#and then the ones from rainbow are some of the big ones

[miaoua3]

Ghost of Your Dreams

Pairing: bf!scoups x f!reader

Genre: smut (MDNI), size kink, no protection (don’t be silly wrap the willy), dom!scoups, spanking, choking, spitting, degradation(slight), praise, cosplay! ghost

Description: all it took was one comment of your and here he was, embarrassed and shy but ready to commit to the fullest in order for him to fulfil your fantasy

Note: everyone went berserk last year when i posted on my tiktok as what characters id like to see svt as for halloween and put coups as ghost from cod so naturally i had to bring even more chaos and write a whole fanfic about it…enjoy hehe (post writing edit of the notes: i passionately hate this my bad guys i suck so bad. and again, not proof read so…yeah lmao)

you knew what you were getting into the very minute you first stepped a foot into your boyfriend’s s home and saw a whole professional pc set-up, with headphones and the kind of keyboard that lights up in rainbow light every time you press any key on it. you knew what to expect from him-late night gaming sessions between him and his friends, him yelling whenever he got annoyed, and a whole lot of cursing.

these are just some of the things you knew to expect.

cheol, on the other hand, never even thought what kind of an effect his hobby could have on you. he knew you would be supportive, and that you would probably use his gaming time to do and practice your own hobbies.

but now, several years into the relationship, he never even expected for you to take any special interest in his hobby, never mind for you to make such an…out-of-character comment like you did two weeks ago.

he was just starting a new game, concentrating on the plot and character dialogue so he knew what to do, when he felt you approach him from behind, carefully watching the screen right beside him.

after a few seconds, cheol sees your pretty pointer finger point at one of the characters from the screen and hears your sweet voice ask “who is that?”

cheol looks up at you with his pretty and big boba eyes, a bit of confusion visible in the way his eyebrows furrow.

“his name is simon riley, but they call him ‘ghost’.”

you only hum in response, tilting your head to the side as you carefully watch the character move around the screen. after a few seconds, you deliver a comment that will forever change seungcheol and who he is as a person.

“he’s hot.”

cheol looks at you, both in confusion and in offence, totally blindsided by the two words that have just left your mouth.

“what- why? how? you can’t even see his face because of the mask. plus, you have a boyfriend, miss. how dare you find another man other than me attractive?”

you finally look at the boyfriend in question, only to see his big cherry lips set in pout, making you smile in amusement. you bend down to hug him around his neck, softly kissing his cheek to comfort him. after you see the corner of his mouth twitch in weakness, you answer his questions.

“i don’t know, something about him is attractive, maybe the way he carries himself and the mysteriousness because of the whole mask thing.”, you muse as you go back to watching ghost on the screen.

cheol does the same, the pout still present as he looks at his favourite character, now with a bit of disdain due to your newfound attraction to him.

after a few seconds of silence, you chuckle before you add another comment that will play a big part in both your futures.

“plus, he kind of reminds me of you, baby. with all the dominance, confidence and that deep voice.”, letting another chuckle, you look him directly in the eyes, you faces only inches apart so he can see your eyes clearly as you add “who knows, maybe you should cosplay him sometime. i know i would love to see that.”

you smile at him before you let a brief kiss land on his lips before you part your body away from his and go back to laying on the bed.

you may have said it in the joking manner, but cheol knew. he saw that look in your eyes, the way your pupils were dilated, the way your smile hid something a bit darker, a bit more sinister in the corners of your lips.

he knew that you weren’t joking.

so here he is, two weeks later, on a saturday night, in the full cosplay, waiting for you to get back from work, his blushing and red face hidden behind the balaclava and mask.

he fondles with all the little belts around his body, namely his waist, chest and thighs. a bit uncomfortable, but nothing cheol couldn’t handle.

hey, anything for love, right?

cheol looks around the apartment as if it will give him an answer as to what he should do, what the plan to surprising you is, but to no avail. the nervousness and sort of excitement is getting more and more unbearable the closer your arrival is getting.

finally, he settles on hiding in the bathroom, knowing that your first move will be to check your shared bedroom to see if he’s there, making the bathroom the perfect place to hide, as it is directly across the bedroom and he can then quietly sneak up behind you.

just like he planned, cheol skilfully hides behind the bathroom door, leaving the light off and the door slightly open as to make you think he isn’t inside. he stills his movements the moment he hears the keys jingling behind the entrance door before the door click open.

you drop your keys into the little dish beside the door before hanging your bag and coat on the hanger right beside it. he hears you sigh deeply, probably meaning that you have had a long day and that you need some relaxation.

perfect.

after you take your shoes off, he hears you still for a moment, carefully listening to the sounds in your own home. after a second, he hears you call out “cheol? are you there? i’m home!”

but to no avail. because he doesn’t answer.

right in that moment, cheol's belief that he knows you better than anyone else was solidified.

because just like he predicted, he hears you take a few steps before you lightly open the door of your bedroom, peaking inside to see if your boyfriend is inside.

showtime.

ever so quietly, cheol moves until he’s standing right behind you, his eyes looking at the top of your head. he just had to smirk at your cluelessness, how you are so cutely looking for him while he’s standing directly behind you.

not being able to resist the temptation, cheol leans in until his covered lips are right by your ear before he utters in his deepest voice possible.

“looking for something, m’love?”

you gasp in shock, eyes wide as you quickly turn towards him, stumbling back so much that if it weren’t for his hand catching your arm, you would’ve fallen right onto your ass.

you gape at his tall and darkly clothed silhouette, being somewhere between shocked and in awe of your beautiful muscle-y boyfriend standing in front of you in a costume you never could’ve imagined seeing him in.

the shock lasts all but 5 seconds before the widest smile he has ever seen on you takes over your features, your pupils blown out, so much so that they appear almost completely black.

with excitement you start word-vomiting “oh my god, i can’t believe you really did this. i think this is the best day of my life. oh my god, are you gonna spank me and say that i’ve been a bad girl? or maybe-“

something about the way you look little too excited, like a kid on a christmas morning that can’t wait to open their presents, the way you smiled so wide, maybe even too widely. like cheol just walked right into your trap.

it rubbed him the wrong way, blood boiling slightly.

although that just might be the multiple layers of clothes that he’s wearing.

oh well.

wasting no time, seungcheol suddenly grabs you by your neck and pulls you towards him, making whatever words you wanted to say die on your tongue and a gasp slip out instead.

the moment your body collides with his, he uses his big and broad body to push you against the wall by your bedroom door, harshly.

your body slams against the cold white wall, and cheol has the oh shit- thought for all of half second that he might’ve pushed you too hard and that he might’ve hurt you.

that is before he hears you moan loudly at the action, throwing your head back.

little masochist.

cheol then immediately comes closer to you, crowding your space so much, until the only thing left to focus on is the mask that covers his face. his chest pushes into yours, making it that harder to breathe, and his knee finds its home right between your legs, pushing upwards until he can feel the warmth between your legs on his thigh.

your beautiful and cute eyes are already teary as you look upwards at him, desperation forming on your waterline in the form of tears.

you don’t have to see it to know that cheol is smirking at the effect he has on you, smugness dripping in his voice as he says.

“what do we have here, hm? your pussy already desperate for me, baby? but we haven’t even started.” he pauses for a second to press his covered forehead against yours before he continues “is this all it took to reduce you to what you really are? a desperate, cock-hungry little bitch? so hungry for my cock hm? can’t even wait for it to enter that little pussy of yours, already rubbing yourself on me.”

it is only when his glove-clothed hand suddenly runs over your front, right where your pussy is desperately rubbing on his thigh, that you even notice what you’ve unconsciously started doing, his fingertips digging until he finds the slit of your pussy lips, pressing hard until he reaches your clit, despite two layers of clothes being in his way.

you moan at the contact, hands grabbing at his wrist, somewhere between pushing his hand away and closer to where you need him the most.

seungcheol won’t let you have any control tonight, he wants you to completely surrender to him, to let him use you and move you however he wants, to just accept whatever he gives you with a fucked out smile on your face.

hence why he grabs both your hands into his before slamming them onto the wall above your head, quickly switching his hold onto your wrists.

with a purposefully made angry face, he looks into your teary eyes. something dark and far more sinister than he thought he could ever feel awakens inside of him, the feeling of giddiness overcoming him as he watches your eyelashes get wet by the tears gathering in your eyes, neediness and desperation swimming in them.

with a deep voice overflowing with warning, he says “no touching tonight, are we clear pretty girl? you are at my mercy tonight. everything i want to give you…”, he pause for a few seconds so he can remove the skull mask from his face and reveal the identical balaclava beneath it, before he pushes his face closer until his cloth-covered nose meets your own and continues “…you will take like a good girl i know you are. understood?”

you watch his dark eyes, purposefully covered in black paint, as you process his words. your mouth are agape, shaky breaths leaving the opening until the sound hits cheol’s ears. his free hand that isn’t holding your wrists comes to hold your cheek gently, a touch of love to show you that this isn’t real, that this is just a bit of a fun game to both of you, that he still loves you despite his harsh words.

with wide eyes, you slowly nod your head to his demand, showing him that you understand.

contrary to his tone just a few seconds ago, cheol gently whispers in the little space between you two “use your words baby, i need to hear you say ‘yes’ before we continue.”

you heart squeezes in love that you have for this man. the fact that he basically interrupted his own fantasy in the name of having you consent to him with your own words makes you love him that much more. sure, it may be the bare minimum to the rest of the world, but to you, who never experienced such gentle love by the previous partners? it means the whole world.

with hoarse voice, you whisper “yes. i understand.”

cheol looks at your eyes for a second, looking for doubt and fear, only to find excitement and trust instead. nodding his head, he pushes his balaclava until his lips are freed, and using the newfound freedom to lay a gentle and light kiss to your mouth, letting them linger just for a second before he pushes the balaclava back in place, now fully ready to push you to the point of tears of pleasure.

within a second, that old flame of desire returns to his eyes. for a second you could’ve sworn that his eyes had a tinge of redness in them, almost like they were literally set on fire.

his hand slowly but firmly wraps around your neck, the leather material making the squeaky sound as he repositions his hand so his fingers are only squeezing the sides of your slender neck. the last bit of air leaves your lungs as cheol squeezes your neck, making you feel lightheaded within seconds.

your boyfriend uses your distraction and hazy mind to just observe you-the way your eyes flutter shut and how tears gather at your water line, how your hands try to grasp onto something to no avail because he’s holding the hostage above your head, how your mouth can’t decide if you want to bite your lip and keep the gasps and moans from escaping or opening them as wide as possible and letting all those pretty sounds flow like a river straight out.

he watches how your hair is already messy, a complete opposite to how you usually style it for work. then to how your pretty neck bobs in an effort to take in more air. the way his black leather glove wraps prettily around it.

his eyes fall onto your chest, and the way your button up shirt gives him a peak of your cleavage, as well as the necklace with his initials engraved on the back of the pendant hanging from the chain. the way your chest raise and fall at rapid speed, the way your tits move with every exhale.

his pupils follow the curvature of your waist, and the way your pants hug your hips-the hips he loves to hold, grab, squeeze and use as his anchor while he’s fucking you from behind.

lastly, cheol observes the movement of your hips, how you slowly roll your hips in slow and small circles on his leg that is pushed between your legs in an effort to relieve the uncomfortable tingle on your clit, the warmth from between your legs making his mouth water in need to taste you, in need to have your tight pussy wrap around his cock.

fuck, he needs to fuck you. right now.

his head drops beside yours, a groan hitting the shell of your ear before he demands “take your pants off, need to have that needy pussy around my cock right now.”

no sooner than when his hand lets go of your hands that were hanging above your head that you immediately got to work, unzipping your pants and missing the zipper a few times. the minute it was unzipped enough, you pulled your pants down, along with your panties, before you kicked them to the side.

while you were preoccupied by taking your pants off, cheol did the same to his. well, he couldn’t really take them off due to insane amount of tiny belts hugging his big thighs. instead, he just unzipped them and pulled them down just enough to free his aching cock from his boxers, precum leaking from the tip the moment it bounces upon being taken out.

your eyes immediately get drawn to the sight, how big he looks, the tip the slight pinkish colour due to lack of stimulation.

but it’s not just his dick-cheol as a whole, right at this moment, looks like something straight out of your wet dreams, like a desire or a kink you can’t talk about, keeping it locked inside a box instead, hidden deeply inside your closet.

the black balaclava with the skull printed on it hugging his head and currently hiding his beautiful face, the black turtleneck that is covered with the fake black military vest, with tons of tiny pockets. the way his big biceps bulge out, protruding even with the longs sleeves trying to keep them hidden.

the black leather gloves that are trying to keep his pants below his cock, kind of frustratedly fumbling with the material because it’s not obeying to his orders. the black pants that hug his legs, the black boots-simply everything.

it makes your whole body feel hot, so hot like somebody poured hot lava all over it.

fuck, i need to suck him off dry right. now.

just as cheol was about to grab you, you let your knees drop, kind of painfully hitting the floor, and as gently as possible due to the hunger grabbing his dick.

cheol confusedly looks down at you, mouth open to say “wha-“ but gets cut off with a moan the moment your warm mouth wraps around his cock.

normally, you would go slow, paying attention to his tip for a minute or so before trying to swallow his whole length.

normally. but not now.

the moment you open your mouth and lean in towards his dick, you start bobbing your head up and down his cock, you hand working on the base that you can’t reach with your mouth just yet. you other hand pulls on his pants, trying to keep them in place while you suck his length.

feeling overwhelmed by your sudden actions, cheol gasps a moan and slams a hand onto the wall to keep him balanced, knees buckling due to the sheer force of your movements.

your mouth haven’t even been around his dick for a minute and he can already feel his balls ready to burst, breathing deep and looking towards to the ceiling (or the heavens, whichever way you want to interpret it), praying that he doesn’t cum so quickly.

you continue with your movements, tongue wrapping around and licking his cock as you drag your mouth back before you suck his length back in, his tip hitting the back of your throat.

cheol watches you in awe and fascination, the way your eyebrows furrow not in concentration, but due to the neediness to have yourself choking on his big cock, moaning every few seconds in pure enjoyment.

never thought sucking a dick could be so good and so…sexually full filling.

you look up through your eyelashes at your boyfriend. even with the balaclava you can tell that his mouth is opened, letting those beautiful and loud moans flow freely out of them, that his eyebrows are furrowed because he’s trying to contain himself and not fuck your face.

which is exactly what you want.

you pull away, both to let yourself and himself breathe, though you keep the eye contact going.

and cheol sees it. that look in your eyes that is begging him to fuck your mouth.

how could he ever deny his baby anything?

just as you were about to go back to sucking his dick, cheol grabs your hair and pulls you away, and keeps pulling on it, making you move your body with it. he only stops once your whole body is back to leaning against the wall, legs kind of awkwardly bent before you readjust them.

your glossy eyes look up at him, needy and demanding for him to fuck your mouth, now.

tapping your cheek with two fingers, he's only able to rasp out "open your mouth."

your lips fall open without a second thought, poking your tongue out as you wait for him to give it to you hard and fast, just like how you like it.

cheol wishes that he could take a mental picture of you like this-eyes glossy, face littered with sweat and mouth calling his name. this right here, how you like right now.

this is everything cheol has ever dreamt about.

ever so slowly, cheol pushes his pelvis foward, his cock held tightly in his hand as he guides it straight to your mouth. he smears the head a bit on your tongue, letting you taste him yet again, but immediately pulling away once you try closing your mouth around it, a sound of disapprovement escaping his lips. once you look at him confusedly, eyebrows furrowed, he's adds "don't move. let me fuck that pretty mouth of yours like i know you want me to, like a good slut i know you are. just relax and enjoy, hm?"

