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miabebe · 2 days ago

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Camp Seventeen: Chapter 3

Pairing - Afab!reader x ot13

Word count - 16K

Genre - Greek Demigod AU! We’ve got crack, smut, fluff , angst, hurt, comfort, all of it in this series, buckle up!

Previous chapter

Chapter summary - As the days in camp seventeen unfold the many burdens you had tucked away in your heart, you dive into the sorrows you had presumably left behind. Thankfully (or not) a musical moment and a menacing monster serve as unforeseen distractions.

A/n - I do have a taglist so comment on this post to be added! As usual, the member and warnings will be added in a weeks time to keep suspense :) This chapter is a bit heavy, the plot is thickening so please do take your time with it - I promise things will make sense eventually!

Special thanks to @monamipencil! Your comments made my day Lola <3

“Chief.” Soonyoung took a worried step forward, hand slipping out from yours. “Is everything okay?”

“If you’re here it's either not serious enough or it's too serious.” Minghao frowned at Seungcheol, crossing his arms. “My guess is the former.”

“The camp is under attack.” Seungcheol sighed, running his hands through his hair like he was embarrassed. “Of….”

“Of what?”

“O-of geese.”

“Geese??” Soonyoung looked at him stupidly. “Like plural of goose, geese?”

“What other kind of geese do you know, you dumbass.” Seungcheol rolled his eyes.

“I don't know. The kind of geese I know don’t attack human establishments??”

“It’s obviously some elaborate prank by the children of Nemesis, considering it's their companion.” Muttering, Seungcheol stuffed his hand in his pockets. “Those winged brats are just wreaking havoc everywhere - they’ve broken all of the farm's tools, they’ve made a mess of the dining hall, they’ve shat all over the houses-” Both boys groaned. “-it's a catastrophe.”

“Are we sure it’s not Jeonghan?” Soonyoung narrowed his eyes. “We all know how much he enjoys stuff like this….”

“Jeonghan also loves to watch the consequences of his very well planned antics.” Seungcheol scoffed. “And he’s not at camp - he said he was going to the city for….. something, I don’t know but no, it’s not him.”

“If it's not him then how did these birds enter camp at night?” Minghao raised his eyebrows confused. “They shouldn’t have been able to pass Wonwoo’s nighttime defenses.”

“He says they might have sneaked in during the shift handover. Apparently Hansol and the hounds were the only ones patrolling when he was settling up because Jihoon was busy elsewhere.” Seungcheol looked straight at you, almost accusatorily.

What the hell, how was this your fault?

“There’s no need to look at her like that.” Minghao took a step forward, half covering you behind his frame. “You should talk to Jihoon about being more responsible with his time.”

“That’s not the point now.” Watching both men glaring at each other, Soonyoung tried to ease the tension. “We should be discussing how we can get rid of those menaces.”

“We've been trying.” Seungcheol groaned. “But neither Jun nor Hansol are able to communicate with them for some reason. It seems like they are some weird mix of domestic and wild.”

“That's strange.” Minghao frowned, lost in thought.

“Something does seem off.” Soonyoung agreed. “Not only have they breached Wonwoo's protection but they're also some sort of unheard half breeds? Two anomalies cannot be a coincidence.”

“Moreover, it's not like the children of Nemesis to prank.” Minghao frowned, staring at the ground. “Pettiness isn't their nature.”

“What other reason could they have to do this?” Seungcheol crossed his arms, muscles tense. “Revenge?”

“Maybe, or it might not even be them.” Sooonyoung looked lost in thought. “Seungkwan and I will speak around with our contacts. I’m sure we can find out something.”

Seungcheol nodded, “In the meantime we need to clear them from camp premises before they cause more destruction.”

“Then why aren't you at camp doing that chief?” Minghao narrowed his eyes at the leader. “Why is it that you're here, like there's more important things to worry about?”

You didn’t have to look to tell that Minghao was glancing at you over his shoulder.

Soonyoung didn't seem to think his presence was suspicious. “He's the Son of Zeus, Hao. Geese and him don't really go well together.”

You vaguely recalled Jihoon telling you something in the Iliad about Zeus, geese and the Helen of Troy.

“Is that it?” Minghao raised his eyebrow amused. “Big ol’ chief afraid of some feathered friends?”

“I’m here for Soonyoung.” Seungcheol gritted between his teeth. “And I asked for the message of the attack to be passed to him alone.”

Your eyes followed Soonyoung’s which focused on the group huddled in the corner - a bunch of the most beautiful people you had ever seen, snickering away.

“Fucking Aphrodite’s children.” He muttered knowing all three of you were purposely misled here in the interest of creating a scene.“How can I help, chief?”

“We were wondering if your ability to induce intoxication can calm them down so they can be captured?” He looked unsure. “Hansol and Jihoon were ready to shoot down the birds but if this really is a prank, we don’t want to harm their animals and seek trouble with the other camps.”

“Even though this might be their fault?”

“We have enough on our plate this season, Soonyoung.” It was very apparent that Seungcheol was trying his best not to meet your eye. “The last thing we need is more camps to be against us.”

Soonyoung nodded like he understood. “We should leave then but Chan is too drunk to drive-”

“I got here on Wonwoo’s bike.” Seungcheol waved his hand, dismissing the younger one’s concern. “You and I can head back first and the rest of the team…...Minghao, are you sober?”

The man in question nodded.

“Good, gather everyone immediately and make sure they reach camp safely, especially….”

Seungcheol glanced at you, his expression a lot softer but the anger you felt for him had not changed.

“I’m not leaving yet.” You spoke up for the first time, earning the leader’s confused look. “I don't want to.”

“Are you drunk?”

“And what if I am?”

“It’s a Thursday night Y/n, we have training tomorrow morning-”

“Ugh I don’t care.” You grabbed a canned cocktail from the nearby table and popped it open, ignoring Soonyoung’s widened eyes. “Your camp, your rules, whatever the hell you’ve got going on, I don’t care for it Cheol- oh sorry, Seungcheol.” You corrected yourself. “I will leave this party whenever I feel like I want to leave this party.”

“Stop being a child.” Seungcheol was clearly holding back his anger. “There’s enough going on back at camp now for you to-”

“Exactly, go deal with it chief. I’m sure you’ll all fare better without the “weak link” around.”

“Y/n I…” He sighed, watching you drink in big gulps. “First of all, you shouldn’t be drinking that-”

“Can someone please explain to this man that I’m not going to listen to him.”

“Cheol.” Minghao looked pointedly at his leader who was on the verge of snapping. “I’ll bring everyone back to camp safely…. everyone.” He emphasized again. “You and Kwon should get going now.”

“Yeah.” Soonyoung nodded before turning to you and grabbing the bottom ends of Minghao’s jacket, aligning them as his voice fell to a whisper. “Y/n, that’s a sex potion too.”

Eyes popping out, you nearly spat out your drink. “I thought it was just the beer??” He nodded. “Yeah, so did everyone, hence the improvisation.” He pulled the zip up, adjusting the jacket on your shoulders. “Take care sweetie.”

You nodded, eyes briefly meeting Seungcheol over Soonyoung’s shoulder. He looked…..indifferent as he stared back.

“Come on Kwon.” He muttered, turning away as the Soonyoung dropped a kiss on your forehead before taking a step back and jogging away to catch up with his leader. You only let out a breath as their figures disappeared in the rain that only got heavier.

Before you knew it, a familiar feeling began licking up your spine, warmth spreading all over your being just like it had earlier. As you slowly turned to Minghao, embarrassed to meet his eye, he straight up shook his head, looking amused.

“Nah uh. Ignorance I can understand but stupidity?” He scoffed. “That's your problem.”

“Minghao-”

“Fight it Y/n.” He grabbed a macaroon, stuffing it in his mouth as he began to walk away from you. “Fight it.”

Unlike Seungcheol’s house, the room you woke up in did not have sunlight streaming in.

Stretching on the large king size bed, you glanced at the now empty space beside you - the man who had given you company last night was no longer there and rightfully so considering it was way past training hours.

Ignoring the pain in your head, you swung your feet off the mattress, glancing out the window. The view is much nicer than Seungcheol’s house - there all you could see were endless trees and hills but here you could see much more of the camp, particularly the common cabin, where everyone was slowly walking towards after hitting the showers. Slightly annoyed and very bothered that yesterday’s events were about to repeat, you sighed, heading down the stairs, making your way to the dining hall. Unlike yesterday though, no one spared a glance at you as you walked in.

You could tell they were all tired - you saw much of the aftermath of the geese ambush as you returned to camp late last night. Considering everything looked normal today, you figured the boys must have spent all night cleaning up before reporting to train in the wee hours of the morning.

“Y/n,” Mingyu’s voice called out to you from behind as you turned to him. “You left this in my workshop last night….”

As you glanced at the jacket in his outstretched hand, the eyes of the other boys flickered between the two of you.

“That's mine.’ Minghao walked up, swooping his garment in his hands as the attention of the room shifted to him. You gulped as he walked away from the hall wordlessly.

You figured you should say something considering the silence was only getting worse, maybe apologise for missing training yet again but before you could say it, Seungcheol got up and walked right past you without saying a word.

Lips parted, you watched him leave once more, refusing to say anything, refusing to listen to you, simply being stubborn like he always was.

Fine, if he was going to be a bitch, so were you. Following his suit, you walked out of the hall in the opposite direction, leaving everyone inside baffled.

The heat of the water just wasn’t comforting.

You knew it was hot, there was steam all around, the tiles of the shower were covered in condensation and designs you had mindlessly traced with your finger. But rather than scalding your skin off, the boiling hot water just felt like a tickle. Annoyed, you turned off the pouring water and grabbed the towel, wrapping it around your body, tucking it in front of your chest. As you ran your hand through your wet hair, you looked at yourself in the mirror.

Water was dripping from the wet strands, running down the many darkening, reddish purple marks on your neck and shoulder. You knew they would get darker as days passed but you didn’t expect them to look so bruised up already. Running your finger across them you sighed - last night was a horrible mistake. Sure you were under the influence of some messed up concoction but sleeping with more than one member of the camp was ridiculous to say the least.

What was more burdensome was the idea that maybe there was more than the concoction involved…. Soonyoung had broken up with his girlfriend because of you but neither he nor you were sure about what exactly he felt for you and Minghao? You had noticed he was generally protective of you since you had joined camp and thought it was just because he was nice, but the way he pulled you away from Soonyoung every time the two of you were a little more intimate? That did not seem very ‘general’.

Shutting your eyes, you tried to push the details of last night out of your mind. Thank god you listened to your trainer when he told you to fight it. Otherwise when you asked Mingyu if you could crash at his place in order to avoid Seungcheol and found yourself sharing his king size bed, maybe you would have allowed yourself to make another mistake. You couldn't make another one so soon.

Tightening the grip of your towel, you turned towards the changing rooms, slightly startled by the figure that just walked in.

Wonwoo - also in his towel, hanging low at his waist, moving as silent as a shadow as he walked towards the showers. You should have felt exposed, more conscious, given you were barely dressed, and covered in innumerable hickies but you didn't feel a thing. Because Wonwoo hadn't spared you a glance. He walked past you like he couldn't care less, like you weren't there.

“What is your problem?”

After days of watching this man behave so unnecessarily indifferent to you, you finally spoke up, mind already disturbed by a hundred and one things.

“Why do you always behave like I don't exist?” You crossed your arms, staring him down. “If you're an introvert, I can understand, Hansol doesn't interact with me much either but at least he doesn't behave like I'm invisible, like he can see right through me-”

“Because I can.” His voice left him deep and cold as he turned to you. “Because I can see right through you.”

You scoffed. “What-”

“Because regardless of what you pretend to be in front of others, I can see the real you. I know things about you that you won't even admit to yourself.”

“What-” You emphasised again. “-can you possibly know?.”

“What can I know?” He raised an eyebrow. “I know you're a loner Y/n. You've been one your whole life. Your biological parents never cared enough about you, you don't have any siblings, you've never bothered to make friends, you've always been alone.” He took a step forward. “Even though it was circumstances that drove you to loneliness, you always told yourself that it was your choice, that you wanted to be alone because it’s easier that way. It’s easier to tell yourself that you chose to distance yourself from everyone rather than admit that you were rejected. You knew you would never be accepted. You knew no matter where you were and what you did, you would never fit in. You knew you were a freak.”

Eyes widening, you stared at his nearing figure.

“But now? Now you're finally in a place where you belong. You are finally with your kind but you're still terrified - you're scared that maybe, this isn’t where you’re meant to be either. You're scared that if you accept these people and they find out what you really are, they'll leave you too. They'll break the heart you've been safeguarding for all these years.”

Your heart was quite literally in your mouth.

“That's why you rebel. That's why you call this place 'camp' and never ‘home’. You say things are hard and you're having trouble adjusting but what you're really trying to do is establish that you always are and always will be an outsider - you’re trying to escape the pain that will come when you're finally abandoned. That is why you'll always look for reasons to leave this camp. You'll never let yourself belong, you'll never let yourself become one of those here. So tell me, why do I have to try and bother with your existence when you’re just looking for the first chance to run?”

And somehow, now you could feel the heat all over. It was uncomfortably coursing through your whole body, burning you inside out in a way that made you want to rip out your skin but you already felt so bare, so naked in front of this man.

But before any words could leave you at all, Wonwoo took a step back and then another till he retreated out of sight and into the showers. It was only when he disappeared that you finally let out the breath you were holding.

Maybe the more logical thing to do was to dive into the lake before you hit the showers but here you were, stripping into just your inner wear and jumping into the ice cold waters, desperate to cool yourself off. As you submerged yourself further in the waters, you shut your eyes, submerging into the darkness as well.

The fire burning inside you because of Wonwoo's words was just not dying. For the first time ever, it felt like you had truly looked into a mirror because every single word that came out of that man's mouth was true. So, so true.

And he was right when he said you've never admitted these things even to yourself because you were never really one for introspection. It wasn't like you to explore your thoughts, understand your nature, figure out the intentions of your actions. No, none of that.

You were impulsive. You dived head first into things. You made decisions, then considered the consequences. You were reckless, you lived fearlessly, you lived like no one and nothing else mattered.

Because nothing else did matter.

Ever since you were young, you were on your own. You were not even sure when your mother left you, you had no memories of her and your father? The man who was barely ever present, abandoned you 3 days before your 12th birthday. From then your life had been just yours alone. You worked odd jobs to feed yourself, you worked hard to study, you studied harder to work better and life just went on like that. You didn't have many friends to compensate for the solitude either. Making friends was somehow not very easy for you - how were you supposed to explain the shambles of your life to people? How were you supposed to establish any kind of relationship with anyone when the only ones you ever had, walked out on you?

You were better off alone. You were always better off alone.

That was until one incident turned your entire life upside down.

The days leading up to your arrival at camp are still a blur to you. The flames, the masked men, the court, the meeting of dozens of people - it all still felt like a fever dream. But one moment was still very clear in your memory - the moment when you were standing at the shrine of your mother, in front of her statue.

Goddess of the hearth, home and hospitality they said. The old man beside you was going on and on about her. About her powers, about what a wonderful woman she was, about how delighted you'd be to meet her.

You, though, felt like you were stabbed in the heart you had so carefully locked away.

When the masked men revealed the truth of your parentage, when you learnt about your mother, you let that hope in you grow again. You thought maybe with this big secret finally out you’ll finally get to meet her. That she would finally be a part of your life.

That’s why when they gave you a choice at the swearing in ceremony to join camp seventeen or go back to your mortal life, you chose the former. It was for her, it was to be with your mother, it was to finally feel home.

But as you stared at her statue, offering your respects after the ceremony, it was like someone was drowning you in cold water. Nothing about the expression on her face felt remotely homely, nothing about her felt warm and loving to you - she did not feel like a mother. Rather she felt cold, distant and unwelcoming, just like you imagined the woman who abandoned you would look like.

And with time, you realised your fear was right.

Ever since you arrived at camp, all you did was wait. Wait for just one conversation, maybe an explanation, or even just a glimpse. But there was no indication of her. She didn’t drop by the camp, she didn’t respond to your invocation at the temple, she didn't care at all, just like she hadn’t in the last twenty five years.

The pain of being re-abandoned was so strong that, with each passing day, it began to gnaw on your insides. The breaking point was perhaps realising that you were her only progeny yet you didn't matter to her. It was a blow you had refused to accept but one that had most definitely broken you internally. You had uprooted your whole life for her, you made this new world yours but at what cost - daily incessant instructions to train, classes after classes teaching you how to fit in, members continually trying to make you feel at home. You didn’t want this home, you didn’t want these people, you only wanted her.

Wonwoo was right, you were never here to be a part of this camp, it was merely a stepping stone to your final goal. You were indeed looking to run.

But before you could wonder about how Wonwoo knew all these things about you, a hand wrapped around your waist. In a flash it pulled you out and tossed you onto the bank as you launched into a coughing fit, throwing up water.

“What the hell Y/n?” A worried voice patted your back. “What were you thinking?”

In between your fit, you raised your head to meet the sight of a set of extremely well chiseled abs, rivets of water dripping down them. Gulping you cleared your throat and scooted back, suddenly aware that you were very very minimally dressed.

Your saviour Seokmin, looked away from you realising the same as he grabbed the shirt he had tossed into the grass before jumping into the water and handed it to you. Taking it from him, you slipped it on.

“What is wrong with you?”

“What?” You frowned. “I'm fine.”

“You were underwater for so long, I thought you drowned…” Seokmin muttered, pushing his wet hair off his face. “Are you okay?”

“I'm okay.” You mumbled. You weren't but you knew he wasn't referring to your broken heart.

“You looked distressed.” Or maybe he was.

“I just… had some thinking to do.”

“Well underwater isn't the best place for that if I'm being honest.” He chuckled. “Unless you're Poseidon's child.”

“What, only you have a claim on water?”

“No, only we can breathe underwater.” He somehow looked embarrassed. “Though I was well into my teens before I discovered that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was terrified of water as a child, wouldn't go near it.” He laughed. “Ironic for the Son of the Sea right?”

You scoffed. “A little.”

“When my aura got stronger, my father found me and helped me get habituated to the waters, that's how I-”

“Your father?” You gulped, knowing the answer even as you asked him. “Your father as in Poseidon? Poseidon helped you?”

Seokmin nodded like it was obvious. “I was so scared of any kind of water body, he would lure me in with my favourite snacks. As I got older, I stopped falling for such tricks so he took me to Olympus and made sure I was personally trained in those olympic size pools-”

“Fucking hell.” You got to your feet, much to Seokmin's confusion, tripping as you did.

“Y/n careful!” He quickly got up, catching you before you hit the ground again. “Are you okay-”

“No.” You shook your head.“I am not.”

And with that you walked away from there, body alight with a different kind of fire now. You needed to find someone immediately.

“Jihoon, we need to talk.”

As you slammed the door of Jihoon’s house open, you were met with silence.

This was the first time you were in his residence and somehow if you had to picture how his home looked, it was nowhere close to this. You assumed the son of the Sun would prefer whites or lighter colours but most of the minimal furniture in his house was a dark black, standing out starkly in the small room. But right now wasn't the time for you to ponder about his interiors, there were more important things you needed to talk to him about.

Turning on your heel, you shut the door behind you, wandering into this backyard instead. You knew Jihoon had his own personal gym somewhere there and if Soonyoung was right about his tendency to work out, it was highly likely you would find him there.

“Hi Cow.” You waved at the half asleep animal under the tree, lazily blinking at you. As though it read your mind, it pointed its head towards the small path on the side before tucking its head between its legs and dozing off. You followed its directions, reaching a large tinted greenhouse and when you opened the door you were greeted by two dozen gym equipment. In the middle of it all was the man you were looking for, his bare back facing you as he hung off a bar, pulling himself up with way too much ease.

“Y/n.” Well it was no surprise he recognised you without even a glance. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Why has everyone on camp decided to be shirtless today?” You mumbled, walking in, looking around.

Chuckling, Jihoon jumped off, turning to you as he landed. Eyes running down your body, he cocked his head. “Is that why you chose to go bottomless instead?”

And it was only then that you realized you didn't fully dress yourself before storming away from the lake in just Seokmin's shirt.

“I was hot.” You shrugged, pulling down the shirt.

“Hot you are.” He mumbled, sitting down on the bench, grabbing a pair of dumbells. “There's way too much heat in your body, which means you're either mad or ovulating and I'm not sure how I can help with either.”

“The former.” You rolled your eyes. “And only you can help with it.”

“Go on.” He sighed, curling the weights, his biceps bulging with every move. Tearing your eyes away, you cleared your throat.

“I want to meet my mother.”

“Which one?”

“Hestia.” You crossed your arms. “I have something to ask her.”

“I'm still missing the part where I can help.”

“You said you'll teach me how to reach out to her.”

“I did.” He grunted, focusing on his workout. “And I will, every Thursday at 4-”

You grabbed the dumbbell with surprising ease and put them down before leaning over the man before you, expression threatening.

“Lee Jihoon, I swear to god, if you don't help me right now…”

Your words trailed away as his eyes shifted down to your neck, the shirt no longer hiding the bruises that were littered all over it. You glanced down before straightening yourself, taking a step back. Jihoon got up, pushing his hair back, eyes fixed on you.

“I just…” You sighed. “I just want to meet her once.”

“Then go to the camp temple and invoke her presence.”

“I have, everyday. She doesn’t respond.”

“Then there’s no way I can help you Y/n.” He grabbed his towel, wiping the sweat off his arms. “One can only meet Gods if they wish to meet you and I think your mother has made her wishes very clear.”

“I don’t care what she wishes.” You spoke between gritted teeth. “And you said if I played my cards right, my mother would come looking for me.”

“I also said it would take years of training to become worthy of that.”

“I don't have years, Jihoon. I want to meet her as soon as I can.”

“And why the newfound urgency?” He frowned. “What changed overnight?”

Wonwoo.

“Seokmin said his father taught him to swim, that as a child he took him to Olympus.”

“So?”

“So how come my mother never cared, Jihoon? Why is it that she still doesn't?”

“I already told you-”

“I don't buy that.” You shook your head. “How can a mother be ashamed of having a child? Of her only child?”

“You'd be surprised.” Jihoon looked at you pitably. “Gods aren't like humans.”

“Then let her say that to me.” You took a deep breath. “Let her give me that closure so I can stop losing my mind over this. I just want one meeting with her please, is there really no way?”

“There is one.” He hummed, crossing his arms, his pecs bulging behind them.

“And what is that?”

“By doing a sacrifice.”

“Sac-sacrifice?” You looked at him shocked. “Like those cult stuff?”

Jihoon rolled his eyes, forgetting just how little you knew about this world. “Sacrifice is an age-old tradition made by our ancestors to please the gods, to gain their favours.” He leaned against the treadmill, slipping into his professor role, just like he had yesterday. “At times of droughts, they used to call on Zeus for rains. When crops were ravaged by pests, Demeter was the one to turn to. When they were at war, Ares was their savior. But,” He sighed. “calling upon a god was not so easy - it required time and perseverance and procedure-”

“What kind of procedure?”

“It was insanely complex.” Reaching for his bottle, Jihoon began walking out of the greenhouse, you following closely behind. “First, men would have to climb to the top of mount Olympus to get holy fire, then they would gather items for sacrifice. Every god has a set of items that they just cannot refuse. Dionysus loves his gemstones, Poseidon will do anything for seasalt. Artemis is harder to please, she likes a very specific kind of wildflower. If one offered enough of these to please the gods, then they would appear and were obliged to extend one favour in exchange. But ‘enough’ was where the problem lied.” As he bent down to pet Cow, you stared far off at the horizon, lost in thought. ”The Gods were incredibly difficult to satisfy, it took large amounts for anything to be ‘enough’ for them. There were demigods who had spent ages trying to invoke them, even losing their minds in the attempts.”

“That’s degenerate.” You frowned, as he stopped again, this time to grab a bunch of herbs from the wall of his house.

“It was.” He began plucking the leaves, grabbing handfuls. “Eventually, when the Oracle of Delphi was made in charge of the Demigods, things changed. Any demigod who wished to do a sacrifice had to obtain a scroll from her - the Scroll of Sacrifice. A piece of paper that would explicitly state just one thing that the gods wanted in exchange for a favour.”

Pushing the nearby door open, he stepped in.

“So you’re saying,” You followed him into his house. “-the only way for me is to go to the oracle, get a scroll, sacrifice whatever is needed and then in exchange I can earn her favour and make her answer my questions?”

“Theoretically yes, but in reality,” He shook his head, opening yet another door and walking in. “it won’t be that easy.”

“Why not?”

“Delphi only hands scrolls to very few demigods, ones she deems worthy and even if she does, they're incredibly difficult - the sacrifice demanded in exchange is almost always impossible to let go.”

“How hard can it be?” You frowned. “What kind of sacrifices do they ask for?”

Jihoon sighed, the incessant questions finally getting to him. “You do know your weekly classes are for exactly such information right?”

“But I want to know right now.”

“Can I at least tell you without having you stare at me getting dressed?”

Oh.

Apparently you had walked behind him straight into his dressing room.

Muttering an apology, you stepped out as he shut the door behind you.

“So,” You half spun on the balls of your foot. “You were saying?”

Another one of Jihoon’s sighs reached you before his voice. “The Gods are not fond of being obliged to hand out favours - that's why they make sacrifices nearly impossible. I heard Apollo asked for a demigod’s sight and the boy fell to his death before he could even ask for what he wanted. Aphrodite made one of her own children give up her ability to love….. it drove her to insanity. And one of those who prayed to Zeus has been chained to a rock on an abandoned island for nearly twelve years and he still has five more years to go. There are endless stories like this Y/n and each of them will only tell you not to opt for such madness.” He opened the door, now fully dressed, a pair of shorts in his hand. “Here.”

You took it from him, looking a little stumped. “Please wear them Y/n. I can barely look at you…” He muttered walking away again and you quickly slipped on the pair that was just a little too big for you. Following him past a room full of what seemed like musical instruments, you walked into a small pantry.

