#and convincing yourself all your actions are ones of Morality is Not the way you should go about ANYTHING ever

[snekdood]

i just struggle to believe theres any ethical way to harvest meat. farm animal dying of old age? yeah. ok. sure. but farm animals aren't going to be perpetually dying of old age enough to fulfill the demand for their meats. you can make better and more convincing arguments to me for ethically harvesting eggs, wool and milk rather than meat.

[honestcompassion]

𝐄𝐍𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐇𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓. state of being overly involved in a relationship

𝜗𝜚 ࣪˖ ִ𐙚 yandere pure vanilla cookie headcanons

warnings: obsessive and possessive behavior, moral ambiguity, inferiority complex, guilt complex, emotional dependence, guilt tripping, stalking, potentially ooc

A/N: The ribbon has been cut, the store is now open, and here comes our very first customer! I lost the request for this one but they asked for one order of yandere pure vanilla cookie headcanons. I apologize for the mistake this early on, I hope you enjoy this sweet treat!

Pure Vanilla Cookie as a yandere would be as sweet as a soft, fluffy cloud of whipped cream atop a slice of warm pie, light and tender, yet undeniably indulgent. His sweetness is the kind that brings a sense of peace, like the first sip of a perfectly brewed cup of tea on a quiet morning. He'd be so endearing and affectionate that you'll fail to notice just how much he's slowly changing as his love for you grows more and more.

He would dedicate himself entirely to your happiness, attending to every need and want with almost unnatural precision. He notices the tiniest details—your favorite treats, the way you prefer your tea, and even your smallest habits—and adjusts his behavior to cater to them perfectly. However, this attentiveness comes at a price: he begins to believe that no one else could possibly care for you as deeply as he does.

Pure Vanilla Cookie’s adoration for you is boundless, but beneath his gentle exterior lies a storm of conflicting emotions. To him, you are the epitome of perfection—kind, radiant, and far beyond anything he could ever hope to be. The way you carry yourself, the light in your eyes, even the simplest of your actions—they all leave him in awe. He holds you on a pedestal so high that he feels utterly insignificant in comparison.

He tells himself that his feelings are wrong, that someone like him—flawed and unworthy—has no right to desire someone as extraordinary as you. The guilt eats away at him, a gnawing ache in his chest every time he catches himself lingering too long on the thought of you. "How selfish of me," he thinks, "to want someone so pure, so beautiful, for myself."

Yet no matter how hard he tries, he cannot let go. You are his light, his guiding star, the only thing that makes the world seem bearable. He convinces himself that his love is selfless, that all he wants is your happiness. But even that reasoning begins to crumble when he realizes just how dependent he has become on you.

Every time you speak, every time you smile, he feels a pang of inadequacy. He wonders how someone like you could even spare him a glance. He berates himself for his shortcomings, for the things he cannot do, and he becomes obsessed with trying to be better for you. Yet, no matter how much he does, it never feels like enough. "You deserve so much more than I can give," he whispers to himself in the quiet of the night. But even as he thinks this, he cannot bring himself to let you go.

His love for you blurs the lines between right and wrong. He knows it’s wrong to follow you when you don’t know he’s there. He knows it’s wrong to memorize every detail of your life, from the places you visit to the people you speak to. But the thought of not knowing where you are, of not being able to protect you, fills him with such dread that he convinces himself it’s for your own good. The guilt of his actions warring with his desperate need to keep you safe.

Your happiness becomes his only source of joy. If you’re upset, he feels as though the world has lost its color. He tries to fix everything, bending over backward to ensure you’re content, even at the cost of his own well-being. If you’re happy, he feels like he can breathe again. But this dependence is suffocating—not for you, but for him. He begins to tie his entire sense of self-worth to your approval. If you were to reject him, he feels he would shatter completely.

While he is too kind to voice his jealousy, it festers beneath the surface. When others take up your time or attention, he feels a pang of envy so sharp it makes him sick. He tries to rationalize it, telling himself that he has no right to feel this way. But the more it happens, the harder it becomes for him to suppress. He starts to find small ways to keep you close—insisting on helping you with tasks, offering to walk you home, always being there when you need him.

His love drives him to extremes he never thought himself capable of. He follows you from a distance, his heart pounding as he watches over you. He tells himself it’s only to make sure you’re safe, but deep down, he knows it’s more than that. He needs to be near you, to feel connected to you in some way, even if you don’t know he’s there. The guilt eats at him, but he can’t stop. You are his everything, and he’ll do anything to ensure you’re protected.

In the end, Pure Vanilla Cookie’s love is as sweet as it is tragic. His selfless devotion becomes tangled with his selfish need to keep you by his side. He struggles to reconcile his guilt with his desires, walking a thin line between love and obsession. All he knows is that you are his one constant, his one truth, and no matter how much he doubts himself, he will always choose you.

The night was still, the castle shrouded in silence save for the occasional whisper of the wind against the stained-glass windows. You stirred in your bed, the faint feeling of being watched prickling at the edges of your awareness. Slowly, you opened your eyes to find a familiar figure standing at the foot of your bed, bathed in the faint glow of his staff.

"Pure Vanilla?" you murmured, your voice heavy with sleep. "What are you doing here?"

He stepped closer, his beautiful eyes shining with an intensity that made your heart race. His usual gentle smile was there, but something about it seemed… strained, as if it masked something deeper.

"I’m sorry if I startled you, my love," he said softly, his voice carrying the same warmth you knew so well. Yet, the way he said my love felt heavier tonight, almost possessive. "I couldn’t sleep knowing you were here all alone. What if something happened while I wasn’t here to protect you?"

Your brows furrowed. "Pure Vanilla, it’s the middle of the night. I’m safe here, aren’t I?"

He hesitated, his grip tightening slightly around his staff. "Yes, but… I can’t help worrying. The world is unpredictable, and I’ve seen too much to take your safety for granted. You mean everything to me."

The intensity in his words made you sit up, the sleepiness fading from your mind. "You don’t need to worry so much," you reassured him. "I’m fine, really."

But he shook his head, his expression almost pained. "You don’t understand," he murmured, stepping even closer until he was at your bedside. "I can’t bear the thought of losing you. Every moment you’re out of my sight, I feel this… emptiness. This fear that I’m not doing enough."

You felt a chill creep over you. "Pure Vanilla, I appreciate your care, but… you’re scaring me a little."

At your words, his eyes widened, and he dropped to his knees beside your bed, reaching out to take your hands in his. His touch was trembling, desperate. "I’m sorry," he whispered, his voice cracking. "I don’t mean to frighten you. I just… I love you so much, more than words can say. You’re the only light in my life, and I don’t know what I’d do without you. Please, forgive me if I seem overbearing. It’s only because I want to keep you safe."

You hesitated, the raw emotion in his voice tugging at your heart despite the unease creeping up your spine. "I forgive you," you said quietly, trying to steady your voice. "But you have to trust me too. I can take care of myself."

He nodded slowly, though the look in his eyes told you he wasn’t entirely convinced. As he rose to his feet, he lingered for a moment, his gaze softening as he looked at you. "Rest well, my love," he said finally, his voice tender. "I’ll be just outside if you need me."

Something is wrong.

[bluemerakis]

┌── ˚*❀*̥˚ ─── ˚*̥❀*˚ ──┐

✐ᝰ bluemerakis

┗━━• ❃ ° •° ❀ °• ° ❃ •━━┛

❝ nothing left to lose ❞

⤷ Word count: 5.2k

It’s that time of the month (yippeee) and my hormones are all over the place. And then I found this gif and I just need this man to hold me this way because I feel like it could solve a world crisis. Thank you.

═════════════════

PAIRINGS:

S7!Negan x fem!reader

WARNINGS:

Cussing, fluff, mentions of reader on her period, tame cutesie stuff

SYNOPSIS:

It had been another fairly quiet day as you lounged about the Sanctuary, your mood only dampened by the first day of your period. You were perfectly content to dwell in your bed and rot away for the remainder of the week, not so eager to do much else when the twisting and contracting of your stomach was so prominent, but those plans are set awry when Negan makes a stop at your room with his usual request for a good time.

When you enlighten him on your situation, he decides he’d like to stay regardless and indulge in your company, revealing a side to him you weren’t aware he had.

═════════════════

It had been roughly a month since a group of saviours had scavenged you from your pathetic life of living off the woods. You’d been practically half-starved when the saviours had found you, a pitiful amalgamation of skin and bones that served no purpose other than to earn their ridicule. They’d have put you down and served you up as walker deterrent for their borders had it not been for one of the men recognising your face.

You’d been tracking the Sanctuary’s dealings for quite some time then, successfully managing to map out their routines and planning sparse trips to steal a few supplies from the pick up points. You’d had a few close calls, but even then you were like a goddamn shadow, in and out quicker than a blink. The men had never managed to catch you—up until that day, at least. The man had insisted you be dragged back to the Sanctuary, where Negan would hear of your actions and decide the best manner to make you atone for them.

Much to everybody’s surprise, though, he’d been oddly impressed with your skill—despite it being a massive leech on their supplies. His anger was more directed at the inability for his men to contain your posed threat, especially since you were no more than ‘a ghost of a woman’. You’d decided to ignore the implied misogyny in his words, instead focusing on the relief in his decision to spare your life—tied to the condition that you become his wife, of course. You’d reluctantly obliged, acutely aware of how the title would come to violate your own morals at some point, but he’d promised good treatment and up until now, he’d been nothing but true to his word.

The murmur of a light rain trailed through the crack of your partially opened window, infusing the atmosphere of your dim room with a further sense of serenity. You were curled up between the sheets of your bed, lounging on your aching stomach as you paged through your book of the week—a one thousand-paged hardcover on the tragedy of wars. It didn’t play into your usual tastes—it was far from it, actually, but there were so few options available that you couldn’t afford to be picky. It was amazing, really, what things you could convince yourself to indulge in when you were burdened with nothing but free time.

When you’d decidedly punished your stomach—and your mind—enough, you sluggishly rolled onto your side with a groan, flipping the book closed in the process. You didn’t think you could endure another mention of forced cannibalism, and you were only two hundred-odd pages into the historical hell. You doubted you’d find the strength to power through this pick, never having been much of a history fan to begin with.

Your back was turned on the book now, and there it stayed out of sight and out of mind as your eyes fluttered closed around a pressing series of cramps. You instinctively tucked into the foetal position, as though it would somehow lovingly cradle your stomach cramps and encourage it to ease off its painful hold. When the sensation didn’t budge, you opted for resting your eyes, allowing darkness to consume you as you fried to focus on the pattering of the rain against your window. In a way, nature had always been a mother, the rain her very own gentle lullaby that encouraged warmth and a long, peaceful sleep. You’d never get tired of that particular song.

A string of impatient knocks booted your door. You’d barely managed to open your eyes and give permission to enter before you heard the wood creek open, heavy footsteps striking the floor for only a few moments before silence re-emerged. Your head remained pressed against your pillow, your eyes squinting against the dim air as you managed to make out the tall figure of Simon. His arms were crossed against his chest as he glared at you motionlessly through the haze. You didn’t offer the courtesy of sitting up to greet him, which is as much as he’d offered by not waiting for your answer at the door.

“What?” You demanded, the echo of your voice damped by the downfall of rain.

“You know what,” Simon answered bluntly with that coarse annoyance edging his tone. “I don’t make a habit of visiting you for fun. If I’m here, it’s cause Negan’s in the mood for your goods.”

“God,” you groaned, finally lifting your head to properly glare at Simon. “Don’t ever say that again.” You settled for turning onto your back, your head upturned to face the white ceiling. There was a brief moment of silence before you sighed and said, “tell Negan that I’ll be unavailable for the next week.”

“Unavailable?” Simon echoed with a scoff. “You got some other plans we don’t know about?”

“Just my period, dipshit,” you responded thinly before lifting your hand in a shooing gesture. “Now scoot.”

Much to your dismay, Simon’s footsteps seemed to grow closer instead of further, and moments later his silhouette appeared at the foot of your bed. You felt a spark of annoyance at his insistence—the blood that quite literally poured from your insides left you little patience for social interactions.

“You think a little blood’s gonna deter Negan?” The man asked you, his tone mocking at the idea that you could be so stupid. “You’ve seen the guy, he can’t go a single day without that shit smeared all over him. Matters little to him how the blood is obtained—you know?”

You did. Murder and women, the two things Negan couldn’t absolutely ever have his fill of. But you also knew that you’d never been the one to frolic around while on your period, a fact that Negan would have to make peace with. Not only did you find it unappealing, but needlessly messy, too, and you’d rather not spend the aftermath of it all wringing your sheets out. No, your answer was final.

“You’re ruining my peace,” you told Simon pointedly, your eyes still studying the beams that reached between the walls of your room and upheld your pointed ceiling. When he didn’t seem to falter from his position, you sat yourself up with a huff, your fingers clutching your propped up knees. “Tell Negan that I politely decline his request—that is, if you have the balls to. Clearly you’ve got some reservations since you’re still loitering in my room after my many invitations for you to take your leave.”

Simon ignored your jest, running his hand across his hair to tame rogue strands. “He ain’t gon’ take nicely to your answer, sweetheart,” he said.

The pet name made your stomach curl beyond the cramps. “He’ll get over it when he gets on-top of the next wife.”

“Nah,” the man disagreed, rubbing a hand across his moustache. “You know he’s got some special obsession with you. You’ve been here for what—less than a month? Yet you’ve already left quite a mark on the boss-man.” He paused as his gaze lowered across you. “Can’t say I get the charm beyond your beckoning tits and ass.”

You glowered at his crudeness. “Gross, Simon. This is why you’re going to die alone, and the only hint of action you’ll ever experience is the caress of that explosion of bad taste stuck beneath your nose.”

Simon looked briefly offended by your dig at his stash, his jaw evidently clenched around his reckless temper, but he didn’t dare to unleash his fist or tongue. One of the few perks of being Negan’s wife was that you were awarded the opportunities to condescend his men time and time again, yet they were completely helpless in returning the sentiment—that is if they wanted to remain in goodwill at Negan’s side as opposed to being plastered along Lucille’s length.

“I’ll let Negan know,” was all that Simon offered before he departed your room, clearly eager to preserve what little dignity he had left. He made a point to slam the door behind him, which only made you chuckle.

Oh men and their fragile egos.

You could hardly believe they’d been made to rule the earth when their entire masculinity could so easily collapse at their rejected cock. You eased yourself back against the mattress, unable to help the faint smirk spread across your lips as your eyes fluttered closed once more. You were prepared for your second attempt at a nap, the rain growing progressively louder beyond a light drizzle. You remembered seeing the swath of grey clouds stretched across the horizon like an impending doom when you’d opened your windows this morning. It seemed that they’d finally arrived to deliver their promise of a heavy downpour.

It wasn’t long before the hum of the rain became distorted by your amassing fatigue, sleep arriving hastily to claim what remnants of your consciousness remained. You had surrendered all control, so eager to melt into the peaceful expanse of black where you could leave behind your mortal pain. You’d barely been gifted half an hour of that haven before Negan’s voice tethered you and withdrew you from the dark breaches of your mind, your eyes flickering open. You hadn’t even even heard him enter the bedroom.

“Holdin’ up there, sweetheart?”

The second greeting of his presence came at the menacing outline of Lucille, remarkably propped along his broad shoulder as he idled a few steps from the foot of your bed. You drew a clumsy palm across your tired eyes, attempting to chase away the drowsiness that clung heavily to your lids.

“Did something get lost in translation?” You managed to say, your voice slightly abraded by grogginess.

“Not the warm greeting a man expects to hear from his wife after a long and shit-filled day,” Negan said with a sultry gruffness, moving to take up a seat beside your torso.

The mattress dipped beside you, prompting you to turn your head and glance at him. “I’m sure one of the other girls can pick up my slack,” you suggested bluntly.

Your disinterest only seemed to earn that all-knowing smirk from Negan. “Goddammit, woman, you’ve got balls,” he remarked though that wide grin, his head slightly cocked to properly glimpse your face. He lowered Lucille from his shoulder, his hands propping onto the hilt as he planted the bat against the ground and leaned his weight onto it. “And that’s exactly why you’re my favourite wife. Hell, you even got me to walk the extra mile just to come and see you.”

“Not on purpose,” you sighed dejectedly, your eyes wandering along the glinting folds of his leather jacket. He did look good in that jacket—not that you’d ever milk his ego by admitting it. “If Simon truly had the nerve to refer my answer, you’d know that coming here was a waste of time. You’re going to have to fill your blood quota elsewhere.”

“Ah, come on,” he drawled, his gaze unrelenting through those darn hypnotising eyes of his. “Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but ain’t a good poking of the colons a great way to relieve some of the pain?” He asked pointedly. “In other words, you ought to let me fuck those asshole cramps right outta you. What’s a little blood, anyways?”

At that statement, you couldn’t help the flit of your eyes toward Lucille, the object always so menacing even when benched on the sidelines. You dragged your attention back to Negan’s expectant expression with a beleaguered sigh. “I don’t care what you get off on, Negan,” you told him. “Have your bloody fill of it anywhere else, but not here. I said no, and I meant it.”

You half expected him to further knead at the angle he was currently working, eventually wearing you down to a state that could almost be called consent—what more could you expect from a sadistic, murderous fanatic? A sudden cramp displaced that particular trail of thought, causing you to discreetly tense your lower half, inside of your lip taken into bite as an instinctual coping mechanism.

Negan’s head tilted back slightly with a trace of a chuckle, his tongue then poking through to glide along his lower lip as he gazed at you through narrowly thoughtful eyes. “All right,” he relented—much to your surprise. Had somebody knocked Negan out cold on the way here and taken his place? “If you’re going to deny my very eager balls a pleasurable time, the least you can do is entertain me with a conversation.”

You challenged the weight of his stare—ever so flirtatious regardless of the circumstances. “You’ve literally enslaved an entire selection of women,” you pointed out crassly. “Go bother one of them instead.”

“Enslaved?” He repeated, his eyebrows perched on a look of incredulity. “I didn’t enslave any one of those women. I’m a fair man—I believe in free will and I always honour my word. I weigh the options, I offer a choice—” he lifted one hand to gesture to himself, “—and they made their choice.”

“After you coerced them,” you said around a thick yawn, blinking away the moisture along your eyes as you focused your growing alertness on him. You sat yourself up with a muffled grunt, ignoring the sharp pains that struck your stomach with the movements. “You’re not a democrat. You’re just a bully with an unhealthy attachment to a bat. It’s like Negan’s version of Bonnie and Clyde.”

Negan fixated you with a long look, his expression ever so unrelenting on what thoughts were passing through that tainted mind of his. “You’ve got an awful lotta spunk for somebody actin’ like she’s on her deathbed,” he deflected, a short moment of silence following shortly after. “What about you—girl who knows what she wants and doesn’t take shit from the next gapin’ asshole?”

“What about me?”

“Did I coerce you, too?” He inquired huskily, his eyes narrowing in an almost dare for you to answer honestly.

You hadn’t ever needed much convincing to speak your mind. “Absolutely,” you answered simply, then paused before adding, “have you honestly managed to convince yourself that either one of your wives want to be here?” Your head was slightly tilted out of sheer curiosity, amazed at how painfully naive he appeared to be—for once.

Negan’s lips were spread thin with a smirk, parting as he said, “I appreciate your honesty. Although I’d be lying if I said I ain’t a tad bit hurt.”

A severe cramp seized your stomach, causing you to throw your face into your pillow. “Oh, you don’t know hurt, Negan,” you groaned. “If you truly had the capacity to feel, please be so kind as to spare me your company so that I can rot away in peace.”

He straightened up from the Lucille’s prop, his expression becoming inquisitive. “All right, I’ll leave,” he eased off, attention dropping to his lap, where he carefully rested the bat and stroked suggestively at her barbwire-infused wooden length. “And I guess I’ll be takin’ these with me,” he added, one hand dipping into his leather jacket to pull out a small, plastic cylinder labelled ibuprofen.

Your eyes practically bulged at the offering. Pain medication was strictly reserved for post-surgical cases and the physically wounded—those marred by gunshot wounds, blades, or even brute fists—you name it. That was Negan’s self-imposed rule. In this dying world, pain medication certainly wasn’t a medical luxury extended to lesser problems like a woman’s period pains—despite the entire gender technically being a victim of the repeated assault of severe period cramps. For at least a week of every month. For at least five decades of their lives.

“The fuck?” You murmured, hand reaching for the medication as though needing to feel it’s physical form to believe it’s existence.

Negan plucked it out of reach with a shit-eating grin. “You want it?” He taunted, propping his elbow onto his knee as he rattled the container between his fingers.

Your hand hesitated mid-air, expression becoming bleary as you hesitantly asked, “what’s it gonna cost me?”

“Question of the century,” he answered vaguely, intense stare beating down on you. He looked almost scheming, and that wasn’t a strange mask to wear—not for Negan Smith. But for once, his actions surprised you in a way that wasn’t coupled by repulsion. “Y’know, you’re a pain in my ass, ‘cause I can’t help but have a soft spot for girls like you—all feisty and opinionated and sure as hell ready to give my big balls a real good talking to.” The hand which clutched the medication gravitated toward you, offering it up without the tether of debt. “On the house, since I’m the boss man around here callin’ all the big, bloody shots.”

Your eyes narrowed cautiously, your hand slowly reaching to acquire your personal saving grace. You half expected Negan to yank it away as a feat of ridicule, but his hand remained steadfast, his expression eerily intense as he overlooked your internal war with a light undertone of amusement quirking the corner of his lips.

“Ya want it, or not?”

You took it from his grasp, bringing it closer to examine the legitimacy of the label. “I’m the only thorn in your foot because everybody else is scared of you,” you said distractedly, eyes then flickering from the medication to meet his idling stare.

Negan adjusted his torso to appear taller, Lucille slipping between his thighs to prod the floor under his guiding grip. “But not you,” he reaffirmed.

“I used to be.”

“Yeah?” He husked, eyes narrowed interestedly, tongue momentarily poking through his grin—as it so often did. “The hell’s changed? Real world toughen you up? Ya got a pair o’ steel down there now?”

You brushed aside his snark. “Nothing’s changed, really,” you admitted, attention drifting as you popped open the lid of the container. “But I’ve got nothing left to lose, and the worst you could do is make jam out of my brains.” You dispensed a tablet into your palm, then clicked the lid closed. “But you won’t,” you stated, meeting his gaze boldly.

Negan’s head tilted with a far too entertained air. “Why’s that?”

“Same reason you’re here. I’m your favourite wife, apparently—and what’s a man like you to do without his wife? You might just implode without a place to stick it,” you jabbed. “I’m always the one you come running to with all your shit—god knows why.”

“I gotta say, that’s mighty cocky of you,” he drawled through a grin, hand moving to whisk across his bearded jaw. “And that’s comin’ from me.”

You offered him the ibuprofen, a ghost of a cheeky-lipped grin setting in. “Force of habit when I’m obliged to be at your side every other hour of the day. Honestly, you only have yourself to blame.”

His grin widened, eyes leering you over before dipping to the container you re-offered him. “Nah,” he murmured. “Keep it. And not a word ‘bout it—I ain’t got time for ants up my ass when the other gals get wind of the shit I ain’t doin’ for them.”

“That supposed to make me feel special?” You jested. “Or just a threat?”

Negan’s lip hitched with a smirk—silent ambiguity, and reached a hand into his pocket to procure a fresh orange, bottled water and a packet of chips—your favourite chips. “That shit’ll put ya in a grave on an empty stomach,” he averted, chin jutting to the pill in your palm. He leaned over to place the snacks on the bedside table, offering you a sidelong glance. “I know your panties get all hot for this stale sack of shit,” he said, beckoning to your chips, then added, “and the orange will keep up that energy of yours—y’know, boost the spirit and fuel that friskiness o’ yours.”

You scowled indignantly as he took a swipe at your taste in chips. “Those aren’t my favourite chips,” you lied defensively, moving to place the pill beside your newly acquired snacks. “It’s practically the only brand that’s left in the midst of this dying world—so none of us can afford to be picky, can we?”

Honestly, you’d have to admit it to yourself that the chips being spared even in the midst of the apocalypse didn’t bode well for your case, but why go down without a meaningless fight?

Negan chuckled all-knowingly, settling Lucille onto the ground before he leaned his elbow onto the mattress beside you and brought his lips into the proximity of your face. “Tasteless or not, I’m willin’ to bet my dick that you’ll be back asking for more,” he murmured, hazel eyes glazed with that bedroom sex-haze as he delicately searched between your eyes.

Your attention flickered between him and the flashy, grit teeth poking through the lips you’d tasted countless times, his words so open-ended for interpretation—because Negan Smith loved playing games. “Are we still talking about the chips?” You asked softly, eyebrow hitched expectantly.

