#and in the end she looks him in the eyes and tells him she's not afraid of him. in spite of everything

[pedgito]

𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑 | Jackson!Joel Miller x reader

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summary | Your postcards become a personal journal during patrols with Joel.

author's note | a little late, but this is my entry for @jolapeno's dear-uary! i had very little idea what i was going to do initially, but this kinda turned into its own thing. i hope the postcards are a nice addition to the fic, they were quite fun to make.

content warning | 18+ MDNI, jackson era joel, patrol partners, quiet!reader, enemies to lovers, one instance of choking, mentions of violence, angst, mean!joel, voyeurism, forced orgasm, thigh riding

word count — 7k

“It’s the fifth time I’ve came back and she’s been sleepin’,” Joel gripes a handful of feet below as you feign resting, trying to relax the sneer that threatened to cross your face, annoyed with the exhaustion that never left but loathing the man who couldn’t seem to give you a break, “or writing in that damn book, ignoring us.”

“I’ll talk—” Joel interrupts Tommy once more, with emphasis on the amount, but Tommy reels him in, squeezing down on his shoulder as you peek through one eye over the railing, scoffing under your breath, “I’ll talk to her, alright? S’awonder what a simple conversation can fix, Joel.”

His approach comes later during shift change as the night slowly melted into dawn, the sun rising on the horizon in waves of orange and purple, creating a cotton candy sky, hearing Tommy’s voice carry as he greeted people along the way before the scuff of his boots stopped behind you, you turn to peer up at him sheepishly.

“Not a good look, y’know?” Tommy says redundantly, “I’m not tryin’ to gripe you out, but Joel—”

You nod knowingly, waving him off as you toss your pencil and notebook aside, adjusting your jacket over your shoulders as you sit upright, rubbing the sleep out of tired eyes.

“You can always put me on kitchen duty, hell I’ll take—”

“No—no, I’m not moving you. You havin’ trouble sleeping in the singles?”

The apartments, the singles—it varied, depending on who you asked. A place for the younger, single survivors in Jackson. With the constant sound and rumble of life within the walls, you should feel safe, a subtle semblance of home, but sleeping alone was hard. Trapped within four walls, drowned out by the eventual silence as night fell, it left room for the nightmares.

It was easier here, surrounded by others, sounds to help keep you grounded, the fresh air despite the stale smells and faint fumes of rotting corpses. You couldn’t explain it, but it was easier. Besides, it wasn’t like you were being completely negligent—even Tommy knew that.

“I have trouble sleeping in general,” You feed him a half-truth, “I’ll keep it together, though. As long as it keeps Joel off your ass and mine, I wouldn’t be thrilled to be on the receiving end of one of Joel’s outbursts.”

“Tantrums, more like.” He jokes with a smirk, his teeth peeking out under his thick mustache. “I really don’t mind if you’re dozing off a bit, s’long as there’s others keepin’ watch. Maybe–just maybe, try and keep up the act when Joel’s coming and going.”

“Can do,” You agree with ease and Tommy smiles, pointing lazily toward your notebook.

“I’m curious, though—whatcha got goin’ on in there?”

Your brow furrows until you look over your shoulder and surmise what he’s referencing, picking up the notebook carelessly and flipping through to show him–it was a mix of random doodles and sketches, some vulgar words scribbled in by a mix of immature men who you’ve come to befriend with reluctance on the job, a detailed log of everyone’s schedule as they leave and return, random details of weather patterns, things you’ve noticed along the skyline toward the inner city, several months worth of information that Tommy nods at, thoughtful as he looks over the pages.

“Don’t let ‘em give you a hard time,” Tommy tells you, folding the cover closed.

“Yes, sir,” You say endearingly, mostly as a jest at Tommy’s expense, knowing he despised the word, making a face as he turned on his heels to leave.

“Shit makes me feel old,” He gripes, shaking his head in a mix of disdain and amusement, “stop it.”

You smile at his annoyance as you tuck your belongings away into your pack and trade your rifle off to Jesse, who seemed more than eager to take your shift with bright, well-rested eyes and a grin of his face as greeted you both.

As you expect, there is little sleep to be had as you hit your bed, tossing and turning as you fiddle with the ripped hole in your bed sheet or spend time counting the stains on your ceilings—mold spots and holes, signs of a building that was on the way out, but hanging by a thread.

Tommy wouldn’t condemn the place unless it was in shambles, finding use of just about anything if it still had enough life in it. 

And you follow Tommy’s instructional plea—even if it killed you to appease Joel, who seemed just as critical if not more as he rode up on his horse every few nights.

Their shifts weren’t always regular and Joel often picked up extra patrols when someone else couldn’t, complaining entirely too much for someone who seemed like they couldn’t stand living within the sanctuary of Jackson, like he’d rather tough it out on his own.

Ellie blamed it on his inability to let himself settle—Jackson was home, his family was here, and physically he could exist, but he never seemed quite present.

You catch Ellie on a shift change as Tommy and Joel approach, trading out your jerky for her sandwich as she hurriedly tucked it away like she was going to get caught doing something she shouldn’t, snorting softly at her actions as Joel scowled, pulling at the reigns of his horse as he drew near.

The call of your name has you perking up, peering around Ellie’s head at Tommy with a less than enthusiastic look on his face, rifles held between both of the brothers grips.

“I’m askin’ for a huge favor,” Instantly you knew, posture slumping slightly as your boots sunk into the snow, “Cindy’s sick—caught the same bug that’s been goin’ around. Can you cover another shift? I’ll owe ya.”

“Seems more like you’re telling me,” You retort, stretching the beanie down over the back of your head to cover your ears, the cold biting at your skin, “—it’s fine, I’ll do it.”

“Thank—“

“But I want the weekend off.”

“Done.” Tommy agrees without problem.

The patrol box wasn’t all that bad anyways, insulated enough that you weren’t freezing your ass off, enough room for two people, it could be worse. It was better than walking the strip of the barricade, shivering until you couldn’t even feel your toes.

Wyoming winters were brutal, but it seemed like the end of the world had found a vengeance to fight back with, giving you the harshest versions of every season. A blizzard was expected within the next few weeks and those were never ideal—extra patrols, doubling watchmen, curfews. It sucked.

You find yourself sketching out the same tree line you’ve drawn a hundred times, wispy tendrils and thick trunks that wove together like a web, time drifting by with ease as the night swallowed up the day, the thick blanket of snow reducing both the noise and allowing a soft illumination as you peered off into the distance, almost mesmerized at the glowing orb that seemed to grow closer and closer. 

Tommy and Joel were the last ones out, everyone else having returned back hours prior, keeping in mind that they had taken the furthest patrol out north, so it wasn’t all that surprising.

But, it doesn’t take long for you to realize that Joel and Tommy are not alone, horses trotting quickly toward the gates as a small group of raiders followed closely behind and shot of rifle rounds with no exact target, whizzing by your head as you opened the door and ran to your own rifle, sliding to the wall for cover as you quickly loaded your gun and swung it over the ledge.

It wasn’t often that you had to use it outside of training and target practice, finding that Jackson had always been relatively quiet—except for now, as the brothers tumbled to cover as shots fired from your left and right, a few of the attackers succumbed to their flurry of wounds.

You watch as one raider attacks the brothers head on, short-lived as Joel attacks him with his fists, a hand bunching into the front of the attackers shirt before he’s crushing his skull in with pure rage and strength, eventually ending up with his hands around the other man's neck while he choked on the blood that spilled from his mouth, the light in his eyes slowly fading.

There’s a straggler on the outskirts, though, blending in as he slid through the tree line and attempted to attack Joel from behind, you quickly aim down your sight through the scope of the gun, following a straight and calm line as the man approached, stepping a few feet away from Joel before the bullet slices through his head, falling to the ground in an instant. 

Joel’s head whips toward you, your head peeking over the scope as you examine the body before looking over at him, seemingly stunned but the expression was subdued, quietly mouthing something to his brother who wasn’t as good at hiding his shock. 

Either you had made the right choice in saving Joel’s life or he was going to twist this on you, somehow proving that you could’ve killed him with your carelessness, letting a shot ring out so close to his head.

The dread you were feeling does come to fruition as Tommy knocks on your door that weekend, your soft voice welcoming him inside as you perched against the alcove in your room, a small ledge tucked against the windowsill. 

“I ain’t here to lecture you,” Tommy begins, cutting through your doubt, “feel like I’m constantly askin’ so much of you but Joel and I can agree on one thing. You’re a damn good shot.”

You scoff at that, almost a laugh. 

He leaned against the wall near the small kitchen tucked into the corner of the apartment, arms crossed over his chest.

“We lost James,” from what you recalled, he was a young kind, inexperienced, reckless too, “poor kid never fuckin’ listened, got shot before he could even get his gun out.”

“Why are you telling me this?” You ask bluntly, looking up at him through a downturned gaze, picking at the chipped paint by your feet.

“We’re down a person. I want you to take over.”

“I thought this was a council decision. Some prestigious thing, putting people through tests before they could—“

“It’s the least of my worries. Maria’s close to her due date too, that storm is creepin’ in. We ain’t got time to waste, we’ll be doubling patrols soon. Are you in or out, kid?”

Tommy’s face screamed desperation, sunken eyes were a telltale sign of lacking sleep, stress rifling his features. He had a lot on his plate, the weight of Jackson on his shoulders, his burgeoning new family growing within a few weeks. You had a soft spot for him unfortunately and it was always your downfall.

“I’m in.”

—

“You listen to every word I say,” Joel tells you, snaking by the others loading up their saddle bags, side stepping the horse’s head as he crowds you into the small space of the stall, “Every single word, got it?”

He’s never been friendly—cordial, maybe. But, Joel wasn’t the type to ask or suggest. It was always order and demand, his harsh tone constricting the words to instill an edge that had your brows furrowing down into your lids, face scrunching up in annoyance.

You agree regardless, nodding your head as you clip the saddlebag closed.

“I need to hear it.”

“Got it,” You retort, sarcasm laced around your tongue, “Every single word. You say run, I run. Jump, I jump. Good enough?”

Joel shakes his head slightly at your tone, looking off toward the entrance of the barn at his brother who was deep into a conversation, displeased with the idea of being paired with you.

But, he was the only one Tommy trusted to train you properly, even if it meant several hours together with a good chance you both might kill each other. 

With Joel, you were safe from everything else but him.

“Yeah, thas’ good.” He relents, turning on his heels before he finishes his sentence.

The weather was only just beginning to pick up, the winds whipping your loose hair over your face, pulling them from the tie you had pulling the majority of it back, hood snug over your head. You hear the distinct sound of leather rubbing against itself as Joel tightens his grips on the reins of his horse, settling beside you quietly as Tommy called off everyone’s posting.

You were assigned to the ski lodge far north, the furthest they patrolled but for good reason. It kept the raiders at bay, staking claim so far out and keeping them away, for the most part. Plus, it gave them an early jump on any of the migrating groups of infected, finding that they often moved in hoards during the colder months, picking off the stragglers that wandered in.

The trip is cold, lips dry and cracking by the time you reach the lodge, but relatively easy. 

“Tie ‘em up,” Joel instructs coarsely, waiting to latch the door closed as you tie the horses up to the makeshift post in the foyer, his foot holding the door open as you step past him, shoulder brushing his elbow as his eyes track the touch silently, clicking the lock into place.

“Beds are up there,” Joel pointed toward the right corner, couches lined with sheets and pillows, “s’better to sleep down here with this weather, place don’t keep out the cold that well unless we got a fire going and even then…”

“I’ll be fine,” You assure him tensely, stripping your jacket off your shoulders and slinging it over the back of a nearby chair, pack falling slack against the floor, leaving you free to wander around.

“Sign us in,” He points vaguely in the direction of the bar, an old leather booklet resting against the wall with a pin tucked around a page, his voice carrying as you walk further away, “I’ll start up a fire.”

Joel was like a ghost, almost forgetting he was there until he’s approaching behind you, that familiar grimace on his face as he finds you scouring through the book, curiosity getting the best of you—it was harmless, but Joel thought otherwise.

“Is this gonna be an issue?” He asks, eyes widened slightly in an expectant manner, waiting for your response.

You wrestle with the urge to roll your eyes, neatly writing your names down into the book, checking quickly at your watch before you snap the book closed and shove it aside.

You move to walk around him, but his palm flattens out against your collarbone, shoving you back into place—he wasn’t letting you move without an answer.

“No,” You answer casually, pushing his hand away gently, “Are you gonna explain how any of this works?”

“We take turns,” Joel says, mirroring your early actions as he strips off his couch, the warmth of the fire already spreading throughout the room, “I’ll take first shift ‘til morning, then we swap.”

“And if we see something?”

“You wake me up,” He tells you, “otherwise, don’t.”

It was a simple but lethal instruction, a warning.

This was going to be absolute hell.

Luckily, the conversation dies out and you wander toward the small gift shop attached to the bar. It was mostly picked through besides the small plush bear sitting alone on the shelf and a revolving carousel of postcards, aged from both weather and time. You spin them around careful, mindlessly plucking a few that still seemed in good enough condition before you’re shoving them away in your bag, ignoring the creak of a chair as Joel sat with his rifle in his lap, leaned back as he stared out the long expansive window that covered the wall, just on the edge of cliff with a substantial drop.

It had a beautiful view, breathtaking, really. But, looking in his direction only made you feel more and more unsettled, taking your seat beside the fire quietly.

“Should get some sleep,” He suggest without turning his head over his shoulder, your eyes glancing in his direction, “don’t need you fallin’ asleep on patrol here.”

And normally, you could find yourself falling asleep easily given the situation. But, you were on edge, fearful, something twisting in your gut that kept you from relaxing. You’ve heard the stories about Joel, how ruthlessly he killed and maimed. A man of action rather than peace.

You pull a single postcard from your back to distract yourself, hoping that it might help lull you to sleep eventually.

And you wished it had gotten easier, but the more you were paired with Joel, the more tension it seemed to cause, always unspoken—Joel never reacted, barely skirting the idea that this was becoming a problem, the lack thereof with communication, speaking only when you absolutely needed to.

His questions were always odd, like a robot attempting to make small talk—and often, it was observations, one-off statements that shouldn’t have bothered you as much as they did.

But, they did.

“Sleepin’ with that knife ain’t safe.” Joel told you on a crisp, stormy night at the end of January, the tail end of it peeking out from under your pillow, one eye peeling open to look at him with disdain.

“Says the man who sleeps with a rifle on his chest.”

Joel chews at his bottom lip, looking down at the bulky weapon in his lap before he ignores your retort, focusing his gaze on the book in his grip, something he’s read through about a hundred times, attempting to give himself a different view, flipping through the pages mindlessly.

“Where’d you learn to use a gun like that?” He asks suddenly, cutting through the silence again.

Another question, one you could leave unanswered. 

“We’re not put in the watchtower without gun training,” You tell him, “seems kinda self explanatory, Tommy trained me himself.”

“That kinda shootin’ isn’t taught.” Is all he replies with—almost like an accusation. 

“I think you’ve forgotten that QZ kids were born with a gun in their hand.”

It was an asinine exaggeration, but still wholeheartedly the truth. You knew every part of a gun before you could even confidently tie your shoes, it was unfortunately second nature when you had a gun in your hand, similar to a knife. Your grip tightened around the handle as you closed your eyes, succumbing to sleep eventually.

You wade in and out, peeking through bleary eyes and always find Joel’s eyes on you, whether purposeful or not, he was always watching. Even as you wandered, no matter where you were—maybe it was his own strange way of hoping that it provided you comfort, that he was always watching out. But, it never made you feel safe. Not really. And, in turn, you find yourself doing the same thing.

He’s more relaxed when he’s sleeping, the familiar scowl non-existent as he snores alongside the crackling fire or roar of wind, his boots untied and loosened but never off, never too comfortable. Joel always slept with his arms crossed, sitting up or lying down, occasionally mumbling in his sleep as he whimpered, his face contorting in the only sign of emotion you see from him outside of anger and annoyance.

You scribble out your thoughts on a postcard to pass the time.

He never asks about the stack of postcards in your bag, remaining blissfully ignorant. It was an unspoken agreement, that prying wasn’t something either of you were going to make an attempt at—you could simply exist around each other, no baggage or stories to be traded.

For now, at least.

–

It was nearly four months of patrols when Tommy lays his plans out and surprisingly, Joel doesn’t seem displeased and truthfully, things had become easier with him than anyone else.

You didn’t have to put on an act for him.

He could tell when you were exhausted or irritated, giving you space with a silent pass of the sandwiches he had picked up before leaving, retreating to his own corner, though his eyes still lingered.

It had taken a few months, but you did feel that safety with him that Ellie often talked to you about—his steadfast personality, knowing that if something were to happen, he’d handle it. 

But, he’s still a mystery.

“Ellie told me ‘bout that time you killed a group of raiders tryin’ to attack her,” You start the conversation bluntly, biting into the steak sandwich, “You like knives more than guns?”

Bold, he thinks. That’s fuckin’ bold.

“Guns are loud,” He replies, “Knives aren’t.”

You think back to the incident at Jackson with another set of raiders, witnessing Joel kill a man with his bare hands and think - maybe he preferred neither, if given another choice.

The prospect shouldn’t excite you or even entertain you, the brute power he holds.

But, it does.

You make a soft nose of acknowledgement as you nod your head, noticing the subtle glint in his eyes as he revisits the memory with Ellie, his face twitching at the sight of the broken glass slicing through a poor kid’s neck, right along the jugular as he choked on his own blood.

“You kill anyone?”

“A few—just…for survival.” You weren’t sure why you lied.

Joel wasn’t threatened by you in the slightest and lying wasn’t going to change that.

You’ve been lucky enough to avoid it until recently, bouncing from place to place until you landed in Jackson. It had been your home for a while now, so long that you didn’t like to think about it, staying in one place for such a long period of time. 

Joel sat a few feet away in the small house nestled on the mountain, a cool breeze stretching through the open window as Spring had taken hold, flowers blooming over the edge of the windowsill where they threatened to creep in.

His feet were near your head, resting against the ledge of the window as he leaned back in his chair, tapping his knife against the wooden leg of the chair as you pretend to sleep, shifting slightly as the blanket drifted down your body, layers shedded and crumpled by your feet, leaving you in a thin top and and jeans as you turned to your stomach, moaning softly, content.

He’s been less shy about his stares, or oblivious, his gaze lingering when you would catch him in the act—but you count the second in your mind from the moment you catch him through your squinted gaze, his eyes drifting along your body curiously.

Ninety-five seconds.

It was a new record.

And you dream of him that night, it wasn't the first time.

But, this time felt different. Usually the dreams drift away the moment you wake, like a distant and distorted memory, but this one is vivid and lingering as you watch Joel, who had caught you in the midst of your wake but he'd fallen asleep shortly after.

Some fucked up and empty part of you wishes it was reality.

-

You end up at the same patrol a month later, the heat of summer creeping in.

You hadn’t been paired together in a couple weeks and Joel seemed lighter as he stepped beyond the threshold of the house and stripped off his pack, busying himself with a quick sweep 

Wiping your hand over your forehead, skin damp and sweaty as your pack falls to the floor, you sigh, fanning yourself with your hand as Joel catches a subtle glimpse of your obvious discomfort.

“Did Tommy ever fix the water?” You ask with a slight hint of annoyance, more than willing to douse yourself in a bucket of cold water to get some relief, “Please say yes.”

Joel chuckles at that, a small sound that you would have missed had you not been paying direct attention to his response.

“Yes, a couple weeks ago,” Joel answers simply, sinking lazily into the couch, allowing himself a moment of well-earned rest after the long ride here, “go on—I’ll cover the first watch.”

It was all the encouragement you needed. 

And the shower is marvelous, leveled at the perfect temperature to let the cool water wash over your skin, cleaning off the thin layer of dirt that had accumulated from Jackson to here, listening to the faint footsteps as Joel traversed the house, assuming he was setting things up in the bedroom—doors opening, floorboards creaking, the sounds were like a comfort. 

Joel doesn’t talk unless he absolutely has to, more settled in the idea of just existing around you—he knew it brought you a semblance of feeling safe, but he was forcing himself to keep that distance, remaining vigilant to the eyes that constantly watched him, occasionally catching himself doing the same.

Even now, it was like a trance, his head bowed as he passed the bathroom, noticing the small crack in the door as he heard your melodic hum filter over the sound of water, singing a song that reminded him of before, his favorite.

Was it your favorite too?

He doesn’t mean to, not really, but then you’re turning your body away from the shower-head, eyes closed and head tossed back as you washed your hair, the gap in the curtain from this angle giving Joel a perfect view of your body, the pristine slope of your breasts down to your stomach, a few faint scars he followed before his eyes landed on your pelvis, the trimmed patch of hair nestled above your cunt, feeling his throat swell as he swallowed.

The faint creek of his footsteps gives him away, he knows, but you don’t react.

It wasn’t until the midnight hour rolled around, falling asleep on your shift, that Joel sneaks out of the house—sometimes he just needed the silence in nature, no birds chirping overhead, the faint distant growl from traversing hoards that didn’t carry out this far, if he closed his eyes, it was almost as if everything were normal, like he was back at his house in Austin, enjoying a moment out on his back porch.

Unfortunately, Joel was a paranoid man; your quiet footsteps catch him off guard, only feeling your presence as you arrive at his back, turning on his heels in an instant as his hand latches around your throat, tackling you against the ground with his knee digging into your stomach, your face pinched in pain as you throw weak punches at his chest, gasping for air.

He seems trance-like, eyes glossed over as you struggle to breathe, vision blurring around the edges as it begins to tunnel, you muster as much strength as you can to wheeze his name.

“J-oel. Joel, s’me.”

Your voice, broken and strained, seems to break him out of his deadlock grip on your throat, dark eyes snapping back into a soft chestnut, his face softening as much as it could while still remaining hardened, scrambling away from you without a word. Like you had attacked him.

You let out a flurry of coughs as you roll to your side, massaging your throat as your sounds come out raspy and weak, feeling slight pain as you swallow and attempt to rise to your feet, seeing Joel hesitate from your periphery for a moment, considering helping you.

“Coulda fuckin’ killed you,” Is the only thing he offers.

“Yeah,” You respond bitterly, “Almost fucking did.”

“You got a habit of sneakin’ up on people like that? The hell were you thinking?”

He rubbed a hand over his graying beard, the other hand cocked against his hip as he kept a safe distance, watching you pick the clumps of dirt and grass from your hair. 

He’s angry. Angry?

Why the fuck was he angry?

“I was worried—you like to leave at night,” You explain through a strained tone, a tic in your jaw as you clench down, eyes sinking into a scowl as you challenge his expression, “the last thing I need is finding you dead and having to explain that to Tommy.”

A tense silence stretches over, a slow and powerful breath through his nose before he relents and stomps past you, leaving you in a similar position to his earlier, watching his figure trail toward the house as your head turns back toward the sky, covered in stars and picturesque.

The kind of sight you wouldn’t believe if you weren’t seeing it in person.

Joel liked simple pleasures, a moment of silence and a place to sit with himself, and you had disrupted it - the only true moment he had alone all day, to sit, to think. The guilt settles in quickly, lingering for a moment before you decide to make the walk back toward the house.

–

What you aren’t expecting to find is Joel, sifting through your bag, items sprawled out on the floor and the thick cards fitted between his calloused fingers, covered in filth as he read over the notes you had left over the past few months, internal thoughts that you wouldn’t dare let slip.

He'd broken the one unspoken rule you both had kept with each other.

Some of them were slightly more embarrassing than others, forbidden to see the light of day until now, meticulous notes about the details of his face as he slept, how you found the rhythmic sound of his breathing comforting or even more damning, how the more aggressive side of him did the exact opposite of what it should.

It excited you. Turned you on, though the cards held more flourishing details about why and how. Because even then, moments prior as his hands pressed against your throat, there was a brief moment of exhilaration, excitement. 

Your breath catches in your throat as you scramble, stumbling toward him and reaching for the cards he holds easily out of reach, a hand pressing against your shoulder and squeezing tight enough to hold you back.

“You wanna explain this?” Joel asks, the type of tone that made you want to shrink.

Your mouth parts for a moment before you find your voice, brow knitting in frustration as you reach for the postcards once more, failing, “Those are private—why are you snooping?”

“You left a mess,” Joel explains away, the items of your bag spilled on the hardwood floor, chuckling as he continues, “Huh, private? Ain’t much privacy to be had when you’re writing about me.”

You can feel your heart racing, knowing if Joel moved his hand an inch further down he would feel it too.

The stack had to be at least twenty postcards thick, some innocently tame and just a means to let your thoughts and feelings flow, most of them answering questions Joel had asked you earlier in the night that you had refused to answer, giving him nothing to work with.

The ones he does recite are damning, tossing them to the floor as he flips through the stack before reading off a particularly recent one from earlier that night, his confidence slowly flagging as the words leave his mouth.

Shower. Watching me.

It felt good.

“Goes both ways,” You sneer, pushing his hand away and making one final reach for the cards as you successfully pry them from his grip, stuffing them away in your bag along with your other spilled belongings.

Joel’s expression shifts slightly, staring down at your kneeling figure as you avoid his gaze. His boots scuff against the floor as he crowds you against the wall, nowhere to run when you rise to your feet. Attempting to scare, to provoke.

Daringly, you challenge him, “I’m not the only one watching, Joel.”

His eyes narrow, searching your face for any sign of a bluff. For a brief moment, you almost expect him to deny the obvious—lie, lie, lie.

But, even he couldn’t deny the strange connection; or, affliction, that had riddled you both.

You could blame it on the close proximity built over months of isolation, often paired together over your willingness to work efficiently and without issue as time went on—Tommy was used to people butting heads, arguing, favoring one person over the other.

With you two, he could send you off for a patrol and not have to worry about things being left behind or forgotten.

You were innately quiet, even in Jackson, never wanting to ruffle anyone’s feathers or stir up trouble—that was left for the rowdy teens and few and far between drunks. Joel almost suspected you as mole for a brief time upon your arrival in Jackson, a worry soothed by Tommy over time.

But now, he doesn’t know what to think. He can’t figure you out and he’s not really sure he wants to, but you’ve got the kind of look in your eyes that calls out to Joel, silently.

He’s never met someone so controlled, knowing when to keep to themselves and when to bite back; it strings, that bite. He feels it in the way your jaw tightens, attempting to shove past him.

He glances down, noticing the knife tucked away in your left hand. A low, threatening chuckle releases from his lips as his hand grips your wrist, holding it up between your bodies.

“What’re you plannin’ to do with this? Stab me?”

“M’not against it,” You try to keep the strength in your voice, but it wavers slightly.

“I know that look,” Joel challenges, “You ain’t ever killed like this—s’too close, too personal.”

He knocks the knife away with a quick jerk of your wrist as you stumble back against the wall, praying he didn’t hear the small gasp slip from your throat as his chest presses against yours.

“So, you like watchin’ me sleep?” Joel asks in a taunting tone, “Enjoy jottin’ down all those dirty little thoughts thinkin’ I wouldn’t see ‘em?”

“They weren’t meant to be seen. They were private,” You retort, feeling the weight of his body as you exhale, lashes fluttering at his hot breath as it ghosts your face, reiterating, “Private, like my shower? Or, how about all the times I’ve caught you watching me? You know, we could go back and forth about this all night but frankly, I don’t mphh—”

Joel’s hand claps tight over your mouth, effectively silencing you as your face contorts in frustration, hands curling around his thick forearms and fingers, attempting to pry his hand away.

“Look at me,” He goads, repeating it more menacing as you fight against his hold, nodding in satisfaction when you finally relent, “Yeah—now and don’t you fuckin’ lie to me, you left that door open because you hoped I would, right? Stop tryin’ to act so innocent, girl.”

It ignites a fire in you, the demeaning monaker that transforms into enough strength to fist your hands into his shirt and shove him into the reclining chair positioned behind him, a heavy grunt releasing from his chest as you stumble over his boots and into his lap.

“Don’t call me that,” You seethe, not amiss to the immediate instinct of Joel’s to catch you, thighs bracketing his right leg as his hands squeeze your waist, keeping you upright.

Joel speaks your name, almost taunting, “S’that better? Or is that little crush your harboring hopin’ I’ll call you somethin’ a little sweeter?”

You feel the weight of his thumbs as they curl into your belt loops, body swaying with the motion as you take a seat on his lap, ass pressed against his knee and you watch as his chin gradually moves to rest against his chest, his eyeline following your movement.

“Don’t call me anything,” You retorted, his eyes flicking up under a heavy gaze.

Joel was simmering with a controlled rage, his hands squeezing at your hips as he jerked you forward suddenly, your hands grasping onto the back of the chair over his head, the friction at the seam of your denim as it rubbed against your clit, nestled between slick folds that couldn’t hide the arousal you were feeling, how the heat that radiated off of Joel made you sick with want.

