#and the identity of someone near human

[victarin]

done for the weekly prompt in Dca enjoyers discord :) sun and moon watching The Last Unicorn (their first movie outside the pizzaplex) bc i kept thinking abt it

[shmorp-mcdurgen]

Can we have some more information about vampire Cesar? I'm just curious about him and I absolutely love the concept of vampires in general

Oh boy, I’m not sure I have a whole lot about him considering. This au of the au is still pretty new, but I can talk about him, sure

Like the main au, he still had an encounter with alt mark when he was like. 18, but became a vampire at around 22 I’m thinking, when he already moved to Bythorne.

He’s a bit more neat and put together than human Cesar, and he’s not really malicious. He only takes blood from people who are genuinely just. Shit people. I’m also thinking that he can kinda become a bat, though mainly just the wings.

[deadsetobsessions]

Sea Cryptic! Danny Pt.9

[Pt.1] [Pt.2] [Pt.3] [Pt.4] [Pt.5] [Pt.6] [Pt.7] [Pt.8] [Pt.10]

"Fan-sea meeting you here. You must be Phantom!"

Danny slowly turned around, grin blinding. "I shore am. Who's asking?"

Danny knew exactly who was asking. Bludhaven's vigilante, Nightwing. If the giant dark blue bird emblazoned on the front of his suit didn't give it away, the friendly demeanor and the puns would have. Plus, now that Danny's figured out who Tim was, the rest were pretty simple dots to be connected.

"Hi. I'm Nightwing. Thanks for saving Batman."

"I am Phantom. You are welcome. Please lecture him on the necessity of keeping the waters clean."

"Uh, I think he knows," Nightwing grinned. “So, why are you cleaning Gotham’s bay? I heard the Atlantic is nice this time of year.”

“Exactly. This?” Danny flapped a gloved hand around them, specifically at the moldy docks and the paint scraped board. “This is not nice. If it were nice, I wouldn’t need to be cleaning it. Look at that paint! It’s flaking off into the water! Does Gotham not have proper boat maintainance? That’s dangerous for the waters and seafarers!”

“Woah, you know a lot about boats,” Nightwing commented, crossing his arms and leaning back. What the hero didn’t know was that he knew more about boats than Danny did, as Danny’s hyper fixation was more focused on space ships and Dick had education à la maison de Bruce Wayne which usually meant an absurd amount of information for someone who doesn’t actually use boats as a regular mode of transportation.

“Rust! Rust is very much a thing!” Danny ranted, using his ice to scoop up water and using it like a makeshift filter. “It weakens bonds! It’s a tetanus hazard! And oh, don’t even get me started on how you people mutated the ocean life!”

“Mutated ocean life? I’m pretty sure we hadn’t. It’s just a little weird, right?”

Without another word, Danny dove into the weird ecosystem that was the Gotham bay. He came back holding a wriggling green thing the size of a worm.

“Do you know what this is?” Danny demanded. The thing flopped around on his gloved hands.

“A sea monkey?”

“They’re brine shrimp. Brine. Shrimp. Do you know what regular brine shrimp look like???” Danny shoved the thing at Nightwing, who took a step back.

“Not like that?” He replied, a quizzical look on his face.

“No, not like that! What in the ancients is this?!” Danny waved the weird sea brine that had started glowing faintly, like Danny’s natural ectoplasm glow. “Far be it from me of all people to judge evolution but this was all man made!” Danny gently tossed the brine shrimp back into the bay. “Brine shrimp is staple food for the ocean! You’ve got weird brine shrimp? You’ve got weird fish! Why is it impossible for this place to, for even one day, refrain from dumping hazardous chemicals or dead bodies in the water?”

“Ooookay, how about we take a breather?” Nightwing quickly glanced around, trying to find something to change the subject, feeling oddly guilty at the earnest expression on the kid’s face. “Uh, I was actually wondering if you’d swing by the waters near Blüd?”

Danny crossed his arms. “I clean the waters as a past time because you humans don’t know how to keep it clean. I am not a personal, on call, seakeeper.”

“Batman will pay you for your time,” Dick offered. Danny straightened. Amity didn’t actually cost that much to live well, but Gotham was a whole other ball park. The rent might be dirt cheap for a city, but the special pricey little add ons such as gas masks and space level insulation on top of the sky high insurance policies were draining what’s left of his half dead soul. As they say, Danny was a city dweller first and Phantom second.

“How much, when, and I won’t fish up the bodies unless he pays me extra.”

“Four thousand base pay, extra one hundred per identity, fifty for bodies with no shades, and on the weekends.”

Danny straightened as his mother’s steel spine, Jazz’s whip sharp wit, and his own craftiness made their appearance as he bargained. “Five thousand. Rate agreed, but I can only do every other weekends and I’ll have to call out some days.”

“Okay.” Nightwing rocked back on his heels with an affable smile. It’s Bruce’s money and it’s going towards his probable future baby brother, after all, even if said baby brother is a dead immortal Atlantis founder. Or something.

Danny groaned. “You are supposed to bargain back. But I’ll take it.”

“Great! Who do we got tonight?” Nightwing looked down at the plastic/burlap wrapped person Danny dragged onto the shores a bit ago.

“The lake kept the body cold, so it should be preserved adequately if you want to examine him,” Danny tilted his head to the side, the flames of his hair tilting with him. “He said his name is Gorganzo Bean.”

“Really?”

“Yes. It’s a nickname he got for eating a whole can of beans straight.”

“Yeah, that’ll do it. Any more details?”

“Sure.”

When Danny reached to take the money from Nightwing, he found that the hero had tightened his grip on it.

Danny pointedly dropped his gaze from Nightwing’s face to the money.

“Wait. I- I heard from a source that you could possibly smell souls.”

Danny yanked the cash out of Nightwing’s hand and shoved it into his shoulder. If that didn’t confirm Nightwing’s identity, he doesn’t know what would other than the guy telling Danny who he was. “You’ve been speaking with Danny. Yes, I can.”

“Can you tell what’s wrong with my brother?” Nightwing blurted out.

Danny stared at him, his legs flickering in and out to his tail form. “…Other than dressing in probably leather or Kevlar and going out to beat criminals with his bare hands?”

Nightwing opened and closed his mouth. He coughed awkwardly. “Other than that. Why is he- um, stinky? Soul-wise,” Nightwing added, clearly humoring the tinny little voice at the base of his temples that was an annoyed Red Hood saying that he showered. “He showers often. And is definitely not stinky body odor wise.”

“I am not a doctor. Well, not now anyways,” Danny said, thinking about his future PhD. “But he’s got a… soul infection. His natural immunity- all souls have a natural immunity against regular outside influences- is working hard to repel the equivalence of chronic bronchitis.”

“There’s… no way to help him?”

“I never said that,” Danny tilted his head. “Bring your brother to meet Danny. He could probably handle it.”

“The civilian?”

“His parents hunted my kind, once. He helped protect me and my people. If anyone knows how to cure it, it would be him.”

Phantom could not afford to deal with this right now, because Danny had a presentation tomorrow that he needed to finish.

“Oh. Thank you, Phantom.” Nightwing said, looking relieved and pensive. Danny decided right then and there that was Future Danny’s problem.

Danny nodded distractedly, blinking out.

He blinked back in. Nightwing jerked back. “Do you happen to have any examples of corrupt politicians in Gotham?”

Nightwing blinked before laughing. “It’d probably be easier to name the ones that aren’t.”

“Good to know. Thank you!”

——

A couple of days later, Tim and two older guys ambushed him in the quad.

“Hi! I’m Dick! This is my brother Jason! We’re Tim’s older brothers!”

Danny looked down at his hand- trapped in an overexcited handshake- and back up at Dick.

Whatever expression he was making, it must have been ha-fucking-larious because Tim and Jason burst out into laughter. Danny cursed his past self.

“Yeah?” Danny blinked. Wait. His smile grew and he made a face like he just realized something. “Oh. So you’re Nightwing?”

The laughter cut off.

“Haha, what?”

“Phantom told me you’d be coming but I, uh, thought you’d be in gear. Not… straight up telling me who you are?”

“You’re in regular contact with Phantom?” Tim demanded.

“Yeah, dude. After you- wait, you’re Red Robin!” Danny whispered.

“Oh shit, B’s gonna be pissed,” Jason drawled, looking mildly amused and hiding an extremely cautious, possibly lethal (if it weren’t for the fact that Danny’s pretty much impossible to kill with regular weapons) reaction.

“You’re one to talk. I’d smell your soul no matter what your disguise was.”

“…About that.”

——

You might be wondering: wouldn’t Dick know not to show up in civvies?

Yes. Except for the fact that Tim stalked Danny for weeks after he met Phantom and Danny hadn’t hung out with (himself) at all. They think Danny doesn’t know Phantom well enough to even talk to him much, despite being from the same town because: they’re all big city kids and have never experienced small town solidarity and, more importantly, gossip grapevines + they have no idea these two are the same people.

A deleted scene:

“When did you have time to talk to Phantom?” Tim demanded. Jason nudged Tim. That had hinted too much at what Tim was doing on his off hours and stalking was usually frowned upon.

“When I wasn’t talking to you, duh.”

[thevoidstaredback]

Okay, so, crisis averted. Both of them, really. Red Robin had not asked or attempted to get any more of Danny's drink and the World Ending Crisis was less World Ending and more World Threatening. Either way, no one is hyped up in lethal amounts of caffeine and the world is in no more pieces than it had been before.

That brings attention to a new problem, though. It's uniquely Danny's problem and Constantine and Zatanna and Deadman won't stop laughing at him. He's also pretty sure that Raven is laughing at him in the privacy of her mind, so that's making him feel worse.

The problem is that every single hero that had been at the meeting a week ago that was not a part of the JLD has been overly concerned about him.

So what if he half died when he was fourteen and therefore will never look over either fourteen or eighteen? So what if he consumes enough caffeine to kill an elephant within a few minutes? What is he gonna do, die? That's not a real threat as long as he only fights as Phantom.

Ignoring the fact that he can, in fact, get hurt to the point of near death as Phantom. It's not like anyone knows that, though! Besides, ghosts run on god rules. They can't die, only fade when forgotten. People aren't likely to forget about most ghosts, though, even if they can't remember their names.

He's not gonna share that, though. Let Batman keep his contingency that won't work because the only contingency that will work for Phantom is the one he made himself. Tried and tested! He's marked it off of his Bingo Card.

Anyway. Heros and their kids/proteges have been trying to track him down for the entire week. He can't risk even leaving the House of Mysteries because the Supers are all probably listening out for him and they can't hear him through magic. It sucks. He just wants to go get a cup of coffee as Danny. The second he leaves, though, the Supers will be on him like bloodhounds. He'd leave as Danny, but the rest of the JLD don't know what he looks like as Danny and he'd like to keep it that way, thank you very much. Being stuck as Phantom was going to start causing issues to his human half if he doesn't get to leave soon.

Should he risk it? Is coffee that won't kill him really worth risking the Supers finding out his civilian identity? Sure, they wouldn't tell anyone, but he didn't like the idea of someone being able to pick him out of a crowd when all he wanted to do was blend in. It's why he avoided Gotham and Bludhaven, actually, but that's both self explanatory and another story for another time.

"You're still here?" Zatanna sat on the couch beside him. "You're normally gone by now. You can't not be tired of us yet."

He sighed and sunk down into the couch slightly. "Believe me, I'm tired of being stuck here, but I can't leave. I can't leave as a human because you guys don't know what I look like and, no offense, but I'd like to keep it that way. I can't leave as I am now because Superman will be on my ass quicker than I can blink!" He whined this time, "I just want a cup of coffee."

"What about your special brew?" Raven asked, coming into the room.

"I want to drink coffee as a human. That stuff will kill me if I drink it as a human."

"At least you know your limits."

"That sounded like a dig at someone, Z."

"It was."

"Why don't you just go out under a protection spell?" Raven offered, "We could cast one over you and you could leave. Superman can't hear through magic, so he won't be able to tell. Neither will Superboy."

Danny thought for a second. "You're a genius, Raven! Has anyone ever told you that?"

"A few times," she blushed.

"Well, it needs to be said more!"

Zatanna laughed. "Alright, kid, let's get you outside before you drive yourself crazy."

Practically vibrating in place, Danny waited for the protection spell to settle over him. The second it did, he was out the door and wandering the streets of whatever city the House of Mysteries decided to drop him as Danny instead of Phantom.

"Who are you," was not the question or voice he wanted to hear the second he stepped into the open as himself.

"Danny," he squeaked out through his absolute panic. He didn't dare turn around.

The sound of fabric moving minutely clues him in to the second person behind him. What the hell were these two doing out? It's the middle of the day and there's no attacks going on anywhere in Gotham!

"Where did you come from?" Robin asked.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit! This was really bad! Why did the House drop him *here* of all places? Does it *want* him to die again? It was very painful the first time, thank you very much! "Illinois?"

"Was that a question or an answer?" Why is Red Robin here now?!

"An-an answer?"

"Ah, you guys are scaring the little guy!" That was Nightwing. They're surrounding him! Why is Nightwing here? This is Gotham, not Bludhaven. "Give him some room to breathe."

They did not, in fact, give him room to breathe. Maybe coming outside was a bad idea. If he gets out of this no more dead than he already was, he was going to move to the middle of nowhere and become a hermit. Smallville is a town in the middle of nowhere, right? He'll retire as Phantom and move to Smallville until the people get suspicious and burn him as a witch-!

Maybe moving to a big city would be a better idea. Or locking himself in the basement of the House of Mysteries. Yeah, yeah that's a good idea.

"-even listening?"

Oh shit. They were still talking to him! Now is not the time to panic! "Gottagobye!" And then he was running.

Good job not panicking, Danny.

Part 1 Part 3

[sincerelyrki]

you don’t look like an angel

being heavens highest angel, lee heeseung was completely and utterly fucked. he’d made the one mistake that could cost him both his wings and his immortality- he had summoned a demon into the most sacred paradise on earth. it was only his luck that it wasn’t just a regular impure demon; no, it was worse. he had summoned a succubus.

paring : virgin!angel!heeseung x succubus!fem!reader

warnings + genre : smut. slightly dubcon (heeseung didn’t know what was happening). corruption. religious guilt. begging. unsafe sex. marking. oral (m). riding. slight degradation. begging. profanity. blood. cumming untouched. demons hiss and purr.

wc : 5.9

a/n : idk what this is but i had to read the entire thing out loud to make sure it sounded right and i think it’s safe to say that this might be one of my favourite works i’ve ever written so far? something about heeseung and corruption…anyways, as always i’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts 🤞

written perm taglist : @vousty @ilololoveyou @moon0fthenight

Heeseung was just finishing his final prayer when it happened, his hands still pressed together at the base of his forehead. Earlier in the day he’d heard about a new prayer, one that was said to be extremely popular with the rising youth. 

It was spoken in another language, one far too complex for Heeseung to understand. But the words were simple, easy to pronounce and fairly similar to a chant he’d heard his mother pray with. 

Due to its simplicity, it allowed more room for error. One small mistake could change the outcome of any prayer spoken through an angel's lips. Their loving prayers were far more powerful than any other beings, their direct connection with the lord strengthening their pleas. 

With the ability to heal an unknown disease with a singular sentence, an angel's voice was the most sought-after remedy.

But as the old saying says, with great power comes great responsibility. 

With a voice as strong as theirs it was bound to be heard. Whether it was heard from the lord or other angels, someone was always listening. 

What Heeseung failed to realize was that the language of his new prayer was the language of the unknown. No living human understood the language, their own interpretations being nowhere near the direct translation.

But like all other sayings, their false words made their way through the clouds. The wind was listening, the echoes of their translations meeting the ears of a few young angels.

They weren’t of the right age to learn about the wind's voice yet, so they did what they thought they had to. They spread the word, the listening angels hearing their prayers. 

It was a cruel game of telephone, the words jumbling together until it was forced to make its own poem. Heeseung just happened to be at the receiving end of one of one.

For a room that was well above the atmosphere, it was oddly humid. The freshwater flowers that thrived in his usual cold room were now completely withered. Their once vibrant petals were now dyed a terrific red, the hue straining their pure white appearance.

Heeseung watched with the utmost confusion as they contorted within seconds, the vapour diffusing into a puddle of red acid that gathered alongside the vase, identical red streams dripping from each individual stamen.

His hand moved on its own, his fingers a hairstring away from the mysterious liquid before a loud voice echoed from the other side of the room. Heeseung’s main light went out, his bedside lamp coming to life on its own. 

“You shouldn’t touch that.” Heeseung jumped in place, his wings springing free from their confinement in his attempt to defend himself. 

He was light on his feet when he spun around, unfortunately for him- he saw nothing but darkness on the other side of his room. Your figure blending right into the background. 

He grew panicked when his hand was met with air when he reached back for his bow, the situation drawing down fast on him. Not only was he stuck in a room with a mysterious creature but he was left defenseless in said room with the mysterious creature.

What were the chances that you were another angel?

“Are you looking for this?” The angel's jaw fell in shock when his missing bow dropped by his feet, the riser snapped clean in half. His heart sank at the sight, pain creeping across his chest. 

His bow was crafted with the finest materials, the limbs harvested from their most sacred willow tree’s aged bark- embezzled with an intricate carving for each of his greatest accomplishments. 

In an instant Heeseung grew nervous, he knew he wasn’t in the presence of an angel. Each angel was sworn by an oath, and the roots of the tree webbed across their every bone, making it impossible for them to harm such a sacred weapon. 

His jaw remained open when you finally revealed yourself, you were the envisionment of sin.

Yep, you definitely aren’t an angel.

Your breasts were held up with the tiniest fabric he’d ever seen, nothing but two small triangles hanging from your shoulders that were attached with a thin knot. The article did nothing to hide your body, everything except for your nipples out for him to see. 

His cheeks grew inflamed by an invisible force pulling his eyes down to follow the curvature of your exposed waist.  A slightly larger triangle sat hugging your hips, the right side of your hips was exposed, the fabric cascading in a diagonal slit towards your left thigh. It took him several seconds after staring at your legs to realize what he was doing. He slapped his right hand over his eyes, lips opening to recite his prayers.

Heeseung felt ashamed of his reaction, as angels weren’t supposed to observe nudity in a sexual manner. He’d never viewed another person's body in the way he did yours and he’d spent many hours aiding the other angels bathe during their sicknesses- this was a whole new territory that he’d never dared to think about. 

You, of course, noticing his ashamed prayers couldn’t help but take offence. Why would he beg for forgiveness after he called out to you? It wasn’t god who he should be worshiping, it should be you. 

“You can’t help your reaction, my body is supposed to make you feel like that.” You humoured him anyways knowing that none of this ashamed shit that he was feeling would matter in an hour. 

Heeseung vigorously shook his head in denial, your words not helping his inner turmoil at all. You were wrong, you had to be. He was supposed to be an angel and angels don’t act upon sin. 

He’d spent his entire childhood learning about each sin, spending hours of his life drowning in the promise of devotion. 

He had been loyal since the day he was born, temptations weren’t even a thought in his head anymore. He was the living epitome of purity. How could he honour his mother if he gave into the word of the demon? 

Heeseung kept his eyes on you whilst he completed his prayers, his final words building a sanctuary around his untainted blood. The blood of a virgin. 

You started your advance with small steps towards him, your bare feet making no sound as you neared him. The closer you got the more potent the blood’s smell became, iron heavy in the air as your body heat drew closer. 

You stopped halfway across the room, your mouth was practically watering by the time you were able to make out the small pool of red, the pretty flowers only making it seem more appetizing. 

“Do angels ever crave blood the way we do?” You knew they didn’t, it was against their entire existence but some sick side of you wanted nothing more than to see the angel’s reaction to your question.

Pretty boys were your weakness and Heeseung was so fucking gorgeous. You grew jealous of your future self, loathing that she got to touch him- to fuck him the way you’re imagining it right now. You couldn’t wait to watch him shake beneath you, begging to whoever was listening for you to stop. 

Heeseung’s mouth dropped in horror, you craved blood? He looked at you like you were insane for your completely valid needs like he couldn’t fathom craving something so inhumane. He wasn’t completely sure if you meant human or animal blood but after seeing the way you looked at him he’d say had a pretty lucky guess. 

“Because I've never craved it more.” Chills went down Heeseung’s spine while he tried reading through your words, were you a vampire who smelled him from Earth? He knew angels smelt the best to them. 

His questions answered themselves through the sudden wave of iron clashing with his sensitive nose. He looked over his shoulder towards the flowers that were now completely drenched. 

“Whose blood is this?” He was barely finding his voice before he forcefully stuttered his final question, his throat burning with a newfound emotion.

Your head cocked to the side while your lips pulled up into a side smirk, your pink tongue quickly coming out to wet them. It was almost an endearing sight, almost. 

Heeseung stumbled back with a small shriek when you suddenly appeared right in front of him, your chest pressing flesh against his for a few seconds too long. 

He watched the way you kept your eyes on him whilst reaching one of your fingers out towards the pool of blood, a gasp crawling up his throat when you brought your fingers to your lips.

You made a show of sticking your tongue out, trailing your finger from the bottom up before you stuck in between your lips. 

You let out a small hum of approval, the sweet taste of his blood tasting better than any you’ve tried before. You finally understood what your friends meant when they swore that a virgin’s blood tasted the best, however, they never got the pleasure of tasting it from an angel. 

“It’s your blood, who else’s would it be?” You watched in amusement as the angel’s face blanched, his wings twitching behind his back as he attempted to curl into himself. ‘Cute’, you hummed to yourself as you mentally took a shot at this moment. If there was one rule about angles that every species seemed to agree on was that angels have always been beautiful. But there was something about this specific one that felt so different. It could’ve been the fact that he was untouched, or it could’ve been the way his fear shone so obviously in his eyes that turned you on so fucking much. 

Typically angels smelled of a plethora of flowers, gardens growing from their untainted hands. Usually, the scent bothered you, your body being much more used to the fruit-like and sensual scents that the demons claimed as their own. 

Many angels assumed that demons would smell of burnt flesh and plied wood and sometimes they definitely weren’t wrong. But most smelled like you- after all, you needed to smell as good as you looked. No one wants to fuck someone who smells bad, even demons had class. 

“What are you?” Heeseung questioned, his wings still pulled behind his back. Even though he knew you weren’t an angel, he still had his doubts. Demon wasn't even a word in his vocabulary, it was one of the few words that were forbidden to be spoken in heaven. Sure, you had wings and the same flawless skin he sported but your wings… they couldn’t be any more different. 

Your wings were almost double his size and they appeared much more feathered, looking as if they’d been plucked from the most gracious birds and dipped into the darkest ink, black and red sunsets carving up each intricate row of feathers. 

He just never expected you to become his beautiful devastation. 

You ignored his question and continued observing the way his body reacted to you. His smell quickly became addictive, your adulterated temperament wearing thin the longer he lingered in your senses. 

“What do you want me to be?” You purred out in your most seductive tone. While waiting for his response you took it upon yourself to move closer to him, your steps much less hesitant than earlier. 

There was no denying that the man before you was truly captivating but there was something else that caught your attention much faster. His pearlescent wings were practically glowing in the dark, a layer of pale blue surrounding the smoothed edges. Which, after thinking about it for a few seconds didn’t make very much sense to you since the angels tended to constantly stay in the light. 

“An angel?” You made a sound of disgust at his disrespectful words, you? An angel? Honestly, you’d rather be a troll which says a lot considering their reputation. 

“I’ll be your angel if it helps?” Heeseung tried hiding his very evident fluster by attempting to turn away from your vision but when he tried to move, he couldn’t. 

You giggled out loud watching the panic spread throughout his face, your mind fogging with all the ways you could use him whilst he’s in this state. There was something so satisfying about having complete control over another person's body, whether it’s through your mind or actions. 

“Aw, what happened?” You cooed, acting dumb has always been one of your strong forts. It came in useful at times like this, the ability to feign innocence with a singular pout. 

Heeseung, unfortunately for him, fell right into your trap. He was naive enough to believe that you had nothing to do with his state, which is way beyond you. It would’ve been obvious to anyone else that you were controlling him but perhaps angels thought differently.

