’ll push too hard, make mistakes, and then what? The rest of the team, we have to clean up your mess just because you wanted to be reckless?” His words were meant to hurt now, like a spike boring its way into your chest repeatedly. Your jaw tightened, slowly feeling the anger bubble up inside of you, no matter how much you tried to keep it at bay. You told yourself it was stupid to fuel the fire, but at the same time you did not want him to walk all over you. Wanted to show that you were here to be taken seriously, and not just bow down to him. 

  “Good thing I’m not gonna make any then.” You shrugged at him as you spoke, trying to keep your cool and controlled facade. It was obvious that your words stirred something in Max, his lips pressed into a thin line, icy blue eyes narrowed. For a moment it looked like he was about to respond, to further complicate matters, but that was when Christian Horner seemed to come to his senses, and decide to put an end to this.

He physically stepped in between the two of you in the most Team Principal way he possibly could, putting his hands up to tell you to back off. “Alright that’s enough, both of you.” He looked pointedly at Max first, then turned his eyes to you and to the same, his frustration evident. 

He kept his eyes on you as he spoke up again. “Good run. Go debrief with Robin.” It was clear his words weren’t up for discussion, it was an outright demand. You nodded, walking over to your engineer, Christian turning his attention to the Dutchman.

  “You’re up next, let’s focus on the car, not each other please.” Horner said sternly, not moving until Max had shown he had understood and gone to get ready. But not before he had sent an extra look your way with narrowed eyes. The blood boiling in his body. 

The silence in the garage remained for a moment longer before the activity came back to life, the tension reduced to a lingering shadow.

But still, this wasn’t something you were about to just let go. You thought his comments had been outright disrespectful, and they bothered you deep inside of you. There was one thing you knew for sure.

That was the day you swore you despised Max Verstappen.

———————————————

Thank you so much for reading this first chapter. Can't wait to share more with you! Feedback is always much appreciated!<3

[bitchlessdino]

mood rings, drive thru theaters, and the latest issue of tiger beat (m)

Pairing: chan x college student!reader (afab) Genre: angst, smut, fluff Word count: 6.9k tags: SVTHUB COLLAB, set in the 70s, plot twist with dark ending (possibly triggering to some), pwithplot, tutor!reader, busty!reader, pining, brief mention of religion, mention of recreational drugs, mention of death, mention of medicine and medical practice, mention of tragedy (car crash), breeding kink, daddy kink, unprotected sex, couch sex, handjob cream pies, dirty talk. Summary: when you fall in love, it can feel like you’ll be with that person forever, that there isn’t another being in the world you rather be with. This case is just as heavy in your youth, tutoring a boy you’ve only ever walked circles around, while you wear a mood ring from his parents souvenir shop so you could feel closer to him. When it happens, you don’t expect things to crash harder than the way they do. author note: she's here!!! i might reedit later but i wanted to get this out before i changed my mind about the plot again so enjoy and check out the rest of the collab!!!!

Tag: @shiningstar-byulxx @misssugarlips @tommolex @hoeforhao @homerunhansol @dkakapizzaboy @junhui-recs @svtup @buffhoshi @meowmeowminnie @caratochan @lovebot4han @6969lilithcat @wonuhour @camisun93 @emmmui @toruro @jeonride @novalpha @nvmrljk @feat-sun

Falling in love in the seventies wasn’t easy. You didn’t have mobile phones or text messaging, hell, you were lucky if you had email. Most people didn’t. That’s what made it so much harder to be a person stricken in love. All you had was paper, a pen, and the possibility of hearing something through your home landline.

Every day you would wait for the confirmation call he’d be coming. He was one of the polite ones. You were grateful to have formally met him through the tutoring program held in college and you look forward to that phone call and the weekly meetings every Tuesday and Wednesday to go over organic chemistry. Somewhere in that mix, you had hoped to find your own chemistry with him despite knowing how selfish that’d be.

You’d never admit it loud but you had the classic high school pining back when you attended the same classes in the same town. He was a sweetheart then just like he was a sweetheart now and you longed for him like any other teenager. He had you doodling combinations of your names together in a worn out notebook and cherishing an item you secretly associated with only him. Yours was a mood ring.

In the summer of 74’, a new souvenir shop had just opened around the block after countless failed businesses by previous owners. This shop was owned by the Lees, a cute mom-and-dad duo that was sweeter than any cream-filled Twinkee. There was not a thing intimidating about them. They seemed like good people. What you weren’t ready for was their son working the register that day.

What was it about a man in wide leg jeans and a tight fitted shirt that made you want to physically fall to your knees?

At the time, he was wiping a glass candy tray rather meticulously. He has only greeted whoever came in without looking, too focused on getting every dust particle out of every crevice, so he didn’t notice how you found him to be the most interesting sight you’ve seen.

His smile when seeing the swell job he’s done was priceless compared to every piece of merchandise in the store. If there was a chance you could bottle up and take it away for keeps, you would. You would tell the local newspaper this store would be a new world wonder just from this boy alone. 

You had to pinch yourself to finally pull your eyes away from him, scanning for something, anything, interesting enough to purchase and ring it up with him. Finally, your eyes land on something colorful, ever-changing, and wearable.

“Will that be all for today?”

You nodded, holding back a wide grin as you watched him run through your purchase. His smile never faltered in front of you, and for some reason, it made you feel special, despite the assumption he probably smiled in front of anyone who came in. Still, it made an impression.

“That’ll be a dollar please and since you’re a new customer,” he picked something from a box behind the counter, “a pack of now and laters for the road. You can have one now and another later. They’re great.”

God, he’s cute.

You mused at him, accepting the ring and freebie after paying him up front. “Thank you.”

“Have a great day. Catch you on the flip side!”

You waved back at him on your exit, immediately regretting not staying longer to chat. As expected, your mind went blank the second he spoke to you, and the moment you were alone, you slid on the mood ring on your ring finger and focused all of your energy on thinking about the questions you could’ve asked. For him, that was like any interaction, but for you, it’ll be a core memory. 

It was throughout the years you realized that you’d be attending the same high school, sharing the same senior year, experiencing the same last year festivities, but despite the many opportunities, you never had an encounter like that with him again. You’d pass by that souvenir shop countless times, glancing at him while he worked every shift, but cowardly never approached him again. Not with the lack of trying, of course, your adolescent self was too busy to find a way to make him fall in love with you according to whatever you read in Tiger Beat.

You remember flipping through it, back and forth, momentarily distracted by the boyish charm of David Cassidy, and then going back to reread it in case you missed something. This had been your adolescent bible to understand whatever was on trend because only God knew you needed it. Somedays, you’d pretend you were talking with him through your magazine posters. Now that was a face deserving to be in magazines.

“You’re still thinking about that boy? Just talk to him already.”

Even your closest friend, Stacey, couldn't get your head out of the clouds. 

You adamantly shook your head, the magazine clung to your chest. “No, absolutely not. Me talking to him wouldn’t even happen in my dreams. In fact, I’d probably have to pay admission to see him in my dreams.”

She rolled her eyes, letting you get back to whatever exactly you were doing. “Okay, drama queen. We get it. You like a boy.”

She was used to this at that point and it’d be all the same. You never outgrew it entering colleges either, the same one he happened to attend, which you couldn’t have been more stoked to find out. “He’s not just any boy, Stacey. he’s the boy. He’s so far out. I can’t even fathom his existence.”

You were in fact exaggerating, but at the ripe age of 18 all of it felt sincere and you truly did believe it was all true.

And to think you hadn’t formally met him yet until you started participating as a tutor in a peer help program at your University. You didn’t expect much of it, only thinking of collecting some community hours and hopefully maintaining a good reputation with your professors and there he was, like fate. There he should, hair coifed in intentional pristine, a loosely buttoned vibrant green shirt, and familiar tightly fitted pants that flared from the bottom. 

Your breathing seized, stunned by the sheer fact you have stood this close to him since the first time your eyes laid on him. When he turned to you, he didn’t seem to notice your reluctance to walk closer as he strode confidently in your direction. 

“Hi, nice to meet you. I’m Lee Chan. You're my tutor, right?”

Your heart sounded like a metronome at the highest speed at this point, taking your breathing in little by little, timidly returning him with your own introduction. Safe to say, you were both scared out of your mind, yet excited about this turn of events. Though, if you thought about it too hard, you had the chance of rendering tutorship useless and then it’s farewell to Chan.

That’s when you made the executive decision to omit him from your head during these sessions and treat him like any other peer needing help, as you initially intended with anyone you were assigned. If you wanted to continue these sessions and help out Chan, you needed to do more than think about what your future looked like together with 2.5 kids and a big picket fence.

You picked up a polite smile and settled in at a table, flipping a textbook to the first chapter of the course. Fortunately, he followed just as any other person struggling in chemistry and attempted to keep up with the lesson plan. As expected, you’d stumble over many of your teachings, forgetting some of the information yourself and having to refer to the book due to the blinding glow of your student, but as time passed, things eventually were more tolerable.

It was a few months later found an easier medium of being infatuated with the young man but helpful enough to pass the assignments in the above-average percentage. He just happened to be a good student that required more patience. Somewhat, it made you warm to learn that about him, including the fact he was good at listening, or how his eyes lit up picking up a lesson and recalling from memory. However, you kept this situation mostly professional, avoiding social interactions that would take away from your role. That was until Chan found comfort in spending time with you, having a sense of gratitude much grander than anyone teaching him Aldol reactions or valence electrons.

You could feel his soft gaze as you outlined something on his study sheet, emphasizing its importance since it’s appearing in the final he’d be taking eventually. If this were you back in the days of learning his name for the first time and thinking about him every waking second, you’d faint right about now. You’d be lying right now if you said you didn’t feel dizzy from the heat of his presence, but as you have been for the time spent together in the library, you’ve trained yourself to ignore it while mastering to subdue your intrusive thoughts.

Chan somehow found a way around that.

“Oh, your ring. Looks like the one in my parents' shop.”

You momentarily glanced back at the trinket before zone backing into today’s lesson, awkwardly chuckling to yourself. “Oh. Ha ha, that’s because it is.”

His eyes lit up the way they do, a cartoonish gleam in his eyes. “Really? I think I’d remember seeing you.”

“It was once a really long time ago.”

“Well, you should visit again. I can give you a good discount. We just got a big shipment of pop rocks.”

“Okay, sure.” You smiled, internally giggling at the thought of Chan entertaining himself with explosive candy and sharing it with you like the coolest treasure. “Alright. Organic compounds—“

“We really met before?” He interrupted.

“It really was so long ago. I’d be surprised if you did remember.”

“Well, I feel bad. I feel like there’s time it should be making up.”

You waved it off, not minding the now teary expression of guilt on his face. “It’s fine, Chan.”

“How about we go and watch a movie? I think the drive thru is replaying ‘The Godfather’. You should come with me.”

“Really? I don’t know.”

“Come on, consider it a thanks. You don’t even get paid for all the time you’ve spent teaching me.”

“No, but I get community hours. Speaking of teaching.” He placed his hand over yours, cuffing off the words caught in your throat. You find yourself helpless at the sweat pleas of Chan who works the cute angle all too well as he scooted closer to you. “I don’t think I can rest knowing I haven’t found a way to thank you. You’ve been tutoring me for 4 months. The least I can do is take you out.”

You’re a bit stunned, your leg already shaking in nerves as you never expected such a proposal to easily leave his lips and for you nonetheless. You exhaled, mustering the courage to meet his eyes before nothing, pressing your lips to discourage an all too gleeful smile. “Fine. We’ll watch ‘The Godfather’.”

He let you go, beaming, and tracking his pencil tracking over his notebook filled with chicken scratch that was comprehensible to him. “Good, I can pick you up.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” he repeated before gluing his eyes back on the textbook, a noticeable hue of peak creeping up the back of his neck. “So, organic compounds...”

This arrangement was all you could think about until the day of, reading and rereading your magazines for possible outfit ideas, dating tips, and anything with the potential of making the best of this nerve-wracking situation.

On the day of, you got in your best get up just in time for the meetup. Anxiously, you turned your mood ring around your finger as you waited by the door, contemplating to yourself if what you chose was the right course of action. When the knock came, you came swinging the door open and pinched yourself from swooning seeing him in casual attire, including jeans that hugged his hips just right.

Chan, on the other hand, didn’t hide his emotions. Bright and animated, you grew hot under his watch, fiddling with the mood ring now on your middle finger and seeing it glare back a yellowish orange, indicating how nervous you really were. He took cautious steps towards you, mouth falling in awe, and he tugged at his band tee, which now felt lackluster compared to what his eyes were now seeing. “You look really good. I feel underdressed.”

“No, no,” you said, shaking your head and stepping down from the porch. “I just threw something on.”

“Well,” he offered an elbow, “shall we?”

You accepted his offer and hooked it through, hiding your elation. “Of course.”

He escorted you to the car and guided you to the passenger seat before closing the door, allowing you a moment to swallow the spaciousness of his station wagon before heading off to the theater. 

Cars beside cars, people neither mingling, making out, or taking advantage of the concession stands with 25-cent popcorn and pop. The sun was in the process of setting before it became a violet hue and eventually pitch black, perfect for movies. You got out of the car and smoothed out the wrinkles of your outfit, taking another deep breath.