“Alright,” He agrees, “then go on ‘head, get off me.”

Something tells you it is definitely a trap.

A moment later, you can feel his fingers gripping around your backside, digging into your ass as he pushes your hips backwards once before slowly guiding them forward, your sneakers scuffing against the hardwood as your lips parted, a silent breath slipping out.

“Go on—get off,” He taunts, the double-entendre making your brain go fuzzy.

“Joel,” It was a weak attempt to tell yourself and him this was a bad idea, but with the pleasure swelling in your core, it comes out more relaxed - you moan his name and Joel hears it.

“You ain’t good with words, but you can show me,” He remedies, the subtle movement as you grind against his leg, denim on denim but you’re almost positive he can feel how wet you are through the fabric, or how the shared heat was almost sweltering, “rub that pretty pussy on me.”

You have half the mind to snark at him, but think back to his eyes on you on the other side of the bathroom door, how he had admired without guilt, no truer words having left his mouth.

Guiltily, you lean against him, forearms resting where your hands were previously gripping, aiding in the quickening pace of your hips as you breathed softly into his ear, one of his hands slipping under the fabric of your shirt, palm spread wide over your back as the chair creaked with the shifting weight.

Your breath hitches, a sharp gasp as Joel’s calloused fingers rub against your spine. The friction against your clit is overwhelming, intensifying with every roll of your hips under his guise, the desperate need for release building in your core, quietly aware of the weight of Joel’s cock through his jeans, hard and neglected.

Your hand slowly moves toward the button on his jeans, ghosting over the swell of his cock before his fingers grip your wrist and return them to their original spot, “This ain’t for me,” He reminds you, “Keep goin’—show me how bad you need it.”

His words spur you toward the ledge you were teetering on, movements increasingly more wild and frantic, soft noises gradually becoming louder as his hands roam your body, the one on your back remaining as a constant while the other roams toward your front, squeezing gently at your breasts through the flimsy bralette, his thumb brushing pointedly over your nipple as you moan.

“Fuck, I’m c—close,” You warn him, blindly finding his hair with your right hand, squeezing at the strands as he grunts, head tilting back against the chair as you moan brokenly, a sob escaping your mouth.

His voice carries you through, his voice enveloping every point of your existence as your orgasm starts and crescendos, “That’s it,” He coos, “s’alright, let it out.”

You obey, weak whimpers cry into his neck as you hide away, hips grinding lazily through the aftershocks as his arms wrap around you silently, holding you steady as the sound of your ragged breath fills the room alongside the quiet chirping of nocturnal animals.

“Gonna write about this later?” Joel teases, whatever hostility he was holding earlier now non-existent, clearing his throat as you lean back, ignoring the obvious thick and permeating tension that was blanketing you both, still unaddressed.

“S’not funny,” You respond, climbing off him unsteadily before you turn your back to him and gather your belongings into a pile and shove them back inside your pack, “You weren’t supposed to see ‘em.”

“We’re partners—you think keepin’ secrets is smart?”

“It’s harmless—and what about you?” You begin, suddenly settling back into your own quiet rage, “Sneaking around, watching me? I notice shit too, Joel.”

Joel sits in quiet contemplation, his permanent scowl growing deeper as his knuckles rub at the spot where your cunt previously was, “Alright—new rule.”

Your eyebrows raise in anticipation, never really prepared for what Joel ever had to say.

“I ask questions, you answer ‘em. For every one you answer, I’ll answer one too.” Fair enough, you think, but then he continues, “It stays between us, alright? And if you want something—ask for it. No sense in bein’ shy ‘round me anymore.”

Not after that.

Baby steps, you say to yourself. 

The thick air between you seems to open, like a weight off your chest.

“Alright,” You reply softly, “I can do that.”

Joel leans forward, elbows on his knees, eyes intense as they lock onto yours. "So, those notes. How long you been writin' 'em?"

You smile with a newfound giddiness, though still mostly subdued, biting at your cheek to stop the spread of your grin, shaking your head as you lock down at the stack of postcards stuffed into your bag.

“Only since we got paired up,” You admit, “every other night or so. When I can’t sleep.”

Which was often.

He grunts, processing the information as you fiddle with the strap of your pack.

“Is it my turn?” Joel nods quietly, shifting back in the chair, ignoring the slowly waning bulge in his jeans that he would surely deal with later, “Well—how long have you been watching me? Or, well–why?”

“That’s two,” Joel chastises, but there was no real bite behind it, “Since you came to Jackson, figured you weren’t good—”

You know what he means—mistrusting, suspicious. 

“Does it bother you—that I do? You scared of me?”

You shake your head shyly, avoiding his gaze.

It was the darkest, most sinister parts of Joel that drew you in.

“I think you’d be terrified of the things I like about you, Joel.”

Joel doesn't respond outright, but his subtle grin is enough confirmation for you. He knew exactly what you meant.

[tan1shere]

My Winner

Billie Eilish x female reader !

A/n: This is how we cope ladies and no gentlemen. Enjoy my loves <3

Summary: after the grammys, Billie finds a way to forget. But you find it hard. Knowing that nothings truly ok. (You'll see.)

Warnings: angst, but heavy on the comfort I promise <3 reader has anxiety so mentions of that

Tags: @trulyy-yourzz @eilishslut @chrissv4mp @n0vabug @dollyvuu @dollarbils @sweetcherriexs

^comment if you want to be added^

Masterlist

What an anxiety filled night. It was nearing the end. The grammys. You know, the big event that always either turns someone's life around or ruins it. You had been anxious all day, surprisingly Billie wasn't. She was so excited to just be there. Happy to be with you especially. But you knew as soon as you took your seats she was masking how anxious she was.

The red carpet was full of stars, full of heaps of people you didn't know either. There was always something about your anxiety, and ever since you had the hunch that your anxiety could always tell you if somethings up, you've been listening to that hunch heavily. Billie also knew of this, but you tried keeping extra quiet currently. If she knew you were anxious that'd set her into a complete state of worry. Knowing you seem to get this way when something is up later on. You couldn't let her get anxious about the night. You hold her hand, walking along as photographers took your photos.

You were next to Finneas and Claudia also, Finn spotting your anxiousness in seconds. You really thought you were hiding it better. He pokes your arm as an interviewer talks to Billie. "Hey whats up?" You look up at him. "What do you mean?" His brow raises. "I've known you for how many years now? Don't bullshit me what's up?" His hand rubs your arm, you grab it softly removing it. "I-" You sigh. "Ok, I'm really anxious for today, I have this odd feeling. I don't want her to see me like this though. She's enjoying herself and I'd like to keep it that way."

"Y/n." - "Please don't say anything." He's now the one to sigh. "Fine, but if she notices something is up, tell her. You know she always worries about you." You nod. "I know I know, just want her happy." He gives you a soft smile, kissing the top of your head. It was nice, he was always so brotherly towards you, you always wanted an older brother. "Like I told her, if we don't win anything it'll be ok." He pipes up. You were about to say, everything about the fact she deserves this though, she has a great right to earn this achievement. But you stay quiet, knowing he is right. You just want what's best for her. Knowing she's always so gracious.

She walks back over to you guys. "Hey, it's almost time to go, you ready?" You nod at her, giving her a smile. As she leads you out with such excitement, you look back at Finneas. He gives you a reassuring nod. Settling some nerves within you. Your mind talks as you get there, finding your seat and such. Telling yourself that this will all be ok. If it doesn't turn out good, you can be there for her. Give her encouragement, telling her she did amazing regardless- "Hello, earth to Y/n." She says standing infront of you. You snap out of your trance. "Hm?" She giggles at you. "Silly cutie." The name eases everything within you, looking into her eyes.

"I said here are our seats." She beams. You sit down, watching everyone else do so. "You excited to perform baby?" You smile sweetly at her. She smiles back. "Hell yeah. I mean a little bit nervous but this is honestly second nature to me now. I'm pumped." You could see how genuinely happy she was. It sooths everything you had previously been worried about.

But not for long, when they were up there singing your chest feels heavy, ignoring it like usual, even not in this situation you enjoy your girlfriends performance. But it doesn't go unnoticed by Claudia. "Babe, you alright?" You turn to her. Her comforting tone makes you let go for a moment. "Im still worried, I don't even know why I said in my mind whatever happens it'll be ok." She places her hand on your shoulder. "I think you're more worried about this than her." You lower your head. "I know." Sighing, but Claudia gets you to look at her. "And that's fine I hope you know, you care so much about her. It's really sweet." You felt teary. "I just want her growing more, this place can be a bit.. stingy." She laughs.

"Yep, don't we all know it." She goes to wipe one tear, but you stop her. "It's best if I get then out now so I won't- just in case of anything." The two if you share a laugh, it felt nice. Considering you usually talk to Billie about your anxiety. But that was off limits right now. You pay attention to her again, feeling calmer after your talk with Claud. Vibing to the music, less stressed. But now the roles were reversed. As the categories she was nominated for go on she seemingly is off, not as bubbly as before. But she puts up a front. "That's ok there's heaps more." You reassure her. She turns to you and smiles, wrapping an arm around you. "I'm so glad you're here." Your eyes flutter shut. "Glad I could be here baby." Her grip on you tightens a bit. And it makes you worried.

Nonetheless you push that down, you wanted to be strong for her. Be there for her. You rub her back going to sit back up as more people come to perform.

Billie was off taking some photos, you spotted her loosening up again, enjoying herself. You just thank whatever. Happy she's not as worried. You though, your anxiety was starting to come back. Little did you know it was all for a different reason. Because as soon as that last nomination comes round you didn't feel as worried, your anxiety was still present but it was for something you couldn't put your finger on. The last one was called and as they spoke, you immediately look at Billie, not hearing her name. Feeling devastated but ready to comfort. Your hand lands on her shoulder.

Noticing her eyes glaze over. You weren't expecting that to be quite honest. I mean sure upset, but it catches you off guard. You gently kiss her cheek. "You're amazing. You're my winner." And it's like she flips some sort of switch, smiling at you. But not saying a word. Odd. She claps like the rest, standing up, randomly seeming different from her state a few seconds ago. You saw it though, you knew she wasn't ok. The flip so fast, it couldn't possibly be all alright. The night ends and you all leave, getting in her car in silence. It was worrying you more. You go to speak but she does before you. "Let's go to Paris."

Your head turns towards her faster than anything. "Billie- what?" You were struck with confusion. "Let's go, get away. I know you've been talking about wanting to go for months, years even. Let's do it." You were at a loss of words. "Baby, you have tour this month, not to mention it's going to take us half a day to fly over there." She shrugs. "Yeah, but tours not until the 18th we have plenty of time." You had zero clue on what to say. "Billie-" You say concerned. She knew you were going to say something so she speaks. "Come onnn let's be spontaneous. Let's get out of here. We can go home and pack or I can just buy you whatever when we are there."

To say the least you were overwhelmed. Turning your head, looking infront of you as she drives. You tossed with the decision. Maybe it would be cool to get away. You suspected she didn't want to talk about anything tonight, so you'd leave it for a few days. "What do you say huh?" She seemed too pumped, it made your worries linger. "Yeah, sure. Let's do it." - "Yes! That's what I like to hear."

You had packed things that you'd need. But it wasn't distracting you from the events of tonight. Not like it is seeming to do with Billie. "Have you told Finn or Maggie and such yet?" She shakes her head. "Nope, it'll be fineee." That set your stomach on edge. No it wouldn't, you always kept in contact. "Better yet as soon as we get there lets put our phones on flight mode!" She goes to grab your zipped up suitcase. You let out a sigh. "Letsgooo." She says, heading for the door. "Baby." You then say, and she freezes. "Leave something?" She looks at you avoiding everything that leads to tonight. Talking, comforting. Crying.

Maybe she needed this, needed to forget, you keep to your word of doing so in a few days. "Nope, just wanted to say I love you." You smile. She comes over to kiss you. "I, love. You. Right to Paris we go!" This could potentially be fun now the moments sinked in, and you had been wanting to go for quite some time. You follow her out the door heading onto your travels.

Sitting and waiting for the flight, in a silence. Again. But it truthfully didn't last long, almost as if she didn't want to be left with her thoughts. "Ok, let's turn our phones off." You were a bit hesitant. But maybe that'll also make the trip more fun. Just with one another, enjoying the moment. You grab your phone going to do so, noticing she had posted a photo on her story of the airport. You decide to keep quiet, thinking on if this whole thing really was a good idea. You hand her your phone. "It's off." She smiles. "So is mine." You tap your your foot, moving your knee feeling that anxiety coming back. Oh. This is what your body was telling you earlier...

This.

It was 20 minutes away. You had taken a nap, had some food. Billie? None of that, they brought food around but she insisted on you having it. Making your heart tighten. Feeling so wrong still. Nor had she been asleep for all of those nearly 15 hours, staying up all day and night. It wasn't good. "Hey look at the sunshine." She points out the window. You turn your head, seeing it. Then everything floats past you. "Wow." You say amazed. You had always dreamed of coming here. It's just now set in that it's a reality. "That's, the Eiffel Tower!" You beam with excitement. "Sure is." It was beautiful. All the buildings. You smile contently.

When you land and get out, you're greeted by people with their beautiful accents. "bonjour!" Someone greets. You smile, having had practiced a tiny bit of French. "Salut!" They smile at you. "Wait you can speak French?" You nod. "Just a little. Told you this was my dream." You both smile at one another. "You're going to love our hotel room then! Looking right at the Eiffel Tower." You open your mouth. "A- wha- are you serious?" She nods, smiling more. "Oh my god!" And her plan was slowly working, not for too much longer when you figure it out though.

You arrive at the hotel, settling in. "This is breathtaking." You go out on the balcony. "Is this even real I feel like I'm in a movie." She comes out with you. "Very real my love." Then it strikes you on why she's doing this- But her mind was quicker than your own. "You see the tower there?" She points, making your mind distract as you look. "Got us a table at the restaurant there." You're shocked. "What?! How?" She smirks. "I have my ways." You laugh at her. "Say, why dont we go shopping just in time for tonight?" You nod, going to go for a pee.

She sighs a little. "Back on track." Her eyes wander off to the scenery, taking it all in.

Shopping was heaps of fun, all the pretty clothes, all the beautiful sights. But almost all of these were too expensive. "Maybe we could just-" Billie grabs the handful you were about to put back, putting it near the till. "Why don't you get those shoes you liked!" You stood there for a moment. "Billie.. Those are so much I-" "Nonsense, go go!" It took you a second to snap you out of, well honestly. None of this felt real. Then that heaviness returns to your chest. When you go to protest she had already paid for it. Shoes and all. "Baby I-" Her finger waves in your face.

The reality truly hit you. She was distracting you, she was avoiding everything. She goes to pick up the shoes heading out. You trot after her. "Can we-" "Oou let's go find a cute Cafe!" Your brows lift upwards, sewing together. Your worries were starting to fly right back. But she takes your hand as you go off to do whatever.

This was far from normal. You were getting ready, doing your makeup but you can't shake the feeling of the past 24+ hours. You felt like your mind was going to explode. You had to talk to her, you couldn't wait another day. You walk out of the bathroom, dress on and everything noticing she was dressed up to. You had nearly forgotten the topic that you wanted to discuss. "Uhm, babe?" You say, she turns around, jaw dropping. "Woah." You swallow. "Are you ready? You sure look it oh my god." You walk over to her. "Can we talk for a second?" She knew exactly what was about to come. "We don't want to be late, I made the reservation for 7." She goes to leave but you grab her arm.

"Baby-" She sighs. "I'm getting a bit peckish, are you?" She was avoiding it like the plague. You wait a moment. "Yeah, sure." She smiles, kissing your cheek. "Sweet!" And so it went on, you get to the beautiful and iconic tower, mesmerized. "Oh wow it's beautiful." She grabs your hand. "Not as beautiful as you." You stare lovingly in her eyes, such a romantic city, a forgetful one too apparently. Because just like that you were focusing on it more, finding yourself getting hungry.

The night goes on, it was peaceful. But your mind was not. There was a voice in the back telling you to just say something, but the other is battling it, saying you should enjoy this moment and the fact it doesn't happen very often. The food was delicious the view was unbelievable. Just for tonight.

It's now two days later. You cursed yourself at the fact you haven't tried talking about it. But that ends today, she needs to just let it out. You know it's hurting her deep down. The way she's handling it wasn't healthy. You were currently out getting a massage, 'her treat' which is basically been the moto this whole trip. You didn't want to waste it or seem ungrateful. But you had snatched your phone from her bag, you had to see if anyone texted. And surprise surprise they had. Maggie blowing up your calls. Finneas texting you non stop. Fuck. You regret it getting this far. You wanted to tell them but not until you talked to her first. Your finger moves to tiktok, watching all that was going down.

People saying that we've gone missing and that no ones heard from us. "Jesus." You whisper. "You alright my love?" The sweet French lady asks. How the hell did anyone even know so quick. "You're very tense." - "Yeah just- just some stuff going on right now. Sorry." She chuckles. "No need to apologize my dear. That's why you're here, to relax and be calm." You take in a deep breath, feeling her massage you further. You wish Billie was here with you, but she had been off for a run when you had woken up, seeing the little note and directions to come here. Then your eyes flutter shut and you soon fell into a peaceful slumber. One you hadn't had the night before. Due to all the tossing and turning.

Billie wasn't facing you but you knew she wasn't asleep. Fuck sake. You just can't not talk about this anymore. "Thank you, for the lovely massage." She nods gently. "Look after yourself mon amour." You give her a smile. "Merci." You reply politely. You head back, opening the hotel room to see her sitting there. "Oh you're back! How was it?" You plop your bag down. "Good but can we-" "On my run I saw this cute little wine tasting Vinyard ad, we can get a taxi and head out to it tonight! We could also stay-" You breathe slightly. "Billie-" "Or maybe that'd be too much we could stay there for the rest I know they can do-" "BILLIE!" You finally snap.

Silence.

Dead, fucking silence.

You stare at one another, and you go to speak. "Talk to me please." She averts your gaze. "I dunno what you want me to talk about." Your eyes look up, hating this weird behavior. "Billie you're frightening me. You've never done such a thing before." - "May want to elaborate." You just wanted her to let you in. "Stop shutting me out then and maybe I will!" More silence. "Please, I'm begging you lets just tal-" "I don't want to talk." She gets up but your body moves in her way. "No, you are. I'm done trying to forget, you need to let whatever this is out and this time you will not distract me." She had no. Emotion on her face. "Baby please." Your eyes were teary. "Let me help. Please." You start to sob quietly.

That's all you wanted to do, ever since that night. And there it is, her own sobs cascading down her cheeks. You nod. Proud to see it. She goes to you, hugging you, putting her head in your neck. You kiss her head over and over, trying to calm your heart down. "Its ok, I'm here. I promise." You hold her tight. "Let it in, it'll feel better afterwards." She sobs uncontrollably, having had it built up for days. "I'm so fucking sorry." You shake your head, getting her to look at you. "Don't, you didn't do anythin-" "I did, I went all fucking weird, took you here to forget, just move on. And that look on your face before fuck I'm so s-" This time you cut her off. Putting your hand over her mouth.

"Can I say something?" She nods. You go to wipe her tears. "Theres no need to apologize. If anything I'm sorry for not just doing this sooner, I thought you needed time then you'd come round. But I couldn't anymore. You were hurting and that was hurting me. I couldn't bear it any longer." She swallows. "Since I didn't get to say it then. I'll say it now. I am so fucking proud of you. You don't need some silly shiny award that honestly means nothing in the long run. You are amazing regardless." She hugs you tight. "I don't want to loose you." Your brows furrow. Confused. Then you realize why she's done all of this. She could've resulted to drinking but it was this cold outburst instead.

She was afraid she'd loose you over some silly award. You get her to look at you. "Is this why you took me here? To the place I always wanted to go buying me all this stuff?" She nods sheepishly. "Baby.." Your head shakes. "When did we meet." Now she was confused. "2015 ofcourse." You nod. "When did you first get recognized?" ... "2017 ish.." You hold her face. "I've loved you, as a friend, a partner way before any of this even happened. If that's what you're worried about, think again. Because you could loose all those trophys and I'd still be here. You matter more to me." You smile softly. "You're the only trophy I need." She says. You kiss her sweetly. "Soo, are you calling me a whore?" Her face panics making you giggle. "I'm teasing you baby." Her eyes roll.

"You're a doofus." "I'm your doofus and you're stuck with me." She smiles. "I can certainly live with that."

Everything felt clear. You two did stay in Paris for a few more days, this time with no worry in the world. Truly enjoying yourselves. That is after she texted her family back.

You sat out on the balcony, drinking your whine and her some bubbly water. The night air, cool but refreshing. "You know." She began. "There was a category I was nominated for that they didn't mention." You turn your head, utterly confused. "Having the best girlfriend." Your smile creeps on your face.

"And I fucking won."

:,) ugh cuteness.

[my-castles-crumbling]

together - @rosekillermicrofic - word count: 230

“So,” Barty mumbled, head resting on Evan’s lap as they relaxed in the Common Room, “who should we tell first?”

Evan considered. After a screaming match of epic proportions, they had somehow found themselves throwing themselves at each other instead of throwing spells. After over an hour of furious snogging, they had ended up in the Common Room. “I think Regulus. We’ve traumatized him the most, what with him having to share a room with us, after all.”

Barty grinned. “Now we can just traumatize him differently,” he said suggestively.

But before either could say more, the door to the Common Room opened, and Dorcas, Regulus, and Pandora walked in.

Neither boy moved. It was normal for them to sit like this, after all. They figured they could tell Regulus later. 

Until Pandora got about three feet from them, froze, and pointed at them, eyes wide. “You two’re together!” she screeched.

Barty and Evan both gaped. “How did you–?” Barty began to ask, but Evan sighed. He should have known better than to try to keep anything from his sister, even for a few minutes.

“Yeah, we are,” he confessed.

“Oh, good,” Dorcas mumbled. “I was about to tear my head out from the fighting.”

Regulus, however, snorted. “As if that’ll change. Now they’ll just literally kiss and make up.”

They looked at each other again, shrugging. He wasn’t wrong.

[pinkiemachine]

I am still waiting, Hishe…

Kal: Bruce, there you are — what in the world?

Bruce: Hey Kal.

Kal: Who are all these kids?!

Bruce: My Bat Family. I’m a dad now.

Kal: Since when?!

Bruce: Since 1940. Try to keep up.

Kal: I thought it was just the one! Hi, Nightwing.

Dick: Hi Superman! Yeah, I have siblings now.

Kal: And how’s that working out?

Dick: Most of us have died at least once.

Kal: …What?

Bruce: Hey Kal, check it out. This one’s super smart, and we have matching coffee mugs.

Tim: :)

Bruce: This one…

Cass: …

Bruce: Actually, this one scares me. And this one glows in the dark! Heheh!

Duke: :D

Kal: I can see that…

Damian: Father, I’m hungry. When are we having dinner?

Bruce: How many criminals have you caught today?

Damian: *holds up three villains* Is this sufficient?

Bruce: Eh, it’s good enough. Here. *tosses him a tofu hotdog, like just the dog part* Keep working on it. Three more and you get the bun.

Kal: *horrified silence*

Dick: Hmph! When I was Robin, I could catch at least five criminals before dinner.

Tim: Oh my gosh, Dick, no one cares!

Jason: No one cares about anything in this stinkin’ family. Where were you all when I died, huh?!

Everyone: *groan*

Damian: Quit being such a drama queen, Todd! It’s not like losing your life is the end of the world!

Tim: Yeah!

Damian: You shut up. The only thing you’ve ever lost is your spleen.

Duke: And his parents.

Everyone except Damian: *parental trauma* AH!

Bruce: I told you never to mention that!

Kal: I can’t believe what I’m watching… Does Alfred know about this?!

Bruce: Yeah, totally, he’s cool with it.

Kal: *narrowing his eyes* I have a very hard time believing that.

Bruce: Well, he works for me, so shut up.

Kal: What about Catwoman?! Does Catwoman know about this?!

Bruce: *nervous* Um… well…

Damian: *suspicious* Who’s Catwoman?

Bruce: *very nervous* No one.

Dick: Oh, he is so dating Catwoman!

Tim: Why didn’t you tell us?!

Jason: What if we don’t want a step-mom, huh?!

Bruce: Woah, hold on now —

Duke: Look, you’re upsetting Cass!

Cass: …

Bruce: Alright, that’s enough! We’re not gonna talk about this anymore! Because —

Everyone: *annoyed* — you’re Batman!

Bruce: No! Because I said so! …And also, yes, because I’m Batman! Cause Batman says so!

Kal: *smirking* More like because you’re Bat-Dad.

Bruce: >:(

Kal: And hey, where’s Barbara? I thought she was Batgirl?

Bruce: *nervous* She was…

Kal: …Bruce, what did you do?

Dick: Oh, don’t worry, Superman, Barbara’s fine.

Kal: Oh, thank goodness.

Jason: She’s just paralysed from the waste down.

Kal: Bruce!

Bruce: It wasn’t my fault! She’s not even technicially my kid!

Kal: Bruce…

Bruce: Oh, don’t you “Bruce” me. I’ll “Bruce” you… “Bruce” you in the face.

Kal: Okay, that’s it, you are not allowed to find any more sidekicks starting right now!

Bruce: *holding up Harper* What about this one?

Kal: No!

Bruce: *holding up Spoiler* This one still has a parent — I can just be a mentor.

Kal: No!

Bruce: Well, gee, Kal, what am I supposed to do with all the orphans in Gotham, then, huh?!

Kal: Do you hear yourself right now?

Bruce: I have a system, Kal!

Kal: That’s it! There’s only way to solve this!

*Superman grabs Batman, and they fly off*

*Batman then appears on the couch in Therapist Spider-Man’s office from Across the Spider-Verse*

Therapist Spider-Man: Would you say you carry any trauma from your childhood?

Batman: *leans over* Do I have a story for you.

[beah388love]

Dyslexia Problems

Full Masterlist Lando Norris Masterlist

Pairing: Lando Norris x fem!reader

Summary: you and Lando both have dyslexia

Warnings: swearing, dyslexia (if I’ve missed any please tell me!!)

You had gone golf with Lando and max for the day and they had randomly decided to go live on twitch. You was sat in the cart trying to cover your phone from the sun so you could read your text out but you huffed when all the letters were jumbled because of your dyslexia. “Lan? Is this spelt right?” You asked as you looked up to him as he held the camera.

He held his hand out and read your text but shook his head with furrowed brows when the letters were also jumbled from his dyslexia too. “Chat how do you spell neighbour?” Lando asked and looked at the chat to see the word repeated, some in caps.

“Okayyyyy thank you guys” Lando said with a little laugh as he typed the letters in on your phone and let you hit send.

“Thank you chat!” You said louder so they could hear you whilst max took his shot.

That was not all though….

Stupidly max asked you to read the subs out on the camera “thanks…uh- daivid? And thanks…kivy? For the subs” you smiled as you positioned the camera to look at max and Lando who were having a little play fight ending in Lando trying to poke max’s ass with the golf club and max running away with his hand covering his ass.

“Idiots” you shook your head behind the camera.

Chat:

User1: LMAOOOO THEIR SO FUNNY

User2: not y/n calling everyone the wrong name 😭

User3: ITS VICKY NOT KIVY 😭💀

User4: is she stupid?

User5: she’s dyslexic bro

You knotted your brows as you read the comments, “omg! Guys have I been calling you the wrong names?! I’m so sorry!” You gasped and slapped a hand to your mouth when you realised what the chat was talking about.

“Max! You take the camera! I suck at this job” you said dragging a hand down your face, “what are you talking about?” Max asked confused as he took the camera off of you.

“I can’t read the chat or their names…sorry guys” you said with an embarrassed smile “dyslexia?” Max grinned and you nodded “alright baby your turn!” Lando said as he handed you your golf ball.

“Thank you baby” you smiled as you took the ball from him.

“Y/n has really bad dyslexia guys” max explained as he read through some of the comments. “Yeah she hates it” Lando agreed with a nod of his head.

“You have dyslexia though” max pouted confused on why you hated it so much “yeah but hers is worse than mine and she loves reading but she has to use the text to speech thingy” Lando explained and max nodded “yeah she hates it” Lando gave a tight lipped smile but smiled when you walked over, he instantly wrapped a hand around your waist.

“Also chat- I didn’t wanna play this stupid game-“ I murmur to the camera but got cut off by Max “it’s a sport not a game” he corrected me for the 100th time.

I roll my eyes to the camera. “It’s a game.” I whisper to the camera making lando stifle a laugh.

……

This also occurred on streams…for example the time when Max was streaming with you and Lando.

You had somehow been given the job of calling out and thanking the subs..again.