you nod your head quickly before opening your mouth again, an amused chuckle echoing in cheol’s mouth.

very carefully, cheol pushes his cock back into your mouth. his eyes are fully trained to follow your every move, eyes cloudy with desire as he watches you close your mouth around his girth, pretty eyes looking right back into his. he continues pushing his pelvis until he feels the back of your throat close against the head, pearly precum falling down your throat, before he pulls back.

he continues repeatedly doing this a few times, getting you used to the motion and pace, before he speeds up slightly.

your fists are clenched against your thighs, desperate to touch him but resisting the urge to touch him, to pull him closer until you feel yourself choking on his thick cock. instead, you focus that energy to let all the little sounds that you know cheol definitely loves, your humming and moaning creating vibrations on his length.

cheol moans right back, throwing his head back every so often because it just feels so good. the warmth of your mouth as he rocks his hips, the way you try swirling your tongue around the head, the way you’re looking at him, like he’s the only man ever for you.

it all messes with his head.

naturally, he loses himself in the pleasure, unconsciously speeding up his movement until his cock is repeatedly hitting the back of your throat, choking sounds hitting the shell of his ear every time he pushes his cock back in.

after another few minutes of him fucking your pretty mouth, of him letting little comments like “fuck, just like that pretty girl” and “yeah chock on my cock, just like that”, cheol feels himself being so so close, almost a second away from cumming. and although he would like nothing more to paint your pretty face with his cum, to smear it around, almost like he’s marking his territory, to see tears spill from your eyes and mix with his fluids, he would much rather cum inside of you. now.

harshly, he pulls all the way out, hissing once the cold air meets his wet length, before grabbing your jaw harshly with one hand. using that hold, he quickly picks you up, dragging you up to meet him.

you gasp at the action and the way it cuts your airway off, hands quickly grabbing his forearm as he drags you to your feet.

the moment you are close enough, he pulls his balaclava all the way off and clashes your mouths together, tongue swirling around your own, stealing yet another breath away from you.

just as quickly as he kissed you, he pulls away, lips swollen from both the kiss and biting on his lips while fucking your mouth, eyes dark and cloudy like a stormy night.

you’re still gasping because he still has a hold on your cheeks with one hand, nails digging into your skin in a painful yet delicious way, your own hand squeezing his wrist in indecisiveness, unsure if you want him to squeeze it even more or to let you breathe.

pushing his forehead against your own, you can clearly see him struggling to control himself by the way he’s harshly breathing. in a dangerously low and warning tone, he just says “i’m gonna fuck you so hard, just like you want me to. gonna fuck you like a slut i know you are. gonna make you beg me to let you cum. now jump.” before he bends down and grabs you by your legs, picking you up like you weigh nothing and wrapping your legs around his waist.

your heart jumps to your throat in excitement, everything about this so new and so unfamiliar-the face fucking, the cosplay, the degradation. you previously told him it was something you’d like to try, just to see if you would like it more than when he praises you and worships you, and although you like how every time he called you ‘slut’ a shiver went down your back, his praise and calling you his love and baby while he’s fucking you will always be number one place.

cheol quickly grabs his dick and slaps it a few times against your clit before he pushes it inside of you, gliding much easier due to your arousal. you both moan loudly at the contact, cheols eyebrows furrowing almost like he’s in pain. his eyes focused entirely on how your pussy is swallowing his big cock.

you feel heat on your cheeks at the sound your cunt makes every time cheol pushes back inside you and pulls back, it’s all wet and loud, and it makes you want to hide your face in embarrassment. you can’t remember the last you were this aroused, so much so that the slick was staining cheol’s pants that were still just pushed right under his dick.

in the matter of seconds, cheol starts fucking you hard and fast, your loud moans echoing in the hallway, probably making it a show for the neighbours to hear. head thrown back against the wall, you focus on gripping cheol’s shoulders like your life depends on it.

his hands are harshly gripping your thighs, both to hold you up and keep you in place so you don’t slip due to sheer force of his movements, but also because he adores your thighs-if it were up to him, his face would be permanently squished between them while eating you out, all day, every day.

you can quickly tell that neither of you will last much longer, the long foreplay already getting you close to the finish line. for yourself you can tell by that funny feeling in your tummy and in the quiver of your legs that are wrapped around cheol’s hips. for cheol, you can tell by how his movements have lost the rhythm, only focusing on fucking you as fast as possible, desperate to cum inside of you and make you cum on his dick.

cheol presses his sweaty forehead against your own, his glassy eyes looking directly into your own. despite how dirty this all feels, you can still feel love pouring from his eyes into your own. you feel his adoration for you, you feel that his heart is beating for you and for you only. al of that is enough to make the knot inside of your tummy slowly start to unravel, your pussy squeezing around cheol’s dick stronger than ever before.

at the feeling of you milking him dry, he moans loudly, his movements sloppier than ever, holding out his orgasm and stopping himself from cumming just so you can cum together with him.

“that’s it, baby, cum around me. take it, take what’s yours. lemme feel that pussy-“

the rest of his words don’t register in your brain because cheol lets go one of your thighs so he can rub your clit, thumb pressing harshly into it as he moves it side to side in quick movements, and in a few seconds you are cumming.

cheol moans as he feels you cumming around him, his own finish following your own immediately. he tries to ride your orgasms as long as possible, but then he feels liquid drench his pants, only to see you squirting on him, his brain short-circuiting at the sensation.

he successful holds you up through your orgasms despite his legs shaking like crazy from how hard he has come. using the fact that you are leaning on the wall, cheol pushes you further into it in the name of getting closer to you, dropping his forehead onto your shoulder as he feels the last of your orgasm drenching him, his own dick pulsating almost painfully inside of you.

for a minute or so, you two just stand there, hugging each other as you breathe heavily, trying desperately to regain your vision. you pat his hair slowly, just like how he likes it. cheol, in return, hugs you impossibly close to himself, whispering beautiful nothings into your ear like “good girl” and “i love you so much baby”, just how you like it.

after another moment or so, he finally pulls back, his big brown eyes looking you over to see if everything is good, only to be met with your spent but satisfied expression, eyes unfocused as you try to look back into him.

he uses one hand to slowly move your hair away from your face, grimacing a little at the feeling of sweat that sticks to his hand as he wipes your forehead.

he watches you for a few seconds, eyes so gentle and full of love, he can’t resist kissing you slowly, his lips a bit chapped from continuously biting it, but still somehow so soft.

you close your eyes and just enjoy the feeling of his love, arms lazily wrapped around his shoulders, fingers twirling his hair at the back of his head.

he slowly pulls away, eyes searching your own. once he sees you finally being able to focus on him, the first thing he says to you is

“i love you so much baby.”

and for some reason, probably due to all the adrenaline and because of how gentle he is being, you feel your eyes prickling with tears, quickly hiding your face in his shoulder and hugging him closer than ever, seeking out his comfort.

cheol tries prying a bit worriedly, gently asking things like ‘what’s wrong baby? hm? tell me so i can make it better’ but all you have strength for is to whisper quietly to him “i love you too. so much…bedroom, please.”

cheol gets the hint, quickly pulling out of you so he can carry you to your bedroom so he can cuddle you and take care of you, lips kissing your temple as he kicks the door open and walks to your bed.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

you stir awake, eyes blurry as you try to find your boyfriend.

only to see his side of the bed empty.

you quickly get up in panic, still a bit needy and in need of his touch, looking around with furrowed eyebrows.

only to see the bathroom door open, cheol standing in front of the mirror as he’s trying to take off the black paint from his eye area, softly and quietly cursing at how stubborn the paint is, only smudging around instead of getting off his face.

you immediately stop panicking, observing his half naked form, his soft muscles and little tummy getting all of your attention.

he’s so effortlessly beautiful, it makes you wonder how he is even yours. he’s just standing there, only in his black towel, yet he looks like a god, wet hair falling into his eyes as he’s still trying to take the makeup off, pouting at how unsuccessful he is at getting it off.

slowly, you get out of the bed and walk towards him, arms immediately wrapping around his waist from behind the moment you are close enough to him, nuzzling your face into the soft skin of his back.

he smells fresh, like his body gel. luckily your boyfriend isn’t one of those people who uses 36 in 1 shower gels, instead of opting for the regular one, this time having grabbed the one that smells like…cucumbers maybe? nevertheless, he’s clean and smells great, and you enjoy every second of it.

cheol drops one hand across your own that are rubbing his tummy, still trying to take the paint off.

you watch him across his shoulder, smiling in amusement for a few second before you use your hands to slowly turn him around so he’s facing you.

he immediately starts pouting at you, hands quickly finding your waist under his shirt that is hanging from your frame.

in whiny voice, he starts complaining “it won’t come off baby. what am i supposed to do? i have an important meeting tomorrow morning.”

you smile as you take the cotton pad from his hand and take your own micellar water, dabbing the pad a bit with it before you gently start rubbing his eyes.

you feel his thumbs rubbing slow circles on your hip bones in comfort, enjoying the sensation and his touch to the fullest.

“you need to use a micellar water that has some oil in it as well, so the oil can break off the paint particles. your micellar water isn’t strong enough for it apparently.”

cheol just hums in response, fully taking advantage of you taking care of him, eyes closed in enjoyment.

after a minute or so, you pull your hands away to see if everything has come off successfully, nodding your head as you see his open eyes clear of paint. you tell him that he can wash his face now, but before you can pull away and let him get back to it, cheol uses his hold on your hips to pull you into a hug. his lips immediately find yours, tongue slowly entering your mouth so he can deepen the kiss. you kiss him right back, melting in his arms because of how gently he’s kissing you.

your hands rub his chest as he’s kissing you, his own hands travelling up your back, pulling your (his) shirt with it, cold air greeting your ass that is only in a pair of panties.

slowly pulling away, cheol again looks at you with those eyes, making you feel something catch in your throat at the look he’s giving you.

smiling gently, he bends down a little so he can kiss your forehead, the whole action performed slowly and gently.

pulling away yet again, he smiles again as he uses one hand to cup your cheek, thumb slowly rubbing your skin as he looks at you.

seconds go buy as he just watches you before he lightly says in the little space between you “i am so in love with you. you don’t even know it but you own my whole being. i want to give you the world. i want to spend eternity with you, if you would let me.” he pauses so he can push his forehead against your own. almost inaudibly, he adds “in this world, it’s just you and me, love. i don’t need anybody else as long as i have you.”

and as you kiss him to shut him up before he says something else and makes you cry yet again, you think to yourself.

if only you knew, choi seungcheol. if only you knew.

[jarofstyles]

All Night Long

Hi my ducklings! This is a one shot about 70’s rockstar H. Loosely inspired by the song All Night Long by rainbow. Very random but I’ve been meaning to do something like his for ages! 🎸🥀💫

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WC- 7k 

Warnings- talks of being with other people (from both), unprotected sex, oral, impact play/ spanking, light possessive behavior, etc

Every night was similar, but there was always a different crowd. A different energy. A different section would hold their lighters up first, creating the domino effect until the entire arena was lit up, making his heart swell. Music had always been his thing, and it always would be. Getting picked up on a whim after stopping into the very last label with nothing but his acoustic guitar, which he had aptly named Betty, and a duffle bag on his back? It had been a sheer stroke of luck for both the label and himself. 

He was quickly on the rise. The radios playing his songs, record sales reaching new heights, and money he had never even dreamt of seeing. When he’d arrived in Los Angeles, his dream had been to make it big- but the real goal had been to make enough money to keep his mum and grab afloat back in England. The glitz and the glamour had appealed to him always- he wouldn’t lie- but he knew his true values. Some may have changed or slipped along the way, but Harry knew what he wanted from a young age- and that hadn’t changed now as he sat in his dressing room, undone from the show he’d just preformed. Glitter still clung to his slightly damp skin, liner smudged on his waterline barely there, but there was no denying exactly what he was. 

A star. 

He had adapted surprisingly well. In his head, he attributed it to being slightly delusional. Growing up he had always said this was what he was going to do. Constantly getting told off for being a show off, singing on the street corners, finding any gig he could, he had long dreamed for a time like this. The grammy’s were two weeks away and he’d be playing a string of shows in California on the way there- the California Lovin’ tour. $9 a ticket was considered pricey by some, but they were all sold out. The label was happy and the man himself was happy- but something was missing. 

The last four shows, a notable figure had been missing from the crowd. Her long hair wasn’t swaying as she bobbed to the music, no drink in her hand. The alluring energy she always brought when she eyed him up and locked gazes as he gyrated against the mic stand was missing. The flames of heat hadn’t licked up the sides of his stomach when she wrapped her lips around the pink straws he had at his venues. She wasn’t there at all, and that wasn’t something he liked. He’d grown fond of her, his little dove. It seemed she had flown away for a bit, but when she had come right back to him tonight? He had every intention of keeping her in his golden cage along with him. 

 Harry leaned back against the plush velvet couch, his long legs stretched out before him as he watched her walk in, shutting the door firmly behind her. Finally. His body relaxed slightly as she was finally in front of him again, where he was fairly certain she belonged. A cigarette hung loosely from his lips as he eyed her appreciatively. Gorgeous legs highlighted by a tiny little shift dress, long hair swaying behind her back- it was in pretty waves tonight, with a scarf tied around her head like a headband-, arms crossed as the slightly faded red lips quirked up in a smirk at the sight of the man in front of her. 

Y/N had always been gorgeous- stunning, even. She was someone that had taken his breath away mid song, making him cough as he pulled away from the mic. Between the next song he had bent down to his main guard to tell him to get her backstage as soon as he was off. He knew just from the first time with her it would be a repeat thing, but he had underestimated the hold she would have on him. Being out of it the last few shows had been unacceptable, but with his little dove flying free, his mind wasn’t all there. 

It was fucked, and no one else had brought his mind back down to earth.

 "Been searching for you all night, love. Thought maybe you'd gotten lost in the crowd. Y’know I like to see a pretty face when m’singing." He tapped the ash off his cigarette, patting the seat beside him. The rings had been discarded onto the coffee table, right into the little tray that his gran had brought him the first time he’d been able to afford to send them both tickets to fly here. "Come sit, dove. Tell me what's kept my favorite girl away so long."

“Couple’a bands been in town lately, Styles.” She murmured, slinking over to his side. Heeled boots were kicked off to the side, she got comfortable on the all too familiar couch as she stole his cigarette from his lips to take a drag. Exhaling the smoke right in his face, she gave him a laugh at his wrinkled nose before collapsing back into the seat. “Wanted to taste the flavors. Been getting too comfortable backstage with you.” 

Y/N wasn’t dumb. As much as she knew she had gained a bit of a reputation, she was smart about it. She knew how the rockstars were. regardless of having a favorite girl, a muse, as he had once called her, her mind didn’t sugar coat it- no matter how tempted she was to add caramel to the slightly burnt thought. Y/N was a groupie. There was no illusion that she was something truly special to him, even if she wanted to be. 

Living this sort of way, you had to protect your emotions. Musicians were emotional and sugary creatures. They may feel that you’re their soulmate in the moment, but when the sun rises and the post orgasm clarity hit- or the high came down- they were ready to find the next thing. A new girl, a new flavor. They had the entire world to sample so she couldn’t exactly say that she blamed them. But some of the girls came into this thinking they’d snag a rockstar forever. A few, very select ones did. It didn’t last too long, usually. A tour cycle, perhaps, but they were left in the dust after the fact. Writing and calling became too hard for the stars and their little muses melted into faded memories and lyrics they sang of on the stage. Their presence in their minds because two minutes and forty seconds as they preformed the songs and faded back into the obscurity after they moved onto the next. 