“What about Hestia?” You gulped, images of her cold face flashing before you. “What has she asked in exchange?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.” He threw the herbs he had gathered earlier into a motor. “I’ve never heard of anyone who’s really seeked her favour.”

You scoffed. “Of course not, what would they ask her help for? Light up their fireplace?”

Jihoon looked up from the paste he was crushing, slightly miffed. “Your mother is no minor goddess Y/n. She's the caretaker, the protector. Hestia is worshiped in every place called home.”

“How ironic.” You smiled sadly. “Her own daughter has never had a home.”

“Unfortunately, no god considers it their responsibility to take care of their bastard children.” He looked pointedly at the counter. “Sit.”

“Why?”

“Just sit Y/n.”

“But why?”

Sighing, Jihoon rolled his eyes and grabbed you by the waist, hoisting you onto the counter effortlessly as you bit back a scream. As though nothing happened, he continued to do whatever it was he was doing while you tried to calm your uncharacteristically racing heart.

“It's also unfair to blame Hestia for not having a home when your mortal parents were the one who were supposed to care for you.”

“I know.” You muttered looking down at your fiddling fingers. “This may sound insane but finding Hestia might be easier than finding my mortal parents…. I don't know a thing about them.”

“I know someone on camp who can help-”

“But I don't want to find them….yet. I don't know what to ask them.” You looked up as Jihoon pulled out a ladder from the side and began climbing it, reaching for something on the higher shelves. “I’m not prepared to find out if they know the kind of monster I am.”

“Why would you say that?” He looked at you over his shoulder, frowning. “You don’t even know what your powers are, right?”

You gulped, staring at the floor, mind racing back to a conversation last night........

“Try not to touch anything.” Mingyu warned as you strolled along his workshop in the faint light of the moonlight. “I’m not really sure if any of these are still hot. I don’t really…. feel heat.”

As if you did.

Hanging out with Mingyu wasn’t really on your cards today. After Minghao had left you to deal with your little problem on your own, you had silently made your way out of the house and down the street, searching for a pharmacy. It must’ve been a good twenty minute unsuccessful walk before Mingyu, who was driving around on his bike looking for you, spotted you. You told him you were looking to buy some pills for a headache so he offered to drive you to the nearest store. He didn’t need to know what you really needed was some plan B. After you had procured what you wanted and he started heading back to camp, you told him to take the longest route possible. While he obliged, you wrapped your arms around his waist and drifted off, not wanting to think about all that was plaguing your mind. Not wanting to think about Seungcheol.

But he’s the first thought on your mind the moment the bike halted at the camp gate. You didn’t want to see him, not now. Mingyu was generous enough to agree when you muttered wanting to take up his offer to crash in his residence. He didn’t question the change of heart, instead he carefully walked you through his workshop, bringing you to the stairs on the other side, leading you up to his house. You though are far too enthralled to follow him.

“You’ve got quite the space here.” You pursed your lips impressed, stripping out of the jacket as he smiled proudly. “Must never be boring.”

“It isn’t.” He admitted. “Making weapons doesn’t take me too long, leaves a lot of time on my hands for other experiments and endeavors.”

“Such as?”

“I like creating little automations.” He shrugged. “Machinery that allows me to be creative and makes life easier. Like the one that's currently out there chopping up wood, for your house.”

“Oh.” You raised your eyebrows looking around. “What else have you made?”

“Too many to remember.” He laughed. “But my best creation is probably my bike. It took months of trial and error. Couldn't have done it without my best buddy.”

“Wonwoo?” You had noticed the two were significantly closer than the rest. There was definitely some story there.

Mingyu laughed. “Yes Wonwoo is the best but no, I'm talking about that little guy.”

He pointed behind you and you turned, finding yourself about 500 meters away from a not so little three headed dog, snarling at you with all three of its mouths, drooling leaking from the edges. You took a careful step back and another, crashing into the chest of Mingyu who had sneaked up to you.

“What is that?” You whispered, voice shaking just a bit.

“That’s Cerberus, my pet.”

“That’s a pet?!”

“It’s Wonwoo’s actually….. But yes, he’s a pet and he’s really friendly, don’t worry.”

“Huh.” You breathed, not believing his words but only relieved cause you noticed he was chained. “And he helps you with your experiments?”

Mingyu nodded, steering you away from there, walking you toward his house once more. “Cerberus is a very powerful creature - he’s immensely strong, uncharacteristically intelligent and most importantly, he’s my fire source.”

“Fire source?”

“The most important tool for a blacksmith like me is the flame - you see those.” He pointed at big cave shaped structures lined neatly on the edge. “Forging presses like that require fires that cannot be ignited by tiny matchsticks. It takes a powerful source to work them, like Cerberus.”

You tensed, just a little. “So Cerberus can create fire?”

“He breathes fire.” Mingyu clarified. “Cerberus is from the Underworld, like most mysteries in our world. So yeah, he is one of the few creatures that can create fire.”

“C-can’t you?” You scratched the back of your head, trying to seem casual. “You said you don’t feel heat so can’t you… make fire too?”

“Don’t be silly Y/n.” Mingyu scoffed. “Fire is one of the five natural elements. Even the gods, your mother included, can only control fire, not create it.”

You were right. Even here you were a freak, even here you didn’t fit in.

None of Mingyu’s excited explanations about the various projects he was working on went into your head. There was only one thing you could think about - You didn’t belong here and you needed to leave before everyone realised that.

“...and that’s why I don’t have a guest bedroom but don’t worry, my bed is king sized.” Mingyu leaned against the stairs with a small smirk dancing on his face. “Though I can’t promise I can keep my hands to myself.”

You rolled your eyes, pushing him to lead the way up. The only thing that gave you comfort as he laughed was the knowledge that if you burned, Mingyu was perhaps the only one who couldn’t hurt with your fire......

“Y/n.” Jihoon hopped off the ladder looking at you quizzically. “Where are you lost?”

“I….” You cleared your throat. “I just meant, I don’t know, what if my mortal parents are aware of any kind of powers I might have? What if… that’s what kept them away from me?”

“Then that’s all the more reason you have to find them.” Jihoon shrugged. “It would help us-”

“No.” You firmly shook your head. “Just…let me just talk to Hestia first, everything else can wait.”

“As you wish.” He held up the bowl of whatever concoction he was mixing, a green paste staring at you. “In the meantime…”

“What is that?”

“It's my special ointment for bruises. Makes any and all scars and wounds disappear.”

“I’m not hurt….” Your voice faded away as Jihoon’s eyes landed on the red, purple and blue trail of hickies on your neck.

“Are you sure you want to go around parading the evidence of your threesome last night?”

“I’m not trying to…how do you even know it was a threesome?”

“Those are clearly marked by two different men.”

You rolled your eyes. “Is this another one of your body reading tricks?”

“Yes but anyone who knows you were at your first Aphrodite rager last night will be able to guess that much.” Jihoon shrugged, standing right before you. “In fact, three is a rather small number there, most scenes tend to involve a minimum of five people.”

You felt your jaw hang as Jihoon looked amused.

“So do you want it gone or not?”

“Why?” You cleared your throat. “You think I should hide all this in case the other boys make assumptions like yours? That I ought to have some shame?”

“Not shame, I thought you might appreciate some privacy.” He shrugged. “Given there’s someone who you have been particularly wary of these days.”

Seungcheol.

How did this man know everything?

Sighing, you gripped the edges of Seokmin's shirt and pulled it over your head, baring your neck to the man before you. Trying not to smile, Jihoon slotted himself between your dangling legs, pushed the hair off your shoulder, gently tending to your bruises.

“It might sting.” He warned right on time as you grabbed his bicep with your free hand, feeling pain shooting up your nerves as the cold ointment touched your skin.

“Breathe.” He instructed, softly running his fingers along your collarbone. “It’ll pass.”

You figured listening to the expert might be better so you did, trying your best to ignore the intimate proximity between the two of you.

“While we are at it,” You looked away as he blew on your wounds, cold wind caressing it. “Do you also have something for potential STDs or…. You know, ensuring our kind doesn’t replicate?”

Jihoon chuckled. “Again, demigods don’t get sick Y/n, STDs don’t mean anything to us and we don’t ‘replicate’ either so there’s really nothing to worry about.”

Suddenly, every cell in your body stopped functioning. “What do you mean?”

Jihoon blinked at you like he was only just realising what he said. “Uh…. Demigods are barren Y/n, we…. cannot have children.”

Though you were sitting it felt like the ground had been pulled from under your feet. Like everything around you had stopped. Like everything had ended.

“Y/n are you okay?”

How could you be? You just learnt that you could never have children, that you could never be a mother. All your life you didn’t have a family but now? Being a demigod had robbed you of your chance to ever have one in the future. You wanted to peel that part away, rip it and throw it somewhere far away, get rid of this side of you that had done nothing but make everything worse.

Jihoon seemed to have understood the storm inside you. Or felt it. He was quiet as he grabbed a washcloth and slowly wiped away the ointment, the bruises beneath it starting to look a lot lighter already. As the sting ebbed away, the pain in your heart felt more apparent, coursing through you, hurting everywhere.

At that moment your eyes trailed over the soft and sharp features of his face burrowed in concentration, your admiration for it overpowering every other thought.

That’s it. That’s what you needed again. A distraction.

Now that his job was done, Jihoon tried to move away but your grip on his arm was like a vice. He glanced at it then at you with a raised eyebrow.

“So you're telling me-” You cocked your head at him. “-even though I let two men cum inside me yesterday and if my prediction is right, another will get his turn today - I'm not at the potential risk of anything?”

Jihoon raised his eyebrow. “No you're not but pray tell, since when did the daughter of Hestia dabble in predictions? I thought that was in the hands of Apollo's prodigy.”

“It is.” You ran your hand down his arm, feeling every ridge of muscle under your touch, voice leaving you in a whisper. “The possibility of my prediction coming true or not is in your hands really.”

Jihoon’s eyes darkened as your tongue darted out to lick your lower lip slowly. Before you knew it, his hands gripped the thickness of your thighs and with a quick jerk he pulled you closer to him, your legs wrapping around his waist. Jihoon looked up at you and you down at him, breaths mingling in anticipation.

“I know what you're doing Y/n and I know why you're doing this.” He spoke ever so softly. “But I'm not a distraction kind of guy so if there's ever a time you really want me, then you'll have me.”

With that he pulled you off the counter and let you lower your legs on to the floor, looking away. Given the kind of tension and the comfort you had grown to have with him and most importantly how unbelievably hard he was, his length right below your ass, you didn't think he'd say no. It was fair, he was allowed to. It wasn't his fault you were looking to jump any given person just to take your mind off things.

Nodding, and mumbling a soft thanks for the ointment, you grabbed your shirt and walked past him, only stopping by the corridor to return what was his.

“Sorry.” Muttering you slid off his shorts and placed it on the shelf beside you.

Jihoon surprisingly let out a soft groan. You thought it was because you were suddenly minimally dressed but you noticed his eyes were gazing between your legs, on the wet spot of your underwear. You tried to press your legs closer, suddenly feeling very exposed but all it does is darken the spot, making things worse.

“Fucking hell.” Jihoon muttered and in a flash you were pushed up against the wall, trapped between it and him, caged by his arms on either side. “I'm only just a man Y/n.”

Your eyes flickered down to his pants, the outline of his hard on starkly visible. “Uh huh.”

“Do you still want this?”

You cocked your head, hand running down his chest and over the tent in his pants as you smirked. “I predicted it.”

“Allow me to make a pre-” His words faltered as you squeezed his length. “-prediction as well.”

“By all means.”

“You're gonna cum three times before I do.”

“Oh really?” You raised your eyebrows and spat into your hand, slipping it past the waistband of his pants, wrapping your hand around his length. “I don't think so.”

“That's….” He half panted, watching your hand do its job, his own hands still against the wall like they were taped to it. “Getting a headstart is cheating.”

“You're slow.”

“I'm savouring.” He smiled, leaning closer. “I'm in good hands and I know you're soaked. It's only a matter of time before you're begging.”

You chuckled softly as though you were amused by his assumption but true to his words, your walls were already fluttering, clenching around nothing as your legs squeezed together. Jihoon, like the master of reading your body that he was, put his hand right in between, cupping you over your underwear, the pressure of his palm on your clit ever so light. From the soft sigh that left your mouth you both knew you were faring far worse than he was - truly, it was brave on your part to challenge him.

“Jihoon….”

He hums in response as the pace of your hand falters.

“Touch me.”

“I am sweetheart.”

“More.” You wrapped your free hand around his wrist, breath shaking and Jihoon allowed you to lead him exactly where you wanted him - past the hem of your panties, right where the wetness was pooling between your legs.

“Good fucking god…” He swore like he didn't expect you to be this drenched. What a funny guy. What did he think was gonna happen when he was this undeniably hot?

You on the other hand expected him to be a tease, to draw this out, to make you beg. But to your complete surprise, he wasted no time in sliding two thick digits in, making you squeeze his length at the sheer stretch of the intrusion.

“Sweetheart, you're gonna kill me.” He muttered, shutting his eyes tight.

You wanted to apologise, you really did but whatever words were leaving your mouth didn't seem to be making any sense. Not when Jihoon was picking up the pace, taking turns pumping, curling and scissoring his fingers inside you. You felt your back arch on its own, head thrown back as an unholy moan left your being. Fuck he was right, you cannot possibly think of anything else now - this man was capable of turning you into a complete wreck before you could even get a moan out of him.

“Your bruises have nearly disappeared.” He noticed with your neck bared to him once again. “It was prettier marked.”

“Mark it then.” You panted, composing yourself, getting back to stroking him again. “Do whatever you want.”

And that's enough to break his resolve, as you felt his fingers slowing down while his teeth ran across the skin of your shoulder. Taking advantage of his momentary fixation, you ran your thumb across his slit, feeling the precum spill onto your fingers. Jihoon groaned, his mouth getting more aggressive on your neck as you gripped his bicep again, sinking your nails into it.

Fuck, there it was.

That tightening in the pits of your being, there it was, slowly climbing as you felt your legs starting to shake and Jihoon smirking against your skin, reading all the signs like he knew your body inside out. Thank god he could because just when you needed it, he slid in another finger and curled them up, reaching that sweet spot that had you instantly snapping, falling apart.

He stilled his movements as you convulsed around his fingers, holding onto him tight but before you could even come down from your high, he started moving again.

“Ji… Jihoon.” You whimpered, chest heaving. “Fuck fuck fuck.”

And before you know it your barely ebbed orgasm blended into a second one and you were practically gushing out into his hand.

“Damn sweetheart.” He smiled at you like he was a little too pleased with himself. “You're an easy one.”

Excuse me?

You could barely get a hold of yourself but that wasn't the most pressing matter - how dare he dismiss you so easily?

Given your mouth was dry you swallowed on nothing, and shoved him back with just a small push. Jihoon looked at you confused initially, then his eyes widened as you dropped to your knees and he realised what you were up to. But just as your hand reached the waistband of his bottoms and he pushed the hair off your face, more than ready to fuck your mouth, a loud sound rang through the silence of the afternoon.

“Shit.” Jihoon muttered pulling you up. “That's code purple.”

You groaned. “Why are there so many fucking colours?”

Frowning, he threw you your clothes before leading you to a small basin to wash your hands and his. “We need to go. It’s an emergency team meeting.”

As he scurried around grabbing his things, his bow and arrows to be specific, you dressed yourself once again, watching him. Guess neither of your predictions were coming true after all.

Noticing you were still lost in your thoughts, Jihoon sighed and grabbed you by the hand, leading you out of his house and to the dining hall of the common cabin where apparently all team meetings were held.

When the two of you had reached, thankfully only Soonyoung and Seungkwan were there and though their expressions were full of questions, they asked none. Before you knew it, everyone had gathered and whispers going around as they settled in their seats but the moment Seungcheol raised his hand, they died down.

“What's the matter?”

Seungkwan nodded at Soonyoung who stood up, looking around.

“Kwan and I sent some messages out today asking about the geese attack last night.” He shook his head slowly. “It seems no camp is responsible for it.”

Minghao spun the blade in his hand with a frown. “So it wasn't a prank or an act of retribution?”

Seungkwan shook his head. “Considering how we all thought their nature was odd, Hansol connected us to some Hunters of Artemis.” He laid out a map with four red crosses. “They gave us four locations where birds like this were sighted.”

“So this was just like any other animal attack?” Seokmin leaned back, looking relieved.

“I'm afraid not. It may or may not be a coincidence but the Hunters also claim that all four locations have been frequently exhibiting very high energy signals, signals that might belong to…” Seungkwan gulped. “The Chimaera.”

A strange silence descended upon the room as glances were exchanged. You looked at Jihoon questioningly but he looked troubled.

“The fire breather.” Chan let out a low whistle. “It hasn't been heard of in centuries.”

“It seems to be on the move off late.” Hansol tucked the arrows he was polishing into his quiver. “It's hunting.”

“And I think the geese are its agents.” Soonyoung pointed out. “Geese have always been symbols of vigilance and surveillance. Whatever the Chimaera is hunting, I think it's using the birds to trace it. That's why neither Jun nor Hansol could understand them, because they aren't wild or domestic - they're monsters.”

“Chan,.” Seungcheol straightened himself. “Alert Olympus, tell them we need troops-”

“It seems Olympus assigned the hunt to Artemis, ” Seungkwan added. “And you know how the Hunters function. Their goal is to capture the beast, not kill it so they have been taking their time to strategize.”

“Well we can't wait for them to figure things out.” Jeonghan stared at the map on the table, a hundred things running in his mind. “We're going to have to hunt the monster on our own.”

“Us?” Minghao looked around. “Do you even understand how powerful the creature is-”

“Should we just sit back and wait for it to attack the camp then?” Jeonghan raised his eyebrows. “Because whatever it's looking for is here and monsters aren't patient creatures.”

“I know, but-”

“Minghao.” Seungcheol interrupted, warning. “Jeonghan is our strategist, we'll let him decide what's best.”

Minghao nodded begrudgingly as Jeonghan pulled the paper towards himself, Soonyoung handing him a pen.

“We'll split according to our assigned partners.” He began drawing out lines and scribbling names. “Seungkwan and Soonyoung, you two head to the demigod union in the city and alert them, in case we need back up. Minghao and Jun, I want you both here for camp protection, Mingyu and Wonwoo as well…” He looked thoughtful. “If the Chimaera decides to attack the camp in our absence, Cerberus is the only chance we have against it.”

As all four boys nodded, Jeonghan turned to the rest.

“The remaining of us will go to the four locations. Everyone will use an energy reader and find the location of the Chimaera. Once you’ve narrowed down its location, alert the team to gather for a hunt. Any foolishness such as going after the monster on your own will not lead to punishment because you'll already be dead.” He glanced around. “Is that understood?”

Mummers of agreement echoed in the room.

“Jihoon and Hansol, you two head to the one in the south, that's the biggest area but your hounds should help cover it. Joshua and I will head east, Chan and Seokmin will head west and Seungcheol…..” His eyes landed on the leader who was very evidently shaking his head. “Seungcheol and Y/n, you two will head north.”

You looked at Jeonghan in disbelief.

“Han,” Seungcheol spoke before you could say anything. “I don't need a partner, I've always been a lone hunter-”

“That was because we were an odd number of members. But now there's 14 of us so Y/n will go with you-”

“It's a dangerous mission and she's untrained.” Seungcheol spoke between gritted teeth. “She will be better off in camp-”

“She will be safer with our strongest warrior.” Jeonghan argued back. “You cannot always be team leader Cheol, learn to be a team player. Y/n will accompany you.”

“No I won’t.” You shook your head. “I have no interest in being where I am not wanted.”

“Y/n, it's not a choice.” Jeonghan sounded tired. “I'm the strategist and this is an order-”

“I don't care.” You got up, firm about your decision. “I'm not going anywhere with this man.”

And with that you stormed away from there, ignoring the faint voice of Jeonghan who sighed and continued giving instructions.

“We leave tomorrow at daybreak.”

You stared at the schedule in your hand wondering why on Earth you hadn't looked at it before you stepped into the classroom. Admittedly all your time went in washing up, changing your clothes, grabbing lunch and rushing for your afternoon lesson, but you should have noticed what was in store for today.

Friday - Quest Strategy (Choi Seungcheol, Yoon Jeonghan)

And you didn't want to see either of them right now.

But before you could grab your things and leave the room to make it seem like you were never here in the first place, Jeonghan arrived, standing against the door, watching you pack up.

“You need to stop running away from everything.”

As he walked in, you looked up, rolling your eyes. “And you need to stop interfering in my life.”

“My decisions as strategist aren't personal Y/n, I do what's beneficial for the camp and its members.” He leaned against the board. "Accommodating your individual preference is not a part of my job profile.”

“Okay, that's great, then be prepared for only one of us to come back alive tomorrow.”

Jeonghan rolled his eyes at your dramatic statement. “What happened between the two of you?”

You scoffed at him. As if you were going to tell him.

“Seungcheol has been my comrade since we were teenagers, I know him better than anyone and I know for a fact that he's not the villain you're making him to be.”

“Oh he's not?” You crossed your arms. “Okay then explain why when I was throwing myself onto him for days, he kept avoiding me but the moment I walked away from him, he came chasing? And did the man at least go through with that? No, he decided to leave me hanging yet again and then he behaved like everything that's happening is my fault?” You threw your hands in the air. “No apology, no explanation, he just continued to avoid me and when I finally got him out of my mind, then he decided he wanted to talk to me? I didn't want to, but he couldn't even respect my space and ended up coming to the party and….”

“And?” Jeonghan looked curiously.

“And I think he knows that I slept with Soonyoung….” You didn't meet Jeonghan’s eyes. “and Minghao.”

Jeonghan hummed, nodding his head, taking in all the information, as you added quickly.

“But it was only because all of us were under the influence of aphrodisiacs-”

“That's irrelevant.” Jeonghan waved his hand. “Who you choose to be with and what you choose to do is entirely your choice. But you think Seungcheol is mad about that?”

“I'm not sure. I have a feeling he is.”

“That's not right.”

“Now you see my point?”

“I didn’t say he wasn't stupid.” Jeonghan rolled his eyes. “But I still stand by the fact that he's not a bad person.”

“Okay mate, you need to get your head out of your bestie's ass.”

Jeonghan laughed, shaking his head. You expected him to say something snarky but his expression slowly turned serious.

“Do you know why you're in Camp Seventeen Y/n?”

“Because I'm a demigod?” That was perhaps the first time you had said that out loud.

“Yes but why this camp?”

“The Oracle assigned me.”

“Partly.” Jeonghan nodded. “The Oracle of Delphi only assigns demigods to camps that are willing to take them. Seungcheol was the only leader willing to take you.”

Your lips parted in surprise as Jeonghan continued.

“Do you know what was supposed to happen the night you were kidnapped and brought to the court?”

You shook your head.

“You were going to be attacked.” Jeonghan let out a deep breath. “The sudden activation of your aura after years of dormancy seemed to have drawn in a lot of attention. Days after your little incident, Olympus sent out a report that the levels of monster activity in the city were unprecedentedly high. They said there was a large influx of monsters and we had to be alert but I don't think so. Especially not after what we learnt today.”

“What do you mean?”

“It's not monsters but one monster that came to the city.” Jeonghan looked at you keenly. “I think it was the Chimaera and I think you are what it's hunting.”

The things in your hand slipped and hit the floor with a thud. You?

“You mean… I'm the threat in this camp?”

“You're the one in danger.” He corrected. “But yes you are the threat and more importantly, Cheol knows that. He always knew that. It was evident from the start that you were a monster magnet, that you are some kind of anomaly and that making you a part of our camp would only mean more danger but he said it didn't matter. He said as long as someone needed to be saved, he would do it. He said he would be your protector and that's why you're here Y/n - because Cheol made the choice to safeguard you.”

You blinked at a loss of words.

“Even yesterday, when the geese attacked and we didn't know what was happening at the party, his first instinct was to check if you were okay. That's why he came to the rager. That’s also why he's been so frustrated, why he doesn't want you to accompany him tomorrow. Your safety is his first priority.”

Letting out a deep breath, you ran your hand through your hair, internally beating yourself up. You had no idea.

“Will Seungcheol be coming for the lesson today?”

Jeonghan shook his head. “I don't think so, he's busy at Mingyu’s workshop, preparing for tomorrow, like you should be doing too.”

“I can't possibly learn anything by tonight that'll help me tomorrow.”

“Yes you can.” Jeonghan walked up to you. “We can try and understand why the Chimaera is after you. We can discuss your lawsuit considering it was the root cause of everything and see if it gives us any answers. Let me just call Wonwoo and-”

“Absolutely not.” You quickly grabbed all your things again. Wonwoo was still on the list of people you didn't want to meet. “I need to find Cheol first.”

And with that you swung your bag over your shoulder, rushing out of the classroom, leaving a sighing Jeonghan behind.

When you reached Mingyu’s residence, Seungcheol was indeed in the workshop along with a couple of camp members, inspecting the weapons for tomorrow. Immersed in their discussion they didn't notice your presence until you stepped in and Cerberus let out a low growl, his eyes following you.

“Y/n.” Mingyu jogged up to you, looking concerned. “What are you doing here?”

“I…” You gulped looking at Seungcheol’s back. “I was hoping to talk to Cheol real quick.”

“We're in the middle of a meeting, I'm not sure…”

“Please Mingyu, it'll be quick.”

“I can ask him but-”

“Gyu.” Seungcheol looked over his shoulder. “What's the matter?”

“Y/n is here,” Mingyu raised his voice. “She wants to talk to you.”

As lightning ripped across the sky, Seungcheol let out a deep breath “Send her away.”

And for the nth time you could hear your heart breaking because of Seungcheol.

“Seungcheol I just want to apolo-”

“I don't want to hear it.” He turned to you, voice hard and gaze unforgiving. “Please leave.”