“Thank you…uh- poopy?” I tilt my head and scrunch my brows as I read the username out and gasp when I read it again “sorry-! Sorry- I meant poppy..! Thanks poppy for the subs” I correct myself embarrassed

I hear lando’s laugh behind me as I’m sat on his lap, “Lan. it’s not funny-“ I roll my eyes playfully but he can’t help his laughs.

“Babe- you called her poopy?-“ he wheezes out whilst laughing, hiding his face in my hair from the stream. I shake my head smiling “I didn’t mean to!” I cover my face embarrassed.

Max is trying to bite back his laughs as he tries to focus on a game. He looks to the comments and bursts out laughing at all the jokingly offended fans.

I feel Lando squeeze his hold on my waist slightly “babe?” He whispers into my ear and I hum “mh?”

“Want your coloured slip thingys?” He asks quietly and I shake my head “no it’s fine..can you just read the subs out?” I ask and he nods “yeah.”

He continued to read the subs after that. I didn’t think anything of it until I saw the twitter posts the next morning…they did make me laugh.

…

Your dyslexia would also affect your texts…which were also pretty funny-

Lando was sat on the sofa at your shared apartment. max was also there but he was on the other sofa. Lando scrolled through instagram bored until he got a text from you.

Lando tried to read it and sighed, his eyebrows scrunched in confusion. He rubbed his forehead and looked up when max chuckled “what?” Lando asks

Max laughed “has y/n texted you?”

Lando nods “yeah- how’d you know?” He smiled confused

Max chuckled “cuz you look like your trying to read a different language” Lando laughed shaking his head

“Here you try and understand what she texted me.” Lando chuckled and handed his phone to max.

Y/N: Can yuo garb me smoe ciream?

Max knotted his brows as he tried to read it “fucking hell mate- how do her eyes make her think that’s right?”

Lando chuckled “don’t ask me.” He said as he took his phone back and texted back.

Lando: babe. I just had a headache trying to read that.

Y/N: gbra em some icremea?

Lando: it still ain’t spelt right babe.

Y/N: seriosly?

Lando: just call me. I cant keep trying to read this.

Max Fewtrell added to his story

Landonorris: I acc have a migraine after texting her.

Ynusername: blame my dyslexia not me ✋🏻

McLaren: you think her texts are bad..we have to deal with her emails!

User1: LMAO NOT MCLAREN CALLING HER OUT

User2: I WANNA SEE EM NOW 😭

Lewishamilton: relatable.

Ynusername: hey! Give me a break.

User3: how r her replies making sense if her texts don’t?

Landonorris: y/n uses autocorrect and speech to text to help her

Ynusername: idk what id do without it 😔✋🏻

…

This would also cause problems between her and her radio engineer, Fred.

“Freddie?” I ask into the radio as I hold the steering wheel tightly, going around a corner on the track.

“Yeah y/n?” He responds through the radio

“There’s something wrong with the uh- screen thingy-“ I say and Fred furrows his brows

“Uh- ya sure..? I’m looking now and it looks fine?” He asks confused

“It says I’m going at 013mph?” I ask confused as I ready screen on the car.

I hear Fred’s small chuckle through the radio “y/n- it’s your dyslexia. It says 103mph” he explains and I can’t help my embarrassed smile under my helmet

“Oh- I forgot about that. Thanks Freddo.” I giggle through the radio.

Fred chuckled “it’s fine. The cars fine though right?”

“Yeah- it’s fine. Just my dyslexia.” I giggle

I do another turn and sigh “Fred- what’s the gap?” I ask confused

Fred looks down at his screen “uh- Max is…0.845 seconds behind.” He reads and I nod

“Okay” I say as I try to remember the track in my head. I go to turn right but quickly swerve left.

“Shit- fuck- oops-“ I curse under my breath and I hear Fred through the radio

“What happened-?”

“I uh- I just forgot my left and right but it’s fine-“ I giggle quietly “sorry.”

Fred can’t help his laugh “don’t worry- just try to remember next time yeah?”

…

Or another struggle for you and Lando was cooking…

Lando was streaming whilst you and him baked or shall I say tried to bake a cake.

Lando was leaning against the counter, holding his phone with the recipe on it “uh- babe? I think we need help.” He says with knotted brows.

You look over to him “what? Why?”

Lando tuts as he tries to read the ingredients “I can’t make it out.”

You roll your eyes “lemme try” Lando scoffs lightly “okay- but I highly doubt you’ll be better than me.”

You try to read the ingredients and instructions but it’s all jumbled and messy “uh…never mind then.”

Lando chuckles and looks to the camera “guess we’re having pasta tonight chat.”

You giggle and nod “yup! Pasta it is.” You say as you grab different ingredients.

…

Lando, you and Oscar were doing an F1 game interview thingy for fun.

The interviewer had given you all your own white board. The game was that Oscar would have to guess the word that you and Lando got.

The interviewer smiles “okay- start.”

Lando and you look to the word on your boards. Lando tilted his head confused “uh…”

You also knotted your brows confused as you looked at the messy word. “Uh…lan? What does it say?” You whisper.

Lando chuckles “no idea..”

Oscar shakes his head amused “how the hell do I guess if you don’t know the word?”

Lando laughs lightly “uh- I think maybe you should do the word and me and y/n guess it.”

The interviewer giggles and nods “okay- switch if it’s easier”

Lando and you switch. Oscar chuckles “this is why we never let you two team up. You guys are awful together”

Lando nods with a laugh “two dyslexics.”

You giggle and nod “perfect match” you joke

[juyeoz]

GOOD GRACES — YANG JUNGWON

45 ┆Oh. (0.5k words)

Honestly, you were confused as to why Wonyoung dragged you to the club room without any explanation. She even left you there, saying that she would be back to let you out.

Did you do something bad to deserve a time out from your previous club president?

You had so many questions to ask her when she returned.

On the other hand, Jungwon was nervous. What if you didn’t see him the same way? Him and Wonyoung had spoken about confessing to you when the two hung out, but he was unsure.

He couldn’t tell the boys either. They would tease him too much before offering him any help.

The ding from his phone gained his attention, making his over consuming thoughts disappear. It was from Wonyoung. Her message read the words, ‘coast is clear’, with a thumbs up and grinning emoji. 

Reality was now sinking in. Yang Jungwon was going to confess to the girl he liked. Something he had never experienced before. 

He rummaged in his pocket for the key to the club room and inserted it into the lock. 

“Jungwon?” You called, turning around to look at him. He was barely visible in your vision. The club room was dimmed due to the inactivity of the space. 

“Hey,” he greeted with a bashful smile. You examined his figure, taking note of how blonde his hair appeared and how his hands remained behind him.

“Oh, here.” He said while handing you a bouquet of daisies.

“I didn’t know what flowers you liked… I just went off of what you posted recently.” 

“What’s going on?” You asked, confused. It was a valid reaction. One, you were randomly brought to the club room you rarely visited ever since you began helping the yearbook club, and two, the boy who you thought liked another girl was currently handing you flowers.

What the hell was happening?

You looked at him with furrowed brows as his eyes stared into yours. He seemed hesitant and nervous. 

“Jungwon,” you began, about to ask him the same question from before.

“What’s—”

“I like you.” He interrupted, leaving you stunned.

“I truly do like you and get all flustered when we’re close to each other. It’s kind of bad, but I’m not ashamed of it. You’re genuinely an amazing person and I failed to realize it for the last three years. Instead, I shielded your true self with the one I made up in my head after we got off on the wrong foot.” Jungwon explained.

You paused as Jungwon watched you for any signs of emotion. However, worry washed over him in an instant. You stayed silent longer than Jungwon expected you to. What if you didn’t see him the same way and he had poured his heart out to you for nothing?

What if you were going to humiliate him after all of this?

“Sorry I—”

“What about Wonyoung? You don’t like her?” You asked, cutting him off while feeling all flustered and confused.

“What—No, of course not. Why would I?” His brows furrowed in confusion. What were you talking about?

“You two were always together and got pretty close to each other recently…”

“Would you believe it if I said she was helping me with my feelings this whole time? She found out because of the video I sent her of the arts night event… It was kind of embarrassing, but luckily it brought me here.”

“Oh.”

PREVIOUS MASTERLIST NEXT

NOTE — me and those Oh. endings LMAOO

ENHYPEN PERM TAGLIST — @miumura @macapunoz @ch4c0nnenh4 @ancnymcnzjy

GOOD GRACES TAGLIST — @anuisamazing @garrdenwon @dreamiestay @starfallia @mrchweeee @mymelodyfanatic @getoxo @jiamini @imnotyizhuo @heartheejake @wonlluvie @theothernads @yvjw @riribelle @winuvs @shotaddicted @hollxe1 @pinknjm @en-dream @elegancefr @wensurr @enhaz1 @r1kification @sunghxxnie @unhakki @hoonieluv @veilico @ddolleri @ahnneyong @stvrriki @domfikeluva @mensisim @tasnemluvs @httpenhoon @sch1z0prenic @kazemiya @rairaiblog @enhypenlovre @starry-eyed-bimbo @cupidhoons @miyawwn @siekksjs @wonfused @renjuneoo @wildtigerlili @nishiriks @letwiiparkjay

© JUYEOZ

[captain-huggy-bear]

Luke would be the type to keep his private life very private so him having a gf only really his family and friends in michigan know so the devils have no clue and i could see the boys always trying to get luke to hookup with people for like a whole season till next season when they finally learn luke has had a gf the whole time

Oh boy, 100%. He always just politely tells them he's not interested in dating anyone or having a casual hookup or pretends he doesn't notice what they're doing. Jack 100% does not help, he finds it hilarious when any of the guys are trying to get Luke to talk to some random girl in a bar, but he will 100% confirm to you that Luke is the most loyal boyfriend you could ask for. I also see Luke feeling guilty about it even though he hasn't done anything, so every time he gets back to the apartment he's telling you if you live together or phoning you if you don't and basically confessing his 'sins', like 'i'm so sorry, baby, Marky tried to get me to go out with this blonde and she wouldn't stop touching my arm and I told her I wasn't interested and I only love you.' Definitely reaches a point where he breaks and just goes 'STOP! I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND' and all the guys are just like 'why the hell didn't you tell us this sooner?' Totally happy to take requests/ideas/prompts at the moment in my ask box :) Writing Masterlist

"Hey, C'mon, Rusty! What about the blonde at the end of the bar?" Curtis points to a young woman around Luke's age, platinum blonde hair, little black dress, who's eyeing Luke like he might be candy. It doesn't flatter him, if anything it sends a sick feeling to his gut, a roiling discomfort because only you're allowed to look at him like that. You can eye fuck him, no one else. He feels objectified.

"Curtis, I've told you I'm not interested. Not my type." Not his type because his girlfriend is his only type and there's only one of you. It doesn't matter if 100 attractive women all tried to get his number right now, he wouldn't care, wouldn't give it out because you're the one he wants. Literally no one compares to you, he's smitten, whipped, absolutely in love.

"C'mon, seriously! You didn't go out with anyone all last season! Not even a hook up, you're celibate, man! You're young, you should be having fun!" Curtis knocks his shoulder with a grin and Luke just grips his beer tighter, feeling a familiar frustration at the situation. He spent all of last season dealing with the boys trying to goad him into hook ups and flings, throwing women at him like it was their duty to get him laid. He hated every minute of it.

"Yeah, Lukey, you were practically celibate, a monk," Jack chimes in, arm thrown over Luke's shoulder with a grin, the irony of his words not lost on either of them because Luke was definitely not celibate last year. He just wasn't hooking up with random strangers, because he'd started dating you, because you were the only person he wanted to see, to kiss, to sleep with and that still stood firm and true.

"Just go talk to her, maybe you'll get lucky and go home with her tonight! C'mon, what's wrong?" It's Dougie that chimes in this time and Luke wants to die. He wants to die. Or alternative go to your apartment and curl up with you in bed because this is the worst.

"Yeah, are you scared, Lukey?" If Jack wasn't his brother he'd have killed him already, killed him for encouraging all of this bullshit for a year, knowing full well that Luke wasn't single. But, he can't because his mom would be upset if Jack died...he rolls his eyes at him instead, shrugging his arm off of his shoulders.

"You're not secretly a virgin or anything, right, Rusty?"

"Fuck off, Lazar." He snaps, not because it would matter if he was, but because it's stupid that that's the only reason people can comprehend he wouldn't want to sleep around. Maybe it's just not his thing to have hook ups? Maybe he's focusing on his career? Maybe he's already in love and anything else would be cheap and insignificant in comparison?

"Oh, that's hit a nerve, some truth in that?" The guys are all grinning at him like they think they've got it all worked out and it just...it makes him snap, slamming the bottle of beer he'd been cradling to the bar top.

"No, y'know why I don't want to go talk to some random fucking blonde in the bar or hook up with whatever girl you throw my way? Because I've got a fucking girlfriend, okay? I'm not virgin! I'm not celibate! I just don't want to fuck a girl that isn't my girlfriend!" Luke's breathing heavy by the end of it, red it the face because it is so fucking annoying to constantly be bugged about it and he just wants everyone to get off his back. He's happily with you, he doesn't need random hook ups and he certainly doesn't need his team mates trying to get him laid like they have some moral duty to do so.

The way they look at him makes him feel stupid because suddenly they're all calling out variations of, "Dude! Why the fuck didn't you tell us this sooner?!" and he realises that maybe he could have solved this all months earlier by just saying he was seeing someone...like a normal person, maybe? But he'd wanted to keep things private...

He flounders for an explanation, mouth opening and closing, running a hand through his mess curls like that might help his brain to function.

"I just...it was new and...we were keeping it private."

It's Marky that turns to look at Jack, "Did you not know about this?"

"Oh, I knew." Jack is all smug enjoyment, leaning back against the bar and winking at the blonde Curtis had been trying to set Luke up with. Satisfaction rolled off him in cocky waves.

"Why they hell did you let us shove girls at your brother then?" Curtis asks, shocked, nay baffled because Jack had just spent an entire season practically encouraging the behaviour all while knowing full well Luke was dating you.

"It was funny," He shrugs with a grin and mentally Luke is considering whether the price he'd pay is worth putting itching powder in Jack's underwear drawer or maybe if cutting his hair in his sleep would be a better punishment since he can't rip another set of braces off him like Quinn did.

"That's messed up, Jack!" "Yeah, man!"

Luke sighs as the guys all ripped into Jack, downing the last of his beer and grabbing his phone off the bar top.

"Fuck this, I'm going to see Y/N."

"Ohh, you're girlfriend!?" And just like that Luke knows...he knows he's not out of the woods, it's just that the woods have changed from teasing and taunting him about hook ups, to doing so about his girlfriend.

Fuck, he hates being a younger brother.

[comfxrtablykai]

hey kai!

can you please write a fanfic about dae ho comforting us after a game. (with a one bed trope 👉👈)

btw love ur writing smm!!🎀

EEEE I LOVE THIS REQUEST!!! dae ho is my shayla😭 (TW: Blood, gunshots, talk of death. let me know if there's more i should've added!) This is also for my favourite kang dae-ho stan @lanadelreyworshipperr

Kang Dae-Ho x reader ────୨ৎ──── The gunshots rang from the distance as you covered your ears, your palms pressed tightly against the shell, till all you could hear was a faint ringing. You whimpered quietly as you look at the blood pooled on the floor. How quickly had they cleaned up the bodies? The smell of blood made you gag as you choked out desperate sobs. "I wanna go home..." Your teammates Gi-Hun and Dae-Ho picked you up from the floor as you took in shallow breaths. You couldn't hear anything, not their words, not the other players talking and rushing out to go back to the bunks. No. The only thing you could still hear were bodies thudding the floor and the harsh sounds of the bullets leaving their guns to pierce through the heads of the innocent people. You couldn't breathe. Everything looked blurry for some reason, getting darker and faded. If you hadn't died from losing the game, you'd surely die from this panic attack. You saw Gi-Hun run to go to Jung-Bae and Young-Il, but Dae-Ho stayed with you. You sniffled and tried to recognise the world around you, trying to ground yourself in this terrifying situation but nothing worked. It wasn't until a certain former marine picked you up from the ground, hugging you close and carrying you bridal style back to the beds through the obnoxious amount of stairs. You curled against his chest and sniffled, hearing his heartbeat and coming back to reality just enough to croak out his name to tell him you were fine and awake, "Dae-Ho..." You moved you hand to your face, wiping the remaining tears. Dae-Ho looked at you with kindness shining in his eyes. A kindness people here seemed to have forgotten, "Ah, you're coming back to us. I know it's scary but I'll protect you, ok?" His voice was so soft as he put you down to your bunk. You hadn't even realised you both had reached the bedroom already. You hand was still grasping at the sleeve of his jumpsuit like your life depended on it, and quite frankly, you felt like it did depend on it. You felt yourself slip away when he started to go back. Nobody was really paying and attention at you both and thanks to Gi-Hun, your mattresses were in a perfectly hidden spot. "Dae-Ho, stay with me?" You asked, feeling tears prickle your eyes again, you weren't sleeping yet you could feel the nightmare that would haunt you for multiple nights on end. You also felt pathetic. Everyone here was so strong, even Jun-Hee who was pregnant and here you were. You couldn't go a single game without crying. Dae-Ho's eyes softened and you could swear you saw a fondness in his eyes. Though he quickly hid it. "Of course I will. I promise that no matter what happens in these games, I'll never leave you." He said it with such surety that you two would stick together, it couldn't help but make you optimistic as well. Dae-Ho settled on your mattress besides you and took this opportunity to curl up into him even more, "I feel so dumb." His hands found their way into your hair and gently massaged your scalp. "You're not dumb. Panicking in a scene like this is... normal. I'd be surprised if you weren't. I know I am as well." He joked and you couldn't help but smile as you buried your head in his chest. "It doesn't look like it. You're so brave." You muttered and looked up at Dae-Ho's face, it was rigid for a second before turning back to the soft, smiling face she liked. "Yeah, well, you're my sunshine and you're crying. That doesn't seem right either, does it?" Dae-Ho wiped another tear that had fallen from your eyes and gently pressed his lips against your forehead. You close your eyes, feeling the exhaustion from the day finally bring you down. You fought against your sleep and also blushed at the kiss he had just given you. "Dae-Ho..." "Go to sleep, sunshine." He said and cupped your cheek, his thumb brushing against the soft round skin of your face. You gulped in fear and held him closer. "Only if you stay..." You said and pressed your forehead against Dae-Ho's, breathing in and out, slowly, following the pattern of his breathing.

He smirked and leaned closer, the tip of his nose brushing against the tip of yours, "I'll always stay." He whispered to you like a promise and before you knew, you were drifting to sleep in his arms. ────୨ৎ────

[jobean12-blog]

A Lesson in Temptation

Pairing: Reed Richards x female reader (Professor AU)

Word Count: 1.7K

Summary: You're not happy with the grade you received on your most recent paper in Professor Richards class so you pay him a visit to sort it out (PS these two are already in an established relationship-most likely keeping it quiet lol and she's not necessarily a lot younger than him- as a matter of fact probably a grad student so could be any age you want bc we can go back to school whenever we want! :)

Author's Note: I had originally posted this with Javi in mind but it tanked royally and I just decided to chuck it and then after the Fantastic 4 trailer came out the picture below gave me some simple inspo and I tweaked it a bit and ended up here! Thank you all so much for reading! Much love always! ❤️❤️❤️Divider by the lovely @firefly-graphics thank you Daisy! 🥰

Warnings: it has some plot but it's mostly pwp lol, light dirty talk, and dom for both reader and Reed, p in v (wrap it up), and there is softness bc it's me

The faint scent of chalk and something sweeter wafts around you as you step through the door and into his office. Your eyes land on him instantly, and your heart jumps at sight.

He’s sitting behind his desk, leaning back in his chair, hands fiddling with a broken piece of chalk as he stares off at the far wall. His dark hair is tousled as if he’s been running his fingers through it. Your own twitch at your sides.

He looks relaxed, but the frown that pulls at his lips tells you otherwise.

“Professor…” you start. “Are you busy?”

With a hum, his eyes open, meeting yours, their intensity making your steps falter.

“Depends…” he says, not moving from his position.

He remains quiet, his unwavering regard feeling like a physical weight. Your pulse hammers and you step closer, making your way slowly around his desk toward him.

“Sweetheart,” he starts, his tone unexpectedly gentle. “I’m…”

“Stop talking,” you interrupt.

His brows draw together, and his dark gaze follows as you move between his legs.

“What can I do for you?” he asks.

You don’t respond, trailing your fingers down his face and then closing them around his tie, giving it a slight tug to draw him closer. His eyes drift closed, an almost imperceptible sigh escaping his lips as he surrenders to your touch.

You straddle his lap, and his muscles tense under you before he spreads his legs, providing you more space to settle onto him, his hands leaving the armrests to close around your waist.

Your arms wrap around his neck, and you bring yourself closer, chest pressed to his, and lean in, kissing his neck softly.

His eyes open, and he looks at you through long lashes.

“What game are you playing right now, sweetheart?”

You kiss him again, just below his ear, and his breathing grows shallow. His hands flex at your waist and he murmurs your name in warning.

“Be quiet,” you order. “If you don’t like this then stop me. Otherwise, zip it.”

His gaze grows dark with desire, and he stays silent.

Your hands find his tie once again and you fumble with the fabric until you have it untied, opening the top buttons of his shirt so it falls open to expose his chest. His muscles grow taut as you press a hand to his skin before slowly dragging it down to the waistband of his pants.

You keep your eyes locked on his face the entire time, watching him react to your attention. His tongue darts out, wetting his bottom lip in anticipation.

His hands grip your waist, using you as leverage to tilt his hips up, grinding into you.

“No,” you say, pulling your hand from his now open belt.

“I’m going to ride you and you’re going to sit there quietly and keep your hands to yourself.”

His fingers dig into your skin for a moment and then he releases you, returning his hands to the armrests.

You push yourself off him to undress, starting with your shirt, slipping it over your head then moving to the zipper at the back of your skirt. You continue until you’re completely bare, and his heated gaze never leaves an inch of your skin.

Your hands go back to his belt, unbuckling it until his cock springs free, hot, and thick between your fingers. You can’t hide your reaction, your lips parting and your breath catching in your throat.

“Stay dressed,” you tell him, trying to keep yourself in control.

He smirks and shifts in the chair, so you have more room to sit. You place your hands on his shoulders, using him for balance as you straddle him again.

With an unsteady breath your gaze catches his and you reach between your bodies, taking him in your hand. At first you tease him, rubbing the head of his cock along your wetness until it coats him.

He lets out a low, impatient groan and his knuckles turn white with the grip he has on the chair.

You sink onto him, taking him all at once and relishing in the burning stretch. He inhales sharply and you watch the muscles in his throat work with his hard swallow. To his credit he remains still as you adjust to him, your legs already shaking.

“I love you like this Professor,” you whisper, lifting yourself.

He moans in response, and you sink back down. Increasing the pace, you slide up and down, gasping softly at the feel of him so deep. Every roll of your hips pulls another sultry sound from his parted lips.

Your fingers ghost along the broad width of his shoulders and down across the open buttons of his shirt. He bucks his hips, but you remind him not to move with a breathless warning.

His body trembles, the veins in his forearms prominent with his exertion of restraint. The sight has you moving faster, the need to watch him unravel making you frantic.

“Kiss me.”

He wastes no time in bringing his lips to yours, kissing you roughly and desperately. You spread your legs wider, trying to take him deeper and deeper. He lets out a hoarse groan against your lips, catching your bottom lip between his teeth and biting down.

His breathing becomes more labored, his moans increasing in between kisses as you roll your hips. You break the kiss, taking his jaw in your hand.

“Look at me. Tell me how good this is.”

His broken moan is all you hear before he finds his words.

“You have no idea how good this is, how good you feel gorgeous. I can’t get enough.”

He bucks his hips again, his restraint slipping.

“Don’t,” you warn.

His head falls back, and you lean forward to lay kisses and soft nips along his neck.

“I need you to do something for me Professor Richards,” you say, forcing yourself to focus.

His only response is the slight tilt of his head as sweat begins to bead along his brow.

“The grade you gave me on my gravitational lensing paper…”

His brows furrow, a small sign that he’s pushing through his haze of pleasure. You slow your movements to a teasing pace, making him savor every roll of your hips.

“I need you to change it.”

His parted lips move but nothing more than a strangled groan passes them, and you stop your movements.

“Well?”

“Why would I do that gorgeous?”

His voice is strained, and you start to pick up your pace again as you drag your nails down his chest and press your lips to his jaw, tracing the strong outline until you meet his ear.

“Because I should have gotten an A+.”

He growls out a curse but doesn’t respond so you stop moving again.

“Say you’ll do it, and I’ll let you touch me,” you purr.

With his jaw clenched tightly he holds your gaze, eyes dark and full of heat.

“Fine,” he hisses. “Now…say it. Tell me I can touch you.”  

You nod, feeling your release build.

“Say it!” he hisses.

“Touch me Professor.”

One of his hands grabs your ass, gripping it tightly, and he rises from the chair throwing you down on his desk. He spreads your legs, angling them back to push deeper.

He pounds into you, and you cry out at the intensity of his pace, loving how he’s taking over complete control now. He gathers your wrists in his hand and pins them above your head. His free hand slips between your legs to rub your clit.

You close your eyes, trying to breathe through the overwhelming sensations, feeling your orgasm grow closer. Your back bows as it washes over you, but he doesn’t slow his pace, his dark hair sticking to his forehead as he grunts, “again.”

Your eyes fly open. “I can’t Reed,” you pant.

“You can baby.”

His fingers continue to work over your clit, swollen and oversensitive.

“You’re going to come for me again,” he murmurs. “Beg me for it.”

“Reed…”

“That wasn’t a request,” he warns, and he slams into you hard enough to move the desk.

“Please,” you whisper.

“Louder,” he says.

“PLEASE!”

“You can do better than that gorgeous.”

“Please make me come Professor.”

He strokes you a few more times, pushing deep, and you come around him, feeling your legs give out even under his support.

His jaw tightens and his low rumbling grunt is all the warning you get before he spills inside you, filling you up.

He lets go of your legs, gently resting them along the desk on either side of him and leans over you. He presses butterfly kisses to your collarbone, lazily rocking inside you before pulling out.

After cleaning you up he helps you to stand, tucking you against his chest and pressing his warm palm to your cheek, sweeping his thumb along your jaw then kisses the soft skin below your ear.

“Is this how you plan to beg for all your grades from now on?”

“No.”

He smirks and you dip your head to his neck, burying it there with an inhale. His thumb brushes the inside of your wrist as he takes your hand in his, kissing each fingertip.

“I knew what you were up to the moment you walked in here,” he whispers.

“That’s why you gave me a B…you knew I’d march down here to get what I deserve.”

“Whatever the reason you came here I wouldn’t have been able to stop you anyway sweetheart.”

You pull back, searching his gaze, a sassy quip at his soft words dying on your tongue at the unbridled desire you find in his eyes.

“You have a dangerous amount of power over me…and all I want is more of you,” he murmurs against your lips.

[milkteabinniechan]

♡Tunnel Vision - Minho

MINORS DNI 18+ ONLY MEMBERSHIP//M.LIST

pairing: bad boy! Minho x student! reader

summary: You can't stand the boy that sits behind you in class. He's rude, arrogant and a huge Playboy. and now you're paired with him for your newest poetry assignment.

warnings: angst, hurt/comfort, enemies to lovers, Playboy Minho, heavy kissing, groping.

It's not that you hated your new poetry course. Just one specific person in your new poetry class. Minho would show up late or sometimes not at all. And when he did bother to show up, he would sit at the desk behind yours. He would lean into your ear and ask you what he missed.

His breath would be warm against your neck and the first time he whispered, you actually felt butterflies. You were nice and smiled. You would turn your head and tell him in hushed tones what he had missed. He'd notice the slight flush in your cheeks and it would make him smirk because he knew. He knew that your head was pounding because of him.

But then one day after the class had ended a girl had pushed her way through a crowd of students to get to him. She yelled and cried because he never called her again. She told him he was an asshole and his response was “what's your name again?”

So now when Minho strolls into class late and takes his seat behind you, you keep your head forward. You suffocate the butterflies in your stomach and square your shoulders. You refuse to be another notch on that man's belt. You refuse to let him make you feel so warm and wet and so-

“I think I'll partner you with Minho this week.”

Your eyes flash to the front of the class where the teacher is looking directly at you. “No, no I can't. I…” you plead but the teacher just shakes his head and hands you the newest template for the poetry course this week.

Minho's dorm room was exactly as you expected. Messy, unkempt, a real boy's place. As the two of you stepped inside he off the cuff mentioned he had a roommate but the two of you should be undisturbed for the night.