Y/N was looking to have fun. Not getting hurt.

Y/N was good at being trouble, and trouble always made things interesting. The smoke curled around them as he reached out to snatch it back, taking a long drag before crushing it out in the ashtray beside him. "Flavours, huh?" He repeated, his gaze narrowing on hers. "Y’mean you've been out there fucking other bands, love?" His tone was light, teasing even, but there was a hint of something else beneath the surface.

No, he didn’t like that. Not one bit. She didn’t want to admit that it pleased her that he had any reaction at all.

“Mhm.” The girl nodded, stretching her legs out in front of her. She would say that he wouldn’t get the pain of heels, but the size of the chunky heel on his boots he preformed in sometimes rivaled hers- so she bit her tongue. “I’m sure you had a few other girls back here too cause I wasn’t here.” That was how it was supposed to work. These musicians? They were dripping in pussy. Or ass, depending on what they wanted. Life was a piece of cake for them despite the slightly grueling days. She had followed enough of ‘em around to know to expect it.

Running his hands through his messy waves, he let out a laugh - genuine but with an undercurrent that hinted at something more. It didn’t please him to know that she was out there with god knows fuckin’ who. Jagger? Please. That fucker didn’t have shit on him.  "Maybe I fucked other birds, love." He shifted closer, intentionally invading her space. He wanted to smell her again, the spicy vanilla, incense- he knew it was Ciara by Revlon because she’d had it in her bag last time she went back to his bus. "But they didn't mean shit. None of 'em have your mouth, or those legs.." His hand moved to brush against her thigh, testing her reaction. "You know I always save the best for you." His voice dropped lower, more intimate as he gaged her reaction. They weren’t promised to each other, nothing like that- but it did burn him a bit to think of sharing.

Y/N clenched her jaw before relaxing it, cursing herself for feeling the telltale heat rising between her legs. Her traitorous pussy. It always did this around Harry. He always illicted some sort of heat that made her want to start panting,  roll over and spread her legs. It had been hard to beat, and no one had- even if she had gone off to try and chase the feeling with other people. The man was addicting, and it was precisely why she had made herself miss a few shows to go fuck. As much of a maneater as she wanted to claim to be, her soft spot for the man was dangerous. “Yeah, right.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re flattering me to get laid. Again.”

Harry snorted, amused at her bluntness. He could never accuse Y/N of being anything less than straight-forward. It was refreshing, actually. Most girls would swoon at his flirtations, simper and blush. Not Y/N. She called him on his bullshit and it appealed to him more than she would ever be able to know. In a world where people bullshit him daily for money, sex, tickets, whatever- an honest woman was a rarity in it. A little treasure. A smirk played about his lips as he leaned back, lounging deliberately, showing off his arms as he stretched them over his head. He’d been getting workouts in every day and keeping up… and he knew his arms were her favorite things to bite. "Is that what you think, little dove?"

“Mhm. It’s what I know.” Y/N knew the song and dance. She knew him better than she portrayed. At least, she was confident she did. 

Harry was interesting, a bit weird, and he wasn’t exactly like the other men- but he was similar enough. The same song and dance, but with him it was a different tune. Another octave, maybe. He sat in his dressing room shirtless, with his glittery trousers hanging off his hips, and he’d made sure one of his crew had grabbed her from the crowd. She knew he would be wanting her. Making them wait would work on normal guys, but she had tested the theory with him.

"Well… maybe you're right." He admitted, leaning closer with a slow smile. Most girls would get their panties wet right now at seeing him like this - but Y/N just rolled her eyes again, completely unimpressed. It shouldn't have turned him on so much, but fuck it really did. He reached over, intentionally letting his fingers brush against her thigh again as he put his pack of cigarettes from the table. "Did they disappoint then? S’why you came back to me? Couldn’t get you off the way you want it?"

No one would be able to make her get off the way Harry could. People joked he had magic fingers, that everything he touched turned into a beautiful song- but it was true. Y/N sang for him every time he sucked on her clit or dug as deep as he could inside of her cunt, he knew how to make her cum so quickly her head spun. Multiple times, if given the night with him. It was part of why it was so infuriating. How did he manage to make her feel so good? “Don’t get a big head.” She scoffed, rolling her head to look at him.

He snickered, the sound low and raspy as it echoed in the room. Harry knew exactly what he did to her, how he made her feel. And fuck if he didn’t love it. Loved the way her body responded to him, the way she came undone under his touch. Letting his lips brush her skin his breath was hot against her ear as he spoke. "Too late, love. Already got a big head." He paused, his hand sliding up her thigh slowly, fingertips underneath the hem of her dress. "And it's not the only thing that's big. Y’know that very well."

Letting out a shaky breath, Y/N hated herself for letting her legs open up a little for him. As much as she wanted to resist him? She didn’t. She wanted his hands, his mouth, his cock. Everything, so long as he was the one touching her. She craved the filthy words of his as he got her cockdrunk and whimpering. So far, he was the only one prancing around a stage singing about sex that could actually uphold his lyrics. He loved pussy, he loved sex, and he was good at making other people love it too. “Stop being smug.” She huffed, trying to hold on to the irritation.

Harry just grinned at her, knowing he had her right where he wanted her. He loved the way she tried to hold onto her anger, her irritation with him. It was fucking adorable. It only made him want her more. "If you want me to stop, just say the word. Y’know I will." He challenged, his hand sliding even higher up her thigh until his fingers were brushing against the lace of her panties. He could feel the heat of her through the thin material, and it made his own body temperature rise in response. "I don’t think you want me to, though. I think you and this pretty pussy missed me far too much.”

His tone was wicked as his finger traced the edge of her panties, deliberately pressing against the fabric covering her clit. "All those dicks not hitting the right spots... were they?" His voice dropped to a whisper, like velvet against her ear. "Did you miss my tongue on your pussy, dove?  You try to fuck other people but ended up thinking of how deep I can go. What a shame." His other hand came up to lightly pinch at her bottom lip. "You can sit there pretending you don't want it, but this cunt’s weeping for me."

Her eyes darkened as his fingers teased her clit through the lace. Her jaw tightened, teeth sinking into her bottom lip to hide a whimper- but he didn’t let it stay there, pulling it from between her teeth. He watched those beautiful thighs clamp together slightly, giving herself the tiniest bit of relief. His dirty words didn't help her at all. They only made her more fucking wet. "Don't flatter yourself." She threw back at him, voice slightly tighter than before.

Harry chuckled darkly, his fingers idly tracing the seat of her panties, feeling the heat seeping through. "Too fucking bad, love. I can see right through you. And your cunt is screaming for my attention." His thumb pressed down on her clit, circling it slowly through the fabric. "You're so wet, baby. Should have just asked me for something different if you wanted to switch it up. Now you know no one else is going to cut it, so you came back t’who you knew could.” It would be a lie to say that didn’t stroke his ego.

 Harry loved being good at things. Singing, songwriting, guitar, art, poetry, exercises, selling out arenas- but most of all, being able to make someone orgasm. To be the best they ever had. For some reason, it felt a lot more important to be the best Y/N’s ever had, and now he gets to prove it. “And I’ll do it well enough that you won’t be under any fuckin’ delusion that anyone else can make you feel as good as I can."

She gasped, back arching slightly as his thumb pressed against her clit with more pressure, her mouth fell open, eyes fluttering shut for a moment before snapping back open to glare at him. "Fuck you." She hissed, trying to sound angry, but it came out breathy and weak. Her hips bucked involuntarily, seeking more pressure, more friction. It pissed her off, looking at him as he watched with a smirk as her chest heaved with ragged breaths, her nipples hardening beneath the thin fabric of her dress- but it also turned her on. Why was his arrogance arousing? 

"Language, dove." He teased, increasing the pressure on her clit, feeling her wetness soak through the lace completely. "Look how needy you are right now. All that attitude but this pussy's crying for me." His other hand slid up her stomach, fingertips brushing the underside of her breast. Her dress was lovely, but it would need to go soon. Y/N was far too gorgeous to be covered up, especially with him. She was a piece of art. She’d no idea the songs she had already written about her, the things he wanted from her. "You missed my cock too much to even fake it with another man properly." He pressed harder on her clit, making her legs tremble. She had no idea how much that pleased him.

"You know what I love most about you, my little dove?" He whispered, his voice low and husky. "How fucking honest your body is. You can roll your eyes, stomp your feet,  give me shit all you want, but this pussy... it doesn't lie." He pressed a soft kiss to her neck, feeling her pulse quicken under his lips. "It knows what it wants. And right now, it wants me."

She shuddered as his lips brushed her neck, pulse jumping wildly beneath his touch. Her eyes narrowed, a furious blush staining her cheeks as she tried desperately to maintain her glare. "Up yours, Styles." She spat, even as her thighs parted further involuntarily, inviting more of his teasing.

Harry laughed at her defiance, loving the way she tried to maintain her tough exterior while her body betrayed her completely. Without warning, he slid his fingers underneath the lace of her panties and gave her swollen clit a sharp, deliberate smack. The sound echoed through the room - a wet, intimate slap that made both of them gasp. 

Her hands clenched into fists, nails digging into her palms—the only way to keep from grabbing him. "Don't flatter yourself. I just—ah!"

"Now, now. Enough of that.” He crooned, condescending as he rubbed back over her cunt, letting his palm rest over it. It was pure art that her hips moved up on their own accord, grinding into it. “I love you bein’ bitchy, but I think you’re getting a bit too worked up. S’been a few days since you’ve properly came, hm? We can take care of that now.” That was probably why she was even more irritated, and he was more than happy to help.

"Oh, fuck off." Y/N snapped, her face flushed with her annoying juxtaposition of arousal and annoyance. "You don't know shit all about me or my habits." She glared up at him, but her voice hitched as he continued to circle her clit. Harry just chuckled, the sound making her bristle. It was infuriating how much any part of the man affected her. She’d messed around with a lot of different stars, gotten her fill, but it never made her feel the way that his hands on her did. Electric.

"Don't I?" He murmured, before suddenly smacking her clit again - harder this time. The sound echoed through the room, and Y/N cried out, her hips jerking up off the couch. “I don’t think you would have come rolling back here if I didn’t know what you liked. You woulda’ moved on to the next man with his name in lights. Instead-“ His fingers swatted her again as she hitched her hips. “You came crawlin’ back to me.”

"Goddammit!" She growled, her face contorting. Her thighs tried to snap shut, but Harry was between them, keeping them where he wanted. It was obvious he got what he wanted, and she was cursing herself for wanting to give it to him. His fingers were back to rubbing lazy circles around her entrance, teasing. "You hit like a girl." She sneered, trying to regain some sort of upper hand. "No wonder you need a guitar to get laid." He threw his head back and laughed. He loved her mouth. It was like napalm - burning and dangerous.

Harry's eyes glinted with amusement at her biting remark, but he wasn't about to let her get the last word. With a swift motion, he tugged her panties to the side, exposing her dripping cunt. "Funny, this pretty little pussy doesn't seem to mind how I hit." He purred, slipping a long finger inside her without preamble. She gasped, back arching as he filled her, his fingertip curling just right to graze the spot he had become well acquainted with. "On the contrary, little dove- I think she really likes it. Look at how she’s dripping for me.”

Harry pumped his finger slowly,  feeling her clench around him desperately. "Funny how wet this needy cunt gets when I smack it. You can huff and puff all you want, princess, but we both know you fuckin' love it." He added another finger, stretching her deliciously as his thumb circled her clit. "Went off to get laid and it was for nothin’. I know they didn't make this pussy sing like I can. You’re wound up like you were the first show I got t’fuck you."

Y/N's breath hitched as he added another finger, her eyes fluttering closed despite her best efforts to maintain her defiant gaze. Her hips bucked against his hand, seeking more friction, more depth. A soft moan escaped her lips, betraying the pleasure she was feeling. She bit down on her lip hard enough to leave marks, trying to suppress the sounds of enjoyment that threatened to spill out.  Hands gripped the couch cushion tightly, knuckles turning pale as she fought against the overwhelming sensation of his fingers moving inside her. Thick, long and skilled, she fought herself valiantly- but it was nearly impossible not to lift her hips and chase them.

 It was infuriating that he was right.

 She hated letting men get a big head over shit like this, but it was undeniable. Harry was the best fuck in the entire industry, and he had the skills to prove it to her right now. The very skills etched into the horniest corners of her brain. Even those weren’t enough to have her pretending anyone else she’d laid with could compare to him. The reality was that he ruined her, a reality she didn’t want to accept.

"Look at you, trying so hard to act like you don't want this." Harry whispered, his breath hot against her ear as he continued to pump his fingers in and out of her slowly. "Like you didn't come back here just for me to fuck this pretty cunt in the ways I know you like." He curled his fingers, rubbing that spot inside her that made her see stars. “You wouldn’t have had t’be missing it at all if you’d just kept comin’ to my shows. The music’s better- and so is the private encore.” 

"Goddammit." She whimpered, throwing her head back. Y/N could feel herself getting wetter, slicker, more needy - just like he said. He was right. She was a damn liar, she wanted his cock, and it was pointless to deny it. "Harry." She hissed warningly when he hit that spot again. "Stop being right."

Harry laughed deeply, the sound rumbling in his chest. He loved the way she tried to maintain her bad girl persona, even when she was writhing on his fingers like this. His lips captured hers without warning, swallowing any further sounds she might make. He kissed her deeply, aggressively - tongues fighting for the upper hand as his fingers sped up inside her. He ate up her moans, his free hand tangling in her hair.

The man kissed like he owned her. It was hard to deny that in moments like this, he sort of did. She had no intention of fighting back as he finger fucked her, kissing her and tasting the roof of her mouth and sucking on her tongue as she felt him groan into her lips. It was filthy- everything about the man was- but it was exactly the stuff she wanted.

"You're so fucking beautiful like this." He murmured against her lips, breaking the kiss to press his forehead against hers. His fingers never stopped moving, never stopped driving her closer to the edge. "All pretty and disheveled with my fingers buried deep in this tight little cunt. Tell me, love. How many of them got you this wet?" He nipped at her bottom lip, his voice low and possessive before he soothed the sting. "None of 'em could make you feel as good as I can, could they?"

Y/N's defiance finally crumbled as another wave of pleasure crashed over her. Her hands flew to grip his hair, nails digging into his scalp as she held on for dear life. "Fuck you," she whimpered, but there was no bite behind it anymore. Just raw honesty in her husky voice. "None of them ever made me feel like this." She arched into him, shamelessly riding his fingers now. "You ass." The insult was breathed out like a prayer as he simply smirked against her.

"That's right, love." He praised, his fingers curling perfectly inside her as his thumb pressed down hard on her clit. "Only I can make this greedy little pussy sing. Only I know just how to touch you to make you fall apart." He leaned in to whisper in her ear, his voice dark and commanding. "So why don't you be a good girl and get on those knees, get my cock wet so I can fill this cunt up?” He slipped his fingers out of her, cooing softly at her whine at being empty. “You were a smart enough girl to wrap it up with them, right?”

He pulled back slightly to look at her face, knowing the sight of his shiny fingers coated with her wetness would drive her wild. His voice dropped to a lower register, pure sex. "Because fuck me, love, I think… I want to bury my dick deep inside you, nice n’bare. Want you to feel every inch as I stretch you tight..." His thumb, still slick with her arousal, traced her bottom lip. "And I know you want the same."