“We can talk about whatever you goddamn want,” he grumbled huskily, lips making an advance for yours, but you brought your hand up to press an index finger into the divot of his chin.

“I told you,” you began, “not happening—not today. So, off you scamper to the next wife for a good tickle.”

“Cut that crap,” Negan chided levelly, then reached for your hand and pried it from his chin. “The others can wait, let’s just get you up and runnin’ because it’s been a goddamn buzzkill on my dick.”

“Oh, how terrible for you,” you sniped, brows furrowing at his nerve.

He seized your hand in a tight grip to place a kiss to your knuckles, his eyes narrowed around an intense gaze as he maintained eye contact throughout the gesture. You fought the urge to yank your hand free out of spite. Once his lips retracted from your skin, he tucked your hand between your bodies as he leant down to place a kiss on your forehead instead. It was a rather gentle touch—the most intimate one he’s ever bestowed on you, but it didn’t linger long before he pulled back and released your hand.

“Jesus, burnin’ up all for me?” He remarked, pressing the backside of his fingers to your forehead before they caressed the expanse and moved to push back the loose strands of hair that cascaded around your view. “You’re hot as shit.”

“I am, thank you,” you said suggestively, adding more earnestly, “it happens sometimes—I think my body is literally trying to kill me.”

He pulled back his hand from your hair, finger trailing down the angle of your jaw before he withdrew his touch entirely. “Yeah, well, you’re tough as nails, so tell the biological bitch to dial it down a notch.”

“Duly noted,” you murmured, reaching for the orange atop the bedside stand, your attention deliberately downturned to the fruit in clutch as you began to peel it while simultaneously reflecting on the situation presented before you.

You were thankful for the medication, but it felt odd to hold a sense of gratitude for a man like Negan, and you had not the slightest idea on how to handle the foreign phenomenon. Even a month ago, when he’d quite literally plucked you from death’s claws, there was no gratitude to behold—his motives in sparing you had always been selfish. But this instance? This was an action you thought beyond his emotional capacity.

You’d thought his better conscious had been so far lost to a history of bad and reckless decisions that there was not a slither of DNA left still capable of holding regard for others—but this act of his prompted you to reconsider that notion. After all, he owed you nothing, and you owed him everything, yet it was him that had come to settle.

A manipulative tactic? Possibly. You weren’t all that naive to allow this instance alone to so easily sway your opinion on him. He was still of questionable character—and that moral debate could ricochet for an endless amount of hours.

You spared yourself the turmoil and brought yourself to it, lifting your head to meet his stare once more. He’d been watching you enigmatically, without his usual running commentary to fill the void—it felt uncomfortable to have a silence so long settle between the two of you.

You decided to settle for a simple, “thanks, by the way,” as you set aside the discarded orange peels and began to thumb at the centre to separate the slices. “For the medication,” you clarified, popping a slice into your mouth. The first bite was an explosion of sultry sweetness, a true pleasure to behold.

Negan gave somewhat of an accomplished smirk. “I got ya,” he answered, his gaze lingering incoherently on you before he blinked away the haze and straightened himself from the bed with a grunt. “Take a hot bath—” he suggested, hoisting up Lucille from her position on the ground, “—hopefully that Lady Uterus o’ yours will let loose for a bit.”

He strung the bat across his shoulder—the rightful queen atop her throne, and turned to begin his amble toward the door.

“Are you going to draw it for me?” You asked him hopefully, which made him halt and partially turn his torso to face you.

He gave a half-hearted chuckle. “What’re you, ten?” He jested.

“If only,” you retorted wistfully. “The only stomach ache ten year old me ever got was because of one too many bags of chips.” You caught yourself at the mention of chips, then felt the need to clarify, “the good kind, not these ones.”

Negan lips spread with amusement. “What a goddamn time to be alive,” he stated.

“I’ll say,” you murmured, then turned your attention back to your diminishing orange. “Anyway, if you’re done bothering me now, I’ll draw that bath.”

“Damn, I stick my neck out for you and I don’t even get to stay for the show?”

“You’re always getting a show,” you retorted. “Let a girl have some alone time, for once. Besides, there’s no such thing as you sticking your neck out, seeing as you’re the one usually holding the guillotine.”

Negan chuckled, his eyes holding a mischievous glint. “Touché,” was all he offered. “I’ll draw you that bath.”

You perked with surprise, the last orange slice popped between your lips. “Only enough water for one,” you mumbled around the sweet, stringy flesh, brows lifted with implication. “Just in case you were getting any ideas.”

“Oh, I got ideas,” he hummed, scheming grin on his lips. “The meds I got ya? On the house. This? This’ll cost ya a little something. And once you’re feeling right as rain, I’ll come and collect.”

You gave a slight flicker of your eyes. “Okay, tax man,” you said, reaching for the bottled water and pill. “Whatever Negan wants.”

“Atta girl,” he praised, hand raised to point an index finger in your direction. “Now you’re startin’ to sound like a commendable wife—almost enough to make good ol’ Lucille here jealous.”

“Leave your weird bat out of this,” you said before splitting open the seam of the sealed bottle and taking an eager swig at the liquid. You popped the pill into your mouth shortly after and gave a hard swallow, your expression furrowing in disgust when it momentarily lodged itself against your tongue with the kiss of a bitter tang. After another gulp of water, it slid down uninterrupted.

“Somebody’s parched,” Negan remarked. “Never seen you take my seed that eagerly.”

You gave him a hearty middle finger, to which he scoffed amusedly and disappeared a short distance into your offside en-suite. “How hot?” He called back to you. “Three quarters to the hottest?”

“Sounds right,” you called back to him. “And add the bath oils, too!”

“Useless shit.”

“Let a girl indulge, for fuck’s sake,” you muttered, settling against the mattress while you listened to the sound of the drawing bath. You noted the calm of the weather beyond the window, where a barely perceptible drizzle thrummed down gently.

It wasn’t long before Negan reappeared at your side, Lucille carefully discarded onto the foot of the bed before he inched his way onto the mattress and you felt his frame curl around your backside. Heat radiated from his body and flushed your back with a sense of comfort, his lips then finding the nape of your neck. He pressed a kiss there, his hand gently curling around your abdomen, as though he knew to take precaution around your sensitive area.

You shifted your neck away from his teasing lips, casting him a glance over your shoulder. “Why are you doing this?” You felt compelled to ask—this tender facade of his was disconcerting.

Negan’s held your stare levelly. “You’re my wife,” he stated simply. “A real man takes care of his wife.”

“Yeah, but that’s not real,” you said. “None of this is real—it’s all a made up, a twisted way for you to pass time. Us wives? We’re nothing but entertainment to you—so why all this effort?”

There was a brief pause from his side before he answered you with a sense of solemnity that you’d never truly seen him possess. “I said I’d take care of you, didn’t I?” He asked. “Hell, I know what desperation feels like. She’s a stone cold bitch, and you were nothin’ more than a husk of a person when we picked you up in those woods. You’re a fighter—death ain’t got a fuckin’ lead on you. I mean, shit, that deserves some respect—and I give that only where it’s due. So, call it respect, call it whatever you’d like, but just take the goddamn win, won’t ya?”

You listened intently, an emotion of something other than annoyance settling within your chest at his somewhat glorified image of you. For the first time ever, you didn’t know how to respond. It was easy to strike back when most of the conversation shared between the two of you was shallow, bitter banter, but as of this moment, this situation-ship was starting to feel as though the foundation was being built on something other than debt, and that thought was daunting.

“Bath should be drawn by now,” you said eventually, settling your head back into the pillow, glad to displace the view of Negan’s face.

The hand at your abdomen slid away as he lifted himself up with a grunt of effort. “Then you best go and dip your toes,” he said.

You took a moment to heave a breath before rolling over and sitting yourself up from the bed, to which Negan stepped a pace back to allow you the room to stand up. You straightened from the mattress that had held you captive for the entirety of the morning, offering Negan a long stare, who returned it with a grin that felt as though your thoughts were transparent to him.

You shouldn’t, but you wanted to. Fuck it, you would—you’d said it yourself, nothing left to lose, right? You brushed past him and hoisted a beckoning hand over your shoulder, followed by a sparse, cheeky glance.

“Come with me,” you told him.

“I like the sound of that,” Negan chuckled, trailing after you with a confident charisma. “Looks like I’m gettin’ that show after all.”

“Shut up about it.”

═════════════════

Thank you for reading! All likes & reblogs are deeply appreciated ᡣ𐭩ྀིྀིྀི

Tags: @bohemianblasphemy @violent-darkness @gibson-g1rl

[kestrel-of-herran]

the gemma discourse lately...... yes she shouldn't die to further the markhelly agenda. that's idiotic storytelling. no self-respecting writer will assassinate a character like that. that's why i can't understand why some viewers think this is the route the finale will take, given the quality of the writing and the thought put into every choice so far. it would invalidate her autonomy by giving lumon license to dispose of her after torturing her, and would problematize the other relationship in a way that would drive viewers away. it's simply not going to happen.

don't you think it's ridiculously predictable if we're told multiple times that cold harbor is meant to kill her and then she does die??? wouldn't that be an incredible let-down from a plot perspective as well?

what the "gemma dying for markhelly is racist" (won't happen) discourse misses entirely is that markgemma driving off into the sunset after lumon ruined their lives absolves mark of his own actions in severing himself in a way that's narratively deus ex machina. this is the biggest conflict of the finale, not markhelly vs. markgemma but outie mark vs. innie mark.

can you create your own little slave to forget your pain for you and lock him in a torture labyrinth (mark s. and gemma are both held against their will) until he's no longer of service to you, take all the help he can give you and then murder him? i think the show needs to be explicit on this point, but it's obvious that reintegration is a long process that won't be completed until the two marks are completely aligned in terms of goals and emotions, e.g. until either mark s. is in love with gemma and wants to leave with her too, or mark scout is in love with hellyna and want to help her take lumon down. either of these options needs more development to be realized, which is what we have more seasons for, but in the finale the first step towards that synchronization will likely be taken. there will be a change of mind, a change of heart, a change of perspective for one of the marks that will be instrumental in deciding the next direction of the plot.

the marks aren't one yet -- there's the alcoholic widower desperate to rescue his wife, and the newborn prisoner trying to grasp happiness despite his limited existance. we haven't been told what memories they share, we haven't seen how they feel about them, so it's premature to declare gemma the obvious choice because we don't know how innie mark feels about that.

but it's also incredibly frustrating that so many people see this as a binary in which gemma either lives/leaves with mark or dies in lumon. i'm convinced mark and helly will get gemma out of lumon, no matter which version of the marks is active, because neither mark nor helly would perpetuate her suffering. hell, helly's memorizing the map to the elevator as we speak.

but whether either of the marks will choose to leave helly alone in lumon is the real dilemma here. there's really no choice to be made about gemma surviving -- she has to live through this or the writers risk upsetting the morality of the narrative in a way that would invalidate the human rights angle of the story.

but it is that same human rights angle that applies to the markhelly problem as well. can you create a person to give yourself "emotional convenience", then have him fall in love with another person's "pr stunt solution", and kill him after using him? can you meet helly -- with all her fire, all her fearless fight for life -- and say she's better off killing herself so you can go and live your full existance, an existance she's barely been granted a taste of? is that ethical?

[foone]

Your best guess is that you've been in this time loop for something north of 15 years. You've lived that day, April 9th, 1997, something like 6000 times. You think... The second most ironic thing about being in this time loop* is that you have ADHD, and time blindness has always been something you've suffered with.

The time loop hasn't helped. You'll really get into a book, and don't look up from it until it's yesterday. Or, earlier today? Or tomorrow, it's all the same day. You wake up in your bed at 8:27, having slept through your alarm, no matter what happens. You've had plenty of time to do all the classic time loop things: told everyone (they forget the next day), kissed everyone (a surprising number of people turn out to be up for itl), tried to run (you made it all the way to Memphis one day, but it didn't make any difference), tried to make everything perfect and right (harder than you'd think, and there's nothing obvious that needs fixing), and gotten yourself exploded and shot and run over. You even made it into orbit once, NASA still swearing at you on the radio the whole way up. You've robbed all the local banks, kidnapped the mayor, and stolen half the stuff in the town, just to see what people have. Why not? It's hard to have a sense of morality when there are no repercussions to any actions, at least none that last more than 24 hours.

You convinced a scientist to shoot neutrinos at you once, thanks to something you'd read in a book on time. Didn't seem to make any difference, though you could swear the next day felt different, in some hard to define way.

You've gotten into a rhythm of starting each day and just walking out your front door, to visit a different place in the city, and knock on their door. If they're home, you ask questions, then use the answers next time to get further. If not, you let yourself in and see what their house looks like from the inside.

Even their shocking crimes no longer can shock you. Mr. Stevens is a burgler, Jenny J. is halfway through murdering her husband, Alex over on 5th street has a basement full of photos they shouldn't have, and more neighbors than you'd think are cooking meth or growing cannabis in their little backyard sheds or closets.

You can go to the police, you can confront them, you can explose them, or you can get a weapon and go all vigilante on them... It doesn't matter in the long run (and for you, the long run is very short indeed). They'll be fine the next morning, back at it again like nothing happened.

You wake up that same Wednesday morning, put on some clothes, and walk out the door. You got into a gimmick of crossing the road with your eyes closed: you know where the cars are, and if you keep the same pace, they definitely won't hit you. Besides, if you do, you wake up back in your bed. Big woop.

But you don't make it to the road this time. You trip, falling on the hard concrete of the sidewalk. What the hell? Your arms ache from catching yourself, and you have to suppress the time-looper instinct of "I hurt. Restart the loop!",at least until you figure out what happened.

You look back and there's a sneaker sitting on the sidewalk. A perfectly normal shoe, just a little skuffed up. A bit down the sidewalk, there's another, the other foot presumably.

You have a moment of equal parts panic and elation. You're out of the loop? You're out of the loop! This might be Thursday.

You gather yourself from the sidewalk and run back up the path to your door. You open the newspaper... April 9th. This is still the same day. You look back at the road, seeing the patterns of crossing cars you've seen thousands of times before. You listen, and your neighborhood sounds right. You can hear Timothy down the road yelling about baseball, so it's not 9:14 yet.

This isn't a new day. This is the day. This is your day. So why is something different? What, a partial time loop? And almost time loop? Most things are the same, but not all? It makes no sense.

You hear yelling down the road. You jog towards it, as an out of place sound just doesn't happen in your day. Around the corner there's a police officer shouting at a woman who is rapidly disrobing and flinging her discarded clothes at the officer, who is shouting at her and his radio. So far, she seems to be winning, but she's about out of linen ammunition.

You realize you don't recognize her. She's not one of the people you know, and you know everyone. She's someone new, the very anthesis of what a time loop is about. That, combined with recognizing that charicatistic disdain for consequences makes you gasp. My God... She's another time looper. She's done this day before, and it's just repeated, and now she's doing everything to see what happens. You're not alone in this crowded city anymore! You run towards her, eager to introduce yourself.

* Themost ironic thing about being in this time loop is that every copy of Groundhog Day at your local Blockbuster is checked out.

[nnight-dances]

ADORABLY, YOURS.

pairings: yoon jeonghan x fem!reader, feat. choi seungcheol tropes: love triangle, friends to lovers (jeonghan x you), strangers to friends to fwb to friends (seungcheol x you), kinda slowburn, one-sided love (or is it?), pining, slight age gap (2-3 years) etc. genres: fluff, angst, jealousy, sexual content (no explicit smut content but references to it) with vulgar language, cafe!au, non-idol!au, college!au. word count: 12k (I am sorry about this.) what to expect:  You’ve liked Jeonghan since you met him through your best friend, Wonwoo. But little by little every day you’re convinced he knows you like him and his non-action can only mean your feelings are not mutual. Then, you run into Seungcheol, a childhood best friend of Jeonghan’s, who instantly develops a soft spot for you. The resulting love triangle that wreaks havoc on your emotions might as well end being the answer to your problems. Bittersweet like coffee but decisive as a caffeine rush, this is the story of how you beat all odds to be with Yoon Jeonghan.  warnings slash author’s note: I warn you beforehand: the logistics of this love triangle are a bit morally ambiguous, i.e. I can’t tell if I used Seungcheol purely as a plot-point or not. I probably did. But in my defense, I think all love triangles are inherently a little bit evil and cruel. Anyway, I really hope you enjoy this admittedly self-indulgent mammoth of a fic. I had a headache the whole three days I was writing it. I love Jeonghan and I promise there will be a make-up fic for Seungcheol, because I’m biased but not corrupt. As always, this isn't proofread but I will get to that in the next few days! All right, that’s all. Love you, friends and foes!

It’s one of those days. You can’t help yawn after yawn and no amount of caffeine is washing the throbbing in your head away. To make things worse, you’ve managed to sleep with a spine posture worse than even your worst days which means your back hurts from standing at the register all day. But the day is far from over as a glance at the clock informs you; your cafe shift has a good three hours remaining. 

And whenever you’re hoping to take a break on the uncomfortable chair propped in a corner near the register, the door to the cafe will jingle with the presence of a new customer. At least your co-worker for the day, Joshua, is also a friend so you can talk his ear off about the various ways in which you might escape the prison of existence.

Just as you’re going into detail about how you wouldn’t mind dissipating into air, the glass door swings open and in comes a tall man clad in a suit, the heels of his dress shoes clanking against the floor of the coffee shop. You reign in the surprised look that threatens to overtake your face – because goddamn, the man is gorgeous – as you greet him, “Good morning! Welcome to Moon Coffee!” 

“Good afternoon to you, too,” the man corrects you with a dimpled smile. You wince at your mistake and nod, “Right, sorry about that. What can I get started for you?” You force a smile that you hope is friendly enough onto your face, gesturing to the large menu boards above you, “Please, take your time.” 

As the man busies his eyes with the plentiful options displayed on the boards, you busy yourself with questioning what a fancy ass man like him was doing at the campus coffee shop. His hair was long, brown ends curling around his neck and as he ran a hand through it, deep in thought, you could essentially smell how rich he was. 

“The hazelnut mocha sounds like it’s good but also really sweet,” he comments, looking at you for a second opinion. 

“Right, it’s one of our best-sellers! And it is on the sweeter side because of the chocolate in it, but you could balance it out with a double-shot?” you suggest and then, “Otherwise, our classic mochas are not as sweet.” 

The man nods with a slight smile, “Hmm, I like the sound of the first option. I’ll have that, please.” 

“Is that an iced hazelnut mocha with a double-shot for you?” you ask with a smile. When he nods, you punch in his order, “Can I get a name for the drink?”

“Seungcheol.”

“All right, thank you very much. That’ll take just a few minutes. You’re welcome to take a seat and wait.” He nods as he walks to one of the tables next to the window.

Joshua’s already getting to work with Seungcheol’s drink and you take a moment to rest your back against the counter, throwing a glance or two at the new (and gorgeous) face in town. But thankfully for this rich stranger, today is the day you don’t have the energy to go down a rabbit hole trying to find an explanation for his presence. Instead you wave him a good day as he leaves with a satisfied smile on his face and an iced mocha in his hand. 

Maybe this job wasn’t so bad after all. 

A week later has you eating your words. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Thursday afternoons are the busiest times of your shift at Moon Coffee. Most students were either rushing to down caffeine to finish some daunting assignment due at the end of the week or otherwise, others would be early in celebrating the fast-approaching weekend. The first kind you can deal with: they’re easy to relate to and they don’t really care if your customer service is the bare minimum from how tired you are. 

But the second kind? You wish you could be granted with some kind of powers that would take away any more weekends from the rest of their lives. If the way they strolled in grinning and took their time with the menu didn’t have you fuming, their inane but obnoxious questions about your life would have you at the edge of your temper every week. You were only thankful you didn’t have to work the Friday crowds or you’d actually be declared a public threat. 

But today, unfortunately for you, Jeonghan’s decided to make a visit to the cafe and if the fact that he’s not even a student anymore wasn’t enough, he was celebrating his birthday week. Which meant he was even worse than in exhibiting his usual infuriating customer behavior. But annoying customer or not, Jeonghan was also the guy you’ve harbored feelings for since two years ago now. 

So when he strolls up to the counter with Seungcheol, the polite rich man from last week, by his side, you have more than one reason to stare at them dumbfounded. 

“Oh, hey, it’s you!” Seungcheol starts, eyes trailing to the name on your tag, “Y/N!”

Jeonghan shoots you a confused look and then elbows Seunghceol, “Don’t even pretend that you know her. I totally caught you looking at her name tag. Have a little shame, Cheol.”

You clear your throat, “Um, good afternoon and welcome to Moon Coffee! What can I get started for you?” You punctuate the question with a smile that you hope screams please order fast and get out of here! 

But Jeonghan evidently has long missed the memo when he pokes Seungcheol again, “You know sometimes I come here just so I can see Y/N smiling. She never smiles off the clock. It’s truly devastating.” 

Seungcheol looks amused, “Is that so? I mean, fair enough. With a smile like that, you ought to be paid to show it.”

You cough into your palm, caught off-guard but quick to conceal the shy grin that’s crept up your face. You pray that the heat in your neck doesn’t climb up to show on your face. “Will you be ordering the same as last week? Iced hazelnut mocha with a double-shot?”

Seungcheol’s face lights up a little at your recognition but Jeonghan’s quickly butting in with an affronted expression, “Oh, so you recognize this man who’s been here once, but not your close friend of a long long time? Do you even know how much money I’ve spent on the seasonal lattes here?”

You sport a sly smile, “Right, thank you for enjoying our seasonal menu of beverages. We hope you continue to love the upcoming drinks. Feel free to leave any feedback or suggestions here!” You hand him a brand-new index card and gesture at a drop-box next to your monitor.

Seungcheol cackles at the defeated look on Jeonghan’s face and grins as he says, “You know what, I think I’ll get the same mocha again, Y/N. It did wonders for my mood.” You find yourself grinning almost immediately, tapping in his order with a hum. 

“And for you?” 

“...”

You know Jeonghan’s scheming something but you can’t afford to let him play out whatever sick mind games he’s planned out at your workplace so you’re quick to appease him, “If I might, I suggest you go for the salted caramel brownie latte. It’s perfect for this weather and it tastes suspiciously like birthday cake.” 

Jeonghan can’t help a smile at your words, rolling his eyes a little, “Fine. That does sound tempting. I’ll have one of those, but only if I get a personalized note from you wishing me a very very happy birthday.” 

You contain a scoff, “Of course.” You nod, “Thankfully for the line behind you, I already have your names down. Please step aside while we prepare your drinks. Thank you.” 

– 

“She’s hilarious,” chuckles Seungcheol, bumping shoulders with Jeonghan as they settle into his car. “Didn’t think I would witness Yoon Jeonghan’s downfall in a random college cafe.”

Jeonghan scoffs, “I think you’re too happy about this. Plus, my downfall started a long time ago when I stopped cheating in board games.” He takes a sip of his latte, “Fuck, this does taste like cake. What the fuck?”

Despite his words, Jeonghan smiles when he sees the note you promised him:

jeonghan – happy birthday week, u weird old man! please invite me to ur birthday party so i can give u the best gift of ur life and maybe also stick ur head in cake :) lots of love, y/n. 

“She’s in her senior year, you said?”

Jeonghan looks up with a nod, “Yeah, I met her through Wonwoo, back when we shared a class in college. And then when I graduated and settled here, I’d invite them to get-togethers because I know how miserable the nightlife on this campus is.” 

“Wow, look at you, such an admirable role model,” Seungcheol jokes, “And Wonwoo? Was he the glasses guy who you FaceTimed this morning? He seemed… cool, I guess.”

Jeonghan shrugs with a shoulder, “He’s a piece of work, alright. But that explains why he and Y/N are inseparable. Anyway, you’ll meet the rest of the crew later tonight. Thursday night is board game night.” 

‘Board Game Night’ was a very, very loose term for the weekly gathering at Jeonghan’s place – it was a mix of Jeonghan’s friends, namely Dokyeom and Woozi, from work doing karaoke, his tired college friends (aka your friend group) lounging around on their phones, and maybe a group of two to three actually playing board games. 

Tonight is slightly different, though, because the alcohol that Jeonghan otherwise wisely guards most weeks has made its presence known to everyone, the fancy bar table propped in a corner of his living room finally finding meaning. 

You make it to his place, around thirty minutes past the usual starting time, exhausted from another soul-sucking shift at your job. You’d planned to sit on Jeonghan’s couch and binge-watch some mindless TV show but you’re thrown off when a reddened Seungcheol answers the door. 

“Y/N! You’re late,” he exclaims. His speech is normal, thankfully but as you step in to take in the rest of the people, you look back at Seungcheol, eyes doubtful. 

