#a shame I drew it so small but it's whatever

[kakyogay]

slibermoog my bleoved

[ckret2]

Chapter 51 of human Bill Cipher is once more the Mystery Shack's prisoner: Dipper and Mabel try to figure out what the Axolotl's poem means; Dipper gets the hang of astral projection; and... whatever's going on up there happens.

####

Ford and Dipper came back into the shack through the gift shop; Ford didn't want to risk crossing paths with Bill. While Dipper went into the house, Ford went down—returning to the safety of his subterranean study.

Once Ford had put on the old black trench coat he'd worn during his multiversal travels and gotten comfortable at his desk, he pulled out Journal 5 to document the events of the last few days. In a cheap ballpoint pen, he wrote, I've lost my #1 Grunkle pen (and favorite coat) to the waters of Lake Gravity Falls. And then, deciding this didn't adequately express his feelings, he drew a small frown. That coat had served him well for decades, and he'd really liked that pen. It did write excellently, and it had reminded him of his gniece and gnephew.

He spent three pages documenting the eclipse—what happened, what readings he'd taken, what he and Dipper observed—and then another four pages talking about Bill. What he'd told them, why Ford had dismissed it; his claims about a trans-dimensional axolotl distorting gravity with its migration; the statue, the rescue, the breakdown.

The act of writing always helped Ford clarify his thoughts and untangle mysteries; it wasn't until he was writing that he realized the limbs Bill had said he couldn't feel were the ones that had broken off the statue.

He listed the rules of the chess variants he could remember Bill inventing. He drew Bill huddled in front of the board, grim, tear-streaked, exhausted; and then scratched out his face, embarrassed at the thought of immortalizing such a raw moment for his private viewing.

He wrote, There's still a slim possibility that the entire "eclipse," start to finish, was Bill's masterfully-orchestrated scheme to make us pity and trust him; but it's unlikely. Although Bill is fiendish enough, he isn't currently powerful enough, and his lies certainly aren't elaborate enough. If he could pull off such a byzantine ruse, then he could just as easily escape—and if he can escape, why hasn't he? Bill may be insane, but he's never been THAT irrational.

And so, even as twisted as Bill's idea of "friendship" is... for the very first time, I'm convinced that he was telling the truth all along when he said he wants me as his friend. It's not an act. He risked his life to save someone who's an active threat to him.

And at the end of it all—though I'm grateful to be alive in spite of my own stubbornness—do I like him any better for it?

Ford leaned back and shut his eyes, sifting through the inner tumult of anger and old hurt that defined most of his memories of Bill, looking to see if anything had changed.

There was a sore, tender spot in his emotions, a place beginning to rot with remorse; when he prodded at those emotions, he found that it was shame over his own harsh conduct of the last couple of days. But he was only ashamed of how cruelly he'd acted; he wasn't ashamed that Bill was the one he'd done it to.

Outside of that tender spot—regret over his own behavior—nothing else had changed.

No. I still hate him. I'm grateful to be alive, but I hate him. He hasn't undone anything he did to my family and me, and he never will. Forgiveness can't be purchased with favors.

I'm only relieved at the certainty of it. Bill has committed an act that can't possibly be a lie. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he's shown me the truth; and the truth is he'd rather see me alive than dead. Whatever other lies he may tell, I can hold on to that fact.

Bill's miserable eyes peered out at Ford between the scribbles he'd drawn across his face. It was truly a pity that Ford had to hate him. Pity that Bill hadn't been somebody better. He could have been better.

Ford couldn't find it in himself to be embarrassed that he'd filled four pages talking about the monster he'd already wasted so many more on. Bill had been right about him: You might hate me to my face, but behind my back you're as obsessed with me as ever. The only thing Bill didn't understand was that hatred and obsession weren't mutually incompatible.

####

"Hey, Dipper," Mabel said, unfolding the living room sofa bed. 

"Hey, Mabel," Dipper said, passing through living room on his way to the stairs. He climbed up to the attic.

He came back down from the attic. "Mabel. Why's Bill asleep in your bed."

"He really needed a nap," Mabel said.

"Okay but why on your bed?"

Mabel pouted. "Dipper, do you realize he's never slept on a real bed? Ever?"

Dipper tried to imagine sleeping on a couple couch cushions on the floor every night. "Yeah, okay, that does kinda suck." Even if it was Bill's own fault he wouldn't sleep in the living room.

By unspoken mutual agreement, having a Bill in the bedroom followed the same law as finding a centipede in the bathroom. The law was "that's the centipede's bathroom now." So once the folding bed was set up, they sat on it to serve as their hang-out spot for the evening and caught each other up on what they'd done the last couple of days.

After Dipper & Co. had left, Grenda had come over to take advantage of the low gravity to retrieve the kite that had been stuck in a tree near the Mystery Shack since last summer (it was, tragically, too tattered to salvage), and then they'd gone over to Candy's house to photograph each other performing feats of impossible strength. (Mabel would be sending some pictures to their parents to confuse them, and adding the rest to her summer scrapbook.) She'd spent the next day breaking the trampoline world record until Soos came outside and said gravity was probably too low for it to be safe to be up in the air anymore, if Bill's warnings about being off the ground when gravity hit zero were true; at which point Mabel had hung around inside air-swimming until she suddenly slammed against the ceiling, and then the ground. She was fine. She just had a couple of bruises. She showed Dipper her bruises.

In return, Dipper told Mabel about how their quest had gone: the checks for micro-rips, Bill's increasingly frantic warnings, the lake—

("You got to see a bajillion magical axolotls and I didn't?!")

—the cliff, the Axolotl, Dipper's near-death experience, and what he now knew about his out-of-body dreams.

"Seriously?" Mabel hissed, eyes bugging out. "And he had us looking up lucid dreaming books! What a jerk!"

"I know! He could have just ignored the whole thing, we didn't even think it was anything but dreams."

"And I'd thought he was being so helpful, too! Like he was really trying to make up for giving you 'nightmares'!" Mabel laughed in disbelief and flopped down on the flimsy mattress. "All that because he just didn't want us to know how it was really his fault? Biiill, ugh."

His fault. Dipper hesitated, wondering whether he should tell Mabel what Bill had said about Mabel's Fault; then decided against it. Bill had probably been telling the truth when he'd said he only wanted all the credit for Weirdmageddon.

But—Dipper did tell her about Bill saving their lives. He would have felt like a liar if he hadn't—like he was trying to trick his sister into thinking Bill was worse than he already was. He hoped Ford wouldn't mind; but how could he not tell Mabel?

"He could have just let you die and didn't?" Mabel turned that over in her head, processing this sudden shift in Bill's behavior. "Wow. I'm impressed."

He also told her about their previous encounter with the Axolotl. Considering the other lies Bill had told recently, anything he said about them meeting the Axolotl was dubious at best; but Dipper could remember the Axolotl, so maybe some of it was true, even if Bill had twisted as much as he could. ("The Axolotl said hi, by the way." "Aww. Tell him hi back!" "Yeah, I... don't know how to do that.")

Dipper laid out his journal between them on the folding bed, and Mabel read over the couplet a few times. "'Sixty degrees that come in threes, watches from within birch trees'..."

"It's got to be talking about Bill," Dipper said. "Equilateral triangles have three sixty-degree angles. I just don't know why the Axolotl wanted to talk to us about him."

Mabel frowned at the lines. "I think... I remember meeting him too," she said.

"You do?"

"Kinda. Like in a dream," she said. "We were in some kind of futury space race car. And he had a really comfortable beanbag chair."

"Yes! I remembered the beanbag chair, too!" And he hadn't mentioned it in his journal. "This is great! Talking about it must... must cause us to remember, somehow. Maybe since the universe where we met the Axolotl doesn't exist anymore, our memories of it are... detached or something? Psychically floating around between dimensions until we try to remember them?" He took in Mabel's skeptical frown and shrugged. "I don't know!"

She scrunched up her face. "Ugh. Last summer's first-grader time travel was complicated enough. This is like college-level time travel. Maybe we can ask Bill how it works?"

She said it so easily, like she thought it was actually a good idea. Right after she'd heard about the lucid dreaming thing, too. "I don't think he'd help." Dipper lowered his voice. "He really didn't want Grunkle Ford and me to find out about the Axolotl—and he kept telling me not to think about what the Axolotl told me. He's trying to cover something up."

"Oo-oo-ooh." Voice dropped to a whisper, Mabel said, "Do you think it's some kind of Space Axolotl conspiracy?"

"It could be," Dipper said. "All I know is he was trying to tell us something important about Bill. Some kind of prophecy, or... maybe a warning...?"

He trailed off. Mabel had stopped listening to Dipper. She was rereading the couplet Dipper had written, moving her lips like she was murmuring under her breath—but whatever she was saying, it was much longer than the couplet Dipper had written down. Distractedly, she said, "Do you have a pen?"

"Yeah, here." Dipper quickly handed over the pen he kept in his vest.

Mabel clicked it, went to the bottom of the page, and wrote: A different form, a different time.

Dipper sucked in a sharp breath as the words snapped into place in his mind. "That's it! That was the last line! What else do you remember?"

"That's it," Mabel said. "It was free form poetry with a bunch of rhyme pairs."

"I don't think free form poetry rhymes."

"Pbbbt." Mabel blew a raspberry and shoved Dipper's face. "Whatever! You know what I mean." She pointed at the last line. "Do you think the poem's about why Bill's here? He time traveled to the Mystery Shack in a new body..."

"Exactly! Bill must be back here for a reason. He's got all those powers—or, used to, anyway—and he knows more about the multiverse than anybody on Earth... Maybe there's some kind of big threat coming, and Bill's the only one who can stop it, and—and the Axolotl wanted us to know...?"

"I like the sound of that," Mabel said. "That'd basically make him a hero, right?"

Dipper grimaced. "I mean. I guess? But we're talking about Bill. If he does help us stop a threat, it'd be like if a serial killer picked up a hitchhiker and killed him, and then it turned out the hitchhiker was an even worse serial killer."

"That still sounds kinda heroic to me."

"Pfff, okay." He looked at his journal. "But... what is he here to do?"

Mabel considered what they'd already written. "Maybe we can use him to spy on our enemies through birch trees!"

"Thaaat's probably not it."

"No, I think I'm on to something. I can feel it."

There was a lot of empty space between his couplet and Mabel's line. "There's more we're missing, though. Maybe the rest of the poem describes the threat? Or what we need to get Bill to do?"

"I can't remember anything else, though."

"Me neither."

They stared at the page together, waiting for something to come to their blank minds. Mabel looked at the fish tank. "Hey, Primrose! Do you know anything?"

The pet axolotl in the tank ignored her serenely.

Dipper said, "'Primrose'?"

"Yeah, last summer Grunkle Stan said her name is Freakface, but I thought she deserved a cuter name. She's primrose color!"

"Ford says he originally named him Nikola."

Mabel gasped. "Nikki..."

Dipper twisted around to look at the axolotl. "Do you know anything? Do you... get messages from the Axolotl's heralds, or anything...?"

Nikola slowly opened his mouth, and slowly closed it.

Mabel said, "Hey. The Axolotl's one of those dimension-crossy time-travely guys, right? He probably wouldn't have given us a prophecy in the wrong timeline and then made us forget it unless he knew we'd remember it in time in the rightdimension!"

"I guess," Dipper said uncertainly.

"So we don't need to worry about it! We'll remember it when we need to."

"Unless this timeline's going to branch, and the only one where we survive is the one where we put all our effort into trying to remembering—"

"Shhh!" Mabel put a finger over Dipper's mouth. "Uh-uh. No college time travel. We'll be fine!"

Dipper pushed her over. "Okay, but we should at least try a little to remember what the Axolotl told us."

"What if we work on it separately?" Mabel propped herself up on an elbow. "Instead of just sitting around thinking about it. And whenever we remember a line, we can tell each other and see if it makes anything click."

"That might be faster," Dipper said, stroking his chin. "We're already remembering different lines."

"Yeah! And that lucid dreaming book said something about focusing on a problem before you sleep so you can figure it out in your dreams! We can just work on it in our sleep and we'll remember it all in no time!"

Dipper laughed. "What? No way, I think lucid dreaming is just one of those made up pop psychology things. I didn't get it to work at all." Either it didn't work or Bill had deliberately recommended a terrible book.

"I did! I can remember like... eighty percent more dreams. And I can tell when I'm dreaming a lot more often!"

"Huh." Or, maybe Dipper just wasn't doing it right. "Maybe I need to start over from step one. Do you know where the book we were using went?"

"Over here!" Mabel had set a couple library books on the end table next to the sofa bed; she pulled out the second one, which had a glittery pink bookmark with a cat on it stuck two-thirds of the way through. "Just don't lose my bookmark."

"Thanks." He'd reread the first step before bed. "We should probably be getting ready for bed anyway, huh?"

"Seriously?! It's barely bedtime!" And when the adults weren't watching, official bedtime was an hour and a half before Actual Bedtime.

"I'm exhausted. I just hiked up and down a mountain and faced down death."

Mabel pointed at Nikola. "You faced down a big salamander."

"Close enough."

They went upstairs, brushed their teeth, went to their bedroom...

And stopped in the door. Bill was still asleep. "Oh. Right," Dipper said.

He was curled into a ball on his left side, facing the wall, covered with only the zodiac blanket and his borrowed/stolen top hat sitting on the side of his head. He didn't use a pillow; he'd pushed Mabel's pillows and dolls behind himself to form a squishy makeshift fortress.

"Please don't wake him up," Mabel whispered. (She'd already set up the folding bed for herself; she'd clearly planned on this.) "He's had a really really hard time the last couple of days, and I think he needs as much sleep in a real bed as he can get, and it's just for one night, and I'm sure he'd rather sleep than do anything evil—"

"He said something, didn't he?"

Mabel paused. "Yeah. I think seeing his body really messed him up."

Dipper sighed. "We were trying to keep him away from it." He didn't want Mabel to think they'd forced him to stare his own death in the face. "But he did that... eye thing and looked through the trees, and..."

Mabel nodded.

Well. Dipper couldn't kick him out now. For Mabel's sake.

As children, occasionally when they got hotel rooms with a bed too few, their parents would stick them in one bed with a barrier of pillows in between them. At age thirteen and without two crabby parents trying to get them to just go to bed after a long plane flight, they unanimously vetoed that plan. Dipper decided against asking Stan if he could sleep in Ford's unoccupied bed, both because he suspected Stan would just go upstairs and drag Bill out of the room and because he didn't want Stan to think he was scared of Bill. He wasn't scared of Bill. Not anymore. He could handle one measly night in the same room as him. Anyway, somebody had to make sure he wasn't unsupervised in their bedroom all night, right?

Dipper and Mabel quietly set a floor mirror and old lamp next to Mabel's bed, draped a sheet between them, taped on a pink poster that said "WARNING! TRIANGLE ZONE!" and was covered in stickers of triangular objects, and decided Dipper was adequately shielded. If Bill did get up during the night, he'd probably trip through the sheet and wake half the house before he got anywhere near Dipper.

Dipper went to sleep with a baseball bat in his hands.

####

"Okay," Bill said, hands on his sides, "what am I looking at here?"

The feral band members of Sev'ral Timez turned toward Bill, eyes reflecting in the dim light. They were squatting around Bill's petrified corpse like a pack of apes examining a sleek black monolith.

"Hey girl," Creggy G. said.

"Hey," Bill said. He looked down at himself. His onyx black feet hovered over the ground and the yellow glow from his exoskeleton illuminated the clearing. "Lemme cut to the chase, is this gonna turn into a raunchy dream? My corporeal love life is about as cold and dry as Antarctica, I keep hoping one of my dreams will get a little hotter and wetter—"

"Nah, G," Deep Chris said. "Mr. Bratsman got us fixed."

"Aw."

"We're here to pay you reverence for freeing our minds from the chains of the conventional," Greggy C said, gesturing to Bill's corpse. Leggy P was kneeling and bowing to it and Chubby Z was posing for it. "We want to help free you like you tried to help free humanity."

Bill's eye narrowed. He tapped a finger against the edge of one brick as he considered this offer. Finally, skeptically, he said, "Fine. I'll bite. Why should I think you can help me?"

"Because we can give you the understanding your heart's been missing, girl. You're just like us," Chubby Z said. "A horror never meant to exist, born of a dream to construct the perfect golden idol, forced to dwell within an unnaturally-fabricated human shell."

Bill tilted his head thoughtfully. "I'm with you so far."

"We want you to join us," Deep Chris said. "Cavort with us in the silvan night, G. Shun the harsh light of the spotlight for the healing salve of moonbeams. We'll get drunk on the sweet fermented summer berries, uncaring of how the brambles prick our flesh. We'll dance in a frenzy of ecstasy and only sleep when the morning sun lifts the dew from the flowers and the sweat from our skin. It'll be straight Dionysian, boo."

"We can kiss the hot trees," Creggy G said.

Bill grabbed his shoulder. "Oh, you're the human that keeps making out with birch trees! I knew your face was familiar!" He paused. "So... are there any eligible ones around here?"

"Sure, girl, just downstream."

"If I'd known, I would've polished myself first."

"Say you'll join us, Bill girl," Deep Chris said. The band crowded around Bill to either side, posing around him—the backup dancers for the star singer. "You'd be one of us."

"We're already exactly the same," Creggy G said, holding up a mirror so that it reflected his and Bill's faces beside each other. In Bill's human face were two empty white eyes with pinprick pupils and pale blue irises, exactly the same as the eyes of the Sev'ral Timez boys.

He sat up with a gasp, hands flying to his face. There were still green boughs at the edges of his dreaming vision, blending into the wooden boards of the Mystery Shack's attic. Before sleep had fully fled his mind, he seized up the zodiac blanket draped over his body and stared into his embroidered eye.

The eye stared back at him. Through it, he could see his horrified sleepy face, and his normal slitted yellow eyes. His connection to the blanket's eye disappeared as he finished waking up.

He heaved a sigh of relief and flopped back down. He'd been lucid, but he hadn't been in control of that dream. He still needed practice.

He rolled toward the light of the window, groped around beneath it until he found his journal, grabbed up his crayons, and flipped pages blearily until he found the first blank one. He started writing down his dream, pausing only briefly as he tried to figure out how to translate "Sev'ral Timez" before settling on a sufficiently goofy way to misspell "several times" in Plaintext.

He made it halfway down the page before he stopped. Hold on. This wasn't his beautiful journal. These were not his beautiful crayons. He checked the cover and grimaced in displeasure when he saw a pine tree rather than a hand. Dipper's journal. Bill ripped out the page, ate it, and set the journal and Mabel's crayons back on the table  under the bedroom window.

"What was that," Dipper asked, "some kind of Morse code?"

Bill yelped and twisted around. Dipper's soul was hovering above Mabel's headboard, watching over Bill's shoulder.

"Hey! Back, foul ghost!" Bill snatched up Mabel's pillow and swung it at Dipper.

"Ow—Hey! How did you hit me, I'm in the mindscape—"

"I said back!" Bill swung again, chasing Dipper off the bed. "Back into your fleshy tomb!" He climbed off the bed, stumbled into Dipper and Mabel's trap, tripped through the sheet and probably woke up half the house.

He yanked the sheet off and flung the pillow at Dipper by its corner. "Now get back in your body, go to sleep, and leave me alone."

"I don't know how to get back in it. I just wait until it happens by itself," Dipper said, floating irritably over his sleeping body, arms crossed. "Why do you think I just wander around every time I have this dream?" He paused. "Right—it's not a dream, is it."

Bill sighed heavily. "Try putting your body on like..." He almost said like an exoskeleton, remembered his audience, and amended himself: "Like it's clothing. I usually start with the hands. Just like putting on gloves!"

Dipper looked at the cold fingers wrapped tightly around the baseball bat. "How do I put hands on like gloves? There's no opening or—"

"Just try it, would you?" Bill sat tiredly on the edge of Mabel's bed.

Dipper shot him an irritated look, but pressed his ghostly hands against his fleshly ones, passing through the skin until one set of fingers rested inside the other. A fingertip twitched. 

Bill gestured with one hand, continue. "Now the sleeves."

"I know how to get dressed." Dipper laid down in his body, forearm into forearm, shoulder into shoulder—until he was wholly back inside. He sat up, awake. "Huh."

"There, see?" Bill said. "And if you want to take it back off, just do the same thing in reverse. Like degloving your body from your soul!"

"Did you have to phrase it like that?" Still, Dipper tried it, peeling out of his body from the fingertips up. He left his body sitting upright as he hovered over it.

Bill chuckled tiredly. "Lookit your face, staring at nothing. Stupid looking."

"Shut up." He slid back into his body, more quickly now that he knew what he was doing.

"Great," Bill said. "Now that you know how to get back in your body, never do that again." He flopped back onto Mabel's bed and rolled over to face the wall. "It's a pain in my base having you wander around all night."

"Then you should've thought of that before you ripped my soul out of my body," Dipper grumbled. "Can you reattach me to my body?"

"Sure, easy." He lifted a hand to point down at his regrettably human form. "Not like this, though. Wanna help reattach me to my body?"

"Never in a million years."

"Then come back in a million years. There's nothing I can do for you until then." Bill dragged Mabel's zodiac blanket back over himself. "So sorry. Go to sleep. Leave me alone."

Dipper bet Bill could do it and was only saying he couldn't to try to trick Dipper into helping him. But he lay back down—clutching his bat again—and shut his eyes.

After a moment, Bill asked, "Where's Mabel? Sleepover?"

"Sofa bed in the living room."

"Right."

And then there was silence.

Several minutes passed. Dipper nearly fell back asleep. He heard Bill climbing out of bed and creeping across the room; but the footsteps didn't approach Dipper's bed, so he didn't open his eyes.

A few minutes after that, Dipper heard him come back, walking more heavily. He cracked open an eye to see what Bill was up to.

He was carrying Mabel, who was still asleep; his arms were trembling from her weight, but even at that Dipper hadn't known Bill was that strong. With a quiet grunt, he set her on her bed, then haphazardly tossed her sheet and zodiac blanket over her. He picked up his top hat from the bed and put it on; and then he wandered off, footsteps quiet as a ghost, and Dipper heard the creak of the door as he left the bedroom.

That was a lot nicer than Dipper had expected from Bill. Maybe he did care about Mabel in his own way.

Mabel rolled over and latched on to one of her dolls. Dipper shut his eye and fell back asleep.

####

(My favorite part of writing this was Bill dreaming about Sev'ral Timez saying the most absurdly flowery things imaginable. Anyway, let me know what y'all think about this week's chapter! And reminder that I MIGHT skip next week or the week after because the next couple chapters need heavier editing than usual.)

[cowboyellies]

- Bad Habit | e.w.

were you not not too good for me, my dear?

funny you comeback to me my dear

PART TWO OF "You're Not Good enough"

pairing: college player!ellie x fem college!reader

warnings/themes: angst!!!, ellie is v emotionally unavailable (my type <3), she's a teensy bit manipulative, reader mentions past toxic relationship, slight mention of ellie's past trauma, lots of jealousy, small amount of abby x reader (sorry abby), reader is kind of stupid (just like me fr), slight mentions of violence, small amount of smut (just a heavy make out)

word count: 3.8k

synopsis: you finally end things with ellie and months later you couldn't feel any better. ellie on the other hand is losing her mind without you. when she sees you at a club one night on a date with another girl, she's determined to get you back no matter what cost.

a/n: I didn't originally plan on making a part two but a few people asked so here it is! I hope you enjoy (below I'm tagging everyone who asked for a part 2)

 🏷 🏷 🏷: @shortcake22341 @harrysslutsstuff @robinismywifee @gizzzi

you and ellie hooked up three more times before you finally called it quits. for real this time. seriously. you blocked her on all platforms and even started avoiding spaces you knew you would see her at. 

the final straw this time for you was the fact that the third time you were hooking up she got a text from another girl during, and she answered it. once she finished sending her text back she rolled over to resume eating you out but you were already grabbing your shit and bolting for the door. that wasn’t the first time ellie williams had humiliated you but you made a promise to yourself that it would be the last. 

now it was two months later, the longest you’d gone without seeing her in about a year. you no longer thought of her, for the most part. there were times where you longed to unblock her number and go crawling back. but you didn’t. you finally felt actually single for the first time in forever and it was exhilarating. you now could do whatever you wanted, hook up with whoever you wanted without feeling the weird guilt and shame ellie left you with every time you’d walk out of her apartment. and now that your spring term had ended you were most certainly using this freedom to your advantage. 

ellie on the other hand was losing her shit. the night she fucked up again was actually a misunderstanding this time. yes, she did receive a text to hook up while you were fucking each other. and yes she did answer it. but it was only to tell the girl to fuck off. she tried to explain that to you but you had already slammed the door in her face before she could get the words out. 

she had tried everything she could think of how to get you to talk to her, even stooping so low as to show up at your door, begging for you to open up. this actually might have worked on you if she hadn’t gotten your apartment number wrong. you two spent most of your time together at her place so she ended up scaring the living shit out of your elderly neighbor mrs. flenderson when she showed up knocking on her door at one a.m. drunk.

now all she could do was sit alone with her feelings which she hated. she hated knowing she cared about you and all this time apart was just giving her more time to think about it, so much so she even began fantasizing how she would confess her feelings for you. she drafted long speeches in her head for different ways she’d make you hear her out. 

when the opportunity to actually confess arrives, things don’t go as smoothly as they do in her imagined scenarios. 

the night you two finally see each other again you happen to be on a second date. the first second date you’ve been on since you started seeing people again. you had become accustomed to your one night stands but something about this girl drew you in. abby and you had met through a mutual friend and you actually got along really well. she’s funny, kind, doesn’t seem to share the same emotional incapabilities as your exes, and she’s pretty fucking hot. 

your night starts out amazing, she brings you to a club where she happens to know the owner, getting you past the entrance right away and straight to the bar, where she showers you in free drinks and many, many compliments. you flirt and laugh and blush like you haven’t in a while and you realize what you really want to do is dance. as you’re on your way to the floor, that's when you see her.

ellie’s at the entrance of the club with her two friends you vaguely know, dina and jesse. you stare at her for a few moments, taking in the features you had tried so desperately to brush from your memory. her auburn hair is shorter and you can tell from the rolled up sleeves of her black button up that she got more detailing done on her tattoo. her head starts to turn towards your direction so you suddenly switch positions with abby, moving so if ellie looks your way she’d only see your back. 

“is everything okay?” abby asks, leaning down towards your ear so you could hear her over the loud music. you nod and try to continue dancing as if nothing is bothering you, which is hard to do considering that you suddenly feel the urge to vomit. abby doesn’t seem convinced so she pulls you off to the side of the dance floor, luckily away from where ellie had gone to sit with her friends. “are you sure you’re alright, you look a little green,”

“yeah I’m fine!!” you insist, trying not to give ellie the power to ruin your night like you’d done many times before. “I think I’m just a little lightheaded,” you say, hoping it’ll make her drop it.

“oh shit, let's go to the bar and get you some water,” she replies, frowning in concern, grabbing your hand to lead you back there.