“I can’t move.” Heeseung nearly screamed when your hand pressed on the spot where his heart lay beneath his chest, his heart thundering louder than before. It was only racing because he was scared, there’s no way your touch was affecting him. Angels don't feel lust. 

Lust. The definition is described as a “disordered desire for inordinate enjoyment of pleasure.” Heeseung lived by the word of the lord. He’d spent his entire life bending backwards to live by the commandments that were shoved down his throat, his lungs choking against the words bubbling to come out. 

It wasn’t hard to drown into the mold that’s been made to best fit him but it was nearly impossible to escape. He thought he was fine in this confined space, lonely sure, but free of sin. He was accepted by the lord and that’s all that he’s ever wanted.

But he was made for sin because he was made for you. 

“Then I guess I'll have to take care of you. I can’t leave you here all alone, not when you’re this vulnerable.” Poison disguised as worry spilled from your lips and slipped through Heeseung’s mind. 

Your words drew more than reassurance through Heeseung, it drew guilt. Guilt for doubting your intentions, for believing that you could’ve been here to harm him. He felt so wronged for you, you must’ve been so angry at him. But still, you offered your help. Maybe he’d slip you into his nightly prayers, thanking the lord for gracing him with your presence. 

All the thoughts frozen when your hand touched the edge of his wing, his body electrified with a foreign feeling. No one else has ever touched his wings before, it was an action that was far too intimate to allow anyone else to try. 

He knew his wings were sensitive but he never knew they were this bad. His wing twitched under your touch, pushing itself closer to your hand. 

You watched in amazement as his wings awoke from their state, your touch bringing them to life. You never controlled his wings, the action far too cruel for even a demon to pull. 

You tested the touch again, pressing your palm flat against the parts that were attached to his spine. They fluttered again, a brighter light emitting from the edges, oh. His wings don’t always glow, they won’t glow when they’re being stimulated.

Your wing's nerves were linked to the ones that spread across your pelvis and down. You’d witnessed many demons talking about using it as a pleasurable advantage. Succubus was seen as a sex symbol, so obviously their experience matched the description. 

But you’d never gotten the chance to test the theory for yourself. Now that you have you weren’t sure if you’ll ever be able to stop. 

Without Heeseung’s knowledge, his cock jumped with each touch. It wasn’t that he was aroused, just overstimulated. He loud out a quiet whine, one that stopped as soon as it came. To you, he was so fucking pathetic. Whining after getting touched twice? But just as pathetic as he was, he was hypnotic. 

“Sh, I’m helping you in the best way I know.” You shushed his whines before you moved to stand in front of him, pressing your chest against his. Heeseung wasn’t sure what you were doing when you did that but then something surprising happened.

Your chest began letting out these small vibrations. Your eyes stared up into his whole you enhanced the force, your purrs reaching your throat. 

He was so pretty standing all pliant, unmoving as you controlled his body. The purrs came out of nowhere, the sudden affection catching you off guard. But you soon appreciated it, Heeseung deserved only the best.

It was at this moment that you decided that you wanted to keep him. There was no way in heaven or hell that you’d let anyone take him away from you, you’d let the world burn before a singular finger touched his- your- skin. From this second on he belonged to you, wholly and completely. 

You’d mark him after mating, your gums were already aching at the thought. As a demon, you could mate however many times you wanted. But you could only have one mate, your bite would solidify the union. 

But for now, you just returned your hands back to his wings. And as expected, he choked out another whimper, his mouth gaping open at the liquid heat gathering in his stomach. 

“Do you like it when I touch you like this?” Heeseung, thinking he was still sin-free, nodded his head. He adored it. 

You let out a cat-ish grin, your pointed canines poking from beneath your top lip. Heeseung knew of only two species who had pointed canines but only one had retractable ones. 

You were a demon. 

It didn’t scare him as much as he thought it would, but that doesn’t mean that he won’t say an extra prayer in the morning. 

And like always, you could tell that he had found out. “I’m a succubus, you summoned me.” Through Heeseung’s cloud of pleasure, he couldn’t make himself question you. Yeah sure, he totally summoned you. He’d believe anything you said as long as you keep making him feel like this.

His head flew back when your hand touched a specific spot on his wings, the only bare spot.

For both angels and demons alike there was a singular spot on the top corner of the right wing. It was bare of any feather, it was strictly skin. There was a small string of skin that held the strongest nerve in your entire body. 

The nerve was used for connections, it was what allowed them to converse with the wind. But it wasn’t until now that you both learned that it was much more because the second you touched it, you felt him.

You felt his every emotion, the warmth in his stomach, and the pounding of your cunt. 

It all happened too fast, gone before you could relish in it. But if you allowed it for now, there would be many other opportunities for you to test out the connection. 

After all, Heeseung would become yours for eternity. 

Your mouth widened in amazement as Heeseung came untouched, his mouth opening with zero sound coming out. You weren’t even sure if he knew what was happening, it made it all more enjoyable for you. 

“You came untouched?” It was a rhetorical question but still, Heeseung had no idea what you were talking about. All he knew was that there was a euphoric feeling rushing throughout his body, he’d never felt more alive than at this moment. 

All he wanted was to feel it again and again, uncaring about what you tabled it as. He didn’t know he could feel this good without sinning, he honestly couldn’t wait to tell his friends.

If only you could hear his thoughts, you’d bathe in them forever. It was cute how Heeseung thought that he was still sin-free, not knowing that he’d committed one of the worst ones yet.

The feeling faded away after a few more seconds, his mind clearing as his consciousness rushed back. He was now much more aware than before and finally noticed a new detail.

You noticed the way he was trying to look down and decided to be a bit kinder, allowing his head to move on its own. Heeseung didn’t seem to notice that he now had full control of his neck, all he saw was the giant wet patch on his bottoms. 

It was also now when he noticed he was crying, his tears making smaller marks around his wetness. 

“What is-“ He was cut off by your hand grabbing his chin, pulling his confused eyes away from his soiled pants. 

“I’ll make you a deal, hm?” Heeseung nodded through his crocodile tears, his puffy cheeks stained with his fallen tears. You gave Heeseung a small smile, making a point to soften your eyes to appear more trusting. 

“I’ll help you out if you promise to… I can’t say it, I know you’ll say no.” You knew how to play your cards with a man who was desperate enough to do anything. 

“Please, I’ll do anything!” Heeseung didn’t know a thing about being manipulated. It was a concept that didn’t exist in his world. Or maybe it did but was disguised as something much less sinister. 

“Do you promise?” A hiss. All it took for Heeseung to doubt himself once again was the small hiss that made its way through your throat. It sounded far less human than he was comfortable with, but he trusted you, did he not? 

The lord swore forgiveness to everyone who’s wronged him, why wouldn’t Heeseung do the same? 

“Anything, please I promise! J- just help me.” An angel's promise. It was the only thing you needed to know that you finally had him. 

The only other thing that every species knew about angels, was that they could never break a promise. It was the greatest sin of all, a betrayal that wasn’t worth forgiving. No one, not even the lord, forgave promises. It was the highest honour an angel could give, their promise. 

Heeseung knew that he couldn’t go back and undo what had been done, to take back the words that were spoken in a sense of urgency. And he didn’t really know if he wanted to, not when he was finally able to move his arms.

“Sit on the bed.” Heeseung’s legs moved under your command, the promise allowing you to control his every move. What he didn’t know was that you didn’t need his word to control him, it was part of your demon abilities. 

He had no choice but to comply with what you said, he wasn’t labelled heaven's highest angel for no reason. 

You weren’t completely sure where to start because usually you just did whatever you wanted, uncaring about the other person. All the other people who’d summoned you had already been asleep when you arrived and stayed asleep the entire time. Their mortal minds were far too weak to handle the pheromones releasing from your body, even the other supernatural species couldn’t handle it. 

“Mate me.” It was easier to get straight to the point, there was no need for any foreplay at this stage. The connection that you’d made with him was enough to prepare you for him, it was in your dna. 

Heeseung on the other hand, didn’t take it as well. He denied it right away, his head practically exploding at your words. Mate you? The lord would never forgive him, he’d be breaking his promise to him. 

Promise after promise, it was all Heeseung was good for. He’d promised his life away, his celibacy. He’d be banned from heaven, shunned of his wings. He’s already made the grave mistake of bringing you here, but this? This would cost him everything, his entire life. 

But still, you made him feel alive. You made him realize that he’d never felt anything before- not even joy. He’d been a cast of a person who he was forced to be, who even was he anyway?

A follower. And that’s all he’ll ever be for the rest of his life. He’s never hated anymore more than how much he hates you for making him come to terms with his life. 

It was his prayers that did this, why would the lord give you him if it wasn’t supposed to happen? You were supposed to be here, the lord approved of you. Why else would you come? It had to be what was happening, Heeseung was finally allowed a pass to be the person he’d locked away many lifetimes ago. 

But it stung, deep. His guilt came out in a wail of tears, angry fists banging against the bed beside him. His tormented thoughts roared with life, he was finally letting go. 

Fuck the commandments, fuck his promises, and he only hoped the lord would let him fuck you. 

And so with a wave of fresh tears and forgotten fears, he did what you said. He stood from his spot, your mind open and free of the handles you had strapped to his wrists. 

He’d pulled his pants down in one yank, his underwear pulling down with them. He wasn’t sure what he was doing, but he was alive. alive. Lee Heeseung was finally alive. 

The air smelt different, curtsey to your pheromones. Your hands felt rougher when they met his now bare chest, the bed feeling softer as his wings cushioned his fall. 

His head was clear when he felt your hand grab his cock, his heart void of guilt when he felt your mouth wrap around him.

But as the circle goes, it comes back around. 

Knowing that other men enjoyed thinking that they’re too big for you, you fake choked on him. Your eyes filled with fake tears as you pretended to gasp for air. Your chest heaved at an uncontrollable speed, fingers numbing at the thought of making him feel good.

Sex came naturally to Heeseung, which was something the two of you didn’t expect. His hands pulled your head back toward where he needed you the most, his thumb pulling your lips apart before he pushed you down to suction around him.

“God- you feel so fucking good.” He doesn’t even recognize himself anymore, his mind too full with the feeling of you to realize that he’d spoken the lord's name in vain. 

He wasn’t just betraying himself, he was giving up heaven. He'd give it away a million times more if it meant that he’d spent his life with you. Your name was the only one rushing from his mouth, the only one getting worshiped as your tongue wrapped around his bulbous tip. 

You used your tongue to trace circles around the small slit at the top of his cock, collecting everything he was giving to you. He tasted so sweet, nothing like anything you’ve tasted before. 

He didn’t warn you before filling your mouth, his amateur thrusts being overshadowed by your much more experienced lick.

You’d pulled away from him after holding him in your mouth, waiting to feel him soften before pulling him off. Heeseung’s head tilted to the side in confusion when you opened your mouth, sticking out your tongue. 

He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be seeing- oh…

You felt a surge of confidence rushes through your body at the feeling of him hardening against your hands. “Already? you’re so needy.” 

You rose to a stand, grabbing his hands to pull him to stand instead. All it took was a snap of fingers for your clothes to be gone, leaving you completely nude. 

Heeseung felt like every moment of his life had led up to this, you were his final destination. Without him noticing, he whispered one final prayer. Right when he went to recite the trinitarian formula, he noticed.  

Guilt was unforgiving but so was hesitation. He hesitated to give in earlier, but now? 

“Are you ready?” Heeseung didn’t recognize his voice anymore, a much deeper one coming out. His hands moved on their own when he pulled your legs around his waist, pushing his hips forward until his cock pressed against your lips. 

You nodded once, pushing your legs further apart as you waited for him to make the move. He looked down at you cunt in appreciation, the lord really did take his time creating you. It’s too bad that his favourite creation was going to ruin it.

Heeseung wrapped his hand around his base before giving an experimental squeeze. Heeseung had never touched himself before today, having no idea what was supposed to feel good. 

He ignored his embarrassing inexperience and used his other hand to open you up for him. His mouth watered at the sight of your bare in front of him, you looked so welcoming. 

He tried not to stare for too long because he knew that if he did he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from using his mouth first. But he’d much rather finish it all off by licking you clean, drinking everything you have to offer. 

He tapped the head of his cock against you, watching from under his eyebrows at how you reacted. From the way your hips pushed up, he knew exactly where to touch you. 

He kept his head pressed against you as he pushed down, stopping once he reached your entrance. This was the moment that would change his entire life, he was never going to be the same way he was before. 

And when he finally pushed in, his head fell forward with a loud moan. The blood of the virgin became the blood of the demon, he was no longer considered an angel in the lord's eyes. 

Your hands grabbed his biceps as he pushed in deep, his cock hitting places you’ve never felt before.  He sped up, his hips slamming against yours over and over as he grew into a routine. 

You obviously liked the way he was moving if your moans meant anything. 

“Bring me to heaven.” You managed to plead through your now real choked gasps. Your head was filled with explosions of colours, real pleasure rushing through your blood. His big cock felt too good pushing against your gummy walls, each curve of him fitting perfectly in your crevices. He was made for you. 

Heeseung sucked in a harsh breath, a teasing smile growing on his opened mouth. His eyes were now open, staring into your own as he ravished your body for what it was. 

“But you’re a demon, and we’re already here…” He let out a small grunt at his harder thrust, his eyes closing once again. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d reached this specific spot in your body, but he was certain that once he found it again he wouldn’t let it go. 

“Not that heaven-” your smile matched his as your body burned with the same flame, your impurities mixing with his. You shakily raised one of your hands up towards his face, your fingers wrapped around his jaw as you forced his face close to yours. 

His eyes opened once again, his irises now completely black as he let himself fall into the pit of pleasure. “Your heaven” Your back arched with a moan while your legs tightened around his waist.

Heeseung swore he was in love. With you, and the feeling of you. Nothing could turn him back now. He pulled your legs over his shoulder, his chest pushing away from yours as he pushed all his weight into his legs and hips. 

He pressed kiss after kiss against your ankles, biting down to create indents across your calves. He knew this angle hit deeper into you because finally, he felt that spot and and over.

Both your volumes rose into near screams when you both reached your peaks. Without thinking twice Heeseunf pressed your knees flat to your chest, his neck stretching out to bite against yours. 

Your blood filled his mouth 

Angels too sealed the mating process with a bite, but it was different. The magic was stored in each individual tooth. The pockets of their poison were located in their mamelons. And so when the angel bites into their mate, the pockets open into small needles. Three sharp needles accompanied each tooth, it was the only part of the tooth that got pushed through the skin. 

Heeseung wasn’t lying when he mentioned not craving blood, but now? His arms shook when had to pull himself away from you, the desire to drink from his new mate stronger than anything. “Thank god-“ He didn’t know what he was thanking anyone for, but he needed something to fall back on. It just happened to be the roots that caught him. 

Your broken moans were drowned out by your returning purrs, your eyes white as they rolled into the back of your head. Holy fucking shit, Heeseung marked you first?

Without allowing Heeseung to pull out you flipped him over, his back flat against the bed while you sat flush against him. He looked up through tired eyes, his mind coming back to normal as he softened inside of you. 

“Don’t thank god, he had nothing to do with this.” You growled at the angel before you released more pheromones. They seemed to do their job as he was hard again within seconds. 

You felt him throb inside of you before you rose the tiniest bit, dropping down right away.  Heeseung’s hands gripped your ass, helping your waist move forward and back with each raise and fall. 

His hips buckled to meet yours, loud slaps echoing across the room as you sunk into him over and over. Heeseung forced his head up enough to look at where the two of you were connected and god, the sight didn’t fail. 

There was a thick ring of cum formed around his base, sticky strings connecting the two of you with every new raise. He’d almost come on the spot once again, his body way more sensitive than yours due to his inexperience. 

You saw the way his face scrunched up and automatically knew that he was trying not to cum. You used your mental hold on him to remove his hands from you and pinned them by his head. 

His eyes were wide when they met yours again. He felt his heart stutter at the glare on your face. Has he done something wrong? Is he not pleasing you correctly? 

“Don’t keep anything away from me, give it all to me.” Your hips momentarily stopped, only his tip remaining in as you stared down at him. 

“Breed me.” Your quiet whisper caused an eruption of pleasure to burst through his chest. He had you lying back on your back in seconds, his instincts putting you into the mating press. 

“Don’t start what you can’t end.” He didn’t say more before he pushed into you once again. He leaned his head down to meet yours, his lips pulling your bottom one between his teeth.

He gently tugged at it once before he forced his tongue between your lips, your mouth tasting of his earlier release. “You don’t look like an angel,” He ignored the harsh look you threw at him, giving you a small smile before he pressed his lips against your pulse point. 

He breathed in a deep inhale, his body welcoming your new scent, one that was mixed with his. He bit the skin twice, the second much harder than the first before he soothed the wound with his tongue. 

He trailed small kisses up your neck, all the day until he reached your ear. He pulled your earlobe between his teeth before placing a gentle kiss against it. “But you definitely taste like one.”

[sundrop-writes]

The Way You Miss Me

Fred Weasley x Fem!Reader

I’m not trying to say I don’t wanna stay, I just know how this story ends.

Use my body against me - and all of our history.

I hate the way you miss me. 

Summary:

Fred broke up with you. He made it clear that he was going to have a new life when he opened his shop, and he didn't need you to be a part of it. You being stuck on him was just another joke in a long line of pranks that he pulled.

And life kept on laughing at you when your fear of crippling heights was triggered by a potentially life ending mission the Order put together that had you dangling hundreds of feet over London, held up only by Fred's strength and determination.

So what does it mean when the two of you land, and he's the only thing that can stop your shaking panic? What does it mean when he's looking at you with nothing but love in his eyes, holding you tight like a lover would?

Fred Weasley x Fem!Reader. Exes to Lovers. Emotional Angst and Smut. Set during Deathly Hallows.

Word Count: 18,500

Harry Potter Masterlist | AO3 Link

Full warnings list and author's notes below the cut.

Warnings: this is equal parts angst fic and smut fic; the reader is a cis woman - uses she/her pronouns and has a vagina; there is no mention of the reader's looks, race, hair colour, etc. in any way; this fic does use Y/N (and L/N as in Last Name); this takes place mostly during the beginning of Deathly Hallows, so there are mentions of dark topics, like death, and the cult-like following that Voldemort has developed; this is Exes to Lovers - Fred and the reader dated for a while during their time at Hogwarts and then broke up; (there is flashbacks in this fic to times during Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix); the reader is half-blood - she has one parent who is a muggle and lives in a muggle city and the other parent who is loyal to death eaters (and there is a later mention of the reader's mother being killed due to anti-muggle sentiment as Voldemort becomes more powerful); there is no mention of what Hogwarts house the reader is in; the reader has a crippling fear of heights (which is a large part of the plot for this fic); mentions of nausea and vomiting (as a fear response) (no one actually throws up during the course of the fic); the reader experiences actual life-threatening danger while on a broom - she nearly falls to her death, but Fred catches her; Fred does struggle to hold the reader's body weight, so it doesn't imply that he has super-human strength or that the reader is particularly petite (I wanted his reaction to be realistic for someone of any body weight); for part of the fic, Fred is disguised as Harry using Polyjuice Potion (but there's no confusion about his identity because the reader knows he took the potion); the reader experiences a panic attack due to the life threatening fall, and Fred helps her calm down; mentions of blood and semi-graphic descriptions of George's canon injury (his ear being blasted off); there is general emotional angst from the characters being in close proximity to danger, death, and life threatening situations; Fred calls the reader 'darling' and 'love' and 'sweets' and 'pretty girl' (in sexual and non-sexual contexts).

For the actual smut section: this is not their first time together as a couple and neither of the characters are meant to be virgins; there is undertones of sub/dom dynamics - Fred is a teasing soft dom and the reader is submissive to him (and there is mentions of the reader experiencing what could be considered subspace) (but there isn't any specifically laid out roles - it's more so one person enjoying taking care of the other, especially after experiencing the emotional turmoil of a near death experience together); there is Daddy kink in this (not until a bit later into the smut section, but it just came to me and I realized it suited Fred so well) Fred calls himself Daddy and the reader is way into it; praise kink - Fred calls the reader 'good girl' specifically because he knows she likes it; lots of dirty talk (Fred has a filthy mouth); oral sex - Fred receiving (she blows him as a thank you for saving her life) (also slight ball worship); mentions of the reader 'choking' on his cock (but there is no major breathplay or breath restriction); slight spit kink (it's a messy blowjob and he loves it); teasing and brief orgasm denial (toward both parties); hair pulling (toward both parties) - not with the intention of causing pain, but to direction someone's attention and to show appreciation and affection to the person; thigh riding - she humps herself on Fred's thigh while she is still wearing clothes; penis in vagina sex; creampie kink (I'm not gonna say breeding kink, because there's no mention of procreation or getting someone pregnant, even in theory, but they are both very turned on by the idea of him cumming inside of her); this could be protected sex OR unprotected sex - he cums inside of her raw but we can all pretend that they used a magical pregnancy prevention method if you want even though it's not mentioned in the fic; cockwarming (reader doesn't let Fred pull out for a while after he cums); I think that is finally it for this fic.

A/N: This fic is titled after a song by All Time Low, which I highly recommend listening to paired with this fic. This is actually part of an idea I had for a much longer multi-chaptered Fred x Reader fic, but I kept thinking about this one moment in the fic and how much I wanted to write it - so I did. And I decided that it would make a good oneshot. And I am actually insanely proud of myself for managing to capture the same emotions in under 20k that I originally thought would take me like 50k or 100k to properly communicate. I think this is fantastic, and it's one of the best things I have written in a while - and I really hope you guys enjoy it! Especially if you like angsty, emotional, exes to lovers fics.

...

Very often, you wondered when life had become so complicated. 

It seemed that just yesterday, you were a bright-eyed young girl, dancing around a beautifully magical winter ball with the love of your life on your arm - and now, you were a confused woman who was terrified of how your life would end up because of a dark wizard and his cultist followers trying to overtake your world. 

These days you didn’t even have that lover to comfort you through all of the confusion and dread that clouded the world around you. 

You and Fred used to be perfect. That’s what a lot of people would have called the two of you - the ‘perfect’ couple. 

Your story was something straight from a romance novel - the two of you were best friends when you were young, and that friendship quickly blossomed into affection. That affection naturally led into a sweet romance. When you were with him, your life was full of moments where you felt like a beautiful, flowery, desirable protagonist because of how he treated you. Your life used to be full of laughter, full of smiles, full of romantic gestures. 

You and Fred were in the same year at Hogwarts, so naturally you knew each other. You weren’t really friends - at least not at first. You knew of each other, especially because you had some classes together. 

But you didn’t truly meet Fred Weasley until more than halfway into your first year of classes together. You had the misfortune of accidentally running into a prank that was meant for a Slytherin Prefect - someone who had taken one too many house points off Gryffindor for the twins’ liking. And after being doused with red and gold paint and tripping over a toy rubber snake that had been charmed to hiss realistically when you got near it - you were reasonably frightened and crying, and it left you the laughing stalk of the courtyard - someone to be pointed at and mocked by everyone. 

Fred hadn’t meant for it to be you. With the way he looked at you after the incident - full of guilt while everyone else pointed at you and laughed, imitating your frightening screams and attempts to jump away from the fake snake - it didn’t take you long to figure out the culprits behind it. And it didn’t take you much longer after that to plan your revenge. (Especially because, as much as Fred looked guilty, he didn’t simply come forward and apologise. Too afraid to look like a weak moron in the eyes of his brother and his other Gryffindor friends. So - on with your revenge, it was.) 

You figured that all good pranksters should be due to be a victim sometimes, too. If the twins couldn’t laugh when they were on the receiving end, then they should stop playing pranks. 

So you came up with something that you considered masterful. During your trip home for Christmas, back to Muggle London where your mother lived, you asked her to take you to a shop to buy a couple of greeting cards for your classmates. The ones that sing Christmas carols loudly when the hinge of the card is opened. Something clever, and not needing any magic at all. 

And when you returned to Hogwarts after the break, you found a moment where the twins were distracted, and you stole their book bags in order to pull off your epic, amazing prank. You taped those singing greeters into the back of their Potions textbooks - a class that you shared with them, of course, so that you could enjoy the show. And then you waited. 