Mingyu looked at you apologetically as did the other members, Jihoon included. Taking a step back and then another you walked out, the low grumbles of the thunder not louder than the thumping of your heart.

Sometimes you really had to remind yourself that Natalie was in fact a pig and not a dog.

You tended to forget given how much she liked to be taken on walks and sniff everything around. Today she took you from Seungcheol’s house to Mingyu’s to Seungkwan’s to the common cabin and finally to the temple where she found a spot of wet mud and decided to roll in it. That was until she spotted Wonwoo walking by, perhaps heading to secure the camp's borders for the night, given it was nearly dusk. You looked away from him but your pet decided to jump up and follow him like she always loved to do.

Sighing, you walked over to the area designated for campfire and sat on one of the logs, picking on the chips of wood nonchalantly. When the cold wind of the evening caressed your skin, sending shivers down your spine, you looked around, making sure no one was watching you. Realising you were all alone you waved your hand, watching the flames dance on your palm before they floated over to the wood in the middle, lighting the campfire. You stared at the orange flames, Jeonghan's words ringing in your head again - I think you're what it's hunting.

It couldn't be a coincidence. A powerful monster, a fire breather that had been quiet for centuries, wanting to find you of all people. That couldn't be a coincidence. Was it possible the Chimaera knew something about you? Did it know why you were such a freak?

And why did Seungcheol choose to protect someone like you? Why won't the man just let you hate him peacefully? He just had to be so righteous and brave and good…. But if he cared about you so much, why did he always pull away? Why did he never reciprocate?

It seemed like life only liked to throw questions at you, never any answers. You were too tired for all this. You just wanted to stop thinking. You just wanted this day to end and let yourself be taken away by sleep so you could forget all this. You just wanted some peace.

As though the universe hated you, at that exact time, Jihoon walked out of the temple, hands shoved in his pockets, mind clearly elsewhere. You were thankful he hadn't noticed your presence and had almost left the premises busy in his own world until he suddenly stopped at the edge of the trees, turning back to see you.

As your eyes locked his, he sighed walking back to you, sitting just over a foot away. He didn't say anything and you didn’t know what to say.

“You're nervous.” He pointed out. “Your heart is racing.”

You shook your head exasperated. “Do people tell you how annoying it is to be around you?”

“Not quite.” He chuckled. “I don't like being around people.”

“Why am I the exception?”

“You came looking for me.”

“You literally just came and sat next to me.”

“I meant earlier.”

“I'm talking about now.”

“I just…” He sighed, turning to you. “I just wanted to say, don’t take whatever Seungcheol says to heart. He has too many pressures on him as leader, especially in situations like this-”

“You know, that excuse is getting very overused. Is his consistent dismissal of me justified just because he's a busy, important man?”

“It's not.” Jihoon shook his head. “But I thought you should know - his heart was racing just as fast when you came to talk to him. It always is around you.”

You scoffed, tired of people telling you the same thing.

“All that tachycardia could be pathological. He should get himself checked-”

“There's clearly something he's unable to tell you, some reason for why he is the way he is.” Jihoon justified. “Give him a chance to explain himself.”

“I have to give him a chance?” You looked at him incredulously. “Did you not see how he sent me away?”

“Yes I did, it was the same way you ran away to a party when he wanted to talk.” Jihoon rolled his eyes. “If you both just keep being idiots like this, things are never going to get better.”

“Honestly things don’t have to.” You tugged on the sleeves of your shirt. “It's not like we are star crossed lovers or something. This infatuation or crush or whatever it is, it will eventually die down. All I hope is for us to at least be courteous with each other but he can't even seem to do that.”

Jihoon stared at the ground. “Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”

That was a question you didn't have an answer to. So you ignored it.

“I just want us to be pleasant over tomorrow's hunt, that's all. But something tells me things might just get a whole lot worse.”

“Are you making predictions again?” Jihoon chuckled. “Have you still not learnt that you're horrible at it?”

“Hey, that's not fair.” You laughed along. “Besides, the day is not over yet.”

“Oh you still think you stand a chance with me?”

You narrowed your eyes at his laughing self. “I didn't say it had to be you. But you said you could make me cum thrice - I only came once.”

“Twice.”

“Once.”

“You're forgetting that I can read your body.” He cocked his head at you. “Twice.”

“Whatever.” You rolled your eyes. “Still less than three.”

“You and I both know if I wasn't interrupted I could've done it.”

“Not true.” You shook your head. “If I blew you, you didn't stand a chance.”

“How ever will we know which of us is right?”

He looked at you, something darker swirling behind his eyes and it made your insides twist. There was a way to find out and given how empty you had been feeling since earlier, maybe you would have, if only Seungwkan didn't walk over, settling down on the log across yours. Although Jihoon and you were already sitting apart, the two of you moved further away.

“Natalie is sleeping in Jun's barn apparently.” Seungkwan informed. “Wonwoo has too much to do today - There won't be a shift handover tomorrow since Hansol and Jihoon will be heading for the hunt.”

You nodded, not really understanding because you didn't really bother to actually. Your mind was entirely elsewhere, wondering about other possibilities.

“We uh should probably sleep early since, you know,-” You got up swinging your arms. “-big day tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” Jihoon followed your suit, slowly standing. “Better get good rest.”

Seungwkan nodded, glancing at Hansol who was walking over, “You two go ahead, the two of us need to have a little chat.”

You nodded as the man in question sat beside Seungwkan, poking the fire with a stick, avoiding your eyes as usual. Unbothered, you turned to Jihoon, catching him already looking at you.

“Jihoon can I-”

“Y/n do you-”

Both of you looked at each other, gulping.

“I uh…” You tried yet again to feign casualness. “I wanted to ask for the ointment you gave me earlier, for bruises. I… have many mosquito bites.”

“Right.” He scratched his head. “I was going to offer you the same.”

“Oh good.”

“Yeah good.”

Seungkwan’s eyes flickered between the two of you but it was only when Hansol looked up that you realised just how suspicious this must seem. Waving an uncharacteristic bye, you quickly left, Jihoon following at a considerable distance as you made your way to his residence.

The events of earlier today repeated in a similar fashion - Jihoon plucked a few herbs and walked into his house. You followed him, straight into his pantry this time considering neither of you needed a change of clothes. He proceeded to grind up the greens in a paste as you leaned against the door, watching the strong muscles of his back. Fuck you’d love to run your nails down that.

“What are we doing Y/n?” Finally stopping whatever he was doing, Jihoon gripped the edges of the counter, his expression unseen.

“I don’t know what you are doing.” You shrugged. “I am just here to prove I was right.”

Chuckling, Jihoon turned to you. When he saw you slowly unbuttoning the shirt you had donned, his eyes darkened. “Straight down then left.” He turned back to whatever he was doing. “Wait in my room.”

Pulling your shirt off your shoulders you threw it at him, letting out a giggle and walking away.

“I don’t like to wait!” You announced, following his instructions. Almost.

On the way your eyes fell on the music room you had seen earlier, legs instinctively taking a detour. There were all kinds of instruments in there - banjos on the wall, guitars lined up beside the drum set. There was a large grand piano too and a huge computer with all kinds of equipment around. It was impressive to say the least.

“I said left, not right.” Jihoon walked in, one hand shoved in his pocket, another holding on to a strange, black drink.

“You have a recording studio here.”

“I would say you're observative but it's pretty obvious so that would be an overstatement.”

“How do you power these?” You turned to him. “Without electricity?”

“Well you’re analytical, I’ll give you that.” He let out a small laugh before he explained. “I’m the Sun’s progeny - a little solar energy goes a long way.”

“So all of these work?” You looked around surprised. “Can I listen to something you’ve made?”

“I don’t think we’re close enough for that.”

You rolled your eyes. “But we’re close enough for you to have your fingers in me?”

“You asked for it.” He shrugged. “And I’m a giver.”

Laughing, you ran your fingers across the piano. “Can you at least play something for me?”

Jihoon looked at you for a solid minute before he let out a resigned breath. Setting the drink down on the counter, he grabbed a saxophone from the wall and aligned it with his mouth. You leaned against the piano, urging him to continue with the tilt of the head.

As the sultry sound of his melody rang through the room, you found yourself swaying to it - it was a good piece, a sexy one that definitely worked to set the mood. But you had ways you could do that on your own too.

Nearing him, each step matching the rhythm of the music, you ran your hand along his groin, feeling his erection already waiting for you. Smirking to yourself you got on your knees before him, hands working on his waistband and surprisingly, you heard him mess up a note.

“Uh oh.” You tutted, looking up at him. “No mistakes, no fumbling or I’ll stop.”

Jihoon tensed under your touch, continuing to play his piece, facing turning red but the melody not stopping. Unzipping his pants, you just about leaned in to give the bulge in his underwear a butterfly of a kiss when you felt a chill run down your body. Something was wrong.

As though you’d lost all sense of autonomy, you could feel yourself moving back, sitting on your heels, your hands proceeding to unclasp your bra instead. Sliding it down your arms and throwing it away, you got up and shimmied out of your shorts and underwear in one go. You gulped as Jihoon watched you sit on the black couch across him, breaths shallow and fast, chest heaving because this wasn’t you - you somehow had no control over your body. You didn’t mean to pull your legs up and spread them open or run your fingers along your slit, or slide them into your wet hole as though you were putting on a show for him. Yes you felt good but none of this was you.

Jihoon watched with hooded eyes as you pumped your fingers in and out, free hand moving up to squeeze a boob. Everything moved to its own accord, working you up with a vigor you would have never used on yourself, the sound of the wetness and your moans almost drowning out the song. Your back arched as you felt everything tense, but your eyes did not leave Jihoon’s who finally could not take it anymore, setting the sax aside, leaning over you.

His own fingers found your clit, rubbing onto it in a way that unmistakably tightened the coil in you. Whimpers left your mouth and though it felt like you were in control of yourself again, you couldn’t stop. Not now, not when you were feeling so good, not when you were so close…. Not until Jihoon whispered.

“Come on sweetheart, cum for me.”

And you did, around your own fingers, eyes seeing white as he continued to tease your clit, a groan rumbling across his chest.

“Wha…” You panted, slowly coming down from your high, arousal leaking out of you. “What the hell just happened?”

“That-” Jihoon smirked, straightening himself. “-was my prediction coming true.”

“But why could I… why could I not…”

“Control yourself?”

You nodded.

“Because the song you just heard is what we call Apollo’s Anthem.” He cocked his head at you victoriously. “If mastered, the one who plays it can make anyone dance to their tunes, like you just did.”

“That….” Your eyes widen with realization. “That was you? Making me do all that?”

He nodded.

“Now that's cheating.” You huffed, pulling your legs together, pressing them. “I demand a rematch. We're gonna have to redo-”

“Next time.” He fisted the material at the back of his neck and pulled his shirt over this head. “Right now there's another prediction we need to work on.”

You furrowed your eyebrows as Jihoon stripped out of his pants, baring himself completely given he had gone commando underneath.

“For fucks sake, I've been hard since the afternoon and there's nothing I can think other than cumming inside you.”

A triumphant smirk danced across your lips as you leaned back, watching his callously stroke his length.

“You know, I had my fill with three orgasms today and I'm quite exhausted. I see no reason I have to indulge.”

Jihoon blinked at you. “Didn't you want to be proven right?”

“Nope.” You shook your head. “My math teacher always used to say, the truth never needs to be proven, it always reveals itself. He was a hot man, now that I'm thinking about him, very irresistible.”

“Can we please not talk about your hot math teacher while I'm jerking off?” Jihoon groaned. “Now I'm thinking of my math teacher and he was a gnome of a man.”

You laughed, watching as he picked up the pace, desperate to finish himself.

“Is your right hand satisfying enough?”

“No but I'll have to settle for imagining it's you.” He whimpered. “Albeit it's not even close to how tight you were.”

You hummed, suddenly feeling both pity for him and curiosity as to just how much a dick as thick as that could stretch you out. “Do you still want to fuck me?”

“Why is that still a question?”

“I'll allow it.” Spreading your legs again, you ran your fingers along the folds again, this time wantonly, smearing the remnants of your previous orgasm all over. “But only because you've to hunt tomorrow and I don't want you to be distracted, thinking about dicking me down-.”

“Stop talking and move over.” He muttered and finally you listened, shifting to the side as he sat beside you. Wasting no time, he grabbed you by the waist and pulled you into his lap, his dick grazing against your clit, sending a jolt down your body. As you held his shoulders, he pumped himself a few times before aligning the tip right at your hole, dragging it along the wetness agonisingly slowly.

“Jihoon for god's sake, just put it in.”

“Say you want me to fuck you.”

“You want me to fuck you.”

Your bratty-ness was met with a painful spank on the ass.

“Say it.” He rubbed the area softly, before spreading the cheeks, the head of his dick ever so slightly entering you. “Say you want this as much as me.”

You tried to chase that feeling, sink further down his length, but his grip was strong and unnerving.

“Fuck Jihoon please.” You whined as his mouth wrapped around your nipple, sucking it. “Let's just do this already.”

“Can’t hear you.”

“Jihoon…” You begged as he pulled out, leaving you clenching around nothing.

“Walls are soundproof sweetheart.” He reached up, nuzzling your neck. “Let me hear you.”

“For fucks sake, fuck me already Jihoon!” You babbled, desperate to not lose the feeling of him sliding into you again. “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me-”

“Ride me.” He whispered, pushing you down on his cock, the sheer thickness of it nearly splitting you open. “God you're so tight.”

“And you're so big.” You moaned, as you bottomed out on him, feeling every inch of his thickness against your fluttering walls.

Jihoon allowed you to adjust to his length, mouth working on marking your breasts instead but when you began involuntary squeezing him he pulled away, biting his lip like he couldn’t take it anymore.

“Y/n....” He mumbled, fingers gripping your waist tighter. “Move.”

And you did, like your life depended on it, knees digging into the couch taking support. With his hands sliding down to your ass again, he helped too, bouncing you on him with a pace you could not have managed on your own. You threaded your fingers through his hair at the nape of his neck, head thrown back, guttural moans leaving you. Jihoon seemed to enjoy all of it, the way you sounded, the way you felt around him, the way you gripped his hair as your core began to tighten threateningly. You could tell from the way he chose to hold you in place instead, thrusting himself up into you and your arousal dripping down his length filthily that you were close but he was far from ready for this to be over.

Oh this was going to be a long night.

“Y/n wake up.” It was the soft shaking that drew you out of your sleep. “It’s nearly dawn.”

Jihoon’s face hovered over yours, looking tense. You stretched awake, blinking your eyes open, looking around - you were still in his music room, lying on his couch. You must’ve slept here last night, you didn’t even realise when you went into a deep slumber. From all the bedding on the floor you figured Jihoon crashed in here with you despite having a room of his own in his own house. Slightly thankful that he was gracious enough to not leave you alone, you sat up, pulling your hair into a bun.

“The boys are done washing up if you wish to hit the showers.” He gathered the remaining of your clothes on the floor, which was really just your bra and handed it to you. “You should also eat something. We skipped dinner last night.”

Of course you did.

You’d never had sex this intense before last night. You vaguely remembered cumming nearly three more times - once while you were riding him, right before he emptied his load right into you and two more before he pulled you off him and had you on your knees on the couch, your ass and his cum dripping out of you on display for him as he fucked you and filled you one more time. After that, right before you faded into a deep sleep, you also recalled him cleaning you, handing you that black drink from earlier and helping you get dressed - eating was not even on your agenda before you passed out.

But now admittedly, you were hungry and also in desperate need for a shower so you swung your legs off the couch and got to your feet. Taking a step was particularly difficult though, given how sore you were.

“Here.” Jihoon handed you a glass of the same potion. “It’ll help with the pain.”

Muttering a small thanks, you downed the bitter juice in one gulp. As you returned the glass he handed you a small box of a very familiar green ointment, looking pointedly at your neck. Apparently he had given you his own set of the very bruises he had healed yesterday. Scoffing, you took it from him, walking away, towards the main door.

“Are you okay?” He asked from behind as you nodded, looking over your shoulder.

“Thank you Jihoon, for everything.” and with that you shut the door, stepping out into the darkness before dawn, taking a deep breath.

Something about Jihoon’s expression told you he was expecting you to say something more but you didn’t have anything else to say. He was a distraction, you were successfully distracted and now you were back to your reality and the real world. Now it was time to face Seungcheol again.

Realising the sun would be out in a while, you quickly headed for a shower keeping your head down not to meet the eyes of the boys busy loading the cars at the edge of the camp. As you walked into the bathhouse you wondered if you would meet your regular bypasser at this time of the day too and brushed off the possibility but to your complete surprise, Wonwoo, fully dressed for a change, was right there, leaning against the lockers as though he was waiting for you.

“You're on time.”

“And I don't have the time for you.” You rolled your eyes, grabbing your towel, heading towards the showers.

“Careful Y/n.” Wonwoo called out from behind you, his voice a lot less nonchalant than it normally was. “The Chimaera is no small monster. It's dangerous, manipulative and feeds on chaos.”

You glanced at him over your shoulder as he continued.

“If things take a turn and you're forced to face it, do whatever it takes to fight it. Don't think, don't analyse, just do it.”

Frowning, you turned to him, wondering why he was suddenly saying all this but without explaining himself any further, Wonwoo straightened himself and simply left from there.

By the time you had arrived at the dining hall, right around the time the sun had begun to peak from behind the mountains, all the boys had gathered around the table, dressed in armours and gear. Jeonghan was leading the meeting again, walking around handing something that looked a lot like a golden medallion.

“Keep your energy readers close to you at all times - the Chimaera is a very intelligent monster but it's not very fast, so in a critical situation, early detection may be what saves your lives.” Noticing your presence, he walked up to you, holding the medallion out. “This is an energy reader. The way demigods have auras, monsters do too and this little handy thing can pick up on it. The closer you are to a creature, the warmer it gets so pay attention. If the medallion manages to pick the right frequency, it will morph into an image of the monster so you'll know exactly what it is. Understood?”

You nodded.

“Turn.”

And you did, as he pushed your hair onto a shoulder and secured the chain at the nape of your neck. You ran your fingers across the golden indentation of the surface curiously - it was kind of heavy.

“Your armour is in Cheol's car.” Mingyu piqued from his seat. “So are the flares and your looking glass.”

You turned to Jeonghan who understood the confusion etched on your face.

“You are, at no point, allowed to abandon your partner but on the off chance that you are separated, send a flare and it will help him identify your location and a looking glass-” He pulled out a small pane of glass from his pocket. “-is how you can communicate with the members. Just say the name of whoever you want to talk to and they'll appear on it.”

Finally understanding you nodded, as Jeonghan handed you one last thing - a folded paper.

“This is a copy of the map. Seungcheol will be driving so be sure to guide him properly.”

You looked over his shoulder at the leader who seemed tense.

“Whatever is going on between you two, please just keep aside for one day.” Jeonghan looked at you pointedly and sighing, you nodded. You would be courteous with him, you could do that much.

As the boys began shuffling around, getting to their feet and leaving the hall, a hand on your arm stopped you from following.

“Breakfast.” Jun held out with a small box that looked like it was filled to the brim. “Eat on the way. You'll need your energy.”

Muttering a grateful thanks, you took it from him, glancing at Minghao who was standing beside him, arms crossed.

“I know you're not fully trained but every demigod should have a weapon on them when they're out in the real world.” Your trainer put a pair of daggers in your hand. “Twin blades. I think they'll suit you.”

You turned the sheathed weapons in your hand, liking how light they felt. Minghao seemed proud of how comfortable you were.

“Stay safe doll.”

He called out as you left, a new unknown fear coursing through you as everything got more and more real.

By the time you reached the gates, everyone else had already taken off, leaving only Seungcheol leaning against his G wagon, waiting for you. The things Mingyu mentioned were in the passenger seat, neatly folded when you opened the door. As you tried to quickly slip them all on, Seungcheol waited, not offering to help, not even looking, just staring out at the woods. When you finally clambered in, he got in too, turning on the engine and taking off swiftly. You stared at the map on your lap - fuck, it was a long ride.

In the 2 hours that the two of you had been driving, the sun had fully risen, you had finished your breakfast and not one word that was irrelevant to the route had been exchanged. You stared out of the window, watching the trees whizz by - you had crossed much of the town houses in the outskirts and the road was getting narrower and lonelier now. It made sense why a monster would hide out here.

“How much further?” Seungcheol asked, fingers drumming the wheel.

“Until we reach the big olive tree.” You peered at the map trying to understand the images instead given you couldn't read Greek. “There we turn left.”

Seungcheol hummed, then silence descended once again.

It was a miracle you went through so much time without saying anything to the man beside you. Considering it was just the two of you and neither of you could run, it was the perfect time to talk about everything going on but you found yourself complying with Jeonghan’s instructions and keeping quiet. Perhaps because you had too much on your mind.

As nonchalant as you tried to seem, the Chimaera terrified you. It wasn't because it was apparently a big scary monster but because it was seeking you. You were no idiot - you knew that if a creature that powerful wanted to kill you, it could have at many instances when you were being particularly reckless. This one definitely wanted something else from you and the thought of that was more terrifying. What could a monster possibly need from you?

You didn't know. And maybe like most things in your life you wouldn't get to know. Like you didn't get to meet Hestia, or didn't understand why your powers were so different, or didn't know how to cope with the fact that you could never be a mother. It was perhaps just another thing to add to this never ending list.

“Y/n.” Seungcheol's hand on your arm pulled you out of your thoughts. “How many times do I have to ask? Is that the tree?”

You glanced at it and then back at the map and nodded. “Yeah, sorry, that's the one.”

Shifting gears Seungcheol slowed down, turning left like you told him to but to both of your surprise, the road ahead led straight into a forest that was submerged in darkness despite it being so early in the day. Confused, Seungcheol turned on the headlights as he drove ahead but the moment the car moved ahead, the lights turned off.

Frowning, he tried again, only to receive the same result - the lights kept turning off.

Annoyed, he stopped the vehicle, grabbing a rather large lighter from the dashboard and stepped out, opening up the hood. Unbuckling your belt, you followed him.

“Sit inside Y/n.”

“How are you supposed to hold the lighter and fix this thing?” You grabbed the light from him and held it over the engine. “Is there a problem?”

Seungcheol peered at the machinery, frowning. “I don't think so. I don't know why…..” He trailed off like a realisation hit him. “Did you say the tree we crossed was an olive tree?”

“I think it was?” You held out the map for Seungcheol to see. “I can't read Greek.”

“That’s not an olive tree and this isn't any ordinary forest….” He turned to you, both your faces illuminated by the faint light of the fire. “This is the Forest of Nyx, the Goddess of the Night.”

“Is that why the lights won't work?” You whispered, feeling a chill run down your body. “Is that why it's so dark?”

“It's always night at her realm. No light, no Gods, no eyes are allowed here.” He gulped as though he suddenly realised the proximity between the two of you. “No one can see us here.”

You frowned not understanding what he meant when he shut the hood, the headlights surprisingly flaring up again. Before you could even process what was going on, he pulled you up against him, the lighter dropping from your hands due to the sheer force as your body pressed against his.

“Cheol-”

“No one can see us Y/n.” He whispered, eyes drifting to your lips. “No one.”

And in a flash, his mouth was on yours - hot, wanting and desperate.

You gripped his arms, taken aback by the suddenness but when he pulled you closer like he didn't even want air between the two of you, you ran your hands up his chest and neck, threading them into his thick hair. Taking that as a sign of approval, he moved his hands down, briefly squeezing your ass before catching hold of your thighs and lifting you with unsurprising ease, wrapping your legs around his waist. You moaned when you felt his tongue slip into your mouth, his hands annoyed by all the armour as though they wanted to rip it out.

It was only when you felt breathless and pulled back that he finally let you go. Looking up at you equally breathless, eyes almost pleading, the words that you'd been dying to hear left his mouth at last.

“Fuck I've wanted this for so long.” He groaned. “I wanted you for so long Y/n, please….”

You gulped, stiffening when you understood what he was begging for.

Choi Seungcheol wanted to fuck you.

A/n - aaaaand scene hehe

If you've managed to make it till the end, congratulations, this was a long one, I'm sorry buttttt Cheol enthusiasts (aka everyone) y'all are in for a ride next chapter hehe, stay tuned!

And if you enjoyed reading, please don't forget to leave feedback in the comments or tags - we've got lots of chapters to go and hearing thoughts really helps <3

321 notes · View notes

burrowdarling · 23 hours ago

Text

Dress

Summary: Joe begs you to join him at an event, where a dress leads to a confession of feelings. Based off of the song "Dress" by Taylor Swift

Pairings: Joe Burrow x best friend to lover!reader

Warnings: implied smut, pining, best friends to lovers

Note: Hi! I hope you're all doing okay, I know this week has been tough and long. I hope this can bring some kind of joy during a hard time. This is my first time writing based off of a song. I would love to turn this into some kind of mini series or maybe interconnected standalones. Let me know your thoughts or song suggestions, I hope you all enjoy!

Word Count: 1.9K

“Pleaseeee come with me, you owe me a favor, remember? It’ll be fun I promise”. Joe begged from his spot on the couch.

Joe had invited you out to one of the team dinner gatherings as his date, insisting that you had to come with him or he would be “too bored to function”. You tried not to place too much weight on the “date” part of the deal, knowing it would be more as friends than anything. He was putting on the whole theatrics, pouting with puppy dog eyes.

“You want me to come to the dinner that you’ve been complaining will be ‘so boring’ so I have to suffer too? I don’t hardly see how that’s comparable to the favor you did for me by taking out my recycling for me that you offered to do” you questioned, knowing full well that it wouldn’t be nearly as bad as he’s been making it out to be.

“Hey, in my defense it was a lot of boxes to carry okay? You can be my source of entertainment, I won’t be able to survive without that” he explained, falling more into the dramatics as he dropped down onto the couch behind him to really solidify his point, exhaling a big sigh as he did so.