“no!” you suddenly shout, knowing that’s where ellie’s sitting. “no um- I just really like this part of the club! do you think you could just bring some for me over here?” you ask, even though the “area of the club” you’re referencing is just a dark corner near the bathroom next to a trashcan. 

abby looks at you questionably but eventually turns and does what you ask, probably figuring you definitely need it now. once she’s gone you start plotting how you can make your escape from here without ellie seeing, hopefully not further ruining your date. you know you’re being immature and that grown ups don’t hide in corners from their exes, but you’re pretty tipsy and you never claimed to be a grown up. 

a minute after abby leaves you see dina and jesse make their way to the dance floor. before you can even think to conceal yourself, dina makes eye contact with you and you notice her eyes widen in recognition, which makes you realize ellie had definitely told her something about your breakup. while that made you go into further panic it also made you pause. when you first met dina it was when you and ellie had run into her at a coffee shop the morning after one of your sleepovers. ellie had introduced you to her as “a friend” even though you’d been hooking up for four months at that point. if ellie had gone from that to now confiding in dina about your messy break, it made you think about how much your split had actually affected her. 

as you see dina move to go and tell ellie about you lurking in the shadows, abby starts to walk back in your direction, glass of water in hand. now you’re screwed. there’s no way you can convince abby to leave before ellie comes to find you.

while you’re being overcome with sudden doom, ellie from the other side of the room feels her heartbeat pick up in a way it hasn’t in months. as soon as dina had muttered your name she jolted out of her seat. now as she makes her way over to you, confident to win you back, she notices something dina hadn’t mentioned, her.

abby stands next to you brushing a hair behind your ear, gently stroking your shoulder as you down the glass of water she brought you. ellie feels a sudden rage flow through her whole body. just when she thinks she’s getting you back she sees you with another girl. this is different than with the couch girl from the party who was just gonna be a random fuck, she can tell from your body language you’re already getting comfortable with her beyond that. she stops suddenly a few feet in front of you, causing you to choke a little on your water. 

as you’re now standing face to face with ellie you notice that familiar jealousy plastered all over her face. as much as you know you have nothing to be guilty about, you can’t help but start to sweat a little as she resembles the look of a rageful girlfriend. you realize that’s exactly what abby might think she is as you look up to see her shocked expression. just as you’re about to explain, ellie beats you to it. 

“can I talk to you?” she asks, more of a command than an actual question. 

“no!” you shout back over the music, hoping that will send her away but knowing from past experience it won’t. 

“who is thi-” abby starts before she’s cut off 

“I’m ellie. who the fuck are you?” she yells, turning her direct attention to abby for the first time.

“her date, who the fuck are you? are you two-”

“NO!” you yell, wishing you had opted for the dinner and a movie date you previously discussed. “let’s just go!” you yell, at this point you weren’t even focused on salvaging your date but instead on getting the fuck out of there. 

“I need to fucking talk to you please,” ellie begs stepping in front of you, this is different than the last time at the party, you’ve never heard her voice sound so desperate. 

“she said no, back the fuck up,” abby shouts, pushing ellie a little on her shoulder. before you can say anything, that small little push turns into ellie flinging her fist into abby’s jaw. you knew she had a temper but have never seen her actually fight someone until now. the two of them begin full on fighting and instead of doing the honorable thing and trying to pull them off of each other, you simply leave. you know doing this pretty much guarantees no third date with abby but you can’t really find it in yourself to care. you’re so over with this night and the constant shit show that is your love life so you find yourself just exiting the club. 

they don’t notice you’re gone until a few minutes after, around the same time the security begins showing up to pull the two of them apart. before they can restrain ellie she makes a break for it, bolting after you towards the door. 

she finds you a few blocks away sitting on the curb waiting for an uber. you notice her shadow looming over you and you turn your head up to face her, groaning once you see her bruised face.

“ellie you’ve done enough, can you just please leave me alone,” you plead, the weight of the night’s events finally starting to hit you, making you feel exhausted.

“i’m sorry, I can’t,” she replies, lowering her body to the curb next to you. you look at her confused for a few moments, realizing that’s the first time you’ve ever heard her use the words “I’m sorry”

“why?” your voice cracks and your eyes starting to brim with tears on impulse. you aren’t sure exactly why you’re crying but it’s making you feel small and stupid. 

“you know why,” she replies, unable to give anymore. after all this time she spent building speeches, she still found herself scared to say the actual words.

“no, I don’t ellie. I have no idea why you treat me like this,” you reply, the tears beginning to spill on your cheeks. “I don’t know why you act as if you don’t give a shit about me but still can’t let me go, you never fucking tell me why,”

her heart is racing now. she knows if she doesn’t say the right thing she’ll lose you for real. this is the last moment she can avoid her feelings or she’ll crush yours once and for all. 

“It’s because I-” she starts at barely a whisper, her eyes beginning to water. “its because I fucking care about you!” now she’s almost yelling, the words escaping her mouth like a sob. “and I haven’t felt this way in a long time and it fucking terrifies me,” you look down at her hands and notice they’re shaking. you want so badly to hold her but a part of you stays restrained, knowing after everything she’s put you through you can’t just grant her forgiveness that easily.

“you don’t think I’m terrified too? ellie it took me a long time to get over my ex and you know that. but I didn’t dump you on your fucking ass the second I started to get feelings for you. and I certainly didn’t text another girl in the middle of us fucking!” the memory of that night starts to overcome your sympathy for her, replacing it with anger instead

“I texted her back to tell her not to message me again, and I tried to explain that to you and you wouldn’t let me. I know i fucked up and had shitty timing but you have to believe that I would never hurt you like that,” she was fully pleading now. you had never seen her so much as shed a tear and now here she is baring her soul. 

“ellie, you know I want to trust that but why should I? you’ve done nothing but give me reasons to believe otherwise,” you’re sobbing now too, your face turned towards the pavement in front of you watching your tears drip on the floor. you feel her fingers gently pull your chin upwards to look at her again, you notice a complete sense of somberness in her eyes now, this could possibly be the last thing she’d ever say to you.

“I know you don’t have any reason to believe me but you have to know that I…” she pauses for a moment to collect herself. the three words on the tip of her tongue were something she hadn’t said out loud in over five years. “I love you. okay? and I know I have a shitty way of showing it but I do,” 

out of everything she could have said to you that was the last thing you were expecting. you had known for a while that ellie had rejected that feeling because of something that had happened in her childhood which she never could fully tell you about, and you weren’t sure if she was even capable of it anymore. it’s at that moment where you know for certain she’s not just saying all this to get you in her bed. 

you’re truly looking at her now, the two of you facing each other with tearfilled eyes not able to say anything. this is when ellie finally breaks out the material in her fantasy speeches. “I love how you look when you’re sleeping, you get this cute half smile on your face when you’re having a good dream. and I love how obsessed you are with pickles, even though you refuse to eat a cucumber which I have explained to you many times is what pickles are made out of-”

“they’re not the same and you know it,” you interrupt through your tears. you had always wanted a big love confession like the one she was giving you, filled with specific facts and details, you said so while watching when harry met sally after one of your first hookups, you were shocked she remembered.

“I love how you never let me finish my sentences,” she replies with a smirk, her cockiness beginning to return after the intense few minutes of vulnerability. “I love how you do that thing with your lips when you’re cum-”

“okay you’re done now,” you stop her, a blush beginning to take over your face. you were starting to forget that at the beginning of the night you hated her guts and were likely going home with another woman.

“are you sure? I have a lot more,” she teases, you know the rest are all sexual. you realize after a moment of silence you never told her you love her back, and you realize you aren’t sure if you even do. obviously you still have strong feelings for her, otherwise you’d have already stormed away from her by now. 

as you’re about to say something to break the silence the uber you’d ordered earlier appears in front of you. you look up at her and contemplate what it’ll mean to invite her in with you. is it still stupid to fuck her after one night of seeing her again? does the fact that she loves you make a difference in that? 

you aren’t really sure and you don’t care. you pull her yourself up from the curb, dragging her along with you towards the backseat of the car.

–

after a tense fifteen minute uber ride which consisted of the two of you trying your absolute best to keep your hands to yourself and spare the sweet little old man driver, you finally arrive at your apartment. you’re now the one dragging her towards the elevator, recreating the same passionate makeout against the metal walls as the time after she cornered you at the party. the only difference being the fact that now you were no longer shoving down feelings of regret and shame. 

after you exit the elevator and you’re opening your apartment door you hear her laugh at the unit behind you, mrs. flenderson’s apartment. 

“oh my god ellie, stop,” you whisper shout at her, remembering the fear in the little old lady's voice as she told you about ellie’s drunken escapade. “she has heart problems, you could have killed her!” 

you feel her arms reach over your sides, gently resting on your stomach as she begins to lean into your neck “are you jealous thinking about me confessing my feelings for another woman?” she teases, the embrace making it harder for you to open your door.

“no ellie, the thought of you trying to seduce my 78 year old neighbor does not make me jealous,” you reply with an eye roll, finally managing to open the lock. as soon as the two of you are inside she’s pushing you up against the door, her lips trailing all over your body, desperate to show you how much she meant what she said earlier. 

“you have no idea-” she says in between kisses. “how hard it was-” she’s gripping gently at your hair now, her eyes traveling up and down your body, taking you in fully for the first time in months. “to see you dancing like that with someone else,” you think about what she’s saying for a moment, the memory of abby making you trail your fingers down a bruise she had left on ellie’s cheekbone. you realize then that you could find it in yourself to forgive ellie for using you, because that’s exactly what you inadvertently had done to abby.

you pull her towards you by the jaw, her ear just centimeters away from your lips as you whisper “good.” you figured if you had accidentally used someone to make her jealous there's no harm in using that to your advantage now. you see ellie’s jaw tighten a little and her lips are back on yours in seconds, this time harsher than before.

you make your way to your bedroom, her hands on you the entire time as you’re leading her there. when you reach the bottom of your bed you begin to sit but you feel her pull you up, her hungry hands clinging to the fabric of your dress around your thighs. 

“look at this pretty little dress,” she mumbles while running her hands up towards your breasts, the skin tight fabric clinging to you in all the right places. “you got all dressed up just for her,”

you roll your eyes at her jealousy but deep down the pool of heat in your core was growing stronger. she responds to your eye roll by yanking the dress down your arms. she then makes her way to the clasps on your bra, unhooking it and throwing it to your floor. she begins kissing you again, starting at your neck and trailing down towards your breasts, a moan escaping you as her mouth met your nipples. instinctively your hand grasp onto her hair, clinging to the roots as she laps at your skin. your grip on her hair tightens as your pleasure increases when she stops suddenly.  “could abby’s tongue make you feel that good baby?”

you’re about to reply when she breaks away from your skin, now firmly pushing you towards your mattress. as you lie back she begins to take off your dress completely, staring down at you cravingly. unable to stand the lack of her lips on you, you’re suddenly sitting up and pulling her down towards you, gripping at the fabric of her shirt as her lips are crashing down on yours. 

“somebody’s eager,” she teases, smiling in between kisses. as you’re making out you begin to feel her remove your hands from her neck and pinning them to the bed above you. you lean up towards her to continue your kissing when she pulls back, the sudden lack of contact causing you to let out a small pathetic whimper. she laughs at you and begins to take you in. her eyes linger over your mussed hair and pink lips that are wet from her kisses. “you’re so fucking beautiful,”

this comment catches you off guard. ellie had never said anything like that to you before. yes, she complimented frequently while you were together calling hot and gorgeous especially when you were on top of her, but this was different. this was more intimate. you smile brightly beneath her and use all your strength to lift yourself by your elbows to deliver one frenzied kiss onto her lips, plopping your head back down on the bed afterwards.

you realize then that the hot jealousy filled sex you two were headed towards had begun to change. all thoughts of abby, of any of your collective exes, or anyone else in the world for that matter have disappeared. this is about you and her. 

she resumes kissing you, this time gentler, and you think back to the last time you had slept together. after your breakup every time you fucked was more feverish than the last. that sex was a dirty little mistake you couldn’t stop making, and you made sure to make it as quick and emotionless as possible. now as she’s on top of you, slowly stroking your hair as she moves her lips across your neck you are overcome with a sense of closeness for her that you had been trying to repress since the night she broke your heart on her dingy old couch. 

“ellie,” you whisper, her mouth slowly detaching from your skin as she adjusts herself to look at you. 

“yeah?” she asks, moving a chunk of hair near your face behind your ear. 

“I love you too”

[softestqueeen]

i don't know what i'd do without you

pairing: aaron hotchner x reader

summary: aaron comforts you after a nightmare

warnings: fluff, tiny bit of angst

wordcount: 764 words

a/n: i need this man so bad. don’t worry i’ve already have some smut ideas (i’m a slut ik, shame on me whatever) anyways, enjoy <3

„No, no, please don’t. Stop it,” you all but mumble in your sleep.

Aaron had just returned from his latest case and was about to jump under the shower when he heard you talking. For a moment he had worried about you mistaking him for an intruder, but once he stepped closer to you, he realized that you were having a nightmare.

Your beautiful face was scrunched up into a frown, your legs were drawn tight to your chest and your hands were gripping the blanket for dear life.

The unit chief crouched down in front of you, now noting that that you were wearing his old college sweatshirt. He knew you loved wearing it, but he also knew that you always wear it when you feel down or miss him. The realisation breaks his heart.

“Please don’t hurt me,” your repeated mumbling startled Aaron out of his trance. He places a gentle hand on your shoulder and slightly shakes you.

“Honey, wake up. It’s just a dream. It’s all right,” at first you only turn a bit but upon hear his voice you startle awake.

Your breathing is heavy as you try to face in your surroundings. Now that you were sitting up, Aaron slightly stood before taking a seat at the edge of the bed next to you. His arm finds it’s way around your shoulders before he places a gentle kiss against your temple.

“It’s all right, honey. I’m here, you’re safe. Whatever happened it was just a dream, it was not real. It’s over now,” Aaron gently comforts you. At hearing his voice, your face snaps towards his voice. Aarons free hand cups your cheek and you instinctively lean you hand into it. Slowly a tear rolls down your face, which his thumb immediately wipes away.

“Do you want to talk about it, honey? You don’t have to, but it might help,” he gently says. His voice always had a soothing effect on you.

For a moment you stay quiet and only nod. Aaron let’s you take the time you need to collect yourself. While one of his hands remains on your cheek, the other one now draws smooth and lazy circles over your back. He places another kiss on your forehead before you muster up the courage to talk.

“I was- um… it was like,” you take another deep breath before the words practically tumbled out of mouth “So I was standing in the kitchen and making lunch for Jack, nothing unusual everything was normal but then my phone rang which is also not uncommon but it was Garcia who sounded like she was crying and she told me that something had happened to you. For a second I couldn’t see or hear anything but then she told me that you’d been shot and didn’t make it. I could feel everything going numb and I could still hear her over the phone and then I realised that I had to tell Jack and-“ at this point you had to take a deep breath before a sob escaped your lips.

Aaron immediately drew you close, your head tucked safely into the crook of his neck. He knew you worried about him when he was on cases, but it still broke him every time he saw you crumbling underneath your worry.

“Oh, honey, it’s all right. I’m here and I’m fine, nothings happened. The case went smooth.  You know I’ll always come back to you, right?” he now tried to soothe you with a gentle voice. You could only give a small nod as more tears made their way over your cheeks. Aaron continued to rib your back, while he pressed his cheek to the crown of your head. He slightly rocked the two of you, hoping that you would calm down. Even if it wasn’t the most efficient way, it definitely helped.

“I really don’t know what I’d do without you, Aaron. I love you,” you said as the tears slowly subsided. You slightly leaned back to place a gentle kiss to his stubble covered chin.

He gave you a quick smile before asking you “I know it’s late, but I really have to take a shower. Want to join me?” He normally wouldn’t ask, but he knew that you probably didn’t want to be alone right now.

“Yea, that would be nice.”

Even though, when you both lay in bed later on, Aaron knew that he would never be able to fully erase the worry from your mind, he also knew that he’d be always there to comfort you.

a/n: i hope you liked this, if so please leave some notes, likes, reblogs and comments! feedback is very appreciated!

please also consider supporting my ao3: @ softestqueen

taglist: @silvermagnolias @milywatermelon @BigBananaa

requests open!

[kotoku]

chilchuck x reader - cherry wine

synopsis - the group had been planning a hangout at the local bar for a while now. it was only a few months later when everyone’s schedule had aligned that everyone was able to meet up. seeing chilchuck there had brought up the buried feelings you kept to yourself. how will this night unfold, you wonder.

pairings - chilchuck tims x reader

warnings - not so family-friendly words / drinking

word count - 1.8k

The bar was packed with people varying in species, swarming the dance floor as they swayed and twirled to the beat of the music playing over the loudspeakers. You were amongst those people, skittering across the dance floor as you followed in rhythm to the song that was currently playing. 

The group that you had shown up with had split into their interests. Whether it was drinking at the reserved booth or chatting with an old friend, you didn’t know, but as long as they were having fun! 

The group in question consisted of Laios, Falin, Marcille, Chilchuck, Senshi, and Izutsumi. A very unique gang but that’s what drew you in. Everyone had varying personalities and you loved each vibe they had given off, thus propelling you into forming a tight-knit bond with the group. 

With a glance toward the booth you knew they were seated at, you only saw Senshi, Izutsumi, and Chilchuck, all seemingly drinking their beverages while chatting away. Of course, Senshi had made sure of only giving Izutsumi alcohol-free drinks, Chilchuck almost accidentally giving her a shot before it was slapped away by the older man. The memory had made you chuckle.

The upbeat dancing slowly started tiring you out, causing you to retreat to your seat with a huff. Izutsumi and Senshi had given you an acknowledging glance before returning to their conversation, Chilchuck giving you an amused glance as he took a chug of his ale.

“Tired already? Sheesh, your stamina is lacking.” He teased, giving you a smug smirk. You rolled your eyes in response, giving him a small shove. 

“Whatever you say, old man. Bet the only thing you’d manage is a couple of cracks and pops before you’re tired out.”

“Old!? You’re not that much younger so I’d say you’re old too!” Chilchuck crossed his arms, offended at being called ‘old’ as he was only 29. You laughed, waving a worker over so you could place an order for some water. 

“How’s your shop been, Chil?” You hummed, resting your cheek in the palm of your hand. He seemed to have visibly grimaced, sighing heavily before answering. “It’s been fine, damn workers have been slacking off though.” 

“Really now? I thought you had a good eye for candidates.” You thanked the waiter as she placed down the glass in front of you. Taking a couple of swigs of your drink, you continued listening to Chilchuck's small rant. 

“Yeah well— turns out that people may not always be what they seem. They were pretty chipper at first, but I think they’re starting to take things for granted.” 

“Hmm…” You hummed to yourself, deep in thought. 

“Hey! What if I worked for you?” Chilchuck almost spat out his drink in surprise, coughing into his elbow. “You? Work for me? Psh, as if you’d leave that comfy desk job of yours.”

“What!? It’s been getting kinda boring lately, things aren’t the same as they used to be. It wouldn’t hurt being some kind of manager for your shop!” You whined, slouching over the table. 

Chilchuck flicked your forehead in mock annoyance, huffing. “You have a good job, idiot. It’d be a shame to waste your talent at a small shop such as mine.”

“…” You slowly registered his words, giving him a bright grin. “You think I’m talented?”

“Uh, who wouldn’t?” His face slowly flushed a soft pink before he lightly shoved you. “Don’t let it get to your head!”

Laughing, you waved him off, finding his reactions to your teasing quite cute. It really brightened up your mood, you noted.

For the next couple of minutes, you both sat there, drinking your respective drinks while sharing different stories from the past month. To be honest, it was quite nice being able to catch up with Chilchuck, it had been a while since you had a group meet-up due to everyone’s conflicting schedules. You felt your heart ache at the idea of this hangout coming to a close. When will you see each other again? 

Unbeknownst to you, Chilchuck felt that same ache. Although he openly showed his irritation with the group, he couldn’t deny that you were all his close friends and meant something to him… Not like he’d tell any of his friends of this anyway, he still has a reputation to uphold, he tells himself. 

As much as Chilchuck would try to hide his fondness for you all, everyone knew that he cared, and that in itself was enough. 

“Are you gonna dance?” 

Chilchuck was broken out of his thoughts by your sudden question, eyes darting from you to the dance floor.

“..Maybe,” he shifted his gaze away from you, focusing on the drink in his hands. “It’s been a while.”

“Ahh come on,” you nudged his shoulder with your elbow. “Just one song!” 

He rolled his eyes, a small smile creeping into his face. “Fine, just one though.” 

With a cheer, you gently pulled him up from his seat, dragging him onto the crowded dance floor. However, as soon as you got there, the music shifted and the song seemed much more romantic compared to the previous ones.

“Oh, uhh…” You trailed off, unsure if Chilchuck was in the mood to dance anymore since the vibe had completely changed. “Do you still..?” 

“I said one song, didn’t I?” He huffed, offering a hand to you. “Come on, don’t want to keep me waiting do you?” 

You felt your cheeks heat up at his offer, was he really willing to dance with you? Hand in hand, feet in rhythm, and distance between you almost nonexistent? …Ah, fuck it. Never know when you’ll get this chance again.

With newfound confidence, you placed your hand in his, being swept off into the midst of the crowd. 

You both started off a little clumsy, your feet accidentally stepping on his as he teased you for your poor dancing skills. You’d roll your eyes in response, cheeks flushing in embarrassment before trying again. 

Surprisingly, Chilchuck made for a skilled dancer, following in tune with the song as he twirled you around. Every time you did so, you found yourself laughing in surprise, his smile widening at your giddy self. 

Maybe it was the cherry wine you had earlier but.. everything in that moment seemed different, as if you were seeing through rose-tinted glasses. The bar had felt empty, leaving only you and Chilchuck swaying in beat to the song. Your eyes were locked on his as he let himself relax, returning your gaze with a smile while leading you. This had seemed so natural for the both of you, that you almost hadn’t noticed the song coming to a close.

As the ending to the song came, Chilchuck suddenly dipped you, leaving you breathless as everything faded out, your focus honing in on him as a look of fondness overcame his expression. It was a look unlike any other, eyes filled with such intensity and a grin that made your heart flutter with anticipation. There was no denying that he harbored intimate feelings for you.

Just as soon as it happened, it ended, the two of you left slightly panting as people scattered for the next song. 

“Chilchuck.. I—“

“_____.”

Before you could speak, Chilchuck shushed you, hand intertwining with yours as he pulled you to a more private location. 

“I need to speak with you. Privately.”

Hearing him state the last part made your body flush with heat, the beating of your heart picking up its pace as you waited with bated breath for what was to come. He had led you towards the garden the bar had, the display of greenery very well showing the dedication and care the owners held for them. There was no one else there, just the two of you beneath the garden’s fairy lights and the stars.

You both took a seat on a small bench, Chilchuck’s hand slowly leaving yours, fiddling with his fingers. His brows were furrowed, gaze locked onto the ground with focus as he tried picking out what to say. 

“I’ll just get straight to the point… _____, I’ve liked you for a while now and—“ He paused, mouth moving to form words but nothing came out. “sigh It’s fine if you don’t reciprocate… In fact, forget I said anything! I-“ 

You quickly shut him up with a small peck on the cheek, his words rendering you speechless and leaving you with only your actions to speak for yourself. Chilchuck had stilled, his words pausing as he gaped up at you. His face slowly became a cherry red, the hue reaching the tips of his ears. You could almost see steam coming from him, you mused to yourself. 

“I like you too, Chilchuck.” Smiling, you cupped his face, feeling the heat radiating from his cheeks. 

Before you could register what happened next, he had already leaned towards you, lips placing a chaste kiss on your own before departing. If his face could get any redder, it would’ve. 

“You're such an idiot.” He huffed, his giddy expression betraying his words. You laughed before pinching his cheek. 

“You’re the one who likes me y’know.” 

“…Yeah.” Chilchuck’s words had trailed off, much too distracted by your lips, your eyes, everything. He couldn’t help himself, is what he thought as he leaned in for another kiss, this time, lasting much longer. 

There was a certain tenderness behind it, lips moving in sync and he pulled you closer. Something about you drew him in, and he couldn’t get enough of it.

Before you could continue any further, a phone rang out, startling the two of you. 

“Ah..everyone is getting ready to leave.” You hummed, scrolling through Marcille’s text message. “We should head back.”

The half-foot grumbled next to you, arms crossing as his brows twitched in irritation. “Seriously? Talk about bad timing.” 

“Don’t worry. You’ll have many opportunities in the future.” You grinned, standing up and stretching. 

“There better be…” He huffed, standing up as well. 

The two of you talked while slowly walking toward your booth, trying to delay the inevitable departure. However, it seemed you didn’t have to worry about leaving his side anytime soon. 

“Hey..do you wanna come over? Watch a movie or something?” Chilchuck asked, hands in his pant pockets. 

Your smile widened at the offer, feeling a warmth flood your body. “I’d love that.” 

“Hmm…” He looked towards the booth in thought before turning to you. “I never said it before but.. you taste a lot like cherry wine.” 

“..Is that a good thing?” 

“Definitely.” 

[strnilolover]

Could you do a small blurb of Matt and Monster!Reader? Monster!Reader has another form that comes out when the sun goes down and one day it happens and she makes a mess of Matt's house so she feels extremely bad and is up till morning trying to clean up but he's asking her why she's cleaning and where it came from because this does not usually happen and she says, "I'm already a burden enough, I wanna be good for you, i'm a monster" and he comforts her and stuff?

If you do, Thank you so much!

matt knew of your other side of course…you had told him not long after you got together. you would’ve thought his reaction to you would be negative — pushing you away and telling you, you were disgusting. but he didn’t.

there was another form that your body took when it became night — the stars high in the sky and the moonlight filtering in everywhere. sometimes it became hard to keep said side under control.

last night was one of those nights — your brain shutting off ask your other form consumed you and you just went…animalistic. you thought of yourself as a monster because of it.

-

as the first rays of dawn filtered through the curtains, matt shuffled into the living room, rubbing sleep from his eyes. the smell of cleaning products lingered in the air, and his gaze swept across the space.

the couch was pushed askew, books scattered on the floor, and his favorite lamp was missing its shade. despite the disarray, the sight that drew his attention most was you, crouched on your knees with a sponge in hand, scrubbing furiously at a mysterious dark stain on the hardwood floor.

“sweetheart?” he asked softly, concern lacing his voice as he stepped closer. “what are you doing?”

his voice startled you, dropping the sponge as you turned to look at him, your face pale and tired, dark circles under your eyes. “i… i’m cleaning,” you stammered, avoiding his gaze. “i—i made a mess, and I need to fix it.”

matt’s brows furrowed as he crouched beside you, his hand gently settling on your wrist to still your frantic movements. “hey,” he said gently, “why are you acting like this? where did all of this even come from? you’re not normally like this.”

your throat tightened, the weight of shame settling heavily on your shoulders. you tried to pull your wrist away, but matt’s grip didn’t let you pull away much. “i-… when the sun went down last night, i…” your voice cracked, and you looked away, blinking back tears. “i lost control, matt. i’m already a burden enough to you. i don’t want to be even more. i wanted to fix it, to be good for you, but… I’m a monster.”

matt’s heart tightened at the pain in your voice. without a word, he shifted closer, pulling you into his arms despite the cleaning supplies and the stain still on the floor. you stiffened for a moment but quickly melted into his embrace, your tears soaking into his shirt.