If anyone else heard him say it, they’d probably threaten his contract on the spot. Drag him out with his pants round his ankles, right by his hair. A baby wasn’t something he should chance, but his impulsiveness in this moment wasn’t purely for his own pleasure. It was to go deeper with her than he’d done before. Maybe he was out of his mind, but he didn’t want to feel a thing there. He wanted someone no one else got to have.

Y/N's pupils were blown wide, her chest heaving with heavy breaths. She nodded eagerly, her tongue darting out to taste herself on his thumb. "Please," she whimpered, her voice dripping with desperation. It wasn’t something she’d ever consider with anyone else. Despite the other girl’s dreams of rock star babies, she wasn’t for that at all- but having Harry that uninterrupted? 

Maybe she’d be stupid. Just this once. 

"I'm on the pill... just fuck me, Harry. Fuck me raw." Her hands were already moving to unbutton his trousers, her eyes locked onto his with a fierce hunger. "I want to feel you finish inside me." It was irresponsible and something she knew she shouldn’t do but it would be a lie to say she didn’t think about it often. It wasn’t something she’d done before with anyone at all- famous or not- always making sure they wrap it up- but Harry? That was… different. As much as she didn’t want to admit it- at all- he was different in all the ways.

"Fuck yes." he hissed, quickly unbuttoning his trousers and pushing them down. His fully hard cock sprang free, already leaking. In all honesty, he’d been worked up since the sight of her had graced his eyes during the opening number, and it was well enough time to get it taken care of. He grabbed her hair in one hand, tilting her head back to meet his eyes. It took her a moment to scramble down onto her knees, but she did it easily. It was a place she was more than familiar with now, and he had to admit she looked the best there.

 He’d had plenty of women, but none of them looked at his cock the way she did- like she was hungry for it. "Look at you, so ready to take my cock like a good girl." His voice was strained as he guided her mouth towards him, fingers wrapped in her hair. "Look at those pretty lips..." He ran his free hand over his cock, stroking it firmly as her breath washed over him. "Get it wet, y know how I like- Christ..." he gasped, watching her spit directly on the head of his cock before he had even finished his sentence.

 It dripped down the length, making it slick and glistening. Her dirty little habit of prepping his dick was fucking perfection every time. "You're such a- fuck." He tightened his grip on her hair, guiding her head forward slowly. "A dirty fucking girl." The way she looked up at him with those bedroom eyes drove him wild. "Suck me right, dove. Show me that you missed it."

As she took him into her warm, wet mouth, he let out a loud groan. She knew exactly how to move her tongue, how to apply the perfect amount of pressure with her lips. She hollowed her cheeks and sucked hard, just like he loved. He started to gently thrust his hips, fucking her mouth slowly. His other hand came up to cup her cheek, thumb brushing over her bottom lip as he watched himself disappear between her lips. "So fucking good." He praised, his voice strained with pleasure.

Her mouth was a goddamn masterclass in sucking cock. Y/N took him deep, her tongue swirling around the sensitive underside of his shaft before sucking hard on the head. He could feel her saliva coating him, making his cock glisten and slick. She knew exactly how to use her hands too, one wrapping around the base of his cock while the other cupped his balls gently, rolling them in her palm. "Fucking hell," he groaned, his hips moving faster as he fucked her mouth deeper.

"Goddamn. You really do love it." he laughed incredulously. He’d had a pretty good feeling of it, but actually feeling it in her actions was something that made him feel that bone deep satisfaction. With his deep breathing, he tried to commit the very vision of her mouth stretched around his cock to memory. His fingers tightening in her hair unconsciously as she gagged just a bit before pulling up, letting the spit drool down to his sac with little hesitation. Y/N knew he liked it messy.

In fact, she knew how to make him lose control quickly - too quickly. He'd had plenty of blow jobs, but none that made his body tense up and his balls draw tight like hers. He could feel his release building fast - too fast- and he needed to stop it before he blew. He pulled back sharply, his length shiny with spit. "Damn you," he muttered, watching her lick her lips innocently. "One more suck like that and I'd be coming down your throat."

Fluttering her lashes at him, she let out a giggle as she licked back over the length of his cock, letting him rub the tip over her tongue before pulling her back. He’d asked her to get it wet, and she’d done just that.

"Fucking tease." he growled, but there was no real anger behind it. More like frustration and desire. He yanked her up by her hair, his mouth crashing against hers in a rough, demanding kiss. He could taste himself on her tongue and it only turned him on more. "Need to be inside you." he muttered against her lips, spinning her around and bending her over the couch. "Gonna fill that little cunt up like I promised."

Making sure she was comfortable in the position, he pushed her face down to rest against the arm of the couch. This was a view he’d never tire of either. Her body was a dream, something he was obsessed with when he closed his eyes. The obsession had only continued to build as the days went on. 

He rubbed the thick head of his cock up and down her slick folds, coating himself in her arousal. The sensation made him grunt, his fingers digging into her hips. "Fuck me, little dove. You're soaked." he groaned, feeling her wetness smear over his length. He circled her clit teasingly with the tip, making her shudder and whimper. "Look at how eager this greedy pussy is." He teased, pressing the head against her entrance but not pushing in yet.

"Such a pretty little cunt. All swollen and needy..." he continued to taunt her, pressing just the tip inside her before pulling back. He knew she hated this - hated when he made her beg. And fuck if it didn't make him harder. She bucked her hips backwards trying to force him inside, and he merely snickered at the efforts. "So impatient, love." He smacked her ass hard enough for a handprint to form. "Ask nicely, hmm?" His voice was pure sin - knowing exactly how she wanted it.

Y/N whimpered, her nails digging into the couch cushions. She hated how much he liked to toy with her, how much he loved to make her beg. But fuck, she was so desperate for his dick right now, she'd suck his ego up if she needed to. "Please," she choked out, her voice strained with need. "Fuck me, Harry. Please, fill me up." Her voice was so soft, so pleading - it was like music to his ears.

"That’s my girl. Going t’give it to you." He promised, finally lining himself up and slamming home in one smooth stroke. He groaned loudly, feeling her tight walls stretch around him beautifully.  Pulling back almost completely, he thrusted right back into her again, hard enough to make her cry out. His pace was punishing, meant to make her feel every inch of him.

Make her remember who fucked her cunt this good.

"So perfect, baby. Like your pussy was made just for my cock." He grunted, his fingers digging into her hips hard enough to leave marks. He could feel her inner muscles fluttering around him, trying to pull him in deeper. It was different being inside of her with no rubber, no barrier at all. Hotter, more wet. It was a raising fear that he wouldn’t ever be happy with another pussy ever again, but that was something he’d unpack while he plucked at his guitar strings later on. "You like that? You like being stretched out on my dick?" He punctuated each word with a sharp thrust, his balls slapping against her clit. "Seems like you do. You're so fucking greedy for it."

He watched as her fingers gripped the couch tighter, her breathing coming in short, sharp gasps each time he bottomed out inside her. Her body was tense, completely focused on the overwhelming sensation of being filled. Small whimpers slipped past her lips with every thrust, her attempts to bite back noises completely futile. The handprint on her ass looked perfect against her skin, and the sight of his cock disappearing into her wet pussy was the most obscene, beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

"Look at you, taking it so well," he praised, his voice gruff. He leaned over her, his chest pressed against her covered back as he wrapped an arm around her waist. His hand snaked down between her legs, finding her clit and rubbing it in time with his thrusts. "Such a good girl, taking my big cock so deep. I know you’ve been so disappointed lately…” the condensing sneer made her grit her teeth. “But I’m here to make it all better. Make sure you know how can do this to you- the only person who can." He rolled his hips, hitting that spot inside her that made her see stars. The onkk man that had been able to get at.

"Oh god," she whimpered, surrendering the bratty act. It felt too good, pleasure all consuming, for her to keep it up. There was no denying that it was embarrassing how quickly he could make her orgasm, how good he could make her feel in a matter of moments. She’d blame it on not having a proper orgasm in a weeks time, but deep down she knew it was him.

It was always Harry. 

He had ruined her and it was all his stupid fault. He had managed to make her go insane by default. Harry and his charming smile and filthy words, his glittery outfits and chunky rings, his large platformer boots and soft hands with guitar made callouses to break them up. Harry fucking Styles and his fluffy wavy hair and dimpled cheeks and his big, perfect cock that had made her into a melted puddle on the velvet couch of his dressing room- a place she was going to keep going back to until he wouldn’t have her anymore. 

"Baby, please... Oh fuck, Harry!" He felt her internal walls squeeze him tight as he hit that perfect spot over and over. Her legs began to tremble, and he knew she was close. So close.

 "Shhh, my little dove," he crooned against her ear, his voice soothing despite the dirty promises he was whispering and how deep his cock was inside of her. "Just let go, let me feel you come all over my dick. Show me how much you missed it."

He felt her body tense, her back arching as she let out a loud, uninhibited cry of pleasure. Her pussy clamped down on him like a vice as she came undone, her orgasm ripping through her and dripping all over his cock. It took everything to keep himself from spilling inside of her right there, but it was too soon. There was still more to prove to her, specifically that he was the only one that was going to be able to make her feel the way she wanted. He continued to thrust through it, his fingers still working her clit and drawing out her high. "That's it, love. That's my girl," he praised, his own release building rapidly.  "You're so fucking perfect like this. So perfect for me." 

Harry was going to write about this. After he took her back to his bus, then his hotel, he’d take his notebook out and write lyrics about how heavenly it felt to be inside of her, how the warmth could be felt in his bones. How being squeezed tight brought him to another dimension. Y/N’s cunt was top tier, and having her underneath him showed him that much. He’d lay her in the bed in one of his shirts and let her sleep as he mulled through how she made him feel. 

Considering he hadn’t had any plans on committing to anyone, Y/N had been a curveball in every sense of the word, but he didn’t like the ugly feeling that had come up at the knowledge she had been with someone else. If she wanted a threesome, he could make that happen- an orgy, if that was what tickled her fancy- but he wanted to be the one she came back to. 

His little spitfire, his little dove, his groupie, his. That’s what she was meant to be, and he was going to prove it.  Once her orgasm subsided enough that she wasn’t trembling, he pulled out, flipping her over onto her back with surprising ease. She barely had a moment to catch her breath before he was aligning himself at her entrance again, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. "Hope you're not done yet, love," he teased, rubbing his hard cock against her sensitive clit. "Because I'm far from finished with you."

[steleart]

i think that in the haze surrounding veilguard's release, when everyone was scrambling trying to fend off blatant misogyny and transphobia in an increasingly hostile environment, and feeling the frustration of having to be happy with an admittedly underwhelming game (in comparison to the precious ones), so as to not give these horrible people fodder, we misplaced our anger a lot.

people who liked the veilguard are not the enemy. it's perfectly okay to have liked the game, there is still enough content there for it to be a fun story - or even a tragic story. I sobbed like a baby my entire way through the epilogue. I had a great time romancing Emmrich, loved going to the Necropolis and to Treviso. but i don't know, even though there were some scenes I really really loved, it all just felt... hollow.

and that's the issue. I like my art saturated in meaning, the least thing I want is for my art to be hollow.

you remember back in the day when youtubers were worried about censorship, because the sponsors demanded 'family friendly' content only? that hasn't ended. ads are the new currency. everyone wants to be the new blockbuster, but there are three huge movies in the theatre at the same time. three new big games about to be released. these things are expensive, because they insist on doing all the cgi crap possible and paying their artists next to nothing. people aren't killed, they're unalived.

so I don't think people are dumb or 'lack media literacy' just because they liked a game they invested time and love into; there are bad takes, of course, but there are bad takes in any group, even the ones you're part of. the community has made incredible art, as it should. as it always has.

and since we're being honest, I don't think the writers, who were constrained by corporate red tape, are at fault either. they have their issues, of course, but dragon age has always had issues - they're still good games, trying to tackle big themes.

there is an odd polish to big company projects nowadays that feels... ai generated. most of it isn't, of course, but everything has been sanded down so it won't bother the bigots too much. during Pride Month™, we're allowed to buy as many rainbows as we like, as long as it's branded, then it's back to beige. in communist Romania, most of the clothes people wore were grey.

corporations don't understand art, mr beast doesn't understand art, you cannot divorce art from politics, because art has always been and will always be a mirror. if you think you're a centrist, you are the status quo. you come pre-sanded.

all that to say, we need to demand more from the people we give power to. don't fucking settle for the lesser evil, and be loud about it. just, you know, make sure that the people in the line of fire actually deserve to be there yk

[lullabyes22-blog]

Snippet - Fate vs. Choice - Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

Jinx has a decision, and a deadline.

Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

Six o’ clock. Late evening.

The Cathedral of Progress.

Lanterns burned in their iron-scrolled brackets; the shadows cut flayed patterns on the granite walls. In the nave, the acolytes chanted, cloaked and cowled. In their palms, the lit tapers cast long, lean shadows across the stone floors. Their voices were a mechanized hymn: harmonized down to the smallest atom vibrating in the air. There was no music riding the currents. Only silence, draping a veil of total stillness over the congregation. Perhaps even eternal damnation, to those who dared trespass.

Jinx didn't give a ripe toot about damnation. She'd already fallen from grace: the moment she'd set a wind-up monkey loose to rescue her family, and jinxed them instead. Her own jinx, since that fateful night, was an inevitability, and a long time coming.

Now, at nineteen, she was the living, breathing epitome of it.

The harsh sweetness of coffee cut through the chants. Jinx cracked an eyelid open; for one long giddy second, the world spun in a sickening circle.

Then it righted itself. Or Viktor did: a cool hand clasping hers.

“Wake up, Jinx.”

Her eyes fluttered open. She lay, starfished in an indolent sprawl, in sweetgrass that swayed as if under an invisible caress. The aroma of lilies was ascendant; twilight had deepened their perfume. The night-garden was tucked into the courtyard at the heart of the Cathedral, abutted by a small cemetery of granite.

Under the surreal refractions of a stained-glass dome, it was a wonderland: teeming with long-dead saints, and the perfumes of late-blooming flowers, all a-glow in holy light. Upon closer scrutiny, the holiness inverted into the uncanny. Every plant, aspirating beneath the multicolored rays, was revealed to hold an almost numerical symmetry: logarithmic spirals of orchids, geometrically-profound petunias, grid-patterns of clovers all fractaling in golden ratios.

As if every organism—from soil grain to leaf tip—had coalesced into life under the touch of a divine hand. Or a very obsessive mathematician.

Or—both.

Then there was the tree.

It was a prehistoric sycamore of darkling wood: five times the height of the average Piltovan oculus; three times as broad across. The branches fanned out into spokes as big as a ferris wheel. The ends of each spathe, splayed wildly under the skylight, erupted into iridescent blooms. They were nearly gem-like in their purity: their crystalline petals glowing in colors of multicolored amethyst, chrysoprase, quartz, topaz, ruby. The canopy spread over the entire garden; the roots curled deep into the bedrock.

By nightfall, it gave off an eerie luminescence: bathing the garden in an ephemeral glow. By daylight, it cast a rainbow halo across the grounds. Its fragrance changed constantly: one minute pungent as wormwood, the next citrusy as lemon zest, another woody as cardamomh. Insects swarmed about its roots; butterflies flocked its boughs. Some even swore they'd spotted faeries dancing in rings beneath its shadow.