“I hardly doubt that Joseph, you’re being so dramatic” you said with your arms folded over your chest, not going to fold to his pleading that easy. Turning away from him as you sat across from him.

“I guess you won’t know unless you come with me then, huh” Joe said with a small pout on his lips, knowing it was the surefire way to win you over. In reality, he didn't have to even try. While Joe was your best friend, you’ve had feelings for him for a while now that have only grown with time the closer you two have gotten. Meeting back at LSU, you had so many memories together that have only made your friendship what it is today.

“C’mon, what else will it take for you to agree to go? I’ll do anything Y/N.”

Your heart rate picked up at his comment, needing to will yourself back to reality that there are so many other mundane things he could do to sweeten the deal for you. Thank god you had your back turned, able to give yourself a second to breathe. In all honesty, you would go just to spend more time with him, it was always fun to make him work for it though.

“Fine, but I won’t have anything to wear so you’re fronting my cost for a new dress” you stated turning yourself back towards him, sticking out your hand to signify the offer.

“You could’ve just asked that from the beginning. Deal” Joe agreed, returning your gesture and shaking on the deal.

_______________________________________________

It was finally the day of the dinner, taking the day to get yourself ready with an everything shower and full skincare routine. You made a day of it, pampering yourself after you had gone out to get the perfect dress. It complimented the color of Joe’s suit perfectly, while accentuating all of your favorite parts of yourself. It wasn’t anything too elaborate, but it made you feel confident and that’s what matters. You may or may not have also thought about Joe when picking it out, what he would think about when he saw you in it. You quickly shook the resurfacing thoughts from your mind as you slipped it on, careful not to mess up your look.

While you were applying the finishing touches to your look, your mind wandered to thoughts about yours and Joe’s friendship. You had met during one of his first classes when he transferred to LSU, asking you for directions to his next class. It happened that you were going the same way, offering to show him and the rest was history. On paper, you both were opposites, but that’s almost why you complimented each other so well. You matched one another's energy and could read the other like a book. It almost felt as if you didn't need to speak the thought out loud at times, able to tell what the other was thinking.

You and Joe had been there for each other all throughout college, being a support system and lifeline in the hard times as well as the biggest cheerleader for the highest highs. Through every breakup, Joe was always there to pick up the pieces he didn’t break, comforting you while giving you the praise he felt you deserved. Another thing you wrote off as him just being your best friend. No one wanted to see their best friend sad, so it was natural to want to cheer them up, right?

You were drawn out of your thoughts to the sound of your front door closing, signaling Joe had arrived.

“Hey Y/N, you ready to go?” he called from your living room, making his way through your apartment.

“Just a minute, I’m finishing up and we can head out” you called back, hearing his footsteps get closer as you spoke.

There was a sudden pause as the sound of Joe approaching got closer, turning to see him stopped in your doorway. He leaned his body up against the frame with his arms crossed over his chest.

“You look absolutely amazing, I love that we have a matching thing going on” Joe said as he looked you up and down, his gaze taking you in.

It all felt like too much, turning your attention back to the mirror in front of you.

When you were leaving your apartment to get into his car, Joe placed a gentle hand around your waist to keep you steady in your heels as you walked across the pavement parking lot. Your skin felt like it was ablaze under his touch, finding yourself craving more of it as his hand dropped to get the door for you.

“Thanks” you mumbled, trying to regain your composure back as the night was just beginning.

_______________________________________________

The night drew on, Joe not letting you far out of his reach as he spoke with his teammates and other guests that were there. It felt as if you had a pull to one another, a sense of palpable tension between you in the air. Joe seemed to be a lot touchier than usual, tending to keep you close when one of his teammates would get a bit too close for what must have been his liking. It all felt like too good to be true, that he must have really wanted you near him

There was only what you could describe as a Joe shaped indentation in your life, making any man incomparable to the standard he set for you without even knowing. So many guys in the past few years have tried to take their shot with you, but you never let any of them get too feeling like they were missing something that you were looking for. Even the ones that did ended up breaking your heart, leaving you feeling a deeper hollow pit than before them.

He was so close to you at the table, you could smell his cologne and feel the heat radiating off of his body that was clad so nicely in his suit, his arm slung protectively over the back of your chair as if he was staking his claim over you. It was taking so much willpower to not just lean over and say the most unspeakable things to him. To finally confess everything you’ve been feeling, wondering if he felt the same or if it would be a waste of time and ruin everything you created together.

In this moment, it felt like just the two were the only ones despite the room being so crowded with other guests. You leaned over, placing a delicate hand on Joe's thigh to test his reaction. You felt his muscles tense beneath your touch, close enough to hear his breath hitch in his throat. All signs were pointing in the right direction.

“Y/N” Joe said, his voice labored and breathy.

The way he says your name, stopping you in your tracks, short circuiting your mind for a moment. That was the kind of power he had over you, the ability to completely send your senses into overdrive without even realizing he was doing so. You tried your best to shut your mind off, taking the opportunity to tell him while you had the courage to do so.

“I don’t want you like a best friend” you spoke, voice keeping composure while trying to keep yourself from backing out.

Joe’s eyes closed as his head subtly dropped back against his chair. A quiet groan coming from his throat online loud enough for your ears only.

You leaned closer to his ear, keeping your body language as natural as possible with everything you’re feeling. Noticing how he was reacting to your words and proximity.

“I only bought this dress so you could take it off” your confidence shifting with a hint of seduction in your voice, sealing your fate to ending your friendship or starting a new chapter.

That seemed like the last straw for his own composure, not being able to contain his own building desire. Joe turned to look towards you, his gaze darkening from your confession, your grip tightening on his thigh as he tried to process the moment.

Without speaking, Joe stood from the table of his teammates and began gathering his things as he silently gestured for you to do the same.

“I think we’re gonna get going guys, Y/N isn’t feeling too well so I’m gonna bring her home” Joe said casually, holding out a hand for you to take.

Everyone said their goodbyes and wished you well. The minute you were out of the vicinity from everyone, Joe heaved you over his shoulder and began to hustle towards the car.

“JOE” you yelped followed by a light chuckle, caught off guard by his actions.

He didn’t reply until he got you to the car, dropping you carefully to your feet and pressed your back against the car door.

He leaned close to your ear, causing a shiver to run down your spine as he spoke “you have no idea how long I've wanted you. First, I'm gonna get you home and we're gonna get you out of this dress so I can do all of the things I’ve only ever dreamt of doing to you. Then we can talk about where we want to go from here, but I sure as shit don’t want to go back to just being friends. Does that work for you, sweetheart?”

You didn’t trust your voice in that moment, not knowing if words would come out if you tried and opted for a firm nod.

He backed away from the car, bringing you towards him so he could open the door for you.

“Get in mamas and buckle up, because once we get home, you’re in for a ride” closing the door before you could give him a response.

You were about to be in for a night you didn’t expect, but one that would change everything for the best.

Thank you so much for reading, please send in any requests or comments. I hope you enjoyed!

#joe burrow #cincinnati bengals #joe burrow x reader #joe burrow imagine #nfl imagine #joe burrow fanfic #joe burrow bengals #bestfriends to lovers #joe burrow lsu #joeyb #joe burrow fan fic

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pasukiyo · 2 days ago

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so sorry for this late response but WRITING THIS WITH TEARS IN MY EYES i cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your day to read my fic! i’m so so happy you enjoyed it and i’m glad i was able to incorporate some of your favorite romantic tropes 🤭 thank you so much for also taking the time out of your day to leave a little review, it certainly didn’t fail to make my day a little brighter 🥹 thank you thank you thank you a million times over! 🫶✨

A PLACE IN THE SEA OF STARS

anakin skywalker x f!naberrie!reader word count: 10.4k (my longest yet... i'm so sorry) warnings: two idiots pining, pining, reader is padme's younger sister (whether biological or adopted is up to you), first time having sex, soft smut, angst synopsis: a life spent in padmé amidala's shadow and never once did she ever think she'd be envious of her sister. that is, until anakin skywalker walks his way into her life and she finds herself praying that one day, he'd look at her the way he does at padmé, that she'll be given a place in the sea of stars, that her destiny will include him.

It came as no surprise that Anakin Skywalker would be enamored with her second-to-oldest sister.

After a life spent behind Padmé Amidala’s shadow, she’d grown accustomed to it— being overlooked. But for once, just this once, she wished history wouldn’t repeat itself, wished the prophecy could be rewritten and for once, let it be her who was chosen, who was noticed.

But of course, it’s futile.

You can sink to your knees and pray to whatever higher being is in the sky but at the end of the day, there are millions of lost souls just like you doing the same. You can have faith, you can believe that someday you’ll be heard but with each silent day that passes, your voice still falls on deaf ears.

She’s done her time playing the fool who sinks to her knees and pleads with the night sky to find her a place in the sea of stars, so that she may fit in a constellation too. She’s been the statue who's been made to wait— and she’s started to crumble.

She remembers the day she started to pray like it was yesterday. It was the day she first met Anakin Skywalker, back when he was only a Padawan, still searching for his own place in the world. Her parents were restless then, having heard of the multiple assassination attempts on their dear second oldest daughter. Of course she was worried too, but she still could feel the guilt that settled into the marrow of her bones when she found herself pondering whether her parents would react the same way if it had been her life at stake instead.

She remembers helping her eldest sister, Sola, and her mother with dinner in preparation for the arrival of their sister Padmé and her Jedi escort. She’d been tasked with bringing a bowl of fruit to the table and she remembered nearly being trampled over by her nieces, Ryoo and Pooja, as they squeal Padmé’s name, sprinting for the door.

She remembers huffing, mumbling a curse in an alien language beneath her breath just as their guests step inside, looking up from where she leaned over the table, dropping the bowl down onto the surface. She remembers her breath catching in her throat when her gaze found a sea of blue that put the Naboo waters to shame.

Padmé’s lips curved into a grin as she exclaimed her sister’s name, circling the table to capture her in an embrace. Her sister wrapped her arms around her and her chin found Padmé’s shoulder as the blue that took her breath away crashed into her and she swore everything changed in that moment.

She remembers the first time Anakin Skywalker looked at her. It was a brief, friendly locking of the eyes but a fleeting moment for him felt like lightyears for her. His eyes were the blue of the water where the sun’s reflection gently ripples and warps. They were the blue of the sky after it rains and the sun begins to spill through the cracks of the wall of clouds.

She’s never understood what it meant to be speechless, for something to literally steal the breath away from her lungs. But from the moment her eyes met his, she began to understand.

“Anakin! This is my youngest sister,” Padmé announced, pulling away from their embrace. Her spine stiffened when her sister introduced her and she watched as his full, pink lips moved to form her name. His voice is like nails scraping against the itch she can’t reach on her back, his voice is like velvet she can swallow, deliciously soft and rich against her throat.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Anakin dipped his chin in greeting, the silly, little braid falling off his shoulder. She drained the lump that had formed in her throat, bowing her head. Her lips trembled and her breath was shaky as she prepared her salutations but her words fell dead on the tip of her tongue when Padmé’s squeal permeated the room.

“And my eldest sister Sola!”

And just like that, all attention rolled away from her and onto her eldest sisters but she still watched him, heart beating against her chest.

And that was the moment she began to pray.

She prayed, even though the looks he’d given Padmé didn’t go unnoticed. The way he watched her, even when she wasn’t the one speaking, the way he’d soak in every word, every praise for her that fell past her parents’ mouths. The way he stared longingly at her sister when he was certain nobody was watching— and no one was, for their attentions were on Padmé, save for hers.

It was typical.

It should come as no surprise that everyone would worship the ground her sister— the former Queen, current Senator of Naboo— walked on. She’s not surprised that someone young and benign like him would fall in love with her sister— she’d only seen it happen more times than she ever really cared to count.

And she’d never really cared about all the suitors on their knees at Padmé’s feet before— they were her sister’s problems, not hers. She’d never even really envied her sister, at least in that sense.

But everything changed the moment Anakin stepped through the door. Everything changed the moment their eyes met, if only for the most fleeting of seconds.

So she prayed.

Inside the inner realms of her mind, she sinks to her knees and stares into the void above her, the stars that beamed down at her twinkling, almost as if they taunted her. She swallowed her pride, folding her hands together and raising them to her chin, brow dipping as she pleaded with the higher being in the sky to hear her cry.

“Please, hear me, Maker,” she whispered into her mind, externally staring at Anakin, internally losing her gaze amongst the stars as if the Maker himself would appear between them. “Hear my plea. Whatever destiny you’ve pre-written for me, please be sure it includes Anakin Skywalker.”

She didn’t see Anakin Skywalker again for another year after that.

Apparently, being a Jedi means he’s constantly from place to place, but next time they do end up in the same place, it’s even more fleeting than the last. She was beginning to wonder if she would ever see him again, if she was foolish to continue hoping that he might notice her, that he might even love her. But she still remembers the way his eyes flickered in recognition when they caught hers across the courtyard of Theed Royal Palace. His hair was longer and he didn’t have that ridiculous braid or tiny ponytail on the back of his neck anymore. The Chancellor was speaking to him and another Jedi with umber hair and a matching beard, but his attention was on her.

He looked… darker. As if the years of war had finally begun taking its toll on him. But he’s still the same man he’s always been, still the same one she’s dreamed about. He even looked better.

They don’t get the chance to talk, only share knowing glances, as he was on duty and their paths unfortunately didn’t cross. But that gleaming in his eyes, the one that blazes with knowing is all the kindling in the pit of her belly needs to bloom, to blossom into a raging wildfire.

So, she prayed again.

“Maker,” she said into that night sky inside of her head. The stars shone brighter, as if to laugh at the foolish girl beneath them. She ignored them of course— because she truly believed that one day, she’d prove them wrong. “Please. Hear my plea. Let Anakin Skywalker see me again. Give me a place in your sea of stars and make sure it is in Anakin Skywalker’s orbit.”

She doesn’t see him again for another two years.

But still, he lingers, just like a phantom weaving through every corner she passes, cloaked in shadow. She sees Anakin Skywalker everywhere she goes— in the lakes of shining waters out in the country, in the rain that falls on a dark, cloudy day, in the litany of stars that idle in the sky.

She sees him in her dreams, staring the way he did at Padmé. Only, in her dreams, his gaze finds her. Almost like he had that day in the courtyard, but in her dreams, his eyes would linger longer.

His voice calls out to her whenever she’s sleeping and it lingers in gooseflesh on her skin, frosting over her bones. She’ll open her eyes when he calls but she’s never truly awake. Alas, if dreaming is the only way she’ll see Anakin Skywalker again, she’d gladly succumb to her sleep and trick herself into believing it is real.

Except tonight, she does not think she can take it much longer.

“Anakin,” she whispers one day when she peels her eyelids open after he calls. She says his name like it’ll be the last time she ever will. That look is on his face again— the one she’s seen so many times directed at her in her dreams, she’s nearly forgotten it wasn’t meant for her in the first place.

She used to wake and long for sleep to come again, just so she could watch him look at her like that.

But three long years of waiting and foolishly praying to beings who do not hear have begun to rust the illusion she’s deluded herself into hopelessly believing in. Three long years of silence and she’s finally cracked. She is broken— she sees it now. She’s grown weary of hoping he’d be the one to fix her.

His lips curve to form a smile and for three years, she’s fooled herself into believing it could be for her— truly be for her, outside of her dreams. But to be forthright, she’s tired. She’s grown tired of pretending, tired of clinging onto the dying embers of mere memories of how a man looked at someone that wasn’t her— but rather her sister. She’s grown tired of hoping, waiting, praying that one day, he may wander back into her life and thread his way into the tapestry that her destiny’s been woven into.

Tonight is the night she forfeits with her palms to the sky, tonight is the night she yields to the stars that have taunted her for far too long and admits her defeat. That they were right all along. Tonight is the night she blows away the ashes she’s desperately held so close to her chest and sealed away in secret urns inside for far too long.

Tonight is the night she lets go.

When she wakes the following morning, birds chirp outside her window. Sunlight spills into her room as it rises over the mountains across the lake and she yawns, stretching her arms over her head. Today is merry— it is the day her sister, Padmé Amidala, marries.

Today is merry but instead, she feels dread seep into the marrow of her bones. She’s happy for her sister, really, she is, but it serves only as a reminder that her time is ticking, and time has turned vexing. It serves as a reminder that she must make haste to find her own purpose, to find someone who will cherish her the way she’s spent many fortnights dreaming about. Sola’s already married and found her purpose, and Padmé’s had her entire life laid out before her since she was only fourteen years of age.

Sola, the wife and mother, Padmé, the Queen and then the Senator, and then there’s her. Unsure. Undecided. An ellipsis.

She’s envious. How could she not be? She’s envious that she’ll never be the perfect mother like Sola, envious that she’ll never live up to Padmé’s legacy, she’s even grown envious of the stars: they simply idle in the night sky but even their idleness has a purpose because their places have reason, to create constellations that in turn, tell stories.

She knows that after today, the pressure of fulfilling whatever destiny’s been written for her will only further suffocate her. She will suffocate beneath the weight of this pressure and she will be expected to continue breathing. She’s tried for so long to keep the air in her lungs but it’s so hard when with each day that passes by, the darkness grows more appealing.

She’s tried so hard to find the right path she’s supposed to take, but there are so many roads, so many choices and so many consequences. She’s afraid— and it’s why she’s allowed herself to hide in her sisters’ shadows for so long. But it feels so stifling now.

She sighs and blinks up to the terracotta ceiling. And then of course, dread wears her bones for an entirely different reason. Because it’s inevitable that she’s going to see Anakin Skywalker today. And things will be different.

It’s been lingering like an annoying, little insect since Padmé announced she’d invited her Jedi friends to the wedding, ever since she heard Anakin’s name being read off the list. Things were certain to change because he is but a mere guest, and not the groom.

It may have come as no surprise that Anakin would fall for her, but it certainly came as a shock that Padmé wouldn’t fall for him.

It makes her flesh blaze with a strange anger she’s not quite sure how to describe. How could her sister have something she so desperately wanted but not pursue it? How could she reject Anakin when he would willingly break and bend to her every whim? Why must her sister take his infatuation for granted— why could it not be given to her instead?

She thinks it must be some cruel trick the Maker is playing on her, dangling Anakin in front of her like that, cursing him with an unrequited love when she was right there. She thinks it must be the Maker’s— damn him— cruel way of taunting her, as if the sneering stars had eyes, his eyes. Even if part of her is relieved Anakin is not marrying her sister, it still feels like a blaster wound to her chest, puncturing her skin and searing her insides.

She hears her name called from outside her room’s door and groans.

“What do you want?” She replies in displeasure as the door slides open. Her eldest sister, Sola, steps into the room and glowers at her youngest sister’s tone.

“Well, good morning sunshine,” Sola remarks and she rolls her eyes. Sola makes her way towards the bed, dropping a dress the color of fire onto the mattress. “Is there a reason for your ill-temper today?”

She pushes herself to sit upright, wrinkling her nose at the dress as she takes a fistful of it in her hand. “Orange?” She scoffs, tossing it back down onto the bed. “I thought we were wearing blue?”

Sola shrugs, plopping down onto the mattress. “Padmé changed her mind last minute,” she says. “I suppose if we wore blue, we’d mesh with the background, don’t you think?”

She sighs and flops back down against her pillows, one arm folded over her stomach, the other folded behind her head. Sola pokes her forefinger against her knee and she grumbles, narrowing her eyes at the ceiling.

“Now, answer the question,” her oldest sister insists. “What’s the matter with you?”

Her eyelids flutter closed and she wishes more than anything that she could simply wink out of existence. It’s not that she doesn’t want to be here for Padmé, she does, but she’s uncertain how she could possibly explain how she feels to Sola in a way she could understand. It’s exactly this that’s made her feel so alone all these years.

She’s never had someone who could understand her, really get her. She’s always been different from her sisters, even before marriage and coronations and political promotions. It’s something she’s certain her sisters have known, that even her parents must’ve known. She’s never been jovial and nurturing like Sola, or clever and independent like Padmé. She’s always preferred silence and privacy, and maybe that’s been her problem. But it’s all she knows, being alone.

Sola’s never spent years yearning for a boy who yearns for another, so she couldn’t possibly understand. She doesn’t think she could even make her understand.

She sighs, lolling her head to the side until her gaze finds Sola’s.

“Not looking forward to wearing that dress for the entire evening,” she says instead. Sola’s eyes roll and she leans over to pinch her calf beneath the covers. She hisses and swats her sister’s hand away as she clicks her tongue, moving out of the way.

“Oh come on, it’s not that bad,” Sola tries to reason.

“It’s hideous,” she deadpans.

Sola deflates with the acceptance of her defeat. She grabs her sister’s knee, giving it a shake. She glares at her older sister.

“Come on, that can’t be the only reason why you’re in such a foul mood,” Sola insists, her bottom lip rolling in a pout and she swears it’s almost comical how her eldest sister can act like such a child. It’s a wonder how she has children of her own.

She blinks at Sola as a sort of realization creeps onto her eldest sister’s face and she blinks, internally grimacing. For she knows that whatever is bound to come out of her sister’s mouth next is going to be completely and utterly wrong.

“I think I get it now,” Sola’s tone is softer, her face falling to match it. “You’re upset you’ll be the last of us to be married.”

And there it is.

She internally cringes at just how wrong Sola is but she says nothing, further prompting her sister to lean forward, reaching for the hand that rests on her stomach. Her muscles stiffen when she takes it and she wills herself to stay still. It was better to let Sola say whatever she had to say than recoil and deny it— it’s not like she had any better excuse anyways.

“I know it can be tough,” she begins. “Feeling like you’re left out. Believe me, I had my fair share of it. I was so jealous of yours and Padmé’s relationship when you were younger because I was so much older, I felt like I just didn’t quite fit in with you two.”

Her eyes finally meet Sola’s and she begins to see her eldest sister in a different light. All this time, she’s believed she’s the only one who’s felt this way— lost, left behind. While this isn’t quite the same context, she still feels her heart tremble in her chest for her sister, still feels like something’s shifted. It’s at least one thing they can understand each other on.

“But then, I found my husband. And then I had Ryoo and Pooja,” Sola continues. “And it was the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I’ve never been so happy in my life.”

Sola’s grip tightens around her hand and she leans forward to place her other one on top. “I know it must seem hard, seeing as both Padmé and I are married— well, almost anyway.” Her lips curve into a soft, reassuring grin. “But you’ll find that same happiness one day. I just know it. So don’t fret, little sister.”

And there, she fears, is where her sister misses the plot.

She almost wants to laugh at how ridiculous this all sounds. She remains silent, however, and Sola gives the back of her hand one last reassuring pat before she lets go, sliding off of the mattress.

“Anyways, I’m going to breakfast. You should come too before all the blue waffles are gone.”

She watches as her eldest sister slips out of the room, the door sliding closed behind her and she sighs, digging her knuckles into her closed eyelids until the galaxy shimmers before her. How could Sola have come so close to understanding her one minute only to read her so wrong the next?

She doesn’t make any effort to get out of bed and in all honesty, she wishes she could simply stay here forever, or at least for the rest of the night. At least long enough that she doesn’t have to face Anakin Skywalker.

Because even though she’s already promised herself that she’d let him go, she wasn’t entirely certain she could hold true to her own word when she sees him again.

The day goes by in a blur. In the blink of an eye, she’s wearing a satin dress in that deep orange she finds hideous beside Sola who stands beside Padmé. Padmé stands facing her husband-to-be, fingertips delicately placed in his palms as they recite their vows.

The sun paints the villa’s terrace with an orange glow and she watches it sink beneath the mountains across the lake from the corner of her eye. The sunlight looks like fire rippling in the gentle waves of the water below and she has to look away because she thinks of Anakin, how his eyes glimmer just the same.

She’s determined to keep her gaze away from the audience, however, because she knows he’s there, the incarnation of all she’s ever wanted, of all her bad ideas, of everything she cannot trust herself with in one. She searches the ground below, watches the way her dress ruffles with the breeze, like fire askew in the wind.

Padmé says something that makes the audience erupt in laughter and it startles her, so much that the hair on the back of her neck erects. When she flinches, she makes the mistake of blinking up— right into the eyes she’d been bound to avoid all night.

The world around Anakin Skywalker seems to stir until it’s all wet, blurry hues of orange, green, and white. Anakin is the only one she sees in high resolution— she can see every lock of wavy, dark blonde hair, every rippling wave in his irises, the scarlet line that slices just beside his right eye. She’d never seen this scar before— it must be new.

But what’s the most peculiar of all is that she meets his eyes— she meets his eyes. She’d blinked up to find he’d already been staring, already transfixed on her by the time their gazes met and his eyes had illuminated with that same knowing gleam she’d seen in them that day in the royal courtyard.

Anakin Skywalker is looking at her and she is not in a dream. It’s both momentous and utterly devastating all the same.

She isn’t quite sure whether to look away or not. This is what she's mooned over more times than her pride will allow her to admit. She’s dreamed this many nights, for Anakin Skywalker to simply look at her and now he is. Anakin Skywalker is looking at her and she should feel elated but instead she feels… conflicted.

Does her heart flutter in her chest? Sure.

Does her stomach twist itself into knots? Certainly.

She felt so confident just the night before when she threw her hands up in surrender to the black sky, admitting her defeat to the stars who spent many moons mocking her that she was done. She felt so confident that she was ready to move on, to let go of this desire she’s harbored for Anakin for so long.

With the simplest of looks, Anakin Skywalker has proven capable of crumpling the paper walls she’d placed around herself. She was left feeling feeble, exposed and any sense of courage she thought she had was now lost.

Because three years of waiting and praying to higher entities who did not hear her pleas could not cease overnight. Her attraction to Anakin Skywalker could not cease in hours. She thought she’d extinguished the last flames of her withering hope but, as it turns out, a single dying ember remained. It means a part of her still yearned for him. A part of her still burned for him.