You only had a fleeting second seeing him come out from the driver's seat, a smile settling on his face for what felt like you and only you.

Then came the hoard. Voices calling out Chan’s name, boys and girls his age gathered around him, offering his gregarious greetings and rowdy conversation. They hounded him with hugs, not minding you who stood off from the side behind the cat. Your expression dropped, starting from your smile before spreading over your body language. Chan, remembering your existence, tugged you from the hood and brought you to his side. He briefly introduced you as his tutor, and you did your best to greet them back just as politely.

They nodded at you, sly faces towards Chan as if you wouldn’t notice, and then came their bombarding again, only this time in your presence. You kept up the calm facade, only laughing when necessary before turning to the person who brought you here. “Nice to meet you all. Hey, Chan. I’m gonna get some snacks.”

“Okay. I’ll be here.”

You didn’t let the disappointment show on your face as you walked away but let it fall free as your back was towards the group. You hear their teasing and playful banter, questioning if you’re really just his tutor and Chan confirming, leaving no implication for anything else. You crossed your arms in embarrassment, already regretting letting this situation occur, imagining the worst scenarios to come.

You quietly asked for popcorn and a grape pop, greeted with your refreshments a few moments later, along with a box of raisinets. Your lips parted in confusion. “Oh, I didn’t order these.”

“On the house,” the guy winked, leaning over the counter a little too close for comfort, “a secret promotion for cuties like yourself.”

“Ah,” you gave him a tight-lipped grin, visibly distancing yourself, “thanks.”

“You know, I can always sneak away from my post for little liplock in—“

“Hey, you doing alright? I was worried about you.” You didn’t have to look to know. His body came crashing into yours. An arm slung over your shoulder, an action almost as natural as breathing. “Do you have enough?”

Your eyes flickered toward Chan who came to your rescue, nodding curtly. “Huh? Y-yeah.”

Chan met the seller's eyes before accepting your purchase for you, handing you over only the popcorn. You stared at the box of raisinets before he tugged you away from the stand.

“I did good, right? I’ve been told that guy’s a creep. I didn’t know he worked here.” His whisper sent chills through your body, yet burned your ears. You could feel the fanning of his breath, tickling your skin and raising every hair in your body.

“Me neither.”

“He’s not a good guy. You see him around, walk in the other direction ok?”

You nodded, taking his advice into serious thought. “Thanks, Chan.”

When it’s clear you’re out of sight, he parted from you, keeping his hands down his pockets, visibly apologetic. “Sorry if I made you uncomfortable with that. He just won’t let it go unless he finds out you have a boyfriend or something.”

“Mmh-hmm.”

“Let’s get back to the others, hmm?”

You spent most of the night with Chan and his friends. Some laughed at how cheesy the movie was or actually scared of what was actually occurring (Chan was a mix between the two). You’d enjoy it more if you weren’t a bit bothered by the circumstances. All you could was glance in Chan's direction while he smiled and laughed along with his friends. Even though you were sitting next to him in the same car hood, you never felt further away. Every direction tonight felt like a punch in the gut, having only spoken to him before the movie started. At this point, you felt as if you had no place here, blinking away the humiliation tears threatening to fall.

“I’m a little cold. so I’m gonna finish the movie in the car.”

Finally, his eyes landed on you, “What?”

You slid off the hood and dusted yourself. Chan followed behind you confused before seating himself inside the car with you, a worried expression on his face. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Of course not.” You splayed a less genuine smile, raising your cheekbones for good measure, but seeing its failure to convince otherwise.

“That means I did do something wrong,” he said, smiling bitterly. “Sorry. I’m not the best at picking up cues.”

“I told you, Chan. I just got cold.”

He sighed and turned to reach for something behind, pulling over something thick and warm over your body, covering your torso and legs. “Here. So you won’t catch anything.”

There’s that familiar clang to your heart you should be used to by now, following the marching band that typically arrives after inside your chest. “Thank you.”

You both sat in silence for a bit, continuing to watch the rest of the movie. He makes so attempt to communicate with his friends outside and he doesn’t smile, only focusing on the movie, insistent on being in your presence. You aren’t sure how to behave, fingers inching at lingering awkwardness.

“If I’m being honest,” You started saying, filling the charged air with something other than tension, “I didn’t expect to see that many people with us.”

“You didn’t?”

You shook your head. “I misunderstood all on my own. Don’t worry about it. Let’s just finish the movie.”

“Hey—“

“I’m feeling warmer already,” You said, grinning as yourself deeper into the blanket.

Your eyes were ready to train back in the movie before he spoke again, hearing a tone in his voice you weren’t all that familiar with. “I didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable alone with me. I guess I did anyway.”

Guilt festered in the out of your stomach, regretting making a big scene out of nothing. “That’s not—“

“I got scared,” he admitted, the corner of his lips quirking up in a self-loathing grin. “They already saw my tickets so they thought they would get some too. Make it a group thing. I didn’t want it initially, but I thought, maybe it’d make things easier…I should’ve run it by you.”

You met his eyes, earnest yet soft. You didn’t know how to respond to any of this, processing his confession slowly. A fit of emotions wash over him and you see now the inner conflict that he had dealt with, somehow washing you over with relief. The final deep exhale you let out was solace, thinking to yourself how situations like this only happen in movies and books. You’re warm all over, an overwhelming urge to reach over and hug him, a fellow rambling mess.

“You didn’t misunderstand anything. I did want to go to the movies with you, but I wasn’t sure if you felt pressure or—“

You grabbed his hand, lacing your fingers through his. He stiffened under your touch, blinking back at you like a lost child. You smiled back at him from ear to ear and body leaned over on his side. “Just hold my hand. We’re not going to cause any more misunderstandings. Okay?”

He matched you, his pearly whites staring back at you as pretty as ever. “Okay.” His thumb caressed over your fingers, noticing something interesting as he did so. “It’s purple.”

“Hmm,” You looked down at your clasped hands, noticing that same thing he did: your mood ring in a solid rich purple. “It is.”

“Do you remember what purple means?”

You avoid edhis eyes, quietly laughing to yourself. “You know better than anyone.”

“I do.” He tightened his grip, head leaning against your shoulder and it felt as if time had stopped. You don’t doubt that he can hear your heart racing right or your uneven breathing. He turned the ring around your digit, watching how the colors periodically shift. “I won’t let there be any more misunderstandings.”

Since that incident, you went about your tutoring sessions as normal, with the additional intimacy that didn’t exist before. You both gradually developed these sessions into more study dates and then they became real dates. Things only became official when the semester finally ended and he continued wanting to see you, visiting your place whenever you got the chance using any possible excuse.

You could remember how happy you felt at the time. The relief there was to know he liked you back. It was almost as if you were living a dream. A damn perfect dream.

Then your first kiss came around. You were as nervous as anyone anticipating the first. Every doubt in the past didn’t matter, only now did. Everything all led up to this point. It just happened in the way you least expected it to.

You didn’t know why he insisted on teaching you how to play arcade games when he was just as bad. Still, it was cute seeing him try so hard. The firmness of his back followed your movement, guiding you to the right combos, shifting the joystick to move in the right direction, and although it was all wrong, you appreciated the back hug you were getting in return. Even the claw machine had to be a teaching lesson, insisting he had something to teach you. 

“I did it. Chan, I did it!” You saw the stuffed dinosaur grabbed by the metal prongs, dropping right into the winner’s slot. You bounced on your feet cheering and took Chan along with you, hugging him tightly as your inner child healed and squealed at your achievement.

“I knew you could! You’re amazing.” His strong arms came around you firmly, pressing you against the glass of the machine.

Your breath was seized, replaced with weightlessness and tension in your chest that doesn’t seem to want to leave and perhaps you didn’t want it to. Although he didn’t pull away from the embrace, he parted far enough to meet your eyes and the longing in them. He knew what it was because that’s what was in his eyes, falling into their trance like a lucid dream that had him higher than any recreational drug. Neither one of you was willing to let it go, so all you do is stare. Stare at each other like you’re in your own world and no one else’s. As if life as you know it ceased to exist except for you and Chan. Nothing else matters.

When it felt as if you could imagine a more perfect moment, he leaned in with closed eyes, finding your lips like they were a second home and stealing your breath. You thought to lean in to kiss him deeper, but he already had found his grasp and pressed into you closer against the glass, feeling every ounce of muscle and shape of his body beneath his clothes. His shallow breath against yours, his hug of lips pulling at your bottom lip, and he emitted a soft grunt.

He pulled away from you with his arms still wrapped around your sides, shocked by his impulsivity. He stroked the side of your head, scanning for any fear in your eyes, slightly relieved to see any in sight. “I’m sorry. That was…a lot, huh?”

You shook your head reassuringly. “No.”

“Then I can kiss you again?”

The corners of your lips turned up, gripping his jean jacket to pull him closer. “Yes.”

You were kissing for hours that day and the next day, and then again the day after. Since then, something has shifted and these teenage dreams turned reality into something less family friendly. Your nights in his dorm became more frequent, more intimate, and always backed by a melody thanks to a record player gifted to him by his dad when he moved out. His prized possession, besides you anyway, as he claimed.

“What do you want to be when you’re older,” he asked, dragging his digits in and out between yours. He smiled, noticing your mood ring turning a mix of pink and purple before kissing your knuckles. “You know I want to be a nurse. What’s your dream?”

In the background was Led Zeppelin, their intoxically addictive tune spinning on the table. You thought to yourself a bit before turning your head back up at him, nuzzling closer into his warm touch before answering. “I want…to be surrounded by the people I love.”

He laughed like he heard the sweetest thing on planet Earth before his fingers threaded through your hair. “Baby, that’s sweet but not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant, but it’s what I want. It doesn’t matter much what I do, as long as I’m with my loved ones.”

“Am I one of these loved ones? Do you love me?” 

“Yeah. I love you.” You didn’t even hesitate, the words were always on the tip of your tongue until that final push. You lifted alight above him to repeat yourself louder. You let him heed your words. “I think I really love you.”

You thought he’d react differently, more scared and unsure but—“I love you too.”

“Chan,” you smile, warm filling your inside as you let your breath chase away the race in your chest.

“I mean it.” He bent his head down to meet your lips, cupping your cheek with the warmth of his palm. “I really, really love you.”

Chan toppled over you, lips meeting yours repeatedly in a heated frenzy, caressing your body and holding you desperately against him as you did the same to him. He kept you between his legs, whispering it over and over, ‘I love you, I love you,’ blistering and marking your skin. How was it that made you feel as if you weren’t allowed to breathe? 

Before you realize it, clothes started coming off. Piece by piece. As ‘Babe I’m gonna leave you’ replayed, shirts, belt, pants, and everything underneath fell to the ground. You saw him. You saw all of him. And he saw all of you. Your instinct was to shield away, be conscious of your then and there but in his own way, he reassures you, speaking to you as though all his words were nothing but the earnest truth. “I’m here. You’ll never have to worry about me not being here. I love you so much.”

Your flesh spilled through his fingers, imprinting his hands through your nude. Sounds of worship leaving his lips between every kiss, not even the worry of lack of condoms could stop him. Your thighs were glued to his hips, and you felt the warmth of his length titter to your fresh heat. You moaned every time you met lips, every bite he gave to your skin, and every full twist his fingers made with your sensitive buds before filling the inside of his oral cavity of your full breast.

You ached to have him in you, hand barely reaching his girth before wrapping a tight wrist around him. He shuddered at your touch, thrusting through the circle of your palm. You felt the need in his movement as he grinded down on his couch, not minding the wool burn inevitable to be left behind. Weak chuckles escaped his lips and he flashed you a smile, seconds away from melting into helpless groans. “You know just how to handle me…”

“Only because you treat me so well.”

Kissing one breast and then the other, he reached your lips as he held your thighs against the sides of his torso. “And I’ll do it for as long as I’m alive.”

You looped your arms around his neck and pulled yourself against him, his warm breath tickling the tip of your nose. “Make love to me. I wanna feel you inside me.”

“Then I won’t wait a second longer.”

The moment you felt him inside you, you felt higher than anything you could find in a blunt offered by the shady next-door neighbor. You buckled into him, lifting your hips off the couch for a fully bloomed taste. The stretch he left had your jaw falling, clutching to his shoulder, and letting out exasperated breaths. You nearly choked on your own spit that had only forced it down when he picked up the pace.

You molten walls only sucked him in deeper, calling his name in blurred whines. Each thrust and each kiss was fueled by an undying passion. He carried you, palm to your back and your legs around his waist, and pulled you on top of him. From beneath you, he drilled your insides, meeting your longing expression. 

Your fingers draped over his face, and you held on to his blissful expression that occasionally dropped in anguish when chasing after his rhythm. You whined his name desperately, clinging to him as you dug down your hips down his lap. He moaned louder than before, gingerly cupping your breasts and finding your stiff nipples between his fingers.

“You feel so good taking me…and your tits are so soft and warm.” He pushed himself to thrust hard, pleased with how easily you easily bounced against him, watching your flesh moving loud and fluidly like water. “You’re so perfect to hold, and love, and fuck my dick into—shit.”