“I did not know my night was going to involve babysitting a bunch of drunk old men,” you mutter, not quite meaning for Seungcheol to catch your words. But he does and chuckles, hand at your elbow as he steers you to the bar. 

“C’mon, you don’t have to babysit anyone. I’ve got it under control. Now, let me pour you a drink. What can I get for you?” 

You watch the tall man with a skeptical smile, a little flustered because he’s standing close enough that you can feel him hard bicep against you and a little bit amused because well, this was new. It’d been a while since you’d been flustered around a man other than Yoon Jeonghan. 

“Oh, so you’re making me a drink now?” you ask, “How did you even convince Jeonghan to let out the alcohol? You must have some special powers over him for this to happen.” 

Before Seungcheol can supply a reason, Jeonghan appears behind the bar counter, smirking, “Ha! You think I’d let this coward dictate my actions? Nope, this was completely my decision. I couldn’t let the week of my birthday be dry! That’d be such a shame.” 

“You’re funny, Han,” you mumble, turning to him with a quirked brow, “How many drinks are you down?” 

He waves your concern away, “Shut up. I’m older than you, I don’t need you fussing after me. Now, get yourself a drink before I get mad.”

You raise your hands in surrender, “Sure, wouldn’t want the birthday boy to be made at me.”

“So what will it be? Do you want a beer? Or maybe a good old rum and coke?” Seungcheol offers, eyes already searching for the ingredients. 

You narrow your eyes at him, “I think I’ll have a Scotch and Soda, please.” 

A few hours later finds you sprawled on Jeonghan’s couch, nevermind the alcohol in your system and the ruckus your friends were creating. You had engaged with their antics for an hour: playing stupid drinking games (only to get drunker by the minute because you suck at games) and retiring early. 

Jun starts to complain when you announce that you’re giving up, mainly because he’d be the next target of the crowd, but Jeonghan firmly leads you to the couch. 

“You okay?” he asks you, warm fingers steadying you by the neck. Your world spins as he becomes the focus, ironically enough. You nod as you welcome the soft couch underneath your unsteady body, “Hmm. I’m just bummed out that you didn’t help me out by cheating.” 

He laughs and the sound unsettles you with its vibrations. “I told you I don’t cheat anymore, silly. Also, I’m pretty sure you’d have lost even if I did pull out some master cheating moves.” You gasp, weakly pushing him away, “Whatever, man, I don’t need your attitude.” 

If Jeonghan’s started to genuinely get worried about you, it only gets worse when you cough into your elbow, groaning as you pull away. His hands find your neck again. You hate his touch because you lean into it so naturally, your eyes following him just like he wants. You hate the warm feeling you feel when he feels your forehead with a concerned frown. You hate how you’re practically burning at his touch because he’s a breath away and your fingers twitch in your lap from wanting to touch his hair. 

But soft like the strands that tickle your ear, Jeonghan whispers, “God, you’re burning up. Maybe you did drink too much. Fuck, let me bring you some water and then, let’s get you to sleep.”

You protest his lamely sensible plan of action but he isn’t listening as he departs, leaving you feeling cold. You wrap your arms around yourself to compensate, trying to keep an eye on Jeonghan when another tall figure encroaches your field of vision.

“Y/N?” Seungcheol calls out and for a moment, you’re unresponsive, eyes fixated on something beyond him but then you perk up in recognition, pouting as you beckon him to the couch. 

“You–!” you point at him with a squint, head working hard to recall his name, “Um, um, Cheol?” 

Seungcheol smiles at the nickname, taking a seat next to you, leaving some space but extending an arm behind you because of how you’re dangerously swinging. “Right, that is me. How are you feeling? Not too nauseous I hope?”

You shake your head, “”M fine. But tell that to Han because that weasel’s trying to make me sober up and sleep.” You breathe out a little angrily and then when the world swims around you, you lean your head against the back of the couch– that is currently occupied by Seuncheol’s arm. 

He jumps a little at the unexpected contact but steadies himself when he sees your closed eyes, your skin hot against his forearm. “Now, why would he do that? You literally just got drunk,” he tells you, trying to keep you engaged in the conversation, lest you should pass out. 

“Right?” you exclaim, opening your eyes, head still against his arm, “It’s like he’s never had fun in his life. For how much he likes to tease people, he sure is a killjoy.” 

“Ha, I’m surprised you know him so well, honestly. People usually just take him at face value and think he’s a devilish troublemaker. But god knows how mature Jeonghan is. It makes me mad sometimes.”

You giggle and Seungcheol’s stomach swims at how he can feel the sweet sound in his veins, like literally. “You get me, dude. How long have you known him?”

“Um, like, nearly ten years now? I don’t know, I kinda lost count at some point.” 

“Wow, that’s a long time. I’ve known him for like two years?” you hum. “Yeah, he told me.” 

You quirk a brow at that, lifting your head up in amusement. “You two been talking about me? What did he say? That I’m Wonwoo’s evil twin?” 

“Hmm, yeah, something along the lines of that.” 

Jeonghan’s back by your side, suddenly, his strong grip straightening you up and holding up a glass of water. His expression is stoic as hell for a board game night and you don’t know if you feel scolded or cared for. It’s always hard to tell with him. 

You stare at him blankly, not drinking the water like he wants you to. Instead you turn to Seungcheol, “I don’t want to.” 

Your plea is unreasonable, you and Seungcheol both know, and he can practically feel Jeonghan’s glare when you ask Seungcheol, “Cheol, can you tell him I’m not dying? I don’t need to be babied.” 

“Yeah, you do,” Jeonghan says, touching the cold glass against your skin. You jump a little with a soft unfair! and Seungcheol sighs, “Hannie, let her be. I don’t think she wants to go to sleep yet.” 

“Thank you! At least someone has ears ‘round here!” 

Jeonghan shoots his best friend an unreadable look, still firm, “Well, she needs to drink water either way. Unless someone wants the worst hangover of their life the next morning.” This time, his unoccupied hand finds the back of your head, settling into the stray strands of your hair there. “Please, just drink this.”

You find yourself giving in, lips opening up to the glass and you swallow a few gulps of water, the cold liquid soothing your insides. Before you know it, the glass is empty. He holds it up in front of you, “See? That felt nice, didn’t it?”

There it is, again. The playful glint in his eye and the sly tone of his voice. You ignore the burning tips of your ears and give him a half-nod, throwing yourself against the couch again with a relieved sigh. “Thanks, old man! What would I do without you?” 

Jeonghan rolls his eyes as he stands up, “Ever so grateful, Y/N.”

“Y’know, Cheol and I were in the middle of a very mind-opening discussion about you.”

“Me?” his interest is piqued and he glances at Seungcheol, who he jostles lightly, “What’ve you been, shit-talking me?” 

Seungcheol laughs as he throws the man off, “Wouldn’t you like to know? Anyway, if you want to go back to your game, I have a lot of anecdotes to share with Y/N. It’s our bonding time.”

And bond, you do. You spend the rest of the night talking to Seungcheol on Jeonghan’s couch, the owner of the place long forgotten as you go on to talk about everything else: college experiences, Seungcheol’s job (“So how rich are you exactly?” you grill him), and life interests. 

“I can’t believe you like college so much! I hated it a lot back in my time.” 

You snort, “You sound really old for someone who graduated two years ago. But I mean, each to their own. I prefer the comfort of the bubble here, you know. No real responsibility most of the time and you’re allowed to make some mistakes now and then. The real world? That’s like hell. I don’t think I’m ever going to feel like an adequate adult ever. Like, tax fraud is real, you know? And I never know which law I’m going to break? Don’t even get me started about the living situation.” 

Seungcheol laughs throughout your troubled rant, “No, I get it. But don’t you feel excited about the independence you get to have? The freedom? And plus, if you get lucky with your job, working is actually very fulfilling.”

“Ugh,” you throw your head against the back of the couch again, “I don’t think I’ll ever feel fulfilled. Like ever. I feel too immature to be anything but a college student.”

He frowns on hearing that, confused because he’d never imagined of spending a whole night talking his heart out to a college student. But it happened because it was you, with your quick-witted responses and thoughtful questions. So, he’s fast to counter, “That’s not true–”

But his defense is cut short when Wonwoo approaches you, tapping at your shoulder with a smile. “Hey, you wanna head back?” You look up and are shocked to find the living room nearly emptied of its earlier occupants. When did everyone leave? “C’mon, I’ll walk you to your room. It’s getting late,” Wonwoo continues. 

“Oh, damn, I didn’t even realize,” Seungcheol mutters, looking down at the watch on his wrist. “You guys sure you want to head back this late? You could just crash here. I would offer to drive but I drank.” 

Wonwoo’s eyes trail to you, leaving the decision up to you. You mull it over, “I don’t know if Han’s gonna want a bunch of wasted kids at his place?” 

As if you’d summoned him, Jeonghan appears beside Seungcheol with a yawn, “What’s this about me? Why’re you guys still up? Come on, let me show you to the empty rooms and please go to sleep before I have to use force.” 

Wonwoo laughs, “He didn’t even leave us a choice,” and you watch as Jeonghan turns around, expecting you to follow him. 

“Jeon Wonwoo,” you turn to your best friend, “Please tell me you don’t still try to suffocate other people in their sleep?” 

The boy contains a grin, “I don’t know. It depends on how annoying the person I’m with is.”

“You’re sleeping on the floor, asshole.” 

– 

Seungcheol has a problem. 

He likes to think of himself as a reasonable adult, with the ability to make logical choices and admitting to his flaws here and there. But had he been reasonable enough, he wouldn’t be this hung up over someone he met  twice over the course of two weeks. It’s ridiculous: the way his heartbeat’s racing when you tread down to breakfast the morning after the board game night turned bonding time. 

He’s smiling his way through an excited “good morning!” before he can collect himself. You look tired, albeit a little bit lesser than usual, and your hair’s down in something of a mess. Seungcheol vaguely recognizes the faded gray tee you’re wearing, probably a donation of Jeonghan’s. “Morning,” you mumble to the breakfast table, everyone present now that you’re here.

Wonwoo snickers, “You look like shit, dude.” You glare at him as you’re reaching out for a fork, “Thanks, Wonwoo, I see that you’re as sweet as ever.” 

Jeonghan lightly slaps Wonwoo’s arm, “Be nice to her. Who knows what a hungover Y/N might do?”

You turn to Jeonghan, finally eating the piece of watermelon that you’d been reaching for, “I’m flattered you’re concerned but I’ll have you know I’m not hungover.” 

“That’s impressive,” Seungcheol chimes in and you smile at him, “See, I can’t believe this man I met last week understands me better than my best friend and my other friend.” 

“Your other friend? That’s what I am to you???” Jeonghan gasps, hand clutching his chest dramatically and Seungcheol laughs louder than he ought to, but he can barely help it, he’s all giddy. All it took was a half-compliment from you. 

So yeah, easy to say, Seungcheol has a problem and it has something to do with the way you lean into him when you ask him to pass a slice of toast. 

Luckily for Seungcheol, you also have a problem, and it occurs when you declare you need to head back, hoping that they’d let you go alone but Jeonghan’s standing up instantly with a nod. You have a problem with the way he’s unbothered with his behavior, easily saying, “I’ll walk you,” as if your best friend of years wasn’t sitting right there. 

You look to Wonwoo, hoping he’d feel the heat of your expression but he simply stretches his limbs out with a groan, “Think I’ll go take a nap before I leave.”

“Don’t you have a class at 12?” you nudge him subtly, trying to ignore Jeonghan as he stands at the table, fingers tapping at the chair that he’s behind. 

“Eh, I’m ahead of the syllabus in the class and attendance is a joke.”

You sigh in defeat and meet Jeonghan’s eyes as he lifts his lips into a smile. 

And the smile only leaves his lips once you’ve stepped out, clad in your clothes from last night again, groaning when the morning sunlight hits your eyes. “Ugh is right,” he mumbles beside you as he starts walking. 

You catch up to him, hands stuffed down your pockets, and he asks, “You have class?”

“Not really. But I do have an upcoming paper I want to finish over the weekend so I don’t perish next week.”

Jeonghan chuckles as he glances at you, “Wow, you’re still this hard-working, huh? I thought your lifestyle would’ve worn you out by now.”

“You’re one to talk about detrimental lifestyles, Han,” you scoff, “Just because you hang out with us once a week doesn’t mean we don’t know you’re overworking yourself for the rest of it.”

He’s silent for a beat and then he exhales, “Huh. I don’t know. Feels like I have the other kids fooled. It’s always you, with your smart little head and truth bombs.”

You laugh, hitting his side with your shoulder, “I’m serious, Han. Take it slow, won’t you? You’re going to end up burning yourself out to death by the time you’re 30. And then whos’ going to host board game nights?”

Jeonghan laughs and he turns to look at you, walking pace slowing down as he trains his eyes on you. You raise your brows in confusion, a slight smile playing on your lips as you try to guess what he’s thinking this time. 

“You and Cheol have been getting along really well, huh?” 

You’re thrown off guard, not having imagined this to be his next words. You shrug. “Yeah, he’s really easy to talk to, especially given his… I don’t know, social status?”

“Social status?” 

You cough in embarrassment over your words. What were you saying? “Don’t know. It’s just nice to meet someone whose hopes and dreams aren’t being crushed by student debt.”

Jeonghan’s silent again and now it’s your turn to frown because you’re wondering if you said the wrong thing. God, does he think you’re creepy for liking his childhood friend? Fucking hell. 

“I’m glad,” he says but you can sense a strain in his voice, “I was worried he’d get bored to death when he came to visit me.” 

“Ah, well. How long is he around?”

“He took a month off, I think? But he’s got it easy with his flexible hours, so really, it’s up to him when to leave.”

You nod a little, “Cool.” You exhale in relief, a little bit reassured now that Jeonghan was back to talking like his usual self. You’ve finally reached the steps to your dorm by the time the conversation fades away and he waves at you, “Better be on time tomorrow for my party. And don’t forget to bring the best gift of my life.”

You groan when he quotes your note on his coffee from a day ago, shrugging as you turn around to run up to your room and melt into your pillow. But you’ve made it to two steps up when he calls out for you again. You swerve around to face him with a questioning glance.

“Y/N, remember you can come to this old man if you ever need anything, okay? I’m here for you, always.” 

??????????

– 

Okay, let’s rewind a little. 

You’ve known Jeonghan for two years now, enough time to fall for him. You argue it was inevitable because all your life, you’d only been disappointed in your love interests, who would either ghost you in the talking stage itself or break up a few months into the relationship. One time it was because you were too busy with your studies and the third and final time because well, you were apparently too aloof. Not loving enough.

Which is why when Jeonghan came into the picture, you found yourself changing ever so slightly. Not to say you weren’t still a little bit wary of people and took your time opening up, but you met a lot of friends through him and he taught you that trust and attention goes a long way in relationships. If only you could apply this newfound knowledge to new relationships. 

You’d tried: Wonwoo had set you up with a friend from class, Mingyu, and while you’d been able to sit through the first date, by the end of the night, it was clear that both of you were more interested in sex. Which was fine. But then there was the guy who was a regular at your cafe who had given you his number and you’d ended up wondering why you were with him in the bathroom, staring at a text from Jeonghan. 

So you were down pretty bad for him. And as Wonwoo had voiced multiple times before, the next move to make was to actually tell the man that you’d been suffering in your feelings for him. But every time the topic came around, you had only one answer prepared: he already knows. Or so you’re convinced. 

You had good reason to think so. Once, the group of you had been playing an online game that involved picking red flags for other people’s ideal types and when it was time for others to pick some for you, all hell had broken loose. “I bet she likes bad guys who are emotionally unavailable,” Jun had said, quick to drag the flag that said emotional constipation on it. You had defended yourself quickly, “UH? No thanks, men with no emotional intelligence are a hard pass for me. I don’t want to feed into some idiot’s Oedipus complex just because I’m the mom friend.” 

“The mom friend?” Wonwoo had questioned, “Please, Y/N, if anything, you’re the dead friend with a severe case of RBF. Jeonghan’s the mom friend.” 

Jeonghan’s shrug had been followed by a hysterical Joshua going, “Wouldn’t that mean Y/N’s ideal type is Jeonghan? I mean, it makes a lot of sense, he’s mature and emotionally intelligent.”

You’d choked over your next words, cheeks burning, “No, that’s stupid. Don’t be weird.” 

Yeah, very weak defense. 

When Wonwoo brought up the fact that you’d refuted Joshua’s claims and that probably led Jeonghan to believe you weren’t into him, you simply told him to remind himself of what happened next. Dokyeom had laughed, “But you definitely go for older men? I can’t imagine any guy in college being too smart like that.”

You’d agreed in the end, his logic being pretty solid. You had also noticed the way Jeonghan excused himself to the kitchen with a lame excuse about bringing more snacks when there was an array of unopened chips still lying around. 

“Okay, so that’s one example, from like two months ago,” Wonwoo argues as you roll around in bed to avoid his glare, “Do you really think he remembers that incident so well?”

“Two months ago was not that long ago. And it wasn’t just this once. I’m a mess around Jeonghan.” 

“You’re a mess period,” Wonwoo casually declares and when you sit up with an unhinged jaw, he laughs, “No offense.”

“Whatever. I hate you. And I hate Jeonghan. I should just skip his birthday party or I’m just gonna make things worse for myself.”

“Right. And what about the Lego set you spent half your life savings on?”

You pause, heart skipping a beat when you remember the gift sitting on your desk, wrapped securely and the purchase of which you could only justify with the words: Yoon Jeonghan. 

“God, I must be insane. Why did I even buy that for him? He’s gonna think I’m genuinely weird. Does he even want gifts? He’s turning 25 for god’s sake.”

Wonwoo doesn’t respond so you can hear yourself and eventually, you do. Jeonghan himself had told you to be on time to his party with the gift alongside. You’re going to cry. 

“You really think I should tell him?” you ask quietly.

Your best friend nods eagerly, patting your arm through the mess of your bedsheets, “Please. It’s high time. I promise you won’t regret it.”

“Weird promise to make, but fine. I’ll do it.” 

–

The weight of your promise settles into your veins when you’ve arrived at Jeonghan’s place, self-consciously straightening out non-existent wrinkles in your dress when he comes over to greet you and Wonwoo. It doesn’t leave when he grins at you, wider than usual, and it definitely only gets worse when he accepts your gift with a low whisper that he’ll be sure to open yours first. 

You’re thankful for Seungcheol when he shows up next to you, dimples out as he compliments you in your dress and you return it with a shy smile. Half because you need a distraction and more because Seungcheol’s presence is calming, you follow him to the bar. 

“How’s your night going so far?”

“It could be better,” you mumble, eyes searching for Jeonghan and settling when he doesn’t seem to be anywhere close, “A little bit nervous.”

“Nervous?” he asks you, sliding you a drink and you smile as you take a sip: Scotch and Soda. 

“Hmm, it’s nothing honestly. A lot of work piling up as we speak,” you joke. Seungcheol’s frown melts away, “Ah, of course. Senior year must be crazy.”

The night picks it pace up thereon, with your nerves finding some peace in the buzz from alcohol and your cheeks only hurting the longer you talk to Seungcheol.There’s some dancing of course, here and there, but you find yourself avoiding Jeonghan actively, retracting from the floor whenever he’s close. 

It helps that Seungcheol stays close so that you have an excuse to appear occupied and somewhere along in the night, you tell the man with a smile, “You’re really charming, you know, Cheol?”

He breaks out into that giggle of his, “You think so? I haven’t even pulled out all the stops yet?”

“Really?” you find yourself stepping closer, encouraged by how quickly his hands are at your waist, “What haven’t you done yet?” 

A breathy hum leaves his lips at your provoking and you’re close enough to brush lips against Seungcheol when suddenly, you’re being pulled away. For a moment, you let out an annoyed groan, certain that the iron hold on your bicep is Wonwoo being stubborn again. So when you tilt your head and catch sight of Jeonghan’s black hair falling into his eyes, a glare in place, all words leave your system. 

You’re aware he’s dragging you away and also that Seungcheol’s following, reaching for your hand with words leaving his mouth, but you can’t make anything out. The blood’s in your ears and your heart is in your throat. You can feel Jeonghan saying something at Seungcheol, who glances at you in doubt, and leaves. 

By the time you've calmed down, you find yourself in Jeonghan’s room, door half closed. 

“Jeonghan?” you question a little weakly as he finally lets go of your arm and sits on the bed, his head in his hands. Is he okay? you wonder, standing helplessly near the door. You call out his name again, “Han? Are you okay?”

You step closer to him but stop when he looks up, startled by the lack of humor in his expression. “What were you doing back there?” 

“Um, talking to Cheol.” 

“Talking?” 

“Are you annoyed at me, right now? Or jealous? I can’t tell.” 

Jeonghan goes silent again, gaze dropping to his feet. You’re feeling annoyed by the minute. 

“You’re acting like an idiot, Y/N. You don’t know Seungcheol. And you’re drunk.”

There it was: that strict tone of his, that always left you feeling conflicted and hurt. Today you actually tell him about it, “I’m not a kid, Jeonghan, I know what I’m doing.” 

He looks up at you when you say that, eyes wide. “I never said that. I’m just saying that you should be more careful.”

“I am being careful,” you retort, a hostile edge to your voice, “I don’t know why you do this.”

“I thought you liked me.”

The words stun you into silence and your ears ring as you freeze. Your eyes don’t leave Jeonghan’s form though, watching him, waiting for him to disappear into nothingness as if this was just a dream. How you wish it was. 

But Jeonghan’s on his feet when he notices the horrified look on his face and it’s only when he starts to come closer that you reach for the door. 

“No, Y/N, please let’s talk about it–” he grabs hold of you and you feel your vision go blurry with tears, your back hitting the wall when Jeonghan shuts the door behind you. 

“I knew it,” you mumble out through tears, “You knew about my feelings?” 

Jeonghan’s eyes find yours in the dim lighting of his bedroom and you shiver when his hand tightens around your wrist, “I’ve known for a while. But then you went around flirting with Cheol like it was nobody’s business and I…” he trails off, “I was jealous. And confused.”

You force yourself to breathe out, heart going wild in your chest because of course, Jeonghan’s not addressing the elephant in the room. “Well, I was going to confess to you today and get it out of the way. But there’s no need anymore, I guess?” You cringe at the way you can hear the quiver in your own voice, “Just let me go now?”

“Why?” he asks, “You haven’t even asked me if I like you back?”

You scoff, “God, Jeonghan, you make it sound like we’re in high school or something, all this ‘liking’ talk.” You try to sound stable, only to be contradicted by the tears that leave your eyes, “And I figured you didn’t return my feelings. Or you would’ve done something about it.”

There’s a pause then. A shift. Jeonghan’s grip on you loosens ever so lightly and you fear you’ve understood him too well. For once, you wish you weren’t right. 

“You’re right,” Jeonghan breathes out as if on cue, but his grip is still unyielding to your dismay, “Well, I thought I didn’t like you. I mean, you’re really pretty and funny and being around doesn’t tire me out like it does with others, but… I just liked you as a friend.”

Your heart’s shriveling up at his words with uncertainty because he might be talking about your love for him being one-sided but it is also in the past tense… right? 

“What are you trying to say, Jeonghan?”

He flinches, “Um, I’m sorry. I just– I’m so confused about my feelings, right now. God, I thought I was more mature than this.” 

You can’t help the disdainful laugh that leaves your lips as you push him away, brushing your tears away with the back of your hand. “Look, Jeonghan, I’m sorry I don’t have the time to sit down and help you untangle your feelings… about me. It really hurts to hear you go on about this, honestly. I think I’m just going to leave. Happy birthday, I hope you like your gift.”

–

The night outside is much more welcoming to you now, your shoulders more relaxed than ever now that your stupid crush on Jeonghan’s out in the open for him. You hadn’t expected it to go down like this but well, at least you were right about him already knowing, you know? 

Lighter than before, the drinks you’d chugged before to gather courage catch up to you in the moment when you nearly run into a pole on the street. You would have run into it if Seungcheol hadn’t swerved you out the way with a, “Look out!”

“Fuck,” you mumble when you’re steady on your feet, Seungcheol’s hand firm around yours, “Sorry. I was in my head.”

“I know you were but you gotta watch where you’re going, kid,” he scolds, “I don’t want to have to carry your unconscious body to your room.”

You roll your eyes, “What is it with everyone and calling me a kid tonight? So much for keeping up a track record for being reliable and responsible.”

“It’s not that you’re not those things, Y/N,” Seungcheol says, hand still on yours reassuringly, “It’s just that sometimes you’re… dense. And maybe even something of an idiot.”

“Ah! Excuse me!” you protest, “I am not an idiot. Say that to my grades.”

“An idiot as in someone who doesn’t see what’s right in front of them.”