The hallucinogenic effects were, by Viktor's accounts, an ur-example of magicoreality: an object, space, or phenomenon that is created through the combined imagination of multiple entities. It was real, because they believed it real. And vice versa.

Like a mobius strip blossoming into being.

Viktor's acolytes had transplanted the tree—roots to stem—from Singed subterranean laboratory. Something in the soil of the Cathedral's grounds nourished it with unique potency: the tree flourished where naysayers, Silco chief among them, predicted it would rot. By the first month, it'd become the centerpiece around which every botanical beauty revolved. By the sixth, it was the brilliant heart of a preternatural paradise: creepers, ferns, lilies, ivies, marigolds, all erupting in a palette of purest life.

By the tenth?

The tree was worshipped as an entity unto itself. It dominated the cultists' rhetoric; it haunted their reveries. It was rumored that Janna herself had breathed life into its veins, rescuing it from the brink of collapse. Pilgrims from the depths below, voyeurs from the heights above, arrived in droves to seek the sheltering boughs as if for the same restorative breath.

And under those twirling branches?

They were never the same again.

Formerly pallid patients were rumored to stagger from their sickbeds, sit beneath the blossoms in solemn ceremony, then unfold from their atavistic comas miraculously reborn. Like larvae metamorphosing into butterflies.

From devolution to evolution.

But though the tree restored a measure of life to its devotees, its own was an hourglass suspended between grains. The fruits hanging off its branches evoked a spectrum of incandescent sea-shells washed by whitecaps onto arid shores. They were entirely inedible; ash and air. And as soon as they fell, their shells fossilized: petrifying into stone-crusted facets within minutes of detachment, before dissolving into inert dust.

It was the tree's perpetual paradox: the promise of life, forever beyond reach. And death, ever-encroaching at its heels.

In its shadow, Viktor, the most devoted disciple of one, held court weekly with the most notorious apostate of the other.

"Wake up, Jinx."

Viktor's hand, freed from its tight leather glove, squeezed hers. His fingers, long and thin, held a delicate strength: there were calluses, velvety, at the tips, and a roughness along the heel. A scientist's hands, evolved into a healer's. Tonight, Jinx saw ink smudges on the knuckles. There was also a tiny nick, from wielding a scalpel during the evening's surgery on a young boy's ruptured appendix.

The boy was safe. Tucked into a cot at the infirmary, with the others under Viktor's care: each dosed with enough poppy-milk to see them through the night. The boy's mother, one of the dozen souls who'd flocked to the Cathedral seeking the Machine Herald's aid, had wept at her son's restoration, kissing the hem of Viktor's robe in a show of gratitude.

It was a scene that Jinx had witnessed, over and over again, during her visits. And it never failed to unsettle.

Devotion, undiluted, had that effect. Especially when it was devoid of desire.

Daily, scores of souls passed in and out of the Cathedral. Each brought with them a problem, a poison, a plea. Each, Viktor addressed in their turn: salving their sores, purging their pustules, and bestowing, with a steady hand and a soft voice, his personal brand of salvation.

He never charged for his chem-modifications. Even the most complex, which took months to design, were given for free.

His payment, his only payment, was everything.

From the start, he’d made plain that his services were offered on a strictly non-partisan basis, and would cease immediately should any faction in Zaun attempt to co-opt his work. Except that was a lie. Everyone knew, in Zaun's hierarchical honeycomb, Viktor had no love for politics. But he was fiercely political: his sacrifices, solely and exclusively, were for the elevation of Zaun's future.

It was his singular obsession: the evolution of the present into an age of transcendence, and the eradication of the past into obscurity.

Viktor hated the past. A past that’d left him broken, disfigured, discarded: an imperfect specimen, unworthy of survival.

The same past, which had yet forged him.

And Jinx, his muse and mirror, who'd been reborn in its bloodshed.

"Jinx," Viktor repeated. "Wake up."

His hand squeezed hers, then let go. A moment later, a metal cup was pressed into her grasp.

The warmth radiated; Jinx's flesh drank it up. The coffee gave off its curls of aromatic steam: a nutty blend of chicory root, black chocolate liqueur, and the sweet whiff of anise.

Diluted, as always, with sweetmilk.

Viktor, his own cup balanced precariously between two fingertips, reclined with an easy elegance in the grass. His staff lay within arm's reach: the undying habit of a boy whose mind is always five steps ahead, but whose body is forever falling behind. Everywhere, leather-bound books were scattered, some facedown with cracked spines, others bristling with raven's feathers that doubled as bookmarks. An inkwell glittered, half-empty, on a stack of maps scribbled with notes.

In this garden, Vitya was ever-studying, ever-searching. Never satisfied with the knowledge already in hand, and the miracles already in motion.

Something he and Jinx shared in common.

Reclining on elbow, Viktor sipped from his cup with the other hand. Then he plucked a notebook from the pile, stirred through its pages with a fingertip, and resumed writing with his cockatrice quill: a rapid series of symbols that, unfurling, imprinted themselves in a secret pocket of Jinx's brain, and the darkest recesses of her heart.

Destiny: charted beyond the stars.

Jinx sat up, knees tucked against her chest, and drank from her cup. The flavor was just as it should be: bitter chased by sweet, complexity balanced by simplicity.

Viktor's handwork: the paradox distilled into metaphor.

Just like the garden, where every blade of grass grew exactly the same height, and every flower, in its arrangement, was a repetition into infinity.

Sipping, Jinx's eyes flicked from bloom to bloom. Then, she noticed:

A single blossom out of place.

A lone iris, curling its way from between the tree's roots. It was sly as an intruder, bright as a fallen star.

The same hue as Powder's wishful blue eyes.

Jinx's lips curled. Tentatively, she reached out. Her fingers traced the blossoming petals. They were silky, smooth. Almost too flawless to be real.

"Is this place," she whispered, "alive?"

It was only half-joking. During each visit, she could never escape the sense that the garden—multiform, deviant—was suffused with a spiritual awareness sister to sentience. And the tree, gathering them both under its protective penumbra, was rooted right to the crux of Zaun's stony heart.

"Not exactly," Viktor replied, without looking up from his notes. "Not by our reckoning. More a kind of... meta-life."

"Meta-life?"

Viktor, dipping the quill in its inkwell, shrugged.

"This tree is but a reflection—an iteration—of something larger-than-life. Something of a piece with the city's vital flow. A conduit of sorts."

"Like, what? A portal?"

"Perhaps," he said, and absently rested a palm on his leg, the site of his first augments. "Or perhaps a lens. Something which reflects, refracts, magnifies. An imperfect metaphor."

"Serpent's tongue. Apple's flesh. Devil's promise."

"Precisely. A system of shorthand within which meaning can be imparted, and context given."

Jinx's eyes lingered on the flower: a star's winking light, buried under layers of soil.

"What's the point, though?" she wondered. "I mean, yeah, I get it: a symbol's powerful. But if you're trying to forget the past—"

"Forgetting is not the same as erasing," Viktor corrected, patiently. "And what good is a symbol, Jinx, if no one knows what it stands for?"

Double-edged question and double-pronged answer: classic Viktor.

Sighing, Jinx returned to her cup. The coffee, cooled, had lost its bite. She drained it anyway, then let the cup rest in her lap. Her eyes, half-lidded, took in her companion.

He was still garbed for his duties: a mauve linen robe with a high collar, its sleeves rolled up, the hem draping past his knees. It was a garment, once, meant to conceal. Now, it served a purpose quite the opposite. Its folds bared the armature that held Viktor together: once emaciated, now elegantly streamlined beneath a segmented exoskeleton of synth-plates. His bad leg, encased in gleaming obsidian augments, now held the flexile precision of muscle, and the springing strength of a steel cable.

The fusion was seamless: the stuff of futuristic fairytale. When he moved, it was with an almost regal glide. As if, somewhere in the gaunt structure of Viktor's frame, there was an ancient drop of royalty, finally emerging from its hardscrabble shell in a blend of princely asceticism and common-born resilience.

Under the tree's canopy, Viktor's pallor was offset by his deep-hued robes. The effect wasn't peaky so much as pearlescent. His untidy curls tumbled freshly-glossed along his shoulders: the barest delineations of a beard teased the contours of his jawline. The sum total was neither masculine nor feminine. Only androgynous; ethereal.

Transcendent as stardust.

The rim's of Jinx's eyes burned. Why was it that even at their closest, Viktor seemed as if he was dissolving into astral orbit, a beautiful moon drifting farther from reach?

And why did Jinx feel herself hurtling on an opposing trajectory: crashing to earth with fatal velocity?

The wind, still unseen, sawed gently through the tree's branches. Its blossoms whispered: the susurration of silk sheets, or a lover's sigh. Jinx found it fitting that, though the Cathedral of Progress was, technically, the building's newly-christened designation, ordinary Fissurefolk referred to it, unofficially, by a different epithet.

The Resurrection Root. The Everbloom. The Glass Garden.

And the most popular—

Der Wunschbaum.

Ur-Nox for Wishing Tree.

Except Ur-Nox was a double-edged sword. It was the language of the ancients; Mages and Guardians who'd lived in the time before Zaun had ever been. Their language, therefore, was the language of enchantment: one half lofty, the other half sinister. Wish, for instance, was rooted in the word Wunschet: to want. To desire beyond the bounds of reality.

But it was also rooted in Wählen: to choose.

A wish could be a heart's deepest desire unlocked. Or it could be a will to power: to take what you want, no matter the cost.

And me? Jinx wondered. What do I want?

And what will I give to seize it—or throw it away?

At her silence, Viktor stopped scribbling. His eyes, deep-gold, met hers.

"All right, Jinx?"

"Y-Yeah."

"You should wake up."

"Don't wanna."

"No?" Scritch-scritch went the pen, runes blossoming in its wake. Distantly, Jinx heard the acolytes singing, a ghostly engine of harmony. And—could it be?—Sparky's yips, cutting through the choir: a dissonant counterpoint. The greedy mutt, somewhere, was begging for treats. "If you do not wake, how will your Name Day be celebrated?"

"Multitasking's a thing. I've always been a pro."

"You are terrible at multitasking."

"Am not!"

"You fell asleep during the surgery."

"You told me not to interrupt. So I closed my eyes. But I was listening. I always listen."

"You were drooling." And, closing the notebook with the coordinates plotted inside, he set it down. In a single graceful movement, he'd shifted closer. Close enough to touch his thumb against the corner of her lips, where a grin had stolen in. Viktor's own lips, palely-parted, were a few inches away. "You look like a child when you sleep. Peaceful. It is... rare."

"I was havin' a sweet dream."

"Oh? Tell me."

"A night full of stars. Wishes a-popping like fishes. And a beautiful boy." Her voice, at half-octave, came breathless. Always, his proximity did that to her: an unravelling of everything she held dear about herself. Like deja vu—except more desolate. Dying, when you longed to be reborn. "Except he won't wish me a Happy Name Day. He won't even gimme a kiss."

At that, Viktor smiled: a slow, secret curl that was yet the saddest expression in the world.

"Perhaps," he murmured, "he is a fool."

"Yeah?"

"And a coward." The thumb, tracing the full jut of her bottom-lip, was cool as snowfall, and as chaste. "Because he knows, deep in his heart, that you are still a child. The child he sees when you sleep. And because, despite whatever tradition or legality declares, you are not yet a woman. Certainly, not the woman who, once she comes into herself, will outrace him, and his grand designs, and fly off on wings of stardust."

"You talkin' about Silco?" Jinx quipped. "'Cause, no offense, but he's no competition. I can outrun that fossil anytime."

The levity fell flat. Viktor's golden eyes, augmented to their depths, lost their imperceptible luster. A moment later, his hand retreated, as if it'd never been.

"I know," he said, "that this is only an interlude."

"You think so?" Jinx, impulsively, caught the hem of his sleeve. "Pretty harsh frame to put 'round forever."

"Forever means little in a cosmos of infinite permutations."

"Not so long as we're still us, right?"

"A conundrum in itself." He didn't withdraw, exactly. Only laid his fingertips over hers, knotted into his sleeve. "Are our mirrored selves—in the physical, in the quantum—so very different at their crux? Is one less worthy, less agentic, than the other? Or are they simply two sides of the same coin, flipped endlessly, until the universe collapses on itself."

"Yikes. Talk about buzzkill."

"I am not a man for platitudes, Jinx." The smile, sadder, stayed on the surface. "Not will I feed you falsehoods, in hopes that the future may hold more than the present."

"So you say."

"So I mean." And, surprising her, he caught her hand in both his own: a tender clasp. "We've pledged our spirits as one. We've plotted our course. Escape velocity is inevitable. But the path ahead will not be easy. Not for either of us. If anything, it will be harder, given what we must renounce to see the destination through. And I—I cannot be sure—"

A crack in his faultless equilibrium. In turn, Jinx felt her own fragile serenity evaporate.

"Sure of what, Viktor?" she said, with quiet ferocity. "That I'll change my mind halfway? Chicken out before the starting gun goes off? Let Silco dictate my choices, like I've always done?"

"No, Jinx, no."

He shook his head; the curls danced, a ribboning cascade of cornsilk. There were silver streaks beginning to thread at the temples. Thirty-three, and a full-grown man where Ekko was still shedding the last vestiges of boyhood. But moments like this, it struck Jinx that Viktor was, at his core, even younger than Ekko. Two orphans prematurely thrust into roles before their time: the savior leading his flock to the promised land, and the savant saving souls that the world would sooner crush underfoot.

But both, in their hearts, still children. Still seeing Jinx, and what she'd become. But never, ever seeing her for who she was: the girl, not the legend.

The woman, not the jinx.

"Never that, Jinx," Viktor said. "Never would I think so little of you."

"...But?"

"It's been difficult, these past months, for us to speak frankly."

"Vitya," Jinx said, a touch exasperated. "We're speaking now. Aren't we?"

"We are." A squeeze, gentle, on her fingers. "At risk on both ends. But I have never once doubted your commitment. Your passion far exceeds mine; far exceeds whatever designs I may conjure. The world will be a better place, with you striving to make it so. My only fear is that, if you choose this path, yours will be the lonelier one."

"Lonely, how?" The ghost-prick of tears. "We're bonded, aren't we? Even if it's not what either of us planned—"

"A bond that can never be consummated. Never, in any sense, bear fruit." His grip tightened; yet the timbre of his voice held no rebuke. Only truth. "I am a creature born of disappointment, Jinx. Faulty in form and function. Unfit for any world except the one I will create, and even that shall be a long time coming. Yet, in the Void, you gave me a glimpse of paradise, and it was... indescribable. All I will ever want."

"And?" Her lip quivered, but held. A child, he'd called her, and yet her voice was steel. "Wasn't it enough? Wasn't I—?"

"You? Not enough? My dearest." Even though his sigh was bittersweet, a mote of passion shot through: the same passion that'd flowed, so effortlessly, between them in the otherworld. The same passion that now translated itself—sublimated and yet quartered—into the gentle dexterity of his hands on a circuitboard fused to a sobbing boy's flesh, and the consoling caress afterward as the boy's mother, sobbing too, laid a kiss of gratitude upon her savior's robe. "You are the only star in a universe without light. But because you are, you are far too much. For anyone's good. Least of all mine."

The tears, against Jinx's will, spilled free.

"So I was a mistake?"

"Yes. And no"

"How?"