Your chest rose and fell catching up with his efforts. “Chan, I love you so much.”

“I love you too. So, so, so—fuck!”

You felt his grip grow tighter and saw his jaw drop lower. His legs clenched to your sides impulsively, unwilling to let go. Soon enough, he couldn’t take it anymore and came inside you. He looked as if everything in his brain told him not to, but it seemed that nothing could stop the geyser within him from coating your insides with hot ivory. He snapped into you in an erratic rhythm, cum spilled in you and out of him until it stained the wool underneath.

Chan was red in the face, both in embarrassment and heat. He looked up at you in panic at the direness of circumstance considering neither one of you thought to stay protected. “Shit, fuck,” he exclaimed still pumping inside you, “you feel so good. I’m so sorry.”

You shook your head, bending down to kiss him. “It’s okay, just don’t stop…please…”

His stressed expression melted, as did his fingers into your skin. He caressed over your sides with love in his eyes, swallowing nervously. “Really, baby? That ok?”

Perspiration coated his skin, beading down his adam’s apple as it bobbed. You felt like mush in his touch, letting your hips make use of the natural lubricant. Your boyfriend groaned at the sound of the slick moisture sliding over his skin. You cupped his face in your hands, working your jaw in a needy liplock. “Yes, please. Fuck your cum in me, please.”

His fingers tensed, dragging your lips to slap down on his. He exhaled slowly, your walls hugging his cock erect. He asked in a breathy voice, “Fuck my cum in you…my pretty girlfriend wants something so dirty done to her?”

“Yes, yes, please…” You whined.

He slammed up into you, feeling how he’s already bottoming out inside you. Hearing you moan his name lit a fire beneath him and he rolled you on your back to rut in you like a merciless animal. 

“You want my cum in you, hmm? Fill you up with my cum and put my fat load in you?”

You jerked in the opposite direction, your skin smacking against each other causing the tenderness of your skin. “Yes, please,” You choked out, “I want it all with you.”

His lips picked up from the corner in a smirk, turning you back over to plant you against the couch while his feet finally touched the ground. “You want it all? Like a life? A family? You want me to build a family with me…have me fuck my babies into you?”

“Yes, baby, please. I want you to fill me up so I can make you a daddy.”

“You love me that much?” He slammed into you with a proud smile. “You love me so much you see your future with daddy?”

You batted your lashes back at him. “I see every day either full of joy or full of your cum inside me.”

He snickered before biting his lips in a filthy moan, “Such a dirty mouth on the mother of my kids.”

You’re spent by the time your legs gave out, and you and your boyfriend exhausted your bodies to the point you couldn’t move even an inch off the couch. Cum seeped out of your holes like sap, only halted as you pressed your legs together to get comfortable. Chan had barely enough energy to tug a blanket off from behind him and throw it over your bodies. You smiled into his warmth, nuzzling into his chest, and inhaling his lusty musk. 

You moaned in satisfaction. “Mmh, I like this…”

“Me too.” He hummed.

“I never want this to end.”

“And it won’t,” he said, kissing the temple of your forehead.

“Are you hungry?”

You moaned. “Starving.”

He chuckled, holding you closer to him as his voice dropped an octave. “Let’s fill you up with something, hmm?”

You rolled your eyes, smiling as you lightly shoved him. “Chan…”

“Food, babe,” he said with a cheeky smile, “get your mind out of the gutter.”

After a quick shower, and a few wet kisses in between, you’re set to refresh yourselves with some fast food and can’t help but be filled with elation. You cozied into the passenger seat accepting the hand he’s offered as the other steadied the wheel. You can’t help but notice how he glanced every now and then when he shouldn’t, making you nudge him to fix his gaze.

It was always a loving one, one that you’d forever burn in your memory. You don’t even know why, but you shed a tear looking at it. That smile of his seems to go on for miles and brightens your day like the morning sun. You felt it in your heart. Something suffocating that you couldn’t describe but all you think in your head is that this was love and that loving Chan would be the easiest thing you could do.

He sent you another glance before making a turn, one a little longer than the few before, then all you heard was a loud blaring honk, your voice screaming his name, and then your vision went pitch black. You stared into darkness. Emptiness. Nothing was in sight. 

That was until your eyes were open again. You woke in a place of all white, smelling of antiseptic and a hint of febreeze. You slowly blinked, scanning the room, unmoving. Still, in fact.

“Good afternoon, Sunshine. Sleep well?”

You only could see who entered when they walked in your field of vision. Your eyes stared in shock at the sight of your boyfriend, smiling back at you in scrubs as he wrote away in his clipboard and looking as if he hadn’t aged a day. You internally screamed at your body to move, crying from within the inside at the inability, and then soon growing tired, realizing it’d never be possible. As he put away documents in a file holder pinned to the high wall, you stressed your throat to speak, hoping for the least a sound to follow, but instead, it was your silence.

“I’ll just open the blinds a bit, make sure they’re not too much light in your eyes. Too bad your nap was a little long. The weather was so good. I thought we could roll you out into the garden.”

You are losing your mind. The last thing you could remember was a car accident that felt like mere seconds ago and staring into the eyes of the man before you, who matched the love in your eyes. Now you’re imprisoned in your own immobile body, with no clue why and how the love of your life survived when you barely did.

“Your heart is pounding. Wait a second.”

Chan strode over to the monitor just out of view, forcing yourself to rely on your peripheral to watch him. His side profile and his body were all within reach but unassessable. You felt the sweat of your palm through the sheer determination alone, but to no avail, he stayed away from your grasp.

“Hmm, we’ll have to figure that out.”

Finishing up, he stood in front of you like a figure of light radiating brightness unfathomable to man. A light bright enough to fully grasp your reality. Your true reality.

That’s right. He’s not your boyfriend. You were never together.

You’ve been the way you were for two years, by a car accident nonetheless. This was Nurse Lee–your caretaker and nurse–who insisted you call him by name and talked to you as if you could talk right back. 

And this wasn’t the 1970s. It was the 2070s. 

Your gaze quickly turned to “Three's a Company” playing on the highly advanced TV plastered on the wall, momentarily surprised that they still had the show on cable, before snapping right back to your nurse, now going on about the daily work gossip. You couldn’t help but stare again, watching his handsome face turn up in a smile every time something delightful popped into his pretty little head as he spoke. Your eyes fluttered in remorse, a familiar sinking feeling in your chest as you inhaled and exhaled through your breathing tubes.

It all made so much sense. Too much in fact. Here you were in dreamland living in disbelief that someone as sweet and kind and Charming as Lee Chan—nurse Lee Chan—would ever be someone so madly in love with you. You lived a happy and healthy and normal life in your dreams, shutting off from the dark truth of your world is, as if you’ve never been in this accident. You dreamt of life before it was taken away before you narrowly escaped death.

If you could call this escaping death anyway. You were practically dead.

And perhaps the worst part—

“Vivian liked the flowers you suggested. I think she’ll finally stop being mad at me thanks to you.” 

He gently moved your head to fluff the pillow behind you and placed you back on top. He brushed away a hair that strayed over your face, and you felt a sensation pulse through your fingers. “I wish you could meet her. You’ve always been there to listen to me talk about the wedding planning, the bridal stuff, and then the actual wedding. I hope you liked the photos, the guy we hired was—phew—a pretty penny.”

You started to blink rapidly, seeing your reality crumbling before you, and all he could do was look as devastatingly beautiful as always, even with the dark circle under his eyes from long hours of work. 

“I talk a lot, huh? That’s what you’re thinking. Sorry, you’ve always been a listener, not that you can help it.” He chuckled to himself. “Sorry, dark joke. I’m sure if you could move now, you’d laugh.”

No, you wouldn’t.

“I’ll be out of your hair in a second. Don’t worry.” 

He did the last round of his thorough check-up of your room before standing by the door with his clipboard in hand. Clicking his pen, he turned back to you one last time with a smile now turned bittersweet.

“Any day now. Your heart pulses a little faster every day. Your family is waiting for you. And because I’ve grown attached to you I’m waiting for you too. Maybe after all this, we could be friends, then you can tell me how much you love or hate when I talk to you. Just as long as you’re up and running again.”

The moment the door closed, you were alone again. The fluid built in your tear ducts finally found their escape and streamed down your still face, facing their discomforting warmth. Your chest heaved, your grew breaths shallow, your throat went dry, and suddenly your lips quivered. In solitude and sheer desperation, you said your first words in years.

“Chan…come…back…”

But it didn’t matter.

[dodorimo]

WIP Wednesday

Theater director!Raphael x Tav

He's supposed to be kinda creepy here, so yeah, this is a warning.

· · ──────  ❊  ────── · ·

It is a disaster, a travesty.

He wonders. When Tacitus beheld the charred remains of his beloved Rome, did he feel a similar way?

Chorus girls look to each other for guidance while lead actors traipse over the stage, painfully off-key. He has seen high school productions with more verve than this one.

That he has to share a room with such insipid talent. It is truly heartbreaking.

With a weary sigh, his eyes survey the stage for the weak link, and that’s where he finds her. A girl in the back row, looking a little lost and scared out of her mind.

“Dear God, who does casting these days?” he laments to no one in particular, crossing his legs on the leather seat.

“You do, sir.”

Raphael turns to look at the man beside him, taking in his ill-fitting suit and old-fashioned glasses. Poor fellow. He has neither the knack nor the grip for the job. And the syndicate thought sending this boy would keep him on his toes?

“Oh, I didn’t audition this one or I’d remember her.” There’s a pause while he mulls over his thoughts. “Tell me, Jameson,” he says and ignores when the other man voices a correction. “Why is she here?”

“The girl has promise,” comes the curt response. “She was highly recommended.”

The vague answer does nothing to placate his quickly dampening mood. “Recommended by who? Her parents? Her elementary teacher, perhaps?”

A few cleaning women choose this moment to walk past their seats, prompting the man to lower his voice. “The Royal, sir.”

Raphael reclines back in his seat. There we have it.

What these newcomers fail to understand is that admission to a fancy college isn’t nearly enough accolades for his standards. He didn’t build his reputation by bowing down to paper-pushers and sycophants. In this theater, he dictates the rules. In this theater, he is king.

With a wave of his hand and a few scathing words, he orders the session to be dismissed, much to the relief of those present.

“May I suggest a break instead?”

“You did well today, Johnson. You may take the rest of the day off,” he replies, his tone final.

The man opens his mouth to protest, but turns to leave the room instead. The buzz of conversation slowly dwindles as cast and crew head backstage. They turn off the lights on their way out, leaving the theater in semi-penumbra.

Despite his predisposition for pomp and extravagance, Raphael always thought he worked better on a smaller stage.

“Not you.” He points to the girl tailgating the group. “I’d like to have a word.”

The girl stops in her tracks, a thousand emotions flashing across her face, before settling on fear.

While he waits for her to come around, he pulls two chairs and rearranges them facing each other in the middle of the stage, right below where the headlights shine brightest. The girl moves to sit on one of the chairs, shaking like a foal standing on its hind legs for the first time.

“Fear not. This will only take a moment,” he says, his smile deceptively warm—a skill honed after many years in the business.

She is a pretty little thing, this new choir girl. But then, again, most choir girls are. If her theater career falls to pieces, he can imagine a profession or two where she would excel at. 

“What do you say we start from the beginning of act two?” he suggests, tone amicable as to not alarm her further.

The girl scrambles to flip through the pages of the script, her eyes skimming over the words in rapid succession.

This won’t do. An easier question, then.

“What is your name, dear?”

“River, sir. My name is River.”

“My man told me you came from the capital. Do you like it there?”

“I like it very much, yes.” The small talk seems to calm her enough to allow her to find the right page. What she finds there, however, does not please her in the slightest.

“Sir, this is a scene for two…” she trails off, eyes fearful.

“Make the best of it. Improvise. I can play the part of your would-be lover if you wish.” The abrasive approach isn’t to his liking. Unfortunately for this girl, he is short on patience.

If he had any hope that under the veneer of the ingénue might hide a true thespian spirit, it vanishes the moment she utters the first line.

He stands up and paces aimlessly around the stage. The girl stares at him, dumbfounded.

“You have been on the run. This man, this stranger, offers you solace and a roof above your head. He is charming and not too hard on the eyes. You feel indebted to him. You’re young, naive and you’ve never been properly courted.”

The deviation from the script wouldn’t pose an issue. He is the author, after all, and the play, a successful piece from his earlier career. “Updated” for modern audiences. The word alone is enough to make him grit his teeth. None of his plays needed “updating”. Younger audiences can take their grievances back to their food-stained couches. They had no respect for the classics.

His little summary provokes the intended reaction. He sees the pieces falling into place in her mind.

“Harlequin…” she tries again, this time with more passion. And is that the hint of tears he sees in her eyes? “I've never met anyone like you. If only I could repay you in kind.”

“Good, good… much better.” He returns to his seat.

“Say the word and my body will be yours.” She leans forward, exposing just enough of her cleavage for his eager eyes. It’s a bold move, but not unwelcome. His fingers twitch on his lap. This little dove may surprise him still.