“Who's your roommate?” You ask as you pull a few textbooks out of your bag. Your voice was flat and ultimately uninterested but you needed to make some kind of small talk to cut through this tension of being in Minho's living room. Minho rummaged through his fridge and pulled out a few beers before making his way back to you on the couch. “You don't know him.” He said quickly. He slid the second beer across his coffee table to you. You rolled your eyes and pushed it to the edge of the table and pulled out the template from class. “Let's get started, okay? The sooner we get this going, the sooner we can be done and never speak to each other again.”

Minho smirked, his slender fingers tapping against the neck of his beer bottle. “Aw, what's the matter? You don't like me?” He leaned in closer. “Nope.” You snapped back. This response made Minho laugh. A loud, full laugh that promised that he didn't believe you. He was cocky and he was sure that every girl wanted him. His eyes lingered on you as you continued to read over the template. “So, what bullshit do we have to write about now?” Minho asked while taking another swig of his beer. You sighed heavily in response. “Love. The subject is just love. It says to write about any kind of love, however it speaks to you.”

Minho let out a huff. “Between a beautiful woman's legs, that's the only love I need.” He remarks. “You're disgusting.” You retort. You slide a template over to where he sits, “just write something, pervert.” Minho's face scrunches up for a moment, “aren't we supposed to be working on this together, partner?”

“You're a big boy, you can handle it.” You scold, your hand gripping tightly to your pencil. “Just write.” Minho sighs loudly as his body slumps deeper into the couch. An hour goes by without either of you saying a word to one another. Just the sounds of pencils scraping and pages turning fills the air around you. “This is stupid.” Minho complains, finally breaking the silence. The sound of a pencil hitting the coffee table breaks you out of your writing trance and you shoot a glaring look at him. “If you hate this so much, why did you sign up for this class?” You quip back.

Minho's eyes flash an intensity that matches yours. An angry, exacerbated look that contracts with his normal cool and calm demeanor. Has he never had someone challenge him before? Has he never had a girl stand up to him instead of immediately falling to her knees? You hold your stance and the two of you stare at each other for what feels like an eternity. Then Minho grabs your half-written poem in an instant before you can even process what he is doing. He stands up from the couch and holds it ceremoniously. “Let's see what Miss Goody-Goody wrote about love, eh?” You fumble up from the couch and take a confident dive at Minho to try to get the paper back but miss as he pulls the paper away at the last minute. “Give that back!” You demand. But Minho holds the paper just out of reach, laughing proudly as he does. You look back at the coffee table to find his paper sitting there unprotected and take your chance, snatching it quickly into your hands. Minho's eyes widen as he realizes where this little chess game has led the two of you and his cheeks begin to burn a bright, hot red. His voice drops to a low, intimidating octane, “give it here. I'm serious.” His hand splayed out in front of you.

You let out a triumphant laugh and stick up your nose at him. “No way!” Minho smirk turns to a serious expression and he takes a few steps towards you, causing you to take a few steps back. Soon you are frantically trying to figure out your next move. You quickly fake left before turning to the right and easing your way around Minho and down the hall to an open door welcoming you inside. You hastily run into the room and shut the door behind you, hearing the pounding sound of Minho's palms flat against the other side of the door. “This isn't funny anymore! Come out of there!” He shouts from the hallway.

You clear your throat ready to read the poem out loud. Minho groans loudly before giving the door one last defeated thud. Your eyes scan the page and you find yourself frozen by something you did not expect.

A carnation bright

Unfold for me

This is everything and nothing

I put a ribbon and signed the envelope

Postage stamp

In the garden you wait

Surrounded by a soil that drains

Who waters you?

Where is the watering can that fills your petals, sweet Carnation?

I pluck you so carefully

Lie you down on the softest pillow

You've ever felt

You clutch the page in your hands, a slight tremble causing the paper to crinkle under your fingertips. Your eyes pour over every line again and again. The words are erased and written again, scribbled over and corrected. But the words he chose, the words he decided were the right ones to express himself, they stayed etched in pencil led with a secretive beauty. You slowly make your way to the bedroom door and turn the door knob. You find Minho sitting in the hallway across from the door. He glares up at you, his face painted red in embarrassment. “Don't say anything. I know it's bad.” He whispers, his voice shaking slightly.

You step out into the hallway and kneel in front of where Minho sits. “It's not bad, Minho. It's actually…good.” You confess. You watch Minho's head lift up as he searches your face for any hint of a lie. Then he lifts up your paper, “you didn't write anything.” He smirks.

Then it was your face that burned red. You had written a few pathetic lines of poetry before erasing everything in frustration. “I hate what I wrote. I hate everything I write.” you murmur. This causes Minho's smile to grow and spread across his face. But this smile was different, not a mocking, cocky smile but a smile that seemed to understand exactly what you meant. “That just means you're good at what you do. Come here, I'll show you.” He said and then stood up taking your hand in his and pulling you back into the bedroom. The bedroom that was, in fact, his bedroom. In the far corner of the room stood a tall, broad bookshelf so full that it almost looked like it would bend and break if just one more book was added. Minho searched the shelf for just a moment before pulling out three books. He then turned on his heels to face you. “These authors didn't even get published until their late 40s. Can you believe that? Now everyone reads them!” His eyes lit up with the kind of fascination designated for a child on Christmas morning. He placed the books in your hands and begged you to read them. You looked down at the books in your hands and furrowed your brow. This was not the boy you were expecting. Why did he have to act like such an asshole all the time? Why did he have to act so uninterested and bored all of the time?

You look up from the books and stare at Minho for a moment. “Why are you so afraid of people seeing this side of you?”

Minho jolts from your blunt question. His eyes lock with yours and for a moment his mouth hangs open in silence. Then he steps closer to you. “Because this side is too real, too raw. If they are the real me then they can hurt the real me. And I can't risk that.”

Something snaps in you at his response. You didn't know if it was his honesty or the fact that you had been feeling the exact same way but something outside of yourself brought your lips to his. His lips were surprisingly tender. His hands made their way up to your jawline and nestled there as the two of you worked in tandem. Your nose brushed against one another as his mouth opened in invitation. Your tongue scraped softly against his teeth, giving way to his teeth biting and holding onto your bottom lip. A soft and vulnerable noise escaped you at that moment. And a flash of all the women who have ever been in this room entered your mind, causing you to break the kiss. You stumble back and press your hand over your mouth. “I can't. I'm sorry.” You turn towards the bedroom door and make your way down the hallway to leave. You frantically and admittedly quite clumsily grab your book bag and jacket before making a b-line to the front door.

Minho never tried to stop you, never called your name out and begged you to stay. You walked back to your dorm room and threw yourself onto the bed. You bury your face in your pillow until all light leaves and only darkness remains. He wasn't just a fuckboy, player, or asshole. He was actually someone who you could fall in love with. And that thought was scarier than anything else.

taglist: @simply-trash5 @sugawhaaa @trixiekaulitz @chrizzztopherbang @cassidymb121 @roanns-posts @staysinbloom @yaorzu-blog @bubblebisk @cotton-candycloudz @beautyinhypnosis @domicaru @strawberry31 @slxtmeri @newhope8 @tinyelfperson @dandelions-143 @stayyyyyyyyyyyy21 @msauthor @fun-fanfics @ell0thebell @stephanieeeyang @juskz @kimahreummm @readr1221 @kayleefriedchicken @ovulatingrn @hwnglixho @darthmaddie25 @queen-in-the-shadows @itgirlalisaa @miinhoo @greyaia @chanchansgirly @skzleeknowcore @skz-smut-reader @thatisrankharry @hearts4yawnzzn @jchotch726 @cherricola-star @minh0scat @kibs-and-bits @minhosgirlposts @firelordtsuki @softkisshyunjin @doyunkang @cocofia143 @nchhuhi @iovecb97 @skzfairyyydreamz @mikeysonlygirl @kwitchabtchn @staystaystaystaaaaa @stay3096 @starmyteez @xanhnax @estella-novella @delulustardust @luvserie @stray-squad

[lynnieverse]

hi, absolutely devouring late night talking!! just wondering if you've ever seen meetcutesnyc on tikotk? cannot stop imagining rafe being stopped & asked for his love story especially with how many hs & college sweethearts end up there..... it just fits too good!!! bc u know damn well he's looking for any excuse to talk his girl up and show that rock on her finger... and of course she just gets to smile n wave at the camera, living her best life

so high school // rafe cameron

oneshot

meetcutesnyc au

rafe cameron x reader

a/n: I LOVE THIS IDEA OMG. thank you so much for this and i hope i did it justice!! enjoy :)))

“Excuse me, are you two together?” the cheery voice sounded to your left. Rafe turned first, tugging on your interlocked hands with a smile on his face. You take in the small woman with a microphone––a man with a camera on his shoulder standing next to her––stomach immediately twisting to knots. Pedestrians grumble as they pass, obviously annoyed at the sudden stop in foot traffic. You shuffle towards the curb, the camera following as you do so. 

“Yeah we are,” Rafe said brightly, glancing back at you with only love in his eyes. You can’t help but grin back, the anxiety that came with the camera fading the longer you looked at him. 

“Can I ask how you met?” the woman asked, directing the cameraman so he got the two of you in frame. You snickered, squeezing Rafe’s hand instinctively as he gave you a warning look. 

“Go ahead babe, tell her.” Rafe rolled his eyes playfully and turned his attention back to the camera. 

“Well…we hated each other.”

“Loathed,” you chime in. 

“Okay I wouldn’t go that far,” he argued, bumping your shoulder with his. 

“I would! He’s my best friend’s older brother, so I had to be around him all the time, and he was an annoying boy for the majority of our childhood.” The interviewer laughed, glancing between you both with a twinkle in her eye. 

“Yeah, yeah. And she was a little brat who loved to get on my nerves.” Rafe stuck his tongue out at you. You hold up your hand and purse your lips, ignoring him completely. 

“So what made you change your mind?” 

“Well I didn’t, not for a while anyway. It wasn’t until college that he finally grew up and I could take him seriously.” 

“Listen I only acted that way because I liked you in high school!” he defended for the dozenth time, something that always baffled you. When he first told you that little tidbit of information, you’d spewed your water all over him at a very nice restaurant. 

“Anyway…” you drawled out. “He had to win me over, so he decided to follow me around wherever I went.” 

Rafe groaned, throwing his head back dramatically. “You make me sound like a stalker, Y/N!”

The interviewer laughed. “So you pursued her?”

“Aggressively,” you confirm, shaking your head with a fond smile. "Every study session, every coffee run, every party—I’d turn around and there he was. He was such a cockblock to my dating game too; I swear he crashed every date I ever had.” The interviewer stifled a laugh with her hand.

“Yeah that’s true,” he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “I was persistent and charming, okay?” You whipped your head to the side, gaping at him.

“You tripped and spilled your coffee in front of me three times,” you remind him. 

Rafe gasped, pretending to clutch his pearls. “You helped me up! That was the moment I knew, you know?” he commented to the camera. “When you stared down at me, covered in caramel macchiato, and I thought, ‘Damn, she’s the one’.”

“I was laughing at you,” you giggle, shoving his shoulder. Rafe took it in stride, pulling you into his side and kissing the top of your head.

“So when did you officially get together?” she asked, leaning forward slightly, clearly eating this up. 

“Junior year,” you answer, still locked in Rafe’s embrace, surrounded by his intoxicating scent. It never gets old, being around him. 

“When she finally admitted to being obsessed with me,” Rafe added, winking to the camera.

You scoffed. “Yeah, sure.” 

“Tell them about the proposal,” he whispered, nudging you towards the mic. You groan, the blood instantly rushing to your cheeks. 

“Oh God,” you cover your face with your hands. 

“Oh come on, Princess, you love telling people how I got down on both knees.” 

A gasp came from in front of you. “Wait––you what?”

“I panicked okay! I got down on one knee, then I just––wanted to make sure––so I got down on both,” he raised his hands defensively. 

“He looked like he was begging for his life!” you snorted, shaking your head. “But it was sweet. And perfect. And obviously I said yes.” Rafe grabbed your hand and showed your ring to the camera, the light making the moss agate gem shine brightly. You were never really a diamond girl, and he delivered perfectly. 

“Best thing to ever happen to me!” Rafe was smiling ear to ear, cheeks an adorable shade of pink. 

“You guys are adorable!” The cameraman nodded too, shaking the camera a bit. 

“I know,” Rafe said, clearly enjoying this. 

You press a soft kiss to his cheek. “I love you, you weirdo.” 

“I love you more, Princess,” he murmured, squeezing your hand. 

“Thank you guys so much for your time! Good luck with the wedding!” The interview wrapped up, the crew saying goodbye and leaving the two of you on your own once more. Rafe tugged you forward, finally getting back on track to your favorite bagel shop. 

“I was persistent.” he said in mock seriousness, a pout overtaking his face. You burst out laughing, jumping up to peck his lips. 

“Yes you were, baby. You knew what you wanted and boy you got her,” you smirked. Rafe clutched his heart. 

“I love when you quote Taylor Swift at me.” 

“All you are is mean, and a liar, and pathetic––” 

“Okay not that one!” You both laugh, fading into comfortable silence. 

As you approach the front of the shop he pulls you closer, whispering softly in your ear. “I really did always know it was you.”

[zeroseuniverse]

please give haneul's dad a love life 😔🙏 he's miserable, I can hear him sighing all day and night and I don't even live nearby. please help a young nurse be well fed with fluffy warm pancakes in the morning 🥹🥞

please make a silly old anonymous reader happy by writing a part 2 of "My Dad is Single!" ☝️

You ask and you shall receive my darling Asks are my number 1 priority so I typically try to only take 2-3 days in writing them, I enjoy providing what my readers want so I hope this came out in a timely manner for you!

My Dad Is Single II

S.Coups had no idea how he ended up here.

One moment, he was just a devoted single dad trying to survive his six-year-old's chaotic antics. The next, he was standing in his kitchen, flipping pancakes while Nurse Pretty—sat at his dining table, chatting with Haneul like they were old friends.

Haneul had orchestrated this whole thing, obviously. After her legendary text message, she had laughed it off but agreed to come over—"just for pancakes," she had said. But from the way she kept smiling at him over her coffee, he knew she was enjoying his flustered state way too much.

"So, Haneul," she said, resting her chin on her hand. "Tell me—why are you so determined to find your dad a girlfriend?"

Haneul sighed dramatically, like this was a burden only she could bear. "Because Appa is so lonely."

S.Coups groaned from the stove. "I am not—"

"He sighs all the time," Haneul interrupted. "Like, so much. And he watches sad movies at night."

She smirked. "Ah, the sighing. You told me about that before."

"Right?!" Haneul threw her hands up. "It’s a problem."

S.Coups turned around, pointing a spatula at his daughter. "You’re making me sound like a tragic drama lead."

"You are a tragic drama lead," Haneul said, dead serious. "But don’t worry! This is the episode where you find love again."

She burst out laughing while S.Coups slumped against the counter, defeated.

"Unbelievable," he muttered for what felt like the hundredth time.

"You say that a lot," She teased, taking a sip of her coffee.

"Because this keeps happening!" He gestured at Haneul, who was happily munching on a pancake like she hadn’t just thrown him under the bus.

She just smiled. "Well, I have to admit—this is probably the most unique way I’ve ever been asked out."

S.Coups nearly dropped the plate he was holding. "Wait—was this… an ask out?"

she tilted her head, pretending to think. "Well, I was invited to your house. You cooked for me. There’s a cute child who’s very invested in our future. Sounds like a date to me."

S.Coups blinked, completely thrown. "I—uh—what—"

Haneul leaned forward and stage-whispered to her , "He’s shy."

she grinned. "It’s cute."

S.Coups groaned again. "I am not shy!"

"You’re blushing," Haneul pointed out.

He pressed a hand to his face. Oh my God, I am.

She reached for a pancake, her smile softening. "Relax, S.Coups. I’m just teasing. But… I wouldn’t mind getting to know you better. If that’s something you’d be open to."

S.Coups stared at her, completely caught off guard. He hadn’t expected this. At all. And yet, with Haneul beaming up at him and her looking at him with those warm, patient eyes, he found himself… considering it.

Slowly, a small smile crept onto his face. "I guess… I wouldn’t mind either."

Haneul exploded into cheers, nearly knocking over her juice. "YES! Finally!"

she laughed, and S.Coups couldn’t help but chuckle too, shaking his head.

"Unbelievable," he muttered one last time—but this time, it felt different. Lighter. Like maybe, just maybe, his little drama lead moment was turning into a rom-com after all.

[mercy-burning]

Here We’re In Love (Apricity)

Pairing: Spencer Reid x gn!Reader Summary: Spencer teaches you why he's become so fond of your mornings together. Category: Fluff (who am I) Content: Domestic fluff, a light dusting of erotic tension but nothing explicit, the first "I love you", happy tears Word Count: 1.2k

MASTERLIST

(AKA Mercy learned a new word and got The Feels, so she had to plug it into a fic. Obviously.)

----------------------------

There was once a time in Spencer's life when being in bed didn't generate a strong feeling of any kind. It was simply a task needed to end the day and transition into another, a means to an end, and least of all a luxury; Even when he was a child, responsibility outranked reveling in the comfort of a warm bed.

These days, though, it seems like all he wants to do is be in bed. Not because he feels depressed or exhausted in any extreme, but it's hard for him not to ache for an entire day spent solely enveloped in the warm embrace of linen, made even warmer by your presence. Since you've been with him, it brings something so normal and safe amongst the chaos of his daily life—not just in bed of course, but especially in bed. Especially in the mornings. It has quickly become his favorite part of the day, and he finds himself never wanting it to end.

His eyes open to find you already awake before sunrise, staring at him like he always gets caught staring at you. You try to remain still and calm, but the minute cinch in your expression tells him that you're probably chanting Ha-Ha! Got you! on repeat in your head, and the thought makes him huff a laugh.

"What's so funny?" you ask seriously.

Spencer's smile remains as he shifts, close enough to touch his forehead to your own. "Absolutely nothing."

"You've always been a terrible liar."

"I don't know what you mean."

The giggles between the two of you steadily increase with every sentence, until your laughs turn into lazy kisses and then to sighs.

Sunlight eventually breaches the shades, signaling a different type of warmth and the start of a new day, and Spencer selfishly begs it not to be so, his hands reaching for you as you try to escape the bed.

"Stay," he groans, successfully keeping you next to him. "You don't have anywhere to be today, and neither do I..."

Bringing one of his hands to your lips, you laugh. "I know... But I don't want to spend all day in bed..."

"Then we won't... Just a few more hours?"

Your laugh this time is a full-blown cackle. The sound makes his heart soar. "Hours?"

"Yes, hours... This is the most comfortable place in the whole world. Don't you think that deserves hours of your time?"

"I suppose..." Snuggling back into the covers and adoringly rolling your eyes as your head hits the pillow once more, you've finally succumbed to your boyfriend's charms, a feat that feeds his silly pride and also warms him to the core.

You tell him you won't fall asleep and demand him to follow suit, to which he happily agrees, and then you're talking him through your plans for the day. Your voice is just as strong of a comfort as your touch, every syllable bright and soft, and certainly more pleasant than the incessant chirping of birds that some people seem to find soothing first thing in the morning for one reason or another.

As you talk to him, Spencer feels like he's sinking further into the mattress, like your voice and your smile and your fingers absentmindedly trailing the veins of his arms as you speak are casting him into an inescapable state of magnificent solitude.

He'd begged you for hours, but the unexaggerated truth is that he could stay like this forever.

Sensing the trance you seem to have put him under, you pause and tilt your head to study him. Still, your fingers stay true to their wanderlust and dance along the surface of his skin like it's second nature.

"You're looking at me funny."

"Hmm?"

Even as he raises an eyebrow, acknowledging you acknowledging him, it's like he can't be bothered to care. The dreamy haze in his eyes as it bores into you is a comfort in itself, but it's also very... tingle-inducing.

A familiar blaze heats your insides and every surface of your skin, and even without so much as a suggestive hum from him, you still find yourself shying away. "Stop it!"

You half-expect him to argue that he's not doing anything wrong in that cheeky way of his, but he remains silent and thoughtful, studying you carefully.

"Are you familiar with the concept of 'apricity'?"

Usually when he teaches you new things, he isn't staring at you like that. His voice isn't quiet and wistful and teetering on the edge of melancholy.

Unsure of what to make of it all, you shake your head. "No..."

"The word itself comes from the early 1600s. It's archaic, but the feeling is quite beautiful, and relevant to many people whether they know it or not. Apricity defines the feeling of the sun's natural warmth in the cold, usually harsh, winter."

You consider this, and try the word on your tongue, repeating it slowly and nodding. A small smile forms on your lips. "I like it. I guess it's nice to know that oddly-specific feeling has a name..."

Spencer hums and grabs your hand. "You have no idea..."

You laugh softly again. "No, I don't... Enlighten me?"

He considers this for a moment, then smiles, pulling you close to him. "That's just it— You enlighten my very existence. Just by being here in this bed with me."

As he attacks your neck with kisses, you can't help the string of laughter that escapes you. "Oh really?"

"Absolutely." The word is a confident rumble into your skin that soaks through, straight from his lips and down into to the depths of your soul and beyond. It erases any doubt you've ever harbored, lifts you into the light, and manifests as its own form of sunshine, settled right in the nooks and crannies of your heart.

Spencer pulls away briefly to look at you, taking your head in his gentle hands. His voice is soft, but firm.

"I guess what I mean is that... My life can be really dark and frigid a lot of the time... But ever since I've known you, it's like those moments aren't really so terrible anymore, because I know what true, natural love feels like. When I'm here, with you, I truly believe that nothing can hurt me. All I feel is warmth. Your warmth... You're my apricity."

An involuntary pout accompanies your wide, watering eyes as you lean into his touch, a tightness at your throat even as you try to tell him the easiest thing in the world.

"I love you," you manage to get out through a sob. It sounds utterly lame in comparison to the poetic metaphor he's just confessed to you, but given the fact that it's the first time the words have left your mouth, they seem to have the same effect on him regardless.

Spencer matches your pout and the two of you are drawn together like a summer thunderstorm— boldly, brightly, and full of life. The tears fall between you in a heap of pouring rain, but there's nothing gloomy in the love that carries you through it.

"I love you, too," he whispers, pulling away for a moment.

You kiss him again, then tell him, "I never want to leave this bed."

He kisses you and laughs, wiping away your tears as you both fall back, head to the pillows once more.

"I'm not going to fight you on that one."

You say it's fine if it's all in my mind Oh, you look so real but it feels like a lie, so

Don't pinch me in case I'm asleep In case you're not here 'cause this is a dream And we've never met so we're not in love In case I'm asleep, don't pull the–

Don't touch me, this coma is nice Too good to be true, so just let me lie Down in the sheets, 'cause here we're in love In case I'm asleep, don't pull the-

Plug Oh-oh-oh

--Pull The Plug, Ashe

[bluehoodiewoozi]

I don't think there are enough words in the world to describe how much I loved this fic. Like, magical cozy romances are literally my favourite genre of writing, ever, and this was such a perfect version of it??

I apologise for the lengthy commentary but when I read the fic, I found myself compiling a list of my favourite sentences and such, and I just have so many thoughts and here they are (and this is kind of the short version, because istg if i had a physical copy of this fic, it would be covered in pink highlighter and doodled hearts and underlined lines and you get my point):

It’s difficult to pull coherent sentences out of him, and anything he says is a mixture of your name, his name, and also how pretty he thinks you are.

ASFHSAD the fact that he was down bad for her from the moment he opened his freaking eyes makes me kind of feral. I love it. I love it. I love it. And the fact that he only seems to fall deeper and deeper for her? I am so soft for Vernon.

“I get you have a responsibility,” Hansol says. “I used to have one too, in the wild. To keep myself alive. But my rule, and this should be yours too, is to not hurt anything that doesn’t hurt you first. I haven’t hurt you. You shouldn’t hurt me. And Y/N—” He looks over at you, eyes flashing, before looking back at Seungcheol. “Y/N has never hurt you. So don’t act like you’re preparing for the day she one day will.”

I screeched! I love Seungcheol but he was really testing my patience in this fic (even if his intentions were noble) and when this scene came, I quite literally cheered. Yes, Vernon, freaking tell him! Protect your girl's honour! (Did I mention I love this portrayal of Vernon?)

“It looks like you,” Hansol says suddenly, and you look at him in surprise.  “Really? How?” “You look like spring, to me,” he says. The frosted tip of his nose looks pink, as do his cheeks. A decidedly warmer, blushier pink than they’d looked before. “All warm and gold and pretty. Like the daffodil. And I…” He pauses, and then seems to change his mind, shutting his mouth and blinking at you like he wasn’t about to say anything else.

Listen. I've read like 20 romance novels since last summer and this scene lowkey tops all of them. Oh, to have a gorgeous sweetheart of a man compare me to spring -- the season of beauty and youth and warmth! I am weak at the knees! I am melting!

You laugh, fond, squeezing his hand comfortingly. “I’m always nice,” you tease. “I’m the nicest person in the entire world, actually.” To your surprise, Hansol doesn’t smile back at your joke, and simply ducks his head shyly. “You are.” 

What if I told you I squeaked in delight??? Like actually???

“Huh? Oh, no,” Hansol says. He shrugs. “I just don’t like being too warm. Makes me uncomfortable.” You raise an eyebrow, amused. Because even as he says this, he’s cuddling up into your side, head on your shoulder, his tail curled comfortably around him. “Really?” you say. “You don’t like being too warm?”

He's just an affectionate guy, your honour! Nooo but this was so cute! And so funny -- I swear I spent like half the fic laughing and the other half kicking my feet and giggling. Also did I already mention this is my new favourite, most beloved portrayal of Vernon?

Hansol doesn’t know how it happens, but he blinks and suddenly he’s surrounded by what seems to be every child in the village, clamouring around him and asking if he could play, Please, Mister Fox, won’t you?

Hansol being awkward with kids but becoming every kid's favourite guy is so on brand actually.

The snowball fight ended incredibly amiably, with everyone agreeing that Seungcheol’s team had obliterated everyone else’s, despite the lack of magic users in his group. You’d helped some of the villagers dust themselves off, and used magic to dry off the people who had gotten the most wet. Soonyoung, inexplicably, looked like he’d been dunked five times in a swimming pool, rather than emerging victorious from a snowball fight.

I have nothing to say except that I was absolutely cackling at the description of Soonyoung.

“I like you,” you whisper, the words falling from your lips as if he’s enchanted you, bewitched you into saying how you truly feel for all to see. “I like you, Hansol.” Hansol blinks, slow, cat-like. He lifts his head up, pulls away slightly from your shoulder so he can sit up and look at you properly. His eyes are shining, slitted pupils widening and rounding in adoration. “That’s good,” he says. “Because I think you’re the prettiest person alive.”

The fact that the 'you're the prettiest person alive' thing came full circle??? The fact that they're so in love? That it feels so sweet and natural somehow? Like it was meant to be?

And can I just say that your descriptions of the magic is so incredibly beautiful? Like I was in freaking awe. I am obsessed with it.

TL;DR I might become physically ill from how goddamn sweet and adorable and heart-fluttering this whole thing was oh my god. If you should ever decide to write a fic in the similar genre or something, please please please let me know and I'll forever be in your debt, you amazingly talented person <3

yeoubi. // chwe hansol

여우비 (yeo-u-bi) : noun. literally “fox rain” — when sunlight filters through rainfall, creating a golden shower.

PAIRING : vernon x f!reader

INFO : east asian historical fantasy(ish. i kinda made up my own mythology), fox demon!vernon, silver!vernon, immortal!witch!yn, fluff, magic, strangers to lovers

WORD COUNT : 22.3k+

WARNINGS : blood mention, injuries, slight discrimination against yokai, cursing

NOTES : for the @camandemstudios winter with you collab! i had so so so much fun writing yeoubi and it's genuinely one of the best things ive done this year. writing a fantasy au soft vernon fic was never something that i thought i needed to write, but now i have, and i love him and i love this and i hope everyone loves yeoubi just as much as i do too <3

SYNOPSIS : living as a magic, immortal healer in a rural, human mountain village means most of your existence has been rather peaceful. that is, until one cold winter when an injured yokai stumbles into your life; and though everyone else is terrified of him, you take him in, nurse him back to health, and show the others that some demons aren’t that scary after all. (...and maybe, just maybe, you end up falling for the pretty fox yokai too.)

For the first time in years, the river freezes over.

During winter, it’s often a lot harder for you to notice things like this, as the cold dulls your senses and numbs your fingers, so you’re only informed of this fact when the village children come to your cottage in the morning, their high-pitched voices blending with the mismatched beats of their fists knocking against your door.

“Miss Witch! Miss Witch! There’s something wrong with the river!”

“The river is all solid, Miss Witch!”

“Miss Witch, we can’t play in the river! Can you fix it for us, Miss Witch?”

Blanket wrapped around your shoulders, you open the door with a groggy smile, squinting down at the children on your doorstep.