“you’re not a burden,” he whispered firmly, his voice steady and warm like a shield against the storm raging in your mind. “and you’re not a monster. you’re you. the person I care about. the person I love.”

“but—”

“no buts,” he interrupted, gently tilting your chin so you’d look at him. his eyes softened as he brushed a tear from your cheek. “you don’t have to do all this to prove something to me. whatever happened last night, we’ll deal with it together, okay? just like we always do.”

you swallowed thickly, his words wrapping around your heart like a safety net. “i’m sorry,” you whispered, your voice trembling. “don’t be sorry,” he said, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “just promise me one thing.”

“what?” you murmured, leaning into his touch.

“promise you won’t hide things like this from me again. i don’t care what happens or how messy it gets. i just care about you.” he smiled softly, his hand cupping your cheek. “and you’re more than enough for me, okay?”

you nodded, “okay,” you whispered, letting yourself melt against him even more — the cleaning and mess forgotten about for just a moment.

[hwangism143]

kintsugi

synopsis your sky is covered with storm clouds but felix wants to paint it gold.

pairing non-idol!felix x gn!reader

genre hurt, comfort, melancholy, friends to lovers

warnings depressive elements but not stated as such, slight suicidal themes, mentions of food and eating, cutting up your heart but it's very romantic.

word count 2.3k words

requested by @msauthor

now playing golden hour - JVKE

a/n i don't even like the color gold 😭

"radiant beam in the night"

You felt a peculiar sort of sadness today, one that infused itself into your bones as an uninvited guest to a party you didn't know you were hosting and refused to leave.

The melancholy shrouded over you for reasons unknown. You knew that an onset of this was coming your way. The sadness you had been feeling the last few days was all - encompassing. The apathy you had been feeling the last few years had wound it's way into your daily routine, leaving little to no excitement for anything.

You weren't quite sure why you were here, in human form, in the first place.

As you lay in bed, your comforters pooled near your feet, the rest of the world continued doing whatever it was that they did. Usually, you would carry this sadness and seal it in boxes in your head, stowed away for further retrospection after you finished the day's deeds.

Today, however, was a Saturday. And a Saturday meant that you would allow yourself the liberty of your mind wandering into nothingness.

You watched the fan spinning above you, fixing an unheard tune to it's routine spins. A part of you ached to cry. But all you felt was hollow and empty, like a bucket with a small hole. No matter how much water was forced into it, it would leave in tiny droplets, taking your will to do anything along with it.

Beside you lay Felix, an uninvited guest like your feelings but in contrast, a welcome guest. He somehow always knew when you felt such ways on such days. It was as if you both were two halves of a messy whole that wasn't quite defined but was still a presence to be acknowledged. Felix really liked that description; although he had never told you, he preferred you to be his half rather than anybody else.

Your boy, as you fondly thought of him, was beautiful. Sun kissed and touched by a thousand angels, Felix had a smile that always played on his lips. It was one you envied. You knew that it wasn't always a genuine smile, but it was always unceasing. Besides, happiness came so easily to Felix. He drew it in at a rate you could only imagine, and radiated it even more.

It was such a shame that your mind bore walls that had grown immune to even that.

Your eyes trailed their way over his features, the bumps where his eyes closed and the curve of his nose began. The small bob in his throat and the pink of his lips. The blonde hair he once dyed impulsively which fanned around him.

He was a sight for sore eyes, you had to admit.

"Let's go on a picnic," his voice cut through the trance you were drowning in. His eyes remained closed but his smile morphed into a smirk.

"What?" you asked once again.

His eyes opened and he turned his body to face you. Felix's warm brown eyes looked into yours. "Let's go on a picnic. It'll be fun. Some sunshine and grass will do you wonders."

You didn't want to go. You looked like a tornado had swept through you and felt like the mere acting of sitting up was a chore. But you agreed anyways. It was pointless to push the conversation with further refusal. Felix would have convinced you to go anyways.

"Are you okay?" he questioned you. Felix still lay on your bed. You were sitting up and turned to face him, your palms face down on your mattress.

"Mm, I'm fine," you muttered in response, even though you weren't.

It had been such an automatic response that it hadn't even registered to you that you were saying it to Felix of all people, who saw through you the way you saw through a window.

"It's okay if you aren't," he got up to join you, sitting the way you were. His fingers slightly brushed yours.

"I don't think I'm okay now. But I will be," you told him.

You tried to muster a smile, but it died before it made it way onto your lips. Felix pressed a fleeting kiss to your temple, so small that it could barely be called a brush of his lips, and got up from your bed to go prepare food for your picnic.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Felix's fingers drummed against the steering wheel, one hand steady and the other antsy. You were trying to tuck your legs under yourself, but the passenger seat proved to be too small and you just gave up in the end.

You hesitantly rolled down the car window. A crack at first, to test the wind. Then lower, when it proved to be mild. It was a beautiful day outside, and you were slightly grateful towards Felix and his above par persuasion skills. The sun was bright but didn't spread heat in a way that it hurt. Instead, it seemed to blanket the earth in it's warmth.

You turned to look at Felix. Felix, who was draped in light while you were blanketed by storm clouds.

You loved him. It was no secret, really. Everyone knew, including him. And you were lucky enough to know that he loved you back. But your love would always be hidden and suppressed. It would be found in the little things, like small forehead kissed and the occasional reassuring hand squeeze.

It was hard not to love somebody like Felix. He wove a tapestry with every action he undertook and cloaked you with it until it lulled you into serenity.

From his words to his way of thinking, Felix turned the most mundane of things into art that you wanted to lose yourself in until feeling became something undiscernible. All that would exist would be you, and him, and you wouldn't need anything else.

But it would never surpass that. Your shared love would never be worthy of a confession or of a label. It was a love that would die when it bloomed, akin to a Morning Glory drifting towards the ground when it's time was up. Your love would fail because one party - you - was so delicate that the idea of love itself repelled you.

Felix sensed that you were apprehensive of taking a concrete step towards establishing love and he never pushed. But he wished to tell you that no matter how many times you broke, he would mend your cracks in gold over and over again.

Kintsugi, was what the Japanese called it. Eternal adoration towards you and all you comprised of, was what Felix called it.

Kintsugi, kintsugi, kintsugi. Loving you felt like pressing his lips against cold water. He wished to suffocate in his want until his sensations dissipated and living became nothing but a medium to be in your presence.

"You're staring," Felix teased.

The song on the radio was one that played frequently, but one that you never sought out on your own to listen. It was sardonic, how you knew the words and the tune and even whos sang it, but not even it's name.

"I'm not staring at you. I just zoned out," you reasoned. Your body was now slightly tilted towards his.

Felix turned his head so that he could see yours. "You were looking very closely in my general direction. That counts as staring."

You brushed him off with a roll of your eyes.

Felix pulled into the parking lot of a National Park. You couldn't remember what it was called. You couldn't remember a lot of things, as of late, but you attributed it to your weak mental state and haphazard sleep schedule.

Felix got a picnic basket complete with coarse, woven ropes and a checkered red and white blanket. He held the basket in the crook of his elbow and placed the blanket on top of it. Slowly, his hand found it's way to yours.

Felix tugged you along to find a clearing amidst the groves of evergreen trees. Families strolled aimlessly, pushing the occasional baby carriage. Shrieking children chased each other with their arms outstretched and excitement painted on their faces. Older men and women held onto each other, taking their time to walk around the park.

You missed such solace, where it didn't feel like you had to dismantle yourself just to fit those pieces where the world ordained them to be placed.

Felix found a small patch of grass perfectly divided between shade and sunlight. It was very much like you and Felix, a withering weed and a blooming flower. Felix took out the picnic blanket which you didn't even know was in your possession and spread it over the grass.

You smoothed it out with your palm, sitting on your calved with your toes digging into the ground. The stark contrast between the warmth and cool as your hand shifted from light to dark was a sensation you kept going back to. Grass dug into your knees and you felt the fain crawling of what you assumed to be a bug.

Felix beckoned you over to where he sat with the picnic basket in front of him. A plate sat near his foot while the other lay across from him. You crawled over to the plate that now had a sandwich, fries and ketchup on top of it. You both ate in silence.

Once you were finished eating, Felix's eyes found yours. You had discarded your plate and wiped your hands with a tissue. Now your arms were around your legs which were crossed and pulled up to your chest. You closed your eyes and angled your face towards the sun, your fingers tracing unrecognizable patterns on your bare skin beneath your shorts.

"Are you happy?" you turned to ask Felix.

You felt the words bubble up and out of you before you could even process what you were saying. The desire to know how he felt when you felt nothing was compelling. Coming out didn't necessarily help you. It felt like a change of scenery but didn't lighten the load that was pressing down on you.

Your sorrow had seared itself onto you, intermixing with your atoms until melancholy and you were two indistinguishable entities.

Felix looked at you curiously. His head titled to the side as he regarded you with the kind of gaze people wore when the knew someone well enough to get an idea of what they were thinking but still couldn't predict their every move.

"I wouldn't say I'm always happy. But I'm with you, and that's comfort enough for me," Felix responded, "What about you? Are you happy?" Songbirds chirped along with him, awaiting your response eagerly just as he did.

"No. I must confess that I fear I may have forgotten what it's like being happy. But I do feel somewhat at ease right now. What does that have to do with your happiness?" you voice ended with a note indicating a question as Felix's lips tugged into a small smile.

"Being happy, fortunately coincides with making you happy," said Felix.

His eyes shimmered in the golden light the engulfed him. You wondered whether reaching out and touching him would result in your hands painted with metallic dust. Maybe some off Felix's optimism would rub off on you as well.

"Why on earth would you associate your happiness with my non-existent one?" you inquired, although you had a slight idea of what the answer to this question could possibly be.

Felix ran through all the possible answers he could give you. He formulated the possible outcomes to everything he could say to you in this moment, but love was fickle. And love was tired of hiding when it knew it was reciprocated, even if that love was your apprehensive and reluctant love.

All Felix wanted was to take his heart and cut it into pieces and fit it to yours, sealing the abyss that would emerge in the middle with liquid gold that shone with an utmost brilliance even in darkness.

Kintsugi, kintsugi, kintsugi. He would unfurl his wings and embrace you with them until time was an idea and space was hypothetical, drowning you in affection and coating your imperfections in every beautiful shade known to this world.

"It's because I love you," he blurted out. Felix's face reflected a pleading stare, wanting a response, any response.

You wanted to say that you didn't feel the same way. You wanted to deter him from the possibility of ever being with someone like you when you didn't know how to be with yourself. You wanted to him to walk away with his heart while it was whole, unlike your tattered anatomy.

"I know," you whispered, "And I think I could love you too. But you'll have to wait, wait for me."

Felix's breath was caught in his throat. It wasn't much. You had barely grazed against the bare minimum. But it was a start. And it was something. He knew what an effort it was for you to even acknowledge love, much less admit that you felt it.

"I don't think I can love somebody else when I'm incapable of loving myself," you mumbled, the confession falling from your lips like leaves in the fall.

The same leaves that shed themselves to give rise to new ones, the way you would chip away your bad parts and build yourself anew the way Felix imagine you to be.

Kintsugi, kintsugi, kintsugi. He will paint you a mural in the template of your heart, highlighting all the ways love and happiness would flood you very soul now that you were his and he was yours and the force of you and him had been born into this world.

"I'll wait. I'll wait for you in every way possible and concoct more ways to love you while I do. The best things are worth the wait," Felix reassured you with a smile.

His hand met yours, fingers intertwining themselves though the pads of your knuckles like his heart had intertwined with yours. And this time, this time you couldn't even fathom what life would be like if you let go.

please reblog and comment if you liked this fic! it means everything to me and I love reading your thoughts <3

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[lilacsnid]

𝐍𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 | 𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘹 𝘧𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳

𝙎𝙐𝙈𝙈𝘼𝙍𝙔: Y/N is leaving work from Slough House rather late one evening and passes River's office to find him still sitting at his desk. She persuades him to not be so uptight & to come have a drink with her at the pub. She learns a bit more about him that night - including the fact that River Cartwright is a massive lightweight.

𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙘𝙡𝙖𝙞𝙢𝙚𝙧𝙨: she/her pronouns used, some dialogue in this fic is from slow horses season one, mentions of sexualization/slut shaming, fluff, river being a precious baby. in a world of boys, river cartwright is a gentleman.

𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙨: this is a work of fiction; any names, characters from slow horses, places & incidents will either be a product of my imagination or used fictionally (5.8k words)

✘ ✘ ✘ ✘

Y/N sighed heavily as she finally managed to shut her computer down for the day, feeling the strain in her shoulders. She rubbed her temples, squinting tiredly as she began gathering all of her belongings together. She had opted in staying back a couple of hours to complete some paperwork, wanting to ensure that Catherine wouldn't be burdened with it in the morning. She switched off the lamp on her desk before making her way out of the office she shared with Louisa.

On her way out of the building, a faint glow caught her attention, causing her to stop in her tracks. Intrigued, she followed the light down the hallway that led to River and Sid's shared office.

She had initially assumed that she was the last one in the building, yet she was proven wrong when she peeked through the glass window and spotted River sat at his desk, bathed in the soft glow of his computer screen.

He leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed and a discernible frown etched on his face as he remained absorbed in whatever was on his computer. The black earphones that were placed in his ears suggested to her that he was engrossed in watching something.

His tousled blonde hair fell over his forehead, and in the faint lighting, his normally bright blue eyes appeared darker and wearier than usual. Y/N couldn't help but notice the fatigue evident in his slow blinks as his attention remained fixed on the glowing screen in front of him.

A soft sigh escaped her lips as she moved towards the door. Leaning against the frame, she took a moment to watch him, wondering if he would notice her presence eventually. Unsurprisingly, he remained completely oblivious, engrossed in whatever he was watching. 

Biting her lip, Y/N’s eyes quickly scanned around the room before grabbing a book from a nearby shelf. With another quick glance at him and a mischievous smile, she slammed the book down on the table near the door, creating a harsh noise that cut through the silence.

The abrupt sound drew River's attention like a magnet, his eyes snapping up from the computer screen. Despite the initial harshness, his gaze softened slightly once he spotted her in standing in the doorway. 

“Fuck,” He sighed, reaching up to take his earphones out.

Y/N tried to suppress a giggle as she held her hands up in defence.

 "Sorry," She apologised, taking in his slightly dishevelled state. "What are you still doing here?"

He met her gaze, taking in a deep breath in. "Just... sorting through some stuff."

“Such as?” She questioned, crossing her arms and giving him a skeptical look.

"None of your business," He shot back, a hint of sarcasm underlying in his voice.

She rolled her eyes at him before pushing herself off the door frame, sauntering over to where he sat at his desk. River rubbed his hands over his face, attempting to massage away the aches as he sensed her starting to make her way over to him.

“Seriously though, it’s 8:00pm,” She remarked, scrunching her eyebrows as she stood next to him. She leant back against his desk as she faced him. “I thought Lamb was the only one who practically lives here. Don’t you have a home to go to?”

He let out a small, sarcastic and dry laugh, leaning back in his chair to face her. “Says the one who is literally sitting on my desk. You should ask yourself the same thing.”

“God, you’re hard work,” She sighed, throwing her head back in annoyance.

“All right,” He sighed, shooting her a look that she couldn't quite place. “What’s your excuse for being here after hours, then?”

She crossed her arms as she spoke, “I finished up some extra paperwork from today so Catherine wouldn’t be swamped with it in the morning.”

“Wow,” River drawled out, fiddling with his earphones, “What do you want? A medal? Pat on the back?”

She groaned at his teasing. “You know what? I would settle for anything other than that contemptuous look you always have on your face.”

His face scrunched up as he squinted at her. “That’s a big word, Y/N. You sure you know what that means?”

She shook her head at him, sighing in defeat after attempting to lighten his mood.

“God, lighten up, Cartwright,” She quipped, reaching out to playfully tap her hand against his leg, “This whole 'I hate the world' attitude you’ve got going on is really starting to piss me off.”

“Well, any time you wanna leave, feel very free,” He joked, gesturing towards the door while still holding a straight face. “You know the way out.”

She shot him a pointed look, shaking her head as he raised his eyebrows at her.

“What? You planning on staying here all night?” He asked, challenging her.

“Nope, I give up,” She scoffed while standing up properly and began making her way towards the door. “I might go for a drink somewhere.”

River swivelled on his office chair, raising his eyebrows slightly as he nodded.

“Thanks for the invite,” He muttered, a hint of disappointed in his tone.

She rolled her eyes at him as she turned back on her heels to glance at him, “This is me inviting you, idiot.”

His eyes shot up at her words, making him tilt his head in surprise. He tried to act like he wasn’t flattered by the request and maintained a carefree expression in hopes she wouldn’t notice.

“You know what? I think I would rather sit here in the dark all night, thanks all the same,” He countered, pulling himself closer to the desk and picking up his earphones.

“River Cartwright, ladies and gentlemen,” Y/N mumbled, loud enough for him to hear. “Hard working MI5 agent but always the prude.”

He crossed his arms at her and raised his eyebrows, “A prude? I am not.”

“Oh, you’re not?” She questioned, walking back up to his desk and leaning over it from the front, maintaining eye contact with him. Her eyes took him in as she tapped her fingers on the desk. “Then prove it.”

He held eye contact with her as he inhaled deeply, trying to refrain from letting his gaze wander up her body.

✘ ✘ ✘ ✘

The two of them left Slough House, making their way a few minutes down the road to her favourite pub. She crossed her arms over her chest as River walked alongside her with his hands casually tucked into the pockets of his corduroy jacket.

As she walked beside him, she glanced up at River as he managed to catch her eye. 

"What?" He inquired, his face deadpan.

She shook her head as a small smile slowly creeped onto her lips. "Didn't think you would actually come."

"Yeah, well," He was quick to respond, "Maybe that’s because I'm not actually a prude."

She shrugged playfully, "Could have fooled me."

"You're unbelievable," He groaned, looking down at the cobblestone path beneath their feet as he shook his head. 

“You love it when I’m hard on you,” A chuckle escaped her as she bumped her arm against his. She briskly rubbed her hands together, a futile attempt to ward off the chill that lingered the air around them.

After strolling for a few more minutes, they finally reached the pub, the welcoming glow drawing them in. River stepped in front of her, gracefully swinging the door open and gesturing for her to step inside before him.

"Thank you," She breathed out, revelling in the comforting warmth that enveloped her as they entered, the gentle sound of conversation buzzing around them.

River took in the ambiance of the place to where she had brought him and sidled up beside her as they approached the bar. She watched as he glanced over her shoulder and leaned down slightly so she could hear him over the chatter, “What would you like?"

She was caught off guard and opened her mouth in surprise. "Oh, you're buying me a drink?"

He nonchalantly nodded, pulling his wallet from his back pocket. "Yeah. What, would you rather I didn't?"

She chuckled, "Hey, no complaints here. I'll have a beer, please."

River shot her a playful glance, eyebrows raised as he tapped his fingers on the marble counter. "Wow, you're cheap."

Feigning offense, she gasped and playfully slapped his arm while shooting him a pointed look. He scoffed, rubbing his bicep for a moment as he glanced around. "Want to find a table? I'll bring the drinks over."

"Alright," She nodded, gracefully moving away as her eyes scanned the pub.

She soon spotted a snug corner table nestled towards the back of the pub and made her way over there. Taking a seat, she placed her bag beside her on the floor. As she settled into the chair, she let out a content sigh, not being able to resist stealing a glance over at River, who still lingered at the bar.

A subtle smile played on her lips as she watched him. His tall figure leaned casually against the bar, and she couldn't deny the particular kind of allure about his presence. Unbeknownst to River, his attractive good looks were well-known among those in the service. Despite his inclination to act as if the world were perpetually against him, she couldn't help but acknowledge the undeniable charm he possessed.

She reached for the hair tie around her wrist, skilfully securing her hair into a casual half-up, half-down style just as River approached the table with their drinks. Glancing up at him, she found him holding a beer in one hand and a whiskey in the other.

"Of course, you’re a whiskey drinker, how original," Y/N teased, her eyes bright with amusement as he set the glasses down on the table.

River let out a sigh, "You’ve always got something to say, don't you? Give me a break."

She chuckled and thanked him as he placed down her drink. However, as he set it on the table, she couldn't help but notice his hand – red and showing signs of a recent burn. Her eyes widened, a tinge of concern in her voice as she looked up at him, "What happened to your hand?"

He closed his eyes momentarily, a slight groan escaping his lips. He had attempted to keep his injured hand discreetly tucked away in his pocket, but it seemed he was now unable to let it escape her notice.

"Nothing, just," He began, then stalled for a second as he settled into the chair across from her, scrambling for a quick excuse, "Burned it on a grill."

Her head tilted inquisitively, and she shot him a pointed look, "Yeah right. So, are you going to tell me what actually happened?"

He let out a heavy sigh, his long fingers wrapped around his glass, deliberately avoiding eye contact. He could feel her gaze burning through him, making him shift uncomfortably in his seat.

After a brief moment of silence, he noticed her extend her hand, a silent request for him to reveal his injured hand that he was still trying to hide. He met her expectant gaze with a sigh and a sense of defeat as he reluctantly extended his hand towards her. With a gentle motion, she cradled his hand in both of hers, taking notice of the subtle tremor that seemed to steady in her grasp. He couldn't help but chuckle to himself softly at the size difference between her delicate hands and his own.

As she studied his hand with a caution, he found himself completely captivated by her focused attention. Strands of her hair fell over her face, framing a look of concentration. His eyes remained fixed on her while she examined his hand.

"Did it hurt?" She asked, her tone careful.

He felt her fingers tracing patterns on the skin of his palm, causing him to lose his train of thought for a second. 

"No. Well, yeah, a bit," He admitted, with a sheepish glance.

She nodded, letting go of his hand to reach for her drink. "Yeah, I guess opening a flash box without the code will do that."

A quizzical look crossed his face as he glanced at her. "I never told you that."

"You didn't have to," She responded, taking a sip of her beer.

River scoffed softly, shaking his head. It seemed as though she had him all figured out.

"Why would you even do that? You are many things, but I didn't think you were stupid," She teased, arching her eyebrows as he met her gaze again.

"It's nothing to worry about," He dismissed, waving her off as he took another sip of his whiskey.

Y/N observed him for a moment, her gaze following the amber liquid as it passed his lips.

"What was in the box?" She couldn't resist asking.

River sighed, briefly glancing behind her before answering, "A laptop. With files taken from Robert Hobden."

She nodded knowingly, "Do The Park know that you opened a flash box?"

"No," He briskly shook his head, "And they aren't going to find out, are they?"

She shook her head in response, a silent confirmation of her discretion. He appreciated the unspoken trust they seemed to share between them.

"Was it worth opening a flash box over?" She teased, a playful smile tugging at her lips.

"Stop interrogating me, okay? Can we just not talk about it right now?" River redirected, tapping his glass with his pointer finger. "I thought you dragged me here to get away from work."

"I didn't drag you here," She chuckled. "And if you feel trapped here, you know the way out," a hint of jest in her voice as she playfully repeated his words from Slough House earlier.

He huffed at her, "Touché."

"I'll drop it," Y/N promised, lifting her glass again. "But you know I'll grill you about it later."

He nodded, letting out a scoff at the pun she managed to slip in. "Oh, I know you will."

They settled into a comfortable silence for a minute, during which River studied her again. Sensing his gaze, she looked across at him quizzically before asking, "What?"

Biting his lip, he contemplated the question that nagged at him in the back of his mind. Deciding to bite the bullet, he took a short breath in, leaning against the table on his elbows as he crossed his arms. "Why are you here, Y/N?"

She shot him a confused look, "Uhm-"

"Not at the pub," He corrected himself in a teasing manner, "At Slough House."

She sighed, "I thought Slough House was like prison. You're not supposed to ask what you're in for."

He sensed her attempt to sidestep the question, but it didn't seem to stop him. His curiosity got the better of him and he couldn’t deny the subtle soft spot he harboured for her, something in which he often struggled to hide.

"Well, you know why I'm there," River stated.

"Yeah, but everyone knows why you're there," Y/N countered with a smile.

She laughed as he rolled his eyes, "I was gonna give you a compliment, but you can shove it now," He said, looking unamused.

"Suit yourself," She smiled, finding amusement in how easily she could tease him, "I get enough flattery from everyone else."

"But that's what I mean," River said softly, "Everyone can see that you're different. Because you are."

She glanced up at him, a gentle smile gracing her lips before she looked down again, avoiding his intense gaze.

"I mean," He continued, breaking the intensity of his gaze, "Min, Struan, Roddy—maybe not Louisa, but definitely Moody. They were always headed for the skids. They're useless. But you're…"

She looked up at him again as his words trailed off, and they shared a momentary glance, one with an unspoken meaning as River continued to speak.

"You know," He breathed, shaking his head slightly, "It just doesn't make sense. But whatever the reason for being put in Slough House, it must have come out of nowhere, right?"

She chuckled softly, taking a swig of her drink, "Always the MI5 agent, hey?"

"Sorry," He apologized, backtracking, "I'm just letting my thoughts do the talking. You don't have to tell me. It's your business."

"No, it's okay," Y/N smiled, but he watched it quickly fade as her mind ticked over. "Yeah, it did come out of nowhere."

She took a deep breath before continuing, "I was put in Slough House because of a rumour about me, that wasn't even true, got spread around at The Park."

"What kind of rumour?" River asked, dumbfounded.

"Wow," She expressed surprise, "I'm surprised you haven't heard about it already."

He gestured for her to continue, giving her his full attention.

"Someone came onto me, rather forcefully, one day at the office. And because I turned him down, it hurt his feelings. He couldn't accept it, so the next day, he went around to all of his mates at the office, telling them that I was a slut and that I basically begged him for it. His mates then proceeded to tell everyone at Regents Park, which marked me down massively. No one would even look at me after that. And because everyone took his word as gospel, I was shipped out to Slough House," Y/N explained, her emotions surfacing as she spoke the truth she had tried to bottle up for so long.

River was shocked to his core. The revelation left him not only astonished but also infuriated at how someone could do that to someone as honest and kind-hearted as her.

"I’m so sorry," He consoled.

She shrugged nonchalantly, attempting to downplay the impact, but he could sense that it bothered her deeply. Understandably so.

"I heard you worked at The Park," He said, before pressing further, "Was it anyone I know?"

Y/N stayed silent for a moment before nodding, releasing a sigh, "It was Webb."

River raised his eyebrows before scrunching them together in a frown, "Spider?!"

"Yep," She replied curtly, downing the rest of her drink.

He scoffed in disbelief, finding yet another reason to dislike James Webb. "What a dickhead. How is it that he is able to get away with something like that? It's bullshit."

She nodded, "Yeah, it was shitty. But I got my revenge on him."

He shot her a pointed look, "What do you mean?"

"I'm not usually the petty type..." Her voice trailed off as she glanced down at the table.

"Oh, come on," River encouraged her, "What did you do?"

Biting her lip, she tried to hide her smile, "On my last day at The Park, I broke into his office while he was at a meeting and went through his computer. I wasn't even looking for anything in particular. But then I found some rather revealing pictures he had of himself. So, being as pissed off as I was at the time, I sent them as an email to everyone in the building. I did it in a way that no one could trace it back to me."

River couldn't stop himself from bursting into laughter, hastily covering his mouth as he began to worry he was making too much noise.