That shuts you for good, then, and you stop walking with a sigh. “I don’t even know about that, anymore.”

Seungcheol watches as you slow down, tears behind your eyes and his heart hurts for you, thanks to his problem. When he’d found you storming out of Jeonghan’s room with fists wiping your tears away, he’d wrapped an arm around you immediately, listening as you quietly told him you needed to leave. He’d offered to walk you home and you’d watched him for a moment before nodding. 

“Why are you doing this, Cheol? Shouldn’t you be back there, comforting Jeonghan?”

“See, there it is. The idiot side of you.”

You go silent again, looking down at the hand that was clutched in his a few moments ago. 

“...you like me?”

“Bingo. Plus, I don’t think Jeonghan wants to hear from me tonight. Not after I almost kissed you in front of him.”

You let out a surprised sound, hand flying to your mouth when you recall the near-kiss, ears turning impossibly pink under the streetlights. “Fuck, I forgot that happened. I’m sorry? Or you’re welcome?”

“Nah, I can’t thank you till we actually seal the deal,” Seungcheol teases, stepping closer to you and dramatically ducking his head as if going in for a kiss. You push his shoulder away, “Fuck you, Seungcheol.” 

“I mean, sure, if you want to!”

“Ugh!” you start walking with a pout on your face, “I hate the guts of the men in this place!”

“That’s not what your face said thirty minutes ago at the bar!”

“Go away, Cheol, or I’m reporting you to the campus authorities.”

“Aww, you called me Cheol even when we’re fighting. Aren’t you the sweetest?”

– 

When Monday rolls around, you think you’ve got a good hold on your head this time, especially after a few grueling hours at your shift at the cafe. That is until you spot Jeonghan walking in, hair tied back in a half-ponytail and hands crossed across his white cardigan. The sight of him sends you into a frenzy and you debate your options as being between: ducking behind the counter and switching positions with Joshua, or otherwise, manning up and facing the aftermath of your actions. 

You glance at Joshua’s back, his hands busy cleaning the espresso equipment and before you have a minute to ask him to switch, Jeonghan’s at the counter (where’s a line of customers when you need it?), calling you out. “Hey, Y/N, do you think we could talk for a minute?”

You look at him blankly, not expecting him to take the direct route after everything. But you malfunction a little and cut his advances off, “Welcome to Moon Coffee! What can I get started for you?” you ask loudly and then add in a softer voice, “Conversation with me is not on the menu.” 

“Hm?” Jeonghan looks devastated at your cold response but his eyes search the menu board frantically anyway, “Uh, I guess I could get just an iced americano, then, please?” 

You note that down with a half-smile, and almost go on to ask for a name for the order but decide against it, not wanting to stretch your pettiness limit for the day. “Alright, thank you for your order! Please feel free to take a seat while you wait.” 

You relax when he nods with a hesitant smile and takes a seat, close to the window but close enough to the counter to hear his name being called out. You feel the pit in your stomach burn a little at how deflated his shoulders are and you wonder if you ought to drop the act; you’d been into the man for two years now. Right?

But before you can pursue this heart-wrenching line of thought, you’re distracted by the sound of the door opening and– great, it’s Seungcheol. By the surprised look he shoots Jeonghan’s sat figure, they hadn’t planned this… ambush, but you reign in your usual cordiality anyway as Seungcheol approaches you. 

“Hey there, morning. How’ve you been?” 

What did you have to do to have one customer who came in here for coffee?

“Good afternoon,” you correct him, pleased at the reversal of your first meeting with Seungcheol, who chuckles a little. “Welcome, what can we get you today?” 

He pauses, casting a glance to Jeonghan over his shoulder, whose attention is on this interaction, legs crossed and brows furrowed. “I’m sorry, didn’t know he was in here. I just wanted to check up on you.”

“What are you apologizing for?” The question slips before you can remember to be professional and also, a little bit quieter because almost certain that Jeonghan’s heard you by the way he averts his eyes. “Um, I mean, sorry. I can recommend you a drink for the day or do you want to get your usual?”

Seungcheol mulls it over, “Hm, I’m fine with anything you choose for me.”

You pause before punching in the order for a hazelnut mocha, without a double-shot this time. He can deal with the sweetness for a day, you reckon. You glance at Joshua who’s still cleaning up before getting started on the orders because well, it’s a slow day. Or it’s supposed to be.

As you thank Seungcheol for his order and he’s about to step aside to wait, you add in a quick, “And next time, if you want to check up on me, do it when I’m not working.” He does nothing to hide the grin of acknowledgment that takes over his face, a sight that only darkens the storm known as Yoon Jeonghan brewing in the cafe.

You walk over to Joshua, “Dude! Hurry up, we have customers waiting.”

He turns to you slowly, wiping his hands off ever so slowly, even the smile on his face slow. “Don’t worry, it’s just Jeonghan. We know these guys. We can take our time.”

You narrow your eyes at him, wondering if Jeonghan put him up to this act, but don’t question it because even that would be admitting defeat. “Whatever. I’ll make the drinks if you’re going to be annoying. Where’s the syrup for the mocha again?”

Joshua slaps the hand that you’re using to reach for the syrup with a firm, “Uh-uh! Hands off, young lady. That hazelnut mocha is all mine to make. You can work on the iced americano if you really want to help out.”

You groan, throwing your hands up, “So you were slowing things down on purpose, you little bitch.”

“Hello? Please be mindful of the language you use around here. I can report you–”

“Yes, yes, of course, I will just shut up and make that americano so I don’t have to listen to your voice again.” 

A  few minutes later, you’re scribbling Jeonghan’s name onto the cup, proud with the quick work you’ve made of the drink and also thankful nobody was coming in right now. “Han–” you stop yourself just as the nickname slips your tongue, flinching when you remember you’re supposed to be acting stuck up right now.

You turn, hoping that Jeonghan hadn’t heard you but nevermind that because he’s at your side, quicker than he ought to be really (any other scenario, he would be declaring all kinds of knee problems), that sly grin plastered on his face. 

“Hi there,” he greets you, “Called for me, did you?”

“...I did. An iced americano for Jeonghan.” You try hard to make your sentences brief but Jeonghan’s chuckling as he takes the drink from you– using both his hands so that you’re brushing against his. Classic middle school boy behavior. 

If anything, this ordeal was making you question if the man was as mature as you’d believed. Either way, he thanks you with a smile and leaves promptly, leaving a very affronted Seungcheol in his wake. “Hey, I thought you said you were gonna wait for me!” he calls out after Jeonghan, who doesn’t respond as he slides out. 

“A hazelnut mocha for Seung…Cheol?”

You glare at Joshua who frowns at the name as that was the first he’d heard of it, and the guy just shrugs as he puts the drink down. “Sorry about that. Joshua’s feeling rebellious this afternoon,” you tell a frowny Seungcheol (you are a minute away from admitting how cute he is when he’s upset), “Anyway, here’s your drink, Seungcheol. Have a good day!”

“Cheol!” you call out when you spot the brown head of hair outside the cafe when your shift ends. He’d texted you a while after he’d walked off with his drink in hand, pouting because you insisted on calling him Seungcheol. 

meet me after your shift? his text reads. 

do u even know when my shift ends dude 

no and thats why im asking u. when does your shift end?

… u are insufferable. 

insufferable enough to fall 4 u i guess 

when are u going to stop holding your feelings for me over my head?

when you do something about them.

meet me at 6 outside the cafe. 

Yeah, so you wouldn’t say you’re being your wisest self right now. To begin with, you should probably seek out Jeonghan and find closure of some sort. But something tells you to wait on him, wait till he’s ready to seek you out (no, coming up to you during your work shift did not count). Instead, you choose to pursue the… spark that you have with Seungcheol, his feelings for you aside. The night after Jeonghan’s party he’d made it clear that he didn’t really want anything serious, just to get to know you more while you were still around.

A little fooling around never hurt anyone, right? 

So when Seungcheol whines out, “Oh, so I’m back to being Cheol now, huh?” you finally let out the laugh that you’d held back at work at his antics. 

“Nobody ever told me you were such a pouty baby,” you tell him, eyes shameless trained on his pink lips. 

“I don’t pout for anyone, baby,” Seungcheol shoots back, hand on your back as he leads you somewhere. You look at him in question. “What? We’re getting dinner.”

“I was not aware,” you reply, “But all right. Let’s do it.”

Dinner is comfortable. Which is more than you ask for on a date these days. 

“Your dates have really been that bad, huh?” Seungcheol asks you. You shake your head, fork scraping some tiramisu onto it, “You can’t even imagine it, Cheol, it’s hell out there. I’m lucky if the guy pays for the dinner so I don’t have to work an extra shift to make up for it.”

He laughs and you savor the sight, because hanging out with this often hadn’t meant you had become indifferent to his looks. If anything, it was the other way around. 

“Thanks for dinner,” you tell him later as he sneaks his hand into yours. You allow yourself to feel guilty for indulging him like this but then he squeezes your hand, “Anything for you, m’lady.”

Later that night, you invite him to your room. “It’s not much,” you add to the invitation, “But you know, I do happen to have some wine in my fridge that Wonwoo forgot to pick up. And my bed’s pretty cozy to watch movies in.”

Seungcheol is breathless by the time you’re in your room, not only because of the trek up the stairs but also the fact that you’d held his hand in yours the whole way up. “Wow, it sure is cold in here,” he comments as you turn the lights. It is the textbook college room, albeit a little bigger since you’re in a single. 

You cough, “Um, sorry about that. Let me turn on the heater. And you can sit on my bed…” you pause when you remember the mess you’d left on your mattress this morning, in a hurry to make it to your shift but nevertheless, insistent on putting together a fit. 

You sweep up the pile of discarded clothes from your bed and onto an already burdened chair, making a show out of it. You dust your hands off with a smile at Seungcheol who’s been watching with a hand on his hip. “Change your mind about me yet?” you question, teasingly. 

He rolls his eyes as he walks closer to you, effectively bumping you onto your bed, the new angle forcing you to look up at him. He kneels in front of you, his smile turning loving as he takes your face into his hands. “Not a chance,” and then he leans in until his warm lips are on yours, the heater whirring irrelevant now that heat’s rushing up to your temples instantly. 

You taste him and then pull away, “Mhm. Not so fast, you sly little man. I promised you wine and a movie in my bed. And I,” you say as you crouch in front of your fridge, “am a woman of my word.” You shake the cold bottle of red wine at him and he grins. 

An hour later, you’re curled around Seungcheol, glasses of wine long consumed and movie long forgotten in favor of cuddling. You stare at him and then when he smiles shyly, you finger one of his dimples, “Hey. You sure you’re not serious about me? Because I’m…” you hate the way you trail off, the very thought of Jeonghan derailing any sense of coherence you’ve ever had. 

“I know,” Seungcheol’s hand comes to your wrist, “I knew I didn’t stand a chance against Jeonghan since I saw you guys fight at the cafe that day. You look at him like he has all the answers.”

“That’s ridiculous,” you brush off, not completely refuting him. “But if you knew, why’d you stick around and… I don’t know, flirt with me?”

Seungcheol laughs into your neck, “Call it a bad habit of mine.” His hands play with your hair now,  brushing it away from your face, “I see a pretty girl and I have to charm her.”

You drop your head into his chest with a groan, “Stop! You sound so creepy. Like a predator.”

“Hey!” he protests, his chuckles vibrating through you, “You’re the one who called me charming the other day!” 

“Hmm. I guess I did.” 

His hands slowly pry you away from his chest and to his face, lips pressing against yours. You smile a little and then open up for him, shifting until you’re situated on top of him. You close your eyes, surrendering yourself to the kiss and – “Shit, you’re a good kisser.” The man underneath you moves you closer with a pleased smirk, voice smug when his lips trail down your neck, “That’s not the only thing I’m good at.” 

– 

“Sex with older men really is different, huh?” 

You gasp at Wonwoo’s vulgar words, slapping his arm mercilessly making him jump away from you. “Dude! Mind keeping it down? We’re in the library, not your mom’s house.” 

“Ha! Jokes on you, I wouldn’t be making dirty jokes in my mom’s house because Jeonghan is my mom away from home and he would really kick my ass if he heard me talk about you and Seungchel fucking–”

Another slap on the arm and Wonwoo shuts up, groaning in pain. You grimace when you notice a few heads turning your way at the commotion, and bow in apology. When they’re looking away, you glower at Wonwoo, “Seriously, man, what are you up to? Drop the horny teenager act for once so we can focus on the problem at hand.” 

“Judging from the tone of your voice, I’m guessing that you’re not talking about the problem of calculus in front of us, but rather, the problem of… life?” 

You stare at Wonwoo blankly, “I’m so glad you find this entertaining.” As you’re about to continue giving him a piece of your mind, your phone buzzes, cutting you off much to Wonwoo’s relief, who sneaks a look over your shoulder anyway.

cheol: rate last night on a scale of ‘okay’ to ‘let's meet up again tonight’?

You scoff at the audacity and Wonwoo’s already clinging onto this new piece of evidence. “Oh, so what was that about this being a one-time thing? Next thing I know you’re moving in with him when you graduate.”

You slam your phone face down, “Listen, I know you think this is a joke but it’s not. I’m not going to sleep with Cheol again because that’s obviously the right thing to do. But as for Jeonghan, well, it’s been radio silence from him all week.”

“And since when have you let Jeonghan take the lead on your relationship with him? You know he’s a working man so I’m not surprised he’s not texting you at noon on a Wednesday.”

You glare at Wonwoo, “Seungcheol is also very much a working man? I don’t see your point. And also, I don’t know when this became a competition between the two?”

“Since you confessed to one and then slept with the other?”

You exhale heavily, unable to shoot him down because he was at least a little bit correct. Instead you heave your head into your arms. “Maybe I should just fake my death and move away.”

“You’ll give up your dreams of graduation over a stupid love triangle, consisting purely of men?”

“Shit. You’re right. That’s not happening,” you look up, “Jeon Wonwoo, what would I do if you weren’t by my side bringing me to my senses? You’re the best friend I ever had.”

“Actually, your use of ‘friend’ is very offensive to me,” he complains, fisting his palm dramatically, “I consider myself one of the girls. Or even better, your guardian. Refer to me as Your Highness exclusively or I will not listen.”

You stand up with a screech of your chair, “Okay, that was the last of your reasonable thinking. I’m going to go to my shift and work until I can no longer think or pine.”

“Great plan, young one!”

“Touch grass while I’m gone and you might have hope yet.” 

– 

“Look, I really don’t think we should be doing this anymore.”

Seungcheol laughs, eyes searching your face for signs of humor. You flash him a grimace of seriousness and doom. He deflates. “I saw this coming. Should’ve known you would only ever ask me out to a fancy restaurant for dinner to break up with me.”

You flick his forehead, “Break up? Don’t call it that. It gives people the wrong idea.”

“Interesting, Y/N L/N admits to caring about whether or not people get the wrong idea about us. Very interesting,” he comments, not at all sneaky with the way his arm snakes around you, “Anyway, you want me to pay for dinner and what, drag my sorry ass back to Jeonghan’s place?” 

You stiffen at the mention of Jeonghan and then sigh, the following conversation almost inevitable given your current situation. “So speaking of Jeonghan, has he been talking?”

“Um, yeah, he sure has been opening his mouth and saying words.”

“Fuck you, I meant as in, about me? Has he said anything?”

“Not in specific. Although he did inquire if I had slept over at your place two nights ago and when I said yes, he threw a slice of half-eaten apple in my face. Since then whenever I see him, I duck.”

“That’s very funny.”

“Don’t worry, I made sure to tell him how hopelessly in love with him you are–”

“That was not needed.”

“–And how you accidentally moaned his name on my cock.” 

You glare at him, “What about those statements made you think they were okay to voice out loud, not only once but twice?” 

As Seungcheol comes up with a witty defense for his lapse in judgment, your phone buzzes next to your thigh and the name that pops up has you zoning everything out instantly. 

han: hey, can we talk? 

You look away from the screen and breathe out, “And that makes two of us dragging our sorry asses to Jeonghan’s place.” 

When you knock on his door, the last thing you expect to see is a red-eyed, very sniffly Jeonghan. Heck, you hadn’t ever even come close to imagining the heartbroken look on Jeonghan’s face, his eyes downcast when you visibly look taken aback at his state. 

“Han?” 

“Hey,” his voice is hoarse and good lord, you can’t stand this. “Let’s sit in the living room. I was going to go grab some water anyway.”

You follow him speechlessly, watching the way his hands disappear into the sleeves of the black sweatshirt that hangs loose around his frame. You keep watching when he reappears, and it’s when he sits down quietly, fingers whitening around the glass of iced water in hands that you lose it. 

“Talk to me, Han. Are you okay?” you breathe deeply to contain the multitude of concerned questions that threaten to leave your system. For one, you didn't know how to interpret the crestfallen expression he held up when he met your eyes. While someone like Wonwoo (aka a naive little kid) would argue that the only reasonable explanation for it would be that he was devastated that you’d been avoiding him the past week. But knowing what you did about him, you couldn’t let go of the possibility that he was just mourning the impending loss of a friend, i.e. you, when he breaks it to you that he doesn’t like you back. 

Jeonghan senses you’re in your head when you’ve been staring at him for a moment too long, mouth agape, so he moves closer, taking the water out of your hands and placing it next to his emptied glass. 

“I’m sorry, Y/N.”

Fuck. An apology? 

You stammer, “S-Sorry? Why?”

“I’m sorry I called you an idiot the other day. You’re the farthest thing from an idiot– and you’re definitely not a kid. I’m so sorry that I made you feel like that. I just… I’ve been thinking about us, and I realized that somewhere along the way, I became really over-protective of you. I started treating you like you were fragile or something, and I shouldn’t have.” 

“I’m listening,” you tell him, frown letting up now that he’s finally speaking up.

“And I’m sorry for being a cowardly little bitch about my feelings for you,” he mumbles, eyes dropping to your lap where your fingers play with the fabric of your shirt uneasily. He stops your fiddling, his hands coming to envelope both of yours. “I’m the idiot for thinking I could be anything other than in love with you.”

“Huh,” you exhale again, biting your lip to hold the smile that threatens to spill. 

“And finally, I’m sorry for not doing anything about it when I knew your feelings were mutual. As you know, I’m getting old and–” 

You stop any further stupidity from leaving his lips by – you guessed it – by pressing your lips against them. He lets out a surprised gasp and your smile finally turns into a giggle when his hands tighten around yours in your lap.

You pull away, only to detach your hands so you can bury them in his hair instead and Jeonghan smiles at you, his eyes crescents as they watch you lovingly and you think: the pain was worth it. 

Jeonghan’s smile widens when he feels you thumb at his skin, tenderly tracing his eye-bags. 

“You look terrible, Han, I’m sorry,” you mutter, kissing his cheeks and then his forehead. He’s already mellowing under your hold and he hums, low, “You should be. I went to hell and back when Seungcheol announced he slept with you. I mean, what were you thinking?”

You break, guiltily looking away. “That was not my smartest moment but I was also very distraught about my relationship with a certain someone who wouldn’t contact me outside of my working hours.” 

“You and your stubborn need to remain professional. Y/N, it’s a campus cafe, I don’t think anyone’s going to care if you break your act once in a while. I don’t know, if I don’t get a kiss the next time I visit you– I might just rethink this.”

You scoff in disbelief, “You’re a real pain in the ass, Jeonghan. Maybe I’ll just go back to my room and cry myself to sleep.” But as soon as you make moves to stand up, Jeonghan’s bringing you back to sit, taking the chance to pull you closer into a hug. “You will do no such thing.” 

You freeze when you feel his nose settle into your shoulder, warm breaths relaxing when your hands reclaim their place in his hair. “I love you, Y/N.”

A beat passes and with a kiss to his head, you return, “I probably love you more, old man.”

“If we’re going to date, that nickname has got to go!” 

“What? You’re the one who was complaining about your knee problems last week. It’s fine, I can add this relationship to my list of community service activities.” 

Jeonghan pulls away, standing up abruptly and jerking you upward as well. Your smile falters but then, he’s steering you to his bedroom, throwing the door shut with a grunt. You side-eye him, “What’s up–” He cuts you off, lips hot against yours.

A few minutes later, when his tongue finally lets up, he mutters, “I just remembered that you kissed Seungcheol with this mouth. I’ve gotta do everything I can to erase that memory.”

“I can’t tell if you want me to forget… or yourself.” 

“Shh, I bet he couldn’t even– Wait, why aren’t you wearing a bra? Don’t tell me you were–!”

“You sure love asking questions, old man,” you whine and before Jeonghan can question you further, you take ahold of his hand, sliding it over your stomach and down the waistband of your jeans, the space tight and hot but not as hot as the groan Jeonghan lets out when he feels you. “Holy fuck, you’re wet.”

You grin when he falls to his knees, your jeans unbuttoned and pulled down in next to no time. “There’s more where that came from,” you mumble before he’s between your thighs, ripping out  scream after scream from your throat. 

– 

Genuinely and honestly, if you’d foreseen waking up in Jeonghan’s bed, his hair a mess from last night but face comfortably snuggled in your arm– you would’ve been less mean to Wonwoo. Because it turns out that his voice (of reason? or of deviance? you would never figure it out) in your head had been right: Jeonghan did return your feelings all those times you thought he might.

He tells you all about it when you’ve collapsed later that night, replacing the curses on your lips with dampness in your eyes because of how vulnerable he is, pouring his heart out to you like this.

Propped up on an elbow, he played with your hand, “I remember when you first came over with Wonwoo. I thought I’d met myself, but younger and prettier and sillier.”

“I hate it when you combine insults with compliments so I can’t attack you.”

“I learnt that from you, silly,” he kisses your nose but continues, “But honestly, the more we talked, the more I realized how different you are from me. I mean, sure, are you tired out of your mind half the time like me? Yeah. But you were so observant and so keen on getting to know people. It’s hard to come across people who are invested in friendships for more than just small talk and someone to have meals with.”

But just as he’s getting deep on you, he adds, “Plus, you smell a whole lot better than anyone else. I’d go crazy sitting next to you, especially because you just love to throw yourself at people in laughter.” 

“Not that I’m complaining–” he stops your protests quickly, “I swear my heart would skip a beat everytime you laughed at something I said. And then the time we were talking about ideal types and you got all flustered over everyone teasing you about me? Dude, I had to run to the kitchen before I could do something rash. Like kissing you in front of everyone. Or worse, bride-style carrying you into my room so I could enjoy the adorably lovesick look on your face.” 

You groan into his pillow, “Stooop. This is just embarrassing for me. It’s not like I was trying to be obvious.”

“I know, baby,” he coos, gentle hands prying you away from the pillow, “But you know, you have the same look on your face right now.” He laughs, kissing the pout off your lips with a sweet, “For what it’s worth, I was yours for a long time. Just took a minute for me to realize it.”

You huff but smile despite it and pull him closer, “I’m glad. Now hold me to sleep or I’m gonna be sad.”

Another laugh reverberates through the two of you when he slides down, pulling the sheets closer over you, and pats your back as you settle into him with a satisfied sigh. “Sleep well, my love.” 

–

“And when I’m gone, please don’t stop eating breakfast in the morning. I know you think that it’s consequential to your life completely,” Seungcheol pauses for dramatic effect, “but it’s important. It could be the difference between living 20 less years or 50 more.”

“How scientifically true is that?” you mumble to Jeonghan under your breath, who being the devious little brat he is voices your concern, earning you a look from Seungcheol.

“Whatever, I knew my words were undervalued in this household ever since you guys started dating and refused to keep it down at night. Like, it’s not that hard, right?”

You punch Jeonghan’s arm to both keep him from telling the dick joke he’s about to say and also, to show Seungcheol that you wanted no part in this. “I told this guy to keep you in mind but that just made him mad which in turn led to… screaming. Sorry.”

Seungcheol sighs as he glances at his watch, “Okay, okay. I have to get going now so bring in whatever last-minute reconciliations you two have for me.”

Jeonghan steps forward and hugs the man, surprising both the latter and you. But you watch with a pleased smile playing on your lips, relieved that their friendship still seemed to go strong, bumps and all. When it’s your turn to hug Seungcheol, you scoff at the hesitant look he casts at your boyfriend and wrap your arms around his middle. 

“Thanks for everything, Cheol. Keep in touch. And do something about this second-lead syndrome of yours. I better catch you in a happily stable relationship of your own next time around.”

Seungcheol chuckles quietly, waiting for you to pull away to say, “If that’s an order from the main female lead, then I guess I have no choice, do I? Unless,” his eyes mischievously stray to Jeonghan who already knows what’s coming next, “the male lead fucks up and leaves a certain pretty girl single, huh?”