You had trouble containing your laughter when Professor Snape escalated from annoyed to downright scalding angry as his class was filled with the quiet robotic hum of ‘Jingle Bells’, occasionally overlapped by ‘Santa Claus Is Coming To Town’. It was made even better by the fact that both of the twins clearly knew that the music was coming from somewhere in their surrounding area, but they had no clue what the exact source was or how to stop it. And with every snivelled demand of ‘just open your books and get to work’ - the music only started up again. 

By the time they had been sentenced to detention for disturbing the class, you were nearly breathless and your ribs were aching from trying to hold back your laughter. Which, of course, meant that Fred easily spotted you out of everyone else - who looked equally confused or annoyed with the low hum of the music. And as soon as the class ended, he brought his textbook to you, thanked you for the worthy prank, and asked you how to stop it. He looked entirely amused and impressed when you pulled the tiny device out of the back, and proceeded to ask you a million questions about it. 

You weren’t surprised when the next week, the annoying singing greeter ended up inside the teacher’s copy of the textbook on McGonagall’s desk. 

From that moment on, his crush on you steeped inside of him like a fine tea, developing from an innocent adolescent attraction to full-blown, ‘drive you crazy’, ‘I would do anything for you’, love. It was lucky for him that you easily felt the same way. 

Through the years of being by his side, becoming his best friend, pulling pranks together and trying desperately to get him to study - it was difficult not to fall for Fred Weasley. 

You had been overjoyed when Fred invited you to the Quidditch World Cup. Even though you weren’t the biggest fan of Quidditch (and Fred knew that). The only reason you had started attending the games at Hogwarts was because he joined the team. And you only bothered to attend the games he played in, so your bias could be spotted from a mile away. But in his letter, with the ticket to the World Cup slotted into the envelope, he told you that it was ‘the game of the century’ and you ‘simply couldn’t miss it’. 

You wouldn’t miss out on spending time with him, so you eagerly agreed to go. 

This left you with only one glaring problem. 

You had a crippling fear of heights. 

It was one of the reasons that you never really gotten into Quidditch in the first place. You had absolutely no interest in playing, and even less interest in watching if Fred wasn’t involved. The idea of even flying on a broom being something that made you nauseated and shaky just from thinking about it. 

The mandatory first year flying lesson was the only class at Hogwarts that you ever failed, but Madame Hooch took pity on you when she saw you crying and fisting the grass after only getting your broom about five inches off the ground. So she passed you anyway - just barely. 

When you set out to watch Fred’s games at Hogwarts, you usually had to take some kind of anti-nausea tonic beforehand to make sure that you didn’t puke all over everyone else in the stands. And you usually couldn’t even make it up to your seat to watch unless one of your good friends held your hand. But you were alright once the actual game started, because watching Fred doing something he loved was a good distraction from just how high up you were. 

Telling Fred about your intense fear had been one of the most honest, vulnerable moments that you ever had with him. Your friendship was usually all pranks and laughter, which you loved. 

But one summer day, when you were hanging out with the Weasleys, they wouldn’t stop nagging you to join one of their family Quidditch matches because they needed an extra player to make the teams even. And after the twins’ endless teasing, saying that you were ‘afraid to lose’ or that you would be ‘too distracted by their daring good looks’ in order to play properly, you broke down crying and stormed off into the woods, because you were too anxious to admit the real reason that you couldn’t play.  

Fred was the one who found you off in the trees behind the Burrow, tears still streaming down your face, and asked you what he had done to so greatly upset you. He had been terrified at the idea of making you upset, so hurt that he had been the one to make you cry. And after he found out about your fear, he didn’t laugh or mock you for it or play it off as something stupid like you thought would be so typical of him. No - instead, he wrapped a comforting arm around your shoulders and he told you that he was genuinely sorry. And he promised that he would never invite you to play Quidditch again. 

When you had accepted the invitation to The World Cup, you had forgotten how much your fear of heights played into watching Quidditch as well. The giant, impossibly tall temporary Quidditch stadium that had been set up for the event had been looming over you all day, but you didn’t want to quit and go home because of some silly little fear. 

You wanted to spend the time with your friends. You wanted to enjoy the event because the people you loved most were having fun there. So you pressed on, ignoring the inevitable, letting yourself get caught up in the pregame revelry. You walked around the seemingly endless campgrounds with Fred and George, in awe of all the decorations and the different wizards from all over the world, showing off things from their homes. You chatted and charmed along with them as they collected bets before the game. You let Fred paint your face with large, ugly shamrocks because even though you didn’t entirely care about the teams or fully know them, you were rooting for Ireland to win simply because he was. 

But the unavoidable nature of your problem became very apparent as Arthur guided everyone to your seats, and you climbed up more stairs, and more stairs, and more stairs - and the higher up you got, the more you found yourself shaking, especially when you looked down to the ground and saw that the people down there looked like little more than bugs. You hated it when your mind, naturally, went to what would happen to you if you stumbled over the railing and fell down all that way. You would splat on the ground, squashed like a bug. You would die within seconds. 

You held on tighter to Fred’s hand - he would have said that he had grabbed your hand in the first place so that he wouldn’t lose you among the bustling crowd, and not simply as an excuse to be closer to you. You didn’t even realise how badly you were trembling in his touch as you looked over the railing (still a few flights down from your final seats) with intense apprehension. 

“You alright?” Fred asked you simply. 

“‘m fine.” You mumbled out the lie, giving him a large, forced smile - hoping that he would believe it. 

You knew that if you told him how you were feeling, he would insist on escorting you back to the tent. Perhaps he would even insist on staying with you so that you wouldn’t have to be alone. So he might miss out on a once in a lifetime Quidditch game all because you had a bit of petty anxiety from being so high up. 

So you tried your best to push down all your feelings and ignore them, even if it was making you shake and making your stomach churn. When you got to the top, peering over the edge of the railing of the very, very high up seats that Arthur had gotten as a thanks for his work on helping to organise the whole thing (apparently, the higher up the better to actually see the game), you felt an incredible sense of dizziness, and began swaying on your feet. 

This was so much higher up than the Quidditch stands at Hogwarts. 

Naturally, Fred noticed. It wasn’t something he would easily admit, or even something he did consciously, but he always kept an eye on you. Partially due to a knack for admiring your beauty, that adolescent love-struck feeling always making him more prone to staring at you. But it was also partially due to the fact that he felt a need to watch over you. Whether it be as a friend or as something else, he always wanted you to be safe, and happy. 

And right now, your sickly, terrified face stood out like a sore thumb among the crowd of excited, cheering fans.  

“Y/N,” 

He called out your name in a serious tone that was so uncharacteristic of Fred, something that snapped your attention from staring anxiously at the ground toward him immediately. He cemented your attention on him when he put a hand on top of your tight, tense knuckles on the railing. His touch was warm, as always, and oddly grounding, removing even just a slight bit of that dizzying anxiety that you were feeling. 

“Do you wanna go back down? I can bring you back to the tent,” 

Of course. Just as you had predicted. 

“No.” You easily answered, shaking your head furiously, biting your lip. “I-” 

You didn’t want him missing out on such an important event because of you, but more importantly: 

“I - I don’t want to be afraid.” You heaved out, your chest tight with anxiety. “It’s stupid - people do stuff like this all the time, right? I shouldn’t be afraid-” 

“It’s not stupid.” He said firmly, quickly squashing down any self-belittling that you might be tempted to do. “You can’t control how you feel.” 

Coming from him, it sounded like the most firm truth ever. 

“If you want to stay, I’ll be right here with you.” Fred added on, giving you a warm, reassuring grin. “But just let me know if you want to go back down, and I’ll walk with you, alright?” 

You nodded, hating that even though his words gave you that nip of courage you needed, you were still pulsing with a dull panic. The undeniable reaction that fear caused in your body. 

Fred hated seeing you shaking, hated the deep frown that cut through your beautiful features - so what he did next was instinctive. He took his hand off yours and reached that arm, the one closest to you, around your back, planting his hand firmly on the railing at the other side of your waist. This trapped you in a close-knit hold beside him, something that made you feel instantly more secure - even if it was just from the warmth of him at your side. 

“I’m not gonna let you fall, yeah?” He said quietly, leaning closer into your ear to be heard - the warmth of the reassurance causing gentle tingles down your spine. “I would never let anything happen to you, darling.” 

Between the intense loving safety that he words wrapped you in with the sweet nickname he added on, and the firm cradle of his arm around your back, you knew that you would have no problem sticking it out for the game. But your brain was still trying to cope, your anxiety so incredibly nagging, and you couldn’t help it when your eyes drifted back to focus on the ant-like people on the ground, becoming shaking and nauseous all too soon from staring downward. 

“Down look down.” Fred scolded you gently, using his other hand to grab your chin, forcing your gaze back up - it ended with your eyes locked with his, admiring the way the breeze blew his too-long ginger hair into his eyes. “Just look at me, alright? It’s gonna be far worse if you keep starin’ down there. Just look at me, love.” 

“Just look at you.” You repeated in a quiet mumble, already so utterly locked in the powerful orbit of his gaze, feeling like it was near impossible to look away from him. 

You felt his forehead brush against yours before you realised just how close he had gotten. But you couldn’t bring yourself to mind. 

And ultimately, feeling the stands shaking beneath your feet as a particularly hard gust of wind came through and having another swell of anxiety rush through you was what drove you to closing the gap, sealing your lips on his in your first kiss. Fred made you brave, almost stupidly so, and you hoped that you had finally used that bravery for something good in capturing his lips. (Rather than the stupid mischief that the two of you usually got up to.) 

Fred smiled into the kiss and George cheered loudly behind him - you thought it was due to the game starting, and when you pulled back sharply to look around for the players, you were met with nearly all eyes in the group on you, clearly gawking at the fact that you and Fred had kissed. 

This included Ginny smirking almost evilly before she said: 

“Finally. I thought the two of you were never gonna get on with it.” 

This left you squirming with a mild embarrassment, and definitely not thinking about how high up you were anymore. 

Looking back, the memory was painful - not sweet or fond as it had once been to you. 

But it wasn’t nearly as painful as the memory of the day you and Fred had broken up. 

He had asked you to be his girlfriend officially only a few days after the World Cup. He wanted you to know what that kiss meant to him, and he wanted the privilege of more kisses from you, on top of the ‘honour’ (his exact wording) of going back to Hogwarts with you on his arm as his girlfriend, making all the other boys in your year ‘pathetically jealous’. Of course, it was everything you wanted, he was everything you wanted, so you said yes. 

The two of you dated for nearly two full happy years - right through your sixth year and into your seventh, until in April of your seventh year, shortly after Fred’s birthday, when everything came crashing down around you. 

It wasn’t unusual of Fred to pull you away after a class - his hand in yours, igniting fluttery giggles from your lungs as he pulled you down the corridors to whatever secret little spot he had picked out. Even with Umbridge at Hogwarts, implementing more rules and cracking down on ‘fraternisation’ between students, you and Fred still found ways to sneak off to have your private little moments together. 

So when Fred took you off to one of those private corners on chilly spring afternoon, you assumed that this was no different. You fell into the natural rhythm of pinning him against a wall, sealing your lips firmly to his in a kiss and waiting for his hand to sneak up your skirt while his tongue ventured into your mouth. You were shocked when this time, he didn’t kiss you back. He was limp and unreceptive against you, and that was when you realised that you had read the tone of the interaction very wrong - even if him dragging you away by the hand always led to making out in a quiet corner, and more than a bit of groping. 

You pulled back, looking at him with confusion and disappointment plainly across your face. 

“What’s wrong, Freddie?” You asked, well in the habit of using the nickname for him. 

Fred’s expression was filled with sullen dread, and it made your stomach twist. It truly made you fearful of whatever he was going to say next, and you took a step back from him, widening the gap between the two of you in the dusty, draughty old stairwell. You suddenly felt too cold, even with your uniform sweater and thick robes on, and wrapped your arms around yourself to compensate. 

“There’s something I have to tell you.” He announced quietly, continuing to lean on the wall that you had pressed him up against, staring at the floor, his eyes unwilling to meet you. 

What? Had he cheated on you? Did he want to break up? 

What terrible thing could possibly make this bright, funny joker so damn sad and serious? 

“What is it?” You asked, filling with dread, your throat tightening up more by the second. 

“George and I have decided that it’s about time we take our leave.” Fred announced, his eyes only flickering to you for a moment, looking for some kind of reaction. You were only further confused, and waited for him to explain. “The lease for the shop in Diagon Alley finally came through, and-” 

“Well that’s great news, Fred.” You said, trying to sound happy and upbeat beyond the tension that was still tight in your chest. You had no clue why he was so downtrodden - the joke shop was his dream, and now that they had secured a location for it, that dream was coming true. 

He heaved a sigh, his eyes turning to gaze out a nearby window for a moment before he turned back to you. 

“It means we have to leave, darling.” He said sharply. 

Your insides became heavy. 

You knew it was a very Fred and George thing - so intent on not doing their exams, desperate to escape any further academics. You wanted to ask why they wouldn’t stay until the end of the school year, but you knew that you would get answers about how they didn’t need marks from exams that they were likely going to fail anyway to run a shop that they now owned. 

It was something founded on their own talents and ideas, and they didn’t need the approval of professors marking them wrong or right in order to do it. 

It was the life they had always dreamed of. And you were intensely proud of them for it. 

So why did you still have that overwhelming feeling of dread? 

“So - when are we leaving?” You asked, trying to sound confident and firm in your words even though you knew what was likely coming next. 

You felt intensely disappointed when the all too predictable outcome smashed you in the face. 

“You’re not coming with us.” Fred said quietly. 

“Why not?” You argued gently. 

You would drop everything and go with them - you felt far more emotional attachment to being with Fred than you did to finishing your year at Hogwarts. You knew that you could be a useful hand around the shop. Any venture helping Fred would be a worthy one to you. But staring you down were the calculating eyes of someone who had been telling you over the past years how much he didn’t want to disrupt your studies with his antics, because he thought you had a ‘brilliant mind’, and you were ‘so much smarter’ than him and George. 

He thought that you could actually pull some decent - no, brilliant grades on your NEWTs and truly make something of yourself. The shop was a big dream of his and George’s, but Fred knew that you were destined for something so much greater that truly challenged and fully utilised your brilliance. So he wasn’t going to let you be dragged down to mediocrity by him. 

Realising this, part of you still ached. Why was he so intent on leaving if it meant leaving you behind? 

“Please don’t be stupid-” Fred sighed, rolling his eyes. 

“Oh, so I’m stupid now?” You scoffed. 

He hadn’t meant to let the harsh word leave his lips - at least, he hadn’t meant it in such a harsh way. 

“Y/N-” Fred used your actual name, something he rarely did, but you barreled right over whatever he was going to say with your next words. 

You were hurting now, and you didn’t entirely care what he had to say. 

“If I’m so stupid, then why should I even bother to stay here and take my NEWTs?” You hissed, twisting around his accidental slip into something he had never meant. “Or am I too stupid to even work at a silly little joke shop with you?” 

Fred scowled deeply. It didn’t suit him. 

“Y/N, this ‘silly little joke shop’ has been my dream since I was five years old!” He barked, now taking your heat of the moment words and running away with them. “You don’t-” 

“I guess I was stupid enough to believe that I was part of that dream!” You cried out in return, cutting off his words once again. 

‘You are.’ He choked down the words. ‘But I can’t bear to bring you down just because I want to be with you. I could never be so selfish.’ 

“I-” He choked on whatever he was going to say, swallowing it down. “I can’t do this right now.” 

He moved to storm off completely, hoping to speak with you later when you both had calmed down, hoping to have a proper, happy goodbye with you before he and George actually left. 

But your next words made him freeze on the spot, and wiped away all of those hopes within him. 

“Fred Weasley, if you walk away, we’re done.” You said, now choking on tears. 

You were utterly insulted that he wouldn’t even fight for you - that he wouldn’t even promise that his heart would be waiting for you after you graduated. To you, it was a sure sign that he was saying that his shop was more important to him than you were. That you were just some stupid schoolgirl fling to him; that along with the shop, he wanted to move on to other women, to find someone that he actually wanted to marry. 

You had never been a part of the dream he had for his life - you had just been a passing fancy in his eye. 

For Fred, it was all too painful. This was the conversation he had been utterly dreading since he and George had decided to take their leave, and it was going far worse than he had planned in his head. He couldn’t face the pain - he couldn’t face hurting you. He couldn’t face missing you, even during a few short months apart before you did graduate. 

So he then did something so terribly stupid, looking to bomb the relationship wide open - hoping to end all of the pain before it even started. 

“Good.” He said, barely turning his head to even look over his shoulder at you. “Would’ve been a waste of parchment writing to you, anyway.” 

With those final, painful words, he stomped off down the stairs, leaving you to collapse against one of the nearby walls in a puddle of tears - for the first time in a long time, without Fred to muffle your sobs in a comforting hug. 

You hadn’t been there to watch him and George ride off on their brooms when they finally gave Umbridge everything she deserved - you had been locked in your dorm, sobbing into your pillow because of that horrible, relationship ending fight. You had only heard from other people later that they had left Hogwarts in a blaze of glory, and you were the only person who knew for certain where they had gone and what their plans were now. 

You hated to admit it - but you missed Fred Weasley. 

You tried your hardest to get over him. You threw yourself into your studies, and you did pass your NEWTs with some of the highest marks in your class. But then, any thought of what potential career you might take on was tossed aside when the world went into upheaval at the hands of Death Eaters. And unintentionally, you were right back at Fred’s side again. 

It was a dreadful thing - being forced to see your ex on such a frequent basis. 

The last time being just a few short days ago when he had come into the Apothecary that you worked at in Diagon Alley, looking for some ingredients for a new WWW product that he wanted to make a test batch of. You had still spent last Christmas with his family, at the nagging insistence of Molly. After your mother had turned up dead and your father was missing, and you had to face the fact that he had likely defected to the Death Eaters out of fear (and the stupidity of his ingrained ‘old ways’), you didn’t really have any other family to turn to, aside from the Weasleys. 

You saw Fred a lot more often than you should - more often than you wanted to, in fact. Because the more often you had to see him walk into your shop with a grin on his face and bear the small talk he would force you into before he finally put in his order, the more you ached. You wanted nothing more than to be able to get away - to go someplace far away that Fred would never find you, so that you could finally heal, could finally get over the way he had broken your heart. 

But the country, and likely the state of all Wizardkind, was in upheaval. So many lives were at risk, and you had your part to play. You had signed on to become a member of the Order the minute you turned seventeen, and you weren’t prepared to shirk that commitment now, just because of a bit of girlish heartbreak. 

It was the reason that you were standing in the now empty residence of Number Four, Privet Drive. You had been called upon last minute to replace Tonks on this particular mission, for reasons that everyone seemed tight lipped about. But you weren’t going to question it - you were just going to step up and do your duty so that Harry could be transported safely, and hopefully go on to defeat the Dark Lord once and for all. 

According to Mad-Eye Moody, it was all very straight forward. Six of the fourteen members of the group would take Polyjuice Potion to turn themselves into decoy versions of Harry, making for seven Harrys in total, and the other half of the group would pair off with a Harry each to be their escort. 

You weren’t a huge fan of the idea of Fred disguising himself as Harry, essentially putting a huge target on his back - but the plan had already been set in place. He had already agreed to it. There was no room for you to protest now. 

“We’re not a big fan of the idea either, mate.” George spoke up when Harry protested against the idea of people risking their lives by being disguised as him. 

“Yeah, imagine something went wrong, then we’d be stuck as a scrawny, specky git forever.” Fred added on with his usual humorous tone. 

You held back a laugh at this comment, and everyone in the room eyed you harshly as you choked on your own breath. Fred smirked, proud that after all this time, he could still draw a laugh out of you. 

Your sense of humour about the whole situation was soon stamped out when Mad-Eye mentioned brooms. The group would have to be flying because Harry couldn’t apparate or use any other common form of transport without the Ministry knowing. 

“Brooms?” You questioned, knowing that your tone sounded far too panicked. “We - we’re flying?” 

“Yes.” Mad-Eye snipped curtly in return. “What exactly about my explanation was unclear, Ms. L/N?” 

His sharp tone and his glare in your direction, along with his use of your surname, instantly transported you back you Defense Against the Darks Arts classes in your sixth year, when you had been intimidated by the man - even if, strangely enough, you hadn’t been taught by the same man who now stood before you. 

You swallowed tightly, a large lump forming in your throat already - an involuntary, wicked reaction overtaking your body because of your fear of heights. Fred looked at you with sad knowing in his eyes, and you didn’t notice when he clenched his fists tightly at his sides, resisting the urge to swaddle you in a comforting hold. 

“Nothing was unclear, just-” You stuttered, breathing in deeply, trying to calm yourself. “I don’t have much experience with flying, and-” 

“Weasley - er - Fred, has already informed me of that.” Mad-Eye said, correcting himself when he realised just how many ‘Weasleys’ were on this mission and how utterly confusing that would get. “He’s insisted on taking you due to your lack of experience. Is that all?” 

Obviously, you didn’t want to publicly admit to your fear. You couldn’t reveal it as the terrible weakness that it was, especially not when there were so many other worries at play. 

“Yes, it’s fine.” You said, nodding, trying to keep the conversation short and keep the attention off you. 

“Good. Now if we’re all done dawdling, we need to get to work.” 

It was downright strange seeing Fred transformed into Harry. 

Even complete with the dorky clothes and the glasses, you still easily spotted him out of the crowd of ‘specky gits’. Maybe it was the years of practice that you had telling him apart from George that made it so easy for you, but he was still so irritably Fred. The fact that he slid his wand into his back pocket - something you had warned him dozens of times would likely result in the wand crunching in half and breaking when he sat down (and annoyed you to the point of you snatching it out of his back pocket to save it, especially before he sat down). The way he reached up to scratch his nose, the smirk on his face when he kept glancing over at the other Harry you were sure had to be George. Especially with the way they were steadily side-eyeing each other, speaking volumes with their looks and having a silent conversation that nobody else knew of. 

The fact that his eyes kept flickering to you every few moments definitely helped you to pick him out of the crowd. Even though you were used to a gentle hazel gazing at you rather than that piercing blue, there was still a unique concern behind his eyes when he looked at you from beyond those spectacles - the same kind of gentle seriousness that you hadn’t really seen from him since he had held your shaking hand on the stairs of the stands on the day of The World Cup. 

Stupidly, it only really occurred to you how close you would have to be with Fred, tightly riding behind him on the back of his broom, when you went outside and he ushered you to climb onto the back of his broom behind him. It had been a little over a year since you had broken up with Fred, and since then, you had not touched him. 

Every greeting had been friendly, but from a distance. Even when he came into the Apothecary and laid his hand on the counter, you snaked out of the way in time to avoid his fingers so much as brushing by yours. You always laid his order on the counter for him to pick it up himself, so that his fingers wouldn’t accidentally brush against yours. You made sure never to have contact with him. And now, you were being forced to climb onto the back of his broom, to hold him tight. 

But you couldn’t protest. You couldn’t demand to switch partners now because of some petty angst you were harbouring about a break-up that had happened so long ago. (Would you call it angst, or stupid, longing, painful heartbreak?) You couldn’t complain - not when this was about transporting Harry safely. This was about something so much bigger. 

Sure, it wouldn’t be exactly the same as holding onto your Fred (not that he was yours anymore - you had to remember that). He was Harry-Fred right now, so he was much shorter and thinner, and you could easily pretend that he wasn’t Fred at all. Which is what you forced yourself to think about as you swung a shaking leg over the broom and climbed on, wrapping your arms around his waist, preparing for take-off. 

It was a bit harder to pretend that this wasn’t Fred when you caught the faintest whiff of his expensive cologne (something he had only started wearing once the shop took off, something you noticed on him for the first time when he came to visit you at the Apothecary). It was definitely still lingering on his skin, something that was so painfully Fred even while you stared at the back of Harry’s wild black hair. 

It pierced your heart a little bit more when he peered over his shoulder at you, striking you as so Fred with those somehow warm, caring blue eyes and gently asking: 

“Good?” 