Raphael recites the words that have become second nature to him. “Columbina. I’d rather you not return to your old ways. If you choose to lie with me, it must be of your own free will.” If his voice sounded more condescending than the play requires, it’s just an act of improvisation on his part.

He points to the script in her hand. It’s the cue for her musical number.

If the girl clearly struggled with the finer nuances of the text before, here she needs no assistance. Hers is a voice of singular beauty, the likes of which emerge once in a generation. He suddenly understood why James was so hellbent on bringing her here. It wasn’t just the charming Harlequin who was finding himself enthralled.

When it’s done, he takes off his glasses without saying a word and puts them carefully in his pocket.

“Oh dear, this is…” Beautiful, stupendous, awe-inspiring, his mind supplies. “A little crude, if you don’t mind my directness.”

The girl looks positively devastated, her lips quivering as if about to cry.

“But even the roughest of rocks can be polished into a beautiful piece of jewelry. Isn’t this what they say? Meet me at my office after tomorrow’s rehearsal. I expect you to be well acquainted with the text by then.”

“Thank you, sir. I won’t disappoint you.”

“Call me Raphael.”

“Raphael…” Her voice rings like angelic bells to his ears. “Until tomorrow.”

[twinklelilstarkey]

Tutor: Dress Picking

Words: 2.4k Type: Angst? Warnings: This is literally a chapter just to announce that I'm back, so, yeah, settle in folks :) because shit is about to hit the fan, but not yet.

Tutor Masterlist

I do NOT give you permission to repost my work. If you’d like to read my stories on other platforms, you can find them on my Wattpad and AO3.

Hours later, when stepping into school, you are more than in a good mood. You must admit, you almost got to school late due to oversleeping with Rafe after having conversations that led until 5AM. Your headache has gone away with a simple aspirin, and most of your worrisome thoughts are in the back of your mind, safely tucked away.

You also were able to leave the house with Rafe without his family noticing, and the same thing goes for your parents. You made it home safely, put on new clothes as you had already showered at Rafe’s house, and he dropped you off at school. Your parents would never know of such a thing as they weren’t home when you got there, and you, supposedly, were with a friend of yours the whole night – one they know very well, but have no idea you don’t even speak to anymore.

Almost late or not, every minute of this morning was better than any other. You wish you were still in bed and that today was a Saturday, not a Wednesday. A day where you could just lie in bed with Rafe, talk about life, and get affection. Gosh, you would sell a kidney for that. Your poor kidneys.

You still got a few minutes in the car with him, even though different, it was still minutes that you had for yourselves. A lot of kisses and reassuring words were exchanged. As well as promises that everything will go well and nothing bad will happen. And if it does, he’ll be parked outside as soon as you call, ready to get you home.

Because of this, when the bell rings to tell you to get to class, your mind is still cloudy and warm.

You sit on your chair and stare at the empty page of a notebook while remembering the dumb ways Rafe made you laugh this morning, from the time in bed to the shower. The way his kisses were always soft and warm, and his arms would always hug you tightly and close enough for all your worries to fly away. Ugh, that kidney is about to go.

The classroom's door closes as the teacher walks inside, and the class begins. You lift your eyes off your notebook and notice a bit of movement beside you. You don’t have to look to know. Kristy wasn’t missing school again. She’s in class. In her usual seat, beside you. Her eyes are currently drilling a hole into the side of your head with all that staring, kind of hard to ignore.

Overall, the class itself is very uneventful since school is about to end, and there isn’t much the teacher can do to make everyone still find it in their will to study or work further. Due to this, the hour is slow, and there aren’t many notes that you can take from what is taught and discussed between the teacher and the other students.

In the corner of your eye, you see a small piece of paper being slid over to your side of the table, but you look away as soon as you can. You’re sure that Kristy is better than sliding small pieces of paper asking for an apology or time to talk, but maybe after the stunt that she was able to pull on you in that car... You probably need to draw new conclusions about this girl.

Throughout this one class, you continuously saw how Kristy tried to get your attention by sliding the piece of paper closer and closer or even trying to write a completely new one. You ignored all of her attempts. But also hesitated to check your vibrating phone as the possibility of it being her was just as large as the piece of paper she last tried to slide into your field of view.

The bell rang, and the teacher screamed the small assignment over the loud chatter that quickly erupted. You took a quick note of it in case you forgot it and got up to put your things away. Five different pieces of paper are just by your notebook now, and you almost want to scoff at the stupidity. Curiosity is also biting at your skin for wanting to know what is written in all of them, but you are better than that. Kristy sits there as you put your things away, almost as if waiting for you to address her or pick up her papers.

You slide your bag over your shoulder and take a step to the side to begin walking to the door. You ignore the hand that stretches in your direction to get a hold of your arm (but fails) and walk out of the room. Once outside, your phone begins to vibrate in your pocket, and you pull it out, knowing for a fact that Kristy isn't that ridiculous. The caller: Mom.

“Hello?” You say as soon as you accept the call and put your phone by your ear.

“Guess who just got invited to a party?” Your mom asks excitingly.

“You?”

“All of us!” She corrects excitingly. “Rose Cameron just called, saying that there will be a small get-together with the few families close to the Camerons at the country club. We’re all invited to celebrate your and many others' graduation. Isn't this amazing?”

You open your locker while an expression of surprise is more than obvious on your face. She continues to talk to you all about the details of the party, like how many people, what to wear and what will be there for decoration. You move your books around in the locker to switch classes, and not once do you need to speak because your mother speaks for the both of you.

The call drags out until the next bell calls you into class, yet not a new word has been said by you during the whole thing. You smile at your mom’s rare excitement for a party because, sincerely, it's hard to forget how any event organized by Rose has left your socialite of a mom more than pleased with the range of guests, food, or conversations. You’re in for a hell of a night.

“When is it, exactly?” You ask right as you get near the classroom.

“At the end of this week. Rose said something about it being a great way to celebrate the end of classes for all the graduating students invited.” She explains, leaving you to nod to yourself, “When are you free to go dress shopping?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, we won’t need more than an hour,” a lie, “to find a good dress for you, so as soon as you know a day we can go, call me back.”

“Will do.”

“Now, go to class. Your bell must have rung almost 5 minutes ago.”

You chuckle at her exactness and say your goodbyes before ending the call. Inside the classroom, you find everyone already seated, but the teacher is still absent. You walk towards the back of the class and ignore the same pair of eyes as before - since it seems the person has failed to gain something more interesting to look at lately.

You take your usual seat and think back on the conversation with your mother. The party doesn’t seem bad, but you can only wish for good company during it. Usually, your company in parties such as this is not exactly talking with you, much to their disappointment. And standing by your parents the entire evening doesn’t seem exactly exciting, as the conversations will be quite… uninteresting for your ears, surely.

While you occupy your free time on your phone, ignoring the constant whispering and glaring from all directions of the room, the teacher continues to take his sweet time to appear. Long enough for the guy in front of you to turn around and hand you yet another piece of paper. At this point, trees cry with all the attempts at communication Kristy happens to do.

Maybe it was how annoyed you felt. Maybe it was the fact that all their attention left you as soon as the teacher decided to walk in with a mug of hot coffee in hand. But you opened this last piece of paper. Truthfully, you did it so quick the unfolding and folding back up wasn't noticed by a single soul, and you read it.

Are you going to Cameron’s party? – Kristy

(…)

“Definitely not my color, mom.” You say for the thousandth time while looking at yourself in the mirror of the boutique.

“Are you sure? I like it on you.” She says while tilting her head to take another good look at you.

“I like the style, just not the color.” You admit to her, in a calm tone, nothing to start fights over - as you usually tend to do when picking a dress for a party your mom is so excited about. “The red looks better on me.”

Your mom gives you her usual look, ‘Well, but I hate red’, which only lets you know that this discussion about a dress will lead you to another hour of dress shopping. Nothing ever made you feel as grateful for yourself for clearing your schedule the way you did for this entire evening. As always, your mom is against any color that isn’t light and sweet or any cleavage that isn’t conservative enough. While you happen to like a lot of different styles of dresses and have dealt with your mother’s antics for years, your tastes still tend to clash.

“Red is too much, I think,” she comments, turning to look at the large number of dresses she has asked the worker to get for her. “What about blue?”

“Depends on the shade.” You try to ignore the look she sends you over her shoulder but fail miserably while looking down at the ground to chuckle.

“This one is too dark, I think.” She says while holding a silk dark blue dress with thin straps, “What about this one?”

“It almost looks white, mom. I’m not getting married.”

“Okay, Miss Picky. You pick one, then.”

It went on for hours, but soon you two came to an agreement after much begging on your part and almost on the store’s worker's part as well. You settled on a blue, not too light or too dark, dress with straps (your mother insisted). It has a straight neckline, but due to it being silk, it sits well on your chest. It tightens at your waist (again, due to your mother’s request: not too much), and its length rests gracefully at your feet – leaving you enough room to walk, but not much.

The moment you dramatically took in the fresh air outside, your mom wasn’t shy to pinch the back of your arm for the drama you decided to drag throughout the day. This also helped keep her distracted as your phone continuously received texts from a certain group of people who still are desperate to know if you were going to the party. They made it impossible for you to show her anything on your phone, like dress ideas, without her seeing the messages constantly being sent.

You take your seat on your mom’s car seat and set the bag with the dress inside by your legs, beginning to block the entirety of the group of girls on your phone. They have been asking you for, you assume, the same thing that Kristy had written in those papers yesterday in class: another conversation among all of you.

In all the messages you’ve received from them, you’ve read the ridiculous words of ‘unfair’ and ‘selfish’ all directed at you for either not answering the messages or not speaking to them in school, though all they did was stare at you once they saw you. You’re not sure you heard a single word come out of their mouths the day before or this morning. They all stayed silent while their eyes scanned your every move. It was obsessive, and they were driving you insane for it.

You’re just thankful that you were able to spend the evening with your mom, away from their gazes, as well as for the recent silence coming from your phone now that all contacts are blocked. Now you can finally relax and stop thinking about them and your conversation. But maybe you spoke too soon.

“Is everything alright between you and the girls?” Your mom suddenly asks while driving you both home. Her tone is calm and sweet, with nothing hidden behind it.

“Why do you ask?” You try to sound as calm as possible.

“I just feel like they haven’t been hanging out in our house that much lately. You’re always the one going out to see them,” She explains, not knowing that all the times you’ve gone out to see ‘them’ lately have been to see Rafe or Patty instead. “I sort of miss having the house full of girls.”

You two sit in silence while you simply look out of the window into the night, trying not to make any faces or sounds that could lead you into a lie that will snowball into the avalanche that is your current situation.

“We’ve just been busy, you know? With finals and all.”

“Will they be at the party?” She asks, still unphased by anything you’ve said.

“Yeah,” You assume, yet still make sure your tone makes you sound sure of your words.

“Well, good. I’ve missed talking to them. Maybe we can plan something.”

You almost zone out as soon as she begins to talk about the possibilities of having something cute like an afternoon tea party, or anything along those lines. How will you even be able to tell her the truth? You'll break her heart.

“Yeah…” You look out of your window again, “We could do that.”

As you continuously look away, your mother takes a look at you when stopped at a red light, with her smile still bright and sweet, ready to get one in return. But your eyes and mind are elsewhere - far away from the conversation you’ve just had. She noticed how your tone had just dipped from dramatic and happy to something so different it was hard to pick apart with such a short answer.

Your mother opens her mouth to say something, maybe even question your sudden change of mood directly, but the light turning green was enough to take her attention away. Some other time, she’ll be able to make you talk to her, confide in her about what could’ve happened to make you so moody. She’ll be there to hear it no matter what, right?

Am I back 100%? I have no idea. Did I write this while having no plans to do it? Also yes. I hope it was good!

Hope you enjoyed it!! AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

[youvebeenlivingfictional]

The Other Half Part Twenty Two

Previous Part | Masterlist | Next Part

Notes: Angst was requested, so angst ye shall receive. Welcome to the Thanksgiving episode.

Warnings: Smidge of fluff with a heaping of angst; reader has a mother and father, neither are described physically

Summary: It had gotten off to a good start. 

Your parents had been so buoyant and excited as they’d gotten off of the jet, and as Bruce had driven you all to the manor. The manor had incited a wave of ooing and aahing as Bruce had given them a tour. You’d departed for the kitchen, trying to help Alfred, but he’d merely steered you onto a stool and made you a strong cup of tea to steady your nerves. 

You're a little surprised when Bruce’s eyes glaze over at the idea. You’ve never seen him actively check out from a conversation like this before. You raise your hand, gently waving it in front of his face.

“Honey?” You press. “Did you hear me?” 

Bruce clears his throat, averting his gaze to the kitchen counter. You frown as he takes up his glass of wine, drawing deeply from it.

“I haven't thought about it,” He finally admits.

“Well, what do you usually do for Thanksgiving?” 

He shrugs. “Not much. Alfred makes dinner.”

“So it’s like any other day?” You tease, trying to lighten the mood. He smiles tightly, taking up the bottle of wine and topping off your glasses. 