"That is priceless," He chuckled, "Who is dumb enough to even have photos like that when working in the service? Let alone on your work computer."

"Clearly Spider," She grinned, propping her chin onto her palm.

River's laughter eventually subsided, but his smile remained, "So he never found out?"

She shook her head, "Nope. But I'm sure he won't forget it anytime soon."

"I saw him today while dropping something off at The Park," He said, thinking out loud, "I should have knocked his lights out."

"Can't change anything now," She said, "Just gotta keep moving forward."

He glanced at her, shooting her a sympathetic but genuine smile.

His chair scraped across the wooden floor as he stood up to go and get another drink, "You're one of the good ones, Y/N L/N," River smiled, tapping her shoulder as he walked past her and made his way over to the bar.

✘ ✘ ✘ ✘

A couple of hours had drifted by since Y/N and River had first stepped into the pub. Conversation flowed between them quite effortlessly as they both enjoyed the opportunity to unwind outside the confines of Slough House. Y/N decided to grab another drink after her first initial one, opting to nurse the second glass River had kindly bought for her. She observed him from across the table as he indulged in several glasses of whiskey.

She furrowed her brows, finding it quite amusing to witness his demeanour shift from serious to carefree within the span of just a couple of hours.

"You gonna finish that?" River mumbled, eyeing her half-empty glass. Without waiting for her response, he quickly snatched her glass from the table and downed the remaining liquid in one gulp.

She watched him with wide eyes, shaking her head at his audacity. Leaning forward on her elbows, she tapped her finger against the silver watch on his wrist that caught the light, quickly managing to glance at the time herself. "It's late!"

"What? Tired, are you?" River asked, tilting his head at her.

"You should be," She retorted, "It's a school night."

He groaned at her words, screwing his eyes shut at the thought of having to get up for work tomorrow morning while nursing a potential hangover.

She leaned over the table, concern etched on her face. "I think you've had enough, River."

His head suddenly shot up at the use of his name. He narrowed his gaze towards her cheekily before also leaning over the table, mirroring her actions. His eyes very obviously trailed over every inch of her face as he studied her features.

"You never call me River," He whispered, his voice low, unaware of the subtle hitch in her breath caused by the close proximity of their faces.

She shook her head, her reply soft, "I never call anyone River."

"Yeah well," He cleared his throat, "You can thank my mother; it was her hippie phase."

Y/N couldn't help but chuckle as an unfamiliar feeling of warmth washed over her. It felt strange to her to witness River in such a drunken state, considering his usual serious demeanour that he held. She took in the blue of his eyes, the scruff of his beard, the way his hair fell over his forehead—absorbing every detail possible.

He glanced around, taking notice of the nearly empty bar they still sat in before mumbling, "I reckon we should go."

"Good call," She agreed, standing up and pulling her coat back on.

As she grabbed her bag, she watched River skeptically as he slowly rose to his feet. He tapped his jacket a few times, feeling to make sure he still had his keys and his wallet.

The two quietly made their way out of the pub, the cool night air hitting them instantly as they stepped out onto the quiet streets of London. Y/N stood beside River, casting a sidelong glance at him, unable to shake the amusement present from her expression.

"So, reckon you’ll be fine to get home?" She teased him.

He glanced down at her from his tall height as he towered over her, nodding as he swayed on his feet slightly. "Yeah."

"Okay," She smiled up at him, "Thanks for tonight, I'll see you tom-"

But he was quick to cut her off, "Walk with me?"

"Huh?" She questioned him, pulling on her coat tighter around her frame as she craned her neck to look up at him.

River chuckled slightly as he casually shrugged his shoulders. "I wanna keep talking to you, so will you walk home with me?"

Y/N narrowed her gaze at him, reminding herself of the fact that he had managed to drink a whole lot more than her tonight. Without stopping to give it much thought, she found herself nodding and shot him a smile. "Alright, fine."

While they started walking together, side by side,  down the street, River stumbled a bit, causing Y/N to reach out and grab his arm in order to steady him. "Easy there, Cartwright. Don't want you face-planting on the pavement."

"I've got it under control," River assured her, though the grin on his face betrayed a different story.

As they continued walking, she could feel him subtly starting to lean against her small frame slightly. His head was spinning, and to him it felt like he was floating due to the amount of alcohol he had consumed. She stole another glance at him, observing the longer strides he took compared to what he usually would. There was a peculiar bounce in his step, and the usual frown that often adorned his face was long gone which amused her with every passing minute.

"How is it that I'm smaller than you but can hold my alcohol better than you can?" Y/N teased him, leaning against him slightly as the wind crept past them.

"Shut up," He breathed, while shaking his head and licking his lips.

Before long, they arrived at a set of apartments. She stopped in her tracks, watching as River walked ahead of her, towards a flight of stairs. It was only a couple of seconds before he noticed she was no longer following him. He turned around slowly, gesturing towards her with a confused look on his face.

"You coming?" River asked, tucking his hands further into the pockets of his jacket. 

She curled her lips into her teeth, contemplating for a moment before she gave in, starting to follow him up the stairs which led to his apartment. He had slowed his pace down on the steps in front of her as he waited for her to catch up with him.

Once he had felt her place her hands onto his back, he sensed the warmth through the material of his jacket. She carefully guided him up the stairs, her presence a reassuring anchor until he stopped in front of his apartment door. He reached for his keys and fumbled with them, struggling to keep his eyes focused.

Y/N eyed him warily, observing the effects the alcohol had on his coordination. "Hey," She stepped closer to him, and spoke softly, "Give me those."

He chuckled, giving up almost instantly and passed her his keys. They stood close together, their fingers brushing against each other as she grabbed the keys from his hand.

"Which one is it?" She asked, glancing up at him with expectant eyes.

River leaned his head against the brick wall in front of him, turning slightly to look down at his keys before pointing to the right one. "That one."

She chuckled at him, biting her lip in concentration as she unlocked his front door. She could feel his eyes burning a hole into the side of her head, yet she tried to ignore it. As the door creaked open, she held it open for him, maintaining a watchful eye as he stumbled through his entryway. 

His studio apartment was dimly lit, the soft glow revealing the lived-in but tidy space he occupied.

"Alright, Cartwright," She teased, handing him back his keys. "Get some rest and maybe lay off the whiskey next time."

River chuckled, giving her a nod of agreement. "Thanks, Y/N. And thanks for walking with me."

Y/N smiled with a genuine warmth in her eyes. "Well, you did buy me a drink. Consider it payback."

He stared down at her intently as he came to stand in front of her. He drew in a few deep breaths, the sound filling the silence that enveloped his apartment. River narrowed his eyes gently at her as a sheepish grin tugged it way onto his lips.

“What are you looking at?” She asked him, feeling a warmth beginning to appear across her cheeks.

With a nonchalant shrug, he maintained his silence as he simply shrugged his shoulders in response.

Y/N knew she should take her leave, but there was something about him that made her want to stay. He didn’t seem to mind as he tripped over the mat, and he kicked his shoes off. He managed to shrug off his jacket as he made his way over to the bathroom to  brush his teeth.

Deciding to stay, she placed her bag beside the lounge as she let her eyes wander around curiously, absorbing the surprisingly cozy charm of his apartment. The warmth enveloped her, leaving her torn between the sensible impulse to leave and the pull she was feeling that made her want to stay a little while longer.

River emerged from the bathroom, keeping quiet as he sauntered his way to his bed. As he settled down onto the edge of the mattress, he couldn’t help but let out a heavy sigh, a release of tension he seemed unaware of carrying. Y/N approached him slowly, as she tucked her hands into the pockets of her coat, her gaze fixed on him.

“You alright?” She asked him, taking notice of the slump of his shoulders and the  frown on his face that had managed to return.

There was a brief silence that lingered before she pressed on, concern evident in her voice, “What’s up? Hmm?”

She swore she could hear him sniffle slightly and watched as River reached up to run his hands over his face. He soon lifted his head to meet her gaze, shaking his head, a look of weariness etched across his features.

“I just…” He sighed, deliberately trying to hold back, leaving an unspoken weight lingering in the air.

Y/N found herself witnessing a side of him she never would have anticipated – vulnerable, burdened by the weight of emotions he desperately tried to hide. . Without hesitation, she extended a comforting hand, placing it gently on his shoulder. "You can talk to me, you know?" She reassured, offering him with a supportive presence.

River sighed, his gaze remaining heavy and fixed on the floor. "I just want to be actually useful, Y/N. Do something, I mean – I could not be more bored if I tried, and I have actually tried. It feels like I’m drowning there in Slough House."

She listened attentively, allowing him the space to voice the thoughts he'd been holding back. It was clear to Y/N in that moment that opening up like this wasn't something he was accustomed to. He had a perpetual need to prove himself, a persistent desperation that echoed in his words. The weight of expectations seemed to be wearing him down, and the vulnerability he displayed was both unfamiliar and exhausting for someone who typically guarded his thoughts so closely.

“I just feel like a failure, and it’s all my fault,” River murmured, completely defeated, his frustration evident as he began to rub at his eyes with his knuckles.

A brief silence hung in the air before Y/N gently placed both of her hands on his shoulders. "River," She whispered into the quiet, watching as he glanced up at her from where he sat in front of her.

She offered a soft smile once their eyes met. "When was the last time you had a hug?"

He looked away for a moment, genuinely trying to recall the last time he embraced someone. What shocked him was the realization that he genuinely couldn't remember the last time he had been hugged.

“I don’t know,” He mumbled, shaking his head.

Y/N frowned, taking a tentative step closer, as if testing the waters. “Can I hug you?” She whispered.

River nodded, with the word "Please" escaping his lips, quiet and hushed.

Without any hesitation, Y/N stepped forward, closing the gap between them and positioning herself between his legs. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, she pulled him into a comforting embrace. At first River was initially unsure, but gradually surrendered to the solace of the moment, reciprocating by enveloping her in his arms. His head found a resting place against her stomach, and a contented exhale escaped him as he felt her nails tracing patterns on his back through the fabric of his shirt.

Her perfume acted as a subtle anchor, which grounded him, preventing him from falling apart completely. They lingered in their embrace, the gentle swaying of their bodies providing a soothing rhythm.

“Hey,” She whispered, her hands tracing up the sides of his face, forcing him to look at her, “You’re not a failure, I promise.”

River, too tired and fatigued to muster any words, flashed her a lazy smile as his eyes started to grow heavy. Resting his chin against her stomach, he glanced up at her. The effort to stay awake was a struggle for him, and her thumbs, rubbing soothing circles into his cheeks, only added to the struggle he faced.

“I think I need to sleep,” He mumbled, burying his face against the fabric of her shirt again, savouring the warmth of the hug for a few more precious seconds.

Reluctantly, he pulled away and settled back against the mattress. Y/N observed him, grateful that he was home safely.

"You need anything before I leave?" Y/N offered, lingering near the end of the bed, her gaze briefly caught by the city lights beyond his window.

One of his eyes opened, heavy with drowsiness, as he glanced at her from where he laid. It didn’t take long before he spoke up.

“Stay for a bit?” He asked, his voice sounding small and muffled against the pillows.

Without hesitation, she nodded towards him, slipping off her shoes and coat. Her body dipped against the mattress as she crawled up to the top, leaning against the headboard of his bed. To her surprise, she felt River shift closer, lifting his head to glance at her for a moment.

“Is this okay?” He asked, a vulnerable note in his voice that made her heart surge.

She nodded, motioning for him to come closer. River slumped down beside her, allowing her to hold him. Grabbing a blanket from the end of his bed, she draped it over the top of them. With an arm wrapped gently around his shoulders, she began playing with his soft, blonde hair.

“That feels good,” He hummed in content, draping an arm across her torso. The sensation of being held felt overwhelming to him, but in all the right ways.

As River slowly drifted into a peaceful slumber, Y/N felt his body starting to become heavier against her. In the quiet of his room, the city lights outside casting a gentle glow across his apartment, she continued to hold him, providing the comfort he needed in that vulnerable moment.

©𝙇𝙄𝙇𝘼𝘾𝙎𝙉𝙄𝘿

5801 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙙𝙨

[laduenadelswing]

Chapter 2

chapter one

As the day drew to a close, a sense of beginning camaraderie began to settle over the unit. Soap, ever the social butterfly, had struck up a conversation with you, his charm and wit quickly winning you over. Even though they were opponents under normal circumstances, he was intrigued by your presence. You in turn, seemed to relish the attention, your smile growing wider with each passing moment.

Ghost watched the exchange with a mix of amusement and curiosity. He couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to you than met the eye. There was a certain spark in your eyes, a depth that hinted at a complex past. Simon could smell trauma from kilometres away. It stuck on you like skin. Later that evening, as the unit gathered to debrief, Ghost pulled Soap aside. "You know, I can't help but wonder about Ace," he admitted. "There's something... off about her."

Soap chuckled. "Yeah, I noticed that too. König seems particularly taken with them." He paused, a thoughtful expression crossing his face. "I wonder what their story is."

Ghost nodded, his gaze drifting towards the door where Ace had just exited. "Whatever it is," he murmured, "it's intriguing. As the unit dispersed, heading towards their respective quarters, Ghost and Soap found themselves walking alongside König and Ace. The pair had lingered behind, engaged in a private conversation.

From a discreet distance, Ghost and Soap observed the interaction. König, the usually stoic and reserved leader, was visibly relaxed. He held a small, intricate object in his hand, turning it over and over.

"I found this on the battlefield," he explained , his voice low. "It's quite old, perhaps a relic from a bygone era."

Your eyes sparkled with curiosity as you  leaned in closer. "It's beautiful," you as your fingers gently traced over the object. 

A brief silence fell between the two of you, a moment of shared appreciation. Then, König cleared his throat, a hint of awkwardness in his voice. "How is it to be so... young, and yet so capable?" he asked, his words stumbling slightly.

You chuckled, a warm smile spreading across her face. "I am grateful you took me in." You paused as your gaze met his piercing blue eyes. "How is it to be a Colonel at your age?"

König was taken aback by your directness. He hesitated for a moment, then replied, "It's... a responsibility.”

The 141 operators decided to leave their opponents alone. “I don't like his guts.” Soap murmured. “Still, Johnny, you are the one who  wouldn't let me beat him up.” Ghost stated with his deep, dark and raspy voice.

 “No, I want to see what happens, and how the little lady influences the big dog.”

The following day, the tension that had briefly dissipated returned. König, once again, was his usual stoic self, his expression impassive. Ghost, ever the keen observer, watched the dynamic between the team members.

Soap, chatted animatedly with you. The two seemed to have formed a connection, laughter was echoing through the room. Ghost watched as Soap playfully punched your shoulder, a light-hearted jab that elicited a playful retort. "You're in for a sparring session?" Soap challenged, a mischievous glint in his eye. "Be careful," Ghost interjected, his tone teasing. "Wouldn't want him to hurt your pretty face. That would be a shame."

Surprised flickered  König's eyes. It was rare to see Ghost pay such attention to a newcomer, let alone offer a compliment. The usually stoic German couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy. Why would the new team members hit on his precious little student? 

As Ace and Soap headed towards the training room, Ghost couldn't shake off the feeling that talking to you got under Königs skin and he loved every second of it.

[solarwoniii]

surprise ! sung hanbin

fem ! sub ! reader x boyfriend ! dom ! hanbin happy (extremely late) hanbin day !

synopsis ; hanbin comes home to your birthday surprise for him.

genre ; smut, fluff, . . . FILTH . . .

wc ; 2.4k

contains ; oh god ok sooooo, lingerie, thigh riding, orgasm denial, creampie, fingering, penetration, tummy bulge, pet names, heavy praise kink, degradation/slut shaming reader calls hanbin 'binnie,' dacryphilia, food play (hanbin eats cake off of reader's body), drunken sex, a tinyyy bit of hanbin manhandling reader, squirting, slight size kink, slight pain kink, lmk if i missed any !

a soft sigh pushed past hanbin's lips as he closed the front door behind him and leaned against the hardwood, staring at the ceiling in relief.

it'd been a long day, he had almost forgotten that today was in fact his birthday. he'd missed you like crazy, wanting nothing less than to come home and escape from all his problems in your warmth.

he hoped that he hadn't kept you awake too long. you'd been messaging him all night about a birthday surprise you were setting up for him. it was extremely well past midnight now and he was definitely extremely late for this.

he decided he would get you to bed for now and the two of you could spend time together in the morning. he didn't want to keep you up any longer than he already had.

hanbin slipped his jacket off, hanging it up and turning on the hallway light. he walked down the kitchen, smiling instantly when he found you, sat down, head laid on the table, eyes closed, soft snores escaping your slightly parted lips. the table had been set up with candles, cake and a bottle of champagne.

he sat himself down beside you, tucking your hair behind your ear to kiss your cheek. you quickly startled yourself back awake, sitting up straight and looking at him with wide eyes. it didn't take him long to realise you were wearing his favourite lingerie set.

"surprise!" you said quickly, "happy birthday."

he laughed, leaning over to cup the side of your face, lips meeting yours in a gentle kiss.

"thank you baby." he grinned, thumb caressing your cheek, "i'm sorry i'm so late. i tried getting home as early as i could."

"it's okay." you smiled at him, "let's have cake."

he tilted his head to the side and furrowed his eyebrows, "don't you wanna go to bed?"

"b-but i wanted to do all of this stuff with you! i even brought the stupid uno cards out."

hanbin paused as he thought for a moment before he smiled, taking your hand and kissing your fingertips.

"alright." he whispered, running his thumb over your knuckles and watching as you reached over for the lighter, clicking it open and lighting each of the candles for him.

a small chuckle escaped him as you quietly sang the 'happy birthday' song to him, clapping your hands along to the beat until it ended.

"make a wish!" you smiled with jazz hands. hanbin nods and lowers head with a grin, making his wish before blowing out all of the candles.

as the two of you ate cake together you talked about whatever came to mind, hanbin rested his head against your shoulder.

"you look so pretty tonight, baby." he smiled, pressing a gentle kiss onto your jaw. you giggle shyly, reaching over to run your fingers through his hair, pecking his temple.

he looked up at you, cupping the side of your face, bringing himself to kiss you, laughing at the way you got so easily flustered.

"i love you."

"mm, i love you too."

he drew himself close to kiss you again, confused when you pulled away halfway.

"you okay?" he asked concerningly, looking at you worriedly.

"it's your birthday," you whined, "i should do the work for once."

hanbin smiled, tilting his head to the side, "you want to fuck me?"

"yes! what's your problem?" you grumbled, "i can be dominant."

"mmm, really?" his voice low and cocky as he brought you close to him, fluttering gentle kisses down your jaw.

"m-hmm!" your voice shaky as his lips latched onto the skin of your collarbone, sucking a soft, reddening mark onto you.

"i find that a little hard to believe, baby." he whispered, looking back up to peck the tip of your nose, free hand snaking down between your thighs to get a feel of you over the fabric of your lingerie, "you're already all wet, my little baby can barely even handle a little kissing. how would you possibly dominate me?"

you bit down on your bottom lip as hanbin's middle finger circled your clothed clit. hanbin chuckled at you, kissing your forehead.

"you're so cute," he smiled, "come on, do you want a drink?"

"yes please." your eyelids heavy as you leaned into his chest, his hands finding your waist as he pulled you into his lap.

he brought the champagne bottle close, screwing the lid open, pouring a small amount into each glass to start the two of you off for the night. and with the click of your wineglasses, the two of you drank together into the late hours of the midnight.

it wasn't long before the entire bottle was almost finished, the two of you sat together drunken in lust. his eyes wandering your body biting his bottom lip as he held your waist, lifting you slightly so you were now kneeling over his lap. a small smirk came to his lips as he pressed and sucked gentle kisses and marks onto your exposed stomach and waist.

hanbin put his glass down to cup your face, kissing you tenderly. you whimpered against his lips as his fingers found your silk panties, pushing them over to the side as he guided his fingers to your clit. he rubbed the pad of his thumb over your sensitive nub, chuckling as you jolted at each of his movements.

his middle finger pushed itself into your hole, hanbin smiling as the singular digit was met with some resistance. a small whine left you as you buried your head in his shoulder, gripping onto the sleeve of his work blazer as he continued his ministration.

"does that feel good, baby?"

"m-mmhm."

hanbin smirked, looking over to the slices of cake on the table that had been left abandoned, due to the lustrous build-up between the two of you. without a word, he took his hand away from your core, making you look down in both confusion and disappointment.

"wh-what?"

"shh," he hushed you, taking his essence-covered digit to messily take some of the cake, wiping it across your exposed hip and sucking the excess off of his finger. his smirk only grew fonder as he licked and sucked the cake off of you, the taste of sweet frosting and your juices making him groan against your flesh.

his mouth latched off of your skin, watching as the mark he'd made began to pinken before his eyes. that would definitely remain there for the next few days, which you would usually complain about because of the size of it in such a big area. but it was his birthday, and he and you both knew damn well that you weren't allowed to complain today.

you shuddered as he continued to kiss his way up your sides, holding onto your breasts, thumbs running over your pebbled nipples through the silky fabric of your lingerie.

he pecked gentle kisses around your chest, hands moving to your back to loosen the ribbons which kept the top of the set intact. he untied the knot carefully, assisting you in slipping it off. he began to hickey the skin around your nipples, putting his hands on your hips and pulling you down against his thigh. you whimpered at the rough, slightly gritty feeling of his slack pants against your clit.

"come on, sweetheart." he said softly, "you said you wanted to do some work, right? i want you to ride my thigh."

"h..-hanbinnie," you choked out, moving your hips on his command, the need for him growing increasingly more and more as he now sucks on your nipples.

"that's it, good girl." he smiled at how compliant you always are, "how does that feel, hm?"

"s-so good." you said shakily, biting your bottom lip as tears begun to come to your eyes. he cooed at you, kissing your cheeks and wiping the droplets away with his thumbs.

"don't cry baby~," he smiled, "you're doing such a great job, you know that? my pretty girl always does so well for me."

"binnie, s-s' much."

"i know baby, you getting close?"

you nodded your head, gasping as he suddenly put his hands on your waist, fully putting your ministration to a stop before your climax could approach any faster. more tears danced down your cheeks at the sudden pause.

"wh-why did you . . ?" you choked. hanbin only chuckled at your helplessness, kissing your forehead in mock pity.

"i'm sorry baby. but wouldn't you rather cum on my cock?"

"but i was so close, and-and-" he was quick to hush you with gentle kisses all over your face, bringing you close as he reached his arm out to move some things out of the way to create tablespace, before carrying you and carefully laying you on the dining table, hand on the back of your head as he kissed you into another universe.

"you think you're ready for me sweetheart?" he smiled teasingly at you, as he held onto your waist, pulling your body against his bulging erection, making a whine leave you, throwing your head back with a shudder.

you eagerly nodded your head at the offer, feeling your mouth water as you watched him unbutton his slacks, pulling out his cock. you bit your bottom lip as his bulbous head circled your entrance.

"you think it'll fit, baby? should i prep you a little first?" he asked mockingly, tilting his head to the said as if he were truly serious. he held back his laugh, wanting to see how you would react as you almost immediately believed his satirical remark.

"no! p-please no, i can take it, i swear!" you said quickly.

hanbin chuckled, taking your hand and pecking your knuckles. you were just so cute and pathetic when you were needy.

"i was only messing with you, baby." he said softly, "you wanna take me like this?" he asked again, wanting to ensure that you wanted this, thumb now running over your fingers. you nodded, looking up at him with soft doe eyes. he continued to hold your hand, using his free one to rest on top of your thigh, caressing your skin as he carefully pushed his tip into you, groaning at how tight you were around him.

"fuck, baby. you're doing so well for me."

your breath got caught in your throat as you reached out your grabby hands to hold onto his blazer collar, scrunching up the fabric in your tight fist as you closed your eyes and blinked back tears of both pain and pleasure. a soft, breathy giggle escaped hanbin as he squeezed tight onto the hand of yours he was holding, bringing it the your other hand and rubbing the both of them.

"if you're having so much trouble fitting me in, you shouldn't clench so much, sweetheart."

"i c-can't help it!" you whined back, as he finally filled you to the hilt. you let out a small sigh of relief as he kissed your forehead and laughed.

"there. look so pretty all full of me." he whispered, looking down at the bulge forming in your lower stomach from the sheer size of his length, "do you need a moment to adjust?"

"mm, no. i can take it."

he smiled, "you sure? you look like you're having trouble."

"n-no..." you argue weakly back, although you knew you wouldn't have any trouble with a little pain. hanbin smirked as he quickly realised it himself.

"my baby likes it rough, hm?"

you quickly closed your eyes in embarrassment, trying to free your hands from his to cover your face from him, but to no avail, as his grip was too strong for you. a broken moan left you has he pulled and pushed himself out of you, tip slamming harshly against your hilt, in such a way that made your eyes roll back, "b-binnie . . !"

"feels good?"

you nodded, gulping and closing your eyes as he continued to fuck himself into you.

"come on baby, eyes open for me." he smiled.

"p-please, more-"

"only because you asked so nicely."

you almost screamed as he began to slam in and out of you at the pace of a ravenous beast, crying and shaking at the surge of pleasure you were feeling in the sudden symphonic pace.

"yeah, you like this?"

"y-yes! f-feels so goo-d, cock feels s-so good!" you babbled through your tears, mind racing blank as you just spoke, unknowing of the words that were leaving you. hanbin groaned at the sight of your pretty little tummy bulge, disappearing and reappearing with each unearthly thrust.

"god, fuck i'm getting close baby." he grunted, "gonna fill this pretty little pussy with all of my cum, yeah?"

the words he was saying to you only went through one ear and out the other as you began to feel the overstimulation crash over you, thighs trembling as they struggled to keep in place.

he grinned, "poor baby, all fucked out. can't take it all, can you?"

"i'm g-gonna-" your eyes flowing with tears as your sentence was cut off by your sudden orgasm, gushing around his cock as he continued his linguid thrusts.

"sh-shit baby, you squirted." he groaned, stilling himself as he released straight after you, filling you with his warm, pearlescent release, long, heavy sighs leaving both you and him as he leaned into your body, burying his head in your shoulder, kissing you wherever he could reach.

"god. you did such a good job, sweetheart."

he looked up at your tear-stained cheeks and heavy-lidded eyes, cupping your cheeks to deliver gentle kisses and pecks to your lips.

he pulled himself out carefully with a groan, watching as his cum began to almost immediately spill out of your hole.

"alright, let's get you cleaned up, yeah?" he said with smile, pecking your temple, sliding his arms beneath your body to be able to carry your upstairs and into the bathroom.

as he sat you down on the counter to get the bathtub running, your drowsy, worn out voice caught his attention.

"hanbinnie . . ?" you called his name. he smiled and looked back at you.

"yes baby?"

you reached your arms out for him, making grabbing motions with your hands with a small, sleepy pout. he let out a small laugh and came closer to you, putting his arms around you in a warm hug.

"i love you. happy birthday."