"You were a miracle," Viktor said, and his smile, in its sadness, was radiant. "And a miracle is a gift bestowed by Fate. Without factors such as deservingness, or suitability, or even equity, thrown into the equation. A miracle, simply, is. As you, Jinx, always are. I know you've made your peace with our bond. You've acclimated yourself to it, the same as I have. But if we commit—truly commit—to the path ahead, we must renounce the rest, in every way. And Jinx... I cannot, in good faith, ask that of you. Not when I know what you stand to lose. Not when I know all the ways you need, and deserve, to be loved."

The tears kept falling. Jinx made no effort to stop them. The garden, with its Wishing Tree, was a time-out from pretense. Not sanctuary, but as close as Zaun's chaotic confines allowed. The other one—the Wishing Wagon, in civilization's shadowed cul-de-sac—was her true refuge. But that was a different her, with a different future.

A girl who'd yet to realize her greatest wish. A woman who, at the crossroad's fork, could take a chance.

She'd never told Viktor about the Wishing Wagon. Same way she'd never told Ekko about the Wishing Tree. Both were secrets within secrets: mirrored halves of a fractured whole.

And Jinx, at the liminal space in between, wondering: What's it mean?

What did it mean that one man had her soul at knifepoint, but another was holding her heart hostage? What did it say that she and Viktor fit together just right, but she and Ekko were built from perfectly mismatched puzzle pieces? What did it matter if she needed them both, but in ways so opposite they might as well be a different language?

How could she make the ends meet?

Especially when her life—her death—still hung on Silco's strings?

And her past—her future—still hinged on Vi's?

"Maybe," she said, and caught her lip in her teeth, "that's the point."

"Oh?"

"Maybe... the glimpse of paradise was all it was. A glimpse. The rest's about struggling to make it happen. Because it's the only way. Because choice is nothing but fate with a kick."

"Jinx, no."

"Why not? It makes sense. In a twisted sorta way." Her eyes, smarting-wet, blinked hard. "Fate's not a pretty delivery-gal on the front step with a package. He's a blind old pirate, throwing darts at a map and laughing as they land. Doesn't matter who gets skewered. Once that bullseye hits, it hits. And you're on the hook. No takebacks." Her other hand, lifting, aligned itself with Viktor's jaw: stubble yielding velvety beneath her palm. "We were always gonna be on the hook, Vik. At least, in the Void, I saw where we’re headed. What, in the end, we could become. And sure, the path's not a fairytale. But if we don't take it, the rest'll be fucked. And blind old fate'll be laughing his ass off, watching us sink under the waves."

"Perhaps," Viktor said, and leaned into her touch. But the smile, always, stayed sad. "But Jinx?"

"Yeah?"

"Fate is not the same as choice." Turning his head, he laid a kiss, pure as a snowflake, in the heart of her palm. "Even the cosmos, no matter its dictates, allows breathing-room for free will. I have mine, and I know what they will cost. Now, and in every incarnation. But you, Jinx: you are still so young. Your wishes, the ones that matter, have yet to be made. And once they are lost, you will not have the chance to reclaim them."

"Because I'm a child, right?" The anger, a flashfire that filled her to the seams, in this garden only left her aching. "Too dumb to know what I want. Too naive to make the tough call."

All at once, Viktor closed the gap.

Silently, he swept Jinx into an embrace: a cradle and a coffin holding both living and dead in sacred embrace. His arms made a crossbones at her shoulderblades; his breath stirred the top of her scalp. They were both clothed, but Jinx felt her heartbeat resonating through their ribcages, keeping time with the rhythmic dirge of the Cathedral's chants, and the Old Hungry's distant chimes

Reality and dream: melded into one.

Somewhere, Sparky was pawing at Jinx's slumbering shape in search of belly-rubs. Behind her eyelids, neon bled through. She heard fireworks; smelled engine-grease. Felt an odd pressure on her spine that had nothing to do with Viktor's cool fingertips tracing its curve, and everything to do with being bound, on a visceral level, beyond this communion they both shared.

"Fate," Viktor breathed, and his lips, against her temple, imparted prophecy, "will always come due. But choice? That, my dearest Jinx, is an arrow aimed straight for the heart. And to deny it: that is an error far graver than anything science, or the cosmos, could dole out." He kissed her forehead: the sweetest absolution. "Your choice must be yours. Do not allow a hand, no matter how divine, to dictate it."

Jinx, closing her eyes, lay her cheek to his chest.

"Not even yours?" she whispered, as the tears stopped falling.

"My hand, like my heart, will belong with you, Jinx. Even if you choose another path."

"Mirror, mirror on the wall."

"In every iteration," Viktor murmured, a tender withdrawal, "of this cosmic joke. An imperfect metaphor. Do you understand?"

"I do," Jinx lied, and lifted her face. "Kiss me?"

"This is not a space for secrets, Jinx."

"Then it's a perfect place, ain't it? 'Cause I won't have any left, after tonight."

"You will," Viktor said, and his thumbs smoothed the fading tear-tracks from her cheeks. "You do. We all carry secrets within ourselves. But to hide one, here, is to desecrate the very vow we must keep. And to deny our truth—any of our truths—is the greatest dishonor to the other. Do you understand?"

Foreboding rippled over Jinx's skin. The garden, the tree, the chants: all the beautiful trappings of ephemera, slipping like sand through the hourglass.

"Viktor." She caught his hand in hers, holding it fast. "Please."

"I'll see you tonight, Jinx."

"Don't—don't go—"

"Tonight. When you make your choice. Whatever that choice may be."

"But—"

"Wake up now."

The hourglass, upended. The Cathedral, the garden, the embrace, dissolving. All the dreamscape and its dazzling details, blotting out.

"Viktor!" Jinx cried. "Viktor!"

"Happy Name Day, Jinx," he said, and the ghost-imprint of his kiss died before it met her mouth. "I will kiss you, truly, tonight."

The ceiling spun above: a galaxy's worth of stars, winking out. Her hands, searching, found nothing.

Nothing but the blue iris, unfurling at the tip of a finger.

And Viktor's voice, deep as midnight.

"Make a wish."

The last winking star: her own.

[salmonballsss]

The Violet Hour

(Chapter 4)

You are a young, awkward historian obsessed with the Salem witch trials. One name repeats through obscure documents: Agatha Harkness. She's not supposed to exist anymore. But when you find a book authored in her name and follow the trail to a remote New England town, you're met with a woman who looks nothing like she belongs in your century—and who wants absolutely nothing to do with you…

Word count: 4.8k

Warnings: None yet.

So… it’s been a couple hours.  

Or days?  

Oh, who am I kidding.

Yeah.

Days. 

You just couldn’t do it.

Come running back to Agatha’s house the very next day after finally meeting her? Please.

Then she’d just think you were clingy. Desperate. Some needy little grad student flinging herself back to her feet after one morsel of attention. One crumb of eye contact.

She was right.   

You were like a lost puppy.

The past few days have been filled with aimless wandering around Hollow Wood — mostly the central part of town, which you’ve now memorized down to the cracks in the sidewalks and the smell of the bakery. You haven’t ventured out into the woods or the rural trails just yet.

Well… not until today. 

You’d just finished getting a painfully late sandwich — 3 PM, because apparently time doesn’t exist anymore — and had slinked back into your hotel room. The place creeped you out at first, but it’s starting to grow on you.  

Like mold.  

Charming, quirky, historic mold.

The townsfolk are nice enough. A little nosy, a little bored. It’s got that classic small town energy — where everyone knows each other’s birthdays, breakups, and bowel movements. During your walks, you’ve strained your ears shamelessly eavesdropping on conversations,  hoping— 

No.  

Begging. 

To hear anything Agatha related.

But no dice. Not even a whisper. No mysterious woman in purple. No town legend. No nothing. 

Maybe Billy was right. Maybe she is a dead ghost lady.  

Maybe you wandered onto haunted land and Agatha’s just a projection.  

A cursed mirage.

Maybe she died in a witch trial hundreds of years ago and now only appears to lonely sapphics with trust issues.

Pft. Yeah. Right. 

You shake your head and pull your pants on, followed by your ever reliable Converse.

Today, you were going to one of the Salem Witch Trials sites Agatha mentioned during your “not an interview” interview.

It’s for research.  

Academic integrity.  

Totally.

You tried writing your thesis to kill time, but without your notebook, it’s like your brain has eaten itself and declared a strike. No notes, no quotes, no structure. Just you staring at a blinking cursor like it personally betrayed you.

You even flipped through every cursed channel on the ancient hotel TV — hoping for a history special, a documentary, anything related to Hollow Wood…

Nothing.

Of course.

You grab your bag and the replacement notebook you bought in town just two days ago. Though… you don’t think you’ll be using it much longer. Not once you get your hands back on your real notebook — the one in Agatha’s possession.

You sigh and head out of the hotel room, using the old brass key to lock it up. You'd scream if you lost anything else — or if something got stolen because you didn’t double-check the lock.

As you leave the hotel lobby, you pull your rain cover on. You’d made it a habit to check the weather every morning since meeting Agatha. You’ve learned Hollow Wood, much like back home in Washington, is the definition of weather-induced whiplash.

One minute it’s torrential rain and borderline hail. The next? Blue skies and a goddamn rainbow.

You make your way into town, passing by the shops you’ve already tourist-trapped and explored while procrastinating — instead of, you know, being a big girl and going to get your notebook back like an actual adult.

A few of the shops had actually been cute. You even bought a sweatshirt from one. Adorable. You’ve been bonding with retail therapy.

Eventually, you reach the edge of town. It’s sunny today, which you take as a personal gift from the gods — at least you won’t have to lug around a stupid umbrella while hiking through the woods like a history-obsessed Bigfoot.

Yes that was a Washington joke. 

Once you reach the small ranger park just outside of town, you pass a few teens and adults lounging around, laughing and talking like normal people.

Maybe if you got Agatha to like you—

No!

No. Not going there.

You reach a rocky trail — the one you know leads to the rural land that houses one of the old Salem Witch Trial sites. Specifically, the cemetery.

Locals have mentioned it. A few of the braver teens trek up there to “prove something,” only to come back pale and tight lipped, refusing to talk about what they saw.

---

The trail is longer than you remember from Google Maps.  

It winds through thick trees, moss draped branches, and enough uneven rocks to personally ntarget your ankles. You almost roll one twice, but you just mutter something about “historic suffering” and keep going.

Because this is research.  

Real academic field work.  

You’re out here touching grass — haunted grass — for the sake of your thesis. Your future PhD committee better give you a damn sticker for this.

It’s beautiful, though. The kind of eerie, untouched beauty that makes you forget you’re technically trespassing on possibly-cursed land. The forest is quiet. Not silent — there's the occasional bird, the crunch of your steps, the wind whispering like it knows things — but quiet in a way that feels intentional. Like the woods are watching.

And you're flattered, honestly.

You keep walking. Your bag bumps against your hip with each step, your replacement notebook tucked safely inside along with a bottle of water and a sad excuse for a granola bar you shoved in there earlier.

About twenty minutes in, you pause for a second to catch your breath. The trail’s gotten steeper — of course it has — and the canopy overhead is starting to thicken, casting everything in a soft green twilight.

Still no rain, though.  

So far, so good.

You check your phone: 4:17 PM. You’ve got time. You’re making good pace. You take a quick swig of water, adjust your bag, and keep moving.

By the time you see the crooked wooden sign half-buried in ivy, your heart skips a beat — okay, two. One from exertion, and one from excitement.

Historic Salem Burial Site — 1 Mile Ahead 

You grin. Like, full on nerdy grin.  

This is it.

You can practically taste the dusty archives and ghost stories. You’re already imagining how you’ll word the next section of your thesis: A firsthand walk through early colonial terrain revealed the emotional residue embedded in the land itself… 

Ugh. Beautiful.

You press on with renewed energy, practically skipping like some kind of Disney princess. If birds landed on your shoulders right now,you wouldn't even question it.

It’s almost 4:45 by the time the trees thin out and the forest floor begins to dip downward, the ground softening under your steps. There's a break in the brush, and just ahead — barely visible through the trees — you can see it.

The cemetery.

Or at least what's left of it.

Sunlight filters through the branches in dusty gold beams, and beyond them are the lopsided silhouettes of headstones. Cracked. Weathered. Old enough to make your chest flutter.

You stop just at the edge of the clearing, standing still. You’re panting a little, cheeks flushed from the hike, shoes muddy, hair probably sticking out in all the wrong directions. But none of that matters.

Because this is it.

This is history.  

This is your thesis.  

You slow your steps and take it in.

There are maybe twenty headstones in total, scattered unevenly across the clearing like bones half buried in the earth. Each one is slightly different — some tall and grim, others squat and mossy, leaning into the ground like they’ve been whispering secrets to it for centuries. A few are better maintained. One even has a stone offering bowl placed at the base, half filled with rainwater and a decaying daisy. Others are so eroded you can’t even make out the names, just the crumbling shapes of letters long swallowed by time.

You walk carefully, mindful of where your feet land. This is rural land. Old land. Sacred in a way no church could ever replicate.

And your mind — oh, your mind is doing somersaults.

You’d done it. You made it. All it took was a dozen archival rabbit holes, and a woman named Agatha who you’re still not entirely sure exists on the same plane of reality as you. All because you read her book…

God, you’re a weak woman.

You let out a small laugh, shaking your head at yourself, breath visible in the chilled air. You really flew across the country for this. And now you’re standing in a forgotten graveyard that probably hasn’t seen a visitor in years.

Your eyes land on one stone — off to the side, built into the edge of a low cobblestone wall like it was slotted in after the fact. It juts awkwardly from the ground, more brick than headstone, but you recognize it immediately.

You drop your bag, pull out your notebook and pen, and crouch down in front of it.

You squint through the moss, brush it gently away with your sleeve.

The name reads:  

Bridget Bishop 

Hanged — June 10, 1692

Your breath catches, just a little.

Bridget Bishop. You’d written about her. Extensively. She was the first to be executed during the trials — sixty years old when they dragged her to the gallows.

Accused of "sundry acts of witchcraft.” Classic.

Five girls had claimed she bewitched them — Abigail Williams, Ann Putnam Jr., Mercy Lewis, Mary Walcott, Elizabeth Hubbard — the usual suspects. Said her shape would pinch and choke them. Said she tore a coat by apparition. One girl even claimed her specter threatened to drown her if she didn’t sign the Devil’s book.

You remember the Cotton Mather quotes. You’d scrawled angry margin notes all over Wonders of the Invisible World like it was a horror novel written by an unreliable narrator — which it kind of was.

The accusations hadstacked high: A third nipple which of course vanished mysteriously between examinations, bewitched lace, poisoned cats, dolls hidden in the floorboards, even her own husband’s claims.

And still — still — it was her attitude they hated most. The way she stood her ground. The way she didn’t apologize for existing.  

“She lies too much,” they said. “There’s little occasion to prove the witchcraft. It is evident and notorious.”

You swallow.

A slow sadness moves through you — a weight in your ribs that balances out the excitement. These were not just stories. These were women. And this one — this woman — was the first to hang.

You press your fingers gently to the cold stone.

“Sorry,” you murmur.

Then, quietly, you smile.

Because she mattered. And you’re here. And she will not be forgotten.

You stay there for a long time, scribbling observations, sketches, and personal thoughts. You move from stone to stone — cataloging, mapping, transcribing what you can. Most are unreadable, but you note their placement, their condition, any symbol or scratch that might help you identify them later.

Hours pass.

You barely notice.

Until you pause to stretch your back — and realize it’s darker than it should be.

The sky’s gone pale gray-blue, and the light filtering through the trees feels… muted. The wind has quieted. You glance up.

Fog.   