You don’t have time to decipher if that’s a threat wrapped up in a punchline because Jeonghan’s arm’s around your shoulder, moving you away and besides you, he says, “You’ll be waiting all your life if you wait on me to fuck this up. Bye, Cheol, I can see that your Uber just pulled up.”

“Ha! Good one. Alright, this is goodbye for now. See y’all on my feed. Or it might be better if I don’t. Anyway, bye and don’t kill anyone.”

With Seungcheol gone, you look up at Jeonghan with a smug smirk, “Oh, so you plan on sticking around with me forever? That’s a long time, you know.”

Your boyfriend chuckles, his eyes twinkling, “Please, if I had the patience to watch you hug Seungcheol right in front of my eyes, being with you forever will be a breeze in the park. So yes, I plan to stick to you forever, like superglue.” 

“Gross, you couldn’t say something romantic like candy or syrup?”

“Sorry, babe, but I was just distracted by how all mine you are that I couldn’t think of anything else.”

“Never mind, I think it’s worse when you’re all cheesy. Go back to being gross?”

“I love you. Now, come here so I can kiss every single surface of your face. And then we can go on a walk and tell everyone who told me to give up to suck it.”

You lose balance when the laughter finally escapes your mouth but thankfully, Jeonghan’s arms are around you, promising and playful when you meet his eyes. “Ugh, whatever. I love you. So I guess we can do all the weird annoying stuff you want to do for now.”

Despite your banter though, the two of you are so happy together that you’re shocked by the picture of you with Jeonghan that Wonwoo Airdrops, after your walk. You have the dopiest smile on your face and Jeonghan’s looking at you with a cheesy grin. You hate to admit it but you do look like an “old married couple” like Wonwoo’s text teases. But for once, you give in, snuggling closer to Jeonghan’s body because well, yeah, you did plan to stick to him. Like superglue. 

– 

[dilfartist]

Obey Me Yandere Headcannons

Tw; Kidnapping, sensitive topics, Yandere behavior, Obsessive behavior, abuse, mentioned physical abuse, mentions of death, manipulation (satan).

Notes; {Brothers included in this only. No dateables.}

Reblogs and Comments are greatly appreciated!

Not proofread

Reader's description; Female/GN

Lucifer

Lucifer’s obsession starts deliberately. Compared to all his brothers, Lucifer won’t fall into obsession quickly. His obsession is similar to his coming around to the MC. It might take a few months for his obsession to kick in but it’s a good thing if you ever want a chance of escaping. Once he’s obsessed, he’ll have all eyes on you. Lucifer has his brothers wrapped around his finger, beckoning to his every call. They’ll listen to him, mainly to get him off their back.

How does the obsession start? There are a couple of reasons an obsession will start; You left back to the human world and Lucifer begins to obsess about your lack of presence. You’re spending way too much time with his brothers, which bruises his pride. Or even starting a relationship with him. Lucifer’s obsession is fueled by his possessiveness. Naturally, Lucifer is possessive over you because he’s the same way with all of his brothers.

How do the brothers react? Depending on your relationship with the brothers, they may not care much if you tell them the situation their older brother has put you in. If you don’t have the best relationships with the brothers, whether it be due to you keeping to yourself or Lucifer keeping you by his side 24/7, they’ll excuse Lucifer’s action, though they will have a bit of moral dilemma. If the brothers do care for you, following the storyline of the game, then they’re more likely to put up a fight. However, Lucifer won’t hesitate to feed them lies. Lucifer didn’t mind deceiving his brothers when it came to Belphegor, what makes you any different? Lucifer convinces all seven of his brothers, (Belphegor takes the longest to convince but even he falls for his brother's words.) Then they’ll assist their brother in keeping you in Devildom by his side.

Punishments? His darling does face punishments if they have done something wrong in his eyes. His punishments fit the crime. Minor crimes like refusing his touch for too long, fighting against him, and ignoring him, lead to him having long lectures and hanging you up, (though he won’t hang you up for ignoring his touch because he understands his behavior is hard to comply with. Even he is frustrated with himself for allowing his feelings to take over his actions.) Crimes he deems more than minor such as poisoning him, trying to convince his brothers to help you, and somehow hurting him would lead to keeping meals from you, locking you away for a while, and maybe even a few slaps, though these slaps are usually on your ass. Severe crimes like attempting to kill any of his younger brothers or Diavalo, managing to escape him for a long period, and trying to tell Demons outside of his close circle about his obsessiveness. These crimes earn you more than just fifteen unbearable slaps on your ass; he’ll choke you and harm you in ways that might kill you. Depending on how furious you’ve managed to make him.

Aftercare? Lucifer isn’t terrible, he won’t leave you suffering no matter what you may have done. He’ll wipe your tear stains with a handkerchief, taking you into his lap, brushing your hair back with slender fingers. Lucifer will press kisses on your cheeks, chiding you softly like an owner gently scolding a pet, making sure the animal knows they still love them.

Will they kill for their darling? Yes. The only person holding him back from killing anyone who dares take your love away or insults you is Diavalo. Lucifer won’t think twice if no one is around.

Mammon

Mammon is the first to quickly fall into an obsession out of the all six brothers. In the game he's the first to fall for the Mc; So it's on brand for him to grow obsessive first. It's Mammon's trademark for being his darling's first everything. His obsession isn't clear if you do not look into it. He's still his usual tsundere self, however there's something different if you look closer. The way Mammon nearly sneers at his brothers for taking your time away from him, the way Mammon can be so overprotective it can be suffocating, and the way Mammon can sometimes be enraged by the mentioned of anyone else having you. Then again, Mammon is a demon, maybe this is normal, You think.

How does the obsession start? His greed, to put it simply. It's obvious everyone wants a piece of his human, he can't go a second without his brothers coming to steal you away from him. It angers him! Mammon should have your attention- he was your first! None of his brothers wanted anything to do with you until they realized how great you were. The great Mammon can offer you so much more! So stop hang around his brothers!

How do the brothers react? Despite the insults constantly hurriled at Mammon, his brother love him dearly. And while his darling is considered family they still won't be able to surpass Mammon's spot in their hearts. Plus, they also want Mc to stay by their side and Mammon is just keeping them in devildom, what's the harm? No matter how hard you beg you won't be able to leave. The whole family will keep you there.

Punishments? Yes and no. Mammon will give them but most of the time not go through them. His favorite punishment is the silent treatment. It never works- but at least he's managed to get better at ignoring you. The problem is you. You're so damn cute with those puppy dog eyes you give, begging for something to satisfy your boredom because he refuses to let you hangout with his brothers: he can't help but give in to your request with his attention. Mammon isn't the type to hurt his darling, not on purpose of course. Sometimes he'll lock them up but only a few hours, he wouldn't dare lock you away for a day or more.

Aftercare? Much like lucifer, Mammon will have you in his lap as he comforts you. He really hates punishing you but he won't let you walk all over him. Sometimes you need punishing.

Will they kill for their darling? Yes but not because someone simply looked your way, though he will get protective sending them a glare. He'd kill someone for hurting you, if someone insulted you he'd settle for injuring them depending on their words.

Levithan

Second to his older brother Mammon, obsesses over the reader quickly. It takes him a while to obsess over his darling; he doesn't come out of his room enough for it to happen. However, once Leviathan finally does spend some time with his darling, that is what gets the ball rolling.

Why does his obsession begin? Levi is the avatar of envy, so it’s pretty self-explanatory. Leviathan views himself as a yucky otaku, and having an angel as beautiful as his darling love someone like him is mind-boggling. Levi sees his darling interacting with his brothers or other demons, and he loathes their existence, ignoring the fact you probably spend most of your time with him: He can’t stop himself from thinking of mashing the person you’re hanging out with’s head against the wall till they no longer have a face.

How do the brothers react? Levi wouldn’t be good at hiding his yandere tendencies, leading to his brothers teasing him constantly about it. As long as Levi doesn’t harm his darling, his brothers won’t mind the way he acts (unless it gets annoying)

Punishments? No. Levi could never hurt a goddess like his darling! Harm his Henry?! Ha, no. If he were to hurt his darling it would be on accident, like his tail accidentally swiping at them when he wasn’t paying attention. The closest thing to a punishment for his darling is not talking to them for at least thirty minutes and then getting all pouty about their behavior.

Aftercare? Levi is all up on his darling, whining to them about being nicer to him. He understands he’s not the most handsome nor is he interesting- Levi is a gross gamer boy but at one point you wanted him! He can prove to you why that should still be the case!

Will he kill for his darling? Most definitely. Leviathan is easily persuaded by his envy. If another demon even thinks of insulting him to get with you, he’ll rip them to shreds.

Satan

Below Belphgor and above Lucifer on the quick to Obbsesion list. Needs time for the obsession to form, pretty normal until it finally occurs.

How does the obsession start? Satan’s obsession starts naturally, simply by getting to know you. His Yandere tendency becomes intense if he senses any romantic feelings toward Lucifer coming from you. That’s how you get a super manipulative and aggressive Satan. (His aggressiveness isn’t aimed at you all the time; we’re talking 35% of the time his aggressive attitude is aimed at you, but it’s only bits of it.)

How do his brothers react? Sceptical of his actions, but they know sometimes demons can act strange when in love. The brothers know their brother won’t hurt you on purpose, so they don’t mind it. They do get onto him now and then. As well as walking on eggshells since his wrath could go overboard when it comes to you.

Punishment? His manipulation is punishment enough, other than that enjoy the silent treatment. You may think this is a win on your part but Satan won’t let you leave. Even if you manage to keep him still with your pact, he’ll convince his brothers you’re a danger to yourself and he can help since he’s studied the human mind with his novels.

Aftercare? Asks if you’ve learned your lesson. If you say yes, you’re free to do as you please. If you say no, he’ll continue with the punishment.

Asmodeus

Asmodeus is one of the ones in the middle when it comes to how long it takes to him fall into an obsession. He’s right after Beel and Satan is after him.

How does the obsession start? His obsession begins when you grow closer to one another or funnily enough when you show no interest in him. Amso can’t stand knowing someone isn’t obsessed with him, like have you met him? He’s so wonderful! He just needs to persuade his darling by spending as much time with them as possible.

How do the brothers react? Besides being possessive of his darling at times, Asmo doesn’t show off his yandere side so his brothers don’t care much. His brothers just view his actions as being a protective boyfriend.

Punishments? Doesn't really do them. However, from time to time he’ll tie up his darling. Asmodeus will place a blanket around his darling’s body to ensure their skin won’t develop burns from the ropes; then he’ll wrap the rope around them for an hour or two. Until his darling can think about their actions. Another punishment that Asmodeus is open to is ignoring them for an hour or even a couple more if they do something he deems terrible. (Nothing’s worse than not being able to bask in Asmodeus’s glorious beauty! Ignoring you must be the worst punishment ever~)

Aftercare? Asmo will gently check his darling’s skin for any marks or bruises that the rope left. If there are any, Asmo will apply ointments while pressing soft kisses on their skin. If he goes with the ignoring method, he’ll ask if you learned your lesson, if you did then everything is back to normal.

Will he kill for his darling? Maybe. Depending on the offense. After all, he’s not ruining his skin with someone’s blood over a minor offense. Nonetheless, if anyone dares disrespect his darling he might get a little bloody. His Darling will have to praise him for it, at least!

Beel

Beel is in the upper part of the Yandere brother on how fast he becomes obsessed. He’s above Asmodeus and below Levi if we’re ranking from easily obsessed at the top and harder to make obsessed at the bottom. Beelzebub won’t notice the feeling. Beel knows he feels satisfied around you, akin to when he finishes the meals in the fridge; but he doesn't know why he keeps automatically growling at other demons who take your attention from him.

How does the obsession start? If his darling is kind to him and helps him when in need. Similar to the game. It only deepens when he and the reader are in a relationship. You said you're his so why does everyone want a piece of you? And not like you’re a slice of cake but Beel can’t handle others trying to take you from him. Beel can be very aggressive if others are too close to what’s his.

How do the brothers react? Beelzebub’s obsession isn’t a nuisance to his brothers or you (not much at least). Beel’s like a guard dog and his brothers respect him for it, although it irritates them when they just want to spend time with you, and Beel says no. Beelzebub is one of few of his brothers who, if confronted, will listen and attempt to calm his yandere tendency to keep a nice environment for everyone he loves.

Punishment? Beel doesn't do it on purpose; Unless he does, which is on occasion. Usually, he’ll act like a kicked puppy but it isn’t a manipulation tactic; he’s just genuinely upset. However, when Beel does act to punish you, he’ll lock you in his room and tell Belphgor to leave you alone until he thinks you’re ready to act right.

Aftercare? A nice snack with him holding you close. He’s really not that bad...not to you at least.

Belphgor

Belphie is above Lucifer and Satan but below Asmodeus in the list. Belphgor won’t easily become obsessed with his darling, it takes something major for him to act on his yandere tendency.

How does the obsession start? Belphgor would already have these feelings for you but wouldn’t act on them, it isn’t until you’ve been harmed or both of you fall in love, do these feelings begin to show. Slowly but surely. When his yandere tendencies take over, Belphgor can get quite aggressive with people; he’s more blatantly rude than he is aggressive. If someone were to actively try to get his darling to leave him due to his yandere behavior or attempt to flirt with them, he wouldn’t mind a lecture from Lucifer after nearly snapping the other demon’s neck.

How do the brothers react? They compare him to a Chihuahua, asking if Luke is his real brother. They say Belphie is an aggressive chihuahua, and Luke is the chihuahua that yaps all the time. Besides fighting with Belphgor to spend time with you, they don’t care much. They know Lucifer will put Belphie in his place should he ever try hurting you or the other brothers.

Punishment? Yes. Belphie doesn’t mind punishing you; however, he doesn’t harm his darling on purpose. Similar to his brothers, he’ll keep you locked away, knowing how frustrating the feeling is and knowing it’s one of the best forms of punishment, he doesn't mind going through with it. You’ll be fine if you have food and water. Plus, he’ll allow you out as long as you’ve learned your lesson and Belphie wants to cuddle up to you for a nap.

Aftercare? Belphgor will bring you to bed so he can fall asleep. He doesn't like having you away for so long, especially since he uses you to fall asleep. In a way, both of you were punished, if you think about it. Will scold you, telling you to do better next time because he doesn't mind leaving you alone longer.

[shini--chan]

Yandere Paul Atreides - Hourglass

Word count: ~ 2,5K Summary: It is your own fault for taking a liking to Paul, but you never love him. Perhaps you are doing it because you love his mother as if she were your own sister, and this is why you are helping him reach clarity when it comes to his dreams. Pity that the whole thing just backfires on you when Paul realises that you’re saving him and his House through your actions. Trigger warnings: politics, manipulation, stalking, yandere behaviour Autor Note: Here is the Yandere Paul Atreides story I promised long ago. This can be seen as an isekai, doesn't have to be. I might turn it into a oneshot series.

If anybody asked you what your favourite place in the universe is, your answer would be Caladan. It was home after all. That was why you had come to detest Arrakis just as much as the honourable Duke Leto. Of course, it was more than apparent that the Duke couldn’t openly display his distaste; it would be a blow to morale. That being said, you had known the family for years, and the Atreides’ displayed it though longing for Caladan, for day long rains and fish and the lush continents.

The only seas here were those of sand and those were even more treacherous than the Caladanian oceans had been. Sandworms were also far more dangerous than any kraken or other creature of the deep, and spice more valuable. Your problem was that the greatest discomfort, danger even, didn't stem from the local fauna, the environment, or even the political machinations running their course in the background of everyday life.

The matter at head that was making your heart race and cursing you with sleepless nights, was a person and his name was Paul Atreides.

Which was why you were particularly wary about running around in the open. You had just finished attending to Lady Jessica, or to put it in better words, finished trying to convince her to allow you to end your tutorship to her son. Unsuccessfully, mind you. Your lady saw the close bond between you and Paul and cherished it. Besides, you were far too useful to let go, or to allow you to distance yourself in any way.

Turning your head left and right, you huffed and then scurry along the shadow in the corridor. Nothing stopped you and you felt yourself breath a bit easier. For such a pale young man, he was very apt at concealing himself. Something he now used to avoid your scornful gaze and pleas for him to stop following you everywhere. Not that any words of yours stopped him.

A few stray pebbles bounced as you hurried along and there was the quiet swish of your robes as the light cloth flared out. Other than that, there wasn't much sound from you. Servants were supposed to be seen at most, and not heard. The soles of your shoes cushioned your every step, ensuring that your steps themselves were silent. Thankfully, there wasn't anybody else around, so you didn't have to bother too much with decorum.

The rest of the staff was either tucked away in the cooler parts of the castle or station elsewhere in the unbearable heat. Of course, you would prefer the former yourself, yet you weren't master of your own fate here. There were rules of conduct between a noble and their subjects that both had to adhere to. Therein lay one of your problems.

Paul always liked to be too close for comfort. It was a habit of House Atreides to foster close connections with their servants and subjects. While it was all good and well that they saw their lessers as human, unlike so many of the other houses in the Known Universe, the Atreides heir was crossing lines. He was being invasive.

Before turning around a corner, you slowed to a halt and peaked around it. A valet disappeared around another corner just as you did so and you continued your harried journey to the landing bay. Since your position of strategy teacher was unofficial and unlisted as opposed to your job as handmaiden, you were going to play the official part more than usual. It was reasonable, seeing that the household was still only just settling in their new home. There was still a lot of work to be done - rooms had to be furnished, the warehouse stocked, the trunks unpacked…

Doing so would give you a chance and a reason to minimise contact with Paul until you had another chance to persuade his mother to put you out of harm's way. You didn't graduate as an intelligence officer and land yourself with dignified employment in House Atreides only to be pursued by a boy that had only just become an adult. You just had to make sure that he didn’t catch wind of your intentions to distance yourself from him. If you didn’t, he would probably find a way to be even more on your case than he already was, if that was even humanly possible.

The lift that led to the landing bay just a few metres away when a hand shot forth to grab you. Hyperreactive reflexes allowed you to duck before any conscious plan could even register. You turned on your heels as you automatically fell into a low fighting stance. In order to put enough force behind your punch, you put your whole torso in the movement. You were rewarded with a clean sucker punch and the grunt that your would-be assailant let out.

However, unlike the usual person, he didn't allow himself to be stunned. Even as he choked on his next breaths, he delivered a swift kick to your sternum with a steel toed boot. So in turn, you were winded as well. While it didn’t knock you heels over kettle, it did make you stumble back a few steps. Eyes stayed on your opponent, and when he stepped out of the shadows of the servant nooks, you got a good look at your attacker.

Paul had the linen attire that he usually wore these days - heat isolating and flowing to allow swift movement. Yet there still was embroidery that marked him as noble and a pride to his countenance that couldn’t be framed as youthful arrogance. What’s more, he didn’t leave you any time to recover and body slammed you into the opposite wall. The both of you stayed quiet for a few minutes. You shot Paul a glare. If he thought that you were that close, then two could play a game.

Once it was clear that this interaction wouldn't be interrupted, he hissed at you: “Where have you been? I’ve been searching for you everywhere!”

You adjusted your position as much as his grip on your waist would allow you, just a bit so that you were a smidgen more comfortable. Then you huffed at him. “I was attending to Lady Jessica, as I was expected to.”

Of course, that wasn’t completely true. As soon as the chance had presented itself, you had slipped from Paul’s watchful eye. Naturally, he thought that you were completely insolent to slip from his side without his approval.

“We’ve discussed this time and time again. Since the Harkonons are this close…”, he snapped at you, and released you to hold up his dominant hand in front of your face. His thumb and middle finger were nearly touching. “... to enacting their plan to overthrow House Atreides. You know this, and yet you go galavanting around as if this is a mountain meadow back in Caladan. If I didn’t know better, I would say you have been the spy all along. Did you really forget about the hunter-seeker that went for the kill just a few days ago.”

“Your dreams have become more vivid?”, you inquired instead of coming up with any further excuse. That would be just as futile as whispering in the wind.

Paul sagged a fraction. It wasn’t enough for a stranger to notice, yet you had known Paul for too long for it to escape you. It was a damn shame that the haggard look that anxiety granted him, suited him.

“Yes”, he affirmed softly. Then he straightened up again. A look to the right, a look to the left, and then he seized your wrist and dragged you to the servant's nook from where he had ambushed you earlier. Since there was a small bench hewn in the wall, you took the chance to sit down - your chest still ached from where Paul had kicked you and breathing could be easier. Unluckily, it meant that you were knee-to-knee, side-to-side with Paul.

“The dreams have been becoming so vivid and clear that they have been bleeding into my waking hours. Mother hasn’t been of much help, and just sees it as confirmation that I’m the Kwsatitz Haderach.”

Without invitation or prompting, he lay his head on your shoulder. While you flinched for a second, you made no move to push him away. That could be interpreted as an insult and was volatile enough already.

“Sometimes I praise you and curse you in the same breath. All that you said was true, and all my dreams are clearer now because of that. Yet they are now sometimes so clear that I mistake them for the occuring present. Every thread of a possible future is ladened with death and destruction, and there are only a handful of narrow paths that don't lead to a future where we all die. How can I be still and passive when I know of such things?”

You gave him an awkward pat on the back. It was your fault that he was like this, and you were torn between regret and resignation and a third emotion that you couldn't name. When Paul had told you of his dreams, you had explained to him that dreams were messages from the deep. The human subconscious had a fuller grasp on reality than the consciousness and therefore the warnings brought forth in the forms of dreams shouldn't simply be ignored.

He had taken your advice to heart, and had opened himself to the wisdom that oversimplified conscious thought couldn't comprehend due to its magnitude and complexity. Then, a few days prior he had stormed into your room without fanfare, awaking you with his loudness, and had gone on a disjointed rant about the Harkonons and how they couldn't be trusted to be moral or honourable or stick to legality and that everyone was in danger.

It had taken him long enough to calm down, especially since the spice in the air had only fueled his continuing premonitions. Eventually, when he had been coherent enough again, he had echoed a lesson you had taught him long ago. That humans rarely operated on cold logic and that even the highest emperor was a creature guided by passion and fear. Logic was used to justify emotions, and therefore politics could never be clean.

So much destruction lay ahead, because one man feared losing even just a smidgen of his jealously guarded power.

It had surprised you to learn that he had listened may back then, though that had been quickly replaced by the desperation that infused everyone of his following action. It reminded you that no matter how well-educated and well-read he was, he still was a sheltered youth at the end of the day. All dreams paled in comparison to lived reality - this was a quiet crisis that never had a place in the adventures he had daydreamed about.

The ducal heir wound an arm around your waist and buried his face in your neck. Paul relaxed just as you tensed.

“Panicking would be counterproductive now. It is in panic that people make the most severe mistakes”, you cautioned him. He hummed in agreement and pulled you closer to him as if to comfort. You let him because what choice did you have. Despite all the sweet words, there was a wide gap in power between the two of you. 

“Stay by my side all the time, then I’ll have a clear and calm mind.”

Your movements were wooden when you lay an arm over the back of his shoulders. As fond as you were of him, you never had loved him so his insistence on closeness was uncomfortable. When should you have drawn a line in the sand? When he was in awe of your knowledge and experience? Or when he used the just small age gap between the two of you to establish a friendship? It wasn’t regarded as an anomaly at the time, since he was close with his other mentors. 

“You know that wouldn’t work very well. People that don’t already know that I’m training in intelligence will become suspicious. And it is not like Duke Leto and Lady Jessica would let me stick to your side the whole time”, you countered. 

He already insisted that the two of you share the same bed and it was a boon when he allowed you to shower alone. It made you think that it wasn’t all about safety, as he claimed when you became stern. For one, he seemed to enjoy the close proximity with you too much. 

Paul separated himself for you and then grabbed you by the hand. Soft lips pressed lightly against the insides of your wrist, directly over the veins and arteries. You took deep breaths to prevent yourself from ripping your arm out of his grasp. 

“Both of those arguments are invalid, so that is besides the point. Your appearance doesn’t hint at your true skills and lets people underestimate you. They’ll find ways to justify the changes in both our behaviour, without them coming close to the truth. Humans hate being wrong, so they won’t alter their assessment of the situation to match the truth”, he chided you. 

“If that is the case, then it was counterproductive of you to ambush me. Somebody could have seen us. Keep in mind that I’m talking about unfriendly eyes.”

The free hand reached up and with featherlight fingertips he traced your hairline. 

“Yes, I know. It was just a reminder to keep your guard up. And to not get ahead of yourself - I did overpower you, didn’t I?”

“My Lord is the exception rather than the rule. Your father didn’t neglect your education, and did ensure that you only got the best teachers.”

“That is true, otherwise he wouldn’t have given me you”, he countered. 

You sighed softly and dared to give him a direct glance. The young man was more relaxed now and calmer. The calm before the storm, mayhaps? He laid down your hand in his lap and those softened eyes hardened and his next words had a cold quality to them. 