"you're so cute, baby." he giggled, "i love you too. thank you for doing this for me, i appreciate you so much."

a/n ; WROTE THAT LAST BIT AT 2 AM PLS EXCUSE HOW RUSHED IT IS . . . ALSO THIS IS NOT PRROFREAD I AM SORRY FOR REPEATING THE SAME WORDS LIKE 1000 TIMES IM SO TIRED IM SORRY HOPE U ENJOYED READING !!

my perm taglist ; @hunbun07 @metalchick529 @chewryy

[godisshook]

Office Hours

My anthropology class was set to be the most boring of the semester. I was taking some advanced 3000 level course that my advisor roped me into. The required reading made me dread things even more; with pages full of museums and old works of art.

With the dreaded first day of class beginning, I walked to my anthropology class, preparing myself to meet the most drab, uninteresting professor, and whatever unlucky TA that was forced to accompany him. Luckily for me, I was only half-right.

As we settle into our seats, with my shabbily-dressed professor fiddling through papers as he mumbles to himself, a sharply dressed young man runs into the room. "Sorry I'm late Dr. G," the mystery man says, panting. My professor addresses the room, saying in a near whisper into his mic, "This is your TA, Joseph, if you need any assistance, he can provide it." As he waves to the students, I finally catch a good look at Joseph.

He was in a button-down with a very revealing amount of buttons unfastened, and a huge coat that draped over his whole body. As his gaze met mine, I couldn't help but continue to stare, to which he smirked, and continued scanning the room. Heat flushed my cheeks as I nearly fainted in class, taking every possible moment to steal a glance at this smokeshow of a TA.

The class couldn't go by quicker, and as it finally drew to a close, I was immediately drawn to Joseph. While other students walked up to the professor, I beelined to Joseph, and could only get out a simple, "Hi, Mr. Joseph," sounding immensely nervous. He replied, "Oh hi! And Joey is just fine." My face reddened as he patted my back with his big hand, sending a shockwave of desire through me.

"I noticed you were super focused during class," he said, breaking me from my trance. "Yea, I just find anthropology so interesting."The dissonance between my thoughts and speech was at an all-time high, and I cringed at the thought of actually enjoying this course. However, my lie caused Joey to perk up, as he said, "Well if you do enjoy this class so much, I might have a way you can help out." On the verge of blacking out from regret, I replied, "I would love to!" Even as I said it, my brain was scrambling to find a way to flake on it as soon as possible. "I need some help filing some things for Professor G., would you mind helping me tonight?"

With his request brewing in my mind, a devilish thought came over me. While the thought of filing papers was the last thing I would think of doing willingly; some alone time with Joey would be perfect.

I walked over to the address he texted me, not worried about the length of the walk as I intended to enjoy the sun. In the middle of my peaceful walk, the sky began to darken, and soon, it was pouring. My walk became a run as I used my hoodie as a makeshift umbrella, finally arriving at the address drenched. I quickly knocked on the door, He peered around me for any indication that I came in a car, and then looked back at me. "You walked down here? It's at least a 20-minute walk from campus," Joey said incredulously. I nodded, head down in shame, and Joey ushered me in, covering me in towels laid near the door. He rushed over to a nearby closet and picked out a top and bottom. Handing both to me he said, "There's a bathroom you can change in upstairs."

I walked back down in a horrendously oversized sweater and a pair of sweatpants. "Looking great," he said with a laugh, and he began directing me to a pile of books to sort out. I couldn't help but notice how dressed up Joey was, hair slicked back, in an all-black tux. Getting closer, I caught a whiff of his cologne, with a scent that reminded me of a verdant forest. Constantly distracted by him, I did my best to close the distance, moving myself and my papers closer and closer to him.

Hours passed with small talk and chuckles being shared between us, and many glances stolen. With the sun now firmly set, and the rain showing no signs of stopping, Joey began wrapping up, and said, "Let me drive you back."

Noticing the rain continuing to pour down, I mimed thinking about it, to which he laughed again, and I replied, "Of course I want you to drive me back!" As I got in his car, I could only wonder where he got the money for something like it on a TA's salary but didn't give it a second thought.

While I thought we would be able to get some chit-chat in, Joey was immediately inundated with phone calls, and I silently listened to his slew of conversations.

With the gauntlet of calls finally done, Joey focused back on me. He laid a hand on my thigh, causing me to heat up as I looked over at him. "Come to my place," he said. My eyes went down to his dick, now bulging in his tight pants. Catching the hint, I replied, "It's quite late, but I do need the extra study hours." Joey laughed at my response and put in a whole new set of directions.

As we both got out of the car, I noticed Joey taking off his coat. "I saw you eyeing me in class all morning, and especially at the Professors' place, so I only assumed this is what you wanted," Joey said. Walking to his side, I now saw him fully; holding his top in his hands. With his muscular chest revealed, I couldn't hide my lust anymore. Even as my face reddened, I tried to keep my cool, replying, "What would Professor G. think about his TA getting with a student?" He closed the distance between our lips, and said, "He wouldn't need to know a thing, right?" His thumb grazed my lip as he hovered closer and closer to me, the smell of his cologne overpowering my nostrils.

I was completely entranced by Joey, and I could now simply reply, "Yes." He pulled me into a deep kiss, sucking the breath out of me as he pressed his lips into mine. In between bouts of kisses, we progressed from room to room in his house, with layers being removed and strewn about.

Soon, we were in his room; his lips only leaving mine to let us take a breath. Feeling his cock press against me, I grew ever more impatient to feel him. I laid Joey on the bed, as his eyes met mine and sent me into a spiral of pleasure. As I begin straddling him, he let out a tortured groan, his hard cock pressing against his boxers. "You are truly a sight to behold," he said as he felt up me. I chuckled and said, "My God you're an absolute nerd!"

My eyes scanned over his body, a fire lighting up in it as he playfully tensed his chest.

"I like this angle," I said, tracing a finger down his chest to his boxers. With a flourish, I slid off his boxers, revealing his massive cock. Suddenly, Joey would take me by the waist, and put me straight on his cock, sending a wave of pleasure through me in an instant. His muscular arms laid me on my back, as my legs were raised and I soon felt him rock throughout my body. Joey's rhythmic thrusts sent me to my limit, as sweat caused his once-slicked hair to become messy and ruffled. Our eyes met as we both came, with waves of pleasure washing over me as his body rested on top of mine.

After that night, I looked at the class in a new light. Soon, I was registering for every office hour session I could, and would always make sure to request the latest time possible. I loved my "tutoring" sessions with Joey; even though I didn't learn a thing in any of them. And as the cherry on top, my professor never caught on as to why I was always going to office hours; he must've thought his class actually interested me.

[rafedaddy01]

Coconuts

Series Masterlist

She smelled like coconuts, thanks to her signature shampoo, but that’s not what drew Rafe in..

She was seated at the country club bar, sipping on a pina colada. Rafe sat in the booth a few feet back with topper and kelce. “So you coming tonight Rafe?” Topper asked his friend. “What?” Rafe was clearly distracted, the root of his distraction? Her. He didn’t know her name or who she was, but he wanted too. “The party man, are you coming?” Kelce asked giving topper a look. “Oh yeah, whatever bro” Rafe scoffed.

He never enjoyed the parties, it was always an excuse to escape reality, do drugs, and hook up with random girls. But tonight might be different, she might be there.

“Yo top, whose that chick over there” Rafe nodded his head in her direction. “Oh that’s y/n. She’s fairly new here. Friends with Sarah or something” Rafes heart nearly leaped out of his chest. She knew his sister?

“Is the kook king whipped?” Kelce teased his friend. Rafe gave him a look that quickly shut him up.

“She coming tonight?” Rafe continued his interrogation. “I mean if you really want her there I guess I can ask Sarah to invite her” topper said. “No! That’s okay. I don’t need my bitch ass sister up in my business” Rafe knew that Sarah would not approve of him trying to hook up with one of her friends, she would claim that he would just corrupt her. But would it be a shame if he did? Maybe he didn’t want to just corrupt her, there was something about her. Something Rafe was drawn too.

Time jump to the party

Rafe sat on the couch, another bimbo in his lap. His hand on her waist as the group around him snorted coke, drank their beers and engaged in convo. Through the crowd he spotted her, he almost jumped out of his seat. He couldn’t believe she was actually here. Sure he had some hope she’d show up but it was small. “Guys let’s play a game!” The annoying girl on Rafes lap squeaked out. A small group gathered in the living room and people took seats and to Rafes surprise she was one of those people. She took a seat right across from him. He couldn’t help staring at her, the curves of her body, the soft features on her face, the innocent gleam in her eyes, oh how badly he wanted to strip her of that. Her eyes met his for a second and he quickly looked away, changing his demeanor to seem more relaxed and nonchalant.

“How about never have I ever?” A girl from the crowd suggested. Everybody agreed and the game begun, every so often Rafes eyes falling to her, the tight skirt she wore rising up every time she moved. Just barely exposing her pink panties, god this was painfully hard for him.

“Never have I ever been walked in on during sex”

A few people drank, implying that they have done it. Rafe watched as she took a sip of her drink, his eyebrow shooting up in surprise. She seemed so innocent.

“Never have I ever been arrested”

She took another sip, Rafes eyes still on her..

“Never have I ever been nude in public”

Another sip. Who was this girl? She seemed so innocent and yet this game is opening a new side of her. Maybe she wasn’t as innocent as Rafe had judged her to be.

The game went on for a few more rounds, once it finished she got up and headed to the kitchen to fix herself another drink. Rafe watched her moves intently, deciding that this was his chance. He pushed the girl off his lap and followed in her footsteps.

“Your new here” she jumped a bit at his voice. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare ya. Just saw you standing here alone. Thought I’d introduce myself, Rafe” he outstretched his hand. She took it happily and smiled up at him. “Y/n” her voice was soft and kind, not like the girls here who were always so high pitched and squeaky, laced with bitchiness. “Pretty name for a pretty girl” he winked as her face flushed red, clearly not used to being complemented. “Thank you” she brought the red solo cup up to her plump rosey lips and took a sip of her drink.

Rafe was so nervous, he normally wasn’t like this when it came to girls, what was she doing to him?

“So..” he clicked his tongue “are you? New here?” He couldn’t think of anything else to say, his mind going blank as her eyes looked into his, turning his brain to mush. “Yeah. I just moved here. Have made like one friend and she invited me out tonight. However, she ditched me as soon as she found her boyfriend” she laughed to herself. “Yeah Sarah can be a slut like that” Rafe rolled his eyes not realizing what he just said.

“Hey howd you know her name?” She gave him a confused look as she waited for a response. “Oh-uh-I- Sarah’s my sister” he babbled. “Hmm, still doesn’t explain how you knew she was my only friend” still giving him a confused look and awaiting a response. “Fine” he sighed “I’ve been asking around about you” he admitted. “Oh really?” She giggled.

What Rafe didn’t know was that she knew exactly who he was. She was warned about him, specifically by Sarah.

The two looked up at each other. A moment of awkward silence shared between them before they both tried speaking up “so-“ “I-“ both of them laughing at the situation.

“What made you ask around about me?” She asked. “You caught my eye” he came in closer, resting his hand on the counter behind her. Trapping her between him. She looked down, smiling. “Hey don’t hide that pretty smile from me, I’ve been wanting to see it up close all night” he lifted her face up by placing a finger under her chin. Her big eyes staring into his. His eyes darted between hers and her lips.

He leaned in, lips centimeters apart, “Rafe! Where did you go?” An annoying voice coming from the living room. Rafe rolled his eyes as the girl who was previously in his lap walked into the kitchen. He turned around to tell her to fuck off, but when he turned back around to continue with his girl she was gone..

Part 2

[torukmaktoskxawng]

tsamsiyu ta’em - a new leaf part two

Masterlist - part five

Summary: Desertion must run in the family.

Pairing: Ronal/Tonowari/Original Female Character

Tag: #tsamsiyu ta'em fic

posted on ao3

Word Count: 9k+

Taglist (bold indicates “could not tag”): @mooniequeen @shit-i-say-shit-i-think @heart-an0n @amiets2 @slutforsmut4ever @yeosxxx​ @im-in-a-pansexual-panik

Warnings: canon-compliant, canon-typical violence, mature language, adult content, slow burn, polyamory, found family, cool aunt agenda, alien/human (technically avatar), jake sully sister agenda, time skips, I'm trying to hurry up and get to the good parts so bear with me, fluff, angst, adopted spider, tags to be added

A/N: Thank you so much for 300 followers! 🎉

Right from the start of the day, Jake knew something or someone was bothering his sister. She was quiet, she kept to herself, and she went stiff when anyone came near her. It was as though they were right back at the start when he first brought Kayla to High Camp. What was worse is that the kids had noticed and asked their father what was wrong with Auntie, and Jake couldn't afford to tell them that he didn't have all the answers and he had been wondering the same thing. A small part of him was scared that something had happened to her back at Bridgehead or maybe she was changing her mind about staying. Whatever was wrong, Toruk Makto needed to fix it, one way or another.

She had been particularly moody to him all day, but unfortunately, she had to be in close proximity to her brother when they were both given the task of tending to the ikran and their harnesses.  She decided to be silent, cold, and distant as they worked. Jake decided not to push his luck and worked in silence alongside her, just trying to be a comforting presence despite not knowing what was wrong. He did, however, notice other presences around them, and they were paying particularly close attention to his sister.

It was a small group of young Na'vi warriors, likely around Kayla's age if not a little younger. They stood off to the side, openly staring at Kayla and whispering to each other. Jake couldn't tell if they were curious or making fools of themselves by mocking her, but Kayla didn't appear to even notice them at first. Then, some avatar scientists joined the group, also publicly gawking at Kayla when their fellow Na'vi friends whispered to them, too. They laughed quietly among themselves and one unfortunate bastard was cursed with a snorty laugh that drew Kayla's attention to the group, sharp eyes locking onto them before she could even blink. The whole group quickly turned away, all either embarrassed or ashamed.

Jake took this opportunity to laugh and lighten the mood, "You've got a growing group of admirers, it would seem."

Kayla paused, still watching the group of men and women now clearly avoiding her gaze before actively ignoring them, bringing her eyes back down to her hands as she worked on weaving together a spare banshee harness. Jake huffed with amusement, "What? Not your type?"

"Not my priority," she muttered, "Besides, I'm pretty sure they're not staring at me because they wanna get some."

"Does that mean you have someone?"

Her eyes shoot up to him like a bullet, narrowed and glaring into his soul as she spits out, "Would I have come to Pandora alone if I did? I'm not the one who abandons people when they need me."

The silence is thick and palpable, able to cut through with a knife. Both Sullys stare at one another, unblinking. One stared in shock while the other glared in rage, but it's not hard to tell which is which.

Jake swallowed back the emotions when his throat suddenly dried, ears lowering in shame, "I'm sorry."

"After all, 'Sullys stick together', right?" She mocked, and one look at her and Jake could tell why she was suddenly pissed off at him. The shame quickly eats him up and threatens to spit him out as her voice wavered, "Usually, I'd find it sweet that you taught your kids some of our family's old traditions... but when that tradition ended up becoming a lie--"

"I was going through it," he tried making up excuses as a desperate attempt of calming her, "I wasn't thinking."

"You were going through it?" She huffs out a laugh of disbelief, the smile that briefly graced her lips was vile and hysterical, "I get that you were twins, Jake. But Tom was my brother, too."

Jake lowered his eyes, unable to look at her any longer. It seems as though Kayla can't just settle on one emotion, all her thoughts that have been stewing for some time beginning to boil over like a volcano. Her voice shook, either in rage or distress, Jake didn't want to look up and find out. "And for a while there, I thought I lost both of you."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm sure you are. Doesn't excuse the fact that you left me all alone, found yourself a wife, and had a few kids all the while letting your sister believe you were dead!" She snapped, growing angrier by the minute when tears started to brew in her eyes. She didn't want to cry. She wanted to be angry. She wanted to punch him and scream but she was frustrated because she had clearly missed that opportunity when they first reunited, "I missed out on so much of your life, Jake. I missed out on their lives, and you didn't care."

"I did care. I still care--"

"You didn't. If I recall, the last thing you ever said to me was 'have a good life, kid' in that passive-aggressive tone of yours."

His eyes flick up to hers, "And your last words to me were even less than friendly."

"Sue me." Kayla snarled back, quick as lightning, "My brother abandoned me on a dying planet, all alone, and didn't bother to make sure I was taken care of."

The wording felt like heavy lead beginning to build in Jake's gut, tilting his head curiously at her, "What do you mean? What happened?"

"Nothing happened. I just did exactly what you told me to do. I grew up." His ears pin to his skull as his mind prompted him to a distant memory of the last time he ever spoke to Kayla. The shame and humiliation were evident in his eyes when she glared back, "To make ends meet I became a marine. You didn't give me much of a choice."

His hand reaches out before his brain could order it to do so, "Kayla--"

She hissed ferociously for her first attempt, the sound coming low from her chest and throat, baring her sharps fangs at her brother, "Don't fucking touch me."

Jake pulls his arms back, afraid she'd bite, and raised them in surrender so she had a clear view of both of them. Defeated, Jake keeps himself back and willingly exposes himself to her verbal lashings, "Alright, let's hear it. I wasn't sure how long it would take us to talk about it. But there's no easy way around it. So come on. Let's talk."

Her eyes were still pooling, threatening to spill, as she shook her head when words failed, "Maybe we shouldn't."

"No, we should. I knew this was coming. Go ahead."

She took a moment to try and find the right words, but there weren't any that she hadn't already said. Instead, Kayla confessed what she had been feeling all this time after having bottled it up for so long, "Initially I was glad that you're still alive. Now that the initial shock and relief have worn off-- fuck you, Jake."

She picked up her work and turned a full one-eighty, walking away and keeping her head low so no one would think she was making a scene. She wasn't able to get far before Jake comes after her, being sure not to touch her, and instead making her stop in her tracks when he rushed around to cut off her escape, "Look, Kayla, wait-- hate me all you want. I know I deserve it. But don't take it out on anyone else but me."

The words were enough to confuse Kayla as her rushing thoughts pause, peering up at Jake in puzzlement, "What makes you think I would do that?"

"I can't afford not to," his whole posture displayed the stern form of an olo'eyktan, shoulders stiff with the weight of hundreds of lives relying on him, "Kayla, you and I, right now, are on opposite sides of a war. Alright?"

The firm reminder breaks the spell and Kayla quickly looks away, deciding to focus on a Na'vi child in the distance, running away from their mother as they laughed instead. Jake sidesteps until he's in her field of view again and she is forced to make eye contact. His expression stays serious, like a father talking down to their child, "Whatever punishment you think I deserve for what I did, I'll take it gladly. But don't do anything to punish anyone else, like telling Ardmore where we are. Don't feed my family to the wolves for my mistakes."

It hurt to think that after everything Kayla has seen in these last few months, Jake would believe she could possibly do something so monstrous. Her eyes widen at him, shattered as she voiced this in such a soft tone, "Do you honestly think I could do something like that?"

He doesn't relent even though he wants to. He wants to believe his sister loved his kids and would never throw them under the bus for crimes he committed, but he's seen too much. He knows what people like Ardmore are capable of, and has seen firsthand what they can do to get what they want. "It's like you said. Twenty years is a long time but it's enough for someone to change. And the side that you're fighting for, the Sky People... They have done nothing but hurt the Na'vi. They've killed animals, entire ecosystems, and even the People themselves. I watched them destroy Neytiri's home and there were many casualties. Men, women, and children. All for what? For the ore that lay underneath. I thought we had driven them away but now they're back, and they're more ruthless than before. That field outside Bridgehead. The Kill Zone? That used to be a forest. A beautiful, powerful, living forest. And now it's gone. Burnt down to the dry desert it now is."

Kayla's eyes dart away, her expression crumbling into a whole range of emotions that she tried to contain, conflict and sadness being only a couple of them. Jake doesn't relent, "Come on, Kayla, you know I'm right. You know what the Sky People are doing is wrong."

It was a weak attempt at defending herself and her species, but Kayla's sisterly instinct to argue with her brother was a lot stronger than common sense, "... They're my people. They're your people."

"No." He shut her down firmly, harshly, "I chose my people. I chose people who love life. 'People who love the ground they walk on and respect the animals they hunt. They believe that everything must return to the dirt so life can start all over again. When have you ever seen a human give back?" When he's met with silence, he takes a different approach, "You're a soldier, Kayla. Soldiers don't have the freedom to make their own choices. They're not allowed to feel or have their own opinions. I would know because I was a soldier, too. I was just like you. But now I'm a warrior."

She frowns, staring up through her eyebrows with doubt evident through her yellow orbs, "There's a difference?"

"Yes. Warriors are loyal and brave. They have honor. They're not mindless animals who only do what they're told regardless of whether or not what they're doing is wrong. Only a soldier does that. I refuse to be a soldier ever again."

The arguing side of her finally gives in, exhausted from spewing all her emotions out all at once in the heat of the moment. She just wants to sleep now, and at this point, she'll do whatever it takes to get back to her nivi, "What do you want from me?"

The opportunity presents itself and Jake finally admits the motivation behind bringing her here in the first place, "I'm asking you to stop being a soldier and start being a warrior. Join us. Join us and learn to love life again as you did before. Stay here. Be a part of our family. Fight for the survival of our family." Kayla looked as though she had expected him to say this, but still appeared unsure, scared of the danger of staying. Jake took a brave step forward and gently placed his hands on either of her shoulders, "My kids love you and they need you. Do you love them?"

She thought of Neteyam, so kind and brave and nurturing. Kiri, so full of hope and life and is just trying to know herself. Lo'ak, desperate for approval and to make himself seen, yet so reckless and funny. Sweet Little Tuk, so full of love for everyone around her and all-inclusive when showing her creativity and happiness. Kayla even thought about Spider, who smiles and laughs with her and tries to make her feel welcome, despite being an odd teenager who has yet to figure out how adult life works. Going beyond the kids, Kayla thought about Neytiri and Norm, people who have included her in everything and accepted her despite their differences, and who have grown to be her friends and family. Kayla's eyes briefly flick back to Jake and nodded, "Yes."

He smiled, "And the forest? The colors? The people?"

"Yes."

"All of that will go away if the Sky People continue to stay here. They'll dig up and burn every tree all the way down to the roots. They'll be an infestation to this world that you've grown to love. Please, Kayla. Stay here."

Determination and desperation intertwine on his face, and Kayla hated how she had to be the one to break such confidence in him. She partially wondered when did their roles reverse, where she had given up but he had hope. Maybe it had been when he first came to Pandora and saw his life through other people's eyes did he decide to change, and even though Kayla was proud of her brother for becoming a better man, she still felt the hurt of abandonment. Despite wishing she could hurt him as he hurt her, she didn't want it to be like this, "I can't, Jake."

His face had started to fall before she could quickly add, "Not when my real consciousness is in Bridgehead. As long as my body's there, I'll always have to go back."

He breathed a small sigh of relief through his nose, calm now that he knew she wanted to stay but just couldn't find the courage to do so, "Then wake up and run away."

"... How?"