Thin at first, like a breath across the field. But it’s thickening — curling low around the headstones, inching in from the woods like it’s alive.

And suddenly you’re aware of just how quiet it’s gotten. Not silent, but heavy.

The kind of quiet that makes your skin hum.

You zip up your jacket, turn a slow circle, notebook clutched against your chest. You hadn’t meant to stay this long.

The sun’s setting.

You’d gotten lost in history.

And now it feels like history might be ready to stare back.

You take a deep breath and tuck your new notebook back into your bag — now stuffed with a half drunk water bottle and the crumpled wrapper of the granola bar you'd had for a snack.

You pull out your phone just to check the time, expecting maybe… six?

7:48 PM.

"Fuck."

You hadn't meant to stay this long. It was supposed to be a quick visit. A little peek at the cemetery, maybe a few notes, a sketch or two, and then back before sunset.

But this?

Three hours? 

You blink in disbelief at the glowing screen, your thumb still hovering over it when a cold droplet hits the glass.

Then another.

Then many — sudden, insistent — pattering lightly across your shoulders and hair.

You glance up sharply.

Fog is curling in around the graveyard like smoke. Dense and low to the ground, creeping fast through the trees, swallowing headstones whole.

The sun — what’s left of it — is dipping fast below the horizon, leaving behind deep, long shadows that stretch like claws.

You hadn't meant to overstay your welcome.

You would've brought a flashlight. Or your umbrella. Hell, even a coat with a hood.

"Shit. Shit, shit."

You scramble to your feet, brushing dirt from your knees, heart racing now.

"Maybe I can—"

The words die in your throat.

Because you see it.

Perched on a moss covered headstone, half-shrouded in fog — still, and watching — is a crow.

Same dark glint in its eyes.

Same unshakable stare.

Same unbearable stillness.

Your breath catches. Heart thudding loud in your ears. The hairs on the back of your neck rise with the slow, deliberate spread of fear through your chest.

The rain picks up — sharp, insistent — and above you, dark clouds roll in to swallow what little remains of the sky.

You're alone.

In the woods.

At a cemetery.

No flashlight.

No umbrella.

And that crow — that same crow, you're sure of it — caws once. Loud and harsh.

Your whole body flinches.

Fear floods your veins like ice. You're frozen.

Because you remember.

You remember the day at Agatha’s estate. That same sound. That same crow — sweeping over your head like it was marking you.

Watching.

Following.

Stalking.

Finally, your instincts kick in — not telling, but yelling at you to move. To run.

You take a shaky step back, still half frozen in place.

Then another — before you spin around, breaking into a sprint.

You run through the cemetery, not so mindful of your feet now.

You had to go.  

Now.

Branches slap your arms. Your lungs burn. The rain is coming down harder now, and every squelching step threatens to knock you off your feet. You don’t stop — can’t stop — not when every instinct is screaming that something is behind you.

You don’t see it.  

But you feel it.

Every gust of wind becomes a breath on your neck. Every creak of a tree becomes a footstep. The fog coils tighter, swallowing the forest inch by inch — until all you can hear is your own frantic breathing and the slap of your feet against the forest floor.

God, you shouldn’t have stayed so long.  

You shouldn’t have come here alone.  

You should’ve known better.

You dart around a gnarled oak, feet sliding in the mud — and then you trip. You catch yourself against a root, scrambling back upright, heart pounding, soaked from head to toe. Your fingers are trembling as you wipe water from your eyes.

And that’s when you hear it.

A low caw from somewhere deep in the fog.

You spin, chest heaving. The sound echoes through the trees — familiar in a way that makes your skin crawl. You glance up into the branches, searching for it — then all around you, like some wild animal might pounce at any moment.

Just like before.  

The crow from the house.  

Watching you. Following you.

And still, there’s nothing.

No shape. No person. Just fog and trees and the hiss of rain on leaves.

You’re panting now. Whimpering, maybe — though you don’t even realize it. You push yourself forward again, breaking into another run, vision blurring, every ounce of panic spiraling out of control—

Until you hit something.

No — someone. 

Hard.

You yelp, completely losing your footing, arms flailing as you fall straight into the mud with a heavy splat. Cold, thick earth coats your hands, knees, and sides. You’re soaked and filthy, your chest heaving with exertion and terror.

“…Charming.” 

A voice.

Cool. Clipped. Annoyed.

You freeze.

Wiping your eyes with a mud-streaked sleeve, you look up — and there she is.

Agatha Harkness. 

Unmoving. Calm. Spectral. 

She wears deep plum trousers with black boots, a long indigo blue coat swirling at her calves — buttons gleaming faintly like polished onyx. Her white shirt is open at the collar, collarbones peeking beneath delicate chains. A familiar brooch gleams at her chest — that unmistakable knot of silver.

Her hair is down this time — long, loose waves curling perfectly over her shoulders, the ends damp at most .

Somehow, the rain hasn’t touched her. Not really. Not like it has you.

Agatha glances down at her coat, brushes the fabric once with her hand — and the flecks of mud slide off like dust, leaving no trace.

She looks back at you. Dry. Unimpressed.

“I suppose next time,” she says, arching a brow, “the little historian might consider using a map.”

You stare at her, breathless, blinking against the downpour.

Agatha sighs, as though this entire situation is a personal inconvenience she’s begrudgingly choosing to witness. “Though I do admire the dramatic flair,” she adds, cocking her head. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were being chased by werewolves.”  

A beat.  

“Or vampires. Or perhaps a particularly menacing squirrel.”

You manage to push yourself upright, slipping once in the mud. You look like hell. She looks like she commands hell.

“I—I thought someone was following me,” you manage, clutching your bag.

Agatha gestures vaguely to your state. “And how’s that working out for you?”

You blink. A breathless, half-sobbing laugh escapes before you can help it.

She quirks a brow but says nothing.

“Why are you even out here?” you ask hoarsely, arms crossed over your shivering frame. “It’s getting dark, and cold, and you could’ve gotten—”

“Lost?” she cuts in, arching one brow. “Like you are now?”

Before you can even begin to come up with a retort, a low caw cuts through the fog.

Your spine stiffens. You flinch.

Agatha’s eyes flick past you toward the forest — where the crow was. Where you ran from. Her voice drops, muttering mostly to herself:

“Dramatic little shit.”

You blink. “Sorry — what?”

“Nothing.”

She takes a step forward, scanning the trees like they’ve personally offended her. 

You shiver. And not from the rain. 

“I wasn’t lost,” you grumble finally, finishing what you were going to say. “I knew where the trail back was.”

Then her eyes drop to your bag. And suddenly, her whole expression shifts — from mild amusement to something far too knowing.

“Right, and that’s why you ran in the opposite direction of it?” Agatha says with her annoyingly knowing tone.

Despite everything — your soaked clothes, your aching feet, your rising suspicion that you were going to die in these woods — you couldn’t stop the tiny curl of warmth in your chest at the sight of her again.

You hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her.

Not since that day at her house. Not since she’d let you in — then promptly made you feel like you were on trial yourself.

And yet, here you were again.

Drawn to her like a moth to a blue eyed flame.

You freeze.

Mouth slightly open.

The fear is still buzzing through your veins, not yet caught up with the new reality. You’re not being chased. You’re not alone. But maybe — you realize — that’s not a comfort.

Agatha studies you for another long, quiet moment. Then, her gaze softens just slightly. Almost imperceptibly.

“You chose an interesting spot to spend your afternoon,” she says, voice low.

You tense. You’d only gone because Agatha mentioned it when you went to her house a few days ago. Or… also for your thesis.

But she’s the one who brought it up. Told you it was on the outskirts of town.

And then, like an afterthought, like the inevitable drop of a guillotine:

“Bridget always did like company.”

You go still.

Goosebumps race down your arms, and not from the cold.

You hadn’t said Bridget’s name aloud. Not once. Not when you were there. Not in the notebook. Not anywhere Agatha should’ve known.

You clutch your bag closer without realizing it. “How did you—?”

She cuts you off with a look. “You’re soaked.”

Which is true. You’re rain drenched, mud caked, teeth beginning to chatter. You look like you’ve been spit out of the earth and left to die.

Agatha sighs again — the sigh of a woman clearly cursed with patience she didn’t ask for.

“You should be more careful,” she mutters. “This place doesn’t like strangers stomping around after dark.”

You blink up at her, still catching your breath. The forest crackles quietly around you — like it's listening.

“This trail doesn’t lose people,” she adds, with the offhanded sharpness of someone quoting an old rule she might’ve written herself. “People lose themselves.”

You scoff, but it comes out wetter and shakier than you’d like. “Well, thanks for that cryptic horror movie wisdom.”

Agatha’s head tilts. Slowly. A glint of teeth, a narrowing of eyes.

“Careful,” she says, and it’s almost a purr — soft and smooth and terrifying.

You swallow. Loudly.

The blush that hits your ears is immediate and mortifying. You fumble to recover, grumbling as you clutch your bag tighter. 

Agatha gives you a once over before, breezing past you.

You stare at her, dumbfounded, then realize the rain has picked up again — colder now, like punishment. Meanwhile, Agatha looks… untouched. Her clothes aren’t even wet. Not really.

It’s almost insulting.

Agatha eyes the woods with a sneer, like it’s an unruly pet that refuses to heel.

You drag your hand down your face, slick with rain, and try to pretend you’re not shivering.

“So, I’m guessing the inn is about…” You glance down the barely visible path behind you. “An hour and a half that way?”

Agatha doesn’t answer at first. She just watches you with that look — the one that makes you feel like she’s already figured out your next ten thoughts and is unimpressed with all of them.

Finally, she sighs. “My house is closer.”

You blink. “Okay.”

“I’ll show you a shortcut.”

Your eyebrows go up. “Really?”

She turns, already walking. “Come, pet.”

Your soul leaves your body.

You trip over your own feet scrambling to follow, lips pressed together so tightly they might fuse.

“Pet?” you echo, horrified.

She doesn’t turn around. “Would you prefer ‘lost child in need of a leash’?”

“…Pet is fine.”

You follow her into the trees, the fog curling low and wet around your ankles, swallowing everything behind you. You're not sure what direction you're going anymore — or if the direction even matters. The woods feel older here. Sharper. The trees lean closer like they’re eavesdropping.

You’re still trying to orient yourself when Agatha stops without warning.

You nearly run into her again, skidding to a halt.

She turns slowly, her face unreadable — and then, without warning, steps behind you.

You stiffen.

Her hands — warm and uncomfortably grounding — settle on your shoulders.

“Relax,” she murmurs, voice low against your ear. “You’ll only make the forest twitchier.”

You don’t even know what that means. You don’t want to know what that means.

Her thumbs press lightly against your upper back, guiding you a step to the left. “There. Path’s clearer this way.”

You nod, absolutely not breathing. Not even a little.

Your heart is Racing and your mind reeling. You’re pretty sure you blacked out for a second.

Then her hands fall away, and she brushes past you again, the tails of her coat fluttering behind her like a shadow that forgot it needed to be tethered.

You follow. Because you don’t trust the woods.

And — more unsettlingly — you don’t trust the feeling crawling down your spine when you aren’t near her.

Not quite safety.

But something close enough to it.

---

Once you make it back to Agatha’s — through some weird ass winding path in the woods that made you internally ask,  how the fuck does she know her way around out here?  

You’re freezing. Drenched. Exhausted. And still reeling from the whole graveyard experience… You were having a blast at first sure… then- well you know what happened.

Not to mention you have no idea why you’re being brought to Agatha Harkness’s house.

Or, for that matter, why she was even at the cemetery in the first place.

But your brain’s too scrambled to work that out right now. You’re soaked to the bone. Tired, scared, confused — all in that ordr — and at this point, honestly just trying not to pass out face first into a patch of moss.

You follow her up the creaking steps of her hidden away woodland estate. You’re not even sure if this house exists on a map. It probably doesn’t. It doesn’t feel like it should.

You stop beside her — slightly behind — as she pulls a key from the pocket of her plum colored trousers. The same ones that somehow managed not to get muddy despite the hell walk through the woods.

Your eyes wander.

To her profile, lit soft and golden by the porch light overhead. It makes her features look… different. Softer. Sharper. All at once.

Your gaze travels from her brow bone to the slope of her nose — just the slightest bump in the bridge then to the tip that juts out deliciously—  and down to her lips, which are slightly parted.

And for a second—just a second—you wonder what it’d be like to—

“You have a staring problem, you know that?” Agatha says, completely deadpan.

She doesn’t even look at you.

Just unlocks the purple door, pushing it open like it’s muscle memory, and steps inside.

You freeze.

Your face burns. 

Then, without a word, you follow her in. Of course you do. Because apparently that’s what you do now.

Just how much could you embarrass yourself in one night?

Answer? to be determined.

You’ve noticed a pattern with her. From the first time you met to now — you just… follow.

Wherever she goes. Like gravity’s got a new favorite plaything.

And it’s not like you want to resist.

Not really.

Once inside, you immediately take your wet and mud caked Converse. To be polite, of course. Even though your clothes are clinging to you like a second skin and you’re currently dripping all over her floor.

Gods.

You are an idiot. 

You sigh and shut the door behind you. And just like the first time, that strange warmth hits you right away — radiating from the walls, from the scent of lavender and cedarwood curling in the air.

You exhale.

For the first time since stepping into those cursed woods, your body actually starts to relax.

You glance over at Agatha, who flicks on a few lights with the causal grace of someone who’s never once had to fumble with a switch. Not to mention that you were Still trying to catch up with everything that just happened.

While you were stood there — dripping in the entryway — Agatha cast you a slightly amused glance. Not annoyed. Not biting. Just… amused. Maybe even a little curious .

Her eyes wandered down the length of your soaked form

You swore you saw the ghost of a smirk.

With a soft sigh and a small tsk , she stepped closer.

You froze.

Her perfume hit you like a truck — deep and dark and expensive-smelling, liYou fought the unholy urge to just… breathe it in. 

She reached up and plucked a stray leaf out of your hair with the kind of casual care that made your brain short circuit.

“Honestly,” she said, her mouth twitching like she might actually smile, “is this your idea of playing the damsel? Because you’re almost pulling it off.”

You blinked up at her. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Agatha huffed out a low laugh — just a breath through her nose, but it still counted. “Mm. Suits you, actually.”

Then she turned and walked off like she hadn’t just set your heart on fire with a stray compliment.

You stared after her, stunned. Still very wet. Maybe in more ways than one.

“Come on little historian, let's get you a towel. I wouldn't want you to ruin my floors.”

Next Chapter

[visanni]

WHAT'S YOUR ROYAL DR LIKE OMG 😭😭

Mmm very relaxing and chill.

The year is 1325 and I’m the Princess of Dominica (but it’s not in europe, it’s where domincan republic is today). I don’t really have many responsibilities, pretty much only the servants and my father do (and they have time off and pay lol). I fill my weekdays with studying stuff from our big ass library; history, english, french, violin and piano sheet music. And then on the weekends I just read fantasy or write in my journal or knit. Tbh I don’t really like to exercise besides taking strolls in the gardens, but I was required to learn archery as a child to defend myself and whatnot.