“The Harkonnens won’t show any mercy or let you live under any circumstances. Even if you would succeed in convincing my mother and my father to let you go, then you wouldn’t get far. You wouldn’t get aboard a spaceship, because you can’t afford a price. The Spacing Guild doesn’t just let anybody join their crews on short notice, so you would be dead before they would even hire you. Going alone into the desert is a death sentence and you would have no guarantee that the Fremen would draw you in the fold, aside from draining you for your water. 

“It is completely unlike you to not maintain a level head in a stressful situation. That is only more reason for you to kindly cease your attempts of running away and heed my guidance.”

The wad of saliva went down with difficulty. Were you so obvious to him, or was it prescience speaking? Was the rumour mill to blame? Either way he was right - you were stuck in the same boat as him and the Harkonons would either kill you or enslave you or both. Trying to remove yourself from the situation would mean making yourself more vulnerable and would invite predators in for the chase. Your fate lay in his hands and by the looks of it, he intended to keep it forever and chain you to his side. 

What should you do? 

[silverzoomies]

Summer Wind

tate langdon x reader smut

warnings: existential crisis, death, afterlife, implied/referenced character death, murder, angst, aged-up tate langdon, fingering, fingerfucking, kissing, canon divergence

word count: 4,690

a/n: another drabble. y'know that thing people do sometimes? where they "age-up" a character, but don't really age them up? i initially wrote this in response to that. but it somehow turned into a means of venting my existential terror instead. i was gonna include more smut. but tbh i didn't feel right about it. this one's gonna stay unfinished. sorry about the abrupt ending !!

inspired by the song summer wind by frank sinatra

You were dead for an indiscernible span of time.

You couldn't be sure how long. But you suspected a few years, at least. Through one of the top floor windows of your eternal purgatory; you watched the trees. Nature alternated between skeletal displays of branches, to vibrant arrays of color. Withered. Blooming. Withered. Blooming. Withered. Blooming again. Rinse and repeat.

Once you accepted your fate, things started clicking into place. Trapped in a vintage hotbox of murder, you put together the pieces of a long lost puzzle. And though some parts were still absent, you pushed yourself to move on. You might never figure out how you died, or who you were before. But to worry so much would be senseless at this point.

Through acceptance, you began to feel again. If only in small bursts. Abrupt, but worth cherishing.

One memory remained ever present. You had the sense you were a school guidance counselor in life. And in death, you took up the mantle again. Offering your services to the other souls lost in the house. One of the ghostly residents shared a similar occupation. Way back in his breathing years. He didn’t do it so much anymore. Instead, he spent time with his family, working towards redemption for his past actions.

You steered clear of most residents, fearful of their unpredictable episodes of bloodlust. They allowed the evil within the house to lure them further into madness. On the days they came to you for your services, you spoke to them in hopes they’d find absolution. Change in the afterlife was extremely difficult to achieve. Your 'clients' rarely ever scratched the surface of their tainted psyches. And any progress they made, they always resorted to their old habits in the end.

Only one of them ever found true change. Of course, he had to be the most wretched of them all.

You once felt sympathy for Tate, making excuses on his behalf. In the years when his heart still pumped blood through his veins; he was young. Misguided. Perhaps the pressures of his upbringing took too much of a toll on him. And in the afterlife, he suffered under the influence of the house itself. The evil buried deep within channeled through his broken soul.

But if such an evil did exist, it never took hold of you. Nor did it sink its venomous teeth into Violet, or her innocent mother, or that pure of heart baby, or even Ben Harmon himself - sinful a man as he was. They resisted, and so did you.

Tate was pure evil. Carnage incarnate. Maybe that made him susceptible to the influence of dark forces. But after talking with him for a few years, you accepted him for what he was. Foul from birth, deplorable in death. No matter how often you tried guiding him to goodness, he remained forever loathsome. The evil in him burned eternally, needing no kindling.

His own acceptance of that fact allowed him to change. In a more physical way, much like Moira. Tate embraced his fate, convinced the house was where he belonged. A punishment until the end of all things. Simultaneously, a safe haven from whatever lay in waiting after purgatory. Tate’s progress was very much real. Albeit, not the kind you aimed for.

You could see his growth in his features, rather than his morals. Sitting across from you during another weekly session, Tate fidgeted with a frayed hole in his jeans. With his blond brows creased, he stared down at the denim. As you watched him like this, you picked apart his finer details. Where his skin once beamed with the pale, ghostly image of youth; creases were now etched in. Faint, but noticeable lines curved under his eyes.

An aura of maturity emanated from him like a light much too dim. Tate carried the same mannerisms from his heyday - if one could even call it that. But he had long since graduated from his mentality of that era. Tate spoke of his past actions as if he regretted them, though you suspected he felt no real remorse. He used to cry all the time. He used to throw childish tantrums. But you couldn’t remember the last time you saw his soulless, black eyes water. Now…

He carried nothing but cold desolation. Common amongst those trapped in perpetual limbo.

“I saw her again today.” He admitted, his lidded eyes flitting up to meet yours, “She hasn’t changed any. Not like me. Not like…” Tate made a gesture at his face, his thumb grazing the angular shape of his jaw. Tiredly, he blinked, “Not like this. Fate’s a funny thing, isn’t it? I always thought we were fated to be together forever, but…”

On the sofa across from him, you kept your cheek perched in a hand. As you scribbled in your notebook, you took note of the way Tate’s features bled misery. All at the mention of her. It must have been painful for him, watching her stay the same. While he finally outgrew himself. Those changes only further separated the two of them. Obliterating any chance he had to make amends. If there ever was.

There especially wouldn’t be now. Even Tate was on the tailend of coming to terms with it.

“How’d it make you feel this time around?” You pressed in a soft tone, shifting on the couch. His dark hues zeroed in on your thighs, bare in a simple dress. The lining appeared cheap, glittering with sequins reminiscent of childhood nostalgia, “When you saw her?”

“Fuckin’...I dunno…” Tate put his face in his vascular hands, fingers curling into his hair, “She’s like a kid to me anymore. What am I supposed to think?”

“Maybe she’s content like that. In the same way you’re content the way you are now.” You shrugged, tenderly laughing, “Maybe teenage angst suits her that much.”

He shook his head, shifting from a criss cross position on the loveseat across from you. Bouncing a leg, Tate gave you a pointed look. His brows turned downward.

“We thought it fit me too, didn’t we? But look at me now."

You were. You were looking at him a lot. And he wasn't wrong. Teenage angst once paired well with Tate's immature nature. Back when he thought like a kid, and acted on impulse. These days, he'd become more lethargic. When he wasn’t consumed with blood lust. Rugged virility was his partner now. Coupled with the melancholy existentialism of a man pushing thirty.

“You wanted to move on.” You clarified, your teeth clicking the edge of a pen at your lips.

“Did I?” Tate bitterly laughed, the empty vacuums of his eyes caught your tongue in motion, “Doesn't seem like anyone else here wants to. ‘Cept Moira.”

“Well, they only think they can’t. They believe they’re tethered here, frozen in time at their moment of death. I used to think growth was impossible too. Until you…”

You took in his masculine features again. The scruff around his chin. So fair, and not too noticeable. Catching yourself in the midst of ogling him, you redirected your gaze to Tate’s eyes. Imposing. Starless. Easy to get lost in. He wasn’t ignorant to your attraction. A hint of grin pulled into his laugh lines and dimples.

“Does it scare you?” He asked, “What’s your excuse then?” Tate threw a condescending nod of his head, “If you’re so enlightened. If you know better than all of us - with your morals ‘n bullshit like that. Why haven’t you changed any since you died?"

Shrugging, you looked bashfully down at your notes.

“Why would I want to? If I can stay young for eternity. If I can keep these curves, and what’s left of my youth. What’s the point in growing older?” You admitted in truth.

“That’s a little superficial though, isn’t it?” Tate leaned back into the loveseat cushions, “Shit like that doesn’t matter here. Who are you tryna impress? And what’s anybody living gonna think? When they meet you, and find out you’re nothin’ but food for maggots now.” He teased, legs spread, one knee bouncing, “There’s gotta be another reason you haven’t moved on. You’re not like us. I dunno why you and the Harmons don’t just…y’know…go.” He trailed off, his gaze falling to his lap.

You saw his bitterness return in full force. Another miserable wave of longing washed over him. Yearning for something that didn’t exist anymore, and never would again.

“I…” You paused, doodling hasty flowers in your notebook. You avoided Tate’s eyes, “I wanna know how I died first. I wanna know who I was. Before I even consider moving on.”

Sinister acidity flashed through his vision, “Seriously? That’s what’s stopping you?” Tate huffed a harsh laugh, admitting without missing a beat, “You wanna know how you died? I’ll tell you. I stuck a knife in your back and stabbed you to death.” He confessed, monotone, “You know it too. You’ve known since we met. You’ve just been in denial this whole time.”

You sat up in an abrupt movement, scooting forward and tossing your notebook away.

“What?! What are you even talking ab-…I’ve been trying to figure this out for years, Tate! Years!” You threw out your hands, “You…you can’t be serious! Why would I be in denial about something like that??”

Tears of betrayal stung the corners of your eyes. Tate shrugged, seemingly unbothered. He crossed his arms, his eyes dark under the ridges of his brows.

“‘Cuz you feel bad for me. Or…uhm…you wanna feel bad for me.” He shrugged again, “Fuck if I know why. I’m the last guy you should have sympathy for.” Tate said, his black hues narrowing in thought.

“You didn’t…did you really stab me? Really? You’re not lying about that?” You almost shouted, clawing your fingers through your hair, “Please. Please tell me you’re lying!”

Tate appeared unfazed, ignoring you, “Do you love me or something? Is that why you’re so broken up about this?” He asked, desperate in his infinite search for validation.

“Why the fuck would you stab me?!” You shouted, full of wrathful turmoil.

You stood off the couch, surging toward him with your fists balled at your sides. Tate didn’t flinch. He pursed his lips, thoughtful again. With an insufferable aura of nonchalance, he shrugged once more.

“Wanted to.”

The blank emptiness in his expression told you everything you already knew. Tears streamed down your face, painting your cheeks and chin in damp threads.

“Where? Where did you stab me??”

Tate gestured with a nod of his head, towards the only window in the room. A summer breeze fluttered, catching the curtains in its dance. You wanted to find the radiant light of nature beautiful again. But it only served as a haunting reminder - the environment remained symbiotic with time. And you were forever left behind.

“Over there. By that window.” He said, watching you pad over to said window, the skirt of your dress fluttering.

The window. In the one room you always felt so drawn to, for reasons unknown. Now, you knew. Bracing your hands on the windowsill, you peered your head outside. Ghosting your skin, the air breathed an essence of life. Something you were no longer a part of. You used to be content with that fact. But now? Knowing your life was unfairly ripped from you, how could you ever move on? Your death wasn’t an accident. Nor had an irreversible illness seized your physical form. Just Tate.

His low voice droned from behind you and in your ear. A faint vibration followed, along with a presence at your back. You felt the soft texture of his sweater, but no body heat with it. One of his icy hands met your shoulder. He reached his other arm out. Tate pointed to a spot near the entrance gates.

“I didn’t wanna tell you. Because I didn’t wanna lose you too. But…” He paused for a beat, “It was on Halloween. Ten years or so years ago, I guess. I was gonna leave. Make my rounds. Y’know…like I used to. The house was-uh...up for grabs back then. You came up to the door. One of the kids here opened it for you. And you kinda...walked in. Tried lookin' for 'em. Wrong place, wrong time.” Tate lowered both his hands to yours, after sliding his fingers down the sides of your arms, “You were holdin’ hands with some kid the whole time. He had to be, like…seven? Eight? I don’t even remember what his costume was.” His lips curved in a grin, “But I still remember yours.”

Your fingers curled into the sill, scraping wood, indenting the paint.

Ten years.

“So, you stabbed me in front of a child?”

Another breeze blew by. The steady air picked up your dress with it, flitting delicate fabric. Glitter along the seams of it fell away, sparkling like microscopic crystallites in the wind. Tate’s long fingers drew patterns over the cold surface of your skin. Tracing infinity symbols onto your hands.

“Rapunzel.” He whispered, “That dress was kinda pretty on you. Sucks about all the blood.”

You remembered then. When death imbued you with unexpected consciousness, you wandered around the house in a blood-stained dress. And ever since, your afterlife wardrobe alternated only between dresses of similar styles. Always cheap fabrics. Decorated in craft materials. You assumed you must’ve loved playing dress up in life. The thought of perishing in a store bought Halloween costume never crossed your mind.

“Who was he?”

You sniffled, breath hitching without any need for oxygen. Tate brought a hand to your cheek, wiping away your tears. He loomed behind you. A cold-blooded apparition of your nightmares. His casual talk of violent depravity made your blood boil.

“Who, the kid?” He asked.

He lowered his hands to the sill. Looking out the window over your shoulder, Tate squinted in the sunlight.

“Yes! I don’t-” You burst into tears without warning, sobbing into your hands, “I-I don’t remember anything! Nothing! I had no idea…who was he??”

“Dunno…” he dropped his head, pressing his cheek to your hair, “I didn’t really stop to ask. He ran away. Right after I pushed you out of this window.”

“You pushed m-what?! You’re a fucking monster.” You whimpered. Wishing you could leap out and disappear with the oscillation of the wind, “You know you’re never getting out of here, don’t you? You’re never going to change, Tate. You’ll always be a monster.”

“Probably.” He droned, wrapping his arms around your middle. Pulling you closer, he added, “You’ll be stuck here too. If you don’t let go of that anger. If you let your rage consume you. All that bitterness and hatred. This house feeds off of it.” Another pause. He nuzzled the top of your head with his cheek, “Uhm…I know this won’t fix anything. But…I really am sorry I took your life from you.”

You huffed, staring teary eyed out the window. Taking in the vast, effervescent world you’d never be a part of - through the border that brought your demise.

“But I’m really stoked you’re here….’cuz it’s not as lonely with you around.” He admitted.

“I could always tell you to fuck off.” You choked, venomous in your revulsion.

“Yeah. You could. But you won’t.” He grabbed your arms with gentle hands, wheeling you around to face him. He took your tiny fingers in his palms. You refused to meet his eyes, “If you made me disappear, you wouldn’t have anybody.”

You decided to hit him where it hurt, strangling through tears, “I could always talk to Violet. She has such a good heart. Not like the rest of you. You’re all just…awful. So horrible and cruel!”

Tate clenched his jaw, dropping his forehead into yours.

“You’re right. She’s not.” He woefully mumbled, “How come I still miss her, huh? Been missin’ what we had for, like…forever. Now I’m pushin’ you away too. And you’re all I have left.”

“Maybe stop killing people, Tate?” You snuffed, tears catching your eyelashes. He wiped them away all the same, “Who knew death could be so miserable. I…I finally found out the one thing I’ve wanted to know after all these years. I thought a little closure might help me, but…” You cried, “I feel even more messed up.”

“Why? Do you love me?” He pressed with so little confidence, you felt he only said it to convince himself.

“I…” You hesitated, brows furrowed, “I cared about you. Even though you’re a lunatic. I wanted to give you a chance. But now…now I just want to shove you out this window like you did to me. I want to scream at you, Tate! I want to make you suffer! I want to-”

He shifted closer. Within this vicinity, his maturation became all the more clear. Your weeping hues glazed over the creases under his eyes. The blond bangs of his hair had thinned by a smidgen, losing its youthful shagginess. He was all fine lines and outward exhaustion. Had you met him like this in life, you’d think him a mere decade away from a mid-life crisis.

“Go ahead. If it helps. I don’t mind.” He reached down again, grabbing your hands and guiding them up to his chest, “Just let all that rage go…you can take it out on me.”

This was just another tactic of his. An attempt to appease you, in desperate hopes you’d forgive him. Still, you didn’t think twice. Whatever wrathful anguish you kept buried inside finally erupted. The soul crushing weight of loss tumbled down over you, sending you into a frenzy. You thrashed your arms, throwing your fists in shallow, but sharp strikes. Battering against Tate’s chest, you landed every blow - inspired by betrayal. He remained still, watching you with a hollow look.

Hits turned to scratches as your grief took hold of you. You clawed into Tate’s sweater, wailing, powerless to the pain of his disloyalty. Taken aback by your overwhelming emotions, you wondered how the afterlife could bring so much suffering. Tate wrapped his arms around you again, and you buried your nose in his sweater. Your sorrowful tears stained the stitching.

“I hate you. So much. So fucking much.” You whimpered.

“You said you cared about me.”

“I hate that I care about you.” You cried, sobbing into his sweater, “I-I want to hate you. I need to hate you. But you’re right. You’re fucking vile, and you’re right. If you were gone, I wouldn’t have anybody else.”

Shifting again, he tilted your head up with a cold hand under your chin. Tate stared down at you, weary with lonesome desolation. The endless monotony of purgatory brought forth nothing but turmoil. And that turmoil linked you both in all-consuming angst. When he dove in to kiss your lips, you allowed it. If only to feel something far less painful.

Tate hadn’t kissed anyone in over a decade. But he flowed naturally with you, wary of applying too much pressure. The last of your tears fell, and again, he wiped them away. Separation came slow, as he parted from your lips. He blinked, leering like he couldn’t believe you reciprocated. Another beat, and he dove in all over again.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered.

Kissing in your ghostly state felt bleak as the dull air of winter. In the throes of lonesome yearning, death nuzzled death so intimately. You opened yourself up for him, moving back until you hit the windowsill. In your negligence, you sat on it. A calm, easy breeze enveloped your back, tickling your neck. His desirous kisses swallowed you in, his hands claiming your cheeks.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He mumbled, his words weaving through every kiss.

Fate had yet to deliver you closeness of this kind. You couldn’t fathom how intimate connectedness might work in death. As Tate’s cold lips fell to your neck, the atmosphere between the two of you shifted. Something akin to the radiance of life saturated the air. Like the summer’s glow shining from outside. A few seconds more, and coldness turned to heat. Sensual heat.

“What does it feel like?” You asked, breathless without the need for air. You tipped your head back. Tate took this as an invitation to ravish more of you, “To make love after dying?”

The glossy warmth of his tongue painted gradual lines across your neck. He caressed you with a thumb, gliding the digit over your cheek. Under the newfound heat of his palm, you felt burning intensity. No one else brought you physical touch like this. Not since a time before you perished, so long ago.

All because of him.

“Feels kinda the same?” Tate muttered in a hushed voice. Capturing your lips again, he kissed you with cautious tenderness, “It’s a lot like being alive…from what I remember. Some of us get addicted to it. Like a drug. They suffer without it. Drives ‘em crazy.”

His forehead fell to yours once more, and Tate’s eyes fluttered shut. He continued stroking your cheek, cradling your face. As if you’d disappear once he let go. You noticed the way his chest heaved. Slowly, like his lungs were still infused with the essence of life. But when he moved in for another kiss, you felt no breath on your lips.

“Does it drive you crazy?” You whispered between kisses, “Do you suffer without it?”

“Not really.” He said, dragging his thumb over your lip, “Missed this, though. I miss it all the time.”

“What? Kissing?”

Tate nodded, blond brows creasing as his smile faded. For a beat or two more, he fell silent. Staring down into your eyes with all the liveliness of a barren void. You gazed into a cave-like abyss, lost with no light to guide you. Beckoned by the promise of something unseen.

“This feels…different…with you.” He whispered.

“Different how?” You shivered as his soft touches moved elsewhere, "Are you feeling guilty? Does it hurt? I hope it fucking hurts."

Dragging the tips of his fingers up and down your arms, he drew invisible lines with his nails. So careful. Like you’d shatter if he treated you too roughly. His palms settled over your hips, and again, he kissed you. Tate just couldn’t seem to stop doing so, even as you spoke to him with poison on your tongue.

“No. It’s warmer.” He squeezed your hips a little tighter, “Why…why’s it so warm with you?”

The initial kisses between you both were so frigid and lifeless. But now, somehow, so heated and real. You locked your legs around his hips, crossing your ankles. Inviting him forward, you loomed in the sill of the window. Your body tilted. In the arms of the summer’s air, you almost fell backwards. You had every reason to believe Tate would let you plummet.

But he didn’t. Not this time.

With an arm wrapped around your waist, he kept you from slipping. Under your dress, his free hand sought the heat between your legs. His palm cradled warmth over thin cloth. Discreetly, he pressed the pads of his fingers to your sex over your panties. And the contact amplified a scorching fire within you. A vigor exceeding the bitterness of death.

You wondered if Tate had less experience than he claimed in therapy. It took him a few tries before he found your clit. His sizable fingers circled your little nub in easy motions. Drawing long, needy noises out of you. Silence lingered between you both in calm, but tense quiet. Until the rasp of his voice caught your attention.

“Do you feel this? Do you feel, like…anything?”

You whimpered in response - timid like a churchmouse - as wetness stained Tate’s fingers through fabric. Cotton once so pure and untouched became damp. He chuckled, the sinister rumble in his throat making your blood run cold. Until the warmth of desire lured you in before you could second guess yourself. Savoring the hot friction on your pussy, you allowed sin to taint your clarity.

"For you? No. Never. You're sick. You're twisted. You're-" You cut yourself off with another whimper, once Tate caressed you with more pressure.

“Oh, shit…” He hastily tugged your panties down your thighs. Cupping your bare cunt, he pressed firmly into your clit. Thick digits teased the blazing heat of your folds, “You do, don’t you?”

Tate’s fingers dipped into your slick valley, his digits predominantly larger than your own. You rolled your hips just a smidgen, careful not to lose your balance - lest you fall out the window. Again. Though, maybe a rough tumble onto the lawn would knock some sense back into your muddled head. His other arm stayed iron locked around your body, keeping you safe. He eased inside you with all the hesitance of a man out of practice.

"F-Fuck! Fuck this. Fuck you." You mumbled, hushed under airy moans.

Following the squeeze of pleasure in your core, came something you lost in the afterlife. You almost felt the pumping of your dead heart again. A ghostly sensation of life blossomed under your ribs. Warmth flowed through your veins in syrupy bliss. Cozy wind billowed from outside, tickling your skin. If you closed your eyes for long enough, basking in the ecstasy of true feeling - you might’ve believed you were somehow revived.

Flitting your lashes, your eyes gradually opened. The sunny glow of afternoon light painted Tate’s aged features, showering him in golden rays. An image far too heavenly for a cold-blooded monster birthed from sin. You looked lazily into his hues. A whirlpool of guilt intermingling with lifeless cruelty; all within his dusky eyes.

“Feels like…” He mumbled, clumsily nuzzling your clit with the pad of his thumb. Biting his lip, Tate stifled a groan. He buried his fingers to the knuckle in your cunt, “...like I can feel your blood pumping.” Adding a third digit, he stretched you open. Your walls made effortless room just for him. You whined, making him smirk, “Fuck, this is hot. You love it, huh?”

"No. No. No, I'd never! Not with you. I'm just-" You swallowed, feeling your cheeks burn, "It really does feel like-"

Post-mortem coldness became lost on you now. Left behind, alongside your broken hearted resentment. Instead, you were overcome with the lively spirit of beingness. The afterlife had been so unkind to you. For a decade now. It abandoned you to stew in the longevity of solitude. With no one but Tate to provide you true company. Bringing your hands up to his cheeks, you pulled him in for a kiss. Your fingers threaded through his blond locks. Winding your tongue sloppily with his, you whined.

"Make me cum." You asserted, your legs sealing tighter around him, "Make me cum, and I might forgive you."

A flash of vulnerable sweetness overtook Tate's face, his puppydog eyes lighting up. An almighty flood of euphoria built up to a radiant crescendo, as his digits fucked you into oblivion. You clamped around his fingers, squirming with such intensity - he almost lost his hold on you. Tranquility found you at the peak of your climax. A divine miracle. As you cried little pleas into Tate’s lips, you felt as though you grew angel’s wings. As if some ethereal being descended from the heavens themselves, stole you away, and led you to the golden gates.

As you shuddered, your paradisal tremors eventually subsided. Blissful nirvana faded, and the hollow nothingness of death’s touch came again. Outside, the world continued on in slow-moving seconds. And in the distant horizon, the sun began its steady fall into night. Tate’s nose brushed yours. Looming in so close, he withdrew his drenched digits from your pussy. Leaving even more forsaken emptiness behind.

“I could…do that kinda thing for you every day…if you wanted me to.” He whispered, peppering your forehead in kisses, “It feels really good, doesn’t it? Just…please don’t make me go away? Please…”

[vortexbloom]

Hii! Could I please request yandere!stalker! Childe or Cyno with a female reader?🩷

Have a nice day/ night!🩷🩷

Heyyy ☺️ Of course!

I decided to choose Cyno btw.