"I have a plan."

~~~~~~~~~

The nights were a little cold high up in the cave systems of the floating mountains, but Kayla was ignoring the cold in exchange for looking into a cracked mirror hung up off to the side of the Longhouse, meant to be used for when the avatars needed to do their nightly routines. Kayla purposely waited until she was the last one to use the mirror for the night, the other avatars already lying in their hammocks, waiting for lights out to be called.

Her reflection was something she had only just begun to get used to. Big, yellow eyes, and cerulean skin with natural, flowing blue stripes perfectly shaping the angles of her face. Kayla pressed a finger to one of the many star-glittered freckles on her cheek that she had recently learned the Na'vi call tanhì. She followed the design for a while, losing count after twenty and then meeting her cat-like eyes in her reflection.

It was a face she was going to have to get used to if she was really going to go through with this. She once saw the avatar as a separate person entirely, but now she understood that they are one in the same both mind and soul. No matter what form she took, either blue or peach, she was still Kayla, and she had to remind herself of that every day in the mirror, no matter what reflection was looking at her. Although she was beginning to wonder just how much time she’ll be spending in her human body after tonight.

A plan had been set and now all she had to do was go to sleep and wake up in Bridgehead. Easier said than done, her nerves acting as a stimulant to keep her awake. Already, she was hearing snores coming from the biolab trailer. She heard quiet chatter in the distance, but other than that, the whole camp was asleep, marking just how late her rushing thoughts kept her up. Taking one last look at her avatar, she finally pulls away from the mirror and gets comfortable in her hammock, internally asking Eywa to wish her luck before closing her eyes.

She's awoken by the same blinding white lights and lab coats, asking a hundred questions a minute while routinely going through the motions of giving her nutrition and simultaneously taking blood samples through various needles and tubes in the crooks of her arms. Kayla blankly stared at her pale arms, a little thinner than normal. She hadn't had time to take care of her body in between links and decided that this should be one of the many reasons she needs to leave. Her stomach growled at the idea of freshly cooked teylu waiting for her back at High Camp and was extremely disappointed when a scientist handed her a granola bar instead. Finally, after they had bandaged her fresh wounds and were satisfied with her answers, Kayla stood from the ledge of the link bay and steadied herself,

"I need to talk to General Ardmore."

The general was summoned and brought to the biolab by the time Kayla was offered water and a full meal. The corporal even had time to pull her hair up into a more respectable bun before she would stand in attention for the general. Frances Ardmore walked in and Kayla salutes stiffly, keeping her eyes lowered until she had been given permission to speak.

"Report."

Kayla looked up with a stern look in her eye and a monotone voice, lying through her teeth gracefully, "There's a crash site near the location of what used to be the Na'vi's Hometree. A gunship with some bodies inside. It's not my brother, I know, but with your permission, General, I'd like to go out there and extract them."

"With your avatar?"

"Just myself, ma'am. I had to leave my avatar behind at the crash site." The general's eyes narrow and so Kayla quickly adds before she could be interrupted, "She's safely hidden, I assure you, but I left a tracker on her so I can find my way back. With your permission, I'd like to take a gunship out there and I'll retrieve the remains myself and bring them back so they can be properly identified and sent home to their families. There won't be any need for extra manpower or wasted supplies."

Ardmore didn't speak for a while, and Kayla had to use every muscle in her face to keep herself from smiling at the idea of Ardmore trying to remind herself that she needs to act sympathetic to the families of possibly deceased soldiers. Kayla was sure that Ardmore could care less about some bodies that were over a decade old, but courtesy forces her to be civil as she curtly nods to Kayla, "Permission granted. You get there, you extract the remains and come right back. That's it."

"Yes, ma'am."

The next morning, with a large satchel of "rations" at her hip, a mask over her face, and an AR rifle strapped to her back, Kayla is led to a gunship and then left alone. Remembering her previous training, Kayla strapped herself in and begin the process of starting up the engines while waiting for Control to clear her for take-off. Finally, she gets her orders and she barely contains her eagerness when responding cordially and taking off, floating up into the air before flying away. Silently repeating the rendevous coordinates Jake had provided her the day before, Kayla beelined in the direction of what used to be the Omatikaya's home.

In Sector Twelve, about ninety-three kilometers from the abandoned Hell's Gate facility, now sat a slowly healing memorial site of Hometree. Kayla had heard stories about this place, mostly from Mo'at, Neytiri, and even Neteyam, despite the fact the young Na'vi boy had never seen its former beauty before the RDA had decimated it. Despite never seeing it stand tall and mighty, Neteyam told stories that he had heard from the Na'vi around him who had seen it. He even proudly stated how his own bow, much like his mother's and maternal grandfather's, was made from the wood of Hometree. It is from Neteyam's stories that now let Kayla's imagination run wild as her gunship slowly circles around the site of the former home of the Omatikaya.

Most of it was still barren, Eywa's hold not yet fully restored over this land. Plants and signs of life were visibly, but not yet solidified. The great corpse of such a large, magnificent tree was still visibly, lying across the landscape like a fallen giant. Vegetation was growing all around its trunk, uproots, and branches, cementing it to the forest floor where it will one day fully return to the dirt to give back what it had taken from the Great Mother. Neytiri once told Kayla that the tree will likely not fully decay under her children's grandchildren are born, but by then, she hopes that more songs will be sung for them to remember it by.

Reaching her destination, Kayla slowly lowers her gunship to the forest floor but wisely chooses to stay inside the vessel, knowing that the world's immune system will not take her presence lightly-- not in this mundane form. She anxiously waits, breath somewhat shaking when she exhales, and purposely cuts the engine. She won't be needing to bring this gunship home, after all.

She's thankful that she doesn't have to wait for very long, hearing the familiar, echoing call of an ikran approaching. Sighting familiar blue and purple wings, Kayla grabs her things and climbs out of the gunship, double-checking that her mask was tightly secured before stepping out into Pandoran air. Tightly holding the strap of her bag, she makes the trek over to the ikran and its rider, who has landed a bit of distance away from the gunship out of paranoia.

Jake sucked in a sharp breath of air, his expression solemn and grave as he took in the human form of his sister, in the flesh, for the first time in over two decades. She was shorter than he remembered, with her dirty-colored hair cut to her shoulders and those familiar, Sully blue eyes staring back up at him through her mask. It was like staring at a ghost, haunted by several memories and none of which Jake was entirely proud of, given the latest argument with his sister. Kayla stared back at him with an all-knowing gaze, equally somber and grim as she stood off to the side of his ikran, patiently waiting. Bob had bristled underneath his rider, clearly uneasy about the human beside him, but through the bond, the banshee kept mostly to himself, aware that he was not allowed to eat this human. Jake broke off tsaheylu and dismounted, trudging over to Kayla and motioning her to lift her arms.

"You're a lot smaller than I remember." He stated slyly while inspecting her person for any trackers or listening devices, gently taking the bag from her shoulder and flipping it open.

"Last I checked, I was taller than you in your wheelchair, so watch yourself."

He glanced up from the bag and hissed playfully at her, causing a small smirk to form behind the glass of her mask. Jake hands her back her belongings and then rejoined his ikran, taking a few sticks of dynamite and a detonator out from the pockets of his saddle.

Kayla frowned at the sight of the explosives, glancing between them and the gunship, "Are you sure you don't want another gunship on your side? Two is better than one."

The Na'vi shook his head, "We can't risk it. For all we know, the RDA is tracking all their gear now."

Sighing in defeat, Kayla nods and stands off to the side while Jake rigs the gunship with explosives and calibrates the blasting cap with a timer. He walks back to his ikran, forming tsaheylu before hopping on and reaching down to Kayla with an offered hand. She takes it willingly and allows him to lift her up on the banshee while Bob grunts disapprovingly at the added weight. Jake places Kayla in front of him on the saddle and they take to the sky, high enough to be out of range when Jake finally hits the button setting off the detonator.

The gunship explodes in a blooming flower of fire and debris, the smoke rising into the air in the form of a small mushroom cloud. The loud noise disturbs the wildlife momentarily, with small forest ikran and stingbats taking to the sky. Jake doesn't give the explosion much thought as he grabs a tighter hold on Eywa te' Bob tan'sey mak'ta with one hand, but squeezes Kayla's shoulder with the other, "Now with any luck, they'll label you killed in action."

"Or missing." She muttered.

"Ardmore isn't gonna want that kind of paperwork. She would much rather label you as a traitor than start a manhunt looking for you lost in the woods. You said it yourself, she doesn't like wasting resources on just one individual."

"... So that's it? Just like that, we disappear?"

"Not what you were hoping for?" He peered down at her briefly before looking ahead, continuing to fly.

Kayla hesitates, glaring ahead at the skies while internally fighting with herself before finally confessing her inner thoughts, "A part of me thought it would've been easier for the both of us if I never found out you were still alive. We could've just-- lived out the rest of our lives living in our respective worlds."

Jake allows the wind to fill in the silence, noting how defeated she sounded even with her back to him and the air whipping past them, obscuring her voice. He shakes his head despite the fact she couldn't see him, "The 'what if' scenarios aren't a thing around here. We don't believe in that kind of thing. Everything happens for a reason, and everything happens because it is the will of Eywa. I hope, in time, you'll learn to call this world your own as I did, kiddo."

She drops the debate, for the moment, and scoffs distastefully, "Okay, new rule. No more 'kiddo' talk. I'm not a child."

He smirks, "No? Then why are you small like one?"

He earns himself a sharp, small elbow in his ribcage when she reached back at him and a threatening promise, "Just wait, Sully. Soon I'll have your kids pinned against ya with all the stories I have of you up my sleeve. You'll regret the day you decided to pull me into this world."

~~~~~~~~~

Her nerves returned when they flew back to High Camp and a horn was blown to announce their arrival. Bob lands and Jake helps Kayla down before letting the ikran fly away. Na'vi were beginning to gather, and Kayla, yet again, felt more exposed than usual, even more so now as she was given some obvious glares regarding her obvious sky demon body and military clothes. Jake places a hand on the back of her neck, yet again, and led her away, immediately finding his family huddled together in the back of the crowd, waiting for him. He and Kayla part through the Omatikaya that have gathered and now stood in front of the Sullys.

Kayla wasn't surprised to see them all slightly hesitant by her human presence, and even though she couldn't blame them, it still made her stomach clench uncomfortably. She couldn't meet any of their eyes due to the height difference, and to her horror, even Tuk was taller than her in this form. When Kayla's eyes met the youngest Sully child's, Tuk shied away behind her mother's leg, clearly curious but unsure of getting closer. Off to the side, Kayla noticed that Norm, Max, and Spider were also there to greet her, and, much to her disappointment, even they stood taller than her as her fellow humans. The traitors. Kayla has never felt so small in her whole life.

Jake pats Kayla's back in sympathy while addressing the family, "Alright, Sullys. Your Aunt Kayla is going to be a more permanent presence in our lives now, and she's going to need help to feel welcomed as both a human and a Na'vi. I'm counting on you to have her back, okay?"

And of course, Neteyam is dutifully the first to step up, offering his hand out to Kayla with a gentle smile, "It's wonderful to meet you, Auntie-- again."

She sees a small hint of humor behind his eyes and relaxes, taking his hand in both of hers and smiling up at her oldest nephew, "You, too, 'Teyam."

He steps aside when he felt the shadow of his little brother behind him. The ice is broken and Lo'ak is milking the height difference with good-natured laughs and Spider was egging him on, glad that he was no longer the shortest out of the group. Kayla felt a grin twitch on her lips without her consent and pinches Lo'ak's side to make up for it, laughing when he yelped in surprise. Kiri had walked up, holding Tuk's hand so she didn't feel alone and the sight of the girls reminds Kayla that she had come bearing gifts to try to ease the kids back into accepting her.

"Kiri--" she calls out while frantically fishing around in the bag she kept strapped at her hip. Pushing aside a few necessities she had taken with her, she pulled out a book and sighed in relief, smiling up at the girl while holding the gift out to her, "As promised."

Kiri's eyes widen and reached out, gingerly taking the gift as if it was something precious. She read the title and then the author's name before glancing back down to Kayla, eyes and smile warm, "Thank you, Auntie."

Finally, Tuk's shell cracks and she begins by poking and prodding at the human woman that now stood shorter than her, lifting Kayla's arms and inspecting her form in awe before her fingers find her aunt's hair and instantly start playing with it. The girl giggles while stating, "It's so soft! We gotta braid all this, Kiri."

"Tomorrow, sweetheart, okay?" Kayla shines a smile at her youngest niece, who nods eagerly and puts her whole weight into hugging her aunt, who is barely able to catch her before they could fall.

Jake smiles while watching the heartwarming interactions before tapping Human Norm on the shoulder, "You got a space for her, right?"

"Absolutely. The second half of the old shack is still functional and is currently being used as storage. She can have my old bunk if she wants."

Jake's nose scrunched up, a little put off by the suggestion, "I doubt she'd want it if I told her all the things you and Trudy got up to in that bunk. She can have Grace's old space."

Norm snorts while shamefully scratching the back of his head, "Sure thing. Probably a better idea." He breaks away to greet Kayla himself, putting on the widest grin as he stands next to her, comparing their height difference with his hand much like before, "It's nice to see that this transfers, no matter what form you take."

Kayla rolls her eyes and shoves him in the chest, causing Norm to bark out a surprised laugh. Through reacquaintance with her family and friends, Kayla had noticed Neytiri standing off to the side in her peripheral. The human woman took a moment to pointedly stare at the Na'vi woman, their eyes meeting and forming a standstill. Neytiri was stiff, both in posture and expression, a statue that didn't waver against Kayla's gaze. It unsettled the Sully woman but she tried not to show that in her eyes, instead she brought her fingers to her forehead, and lowered them in Neytiri's direction. The Na'vi woman blinked, and with the gesture, her posture began to relax. Neytiri smiled. It wasn't big or emotional, but it was small and sincere. She nodded back in response.

After dinner, Norm brought Human Kayla to her new room she would be sleeping in when out of her avatar body. It was a separate trailer from the biolab, standing on its own and older than some of the buildings the humans have taken from Hell's Gate. Norm explains that the trailer was a part of Site 26, a small mobile link meant for avatar scientists who went off-grid for research in the mountains. He tells the story of how he was part of a small science group who retreated there to work so people like Parker Selfridge and Colonel Miles Quaritch wouldn't be breathing down their necks back in the day. After he and Kayla go through the airlock pressure doors and step inside, Kayla takes off her mask and looks around, immediately noticing a few familiar sights.

The first was a wheelchair, abandoned, covered in dust, tossed off to the side. Clearly, the place needed some cleaning, but Kayla wasn't worried about the dust at the moment. She beelined for the wheelchair, bending down and helping it stand back up on its wheels. Norm stands in the doorway and watches the scene in front of him with a solemn reaction, explaining as she continued to look around, "This is it. This is where Jake and I made our last stand as avatars before the fight. The other half of this shack is where the link bays were, but the trailer was completely demolished back in the war and so we left it abandoned out in the woods."

She moved over to the desk and lifted a picture from its home there, blowing away the layer of dust and revealing the contents of the picture. It was clearly Jake at the front of the group photo, human, sitting in that very same wheelchair, smiling at the camera lens. Kayla's finger briefly traces her brother's old face, willing her mind to remember it after staring at his avatar form for so long. Standing on either side of him was Norm and a woman Kayla didn't recognize. Clearly of a military background, the woman -at least younger back then compared to Kayla now- grinned behind her sunglasses, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and spilling over one side of her shoulders. Behind Jake, with both hands firmly placed on his shoulders, stood an older woman with short, curly red hair and sparkling eyes as she smiled, proudly, at the camera.

Kayla hears Norm shuffling around behind her and gently places the picture down, turning back to him as the male scientist was moving around some old equipment and patting the mattress of a bottom bunk off to the side of the trailer, "This was Grace's bunk. It's yours now."

That night, as she sat alone in her new living quarters, Kayla got to work on making this place feel more like home. The first order of business was to clean away all the old pictures and put up the new ones-- well, not really new compared to the photo of Jake, Norm, and the two women. Kayla retrieved her envelope of pictures and placed one photo on the mini-fridge, inspecting it for a moment before she had to move on.

The picture was definitely older than the ones of Jake and the scientists. It was a picture that was taken roughly a month before Tommy was killed. The twins were sitting on the couch so Jake could feel a bit of normalcy, requesting that his wheelchair be kept out of the frame of the photo. The twins smiled at the camera, and Kayla stood behind the back of the couch, leaning over her brothers with a wide grin on her face. Present Kayla smiles to herself before moving on to the next big step of her life.

~~~~~~~~~

As promised, Kayla spends the next morning and afternoon with her nieces, in human form, so that she can watch and learn how to properly braid Na'vi hair. She learns this by letting the girls use her unconscious avatar as a demonstration. Kayla's avatar hovered in her sleeping hammock, unconscious to the world, while both Kiri and Tuk weave every little bit of her locks into various small, intricate braids, pulling them tight along her scalp and purposely braiding the hair behind her large ears so the locks were out of her face. Kayla watched from off to the side, trying to pay attention even as the braiding took hours to complete. Tuk eventually got bored and left her sister to finish the look before excitedly asking her aunt if she could braid her human hair instead, to which Kayla agreed but only if the braids were larger and didn't take as long.

As the girls worked on both human and Na'vi hair, they decided to share their parents' love story, much to Kayla's awe, amusement, and horror all in one. Of course, she was curious about how her brother and Neytiri met and why Jake decided to turn against his own kind for her, but Kayla wasn't hoping for any specific details. Unfortunately, the Na'vi do not shy away from such topics and even openly talk about it to their young, as Tuk liked to prove to her auntie as she refused to spare her any... scrutinous details.

"-- And then they mated before Eywa!"

Kiri's body and tail go rigid even as she frantically scrambles over hammocks to cover Kayla's ears while berating her loudmouth sister, "Tuk!"

Despite the uncomfortable conversation, Kayla found herself laughing to the point she was crying, holding her ribs as they ached and wheezing until she couldn't breathe. She didn't find the initial storytime hysterical, but Kiri's haste to spare Kayla's dignity, Tuk's innocent gaze, and Kiri's hands practically folded on either side of the human woman's face definitely acted as the cherry on top.

Days went by and Kayla was much more comfortable jumping in and out of her avatar form, even more so now that she wasn't waking up and being constantly poked and prodded. On one of her first days as a human in High Camp, Kayla wore a tank top and was bombarded with concerned questions when Max noticed all the needle scars on her arms. Although she tried not to think about how she was practically a guinea pig for the RDA, her family wasn't letting her forget it. Max must have told Jake because the olo'eyktan regarded his duties for the day to instead take some time to spend with his little sister. He grabbed a child's bow and brought her down to the forest floor to do some fishing, even keeping a spare mask strapped to his hip for her if she needed it. He never asked about the scars, but Kayla could feel his eyes on her arm when she pulled the string of her bow back and tightened her form per his instructions.

After firing and missing a few arrows, clearly distracted by his stares, she sighed heavily before turning to look up at him, "It'll never happen again, thanks to you."

~~~~~~~~~

In between lessons, Kayla was finally getting to know other humans who honorably live among the Omatikaya. One individual, Jocelyn, was one of Kayla's personal favorites, aside from Norm and Max. Jocelyn was a biolab tech and didn't own an avatar, so she goes about her day normally, as a human, with a breather mask always secured on her face. Her knowledge stemmed from fixing vital technology -to help the humans survive- all the way to medical training -to keep the avatars kicking-. Not only did she live among the Na'vi, she talks to them fluently, and they don't appear bothered by her tiny presence. Kayla often sees Jocelyn, short as she is, trailing after a couple of young Na'vi hunters. Two young men, to be precise, who always love showing their little sky demon friend things they've brought back from their travels outside High Camp. They always let Jocelyn take samples and further inspect whatever they bring home. Not only was she a technician and a healer, she was also a scientist and she was always hungry for more knowledge of the world she lived in.

But even though she's full of wonder and excitement, she is also pretty strict. The kids in particular exasperate Jocelyn and Kayla always gets a kick out of watching her trying to wrangle the Sully kids whenever Spider sneaks them around the biolab. Kayla has interacted with Jocelyn loads of times at this point and always found her intriguing, but this took the cake, especially when she noticed how Spider practically had the female biotech wrapped around his finger. To be fair, Spider has most of the human scientists and avatars wrapped around his finger. They say it takes a village to raise a child, and the humans left behind on Pandora were no exception when it came to raising Spider.

However, despite this, Kayla couldn't help but wonder why Spider doesn't hang out with anyone else outside of the humans and the Sullys. He's an overall good kid and he's passionate about the Na'vi culture. If it weren't for the physical looks, Kayla would've definitely thought he was one of the Omatikaya when they first met.

She decides to ask him about this one day when Spider decided to sit down and teach her more of the language. Kayla was in her avatar form that day, now sporting tightly braided hair with beads that clicked when she walked. Kayla had to admit that she liked her new look even more knowing that her nieces had woven her a new identity. Spider appeared relaxed while teaching her certain words that are generally used in combat while her mind was still buzzing with her own questions.

"So do you just hang out with Kiri and Lo'ak or do you have other friends?"

Spider shrugged, "Some of the other scientists had kids while being stuck here, but I was older than all of them so I didn't play with them much."

Kayla nods, indicating she was listening. She had been told of Ardmore's initial threats to the humans who harbored Jake Sully and the Omatikaya when the Sky People first returned to Pandora. Some humans, especially the ones with families, stood down and surrendered in exchange for full pardons and safety for their children. That included Spider's foster family, the McCoskers. From what Kayla has heard, Spider's foster family was not the greatest of guardians, especially the foster father. He had betrayed Jake and the Na'vi to Ardmore, being responsible for the deaths of fellow humans who sympathized with the Omatikaya. Jake didn't go into depth with what happened to the McCoskers and the other humans who surrendered, but she assumed that for Spider's own sake, no one wanted to mention them now that they're gone.

Spider didn't appear to notice Kayla's inner turmoil as he continued, "Tuk is kinda in the same boat. I hung out with Neteyam for a while there. We're the closest in age... but he hasn't really been wanting to hang out anymore."

"Why not?"

The boy stares off in the distance, unable to keep his eyes on Kayla for long before he has to look away again as he muttered, "Probably because he's training to be the next olo'eykan. Which is fine. Good for him."

It sounded only partially genuine, and Kayla doesn't back down, "But Kiri can still hang out with you even as... uh... what's the word for tsahik in training?"

"Tsakarem."

"Right." Silence lingers until Kayla braves awkward silence, "It... it doesn't have to do with whatever Neytiri has against you, does it?"

A scowl immediately forms behind the breathing mask, "She hates me. Hates the fact her kids love me even more."

"From my experience, it doesn't take much to be on her bad side," she tried lightening up the mood, "I wouldn't sweat it too much, kid."

"You don't get it."

"Don't I? I know she's not overly fond of humans."

"It's more than that with me. To her... I remind her of the man who nearly took everything from her family. My father was Quaritch."

The name sounds bitter on Spider's tongue, clearly a bad taste for him. Kayla's comically big and yellow eyes widen even further, "You mean the colonel who ran security at the mine before the humans were sent back to Earth?"

He only nods and she hisses in sympathy, "Shit. Okay, I can see why you'd have a hard time getting on Neytiri's good side."

"Yeah. No kidding."

~~~~~~~~~

Unlike Spider, it didn't take Kayla a whole lot to get on Neytiri's good side, but it's not as though she had to try. Neytiri was already warming up to Kayla, both in and out of her avatar form. The Na'vi woman sometimes enjoyed Kayla's presence in her human body, despite not wanting to be around the other Sky People that live amongst her clan. In many ways, Neytiri felt as though she was with Grace or Sylwanin again. They would've loved Makayla Sully. She was more level-headed than Jake -or at least compared to when he was younger- and she was observant, someone who calculates before doing anything. She thought ahead and she always had something Neytiri remembered Grace calling 'common sense'.

Neytiri grew to appreciate Kayla and would fondly watch her interact with Jake. Neytiri was aware that her mate had at least one sibling in the past, but up until now, she could only imagine what kind of a brother he was. With Kayla around, Neytiri got to see a side of her husband he hadn't let anyone see before. With Kayla around, a bit of mischief returns to his eyes, always ready to tease his sister without a second thought, regardless of who was watching. Mo'at wanted to berate the olo'eyktan for such childish behavior, but Neytiri was quick to silence her mother, "They need time to be reacquainted as siblings."

And siblings they were. Neytiri often smiled when around the adult Sully siblings. Watching Jake and Kayla interact often reminded her of other sibling duos, such as Neteyam and Kiri, or even herself and Sylwanin. But it's not to say Jake and Kayla were the most perfect siblings. Kayla still had trouble forgiving Jake for past mistakes and would often remind him of said mistakes just to add dirt to the fresh, reopened wound. Neytiri understands why Kayla must hurt Jake the way she had been hurt, but Jake was still Neytiri's husband and she was protective -if not a little possessive- of him. So, to try and find peace between the brother and sister, Neytiri decides to take Kayla hunting without Jake present.

Kayla didn't refuse, slipping into her avatar form and excitedly following Neytiri to her ikran. The pair fly down to the forest floor and immediately pick up a trail that had to be yerik. While tracking the animal down, Neytiri found it the best time to breach the topic, "Jake tries his best to help you feel at home here. You try your best to push him away."

Blunt as ever, she takes Kayla off guard, the female avatar turning back to face her with wide eyes. They stood in silence, the hunt momentarily forgotten until Kayla's mind catches up to her and she shakes off the initial shock. She turns back to the task at hand, following the tracks Neytiri had instructed her to follow with a scowl on her face, "Jake was the one who told me that relying on others won't help when you're trying to survive. I'm just living up to his advice."

"He's not like that. Not Ma Jake."

"Then congratulations, Neytiri," she exclaimed sarcastically, "You got to experience the best side of him. I didn't. I lost a brother before him. I can do it again."

"Can you?"

She is met with silence again, staring at the back of Kayla's head. Neytiri took the moment to admire the braids her daughters have woven into their aunt's hair before bringing herself back to the present and gently adding, "I understand."

"Do you?"

"I lost my sister," Neytiri forced out, her tongue tasting bitter from the words. She never said such things out loud, and the shock that sinks into Kayla's face was one of the reasons why. Neytiri despised any pity people send her way after everything she's lost. She didn't want the pity, especially now when she has more family than she ever thought she'd have. "The Sky People murdered her right in front of me. I was only a little older than Neteyam when it happened."

Kayla's mouth opened and closed as she tried to come up with something comforting to say but the only words that come out are her initial thoughts, "Oh, my God. I'm sorry."

Neytiri tightens her lips together and briefly smiles before letting it fall, having heard all those words before. She took point in the hunt, walking ahead while following the tracks so she wouldn't have to look at her sister-in-law, "Can I ask? What happened to Tomsully?"

"He was killed," Kayla explained automatedly, "Some... murderer with a gun shot him down in the streets and left him to die alone. It was cold and raining that day. They said he didn't suffer, but..." Kayla shook her head to refrain from thinking about it, "I wasn't there. Neither was Jake. I was job searching and Jake was out drinking his life away. He never mentioned?"

"He grieves as I do. I don't talk of my sister. My children don't know enough about her. Ma Jake says little about his old life."

Kayla swallowed thickly, eyes hard as she stared at the back of Neytiri's head, "Let me guess. He never mentioned me."

The Na'vi woman paused in her steps, hesitating before finally turning back to meet Kayla's eyes, "I did not know he had a sister until you came here."

That stung. It stung knowing that neither women were ever aware of each other until now but Kayla couldn't wrap her head around another mystery, "So-- how are you so calm about all of this? Why are you so accepting of me? I'm part of the same species that's responsible for your sister's death."

"So is Ma Jake."

"But you're not hostile toward me like you had been when you first met Jake, or so I'm told. Why?"

Neytiri smiles, opening her mouth and taking a breath before whispering, "... You are my husband's sister. He shares your blood... as do my children."

She steps closer to Kayla, reaching out and placing a gentle hand on her shoulder, much to Kayla's surprise as Neytiri proclaims, "You are Makayla te Suli tsmuke te Toruk Makto. You are my family now. Ma tsmuke."

Kayla's ears and tail twitch in attention to the sound of her name, using her newly gained knowledge of the language to finally understand what her sister-in-law said. Slowly, a smile formed on her lips, warm and quivering ever so slightly, nodding to Neytiri when she didn't have any other words to say.

She had always wanted a sister.

~~~~~~~~~

By the time the kids had gotten used to Kayla's human form, they were dying to show her their world through her eyes and not her avatars'. Without her night vision, everything glowed so beautifully at night and Spider suggested taking her to some fields to watch the fan lizards fly. Lo'ak was immediately all for the idea, dragging the rest of his siblings into it so they could all go. His parents were hesitant at first, but then Kayla reassured them that she'll keep a close eye on the children and so Jake and Neytiri relaxed before seeing them all off, wishing them to have fun.

The children didn't waste time once they were deep in the forest, hunting for kenten as eclipse rolled around. Before she could blink, Kayla was completely surrounded by floating lizards, glowing in many shapes and colors, flying above her head with helicopter-like wings. All the kids laughed at her reaction, the human gobsmacked by such wonder. Tuk tugged her along and the kids all began running around in the fields, disrupting more fan lizards and laughing as the animals took to the sky, igniting the world around them with their soft lights.

Kayla stood off to the side, watching the children and laughing with them. After a time, Spider had taken a break from the fun and collapsed on the ground at Kayla's feet, laughing in between catching his breath. Looking up, he noticed the adult's eyes on his and his smile immediately fell, quickly turning his eyes away to watch his friends play in the fields while trying his best to ignore Kayla's stares and shrink in on himself.

Kayla didn't take it to heart, only bluntly stating what she thought, "You prefer me in my avatar form, don't you?"

Spider's shoulders rise and fall but he still couldn't look at her, "... Sorry."

"No sweat. Can I ask why?"

He shrugged, "I don't know."

"I think I do. Can I guess?" Spider shrugs again and Kayla plops down in the spot beside him, resting her arms over her knees when she brought her legs up close to her chest, "Originally I only wanted to hang out with you and the other humans in my own skin so you didn't feel intimidated, but I think you're actually more intimidated by humans compared to Na'vi. You prefer my avatar because it's all you've ever known living here."

They sit in silence apart from the Sully kids laughing when one of the kenten decided to land on Lo'ak's face to rest. Spider huffed a small laugh at the scene but otherwise didn't say anything. Kayla grabs his attention again by elbowing him, "It's not a bad thing."

"It's not?"

"Why would it?"

He spares a glance at her, the reflection from both of their masks making it difficult to find her eyes right away, "You don't think it's bad that I prefer hanging out with a species other than my own?"

She flashed an amused, exasperated expression, "Kid, my brother permanently transferred his soul from one body to another of a completely different species. Do you think I'm one to judge you when you're the one teaching me the Na'vi ways and hanging out with my brother's kids?"

She laughed and Spider's ears heat up in shame, a little embarrassed for assuming the worst out of her. He looked away and mumbled under his breath, "My foster family didn't want me to forget where I came from."

"That's not bad either unless they forced you..." Initially, Kayla brushed off the silence until it began to linger too long, then she spared a glance back at Spider. He was stiff, unable to stare back while stubbornly keeping his eyes on the Sully kids. Kayla's eyebrows furrow, "Did they force you?"

"... What is Earth like?"

"Sure. You strike me as the kind of guy who would like music concerts. I'll start there."

Beating around the topic and finding a new one. Classic. It almost would have been easier if Spider had just said 'yes', but Kayla doesn't scold him. Instead, she hums, staring up at the stars as she thought back to her homeworld, "Nothing you would miss, kiddo."

"Can you tell me things I might've missed?"