“Hello, little kids. What are you doing here?”

“Miss Witch!” one of the children chirps. “Good morning!”

Despite being half-asleep, you can’t help but laugh a little at their chipperness. The children are, undeniably, your favourite people in this entire village.

“Good morning,” you say, bemused. “How may I help you?”

Their voices rise in volume again, all of them clamouring to be heard over each other. It can’t be any later than five in the morning, and your fingertips prickle with the cold grey of the mist as you blink down at them, surprised at their energy.

A girl tugs at the end of your blanket, wide-eyed. “Miss Witch, the river is all hard. We don’t know what’s going on.”

“Ah,” you say gently. “I see.” Crouching down so you’re at eye level with the kids, you ask, “If the river is hard, solid, and cold, what do you think that means?”

The children blink at you. 

“What else is hard, solid, and cold?”

One of them brightens. “Ice!”

“Exactly,” you say, smiling. “The river has turned into ice. It’s nothing to worry about, but it does mean it’s very, very cold right now, so why aren’t any of you wearing any hats or scarves, hm?” 

You ruffle the hair of the nearest child, and she shakes her head, giggling. “We were helping the grown-ups, of course! Something happened at the river, an’ they told us to go away.”

“So we came to you,” another boy pipes up. “They said something’s wrong!”

You tilt your head. Whilst it’s certainly been several decades since the river last froze over, it’s no reason for the villagers to worry that much about it. It’s also not something that your magic can fix, or something that needs to be fixed, so—

“Y/N!”

You look up at the call, and see a man in the distance, jogging down the pathway towards your cottage. It’s still far too dark to see clearly, but you smile at the familiar voice.

“Soonyoung,” you call back. “Good morning! Are you here to tell me about the frozen river, too? Don’t worry, it’s completely normal and not dangerous at all.”

His reply, if he has any at all, goes unheard as one of the children suddenly cries out, as if he’s had an epiphany.

You look down at him, amused. “What’s wrong?”

“I just remembered, something else happened at the river,” he says brightly. His remark makes some of the other children perk up too, as if they also remembered this other thing that had happened.

The kids are all at the age where something like a leaf falling onto their heads would be remarkably significant, so as you wait for Soonyoung to come closer and deliver the actual news, you decide to humour them, smiling and tilting your head interestedly. “Oh, really? What was it?”

 “There’s a man in the frozen river, Miss Witch!”

“A—” The smile turns to stone on your face. “A what?”

“Not a man,” Soonyoung says. He’s finally reached your doorstep now, and you notice that his usual easy smile is nowhere to be seen. He frowns down at the children, displeased. “What are you all doing here? We told you to go home, not to Y/N.”

“They thought I could help,” you say placatingly. “It’s okay. And if there’s a man stuck in the river, you might need my help after all.”

“Not a man,” Soonyoung repeats, his face darkening. “It’s not a man.”

You raise an eyebrow at the graveness in his tone. “Well, then you certainly do need my help, it seems. What is it?”

Soonyoung sighs. His exhale clouds the air, and your fingers prickle even more at his next words, like invisible icicles piercing through your skin.

“It’s a demon.”

───────────── ‘✽, 

You are not exactly a human.

Certainly, you look and dress like one—and you have to eat and sleep like one too, otherwise terrible things happen to your energy levels—but that doesn’t mean you are human. There are some things which make you slightly different.

One of those things being that you live forever.

“What do you mean you don’t know if it’s hostile?” Soonyoung demands, struggling to match your strides as you hurry towards the river. “Of course it’s hostile. It’s a fucking demon!”

“When you’ve lived as long as I have, you come to realise that some yokai aren’t hostile,” you respond, frosted-over leaves crunching under your feet. Soonyoung squawks back something unintelligible, too out of breath to make an argument. 

After encouraging the children to return back to their homes and sleep—since it really is five in the morning, and none of them should be awake—you and Soonyoung began making your way to where the rest of the villagers were. 

The river flows down from the mountain that the village is located near. The further up you go, the more dangerous the terrain becomes, and you pause on a jagged rock to frown down at Soonyoung, who’s gasping as he tries to keep up.

“Did you really find the yokai over here? Why were any of you up here in the first place?”

“We didn’t,” Soonyoung said hoarsely. “I’ve been trying to tell you for ages. The demon was found near the edge of the woods.”

“Oh.” You blink. The two of you had marched past the woods a decent while ago. “Okay.” And then you float down from the rock, lightly hopping over frozen patches of land, past Soonyoung again. “Come on, let’s turn back, then.”

Soonyoung sighs, turns around, and begins his clumsy, human descent. “You could at least use your magic to help me down too, you know.”

And that’s the other different thing about you. Magic. It’s such a flimsy, weak word for what you can do, but it’s also the best way to describe it. There are certain things about you, certain things you’re capable of in the way that no human can ever truly be.

Without even looking back, you wave a hand, and a glowing stream of wind nudges Soonyoung’s feet towards the easiest path down. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. And hurry up before those villagers aggravate the yokai even more.”

Demons, or more traditionally, yokai, aren’t something you’ve encountered in countless decades. As technology and weapons developed, and the human population expanded, many yokai simply faded out of existence, unable to sustain themselves in the less wild, less natural environment that humans created. Others were smart enough to recognise they now had less of an advantage over humans, and tended to stay away from densely populated areas, preferring to target any lone travellers who ventured too far into their territory.

Yokai values and morals are vastly different to humans, and they are so incomprehensible to mortals that yokai gained a reputation for being vindictive, vicious, vile, and all other negative ‘v’ words. That doesn’t necessarily make them so, however, and over your lifetime, you’ve encountered some who don't quite fit the stereotype that humans are all too eager to place on them.

It takes you and Soonyoung long enough to get to the river that the sky has lightened ever so slightly, but the lacey edges of morning mist are still blurring the edges of your sight, and you can only barely see what the villagers are looking at, especially with them all crowding around and pushing against each other to get closer to the river.

You crane your neck, standing on tiptoe, before huffing. Scratch that, you can’t see anything.

“Move out of my way, please,” you say sharply, adding a little volume magic to your voice so that it carries over the whole crowd. 

Most of them instantly look back at that and clock your presence, eyes widening. Some of them begin rushing towards you, looking almost like their children as they begin talking over each other all at once.

“Y/N, there’s a demon—”

“Absolutely vile creature, is there any way—”

“—river’s all frozen, how did it even get here—”

“Okay, okay, okay!” you interrupt, adding even more volume to your voice to be heard. “Minah, yes, I know there’s a demon. Soonyoung told me. And no, Joongseok, we don’t know if it’s truly vile yet. And Woongri, yokai often work with magic, so it could’ve gotten here in a variety of ways. But if you want me to do something, you have to let me through. Yes?”

You’re tired, and cold, and dealing with stressed adults is not the best way to start the day, so you're more blunt than is perhaps necessary, but it gets your point across. The villagers look sufficiently contrite and finally shuffle to the side, making way for you to get through. Seungcheol, the village leader, nudges his way through the crowd until he’s by your side, face solemn.

“Good morning,” he says. “Sorry about the chaos.”

“Good morning,” you say back, voice now normal volume once again. “It’s okay. Everyone’s scared. You don’t call me at ungodly hours unless it’s serious, so I don’t mind.”

Seungcheol nods, looking both grave and apologetic. “We only ever want you to use your magic for good.”

It’s a terribly human thing to say, and you  smile dryly. “Of course. What can I help you with this time?”

“Well… You can help with that.” Seungcheol points to a mound of warped ice a little ways down the river. “How can we get rid of it?”

You squint in the direction Seungcheol’s pointing at, peering through the tendrils of mist, and then gasp. Half-buried into the ice of the river, you can make out a blurry, pale-coloured figure clothed in pale silk. Dark liquid pools in all directions surrounding the motionless body, and anyone can tell the yokai is very badly hurt. 

“It’s already bleeding half to death, so it shouldn’t be too hard to finish— wait, Y/N!”

Ignoring Seungcheol’s shouts, you step onto the frozen surface of the river and rush towards the yokai, and your blood runs cold as you take in the sight before you.

The yokai is a fox demon, you notice, with white ears and soft silver hair and a gorgeous white tail, which is partially being crushed by a river’s worth of ice. He’s waist-deep in the frozen water, and a thick layer of more ice has begun to form around the yokai’s torso from where he’s slumped against the surface of the river at an almost unnatural angle, causing his poor tail to be twisted and buried both in the river and the new ice.

“Oh, darling,” you whisper, kneeling down beside him, tracing a finger across the yokai’s cheek. Your finger comes away stained dark with blood, and you swallow thickly, heart constricting.

The crushing ice isn’t the end of the damage: there’s blood pouring from seemingly unknown sources, matted into the fox demon’s hair and streaking down his neck. He must have been in some sort of fight before getting stuck in the river. 

Gently, you thumb over the yokai’s cheek, taking in the pale skin and delicate eyelashes. This fox demon is devastatingly pretty, and seeing him so badly injured makes your heart hurt even more.

Something rustles near the riverbank, and you look back to see some of the children hiding amongst the leaves, peering curiously at you as you kneel next to the yokai. Further up the river, Seungcheol is approaching you, wanting to know your thoughts on the demon, and his eyes widen as he also notices the children in the bushes.

“What are you doing here?” he says in their direction, the disapproval clear in his tone. “It’s dangerous! You shouldn’t be looking at this. Where are your parents? Didn’t Soonyoung tell you to go home?”

“But we wanna see Miss Witch,” one boy says, eyes wide. “Please, can’t we stay?”

You frown and open your mouth, preparing to reprimand them, but then the yokai makes a soft, pained sound beside you, and you instantly return your attention to him, bending down even closer to his face.

Seungcheol cries out, this time in your direction as you lean towards the yokai. “Y/N, what are you doing? Stay back!”

You ignore him, reaching out a hand to brush matted hair out of the yokai’s eyes. “Hello? Hello, can you hear me?”

The yokai scrunches his eyes up, whimpering in pain. The moment he’d returned to consciousness, he’d started shivering intensely, struck by the cold of the river. 

“Hello?” you repeat, gentle. You move your hand away from the yokai’s face, directing it towards the ice surrounding his back instead. Silently reciting an incantation, the ice begins to glow orange under your palm, slowly beginning to melt away. “Can you tell me your name?”

The yokai shivers, mumbles something unintelligible. Then he looks up at you, golden irises shuddering in fear, every movement of his face telling you it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. 

One of the children lets out a shriek, and you whip your head up in alarm. They don’t look hurt, but the yokai notices the sound too, raising his head to look at them with wide, unsettling eyes, and the children shriek again, all of them frozen in fear. You can kind of understand why: the fox demon is covered in blood, and anyone unacquainted with the supernatural would find his slitted golden eyes petrifying. 

But before you can say anything, do anything to reassure them, the ice around his back makes a cracking sound as it melts under your hand, and the yokai’s mouth drops open in pain. He coughs, splattering blood over the ice, more of the black liquid dripping from the corners of his lips as he starts writhing and scratching against the river, hauling himself up onto his elbows, eyes fixed on the children in the distance, and all hell breaks loose.

The children are screaming, ear-piercingly loud, and Seungcheol is screaming too, and the yokai starts writhing even harder, yipping and gasping like a distressed fox, his hands sticky with his own blood as he tries to push against the ice. 

“No, it’s okay— don’t do that—Cheol, let me think!” 

It’s obvious Seungcheol wants you to kill the demon, especially with the way he’s screeching at you right now, but the yokai looks so pitiful, ears shaking, eyes wide, still bleeding from gashes all over his body.

“Think about what?” Seungcheol yells, children cowering behind his legs, and he shields their eyes from the river. “Y/N, please, you have to get rid of it!”

You look at him, and then down at the helpless yokai beside you, and really, it takes you less than a second to decide what to do.

“I’m so sorry,” you say, getting to your feet. Seungcheol tenses, sensing something wrong in your tone as you look down at the yokai again, leaning down with your hand outstretched. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Your fingers come into contact with the yokai’s forehead, and there’s a golden glow before his eyes flutter shut and he freezes up, before collapsing against the ice.

Hidden safely behind the village leader, the children stop screaming. Seungcheol also doesn’t make a sound, still staring wide-eyed at you, and now the yokai is no longer moving, the early morning air is frozen still once more. You look back at Seungcheol, and he blinks, his face unreadable.

“Please tell me you killed that thing.”

You smile weakly, dried-up demon blood on your fingertips. At your feet, the yokai’s shoulders move up and down ever so slightly with every shallow breath he takes, unconscious.

───────────── ‘✽, 

“Bad idea,” Seungcheol admonishes loudly from outside your window, and even though there’s a whole wall and a thick pane of glass separating him from you, his disapproval is crystal clear. “This is a bad idea. Y/N, let me in. We have to talk about this.”

You don’t look up from the boiling pot on the stove, simply lifting a hand and giving Seungcheol the finger.

“How dare— Y/N, you cannot let that thing live. It’s a danger to us. Especially the children! Y/N, think of the children, please, it could hurt the children.”

Seungcheol raps against the glass insistently, but you ignore him, humming to yourself as you ladle some of the boiling concoction into a wooden bowl. Gently, you blow on the steam, inspecting the lilac colour of the liquid before nodding, pleased, and heading over to the yokai asleep on your couch. 

It’s been some hours since that moment on the frozen river, where you’d decided to save the yokai trapped in the ice rather than kill him. None of the humans agreed with your decision, however, so you’d had to make the tiring trek down the mountain yourself, a heavy, unconscious yokai in tow. That’s partly the reason you’re so tired right now, arms aching as you set the bowl down on the coffee table, where you’ve laid out bandages and various dried bags of poultices and face towels to help clean up the yokai. 

Said yokai is still unconscious and bleeding all over the fabric of your sofa, the golden threads of magic you’d used to briefly staunch his wounds already beginning to fray open once more. You sigh, settling down beside him, and begin inspecting the more serious injuries on his forehead and down his arms.

“What happened to you, hm?” you say softly, ignoring Seungcheol still rapping against your window. “Why are you so hurt?”

Living as the only magic user-slash-competent doctor in a rural village means that you have plenty of experience in patching up the particularly nasty injuries that the villagers sustain, and your hands are careful and practised as you dip a towel into the warm, disinfectant potion you’d made, swiping it over the yokai’s skin. He’s injured practically everywhere: deep gashes are scored along his arms, his hands, and there’s one slashed across his chest. Not to mention his definitely-broken tail, the still-bleeding head wound and, judging by the way blood had been pouring from his mouth out on the lake, some internal injuries you can’t see. 

You wince, taking a towel into your hands. “Sorry,” you say, heart twinging in sympathy for the yokai. “I’m so sorry this happened to you. But don’t worry, I’m here to help.”

Ideally, you’d run a bath first and scrub the yokai clean of all the grime and blood before getting to tending his wounds. But he’s a fox demon—ridiculously tall and with a fluffy tail and delicate ears, so he won’t fit in your tiny tub and it’ll end up being more troublesome than anything else.

So, you’ve resorted to magic, dipping a cloth in the potion you've made to melt and dissolve all the dirt into thin air.

The wounds are all worryingly deep, most notably the still-bleeding one on his forehead, and if he were human, you’d be concerned that he’ll suffer a serious concussion afterwards, along with an inability to use his hands for a long while. But as it is, the ancient demon-magic that he’s made of will mean that he’ll heal pretty quickly, and there should be no grave threat to his life.

Hopefully. As long as he doesn’t develop an infection from the open wounds. 

You finish cleaning up the blood and then wipe down his face with a cool cloth, frowning slightly at how his skin still feels unusually hot. Infections will make his healing process much longer and much more arduous. The poor yokai looks like he’s already been through more than enough, so you really hope the fever dies down soon.

Seungcheol is still yelling at you from your window when you finish your preliminary clean-up, and you sigh heavily, beginning to develop a headache from how annoying he's being. So you walk over to the window, wrench it open, and jab a bloodstained finger in his direction.

“Seungcheol. Kindly, please, fuck off.”

Seungcheol blinks, both startled by your abrupt confrontation and a little affronted, but before he can say anything, you carry on. 

“Currently, this yokai is injured, and it’s my job to take care of injured people, regardless of who they are, so you can take any thoughts of me killing him and shove them up your ass. It’s not happening, and it’s never happening, and you’re also disturbing my patient with the racket you’re creating, so please go away.”

If it were anyone else talking to him like this, Seungcheol would have blown up with anger a solid thirty seconds ago—as it is, he simply stares at you, still looking affronted, before he sighs, and all of the energy drains out of him. He knows how headstrong you are, and when you get like this, he knows there’s no way he can sway you. He’ll have to wait until you’re no longer brimming with obstinacy to get his thoughts across.

His gaze drops from yours to your bloody finger, and then he sighs again, folding his hands behind his back.

“Give the demon my wishes for his speedy recovery,” he says at last. “But we still have to talk about this later, Y/N. Okay?”

You huff, and lower your hands. “Fine. Later.” With a resolute swish of magic, you shut the window once again and turn your back on Seungcheol to return to your patient.

As village leader, you can understand why Seungcheol may have concerns regarding a yokai entering a human village, but that doesn’t mean you like how he has no qualms with telling you to just kill it in an instant. Discrimination against magical creatures is half the reason they’re so hostile to humans, anyway, and you’d know firsthand how painful it is to be targeted and attacked purely for being who you are.

It’s not like you ever asked to be magic. And yet, people end up hating you for it.

You look down at the unconscious yokai, with his silver-white fur and gentle eyelashes and those heart-wrenching injuries. Then, wordlessly, you pick up one of the poultices and get to work.

───────────── ‘✽, 

Hansol wakes up to the strong, warm smell of chrysanthemum.

It’s an unusual scent to wake up to, and his ears prick up, alarmed—only for him to cry out a few seconds later, upon realising the action sends a sharp bolt of pain throughout his entire body.

“Oh!” 

A voice sounds from somewhere above his head, and he startles even more, trying to open his eyes and locate the sound, before realising he can’t see.

He cries out again, panicking at the pitch black that surrounds him, flailing around before realising that that action also causes him debilitating pain, and he begins panicking even more. How did he end up here? What happened? All he remembers is being chased through the forest and then tripping and crashing into a river, and then hard ice and the cold water and the throbbing in his head and then— and then—

Something damp and heavy gets lifted from his eyes and he gasps, freezing up as bright white light almost blinds him.

“Sorry, sorry,” the voice from before says, sounding terribly apologetic. “I’m sorry. I should’ve warned you before doing that.” 

Hansol scrunches his eyes, and then squints, vision all blurry from having been unconscious and now being blinded by bright light. He can’t see who’s speaking, but whoever they are, they carry on, the words steadily flowing out faster and faster as the person rambles. He can barely keep up with the onslaught of noise, twitching confusedly and trying to see what’s going on. The world feels like it’s spinning. He’s pretty sure the world isn’t meant to spin this fast.

“That was probably really scary when you woke up, huh? I’m so sorry. The towel slipped from your forehead and covered your eyes, and I’m sorry I didn’t notice. I didn’t expect you to wake up now, but I guess that’s a good thing, ‘cause you’ve been out for a whole day, and any longer and we’re veering into coma territory, which would mean that you were really, really hurt. Which is, like, definitely not good, you know? But you did wake up, thank goodness, so that means there’s a chance you’ll get better very soon. Plus, your fever isn’t that bad anymore, so it seems you really are on the road to recovery, which is all very—oh, wait. Sorry. It’s still too bright, isn’t it?”

Another wave of chrysanthemum hits Hansol’s senses and a hand comes up to his face, creating a shadow over his eyes so he’s no longer squinting furiously up at the disembodied voice.

“Sorry,” the voice says, apologising yet again. “Is that better?”

Hansol blinks, slowly opening his eyes fully to look up, and then, the whole world abruptly stops spinning as he finds himself looking at the most beautiful being in the entire history of the universe. He doesn’t say a word, mouth falling open in shock.

You smile down at him, made anxious by his silence. “Hello,” you say, hand still shielding his eyes from the brunt of the winter light. “My name is Y/N. What’s yours?”

Hansol squeaks, a small, high-pitched sound that instantly floods him with mortification when it accidentally slips past his lips, and he screws his eyes shut and curls into himself, knocking your hand away hurriedly in his rush to hide his face. He tries to bury himself into the couch, shaking. 

“I’m not going to hurt you,” you say, gently, worried you've scared him. “I promise. I want to help.” Perched on the edge of the couch, you lean over and slowly lower the yokai’s hands from his face, coaxing him to look at you again. “Can you please tell me your name?”

You smile, again, and Hansol feels a little faint as he looks up at you. His vision is still slightly blurry from his eyes being shut for so long, and the way you’re backlit by the light makes you look like you’re glowing, a gentle halo of silver light surrounding your form. That, coupled with the way you have the prettiest smile he’s ever seen, is making him feel all dizzy. And a bit warm. The air feels like it’s suffocating him, actually, but all of that is made irrelevant by how pretty he thinks your smile is.

There’s a possibility he’s still in the process of getting rid of his fever, because he blinks slowly, focused, and when he opens his mouth to speak, the next words spill unbidden from his lips.

“My name is Hansol,” he says, “and I think you’re the prettiest person alive.”

Your eyes widen at his words, a flush rapidly creeping up your cheeks. Hansol looks at you, worried that you’ll suddenly hate him for what he’s just said, but you just laugh, flattered, and bring your hand up to his forehead. The touch is cool against his skin, like a soothing balm.

“Thank you, Hansol,” you say. “Your fever seems to still be pretty high, if you’re saying stuff like this, huh? I’m currently brewing some chrysanthemum tea, and I think it’ll be a good idea for you to have some too.”

Hansol blinks slowly again. “Chrysanthemum tea,” he muses. He looks up at you. “That must be why you smell so warm and pretty.”

You laugh again, flustered, subconsciously brushing his hair back from his forehead and cupping his cheek, your fingers feather-light. “Perhaps. So would you like some tea?”

“Yes, please,” Hansol says. “I’ll have anything… you… give m…” His eyelids and ears slowly droop, and before he can even finish his sentence, he drifts back off to unconsciousness once again, head leaning into your hand.

Open-mouthed, pink-cheeked, you look down at the one-more unconscious yokai in your hands. 

“Wow,” you breathe out. And then you smile. “You’re adorable.”

───────────── ‘✽, 

Over the next few days, the yokai—Hansol—constantly drifts in and out of consciousness, his fever fluctuating in intensity the entire time.

It’s difficult to pull coherent sentences out of him, and anything he says is a mixture of your name, his name, and also how pretty he thinks you are.

You chalk it up to his fever.

His demon-magic must have taken a serious blow from the extent of his injuries, as it takes him a lot longer than you’d like for him to finally shake off the infection. A whole excruciating week goes by, and you almost cry with relief when, as you get up to check his temperature in the middle of the night, you find that his fever has finally broken, and he’s able to breathe easily once more.

When the weak sun finally peeks out from over the horizon, you enter your spare room to check on Hansol. Sometime after his first bout of consciousness, you’d gathered enough energy to move him from your couch to the spare bedroom in your cottage. It had taken a lot of work, and a lot of magic—weakened by the stress of taking care of a dying fox demon and trying to fend off any curious and judgy villagers, it takes a lot of energy for you to do anything strenuous lately—but you managed. And it certainly seemed to help, as he slept a lot better in an actual bed.

Humming absentmindedly to yourself, you make your way over to the guest room, fingers dancing and causing golden threads of magic to tidy up the state of your house as you go along. 

To your surprise, the yokai is wide awake when you enter the room, and he startles when you noisily open the door and step inside. The moment you make eye contact with Hansol, you freeze, the song dying off your lips at the same time as your magic drops a partially-fluffed up cushion in the living room.

“Um.” You blink, hanging off the door handle, staring at the yokai picking his bandages in bed in the middle of your guest room. “Good morning?”

Hansol doesn’t respond, continuing to stare at you, wide-eyed.

You cough, feeling terribly awkward, attempting to adjust your stance and take your hand off the doorknob in the most natural way possible. “Hello. I’m, uh, Y/N. How are you feeling?”

There’s another beat. Then Hansol finally opens his mouth, only to completely ignore your question to say, “You’re the one who smells like chrysanthemums.”

“I— Sorry, what?” You blink, taken aback by the abrupt and unrelated question, before nodding. “Oh, yeah. I guess you remember the chrysanthemum tea I made you?” You smile slightly. “I can’t believe you remember that. That was when you were the most unwell.”

“Oh.” Hansol’s ears twitch, and he continues to look at you with his golden eyes, somewhere between bewildered and amazed. (Amazed by what, you aren’t entirely sure.) “I do remember, though. I remember you.”

You blink rapidly, trying to push down the blush that threatens to rise up your face. Having a handsome yokai stare at you with such focus, saying that he remembers you even when he was deep in the throes of a fever is such a heart-fluttering thing to experience early in the morning. You aren’t nearly awake enough for this conversation. If you aren’t careful, you could accidentally fall in love right then and there.

“That’s nice,” you croak, and then shake yourself. You have a job to do. Hansol’s a patient under your care, and you need to check his condition. “Um. Sorry. But, uh, I do have to check if you can remember anything else,” you say, slipping into healer mode as you step further into the room, walking towards the bed. “Do you remember your name?”

Hansol nods, intently following your movements as you draw closer. “My name is Hansol,” he says.

You smile, relieved by the coherency of his answer. The fact that the yokai remembers his own name is a very good sign. “Yes, you are. Do you remember how you got here?”

“Yes,” Hansol says obediently. “I was in a river. Trapped in the ice. And you… saved me.”

That makes you smile a little wider. “I took care of your wounds, yes! It’s really good you’re finally awake and able to answer questions, ‘cause it’s a sure sign there’s no lasting internal damage. I do have to check your bandages, though, so… may I?”

You make a gesture towards Hansol’s bandaged arms, and the yokai obliges, raising his arms to let you see. 

You take Hansol’s hand in your own, preparing to lift his arm up higher—but the moment your palms brush, you gasp, fingers tightening around the yokai’s at the sudden sensation. Hansol, too, lets out a small noise of surprise, looking up at you.

The yokai’s hands are firm, strong, and perfectly healthy, but they also thrum with magic. You can feel every spark and fizzle of the magic as it dances under his skin, spinning and zipping back and forth like a cloud of hyperactive fireflies. Like the magic can talk, and when it noticed the magic that lives inside you, it seems to yip with recognition, spinning itself around in excitement in the yokai’s hands.

“It’s so strong,” you say, amazed. “I didn’t realise magic could be this powerful.”

Hansol’s also staring up at you, similarly in awe. “You’re magic too?” he asks, looking like he’s never fathomed such a thing is possible. “You’re like me?”

You laugh slightly, made a little giddy by the feeling of how alive the magic is under Hansol’s skin. “Not exactly,” you say, releasing Hansol’s hand to finally reach for the bandages, feeling around to see whether his skin is still tender underneath. “I don’t have the ears or the tail, do I?”

Hansol’s ears flick. You’re decidedly focused solely on the yokai’s bandages, but you can feel Hansol looking at you intently as you work. 

“But you’re very pretty,” Hansol says. “Are you sure?”

fuck. Hansol has to stop saying things like that, because they’re very bad for your poor heart. Very bad.

“I’m sure,” you say with a smile, straightening up once again. “I think all your wounds are healing nicely. Now your magic’s come back to its full strength, it’ll help you heal the rest of the way in no time.”

You can’t help but reach for Hansol’s hand again, once more feeling pleasantly surprised by the light zap of magic when your hands touch. Now you can feel the thrum of it under Hansol’s skin, it’s easy to realise how unwell the yokai was before, when his hands had been deathly cold with no fizz of magic in them at all. You’re just endlessly relieved that you can feel that fizz once again.

Hansol looks down at your intertwined hands, and then up at you, a smile lifting up the corners of his lips. “Thank you,” he says, so very sincere that it melts your heart. “Thank you for looking after me.”

You can’t help but smile back, squeezing Hansol’s hand once. “Of course. It’s my pleasure. Really.”

Hansol smiles even wider, ears twitching pleasedly, and you once again have to try and valiantly fight away your blush. fuck. This yokai really needs to stop making you blush so easily, and fast, else you’re going to start having problems.

───────────── ‘✽, 

It turns out, the blushing thing ends up being the least of your problems, because later that day, Hansol tries to leave.

Sometime after bringing Hansol a breakfast of soup and chrysanthemum tea (since he really seemed to like the tea), you’re drying away the breakfast dishes when a blast of cold air slices through the cottage, and you look over to see Hansol holding open the front door, looking like he’s about to step out.

“H—wait! Hansol, what are you doing?”

The yokai looks over at you, still holding the front door, confused. The bottom half of his tail is still bandaged, making it difficult for him to move it around, but it still sways from side to side unsurely as he blinks at you.