To which you replied: 

“m fine.” 

The most terrible lie you had ever conjured - something that was soon covered up by Mad-Eye shouting some last minute instructions and waving everyone off. 

When Fred kicked off the ground, you were immediately met with the most sickening wave of nausea that you had ever experienced in your life. You got way too high up for your liking within seconds, the houses on the ground growing far too small in your view, and you couldn’t fight the urge to shut your eyes. 

Unfortunately, it only made you dizzier, but it calmed your nerves a slight bit. You didn’t even realise how tightly you were clutching onto Fred, an utter death grip around his waist, until you heard him let out a grunt of pain from his stomach muscles being strangled by your arms with your fingers digging into him like claws, holding on for dear life. 

“S-sorry.” You stuttered out, shivering from the pure fear of it all, rather than the cool breeze that was whipping at your face. “Sorry, sorry!” 

“I’m sorry!” Fred replied - it was still strange hearing him speak in Harry’s voice, and you were glad that it was temporary. “I should have told them you weren’t up to this mission, I-” 

“I’m fine!” You barked back, hating the idea that your fear would make you unfit for a mission. But in a sense, you knew it was true. You would have spit in the face of any Death Eater, but your fear of heights was so utterly crippling. “Fred, don’t you dare for a moment suggest-” 

“We’ve been breached!” You heard someone - Arthur’s voice, shouting from up ahead. 

Your eyes whipped open and suddenly, you were filled with an entirely different kind of fear. Smoky black clouds of Death Eaters whipped through the sky around you - somehow, they had discovered the plan. And now, they were targeting all of the fake Harrys, firing off curses in every direction, looking for the real one. 

They were targeting Fred. 

That was the only thing at the forefront of your mind - they were going to hurt Fred. 

“Y/N-?” 

“Just get us out of here!” You told him. “I’ll cover you!” 

You knew that you couldn’t close your eyes now. Of course you would step up to protect him. No matter if the two of you were lovers, friends, or something estranged - you still loved him in your heart, and you would protect him no matter what. 

You grabbed your wand out of your jacket and gripped it stiffly, firing a stunning curse at the first silver mask you saw, still tightly gripping onto Fred’s jacket with your other hand. He used both his hands on the broom, gripping tighter with his legs to steer better, years of Quidditch honed skill coming in handy. His ability to be calm and fly mindfully while Bludgers were flying at his head made him a lot calmer with multiple Death Eaters firing potentially deadly curses all around him. In the back of his mind, he thought that Wood would be proud. 

You were still shaking horribly, and a few of your spells didn’t land on the first try, but you kept trying. You centred yourself, remembering what you were doing, who you were here for. In your mind, it wasn’t about Harry, it was never about Harry - it was about Fred. It was because Fred had approached you about the last minute replacement, it was because Fred was the one on the broom in front of you, the one you would have died to protect. 

You didn’t see when someone Apparated in a thick cloud of black smoke behind you, and raised their wand in your direction, hitting you squarely in the back with a heavy jinx. It was the force of a brick wall smacking you, something that sent you and Fred tumbling end over end through the sky and sent you flying cleanly off the broom because you didn’t have the instinct to grip the wood with your thighs like he did. 

You let out a shrill scream as you felt yourself falling, your worst fear coming to life. 

Thankfully, Fred was quicker than gravity - quicker than death. 

He laser focused on you, and suddenly, everyone else was gone. All the supposed danger, all the Death Eaters - even other members of the Order who might have needed his help - they all vanished in his eyes. 

It was only you. 

He turned the broom into a deadly nose dive, racing down toward you, reaching with his hand out, and in seconds, while you were still hundreds of feet off the ground - he snatched you. He had your wrist gripped so tightly in his hand - slightly sweaty, already slipping. But he wouldn’t have let go of you if Lord Voldemort himself commanded it.  

He likely would have died with that tight grip still around your wrist in those moments if someone had hit him with the killing curse. 

He slowed the broom down, turning up out of the dive, intent to get you away from the fight, driving forward. Scarily, his arm muscles were already shaking from holding up all of your body weight. 

You stared up at him with tears of pure terror dancing in your eyes, and though he was wearing the mask of The Chosen One - in those moments, the terrified, caring, loving eyes of your Fred were staring right back at you. 

As much as you trusted him, you felt yourself slipping out of his grip, and more fear swelled inside of you. 

“Freddie, help me!” You screamed, shaking, flailing under his grip, trying to reach your other arm up to help as he struggled to hold onto you. “Freddie, please, I don’t wanna die!” 

“I’m not gonna let you die!” He replied, desperation gripping his throat. “Just - look at me. Don’t look down.” 

Of course, you were distinctly reminded of that day at The World Cup. And somehow, you felt the same sense of safety with him now that you did then - even if you didn’t have the railing or even the gravity of something under your feet. 

His muscles shook harder, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold onto you for much longer. 

He had to pull you up. 

“I’ve got you.” Fred huffed, straining with the effort. “I’ve got you-” 

He tried pulling you up, but his muscles shook harder in protest, and he let out a harsh, murderous scream of frustration. And then he did the only thing that he could think to do. He gripped onto you tighter, and he used his legs and his other hand to do a sickeningly sharp barrel roll, twisting the broom completely around by leaning with his right shoulder. He flipped the entire broom with the hopes that you would get the chance to be flipped back onto it safely. 

Luckily, even though you let out another terrified scream, you got the hint and hooked your leg around the wood mid-air, holstering your shaking body back behind him. You gripped onto Fred even tighter then, and one glance around told you that luckily, or unluckily, the fight had cleared off from around the two of you. 

Perhaps they had heard you call this imposter Harry by the name ‘Fred’, perhaps you had given the real Harry away and ruined the whole plan. As you squeezed your eyes shut again and shoved your now tearful face into Fred’s back, selfishly, you couldn’t bring yourself to truly care. 

The rest of the trip went on too long for your liking - you were still crawling with anxiety and eager to have your feet back on the ground. 

Toward the end of it, you felt Harry-Fred’s body shift back into the tall, more muscular form that you were familiar with (somehow a bit more muscular than you remembered, but you tried not to get caught up on that detail). You were more than relieved when you felt your feet brushing against the ground with the landing. Distantly, you heard the familiar, comfortingly worried baulking of Molly’s voice, and you opened your eyes to see that Fred’s head was much higher up than it had been before, and his hair was thankfully returned back to its bright red state. 

Molly rushed over to Fred, and there was some conversation, but you couldn’t make it out - blood was thumping in your ears, your body still overtaken by all the horrible symptoms of your fear. The moment that Fred dropped the broom in order to step away from it, you stumbled off into the grass on weak legs. 

You hardly realised that you were hyperventilating - you simply felt dizzy, felt your chest aching from the lack of breath; you noticed that your vision was blurred with tears, and you knew that you weren’t getting enough oxygen. You pressed now muddy hands to your face in desperation, trying to usher more air past your lips, and it was then that a streak of orange fell into your view as Fred dropped to his knees in front of you. He had heard you gasping, and of course, rushed to you with nothing more than concern flooding his system once again. 

“Hey, hey, look at me.” He murmured, trying his best not to panic himself at seeing you like this - he gently took a hold of your face, guiding your vision toward him. “Look at me. You’re alright now. You’re safe.” 

Of course you knew that. You knew that you would always be safe with Fred. 

But your body hadn’t even registered the fact that you had landed yet - the panic only now fully setting in, bringing with it the most cruel, shocking symptoms you had ever experienced. You did the only thing you could think of - the only thing that would truly make you feel safe. Something you knew would truly ground you after experiencing such chaos so high up in the air. 

You launched yourself toward Fred, pressing your face into his chest, wrapping your arms tightly around his waist in a firm hug as you tried to stifle down sobs. He easily accepted this, his thick arms coming to cradle your back, selfishly thankful to have you back in his arms. He gently rocked you back and forth as he peppered more soothing words beside your ear. 

“You’re alright now, darling.” He said, letting the pet name slip so easily that it frightened him. He rubbed a hand up and down your back, feeling your gasping panic all too quickly soothe away under the firm warmth of his touch. “You’re alright.” 

Almost instinctively, he laid a kiss on your temple, not entirely realising that this wasn’t necessarily something an ex-boyfriend would do - he was so ripe with the urge to comfort you, the need to make your pain go away. He couldn’t help but take a little something selfish as the empathetic waves of your panic echoed over to him. 

“I was never gonna let you fall.” He whispered, almost speaking these words to himself - a sacred promise. 

He had regretted every day since the break-up, and even if he couldn’t be your lover, he was never going to let you get hurt. 

You gripped him tighter, your breathing almost back to normal now, and you pushed your face tighter into his chest, relishing in the firm warmth of his body against you. This was something you hadn’t felt in far too long. Fred placed another kiss on the top of your head. He was about to say something entirely dangerous when another bit of chaos came tumbling through the garden, distracting him away from you and causing the words to die off in his throat. 

Remus, hauling George across the grass - and George, slumped over, a massive amount of blood dripping down the side of his head. 

“Georgie.” Fred gasped quietly. 

Your head whipped around at this, and in sync, you and Fred scrambled to your feet, rushing to see what had happened to him. Fred lifted George’s other arm to help get him inside and safely rested him on the couch. 

It was a horror show. 

The flesh of George’s ear had been blown to bits, blood smearing down across his face and spilling down the side of his neck; he was sickly pale and barely conscious. His eyes only flickered, giving you some sense of life in him when Fred called out his name after making sure he was resting comfortably on the couch. 

“Georgie?” 

There was a rare quiver in Fred’s voice that made your stomach quake. Fear. You were not accustomed to hearing Fred fearful, not of anything. Even when he had abandoned Hogwarts and dove into a career as a shop owner without a single clue if he would find success, he did so without a single bit of fear in his heart. 

But of course - seeing his dear brother like this, knowing that someone he loved had been so close to danger - it made him terrified. 

“Hey, Fred.” George croaked back weakly. 

At least he was conscious enough to speak. That gave you quite a bit of relief. 

“How’re ya feeling?” Fred asked. 

“Saint-like.” George replied, a tired smirk gracing his lips that told you he was forming a joke - something that was utterly hilarious in his mind that would only make sense to others when he delivered the punch line. 

You wanted to sob, you wanted to laugh, you wanted to scream. Of course he would be making jokes only moments after nearly being killed. 

“Come again?” Fred said quietly, tentatively. 

Perhaps it sounded partially dangerous to him like it did to you. Perhaps George felt Saint-like because he was too close to death. 

Both of you and Fred held your breath as you waited for the reply. 

“Saint-like.” George grinned. And then he lifted a tired hand and gestured toward the bloody hole on the side of his head before he delivered his glowing punchline. “I’m holy. I’m holy, Fred. Get it?” 

Fred grinned, and you let out a gasping chuckle that you knew was mostly tears. Behind you, Molly inhaled sharply through her teeth, running a hand over her forehead with the stress, and Ginny shook her head as she exhaled an exhausted sigh. 

“The whole wide world of ear related humour, and you go for ‘I’m holy’?” Fred replied, unable to resist humouring George. “That’s pathetic.” 

You knew that if either of them knew anything about the story of the Muggle painter Van Gogh, then they would have been making jokes in that lane. 

“Reckon I’m still better looking than you.” George added on tiredly. 

“You were always better looking than him.” You said, your voice throttled by tears, unable to resist. 

When you turned around to retreat, you saw Ginny clutching onto Molly, clearly hiding tears in her mother’s shoulder, Molly’s face dancing with a kind of sadness you had never seen before. You knew you couldn’t run from your pain. You had known the Weasleys for so long, loved them too much. You had a distinct kind of duty here. 

“Molly, do you have a cauldron around?” You asked, hating how choked with tears your voice was. “I can whip-up something for his pain. I do it at the shop all the time. And a Sleeping Draught, so he can get some rest.” 

It was true - one of your many duties working at the Apothecary was making and bottling simple, common potions to sell (pregnancy test potions, simple multi-use pain potions, Dreamless Sleep Draughts, cures for warts and other common rashes) - many people liked the convenience of coming in and buying a potion for everyday uses rather than having to make it themselves. 

“There’s no need-” George began to protest, but Fred easily cut him off. 

“Come off it.” Fred hissed toward his brother, not taking kindly to ‘selfless’ idea of George not accepting something for the pain he was clearly in. Then, Fred rose up from his place beside George and turned to you with a look of intense concern on his features. “Whatever you need.” 

… 

You had barely begun to set up everything you needed for the brewing when the others finally came in, bringing more chaos with them. Remus accused Harry of being an imposter, which was quickly proven false. Apparently the Order had been betrayed, which explained the presence of Death Eaters on the mission so easily. They had used inside information to know when Harry was being transported - it was only luck that they had been thrown off by the Polyjuice Potion, having to chase down multiple Harrys and not knowing which one was real (even if George got gravely injured in the process). 

Mad-Eye had been killed. 

You weren’t sure if what you felt was mourning for the man. You hadn’t known him all that well. Not the true version of him, anyway. You continued to weep quietly as you worked on the potions, but you knew it wasn’t specifically for him. His death only served to remind you how truly dangerous the mission had been - how close you, Fred, and George, and the others had all come to death. How lucky it was that nobody else had been killed. 

You tried not to let the suffocating gloom that had overtaken the Burrow due to the near failure of the entire mission disrupt the process of making the potions needed for George. When Molly didn’t have some of the ingredients that you needed, you gave Fred your spare key to the Apothecary and he popped over to get them for you. Mr. Michaelchuk, who ran the place, had always told you to ‘take what you needed’, and this was the one time you had actually taken him up on the offer. 

When Fred returned, he fussed at George’s side, helping him change into pyjamas (when everyone else had cleared out) and tucking him in comfortably to a makeshift bed on the couch, with lots of pillows and extra cosy blankets, to the point where he got annoyed with Fred coddling him. You always knew that the two were good friends in addition to being brothers, as close as two people can be, but you had never seen so much abundant affection between them. It was sweet. 

Molly came back downstairs wearing a plaid dressing gown, with a pair of tiny reading glasses balanced on her nose, her slippers scuffing along the floor. She mentioned that Arthur was already ‘snoring away’ - but of course, she had no intentions of going to bed herself. Because of course, if George was down here on the couch, it was so that she could watch over him while she busied herself with knitting - much like she had when Arthur had been on the ward at St. Mungo’s after he had been attacked by the snake. You had gotten a particularly nice jumper for Christmas that year, one that you still wore often when it got particularly cold outside. 

Fred had settled to sit on the couch by George’s feet, and the two had fallen into a hushed conversation, though you didn’t hear most of it. And of course, it wasn’t long before Molly rushed Fred off to bed, just like she had done with everyone else, wanting to give George the space to rest without distractions from visitors. 

“-just get her back, you idiot.” You hear George hiss in a whisper before Molly pushed Fred toward the stairs. 

He couldn’t possibly be talking about…? 

No. 

No, he wasn’t. 

You didn’t think about it. Instead, you let yourself get lost in the meditative process of brewing, making sure that the potions were perfect. You made sure that George was pain-free and lost to a deep, restful, healing sleep (with a few pre-brewed bottles of the potions to spare that would keep his pain at bay for the next few days) before you finally went upstairs, ready to collapse with exhaustion. 

You passed by Fred and George’s room on your way to your final destination, Ginny’s room, where you would be staying with her and Hermione, from now up until Bill and Fleur’s wedding. After which, you would return to your apartment above the Apothecary and try to resume your best sense of ‘normal’ life. All of your things were already unpacked in Ginny’s room, and you had a sleeping bag set up on the floor there. 

But of course, you naturally came to a stop at the mouth of Fred’s open bedroom doorway, letting an instinctive caring overtake you and participating in the need to check on him. 

The sight you saw made your heart ache. 

Fred was sitting on the edge of his twin bed, his posture slumped with pure exhaustion. He hadn’t even changed out of the now ill-fitting Harry clothes that he had to wear for the mission: jeans, a tee shirt, and a grey sport jacket that were now coated in dirt and traces of George’s blood, all oddly short in the limbs and emphasising his tallness, his hands still stained bright red in a way that couldn’t be washed off. 

His face was marked with tear tracks, and his tired, dead gaze was fixated on George’s still neatly made matching twin bed. A space that was hauntingly empty across from his - a sign that his brother was missing. A sign of just how easily someone precious could have been taken from him that night. 

“Freddie?” 

You croaked out, the nickname slipping out in a way you couldn’t control once again, causing him to snap out of whatever distant, depressing thoughts he was caught in. His head jolted toward you, only now realising that you had been standing in the doorway for so long. 

“Y/N,” He responded, his voice choked by tiredness, sadness. 

It was so alarmingly strange to see someone who was usually the pinnacle of laughter reduced down to this. You had never seen Fred Weasley so sad before. 

You had seen him angry, on occasion - like when someone insulted you, or when he had been banned from Quidditch for getting into a fistfight with Malfoy. You had seen him annoyed - like when he found out that the age to enter the TriWizard Tournament was seventeen, and he was only a few months away from being eligible. (You were thankful for that one, and secretly thankful when his Ageing Potion had failed). 

You had seen Fred go through a lot - but you genuinely believed that was the first time you had seen him so deflated in the face of the world. 

He rose to his feet, turned his back to you, almost as if trying to hide. He raised a hand to his face, and your heart ached more when you realised that he was trying to wipe away tears. 

“Come on, let’s get you ready for bed.” You said, moving forward, gently putting a hand on his shoulder, moving up to peel the sport jacket off him. 

You knew that the sadness, something he so rarely felt, had paralyzed him. You knew that sleep was what all of you needed right now - some rest to get your heads on straight. And you wanted to help him in any way that you could. 

“I can’t-” Fred huffed, stepping away from you, putting some distance between the two of you in the small room. “I can’t do this right now.” 

Your stomach curled into a horrible knot as he echoed the words he had spoken to you on that horrible day, when he had broken up with you and relinquished himself from your presence without a second thought. 

It truly hit you then - he didn’t want your help. He didn’t want to be near you now. He had only held you close a few hours ago because it had been a matter of life and death. He had helped to calm you down because it was the friendly thing to do. He didn’t want you here now. 

“Okay.” You choked out, nodding, taking a step toward the door. “O-okay.” 

A hot tear rolled down your face, and you moved to make your way toward Ginny’s room. You were harshly whipped across the emotional spectrum again when Fred stopped you. 

“Y/N, no.” He said, reaching out and grabbing onto your elbow. “Wait.” 

“What, Fred?” You wheezed, your body breathless and exhausted from the horrible roller coaster that you had been on that night. You knew that you glared at him horribly, but you couldn’t help it. “What is it that you want from me?” 

Fred took a step back, as though you had burned him, running stiff hands through his hair. You could have easily run off, turned your back on him and never spoken to him again. Just like he had done to you on that day so long ago. But you waited with your chest tight, waiting for him to finally give you an answer. Did he want to be friends? Did he want you to disappear from his life completely? Did he want-? 

“I can’t-” He choked out, clearly struggling for breath. “I can’t…” 

He swallowed around a fat tongue, and after a heavy moment, he finally got the words out. 

“I can’t lose you.” 

The words spooked you more than the sight of George’s bloodied, blown-apart ear. 

You stared Fred down with a ghost in your eyes, somehow more terrified than you had been when you had been dangling hundreds of feet above London. He was frantic, rapidly searching for more words to explain himself. 

“I - I almost…” He gasped, his throat tightly constricting again. “You almost slipped out of my hands.” 

He spoke the words as though they were a horrible curse, raising his hands in front of him as if to demonstrate the point, as if to demonise his own limbs for not having enough strength to hold you up. His hands shook with undistilled anxiety, with anger towards himself. 

His declaration gave you that sickly sense of nausea, as though you were back up in the air again. You realised that maybe he hadn’t been sitting on the edge of the bed, mourning about potentially losing George - but instead, he had been thinking about you. 

“I didn’t. I didn’t slip.” You replied, the words choked off in your throat, rushing to assure him of the good he had done. 

You were unable to resist the urge to reach out and take his hands in yours, steadying his grip with a firm anger of your own. You were unsure how he could be so cruel toward himself when he had saved your life only hours before. 

“You held me up, Fred. You didn’t let me fall.” 

He let out a huff, shaking his head negatively. 

You knew there was something more troubling him - something deeper that he had yet to speak of, or perhaps wouldn’t tell you at all. He grinded his jaw tightly and slipped his hands away from yours. You stood there, looking at him tensely, wondering if he was going to clue you in, or if he would simply say goodnight and let himself stew with whatever horrible emotions he was feeling. 

“I can’t live like this.” He declared harshly, his throat raw. “I can’t live with you at arm’s length.” 

So what? Was he saying that… he was upset about the break-up? 

Was he saying that he hadn’t actually wanted to be apart from you? 

A look of pure confusion knit across your features, and in the murky silence, Fred moved on to explaining. 

“I let you go once before.” 

He whispered, the words so quiet on his lips, a crazed type of regret dancing in his eyes - in an instant, you knew he wasn’t talking about the mission or flying. He was talking about how easily he let you go from his life - the break-up. 

“I let you slip away from me far too easily. And it was the stupidest thing I have ever done.” 

“Freddie-?” You choked out, more chaotic emotions rocketing through your body now. Anticipation, anxiety - that love for him that you had bottled away slowly creeping back in. But you couldn’t bear to let it flow through you, not yet, not until you knew. 

“If one of us were to die tomorrow, I couldn’t live my last day knowing that I wasted it not being yours.” He declared, the pure passion in his words causing every small hair on your body to stand up on end, making you dizzy. “I know that I’m the biggest git on earth for what I did to you, and for not apologising sooner, but please, please, please, darling-” 

You couldn’t take it anymore. 

You grabbed both sides of the sport jacket and used it to haul him down toward you, planting your mouth firmly onto his, moaning into a kiss that you had longed for, having so sorely missed the touch of his lips on yours. 

You had missed him so damn much. 

Fred was quick to keep up, letting out a delighted sigh of his own, his stomach doing flips in delight, almost in disbelief of just how lucky he was that you hadn’t slapped him across the face and stormed out. 

When your hands ventured down, smoothing across his body - he became even more delighted that you seemed to want more than a kiss out of him. And he was quick to prepare. 

He reached to his back pocket for his wand and pointed it at the still open bedroom door, performing a quick spell that slammed it shut and locked it. In the back of his mind, he was thankful that his bedroom had some silencing wards around it from the days when Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes had been in its infancy, operating their prototype experiments out of this room in the darkest hours of the morning. (Percy got sick of being woken up by the twins’ excited voices and the sound of sputtering cauldrons, and put the silencing wards around their room for his own sake, not knowing how much more it let the twins get away with.) 

Fred was surprised when you took another fitful grip on the front of his shirt, using it to direct him back toward his bed and shoving him down onto it with a strength that he barely knew you had. He fell sideways across the small twin bed, his knees crumbling along the side of the mattress, leaving him sitting with his feet on the floor and his body half collapsed against the tightly tucked-in covers that his mother had prepared before everyone’s arrival. 

He was utterly weak to your whims, anyway, and would have gone wherever you put him. 

He was expecting you to climb on top of him, something needy inside of him yearning for the feeling of your body on top of his after missing it for so long. And he found himself further surprised when you dropped to your knees in front of him, settling your shoulders between his spread thighs, forcing him to spread his legs wider apart to accommodate you. The action spiking a sharp breath out of his lips when you shoved up the hem of the shirt that technically wasn’t his and reached for the button on the jeans that fit him even worse as his cock grew to life underneath them. 

“Y/N, darling-” He choked out, breathy and sharp through his teeth, an intense wave of lust hitting him all at once. 

All night, both of you had been through the emotional ringer - calm determination, fear, possessiveness, mild relief, grief. All while trying to hold back your emotions for each other, balancing right on the edge. Trying desperately to hold each other at arm’s length. 

And now he had you right where he wanted you, where he had been dreaming of you being for months since the break-up; and for some stupid reason, some part of him still felt that it was wrong. That part of him screaming that he should be the one on his knees serving you, that he needed to better apologise-

He reached for your shoulder, clearly trying to coax you back up onto the bed with him, and you swatted the touch away. 