She wonders now, that he’s still looking at her, what possibly goes on inside his head. Why does he look at her now? Why does he stare, why do his lips twitch before curving in a smile when their eyes meet, why do they irradiate the longer her gaze lingers on his? Why does he not look sad at the wedding of the woman he loves? Why does he not even look at Padmé?

Her mind swirls like a tempest— churning with unhinged, vicious anguish. She has to look away before the acid that bubbles in her throat can come to fruition but she can’t, and Anakin seemingly can’t tear his gaze away from her either. It’s all the more sickening and earth-shattering nonetheless. Her heart swells and pounds in her chest, the border of her vision beginning to blur with the familiar sting of tears. Her head is aching and it’s all just too much— she needs an escape.

“I now pronounce you, husband and wife.”

She blinks away her emotion to the best of her ability, using the end of the ceremony as an excuse to look away as the crowd around her thunders with applause. Her mind is reeling and she feels like her head is spinning as she subconsciously claps her palms together, the sound muffled like water in her ears. The watercolor around her stirs until it’s clear again and the entire world suddenly seems to move again— it’s her, this time, that’s in slow motion.

The cheering sounds like thunder, the applause like rain pelting against a window, and her mind begins to crumple, just like metal. She longs for escape, to flee and to be beside herself for the rest of the night. Padmé and her husband begin walking back down the aisle as their guests congratulate them, tossing flower petals into the air above them. She thinks that this is her chance to escape, she thinks everyone is distracted enough that no one will notice her leaving.

They never cared to notice her before anyways.

She begins to shuffle away but she doesn’t make it very far before her stomach lurches when someone clasps a hand around her wrist, tugging her forward. She snaps her head to the source to find her eldest sister, Sola, with her face illuminated by a grin.

“Come on!” Sola exclaims, dragging her down the aisle and back inside the villa. “It’s time to party!”

Dread drains the blood from her cheeks but she’s given no time to protest before she’s being dragged down the aisle, right past Anakin Skywalker. She doesn’t dare look up but she feels him when she passes by, a mere brush of the arms, the feeling of his elbow brushing going just as fast as it came.

And it’s still enough to make liquid of her insides.

She drowns in a sea of people as she and Sola find Padmé, wrapped in their mother’s arms. She can hear her heart drum in her ears as Sola releases her hand to draw Padmé into an embrace, tears streaming down the apples of her cheeks. Everyone around her is so happy and she should be too— but she still feels like she’s beside the altar, caught in the trap Anakin has seemingly laid out for her.

A tear that’s been painfully dormant in her eye falls and she’s certain her distress shows on her face but it must be easily mistaken for tears of joy, because Padmé pulls away from Sola to turn to her, drawing her in for a hug. Her sister’s arms wrap around her body, a palm on her back, the other cupping the back of her head. Even Sola reaches forward to give her upper arm a reassuring squeeze, undoubtedly thinking back to the conversation they’d had earlier.

“Don’t cry for me, baby sister,” Padmé laughs tearfully beside her ear. She can feel Padmé’s smile against her shoulder. She pulls away and rubs her palms up and down the length of her arms. “I’m still the same Padmé I’ve always been.”

She’s unable to reply— again, she’s misunderstood. But it’s her sister’s wedding day, she won’t burden her with her own confliction. So she swallows the boulder-sized lump in her throat, curving her lips just enough to form a tight-lipped smile.

“I’m just… happy for you,” she manages. Padmé cups her cheek and soothes the pad of her thumb over her skin before Ryoo and Pooja draw her attention away. Padmé’s hands fall from her arms and finally, she can breathe.

But even that is momentary.

“You make a perfectly fine bride if I do say so myself, Senator.”

Her spine stiffens. She knows that voice. And she knows exactly who is near when she hears it.

Padmé laughs and tosses her hands. “Obi-Wan,” she greets him just like an old friend would, pulling him in for an embrace. “And little Ani.”

How is it that she’s already seen him more tonight than she has in the past three years? She sees Anakin’s dark boots from the top of her vision, not daring to tear her gaze from the ground.

“Padmé,” Anakin’s deep, enriching voice sounds and rumbles deep in her belly. She shifts uncomfortably where she stands, desperate to flee. She thinks she can manage it now— Obi-Wan and Anakin are engrossed with Padmé now, right?

She begins to make her first attempt of escape, taking slow, careful steps to the side until her second effort crumbles when Anakin speaks her name.

Ice frosts over her spine and she’s no choice but to acknowledge the man she was so intent on avoiding the entire evening. Padmé and Obi-Wan are engrossed in their own conversation but Anakin’s gaze remains on her, eyes even sparkling when she finally meets them.

Her mouth is a desiccated oasis and her throat feels like a desert as it constricts painfully when she swallows. Still, she manages to breathe out, “Anakin.”

It’s the first time she can ever recall having a true, proper conversation with him. The last time being when they said their goodbyes that very first time before he and Padmé left for the Lake Country. It’s confusing how this is everything she’s ever wanted yet, she feels an urge to push it all away.

Anakin clears his throat and his eyes flicker to his feet for a moment as if he could possibly be nervous before they find hers again. “You look good,” he says and her heart stops beating in her chest. “That dress is beautiful on you.”

She thinks she could punch him.

Or kiss him.

She has to look away, or she may very well do the latter.

She wonders if this is some cruel, senseless joke the Maker is playing on her. She wonders if she’d upset him by unlatching herself from his hook and this is his way of reeling her back in. She hates that it has the potential to work.

“I…” she stammers and closes her lids frustratedly, willing air back into her lungs. She shakes her head— she cannot be here any longer. She may very well explode if she has to succumb to this torture for even a second more. “…thanks. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

And then, she bolts.

She’s lost track of how long she’s been locked in her room, sitting in the window, staring at the moonlight that ripples in the water below. It was long enough for the chatter downstairs to quiet to murmurs until it finally ceased altogether. The villa is now quiet and suddenly, her room feels suffocating.

With a sigh, her feet meet the floor and she pushes away from the window seat, cupping her neck to roll it around her shoulders as she pads towards the door. It slides open and she slips through, making her way down the hallway leading towards the main foyer. Her dress flows behind her like flames in the wind, the satin cool against her legs as she walks. Fresh, night air greets her and she inhales, letting it flood her lungs as she saunters to the wide terrace ahead.

She stops at the stone arches of the railing and exhales, feeling the wind sift its fingers through her hair, breathing on her skin like a lover in the throes of passion. It caresses her neck and rolls down her back, leaving gooseflesh in its wake.

She’d spent many nights just like this one. Staring at the moon rippling through the water, at the stars that twinkle overhead, the sky that blackens behind them. She’d spent many nights praying, releasing her pleas into the air and letting it drift away with the breeze.

She does not pray this time. When she lifts her head to brave the dark that faces her, she merely asks why.

“Why, Maker,” she whispers beneath her breath. There’s an edge, a strain to her voice that stings her throat, that feels like daggers to her chest. “Why must you be so cruel? I have done everything, I have given you everything. Why wasn’t it enough? Why do you mock me now?”

The stars overhead gleam as they cackle, sneering at the misfit below. “You’ll never have a place among us,” they seem to say. Tears well in her eyes and she drops her head, fingernails scraping the stone edge of the railing. She leans back on her heels and wills herself to breathe before a sob could wrack her body.

She feels lost and utterly alone, and she truly begins to feel like the weight of this prolonged pain has started to fall on top of her. She’s lost and alone and her entire world has started to crumble around her. And then she hears her name.

It’s like the call that haunts her every time she closes her eyes, the same velvety voice that caresses her ear every night when she lies down in bed. But it is not a ghostly whisper this time, because it is real.

Footsteps sound behind her and she further scratches her nails against the railing.

“I was wondering where you wandered off to,” Anakin remarks as he approaches and she can feel him beside her, like a whisper of shadow creeping along her skin. She rolls back onto the balls of her feet and stands straight, sniffing.

“Anakin,” she says, steadily, methodically. As if it took great effort to say it without stammering. She can see him out of her peripheral, dark blonde curls falling when he leans an elbow against the railing, tilting his head in an attempt to meet her eye.

She does not move.

“I was looking for you, you know,” he continues. “You must’ve found a good hiding spot.”

She rolls her bottom lip between her teeth. “I was in my room,” she replies simply, a steely, monotone in her voice.

Anakin inhales and hums. “Then it makes sense why I could not find you. I would never barge into a lady’s room.”

It’s an attempt at humor but she feels anything but. She’s stuck between a rock and a hard place with seemingly no clear solution in sight. She could walk away. She should walk away. She shouldn't spend a single second more in Anakin Skywalker’s presence— she simply couldn’t trust herself to not betray her own vow.

Or she could stay. She could stay and once again succumb to the fool’s game she’s been playing. She could stay and let Anakin Skywalker tie another noose around her neck, allowing him to drag her along for another three years.

She knows what is right. She knows what she should do.

But she’s frozen.

She cannot move, cannot even bring her lips to move so she can speak. She instead wilts, like a rose who once stood beautifully now losing its color, shriveling in on herself until she inevitably withers away.

She can feel Anakin draw himself just an inch closer beside her, and he’s like a single drop of rain that’s enough to somewhat salvage the husk of who she once was.

“Why do you avoid me?” He asks and it’s a question so simply but so damn infuriating all the while. She’s been a volcano in dormancy up until this point, but there’s a rumbling deep within her, threatening to erupt.

“Why are you doing this?” She questions, snapping her head towards him, brows dipped and drawn. Anakin blinks and draws back, a dent forming between his own brows.

“Doing what?” He asks and that feeling of wanting to ram her fist into his face comes back. She turns to fully face him and he pushes off the railing, uncertainty warping his features.

“This,” she gestures between them. “Staring at me. Talking to me. As if we’ve spoken more than hellos and goodbyes to each other.”

Anakin raises a brow, the one his scar pierces, and it warps with the movement.

She continues. “And then you have the audacity to tell me I look beautiful in this gods-awful dress just to spite me.” She is a volcano, no longer dormant, no longer overlooked. She is exploding and Anakin is unfortunate enough to be in her wake.

He shakes his head. “Spite you?” He repeats. She begins to pace, a hand on her hip, the other rubbing her chin. Anakin follows, exactly like a lost puppy. “I wasn’t— I would never—“

“Don’t say you’d never,” she turns on him, sticking an accusatory finger in his face. He blinks from it back to her, that ocean in the irises of his eyes raging, lightning cracking in the sinkhole at its center. She drops her hand and it curls at her side, her fists two shaking balls of fury. Blood bites her cheeks and she thinks of all the times she’s imagined speaking with Anakin Skywalker, of being alone with him.

This certainly was not how she’d ever imagined the scenario playing out.

She inhales. “Don’t say you’d never do anything to spite me while you are actively using me to get over Padmé,” she exhales, braving the stormy sea in his eyes. The tide shifts and his manner does too and she believes she’s already cracked him. She thinks she’s already shattered the illusion he was trying to create, that she’s lifted the wool he’s tried to veil over her eyes.

She thinks that he believes whatever game he was trying to play was over.

Anakin straightens. “You have no idea what you are talking about,” he says and she scoffs, backing away.

“Don’t I?” She retorts. “You don’t think I’ve noticed how you’ve always looked at her? How you’ve always loved her?”

It brings her great pain to merely mention it. Her palms wipe at her face as tears begin welling in her eyes again, her cheeks warm as she desperately tries to quell the beginnings of a sob that stutters through her chest. She realizes now that by keeping all of these emotions, these feelings she’s harbored for Anakin for so long bottled has made her restless, has made her tick like a time bomb.

And her time to detonate has come.

He says her name again and tries to step forward, reeling back when she steps away from him. His hand wrapped in a leather glove hovers in the air between them and he drops it with an exasperated sigh.

“Your sister means a great deal to me, yes,” he begins. “But it is not—“

“My sister is the sole reason why you torment me!” She snaps. “And you have no right to use how I feel against me just because she does not love you back.”

Her words are an arrow meant to strike, to pierce through his chest, his heart her target. Her words are meant to cut deep, to draw blood, to make him bleed just like she has everyday since they met. She thinks they will, she thinks her blows will etch deep, will even leave scars in their wake. Part of her longs to see that pained expression upon his face, just like the one she wears now.

But her arrow merely grazes, soaring past until it sinks in the shining waters below.

Anakin’s face shifts but it is not in the way she thought it would, not in the way she hoped it would. His brows dip and his eyes swarm with a pained sort of desperation she’s never seen before in someone. She certainly never expected to see it in someone like him. His chest rises and falls with his breaths as he steps forward again. She stands still, unable to move. She is stunned— Anakin Skywalker has surprised her.

“Padmé does not love me,” he admits. “I met her when I was only a child. The only girl I’d ever seen before her was my own mother. So, of course, I felt drawn to her.” Her jaw tightens and her lips fall together in a firm, thin line. Anakin’s brows knit closer together and there’s a flicker in his eyes that she swears looks like the predecessor to tears.

She doesn’t quite want to believe it. He could not cry.

“And I spent a decade pining, a decade praying that I’d one day see her again, a decade hoping she’d been counting down the days until she saw me again, just like I was.”

She doesn’t believe what she’s hearing. It’s a reflection of her own story, her own foolish pining, her own foolish praying but not hers, but Anakin’s. Her heart stutters in her chest and she forgets to breathe, having to gasp to gather air back into her lungs.

She’s never once felt like she could be understood. She’s never once felt like anyone else could experience the inner turmoil she has, the seemingly fruitless yearning she has.

But she’s realizing now that that's not true. Not anymore, at least. Everything is changing right before her eyes.

“And then I did,” Anakin shakes his head, a humorless laugh leaving his lips. “And I felt nothing. But I tried. I tried to convince myself I loved her. But I just… didn’t.”

Her brow furrows and Anakin’s gaze darkens as it finds hers.

“I spent a decade obsessing over someone I didn’t really know, and how could I? I was a child.” His eyes search hers, searching for something unbeknownst to her. But she lets him. “I didn’t know what love was. All I knew was infatuation. I didn’t know what it meant to truly feel seen, to truly feel drawn to someone.”

Anakin pauses and she gets the feeling that whatever he says next will be calamitous.

“Until I saw you again, that day outside the palace.”

Her lips tremble and her breath shudders, an icy chill frosting over her skin. To think he’s thought about her everyday since their eyes briefly met in the midst of a crowded courtyard was hard to believe yet, when she looks at Anakin Skywalker now, she sees the softening of his brow, the quiver in his lips, the honesty in his eyes.

She’s only ever imagined one look in his eyes. Desire.

But she looks at him now and finds an entire galaxy— there’s longing, there’s earnest, there’s optimism, there’s burning. As it turns out, living creatures are not black and white like she initially thought them to be. Anakin Skywalker is a complex creature, made of flesh and blood and of an intricacy she’d never stopped to consider before.

He’s even better than she’s imagined he’d be.

Every moment spent under the stars, praying that she’d one day have a place among them, that she one day would sit among them with purpose rather than in an ellipsis suddenly begins to feel like it wasn’t all for nothing after all. Every prayer she’s whispered into the night breeze with Anakin Skywalker’s name in it suddenly feels like they begin to matter, like they begin to come true.

Still, she is wary, and Anakin seems to recognize this caution.

He takes a step closer and he steals the breath from her chest, just like he had the first moment she saw him. Her fingers twitch, itching to find his, her palms tingling with the desire to feel his skin, her lips buzzing with yearning. She does not touch him, she does not kiss him, she does not do anything. She simply waits for the rest of his story to unfold and her brain aches with the hope that it will unravel into hers.

“I saw you that day at the palace to find you were already looking at me. That you were already seeing me,” he mutters, a little breathlessly. “It may have been for… for only a moment but when you looked at me, I felt…” he trails off, a furrow in his brow as he searches for the correct word. “…I felt… like something shifted.”

She watches as he rolls his lips together, watches as the moonlight catches how they glisten with spittle. Her breath catches a little bit, her gaze lingering there, her desire to lap it all up flaring.

“It felt like there was a string there between us I’d never noticed before,” he continues. “There was a connection I’d never realized until the moment our eyes met. I felt you, and I felt you see me. There hasn’t been a day that’s passed by since where I didn’t feel you, where I didn’t feel like we were connected, like we were two stars written in the same constellation.”

Her chest rises and falls to the erratic beating of her heart as Anakin draws nearer, the hand with his glove meeting her cheek with a tenderness she’d felt from no one before. She’d never realized how starved of touch she’s been until now and it feels so invigorating. Her stare drops to his lips and she feels that string Anakin must’ve been talking about, feels it drawing her closer into his mouth.

“Padmé does not love me back, and I do not care,” he says in just above a whisper, his voice rising and falling in a way that jellifies her knees, that makes liquid of her insides. “Because I am burning– foolishly, maybe, yes– for you.”

She inhales sharply and it truly feels like all her prayers are finally being answered, like she’s being inducted into her rightful place in the sea of stars. And in her constellation, Anakin Skywalker resides too.

She reaches up with a hand to hold the crook of his elbow that’s strung between them as he brings his other, ungloved hand to rest on her other cheek. She feels his skin on her cheek as the pad of his thumb soothes over the warmth of her flesh and her body quakes with shivers that roll down her spine all the way to her toes. He begins to lean in, his breath hot where it fans against her skin but she tilts backwards, just enough for him to halt, a quirk in one of his brows.

“I will not let you settle for me, Anakin Skywalker,” she whispers, admitting that insecurity still lingers, despite his words. Anakin’s eyes narrow as he uses his hands on either sides of her face to draw her in, his lips but a mere whisper away from hers when he murmurs, “settle? This is not settling. This is binding.”

Then, his lips are on hers in an electrifying bind that shatters her spine with cracks of lightning and she falls into him, her hands on either of his forearms to keep herself steady.

Anakin kisses her with an ardor she could never even dream up in all of her wildest of fantasies. He kisses her and she feels like she finally fits in her dress, as it is the color of fire and she’s engulfed in flames. He kisses her and he is the flame that lights her candle, the flame that melts her from the center, that makes heat course through her that washes all the way down to her toes. He kisses her and she is melting, right into him.

His tongue pirouettes over hers and she hums into his mouth, feeling his fingers thread through her hair. Her heart is pounding and her lips are buzzing but all she feels is Anakin, she feels the muscles in his arms, the warmth that radiates off his body and spills into her. She feels the push and pull of the passion, the yearning he’s kept inside all this time. She feels her own longing and fervor pour into him and they are floating, two clouds that collide into one another to become one.

Anakin steps forward and steps backwards until she hits a wall. When they pull away for breath, she realizes he’s backed her into one of the pillars, a vine caught in the hair on the back of her head. Their chests heave with the weight of their breaths and she watches as Anakin’s hand, not the gloved one, but the one with skin rises, following it as it reaches for her neck. She shudders when he touches her collarbone, exposed from the side of the fiery satin of her dress. His fingertips sear her skin as it drags to the neck of her dress, following the satin where it wraps around her throat, all the way to the back of her neck where the lace falls.

Her breath catches when his fingers find the small strings keeping her dress together. Her gaze finds his again to find he’s already staring, a narrow, earnest look upon his face that darkens his eyes and hardens his features. There is a silent question that hangs in the air between them: “do you want to stop?”

Maybe they’re moving too fast. Maybe this is crazy, maybe they’re simply caught up in the moment, high off the feeling of burning for someone who burns for them too. But after years of pining, of waiting, of praying, it only feels right.

But still, she asks, “what if someone sees? Someone like Obi-Wan who can get you in trouble?”

Anakin shakes his head, “they won’t. Now, I don’t want to talk about Obi-Wan. Do you want to stop?”

The shake of her head is all Anakin needs to see before he unlaces the strings holding her dress together, the satin falling like a spark blazing down the frayed edges of a rope until it pools at her elbows. Her breasts spill from the dress and the night’s ghostly whisper chills her skin, peaking her nipples.

Anakin’s eyes devour and she is prey.

His stare pierces through her skin to the marrow of her bones that catch a chill and she quakes. He meets her eyes again as his hands drift lower, dipping until they finally find her chest. A sharp gasp escapes when his palms cup either of her breasts and she arches into his touch, already aching for more.

“Anakin!” She gasps in a breathy exclaim when he dips his chin to press a kiss over the top of one of her breasts, heat blossoming in his lips’ wake. His eyes catch her again, a little warily. “Is this okay?” He asks, his voice low and gravely, scratching the itch in her brain she didn’t even know she had. It makes her knees feel weak and if it hadn’t been for his body pressed up against hers, she would’ve crumpled straight to the ground.

“Yes,” she breathes, chest heaving into his palms. “I’m sorry, I’ve just… never…”

Anakin’s lips curve and she can see a flash of white peek between them. He shakes his head. “Me neither,” he admits with a breathy laugh and she titters too, grateful for the fact that she’s not the only one who’s a little green.

“Can I keep going?” He questions and his voice is liquid desire, melting straight down to her core. She swallows the lump that’s formed in her throat, nodding. “Please,” she adds, feeling her heart beat straight into his palm.

Anakin’s head dips again and she watches, cheeks warm as he places an open-mouthed kiss just above her nipple. His palm kneads the other breast as his lips venture just an inch lower, finding the peaked bud that awaits, suckling it into his mouth.

It’s like electricity flooding through her veins.

She throws her head back, lips falling agape as her eyelids snap closed, soaking in the pleasure of Anakin’s lips on her nipple. He cautiously flicks his tongue against the bud, watching through his lids as a moan falls from her lips, encouraging him to do it again. He flattens his tongue against her nipple and licks a long, fat stripe from the underside of it up, feeling her tremble in his arms. He lets go of her breast with a wet pop, trailing kisses through the valley between them to make his way to the other.

Touching him, feeling him, kissing him is somehow even better than she’d ever imagined, even after all those years of dreaming for moments like this. She can’t believe she’s gone so long without feeling him like this, she doesn’t think she can ever stop touching him.

Anakin suckles on her breast, flicking his tongue against her nipple as his hand not wrapped in a glove ventures down her body, past her waist, down her hip. He pulls the satin material of her dress up until his arm can sneak his way beneath it and she shivers when his fingers find her center over her underwear. Her nails dig into his sleeves above his shoulders, holding her breath as he finds the wet spot in her underwear, gently pressing against it.

Her hands tighten on his shoulders and ceases all movement, peering up at her. “You’re wet,” he says rather matter-of-factly because of course she is, how could she not be? She nods down at him, swallowing thick layers of saliva down her throat. “Can I touch you here?” He asks and his voice drops to that silky, velvety tone that makes her core ache. She presses her lips together to stifle her groan, head vigorously nodding up and down.

“Gods yes, Anakin,” she moans, slowly rocking her hips against his finger. “Please.”

She feels filthy in a way for asking, for needing friction so desperately. She’s only ever taken her own fingers when she’s too lost in pleasure at night to sleep, never been touched by anyone else but it’s all she craves now, for Anakin’s fingers to touch her, for him— whatever part it may be— to be inside her.

A flame had been ignited in the pit of her belly long ago, back when Anakin first stepped through the door the day they met. It’s sat stagnant for too long, waiting for its moment to further bloom and now it has. It blossomed when her eyes met Anakin’s that day in the courtyard but it’s now in full bloom, now that they burn together, now that his kisses have seared her skin, now that his fingers are pulling her underwear down her thighs, just enough that he can reach her center.

When his fingertips brush her clit, she bursts.

Anakin’s arm wraps around her waist as she practically collapses into him, his middle finger drawing circles against her clit, his breath hot as his lips rest on her brow.

“Is this good?” He asks against her forehead. “Do you feel good?” He questions again as he adds his forefinger to the mix, applying just a little more pressure and it makes her eyes roll.

“Yes, just… just don’t stop,” she exhales, feeling her stomach twist itself into a knot, his fingers against her clit threatening to pull it undone any moment.

So he doesn’t.

He’s unrelenting in the way his fingers press to the aching bud in her center, tracing tight circles until her eyes squeeze closed so hard, milky-ways shimmer behind her lids. He dares venture lower, gathering her slick on the pads of his fingers as he teases near her entrance. It’s a foreign and strange feeling, it’s a pattern she’s traced many times with her own fingers but never been touched by someone else. Even in spite of how many nights she spent trekking that path wishing it was Anakin’s fingers instead, but it’s still strange feeling him there now.

She clutches his arm tighter and he slows, beginning to retract his hand. She stops him, lifting her head until their eyes meet again.

“No,” she pants, shaking her head. “Don’t stop, just… just take it slow.”

He nods, his finger a little unsure as it circles her entrance, unintentionally teasing until she begins to crack. She’s panting, trying to wiggle her hips so that she can draw his fingers in, seeking that feeling of being full. Anakin dips his forefinger into her hole and she tosses her head back, her lips parting for an “oh” to emit.

He watches her face, even if she can’t see it, she can feel his gaze behind her closed lids. He is testing the waters, learning what makes her moan, what makes her squirm, what makes her come. Slowly, he sinks his finger further in and she feels every single millimeter that drags along her walls until he’s knuckle deep. Her legs feel like jelly and her knees begin to wobble, nails clinging to his sleeves like they were her lifeline.

Pressure builds in the pit of her belly as Anakin carefully retracts his finger, just to sink it back in again, a slow, cautious rhythm that leaves her mind spinning. His fingers are so much bigger than hers and she already feels so stuffed despite it only being one finger. Somehow, it’s too much and not enough at the same time.

“Ana… Anakin,” she gasps, peeling open her lids to find he’s already looking. His finger slows but picks up its pace again when he realizes she’s not in any pain. “Another.”

His brow dips and his head tilts in confusion, uncertain what she means. She gathers moisture on her lips, trying to speak through the pleasure-driven haze in her mind.

“Another finger. Please.”

Their eyes lock and there’s a flicker in his, a hint of doubt.

“Are you su—“

“Please.”

So, Anakin gathers her lips with his and she mewls into his mouth when he presses his middle against his pointer, sinking them into her cunt until they reach as far as they can. She’s trembling against him but he keeps her upright, with his arm and with his lips.