“I guess,” He offers. You bite the inside of your cheek, trying to figure out where you can possibly take the conversation next. 

“Well,” You lean into it a little, drawing your wine glass closer to yourself. “My parents have invited us to Metropolis for Thanksgiving, and I wanted to know if you wanted to come.”

“You’re definitely going?”

“I mean, you said you don’t have any other plans, and I don’t. Michelle is doing a Friendsgiving that weekend, but I don’t have anything else going on, day-of. And…” You press your lips together, trying to gather your thoughts, fighting off the swell of emotion. You focus on your wine, incredibly wary of how you go on: “I haven’t seen my parents since you brought them here. Mom’s been harping on me to visit.” Among other things—but you don't want to get into all that now.

“Why haven’t you?”

“Work, and the press, and just,” You shake your head. “There’s been a lot going on. I haven’t accrued any time off at work, but we get Thanksgiving and the Friday off, so I figured I’d leave Wednesday night, and get back on Saturday in time for Friendsgiving.” 

“How are you getting there?” 

“I’ll rent a car.”

Bruce gives you a stern sidelong glance. 

“You can borrow one of mine if you insist on driving.”

“The tumbler?”

“You’d be disappointed in the gas mileage.” 

“Bummer.”

Bruce thinks for a moment before he leans against the counter. 

“Is anyone else going to be at Thanksgiving?”

“Just the three of us—four, if you decide to come.” 

“Alright. Tell you what: why don’t you invite your parents here. We’ll have Thanksgiving at the manor. They can stay the night.” 

Your brows raise in surprise. 

“You seriously want to do that?”

“Yes.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“...Are you concussed?”

Bruce rolls his eyes, resting his arms atop the counter and taking hold of your hands in his. 

“Invite them, see what they say. Alright?”

“Alright,” You nod. “We’ll have to tell Alfred.”

“Let’s just see what they say first.” 

Your eyes narrow slightly. He’s got to be bluffing. Thanksgiving is next week—there isn’t much time to get everything confirmed. Travel plans need to be made, shopping lists need to be created, rooms at the manor probably need to be aired out. 

“Alright,” You shrug. “Let’s ask.” You draw your phone out of your pocket, swiping open to your contacts. 

“You're going to call right now?”

“Sooner’s better than later, right?” You tap your mother’s contact, then put the phone on speaker, setting it on the counter. Your eyes flit toward Bruce, and you find him eyeing your phone like a ticking time bomb. 

“Sweetie!” Your mother screeches, and you can’t help but smile. 

“Hey, mom.” 

“How are you? I’ve been trying to reach you all week!” 

That’s on purpose. There are some things that your mother’s been bringing up lately that you just don’t want to talk about…Things that you haven’t even told Bruce. 

“I know, it’s been a lot of phone tag, I’m sorry about that. Listen, I wanted to talk to you about Thanksgiving—” 

“Oh, me, too! What time does your plane land?” 

“Well…” You look at Bruce again, waiting for him to call it off—last chance to back down. But he nods and waves you on, so you go on, “We know it’s last minute, but Bruce and I were hoping that you could join us here this year, at the manor.” 

“The manor?” Your mother’s shock and glee are delightfully clear, even through the tinny audio. 

“Mhm!” 

“Oh, I don't know, it’s awfully late to get a flight—” 

“I’ll send the jet.”  

Bruce’s assertion shocks you both into silence for a moment. Your brows raise, mouth falling open in surprise. 

‘Are you kidding?’ You mouth over your mother’s fumbling insistence that it’s too much of an expense. 

“Not at all,” Bruce shakes his head. “We really would love to host you. It’s been too long since you’ve seen Gotham.” 

“Been too long since I’ve seen my daughter.”

“Mom,” You groan, wincing. 

“Let me talk it over with your father—We’ll let you know in the morning. Thank you for the offer, Bruce.” 

“Of course.” 

“Talk to you later, mom,” You add. 

“Bye! Love you!” 

“Love you, too!” You tap the button to end the call before you look at Bruce again. “The jet?” 

“It’s just sitting there,” Bruce shrugs, taking up his wine again. “And this way they won’t have to go through security. I hear holiday lines are a real killer.”

“You are…” You shake your head a little, chuckling, “Such a fucking enigma.”

“I don’t think I am.” 

“No?” 

“No.” Bruce straightens, rounding the counter. “I don't do anything by halves, I don’t back down from a challenge…” He comes to a stop beside you, gaze searching your face, “And I love you very much.” 

You reach out, gently hooking your fingers in the collar of his shirt and tugging him closer for a kiss.

“Right back atchya, Mr. Wayne.” 

--  

It had gotten off to a good start. 

Your parents had been so buoyant and excited as they’d gotten off of the jet, and as Bruce had driven you all to the manor. The manor had incited a wave of ooing and aahing as Bruce had given them a tour. You’d departed for the kitchen, trying to help Alfred, but he’d merely steered you onto a stool and made you a strong cup of tea to steady your nerves. 

“If I may say so,” Alfred had offered, “You hardly seemed as tightly wound the last time Master Wayne brought your parents into town.” 

“Well, I was blindsided last time,” You’d admitted, “And I haven’t…” You’d trailed off, shaking your head a little as Alfred had cast a curious eye toward you. 

“Haven’t what?” 

“...Nothing. Are you sure there isn't anything that I can do to help?” 

If Alfred hadn’t bought your brushing him off, he hadn’t chased it down—and as much as you’d entreated him to eat with all of you, he wouldn’t hear of it.

It had been a good start.

Dinner is delicious, Alfred makes sure the wine continues to flow, and you think, you think that your mom isn’t going to bring it up, but— 

“Have you put in for your transfer?” 

Your blood runs cold, and your face goes hot. The sudden change of subject makes your stomach heave in such a way that you're sure you're about to lose your dinner. You keep your focus on your nearly empty plate as everyone’s attention turns to you. You swallow thickly. Your transfer. 

“You said that you would,” Your mother adds.

“I told you I would think about it,” You argue. “I never said it was set in stone.” 

“Transfer?” Bruce prods. Damnit. 

“It was just something that my mom thought—” 

“That I know would be better for you!” Your mother argues. She casts a glance between you and Bruce, sighing. “Now I know that you’re both very fond of Gotham, but it just isn’t safe, and it isn’t getting any better. Besides the crime rate, your…” She trails off, seeming to try and tread carefully for once. 

“I think what your mother is trying to say,” Your father cuts in, “Is that as much as you can shrug it off, the fact of the matter is, your…Relationship,” He glances between you and Bruce warily, “Has put you in danger.” 

“Dad—” 

“If it wasn’t for Batman, you could have died—Or Bruce could’ve lost so much money—” Your mother cuts in. 

“I never cared about the money,” Bruce’s insistence is so heartbreakingly soft, and nearly drowned out as your mother goes on: 

“You can transfer to a branch of the Wayne Foundation in Metropolis. And who even knows how long Batman will be around to stop these kinds of things.” 

“It was a one-off,” You insist firmly. “I’m fine, I’m safe.” 

“But it could happen again,” Your father points out. “It could happen to either of you.” 

You sigh softly, glancing toward Bruce. He’s not looking at you. His ears are red; his jaw is clenched. You reach for his hand beneath the table, but he pulls it away, reaching for his glass instead. 

“I don’t wanna talk about this anymore,” You say firmly, looking between your parents. “Okay? Can we just—talk about something fun and uncontroversial, like politics or euthanasia?” 

--  

It had been such a good start. 

But as your parents head up to their guest room and Bruce disappears to the study—as you hear the discordant clanging of the piano—you crumble. You bury your face in your hands, trying to stifle your sobs. Hot tears and hot breath press into your palms as your chest and shoulders wrack with sobs. You feel two hands rest on your shoulders, and you turn gratefully into Alfred, leaning into him heavily as he folds you into his arms. He smooths his hand over your back, shushing you softly as he steers you toward the kitchen. 

You sit numbly on the stool again, breath hiccuping as you scrub at your tear-stung eyes. Alfred comes back over to you with a small glass in hands. 

“What’s that?” You mumble. 

“Sherry. Steady your nerves.” 

You take hold of it and toss it all back—and regret it immediately. You cough roughly, wincing at the dry burn as it blazes down your throat. Alfred takes the glass back. 

“...It wasn’t a shot.” 

“I realize that now,” You grit out, clearing your throat. Alfred turns, refilling the glass and holding it out again. 

“Slower this time.” 

You take a small sip, brow furrowing at the taste. It’s almost pleasant. 

Almost.

You sniffle, looking down into the glass and swirling it slightly. 

“...I’m guessing you heard everything?” 

“I did.” 

“I didn’t think she’d bring it up,” You admit, "I kinda hoped she wouldn’t…But I didn’t have a moment with her without Bruce, and when she didn’t mention it on the way back from the airport, I thought…I shouldn’t have assumed, anyway. Now he’s pissed at me.” 

“...If I may,” Alfred says gently, “I believe he’s upset because he’s afraid that your mother may be right.” 

“She isn’t.” 

“Even you must admit that being in the public eye has changed things for you.” 

“I was held at gunpoint at work before Bruce and I were known to be together.” 

“Crime is still an epidemic in this city.” 

“Nowhere in the world is crimeless. I could just as soon be held up in Metropolis.” 

“...Perhaps,” Alfred nods. You sigh softly, taking in another mouthful of sherry and wincing. 

“I just wish he hadn’t left before we talked about it,” You shake your head. “I hate it when he does that.” 

“Stay here,” Alfred pats your cheek gently. “Relax.” 

“Can I help with the washing up?—Please,” You tip your head to the side pleadingly as Alfred opens his mouth to argue. “You’ve been working so hard all day, and everything was so delicious. It’ll go faster with two. Please let me help.” 

Alfred finally nods. 

“I’ll wash, you dry.” 

“Sure.” You stand, setting the sherry glass by the sink. You take up the dishtowel, still sniffling a little as you and Alfred stand side by side at the sink. 

“...Alfred?” 

“Yes?” 

“Thanks. For everything.” 

He smiles, lightly nudging your shoulder with his. It’s a gentle, familiar touch, one that makes you smile through your sniffles. 

“Any time, dear.”

Next Part

[twinklyylights]

It’s early April, a Wednesday morning to be exact, when Ian wakes up to an empty spot in bed beside him. It’s the 3rd day in the row that he’s woken up without Mickey near, and he lets out a sigh as he sits up and yawns. He checks the time on his phone and frowns.

7:04am

They’re both still getting acclimated to all that is the Westside and this apartment that they’re now responsible for. Albeit Mickey’s fighting tooth and nail against every aspect of the acclimation, and Ian doesn’t know what to do about it.

 Because he knows they’re supposed to be here. He can feel it.

The Southside wasn’t their endgame. It certainly wasn’t Mickey’s endgame.

Ian’s always known that. He’s always known that Mickey’s deserved more. That Mickey’s destined for a future that isn’t tainted by the Southside and the people of it.

And sure, Ian knows that Mickey is worthy of more than this apartment. More than the Westside, even. But Ian also knows this is a step in the right direction.

This is good for them. This is good for him.

Ian doesn’t stay long in bed without Mickey. He eventually gets up with a stretch and groan before tip toeing his way out of their new bedroom.

He expects to find Mickey having breakfast in the kitchen or lying across the couch. What he doesn’t expect to see is Mickey’s standing outside peering over the balcony.

He does his best to open the sliding door quietly, and not startle his husband. The attempt is fruitless though because Mickey still turns around sharply, with a mumbled shit.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Ian apologizes coming in close to pull Mickey into his chest.

He presses a good morning kiss to the side of Mickey’s neck before taking in the scent there.

“Creep,” Mickey breathes out around a smile, “Good morning to you too.”

Ian hums.

“Would have been a better morning if we woke up together.”

Mickey lets out a forced exhale at that. He’s really not in the mood for this again.

But Ian isn’t either because he presses another kiss to Mickey’s neck before asking,

“How long have you been up?”

 Mickey checks the time on his phone. He’s surprised to find that half an hour has already passed.

“Like 30 minutes,” he answers. “Woke up, couldn’t go back to sleep. Figured I might as well catch the sun rise.”

Ian hums against him.

“How was it?”

Mickey makes a face.

“How was the sunrise?”

“Yeah,”

“Nice, I guess. It’s quiet out here, ‘think I heard the birds wake up.”

And that’s what Ian’s been holding on to. The promise of these small changes in Mickey’s every day.

These small luxuries.

“Thinking about anything?” Ian asks.

Mickey snorts.

“’A lot of shit, man.”

Ian sighs. He squeezes Mickey’s middle.

“I know.”

They’re both quiet for a beat after that. Their minds are simultaneously going a mile a minute but neither of them has the energy to put words to any of their thoughts.

“You know I love you, right?”

Mickey smiles for the first time all morning.

“Yeah, man. Wouldn’t have moved me all the way out here if you didn’t. I know that.”

He turns around in Ian’s arms then. Curious to meet the look he knows is on Ian’s face right now.

He pats Ian’s cheek and gives him a small smile.

“I’m freaked out. Not stupid. I know you love me,” Mickey promises.