“Don’t-” You choked in return, continuing on your determined path, ripping his zipper down and tugging at the waistband of his jeans. “Freddie, please. Let me do this.” 

You looked up at him with a glassy heat in your eyes that he had never seen before. All the times he had pinned you against walls in quiet corners at Hogwarts, with his hand up your skirt - he had never seen you so wild, so desperate. 

Something utterly possessive rippled through you - something that screamed that you needed to have him weak and moaning for you, that you needed to worship him, to thank him for doing the impossible and saving your life. He was a strong, wonderful man and you needed to taste that strength. You needed to know that you were the only thing that could have him weak, quivering, begging. 

“Fuck-” Fred hissed out when you reached past the band of his underwear and grabbed his cock - your warm touch wrapped around his shaft felt like a deadly awakening, especially when it had been so long since anything but his own had had touched his cock. 

All too soon, he surrendered to you entirely and lifted his hips, slipping the fabric of his jeans and his underwear down completely past his thighs, letting you have whatever you wanted from him. He supposed that’s how it always went with the two of you - he would let you have whatever you wanted, even before you asked. (That’s why the break-up had gone down the way it had - it had been the one time he had been stubborn on something, not simply letting you have your own way.) 

You took him in your hand, slowly pumping his length as you admired him, gently re-familiarising yourself with his body, feeling like it had been far too long. 

“Did you miss it, darling?” He asked, looking down the length of his body at you with a cocky smile stretched across his soft lips. 

You rolled your eyes, hating the possibility of making his ego any larger. 

“Oh yes, your wonderful big cock was the thing I missed most about you,” You griped in return, hoping that your sarcastic tone was more than apparent. 

“I knew you only wanted me for my body.” Fred chuckled. 

As much as you wanted to deny it - Fred Weasley’s cock was a marvel that you couldn’t have forgotten if you had tried. 

During your time apart, it haunted your heated dreams, turning them into nightmares of pure want, your mind dangling something in front of you that you couldn’t have. It made things even worse when he would come into the Apothecary, flirting with you and flashing you a smile, showing off his broad shoulders in those fine tailored suit jackets and making your eyes flicker to his zipper in an utterly whorish way. 

Now, you felt spoiled to have it in front of you again - the perfect beastly eight inches, lean and tall just like he was, curved off slightly to the side, sticking off from a sparse patch of ginger hair. 

Your pussy clenched as you thought about having him inside of you again for the first time in so long, giving you that perfectly full feeling that your fingers never could - but you craved his taste first. You wanted him under your control - you knew part of it was driven by all the fear you had experienced that night, all the chaos that had made you feel so powerless. You needed to feel alive, needed to wield power over someone, something. 

You got your mouth on his cock with a downright feral hunger. 

Fred let out a deep moan and threw his head back, collapsing onto his elbows as the heat and wetness of your mouth enveloped the heat of his cock - it sent another wave of lust zipping through him, reminding him just how throbbing hard he was, just how much he needed you. This was made even worse when you moaned around him - you couldn’t help but to enjoy the feeling of his cock in your mouth, perfectly full, making you choke in such a beautiful way when you dropped down to take more of him. 

“Fuck, darling, shite-” 

You quickly became drunk on the feeling. 

Your eyes fell closed and you simply let yourself enjoy it, loving the fullness of his big, beautiful cock filling up your mouth. With a hand loosely wrapped around the base of his cock, your jaw wide as you began bobbing your head. Your tongue flat against the base, tasting as much of him as you could while you enjoyed the feeling of him so fat and thick in your mouth, gagging you slightly whenever the round tip hit against the back of your throat. It was a perfect, slow rhythm that agonised him and delighted you, and soon had spit pooling around your knuckles. 

The wetness drove him even more insane, especially when it allowed for your soft lips to move slicker against his shaft. 

“Goddammit, please, please, oh-” 

You could feel his thighs begin to quake and quiver beside you, and you wondered if he was close already. 

You couldn’t resist the urge to pull off - wanting to tease him a little. Part of you wanted that bit of revenge, wanting to get him back for the pain he had caused you when he had turned his back on you that day. Though you weren’t entirely cruel, and you didn’t leave him hanging out to dry completely. 

You kept your hand pumping on his now spit-slicked cock (it was that slow, agonising rhythm that caused him to pant like a needy dog), and you moved your mouth downward, giving in to the personal urge to lick and suck on his heavy balls. You did want to drive him a bit more insane, and give into your personal curiosity about what the heavy sac would feel like against your tongue. 

“Fucking - oh - darling, what are you doing to me-? That fucking mouth-” 

Fred wasn’t sure if this was heaven or hell. 

It left him stuck in some sick purgatory where the woman he loved had turned into a sex-crazed vixen, but wouldn’t let him touch you everywhere he wanted to most. Instead, he was sentenced to stare at you as your gorgeous mouth teased his aching cock, making him harder, driving him madder with every stroke of your little devilish tongue. He couldn’t take it anymore - not when your pretty fingers gripped around the base of his cock just right and your lips suctioned so perfectly around one of his bullocks. 

He wouldn’t waste the night cumming over your fist without getting his hands on you properly first. 

He weaved his fingers into your hair and yanked you back, caused you to let out a small yelp - not one of pain, but a bitter sound of complaint as you were pulled off his cock too early for your liking. The sharp tingle of him pulling on your hair caused your tongue to lull out, trailing a filthy bit of spit back to his balls that had him growling. 

Before any words could form, he leaned down and used this grip on your hair to guide you to his lips, shoving his tongue into your open, waiting mouth - something that had you moaning once again, and easily following his lead as he guided you up to sit on his thigh. 

“Don’t expect that I’m gonna waste it all over your hand, darling.” He murmured against your lips between heated kisses. “When I cum tonight, it’s gonna be deep inside your sweet cunt, yeah?” 

You moaned loudly at this. 

You had devolved past the point of words now - having his cock so thick and heavy in your mouth only making you fuzzy-headed and more needy for him. You unconsciously canted your hips against his thigh, grinding your pussy against him through the fabric of your jeans, needing more. You panted against his cheek as he moved deft fingers to undo the button and zipper of your pants while he continued to speak. 

“I need you, pretty girl.” 

He growled lowly in your ear, the pure passion of the declaration causing such intense waves of lust through you that you would have collapsed - if not for the brick wall of his muscled body holding you up. (Hold you up for the dozenth time that night, only for a drastically different reason this time). 

“I need to see you cum on my cock. Missed this pretty cunt so much, can’t wait-” 

He trailed off in his crazed lustful ramblings when he shoved his fingers past the now open fly of your jeans and into your underwear, quickly finding a distinct wetness and landing on your clit with a firm touch like a magnet. 

“Freddie!” You wept into his neck, bucking into the touch as you tumbled into a madness of your own. 

He began circling quickly on your clit, enjoying your gasps and other sounds, enjoying the feeling of you bucking so wildly on his thigh. All too soon, he was overtaken by a little pinch of mischief that always crept up on him. The urge to get you back for your earlier teasing. He quickly removed his hand and felt a smirk spread across his lips at the deflated little whimper you made, your eyes snapping open just in time to catch him licking your wetness off his fingers. 

“Fred-” You began to protest, sharp demanding in your tone. 

“Come on, get these clothes off,” He said, giving you a firm pat on the ass that made you far too weak to his whims. 

“Freddie-” You whined this time - and rather than giving into you, he brought up a fantastic point. 

“The faster you get your clothes off, the faster I can get my cock in you.” He whispered hotly against your ear, making you shiver. 

You hated that he was right. 

You stood up, moving to strip your shirt off over your head, glaring at him the whole time while he also began to strip himself. 

“Go on, good girl.” 

You hated how those words made you even wetter. You hated how easily he manipulated you based on weaknesses he knew so well. 

“I hate you.” You mumbled quietly, absolutely no heat in the words as you reached to unclip your bra. 

“Oh darling, if only that were true.” 

He said pointedly, mourning peeking through that bit of mischief in his eyes. Something you didn’t have too much time to decode as stood to his full height to untangle his jeans from his legs, knowing that you would quake in his shadow and become even more turned on from this. 

Once you were both naked, he ushered you down onto the bed, making sure that you were comfortable with your head on the pillow as he captured your mouth in another needy kiss. You moaned against his lips, easily sucking his tongue in as you tangled your fingers into that fiery red hair and gave an appreciative tug. You then tucked your knee up over his hip, opening yourself up to him - this caused his heavy cock to brush against your wetness, making you gasp into his mouth as the two of you made contact for the first time in far too long. 

“Freddie-” You gasped, unconsciously bucking your hips up, causing your pussy to wetly slide against his cock in a way that forced a deep groan out of him. “Oh, fuck, oh-” 

“Shh, darling, Daddy’s got you,” Fred replied, palming across your forehead and your hair in an almost gentle way while he further parted your thighs with a firm knee. 

His words caused you to choke on another moan. 

You had heard Fred refer to himself as ‘Daddy’ before - but much like everything else in his life, it was always a joke. He would be buying his favourite sweets and mumble ‘come to Daddy’ before tearing open the package and devouring them. He would say that his codename was ‘Big Daddy’ when setting up a particularly epic prank. (George was ‘Big Red’ and you were usually ‘Darling’ or ‘Garden Flower’. They were not the most useful or top secret codenames.) You had heard him jokingly shout ‘Daddy’s home’ when returning to the Gryffindor common room, only to have the expected laughs and jokes in return. 

You had never expected that the name would turn you on so much. But you had never, ever expected to hear it in this context. You had also never expected that it would sound so natural in this context. But it suited him so well. It seemed to only compliment the gentle kind of caring he gave you - how protective he was over you, how safe he made you feel. 

“Daddy,” You moaned in return - Fred gripped your hip with a deadly, bruising grip and looked at you with a fierce heat in his eyes. 

Hearing that word from your lips turned him on in a way he couldn’t explain. And in that moment, it took every bit of his personal will not to slam his cock into you and hammer his hips forward until you said it again, and again, and again. Until you screamed it. 

He took a hold of his cock with the other hand, and you expected him to slide into you, finally giving you both what you truly needed - but instead, he began rubbing the round head of his cock against your clit, further teasing you. You let out a gasp and looked at him with pleading in your eyes. 

“Freddie,” You whined, attempting to angle your hips up, fruitlessly trying to trick him to slip his cock inside of you. You knew him too well, knowing that once he got the tip in, he wouldn’t be able to resist fucking you senseless. But he held you down with the hand on your hip, making you barely able to move at all against his muscular hold and the awkward angle he had you pinned with. 

“Come on, sweets,” He purred, laying a kiss on your forehead, and then your cheek, trailing kisses down your neck as he murmured against your skin. “Tell Daddy what you need. Say the word and I’ll give you anything you want.” 

He began roughly smacking his cockhead against your clit, making you jolt and gasp sharper, making your pussy leak furiously against the bed. You cried out and gripped his hair tightly, almost meanly, desperate for the teasing to end. You didn’t see the way he was staring at your cunt, mesmerised by the sight of your swollen pearl kissing against his cock, glistening, wet and needy. Something that he would burn into his brain forever and most definitely revisit on lonely nights. 

“Please, Daddy!” You moaned, hoping the name alone would goad him into giving in. But you knew what he truly wanted, and you couldn’t wait any longer. “Please - fuck - I need your cock. I need you to fuck me, I need-” 

Perhaps he was truly satisfied by this, or perhaps he couldn’t take the teasing anymore himself - either way, he finally guided his cock down to your pulsing entrance and pushed in, swearing hotly under his breath when the tight, wet, perfect heat of your cunt began sucking him in for the first time in over a year. 

“Oh, oh fuck, Freddie,” You moaned, tugging on his hair. “Oh-” 

“Fucking perfect,” He swore into your ear. “Dammit, I’ve missed this pussy so much.” He choked on a groan as he continued slowly inching his hips forward, splitting you open with his massive length, making your pussy ache and burn in the most perfect way. “Good girl. So good for me. So good for Daddy,” 

You both moaned loudly once he was fully seated inside of you - you, feeling that deep satisfaction of feeling so perfectly full once again, and Fred so deeply enjoying the wet warmth of your pussy around him that was so irreplaceable because it was you. 

Sensing your need, especially after all his teasing, and after spending so long without him - he didn’t make you wait any longer. 

Fred began rocking his hips into yours at a gentle, even pace, not wanting to hurt you. From the sound of your gentle whines and the feeling of you squirming beneath him, he could tell that you needed more. He could tell that now wasn’t the time for holding back. 

He let out a gentle grunt and you became even more heated and curious as he began shifting around, some clear intent on his mind. You let out a sharp gasp when he raised himself up on his knees, poising himself in the perfect position to fuck you hard, deep, and powerful. Then, he made it even more deadly when he grabbed you by the backs of your thighs, making more air hiss out through your lips when he pressed your body practically in half, pressing your knees up toward your chest before he hooked his arms under your legs to keep them there and planted his hands firmly on either side of your chest. 

The two of you were even closer, even more intimate, and you felt him so much deeper inside of you. 

“Freddie,” 

You croaked out darkly, already feeling him so much deeper as he settled in above you. Your pussy was leaking furiously around him now, clenching tightly and waiting for him to move as a ghost of dark mischief danced through his eyes that promised you were in for the sweetest kind of hell. 

“Good?” He asked, smirking at you. 

“Yes, but what about-?” 

You wanted to warn him not to make too much noise, not to break the bed, which was already creaking in protest underneath the two of you - but he didn’t entirely care. Fred never truly cared about the consequences of his actions once he got an idea in his head - to him, the thrill was more than worth whatever pain may befall him. 

The only time that hadn’t been true was when he had made the foolish, heat-of-the-moment mistake of breaking up with you. And now, he had to make up for it. 

He put all the power into his muscled thighs (the same muscled thighs that had saved you just a few hours ago by gripping onto his broom and steadying the flight) - and ploughed forward with intense power. This began an unforgiving, hard rhythm of pounding into your cunt in hard, deep, fast strokes. 

In seconds, you were putty beneath him - he had you perfectly pinned in place so that you couldn’t have moved an inch if you wanted to, all you could do was lay there and take it. You were weak against the savage movements of his long cock fucking into your swollen pussy over and over again, filling you up in the best way you could have imagined, becoming everything you needed in the world. 

As the room filled with the harsh, wet slaps of his skin against yours and your weak moans, followed by his increasingly animalistic grunts - all there was in the world was you and Fred, the space where the two of you met, the place where he had your thighs pinned open so that his cock could absolutely ruin your pussy.  

“Good girl, such a good girl for me,” He growled against your lips - you moaned pathetically in return, flooding even more wetness around his cock, making the sound of him fucking into you embarrassingly slicker. “Never should have let you go. Should have kept you right here, right where you belong,” 

You wanted to tell him that perhaps the fight was both of your faults, that you should have reached out to him sooner and told him that you wanted him back. That the time apart had been so dreadfully tender for you too. 

But your brain was soup, only further stirred up by the tip of his cock poking around in your guts. So any words you could have said chased out of your lungs with every passionate thrust of his hips up into your wet pussy, and all you managed in return was: 

“Daddy! Fuck, oh-!” 

“Shh, darling, I know.” Fred mumbled into your neck, taking a sloppy, greedy lick of your skin. “I know, sweets. Daddy’s gonna give you what you need. Gonna keep you fucked n’ full. Never gonna let you go again. Never gonna let anyone else touch you-” 

Fred’s hips stuttered and you tightly squeezed around his cock at the words. 

Perhaps it was a wink of his personal insecurity peeking through. The horrifying idea that because he had broken up with you, you might find somebody else. When in fact, you had been so caught up on him, only thinking about him, waiting for him. (The whole time, thinking that he had broken up with you because he no longer had any favour in his heart for you.) 

“Just you, Freddie.” You breathed out, desperately trying to get air past your now very chapped lips. “Always yours-” 

“Yes, mine.” He replied, that crazed desperation returning to his voice. “Mine, my girl.” 

He sealed his lips against yours, grinding his hips tightly against your pelvis rather than fucking you with any kind of rhythm now - showing you just how deep he was inside of you, just how much he owned you, truly, from the inside out. It was something that made your stomach clench, made your body buzz with electricity, and made you whine around his tongue. 

You were close. 

Fred knew this - he knew you too well. He moved a hand down to your clit, letting one of your legs drop slightly, and had two determined fingers on your throbbing clit while he picked up the pace again, pulling his lips back from yours. 

“You gonna cum for me? Gonna cum for Daddy like a good girl?” 

His words, his velvet voice speaking to you so commanding yet so sweet, were what truly brought your orgasm to life in your belly. His voice made the fullness of his cock and the sharpness of his fingers on your clit all the more electric. You likely could have cum just from his words alone if he kept speaking to you that way. 

“Yes, Daddy.” You moaned in response. 

“Good girl. Come on,” 

He breathed hotly against your chin, his eyes now eagerly dancing from your face to the space where your cunt hugged his dick, leaking around him in such a wonderfully filthy way. Clearly, he wasn’t sure where he wanted to look, what part of the show he was more eager to witness after missing out on you for too long. 

“Come on, cum on my cock. Cum for me, love, good girl-” 

His heated words trailed off as your head snapped back and your eyes squeezed shut, your fingers digging sharply into his bicep as your orgasm rocked your body. Fred grunted as he continued to fuck you through it, his eyes glued to you, taking in every single inch of the sexy beauty that was you, the love of his life, as you thrashed and moaned and came on his cock. It was the most perfect sight he could have imagined, and he easily ingrained into his mind forever, praying that he would never have to miss out on it - to miss out on you - ever again. 

“Yes, yes darling, so good for me, so good-” He practically choked on his own words, his voice so thick with lust that it barbed the insides of his throat. 

As he felt the last weak spasms of your pussy around his cock, he stopped rubbing your sore clit and became possessed with a new need, becoming slightly selfish now. He fucked his hips forward even harder, determined to find his own pleasure inside the sweet, soft walls of your cunt. 

“Fucking hell-” He choked out a groan, dropping his head into your neck again as you petted through his hair, encouraging him through it while he unintentionally sent sharp zaps of overstimulation through your pussy with every needy, sharp push of his hips. 

“Freddie,” You breathed out. “Come on, Daddy, cum for me. You’ve been so good to me, come on-” 

He let you another loud growl and pounded into you harder, dropping his hold on your other knee and letting your legs rest to cradle around his waist as he blindly chased his own end inside your soft, wet cunt. 

“Gonna fill you up, gonna fill you up so good,” He whispered into your neck, chanting like a man possessed, sending another unexpected wave of heat through you that made you moan weakly. “All mine, all mine, darling, all mine, gonna give you what you need, fuck-” 

He tried to silence his moans into your neck as he stiffened his back and finally came - his own orgasm hitting him like a firework. He shoved his hips forward stiffly one last time, seating his cock deeply inside of you, stuffing you full, just like he had promised. He gentled grinded his hips against yours in mindless, stuttering strokes while he pumped spurts of hot cum deep inside of you - something that made your body buzz with even more heat and made you moan in return, clutching onto him tightly with your legs around his waist and your arms around his shoulders. 

“Oh darling, oh-” He muttered quietly against your neck as the last waves of his orgasm washed over him. 

It was so perfect, and made you feel so utterly connected to him. It was a distinct reminder of everything you had missed - his warmth, his caring, the thrill he gave you while at the same time making you feel so damn safe. 

When Fred moved to pull away from you, moving to break that connection, every instinct in your body screamed that it was wrong. You clenched your legs around him, digging a heel into his lower back to keep him close, and he let out a grunt - still dizzy from his orgasm and unsure what you were doing. But he settled back into place, creating a filthy ‘squish’ between the two of you. 

“Just hold me.” You said, having no clue when the tears had returned to your eyes, making your voice so clearly wet. “I missed you. I can’t lose you.” 

“Hey, hey shh.” He said, leaning up to kiss along your cheek, rushing to kiss away those tears. “I’m right here with you, darling. I’m not going anywhere. You’re not going to lose me.” 

He wrapped his arms around you, wiggling his grip between your back and the mattress to do so. This created the most stunning cocoon, forcing your two bodies even closer together - it wasn’t long before he became soft inside of you, but he stayed there for as long as he reasonably could, kissing along your forehead, your cheeks, your neck, uttering quiet reassurances that you weren’t going to lose him, that you wouldn’t have to miss him any longer. 

It made you incredibly content and warm. At least while it lasted. 

When Fred finally pulled out of you, you felt a deep sense of dissatisfaction and loneliness, which you tried to ignore. Especially because you weren’t sure if he would want you to sleep in his bed - which was something that you wanted very much, especially after the long day you had. But you weren’t sure if he wanted to be left alone to contemplate all of it, to be sure of his decision to take you back. 

You jumped to get out of the bed as though it were on fire, and when you looked to your rumpled clothes on the floor - your jeans still stained with dirt from when you had collapsed in the garden, your shirt likely reeking of sweat from the nerves of everything that had happened - the idea of putting those clothes back on wasn’t exactly appealing. 

Then, something else came to mind. 

“My things are in Ginny’s room…” 

You sighed, realising that if you wanted a pair of pyjamas for the night, or even a fresh pair of underwear, then you would have to waltz in and wake her up - and likely be interrogated about where you had been. She was all too knowing anyway, and any excuses you gave about spending the time caring for George or simply having a ‘talk’ with Fred would be seen right through by her. 

Fred hummed, and stood, and you were surprised when he comfortably went over to the chest of drawers against the wall at the end of his bed, going right to the top drawer. The drawer where you used to keep some of your things when you stayed with the Weasleys on holidays - and surely enough, a small collection of your things were still in there. 

Things that he had never returned to you after the break-up that you had never thought to ask for. You had no idea that he often came to this drawer, sneaking mournful whiffs of your scent - even used your shirts as a pillow case if he was feeling particularly lonely. 

He pulled out a pair of your comfortable sleep shorts and a large, soft, worn green tee shirt with a large shamrock on the front and a ‘94 on the back that he had bought for you as a souvenir from The World Cup. It had been your all time favourite sleep shirt, and you had wondered where it had disappeared to when you moved into your apartment above the Apothecary once you started the job. 

“I hope these still fit.” He said, handing you the clothes. 

“They should.” You said - quiet, careful not to acknowledge the elephant in the room. The fact that he had kept your things all this time. 

“Unfortunately I don’t have any panties for you, so…” He trailed off, a filthy grin plucking up over his cheeks once again when the implication hit the air - the fact that you would be commando underneath your clothing. 

“Yeah, very unfortunate in your eyes, I’m sure, Fred.” You huffed, turning toward the door. “I should go get cleaned up.” 

You let out a small squeak when two strong arms encircled your waist, pulling you sharply back, causing you to collide with the wonderful, bare, muscled, now slightly sweaty body. You couldn’t help but to melt into the touch, and you let out a quiet moan as he began kissing your neck - not in a particularly lustful way, but in a way that was purely loving and affectionate. 

“Don’t think you’re getting away from me that easy, darling.” He whispered in your ear. “Please, do come back afterwards. You know I like to cuddle,” 

You didn’t think that you had ever heard Fred Weasley say ‘please’ for anything so plainly in his life. But, as usual when it came to him, you wanted exactly what he wanted. 

“Only if you insist.” You joked lightly, smoothing a hand over his arm that was still tightly encircled around your middle. “I suppose I can clear some time in my very busy schedule for cuddling,” 

Fred quietly let out a ‘yes’ in celebration, and hesitantly let you go. He then collapsed back onto the bed, relaxing spread eagle, still confidently naked against the covers with his hands behind his head against the pillow. You couldn’t help it when your eyes did a once-over of his body, admiring the soft planes of his muscles that had come from hard work rather than a distinct workout routine and the beautiful bit of fat on his lower belly that made him so warm and nice to cuddle. Of course, when your eyes met his, he was smirking at you. 

“I’ll be waiting, love.” He told you with a wink. 

You rolled your eyes at this, biting your lip to suppress a smile at his somewhat deserved cockiness. 

You moved to leave the room with your newly acquired clothes, wanting to freshen up in the bathroom a bit before going to sleep (the bathroom was right across the hall, so you would have to sneak across the way naked and hope that nobody would catch you, but it should be fine at this time of night). But when your hand twisted the knob and it didn’t budge, you remembered that Fred had locked it earlier. 