Just one of Anakin’s fingers had made her feel stuffed but two of his fingers made her feel full to the brim. Her walls clench around his fingers and she gasps his name like the beginning of a prayer, pleading for more.

It’s a twist on the prayers she recites to the Maker every night. It’s rewriting her every broken hymn, transforming it into something entirely new. She moans Anakin’s name and his fingers turn it into a song so that she cries like a dove into the night. The Maker may have left her feeling broken, wasted, unimportant but Anakin has found her, patched her up, polished her until she’s brand new.

The tangle in her belly begins to rupture, slowly unraveling and so she pushes his arm away, his fingers sliding out of her cunt, her walls pulsing with the loss. They both pant and Anakin’s face hardens in question as his chest heaves.

“What is it?” He asks, searching her face.

She gathers air deep in her chest. “I want…” She trails off, her embarrassment washing over her cheeks in blood. Her gaze drops and Anakin tilts his head to find it again, their eyes locked. He says nothing, only the nod of his head encourages her to continue. “…I want more. I want… I want you to…”

She purses her lips in frustration. For heaven’s sake, she’s talking to the man who just had his fingers inside of her mere moments ago. Why does she feel embarrassed now?

She takes another deep breath, mustering the courage to tell what she truly wants. “…I want you to feel good too.”

Something shifts in Anakin’s eyes. It could be easily mistaken as a trick of the light but she sees it, she feels it. Anakin is burning just the same as her, his pupils becoming a backdrop behind the fires of desire, and she burns within it.

She watches as Anakin’s hand sinks below the belt around his middle, all the way down to the waistband of his trousers beneath his dark tunic. She watches with her breath lodged at the base of her throat as he pulls down his pants, just enough for his cock to be set free and oh, it is just like her dreams but even better.

Nothing could have ever prepared her for the sight of Anakin Skywalker’s cock. Not even the wildest of her dreams could ever capture the essence of the art of Anakin Skywalker. He is handcrafted by the gods themselves— he is the physical embodiment of masterpiece.

He steps forward and towers over her, his breath like smoke rolling over her face. She peers up at him, her chest heaving with the effort of breathing. His hands find either side of her face and she stops breathing altogether, wondering what he will do next.

Then, “put your arms here,” he whispers, guiding her arms over his shoulder. “And hold on.”

She squeals when he drops his hands to the undersides of her thighs, lifting her off the ground so that her ankles lock behind his back. Her arms tighten around his neck as he presses her back against the pillar, his chest pressed into hers. She can feel his length as it’s squeezed between either of their bodies and her walls clench around nothing, practically sobbing to feel him inside.

For a moment, the world stills around them and it’s like when she sees him in the audience during Padmé’s wedding. The night stirs and blurs until it’s dark watercolor, but Anakin is what she sees in high resolution. It’s the perfect mirage— she and Anakin feel like two stars in the middle of the black abyss above, forming their own little constellation.

And when Anakin finally slides himself inside of her, she feels like her place in the sea of stars has been cemented. She finally feels like she’s where she belongs.

a/n; SO! MY LONGEST IMAGINE YET.... may or may not have gotten a bit carried away (more like a little too wordy...) BUT! i really hope some of you enjoy and i truly appreciate anyone who reads this all the way through. i know 10k words is a lot 😭 also i hope this doesn’t seem too insta-lovey… this idea just came to me in a dream so i wrote what I dreamt lol

💫 if you enjoyed, please consider reblogging or even leaving a reply to let me know! it means the world to me 🫶

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janeyseymour · 2 days ago

Text

I Hate You, I Love You- part 5

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4.

Summary: Christmas Day, and then some...

WC: ~3.95k

You must end up falling asleep against the redhead again, because the next time you’re coherent of anything around you, Melissa isn’t there with you. You peel your eyes open, and she isn’t even in the room.

“What the hell?” you grumble to yourself. Your silent question of where the woman could possibly be is answered when she walks into the bedroom with two mugs filled with coffee.

“Hey,” Melissa smiles at you. Her eyes are soft and her smile is sweet. “Merry Christmas.” She makes her way to you and hands you the mug with your drink once you’ve sat up enough to drink the coffee.

“Merry Christmas,” you sigh quietly as you blow over the steaming mug. You take a sip and smile. You’re surprised she fixed your coffee perfectly to your liking. “You know how I like my coffee.”

“Well, we did go over it a few times,” the redhead chuckles as she sits on the mattress. “But I also do have a good memory, you know.”

“I know,” you smirk at her. “I just didn’t think you would-”

“Y/N.” Green eyes are rolled at you. “I’ve watched you make your coffee everyday for the past year and a half at school. Of course I know how you like it.”

You enjoy your first cup of coffee in bed with your ‘girlfriend’ before you sigh and throw the blankets off of your body. You shiver immediately. Before you know what’s happening, Melissa is pulling an old Abbott Elementary sweatshirt out of her bag and offering it to you.

“I- I can just wear my own,” you stammer out. God, why is she being so nice to you in private?

“Just put it on,” Melissa tells you. She holds it out more aggressively, and you can’t help the tired laugh that comes from your lips. You take it graciously, and your colleague just gives a victorious smirk.

“Thank you,” you mumble as you throw the hoodie over your head.

The redhead nods. “Alright, we should probably get down there. Your parents were asking if you were awake when I went down earlier for coffee.”

You groan. “But I’m comfortable.”

“And you can get comfortable on the couch while you eat the cinnamon buns your mom made.”

You’re out of bed in an instant, running for the door. Melissa can’t help the way that she laughs at your excitement. “Hun, they’ll still be down there when we get there.”

“You don’t understand!” you call back. You’re already halfway down the steps. “These things are my favorite things in the world!”

The redhead just rolls her eyes and grabs your discarded mug from the nightstand on your side of the bed before following in your direction.

When she gets downstairs, you already have a plate of the sugary breakfast pastry in front of you. It’s a considerable stack, and green eyes just look at you, clearly amused.

“Did you forget something?” Melissa holds your mug up teasingly before making her way over to the coffee pot and making you another cup. When it’s finished, she comes over, and you practically pull her to sit in your lap. She makes a small noise in surprise before she smiles softly and wraps her arm around her shoulder to help balance herself.

“Open up,” you instruct as you cut off a piece of one of the cinnamon rolls. You hold it up to her mouth and wait for her to take the bite. When she does, you hear the soft moan she lets out, and- oh shit. That just lit a fire in you that you weren’t expecting. Holy shit, that was hot.

“Your mom made that?” Melissa asks through a mouthful.

You cough lowly, trying to extinguish the flame that her moan did to you. “Uh, y-yeah. Every Christmas.”

“I can’t wait to have this every Christmas with you.” It’s a hushed whisper, so nobody else would be able to hear it, even with Aunt Jo now at the coffee maker. She says it with so much conviction you almost believe her. You’re not quite sure how to respond, so you just lean in and kiss her lips. Somehow, this kiss feels more natural than the rest of them. It’s warm and soft, filled with a sleepy morning haze despite the caffeine already rushing through your veins, and you can taste the cinnamon glaze on her lips. This kiss too, lasts longer than the other quick pecks that you’ve shared over the weekend- this is a real kiss.

When you pull away, your cheeks heat up, and you giggle slightly. Melissa just presses your foreheads together and smiles before pecking your lips again.

That’s when your Aunt Jo clears her throat as she enters the kitchen. “Girls, we’re all very happy that you’re in love, but please… not at the kitchen counter.”

The shade of red that your cheeks becomes is about the shade of your ‘girlfriend’s’ hair. “S- sorry Aunt Jo.”

She just shakes her head in good nature. “No you’re not.” She fixes her coffee quickly before giving the two of you a wink and exiting quickly.

You look to Melissa and take a deep breath, clearly getting ready to confront what is happening between the two of you- this is something different than what yesterday was. But she just gives you a look that tells you, not now. Your coworker believes that you’re going to tell her to tone it down, and selfishly, she doesn’t want to. She’s treating you the way she’s wanted to treat you for a long while now, and she’s seeing the sweet side of you that doesn’t hate her. She doesn’t want to let that go- not quite yet.

And because you find yourself enjoying this little life that the two of you have right now, you agree with a soft nod of your head. You do pick up the plate in front of you and your coffee though and jerk your head in the direction of the living room. She picks up her own coffee mug and follows you in.

While you sit on the couch, Melissa goes for the blanket that you were using last night. She knows you were cold this morning, so grabbing the blanket while she’s still standing as opposed to sitting is a good choice in her opinion. She drapes it over your lap before pulling you in close as she settles in with you.

“Merry Christmas,” you greet your parents with a smile on your face. The redhead repeats your words, to which your parents give warm smiles.

“Did the two of you sleep well?” your father asks.

You nod. “Was just kinda cold. But Lis was there to help.”

“Finally found yourself a human furnace?” your mom chuckles. “Even in sweatpants, and your-” She catches a look at the Abbott sweatshirt with dates from before you were at the school. “your girlfriend’s sweatshirt?”

“How sweet,” Aunt Jo coos. “Sharing clothes. I remember always stealing my husband’s clothes… still wear them sometimes when I need a reminder he’s still here with me.”

Melissa just dots a few kisses to your hairline before stealing the fork from your hand and feeding herself a bite of your shared breakfast.

After breakfast, your parents bring out a few presents that they got for you despite the fact that you told them repeatedly you don’t need any Christmas presents anymore. They also managed to get Melissa a few little trinkets. Green eyes sparkle with appreciation for your family. You pull out the little gifts that you purchased for your parents and your Aunt Jo; they take them gratefully. And then they look to you and your coworker with expectant looks.

“We decided to do presents tomorrow,” Melissa explains the reason you don’t have gifts for each other.

The three older adults nod, and your dad has a smirk. “Don’t wanna get caught opening something ridiculous in front of us?”

You just put your head in your hands at what your father has just insinuated.

“Al!” your mother smacks his arm.

Christmas Day passes by in a blissful haze full of warm drinks, soft kisses, blankets piled high, and “A Christmas Story” on repeat. You allow yourself to fully relax in the presence of Melissa for the first time. It doesn’t feel like it’s for show- her kisses are longer, they’re sweeter, you feel like you crave them. If her arm isn’t around you or her hand isn’t somewhere on your body, you feel cold. But the second she’s back with you, you feel like you’re on top of the world. None of this feels like an act to you anymore, as much as you know it is. Because the second you leave your parents’ house and leave this fake life that you’ve created behind, Melissa Schemmenti will be back to the hard ass teacher that you love to hate.

After a day that passes by quickly, you and Melissa find yourself retiring to your bedroom for the night. And you that as much as you don’t want to let go of this, it’s all a fantasy- it isn’t real. At the core of you, you hate the redhead that you’ve spent the weekend with.

“Lis,” you sigh. “We need to-”

“Not tonight,” your grade level partner stops you from saying anymore. “Please.”

“You don’t even know what I’m going to say,” you counter.

She quirks her lips to one side. “I do. Can we please just… not tonight?”

You take pity on her and relent. “Okay.”

She gives you a grateful look, and then she’s crawling into bed. You climb in next to her, and you attempt to keep your distance despite the fact that you want nothing more than to curl into her hold and allow her to keep you safe in her arms for this last night.

Your dreams are quite similar to the ones you had the previous night, and you heart tells you unconsciously what you truly want in life. You want Melissa. You want all of the warmth that came with this weekend. You want to be the one who allows the rough and tough second grade teacher to let down her walls and show you a side of her very few people get to see- you want a life with her.

When you blink your eyes open, it’s four in the morning- at least that’s what the clock on the nightstand says. It takes you a few seconds to recognize the fact that both you and Melissa curled into each other while you were asleep. Once again, your two bodies have interlaced, and it’s hard to decipher where your figure ends and hers begins.

You press a soft kiss to her head, allowing yourself to stay in this sleepy stupor until your brain catches up to your body. But then it does and you slowly, as to make sure that she stays asleep, you untangle yourself from the redhead. You slip out of the bed and make your way over to the chair that faces the window. You lower yourself into it and take a deep breath before you begin to silently hash out your feelings.

You absolutely adore this sweet and warm side of Melissa that she’s shown you. You believe that even the side of her that is so hard and difficult to read wouldn’t even frustrate you as much as it used to because you feel like it’s a front at this point in your relationship with your colleague. To you, it seems as though her exterior protects the sweet side of her. Perhaps she’s been burned before, or maybe she was taught to keep that inside of her to protect herself.

Regardless, Melissa Schemmenti is not nearly as tough as she plays, and you feel honored to know that she has a soft side, even if it was for show. But then your mind wanders to the fact that she did and said a few things to you in privacy, or so quietly in front of your family that you doubt they could hear her- she allowed her true colors to slip through the cracks.

You don’t notice that tears begin to trail down your face- you’re in love with this woman. But she hates you- she absolutely detests you and everything that you are, at least that’s what you think. So, despite it being the last thing that you want to do, you make the decision that you will go back to hating the redhead as soon as you are out of this house. You’ve always hated her. It’s what’s expected of you at this point. It’s what you have to do. You have to forget about the last two days full of warmth and kindness and what you’ve come to realize morphed into a real love for the redhead. And it breaks you heart to the point that you feel a physical ache in your chest.

In all of your heartache, you also don’t notice the way that Melissa blinks her eyes open. She doesn’t see you laying next to her, and she assumes that you’ve just gotten up to go to the bathroom. But then she hears your quiet sniffles from where you’re sitting a few feet away, facing the window and looking up at the moon. Silently, the redhead makes her way over to you sighs softly.

You jump just slightly once you’re made aware of the fact that your coworker is awake and standing with you. You don’t even turn- just wipe away the tears on your cheeks. Melissa’s soft hands are on your shoulders, and she can feel how tense you are. She quietly begins to attempt to work out some of the tension that you’re holding.

“You want to tell me what’s got you up and cryin’ at 4:30 in the mornin?” You feel a kiss being brushed against your hairline- once, twice, and then a third time.

You allow her to, somewhat melting at her touch. But then you can’t quite hold it in anymore, and you burst out of your seat. The redhead jumps at your sudden movement, but she allows you to get up. You rush your way over to your bag and pull out the three hundred dollars that you know you owe her.

“Take it,” you huff as you hold out the bills aggressively. “Take it, and then we can go back to hating each other like we always do.”

Melissa frowns and shakes her head. “I’m not taking your money, Y/N.”

“What?” you ask her incredulously. “What the hell do you mean you’re not taking it?” You throw the cash at her.

She squats down and picks it up with a few grunts. She holds it out for you to take, but you refuse. “I won’t take your money because I don’t want it.”

“You? Not wanting money? That’s rich. Isn’t that why you did this? Came to my parents’ house with me for Christmas- for the money?” you hiss out. “You hate me, I hate you, and this is all just an elaborate lie for me to get my parents off my-”

“You’re so fucking stupid,” Melissa mutters as she folds her arms over her chest. “So fucking stupid.”

“I’m stupid? I’m stupid?” you ask her. “I’m not the one who agreed to come to a woman’s parents’ house when I hate her!”

“Have you ever considered the fact that maybe I don’t hate you?” the redhead asks you. “That I actually like you and enjoyed being here with you?”

You scoff. “You’ve always hated me- always hated new coworkers! We’ve never liked-” Your cut off because Melissa pulls you in for a kiss and stops your tirade. You’re frozen in your place for a few seconds before you kiss her back. Her hand finds its way to your cheek, and she cups it gently, a complete opposite of the way that she’s passionately kissing you. She pulls you closer by the waist with her other hand.

When air becomes a necessity, you pull away with eyes as wide as saucers. “Wha-?”

“I don’t hate you,” Melissa whispers. “I mean… I wanted to. But the things that I told your family yesterday about me fallin’ for you? That wasn’t a lie- not in the slightest.”

“What?”

Green eyes are soft as she looks into your own. “I never hated you, hun.”

“What?” you repeat.

“I wanted to,” she chuckles that soft warm laugh as her arms wrap around your waist and pull you in close. “I wanted to hate you more than I hated Janine at first- because I knew you were stunningly gorgeous, and if I at least hated your personality, you would be easier to avoid and not fall for.”

“You-”

“But then you hated me and weren’t afraid of me- wasn’t afraid to show it either,” Melissa chuckles. “And I liked that. Most newbies are terrified of me, but you weren’t. You had a fire in ya, and I liked that. So, to keep your attention, I pretended to hate you. The only way to get your attention was to be snarky and sarcastic- I’d rather have you hate me than not have you talk to me.”

“You’re-”

“Besides, it’s fucking hot when you’re all riled up and angry,” the redhead shrugs. “But I think I like the soft side of you more.”

“I- I-” you stammer out. “I thought you hated me this whole time….” you whisper, and then you lean over and kiss her again. “That’s why I hated you.”

“Like I said, I wanted to,” Melissa chuckles. “But I never did. You’re good at the job, the kids love you, the rest of the staff likes you. And you’re beautiful. What’s not to like?”

“So… you really never hated me this whole time?”

She shakes her head. “Nah. I like givin’ you a hard time though, don’t get me wrong. But it was kinda my way of flirting after a while.”

“You’re an idiot,” you laugh as you kiss her again.

“So are you,” she mutters against your lips.

You pull away again, and you smile as you press your foreheads together. “So…”

“If it wasn’t clear to you already, none of this weekend was acting for me,” the redhead tells you softly. “This is how I’ve wanted to be with you since you started.”

“I-” you hesitate. “How am I supposed to know it wasn’t acting though? I mean… I was dreading this weekend, and I- I fell for the sweet Melissa I got to see for the past few days, but if that’s not who I’m really going to-”

“Y/N,” your colleague sighs. She takes you gently by the hand and leads you back to the bed. The two of you lay down, and she holds you close. “I’m always goin’ t’be a South Philly girl, but I do have a heart and soul- wouldn’t be a teacher otherwise. I- I can’t promise that I’ll ever stop bein’ a sarcastic asshole, but I do have my moments of tenderness. That wasn’t acting. I’ve wanted to hold you and kiss you and stop having to pretend to hate you for some time now. I’ve loved this weekend- your family is something special, and I can see where you get all your spunk and sweetness from. I like it. I like you- love you, even.”

You bite your bottom lip and look at her in the darkness. “I- I like you too. And I think… I think there might be something between us that’s real.”

“I think so too,” Melissa mumbles against your head. “You wanna give it a shot? A real shot- me an’ you?”

A smile appears on your face. “I think I’d like that.”

Christmas the next year is a fun one. After beginning to officially date, you and Melissa fell head over heels in love with each other. This year, the two of you make your way up to your parents’ house as an actual couple, and not just as a fake couple. You’re fairly certain your parents are more excited to see Melissa than they are to see you; Aunt Jo too.

“Oh, it’s so good to see you again!” your mother pulls the redhead into a tight hug. Your girlfriend hugs back with the same fervor, although she does roll her eyes.

“I saw you last week, Nora,” Melissa quips. “But it’s good to see you too.”

“Came back for more?” your dad chuckles as he too hugs your colleague.

She nods. “I wouldn’t want to spend our first year as a couple anywhere else.”

Your eyes widen. You had never told your parents that last year was not real. “Second,” you quickly amend.

But Aunt Jo is too fast to catch on. “No, no. She said first.”

The two of you share a quick glance, and your lips form into a tight line before you sigh. “So… I have something to confess.”

Years later, you’re officially Mrs. Schemmenti. You have a beautiful little girl, Sara. She’s just turned two, and she couldn’t be more of a light in your life. But you’ve also finally gotten her settled in bed and asleep. You and your wife are laying on the couch together as you usually do after a long day of teaching and then coming home to handle your own little tornado of a child (you often tell the redhead that that part of your little girl comes from her entirely).

You’re admiring your engagement and wedding rings before you look to Melissa’s. You don’t get to look at hers for long though, because you hear your baby crying from just up the stairway, and you sigh.

The redhead just buries a kiss in your hair before promising that if Sara doesn’t settle, she’ll go up. And the crying doesn’t stop, so you feel yourself being shimmied off of Melissa five minutes later before she heads up the stairs. A few moments later, she returns with your baby girl in her arms.

“Oh honey,” you instinctively reach for your daughter.

“Baby girl just wanted Momma,” Melissa rolls her eyes playfully as she hands over the little one. “Never Ma, always Momma. Ain’t that right, Sara?”

Your daughter just gives a toothy grin as she lays her head on your shoulder.

Where you would normally lean into the couch cushions to attempt to soothe your little girl to sleep, you sit up straight, and your brows furrow.

“What’s wrong, mi amore?” your wife asks in concern. This is so unlike you.

You shake your head and smile. “I just got this… this feeling of deja vu. Like I’ve lived this moment before.”

“Maybe you dreamt it,” the redhead offers as she cozies up to you on the couch and begins to run her fingers through your little girl’s wispy hair.

You think for a few moments before you know why you know this moment. “I- I had a dream about this moment that first Christmas we spent together… it was this moment.”

“You mean the Christmas we pretended to be together?”

You nod. “I- wow. I should’ve known then and there that I was going to fall in love with you.”

“And instead, you denied your feelings like an idiota,” Your wife laughs before she presses a kiss to your head.

“You were an idiot too,” you fire out, but the glimmer in your eyes tells her that you have no ill-intention with those words.

She shrugs. “Hey, I still got the girl, didn’t I?"

You roll your eyes as you purse your lips for her to kiss you. Of course, she does. "I guess you did."

And just like that... this sweet little fic is over. I hope you enjoyed!

Xoxo -Janey

TAGS: @schemmentis @thesapphictimelady @marvel210 @itisdoctortoyousir @morgana-larkin @doesthatsuggestanythingtoyou @marvels--slut @sweetcheeksschemmenti @megamultifandomtrashposts @lemz378 @http-sam @melissaschemmentisbranzino @imaginesmultifandoms @sexysapphicshopowner @lilfartbox1 @maybe-a-humanbean @imlike-so-gaydude @a-queen-and-her-throne @notinmyvocab @melanielaufeyson @dvrkhcld @cosmichymns @sasheemo @m1lflov3rrr @ricejucie @temilyrights @emilynissangtr @squinnchy @dopenightmaretyphoon @emeraldoceansstuff @shinyfaerielights @blkmxrvel @marvelwomenrule @sarahjohannson @casualfoxwitch

#melissa schemmenti fanfic #abbott elementary #abbott elementary fanfiction #abbott elementary fanfic #melissa schemmenti #melissa schemmenti x reader #melissa schemmenti x you #melissa schemmenti fanfiction

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netscapenavigator-official · 2 days ago

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I completely agree and mirror your hope. The Democrat party fucked up big time this time, but there is still much hope to be had.

Specifically, with Congress Democrats promising to keep MAGA at bay. Lest we forget the filibuster still exists. It’s a tool that has been used against us many-a-time, but it’s also a tool we can use, too. Mitch McConnell has already promised it won’t be going anywhere, so it’ll be a good tool for us to use.

Also, many heavily blue states have LGBT asylum laws. On top of that, Massachusetts’s Governor has already promised to not comply with any deportation orders given by the Trump admin. So clearly, the Democrat government officials haven’t lost all hope that they can resist, too, for the next 2-4 years. Some of them are even willing to treat the Trump admin as illegitimate. That gives me hope that we’ll ALL be able to resist enough to actually fix this.

Also, with dog shit economic plans Trump has laid out, it’s not inconceivable that by 2026, he’ll have caused enough damage that the economic-driven centrists will want to jump back to our side. 2026 won’t undo everything, but even if we win a tiny majority in a single space, whether it be the Senate or (most reasonably) the House, it would give us a significant ability to throw a wrench in the gears of this administration’s upcoming rein of terror. Like how 2022-2024 was a much less active time for the Biden admin than 2020-2022, we can do the same thing to Republicans.

I also wanna spend this text space emphasizing that we NEED to take the 2028 primaries seriously. More seriously than we ever have, and potentially more seriously than the actual presidents race. We cannot win if we let the boring average casual voter choose another lukewarm holdover like Biden or centrist-panderer, cop-out like Harris. We HAVE to seize the opportunity in 2028 to pick a candidate who appeals to the middle class. We can do it, but we have to organize, and we need to focus on it.

For now though, there isn’t anything we can do. We can enjoy our lives and our loved ones. For the time being take it easy and recover. Build up your motivation and hope once more. This time, let’s put it to good use. But that’s for the long term. For the short term? Take every day as it passes and focus on yourself.

Also thanks on the offer for immigration advice. Unfortunately, I am not a “skilled worker,” so immigration isn’t something that’s viable for me. I LOVE the idea of living the rest of my life in another country. It would truly be a dream. But it’s simply not something that someone in my financial position is capable of. Maybe in the future. But I simply wouldn’t be able to, right now. No matter how much I want to. Thank you tho. <3

Listen. I hope I’m wrong. I hope in 1-3 days you all can point at this post and be like “look at this idiot for being paranoid.” I do. But I feel like the writing’s on the wall. There are no paths forward without Pennsylvania, and that gap is too large.

I hope the non-voters are happy. Legitimately. I hope the Green Party is happy. For real. I hope this outcome brings them the joy they hoped it would. I hope they don’t come to regret the next 2-4 years. I hope they’re at peace.

I hope Europe isn’t forced to change their stance on Ukraine like many Prime Ministers have warned they would. I hope there are Palestinians left in Gaza to liberate after Trump “finishes the job” and gets his real estate property. I hope the number of queer folk killed, whether individually or systematically, in the coming years is minimal. I hope the number of women killed by inaccessibility to medical care is minimal. I hope the number of disabled people who face financial hard times is minimal. I hope we genuinely can cruise through these next 4 years. I hope I’m still around to try and fix this in 2-4 years.

I hope the message the non-voters and Green Party sent is actually received. I hope they didn’t send the message to Democrats that conservatism is the way to win and what we should be embracing.

I hope that nothing in Project 2025 is completed. I hope we win at least one branch to throw a stick in the gears of fascism. I hope Trump bombs his second term so poorly that 2026 wipes the GOP out of the House and Senate.