A/N: Jocelyn is technically one of the many unnamed scientists we see in the Way of Water. She's the one who Tuk annoys with her toy in her first scene and further gets after the teens when they cut through the Avatar Longhouse. She technically doesn't have a name but I used her actress' real name to fill in the blanks.

Sorry if this felt a little rushed, but the next chapter is gonna be the start of the events that transpire during the Way of Water! Buckle up! We're getting close and I'm so excited to share with ya'll! Thank you so much for the support!

[misseviehyde]

HEAD-FUCK

Monica Johnson had been pretty fucked over when she had been at High school. A victim of bullying - even though she was now a Mom and a successful artist - she still had night terrors and flashbacks about those awful days in her past.

Her loving daughter Wren had given her Mom a book on art therapy and it had suggested that Monica work out her trauma through her art. She hadn't given the idea much thought - till one day when she was doing the gardening - she dug up a huge lump of weird grey clay and the idea came to her in a flash of inspiration.

She needed to rid herself of her bullies influence and perhaps she could channel that into her art?  She could create something with the clay that she could pour all her fears and memories of the wicked bad girl bullies who had tormented her at school into.

The clay was like nothing she had ever worked with before. It seemed to suck out all the memories from her mind and she almost felt like the clay was shaping her ideas rather than the other way round.  All the malice, evil and bitchiness of her bullies seemed to be drained out of her into the clay. 

After a frenzy of work - she stood back and shivered as she looked at the five perfect busts now standing in her studio. The gloating, perfect face of her spoiled rich bully Violet gazed back at her with that wicked twist to her lips - the bitchy look she had always feared. Violet's slutty beta-bitches surrounded her... but her bust was the central piece. What a whore.

"Wow... that bust is kinda hot," suddenly giggled Wren as she walked in and her Mom nearly jumped out of her skin. Wren gazed admiringly at her Mom's work - not understanding the meaning behind it.

"She was the bitch at school who nearly ruined my life," chided Monica gently and Wren's face fell as she realised her mistake.

"Oh shit... I had no idea Mom. Sorry. What a bitch. She is kind of striking though."

Monica looked at Wren. Her daughter seemed fascinated by the bust and couldn't tear her eyes from it. She was flushed and her breathing seemed heavy. There was almost a magnetic charge in the air and without even realising it Wren was being drawn towards Violet.

"Wren... it needs firing, don't touch it yet please," warned Monica and Wren shook herself out of whatever trance she had nearly been in.

"Oh... sorry - I didn't even realise, sorry. Ummm dinner is ready. You okay to come now?"

**************

Wren's heart was pounding as she unlocked the door to her mother's studio and flicked on the lights. She didn't know why she was here... but something had made her desperate to see the busts of her Mom's bullies once again. 

Wren approached Violet's bust. She knew she should hate the face of her Mother's main bully but it was so beautiful and hot. The face of a fucking Alpha bitch and a slutty Princess. 

To her shame she was wet and looking at the now fired bust, it was even finer and more beautiful than before. Whatever weird clay her Mom had found and used had really made it come to life.

Wren drew closer and slowly brought her hands to the face. She had... she just had to touch it. She wanted to know how it felt... she wanted to experience her Mother's bully close up.

Her fingers made contact slowly... almost longingly and Wren groaned in sexual pleasure as she felt the smooth perfect surface charged beneath her fingertips and an erotic tingle swiftly ran up her arms through her hands as the clay seemed to come alive.

"Oh fuck yes," she moaned wetly, not resisting as the clay began to flow and spread over her skin. It magically sank into her flesh and where it passed, her body was transformed and enhanced.

Wren groaned and arched her back as the clay spread like wildfire corrupting and changing her. Her small breasts swelled up with the evil clay and then took on the texture of soft flawless skin and her hips swelled out and her buttocks became round and perfectly toned. Her body was now that of a Goddess and it began to tan as every inch of body hair burned away.

Rapidly the clay spread up her neck and ran through her hair... her short red locks becoming lustrous strands of brunette perfection as the clay reached her face and she moaned as it spread and overwhelmed her freckled face... giving her the superior features of the busts original inspiration. 

Violet's perfect lips and beautiful eyes came alive as the clay merged with Wren's skin and even her clothing transformed - her demure dress replaced by a tight crop top and tiny pair of shorts. It felt so good and her body was on fire as her voice and even her posture changed. 

Wren's tight new pussy felt amazing and her body thrummed with power. She felt so alive.

Oh yes... you're a fucking hot bully now and it feels so good.

The clay had completed it's work and with a gasp she pulled her new sexier hands free and stated down at a familiar face. Wren's own face... now perfectly rendered in the clay... gazed back at her. She felt a wrench of disgust at how ugly it was. 

Eugh, what a disgusting face. Your new one is so much better. 

Wren smiled as she walked over to the mirror at the back of her Mom's studio and she began to play with herself. "Ohhhh fuck my big tits feel great," she grasped as she groped herself and began to finger fuck her tight wet cunt. 

Yesssss so much tighter than your old pussy. Your ass is so tight too. Imagine how it will feel to get both pounded by all those hot boys you fantasise about at school?

"Oh fuck, that's so nasty. Yes I want it so bad!"

Her fingers went deeper and she rubbed her clit and bit her full, plump lip as she imagined being spread eagled and fucked hard by a bad boy.

"Yessss give it to me!"

Soon it will be real... Violet. Soon you will be the biggest bully and popular girl at school. Now cum and enjoy how it feels.

Suddenly Wren was cumming harder than she had ever cum before and her head was thrown back in ecstasy as she enjoyed her superior new form and squirted into her panties. She was so fucking wet and horny... she loved how it felt.

Standing up she giggled and licked her sticky fingers, then with a slutty hum returned to investigate the bust of herself, idly admiring her massive new tits in the mirror as she did so.

"Such a disgusting face, but I assume I need to touch it to turn back." Wren's hands almost felt repelled as she reached down to touch her old face.

With great effort she forced them down and she groaned in pain as the freshly bonded clay on her body began to flow away and unbind- returning to the bust. Her big tits and perfect body melted away and in moments Violet's face had returned to the clay and a restored Wren lay at the base of the pedestal panting.

"Oh shit... what did I do? I felt so wicked and I liked it."

Conflicted Wren rose, then with a sob she turned away from the gloating bust of Violet and ran...

******************

Monica could see something was bothering her daughter but she couldn't tell what. Wren looked tired, like she hadn't slept properly. Her daughter was dark eyed and seemed agitated.

Deciding it was probably just a phase, Monica wished Wren a good day at school and left - just as Wren's best friend Laura arrived.

"Hi Laura... have a nice day girls."

Wren watched her Mom leave and then turned to her friend. "Thanks for coming. I have to show you something."

*************

Laura shivered as Wren confidently led her into her Mom's studio and she saw the five sexy busts on display.

"Laura. You'll think I'm crazy... but last night I touched this bust and I think I got transformed into a copy of my Mom's bully at school. It really freaked me out, but I've been thinking about it all night and I realise this is a chance too good to miss."

Laura shook her head. "Wren, what the hell are you talking about?"

"I think the other busts will do the same. Mom doesn't need to know that we're using them, but we can become hot and beautiful and more confident. We can have so much fun with these busts. I had such a good orgasm as Violet and I want more. Just  watch."

With a grin Wren grabbed Violet's bust and moaned orgasmically as the clay began to spread. It took over her body much quicker this time and Laura watched in awe as her friend transformed into a hot busty bully.

Wren was clearly enjoying the transformation and as it completed itself she smirked and stretched her slutty body - flaunting it to her friend and showing off.

"Ahhhhh that's better. I'm Violet now. Now pick a bust you dumb bitch and let's see what you end up looking like..."

"I... I don't want to," sobbed Laura.

"Awww that's too bad bitch," laughed Violet as she grabbed Laura's arms and forced them down onto a bust.

"Did I say you had a fucking choice?"

***************

Wren smirked as Laura returned from the counter bringing her coffee. How fun to have a lackey. Corrupting Laura into an obedient Beta had been so easy and so much fun.

"Thanks Nikki."

"No problem Violet."

Wren felt a delicious surge of power at her friends subservience. Laura now looked like a beautiful bitch too - but not as beautiful as Wren. Clearly she also felt a desire to serve and please her Alpha. The new names were hot too.

As it should be.

Wren wasn't sure where the voice was coming from - but she really liked it. It made her feel hot and powerful everytime she heard it. It had infected her dreams last night after her experience with Violet. It had made her ache for more. It had awoken new hungers in her once innocent heart. 

You should think of yourself as Violet. Wren is back in the studio in the clay. You're better than her now. 

Violet nodded slowly. The voice was right. She was Violet now. Wren was a nobody. Being Violet felt so much better. She gave a fake smile as two hot boys checked her out. Yes... everyone wanted her now. It felt good.

We have lots to do Violet. Having one lackey is hot... but we need four more to really have some fun. Once you have a gang, no one will be able to stop you. We can take over the school. 

Violet nodded. The voice was right. The voice was always right. She needed more bitches to serve her. She needed more power and she would do anything to get it.

*************

"A sleep-over?" 

Monica was surprised. Her daughter had never asked for a sleep-over before. 

"Yeah... just four friends from school. Laura and three others. You don't mind do you?"

"I guess not," smiled Monica and her daughter grinned a strange smile. "Thanks Mom."

Then Wren turned and went. Her walk seemed different. More sexy... more predatory. It reminded Monica of someone, but she couldn't think whom.

"Stupid bitch," hissed Wren under her breath. "I can't wait for tonight - then you'll see..."

**************

"Welcome to my sleepover sluts..." giggled Violet as she locked the doors of the studio and spread her arms wide to show them all the four remaining busts. She had not been able to resist transforming and had been enjoying herself in her bedroom with a vibrator whilst her guests arrived. 

"As you can see. I've already changed - now you all need to pick a bust and transform. I have so much to teach you all before school tomorrow."

The other girls looked nervous- but Laura goaded them towards the busts  - taking station behind her own. "Don't be afraid girls - it feels really good. Let it take over you." She moaned as she grabbed her bust and began to change into Nikki.

The girls followed suit as they moaned and gasped in erotic pleasure as each was drawn to a bust - the evil power of the clay corrupting each as they touched their new faces and began to transform.

"Ohhbh it feels good..." they moaned and Violet grinned fiercely as each was transformed into an evil minion to serve her needs. 

"Yes that's right bitches... let it corrupt you. Give up your old lives and embrace the power of being a bully. It's going to feel so good," she gloated.

Suddenly the studio door burst open and Monica walked in with a horrified expression on her face. 

"Oh my God... what is happening?"

"Hello Mommy," laughed Violet. "You're just in time for my sleepover. The girls are just finishing changing."

Monica gasped as the faces of the five slutty bullies she remembered from school took on life and her daughters once innocent friends surrounded her- laughing as they grabbed her arms and pinned them behind her back.

"No NO!" screamed Monica as memories of Highschool returned. The girls were too strong and she was helpless as Violet approached. It was just like the old days.

"Mmmmh, sorry Mommy but it feels so fucking good to be Violet. Her evil has totally corrupted me. I AM her now. Thanks for creating her bust and giving me and my friends there opportunity to take the power of your old bullies. Tomorrow we will begin to rule the school and from now on you'll be my little bitch."

Giggling Violet picked up a baseball bat. 

"Now what would a sleepover be like without some games. How about we play some pinata?"

Monica watched as Violet walked up to the five busts... now showing the face of each girl. They were the only way they could ever turn back.

Violet paused  Then with a wicked smirk and a moan of pleasure she began to smash each bust - taking particular glee at the screams of anguish from Monica as she smashed  Wren's head into a thousand pieces.

"Bye bye Wren... now you're trapped as me forever..." she gloated. "Sorry Monica. Looks like I'm your daughter forever now..."

*********

Violet moaned as her boyfriend climbed onto the bed and obediently put his head between her legs to start eating her out. She loved it when he ate her tight pussy... once she was wet enough she'd let him fuck her too. She felt like having a cream-pie today.

"Make sure you paint my pussy perfectly this time," she moaned as Monica began to paint in the corner and she laughed as her Mom - now a broken woman obeyed without question. 

Destroyed by the loss of her daughter, Monica was now just a plaything for the five bitches.

"Ohhh yes, I love fucking with her head," gasped Violet as she began to cum and she squeezed her thighs together tightly.

Meanwhile Monica painted with gritted teeth and thought of the bust standing on her work table in the studio. A little more glue and a few more hundred pieces and she'd have her daughter back.

She could still fuck with Violet's head yet... and she was at least going to try.

THE END

[mykoreanlove]

one of his girls

“Come on.. Come on.. Answer me.. I am going nuts without you here!” You were gazing at your phone with hawk-eyes. It remained silent, no matter how intensively you stared at it. You were desperately waiting for a message from your bestie, you needed her comforting words right now. You needed to hear her say that it was going to be okay. Because you felt far from that.

What got your panties in a bunch? Jungkook.

Or rather the lack of Jungkook, to be precise. You met him a couple of months ago on a dating app – both of you were looking for fun, nothing too serious so you gave it a shot. Both of you had ulterior motives though. You wanted to collect spicy experiences and live your femineity, whereas he wanted to find himself after his most recent breakup.

And it worked. He paid you attention, whispered loving compliments into your ear and fucked you properly until you forgot your name. You encouraged him to open up, to realize what he was made of and flattered his ego by showing interest in him. It was an intentional relationship which fulfilled its purpose. Until it didn’t.

He pulled back, became stingy with his attention until he grew completely silent on you. Instinctively, you tried to chase him but realized that he was done with you. He simply lacked the courage to tell you that. Once in a blue moon he contacted you, sex being his motif, but you ignored him, too hurt to even consider fucking him.

“He moved on. Why can’t you?”

Your friends were fed up with your whining about Jungkook. Why couldn’t you let him go? What was so captivating about him? What drew you to him even though he treated you like shit? You often asked yourself but never found a question. Your resentment towards him grew bigger, you started to slowly poison yourself. And that’s how you ended up in this situation.

Your ringing phone caught your attention. “Thank god, finally!” You picked up the phone, relief washing over you. “Thank god, you’re calling. I am going crazy here.”

“Y/N, what happened? Did you stalk his profile again?”

Shame flooded your whole being. Did you stalk his profile again? Of course, you did. You did so for the past few weeks only to realize that he had been updating his profile every other week. Small adaptions to his bio, the additions on his whereabouts or new thirst traps that made you press your legs together in frustration. Why had he had to be so handsome? Those damned dimples would make anyone fall in love with him.

You sighed defeatedly. “Yeah, I took a look at his profile. Again.” Your friend remained cool. “Did it help?” Her question caught you off guard as you expected her to get mad at you. “Did it help looking at his profile? Did you feel better?” You stayed quiet for a while until you answered her. “No. It makes me feel like shit.” “Why are you doing it then?” Excellent question, why were you? “I guess I am still trying to figure out what happened. I am too ashamed to ask him, so I stalk his socials in order to understand him. To understand whatever had happened between us…”

“Okay, I understand that. But let’s look at it objectively. He told you that he was looking for fun, right? He told you that he wanted nothing serious. And he behaved exactly like that. Yet, you can’t seem to accept that. Why is that?”

Memories of you and him clouded your mind. You thought about him lying on your lap and sharing his fears of ghosts with you. You thought about how he caressed your cheeks and told you how beautiful you were. You thought about him hugging you so tightly and planning future dates with you. You thought about him going down on you and praising your pussy. You thought about him being sulky because you had to visit your family and how he promised to send you many messages and pictures, because he would miss you so much. You thought about the last hug you shared with him under the stars.

Tears started to fall from your eyes as you tried to regain your composure. “I just don’t understand it. I know that he didn’t want to be in a relationship, but he only said that once and after that he behaved like we were going into one. He was so sweet and loving and affectionate. He shared his vulnerabilities with me, he asked about mine – he was truly making an effort to get to know me. And I started letting my walls down but then he just left? He just tossed me aside like I was nothing? Not even an explanation for all of this? And now he’s updating his profile all the time so obviously he’s out to get it. He’s probably fucking another girl as we speak.”

You took a deep breath. Even though it was weeks ago you still felt hurt. You tried moving on, you even kissed some guys, but you couldn’t get him out of your head. All your thoughts always came back to Jungkook.

“I am sorry that you had to go through this, Y/N. He truly didn’t handle this the best way. I want to ask you a question though. Are you devastated because of his actions or are you devastated because of the meaning you gave those actions?” You thought about it for a while. “Both?” Your friend chuckled. “You sure?”

“I am devastated because I thought he was a good guy. I thought we had potential, even if we started out like that. But now all I can think of is him fucking other girls. He turned out to be another fuckboy and I was just one of his stupid girls. I really believed I meant something to him. Like all those things that he said? About how special I was? And how he felt himself changing into a better version when he was with me? Fucking lies. Jungkook is a fucking liar. I bet he tells this to every girl, so that she spreads her legs for him.” You basically spat out those last sentences, your hurt transforming into anger.

“So, what does that say about you?” You were annoyed by her questions. You were in pain, and you wanted to be comforted, not psychoanalyzed. “That I am an innocent and I acted right and that he’s a giant dickhead?” Your friend chuckled again. “Sweety, don’t get mad at me. I want to help you. Want to know what I am thinking? I think you were not ready to fall in love. You still carry those old wounds within you, where you are too afraid to be hurt again. That’s the reason you fell for someone like Jungkook in the first place. Instead of being repelled by his boyish behavior, you are still pining over him. Why? Because you somehow feel that that is what you deserve. I do believe that he meant what he said – you are insightful and you sure as hell brought out a new side within him. One that is mature and deep and evolving. So, please trust that. However, he is not ready for that yet. He is not ready to face his demons and evolve, that’s why he probably ditched you. You made him face this shit, when all he wanted was to face pussy. And that’s the chase he’s on right now.”

You fell silent. Fuck, that made sense. A lot of sense actually. You hated every second of it though. A desperate sigh left your lips. “What am I to do? Help me, please. I don’t know how I can let go of him.”

Friends were a marvelous thing as they saw you for who you truly were. And loved you regardless. Especially those friends, that helped you face your shit instead of running away from it.

“Let’s close your eyes for a second.” You lay down on the floor and obliged. “Imagine you were the version of yourself you wanted to be. What do you see?” “I see myself holding hands with Jungkook and we’re happy and he’s my boyfriend and I-” “Fuck no, that was not my question. I asked you to think of yourself. YOURSELF. What do you see?”

You thought about this for a while. “I see myself being happy. In that version of myself I am confident and sexy, and I feel like a catch. I go through life and accomplish my biggest desires. I finally got that promotion; I started studying Italian and I plan to go on vacation with my family. I see myself as worthy of all of my desires. I see a dog, maybe a corgi. In that world I feel empowered and ready for love. I am with an amazing man, that worships the ground I am walking on. I feel whole and complete, like everything is working out for me. I am free from fear and wounds and shit. I am happy.” Visualizing that actually made you smile. It also made you realize how much time and energy you wasted on pining over Jungkook, a guy that clearly wasn’t a match to that reality.

“Don’t you think it would make sense to invest your energy into becoming that woman? The one that knows she deserves nothing but the best? The one that is worthy of love and intimate connections? Do you think that woman would be stalking dating profiles? Do you think she would be sad over someone that clearly doesn’t give a fuck about her? I’m not saying that Jungkook lied or used you or whatever, he is the only one that knows the truth about this. However, I want you to free yourself from that. Take it as a learning experience and move on. Use that power on you, create you Y/N. I promise things will turn out for the better. If he comes back? Great. If not? Great. Someone better will fill his place. Remember that cute barista you told me about? Tae something? Maybe it’s him. Maybe not, but that shouldn’t be your focus. Build yourself up my dear, let that boyish child do its own thing and focus on you. Can you do that?”

You were whiny. “I don’t know if I can.” “Think about her again. Think about Y/N 2.0. Do you think she could?” “Hell yeah, that bitch could do anything.” “Great, then tap into that energy. She lives within you, so naturally you can do this, too.”

[merbear25]

Mousefood

If given the choice, would you rather risk everything to save your community or just watch it burn? A horrendous outbreak quickly claimed the lives of many, but you were one of the few who stuck around in hopes of finding a cure. You knew of another, a scientist by the name of Caesar, who chose to stay and even offered his assistance. Although he didn't exactly come across as the trustworthy type, you were in desperate need of his help. However, his intentions weren't what they seemed.

CW: Plague AU, mentions of infections, some gore, death, fem!reader (envisioned to be late 20s+)

a/n: I just really wanted to write something for myself after the last follower event! Of course, it's got to be with Caesar. I'd like to thank @escenariosinfumables and @lady-of-endless for helping aid my obsession with him and @bby-deerling for wanting to be tagged in whatever this is. I poured my heart and soul into this, and it is by far my favorite thing I’ve written.

Curiosity drew many to its flame. However, most were engulfed by the intensity it came with, becoming nothing more than ash. With its light leading the way, the shadows danced upon the holder of the candle, calling out to what lurked in the dark. In spite of the threat of the unknown closing in, it was here that the surface of understanding our world was scratched.

Embracing the threat this reality had to offer was what led to great discoveries, for those mysteries which were just out of reach would eventually be unearthed by those most deserving. When those dark corners drew nearer and nearer, a whetted appetite opened a can of an array of worms ready to burrow into the crevices below.

The deeper they went, the more disarray was left spreading through the soil and infecting the roots of once healthy plants. Although it was a shame to watch such beauty in the world wilt away, success could never be accomplished without noble sacrifices.

There was still so much to uncover in our world, most of which was in plain sight. However, inquisitiveness could be a dangerous trait, especially when paired with an overactive imagination. 

It began with a few questions he asked himself, “How much would the human body be able to endure?”, “Is such a rise in temperature enough for the disease to survive?”, “How long could it live on surfaces?” 

A new world was flourishing in the petri dish on his desk; aeromonas hydrophila had earned a special place in his heart, as it had the most promising future amongst the others. In spite of the potential for such a calamitous future to unfold, there were countless efforts still to be made: trial and error was always a must no matter how promising something appeared to be.

Ordering one of his many lackeys to fetch something from off of his desk, he should have known they’d be negligent enough to disturb the slumbering plague. An important life lesson was about to go underway: the henchman chose to enter his master’s lab without any protective gear, knowing full well the dangers that came with it.

To make matters worse for himself, he had various hangnails. Other than those stinging for some time, they also left him vulnerable to infection, to which he would only have himself to blame.

While sorting through the scattered papers, he failed to catch a glimpse of the terror waiting to be uncaged, knocking into it ever so slightly. Despite the fact that the lid was on, a small droplet seeped through the crack when his hand collided with it. The splash of strange substance caused him little to no worry, simply brushing it off on his shirt while also spreading it across his open-sore hand.

Shortly after retrieving what Caesar had asked for, the lackey continued his streak of recklessness, unknowingly allowing the bacteria free realestate to other vacant lots on his person: rubbing his eyes, eating with his hands, and picking his nose when he thought no one was looking.

With the bacteria being spoiled for choice, it took full advantage of its new residence, burrowing its way deeper within the tissue, spreading misery to all the corners of the host. It wasn’t long before the worker started complaining: feeling hot and feverish were coupled with beads of sweat over his body. Irritation was left unconcealed as he berated his goon for everything under the sun before begrudgingly letting him go just to rid himself of the constant belly aching.

With annoyance still fresh, he took to sorting out some paperwork. What little decrease in anger was disregarded when faced with many of his notes scattered about his desk. Through the fits of cursing, his hands frantically collected his work. When uncovering the little friend he’d been growing, he was intrigued.

Having a closer look at his workstation, he noticed the lid on the petri dish was slightly ajar. Upon further examination, he saw that the contents within it had been disturbed. Putting two and two together wasn't difficult. It was obvious that the buffoon who'd just left was the cause of this. Despite his persistent irritation, perhaps this was one of life's happy accidents. Instead of hauling that henchman back, he thought it'd be better to see how his modifications played out when given free reign on that lamb―raising it for slaughter.

Putting on his face before leaving the room, the painted smile greeted the acquired host. “How are you feeling?”

His golden eyes scanned the subject, noting the obvious sickly complexion. “Just really hot…like I'm burning alive.” Sweat had been beading on his brow, now trickling down his clammy skin.

“Anything else?”

“No, just nauseous I guess.”

Guessing the disease was spreading much more quickly than originally anticipated, he hummed to himself to portray a sense of thoughtful consideration. “It's such a pity to have to ask this of you and the others, but seeing as supplies are low and there aren't many hands to even gather them, you'll have to journey into town.”

Faith in their master and trust in the process had become second nature to his men, making them malleable to his liking. They hung on each of his words as though they were holy scripture, sacrificing themselves by falling in line with his agenda.

“Now, be sure you don't come back until you've got everything on this list, all right? We can't afford to waste time on nonsensical runs.”

Wishing them luck while they disappeared behind the thick trees, an eye roll queued behind an exasperated groan. “What have I done to be cursed with the presence of such idiocy?”

Stumbling into the town below, the faint glow of the pharmacy’s sign led them there with ease. Upon entry, however, the sight of the ill one was cause for alarm. Gasping at the state of him, they were bombarded with questions, none of which they had the answers to.

“Well, can you at least tell us where you came from?”

“Just up the hill. We were low on supplies and were sent for them.”

“He shouldn't be traveling anywhere. He needs to see a doctor. Come, we'll help you bring him there.”

Laying down on the cot brought no relief to the increasing pain. The doctors who were called to tend to him were baffled when their hypotheses failed again and again.

Since this illness was proving to be unruly, they were left no choice but to quarantine the others, for they too were showing questionable symptoms.

After an agonizing night, the morning fared no better. Rivers of crimson secreted, staining their faces, sweat that soaked through any and all fabric and was hot to the touch: the medical professionals were regrettably repulsed by them.

However, once members of the staff complained about feeling unwell, repulsion shifted into panic. Having sent the unknowing hosts to town, the residents fell victim to their naivety in their master.

It wasn't long before the medicine they had ran out. Even if the treatment only worked to dull the intensity of the pain, it did nothing in terms of curing them. 

Patient zero started suffering from convulsions, brain swelling, and eventually organ failure—that was what they told the townsfolk to stifle any more chaos. In reality, his and the others’ bodies were deteriorating, earning the disease the name the Grim Death.

Without so much as a goodbye, those who only bore the title of doctor but lacked the compassion fled to save their own hide.

However, there was one who, against the odds, chose to stay in hopes of curing those suffering. With a sizable amount of knowledge, you persevered, in spite of knowing your own limitations. You needed someone to help you. Asking around, there was talk of a scientist who was thought to be mad.

Not being spoiled for choice, you ventured up the hill to him. Through all the weeds out front and the branches hanging overhead, a sinister aura loomed. Even with suspicions and doubts nagging at you to turn back, you were determined to see this through.

Dropping the heavy door knocker on the wooden surface, the echos sounding from within could be heard from the other side, leaving goosebumps along your skin.

The door suddenly cracked open, leaving a mere sliver for you to meet the man who'd built an unfavorable reputation for himself.

"Who are you?" His tone was flat as he stared you down.

"(Y/n). I'm from town, a doctor just trying to make sense of all this." When he didn't say anything, you continued, "I was told that you may have the resources and expertise to help me put an end to this." With a hopeful look in your eyes, you awaited his confirmation.