He moved to grab his wand from the pocket of his pants, splayed out in the middle of the floor, but you reached for the jeans first. Your wand was still downstairs beside the cauldron that had brewed the potions for George, but often, you found that Fred’s wand worked fine for you. 

Ollivander and other wand experts said that a wizard couldn’t find the same kind of success using a wand that wasn’t their own, but you found using Fred’s to be just as natural, like an extension of your own arm. Perhaps it was because his core was a Dragon Heart’s String, and that heart beat for you just as fondly as his own did. Either way, it was a fine substitution. You unlocked the door easily and tossed the wand back to him where he was sitting on the bed, and then you snuck across the hall to clean up and get dressed. 

When you came back, Fred had crawled under the covers and was starting to fall asleep. When you crawled in alongside him, you found that he hadn’t bothered to get dressed, so you locked the door again, just in case. It was a basic charm that anybody could get through, but it would give the two of you a few minutes of warning to make yourselves decent if somebody did come knocking. 

It felt like the most wonderfully natural thing in the world to settle beside him, wrapping an arm around his waist while he slept on his back, putting your head on his chest and feeling his sleepy fingers brush across your head from behind. 

“Goodnight, love.” He whispered, so quiet as though he was afraid to break apart a beautiful daydream. 

“Goodnight, Freddie.” 

… 

You wondered if all of it had been a dream. 

Fred apologising to you, begging for your forgiveness, the two of you having amazing sex - it was something you had dreamt about many times before. It was something you had wished would come true, only to find yourself waking up alone in a cold bed. So waking up next to Fred, with his large, warm body coiled up against your back like a koala was one of the best ways you could have come into a new day. 

It wasn’t long before the smell of Molly’s cooking reached your nose - the wonderful fatty sizzle of sausages and the bready warmth of toast that told you she was frying up a full English (likely because she had been having trouble sleeping after the events of the night before). Your stomach gave a painful pang, making you want to get out of bed to eat just as much as you wanted to stay cuddled up with Fred. 

You gently petted a touch along Fred’s heavy arm that was wrapped possessively around your waist, and soon, he sucked in a sharp breath as he too began to stir. 

“Merlin, I missed this.” He said, leaning in to smother you with more of his perfect warmth as he somehow crowded tighter against your back, kissing along your clothed shoulder and up your neck once again. 

Your heart fluttered with the sweetness, the fondness of it all, and you wondered how such a hellish night had made way to such a perfect morning. 

“I wish we could stay in bed forever, Freddie, but I think your Mum is making breakfast.” You remarked, finding yourself more aware of your hunger as you woke up more, and more drawn to the delicious smells. 

“We can stay here for a bit longer.” He hummed into your neck. 

Just then - his stomach let out a loud groan of protest, and you giggled. 

“Come on, Big Daddy needs to eat too.” You said, using the nickname in a more playful, joking manner as you patted his thigh, untangling yourself from his arms as you got out of bed. 

You were surprised, and slightly victorious when you saw a slight blush tinging his pale cheeks because of the teasing, the way you had used the nickname. It was amazing to see someone like Fred go from so powerful and confident to fluttering with shyness. 

“I have to find some trousers,” He remarked, suddenly remembering that he was naked. 

“I’ll meet you downstairs,” You grinned, walking across to the bathroom, lucky to beat anybody else there before the others started waking up. 

When you hit the bottom stair, Fred was standing at the back of the couch with his back to you, now fully dressed in a pair of comfortable plaid sleep pants and an old Chudley Cannons shirt that must have belonged to Ron. (It was only because of many winding discussions about Quidditch among the boys that you hadn’t even wanted to hear that you knew the Cannons were Ron’s team and the twins hated them.) 

Fred was leaning over, clearly talking to George, who was still laying where the two of you had left him the night before. You hated that your instinct was to stand back where neither of them had seen you and listen in on their conversation - but you had only learned such matters from Mr. and Mr. Extentenable Ear themselves. 

“...well, yes, I would say that it did go well, but I would still have to classify the nature of the relationship as dubious. Or friendly at best.” Fred said in a rushed whisper. 

Your stomach gave a twist. This time you had to assume that the twins were talking about you. Talking about what had happened between the two of you the night before. 

“Dubious?” George’s voice baulked, clearly trying to stay hushed himself, but having a hard time restraining his volume due to frustration - frustration at not being able to get a better answer out of his brother. “The two of you had sex and you’re classifying the nature of the relationship as dubious? Are you an idiot or was the sex that horrible?” 

You choked down a laugh at this, not wanting to be caught just yet, and resisting the urge to speak up and clarify that the sex was, in fact, great. 

“No, she seemed perfectly satisfied, thank you very much.” Fred hissed back, full of sass. You would have said more than ‘satisfied’ - for once, Fred was actually being humble. “But I just didn’t think to stop and ask: oh, by the way, does this mean that we’re back together and you still love me? Or were just scared and lonely after almost dying and wanted a decent lay? Can you fill out a post-orgasm survey to clarify, please, and make sure to-” 

An arm came up from the couch with a pillow, smacking Fred clear in the chest - hard enough to force a small grunt out of him. George was certainly feeling better. You were glad to know that your potions had done him some good. 

“You should have just asked, you numpty!” George scolded him. “You’ve been mooning over losing her for-” 

“Y/N,” Fred cut off his twin’s words by saying your name, announcing your presence as that smack with the pillow had caused him to finally turn his head and spot you there. 

“Fred.” You grinned, not at all ashamed that you had been caught. 

You walked over to the couch, leaning over to find George grinning at you in a way that said he was holding back a barrage of stomach shaking laughter because of the conversation you had caught the two of them in. 

“For the record, I would call the sex more than satisfactory.” You said, a mischievous grin coming over your lips. “And I do still love you.” You announced, turning toward Fred. “I was lonely and scared last night, but that’s why I came to you. You’re the only person I want to go to when I feel that way. I missed you. And I want you back if you’ll have me.” 

“Merlin, of course I’ll have you.” Fred breathed out a sigh of relief, now grinning as well. “I love you more than anything, darling. You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.” 

“I have some idea, and it was bloody annoying.” George muttered out, only to be ignored. 

You leaned in for a kiss, naturally, but just as Fred’s lips brushed yours, George let out a loud, fake gagging sound - one that had Molly running into the room, clearly fretting and worried that George was actually ill. 

“I’m fine, Mum.” George groaned as Molly began patting down his head with a wet cloth - clearly, his night had been filled by the annoying, but loving fuss of his mother watching over him. 

“Yes, yes of course.” Molly nodded, hesitantly putting the cloth down. “It’s time for breakfast anyway - do you feel up for sitting at the table, dear?” 

“I would love to get off this bloody couch.” George groaned. 

Fred rushed around to help him up, and after a moment of struggle to his feet, you grabbed his other arm to help him along into the kitchen. 

“I suppose it all worked out for the better.” George said, smiling at you. “Even if you did end up with the less attractive twin.” 

You rolled your eyes, biting back a smile at this.

...

A/N: This fic is a oneshot, and there will not be a continuation or a 'Part 2'. This is a capsule story meant to be read independently, and in terms of the narrative, there will not be a continuation. If you are going to leave a comment, please comment about the body of work that has been written here, do not comment asking for more. If you would like to read more of my fics, please take a look at my Harry Potter Masterlist, more specifically, my other Fred Weasley fic - Kisses Like Fire Whiskey. Thank you if you have gotten this far, and happy reading!

[circuitfurscaleandvine]

🦎About HDG, as a setting. I think you can tell a lot about a person by what parts make them uncomfortable, and to what extent it does. Obviously there are those who hate it because of the diversity, kink, poly, and sex. But there's a group of people who bounce off it despite being otherwise cool, and I think I've figured out why.

Their exact phrasing differs. Some people say the Affini "don't respect consent", which is only true in very specific cases. Similarly with the Affini being imperialist, sure but not like humanity is imperialist.

No, I think the specific thing that drives some people up a wall is that affini value Continuity of Identity far less than humans. They /do/ respect it somewhat, but nowhere near how much people do. Any complaint that relies on not wanting to change /that fast/ is going to be steamrolled over.

Here's an example. Let's say someone has a deeply trained identity that happens to be harmful to them. If you, a human, tried to fix that in 24 hours, you'd not only fail but you'd come off as invalidating their past and present self. Thus, when an affini does what a human can't, via drugs and hypnosis and hours of care, the affini reads as being similarly reckless and abusive. It's too fast, surely they gave that girl trauma? But no, that's not how the setting /works/.

The Affini get to be reckless and mess with Continuity of Identity because they're hundreds of years old with the equivalent of countless Ph.Ds, access to medicine and technology 100s of years ahead of ours, in a post scarcity society. They can move that fast, safely, because they're trained and equipped for it. If you haven't internalized that setting detail, if you missed that trope, if you read the Affini Character as a Human in Green Facepaint… well yeah, no shit you won't like the setting.

[solxamber]

⋆˚✿˖ Twisted Wonderland Masterlist I˖✿˚⋆

Masterlist II

Heartslabyul

Trash Novel Chronicles: System vs World - Riddle x reader

You have a guilty pleasure: trashy villainess stories. So when you die a frankly, humiliating death, and end up in one of the worst ones you've had the pleasure of reading, you're in denial. Then the villain system shows up. Well, there goes your second chance at life So what do you do now? Do villainous things and cause as much chaos as you can, of course. And maybe, just maybe, bag the male lead, Riddle Rosehearts while you're at it.

This is Love - Riddle x Reader

3 times he notices your acts of love and realizes it doesn't have to be grand and overdramatic like the movies, it could just be like this– sweet and considerate.

Dragon's Favorite Sacrifice - Trey x Reader

Trey finds himself volunteering to be the human sacrifice to you, an ancient dragon, in place of his siblings. What he didn't expect was to become your housekeeper instead of being eaten.

Cocoa Conspiracy - Trey x reader {Request}

He knew you as his partner, the love of his life, but he didn't realize your real identity: a spy vying for pastry destruction.

Donuts and Dark Arts - Trey x reader

All Trey wanted to do was deliver the bread he was supposed to and be on his merry way. Instead, he stumbles on you... in the middle of a ritual?

Birthday Party - Trey x reader {Request}

Trey is more worried than suspicious when you keep disappearing and acting suspicious. He gets more worried when the rest of heartslabyul join in. (Spoiler alert: he doesn't need to be)

Crisis Averted - Cater x reader

After a royal screw up, Cater is left scrambling trying to fix his mistake before you find out. Best part? You've known what he did from the start and you think it's hilarious.

Moments in Bloom - Cater x reader

Cater’s life is a perfect illusion, curated with smiles and snapshots. But beneath the surface, he wonders—what would it be like to be truly seen? To finally stop pretending and let himself bloom?

Forgiveness - Deuce Spade x reader

When Deuce accidentally breaks an item that you treasured, he's worries that he's broken your trust as well. But there's nothing that can't be fixed with a hug and an apology.

Savanaclaw

Knights and Oaths - Leona x reader

You come from a long line of knights that have served the rulers of the Savannah. But sometimes traditions are meant to change and the second prince is looking like someone worth changing them for.

Trash Novel Chronicles: Love Triangles and Royal Rumbles - Leona x reader

When you get isekai'd as the male lead in the novel where your favorite character, Leona Kingscholar is the second male lead, all that's left to do is rewrite the romance!

Burn Wild - Leona x reader

Always so close, yet so far away. Leona pushes it down—he keeps pushing and pushing, until one day, he lets it break.

Royal Scandal - Ruggie x reader (personal favorite)

You're being forced to marry someone to take the throne you've fought your entire life for. Okay, if that's how it is, you'll make sure to choose the one person here that your dearest parents will disapprove of the most.

Octavinelle

Shark Tanks and Shady Deals - Azul x reader

After narrowly dodging a one-way trip to the sharks, you've hit rock bottom, career-wise. Enter Azul: your friendly (totally-not-shady) talent manager. In a moment of desperation, you sign with him. Wait, he's actually really good at this. Like, too good at this. Maybe the near-shark experience was just the universe’s weird way of setting you up?

Trash Novel Chronicles: Not Another Royal Mess - Azul x Reader

As a proofreader who gets isekai’d into a cringeworthy novel, you decide to take revenge on the heroine and male lead for their awful story. With Azul—who just wanted to sell you a magic rock—pulled into your chaos.

Love Bites - Floyd x reader

You like him quite a bit, you really do but you're really questioning your decisions after some time spent with him ends up sending you to the ER.

Match Made in Madness - Floyd x reader

Soulmates get updates of each other's lives through an overly enthusiastic dream narrator. What's worse is that your soulmate seems to be completely unhinged.

Witch, Please - Floyd x reader

You're the best witch to go to for getting the job done. Your potions? Absolutely foolproof. At least, that's what you thought until a certain Floyd Leech waltzed into your store.

Cakes and Crime - Jade x reader

After a long week of assignments and sleep deprivation, all you wanted to do was satisfy your craving for a specific pastry at your local shady café. What you didn't mean to do was accidentally order a hit on yourself.

Love in Contempt - Jade x reader

When you take your ex, Jade to court over a ceramic octopus, the reason he wants it so badly might be sweeter than you thought.

Scarabia

Recipe for Love - Kalim x reader

You know you can't cook, your cat knows you can't cook, everyone who has seen your lunch box knows you can't cook. So why is Kalim so insistent on eating the monstrosities you conjure?

Rest Assured - Jamil x reader

4 times you see Jamil nearing his breaking point and the 1 time you intervene.

Pomefiore

Trash Novel Chronicles: Please Let Me Live - Vil x reader (personal favourite)

You get isekai'd into the worst novel you've had the misfortune of reading because apparently your life is a cosmic joke. Now all you have to do is not act like the character you've possessed and it'll be fine, you think?

Your fiancé being Vil Schoenheit makes it a little harder to behave like a human being with functional braincells, but hey, atleast he likes you, you think?

Fairytales and Fever Dreams - Vil x Reader

When you decide to beg a fairy for help at your lowest point, you didn't expect that he'd decide to help you— at the cost of you making skincare for him.

Of Seashells and Sweet Nothings - Vil x Reader

You're cursed to love everyone except Vil, and he's cursed to love only you. And yet somewhere along the way, it seems the cursed gene has skipped you.

aka Merman! Vil x reader

Roommate Rumble - Vil x Reader

You and Vil end up as roommates due to administrative error. Unstoppable force (Vil's perfectionism) meets immovable object (your chaos). It ends up working out perfectly.

Date(?) Night - Rook x reader

Rook is convinced that you have feelings for him after your "date". You have no idea what he's talking about, considering that you've never been on a date with him.

Ruler of My Heart - Rook x Reader (personal favorite)

He has always pursued beauty, and he sees everything. But has he ever been seen?

Ignihyde

Coughing up Love - Idia x reader

You don't think much of it when Idia starts acting weird because let's be real, that seems to be his default around you. Wait are those flowers he's coughing up?

Reaper's Guide to Romance- Idia x reader

When reaper Idia Shroud is assigned to collect your soul, he can't help but come up with increasingly ridiculous excuses to spare you.

Trash Novel Chronicles: I Want to Retire - Idia x reader

You write a novel that reads like a dumpster fire and while trying to delete the draft, you accidentally get isekai’d into it. Now, as the villainess you have to get Idia Shroud on your side as well as survive high society. You have your work cut out for you.

Hook, Line and Shy Guy - Idia x reader

Idia loves your shark tail. You think it's adorable.

Diasomnia

Kidnapped(?) - Malleus x reader

You were sick of the taxes imposed by the aristocrats in your already poverty stricken village. Your idea of a solution? Kidnap their young master , and make them reduce taxes as the ransom, of course. Only problem is that you went into the wrong manor and kidnapped the wrong young master.

How Not to Court Your Crush: A Disaster in Six Acts - Malleus Draconia x reader

You're trying to court Malleus so why is he acting so weird? Malleus is trying to court you, so why are you acting so weird?

aka you try fae courtship and malleus tries human courtship, you both fail spectacularly.

Trash Novel Chronicles: Accidentally Falling For a Fae Prince - Malleus x reader

When you get dragged into a novel which ends with the heroine in a polycule with the most annoying men in literature, you decide that you're gonna skip town. ...Only to trip over the fae prince, Malleus Draconia.

How to Tame Your Dragon - Malleus x reader (personal favorite)

Since you and Malleus have gotten into a relationship, you've become a bona-fide dragon soother. But whenever you fumble, the entirety of NRC faces the consequences.

aka the 7 times you cause ecological disasters and the 1 time it works out for you.

Trash Novel Chronicles: I'd Rather Date the Male Lead's Dad - Lilia x reader

When you end up in your best friend's favourite but absurd novel about breaking a fae prince's curse, you didn't expect to get attached to his little family too. Even more unexpected? You fell for the male lead's dad, but hey, it looks like he likes you too.

Others

Frights and Fancies - Skully J. Graves x reader

Doing Halloween prep with Skully! (This is Grim's Night before before Halloween) {written before the full event is out so might end up ooc}

Chasing Fairytales - Neige LeBlanche x Reader

Neige is convinced that you're either allergic to him specifically or he's done something to offend you with the way you're avoiding him. You're just trying not to get blinded by his smile.

Project Love - Rollo Flamme x reader

When your eccentric professor pairs you and Rollo up for a study on attachment types, you didn't realise how much it would change your lives.

Romance Roulette- Rollo Flamme x reader

You, Rollo's self-proclaimed bestfriend, have been trying to set him up with someone for the past few weeks. If all your plans fail, maybe you should do it yourself?

Homecoming - Rollo Flamme x reader

You come home after a long work trip. Rollo is happy to have you back.

Sweet Encounter - Rollo Flamme x reader

You really want the parfait that's exclusive to couples. So you you do what anyone would do, pretend a random stranger in the café is your partner of course.

Escape Route - Rollo Flamme x reader

You're stuck at a party that you frankly don't give a damn about. And Rollo Flamme looks like he would rather do anything else than be here, so you grab him and bounce.

Yours to Keep - Rollo Flamme x reader

Rollo is calm, collected and confident. Jealous? Rollo Flamme? No way! ...unless?

Stolen Kisses - Rollo Flamme x reader

5 times you kiss him and the 1 time he kisses you

Multi Characters

Hanahaki with Overblot Gang

Making Up After an Argument with Overblot Gang + Rollo

Period Simulator with Adeuce + Overblot Gang + Rollo

Requests

Rook Hunt x reader (Shape-shifter! reader)

Malleus Draconia x Reader (24 Plum Blossom User! Reader)

All NRC + Staff + Rollo, Neige, Chen'ya (Wild cat beastman reader)

Dorm Leaders + Jamil (Colorblind reader)

Idia Shroud x reader (Sentient Otome Game NPC! reader) // Part 2

Azul Ashengrotto x reader (Insecure Mer-form Azul x reader, hurt/comfort)

All NRC + Staff + Rollo, Neige (White Rabbit! reader)

White Rabbit! Reader overblots

Aftermath of White Rabbit! Reader's Overblot

Epel, Vil x reader (Teaching Epel Capoeira)

Vil, (platonic) Crewel x reader (Fashion disaster reader)

Rest of the characters react to fashion disaster reader

Malleus Draconia x reader(Insecure reader, hurt/comfort, happy ending)

Lilia Vanrouge x reader (NPC! Reader)

Pomefiore x reader (Artist!Admirer! reader)

Heartslabyul, Octavinelle, Pomefiore + Che'nya (Absolem! reader)

Savanaclaw, Scarabia, Ignihyde, Diasomnia + NRC Staff + Neige (Absolem! reader)

Malleus, Vil, Jade with Angel!Reader

Jamil, Rook, Vil, Lilia with cherub! reader

Tweels with a strong reader

Idia x reader (Reader gets turned into a cat)

Jamil, Azul with a super talented reader

Lilia with a reader who behaves like General Lilia

Leona with an unhinged reader

Vil, Malleus with an unhinged reader

All NRC + Staff + Rollo (Reader shapeshifts according to emotion)

7th Overblot Aftermath - All NRC + Staff (Hurt/Comfort)

Rollo Flamme x reader / Part 2

Savanaclaw, Scarabia with a silly but mature reader

Ace, Deuce, Silver with artistic reader

Grim vs Cat (Idia x reader)

Deuce, Riddle, Ace, Epel with Pomefiore! reader

Jade, Jamil, Azul with 'The Cat'! Reader

Vil, Rook Idia with 'The Cat'! Reader

Delinquent Deuce x Delinquent reader

Pomefiore + Jamil with a Maternal! reader

All NRC(-Ortho), Rollo, Neige, Che'nya with M! Incubus! Reader

Trey, Jamil, Platonic Adeuce with Rich! reader

All NRC + Staff + Rollo, Neige, Najma Viper with Slime! reader

Skully J. Graves with a Huohuo! reader

Overblot gang + Ruggie with a Princess! Reader

Idia, Cater, Rollo comforting recovering reader (Warning: Mentions of SH)

Octavinelle with Shark! Reader

Sam x reader(platonic)

Skully J. Graves x reader (Double Halloween!)

Skully J. Graves x reader (ft. Sally!)

Octavinelle, Diasomnia x Freshwater Stingray! Reader

Main Masterlist

[chezzywezzy]

Yandere Michael Myers (1/3)

Word Count; 3.7k

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I rolled onto my side, hand slamming down on the alarm. A groggy yawn escaped my lips. Daylight cascaded past the curtains. Normally, I’d loiter a little longer, but it was my first day at a new job, and I was carpooling with Irene, a sweet neighbor and mother of four with whom I became acquainted.

So, I stepped out of bed and went to the bathroom, going through my morning routine with extra care. I was tired, but despite that, motivated. After all, it was my first job straight out of college after having received my nursing degree. Sure, the job would probably be more intense than most… but my parents wanted me to return home.

I finished up a thin layer of makeup and got dressed. I supposed that I wouldn’t need to be all flashy since I’d be wearing a nursing outfit upon arrival, but I still wanted to leave a good impression on my new boss, Samuel Loomis.

I took my time eating breakfast. I was quite nervous, but I knew things would go smoothly. Sure, working at a sanitarium could be unsafe, but even the most dangerous members of society deserve to be treated with humanity. 

It was approaching half-past-eight, so I zoomed out the door. Irene was parked out front and I walked up to the car. I opened the door, greeting,” Hey, Irene!”

“Good morning, Y/n,” the black-haired Asian woman greeted. 

We headed through Haddonfield. The radio was turned to a minimum. We made some small talk on the drive, eventually exiting the main town and venturing through some forestry. We eventually approached the Smith’s Grove Sanitarium. I fiddled with my bag.

The guards let us through the front gate after confirming our identities. Irene parked near the front of the dismal grey building. All of the barred windows were off-putting. It must’ve gotten cold during the winter. 

“I hope you can last,” Irene sighed. “This job can be… stressful. It depends on who your assigned patients are, though. Mine are fairly nice, but some of our coworkers have experienced violence. And infrequently, death.”

Shivers rolled down my spine. I mustered no reply. We went to the front desk. “Hi, sir. I’m a new employee. Where am I supposed to go?” I asked the attendant, leaning against the counter.

He sent me a small smile. “I’ll call Doctor Loomis. He always insists on showing new employees around himself.”

He reached for the phone and pressed a button, calling for Doctor Loomis. Meanwhile, I sent Irene off since she had more pressing matters. 

A middle-aged man emerged from one of the doors a few minutes later. I recognized him immediately, as his book was incredibly popular, even today.

“Hello, sir!”

The man sent me a warm grin. “You must be Ms. L/n. There’s no time to waste. Let me show you around.”

“Great! Thank you for this opportunity, sir.”

A tour began. I was shaking in my boots, but hardly from the circumstances. I felt more at home in the sanitarium than in any other place, but I was determined to make a good impression on her new boss. The tour seemed almost redundant; it was as though I hadn’t been thoroughly introduced to the map in my pocket already.

“I have a patient that I’d like you to take special care of. Of course, there will be others, but this one… needs someone with such a sunny disposition such as yourself,” Dr. Loomis explained. “I’m sure you’ve heard and perhaps grown up with the stories of this particular patient: Michael Myers. He is a renowned serial killer.”