Yandere Cyno as your Stalker (Headcanons)

Pairing: Yandere (Stalker) Cyno x Female Reader

Fandom: Genshin Impact

Warnings: Obsessiveness, Possessiveness, Stalking, Yandere Themes.

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Masterlist - Genshin Impact

Moodboards - Genshin Impact

Masterlist - Honkai Star Rail

Masterlist - Marvel

Boycott List

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English isn’t my first/native language, so there might be misspellings etc.

I do NOT own any Characters!

Have fun reading this :D

Art by: @skedaddle_art on X (Twitter)

⟡ Cyno wouldn’t leave anything to chance. He’s meticulous, learning your habits, routines, and preferences down to the smallest detail.

⟡ He uses his skills as the General Mahamatra to gather information, tracking you with precision, always staying a step ahead.

⟡ Cyno rationalizes his stalking by convincing himself that he’s protecting you from the dangers of the world.

⟡ You might feel like you’re being watched, but you’d never catch him outright, he’s too skilled at hiding in the shadows.

⟡ His sense of justice becomes distorted when it comes to you. He believes it’s his duty to keep you safe, even if it means stepping far outside the bounds of what’s moral or legal.

⟡ Anyone he perceives as a threat to you (whether they are or not) is swiftly dealt with, always in the name of "justice."

⟡ Cyno maintains his calm, collected demeanor, which makes his obsessive tendencies all the more unsettling. Even when caught doing something questionable, he’ll justify it in a way that sounds almost logical.

⟡ His poker face ensures you’d never know the full extent of his obsession, even if you start to suspect something.

⟡ Cyno views you as someone who belongs to him, though he wouldn’t openly say it. Instead, he expresses it through his actions, like removing people he deems unworthy of your time.

⟡ His intense gaze follows you when you’re in public, though he keeps his distance.

⟡ Cyno’s devotion to you is absolute. He sees himself as your protector, confidant, and, eventually, your partner.

⟡ He believes that no one else could care for you as deeply or as thoroughly as he does.

⟡ Cyno would manipulate your surroundings to ensure you stay close to him.

⟡ He’d subtly scare off people you might date or become friends with, making them believe it’s in their best interest to leave you alone.

⟡ He’d "coincidentally" show up wherever you are, using his duties as an excuse for being there.

⟡ He might leave gifts for you, items that reflect his knowledge of your likes and dislikes. At first, they seem thoughtful, but the sheer specificity of them might start to unsettle you.

⟡ Cyno occasionally drops cryptic hints that he knows more about you than he should, often disguised as jokes in his signature deadpan humor.

⟡ He believes that his presence in your life is inevitable. If you try to distance yourself, he’ll patiently wait, convinced that fate (and his efforts) will bring you back to him.

⟡ Cyno doesn’t see his actions as wrong; he sees them as necessary for your safety and happiness.

⟡ You narrowly avoid an accident, only to later find out Cyno was nearby, watching and ready to intervene.

⟡ Wherever you go, Cyno isn’t far behind. He always has a plausible reason for being there, but the frequency becomes unnerving.

⟡ You notice people in your life pulling away, but Cyno remains a constant, always there to "comfort" you when you feel isolated.

© 2024-2025 vortexbloom all rights reserved. Don’t repost, edit, translate or plagiarize my work!

My Wifi was getting an Update while I was posting this, luckily, my post didn’t get deleted. 😅

Have a good day/night/evening/morning/afternoon ☼꥟☽

[theamberfist]

It's Tough to be a Teacher | Alastor x Teacher! Reader

Platonic! Alastor + Best Friend! Teacher! Reader

Description: You and Alastor have been best friends since you were alive; where you two served as a murderous radio-host-and-kindergarten-teacher duo. Now, your refusal to become an overlord and protect yourself in hell causes Alastor to come up with a plan to convince you; for your own safety.

(Notes: CW Alastor, mentions of cults)

❀ We've got a song in this one! (Sometimes I like to write in songs I find if they fit the scene since Hazbin Hotel is a musical after all!) ❀

Words: 4,243

Alastor was someone who absolutely thrived in hell. With almost no consequences for any of his actions, he could kill, torture, or eat anyone he wanted. It was no surprise to you that he'd risen to be one of hell's strongest overlords in such a short time after his death.

You'd also been dead by then. In fact, you'd been killed off long before he had when your crimes in life were discovered. Alastor, upon arriving in hell years later, had informed you that he'd gotten revenge on those responsible for your death in the most brutal, bloody way possible; just as a best friend should, and he'd been making a name for himself here ever since with your support.

You were under the impression that you thrived in hell, too. However, since you had absolutely no interest in becoming an overlord, this sense of safety and contentment you felt was really thanks to your best friend's protection. There were few in hell who would mess with the Radio Demon, and even fewer that would have risked harming you and incurring his wrath when the two of you were always seen together.

But that didn't mean there weren't any at all.

Since his debut as an overlord, Alastor had caused many of hell's strongest to go missing, where he broadcasted their screams of pain and torment for all to hear. As it turned out, many of those missing overlords happened to be connected to not-yet-missing ones, who would then take it upon themselves to exact their revenge upon him. And more recently, that meant going after the closest person to him, you, as an eye-for-an-eye sort of situation.

He hated it. Even more so because you could have easily become just as powerful as him if you wanted to. You'd been a killer in life too and you certainly had the stomach to deal in souls, but every time he brought the topic up, you refused it.

Your murders had always had a strict moral code to them when you were alive. The pattern had been what ultimately alerted the New Orleans police that you were a suspect and got you caught in the end. You only ever killed those that you had deemed deserving of it based on a list of circumstances and traits. In short, you'd been trying to make a positive impact on the world in your own twisted way by killing off people you considered bad.

In fact, you met Alastor precisely because of your little 'good deeds,' as you'd referred to them at the time. You had been in the woods burying a body, only for him to be out hunting at the same time. Surprised by the presence of another person, he'd come over to strike up a conversation and the rest was history. You'd been best friends ever since because, ironically, Alastor had never met your qualifications for a truly 'bad' person.

Together, you two were a radio host and kindergarten teacher duo by day, but a pair of serial killers by night; both very notorious for your crimes.

And yet, when you'd arrived in hell, you'd seen no point in becoming an overlord. Why own the souls of other sinners? It wasn't like you wanted to become some sort of god and the way you saw it, you could protect yourself just fine without that extra power (though, Alastor would have begged to differ on that point, considering it was usually his power protecting you without your knowledge). So every time he tried to suggest you join him in his path, you'd politely but adamantly refused.

Which was why he was now left at a loss for what to do. Sighing, the Radio Demon slumped in his seat as he stared down at the 'coffee' in front of him. He'd come down to Cannibal Town since they had some of the best cafe's in hell and a warm drink had always helped him think better.

He could continue to protect you the way he currently was just fine, of course, but should he ever not be physically present, and an overlord that was on the stronger side showed up, he wasn't as confident in the fact that you'd get out unscathed.

The Radio Demon had never worried for another person to this extent in his life or afterlife, but it seemed his best friend was one of few exceptions to that. After all, without you, who would he share endless hours of gossip with when even Rosie was busy? Who else in hell had he known in life that didn't constantly ask him for favors the way Mimsy did? Who else had quietly listened to his broadcasts every day while their kindergarteners took their afternoon naps in the classroom?

No matter what you said, he refused to allow you to come to any harm if he could prevent it. Whether he liked it or not, you were too much of an important aspect in his life for him to even risk that. For heaven's sake, you had hardly even committed a single crime since arriving in hell of all places because you claimed "everyone here was probably a bad person" and that you "couldn't actually kill them anyway so what was the point?"

So it was Alastor's concern for your safety that finally brought him out of the cafe and on a walk through the cannibal colony in the hopes of coming up with a solution. If he couldn't get you to become an overlord, perhaps there was some other way to ensure your safety down here. Could you make a deal with someone in higher standing? Sneak into heaven? Get a job working for Lucifer, if you had to?

Luckily, he didn't have to ponder long, because as he walked, he passed by a group of what looked like young adult sinners all resembling various animals. They were gathered in an alleyway and huddling like a sports team might before a big game, and since they weren't doing anything that particularly irritated him, he nearly passed them by without a second thought.

...Until he heard them say your name. Well, it was your last name; they'd referred to you the way your kindergarteners might have, back when you were alive.

Alastor froze, his head snapping to look at the group now. Upon noticing his gaze on them, they all quieted down as he repeated your name with an unreadable expression.

"Do the lot of you happen to know them?" He asked. The sinners all exchanged glances before hesitantly nodding.

"Yeah, we all had them as our teacher when we were little." One finally spoke up. Clearly, he recognized who Alastor was because he and the rest of them all seemed a bit timid.

"Interesting..." Alastor said as he took a step into the surprisingly-clean alleyway now. He was extremely curious as to why they'd brought you up at a time like this. If they were your former students, he was sure they'd absolutely loved having you as a teacher; all of them had. But bringing up someone who'd taught them when they were in kindergarten at a time like this seemed excessive.

As he came closer to the huddle, he noticed a few more interesting things on the wall behind them that only amused him further. It seemed he'd been right when he called them excessive.

Dozens of what he could only assume were their assignments from kindergarten had been plastered on the wall; all graded by your hand and with that sparkly pen of your favorite color that you always used. The Radio Demon wasn't even sure how they'd procured those things in hell, but that wasn't all. There was a photo of you with your class of kindergarten students from when you were alive at the center of it all, and lines drawn in bright red blood connected everything; wrapping up this odd display.

It was a shrine. That knowledge only made Alastor's smile widen further in amusement. You likely didn't even know these former students were in hell, so he enjoyed imagining how your face would look when he told you all these details.

The sinners exchanged glances with one another now, seemingly put-off by his silence this whole time.

"Do you have a problem with us?" One of the braver ones spoke up, "If so, we're not alone! I'll have you know there are tons of us down here that will gang up on you if you try anything!" The Radio Demon wanted to roll his eyes at that- as if a group of regular demons, no matter how large, could stand a chance against him- but an idea was forming in his mind now that he couldn't help but want to investigate further. He hummed, taking another step forward as he raised his microphone-cane to point at the wall-shrine.

"And do the rest of you worship this person too?" He questioned casually. It seemed your former students hadn't expected that because they exchanged glances with one another again before answering.

"...Yes. All of us were their former students," one said, "We were inspired by their death and followed their ideals in our own murders. Now, we continue to spread their knowledge throughout hell."

"I see..." Alastor replied. He couldn't have been more amused in this moment; here he'd been worrying about your safety since you didn't want to become an overlord, and now it seemed he'd just accidentally stumbled upon the solution. "If that's true, then I assume you've yet to run into them down here?"

That gave the group pause.

"They're down here?" The sinner who had first spoke up asked and Alastor nodded.

"Indeed!" He replied, "In fact, they happen to be a dear friend of mine." Their eyes seemed to narrow at that; as if they didn't approve of the supposed friendship. Alastor, however, paid them no mind as he stood taller and rested his hands on his cane. "I have a proposition regarding your former teacher," he announced to the group, "One I believe you'll be more than inclined to accept."

He could already see their intrigue as he began explaining.

..........

You quietly hummed to yourself as you made your way to what essentially served as your dwelling here in hell. Thanks to Alastor, you could have chosen just about anywhere to live if you wanted, so at the moment, both you and him resided in an otherwise-empty apartment building that closely reflected the architecture found in New Orleans during your time. Your apartments were next door to one another; even having a door on one of the walls between them for quick access, though Alastor rarely ever used it; instead just popping up out of nowhere in your house.

Unlocking the door to your home, you stepped inside and shut it behind you. Since your best friend had been busy today, you'd taken a peaceful walk by yourself and had now returned to make dinner for the both of you. Alternating who cooked and when was a common practice for you and the Radio Demon since you both shared the same tastes and preferences when it came to food. You had to admit, though, that he was much more skilled in the kitchen than you.

You turned on one of the many radios found in your apartment as you moved through the kitchen; humming along with the song Alastor currently had broadcasting. You were just about to start cooking when there was a knock at your door.

Frowning, you set down the apron you'd been about to tie onto your body and made your way to the entrance of your apartment. You'd never received visitors before; and especially not out of the blue like this. Alastor tended to ward off anyone who might have been looking to come see you.

Curious, you looked through the door's peephole to see a huge group of people crowding the hallway. Slightly nervous but remaining confident, you pulled open the door to greet them.

"Hello, can I help you?" You asked as kindly as you could. Alastor would likely lecture you about not answering the door for strangers like this later, but it wasn't like anything was going to happen, right?

Suddenly, someone from the group called your name, but not just any name; the title you'd gone by as a teacher. Your gaze snapped to them in surprise.

"Y-yes, that's me..." You replied carefully, "And you are?"

"It's me; James!" The person called and suddenly, memories of your life came flooding back to you. James had been one of your very first students and he was always such a sweet kid. He used to offer to sharpen your pencils for you during his own recess time, and though you never took him up on it, you were always appreciative.

"And Joseph!" Another demon called.

"And Ruth!"

"And Mary!" Suddenly, a whole chorus of names were called out, all belonging to your former students. Your breath hitched and a huge smile made its way onto your face at being able to see them again.

"My goodness, what are you all doing here?" You asked happily, ready to invite every single one of them into your home for dinner, even if they could barely fit in the long hallway outside your apartment, as it was.

But then it hit you; this was hell. If this many of your former students were here, that meant they hadn't made it into heaven like you'd always assumed. This was only a handful of those you used to teach, of course, but if this many had ended up in hell, you wondered what could have gone wrong to make them commit anything worthy of being here.

"What are you all doing here?" You asked, now crossing your arms. It had been a while, but those teacher instincts of yours were beginning to come back just from seeing all your old kids.

"We found out about your killings!" Mary eagerly spoke up. You cringed at that. You'd known your students would likely hear of what you'd done, and while you didn't regret any of it, you did feel bad that it had likely ruined the image of their former favorite teacher in their memories.

"We were inspired!" Joseph called now and your eyes widened.

"You're like our idol!" Agreed Ruth, "We want to be just like you so we've been living the way you wanted and continuing your legacy of cleansing the world of evil!"

You felt like you couldn't breathe. They were here because of you? Because of what you'd done? You weren't sure whether to be proud or guilty over that, but before you could decide, James dropped another bombshell.

"And now we want you to own our souls!"

You paused, taking the information in. A part of you expected them to backtrack, laugh, and tell you this had all been some elaborate prank, but that didn't happen. They were dead serious about wanting you to be their overlord.

"What?" You asked in surprise as Mary nodded.

"We want to give our souls to you and work under your command!" She explained excitedly, as if what she was proposing was the most normal thing. You weren't sure what to do.

"Uh...Could you all give me one moment?" You asked politely, feeling as if you might faint. The students nodded and you quickly shut the door before going straight to your living room. That was where the connecting door between your and Alastor's apartments was located and you hurriedly knocked on it, needing the support and guidance of your closest friend right now.

"Al?" You called quietly enough that the students wouldn't hear you but loudly enough that he would, "Are you there? I could use some help!" There was no response, even after you waited a minute, and you sighed, assuming he wasn't home yet.

You went to turn around now, trying to come up with a nice way to reject the crowd of people outside when you jumped at the sight of a bright red deer-like demon standing behind you.

"What is it, darling?" He asked in a cheerful tone.

"You've got to stop sneaking up on me like that!" You exclaimed as you reached a hand to your heart. It wasn't like you could have heart attacks in hell but it sure felt that way.

"Why, but it's so entertaining!" He replied before setting his cane down and letting it rest in the crook of his arm. "Now, what seems to be the issue today?"

Ignoring how he almost sounded like a customer service worker, you sighed and reached a hand to your forehead in an effort to calm your already-growing headache.

"Remember how I used to teach kindergarten?" You asked, though, you knew he did. Regardless, the Radio Demon nodded and you continued. "Well, it looks like a bunch of my former students grew up looking up to me and now they're here in hell. They showed up just now and they want to give me their souls like an overlord!"

Alastor remained smiling, as always, so it was hard for you to notice just how amused he was by this situation. "And why, pray tell, would that be an issue?" He asked.

"Because I can't do that!" You exclaimed, groaning in frustration, "I can't hurt them; they're still my former students! I would have no idea what to do with that kind of power and besides, I don't want to be an overlord!" You plopped down on your nearby couch as Alastor listened intently to your plight. Finally, he hummed.

"I still fail to see the issue, dear," he told you, holding his cane in his hands behind his back as he calmly paced in front of you, "who says you would have to harm them if you owned their souls?" When you didn't respond he went on. "And as for the power, you would hardly need to use it. They could live their lives just as they did before if you so wished, but this way, you would finally be able to protect yourself."

"I can already-" you started to protest, only to see the look in his eyes and think better of it. You'd been in denial about the role your best friend played in your safety for a while now. Finally, you sighed. "But Al, they see me like some sort of god," you told him, "they idolize me to a concerning degree. I can't have that power over people; it's never been my style."

Alastor knew this was true. After all, in life you'd always preferred to manipulate the world from the shadows via your killings. You would never have been comfortable with this much glory, but he wasn't about to give up on the idea yet.

"Perhaps I can put it a different way," he said. The sentence was a reference to your teaching style as well; always willing to try and explain or show things differently if a student didn't get it the first time. You were endlessly patient, and luckily, he knew that would work in favor of his current plan. 

With a wave of his cane, a hoard of shadow creatures appeared in the room around you. You glanced at each of them, having seen the group before, wondering how he planned to get this point across. That was when he pointed to the door, where one of the creatures had grabbed the handle and was now swinging it open. In the hall, you could see your crowd of students all kneeling, but they looked up with smiles once the door was open. That was when Alastor, in his theatrical fashion, began to sing.

"There, you see? They're on their knees!" He called, pointing his cane in the direction of the hall, "Being worshipped is a breeze!" As if to further prove his point, the shadow creatures ran over to kneel in front of him. The one that had been at your front door now closed it and joined them. "Which rather suits us in the interim!" Alastor added with his signature wide smile.

"I just...Don't think I'm cut out for it," you admitted with a sigh, completely ignoring his song. On a normal day, you might have sang and danced along, but you weren't in the mood right now. "They want me to be a god!"

You plopped down on the couch with a defeated look on your face but your best friend wasn't done yet. 

"It's tough to be a god!" He admitted dramatically as the shadow creatures spun in circles around him, "Tread where mortals have not trod! Be deified when really you're a sham!" You could tell he was mocking you now as he leaned on the couch and raised a hand to his forehead like an exasperated lady. You rolled your eyes but then he moved to stand in front of you, taking both your hands in his.

"Be an object of devotion!" He sang as the shadow creatures performed some surprisingly elaborate choreography around you. "Be the subject of psalms!" He pulled you up off the couch so you both were standing now and then draped an arm over your shoulders, pulling you in and raising his hand to his mouth as if telling you a secret. "It's a rather touching notion; all those prayers and those salaams!" He took your hand now, spinning you in a circle as you chuckled. 

Alastor knew his plan was starting to work now; at the very least, he'd cheered you up. It seemed pretending he had no part in the arrival of your former students really had been the right choice; otherwise you would have caught on to what he was doing. 

"And who are you to bridle if you're forced to be an idol?" He asked as the shadow creatures brought of both their hands and shrugged dramatically, "If they say that you're a god that's what you are!" You bit your lip at that; seemingly still not enthusiastic about the idea. Knowing he needed to try another tactic, Alastor snapped his fingers, transporting a few of your students into the room.

All of them were kneeling on the floor surrounding parts of what had been their shrine to you. Your widening eyes told him you hadn't realized their devotion ran that deep yet and his smile grew more sly as he went on with the song. 

"What's more," he sang, "If you don't comply with the students wishes I can see you being sacrificed or stuffed!" He dragged a finger across his neck for emphasis and you seemed to get a little more nervous. In order to bring back your enthusiasm, though, he pulled you back into a side-hug as you both faced the students. Now as they continued to kneel, silver platters of your favorite foods rested in their hands and they held them out to you. 

"So let's be gods, the perks are great!" He lead you over to one of the students and took note of how your eyes lit up slightly at the sight of your favorite food, "All of hell here on our plate!" He spun you again now and snapped his fingers so the platters disappeared and a few more students joined the others in kneeling. "The students' feelings should not be rebuffed!" He sang as he directed your attention to the sinners, who all gave you puppy-dog-eyes in agreement. Alastor had to hand it to them; they had a knack for going with whatever he came up with in order to convince you. "Never rebuff the students' feelings, no my friend!" 

The shadow creatures began dancing around again and the other demons joined them, despite not really knowing the choreography. The result was an adorably awkward dance between the two groups. "It's tough to be a god!" Alastor repeated to you as he took a step, gesturing to everyone around you both. "But if you get the students' nod..." He trailed off, giving you the opportunity to speak. You did, with slight hesitation. 

"Count your blessings?" You asked more than you sang. Alastor nodded, glad to know he seemed to have gotten you on-board now.

"Keep them sweet; that's my advice!" He replied as he came to stand by your side again in the middle of the circle of shadow creatures and students. 

"Be a symbol of perfection..." You sang softly. The Radio Demon knew his plan had worked now so he nodded and went on. 

"Be a legend, be a cult!" He advised you, "Take their praise, take the collection as the multitudes exult!" You turned to the students, one of your hands slightly extended as it began to glow your favorite color; a phenomena you'd never experienced before now.

"Don a supernatural habit?" You sang as you glanced back at Alastor, who nodded, before leading you slightly closer to the group. 

"You'd be crazy not to grab it!" He sang as the first student eagerly lined up to shake your hand. This time, you didn't reject the offer and the Radio Demon was glad to know his plan had worked out just the way he wanted. He knew you only needed a little more convincing in order to become one of hell's next best overlords. "So sign up this new god for paradise!" He sang as you finally took the hand of your student, shaking it and solidifying your first deal as a new overlord. "Paradise~!"

And with that, it was done. You would finally own souls of your own, and with them, you would finally have the power to protect yourself just like your best friend had always wanted. 

[judasgot-it]

Political Debates is a Form of Flirting, if You're Tecchou Suehiro (Friends to Lovers Trope)

No one talks about how he is 100% the type to do this? Also this is inspired by a work from @strawbqq (also thank you for the new pfp and this photo I'm using this for as long as I can pretend its Christmas)

"A peaceful solution isn't always the answer. The answer sometimes is just violence-"

"But why is that usually the first solution?"

You and Tecchou were sitting down next to each other, drinking warm drinks to try and gain some warmth from the cold outside. You had a simple sweet coffee, while Tecchou had managed to convince the poor waitress working today to make a white hot chocolate mixed with everything white in their shelves. There were pieces of coconut, sprinkles, and a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.

It seemed drinkable, given that Tecchou had no problem digging in. But you knew to avoid it, especially as you wanted to actually enjoy your one day off.

"These are violent criminals. They lost the option for peace the moment they committed their actions - I only serve justice where it's deserved."

He sipped his drink while saying this. There was a little white foam sticking to his lip, giving him a mustache to rival Fukuchi's.

"Innocence until proven guilty. Morals are more complicated than that." You leaned over and wiped it off with your thumb, giving in and tasting it. The drink wasn't bad, but the mayonnaise was still there.

"Yes. You're right. But most are dangerous, and if I don't treat them that way," He leaned in closer to you, gifting you a bit of his obscene body warmth. "Then they will only hurt more people. I am not a lawyer. I am a Hunting Dog."

His voice was strong, stating this only as a fact of life and nothing else. This man was an executioner, who would follow his word - it was whoever was in front of his sword and him.

You were normal. There was no hope to be near him at all.

"...what do you see me as?"

You turned around, looking at the people that were in this restaurant. There were families and people who were sitting close to each other like you both were - to the average person walking in, you both must have looked like a couple.

"I'm a civilian. Nothing special, right?"

He was in normal clothing, with no indication that he was a solider. His sword was hidden somewhere in his large coat, which made him just look so normal it hurt. As if he were a man who had just wanted a day off from a normal day of work.

No one in this restaurant would know that he had a body built like a god, or scars that covered his knuckles or that he had tattoos because of the war that everyone chose to forget rather than remember.

This is was something that he had shared with you. A regular person who had a regular desk job. That just happened to be in the Hunting Dogs headquarters.

"I'd like to see you as my friend. But sometimes I'm afraid I think of you as more than that."

"Your paper pusher?" You tried to laugh off the little pit you had dug yourself into with Tecchou, the one that you knew you would never get out of. It was better to just pretend it didn't exist at all.

"Is it wrong to think of you a little more than that?"

His big honey eyes were giving you that sad puppy dog look, as if he wanted to jump on your bed but couldn't. His face was tilted just enough to stare at you, giving you all of his attention.

It made you want to die, just a little bit. He was embarrassing to be around, as you found it impossible to really do anything else but let him eat you up with those eyes.