Huffing slightly at the inconvenience of you being there, he was still an opportunist; desperation encompassed you, practically offering yourself up on a silver platter. He would be able to ring you dry of all your potential.

"I have my ways." Looking you up and down, as if sizing up your worth, he stated, "Come in, and we can start chipping away at this iceberg of a predicament."

Jarring the door enough for you to slip through, he then promptly slammed it shut. Finding yourself in the center of the front entry, the surroundings lurched out at you: grand staircases on either side, a chandelier with candles that had been waned to near stubs, and vines that crept along the walls, entangling with some fresh cobwebs. It was blatantly obvious that he was living alone and by the looks of it he had been for a long time.

When you turned to face him, his eyes were fixated on you, trying to sort out if that sap story about wanting to save the town was just some ploy.

Being the one to break the silence, you asked what news of what was happening in town managed to reach him. Not wanting to assume he didn't know anything or barely anything, you trusted your question was inviting enough.

Tilting his head up slightly, his gaze followed down his nose, "But of course I know of the happenings shaking up that town. News of such horrors travels quickly as I'm sure you could guess."

Just as your train of thought was leaving the station, he stopped you, "Before you start sharing your experience, why don't we take it to the next room. I'm sure such riveting stories are ones I ought to be sitting down for."

He led you into the parlor, offering you a seat on the sofa near the dying embers in the fireplace. The armchair adjacent to you was occupied by him. "Go on now, my dear." He gestured with a smile upon his pale face.

"Well, if you've heard of the matters, then I'm sure you can understand the severity." He nodded, showing his acknowledgement. "Whatever medicine we had only just hardly helped the symptoms and quickly ran out. I'm sure it's possible to find a cure—in fact I know it is—though I can't create it on my own." Owning up to your own limitations fileted you, displaying all your vulnerabilities to this man you'd just met.

Waving his hand as if to fan off the doubts swarming the room, his voice was gentle, "Rest assured, my dear, for there is no illness out there that can best me."

"S-so does that mean you'll help? Or rather I'll help you?" You instantly humbled yourself, since you could feel you were in the presence of genius.

Grinning at your faux pas, he confirmed, "Yes, it does."

While relief casted itself on your expression, he was quick to clip the wings carrying optimism, "However, there are some rules you must abide by if we're going to be tackling this outbreak together."

When you voiced your compliance, he listed off the rules, "Firstly, whatever work we do must be kept confidential. Secondly, any..." he carefully crafted his next demands, "requests I make must not be met with resistance. Have faith and trust the process. Thirdly, seeing as conditions in town are worsening, I think it's best for you to stay here." Getting up from his chair, he motioned towards the fireplace, the logs wearing a faint glow.

Not wanting to rock the boat, you couldn't exactly let your surprise at the last rule slip, "I hope I don't come across as ungrateful saying this, but would it really be necessary to have me stay here?"

"Hm? So you'd prefer to be surrounded by the sick, risking infection yourself?" Your eyes falling to your hands said it all. "Believe me, dear, you'll be able to do more for them helping me here than you ever would stuck there with them."

Not having much grounds to argue with the conditions, you threw caution to the wind in dreaming of a future for those being affected. "I'm willing to do what it takes to help those in need."

Looking up at him, the sly grin stretching across his wasn't even attempted to be concealed. "Excellent. Such a noble display of self-sacrifice will not go unnoticed, I can assure you."

There was a clear shift in your demeanor; acting quickly, he impaled a pitchfork in your stream of consciousness, giving you the illusion of being able to see beyond all the while still placing you behind bars.

"Please," his voice soft and welcoming, "consider this arrangement as simply temporary and me as your guide to end all of this mess."

Fragmented skepticism was still scattered throughout your mind, yet the glimmers of hope shined through. The shadows of doubt were overlooked by your want to reinstate normalcy, leading you astray from sound judgment. With your confidence in this alliance still shaky, you were given no choice but to put your faith in this man.

Your submission was clear. As he leaned down to your eye level, he cocked his head in interest. "Shall I show you around then?" While being led out of the room, the slight glow from under the wood finally died out.

Listening to him share the history of his home was awe-inspiring. Each story that passed his lips was captivating, and each room appeared to come alive as he spoke about them. There was a question itching at you, though. With him rambling on about how vast and rich everything about this place was, you attempted a polite interruption.

"This is quite an impressive home with an undeniably spellbounding past, but if you don't mind me asking, where exactly do you work?"

“Ah, let me show you.”

Making your way out back and ducking under the overgrown tree limbs, he brought you to the bottom of a cliff. Grinning at your lingering disorientated state from the twists and turns he’d been throwing at you, he patted the tall wall of earth.

“This leads to a world many other scientists and doctors could only dream of.” With a devilish glint in his eyes, he kept them locked on you while the PIN pad appeared. Such a subtlety of awe shown on your gentle face caused a few soft chuckles to escape him. You were, after all, just moments away from laying eyes on the most astounding lab known to man.

The earth parted, allowing the both of you access to a world beyond your wildest dreams. A spiraling staircase led to the cluttered, yet organized workspace. Bookcases lined the tall walls, filled with knowledge ranging from a multitude of scientific subjects to history. With ceilings climbing high, the feeling of being a mere insect was hard to shake.

Throwing his hands in the air, he gave an enthusiastic spin, “This is where all of the world’s greatest mysteries are unveiled.” Leering over his shoulder, he leaned down, his voice husky from the thrill of sharing his brilliance with someone. “The whispers in the dark are brought to light in this very room.”

Shuddering from the overly familiar closeness, his words were laced in a toxin, alluding to the lengths at which he went to obtain such intelligence. 

“This, however, is simply my study.” Stretching back to his full height, he offered to show you his lab. “Surely you didn’t come all this way just to see this. Let’s continue the grand tour.”

The elongated corridor gave the illusion of stretching further and further. Once finally reaching the end, he flung open the door. “Ladies first,” he grinned.

When entering, he slapped his open palm against the switch on the wall, causing you to jump as the lights above illuminated the laboratory. A laugh rose from him, which left butterflies swarming in the pit of your stomach.

Brushing past you, he gestured to the vials of various substances, beakers, and the well-sorted notes and binders, all of which kept his brilliance cataloged. “This is where the magic happens, my dear.”

Fidgeting with your loose fabric, assuming that you were granted permission to look around seemed foolish, so instead, you peered around the room from your personal bubble.

Eyeing you, he saw you as a rather curious thing, something for him to pick apart. “Tell me, what do you specialize in?”

“Immunology,” holding your head high and your stare firm.

“Oh? Well, how lucky I am to have such gifted hands to aid me.” Humming at the sight of confidence radiating through you, he questioned further, “And how long have you had to wield such expertise?”

“I’ve only just finished medical school.” Despite knowing how that sounded—a rookie with only the theories but none of the practice—you refused to allow the self-assurance in your capabilities to budge.

“Then what a great learning experience this will be for you.”

Suspecting a mocking tone, deflection came to your defense, “Yes, it’ll look great on my resume.”

What seemed like a spec of genuineness was layered in his laughter. “That’s the spirit!”

A slight tug at the corner of your mouth was shown, giving your nerves a bit of a break. Looking around the room once more, your eagerness to have a glimpse into his mind made it hard to stay still. Risking a glance, your curiosity couldn’t be held back, “May I have a look around?”

He cocked an eyebrow and smirked, “Sure, after all we’ll be spending many moons in here together.”

Nodding at his statement, you were mindful of your step and distance from his work, not even daring to breathe on them in the wrong way.

Pride bubbled inside him, while he watched you soaking in many of his past feats. Perhaps your lack of experience wouldn’t hinder you from appreciating some of the finer tastes life had to offer—or rather, he had to offer.

“What condition were the first patients in when you left?”

“Oh, they— ” nightmarish images of their decaying bodies flashed in your mind, “their conditions were critical. Their organs were…deteriorating, as if acid had been poured on them.” Choking back the tears from the horrors you witnessed, you would never be able to forget their pain filled screams for help.

In spite of the fact he was elated at the progress the creature was making in such a short amount of time, such celebration wouldn’t fare well for him in the long run. “How awful! Those poor souls.” Placing a hand on his chest, he signaled his condolences for the terror you must’ve been subjected to.

Seeing the grief on your face made you easy pickings. “Well, don’t you worry, we’ll start our practices first thing in the morning.”

“In the morning? Why not now?” There was a clear sense of urgency in what you’d just told him, so you couldn’t wrap your head around why anyone would choose to wait.

“Now, now, calm yourself. It’s already nightfall and we’ll need our strength if we’re to be of any use to them. Plus, there are a few plants in the area we can test with, and I’m sure you’ll agree that they’ll be much easier to find in broad daylight. Hm?”

His words flowed like cream and his tone felt like velvet, yet there was just something off about him that you just couldn’t put your finger on. However, you were in no position to question his advice. He was, of course, much more experienced than you, but you began to wonder that with experience came a lack of empathy.

“You’re right,” you admitted.

“Oh, darling, of course I am! Don’t get carried away by the excitement.” He moved to your side, his presence exuding every ounce of authority over you. Placing his hand gently on your shoulder, he leaned down, popping your personal bubble. “Trust me when I say you’ll only get burned.”

A deep red burned your ears, when he pulled away. As you hesitantly looked up at him, his unnerving grin and piercing dead eyes aroused a fear in you that hadn’t yet been realized. An involuntary nod was all you could muster in that moment.

Sucking in a sharp inhale, he tilted his head while making a suggestion, “Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to have a quick read, though.”

Watching the color reappear on your face gave him more satisfaction than it should have. “Oh, that would be nice! I mean, I just want to feel like I’m doing something,” you reigned back on your joy at him changing his mind.

Sighing at your display, he covered the drop of irritation skillfully, “Completely understandable. And well, you are a doctor, aren’t you?”

Being reminded of all those who were too cowardly to stay and help, you thought it’d be best that you not unleash all of your broodiness. Shaking off the ones who’d failed those folk, you were open to whatever knowledge you may gain from Caesar. 

Having followed him back to the library, you observed as his finger traced along the spines. Lightly tapping one, he glanced back at you, “This one. It'll be a good start in finding which plants will be most suitable.”

You gladly took the book he offered you, mesmerized by the delicate pages which showed its age. Mindfully thumbing through the pages, there were a few that called out to you.

The enthusiasm radiating off of you came with warmth he hadn't felt in quite some time. Being surrounded by people who lacked any luster, any spark of light had taken a toll on his own pleasure in what he did. As you combed through each of the pages you bookmarked, he had a hunch you were going to be a rather entertaining guest.

Deciding you had your fill for the night, he guided you to the room you'd be staying in. Wishing you sweet dreams, the comfort of the pillow quickly pulled you into a deep slumber. While you slept heavily and went in and out of dreams that stirred the dread swirling in your heart, you were met with twinges of pain but still you did not awake till morning.

Jolting up in bed, you triggered the room to spin and your head to pound. Looking about the room, you'd hoped the last few days were just nightmares, weaving into what could be mistaken for reality, but to your dismay, you could never wake up from this.

Creaking the door open, you were given a dimly lit view down the corridor. Concentrating on each faint sound in the distance, you cautiously made your way down the stairs. Even though you two spent some time getting to know each other last night, he was still a stranger and you were under his roof, abiding by his rules. Crossing any boundaries would not be taken lightly, that much you could gather from him.

Peeping around the corner, the muffins plated on the kitchen counter caught your eye. With the strong winds of the outbreak pulling you every which way, the last meal you had felt like a distant memory. You drummed your fingers next to the aesthetically pleasing morsels, wishing that he'd come by so you could properly ask permission.

With the minutes ticking away, your thoughts wandered, leaving you to ponder his whereabouts. The muffins taunted you, but your hunger was off set by the discomfort of stuffing your face with treats that may or may not have been for you.

In a slight huff of annoyance, you got up to search for him, but before you could cross the threshold, he appeared at the end of the adjoining hall.

“Have to eat and run?” His playful tone carried over to you.

“N-no, actually, just run I suppose.”

While entering the room, his gaze immediately casted from you to the plated baked goods. “You're allowed to have one. If you'd like of course.”

There was something in the way he offered that churned your stomach, causing you to lose your appetite. “No, thank you. Maybe the current events have affected my hunger.”

Shrugging off your refusal, he added, “Later then. You'll have to eat at some point.”

“It's not that I don't appreciate the offer! It's just…,” you did your best to mask any unease, “I’d feel so much better if we made progress with our research. Could we please get started on it soon?”

Muffled giggles trailed out of him, “I don't mean to laugh, but have they any idea how lucky they are to have someone as determined as you fighting for them?”

The slight shift in your eyes was very telling. “They don't truly appreciate you, do they?” The rhetorical question pierced you deeper than you would've ever guessed.

“I'm willing to bet they never have,” lining his observations with incitement, he inched closer as if inviting you to bear your hatred for them.

“It doesn't matter whether they cared about me or not,” your vocal cords were already swelling from the anticipation of heartache, “What matters is doing the right thing.”

Snorting at your noble display, each moment with you was becoming more glaring that you were going to be tougher to sink his claws into. “Oh, I never tire of selflessness…comradery is truly endearing.” He didn't bother hiding his eye roll and sarcasm.

Disgust at his disinterest in the lives that were being lost boiled within. How can such a person exist?

He was clamping down on a nerve without an ounce of care. However, you couldn't let him get to you. You had to push through these ‘temporary conditions’, then afterwards you'd rid yourself of him. 

“I think it'd be best if we focus on the task at hand.” Keeping your eyes locked on his, your perseverance remained unwavering.

Tilting his head from side to side, he hummed in agreement, “What a great idea.”

Gathering the notes the two of you compiled last night, the plants for which you'd forage had been decided on. Venturing outside to collect them, the peace and quiet found in nature could never be matched. 

Distancing yourself from Caesar gave you time to reflect; going back to your repulsions, there must be a deeper issue at hand, one of which you were not equipped to deal with. In spite of all this, a shred of pity for the man crawled out from behind the corners of your mind. Being alone for who knew how long must carry a lot of weight. Then posed the question as to why he was alone: by choice or chased away? 

Even if there was evil displayed in this world, you held out hope that most people had good in them—including him. When you returned with the ingredients, you challenged yourself to look at him through a new lens and wanted to give him the chance that perhaps many others hadn't.

“Would you care to observe, (y/n)?”

“Yes, I would.” Taking your place next to him, you mentally took note of each movement he made, soaking in the valuable skills he willingly shared with you.

At one point when you needed to make one of your runs to his library to double check something, you caught yourself; you were thoroughly enjoying this time with him, to which shame and guilt were dragged behind. What gull you had to be having fun in the midst of a new plague.

Unbeknownst to you, the aura you carried was thick with self-loathing. Pushing through the tasks at hand, those intrusive thoughts twisted their persistence, whispering in your ear: how wretched you are, how lowly of a doctor you must be to find pleasure in this. Can't you hear their cries? They're voices are being carried to you on the back of the wind that's rustling those leaves. 

You caught stray glares here and there. “Pull yourself together,” you scrutinized yourself. The inner monologue, however, was snowballing into a one-sided argument, leaving you in an echo chamber.

Stretching back in his chair, he sighed, “What's happened?”

Rapid blinks and a puzzled look coupled as you stared at him. A faint ‘Hm?’ was all that followed.

His golden eyes squinted at you, observing you just as he was doing with the samples. Pointing out the error you were about to make, he reiterated, this time in an irked tone.

“Nothing.” Your voice was dismissive.

“You know, most people are such dreadful liars and you're no exception.”

Unwilling to hold your tongue, you informed him of the joy you felt in pushing forth towards a discovery.

“So then why are you sulking?”

“Because I can't help but feel bad for enjoying the process of finding a cure.”

Rubbing his eyes, there was little patience he had for your endless amount of compassion. “The world doesn't stop just because there's a new disease. Life goes on, so why let it stop you from enjoying it?”

Crossing your arms at his advice, deep down you knew he was right and you hated it.

“If you became a doctor to save everyone, then you're in for a rude awakening, my dear.”

“I know I can't save everyone!”

“Then stop acting like you can! I mean, you've wasted so much time fretting over how sorry you feel about everything and anything and for what? Hm? Many have died and many more will quickly follow, so stop letting that bleeding heart of yours get in the way of progress.”

A loathing festered inside you towards him but more yourself. Regaining your composure and any shred of dignity, you excused yourself to bury your nose in research.

Cracking open a few books and setting them around you, the urge to wallow in your own self pity was warded off. Despite the vile coating still lingering in your mouth, his view on the world draped over you. 

Harsh words gnawing at your conscience, seeping through the newly formed cracks. Self loathing swelled in knowing he was right.

Carrying out further experiments on the plants you'd collected in silence was becoming more and more unpleasant. However, there was nothing you felt like you could say. Keeping your nose to the grindstone would be the simplest way to convey where your heart lay.

As the day drew to a close and the dread from earlier still hanging over you, going to bed without supper was an easy decision. Yet even with the exhaustion of the day weighing you down, rest served as no aid: tossing and turning, whining from pain, eyes that fluttered open but never pulling you awake. 

Waking to the dull gray that clouded your room, your rigid form staggered across your host's line of vision.

His legs carried him fast, circling around you like a vulture.

“Despite looking it, I'm not dead,” you croaked.

Chuckling at your spunk, he offered a solution, “I believe I may have something for you.”

Following him into the kitchen, you already assumed what he had planned. “It'd have to be one strong cup of coffee to liven me up.”

“No, no, none of that!” Clanking jars trying to reach for something, an ‘Ah-ha!’ sounded before showing you a small glass bottle with a few stray pills.

Displaying them proudly, he instructed you to take a blue one now and a yellow one before bed. “They'll help keep your mind in check.”

With a searing glare, it shifted from the bottle to him.

“Tsk, you know, you're really going to have to learn to trust me at some point.”

A swirl of guilt stirred in you.

“We are partners, aren’t we?” His grin was crooked while he jostled the pills, nabbing your attention in hopes of taking them.

“Yes…you're right.”

“Ah, those words are music to my ears.”

Huffing a half-hearted laugh, you popped the first pill.

“It shouldn't be long before you feel the effects. But, uh, please tell me when you feel better.” He turned to place some of the other containers up right.

“What's the rush? Are the plants going to disappear soon?”

Humming in slight amusement, he answered, “No, but I managed to come up with our first beta sample for a cure.” He glanced over his shoulder to witness the astonishment that would undoubtedly play on your face, keeping his gaze firm and analytical.

To no surprise, you were rattled with eagerness to put such a thing into action. “Really? That quickly? There's no way!”

“Oh, my dear, you have such little faith, but I can assure you that you're working with one of a kind.”

Stood there in awe, you couldn't believe he'd managed to create the first beta sample as quickly as he did. Your beams of gratitude fueled him in ways you'd only regret.

“Wait, so are you saying we can start testing it?”

“Well, it's not ideal to immediately start testing on patients, yet I'm afraid we have no other options.”

“That's true…they could have severe side effects.” When you hung your head at the thought, you missed his lips twisting into a grin.

He regained his composure before playing on your heart strings. “Oh, now don't you start worrying about that.” Cocking his head to the side, his intonation rose, “Aren't you hungry?”

“Well, no, but—”

“You haven't eaten since you got here. I'm starting to think you're snubbing my cooking,” he teased.

After finishing the meal, it dawned on you how your fatigue had completely disappeared. Clearing your throat caught his attention.

“Thank you very much for the meal, and I just noticed I'm feeling much better now.”

Clasping his hands together, he gave you a warm-hearted response, “That's wonderful! We need you to be in tip top shape if you're going into town.”

The assumption that you'd be the one carrying out the injections was obvious, but you would never protest anyway. Nodding at him, you confidently notified him that you were ready.

Talking through the correct dosage, you set out feeling sure in your abilities.

In spite of the fact it'd only been a day since you left, a few more people had fallen ill, and those you had fallen prior to it were in critical condition—the first unlucky few having already been pronounced dead.

Looking around, you saw a few nurses who'd stuck around, which brought you some relief. Informing the staff that you and Caesar were working to find an end to this, they felt as if they had no other option; they placed their faith in you.

Finding your way over to some cots, you did your best to soothe his cries before allowing him to be the first to test out this substance. You wished you could've done more, though it was morally questionable enough using one person as a guinea pig, let alone a fourth of the town.

Sticking around for an hour was more than long enough: the patient's heart rate spiked and his temperature climbed to life-threatening heights before convulsions ensued. Within the span of five minutes his body gave way, unable to fight any longer.

Even though you knew that the first sample wouldn't be the last, you'd still held out for something better. Trekking back up the hill, you gave Caesar the results.

He leaned back in his chair, mulling over what you'd bestowed on him and was then motivated with a new course of action.

Whatever doubt was circling around you was cleared once you saw that spark ignite. With new flares of motivation coursing through you, your hope remained unwavering.

“Oh, how careless of me. I nearly forgot to ask: do you feel…unwell at all?”

Reflecting on the lack of precautions you took in town, you had yet to feel any sign of illness creeping up. “I feel surprisingly fine, actually.”

He was seemingly pleased by your resilient immune system, leading the two of you to set forth on tweaking the faulty product.

With the moon high and the night still, your dark silhouettes trailed behind as you passed the entry’s threshold. Keeping to Caesar’s instructions, you swallowed the yellow pill before retiring to your room.

A faint ‘sweet dreams’ drifted after you while you were heading towards the staircase. Looking back to return his kindness, you wondered from where exactly he’d called out to you. Placing your hand on the railing, you called back to him but only deafness filled the rooms.

Not being keen on the idea of sticking around until he popped around a corner, you hurriedly got to your room. Laying in bed, praying that the pill he gave you would kick in soon, creaks seemed to sound off downstairs, in the rooms next to yours, at the foot of your bed, yet there was no one there to greet you when you shot up.

With sweat tickling your skin, you talked yourself down from the ledge; paranoia was sinking in, that’s all. There was nothing lurking in the corners of this house that you hadn’t already encountered. Laying your head back down on the pillow, the effects of the drug blanketed you in the warmth of its duvet.

Your eyes didn’t flutter open until the sun peeked from behind the clouds, leading a stray ray of light to cast on your sleeping form. Stirring under the sheets, a twinge of pain pricked at your shoulder. Rubbing it appeared to grace you with some ounce of relief, yet you had just about had it with these sleepless nights.

Thrashing the sheets off of your entangled legs, you found yourself downstairs without any true sense of purpose.

“Where are you off to in such a frenzy?”

Shooting your focus in the direction of the parlor, your host was relaxing on the sofa, wondering if you were showing some new kind of symptom for the plague.

“I don’t know what it is about this place, but I haven’t been able to have a proper night’s sleep since getting here.”

Frowning subtly, he asked, “Did the pill not help?”

“Well, no. I mean, it did but I woke up with this pain in my shoulder and—”

“It just sounds like you slept on it wrong,” he propped his arm against the arm rest to lean his cheek against it, smirking at you with complacency.

It was clear that you were finding it difficult to come up with a retort, which left yourself open to him.

“I think you’re going just a bit mad from everything that’s been happening.” His devilish grin danced upon his pale complexion.

“That’s not true! I just…I think I just need to feel like I’m contributing more? Maybe?” 

His lips fell into a mocking pout, queuing an eye roll from you. “Well, if you want to contribute a little more, why don’t you assist me in making more…unconventional changes to the samples.”

The perplexing connotation of what he meant by ‘unconventional’ made you involuntarily shake your head in an attempt to rid of any strife that could follow. “What do you mean by ‘unconventional’?”

“Well, you saw with your own eyes that the plague is still spreading with many dying such horrific deaths, right? If we’re to save as many as possible, risks must be taken.”

Placing your face in your palms, you sought for ways of self-soothing. You couldn’t think of a good enough argument against taking such measures. With that being said, your voice shook with doubt, “I don’t know. We could end up killing more people than if we stick to our current method.”

“Perhaps,” he tilted his head from side to side to rattle your concerns around, “or perhaps not and the risks could save many more lives than originally anticipated.” Leaning forward, his smug smile tore down the assurance you were clinging to, “That’s why they’re called risks, (y/n).”

With fragments of humiliation biting at your cheeks, you felt inclined to agree with him, “F-fine, we’ll do it your way.”

“Excellent! Let’s get started then, shall we?”

Sunlight was now transitioning into dusk and with the day being laid to rest, you had a new version of yesterday’s sample. Being fed words of affirmation on your irreplaceable addition to these experiments, you ventured down into town again with his promises of this being the end of it ringing loudly in your ears.

Finding out many more in town had started falling ill, you regrettably had to pass over some who were beyond saving; there was only so much power you had and repairing organs was not within it.

The effects this time were nearly immediate; the patient’s veins in their arm ran with a deep purple and began bulging through the skin. What was in the injected arm rushed throughout the rest of the body before giving you a chance to process what was unfolding.

Within moments of it spreading, sizzling could be heard emerging from the seizing test subject. As a nurse rushed to support the ill-fated soul, he pulled back in agony. The sweat accumulating at the base of her head was deteriorating the fabric.

What lasted mere moments would forever be etched into your mind, making sure to slash away beliefs you’d become anything more than an assistant in genocide.

Breaking your way into Caesar’s, you were overcome with fits of rage and sorrow. Searching high and low for him, you set your rampage on his lab. Choking out his name in a pained yelp, you marched down the hall to find an empty room. Disbelief clouded your better judgment as you charged into the room.

You jolted out of your skin upon the sound of the slamming door ricocheting against the four walls. Leering down at his prey, he promptly shoved you back in a chair. His grim appearance didn’t falter while his piercing eyes burrowed their way to your core, wrapping your frightened heart with barbed wire and ready to squeeze if necessary.

“I’m assuming everything went as planned?” His gaze was unwavering but the side of his mouth was being tugged at.

“What was the point in all of this? Why did you keep me here?” Tears were stinging you as they swelled up.

“Well, for one, you came here on your own free will and offered to help me. That was simply an opportunity I couldn’t refuse. And, uh, quick question before I continue, did you touch that last patient by chance?”

Scanning each scattered remnant of your mind, you recalled trying to keep them from injuring themselves, remembering the slight dampness on their shirt.

“And that, my dear, would be the main reason. You see, I thought it was strange that despite being in town during the outbreak, you had no symptoms, so I decided to send you there again with the “cure”. When you came back with no complaints, I just had to see this through.”

“How do you know for sure though? That I’m immune. I mean, couldn’t there be other factors th—”

Tilting his head and giving you a sympathetic smile, “I think you know how.”

Streams of panic cascaded down your cheeks. “So, what are you just going to keep me here as some rat?”

“No, of course not! Luckily for you, you’re quite an entertaining guest.” His eyes casted down slightly before finishing his speech, “I will be the kind host I always have been towards you and offer you knowledge you could only dream of, as long as you comply with each and every test I run on you.”

Peering into each other's souls, there were clashing morals and dreams for the future, with which yours was in no shape to fight against. “Fine.” You muttered.

“Oh, come now. Don’t get in such a mood. I wasn’t lying about everything. You do have something unique about you, hence why you won’t be bound to a cage. But remember that only a waning candle sheds its light around, so just make sure that light of yours stays lit.”

Straightening up to his full height again, dismay engulfed you while you awaited his next demands. For once in your life, you wished you’d been selfish and fled with the others.