I hope there’s still a global superpower to fix in 4 years. I hope that the corruption we’ve allowed to thrive tonight doesn’t infect our neighbors across the Atlantic like they fear it will.

I still hope for a better future. But I don’t believe that future is going to happen this time. I’m going to try to go to bed.

#politics #american politics #organize #immigration

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tuiccim · 3 days ago

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We're Gonna Burn (Part 2)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader

Word Count: 3K

Warnings: Smut, Sex Pollen, Non/DubCon (because sex pollen), enemies to lovers.

Summary: When an exposure to a strange powder makes you feel as if you're burning to death, your only relief is in the person you hate the most. Now dealing with the aftermath makes you question everything.

A/N: Hi friends! Thanks so much for your patience. We lost my mother-in-law last month and it's been a difficult time. But, I've got part two up and have got a good head start on parts 3 and 4. Hopefully updates won't be so far in between. As always, I have to say a special thanks to my beta reader @whisperlullaby who is also my hype princess and most darling friend. I hope you enjoy!

We're Gonna Burn Masterlist

In the two days since you returned to the compound, you had rarely left your room. Your body was incredibly sore the first day but it had started to lessen. You were glad the medbay kept a supply of morning after pills. Dr. Miles, your most trusted doctor, had examined you after the fact and said that you should be fully healed in a few days. The examination was a necessary requirement but it had felt like yet another invasion.

Your emotions were a mess and the doctor had suggested a visit with a counselor to help you work through them. Now, you were starting to wonder if she had been right. Compartmentalizing wasn’t working, you had strange dreams, and your mood was all over the place. You had avoided everyone while you were off-duty to heal. The thought of facing any of them, especially Bucky, made you sick. By now, you were sure they all knew what happened. Bucky had probably gloated that he had-

You couldn’t even finish the thought and shake it away. When you filled out the mission report, you had simply stated that there was an exposure to an unknown substance that had caused a short-lived fever. Quarantine and a battery of tests had cleared you to return home to the compound. The only person who knew what happened was Dr. Miles and Bucky, of course. Your gut clenched whenever you thought of him, which was often now. Hell, it had always been often. You had been enthralled by his story and excited to join the team. Unfortunately, he had proven to be nothing like you imagined. He seemed to hate you from the moment you were introduced. His comradery with your other teammates was fun and friendly, but with you, he was always scowling and defensive. You had given up after a few attempts at striking up a conversation. He had shut you down and moved away every time.

And now, you’re a notch on his belt. Not that either of you had chosen it. It was just horrible luck- or was it? Had he purposely led you to that lab? Had he known what was there? What would happen? No, you stop yourself from spiraling. Even if he was a jackass, he wasn’t that kind of person. He had been just as surprised and affected. The thought of how affected he had been made you clench. You hated him but, fuck, that had been the most amazing sex of your life. You wondered if it was the drug or that thick-

Stop it! You hate him! You yell at yourself in your head. You felt concurrently turned on, ashamed, and angry. It was frustrating and eating at you.

Thinking of eating, your stomach rumbles. It was late and you thought it would be safe to make a quick trip to the kitchen. You had exhausted the supply of snacks in your room and needed some real food. Peeking into the hall, you find it empty and quietly make your way to the kitchen. You make yourself a plate and raid the pantry for more snacks. As you were tip-toeing back to your room you saw Bucky coming out of his room at the other end of the hallway. He froze when he noticed you and watched as you made a mad dash for your room. Inside, you try to calm your rapidly beating heart. Tears streamed down your face for some reason you couldn’t pinpoint. You set everything on your desk and crumpled into a ball on the floor. You rocked as you tried to calm yourself while also berating yourself for your weakness. It was just sex. It wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t like you wanted it or even asked for it. It was just a mutually agreed upon need.

All your rationalizations did nothing to stop the surge of emotions taking over. So, you decided that maybe Doc was right. You needed to talk to someone. Someone to help you sort out your own feelings. You just hoped that you could feel normal again because, right now, you are not yourself.

–

Bucky stared at the space you had occupied a minute ago. He hadn’t seen you since you’d returned from the mission. You hadn’t been able to look at him in the small amount of time you were together during exfil. You’d both been put through quarantine and testing. He had no long lasting effects from the exposure but he knew you had to be bruised and sore from the experience. He felt immensely guilty about that but he could no more have stopped what was happening than you could. Sometimes he wondered if he could have even if it wasn’t for the pollen, it was the best thing he’d felt in seventy years. You were so soft, wet, and perfectly tight.

Berating himself as he felt his body react to the memories, he reminded himself that you hate him. You had good reason to. He had been an absolute ass since you joined the team. Hethinks about his terrible behavior. He didn’t like new people to start with and then, out of seemingly nowhere, you were put with the team. It roused his suspicions and he viewed you as a potential threat. So, he had questioned your every motive, idea, and process. He wanted to hate you but the more he saw your work with the team and interactions outside of it, the more he found you intriguing. Rather than apologizing or correcting his behavior, he had doubled down. He couldn’t explain it but some small, stupid part of him had hoped that this incident would create an opening for him to reconcile with you but now you couldn't even look at him.

Who could blame you after the way he had treated you? Both before and during. He had been lost in the feeling and had stopped fighting the effects of the pollen the first moment he entered you. Hell, he hadn’t really fought it from the beginning. He had burst into that bathroom as if he had every right to enter it. You had to hate him even more now with what he’d done. He felt the need to talk to you, to apologize, to ask you to forgive him. He hadn’t told a soul what happened and had been deliberately vague in his mission report. He hadn’t wanted to make it any worse for you.

Retreating to his room, Bucky paces trying to figure out his next move. Should he approach you or wait for you to come to him? He shakes his head. You wouldn’t approach him. Not the way you, no doubt, feel about him. You probably never wanted to see him again. What did you think? Did you hate him even more? Most likely. Did you think he had done this on purpose? That he had taken advantage of you? The drug had taken both of your ability to really consent. Did you feel… What are you feeling? He couldn’t stand the thought that you hated him even more or that you thought he hurt you purposely.

He grabbed the doorknob, determined to speak with you but his hand slipped from it before he could turn the knob. You needed more time. He shouldn’t push you. He’d wait until you were at least healed. That was a better idea, he decided. It wasn’t that he was chickening out, he was just waiting until the wounds weren’t so fresh. That was the best thing to do, wasn’t it?

–

You nervously bounce your legs as you wait for the office door of Dr. Victoria Montesi to open. Dr. Miles had gotten you an appointment within thirty minutes of messaging her that morning. You wonder if she already had Dr. Montesi on standby. It wouldn’t be surprising with how well Doc seemed to know and anticipate your needs medically.

When the door opens, you turn to look at the woman smiling softly at you. She was lovely with dark hair and eyes, and she radiated a calm demeanor that immediately put you at ease.

“Hi. I’m Vicki Montesi,” she introduced herself.

Giving a polite smile, you give your name but don’t extend your hand. Touch was too intimate a thing to do currently and Dr. Montesi seemed to instinctively understand your body language. You felt so weak and hated it. You had been through major disasters, espionage, a host of events that would fell another person. Why was this the one thing that affected you so deeply?

Dr. Montesi motioned for you to follow her and closed the door behind you softly, “Sit wherever you like. Do you mind if I take some notes?”

“Uh, no, that's fine,” you shrug.

She grabbed a pad of paper off her desk and took a seat across from where you had settled on the couch. You fidgeted with your hands, glancing up occasionally. You knew she was waiting for you to start but two could play at-

“What brings you in today?” She interrupts your train of thought.

“I, um,” you stuttered, thrown that she hadn’t followed the pattern you expected. “What did Dr. Miles tell you?”

“That you needed someone to talk to.”

“Oh…” you trail off suspiciously.

“Your privacy is tantamount to both of us as your doctors,” Dr. Montesi says gently.

“Right. So, I, um, we, I,” you stop yourself. Taking a deep breath to calm yourself, you begin again, “I was on a mission with a teammate. We were exposed to a powder that… forced the need for, for. Fuck! It made us burn up with fever and feel intense pain unless we were actively having sex. It felt like we were dying if we weren’t fucking. And of all the people in the fucking world it had to be with Bucky fucking Barnes. I can’t stand him and knowing that we- goddammit.” The words had become rushed and your frustration grew as you tried to explain.

“So, you were put into a situation you had no control over, and your only relief was provided by someone you don’t like? Am I understanding you correctly?”

“Yes and hate. I hate him. He’s such a jerk, He’s probably told everyone who would listen.”

“Why do you think that?” Dr. Montesy probes.

“Because he always undermines everything I say, anything I bring to the table. What better way to knock me down a few pegs than to tell everyone that he got me in bed?” You explain.

“Have you spoken with him since it happened?”

“No, I haven’t really spoken to anyone since, ya know.” You look down at your hands.

“And you feel that Bucky has after what happened?”

“Why wouldn’t he?” You scoff.

“Do you think the situation was different for him?”

“Yes! No, I… I don’t know,” you look away for a minute gauging what he could possibly be feeling. In your mind you think through your prejudices towards him, realizing many were sexist assumptions of what men are supposed to feel and others never took his past into consideration. Most of your thoughts had centered only around the hatred you felt for him and his constant attitude towards you but underneath all of that was a real person who was probably struggling with aspects of this as well. You admit in a near whisper, “Probably not.”

“It’s good that you’re able to look outside yourself. Can you tell me how you feel about the situation aside from him?”

You nod, taking a moment to assess that yourself, “It sucks to not have control over a situation to not have any good choices. I didn’t want it to happen but it’s part of the job. Sometimes you end up in these situations where no matter what you do, you’re going to come out on the other end with regrets. This one was just much more intimate than most. I want to blame someone and I keep blaming myself. That I couldn’t control myself, that I led both of us straight into that trap, that I used him and allowed him to use me. I just feel ashamed.”

“That’s common in situations like this but you did the one thing you were supposed to do. You survived.”

–

You saw Dr. Montesi again a couple of days later. She was helping you process and you appreciated it. She had a way of pulling things out of you that surprised you. Like when you continually called him Barnes rather than his first name and anytime she said his first name, you corrected her immediately.

“There’s something more here. What is it about his name that bothers you?” She asks.

“He… made me say it during,” you shrug, looking away.

“Why does that bother you?”

“I never call him by his first name. It's always Barnes or asshat. Never Bucky.”

“And he made you call him Bucky?”

“Yes. He wouldn’t, you know, um… let me-”

“Orgasm?”

“Yeah, until I did. It felt… awkward,” you finish softly.

“Just awkward?” She pushes.

“Infuriating. Like a violation, another way control was taken from me. I mean, why? Why would he do that? What possessed him?”

“Well, the pollen for one thing, but have you considered that might have been the way he found some control in the situation?”

“So, you’re saying I shouldn’t take it personally? It wasn’t about bringing me to heel but about him finding a modicum of control? But should that negate how I feel?” You ask, confused.

“Not at all. Your feelings are valid but what I want you to understand is there is a why for him that may have had nothing to do with you. Do you understand?”

“I think so.”

“Why have you never called him by his first name?”

“Because I hate him,” you shrug.

“Can you elaborate on that?”

“It’s like I told you before, he treats me like a subordinate. Like I didn’t earn my place and I don’t have anything to offer.”

“Even after you’ve worked together for the last several months?”

“It lessened after a while I guess but he still acts like an ass all the time.”

“How have you handled that?”

“I tried to be friendly, to prove myself, and then I gave up. Why waste the energy?”

“Is it a waste? There’s no hope?” Dr. Montesi tilts her head.

“I mean, I don’t… I don’t know. I just… I don’t know,” your voice trails off as you think back over all your interactions with Bucky. What if you had missed an opening? Was there some point when he tried to let you in but you had closed yourself off and delivered only sass and smartass remarks? But was that your fault? Was it all up to you?

“It’s okay to not have an answer but it is something you might think about until we see each other again.”

–

You saw her again early the next week. Each time it helps you see more clearly and feel more like yourself. Her guidance through your feelings and assumptions both good or bad, right or wrong without judgment or censure allowed you to explore more than just the situation with Barnes. It was the question she had posed about his motives that had stuck with you.

“I think I'm ready to talk to,” you pause as your stubborn nature still fights against you calling him Bucky, but Barnes seemed even less apt now. You finally settled on just using the noncommittal, “him.”

“Oh?” Dr. Montesi waits for you to elaborate.

“I feel like I need to know his motives and feelings,” the last word was hard to push past your lips. You hadn't considered his feelings ever really. At least, not since he had proven himself to be a royal jackass. There was still a part of you that loathed him but somehow concern for his reaction to all of this had wormed its way into your mind.

“What do you think that will do for you?” She asks, tilting her head.

“I don't know. I read his mission report on what happened. He was even more vague than I was on the details. Whether he was protecting himself or me, I wasn't sure but,” you take a deep breath before admitting the next part, “then I went through the other reports for missions we had been on together. He's always succinct but never fails to highlight others' contributions to the outcome. Even mine. It was obvious reading them that at some point he had started to see me as an asset. So, I guess, I think it'll give me some closure. Either we can start building a more respectful comradery or that's never going to happen and it's time for me to think about moving on.”

“How would that make you feel?”

“Disappointed but I want to be part of a team that has mutual respect for each other. If he can never give me that respect, I don't want to work with him. I'm not asking to be friends, just teammates. Preferably ones who can hold a conversation without all the snark.” You paused for a moment as a feeling of pride suffused through you. You were stronger than you realized and you were ready to find happiness and fulfillment on your terms. You smiled to yourself and then looked up to share it with Dr. Montesi. Maybe you were imagining it, but you felt you could see it in her eyes, too.

When you left her office a little while later, you pulled out your phone and sent a short text.

You: Hey. Can we talk?

It was only a few minutes later that your phone dings.

Barnes: Yeah. On the phone or do you want to meet up? You: I’d prefer face to face. Barnes: Where? I can come to you. You: I’m on my way back there. I’ll come to you. Barnes: Okay.

You let out a little laugh. That was probably the most civilized conversation the two of you had ever had. You started feeling the nerves in your stomach. This wasn’t going to be an easy conversation but you needed it to happen. It was time to face this head on. As you make your way, you practice breathing techniques and make mental notes of what you wanted to say and ask. You even jotted a few down to help you remember when you know you're going into an emotional situation.

There is still the confusion in your own head of what to call him. Such a simple thing but rife with emotion for you. Barnes was what you called him because you hated him and now you weren’t sure you did. James is his first name but no one calls him that. Bucky felt too friendly and intimate especially when it triggers reminders of that night every time you even think about it. Sergeant was too formal and felt harsh and rigid. Asshat was fitting when he was being one but you could hardly call him that all the time. You think back to what he calls you but, in just the way you have, he calls you by your last name mostly. You don’t ever recall hearing him say your first name. Occasionally, your designation and more than a few times he’s referred to you as “pita.” His way of calling you “pain in the ass.” You let out a scoffing laugh when you think of that and then shake the conundrum away. Maybe after this talk, you’d figure out what to call him or you wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore if you decided to move on.

Updates and taglist: Due to the unreliable nature of tags, I no longer keep a taglist. Updates for series will be made on Sundays Central Time Zone. Please follow my sideblog @tuiccimfanfiction and turn on notifications for updates. All series and new stories will be reblogged to it. You will only receive notifications when a new part or story is out! Nothing else will be blogged to the page. I can’t thank you enough for your support!

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ceaselesswatchersspecialboy · 1 day ago

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Do the twins ever get attached to stanfraud? Does bill get attached to them too? what is their relationship like? and what is their immediate reaction to finding out everything was a lie -- first impressions? GAAHH I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS i'm ur biggest fan bro

Thank you so much!! It really means a lot that people are enjoying my madness this much!

It’s funny because earlier I was actually doodling him and the twins!

He absolutely gets attached and they get attached in return. While their initial introduction to him is very rocky, they come to enjoy his quirks and unusual interests, especially once Dipper puts together he was the author, and he regularly supervises them on adventures, mainly because Stan asked him too, but also because it’s strangely fun. He will repeatedly claim he hasn’t gone soft to Stan, but then Stan will find him fast asleep with the twins curled up against him, or he’ll catch him helping the twins in their respective Dipper and Mabel’s guide videos. He also likes Mabel Juice! Mabel won’t take his suggestion of adding eyeballs though. Alas.

His feelings towards them are made complicated by his own denial. He doesn’t like the idea that he’s changed much at all, and these new doubts he’s experiencing about his original plans are not thoughts he’s willing to entertain for long. He gets snappy when Stan tries to reassure him it’s okay that he cares, because he doesn’t care, he’s just… playing a role. That’s all. It’s all one big lie. He can do lies. But that doesn’t really explain the genuine panic he experiences when Dipper and Mabel are in danger, and how quickly he jumps in to protect them nor does it explain the fuzzy feeling in his chest when Mabel knits him a sweater.

He’s not the same as he was thirty years ago. That’s a fact. And thirty years was once just a blip for him, but this has felt like he’s lived a whole new life.

And on the flip side, Dipper and Mabel care a lot too. He’s off-putting and he’s strange and he says some things that imply he may have committed murder and gotten away with it, but they like being around him. It isn’t always perfect, same as it is with Stan, but the rougher patches don’t tend to last, and they reconcile by the end of the day (although, Bill is usually incapable of saying sorry verbally and shows his apology through actions instead).

Dipper for one hasn’t really had anyone he can just ramble about nerd stuff with. Bill can actually keep up with Dipper, and they both find themselves enjoying the debate they have about inter dimensional travel, or what sort of haunting would be the most annoying to deal with. Dipper does sometimes catch his uncle looking at him strangely though, almost as though he’s seeing right through Dipper and looking at someone else, but he blinks and the odd look is gone, so he must have imagined it.

Bill does sometimes push Dipper’s buttons, of course, and never gives him direct answers, usually making him look for the answer himself, or read between the lines, which Dipper comes to appreciate as it, so he claims, trains his mind for mysteries. They have a very fun back and forth, honestly. Dipper thinks Stanfraud is the coolest despite all the annoyances, and he really does try his best to impress him.

Mabel meanwhile is just her usual bundle of energy, and charms her great uncle by involving him in her unhinged hijinks, and showing him the art of glitter bombing. She meets him where he’s at! Even though he can sometimes be a little extreme, even for her, she pushes herself out of her comfort zone, mainly because of what Stan told her, about how Ford lost his mind while alone. Well, she can’t have that! She makes a real effort trying to understand him, and why he thinks the way he does.

He also weirdly gives her some good advice whenever Pacifica tries to bring her down, and Mabel is both comforted and inspired by how weird he is, even in his old age. He never lets anyone shame him out of it, and he encourages Mabel to just “Be weird! Your fleshbag life is short! Why waste it caring what lesser skin puppets think?”

Bill unknowingly allows both Dipper and Mabel to feel more comfortable in themselves because of how unapologetically ‘him’ he is.

Sorry if this is messy, by the way, I’m just writing my thoughts as I go along.

Anywho, I think all of this makes finding out everything was a lie very hard hitting for them. Mabel tries to rationalise it, that sure, maybe he wasn’t really their Grunkle, but he still loved them like he was, and they loved him like a Grunkle, meanwhile Dipper reacts very negatively, because he really thought he had found someone like him, someone he confided a lot in, and now he thinks he made the wrong choice, that he was an idiot.

And Stan lied too. He admits the biggest mistake he made was not telling them, but it’s too late for that now.

The one bright side, if you can call it that, is Stan and Bill do tell them before they get Ford back. They think they’ve finally found the way to do it, and Stan wants the kids to know before they try it, give them time to process.

Okay I’ll end there for now! Thank you so much again!

#asks #gravity falls #gravity falls au #not who he seems au #bill cipher #stanley pines #dipper pines #mason pines #mabel pines

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chocolilies · 18 hours ago

Text

─── APOLOGY. ꒱

( ୨ৎ. gojo satoru x fem!reader. . .ᐟ

gojo finds a way to apologise for ignoring you after a date night. the catch? it's in the middle of a train station.

◟ꪆ୧ nsfw, afab reader, sex in public spaces, oral sex (f receiving), slight exhibitionism, pwp. first smut on this acc!! hope you all enjoy! <3

w.c : 3.2k.

also on ao3 + masterlist !

"it's so cold!"

gojo laughed as you complained for what seemed to be the hundredth time that night, making a show of crossing your arms over your chest and rubbing your hands up and down your arms as you trembled dramatically on the spot.

"c'mon, you're being dramatic," you glared at gojo before he even opened his mouth, knowing he would say some shit like that. "it's anything but cold."

you huffed, bringing your knees up to your chest as you continued to wait for the train, the cold metal bench you were sitting on not helping much to the cold that had enveloped your body ever since you'd stepped outside.

you knew you shouldn't be complaining, he had told you to put on a jacket, but the only jacket you had would have just ruined your whole outfit! and you couldn't have that, especially when you were going out with someone as pretty as satoru.

plus, you hadn't really expected to spend any time outside! you thought you'd be in a nice restaurant fawning over your gorgeous boyfriend the whole night before getting a taxi back to your flat where you'd thank him for the meal he'd paid for, but you'd somehow ended up in the closest train station, sitting on an empty platform in the freezing cold while you waited for a train that would take longer to arrive than it would've taken to drive home.

which explained why you were sort of on edge…

"you're never cold." you grumbled, pulling your legs up onto the bench and pressing them against your chest in an attempt to get warm, resting your cheek against your knees as you watched gojo tap away on his cellphone, screen reflecting onto his glasses and making it even more impossible to see his eyes, which were usually on you.

…especially since he was now ignoring you to text whoever he was, when you should be riding the hell out of him back home.

"you're just being dramatic."

you let out another huff, glaring at him for a full minute to see if he'd react, but when he didn't, simply continuing his messaging, you scooched your body away from him, turning on the bench so you were facing the platform instead of the rails and your back was facing satoru.

"real mature." he snorted, then funnily enough, considering what he'd just said, started poking at your back, making little annoying noises each time.

"hey. look at me. hey. baby, don't ignore me. hey, hey! heeeeyyy-" you started to squirm as you noticed he'd finally put his phone down, two index fingers now poking at you incessantly as you willed yourself not to turn around and smack him across his pretty face, jumping with a squeal once they found a specific, ticklish spot in your sides, flailing your arms out in an attempt to stop him.

he threw his head back with a laugh as your hands slapped at his, shoving him back but finally turning back to look at him, face pulled into a frown as he leaned over to you with a grin, glasses slightly askew, revealing those beautiful eyes of his that were, once again, only trained on you.

"that wasn't funny."

"got you to look at me, though." satoru straight up purred, hand coming up to cup the side of your face and caress your cheek with his thumb, feeling your skin grow hot under his touch. "don't feel so cold now, baby."

"idiot." you spat, though you only made his grin grow, pouting as he leaned in to press a kiss to your warm cheeks, hand moving from your face down to your neck, running his fingers down your nape while his thumb gently pressed against your larynx, watching your eyelids flutter as he did.

"mm." he didn't bother answering to your insult, finding you too pretty in the state you were in to care. hell, he would've let you call him anything you wanted as long as he got to touch you like this, and he hadn't even gotten to the "good" parts.

his hand ran over to your shoulder, expression slightly shifting as his fingers made contact with cold skin, other hand coming up to rest on the other in an attempt to warm up your shoulders, watching your face contort in confusion before hitting realisation, grinning at him cockily.

"told you i was cold," you puffed your chest out like it was an accomplishment, unaware that instead of bringing him down a notch, all you'd done was show off more or your cleavage to gojo's already greedy eyes, the necklace you'd worn especially for your date shifting with the movement and slipping dangerously close to the valley between your pert breasts.

“oh, i can tell.” gojo licked his lips, eyes falling down onto the sight of your pebbled nipples poking through your thin top, giggling as you groaned, wrapping your arms over yourself to cover them from his gaze.

“perv.”

“oh, baby, you think that's me at my worst?” he laughed, hands moving from your shoulders to your neck, similar to the position from before, but this time, both hands wrapped around your neck, feeling your heartbeat right under his touch.

“you're always at your worst,” you blurted out, not really knowing if that even made sense, too distracted by the fact that he was this close to choking you out in public, something you'd never done outside of the bedroom. well, it wasn't like you'd done anything sexual out of the bedroom, this was the closest you'd ever gotten to dabbling in something like public sex.

“mm, but you love it.” he leaned in, warm breath wafting against your face as a full body shiver wracked through you as a consequence to his touch and the cold wind hitting your exposed back.

gojo’s lips brushed against yours tauntingly, feeling you tremble against his touch from need and cold, letting out a sigh before letting go and pulling back, leaving you dazed and confused.

you watched him get up with a grunt, standing with a disinterested look as he started to unbutton his jacket, pulling it off before holding it up in front of you with a smile.

“up.” you did as he said, outstretching your arms once you were standing and allowing him to slide the jacket onto your body, smiling in content as he buttoned it up for you, eyes dragging up his exposed arms as he wrapped them around your waist, hands landing on your ass as he moved you back to the bench. “‘that better?”

“way better. only took…” you mused, turning to look up at the clock that hung over the platform, grinning cheekily. “two hours of complaining.”

“mm… didn't think you were serious, honey. should've hit, me, made me touch you so i could see you were being truthful.”

“why would i lie?” you frowned, watching him kneel in front of you and place his hands on your exposed thighs, moving them up and down to help you warm up the parts he couldn't cover up.

“thought you were just bein’ needy, baby.” he flinched as you gasped, eyes focusing on your plush thighs before braving a look up at you, your expression unreadable.

“you were ignoring me!” you whined.

“so you were being needy?”

“no!” your hand came up before landing down on his head, a moan leaving his mouth as he dramatically collapsed, head falling onto your thighs as he continued to whine and complain softly as if you'd just fatally wounded him, huffing as you crossed your arms. “i was cold! and annoyed that you weren't paying attention to me after dinner!”