“I’m leaving,” Hansol says, like it’s obvious. “You took care of me. And I’m now better. So I’m going to go.”

You gape, jaw almost dropping to the floor at the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard.

“Like hell you are,” you say, marching over to the front door and firmly shutting it with your still-soapy hands, and then ushering Hansol back to the guest room and into bed. “You are very far from being better, Hansol. Your tail is still all bandaged up! I’m not letting you leave until you’re back to full health, so don’t you dare think for a second that you get to go before then.”

Hansol makes a noise of confusion as you fussily tuck him back into bed, fluffing up the pillows behind his head and arranging the covers around him. “What? Why would you let me stay?”

“Why wouldn’t I let you stay?” you counter, patting down the duvet and absentmindedly brushing away the strands of hair that fall in his eyes. “I want to take care of you. I want you to get better. I can’t exactly do that if you go off into the woods all by yourself and get up to heaven knows what, can I?”

Perched on the edge of the bed, you smile and pat his head. 

“I’m not letting you out of my sight for a long while yet, mister,” you say, the faux-scolding adding a light playfulness to your tone. “You’re going to stay with me and get better until I say so.”

Hansol looks up at you, tilts his head, and scrunches his nose just slightly as he smiles, shy. “So you’ll let me stay as long as I like?”

“Obviously,” you say, smiling back. “However long it takes you to heal, and then some, if you want. Of course, unless you have somewhere else to go.”

The yokai hesitates, ears flicking unsurely. “Not really,” he admits, lowering his gaze. “I’ve never actually had anywhere real to stay.” He looks back up at you again, golden eyes glinting hopefully. “So if it’s okay…”

“Oh, of course you can stay here,” you rush to reassure him. And then you pause, deflating a little. “Although…This is a human village, so they don’t really like… your kind. It might make life a bit difficult, but since you’re with me, they shouldn’t bother you too much. Though I understand if that makes you hesitant to stay.”

Hansol shakes his head, smiling slightly. “That’s okay. I like it here, so I don’t mind staying with just you.” 

“I’m glad,” you say sincerely. “Seriously, you can stay here for however long you want.”

Hansol ducks his head shyly. “Thank you. Genuinely, thank you.”

You awkwardly pat his hand where it lays on the covers, a little embarrassed in the face of his obvious gratitude, and instruct him to rest up before exiting the room. You’re glad that the brief misunderstanding had been cleared up, because you don’t want Hansol to feel anything less than welcomed. Being a yokai, he won’t have received similar acts of kindness in the wild, and as a magical being yourself, you know how that can feel. No one deserves to feel unwanted, least of all an injured yokai who’d obviously been hurt intentionally before you found him.

Unfortunately, though, the trials of Hansol’s first weeks of consciousness do not end there. Some days later, at some point during the afternoon, Seungcheol comes knocking on your door.

You hadn’t intended on inviting Seungcheol in. But afternoons are always a miserable time during winter, when the sky darkens far too early for anyone’s liking, and it’s difficult to find one’s way through the cold, barely-lit paths. That’s why you often get people coming to your door during the late afternoon, lost or confused or panicked because they’ve lost their way, and your cottage, shimmering with gold magic and warm lights is the only beacon they recognise.

So that’s the only reason why, when Seungcheol turns up, you accidentally open the door for him. Not that you have anything against the village leader, but—Hansol’s only been awake for a week at this point, and you don’t have the mental capacity to deal with a talk about getting rid of him.

Unfortunately, when Seungcheol already has one foot in a door, he will not go. Literally.

“Get your foot out of my door,” you say exasperatedly, struggling to push the door shut as Seungcheol pushes back. His foot is still wedged in the doorway.

“Let me in,” Seungcheol says. 

“No. You’re gonna tell me to hurt the yokai again.”

“I’m going to tell you to get him out of here.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes,” Seungcheol says, finally giving up on the little game and pushing his way through the door like it’s no difficulty at all, making you let out an indignant hey!. “We need to talk about this, Y/N. You cannot harbour a demon in our village without discussing this with anyone. He needs to go.”

“He’s hurt,” you say. “He can’t go anywhere! And he won’t hurt anyone, I promise.”

“You can’t know that.” Seungcheol furrows his brow, his tone grave. “He’s a demon, Y/N. You don’t know what he’s capable of. You can’t keep him here.”

“Yes I can,” you insist, “because he’s a fucking real-life being with feelings, not this scary, evil harbinger of doom that you’re making him out to be, and I know this, because he’s been here with me, in my own home, and he’s quite possibly the nicest person I’ve ever met.”

Over the last several days, Hansol has been healing rapidly, so much so that most of his bandages have been removed and he practically glows with magic every time you see him. It’s incredibly relieving to see, and it’s also allowed you to get to know him better: sometimes unintentionally, as a natural side effect of living with him now, but also, sometimes quite on purpose. Because he’s pretty, and he’s interesting, and you want to know who he is.

Turns out, one of the key things about Hansol is he’s the most adorable being you’ve ever met.

He’s adorable, in an awkward sort of way, from the way he hovers hesitantly in doorways to the way his tail always fluffs up with contentment when he feels the tendrils of your magic brush across the room.

Unlike yokai, who simply have ancient magic embedded in them from birth, you are born of magic and made entirely of magic, so the stuff practically spills out of you wherever you go. The magic can’t only be felt from under your skin, but extends out and away from your being. You’re not used to having guests in the cottage, so you weren’t aware of the extent of how much you let your magic run free when in the safety of your home, until you noticed how Hansol reacted. He always blinks in surprise, lifting his hand palm-up, fingers curling inwards, as if your magic is some elusive silk strand that constantly evades his grasp. It’s as if he can truly feel it, and he always seems to like it.

“Can you actually feel my magic?” you ask one day, and he looks up from his hand, surprised. His tail is all fluffy and big, lazily waving from side to side and creating static against the decorative pillows on your couch. You’re sitting on an armchair next to him, smiling at him amusedly from over the book of hexes you’re reading. He doesn’t even seem to notice what his tail is doing, too occupied with the invisible tendrils between his fingers.

“Yeah,” Hansol says after a moment, closing his hand and resting them both back in his lap, a little awkward. “It feels warm. Nice.”

“Really?” 

You can’t help but smile at that, oddly flattered. To you, your magic is just… yours. It doesn’t feel like anything in particular, nothing more than a familiar tingle in your hands and a weight against your skin. Though you like describing it as gold, in reality, your magic doesn’t have any colour or any real tangibility to it apart from a fleeting pressure. The idea of it being “gold” is just how you feel about it. It never occurred to you that others could feel it, let alone feel differently about it—living amongst humans, your magic has always subconsciously curled tighter around your arms when you interact with the villagers, not wanting to weird them out with your abnormality or make them feel intimidated by you.

Hansol nods, tail swishing once more. The static has caused all his white fur to stand on end, making him look even more fluffy and adorable. “Yeah,” he says again. “It’s so much calmer than the way my magic feels. It’s really cool.”

He’s looking at you earnestly, as if expecting you to totally agree that your magic is “calmer” than his. And even though you’ve only felt his magic twice before, you nod along in agreement anyway, and Hansol nods back, satisfied with your assent. Then he lowers his gaze back to his lap, opens his hand again, and goes back to playing with your magic.

An endeared laugh bubbles up into your throat, and you smile at the top of Hansol’s head before turning back to your book. Goodness, Hansol is so ridiculously cute.

That interaction only happened some days ago, and whenever Hansol smiles at you or stiltedly asks if he can help you around the house, the surge of affection comes back even harder. So you cannot stand Seungcheol standing here, right now, frowning at you like you’re being unreasonable in your decision to treat Hansol like a normal being.

Seungcheol continues to frown, and you simply stare defiantly back, arms crossed. You don’t let him walk further into the cottage, and a stare-off commences there in the front hallway, neither of you willing to back down.

That is, until there’s a loud crash from further inside the house, and both of you flinch in alarm.

“What was that?” Seungcheol asks, and you look back to where the sound had come from. Connected to the living room, behind a door disguised as an unassuming bookshelf is your own personal library, filled with all the tomes and books on magic and alchemy you’ve collected over the centuries. That’s where the sound’s originated from, which is definitely a cause for concern, but you don’t say so, lest Seungcheol uses this to fuel his argument against Hansol.

“Probably nothing,” you say, though you still glance over in the direction of the library. “You know my cottage. Everything’s old and falling apart.”

Seungcheol looks at you suspiciously. “That’s a lie. You always keep everything in perfect condition.” He begins to move past you. “I bet it’s that demon, isn’t it?”

“No, I—” You try to stop Seungcheol from investigating, but it’s a futile effort. “Cheol, come on, you shouldn’t go see him, he’s still unwell and you could end up distressing him—”

Hurriedly, you trot after Seungcheol through the bookshelf door and into the library, only to end up slamming face-first into his back when he stops abruptly, stunned at the sight before him.

You’re quite proud of your library. It’s an open secret that the bookshelf in your living room leads to it, which is cool all by itself, but your library is also made of magic. What appears as a normal, small study behind the bookshelf turns into a large and sprawling library with high ceilings and mahogany shelves and rows upon rows of books when you step inside. 

You’d allowed Hansol access to the library when he’d asked what was behind the bookshelf, and as far as you know, he’s been peacefully situated there the entire day. But, as you peer over Seungcheol’s shoulder to see why he’s suddenly stopped, you realise you can’t see the yokai at all.

In the middle of the floor, there’s a large… fort of books. A book fort. With four walls built of books piled on top of each other, complete with battlements made of upright books and towers with open books as turrets, it’s actually quite amazing to see. The only drawback is how some of the walls are falling down, books tumbling from where they’re piled up. 

Also the large spread of ice coming from under the fort, that’s very slowly continuing to pool further and further outwards.

Seungcheol blinks. “Uh… Y/N… you wouldn’t happen to be doing this, would you?”

You shake your head. “Weather magic is my weak point.”

Suddenly, two white ears and a head pop up from behind one of the crumbling walls, and Hansol’s eyes widen when he realises you’re here with a guest.

“Oh!” He ducks his head down, and then straightens once more so he can fully see over the walls of the fort. “Hello. I was just building a castle. One of the walls fell down, ‘cause I sneezed, but I can fix it.”

The tip of his nose is slightly dusted with glittering frost, but he doesn’t even seem to notice that or the ice that’s creeping across the wooden floor. His eyes are shining as he looks at you, infinitely more relaxed than when you’d first seen him, and he inclines his head respectfully in Seungcheol’s direction, looking as humble and polite as possible even when half his face is covered by his book fort. 

“Hello to you too. It’s nice to meet you.”

You’re not sure what Seungcheol is most flabbergasted by: Hansol’s gentle manners, or the book fort he’s quite amiably making in your very respectable-looking, very grandiose library, or the circle of ice that’s very clearly coming from the yokai. Hansol is very close to giving the village leader a heart attack any time soon, it seems.

“I— This is— You’re using Y/N’s books to do this?” Seungcheol eventually manages to ask, looking both confused and horrified. “She let you?”

Hansol’s ears droop just slightly, but there’s no obvious change to his expression. “Well… no. But none of the books are damaged, and I’m going to put them back once I’m done with them.”

“It’s fine,” you interject. “I could probably fix a few ripped pages. You can do what you like.”

You couldn’t, probably, fix a few ripped pages, because each book is nearly as old as you. But you’re not going to say that, because you don’t want the confusion on Seungcheol’s face to turn into grim disapproval, and you also don’t want Hansol to feel guilty for what he’s doing.

“Although,” you say, looking down pointedly at the floor, “do you think you could stop the ice?”

Hansol peers over the wall, eyes widening when he realises what you’re talking about. “Oh, sorry. It just happened when I sneezed, I think. Everything is still going haywire… I think I’m still sick.”

The movement of the ice slows to a halt, until only a spattering of frost manages to creep over to where you and Seungcheol are standing. It covers the whole expanse of the floor, now, and there’s not a single patch of the warm brown that’s not frosted over, but it’s okay. That is definitely something you can fix.

Ignoring Seungcheol, who’s still standing there like he can’t believe he’s looking at a walking, talking yokai, you move forward and make your slippery way over to the fort. Hansol moves away a column of books, allowing him to step out of the fort and meet you.

“Is this one of the humans?” Hansol asks in a low voice before you even say anything. The sweetness in his face has disappeared, replaced with an icy look of anxiety. “He’s one of the mortals who don’t like me, isn’t he?”

You try not to wince. “Yes. He’s Seungcheol, the village leader here. He… wants me to get you out of here.”

Hansol regards you for a moment. “You make it sound a lot nicer than what he actually means,” he says. “He wants me killed, doesn’t he? At the very least, badly injured and banished from here.”

“Well… no,” you try to say, but yes, that’s actually exactly what Seungcheol wants. “He doesn’t want you badly injured. He’s just… scared. Of your kind.”

“Hm.” Hansol nods, expressionless. “Same thing, really. He wants me out.”

“Okay, Y/N, stop whispering with the… him,” Seungcheol says, and you look up to see the village leader making his slow way across the ice towards you. “We need to talk. Discuss what you’re going to do, because you are going to do it, for the safety of our village.”

You frown, frustrated. “Hansol’s not a threat to our safety,” you argue. Seungcheol continues to slide gingerly across the ice, and he sighs and shakes his head as you carry on. “He doesn’t have anything against humans. And if he did, he’d have been dead long before we found him at the river, because—Hansol. Tell him why you ended up there.”

Hansol hesitates, looking at you unsurely. The other day, you finally managed to ask him why he’d been so injured and how he’d gotten trapped in the river. It was nothing unexpected, but it still had broken your heart, and hopefully, hopefully, it’s enough for Seungcheol to feel a little bit of empathy towards the yokai. Seungcheol’s a good man, a kind man, and all he needs to do is realise Hansol’s not evil, and he’ll warm up to him faster than anyone could think possible.

“Some other yokai attacked me in the forest,” Hansol says slowly. “Really old yokai. Older than me. And… I got hurt.”

Seungcheol raises an eyebrow, looking at you like he doesn’t get the point of this. You simply glare at him, silently telling him to continue listening.

“It wasn’t bad. Just a broken tail and some scratches,” Hansol says, and Seungcheol blinks, surprised at Hansol’s nonchalance. “But then some demon hunters found me, and tried to get me to… attack them? I dunno. They were picking a fight, and when I didn’t give it to them, they also hurt me.”

Almost imperceptibly, Seungcheol’s face softens a fraction, and you feel a flicker of hope. You know he’s weak in the face of innocently victimised stories like this.

“And so I was trying to run away from them, but everything is kind of in pain at that point. So I end up tripping down the mountain and into your river. My magic goes haywire when I’m sick,” he adds, “so that’s how I end up accidentally freezing ice all over me, too. It kind of responds to my feelings I guess? So when I’m scared, it starts acting up even more, which is why the ice was so thick, too. Like it was trying to protect me, ‘cause it knew I was scared of someone hurting me.”

It’s the most that Hansol’s said in one go, uninterrupted, before. Seungcheol’s face softens even further, and he straightens slowly. He’s been standing still, a few metres away the entire time Hansol’s been talking, like he’s been frozen by his tale.

“And yeah,” Hansol finishes awkwardly, ears twitching. He’s sensed the change in atmosphere, Seungcheol’s empathy tangible in the air. “Then I ended up here.”

“After several, painful weeks of healing,” you add, and Hansol nods jerkily.

“Yeah.”

“Oh,” Seungcheol says gently. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise you were so scared. But…” And then he sighs, straightening up further, the softness melting away from his face. “That doesn’t mean you’re not a harm to the others, now you’re all better. Who knows how you might feel when you’re hungry, or angry. You said your magic acts up according to your feelings, and I can’t have it acting up and hurting people here.”

Hansol’s face scrunches up in confusion. “When I’m hungry?”

It’s a bit absurd that’s the thing he’s focusing on, so you feel indignation over Seungcheol’s whole speech on his behalf, crying out at the injustice.

“What do you mean?” you argue. “You’re saying that like he’s some mindless beast.”

“He may as well be, for all I know,” Seungcheol sighs. “He’s not human, Y/N. We don’t know how he’ll act. And I need to think about the villagers. They’re… they’re like family to me, you know that.”

“I’m not human either,” you point out angrily. “And yet I’m also a part of this village. What are you saying, Cheol? Do you not consider me family?”

Seungcheol’s eyes widen, and he shakes his head instantly. “No, you are. But still, you’re more human than he is. And… there are days where I’m a bit wary of you too, Y/N.” At your outraged look, he rushes to continue, “Because you’re so powerful! But you’ve been with us for so many years, during the time of my father and his father, and his father before that, so I know you’re good. You’ve saved their lives. Saved everyone’s lives. Hansol, on the other hand…”

You scoff, beyond furious. “That’s absurd. There’s no such thing as being ‘good’, just as there’s no such thing as being ‘evil’. We don’t live in a fucking fairytale, Seungcheol.”

“I know. Maybe if you’d made different choices, I’d think of you as less good, too, but…” Seungcheol trails off, shrugging helplessly.

You stare at him, eyes so impossibly wide that it’s actually hurting your eye sockets, astounded by what he’s just said. Seungcheol? Thinking of you as evil? Just because of your power? 

Beside you, Hansol stiffens just slightly, and during the course of the conversation, he’s somehow ended up so close to you that you can feel his magic simmering frantically under his skin. You don’t know why he’s so worked up, and distantly, you wonder whether it’s on your behalf.

Seungcheol, noticing how irate you’re getting, takes a step forward to try and placate you. But he misjudges his balance on the ice surrounding the fort, leg twisting and his eyes widen and he yelps as he falls forward, on course to crashing face-first onto the hard, frozen ground. Your eyes widen, and you reach out to him, before then—

There’s a blur of white fur and Hansol catches him before he falls over and breaks all the bones in his knees, gripping him loosely around the torso, getting to Seungcheol before you can even blink. He gingerly helps him back into an upright position, and you wave a hand to whisk away the rest of the ice with streams of gold before another accident like that happens again. Hansol’s still holding Seungcheol when you’re finished, but by the shoulders now, looking the village leader right in the eye, golden irises soft and determined at the same time.

“I get you have a responsibility,” Hansol says. “I used to have one too, in the wild. To keep myself alive. But my rule, and this should be yours too, is to not hurt anything that doesn’t hurt you first. I haven’t hurt you. You shouldn’t hurt me. And Y/N—” He looks over at you, eyes flashing, before looking back at Seungcheol. “Y/N has never hurt you. So don’t act like you’re preparing for the day she one day will.”

Seungcheol’s face doesn’t change, but you’ve known him long enough to detect the minute shifts in the air around him as he digests Hansol’s words and, grudgingly, accepts it.

“I apologise,” he finally says, reluctant but sincere in the way only Seungcheol can be. “That was cruel of me. To you and Y/N.”

He looks at you, and Hansol’s hands fall away, allowing him to walk towards you.

“Sorry. But you have to understand where I’m coming from,” Seungcheol says, almost pleading, and you realise that, whilst his stance on Hansol’s existence has wavered, his overall reluctance over him being here hasn’t changed. “At least don’t let others see him, if he’s going to stay. They’ll be terrified.”

“That doesn’t sound like Hansol’s problem,” you retort. “I know these villagers, Cheol, and they’ll warm up to him, they really will.”

You look over at Hansol as you say your next words.

“Hansol is sweet and kind and really rather funny, and it breaks my heart to hide him from others because he might be seen as scary. That’s just people’s prejudice talking.” You smile. Hansol’s eyes are wide, lips parted slightly, and a fluttering warmth unfurls up inside you as you continue to smile at him. “Because I’ve seen Hansol, and he’s the sweetest person I’ve ever met.”

Hansol’s entire face goes pink, and he looks away.

“Maybe so,” Seungcheol says heavily, and you look back at him. The warmth in your chest fades at his tone, dropping to the depths of your stomach. “But I can’t risk them being near him. Don’t let him out.”

You sigh, disappointed. “No. He can leave the house if he wants to, Seungcheol. He’s not some kind of housepet you can impose rules on just like that and expect me to follow through with them.”

“Y/N—”

“Get out of my home,” you say, evenly. “Go. You can take your rules and go piss off out of my sight.”

───────────── ‘✽, 

You stew in your anger towards Seungcheol for several days. 

He comes to your door every so often, either with a letter or a plea to talk through this, but you refuse to let him in and instead tell him to, not so kindly, fuck off. 

Hansol looks at you with a mixture of affection and disappointment each time you do so. You don’t really understand why he looks at you like that—neither the affection nor disappointment—but he doesn’t say anything and goes back to what he was doing soon after, either playing with your magic, or his own, or reading your books.

Having him around the house is quite like having a very adorable, very shy, fox. You might’ve gotten furious at Seungcheol for treating Hansol like a pet, but you don’t mean it like having a pet fox: it’s just like having an inquisitive, cute being around the house who quite likes following you around as you go about your day.

It’s cute. He’s cute, with his swishing tail and his sudden bursts of frost when he’s fiddling with his fingers, and the way he stays perfectly still whenever you gain the courage to slowly inch closer to him on the sofa until you’re laying on his shoulder, at the perfect angle to peer down at the book in his hands so you can read it with him. They’re all your books, of course, so you know what they’re all about, but it’s quite nice leaning against Hansol, feeling his warmth through the silk of his clothing, and the pleasant hum of his magic under your ear.

He never initiates physical contact, but he seems to like having you near. He’s never protested when you’ve held his hand or laid on his shoulder or (very, very gently) touched his ears, so.

He’s quite like a fox, in that way. But he’s like a fox in other ways, too: namely, how it appears that he’s a bit nocturnal.

Sometimes, you’ll awaken at three, four, five o’clock in the morning to someone clattering around in your house. It always turns out to be Hansol, trying to occupy himself without waking you up, but always failing to do so.

“Hansol?” you murmur blearily, shuffling into the kitchen where the flurry of clatters had emitted from earlier. It’s dark, and all the curtains are drawn; nevertheless, his dim silhouette looks distinctly guilty as he whirls around to face you, pots and pans in his hands. “What’re you doing?”

“Sorry,” he says apologetically. “I read some potion in your book, and I wanted to try it out.”

“At three in the morning?”

“Five,” Hansol corrects. You fix him with a look, and he winces, demon magic-enhanced night vision meaning he can see you perfectly clearly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

You shake your head, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes. It’s cold in the kitchen, and being exposed to the chilly night temperature is gradually waking you up. “It’s okay. I guess you don’t sleep a lot, huh? You’re wide awake, even though it’s so early in the morning.”

Hansol shrugs. “Dunno. But I always just feel like I have so much energy. Like it doesn’t have anywhere to go, and I can’t sleep for too long before it tells me to do something.”

“I see.” You purse your lips thoughtfully, pondering why Hansol’s feeling like this and what could cause it. And then, a realisation strikes you and your eyes widen. “Oh. Oh, I get it. I understand why you’re feeling that way.”

The yokai tilts his head. “Really?”

“Yeah, and it’s totally okay,” you reassure, nodding your head. “Totally understandable, too. But don’t worry, it’s easily fixed.”

You wave a hand and turn all the light fixtures on so you can see Hansol properly. The yokai literally does look like he’s vibrating with extra energy, holding your cooking utensils in his hands, ears perked upright and tail fluffed up to the max. Yeah, he’s definitely understimulated and frustrated with it right now, even if he doesn’t realise that’s what it is.

You smile. This is a good way to help him and piss off Seungcheol at the same time.

“Come on, Hansol. Let’s go outside.”

───────────── ‘✽, 

Not even an hour later, you’re making a trek up the mountains in your warmest clothes, lagging behind Hansol even with your magic-aided agility helping you up the hardest of the steps. The yokai is bounding on ahead, nimble and quick-footed even in the darkness of the early winter morning, and you can hear the light crunch of snow under his footsteps as he moves.

This is what Hansol needed. Some time outside, where he can finally breathe.

Some minutes later, as you’re sitting on a log on the path to catch your breath, Hansol comes back down the mountain to meet you, settling down by your side.

“It’s so quiet,” he whispers. The air around you is lit with a faint glow, courtesy of a visibility spell you conjured so you wouldn’t fall flat on your face as you walked. It makes Hansol’s face look golden as he smiles at you, eyes shining. “Everything is so quiet out here. I can hear the animals.”

You smile back, finding joy in how relaxed he looks. “Doesn’t that make it noisy?”

Hansol shakes his head, and then looks away from you, ears cocked to the side, listening. “No. This is like a familiar buzz of noise, so familiar that it becomes silent.” He looks back at you again, smiling. “Down in the village, it’s so noisy because of all the people, but up here, it’s all gone.”

“It feels good, doesn’t it?” you say with a smile, and Hansol nods so quickly that you laugh, endeared. “I’m glad. You can go off for a bit, if you want, and I’ll wait for you here.”

Hansol beams. “Okay.”

And like that, he’s off, nothing more than a faint swish of a silver tail before he disappears once more.

He doesn’t come back to you for some time, which gives you a chance to sit there and breathe in the cool air. It’s so cold that it feels like inhaling clouds of peppermint, but it’s… relaxing. 

You haven’t had a chance to properly rest this winter. Winter’s a tricky time for you: the cold numbs your senses and makes your magic more sluggish. This year feels much colder than usual, and now the prolonged adrenaline that came with bringing Hansol back from the brink of death is fading, you’re beginning to anticipate feeling more worn out more often, the warm fizz in the tips of your fingers not as present as it ought to be.

Strangely, though. It hasn’t happened yet. Maybe being around Hansol and his frost-related magic has built up your resistance to the cold.

Or, he’s just so lovely and comforting that you don’t feel the effects of the winter.

That’s always a possibility. You look down at your hands, still glowing slightly with the visibility light you’ve put on yourself. It hasn’t faltered even once, a brilliant gold, and when you think of the colour of Hansol’s eyes, the light seems to glow even more.

You breathe in, and then exhale, kicking your feet out in front of you, looking down the dim mountain. You’ve been up here, thinking, for so long that the weak sunrise is beginning to peek its head above the horizon. Hansol still hasn’t come back. Though, you find you’re not too worried about that: somehow, you know that he will come back to you, though you can’t find ears nor tail of him while he’s gone.

It’s incredible how much you’ve come to trust and believe in Hansol, though he’s only been with you for several weeks. He’s been so reserved, anxious and afraid at times, especially during the early days, when he’d been bandaged up and newly healing in an unfamiliar environment, but now it’s clear how earnest and gentle he is. Something in your chest tightens and then relaxes with happiness whenever you see him smile. He’s just so—genuine, and you really like that about him.

You like him. A lot. He’s certainly an unexpected new part of your life, but now he’s here, and you can’t imagine living without the silver-furred fox yokai by your side.

There’s a rustle in the evergreen bushes to your left, and, as if he’s here answering your summons, a familiar silver head of hair pops out, golden eyes shining when he sees you. 

He blinks at you, ears flicking curiously, twigs in his hair like he’s been rolling around on the forest floor. His tail is out of sight, but you can imagine how it’s waving from side to side in contentment, the morning dew slowly turning into frozen crystals in his fur. You smile.

“Hey,” you greet, the moment you see Hansol’s face. “Are you gonna come over?”

Instantly, he stands up, hops over the bush and makes his way to you. His footfalls are light, looking like he’s dancing over the rocks before he settles next to you once more, looking like he never left your side.

“Hey,” he says. “There are so many rabbits in these mountains, you know? Like I’ve never seen so many rabbits gathered in one place before, because normally they get killed by hunters or there’s just not enough food in that area to sustain so many. It’s actually insane how many rabbits you have up here.” When you just smile, his eyes widen, ears pricking upright. “Oh, is it you? Do you do something to help them stay alive? With your magic and all that?”

Hansol then launches into a flurry of questions for you, so eager and animated that it surprises you a little, before melting your heart.

At the sight of sunrise, you’d taken down your visibility spell, but Hansol is still glowing, looking so alive with his cold-dusted cheeks, shining eyes, wind-fluffed hair and the frost dusting the tip of his nose, which must have accidentally happened when he’d gotten too excited and lost control of his magic.

Hansol’s positively lit up, now he’s surrounded by all this nature. He must’ve been so cooped up and nervous before, when he was just in your house, barely anything to do. Now he’s healed, and outside, and you can tell that being out of the house is where he’s meant to be.

“It’s not me,” you admit after Hansol’s finished conjuring up crazy theories. “Well, kind of. I messed around with the mountains about eighty years ago and did something by accident so we get a lot more winter flowers than normal. The rabbits love eating them, so we get a lot of them too.”

“Oh,” Hansol says, amazed. “That makes so much sense. I saw so many flowers. I thought that was a little bit weird, but I just chalked it up to Mother Nature having fun, or something.”

You laugh. “Yeah. I guess Mother Nature was having fun,” you say, gesturing to yourself, and Hansol grins too. His eyes crinkle as he does so, the corners of his lips spread wide so his pearly whites are fully visible, the tips of his yokai fangs slightly on display. Even his big, bright smile is as cute as he is. You’ve never seen him smile this widely before. It’s… pretty.