"...so it's really often, I take it?"

He nodded, avoiding the subject. Taking all the bravery you had, you looked back and noticed how he still stared at you - his eyes were roaming around you, as if you were something he had to remember.

"I think of you a lot too, sometimes,"

The words that came out of your mouth didn't feel right, they felt as if they were the words of someone else. There was a small moment, maybe a second that felt like ten to you, where you had to sit there and really think about what you were going to say.

Tecchou's staring was just too distracting; as if he were trying to steal every word of your mouth before you could even form them.

So before you said anything again, you took a sip of your drink. Hopefully it gave you enough time to get your bearings back into place.

"Sometimes I dream of you. Nothing serious, just us doing boring, regular stuff. But I think it's because I'm thinking of you so much that I have those."

"Enough to dream about me?"

"Yeah, I just said that."

Tecchou's fingers itched closer to yours, his skin so thick that you first only felt the callouses that had been built up over the years. You felt at odds sometimes, seeing how your hands were small enough to be crushed like pencils between his.

Holding his hand would feel amazing though. Tecchou always radiated so much warmth you wished you could carry him around 24/7. He would warm your hands instantly.

"...I've dreamt of you before. Just like this."

You made a dumb sound, letting him continue. There was half of your drink down your throat, and you were too busy trying to avoid eye contact and pretending that you were really invested into anything else to say something in response. Your heart was so loud in your chest, and seeing Tecchou reach so slowly to touch you did nothing to stop that feeling.

"But it was just us. It felt the same, but I only saw just us. We kissed too."

His hand finally covered yours, so slowly, as if he were touching the petals of a flower and trying to mesmerize the feeling of how soft the feeling was.

The man was so warm that you leaned in closer, feeling your chests brush together. At some point, the two of you had leaned in close enough to nearly share the same air.

"What?"

"We kissed in my dream. Sometimes I dream of kissing you in other places too."

"You dream of kissing me?"

"I don't dream of kissing anyone else. Just you."

"I think you think of me as a little more than a friend."

He nodded along. His face was red - if you hadn't been actively having this conversation, you would think it was just from the cold nipping at his skin.

"Why don't you just kiss me then?"

"...I can?"

"Who would say no to you?"

Once again, this is inspired by @strawbqq fic that i requested, go check their account cause thats kinda what this is a sequel too my bad. im just a real sucker for just writing the confession part. also ignore the fact ive been inactive my life has been hell for the last bit but im on winter break rn so im gonna write and upload as best i can for those who requested!

[drdemonprince]

Thanks for all the honest talk on things we don’t usually talk openly about. I wonder if you have some thoughts on this. I’ve been sexually assaulted and raped a few times in my life. I’ve never been to the police even when I’ve known I have evidence and could try and get a conviction. I’ve always lived in rough neighborhoods where a lot of bad things happen (I know that these things happen everywhere it just is common where I live) so in a way I’ve normalized this in my head. Anyway now that I’ve moved away the people I do talk to about this all say I should go to the cops because otherwise these people (men and women) are free to keep doing it to others. So like I’m responsible basically. What do you think is right here? I’ve been told it’s a moral duty but honestly I don’t trust cops, one of these people was the brother of a cop, and I also think there would just be more people like this popping up even if I did manage to get some put away. Which seems unlikely given the stats on that. Cops don’t really seem to care about a queer black kid from that area anyway. None of us go to cops for safety. That’s the opposite of what they are for us. People don’t understand how things are back home. But is this a moral duty or something?

I am an abolitionist so I would say that we all have an obligation to limit how much information & influence we give to the cops at all times. Looking at your specific situation, I do not think reporting will help you OR protect anyone, and if anything it gives the police an excuse to harass other men of color that supposedly resemble your attacker.

In a majority of cases cops do not do anything for survivors, especially survivors who are queer and Black; when they do take some kind of action, it's a lot of harassing other people and over-policing communities and using criminal reports as an excuse to do so. You have no obligation to feed into this terrible system. It is not as if throwing a rapist into the rape factory that is the prison system is likely to help anyone or lead to a net fewer number of assaults in the long run anyway.

If you want to do something to protect future victims of your attacker, you can warn people privately through your existing social connections. But I think that any time you come forward as a survivor you really open yourself up to a ton of retraumatization, mistreatment, and even harassment or retaliation from the person who attacked you. You NEVER owe anybody that. As a survivor your first and foremost owe YOURSELF healing and safety. That's all that matters really. Anyone who tells you that you are responsible for your rapists' future actions is being a victim blamer, and perhaps trying to convince themselves that the world is a fairer place than it really is. Don't listen to them. It's highly inappropriate for them to even tell you what to do.

[bwaybwaycwaycway]

Quick rant about Authority in Disco Elysium

I'm writing this because I had someone rightly call me out at work for second-guessing myself for not trusting in an answer I gave. Specifically, I was asked to identify a type of fire extinguisher from a distance, and even though I was correct, I wanted to check my answer by going up and reading the label. It reminded me about internal confidence in yourself and the things you say.

Authority is an underrated skill in Disco Elysium.

I get why people dislike it. Whenever Authority gets a failure, it has extremely violent, sociopathic responses to the situation at hand, like telling you to hurt people or, in a very famous scene, put a loaded pistol in your mouth. This kind of behavior upsets Kim, who serves as the moral compass for most players, so you stop taking risky Authority checks and don't bother wearing clothing that boosts the skill. You eventually think of Authority as a skill used by people who want to go the Fascist Cop route.

And then you get to the Tribunal. At the end, only one skill will save Kim. Authority. It isn't even you giving him a real order, it's mostly asserting that there is danger and that Kim must respond to it, and ignore your broken half-dead body. It seems like a weird choice that Esprit de Corps isn't doing this, as it's the cop-related skill, or Suggestion, as it is the skill best used to convince others.

No, only Authority will snap Kim out of his panic and make sure he survives the fight without serious injury. And that's because Authority is a skill that, when it succeeds a check, is about personal confidence in your ability as a police officer, and a human being living their life in Revachol.

Authority sure does get you into bad situations, and if you choose to go down the path of the Honour Cop, suggests thumb-fucking yourself to display said honour. But when it succeeds, Authority is barely there, just reminding you that you've got this. You know what to do, you've known all along. You're confident in your actions and accept responsibility for them when Authority is taking lead.

People don't trust cops with low Authority. Sorry Cops, as Kim says, are actively harmful to the reputation of the RCM. Apologizing and second-guessing yourself makes people lose faith in the government you represent and in your ability to solve the case or help them live their lives. A lot of negative modifiers are due to you appearing weak or lacking confidence when you first meet people, as they don't think of you as a trustworthy cop who can fix things.

Finally, the confrontation with Kim over asking him to share a secret about his past, involving the Eyebrow Off, shows that Authority is something that isn't abusive when used right. Kim uses his Authority to convince you to drop the question when you fail, but if you succeed, he share a little fact about his childhood that's of no consequence except it's slightly embarrassing to him. You learn on a failure though that Kim's Authority is immense, and it shows through his confidence in himself and his job as a cop.

Authority is about showing other people, sometimes even falsely presenting, confidence in yourself and what you're doing. When it fails, it pushes you to assert this confidence again, especially in the face of someone trying to assert their Authority over you. It wants you to be a good cop, but has such a narrow way of thinking that it can get you or other people killed multiple times.

[canvas-the-florist]

The Imitation Game

Ship(s): Analogical

Warnings: Major Character Death and Undeath, body horror, blood and injury, unreliable narrator, misunderstandings, and morally ambiguous Emile Picani

Summary: This is a Big Bang fic hosted by @tss-storytime. After the consequences of someone else’s actions, Logan finds himself moving into a new apartment to lie low. Despite knowing nothing about what happened, or what’s supposed to happen next, Logan complies. That is, until he begins to make new friends and new discoveries about who he is. And who he was supposed to be. Meanwhile Virgil is convinced that Patton's new neighbor is absolutely a murderer. And will do anything to prove it. If you like this fic, I'm going to be posting the rest of the story on ao3. Here's the link.

Art was done by @tastic-in-its-finest and you can find it here!

Word Count: (for this chapter) 3k

Chapter One - Lungs

The first feeling, or experience rather, Logan has is unbridled anguish. He doesn’t remember much of it. His body gives him a sharp spike of electricity when he moves his neck, clearly as a result of what occurred. The shaking of their palms when they were made to look someone in the eyes. A fear he couldn’t place the origin of. Logan’s body felt wrong to exist in. It felt wrong to be there at all. His body feels as if it was dismantled and reattached slightly differently. Functional, but not the same. Logan had begun adjusting to the changes far quicker than his muscle memory could. It hurt to stand too long, a pain coming from his spine would trail its way to his legs, and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. Logan was reminded of this fact when one of their knees locked, and he forced himself to fall to the side so he could catch himself. His entire weight supported by one leg and his hands on the edges of the kitchen counter. Logan slowly led himself to sit on his couch, easing himself into a lying position. He took a slow, deep breath.

Breathing is a difficult sensation to get used to. It’s supposed to be constant, quiet, and easy. And yet it’s so integral to survival. Especially for a being with lungs. You have to breathe in oxygen, and out carbon dioxide. A consistent transfer of elements with your body holding the key to change. If you hold your breath, the carbon dioxide holds a heavy space in your lungs, poisoning the rest of your organs. If you breathe too quickly, risk tiring yourself out, and accomplishing nothing by speeding up the endless repetition. Both can lead to fainting or passing out. What a fickle way to live, to survive. 

So imagine Logan’s surprise that everyone around him could do this without thinking. This was normal. And he was not. Now was their chance to be just like the others, with working lungs, a working body, and a working heart. It wasn’t pleasant to feel constant changes within himself in a manner he couldn’t control. Nothing could truly be perfectly measured or predicted or controlled. Logan pressed his left thumb pad against his right index finger, cradling the right hand softly, and felt the small ridges of fingerprints conflict with their paths next to each other. This was one of the new sensations they didn’t mind. He did this while reminding himself to breathe, concerned that his judgment would lapse and he would simply die too early on in his existence. Logan thought about feeling, and if he had enough time to get used to the stimulus he didn’t used to have access to. A sudden flash of pain went past his neck, causing him to suddenly tilt his head to the left. He exhaled loudly, with a shudder, to keep his composure. Logan didn’t know a lot about social conventions but screaming every time he felt an ounce of discomfort definitely did not fit that criteria. However, he was new to the apartment complex, so perhaps that was actually acceptable and he would have to discover that later. 

Logan wanted to get this all under control within the next ten minutes, though he wasn’t accurately able to tell how long he had been laying down when the static that seemed to follow him blocked his vision. Breathing was still difficult. Still present. A reminder that they were failing their objective already. That this wasn’t going to plan. He was going to die on day one. Despite the severity of everything Logan felt (he FELT things now), he wasn’t allowed to give up. That was explicitly against the rules. 

With the overpowered conviction of doing what he was told, Logan laid on the couch silently. A pain in his lungs, a throbbing in his head. Well, technically the pain was coming from his nerves sending signals to his… brain. Logan frowned, almost pulled from the sensation of his lungs being crushed by a hydraulic press by the reminder. His brain. Logan still didn’t fully understand how he worked, even if he knew the components that made him up. They desperately wanted to. Just to know. Logan enjoyed learning. He didn’t know a lot about himself, but he knew that. Logan wanted to learn.

He pressed the palms of his hands against his closed eyes, somehow that specific type of pressure alleviated the pain. There was a knock on his door after a few minutes. It was his first day living in this apartment. Logan was told to expect greetings from neighbors, in some regard. But this felt overwhelming still. 

Logan ignored them.

The next day was filled with duller pain, but still ever present. His neck creaked loudly as he tilted his head from side to side. Logan had to leave the apartment today. This was something he always knew he had to do, but didn’t know if he wanted to. Well, he did know. He absolutely wanted to stay hidden away from the world for the rest of time. But… Logan turned on his phone, to reread the message he had gotten. Emile wanted to see him, and they were going to meet up at a café. His text was… long and hard to parse through. Even though Logan had trouble discerning tone a majority of the time, they got the sense that Emile was more excited about this than Logan would be able to be. After looking at themself in the mirror for entirely too long, washing the dried blood from his neck, and getting dressed, he left the apartment. Logan struggled locking the door, having to try about six times, and just hoped that no one would notice long enough for him to appear normal. 

He was on the second floor, defined by a walled off balcony wrapping around the exterior of the building to connect each apartment to a shared space. Logan was about to reach the stairs down when a man walked into him. Or perhaps it was his fault, it was hard to tell really. Logan stepped back, almost affronted by the contact. The person was tall, with thin and long box braids wrapped in a bun. He had rectangle glasses with rounded edges and a smile on his face. It made Logan instantly uncomfortable looking anywhere near his eyes, so they looked away.

“Howdy!” … What? The man continued. “Sorry for bumping into you, that’s my bad. You’re the one who just moved in right? What’s your name?”

This was possibly worse than everything Logan had ever experienced. He wasn’t entirely sure how high (metaphorically) that bar was, but it was probably significant. Logan didn’t respond for a few awkwardly silent seconds. They coughed, preparing his throat to speak. “I’m… I did just move in, yes. My name is Logan. Logan Clay.” Was he doing this right? How were you supposed to tell? The man was still looking at him like he expected something. Logan went through all they remembered from practicing. Oh! Right… “What’s your name?”

“The name’s Patton Nasir, neighbor!” He reached out his hand, looking… concerned(?) when Logan instinctively flinched away. Patton quickly retracted his hand before Logan even said anything about it, placing it gracefully on his hip. “Well, it’s nice to finally meet you, Logan! I live just next door. 214. So if you need help with anything, I’m always there for you.”

Was this genuine? Was there a way to tell? Logan just nodded. “Thank you, Patton. I’ll be sure to contact you if such a situation arises. I have to go now.”

Patton laughed. Logan just stared slightly to the left of his face, almost simulating true eye contact with his neighbor. “Of course, I didn’t mean to keep you, buddy. I hope you have a good day!”

He waved and walked past Logan, who just stood there as the conversation left the air, reminding themself to breathe. His neck still hurt, as if his splenius capitis would burn whenever he moved his head. Logan shook his head, despite knowing the action only exacerbated the pain. Logan finally got to continue walking to meet Emile, walking down the concrete stairs with a sense of urgency. He made sure to look at the directions on his phone so he wouldn’t get lost. Perhaps he looked at them a little too frequently. It took just about ten minutes and forty three seconds to reach the café. A local establishment with a patio that contained three tables. Two of those three had striped umbrellas over them. 

Emile was sitting at the table holding a disposable cup with a lid, presumably filled with coffee. It was as much of a relief as a great anxiety to finally see him. Logan walked up to the table with a sense of urgency that wasn’t shared with their companion. Emile smiled easily, his scrunched nose lightly displacing his glasses. 

“Hello, Logan! Do you how do?” He greeted.

If this were any other individual, Logan would be concerned at the nonsensical manner he held himself with. But this was Dr. Emile Picani, the only person he truly knew. The only person who knew… Logan. Himself. Logan nodded. “I’m doing adequate, Emile. Should I… order something too?”

“Not if you don’t want to.” Emile responded simply. “Did you have breakfast yet?”

Logan froze. He did a mental check of his body. His neck screaming (metaphorically), his hands still shaking, his stomach… People were supposed to eat regularly. He knew that. Logan was told that, and they knew that they had to do that too. Fuck. “I have not had breakfast yet.”

Somehow, Emile could read his tone, even when Logan himself could not. He frowned. “Logan… have you eaten anything since you left the hospital yesterday?”

“I drank water.” He supplied, as if that was a perfect substitute.

Emile stood up, the metal chair screeched loudly, and suddenly Logan had to resist the urge to drag his nails through the skin of his ears. “Let’s get you some coffee.”

Who was Logan to disobey? Emile ordered for him, and assured him of what he had gotten. Black coffee and a simple sandwich. They sat back down together. Logan drank the bitter drink, but mostly because it was expected of them. Despite the casual setting, the public atmosphere, this was a meeting. Logan knew that. Emile was acting like this because Logan didn’t know how to act yet. He appreciated it immensely. Logan started eating the sandwich, with dry bread and bland ingredients. 

“I’m glad you liked it. You… You used to order this same thing every morning.” Emile looked down, with a smile, but Logan didn’t think he was actually happy. “Anyways! Have you made any new friends yet or unpacked yet?”

Logan swallowed his food, setting his sandwich back down. He felt all the different components of his neck conflict with one another, reminding him of the constant searing pain that had incapacitated him the day before. A pain that wasn’t supposed to be there. “No, I haven’t. I thought… I was supposed to keep a low profile?”

It came out like a question, because he felt as though Emile’s questions contradicted the prior instructions he had given. Keep a low profile. Keep the secrets. Stay hidden. Were they intended to balance those objectives with a social life? Interior design? Logan reminded himself to breathe at a consistent pace. That was a lot of rules to uphold all at once, but he could do it. Emile expected them to, and they wouldn’t want to let him down. Not after all he had done for them. Emile just looked confused, similar to how Logan… felt. Hm.

“Logan, I don’t want to keep you from making new connections!” Emile exclaimed, his voice filled with a worry Logan didn’t understand. “Besides, an empty apartment and a lone hermit is… a little more suspicious than, say, hiding in plain sight like Constantine from Muppets Most Wanted.”

He gave back a blank stare. 

“Yeah… I don’t think you’ve ever seen that movie, even before everything.” Emile admitted. “I just mean: it’s going to be better for everyone if you settle down a little bit more, and nurture new friendships with your neighbors. You need to establish friendships and trust or… Or none of this is going to work. Or at least try! If nothing works out, you’ll still be meeting with me here every week! We can figure stuff out.”

It was reassuring, knowing that he wasn’t alone. Logan didn’t really know much about what to do or what he should be like. But Emile did. He really needed the guidance. “Thank you, Emile. I appreciate that. I will… ‘settle down’, when I am able.”

His friend smiled at him, with a type of pride Logan didn’t feel. He was mostly scared of what was going to happen to him. Emile smiled at him like everything was already going perfectly. It wasn’t exactly lying, but it was optimistic. Even though it was confirmation that the two were in this together, Logan still felt uncomfortable.

Emile left first, having the obligations of a job. He was working part time at a lab while he worked on his psychology degree. Logan… had a job. It was more freelance. They didn’t start until the next day. Logan collected the leftover dishes and trash, walking back inside to put them where they belonged. The plates went on a stack of other dishes also used that day, while the trash went into the nearest trash receptacle. He looked around, as if someone was there to tell him he did a good job. The only person there was a barista with sunglasses on scrolling on vaer phone with minimal interest. Vaey looked up at Logan, raising an eyebrow. Logan felt uncomfortable instantly and decided to leave. 

They spent the rest of the day organizing their new living space. The boxes didn’t contain a whole lot. Emile told him that he would have to go shopping on his own to accommodate anything that was missing. Logan suspected that Emile got him a job for that exact reason. So they could be more self-sufficient. Ironic, that Logan wouldn’t be able to do any of this without him. Logan thought this over while figuring out where to put their skillets and pans. He eventually took a break to eat, something he was determined not to forget again. Logan hadn’t cooked much before so settled for an oatmeal mix that Emile had packed him. They were not a big fan of the flavor. They ate it anyway. Logan had finished washing the two dishes he had used when someone had knocked on the door. His headache, well all of his aches really, were still bothering him profusely. But he was supposed to make connections right? 

Patton was holding a ziploc bag when Logan opened the door. The man was smiling, as if it was his default expression. He held it out to them. “I meant to give these to you yesterday, but… I’m giving them to you now! They’re chocolate chip cookies so I can take them back if you’re gluten free or allergic to chocolate or-”

He was just as nervous as Logan was. It didn’t seem to click until that moment. Logan took the back from his hands and looked up at Patton. “Thank you, for welcoming me to the neighborhood. You seem like a kind person, Patton.”

They didn’t really intend to cut off whatever Patton was talking about, but he didn’t particularly seem to mind. “Of course, thank you for the compliment! We’re going to start a whole chain of ‘thank you’s if we keep this up. I can’t wait to get to know you.”

Patton left after that, but what he had said ringed in Logan’s ears. 

I can’t wait to get to know you.

He repeated this as he got dressed for bed. He repeated it as he brushed his teeth. As he stared into the mirror for too long. As they put their glasses on the box they were using as a nightstand. Logan couldn’t wait to know himself too. They reminded themself to breathe, and continued to do so until it became even again. I can’t wait to get to know you. What a polite, kind thing to say to a stranger. 

Logan took a long deep breath in as he dug his fingers into the back of his neck. He gagged, feeling himself breathe heavier and faster. The skin between his spine and skull shifted to make room for the change. They searched around the blood and nerves, until latching to a specific cord. It resisted his grasp as Logan repressed the urge to flail. Clawing, clawing, clawing. He pulled the cord out slowly, feeling it rake against his organic matter. It collected blood as the end finally surfaced. Logan took a heavy breath, letting himself collapse forwards. A second was needed to catch his breath, to calm themself down. He wiped the blood off the cap protecting the end, before taking it off. Logan then plugged the cord into the glowing box underneath his bed. They felt the jolt of electricity enter their body as the cord began glowing a soft orange that mirrored the box.

Laying on their side, facing away from the box, was the only comfortable way to sleep. Not that they imagined they would do much of that. Despite trying, Logan didn’t feel fully human. Because he wasn’t, not really. Not like Emile, not like Patton. But he did wonder. Would this ever stop hurting? Would he ever stop hurting? Being a human was constantly being in pain. At least, that’s what it seemed like. Logan attempted to halt their thinking as they ignored the heat emanating from their neck, and the frantic breaths drawn for their lungs.

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[scoobydoodean]

I think people tend to view Dean as more unhinged about Sam because Sam seems to be the one shown consistently "fine" living without Dean. Like S8 Sam and series finale Sam. Like not trying to get Dean back. Whereas in S6 Dean said he tried to get Sam out of the Cage but kept hitting dead ends. But he didn't just let Sam go like he said he would. Sam seems to be less hesitant to just let Sam go and more able to live on without Dean. Idk what are your thoughts on this?

Context

The thing is is that I don't feel the need to respond to the notion that being willing to sacrifice yourself for your brother is more unhinged than killing people to keep him alive or get him back or get revenge on his behalf. Because I don't think that's true at all. All that difference reflects is Sam's willingness to go to morally questionable lengths beyond where Dean will go. Dean's moral compass will cause him to hit a point where his only option is self-sacrifice long before Sam ever hits that wall.

That said... some of what you've said is extremely misleading.

Between season 3 and 4, Sam ignored Bobby's calls and spent months in a bottle stumbling drunk, drinking hard liquor straight from a bottle. He captured a crossroad's demon and tried to trade his life for Dean's (Gifset), and tried to open The Devil's gate (Gifset). He at one point planned to charge into battle against Lilith knowing he would lose and die—it's an intentional suicide mission (4.09). He also readily rejects Dean's dying wishes by working with Ruby for revenge against Lilith (Gifset).

Contrast this with season 6: Dean researched how to get Sam out of The Cage—in books--on the side while living with Lisa and Ben, without risking his own life or anyone else's, and without trying to make any demon deals or do anything else reckless, and while managing PTSD.

Which of these people actually sounds more "fine"? Because there's an objectively correct answer here and it's not Sam.

Season 8 Sam is an exception—not the rule. What we're looking at is not character growth (we need no more proof of that than season 10 and The Book of the Damned). The Reason Sam Is Like That™️ is because he's experiencing a break from reality.

As for 15.20 Sam, we have no idea if Sam tried to find a way to bring Dean back. SPNWin might actually suggest Sam has been trying to get Dean back the entire time Dean's been dead (depending on whether you think "Clarence" is an obvious Cas reference, whether the brother relationship makes it clear he's Sam, or whether he's both). Regardless, at that point we are dealing with a Sam who has maxxed out his knowledge about the pitfalls encountered when you try to bring back your family (this includes Jack). This makes him generally less reckless because he vividly understands the consequences. We see the same thing with Dean as early as season 6, and again in 13.21, when he thinks Sam has been torn apart and is convinced to leave Sam behind and prioritize the safety of the people around him instead.

Additionally, a lot of the less versus more reckless plays the brothers make with their own lives have to do with how badly they might be struggling with suicidal ideation at one point or another. This is a massive motivator for Dean's deal in 2.22 for example. His actions aren't just about Sam—they're also about his belief that he "came back wrong" and shouldn't be alive, and that dying will set the universe right. Literally the entire season he is struggling with the intense guilt and a sense of wrongness over being alive.

So yeah. One time, Sam abandoned Dean to die. At other times, he came up with plans that involved sacrificing himself, or other people, or dedicated himself to revenge to the exclusion of all else.