“‘m sorry, honey. was talking to nanami about work. couldn't really get a taxi with some rando while discussing this… didn't realise it actually annoyed you.” he moved his head so his chin was resting on your thigh, looking up at you with a pretty set of puppy eyes and a half concerned half amused look, already knowing you were going to forgive him no matter what.

“well, it did. ‘thought we would be home by now, but due to this stupid detour, we're stuck in his dark, cold station! when we could be at home fucking!”

gojo laughed at your crudeness, shaking his head in disbelief. “is that what this is really about, baby? you being upset that i'm not dicking you down right now?”

your cheeks grew warm, avoiding his sharp gaze with an annoyed grunt as you looked up at the train timetable, heart sinking as it seemed that the time left for it's arrival had somehow increased.

“hey, i’m talking to youuu…” gojo whined, leaning up and pressing a kiss on your jaw, hands slamming on the bench to keep himself up.

you continued to ignore him, wanting to play with him for a bit longer before you eventually gave in, your way of getting back at him for ignoring you.

“want me to make it up for you…?”

now that caught your attention.

you snapped your head towards him with a concerned look, already recognising the mischievous glint in his eyes.

“‘toru, here!?” you hissed, looking around the empty platform nervously, knowing anyone could come in at any time and see what you hoped assumed he was suggesting.

“no one's around, baby.” he hummed, kissing up your jaw and then moving to continue down your neck, tongue licking at the spots he knew were most sensitive. “and you're cold, angry at me, needy…”

you sighed out as he licked up a stripe back up to your jaw, moving to be face-to-face with you, cheeky grin on his flushed face.

“good way of getting you warmed up, apologising and dealing with my deprived girl, right…?”

his hands landed on your thighs, gently pressing into the supple flesh in an attempt to spread your legs, stopping once he noticed the uncertainty on your face.

“we don't have to, honey.”

you looked down at him smiling face, loosening his grip on you once he thought you'd tell him to stop.

he was delighted when you squeezed your eyes closed instead, spreading your legs by yourself before letting out a soft whine.

“be quick, please, ‘toru.”

“anything for you, my angel.”

you let out a breath you didn't know you were holding, being pulled further towards the edge of the bench by gojo’s strong grip, watching him flip your skirt up with a cheeky grin, exposing your panty-clad core to the cold air.

“‘toru! cold!” you complained, legs threatening to close before he shushed you, hands pushing your legs further apart.

“don't worry, i’m on it, baby.”

you expected him to get up, get his cock out before shoving himself inside quickly, but you were pleasantly surprised when he held your skirt up, his head finding its place between your thighs.

“oh my god.”

gojo smirked as he heard you cry out before he could even do anything, the thought that you had made such a cute sound by just seeing him get close to your pussy enough to get his cock twitching.

“needy, needy girl.” he chastised, clicking his tongue before lolling it out, licking up your clothed cunt a few times while you squirmed above him before placing a chaste kiss over your clit, happy to find your panties soaked with his spit and your natural lube once he pulled back to take a look at his handiwork.

you were already letting out soft whines and mewls despite gojo not really doing that much, but he, for one, was not complaining.

he'd once told you that your sounds alone would be enough to make him cum. your whiny sounds and strings of moans better than any song he could ever listen to, feeling blessed each time they reached his ears.

he could feel his cock straining against his pants, knowing that even if he might tease you for having such a big reaction to such tiny actions, he was as desperate and needy for you as you were for him, and the mere idea of getting to eat your cunt was enough to get him going.

it didn't help that this scenario was downright filthy, something he'd fantasised about for a while. eating his needy girl out somewhere anyone could see? fuck, did it get him going.

“pull these to the side f’me, baby.” gojo pleaded as he leaned back, watching you comply to his demands and tug your soaked panties away from your cunt, his mouth watering at the sight of the creamy wetness that your cute hole was pushing out with each wave of stimulation.

“god, look at her…” he whined, his thumb coming up to gather some of the slick you'd made for him, spreading it around your lips while purposefully avoiding your clit.

you knew gojo was a teaser, he couldn't fuck you or get close to doing it without teasing you beforehand, whether it be edging or just straight up being mean like he was doing now, considering he'd agreed on being quick mere moments ago.

you could feel your legs going numb, your mind going hazy and eyelids drooping as he gently caressed your cunt, heaving breaths leaving your mouth until his thumb finally came into contact with your clit, forcing you to jolt up with a loud gasp.

“good girl.” he praised, rubbing circles onto your clit before leaning his head back in with an excited look, ready to press his mouth to your cunt properly. “god, how long has it been since i've eaten you out? missed your taste, honey.”

“t-too long, ‘toru.” you whined, shaking in anticipation as you moved your hands to rest on his head, knowing that you'd be pulling at his hair soon enough. “missed your mouth…”

“can't have that, no, no…” he felt like he was drooling, like he was starving and you had just offered him a ten-course meal between your legs.

he finally dived in, your whole body reacting as soon as his tongue pressed against your clit, hands pulling away from your core and finding their place on your thighs instead, spreading your legs further apart before hearing an uncomfortable whine leave your lips.

“‘round my neck, baby. don't be scared.” he mumbled into your cunt before going back to basically making out with your clit, running his tongue around the tiny bundle of nerves.

you did as he said with a desperate whine, wrapping your legs around his neck and shoulders before leaning back against the wall of the platform, your tailbone digging into the metal bench awkwardly, but with a man such as your boyfriend between your legs eating you out like a man starved, you couldn't care less.

with your thighs pressing against his head, he could now slip his hand to your cunt to aid him in his endeavours, the other resting on a thigh and kneading its flesh.

you whined out breathlessly as he slipped a finger into your tight cunt, lips wrapping around your clit as his finger pumped into you experimentally, knowing it had been a tiny while since you'd had anything inside.

you felt like you were on another plane, the cold air compared to the heat gojo was creating down there a weird yet strangely pleasurable contrast, your heels digging into his back as your nails scratched at his scalp, tugging at his hair as you let out moan after moan, the fear of being seen that you'd initially had fading away once he finally started to eat you out like be usually did.

“s’good?” he slurred between sloppy kisses to your clit, finger curling inside of you and perfectly hitting the spot he knew would make you jolt, grinning into your cunt like a crazed person.

“so good! so so good, ‘toru!” you cried, grinding down onto his face as you started to feel that familiar feeling build up, the mixture of the assault his mouth was dealing out on your clit and the constant stimulation to your g-spot blending in to a perfect pleasure smoothie, your lower body trembling with each wave of pleasure gojo created.

“god, love this cunt so much, baby,” he continued to ramble while still running his tongue over your pussy, the tart taste of your slick driving him insane, starting to feel almost drunk off the pleasure he was giving and the thrill of eating you out somewhere so public. “can't get enough of her, she's so perfect, perfect, perfect…”

the sound of your boyfriend praising your cunt got you closer to the edge than you would've liked, crossing your legs behind his back and pressing his face further into you, wetting his entire face while you rubbed yourself against him, moans increasing in sound as you found yourself getting closer to that oh-so beautiful peak of pleasure.

“‘toru, ‘toru, ‘m close!!” you cried out, your head falling back and hitting the wall as you cried out in pleasure, drool dribbling down your chin as you felt another finger slip inside, so long and thick that you could almost imagine it being his cock.

“cum on my face, baby. you can do it. make a mess of my face.”

you felt him move his face from side to side, tongue laying flat on your clit as his spit mixed in with your slick, making a mess of his hand and creating a pool of liquid beneath you.

his words were all it took for you to reach your peak, your whole body shaking as you let out a silent scream, mouth wide open as drool dribbled down your chin, fingers pulling aggressively at his white locks.

gojo could almost feel your pleasure as you came, your sounds and shaky body driving him insane.

he moaned into your cunt as he felt your cum soak his fingers, waiting for you to ride your high out before pulling them out and leaning down to lap up everything you had given him gratefully.

“‘toru, too much…” you whined as he cleaned you up with your tongue, nose bumping against your clit and sending tremors of overstimulation down your spine, a chuckle leaving his mouth.

“sorry, sorry…” he smiled up at you, watching you slump back against the wall with a whine, sufficiently warmed up like he'd promised. “look so pretty from down here, baby.”

you whined in response, too fucked out to answer yet still wanting to reply, eyes fluttering closed as gojo got up, sliding your panties back over your ruined cunt, the man letting out a soft whine as he moved.

he looked down at his crotch, cheeks flushing as he realised that in the heat of the moment he had ended up feeling your pleasure, except not in the way he had initially thought.

cum soaked his boxers, yet he could still see the imprint of his cock against his trousers, letting out a laugh in disbelief that he was still hard after cumming once untouched.

he looked up at you with a cheeky grin, noticing that you'd already seen the state his lower body was in, leaning in for a kiss and letting you taste yourself on his tongue, taking one of your shaky hands and placing it on his cock.

“hope you're not too tired, baby… still got a few more rounds in me…”

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witchywithwhiskey · 7 hours ago

Text

ahhh thank you so much Cate!! i also love a threesome with Steve and Bucky (as you can probably tell 🤭) and this one was especially fun to write so i'm very glad you enjoyed!! ♡♡♡

in the woods with a couple of masked men

pairing: bucky barnes & steve rogers x female reader

summary: you've been flirting with steve rogers and bucky barnes for a month at the bar you all frequent with your friends, and on Halloween, when you tell them about your fantasy of being chased through the woods by masked men or men, they decide to make it a reality.

warnings: 18+ content (minors dni!!!), threesome, smut, piv sex, unprotected sex, creampie, oral sex (m receiving), chase kink, mask kink, light bdsm, light degradation, praise kink, light choking, roughness, check-ins, pet names (baby, sweetheart, pretty girl, sweet girl) aftercare, halloween shenanigans

word count: 3.6k

a/n: this was my idea for my third and final halloween fic this year and i was really disappointed that i ran out of time to do a fully developed version, but i figured i'd put together something short and (hopefully) hot. this still ended up longer than i expected, but it's much shorter than my normal halloween fics so i hope that's ok 😅 happy (almost) halloween y'all!! ♡

halloween fics masterlist

"What do you want for Halloween, pretty girl?"

"I want a masked man—or men—to chase me through the woods and fuck me to within an inch of my life," you answered, a wicked smirk curling the corners of your mouth.

Your eyes slid away from the men you were talking to, casting a glance around the dingy dive bar that was more crowded than normal on Halloween night. You cut your eyes back to them and lifted a single shoulder in an apathetic shrug, your smirk still flirting at the edges of your lips.

"Y'know, just what every girl wants for Halloween."

You were talking to Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, who you’d met a month before Halloween. One of their friends had started flirting with one of your friends at the bar you all liked to frequent, and as that relationship blossomed into more than flirting, you started seeing them more.

You'd gravitated to the handsome best friends, unable to resist talking to them, drinking with them, commiserating with them as your friends grew more and more flagrant with their public displays of affection. Besides, Bucky and Steve hadn't seemed to mind the way you'd laugh at their jokes—even the not-so-great ones—or lean against them when you grew tired late into the night.

Still, you didn't know what impulse had prompted you to tell them about your deepest, darkest fantasy. It must've been some deadly combination of loneliness and recklessness, and the ease you felt when you were around Steve and Bucky. But you couldn’t bring yourself to take it back.

Not when the men reacted by sharing a look like they planning something. Just the thought that they might be thinking about indulging your fantasy made you squeeze your thighs together and lean into the heat emanating from them.

Of course, you were also a little chilly, having worn a skimpy little dress as part of your Halloween costume, but you leaned closer to Steve and Bucky in the crowded bar for warmth and to inhale the intoxicating scent of their cologne, which sent more curls of heat dancing through your veins.

Without looking away from each other, their arms wrapped around you and they crushed you between their chests while they continued their silent conversation. You waited patiently, soaking up Bucky and Steve’s warmth until they turned to you, matching grins on their faces.

After a hushed conversation and a couple rounds of Steve and Bucky asking, "Are you sure you want this, sweet girl?" you found your friends and told them you were leaving with the men.

You told your friends you had your phone on you and promised to keep your location turned on, to check in when you were on your way home. Your friends cackled happily for you and shooed you off with Bucky and Steve.

When you got to the woods, Steve and Bucky each slipped on a Ghostface mask. Your breath caught in your lungs when you saw the big, muscled men dressed in all black and wearing the masks, your heart beating faster in your chest as excitement and desire churned in your belly.

One of them said they were giving you a 30-second head start, so you turned and bolted into the trees, running as fast as you could to put as much distance between you and them in the short time they’d given you. But only 10 seconds later, you heard them start to chase you.

You didn't have the breath to call out and accuse them of cheating, you were too focused on making the game as hard for them as possible. So you ran harder through the woods, losing them in the spindly trees cast in shades of silvery blue by the light of the moon.

For long moments, you ran without hearing anything behind you. You didn't know if you were truly giving Bucky and Steve a run for their money or if they were playing with you, but you didn't hear them chasing you until your lungs were burning and your legs were aching.

All at the same time, you heard a twig snap, the rustle of leaves. A hand snatched at your skimpy little dress, snapping it against your skin when you pulled out of their grasp. A grunt of frustration sounded as a scream welled in your throat, but you couldn't let it loose through your panting, gasping breaths as you ran on.

Fingers closed around your wrist and you shrieked in surprise, whirling around to wrench yourself free as you ran, turning to look over your shoulder and catching a glimpse of the eerie white Ghostface mask with its yawning, wide open mouth.

That glance you spared for your pursuer would be what got you caught—the first time.

With your head turned to look over your shoulder, you didn't see where you were going, and you crashed right into a big, hard chest. You bounced off it with your momentum, but strong arms wound around your waist, holding you pinned to the warm body pressed flush to your curves.

"Got you, baby," came a muffled voice through the mask.

You couldn't for the life of you tell which man it was, whether it was Bucky or Steve. Although, it didn’t really matter to you, your body burned with desire for each of them equally.

"What're you gonna give me to let you go?” the man taunted, his mask tipping down in such a way that you knew his eyes were dragging down to your cleavage, which was in danger of spilling out over the low neckline of your dress. "C'mon, slut, you look like you know how to please a man—so please me, and I'll let you go."

Arousal swirled through your body at the degrading way he spoke to you—you’d told Steve and Bucky back at the bar that you liked a little degradation and you were pleased that they were running with it. You couldn't help the impish smirk that spread across your face in response to the man’s filthy request.

"You're right, dirty man, I know exactly what to give you," you purred running your hands down the man's chest and trying to catch his eye through the mask.

Staring into the spooky visage of the Ghostface mask, you began lowering yourself to your knees and the man helped guide you down. His hands worked open the front of his jeans, undoing them and pulling out his cock while you settled on the cold, leaf-covered ground.

Without preamble, you sucked the man's half-hard cock into your mouth, relishing the way he groaned above you. His hands cradled your head, petting you idly while you licked along the velvety soft shaft, humming happily as you felt him harden against your tongue. He tasted musky, his scent filling your senses and making you gush with wetness between your thighs.

The man’s moans were loud in the forest as you bobbed on his cock, sucking him harder and faster and pushing him closer to his release. Distantly, you wondered where the other man was, but didn't concern yourself overmuch with it as you focused on making the man in front of your cum.

When you could feel that he was just about to let go, his thick cock throbbing against your tongue, you pulled away and broke free from his hold, leaping to your feet and darting off into the woods. His ferocious, frustrated roar followed you through the trees and you couldn't help the cackling laughter that tumbled from your lips as you ran.

Immediately, you could hear the man crashing through the underbrush after you and you had to wonder if he'd even paused to put his cock away before bolting after you.

It seemed you hadn’t learned your lesson, because you risked a glance over your shoulder, trying to get a peak of whether he was chasing you with his cock out, and at that moment, a hand reached out and grabbed your arm, towing you into another strong, broad chest.

"What'd you do to him, sweetheart?" came another muffled voice as the second man pinned your back against a tree, caging you in with his thick arms.

You couldn't help but laugh as you told him how you'd left the other man with his cock out and throbbing with need, teetering on the edge of his release. From behind his eerie Ghostface mask, the man in front of you tsked, shaking his head slowly, almost like he pitied you.

"You're gonna pay for that, pretty girl," he murmured in a husky, muffled voice. His hands slid down the sides of your body, making you shiver at the way he groped you softly, reverently. He was cupping your tits and squeezing your hips in a way that made your body hum with heat as he said, "If you're a good girl for me, maybe I'll convince him to go easy on you."

Warm palms skimmed down the outside of your thighs, fingers curling in the hem of your dress before pushing it up higher and higher…

You almost wanted to give in, to be good for him. Almost.

Instead, you scoffed, "Yeah, right,” and shoved roughly against the man's muscled chest. Though he barely budged, the movement dislodged his hands from your body and you managed to slip away from him, taking off again into the woods.

The man's loud laughter followed you, which was even more deliciously terrifying than the other man's roar had been.

Fleeing from both of the men, you tried to run harder, but you were growing tired—both of running and the game.

It was a good thing, then, that you didn't get far.

It seemed Bucky and Steve were sick of the game as well, because only a few seconds after the man’s laughter died in the night sky, a large body crashed into your back, tackling you to the forest floor.

Whoever caught you wound an arm around your waist and braced a hand against the ground so you didn't get hurt, but you still landed with a soft, "oof," of surprise. The body at your back covered you with its weight, pushing you deeper into the cold, damp leaves blanketing the dirt.

"I'm gonna make you regret leaving me like that, slut," said a gruff, menacing voice in your ear. A hand was pushing up your dress and ripping your panties down your legs while another was fumbling with a zipper, his knuckles grazing your bare ass.

The head of a cock grazed your folds, which were drenched with your desire, and your fingers sank into the soft soil beneath you as you arched into him, biting back a desirous moan. The man's hand grabbed your waist, leaning over you so the cold plastic of the Ghostface mask butted into your shoulder.

"You good, pretty girl?" he rumbled, his voice gentler as he checked in with you.

Your body, which had been tense an intoxicating mix of fear and arousal, relaxed at the question and you smiled, turning your head to catch the man's eye through the mesh of the mask. You shot him a playful smirk.

"Fuck me hard, filthy man," you purred, arching beneath him and pushing against the hard ridge of his cock so it slid through your slippery folds. "Show me how a dirty little slut like me deserves to be fucked."

The man groaned, shifting his hips so he could sink into your wet heat with one thrust, wringing a cry from your lips as his thick girth stretched your tight cunt. When his hips were pressed flush with your ass, he paused and you both took a moment to breathe and adjust to the feel of him inside your pussy.

You didn’t know if the other man had been watching you, timing it perfectly, but it was at that exact moment that he stepped in front of you, dropping down onto his knees as he undid the button and fly of his jeans. He spread his thick thighs and sank down onto his haunches so his cock was level with your face when he pulled it out.

"Why don't you show me what that pretty mouth can do, sweet girl," the man cooed, his voice distractingly patronizing even muffled through the mask. "Be a good girl and suck my cock while your pussy gets pounded."

You didn't need any more encouraging than that, lifting yourself up onto your arms so you could lick along the thick ridge on the underside of the man's cock, smirking when he groaned.

"Ya like that, perv?" you teased in between pressing wet, suckling kisses to the velvet-wrapped steel of his shaft. "Like getting your cock played with by a slut you caught in the woods?"

"Fuck yes," he groaned, cupping your head in his hands and urging you closer to the tip. You wrapped your lips around the head, enjoying the taste of his precum leaking onto your tongue, and sucked him hard. "Oh fuck, your mouth feels so fucking good, sweetheart."

You'd planned to tease the man's tip a little longer, but the man behind you seemed to be done letting you adjust to having two cocks in your holes. He pulled his hips back and slammed inside you again, burying his full length in your pussy and pushing you forward, forcing you to take the other man deeper.

The cock in your mouth brushed against the back of your throat and you gagged at the unexpected feeling. The man in front of you sat back quickly, pulling free of your lips and letting you suck in air while you coughed and recovered.

"Careful, dickhead," he growled, his voice still muffled through his mask so you couldn't tell whether he was Steve or Bucky. His hands idly stroked the top of your head and you found yourself leaning into the soft gesture.

"Sorry," the other man mumbled, his hands squeezing your hips apologetically.

"No, no, I want it rough," you said in a husky voice, straining your body to get your mouth back on the cock in front of your face. You pressed a kiss to the underside of the man's length, looking up at him from under your lashes. "I told you not to hold back—I want everything you can give me, please.”

"Fuck," the man in front of you grunted at the same time the man behind you groaned, starting to thrust into you slowly, making you feel every inch of his cock dragging along the inside of your pussy. The man who'd spoken stroked his fingers down your cheeks, catching a tear that had escaped when you'd gagged. "You're gonna spoil us, sweet girl, letting us use your pretty holes like that."

"Good," you said firmly, before swirling your tongue around the tip of his cock, moaning at the taste of him. You couldn’t wait to swallow his cum, to be filled of both of them. “Then maybe you guys will do this again with me."

"Fuck yes we will, baby," the man behind you groaned, covering you with his body and pinning you into the forest floor while his hand wrapped loosely around the front of your throat. His mask bumped against your cheek as he spoke in your ear. "We'll fuck you anytime and anywhere you want, pretty girl—all ya gotta do is ask."

A delirious smile curved your lips and you were just about to make some sassy comment, but then he thrust hard into your pussy, wrenching a sharp cry from your mouth as pleasure spiraled through your body. The other man used the opportunity of your parted lips to thrust his cock inside your mouth, careful not to go too deep.

Steve and Bucky worked your body in tandem, one of them pinning you to the cold ground and fucking you from behind, while the other held your head steady and fucked your mouth. All you could do was take everything they gave you, never knowing which one was which, moaning as they pushed you to the edge of pleasure.

You were writhing on the ground, your hands grasping at the damp leaves and the thick, jeans-clad thighs of the man in front of you, searching for something to hold onto as your pleasure spiraled higher. You were arching your back to take the cock deeper into your pussy, whining pitifully as you begged wordlessly for your release, unable to control yourself when you were so desperate to cum.

The men must've understood because they hauled you up onto your hand and knees, never removing their cocks from your holes. As they continued to fuck you, they positioned your body so that the man behind you could slip his hand between your thighs and find your needy, aching clit.

"Cum for us, slut," he growled in your ear.

The other man thumbed the tears from your cheeks as he pushed his cock deep into your mouth. He'd opened your throat enough for him so you didn't gag too much, but he fucked you through it anyway, until his cock was rubbing against the other man's hand as it bulged in your neck.

"Be a good girl, sweetheart, and cum on our cocks," the man in front of you urged, his balls pushing against your chin as he buried himself in your mouth and groaning when your muscles contracted as you swallowed around him. "Wanna feel you scream on my dick."

"Yeah, baby, gotta feel your sweet cunt milk me," the other man groaned into your ear, rubbing your clit unrelentingly while he pounded into you hard enough you could hear the sharp sounds of his hips smacking against your ass. "C'mon, don't you want us to fill your holes with our cum—cum for your masked men, sweet girl.”

You didn't know what tipped you over the edge—whether it was the muffled, filthy words or the fingers on your clit, or the pair of cocks ruthlessly fucking your holes—but something set you off, and you came harder than you ever had before.

A shrieking scream worked its way up inside you, making the man in front of you moan loudly when your throat constricted around his hard length. The man behind you grunted as your pussy clenched on his cock, and he buried himself to the root, moaning at the feel of your inner walls sucking him in deeper.

Pleasure consumed your mind thoroughly, overwhelming you entirely as your body trembled violently. You tried to stay in position for the men, but you knew it was their hands more than your own strength holding you up as the ecstasy of your release wrecked you.

The man in front of you came first, holding your head pinned to his abdomen and spilling his seed down your throat while you swallowed weakly, some of it spilling out around the shaft of his cock and joining the spit and tears making a mess of your face.

The other man followed a moment later, pressing his hips flush against your ass and coming with a filthy groan, his mask pressed to your shoulder blade and his arms wrapped around your waist while you felt his cock twitch deep inside you.

In the cold, dark forest on Halloween night, the three of you rode out your pleasure together for long, hazy moments. But when the chill of the air seeped into your cooling skin and you began to shiver, Bucky and Steve pulled themselves free from your body and gathered you up in their strong arms.

Together, they helped you stand, fussing around you as they fixed your dress and tugged leaves from your hair. One of them draped a hooded sweatshirt around your shoulders while the other used your discarded panties to clean the mess from between your thighs.

You'd lost track of who was who as they circled around you to clean you up, so even when Steve and Bucky pulled off their Ghostface masks, you didn't know which of them had fucked your mouth and which had fucked your pussy.

You didn't care overmuch, it was fun not knowing. Besides, you knew if you asked, they'd tell you which man was which.

"Doing good, pretty girl?" Steve cooed sweetly, dropping his lips to kiss your cheek. His fingers smoothed away the grit of your ruined makeup, making you smile.

"Yeah, so good," you said in a dreamy, breathless voice, catching his eye so he could see the honesty in your gaze when you told him, "Best Halloween ever."

Bucky chuckled at your statement and tucked you into his side beneath his arm, turning you in a direction you assumed would bring you back to the car they’d driven out to the woods.

"Let's get you home, sweet girl," Bucky murmured, brushing a kiss against your temple while Steve slid in on your other side, his arm wrapping around your waist. They held you clutched between their bodies, and you felt nothing but warm, sated and happy. "You've had your halloween fun with your two masked men, now it's time to rest."

"Yes, sir," you said on an exhale. Though you'd been trying for a playful tone, your voice was soft and sweet and you found you meant it. You trusted them to take care of you, and you let your head fall on Steve's shoulder, snuggling into him while you let the best friends guide you back to the car.

Once Bucky had tucked you into his lap on the passenger’s seat, you texted your friends to let them know you were ok while Steve drove you home. The men helped you inside and, at your request, stayed the night, cuddling up with you in your bed.

That night, you fell asleep with a smile on your face snuggled between Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes knowing you got what every girl wants (or, at least, what you wanted): some fun in the woods with a couple of masked men—and a Halloween night to remember.

halloween fics masterlist

#reblogs #veltana

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