Even though he’s all warmed up to you now, even though it’s clear he trusts you, it’s obvious he’ll always be most at peace out here in the big, wide world.

His gaze slides away from yours, looking at something behind you, and he gasps.

“What is it?” You turn to look back, trying to find what had caught his eye, but Hansol doesn’t respond. He jumps up, diving into the bushes without a word.

A moment later he emerges, and in his hands is…

“A daffodil?” you say, amazed. “What’s this doing here? Spring is very, very far off.”

“I guess it’s because of you,” Hansol says, handing you the flower. 

You accept it gratefully, tracing the edges of its buttery yellow petals, such a warm, golden colour in your hands, in stark contrast to the cold white of the snow around you. It’s so pretty, so pristine, and it’s amazing it managed to survive in the freezing winter temperatures. Must be due to your magic, like Hansol said.

“It looks like you,” Hansol says suddenly, and you look at him in surprise. 

“Really? How?”

“You look like spring, to me,” he says. The frosted tip of his nose looks pink, as do his cheeks. A decidedly warmer, blushier pink than they’d looked before. “All warm and gold and pretty. Like the daffodil. And I…” He pauses, and then seems to change his mind, shutting his mouth and blinking at you like he wasn’t about to say anything else.

You smile, so endeared that you’re practically glowing with it. “Thank you,” you say, touched, and look back down at the daffodil in your hands before raising your eyes to the definitely-blushing yokai once more. “That’s so sweet.”

Hansol shrugs, a little bashful, before standing up abruptly.

“I’m gonna go find the rabbits again,” he says, and before you can even reply, he’s disappeared.

You laugh, breathing in the crisp air and then releasing it in a sigh, feeling warm all over despite the cold. You shake your head, fond. Hansol is just so…

That’s it, you decide. You’re not going to let Seungcheol dictate where Hansol can and can’t be. You’ll let Hansol do whatever he wants, and encourage him to do whatever he wants. 

Whatever makes him smile.

───────────── ‘✽, 

From that day on, you make it a point to take Hansol to the mountains as often as you can.

He loves it—he’ll never say it in so many words, extremely shy when it comes to voicing his preferences for reasons you cannot discern, but it’s so obvious that those few hours he gets to spend with you, in the fresh air, away from all the people, are his favourite hours in the day.

It’s another one of those mornings when you’re up in the mountains with him. You can’t come here every day: you’d collapse from exhaustion if you had to wake up at four in the morning every day, but today, it’s a particularly clear-skied day, and you wanted to watch the sunrise with Hansol.

He’s sitting shoulder to shoulder with you, looking silently down at the village below. It’s still not sunrise yet, but the sky’s beginning to lighten gradually, and you can see some of the windows beginning to light up with orange lights, everyone slowly waking. Hansol hasn’t said a word for a while, so you haven’t either, content to just look down at everything in silence.

The entire experience is rather humbling. From the mountain, the village looks so small, like it’s merely a miniscule dot in existence, something that could be missed in a single blink. Like each mortal is worth next to nothing. Like each could be destroyed in a second.

That’s what a lesser immortal would think, anyway. For you, however, rather than how fragile life is, being this high up makes you marvel at the intricacy of it. Every person, every soul, despite being so small, is filled to the brim with so many unique experiences that no one else can ever live through as that person did. They live, and they die, but almost magnificently so. Like a one-of-a-kind snowflake that melts as soon as it lies in your hands.

You look at Hansol next to you. His eyelashes flutter thoughtfully as he looks down at the village, delicate against his pale skin. 

Every life should be cherished, you think. Because if even the fleetings lives of humans are that complex, then what of the immortal creatures, who live forever? No one should tell them to hide themselves away.

“I can hear you cursing Seungcheol in your head,” Hansol says abruptly, pulling you out of your thoughts. He’s staring at you, now, no longer focused on the village, and he tilts his head bemusedly when you meet his gaze. “You’re still mad at him, aren’t you?”

You blink, and then smile. You were kind of cursing out Cheol in your head, you admit, and it’s kind of funny that Hansol picked up on it.

“I am,” you sigh, looking down. “Well, now I’m more annoyed, really. I know I should be glad that he’s not going to extremes, like some other people in the world, but…”

Hansol nods slowly. “I get where he’s coming from, though,” he admits, and you look up. “What? Seungcheol cares for his village. These people… they all mean a lot to him, and he doesn’t know me, so I guess it’s natural for him to be cautious.”

You roll your eyes. “That’s no excuse. These people all mean a lot to me, too. I watched them all grow up! And Cheol should know I wouldn’t suggest anything that puts them in danger.” You frown. “It’s frustrating. It feels like he doesn’t trust my judgement, even though he’s literally known me his entire life.”

The yokai hums, and reaches over to pat your hand placatingly where it rests in your lap.

“Also, it pisses me off that he’s saying all this without ever making an effort to get to know you, and see if his judgement is right,” you say, looking at Hansol, catching his hand in your own when he begins to move away. “You’re just—you’re just so lovely, and how dare Seungcheol try to hide you away, like you’re something taboo, or something to be ashamed of?”

Hansol’s eyes widen, and he blinks rapidly, before averting his gaze to your intertwined hands. “Oh,” he says, after a moment, clearly embarrassed by your sincere compliments. “That’s… nice.”

You laugh, fond, squeezing his hand comfortingly. “I’m always nice,” you tease. “I’m the nicest person in the entire world, actually.”

To your surprise, Hansol doesn’t smile back at your joke, and simply ducks his head shyly. “You are.” 

And then he keeps lowering himself down until he’s laying in your lap, the tips of his flickering slightly at the contact as he adjusts himself until he's practically lying down in the log, head in your lap. You stiffen in surprise, and Hansol slowly shifts so he can blink up at you with innocent, gold eyes. 

“Can I lie here?” he asks, even though he's clearly very much lying there already, and you smile, relaxing. 

“Yeah, I guess,” you say, and Hansol smiles, closing his eyes as your hand goes to his hair and begins to gently run through the strands with the tips of your fingers. 

You stay like that for some time, running your fingers through Hansol’s hair and over the soft fur of his ears. Abruptly, he playfully flicks his ears as you trace a finger through the fur at the base of them, making you yelp in surprise, and he smiles, pleased at having made you jump. You lightly tug at a few strands of hair, teasing, and he smiles wider, eyes still shut, the slight points of his canines visible.

Too distracted with Hansol’s face, you end up completely missing the full sunrise, and eventually it becomes late enough in the morning that the village fully awakens, bustling with noise as people go about their day. But curiously, you can’t hear a single thing. It’s like your world has narrowed down to you, your hands, and the yokai laid comfortably in your lap.

He really is very pretty. You notice the small spattering of snowflake-like freckles on his cheeks, and smile. He’s so pretty that it isn’t even fair.

You trace a thumb over his cheekbones, opening your mouth to comment on them before Hansol’s eyes snap open, and his ears suddenly tilt towards something down the mountain, listening. Your hand freezes, and you let him turn his head, alert.

“What’s wrong?”

Then, you hear it: the crunching of twigs underfoot, and the telltale huffing and puffing of a human making their way up the mountain. Your hand falls, and you get ready to stand up before—

“Y/N?”

Soonyoung, clad in winter furs and holding a woven basket in his hands, blinks at you in confusion, and then he glances to the yokai in your lap, and shakes his head, his expression becoming even more mystified than before.

“What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” you ask back, equally confused as Soonyoung. “You literally hate climbing the mountains. What are you doing?”

Soonyoung looks at you oddly, lifting up the empty basket. “I’m here to collect wildflowers for you,” he says. “I asked you the other day if you could make some of that non-dangerous magic fire you did last year. You said you needed wildflowers harvested at sunrise to make that potion, so I’m here to get those.”

“Oh. Did you really ask me that?”

“Yes,” Soonyoung says. “You said you’d make them for me. And also complained for like five minutes because I tried to pay you, and you wanted to refuse ‘cause you said I was paying you too much. As if there’s such a thing as being paid too much money.” He rolls his eyes for emphasis, and you laugh.

The conversation comes back to you now, and you shrug sheepishly. “Yeah. Sorry. I forgot about that.”

Soonyoung makes a disgruntled sound, feigning annoyance before his eyes crinkle as he smiles. “Don’t worry about it, boo. Just as long as you remember to make the potion, it’s all fine. The children’ll love it for the bonfire tonight.”

Your eyes widen. “You want me to make it for tonight? There’s a bonfire tonight?”

“Yes,” Soonyoung says. “I specifically told you when I asked, as well. Goodness, you’re forgetting everything today, huh?” Then he gestures casually to Hansol, who’s still lying in your lap, looking unsurely at the villager. “Don’t tell me, you also forgot you have the injured demon in your lap, too?”

He points to Hansol so naturally, so calmly that you look down in surprise, as if you really had forgotten the yokai was there. Soonyoung laughs, shaking his head as he bends down near a bush, poking through the dirt to see if there are any flowers. He turns his back on you and Hansol, craning down towards the ground to see better as he continues to talk.

“Cheol told me all about the demon and how he disapproves of you keeping him alive,” Soonyoung says. He manages to find a few wildflowers, and lets out an aha! of pride, putting them away in his basket. “Not gonna lie, I agreed with him a bit. But then I come up here and find him in your lap as you pet him like a cat, and now I’m thinking, maybe not so much.”

Soonyoung turns back to face you once again, and somehow, during those thirty seconds, he’s managed to get dirt all over his nose.

“Plus, you seem to like him,” he carries on. “So he can’t be bad, can you? Because you’d kick his ass if he was.”

You quirk a grin at that, proud. Then you nod down at Hansol. “He has a name, though, you know. And he can hear you.”

Soonyoung’s eyes widen in realisation, and he stands up quickly, brushing down his clothes. “Oh, sorry, you’re right. Sorry. Hi, I’m Soonyoung, one of the villagers who live here. It’s nice to meet you.”

He extends a gloved hand towards Hansol, and Hansol looks at the hand for a long moment. Then he slowly sits upright again, and grasps Soonyoung’s hand in a firm handshake, the corners of his mouth relaxing slightly.

“Hansol,” he says. “It’s nice to meet you.”

And then he must do something, because Soonyoung lets out a small yip in surprise, withdrawing his hand quickly as Hansol observes him amusedly, eyes glinting. 

“Did you…” Soonyoung starts, wide-eyed. “Did you just. Give me an electric shock? On purpose?”

Hansol cracks the slightest smile, evidently pleased with Soonyoung’s reaction. He’s in a playful mood today, you muse, smiling as Soonyoung stutters, clearly not sure what to do when a yokai plays a prank on him like this. It makes you smile too, amused.

“You have to show me how to do that,” Soonyoung eventually says, going from surprised to confused to full of amazement. “Can you show me? Is that something which can be taught?”

That makes Hansol smile properly, lips curving upwards. “You’re funny.”

“I’m being serious!” Soonyoung says, but something about Hansol’s smile must make him smile too, because eventually he laughs, shaking his head. “Goodness, you magic people need to stop messing with me. One day, I’ll accidentally set myself on fire, and it’ll be your fault.”

“You’d do that anyway,” you tease, and Soonyoung rolls his eyes. “Anyway, I have to get going, I think. Jeonghan’s coming over for a poultice for his back pain, and I need to get to my cottage before he does.”

“Okay,” Soonyoung says. “This is a hell of a way up the mountain, by the way. I might go down with you as well, and see if I’ve missed any flowers.”

“Cool.” This is definitely not that far up the mountain, and even though Soonyoung hates climbing, it shouldn’t have taken him more than twenty minutes to reach where you are. It’s clear he wants to walk with you for a moment to tell you something, so you look at Hansol, and offer him the chance to stay up in the mountains by himself for a bit.

He agrees, so you and Soonyoung begin your slow descent.

“What do you want?” you ask, when you’re out of Hansol’s hearing range.

Soonyoung just smiles, shaking his head. “Nothing bad,” he says. “I meant it when I said Hansol seems like a cool guy. I just…” He pauses, thinks over his words, and then leans in closer. “Bring him to the bonfire tonight.”

You reel back. “What? Are you crazy?”

“Hey, if you’re worried about him getting hurt, you shouldn’t be,” Soonyoung says placatingly. “Hansol’s a demon. He can hold his own. Plus, the people aren’t as against yokai as you might think. Cheol’s just overly cautious, and the elderly might have traditional views about it, but it won’t be hard to make them like him. He’s cute.”

You raise an eyebrow.

“He is!” Soonyoung argues. “I saw him in your lap, Y/N. He’s adorable. And very… docile? Like, he’s so quiet. But also very silly. The kids would love him, you know. So would everyone else.”

“Even Seungcheol?”

Soonyoung thinks about it for a second. The cold air has made his cheeks all ruddy red, and he looks like a very earnest, very red-cheeked schoolboy as he nods firmly. “Yes. Even Seungcheol.”

You hum, still incredibly sceptical. “Well. I’ll think about it. We’ll have to see.”

───────────── ‘✽, 

Unfortunately, even though you were slightly swayed by Soonyoung’s words and his instant kindness and all-round chillness in Hansol’s presence, you ultimately end up not bringing Hansol to the bonfire night. It’s not your decision, though: it’s Hansol’s.

“Are you worried about the humans?” you ask, when Hansol tells you that, respectfully, he doesn’t want to go. “You don’t have to worry about that. I could blast them all to pieces for insulting you, if that makes you feel better.”

Hansol smiles a little, before shaking his head. “No. It’s actually just… I’m not really a big fan of all the noise and stuff. And how hot bonfires are.”

“Oh.” You soften, concerned. “Have you been… hurt by fire before?”

“Huh? Oh, no,” Hansol says. He shrugs. “I just don’t like being too warm. Makes me uncomfortable.”

You raise an eyebrow, amused. Because even as he says this, he’s cuddling up into your side, head on your shoulder, his tail curled comfortably around him. “Really?” you say. “You don’t like being too warm?”

Hansol’s ears flick. “Yeah. My magic originates from winter, as you might have noticed, so…”

“Oh, I hadn’t realised,” you say teasingly, tapping the tip of his nose lightly. “I thought the white fur and random bursts of frost on your skin meant you were a summery fox.”

Hansol scrunches his nose, and you laugh. “Yeah, yeah. Anyway, it does mean I don’t like being all warm, so fires are a no-go for me. Especially bonfires, where there are many people. That’s way too much warmth for me, for sure.”

“I see,” you say, reaching a hand up to tuck some of his silver hair out of his face as he nestles closer into your side. “That’s cool. But I am going to have to go, even if you aren’t. Will you be okay if I leave you here by yourself in the evening?”

“Yeah. Can you make me dinner before you go, though? Last time I tried, I almost destroyed your kitchen.”

“What? When was that?”

“Oops. Did I not tell you?”

Anyway, the bonfire night ends up being a bit of a disappointment. Several of the villagers have cottoned on to the fact you’re housing the yokai, and express their concerns to you over the matter several times over the course of the night. You love these people, you really do, but hearing so many of them advise you to send him back off into the woods for your own safety really wears you down after a while.

“I think Y/N understands what you’re saying now, imo,” a gentle voice butts in, right when you’re in the middle of having a particularly exhausting conversation. This tricky older woman’s insisting you let the yokai go… only, she’s using much more unkind words.

You were very, very close to losing your cool with her—respect the elders be damned because hell, you’re way older than she is—before she’s interrupted mid-sentence by a villager appearing over his shoulder, and you smile in relief as you recognise him.

At the call of “auntie”, she looks up and comes face-to-face with your saviour, Joshua, and all it takes is another gentle smile and some sweet words before he successfully convinces her to leave your side and rejoin her friends on the other side of the bonfire.

“Don’t worry about it,” Joshua says when you thank him for his help. “You know how they are. Once they latch on to you, it’s impossible to get them to leave without using some sort of witchcraft to pry them away.”

You laugh at that. “And yet, it seemed to be you who helped get them off me. Maybe you’re the real witchcraft user out of the two of us.”

Joshua laughs, light and melodious, magical fire reflecting in his eyes. He doesn’t say anything to your joke, however, and nods into the distance behind you, down the darkened paths that lead to your cottage. “You need to bring him out, though,” he says. “Whilst he’s still unknown, they’ll continue conjuring theories that become wilder by the day. They need to see the yokai so their suspicions can be wiped away once and for all.”

“Wh—Hansol?” You blink. “It’s dangerous, Shua. They might hurt him.”

“They’re hurting him now,” Joshua says. “They’re hurting you and hurting him by making stuff up. Just introduce him to them, okay? He can’t become part of our village if he never meets our villagers.”

At your stunned look, Joshua smiles. 

“What? I know you, Y/N. You’re attached. You want him to stay. And honestly…” His smile turns a little more secretive, a little more knowing. “I think he wants to, too. The yokai will stay for you, but to truly bring him in, you have to bring him out to us.”

Joshua smiles again, the colours of his irises swirling together, before he pats you on the shoulder and gets up, leaving you there speechless.

He isn’t… wrong. But hearing it like that sounds insane.

You shake your head. Hansol will have to meet everyone sooner or later, you suppose. You very much do not want to go ahead with Seungcheol’s idea to let him be hidden, like a secret, so of course, you need to bring him out into the open.

You shake your head again, mystified. Joshua’s correct, but how does he know so much?

Honestly, you really do think he’s more of a witchcraft user out of the two of you. His incredible timing, his knowledge of all your thoughts, the fact he’d called Hansol a yokai rather than demon…

Also. How old even is he, anyway? 

Too confused and befuddled by all the thoughts in your head, you end up playing with the children and run through the fire all night instead. It’s a lot safer than having to deal with all the grown-up stuff of thinking about things.

───────────── ‘✽, 

Both Soonyoung’s and Joshua’s words linger in the back of your mind for days after that, and you contemplate how to get Hansol out of the house. Hansol had never really shown signs of wanting to be part of the village, which had made you reconsider this whole thing, wanting to brush away the villager’s words, before you actually asked the yokai, and—

Hansol shrugs. “Yeah. I’d like to get to know everyone. I want to be part of the village.”

“You do?”

“Yeah,” he says again, smiling at you. “This village is your village, and I want to be with you.”

Oh. You smile back, touched. Hansol smiles wider, brightening at the eye contact, all sweet and lovely and really quite cute, before ducking his head and disappearing back through the shelves of your library once again.

So Hansol turns out to be not as against the idea as you thought, which makes you feel a lot better about thinking of how to get the villagers to trust him and how to get Seungcheol off your back for taking care of Hansol in the first place.

However, it ends up not being you who makes the first steps into getting him known. Oh, no.

Instead, Hansol does that all by himself.

It happens during the first snowfall of the year. You’d woken up to the beautiful sight of the white crystals floating down and covering the entire village with a soft, muffled coat, and the equally beautiful sight of Hansol, who had already woken up, practically pressing his nose against the window to look at the snow in awe.

He’d clearly wanted to go out and be in the snow—as a winter yokai, that made sense—but you’d had some errands to run that day, so you’d told him he could stay only in the front yard of the cottage and go no further.

Hansol had smiled at you, an amused quirk of his lips that acted as all the reassurance you needed.

So he’s sitting in the snow in front of your cottage, legs out in front of him, the silk of his clothes getting damper the longer he sits on the cold ground, but he hardly notices, more focused with tracing a finger through the soft white that is steadily building up.

Snowfall is Hansol’s most favourite wintry thing. It’s a perfect, wondrous phenomenon: the intersection of the perfect time and the perfect weather and the perfect temperature that makes the sky release soft handfuls of the white stuff down on Earth. Even nature falls silent when the snow falls. In Hansol’s opinion, that’s proof enough that it’s something to be appreciated beyond belief.

His robes, his old robes, used to have silver snowflakes embroidered into them, intricate and sprawling patterns that he could run his fingers over and almost feel the cold gust of wind that accompanied the snow. They’re not on the robes he’s wearing now—he’s wearing ones you’ve given him, after his old ones were ruined by his own blood—but he traces his fingers gently over the sleeves, letting frost spread out from his fingers like the feathery patterns that used to adorn the cloth he wore.

He quickly grows bored of that, though, and turns to the real snow in front of him, ears flicking absentmindedly to get rid of the small pile-up gathering on his head. He absentmindedly gathers the stuff in his hands, patting it into shapes and then leaving them out on the lawn. 

This carries on for some time, and eventually there is an army of misshapen snow clumps in your front yard, all frosted over with a touch of his magic, and he grins, satisfied. And then his ears twitch again, and he feels… eyes. Watching him.

Hansol turns around, and some houses away, peeking from over a well-trimmed, leafless hedge, he sees three children clad in fluffy winter clothes staring at him, curious.

He doesn’t have much experience with human children. Or any children, for that matter. But he’s pretty sure that, when a yokai makes eye contact with them, they’re not meant to light up with glee and come running over with absolutely no regard for the icy paths or the danger that said yokai could present.

Surprised, Hansol jumps up to his feet, reaching out hands to steady the little kids as they skid over the snow and come to a stop right in front of him, eyes shining, expectant. He doesn’t know what they’re expecting, and being so close to these mini humans is a very awkward experience for him. He’s not sure what to do.

So he lifts a hand, and waves. “Hello?”

The three children beam, and one of them, the girl, practically vibrates with happiness when he speaks.

“Hello!” she chirps, and waves back. “I’m Yeowon! What’s your name?”

Hansol blinks, taken aback by her enthusiasm. “I’m Hansol.”

“Hansol!” Yeowon keeps speaking in exclamation marks, and it’s honestly kind of amusing. “It’s nice to meet you! This is Junghoon, and this is Minjun!” she says, gesturing to the boys on either side of him, who also give Hansol equally enthusiastic waves.

“Hello,” he says unsurely. How old are these kids? He doesn’t know much about human years, but they look… very young. Where are their parents?

He doesn’t get to voice his concerns before Yeowon starts speaking again, going a mile a minute and he can hardly get a word in edgeways.

“We were watching you from Minjun’s house,” she says, and picks up one of the snow balls that Hansol was making, lifting it up so he can look at his own handiwork. “These are so pretty! We wanted to come over and play with you, ‘cause we’ve never seen you before, but you live with Miss Witch, right?”

Hansol opens his mouth, but it’s apparent that wasn’t an actual question when Yeowon barrels on.

“So you must be a good guy! So we wanted to come say hello and play.”

She blinks big, innocent eyes up at him, as do the two boys, evidently begging him to play with them, or something. He doesn’t know what play entails, but… there’s no harm in entertaining these fun-sized humans, right?

So Hansol nods, says they can play with him, and sits down in the snow again. And then, before he knows it, they’re all shrieking and climbing over him and asking him to make figurines out of ice and snow and patting his hair in amazement and asking if his ears are actually real.

Children are very overwhelming, Hansol quickly learns. But he also kind of likes them: likes the way their eyes light up when he makes them the little ice characters they want, likes their fascinated smiles and the way they very gently touch his ears and accidentally get damp suede of their gloves in his mouth in their excitement. They’re bubbly, full of life, and so friendly with him that it honestly makes him so delighted that it surprises him.

“Make me one too! Make me one too!”

“Your ears look super fluffy! Can I touch your tail?”

“Why are your eyes yellow?”

“Can you make me something out of magic too, Mister Fox?”

“Mister Fox! Mister Fox!”

Hansol doesn’t know how it happens, but he blinks and suddenly he’s surrounded by what seems to be every child in the village, clamouring around him and asking if he could play, Please, Mister Fox, won’t you?

Your front lawn is quickly becoming a gathering place for the little humans who had swarmed towards him so quickly that Hansol’s starting to think they were waiting in the background for his very opportunity, and he makes more ice figures and listens interestedly to their babbling as they conjure stories for the figurines on the spot. They’re all so very noisy, but Hansol smiles, brimming with a similar sort of energy as his magic fizzes and pops with glitters of snow and makes the children laugh.

There’s no other way to describe it. He’s feeling happiness, pure and simple.

Unbeknownst to Hansol, there’s one human who’d been watching the entire scene right from the beginning. Coming down the path, on his way to visit the village’s magic-user, Soonyoung had noticed Hansol sitting by himself and had prepared to go over, extend a hand and a friendly word before Yeowon, Junghoon and Minjun had run over.

As a result, Soonyoung retreated a little ways round the bend to watch from a distance, which is where he is now, smiling at the innocent joy of both the children and Hansol.

From the opposite end of the path, he spots you walking back to your cottage, and clocks the exact moment you realise what’s happening in your front yard. Your eyes widen, and you stop in your tracks, before your eyes slowly lift further and you notice Soonyoung standing there too, smiling.

See? he seems to say with your eyes, meeting your gaze. They love him. 

One of the children shrieks with laughter as she grabs Hansol’s tail and he playfully gasps in shock, scooping her up and lifting her into the air until she’s giggling and burbling for him to put her down. At his feet, one child is patting snow into the hem of his robes, and another is playing with a fox-eared figurine that Hansol had made him.

It looks so natural, and you watch them for a moment before looking at Soonyoung again. Soonyoung smiles even wider. You have nothing to worry about.

You laugh, a little bit in disbelief, warmth spreading across your face as you smile back, looking fondly at the sight in your front yard. Finally, you really do believe that that’s the truth.

───────────── ‘✽, 

“Let’s go out,” you say, and Hansol looks up from his book, tilting his head inquisitively.

“Hm,” he says in reply. “Are you sure?”

It’s been a few days since the first snowfall, but the wintry precipitation has not let up, and it continues to softly drift down from the sky even as you speak. The blanket of snow covering the earth has also blanketed your senses, and your magic is nothing more than a gentle hum beneath your skin. A month ago, this would have stressed you greatly, but with Hansol and his winter-attuned magic singing happily around the entire room, you feel nothing but peace. 

Nodding in reassurance, you smile at Hansol. “Very sure. Let’s go out today.”

Hansol blinks, once, and then smiles back, closing the book and getting up from the couch. “Okay. Where are we going?”

You smile wider. “To make you some friends.”

That was the plan, anyway. Ever since the first snow, when Hansol had been accosted by the children and ended up playing with them for a good part of the day, you’ve had several villagers come to your door, either complaining about the yokai or wanting to know more about him. So, you figure, today you should get him out to the village square so he can finally meet everyone. Regardless of their opinion of him. 

Because you have trust in Hansol. Now, you have confidence he can turn their opinion around. 

Hansol, despite having all the appearances and mannerisms of an introvert, doesn't seem to mind leaving the house for so many days in a row, and eagerly agrees as you urge him to get dressed and head out to the village square. There's the daily market taking place, and most people will be there, so it'll be a good opportunity to introduce him. 

But, like you said, that was the plan. 

Unfortunately, you're whisked away by some of the villagers who need help with their sick relative, leaving Hansol stranded in the village square. 

“You don't have to stay,” you insist to him, as you're rushed off to deal with the medical emergency. “Seriously, Hansol, you can go home. Especially if anyone starts throwing insults, then just go, okay? I'll be with you as soon as I finish.”

Hansol watches you go, head tilted, slightly amused. It's kind of cute that you think he needs protecting. You know, since he's an ancient demon, and all. But before he can say as such, there's a small voice near his knee, and he looks down to see a small child, piping up in favour of him. 

“Don't worry about Mister Fox!” the small boy chirps brightly. “We will look after him!”

And as if out of nowhere (seriously, where do these kids come from?) several children come up to him and cling to his robes, waving at you as you leave the market square. Hansol waves too, mystified by the miniature support latching onto him, but also a bit touched by their loyalty. They're really sweet. 

“So what do you wanna do, Mister Fox?” the first little boy says, and Hansol recognises him as one of the first children to come up to him a few days ago. Minjun. “Are you hungry?”

Without even waiting for Hansol's answer, Minjun and the rest of the children start ushering him to the food stalls, fiercely advocating for their choice of what Mister Fox should eat first. 

“Wait,” Hansol says, interrupting the particularly fierce fight over having hotteok or bungeoppang first. “Kids. Do you have any money?”

There's a short silence, and all the children look down, which is how he learns that they don't, and so they don't end up buying anything at all. Except, Yeowon, who joined the discussion partway through, manages to wheedle some of the stall-owners to give her free food with her big puppy eyes and innocent pout.

It’s like a magic trick, Hansol has to give her that. And when she happily tells the vendors that she’s sharing the food with Hansol, the villagers do nothing other than blink in surprise and then smile, polite and awkward, well. That’s also an incredible magic trick too. 

They sit on the outskirts of the village market, pillowed by the mounds of snow all around them as they eat their steaming hot snacks. They’re delicious, and sticky, and very sweet, so it’s not too long before Hansol has several super-hyper, sticky-fingered children on his hands, who are all practically launching themselves into the snow with the bounding amounts of energy they have.