“Yes,” I replied chipperly. “I’m looking forward to meeting him.”

“Good, because you are going to right now.”

The abruptness took me aback. Anxiety attempted to curl against my insides, but I didn’t allow it. We halted in front of a door that was far sturdier than the others; the door looked fresh and new, which told a story all of its own. Dr. Loomis withdrew keys from his pocket and inserted one. I couldn’t help but gulp.

The door squeals open. I anticipate the deadpan stare as the man and I make immediate eye contact. I had only heard of his strange mask, but never had I seen what he actually looked like: brown, tussled, and overgrown hair. A sharp jawline. Bright blue eyes. Broad and tall. Everything that, under normal circumstances, would make a girl’s heart flutter. But mine was still. He sat in a perfect posture on the bed, and thick metal cuffs gave him little to no freedom with a chain stuck in the wall. 

“Michael. This is Y/n, your new nurse. I hired her to attend to — almost exclusively — your needs. I hope you two can get along. Ms. L/n?” Dr. Loomis introduced, ushering me in.

I grinned, trying to shake off the nerves. “Hello, Michael. I look forward to helping you out. Take it easy on me while I get used to the job, alright?”

“Very good. Now, Ms. L/n will get your lunch medication.”

I was startled but eagerly nodded, having already been shown and trained the how of it all. “Yes. It was wonderful to meet you, Michael.”

As Dr. Loomis and I exited, I felt his gaze glued to me. It was rather unnerving.

Ten minutes later, alone and armed only with my alarm, cell key, and medications, I returned. I took a deep breath. Little did Loomis know, but I had a vague history with Michael Myers. Although we never spoke, he had been in my kindergarten class all the way to when he went on a murder spree. I couldn’t help but wonder if he knew me, too.

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t want to work at this specific sanitarium, even though it was my dream job. However, due to parental pressure, I was urged not to leave the area. Coincidentally, this was the only place hiring. Michael Myers was old enough that my parents didn’t bat an eye when I mentioned where I would be working, so it all fit together perfectly.

I entered the room with the small metal tray. Michael hadn’t moved an inch. His eyes bore into me — or perhaps beyond me — and his fists were still clenched in his lap. “Now, although I’m new,” I began,” I’m sure you know the drill. A few pills and a shot.”

I approached warily. Michael did nothing but blink. I sat the tray down on the bedside table, my moves calculated. I grabbed the styrofoam cup of water and handed it to him. He downed his pills with ease and took the shot like a champ. It put me on edge how still the man was. I carefully sat on the bed next to him.

“Although I was advised against breaching the five feet of the chain’s length, I hope you won’t mind. I just… wanted you to get to know me a little since I’ll be working closely with you.” His gaze flitted toward me, cold. “I just recently graduated from nursing school with a specialization in psychiatrics. I was born and raised in Haddonfield, the same as you. And this kind of job is my dream job since I believe that even criminals deserve care and to be treated as humans. So, Michael, I hope you understand that I will do my best to ensure you are well cared for, even in these conditions.”

As I expected, there was hardly any indication he had heard me at all. I stood and nodded. “Anyways, I believe it’s time for lunch. I’ve heard you aren’t allowed to eat with the others, but… I’m hoping I can change that.”

~~~

And change that I did. Dr. Loomis was surprised by Michael’s supposed ‘obedience,’ which had been there from the start. By the time he allowed me to take him to the cafeteria, I had been working there for two months. And although I watched closely, I had hardly noticed any changes in his behavior. My coworker, Irene, convinced me otherwise. With the dangerous stunts I’d been pulling proximity-wise, it was shocking that I had yet to end up like the others.

I wasn’t one to play dumb. I knew that Michael had the highest kill count with the nurses. With giant hands and a large body, he could easily overpower me, but the encouragement I’d gotten from my superiors kept me going. And today was major progress.

Guards clutched at his elbows as we walked down the sanitarium halls. I frowned slightly, knowing that if Michael wanted to do anything, he certainly could, cuffs or otherwise. I walked slightly ahead, having been entrusted with the keys to the cuffs. Although Michael would be somewhat separated, Dr. Loomis believed this to be major news for Michael’s rehabilitation — and now, the doctor was supporting me in risky endeavors.

I grabbed lunch for him as the guards settled him in the corner of the cafeteria. Eyes from the other patients were stuck to me, as I’d only been vaguely introduced. I. Mainly worked with Michael, although I covered a shift for the nurse who works with Marcus — and I understood why she called off so often.

Marcus was an interesting subject. He was a serial rapist, and it showed. Despite his history, Dr. Loomis often had female nurses working with him. And when I did, he did nothing but spit cruel, perverse cat calls at me. I heard a familiar whistle and knew it had come from his general area. I wasn’t surprised that the serial killer made me more comfortable than the rapist.

I returned to Michael with his food. His eyes bore into me, and I smiled. “Now, Michael, I had to pull many strings for this. I hope you appreciate this, but I’m allowed to remove your cuffs for a more comfortable eating experience.”

Michael's eyes flickered to his hands and back to me. I noticed his lips twitched, too. Progress, I chanted in my head. This was progress.

The guards took the handcuffs and held them tightly. They were trained to assess everyone and everything as a threat. Michael was slow and calculated, rolling his wrists. He then took his fork and ate. A sense of intrigue fell over the other patients, and some of the other nurses had their eyes glued to Michael’s form. They were waiting for a freakout that wouldn’t happen, either because Michael was making progress or because he wasn’t dumb enough to plan a breakout in this environment.

Mealtime passed without a hitch. I spent the entire time saddled up beside him. My job felt meaningful as I sat with him. When it was time for him to be escorted back to his room, I told Michael I would see about more comfortable handcuffs for him. Exiting the cafeteria was without hitches, minus a loud holler from Marcus, to which I couldn’t help but notice how Michael’s hands clenched.

When he was safely back in his cell, I decided to try another risky maneuver; I set him free from his restraints and sat beside him on the bed. Michael was still; he always was. I cleared my throat, beginning my typical speech of positivity.

“I know it probably seems silly to you, Michael, but I’m quite proud of you. I’m glad you’re challenging expectations here. You’re really making progress, whether you admit to it or not, and I thank you for that.”

~~~ 

Or so I thought. That night, my landline awoke me from a deep slumber. I thought nothing of it, deciding I wouldn’t be a pushover and pick up another night shift at work. However, the ringing persisted. And when it stopped momentarily, it came again.

I rolled out of bed. My hair was disheveled, and my purple silk pajamas — a gracious housewarming gift from my mother — were crumpled and twisted slightly. I shuffled downstairs, the ringing getting louder the closer I grew. I finally made it to the phone. 

“Hello —“

“L/n, you need to get down here right now! It’s an emergency —“

“Dr. Loomis, what —“

“He’s gone on a rampage. Twelve nurses are dead, and so are five patients —“

“I’ll be right there!”

The line went dead instantly. My mouth no longer felt dry. I was fully alert, although some sleep persisted in the creases of my eyes. I dashed upstairs and pulled on my earlier clothes, which lay scattered on the ground. With that, I made it to my bright blue buggy and drove to my endangered work site.

I’m not entirely sure what motivated me. I thought the police would better handle the situation, and it felt as though all of my efforts had been reduced to nothing. Something had set him off. But I wasn’t a therapist. I shouldn’t have crossed that boundary of trying to give him opportunities.

I pulled into the parking lot.

The moment I exited the car, I heard screaming. Several police cars were parked in front of the sanitarium's entrance. A group of police officers was huddled, but even they seemed worried. I pushed past despite warnings to remain outside. I dashed through the entrance. I followed the sound of the screams. 

And upon entering the prisoner hallways, I found her. My dear friend and coworker, Irene. She lay in the middle of the hallway as a twitching, bloody mess. A weapon had clearly been used: the handcuffs. Her head was bashed in, but there was also bruising around her throat. She’s been bashed and choked to death.

The halls were eerily silent. All of the cells had been unlocked. Some of the patients’ corpses were scattered. All of this destruction… was done by one man.

What had I done? What part of Michael had I unlocked?

I skulked down the hallways. Where were the guards? Where were the police? Where was anybody?

I passed by deceased coworkers as I skulked carefully down the hallways. Occasionally, some of the corpses released dying breaths, but I was certain I was following the blood. And then, as I glanced at the floor, I noticed the smears stopped and bloody footsteps began. The feet were large, and the shoe prints belonged to prisoner shoewear. I gulped, recognizing that the footsteps went straight toward the cafeteria entrance. Worst of all, if Michael discovered the back exit for the cafeteria staff, he would be free.

The doors were wide open, and one was even off the hinges. I stood in the entrance. It was pitch black inside, although the lights sometimes flickered on and off. The footsteps seemed to fade out very quickly into the cafeteria. 

I gulped and took a step back. What was I thinking? That I could confront him? The man was a mammoth and a maniac. I was just the nurse who supported his development. He probably hated my guts, despite what Dr. Loomis thought.

None of the bodies belonged to Dr. Loomis. So where was he? And where was Michael?

I wasn’t left wondering for very long. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed some postils gleaming from the hallway to my right. The police were here, and I was nothing more than bait. No wonder they let me through so easily. Shivers rolled down my spine, and I took two steps into the blackness of the cafeteria.

As the lights flickered on, I saw him. He was holding the corpse of Marcus, that damned patient. I didn’t feel too bad about him, but I was shaking in my boots as the body fell to the ground, and Michael’s gaze turned directly toward me.

His expression had not changed from that of any other day. Cold. Calm. Empty.

And as though he was gliding, he made a beeline toward me. So many questions about his escape flashed through my cranium, and all I could do was freeze in place. A scream remained silent in my throat as I put my trust in the police to be right behind me. My fists clenched, and I opened my mouth just as Michael was a few feet away from me.

“Michael, stop!”

He did.

That made my heart drop to my stomach. However, I realized I did hold some power. I was waiting desperately for the police to enter and intervene, but they were waiting. I decidedly didn’t want them to and took a step back. Michael tilted his head, unblinking. He stayed frozen in place. A plastic knife with the handle broken off was in his bloodied hands, and I noticed some gelatin goo was sticking to the tips. His jumpsuit was drenched and sprayed, as was his face. His hair had never looked more tussled. And even without smiling, he had never seemed more gleeful.

“Michael, what… what is happening? Why did you… do this?”

Before Michael could even think, shuffling footsteps came from behind me. My jaw dropped as an arm suddenly looped around my waist and pulled me away. But Michael just stood standing still as gunshots drilled into his chest. And then, finally, he dropped.

~~~

“Ms. L/n, I understand —“

“No, Dr. Loomis, you don’t,” I pleaded, my aggravation present. “Michael is alive and detained. Something I did set him off, or he was planning it. Nothing I can do will help. I refuse to return to work. I am quitting, effective immediately.”

Dr. Loomis, from behind his work desk, suddenly banged his fists into the desk. “L/n! I know it’s been hard on everyone, but we need you here. We’ve lost twelve nurses. The nurse-to-patient ratio isn’t adding up. The sanitarium is overrun and, if even for the short term, we need you here. I know what we went through was hard, and what happened here can’t happen again.”

“But it will. Does anyone even know how he escaped?” I quipped snappily. “He never even managed to escape his handcuffs. He didn’t need to. So who’s to say it won’t happen again?”

“Because he is being sent away to a sanitarium called Smith’s Grove Sanitarium. It has a high level of security, far better than ours —“

“Good. But that doesn’t mean I am capable of returning to work. I am leaving now, Dr. Loomis.”

With an exasperated expression, Dr. Loomis grasped at the air where I once sat. I didn’t glance back as I exited the office. And I didn’t spare any moments to analyze my surroundings until I was in my car on the road heading far, far away from the sanitarium.

My parents, having finally connected the dots about my job, had been scared shitless. Luckily, it was summer, and the Haddonfield High School was hiring for a new biology position. I was planning to apply to keep things rolling. Deep down, though, I just wanted to ditch this town and escape the parental pressures I was forced into. It was a little late for that, though. The damage had been done.

~~~

For class that day, I had been gracious. I put on the Charlie Brown Halloween movie and sat at my desk. I couldn’t help but notice that as most kids were either passing notes, doodling, or watching, I had one student whose eyes were glued to the window. Laurie had her pen stuck in her mouth as she adamantly stared out.

Suddenly, Laurie looked rather alarmed and made direct eye contact with me. “Ma’am?”

“Yes, Laurie?”

“Can - can I go to the bathroom?”

I paused, glancing out the window for myself. A car was driving away. “Yes, Laurie, go ahead.”

Some of the kids snickered, to which I sent a stern glare. I went back to grading papers, instead getting lost in thought. Teaching was hardly my calling. I was a natural stutterer in the wrong element and did not enjoy disciplining undisciplined children. I also felt that it was dull to go back to the basics, which I would probably end up doing year after year with no change. I knew I had a lot of liberty and the job paid well, but it wasn’t like my time at the sanitarium, with doubled paychecks and a routine that wasn’t up to me. However, I promised my parents to stick around until a better job opportunity popped up.

The movie credits were suddenly rolling, and a student alerted me from my position. Laurie had rejoined the group at some point. I flicked off the television. 

“Well, since I’m everybody’s favorite teacher, and it’s Halloween, why don’t you all just head out early? Class dismissed. Don’t cause any ruckus. I’m looking at you, Tommy.” 

I sent a friendly grin, and the students whooped and hollered. Laurie only glanced away from the window and began packing her things. Laurie was a good student: studious, communicative, and attentive. Perhaps movie days just weren’t her style. Several students came up to talk to me in a line after class, wishing me a happy holiday or asking about grades. Laurie slunk out of the classroom quietly.

After the classroom had been evacuated, I sighed, and out of morbid curiosity, I wandered over to Laurie’s seat. I was taken aback as I recognized that the car from earlier had returned, but even more disturbing, a tall figure with a white mask and brown hair loomed over the vehicle. He made direct eye contact with me.

My brain began processing so many horrors all at once. I hadn’t thought about Michael specifically in months, but it all came flooding back. His history… but it was also Halloween. And no news had come to me about Michael’s escape. Not from Dr. Loomis or the papers.

Regardless, I stumbled back, blinking at the masked figure. We maintained a long, steady eye contact. Even when a man walking his dog strolled on the opposite side of the street, I knew the masked figure’s gaze remained glued to me. 

It couldn’t be Michael. It was a creepy Halloween prank…

I steeled myself and wandered back to my desk. I hurriedly packed up, abandoning the biology tests on the desk in a flurry. Prank or otherwise, I was thoroughly disturbed and wanted to escape that man’s gaze.

When I glanced out the window one last time, the car and man were long gone.

[wonderjanga]

C.C and Marylin Headcannons

Okay, so the other day I saw someone type about their headcannons for Billy. I wanna put my head cannons for him/his parents too cause I’ve been thinking about this for a while.

So as of now, I’ve been playing a bunch of Tomb Raider games. If you’ve played or at least heard of the franchise, you’d know that Lara’s an archeologist. And guess what? C.C. and Marylin are. (Btw am I spelling her name right 😭) So, in my mind. They both grew up in England and then immigrated to the US and met in Fawcett and blah blah blah. Now to the good stuff, you know how Lara exudes utter badassery? You do? Great! So all the heinous, wild, plot armor filled things she did in the newest TR trilogy (Tomb Raider, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider) Marylin did all of that. I’m cooking guys I swear, just trust me. Then as for C.C., in my little mind, he’s half Norse and half British. So, you know that one game where Lara wields Mjölnir? (I think it was Tomb Raider Underworld?) He did that. Guys, I swear I’m cooking.

So now, cause Billy in Marvel form looks like their Dad, and Mary in Marvel form looks like Marylin, you gotta wonder what their old archeology buddies are thinking. They’re either not surprised, or they’re like are you flipping kidding me? I can imagine one of their old buddies going up to Billy and being like:

Buddy: “C.C.! You old bastard! How have you been? How’s the wife and kid? Also, quick question, you disappeared for a couple years and didn’t bother reaching out to anyone. You good?”

Billy: *Looks around before flying off cause he has no idea who this person is (he’s too young to remember them)*

I can also imagine the JL with this, specifically Batman. He runs facial recognition on Billy and finds C.C., Bruce is like okay, cool, finally, a clue about that man’s identity, only for him to find pictures, photos, and newspapers from the 40’s and 50’s (I believe in time bubble Fawcett. The Batson’s died in 58 and Billy and Mary were 8 at the time. By the time the time bubble appeared, they would’ve been 10 or 12.) So, Bruce digs a little deeper and finds that C.C. and Marylin have killed a lot of people during their time as archeologists (and they definitely have since I based them off of Lara. Guys, Lara has killed a lot of people.) He also finds out that C.C. and Marylin are dead. So now he’s left confuzzled as to who the heck Billy and Mary are, cause they look exactly like them. Or at least Marvel does and Mary looks like a teenage Marylin, so for all Bruce knows she’s Mary Batson and Marylin is actually dead. But then that raises another question for Bruce, where is Billy? Is he Captain Marvel Jr.? They look similar, but not completely. The whole thing has left Bruce with more questions than answers. It’s also left him looking at The Captain in a newer light. He didn’t think the man had the emotional capacity to have a serious relationship. (He thought he was too childish. Not that my Marvel is, he acts more like a 20 something year old guy instead of a kid) Not only that but now he at least has confirmation that Cap is human… maybe. But I also want to look at this with other heroes! Like Wildcat (the goat) he grew up during the Great Depression and due to his slow aging he was allowed to live all the way up to now. He might’ve seen the Batsons in the paper. He might’ve also read about how their plane went down. I can imagine him being like “Hmm… You’re familiar.”

There’s also Question who I know would be driven up a wall trying to figure out who Billy is, and if not Billy, then he’s trying to figure out where Marvel’s from, cause the Living Lightning is thousands of years old. Yet, he keeps getting led back to an archeologist whose plane fell down in- *gasp* Egypt! Near Kahndaq! *Double gasp* He spirals.

Then there’s also Black Adam, who does his own research on the champion. He finds out the same thing Question did about the plane. The next day he flies over to Fawcett:

Black Adam: “You sniveling worm! What were you doing near Kahndaq?!”

Billy: “Dude, what are you talking about?!”

Black Adam: “You know what I’m talking about, Batson!”

Billy: *Gives him the most horrified look Adam had ever seen on Marvel’s face.*

Oh, and let’s not forget about Ebenezer. Imagine seeing your dead brother, or at least someone that looks like your dead brother, fly around saving people. After everything he did to Billy, I’m sure he was scared shitless(pardon my French). But what I think is worse, is that he’d constantly be waiting for Marvel to do something, only for him to do nothing and just unknowingly leave Ebenezer in suspense for every waking moment. Bonus points if Ebenezer knew about the Lara Croft behavior.

[bluexiao]

#second lead syndrome… or is it really?

–when they couldn’t confess their love for you, thinking you love someone else / seeing you with someone, looking in love, how would they react?

CHARACTERS. Albedo, Al-Haitham, Ayato, Cyno, Heizou, Kazuha, Tighnari, Venti, Wanderer / Scaramouche, Xiao, Zhongli; gn! Reader

THEMES. Some angst, some crack, and some fluff, (pick your fighter); non-established relationship (yall are not together, just friends)

NOTES. first ever multi hc for this year! yayy happy new year everyone~

ZHONGLI knew he was a god, and you weren’t. And even still, a part of him dreaded—desired you in a way that he never thought he would in a human. You were supposed to be one of his people.

But now he loves you more than that. And there only lies the question if you love him too.

Yet despite the dread to hold you in his arms and to proclaim of such mortal feelings he had attained for you, he holds back and forces himself to watch from afar. For a god like him has no reason to meddle with the fate of humans like you—no matter how he claims to be a mortal himself with the name he bears now.

And so, all he could do was watch you from afar, eyes fixed as if he was watching a theatre play unfoldon a stage that he chose to be an audience to, whereas the main lovers fall for each other, and all he could do was watch.

But then your eyes suddenly met, your smile like the sun that scorched his being, a gentle wave with your haand as you cal his name; “Zhongli! Can you come over here, will you?” It wasn’t even his real name, merely an identity he had chosen to keep as a result of wanting to live a mortal life.

A mortal life.

Maybe he should try living more with that—with you, he hopes.

┌───────── ·  ·  ·  · ꒰⚘݄꒱₊

XIAO has no use for love. Such a measly thing it is—to devote oneself to another with just mere feelings and empty words of promises.

And so Xiao stands on the top of the inn, looking down, his spear nowhere to be found, arms folded over his chest, and gaze directly focused–your way.

You were talking and laughing at a certain human, looking ever so comfortable as you usually do with him–or maybe you were always like this to others, and that includes him.

Then, as if you had sensed his presence, you looked up to where he was, but he was far gone, disappearing as if he was never there. If he had only stayed and seen the frown on your face, he wouldn’t have had to waste his time hiding away from you.

Xiao, he soon realizes, does have a use for love, as this ache inside his chest is something he cannot quell just by merely equipping his spear and defeating monsters.

┌───────── ·  ·  ·  · ꒰⚘݄꒱₊

WANDERER was never such a patient man. And besides, he isn’t even human.

It took a while to accept his… circumstances, and once he does, he will be very obvious with his so-called “feelings”, usually sticking to your side most of the time and glaring at practically anyone who would so much as dare to glance your way.

And as much as he is always near you, he will eventually notice whoever you will pay attention to–especially ones that would be constantly haggling over your sight. But he doesn’t do anything about it–doesn’t confess, doesn’t try to talk and ask to confirm his suspicions. Does he need to? No. He does not need affirmations because he is perfect enough to not need one–a perfect being who did not need such things as “love”, or “partner”s.

The words will die down in his mind when he sees you with someone else, however, form already right beside you as he finds himself glaring at whoever it was, “Oh realy? I can do that ten times better than you can,” he’d bark, already mocking at everything that the person does or claims themselves to be. Don’t misunderstand the Wanderer, he just thinks that this stranger is just too useless, you don’t need to waste your time over them.

‘But they’re human, unlike you,’ a voice inside his mind would say, but bites his lips, not letting that slip through his mouth.

┌───────── ·  ·  ·  · ꒰⚘݄꒱₊

VENTI sings praises and is full of love. He is the god of freedom and the wind. He is a bard for goodness’ sake.

“I am but a simple bard, how in Teyvat would they even see a person such as I am worthy of them?” he cried theatrically as he took a chug of his wine–or whatever it was in the bottle in his hand. But no matter how much he looks, the weight in his heart was very much real nonetheless, the memory of you with someone else plaguing his mind.

A god such as him losing to a mortal over your love. What could anyone possibly say if they hear of such a tale? Perhaps he may just end up writing a song of his broken heart to somehow ease the pain. At least thatw ay, he could Mora…

But one must never underestimate a god’s love… as eh might find himself crawling back to your arms tomorrow morning.

He has a lifetime to win your heart, after all.

┌───────── ·  ·  ·  · ꒰⚘݄꒱₊

TIGHNARI felt his feelings of care for you were normal. Of course, maybe he only favors you among the rest, even against his fellow rangers.

And something so normal is not supposed to bother him even in times when he’s supposed to be focusing. The forest is an unpredictable and dangerous place.

“What seems to be bothering you, Master?”

He halts from his tracks and turns to the other, “It’s nothing, Collei.”

But it’s not really “nothing” if he ends up walking away after reprimanding you and one of the other rangers for “lazing around”. And yes, that same one who had been lurking around near you lately, especialy when he’s not around.

Clearly, there must be something going on between that person and you. Of course, he could not possibly let anyone be so lax with this work, even if it’s you.

“You’re probably jealous, aren't you, Master? Aren’t you and Y/n dating?”

Colei can see and atone to how the other freezes—his tail and ears as well, and all he could do was watch as Collei giggles at him while nudging him with her elbows.

“Master and Y/n look very good together, and don’t worry, I’ll keep it a secret if that’s what you want!”

┌───────── ·  ·  ·  · ꒰⚘݄꒱₊

For once, KAZUHA was out of words.

Peace can be associated with silence, but silence is not always at peace–and now, the wind was completely silent.