Ian shakes his head. He leans in and presses a kiss to Mickey’s lips. He leaves his forehead pressed against Mickey’s.

“I don’t want you freaked out,” Ian begins to explain, “But this, Mick this is,-”

Mickey stops his words with a kiss. He shakes his head.

“Don’t gotta explain. You’re my husband,” he says against Ian’s lips.  “If my husband wants me living in this boujee ass apartment, who am I to say no?

Ian rolls his eyes.

“You’re too much,” he says lightly. He looks down towards their feet then. “It’s more than the apartment though, Mick.”

“Yeah?”

Ian nods.

“It’s the sunrise, and the birds, and a garden to grow our own food. It’s everything, Mick. Everything I’ve always wanted for you. Everything you’ve always deserved”

Mickey hears the love in Ian’s words. Feels it in his bones.

And sure, he might not think that he deserves all the things that Ian sees for him, but he knows for certain that Ian deserves them.

“I want good shit for you, too, you know. I want all your yuppie-ass dreams come true. I don’t want to hold you back.”

“Hey,” Ian stops him, “I would never think that.”

Mickey lets out a sigh. He doesn’t even bother trying to find the words to respond to that.

“Can I make you breakfast?” Ian asks after a beat, “Bacon and eggs, nothing too fancy, I swear.”

Mickey rolls his eyes. But, he smiles on the backend.

“Yeah, breakfast sounds good. I’m fucking starving.”

[joelsgoldrush]

wip wednesday: "lovers once a year" (dbf!joel miller)

hello to you, tiny people on my phone. reaching the end of this semester has thrown me onto a motherfucking rollercoaster. if i even think about the amount of finals i have to sit for, i'm afraid i'll tear up. so here i am, drifting away from real-life responsibilities </3 still working on this dbf!joel fic cause i haven't had much time to write lately, but i'm trying not to be too hard on myself. i really like how it's coming along. i'm close to finishing, though i'm not going to promise a specific posting date because i never seem to manage it LMAO

anyway, thank you to @elflutter @joelsdagger and @ovaryacted for tagging me!!!

No one could’ve ever said Joel was a great best friend. For one, he was terrible at remembering important dates. His mind just didn’t catch hold of details like that—never had, really. He wasn’t the affectionate type, either. At best, he’d manage a pat on the back or a firm handshake, maybe even a call on Christmas if he remembered. Emotional displays weren’t in his nature, far too used to keeping things at arm’s length. Luckily for him, Stephen never seemed to care much about these things. They’d been friends for over forty years—which is, well, a hell of a long time, especially considering each had gone off to carve out his own life. They’d trudged through both primary and secondary school side by side, and Joel felt Stephen’s absence like a hollow ache the day his friend left for university in another state. Technology eventually offered them more ways to connect, but it didn’t make keeping up any simpler. The years had tested them, and somehow, they’d held on to the quiet strength of their friendship—a bond they’d forged across decades and distance, held steady like the roots of an old tree. Stephen was the laid-back type, always down for anything as long as a cold beer was part of the deal. It was rare for him to lose his temper, having a way of letting nuisances slide. Joel could bend every rule, yet Stephen’s patience never wavered. He was unflappable, hardly bothered by Joel’s mood swings, which was what made them a match made in heaven. Nothing seemed to throw him off. Though Joel doubts Stephen would stay so calm if he knew what he’d done to his daughter. As mentioned, Joel’s not exactly what you’d call a good friend—particularly considering he’s slept with his best friend’s daughter. Just once, to be fair. One ephemeral, impulsive encounter. Right here, in this very house, exactly three hundred and sixty-five days ago.

AND

Apart from the glint in your eyes, he catches the persistent, quiet ache of want. He isn’t sure if it’s just physical attraction, if it runs deeper, or if that’s all it is for him, either. He doesn’t need to know. The simplicity of it all is a short-lived relief. It’s an easy escape, though, this bare minimum of understanding—you want him, he wants you. Let it be enough for one more moment, for tonight, just another memory he’ll have to lock away. Yet he’s aware, deep down, of his own pattern: promises broken just as easily as they’re made. He’s only fooling himself. The part of him that knows this isn’t something he’ll let go of so easily sits there, silently taunting him, daring him to make another promise he won’t keep.

tagging: @lubdubology @zloshy @princessanglophile @cavillscurls @guiltyasdave @tightjeansjavi @mrsmando - so sorry if you've already been tagged :( - and anybody else who feels like doing it!

[suzukiblu]

WIP Wednesday Game

Taken from @kedreeva.

It’s WIP Wednesday, time for a little accountability, sharing your work, and getting a kick in the pants.

Here’s how it works:

In a reblog of this post (so people can find you in the notes) or new thread (w/ rules attached) if you want to play on your own, post up to five (5) filenames of your WIPs; not titles, file names.

Post a snippet from one of them. Snippet must be words you wrote in the last 7 days. We’re posting progress here. If you haven’t made any, go make some and come back to play!

After you’ve posted, people can send you an ask with one of your file names. You must then write 3 sentences in that file. If the filename is one you can't share from (for example, an event or gift fic), write 3 sentences on it anyway, and then 3 more on another to share.

That’s it! You can invite others to join in, or just post. I’ll be searching the reblogs to find people to send asks to!

If you’re reading this, you’re invited!

If you see someone posting a WIP Wednesday Game snippet, send them an ask! Make them write.

file names:

a fake cryptid and a real romantic

mistaken identities and interdimensional refugees

YJ accidental baby acquisition

merfam drama

gentle princely caretaking 

snippet from "a fake cryptid and a real romantic":

Clark hears a sudden rush of air and a thrumming, not-quite-human heartbeat, and is therefore unsurprised when Superboy pops up over the side of the Metropolis rooftop he’s sitting on and grins up at him. The kid always seems to be in a good mood, but is clearly in an even better one than usual. 

“Guess what?!” Superboy greets gleefully, pushing himself up on the edge. 

“What?” Clark asks, smiling wryly at him. The kid just gets so enthusiastic so easily. It’s kind of funny, to be honest. 

“I got a date!” Superboy says delightedly, plopping into a seat beside him and kicking his legs excitedly as he does. “Robin said I could go hunting with him in Gotham this weekend!” 

“You’re going to hang out, you mean,” Clark corrects kindly, since Superboy still has a notably skewed education and concept of correct terminology and probably calling working with another vigilante a “date” without knowing what that actually means isn’t going to end well for the kid in the long run. Especially since Robin isn’t actually an aspect of Gotham like the Batman is and would definitely be confused by it. 

Admittedly, the Batman gets confused by some very straightforward things sometimes, but still. 

“‘Hang out’,” Superboy repeats, cocking his head with a slightly puzzled expression that almost immediately clears into another excited grin. “That, yeah! I caught Catwoman breaking into some fancy cat exhibit in Gotham and dropped her off for him, and he was into it! And I gave him a diamond and he liked that too!” 

“A . . . diamond?” Clark blinks. He really hopes Catwoman didn’t manage to be that bad of an influence on the kid in one meeting, but he wouldn’t put it past her. Superboy’s impressionable and Catwoman is . . . well, Catwoman. “Uh–where’d you get that?” 

“I made it!” Superboy says proudly, puffing himself up as he mimes the act of crushing something in his fists. 

. . . alright then, Clark thinks, mildly bewildered. He has no idea why Superboy would make a diamond, much less give it to Robin, but the kid gets weird ideas into his head sometimes and he supposes it would’ve been good practice for controlling his strength to very specific pressures, so he’s not going to say anything about it.

“Did you?” he says, figuring he should keep the conversation going. Superboy’s an odd kid, but he’s eager and has a good heart and always soaks up attention like a sponge, so Clark always tries to talk to the kid at least a little whenever the other finds him. 

“I figured Robin’d like it,” Superboy says reasonably, kicking his feet again. “Birds like shiny stuff, and he’s kinda a bird, right?” 

Clark is going to assume that Tim Drake more appreciated the expensive gemstone than the “shiny stuff”, assuming a teenage boy would even care about anything like that anyway, but he doesn’t want to rain on Superboy’s parade. Honestly, he’s just glad the kid’s finally trying to make a friend or two in the community who isn’t wearing an “S”. It never hurts to have a little backup on call–or to have a friend who understands the life around, either. 

He’s not actually certain what the Batman’s latest Robin’s policy on maintaining his secret identity among the larger hero community is–even Dick still typically presents himself as a city splinter, just of Bludhaven instead of Gotham now–but even if he keeps passing for a cryptid with Superboy for a little while longer, it’s not like Superboy’s had a normal life experience. He’s not going to be bothered that he can’t talk about girls and homework with his new friend first thing. 

Clark vaguely dreads the possibility of Superboy eventually deciding to come to him to talk about girls, because he has absolutely no idea how to talk to anyone about girls, much less an impressionable teenager who’s guaranteed to hang on his every word for the whole conversation and take everything he says as gospel while also misunderstanding at least half of it, judging by most of their previous conversations. He hasn’t even been able to figure out how to give the kid the Kryptonian version of the talk, though, much less if it’s actually applicable to him. Relationship issues and dating are a whole other kettle of fish. 

Well, with any luck Superboy will stay too young for that kind of thing for a little while longer, Clark hopes halfheartedly. Just–please?

[bluedalahorse]

posting fic snippets out of a desperate need to feel something (that isn’t stress)

There are more real things to be stressed about, and then there are also things to be personally stressed about, like the camping trip I will be away chaperoning from Wednesday to Friday. I do not particularly love to be away from home or disruptions to my routine.

I had hoped to finish the fanfic I was working on before I left, because then I could just avoid my email inbox and my AO3 account and not constantly refresh to see if anyone decided to read my fic. But! That did not happen. It probably won’t happen because I still have the last scene to finish and those always take me too long.

I still want to share a little bit of fic though, so I think I’ll post some of the raw unedited text from today’s work. Nothing wrong with that, right?

Anyway have some post-university pre-second-chance-saraugust, I guess.

Usually driving home—or in this case, driving back to the temporary apartment she’s renting this week—is a way for Sara to decompress after long days on set. She can put on music or an audiobook, or call Simon and Felice. Sara wants nothing more than to recap the last ten hours to one of them, just so they can reassure her she isn’t overreacting. But Simon and Wilhelm are catching up with Rosh and Ayub over pizza and boardgames, and tonight is one of the nights Felice works late in her food truck.

Mamma? Things are better with Mamma lately, but she’d still tell Sara to not read too much into the directors’ and writers’ decisions. Pappa might understand better, if he’s sober, but Sara doesn’t want to reach out unless she’s certain he is.

What is she thinking? It’s not like she can go too far into the behind-the-scenes details of Age of Liberty, anyway, since the production team made her sign an NDA, and that means no venting.

When Sara returns to her temporary rental, the kitchen lights are too bright. They’re the same lights as yesterday, so she must be overstimulated. She flicks them off and on a few times trying to decide if she can stand them, before she finally lets the square yellow light of the microwave faintly illuminate the room instead. Then, Sara scrolls through her phone as the starchy, comforting smell of pasta fills the air.

Instagram provides the usual array of photographic distractions: the girls’ football team Rosh coaches, the award-winning hibiscus cake from Felice’s dessert menu, the too many ads for hair care products and earplugs and soft clothing and tropey novels. That’s mixed in with occasional news articles about climate change, as well as infographics from other neurodivergent influencers with bullet points about masking or proprioception or social scripts. Sara lets the images blur before her eyes and the letters in usernames turn into meaningless shapes, until a familiar expression—one that habitually holds back grief—causes her thumb to finally stop swiping.

It’s the official instagram of the Crown Prince of Sweden. August’s most recent post shows him working at a desk, head bowed over a neat stack of papers. He’s gripping a pen and wearing glasses, but he isn’t writing on the paper. The glasses are new and make him look serious. To his left is a tablet-sharped therapy light. That’s even newer, and it washes August’s face in a muted silver glow. Sara wonders if anyone will recognize the light’s true purpose.

Then she reads the caption: As the hours of daylight grow shorter, many Swedes show increased symptoms of depression. Don’t forget to spend time outdoors, and reach out to your medical provider if you are experiencing persistent low moods or feelings of hopelessness. Take care.

The microwave beeps as Sara reaches the last two words of the post. She puts her phone away as she extracts her pasta and sits down at the table to eat. After an initial few bites, her mind fills up with questions. Is the post meant to be a simple public health message? Or is there a more personal meaning behind it?

She shouldn’t be ruminating this much when August is her ex, and for good reasons, but after a long day—one where Sara’s surroundings had her thinking about August anyway—can she really help it?

After Sara moves her empty pasta bowl to the sink, she returns to her phone. The photo has disappeared from her feed when she opens the app again, which doesn’t surprise her. When Sara navigates over to the Crown Prince’s official account, however, the photo isn’t there either.

Someone had it deleted. Probably some social media manager who works for the royal court.

The palace loves it when you promote sympathetic causes, Wilhelm once told Sara. As long as the sympathetic cause you promote has no connection to you whatsoever.

[sleepinthrumyalarms]

— HER

pairing: wednesday addams x fem!reader

warnings: sexual themes, friends with benefits, unrequited love, slight angst (turns fluffy at the end), all characters are aged-up

summary: you're a distraction to wednesday - she's an addiction to you. both can't quit each other. all you need is one more day with her

word count: 2k

“Please.”