It becomes very noisy very fast, and Hansol starts panicking slightly, before he loudly suggests they ought to go and make some snowmen, and all the children whip their heads around to look at him, wide-eyed, and then—

“That’s such a good idea!”

“Yes! Let’s do that!”

“I’m gonna make the best snowman!”

“No, me!”

“No! Me!”

And then they go tumbling off into the snow, and Hansol slumps back down, relieved. He can still see them, and he can still sense them, too, so there’s no worry in any of them getting lost. At least he can now have some peace and quiet.

Twisting his lips thoughtfully, he gathers handfuls of the white snow, turning it over. He turns it over again, and then begins patting and shaping it in his hands until he has something that resembles a little snow duck.

It’s terribly misshapen, and the beak is a bit too long to be a duck, but it’s cute, and Hansol’s pleased. He swirls his fingers in the air, and uses some magic to add finishing touches, trying to rectify the wonkiness. It doesn’t work, but he still thinks it’s cute. You’d probably find it cute, too. Right?

Probably. Hansol hums to himself contemplatively. You like everything he does. It’s very sweet, he thinks, that you’re always so receptive to him, and it’s even sweeter that you genuinely enjoy his company. You brighten like a blooming chrysanthemum, spring-like in your warmth whenever he says something to you, and it makes him feel all warm too. Ever since the first time he woke up on your couch, out of his mind with a fever, and he’d noticed your floral chrysanthemum tea scent and accidentally called you the prettiest person ever, you’ve always been so gentle and kind and oh, Hansol likes you so much.

You’re just—lovely. You’re the loveliest being he’s ever met in his entire life, and that’s saying something, because Hansol’s been alive for a really fucking long time.

“Hello.”

He’s startled out of his thoughts by a light, melodic voice coming from over his shoulder, and Hansol looks up in surprise to see a villager bent over him, warm brown eyes glinting and the corners of his lips curving upwards in a seemingly permanent smile.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you jump. I just saw you, and thought I’d say hi,” the villager says, smiling properly, extending a hand. “I’m Joshua. You’re the yokai, right?”

Hansol manoeuvres his body around awkwardly and shakes Joshua’s gloved hand. “I’m Hansol, and yeah, I am the yokai. How could you tell?” His ears flick pointedly as he talks, and Joshua’s eyes immediately go to them before he smiles wider.

“Yeah, I guess it was a silly question,” Joshua says, and his fur boots crunch in the snow as he climbs over a mound and crouches down next to Hansol. “But I don’t wanna seem impolite, you know?”

Hansol shrugs, but he understands. “Yeah. I get it.”

Joshua smiles.

They say nothing for a moment, and Hansol lifts his head up briefly to check on the children. He can still see all of them, actually, dotted about the edges of the market as they build their snowmen. He watches them thoughtfully, and then down at the snow at his feet.

It only takes a moment for a snowman of his own to begin to form, aided by his magic as the snowballs roll themselves to become bigger and more round.

“That’s really cool,” Joshua comments, and Hansol had almost forgotten he was there. He’s so quiet, feather-silent, but when he catches Hansol’s eye and smiles, there’s a twinkle to his presence that makes him wonder how he could have ever forgotten him. “I’ve never seen anyone other than Y/N be able to do that.”

“Hm?” Hansol looks at the snowman that’s slowly being built. “Oh, well, it’s nothing, really.”

Even as he says so, his tail fluffs up in pride at Joshua’s words, and he begins adding more and more intricate frost details to the snowman. The feathery patterns wind through the body of his creation, like embroidery, and Joshua whistles, amazed.

“It’s very cool. Your magic is very cool.”

Hansol shrugs, bashful. “Thank you. But really, it’s nothing.” As the snowman continues to construct itself, he leans over to Joshua as if confiding a secret. “In the wild, there are yokai who can create literal monsters out of ice. In about five seconds flat. But I mostly just deal with frost and snow, so it’s a lot more difficult for me.”

Joshua tilts his head, genuine interest written all over his face. “Oh. I didn’t know there were differences in yokai magic.”

“Of course there are,” Hansol says, like it’s obvious. “Like there are differences in humans’ skills, there are differences for yokai, too. We are not unlike you, you know.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Joshua says thoughtfully. And then he looks Hansol in the eye again, smiling. Joshua is honestly so friendly, and even though they only met two minutes ago, he feels like he’s known him for years. “So you won’t object to being friends with a human, right?”

Hansol blinks, surprised, and Joshua’s smile just widens. It’s obvious what he’s asking, and Hansol feels… touched, that he’d even suggest such a thing.

“Yeah,” Hansol says, and his magic finishes off the snowman with an intricate flourish of frost. “I’d love to be your friend.”

“Joshua!”

The calling of the human’s name makes both Joshua and Hansol turn around, and they see one of the elder villagers coming over to them, the skirts of her robes swishing as she walks. She’s terribly intimidating, greying hair pulled back into a bun with a pointy hair stick, marching over with incredible grace even through the ankle-deep snow that has gathered. She squints at the yokai and how close Joshua is sitting to him. 

“Mrs Choi,” Joshua greets, apparently oblivious to the sharpness of the woman’s gaze. “Hello. It’s very cold today, isn’t it?”

She eyeballs Hansol for a moment before nodding at Joshua. “Very. Frightful weather, but at least the children are enjoying the snow.” Mrs Choi lifts her gaze and squints into the distance, where the children are playing. “I hope someone is supervising them.”

“Oh, well, Hansol is, so don’t worry about it,” Joshua says with a smile. 

Mrs Choi snaps her gaze back to them. “Is he really?” Hansol nods, doing his best to look as earnest and trustworthy as possible, and she hums. “I see.”

“He has them doing a snowman competition, actually,” Joshua says. “He’s very good at making them himself, too. Look. Don’t you think his creation looks amazing?”

He points to the snowman in front of them, glistening with frost and embroidered with thin ice, clearly a work of his magic. Hansol swallows, expecting Mrs Choi to fly into a tizzy over the presence of such witchcraft, but she just scrutinises the snowman, and then—

She smiles.

“It’s very pretty,” she says, and in the blink of an eye, her expression has turned warm. She’s smiling so nicely at Hansol, and then she leans down and brushes a hand over the top of his head, gently dusting away the snow that had landed in his hair. “Just like you, my dear.”

Hansol blinks up at her, open-mouthed. “I— thank you, ma’am.”

She chuckles, straightens, adjusts the skirt of her robes. “No need to thank me. I’m simply telling the truth.” Mrs Choi nods in the direction of the children, before turning away. “Thank you for taking care of the children, also. Keep up the good work.”

Hansol watches her go, feeling a little dazed. She had looked so sharp and stern at first, but something about him sitting there harmlessly and making a harmless snowman with harmless snow gathered in his hair must have done something to convince her that he’s, well, harmless. Which is good. Very good. Hopefully she’ll let everyone else know, too.

“Yeah, she looks scary, but Mrs Choi is anything but,” Joshua says with a laugh, when Hansol directs his wide-eyed gaze to him.

“She’s terrifying.”

“Her son takes after her,” Joshua chuckles. “Choi Seungcheol. He looks scary, but he’s a right softie on the inside, trust me.”

Hansol’s eyes widen further. “She’s Seungcheol’s mother? The village leader?”

“The one and only,” Joshua affirms. He laughs. “Don’t worry about him. His own mother found you cute. I’m sure he’ll be won over by you in no time. Especially if you keep making snowmen that rival Y/N’s in their intricacy. Seriously, I think yours are the best I’ve ever seen.”

“Shua, I hope I didn't just hear you dissing my amazing snowman building skills.”

Hansol looks up at your voice, and sees you slowly treading over to them, a drawstring bag dangling over your shoulder as you pick your way through the snow. The tip of your nose is red from the cold, cheeks a pretty pink with an amused smile on your face, and the moment he sees you, it’s like you’ve stolen his breath away.

Whilst Hansol’s too busy being starstruck, Joshua laughs, leaning back on his hands.

“So what if I was?” he teases, and nods to Hansol’s snowman. “Doesn’t it look amazing?”

You look away, directing your gaze to the snowman. Humming thoughtfully, you eye Hansol’s creation, and he begins to grow a little nervous under your critical silence, fiddling with his fingers and digging them into the snow, wisps of cold air seeping from his skin.

And then you smile, a lopsided smirk that makes Hansol feel a little dizzy.

“I can certainly do better.”

Before he can say anything, you set down your bag, and with a flick of your wrist the snow begins to swirl and gather itself before you. Under your command, golden streaks of magic begin to press the snow together, creating larger shapes that you obviously plan to sculpt into a showstopping piece.

You look almost relaxed in your movements, the entire process taking nothing more than a slight twitch of your fingers as magic sparks zip around the sculpture that’s gradually beginning to form. Hansol can only watch in awe, amazed at the fluidity and effortlessness of your power. By his side, he thinks he hears Joshua chuckle softly.

After a few short moments, the three of you are staring at a large, smoothly finished sculpture of a winter fox, and you smile and cross your arms, satisfied.

“What do you think?” you say, smug, confident in your belief that you’ve proved yourself.

Hansol’s jaw is on the floor. Delicate pointy ears, a fluffy-looking tail all made out of snow, and wow, are those whiskers? Did you really make whiskers?

“Wow,” is all he can say, staring at this lifelike fox that’s made entirely out of snow. “Wow.”

Just then, there are high-pitched exclamations from somewhere in the distance, and the children that Hansol’s been supervising come bounding over, shouting in amazement at the fox that you’ve made. 

“Hi, kids,” you say when they’re close enough, laughing when Yeowon barrels into your legs to give you a hug. “Quick question, which snow sculpture do you think is better? The fox, or the Frosty the Snowman?”

They all look very thoughtfully at the two snow pieces in front of them, before unanimously pointing to your creation, and you grin triumphantly at Joshua and Hansol. Hansol just smiles back, totally expecting such an outcome. You’d beat him any day when it comes to stuff like this, and he’s totally fine with that.

“That’s not even a snowman,” Joshua protests, but it’s clear he’s arguing just for the fun of it. “Y/N, that’s not a fair competition.”

You shrug flippantly. “I’d win anyway.” And then you wink, pleased, and Hansol feels like burying himself in the snow just to try and get rid of his red cheeks.

“Mister Fox, we wanna play with you now,” Minjun says, and he looks up to see the children standing around him, red-cheeked and damp-haired but still eager to play more. “Can we play a game with you?”

“It’s getting late,” Hansol tries to say, but apparently, that had been a rhetorical question, because they’re hauling him up to his feet so they can play with him. “The market’s already closing. Shouldn’t you all go back to your parents now? Joshua? Y/N?” He looks back pleadingly as he gets dragged away, and you and Joshua just laugh, waving him goodbye.

“Have a nice time!” Joshua calls, standing up from the snow and brushing down his clothes. He stands closer to you, smiling as you both watch him begin to play. “He’s good with them, isn’t he?”

You smile too. “He really is.”

“The best,” another voice adds, and you look over your shoulder to see some of the villagers also watching Hansol. They’re all the parents, and yet they seem perfectly content to let their children play around with the yokai, any trace of hostility gone from their faces. 

That makes you smile wider. “I’m glad you think so, Mrs Lee,” you say, and the woman smiles back. “Don’t worry. He’ll keep your children safe.”

Mrs Lee bows her head in acknowledgement, eyes turning soft as you all watch Hansol let the children punt tiny clumps of snow at him. “We know.”

They stay with you for a little longer, chatting about Hansol’s gentle nature and how wonderfully he gets along with the children, before eventually they disperse and begin packing up the market for the day. Next to you, Joshua is also smiling, looking fond, which is really weird because he barely knows Hansol but there’s definitely a clear look of admiration and affection in his face. Before you can comment on it, though, he pats you on the shoulder, and begins to step away.

 “I better go,” he says. “Cheol’s coming your way. I think he wants a talk.”

He bids you goodbye then trudges back through the snow, and you look over your shoulder to see that Seungcheol really is coming your way. Instead of greeting him, however, you look back out at Hansol, and wait until the village leader is by your side.

“Hello, Y/N.”

“Hello, Seungcheol.”

You don’t offer him anything else, and so the two of you stand there in silence, continuing to watch Hansol play with the children. It is an adorable sight, though, and makes the corners of your lips twitch upwards the longer the silence goes on. He’s totally lenient with them, letting them pull his tail and ambush him with damp gloves and shrieking laughter. His head whips back and forth constantly between the two sides of kids that have inexplicably formed, somehow finding himself in the crossfire as snowballs get flung around him.

It’s cute, and it makes you laugh, heart warming with fondness. You can feel Seungcheol watching you out of the corner of your eye, and when it’s clear he’s not going to say anything until you do, you sigh and turn your back on Hansol at last, raising an eyebrow.

“Well?” you prompt. “What’s up? You didn’t come find me just to say hello.”

Seungcheol pauses, and looks down. “No. I didn’t.” A beat. “My mother actually told me you were here.”

“Okay. And?”

“She talked to Hansol,” he says, and both your eyebrows raise this time, in surprise. “She said to me that she liked him, and she wanted me to open my eyes and finally realise how much of a good person he is.”

Seungcheol clasps his hands behind his back, rocking on his heels. He looks over your shoulder, at where Hansol is undoubtedly doing something silly to entertain the children, and his eyes go gentle. They don’t soften, and they certainly don’t melt, but his gaze becomes a little more mellow, like a layer of hardness has finally given way.

“And he is a good person,” Seungcheol says, looking at you again. “I’ve been watching him all day. All week, in fact, and even if my mother hadn’t said anything, I would’ve sought you out to tell you this, because I think I owe you an apology.”

You breathe a laugh. “You certainly do,” you say, but there’s no real bite. Seungcheol’s actions were understandable. You’ve already forgiven him.

Seungcheol seems to know that too, because his lips quirk up into a half-smile. Nevertheless, his words are genuine when he says, “I’m sorry. I was too rash, and too harsh. Any worries I had over yokai did not excuse the way I talked about Hansol. Do you think you can also tell him how sorry I am?”

You draw in a long breath, cross your arms and lean back, staring down your nose at Seungcheol. His smile wavers, a little, but then you relax, breaking out into a grin.

“You can tell him yourself. He’d love to talk to you,” you say, and Seungcheol smiles too. “I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have reacted like that. You’re just looking out for the village, like you always do. But…” You shrug. “I was looking out for my kind, also. I was frustrated that you were treating Hansol like that just because he was a yokai.”

Seungcheol breathes out, wisps of white spilling from his lips. “I get that. It makes sense that you felt that way.” His eyes lighten with mischief suddenly, his smile taking on a teasing edge. “Especially considering the fact you’re in love with him, too.”

The world grinds to a halt. You stumble, taken aback by Seungcheol’s words. “I’m sorry, what?”

Nothing else gets to be said about the matter, though, because a small child goes zooming past you right at that moment, brushing against your side. And then, half a millisecond later, a fat clump of snow hits you square in the back.

The child continues running off, bubbling laughter fading into the market square. Slowly, very slowly, you spin on your heel and come face-to-face with the culprit.

Hansol’s still frozen in his throw position, one hand incriminatingly covered with snow. The moment he sees your face, his face breaks into a wide grin, that beautiful, big grin that shows the slight point of his yokai fangs. His eyes are glowing, alight with amusement and another, warmer emotion you can’t quite name.

He tilts his head to the side, eyeing the snow gently tumbling down your back. “Whoops?”

“Whoops?” you echo, breathing a laugh. You look at Seungcheol, as if saying Can you believe this guy? before turning back to Hansol, a handful of snow magically making its way into your hands. “Oh, you’re going to be saying a lot more than ‘Whoops’ in a minute.”

Hansol laughs, holding his hands up placatingly. “Now hold on a minute—”

Abruptly, his head jerks back, and he gets knocked off his center of balance by the force of the snowball you’d just lobbed at him.

You burst into laughter as Hansol, sitting on the ground and with snow in his hair and up his nose, wipes his eyes with a grin. “Now you’re just asking for it, I think.”

Still laughing, you snap your fingers, and several more balls of snow float up around you. “Oh, it’s on.”

Cut to several minutes later, and somehow, the snowball fight between the two of you has devolved into a village-wide thing, children slipping and sliding in the snow alongside their parents as Seungcheol yells at his team to close ranks and you yell at yours to focus their sights on Hansol. The icy air stings your cheeks, and at some point it begins to snow again, hard, blurring your sight, but the whole thing still continues, the square filled with the laughter of the villagers.

And throughout it all, Hansol manages to find your gaze no matter where he is, gold eyes seeking your gold magic, and the beautiful sound of his laughter leaves you breathless every time.

───────────── ‘✽, 

All things considered, perhaps it’s totally expected that you end up falling for Hansol.

You don’t get to truly mull over Seungcheol’s last words until much later, when you and Hansol have both changed out of your sopping wet clothes and are sitting curled up together on the sofa, both of you blinking sleepily at the fire you’ve lit in the fireplace.

The snowball fight ended incredibly amiably, with everyone agreeing that Seungcheol’s team had obliterated everyone else’s, despite the lack of magic users in his group. You’d helped some of the villagers dust themselves off, and used magic to dry off the people who had gotten the most wet. Soonyoung, inexplicably, looked like he’d been dunked five times in a swimming pool, rather than emerging victorious from a snowball fight.

Finishing with Soonyoung, you’d looked back, and of course—Hansol was playing with the children, again, as if he had endless reserves of energy to spare. But in between letting the kids climb his legs and play with  his swishing tail, he was chatting with the rest of the villagers, helping them tidy away their things.

It made you smile. 

And then Hansol had looked back at you, as if sensing your gaze, and his entire face had lit up, brighter than the brightest summer’s day, and he’d quickly said goodbye to the villagers before coming bounding over to you, face so open and comfortable and warm and—

Yeah. You like him a lot. And you’re sure that he likes you a lot too.

Hansol yawns, big and wide and content, his tail flicking lazily as he rests on your shoulder. Outside, the snowfall has increased to a snowstorm, complete with howling winds and dark, looming clouds, but inside, your cottage is warm, and you have a sleepy yokai pressed against your side, and life is, admittedly, kind of perfect.

There’s just one thing, though.

You need to tell him.

Lost in thought, you shift around absentmindedly, and Hansol looks up questioningly at the movement. The warmth of your magic prickles softly in the air around you, and when he takes your hand, you can feel his own magic murmuring softly in tandem with your own. 

He continues to look at you, and then smiles, eyes glowing. Goodness, he really is so pretty.

“I like you,” you whisper, the words falling from your lips as if he’s enchanted you, bewitched you into saying how you truly feel for all to see. “I like you, Hansol.”

Hansol blinks, slow, cat-like. He lifts his head up, pulls away slightly from your shoulder so he can sit up and look at you properly. His eyes are shining, slitted pupils widening and rounding in adoration.

“That’s good,” he says. “Because I think you’re the prettiest person alive.”

It’s almost a direct copy of the first words he’d said to you, almost a lifetime ago, when he had been out of his mind with a fever, red-cheeked and hazy-eyed and fixated on the way you smelled like chrysanthemums. The memory makes you laugh, heart squeezing with fondness, and you reach forward to cup Hansol’s cheeks, smiling wider when his eyes flutter shut briefly and he leans trustingly into your touch.

“That’s funny,” you say. “Because I think you’re the prettiest person alive.”

Hansol’s eyes crinkle as he smiles, showing those yokai fangs that you adore so much. His ears twitch with happiness, light speckles of frost covering his cheeks as he blushes. He’s so pretty, and you love him so much.

Slowly, you inch closer until the tip of his nose brushes against yours. So close that you can count the snowflake-shaped freckles on his cheeks.

“You forgot to say it back, though,” you murmur. “Hansol, you didn’t say you like me back.”

Hansol breathes a soft laugh. “I thought it was obvious.” His smile widens, so enamoured that it warms your heart. “Y/N, I like you too. In fact, I think I’m in love with you.”

You beam. “You know what? I think I’m in love with you too.”

And then you lean forward, and Hansol leans in too, and your lips meet in the softest, sweetest kiss. He tastes like magic, like love, like soft snow that numbs your senses but leaves your heart alive and alight and oh, this is everything you never knew you needed and more.

Hansol’s silver-white hair is falling into his eyes when you pull away, his golden irises shining brightly through them like dazzling, gorgeous sunlight peeking through the translucent colours of snowfall. The sight makes you instantly lean in to kiss him again, dizzy with adoration because goodness, this happiness is for you. He looks like this because he loves you.

And you love him too.

fics tags: @jeonginssa @weird-bookworm @minhui896 @slytherinshua @haowrld @belladaises @moonlitskiiies @mirxzii @zozojella @kawennote09 @a-wandering-stay @abibliolife @doublasting @wonranghaeee @icyminghao @sweet-like-caramel @your-yxnnie @odxrilove @kyeomyun @crackedpumpkin @jeonride @kellesvt @eightlightstar @onlyyjeonghan @aaniag @starshuas @raevyng @isabellah29 @hrts4hanniehae @mcu-incorrect @dokyeomkyeom @suraandsugar @haodore @tulsa24 @melodicrabbit

[theglassofmiddleearth]

Imagine injured reader with the 141!

Camera Guy! au, female reader

Masterlist

Previous -

Imagine Reader! For whatever reason needs to get to the emergency department and they're overseas on deployment.

Reader! being completely calm, insisting they're fine. Soap was also calm, driving the rest of the squad in a large sedan. Gaz and Price are somewhat nervous, they both keep trying to look at you in the front mirror. (you're sitting in the passenger seat.) Ghost is silent, tapping his foot.

Reader! putting on music, saying they want to calm down. (It's really for Gaz and Price.)

‘You alright sweetheart?’ Kyle asks, his voice low and soothing.

‘Yeah I'm alright! Kinda hungry though, can we stop at McDonald's?’ Reader! blinks through the front mirror with hopeful eyes.

Ghost quickly shuts down her idea.

‘After you get to the emergency room I'll drive back to find you some nuggets but not a moment before.’

Reader! can almost hear the frown in his voice.

Imagine Reader! ends up having a fractured bone and not even realising it.

‘It just hurts a little when I touch it. It isn't particularly painful if I ignore it.’ She pouts, not liking being around so many people.

‘Can I go home now sir?’ Reader! gives the nurse her best puppy eyes while the rest of the task force glares at him.

However the nurse ignores them all and just smiles down at her and says,

‘Sorry lovie you'll need to get an X ray and then see a doctor. For now, would you like some Panadol?’

Reader! shakes her head, not wanting to have it in her system just in case.

‘We coulda done this at the base if we were at home.’ Ghost grumbles, his foot tapping rhythmically. It was the only tell that displayed his nervousness.

‘I’m fine LT!’ Reader! sighs. She throws a used tissue at him that he catches. Ghost looks at it and then makes a grimace and underarms it to Kyle who catches it gracefully and throws it into the bin.

‘So you guys are in the military?’ The nurse makes small talk, not intimidated by the men.

‘Something like that!’ Reader! smiles, knowing that they can't divulge sensitive information.

The nurse nods slowly,

‘Have you guys?...’

‘She has a higher body count than you think.’ Soap chirps up mischievously.

‘Johnny!’ Reader! protests, throwing her empty paper cup at him.

‘He doesn't mean sex.’ She quickly gives an explanation. (The nurse is now more concerned that she said this.)

‘Okay!’ He drags out. ‘Well, we’ll get you into a wheelchair and then you can get X-rayed!’ he rushes through the rest of his sentence and then walks away briskly.

‘I think he's nice!’ Reader! is completely oblivious to the fact that he was interested in her but is now terrified.

‘I think he likes you Johnny!’ Reader! grins, to everyone's confusion.

‘Sure love, do you want nuggets and fries or a burger?’ Ghost quickly changes the conversation.

‘Hmm can I have my usual?’ She fiddles with the hem of her clothing.

‘Aite. Anyone else?’ He grunts.

‘I’ll come with ye. Want some fresh fries.’ Soap stands, patting your shoulder.

Reader! grins and asks, ‘Do you want me to get his number for you?’ in a completely genuine tone.

‘No! No.. that's okay!.’ Johnny blurts out, eyes wide. The rest of the guys are stifling giggles.

‘Aw okay, he’ll be disappointed though I'm sure.’ Reader! mumbles.

Reader! ends up getting out in a small cast and is told to not lift anything heavy and rest for two weeks. Price and Ghost end up taking care of her while Soap and Kyle end up cooking. When everyone is flown back home, the team makes sure you don't have to do more than your usual work load. (You still have to do the bare minimum. You're an independent girl!)

-----

A/N: Cooked this bas boy up while I was waiting on the Emergency Department 😂✋

[thefrontmanscockwarmer]

I need more of In-Ho smut….(same dynamic between them as your latest one🫣) but maybe where y/n is upset because she’s having to go to the island with him to control the games and is bratty..:)

Player 001 x reader [SMUT]

Note: bratty! Reader

“Honey!” In Ho called through the house.

“What?”

“Where my one black shirt?” He asked, digging through his drawers.

“Which one?” You ask, walking into the bedroom. “The compression one? Or the more loose-fitting one”

“Uhh, both?” He answered, you stared at him as he pulled a black shirt out. “Nevermind… are you ready? Packed?”

“No.” You say curtly, as you watched him shove his shirt in his suitcase. He peered up at you as he pushed it closed.

“I told you to get your stuff together, 2 weeks ago.” He sighs exasperated.

“And I told you I wasn’t going.” You say putting your hands on your hips. He grabs your waist, pulling you towards him and looking at you lovingly.

“I told you, you had no choice” he smiles. “It’s my job”

“Well I’m actively telling you, I want no part in those games nor witnessing the massacre of innocent lives that’ll occur”

“Oh but darling, you won’t be near it. Not even close to it.”

“Giant screen”

“I’ll have it moved.”

“Pink guards.”

“I’ll change their uniforms”

“The mask.”

“Can’t do that one”

“Then I’m not going.” You say cocking your head back, challenging him to argue.

“Pack your things. Now.” He lowers his voice. The sternness in it taking you by surprise, yet igniting a flame within you.

“No” you say. He looks at you, his eyes riddled with frustration.

“Stop being so bratty, (Y/n). Now, go pack you things” he released your waist, you shook your head.

“I hate you” you mutter. His eyes widen at your words. His mouth opened slightly as his tongue searched his teeth, thinking of how he was going to handle you.

In an instant, he grabbed you and roughly threw you on the bed. Yanking your shorts down as you whine in protest.

“You hate me” he said, as he pulled his cock from his pants, stroking himself a few times. “So, I’ll fuck you like you hate me, and go to work.” He says breathlessly. You stared up at him. Your mouth slightly watering. “Actually, you probably don’t even wanna look at me, since you hate me so much” he flipped you, grabbing your hips to arch you in line with his cock.

He roughly inserted a finger, swirling it inside of you, pressing your g-spot seeking more arousal than the already evident dripping down your thigh.

In Ho's hands grasped your hips, his fingers digging deep into your skin as he pulled you back against him. You felt his warm breath on the back of your neck, sending shivers down your spine. The air was thick with tension as he positioned himself behind you, his body heat radiating against your skin.

He didn't waste any time, pushing himself into you with a swift motion. The sudden invasion sent a wave of pleasure through your body, and you felt yourself arching back against him. His thrusts were rough and intense, each one sending a shockwave of sensation through you. You could feel him pounding against you, his movements becoming more frantic as he approached his climax.

The room around you melted away, leaving only the sound of heavy breathing and the sensation of In Ho's body crashing against yours. His hands were unyielding on your hips, holding you in place as he drove into you again and again. Your own cries were lost in the cacophony of sounds filling the air.

As In Ho's movements became more urgent, his grip on your hips tightened. You could feel his muscles tensing beneath his skin, coiling like a spring ready to snap. And then, suddenly, he groaned and pushed deep into you, holding himself there as he came.

You felt his hot cum filling you, a sensation that was both overwhelming and exhilarating. It was as if every nerve ending in your body had been set aflame, leaving you gasping for breath. As he pulled out of you, In Ho's hands remained on your hips, holding you in place.

For a moment, there was silence – just the sound of ragged breathing and the beat of two hearts pounding in unison. Then In Ho's voice cut through the stillness, low and husky with satisfaction.

"Now that you're pumped full of cum and obviously done hating me," he said roughly, "will you get your shit together so we can leave?"

The question was abrupt, but it was clear that In Ho wasn't going to wait around for an answer – he expected action. He stepped back from you, releasing his grip on your hips as if daring you to move forward now that he'd claimed what he wanted from your body.

You nodded, a smile plastered on your face as you rushed through the room to gather all the things you’d need before your 2 week trip to the island. You followed him outside to the car that was going to drive you to the ferry. Happily pattering behind him he turned and stopped you,

“And please, (y/n), for the love of all things pink, please drop the fucking attitude” he told you before planting a soft kiss on your forehead and grabbing your hand, “let’s go to work”

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