“Not going to Y/n, kid?” Beidou stands next to him with crossed arms as they both have eyes focused your way. She sighs while she shakes her head, “Are you letting them go that easily?”

He feels his stomach drop, but the ghost of a smile on his lips masks the feelings he has inside. “They don’t belong to anyone but themselves, and that includes me,” he looks away and turns around, the breeze slapping his face just as much as reality does, “they are free to love, even if it will not be me.”

┌───────── ·  ·  ·  · ꒰⚘݄꒱₊

HEIZOU knows everything.

But this one he just found out is probably one of the things he just wished he didn’t find out.

Well, technically, it was a good thing!, he says to himself. After all… he always teased you and now, he probably did the right thing instead of… telling the truth.

Ah, by all means, he is no hypocrite. But, he does wonder when you had liked another person, and why? Surely, he had made himself known to you, with your daily meetups and banters, and you were even his “partner” in a case once. Perhaps he relied in his ability far too much that he forgot purpose for all of his efforts.

The least he could do was to support you in the sidelines… right? Surely he doesn’t like you that much to remain helpless in this situation.

When he saw you with that person the next day, he knew his resolve was far gone.

He must definitely find out what made you fall in love with this person…

┌───────── ·  ·  ·  · ꒰⚘݄꒱₊

CYNO does not know what he was going to do. And so, what does he do?

He hides in the corner and observes.

Of course, he can just walk right past both you and the person who you’ve been eating lunch with for the past hour, but for some reason, he can’t. Something about the scene right in front of him makes him want to interrogate the person; what their job was, who their family are, what other things they do—they cannot possibly hang with you if they have a bad record. All the more, what if they have bad intentions towards you?

And so, with his mind made up, that was what he does. At least, intends to do until you saw him and he met your eyes.

“Cyno! There you are, I’ve been waiting for you!” Once you had caled him oevr, the person scrambles up an excuse and runs away as soon as they can, even stumbling over a few times.

All Cyno could do was watch as the perosn runs away and sighs, sitting right beside you and crosses his arms.

“Who was that? What do they do? Are they from the Akademiya? I haven’t seen them before.”

“Oh, I don’t know, they just came here and sat in front of me.”

He is definitely hunting down that person until his questions are diminished.

┌───────── ·  ·  ·  · ꒰⚘݄꒱₊

What AYATO wants, Ayato gets.

Of course, that does not mean that he treats everything or everyone lightly, on the contrary, he does what he can to attain anything or anyone that he sees as valuable. With someone of his caliber, it would not be too difficult to get people to turn his way.

You, however, was someone who piqued his interest. Yet despite this, he lets you be, not doing anything… until he had seen you with someone else—a retainer of another Commissioner.

He reasons with himself that he only stepped beside you and piped in to the conversation out of being wary towards the other retainer—eh coudl not possibly have you, his friend, to be too exposed with the works of the Tri-Commision now, right?—and with his position and words, the retainer soon walks away.

“Now that they are gone, what do you say about having tea with me this afternoon, Y/n? Unless you have a scheduled date with that… retainer.” He tries to mask his disbelief, and thankfuly, you didn’t notice.

He ignores how you looked away, seemingly flustered for a moment as you mumble a small “Sure… and we’re not dating, master Ayato… it’s not like that.”

He looks away with a smile. Certainly, this is far better.

┌───────── ·  ·  ·  · ꒰⚘݄꒱₊

ALHAITHAM is rational. Most of the time.

“O-Of course, The Scribe must be very knowledgeable, compared to a lowly person like me,” says the other person that Al-Haitham did not really catch the name of right after he just questioned the person’s intelligence (very subtly at that).

“Oh come on, you’re not lowly-“

“This is why it is important to raise our knowledge, even to the little things, as we do not know what we might encounter. If you want, I can even refer you to the Akademiya, you don’t need to thank me.”

“I-I’ll think about it… thank… I mean, see you later, Y/n… and Scribe Al-Haitham,” the person sooner leaves without any more fight.

“Hey…. What is it with you? Something ruined your morning or something?” You npeered at him and he merely looks away whilst clearing his throat.

‘We were losing our time. I wanted to eat our lunch as soon as possible. Why? Are you suposed to be on a date with that… person?”

“What? What on Teyvat are you saying?” Your reply makes him crack a smirk. Of course, he was right. How could he even think that you were dating that person… at least, he won’t let that happen.

┌───────── ·  ·  ·  · ꒰⚘݄꒱₊

ALBEDO respects you a lot. A whole lot.

Yet that respect comes with admiration, and sooner, he realizes that this admiration might have been stronger than he had thought the moment he saw you with someone else.

He does not engage, however, merely waiting until you had finished your conversation with that certain someone, looking quite joyful than any time else, more than the times you had spent with him, actually.

“Albedo! There you are,” you grinned at him after walking away, even looking back at the figure of the person you had talked to.

His eyes peers at you like a hawk, taking note of everything; with the brightness of your smile, to the shine in your eyes, and to the giggle that erupts from your lips.

Had he ever seen such qualities in your face before? He couldn’t help but question himself as you send him one as well.

“Sorry, just got immersed in the topic… shall we go?”

He forces out a smile—which seemed real nonetheless, “Of course.”

“Hm?” You tilt your head to the side, “Is something the matter?”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he immediately answers, thinking that you probably had noticed his staring. He raises his hand and smiles, “shall we?”

He squeezes your hand when you willingly took his. Ah, maybe he could be greedy… just this time, he thinks.

comments & reblogs are greatly appreciated! ♡

taglist on reblogs!

[s0lemnhypn0s]

(Warning for this post I'm half asleep so I might be incoherent or have disjointed topics. Bare with me, I'm trying to express my thoughts the best I can.)

(and WARNING! i discuss personal paranoias at one point during this, which include the topic of bugs and self harm)

"Billford is ironic we're shipping them ironically" "We don't actually want to see them together" "We don't think theyre a good pair" "its irreconciliably abusive" "its one sided"

ok I'm gonna put forward a take that might be poorly recieved: I think you all are misunderstanding Billford (And each character individually) and just reducing it to "bill abused ford" takes away so much of what makes their dynamic fascinating. And also claiming "Erm its a bit" while engaging in something you "recognize" as abuse only does a disservice to the topic of abuse and how it relates to the mentally ill (I will get into that later). You are treating the relationship as a joke and only acknowledging the abusive aspects when people come at you is just pretty scummy of you. Speaking as someone who experienced a near identical abusive relationship, where my paranoia was preyed upon, causing me to still suffer from the paranoia of being watched by them or that my abuser will eventually send someone after me.

In general, the existence of abuse is a complicated one and abuse is not a catch all, end all term. Not all abuse is built the same. Billford is undeniably abusive, but there is not a period after "abusive", are you picking up what I'm putting down. It's not just "Bill was exerting power over Ford and thats it"

Lets start with: We all recognize Ford is paranoid, but we don't seem to recognize Bill as paranoid in the exact same way, dare I say - Even more paranoid than Ford. I mean, ford got his "Trust no one" quote from Bill directly saying his rule of thumb for trusting people is to just trust no one. He doesn't trust others - He simply doesn't. And this is part of where Bill Cipher's manipulation of SPECIFICALLY Ford comes in.

Now I am going to speak from a personal anecdote of my experience with paranoia and delusions - Me, I will try to "safeguard" against my every little fear and belief that something will, undoubtedly, undeniably, be out to hurt me, and these safeguards are often extreme in nature. They don't make sense to the people around me, but they make sense to me. Sometimes they hurt the people around me. Sometimes, they hurt me. I believe this is the same with Bill Cipher himself. He is taking measures to make sure his worst fears do not come to pass. And because Bill is decidedly not human, only interacts with humans when he deems neccesary, those measures often take the form of something even more extreme than, idk, me shaving my head because I thought bug eggs were in my hair or trying to cut open my skin because I thought something was living in it. They take the form of something abusive (Which is also just... Something that happens with the mentally ill sometimes. I see you guys trying to separate our mental illness from our actions and claim "thats not making you do that". I see you.). Him trying to guard himself from something so terrible(facetious) as Ford's percieved betrayal ultimately becomes a self fufilling prophecy.

Not to mention, if you guys didn't notice. Bill without a doubt projects his own insecurities onto Ford. "I make you feel important" Ford makes Bill feel important. "No one loves you" He was ostracized in his dimension. "Who will miss you" He destroyed his entire home, nobody would mourn Bill, because they were all gone, long gone. "I'm sending someone to steal your eyes" Might be a stretch, but I look towards the silly straw poem "A different kind of eye doctor, who wants to make his patient blind" Obviously the use of "blind" here is metaphorical, but I feel its still in some ways applicable.

Bill very evidently experienced medical abuse and ostracization in Euclydia, something exceedingly common for those labeled as mad. (Which also brings me to the topic of people saying "I'm so glad they didn't make Bill a sympathetic villain in the book of bill" bc. Hi. I'm a guy thats experienced ostracization and medical staff forcibly medicating me in order to fix me. I think he is sympathetic actually). Not only that, Bill Cipher had a trillion years to fester in his resentment and his guilt, and you think that like. Didn't effect him at all. I really and truly beg to disagree.

Not only that: I think Bill felt a kinship with Ford. Ford was ostracized, he was betrayed by the world (and "betrayed" by his brother), he was regarded as a freak for what he was born with, just as Bill was regarded as a freak for his mutation in Euclydia. Bill thought Ford was just like him. Bill thought Ford would understand him, and furthermore would jump at the opportunity to burn the world down with him. And. to his credit. Ford does, in some capacity, understand him. As much as Ford could understand, with Bills lies within lies. Bill craves the intimacy and fears the touch. He uses fear to get Ford to love him, not only because he thinks it will safeguard him from what he fears most, but likely because it is all he knows, all he was taught. Love through fear. Our love is painful, but we only want to help. Pain in love is natural. It's right. It will only hurt a little. This is how you know we love you. He was shocked when Ford rejected him. He thought he did everything right. He had everything planned, for them to be together for eternity.

And bare in mind also that - Bill. Most evidently. Views himself as a monster. When Ford asks about what happened to his dimension, who destroyed it - Bill responds "A monster.", he says "Sixer, it would eat you alive" when Ford offers to help hunt it down. He lets his mask of jovial, mysterious mischief drop just slightly, and we understand just a little bit more of how he feels about the euclidean massacre, how he understands himself through his actions. And what he understands, is that this is just his nature. "I liberated my dimension, Stanford", a lie but not in the way you'd think. He lies, acting like what he did was intentional, as its the only way he could ascribe "reason" to what he did. It couldn't have been an accident. That is just how I am. It wasn't an accident, and I liberated them. (I wish I could go back.) And I come back to the idea of a self fufilling prophecy, because its again- That exactly. Bill decided this was all he could be, he did everything that would make him a "monster" after the accident that caused the euclidean massacre - And so, he was. A sick prognosis that he created and fufilled with his own two hands, he became the monster he and his home dimension envisioned him as.

Abuse is a complicated subject. What Bill did was abuse, yes, but I also distinctly believe it to be a case of abuse between two mentally ill people, one of which is so old, his hate his anger and his regrets, all are ancient and yet so fresh.

I feel another part of the problem is people are taking Bill at face value. Which is exactly what he wants to do because then you dont get at what hes doing all this for and why. You don't get past the exoskeleton to the tender flesh beneath. But stop taking what he says at face value. Read into it more. Analyze the triangle.

Also it might be controversial (hyperbole.) , but I do thing it means /something/ that during Ford's part of the book of bill, where Bill and Ford's relationship is recounted from his perspective, Bill is notably absent, whereas in the rest of the book, he is guiding us through it and constantly maintains a loud presence in it. You could interpret this in a lot of different ways I think, but the way I've chosen to interpret it is as a mix of shame, regret, and an unwillingness to revisit their past together. Perhaps even Bill having enough respect for Ford to not interject his telling of their story together, if you want to get real complicated about it. Paradoxal, if you will.

(Also I find the theraprism to be a most fucked "end" for Bill Cipher due to the medical abuse he experienced as a child. Something something, mad people can never escape the institutions which seek to "fix" them.)

anyway if you read through my mad sleep addled ramblings CONGRATS! i'm probably going to make edits and add to this when I wake up in the morning but i needed to get this out or id forget. billford is abusive but its way more complex than just... abuse. Abuse is a complex subject and it exists on a spectrum, for a lack of better words. and dont twist my words - That isn't saying "this is less bad abuse", this is saying "its complicated and just leaving it at abusive does their relationship a disservice"

[elexuscal]

Danny Phantom ghost things i'd want in a hypothetical reboot

so like the rest of the fandom, i've had my own ideas for cool ways Danny's ghost powers could operate fermenting for over a decade. not all of these are wholly original-- i'm sure they've been influenced by a bunch of other fanworks over the years. but while it'll (probably) never happen, i'd love to see them depicted in shiny, professional animation

ghosts are ideas, manifested. their appearance and powers are all directly linked to the shape and powers of that idea.

when Danny first turned, his 'ghost form' was barely anything at all. wispy, insubstantial. he was still weak from his [near] death experience, confused and scared, and these moments where he's apparently lose all visibility and corporeality were as confusing as they were terrifying, creating an awful negative feedback loop

Gradually, as Danny came to understand and anticipate these ghostly transformations, his form solidified. by the time the show starts, his ghost form is basically identical to his normal human form, just with the expected palette swap

Danny starts to realise his body is malleable in that form, and experiments a bit. mostly with realising he turn his legs into a wispy tail to go faster, or maybe changing his body for a goof

but there are subtler, gradual changes.

as Danny becomes more confident with his Phantom persona, as it becomes a genuine alter-ego, Phantom's appearance changes.

Phantom's a little taller. A little more muscular. His jaw a little more chiseled. His hair goes from "mundane dishevelment" to "anime protagonist spikiness".

yes, this goes great with transguy!Danny, thanks

these changes are gradual, maybe a single tweak to the character design per episode. enough that by episode 13 or so, if you were to put images of Fenton and Phantom side-by-side, you'd realise they were no longer just palette swaps

unfortunately, there are downsides to this ghostly nature

Danny's ghost form (and sometimes even his human form) is directly linked to his mental state.

if Danny's insecure? Phantom can become weak and insubstantial. Scared? Small and childlike. And if he's angry? Well...

Twisted claws for fingers, teeth contorting into fangs, strange waving tentacles emanating from his body...

Maybe there's a reason people don't recognise Phantom as human. Let alone as that Fenton kid from down the street.

sometimes, though. someone swears they'll see Danny Fenton's eyes flash green in the darkness. just for a moment.

being a ghost isn't just cool super powers. have it be, in a very real way, eldritch.

[heartfullofleeches]

Night Gallery Yans in response to a Painting "Reader" taking over Night Guard Reader's life-

I plan on doing a full fic with this, but i wanna map it out a bit by who knows right off the bat and who is throwing hands with the fake-

Fooled for a millisecond: Rosebud, The Scavenger, Soleil

Knows something is wrong with Reader off first glance, but can't put their finger on it: Anri, The Faceless Angel, Julian

"You are not my Y/n - Die.": Julian, The Lady in Red, The Painter, Rosebud's Rose

-

Rosebud

"Someone's in a chipper mood today....Are you feeling well, Rosetta?"

Initially writes off Reader's strange behavior as them coming down with a cold. Their roses, on the other hand - can smell a dirty, no good fake from miles away. Hisses at "Reader", bites them if they get too close, turns increasing agitated and violent until the real Reader returns. Their temper tantrums are quite common these days, but the rosed love reader almost as much as Rosebud.

Something must be wrong.

The Scavenger

They could potentially be in the secondary category - if it wasn't for "Reader" throwing the painting off their trail by leaving items belonging to the real Reader lying about for it to steal. The fatal error painting reader makes is by giving the Scavenger something that belongs to them instead of the Reader Scavenger knows and cherishes.

Soleil

Possibly the easiest to trick. The clock is must too busy gathering its lost dogs and bolts to notice anyway. They're so caught up making themselves perfect for Reader they barely realize they're speaking to a fake when their paths cross

Anri

"You don't look to good, Y/n. Take a break and lemme know when you feel better, alright?"

Almost seems...frightened of "Reader" Comes up with an excuse to run off or straight up flees whenever they're near. Can be found throughout the night until the real Reader is back searching for something....or someone.

The Faceless Angel

Night Guard Reader has always been kind to them, but for some reason their kindness feels.... artificial. Stalks "Reader" from the shadows for more clues. Oblivious as to why a hole grows in their chest when they see the human who once and still meant heaven and earth to them. Cries for reasons it does not understand.

Julian

Similar to the angel, Julian can tell something is off. Reader's nice sure, but they have enough of a backbone to tell the other security off when he's being a dick. It's one of the things he fines cute about them. Soon as "Reader's" true identity is revealed Julian is back to his art destroying ways. Whilst attacking "Reader" he never slashes their face which is where he strikes first with other paintings he's killed.

The Painter

"Wicked beast! Demon! How dare you steal the face of my muse - transforming their beauty into this, this- Travesty! Remove their face at once so I may strike you down like the blemish you are!

Painting Reader mistake when it comes to taking Reader's image is removing all aspects it deems imperfections. Scars, birthmarks, acne- It tries to be the perfect Reader and that's where it fails as Painter finds every part of Reader to be a masterpiece.

The Lady in Red

"That does no belong to you. Give it back."

A proper lady would be able to tell her spouse from a fake. Call it intuition or something. She only gives painting Reader a chance to speak if they plan to tell her the whereabouts of her real lover. As opposed to Julian, in slaying painting Reader Red aims solely for their face as punishment for thinking she'd ever fall for a fraud.

[thevoidstaredback]

Danny smiled from his place on the clocktower roof. He'd been in Gotham for a while now, two years to the day exactly, but he'd never get tired of the view. Sure, he hated not being able to see the stars at night, but there were worse things. He did make sure to leave the city every night to see them, though.

He liked being up high. It reminded him of, not simpler times, but times when he wasn't as alone. Jazz had made her way to Harvard, Tucker was MIT, and Sam was at Pomona. Danny was nowhere.

They say after he turned fourteen, he died. It, to say the least, wasn't a pleasant or painless death, though it didn't hurt past the initial shock and revival. When he was sixteen, he realized he wasn't aging. Sure, Danny Fenton aged until he was sixteen, but Danny Phantom stopped at fourteen. Good for keeping a secret identity, but horrible for wanting to half live normally.

The day after he turned eighteen, exactly four years after he died, Danny disappeared. He left everything behind and hid out in the one place he'd always said he'd avoid. It was the one place no one would look for him. The one place where he was just another face in the crowd.

Gotham City allowed Danny the anonymity that normally came with death. Instead of just another headstone in the graveyard or a body in the harbor, though, he was just another kid on the streets in a busted hoodie and jeans. No one looked twice and no one asked questions.

In the two years he's spent on the streets of Gotham, he's learned a lot. Survival was something all humans are born with, but growing up with neglectful parents amplified that instinct. Dying and becoming an unwilling hero honed those instincts. Living in Gotham gave him a chance to learn more.

Learning the lay of the land was another thing he learned very quickly. Batman is over all of Gotham except for Crime Alley. That's Red Hood's haunt. Gotham Proper was split into blurry lines and shared between Batman and Robin, Red Robin, Orphan, and Spoiler. Nightwing is over Gotham's sister city, Bludhaven. Signal is the only day shift, so he had the most ground to cover in the least amount of time.

Of course, the Rouge's all had their own territories drawn with hard, barely flexible, lines. Black Mask was really the only one to breach those lines by trying to take Crime Alley, but Red Hood had been keeping him in check.

Learning the rules for each territory and how to interact with each person, Rouge or Vigilante, took time, but he managed. His own experiences had probably helped with that.

The next thing Danny had mapped out was where the neutral stations were. Every territory had them. They were places no one attacked because the important ones have standards. In Crime Alley, it's The Club. In Penguin's area, it's the Iceberg Lounge. Ivy marked off Robinson Park. Etcetera. The Joker is really the only major Rouge without a neutral mark on his map, but that's because he's more of an asshole than the rest. An asshole with standards, but an asshole nonetheless.

Very few of those neutral areas were available to spend the night in. Even fewer we're hiring. So, the homeless population of Gotham City stuck to the streets and back alleys.

However, there were two places Danny knew he could go where he'd be safe from scrutiny if someone looked too close at him. The Club in Crime Alley where all the working girls and boys checked in and reported any Bad Johns or Bad Janes, and The Iceberg Lounge in the richer parts of Gotham.

The clocktower was where Danny liked to spend his nights when the streets were too loud and the lights too bright and the fights too close for comfort. Oracle, who was Batman's eye in the sky and ear to the ground, worked from the clocktower, but he made sure to avoid her. It wasn't easy with what's basically super hearing that he can't turn off, but he found a spot near the very top where he could block out all Bat Business. Plausible deniability and all that.

Danny misses the stars. He misses being able to peek his head out of his bedroom window and name of each constellation he could see. He can't do that in Gotham because of the light pollution that clung to the sky like black mold. It was part of the reason he'd sworn to never go to Gotham.

There are Shades in Gotham. Shadows of people who have died but aren't quite ready to move on. He helps them as best he can, but there's so many that he sometimes feels like he's cutting off a Hydra's head. He gets to see results, though. Some days the parks are more colourful, the clouds have drifted enough to let natural sunlight through, and the graveyards are buzzing with thankful energy.

Danny forwent the thought of trying to get a job a while ago. As far as the world is concerned, Danny Fenton is missing, likely dead. Being dead, in case it wasn't well known, is a legal barrier. Sure, most jobs in Gotham didn't do background checks, but Danny didn't really want to join the Goonion. He's just fine living on the streets.

Ectoplasm is scarce compared to Amity Park, but that's to be expected. Besides, the miasma crushing the city like a weighted blanket was enough to sustain his basic abilities. Food was a bit harder to come by, but, like sleep, he could survive longer without it than a living being can. If anyone were to ever ask - though the likelihood of anyone even finding out - how he was alive, his answer was "Photosynthesis, but for ghosts."

Danny liked being just Danny. No name, no responsibilities outside of keeping himself alive.

Danny Fenton, the loser nerd who fell to the bottom of all his classes, who's obsessed with space and everything in it, who could tell you exactly how long it would take to get from Earth to Betelgeuse and back, is dead. He died the day after he turned fourteen.

Danny Phantom, the hatefully loved vigilante who appeared with the throngs of ghosts, who grew more powerful with every fight, who won more fights than he thought he could because there was no other option, is gone. He disappeared after exactly four years.

Danny just exists. He lives on the streets of Gotham City, staying away from trouble because he learned how to recognize it as soon as he could walk. He loves space and finds every opportunity he can to get out and watch the stars and moon and planets. He likes heights because being up that high reminds him of when he was living and not just surviving. Was there really a difference anymore? He hangs out in graveyards and the docks because the dead are so much more tolerable than the living.

Danny liked being just Danny because Danny doesn't have the world of Infinite Realms and Possabilities on his shoulder.

Danny likes to be able to just be for once.

Storyboard Part 2

[xfriki26]

I didn't see anyone do this so...

🎃Spooky month oc ask game💀

💡 - How did you come to create this oc and what were you inspired by?

♥️ - Do they have a partner? And if so, are they a canon character or another oc

✨ - Are they part of the cult? What is their role there then?

🎞️ - If your oc existed in the series, in which episodes would they appear and what would change?

🌈 - What is the sexuality and gender identity of your oc?

⌛ - How old is your oc (in age terms)?

🏡 - Do they have any family or are they related to a canonical character?

💼 - Where and what does your oc work?

⚰️ - Do they die at some point or have they had a near-death experience?

📼 - What would be their favorite movie or what movie do you associate with them?

🎧 - What would be their favorite song or what song do you relate to them?

🔪 - Have they ever killed someone?

👹 - Are they humans or something different?

🐾 - Do they have pets or would they like to have one?

💔 - Is there any canon character that your oc hates?

🚫 - Anything your oc CAN'T do?

👍 - What is the best feature of your oc?

👎 - What is the worst feature of your oc?

🥀 - What is the worst moment in your oc's life so far?

🎪 - Any hobbies your oc has?

🗻 - What is your oc's favorite place?

Feel free to tag anyone you want and have fun!