“No.”

It’s been two times already. Two times you’ve made her back arch prettily, made her fingers tighten in your hair painfully. Two times you’ve felt like you’ve stopped breathing with the way she sighed shakily, the shortness of her breath a clear sign that you’ve done a good job.

And yet she still looks on edge – not in the good way. And she still isn’t letting you touch her.

She swats your hands away when you reach to touch her thighs, wanting to soothe the girl in her fragile post-orgasmic state. She doesn’t try and move from where she sits on your sternum though. You don’t mind – she’s so small you can barely feel her weight. But it’s grounding. It’s nice and warm.

“You’re so beautiful...”

The ravenette lets out an angry sigh, one you’re very much familiar with, her nostrils flaring slightly. It’s one of the few little things about her that indicate her mood, and you’re proud to call yourself somewhat of an expert in the most complex discipline that is Wednesday’s emotions.

You tell yourself it’s because of the experience no one else in that field of work ever had – the experience of seeing Wednesday like this, her blouse unbuttoned, her tie hanging loosely between her breasts, her dark fringe slightly messy. Her breath slightly shaky, despite all her attempts to keep her composure.

It’s good to think about. It’s a relief, even though she’s seldom ever undressed whenever you meet like this – not a surprise, considering how there was barely any foreplay when she shoved you onto the bed, hungrily staring you down. But never looking at you. Not really.

“Is it me on your face that’s going to take to get you to stop talking?” She asks, dark eyes squinting, and reaches a hand down to wipe some of her slick off your bottom lip with her thumb, “Because I will gladly take it for a ride. Again. If you don’t stop talking.”

You chuckle, closing your eyes, and let your head hang back against the pillow for a moment.

This doesn’t seem like an empty threat. Wednesday is a type of person to overstimulate herself just to prove a point – not to mention she would enjoy that immensely.

You open your mouth, a bit snarky – but quite flattering – comment ready on your tongue, but Wednesday is grabbing the headboard in a death grip, soft stocking-clad thighs closing around your ears, almost muffling her words, and the smell of her encompasses your whole being.

“I told you to stop.”

It’s not the first time, you think, and it won’t be the last, as she pushes you against the door, her lips on yours — hot, aggressive, feverish. She uses the small gasp you let out as permission, and you use her hands on your hips as leverage, afraid that the rush of her passion might sweep you off your feet in a very much literal way.

Something is clearly bothering her.

You press your hands into her small shoulders, push her gently to look at her. She’s fighting back, but you overpower her still — overpowering yourself is a feat though when Wednesday looks at you through dark half-lidded eyes, pupils blown and the thick layer of burgundy smudged on her mouth. You can bet it’s smudged on yours, too, and a fuzzy feeling takes over for a moment — you like being marked by her.

You do get ahold of yourself, despite how much you want to pull her back into you.

“Hey,” you call out, breathless, “Shouldn’t we maybe talk about it?”

Wednesday huffs, tightens her hold on you.

“No. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Her hands slither under your shirt, caressing your ribs.

“And I don’t want you talking either. The only sounds I want leaving your mouth are those of pleasure. And of my name.”

You feel the pit in your stomach deepen before she fills it with herself.

This isn't what you were expecting when Wednesday asked you to meet her in Xavier's shed after class. If you were being honest, the mere thought of stepping foot in the dilapidated hideout of the tortured artist revolted you, let alone the thought that the girl herself must've been in there countless times.

But she said it was important. It was about the case.

There is clear evidence, she says. The victims’ belongings. His latest work – Dr. Kinbott, the therapist, her face sliced into ribbons – done not in the perspective of a simple witness. But of the killer.

Despite the answers laid out before her, finally, completely obvious, Wednesday suddenly lets a different obsession get ahold of her.

Her plump lips move to your neck, and you crane it to the side, eyes fluttering closed in pleasure, letting her eager mouth slip lower to press quick but strong kisses that have you gripping at the edge of the table, lest you lose your footing at her forcefulness. Cold digits slither under your tie to undo it, and you open your eyes.

Your gaze lands on Wednesday – though not the one hastily undressing you right now, but the monochrome figure frozen on her stool, firm and precise hand sliding the bow against the strings of the cello.

There is slight resemblance, you think, as you stare at the canvas. In her frown, in the way her brows furrow in concentration.

It fills your blood with burning jealousy.

It’s powerful enough to have you immediately sobering up from the euphoric feeling of the ravenette’s canines nibbling at your collarbone – you grasp at her hips, pushing her away, and before the girl can protest, you turn around, pulling her up to sit at the table you were pressed into moments ago.

An evil thought crosses your mind – you find yourself wanting Thorpe behind bars, hyde or not.

You’re pretty sure no one would miss him. You know you wouldn’t.

In your fierce movements the girl’s shoulder bumps into the easel, and the wretched canvas falls on the floor with a loud slam, face down.

Good fucking riddance. The picture was making you sick.

She doesn’t pay the sound any attention, too preoccupied with your lips on her mouth, your hands squeezing her thighs – she knits her brows, completely taken aback by how aggressive and assertive you’ve suddenly gotten. Her palms cup your neck, recollecting herself just a few moments before you pull away, feverishly reaching down to hike her skirt up, tracing your nails up her inner thigh.

A shiver runs down your spine when Wednesday whispers your name.

Why were you feeling like this? She has never been yours in the first place.

But she is. At least for the moment, you think, as she sighs into your ear breathily when the pads of your fingers brush against her heat. The sound is almost enough to overlap the burning feeling in your veins that turns your blood green.

This is like clockwork. Like part of a routine, a schedule, one that Wednesday follows rigidly every single week, never allowing any holdups getting in her way.

You. On your back, in her bed. Taking her. Every single Friday.

By that time all the stress is usually gathered in her essence, pressing into her back, into the back of her eyes. Weighing her down.

So Wednesday takes you every single Friday evening. It’s the perfect day, when the annoyingly noisy werewolf is out and she can relieve her stress with no interruptions. No holdups.

None except for the way your hands reach for her face, trying to tug her down, closer to you. It’s starting to bother the ravenette.

She grabs your palms, lacing her fingers with yours, and presses them back against the bed above your head. You’d easily break out of her hold any day, but right now you’re a complete mush under her. Panting, frustrated. Simply looking at you like this brings her a surge of pleasant high, one that, in her book, could be compared to cracking open a freshly dug-out coffin.

Except corpses never want to kiss her as badly as you do.

“Keep them there,” she mutters, freeing her left hand to trail it back down your body, “Or I’ll stop.”

The words are half-hearted, of course. She’d never stop. She enjoys this too much.

You reply with a whine, and she smirks slightly, her gaze leaving your face for the sake of following her own hand where it brushes down your stomach.

“There we go,” she smiles at the arch of your back, at the gasp you let out when her hand dips in between your thighs, cold fingers brushing your heat where you’re warm and wet, “Obedience feels good, doesn’t it?”

Her manicured digits sink into your heat – you groan, legs wrapping around her waist to pull her into you at least in some way. She clicks her tongue.

Disobedience will be torture, but she can’t really blame you. You’d do anything to feel close to her. To feel wanted by her, at least like this.

You’re as desperate as she is, even if it’s for a complete different reason.

So she turns a blind eye when you free your hands to grab her by the face, lips meeting hers in a desperate kiss, allowing her to swallow your moans as her fingers find a steady pace.

Tonight is... unusual. There was no rush. No hurried hands, no commands spat in the heat of the moment, no irritated glares. She didn’t even seem aggravated by anything, a softness in her eyes you certainly aren’t used to as she watched you unravel under her.

She was slow, taking her time, letting you savor the feeling of her hands, her tongue. Letting you savor her. Knowing Wednesday, you’d think there was a catch. If there was one, you were completely oblivious to it. Numb to any scheme she could’ve planned, the fondness of her touch like a shot of lidocaine to your anxious being.

Her fingers are gingerly tracing the outlines of your hipbone, almost lovingly so, and you let yourself get lost in the bliss of her touch, one that’s not inherently sexual for once. In the bliss of your own delusions.

You shudder when Wednesday brushes an especially sensitive bundle of nerves on your hip, the muscles of your thigh contracting under the skin, and she smooths her palm against it to calm you down. Her lips are at your ear, shushing you gently.

It’s a bit chilly in the room. The discolored part of the big circle-shaped window is open, letting in the fresh air of the early spring night, and the contrast of it to your body still hot from her ardent fervor is quite palpable.

Wednesday notices it, too. Moves to carefully drape her soft blanket over your legs.

Her hand doesn’t cease its movements, tracing mindless shapes over your thigh, and you give up on the idea of trying to decipher them because the warm, tranquil wave rising in your heart and trickling down your body silences your every single thought. The rational ones, too.

The ravenette’s plush mouth presses against your naked shoulder in a soundless, feather-light kiss. Her palm finally comes to a halt on your hip, and she sighs tenderly with what you can only hope, can only beg, is content.

You wonder if you really are delusional. Because, much like her gentle lips resting on your skin, Wednesday stays.

[rotworld]

10: At Your Service

art by @exorbitantsqueakingnoises

your favorite older customer who tips well and makes you feel cared for is conspicuously absent tonight. the handsome stranger in his place knows something.

->original work. contains graphic descriptions of violence, blood and gore, death and mourning, brief gun violence, and implied feral behavior.

.

.

.

This should be an evening like any other at Moonstruck. The mood is romantic, the view is immaculate, and the food is to die for. You seat a couple in a booth by the wall-length windows where rain patters softly on the glass and the city skyline glitters like gem-studded mountains. They’re young but they dress like old money, sleek and stunning charity ball chic in accordance with the dress code. You hand them leatherbound menus, light the candle in the center of their table, and tell them all about the seafood risotto. Chopin plays softly.

But something is amiss tonight. There’s a table for two in the corner, the candle flickering, the silverware tucked into the folds of a fabric napkin, today’s newspaper folded and waiting, and there’s nobody there. There should be by now. He should have passed his keys to the valet and handed off his jacket at the door half an hour ago. He should have sunk into the black leather upholstery with a heavy sigh and one last baleful glance at his phone before he switched it off, and all the weight of a long day should have lifted from his shoulders. 

“The usual?” you’re supposed to ask.

“The usual,” he’s supposed to answer with his world-weary, grandfatherly smile. You would bring him freshly rolled, cut and boiled linguine with pesto genovese and you would grate parmesan onto that plate until you could barely see it through all the cheese. He would ask you how school’s going and scold you for pulling all-nighters, but not for staying out all night with friends. “Nothing more important than a good friend,” he’d say wistfully, and then he’d tell you about the trouble he used to get into as a boy. He’d order the panna cotta topped with strawberries—one for him to savor, one sent back to the kitchen with specific instructions to keep it in the freezer until the end of your shift. 

He’d leave a frankly ridiculous tip. “The world is cold,” he’d say, squeezing your hand. “You have to stay warm.” 

It’s a full house tonight. It’s only a matter of time before someone else takes that table. It’s not properly reserved, anyway. Mr. Brunetti has been coming to Moonstruck since it opened. He doesn’t have to call. Someone will pencil him in. You keep looking at the door, hoping, waiting and worrying. He should be here. He always is, eight o’clock sharp every Wednesday. Always alone. The couple by the windows wants calamari and burrata caprese. You glance at Moonstruck’s arched entryway to and from the kitchen. Your gaze is drawn to it while you pour wine and crack pepper into trays of olive oil.

“You look like a puppy waiting for someone to come home,” one of your coworkers teases, but they’re looking, too. The maitre d’ is pacing at the front and checking his watch. You want to ask if anyone’s tried calling him but the party of four by the balcony doors is looking around impatiently with their menus set aside. You smile and jot down soups, salads and roasted branzino, but you’re thinking about how Mr. Brunetti always takes that last bite of panna cotta the slowest. He sets down his spoon, wipes his mouth on a napkin and gazes out at the city with such sad, pensive eyes. It’s strange how much you can come to worry about someone you only see once a week.

It happens eventually. Every booth, table and spot at the bar is occupied except for one, and someone who isn’t Mr. Brunetti walks in. Someone else offers to seat him but you feel like it has to be you. That’s your table this time of night, always. You grab a menu and silverware. You plaster on a smile. You’re thinking about the sweet smell of vanilla and strawberry coulis; the warmth in the hands of a relative stranger. “Right this way, sir,” you start to say, but your tongue stumbles over the words. 

You’ve heard all the tired phrases people use to describe love at first sight; the hot rush and sweaty palms, the meadow’s worth of butterflies whipping up hurricanes in the stomach, the gymnastic feats of hearts that skip and race and leap. This is all true, it turns out, if you’re looking at the right person.