The food is fucking YUMMY. Everything is fresh and like plain yet scrumdeliumptious at the same time. A breakfast at the dining hall will normally include, toast, sourdough, french toast, cream, all sorts of berries, strawberries, blueberries etc, the softest yummiest scrambled eggs, coffee, tea, honey glazed ham. And then if I request my maid to bring me my breakfast to my room then I normally just do the scrambled eggs and these pastries that she makes me, one with mango and like sugary glaze and then a chocolate kinda one. For luncheon I just do like a charcuterie board or just some bread and jam, but when I’m studying I’ll normally just ask my maid for some tea and sweet treats. And then for supper there’s normally like juicy steak, poultry, or grilled fish, and then there’s always bread buns on the side and maybe mash or roasted veggies. The wine is really heady and sweet but most people, myself included, have to drink a bit much of it to feel anything because we have it like every night lol

The air smells like lighter if that makes sense and the sky is like in fuckin 4k. It’s rarely ever cloudy, even when it rains, the sun is poking out and then there’s a rainbow. It’s mostly always blue as hell and at night you can see like literally every star in the sky.

Some things that suck is that I’m lowkey not allowed to leave the palace unless I’m authorized or I sneak out. And when I’m on my period, I’m not even allowed to leave my room because it’s considered sinful. Sometimes it is chill though because I just eat and journal in my underwear (chemise and pantaloons lmao) and my s/o sneaks in to comfort me- who’s my jester btw.

Lowkey my only friends are my s/o, my maid, and my pet bunny that my s/o gifted me a couple years ago (her name is Juliet and she is very cute. She looks like my s/o in his animagus form from our marauders reality lol blonde and long eared).

I don’t really like the nobles who live at court because a lot of them are arrogant or just straight up mean even though they’re all philanthropists lol (you get your head chopped off otherwise 🫶🏼) and the old creepy lords be hitting on me and then sometimes their wives get mad at ME, so yea no.

Authority stuff wise, it’s pretty much only me and my father in the palace because my mother passed away, my eldest brother got married, and my second eldest brother is like doing some knight training shit since he needed to straighten up since no one liked his behavior. He only comes now if there’s a ball or soirée to meet any possible suitable ladies.

That’s pretty much all I can think of right now but yea that’s the gist :3

edit: I FORGOT THE DESSERTS. SUPER DUPER SCRUMPTIOUS. Most often cheesecake, chocolate pudding, shortbread- yummy in my tummy

[pennyplainknits]

A new project I've just finished, some overalls modded from the Megan Nielson Flint pattern, using grey linen and Liberty Tana Lawn. They have front release pleats, back darts, and you actually get in and out of them via a false pocket on the left hand side (where the buttons are).

There were quite a few changes made. The trouser length in the original pattern is a high ankle crop, so lengthened them to be full length (though I also intend to wear them cuffed). The legs are very wide and I tapered them in dramatically, taking in about 12cm each side, tapering down from the lengthen/shorten line. This tutorial shows roughly what I did.

The overall bib and straps are an add-on and the best thing is that they are detachable, so you can also wear them just as normal trousers! There are press studs on the bib and inner front waistband, and again on the straps and back waistband

I took a really long time on these, (well, about a week) because I wanted to make the inside as nice as the outside. The pattern in common with most patterns nowadays instructs you to overlock or zigzag your seams to finish the raw edges. I don't own an overlocker, they are expensive, heavy, take up a lot of space and as I don't sew a lot of stretch or knits I've never felt the need. I also don't love the feel of zigzagged seam finishes, and the joy of making your own clothes is that you can use the seam finish of your choice, rather than the quickest and most cost-effective one.

Here you can see that I've bound the pockets, crotch seams, and outer leg seams with a Hong Kong finish, using bias tape I made from leftover fabric. The colourful rainbow one is a Liberty lawn which I used to make a blouse. The pinky-purple one is a silk organza. I chose it because it's very very lightweight and I didn't want extra bulk at the crotch. You can also see the press studs for attaching the bib at the waistband, and how to pocket opens up to allow you to get into the trousers.

The inner leg seams are flat-felled. It's the first time I've used this finish and I love it! It's so neat and flat and very strong, so useful for the inner thigh seams which gets a lot of wear. As I will wear these cuffed you'll get a little flash of the bias tape at the ankle, which I love.

I also love all the interior details where I used the Liberty lawn. That fabric is so expensive, I wanted to use every scrap I could.

The pocket bags facings, interior of the waistband, bib lining and the backs of the straps are all in the lawn. The bib lining is cut in two pieces and seamed, so that made it easier to fit it on my scraps.

The pocket on the bib is also lined (the pattern just called for the edges to be turned under). You can see the pocket facing for the trousers here too, and if you look very very closely you can see it's pieced with a French seam as I didn't have a big enough piece to cut it out in one. I really did use almost every scrap!

This is the fourth time I've made this pattern (I like to get my monies worth as the designer's patterns are not cheap) and I'm so pleased with it! There was a slight hiccup when I tried them on and they were tighter than i felt was comfortable (I hadn't bothered to remeasure myself and new linen has very little 'give') but the seam allowance is very generous so I let it out approx 1cm each side and added a bit to the under-lap of the waistband and now they fit perfectly!

I think these will be great to wear through spring, summer and autumn and I'm excited to do so!

Pattern: Megan Nielsen Flint

Fabric. Grey linen from Doughty's. I used about 2.5m. Tana Lawn scraps from Liberty of London. The print is Tudor Dream

Moon shell buttons from Textile Garden

[lock-my-feelings-in-a-jar]

Oh my god Russ wrote I did it for love by Night Ranger? I love that song. Went down a rabbit hole of looking up the songs he wrote.

HE DID, it is a very good song! i read that they were kind of upset about it at first because they wanted to do their own songs and they were kind of forced to do that because of the whole "you need a ballad or else" thing, but later on they were glad they did it

[epickiya722]

The more I think about it, the more I find myself unable to compare ItaFushi to any other ship outside of JJK really...

[moe-broey]

Miwabiwis.......

I actually do like her official outfit! I just... had a deep need.... put that girl in a nightgown and slippers RIGHT NOW‼️‼️‼️‼️ Also it is admittedly so much easier to draw 🧍

I did try to keep in line with most of her official look though! Or add more emphasis to little details, like the red berries... other details I added, like the bloomers, keep the roundness of her og dress! BUT ALSO.... they are just so cutes.... I imagine they're made of rose petals...... I was also thinking angelic motifs. With the dress shape, and the smaller wings shaped as such!

[steamclouds]

Hiiiii I was wondering what kinda keychains are on your bag? If you’re ok w sharing ^_^? I too am a fan of the click clacking sounds

Hey! No worries, here they are :)

the two bags I use the most! The Thistle, lotr and lil' guy charms are all from @tsuyonpuu! The Guenhwyvar (and soon Artemis yay) is from @rukafais and the other charms are ones I made for our pathfinder pc's! And the little bearded guy is the german sandman!

[confetti-critter]

The night is young and I am free to do whatever my heart desires but unfortunately I have once again found myself trapped in the Time Prison and so I

[caromari]

just finished watching all of ash coyote’s furry documentaries and ive never wanted to wear a fursuit more in my life than in this moment 👉👈

[bestnoncannonship]

With JoAnne Fabrics going out of business I feel it is my duty as a cosplayer, historical costumer, and general sewing gremlin to help teach y'all how not to be reliant on evil overpriced mediocre big box stores for fabric and cosplay supply, cause if I catch y'all going into Homophobia Lobby to get cosplay fabrics imma have to start throwing hands. And frankly you guys all deserve better.

- Find a neighborhood full of brown people. Probably a slightly poorer neighborhod. I know, I know, but they will have small independent fabric stores. Selection in each may vary. Hispanic and Caribbean areas will give you prints that EAT. Muslim areas will give you fabrics with amazing drapery. Indian and Southeast Asian areas will give you beading that would make the House of Worth wet with envy. (Try to avoid oldwhitelady quilting stores unless you are a knitter or are specifically trying to cosplay Kirsten Larson.) (Also ask while you're there for lunch/dinner spot recommendations. Your fabric store guy usually has a buddy with a joint nextdoor with the best *insert relevant ethnic food here* you'll ever put in your mouth.)

- DEVELOP A RELATIONSHIP WITH THE OWNER OF SAID STORE. This I cannot stress enough. Abdul, my fabric guy, can and will get me whatever I want cause he knows me, knows I bring in other young people, and knows I will be back every month for more. Indie fabric stores tend to have older clients. They are anxious to see faces under 60. Just chat with whoever is in there about the kind of stuff you want and need and they will help you. This also frequently leads to discounts. I have not paid listed price for fabric in years and just walked out of Abdul's with 7~ yards of gorgeous teal satin for 10 bucks. Not a yard. Total.

- Do not be afraid of mess. The best shit comes from stores that look like a hurricane went through them. Don't try to understand the organization. (One day, 4 years into your relationship with the store, suddenly the fabric gods will reveal the knowledge to you.) Again, talk to whoever is in there about your project. They'll help.

- Give up on one stop shopping. Get your crafting supplies elsewhere. Like a small independent hardware store. There's usually an old guy in there that reminds you of an uncle who will also help you.

-Worbla and whatever other Cosplay Specific Material you're using is a fatphobic material straight from Satan's hot taint, you do not need it, and any old hardware/tractor supply dad will help you find better, more durable armor/weapon/detailing material. Don't snub your nose at paper mache and plaster of paris. Venetian Mask makers have been using it for years. Balsa wood is also your friend. Hardware store Uncles will teach you to work with both.

- Elderly people are your bffs. If you see an old person TALK TO THEM. They know how to do all kinds of shit. I know there's a hesitation around old people because of the political climate and a fear that they may be homo/trans/whatever-phobic, but hey....minds are changed by making friends. My elderly Muslim fabric supplier is an Our Flag Means Death fan because of me gushing about the teal I needed for Stede Bonnet. He wishes me happy pride now. He put bolt of rainbow in the window in June and kept it up all summer. And he'd never had a thought about queers before me.

- Don't feel limited to Craft and Fabric stores. Hardware stores are cool. They stock outdoor fabrics and umbrella and furniture covers that are very durable....my first cosplay was made out of patio furniture covers. Also upholstery stores and upholsterers have velvets and damasks and faux leather and real leather and all sorts of rich textures. Most of them will part with a few yards pretty cheap. Second hand sheets and bedspreads and curtains also make some really cool garments. A significant amount of my ren fair garb started as household goods.

- If you are forced to order fabric online, please for the love of all that is holy DO NOT BUY FROM MOOD or any other famous store. You're paying for their branding and their place on certain reality shows I will not mention. Indie is always cheaper for the quality and usually not abusing their workers.

- If the fabric/hobby/hardware/upholstery/etc store you develop a relationship with is inconveniently far from you, see if said owner is willing to take your order via phone and send it to you. You'd be surprised how accommodating people in the crafting and sewing world can be.

It all really comes down to having to form a community. I know finding multiple small stores is a lot less convenient than Joannes. But forming a relationship with a local supplier will, in the long run, yield you much better results AND put money and good back into a community near you.

(And if you're in the NYC area DM me and I'll put you in contact with Abdul. He's the absolute best and I'd do anything to help him and his business grow!!!)

[iraprince]

gonna show u guys a little opalescent highlight hack i threw together today

rainbow gradient above your main figure (i usually have all my main figure folders/layers in one big folder, so i can clip gradient maps + adjustments to it!). liquify tool to push the colors around a bit. STAY WITH ME I KNOW IT LOOKS STUPID RN I'M GOING SOMEWHERE WITH THIS

THEN: set it to add/glow (or the equivalent in ur drawing program), lower the opacity a bit, and apply a layer mask. then u can edit the mask with whatever tools you like to create rainbow highlights!!

in this case i'm mostly using the lasso fill tool to chip out little facets, but i've also done some soft airbrushing to bring in larger rainbow swirls in some areas. it's pretty subtle here, but you can see it better when i remove the gradient map that's above everything, since below i'm working in greyscale:

more granular rambling beneath the cut!

u could also just do this with a brush that has color jitter, but what i like about using layer masks for highlight/shading layers is how simple and reversible it makes everything. i can use whatever brushes i want, and erasing/redoing things is super low stakes, which is great when i often approach this stuff with a super trial-and-error approach.

example: have u ever thrown a gradient w multiple colors over an entire piece, set it to multiply etc, and then tried to erase it away to carve out shadows/highlights? it's super frustrating, bc it looks really good, but if u erase something and then change ur mind later, u basically would have to like. recreate the gradient in the area u want to cover up again. that's how i used to do things before figuring out layer masks!! but masking basically creates a version of this with INFINITE undo bc u can erase/re-place the base layer whenever u want.

anyway, back to rambling about this specific method:

i actually have TWO of these layers on this piece (one with the liquified swirls shown above, and another that's just a normal concentric circle gradient with much broader stripes) so i can vary the highlights easily as needed.

since i've basically hidden the rainbow pattern from myself, the colors in each brushstroke i make will kind of be a surprise, which isn't always great -- but easily fixable! for example, if i carve out a highlight and it turns out the rainbow pattern in that area is way too stripey, i can just switch from editing the mask to editing the main layer and blur that spot a bit.

also, this isn't a full explanation of the overall transparency effect in these screencaps! there's other layer stuff happening below the rainbow highlights, but the short version is i have all this character's body parts in different folders, each with their own lineart and background fill, and then the fill opacity is lowered and there's multiply layers clipped to that -- blah blah it's a whole thing. maybe i'll have a whole rundown on this on patreon later. uhhh i think that's it tho! i hope u get something useful out of this extremely specific thing i did lmao

[aurumacadicus]

In before I start seeing people bitching about rainbow capitalism MY favorite rainbow capitalism story is about Subaru. Yes the Japanese car company.

In the nineties, they were struggling. They were competing with a dozen other companies targeting the main demographic at the time: white men ages 18-35, especially after a failed luxury car launch with a new ad agency. “What we need is to focus on niche demographics,” they decided, and then focused on people who enjoyed the outdoors. The Subaru was excellent at driving on dirt roads that many other vehicles couldn’t at the time, so it was perfect for all those off-road campers; they started making all-wheel drive standard in all their cars to help with that. And the people who wanted cars to go do outdoor stuff? Lesbians.

Okay. Of course it wasn’t only lesbians buying Subarus. They’re on the list with educators, health-care professionals, and IT people. But the point is, this Japanese car company interviewed this strange demographic (single, female head of household) and realized one important factor: They were lesbians. They liked to be able to use the cars to go do outdoorsy stuff, and they liked that they could use the cars to haul stuff rather than a big truck or van. Subaru had a choice to make then. They had four other demographics they could market to, after all--the educators, the health-care professionals, IT professionals, and straight outdoorsy couples. Their company didn’t hinge on this one “problematic” demographic.

And they decided “fuck it,” and marketed to lesbians anyway. This included offering benefits to American gay and lesbian employees for their domestic partners, so it didn’t look like a cash grab. (This was not a problem. They already offered those in Canada.)

Yes, there was some backlash. They got letters from a grassroots group accusing them of promoting homosexuality, and every letter said they’d no longer be buying from Subaru. “You didn’t buy from us before, either,” Subaru realized, and ignored them. It helped that the team really cared about the plan, and that they had many straight allies to back them up. There was also some initial backlash when Subaru hired women to play a lesbian couple in the commercial, but they quickly found that lesbians preferred more subtlety; “XENA LVR” on a license plate, or bumper stickers with the names of popular LGBTQ+ destinations, or taglines of “Get out. Stay out.” that could be used for the outdoors--or the closet.

Subaru said “We see you. We support you.” They sponsored Pride parades and partnered with Rainbow Card and hired Martina Navratilova as spokeswoman. They put their money where their mouth is and went into it whole hog. In a time where companies did not want to take our money, Subaru said, “Why not? They’re people who drive.” And that was groundbreaking.