You are not prepared for just how brain-breakingly attractive the guy at the door is. You see a lot of people in a night and they’re all dressed to the nines, red carpet-ready in tailored suits and glitzy gowns, hair coiffed to perfection, and he’s making them look bad. You can’t figure out how, exactly. Maybe it’s not any single thing about him but the way every piece adds up to a perfect picture: the black tailcoat, the high-collared button-up and bowtie underneath, the crisp white gloves on graceful hands with long, pianist fingers. Platinum blond hair with the volume and shine of a shampoo model spills down his shoulders. His eyes are a striking, light shade of citrine with odd, oval pupils. Diamond-shaped, almost, with the points rounded off. He glances around Moonstruck with a quiet sort of amusement. The moment your eyes meet, he smiles, his pupils dilate into a rounder shape, and you have to remember how to breathe. 

You try again. “Right this way, sir.” You sound nervous. He covers a cough that sounds suspiciously like a laugh with his hand and your face feels like it’s a million degrees. It feels like a hush falls over the restaurant as you lead him to his table. He gets a lot of looks, heated and blatantly interested. One of the other waiters stares at you as she passes by and you can only stare back with disbelieving, wide eyes because yes, you are seeing this, yes, he looks like the ghost of a Victorian butler, and yes, he’s gorgeous in a way that’s making you so uncomfortably aware of yourself that you’re on the verge of tripping over your own feet.

You smile awkwardly. You fumble with the menu when you slide it in front of him. You try to tell him about the seafood risotto but every time his eyes flick up to meet yours, you forget what you were talking about. He glances at the newspaper curiously and you blurt out an apology, reaching over him to take it.

His hand settles gently on top of yours. The gloves are soft, ribbed with three white lines along the back. “No, that’s alright. Please leave it,” he says, his voice deep and soft and perfect. He smiles reassuringly. “I wouldn’t mind having something to read. Did someone leave it behind?” 

He’s not even touching you directly. It’s just your hand. Why do you feel like you’re going to faint? “No, it’s my fault. I forgot to put it away. There’s usually someone who…” You clear your throat and brighten your waning smile. “Well, what can I get you to start with?” 

He’s staring at you, watching your expression carefully. You swallow hard and try not to fidget beneath his scrutiny. “The carpaccio platter and a cabernet sauvignon, please,” he says.

Has he been here before? You’re sure you would’ve noticed him, but he didn’t even look at the menu. You don’t realize you’re still standing there, staring at his long lashes and elegant features—he’s hot, you’re thinking, holy shit he’s hot, how is he so hot—until he very gently taps your hand, chuckling quietly. 

“I’llberightback,” you say, speedwalking away to check on your other tables.

They’re all talking about him in the kitchen. Your coworkers are speculating—model, musician or movie star? Some new up and comer, at the very least. Nobody recognizes him. You bring him a bottle of cabernet sauvignon and he watches you fill his glass attentively. It helps if you don’t look at him. You pour neatly, a quick flick of the wrist keeping any excess from dripping down the bottle. “Splendid, thank you,” he says, sounding impressed. “Excellent technique.”

You’re glad he noticed. You’re embarrassed that you care so much. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“You’ve worked here for some time, then.” 

“Just a couple years,” you say. “I haven’t lived here for very long.” 

“Ah. A student?” He chuckles at your startled expression and slow, cautious nod. “Peronelle School of Art and Design?” You nod again, eyes averted. “Why so sheepish?” 

You smile weakly, shrugging. “Well, you know. It’s art school.” 

“What a wretched world this is, to make you believe that’s something to be embarrassed about.” He says it with such anger that it startles you, but his tranquil expression never changes. “Well, I think it’s wonderful. I once attended a conservatory myself, many years ago. A performing arts school.” 

“Really?” you say, intrigued. 

He pauses, looking at you more intently. “There it is,” he marvels. “You have such a lovely smile when it’s genuine.” He saves you the trouble of clumsily finding an excuse to exit the conversation by asking for filet mignon with sauteed vegetables. When you ask how he wants it, he smiles sweetly and says, “Raw.” 

“Pardon?” you ask.

“I said I would like it rare.” You look at him and he looks back at you with his beautiful eyes, patient and beaming as though daring you to insist that he absolutely didn’t say that a second ago. You convince yourself that you’re just exhausted and frazzled, retreating to the kitchen.

“Maybe he’s a fashion designer?” one of your coworkers muses. “He looks like one of those types, doesn’t he?” 

His carpaccio is ready, freshly drizzled with aioli and topped with garnish. You march it back to him, quietly relieved that he’s preoccupied reading the paper, although he sets it down to make unsettlingly intense eye contact. “This looks wonderful, thank you,” he says. You tell him to enjoy and you’re about to leave, but the page he was reading catches your eye. That’s Mr. Brunetti in his favorite paisley tie, thin-rimmed glasses balanced on his nose. He’s seated in his office, pen in hand, rows of leaning, haphazardly stacked books crammed into the shelves behind him, grinning at the camera. 

“Local philanthropist, entrepreneur Edgar Brunetti dead at 75,” says the headline. You read it twice. A third time before the words fully register. It was a fall, the article says. You look at the picture; his smile. They found him at the bottom of the stairs in his own home, unresponsive. You think about the last time you saw him. The laughter, and the pat on the shoulder, and the story about a family dog that somehow climbed a tree and was too scared to come back down so he climbed up to get it. The wordless gaze out the window and the other chair he sometimes glanced at where nobody ever sat, and how the last bite of panna cotta always seemed to make him sad. He is survived by one son and two grandchildren.

“Are you alright?” The man sitting at Mr. Brunetti’s table speaks softly. You dab at your face with your sleeve. 

“I’ll see how your steak is coming along,” you try to tell him, choked up and warbling. He catches your hand before you can leave. 

“You hadn’t heard?” he asks. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize.” 

You nod. It’s hard to keep it together, especially with the way he’s stroking your hand, rubbing little circles into your skin like he’s inviting you to fall apart. “He used to eat here,” you say. “Every week. He always got the same thing. He’d sit right here and we’d talk a little. I always looked forward to it.”

“I know. He told me.” He tugs gently at your hand, pulling you closer. You’d be more embarrassed about nearly falling into his lap if you weren’t so busy getting lost in his eyes and that tender, sympathetic expression, that warm smile. “We were business partners and, towards the end, rather good friends. He was always in such a rush to leave the office on Wednesdays. This was the highlight of his week. Pesto, panna cotta, and you.” 

You stifle a sniffle with your hand. “I’m glad,” you say hoarsely. 

He retrieves a handkerchief from his pocket, soft white silk with a gray symbol printed in the corner. You’re not sure what it is. Some kind of crest, maybe, a complex pattern of curves, angles, and squiggling lines crisscrossing inside two concentric circles. “Come now. No more tears,” he says.

“Oh, no, that’s okay—” He ignores your protests, reaching up to wipe your face with the cloth. He’s really good at this, you think. He’s quick and gentle, seemingly mindful of your discomfort of being seen like this. “Sorry,” you mutter.

“For what?” he asks. 

“Getting snot on your nice handkerchief.” 

He chuckles. “That’s exactly what it’s for. I wouldn’t dare use something of lesser quality to care for you than I would want for myself.” He folds the handkerchief neatly into a square, concealing the section he wiped your face with inside. “There. Isn’t that better?” he asks, gloved fingers stroking your cheek. “Would you like to sit down for a moment? It doesn’t seem right for you to rush off to work again so soon.” 

“I have to, unfortunately, “you tell. “But thank you. I really do feel better. I’m glad Mr. Brunetti had a friend like you.”

“Please. Just for a moment,” he insists. “There’s something you should know—”

“Hey, uh.” One of your coworkers clears her throat, visibly reluctant to interrupt. You back up quickly, putting some distance between you and the handsome stranger. “Sorry, but some guy just came in looking for you. He asked for you by name.”

“Me?” you ask, confused. You give the man at the table one last appreciative nod. 

For the first time tonight, he’s not smiling anymore. His expression is downright frigid. You quickly look away.

There’s a man standing just inside the front doors, a damp umbrella tucked under one arm, suit jacket thrown over his shoulder. He’s dressed nicely but not nearly nice enough for Moonstruck, office casual with a maroon shirt and tan khakis. He’s peering into the restaurant, clearly looking for something. You can’t shake the feeling that you’ve seen him before, a trace of familiarity in all of his features, but you can’t quite place him. “Can I help you?” you ask. He gives you a quick, unimpressed up-and-down glance. His frown deepens, irritation boiling into rage. He says your name—your full name in a questioning tone. “Do I know you?” 

He shifts the jacket on his shoulder, raises his hand, and suddenly you’re staring directly into the empty black eye of a gun barrel. 

It all happens too fast. You’re dimly aware of a commotion around you. Noise. Movement. Panic. The maitre d’ shouting. Waiters scrambling. Several tables near the entrance empty, customers ducking and running. Your gaze passes from the gun to the face behind it, the strangely familiar eyes and nose, the square jaw. Neither a smile nor a frown, just cold focus and a distant gaze like he’s looking through you. Like you’re not even there. His finger curls on the trigger and you’re thinking about Mr. Brunetti. 

He fires. You hear it, sharp like a thundercrack. Time starts to move again and everything is chaos, stampeding footsteps and overturned chairs. You’re staring at the elegant, curving seams and silver buttons on the back of a tailcoat, the tailored fit over the flare of strong shoulders, the spill of platinum hair. You take a step back and your legs give out under you, heart racing and head spinning. 

“Enrico,” you hear the handsome stranger say. His voice is a low, menacing rumble. “Thank you for saving me the trouble of tracking you down.” 

There’s a reply—an attempt at one, anyway. All you can hear is strangled gurgling and a horrible wet, churning sound like the stirring squelch of marinara and spaghetti noodles. 

“I have had the misfortune of meeting some of the most wretched, vile humans to walk this earth. You do not count among them, but you were profoundly irritating and I must confess, this is personal. You made it so. I am glad to be rid of you and I only wish I’d been permitted to do this sooner.” 

Something splashes on the floor. Your breath hitches. That’s blood, isn’t it? That’s definitely blood, all over your handsome stranger’s shoes and pants and the wood floor. The heady iron stink of it is thick in the air. Another red gush spills something more solid that lands with a sickening splat. Slick, veiny things twitch and pulsate. A wave of nausea churns your stomach. Somebody’s insides are glistening in a bloody puddle, ropes of intestine and mangled bits of other things in the pasty pink shades of uncooked meat. 

You stare at the grisly detritus, wide-eyed, uncomprehending. This can’t be real. You hear choking, retching, the unpleasant sticky sounds of someone trying to wheeze through a throatful of phlegm. More blood dribbles on the floor and more chunks of human mincemeat follow it down. 

Somebody whimpers. It must be you, because the bristling form in front of you suddenly tenses. You see the gunman lurch—or what’s left of him, ragged and red all over, missing the whole front of his neck so you can see the way all the soft tissues in his neck flutter and writhe around a pale yellow stripe of spine, a gaping wound for a stomach. He hits the ground hard. Blood seeps out of him from every angle. 

“I’m so sorry. I was in such a rush I forgot you were standing right there.” It’s him again. The handsome stranger, Mr. Brunetti’s friend. There’s no way he could’ve gotten across the restaurant so fast, but here he is kneeling in front of you, framing your face in his bare, bloodsoaked hands. Each finger ends in a long, bone white claw and he’s mindful of them when he strokes your cheek, careful not to scratch you. “Are you alright? That must’ve been frightening,” he says softly. Your eyes dart around his face, your breath quickening at each new, incomprehensible thing you see. 

His hair is spotted like a leopard’s fur. Black curls and circles pepper stark white hair. You see the same pattern on the furred, curved ears on top of his head, black along the edge with tufts of lighter fur inside. His eyes are the same startling amber shade but larger now with a distinctly feline shape, the sclera pitch black. You have so many questions you don’t even know where to start. 

“Oh dear. Let’s get you into a chair, at least.” You don’t know what else to do, so you listen to him. You’re coaxed to your feet, your weight supported against his shoulder. He helps you wobble over to one of the vacated tables, pulling it out for you and easing you down with soft words of praise. He drops to one knee next to you and the handkerchief appears in his hand, miraculously clean. He wipes off the blood he left on your face. 

“What’s happening?” you feel yourself saying. Maybe this is a nightmare. Maybe you really did get shot in the head.

“This isn’t quite how I imagined this conversation going,” he says wryly. “I’m afraid I must be brief. Someone has probably called the Department of Infernal Affairs by now. You needn’t worry, I’m perfectly within my rights to avenge the murder of my previous contractee, but they may seek to have me temporarily detained. I am an incubus, previously in the service of Edgar Brunetti. As per the instructions listed in his will and the associated, mutually agreed upon stipulations and amendments, Edgar Brunetti’s son, Enrico Brunetti, shall receive nothing. Instead, you shall inherit the remaining five years of his contract. This inheritance is a gift. You owe no payment for my services until five years have elapsed, at which point you may be granted severance or negotiate payment for an extension. Do you understand?” 

You think you’re going to be sick. 

He chuckles and leans in, pressing his lips to your cheek. Like the faintest brush of his hand on yours, the short, chaste kiss makes you shiver. “Don’t worry. This will all make sense in time. I think you’ll start to enjoy it.” He places one his hands on his chest, over his heart, and bows his head. “Seleukos,” he purrs, peering up at you with a sly, hungry smile. “At your service.”